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Tobacco partners suing Scruggs 

Two of disgraced plaintiffs attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs' former business partners are suing him, claiming part of the money owed to them from a tobacco settlement was used to further one of Scruggs' judicial bribery schemes.

Lee Young and Charles Mikhail filed their suit in Mississippi federal court Sept. 9 seeking compensation for what they feel is being withheld unfairly from their quarterly payments. Scruggs agreed to pay the two 5 percent of his firm's net gain from a national tobacco settlement in 1999.

Scruggs has pleaded guilty to two judicial bribery schemes, receiving 7 1/2 years in prison. He reduced Young's and Mikhail's payments as he fought lawsuits from former asbestos litigation partners William Roberts Wilson and Alwyn Luckey, who made a claim on Scruggs' tobacco earnings, the suit says.

"On information and belief, Plaintiffs were forced, through a deduction from their Jan. 2007 quarterly payments, to contribute money which, unbeknownst to them, was not represented to be by Defendants (a legitimate tobacco-related expense) but as payments made to further illicit a criminal scheme to unethically and illegally influence a judge," the suit says.

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