Robert Budd Dwyer (November 21, 1939 – January 22, 1987) was the 30th State Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He served from 1965 to 1971 as a Republican member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and from 1971 to 1981 as a member of the Pennsylvania State Senate representing the state's 50th district. He then served as the 30th Treasurer of Pennsylvania from January 20, 1981, until his death by suicide during a press conference. In the early 1980s, Pennsylvania discovered its state workers had overpaid federal taxes due to errors in state withholding prior to Dwyer's administration. A multi-million-dollar recovery contract was required to determine the compensation to be given to each employee. In 1986, Dwyer was convicted for accepting a bribe from the California firm that won the contract. He was found guilty on 11 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, perjury and interstate transportation in aid of racketeering, and was scheduled to be sentenced on January 23, 1987. On January 22, 1987, Dwyer called a news conference in the Pennsylvania state capital of Harrisburg where he killed himself in front of the gathered reporters, by shooting himself with a .357 Magnum revolver. Dwyer's suicide was broadcast later that day to a wide television audience across Pennsylvania. Throughout Dwyer's trial and after his conviction, Dwyer maintained that he was not guilty of the charges for which he was convicted, and that his conviction resulted from political persecution. In 2010, the prosecution's main witness, William Trickett Smith, maintained that his testimony at Dwyer's 1986 trial— in which he stated that he offered Dwyer a bribe, and that Dwyer accepted this offer— was truthful, and that he had committed perjury at his own 1985 trial when he denied offering Dwyer a bribe. Moreover, Smith stated in October 1984— the year before his own trial— that he offered Dwyer a bribe, and that Dwyer accepted it.