Everything about Louis Wolfson totally explained
Louis Elwood Wolfson (
January 28 1912 -
December 30,
2007) was a
Wall Street financier and a major
thoroughbred horse racing participant best known as the owner and breeder of 1978
American Triple Crown winner,
Affirmed.
He was born in
St. Louis,
Missouri.
but his family moved to
Jacksonville, Florida when he was one year old.
Wolfson built one of the first
conglomerates, before being convicted of
securities fraud. His legal troubles led to the resignation of
Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas.
Young Wolfson
The child of Lithuanian immigrants, Wolfson and his seven siblings grew up in Jacksonville, where his father was a junk man/scrap metal dealer.
In his teens, he
boxed professionally under the name "Kid Wolf", earning from $25 to $100 per fight. Wolfson was an outstanding
athlete and an All-Southern end for Jacksonville's
Andrew Jackson High School, who went to the
University of Georgia to play football. He reportedly demanded, and was paid, $100 a month to play. He left the university after two years, never graduating. After dropping out of college, he raised $10,000; half from a wealthy Georgia football fan,
Harold Hirsch, and half from his family.
Financier
He started a company, Florida Pipe and Supply Company, to trade in building materials. Within a few years, he built this into a successful large business, and was a millionaire at age 28. At its peak, his industrial and commercial empire had total assets estimated at a quarter of a billion dollars.
It started as a construction firm but expanded into ship building, chemicals, and money lending. In 1949, Wolfson purchased the
Capital Transit Company from the
North American Company. A 1951 takeover of
Merritt-Chapman & Scott, made Wolfson CEO of the industrial conglomerate whose projects include the
Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona and the
Mackinac Bridge, linking Michigan's lower and upper penninsulas. Wolfson became nationally known when, in 1955, he unsuccessfully attempted a
hostile takeover of
Montgomery Ward and Co.
His Universal Marion Co. owned the
Miami Beach Sun and the
Jacksonville Chronicle newspapers and made movies through a subsidiary. The firm co-financed the production of
Mel Brooks' first movie,
The Producers, which won an
Oscar and later became a major
Broadway play. The building now known as the JEA Tower in Jacksonville was called the Universal-Marion Building when the firm was the largest tenant.
Philanthropy
The Wolfson name is evident all over the city of Jacksonville Florida. As chairman of the Wolfson Family Foundation for 35 years until the late 1980s, Mr. Wolfson directed much of the foundation's gifts to Jacksonville medical, educational, research and religious charitable entities.
Morris David Wolfson (Louis' father) began the philanthropy with a gift of $500,000 in 1946 to create
Wolfson Children's Hospital
. Other gifts include the
Wolfson Student Center at
Jacksonville University, the
River Garden/Wolfson Health and Aging Center and the
Louis E. Wolfson Wellness Center at Baptist Medical Center Downtown.
Mr. Wolfson also worked to honor the memory of his older brother, Sam. The Duval County School Board named
Samuel Wolfson High School after his brother and the Wolfson family funded construction of
Sam W. Wolfson Baseball Park, the minor-league baseball facility in Jacksonville for decades until the
Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville was built in 2002-3.
Legal troubles
In 1967 and 1968, he was convicted by two different federal juries on charges stemming from stock sales. The first conviction arose when Wolfson sold unregistered shares in
Continental Enterprises, Inc. to the public. Continental Enterprises was an unlisted company that he controlled. He never denied the charges but argued that the law was misapplied in his case. The second conviction was for charges of
perjury and
obstruction of justice during a
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into Merritt-Chapman. He served one year in a federal prison at
Eglin Air Force Base and paid a substantial fine.
Wolfson started a charitable foundation, which in 1966 paid Supreme Court Justice and Wolfson friend
Abe Fortas a $20,000 annual retainer for unspecified consultation. Wolfson had appealed his conviction all the way to the
Supreme Court. Although the Supreme Court had refused to review his conviction and Fortas didn't participate in that decision, it was viewed as an attempt to buy his way out of a conviction. Controversy surrounded Fortas and he returned the $20,000 retainer and ultimately resigned from the Supreme Court in 1969.
In 1971, Wolfson was in the news again. He filed a complaint against
Larry King -- then a Miami radio host, now a
CNN personality -- for allegedly pocketing $5,000, part of a $25,000 payment destined for New Orleans District Attorney
Jim Garrison, who was investigating President
John F. Kennedy's assassination. King was arrested for grand-larceny, but criminal charges were eventually dismissed because the
statute of limitations had run out.
However, King was fired after Wolfson wrote to TV and radio executives at WTVJ & WIOD claiming that King was "a menace to the public," and that his employers should pay for King’s "treatment in a mental institution for six months so he can do no further harm in this community or any other."
Wolfson and King had been friends until King admitted that he'd tricked Wolfson into giving him $48,500 to influence President
Richard Nixon's incoming US Attorney General,
John N. Mitchell, into reviewing Wolfson's conviction.
Crusade
After his incarceration, Wolfson became a prison-reform advocate. He told The Miami Herald in 1971 that he'd watched sadistic wardens and guards "contribute to the increase of crime. . . . The medical attention was unbelievably bad. There was absolutely no uniform sentencing. . . . Officials may say rehabilitation exists, but I assure you it doesn't."
As a result of his efforts, the SEC began making hearing transcripts and testimony more available, and the U.S. Senate considered changing federal penal code to eliminate harsh sentences for first-time offenders.
"It was a horrible 10 months and it ruined his life and changed him forever," his son said. "If you ever said the word
judge, he'd bring out a stack of papers to show you how he was railroaded."
Harbor View Farm and thoroughbred racing
In 1960, he established Harbor View Farm in
Fellowship,
Marion County,
Florida. He raced a number of successful thoroughbred horses including 1963 co-champion 2-year-old male
Raise a Native, 1965
Horse of the Year, and
Roman Brother.
Champion
Hail to Reason, bred by Beiber-Jacobs Stable had raced in her name. In the name of Harbor View, they bred and raced the 1978
American Triple Crown winner
Affirmed. Affirmed was voted
Horse of the Year twice, in 1978 and 1979, and also was champion at 2 in 1977, at 3 in 1978, and at 4 in 1979.
The Wolfsons' stable led all
North American owners in money earned in 1978, 1979, and 1980 and was the
Eclipse Award winners as top breeder in 1978.
Additionally, two of Wolfson sons, Steve and Gary, bred
It's in the Air, champion juvenile filly in 1978, in the name of Happy Valley Farm.
Wolfson tried to buy Louisville's Churchill Downs -- home of the Kentucky Derby -- for $46.1 million in 1985, but was unsuccessful.
In 1992, Louis Wolfson was inducted into the
Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association Hall of Fame.
His second and final marriage was to Patrice Jacobs, daughter of Hall of Fame trainer
Hirsch Jacobs and Ethel D. Jacobs.
Death
Louis Wolfson succumbed to
Alzheimer's disease and
colon cancer on December 30, 2007, aged 95, in
Bal Harbour, Florida He is survived by his second wife, Patrice, his daughter Marcia Drake, and three sons - Stephen, Gary, and Marty. His first wife, Florence Monsky Wolfson passed away in 1968 from cancer.
He died on what was his 35th wedding anniversary to his second wife.
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