5 Criminals Who Went on to Fine Careers in Politics
Getting a job after previously being a criminal can be tough. A lot of employers will discriminate against you once they hear of your past, as a matter of policy. But if you’ve ever found yourself in that position of a job seeker with a record, have you considered a career in politics? Voters might not hold your criminal past against you. If you're anything like the following men, it might even make them like you more.
Thomas Francis Meagher, Sentenced to Hang
In 1848, Britain rounded up a quartet of Irish nationalists and sentenced them to die. The charge was sedition, and the punishment was being hanged, drawn and quartered, which sounds like overkill. One of them, Thomas Francis Meagher, said he might have been a criminal in English eyes, but according to Irish history, “The treason of which I stand convicted loses all its guilt, has been sanctified as a duty, and will be ennobled as a sacrifice.”
It turned out he didn’t have to wait long to be vindicated. Before he went to the gallows, the public protested his sentence hard enough that Britain commuted it to exile to a Tasmanian prison colony. He was forbidden from leaving Tasmania as long as he lived. Then one day, he sent a letter to authorities saying, “Nope. I’m leaving now.” He got on a ship and escaped to New York.
When the American Civil War started, some other Irish nationalists sided with the South, on the general principle that succession is cool. Not Meagher, who formed his own branch of the U.S. Army called the Irish Brigade and led them in battle. After the war, he became the acting governor of Montana. He even set about turning the territory into a state, until he fell off a boat on the Missouri River one day and was declared dead. Maybe he was drunk. Or maybe one of his many political enemies finally found a chance to finish him off.
Amjad Ali, the Terrorist Hijacker
A plane made a stop in Fiji one day in 1987, as part of a longer voyage from Japan to New Zealand. An airport employee, Ahmjed Ali, boarded the plane, presumably as part of his refueling job. But in his bag was something that should be kept far away from fuel: six sticks of dynamite, taken from a gold mine.
He’d blow up the plane, he said, unless the government of Fiji agreed to release Timoci Bavadra. Bavadra had been the prime minister of the country a week ago, but then he’d lost the election and staged a coup, winding up arrested. Ali had no connection with Bavadra or political ties at all. He also didn’t have much experience with terrorism, as his first move now was to release all the passengers and almost all crew, depriving himself of valuable hostages.
The plane stayed on the ground, and the remaining crew took Ali down by bonking him on the head with a bottle of whiskey. This was such a satisfying conclusion to the adventure that authorities charged him with bringing explosives onto a plane but nothing more serious than that.
Ali parlayed fame from the incident into becoming a member of parliament in Fiji. He later applied for asylum to New Zealand and became a permanent resident there. We guess he envied the passengers on that plane and never got over letting them go.
A Fraudster Declared Independence from the United States
William Langer was already a politician when he committed his crimes. He was the governor of North Dakota, and he passed a rule saying all public employees had to donate money to his socialist party. This sounds like it breaks various laws, such as the one against “theft,” and the feds chose to nail him with conspiracy to defraud the federal government. This was 1933, and many of those employees were getting money from government relief programs.
Langer had to leave office due to now being a felon. But he had a trick up his sleeve. What if he declared North Dakota to be independent from America? While he worked on this, he remained in his office — his physical office, barricading the doors to prevent anyone from expelling him. His supporters then marched on the capitol building, calling for the death of Langer’s appointed replacement.
Langer eventually surrendered, and he successfully appealed his conviction. That meant he was eligible to be governor again, and voters welcomed him. Then he ran for the U.S. Senate, and he won that as well. An ethics committee early on said he was constitutionally ineligible to serve, because of his crimes, but the Senate voted to keep him in anyway.
He spent almost two decades as senator from North Dakota, remaining till his death in 1959. The last time he ran for reelection, he didn’t even bother campaigning, and his party didn’t endorse him, but he won anyway.
America’s Most Successful Coup
We’ve got one more coup to tell you about. And unlike Timoci Bavadra’s or William Langer’s, this one succeeded.
Alfred Moore Waddell was a congressman from North Carolina during most of the 1870s. After this, he came back to his home state, where Black residents were gaining increasing political power. In 1898, Waddell campaigned locally on the seemingly winning platform of white supremacy, but that year’s election was won by a multiracial fusion party. So, Waddell and a mob of 2,000 took up arms.
One target was a newspaper. They burned it down, retaliating for negative coverage.
via Wiki Commons
Many of the other targets were human, and we don’t know exactly how many Black residents the mob murdered that day. Some estimates say 60. Some say 300. Due to what came next, survivors formally reporting the crimes wasn’t advisable.
What came next was the mob made the city authorities resign, at gunpoint. Waddell became the new mayor of Wilmington. And that was that. He stayed in office for eight years, and the coup was never undone. It had been a race riot, reported newspapers (the ones that no one had burned down), and some people had committed violence, but the authorities assumed control in the end, and peace had been restored.
The Murder of an Arkansas Rep, in the Congressional Chamber
If we’re talking sheer number of murders, we’re not going to be topping the 1898 Wilmington massacre. But when we’re looking at violence directly perpetrated by the politician in question, special recognition must go to John Wilson.
Wilson was the speaker of Arkansas’ House of Representatives in 1837. One day in December, the House was debating paying bounties on wolf pelts, which was the sort of thing politicians spent their time on in 19th-century Arkansas. One rep, Joseph Anthony, jokingly suggested that “the signature of the President of the Real Estate Bank be attached to the certificate of the wolf scalp.” The subtleties of this dig may be lost on us today, but we know who that bank president was: Speaker John Wilson.
The speaker responded by taking out a knife — which he had on him because, again, this was 19th-century Arkansas. And he murdered Wilson, right there on the floor of the House.
Wilson went to trial, during which he lodged with the judge and paid for his meals. The jury found him “guilty of excusable homicide,” which counts as an acquittal. Wilson then took the jurors out for drinks.
The House did expel Wilson for the murder, but they couldn’t stop him from running again, and the next time he did run, voters welcomed him back and reelected him.
We have to let the voters’ will stand, of course. Democracy is important.
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