Push a button and curtains would reveal a huge projector TV. Before, they ate beans and a little meat. If Stricklin cooperated, they would work for his early release. The Indian brushed a strand of limp hair over his bald spot as he walked toward Lees car. Dan Solomon writes about politics, music, food, sports, criminal justice, health care, film, and business. Lee was already there. Someone had gone after Jo Annie, who had collapsed when she first heard the news but now wanted to be there with the family. Yoseph let himself in the front entrance with the key that Lee had given him that morning. Lee referred to it as the mansion that Jack built. It was 6500 square feet, with pool and stables, electronically operated gates, and closed-circuit television monitors. Its like Teddy Roosevelt always said, Lee told him, and now his smile was back in place. She knew that Lee had just come through many weeks of hard times and she hated asking for money, but Jimmy was months behind in support payments. Jamiel "Jimmy" Alexander Chagra (December 7, 1944 July 25, 2008) was an American drug trafficker, carpet salesman and professional gambler. Over the next eight years Wood handed out the maximum sentence in almost every case. Joe was quieter and more introspective than his brothers. Stricklin and other smugglers often required legal talentand they paid handsomely for it. In fact, the only indictments handed down by the racket-busters involved a Bandido who resisted arrest after FBI and DEA agents kicked down his door, a former manager of the Lamplighter Club, a city judge charged with fixing parking tickets, and bail bondsman Vic Apodaca, who was charged with income tax violations. The madness seemed to peak in November, when two men in a van sprayed Kerrs car with buckshot and .30-caliber bullets. Catherine remembers the prison visits as the best times she ever had with her father. He thought nobody would love him without money. 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. The 38-year-old prosecutor had given up his apartment in El Paso and moved back to San Antonio, where he felt more comfortable. 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. Jimmys Florida operation, far from being an immediate disaster, disbanded after successfully offloading fifty tons of grass from a Colombian freighter in March. Lee was preoccupied this morning. 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. 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. Just barely making it. He looked as though he hadnt slept for three nights. He got 30 years. All have, understandably, complicated [11][24][9], Jimmy Chagra died of cancer on July 25, 2008. 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. Despite the differences in background and age (Stricklin was almost ten years younger), Chagra and Stricklin became more than lawyer and client; they became close friends. Lee told her he still had a pile of work on his desk. Is his [dope smuggling] operation totally separate [from another smugglers]? 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.. They were married in Las Vegas. 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. Technically and legally, the unsworn interview shouldnt even have been a part of the grand jury report. Liddy came up with one farfetched idea after another. At the same time a swell of excitement seemed to rumble from the floor, and people pushed to get a look at the action. And hes this huge drug kingpin. I knew as soon as that happened, I didnt have a prayer. He gambled in Vegas and wrote bad checks and was constantly calling Lee to bail him out. As he said the words, Lee extended the pointer to its full length. By the time Lee finished dressing, Jo Annie had breakfast readyfreshly baked Syrian bread, butter, and a variety of fruit preserves. A division of Empire Media Group Holdings LLC. Lee continued to object. 3.9 on Goodreads. 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. 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. 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. It was obvious that the prosecution and the DEA had problems coordinating their investigation. Clark Hughes went ahead to the casino to lose my piddling three or four hundred. He never knew why Lee liked to bring him along, but he seldom refused. Only a few select friends and celebrities like Rosey Grier or Gabe Kaplan were allowed in. I though maybe I was the Jonah, he said. Two of Chagras daughters, Christa and Catherine, now live in Smithville. If Stricklin cooperated, they would work for his early release. Instead, this flimsy, highly prejudicial document was destined to dog both Lee Chagra and his nemesis, Judge John Wood, to their graves. 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. Texass Most Venomous Caterpillar. Chagra could win or lose more in a single session at a Vegas crap table than Kerr made in a year. Security guards kept the riffraff away. The family was breaking apart. State senator Tati Santiesteban, who had known Lee Chagra most of his life, led the procession of pallbearers. Lee had wanted to be a lawyer, and so, after some convincing, had the youngest of the boys, Joe. [12] Their family name was historically "Bushaada", but Jimmy's grandfather changed it. 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. Jimmy knelt beside the bag that now contained the remains of his brother and started bawling. While Lee ate, Jo Annie puttered with the Christmas decorations. 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. He crossed the living room and closed the apartment door behind him. It was almost midnight when the Black Striker made his appearance on the casino floor. Marriage license #D875871, Marriage License Records, Las Vegas. Whether or not he knew the details, Lee surely sensed the magnitude of the disaster that was bearing down on him. Goodman had represented Chagra in a previous drug case, which was undone by his client testifying. Lee meant $10,000 for all three defendants, but Pitts didnt understand that. Stricklin was an enterprising and likable young man who had grown up in one of El Pasos better neighborhoods. Now the feds had a yard of hot real estate on their hands; they desperately needed someone to buy it. Patsy, the second, was the miracle baby, born against all odds and medical opinions; on the morning of her birth Abdou walked barefoot to the summit of Sierra del Cristo Rey and dropped to his knees and thanked the Virgin. 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. The deal made guys sweating over a ton of weed loaded onto a plane and flown across the border look like chumps. He had two brothers, Lee and Joseph, who were both attorneys involved with the legal defense of drug smugglers. He and Clark went back to the suite for a while. But now the years of fast living were catching up. As it turned out, he was right.. More likely it was because Lee, as chief justice of the student court, had spoken out against segregated dorms and football teams. It was during this period that Lee was introduced to Mickeys black sheep uncle, Lou Esper, a pale, seedy, rat-faced Syrian hoodlum who had spent about half his fifty years in prisons. It was Stricklin who was on trial, not Chagra. In the first minutes of Lees run, a little old lady burst through the crowd just as Lee released the dice. Some people though Lee Chagra didnt know how to quit, but that wasnt quite true. The investigation cost more than $11 million. Which for Jimmy was almost the same as being broke, Patty said. This is gonna be one theyll write a book about, he told Hughes. And the caper made the money flow. By now all the Chagras knew that Jimmy was a major drug trafficker, and they must have suspected that Lees arrangement with his brother and his relationship with Jack Stricklin were more than traditional lawyer-client dealings. The family name was originally Bushaada, but Lees grandfather mexicanized it during the revolution. In January 1971 Wood was sworn in as a U.S. district judge, with jurisdiction over about a quarter of the El Paso docket. You ought to pay me fifteen hundred dollars an hour to entertain customers. shaggy shag,' and he would gamble up to a million dollars," said 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. 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. Its better to try. It was in his blood. On several occasions he watched Lee remove one of his boots and count out the cash. She remembers being elated when he got out, and the heartbreak that he was largely unchanged, as was her love for him: He was always looking for the next million and used a credit card a friend had given him strictly for essentials to rack up tens of thousands of dollars in gambling debts. It was an incredible sight. And co-conspirators in others. He ran a floating blackjack game and started peddling dope. It must have been nearly three-thirty by then. 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. A book signing of Of course, not all the authorities are so blas. 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