February 2, 2023 • 38 mins
Stanford’s path finally crosses with the man behind Intercept’s operations, dashing drug smuggler Lamar Chester. Their encounter raises serious questions as to Intercept’s underlying interest in Stanford- and their understanding of who is really employing him.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Murder in Miami is a production of iHeartRadio. Previously on
Murder in Miami. Stanford was all too willing to dive
into the new role of private investigator.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I was an utter failure at it. I said, Bob,
I'm sorry. I said, oh, don't worry about it. And
he pulled out a roll of bills, peeled off five hundreds,
and he said, good work.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Why didn't the police or Intercept ever get to the
bottom of who killed Clay Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
It was a strange funeral anyway. Standing in the back
end of the trailer were about four or five very
big guys, obviously detectives. They were there to send a message.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
As far as the family's concerned. They never had any
true answers as to who murdered Clay or why.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I had understood from Clay that these were former intelligence
people from the federal government, whether it's CIA, Army intelligence,
they were all associated.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
I think maybe Intercept had something to do with this death.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I certainly didn't think so at the time, but the
more we look into it, the more possible it seems.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So what was the tie between the Central Intelligence Agency
and Miami.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It's still an open murder case in Miami Dade and
they can't find the papers. Makes you wonder, doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Following up nineteen eighty's record of five hundred and seventy
three murders, nineteen eighty one would become Miami's deadliest year
to date. Just seven months into nineteen eighty one, Miami's
homicide count was already at two hundred and ninety six.
By the end of the year, the number would reach
six hundred and twenty one. Clay Williams was just one
(02:00):
of those murders. Perhaps that violence played into this strange
and surreal time. Bill Stamford soon found himself navigating before
his path would cross in person with Lamar Chester. I'm
Lauren bred Pacheco, and this is murder in Miami.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
So it's nineteen eighty two and basically I'm hanging out
of the car Doza doing odd jobs for Intercept now
and then. But after a while the jobs head Interceptor
are drying up. Bob tells me that he can't hire
me full time unless I have a private investigator's license.
So I put in for the license, but they tell
me it'll take several months to get it. So right
(02:54):
about that I actually made some money selling ads for
telephone time and temperature for a guy named Uncle Dudley
who wore an ice cream suit and was really quite
a character himself. Today is Friday, June third, The current
time eleven forty five pm and the temperature seventy five degrees.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
How did you connect with him?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
That was another Ruth connection from Alabama. I'm sure she'd
met him back there.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Was it enough to pay the rent?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah? I wasn't making that much money, but it was
enough to get by on. I was really kind of
drifting at that point, So that's why I decided how
to go back to Washington, D C. And see what
was cooking back there?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Were you second guessing your decision to walk away from
your career.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
It's always sort of in the back of my mind.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I suppose Phil, you downplay it, but you had some
serious bylines before you moved to Miami. I mean, major
articles in the New York Times, the Columbia Journalism Review
on defense and intelligence matters. That's an extreme impressive level
of success as a journalist.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Uh, yeah, I suppose. So what you've got to understand
I guess I've been trying to figure this out myself
as we've gotten along with the podcast, is what effect
that had on me? And head on all this? Yeah,
I wrote several pieces for the New York Times magazine.
One piece I did for them to cover story about
nuclear missile submarines. It was a big success by journalistic standards.
(04:26):
All the major magazines in Europe reprinted it. Readers, Digest,
the New Yorker wrote a Talk of the Town article
about it. So I sat back and waited for the reaction.
I guess I expected the legislatures of the world to
do something recognizing the essential insanity of the nuclear arms race.
(04:47):
Once again, how dumb can you be? And shortly after that,
the New York Times asked me to do another piece.
This went on terrorism, and I knew this from my
dealings with them so far that it probably never even printed.
That they wouldn't want to hear what I had to
say about the terror bombing of North Vietnam, or the
Ragun or the Stern Gang. So I punted. That's when
(05:11):
I began my retreat. I took a job on that
little political magazine we've talking about. I dropped out, went
to Miami, wrote some crime stories for the Miami News,
and ended up working for Intercept.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Is it safe to say that you were disillusioned?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, except that I'd never really had that many illusions,
So I guess it cou'd be more accurate to say
I was printed out.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Maybe sitting around and hearing the former CIA and intelligence
guys it Intercept somewhat reignited Stanford's inner investigative urges, or
maybe it just made a missus former beat a bit.
But Bill decided to make a trip back to Washington
to reconnect with some former contacts, only to find some
doors had closed during his time away.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
I'd only been away for a little over a year,
I guess, but going it seemed like a very strange place,
especially after the intensity of what I had felt in Miami.
And one thing was apparent right away. Everyone knew I'd
gotten off the ladder to success. And I think whether
(06:17):
they thought of that consciously or not entered into all
their considerations, or maybe they just sensed as I did,
that Miami had changed me somewhat in what way I'd
really gotten to see a glimpse into the way things
really work. Before everything had been sort of abstract nuclear strategy,
(06:38):
mega tonage political programs, that sort of thing. And along
the way it had occurred to me that the people
I considered the real criminals were the people who were
running things in Washington and other places.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Like that, a realization that led Stamford to reach out
to a like minded connection.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
So I got in touch with an old friend, Sheen,
who had but I suppose most people would call a
radical peace and justice organization called the Christic Institute in Washington.
He was a Harvard trained lawyer. They were associated with
the Jesuits, and they used the legal system to achieve
(07:18):
their ends.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
The Christic Institute was a non profit public interest law
firm founded in nineteen eighty by Danny Shean, his wife
Sarah Nelson, and a Jesuit priest named William Davis. The
firm was a unique and revolutionary model for social reform,
combining investigation, litigation, and education while mobilizing public support for
(07:39):
worthy causes. They sought to wield the law as a
weapon of progressive change against a number of daunting targets
like the KKK, the American Nazi Party, as well as
corrupt cops and federal agents.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Bob Adams, the guys head of the Detective Agency, had
been part of a military intelligence unity in Europe that
provided logistical support for assassinations conducted by the United States,
and I thought it offered a way to prove that
power did. Indeed, this is Mao's dictum. I believe that
(08:18):
power came from the barrel of a gun. I mean,
it probably sounded as stupid then as naive as it
does now, but that's how I was thinking. And in
any case, Danny offered me a monthly stipend of twenty
five hundred dollars a month, which was more than I
usually made as a freelance writer, for sure, And I
(08:40):
put everything in the car again and went back to Wyomi.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
So now you're basically working as a private investigator, investigative
journalist investigating Intercept, a private investigation from.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
So you're lucky you didn't get yourself killed.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, I suppose so, although I don't know, maybe Bob
would have sort of enjoyed the deviousness of it.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
That investigating Intercept would prove a bit inconvenient.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
The funny part is that when I got back, I
went out to the office in Parne and it was closed.
It was shut down. There wasn't even a sign on
the door. Anymore that said Intercept. I should have known
something was up. When I was in DC. I'd gotten
a call from Ruth saying that a couple of federal
agents had knocked on her door one evening and asked
(09:39):
to talk to me. She said I'd moved out and
gone to Miami Beach some time ago, and she didn't
have a clue where I was. Then after they left,
of course, she called me and told me what had happened.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Did you wonder what they wanted?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Well, I knew it had something to do with Intercept,
but no, as far as I could see, I hadn't
done anything illegal. So I just sort of pushed it
out of my mind and forgot about it.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And at this point you also had a new girlfriend
who was probably a wonderful distraction.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Probably more than a distraction. Actually, yeah, I met Nicky
one night. There's a party on the roof of the
Cardozo and she was there with a girlfriend and struck
me as a slightly shorter version of Melanie Griffith, which
I liked very much.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Depending upon your age, you'd likely know actress Melanie Griffith
from films like Working Girl or Bonfire of the Vanities,
or as the daughter of Tipp Hendron, or the mother
of Dakota Johnson, who Griffith had with her then husband
Don Johnson, the star of Miami weis. For those unfamiliar
with any of the aforementioned, let's just say Phil found
(10:54):
Mickey very attractive.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
So there I was, after a hiatus in Washington, d C.
Back in Miami or Miami Beach to be precise, or
even more precise, hanging out at the good old Cardozo
looking out at the ocean, getting twenty five hundred dollars
a month from the Christic Institute, doing virtually nothing.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
That doesn't sound like such a bad life, no kidding.
And it was also an oddly unstructured, somewhat surreal period
in Stanford's life.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
It was a great time. It was a strange time.
There was this jazz combo that played at the Cardoza
several nights a week, and I got to be friends
with a saxophone player whose name I can't remember now,
but I know he came from New Jersey and he
was down in Miami Beach hanging out with the rest
of us ne'er do wells. And he'd kid me seeing
(11:50):
me spending all the time on the porch at the
car Dozo, without any apparent source of income, and he says, Stanford,
what is your scan? What is your scam? And of
course I couldn't say I was getting paid for spying
on a detective agency that, for all practical purposes, didn't
exist anymore, but was affront for a major drug operation
(12:11):
with CIA connections that may or may not exist. So
I just smiled at him, and he'd say it again,
what is your scam? And it was a big joke
between us. Anyway. One day he said he was out
of towels, and so I said, well, I've got some
extra ones in my room. So I gave him three
(12:34):
or four towels and said just give him back to
me when you're done, and didn't think again about it
for another four or five weeks when it hit me
that the son of a gun still had my towels.
Although it's probably worth mentioning that that we hadn't so
much as mentioned the dawn towels since the day I
gave them to him. Problem was I didn't have his
(12:55):
phone number, so no way to call him, but I
knew that he lived down the beach about four blocks
and then a block back in a corner hotel there.
So I hopped in my Volkswagen van, which is what
I was driving then, and drove down Ocean Drive, turned
right one block and there he was standing on the corner,
(13:16):
almost at attention, elbows at his side, palms up, holding
my towels in front of him, all laundered and neatly folded,
and he said something like I thought you might be
needing these, and he handed them to me through the window.
I took the towels and said thank you very much,
exchanged a few more words, and I drove off.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
So he just knew you were going to drive up.
That sounds like something out of a David Lynch movie.
What do you How do you explain that? Like mental telepathy,
whatever you.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Call it, You know, I've seen it so many times.
There are ways of communicating that we don't normally recognize.
Or synchronicity or meaningful coincidence is another way into that
particular world. And I think everyone is probably capable of
that sort of thing. Some are more susceptible than others,
(14:15):
and people are more susceptible at different times of their lives.
I think it has a lot to do with being
in a position where you're not necessarily governed by the
expectations that we've all had ingrained in us. This was
sort of that time for me. I was floating as
(14:35):
going with the flow.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
So, I mean, I know you were dealing with the
divorce and the change of profession and a new place
to live. But do you think on some level you
were in some sort of altered reality.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
No, I think it's perhaps a more real reality. I
think usually we allow ourselves to live in a more
limited reality. That's probably a discussion for another time.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Okay, back to Miami Beach. In nineteen eighty three, Bill
would eventually move into Mickey's hipster apartment building, which would
later be converted into a private mansion for designer Gianni Versace,
the same location where Versace was murdered in nineteen ninety
seven by spree killer Andrew Cananen. But in the early
nineteen eighties it was far from glamorous, even though it
(15:39):
was called the Amsterdam Palace.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
Here's Mickey Relliot. It wasn't a palace, but you know
what I mean, Well.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Describe the building at that time and the neighborhood that
it sat in.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
Okay, so it's a building that was a replicant of
Christopher Columbus's House in Dominican Republic, something like that. It
was built in nineteen twenty two, so it was not
included in the Art Deco movement or buildings that were
being showcased for Our Deco. In fact, people in our
(16:12):
building were always insulted. We were never part of the
Our Deco movement.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
But Goes.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
Really the building wasn't our Deco, and it was gorgeous,
and all along the building, Lauren, there were all these
plaques of socialists like Emma Goldman, and all the apartments
were inside, you know, looked inside into the main courtyard
with SLLT toraszo.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Oh, that's so cool it was.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
And I had only found it because my friend wanted
to go and buy beads on Lincoln Road, and then
we drove up Ocean Drive and I had her stop
the car because I just couldn't believe how beautiful this
building was. And it had this beautiful bronze statue outside
of a crouching woman, and I thought, oh my god,
there's a rent sign, and I just went in met
(16:58):
the woman who was like eighty something was managing it,
and I rented the room.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Would you say that the building was, as the neighborhood
a bit in decline at the time.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Absolutely?
Speaker 5 (17:10):
How did I get to live there? I mean when
I would invite people that I met in Miami to
come over to the Amsterdam Palace, they were like, ugh,
who could live there? Not the Amsterdam Palace necessarily, but
who would live on South Beach.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
Wow? Things have changed.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Yeah, At the time, Amsterdam Palace and Miami Beach weren't
exactly prime real estate or a prized destination location.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
And when I moved there, they had the whole beach
filled with the mary Alitos. You could smell the chicken
barbecuing for.
Speaker 6 (17:44):
Miles because they had the whole beach, like from fifteenth
to fifth. Wow, that area was really rife with a
lot of things happening, like not great things.
Speaker 5 (17:56):
I think my car was broken into a bunch of times.
You had to be really careful where you were walking.
And I worked a couple of jobs, so when I
came home at night, it was really kind of scary
to go into the building because now it's all protected,
but then it was completely open. Anybody could come up
to my louver door apartment.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Miami at that time was known for drug related crimes,
especially homicides. How prevalent and present was that on a
daily basis? Was that always simmering under the surface.
Speaker 5 (18:33):
Yeah, I would say that there was always something going on.
Like before I moved into the Amsdam Palace, I'd lived
with my sister in this other house.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Mickey and her sister rented rooms in a house from
a family who had teenage kids. One day, their father
basically disappeared.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
They were at the end of high school and their
father flew drugs to Columbia and they never heard from
the father again. Somebody knew somebody that was drug related.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
It's so interesting because there's this quote I read on
Miami that you could choose not to do drugs, you
could choose not to associate with people who did drugs
or soul drugs, But at the end of the day,
living in Miami at that time, you could not escape
the reality.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
Of drugs, right.
Speaker 5 (19:19):
I would agree with that one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
At the time Mickey was dating Phil, she was busy
going to school and working two jobs, one as a waitress,
but the drug culture still seeped in.
Speaker 5 (19:32):
I remember I was working at Tony Roma's and I
had a table that was like three couples, and they
ordered the most expensive double Johnny Walker blacks and then
they wouldn't drink it. And then they ordered all the food,
like all the things that you could order. They ordered everything,
and they didn't eat it.
Speaker 7 (19:52):
And then they threw all these hundred dollars bills on
the table, and I'm thinking, oh, that's a first for me,
you know, like a fifteen hundred dollars tip after they
paid for the drinks and food that they didn't eat.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
They were too coked up.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yeah, that wasn't the set or scene you'd associate with
the Amsterdam Palace, though.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Here's phil Miami Beach was still in its tumble downstage,
and so the owner's Amsterdam Palace had divided the entire
place into studios and apartments.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Fortuitously, or maybe just in keeping with his experiences at
the time, Bill had secured the studio next to Mickey's.
As the relationship progressed, so did their living spaces.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
After a few weeks, we took down the door between
our studios and had one big apartment.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
We had a pretty fabulous place.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
It was on the water, and I remember being transfixed
from time to time by the beauty of the place,
looking out of the apartment through the curved window of
the masonry wall, so everything's framed in white, looking out
at the bright blue sky, the blue green sea lit
with sun, the heavy green of a palm frond against them,
(21:09):
and thinking the world is such a beautiful place and
we have done nothing to deserve.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
It, And that picturesque location would soon attract the attention
of a then unknown television show about to begin filming
in Miami.
Speaker 8 (21:25):
I think they started scouting, probably eighty three four, because
I wanted to see my place and the guy in
the front place and I said, Oh, what are you
scouting for?
Speaker 5 (21:36):
And he goes, oh, Miami Vice. And I go, what's
it going to be about? He said, Cocaine? I said,
do we really need that glorizing cocaine?
Speaker 2 (21:50):
I remember one morning waking up looking out the door
that opened onto the courtyard, and there were these two
guys coming out of two different doors. Or is one
wearing a lavender sport coat another wearing a salmon colored
sport coat, dropping down into the classic two hands on
a pistol pose that TV detectives anyway always do it.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
But Bill's own private investigator slash detective adventures were proving
a lot less glam or busy now that Intercept had
shuttered its doors.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
So finally I tracked down Bob and we get together.
I don't think it was at the Cardozo Parane Pub,
probably was, and Bob tells me, turns out that Lamar
has been under federal investigation for some time now, something
called Operation Loan Star, and it's a very big deal.
Grand jury's in Houston, Atlanta, and Miami.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Which is likely why the Feds were looking for you
in the first place.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yeah, so the smart thing Bob figures is to adopt
a low profile. He's doing business from home now, he's
working as a bodyguard, guardian, money shipments, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
So where does that leave you in terms of your
fledgling private investigator career?
Speaker 2 (23:06):
So there really isn't much for me to do, not
an intercept anyway, And it turns out not in my
new career as a spy for the Christic Institute either,
because it turns out Bob doesn't really know much more
about the assassination business than he's already told me. He
was in an Army security agency unit in Frankfurt, Germany,
(23:26):
sort of enlisted man level jobs providing logistical support. But
he does remember is one of these things. He says
with the giggle that every five years, some shavetail lieutenant
who probably has no idea what he's talking about or why,
shows up at his door in Miami and reminds him
he's still bound by his strict oath of security.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
And he found that amusing.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Bob was always amused by how foolish or corrupt the
world always proved itself to be. And as far as
the case against Lamar, he says, that's really nothing to
worry about either. Oh, sure, there's an indictment coming down,
but Lamar's got everything under control. He's got the best
lawyers in the world working for him. He's already got
a change of venue to Northern Georgia, where he's got
(24:13):
everyone bought off, and everybody had intercept with their intelligence connections,
has already made their deals and been dropped from the indictment.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Well, he's certainly right about the fact that there were
significant indictments involved.
Speaker 9 (24:32):
Tilton Lamar, Chester forty five, a former Eastern Airlines pilot,
is one of twelve people charged in a major federal
investigation dubbed Operation Loan.
Speaker 10 (24:41):
Star, thirty six count indictment accuses Tilton Lamar Chester Junior.
Speaker 5 (24:45):
A Chester led a large smuggling organization.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
In the fall of nineteen eighty three. Those indictments were
National News.
Speaker 10 (24:54):
A Georgia drug runner who federal authorities say engineered a
drug smuggling and money launderings.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
SKI government agents received information that international drug smuggler Lamar Chester.
Speaker 10 (25:06):
Charging that Chester led a large smuggling organization.
Speaker 9 (25:09):
From the island he controlled in the Bahamas to his
native Georgia and perhaps to a dozen other states.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
For some background, the Bahamas are comprised of an extensive
chain of seven hundred islands and twenty four hundred low
banks or reefs of coral, rock or sand called keys,
spanning an area roughly the size of California, extending from
Florida's coast on the northwest almost to Haiti on the southeast.
(25:36):
The area has a long and notorious history of illicit activity.
Pirates use the Bahamas as their preferred port because of
its plentiful small islands, shallow waters, and coves, which served
as ideal hiding places. The shallow waters were also perfect
for the smaller faster boats favored by pirates, but too
(25:56):
shallow for the larger man of warships, often in their pursuit.
From nineteen seventeen to nineteen thirty three, when prohibition became
the law of the land in America, Bahamas played an
important part becoming an ideal hub for alcohol smuggling, offering
numerous secretive places where alcohol could be stored en route
(26:17):
to America. All of the above made the Bahamas an
obvious destination location for drug smugglers looking to carve out
their share of profiting off of America's insatiable and ever
evolving appetite for illegal intoxicants. Okay, back to Chester's indictment.
(26:37):
I'm reading from the October fourth, nineteen eighty three issue
of The New York Times under the headline group and
Bahamas charged in big Narcotic conspiracy. Federal prosecutors unseled a
thirty six count indictment today charging that a Northeastern Georgia
man led a large smuggling organization that shipped marijuana and
(26:58):
cocaine into the United States from a base in the Bahamas.
The indictment charged Tilton Lamar Chester Junior, forty five years
Old of Cleveland, Georgia, and eleven others with drug offenses
and conducting a criminal enterprise in a pattern of racketeering.
It asserted that the group ran an organization that purchased
the Darby Islands, a small group in the Bahamas as
(27:21):
a base through which to move drugs from Jamaica and
Columbia into the United States. Other defendants named in the
article are Chester's attorney Lance Eisenberg, and another smuggler you'll
hear much more about going forward, Ronald Elliott. And just
a few days after the indictment is made public, Lamar
is back in the news again.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
The indictment said Chester had houses and aircraft hangar and
an airstrip built on the islands for use in the
drug operation, and.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Lamar is actually interviewed on an Atlanta television station saying,
this is a paraphrase, Yes, I did it. I flew
two hundred loads into the country. But I did it
with the ok of the CIA and the DEA. And
if the federal government is foolish enough to put me
on trial for this, I'm going to tell everything I
(28:13):
know about what the government's been up to. And I
have enough evidence to shake the US government to its core.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
And so what did Bob think of all this?
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Bob couldn't be enjoined anymore. Lamar is so sure he's
going to win, which means they'll drop the case before
it even goes to trial. That he's got his lawyers
spending half their time just trying to get his pilot's
license back. When they indicted him, they took away his
pilot's license just to punish him. Bob says, Lamar loves
(28:47):
to fly, and he's got this little piper cub in
addition to the planes he uses for the smuggling business,
that he likes to fly for fun over his ranch
up in northern Georgia.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Well, what did you make about this? What did you
think of Chester's gray mail defense? For anyone not familiar
with the term, gray mail, like blackmail, implies the threat
of revealing, compromising, or damaging information in exchange for benefit,
except gray mail specifically threatens the revelation of state secrets
in order to manipulate legal proceedings.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Well, to tell the truth, I really didn't know I
was were, of course that in the fifties and sixties
and into the seventies, the United States, the CIA had
been involved in using drugs to finance off the books
wars in Asia. And I knew, of course that the
guys in Intercept had intelligence connections. One had even been
(29:45):
overt station chief of the Miami station during the Bay
of Pig's time. But that didn't prove anything. Maybe it
was true, maybe it wasn't. For all I know, Lamar
might just be making it up.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
And at this point, you hadn't yet men Lamar in person, right.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
No, I still hadn't met Lamar. But the next thing
I know, I get this call from Bob saying that
Lamar wants to meet me at the Mutiny, which of
course is the hangout for all the premier drug smugglers
in Miami.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
So why in the world would he want to meet
you at that point and at that place, given that
he's already been indicted.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
That's what I'm wondering too.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Located on the Bay in Coconut Grove and first open
in nineteen sixty nine, the Mutiny Hotel was known for
its glitzy, debauchery and decadence. At one point in the
nineteen seventies, the Mutiny earned the distinction of selling more
dom Perigno champagne than any other venue in America. Much
of it served in hot tubs. The venue had one
(31:01):
hundred and thirty rooms, including lavishly decorated fantasy themed suites
with names like the Egyptian Suite, Gypsy Caravan, the Bordello,
Hot Fudge, and Outer Space. Guests are said to have
included the likes of Chaer, Jacqueline Onassis, led Zeppelin, George Bush,
and Fleetwood Mac. By the eighties, it had infamously morphed
(31:24):
into a cocaine cooled membership based Miami hot spot where
notorious drug traffickers partied alongside celebrities, politicians, and the drug
and law enforcement agents who were there under the guise
of monitoring the action. It also had a rapidly growing
reputation as the destination location for cocaine. Its infamous nightclub
(31:48):
served as the inspiration for the Babylon Club.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
In the movie Scarface.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Oliver Stone, al Pacino and the rest of the casting
crew even checked into the mutiny during the filming for
research purposes.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Back to fill, so I go to the Mutiny with Bob.
There must be about two or three on a weekday afternoon,
so the place isn't really bustling yet. Lamar isn't there
yet either or else he has other business to attend to.
So Bob and I start drinking and drinking, and the
Mutiny was a new luxury hotel and coconut grove. There
(32:27):
were tables in the main barroom with telephones on each one,
sort of old style. This is pre cell phone days.
And it's where all the drug dealers hung out and
made deals and very conspicuous deals. And of course all
the DEA agents had memberships too, so they could sit
there and watch the drug dealers. And outside there were
(32:49):
several outdoor bars placed around the grounds of the hotel
with big umbrellas above them, pretty Cuban girls serving drinks.
Bob and I must have stopped at all of them
while we were waiting for them, so you guys must
have been pretty tipsy by the time Chester walked in. Well,
finally Lamar shows up. We're waiting in his room and
he breezes in. Yeah, because always we've had to drink
(33:12):
by The recollection is a little bit hazy at some points,
but I do remember thinking he looked a little bit
slighter than I had expected from all of Bob's heroic
descriptions of him. And I was also struck by what
I remember is sort of a lounge lizard mustache, but
that was something that I think was probably in style
(33:33):
back in the seventies.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
What do you mean by the lounge lizard mustache?
Speaker 2 (33:38):
That he had what struck me as sort of a
drug store cowboy mustache might expect to see in a
show in Las Vegas or something like that.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Do you remember what he was wearing?
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Nothing flicy shirt, jeans, loafers. So we start talking nothing
special at first, How you doing? What do you think
the mutiny? That sort of thing, Nothing about the indictment
or his threat to spill the beans on the CIA
and shake the government to its core. When out of
the blue, Lamar says, with that big old door to
(34:13):
door salesman smile of his, I bet you're wondering why
I invited you down here, right. I must have mumbled
something I don't remember exactly what I asked Bob, and
Bob said, Lamar will explain it when we get there,
and Lamar says, well, I just want you to know
that I appreciate what you're doing here, but I sure
(34:34):
as hell wish you and your boys back in Washington
would get a move on it, out of the blue,
just like that. And I say what, I certainly don't
know what to make of it, And he says, oh,
come on, now, you're with the CIA. Right?
Speaker 4 (34:47):
Wait? He thought you were with the CIA. Why?
Speaker 2 (34:54):
I had no idea At the time. I didn't even
believe it was real. But then nothing I'd been doing
was quite real either. The work I did for the
intercept wasn't all of it quite real? And so why
would this be any less unreal? I suppose? And I say, oh,
(35:15):
I'm not with a CIA, at which point he nudges
my shoulder with his elbow and in a friendly way.
I mean, he's smiling. He says, good boy, that's just
what you would say. And it hasn't hit me yet.
But I'm in a very odd situation. The more I
deny it, the more he believes I'm with the CIA.
There's no way I can convince him otherwise.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
So how did that meeting end?
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Well, maybe I say a couple more times, I'm not
with the CIA. I don't remember that, Or maybe it's
since he's as far as he's concerned, my denial has
already proved that I am with the CIA. We have
just some more small talk, and then Bob and I
stumble off, drunkard than skunks, starting to get now and
on our way back to Miami Beach, I asked Bob
(36:03):
if Lamar is kidding? It still hasn't sunk that any
of this is real? Does he really believe I'm with
the CIA? And very solemnly Bob says, yes he does.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
What about, Bob? Did he think you were with the CIA?
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Too? That's what's even more incredible. But it won't dawn
on me till some time later. Is that, Bob the
guy who hired me in the first place? For goodness sake?
I think so too.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
So as Stanford staggered home, his head was spinning, and
not just because of the alcohol. But his night was
far from over, and a hangover wouldn't be the only
thing he'd regret the next morning. On the next Murder
of Miami, looking into Clay's death, Letes further into the
(36:56):
mystery of dashing pilot Lamar Chester and to his inner circle,
including a legendary former cocaine smuggler, Heglarder.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Did you quit loving me? Happy? Miles? Here? Give me
a call.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Mister Miles was a close business associate and friend of
Intercept's biggest client, Lamar Chester.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
And he was flying guns then to Nicaragua.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
And did he tell you who he was running the
guns for?
Speaker 7 (37:27):
I would imagine the CIA was running that show.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
Like Icarus.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
All these guys would eventually fly a bit too close
to the sun.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
They all got burned except Happy, Except Happy.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Murder of Miami is a production of iHeart Radio. Executive
producers are Lauren bred Pacheco, Taylor Chicogne, and Phil Stamford.
Written by Phil Stamford and Lauren brad Pacheco, Audio editing
and sound designed by Nicholas Harder, Evan Tyer, and Taylor Chackoine,
featuring music by Evan Tyre, phill Mayer, John Murchison, and
(38:06):
Taylor Chackoine. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that
matter to you.
Murder in Miami is a production of iHeartRadio. Previously on
Murder in Miami. Stanford was all too willing to dive
into the new role of private investigator.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I was an utter failure at it. I said, Bob,
I'm sorry. I said, oh, don't worry about it. And
he pulled out a roll of bills, peeled off five hundreds,
and he said, good work.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Why didn't the police or Intercept ever get to the
bottom of who killed Clay Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
It was a strange funeral anyway. Standing in the back
end of the trailer were about four or five very
big guys, obviously detectives. They were there to send a message.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
As far as the family's concerned. They never had any
true answers as to who murdered Clay or why.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I had understood from Clay that these were former intelligence
people from the federal government, whether it's CIA, Army intelligence,
they were all associated.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
I think maybe Intercept had something to do with this death.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
I certainly didn't think so at the time, but the
more we look into it, the more possible it seems.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
So what was the tie between the Central Intelligence Agency
and Miami.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It's still an open murder case in Miami Dade and
they can't find the papers. Makes you wonder, doesn't it.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Following up nineteen eighty's record of five hundred and seventy
three murders, nineteen eighty one would become Miami's deadliest year
to date. Just seven months into nineteen eighty one, Miami's
homicide count was already at two hundred and ninety six.
By the end of the year, the number would reach
six hundred and twenty one. Clay Williams was just one
(02:00):
of those murders. Perhaps that violence played into this strange
and surreal time. Bill Stamford soon found himself navigating before
his path would cross in person with Lamar Chester. I'm
Lauren bred Pacheco, and this is murder in Miami.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
So it's nineteen eighty two and basically I'm hanging out
of the car Doza doing odd jobs for Intercept now
and then. But after a while the jobs head Interceptor
are drying up. Bob tells me that he can't hire
me full time unless I have a private investigator's license.
So I put in for the license, but they tell
me it'll take several months to get it. So right
(02:54):
about that I actually made some money selling ads for
telephone time and temperature for a guy named Uncle Dudley
who wore an ice cream suit and was really quite
a character himself. Today is Friday, June third, The current
time eleven forty five pm and the temperature seventy five degrees.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
How did you connect with him?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
That was another Ruth connection from Alabama. I'm sure she'd
met him back there.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Was it enough to pay the rent?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah? I wasn't making that much money, but it was
enough to get by on. I was really kind of
drifting at that point, So that's why I decided how
to go back to Washington, D C. And see what
was cooking back there?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Were you second guessing your decision to walk away from
your career.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
It's always sort of in the back of my mind.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I suppose Phil, you downplay it, but you had some
serious bylines before you moved to Miami. I mean, major
articles in the New York Times, the Columbia Journalism Review
on defense and intelligence matters. That's an extreme impressive level
of success as a journalist.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Uh, yeah, I suppose. So what you've got to understand
I guess I've been trying to figure this out myself
as we've gotten along with the podcast, is what effect
that had on me? And head on all this? Yeah,
I wrote several pieces for the New York Times magazine.
One piece I did for them to cover story about
nuclear missile submarines. It was a big success by journalistic standards.
(04:26):
All the major magazines in Europe reprinted it. Readers, Digest,
the New Yorker wrote a Talk of the Town article
about it. So I sat back and waited for the reaction.
I guess I expected the legislatures of the world to
do something recognizing the essential insanity of the nuclear arms race.
(04:47):
Once again, how dumb can you be? And shortly after that,
the New York Times asked me to do another piece.
This went on terrorism, and I knew this from my
dealings with them so far that it probably never even printed.
That they wouldn't want to hear what I had to
say about the terror bombing of North Vietnam, or the
Ragun or the Stern Gang. So I punted. That's when
(05:11):
I began my retreat. I took a job on that
little political magazine we've talking about. I dropped out, went
to Miami, wrote some crime stories for the Miami News,
and ended up working for Intercept.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Is it safe to say that you were disillusioned?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, except that I'd never really had that many illusions,
So I guess it cou'd be more accurate to say
I was printed out.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Maybe sitting around and hearing the former CIA and intelligence
guys it Intercept somewhat reignited Stanford's inner investigative urges, or
maybe it just made a missus former beat a bit.
But Bill decided to make a trip back to Washington
to reconnect with some former contacts, only to find some
doors had closed during his time away.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
I'd only been away for a little over a year,
I guess, but going it seemed like a very strange place,
especially after the intensity of what I had felt in Miami.
And one thing was apparent right away. Everyone knew I'd
gotten off the ladder to success. And I think whether
(06:17):
they thought of that consciously or not entered into all
their considerations, or maybe they just sensed as I did,
that Miami had changed me somewhat in what way I'd
really gotten to see a glimpse into the way things
really work. Before everything had been sort of abstract nuclear strategy,
(06:38):
mega tonage political programs, that sort of thing. And along
the way it had occurred to me that the people
I considered the real criminals were the people who were
running things in Washington and other places.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Like that, a realization that led Stamford to reach out
to a like minded connection.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
So I got in touch with an old friend, Sheen,
who had but I suppose most people would call a
radical peace and justice organization called the Christic Institute in Washington.
He was a Harvard trained lawyer. They were associated with
the Jesuits, and they used the legal system to achieve
(07:18):
their ends.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
The Christic Institute was a non profit public interest law
firm founded in nineteen eighty by Danny Shean, his wife
Sarah Nelson, and a Jesuit priest named William Davis. The
firm was a unique and revolutionary model for social reform,
combining investigation, litigation, and education while mobilizing public support for
(07:39):
worthy causes. They sought to wield the law as a
weapon of progressive change against a number of daunting targets
like the KKK, the American Nazi Party, as well as
corrupt cops and federal agents.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Bob Adams, the guys head of the Detective Agency, had
been part of a military intelligence unity in Europe that
provided logistical support for assassinations conducted by the United States,
and I thought it offered a way to prove that
power did. Indeed, this is Mao's dictum. I believe that
(08:18):
power came from the barrel of a gun. I mean,
it probably sounded as stupid then as naive as it
does now, but that's how I was thinking. And in
any case, Danny offered me a monthly stipend of twenty
five hundred dollars a month, which was more than I
usually made as a freelance writer, for sure, And I
(08:40):
put everything in the car again and went back to Wyomi.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
So now you're basically working as a private investigator, investigative
journalist investigating Intercept, a private investigation from.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
So you're lucky you didn't get yourself killed.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, I suppose so, although I don't know, maybe Bob
would have sort of enjoyed the deviousness of it.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
That investigating Intercept would prove a bit inconvenient.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
The funny part is that when I got back, I
went out to the office in Parne and it was closed.
It was shut down. There wasn't even a sign on
the door. Anymore that said Intercept. I should have known
something was up. When I was in DC. I'd gotten
a call from Ruth saying that a couple of federal
agents had knocked on her door one evening and asked
(09:39):
to talk to me. She said I'd moved out and
gone to Miami Beach some time ago, and she didn't
have a clue where I was. Then after they left,
of course, she called me and told me what had happened.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Did you wonder what they wanted?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Well, I knew it had something to do with Intercept,
but no, as far as I could see, I hadn't
done anything illegal. So I just sort of pushed it
out of my mind and forgot about it.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
And at this point you also had a new girlfriend
who was probably a wonderful distraction.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Probably more than a distraction. Actually, yeah, I met Nicky
one night. There's a party on the roof of the
Cardozo and she was there with a girlfriend and struck
me as a slightly shorter version of Melanie Griffith, which
I liked very much.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Depending upon your age, you'd likely know actress Melanie Griffith
from films like Working Girl or Bonfire of the Vanities,
or as the daughter of Tipp Hendron, or the mother
of Dakota Johnson, who Griffith had with her then husband
Don Johnson, the star of Miami weis. For those unfamiliar
with any of the aforementioned, let's just say Phil found
(10:54):
Mickey very attractive.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
So there I was, after a hiatus in Washington, d C.
Back in Miami or Miami Beach to be precise, or
even more precise, hanging out at the good old Cardozo
looking out at the ocean, getting twenty five hundred dollars
a month from the Christic Institute, doing virtually nothing.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
That doesn't sound like such a bad life, no kidding.
And it was also an oddly unstructured, somewhat surreal period
in Stanford's life.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
It was a great time. It was a strange time.
There was this jazz combo that played at the Cardoza
several nights a week, and I got to be friends
with a saxophone player whose name I can't remember now,
but I know he came from New Jersey and he
was down in Miami Beach hanging out with the rest
of us ne'er do wells. And he'd kid me seeing
(11:50):
me spending all the time on the porch at the
car Dozo, without any apparent source of income, and he says, Stanford,
what is your scan? What is your scam? And of
course I couldn't say I was getting paid for spying
on a detective agency that, for all practical purposes, didn't
exist anymore, but was affront for a major drug operation
(12:11):
with CIA connections that may or may not exist. So
I just smiled at him, and he'd say it again,
what is your scam? And it was a big joke
between us. Anyway. One day he said he was out
of towels, and so I said, well, I've got some
extra ones in my room. So I gave him three
(12:34):
or four towels and said just give him back to
me when you're done, and didn't think again about it
for another four or five weeks when it hit me
that the son of a gun still had my towels.
Although it's probably worth mentioning that that we hadn't so
much as mentioned the dawn towels since the day I
gave them to him. Problem was I didn't have his
(12:55):
phone number, so no way to call him, but I
knew that he lived down the beach about four blocks
and then a block back in a corner hotel there.
So I hopped in my Volkswagen van, which is what
I was driving then, and drove down Ocean Drive, turned
right one block and there he was standing on the corner,
(13:16):
almost at attention, elbows at his side, palms up, holding
my towels in front of him, all laundered and neatly folded,
and he said something like I thought you might be
needing these, and he handed them to me through the window.
I took the towels and said thank you very much,
exchanged a few more words, and I drove off.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
So he just knew you were going to drive up.
That sounds like something out of a David Lynch movie.
What do you How do you explain that? Like mental telepathy,
whatever you.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Call it, You know, I've seen it so many times.
There are ways of communicating that we don't normally recognize.
Or synchronicity or meaningful coincidence is another way into that
particular world. And I think everyone is probably capable of
that sort of thing. Some are more susceptible than others,
(14:15):
and people are more susceptible at different times of their lives.
I think it has a lot to do with being
in a position where you're not necessarily governed by the
expectations that we've all had ingrained in us. This was
sort of that time for me. I was floating as
(14:35):
going with the flow.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
So, I mean, I know you were dealing with the
divorce and the change of profession and a new place
to live. But do you think on some level you
were in some sort of altered reality.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
No, I think it's perhaps a more real reality. I
think usually we allow ourselves to live in a more
limited reality. That's probably a discussion for another time.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Okay, back to Miami Beach. In nineteen eighty three, Bill
would eventually move into Mickey's hipster apartment building, which would
later be converted into a private mansion for designer Gianni Versace,
the same location where Versace was murdered in nineteen ninety
seven by spree killer Andrew Cananen. But in the early
nineteen eighties it was far from glamorous, even though it
(15:39):
was called the Amsterdam Palace.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
Here's Mickey Relliot. It wasn't a palace, but you know
what I mean, Well.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Describe the building at that time and the neighborhood that
it sat in.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
Okay, so it's a building that was a replicant of
Christopher Columbus's House in Dominican Republic, something like that. It
was built in nineteen twenty two, so it was not
included in the Art Deco movement or buildings that were
being showcased for Our Deco. In fact, people in our
(16:12):
building were always insulted. We were never part of the
Our Deco movement.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
But Goes.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
Really the building wasn't our Deco, and it was gorgeous,
and all along the building, Lauren, there were all these
plaques of socialists like Emma Goldman, and all the apartments
were inside, you know, looked inside into the main courtyard
with SLLT toraszo.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Oh, that's so cool it was.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
And I had only found it because my friend wanted
to go and buy beads on Lincoln Road, and then
we drove up Ocean Drive and I had her stop
the car because I just couldn't believe how beautiful this
building was. And it had this beautiful bronze statue outside
of a crouching woman, and I thought, oh my god,
there's a rent sign, and I just went in met
(16:58):
the woman who was like eighty something was managing it,
and I rented the room.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Would you say that the building was, as the neighborhood
a bit in decline at the time.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Absolutely?
Speaker 5 (17:10):
How did I get to live there? I mean when
I would invite people that I met in Miami to
come over to the Amsterdam Palace, they were like, ugh,
who could live there? Not the Amsterdam Palace necessarily, but
who would live on South Beach.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
Wow? Things have changed.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Yeah, At the time, Amsterdam Palace and Miami Beach weren't
exactly prime real estate or a prized destination location.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
And when I moved there, they had the whole beach
filled with the mary Alitos. You could smell the chicken
barbecuing for.
Speaker 6 (17:44):
Miles because they had the whole beach, like from fifteenth
to fifth. Wow, that area was really rife with a
lot of things happening, like not great things.
Speaker 5 (17:56):
I think my car was broken into a bunch of times.
You had to be really careful where you were walking.
And I worked a couple of jobs, so when I
came home at night, it was really kind of scary
to go into the building because now it's all protected,
but then it was completely open. Anybody could come up
to my louver door apartment.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Miami at that time was known for drug related crimes,
especially homicides. How prevalent and present was that on a
daily basis? Was that always simmering under the surface.
Speaker 5 (18:33):
Yeah, I would say that there was always something going on.
Like before I moved into the Amsdam Palace, I'd lived
with my sister in this other house.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Mickey and her sister rented rooms in a house from
a family who had teenage kids. One day, their father
basically disappeared.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
They were at the end of high school and their
father flew drugs to Columbia and they never heard from
the father again. Somebody knew somebody that was drug related.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
It's so interesting because there's this quote I read on
Miami that you could choose not to do drugs, you
could choose not to associate with people who did drugs
or soul drugs, But at the end of the day,
living in Miami at that time, you could not escape
the reality.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
Of drugs, right.
Speaker 5 (19:19):
I would agree with that one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
At the time Mickey was dating Phil, she was busy
going to school and working two jobs, one as a waitress,
but the drug culture still seeped in.
Speaker 5 (19:32):
I remember I was working at Tony Roma's and I
had a table that was like three couples, and they
ordered the most expensive double Johnny Walker blacks and then
they wouldn't drink it. And then they ordered all the food,
like all the things that you could order. They ordered everything,
and they didn't eat it.
Speaker 7 (19:52):
And then they threw all these hundred dollars bills on
the table, and I'm thinking, oh, that's a first for me,
you know, like a fifteen hundred dollars tip after they
paid for the drinks and food that they didn't eat.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
They were too coked up.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yeah, that wasn't the set or scene you'd associate with
the Amsterdam Palace, though.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Here's phil Miami Beach was still in its tumble downstage,
and so the owner's Amsterdam Palace had divided the entire
place into studios and apartments.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Fortuitously, or maybe just in keeping with his experiences at
the time, Bill had secured the studio next to Mickey's.
As the relationship progressed, so did their living spaces.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
After a few weeks, we took down the door between
our studios and had one big apartment.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
We had a pretty fabulous place.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
It was on the water, and I remember being transfixed
from time to time by the beauty of the place,
looking out of the apartment through the curved window of
the masonry wall, so everything's framed in white, looking out
at the bright blue sky, the blue green sea lit
with sun, the heavy green of a palm frond against them,
(21:09):
and thinking the world is such a beautiful place and
we have done nothing to deserve.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
It, And that picturesque location would soon attract the attention
of a then unknown television show about to begin filming
in Miami.
Speaker 8 (21:25):
I think they started scouting, probably eighty three four, because
I wanted to see my place and the guy in
the front place and I said, Oh, what are you
scouting for?
Speaker 5 (21:36):
And he goes, oh, Miami Vice. And I go, what's
it going to be about? He said, Cocaine? I said,
do we really need that glorizing cocaine?
Speaker 2 (21:50):
I remember one morning waking up looking out the door
that opened onto the courtyard, and there were these two
guys coming out of two different doors. Or is one
wearing a lavender sport coat another wearing a salmon colored
sport coat, dropping down into the classic two hands on
a pistol pose that TV detectives anyway always do it.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
But Bill's own private investigator slash detective adventures were proving
a lot less glam or busy now that Intercept had
shuttered its doors.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
So finally I tracked down Bob and we get together.
I don't think it was at the Cardozo Parane Pub,
probably was, and Bob tells me, turns out that Lamar
has been under federal investigation for some time now, something
called Operation Loan Star, and it's a very big deal.
Grand jury's in Houston, Atlanta, and Miami.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Which is likely why the Feds were looking for you
in the first place.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yeah, so the smart thing Bob figures is to adopt
a low profile. He's doing business from home now, he's
working as a bodyguard, guardian, money shipments, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
So where does that leave you in terms of your
fledgling private investigator career?
Speaker 2 (23:06):
So there really isn't much for me to do, not
an intercept anyway, And it turns out not in my
new career as a spy for the Christic Institute either,
because it turns out Bob doesn't really know much more
about the assassination business than he's already told me. He
was in an Army security agency unit in Frankfurt, Germany,
(23:26):
sort of enlisted man level jobs providing logistical support. But
he does remember is one of these things. He says
with the giggle that every five years, some shavetail lieutenant
who probably has no idea what he's talking about or why,
shows up at his door in Miami and reminds him
he's still bound by his strict oath of security.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
And he found that amusing.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Bob was always amused by how foolish or corrupt the
world always proved itself to be. And as far as
the case against Lamar, he says, that's really nothing to
worry about either. Oh, sure, there's an indictment coming down,
but Lamar's got everything under control. He's got the best
lawyers in the world working for him. He's already got
a change of venue to Northern Georgia, where he's got
(24:13):
everyone bought off, and everybody had intercept with their intelligence connections,
has already made their deals and been dropped from the indictment.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Well, he's certainly right about the fact that there were
significant indictments involved.
Speaker 9 (24:32):
Tilton Lamar, Chester forty five, a former Eastern Airlines pilot,
is one of twelve people charged in a major federal
investigation dubbed Operation Loan.
Speaker 10 (24:41):
Star, thirty six count indictment accuses Tilton Lamar Chester Junior.
Speaker 5 (24:45):
A Chester led a large smuggling organization.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
In the fall of nineteen eighty three. Those indictments were
National News.
Speaker 10 (24:54):
A Georgia drug runner who federal authorities say engineered a
drug smuggling and money launderings.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
SKI government agents received information that international drug smuggler Lamar Chester.
Speaker 10 (25:06):
Charging that Chester led a large smuggling organization.
Speaker 9 (25:09):
From the island he controlled in the Bahamas to his
native Georgia and perhaps to a dozen other states.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
For some background, the Bahamas are comprised of an extensive
chain of seven hundred islands and twenty four hundred low
banks or reefs of coral, rock or sand called keys,
spanning an area roughly the size of California, extending from
Florida's coast on the northwest almost to Haiti on the southeast.
(25:36):
The area has a long and notorious history of illicit activity.
Pirates use the Bahamas as their preferred port because of
its plentiful small islands, shallow waters, and coves, which served
as ideal hiding places. The shallow waters were also perfect
for the smaller faster boats favored by pirates, but too
(25:56):
shallow for the larger man of warships, often in their pursuit.
From nineteen seventeen to nineteen thirty three, when prohibition became
the law of the land in America, Bahamas played an
important part becoming an ideal hub for alcohol smuggling, offering
numerous secretive places where alcohol could be stored en route
(26:17):
to America. All of the above made the Bahamas an
obvious destination location for drug smugglers looking to carve out
their share of profiting off of America's insatiable and ever
evolving appetite for illegal intoxicants. Okay, back to Chester's indictment.
(26:37):
I'm reading from the October fourth, nineteen eighty three issue
of The New York Times under the headline group and
Bahamas charged in big Narcotic conspiracy. Federal prosecutors unseled a
thirty six count indictment today charging that a Northeastern Georgia
man led a large smuggling organization that shipped marijuana and
(26:58):
cocaine into the United States from a base in the Bahamas.
The indictment charged Tilton Lamar Chester Junior, forty five years
Old of Cleveland, Georgia, and eleven others with drug offenses
and conducting a criminal enterprise in a pattern of racketeering.
It asserted that the group ran an organization that purchased
the Darby Islands, a small group in the Bahamas as
(27:21):
a base through which to move drugs from Jamaica and
Columbia into the United States. Other defendants named in the
article are Chester's attorney Lance Eisenberg, and another smuggler you'll
hear much more about going forward, Ronald Elliott. And just
a few days after the indictment is made public, Lamar
is back in the news again.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
The indictment said Chester had houses and aircraft hangar and
an airstrip built on the islands for use in the
drug operation, and.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Lamar is actually interviewed on an Atlanta television station saying,
this is a paraphrase, Yes, I did it. I flew
two hundred loads into the country. But I did it
with the ok of the CIA and the DEA. And
if the federal government is foolish enough to put me
on trial for this, I'm going to tell everything I
(28:13):
know about what the government's been up to. And I
have enough evidence to shake the US government to its core.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
And so what did Bob think of all this?
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Bob couldn't be enjoined anymore. Lamar is so sure he's
going to win, which means they'll drop the case before
it even goes to trial. That he's got his lawyers
spending half their time just trying to get his pilot's
license back. When they indicted him, they took away his
pilot's license just to punish him. Bob says, Lamar loves
(28:47):
to fly, and he's got this little piper cub in
addition to the planes he uses for the smuggling business,
that he likes to fly for fun over his ranch
up in northern Georgia.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Well, what did you make about this? What did you
think of Chester's gray mail defense? For anyone not familiar
with the term, gray mail, like blackmail, implies the threat
of revealing, compromising, or damaging information in exchange for benefit,
except gray mail specifically threatens the revelation of state secrets
in order to manipulate legal proceedings.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Well, to tell the truth, I really didn't know I
was were, of course that in the fifties and sixties
and into the seventies, the United States, the CIA had
been involved in using drugs to finance off the books
wars in Asia. And I knew, of course that the
guys in Intercept had intelligence connections. One had even been
(29:45):
overt station chief of the Miami station during the Bay
of Pig's time. But that didn't prove anything. Maybe it
was true, maybe it wasn't. For all I know, Lamar
might just be making it up.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
And at this point, you hadn't yet men Lamar in person, right.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
No, I still hadn't met Lamar. But the next thing
I know, I get this call from Bob saying that
Lamar wants to meet me at the Mutiny, which of
course is the hangout for all the premier drug smugglers
in Miami.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
So why in the world would he want to meet
you at that point and at that place, given that
he's already been indicted.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
That's what I'm wondering too.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Located on the Bay in Coconut Grove and first open
in nineteen sixty nine, the Mutiny Hotel was known for
its glitzy, debauchery and decadence. At one point in the
nineteen seventies, the Mutiny earned the distinction of selling more
dom Perigno champagne than any other venue in America. Much
of it served in hot tubs. The venue had one
(31:01):
hundred and thirty rooms, including lavishly decorated fantasy themed suites
with names like the Egyptian Suite, Gypsy Caravan, the Bordello,
Hot Fudge, and Outer Space. Guests are said to have
included the likes of Chaer, Jacqueline Onassis, led Zeppelin, George Bush,
and Fleetwood Mac. By the eighties, it had infamously morphed
(31:24):
into a cocaine cooled membership based Miami hot spot where
notorious drug traffickers partied alongside celebrities, politicians, and the drug
and law enforcement agents who were there under the guise
of monitoring the action. It also had a rapidly growing
reputation as the destination location for cocaine. Its infamous nightclub
(31:48):
served as the inspiration for the Babylon Club.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
In the movie Scarface.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Oliver Stone, al Pacino and the rest of the casting
crew even checked into the mutiny during the filming for
research purposes.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Back to fill, so I go to the Mutiny with Bob.
There must be about two or three on a weekday afternoon,
so the place isn't really bustling yet. Lamar isn't there
yet either or else he has other business to attend to.
So Bob and I start drinking and drinking, and the
Mutiny was a new luxury hotel and coconut grove. There
(32:27):
were tables in the main barroom with telephones on each one,
sort of old style. This is pre cell phone days.
And it's where all the drug dealers hung out and
made deals and very conspicuous deals. And of course all
the DEA agents had memberships too, so they could sit
there and watch the drug dealers. And outside there were
(32:49):
several outdoor bars placed around the grounds of the hotel
with big umbrellas above them, pretty Cuban girls serving drinks.
Bob and I must have stopped at all of them
while we were waiting for them, so you guys must
have been pretty tipsy by the time Chester walked in. Well,
finally Lamar shows up. We're waiting in his room and
he breezes in. Yeah, because always we've had to drink
(33:12):
by The recollection is a little bit hazy at some points,
but I do remember thinking he looked a little bit
slighter than I had expected from all of Bob's heroic
descriptions of him. And I was also struck by what
I remember is sort of a lounge lizard mustache, but
that was something that I think was probably in style
(33:33):
back in the seventies.
Speaker 4 (33:35):
What do you mean by the lounge lizard mustache?
Speaker 2 (33:38):
That he had what struck me as sort of a
drug store cowboy mustache might expect to see in a
show in Las Vegas or something like that.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Do you remember what he was wearing?
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Nothing flicy shirt, jeans, loafers. So we start talking nothing
special at first, How you doing? What do you think
the mutiny? That sort of thing, Nothing about the indictment
or his threat to spill the beans on the CIA
and shake the government to its core. When out of
the blue, Lamar says, with that big old door to
(34:13):
door salesman smile of his, I bet you're wondering why
I invited you down here, right. I must have mumbled
something I don't remember exactly what I asked Bob, and
Bob said, Lamar will explain it when we get there,
and Lamar says, well, I just want you to know
that I appreciate what you're doing here, but I sure
(34:34):
as hell wish you and your boys back in Washington
would get a move on it, out of the blue,
just like that. And I say what, I certainly don't
know what to make of it, And he says, oh,
come on, now, you're with the CIA. Right?
Speaker 4 (34:47):
Wait? He thought you were with the CIA. Why?
Speaker 2 (34:54):
I had no idea At the time. I didn't even
believe it was real. But then nothing I'd been doing
was quite real either. The work I did for the
intercept wasn't all of it quite real? And so why
would this be any less unreal? I suppose? And I say, oh,
(35:15):
I'm not with a CIA, at which point he nudges
my shoulder with his elbow and in a friendly way.
I mean, he's smiling. He says, good boy, that's just
what you would say. And it hasn't hit me yet.
But I'm in a very odd situation. The more I
deny it, the more he believes I'm with the CIA.
There's no way I can convince him otherwise.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
So how did that meeting end?
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Well, maybe I say a couple more times, I'm not
with the CIA. I don't remember that, Or maybe it's
since he's as far as he's concerned, my denial has
already proved that I am with the CIA. We have
just some more small talk, and then Bob and I
stumble off, drunkard than skunks, starting to get now and
on our way back to Miami Beach, I asked Bob
(36:03):
if Lamar is kidding? It still hasn't sunk that any
of this is real? Does he really believe I'm with
the CIA? And very solemnly Bob says, yes he does.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
What about, Bob? Did he think you were with the CIA?
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Too? That's what's even more incredible. But it won't dawn
on me till some time later. Is that, Bob the
guy who hired me in the first place? For goodness sake?
I think so too.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
So as Stanford staggered home, his head was spinning, and
not just because of the alcohol. But his night was
far from over, and a hangover wouldn't be the only
thing he'd regret the next morning. On the next Murder
of Miami, looking into Clay's death, Letes further into the
(36:56):
mystery of dashing pilot Lamar Chester and to his inner circle,
including a legendary former cocaine smuggler, Heglarder.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Did you quit loving me? Happy? Miles? Here? Give me
a call.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Mister Miles was a close business associate and friend of
Intercept's biggest client, Lamar Chester.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
And he was flying guns then to Nicaragua.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
And did he tell you who he was running the
guns for?
Speaker 7 (37:27):
I would imagine the CIA was running that show.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
Like Icarus.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
All these guys would eventually fly a bit too close
to the sun.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
They all got burned except Happy, Except Happy.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Murder of Miami is a production of iHeart Radio. Executive
producers are Lauren bred Pacheco, Taylor Chicogne, and Phil Stamford.
Written by Phil Stamford and Lauren brad Pacheco, Audio editing
and sound designed by Nicholas Harder, Evan Tyer, and Taylor Chackoine,
featuring music by Evan Tyre, phill Mayer, John Murchison, and
(38:06):
Taylor Chackoine. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that
matter to you.
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