Henry Hawk, Nebraska's famed "prison lawyer" is dead. The 65-year-old ex-convict of late, a dishwasher, died in a Council Bluffs hospital Tuesday night. He entered the hospital April 10.

Hawk won his freedom last year after 16 years behind bars on a 1936 conviction in the robbery slaying of Omaha Grocer Isadore Perleman. He boned up on law while in the Nebraska Penitentiary and made one legal attempt after another to gain his release. He denied having taken part in the slaying.

A year ago an order of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal freed him fro prison. Hawk's case had gone to the U.S. Supreme Court five times. For a time his court-appointed attorney was the late Francis P. Matthews of Omaha, former Navy Secretary and Ambassador to Ireland.

Hawk's survivors include a niece, Mrs. Neola Wieport of Council Bluffs. They body is at Woodring's Funeral Home.

Pottawattamie County Thursday turned down a request to pay funeral expenses for Henry Hawk, 65, Nebraska's famed "prison lawyer," who died in a local hospital Tuesday night.

Ernest Carter, county welfare director, told the Board of Supervisors he "has resisted the request." The Board upheld Carter in his action. The county was asked to pay the local expense and for shipping the body to Missouri for burial.

When Hawk entered the hospital here April 10, he gave Maryville, Missouri as his address. He has relatives in Missouri. Hawk won his freedom in 1953 after 16 years in Nebraska prison.