R. Budd Dwyer: The Press Conference, the Bribery Case and What's Still Disputed
Updated: Oct 10
At 10.30 on the morning of 22 January 1987, Pennsylvania’s state treasurer stood behind a podium in his office in Harrisburg and started talking. R. Budd Dwyer was due to be sentenced the next day on bribery charges. Every reporter in the room thought he was about to resign.
He wasn’t. About half an hour later he took a revolver from an envelope and shot himself in front of them, with the cameras still running. He was 47.
Quick Answers
Who was R. Budd Dwyer? A Republican politician who’d been Pennsylvania’s elected state treasurer since 1981.
What was he convicted of? Eleven counts including conspiracy, mail fraud and perjury, over a state contract awarded in return for a promised $300,000 kickback.
When did he die? On 22 January 1987, the day before he was due to be sentenced.
Was it broadcast live? No. Cameras were recording for later bulletins, and stations then had to decide how much to show.
Was the conviction ever overturned? No. His lawyers tried to have it wiped after his death and failed.
Did his family keep his pension? Yes. Because he died before sentencing, his widow was awarded a death benefit of about $1.3 million.
From Schoolteacher to State Treasurer
Dwyer grew up in Meadville in north-west Pennsylvania, went to college there and taught in a local school. He was elected to the state House in 1964 and to the state Senate in 1970. In 1980 he won the race for treasurer. Reporters who covered him found him jovial and easy to like.
The CTA Contract
In the early 1980s Pennsylvania discovered that its school districts and their staff had overpaid Social Security taxes. Somebody had to work out who was owed what. On 10 May 1984 Dwyer’s department gave the job to Computer Technology Associates, a small California firm run by a Pennsylvanian called John Torquato Jr.
There was no competitive bidding. The contract was worth around $5 million, and a federal appeals court later noted that a national accounting firm had offered to do the same work for substantially less.
Within days the governor, Dick Thornburgh, had an anonymous memo alleging bribes. The FBI began investigating in July and Dwyer cancelled the contract. He was re-elected that November regardless, a month after the first indictments in the case.
Prosecutors said Torquato had promised $300,000, described as a campaign contribution, to be split between Dwyer, his re-election campaign and the state Republican Party. The appeals court’s account describes money offered and doesn’t say any of it was paid.
The Trial
Dwyer was indicted in May 1986. He was offered a deal: plead guilty to a single count carrying a maximum of five years, resign and cooperate. He turned it down.
He stood trial alongside Robert Asher, the state Republican chairman. The key witnesses were Torquato, who’d pleaded guilty, and William Smith, a lawyer and former county party chairman who’d been Torquato’s go-between.
Smith is the reason people still argue about this case. At his own trial in 1985 he denied offering Dwyer anything, and was convicted and given 12 years. He then agreed to cooperate, partly to keep his wife from being prosecuted and partly for a recommendation that his sentence be cut to about two years. At Dwyer’s trial he said the opposite: the bribe was offered and Dwyer accepted.
On 18 December 1986 the jury convicted Dwyer on 11 counts. He faced up to 55 years. Sentencing was set for 23 January.
22 January 1987
By then Dwyer was broke. He’d given up his $58,000 salary on conviction and was planning to sell the family home to pay his lawyers. He’d also written to Senator Arlen Specter asking for help with a presidential pardon. Specter rang him the day before the press conference and told him the idea was “not at all realistic”.
Three to four dozen reporters and staff squeezed into his office the next morning. Dwyer spoke for about half an hour. He went through his record, said again that he was innocent and criticised the judge, the prosecutor and the press. When he sensed the room getting restless, he asked the camera crews to keep filming.
Then he called three aides forward and gave each an envelope. They turned out to contain funeral instructions, an organ donor card and a letter asking the new governor, Bob Casey, to appoint his wife Joanne in his place. A fourth envelope held the gun.
People shouted at him to stop. He held out an arm to keep them back, and it was over within about 15 seconds. He was pronounced dead at 11.31am.
The last page of his prepared statement had been held back and was handed out afterwards. In it he said he was dying in office to draw attention to a justice system he believed had failed him, and predicted that shallow people would see only the “story of the decade” he’d once promised reporters.
Fred Cusick of the Philadelphia Inquirer was in the front row. He later said he should have grabbed Dwyer the moment the envelope came out, because he “knew that was it”.
The unedited footage is below. It shows his death and it’s as disturbing as you’d expect, so think carefully before you press play.
What Television Did Next
It’s often said that Dwyer died on live television. He didn’t. The cameras were recording for the lunchtime and evening news, which left every newsroom in the state with a tape and a decision.
WPXI in Pittsburgh showed the whole thing once, after a three-minute warning, and then said it wouldn’t do so again. Snow had closed schools that day, so plenty of children were at home. Rival station KDKA stopped the tape early, told viewers the rest was “too horrible” to show and took more than 100 calls thanking it.
The national networks all declined to show the moment itself. A later study of 20 Pennsylvania stations found that 18 of them made much the same cut for their evening bulletins. One used no footage at all. One showed his death.
The Pension
Under Pennsylvania law a public official convicted of corruption forfeits their pension. Most lawyers took the view that Dwyer wouldn’t count as convicted until he’d been sentenced. A friend told reporters he’d been worrying about exactly that.
In April 1987 the State Employees’ Retirement Board awarded Joanne Dwyer a death benefit of about $1.3 million. His press secretary, Duke Horshock, thought money was only part of it.
Was Budd Dwyer Innocent?
His family always said so. In 2010 the director James Dirschberger released a documentary, Honest Man: The Life of R. Budd Dwyer, which includes Joanne’s final interview before her death in 2009. Paste magazine’s review called it sympathetic to Dwyer while leaving the verdict to the viewer.
The film is often cited online as proof that Smith admitted lying about Dwyer taking the bribe. That goes further than the record does. What’s documented is that Smith told two different stories under oath, first at his own trial and then at Dwyer’s, and that he had strong reasons to help the prosecution the second time. Which version you believe is the whole argument.
The courts never revisited it. Dwyer’s lawyers asked for the conviction to be wiped because he’d died before he could appeal. In March 1987 the trial judge, Malcolm Muir, refused. In August 1988 the appeals court ruled that the lawyers had no standing to act for a dead client. Asher’s convictions
were upheld.
The Song
Richard Patrick of the band Filter saw the footage when he was 22 and wrote Hey Man Nice Shot about it. When the single came out in 1995, a year after Kurt Cobain’s death, a lot of people assumed it was about him. Patrick has said repeatedly that it wasn’t.
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