What historic scandal had its roots in security guard Frank Wills discovering a taped latch of a basement door of an office complex?
"Times"", Wills quit his job because he did not receive a raise. He then struggled staying employed because media opportunities and appearances kept him away from work, most of which consisted of minimum wage jobs. Wills played himself in the 1976 film ""All the President's Men."" The book and film were based on Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's 1974 book accounting their investigation into the Watergate scandal. Wills also appeared briefly on the talk show circuit. Wills' log entry made on June 17, 1972 at 1:47 a.m. is memorialized in the . Over the next 20 years, Wills struggled to"
"to catch the couple in bed. Instead, the lights from the flash camera revealed the frightened occupant, 37-year-old secretary Florence Kotz Ross. Realizing their mistake, they quickly fled from the building. The police were called; however, because Kotz Ross was unable to identify the intruders, the case, then thought to be an attempted burglary, remained unsolved and was finally closed by the LAPD almost a year later. The entire incident came out in the September 1955 issue of ""Confidential"", which called it the ""Wrong Door Raid""; it became a legendary story in Hollywood gossip and caused embarrassment for all parties"
"Wills began to follow up with his supervisor's supervisor (he couldn't reach his own)—the person to whom he reported the tape on the level two basement door before he left for the Howard Johnson's. The tape was still there which prevented the door from locking. Shortly after reconnecting with his supervisor's supervisor, Wills called police, who arrived within minutes. The burglars had sneaked in, and arrests were quickly made. When Givner returned to his office at the DNC the following day—Saturday afternoon, around 3 p.m.—the sixth floor was swarming with police, FBI and other authorities. Givner let them know he"
"a piece of duct tape on one of the door locks when he was making his first round. The tape was placed over the latch bolt to prevent the door from latching shut. He removed the tape and continued on his patrol. Thirty minutes later, Wills returned to the door and noticed there was more tape on the same door. Without hesitation, Wills rushed up to the lobby telephone and asked for the Second Precinct police. The police turned off the elevators and locked the doors while accompanying Wills to search the offices one by one. Five men were found"
"lengthy delay led to the arrest of the burglars, which opened the floodgates to the Watergate investigation, ultimately culminating in the impeachment proceedings against Nixon. After his phone calls that evening, Givner finally turned off the lights on Saturday, June 17, 1972, at 12:05 a.m., he told numerous reporters over the years. He then bolted down the stairwell, where he began chatting in the lobby with Frank Wills, the security guard on duty at midnight at the Watergate. After some friendly small talk, Wills and Givner headed across the street to the Howard Johnson's restaurant for cheeseburgers, fries, and milkshakes."
"the grand-opening celebration for the building commences and the 125th-floor Tower Room is filled with high-profile guests from Congress, the U.N., Hollywood, and the Mayor's office. During the affair, while various authorities are arguing over the change orders and the possibility of evacuating the Tower Room, a disgruntled sheet-metal worker named John Connors, who has no idea of the thimble-rigging of the electrical system that had made it fall short of minimum safety standards, detonates a stolen bomb in the sub-basement transformer room of the giant building in order to disrupt the event and discredit the building and its owners."
"a private exhibit commemorating the break-in and ensuing scandal. The break-in at the Democratic National Headquarters was not the first break-in at the Watergate. The first break-in, however, shares a remarkable connection with the DNC burglary. The first break-in at the complex was the burglary of a residential unit in 1969. The victim was Rose Mary Woods, President Nixon's personal secretary. The burglars took jewelry and some personal items. Woods would later be accused of erasing 18 and a half minutes from President Nixon's secret Oval Office audio taping system—specifically, the tape from June 20, 1972, that proved central to"
"Teapot Dome scandal The Teapot Dome scandal was a bribery scandal involving the administration of United States President Warren G. Harding from 19211923. Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall had leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming, and two locations in California, to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding. The leases were the subject of a sensational investigation by Senator Thomas J. Walsh. Convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies, Fall became the first presidential cabinet member to go to prison; no one was convicted of paying the bribes. Before the Watergate scandal,"
"Frank Wills"" on WNYC. It was about the break-in at Watergate and ultimate resignation of President Richard M. Nixon, from the perspective of the security guard who found the first evidence. This was part of Kirkpatrick's full performance on Dave Sear's ""Folk and Baroque"" radio program, WNYC, which aired January 1, 1975. Kirkpatrick founded and hosted the Louisiana Folk Fest, to pull communities and families together and preserve their music. In 1978 the event was recorded by Smithsonian Folkways, the third recording Kirkpatrick made with them. It featured gospels and spirituals, sung by family and friends. Kirkpatrick moved with his"
"discovered a conspiracy to dynamite Cherokee County's records vault to hide fraudulent mortgages. McParland helped convict train robber Oliver Curtis Perry. He helped to apprehend a criminal who committed the largest bullion theft in U.S. history – $320,000 in gold from a San Francisco smelting company. In 1885, the Thiel Detective Agency opened an office in Denver. Allan Pinkerton, who had died two years earlier, left the Pinkerton Detective Agency to his sons. The brothers opened their fourth office in Denver in order to compete with Thiel. They assigned Charles O. Eames to head the Denver office. When it appeared"
"in a 1936 Works Progress Administration building described by ""TIME"" as ""rickety."" In the pre-dawn morning of March 5, 1959, a fire started in the dormitory of the Wrightsville facility. The doors in the dormitory were locked, so the boys could not escape. Charley Meadows, a 16-year-old night sergeant, broke open one window, allowing for egress. 48 boys managed to escape, while 21 died. The families of the deceased said that authorities told them that 14 of the dead boys were wrapped in newspapers and deposited in an unmarked grave. Some family members were skeptical of the account the officials"
"shared a wine locker at the Capital Grille in Washington D.C., a favorite lobbyists' retreat. Speaking on CNN, former Congressman Bob Barr (R-GA) suggested the corruption scandal as a possible reason behind CIA director Porter Goss's resignation. In May, the day after Goss' resignation, ""New York Daily News"" reported The investigations have focused on the Watergate poker parties thrown by defense contractor Brent Wilkes, a high-school buddy of Foggo's, that were attended by disgraced former Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham and other lawmakers. Foggo has claimed he went to the parties ""just for poker"" amid allegations that Wilkes, a top GOP"
"for acts of corruption and cronyism. Albert Fall was responsible for the Teapot Dome scandal. Teapot Dome was considered America’s biggest political scandal up until Watergate. The group met regularly at the infamous Little Green House on K Street. Also associated with the secret hide out was Jesse W. Smith who was said to have committed suicide because he faced scrutiny from Harding’s supporters about his activities. There is no information that proves that Harding knew of the scandals that were going on during his time in office. He may not have learned much of it until the eve of"
"Plame affair grand jury investigation The CIA leak grand jury investigation (related to the ""CIA leak scandal"", also known as the ""Plame affair"") was a federal inquiry ""into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee's identity"", a possible violation of criminal statutes, including the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, and Title 18, United States Code, Section 793. The ""CIA leak scandal"", or the ""Plame affair"", refers to a dispute stemming from allegations that one or more White House officials revealed Valerie Plame Wilson's covert CIA identity as ""Valerie Plame"" to reporters. In his July 14,"
"Fettesgate Fettesgate was the term given to a major scandal involving the Lothian and Borders Police force in the 1990s, from its Fettes Avenue headquarters near Fettes College in Edinburgh. The ""Fettesgate scandal"", as the incident was quickly called, began in the early hours of 19 July 1992, when burglars spent three hours in the Fettes headquarters of the police force. The break-in, through an unsecured window of the Scottish Crime Squad’s ground-floor offices in the HQ building, led to several confidential documents being stolen and Animal Liberation Front slogans being sprayed on the walls. Two journalists who reported on"
"trial cases. In 1875, Williams was supposed to prosecute the merchant house Pratt & Boyd for fraudulent customhouse entries. The Senate Judiciary Committee had found that Williams had dropped the case after his wife had received a $30,000 payoff. When informed of this, Grant forced Williams's resignation. Williams had also indiscreetly used Justice Department funds to pay for carriage and household expenses. The worst and most famous scandal to hit the Grant administration was the Whiskey Ring of 1875, exposed by Treasury Secretary Benjamin H. Bristow and journalist Myron Colony. Whiskey distillers had been evading taxes in the Midwest since"
"Hays for fear that he would shut off the air conditioning in their offices. In May 1976, the ""Washington Post"" broke the story quoting Elizabeth Ray, Hays's former secretary, saying that Hays hired her on his staff, and later gave her a raise as staff of the House Administration Committee for two years to serve as his mistress. Hays had divorced his wife of 38 years just months prior, and married his veteran Ohio office secretary, Patricia Peak, five weeks before the scandal broke. Ostensibly a secretary, Ray admitted: ""I can't type. I can't file. I can't even answer the"
"Watergate scandal The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal that occurred in the United States during the early 1970s, following a break-in by five men at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972, and President Richard Nixon's administration's subsequent attempt to cover up its involvement. After the five burglars were caught, and the conspiracy was discovered—chiefly through the work of a few journalists, Congressional staffers and an election-finance watchdog official—Watergate was investigated by the United States Congress. Meanwhile, Nixon's administration resisted its probes, which led to a constitutional"
"June 2005, a senior associate in the firm's London office, Richard Phillips, drew a considerable amount of media attention after it was revealed that the highly paid lawyer had been making a determined effort to have a £4 dry cleaning bill paid by a secretary who had accidentally splashed tomato ketchup on his trousers. In an open email, the secretary explained that she had been slow in attending to the matter due to the recent death and funeral of her mother. Before long, the story had been widely circulated throughout the City of London and beyond. Baker McKenzie is organized"
"the executive branch. The complex has been sold several times since the 1980s. In the 1990s, it was split up and its component buildings and parts of buildings were sold to various owners. In 1972, the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, then located on the sixth floor of the Watergate Office Building, was burglarized with documents photographed and telephones wiretapped. The investigation into the burglary revealed that high officials in the Nixon administration had ordered the break-in and then tried to cover up their involvement. Additional crimes were also uncovered. The ensuing Watergate scandal, named for the complex, led"
"recorded instance of night racing. Tilles was also associated with the cigar, real estate, stock, and brokerage businesses. In 1901, C.A.T. took ownership of the Delmar Investment Company, which among its holdings included a bucket shop. In 1909, bucket shops were declared illegal by the Anti-Bucket Shop Act of Congress. In 1910, Tilles and his partners at the Delmar Investment Company were arrested in the Western Union bucket shop scandal. Federal agents raided Western Union and uncovered a secret and illegal telegraph and ticker service for bucket shops across the country. In 1911, Tilles was extradited to Washington D.C. to"
"premises. Drilling machinery was brought in to open locked rooms and strongboxes. They immediately proceeded to the basement they had been tipped off about, recovered numerous classified documents, found it to be rigged with numerous anti-intruder devices and notices forbidding entry, for which the employees had no satisfactory explanation. A secret cypher room was discovered, that had no door handle and could only be entered with a key, wherein workers were hurriedly engaged in burning papers. A struggle then ensued when police tried to arrest remaining papers from staff. The chief of this room then attempted to pocket a list,"
"office was leased as cover for German spies seeking to prevent America's intervention in World War I (then called ""The Great War""). The plot involved an attempt to draw the United States into a diversionary war with Mexico and Japan. The plot was exposed on March 1, 1917, with news reports of an intercepted telegram decoded by British cryptographers, the notorious ""Zimmermann Telegram"", which prompted President Woodrow Wilson to declare war against Germany a month later. Shortly afterward, the entire building was leased by the Sinclair Oil Company, responsible for the Teapot Dome scandal of 1922. Prior to the 1974"
"White House retaliates. The ""Post"" and ""Times"" jointly appear before the Supreme Court to plead their First Amendment rights. Meanwhile, national newspapers pick up the story in solidarity with the ""Post"" and ""Times."" On June 30, 1971, the court rules 6–3 in the newspapers' favor, vindicating Graham's decision. Shortly after, Nixon demands that the ""Post"" be barred from the White House. One year later, on June 17, 1972 (two weeks before the first anniversary of the court’s ruling), security guard Frank Wills discovers a break-in in progress at the Watergate complex. In October 2016, Amy Pascal won a bid for"
"measure throughout his rumbustious life."" A production crew conducting research for ""Maxwell"", an eponymous biographical film by the BBC, uncovered tapes stored in a suitcase owned by his former head of security, John Pole. Later in his life, Maxwell had become increasingly paranoid of his own employees and had the offices of those he suspected of disloyalty wired so he could hear their conversations. After Maxwell's death, the tapes remained in Pole's suitcase and were only discovered by the researchers in 2007. Maxwell's death triggered a flood of instability, with banks frantically calling in their massive loans. His sons, Kevin"
"that keep me walking the floor nights!"" The only scandal which was openly discovered during Harding's lifetime was in the Veteran's Bureau. Yet the gossip became rampant after the suicides of Charles Cramer and Jess Smith. Harding responded aggressively to all of this with a mixture of grief, anger and perplexity. The most notorious scandal was Teapot Dome, most of which came to light after Harding's death. This affair concerned an oil reserve in Wyoming that was covered by a teapot-shaped rock formation. For years, the country had taken measures to ensure the availability of petroleum reserves, particularly for the"
"that lawyer Henry W. Sykes had sent a letter to Attorney General Carl Sherman requesting a conference over investigation into ""allegations that the Consolidated Stock Exchange was the headquarters of bucket shop operations."" The Ottinger investigation officially began in late May. In June 1923, the exchange was widely covered in the press when a court case resulted from the Fuller bankruptcy. Silkworth testified on June 6. Although Assistant Attorney General William F. McKenna failed to implicate Silkworth in the Fuller bankruptcy, he did uncover irregularities in Silkworth's personal finances. The irregularities showed he had made large deposits in March 1922,"
"Sanborn incident The Sanborn incident or Sanborn contract was an American political scandal which occurred in 1874. William Adams Richardson, President Ulysses S. Grant's Secretary of the Treasury, hired a private citizen, John B. Sanborn, a former Union General, to collect $427,000 in unpaid taxes. Richardson agreed Sanborn could keep half of what he collected. After extorting money from companies to pay back taxes by falsely making claims of tax evasion, Sanborn kept $213,000, of which $156,000 went to his various assistants. After an investigation by the Treasury Department discovered corruption, President Grant signed legislation making the practice illegal. In"
"national scandal which led to two Congressional investigations, several indictments for fraud and other crimes against Beck and Hoffa, strict new federal legislation and regulations regarding labor unions, and even helped launch the political career of Robert F. Kennedy. Believing he needed additional votes to unseat Beck, in October 1956 mobster Johnny Dio met with Hoffa in New York City and the two men conspired to create as many as 15 paper locals to boost Hoffa's delegate totals. When the paper locals applied for charters from the international union, Hoffa's political foes were outraged. A major battle broke out within"
"1978, had its genesis in the lounge when Lufthansa freight supervisor Louis Werner described to the assembled mob-connected customers how a fortune in valuable freight could be stolen despite Lufthansa's security, described as ""impregnable"". An estimated $5 million in currency and $875,000 in jewels were stolen in that robbery, described at the time as the ""largest cash robbery ever committed on American soil."" Lucchese crime family associate Henry Hill reported multiple mob victims were buried at the bar, describing it as Burke's private cemetery. In his book ""A Goodfella's Guide to New York"", Hill wrote of the bar, Under the"
"the United States from exploiting the [scandal]."" The publisher of ""The Sacramento Union"", John P. McGoff, said in January 1975 that the media overemphasized the scandal, though he called it ""an important issue,"" overshadowing more serious topics, like a declining economy and an energy crisis. Watergate scandal The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal that occurred in the United States during the early 1970s, following a break-in by five men at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972, and President Richard Nixon's administration's subsequent attempt to cover up"
"the Watergate scandal was unfolding. On Thursday, August 1, 1974, Chief of Staff Alexander Haig contacted Ford to tell him that ""smoking gun"" evidence had been found. This evidence was an Oval Office tape-recording of Nixon discussing a plan to impede the FBI's investigation by falsely claiming the break-in was a CIA operation. The tape left little doubt that President Nixon had been a part of the Watergate cover-up. At the time, Ford and his wife, Betty, were living in suburban Virginia, waiting for their expected move into the newly designated vice president's residence in Washington, D.C. However, ""Al Haig"
"(FBI) informant is a confidante. Mr. Wemette was a major testifying witness in The Family Secrets prosecution overseen by U. S. District Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. Mr. Flood, with such notable leaders as John Cassesse, former President of the New York Police Benevolent Association literally started the police labor union movement of the United States. After founding the Combined Counties Police Association (formerly known as the Cook County Police Association), John Flood led numerous police strikes in Illinois. The first was the Cicero police strike in 1969 with CCPA Officer John R. Marone. This strike was historic because it was the"