Jack Lewis Powell; Former U.S. Prosecutor, Attorney

Jack Lewis Powell, 88, who once prosecuted a woman for trying to extort money from Clark Gable. Powell was a member of the U.S. attorney’s staff in Los Angeles in the mid-1930s when he prosecuted Violet Morton for asserting that Gable was the father of her 14-year-old daughter. She was convicted of mail fraud. The case earned Powell such attention among actors that many came to him as clients after he went into private practice in 1937. Powell quit his law practice in the 1950s and moved to the San Diego area. On Friday in San Diego of cancer.