The Fall of the House of Zeus (41 page)

As more news of Balducci’s betrayal began to trickle in, an ominous realization settled on the assembly of lawyers: the members of the Scruggs Law Firm were going to be indicted.

They needed nothing more to discourage them. But then Langston shared a telephone call he had just completed with Patterson’s wife, Debbie.

“Tim is a Judas,” she had screamed. “Tim is a Judas!”

F
acing the threat of an indictment, Zach Scruggs woke early the next morning. He dressed in a suit and tie, kissed his sleeping children, and set out to find Sid Backstrom, whose behavior had seemed suspicious the day before. Zach wondered if he, too, was cooperating with the federal authorities.

He drove across town to Backstrom’s residence, located in an upper-middle-class neighborhood known as The Cove, where most of the homes were occupied by young families. He talked briefly with Backstrom’s wife, Kelli, who was tearful and upset. She said her husband had already left for the office. “I’m so sorry about all of this,” Zach told her before driving away.

He found no sign of Backstrom at their office, either, concluding that he might be meeting with his friend Rhea Tannehill. As he figured, Zach found Backstrom’s car outside Tannehill’s office, yet when he went inside, no one was there.

Troubled by Backstrom’s absence, he went to his parents’ home, where they were soon joined by Langston and Quin. The lawyers had been trolling for information and had learned from Ken Coghlan that his new client, Steve Patterson, had not yielded to the prosecutors.

Langston was also getting reports from Tony Farese, who was trying to milk the U.S. Attorney’s Office for any piece of intelligence.

There was another dynamic at work that morning that the Scruggs
family knew nothing about. From the moment he realized Balducci had become an informant, Langston suspected that he might be pulled into the investigation. After he left the Scruggses’ home late the night before, his associate, Quin, had spoken of the potential for trouble. “You know you’ve got to be prepared against Balducci,” Quin warned him. “You know he’s going to try to save himself. He’s going to turn in big fish, and you’re the biggest fish. You know he’s gonna lie. You gotta assume he’s gonna lie. And you know Balducci’s number one motivation will be to sink you.”

    
While the lawyers worked their cell phones, Dick Scruggs and his son sought refuge in the guesthouse beside the swimming pool. For diversion, they watched television. Each local news break contained references to the raid at the Scruggs firm.

Don Barrett called again. As a principal partner of the Scruggs Katrina Group, he raised questions about the future of the initiative. “What are we going to do?” he asked Scruggs. “We’ve got all these clients.” Scruggs wanted to be rational about the situation, to show no indication of panic. He hoped they could soldier on, but Barrett was not so sure. If Scruggs were indicted, it would be necessary for him, Barrett said, to step back. In his mind, Barrett was already thinking of the letter that would be sent to their clients in a few days:

“
The Scruggs Law Firm has informed us that in the interest of its clients, it has withdrawn from the group of attorneys who represent your claims until legal matters have been resolved, … The Scruggs Law Firm has assured us that they engaged in no wrongdoing, and we are confident that they will be cleared of the charges.”

Scruggs faced the reality that his law firm would suffer. A few minutes later, his personal prestige took another blow. A representative from Hillary Clinton’s campaign called to say that “it might be better” for Scruggs to cancel the fund-raiser set for December 15. The former president would not be coming.

At intervals during the morning, Langston strolled out to the guesthouse to give the latest news. None of it sounded encouraging.

    Zach persisted in his efforts to locate Backstrom. He left a message on Tannehill’s voice mail, but his calls were not returned.

Backstrom and Tannehill, along with Frank Trapp, who had driven up from Jackson, were meeting with the prosecutors at that hour. Backstrom told the authorities their offer of five years in prison was unacceptable.
He was not prepared to negotiate. To convince Backstrom that his position was untenable, the prosecutors played a number of recordings of conversations between him and Balducci. Two of them, recorded by Balducci earlier in the month while he wore a wire, seemed incriminating. The prosecutors again pressed Backstrom to plead guilty and become a cooperating witness, but he was not persuaded. He thought: They believe I’m the weak link and they think they can break me. With his slight frame and colorless pallor, he knew he might look vulnerable. He knew his indictment was imminent. Still, he refused to make a deal.

    
Eventually, an unfamiliar voice, using Tannehill’s cell phone, returned Zach’s message. The caller identified himself as Frank Trapp.

“Are you representing Sid?” Zach asked. “Are you talking to the prosecutors?”

Trapp seemed to be intentionally vague. “I’m just getting into this,” he said. “I may need to talk to your lawyer.”

Actually, Zach had no lawyer. Even as events unfolded, he considered the crisis unthinkable, the prospect that he might be indicted unbelievable.

Langston, however, had prepared for that eventuality. He summoned Farese to Scruggs’s house. “Tony’s going to be your lawyer,” he told Zach. “It’s a good idea.”

Farese had been on the defense team, with Langston, for the first criminal trial in which Zach had been engaged, so Zach agreed to the choice. But he was adamant about his innocence when he talked with Farese. “I don’t know what’s going on. But I’m not pleading to anything,” Zach said. “Even if it means one day in jail or ten years, I’m not pleading to anything.”

Zach seemed overcome with nervous energy and worry. He appealed to his father. “If anything happens to me, I want you and Mom to take care of my family.”

Recognizing that his son was becoming frantic, Scruggs assured Zach that his family would never be neglected.

Zach’s mood lifted a bit when Tannehill finally called to say that Backstrom was not cooperating with the prosecutors.

Around noon, Farese got a call from the prosecutors. Everyone had been indicted. Dick Scruggs. Zach Scruggs. Sid Backstrom. Steve Patterson. Tim Balducci. Federal marshals were being sent to Scruggs’s home to make the arrests.

“That won’t be necessary,” Farese said. “They’ll voluntarily surrender.”

·    ·    ·

    The Scruggses and their lawyers rode to the federal courthouse in Zach’s Suburban, with Zach wedged in the back between car seats for his two children. Photographers and television crews, alerted by authorities, were waiting.

The defendants were processed through the probation office, where they briefly encountered Patterson. He looked at them and shrugged, as if he were helpless to explain their quandary.

Urine samples were taken, and questions were asked about the men’s net worth. Then they were taken to a cell upstairs where they were stripped of ties and belts and put in shackles. One of the marshals on guard offered a copy of the indictment, enabling them to see, for the first time, the official charges. It appeared clear that Balducci was responsible. He was listed as their co-defendant, but was not in a cell in Oxford with them.

After fingerprints and mug shots were taken, Dick Scruggs and his son, still handcuffed but relieved of their leg shackles, were led into the courtroom of federal magistrate Allan Alexander. Dick had gone to law school with her; Zach had worked for Alexander when he was in law school.

In the audience, Zach spotted a woman he recognized as the daughter of his father’s nemesis Roberts Wilson. In a halcyon time, nearly thirty years before, Zach and Elizabeth Wilson had played together on the Gulf Coast when their fathers were partners in asbestos litigation. Now she sat, like an avenging angel, watching the Scruggses’ humiliation.

Both Scruggs men pleaded not guilty. The prosecutors asked for Dick to post a $5 million bond before he could be released; he was reputed to be a billionaire, wealthy beyond reason from his tobacco windfall. But the magistrate said she had already seen a preliminary report from the probation officers that indicated that Scruggs’s assets fell considerably short of a billion dollars. Instead, she set bond at $100,000. After the prosecutors argued that Scruggs represented a flight risk, Alexander ordered his plane grounded and collected his passport.

Dispirited by the experience, Dick and Zach and their lawyers regrouped afterward at the Scruggs home with Diane, daughter Claire, and Zach’s wife. Langston and Quin attempted to boost morale by expressing doubts about the strength of the government’s case. Dick vowed to summon every weapon available to fight back, telling the group he would bring in John Keker, the high-powered lawyer from
San Francisco who was already defending him in the contempt case in Alabama.

There were other issues to consider.
One of those was the Christmas party the Scruggs planned to co-host in three days with Marla and Lowry Lomax, their old friends from Pascagoula who had moved to Oxford earlier in the decade. Invitations had been mailed and catering arrangements made. After talking with the Lomaxes, they decided to go ahead with the party. It would be a demonstration of resolve.

But Zach felt beaten down. After he and Amy drove to their own home, he put their children to bed. As they fell asleep, he kissed them, wondering: How many times will I get to do that again?

    
The prosecutors, who had concealed the investigation carefully, felt it would be important to go public with a post-indictment press conference to maintain an advantage in the running narrative. As long as the newspaper and television reporters fed on information from the government side, the prosecutors would control the flow of the story. They were assisted by bloggers—virtually all of them critical of Scruggs—who would follow the case, posting pertinent documents on the Internet, developing a wide readership, and, in some instances, guiding the news coverage.

At the press conference, U.S. Attorney Jim Greenlee elaborated on a few details of the case and denied that Trent Lott had been given any advance warning. “To my knowledge, there is absolutely no connection” between Lott’s resignation and the charges against his brother-in-law, Greenlee said.

One of those who attended the press conference was not a reporter at all, but Scruggs’s adversary Grady Tollison, who listened with satisfaction as the prosecutors tightened their grip on Scruggs. At one point, Dawson, the lead prosecutor, leaned toward Tollison and whispered, “Merry Christmas.”

Scruggs’s voice was shut down on the advice of his lawyers. Instead of using his own charms, which he had relied upon in the past to engage reporters, the key defendant was kept on the defensive. Friends who were inclined to side with him wondered why he did not hold his own press conference to pronounce his innocence.

    Despite the crisis, the Scruggses’ Christmas party was carried off with aplomb. Promptly at five o’clock, as light began to fade from the late autumn sky, guests began to arrive. Because the winding driveway
was narrow and space outside the house limited, they were asked to park at the foot of the hill, in a university lot usually reserved for campers on football weekends, and to ride the rest of the way in jitneys.

Inside the high-ceilinged home, tables were spread with an assortment of miniature lamb chops and rich seafood dishes. Bartenders handled drinks at several stations, while attendants passed through the rooms offering hors d’oeuvres.

There was a temptation for journalists covering the case to compare the evening to one of Gatsby’s parties, but the analogy didn’t really work. Though Scruggs now carried a scent of impropriety, he was neither a stranger to Oxford nor gauche about his wealth. His Ole Miss background and his generosity since arriving there four years ago had made him welcome to the community.

Among the first to arrive were Scruggs’s friends from his boyhood in Pascagoula: Khayat, the chancellor, and Sam Davis, the dean of the law school. They were followed by dozens who, if gathered for a still photograph, would have represented a portrait of men and women of influence in Oxford: physicians and ministers; faculty members and businessmen; attorneys and entrepreneurs. Andy Kennedy, the Ole Miss basketball coach fresh from his team’s 85–77 victory over the University of New Mexico a few hours earlier, was there, along with the school’s popular baseball coach, Mike Bianco. Despite their personal agonies, Zach and Amy Scruggs and Sid and Kelli Backstrom made appearances. The only absentees from the guest list were local judges and prosecutors who felt their presence would be inappropriate. The previous December, many of those same officials had attended the joint Lomax-Scruggs Christmas party held at Lomax’s new mansion, never imagining the future events that would disrupt their relationships.

Dick and Diane circulated among their guests. Occasionally friends gathered Scruggs in an affectionate embrace. His wife, recovering from an attack of Crohn’s disease and the shock of her husband’s and son’s indictments, maintained a smile, but it looked forced and weak.

As the party gathered momentum, voices grew merrier. When the subject of the government’s accusations came up in conversation, Scruggs expressed bewilderment and innocence. More comfortable topics involved his brother-in-law’s sudden departure from the Senate and the new football coach at Ole Miss. In a nod to the sport’s importance in the region, a television in the exercise room by the pool was tuned to the Southeastern Conference championship game, and some
of the guests abandoned the main house to watch it. Since the evening had been planned as an opportunity for friends to see the new house, others wandered through the downstairs rooms marveling at a clothes closet containing what seemed like a hundred suits. Or they penetrated the wine cellar in the basement, where Scruggs was just beginning to accumulate stocks of the best vintages.

Earlier in the year, he had enlisted the advice of John Hailman, the federal prosecutor–cum–wine critic. He told Hailman he wanted to assemble a selection to rival Lowry Lomax’s wine cellar. At the last Christmas gathering, Lomax’s collection, climate-controlled and bristling with bottles of impressive California vintage and wooden crates bearing labels from France, had generated the buzz of
the party. Scruggs had offered to put Hailman “on the clock” to act as his advisor. Hailman dismissed any suggestion of a fee. “We’ll just have fun drinking good wine,” he had said to Scruggs. Hailman envisioned trips to France in Scruggs’s jet; visits to vineyards in Burgundy and the Rhone Valley to choose wines worthy of Scruggs’s cellar.