PASSINGS

Joseph B. Wirthlin

Oldest Mormon apostle

Joseph B. Wirthlin, 91, the Mormon Church’s oldest living apostle, died Monday night at his home in Salt Lake City. The church said he died of causes related to his age.

Wirthlin was ordained a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the second tier of church leadership, on Oct. 9, 1986, about a decade after being called to full-time church service.

Wirthlin’s other church posts included serving as a counselor to the Sunday school president, director of the church military relations committee, director of the church curriculum department and as an editor of church magazines.

He also led church operations in continental Europe, Britain, Ireland and Africa.

As a young man, he served as a missionary in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in the late 1930s.

A native of Salt Lake City, Wirthlin was born June 11, 1917. His father was the presiding bishop of the church. Wirthlin played football for the University of Utah and graduated with a degree in business administration.

In his secular life, he was president of a family-run wholesale food distribution business. He also was president of a business and trade association in Utah.

Wirthlin married Elisa Young Rogers on May 26, 1941, in the Salt Lake Temple. She died in 2006. The couple had eight children.

Ted Rogers

Canadian mogul, Blue Jays’ owner

Ted Rogers, 75, founder of Canada’s largest cable television and mobile phone company and owner of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team since 2000, died Tuesday morning at his Toronto home, according to a statement by his company, Rogers Communications Inc. He was 75.

Rogers, long listed as one of Canada’s wealthiest people, had been hospitalized in October for an existing heart condition. The cause of death was not announced.

Bespectacled, tall and sandy-haired, Rogers was born May 27, 1933, in Toronto. He was known as a demanding boss and a stubborn leader.

In 1983, Rogers wanted to invest $500,000 in Canadian dollars in wireless technology but faced significant resistance from his board of directors, which included his own wife. They forced him to put his own money on the line.

His investment turned into Canada’s largest cellphone company. Today, Rogers Communications employs 24,000 people and is worth about $18 billion in Canadian dollars.

Rogers Communications’ other assets include Maclean’s and Chatelaine magazines and Rogers Centre, home of the Blue Jays.

Rogers also was instrumental in plans to have the National Football League’s Buffalo Bills play eight home games in Toronto over the next five years. The first of the regular season games, against Miami, is to be played Sunday at Rogers Centre.

Raymond F. Lederer

Convicted in Abscam sting

Former Pennsylvania Rep. Raymond F. Lederer, 70, who resigned his seat in the House of Representatives and was imprisoned for taking a bribe in the FBI’s Abscam investigation, died of lung cancer Monday at his home in Philadelphia.

Lederer, a Democrat first elected to Congress in 1976, was videotaped on Sept. 11, 1979, at a New York motel accepting $50,000 in cash from two FBI undercover agents who were posing as representatives of a fictitious Arab sheik.

Lederer told the agents, “I can give you me” in return for the money, which was shared with several co-defendants. His attorney alleged entrapment, but Lederer was convicted in 1981 of conspiracy, bribery and other counts and served 10 months in prison. In all, six House members and one senator, Democrat Harrison Williams of New Jersey, were convicted in the Abscam sting.

A native of Philadelphia, Lederer won his first elected office, a state House seat, in 1974. The same seat had been held by his father and older brother and, more recently, by his sister-in-law. After prison, Lederer returned to his blue-collar roots, working as a roofer.

-- times wire reports