In Memory
John William Rothkopf
Jul 12, 1918 - Apr 4, 1984
Yarbrough star witness Rothkopf dies
John William Rothkopf, the star witness in the perjury case against former Texas Supreme Court Justice Donald B. Yarbrough, has died in Conroe. Rothkopf, 65, who died Wednesday, taperecorded a conversation in which Yarbrough asked Rothkopf to help him hire an assassin to kill a businessman. Because of the testimony of Rothkopf, a salesman andformer business associate ‹ of Yarbrough, the former associate justice was sentenced in 1978 to five years in prison for lying to a grand jury. Yarbrough was arrested on a Caribbean Island in 1983 and deported to Texas to serve his prison term for perjury and a concurrent 7-year term for bail jumping.
Rothkopf, formerly of Indiana, is survived by his daughter Carol Rothkopf of Conroe and a son, William Douglas Rothkopf of Houston. Rothkopf's daughter said her father, who had emphysema, donated his body to Baylor College of Medicine.
Memorial services are scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday at the First Baptist Church of Tamina at 9311 Interstate 45
| Enlistment Branch | Air Force |
|---|---|
| Enlistment Date | 13 Aug 1941 |
| Discharge Date | 6 Jan 1944 |
Sources: Ancestry.com and Newspapers.com
08/28/2025 EJS
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