February 27, 2004
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Smith & Wesson chairman resigns over criminal past
Jonathan J. Higuera
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 26, 2004 05:00 PM
Smith & Wesson Holding Corp., parent company of the 150-year-old handgun maker, Friday will formally announce the resignation of its board chairman, whose criminal past as an armed robber became known earlier this month.
James Joseph Minder, 74, who spent at least 13 years in Michigan prisons for various armed robberies and a bank heist, stepped down at the company's board meeting Monday in Scottsdale...
Minder served various stints in state and federal prisons in the 1950s and 1960s. He admitted to carrying out at least 20 armed robberies. The last eight came while he was a 29-year-old journalism student at the University of Michigan in 1959. That ended with a wild, three-mile chase and crash in a stolen car.
He was dubbed the 'shotgun bandit' for his penchant for brandishing a 16-gauge sawed-off shotgun at shopkeepers. During his stint at a federal prison, he and another prisoner on the Ionia Reformatory debate team escaped during a scheduled debate in a stolen car. They were caught a week later after a police chase.
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