That night as he was dressing, Lee announced intentions to change his luck. 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. As far as having Wood killed, no way, he said. His grandfather was imprisoned before Jimmy was born, and the family immigrated to El Paso from Mexico. I colored the Kleenex sheets with green marker and I put it in the tree branches. An electronic current unbolted the door. [6] In fact, he is described as having been "no less than the biggest marijuana smuggler in the country" during that time. All the drawers were open and papers were scattered on the floor. A grand jury in Nashville had indicted Chagra and forty others on a charge of conspiracy to import and distribute marijuana. Inside Friscos Lavish, Enormous New Golf Resort. Instead of flying in the customary small planeload of 2000 pounds from Mexico, they imported 54,000 pounds from Colombia. Oh, yes. With its confluence of shady border business opportunities, affairs, greed, drugs, gambling and sibling rivalry, the tale seems to have been fated to play out exactly the way it did: with Jimmy, his second or third wife and Jimmys brother Joe all sentenced to federal prison; with a third brother, Lee, murdered in his office days before Christmas 1978; with Vivian and her three daughters in the witness protection program; and with one generation of a family forever splintered by the grave misdeeds of the one preceding it. Lee despised Kerr, and Kerr had every reason to despise Lee. If he refused, they would see that he was reindicted under the kingpin act and sent away for life without parole. 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. I want to talk to you. Vivian was startled to see how much Jimmy looked like Lee, how he had grown out his moustache, how his hair was full and shaggy and touched now with streaks of gray. 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. Jo Annie went on to the Sun Bowl and telephoned her husband at halftime. 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. They checked out of the hotel that same night and moved to the Aladdin, where Lee had a $250,000 line of credit. For six years now shed been divorced from Jimmy and nothing much had changed. Lee was already there. Right there before your eyes Lee Chagra became the Black Striker. No Mafia figures were ever indicted. He was really happy that all the money was gone and he had to work again. 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 crossed the living room and closed the apartment door behind him. Back in El Paso things werent going much better. 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. At the same time a swell of excitement seemed to rumble from the floor, and people pushed to get a look at the action. Im sick and tired of being the fall guy, Lee said, and Vivian knew that he was talking about Jimmy. I blocked the door with my body, Donna recalled, but he opened it enough to see the money.. Another indisputable fact. Every time the local papers wrote anything about Lee, the story started with Indicted drug trafficker Lee Chagra. While federal agents snapped photographs from the parking lot across the street, hundreds of mourners jammed St. Patricks. Lee adopted a wardrobe suitable to his imagea black cowboy hat, fancy handmade boots, and an assortment of expensive jewelry, including a gold bracelet that spelled the word freedom. Jimmy was indicted on a number of drug charges by a grand jury in Midland, a legal maneuver that many lawyers believe was blatant forum shopping: by indicting in Midland rather than El Paso, the prosecution could be sure that the case would be assigned to Judge Woods court. Whats it all for? he said out loud, and Vivian could see the tears in his eyes and hear the catch in his voice. They were like a sickness with him., Lee also loved El Paso and had never thought of living anywhere else. By law, the interview was to remain a secret, known only to a handful of agents and prosecutors who read the transcript as part of their official duties. They went down there, they took pictures of everything And I was able to take that model and demolish their case. 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. 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. Lee had never let his name be linked to an illegal enterprise before the fact. 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. All have, understandably, complicated A fictitious name reference to the Judge John Wood assassination also appeared in an The FBI Even as Lee was working to salvage what he could from the ruins, Jimmy was plotting a new deal. November 2022 Reader Quiz: What Did You Learn? 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. Lee left the money spread across the bed and closed the bedroom door behind him. Knewz is a registered trademark. The charges against all the defendants were eventually dropped, but not for two years. [10][4], Jimmy got into drug smuggling in 1969 and became one of the largest smugglers in the United States, trafficking drugs from Mexico and Colombia by plane and boat. Is there any secret about that?. [27] Joe Chagra's defense reportedly attempted to plead guilty to a lesser offense of conspiring to obstruct justice instead. 2023 www.statesman.com. Everything was on the house. [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. Joe announced plans to open his own law firm. Yoseph walked behind the desk and dialed Lees home number. 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. A known gambler and hit man, Harrelson had apparently been cleared in the Wood murder. The staff knew the ritual, but no one knew for sure what went on behind the closed door. It looked as though Lee had struck gold, but quicksand might have been closer to the truth. That old watch-me-carry-the-world smile was back on his face. 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. Stricklin was an enterprising and likable young man who had grown up in one of El Pasos better neighborhoods. 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. Federal agents turned up at Lees office the next morning to confiscate his gun collection and question him about the unsuccessful assassination attempt. [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. What no one knew at this point was that the feds had already busted Wallace. The scam brought in more money than Lee had ever thought of making in his law practice. Death came in Mesa, Ariz., on July 25, 2008. Goodman insisted that Chagra not testify. 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 Jimmy and his new business partner, Henry Wallace, were in Florida awaiting their first freighterload of Colombian marijuana, and from what Lee had heard, the operation had all the earmarks of a disaster. Its from some friends in Vegas, he said, handing Vivian the card. 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. Several times Lee talked to Vivian and others about dying. A case in point was that of an unsuspecting El Paso cafe owner who was conned by two agents into conspiring to buy stolen government weapons. None of the missing $450,000 was ever recovered. Most high rollers would think a 9-year-old would cramp their style, but he took me everywhere.. 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. He was arrested without incident in front of the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, his second home, where, according to Catherine, hed gone to seek facial reconstructive surgery. The documents revealed that hardly a week passed without some agents making inquiries into Lee Chagras private life. Jimmy was also taking care of Lees half-million-dollar marker at Caesars. I have never found anything, he said pleasantly, in any of these grand jury investigations. They showed him a Xerox copy of the section of the law dealing with continuing criminal enterprise. Marble floors. Lee never forgot or forgave. Youre going to get five years each. Lee had wanted to be a lawyer, and so, after some convincing, had the youngest of the boys, Joe. He seemed pleased with the gesture but told her there was some work he needed to do at the office. 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. Youll do at least eighteen months. A third, Cynthia Jones Chagra, lives in Austin. Catherine Chagra was the daughter of Jimmy Chagra, a Las Vegas high-roller and drug trafficking kingpin once named the Pablo Escobar of weed. 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