The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 161 - The Killing of Maximum John

Episode Date: March 22, 2016

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine the killing of Maximum John. SOURCESTOUR DATES REDBUBBLE MERCH

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bi-weekly American History podcast. Each week I read a story from American History to my friend. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about. Meow. Meow. Do you want to look who to do? I'll do one buck. People say this is funny. Not Gary Gareth. Dave okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it for fun? And this is not going to become a tickly podcast. Okay. You are queen fakie of made-up town. All hail Queen Shit of Liesville. A bunch of religious virgins go to mingle. And do what? Pray. Hi Gary. No. Is he done my friend? No. No. And 1981. Prouder is hard. Got caught in the throat a little there. That was tough. The emotional El Paso and Juarez sit across the border from each other in Southwest Texas. And 1981 gambling and smuggling were as common as fixing parking tickets. Okay. How are you- How do you fix parking tickets? That's very you can fix a parking ticket. What do you mean fix? Well, you have a

friend go in and fix your parking ticket to take it off the thing. Oh, oh, oh, oh, fix. Wink cash. This is gonna be a long podcast. Huh? I'm calling you a dummy. Oh, okay. marijuana float across the border. It was estimated one out of every five households in the two cities made their living from illegal activity. Hell yeah. The director of El Paso Customs said in the late 70s, quote, if we stopped all smuggling activity right now, the economies of the two cities would fall flat on

their faces. Well, we're all about we are a jobs economy. We are. Just keep those jobs going. Yeah, that's why we still would call keep coal going. The Chagra family were very proud, a good looking tough Lebanese merchants who came to the area in the 19 early 1900s and lived south of the border. The leader of the family at that time supported the Mexican Revolution and was imprisoned in Mexico. Almost shot but somehow managed to get his family across the border out of Juarez to El

Paso where they lived ever since. Okay. Lee Chagra was the first college graduate in the family. He graduated fourth in his class from the University of Texas Law School in 1962. Okay. Usually one of the biggest law firms in Texas would invite the top six graduates to a huge gala. But in 1962, they only invited five why who got left out leaving Lee out. What? Lee already had a reputation for being outspoken. Nothing wrong with that. He had spoken in spoken out against segregated dorms and

football teams and you don't mess with football in Texas. He'd spoken out about he was anti segregated dorms and he what about the football team he was he just he thought that well, he thought that it was time to, you know, have black athletes, a lot of black and white athletes play together like a total full monster idiots years. They'll get each other. They'll get their colors on each other. That's true. That happens. Then you don't know who's who. That's why we

still have segregated sports. It makes sense. Yeah, which yeah, which is why the white NFL ratings are not good. And if you've seen the Wisconsin, have you watched the white NBA? It's great. It's really bad. And no, by great, I mean terrible. It's really bad when they learned to dunk. If they got one guy you can dunk. Years later, one of the leading constitutional law authorities would say Lee Chagra was one of the few students

who stood out in my memory. So he's actually a good attorney. Okay. Lee married young. His wife was named Joe and Joe Annie. And he joined her, her brother's law firm in El Paso after after he got out of law school. They took on every serious criminal that came in the door murder, rape, robbery, burglary, whatever. Lee believed everyone deserved a quality defense. And they were good. They didn't lose a case for the first four years. Holy shit. Yeah. Not fucking around defending murderers

winning. Whatever. All right. Let it happen. Okay. We also like to look good. He wore a black cowboy hat. Nice handmade boots, expensive jewelry, including a gold bracelet with the word freedom engraved on it. Oh boy. What? Okay. He liked it so much. He had other freedom bracelets made for all his family members. Sure. Joanne gave him an ebony cane with a gold handle. Why not? I mean, you've you've already come so far in your look. You're bedazzled. You have a black cowboy hat. It's time

to get something in that hand for when you walk. He carried the cane. It sounds like the Texas Willy Wonka a little bit a little bit. He carried the cane everywhere and became known for it. He loved to take on cases that looked hopeless. Even the worst of the worst deserved a fair trial. But more than anything, he loved the limelight, the publicity that came with taking and winning these cases. Sure enough, his name was often in the headlines and Lee loved it. He also really liked making

money. Okay. In the early 70s, a drug dealer named Tom Pitts and two associates from Tennessee were busted bringing 600 pounds of marijuana across the border. Holy shit. There's a lot of marijuana. A lot. I don't know if they were going to smoke all that. Well, you could say. I mean, if you have a big enough buying, I guess 200 pounds each. 200 pounds each. Yeah. A pound of pounded six or hour a month. Pitts was told to use Chagra by another drug dealer who had heard of him from the headlines

and Lee was brutally honest. Quote, I can't save you. You're going to get five years each. You'll do at least 18 months and I'm going to have to charge you $10,000. Lee meant 10,000 for all three of them. But Pitts didn't understand that. He pulled $30,000 out of his sock. What? That's a good misstep. You're like exactly what I was talking about. Yep. Glad we're on the same page. How big is his sock? Like what's happening with this? He must not have had a foot. He was probably just

excited to get it out of the sock. He was like, thank God, I thought you're going to say like 10 grand. Oh, I feel so much better. I should get a wallet or a briefcase. Oh my god. He put it on the desk. In under a day, Lee discovered that the search warrant wasn't proper and the case was dismissed. Oh shit. Now every drug dealer and smuggler knew to go to Lee Chagra. He got us safe for his office and some drug dealers actually kept a deposit in there just in case. It's interesting. I'll be back

for sure. You know, when I get arrested, it's when not if Lee. Right. So just put it in the safe. Put it on the tab. Jack Strickland had grown up in El Paso as an upper middle class neighborhood kid. He started selling drugs when he was young to his friends and by the late 60s, he was moving tons of pot across the border. Okay. Narcotics agents believe Strickland was supplying most of the south and southwest US. It's quite a client list. Strickland became a Lee Chagra client and they

quickly became very good friends and Strickland sent more and more drug dealers to Chagra. In 1972, Lee made $250,000. The next year, he made $450,000. Okay. He built a huge house with a pool and stables, electronically operated gates and a closed circuit television monitor system. Drugs were big business. But the government had taken note. I'd take a note of the fact that he is doing so well off of just sending drug dealers. Just the drugs were, you know, a problem. Right. Right. In 1969,

President Nixon appointed Stephen Hess to be the national chairman of the White House Conference for Children and Youth. Short name. His job was simple. To go around the country and find out what kids in America were concerned about. That's a weird job. I mean, there weren't. I mean, it's not like they had the same thing. I've been meeting with some really interesting five-year-olds, Mr. President. And one of their biggest concerns is Clay. Clay. They actually

love Clay. The poop. And poop. And also running. Sprinting is huge with them. They were big on running. I think we could come up with a whole sort of tag, sprint campaign, really get those voters primed for 13 years from now when they're eligible to elect anyone. Mr. President, have you heard of Peek-a-boo? Of course I've heard of Peek-a-boo. That's the number one. Hey, where am I? Peek-a-boo. No, I mean, I, I, okay. I was behind my hands the whole time. No, I know. I

wasn't hidden. I understand. That's why I said Peek-a-boo with you. Right. Okay, I'm gonna leave. Peek-a-boo. It took him. When you leave, come back in and go Peek-a-boo. Yep. Okay, I will. Peek-a-boo. Oh. It took Stephen has 18 months going around the country talking to young people. Jesus Christ. But he had the answers. Kids were concerned with the war in Vietnam, the economy and unemployment, education, the environment, poverty, and drugs. But not drugs the way old

scared white people thought of of them. College kids wanted drugs dealt with on the addiction level, not through punishment. Right. Well, good luck with that. Three months later, Nixon launched his war on drugs. Perfect. So he was listening and very calculated. At a press conference, he named drug abuse as public enemy number one in the United States. Not a thought was given to solving addiction. Users were criminals destroying society. And they had to be stopped.

Nixon dramatically increased the federal drug agencies, pushed mandatory drug sentences and no knock warrants. He labeled marijuana as a schedule one drug, the most restrictive category. Why would he do such a thing? You ask or you don't Why would you do such? Why would he do such a thing? Oh, that's interesting. Well, it reads like a conspiracy, but this came from one of the architects mouths. Nixon and his boys realized a war on drugs could serve other

purposes. As John Ehrlichman, who would go to prison for Watergate, said quote, the Nixon campaign after 1968 had two enemies, the anti war left and blacks. We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war. Jesus Christ. But getting the public to associate hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up meetings, and

vilify them night after night on the evening news. But we did we know we were lying about drugs? Of course we did, but that didn't mean they didn't set in motion an actual war on drugs. Consider it a side effect. So the reason why I mean the only reason to have a war on drugs is so that you can arrest hippies and black people pretty much. Right. And this is the kind of thing that if you said at the time people call you a crazy conspiracy asshole. Right. And here is

one of the architects saying exactly what they did. Yeah. So people don't trust government. Enter G Gordon Liddy. Liddy was also who went to jail for Watergate. Liddy was a member of Nixon's administration and completely insane. He and Ehrlichman came up with Operation Intercept which had been executed in 1969. It was basically a giant event for the media in which the border crossings between Mexico and the US were shut down in an

attempt to stop the flow of weed. So they basically, well, the administration brought every government agency in on the planning except the State Department. Interesting. You wouldn't want to tell it because they're just in charge of yeah, that stuff. And the Mexicans were not told the extent of the police action until 24 hours before it began. In what was a massive media event, millions of US citizens were stopped and searched at the border. Every single car.

They used to sort of like line a 10. Holy shit. And now they're searching. Yeah. So it's this massive line of cars. It's a total disaster. Within a week Mexicans were talking about boycotting all US products. Also, the truth though is is like if you're going to do something like that, that's such a dumb way to do it because the idea is that you want to stay, you want to stop like what looks suspicious. You put these people in positions to

recognize what's suspicious and give thorough searches on suspicious situations as opposed to searching everybody just probably a minimal amount. Oh, here's blah, blah, blah from you. Sure. Um, so operation intercept, uh, it's all shut down. Total disaster. Talking about boycotts. And then operation intercept was ended after three weeks. Why? Yeah, I can't imagine why. But that didn't stop Liddy from planning. He

talked to the CIA about killing all major drug traffickers in the Middle East. He also considered putting poison drugs into the drug market. That's fucking crazy. That's insane. I don't know. Tom just took one hit of weed and he's fucking convulsing. Well, they did that in prohibition. They poisoned booze. Booze is poison though. So the people were probably just like, oh man, I mean, you remember Mike Malone. Yeah, I remember that. One thing Liddy

and the recently created Drug Enforcement Administration did decide to use were agent provocateurs. They would basically create crime to get the bad guys. So honey trap. Yeah. Okay. Lawyers started noticing cases in which people were lured into committing crimes by federal, shall we say contractors or narcs or assholes or whatever you want to call them. They pushed people into doing illegal activities. This is actually still how the FBI catches

terrorists. You know when you hear like a group in Florida were caught. Yeah, the way they always the FBI and FBI informants pushing these guys to do something they don't really want to do. So it's entrapment. Yeah, it's still the same. So back to the drugs. The cases were so absurd at times. One El Paso cafe owner was tricked into buying weapons and by the end was purchasing a submarine. Wait, they had to do to agree to buy a submarine. They must have

been like, this is going really good. Let's see. Try the biggest sell. What's the biggest thing we can have them buy? Fucking plane tanks. I don't get them to buy a submarine. Can we sell them a submarine? So we were just talking and actually, you know, I don't know if you're interested, but any interest in a submarine? Yeah, I also like to make eggs in my diner. I like submarines, then I make eggs. Move, move, move, move. And to make it even

worse, the guy was convicted. That's gotta be like such a weird trial. You're like, what? He hypothetically bought a submarine. I guess guilty. Sure. But I don't know because I think guilty is not guilty in this situation. It's really Oh, yeah. That is the sexiest shot you've ever seen. Who's a pretty girl? He's a boy. Oh, look at that. He's even hamming for you. Hey, he gave you. He gave you blue steel right there. He did give me blue steel. Okay, so then law

enforcement with their obviously new powers to just fucking ruin people at will came after Lee Chagra. On June 20th, narcotics agents came to Lee's law office with a warrant for his arrest. A grand jury in Nashville had indicted Chagra and 40 other people on a charge of conspiracy to import and distribute marijuana. Lee was handcuffed to Joe Annie's nephew who happened to be a massive drug dealer and was taken to county jail. Joe Annie bailed out Lee with $50,000.

But when he got a look at the indictment, he saw it was extremely vague. So vague that he couldn't build the defense because he didn't understand what he'd been arrested for. That's good. Arrested for bad stuff. Hey, you knew a guy who saw a guy with a face, right? Yeah, you did bad stuff. Hey, you know pot? You know Pottis? Yeah. You're under arrest. Wait. You know, you know a guy. Hey, you know your clients? Yeah, I know. Yes, I know. They're like Pottis. Yeah, I

represent Pottis. You're busted. Feels like. Nope. Can I have a look at that paper? Nope, sir. All righty. The charges against all the defendants would eventually be dropped after several months. The media said the charges had been dropped due to a lack of a speedy trial, but that wasn't true. There's lack of specificity. Yeah, in reality, there was absolutely no evidence. The judge who dropped the charges said it was quote so worded as to be utterly meaningless and therefore the

indictment actually charged nothing at all. God, it's so nice to hear that judges used to be like, no, fuck you. He scolded the DEA and the prosecutors, but the damage was done. Lee had already been tried in the court of public opinion. Lee's career was almost destroyed. Jesus. No one wanted a lawyer who was under indictment and it took two years for those charges to be dropped. Now Lee went from disliking narcotic cops to hating them with a passion that

would never die. Okay. He started taping all of his phone conversations. Oh boy. See what they do. See what they they create like he was a fine normal man who was trying to do good and now he's just like, no, no, no, no, let's go into the talk room. Now he's going bat shit crazy. Yeah. Yeah. He filed a freedom of information request demanding that the feds hand over all documents relating to its investigations of him and from that he learned the feds were always

keeping tabs on him. His office and home telephone and income tax records had been subpoenaed for years. Every one of his clients who had been convicted were immediately interrogated by DEA agents about Lee. Wow. They were all offered deals to snitch on him. But there's nothing to snitch. Yeah. And often a new client would come to his office and talk about a case and that at some point in the conversation, try to buy drugs from Lee. Wait. That's how

they were trying to get him. Yeah. It's one of those. So he just show up and be like, yeah, that's uh, well, you know, he sound like a good lawyer. Yeah. I think you could help me. Do you like cocaine? What's that? Do you like cocaine? I mean, I don't I'm excited to turn my life around. What? With your help. What do you want to buy heroin? I'm what's your favorite drug? No, I'm a weed guy. I'm a Molly. I'm a acid. I'm frog butt. What do you want to buy? I can't. What do you like to

sniff? What do you put in your arms? What do you smoke? They weren't selling. What do you smoke? They were asking Lee to sell to them. Lee, will you sell me drugs? Yeah, they would sit down and be like, hey, Lee, you want to sell me some coke and be like, I don't sell coke. Okay. So the guy would instead would be like this. Hey Lee, you got any coke? No. Got any heroin? No. You got any pot? No. How about some Molly? What do I like? No. Frog butt. Are you here for drugs?

Do you want to hire me as a lawyer? Higher. Higher? Get higher? I'd love to get higher. Is that what you're offering? No. You can hire. You can get me higher. I can't. That's what you're suggesting? There's not. What do you have? weed? There's nothing. You're a weed guy. But how stupid did they have to think he was that a guy could come in off the street and buy drugs from him? Very stupid. Very stupid. Even if he's doing what they're thinking he's doing, they're

going about it the wrong way. Well, these are like these are like the the stereotypical bad cops in a TV show. These are the cops who hang out in front of a grateful dead show with mustaches, aviators, a bandana, and a deadhead t-shirt on and they're like, hey, do you guys know where I could score some grass? So he started to get hip to what was happening and it became so common for these guys to come in off the street and try to

buy drugs from him that Lee started taping the conversations and then sending them to the local DEA chief. Is he? Yeah. But that just made law enforcement want to take him down more. Oh god. Because he was doing that, the DEA was convinced Lee was the mastermind of an international drug trafficking outfit. Well, listen, you get enough dummies in a room and talk long enough, something stupid will come out of it. They figured that he was

incredibly smart and was just taunting them. Yeah. That taunting and smart was actually due to the fact that he was not a drug dealer, but just a lawyer. Yeah. And getting angry. So they were like, we can't get nothing on this guy because he's the fucking king. Yeah. Not like he's not doing anything. You know, this guy's so clean. I'm starting to think he's in charge of it all. Shit. This guy's smart. This guy's so clean. He's got to be doing everything.

Um what the DEA didn't notice was that Lee's they were so focused on Lee that they didn't notice that his younger brother Jimmy was actually the guy running a major drug trafficking outfit. Holy shit. Jimmy Chagra had grown up hanging out with Lee's major clients and he wanted to be the big boy on the block. No one in the Chagra family thought Jimmy would ever amount to much. He was the screw up. Uh as a child, he was nicknamed Little Mischief. He was a mama's boy

and when things didn't go his way, he could get very cruel. But the family loved him and they looked out for him. And yet everything he was involved in fell apart. He almost bankrupted the family carpet store. I love they have a carpet store. I love this Lebanese family in El Paso with the carpet store. Of course. Well, we gotta do it. It's just like a stereotypical thing. We have no choice. Uh he ruined his marriage. He left her and the children. Eventually, he

started running a floating blackjack game and selling dope. Wow. He loved gambling and often wrote bad checks to cover the debts. Lee was always bailing him out. The two brothers loved each other but had a horrible rivalry. Jimmy wanted to be like Lee, the guy everyone looked up to. He wanted to dress like Lee and he wanted to be respected like Lee. He wanted it but he didn't want to work to get it. But still, Lee protected Jimmy. In some way, Lee was jealous of

Jimmy. Lee had to fight hard for everything he had gotten but things seemed to come easy to Jimmy. In the summer of 1975, a friend of Jimmy's came to him with an idea. Instead of bringing drugs in on small planes or ships, oh boy, they should use a helicopter. Interesting. And this was actually a huge achievement in drug trafficking. It was a giant innovation. That sounds pretty smart. I don't understand why. Because it wouldn't it be because my guess is they just

monitor like helicopters. Well, I would assume it's because helicopters are easier to land anywhere you want, right? So the yeah, it's hard. I think it'd be yeah, I think it's harder to monitor because a helicopter can take off from anywhere. Right. They brought in 54,000 pounds of marijuana from Colombia. So they started with a small they went they went tiny. They started small and tested it out. Jimmy is Jimmy and his partner split five million dollars. Oh, shit. Lee

Chagra became the gang's legal advisor. The money kept pouring in and with each new load of pot was more and more money and soon the Chagra brothers were hitting Vegas as big rollers. So wait, so Lee, but Lee, okay, so Lee, he's just a lawyer. He is, but he knows what's going on, right? Um, if he's getting all this money and he's going to Vegas, yeah, yeah, I'm sure he knows what's going on, but he's just it's not like he's involved in the business other than legal advice

like do this, don't you know? Okay, not actually criminal to do that. Okay. I think it might be now. Um, the Chagra brothers put on a show at casinos. Lee would walk into Caesar's palace and pass out money while asking people how much they loved him. Who do you love? Who do you love handed out $100 bills? Wait, isn't that literally what the Joker does in the original Batman? Who can you trust? Who can you trust? And the house took care of him. Caesars would immediately send

a lear jet for Lear Jimmy if they made a phone call. Everything was on the house. On only five minutes notice, a plane would come. The Chagras didn't have to register. They just walked up to the front desk and grabbed a key to a suite. This was a course when the mob ran Vegas. Right. In the casino, they had special sections roped off. Only a few friends and celebrities like Rosie Greer or Gabe Kaplan were allowed to play with the Chagras. Gabe Kaplan. Gabe Kaplan.

He's actually a big poker player. A huge poker player. He also taught very important lessons on reruns of Welcome Back Hotter there. There's the watch. There's that. A lot of moral, moral lessons. Lee's limit was $3,000 about triple the usual high stakes player. He had $250,000 credit line. Jesus. That's in fucking the late 70s. Yeah, that's a lot. You could. Yeah, that's pretty good. He would play. I would not leave Caesar's Palace. No, I wouldn't either. I'd have him change it to Leezer's Palace.

Squeeze me. Leezer's. I'm Lee. He would play all seven. Leezer's Palace. I got it. Okay. I try to go past it. Sure. He would play all seven spots at a table at once. So he's doing $3,000 bets. Seven different spaces. You know, they say when it stops being social. The chagras were at the top of their game. Then in early 1977, a task force. I like to think that he pretended to be different characters in each of the seats too. Okay, I'm Bobby. Hit me. All right. Now I'm a crazy cowboy. Glad this is

gonna hold. Now I'm a sassy southern belle. Hey, what's up, man? My name's Lee. I'm ready to make some bets. I don't come from this country, but I'm excited to learn customs and see how better it goes. Hit. Hit me. Also hit me. I want another hit too. How many people is that? Just the three of us. Don't forget about me, Gladys. I think we're up to... And me. I'm Big Tom. Yeah, we're up to nine. And I'm Baby Louie.

Wait, you can't be in here. I know. I got lost. In early 1977, a task force seized a DC4 with 17,000 pounds of marijuana. The defendants were nicknamed the El Paso 10. Jimmy wasn't yet tied to it, but everyone knew he was the mastermind running the whole operation. Lee Chagra was the lead attorney, which put him in the news every day, which he loved. But then Jimmy stole the headlines back when he chartered a jet and tried to rescue an El Paso pilot who had been badly burned while

trying to take off from an airfield in Colombia. Jimmy was arrested by the Colombian authorities. The Colombians refused to let the paramedic Jimmy had brought to attend to the burnt pilot. Right, so they just let the pilot die in front of Jimmy instead of letting the guy he paramedic help him? Yeah, it's just Colombian. It's just Colombian law. Cool. That's the way things go. That's cool. Jimmy was held in Colombia for a couple of months. In the end, no charges were filed and he was allowed to leave.

But that was two of Jimmy's drug loads gone. Right. Right. Meanwhile, family problems were building up. Lee's marriage was on the rocks. I wonder what she wasn't into. Vegas again? Cool, Lee. See you later, fucking prick. He also fucked everything. That's a deal breaker. He was having orgies and he was just like fucking everything they would. I would call him or Lee's. Right. His younger brother Joe, who had followed Lee's footsteps, now wanted out of the law firm and Jimmy started plotting to make up for the

losses. Lee's business had never really recovered from the indictment and he was becoming depressed and starting to talk about death. Oh, and he had terrible painful hemorrhoids. So that's when he started doing cocaine. Oh, they say that that'll really clean up your butt. It's the... Yeah, do a little, do a little that booger sugar. One of the devil's dandruff will get rid of your butt bumps. Yeah, in the middle of all that, Lee pulled off what maybe was his best defense ever for the El Paso 10.

They had been caught with the pot, 17,000 pounds, in two airplanes with four U-Haul trucks, caught red-handed. By the end of the trial, the jury refused to find them guilty. Lee was a master at working a jury. The government wanted to find the 10 guilty so badly that they kept lying even though they didn't have to. Often it was just about where they were during the surveillance and agents would say he had been here and Lee would pull out a map proving there was a hill that the guy couldn't see over

and then he would catch them in the lie and then he'd look at the jury and smile and wink. Oh god, they were like, well, Lee, we can't know. Lee's right. And it's been his game. So just through the government overstepping and the power of persuasion. Yeah. He had the jury eating out of his hands and closing statements. I wish that was really true. Take a bite of that. They love granola. There you go. Just go ahead and nibble on that right there. They love Gorbin. They love granola. Juror 11 is actually lactose intolerant. In closing statements, Lee pointed out

that all the lies and the prosecution was ruined, not guilty for all. After the trial, one of the jurors said, I know those boys did everything they said they did, but damn it, they didn't prove it. I mean, that is an ideal juror for a prosecution. Totally. I know they did it. But holy shit, you were good. I don't know why you spun the cane around. He's amazing. Winking at us. Come on. He's a ham. What's up, girl?

Now the feds really wanted to take down Lee. Jamie Boyd was a long time a politician in El Paso and he was friends with Lee. It's a small town. All these guys know each other. When the U.S. Attorney position opened up in the area, Lee was one of the many who supported Boyd and Boyd was given the job. Boyd wasn't really a hard ass, but he hated gamblers and he obsessed with the idea that the Dixie Mafia was trying to take over El Paso. Even though there was no evidence that the Dixie Mafia was trying to take over

El Paso. So to combat this completely made up threat, Boyd wanted to get an extremely tough federal prosecutor and he appointed a man named James Carr, who was known as being a hard ass. James Carr. Kerr. James Kerr. And Kerr became very friendly with a local judge named John Wood, which made a lot of people question the judges impartiality. You weren't supposed to hang around with the prosecutor. No, that makes sense. Doesn't it? Yeah. They just buddied around the whole time. It's like, what are you doing?

Yeah, you don't want to walk in the next day and be like, oh, hey, morning, man. We tied one over last night. Holy shit! Whoo! I don't know. Go ahead and just get to this. Guilty. Yeah, great. Guilty. All right, Lee, you want to go get lunch? Let's get dolphin. Lee hated Kerr and Kerr hated Lee. They were polar opposites. Lee liked doing blow and listening to Willie Nelson and Kerr liked listening to box and going to church. Box. That was like box. What else you got, box? Kerr thought Lee was vulgar, mostly because Lee liked to walk up behind

Kerr and whisper disgusting things in his ear that made Kerr blush. Oh, fuck your mouth. Excuse me. Hey, asshole. That's so great. I would love to watch that. Oh, yeah. I'd pay money to watch that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a guy walking up behind the drink about his. What? Hey, fuck you, dude. Yeah, I remember tonguing your butthole. Hey, get out of here. Get out of here. Let me suck on your fingers. See you inside. Judge Wood was the perfect ally for Kerr. Wood bought completely into the Nixon

rhetoric and thought the country was at war with drugs and that they were destroying traditional America. Wood was a member of every old school club in San Antonio, the sons of the Republic of Texas, the sons of American Revolution, the Texas Cavaliers, the Argault Club, the San Antonio Club, the Order of the Alamo, the San Antonio Gun Club, the German Club, the American Legion, the San Antonio Country Club. He had his head so far up tradition. Traditions ass it was never coming out. And Wood had jurisdiction on the entire El Paso docket. Plus, he was all about handing out

maximum possible sentences to drug dealers. For eight years on the bench, Judge Wood handed out the maximum sentence in every single case. What? Talk about a bad reputation? Well, you're fucked. For sure, fucked. He bragged about never giving probation in a heroin case. He once even sentenced a dope dealer to 35 years for contempt of court. What? That's not allowed? I mean, like normally like you, you know, they'll give you like five days or like two weeks and you're just like, yeah, I'll take it.

Fuck you, Judge. 35 years you'd be like, I'm so sorry. No, please. I'm so sorry. Yeah, Judge, why don't you bring whatever you got? 35 years. No, no, no. It was like a thing. Shut up. Get out of here. I want the fuck out of here. Get out of here. Enjoy half of your life. Get out of here, piece of shit. And he didn't care whether the drug was marijuana or heroin. He was so brutal in his sentences that he embarrassed other judges. Other judges flat out thought what he was doing was completely out of line and didn't shy away from saying so.

His nickname became Maximum John. That's terrible. And he loved it. Who's who's my judge? Maximum John. I got a good feeling. Like you mean like he's like, I wanted Minimum Joni. Or at least medium Terry. Oh, Maximum John loved his nickname, even though he had the most overturned sentences in the country. That doesn't matter to him, though. You're still leaving your courtroom on a high note. No, he doesn't give a shit.

Maximum, boom! Yeah. Out of here, like two weeks later. In April 1977, Kerr had an idea and went to Nashville to look over the 1973 indictments against Lee Chagra and Jack Strickland. The ones that had been already dismissed. Yeah. But Kerr had a plan. He was going to re-indite Strickland and hopefully Lee using an unknown section of the 1970 Drug Control Act that spelled out the crime of quote, continuing criminal enterprise. It was called the Kingpin Act.

Basically, it was part of the law no one had paid attention to. It was completely vague, but basically said that if someone kept committing violations with five or more people and was an organizer and made money from it, then they could be arrested. Yeah, you're looking up because it doesn't make sense. Yeah. It's basically saying if you're hanging around a bunch of dudes and they are committing crimes and you're not doing that and you're telling them what to do and making money, you get your

if you're telling them what to do. Well, organizer, so if you're like... But that's what a lawyer... But he's legally advising them, you mean? Well, he's a lawyer, so that's his job is to legally advise people. So under the statute, being a lawyer is illegal. Being a lawyer to people who are guilty is illegal. Right. Well, there's a lot of people you got to lock up. So it's basically just completely garbage, the whole thing. And yet the maximum sentence, if convicted, life without parole.

Wow. For just hanging. Yeah. Just doing your job. Yeah. So Kurt put together all the interviews with arrested drug dealers since 1973 and concluded he could arrest Strickland who was already in jail for something else. DE agents then went and threatened Strickland with life in prison if he didn't roll on Lee. Okay. Jimmy looked at the copy of the law, they handed him and said, quote, fold this five ways and stick it where the elves don't play. So which is the greatest

fuck you that any man has ever said to any other man? Stick it where the elves don't play? I think in his mind. Anywhere besides the South Pole? Elves play everywhere but your asshole. He's been in jail a long time. I live with elves now. He just sees elves when he goes to bed. But they're not in my butthole. They're one place that the elves won't go, we all know, is the butthole. I keep trying to lure them in there with muffins. I keep telling them Santa's workshops right up in my colon.

Stick it where the elves don't play. Sorry, what the fuck? I'm sorry, I don't know what's happening. Are you in or out? No, we're the elves don't play. Right, so you will help us? No, we're they don't play. Where don't the fucking elves play? In buttholes. Elves don't like buttholes. Open this door. Have you ever read a fairy tale? Open this door. Have you ever read the book Not in the Butthole About the Elves? You mean the handwritten one I'm looking at your desk right here? Yes! No, I have not read your handwritten book.

I'm trying the pictures right now. Get this door open. Does that look like a cave because it's not a cave? No, I'm aware of what that is. It's very clear. Yeah, thank you. So Kerr brought charges against Strickland. Lee looked them over and thought they were ridiculous. It was clearly double jeopardy. The indictment had no new evidence. He couldn't even understand it. At the same time, Jimmy decided to move his drug operation to Florida. Lee went and set up a dummy corporation for Jimmy to funnel his money through. This was the first time Lee had ever clearly allowed his name to be linked to illegal activities.

Good timing. When the sharks are swimming, that's when you pick a scab. It's a risk he decided to take because of family. But still, I mean, he's fucked. Yay, he's family! At the same time, Lee's brother Joe, also a member of the law firm, was at his end. Lee was constantly losing when gambling and taking money from the firm to pay for his losses. He's better called Saul, right? I haven't seen it yet. Well, he is. Joe, quote, I never know if we have $50,000 in our account or 50 cents. That's a big difference. That is a very large difference. Yeah.

Joe left the law firm and opened his own. The family was splitting apart. Lee went to court in the Strickland case to file a motion of discovery. He wanted Maximum John to turn over all the DEA reports, the custom reports, the grand jury probes, and any other material that would reveal when Strickland had engaged in this bullshit continuing criminal activity. Then Kerr reminded Maximum John that Lee was one of those who had been indicted as part of the case and that he shouldn't be given any of the material because he shouldn't be given documents concerning the investigation about himself and the crimes he may have committed. That's crazy. And not okay. No, totally insane. Yeah.

Lee was using the court to try to worm his way out of his own crimes, Kerr argued. Of course, Maximum John agreed saying Lee was trying to get reports about an investigation of himself. I mean, by that token, you could just charge anyone with anything ever and then they can't look at shit. Yeah. Just because they've been charged. Lee couldn't believe what was happening. What investigation of himself? And now reporters were all over the story. With a courtroom packed full of media, Lee tried to defend himself saying that Maximum John had made a personal attack with his ruling and the negative publicity was going to do great damage. Then Maximum John dropped a bomb. Oh, quote. I imagine everyone in this area knows that you've

been the subject of a grand jury investigation ever since the Tennessee indictment. Is there any secret about that? Well, there was. Yes, there was. There was a big secret. That's what a secret grand jury is. Yeah. What a prick. Lee had no idea and neither did anyone else. Jesus. Judge Idiot wasn't supposed to reveal a thing. It was an insanely out of line thing for a judge to reveal this info in court. But Maximum John just kept talking, explaining all the people the grand jury was looking into and some of the evidence against them. I mean, there must have been someone in there like Max, Max, John, John, John, John, give him the light. Give him the light. Hey, verbal diarrhea. Light him. Hey, verbal diarrhea. Wrap it up. Hey. Can we take a break?

Everyone knows you have hemorrhoids. Recess. You have hemorrhoids. Um, and so he's telling people the evidence against them and the evidence against Lee, but it was confusing, an investigative report from a discredited snitch with actual grand jury testimony. You want to be 100 percent when you're going to do that. Wow, what a dick. Lee then made a motion for Maximum John to recuse himself, and the judge refused to do so. Jesus, he refused to recuse? Yeah. Lee's reputation had taken another brutal body blow. Again, no one wanted to hire an attorney who might be under indictment. Over the next year, he only had a handful of cases. After all that, Jamie Boyd decided to drop the continuing

criminal enterprise charges against Jack Strickland that Kerr had brought. A week after that horrible day in court, Lee called a friend, Clark Hughes, and told them they were going to Vegas. Oh, boy. Quote, this is going to be one they'll write a book about. I'm going to take the joint apart. Oh, God. That's a good, that's a good sign, right? Not good. And especially considering it seems like he already takes the joint apart. Well, anytime someone says they're going to go take Vegas apart. Not good. No, it's a great sign. No, it's definitely means someone's ODing. You see Rain Man? Yeah. Okay. Oh, I think I made my point. Oh, God. Caesar's Palace sent a Learjet and a limousine dropped them off at the casino. Then they went to

the suite. Lee had a routine. I bet drugs are involved. First, he would make about a dozen phone calls. Okay. Then he would bathe, groom and dress himself in his special outfit for gambling. Sure. A red cowboy shirt with pearl buttons and a black Western cut leisure suit. Okay. Like I like what I'm hearing. Also a giant solid gold belt buckle with a crust of diamonds. Sure. A cow, a black cowboy hat and black alligator cowboy boots. Okay. He would stare at himself in the mirror holding his ebony cane until he was ready to go. Sounds like he's dressing like a Western white stripe. At this point, he would call himself the black striker. I'm sorry. The black striker. The black striker. The black striker is coming.

So he is a super gambling hero. What do you think? Yeah. It's always a good sign when you have an alias for gambling. Yeah. Yeah. That's when you know that you're fine. Well, Lee didn't do well, but I'll tell you the black striker lost a shitload. Holy shit. Here comes the black striker. We hit the floor around midnight and went straight to the crap table. He told the pit boss to clear the table. So get them all out of there. And he did. Now, this just caused people to want to know what was happening and a crowd gathered. Lee looked at the pit boss and said, look at him. You ought to pay me $1,500 an hour to entertain customers. Where do you get off? Who do you think you are? He's like, you told just

please throw the fucking dice. Fuck dude, just shut up and gamble. Throw the dice. Yes. In 30 minutes, he lost $90,000. Oh my God. In 30 minutes, he lost $90,000. Yeah. He lost three grand every minute. How? You have to be trying to lose. Oh my God. He and Clark went back to the suite and two hookers came in. Clark left and Lee did his thing. You mean just held their hand and talked to her about a problem? Yeah. I mean, his thing with hookers was he just liked to talk to him about what was going on. Right. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. See what their dad did.

He wants someone to listen to him. Why is that so wrong? It's not wrong. The next morning, Lee was back at it. When Clark got there, Lee had lost another $80,000. Oh boy. And was yelling at the floor. I thought it sounds like the joint's taking him apart. Yeah. It does not sound like his original plan is taking the joint apart. When Clark got there, he was yelling at the floor manager who was about to cut off his credit. I thought I really was hoping you weren't going to say manager. God damn floor. Lee went back to his room and decided he needed to change his luck. That night, he was going to go downstairs and play a back rat instead of craps.

Smart, right? Play one that you're probably less familiar with. Change it up a little bit. Yeah. Clark decided not to hang around this time. When he finally came to the casino later that night, Lee had gone through almost his entire credit line. He was now down $240,000. Holy shit. Holy shit. So they checked out of Caesars. The black strikers having a bad run. So they checked out of Caesars and went to the Aladdin where Lee had a $250,000 lining. Oh, boy. What? Yeah, right. He's on the hot streak. It's not how can it go wrong? Ride him.

This time Lee turned it around. In under 15 minutes, he was up $90,000. Just mind boggling. Holy shit. And he quit for the night. Clark figured he would go back to Caesars and pay off some of his debt. Nope. Oh, boy. The next afternoon at the Aladdin, he was right back at it. And he lost $190,000. It's really starting to add up, Dave. Then that night, he lost another $70,000. Is he blindfolded? What's happening?

That's $260,000. That's 10,000 over his credit limit. Oh, my God. And that's just there. He's already got the $250,000 back at Caesars. $240,000 at Caesars. $240,000 at Caesars. It's a half million. Oh, my God. Lee was cut off at the Aladdin. Okay. No more credit. On the way to the airport. To the Flamingo. On the way to the airport, Lee was very quiet. Why do you think? I don't know.

What do you think? Just soaking in that beautiful desert view? Clackham asked him how he was going to pay off half a million. I don't know, Lee said. Suddenly, the money was gone. By early autumn, Lee was hustling personal injury cases. He's just like on the street, like, I'll represent you for a buck. Come on, man. Seriously. Hey, man, I'll defend you for a dollar. Come on, bitch. He was doing divorces. He was doing wills. I'll do weddings. I'll do whatever. He was practically chasing ambulances.

I make balloon animals. A few weeks later, Lee finally had his heroidectomy. He had his what? His hemorrhoidectomy? Hemorrhoidectomy. He finally had that shit cut out. Okay. That's how low he was. He was so low that he was getting his ass properly cared for. While in the hospital. That's probably why he played craps, because he can stand.

While in the hospital, he received a dozen roses with a car. Although did it burn when he played craps? Did it burn when he played craps? Go ahead. The card was from his friends in Vegas. It read, I hope your ass feels like what you did to us. Oh, God. Cards you don't ever want to get from Las Vegas. Yeah.

Lee's practice never really picked up in 1978 was as bad as 1977. And Jimmy's Florida enterprise was successful, which just upset Lee more. More than anything, the rivalry with Jimmy drove him nuts. Meanwhile, Kerr decided to get every drug dealer convicted to squeal on Lee, but none of them would, mostly because Lee wasn't a drug kingpin. But then Jimmy's partner, Henry Wallace, was busted. Jimmy and Henry had been having problems. The main problems being Jimmy was in charge of getting the dope in to the country,

and two massive shipments had been confiscated due to Jimmy making dumb moves. Then Henry was high on cocaine one night and drunk. And he crashed his car into an airport limo. He had $114,000 in cash on him that had traces of cocaine on it. Oh, boy. So Henry, when talking to the feds said if they gave him his money back, he would start talking. Isn't he in trouble? He's in trouble too, though, right?

Yeah, but they just want Jimmy and Lee. They don't give a fuck. They just want those. Okay. So they agreed to give him his money back. It's $114,000 if he gave up. Government's cool. Yeah.

Yeah. Henry fingered Jimmy as the head of the organization. Other members of the Florida gang were also talking. One of them had his van breakdown when it was full of weed, and he decided to take it to a mechanic who fixed cars for the highway patrol. Oh, smart. Well, it looks like you do good work. I mean, obviously the cops trust you. So just take a look at it.

Can you imagine how much the van spelled? Oh, God. Like a van full of weed? Yeah. And the cops walk in, they're like, this is... I smell it too, but I think it's coming from down the road. I don't think it's coming from here. So that guy started talking too.

Now, Kerr was sure he was going to get the real kingpin, Lee. Yeah. And Lee knew they were coming for him. He became paranoid. He continued to do lots and lots of blow. That always helps you kind of tone down your paranoia. Yeah. His dealer, Lou Esper, was swinging by all the time to make deliveries to his office.

Meanwhile, the Chagra family was becoming worried about Lee. Jimmy moved to Vegas, but he called every day to check on his brother. Lee started crying a lot, especially when he thought of Jimmy. Oh, God. Jimmy was the one paying off Lee's debt to Vegas at this point. There was nothing worse for Lee than him being at rock bottom and Jimmy being on top and paying off his debts. Lee started to talk about death constantly.

I was just saying, I feel like we're headed for a suicide. But his concern of paranoia weren't without reason. Someone had broken into the office and tried to take a safe. Okay. And then when he was at a high stake poker game at someone's house, two men tried to break in, but they tried to break in through unbreakable glass. That's probably the wrong route. I think not a good route.

Find the breakable stuff. Lee grabbed the only gun in the house, which happened to be a musket. What? I'm hunting northerners. A musket. Be very, very quiet. And then they chased off the two black guys who had tried to break in. So just to sum it up, a white guy with a musket is chasing two black guys.

Yep. And we're in the 1970s. Lee was convinced that it was an inside job. Meanwhile, Kerr had finished his investigation and was ready to indict Jimmy. Okay. Then on November 21st Kerr was driving to work when a van blocked his way. Oh, fuck. Two gunmen stepped out and riddled his car with bullets.

Oh, fuck. Kerr somehow survived by ducking out of the dash, but now shit was on. Oh, boy. The FBI came and took all of Lee's guns and questioned him. But somehow, during all of this, Lee was hired to be part of a big case. He's the best. He's a white cow kid. He's that good.

He's that good. Can you, can you, can you do a trial from jail? Can you? Yes. You can't. Yes. So if you're in jail, you can defend me in court. I can't.

The black striker can. Oh, I like the black striker. Yes. He's uniform. He owes money to the black striker. Yes, he's uniform. He owes money, though, right? He is in a lot of debt and has made some very bad financial decisions.

Thankfully, I'm here to help clean it up. So you're not in debt because you're not the black striker? I have no debt. No, I'm completely out of debt. But the black striker can go to court. The black striker has made terrible investments and is in an extreme amount of debt from gambling. So he, but he can be in court as my guy when you're in jail. Absolutely.

Yep. But what if he gets killed because of the debts? Then you should come talk to me. In jail. Right. Yep. I'm going to hire you. Great.

I think we've got a great thing. Please sign this contract. In December, late December, Lee won the highly publicized bank fraud case. It was his biggest victory in ages. He thought it might all be turning around. Oh, boy. He met his family at the airport and couldn't stop talking about the win. Then in the middle of the night, he got out of bed, went to his office,

took $75,000 out of his safe and drove to a truck stop. There, a Native American man approached his car. Lee gave him all of the money. That was the last of the half a million that he owed Vegas lead. Jimmy had given Lee all the money to pay off his Vegas debt. Okay. And Jimmy was doing great. Since Jimmy moved to Vegas, he had been living large, endless spending, endless bedding.

He had blown through around $20 million in gambling and just everything, just buying property and fixing up lavishly and spending on everything and gambling. He's living like in Brewster's millions, but without the millions, without the deal. Yeah. Without the deal where you spend it, all you get, you win. Right. You're not going to get a podcast that'll do a Brewster's millions reference. This is the only one we else has on cards.

Thank you. The next day, Lee celebrated his court victory at the office. Friends stopped by, lots of cocaine was snorted. A man named Cowboy came by and Lee gave him... A man named Cowboy? Very general. He's also a black guy. That honestly does make it a little bit better.

A black guy named Cowboy came by and Lee just handed him $10,000. There you go, Cowboy. Everyone assumed it was just another gambling debt. That was pretty normal in Lee's life. The party was over in the early afternoon and everyone went home. Okay. That's quite a cocaine party that ends it too. Normally cocaine parties don't end.

Yeah. At four o'clock, a friend stopped by. He found Lee shot and dying. Jimmy was called and he rushed back from Vegas. When he got to the office, he knelt over the body bag that his brother was in and started balling like a child. Later, he stormed around the family home, waving a gun, saying he was going to kill someone, anyone. He thought the DEA had executed his brother, Lee, and he blamed Kerr and Maximum, John. He blamed the judge, most of all.

He ruined Lee. Jimmy yelled. Lee's funeral was like a scene from The Sopranos. While people from all over the community paid their respects, Feds took pictures from across the street. A state senator was a pallbearer next to a drug dealer beside the district attorney beside another drug dealer. Jimmy came dressed in a red Western t-shirt, a black Western cut suit, a black cowboy hat, a large gold belt. You can keep going. Belt, buckle, and black alligator cowboy boots.

He was making a statement. He was taking over being head of the family. There must have been someone who was like, I thought that was Lee the whole time. What the shit? I told you he wasn't him. Oh my god, you're brother. That's the craziest thing. He comes dressed up like his brother. Look, cocaine will make you do some fun stuff. You can't kill the black striker.

No, you can't. No, but it's like Manudo. More will come. Months later. It's like the day it's like Doctor Who. It is exactly like, I don't know. Okay. Months later, two soldiers from Fort Bliss admitted to robbing and killing Lee Chagra. It had nothing to do with the GEA.

They were sent by Lou Esper, the man who sold Lee cocaine. Really? Yeah, he was just trying to rob him because he would always look in the safe and see all the money. Then he's just a shitty little drug dealer. Yeah. A couple of months after Lee's death, Jimmy was indicted on several drug charges. He got out on bail and went back to Vegas. There, while at a poker tournament, he met a man named Charles Harrelson.

Harrelson was a convicted hitman. He's also Woody Harrelson's dad. Oh shit. Oh boy. I know. Oh gosh. Okay. Memory serves. This guy doesn't have a good thing going on. Within half an hour, Jimmy and Harrelson had come to an agreement to assassinate Maximum John. Shit.

On May 29th, 1979, the day Jimmy was to go on trial, Maximum John walked out of his apartment and noticed he had a flat tire. He looked at it and then a shot rang out. A neighbor was watching from across the street and saw no one else, just the judge dropping. By the time he got to Maximum John, he was dead. The FBI called the assassination the crime of the century. Easy FBI. There's been a lot of crimes.

Easy FBI. But there's that's. Pump the brakes, FBI. Slow it down, FBI. That's gonna be the name of my movie. Pump the brakes, FBI. But it didn't stop the court case. Jimmy was still being tried under the vague drug kingpin law.

Henry Wallace testified and was quite convincing, as did the others. One after one, they sold Jimmy down the river. Jimmy was found guilty. But before sentencing, he jumped bail. Smart. Unfortunately, he went back to Vegas and was turned in by a casino waiter. The Jimmy had asked to go buy wigs for him. Dude, you got to vet your wig shopper.

Always. All right. And what about what would you would you like? Super salad? Neither. Actually, can you go buy me wigs? Could you get me four wigs, two blonde, two brunette. And a mustache.

And I'll take the, I'll take the pie. Also an eye patch. I'll take the pie. And I'll have the crusted salmon. Give me like a handhook. Give me a handhook. Give me a handhook. Give me a pirate hat.

Give me a cane. Give me a Peter Pan outfit. Some brunette wigs. Some blonde wigs. Fake mustache. An eye patch. Face tattoo. A novelty horn.

Clown wig. One of those Phantom of the Opera masks. Clown makeup. A flower that squirts. And then a Caesar salad. Oh, fuck. So the waiter turned in Jimmy. And Jimmy was caught and sentenced to 30 years.

For wig shopping? Yeah. Sometime later, the last shaggy brother who was still alive and not in prison, Joe, came in contact with Charles Harrelson. Oh, fuck. Harrelson at this point had been cleared of the murder of Maximum John.

Joe noticed that Harrelson had an enormous supply of cocaine that was always, he was always putting up his nose. Now Joe, Joe noticed this because he was also now doing an enormous amount of cocaine. Right, okay. Joe agreed to work as Harrelson's attorney in a gun and drug case. That you know cocaine, cocaine brought that contract to be.

Yeah, it must have been a great discussion. Yeah, of course it'll be a fucking lawyer. Yeah, you want to be buddies? Yeah, I will represent you. I will represent you so fucking hard, dude, because you're my like my best friend. I love that. Like I will fucking represent this shit.

I love that. Oh my God. I'm going to fuck. There's no way anyone's going to ever find you fucking guilty as shit, dude. You're the fucking best. You're my bro. Nobody's ever going to find you guilty as shit, dude.

You know what? Bro's forever. Bro's forever, dude. Bro's forever. I swear to God. I think if we run into each other fast enough, we could become one man. Oh my God.

How are you my lawyer not like part of me? Dude, I am you. I am you. You are me. That's what I'm saying. And that's what we're going to tell that fucking jury. Yes, we are. Ah, fucking jury's got a fucking note.

Try to tell us apart is what I'm going to say, yeah, try, yeah, try, exactly, try, like a trial, like trial, yeah. Hey, you want to go write ponies? Yeah, I want to write ponies, dude. All you want to do is go write some fucking ponies. I was about to put that up on the idea board. That's a target. I have a vision board and that's on the vision board. Let's go write some fucking ponies.

I fucking love you, bro. I fucking love you, bro. All right, let's get in the car. Yeah, get in the car. Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm saying. Let's get in the fucking car. Ah, yeah.

Oh God. All right, so Joe agreed to work as Harrelson's attorney in the drug case in San Antonio, but Harrelson didn't show up to his court appointment. That's embarrassing. Now he was a fugitive. At this point, Harrelson had other priorities. He wanted to get his son on a sitcom. Well, this, I mean, so we're talking 1980.

Yeah, this is right around the time. I mean, is he on Cheers yet? Well, he, I mean, he came in later, but probably in 1980 specifically. I think we're a little bit past 1980. I think we're, I guess he's like 80. Well, yeah, right around this time. So, yeah, so Harrelson had other priorities at this point because he was shooting cocaine. Right.

One night he called Joe because he thought he saw D agents watching him from the trees. Sure. Just your classic stakeout. A couple of days later he called saying he was being followed by helicopters and little men were boring holes in his bathroom walls. Wait, were these the elves? These are the elves. God, I knew it.

You know where they won't go. That's why it's so weird they're going to the bathroom. A month later, Harrelson was driving in the desert shooting cocaine and seeing federal agents faces on highway signs when he heard. God, they're good. When he heard his muffler rattling, he got out and tried to repair it by shooting at it. You know, there, there's many ways that you can fix a dropped muffler. Right.

This is one way. One is to kill it. Yeah, but he missed. Okay. Look, look, I'm not saying you shouldn't shoot your muffler to fix it, but if you do, just hit them, make sure to be very careful, hit the hit the muffler, hit the muffler, hit the muffler and he shot out of tire. Oh, fuck.

I mean, how is this not a scene in a movie? Shit. That's so great. Yeah. Police started getting calls from people driving by who reported there was a man now standing on the highway pointing a gun at his head. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Well, he was bummed.

Wait, well, he's taking it very hard. He missed his muffler, blew out his tire, so now he's going to kill himself. Yeah. So this is before triple A? Yeah. Harrelson held off the cops for six hours by pointing the gun at his face. Jesus. Finally, a friend was called to the scene and she talked him into giving up.

Harrelson then confessed to killing Maximum John. Okay. And John F. Kennedy. Whoa, no. He didn't confess that. He did? Well, they were like, well, that's actually hurts the confessor. He confessed it.

Wait, what? Yeah, and he also killed JFK and the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs? Yeah, he's really claiming a lot of stuff. Plus, he was Hitler. Oh, fuck. We got to investigate all this stuff. Yeah, I told him not to talk past the clothes, but he's going on.

Boyd was convinced Harrelson was telling the truth about the judge because he said something no one but the killer could have known. One of Judge Maximum's tires had been slashed. Harrelson had to be the guy. At the same time in prison, Jimmy was bragging that he had had the judge killed. I mean, why wouldn't you? Of course. Unfortunately, his cellmate had made a deal with the FBI and was taping their

conversations. Perfect. Joe kept getting anonymous calls that Jimmy's cellmate was a snitch. But when he told Jimmy, Jimmy just laughed. He's no snitch. He's the guy's like, he's like, he's like my therapist. He's the best listener I've ever been around. The fucking greatest listener.

All he does is listen. The tapes from the prison convinced a judge to allow the entire Chagra family to be electronically monitored. And that also included Harrelson. When Joe visited Jimmy in prison, Jimmy talked about those he had ordered killed, including the judge, sometimes joking, sometimes not. Now, at this point, Joe was a mess. He snorted coke all day and night, and his law business was nonexistent.

Harrelson asked Joe to come see him in prison, where he now was there on other charges. There, Harrelson gave Joe a map of the location of the gun that had been used to kill Judge Maximum, even though there was no reason to do it. Why? It was a terrible map that basically narrowed the location down to 100 square miles. It's not a good map. It's still a lot of digging. I would argue that's not a map.

I'd argue it's not a map. Joe went home and shredded the map. Okay. Then because he was on cocaine, he redrew it from memory. Okay. Smart. This is cocaine's not working. Later, a friend of Harrelson's approached Joe and said he had the gun.

Joe started to think he was being set up. Oh, God. A few months later, someone broke into his office. Joe thought it was the FBI looking for the map. We need that good map. Joe kept visiting his brother, Jimmy, who was becoming increasingly belligerent. He told Joe in different visits to kill Harrelson, to kill Henry Wallace, and even possibly kill Strickland.

He told Joe he wanted to escape and wanted his help. He accused Joe of stealing $400,000 and said he'd tell the feds Joe ran the whole drug operation. You know, I'm not going to visit anymore. I know. What's the point of visiting? I'm done visiting. I mean, you're a dick. You're being a dick.

You're an asshole. Like you're really being a dick, Jimmy. Jimmy also discussed the murder of Maximum John with his life, with his wife, Liz, and even said it was her fault. Yeah, she did it. She became increasingly depressed and was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown. And another time I tried to OD on drugs. Then they suddenly realized that their conversations at the prison

might be getting recorded by the FBI. Right. Jimmy then started passing Liz notes instead, which Liz was supposed to rip up and flush down the toilet. But the FBI turned off the water and took a note out of the toilet with incrementing evidence. Oh, shit. It won't flash. It won't flash.

She wouldn't want to take it out because you're probably peed on it. So she just left. I don't want to touch it. It's all covered in pee. Using the tapes and the note to get warrants, the FBI, the DEA, and the IRS raided the Chagra homes. Joe was arrested. And even though he hadn't had a part in the judge's murder,

he had admitted he had when talking to Jimmy on the tapes, probably because he was high on cocaine. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, yeah, I did murder him, but I listened. Fuck quote from the tapes. Jimmy, boy, we shouldn't have done that, huh, Joe? That's right. You're the one that said to do it, do it, do it.

That's good enough. That'll do. Joe said they were joking. Yeah. Well, who doesn't joke about a judge's murder when you're hanging out with your brother? It's a bit. Maybe Joe was joking. Maybe he wasn't, but it didn't matter because the feds were going for the

criminal conspiracy charge. And the only way to get that was to use the tapes, which means they were basically forced to include Joe in the indictment, no matter what. Joe took a polygraph test that was set up by his lawyer and was asked to be had anything to do with Woods murder. He passed the test. Then the FBI set one up and he passed all the murder questions, except two. One about whether or not Harrelson was his client.

Okay. Understandably, you could get why that might be a problem. Yeah. Yeah. And the other was if he knew where the gun was. Well, it kind of does. Kind of. I know what state it might be in.

I got a. You know, Rhode Island. It might be there. It's bigger than that. It's in that area, but larger. The prosecutors offered Joe five to 10 years for a guilty plea if he cooperated and testified. But he didn't do the crime, so he said no. Good.

Then in August 1981, two boys are walking along a creek and they found a stock from a 240 caliber weather by Mark V rifle. That was it. The FBI had the murder weapon. They traced it to the store that had sold it. But the name on the form was Fae King. Fae King? The name on it was Fae King.

Yeah. So we got to find this faking guy. Oh, that's dynamite. May as well have been Fa Q. Oh, you gotta love California or just US gun laws. Fae King. But she went by in the weapon. You have to put your fingerprints.

Sure. So they traced it to Joanne Harrelson, Woody's stepmom. Oh boy. Charles Harrelson's wife. She was arrested and found guilty of using a false name to purchase a weapon and would got a three year prison sentence. Then Charles Harrelson pleaded guilty to the other charges he was facing but had run away from the drugs and weapons charges.

He got 40 years in prison. Fuck. Now the FBI had him in prison and they could squeeze him. His stepdaughter was also jailed for refusing to testify to the grand jury. But she started talking after a few weeks in jail. The FBI was getting closer and closer, squeezing and squeezing. Indictments for the criminal conspiracy in the murder of Judge Maximum were issued against Jimmy, Liz, Joe Chagra and Charles Harrelson.

They had used 70 full time FBI agents who logged 82,000 hours and interviewed 30,000 people. Oh my god. That doesn't count the DEA and IRS investigations. The investigation cost between five and ten million dollars. At the trial, Harrelson had a great defense. He said he had not killed the judge but had taken credit for it so he could get paid. Interesting. It's a hard one to see through.

Interesting. It's, it's a perfect loophole. I mean, it's, you believe it. Why would you not believe it? This is the guy who shot a tire instead of a muffler. Yeah. Harrelson was sentenced to two life terms. Joe Chagra received a 10 year sentence.

Joe and Harrelson was convicted of conspiracy and perjury. Jimmy Chagra was acquitted of the murder charge. Whoa. Because Joe refused to testify against him. But Jimmy's wife was then arrested and sent to prison for delivering the contract money. Jimmy then pleaded guilty to his role in the murder. He did that so his wife would be released from prison because she had cancer. Oh, fuck.

She was never released and she died in prison. Eh, fuckers. Joe Chagra was released from prison after serving six and a half years of his 10 year bit. He died in a car accident in 1996. Though it can't be confirmed that his believed Jimmy was then placed in the witness protection program. He married again in Las Vegas. He was now sentenced to two life terms. In Las Vegas, he was now known as Jimmy James Madrid.

Jimmy died of cancer in 2008. He was living in Mesa, Arizona. In 2003, Jimmy had recanted his statements about Charles Harrelson and said someone else had shot the judge. Woody Harrelson tried to have his father's conviction overturned with no luck. Jimmy Chagra died of cancer. Their mother has survived them all. She's 100 years old and still lives in El Paso, Texas. Jesus Christ.

What do you think about that? That's a lot of man hours. That is so crazy. Drugs, man. Fucking drugs. Drugs, bruh. But when they, when they, when the government get, when they have their sights on somebody or something, they will do anything to make it happen.

Anything. And they most times make it happen and get away with it. Even though you, I mean, obviously there's some guilt to be admitted. I mean, look, he was a drug dealer's lawyer. But at the end of the day, he really wasn't doing anything wrong. Yeah. But still, regardless for, to spend, like, you talk about like a war on drugs, to spend that much time and effort on one section.

They did kill a judge. Yeah, they did kill a judge. So at that point, you got to throw everything at him. And that's a lot to throw at him. Especially to still not know what the fucking answer truly is. Well, we know that Jimmy hired Woody Harrelson's dad. Like that's. I don't want to believe Woody Harrelson's dad's guilt.

It's not the old guy from Cheers. It's not the same. That, that was, that was, that's an actor. Wait, Woody's dad is a coach? No. Where does Sam Malone come into all this? Okay. Well, let's just wrap it up.

Why? Why? I'm curious what the Diane effect on all this is. We'll talk off, off, off mic. When Cliff Clavin goes to visit him in jail, does everyone go, Cliffy! Okay. Just saying, does Norm have his personal prison cell that nobody else can sit in? We are like his barstool.

The dollop on Twitter. We also have a Facebook page. And when Diane goes to jail, then do they bring in Rebecca, who's, you know, now Sam's warden? And now. I don't know how it works. I think I'm now talking about Cheers prison, but I don't even. We're signing cars.

What?