Abraham W. Bolden (born January 19, 1935) is a former United States Secret Service agent. He was the first African American assigned to the presidential security detail, appointed in 1961 by John F. Kennedy. In 1964, Bolden was fired from the Secret Service after he was charged with accepting a bribe in relation to a counterfeiting case he had been investigating. Convicted by a jury, he was sentenced to six years in federal prison. Bolden always alleged that he had been framed by members of the government in order to intimidate and silence him. He was pardoned by President Joe Biden in April 2022.
Early life Bolden was born January 19, 1935 to Daniel and Ophelia Bolden in East St. Louis, Illinois. He attended Lincoln High School in East St. Louis, Illinois. Bolden graduated cum laude from Lincoln University with a B.A. in music composition. Afterwards, he became the first African-American detective with the Pinkerton National Detective Agency prior to becoming a highway patrolman with the Illinois State Police. Bolden married Barbara L. Hardy in 1956, and the couple had three children: Ahvia Maria, Abraham Jr., and Daaim Shabazz.
Secret Service career In October 1960, Bolden became a member of the United States Secret Service. In June 1961, he was transferred from the Chicago office and given a 30-day temporary assignment in the Presidential Protective Division guarding John F. Kennedy. As a result of this assignment, Bolden had the distinction of being the first African American to guard a U.S. president. According to Michael Torina who was then chief inspector of the Secret Service, Bolden's assignment was routine and "we aren't making anything of it or providing any biographical matter, as is the same for any other agent." Torina added that it was a standard Secret Service practice to rotate newer agents onto the White House detail within the first two years of their service.
Bolden's recollection of the circumstances of his White House assignment was slightly different. He said it occurred after he met Kennedy on April 28, 1961 while working an event at the McCormick Place in Chicago. According to Bolden, Kennedy personally invited him to join the White House detail as the first African American to protect the President. Bolden also said that Kennedy once introduced him to others as "the Jackie Robinson of the Secret Service", a comment Bolden found so touching he almost broke into tears. Bolden soon grew disenchanted by his experiences in the Presidential Protective Division. He voluntarily left it after his probationary period ended in July 1961. He later said his decision to leave was a "protest against the poor security being given the president." Bolden returned to Chicago as a field agent in the counterfeiting division where he built a record of success. He "won two commendations for cracking counterfeiting rings". Jet magazine reported that in 1962, he "ranked second in the nation in solving" counterfeit and check forging cases.
Bribery charges On May 12, 1964, Bolden was accused of attempting to sell a government file to Joseph Spagnoli Jr. in exchange for $50,000. The file was evidence for a case in which Spagnoli was named as the head of a counterfeiting ring. Bolden was arraigned in Chicago on May 20, 1964, on federal charges that he had solicited a bribe from the ring that he had helped break. A federal grand jury returned a three-count indictment against Bolden, charging him with "seeking a bribe in violation of his official duty" (18 U.S.C. § 201), "corruptly obstructing the due administration of justice" (18 U.S.C. § 1503), and "conspiring with Frank Jones to commit the crimes defined in these sections" (18 U.S.C. § 371).
Allegations: framed for attempting to reveal Secret Service misconduct On May 20, 1964, Bolden held a news conference at his home on the South Side of Chicago and denied the charges. He asserted that he had been framed by the government because he intended to tell the Warren Commission about a pattern of misconduct on the part of agents assigned to protect Kennedy. Bolden stated that two weeks earlier, prior to leaving for Washington, D.C. to attend an in-service training, he mentioned to a fellow agent that he would try to testify before the Warren Commission. He told the media: "I wanted to, and I still intend to, tell the commission about the laxity and nonchalant attitude of secret service agents handling the protection of the President." Bolden charged that agents drank heavily before and after assignments guarding Kennedy in Washington and at his summer home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, that they missed their work shifts or reported to them "half drunk", and that they used official Secret Service cars to transport female companions or to visit bars. He said another agent called him a racial epithet when he complained about these issues. Bolden also stated that he told James J. Rowley, head of the Secret Service, about the drinking but that no action was taken.
Edward Hanrahan, the then United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, issued a statement describing Bolden's allegations as "fantastic" and said, "The accuracy of these charges should be judged by the fact that the man who made them was silent from 1961 until after he was arrested..." Newspaper reports indicated that the Warren Commission was made aware of the allegations and quoted an unnamed member of the Commission: "It would appear that he is trying to get off the hook by making such charges now. Nevertheless, the charges he makes are serious. He desires to testify and his request ought to be approved." According to the Associated Press, a Commission spokesman said they were considering calling Bolden but had made no decision.
On June 18, Rowley addressed Bolden's allegations in testimony before the Warren Commission. Rowley explained that Bolden was selected to rotate through the White House detail for 30 days in the summer of 1961 as part of an orientation program, and that the allegations referred to a five-day span in Hyannis Port. When J. Lee Rankin, Warren Commission general counsel, asked Rowley when he heard about Bolden's charges of misconduct, Rowley replied: "The fact is he never informed me. He never informed any of his supervisors or anyone on the detail." Rankin then interrupted the questioning to state: "I think the record should show, Mr. Chairman, that we were never advised that he [Bolden] wanted to testify, nor had we any inquiry or anything about the matter, until after we learned about it in the newspapers. And, even then, he didn't ask to testify. And we asked the FBI to check into it, and he had counsel and they refused to tell anything about the matter at that time." Rowley later stated there was "no truth to the charges of misconduct". He added that Bolden had leveled eleven charges and there was partial truth to only one of them (i.e., agents had purchased 2-3 cases of beer while grocery shopping for the house where the Secret Service men were staying), but that Rowley's internal investigation found there were no violations of Secret Service regulations. In response to Rankin's questioning, Rowley answered that as far as he knew, Bolden's indictment in May was the first time a criminal complaint had been lodged against a Secret Service agent. Bolden himself was never called before the Warren Commission.
Trials On July 6, 1964, Bolden's trial opened in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois before Judge Joseph Samuel Perry. To raise money for his legal defense, Bolden had performed a series of piano recitals throughout Chicago in which he played his own compositions. The government's case relied on the testimony of two men, Frank Jones and Joseph Spagnoli Jr., both under indictment in Chicago for counterfeiting U.S. bonds. The main allegation against Bolden was that he used Jones as a go-between in an illegal moneymaking operation. Jones said that Bolden had shown him several documents stapled together and a small, typewritten piece of paper containing an excerpt from the Spagnoli investigation report. Bolden purportedly directed Jones to visit Spagnoli, show him the piece of paper, and offer to sell Spagnoli his entire file for $50,000 (according to Jones, Bolden told him they would split the money). Jones was to assure Spagnoli that he had a Secret Service contact with access to the file.
Maurice Martineau, Secret Service agent in charge of the Chicago office, was the first witness for the prosecution. He testified that Spagnoli had complained to him in a telephone call that the government was attempting to entrap him. Martineau added that his own investigation led him to Jones, who informed him of the illegal operation being orchestrated by Bolden. Martineau said he confronted Bolden with the allegations, and that Bolden denied them.
The following day on July 7, Jones—the prosecution's chief witness—testified that Bolden had attempted to sell government information for $50,000. He said Bolden had driven him to a park where he showed him parts of a Secret Service file. In his testimony on July 9, Bolden denied all the charges. He also denied he had offered Richard Walter, an informant, $500 to kill Jones, and said he only warned Walter to stay away from Jones. Twice during deliberations, the jury reached an impasse. After the first occurrence, Judge Perry issued an Allen charge in which he told the jury that the evidence sustained a guilty verdict, but that the jury was free to disregard his opinion. Nevertheless, the jury remained deadlocked at 11-1 (in favor of conviction), and Perry declared a mistrial on July 11, 1964. He set August 3 as the date for a new trial.
On August 12, 1964, the jury in the second trial found Bolden guilty of the charges and Judge Perry sentenced him to six years in prison. Perry had the option to sentence him to 25 years and $165,000 ($15,000 plus three times the amount of the bribe). Bolden was reported to have responded tearfully to the verdict and to have apologized by saying that "if at the time of my arrest I ever embarrassed any agency of the United States it was because I thought at the time my statements were true." Acknowledging Bolden's apology, Hanrahan told the media: "The verdict completely rejects the outrageous charges made by the defendant and confirms the public's belief in the absolute integrity of the U.S. Secret Service." Bolden filed a notice of appeal. In that same month of August, he was fired by the Secret Service. While his appeal was pending, Bolden was employed in Chicago by the Ingersoll Products Division of the Borg-Warner Corporation as an assembly line inspector of government ordered helmets and canteens. At Ingersoll, he was credited with starting a collection among fellow employees that raised enough money to send 75,000 cigarettes to American military forces in South Vietnam. During that time, he was also an official for Local 333 of the United Automobile Workers.
Appeal and presidential pardon In January 1965, five months after Bolden's trial and sentencing, Spagnoli was found guilty on counterfeiting charges and sentenced to fifteen years. At his trial, Spagnoli said his livelihood was gambling, that he had falsely testified in Bolden's trial about his mother being his primary source of income, and that his false testimony was suborned by the government counsel in order to improve the jury's opinion of him. Spagnoli also said he lied about the date of his first contact with Agent Martineau and may have lied about other dates. On the basis of this information, Bolden appealed his conviction as well as the denial of a motion for a retrial to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. In addition, he claimed that Perry's use of the "Allen charge" in the first trial was evidence that Perry was not impartial and that his failure to recuse himself denied Bolden a fair trial.