You’d think with a name like Swindall, a politician would work to be a paragon of integrity. Not Pat Swindall, a former two-term congressman from DeKalb and onetime up-and-comer in the Republican party during the Reagan era. When he needed an $850,000 loan for his Stone Mountain home, Swindall appeared on a videotape in which a federal agent posed as a money launderer for the underworld. Swindall was convicted in 1989 of lying to a grand jury. He futilely proclaimed his innocence all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and served a year in prison for six counts of perjury. Swindall, under indictment, lost his seat to the actor who played Crazy Cooter on The Dukes of Hazzard.
Tapes Redux In 2009 a Fulton County grand jury indicted Swindall, who manages property Downtown, for making false statements to conceal allegedly illegal campaign contributions to an Atlanta city councilwoman. The case is pending.
Photograph courtesy of the Atlanta History Center
This article originally appeared in the May 2011 issue
