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One of the soldiers, David Leon Wallace, signed a confession that not only admitted the robbery and murder of Lee Chagra but also substantiated Lees seemingly paranoid belief that he was being stalked. Lee flew to Florida and set up a dummy corporation for Jimmy. In broken white letters, like shards of milk glass on velvet, it said FREEDOM. Here he is with Joe Namath. What was happening here? 3.9 on Goodreads. Stricklin looked at the copy of the law for a few seconds, then returned it to the agents. 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. The judge said he had spent eight or ten hours reading Jerry Edwin Johnsons 1976 grand jury testimony and the transcript of the IRS investigation. Jimmy Chagra, in another conversation recorded in prison and later transcribed, would not go quite as far, although he further muddied the waters. On the cartoon, Clark had written Wood below the eagle and Chagra below the mouse. We report on vital issues from politics to education and are the indispensable authority on the Texas scene, covering everything from music to cultural events with insightful recommendations. Another indisputable fact. Lee got the best of the feds in Ardmore but that was about the last time. Over the next eight years Wood handed out the maximum sentence in almost every case. He was wearing his boots and jeans and enough jewelry to sink a deep-sea diver. Hunter Thompson once described how a casino shot a three-hundred pound bear out of a cannon right in the middle of the floor and no one looked up. Lee left the money spread across the bed and closed the bedroom door behind him. In a short time the bust was being described as the biggest one in El Paso history. Paradoxically, though, Lee was secretly jealous of Jimmy. In the early summer of 1973 Lee experienced for the first time in his life how it felt to be on the other side. Jimmy wanted to be 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. In Judge John Woods courtroom Kerr found the perfect forum for his crusade. It was that strange hour when the golfers are still on their morning rounds and the drunks are still asleep, that time when they clean the sand in the ashtrays and empty the slots and put fresh ice in the urinals. Jamiel Chagra, known as Jimmy, was born in El Paso, Texas on December 7, 1944. Jimmy was born the middle son of a Lebanese rug merchant family. His mother was named Josephine, and his father Abdou Chagra. He had two brothers, Lee and Joseph, who were both attorneys involved with the legal defense of drug smugglers. So Jimmys smuggling operation must be thriving as Lees law practice crumbled. I decided to disappear over to the Hilton for a while. When Clark Hughes returned to Caesars about nine that evening, Lee had almost exhausted his credit limit. Kay McCulloch died, and with her death the raw material for the book went to the attic. Dad had been gone for eight years. (At that point the public had no inkling of the earlier, even bigger Boston haul.) Lee cried a lot in those days. Chagra was released from prison for health reasons in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 9, 2003. During his tenure as magistrate, Boyd and Lee Chagra became friends, and when there was an opening for the job of U.S. attorney after Jimmy Carters election in 1976, Lee, Sib Abraham, and others supported Boyds appointment. Federal agents turned up at Lees office the next morning to confiscate his gun collection and question him about the unsuccessful assassination attempt. Whatever Jo Annie was thinking, she wouldnt say anything. He said he would meet her at home in a couple of hours. You sonuvabitch, how are you gonna pay off those markers?, He took a deep draw on his cigarette and pressed Clarks shoulder. Lee had never let his name be linked to an illegal enterprise before the fact. Youll do at least eighteen months. Chagras idea of a good time was slapping a Willie Nelson album on the stereo, snorting cocaine, and getting naked in a pile of aromatic bodies. They could have been twins. [7] According to George Knapp writing for Las Vegas CityLife, he was "the undisputed marijuana kingpin of the Western world. On top of everything else, he had developed hemorrhoids and they hurt like hell. The case wound up in Woods court. What no one knew at this point was that the feds had already busted Wallace. That woman was Vivian, Christa and Catherine and Cynthias mother, who came from humble beginnings in an unincorporated community near Brownwood. He seemed pleased with the gesture but told her there was some work he needed to do at the office. He was later tried and acquitted in the assassination but received an additional sentence for obstruction of justice. 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. 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. Lee and Joanne Chagra raised their five children in a rarified world of glitz, glamour and money few other El Pasoans could imagine. It wasnt just in hard-drug cases; Wood appeared to make no distinctions. 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. As Boyd must have realized, Kerr and Lee Chagra were natural enemies. Most afternoons as Donna and Sandy were crossing the parking lot after work, they saw her, and sometimes two or three other strippers from the Lamplighter, hurrying toward Lees office. Once again, Lee went first to his suite and carried out the ritual. He hustled personal injury cases, divorces, wills. Lee never forgot or forgave. He decided on James Kerr, one of the assistant U.S. attorneys he had inherited from the Republican regime. Lee was the first college graduate in his family, and the first professional. They say there was nothing Jimmy really wanted to be, but that wasnt entirely true. Jimmy was indicted on a number of drug charges by a grand jury in Midland, a legal maneuver that many lawyers believe was blatant forum shopping: by indicting in Midland rather than El Paso, the prosecution could be sure that the case would be assigned to Judge Woods court. First, he made at least a dozen telephone calls. 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. In a written response the following week, Kerr reminded the court that although Lee Chagra was not named in the present indictment, he had been indicted in the Tennessee affair. If they had, they would have seen the small, trembling figure of the prosecutor crouched in a fetal position below the dashboard, dazed, bleeding from the shards of splintered glass, shaky as a bowl of gelatinbut otherwise unharmed. It wasnt the cocaine so much as the lifestyle it symbolized. In fact, the only evidence that Lee expected things to improve was his new office complex. Goodman Yoseph let himself in the front entrance with the key that Lee had given him that morning. He was a good, sound, all-around lawyer, but he didnt have Lees appetite for controversy. I want to talk to you. Vivian was startled to see how much Jimmy looked like Lee, how he had grown out his moustache, how his hair was full and shaggy and touched now with streaks of gray. Joe announced plans to open his own law firm. Technically Lee had won the battle, but there was little doubt that Wood had landed a crippling, perhaps fatal blow to the attorneys already battered reputation. Chagra's third wife, Elizabeth, was found guilty of delivering $250,000 to Charles Harrelson to kill Wood. But she wasnt about to inquire; nothing brought Lee down faster than the slightest hint that he might somehow be beholden to Jimmy, even temporarily. 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. 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. Patsy tearfully asked for respect from the press during the crisis. Lee was a baffling tangle of contradictions. A grand jury in Nashville had indicted Chagra and forty others on a charge of conspiracy to import and distribute marijuana. They were scheduled to fly back to El Paso Monday morning. 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. Security guards kept the riffraff away. Lee sparkled like a kid with a new toy as he showed Donna and Sandy where the various safes were concealed. That was it, the last of the half-million the Black Striker had blown in Vegas the year before. A graduate of SMUs law school, Kerr had worked for the Justice Department and helped draft the 1970 Drug Control Act. After Jimmy and Vivian divorced, in late 1973 or 1974, before the first big score, Vivian would beg her ex-lover and former brother-in-law for money that Jimmy couldnt or wouldnt fork over. Looking on, Joe marveled. For some unexplained reason, the three assailants (apparently there was a third behind the wheel) raced from the scene without bothering to walk five or six feet and make sure that Kerr was dead. Many a night, the Chagra brothers would play all six spots on a blackjack table, for anywhere from $10,000 to $25,000 a hand. 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. Wallace was sentenced to death, though this was later reduced to life in prison. Technically and legally, the unsworn interview shouldnt even have been a part of the grand jury report. Theres a client buzzing at the door. Jo Annie tried to picture the man who had called that morning waiting outside. Lee Chagra by some of his fans was murdered in his office and robbed of some $450,000 that might have been intended for a mob boss. [2][22][6] He was the first federal judge to die by assassination in over a century. Its riddled with ethnic stereotyping of Lebanese men as reckless womanizers and Lebanese women as subservient slaves to their men. Shortly after the Ardmore trial, DEA agents visited Jack Stricklin at La Tuna federal correctional institution, where he was doing time for a drug rap Lee hadnt been able to get him out of. "[35] It was otherwise described as "one of the most intense investigations in the annals of the FBI". If she realized how pressed he had been for money in recent months, she didnt show it. They checked out of the hotel that same night and moved to the Aladdin, where Lee had a $250,000 line of credit. And even if it was true, for Wood to reveal it in open court was outrageous. I imagine everyone in this area knows that youve been the subject of a grand jury investigation ever since the Tennessee indictment, Wood announced. And, of course, Jimmy Chagra. [30] Jimmy Chagra was acquitted of the murder of Judge Wood in front of Judge William S. Sessions, future director of the FBI, although he was found guilty of obstructing justice and conspiring to smuggle drugs. By the late sixties he had put together an organization capable of moving tons of marijuana across the river. Ive got to go, he told her. It was apparent from the manner in which the furniture was rearranged and toppled about that the orgies were quite vigorous. [15], Chagra's drug dealings came under close scrutiny by law enforcement and the judicial system. No man could have been prouder of his heritage than Wood; he was a confirmed, unapologetic elitist, a descendant of hardy pioneer-stock aristocrats. There's no way a bullet could have gone through there. While federal agents snapped photographs from the parking lot across the street, hundreds of mourners jammed St. Patricks. They went down there, they took pictures of everything And I was able to take that model and demolish their case. [1][24], Harrelson was eventually caught and convicted of being the gunman after Chagra discussed the assassination with his brother Joe during Joe's visit to Jimmy in United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, after FBI agents bugged the rooms in which they were speaking. He discussed with the CIA the possibility of liquidating all major drug traffickers in the Middle East; it was estimated that 150 key assassinations would do the job. Please feel free to use any other table in the casino. Like so many sheep, the nickel-and-dime players started backing away. The old man, who was a dead ringer for Pancho Villa, was imprisoned and almost shot before he and his family could escape across the border into El Paso. [31][32], In a deal with the federal government, Jimmy Chagra admitted to his role in the murder of Judge Wood and the attempted murder of Assistant United States Attorney James Kerr. He had an affinity for cards and dice, for dope dealers and shady politicians, for cripples and nightclub singers, for dabblers in the black market and exponents of the quick buck. Chagra used one of his trademarks, a solid-gold retractable pointer, to demonstrate his case. Vivian remembered the previous Saturday at his office; shes heard murmurs from the staff as she followed him upstairs. Prosecutors suspected Jimmy Chagra, and the FBI began meticulously putting its case together. The door was partially open, but the office appeared empty. From time to time agents provocateurs posing as clients came to his office to discuss a phony case, then ended up trying to score some drugs from him. 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. The Tennessee dope dealer rolled down his sock and slapped the cash on Lees desk. She was sentenced to 30 years and died in prison in 1997 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. Lets go downstairs and give them one they can write home about. Clark said he would dress and meet Lee in the casino. He worked his way through the University of Texas law school, graduating fourth in his class in 1962. Former mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman is credited with the revitalization of downtown Las Vegas including The Smith Center for the Performing Arts and our very own The Mob Museum. shaggy shag,' and he would gamble up to a million dollars," said Almost every one of Chagras clients who had been sent to prison reported visits from DEA agents who pumped them for information about Chagra and offered deals if they would incriminate him. 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. After two days the jury reported itself hopelessly deadlocked, eight to four for acquittal. The government was so rabid for convictions that it destroyed its own case. But the real bite of the law, the element that made it harsher than any other federal law on the booksharsher even than penalties for rape, murder, or kidnappingwas its inordinate range of sentences. The boys had been caught red-handed with 17,000 pounds if marijuana. He had telephoned Sandy from Tucson on Friday and told her that a woman named Butch would stop by the office later in the day. Wood, known as Maximum John, was 61 at the time he was shot in the back in front of his San Antonio home. If Stricklin cooperated, they would work for his early release. In his eleven years on the El Paso political scene, Boyd had been elected to public office only one time, to fill out the unexpired term of district attorney in 1970, and yet no politician in town had a better feel for the bureaucracy or for subtle shifts in power and opinion. They implicated Lou Esper as the man who had planned the heist and supplied the weapons. At the intersection of Broadway a mint-green van blocked his route. Part of it was the publicity: Lee loved to see his name in headlines. Lee stared out the limo window at the blur of cold neon. 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