John M. Dowd, Esq.

Summary of the Oral History of John M. Dowd

by David C. Tobin, Esq.

John M. Dowd always wanted to be a lawyer. He was born the fourth of eight children in an Irish-Catholic family in Brockton, Massachusetts, just a month before Pearl Harbor. In high school, he became fascinated with Clarence Darrow. John read all of his books, books he was a part of, and even transcripts of his most famous trials.

John’s fascination with the law was cultivated when, in his summer job as a caddie and bartender at Sankaty Head Golf Club on Nantucket Island, he came to know Edward Bennett Williams (John made his martinis just right). John was captivated by Williams’s stories about his cases and his clients – Joe McCarthy, Frank Costello, Bobby Baker to name just a few. These stories had a huge influence on John’s chosen path.

When his father’s job with Filene’s department stores took the family to Birmingham, Alabama, John attended Saint Bernard College in Cullman, Alabama. Run by Benedictine priests, their strict discipline and classic curriculum served John well when he chose to attend Emory Law School in Atlanta, Georgia.

John found something more important that a legal education at Emory; it was there that he met Carole Folts, the love of his life and lifelong partner. Carole was one of three women at Emory’s night school – a real pioneer. Although he was scheduled to graduate with the class of 1966, John was swept off his feet by Carole. They were married in June 1965 and John graduated that December.

John enlisted in the Marines where his brothers, Tom and Denny, were already serving. Three weeks into the twelve-week boot camp, John fractured his ankle. Although it could have been the end of John’s Marine career, a friendly gunnery sergeant went to bat for John, and with his help and a lot of determination, John graduated boot camp.

The Marines needed lawyers, so John shipped off to Naval Justice School in Newport, Rhode Island. Around the same time his brother Tom shipped off to Vietnam with the Third Battalion, First Marines.

Thereafter, in early 1967, John reported to the legal officer for the Second Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. It was there, on March 1, 1967, that John received the saddest news of his life – his brother Tom had been killed by a land mine while on patrol in Vietnam.

Life goes on. While at Camp Lejeune, John and Carole adopted the first two (Tom and Annie) of what came to be five children (Sarah, Dan and Michael followed). As a JAG, John served as both prosecutor and defense, but he really loved defense. A highlight was his last case, where he represented an enlisted black man falsely accused by his wife of battering and murdering their baby. After a first general court martial found him guilty, and sentenced to life in prison, John and his team obtained a retrial, resulting in a not-guilty verdict.

From the Marines, John moved on to the Department of Justice, first in the General Tax Division, where he tried cases all over the country. After handling a case enforcing an IRS subpoena against a mafia lawyer, John moved to the DOJ’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Strike Force 18, where one of his first cases was the prosecution of notorious mob “accountant,” Meyer Lansky.

Over the next few years at DOJ, John had the types of experiences one can only get in the government. He tried the first RICO cases. He prosecuted mobsters who killed government witnesses. He investigated the Director of the FBI for the alleged receipt of goods and services from government sources. And he investigated Congressman Dan Flood for alleged receipt of payoffs.

The highlight of John’s DOJ career was meeting and becoming friends with Attorney General Griffin Bell. Judge Bell was a brilliant lawyer, a true gentleman, and a boss who gave his employees everything they needed to run a case. He loved talking through cases with prosecutors and senior agents. Judge Bell’s dedication to following the facts wherever they led had a profound impact on John as he moved forward in his career.

John started private practice in 1978 with the New York firm Whitman & Ransom. While there, among other cases, John obtained an acquittal of Diane Kidwell on murder charges in Rappahannock County, Virginia, arising from a property dispute with a neighbor who confronted Kidwell while driving a bulldozer.

John also represented Judge B. Avant Edenfield of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, who was being investigated for alleged involvement in a shrimp boat marijuana shipping operation. John and his team created a chronology detailing the Judge’s location virtually every day for a three-year period. With that chronology and the Judge’s grand jury testimony, the government dropped the case.

In 1984, John joined the Heron Burchette firm in Washington, D.C. One night in February 1989, John walked into his house late at night after finishing a tax case in Atlanta. The phone rang and Fay Vincent, Assistant MLB Commissioner was on the line. John knew Fay from an SBA corruption investigation he did while at DOJ.

Fay told John he was at the Hay Adams hotel with a fellow named Bart Giamatti, then the President of the National League. He told John MLB wanted to investigate Pete Rose for betting on baseball. He asked if John had any conflicts, and John said “no.” With that, Giamatti asked John to get on a flight to Cincinnati the next morning.

Over the next six months, John and his team (including Heron Burchette lawyers Terry Lynam and Joe Osborne and MLB security chief Kevin Hallinan) investigated every aspect of Rose’s life. They hit paydirt when a Rose confidant, Paul Janzen, provided the team with betting records in Rose’s handwriting. The team interviewed 123 witnesses, including, of course, Rose.

The Dowd Report, as it came to be known, led to Rose agreeing to a lifelong ban from major league baseball. Sadly, eight days later then-Commissioner Giamatti died at his home in Edgartown, Massachusetts. John, who had developed great respect and affection for Mr. Giamatti, was deeply saddened but grateful for the time he had spent getting to know the man.

At the end of the Rose case, John moved on to the law firm Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld in Washington, D.C. John’s work with MLB led to one of his most memorable and enjoyable cases – representing baseball legend Ted Williams in his bid to recover sports memorabilia from a crooked business partner. Although John repeatedly told Williams – one of John’s great heroes – that he wouldn’t take the case, he had no choice when Williams strolled into his office one day, put his feet up on the couch, and told John he wouldn’t leave until John took his case. Through the work of his team, including the use of a former IRS agent in an undercover role, John was able to recover all of Mr. Williams’s memorabilia.

Around the same time, John was hired by Senator John McCain of Arizona to represent him in connection with the Senate Ethics Committee investigation known as the Keating Five Investigation. The investigation, led by Washington, D.C. attorney Robert Bennett, focused on allegations that Sen. McCain and other senators had received contributions from Charles Keating, chairman of Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, in exchange for which he allegedly called on the senators for assistance with federal regulators.

The investigation lasted 22 months, highlighted by weeks of hearings in late 1990 and early 1991. While some of the senators were reprimanded and criticized for allegedly improper actions, Sen. McCain was cleared of impropriety.

There followed many interesting cases, too numerous to summarize here. Among those were John’s representation of Gov. Fife Symington of Arizona in a federal bank fraud trial and representing Rep. Don Young of Alaska in connection with a House ethics investigation into campaign finance issues, which resulted in no action against Rep. Young.

John thought he had retired in December 2015 but got pulled back into action in May 2017 when special prosecutor Robert Mueller commenced his investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. John, along with Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law & Justice and Ty Cobb as counsel to the President, represented President Donald J. Trump in connection with the investigation. Much has been and more will be written about this critical time in American political history, but John was right in the thick of the investigation, which did not establish that any members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.

A recap of John’s career would not be complete without highlighting the work of which John is most proud: his pro bono work, particularly in support of U.S. Marines in need. Over the years, and with the generous assistance of Akin Gump, John and his team assisted a host of Marines, soldiers and airmen with a variety of issues. These included fallout from PTSD, denial of full VA benefits, and defense of service members falsely accused of obstructing investigations. John and his team put in thousands of hours of time worth millions of dollars in fees, and in December 2019, John received the Superior Civilian Service Award from the Secretary of the Navy.

John and Carole are happily retired in Chatham, Massachusetts – until the phone rings….