Watergate figure Charles Colson has died at 80

WASHINGTON — Charles Colson, the tough-as-nails special counsel to President Richard Nixon who went to prison for his role in a Watergate-related case and became a Christian evangelical helping inmates, has died. He was 80.

Colson's death was confirmed by Jim Liske, the chief executive of the Lansdowne, Va.-based Prison Fellowship Ministries that Colson founded. Liske said the preliminary cause of death is complications from brain surgery Colson had at the end of March.

AP Photo/Bob Daugherty

Former Nixon White House aide Charles W. Colson arrives at U.S. District Court in Washington to be sen...