Saturday, September 15, 2007

Two Mississippi Judges, Trial Lawyer Get Multi Year Prison Sentences

Business Insurance reports:
  • "A prominent Mississippi trial lawyer and two state judges have been sentenced to prison for bribery schemes that included fixing a local bank’s bad-faith claim against insurer United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. Jackson, Miss.-based Chief U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate last Friday sentenced Paul S. Minor, a past president of the Mississippi Trial Lawyers Assn., to 11 years and prison and fined him $2.7 million. The judge also sentenced Walter W. Teel, a former state chancery court judge, to five years and 10 months in jail and John H. Whitfield, a former state circuit judge, to nine years and two months. A federal jury in Jackson convicted the three men in March on all 14 charges against them, including bribery, racketeering and fraud."

For more, see Miss. lawyer, judges sentenced for bribery schemes.

Go here for other stories on judges who allegedly may have "lost their way". naughty judges