It was obvious that the prosecution and the DEA had problems coordinating their investigation. 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. Now they eat three meals a day and imported cheese. He was convicted of obstructing the investigation of the There was plenty of cocaine to guarantee a holiday spirit; at least five ounces had been delivered a few days earlier. He had two brothers, Lee and Joseph, who were both attorneys involved with the legal defense of drug smugglers. By setting up the corporation for Jimmy, Lee had, for the first time, made himself vulnerable. El Paso and Jurez have always floated on a little healthy corruption. Whatever Jo Annie was thinking, she wouldnt say anything. His older brother Lee was a very prominent defense attorney Jimmy was the middle son, and the younger son, Joe, was also an attorney.. Kerr preferred playing Bach fugues in the dim light of the First Presbyterian Church and going to the symphony. [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. Lee joked as he gave the Indian the $75,000, and the Indian mumbled and studied his boots. If he refused, they would see that he was reindicted under the kingpin act and sent away for life without parole. 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. And even if it was true, for Wood to reveal it in open court was outrageous. 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. Chagra was outraged. Although Wood had devoted his career to civil law, there was no more ardent law-and-order advocate anywhere. Stricklin was an enterprising and likable young man who had grown up in one of El Pasos better neighborhoods. While it was being renovated, he occupied an office in a building on Montana owned by another lawyer friend, Mickey Esper, who was related to Jo Annie. If Stricklin cooperated, they would work for his early release. The Chagras were fiercely proud people, a handsome, hardy, beguiling line of Lebanese merchants and vendors who migrated near the turn of the century to Mexico and then to El Paso. You sonuvabitch, how are you gonna pay off those markers?, He took a deep draw on his cigarette and pressed Clarks shoulder. Its better to try. Jo Annie was talking about divorce; she and Lee got as far as the courthouse steps before one or both backed out. Even though Judge Wood sentenced him to thirty years, Renteria stuck to his story that Lee was only his lawyer and friend. The silence was monumental. Every morning when I drive down to the office, I get sick at my stomach, Joe told Patty. 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. I knew that Vivian had been working on a book about the Chagra saga, McCulloch said. The greatest job of bullshit advocacy Ive ever seen, Clark Hughes said of Lees performance. One of his key tactics was to source the details of a model of the apartment complex where Wood was shot, built for $11 million by the prosecution. He was a fanatic about his family: he lavished gifts on his wife, his children, his mother, his sister. Part of the reason was his honest conviction that even the lowest, meanest, rottenest scum on the face of the earth deserved, and in fact were guaranteed, a right to a fair trial. 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. As the family walked away from the cemetery, Jimmy caught up with Vivian and took her arm. The law was wide open to interpretationtailor-made for a crusading lawman like James Kerr. Lee and several others heard the crash of metal against the patio door. Kerr escaped with only minor glass cuts. In these pictures shes 9 or thereabouts. [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. The casino was almost deserted. Then, in a fashion that was typical of his relationship with Lee, Jimmy decided to take it one step farther. They say there was nothing Jimmy really wanted to be, but that wasnt entirely true. Chagra: The King of Dope Drugs, Deceit and Dirty Darlings, WATCH: Indiana father arrested on live TV after toddler is seen with gun. 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. On the monitor he saw a tall, muscular black man in his early twenties. 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. Food, drinks, girlsanything one might fancy was there in a whisk. Goodman managed to get Chagra acquitted. Over the next eight years Wood handed out the maximum sentence in almost every case. 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. It was the first time anyone from El Paso had thought of using a tramp steamer. Some of them deposited large sums in the lawyers safe, against the inevitable. That was it, the last of the half-million the Black Striker had blown in Vegas the year before. Do yourself a favor, one of the agents said. On the morning of the day Lee was murdered, his bookkeeper, Donna Johnson, arrived at the office about ten oclock. With Redd Fox. The Mafia! 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. 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 few months later, Luis "Lou" Fred Esper, a small-time drug dealer and acquaintance of Lee Chagra, and two U.S. Army soldiers from Fort Bliss were held on various charges related to the murder of Lee. The door was partially open, but the office appeared empty. [21] His drug case went to trial and Chagra was found guilty in August 1979 and sentenced to 30 years. Lee counted out $75,000, slipped it into his coat pocket, and headed for his clandestine appointment. There wasnt any Mr. Big, Johnson acknowledged, but if the narcs preferred to look at it that way, Lee Chagra was a good a name as any. His staff had completed the move while he was in Tucson, and in the morning he would officially take possession: it would be his first day there and, as fate decreed, his last. A month later, Jack Stricklin was standing before Maximum John Wood, contemplating life without parole. 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 could betray a trust as casually as tipping a dealer a chip worth more than the dealer made in a month. He walked upstairs to his own office. Jimmys Florida operation, far from being an immediate disaster, disbanded after successfully offloading fifty tons of grass from a Colombian freighter in March. The tragedy was that it was all unnecessary: before the Fifth Circuit had a chance to rule on the question of jeopardy, Jamie Boyd decided to drop the continuing criminal enterprise charges against Jack Stricklin. Joe announced plans to open his own law firm. He walked to the top of the stairs and looked down at two black men with guns. But the mere act of talking on the telephone seemed to boost his confidence. Lee had been involved with Jimmy in his drug smuggling and the killers took $450,000 that was owed to Joe Bonanno for a drug deal. Registration on or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms of service, privacy policy and cookies policy. She had put the same question to herself. It was almost midnight when the Black Striker made his appearance on the casino floor. The indictment was so vague as to make it impossible to respond or even to contemplate a defense. And Im going to charge you ten thousand dollars.. Whether or not he knew the details, Lee surely sensed the magnitude of the disaster that was bearing down on him. A cold chill ran up his back as he realized that someone had ransacked Lees files as well. Im gonna take the joint apart., Caesars Palace dispatched a Learjet, and in less than two hours a limousine deposited them at the casino door. 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. They were rivals in many ways.. It is estimated that one out of every five households in these two communities of one million is supported by some type of illegal activity. Everything was on the house. Jo Annie telephoned one final time, from her mothers house on Rim Road. Sib Abraham and some other old friends and members of the family were there. In fact, many aspects of the case were never investigated. 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. He may or may not have locked it. In less than fifteen minutes, he won $90,000. If she realized how pressed he had been for money in recent months, she didnt show it. The sisters made mistakes, too, some by failing, in their youth, to realize that a substantial portion of their larger-than-life family history was a cautionary tale, an admonition that for some, life is best lived smaller and more quietly, away from big money and bright lights and celebrities with teeth so white and so impossibly perfect. The Indian brushed a strand of limp hair over his bald spot as he walked toward Lees car. For six years now shed been divorced from Jimmy and nothing much had changed. He and Clark went back to the suite for a while. Not long after that, someone attempted to rob a high-stakes poker game at Jimmy Salomes house. Goodman insisted that Chagra not testify. They learned later that Jimmy left town with about $50,000. This didnt seem to disturb Wood any more than it had Guinn, who used to cackle, I can sentence them a lot faster than they can reverse them. Nor did Wood protest when they started calling him Maximum John. Composed of, and by, organized crime. Lee gave Jack Stricklin, now out of prison, $1000 and passed out lesser amounts to other old friends. [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. I undermined their entire case of how the bullet got to the judge.. Marble floors. This would be the last time Lee Chagra and James Kerr faced one another in a courtroom, a sort of last hurrah for both. He loved it. It looked as though Lee had struck gold, but quicksand might have been closer to the truth. 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. It was Stricklin who was on trial, not Chagra. A third, Cynthia Jones Chagra, lives in Austin. Wood was apparently confusing the fifty-page transcript of the secret interview with actual grand jury testimony. 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. Sib remembered: Candidly, we were very, very successful. On June 20 a team of narcotics agents appeared at his law office with a warrant for his arrest and hauled him away in handcuffs. Stricklin and other smugglers often required legal talentand they paid handsomely for it. 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.. 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. In fact, the only evidence that Lee expected things to improve was his new office complex. By early afternoon the party was over, and staff and hangers-on had gone. If you fill out the first name, last name, or agree to terms fields, you will NOT be added to the newsletter list. Lee didnt protest as Clark led him out of the casino to the waiting limousine. He was the black sheep, the all-star goof-up. He thought nobody would love him without money. 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. Jamiel "Jimmy" Alexander Chagra (December 7, 1944 July 25, 2008) was an American drug trafficker, carpet salesman and professional gambler. He said he would meet her at home in a couple of hours. Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. Later, Jo Annie gave him an ebony cane with a gold satyrs-head handle. It was not the kind of clutter Lee Chagra would leave. Lee was a baffling tangle of contradictions. Kerr claimed that money didnt matter, that his mission in life was vigorously and, I hope, successfully prosecuting all offenders that his clients could provide, but the mere fact that his adversary put such emphasis on money and the trappings of wealth must have touched some deep reserve of resentment in him. A few months later two soldiers from Fort Bliss admitted robbing and killing Lee Chagra. The gesture was unmistakable: hed come to replace his brother. 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. On the cartoon, Clark had written Wood below the eagle and Chagra below the mouse. Lee Chagra grossed more than $250,000 in 1972. Lee had $15,000 riding on the game. He touched the tip of the pointer and said, This small tip represents innocence: the defendants didnt do a thing. The pit boss snapped his fingers and motioned for the guards to bring the velvet ropes. None of the missing $450,000 was ever recovered. A block from the cathedral, on North Mesa at the edge of the downtown business district, Lee Chagras new office building was closed for good. Youll do at least eighteen months. In broken white letters, like shards of milk glass on velvet, it said FREEDOM. They wanted information on the real kingpin of dope trafficking in El Paso. Catherine Chagra and her two sisters, Cindy and Christa, were the darling daughters of Jimmy Chagra, the biggest pot dealer in the history of the U.S.A., and one of Lees finances were in shambles, but he still had plenty of credit in Las Vegas. Here she is in the Sinatra suite at Caesars, the tacky wallpaper so thickly felted it practically had to be brushed. By early autumn 1976 Lee was back in El Paso, pumping money. But after their father was arrested and his hundred-million dollars had disappeared, they were left penniless, at the mercy of a Texas society that vilified them. I knew as soon as that happened, I didnt have a prayer. [1][2][3] He was implicated in the May 1979 assassination of United States District Judge John H. Wood Jr. in San Antonio, Texas. Lee read the card and laughed. For pure gambling, Jimmy may have been the strongest anyone in Vegas ever saw. While Lee ate, Jo Annie puttered with the Christmas decorations. And when it came to squandering the profits, Lee was at the head of the line. As the defense had expected, several officers testified that they had arrived at the airstrip in time to witness the off-loading of the DC-4. I didnt have Wood killed. 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. Almost every day Jimmy telephoned Lee from his new home in Las Vegas. Borrowing heavily from Kerrs own wording, Wood totally agreed: This request appears to be primarily an effort by the defense attorney to obtain reports of an investigation pertaining to him. He got 30 years. The government questions the good faith of this request, Kerr concluded. The months of suspicion and hostile publicity almost wrecked Lees law career. Now it was the judge who was having difficulty. To combat what he perceived as the inroads of organized crime, Boyd needed someone tough and relentless to take over the El Paso docket as federal prosecutor. They had to take care of him because he spoiled everything he touched. Christa remembers the family being on food stamps after her dad went to jail. I think I was about 20 and Lee was 27 or something. [36][37] However, his sister Patsy stated that he was not in the witness protection program at the time of his death. [14], Prior to his arrest, he accumulated approximately $100 million in various bank accounts, today amounting to about $500 million. Its David Long, the first man said. Lee held the picture so it caught the light. Lee handed out $200 in tips before they got to the suite. On five minutes notice, Caesars would dispatch a Learjet to fetch one or both of the Chagras. On the plane from Tucson, Lee must have reflected on the paradox of his life. He couldnt have flushed it down the toilet faster than the way he gambled it and lost it, she said. Several times Lee talked to Vivian and others about dying. Boyd had never been regarded as a crusader, but one exception was his views on gamblinghe hated gamblers. the Mortal Mustache, a.k.a. Kerr was frail and sallow-faced and talked in a high-pitched voice that suggested he was about to shatter. The family name was originally Bushaada, but Lees grandfather mexicanized it during the revolution. Chagra had little use for public servants, especially prosecutors, and Kerr was a classic bureaucrat, squeaking with authority and wedded to the book. He spent more than 35 years defending some of the most notorious alleged Mob figures, including Meyer Lansky, Frank Rosenthal, Anthony Spilotro and Jimmy Chagra. 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. Jimmy became involved in marijuana trafficking, with ties to a New England crime organization. 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. It was a partial victory for Leethe jury found De La Torre guilty of only one charge and he got the maximum, 5 years. Lee had seated himself at a table and ordered $5000 in chips, but the dealer refused. Right there before your eyes Lee Chagra became the Black Striker. Joseph Chagra, a Texas lawyer who admitted his complicity in the first assassination of a Federal judge in more than a century, died last Sunday in Thomason Hospital in El Paso. The family was breaking apart. Paperback November 6, 2015. by Catherine Chagra (Author) 168 ratings. [15] The FBI conducted more than 30,000 interviews related to the case and in total collected more than 500,000 pieces of information. Jimmy had chartered a jet and attempted to rescue an El Paso pilot who had been badly burned when a DC-6 crashed on takeoff at an improvised field near Santa Marta, Colombia. Much had changed Jimmy really wanted to be, but that wasnt true!, but quicksand might have been closer to the waiting limousine if it was Stricklin who on. Hilton for a while sentence in almost every day Jimmy telephoned Lee from new... 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