Was the Pennsylvanian Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer in fact guilty?

There has been a recent documentary about Dwyer: “Honest Man: The life of R. Budd Dwyer” which purports Dwyer to be innocent of his charges (Dwyer was convicted in 1986 of 11 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, perjury and interstate transportation in aid of racketeering). I don’t find the documentary convincing. Seems to be a case of “hey Dwyer was a nice guy, hence he wouldn’t break the law”; there is nothing really substantial in the documentary that points to Dwyer’s innocence. At one point the documentary looks a William T. Smith. Smith’s testimony in Dwyer’s trial played a substantial role in convicting Dwyer. In this documentary Smith recants his testimony. However, Smith is a notable liar… recanting testimony in front of a camera for a documentary (that is, with impunity) really doesn’t mean much.
What do others think?

Well, HE certainly thought so…

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I don’t know if this has a factual answer. Since the OP calls for opinions (what do others think), let’s move this to IMHO (from GQ).

By the way, here’s a previous thread on the topic:

I lived in WV not far from Pittsburgh at the time, so we mostly watched the Pittsburgh TV channels. Budd Dwyer was in the news, but it wasn’t exactly a huge story until his suicide. Still, it seemed that they were getting closer and closer to proving his guilt, and that was when he killed himself. I had the impression at the time that he was definitely guilty.

I’ve read quite a bit about him since then, and my impression is still that he was guilty.

Thanks, I read that post. Very good answer by Noel Prosequi, in particular.

I tend to agree with you. After the documentary “Honest Man” was released, it spawned a lot of comments of the type “Dwyer is innocent- he was framed”, he was set-up", “Dwyer’s now been exonerated” etc (most of these comments aren’t on the most authoritative sites by any means). However, looking at the totality of evidence available, there is little doubt that he was guilty. Even his suicide was indicative of his tendency to manipulate the system for his own gain- by committing suicide he (his family) acquired a pension that, upon his conviction, he was not entitled to.

I remember seeing his suicide on TV, and being shocked that it was shown. Thinking back, I feel like I was a little kid at the time. Doing the math, I was a month short of my 29th birthday.

I remember seeing it as well. In detail at first and then edited later. When the press conference was first announced I expected it to be him taking some sort of “guilty-falling-on-my-sword” thing because I felt at the time (and still do) he was guilty on some level if not each specific charge. That he swallowed his gun on TV surprised the crap out of me.

If he wasn’t guilty, then his defense strategy was…counterproductive.

Man, it was a nice shot though.

That’s why I say hey man, nice shot.

He saved some face.

You didn’t see the suicide live on tv. We’ve done this one to death.

Not much, maybe some around his left eye.

I was reading the Berenstein Bears, glanced up, and saw . . .

ETA: did I say “live”? It was shown on tv, wasn’t it?

Indeed it was. Some stations chose to air the entire thing in all its gory detail as early as noon newscast, barely an hour after it happened. And lots of kids were home from school to watch it because of a snowstorm. Gotta love TV news. http://articles.mcall.com/1987-06-21/news/2571067_1_treasurer-budd-dwyer-suicide-abc-affiliate

Everyone has mentioned his ridicuolous stunt of killing himself in public, so I’ll add my two cents. Dwyer killed himself chiefly to allow his family to get his pension.

There were two reasons why he did it in public:

  1. Dwyer’s crimes were no doubt common, and many did evade punishment for such crimes. He felt it unjust that he was convicted whilst others were getting away with such crimes (or perhaps crimes of a greater magnitude). Somehow he believed that there was a conspiracy, even though there was none. Additionally, the media, he thought, were out to get him (this perhaps was true). His suicide was an aggressive act towards them intended to cause feelings of guilt.

  2. Dwyer knew that if he committed suicide in a private area he would definitely look guilty. So, in order to offset the impression that he was guilty, he committed suicide not in private, but in public, with the hopes that it would then appear that he actually was innocent. He further tried to cover up this ploy by writing his long winded diatribe about political corruption, urging people to look at the justice system etc. No doubt some of what he stated was true, and he did believe it, yet I think most of his talk about “political corruption” “let’s fix the justice system” was intended to cover up the fact that a guilty man was committing suicide in public.

So I guess you could say the footage was …

:cool:

Filtered. YEEEAAAAHHHHH!

Well played.

Neither person you quoted claimed to see the suicide live, so I’m not really sure what point is of this comment.

The first reports on one of the stations (I would think 2 or 11 based on my viewing habits at the time) basically showed the full suicide. After the complaints (I assume) they edited the event to just after he pulled the gun from the envelope and started his last statements.

Clarity; I know Sam from real life and its just his habit. No offense taken on my part at least. This is one of those events reported after the fact that memories (as we age) want to make live even though they were (to paraphrase an old commercial) Memorex. :wink: Now had PCN covered such things at the time all bets would be off. But at the time all we got was Breaking News after the shot.

It’s hard to fathom a network making the call to televise that. I’m not sure it would fly today.