F. Irvin Dymond, 83, Famed Defense Lawyer Submitted by N.O.V.A. July 2005 Times Picayune 01- 18-1998 ************************************************* Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ F. Irvin Dymond, the New Orleans lawyer who won an acquittal for businessman Clay Shaw in 1969 on charges he conspired to kill President John F. Kennedy, died Saturday of cancer at East Jefferson General Hospital. Mr. Dymond, a lifelong resident of New Orleans, was 83. He was the lead attorney on a team of lawyers and investigators who went to work after Orleans Parish District Attorney Jim Garrison won an indictment of Shaw in Garrison's celebrated - and, to many, infamous - investigation into Kennedy's 1963 assassination in Dallas. Garrison charged that Shaw, the retired managing director of the International Trade Mart, had talked with Lee Harvey Oswald and former airline pilot David Ferrie about killing Kennedy. Shaw, 54, was arrested March 1, 1967, and went on trial two years later in a tumultuous case that attracted worldwide attention. One of the highlights of the trial was Mr. Dymond's low-key but devastating cross- examination of Charles Spiesel, a surprise witness who testified he had overheard Shaw and Ferrie talking about Kennedy. "That guy was outwardly a very, very credible witness - an accountant, well- spoken, well-dressed," Mr. Dymond said in a 1991 interview. But an investigator hired to probe Spiesel's background had turned up some bizarre quirks: that Spiesel believed he had been followed and hypnotized dozens of times by the New York Police Department, and that he had fingerprinted his daughter when she left for college, and again when she returned, to make sure the government hadn't replaced her with an exact replica. Like something out of a legal thriller, the information about Spiesel arrived from New York while Mr. Dymond was cross-examining him. "He would have been a devastating witness had it not been for that (report)," Mr. Dymond said in 1991. "But he turned out to be a total kook." Two years to the day after his arrest, Shaw was acquitted of conspiracy charges by a jury that deliberated less than an hour. Mr. Dymond handled several other high-profile trials, winning acquittals for Louisiana Attorney General Jack Gremillion in 1971 on federal charges of fraud and conspiracy, and for New Orleans developer Wilson Abraham in 1990 in a federal racketeering case. Mr. Dymond was a child of the Depression, working on Standard Fruit Co. ships after graduating from Warren Easton High School. He attended Loyola University on a boxing scholarship; he graduated from Tulane University Law School in 1937. After practicing law for five years, he became a lieutenant in the Navy during World War II, winning the European Service Medal, Pacific Service Medal, Philippines Liberation Medal, Iwo Jima Medal and Purple Heart. He was a gunnery officer on the escort carrier USS Bismarck Sea, which was sunk during the battle for Iwo Jima. Mr. Dymond received the Ashton Tate Award for attorney of the year, and ran for district attorney of New Orleans in 1962, coming in third behind incumbent Richard Dowling and Garrison, who beat Dowling in a runoff. Although recognized as one of the top criminal defense lawyers in the city, he donated much of his time to defending indigents in Criminal District Court. He also raised race horses and fighting game cocks on his farm in Covington. He was a past president of the Criminal Courts Bar Association and a member of the New Orleans Country Club, Sigma Chi fraternity, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the Louisiana and American bar associations. Survivors include his wife, Maria Nena Romero Dymond; three sons, James P. Dymond of Mandeville, Richard V. Dymond of Long Beach, Miss., and Frederick I. Dymond Jr. of Slidell; a daughter, Lynn Dymond Adams; three stepsons, George and Timothy Norton and James Coleman; two stepdaughters, Barbara Norton Roussel and Nancy Norton Frost; 22 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. A funeral will be held Tuesday at 11 a.m. at Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home, 5100 Pontchartrain Blvd. Visitation will begin Tuesday at 10 a.m. Burial will be in Lake Lawn Park Cemetery.