The family posted a $25,000 reward and announced that the freedom banner would hang until the killers were caught and the case was closed. Until now. The fact that Lee Chagra was the lead attorney automatically made the case big-time. His dream was to stash away $20 million, all taxes paid. When Patsy, who at one time weighed 180 pounds, finally worked up the courage to wear a swimsuit in public, Jimmy humiliated her mercilessly. 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. [9][13] Reportedly, he used gambling as a method of laundering money he received through trafficking drugs. Several times Lee talked to Vivian and others about dying. Loaves of Syrian bread were baking in the kitchen. In a short time the bust was being described as the biggest one in El Paso history. Its good business for everybody.. What investigation against him? How come when Im winning you let me do anything I goddam please, but when I lose you wont let me out of the trap? he shouted in a voice that could be heard in the coffee shop on the opposite side of the casino. For the most part, 1978 turned out to be just a continuation of the long slide that had begun in 1977. He referred to all of his male friends as brother, and yet there was a time when he couldnt keep his hands off his real brothers wives and girlfriends. He had started using cocaine some months earlier, and now he was using it daily. When things were going poorly for himand they usually werehe could be amazingly rattlebrained and cruel. They checked out of the hotel that same night and moved to the Aladdin, where Lee had a $250,000 line of credit. Chagra jumped bail, but was captured six months later in Las Vegas. 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. Donna hadnt seen him this happy in months. He would never go back to Vegas. Technically and legally, the unsworn interview shouldnt even have been a part of the grand jury report. By the time Lee finished dressing, Jo Annie had breakfast readyfreshly baked Syrian bread, butter, and a variety of fruit preserves. 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. He gambled in Vegas and wrote bad checks and was constantly calling Lee to bail him out. They had a surprise for Leea new Lincoln limousine with a portable bar, a TV, a stereo, and even a secret compartment to conceal his guns and playing cards. Hed never seen it so quiet there. A black banner was stretched across the entire front of the building. The family had a late dinner. A shake-up of the entire federal drug enforcement apparatus was under way, ramrodded by Nixons ranking authority on drugs, G. Gordon Liddy. As Boyd must have realized, Kerr and Lee Chagra were natural enemies. All have, understandably, complicated feelings about their father. 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 It was only in 1970, after Senator John Tower and other ranking members of the Republican Party in Texas made personal pleas, that the staunch Republican lawyer agreed to accept a federal judgeship for the Western District of Texas. Whats it all for? he said out loud, and Vivian could see the tears in his eyes and hear the catch in his voice. While federal agents snapped photographs from the parking lot across the street, hundreds of mourners jammed St. Patricks. The fifty-page text of the interview was used as supplemental material by a grand jury investigating a tax fraud, but it was never given the slightest weight as courtroom evidence. A ton of marijuana is no better or worse than a ton of quicksilver. Which for Jimmy was almost the same as being broke, Patty said. She had put the same question to herself. They could have been twins. The shock of Lees death didnt really hit Jimmy until he faced the prospect of walking into Judge Woods courtroom without Lee. 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. His dislike for narcotic cops, particularly agents provocateurs, had been stoked to a white-hot hatred that nearly consumed both his private and his professional life. Lee cried a lot in those days. There was a steel floor safe sunk into five feet of concrete, but like the other safes, it hadnt yet been completely installed. Would you ask Kerr to take a lie detector test if someone tried to kill me? he demanded. The Chagra family was a big, big deal in El Paso, Texas, Geoff Schumacher, vice president of exhibits and programs at the Mob Museum, explained to Nevada Public Radio ahead of the event (he will be moderating). For the time being, the Jerry Johnson episode played itself out in obscurity, but the Chagra name burst into the headlines in the opening days of 1977. Registration on or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms of service, privacy policy and cookies policy. He thought nobody would love him without money. Patsy heard the bells from St. Patricks Cathedral in the next block and remembered Mom Chagra. Lee was the first college graduate in his family, and the first professional. It was not the kind of clutter Lee Chagra would leave. It appeared to be a clear example of double jeopardysame events, same evidence, same witnesses. He worked his way through the University of Texas law school, graduating fourth in his class in 1962. Chagra used one of his trademarks, a solid-gold retractable pointer, to demonstrate his case. After about an hour Lee had lost $90,000. Dad had been gone for eight years. She still has paintings he made while locked up, a hobby he never resumed after getting a medical parole in December 2003. Lee gave Jack Stricklin, now out of prison, $1000 and passed out lesser amounts to other old friends. He seemed pleased with the gesture but told her there was some work he needed to do at the office. He ruined his marriage to Vivian, left her and the children. On October 20, 1977, as Chagra stood before the bench objecting to Judge Woods personal attack, arguing that it was totally without evidence or cause and that the resulting publicity had done great damage not only to Stricklin but to Lee himself, the judge interrupted and dropped his bomb. Over the next eight years Wood handed out the maximum sentence in almost every case. The family name was originally Bushaada, but Lees grandfather mexicanized it during the revolution. 3.9 on Goodreads. Hardly a day passed that the flamboyant attorney didnt make the news. Joe Chagra also went to prison for his role in the assassination. Chagra was released from prison for health reasons in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 9, 2003. Wallace confessed that he had taken part in the burglary attempt on Mickey Espers office and also the attempt to rob the poker game at Jimmy Salomes house. [28] Charles Harrelson got two consecutive life terms plus 5 years,[29] Harrelson's wife Jo Ann got 25 years[21] and Jimmy Chagra's wife Elizabeth was also sent to prison for 30 years for delivering the payout money. 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. Then Wood was assassinated, leading to a massive manhunt, and Chagra was tried and convicted before another judge on charges of operating a continuing criminal enterprise. And she suspected that some of the money that was paying off Lees elaborate new offices and his gambling debts came from Jimmy. As was his custom when he was in one of these expansive moods, Lee sat in his new office with his feet on his desk, telling war stories and handing out money. Hughes never knew whom he called or whyLees life was like hornets nest, with thousands of isolated cells, and no one person, however close, ever saw more than a single cell. 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. A fictitious name reference to the Judge John Wood assassination also appeared in an The FBI [14], Prior to his arrest, he accumulated approximately $100 million in various bank accounts, today amounting to about $500 million. What a strange, twisted love. 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. Only a few select friends and celebrities like Rosey Grier or Gabe Kaplan were allowed in. There have been people who gambled higher in one sitting, but week after week, month after month, nobody kept coming, kept flat firing at em, like Jimmy Chagra.. The feds could never prove he had any part in the operation or even that he knew about it in advance, though he probably did. It looked as though he was set for the night. 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? He named two of his chows Kilo and Poker., Look how sweet and dorky and innocent I look, Catherine Chagra said. There is no way to calculate how all the damning publicity affected the careers of Sib Abraham and the others. 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. As Lee reached for the dice, he recited a spiel that was also part of his ritual. Lee meant $10,000 for all three defendants, but Pitts didnt understand that. [12] Their family name was historically "Bushaada", but Jimmy's grandfather changed it. Visions of the 1973 fiasco in Nashville that had almost ruined his law career danced through his mind. Instead of flying in the customary small planeload of 2000 pounds from Mexico, they imported 54,000 pounds from Colombia. Hughes knew these had been hard times for his friend. He was going to play baccarat instead of craps. He ran a floating blackjack game and started peddling dope. Two of their five children were with her. Woods first big drug case came in May 1971. His father was a vice president of El Paso Natural Gas. Kerr was maneuvering his car around the obstacle when the rear doors of the van opened and two gunmen started firing. 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. There was a ritual that he always observed before going downstairs to the casino. 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. On April 11, 1977, James Kerr made an unpublicized trip to Nashville to review the allegations of the 1973 indictments against Lee Chagra and Jack Stricklin. [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. In fact, many aspects of the case were never investigated. [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. This wasnt an unusual request: just a week before, Lee had given Sandy $50,000 to carry around in her tote bag, ostensibly for safekeeping. Lee was down and Jimmy was up. Right there before your eyes Lee Chagra became the Black Striker. Vivian remembered the previous Saturday at his office; shes heard murmurs from the staff as she followed him upstairs. Do yourself a favor, one of the agents said. While the phone was ringing, Yoseph allowed his eyes to run along the wall to the left of the desk. 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. A division of Empire Media Group Holdings LLC. He went to the big guys at Caesars and told them that, by God, the next time his brother walked in that joint he wanted him treated like a goddam celebrity! 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. His grandfather was imprisoned before Jimmy was born, and the family immigrated to El Paso from Mexico. If it was a crime to love the fast lane, Lee Chagra was guilty. It was four years before we lost a case.. [15], Chagra's drug dealings came under close scrutiny by law enforcement and the judicial system. They didnt count all the bundles of cash in the tennis bag, but there was more money than either of them had ever seen in one place, something like $450,000. In fact, the charges were dismissed because there was no evidence to bring charges in the first place. That was the year Lee and Jo Annie started building their new home on Frontera Road in the Upper Valley. Well, I didnt know about it, Lee said, dumbstruck. He liked to mainline speed and supported his habit by organizing a small-time burglary-robbery ring using young black soldiers from Fort Bliss. Jimmy and the crew of the chartered jet were arrested by Colombian authorities. Lee and Joe began to consider filing a harassment suit against Wood, Kerr, and various federal agents. 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. (At that point the public had no inkling of the earlier, even bigger Boston haul.) She didnt know the details, but she had heard that Jimmy and his new wife, Liz, were living it up in Vegas. Investigators, the press, and even the Chagras themselves have said for months that they expect Jimmy Chagra to be indicted for the first murder in this century of a federal judge. Its riddled with ethnic stereotyping of Lebanese men as reckless womanizers and Lebanese women as subservient slaves to their men. 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. This is gonna be one theyll write a book about, he told Hughes. Lee was a baffling tangle of contradictions. But Kerr wasnt satisfied. Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. In Western Texas, Powell was a prosecutor in the trial of American drug trafficker Jimmy Chagra for criminal enterprise violations. Security guards kept the riffraff away. On the monitor he saw a tall, muscular black man in his early twenties. November 2022 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? Another indisputable fact. The Photo the Dallas Cowboys Never Wanted the Public to See, Welcome to Palo Pinto, Texass Next State Park, The Top 50 Texas BBQ Joints: 2021 Edition, Please Do Not Touch the Toxic Toupee, a.k.a. 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