When either of the Chagras sat at the blackjack table, he took all seven spots. The investigation cost more than $11 million. One way or another, were gonna get Lee Chagra.. Through it all, he had somehow clung to the central fact in his life: Lee Chagra was a topflight criminal attorney. I knew that Vivian had been working on a book about the Chagra saga, McCulloch said. Im gonna take the joint apart., Caesars Palace dispatched a Learjet, and in less than two hours a limousine deposited them at the casino door. There were at least twenty lawyers for the defense, but apparently the entire burden of prosecution fell on poor Kilcrease. 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. Traditionally, gambling and smuggling are on a par with fixing parking tickets and hiring illegal aliens. Federal agents turned up at Lees office the next morning to confiscate his gun collection and question him about the unsuccessful assassination attempt. Lee had always been our strength., Lee couldnt shake the feeling that something or someone was stalking him. All three believe he would never have gotten into the dope business without the contacts of Lee, a lawyer who seemed drawn to shady characters along the border, where smuggling was the economy. Then Kerr observed that the request for reportsis an overt act on the part of the defense attorneyto obtain government reports and documents concerning him. That is, concerning Lee Chagra. Yosephs gazed moved around the room. 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. Liddy came up with one farfetched idea after another. They say Jimmy lacked ambition. If they had, they would have seen the small, trembling figure of the prosecutor crouched in a fetal position below the dashboard, dazed, bleeding from the shards of splintered glass, shaky as a bowl of gelatinbut otherwise unharmed. All of Lees personal affairs, especially those with women, were conducted behind closed doors. In 1979, a federal grand jury in Midland, Texas, indicted Chagra on drug smuggling charges. 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. It was becoming an obsession. The fact that Lee Chagra was the lead attorney automatically made the case big-time. As the feds worked around the clock to build cases against both Chagras, an agent provocateur came forward with information that could potentially put both of them away for life. October 2022 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? On five minutes notice, Caesars would dispatch a Learjet to fetch one or both of the Chagras. Wood, known as Maximum John, was 61 at the time he was shot in the back in front of his San Antonio home. He began taping most of his telephone conversations and collecting every scrap of evidence that even hinted of government malfeasance. In a single short sitting he lost almost $190,000. In the summer of 1975, Jimmy finally hit the big time. The next year he paid taxes on $450,000, including $125,000 declared as gambling winnings. 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 ran a floating blackjack game and started peddling dope. Please feel free to use any other table in the casino. Like so many sheep, the nickel-and-dime players started backing away. 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. In his time, Lee had invested in a racehorse that ended up as dog meat, a pro golfer who never made the cut, a combination lock that served to secure nothing more than a long, bitter lawsuit, and a caper to corner the Colombian coffee bean market. Each time he caught a narc in a lie, Lee made eye contact with various jurors, the corners of his mouth twitching with mirth as though he expected tiny okra plants to sprout from the witnesss nose at any moment. He was living in a trailer camp in Mesa, Arizona. The door was partially open, but the office appeared empty. 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. Chagra used one of his trademarks, a solid-gold retractable pointer, to demonstrate his case. Goodman Even after the charges were dismissed, there was still the stigma. [21][3] He reportedly did this in order to have his wife, Elizabeth, released early. Which for Jimmy was almost the same as being broke, Patty said. the Mortal Mustache, a.k.a. Jimmy had given her a couple of kids and a lasting pain in the ass. 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. Whats it all for? he said out loud, and Vivian could see the tears in his eyes and hear the catch in his voice. And when it came to squandering the profits, Lee was at the head of the line. Borrowing heavily from Kerrs own wording, Wood totally agreed: This request appears to be primarily an effort by the defense attorney to obtain reports of an investigation pertaining to him. Youve got everything I always dreamed of having, the lawyer said. That was it, Lees ultimate humiliation. 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. Lees limit was $3000, and he would have played for $10,000 had Caesars Palace allowed it. Narcotics agents believed that Stricklin and his associates supplied a good part of the South and Southwest with Mexican marijuana. Coming as it did in the midst of his misery, Lees brilliant defense of the Ardmore bunch had to be his most satisfying victory. The pit boss shooed the sheep away from table that Lee selected for his private performance. If you fill out the first name, last name, or agree to terms fields, you will NOT be added to the newsletter list. Joe announced plans to open his own law firm. Lee never forgot or forgave. Their dad just didnt feel safe going to court without his consigliere. When he read copies of Kerrs motion and Woods reply, Chagra was flabbergasted and then outraged. Worse even then the chain reaction of disasters in 1977: the crash of one of his brother Jimmys drug smuggling planes in Colombia, Jimmys botched foray to rescue the pilot, Lees frantic scramble to rescue Jimmy, his running courtroom battle with federal prosecutor James Kerr and Judge John Wood. All the drawers were open and papers were scattered on the floor. 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. He was a good, sound, all-around lawyer, but he didnt have Lees appetite for controversy. They could have been twins. In prison, Jimmy would say he got hooked on gambling faster than heroin.. Kerr had been involved with pursuing Chagra for his drug dealings. Universal Studios Is Coming to Frisco. 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. 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 was born four years later, and they soon nicknamed him Little Mischief. [39], Chagra married his third wife, Lynda Ray, while living under the name James Madrid on November 22, 2005. He marched straight to a crap table on one side of the casino and told the pit boss to clear the table. Since he was a stranger to El Paso, Pitts asked a local smuggler named Jack Stricklin for the name of a good lawyer. A sample: Q.What about Lee Chagra? Lee couldnt stop talking about Tucson. This would be the last time Lee Chagra and James Kerr faced one another in a courtroom, a sort of last hurrah for both. It was three days before Christmas, 1978. A black banner was stretched across the entire front of the building. Catherine Chagra was the daughter of Jimmy Chagra, a Las Vegas high-roller and drug trafficking kingpin once named the Pablo Escobar of weed. After her father He cried when he thought of Jimmy. Kerrs just working the tailings, he said. As far as having Wood killed, no way, he said. [23] The authorities did not immediately suspect Chagra of involvement in the assassination, and it took thousands of man-hours to identify them as suspects in the case. Chagra's third wife, Elizabeth, was found guilty of delivering $250,000 to Charles Harrelson to kill Wood. Like Julius Caesar, John H. Wood was several times offered high office, and several times he refused. His dream was to stash away $20 million, all taxes paid. The boys had been caught red-handed with 17,000 pounds if marijuana. Case dismissed. Would you ask Kerr to take a lie detector test if someone tried to kill me? he demanded. Its better to bust your ass trying and get kicked all over tomorrow than live all your life like those little gray bastards out there., A few weeks after the Vegas trip, Lee was hospitalized for a long overdue hemorrhoidectomy. Hunter Thompson once described how a casino shot a three-hundred pound bear out of a cannon right in the middle of the floor and no one looked up. Now the government was trying to prove that Johnson had helped smuggle a pound of heroin out of Mexico. As Lee reached for the dice, he recited a spiel that was also part of his ritual. The real show was on the casino floor in special sections roped off for the Chagras. Its from some friends in Vegas, he said, handing Vivian the card. 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