Whitney North Seymour Jr., a patrician Republican who battled graft as President Richard M. Nixon’s United States attorney in Manhattan in the 1970s, and as a special prosecutor later won a perjury case against a former senior aide to President Ronald Reagan, died on Saturday in Torrington, Conn. Mr. Seymour died at Charlotte Hungerford Hospital, his brother, Thaddeus, said. From 1970 to 1973, he was the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, the Justice Department’s most prestigious outpost, which at that time included Manhattan, the Bronx and nine upstate counties. He replaced Robert M. Morgenthau, a Democrat who was forced out after nine years and became a popular Manhattan district attorney. Mr. Seymour won convictions of Wall Street felons, organized crime leaders and narcotics traffickers, as well as high-profile corruption cases against former State Senator Seymour R. Thaler; Martin Sweig, an aide to Speaker John W. McCormack; and Robert T. Carson, a senior assistant to Senator Hiram L. Fong of Hawaii.

Source: New York Times June 30, 2019 00:45 UTC