Mississippi attorney Richard Scruggs (left), seen with lobbyist John Raffaelli, is the focus of a book, “The Fall of the House of Zeus,” about his trial for attempted bribery of a judge.
Wilkie was in the courtroom the day Scruggs was sentenced, and he said Scruggs nearly fainted as the judge lectured him about his crimes. According to Wilkie, the courtroom was filled with other lawyers who had come to see Scruggs knocked down a peg, in some measure of revenge for what they considered past injustices.
“There’s always going to be a faction of people in Mississippi who hate Scruggs and everything he and trial lawyers stand for, and some of them probably feel the portrait should be tougher than it was,” Wilkie said of his presentation of the Scruggs story. “I tried to put a human dimension on the story, but there’s a body of opinion that considers Scruggs evil incarnate.”
Rep. Bill Cassidy has his blood drawn by Alesha Barbour during a free hepatitis screening in the Rayburn House Office Building hosted by the Congressional Viral Hepatitis Caucus to recognize "National Viral Hepatitis Testing Day."
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