Who knows how many ordinary people end their careers in some kind of disgrace. If the number of entertainers, business executives, television news people, print journalists, athletes, legal practitioners, medical professionals, educators, and politicians who have fallen from grace is any indication, a lot of ordinary people must end up with ruined careers and damaged reputations. Scandal seems to be a part of American life. What follows is an annotated list, just a sampling, of high profile scandals and crimes involving influencers and people with authority and power. A complete list would produce a document the size of a big city phonebook.
Entertainment
Harvey Weinstein (movie and TV producer: sexual abuse of women); Lori Loughlin (actor: bribed college admission personnel to get daughters into UCLA); Felicity Huffman (actor: college admission bribery); Kevin Spacey (actor: male sex abuse allegations); Jessie Smollett (TV actor: false report of being victim of hate crime); Woody Allen (actor, screenwriter, director: married his adopted daughter); Bill Cosby (comedian: rapes of women he'd drugged); Jeffrey Tambor (TV actor: sexual abuse of women); Phil Spector (music producer: murder of female house guest); Jason James Murphy (child casting director: sexually molested child actors); Martin Weiss (child casting director: sexually molested child actors); Robert Blake (actor: shot his wife to death); Steve Collins (TV actor: admitted to 40-year-old inappropriate sexual contact with three teenage girls); Ricardo Medina (TV actor: stabbed and wounded male roommate with a sword); James Brown (soul singer: aggravated assault and vehicular police chase); Randy Quaid (actor: he and wife arrested for not paying $10,000 hotel bill, couple also arrested for squatting in house they didn't own); Wesley Snipes (actor: failure to pay federal income tax); Kathy Griffin (comedian: posted photograph of herself holding blood-soaked head of President Trump); Lindsay Lohan (actor: alcohol/drug abuse, stole $2,5000 necklace from jewelry store); Michael Jackson (singer/dancer: credible and persistent accusations of molesting boys who lived with him); Mel Gibson (actor: slapped ex-wife Oksana Grigoreva); Roman Polanski (movie director: fled to France to avoid U.S. trial for drugging and raping 13-year-old girl); Charlie Sheen (actor: domestic abuse, drug possession); Tom Sizemore (actor: domestic violence, heroin possession); Courtney Love (singer: assaulted musician Kristin King); Christian Slater (actor: punched girlfriend and assaulted police officer); Johnny Depp (actor: domestic abuse); Ricky Schroder (TV actor: accused of domestic violence)
Government
Al Franken (U.S. Senator: inappropriate sexual behavior against women); Eric Schneiderman (NY Attorney General: accused of nonconsensual violence by four women); John Brennan (CIA Director: abuse of power); Anthony Weiner (NYC mayoral candidate: sexual exposure to girl); Hillary Clinton (presidential candidate: as secretary of state, held classified information on private email server); Gary Hart (presidential candidate: affair with woman not his wife); Jim Trafficant (U.S. House of Representatives: public corruption, removed from office); David H. Petraeus (Army general, CIA Director: extramarital affair); Robert Rizzo (city manager, Bell California: theft of public funds); Loretta Lynch (U.S. Attorney General: met secretly with Bill Clinton, then dismissed email server case against Hillary Clinton); Lois Lerner (IRS: retired under accusations of denying tax exempt status to conservative organizations); William Jefferson (U.S. House of Representatives: accepted $500,000 in bribes); Chaka Fattah (U.S. House of Representatives: federal racketeering); Chris Collins (U.S. House of Representatives: indicted for insider trading and lying to FBI); Bob Menendez (U.S. Senate: charged with accepting $1 million in gifts, trial ended in hung jury); George H. Ryan (governor, Illinois: racketeering and fraud); Steven Brooks (Nevada state assemblyman: threatened to kill political rival, resisted arrest); Eric Holder (U.S. Attorney General: oversaw ATF gun-running scandal that led to death of border patrol officer); James Clapper (Director of National Intelligence: lied to congress in denying the agency collected data on millions of Americans); Andrew Cuomo (New York Governor accused of sexual harassment and a COVID-19 policy that killed thousands of elderly residents of retirement homes); Eric Swalwell (U.S. Congressman accused of having sex with a Chinese spy)
Television News
Roger Ailes (Fox News head: inappropriate sexual behavior involving female employees); Jeffrey Toobin (CNN legal analyst and New Yorker writer: indecent exposure); Brian Williams (NBC new anchor: falsely claimed to be on helicopter hit by missle); Dan Rather (CBS News anchor: false reporting regarding President George Bush's draft dodging; Matt Lauer (NBC "Today Show": inappropriate workplace sexual behavior); Mark Halperin (NBC News: inappropriate workplace sexual behavior); Travis Smiley (PBS late-night host: inappropriate sexual behavior involving women; Ed Henry (Fox News: inappropriate workplace sexual behavior); Bill O'Reiley (Fox News: inappropriate workplace sexual behavior)
Sports
Lance Armstrong (cyclist: performance enhancement drugs); Floyd Landis (cyclist: performance enhancement drugs); Aaron Hernandez (NFL star: gangland involved murders); O.J. Simpson (NFL: acquitted, double murder, later convicted of robbery); Pete Rose (MLB: gambling on baseball); Joe Paterno (Penn State football coach: pedophile cover-up in Sandusky case); Mark McGuire (MLB: performance enhancement drugs); Philip Foglietta (high school football coach: sexually molesting boys); Bobby Knight (college basketball coach: verbally and physically abused players); Jerry Sandusky (assistant coach, Penn State: molested several boys); Joseph Randle (NFL running back: arrested for shoplifting); Ray Rice (NFL running back: caught on hotel video camera cold-cocking his wife); Megan Mahoney (high school girls basketball coach: sexual relationship with 16-year-old male student); Maurice Clarett (Ohio State football star: filed false report regarding items and cash stolen from borrowed dealership car); Pete Carroll (football coach, arranged house and money for recruit Reggie Bush's parents); Brandon Gregory (high school football coach: in state championship game, played suspended player under alias); Antonio Margarito (professional boxer: caught with plaster in his gloves); Luis Resto (professional boxer: with handwraps soaked in plaster-of-Paris, seriously injured opponent Billy Collins); Mike Tyson (heavyweight boxing champion: raped 18-year-old Desiree Washington, bit off piece of Evander Holyfield's ear)
Business
Jeffrey Epstein (rapist found dead in his cell); Bernie Madoff (prolonged bilking of hundreds of investors); Robert F. Smith (Equifax CEO: massive data breach); Dennis Kozlowski (TYCO CEO: stole $100 million from company); Martin L. Grass (Rite-Aid CEO: illegal accounting practices to cover company debt); Joseph Machio (Qwest Communications CEO: insider trading); Jeffrey Skilling (Enron CEO: fraud, insider stock trading); John Rigas (Adelphia CEO: fraud, misappropriation of company funds)
Print Journalism
Michael Finkel (freelance journalist: story of West African boy sold into slavery a composite of several boys); Michael Gallagher ( Cincinnati Enquirer: voicemail hacked company he investigated for story); Jayson Blair (The New York Times: plagiarism, fabricated information); Stephen Glass (The New Republic: fictitious stories presented as nonfiction); Jack Kelly (USA Today: fabricated facts); Janet Cooke (Washington Post: inflated her academic credentials); Anne Blythe (freelance journalist: plagiarism); Lloyd Brown Florida Times-Union: plagiarism); Nada Behziz (The Bakersfield Californian: plagiarism); Rick Bragg (The New York Times: took credit for stories written by stringers)
Religion
Jim Bakker (PTL Ministries: sex scandal involving women); Ted Haggard (evangelical preacher: sexual relationship with a man); Bill Gothard (Gothard Institute of Basic Life Principles: sexual abuse of female followers); Jimmy Swaggart (TV preacher: patronizing prostitutes); Rabbi Barry Freundel: criminal voyeurism of female members of synagogue); Father Jerold Lindner (Catholic priest: sexually molested boys); Father William Clouter (Catholic priest: sexually molested boys); Monsignor William Lynn (orchestrated pedophilia cover-up); Cardinal Theodore McCarrick (sexually molested boys); Cardinal Bernard Law (oversaw pedophilia cover-up); Catholic Bishop Donald Wuerl (sexually molested boys); Rabbi Marc Gafni (sexual abused girls); Heather Cook (Bishop, Episcopal Church: convicted of manslaughter in hit and run death); Dr. William B. Guthrie (Presbyterian minister: murdered wife in bath tub, staged suicide); Edward Belczak (Catholic priest: Embezzled $500,000 from parish); Jarod Mills (Alliance Church pastor: arrested for unlawful sexual contact with a minor); John Douglas White (pastor, Christ Fellowship Church: murdered woman, had sex with her body, then hanged himself in cell); Arthur Burton Schirmer (Methodist Minister: murdered two wives); Juan D. McFarland (Baptist pastor: adulterous encounters with female congregants, drug abuse, and misappropriation of church funds); Daniel Montgomery (Franciscan friar: murdered priest who caught him sexually molesting boys); Robert Van Handel (Franciscan priest, seminary school rector: molested boys); Elder Ulysses Woodard (pastor: in church parking lot, shot and wounded his wife then killed himself)
Law
F. Lee Bailey (defense attorney: disbarred in Florida and Massachusetts for taking millions in trial compensation not due him); Mark Fuller (federal district court judge: arrested for battery of wife, resigned after threat of impeachment); Kenneth Markman (defense attorney: disbarred for smuggling drugs to jailed clients); Douglas B. Barbour (prosecutor, Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office: imprisoned with wife for abusing their children); Mike Nifong (prosecutor: disbarred for overzealous prosecution of innocent students in Duke lacrosse rape case); M. Marc Kelly (Orange County, California judge: sentenced man who sodomized 3-year-old girl to just 10 years); Ken Anderson (prosecutor, Austin, TX: withheld evidence that exonerated man imprisoned 25 years); Michael Thornsbury: judge, Mingo County, WVa.: framed a man whose wife he coveted); John F. Russo (administrative law judge: removed from bench after insulting rape victims in court); David McDade (Douglas County, Georgia prosecutor: used seized drug money for jobs for friends); Bill Peterson (Pontotoc County, Oklahoma prosecutor: mishandled DNA evidence that sent two innocent men to prison for eleven years)
Medicine
Dr. Thomas Dixon (plastic surgeon: hired hit man to murder hospital pathologist in love triangle); Dr. Robert Ferrante (ALS research physician: cyanide poisoned his physician wife to death); Dr. Marian Antoinette (family medicine: lost medical license for threatening physical harm to employees); Dr. Ana Maria Gonzales-Angulo (oncologist: poisoned to death fellow doctor who was her lover); Dr. Hsiu-Ying Tseng (pain specialist: second-degree murder when three patients overdosed on pain pills); Genene Jones (pediatric nurse: murdered four children under her care); Dr. Conrad Murry (Michael Jackson's physician: involuntary manslaughter for for prescribing him Propofol, powerful anesthetic); Dr. Melvin Morse (pediatrician and bestselling author: water boarded 11-year-old daughter); Dr. Larry Nassar (olympic female gymnastics osteopath: raped members of gymnastics team); Dr. Kermit Gosnell (Philadelphia abortionist: murdered three infants born alive, killed patient during abortion); Dr. Timothy Jorden: trauma surgeon: killed himself after live-in girlfriend left him); Dr. Jackson Dempsey (psychiatrist: strung nylon rope across walking path injuring cyclists); Dr. Ulrich Klopper (abortion doctor: failed to document abortions, provide patients with pre-abortion counseling)
Higher Education
Cecilia Chang (Dean, St. John's University: committed suicide after fraud and embezzlement indictment); Dr. H. Gilbert Welsh, Dartmouth: resigned after plagiarizing graph in scholarly journal); Chika Nwankpa (head of Drexel University Engineering Department: spent $96,000 grant money on strip clubs, sports bars, and restaurants); Irena Kristy (professor of calculus, Suffolk University and Boston University: cooked meth with her son); Donald Marvin Jones (constitutional law professor, University of Miami: offered two undercover cops $20 for oral sex); Dr. Hugo Schwzer (history and gender studies professor, Pasadena City College: invited porn actor to class, had sex with female students); Rainer Reinscheid (professor, University of California Irvine: set fires in a park, at high school and the principal's home in revenge for his son's suicide); Dr. James Aune (professor, Texas A&M: committed suicide when blackmailer threatened to expose exchange of sexually explicit photos with underage girl); Dr. Kirk Nesset (literature professor, Allegheny College: possession of child pornography); Dr. Samuel R. See (professor, Yale University: after arrested for assaulting boyfriend, committed suicide in cell); Dr. Jessica A. Krug (professor, George Washington University: white woman who masqueraded as black)
Lower Education
Brittni Colleps (high school English teacher: sex with male students); Marc Berndt (elementary school teacher: sexually molested male students); Lee Riddle (high school German teacher: convicted 18 counts of sexual assault of boys); Michael Luecke (high school teacher: caught masturbating in school hallway); Jennifer Lynn Rich (kindergarten teacher: alcohol intoxication in class); Neal Erickson (eighth grade science teacher: sex with male student); Ethel Anderson (elementary school teacher: exchanged sexually explicit text messages with 12-year-old male student); Anthony Giancola (teacher, special needs school: crackhead who stabbed three people to death in group home); Dr Jay Smith: (high school principal: murdered female teacher); Eric Toth (elementary school teacher: sexually molested hundreds of boys at numerous schools); Symone Greene (high school English teacher: sex with male student behind classroom desk); Rita Baci (kindergarten teacher: video-taped boy beating up other kids); Cynthia Ambrose (kindergarten teacher: encouraged students to punch an unruly kid); Stacie Halas (high school teacher: appeared in porn films under name Tiffany Six); James J. Pepe (high school history teacher: solicited murder of fellow teacher); William James Vahey (high school teacher: pedophile, killed himself to avoid arrest); Dr. Thomas Woodrow Price: headmaster, private prep school: drug abuse); Gregory Eldred (elementary school music teacher: shot wife to death in church); Dr. George Kenney (high school principal: hypnotized troubled students without therapy license); Lauren Harrington: high school English teacher: sex with male students); Kingsley Wentzky (high school English teacher: sex with two male students); Craig Chandler (elementary school teacher: lewd and lascivious acts on student); Lyn Vijayendron (elementary school principal: failed to report pedophile teacher); Edgar Friedrichs elementary school teacher and principal: he murdered one of the students he sexually molested)
Forensic Science
Michael P. Malone (hair and fiber identification, FBI Crime Lab: sent people to prison on junk science); Fred Salem Zain (DNA analyst, West Virginia Crime Lab: incompetence and perjury); Sonja Farak (drug analyst, Massachusetts Crime Lab: malpractice); Annie Dookham (drug analyst, Massachusetts Crime Lab: malpractice); Dr. Ralph Erdman (freelance forensic pathologist: malpractice and perjury); Joyce Gilchrist (DNA analyst, Oklahoma City Crime Lab: malpractice); Dr. Louise Robbins (freelance shoe print identification: helped send dozens to prison on junk science); Dr. Michael West (freelance bite mark identification: junk science testimony); Dr. Pamela Fish (DNA analyst, Chicago Crime Lab: malpractice); Shawn Parcells (freelance forensic pathologist assistant, practicing without a license); Charles Peters (bullet identification, FBI Crime Lab: junk science that sent many to prison); Dr. Charles Harlan (forensic pathologist: false reports and erroneous cause and manner of death rulings); Dr. Charles F. Siebert (forensic pathologist: incompetence and credibility); Dr. John Kenney (bite mark examiner: caved to prosecutorial pressure); Dr. Raymond Rawson (bite mark examiner: retired after misidentification); Dr. Michael Kenny (forensic pathologist: incorrect cause and manner of death rulings); Dr. Richard O. Eicher (forensic pathologist: ruled suicide in obvious death by homicide); Cina L. Wong (graphologist: questionable findings as forensic document examiner); David Liebman (graphologist: questionable findings as forensic document examiner); Arnold Melikoff (hair and fiber examiner, Montana State Crime Lab: incompetence and malpractice); Jon Creighton (fingerprint examiner: misidentified latent fingerprint that convicted innocent man); Marco Palacio (fingerprint examiner: suspended for fingerprint misidentification); Dr. Michael Berkland (forensic pathologist: fired for failure to write autopsy reports and improper storage of body parts); Dr. Angelo Ozoa (forensic pathologist: license suspended for incomplete autopsies and incorrect findings); Dr. Michael McGee (forensic pathologist: incorrect cause and manner of death rulings); Dr. Joan E. Wood (medical examiner: caved to Scientologists in manner of death ruling)
Law Enforcement
Matthew Lowry (FBI Agent: abused drugs); John Connolly (FBI Agent: complicit in murder on behalf of Boston mobster Whitey Bulger); James B. Comey (FBI Director: abuse of power); Peter Strzok (FBI Assistant Director: abuse of power); Andrew Mc Cabe (FBI Assistant Director: abuse of power); Raimundo Atesiaro (police chief: framed innocent black men); Eddie Johnson (Superintendent, Chicago Police Department: domestic battery); Ralph Godbee, chief, Detroit Police Department: affair with subordinate); Michael A. Dotro (police officer: firebombed police captain's house); Ray Schultz (Albuquerque police chief: Resigned after his officers, within a three year period, shot 35 people, killing 18); Michael Mitchell (high school police officer: slapped and dumped boy out of wheelchair); Darin McAllister (FBI agent: mortgage fraud); Patrick Quinn (school district patrol officer: offered not to ticket female arrestees in exchange for acts involving his foot fetish); Charles Locke (police officer: sex with 15-year-old girl); Timothy Brehmen (police officer: manslaughter for killing his lover, a married woman); William Douglas (police detective: created fake fingerprint report that incriminated suspect); Courtney Brown and Kristee Wilson (patrol officers: fired for flipping coin to determine if traffic offender taken into custody); Joe Burge (police detective: beat confessions out of suspects); Stephanie Lazarus (police officer: first-degree murder of woman married to her former boyfriend); Randall Price (wrongful shooting led to $10 million civil judgement against city); Mary O'Callahan (police officer: police brutality); Adam Skweres (police officer: asked five women for oral sex in return for favors he could do them); Randy Adams (police chief, Bell, California: fired for $457,000 annual salary in town of 40,000); Brian Fanelli (police chief, Mount Pleasant, NY: possession of child pornography); Robert Lustyik (FBI agent: bribery and wire fraud); James Peters (police officer: in ten years, shot at seven people, killing one); Nicholas Tankersley (jail guard: favors to female inmates when they sexually exposed themselves)
overwhelming
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