Typed Letter Signed

This huge corruption investigation of the 1980s involved the FBI, IRS, USPS, Chicago Police Department and other law enforcement agencies and resulted in a large number of indictments and convictions of judges, lawyers, sheriffs, police officers and court officials -- among the top of which was this federal judge, convicted of extorting $200,000 in "loans" from those under him; his 18-year sentence was later reduced to 13 years and he was released in 1990. TLS, 5pp (rectos only), 8½" X 11", Oxford, WI, 1987 December 29. Addressed to a Chicago publisher. Very good. Two faint original fold lines and 3/4" edge tear at right margin. Writing from prison, Holzer congratulates this Chicago publisher on his success, then boldly states: "...allow me to introduce myself. I am a prisoner at the Federal Prison Camp, Oxford, Wisconsin." Interestingly, when Holzer was sentenced for his crimes, he remarked, 'I stand before you a convicted felon, exhausted, disrobed and defeated. ... I have committed crimes. Those crimes have destroyed me. They have wounded my family beyond measure and confused my friends. ... There are no words to express my loss, my remorse, my grief.'' But in this letter he recaps his career, then paints Operation Greylord in a different light: "I became, in 1985, one of more than seventy judges, lawyers and court personnel to find himself the target of a wide-ranging investigation, tagged 'Operation Greylord' by the prosecutors and press, followed by the inevitable indictment.... after a newsy, six-week trial, I was, of course, found guilty on most counts. In the media-hyped atmosphere of the day, a finding of innocent would have been impossible...." The remainder of this lengthy letters is not a legal expose ("but I'm ready to take on that assignment next"), but rather a description of his novel "Leviticus 18" -- "the story of a Jewish family who lived in the town of Oswiecim, Polish Austria-Hungary, nestled in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, about thirty-five miles west of Krakow. The action occurs roughly between 1880 and 1910...." Interesting and unusual, with direct reference to the scandal that ruined his career.