Jim Dwyer - Out and About
by Bill Kelly
As I was walking along the Ocean City boardwalk in my old neighborhood I ran into Jim Dwyer, the real estate developer who saved Ocean City’s iconic Flanders Hotel and whose many successful projects help fill the town’s tax coffers today.
Dwyer amazingly informs me that his legal appeal is still alive after over ten years and seven years and five months in prison following his conviction for bank fraud in November 2004.
Dwyer could have taken an 18 month plea and served as little as five to six months and been in and out in 2003, but has said from day one of his indictment that “I have never defrauded anyone in my life,” and that he could not plea to a crime he didn’t commit. Dwyer was in the real estate business for over 30 years and had a reputation for being “squeaky clean” in all of dealing his whole business life.
I attended Dwyer’s trail in the audience and listened intently, and was quite surprised to learn that none of the half-dozen bankers who testified against Dwyer ever met the man, except one, the loan predator who took advantage of the Flanders’s penthouse facilities gratis and arranged all of the other loans.
Dwyer said that even after being convicted and serving seven years and five months his legal appeal is still active, and said, “Thank God for our justice system. It’s still the best in the world. Due process is still alive.”
He said he has never lacked confidence in his faith and belief that things would work out in the long run.
One thing he mentioned is of his great desire to eventually personally thank all of the nearly 100 citizens who went to his trial to testify to his good character, how he helped them personally and for what he did for the community in general. The good character witnesses were only able to say that Dwyer was a good person. They were not allowed to speak to the jury of the many good deeds he performed for them personally and how he unselfishly helped some out financially without any expected return but their friendship.
I interviewed some of the good-character witnesses like Sister Ginger, who ran Hannah House a half-way house for women in the Philadelphia ghetto who wanted to tell the court how Dwyer paid and arranged for thousands of dollars in needed repairs to their building and did things no one else would have done. But she was not allowed by the court.
Dwyer is convinced that if the good-character witnesses were permitted to detail his good faith activities in support of them and the community, he never would have been convicted of bank fraud. It was only a few years later that predator bankers were the ones being convicted of fraud.
Being that prosecutors are not sworn under oath, they can say anything they want, even lies, but the good-character witnesses were unable to say the good things that Jim Dwyer did.
Dwyer’s lead attorney F. Emmet Fitzpatrick, Jr., the former Philadelphia D.A., and “one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the country” frequently dozed off as the trial proceeded, and was shortly thereafter diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. His son, who lacked criminal defense experience, took over the defense without Dwyer’s official approval, failed to determine who forged Dwyer’s name on the legal document that was clearly not Dwyer’s signature, a probation report that could have been exculpatory evidence that proved Dwyer didn’t know his CFO had previously been convicted and served time for fraud, a prime example of the many ineffective counsel mistakes. .
It was Dwyer himself who found and turned over the different tax forms that his deceased Chief Financial Officer had filed without his knowledge, forms that were used to convict him.
When Dwyer got out of prison he visited Fitzpatrick in a Cape May nursing home and found him catatonic shortly before he passed away. “He didn’t know who I was,” said Dwyer, “I loved the guy. It wasn’t his fault I lost my case.”
Dwyer spent many years building a multi-million dollar international real estate firm and personal fortune, and for twenty years everything he touched turned to gold. All of his properties at the time of his “troubles” became very successful enterprises, all with his vision and plans. But he lost his fortune and family, and now says, “If you lose your money, you lose nothing; if you lose your health, you lose something; if you lose your faith you lose everything.”
He now says he’s starting over to “get back what he lost,” in order to provide for his family who were devastated by the ordeal. And he has kept his faith.
Dwyer said, “I can’t put my shoes on in the morning without my faith. It pushes me thru life like a motor. All things are passing. Patience obtains all things.”
As always, he says, "Keep smiling."
by Bill Kelly
As I was walking along the Ocean City boardwalk in my old neighborhood I ran into Jim Dwyer, the real estate developer who saved Ocean City’s iconic Flanders Hotel and whose many successful projects help fill the town’s tax coffers today.
Dwyer amazingly informs me that his legal appeal is still alive after over ten years and seven years and five months in prison following his conviction for bank fraud in November 2004.
Dwyer could have taken an 18 month plea and served as little as five to six months and been in and out in 2003, but has said from day one of his indictment that “I have never defrauded anyone in my life,” and that he could not plea to a crime he didn’t commit. Dwyer was in the real estate business for over 30 years and had a reputation for being “squeaky clean” in all of dealing his whole business life.
I attended Dwyer’s trail in the audience and listened intently, and was quite surprised to learn that none of the half-dozen bankers who testified against Dwyer ever met the man, except one, the loan predator who took advantage of the Flanders’s penthouse facilities gratis and arranged all of the other loans.
Dwyer said that even after being convicted and serving seven years and five months his legal appeal is still active, and said, “Thank God for our justice system. It’s still the best in the world. Due process is still alive.”
He said he has never lacked confidence in his faith and belief that things would work out in the long run.
One thing he mentioned is of his great desire to eventually personally thank all of the nearly 100 citizens who went to his trial to testify to his good character, how he helped them personally and for what he did for the community in general. The good character witnesses were only able to say that Dwyer was a good person. They were not allowed to speak to the jury of the many good deeds he performed for them personally and how he unselfishly helped some out financially without any expected return but their friendship.
I interviewed some of the good-character witnesses like Sister Ginger, who ran Hannah House a half-way house for women in the Philadelphia ghetto who wanted to tell the court how Dwyer paid and arranged for thousands of dollars in needed repairs to their building and did things no one else would have done. But she was not allowed by the court.
Dwyer is convinced that if the good-character witnesses were permitted to detail his good faith activities in support of them and the community, he never would have been convicted of bank fraud. It was only a few years later that predator bankers were the ones being convicted of fraud.
Being that prosecutors are not sworn under oath, they can say anything they want, even lies, but the good-character witnesses were unable to say the good things that Jim Dwyer did.
Dwyer’s lead attorney F. Emmet Fitzpatrick, Jr., the former Philadelphia D.A., and “one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the country” frequently dozed off as the trial proceeded, and was shortly thereafter diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. His son, who lacked criminal defense experience, took over the defense without Dwyer’s official approval, failed to determine who forged Dwyer’s name on the legal document that was clearly not Dwyer’s signature, a probation report that could have been exculpatory evidence that proved Dwyer didn’t know his CFO had previously been convicted and served time for fraud, a prime example of the many ineffective counsel mistakes. .
It was Dwyer himself who found and turned over the different tax forms that his deceased Chief Financial Officer had filed without his knowledge, forms that were used to convict him.
When Dwyer got out of prison he visited Fitzpatrick in a Cape May nursing home and found him catatonic shortly before he passed away. “He didn’t know who I was,” said Dwyer, “I loved the guy. It wasn’t his fault I lost my case.”
Dwyer spent many years building a multi-million dollar international real estate firm and personal fortune, and for twenty years everything he touched turned to gold. All of his properties at the time of his “troubles” became very successful enterprises, all with his vision and plans. But he lost his fortune and family, and now says, “If you lose your money, you lose nothing; if you lose your health, you lose something; if you lose your faith you lose everything.”
He now says he’s starting over to “get back what he lost,” in order to provide for his family who were devastated by the ordeal. And he has kept his faith.
Dwyer said, “I can’t put my shoes on in the morning without my faith. It pushes me thru life like a motor. All things are passing. Patience obtains all things.”
As always, he says, "Keep smiling."
