John Sirica
| John Sirica | |
|---|---|
| Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia | |
|
In office 1971–1974 |
|
| Personal details | |
| Born |
John Joseph Sirica March 19, 1904 Waterbury, Connecticut |
| Died | August 14, 1992 (aged 88) Washington, DC |
| Alma mater | Georgetown University |
John Joseph Sirica (March 19, 1904 – August 14, 1992) was the Chief Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, where he became famous for his role in the trials stemming from the Watergate scandal. He rose to national prominence during the Watergate scandal when he ordered President Richard Nixon to turn over his recordings of White House conversations.
Sirica's involvement in the case began when he presided over the trial of the Watergate burglars. He did not believe the claim that they had acted alone, and persuaded or coerced most of them to implicate the men who had arranged the break-in (G. Gordon Liddy remained silent). For his role in Watergate the judge was named TIME magazine's Man of the Year in 1973.
John Sirica was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, to Ferdinand and Rose (Zinno) Sirica, both of whom were Italian immigrants. He moved to Washington, D.C. in 1918, where he attended Emerson Preparatory School and eventually transferred to Columbia Preparatory School. Sirica received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center after doing undergraduate work at Duke University.
Between 1910 and 1918, the Sirica family lived in and moved between various US cities where Ferdinand operated and, according to his son, failed in, a number of businesses. They settled in Washington in 1918, and in 1922 Ferdinand was running a bowling alley/pool hall which was raided by the police. Ferdinand was charged with violation of the Volstead act, but the charges were dropped. In the early 1930s, Sirica's father was said to have been running an illegal liquor distribution operation through the barber shop in Washington DC that he ran together with partner William E. Emmons.
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