To give a sense for the intense interest in the Upper Great Lakes Regional Commission scandal a quarter century ago I’ve scanned in the Duluth Public Library’s catalogue of news stories about it.
The scandal broke half way through 1978 and was wrapped up early in 1981. My count of the news stories in both the Duluth Tribune and Herald is 278. They were mirrored by similar articles across the state of Minnesota. After all this effort the Feds only managed to convict one man for mail fraud in what they claimed was an attempt to steal a piddling $60,000. Of this amount about $20,000 was proven in court and to the IRS’s satisfaction to have been taken by Don Boyd’s boss but only after Boyd got out of prison for attempting its theft. His boss got off on this charge on a technicality. No one has ever accounted for the missing million dollars alleged to have been embezzled.