jimmy chagra daughters

The case had been dead for two years, but Kerr had a plan. Most afternoons as Donna and Sandy were crossing the parking lot after work, they saw her, and sometimes two or three other strippers from the Lamplighter, hurrying toward Lees office. 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. For years there had been a rivalry between the two brothers, a fierce and unyielding competition that only the two of them completely understood. I didnt trust Arabs. All rights reserved. They were making a career, or at least a crusade, of trying to prove that Lee Chagra, master criminal lawyer, was in fact master criminal. The feds reasoned that Lee was the mastermind because Lee was so smart, and they became so preoccupied with this scenario that they failed to see the obvious irony: Lee was too smart to play that role. A month later, Jack Stricklin was standing before Maximum John Wood, contemplating life without parole. Someone was supposed to open the door from the inside. [9][13] Reportedly, he used gambling as a method of laundering money he received through trafficking drugs. 196 On the plane from Tucson, Lee must have reflected on the paradox of his life. Drugs are currently in fashion, but over the years whiskey, cigarettes, perfume, Swiss watches, silver, kitchenware, and of course, laborers have been staples in the trade. The soldiers implicated Esper in planning the heist, but he received a considerably lighter sentence than they due to not being technically involved with the murder itself. People may receive compensation for some links to products and services. Someone had gone after Jo Annie, who had collapsed when she first heard the news but now wanted to be there with the family. Goodman Do yourself a favor, one of the agents said. 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. 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. (According to The New York Times, Jimmy told brother Joe in a conversation taped by the FBI that he hired Harrelson to do the hit. And Jimmy seemed better able to laugh off the competition between them. He may or may not have locked it. He nearly bankrupted the family carpet store and maybe even helped along Dad Chagras fatal heart attack. It was becoming an obsession. 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. Catherine Chagra Patrick Beach View Comments 0:00 0:56 Last December, we brought you the story of Catherine Chagra, daughter of Jamiel Jimmy Chagra, the He swore he did not put out a hit on Maximum John H. Wood Jr., the federal judge in San Antonio presiding over a case that could have sent Jamiel Jimmy Chagra to prison for life. You sonuvabitch, how are you gonna pay off those markers?, He took a deep draw on his cigarette and pressed Clarks shoulder. As it turned out, he was right.. Theres a client buzzing at the door. Jo Annie tried to picture the man who had called that morning waiting outside. Jo Annie left the game early, and when she stopped by the office Roberts was just leaving. He sat next to a lawyer who worked for one of El Pasos established firms in one of the high-rise glass towers that dominate the downtown district. Defendants convicted on a kingpin rap were not eligible for parole, period. Thats the reason Im going to release it to you.Thats what Ive been trying to tell you. I thought it was just an isolated thing, one player said, but Lee kept brooding about it. Texass Most Venomous Caterpillar. Jamiel "Jimmy" Alexander Chagra (December 7, 1944 July 25, 2008) was an American drug trafficker, carpet salesman and professional gambler. Lou Esper had planned both of these crimes too. Over the years lawyers encountered scores of cases in which citizens had been lured into crimes by what amounted to federal bounty hunters. Lee and several others heard the crash of metal against the patio door. Over the next eight years Wood handed out the maximum sentence in almost every case. Lee gave Jack Stricklin, now out of prison, $1000 and passed out lesser amounts to other old friends. The media reported that the charges were dropped for lack of a speedy trial. It was his most important victory in monthsand his most profitable. Stricklin hadnt yet met Lee Chagra, but he knew Chagras reputation. 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. 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!. [15], Chagra's drug dealings came under close scrutiny by law enforcement and the judicial system. He told Jimmy Salome that he was taking out a new insurance policy. He called himself a pacifist, and yet he was comfortable around violence. Catherine is at work on a book called Dirty Darlings: A Story of Big Shots, Big Hair, Free Falling and a Texas-Sized Return to Grace. She has the tapes and the transcripts and is determined to get her version of the family story told. Sometime in the middle of the night, after everyone else was asleep, Lee changed clothes and drove to his new office. Fortunately the glass was shatter-proof. He walked upstairs to his own office. Clark was painfully aware that all serious gamblers harbored deep and irrational superstitions: once hed seen Lee go berserk because a Chinaman approached the table. And that wasnt all. Chagra's son, Joseph, 19, and daughter, Samantha, 17, kept a bedside vigil urging him, despite his coma, not to give up. Lee stared out the limo window at the blur of cold neon. 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. Sometimes Jimmy pretended he was Lee, signing his name Lee Chagra and repeating Lees stories as though they had happened to him. Jo Annie was talking about divorce; she and Lee got as far as the courthouse steps before one or both backed out. Please feel free to use any other table in the casino. Like so many sheep, the nickel-and-dime players started backing away. Hughes, who assisted in the defense, thought that Lee won in his opening remarks to the jury. The pit boss snapped his fingers and motioned for the guards to bring the velvet ropes. Esper had also observed Lee making large cash payoffs to various collectors. An electronic current unbolted the door. Their dad just didnt feel safe going to court without his consigliere. [21] Facing life for smuggling, Jimmy Chagra allegedly decided to have the judge killed. They say there was nothing Jimmy really wanted to be, but that wasnt entirely true. 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. In the first minutes of Lees run, a little old lady burst through the crowd just as Lee released the dice. If you scratched Stricklin deep enough, Kerr reasoned, you would find Chagra. He named two of his chows Kilo and Poker., Look how sweet and dorky and innocent I look, Catherine Chagra said. Since he was not technically involved in the murder, Esper escaped with a relatively light sentence of fifteen years. The family name was originally Bushaada, but Lees grandfather mexicanized it during the revolution. They mentioned four namesLee Chagra, Jimmy Chagra, Sib Abraham and Vic Apodaca (a well-known bail bondsman). Chagra attempted to bribe Judge Wood for "$5 million or 10million". 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. A few months later two soldiers from Fort Bliss admitted robbing and killing Lee Chagra. 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. And yet, right there under their noses was another Chagra not at all handicapped by brains or good judgment. The next summer the Chagra brothers hit Vegas like a blizzard of kamikaze locusts. He was a fanatic about his family: he lavished gifts on his wife, his children, his mother, his sister. The gesture was unmistakable: hed come to replace his brother. On the morning of the day Lee was murdered, his bookkeeper, Donna Johnson, arrived at the office about ten oclock. Chagra: The King of Dope Drugs, Deceit and Dirty Darlings, WATCH: Indiana father arrested on live TV after toddler is seen with gun. He helped develop Operation Intercept, a massive media event in which millions of U.S. citizens were stopped and searched at the border. By setting up the corporation for Jimmy, Lee had, for the first time, made himself vulnerable. 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. Lee was lying face up on the floor, blood trickling from his mouth. He had $250,000 credit. He called her into the bedroom. 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. As he said the words, Lee extended the pointer to its full length. It was the era of the Nixon Administrations much-heralded war on drugs. A third, Cynthia Jones Chagra, lives in Austin. After two days the jury reported itself hopelessly deadlocked, eight to four for acquittal. Out on bail before sentencing, he went on the lam for five or six months and was on the FBIs 10 most wanted list. [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. Lee cried a lot in those days. His harsh, unbending policy of sentencing and his blatant pro-prosecution posture astonished lawyers and embarrassed other judges, including those that sat on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he had refused to let go of the notion that El Paso was being overrun by the Mafia. A second man stood behind him, out of camera range. Kerrs long association with FBI, IRS, and DEA agentsclients, he called themhad convinced him of the same sort of monolithic conspiracy that Boyd himself leaned toward. I never know if we have fifty thousand dollars in our account or fifty cents. Hed fought a lot of tough battles at Lees side, and he loved them because they were something that he and Lee did together. 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. 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. 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. 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. Lee had always lived his life on the edge of respectability, goading the El Paso establishment by defending hardened criminals, consorting with known drug smugglers, and cultivating his image as the Black Striker. Clark excused himself and went to his own room, alone. But Lee trusted him. [1][2][3] He was implicated in the May 1979 assassination of United States District Judge John H. Wood Jr. in San Antonio, Texas. He could be shamelessly sentimental and gentle as a whisper, and yet there was a macho fury inside that could make him turn on those closest to him. Still, everyone loved Jimmy and took care of him. [9] The story surrounding the assassination of Judge Wood was profiled in an episode of City Confidential. Part of it was his steadily increasing need for money. He had several of the bracelets made for close friends and members of the family. If youre not careful, your friends become crooks, too. Lee first had the dangers of his association with criminals brought home to him in 1973. Jimmy had given her a couple of kids and a lasting pain in the ass. He walked to the top of the stairs and looked down at two black men with guns. It took Lee less that half a day to discover that the search warrant used to bust the Tennessee smugglers was faulty. 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. 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. And yet by the end of the trial, a majority of the jurors refused to find the defendants guilty. If Stricklin cooperated, they would work for his early release. 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. Jimmy preferred the Sinatra penthouse with its white baby grand piano and spiral staircase. There was no bitterness or rancor, but by the end of August Joe Chagra realized that he had had all he could take. [9][10] His mother was named Josephine, and his father Abdou Chagra. It would be lost until the October flood, after which widower Jim McCulloch, after going through belongings hed moved into a storage unit, would place a call beginning, Cathy, youre not going to believe what I found., Going through things hed moved into the unit, McCulloch happened upon a box labeled Chagra.. 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. It's going to be a very interesting night Jan. 18 at the Mob Museum in Las Vegas. The money was in the canvas tennis bag under the sink. Those tapes, according to Catherine, were doctored and judged inadmissible.). Chagras defense accused the feds of venue-shopping so that their client was almost sure to get life. (At that point the public had no inkling of the earlier, even bigger Boston haul.) The Most Reverend Sidney Metzger, bishop emeritus of El Paso, came out of retirement to say mass. 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. Lee had already made a name for himself before he began taking drug defendants, but the string of cases that would make him one of El Pasos most famousor infamousfigures began in the early seventies when U.S. customs agents busted a smuggler from Tennessee named Tom Pitts and two other men who were attempting to bring six hundred pounds of marijuana across the Rio Grande. He began taping most of his telephone conversations and collecting every scrap of evidence that even hinted of government malfeasance. Shortly after noon the next day, Lee telephoned and said: Ninety thousand is nothing for a stepper. It was four years before most people recognized Jimmys achievement, but the operation was a landmark in marijuana trafficking. Whatever Jo Annie was thinking, she wouldnt say anything. 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. 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. 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. The 38-year-old prosecutor had given up his apartment in El Paso and moved back to San Antonio, where he felt more comfortable. Once again, Lee went first to his suite and carried out the ritual. Even after the charges were dismissed, there was still the stigma. As in: Heres a picture of Jimmy in Vegas with Muhammad Ali, both in black tie. 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. Hardly a day passed that the flamboyant attorney didnt make the news. 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 book signing of Catherine Chagras Chagra: The King of Dope Drugs, Deceit and Dirty Darlings will follow this program.Member and Donor Exclusive: Enjoy a meet-and-greet with Oscar Goodman and Catherine Chagra at 6 p.m. prior to the program. Through it all, he had somehow clung to the central fact in his life: Lee Chagra was a topflight criminal attorney. I waited around to wish you and the kids a merry Christmas, the gambler told her. Wallace was sentenced to death, though this was later reduced to life in prison. 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. Federal agents turned up at Lees office the next morning to confiscate his gun collection and question him about the unsuccessful assassination attempt. It was the first time anyone from El Paso had thought of using a tramp steamer. Liddy came up with one farfetched idea after another. [15] The FBI conducted more than 30,000 interviews related to the case and in total collected more than 500,000 pieces of information. Lee concurred and told other members of the family that Jimmy was dead broke and needed their help. But let me add, he had a lot of enemies.. The case remains unsolved. Maximum sentence was 15 years on each of three counts, and thats what the judge gave him45 years. Donna helped Sandy count the $20,000. [39], Chagra married his third wife, Lynda Ray, while living under the name James Madrid on November 22, 2005. 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. Paradoxically, though, Lee was secretly jealous of Jimmy. The fact that Lee Chagra was the lead attorney automatically made the case big-time. 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. Soon every drug dealer on the border carried one of Lee Chagras cards. The office was a maelstrom of activity, none of it having anything to do with the practice of law. A front-page headline in The El Paso Times virtually screamed the news that the flamboyant kingpin had been nabbed. Lee was the first college graduate in his family, and the first professional. In fact, the charges were dismissed because there was no evidence to bring charges in the first place. Rumors persisted that while Stricklin was doing time at La Tuna, Lee arranged to destroy records that would have established Lees complicity in a number of smuggling operations. All have, understandably, complicated feelings about their father. 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. It was in his blood. 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. 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. Gambling and women, said Lees old friend and fellow lawyer Clark Hughes. 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 Two of Chagras daughters, Christa and Catherine, now live in Smithville. Lee wanted to be head of the family, and Jimmy was constantly jealous of Lee because he stole the glory that Jimmy wanted. The next year he paid taxes on $450,000, including $125,000 declared as gambling winnings. Clark assumed that he would go straight back to Caesars and claim some of his markers, but that wasnt Lees plan. The language was vague and ambiguous, but essentially it said that a person was a kingpin if he (1) committed a continuing series of violations of the drug act, in concert with five or more other persons with respect to whom such person occupies a position of organizer, a supervisory position, or any other position of management and (2) obtained substantial income or resources from those violations. He seemed pleased with the gesture but told her there was some work he needed to do at the office. Its like Teddy Roosevelt always said, Lee told him, and now his smile was back in place. A sample: Q.What about Lee Chagra? 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. 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. Lee read the card and laughed. Jimmy had given her a couple of kids and a lasting pain in the ass. That woman was Vivian, Christa and Catherine and Cynthias mother, who came from humble beginnings in an unincorporated community near Brownwood. 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. Except for a few faithful clients like Jack Stricklin, Lees practice was at rock bottom. Jimmy was just talking. On November 21, 1978, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Kerr was ambushed and shot at near his home by two men who fired 19 bullets at his car. Two overstuffed easy chairs were pushed together against the front of Lees desk, blocking the path across the room. 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. The first thing he noticed was his filing cabinet. [16], On December 23, 1978, Lee Chagra was shot and killed in his law office in El Paso. Lee had showered and was standing in front of the bathroom mirror in his shorts when his brother Jimmys ex-wife, Vivian, arrived. 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. United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, "TRIAL ON JUDGE'S DEATH HEARS ONE JAILED BROTHER DEFAME THE OTHER (Published 1982)", "Jamiel A. Chagra, 63, Drug Kingpin, Dies", "Joseph Chagra, 50, Lawyer Linked to Assassination, Dies", "Drug kingpin accused in slaying of federal judge", "Jailer recalls conversations with Woody Harrelson's father", "Las Vegas author developing documentary on drug kingpin Jimmy Chagra", "Hit man guilty in federal judge's death", "There was a murder at Christmastime 40 years ago", "Charles Harrelson, 69; father of actor killed federal judge", "Chagra Acquitted of Hiring Killer of Federal Judge", "Judge's 1979 slaying was 'crime of the century', "Joe Chagra, Convicted in Conspiracy to Kill Judge, Critically Injured", "SEARCH NARROWS IN '79 SLAYING OF U.S. JUDGE IN TEXAS (Published 1981)", "Drug kingpin Jimmy Chagra's daughter recalls his rise, fall", "Charles Harrelson Trial: 1982-83 | Encyclopedia.com", "GAMBLER IS ACQUITTED OF PLOTTING ASSASSINATION OF A FEDERAL JUDGE (Published 1983)", "Chagra enters guilty plea in Wood murder trial", "Forty years ago, U.S. District Judge Wood assassinated in San Antonio by Woody Harrelson's father", "Elizabeth Chagra, plotted to kill judge", "5 things to know about Sidney Powell, the Dallas lawyer formerly on Trump's legal team", "For Trump advocate Sidney Powell, a playbook steeped in conspiracy theories", "Newspaper says Chagra deal includes early release for wife", "Man implicated in assassination of federal judge now free", "TEXAS LAWYER ADMITS ROLE IN PLOT TO KILL FEDERAL JUDGE (Published 1982)", "Jamiel Alexander Chagra, 63; was mastermind of international drug ring", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jamiel_Chagra&oldid=1124413746, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox person with multiple spouses, Pages using infobox person with multiple parents, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Jimmy, Justin, Jackie, Catherine, Csilla, Christa, Cindy, This page was last edited on 28 November 2022, at 20:15. He was convicted of obstructing the investigation of the Checking himself again in the mirror, he would fuss with the black cowboy hat that had Lee Chagra and Freedom embossed in gold on the inside until he achieved the proper tilt and slope. In less than fifteen minutes, he won $90,000. 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. It was called Capital Acquisition, and its purpose was to channel funds through several banks in Mexico and then into Jimmys new business. He decided on James Kerr, one of the assistant U.S. attorneys he had inherited from the Republican regime. He unlocked the door to his private bath. Lee laughed with pride. After a while Clark said, You must have dropped close to half a million back there. The pit boss shooed the sheep away from table that Lee selected for his private performance. Ive got to go, he told her.
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