Shocking case ends in stealth
Man linked to judge's death leaves prison, disappears
09:43 PM CST on Saturday, January 10, 2004
SAN ANTONIO – The closing note on the "crime of the century" played out with little fanfare. Jamiel "Jimmy" Chagra – gambler, convicted drug kingpin and the man federal authorities called the paymaster for the murder of a federal judge – got out of prison before Christmas.
Mr. Chagra vanished into an undisclosed location, apparently as part of the federal witness-protection program. Once the subject of screaming headlines across the nation, he slipped into obscurity with little notice.
"What surprised me most wasn't that Jimmy was released, but that hardly anyone seemed to care," said lawyer Sam Millsap, who was Bexar County district attorney in 1979 when federal Judge John Wood was gunned down outside his San Antonio home. "There was barely a ripple that the guy suspected of having the judge killed was out of prison."
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Mr. Chagra's role is largely forgotten. About a third of the population of Texas wasn't born in 1980, when he started a 30-year prison sentence as a convicted drug kingpin. Or when he was tried and acquitted in the 1979 murder-for-hire of Judge Wood. He pleaded to a failed assassination attempt on a federal prosecutor. All that notoriety doesn't much resonate in a post-Sept. 11 world.
"The failure of remembrance in the Wood case may be regrettable, but it's normal. Some call it collective forgetting. Some call it historical ignorance. It shows what 20 years will do to a benchmark event in a community," said Dr. Michael Kearl, sociology professor at Trinity University in San Antonio.
"Stories of our past are not getting passed on from one generation to the next as they once were. And the events of our lives are speeding up. Judge Wood's name is emblazoned on the federal courthouse and very few people can tell you why. In the scale of 3,000-plus names at the World Trade Center, what is the name of one federal judge?"
Mr. Chagra's relative anonymity is also likely intentional. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons now has no record of Mr. Chagra's ever being in its database. Federal authorities have acknowledged that Mr. Chagra was placed into special protection while in prison for his help in other cases. The U.S. Marshal's Service, which administers the program, declined to comment.
Mr. Chagra's sister, Patsy Chagra, told El Paso Times that her brother was paroled Dec. 9 and called her from an unknown location. She could not be reached for further comment.
"The feds aren't going to advertise that someone is in witness protection. The idea is to get him a new identity and location and allow him to make a new life," said Dr. Michael Gilbert, director of criminal justice studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. "Law enforcement must sometimes make deals with people they don't want to deal with. But it's a strategy that works."
Judge Wood's murder sent shock waves throughout South Texas and the criminal justice world. It was the first assassination of a federal judge in a century. The federal government's response to the assassination was quick and overwhelming. And it focused quickly on Mr. Chagra, who was facing trial before Judge Wood as kingpin of a heroin and marijuana trafficking operation from El Paso and South Florida.
FBI agents fanned out, searching out any hint of who might be involved in the judge's murder. By the time the first indictments came down in April 1982, the FBI had conducted more than 30,000 interviews and collected more than 500,000 pieces of information. The investigation cost more than $11 million, at the time, the most extensive investigation in the bureau's history. It was surpassed by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the 1995 destruction of the Oklahoma City federal building.
Characters
What it revealed was a crazy quilt of characters straight out of a made-for-TV movie: Jimmy, the flamboyant gambler who brought in dope by the boatload; Joe, his baby brother and attorney; Charlie, the convicted hit man with a cocaine habit.
Investigators believed the motley crew could answer the question: Who killed the no-nonsense federal judge who was nicknamed "Maximum John" for his harsh sentences in drug cases.
The first trial for the assassination lasted more than three months in the federal courthouse in San Antonio named after the slain jurist.
In late 1982, Charles Harrelson was convicted as the triggerman and sentenced to two life terms. Elizabeth Chagra, Jimmy's wife, was sentenced to 30 years for carrying the $250,000 payoff. Jo Ann Harrelson, Charlie's wife, was sentenced to 25 years for buying the hunting rifle used to kill the judge. Joe Chagra received 10 years for obstruction of justice.
Jimmy Chagra's trial was moved to Jacksonville, Fla., in 1983. There, jurors were unmoved by the parade of evidence and testimony. They convicted him of obstruction of justice and sentenced him to 10 years. They acquitted him of the murder conspiracy. While in prison, Jimmy Chagra pleaded guilty in the attempted assassination on a federal prosecutor in 1978 and received a life sentence.
Of those charged with conspiring to kill the judge, only Mr. Harrelson, 65, remains in prison. For several years, his son, Woody Harrelson, bankrolled efforts to obtain a new trial. Last year, a federal judge in San Antonio ruled there were no grounds to rehear the case.
Joe Chagra was released in 1988 after serving six years. When efforts to regain his law license failed, he worked as a paralegal in El Paso. Joe Chagra died in an auto accident in El Paso in 1996. He was 50 years old.
Jo Ann Harrelson, 62, a former card dealer, divorced Charles Harrelson while in prison. She was released in 1997 and left the limelight. Elizabeth Chagra never lived to see freedom. She died at age 43 of ovarian cancer while in the federal correctional facility at Fort Worth in 1997.
Had Jimmy Chagra been sentenced a few years later, his story would have had a different ending. In 1987, Congress crafted mandatory sentencing guidelines for federal judges. In most cases, a sentence must be served in full.
Cooperation
During his incarceration, federal authorities also acknowledged that Mr. Chagra had cooperated as a witness in cases unrelated to the Wood investigation. As a result, he was placed in the prison system's witness protection program.
Bernard Campion, who helped defend Jo Ann Harrelson, said Jimmy Chagra's release caught him by surprise.
"That case took a big chunk out of people's lives," he said. "Jo Ann did most of her 25 years and got out a few years ago. She just wants to live as mundane an existence as possible," he said. "Given how huge a case it was, I really thought Jimmy would be in prison forever. I guess time just caught up with him. Most of my clients were born after Jimmy first went to prison."
William Sessions, who succeeded Judge Wood on the federal bench, agrees that the case left scars on a number of people. He presided over Jimmy Chagra's trials, as well as the trial of the conspirators. He later served as FBI director before being replaced and going into private practice in San Antonio and Washington D.C.
"It was a terrible crime. It was devastating to the court system in Texas and beyond. And the toll on the Wood family was great," he said. "I hope something like it never happens again."
He harbors no hard feelings against Mr. Chagra, however. "I think Mr. Chagra was eligible for parole in 2007, but he's served his time and apparently well. I presume his release means he helped the government and is now trying to go about living his life," Mr. Sessions said. "I hope it goes well with him."
Ronald Guyer, as a young federal prosecutor, won the conviction that named Jimmy Chagra as a drug kingpin and sent him away for 30 years. He now works as a defense attorney. Time, he said, has made him mellower, but not forgetful.
"For anyone in South Texas, this was the crime of the century. It was a shocking thing that someone would kill a federal judge. It still is," Mr. Guyer said. "But Jimmy, he's now just some guy from another era and the world has changed. Jimmy is yesterday's headlines. The really hard part is how many families this one crime damaged. Everyone was hurt. That's the real tragedy."
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