21 Facts About Edward Mezvinsky

Edward Maurice Mezvinsky is an American politician and lawyer from Iowa.

Edward Mezvinsky graduated from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

Edward Mezvinsky made several unsuccessful US Senate attempts in the 1980s.

Edward Mezvinsky grew up in Ames, Iowa, the son of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire.

Edward Mezvinsky's father, Abram, was a grocery store owner from Kyiv and his mother, Feiga "Fanny" Grundman, from a shtetl called Lashanovka in Volhynia.

Edward Mezvinsky was an all-state football end and member of the Ames High School state championship basketball and track teams of 1955.

Edward Mezvinsky went on to earn a master's degree in political science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1963, and a JD from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1965.

Edward Mezvinsky returned briefly to Iowa to practice law, but quickly began a political career.

Edward Mezvinsky was elected to the Iowa Legislature in 1968, where he attracted publicity as a consumers' advocate.

Edward Mezvinsky lost a 1970 campaign to unseat Republican Congressman Fred Schwengel in Iowa's 1st congressional district by only 765 votes.

Edward Mezvinsky was one of eight Democratic members of the committee who voted for all five articles of impeachment drafted against Nixon; three were reported to the House, while two failed.

Six months into his first term in Congress, Edward Mezvinsky separated from his wife of ten years Myra Shulman; they were divorced two weeks after his 1974 re-election.

Edward Mezvinsky unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate seat held by retiring incumbent Republican Richard Schweiker in 1980, but lost to former Pittsburgh Mayor Pete Flaherty.

Edward Mezvinsky became chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, and made a run for state attorney general in 1988.

Edward Mezvinsky won the Democratic primary, but lost to Republican Ernie Preate in the general election.

Edward Mezvinsky unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor in 1990, losing to incumbent Mark Singel.

In March 2001, Edward Mezvinsky was indicted and later pleaded guilty to 31 of 69 felony charges of bank fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud.

Edward Mezvinsky, who had been working as an attorney at the time, was funneling embezzled and fraudulently obtained money to West African con men after falling victim to an online advance-fee scam.

Edward Mezvinsky entered prison in February 2003, and served his time at Federal Prison Camp, Eglin.

Edward Mezvinsky remained on federal probation until 2011, and as of 2010 still owed $9.4 million in restitution to his victims.

President Clinton was reportedly indebted to Margolies-Edward Mezvinsky for providing the crucial vote in the House of Representatives to pass his budget and tax bill in 1993, despite being, as Clinton noted in his autobiography, "one of the very few Democrats who represented a district with more constituents who'd get tax hikes than tax cuts, and in her campaign she'd promised not to vote for any tax increases"; she subsequently lost her bid for re-election in 1994.