# Thomas J. Pendergast

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/people/thomas-j-pendergast/

Sentenced in the Western District of Missouri on 22 May 1939 for attempted income-tax evasion, after pleading guilty; Judge Otis described him as a private citizen who had exercised 'a dominating influence in city, county and state politics for a quarter of a century,' and the Supreme Court reversed his 1941 contempt conviction on limitations grounds.

The role line is the district court's description in its 1939 sentencing memorandum. Photographs held at the Truman Library were not used because the National Archives catalog marks their copyright restricted or unknown, and no birth or death date was found in an opened record. A newspaper report of the sentence is a post-1930 page and is not filed; the court's opinion is followed, which gives the probation as five years.

## Sources

- United States v. Pendergast, 28 F. Supp. 601 (W.D. Mo. 1939), via CourtListener: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1811307/united-states-v-pendergast/