jimmy chagra daughters

WebDrug kingpin who was charged with the murder of the US district court judge who would have presided at his drug trial. Visions of the 1973 fiasco in Nashville that had almost ruined his law career danced through his mind. What was happening here? At the end of his life, Jimmy Chagra knew he was dying, and unlike his ex-wife, whod fought the cancer for herself and her daughters, he gave up quickly. I cant practice in front of you, and I dont think you can honestly say that you can treat me or my client fairly in any court, Chagra told Wood. Still, everyone loved Jimmy and took care of him. During the course of the morning, a man called the Cowboy appeared on the alley TV camera. The Museum is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with a mission to advance the public understanding of organized crime's history and impact on American society. And, of course, Jimmy Chagra. He still had $150,000 credit, but that night he went through another $70,000. Whatever the maximum penalty was, that was generally what he gave. A book signing of Stricklin hadnt yet met Lee Chagra, but he knew Chagras reputation. The family was breaking apart. The government questions the good faith of this request, Kerr concluded. Chagras defense accused the feds of venue-shopping so that their client was almost sure to get life. The case had been dead for two years, but Kerr had a plan. Wood was finally convinced that it was his duty. And yet federal agents still had no proof: for all the loose talk, there was not a shred of hard evidence that Lee had committed any crime. He got 30 years. The case remains unsolved. [12] Their family name was historically "Bushaada", but Jimmy's grandfather changed it. Prosecutors suspected Jimmy Chagra, and the FBI began meticulously putting its case together. The Florida operation had the potential to make millions, but it could also spell disaster for Lee. Jo Annie was talking about divorce; she and Lee got as far as the courthouse steps before one or both backed out. Every time the local papers wrote anything about Lee, the story started with Indicted drug trafficker Lee Chagra. Then Kerr observed that the request for reportsis an overt act on the part of the defense attorneyto obtain government reports and documents concerning him. That is, concerning Lee Chagra. 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. A judge cant associate socially with a prosecutor the way Wood did with Kerr and still call em correctly, John Pinckney, the first U.S. attorney, had said. The lawyer mentioned that he sometimes looked down at the office complex that Lee was remodeling and experienced pangs of envy. Forrest Wilder writes about politics and the outdoors. After a while Clark said, You must have dropped close to half a million back there. I didnt trust Arabs. He may or may not have locked it. Clark was painfully aware that all serious gamblers harbored deep and irrational superstitions: once hed seen Lee go berserk because a Chinaman approached the table. Goodman insisted that Chagra not testify. Lee loved being at the middle of the table, flanked by armed guards and at least one beautiful broad who would act as his lucky piece. The attempt on Kerrs life unleashed the most sweeping drug investigation in the history of the Southwest. This morning Jo Annie had another surprise, a block of tickets to the afternoons Sun Bowl football game between Texas and Maryland. In the summer of 1977, sensing the heat but also attracted by the opportunities being suggested by his new partner, a wily, borderwise ex-con named Henry Wallace, Jimmy told Lee he was moving his base of operations to Florida. Florida Police Officer Treated After Being Exposed To Fentanyl During Stop, Youth Pot Abuse Jumps By 245% In Two Decades: Researchers, 'Cocaine' Cassie debuts new tattoo sleeve in racy photo as glamorous drug smuggler sets return to Australia. Its riddled with ethnic stereotyping of Lebanese men as reckless womanizers and Lebanese women as subservient slaves to their men. Wood was apparently confusing the fifty-page transcript of the secret interview with actual grand jury testimony. Yet he could risk the familys last penny on a roll of the dice. The rest of it, he said, his voice sure and unwavering, represents not guilty. Its from some friends in Vegas, he said, handing Vivian the card. Part of it was his steadily increasing need for money. Several times Lee talked to Vivian and others about dying. All the drawers were open and papers were scattered on the floor. He cried when he thought of Jimmy. [4], Chagra was active as a trafficker of marijuana beginning in the 1960s,[5] and by the 1970s was a well-known drug trafficker operating out of Las Vegas and El Paso. [15] The FBI conducted more than 30,000 interviews related to the case and in total collected more than 500,000 pieces of information. That was it, the last of the half-million the Black Striker had blown in Vegas the year before. He was up and down all his lifestruggling. In a short time the bust was being described as the biggest one in El Paso history. The agent had wormed his way into the confidence of one of Lees protgs, a singer and part-time actor named Joe Renteria who was hot to start his own smuggling ring. 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. But the feds real ace in the hole was Jimmy and his partner, Henry Wallace. Fold this five ways and stick it where the elves dont play, he said. The agents thought so little of the information gleaned in the interview with Johnson that they didnt even bother to place him under oath. 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 had seven children, including a daughter named Catherine, who wrote a memoir about the family. Jimmy Chagra died of cancer on July 25, 2008. He was living in a trailer camp in Mesa, Arizona. Kerr escaped with only minor glass cuts. Whats more, Kerr and Wood and the entire apparatus of the federal government were breathing down his neck. Joe Chagra testified against the other defendants in exchange for pleading guilty to murder-conspiracy with a maximum sentence of ten years in a plea-bargain deal, and with an agreement that he would not testify against his brother Jimmy in a separate trial. It was as if their friendship had come to a fork in the road, and Lee had wandered off in another direction. Much later, Lee Chagra learned that the single piece of evidence against him was a statement made by Tom Pitts, claiming that he and another drug dealer had once used Lees office to cut a deal. Here she is in the Sinatra suite at Caesars, the tacky wallpaper so thickly felted it practically had to be brushed. He could be shamelessly sentimental and gentle as a whisper, and yet there was a macho fury inside that could make him turn on those closest to him. Im the eagle! But Sandy noticed there were tears in his eyes. Knewz is a registered trademark. Even though Judge Wood sentenced him to thirty years, Renteria stuck to his story that Lee was only his lawyer and friend. Although Jo Annie appeared at the federal courthouse with $50,000 in bail money, Lee was obliged to spend the night with Georgie Taylor, Jack Stricklin, and virtually the entire hierarchy of El Paso drug trafficking. A cold chill ran up his back as he realized that someone had ransacked Lees files as well. By early autumn 1976 Lee was back in El Paso, pumping money. A short time later there was a knock, and Lee admitted two hookers to the room. [11][24][9], Jimmy Chagra died of cancer on July 25, 2008. It had been months since anyone had seen him so animated. Most high rollers would think a 9-year-old would cramp their style, but he took me everywhere.. Coming as it did in the midst of his misery, Lees brilliant defense of the Ardmore bunch had to be his most satisfying victory. When things were going poorly for himand they usually werehe could be amazingly rattlebrained and cruel. The language was vague and ambiguous, but essentially it said that a person was a kingpin if he (1) committed a continuing series of violations of the drug act, in concert with five or more other persons with respect to whom such person occupies a position of organizer, a supervisory position, or any other position of management and (2) obtained substantial income or resources from those violations. Kerr was frail and sallow-faced and talked in a high-pitched voice that suggested he was about to shatter. I knew as soon as that happened, I didnt have a prayer. [38] A fictitious name reference to the Judge John Wood assassination also appeared in an The FBI Files episode "Dangerous Company" as the show regularly changed names of real-life people to protect privacy. Lee stared out the limo window at the blur of cold neon. Later he built a reputation as a hard-driving prosecutor in charge of the docket in Del Rio, where he and Judge John Wood became fast friends. Hardly anyone wanted a lawyer who was under indictment, recalled Joe Chagra, Lees youngest brother, who by then had joined the law firm. The 38-year-old prosecutor had given up his apartment in El Paso and moved back to San Antonio, where he felt more comfortable. One time she wrote about sports. And even if it was true, for Wood to reveal it in open court was outrageous. Liddy came up with one farfetched idea after another. He inherited the whole El Paso docket in 1974 when Judge Ernest Guinn died suddenly of a heart attack. None of the missing $450,000 was ever recovered. Lee and Joe began to consider filing a harassment suit against Wood, Kerr, and various federal agents. In January 1971 Wood was sworn in as a U.S. district judge, with jurisdiction over about a quarter of the El Paso docket. Chagra's lawyer in the case was Oscar Goodman,[26][3] future Mayor of Las Vegas and prosecutors included Assistant United States Attorney Sidney Powell. Catherine is at work on a book called Dirty Darlings: A Story of Big Shots, Big Hair, Free Falling and a Texas-Sized Return to Grace. She has the tapes and the transcripts and is determined to get her version of the family story told. You help us and well help you, the agents told Stricklin. 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. [21] His drug case went to trial and Chagra was found guilty in August 1979 and sentenced to 30 years. He worked his way through the University of Texas law school, graduating fourth in his class in 1962. Early on the morning of November 21, Kerr turned his car out of his driveway on a well-shaded street in silk-stocking section called Alamo Heights and headed for the federal courthouse. She had come to count on Leealthough she suspected that the money Lee gave her came from Jimmy anyway. Do yourself a favor, one of the agents said. He didnt appear to recognize the name. It wasnt the cocaine so much as the lifestyle it symbolized. Lee was always much more loveable when he was broke and hustling for a living.. The media reported that the charges were dropped for lack of a speedy trial. He would try to join the family by half-time. When he read copies of Kerrs motion and Woods reply, Chagra was flabbergasted and then outraged. It took Lee less that half a day to discover that the search warrant used to bust the Tennessee smugglers was faulty. Lee turned the channel selector to the camera over the alley entrance. Except for a few faithful clients like Jack Stricklin, Lees practice was at rock bottom. For sheer lan, Hughes recalled, I dont think Id ever seen him any higher.. A fictitious name reference to the Judge John Wood assassination also appeared in an The FBI When Joe and Lee had drawn up their partnership, the arrangement was that they would share all revenues and losses, but Joe hadnt counted on sharing Lees gambling losses. The staff knew the ritual, but no one knew for sure what went on behind the closed door. 3.9 on Goodreads. Theres a client buzzing at the door. Jo Annie tried to picture the man who had called that morning waiting outside. Boyd was wrong. When an average high-stakes player sits down at one of the seven places around a blackjack table, his limit might be as high as $1000 a hand. They were married in Las Vegas. Soon every drug dealer on the border carried one of Lee Chagras cards. "[35] It was otherwise described as "one of the most intense investigations in the annals of the FBI". He loved the streets and the people who plied themwhores, gamblers, smugglers, cops. They could have been twins. Security guards kept the riffraff away. Lee held the picture so it caught the light. Lee adopted a wardrobe suitable to his imagea black cowboy hat, fancy handmade boots, and an assortment of expensive jewelry, including a gold bracelet that spelled the word freedom. Vivian did her best to smile. In the 24 hours since their arrival, he had signed markers totaling $240,000. Eventually, Jimmys limit was $10,000 a hand and his credit almost unlimited. Pitts fancied himself a big-timer and concluded that Chagra must be pretty big himself if he was demanding thirty grand. The next summer the Chagra brothers hit Vegas like a blizzard of kamikaze locusts. Food, drinks, girlsanything one might fancy was there in a whisk. shaggy shag,' and he would gamble up to a million dollars," said A division of Empire Media Group Holdings LLC. It was an incredible sight. On 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. A third, Cynthia Jones Chagra, lives in Austin. The complex included not only a maze of well-appointed offices but also a fully equipped kitchen, a law library, and completely furnished two-bedroom suite. Kerrs just working the tailings, he said. He seemed pleased with the gesture but told her there was some work he needed to do at the office. He was going to play baccarat instead of craps. Things really fell apart when Jimmy was arrested on trafficking charges. It is hard for me to go back into my cell and think of myself as the man the newspapers have made me out to be. Ill drive you home, he said in a low voice. She had worn a pair of panty hose under the suit and as they were cruising out in the middle of a lake in Joes speedboat, Jimmy called everyones attention to her bizarre outfit and ripped her panty hose in one thigh. Lee joked as he gave the Indian the $75,000, and the Indian mumbled and studied his boots. He began taping most of his telephone conversations and collecting every scrap of evidence that even hinted of government malfeasance. You sonuvabitch, how are you gonna pay off those markers?, He took a deep draw on his cigarette and pressed Clarks shoulder. There was a ritual that he always observed before going downstairs to the casino. Some people though Lee Chagra didnt know how to quit, but that wasnt quite true. Kerr was an empire builder, Boyd said. He thought nobody would love him without money. Out of the corner of his eye Lee could see the reporters scribbling furiously. The money from the big score in Massachusetts was pouring in, and Lee and Jimmy were racing to see who could lose it first. What investigation against him? 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 nation was at war, not only in Viet Nam but in the streets, alleys, and barrios of America, where the menace of drugs was destroying the will to fight, or to work, or to do almost anything of traditional value. The case wound up in Woods court. If you scratched Stricklin deep enough, Kerr reasoned, you would find Chagra. He loved it. As Lee reached for the dice, he recited a spiel that was also part of his ritual. Over the next eight years Wood handed out the maximum sentence in almost every case. Jamie Boyd, who had known Renteria for years (the prosecutor once chaperoned him in a Boy of the Year competition), expected that once Renteria realized the seriousness of his situation he would name Lee as the kingpin. It was a totally ludicrous story, Sib Abraham recalled, but it got very serious when the jury convicted him. In time, Lee and Sib became targets themselves. Or for Lee Chagra. This other end represents guilty beyond a reasonable doubt: the government proved its case, and you, the jury, are convinced beyond a moral certainty. Lee held the members of the panel with his eyes, pausing for a few seconds so it could all register. He didnt appear particularly disturbed. Kerrs long association with FBI, IRS, and DEA agentsclients, he called themhad convinced him of the same sort of monolithic conspiracy that Boyd himself leaned toward. Lee meant $10,000 for all three defendants, but Pitts didnt understand that. It was not the kind of clutter Lee Chagra would leave. That was the year Lee and Jo Annie started building their new home on Frontera Road in the Upper Valley. Lets go downstairs and give them one they can write home about. Clark said he would dress and meet Lee in the casino. Then he expanded the pointer, an inch at a time. For the most part, 1978 turned out to be just a continuation of the long slide that had begun in 1977. He sat next to a lawyer who worked for one of El Pasos established firms in one of the high-rise glass towers that dominate the downtown district. [2][22][6] He was the first federal judge to die by assassination in over a century. He once sentenced a dope dealer to 35 years for contempt of court. When Lee pinned them down on the exact location from which they had watched the scene, several jurors snickered: not only was the position almost a mile from the field but a massive hill blocked the view. Lee handed out $200 in tips before they got to the suite. He decided on James Kerr, one of the assistant U.S. attorneys he had inherited from the Republican regime. And when it came to squandering the profits, Lee was at the head of the line. He wanted to dress the way Lee dressed, in fine clothes and jewelry, and he wanted to hear whispers of respect when he walked into a room and silence when he told a story. In these pictures shes 9 or thereabouts. In broken white letters, like shards of milk glass on velvet, it said FREEDOM. The weapons existed only in the agents imagination, but at one point the trap got so bizarre that the poor cafe owner believed he was negotiating for a used submarine. Fortunately the glass was shatter-proof. This friendship, the fact that the prosecutor and the judge were seen socializing so often, caused some lawyers to question Woods impartiality. He was practically chasing ambulances. That was why I jumped bond. First, he made at least a dozen telephone calls. She dismissed the greeting as a typical Sailor Roberts lie: she didnt believe for a second that hed gone out of his way to wish her anything. He made a motion for Judge Wood to recuse (disqualify) himself in the Stricklin case. That woman was Vivian, Christa and Catherine and Cynthias mother, who came from humble beginnings in an unincorporated community near Brownwood. He asked Bobby Yoseph, a young lawyer who had recently joined his staff, what he would do if he came in and found the office had been robbed? Lee flew to Florida and set up a dummy corporation for Jimmy. Lee was a baffling tangle of contradictions. The following afternoon at the Aladdin, Lee took the worst beating Clark had ever seen him take. It was obvious that the prosecution and the DEA had problems coordinating their investigation. Only a few select friends and celebrities like Rosey Grier or Gabe Kaplan were allowed in. Its better to bust your ass trying and get kicked all over tomorrow than live all your life like those little gray bastards out there., A few weeks after the Vegas trip, Lee was hospitalized for a long overdue hemorrhoidectomy. Leave them blank to get signed up. 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. Right there before your eyes Lee Chagra became the Black Striker. I think he was sad about what he did to his kids. Before Yoseph could think of an answer, Lee asked another question: What would you do if you came in and found Id been murdered?, This preoccupation wasnt totally without foundation. By the late sixties he had put together an organization capable of moving tons of marijuana across the river. With its confluence of shady border business opportunities, affairs, greed, drugs, gambling and sibling rivalry, the tale seems to have been fated to play out exactly the way it did: with Jimmy, his second or third wife and Jimmys brother Joe all sentenced to federal prison; with a third brother, Lee, murdered in his office days before Christmas 1978; with Vivian and her three daughters in the witness protection program; and with one generation of a family forever splintered by the grave misdeeds of the one preceding it. He gambled in Vegas and wrote bad checks and was constantly calling Lee to bail him out. Who do you think you are? The pit boss had heard the spiel many times and smiled patronizingly as he personally counted out the stacks of $500 chips. What she didnt know was that he was in his private apartment, watching the game on TV with his friend Sailor Roberts, a bookie who had recently been busted in James Kerrs organized-crime probe. Youve got everything I always dreamed of having, the lawyer said. And it was killing Lee. Lee developed a standard ploy he secretly taped the conversation, then gave the agent the phone number of the real Mr. Big. It was the unlisted number of the local DEA chief. Lee was Clarks friend, maybe the best friend hed ever had, but in some strange, almost unthinkable way he felt the friendship slipping away. There's no way a bullet could have gone through there. She remembers being elated when he got out, and the heartbreak that he was largely unchanged, as was her love for him: He was always looking for the next million and used a credit card a friend had given him strictly for essentials to rack up tens of thousands of dollars in gambling debts. While Lee ate, Jo Annie puttered with the Christmas decorations. He hung up without speaking. At the intersection of Broadway a mint-green van blocked his route. In short order, Wood surpassed Guinns unenviable reputation as the most reversed judge in the district. 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. 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. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he had refused to let go of the notion that El Paso was being overrun by the Mafia. If Stricklin cooperated, they would work for his early release. The silence was monumental. In his time, Lee had invested in a racehorse that ended up as dog meat, a pro golfer who never made the cut, a combination lock that served to secure nothing more than a long, bitter lawsuit, and a caper to corner the Colombian coffee bean market. 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. The Indian worked as a collector for several Las Vegas casinos. However, his sister Patsy stated that he was not in the witness protection program at the time of his death. Lee had always been our strength., Lee couldnt shake the feeling that something or someone was stalking him. 196 As it turned out, he was right.. 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. No, you got it backwards, Lee said when he saw it. Lee and several others heard the crash of metal against the patio door. The government was so rabid for convictions that it destroyed its own case. He was widely believed to have been placed in the Federal Witness Protection Program. All shed ever had was a future somewhat less than promising. Family problems were accumulating faster than Lee could catalog them. Had a plan as Lee reached for the dice join the family [ 6 ] he was first! New home on Frontera road in the witness protection program at the intersection of Broadway a van... Was demanding thirty grand marijuana across the river was also part of it was a totally ludicrous story Sib! Was sad about what he gave the agent the phone number of corner! Tears in his class in 1962 going poorly for himand they usually werehe could be rattlebrained... Met Lee Chagra didnt know how to quit, but that wasnt quite.! 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