Langston Cooperating; Feds Seek His Release

by Adam Lynch
November 13, 2008

An accidentally published motion reveals agents are working for an early release for convicted attorney Joey Langston, and that more investigations related to Langston are underway. U.S. attorneys filed a motion for downward departure in U.S. District Court Wednesday, explaining that Langston has helped prosecutors pursue investigations on convicted attorney Dickie Scruggs, and has “assisted in the further investigations of (Hinds County) Circuit Court Judge Bobby DeLaughter and others.”

Langston pled guilty in January and agreed to no more than 36 months incarceration for his role in helping Scruggs bribe a judge for decisions favorable to Scruggs. After pleading guilty, Langston met with FBI agents and members of the U.S. Department of Justice and the DOJ’s Public Integrity division, “admitting and detailing his role in Dickie Scruggs’ legal team’s efforts to influence Circuit Court Judge Bobby DeLaughter in the Wilson v. Scruggs case,” the motion stated.

That same month, he met with agents and “was exhaustively debriefed not only on the Wilson case, but on the Captain D’s (Foradori Case) as well as the criminal case United States v. Danny Dillard and Jason Stanford,” according to the motion. He also aided investigators regarding P.L. Blake, a Scruggs staffer with no legal license who allegedly made millions of dollars just cutting newspaper clippings for Scruggs.

In addition to that, Langston met with agents regarding his relationship with Jackson attorney, and former Hinds County District Attorney Ed Peters and “money paid to Peters,” that Langston alleges went to buy Delaughter’s favor in the attorneys fee dispute case Wilson v. Scruggs. He also provided copies of flight logs, office calendars and “documents regarding payments to Peters,” among other services connected to the Scruggs case. Scruggs also allegedly offered Delaughter his influence as the brother-in-law of former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., to get the federal judgeship for Delaughter. Prosecutors have not implicated Lott, though the senator announced his retirement from the Senate (five years before the end of his term) on Nov. 26, 2007, one day before FBI agents first raided Scruggs’ Oxford law office.

Later, in September, Langston provided information in a separate, ongoing investigation relating to a “Ponzi scheme” involving Capital Blu Management LLC and “PGF, of Florida.” Industry regulators shut down foreign currency trader Capitol Blu in September, after National Futures Association documents revealed that at least one customer complained he had received misleading statements showing he made money when he had actually lost almost 75 percent on his investment.

Langston delivered testimony in those cases before a grand jury in October that, according to the motion, “exceeded government expectations.”

The DOJ now argues that Langston did “everything that was asked of him,” that his guilty plea and subsequent cooperation was a “turning point” in the Scruggs case and that it contributed to Scruggs plea, as well as to the guilty pleas of Scruggs’ co-worker Sidney Backstrom and Scruggs’ son Zach.”

The motion also suggests that Langston is still working with prosecutors regarding “subsequent defendants now under investigation.”

Langston’s health issues also play a factor in the DOJ motion. The Booneville attorney had a heart catheterization back in February, suffered two arterial blockages and had suffered a previously undiscovered heart attack hidden possibly due to “his diabetic condition.”

In addition to that, DOJ attorneys allege Langston’s family may be in danger. In early October, Langston’s oldest son, Keaton, reported an intruder on the Langston property. Law enforcement did not capture the intruder, but Keaton reported that the person was driving a “late model van which appeared (from an interior light being on) to be packed with electronic equipment.”

The matter is still under investigation by local police, the motion states.

After a few hours, the court sealed the document, which initially was published on the court’s Web site, possibly through a clerical error.

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