SAN FRANCISCO — The boy who began life in a Midwest trailer park worked his way as a young man into the chambers of the U.S. Supreme Court, where he clerked for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
Though at times restrained and even shy, he rose to the top job at one of the nation's leading law schools, displaying a charm in public that sometimes dazzled donors, alumni and colleagues. He became a mentor and friend to students at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law; they lined up outside his office to see him.
And then John P. Dwyer risked it all.
These days, according to friends, he sits alone in his cliff-side condominium in North Beach, reading supportive e-mail and simmering over a sexual harassment charge that forced him, on the eve of Thanksgiving, to resign as Boalt Hall's dean.
The intensely private Dwyer opens his morning paper to read detailed accounts of how he allegedly fondled and undressed a law student while she was passed out drunk. His mood, friends say, ranges from sadness to fury. In a terse statement on the day he resigned, he admitted only to a single consensual -- albeit inappropriate -- sexual encounter with a student that did not involve intercourse. He has not spoken publicly since.
Boalt Hall was Dwyer's world. Now 51, he received his law degree there and taught in its classrooms for 18 years, the last two as dean. "It was everything to him, his family, his life," said June Beltran, his third wife. Beltran, who is more than 10 years younger than Dwyer, began dating him when she was a third-year law student. They are now divorced.
Tall and attractive, the dean worked hard. The lights in his office often burned till midnight. He had a knack for raising money -- crucial at a public school that hopes to compete with private institutions like Stanford and Harvard, which have large endowments.
Dwyer was "so powerfully smart and so remarkably dedicated to this institution that even though he's not a particularly outgoing or social person, he grew to embrace the idea of fund-raising with the greatest possible commitment," said Louise Epstein, Boalt's assistant dean for alumni relations and development. Many students said they felt he truly cared for them. He was always accessible, at times holding office hours in the school cafe.
But there was another side to him: He had a reputation for dating female students far younger and less powerful than he.
