Gil Dozier

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Gil Dozier
Louisiana Commissioner of Agriculture and Forestry
In office
May 10, 1976 – March 10, 1980
Preceded byDave L. Pearce
Succeeded byBob Odom
Personal details
Born
Gilbert Lynel Dozier

(1934-03-19)March 19, 1934
Fields, Beauregard Parish
Louisiana, USA
DiedSeptember 23, 2013(2013-09-23) (aged 79)
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Cause of deathCardiovascular disease
Resting placeNewlin Cemetery in Singer in Beauregard Parish
Political partyDemocratic
SpouseJean Helen Kirkland Dozier
Domestic partnerTreva Lea Tidwell
RelationsGilbert Franklin Hennigan (maternal grandfather)
Toby O'Rillion (uncle by marriage)
ChildrenSusan Laborde

Denise Dupre
Leslie Lynelle Dozier
Carrie Johns
Gilbert Hennigan Dozier

Fifteen grandchildren
Parent(s)A. J. and Sylvia Mae Hennigan Dozier
Residence(s)St. Francisville
West Feliciana Parish
Louisiana (moved 2011)

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Lafayette, Louisiana
Alma materUniversity of Louisiana at Lafayette
Louisiana State University Law Center
OccupationLawyer; businessman
farmer,
Captain

Lieutenant colonel

Gilbert Lynel "Gil" Dozier (March 19, 1934

rancher who served from 1976 to 1980 as the Louisiana Commissioner of Agriculture and Forestry. A Democrat, Dozier's political career ended with felony convictions and imprisonment for nearly four years. Most of his adult life was spent in and about Baton Rouge
, Louisiana.

Family background

Dozier was one of two sons born in rural Fields in Beauregard Parish in southwestern Louisiana to the educators A. J. Dozier (1907–1997) and the former Sylvia Mae Hennigan (1910–1977). Dozier's brother, Kenneth Rufus Dozier (born 1938) of DeRidder, is partly named for their paternal grandfather, Rufus Dozier. Sylvia Dozier's mother, the former Myrtie Mae Whitman, died before her fortieth birthday in 1927 in childbirth with her ninth pregnancy.[2] Sylvia's father, Gilbert Franklin Hennigan, for whom Gil Dozier received his first name, was a rancher, a member and president of the Beauregard Parish School Board, and from 1944 to 1956 a state senator for Allen, Calcasieu, Cameron, Jefferson Davis, and Beauregard parishes.[3]

As chairman of the Senate Education Committee, Hennigan was instrumental in the upgrading in 1950 of

runoff election won by Roy R. Theriot, then the mayor of Abbeville in Vermilion Parish
. O'Rillion was running to succeed Dodd in the former position of state auditor, renamed comptroller. With the new state constitution of 1974, the comptroller position became non-elected.

A. J. Dozier obtained a master's degree from the

Minden High School in Minden in Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana, whose team won the Class AA state championship in 1963. The Kellys, who married in 1940, had three children, David Kelly, Kathy Kelly Hynson of Rosenberg, Texas, and Debby Kelly-Hiebert, Gil Dozier's step-siblings. The Kellys were science teachers in Minden; both had earlier been on the faculty at DeRidder High School. After Elton's death, Elizabeth, or "Libby," retired from teaching, became a registered dietitian and worked at various medical facilities in the DeRidder area. She also managed a small apartment complex. She died in 2008 at the age of ninety in Needville in Fort Bend County, Texas.[5][6]

Education and military

Dozier played basketball from 1952 to 1955 for the

Ragin' Cajuns of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, when the institution was known as the University of Southwestern Louisiana.[7][8]
He obtained his bachelor's degree from ULL in 1955.

From 1957 to 1959,

captain and then lieutenant colonel. He was trained in North Carolina and stationed in California, where the two older of his five children by the former Jean Helen Kirkland of Plaquemine in Iberville Parish were born. A pilot at the age of twenty-four, Dozier commanded aircraft in the military transport service and flew missions to South Korea, Japan, Hawaii, Southeast Asia, and the Bering Strait.[9] From 1965 until at least 1980, he was a member of the Air Force Reserve.[1]

After his military service, Dozier graduated from the

Reserve Officers Training Corps program while earning his Juris Doctor degree at night.[10]

Political career

As a youth, Dozier was a page and then legislative assistant for his grandfather, State Senator Gilbert Hennigan. In 1971–1972, he was the campaign manager for

J. Bennett Johnston, Jr., then of Shreveport was elected to succeed Ellender in the 1972 general election. In 1974, Dozier ran unsuccessfully for the Louisiana Public Service Commission.[9]

In 1965, Dozier established a law office in Baton Rouge.

runoff in Louisiana) contest with Dozier, who therefore won the position outright.[11] A third candidate was the outgoing State Representative Lantz Womack of Winnsboro in Franklin Parish, who like Pearce had roots in West Carroll Parish in northeastern Louisiana.[12]

Though Dozier had planned to run for governor in the 1979 nonpartisan blanket primary in which no incumbent was listed on the ballot, his ensuing legal problems and unsavory headlines made such a race highly speculative. In 1976, he had given an emergency appointment to the radio broadcaster and campaign consultant, R. T. "Dan" Hanchey, with the idea that Hanchey would manage the gubernatorial campaign. Hanchey, whose broadcasting career included stints in Mobile, Alabama, and New Orleans, recalls that he left the post when Dozier's legal troubles began to surmount.[13]

Dozier instead ran for reelection as agriculture commissioner in the primary held on October 27, 1979. Agribusinessman and fellow Democrat

Louisiana Republican State Central Committee, also ran in the 1979 primary. Rawls carried a hoe during the campaign as a reminder of his promise to "promote, protect, and advance the Agriculture Department."[14] Rawls finished far behind the three leading Democrats. Odom prevailed with 563,515 votes (45.9 percent) to Dozier's 382,486 (31.1 percent). Pearce polled 163,873 (13.4 percent), Rawls 67,021 (5.5 percent), and 50,045 votes (4 percent) were cast for still another Democrat, Joe Coco.[15]

In the general election held on December 8, 1979, Odom handily unseated Dozier, 853,578 (67.2 percent) to 415,714 (32.8 percent). The general election drew some 43,000 more voters in the agriculture commissioner's race than had participated in the first round of balloting. Dozier's percent hardly changed from the primary to the general election.[16]

Legal troubles

The month after his defeat for reelection, Dozier was formally charged in a five-count indictment with violations of both the Hobbs and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations acts. On September 23, 1980, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana convicted Dozier of extortion and racketeering. The sentence of ten years imprisonment and a $25,000 fine was suspended pending appeal, and Dozier remained free on bail.[17] Among specific instances of extortion cited: Dozier sought $25,000 in 1977 from Nicholas Fakouri and the Vermillion Dairymen's Cooperative Association in Abbeville in Vermilion Parish in return for a loan guarantee from the Louisiana State Market Commission. He also attempted to extort $20,000 in 1976 from the Louisiana Computer Company in return for favorable treatment from the state. In all the incidents specifically cited, Dozier maintained that "his various solicitations were nothing more than the ordinary fundraising activities of a public official faced with the financial burdens of electioneering."[18]

While on bond, Dozier was arrested in a

hitman for an unknown target. District Judge Frank Joseph Polozola, a recent appointee of U.S. President Jimmy Carter, hence added another eight years to the sentence though there was no indictment or additional trial proceedings.[19][20]

Dozier had faced a potential eighty years in prison and fines of up to $55,000 when he was found guilty on four of five counts against him:[21] one for racketeering and three for extortion. He was convicted of taking bribes of at least $10,000 and attempting to extort $267,000 from persons doing business with the state agriculture department, such as dairy processors.[7][22] Prosecutors asserted that Dozier had turned his department into a "cash register" to bilk campaign donations from those having business with the state.[21]

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans upheld Dozier's conviction. The court said that Dozier had used his office illegally when he set a price to assist someone who had a problem with a state agency or a contract issue.[23]

On June 24, 1982, the district court revoked Dozier's probation and imposed a prison term of eight additional years on one of the counts in the original indictment. The eight years was to have been served consecutively with the two other five-year prison terms. The court ordered Dozier to serve a minimum of eighteen months of the eight years before he could be eligible for parole. Dozier was ordered to be placed on five years' probation once released from prison.[17]

Early prison release

In June 1984, President

U.S. Bureau of Prisons, Dozier was released April 25, 1986.[25] It was reported that Reagan shortened Dozier's term to 6 years.[26]

Reagan did not release his files in the Dozier case, but it was learned that

Carter-Reagan presidential election
came after Dozier had left office and was free on bond.

After Reagan's decision, Dozier faced a parole hearing in the

United States Justice Department.[29] In the hearing, Dozier's attorneys described their client as a "Darth Vader", who turned from a "crusading reformer to a man obsessed by the dark side within a year of taking office, an attitude fueled by an overwhelming desire to run for governor." Camille Gravel
of Alexandria, one of Dozier's attorneys, described him, accordingly:

He was too aggressive and too self-centered in his ambition. To violate the law was not Dozier's remotest interest; yet his overbearing and arrogant manner did in fact create a certain impression in the minds of others. ...[30]

Judge Polozola opposed the commutation and resisted any change to the 18-year sentence, but President Reagan made the ultimate decision for Dozier's release on parole.

U.S. Representative Henson Moore of Louisiana's 6th congressional district, a Republican first elected in 1975 and his party's unsuccessful nominee for the United States Senate in 1986, questioned Reagan's decision not to release the commutation file in the Dozier case.[22]

Legacy

It was later disclosed that Dozier presented checks written to "cash" to Governor Edwin Edwards. The money was deposited into the account of Candy Edwards, the second of the governor's three living wives. According to Edwards, Dozier paid him by check several times for gambling debts incurred from poker games on Thursday evenings at the governor's mansion. One of the checks was for $23,200.[32]

Dozier developed a friendship with

counterfeiting. The author Jack Fiser said that Cannon "seemed to associate with people who had a peculiarly low ethical threshold. ..."[33]

After his release from prison in 1986, Dozier spent time in a half-way house in

West Feliciana Parish. He was the manager and registered agent of Colt Environmental Services, L.L.C. in Louisiana, city not given.[citation needed][34]

In 1986, Dozier petitioned for a pardon of his crimes to gain readmittance to the Louisiana bar, for he had lost his right to practice law with the federal convictions. He worked in the real estate office of his brother Kenneth when first released.[35] He did receive the pardon and practiced law at 13698 Oakley Lane in St. Francisville, north of Baton Rouge.[36]

Since 1965, Dozier engaged in real estate development, farming, and cattle ranching while also practicing law.[1] In his later life, he maintained a cattle ranch in St. Francisville. He commercially farmed thousands of acres over a period of three decades, including the Meade Plantation in Rapides Parish and Little River Farms in Avoyelles Parish.[9] He left St. Francisville in 2011 and returned to Baton Rouge.

Based on campaign contributions, Gilbert H. Dozier is also a Democrat.[37]

Dozier's predecessor, Dave Pearce, was in his seventies when he too was tried on similar charges of abusing the office of agriculture commissioner, but Pearce served no time in prison because of his age, ill health, and the decision of then East Baton Rouge Parish

District Attorney Ossie Brown to drop the felony counts against Pearce.[38] Dozier's successor, Bob Odom, faced eleven charges of theft, bribery and extortion in his management of the agriculture department, but he was acquitted in a trial held in 2002.[38]

Other Louisiana figures who faced serious legal troubles including prison time, during this period in state history included Governor Edwards,

William J. Jefferson of Louisiana's 2nd congressional district.[38]

Dozier died at the age of seventy-nine in September 2013 at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge.[10][39] His death came 33 years to the day of his initial sentencing. Survivors included his long-term companion, Treva Lea Tidwell (born 1962) of St. Francisville and Baton Rouge; five children from the 1955 marriage to the former Jean Helen Kirkland (born 1935) of Laurel Park, North Carolina:[40] Susan Laborde and husband Robert, Denise Dupre and husband Greg, Leslie Lynelle Dozier, Carrie Johns, and Gilbert H. Dozier and wife Kelly. Other survivors include his brother, Kenneth Rufus Dozier. A memorial service was held on September 28 at Rabenhorst Funeral Home, 825 Government Street, in Baton Rouge. Interment followed at Newlin Cemetery in Singer in Beauregard Parish.[9]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Gil Dozier, p. 21" (PDF). parlouisiana.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 11, 2014. Retrieved October 7, 2013.
  2. ^ a b "Hennigan, Gilbert Franklin". txnetwork.com. Archived from the original on September 29, 2013. Retrieved June 10, 2013.
  3. ^ "Membership in the Louisiana Senate, 1880–2011" (PDF). senate.la.gov. Retrieved June 10, 2013.
  4. ^ "Lafayette Jackson". genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com. Retrieved June 10, 2013.
  5. ^ "Elizabeth "Libby" H. Dozier". beauregarddailynews.net. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  6. ^ "A. J. Dozier obit, February 5, 1997". usgwarchives.net. Retrieved June 10, 2013.
  7. ^ a b "Louisiana Ex-official Convicted of Extortion: Man Also Found Guilty of Racketeering Count". The Toledo Blade, September 24, 1980. Retrieved May 1, 2013.
  8. ^ "Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns Athletic Network". athleticnetwork.net. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  9. ^ a b c d "Gilbert Lynel "Gil" Dozier Obituary". Baton Rouge Morning Advocate. Retrieved September 26, 2013.
  10. ^
    Baton Rouge Morning Advocate. Archived from the original
    on September 27, 2013. Retrieved September 25, 2013.
  11. Baton Rouge similarly elected not to pursue a second contest with fellow Democrat Mary Landrieu of New Orleans for the office of state treasurer
    .
  12. ^ Louisiana Secretary of State, Election returns, November 1, 1975
  13. ^ "Radio Broadcasting History, Radio People (R. T. Dan Hanchey)". 440int.com. Retrieved June 12, 2013.
  14. ^ "Hoe carrying candidate wants top ag post", Ruston Daily Leader, September 3, 1979, p. 1
  15. ^ Louisiana Secretary of State, Election returns, October 27, 1979
  16. ^ Louisiana Secretary of State, Election returns, December 8, 1979
  17. ^ a b c "707 F.2d 862: United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Gilbert L. Dozier, Defendant-appellant". law.justia.com. Retrieved May 1, 2013.
  18. ^ "United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Gilbert L. Dozier, Defendant-Appellant. No. 80-3927, April 8, 1982". openjurist.org. 1982. p. 531. Retrieved May 1, 2013.
  19. ^ a b "Persistence paid off for jailed Dozier", Minden Press-Herald, July 23, 1984, p. 1
  20. ^ "Bill Sherman, "Louisiana ag chiefs: past and present", July 3, 2008" (PDF). ldaf.state.la.us. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 29, 2013. Retrieved May 1, 2013.
  21. ^ a b "Dozier could get 80 years", Minden Press-Herald, September 24, 1980
  22. ^ a b "Moore still pressing for Gil Dozier files", Minden Press-Herald, July 18, 1984, p. 1
  23. ^ "Court Upholds Dozier Conviction", Minden Press-Herald, April 9, 1982, p. 1
  24. ^ "COMMUTATIONS GRANTED BY PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN (1981 - 1989)". U.S. Department of Justice / Office of the Pardon Attorney. September 2017. Retrieved September 15, 2019. 6/22/1984 DOZIER, Gilbert L.
  25. ^ "Inmate Locator". bop.gov. Archived from the original on September 30, 2013. Retrieved June 18, 2013.
  26. ^ "LEGISLATIVE REPORT". LOUISIANA DIGITAL MEDIA ARCHIVE (LDMA). June 28, 1984. Retrieved September 15, 2019. President Ronald Reagan reducing the sentence of former Agriculture Commissioner Gil Dozier to six years
  27. ^ Alexandria Daily Town Talk, October 19, 1977
  28. ^ "GOP governor for Louisiana possible", Minden Press-Herald, May 26, 1978, p. 1
  29. ^ "Dozier hearing set for Tuesday", Minden Press-Herald, August 2, 1984, p. 1.
  30. ^ "Dozier described as 'Darth Vader'", Minden Press-Herald, August 15, 1984, p. 3B
  31. ^ "Judge denies Dozier request", Minden Press-Herald, September 26, 1984, p. 1.
  32. ^ "Natalie Gott, "Edwards trial: Candy's accounts, Dozier's debts and the return of T. Wong", April 13, 2000". Las Vegas Sun. Retrieved May 5, 2013.
  33. ^ "Douglas S. Looney, "In A Rush To Make A Big Gain: Criminal activities of Billy Cannon showed him to be a counterfeit hero," July 25, 1983". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved June 11, 2013.
  34. ^ Dozier was reversing his name for business purposes, using the middle name as the first name and the first name as the last name and hence omits "Dozier."
  35. ^ "Dozier now seeks pardon", Minden Press-Herald, September 10, 1986, p. 9A.
  36. ^ "Gilbert L. Dozier, lawyer". legaldirectories.com. Retrieved June 10, 2013.
  37. ^ "Gil Dozier, Political Campaign Contributions, 2008 Election Cycle". campaignmoney.com. Retrieved May 5, 2013.
  38. ^ a b c "Jim Bradshaw, "La.'s seen several jailed state officials", October 20, 2002". capitolwatch.reallouisiana.com. Archived from the original on January 16, 2014. Retrieved May 1, 2013.
  39. ^ "Gilbert Dozier Obituary (2013) - Baton Rouge, LA - The Advocate". Legacy.com.
  40. ^ "Jean K. Dozier". usa-people-search.com. Retrieved September 26, 2013.
Political offices
Preceded by Louisiana Commissioner of Agriculture and Forestry
1976–1980 		Succeeded by
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