JACKSON — Paul Minor, one of Mississippi's most successful civil lawsuit attorneys before being sent to prison for corruption, was denied an emergency request today to be released so he could be with his dying wife.
Minor, 63, and his law firm on the Mississippi Gulf Coast earned a national reputation in lawsuits against tobacco, asbestos and other companies. But now he's serving an 11-year sentence in a federal prison camp in the Florida Panhandle after being convicted of bribing two judges in March 2007.
Minor has asked the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to throw out the conviction, claiming the trial judge allowed improper jury instructions. And while the court considers that appeal, Minor wanted to be released on bond so he could be with his wife, Sylvia, who has brain cancer.
"Her condition is terminal and her demise is imminent," Sylvia Minor's doctor wrote in an April 4 letter submitted this week to the court.
Prosecutors responded today in a 77-page court filing that Minor's bond was revoked before his trial because of an alcohol-related car accident and other violations and that he could pose a danger to the community.
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