Louis Wolfson - Legal Troubles

Legal Troubles

In 1967 and 1968, he was convicted by two different federal juries on charges stemming from stock sales. The first conviction arose when Wolfson sold unregistered shares in Continental Enterprises, Inc. to the public. Continental Enterprises was an unlisted company that he controlled. He never denied the charges but argued that the law was misapplied in his case. The second conviction was for charges of perjury and obstruction of justice during a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into Merritt-Chapman. He served nine months at the at the Federal Bureau of Prisons Federal Prison Camp, Eglin, Eglin Air Force Base. He also paid a substantial fine.

Wolfson started a charitable foundation, which in 1966 paid Supreme Court Justice and Wolfson friend Abe Fortas a $20,000 lifetime annual retainer for unspecified consultation. Researchers suspect this sum may have represented an attempted bribery to secure Fortas's assistance with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Wolfson had appealed his conviction all the way to the Supreme Court. Although the Supreme Court had refused to review his conviction and Fortas did not participate in that decision, it was viewed as an attempt to buy his way out of a conviction. Controversy surrounded Fortas and he returned the $20,000 retainer and ultimately resigned from the Supreme Court in 1969.

In 1971, Wolfson was in the news again. He filed a complaint against Larry King -- then a Miami radio host, now a CNN personality—for allegedly pocketing $5,000, part of a $25,000 payment destined for New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who was investigating President John F. Kennedy's assassination. King was arrested for grand-larceny, but criminal charges were eventually dismissed because the statute of limitations had run out. However, King was fired after Wolfson wrote to TV and radio executives at WTVJ & WIOD claiming that King was "a menace to the public," and that his employers should pay for King’s "treatment in a mental institution for six months so he can do no further harm in this community or any other." Wolfson and King had been friends until King admitted that he had tricked Wolfson into giving him $48,500 to influence President Richard Nixon's incoming US Attorney General, John N. Mitchell, into reviewing Wolfson's conviction.