Bernard Goldfine

Bernard Goldfine (1880s/1890s – September 22, 1967) was an American businessman. Starting his career after dropping out of high school to support his family, he owned and operated several mills and hotels throughout New England. A close associate with several governors and senators throughout New England, his relationship with Sherman Adams came to national attention when the latter stepped down as White House Chief of Staff after the House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight discovered Adams had accepted luxury items from Goldfine.

Biography Early life and career Goldfine was born in the Russian Empire; sources differ on his birth yea (Parmet says that he was born in 1889.) After starting his first job delivering hats, he worked at a junkyard his father ran. In September 1953, Goldfine bought the George Mabbett and Sons Company, a textile mill operator in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Around the time, The New York Times called him "a champion of New England as a textile center". By 1958, 1,372 employees were working at his mills. He bought several real estate companies, namely the East Boston Company and Boston Port Development Company. ), as well as a summer home in Hull, Massachusetts.

Outside of business, Goldfine built relationships throughout New England's political sphere. At the time, Goldfine considered them to be at most "minor matters” not likely to get to his level". On December 19, 1958, district court judge Charles Edward Wyzanski Jr. found Goldfine and his secretary Mildred Paperman guilty of contempt of court for withholding documents from an Internal Revenue Service case involving his businesses, and on December 22 he received a three month jail sentence and a $1,000 fine. The Supreme Court of the United States denied certiorari for his case on June 27, and a motion to reduce both his and Paperman's sentences was denied by Circuit Court Judge Peter Woodbury on June 30. He served his sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury in 1960. He and Northfield Mills also received a $5,000 federal fine for violations of the Wool Products Labeling Act in June 1960.

In March 1960, Goldfine was indicted for evading $790,000 of income and corporate taxes. An IRS investigation also discovered more than $300,000 of unreported income on Goldfine's behalf. this decision was later reversed in February 1961. On June 5, 1961, Goldfine was fined $110,000 and sentenced to a year and a day (in addition to a 18 months suspended sentence) for tax evasion. Following a stroke, he received an early release after serving six months of his sentence. Francis J. Souhan, a New York state legislator, bought Goldfine's Northfield mill. With his Chestnut Hill home sold as part of the settlement, he moved to an apartment in Back Bay, Boston.