His great-grandfather had come from New York and fought in the Texas Revolution. Written by Catherine Chagra, Narcotics agents believed that Stricklin and his associates supplied a good part of the South and Southwest with Mexican marijuana. Catherine remembers the prison visits as the best times she ever had with her father. The next morning, a Saturday, was one of those perfect December days in El Paso when the desert air is so crisp you can hear it and the mountains loom out of the blue shadows and change colors before your eyes. Sometime in the middle of the night, after everyone else was asleep, Lee changed clothes and drove to his new office. He bragged that he never once granted probation in a heroin case. In the winter. A case in point was that of an unsuspecting El Paso cafe owner who was conned by two agents into conspiring to buy stolen government weapons. The next morning FBI agents called on Lee Chagra, confiscated his gun collection, and asked him to take a lie detector test. It took almost a year for all the money to work its way back to Jimmy and his partners. Composed of, and by, organized crime. Jimmy had given her a couple of kids and a lasting pain in the ass. If the feds could compromise even a single member of the conspiracy, the whole organization might crumbleand Lee with it. All of Lees personal affairs, especially those with women, were conducted behind closed doors. Whether or not he knew the details, Lee surely sensed the magnitude of the disaster that was bearing down on him. [21] Facing life for smuggling, Jimmy Chagra allegedly decided to have the judge killed. 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. Fighting seemingly hopeless causes became his passion. Several times Lee talked to Vivian and others about dying. His two older brothers were so much alike it scared him. They volunteered for every hard-core criminal case that came along: murder, rape, robbery, burglary. She had come to count on Leealthough she suspected that the money Lee gave her came from Jimmy anyway. [21] His drug case went to trial and Chagra was found guilty in August 1979 and sentenced to 30 years. Offers may be subject to change without notice. The boys had been caught red-handed with 17,000 pounds if marijuana. Any craps! she shouted, throwing a $5 chip on the table. It was during this period that Lee was introduced to Mickeys black sheep uncle, Lou Esper, a pale, seedy, rat-faced Syrian hoodlum who had spent about half his fifty years in prisons. 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. September 2022 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? The chiveras are paid $45 to $65, depending on the size and value of the haul; out of that money they are expected to bribe the various Mexican customs officials, who survive on bribes. 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. Family problems were accumulating faster than Lee could catalog them. Stricklin was an enterprising and likable young man who had grown up in one of El Pasos better neighborhoods. Lee gave Jack Stricklin, now out of prison, $1000 and passed out lesser amounts to other old friends. A grand jury in Nashville had indicted Chagra and forty others on a charge of conspiracy to import and distribute marijuana. She had bought the Lincoln limo because she wanted to give her husband something crazy after all these years.. Jo Annie was talking about divorce; she and Lee got as far as the courthouse steps before one or both backed out. This conduct suggests to the court that the defendant is not making a good faith claim concerning former jeopardy, but that he is more interested in determining the extent of the governments evidence against him.. With the pointer fully retracted, Lee approached the jury box, smiling. Someone was supposed to open the door from the inside. Joe was talking about resigning his partnership in the law firm. He called himself a pacifist, and yet he was comfortable around violence. (At that point the public had no inkling of the earlier, even bigger Boston haul.) The government seemed to know it didnt have a case, but it was determined to see how far it could travel. Yet he could risk the familys last penny on a roll of the dice. He didnt appear particularly disturbed. It is like I am reading about a third person.. He was widely believed to have been placed in the Federal Witness Protection Program. 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. Again, Lee sounded as though he had something else on his mind. And yet, right there under their noses was another Chagra not at all handicapped by brains or good judgment. 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. Chagra jumped bail, but was captured six months later in Las Vegas. 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. Federal agents turned up at Lees office the next morning to confiscate his gun collection and question him about the unsuccessful assassination attempt. Woods first big drug case came in May 1971. At the intersection of Broadway a mint-green van blocked his route. 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. But let me add, he had a lot of enemies.. Its better to try. A division of Empire Media Group Holdings LLC. He was up and down all his lifestruggling. 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. WebCatherine Chagra, the oldest daughter of Jamiel "Jimmy" Chagra -- a convicted dope dealer accused but never convicted of masterminding the assassination of a federal judge in San In these pictures shes 9 or thereabouts. Lee who was called F. Death came in Mesa, Ariz., on July 25, 2008. Prosecutors suspected Jimmy Chagra, and the FBI began meticulously putting its case together. People in the Chagras party didnt bother to register: they just walked up to the desk and someone handed them a key to a six-room suite. On the night before he was murdered, Lee Chagra returned home to El Paso flushed with the euphoria a gambler feels when he believes his luck is changing. Oscar Goodman and Joe Chagra were Jimmys attorneys. By maintaining close ties to Democratic Party kingmaker Travis Johnson, Boyd had run the gamut of offices: assistant county attorney, assistant U.S. attorney, district attorney, U.S. magistrate. He just picked up the money and tossed it in a drawer. Lee drew a crowd simply by walking through the front door at Caesars Palace, passing out money, and asking how much they loved him. Youll do at least eighteen months. 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. The Indian wasnt a man most folks would care to meet in the darkthere was a .22 pistol under his stained leather jacket, and his face looked like forty miles of bad highway. The bonds that he set in marijuana cases averaged $200,000. Now the government was trying to prove that Johnson had helped smuggle a pound of heroin out of Mexico. The case had been dead for two years, but Kerr had a plan. There was a line from The Picture of Dorian Gray that she liked to paraphrase: I hope that when I die and go to hell, they deduct those four years I spent with Jimmy Chagra. She almost said it now, but the suffering in Lees eyes cut her off. The government had been after him ever since Nashville, but 1977 was to be worse than anything that had gone before, largely because of three men: U.S. attorney Jamie Boyd, Boyds assistant James Kerr, and Judge John Wood. Chagra was also a heavy gambler in Las Vegas, Nevada, and attracted attention with his flamboyant ways. They were scheduled to fly back to El Paso Monday morning. October 2022 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? 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. 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. Is his [dope smuggling] operation totally separate [from another smugglers]? What was happening here? It was only the second time in US history that a federal judge had been killed. Jimmy had given her a couple of kids and a lasting pain in the ass. Donna made fresh coffee and explained the new telephone system to Lee. He loved the streets and the people who plied themwhores, gamblers, smugglers, cops. The Most Reverend Sidney Metzger, bishop emeritus of El Paso, came out of retirement to say mass. Mom would be returning from mass just about now, walking toward Lees office, unaware that anything had happened. It wasnt just in hard-drug cases; Wood appeared to make no distinctions. Jo Annie, Lees boyhood sweetheart and the wife who had seen him through law school and nineteen years of an emotionally charged marriage, met him at the airport. Over the years lawyers encountered scores of cases in which citizens had been lured into crimes by what amounted to federal bounty hunters. Chagra, 39, a licensed professional gambler, was accused of paying Charles V. Harrelson $250,000 to kill the judge. Im the eagle! But Sandy noticed there were tears in his eyes. [14], Prior to his arrest, he accumulated approximately $100 million in various bank accounts, today amounting to about $500 million. Hughes knew that it would be several hours before Lee worked himself into the proper frenzy. The documents revealed that hardly a week passed without some agents making inquiries into Lee Chagras private life. Hitman Charles Harrelson actor Woody Harrelsons father assassinated Wood outside the judges home in May 1979. If she realized how pressed he had been for money in recent months, she didnt show it. He may or may not have locked it. The best guess is that they divided at least $5 million. Standing in front of the mirror, he would snap the pearl buttons of his red cowboy shirt, then climb into the black Western-cut leisure suit. There is no way to calculate how all the damning publicity affected the careers of Sib Abraham and the others. By the late sixties he had put together an organization capable of moving tons of marijuana across the river. The money from the big score in Massachusetts was pouring in, and Lee and Jimmy were racing to see who could lose it first. The greatest job of bullshit advocacy Ive ever seen, Clark Hughes said of Lees performance. Knewz is a registered trademark. There was a steel floor safe sunk into five feet of concrete, but like the other safes, it hadnt yet been completely installed. When either of the Chagras sat at the blackjack table, he took all seven spots. He knew how to quit while he was winning. As it turned out, he was right.. I though maybe I was the Jonah, he said. Universal Studios Is Coming to Frisco. 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. This was among over a thousand recorded conversations that the government had collected as evidence. Sometimes Jimmy pretended he was Lee, signing his name Lee Chagra and repeating Lees stories as though they had happened to him. Its from some friends in Vegas, he said, handing Vivian the card. [6] In fact, he is described as having been "no less than the biggest marijuana smuggler in the country" during that time. She still has paintings he made while locked up, a hobby he never resumed after getting a medical parole in December 2003. 3.9 on Goodreads. In fact, many aspects of the case were never investigated. Lee kept detailed records of gambling transactions, but no one else had any concept of home much he bet or with how many different bookies. Donna helped Sandy count the $20,000. Tom Foster writes about business, innovation, and creative people. 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). The investigation cost more than $11 million. I did not worry about a long-term jail sentence until Wood was killed, he said. Lee and Joe began to consider filing a harassment suit against Wood, Kerr, and various federal agents. Lee didnt appear to like Lou Esper, but he was one of the few people in town who tolerated him. A short time later there was a knock, and Lee admitted two hookers to the room. 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. Would you ask Kerr to take a lie detector test if someone tried to kill me? he demanded. 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. Goodman had represented Chagra in a previous drug case, which was undone by his client testifying. He liked to mainline speed and supported his habit by organizing a small-time burglary-robbery ring using young black soldiers from Fort Bliss. Two of their five children were with her. Jimmy knelt beside the bag that now contained the remains of his brother and started bawling. In a single short sitting he lost almost $190,000. Lee always suffered shamelessly when he was down and Jimmy was up, but this was different. Kerr was maneuvering his car around the obstacle when the rear doors of the van opened and two gunmen started firing. But the feds real ace in the hole was Jimmy and his partner, Henry Wallace. [23] The authorities did not immediately suspect Chagra of involvement in the assassination, and it took thousands of man-hours to identify them as suspects in the case. He had known about Lees cocaine habit, but since Clark had been appointed a judge, Lee hadnt flaunted it. The attempt on Kerrs life unleashed the most sweeping drug investigation in the history of the Southwest. With the agent providing invaluable assistance at every stage, Renteria and several others were drawn into the government trap. Lee was a baffling tangle of contradictions. The law was wide open to interpretationtailor-made for a crusading lawman like James Kerr. 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. 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. A fictitious name reference to the Judge John Wood assassination also appeared in an The FBI [18] He was scheduled to appear before United States District Judge John Wood, a judge nicknamed "Maximum John" who had a reputation for giving out the maximum sentence allowed for drug-related crimes. Soon every drug dealer on the border carried one of Lee Chagras cards. Lee, the man was saying, Im not gonna say this againno more credit!. And the caper made the money flow. 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. In a short time the bust was being described as the biggest one in El Paso history. But, speaking to his ex-wife, Vivian, in a federal prison more than 30 years ago, he said he was not a killer. The family was worried about 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. By law, the interview was to remain a secret, known only to a handful of agents and prosecutors who read the transcript as part of their official duties. Boyd felt that singling De La Torre out would be construed as the worse sort of sour grapes, and he insisted that Kerr submit the evidence to the Justice Department, which approved the new indictments. For six years now shed been divorced from Jimmy and nothing much had changed. Then he expanded the pointer, an inch at a time. Boyd had never been regarded as a crusader, but one exception was his views on gamblinghe hated gamblers. This would be the last time Lee Chagra and James Kerr faced one another in a courtroom, a sort of last hurrah for both. 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 The interview was patently leading; most of the questions were of the when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife variety. He died from injuries resulting from an automobile accident that occurred on December 6, 1996. Lees success in trying drug cases soon led him to meet Jack Stricklin, who had sent the Pitts case his way. 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. Security guards kept the riffraff away. He was a fanatic about his family: he lavished gifts on his wife, his children, his mother, his sister. I feel that it has all been terribly twisted. Despite, or perhaps because of, these tactics, agents of the FBI, the IRS, and especially the DEA became convinced that Chagra not only was involved in international drug trafficking but was in fact the mastermind, the kingpin. Kerrs just working the tailings, he said. While the phone was ringing, Yoseph allowed his eyes to run along the wall to the left of the desk. 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. [17][10], Chagra's downfall began in February 1979 when he was arrested on trafficking charges. Wood pressed on, however, announcing that the grand jury investigation concerned not only Lee Chagra and Stricklin; it also involved Sib Abraham and others. 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. He did quit for the night, though. Wood was finally convinced that it was his duty. Patsy ran out the back entrance and toward the cathedral. He once sentenced a dope dealer to 35 years for contempt of court. 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. Hed never seen it so quiet there. It was apparent from the manner in which the furniture was rearranged and toppled about that the orgies were quite vigorous. As far as having Wood killed, no way, he said. 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. He said he would meet her at home in a couple of hours. I knew he was dying, Catherine Chagra said. He was arrested without incident in front of the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, his second home, where, according to Catherine, hed gone to seek facial reconstructive surgery. He had $250,000 credit. [5][3], Texas Drug, Gambling Figure Missing; High Bond Forfeited, Jimmy Chagra; Smuggler Linked to Judge's Death. 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