The government questions the good faith of this request, Kerr concluded. [10][4], Jimmy got into drug smuggling in 1969 and became one of the largest smugglers in the United States, trafficking drugs from Mexico and Colombia by plane and boat. He looked as though he hadnt slept for three nights. His office and home telephone records as far back as 1970 had been subpoenaed, and so had his income tax records. Catherine published a book about her life in 2015 titled Chagra: The King of Dope Drugs, Deceit and Dirty Darlings. She will be signing copies after the panel discussion. Lee was down and Jimmy was up. She had bought the Lincoln limo because she wanted to give her husband something crazy after all these years.. Part of it was paranoia, his gut instinct that some malevolent authority was watching and waiting, and part of it was the sort of perverse obstinacy that makes some men walk through a wall rather than open a door. 196 To mark the 40th anniversary of the trial of drug kingpin Jimmy Chagra, who was accused of paying a hitman $250,000 to kill a federal judge John Wood, Oscar Goodman, former mayor and at the time Chagra's defense attorney, will join the late mobster's daughter, Catherine, to revisit the event. A blast of double-aught buckshot and .30-caliber slugs ripped across the hood, left fender, and windshield of the car: police officers later counted nineteen bullet holes. Still, everyone loved Jimmy and took care of him. WebThey mentioned four namesLee Chagra, Jimmy Chagra, Sib Abraham and Vic Apodaca (a well-known bail bondsman). Id grown up in El Paso, Stricklin recalled. A short time later there was a knock, and Lee admitted two hookers to the room. The greatest job of bullshit advocacy Ive ever seen, Clark Hughes said of Lees performance. They had to take care of him because he spoiled everything he touched. And that wasnt all. You ought to pay me fifteen hundred dollars an hour to entertain customers. [4][5][9], At the time, the case of Judge Wood's murder was described as "the most extensive [investigation by the FBI] since President Kennedy's murder in 1963. The boys had been caught red-handed with 17,000 pounds if marijuana. His dream was to stash away $20 million, all taxes paid. The door was partially open, but the office appeared empty. A few hours later, the 38-year-old attorney, stunned and bewildered, found himself being transferred to the county jail, handcuffed to Georgie Taylor, who was a legend in local drug circles (he had made a million before he was eighteen) and who happened to be Jo Annies nephew. [21][3] He reportedly did this in order to have his wife, Elizabeth, released early. He was living in a trailer camp in Mesa, Arizona. I thought it was just an isolated thing, one player said, but Lee kept brooding about it. It would be lost until the October flood, after which widower Jim McCulloch, after going through belongings hed moved into a storage unit, would place a call beginning, Cathy, youre not going to believe what I found., Going through things hed moved into the unit, McCulloch happened upon a box labeled Chagra.. But, speaking to his ex-wife, Vivian, in a federal prison more than 30 years ago, he said he was not a killer. Traditionally, gambling and smuggling are on a par with fixing parking tickets and hiring illegal aliens. The staff knew the ritual, but no one knew for sure what went on behind the closed door. A further indignation: The witness protection program first exiled them to Omaha, Neb. No charges were filed, but it was apparent that the crash was another of Jimmys scams gone up in smoke. Lee was lying face up on the floor, blood trickling from his mouth. Wood began to crawfish. After the phone calls, Lee would take a long timemaybe two hours, maybe moreto bathe, groom, and dress himself in the wardrobe that he reserved for these occasions. Dirty Darlings. Lee gave the Cowboy $10,000, and the others guessed that he was a collector for some bookie. [27] Joe Chagra's defense reportedly attempted to plead guilty to a lesser offense of conspiring to obstruct justice instead. Patsy, the second, was the miracle baby, born against all odds and medical opinions; on the morning of her birth Abdou walked barefoot to the summit of Sierra del Cristo Rey and dropped to his knees and thanked the Virgin. Every time the local papers wrote anything about Lee, the story started with Indicted drug trafficker Lee Chagra. He filed a freedom-of-information request demanding that the government furnish him with all documents relating to its investigations of him, and before long the files filled two heavy-duty storage boxes. On the morning of the day Lee was murdered, his bookkeeper, Donna Johnson, arrived at the office about ten oclock. It took Lee less that half a day to discover that the search warrant used to bust the Tennessee smugglers was faulty. She had put the same question to herself. Part of it was his steadily increasing need for money. Once again, Lee went first to his suite and carried out the ritual. It was called Capital Acquisition, and its purpose was to channel funds through several banks in Mexico and then into Jimmys new business. From Kilcreases files, Kerr concluded that all the elements needed to satisfy the kingpin law were amply presentmany separate transactions and many people, most of whom worked for Stricklin. Youll do at least eighteen months. Chagra jumped bail, but was captured six months later in Las Vegas. 3.9 on Goodreads. WebOn the trials 40th anniversary, Goodman and Chagras eldest daughter, Catherine, will look back at the case and what it meant for Goodman and the Chagra family. He was convicted of obstructing the investigation of the He was later tried and acquitted in the assassination but received an additional sentence for obstruction of justice. Jimmy had given her a couple of kids and a lasting pain in the ass. One client who occupied a good deal of Lees time during the autumn of 1976 was Jerry Edwin Johnson, a local con man and admitted drug smuggler accused of masterminding a scheme to defraud the IRS of a quarter of a million dollars. Lee had already made a name for himself before he began taking drug defendants, but the string of cases that would make him one of El Pasos most famousor infamousfigures began in the early seventies when U.S. customs agents busted a smuggler from Tennessee named Tom Pitts and two other men who were attempting to bring six hundred pounds of marijuana across the Rio Grande. Boyd, Kerr, and the DEA had worked so hard selling the media on the contention that El Paso was the hub of dope trafficking in the Southwest that everyone took it as gospel. Part of it was the publicity: Lee loved to see his name in headlines. Lee had always been our strength., Lee couldnt shake the feeling that something or someone was stalking him. First he saw Lees boots standing in one corner by the door to the balcony, then he saw the blotch of blood on the wall. In a secret interview with a group of DEA agents and prosecutors, Johnson had implicated at least sixty El Paso citizens as major drug traffickers. Someone had gone after Jo Annie, who had collapsed when she first heard the news but now wanted to be there with the family. No, you got it backwards, Lee said when he saw it. If you fill out the first name, last name, or agree to terms fields, you will NOT be added to the newsletter list. The real show was on the casino floor in special sections roped off for the Chagras. Lees limit was $3000, and he would have played for $10,000 had Caesars Palace allowed it. The charges against all the defendants were eventually dropped, but not for two years. She still has paintings he made while locked up, a hobby he never resumed after getting a medical parole in December 2003. If the feds could compromise even a single member of the conspiracy, the whole organization might crumbleand Lee with it. Jack Stricklin met him at the airport and drove him to the office. For months Lee had been unable to shake the premonition that something wild and uncontrollable had broken loose. But his eyes spun like a blur of cherries on a slot machine. When he read copies of Kerrs motion and Woods reply, Chagra was flabbergasted and then outraged. Jimmy Chagras first big score came in the summer of 75, when he orchestrated a shipment of more than 50,000 pounds of pot on a tramp steamer from Colombia to the Massachusetts coast, according to Dirty Dealing, a book about the Chagras published in 1984 by Austin author and journalist Gary Cartwright. Lee meant $10,000 for all three defendants, but Pitts didnt understand that. Whatever Jo Annie was thinking, she wouldnt say anything. There was no way to count the number of ex-lovers who crowded the cathedral to say their last farewell, but they were discreetly scattered and only occasionally exchanged glances. Catherine moved to Phoenix about three years later to be near the federal lockup where her father did time, visiting every Sunday for 20 years. I colored the Kleenex sheets with green marker and I put it in the tree branches. Lee had seated himself at a table and ordered $5000 in chips, but the dealer refused. Curiously, this kind of heavy action seemed to bring out the best in Jimmy and the worst in Lee. Folks in Vegas can be terribly blas, assuming, as they do, that they have seen it all: Kentucky colonels, Arab sheiks, Latin American dictators, Houston oilmen, French industrialists. But the feds real ace in the hole was Jimmy and his partner, Henry Wallace. Narcotics and gambling were crimes that grew from a common stem composed of the worst elements in society. To get to that part of the story, we have to go back in time, to the war on drugs that Richard Nixon initiated, and to three brothers in El Paso of Lebanese descent by way of Mexico. They were making a career, or at least a crusade, of trying to prove that Lee Chagra, master criminal lawyer, was in fact master criminal. [9][10] His mother was named Josephine, and his father Abdou Chagra. Hardly a day passed that the flamboyant attorney didnt make the news. That woman was Vivian, Christa and Catherine and Cynthias mother, who came from humble beginnings in an unincorporated community near Brownwood. Maybe it will get better, Vivian said. Clark Hughes had found a cartoon of a mouse shooting a finger at an eagleit was called The Last Great Act of Defianceand Lees secretary, Sandy Messer, was having it made into a wall plaque. Lee didnt say anything. Family problems were accumulating faster than Lee could catalog them. The verdict in the Tucson trial had been sublime: in a highly publicized, multicount bank fraud indictment, Lee had walked his man on every count. Universal Studios Is Coming to Frisco. I knew that Vivian had been working on a book about the Chagra saga, McCulloch said. Jimmy, on the other hand, had a true gamblers instinct, a fatalistic kill-or-be-killed attitude. Until now. They landed the high-priced weed at a deep, remote cove on the northeastern point of Massachusetts Bay, near Boston. Esper had also observed Lee making large cash payoffs to various collectors. Goodman had represented Chagra in a previous drug case, which was undone by his client testifying. I didnt trust Arabs. Marriage license #D875871, Marriage License Records, Las Vegas. Here she is with Paul Anka. He said he would meet her at home in a couple of hours. Drug kingpin Jimmy Chagra, accused of paying a hitman $250,000 to kill a federal judge, retained Las Vegas attorney Oscar Goodman to defend him. The case remains unsolved. Lee flew to Florida and set up a dummy corporation for Jimmy. Woods first big drug case came in May 1971. But everyone said Lee was the best. Pitts arrived at Lees office looking like a hippie who had just crawled out of a Goodwill box but acting like the owner of a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. the Mortal Mustache, a.k.a. That was it, Lees ultimate humiliation. In Judge John Woods courtroom Kerr found the perfect forum for his crusade. They showed him a Xerox copy of the section of the law dealing with continuing criminal enterprise. The silence was monumental. He could betray a trust as casually as tipping a dealer a chip worth more than the dealer made in a month. Some speculated that they omitted Lee Chagra because he was from El Paso and had a Spanish surname. Lee grabbed an old musket, the only gun in the house, and several of the poker players chased two black men across a field before losing them along the river. Joe was quieter and more introspective than his brothers. For years there had been a rivalry between the two brothers, a fierce and unyielding competition that only the two of them completely understood. I waited around to wish you and the kids a merry Christmas, the gambler told her. Catherine Chagra was the daughter of Jimmy Chagra, a Las Vegas high-roller and drug trafficking kingpin once named the Pablo Escobar of weed. After her father He called her into the bedroom. WebAfter Joe was killed, the bad publicity inevitably returned, so Patty took their daughter, Samantha, a seventeen-year-old high school honor student, to all the television stations in Fayuqueros (smugglers) from Mexico usually make two trips a week across the border, carrying about 250,000 pesos ($10,000) worth of goods each way. After two days the jury reported itself hopelessly deadlocked, eight to four for acquittal. There was plenty of cocaine to guarantee a holiday spirit; at least five ounces had been delivered a few days earlier. Two of Chagras daughters, Christa and Catherine, now live in Smithville. Sib Abraham and some other old friends and members of the family were there. On the plane from Tucson, Lee must have reflected on the paradox of his life. That was when Jo Annie remembered the telephone call. Donna helped Sandy count the $20,000. The consensus had always been that Jimmy Chagra would never amount to much. He knew how to quit while he was winning. I didnt have Wood killed. The office was a maelstrom of activity, none of it having anything to do with the practice of law. Lee couldnt stop talking about Tucson. Gambling and women, said Lees old friend and fellow lawyer Clark Hughes. Kerr was an empire builder, Boyd said. He would try to join the family by half-time. Those tapes, according to Catherine, were doctored and judged inadmissible.). While the phone was ringing, Yoseph allowed his eyes to run along the wall to the left of the desk. Jimmy was born the middle son of a Lebanese rug merchant family. Lee didnt protest as Clark led him out of the casino to the waiting limousine. Everyone had assumed theyd made loveLee made a point of keeping her in his office long enough, then he flushed the toilet and gave her the money. Stricklin and other smugglers often required legal talentand they paid handsomely for it. Jimmy wanted to be Lee. The new office was a show of faith, or at least tenacity, and it made Lee feel good to know that someone else appreciated it. 2023 www.statesman.com. I blocked the door with my body, Donna recalled, but he opened it enough to see the money.. It was Stricklin who was on trial, not Chagra. The Tennessee dope dealer rolled down his sock and slapped the cash on Lees desk. Chagra and his wife, Liz, and young daughter relocated to Las Vegas in 1978 and moved into a house across the street from attorney Oscar Goodman. Marble floors. Youre going to get five years each. Joe was talking about resigning his partnership in the law firm. The government was so rabid for convictions that it destroyed its own case. This is a fascinating story written by Jimmy Chagra's daughter. Catherine writes her story and tells what she and her family went through as the daughter of one of the biggest drug smugglers in the 1970s. It's a great read and helps you understand what a child of a person incarcerated goes through. Right there before your eyes Lee Chagra became the Black Striker. Then suddenly the money was gone. Hed never cried about it before. A black banner was stretched across the entire front of the building. Ive been a fool.. Kay McCulloch died, and with her death the raw material for the book went to the attic. Goodman managed to get Chagra acquitted. If there was a single piece of new evidence, it wasnt mentioned, or even hinted at, in the indictment. It was an incredible sight. The position of federal authorities was that even though Joe Chagra was a lawyer, he was also suspected in conspiracy to conceal the crime; therefore, their conversations were not covered by attorney-client privilege. His sister, Patsy, recalled, It scared me to hear Lee talk like that. It took almost a year for all the money to work its way back to Jimmy and his partners. Ten smugglers, two airplanes, and four U-Haul trucks had been seized in the predawn trap. He called himself a pacifist, and yet he was comfortable around violence. He had known about Lees cocaine habit, but since Clark had been appointed a judge, Lee hadnt flaunted it. Hadnt I already proven that wrong?. [21] His drug case went to trial and Chagra was found guilty in August 1979 and sentenced to 30 years. October 2022 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? A book signing of When Lou Esper learned that Lee was a cocaine user, he found a good supply and usually delivered the goods in person. And, of course, Jimmy Chagra. Sandy and the others began to realize that this was something truly personal; it was as though Lee were mourning his own impending death. With Redd Fox. The casino was almost deserted. Tom Foster writes about business, innovation, and creative people. Clark Hughes went ahead to the casino to lose my piddling three or four hundred. He never knew why Lee liked to bring him along, but he seldom refused. Chagra was outraged. As the year progressed, so did his paranoia, his insistence that someone was out to get him. His plan was to reindict Stricklin, and maybe Chagra too, under an almost unknown section of the 1970 Drug Control Act that spelled out the crime of continuing criminal enterprise, popularly known as the kingpin act. For all the smoke generated by James Kerrs highly publicized grand jury probe of organized crime, there was hardly any fire. This is gonna be one theyll write a book about, he told Hughes. He told Jimmy Salome that he was taking out a new insurance policy. The Mafia! "[35] It was otherwise described as "one of the most intense investigations in the annals of the FBI". 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