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Report: U.S. judge in tobacco smuggling case had industry ties 

federal judge who helped hand the tobacco industry one of its biggest legal victories in recent years represented a tobacco company as a private attorney, a newspaper reported Monday.

The 2-1 ruling last October by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals derailed Canada's billion-dollar cigarette smuggling case against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc., leading to the dismissal of similar suits against cigarette makers by the European Union and Colombia.

Internal documents disclosed in tobacco litigation show that U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan participated in high-level meetings discussing how to prevent government action on tobacco smuggling when he was an attorney for Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. in the 1970s and '80s, the Los Angeles Times reported.

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