Scruggs Reports to Prison

From the Associated Press:

ASHLAND, Ky. — Anti-tobacco lawyer Richard "Dickie" Scruggs has reported to a federal prison in eastern Kentucky.

Prison spokesman Larry Whitman says Scruggs entered a federal prison in Ashland this morning. He is beginning a five-year sentence for conspiring to bribe a judge with $50,000.

Scruggs was one of two people to plead guilty to the charge. Prosecutors say Scruggs wanted a favorable ruling in a dispute over $26.5 million in legal fees from a settlement of Hurricane Katrina insurance cases.

In the 1990s, Scruggs used a corporate insider to take on tobacco companies in lawsuits that resulted in a $206 billion settlement. That case was portrayed in the 1999 film "The Insider" that starred Al Pacino and Russell Crowe.