P.L. Blake, the most mysterious figure to emerge out of a bribery scandal that has rattled Mississippi’s judicial system, spent more than 30 years of his life in and around Greenwood.
He lived well in Leflore County, farming thousands of acres near Schlater. At times, while living in Greenwood, Blake owned a professional basketball team, a $1.4 million turboprop plane and pursued his interest in thoroughbred horse racing.
He also courted controversy. He secured millions of dollars worth of federal farm loans at a time when he was making millions storing grain in Texas under government contract. Later, he was indicted for attempting to bribe bank officials in hopes of receiving loans. During his legal dilemmas in the 1980s, Blake relied on Richard “Dickie” Scruggs n the Mississippi lawyer who would achieve fame and fortune through asbestos and tobacco litigation in the 1990s.
Scruggs is now serving a seven-year prison term after pleading guilty to conspiring to bribe two Mississippi judges to rule favorably in his disputes with other attorneys over legal fees. That ongoing federal investigation has resulted in the conviction of five of the lawyer’s associates and the indictment of Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter.
Blake, who now lives in Birmingham, Ala., has been named in federal court documents as an alleged participant in one of the bribery attempts. No charges, though, have been filed against him.
A federal grand jury is expected to be presented with further evidence from the FBI investigation in late March. A possible focus, some observers believe, is Blake.
“Ever since the Scruggs case broke, P.L. Blake’s name has come up repeatedly in the investigation,” said Curtis Wilkie, a journalism professor at the University of Mississippi who is under contract to write a book about the Scruggs saga. “He’s given the story a slice of mystery.”
Blake, 73, could not be reached for comment.
His son, Mark Blake, resides just outside of Leflore County, in Holcomb. According to officials at the Grenada County Tax Assessor’s Office, the property was in P.L. Blake’s name until March 2008, when it was transferred to his son.
For more than two weeks, around-the-clock guards have been stationed at the end of the property’s driveway on Cross Road. One of the cars has an Alabama license tag.
When questioned by a reporter Tuesday, a guard, who declined to give his name, said, “All I can tell you is we’re here working for the Blakes.”
Later, when pressed, another guard said, “This is private property. If you come on this property, you can be arrested for trespassing.”
A telephone number listed in Mark Blake’s name has been disconnected. He could not be reached for comment.
P.L. Blake’s colorful, enigmatic life began in Tallahatchie County in September 1935. After graduating from West Tallahatchie High School, he was an offensive lineman for Mississippi State’s football team. He graduated from the university with a degree in business administration in 1959.
After a brief stint playing professional football in Canada, Blake moved to Greenwood to farm in 1966. At one time, he owned more than 4,500 acres of farm land near Schlater, where he grew soybeans, rice and cotton.
He and his wife, Shirley, lived in a spacious home in North Greenwood, where Blake would sometimes entertain politicians from every level n from Leflore County supervisors to U.S. senators.
In 1970, Blake purchased the New Orleans Buccaneers, a professional basketball team, and moved the team to Memphis. He sold the now-defunct franchise in 1971.
By the early 1980s, he had become one of the first Leflore County farmers to begin raising catfish.
In the mid-1980s, however, Blake ran into trouble. News articles at the time detailed how Blake’s farm companies n which, apart from row crops, rice farms and catfish ponds, included a grain elevator business in Texas n obtained $11 million in government loans by claiming desperation to the Farmers Home Administration. At the time of the loans, Blake was making at least $5 million annually through his business in Texas.
Blake’s farming operation was eventually foreclosed on by Traveler’s Insurance Co. In 1986, after declaring bankruptcy, he deeded all of his farm land in Leflore County back to the insurance company.
Two years later, Blake was indicted by federal authorities for attempting to bribe a Mississippi Bank official to help secure a loan. Blake avoided jail time but was ordered to pay a $1.5 million fine.
It was during this time that Scruggs began lending the cash-strapped Blake up to $25,000 a month. The loans eventually totaled almost $1 million.
In the early 1990s, Scruggs and Blake strengthened their friendship and furthered their business dealings when Blake was hired on as a “consultant” in Scruggs’ legal crusade against the tobacco industry. The nationwide litigation eventually resulted in a $246 billion settlement and an estimated billion dollars in attorneys’ fees for Scruggs.
It is not clear what exactly Blake’s role was in the litigation. In a 2004 deposition from an unrelated case, Scruggs described Blake as “one of these guys that’s sort of always behind the scenes, but has his ear to the ground.” Scruggs said Blake “had a network throughout the state and really throughout the nation that would sort of give us that heads-up information.”
However, in federal documents related to the judicial bribery investigation, a confidential source described Blake as “the ?bagman’ for DS (Dickie Scruggs) during the national tobacco case.”
Whatever Blake’s job, court documents show that he is slated to earn, by 2023, $50 million for his work for Scruggs.
Roughly six years ago, Blake and his wife left Greenwood and moved to Birmingham.
According to Leflore County Circuit Clerk Trey Evans, Blake moved so that his wife, who has suffered health problems, could be closer to medical facilities.
“That’s why they moved, as far as I know,” Evans said. “It wasn’t to get away from any publicity or anything like that, but simply because his wife was sick and she could be closer to her doctor over there.”
All that remains of Blake in Leflore County today are memories of locals who recall a well-built, well-connected gentleman who moved in powerful political circles.
“He was always mixed up in politics. He always knew the big players,” Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks said. “He was in with Big Jim Eastland for a while and afterwards Trent Lott, I think. But I just knew him as a fellow who worked all the time. Just like the rest of us, he was trying to make a living.”
Eastland was one of the most powerful senators in Washington until his retirement in 1977. Lott, the former Senate majority leader, announced in November 2007 his sudden retirement two days before Scruggs, his brother-in-law, was indicted.
In 2006, Blake sold his 6,500-square-foot home on Bell Avenue to Ceandris Brown, a professional football player with the Houston Texans.
The land Blake once owned near Schlater n known locally as Pee Dee Plantation and where Blake had a lake built n is part of Tackett Fish Farms today.
Bert Fleming, who owns Greenwood Nursery, would occasionally do business with Blake.
“As far as my dealings with him, he was always a straight-up guy with me,” Fleming said.
Evans said he remembers Blake as a respected member of the community for his political clout and his willingness to help.
“He was well respected by people,” he said. “Not just locally, not just here in Leflore County, but from Jackson all the way up to Washington, D.C. When things needed to get done, he was always the guy who knew the people behind the scenes who could get things happening. He did a lot of good things, I know, here in Leflore County. And he never got recognition for it, nor did he want any recognition.”
Evans doubts Blake will be pulled into the judicial bribery scandal further.
“I’d be very surprised if he was involved in any of this Scruggs and corruption deal,” he said. “As far as I know, he hasn’t had his fingers in anything political in this state in quite a while.”
Leflore County Tax Collector Sara Kenwright said she knew little of Blake while he was in Greenwood, other than he owned a lot of land.
“He paid a lot of taxes around here at one time,” she said. “I never heard a bad word about him and, other than things I read in the newspaper, still haven’t.”
