Gordon Butler Chevy - Lowell, MA

[HawkX66]

This one is a long shot, but is there anything out there for Gordon Butler Chevy out of Lowell, MA? That's where my 69 was delivered. They lost their franchise in 1974.

Here's the story about the dealer. It's a relatively long read, but it's kind of interesting in a made for TV movie sort of way...

Story #1:
"General Motors Corp., over its existence, has been virtually free of self-inflicted scandal, but 1974 was a time to forget.
Covering a mammoth tale of intrigue, murder and deception, the affair was labeled Motorgate--and it might have been just as easily tagged "East Coastgate."
Involved were Chevrolet zone offices in Lowell, MA, and New York's Long Island.
The sordid source of the story was untold dealings in fraudulent warranty claims.
It began at Gordon Butler Chevrolet, the largest dealership for GM's top-selling line in all of New England. Volume topped 3,000 a year. Mr. Butler, son and brother of dealers, was a high-living bachelor with homes in New York, Florida, France and Mexico.
On the last day in January the Chevy zone service manager in the Boston office, Frank W. Smith, visited Butler Chevrolet to check on suspected inflated warranty claims. He went to lunch with the dealership service director, George O. Edgerly, and the agency's errand boy, James Dolson. Mr. Smith's body--with a bullet in the back of the head -- was found the next morning in the Danvers River. Police investigation reached a dead end.
To GM's credit, it was the corporation that unraveled the case. A team from headquarters investigated the Gordon files and found $33,000 in phony claims. Only $1,600 could be verified.
Just three weeks after Mr. Smith's fatal escapade, errand boy Dolson turned up bleeding from a side stab wound. He blamed Mr. Edgerly and another man for his wound and reported that Mr. Edgerly fired the bullet into Mr. Smith's head. Mr. Dolson also bared the Gordon Chevrolet warranty scheme.
GM had paid for thousands of labor dollars and shipped untold hundreds of parts that were later resold by the agency. The agency franchise was cancelled and several GM employees in the Boston office were dismissed.
Mr. Edgerly was freed by a jury after a 27-year-old lawyer, F. Lee Bailey, won an acquittal.
Because some Boston GM personnel had moved to Bethpage, Long Island, a GM task force swooped down on that zone office. The search uncovered gifts from dealers to corporate employees. Some 25 were fired a few days before Christmas in 1974.
GM did not disclose details of the firings, only noting that there were "serious improprieties."
This time Mr. Edgerly was sentenced to three to five years in prison. Mr. Butler and his general manager, Theodore Kemos, were given two years in prison and fined $2,500 each." http://wardsauto.com/news-analysis/new-look-ethics

Story #2:
"On February 1, 1974, a Beverly, Mass. resident spotted something washed up on the shore of the Danvers River. Investigating, he realized it was a corpse and police were summoned. What began as a routine murder investigation would quietly become a national scandal involving the country’s largest automobile manufacturer. Several people would go to jail for fraud and theft, and George Edgerly would end up on trial for murder once again.
The victim, Francis Smith, was a Boston resident who was employed as a district service representative for General Motors’ Chevrolet Division. Police quickly recreated his last day alive, finding that he had spent his workday at the automobile dealership owned by R. Gordon Butler in Lowell. The last known people to see him that day were a Butler Chevy service department employee, James Dolson, and his boss, George Edgerly. It was Smith’s job to monitor Butler’s warranty repair jobs. The large dealership was expected to perform about $30,000 in monthly warranty work, but Butler was doing nearly twice that.

While police in Middlesex County looked at the criminal side of things, auditors with General Motors began to examine the company’s warranty program for possible fraud. The company would eventually uncover hundreds of thousands of dollars in padded warranty repair bills and large-scale violations of the company’s ethics policy that forbids employees from accepting anything other than “nominal” gifts from dealerships. General Motors would maintain a tight lid on the extent of the problem, but after a 15-month internal investigation, about 36 employees in the company’s Northeast offices were summarily terminated for “violating company policies.”
About the same time that the employees were terminated, Butler, Edgerly, and the dealership’s general manager were indicted by a Boston grand jury for theft and fraud.
Under the direction of the that trio, repairmen for the dealership were submitting false claims to General Motors for warranty work. Customers would bring in their cars for simple repairs — which the mechanics would do — but GM was billed for extensive repair jobs like engine rebuilds and transmission work. GM not only paid for the repairs that were never done, but would also send replacement parts that were subsequently sold to other customers.
When the press got wind of the story in those post-Watergate years, the scandal was quickly dubbed “Motorgate.”
In 1976, Edgerly was sentenced to three to five years in prison. Butler and his general manager, Theodore Kemos, were given two years in prison and fined $2,500 each.
For Edgerly, however, the conviction in that case was small potatoes. A month after Smith’s body was found, Edgerly had been indicted for his murder." http://malefactorsregister.com/wp/murder-in-three-acts/

[olredalert]

----I actually remember this fiasco! I remember a local (Cape Cod) Chevy dealer shop manager friend telling me what he had heard thru the grapevine......Bill S

[fsc66]

[HawkX66]

Thanks! And of course, the excise tax was never repealed...

[Craig_Maiorana]

I just found the full story on the guy who was at the center of this. What a dirt bag

[HawkX66]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Craig_Maiorana</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I just found the full story on the guy who was at the center of this. What a dirt bag</div></div>
Sure was. There was talk of mafia involvement also which is no surprise. All this happened about 1/2 hour from where I grew up.

[Craig_Maiorana]

I printed out the entire story that was titled : Murder in three acts. Pretty surprising what he was able to get away with. I can completely see there being some Mafioso involvement

[HawkX66]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Craig_Maiorana</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I printed out the entire story that was titled : Murder in three acts. Pretty surprising what he was able to get away with. I can completely see there being some Mafioso involvement</div></div>
That was a good write up. I saw that when I started looking for info.

[Craig_Maiorana]

I certainly thank you's guys for turning me on to that story. Just before my time but very interesting indeed
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[TAR6569]

I think I have a 68 protection plan from that dealer. A few years ago I won a OM set on ebay from a 68 wagon. It came with this cool Gordon Butler Chevrolet, Lowell MA business card but the seller ended up losing it before the auction ended! I never got it! It had a face with sunglasses as I recall. Will try to find the pic I saved.