TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

He Rooted Out Local Corruption

ADVERTISEMENT

By DAVID SOMMER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 18, 2008

TAMPA - Former Hillsborough County State Attorney Bill James, whose career as a crusader against corruption included the federal indictment of three Hillsborough County commissioners, has died at 75.

James, who in 1995 retired to ski and hike in Colorado, died Monday at the University of Colorado Hospital in Denver, his widow, Gloria James, said Tuesday. He was airlifted to the teaching hospital for treatment of complications from a medical procedure performed May 29 near his home in Steamboat Springs, Colo.

An avid skier who took up the sport late in life, the St. Louis native first made his mark as an Olympic equestrian, competing at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland, his wife of almost 54 years recalled.

After his graduation from law school at Washington University in St. Louis in 1957, James worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Missouri before joining the FBI, working out of Milwaukee and New York City from 1961-64.

Former Drug Enforcement Administration director Francis "Bud" Mullen, who worked as an FBI agent prior to heading the federal drug agency in the 1980s, said he first met James when they were assigned to handle extortion, kidnapping and other cases out of Milwaukee in the early 1960s.

Mullen met up with James again in the 1970s, by which time James was chief assistant U.S. attorney for the Tampa Division of the Middle District of Florida.

He recalled that James put together a team of state and federal investigators that pinned the Oct. 23, 1975 murder of Tampa police Sgt. Richard L. Cloud on local mobsters upset at the then-disgraced officer's investigations of drug rings. Cloud's reputation subsequently was restored and mobster Anthony Antone died in the electric chair for ordering the killing.

"Bill was a unique person, no doubt about it," Mullen said from Connecticut on Tuesday. "I don't know many people who could do what he did getting all those federal agencies to work together" on the Cloud murder.

Just prior to coming to Tampa to work for General Telephone in the mid-1960s, James joined an FBI task force in Manhattan known as Ruckel's Raiders, recalled Tampa lawyer James Cusak, also a former FBI agent in New York City. The team did surveillance of militant and other groups considered to be suspicious, and James reportedly told friends a low point of his career was listening in on one of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s telephone conversations.

Digging Up Dirt On Commissioners

After heading the Tampa federal prosecutor's office from 1970-78, James took the lead in the independent federal Organized Crime Task Force, where he worked to win indictments of a majority of Hillsborough County commissioners in 1983, recalled Chris Hoyer, a longtime assistant and former law partner.

Previously, the task force had taken on ponzi schemes and set up an infamous sting in Pasco County later portrayed in the film "Donnie Brasco," said Hoyer, who heads a Tampa law firm that still bears James' name.

The indictments of Fred Arthur Anderson, Jerry Merle Bowmer and Joseph Henry Kotvas came after months of investigations into allegations the three commissioners were taking bribes for zoning changes and other favors for developers.

Former U.S. Attorney Bob Merkle later took over prosecuting the case. Bowmer turned federal informant while Anderson and Kotvas were convicted of plotting to take a $150,000 bribe to rezone 596 acres of pasture off North Dale Mabry Highway for a development called The Galleria.

In 1986, James became the first Republican to win the countywide office in at least a half-century when he unseated longtime Hillsborough State Attorney E.J. Salcines, now a judge with the 2nd District Court of Appeal. James served two terms and was unseated by the late Harry Lee Coe in 1992.

The 1986 campaign was bitter, with James accusing Salcines of choosing to overlook public corruption. But when he took office, James tried to retain a number of Salcines' top assistant prosecutors, recalled current Hillsborough State Attorney Mark Ober.

Ober, a Salcines loyalist, said he remains grateful that James promoted him and encouraged his growth as a prosecutor.

"This was a guy I actively campaigned against," Ober said Tuesday. "I've been fortunate to work for some good people, and he was a very good man."

Judy Hoyer, who worked with James and her husband at the state attorney's office, recalled how James pushed the office into the computer age.

Under his leadership, the conviction rate grew to be the best of any state attorney's office in Florida, Judy Hoyer recalled.

A Sharp Decline In Health
Gloria James said her husband's illness was sudden. He elected to have a gallstone removed on the advice of his doctor because the couple planned to fly to Paris this week for a family reunion and did not want him to suffer an attack while in Europe.

"I was with him," and their two surviving children were able to say their goodbyes, Gloria James said Tuesday.

Her husband thoroughly enjoyed retirement and had been "quite fit and healthy," she said.

One year, he was able to ski more than 100 days in a row, she said. This year, the weather would not allow that.

Bill James was an active volunteer, and his wife asked that well-wishers donate to his favorite charities rather than send flowers. James will be cremated, and the family will stage a memorial in Steamboat Springs this summer. A fall memorial in Tampa will be planned.

In addition to his wife, James is survived by a daughter, Christy of Tampa; a son, Bruce of Portland, Ore.; and two grandchildren. A second daughter, Barbara "Jamie," is deceased. Her husband, John Thorup of Steamboat Springs, remains close to the family, Gloria James said.

Donations can be made to the Humble Ranch Education & Therapy Center or the United Methodist Church Foundation, both of Steamboat Springs.

Researcher Diane A. Gray contributed to this story. Reporter David Sommer can be reached at dsommer@tampatrib.com or (727) 815-1087.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT