“That’s why I called Carver in, but he claimed he talked to the governor only about the project and that Morris’s name never came up. I didn’t really have anything from what Bill told me, but if I can get Fred Rice to talk, we might just have ole Pinckney by the balls.
“I’ll tell you something else, but you’ll have to take it on background—no attribution to me. The attorney general has been building a case against Schmid ever since he issued a couple real smelly pardons last year. I know some other county D.A.’s have been alerted too, and if I’m not mistaken, there’ll be a grand jury impaneled soon.”
“What can I write?”
“Depends what else you have. You know Schmid talked to three people here who had relatives up for pardon, you identified two—Weller and Willink—over at Manville, and I bet you can make the same kind of connection at Severs and in the city. If I were you, I’d talk to the A.G. before writing anything, but I’ll be glad to call him and vouch for the help you’ve given here.”
I could see a lot more work ahead. I thanked Phlager and went back to the pay phone for another call to Swift. I had to wait for him to come on the line, and when he did he was one excited Brit.
“Get back here instantly, Bob, this thing is breaking right now. Tandee got lucky. He found the wife of one of the men who was pardoned, Stampel, I believe, and after he told her that there were rumors of pardons being sold for five and six hundred dollars, she blew up and told him—on tape—if you can believe it, old man—that her family paid one thousand two hundred dollars, and she wanted to know why they were charged twice the going price.
“We transcribed the tape over the phone and Cindy Korth took it over to the attorney general at the Capitol. He wouldn’t comment on the record but told her he’d be having a press conference tomorrow.
“Give me a quick rundown on anything you have and then get back here. We’re going big with this.”
It took me about twenty minutes to dictate what I had from Phlager, and then I spent two hours on the road trying to frame the story in my mind. There was no need. When I got back to the paper, Swift had started the main story with a triple byline (my name, Cindy Korth, and Rip Tandee), a sidebar with the Stampel transcription, and laid out headlines and pictures for a three-page spread that would have done justice to the end of a World War.
“Why don’t you just put Granville Swift on the story?” I asked after glancing over the layout. “Seems to me you don’t need me for anything here.”
“Oh, don’t get your nose out of joint, old boy,” Swift replied. “We’ve got a paper to get out and there’s no time to stand on ceremony. Now, pick up where I’ve left off on the main story and finish it up in another two columns. This has to be read over by the bloody lawyers before we can go with it.”
I sat down at the computer and read what Swift had written. It was feverish prose, but careful—never quite accusing Schmid of taking bribes while leaving no real doubt. All I had to do with the story was fill in some of the details of the trip and weave in the background of the investigation from Phlager.
After an hour, I was finished and pushed the computer file button. Then I picked up the phone and called Chet Lewis in Manville to repay a favor.
“Thanks a lot, Bob, but you didn’t have to hurry,” Lewis said after I filled him in. “This is a weekly, remember, and if the Second Coming happened on Monday, we’d still print it on Thursday. But this will give us some time to develop the local angles.”
By that time, the pages were dummied and the front was, to say the least, eye-catching. Across the top, over a file picture of the governor, was a headline in three-inch type, printed red:
GOV. SCHMID: ARE PARDONS FOR SALE?
Below the photo, just in case anyone wondered about the question, was another headline of the same size in black:
CONVICTS’ KIN PAY UP TO $1200
And finally, taking up the rest of the tabloid page, a third headline in slightly smaller type:
STATE A.G. SETS PROBE
Page two was devoted to pictures of the men who were pardoned, plus Kenny Rice, Meyer Knowles, and Ned Willink. The best touch was a shot dug out of the files showing the governor touring a cell block at the state pen.
The story started on page three, and I had to admit it was a masterpiece of its type:
Scandal in the form of an alleged pardon-selling scheme Monday hit the administration of Gov. A. P. Schmid like a tornado off the prairie.
State Attorney General Markham Lee was expected to announce today that evidence of the scheme, much of it gathered by the Capital Register & Press, would be submitted to a grand jury. Sources said some of the state’s highest-ranking officials could be implicated. “Heads will roll,” a Capitol insider predicted. “Some big shots are going to be going to jail.”
(I asked Cindy the next day where that quote had come from. “Right here,” she said. “Swift showed me the copy and when I said I didn’t have any such quote, told me, ‘Well, that’s what Capitol insiders will be saying when they see this.’”)
Rumors of a pardon-selling conspiracy have been under official investigation for nearly a year, but it was investigative reporting by this newspaper’s staff that broke it open in the last week.
A statement, recorded by a Capital Press & Register staff photographer, from the wife of a man pardoned only last Friday, provided the spark that impelled the attorney general to act. It was understood that other key evidence, assembled by several law enforcement officers around the state, also has been submitted to the state’s highest legal officer.
“There’s too much smoke here for there not to be a fire,” one official said. “We’ve got the goods and more is coming.”
(Cindy said the “official” was the same person as the “Capitol insider.” She told me, “Swift was mad as hell at me for not getting some quotes from Lee. He just went ahead and made it up.”)
Efforts by this newspaper to get comment on the matter from Governor Schmid were unavailing. Phillip Goldberg, the governor’s spokesman, said, “We haven’t got anything on that, and if we did I doubt we would be giving it to your paper. Your vendetta against this administration is well known.”
Shigetsu Shiu, publisher of the Capital Register & Press, replied to Goldberg’s charge in a statement: “This newspaper has vendettas against no one. We are interested in the truth and under the First Amendment we intend to publish it when we find it.”
(“Swift wrote that too,” Cindy said. “Shiu wasn’t even in town. I heard he flew down to Chicago… hey, did you know he was a pilot?”)
The recorded statement by Mrs. Helen Stampel, whose husband had been serving a five-year term for embezzlement from a city records office, was turned over to the attorney general’s office by the Capital Register & Press.
In it, Mrs. Stampel said her family had paid $1,200 to secure a pardon for Edward Stampel last week. She said she was contacted by a high state official at a center for senior citizens and told that a “contribution” of that amount would help Stampers cause at a pardon hearing held Friday at the state penitentiary in Water-town.
This was the point where I picked up the story Swift had started. It went on to recount the Rice episode, substituting “a high state official” for Schmid’s name, and summarized the other encounters with relatives of prisoners during the week, plus the background provided by Phlager. Swift told me, “We cant name Schmid in this story, but we can do everything to point at him.”