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Obituary

Representative convicted in Abscam dies

RICHARD KELLY * 1924-2005: Before he was elected to Congress, Richard Kelly served as a circuit judge with a reputation as a maverick.

By LUCY MORGAN
Published August 25, 2005

Former U.S. Rep. Richard Kelly died Monday night in Stevensville, Mont., where he lived for almost 20 years in a sort of self-imposed exile after his 1981 Abscam bribery conviction.

Mr. Kelly, 81, was one of seven members of Congress snared in Abscam, an elaborate sting involving undercover FBI agents posing as aides to Arab sheiks seeking favors from Congress. Mr. Kelly contended he was conducting his own investigation of "suspicious characters" who surrounded him.

Before he was elected to Congress in 1974, Mr. Kelly spent 14 years as a circuit judge in Pasco and Pinellas counties. He developed a reputation as a maverick in frequent clashes with fellow judges and a group of Dade City lawyers who had long controlled the small-town courthouse where Mr. Kelly worked.

He survived an impeachment by the Florida House of Representatives in 1963 and an investigation by the Judicial Qualifications Commission in 1968.

In 1968, when some accused Mr. Kelly of being crazy, he had himself examined and declared sane by doctors at Duke University. In later years, he frequently described himself as the only judge or member of Congress formally declared sane.

In 1974, Mr. Kelly was elected to Congress and was re-elected in 1976 and 1978.

He was defeated in 1980 in the wake of Abscam by Republican Bill McCollum of Altamonte Springs.

Convicted of taking $25,000 from undercover agents in January 1981, Mr. Kelly initially won a reprieve when the trial judge, U.S. District Judge William B. Bryant, threw out the jury verdict. But he was sentenced to prison after an appeals court reinstated his conviction.

Bryant railed against the FBI, saying the government "brought about the downfall of a person who, if left alone, might well have lived out his life as a law abiding citizen."

The judge offered to dismiss the charges mid trial if Mr. Kelly would use an entrapment defense. But Mr. Kelly rejected the idea because it would have required him to admit he committed the crime.

Mr. Kelly blamed a group of suspicious characters who surrounded him in the months leading up to the Abscam charges in early 1980. He laid much of the blame on a key aide, J.P. Maher III, who used Mr. Kelly's office to seek favors for friends with cocaine convictions. Mr. Kelly fired Maher, saying he allowed known felons to be associated with the office.

After exhausting his appeals, Mr. Kelly spent 13 months of a 6- to 18-month sentence at the federal prison camp at Eglin Air Force Base and a St. Petersburg halfway house before he was released in 1986.

For years, Mr. Kelly tried without success to promote interest in a book about his contention he was entrapped.

Anthony S. Battaglia, the St. Petersburg lawyer who defended Mr. Kelly, said Wednesday he was saddened by the news of his old friend's death. Mr. Kelly and Battaglia met in law school at the University of Florida and cemented their friendship in watermelon patches where they earned extra money during the summer of 1951.

Battaglia was the son of a well-to-do Binghamton, N.Y., produce company owner and Mr. Kelly was a foster child who had been abandoned by his parents, but they became lifelong friends. When Mr. Kelly was a judge, he sometimes appointed Battaglia to defend murder suspects in his courtroom despite the fact that Battaglia had become a successful lawyer in a neighboring county.

"We loved one another," Battaglia said Wednesday. "He was a very difficult man if you weren't close to him, but if you were close enough to learn what kind of mind he had, you loved him."

When Mr. Kelly was indicted in Abscam, Battaglia put most of his work aside and spent countless hours and thousands of dollars defending his friend.

Mr. Kelly returned to Florida eight years ago to celebrate Battaglia's 70th birthday, but had spent the last couple of years in declining health with Pick's disease, similar to Alzheimer's.

Whitesitt Funeral Home in Stevensville, a small town 25 miles from Missoula, is handling funeral arrangements. Mr. Kelly's body will be cremated and the ashes returned to Florida, said funeral home owner Dean Whitesitt. Other arrangements are incomplete.

Mr. Kelly's wife, Claire, could not be reached for comment.

Researcher Mary Mellstrom contributed to this report.

[Last modified August 25, 2005, 00:52:33]