Breaking News: Hood Opens New Criminal Investigation of State Farm

Well wouldn't you know it if good ole Jim Hood ain't steppin' in to do Dunn Lampton's job and bring them crooks at State Farm to justice for dumpin' their wind obligations on the us taxpayers via the flood program. This Cowboy did a post on the topic and Sop did one with pictures to show how them crooks did it and stole from Uncle Sam hisself.

Jim Hood has been listenin' folks and has heard our cries for justice. If George Bush and his political band of big business boot lickers at the US Justice Department in DC won't brings these crooks to justice thank God we got Jim Hood!


Hood, Moore moving into action against State Farm

By ANITA LEEcalee@sunherald.com

Mississippi's current and former attorneys general are back on the offensive against State Farm insurance companies.

Attorney General Jim Hood is asking a federal judge to dissolve a court order that prevents him from continuing a criminal investigation involving State Farm. Hood says the investigation is not related to a 2006 criminal probe by his office into State Farm's handling of policyholders' Hurricane Katrina claims.

The suspended investigation is secret, but court records indicate State Farm sued to stop it after Hood tried to subpoena company records.

Meanwhile, former Attorney General Mike Moore said in a sworn statement that he and Hood did not use the threat of criminal prosecution in late 2006 to coerce State Farm into settlement of policyholders' Hurricane Katrina claims, as State Farm alleges.

Instead, Moore's statement said, State Farm insisted Hood agree to drop his prosecution of the company before it would sign on to a proposed global settlement of policyholders' claims reached in early January 2007.

Hood did agree to end his 2006 investigation of State Farm, but he says that promise hinged federal court approval for a global settlement of policyholder claims.

The proposed settlement failed to win court approval. State Farm contends it has honored its agreement by re-evaluating claims through the Mississippi Department of Insurance. However, Hood says the company failed to live up to standards set out in the original settlement proposal.

The legal dispute has been clouded by the indictment of policyholders' attorneys from the Scruggs Law Firm, which withdrew from the legal partnership then renamed the Katrina Litigation Group. While the indictment was not directly related to policyholders' lawsuits against State Farm, the company has accused Scruggs of ethical and legal violations in the lawsuits and questioned his relationship to Hood and his criminal proceedings.

Scruggs reached a settlement of 640 policyholder claims with State Farm in November 2006, according to a State Farm letter. The global settlement of other Coast claims, reached in January 2007, was rejected by U.S. District Court Judge L.T. Senter Jr.