February 16, 2023 • 48 mins
Cocaine further ups the ante as the Coconut Grove group pops up on the radar of multiple levels of law enforcement. As the attention intensifies, so does the focus on ties the group- especially Chester- has with the Bahamas and its government.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Murder in Miami is a production of iHeartRadio. Previously on
Murder in Miami.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Well, the world knows Vias Happy Miles.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
If you'd wager a former cocaine smuggler with eighty three
years under their belt would have some pretty interesting stories
to share with Happy, you'd hit the jackpot.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Lamar Chester had a bunch of airplanes he couldn't pay for,
so I bought them, and that's how I met Lamar. Yeah,
Lamar wasn't afraid of anything. One time I went up
to his apartment and he opened a foot locker and
got a couple machine guns out of it. He was
(00:43):
flying guns then to Nicaragua.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And did he tell you who he was running the
guns for?
Speaker 3 (00:52):
This CIA?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I would imagine the CIA was running that show.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Hey, I forgot to tell you something, but I'll tell
you tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Remind me.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Hey, gorgeous, Hey, you wanted me to remind you to
tell me a story about landing on Lamar's island.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Lamar Chester he never ran anything with Grass until I
turned over that load of coke to him on the island.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
So this would have been one of his firsts.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Right, do you think.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
That's the first time that he ever ran coke.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yes, I know it, because he told me that he
had made more money off of that run than he
had made his entire life running grass out of Columbia
and Jamaica.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Wow, I'm Lauren Bradfacheko, and this is murder in Miami.
The story Happy's about to share about setting Lamar up
with his first load of cocaine is set in nineteen eighty. Now,
(02:15):
just explain to me. You were running coke from where.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
South America from Colombia. The trip had gone. It kind
of ragged the trip before I barely got off this
muddy Levy bank, and I knew I couldn't come out
with full fuel because it had been raining ever since
the last trip, and it would even be muddier, and
(02:42):
so I decided I would only come out with a
partial load of fuel.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Weather had already complicated Happy's departure from Columbia in terms
of flying out with a full tank of fuel, which
would have made the plane too heavy to take off,
But after he fueled up in South Cakos, weather would
also complicate handing off the load in Florida to his
associate Don too Well.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
The weather was so bad in Florida.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
That don didn't think I was going to come, or
where the hell could I have gone? I mean, the
trip was on. I was leaving Columbion. I needed to
get there, and my plan was to land, give the
load to down and him get out of their right away.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Well, they went to lunch.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
While his cocaine unloading crew was lunching. Happy says he
encountered a different sort of welcoming committee, and not the
sort he welcomed.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
As I crossed the channel from Bimini to Opalaca, I
realized they were on me, and I finally found out
what frequency they were working on, and I was listening
to home. In hell, there was a dozen of them
on me. They were coordinating.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
A dozen planes were following you.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, everything DEA and Customs had was on me, and
some state birds too.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
So you had gotten all the way back to Florida
and realize that you have everybody on your tail.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
So, a rather unhappy Happy was left to formulate an
escape on the fly.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Literally, I turned around and headed east, not knowing what
I was going to do, And as I came out of.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
A cloud, I wass to know.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
With their low helicopter and a helicopter. I mean we
were three hundred and five hundred feet away from each
other with a closure rate of over three hundred miles
an hour.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Oh my gosh. So you come out of a cloud
and you are facing a helicopter.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yes. So he dropped the collective and went right under me,
and I went right over the top and he landed
in a field, and I circled him, and he was
throwing up in the middle of the field.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Because he thought he was gonna die.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
And so then I decided, Well, I'll go out to
the Bahamas and probably end up ditching the airplane in
deep water somewhere, but close enough that I can swim
to the shore and the airplane will be so deep
that they'll never be able.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
To get it, or they won't go get it, and
I'll be home free.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Well, I realized I had the two airplanes still following me.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
The Jetstar was on me, and the aero commander was
on me.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Well, Commander, I knew you didn't have radar and had
to stay on me visually. And then I heard the
jet Star landing in NASA, and he told the tower,
it's an emergency. Can you get us a fuel truck out,
and the guy in the tower said.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Mon, who you think I is? You fewel and lucky,
get your own fuel truck.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
That is mister Miles's impersonation of a behavian accent.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
So I knew he'd be on the ground for a
while trying to get fuel.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
So the whole time they're following you, you're going through
the different frequencies and picking up their transmissions. You're eavesdropping
on them.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, I'm eavesdropping on them.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
So there's a great big thundercloud between me and NASA,
and I'm headed like I'm going to Hawksbill ron Elliot's
Island property is hotel.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
So I flew right.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Into the thunderstorm, which they will never do because if
you're not lucky, you get sucked up in the vortex
and spit out at forty thousand feet in pieces. Till
the minute I went in, they went around to the north.
It was the shortest distance around the thunderstorm, and the
(07:33):
minute I was in and they couldn't see me, I
made a ninety degree turn to the right, came out
the bottom of the thunderstorm headed south. So I'd been
in the air for over ten and a half hours,
at that time. Wow, and I only had eleven hours
(07:56):
of fuel.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And that is the point that Happy says. He happened
upon international drug smuggler Lamar Chester, who happened to own
two nearby islands.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
I come up on Captain America Lamar's red white and
bleach two O seven.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Just happened to pass him in the air.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
It just happened to.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Be overtaking him.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
He was headed from NASA to his island.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
And when you're coming on an airplane from the back,
you don't have anything to see. It's very hard to
see an airplane from the back. He got a rudder
and a horizontal and a wing, but nothing of mass.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
And I almost ran him over. I came within a.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Quarter of a mile before I would have run him over,
and I saw him. So I pulled up alongside of him,
and we finally found each other on an obscure frequency
and I said, hey, and I want to rent a boot.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
He said, I don't know if you can afford it.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
And I said, well, put an M on the end,
and that should make you happy.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
What runway do you want me to use?
Speaker 1 (09:12):
And by putting an M on the number, mister Miles
means one million dollars bail.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
He couldn't make up his mind, the big island, the
little island, and finally at the last minute he said,
land on the on the short strip. Well, he only
has about nine hundred feet up there by the house
on the hill, and you can land the command shee
in six or seven hundred feet eight out of ten times.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
But the other two times are gonna get you. The airplane.
It's gonna float and you're not gonna make it.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
And it ended into a blunt cliff, so you know
you're gonna die. So I went in and I was
only a few hundred feet from landing, and the left
engine quit ran out of fuel. Well, when that happens,
the airplane veers right away. So I had a hell
(10:09):
of a time getting it back on track and a
couple hundred feet and still landing.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Holy moly.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
And luckily I.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Touched down right at the start of the runway where
it went straight after it came out of his undergown
hangar and got the airplane stopped and six hundred feet.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
So he said, what do you got And I.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Said, well, I've got four hundred and forty pounds of stuff.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
I need you to fly it in for me.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
He said, well, I'll fly it to georgiash, I'll give
a shit where you fly it. Just take it in
for me, and I'll give you a million bucks.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
That's what happened.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So you offered Lamar a million dollars to land at
his island and to bring the coke back to the
United States, right, and that million it came out of
the shipment. Happy was flying for Pablo Escobar. Yes, that
Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug lord and narco terrorist who
(11:18):
founded the Madayen cartel.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Even when I took a million dollars of coke out
of the load, I wasn't worried about getting rubbed out
or anything because it was a legitimate expense. I mean,
I was resourceful enough to still get the majority of
the load through. I had two hundred and twenty keys
(11:44):
and I lost thirty five of them to pay Lamar.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Big deal.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Uh, it is a big deal that Happy live to
tell about it. But that's another story.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
I mean, I did what I had to do and
it worked out.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
You've got to have like a cat, but instead of
nine lives, you must have like nine hundred. By the way,
Happy says he shared the same story about losing a
dozen government agency planes trailing him with the federal agent
who helped broker his equally incredible immunity deal, which we'll
cover later. While the agent prefers not to be named,
(12:23):
he was able to verify it.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
When started to tell the story I had told him
to his Coharts, they said, it never happened.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
He's full of shit.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
So went down and chase my steps and finally found
my motel receipt for that night when I was going
back to Miami. And then he found the guys that
were flying that day, and they said, oh, yeah, but
Billy wrote the report. Go to Billy, Billy, did you
(12:57):
write No Harry who was going to the report?
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Go to Harry. No, Charlie was going to write the report.
They never wrote a report on it.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I was worried they had my end number, but they
never wrote a report on it.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Why do you think, Oh, they had so much.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Egg on their face that I could screw them all.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Over by flying into that storm cloud. I mentioned earlier
that Happy's dabbled in the film business before well. He
sent me a DVD that contained a movie he made
about the Bahamas Family Island Regatta, a celebrated sailing event
and crowd pleaser since nineteen fifty four. Happy Foot of
the bill for the extravagant production, which he places at
(13:45):
a quarter of a million dollars and opens with a
very formal mister Miles promoting his signature plane in conjunction
with the film.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
This is the pby and I'm Happy Miles.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Together we fly around the world to a joy.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Of fulfillment in communities both large and small.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Happy walks as he reads his lines, frequently stopping and
changing directions along with the camera, making for some amusing edits.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Come with me to see what it is.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
It rewards men and women with the sense of knowing
they are the best that they can be.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
When you're doing your stand up and they have you
walk three feet this way and then stop and then
walk three feet that way to camera.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
Oh, because you should see the outtakes. I'm tuck at
dyslexic and I can't read two cards. We had just
come from lunch, and I've had about more Roman chokes,
so I.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Had a hell of the time getting my lines done.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
What follows is a lush and slick overview of the Regatta.
But what makes the footage exceptionally interesting is the access
at highlights between Happy and the Hamian government.
Speaker 6 (15:03):
The stage is set as Prime Minister Linden Pendling, along
with the visiting dignitaries and island officials, gather for speeches
and congratulations to all regatta participants.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Do you know that I'm the only American allowed to
race with the Behamans?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Is that still true?
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
I'm a citizen one week out of the year and
that week to be designated by out Island Regatta.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
How did you pull that off.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Oh, Penling, the Prime Minister. Yeah, we just made a declaration.
Speaker 6 (15:43):
Prime Minister Pendling acknowledges the people of Exuma and all
of those who have maintained the high standards over the
years for the Family Island Regatta.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Linden Pendling is perhaps the most famous and controversial Bahamian politician.
He served as the first black Premier of the Colony
of the Bahama Islands from nineteen sixty seven to nineteen
sixty nine and as Prime Minister of the Bahamas from
nineteen sixty nine to nineteen ninety two. Known as the
Father of the Nation, he's also known for helming the
(16:15):
darkest period in modern Bahavian history nineteen seventy seven to
nineteen ninety two, a time when the Bahamas served as
a convenient and corruptible stopover for contraband bound for the US.
Something exposed, and in nineteen eighty three NBC investigative Peace
titled the Bahamas a nation for Sale. The report alleged,
(16:38):
among other things, that Carlos later the German Colombian drug lord,
and members of his infamous made aen cartel used Norman's
key in Exuma as a lay of our point to
traffic cocaine into the United States. It also implied the
Bahamas government and Peddling profited by turning a blind eye
to drug smuggling, assisted by a prominent Behavian attorney named
(17:02):
Nigel bo Well.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Nigel was an attorney who was Pindling's bag man.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Mainly for somebody who doesn't understand that expression, what does
bagman mean?
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Well, it means that when later moved into the Bahamas,
he paid a lot of money to be able to
operate out enormous key like he did, and Nigel would
go over and pick up the money and deliver it
to Pinling.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
So bagman is the guy who's transporting the money from
one party to the other.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
So whatever Nigel said with the police or customs or
anything was the same as probably Pendling saying it.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
He had a lot of clout.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
So if somebody wanted to get away with something illicit
in the Bahamas, Nigel was the person you had to
go through.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
He was the man.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
It was the man, yeah without Adell.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Though Pendling and bo denied the accusations, the public outcry
led to the creation in nineteen eighty four of the
Royal Commission of Inquiry into drug trafficking and government Corruption
in the Bahamas. A review of Pendling's personal finances by
the Commission found that he had spent eight times his
reported total earnings from nineteen seventy seven to nineteen eighty four,
(18:27):
finding the Prime Minister and Lady Pendling have received at
least fifty seven point three million dollars in cash.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Explanations.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
First, some of these deposits were given but could not
be verified, and also pulled into that inquiry a former
Eastern Airlines pilot Lamar Chester. So how did Chester end
up getting pulled into the Bahamas inquiry anyway?
Speaker 7 (18:51):
I'm really not sure just how he got pulled into it,
but he certainly wanted to go. He had to get
permission from the judge in his trial.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
He'd already been indicted.
Speaker 7 (19:01):
To leave the country, and after going through the ropes
on that, he did flew down there.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Remember, having been indicted in the US, Chester would have
needed court permission to leave the country.
Speaker 7 (19:15):
As he knew at the time it was his chance
to make a public statement of his gray Mail defense.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
That he did it for the CIA.
Speaker 7 (19:24):
He also knew that there weren't going to be any
legal consequences for him, certainly in the Bahamas, because the
inquiry didn't have the authority to indict anyone anyway.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
That's really interesting. So it's possible that Chester was just
incentivized to go there because it provided him with a
platform and a megaphone to state the gray mail defense.
Speaker 7 (19:48):
Yeah, I'm sure he is assumed that he would get
national publicity.
Speaker 8 (20:01):
One of the most significant things in this whole case
was Lamar Chaster's appearance before a Royal Commission of Inquiry
in the Bahamas, and that was at the time a
really upsetting thing for the Bahamas because it was their
(20:21):
version of Watergate.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
That's Atlanta based journalist, producer and documentarian C. B. Hackworth.
Speaker 8 (20:28):
Sir Lindon Pendling was the hero of Bahamian independence, and
there were swirling allegations that he was corrupt of receiving
payoffs through an attorney named Nigel Bow who also represented
lamar Chester, that those payments were to permit drug smuggling
(20:51):
in the Bahamas.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Today seebe presents as a seasoned Southern journalist with at
certain angles a passing resemblance to Robin Willilliams, which is
reinforced by his fondness for suspenders, even when wearing jeans
and a T shirt. But when Hackworth's path first crossed
with lamar Chester and subsequently the Coconut Grove Guys in
nineteen eighty three, he was a twenty five year old
(21:14):
reporter working at the Gainesville Times, a local paper in Georgia.
Speaker 8 (21:19):
I became aware of Lamarchester both through some earlier reporting
in the newspaper where I was working, and because I
was covering a cocaine smuggling trial in federal court in
which one of the defendants ended up being an unindicted
co conspirator in the lamar Chester case. So that was
(21:43):
a tie between those two cases, and who was the
tie in That was Grover Alexander, who was a local individual.
Grover Alexander had been convicted of murder at some point,
but was a car dealer in White County and he
had repeatedly been arrested and was indicted with lamar Chester.
(22:05):
It was not convicted in the case that I was covering,
But while covering the biggest drug smuggling case in Georgia history,
I overheard some conversations in which Lamarchester's name came up,
and some federal officials were speculating that la Marchester was
(22:26):
going to be indicted soon. So with those nudges, I
took another look at what had already been reported, which
was pretty substantial.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
And the work of a local reporter named Lavignia Miyese.
Speaker 8 (22:41):
Laviniam Miese was the correspondent in White County. I knew her,
I came to know her well. We really worked together
very closely in the Chester case, and I give her
a real tip of the hat. Lavinia wrote about the
River Hills project in White County, which was ill faded.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
River Hills was a short lived concept. Chester apparently created
as a campsite for college kids, but was suspected to
be a money laundering front, but that's not what upset
local folks.
Speaker 8 (23:18):
It's strange because apparently by the time the controversy arose,
they actually already had opened River Hills for a season
I'm not sure how many weeks, and it had lost money.
The River Hills had intended to be an outdoor recreational
(23:40):
area for college students to come and drink and probably
whatever else they wanted to do, and folks in White
County aren't going to stand for that going on in
their river. I mean, the people in North Georgia are
kind of what you would expect, mostly salt of the earth, hard,
war working. One of the county commission members was very
(24:04):
upset by a flyer that he had found for River Hills,
and he brought it up in a County commission meeting
and it was come and drink and float down the river,
and the county commissioner, he was just pretty upset.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
If River Hills didn't exactly sit well with the locals,
it would prove very valuable to the federal investigators driving
Operation Loan Star. You'll eventually hear more about Leslie Bickerton,
the woman Chester brought in to oversee the River Hills project.
She would become a very valuable and very controversial witness
(24:40):
for both the prosecution and the defense. But we'll get
into all of that a bit later. Back to C. B.
Speaker 8 (24:46):
Hackworth, Lavina had been speaking to Chester for a year
or more. I mean, she had been trying to tell us,
trying to tell the world this was a really big story,
and nobody was really paying attention to her because she
was just, you know, the White County correspondent.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
But CEB.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Hockwartz says her journalistic instincts were on point. Here's Lavina
meies Hex in her own words, sharing her written thoughts
on Lamar Chester.
Speaker 9 (25:18):
Personally, I do not know whether or not Chester was
guilty of the charges in the nineteen eighty three of
Aged Dregs smuggling indictment. He claimed he was innocent and
he had been working for the government and the CIA.
He told me that the CIA had been attempted to
overthrow the government in the Bahamas.
Speaker 8 (25:37):
And it was such a huge story that it sounds
fantastical at first. Blush, but I've got to tell you.
She had kept clippings and she had dug up in
corporation papers, and it was one of the best guides
and briefings I've ever had. I referred to it throughout
(25:58):
the next year and a half that I ended up
covering the Chester case on a daily basis.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Lavigna Maize provided Cbe's introduction to Lamar Chester.
Speaker 8 (26:10):
At that time, Lamar was under very strict orders not
to talk to reporters anyone connected to the media anyone
period outside of his family and his legal team, and
he violated that as much as he could. I think
it was as much to prove that the government couldn't
(26:35):
make him be quiet as it was to disseminate information.
I also believe he enjoyed the coverage and being a
local celebrity.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
That was his ego, and Chester did not disappoint in person.
Speaker 8 (26:52):
The first time I met him, I drove up to
White County and out to the dirt road where his
farm was.
Speaker 10 (27:00):
Used. The word farm.
Speaker 8 (27:01):
Very liberally because it was a sprawling piece of property
with a grass landing strip. It's the biggest house in
White County. Although not gaudy in any way, it was
actually very tastefully done, but it was just so huge.
(27:22):
The main room where I sat was enormous and it
was a combination of a huge living room and a
huge dining area. And Lamar met me shook my hand.
He had a very warm, magnetic personality. I think he
(27:42):
knew that and was able to use it to his
advantage in many many situations, including dealing with the media.
He had compromised some people who had reported on him.
And I knew that Lamar was tall, he had a mustache,
and he struck me as a man's man. Lavinia had
(28:07):
described him in an article as a Marlborough man, really
alpha male. I've met a few people like that. Sam
Elliott is like that. You know, I'm in the presence
of a real man. I remember Lamar smiling a lot,
even though the circumstances you would think were kind of
grim for him. I know there was a lean on
(28:30):
the farm that had been placed by his lawyers, and
of course he was facing indictment.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
And Ceb knew the meeting was serving a purpose, at
least on Chester's end.
Speaker 8 (28:42):
Lamar was very open to meeting with me, and he
was very open when I met him. I never made
any agreement, nor was I asked to to protect him
from himself from the fact that he was violating a
court order, and he had already been significantly warned because
(29:08):
of a television report that Fars Sawyer had done on
WAGAATV in Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Phil Stamford has already referenced that infamous interview, but I'll
let Ceb remind you of what Chester claimed during it.
Speaker 8 (29:24):
Well, he boasted to Fara Sawyer, and he said to
me separately, he said that he had flown a shipment
of marijuana, a large shipment directly over wherever Ronald Reagan,
who was then president was speaking at the time. I
think it was Homestead Air Force Base, and that he
(29:44):
could have shoved a bail out and dropped it at
the President's feet if he wanted to. That's my recollection.
He completely admitted to being one of the world's most
prolific drugsugglers, that he had smuggled large shipments of marijuana
(30:05):
from the Bahamas into the United States Florida, but primarily Georgia.
Two hundred shipments or more is what I think he said.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
And the reaction that statement received seemed to be the
intention behind making it.
Speaker 8 (30:23):
Lamar was talking to a lot of reporters and he
wanted to stir this up. I wasn't oblivious to any
of that stuff, even though I was young.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
But did you have any idea when you left his
farm that day how intense and complicated your relationship with
him would get.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Well?
Speaker 8 (30:47):
You would think I would answer no, but I kind
of did. The scope of what he had laid out
was huge.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Chester's interaction with Hackworth would intensify as the legal proceedings advanced.
Speaker 8 (31:02):
Lamar would call me often late at night, and sometimes,
if not usually after he'd been drinking. Now I'm not
saying he was bad to drink. I don't know that
to be a fact, but I do know that sometimes
he drank at night and sometimes he called me, and
(31:22):
these were not short little conversations. We would discuss what
was going on with the case. He guided me toward things.
I recorded all of my conversations with Lamar Chester. Georgia
is a one party consent state. You do not have
to have permission from another person to record a conversation
(31:46):
as long as you are a participant in that conversation.
Down you're trying to stall until after the US they
want to.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Hear what you were listening to. Are the recordings of
those actual conversations. Which C. B. Hackworth is sharing for
the first time.
Speaker 11 (32:13):
Washington was prepared to a set one flee to anything,
anything with a five year cat stand silent and sentence
him say just to let me walk out, or sins
being no more than five years, which you know I'll
do ten to a month. But Washington would take a
plea to anything taxivation at this point, and bear in
(32:37):
mind this is June is indety Mars. Yeah, but they'd
take anything, and if they give them minds a bow,
I could walk clean with money. Now they also made
this offer getting they make this off for the Bogart
just prior to them that they want the Prime Minister
also clean more.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Lamar Chester is claiming the prosecutors offered to drop charges
against him if he turned on the Bahamian Attorney Nigel
bo and Prime Minister Pendling.
Speaker 8 (33:08):
But again, never once, despite everything he ever said to me,
he never once did he say, hey, don't put this
in the paper. Not once. When I wrote a five
part series on lamar Chester, the heading on that rack
card said master criminal or secret agent.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
It was pretty dramatic, as would be the travel assignment.
Hackworth's paper Greenlet as the young reporter continued to cover Chester.
Speaker 8 (33:40):
He told me he was going to testify before this
Royal Commission, and he told me what he was going
to say, and he told me f Lee Bailey would
be the attorney for the Prime Minister of the Bahamas,
then he would be doing the questioning. I played a
(34:00):
very short, perhaps sixty second excerpt of that conversation with
Lamar for the publisher of the newspaper.
Speaker 11 (34:10):
Through my relations with government of Bahamas and businessmen there
in elsewhere, I have contacts all over the world, in
particular Central and South America, Europe and the parties.
Speaker 8 (34:20):
And they supported my outrageous quest for this story. The
publisher he told me to go to the Bahamas when
Lamar was there to testify. This was not a newspaper
that routinely sent a reporter to the Bahamas. I stayed
at the same resort hotel that Lamar stayed at. His
(34:42):
lawyers did not know I was going to be there.
They did not know the extent to which he was
talking to me, and likely others. His lawyers could not
control him.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Seebee also taped the proceedings, and Bill has those recordings
on micro cassettes, which he shared with me when we
met in person.
Speaker 8 (35:06):
He was being questioned by f Lee Bailey, who, not
by accident, was one of the most famous lawyers in America.
An extremely talented, brilliant man.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
What do you mean, Cherry Well about to airport here?
Attorney Flee Bailey questions Chester about his interaction with a
man named Morgan Cherry specifically.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Did he wants you to.
Speaker 11 (35:36):
He really didn't want me to come back, but I
didn't come.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Back to not reveal his identity.
Speaker 11 (35:41):
I believe you not reveal Morgan Cherry, Morgan Cherry's but
his request was that you go back on her promises,
commission and not return.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
That's fact.
Speaker 10 (35:51):
Believe you use the word to.
Speaker 11 (35:52):
Keep your shot as to indicate why his employers.
Speaker 7 (36:00):
And interested silence.
Speaker 10 (36:04):
They just didn't want to know.
Speaker 11 (36:05):
That they were engaged, that they had been uh instrument
and the Bryan.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Rosser, the Brian ross Report, that was the nineteen eighty
three NBC investigative Peace titled the Bahamas a Nation for Sale?
And the man named Morgan Cherry. Chester's referring to is
his allegedly CIA connected link to the assignments he claims
to have conducted on behalf of the US government.
Speaker 8 (36:33):
F Lee Bailey. He was very good that day. He
was representing the Prime Minister of the Bahamas Times that
that Morgan.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Cherry claimed to be a person who.
Speaker 10 (36:43):
Had helped the NBC broadcast to begin with, and whose
clients were profit by an investigation shore to follow such
a broadcast to the point where he.
Speaker 11 (36:52):
Could promise you Besidey's representation. That pretty much sums of.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
That that was taped. Cebe recalls a very interesting interaction
which led to an after court meeting at the hotel
casino with Chester and two young women.
Speaker 8 (37:11):
Lamar went to get a drink of water and he said,
if you have any questions, I'll be in the casino
tonight at ten thirty in the hotel where we were staying.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
So did you go down to the casino at ten
thirty that night?
Speaker 10 (37:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (37:28):
I went down to the casino and I think I
had sixty four dollars that I was going to gamble with.
I'm twenty five years old, working for a small daily newspaper,
paying child support, so all I had on my first
trip ever anywhere out of the country sixty four dollars
(37:51):
to gamble with. I got there early and my sixty
four dollars did not last long. I blew that money
at the roulette wheel very quickly. So I did find
Lamar standing at a slot machine, one that you fed
dollar tokens in three at a time. I had played
(38:14):
the slots earlier with quarters, and to me, this was
like bordering on real money. And not only was he
doing that, he was winning. You know, he put three
things in and we're beginning to talk, and he'd pulled
the lever and beat about to answer question, and tokens
would pour out. He didn't care about the money that
(38:36):
he was winning. He didn't care about the money he
was putting into the slot machine.
Speaker 10 (38:40):
He just raded wealth.
Speaker 8 (38:41):
And that's part of what I think made him a
track do to a lot of people, men as well
as women. I don't mean sexually, but I mean wanting
to be in his inner circle. And we weren't standing
there very long before the young lady walked up and
just started hanging around him. At first I thought it
(39:04):
might be someone he knew, or a legal assistant or something,
but it was she was a stranger.
Speaker 10 (39:11):
I guess it was.
Speaker 8 (39:12):
You know, people have described him as good looks or
magnetic personality, whatever, and in addition the fact that money
kept pouring out of this slot machine. I think the
sound was some sort of mating call, but since I
was standing there, I guess the young lady said, well,
(39:34):
I'll be right back, and she came back with her friend.
Speaker 10 (39:38):
They were both pretty, they were both.
Speaker 8 (39:41):
Young, just having a good time on vacation in the Bahamas.
There was a bar overlooking the casino. Next thing, I know,
the drink I was supposed to have with Lamar, as
we'd already said we're going to go upstairs and have
a drink, ends up being these two young ladies following
(40:03):
us up there.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
So it's starting to feel like a double date.
Speaker 8 (40:07):
Yeah, And that bothered me because, you know, on the
one hand, I was a twenty five year old, fairly
recently divorced young man and you know, a beautiful young
woman sitting next to me. Now, I remember what I
was thinking was, you know, they didn't really cover this
(40:30):
specific thing in journalism school, in any of the classes
I took. But I am fairly sure you're not allowed
to pick up girls with the drug smuggler.
Speaker 10 (40:43):
That you're covering.
Speaker 8 (40:45):
And at the same time, it's very socially awkward because
it was superficially a very nice, happy little group. But
fortunately for me, as I'm sitting there trying to think
how am I going to get out of this gracefully,
Lamar actually provided me with the inspiration, not intentionally.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
And apparently did so with his signature style.
Speaker 8 (41:13):
When the conversation fairly quickly led to you know, who
are you and what do you do? After they have
talked about being a nurse and etc. Well who are you?
And Lamar said something pretty instantly about, well, I'm one
of the biggest drug smugglers in the world, and this
(41:33):
guy's a reporter that has been following me, and you know,
he writes about a lot of the things that I do.
Speaker 10 (41:40):
And I don't think that they believed in.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Did they just kind of laugh at all.
Speaker 10 (41:44):
I think they kind of.
Speaker 8 (41:45):
Laughed it off, like oh sure. I was like, well, damn,
that doesn't scare him off. And some people I've told
this story to have said that may have made somebody
more attractive. Well it didn't really, It was that they
didn't believe it. I don't think the way that he
said it, and again it's consistent with what he always said.
(42:10):
He never shied away from it. You just can't believe
that anybody was this upfront, but I guess that was
his strategy. If you know you're going to be accused
of smuggling massive amounts of marijuana, get in front of it.
Speaker 10 (42:24):
I think that was what he tried to do always.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
And it's not as if these ladies had like cell
phones in their hands where they could google it quickly.
Speaker 10 (42:32):
Couldn't google it.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
That's when Ceb realized he could actually prove Chester's claim
to their doting wanta be dates.
Speaker 10 (42:40):
My secret weapon.
Speaker 8 (42:42):
I suddenly realized it was like a light bulb going
off over my head. I had a major series about
Lamar Chester, five part series called Citizen Chester was running
in my newspaper. I ran up to the room and
got the card that is inserted into a newspaper rack
(43:06):
that you put money in and pulled down the front
of and get a paper out of. And this one
had a photograph of Lamar Chester that I had taken
on that first visit to the house, with a banner
headline master criminal or secret Agent. And I took it out,
went back downstairs, went right up to that table and
(43:26):
unrolled it. I don't think I'm exaggerating to say that
the color drained from their faces. There may have been
women who would have been attracted by that, but these
two were not. They soon made excuses.
Speaker 9 (43:43):
To leave, call it a night.
Speaker 8 (43:46):
And you know what, I don't think that bothered Lamar
Chester at all. I think he was very happy that
they knew who he was.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
So at the time that the inquiry was happening in
the Bahamas, were you even aware that it was going on?
Speaker 4 (44:09):
No, I wasn't following it.
Speaker 7 (44:11):
I was back in DC for a few months, and
my mind was elsewhere when it was happening, and I
wasn't even aware of it. Later, when I came back
and Bob Adams came up to me and said, do
you know who Morgan Cherry is? Well, it was shortly
after this that the mysterious Morgan Cherry mentioned that I
got a call from Bob who said that Lamar wanted
(44:33):
to hire me as a consultant. There was going to
be a pre trial hearing in Atlanta and he wanted
me to be there as a consultant.
Speaker 4 (44:42):
I said what he.
Speaker 7 (44:42):
Said, you know, look over transcripts, catch inconsistencies, that sort
of thing. He said he'd pay me a couple hundred
dollars a day plus travel. I decided, I guess I
could be a consultant.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
After all, consultant for what using your ex tease as
a journalist, because it almost seems as if it would
be more a legal standpoint.
Speaker 7 (45:05):
Well, I was used to looking over government documents and
finding discrepancies and that sort of thing, believe it or not.
At this point, it still didn't seem real to me
that they thought I was with the CIA. So it
was just an extension of the craziness that had begun
when I started working for Intercept and started getting paid
(45:28):
for blowing assignments, and if they wanted to pay me,
I figured why not.
Speaker 4 (45:35):
Of course I shouldn't have done it.
Speaker 7 (45:37):
I knew it had something to do with their belief
that I was with the CIA.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Yeah, you know, a couple hundred dollars a day plus
travel doesn't sound that bad and probably seemed like much
more in the early eighties.
Speaker 4 (45:50):
It was certainly enough for me, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
And if they did believe you were with the CIA,
they might have thought they were compromising you. At the
same time, they did compromise me that I wasn't with
the CIA.
Speaker 7 (46:03):
I mean I was digging myself in pretty deep with
people who I really didn't want to offend.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Yeah, that's the other thing I would point out. You
didn't worry that you were getting into something that you
might not escape from.
Speaker 4 (46:19):
I just sort of walked right into it.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
And that seems to have been the plan. Here's Chester
talking to CB about Phil Stamford.
Speaker 8 (46:29):
I have a guy me together.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
He wouldn't.
Speaker 10 (46:46):
I am not, by.
Speaker 11 (46:48):
Any means commn not currently in active one of the
guys that.
Speaker 4 (46:59):
Comedy.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
You heard that right? Lamar Chester claims someone working with
the CIA confirmed Bill Stamford was also in the agency's
employ On the next murder of Miami, Bill Stamford leaves
the Amstdam Palace for a farm in Georgia.
Speaker 4 (47:19):
It was kind of strange. First thing.
Speaker 7 (47:21):
They put Bob up in the guesthouse and I'm staying
at the main house with Lamarren artists, who I can
tell right off really doesn't want me there at all.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
As the scope of Operation Loan Stark titans around La Marchester.
Speaker 8 (47:33):
Frankly, with what the government stating witnesses fed to alligators,
I could not understand how someone who had just made
a deal to testify against him would be anywhere near it.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
But I was going to find out and re ignites
a cold case mystery from Miami.
Speaker 7 (47:53):
And this was right out of the blue because we've
never spoken about Clay Williams, the Intercept detective who was
found dead in the.
Speaker 4 (47:59):
Everglyn we will wait.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
I'm sorry he brought up Clay Williams, leading to a
possible break in the Clay Williams murder that leads back
to Intercept. Murder of Miami is a production of iHeartRadio.
Executive producers are Lauren Bright Pacheco, Taylor Chackoine, and Phil Stamford.
(48:22):
Written by Phil Stamford and Lauren Bright Pacheco, Audio editing
and sound design by Nicholas Harder, Evan Tyer, and Taylor Chacoine,
featuring music by Evan Tyer, Phil Mayer, John Murchison and
Taylor Chacoine. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that matter
(48:45):
to you.
Murder in Miami is a production of iHeartRadio. Previously on
Murder in Miami.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Well, the world knows Vias Happy Miles.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
If you'd wager a former cocaine smuggler with eighty three
years under their belt would have some pretty interesting stories
to share with Happy, you'd hit the jackpot.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Lamar Chester had a bunch of airplanes he couldn't pay for,
so I bought them, and that's how I met Lamar. Yeah,
Lamar wasn't afraid of anything. One time I went up
to his apartment and he opened a foot locker and
got a couple machine guns out of it. He was
(00:43):
flying guns then to Nicaragua.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And did he tell you who he was running the
guns for?
Speaker 3 (00:52):
This CIA?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I would imagine the CIA was running that show.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Hey, I forgot to tell you something, but I'll tell
you tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Remind me.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Hey, gorgeous, Hey, you wanted me to remind you to
tell me a story about landing on Lamar's island.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Lamar Chester he never ran anything with Grass until I
turned over that load of coke to him on the island.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
So this would have been one of his firsts.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Right, do you think.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
That's the first time that he ever ran coke.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yes, I know it, because he told me that he
had made more money off of that run than he
had made his entire life running grass out of Columbia
and Jamaica.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Wow, I'm Lauren Bradfacheko, and this is murder in Miami.
The story Happy's about to share about setting Lamar up
with his first load of cocaine is set in nineteen eighty. Now,
(02:15):
just explain to me. You were running coke from where.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
South America from Colombia. The trip had gone. It kind
of ragged the trip before I barely got off this
muddy Levy bank, and I knew I couldn't come out
with full fuel because it had been raining ever since
the last trip, and it would even be muddier, and
(02:42):
so I decided I would only come out with a
partial load of fuel.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Weather had already complicated Happy's departure from Columbia in terms
of flying out with a full tank of fuel, which
would have made the plane too heavy to take off,
But after he fueled up in South Cakos, weather would
also complicate handing off the load in Florida to his
associate Don too Well.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
The weather was so bad in Florida.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
That don didn't think I was going to come, or
where the hell could I have gone? I mean, the
trip was on. I was leaving Columbion. I needed to
get there, and my plan was to land, give the
load to down and him get out of their right away.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Well, they went to lunch.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
While his cocaine unloading crew was lunching. Happy says he
encountered a different sort of welcoming committee, and not the
sort he welcomed.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
As I crossed the channel from Bimini to Opalaca, I
realized they were on me, and I finally found out
what frequency they were working on, and I was listening
to home. In hell, there was a dozen of them
on me. They were coordinating.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
A dozen planes were following you.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, everything DEA and Customs had was on me, and
some state birds too.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
So you had gotten all the way back to Florida
and realize that you have everybody on your tail.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
So, a rather unhappy Happy was left to formulate an
escape on the fly.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Literally, I turned around and headed east, not knowing what
I was going to do, And as I came out of.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
A cloud, I wass to know.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
With their low helicopter and a helicopter. I mean we
were three hundred and five hundred feet away from each
other with a closure rate of over three hundred miles
an hour.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Oh my gosh. So you come out of a cloud
and you are facing a helicopter.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yes. So he dropped the collective and went right under me,
and I went right over the top and he landed
in a field, and I circled him, and he was
throwing up in the middle of the field.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Because he thought he was gonna die.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
And so then I decided, Well, I'll go out to
the Bahamas and probably end up ditching the airplane in
deep water somewhere, but close enough that I can swim
to the shore and the airplane will be so deep
that they'll never be able.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
To get it, or they won't go get it, and
I'll be home free.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Well, I realized I had the two airplanes still following me.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
The Jetstar was on me, and the aero commander was
on me.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Well, Commander, I knew you didn't have radar and had
to stay on me visually. And then I heard the
jet Star landing in NASA, and he told the tower,
it's an emergency. Can you get us a fuel truck out,
and the guy in the tower said.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Mon, who you think I is? You fewel and lucky,
get your own fuel truck.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
That is mister Miles's impersonation of a behavian accent.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
So I knew he'd be on the ground for a
while trying to get fuel.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
So the whole time they're following you, you're going through
the different frequencies and picking up their transmissions. You're eavesdropping
on them.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, I'm eavesdropping on them.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
So there's a great big thundercloud between me and NASA,
and I'm headed like I'm going to Hawksbill ron Elliot's
Island property is hotel.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
So I flew right.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Into the thunderstorm, which they will never do because if
you're not lucky, you get sucked up in the vortex
and spit out at forty thousand feet in pieces. Till
the minute I went in, they went around to the north.
It was the shortest distance around the thunderstorm, and the
(07:33):
minute I was in and they couldn't see me, I
made a ninety degree turn to the right, came out
the bottom of the thunderstorm headed south. So I'd been
in the air for over ten and a half hours,
at that time. Wow, and I only had eleven hours
(07:56):
of fuel.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
And that is the point that Happy says. He happened
upon international drug smuggler Lamar Chester, who happened to own
two nearby islands.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
I come up on Captain America Lamar's red white and
bleach two O seven.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Just happened to pass him in the air.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
It just happened to.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Be overtaking him.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
He was headed from NASA to his island.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
And when you're coming on an airplane from the back,
you don't have anything to see. It's very hard to
see an airplane from the back. He got a rudder
and a horizontal and a wing, but nothing of mass.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
And I almost ran him over. I came within a.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Quarter of a mile before I would have run him over,
and I saw him. So I pulled up alongside of him,
and we finally found each other on an obscure frequency
and I said, hey, and I want to rent a boot.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
He said, I don't know if you can afford it.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
And I said, well, put an M on the end,
and that should make you happy.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
What runway do you want me to use?
Speaker 1 (09:12):
And by putting an M on the number, mister Miles
means one million dollars bail.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
He couldn't make up his mind, the big island, the
little island, and finally at the last minute he said,
land on the on the short strip. Well, he only
has about nine hundred feet up there by the house
on the hill, and you can land the command shee
in six or seven hundred feet eight out of ten times.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
But the other two times are gonna get you. The airplane.
It's gonna float and you're not gonna make it.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
And it ended into a blunt cliff, so you know
you're gonna die. So I went in and I was
only a few hundred feet from landing, and the left
engine quit ran out of fuel. Well, when that happens,
the airplane veers right away. So I had a hell
(10:09):
of a time getting it back on track and a
couple hundred feet and still landing.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Holy moly.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
And luckily I.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Touched down right at the start of the runway where
it went straight after it came out of his undergown
hangar and got the airplane stopped and six hundred feet.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
So he said, what do you got And I.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Said, well, I've got four hundred and forty pounds of stuff.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
I need you to fly it in for me.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
He said, well, I'll fly it to georgiash, I'll give
a shit where you fly it. Just take it in
for me, and I'll give you a million bucks.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
That's what happened.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So you offered Lamar a million dollars to land at
his island and to bring the coke back to the
United States, right, and that million it came out of
the shipment. Happy was flying for Pablo Escobar. Yes, that
Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug lord and narco terrorist who
(11:18):
founded the Madayen cartel.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Even when I took a million dollars of coke out
of the load, I wasn't worried about getting rubbed out
or anything because it was a legitimate expense. I mean,
I was resourceful enough to still get the majority of
the load through. I had two hundred and twenty keys
(11:44):
and I lost thirty five of them to pay Lamar.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Big deal.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Uh, it is a big deal that Happy live to
tell about it. But that's another story.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
I mean, I did what I had to do and
it worked out.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
You've got to have like a cat, but instead of
nine lives, you must have like nine hundred. By the way,
Happy says he shared the same story about losing a
dozen government agency planes trailing him with the federal agent
who helped broker his equally incredible immunity deal, which we'll
cover later. While the agent prefers not to be named,
(12:23):
he was able to verify it.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
When started to tell the story I had told him
to his Coharts, they said, it never happened.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
He's full of shit.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
So went down and chase my steps and finally found
my motel receipt for that night when I was going
back to Miami. And then he found the guys that
were flying that day, and they said, oh, yeah, but
Billy wrote the report. Go to Billy, Billy, did you
(12:57):
write No Harry who was going to the report?
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Go to Harry. No, Charlie was going to write the report.
They never wrote a report on it.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I was worried they had my end number, but they
never wrote a report on it.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Why do you think, Oh, they had so much.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Egg on their face that I could screw them all.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Over by flying into that storm cloud. I mentioned earlier
that Happy's dabbled in the film business before well. He
sent me a DVD that contained a movie he made
about the Bahamas Family Island Regatta, a celebrated sailing event
and crowd pleaser since nineteen fifty four. Happy Foot of
the bill for the extravagant production, which he places at
(13:45):
a quarter of a million dollars and opens with a
very formal mister Miles promoting his signature plane in conjunction
with the film.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
This is the pby and I'm Happy Miles.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Together we fly around the world to a joy.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Of fulfillment in communities both large and small.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Happy walks as he reads his lines, frequently stopping and
changing directions along with the camera, making for some amusing edits.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Come with me to see what it is.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
It rewards men and women with the sense of knowing
they are the best that they can be.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
When you're doing your stand up and they have you
walk three feet this way and then stop and then
walk three feet that way to camera.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
Oh, because you should see the outtakes. I'm tuck at
dyslexic and I can't read two cards. We had just
come from lunch, and I've had about more Roman chokes,
so I.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Had a hell of the time getting my lines done.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
What follows is a lush and slick overview of the Regatta.
But what makes the footage exceptionally interesting is the access
at highlights between Happy and the Hamian government.
Speaker 6 (15:03):
The stage is set as Prime Minister Linden Pendling, along
with the visiting dignitaries and island officials, gather for speeches
and congratulations to all regatta participants.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Do you know that I'm the only American allowed to
race with the Behamans?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Is that still true?
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
I'm a citizen one week out of the year and
that week to be designated by out Island Regatta.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
How did you pull that off.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Oh, Penling, the Prime Minister. Yeah, we just made a declaration.
Speaker 6 (15:43):
Prime Minister Pendling acknowledges the people of Exuma and all
of those who have maintained the high standards over the
years for the Family Island Regatta.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Linden Pendling is perhaps the most famous and controversial Bahamian politician.
He served as the first black Premier of the Colony
of the Bahama Islands from nineteen sixty seven to nineteen
sixty nine and as Prime Minister of the Bahamas from
nineteen sixty nine to nineteen ninety two. Known as the
Father of the Nation, he's also known for helming the
(16:15):
darkest period in modern Bahavian history nineteen seventy seven to
nineteen ninety two, a time when the Bahamas served as
a convenient and corruptible stopover for contraband bound for the US.
Something exposed, and in nineteen eighty three NBC investigative Peace
titled the Bahamas a nation for Sale. The report alleged,
(16:38):
among other things, that Carlos later the German Colombian drug lord,
and members of his infamous made aen cartel used Norman's
key in Exuma as a lay of our point to
traffic cocaine into the United States. It also implied the
Bahamas government and Peddling profited by turning a blind eye
to drug smuggling, assisted by a prominent Behavian attorney named
(17:02):
Nigel bo Well.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Nigel was an attorney who was Pindling's bag man.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Mainly for somebody who doesn't understand that expression, what does
bagman mean?
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Well, it means that when later moved into the Bahamas,
he paid a lot of money to be able to
operate out enormous key like he did, and Nigel would
go over and pick up the money and deliver it
to Pinling.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
So bagman is the guy who's transporting the money from
one party to the other.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
So whatever Nigel said with the police or customs or
anything was the same as probably Pendling saying it.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
He had a lot of clout.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
So if somebody wanted to get away with something illicit
in the Bahamas, Nigel was the person you had to
go through.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
He was the man.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
It was the man, yeah without Adell.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Though Pendling and bo denied the accusations, the public outcry
led to the creation in nineteen eighty four of the
Royal Commission of Inquiry into drug trafficking and government Corruption
in the Bahamas. A review of Pendling's personal finances by
the Commission found that he had spent eight times his
reported total earnings from nineteen seventy seven to nineteen eighty four,
(18:27):
finding the Prime Minister and Lady Pendling have received at
least fifty seven point three million dollars in cash.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Explanations.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
First, some of these deposits were given but could not
be verified, and also pulled into that inquiry a former
Eastern Airlines pilot Lamar Chester. So how did Chester end
up getting pulled into the Bahamas inquiry anyway?
Speaker 7 (18:51):
I'm really not sure just how he got pulled into it,
but he certainly wanted to go. He had to get
permission from the judge in his trial.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
He'd already been indicted.
Speaker 7 (19:01):
To leave the country, and after going through the ropes
on that, he did flew down there.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Remember, having been indicted in the US, Chester would have
needed court permission to leave the country.
Speaker 7 (19:15):
As he knew at the time it was his chance
to make a public statement of his gray Mail defense.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
That he did it for the CIA.
Speaker 7 (19:24):
He also knew that there weren't going to be any
legal consequences for him, certainly in the Bahamas, because the
inquiry didn't have the authority to indict anyone anyway.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
That's really interesting. So it's possible that Chester was just
incentivized to go there because it provided him with a
platform and a megaphone to state the gray mail defense.
Speaker 7 (19:48):
Yeah, I'm sure he is assumed that he would get
national publicity.
Speaker 8 (20:01):
One of the most significant things in this whole case
was Lamar Chaster's appearance before a Royal Commission of Inquiry
in the Bahamas, and that was at the time a
really upsetting thing for the Bahamas because it was their
(20:21):
version of Watergate.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
That's Atlanta based journalist, producer and documentarian C. B. Hackworth.
Speaker 8 (20:28):
Sir Lindon Pendling was the hero of Bahamian independence, and
there were swirling allegations that he was corrupt of receiving
payoffs through an attorney named Nigel Bow who also represented
lamar Chester, that those payments were to permit drug smuggling
(20:51):
in the Bahamas.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Today seebe presents as a seasoned Southern journalist with at
certain angles a passing resemblance to Robin Willilliams, which is
reinforced by his fondness for suspenders, even when wearing jeans
and a T shirt. But when Hackworth's path first crossed
with lamar Chester and subsequently the Coconut Grove Guys in
nineteen eighty three, he was a twenty five year old
(21:14):
reporter working at the Gainesville Times, a local paper in Georgia.
Speaker 8 (21:19):
I became aware of Lamarchester both through some earlier reporting
in the newspaper where I was working, and because I
was covering a cocaine smuggling trial in federal court in
which one of the defendants ended up being an unindicted
co conspirator in the lamar Chester case. So that was
(21:43):
a tie between those two cases, and who was the
tie in That was Grover Alexander, who was a local individual.
Grover Alexander had been convicted of murder at some point,
but was a car dealer in White County and he
had repeatedly been arrested and was indicted with lamar Chester.
(22:05):
It was not convicted in the case that I was covering,
But while covering the biggest drug smuggling case in Georgia history,
I overheard some conversations in which Lamarchester's name came up,
and some federal officials were speculating that la Marchester was
(22:26):
going to be indicted soon. So with those nudges, I
took another look at what had already been reported, which
was pretty substantial.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
And the work of a local reporter named Lavignia Miyese.
Speaker 8 (22:41):
Laviniam Miese was the correspondent in White County. I knew her,
I came to know her well. We really worked together
very closely in the Chester case, and I give her
a real tip of the hat. Lavinia wrote about the
River Hills project in White County, which was ill faded.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
River Hills was a short lived concept. Chester apparently created
as a campsite for college kids, but was suspected to
be a money laundering front, but that's not what upset
local folks.
Speaker 8 (23:18):
It's strange because apparently by the time the controversy arose,
they actually already had opened River Hills for a season
I'm not sure how many weeks, and it had lost money.
The River Hills had intended to be an outdoor recreational
(23:40):
area for college students to come and drink and probably
whatever else they wanted to do, and folks in White
County aren't going to stand for that going on in
their river. I mean, the people in North Georgia are
kind of what you would expect, mostly salt of the earth, hard,
war working. One of the county commission members was very
(24:04):
upset by a flyer that he had found for River Hills,
and he brought it up in a County commission meeting
and it was come and drink and float down the river,
and the county commissioner, he was just pretty upset.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
If River Hills didn't exactly sit well with the locals,
it would prove very valuable to the federal investigators driving
Operation Loan Star. You'll eventually hear more about Leslie Bickerton,
the woman Chester brought in to oversee the River Hills project.
She would become a very valuable and very controversial witness
(24:40):
for both the prosecution and the defense. But we'll get
into all of that a bit later. Back to C. B.
Speaker 8 (24:46):
Hackworth, Lavina had been speaking to Chester for a year
or more. I mean, she had been trying to tell us,
trying to tell the world this was a really big story,
and nobody was really paying attention to her because she
was just, you know, the White County correspondent.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
But CEB.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Hockwartz says her journalistic instincts were on point. Here's Lavina
meies Hex in her own words, sharing her written thoughts
on Lamar Chester.
Speaker 9 (25:18):
Personally, I do not know whether or not Chester was
guilty of the charges in the nineteen eighty three of
Aged Dregs smuggling indictment. He claimed he was innocent and
he had been working for the government and the CIA.
He told me that the CIA had been attempted to
overthrow the government in the Bahamas.
Speaker 8 (25:37):
And it was such a huge story that it sounds
fantastical at first. Blush, but I've got to tell you.
She had kept clippings and she had dug up in
corporation papers, and it was one of the best guides
and briefings I've ever had. I referred to it throughout
(25:58):
the next year and a half that I ended up
covering the Chester case on a daily basis.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Lavigna Maize provided Cbe's introduction to Lamar Chester.
Speaker 8 (26:10):
At that time, Lamar was under very strict orders not
to talk to reporters anyone connected to the media anyone
period outside of his family and his legal team, and
he violated that as much as he could. I think
it was as much to prove that the government couldn't
(26:35):
make him be quiet as it was to disseminate information.
I also believe he enjoyed the coverage and being a
local celebrity.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
That was his ego, and Chester did not disappoint in person.
Speaker 8 (26:52):
The first time I met him, I drove up to
White County and out to the dirt road where his
farm was.
Speaker 10 (27:00):
Used. The word farm.
Speaker 8 (27:01):
Very liberally because it was a sprawling piece of property
with a grass landing strip. It's the biggest house in
White County. Although not gaudy in any way, it was
actually very tastefully done, but it was just so huge.
(27:22):
The main room where I sat was enormous and it
was a combination of a huge living room and a
huge dining area. And Lamar met me shook my hand.
He had a very warm, magnetic personality. I think he
(27:42):
knew that and was able to use it to his
advantage in many many situations, including dealing with the media.
He had compromised some people who had reported on him.
And I knew that Lamar was tall, he had a mustache,
and he struck me as a man's man. Lavinia had
(28:07):
described him in an article as a Marlborough man, really
alpha male. I've met a few people like that. Sam
Elliott is like that. You know, I'm in the presence
of a real man. I remember Lamar smiling a lot,
even though the circumstances you would think were kind of
grim for him. I know there was a lean on
(28:30):
the farm that had been placed by his lawyers, and
of course he was facing indictment.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
And Ceb knew the meeting was serving a purpose, at
least on Chester's end.
Speaker 8 (28:42):
Lamar was very open to meeting with me, and he
was very open when I met him. I never made
any agreement, nor was I asked to to protect him
from himself from the fact that he was violating a
court order, and he had already been significantly warned because
(29:08):
of a television report that Fars Sawyer had done on
WAGAATV in Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Phil Stamford has already referenced that infamous interview, but I'll
let Ceb remind you of what Chester claimed during it.
Speaker 8 (29:24):
Well, he boasted to Fara Sawyer, and he said to
me separately, he said that he had flown a shipment
of marijuana, a large shipment directly over wherever Ronald Reagan,
who was then president was speaking at the time. I
think it was Homestead Air Force Base, and that he
(29:44):
could have shoved a bail out and dropped it at
the President's feet if he wanted to. That's my recollection.
He completely admitted to being one of the world's most
prolific drugsugglers, that he had smuggled large shipments of marijuana
(30:05):
from the Bahamas into the United States Florida, but primarily Georgia.
Two hundred shipments or more is what I think he said.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
And the reaction that statement received seemed to be the
intention behind making it.
Speaker 8 (30:23):
Lamar was talking to a lot of reporters and he
wanted to stir this up. I wasn't oblivious to any
of that stuff, even though I was young.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
But did you have any idea when you left his
farm that day how intense and complicated your relationship with
him would get.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Well?
Speaker 8 (30:47):
You would think I would answer no, but I kind
of did. The scope of what he had laid out
was huge.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Chester's interaction with Hackworth would intensify as the legal proceedings advanced.
Speaker 8 (31:02):
Lamar would call me often late at night, and sometimes,
if not usually after he'd been drinking. Now I'm not
saying he was bad to drink. I don't know that
to be a fact, but I do know that sometimes
he drank at night and sometimes he called me, and
(31:22):
these were not short little conversations. We would discuss what
was going on with the case. He guided me toward things.
I recorded all of my conversations with Lamar Chester. Georgia
is a one party consent state. You do not have
to have permission from another person to record a conversation
(31:46):
as long as you are a participant in that conversation.
Down you're trying to stall until after the US they
want to.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Hear what you were listening to. Are the recordings of
those actual conversations. Which C. B. Hackworth is sharing for
the first time.
Speaker 11 (32:13):
Washington was prepared to a set one flee to anything,
anything with a five year cat stand silent and sentence
him say just to let me walk out, or sins
being no more than five years, which you know I'll
do ten to a month. But Washington would take a
plea to anything taxivation at this point, and bear in
(32:37):
mind this is June is indety Mars. Yeah, but they'd
take anything, and if they give them minds a bow,
I could walk clean with money. Now they also made
this offer getting they make this off for the Bogart
just prior to them that they want the Prime Minister
also clean more.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Lamar Chester is claiming the prosecutors offered to drop charges
against him if he turned on the Bahamian Attorney Nigel
bo and Prime Minister Pendling.
Speaker 8 (33:08):
But again, never once, despite everything he ever said to me,
he never once did he say, hey, don't put this
in the paper. Not once. When I wrote a five
part series on lamar Chester, the heading on that rack
card said master criminal or secret agent.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
It was pretty dramatic, as would be the travel assignment.
Hackworth's paper Greenlet as the young reporter continued to cover Chester.
Speaker 8 (33:40):
He told me he was going to testify before this
Royal Commission, and he told me what he was going
to say, and he told me f Lee Bailey would
be the attorney for the Prime Minister of the Bahamas,
then he would be doing the questioning. I played a
(34:00):
very short, perhaps sixty second excerpt of that conversation with
Lamar for the publisher of the newspaper.
Speaker 11 (34:10):
Through my relations with government of Bahamas and businessmen there
in elsewhere, I have contacts all over the world, in
particular Central and South America, Europe and the parties.
Speaker 8 (34:20):
And they supported my outrageous quest for this story. The
publisher he told me to go to the Bahamas when
Lamar was there to testify. This was not a newspaper
that routinely sent a reporter to the Bahamas. I stayed
at the same resort hotel that Lamar stayed at. His
(34:42):
lawyers did not know I was going to be there.
They did not know the extent to which he was
talking to me, and likely others. His lawyers could not
control him.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Seebee also taped the proceedings, and Bill has those recordings
on micro cassettes, which he shared with me when we
met in person.
Speaker 8 (35:06):
He was being questioned by f Lee Bailey, who, not
by accident, was one of the most famous lawyers in America.
An extremely talented, brilliant man.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
What do you mean, Cherry Well about to airport here?
Attorney Flee Bailey questions Chester about his interaction with a
man named Morgan Cherry specifically.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Did he wants you to.
Speaker 11 (35:36):
He really didn't want me to come back, but I
didn't come.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Back to not reveal his identity.
Speaker 11 (35:41):
I believe you not reveal Morgan Cherry, Morgan Cherry's but
his request was that you go back on her promises,
commission and not return.
Speaker 4 (35:50):
That's fact.
Speaker 10 (35:51):
Believe you use the word to.
Speaker 11 (35:52):
Keep your shot as to indicate why his employers.
Speaker 7 (36:00):
And interested silence.
Speaker 10 (36:04):
They just didn't want to know.
Speaker 11 (36:05):
That they were engaged, that they had been uh instrument
and the Bryan.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Rosser, the Brian ross Report, that was the nineteen eighty
three NBC investigative Peace titled the Bahamas a Nation for Sale?
And the man named Morgan Cherry. Chester's referring to is
his allegedly CIA connected link to the assignments he claims
to have conducted on behalf of the US government.
Speaker 8 (36:33):
F Lee Bailey. He was very good that day. He
was representing the Prime Minister of the Bahamas Times that
that Morgan.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Cherry claimed to be a person who.
Speaker 10 (36:43):
Had helped the NBC broadcast to begin with, and whose
clients were profit by an investigation shore to follow such
a broadcast to the point where he.
Speaker 11 (36:52):
Could promise you Besidey's representation. That pretty much sums of.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
That that was taped. Cebe recalls a very interesting interaction
which led to an after court meeting at the hotel
casino with Chester and two young women.
Speaker 8 (37:11):
Lamar went to get a drink of water and he said,
if you have any questions, I'll be in the casino
tonight at ten thirty in the hotel where we were staying.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
So did you go down to the casino at ten
thirty that night?
Speaker 10 (37:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (37:28):
I went down to the casino and I think I
had sixty four dollars that I was going to gamble with.
I'm twenty five years old, working for a small daily newspaper,
paying child support, so all I had on my first
trip ever anywhere out of the country sixty four dollars
(37:51):
to gamble with. I got there early and my sixty
four dollars did not last long. I blew that money
at the roulette wheel very quickly. So I did find
Lamar standing at a slot machine, one that you fed
dollar tokens in three at a time. I had played
(38:14):
the slots earlier with quarters, and to me, this was
like bordering on real money. And not only was he
doing that, he was winning. You know, he put three
things in and we're beginning to talk, and he'd pulled
the lever and beat about to answer question, and tokens
would pour out. He didn't care about the money that
(38:36):
he was winning. He didn't care about the money he
was putting into the slot machine.
Speaker 10 (38:40):
He just raded wealth.
Speaker 8 (38:41):
And that's part of what I think made him a
track do to a lot of people, men as well
as women. I don't mean sexually, but I mean wanting
to be in his inner circle. And we weren't standing
there very long before the young lady walked up and
just started hanging around him. At first I thought it
(39:04):
might be someone he knew, or a legal assistant or something,
but it was she was a stranger.
Speaker 10 (39:11):
I guess it was.
Speaker 8 (39:12):
You know, people have described him as good looks or
magnetic personality, whatever, and in addition the fact that money
kept pouring out of this slot machine. I think the
sound was some sort of mating call, but since I
was standing there, I guess the young lady said, well,
(39:34):
I'll be right back, and she came back with her friend.
Speaker 10 (39:38):
They were both pretty, they were both.
Speaker 8 (39:41):
Young, just having a good time on vacation in the Bahamas.
There was a bar overlooking the casino. Next thing, I know,
the drink I was supposed to have with Lamar, as
we'd already said we're going to go upstairs and have
a drink, ends up being these two young ladies following
(40:03):
us up there.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
So it's starting to feel like a double date.
Speaker 8 (40:07):
Yeah, And that bothered me because, you know, on the
one hand, I was a twenty five year old, fairly
recently divorced young man and you know, a beautiful young
woman sitting next to me. Now, I remember what I
was thinking was, you know, they didn't really cover this
(40:30):
specific thing in journalism school, in any of the classes
I took. But I am fairly sure you're not allowed
to pick up girls with the drug smuggler.
Speaker 10 (40:43):
That you're covering.
Speaker 8 (40:45):
And at the same time, it's very socially awkward because
it was superficially a very nice, happy little group. But
fortunately for me, as I'm sitting there trying to think
how am I going to get out of this gracefully,
Lamar actually provided me with the inspiration, not intentionally.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
And apparently did so with his signature style.
Speaker 8 (41:13):
When the conversation fairly quickly led to you know, who
are you and what do you do? After they have
talked about being a nurse and etc. Well who are you?
And Lamar said something pretty instantly about, well, I'm one
of the biggest drug smugglers in the world, and this
(41:33):
guy's a reporter that has been following me, and you know,
he writes about a lot of the things that I do.
Speaker 10 (41:40):
And I don't think that they believed in.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Did they just kind of laugh at all.
Speaker 10 (41:44):
I think they kind of.
Speaker 8 (41:45):
Laughed it off, like oh sure. I was like, well, damn,
that doesn't scare him off. And some people I've told
this story to have said that may have made somebody
more attractive. Well it didn't really, It was that they
didn't believe it. I don't think the way that he
said it, and again it's consistent with what he always said.
(42:10):
He never shied away from it. You just can't believe
that anybody was this upfront, but I guess that was
his strategy. If you know you're going to be accused
of smuggling massive amounts of marijuana, get in front of it.
Speaker 10 (42:24):
I think that was what he tried to do always.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
And it's not as if these ladies had like cell
phones in their hands where they could google it quickly.
Speaker 10 (42:32):
Couldn't google it.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
That's when Ceb realized he could actually prove Chester's claim
to their doting wanta be dates.
Speaker 10 (42:40):
My secret weapon.
Speaker 8 (42:42):
I suddenly realized it was like a light bulb going
off over my head. I had a major series about
Lamar Chester, five part series called Citizen Chester was running
in my newspaper. I ran up to the room and
got the card that is inserted into a newspaper rack
(43:06):
that you put money in and pulled down the front
of and get a paper out of. And this one
had a photograph of Lamar Chester that I had taken
on that first visit to the house, with a banner
headline master criminal or secret Agent. And I took it out,
went back downstairs, went right up to that table and
(43:26):
unrolled it. I don't think I'm exaggerating to say that
the color drained from their faces. There may have been
women who would have been attracted by that, but these
two were not. They soon made excuses.
Speaker 9 (43:43):
To leave, call it a night.
Speaker 8 (43:46):
And you know what, I don't think that bothered Lamar
Chester at all. I think he was very happy that
they knew who he was.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
So at the time that the inquiry was happening in
the Bahamas, were you even aware that it was going on?
Speaker 4 (44:09):
No, I wasn't following it.
Speaker 7 (44:11):
I was back in DC for a few months, and
my mind was elsewhere when it was happening, and I
wasn't even aware of it. Later, when I came back
and Bob Adams came up to me and said, do
you know who Morgan Cherry is? Well, it was shortly
after this that the mysterious Morgan Cherry mentioned that I
got a call from Bob who said that Lamar wanted
(44:33):
to hire me as a consultant. There was going to
be a pre trial hearing in Atlanta and he wanted
me to be there as a consultant.
Speaker 4 (44:42):
I said what he.
Speaker 7 (44:42):
Said, you know, look over transcripts, catch inconsistencies, that sort
of thing. He said he'd pay me a couple hundred
dollars a day plus travel. I decided, I guess I
could be a consultant.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
After all, consultant for what using your ex tease as
a journalist, because it almost seems as if it would
be more a legal standpoint.
Speaker 7 (45:05):
Well, I was used to looking over government documents and
finding discrepancies and that sort of thing, believe it or not.
At this point, it still didn't seem real to me
that they thought I was with the CIA. So it
was just an extension of the craziness that had begun
when I started working for Intercept and started getting paid
(45:28):
for blowing assignments, and if they wanted to pay me,
I figured why not.
Speaker 4 (45:35):
Of course I shouldn't have done it.
Speaker 7 (45:37):
I knew it had something to do with their belief
that I was with the CIA.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Yeah, you know, a couple hundred dollars a day plus
travel doesn't sound that bad and probably seemed like much
more in the early eighties.
Speaker 4 (45:50):
It was certainly enough for me, that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
And if they did believe you were with the CIA,
they might have thought they were compromising you. At the
same time, they did compromise me that I wasn't with
the CIA.
Speaker 7 (46:03):
I mean I was digging myself in pretty deep with
people who I really didn't want to offend.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
Yeah, that's the other thing I would point out. You
didn't worry that you were getting into something that you
might not escape from.
Speaker 4 (46:19):
I just sort of walked right into it.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
And that seems to have been the plan. Here's Chester
talking to CB about Phil Stamford.
Speaker 8 (46:29):
I have a guy me together.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
He wouldn't.
Speaker 10 (46:46):
I am not, by.
Speaker 11 (46:48):
Any means commn not currently in active one of the
guys that.
Speaker 4 (46:59):
Comedy.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
You heard that right? Lamar Chester claims someone working with
the CIA confirmed Bill Stamford was also in the agency's
employ On the next murder of Miami, Bill Stamford leaves
the Amstdam Palace for a farm in Georgia.
Speaker 4 (47:19):
It was kind of strange. First thing.
Speaker 7 (47:21):
They put Bob up in the guesthouse and I'm staying
at the main house with Lamarren artists, who I can
tell right off really doesn't want me there at all.
Speaker 1 (47:29):
As the scope of Operation Loan Stark titans around La Marchester.
Speaker 8 (47:33):
Frankly, with what the government stating witnesses fed to alligators,
I could not understand how someone who had just made
a deal to testify against him would be anywhere near it.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
But I was going to find out and re ignites
a cold case mystery from Miami.
Speaker 7 (47:53):
And this was right out of the blue because we've
never spoken about Clay Williams, the Intercept detective who was
found dead in the.
Speaker 4 (47:59):
Everglyn we will wait.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
I'm sorry he brought up Clay Williams, leading to a
possible break in the Clay Williams murder that leads back
to Intercept. Murder of Miami is a production of iHeartRadio.
Executive producers are Lauren Bright Pacheco, Taylor Chackoine, and Phil Stamford.
(48:22):
Written by Phil Stamford and Lauren Bright Pacheco, Audio editing
and sound design by Nicholas Harder, Evan Tyer, and Taylor Chacoine,
featuring music by Evan Tyer, Phil Mayer, John Murchison and
Taylor Chacoine. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that matter
(48:45):
to you.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.