Walter E. Brehm

Who was Walter E. Brehm?

Walter Ellsworth Brehm was a U.S. Representative from Ohio.

Born in Somerset, Ohio, Brehm attended the public schools, Boston University, and Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio. He was graduated from the Ohio State University Dental School at Columbus in 1917. He worked in steel mills, rubber factories, and oil fields after graduation from high school. He served as member of Company D, Seventh Regiment, Ohio Infantry from 1908 to 1913. He engaged in the practice of dentistry in Logan, Ohio from 1921 to 1942. Treasurer of the Republican executive committee of Hocking County, Logan City Council from 1936 to 1938. He served in the State house of representatives 1938–1942.

Brehm was elected as a Republican to the Seventy-eighth and to the four succeeding Congresses.

On December 20, 1950, Brehm was indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. on charges that he accepted contributions of $1000 from his clerk, Emma Craven, and from another clerk, Clara Soliday. On April 30, 1951, Brehm was convicted of taking the contribution from Craven, and acquitted of taking money from Soliday. On June 11, 1951, Federal Judge Burnita Shelton Matthews sentenced Brehm to five to fifteen months in prison, and fined him $5000. She suspended the sentence, saying that Brehm had led an exemplary life before the incident. He never served any time in prison.