By Lona O'Connor
Palm Beach Post
October 31, 2007
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2007/10/31/m1a_BOYER_1031.html
Right from the start, the deal struck some people as odd.
John F. Boyer, a parishioner of St. Jude Catholic Church in Boca Raton, and the Rev. Michael Driscoll, St. Jude's pastor, signed a contract that would give Boyer a 15 percent commission on money Boyer raised for St. Jude.
Boyer's first pledge was a big one: $7 million from Elizabeth "Libby" Dodson, 93, a Boca Raton philanthropist.
"She had always been envious of the buildings that (philanthropists) the Countess (Henrietta de Hoernle) and Christine Lynn had around town, so she wanted to have some recognition of her own," wrote Boyer, explaining the size of Dodson's pledge to St. Jude, intended to finance a new parish center that would be named for her.
Under the contract, Boyer's 15 percent commission would be $1.05 million.
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| John Boyer (in front of St. Jude Catholic Church) travels in Boca's arts and polo circles. He regales friends with tales of the old days in L.A. and Vegas. He's a potential witness in a suit over Howard Hughes' will. Photo by Chris Matula |
As Boyer himself noted in an e-mail to an associate: "I still remember one week after signing my contract with St. Jude, that (St. Jude development director) Harry Fear stopped me and said, 'That's quite a deal you made for yourself, let's see if you will collect.' "
Boyer's reasoning is that his contract required only that he procure the pledge from Dodson. As far as Boyer was concerned, it was the church's responsibility to collect the $7 million.
So far, Dodson's only monument at St. Jude is a tower of legal documents.
Boyer sued St. Jude in 2003 but has yet to collect his commission as his case grinds on in Palm Beach County Circuit Court.
By the end of 2004, Dodson's brother had her declared mentally incompetent, negating the $7 million gift to St. Jude.
Besides St. Jude, Boyer also sued Michael Kara, brother and legal guardian of Dodson, as well as Dodson herself, a woman Boyer still considers a dear friend. Boyer claims he had to cancel a fund-raiser for a film festival because Kara would not honor his sister's pledge.
"Mr. Boyer ... deceived and unduly influenced Mrs. Dodson to procure the pledges ... but in fact he intended to use the funds for his personal benefit," Kara countered in a Sept. 21 court document.
Driscoll and Kara did not return several phone calls for this story. Diocesan attorney Brooks Ricca would not comment on Boyer's lawsuits.
At the center of this web of legal entanglements is Boyer, 62, a tall, dapper man whose intriguing connections extend to Hollywood high society, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the late eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, about whom he is writing a biography.
John Forthmann Boyer is a great-grandson and one of about a dozen heirs of Rosanna Forthmann, a Los Angeles laundry soap heiress who died in 1937. Her company sponsored the popular 1940s-1950s radio and television show Queen for a Day, which awarded prizes to needy housewives who routinely sobbed while describing their plights.
He grew up in Malibu, Calif., took acting roles in the Star Trek and Gunsmoke television series and learned to play polo.
An affable raconteur, Boyer now orbits in Boca Raton social and arts circles and can hold forth for hours with stories about growing up among rich, famous and shady characters from the good old days in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
According to a May article in a Utah newspaper, Boyer is a potential witness in a 40-year-old lawsuit brought by Melvin Dummar, who claims a one-sixteenth share of Howard Hughes' fortune, based on a handwritten will that Hughes allegedly gave Dummar after he picked up Hughes in the Nevada desert. Dummar is worried about the health of several witnesses, some of whom are elderly or sick. Boyer, who recently had a stroke, was described in the article as also having a heart condition.
Others on the witness list include employees of a Nevada brothel where Hughes was reputedly a customer.
Since 1994, when Boyer's mother, Madelaine Forthmann, died, he has received $30,000 to $40,000 a year from the Forthmann trust, according to court documents. One of Boyer's co-beneficiaries is the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which receives a similar amount from the trust. Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony has been under fire in about 500 priest sex-abuse cases. In December the archdiocese agreed to pay $60 million to victims in 45 cases.
Boyer has been trying to get the archdiocese to produce financial documents he says pertain to his great-grandmother's will.
Boyer also has been trying to locate 16 years' worth of missing files from his great-grandmother's case.
In 1999, Boyer filed objections to a routine annual accounting report of his great-grandmother's trust, even though the trust contains a clause that could disinherit any heir who contested the will. His case was overturned in 2002 by a California appeals court, which described Boyer's legal efforts in that matter as "a transparent fishing expedition."
Philanthropist Dodson, a former Navy nurse and chief nurse with the Veterans Affairs Department in Washington, grew up in Pennsylvania. After her husband, Harry, died in 1992, she managed their investments, which have been estimated at upward of $20 million.
Over the years, Dodson donated large sums of money to Florida Atlantic University, Lynn University, Boca Raton Community Hospital and the Red Cross.
Some observers of nonprofits consider charging a commission on fund raising a bad practice.
"It's a hot-button issue in the charitable world," said attorney John Pankauski, who handles probate cases and writes a newspaper column on wealth. "Can you compensate a fund-raiser by giving them a piece of the action? Most charities say no. When a fund-raiser is a partner, I think that sends the wrong message."
Especially in the era of priest-sex scandals, it behooves church officials not to do anything that would make potential donors leery of writing checks, Pankauski said.
Most fund-raising guidelines, including those for Catholic institutions, frown on contracts and percentage commissions for fund-raisers.
When Boyer is not appearing in court, monitoring his lawsuits, delving for documents or working on the Hughes biography, he is running a small film festival he organized several years ago to benefit the Madelaine Forthmann Boyer Study Center for the Arts, a registered nonprofit named for his mother. The center claims an income of less than $25,000, according to documents.
He also has handled public relations and marketing at the Royal Palm Polo Club in suburban Boca Raton and has been a member of the Palm Beach County Film and Television Commission. In 1999, he won a humanitarian award from the American Red Cross.
As Boyer's lawsuits drag on, he continues to send invoices for his commission to church lawyers. Each month, an updated invoice includes accrued 1.5 percent a month, or nearly $16,000, in "late fees."
None of the lawyers has acknowledged the late fees.
Contact: lona_oconnor@pbpost.com.
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