ustxtxb_obs_1972_01_21_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

examination of witnesses. Dowdy also would approach the bench with the attorneys when the judge wanted to discuss a point with both sides out of earshot of the jury and the press. The actual testimony of the trial began with Cohen, a fleshy, young, dis-barred lawyer, who seemed self-assured in answering all the government’s questions. Cohen has pleaded guilty to a charge of mail fraud that came from the Monarch investigation. He was given a suspended sentence, placed on probation and made to pay $200 a month for the next five years as restitution for his admitted fraud of Monarch customers. He said he was aware of a number of illegal acts by Monarch, which specialized in putting town house fronts on inner-city Washington row houses. The criminal practices included, Cohen said, illegal financing, overcharging and telling customers they must get the new fronts or lose their homes. Cohen now works in Virginia where he said he has a quarter-interest in a home building firm. Cohen said his relationship with Dowdy began in 1965 when Dowdy gave a speech to Monarch’s salesmen and Cohen gave Dowdy a $500 honorarium at that time. Cohen said he was aware of the government’s investigation of Monarch and when he failed to try to stop it legally he said he became “scared to death” he would be indicted. Cohen said he then decided to seek Dowdy’s help. Clark, who was Monarch’s sales manager, had become friendly with Dowdy and because of this, Cohen said, he thought Dowdy could be persuaded to hold committee hearings on Monarch and give Cohen immunity from prosecution. Cohen said that, after seeing Dowdy, Clark told him all this could be arranged for $25,000. COHEN SAID that he and Clark then took a “front door-back door” approach to get out of the Monarch troubles. The bribe to Dowdy would be the back door, while a barrage of letters to congressmen to press for the Monarch hearings would be the front door. For the bribe, Cohen said, he had to borrow money from relatives and Levitt. Cohen said that the night before the trip to Atlanta, he, his mother, his wife and Levitt copied the serial numbers of three-fourths of the bills. Atlanta was chosen, Cohen said, because it “would be safer that way” and because of “the fear I had of this being a set-up.” Cohen also said Dowdy was planning a trip and would be in Atlanta that day. Sometime after the Atlanta incident, Cohen said, word of the plan “leaked out” and there could be no hearings. “I told Myrvin I wanted the hearings as agreed to or I wanted my money back,” Cohen said. Then, according to Cohen, Dowdy at a meeting arranged by Clark, told Cohen “there is more than one way to skin a cat” and said Cohen should not worry. “He 4 The Texas Observer winked at me and sort of pushed me a little and said he thought all was taken care of,” Cohen said of Dowdy. “He . said he talked with the U.S. attorney’s people and had reached an understanding . .” Cohen then detailed other meetings he had had with Dowdy and his final, futile efforts to avoid prosecution in the Monarch case when it appeared the investigation was starting again in 1969. After agreeing to cooperate with the government in 1969, Cohen said, he was ‘outfitted by the FBI with a tape recorder on his back and two microphones on his shoulders, all under his coat. He was then sent to Dowdy’s office to record a conversation with Dowdy mentioning the $25,000 and asking for more help. The tape was played in open court and was somewhat scratchy with Cohen’s voice booming and full of nervous laughter and Dowdy’s voice barely audible. Cohen was cross-examined by Dilling who asked if he told anyone he was “all wired up.” “No,” Cohen said, “there was an agreement I shouldn’t alarm the congressman or walk in and say, ‘Hi, I’m here about the $25,000.’ ” “Wasn’t that reference to the $25,000 money that you gave to those poor people you gypped and swindled” while with Monarch, Dilling asked. “Have you made restitution?” Cohen replied that he had paid back about $4,000. Dilling asked Cohen about his legal knowledge and if he were aware that he could not be given immunity for testifying at congressional hearings. “No, sir,” Cohen said, “I had no doubt I could get it. I had been watching some televised congressional hearings and that gave me the idea.” Dilling tried to shake Cohen’s story by finding that there were no credit card or check records of the plane trip to Atlanta. The Chicago attorney also probed into Cohen’s other .business dealings, and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s inquiries of them. At this point, Judge Thomsen overruled an objection by Sachs that Dilling’s questions were “grandstand irrelevance,” and the defense continued. Cohen said that in 1969 he wanted immunity for various matters of his that the SEC was looking into.. But, Cohen said, Dowdy never told him that a congressional committee was not the proper place to get immunity and advised him to see the U.S. attorney. But Cohen said he did go to see Sachs later that year. “Didn’t Mr. Sachs tell you he had so much on you and could prosecute you in so many ways he felt like a kid in a candy store?” Dulling asked. COHEN SAID he inn not recall that expression but “I think he said there were several matters to prosecute me on.” Cohen said he never really got all he wanted when he went to Sachs with his story “I wanted to tell my story, throw in the towel and walk away clean, but it didn’t work out that way.” The government next brought in former Monarch salesman who now sells real estate in the Maryland resort of Ocean City. Levitt described the trip to Atlanta as a “cloak-and-dagger kind of mission,” and said he had a “vivid picture” of Clark’s giving the money to Dowdy in the airport. After some minor witnesses were shuffled in and out, the government ushered in Clark, an alcoholic, hustler, and former page boy in the House of Representatives, who said he had delivered the $25,000 to Dowdy in Atlanta. Clark said he considered the payment a “political contribution . . . done all the time.” Clark, a native Georgian who now lives in California, said he chose to deliver the money in Atlanta because he wanted to visit his family and look into the operations of a gold mine there, and because he wanted the “personal glory” of handing it over. Clark said he knew Dowdy was worried about his 1966 re-election fight against Martin Dies, Jr., and , at a lunch where they discussed Cohen’s problems, Clark said he mentioned that Cohen and his mother had “a lot of money for a political contribution.” It was then Dowdy mentioned, according to Clark,’ that he could use about $25,000 and some help with political printing. When the prosecution rested, with the critical tapes in evidence and half the trial over, the defense began its presentation, which bore little resemblance to the story the government had told. A. SHORT WHILE after beginning its case, the defense produced Wilson who, after preliminary remarks on his relationship to Dowdy, gave his version of the Atlanta airport incident. Wilson said he drove from his Citizens Council office in Montgomery to Atlanta and met Dowdy to give him the $500 donation from the Alabama banker. Wilson said he and Dowdy spent the time between Dowdy’s planes in an airline’s hospitality room. He said the only other person with them was William R. Thompson, Jr., a service station owner from Washington, who had accompanied Dowdy on the flight. Wilson explained in detail, with the aid of an Atlanta airport map already introduced by the government, the route. the men took from the plane to the lounge. Key stood on one side of the witness stand and Sachs, taking notes all the while, stood on the other side. Wilson said he was with Dowdy from the time he got off one plane to the time the congressman boarded the plane for Shreveport and he did not see anybody give Dowdy anything. Wilson and his story evidently were a surprise to the government and Sachs spent the rest of his questioning time that day trying to establish just who Wilson was and