Francis H. Woodward

Woodward's trial began on September 16, 1996. October 2, 1996, he was found guilty of five counts of accepting illegal gratuities during his tenure as Chairman of the Insurance Committee, but not guilty of twenty-one counts that occurred between his removal as Chairman and his departure from the House. On February 7, 1997, Judge Douglas P. Woodlock dismissed one of the five counts and sentenced Woodward to six months in a federal halfway house and fined him $5,000. In 2002, the Massachusetts Retirement Board voted to revoke Woodward's pension.

On July 28, 1995, Woodward was indicted on charges of depriving taxpayers of honest services through mail and wire fraud, conspiracy, interstate travel to commit bribery, and lying on State Ethics Commission reports. According to United States Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Chiel, Woodward received illegal gratuities from John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. lobbyist F. William Sawyer from 1986 to 1992 and attempted to conceal it by filing false financial disclosure forms. The gratuities allegedly included free golf trips to Savannah, Georgia, Orlando, Florida, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, and Scottsdale, Arizona as well as a trip to Super Bowl XX in New Orleans, Louisiana. Woodward's attorney claimed that Sawyer gave Woodward the gifts out of friendship, not in an attempt to influence him as a legislator.

In 1991, Woodward was removed from his position as Insurance Committee Chairman by Keverian's successor Charles Flaherty. In 1992 it was announced that he would retire from the legislature to become an administrative judge with the state's Industrial Accident Board.

In 1987, Woodward supported a bill that would raise the age for mandatory car-seat restraints from 5 to 12. He also sponsored legislation that would require the installation of breath alcohol ignition interlock devices on cars of repeat drunk driving offenders.

After the accident, Woodward became an ardent supporter of the proposed mandatory seat-belt law. The mandatory seat-belt law passed the House on July 16, 1985 and, after it passed the Senate, was signed into law. The law was struck down by voters via a ballot question in the 1986 election.

On December 26, 1983, Woodward's eighteen-year-old daughter Carolyn was killed in an automobile accident. She was the passenger in a car that was struck head-on by a drunken driver. Based on his conversations with the emergency-room physician at the hospital where his daughter died, Woodward believed that his daughter would've survived the crash had she been wearing a seat belt.

Francis H. Woodward is a former American politician who was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1977 to 1991.

In 1976, Woodward defeated incumbent State Representative Alan Danovitch. During his early years in the legislature, Woodward often opposed House leadership, but did so without voicing loud criticisms, which allowed him to have a good relationship with them. In 1985, reform-minded George Keverian became Speaker and chose Woodward to replace Theodore J. Aleixo, Jr., a Thomas W. McGee loyalist, as Chairman of the Insurance Committee.

Woodward was born on March 17, 1939 in Boston. He attended Boston public schools, Newman Preparatory School, and Dean Junior College. In 1962 he married Kathleen Sprague of West Roxbury. Prior to becoming a legislator, Woodward worked as a lineman for Boston Edison.