On January 22, 1987, R. Budd Dwyer, the 70th Treasurer of Pennsylvania, committed suicide during a press conference in his office in the Pennsylvania Finance Building. His suicide was broadcast to many television viewers throughout Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley.
While serving as state treasurer in 1984, Dwyer awarded a $4.6 million contract to data processing company Computer Technology Associates (CTA) to help compensate Pennsylvania employees who overpaid federal taxes because of errors in state withholding. An investigation determined Dwyer accepted a bribe to give CTA the contract over more experienced and less expensive competitors, which would have resulted in Pennsylvania losing $6 million if the scheme was successful.
In December 1986, he was found guilty on counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, perjury, and interstate transportation in aid of racketeering, and was scheduled to be sentenced on January 23, 1987, facing 55 years in prison and a fine of up to $300,000. The day before his sentencing, Dwyer arranged a press conference in his office in the Pennsylvania Finance Building, where he drew a gun and shot himself in the presence of reporters. His lawyers made posthumous appeals on his behalf, but all were denied, and his convictions were sustained.
Background
CTA scandal From 1979 to 1981, before Dwyer was state treasurer, public employees of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania overpaid millions of dollars in Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) taxes. As a result, the state required an accounting company to determine refunds for its employees. Dwyer awarded the no-bid $4.6 million contract to Computer Technology Associates (CTA), a California-based data processing company, owned by John Torquato Jr., a native of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on May 10, 1984.
During early 1984, Dennis Schatzman, deputy comptroller of Pittsburgh Public Schools, noticed financial discrepancies in the CTA contract, and wrote to Pittsburgh school officials regarding these. Schatzman later contacted officials of the accounting company Arthur Young and Associates, who confirmed that the no-bid CTA contract was overpriced by millions of dollars. In June 1984, the Office of the Pennsylvania Auditor General informed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the alleged bribery that occurred during the awarding of the contract.
During late July 1984, Janice R. Kincaid, a former CTA employee, released a sworn statement claiming that Dwyer awarded the contract to CTA because he was promised a $300,000 kickback by the company. Kincaid also indicated that Torquato directed female CTA employees to give sexual favors to potential clients. Torquato was also said to have targeted multiple other state and local officials in Pennsylvania for bribes, including Pennsylvania Attorney General LeRoy Zimmerman.
Dwyer's awarding of the CTA contract was investigated by federal prosecutors. Upon learning of this investigation, Dwyer rescinded the contract with CTA on July 11, 1984. Subsequently, Dwyer repeatedly attempted to stop, divert and forestall the investigation, stating that the U.S. attorney had neither the authority nor evidence to pursue prosecution. Dwyer later admitted to telling his staff to withhold request for proposal (RFP) information from the U.S. attorney and the FBI during the investigation. After being indicted by a federal grand jury, Dwyer was finally charged with agreeing to receive a kickback of $300,000 in return for awarding CTA the contract.
It was revealed at Dwyer's trial that he sought and won approval for special legislation—Act 38 of 1984 (House Bill 1397)—that authorized him to recover the FICA overpayments, and that coded computer tape seized from CTA's office on July 6, 1984, showed that Dwyer was to receive a $300,000 pay-off for awarding CTA the contract. Moreover, Smith and Torquato's claims about Dwyer being bribed were corroborated by four independent and impartial witnesses, and Smith's testimony against Dwyer was virtually identical to written statements Smith made long before entering into a plea agreement. Additionally, FBI agents testified that Dwyer attempted to conceal his involvement with the scheme when, after learning of the FBI investigation, he erased the entry in his appointment book of the March 2, 1984, meeting with Torquato and Smith in which he was first offered a bribe.
Conviction On December 18, 1986, Dwyer was found guilty on 11 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, perjury and interstate transportation in aid of racketeering, and was consequently liable to a sentence of as much as 55 years imprisonment and a $300,000 fine. His sentencing was scheduled for January 23, 1987, to be performed by U.S. District Court.
Final press conference In a meeting in his home on January 15, 1987, Dwyer discussed the idea of a press conference with his press secretary, James "Duke" Horshock, and Deputy Treasurer, Don Johnson. At the meeting, both Horshock and Johnson cautioned Dwyer not to use the conference to attack the governor, or other individuals involved with his criminal conviction, and both suggested to Dwyer that he should have the conference at a location other than his office. Dwyer angrily rejected their suggestion, but nevertheless assured both men that he would not attack anybody involved with his conviction. He said that he would not announce his resignation at the conference, but rather thank his staff and friends. Both men left assuming Dwyer would ultimately resign at the conference, although Horshock had fears that Dwyer would break his promise.
The next day, Dwyer and his wife, Joanne, visited his lawyer, Paul Killion, who told Dwyer to express repentance for his crimes. Dwyer responded by agreeing to change his version of events, which was to be presented to Judge Muir at Dwyer's pre-sentencing conference scheduled for the afternoon of January 22. During the meeting, Killion became concerned about Dwyer, and confided in Joanne, asking if Dwyer were capable of harming himself, to which Joanne responded by saying that he "loves life too much." Dwyer later saw Killion again, gave him an updated version of events, and stated that he would announce his resignation at the press conference, yet did not want Killion to attend the conference.
On January 20, Dwyer wrote a letter to then-Senator and future U.S. president Joe Biden and Congressman Peter W. Rodino, who were at the time the chairmen of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Judiciary Committee respectively, asking them to conduct an investigation into the CTA affair, to reform the justice system in the United States, and if this was not done, to completely remove the word "justice" from everything related to the DOJ. The same day, Dwyer was visited by his personal friends, bail bondsman Harvey Childs and his wife Linda, during which Dwyer claimed that he could not have taken a bribe because he could not have accounted for it, and watched the inauguration of Governor Bob Casey on television, lamenting that he should have been Lieutenant Governor for William Scranton III, the Republican candidate who lost the gubernatorial election to Casey.
Dwyer finally reached U.S. Senator Arlen Specter by telephone on January 21, two days before his sentencing. A Specter aide stated that the two of them talked for eight to ten minutes. He then wrote personally to President Ronald Reagan asking for a presidential pardon. In his letter, Dwyer once again professed his innocence and stated that the concept of immediate credit was not understood by the uneducated, unsophisticated "rural" jury at his trial. The senator responded that this request to President Reagan was "not realistic" because the judicial process, including appeals, had not yet finished. On the same day, Dwyer asked his press secretary Horshock and deputy press secretary Gregory Penny to schedule a news conference for the next day without telling them what he was to discuss. Horshock arranged the press conference for 10:30 a.m. EST the next day, January 22. The press secretary summoned dozens of reporters asking them to attend, and told them he did not know its subject.
Dwyer wanted to ban certain reporters from the press conference who he believed wrote biased accounts about him and even suggested that a guard should be in attendance to prevent entry to those who were not on his authorized list. Unconvinced that Dwyer was the victim of a conspiracy, Horshock objected, telling Dwyer he could not "use state government facilities to manipulate the free flow of information". Before the press conference, acting U.S. Attorney West, who had secured the conviction against Dwyer, remarked that a resignation "sounds like the appropriate thing to do under the circumstances. It seems like it would save everybody a lot of time and aggravation." Similarly, Harrisburg Patriot-News reporter Kenn Marshall described the consensus among reporters: they would be attending to see Dwyer announce his resignation from his office. Marshall recalled, "My mission was to stay there until he said those words, then call in a new top for our story." The night before the press conference, Dwyer wrote the following note: "I enjoy being with Jo so much, the next 20 years or so would have been wonderful. Tomorrow is going to be so difficult and I hope I can go through with it."
Press statement
The next morning, Dwyer went to his press conference as planned. Standing behind a large wood table that separated him from nine television cameras, four wire service photographers and about 20 television, radio and newspaper reporters, he began reading from a 21-page prepared text, while aides handed a 20-page version to the media. The final page was expected to be his announcement that he would resign from office. Appearing agitated, Dwyer again professed his innocence and accused acting U.S. Attorney James West, FBI agents, U.S. District Court Judge Malcolm Muir, the media and others for abusing the justice system and ruining him. Dwyer alleged that his legal woes were political persecution due to his refusal to grant a travel voucher for Governor Dick Thornburgh's wife for her trip to Europe, alleging that Thornburgh had said that he would "get Dwyer" and that Thornburgh had referred to him as "the fat fuck". Dwyer stated that Attorney West purposely held his trial not in Harrisburg but in Williamsport, due to it being located in Lycoming County, one of the most uneducated counties in Pennsylvania. Dwyer spoke out against the death penalty and expressed regret for voting in favor of it while he was in the Pennsylvania assembly. This speech lasted nearly 30 minutes, and approximately halfway through it, some of the gathered press began to pack and leave. Dwyer spotted this and interrupted himself to say, "Those of you who are putting your cameras away, I think you ought to stay because we're not, we're not finished yet."
Given the sensitive nature of portions of Dwyer's text, press secretary Horshock had considered interrupting him outright to stop him but concluded that he would hold his own press conference after Dwyer's. "I had to make it known that I was not aware of the content of the statement. I didn't want it to be thought that I wrote that for him." Upon reaching the final page of his statement, which had not been distributed to the press nor press secretary Horshock in advance, Dwyer paused. "And I'm on the last page now, and I don't have enough to pass out, but Duke [Horshock], I'll leave this here, and you can make copies for the people; there's a few extra copies here right now." Dwyer continued:
At this point in time, Dwyer paused reading from his prepared remarks, with the gathered press still waiting on his expected resignation. There was still a significant portion of the prepared text remaining, which revealed that he was actually planning to commit suicide. Dwyer did not read the following section aloud: