Wrongly Accused »

Tom Schwartz was born in December 1930, in Brooklyn, NY where he attended Public Schools including the Manhattan H S of Aviation Trades. In 1951 he enlisted in the Navy and won a "Fleet" appointment to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Upon graduation, he served in the US Air Force where he spent most of his 27 years in the Research and Development area. After retiring from the Air Force as a Lt. Col., he worked for Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) as a Program Manager. He now resides in Melbourne, Florida, where he continues to work for CSC part time, and enjoys writing nature stories for children. He is a guest speaker at the elementary schools in central Florida, and has been to over 60 schools speaking to 2nd through 5th grade students (about 18,000 of them, so far). The book, "How Mother Nature Flowered the Fields of Earth and Mars," is included in the elementary school's Renaissance Learning Accelerated Reader Program.

Two New Jersey policemen mistake author Jack Shepard for an underworld drug dealer as he drives home from a meeting with his publisher. They chase his truck on the New Jersey Turnpike and use an unauthorized procedure to stop him. The actions of the police backfire when they realize that Jack is not the notorious drug dealer, but by then it's too late to undo the damage. The only way out for the police is to suppress the evidence and fabricate a story that implicates Jack. Jack's drunkenness is used to fabricate a story that incriminates him. His attorney advises him to plead guilty to a lesser offense, which would result in a short stay at a minimum-security facility. The sentencing judge accepted the plea bargain, but uses Jack's case as an example and sentences him to four years in the state prison. While in prison, a hardened criminal named Salvador Salinis thinks Jack is an acquaintance and yells the name "Parodi" before attacking him. This attack is the first clue as to whom the police thought he was. Jack's lawyer was energized and renewed efforts uncovered the evidence of the cover-ups by the two police officers. Jack's record is wiped clean, and the officers are punished. Jack continued to write mystery stories and his popularity grew with each succeeding novel. The two years in prison were the post-graduate school that he needed.