Insider, the 1999 movie about the case (pictured).

Scruggs, 61, is due to be sentenced to an expected five years in jail next month. His crime was bribing a judge. So that’s how they do it. He could have got 75 years if he hadn't pleaded guilty in a plea bargain. He has already sold his private jet.

Supporters in the diehard anti-smoking lobby still consider Scruggs a champion of the little guy, a fallen hero in the Shakespearean mould. "He's a very good man who made a mistake he'll pay for for the rest of his life," says former Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore, who aided Scruggs against Big Tobacco.

This is a rare view. To many of his colleagues as well as empty-pocketed titans of industry, Scruggs has long been seen as a ruthless, rule-bending, preening exemplar of greed and self-interest.

He wins by priming a whistle-blower to find dirt on his target - the 'insider' of the movie - and then making a flanking move such as suing on behalf of the state medical authorities rather than that little