The Life and Crimes of Jimmy Chagra Part 5

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Retired Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins brings you the best in mob history with his unique perception of the mafia. In this fifth episode of the six-part series documenting the life and crimes of the marijuana smuggler kingpin Jimmy Chagra, Gary interviews Jason Cavanagh, an expert on Charles Harrelson, and they examine whether or not Jimmy Chagra paid Charles Harrelson to assassinate Federal Judge John H, Wood aka Maximum John. Cavanagh extensively researched Charles Harrelson’s life and relationship with his two sons. One of those sons is the famous actor Woody Harrelson. Jason produced and hosted a 10-episode podcast series titled Son of a Hitman.
Transcript
SPEAKERS
GARY JENKINS, Jason Cavanagh

00:00
Well hey guys, all you Wiretappers out there. Welcome back to the show. You know, I’m back here to studio gangland wire. But I’ve got a famous man here. A guy that that agreed to come on the podcast, Jason Kavanagh. You know, I got on to Jason. I was researching his stories, Jimmy Chagra story and I found this podcast called Son of a Hitman and I listened to it was about Charles Harrelson who was the man who was convicted of murdering Judge John Wood and Jimmy Chadwick was not convicted. He was arrested and accused of paying Charles Harrelson and Jason did a real in-depth. Deep Dive into the life of Charles Harrelson, the hitman who has a great podcast. It’s called Spn of a Hitman. And I highly encourage you to listen to that. Jason, welcome. I really appreciate you coming on the show. Thanks so much for having me. Now working guys find that Son of a Hitman is not on the Apple app. So you explain to him how to find that.

01:00
Sure. So it is you know, we originally produced it for Spotify with Spotify. So it is exclusive to Spotify at the moment. Although actually today, I just spoke to Spotify, we’re going to be getting a wide release where it’s going to be available on all platforms in the near future, probably in a couple of weeks. So at the moment, check it out on Spotify. But yeah, it will be it will be wide very soon.

01:23
Okay. And by the time this is released, guys, just look out look for set of the Hitman on whatever podcast app you’ve gotten, you’re gonna be able to find it. So I looked at this story. And it’s a story that just keeps on givin this Jimmy chakra and his whole marijuana smuggling operation as we’ve already had a couple of episodes, three episodes by now. And it’s just, it’s the most complex, interesting. And he is the most complex and interesting guy and story that I have done that I can find so much information about to it’s just, it’s amazing. And I want to go in on a deep dive on Charles Harrelson with Jason because he is the expert on Charles Harrelson. And as you all know, he is the father of Woody Harrelson, the actor. And as I understand and what he’s not really crazy about anybody doing that there’s no movies about this. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that guys, but there’s no movies about this. And I don’t know if there ever will be. Jason, you know, we talked a little bit before in Harrelson goes back into South Texas, Texas roots and he was a Texas criminal for sure. From day one. Tell us a little bit about that first murder. I think that that Berg murder, the first

02:39
murder that Charles Harrelson was charged with was Alan Berg. He was a carpet salesman in Houston, Texas. I was introduced to the story of Charles, you know, based on the rumors, you know, he claimed that he had been involved in the JFK assassination. So that was how I, like entered into the story in the first place began looking at it then of course, the judge would murder. The assassination of a federal judge in 79 is huge news. But then when you you know, you start doing research looking back further, right, he killed this carpet salesman, whether it’s the first murder he committed, I don’t know. It’s the first murder he was charged with. He was found not guilty for this murder. I don’t know whether it looks as if he did commit this murder and he was just he had a good lawyer and he was able to get off. But yeah, this was a carpet salesman in Houston, Texas. His brother, his younger brother, David Berg wrote a great book about about this called Ron brother Ron, I spoke to David, you know, went to Houston, met with him, spoke with him about it. Through his research. He determined that you know, and even at the time of his brother’s murder, he believed that this man who again, I’m going to say was found not guilty for hiring Charles Harrelson to kill this guy. But rival carpet salesman named Frank DeMaria is who was accused of having hired Charles Harrelson to assassinate or kill David Berg. You know, it was like a long standing beef that these guys had over people on each other money. In through my research. It looked as if Alan Berg the first victim, he had some big gambling debts to some not so desirable people. This guy, Ted Lewin, who was involved in organized crime, he was an associate of Meyer Lansky, Alan Berg owed him like $100,000 or something over a basketball, a basketball game. As the story goes, Charles Harrelson met this guy, Frank de Maria in a bar, Frank de Maria said, I’m having this problem with this guy, Charles Harrelson through his business card down on the table and said I could take care of that for you. And his business card is this insane, insane thing. I don’t have it in front of me, but it’s it’s this long list of things that he does, you know, including assassinations. You know, I also spoke to Charles Harrelson runs and again I wanna repeat Frank de Maria found not guilty he was not you know, he was not convicted of this. So in no way you know, am I saying he did this but you know this is Charles Harrelson, his girlfriend ex girlfriend from that time from 1968 was this woman Sandra Sue Attaway, I was able to speak to her she has since passed away. But I spoke to her on the podcast she described having accompany Charles Harrelson to go pick up this guy Alan Berg from a bar she had called Alan Berg prior to this said, Hey, I’ve seen you around meet me at this bar promised sexual favors Charles Harrelson showed up with her in the car, forced Alan Berg into the car at gunpoint, at gunpoint, drove him out to a swampy area and shot him. You know, Charles then was picked up a couple years later. So his brother Claude, was a police officer and was actually working as a private investigator at the time and the Berg family was trying to find out what happened to Alan, you know, he had just gone missing. They didn’t know where he was, you know, they were assuming the worst but you know, didn’t know what had happened. And hired like a slew of private investigators, one of which was Claude Harrelson, who happened to be Charles Harrelson, his brother. And so that was a strange thing. And he was trying to get money out of them. He was saying, Listen, I can get some more information, but I need you to give me more money. And so on first appearances, it looked like Claude was in on this thing that he was in on a scheme with Charles to try to extort money out of these people. But when I spoke to Sandra Sue, and looked back at the police interviews that she had done, it appeared that Claude was actually Charles and Claude did not get along. They were not friends, I think partially because Claude was law enforcement. And Charles was as far from that as you could get LOD, I believe, had a suspicion that his brother was involved in was trying to get information out of his brother or one of his associates, and was asking for more money, more money, more money to give to those people to get them to talk. So I don’t think he was actually in league with Charles at that point. I think he was actually, you know, working on his own, actually, you know, trying to tell the family what had happened to Sandra Sue described going him taking her out to dinner or lunch or something like that, and trying to get information out of her basically like milking her for information. Ultimately, it was a guy she ran off with, who ended up talking and telling the cops what she had told him happened. And then she was willing to cooperate with police for immunity. And she testified against Charles, but he was able to get a good alibi. He said he was doing a horse trade at the time that he was buying a horse for some with some brothers who were from the same town where he had grown up Lovelady, Texas are on town over and they gave him a good alibi. He was represented by Percy Foreman. And in that first murder trial, which was unusual in that Percy Foreman was an extremely famous defense attorney at the time. And Charles Harrelson, by all appearances was just, you know, this, this low level thug. So, you know, as we started looking at that we’re going how to, you know, how did he got put in touch with someone like Percy Foreman at this point in time, and, you know, we’re looking closer at that sort of organized crime angle, you know, we did find that he was working with some famous gamblers at the time doing collections and things like that Jack treetop Strauss, his name was thrown around as somebody who was doing collections for and then there was also Benny Binion was, you know, ran gambling operations around around that area of East Texas, and then eventually moved out to Vegas, which is where Charles Harrelson ended up you know, in the late 70s, when he did commit that murder of the judge. So

08:36
interesting, you know, that whole Las Vegas world is is central to this whole thing. By all it runs all the way through it and starting with Benny Binion down in Texas, but he moves to Vegas and, and the whole Vegas connection and the chakras and it just is throughout the whole thing. It’s kind of amazing. Jimmy Chagra hired private pilots to fly drugs who were he had met because the guys worked for their charter service out of Las Vegas. And it just, it’s pretty amazing that Las Vegas was such a part of this whole scheme from one end to the other, starting with that now did some like did not read somewhere where there’s some supposition that Harrelson just knew that this guy was de Maria was mad at Berg and he killed him then came to him and what had money is that so would that be possible?

09:31
It’s you know, there were people that said that something that Harrelson and his associates would do. Someone suggested that whether that happened in this case, I don’t know. Ultimately, I did speak with a woman you know, I had covered the the Berg murder in the in the second and third episodes of the podcast and then actually, you know, as episodes started airing, people would reach out to me with new information because they would listen you know, people who I didn’t even know existed were involved in these cases. And one person who reached out was a woman who had been friends with Frank de Maria. Back then, and she claimed, again whether this is true I don’t know. You know, he denies he denies this he denied involvement and you know, had no comment, but she said that he made a tear full confession to her one night, drunkenly saying I killed that boy. She took that to mean he shot at him but I spoke to Sandra Sue Attaway who told me that she watched Charles Harrelson kill him so you know yes or no solid that

10:38
that’s another thing is is a witness when he does the murder and if I remember right that you found that he seemed to like to have witnesses whenever he did a murder I was the you know, I can’t explain that when but you found that to be

10:54
true. For the first you know, the first two murders that he was charged with the second murder being Sam DeGillia who’s a grain dealer in Texas. And you know, it looked like this guy Pete’s Scarmardo who again, he was found not guilty. But this guy Pete Scarmardo allegedly hired Charles Harrelson to kill a guy who had a business dispute with and in that case, yeah, Charles Harrelson brought along this guy Jerry O’Brien Watkins who are abeted in you know, they picked up this guy, they told him they were you know, I can’t remember what they told him they were going to do. They drove out to some you know, remote grain silo or something and forced him out of the car gunpoint. O’Brien Watkins ended up testifying against Harrelson again, you know, you would think he learned after the first one like to bring somebody along, they’re gonna testify against you. But he was actually picked up for you know, this was just a year after the bird murder, and he was picked up for the two murders simultaneously got found not guilty on the bird murder. But before he was released, they then tried him for the DeGioia murder, and he was found guilty of that only did five years for murdering this guy. And then and then gets out and then a year later judge would is assassinated.

12:06
So he he was kind of a heavy drug user. heavy drinker. I’ll go we’ll call him an alcoholic, but more than likely he was and he then gets into some cocaine dealing and drug dealing, too. What do you what do you remember about that was wasn’t really extensive, but he tried to get into it.

12:26
Sure. Yeah. From all accounts, he would inject cocaine, he would shoot up cocaine, which is

12:33
it’s a choice. It’s unusual. Yeah.

12:36
It’s unusual, right? But yes, I read that, you know, and this was from his own testimony in the Judge Wood trial. He claimed that he was trying to set up some drug deals in Mexico, and they were actually planning to hollow out some golf clubs and fill them with cocaine and then smuggle them across the border. Obviously, these were, these were the days before those scanners. TSA and all that, you know, were whatever, uh, you know, I don’t know that that plan came to fruition but he claimed that it was oh, Chaga was not paying me to kill the judge. He was paying me for some drugs. I was doing a drug deal and helping in that, you know, I don’t know that I believe that to be the case. But but that was a claim he made so yeah, I mean, I think he was involved in some low level low level drug deals here and there. I think he was a guy you know, he’s a freelance criminal right. It was Yeah. You needed you need me to move drugs. You need me to move weapons. You need me to kill somebody? You know, I’m available, um, for hire.

13:40
I mean, they’ve drawn the parallels between him and Woody Harrelson character in Natural Born Killers also headers. Yeah,

13:48
you know, another interesting was No Country for Old Men. Yeah. In the Cormac McCormack novel that he references. They killed the judge in 79. He’s referring to the judge would assassination. And then would he plays a hitman in No Country for Old Men? That’s right. And that was ironic. Yeah.

14:07
Art imitates life.

14:09
Yeah. Oh, and I’m sure I’m sure the connection wasn’t lost on him. I’m sure

14:14
he would. No, I’m sure it wasn’t because he was he was pretty heavily involved in and his dad’s life later on after he gets convicted and goes to the penitentiary. I talked to a guard up there. And he said, Yeah, he said he used to come in all the time. He says really nice guy. So what else about Harrelson that you think it’s important as is he will meanders through the seamy underbelly of South and Midwest, Texas, mid Texas. And if you’re in Las Vegas,

14:42
I mean, one thing that was interesting, we found you know, he claimed he told anybody who would listen that he was involved in the JFK assassination. You know, I spoke to multiple people who he had personally told them. Yeah, I did that. And so we were looking into what’s the veracity of that, you know, is any of that true? Is there even a realm of possibility of a world in which he could have been involved? And one of the things that was interesting we found that guy Jerry O’Brien Watkins who abetted in the second murder of Santa Giulia. We found FBI documentation on him. That said he trained in a guerrilla warfare camp down in Cuba three revolution. Well, I can’t remember it was anti, I think it was anti Castro, I’m sorry, which was, you know, the CIA for a long time was trying to get rid of Castro, and at times working with organized crime elements to do so. You know, there’s a lot of theories that the JFK assassination was linked to organized crime to potentially people who had been involved in the Bay of Pigs, Cuban, you know, Cuban exiles who were then unhappy that the program ended to try to try to get rid of Cuba. JFK pulled the plug on that Charles Harrelson. Also, there’s rumors that he knew Jack Ruby that he was smuggling guns down to Cuba potentially. That’s his connection to Jerry O’Brien Watkins. I don’t know. You know, Woody has said that his dad was in the CIA. There didn’t appear to be any proof of that. Yeah. That being said, could he have done some work with some people who were working for the CIA? Yes, entirely possible around around that time beyond that? I mean, I think another guy who He was said to have run with was this guy, Larry Culbreath. Someone told me they believed he was the person who shot Judge Wood and not Charles Harrelson. Larry Culbreath was someone who he killed a guy who was rumored to be the head of the Dixie mafia was found guilty of it did no prison time, which suggests he was at the very least an informant working with police if not more, so there’s you know, there was some some interesting elements there where it’s like, Who are these guys connected to? Who are they working for? Who are they working with? Similarly with Trump Harrelson he kills Santa Giulia he just does five years and then he’s out on the street again Yeah, it’s Texas but it’s it’s a short prison

16:59
it was but when you get into that kind of level of organized crime people that do crime for a living local politicians and even judges prosecutors they people drink and some of the same bars and the and they know each other and there’s these kind of see me businessmen are in and around that too. And they liked that they like to gamble and should they go to the same card games and high stakes card games so I’ve seen this you know, it’s just like what it what is that guy doing with that guy? It just didn’t make sense but usually it’s gambling really Gamble is a big kind of the glue that holds a lot of that together. You know, I believe it that he did have those connections you know that CIA thing during that time that round the Bay of Pigs the CIA was hiring all kinds of Freebooters mob guy out of Chicago whose real name was a tie in but his he went by Richard Kane and he had been a Cook County Sheriff or something up there and he kind of been in around law enforcement and he disappears and he’s down he’s got some kind of a deal down in South Florida work and with a CI I think they hired all kinds of Freebooters like that people wanted to be mercenaries and you know, they went in and ripped him off for some money and train went by coats so it all makes sense now if I remember right, that picture there’s a famous picture of the cops lead knops and people and what I’m kind of looks like Charles Harrelson and wonder if anybody’s ever put up a lot of these AI facial identifications things to match those two.

18:35
So what I’ll say You know, I’ve seen that photo obviously it’s so it’s the three tramps you know the three tramps theory that you know there were actually these guys got picked up from the grassy knoll you know and that that they made you know people who believe there were multiple shooters it wasn’t just Lee Harvey Oswald and one of those guys yes, he looks similar to Charles Harrelson looks later in life back at that point in time you know, I saw a photo of him an ex girlfriend of Charles Harrison’s from high school sent me a photo of him from high school and this was only a few years later and he was a skinny little guy yeah, you know he’s a the the three tramps the guy who people say that looks like Charles Harrelson. It resembles him but he’s like a bigger guy. He’s a little heavier set with Charles Harrelson look like that once he was picked up for the judge would assassination but that’s in 79. That’s, that’s yeah, that’s ages later. Personally, I don’t believe that’s him. I will say I think the Harrelson brothers, you know his sons. I believe they they will off the record. I think they believe that he had something to do with it. I don’t think they think he was one of the three tramps, but I also think they enjoy the intrigue surrounds it. You know, it’s interesting when you’re talking about the gambling as the connection between law enforcement and some of these criminals. When I looked back at I found some pages of Charles Harrison’s journal on All from when he was in prison, I didn’t get to see all of it. But from the pages that I did see, he talked about when he was in high school back in Loveland, at Texas, he would go to these gambling, underground gambling dens, and play cards with these guys. And he described like a guy who was a judge a lot of law enforcement guys, and that’s where he picked up gambling. That’s where he learned to do it. And from the time that he was young, he was like a young teenager and he was going to these games and then became a card shark, you know, but yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. That’s, that’s where that comes from. Those connections.

20:37
So his gambling you move moving on a little farther forward. I mean, he he makes contact I would assume with Jimmy Chagra the first time I appears to me, I’m not sure is in Las Vegas, Jimmy Chagra’s like the one of the most audacious, well known gamblers in Las Vegas back in these days, he was bringing truckloads of money and just deposited at Caesar’s Palace casino in their, with their cashier. He didn’t even counted, they waited for him and then figured out about what it was and gave him credit for that. It’s way he washed his money back in those days. So I guess, all those kinds of people, quasi criminals. I mean, a lot of us like to go to Vegas, but those quasi criminals, they like to gamble. They’re gonna get habitated to Vegas. So is that where he first met up with Chad? Great. Did he have a Texas connection? Or was it in?

21:27
I mean, the shock was obviously they’re they’re based in El Paso. But Charles Harrelson first met Jimmy Chaga. I think he met his brother Joe first, but knew of Jimmy Chaga because Jimmy was known to beyond just even throw his money around, you know, he had so much cash like more than he knows what to do with it. So he was he was a big tipper, you know, everybody said he would like give enormous tips and love gambling and gamble on anything. According to Charles Harrelson, in his testimony for the assassination of Judge Wood, he claims that he went to Vegas, trying to get into a card game with Jimmy Chagra so that he could rip them off gambling, they basically got a hold of some dealers, Caesar’s Palace dealers uniforms, were wearing those and then set up a private game in a hotel room, and their plan was to rip off, you know, as many of those as they could, they would cheat a card, you know, these guys were cheating, to try to rip people off. And he claims that that’s why he, you know, initially tried to make contact with Jimmy chakra, according to the FBI, he made contact at that point. And that’s when the this idea of, you know, wanting the judge to get knocked off occurred when that information was shared. Now, there’s conflicting accounts, whether Charles Harrelson and maybe some others went ahead and carried out the assassination, and then said, Hey, pay me. If I did this, now pay me or whether Jimmy Chagra put the word out on the street, I want this judge knocked off. And then, you know, I spoke to one person who said that he believed there were several groups who were basically there was sort of a bounty put out on this judge, several groups were saying, like, Hey, we’re gonna collect on this bounty. And then these are the guys who, who pulled it off. You know, I recently spoke to someone who had, you know, a few names came up in my research. Toward the end when I was trying to determine, you know, did Charles Harrelson actually do this? Did he act alone in carrying out the assassination. And there were a group of names that came up that the FBI had determined, and these people didn’t have anything to do with this. But other people who I’ve spoken to who were more involved, all in the criminal world said, no, these guys were involved in this thing. And one of the names that came up as being part of this group was this guy, honest, Charlie Potter, who, uh, you know, I hadn’t I hadn’t come across him. I just came across the name a few times. In some of these FBI documents. I recently spoke to somebody who had reached out to me who said that, you know, Charlie Potter was on his deathbed. You know, I think he’s still alive. But he’s, he’s close to the end. And he asked him about the judge would assassination and this guy said, I don’t have anything to say about that. Because there’s people who were involved who are still alive. Charles Harrelson is not alive anymore. Jimmy Chagra is not alive anymore. So you know, to me that suggests that there were there was a larger conspiracy here. Charles Harrelson hadn’t acted alone in any of his previous murders that, you know, that we know of. And I would be surprised if he went to, you know, make the biggest assassination of his criminal career and he went alone, without any help. You know, they also found the FBI found a ladder at the Judge Woods apartment complex, they found a ladder against one of the buildings leading to the roof. And they they said to me, oh, yeah, we determined that that didn’t have anything to do with the assassination. How did you determine that? Yeah, really? In what way? You know, wouldn’t surprise me if there were lookouts. Yeah, there were also sketches made you look back at police sketches their sketches made of several different people from that time I think ultimately like they had a case against Charles Harrelson. That was the case that they made because they could you know they could prosecute him and they could put them behind bars for it they needed to put somebody behind bars for it but I do think there was a larger conspiracy hands there among a larger group of people

25:21
that wouldn’t make sense I mean, the way he’s acted before a brought somebody in to help him and then the kind of the intricacy of it to sitting in that parking lot waiting for the judge to come out by yourself and you know, busy come out. I mean, I’ve sat on people and you don’t know when they’re coming down and if you’re you get distracted just a little bit all sudden they’re out and they’re in their car. And so he was you know, obviously, I think he probably had help I wouldn’t be a bit surprised like you said I lucked out with a walkie talkie some other set of eyes on it some other way to you know have a chase car a car that crashed car rather it cops pulled in about that same time, then they some a car to take out the cops, man, it was a pretty important assassination. This was not just going and killing some carpet salesman.

26:11
And bigger money bigger money involved, you know, the bird murderer, I think it was like $5,000 Yeah, like that, you know, it’s nothing. Whereas this 150 $200,000 At the end, you know, it’s a bigger score.

26:21
At least I liked that theory that that Chagra was just mouthing around about somebody to kill that judge. And a guy like Harrelson hears that and he says, hey, hey, let’s go do this. I mean, he just he was that audacious from what I’ve learned about him. He was that audacious. He would just on his own go do that. And he would, he would bring other people in. He didn’t do that. In my opinion. He did not do that alone.

26:49
I agree. I agree. It doesn’t it doesn’t appear to be the case. The official the official story is he did that alone. And it’s interesting he you know, he got found guilty for for it but Jimmy Shakur got off, but ultimately, I think he just had a much better lawyer.

27:04
Yeah, Oscar Goodman. They paid the case in the century for Oscar good by the get a not guilty for Jimmy Chagra with there was quite a little bit of evidence that piled up plenty. But James Kerr, the prosecutor who worked in judge would court and he was he was ballsy, you know, take no prisoners prosecutor to in this drug business that that court judge would court and that regular prosecutor assigned to that man, they did not want to get in front of them if you were in the drug business and, and somebody tried to kill him just not that long before it was just crazy.

27:39
Yeah, yeah, the quicker we were able to get in touch with him. He was very did not want us to reveal his location. You know, still still a little junk. I mean, hey, he survived getting his car riddled with bullets. Like I could understand you’re a little jumpy after that.

27:57
His brand new Lincoln Continental I read that is his one little pleasure. He allowed himself he had a new Lincoln Continental and they shot

28:06
Yeah, he said his he stopped and his gloves fell. It was a cold day his gloves fell off the seat. He reached down to pick them up. He like he wasn’t that he was just to have the wherewithal to dodge the bullets. He reached down to pick up his gloves and then gunfire opens up on his car. And because he’s driving this big Lincoln Continental, he was protected. Yeah. And they drove off without affirming that they had made the kill. And he survived the thing and then went into went into protection protective custody. And Judge Wood refused. You know, they were giving him they had people curse said You know, he had people basically living in his house. Judge Wood was the same thing. They had people stationed in his house and at some point he was like I can’t I can’t live like this Yeah, you know get the hell out of here. And ultimately he did get assassinated you know,

28:55
I know it was crazy now there are a short period of time assanation attempt of Wood, I mean Kerr, Lee Chagra was killed it which turned out to be a drug rip off and then judge would has killed its and that’s Jimmy Chagra’s brother guys had you know a lot more about him from the next podcast after this I’m gonna go into the murder of Lee Chagra big time but just crazy crazy time during that

29:19
it’s It’s wild. And you know at first at first glance you start going whoa, is this some kind of insane conspiracy that involves more than this the lead death and particularly Shah Gregor, like is this connected to this? You know, is this connected to this assassination attempt and then this other murder but Yeah, apparently no. Initially, I was thinking oh, maybe there’s some connection here that people haven’t drawn yet looking into it further. Yeah, just looks like it’s a random robbery gone wrong.

29:47
I think even kind of speculate a little bit. I think even Jimmy Chaga he thought maybe the government had killed his brother and then let’s go kill somebody else with the government. So you know,

29:58
yeah, and I think paranoid I set in for Jimmy. By all accounts his brother Lee was, you know, it’s his older brother who’s a successful defense attorney and who believed that Lee would you know if Jimmy got into trouble that Lee would be able to get him out of it because he was an excellent attorney. And now Lee is murdered and Jimmy is lost to the safety net.

30:18
I had never thought about it like that, that now he didn’t have Lee and he’s looking to go in front of judge would without lay. He feels naked. I got a feeling. Yeah, yeah, trust. Yeah, really. And

30:30
that’s how it’s been described to me. Yeah, and it makes sense and then for the career assassination attempt, you know, they linked it to some guys out of New England some organized crime guys out of New England having been involved in that but you know, it does look as if Jimmy Shaw gra had connections to those guys through like Folly Cove they were bringing marijuana up through through the was a Massachusetts

30:55
Massachusetts Yeah, yeah, yep.

30:57
And so right so because of that they had to you know, pay their pay their dues to the to Hinckley guys

31:05
never go I think one last thing here. Harrelson Charles Harrelson, this woman she bought the gun she was intimately involved in this whole thing. She was part of the pay off money and everything. What do you remember about her? What kind of a woman is this that Joanne Harrelson was so involved in this thing? Like I said, she bought the gun. I know that if I remember right, they definitely tried. Yeah, they got out of the buying that sniper rifle. Right? I got it got

31:32
They got her fingerprints on the contract to buy the gun or the license to get the gun, whatever it was. It was it seemed like she knew about his his criminal activities that she was intimately involved in it. As far as you know, she passed away. So I didn’t get a chance to speak with her from accounts. You know, Charles was, I don’t know, was the nicest partner. I could imagine. Oh, there were accounts of him being abusive of him, whatever. So whether Joanne was doing that stuff out of fear for her life, whether she was just doing it as she’s gonna benefit from this, too? I’m not sure. I do know that there were attempts made to get her to flip on him. I know that Larry Culbreath was said to have been driving her to the courthouse every day for the hearing for the trial, which, you know, is that an intimidation thing? Don’t you know don’t say anything? Or is it just they’re going you know, to bring her to the courthouse, but yet, as she was intimately involved in it, they tried turn they found because they were recording his all the visits to the prison, right? They had wiretaps, they’re recording his conversations. So they’re recording his conversations with her and then through those wiretaps they found that he was actually sleep he was having an affair with her doll otter as well. And so through that it was his stepdaughter, you know that they were then tried to turn her on Charles by saying hey, he’s been sleeping with your daughter quarters you still want to you still want to stick your neck out for this guy. There’s a messy thing I think he had a lot of different female visitors who they found oh wow, this guy’s got relationships with all different people here Yeah. And he’s you know telling them all promising all the world you know when I get out of here

33:23
Yeah. Hey, there’s there’s guys in every penitentiary out there exactly like that. I’ll be exactly like that they’ll even talk to me they helping them break out I have no one instance of that or the woman ended up getting killed when she tried to hijack a helicopter to land and get her man out of prison. So I made the ultimate and codependency here I think. Yeah, that was like codependency as we just had a discussion at work about how there’s more women in prison because of codependency because they get some man or some drug addict mad or some dude that they want to serve. They want to make him happy. They want to keep him happy because they’re in this relationship are so dependent on the relationship that they’ll go out and do stuff that then ends up putting them in the penitentiary. Yeah, that’s yeah, that in common?

34:13
I think you’re right. Like it’s a combination of intimidation, but also there’s that like, the seduction that’s happening there and then that codependency I think you’re absolutely right. Yeah, there you know, Charles Harrelson actually did attempt to break out of prison, which is how he ended up in supermax. He fashioned a rope ladder out of prison sheets wasn’t even long enough to get over the wall. But he and two other inmates attempted an escape, the guards fired a warning shot and they stopped they gave in they surrendered. And then it was that it was anything. supermax you know, I I’m trying to remember which which prison he was in at that point. I think it must have been Leavenworth. Yeah,

34:52
those walls are high.

34:56
And when he had been in jail, prior to the Berg trial, he attempted an escape where they found a gun in his cell that had gotten smuggled in somehow. They said he had been paying off the guards to like let lady friend visit. Yeah, so might have been how that gun ended up in his cell, but the guards found it before he was able to use it to get out. But yeah,

35:20
crazy. And I’ve heard another story exactly like that, where the guy ended up with a God and his jail cell because she was just so infatuated. He was like a total professional criminal had been all of his life kind of a master criminal. And she smuggled him in the gun and he ends up in a shootout with the guards and one of them kills him. So it’s not not unheard of. All right, Jason Kavanaugh, son of a Hitman is a podcast. It’s really good podcast guys. I know people listening well, I list of many podcasts. So I want to promote this one because I think it’s worthwhile to listen to it was a good one I was. I listened to every episode all the way through and was was really entertained. But they uneducated, too. I really appreciate that. You did that, Jason? Well, thank you so much. I appreciate you having me on. This is a part right? Well, guys, don’t forget, I like to ride motorcycles. And so look out for motorcycles. And you’re out there. If you have a problem, PTSD, and you’ve been in the service, go to the VA website and get that hotline number, you’ll get some help there. If you have a problem with drugs or alcohol, go see our friend, former Gambino member Anthony ruggiano. And he’s we’re in the treatment center business down in Florida. You can go into treatment center business and have a counselor who used to be a mob guy when you know. And you can find the hotline number. He’s got it on his website, Anthony ruggiano.com. So thanks a lot, guys. Thanks a lot, Jason.

36:47
All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you

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