This is a good one…
(Lead Story – NYTimes Sunday Business Section – By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ) …Linking Mr. Scruggs, Mr. Patterson and other figures in the case is an obscure former college football star, farmer and politically well-connected adviser to Mr. Scruggs named Presley L. Blake (Google Search). At the hearing on Tuesday, prosecutors described Mr. Blake as a key go-between in an elaborate bribery plot, and they are now examining his ties to Mr. Scruggs. No charges have been brought against Mr. Blake.The story of Mr. Blake, who has received at least $10 million from Mr. Scruggs, threatens to reveal just how Mr. Scruggs worked the political back rooms of Mississippi — and Washington — to win a huge settlement with cigarette makers that garnered him approximately $1 billion in fees as well as a role in “The Insider,†the 1999 movie about the battle with Big Tobacco. Mr. Scruggs’s connections have never been a secret: his brother-in-law is former Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi. But the expansion of the investigation is especially significant because for Mr. Scruggs, law and politics have been closely intertwined…