WASHINGTON-NCUA is not the only financial services insurergetting bad new from a Texas judge. Texas U.S. District Court JudgeLynn N. Hughes awarded $72 million to a man to cover his legal feesstemming from a lawsuit against the Federal Deposit InsuranceCorporation involving his relationship with a failed savings andloan. According to an article in the Washington Post, the FDIC suedCharles E. Hurwitz in 1995 for over $800 million because he"indirectly controlled" a savings association that failed back in1988. Following a number of setbacks, the FDIC dropped its suit in2002, the article said, and Hurwitz asked to be reimbursed for hislegal expenses arguing that the agency should never have broughtthe suit. Hughes issued a lengthy decision, accusing the FDIC ofbowing to political pressure from environmental groups, lawmakers,and the Clinton administration because Hurwitz's Pacific Lumber Co.owned thousands of acres of endangered redwoods in NorthernCalifornia the environmentalists wanted to preserve. Theperformance of the FDIC officials and lawyers involved indepositions "ranged from manipulative evasiveness to plainperjury," the Post quoted from the decision. He said the FDIC triedto squeeze the trees out of Hurwitz in a "debt-for-nature" swap inexchange for liability in the failure of the United SavingsAssociation of Texas. Hughes' decision reportedly stated that FDICofficials "discarded the mantle of the American Republic for thecloak of a secret society of extortionists. If the vice presidentcalled, they responded. If a congressman called, they responded. Ifa lobbyist called, they responded. They heeded every call but thatof duty and honor." FDIC plans to appeal the ruling. SpokesmanDavid Barr said that Hughes had been overturned twice by thecircuit court in this suit regarding internal FDIC documents andexpected the same again.