ABOUT TED BRABHAM

From a top-ranking criminal defense attorney and Chairman of the Democratic Party to public disgrace. . .from a jail cell to the White House. . .from his debut at Carnegie Hall to making music for 20th Century Fox's mega-hit movie "Fat Albert". . .few individuals have experienced the dramatic highs and lows that have characterized Ted Brabham's life. His spiraling success as a close advisor to Congressmen, Judges, Governors and Senators was about to be blown apart by the emerging Florida election scandal of 1996. Yet as certain downfall loomed, God was at work and the scandal that brought him down was also the turning point in Brabham's personal life. Jailed for his part in the scandal, it was from his cell that Brabham began his personal relationship with God and his long journey home.

He was born on December 1, 1962 in Texarkana, Bowie County, Texas. Raised in nearby Atlanta, Texas, a tiny town of 5000 near Arkansas and Louisiana by his paternal grandparents, his family was active in Texas politics and banking. (His grandfather, who died in 1977, was president of Atlanta Federal Savings and Loan Association for forty years.)

Ted, age 10,
practicing the piano.

Ted began piano lessons at the age of seven. It was immediately apparent to everyone that he had been blessed with a musical gift. By the age of thirteen he was the pianist for his church. His love of music has remained constant throughout his life. Ted attended public school and was elected vice president of his 1981 high school class. An excellent student, he also liked to golf, hunt and fish at the family's weekend retreat on Caddo Lake.

In 1984, he was graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas with a BA in Political Science and History. While a student, he was appointed by Texas Governor Mark White to the Juvenile Justice Commission, which supervised the Texas War on Drugs, Crime Stoppers and Inner-School suspension. He served as regional college coordinator for Senator Lloyd Bentsen's reelection campaign, and was twice elected to the SMU Student Senate where his succinct yet fiery style was acknowledged in the student newspaper when an editorial labeled him the most "influential member of the Student Senate."

In 1986, Brabham enrolled in Oklahoma City University's Law School where he was class president and a member of the prestigious Law Review. (He also met his wife Penny, a law student.) The following year, he transferred to Texas Tech University School of Law in Lubbock where he received the American Jurisprudence Award in Constitutional Law and was the winner of the American Bar Association's Client Counseling Competition at the local, regional and state levels. In 1989, he was graduated with a J. D. Three days later he went to work for Steel, Hector, Davis, Burns and Middleton, in West Palm Beach, Florida

Ted made the "short-list" of criminal defense attorneys considered to represent Timothy McVeigh in the Oklahoma City Bombings. This information was leaked to the media causing a fire-storm of unwanted attention on his family. Ted declined the case

The following year Brabham founded his own law firm and was elected chairman of the Palm Beach County Democratic Party, a post he held until his high profile criminal trial schedule became too demanding. In Florida, Texas and around the country, Brabham was a popular defense lawyer who thrived on unpopular causes. Despite the heinousness of the crime-from sexual battery to murder to terrorism-Brabham defended the rights of the accused with a vengeance. Many of the murder trials that Brabham tried made national headlines. One well-known newspaper said of Brabham, "when you watch Ted Brabham in the court room, the theatrics of southern lawyer Atticus Finch come to mind. The character made famous by Gregory Peck in the 1962 classic film, TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD, fits Brabham's folksy and animated style like his bow tie and striped suit."

Ted in his Democratic Party office.
A photograph of
fellow Texan,
President Lyndon B.Johnson is proudly displayed in the
background.

The owner of a media conglomerate was so impressed by Brabham's success in the court room that he asked the trial attorney to host his own radio talk show. "Ted Brabham's Sidebar" could be heard from Orlando to Miami on station WJNO every Saturday evening from 7:00 to 9:00pm. Brabham played host to well-known legal experts and politicians.

Ted was a frequent
guest at the
Clinton White House.
Ted is seen with
President and Mrs.
Clinton in the
Diplomatic Receiving
Hall of the White House during their 1994 Christmas party.

Florida Governor Lawton Chiles named Brabham a member of the 1992 United States Electoral College along with United States Senator Bob Graham. He was also appointed to a four-year post on the nine-member Judicial Nominating Commission for the 15th Judicial Circuit. He chaired the Commission during his fourth year. Almost ten years ago, Ted Brabham was not thinking about God or Church. In fact, Brabham was known as the Democratic Party's "hatchet man," a man feared by even the most powerful politicos in South Florida during his five years as chairman. Brabham admits he was guilty of political "dirty tricks" and willing to do almost anything for the cause of his president and his party.


Ted and U. S. Senator
Al Gore at a
Jefferson/Jackson Democratic Fundraising Dinner in 1991.
Ted served as
Master of Ceremonies.

In 1998, Brabham entered a plea of guilty to illegal campaign-related charges. He entered Palm Beach County Jail and served five months in solitary confinement. While serving his time, isolated from television, radio and human contact, Brabham rekindled his relationship with God, a relationship that began as a child growing up in the home of his grandparents. "All my life I wanted to be a criminal defense attorney. At times, I even wanted it more than God or my family. In my eyes, being a successful lawyer would give me all the things I wanted-things like power, prestige, respect. My goal became an obsession.

God gave me a wake-up call in 1998 when I heard my cell door slam shut at the Palm Beach County Jail. I soon realized God's plan was not based on position or power. God was concerned with me having a relationship with Him and even though I had become a Christian when I was eleven-years-old, I had never made God a priority.

Like everyone else, I wanted to be happy and successful. I took the long road but discovered that success and happiness are by-products of a life given over to God. It seems I had to learn that lesson more than once and in many ways I'm still learning it. I learned, to my surprise, where to find true power. I found it in a 9 X 12 jail cell, on my knees in prayer.

Today, I thank God for my experience. It taught me the greatest lesson of my life, the paradox of power: he who seeks to save his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for Jesus' sake shall find it.

I'm not where I'm going, but I'm not where I've been."

Ted Brabham