Fred G. Folsom, Jr., a retired chief of the Justice Department’s Criminal Section of the Tax Division, died of respiratory failure Jan. 2 at his home in Alexandria, Va. He was 97.
Folsom (family photo)
Folsom was a career Justice Department attorney. He worked in what was then known as the Civil Rights Section, and in 1947 he became the acting chief of the unit. From 1961 until his retirement in 1972, he worked as the chief of the Criminal Section of the Tax Division. He also was a member of the department task force that reviewed the investigation of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. In 1974, he advised the House Judiciary Committee during its inquiry into Richard Nixon’s taxes, according to a report by the Washington Post.
In 2010, President Obama honored Folsom for his work on civil rights.
Folsom was born in Boulder, Colo., in 1914. He later graduated with an undergraduate degree and then a law degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
According to the Post, Dorothy Slaughter Folsom, his first wife of 34 years, died in 1975. Susan Folsom Lindberg, their daughter, died in 1974. He is survived by his wife of 35 years, Catharine Murphy Folsom; his son, Fred Folsom, III; five stepchildren, Andrew L. Kruetzer, Thomas K. Kruetzer, John H. Kruetzer, David W. Kruetzer and Elizabeth E. Tobin; and 16 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
