The immigration case work New York attorney Leon Wildes did for a celebrity client has proved to be lucrative for him 32 years later, as he is now the co-producer of “Ears On a Beatle:  Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of John Lennon,” a new off-Broadway play about law, politics and an unlikely client-attorney relationship. 

Possession of illegal substances charges in 1972 sparked a major effort by President Richard Nixon, Attorney General John Mitchell, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Senator Strom Thurmond to deport former Beatle John Lennon.  Although Wildes was able to win permanent resident status for Lennon’s wife, Yoko Ono, he failed with Lennon until three suits against the government in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York were finally settled by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Lennon v. United States, 527 F. 2^nd 187.

Wildes used a classified FBI memo written by Thurmond to prove that Lennon was a victim of selective prosecution, and he won Lennon his green card on September 8, 1976.  The legal saga of Lennon has been the subject of an immigration class taught by Wildes at Cardozo School of Law for 24 years.

After first seeing the play in Massachusetts, Wildes is now the co-producer of the play, which was revised for a New York production at the DR2 Theatre.  “Ears” opened March 28, 2004.