Oliver North shredding government documents related to these activities at William Casey's suggestion when the Iran-Contra scandal became public. He also testified that Robert McFarlane had asked him to alter official records to delete references to direct assistance to the Contras and that he had helped. North was tried in 1988. He was indicted on 16 felony counts, and on May 4, 1989, he was initially convicted of three: accepting an illegal gratuity, aiding and abetting in the obstruction of a congressional inquiry, and ordering the destruction of documents through his secretary, Fawn Hall. He was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Gerhard
Robert S. Bennett Robert S. Bennett Robert S. Bennett (born 1939) is an American attorney and partner at Schertler & Onorato, LLP, best known for representing President Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal. Bennett is also famous for representing Judith Miller in the Valerie Plame CIA leak grand jury investigation case, Caspar Weinberger, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, during the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, Clark Clifford in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) scandal, and Paul Wolfowitz in the World Bank Scandal. He served as special counsel for the Senate Ethics Committee's 1989–1991 investigation of the Keating Five. In 2008,