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
R. Spencer Oliver Oliver's phone was tapped in the Watergate scandal. During the Watergate burglaries two phones inside the offices of the Democratic National Committee headquarters had wiretaps placed inside them. One of those phones was the phone of Spencer Oliver who at the time was working as the executive director of the Association of State Democratic Chairmen the other was the phone of the secretary of Democratic National Chairman Larry O'Brien. The tap on Oliver's phone was the only one successfully intercepted. R. Spencer Oliver had been the secretary general of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in