Chuck Colson passed away today of complications of a brain hemorrhage sustained last month. He was 80.

Colson served as Chief Counsel to President Nixon. He achieved notoriety for his involvement in composing Nixon’s Enemies List and was one of the key figures in the Watergate coverup. After being charged, Colson underwent a religious conversion and because of that decided to plead guilty to obstruction of justice in the defamation of Daniel Ellsberg. Colson was sentenced to one to three years in prison and fined $5,000.

While many critics of the Nixon Administration said that Colson’s religious conversion was a ploy to get a reduced sentence, Colson spent the rest of his life through the Prison Fellowship helping prisoners and their families in the U.S. and abroad. Certainly that counts for something.