Lee had been in Tucson trying a case for most of the past two weeks, and when the Friday night plane began its approach over the Upper Valley and through the Pass, he caught a glimpse of the lighted Christmas star on the slopes of Mount Franklin. A third, Cynthia Jones Chagra, lives in Austin. 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. Jurors heard hours worth of tape recordings and more than 500 pages of documents were presented. He died from injuries resulting from an automobile accident that occurred on December 6, 1996. Jimmys Florida operation, far from being an immediate disaster, disbanded after successfully offloading fifty tons of grass from a Colombian freighter in March. The bell boy warned me of (Lees) reputation as a gambler, and that he was known to like women, Vivian Chagra would tell her friend and former anthropology professor Kay McCulloch, in an interview for a book project on which the two were collaborating. Chagra and Wood were on a collision course that was bound to end in catastrophe. He hustled personal injury cases, divorces, wills. (At that point the public had no inkling of the earlier, even bigger Boston haul.) I think Jerry Johnson told us whatever he thought we wanted to hear, DEA agent J.T. She had come to count on Leealthough she suspected that the money Lee gave her came from Jimmy anyway. It must have been nearly three-thirty by then. The Tennessee dope dealer rolled down his sock and slapped the cash on Lees desk. It was only the second time in US history that a federal judge had been killed. In short order, Wood surpassed Guinns unenviable reputation as the most reversed judge in the district. Lee had been accused of a lot of things, but this was the first time anyone had ever accused him of representing himself and not his client. Chagra was released from prison for health reasons in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 9, 2003. Dirty Darlings. Goodman 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. They implicated Lou Esper as the man who had planned the heist and supplied the weapons. He seemed pleased with the gesture but told her there was some work he needed to do at the office. 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. 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 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. A few years ago, the director of El Paso customs acknowledged: If we stopped all smuggling activity right now, the economies of two cities would fall flat on their faces., Millions of dollars worth of goods are smuggled daily across the three main bridges connecting Jurez and El Paso. As one of the daughters answered the phone, Yoseph saw Lees body. Lee always suffered shamelessly when he was down and Jimmy was up, but this was different. Vivian remembered the previous Saturday at his office; shes heard murmurs from the staff as she followed him upstairs. [15] The FBI conducted more than 30,000 interviews related to the case and in total collected more than 500,000 pieces of information. The card read, I hope your ass feels like what you did to us.. His great-grandfather had come from New York and fought in the Texas Revolution. Almost every day Jimmy telephoned Lee from his new home in Las Vegas. 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. 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. [11][24][9], Jimmy Chagra died of cancer on July 25, 2008. By setting up the corporation for Jimmy, Lee had, for the first time, made himself vulnerable. The money was in the canvas tennis bag under the sink. Youll do at least eighteen months. Once again, Lee went first to his suite and carried out the ritual. His practice had foundered, he had run up huge gambling debts, his life was peopled with shysters and thugs; and if the truth was known, Lee himself had become little more than a highly paid functionary in Jimmys fluctuating gang of smugglers. Uncle Lou, who had recently been paroled in California, had a drug habit of long standing. All have, understandably, complicated feelings about their father. Goodman is one of the nations best criminal defense attorneys and was named one of the 15 Best Trial Lawyers in America by the National Law Journal. 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 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. They went down there, they took pictures of everything And I was able to take that model and demolish their case. When he read copies of Kerrs motion and Woods reply, Chagra was flabbergasted and then outraged. Jo Annie telephoned one final time, from her mothers house on Rim Road. On May 29, 1979, the day that Jimmy was originally supposed to go on trial in Judge Woods court, John Wood was assassinated in the driveway outside his apartment. El Pasos legions of smugglersdrug smugglers in particularmanage to get themselves arrested often enough to keep law practices like Lee Chagras busy and profitable. Fighting seemingly hopeless causes became his passion. Jimmy was also taking care of Lees half-million-dollar marker at Caesars. He was practically chasing ambulances. A major law firm that always invited the top six UT law graduates to a spring gala invited only five in 1962. 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. When he appeared several hours later in his Black Striker ensemble, a woman asked Clark Hughes if his friend was a movie star. 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. Until now the media had treated the charges against Stricklin as routine news, but Woods ruling added a bizarre new twist. Dan Solomon writes about politics, music, food, sports, criminal justice, health care, film, and business. Chagra's son, Joseph, 19, and daughter, Samantha, 17, kept a bedside vigil urging him, despite his coma, not to give up. 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. Reporters flocked to the federal courthouse to get a look at what was happening to Lee Chagra. The Florida operation had the potential to make millions, but it could also spell disaster for Lee. Wood was finally convinced that it was his duty. 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 the most part, 1978 turned out to be just a continuation of the long slide that had begun in 1977. Clark Hughes had found a cartoon of a mouse shooting a finger at an eagleit was called The Last Great Act of Defianceand Lees secretary, Sandy Messer, was having it made into a wall plaque. 3.9 on Goodreads. Catherine remembers the prison visits as the best times she ever had with her father. The real show was on the casino floor in special sections roped off for the Chagras. 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. They knew about the safe in the floor of the bathroom, but there were othersone beneath the carpet near the fireplace in the living room of the private suite and another in the master bedroom. 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. [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. He filed a freedom-of-information request demanding that the government furnish him with all documents relating to its investigations of him, and before long the files filled two heavy-duty storage boxes. He was also used in FBI: The Untold Stories. Defendants convicted on a kingpin rap were not eligible for parole, period. Jimmy preferred the Sinatra penthouse with its white baby grand piano and spiral staircase. Look at em, he grinned at the pit boss. There is no way to calculate how all the damning publicity affected the careers of Sib Abraham and the others. In the summer of 1975, Jimmy finally hit the big time. He had several of the bracelets made for close friends and members of the family. No Mafia figures were ever indicted. Chagra could win or lose more in a single session at a Vegas crap table than Kerr made in a year. Two of Chagras daughters, Christa and Catherine, now live in Smithville. 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. Lee despised Kerr, and Kerr had every reason to despise Lee. It had been months since anyone had seen him so animated. Kerr escaped with only minor glass cuts. 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. Security guards kept the riffraff away. But let me add, he had a lot of enemies.. Lee fought like hell for everything he had, but things came easy for Jimmy. He and Clark went back to the suite for a while. Pitts fancied himself a big-timer and concluded that Chagra must be pretty big himself if he was demanding thirty grand. [21][3] He reportedly did this in order to have his wife, Elizabeth, released early. Jimmy would tip the hotel staff like a salesman with an end-of-the-month goal handing out business cards. Every morning when I drive down to the office, I get sick at my stomach, Joe told Patty. He was already doing time on the fraud charge at La Tuna federal correctional institution, which was on the New Mexico state line not far from El Paso. That woman was Vivian, Christa and Catherine and Cynthias mother, who came from humble beginnings in an unincorporated community near Brownwood. The rest of it, he said, his voice sure and unwavering, represents not guilty. 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 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. That was the year Lee and Jo Annie started building their new home on Frontera Road in the Upper Valley. On several occasions he watched Lee remove one of his boots and count out the cash. On August 31, 1977, Lee Chagra appeared in Judge Woods court to file a motion of discovery, asking that the judge turn over DEA reports, customs reports, grand jury probes, any material that would reveal when Stricklin was supposed to have engaged in continuing criminal activity. The family was worried about Lee. Later, a superseding indictment added the charge of continuing criminal enterprise. In a secret interview with a group of DEA agents and prosecutors, Johnson had implicated at least sixty El Paso citizens as major drug traffickers. [14], Prior to his arrest, he accumulated approximately $100 million in various bank accounts, today amounting to about $500 million. Jo Annie was talking about divorce; she and Lee got as far as the courthouse steps before one or both backed out. On December 23, 1978, Lee Chagra was shot and killed in his law office in El Paso. 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. Sometimes Jimmy pretended he was Lee, signing his name Lee Chagra and repeating Lees stories as though they had happened to him. Jimmy wanted to be Lee. Lee had never discussed with any of the staff the purpose of the apartment at the rear of the complex, but they knew he was having a regular evening affair with a stripper from the Lamplighter Club. A month later, Jack Stricklin was standing before Maximum John Wood, contemplating life without parole. Lee left the money spread across the bed and closed the bedroom door behind him. Hadnt I already proven that wrong?. With the pointer fully retracted, Lee approached the jury box, smiling. Lee was already there. 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. His idea of a good time was going home to his wife and newborn son, Joseph, maybe tinkering with his stereo or waxing his speedboat, swimming or lifting weights. 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. An electronic current unbolted the door. "[8], Jamiel Chagra, known as Jimmy, was born in El Paso, Texas on December 7, 1944. And hes this huge drug kingpin. 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. Curiously, this kind of heavy action seemed to bring out the best in Jimmy and the worst in Lee. By the time Clark arrived, Lee had already lost another $80,000 and was yelling at the floor manager because he was threatening to cut off his credit. For years there had been a rivalry between the two brothers, a fierce and unyielding competition that only the two of them completely understood. By early autumn 1976 Lee was back in El Paso, pumping money. You help us and well help you, the agents told Stricklin. He was living in a trailer camp in Mesa, Arizona. Jimmy, on the other hand, had a true gamblers instinct, a fatalistic kill-or-be-killed attitude. A black banner was stretched across the entire front of the building. His office and home telephone records as far back as 1970 had been subpoenaed, and so had his income tax records. Lee didnt seem at all depressed, said Donna Johnson, the law firms bookkeeper. If youre not careful, your friends become crooks, too. 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