Louis Wolfson

Infobox Person
name = Louis Wolfson


image_size =
caption =
birth_date = January 28, 1912
birth_place = St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.
death_date = December 30, 2007
death_place = Bal Harbour, Florida, U.S.
occupation = Businessman:
Financier
Racehorse owner/breeder
Philanthropist

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.cite news
last = Saxon
first = Wolfgang
title = Louis Wolfson Dies at 95; Central to Fall of a Justice
work = New York Times
page = B7
publisher =
date = January 2, 2008
url = http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/us/02wolfson.html?ref=us
accessdate = 01/03/2008] but his family moved to Jacksonville, Florida when he was one year old. [ [http://www.news4jax.com/news/14960066/detail.html?rss=jax&psp=news Philanthropist Louis Wolfson Dies At 95 - Jacksonville News Story - WJXT Jacksonville ] ]

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. [http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/363101.html] ] 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.Fact|date=February 2008 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.Wolfson was chairman of Merritt-Chapman & Scott Corporation. [http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/horse/news/story?id=3175078 ESPN] Affirmed owner Louis Wolfson dead at 95] 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 [ [http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/from-millions-to-jail-then-crowning-glory/2008/01/20/1200764079641.html From millions to jail, then crowning glory - World - theage.com.au ] ] . 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 [http://www.wchjax.com/ 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.cite news
last = Kerr
first = Jessie-Lynne
title = Millionaire excelled in various endeavors
work = Florida Times-Union
page =
publisher =
date = January 2, 2008
url = http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/010208/met_230808569.shtml
accessdate = 2008-01-03]

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. [ [http://www.news4jax.com/news/14960066/detail.html Philanthropist Louis Wolfson Dies At 95 - Jacksonville News Story - WJXT Jacksonville ] ]

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 did not 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 had 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 had 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 [ [http://www.news4jax.com/news/14960066/detail.html?treets=jax&tid=2659256943813&tml=jax_12pm&tmi=jax_12pm_1_11450301022008&ts=H] .] 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. [* [http://www.miamiherald.com/459/story/362814.html Louis Wolfson -- millionaire, acclaimed horse owner -- dies at 95] , "The Miami Herald", December 31, 2007.]

He died on what was his 35th wedding anniversary to his second wife.

References

* Stanley Penn, "The Wall Street Journal", Wolfson's World; Industrialist, Facing a Year in Jail Friday, Turns Cold Shoulder Toward Wall Street, 22 April 1969. p. 40
* "The Wall Street Journal" W vs. W; The Wolfson Story Begins a New Chapter; Climax or Anticlimax? The Floridian's Adversary Is The SEC's Youthful and Ambitious Mr. Windels Settlement Before Tuesday? 1 August 1958. p. 1
* [http://www.ntra.com/stats_bios.aspx?id=1925 Harbor View Farm at the NTRA]
* [http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/horse/news/story?id=3175078 Daily Racing Form December 31, 2007 "Affirmed owner Louis Wolfson dead at 95"]