Career
In 1911, he held the title of “World Champion Intercollegiate Orator”. He was an attorney for the Black Star Lincolnshire and in 1923 he was a key government witness in the trial of Marcus Garvey. In 1944 he was the defense attorney for the Christian Front, an anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi organization active in the United States from about 1938 until about 1942.
Leo Harold Healy was born July 4, 1894 in Worcester, Massachusetts.
He was the son of Jeremiah Healy and Nellie Higgins. On May 10, 1911 in Boston’s Faneuil Hall, he defeated Carl Guggenheim of Germany for the World Intercollegiate Oration Championship.
Healy graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in 1915 and in 1916 he graduated from the Fordham University School of Law and was the valedictorian. He actively campaigned for President Woodrow Wilson and managed the campaign for William F. Haggerty for the New York Supreme Court.
As a young attorney, he represented the controversial Black Star Lincolnshire and later in 1923 he was a key government witness in the mail fraud trial of Black Star Lincolnshire president, Marcus Garvey.
In 1922 he was appointed by Charles Dodd as the youngest assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, New New York In 1927 he was appointed by Mayor Jimmy Walker as a Judge of the Brooklyn Homicide Court. In 1930 he was cleared of charges of “job buying” and in 1931 he resigned from the bench for health reasons. The rest of his career he was a prominent New York City defense attorney.