dick scruggs pleads guilty
Written on March 23, 2008
i just found this news story today. it seems dick scruggs has pleaded guilty to criminal conspiracy/attempting to bribe a judge in a hurricane katrina-related lawsuit. it’s amazing to think of what likely happens in these big cases that most of us never see. i photographed dick scruggs in 2004 for time magazine at the peninsula hotel in beverly hills. he couldn’t have been nicer or more charming to me, but i guess that doesn’t really mean anything.
scruggs became famous in the 90’s for winning a massive suit against big tobacco. they made a movie about it, called “the insider”.
a lot of photographers like me who shoot regularly for business magazines sometimes bemoan the fact that we get an abundance of subjects who are middle aged white guys in suits and ties posing in beige conference rooms. i’ve certainly bemoaned this myself. but this development with dickie scruggs just goes to show that there’s likely something going on with your subject that you just don’t know about. this is important for me to remember, as i’m about to wake up at an ungodly hour tomorrow morning to get on a plane and photograph two lawyers in san francisco. they may just look like guys in suits to me at first, but maybe now i’ll take the opportunity to look a little closer.
Filed in: photo stuff, ramblings.