With virtually unlimited spending at the hotel, and often left to entertain herself, shed go down to the lobby and buy so many toys that security had to haul them back to the suite. 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. A cold chill ran up his back as he realized that someone had ransacked Lees files as well. 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. The indictment was so vague as to make it impossible to respond or even to contemplate a defense. In a short time the bust was being described as the biggest one in El Paso history. 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.. 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. Jo Annie telephoned one final time, from her mothers house on Rim Road. [7] He had a $1 million mansion in Las Vegas. Lee read the card and laughed. It was not the kind of clutter Lee Chagra would leave. 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. 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. Back in El Paso things werent going much better. Some people though Lee Chagra didnt know how to quit, but that wasnt quite true. Instead, this flimsy, highly prejudicial document was destined to dog both Lee Chagra and his nemesis, Judge John Wood, to their graves. The government seemed to know it didnt have a case, but it was determined to see how far it could travel. Narcotics agents believed that Stricklin and his associates supplied a good part of the South and Southwest with Mexican marijuana. [9] The story surrounding the assassination of Judge Wood was profiled in an episode of City Confidential. Later, a superseding indictment added the charge of continuing criminal enterprise. Pitts fancied himself a big-timer and concluded that Chagra must be pretty big himself if he was demanding thirty grand. He wanted to indict De La Torre on five counts of perjury in an attempt to add another 25 years to the sentencein effect, requiring him to defend his story to a second jury. Paradoxically, though, Lee was secretly jealous of Jimmy. Sib Abraham and some other old friends and members of the family were there. [2][22][6] He was the first federal judge to die by assassination in over a century. It is like I am reading about a third person.. She had worn a pair of panty hose under the suit and as they were cruising out in the middle of a lake in Joes speedboat, Jimmy called everyones attention to her bizarre outfit and ripped her panty hose in one thigh. Federal agents turned up at Lees office the next morning to confiscate his gun collection and question him about the unsuccessful assassination attempt. His grandfather was imprisoned before Jimmy was born, and the family immigrated to El Paso from Mexico. 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. [15] The FBI conducted more than 30,000 interviews related to the case and in total collected more than 500,000 pieces of information. Here she is with Paul Anka. Two overstuffed easy chairs were pushed together against the front of Lees desk, blocking the path across the room. 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. The silence was monumental. They were all scammers, everyone he knew or cared about. 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. September 2022 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? A third, Cynthia Jones Chagra, lives in Austin. But Jimmy took most of the credit. He needs you to look it over before he mails it back.. Lee speculated that the attempt was an inside job. [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. He loved the streets and the people who plied themwhores, gamblers, smugglers, cops. A third, Cynthia Jones Chagra, lives in Austin. If Stricklin cooperated, they would work for his early release. What Lee didnt know at the time was that Johnson had, as they say, gone over. Hed become a government snitch, albeit not a very reliable one. The consensus had always been that Jimmy Chagra would never amount to much. He did quit for the night, though. Which for Jimmy was almost the same as being broke, Patty said. Lee Chagra was special, and he went out of his way to prove it: student court, law review, Order of the Coif. Joe was talking about resigning his partnership in the law firm. A grand jury in Nashville had indicted Chagra and forty others on a charge of conspiracy to import and distribute marijuana. He had $250,000 credit. 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. 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. On five minutes notice, Caesars would dispatch a Learjet to fetch one or both of the Chagras. She still has paintings he made while locked up, a hobby he never resumed after getting a medical parole in December 2003. As the year progressed, so did his paranoia, his insistence that someone was out to get him. While federal agents snapped photographs from the parking lot across the street, hundreds of mourners jammed St. Patricks. 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. If you fill out the first name, last name, or agree to terms fields, you will NOT be added to the newsletter list. It was an incredible sight. Someone was supposed to open the door from the inside. Traditionally, gambling and smuggling are on a par with fixing parking tickets and hiring illegal aliens. Jimmy Chagra was a lot of things: a high-rolling gambler who chummed around with celebrities in Las Vegas, probably the biggest pot smuggler in the Western world and a father to children he arguably adored and unarguably failed. 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. 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! Things really fell apart when Jimmy was arrested on trafficking charges. Lee didnt seem at all depressed, said Donna Johnson, the law firms bookkeeper. Push a button and curtains would reveal a huge projector TV. He marched straight to a crap table on one side of the casino and told the pit boss to clear the table. First he saw Lees boots standing in one corner by the door to the balcony, then he saw the blotch of blood on the wall. He was later tried and acquitted in the assassination but received an additional sentence for obstruction of justice. A graduate of SMUs law school, Kerr had worked for the Justice Department and helped draft the 1970 Drug Control Act. Sometime in the middle of the night, after everyone else was asleep, Lee changed clothes and drove to his new office. I knew that Vivian had been working on a book about the Chagra saga, McCulloch said. Chagra's lawyer in the case was Oscar Goodman,[26][3] future Mayor of Las Vegas and prosecutors included Assistant United States Attorney Sidney Powell. What no one knew at this point was that the feds had already busted Wallace. Written by Catherine Chagra, And hed better. [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. He had known that the DEA was watching him, but a grand jury? Most high rollers would think a 9-year-old would cramp their style, but he took me everywhere.. Chagra: The King of Dope Drugs, Deceit and Dirty Darlings, WATCH: Indiana father arrested on live TV after toddler is seen with gun. [27] Joe Chagra's defense reportedly attempted to plead guilty to a lesser offense of conspiring to obstruct justice instead. It took three days for an ingenious pulley apparatus to hoist the 100-pound bales to the top of the cliffs. The charges against all the defendants were eventually dropped, but not for two years. 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. 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. With the agent providing invaluable assistance at every stage, Renteria and several others were drawn into the government trap. An electronic current unbolted the door. Lee laughed with pride. The Mafia! They could barely deal fast enough for Leeall the spots covered with white chips, $21,000 riding on every deal. 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. Chagra and Wood were on a collision course that was bound to end in catastrophe. 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. Jimmy had given her a couple of kids and a lasting pain in the ass. [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. Lee kissed her and slipped her the money. 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. 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