Monday, November 22, 2010

Dewey O'Brien's Book of Memories with Anecdotes from Tax Division

James Dewey O’Brien (DOJ Tax Alum) has written a memoir titled “An American Experience: The First Ninety Three Years” in which Dewey describes events of his life both inside and outside DOJ Tax. The description of the book and ordering information is here: http://mysite.verizon.net/vze12w6u8/. Focusing on DOJ Tax specifically, Dewey provides wonderful anecdotes of his experiences during six presidential administrations, including the following summary with more details in the book:

Much of my work was on special assignments: (1) to a task force investigating corruption in the IRS (I recused myself from the Tax Division part of that in which the former Div. head, Caudle, was convicted, although I never knew him) I did participate in the prosecution of former IRS commissioner Joseph D. Nunan. Later, I was sent to Little Rock during those troubled times to conduct a grand jury investigation (got good reception). Similar assignment by Byron White in Oxford, MS. Member for a time of the so-called Hoffa Group with successful prosecution of Benjamin Cohen of SDFL. My most interesting case was U.S. v. Jurzykowski et al. The Tax Division was about to decline prosecution as it was thought that evidence could not be obtained from behind the Iron Curtain. This case took me to Brazil for depositions twice and I did get evidence from Poland in admissible form.