Jewell was formally exonerated in 2005, two years before his death, when the real bomber Eric Rudolph was convicted. Editor's note: This story has been modified to reflect that Wood and Grant joined Jewell's legal team the day before a press conference was held to announce that Jewell passed a polygraph test.
As the FBI pegs him as a possible lone bomber, Jewell reaches out to his previous employer Watson Bryant (played by Sam Rockwell), who by this point is only working as a real estate lawyer. He’d never represented an alleged murderer, let alone someone accused of a domestic terror attack that killed two people and injured another 111.
Well, what differs from reality is the movie’s portrayal of Bryant as Jewell’s one and only lawyer. Jewell actually had several lawyers. In fact, he had an entire team. In addition to Bryant, he had a legal team including Lin Wood, Wayne Grant, Jack Martin, Richard Rackleff, and Watson's brother Bruce, according to Slate.
Jewell was born Richard White in Danville, Virginia, the son of Bobi, an insurance claims coordinator, and Robert Earl White, who worked for Chevrolet. Richard's birth-parents divorced when he was four. When his mother later married John Jewell, an insurance executive, his stepfather adopted him.
For the architect, see Richard Roach Jewell. Richard Allensworth Jewell (born Richard White; December 17, 1962 – August 29, 2007) was an American security guard and law enforcement officer who alerted police during the Centennial Olympic Park bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in ...
Richard Allensworth Jewell (born Richard White; December 17, 1962 – August 29, 2007) was an American security guard and law enforcement officer who alerted police during the Centennial Olympic Park bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. For months afterwards he was suspected of planting the bomb, ...
Sometime after midnight, July 27, 1996, Eric Robert Rudolph, a terrorist who would later bomb a lesbian nightclub and two abortion clinics, planted a green backpack containing a fragmentation-laden pipe bomb under a bench. Jewell was working as a security guard for the event.
On October 26, 1996, the US Attorney in Atlanta, Kent Alexander, sent Jewell a letter saying "based on the evidence developed to date ... Richard Jewell is not considered a target of the federal criminal investigation into the bombing on July 27, 1996, at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta". The letter did not include an apology, but in a separate statement issued by Alexander, the U.S. Justice Department regretted the leaking of the investigation.
It was written by Billy Ray, based on the 1997 article "American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell," by Marie Brenner, and the book The Suspect: An Olympic Bombing, the FBI, the Media, and Richard Jewell, the Man Caught in the Middle (2019) by Kent Alexander and Kevin Salwen.
Richard Jewell is portrayed by Cameron Britton.
Olive Wilde as Kathy Scruggs Photo: Warner Bros. One of the lawyers who represented the man at the center of Clint Eastwood’s new movie “Richard Jewell” has blasted the film’s depiction of a female journalist. Before the film’s Friday debut, it had already been criticized for its vampy portrayal of Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Kathy ...
Lin Wood, a defamation lawyer who represented Jewell in lawsuits filed against The Journal-Constitution and other media outlets for defamation, spoke out against the movie’s portrayal of Scruggs. "I handled Richard Jewell's case against AJC for 16 years,” he tweeted.
The defamation lawyer L. Lin Wood has transformed into a fierce advocate for President Trump whose error-riddled lawsuits have promoted falsehoods about election fraud. Lin Wood, a lawyer who gained prominence through high-profile defamation cases, is now best known for amplifying the president’s false claims about the election.
Ralph Reed, the chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and a veteran of Georgia politics , said that control of the Senate was too important to squander. “I like Lin.
Doug Collier/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images. Mr. Wood’s biggest break came in 1996 when he represented Mr. Jewell, a security guard wrongly suspected of planting a pipe bomb in Atlanta during the Summer Olympics that killed one person and injured more than 100 others.
James Rawls, an Atlanta-based lawyer who helped Mr. Wood with some of the Ramsey family matters, said working with him was easy “when we were all on the same team.”.
Centennial Olympic Park was designed as the "town square" of the Olympics, and thousands of spectators had gathered for a late concert and merrymaking. Sometime after midnight, July 27, 1996, Eric Robert Rudolph, a terrorist who would later bomb a lesbian nightclub and two abortion clinics, planted a green backpack containing a fragmentation-laden pipe bomb under a bench. Jewell was working as a security guard for the event. He discovered the bag and alerted Georgia …
Jewell was born Richard White in Danville, Virginia, the son of Bobi, an insurance claims coordinator, and Robert Earl White, who worked for Chevrolet. Richard's birth parents divorced when he was four. When his mother later married John Jewell, an insurance executive, his stepfather adopted him.
Jewell worked in various law enforcement jobs, including as a police officer in Pendergrass, Georgia. He worked as a deputy sheriff in Meriwether County, Georgia, until his death. He also gave speeches at colleges. On July 30, 1997, Jewell testified before a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives in which he called for an independent investigation into methods used by FBI agents during their investigation of him. He appeared in Michael Moore's 1997 film The Big One. …
After he was dropped as a suspect, Jewell filed libel suits against the FBI, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, CNN, the New York Post, and Piedmont College.
Jewell sued the Atlanta Journal-Constitution because, according to Jewell, the paper's headline ("FBI suspects 'hero' guard may have planted bomb") "pretty much started the whirlwind". In one article, the Atlanta Journal compared Richard Jewell's case to that of serial killer Wayne Williams.
Richard Jewell, a biographical drama film, was released in the United States on December 13, 2019. The film was directed and produced by Clint Eastwood. It was written by Billy Ray, based on the 1997 article "American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell," by Marie Brenner, and the book The Suspect: An Olympic Bombing, the FBI, the Media, and Richard Jewell, the Man Caught in the Middle (2019) by Kent Alexander and Kevin Salwen. Jewell is played by Paul Walter Hauser.
Jewell had been diagnosed with diabetes in February 2007 and suffered kidney failure and other medical problems related to his diagnosis in the following months. His wife, Dana, found him dead on the floor of their bedroom when she came home from work on August 29, 2007; he was 44. An autopsy found the cause of death to be severe heart disease with diabetes and related complications as a contributing factor.
• Centennial Olympic Park bombing