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Hiding Their Influence: Chapter 3,
The "Tobacco Five"
Download a PDF of Chapter 3 (1.2 MB)
Download PDF of entire report (1.5 MB)
From January 2000 to June 2002, the “Tobacco Five” and 10 of the top trial lawyer contributors have put in excess of $5.5 million into Texas’ political system. While a fraction of this total went directly to candidates, the majority of contributions have been shuffled through various ambiguously named PACs to hide their true origin.
In 1996, Texas Attorney General Dan Morales sued the nation’s largest tobacco companies alleging violation of racketeering and conspiracy laws as well as fraud and other offenses. Less than two years later, the state of Texas secured one of the largest settlements in legal history.
For its lawsuit against big tobacco—litigation modeled after almost identical lawsuits in other states—Dan Morales Texas turned to a handpicked group of trial lawyers including: Walter Umphrey and Wayne Reaud, of Beaumont; John M. O’Quinn and John Eddie Williams, of Houston; and Harold Nix of Daingerfield. This group is known as the “Tobacco Five.”
After the initial lawsuit, Texas agreed on Jan. 16, 1998, to settle its lawsuit against the tobacco industry for $17.3 billion.
The “Tobacco Five” exacted a pound of flesh worth $3.3 billion in legal fees, well over their original agreed contingency fee of $2.3 billion.