NEW ORLEANS AP – An attorney who helped negotiate a multibillion-dollar settlement against tobacco companies in the 1990s and has sued insurers over unpaid Hurricane Katrina claims was indicted Wednesday in a suspected scheme to bribe a Mississippi judge.

The indictment accuses Richard “Dickie” Scruggs of conspiring to pay the judge $50,000 to rule in his favor in a lawsuit brought by other attorneys who sought fees for work on Katrina insurance litigation.