ustxtxb_obs_1972_01_21_50_00003-00000_000.pdf

A white man . his own, said that the defense would, within a week after the trial, begin appeals by a motion for a new trial. Judge Thomsen will withhold sentencing pending the outcome of the appeal. Dowdy is expected to resume his congressional duties and said in a post-trial interview that he is undecided about running for re-election. THE CHIEF prosecutor in the case, Stephen H. Sachs, 37, said after the trial that he believed “at least for this night, the political air in this country is a little cleaner.” “What’s important about a conviction like this,” Sachs said, “is that so many people who are skeptical about the judicial process, thinking it’s just a war of the rich against the poor, may now feel that ‘equal justice under law’ is not just an empty phrase,” and that there is prosecution of “white collar crimes.” The trial began with Key’s claim that Dowdy was the victim Of a conspiracy of “three crooks from Baltimore” the government’s three star witnesses. And during the closing arguments each side accused the other of lying and concocting stories. Key, who frequently was obviously irritated by and irritating to Judge Thomsen, claimed that Nathan Cohen,, Monarch’s president, and Myrvin C. Clark, another government witness, made a deal with Sachs to avoid prosecution and consequently to send “the true American. the real statesman the veteran member of Congress to the penitentiary.” But the jurors had said when they were selected that Dowdy’s congressional seat would not influence their ability to determine his guilt or to believe his testimony. In his final remarks, prosecutor Barnet Skolnik told the jury the government’s big three were not exactly “nice fellows,” but he asked, “Who bribes a congressman? A nice fellow, a good fellow who needs to bribe anyone to fix an investigation of a criminal matter?” He said the defense’s responses were “feeble, tortured and sometimes perjured.” One of Dowdy’s other attorneys, Leon H. A. Pierson, a former U.S. attorney for Maryland and a respected Baltimore lawyer, told the jury that the prosecution’s three main witnesses -were “all a bunch of con men and gyps” setting Dowdy up because they thought trouble was coming. “If there is anything more attractive than the silver-gray scalp of a congressman, I don’t know what it is it’s certainly better than prosecuting these phonies,” Pierson said referring to Cohen and Clark. Key then called the prosecution’s witnesses “bums, liars, cheats, frauds, hustlers and confidence men.” He said the country needs more men like Congressman Dowdy “real statesmen real Americans.” Dowdy’s third attorney was Kirkpatrick W. Dulling of Chicago. Dining is the son of the late Elizabeth Eloise Dilling who, in the 1930’s, wrote and published at her own expense “The Red Network: A Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots” and “The Roosevelt Red Record.” The books list all those she considered radical and ‘their equally -unorthodox organizations. Dowdy’s defense was financed partly. by the right-wing Liberty Lobby, which contributed nearly $21,000. On ,the opening day of the trial, Dowdy held a little press conference his lawyers had claimed was to be only a picture-taking session. His most widely publicized remark was an “I believe so” ‘ response to ‘a . question on whether he thought he was being framed. Dowdy, with his wife and Key by his side, said he was confident of being exonerated because the events alleged by the government simply did not happen. IN HIS FIRST remarks to the jury, Sachs, a former U.S. attorney who left private practice to take this case, countered Dowdy’s allegations of being framed by asking the jury to consider the difference between being framed and getting caught. Dowdy, Sachs said, was caught. A critical part of Sachs’s case against Dowdy involved the tapes of the conversations between Dowdy and Cohen, one of which contained several references to the $25,000. In addition to allowing the jury to three times hear the tapes, Judge Thomsen also, over strong defense objections, let jurors read transcripts of two of the recorded conversations during the trial. The prosecution presented Cohen convicted of “fraud, Clark a confessed hustler; and Jack Levitt, the three most Closely associated with the alleged bribe, and a variety of minor witnesses to support the testimony of the first three. These included Cohen’s mother, who has joined him in some business deals. Cohen said he paid John Dowdy $25,000 in 1965 to influence the investigation into the illegal activities of the now-defunct Monarch company. Cohen also said he was trying to get Dowdy’s committee to hold hearings into what he claimed was harrassment of Monrach by the federal government and to grant Cohen . immunity from prosecution for testifying at the hearings. Just before the statute of limitations was about to run out for prosecutions of Monarch’s criminal practices, Cohen said he had heard the investigation was to surface again. At that point, in 1969, Cohen said, he decided to ‘ make a last-ditch effort to avoid prosecution by cooperating with the government. Cohen told of giving the $25,000 packed in a briefcase to Levitt who, with Clark Atlanta to pass it to Dowdy. Levitt actually was sent to Atlanta, Cohen said, to make sure Clark gave the money to Dowdy. Clark was indicted with Dowdy and pleaded guilty to the third count of the indictment which involved interstate transportation of the money for a bribe. Clark, who said he “hustles six days a week and prays on the seventh,” is awaiting sentencing on that charge. THERE ALSO were three major defense witnesses and a selection of lesser characters to corroborate the defense testimony and to assure the jury of Dowdy’s “excellent” reputation for truth and honesty. Three Texas congressmen, Representatives Earle Cabell, Olin Teague and W. R. Poage, were among the minor characters. One morning, the defense whisked through 17 character witnesses in 35 minutes. The defense also brought in another relatively important witness,. an encyclopedia salesman and onetime associate of Cohen’s named Grayson Foster, who claimed Cohen told him he the hook. The ‘main attraction for the defense was a surprise witness, Leonard Wilson, a mobile home salesman from Jasper, Ala., who claimed he met Dowdy in the Atlanta airport on Sept. 22, 1965 to give him a campaign contribution from a now-deceased Alabama banker. Wilson was for seven years executive secretary of the Alabama, a segregationist association which Wilson described as a “non-partisan political-type organization . . . interested in getting what we consider good people elected to public office.” Wilson counts among his friends former Sheriff Jim Clark of Selma, Ala., fame. Throughout the trial Dowdy consulted constantly with his attorneys, who held quite a few huddles of their own during January 21, 1972 3