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. Chagra could win or lose more in a single session at a Vegas crap table than Kerr made in a year. It must have been nearly three-thirty by then. He was practically chasing ambulances. Catherine remembers the prison visits as the best times she ever had with her father. Lee meant $10,000 for all three defendants, but Pitts didnt understand that. 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. Every morning when I drive down to the office, I get sick at my stomach, Joe told Patty. The defendant was one Melchor de los Santos, who was caught with 262 grams of heroin; since the going rate was $30 a gram, it was a fairly substantial bust for the times. Until now the media had treated the charges against Stricklin as routine news, but Woods ruling added a bizarre new twist. In 1979, a federal grand jury in Midland, Texas, indicted Chagra on drug smuggling charges. 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. [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. When you live that way, chances are youll die that way too. The government questions the good faith of this request, Kerr concluded. Do yourself a favor, one of the agents said. Food, drinks, girlsanything one might fancy was there in a whisk. 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 Sometimes Jimmy pretended he was Lee, signing his name Lee Chagra and repeating Lees stories as though they had happened to him. Traditionally, gambling and smuggling are on a par with fixing parking tickets and hiring illegal aliens. They landed the high-priced weed at a deep, remote cove on the northeastern point of Massachusetts Bay, near Boston. He was going to play baccarat instead of craps. The staff knew the ritual, but no one knew for sure what went on behind the closed door. They went down there, they took pictures of everything And I was able to take that model and demolish their case. It had been months since anyone had seen him so animated. 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. Worse than 1973, the year the federal government indicted him on a trumped-up marijuana trafficking charge in Nashville and nearly destroyed his law practice. Lees younger brother Jimmy, who grew up hustling and hanging out with some of Lees more prosperous clients, wanted nothing more than to be recognized as Mr. Big. One strategy that Liddy and the newly created Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) finally settled on, as defense lawyers in El Paso soon realized, was the use of agents provocateurs, whose job it was to create crime. A front-page headline in The El Paso Times virtually screamed the news that the flamboyant kingpin had been nabbed. These people used to steal, a Mexican policeman told the Associated Press recently, but there is more money in contraband. But lately Lee was taking new directions. 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? Jimmy had given her a couple of kids and a lasting pain in the ass. [14], Prior to his arrest, he accumulated approximately $100 million in various bank accounts, today amounting to about $500 million. In the winter. You sonuvabitch, how are you gonna pay off those markers?, He took a deep draw on his cigarette and pressed Clarks shoulder. He had several of the bracelets made for close friends and members of the family. He knew how to quit while he was winning. But now the years of fast living were catching up. A blast of double-aught buckshot and .30-caliber slugs ripped across the hood, left fender, and windshield of the car: police officers later counted nineteen bullet holes. It was three days before Christmas, 1978. It wasnt the cocaine so much as the lifestyle it symbolized. The consensus had always been that Jimmy Chagra would never amount to much. All have, understandably, complicated Before Yoseph could think of an answer, Lee asked another question: What would you do if you came in and found Id been murdered?, This preoccupation wasnt totally without foundation. The judge was a member of every exclusive club in San AntonioSons of the Republic of Texas, Sons of the American Revolution, Texas Cavaliers, Argyle Club, San Antonio Club, Order of the Alamo, San Antonio Gun Club, German Club, American Legion, San Antonio Country Cluband owned property in the segregated Key Allegro resort on the Texas coastthe list went on and on. 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. [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. 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. Jimmy, on the other hand, had a true gamblers instinct, a fatalistic kill-or-be-killed attitude. As the year progressed, so did his paranoia, his insistence that someone was out to get him. Joe Chagra testified against the other defendants in exchange for pleading guilty to murder-conspiracy with a maximum sentence of ten years in a plea-bargain deal, and with an agreement that he would not testify against his brother Jimmy in a separate trial. Right there before your eyes Lee Chagra became the Black Striker. I colored the Kleenex sheets with green marker and I put it in the tree branches. He named two of his chows Kilo and Poker., Look how sweet and dorky and innocent I look, Catherine Chagra said. September 2022 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? Gambling and women, said Lees old friend and fellow lawyer Clark Hughes. She was sentenced to 30 years and died in prison in 1997 Clark assumed that he would go straight back to Caesars and claim some of his markers, but that wasnt Lees plan. Vivian felt Jo Annies dark eyes following her into the bedroom. Technically and legally, the unsworn interview shouldnt even have been a part of the grand jury report. November 2022 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? [6] In fact, he is described as having been "no less than the biggest marijuana smuggler in the country" during that time. Finally, he would pose with the ebony cane with the gold satyrs-head handle, squinting and turning until he was satisfied. Someone had gone after Jo Annie, who had collapsed when she first heard the news but now wanted to be there with the family. 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. As he pulled off the exit ramp above a truck stop on IH 10, Lee could see the Indians car parked in the shadows behind some eighteen-wheelers that idled in the predawn chill. Hughes knew these had been hard times for his friend. But his eyes spun like a blur of cherries on a slot machine. Jimmy Chagra, in another conversation recorded in prison and later transcribed, would not go quite as far, although he further muddied the waters. Hardly anyone wanted a lawyer who was under indictment, recalled Joe Chagra, Lees youngest brother, who by then had joined the law firm. Out on bail before sentencing, he went on the lam for five or six months and was on the FBIs 10 most wanted list. He looked as though he hadnt slept for three nights. Do you love me, do you love me? He knew the answer, but he had to hear it again. [9] The story surrounding the assassination of Judge Wood was profiled in an episode of City Confidential. By the time Lee finished dressing, Jo Annie had breakfast readyfreshly baked Syrian bread, butter, and a variety of fruit preserves. When Lee was murdered sixteen years later, Charles Alan Wright, one of the countrys leading authorities on constitutional law, called him one of the few students who stand out in my memory., There was never any doubt that when Lee passed the state bar exam he would join Jo Annies brother, Sib Abraham, who had finished law school the previous year and had already set up his practice in El Paso. 2023 www.statesman.com. 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. Jimmy preferred the Sinatra penthouse with its white baby grand piano and spiral staircase. 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. Crimes against persons are treated with extreme gravity, but crimes against the economy are treated with a wink and a smile. [6], Chagra was accused of (and was acquitted of, although he later confessed to conspiracy in a deal to help his wife) hiring hitman Charles Harrelson (actor Woody Harrelson's father) to kill Wood for $250,000; on May 29, 1979, Judge Wood was murdered outside his home by a shot in the back. This is gonna be one theyll write a book about, he told Hughes. He looked smaller than life as he stood there, facing the dresser, looking at the picture of his father and seeing his own reflection. 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. Jimmy Chagras first big score came in the summer of 75, when he orchestrated a shipment of more than 50,000 pounds of pot on a tramp steamer from Colombia to the Massachusetts coast, according to Dirty Dealing, a book about the Chagras published in 1984 by Austin author and journalist Gary Cartwright. 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 family was worried about Lee. In broken white letters, like shards of milk glass on velvet, it said FREEDOM. He talked about death a lot. Kerr was maneuvering his car around the obstacle when the rear doors of the van opened and two gunmen started firing. He nearly bankrupted the family carpet store and maybe even helped along Dad Chagras fatal heart attack. An inextricable connection, whether emotional or physical or both, would continue between Lee and Vivian long after Vivian and Jimmy were married, Catherine would later learn. That was when Jo Annie remembered the telephone call. Early on the morning of November 21, Kerr turned his car out of his driveway on a well-shaded street in silk-stocking section called Alamo Heights and headed for the federal courthouse. Not long after that, someone attempted to rob a high-stakes poker game at Jimmy Salomes house. In 1995, he appeared as himself in the movie, Casino.. 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. It was the way he sounded when he was counting money or totaling figures, an abstract, business-first attitude. A ton of marijuana is no better or worse than a ton of quicksilver. Kerr preferred playing Bach fugues in the dim light of the First Presbyterian Church and going to the symphony. On the monitor he saw a tall, muscular black man in his early twenties. I have not seen anything that would actually disqualify me from trying this case. Eventually Wood agreed to give Lee a copy of the Johnson interview but refusing to remove himself from the Stricklin case as Chagra requested. He may or may not have locked it. Hughes, who assisted in the defense, thought that Lee won in his opening remarks to the jury. SOLD OUT: Against All Odds: Oscar Goodman and the 40th Anniversary of the Jimmy Chagra Murder Trial. Jimmys Florida operation, far from being an immediate disaster, disbanded after successfully offloading fifty tons of grass from a Colombian freighter in March. When the items are small, such as bottles of American perfume or jewelry, the fayuqueros hire old women called chiveras (shepherds), who actually carry the merchandise across the bridge and as far as Chihuahua City, 236 miles into the interior. Wood was apparently confusing the fifty-page transcript of the secret interview with actual grand jury testimony. After the phone calls, Lee would take a long timemaybe two hours, maybe moreto bathe, groom, and dress himself in the wardrobe that he reserved for these occasions. I though maybe I was the Jonah, he said. 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. His eyes were open, but he was obviously dying. The interview was patently leading; most of the questions were of the when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife variety. Oh, yes. The next morning FBI agents called on Lee Chagra, confiscated his gun collection, and asked him to take a lie detector test. She still has paintings he made while locked up, a hobby he never resumed after getting a medical parole in December 2003. Yoseph let himself in the front entrance with the key that Lee had given him that morning. The greatest job of bullshit advocacy Ive ever seen, Clark Hughes said of Lees performance. He would try to join the family by half-time. Lee always suffered shamelessly when he was down and Jimmy was up, but this was different. If the feds could compromise even a single member of the conspiracy, the whole organization might crumbleand Lee with it. Jo Annie went on to the Sun Bowl and telephoned her husband at halftime. The bonds that he set in marijuana cases averaged $200,000. Part of it was his steadily increasing need for money. A sample: Q.What about Lee Chagra? A man named David Long phoned before you woke up, she told him. Kerr had the advantage of interviews with a number of dealers who had been arrested since 1973one informant claimed he had personally paid Stricklin $500,000. One client who occupied a good deal of Lees time during the autumn of 1976 was Jerry Edwin Johnson, a local con man and admitted drug smuggler accused of masterminding a scheme to defraud the IRS of a quarter of a million dollars. [21] His drug case went to trial and Chagra was found guilty in August 1979 and sentenced to 30 years. He would never go back to Vegas. As one of the daughters answered the phone, Yoseph saw Lees body. 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. In fact, the only evidence that Lee expected things to improve was his new office complex. As in: Heres a picture of Jimmy in Vegas with Muhammad Ali, both in black tie. The door was partially open, but the office appeared empty. The idea originated with a friend of his, a highly decorated former Army helicopter pilot who was rumored to have Mafia connections, and with Jack Stricklin, who provided most of the technical expertise. Lee told her he still had a pile of work on his desk. Instead of flying in the customary small planeload of 2000 pounds from Mexico, they imported 54,000 pounds from Colombia. Hadnt I already proven that wrong?. Later, a superseding indictment added the charge of continuing criminal enterprise. From a radio in another part of the house, Sinatra was singing about doing it his way. Chagra was released from prison for health reasons in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 9, 2003. And Im going to charge you ten thousand dollars.. 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. In these pictures shes 9 or thereabouts. Lee couldnt stop talking about Tucson. It appeared to be a clear example of double jeopardysame events, same evidence, same witnesses. [27] Joe Chagra's defense reportedly attempted to plead guilty to a lesser offense of conspiring to obstruct justice instead. WebAfter Joe was killed, the bad publicity inevitably returned, so Patty took their daughter, Samantha, a seventeen-year-old high school honor student, to all the television stations in That woman was Vivian, Christa and Catherine and Cynthias mother, who came from humble beginnings in an unincorporated community near Brownwood. Almost every day Jimmy telephoned Lee from his new home in Las Vegas. 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. Lees finances were in shambles, but he still had plenty of credit in Las Vegas. On five minutes notice, Caesars would dispatch a Learjet to fetch one or both of the Chagras. A division of Empire Media Group Holdings LLC. In Western Texas, Powell was a prosecutor in the trial of American drug trafficker Jimmy Chagra for criminal enterprise violations. 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. 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. I knew he would take a hard look at narcotics and organized crime.. [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. Copyright 2023 Knewz Media Group LLC. Woods first big drug case came in May 1971. Something about a will, about some large estate in California? I didnt have Wood killed. Lees vial of cocaine was open on the corner of his desk. When he appeared several hours later in his Black Striker ensemble, a woman asked Clark Hughes if his friend was a movie star. At the victory party that followed the declaration of mistrial, one of the jurors told Lee: I know those boys did everything they said they did, but dammit, they didnt prove it!. 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. 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. This was among over a thousand recorded conversations that the government had collected as evidence. Hed never seen it so quiet there. 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. They could have been twins. Like Julius Caesar, John H. Wood was several times offered high office, and several times he refused. 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. His dream was to stash away $20 million, all taxes paid. Jimmy became involved in marijuana trafficking, with ties to a New England crime organization. Jimmy wanted to be Lee. About four oclock Bobby Yoseph returned to the office from a shopping trip in Jurez. (At that point the public had no inkling of the earlier, even bigger Boston haul.) 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. Later he built a reputation as a hard-driving prosecutor in charge of the docket in Del Rio, where he and Judge John Wood became fast friends. 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. Lee handed out $200 in tips before they got to the suite. 196 At the intersection of Broadway a mint-green van blocked his route. On the plane from Tucson, Lee must have reflected on the paradox of his life. They say Jimmy lacked ambition. He decided on James Kerr, one of the assistant U.S. attorneys he had inherited from the Republican regime. 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. [11][24][9], Jimmy Chagra died of cancer on July 25, 2008. Lee didnt protest as Clark led him out of the casino to the waiting limousine. [17][10], Chagra's downfall began in February 1979 when he was arrested on trafficking charges. [15] The FBI conducted more than 30,000 interviews related to the case and in total collected more than 500,000 pieces of information. [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. James Kerr was devoting almost all of his time to his organized-crime investigation. Its better to try. 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. 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. Lee got the best of the feds in Ardmore but that was about the last time. Jimmy had given her a couple of kids and a lasting pain in the ass. He imported more high-grade ganja than anyone, tons at a time, planeload after planeload. A.I think now its a separate dealIm not sure. Kerr was frail and sallow-faced and talked in a high-pitched voice that suggested he was about to shatter. 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. Then he expanded the pointer, an inch at a time. In prison, Jimmy would say he got hooked on gambling faster than heroin.. But the mere act of talking on the telephone seemed to boost his confidence. Through it all, he had somehow clung to the central fact in his life: Lee Chagra was a topflight criminal attorney. Robinson later admitted. There's no way a bullet could have gone through there. The Tennessee dope dealer rolled down his sock and slapped the cash on Lees desk. A big blob of fat came pouring out, she remembered. Its from some friends in Vegas, he said, handing Vivian the card. He had $250,000 credit. 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. 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. He helped develop Operation Intercept, a massive media event in which millions of U.S. citizens were stopped and searched at the border. 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. 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. Chagra, 39, a licensed professional gambler, was accused of paying Charles V. Harrelson $250,000 to kill the judge. Lee and several others heard the crash of metal against the patio door. The sisters today say that if Lee Chagra had not been killed, Wood would not have been, either. Now it was the judge who was having difficulty. 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. 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. At the end of his life, Jimmy Chagra knew he was dying, and unlike his ex-wife, whod fought the cancer for herself and her daughters, he gave up quickly. For the most part, 1978 turned out to be just a continuation of the long slide that had begun in 1977. He had known that the DEA was watching him, but a grand jury? The scam brought in more money than Lee had ever thought of making in his law practice. He didnt appear to recognize the name. He bragged that he never once granted probation in a heroin case. It was a totally ludicrous story, Sib Abraham recalled, but it got very serious when the jury convicted him. In time, Lee and Sib became targets themselves. 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. Minimum sentence was ten years, maximum was life. Hed brought corsages for all the women on the staff. The law was wide open to interpretationtailor-made for a crusading lawman like James Kerr. Marriage license #D875871, Marriage License Records, Las Vegas. The following afternoon at the Aladdin, Lee took the worst beating Clark had ever seen him take. Two of Chagras daughters, Christa and Catherine, now live in Smithville. The family was breaking apart. Soon every drug dealer on the border carried one of Lee Chagras cards. Any craps! she shouted, throwing a $5 chip on the table. A fictitious name reference to the Judge John Wood assassination also appeared in an The FBI The Mafia! Lee gave Jack Stricklin, now out of prison, $1000 and passed out lesser amounts to other old friends. Even as Lee was working to salvage what he could from the ruins, Jimmy was plotting a new deal. He called her into the bedroom. Lee read the card and laughed. Lee kissed her and slipped her the money. 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. He hardly seemed aware she was in the room. 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