Richard Jaffe

PHOENIX, AZ – Richard “Dick” Edward Jaffe, 88, died Thursday, January 5, 2017, after a long illness. He is survived by his loving wife of 61 years, Millie (Salzburg) Jaffe; his three sons, Michael Jaffe of Pinecrest, FL, David Jaffe of Easthampton, MA, and Roy Jaffe of Phoenix, AZ; his daughter-in-law, Stefani Jaffe of Phoenix, AZ; and his sweet feline companion, Precious. Richard was born on December 7, 1928 in Brooklyn, NY, where he was raised as the only child of Nathan Jaffe and Freda (Goldman) Rand. He attended Brooklyn College for 2 years, before transferring to the University of Miami, where he majored in marketing and graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in 1950. From 1948 to 1950, he also served in the

U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. In 1951, Richard was drafted into the U.S. Army. He was sent to Artillery Officer Candidate School in Fort Sill, OK, where he received training as a Forward Observer. Upon his graduation from OCS in 1952, he was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant and assigned to the 18th Airborne Corps in Fort Bragg, NC. In 1953, the war in Korea called, and Richard answered. He was assigned to the 7th Infantry Division Artillery unit on the central Korean front and was subsequently involved in the battles of Old Baldy and Pork Chop Hill. He served with distinction and, upon his discharge in October of 1953, was promoted to 1st Lieutenant. He retained a commission in the U.S. Army Reserve until 1959. In 1954, Richard returned to the University of Miami in order to complete his undergraduate accounting studies and become a Certified Public Accountant. He achieved these goals and, in 1956, was hired by the Internal Revenue Service as a Special Agent with the Intelligence Division. During this same period, Richard met his future wife, Millie, at a Valentine’s Day dance. They married on New Year’s Eve, 1955. (Richard would later assert that he chose this

date so as to never forget his anniversary. His family teasingly suggested that he may have been motivated by the tax benefits.) Over the next several years, as Richard and Millie brought three boys into the world, Richard applied his considerable skills and energies to his work with the IRS, pursuing tax evaders and organized crime figures. In 1962, he helped to bring the notorious mobster, “Trigger Mike” Coppola, to justice, an achievement that drew a letter of commendation from then-U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Simultaneously, Richard was serving in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve, having accepted a direct commission as a Lieutenant, Junior Grade, after his discharge from the Army Reserve. In the early- to mid-1960’s, taking advantage of his avid interest in photography (a lifelong hobby), he played an active role in the aerial surveillance of Communist-bloc vessels off the northern coast of Cuba. Over time, he attained the rank of Commander, before retiring from the Coast Guard Reserve in 1980.

Following the Coppola prosecution, Richard turned his attentions to offshore bank accounts in the Bahamas, which organized crime figures and other well-to-do Americans were using to evade taxes. His efforts spawned a pair of key, long-term investigations—dubbed Operation Tradewinds and Project Haven—that, in the years to come, would turn out to be highly controversial, despite their successes. Richard’s dogged pursuit of tax fraud, coupled with his involvement in what came to be known as the “briefcase caper” in 1973 (later litigated by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Payner), led to considerable friction with IRS upper management, though no finding of wrongdoing on his part. Richard left the IRS in 1979 and was soon hired as a Supervisory Investigative Accountant by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, where he would devote the next 24 years of his career, before finally retiring in 2004. Among his many accomplishments there, he contributed to the successful arrest and prosecution in the mid-1980’s of more than a dozen corrupt police officers in the notorious “Miami River Cops Case.” In his later years, Richard devoted time to his family, his investments, and regular walks in Coral Reef Park, where he would feed peanuts to the squirrels and blue jays. Funeral services will be held in the chapel at Lakeside Memorial Park on Tuesday, January 10, at 11:00 a.m., with burial to follow. In lieu of flowers or other memorial gifts, donations to the Alzheimer’s Association would be greatly appreciated.