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News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyAugust 12th, 2016
That summer, greater Miami was swept up by an unprecedented wave of media-driven anti-gay hysteria, triggered, in part, by the murder of a male Eastern Airlines flight attendant earlier in August (Aug 3, Aug 11). Bars and beaches were being raided and gay men were being convicted under various vague public nuisance laws or the similarly vague “lewd and lascivious” law. (Prosecutions and convictions under Florida’s sodomy law were very rare, but mere threat of being charged with that felony often induced guilty pleas to lesser offenses.) The Miami News on August 12 reported on one such case involving a gay man and a reputed police informant who was apparently himself gay. Because The News’s report leaves open far more questions than it answers, I will just repeat it in full.
Informant Escapes Jail Term in Pervert ‘Turnabout’ Trial.
By Larry Birger
Miami Daily News Staff WriterA self-styled police informer escaped trial on sex charges today when a convicted homosexual refused to press a complaint which he had filed at the suggestion of City Judge Cecil C. Curry.
Odom’s photo from the Miami News
The case against truck driver Leonard M. Odom, 24, of 3523 SW 14th Ter., was dispatched so quickly that the name of the complainant’s attorney escaped reporters.
The convicted homosexual, Walter G. Quester, changed his mind and dropped charges against Odom of committing lewd and lascivious acts.
Judge Curry asked the unidentified attorney for Quester: “Why did you drop the charges?”
“I don’t know,” the lawyer replied. “I wasn’t here yesterday.”
The attorney was referring to the unusual court session at which the judge had turned on the chief witness against the defendant at Quester’s hearing on charges of lewd and lascivious acts.
On the basis of Odom’s testimony, concerning a “date” he claimed he’d had with Quester to get information for the police, Quester was convicted and sentenced to 60 days in jail.
Then Curry told Odom, “It looks to me as if you’re just as guilty as the defendant.” He suggested to Quester that he file counter-charges against Odom, which was done.
Before today’s hearing Odom’s lawyer, Morey A. Rayman, said he would move that Curry disqualify himself as presiding judge on grounds he had prejudged the defendant.
This report raises all sorts of questions. Was Odom really working as a police informant? Or did he decide to try to claim that’s what he was doing in order to try to get out of being charged himself? What — or who — led Quester to drop the charges against Odom? And with Odom’s name, address, and photo published in the paper, what happened to him after the trial was over?
It really is quite possible that there were two victims in the sordid mess, each one trying to make the best of a very bad, no-win situation. These are the kinds of stories that appear briefly in newspapers across the country and then, just as quickly, disappear. These are also the kinds of stories I would love to be able to track down. In searching Ancestry.com, there was a Walter G. Quester who died in 1987 in Broward County, Florida, and a Leonard M. Odom who died in Madison, Florida in 1997. Were these the guys mentioned in this article?
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lee erickson
August 12th, 2016
Hi Jim,
I like the way your mind works; I, too, am fascinated by these kinds of cases. Good thinking: looking in death records at Ancestry. What a loss–not to know how ten thousand people like these guys and gals made the best of the accident of living when they did.
More stories like this, please!
Lee Erickson
Chicago
P.S. Today would have been the 81st birthday of such a man–who lived in Miami during this time, and might even have known Quester and/or Odom. That man was my best friend for 35 years. May he rest in deepest peace.
Lee
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