|
HostCraze.com - An independent review of the top rated web hosts Free Background Images |
|
|
This lawyer came with the message, keep silent and everything would be all right. Sol wasn't to talk about the killings, kick-backs, or anything to connect him with LBJ. For that, Lyndon would let him live.
There had been a rash of mysterious killings. There were a lot of people ending up in the mental wards. This was to discredit the validity of any testimony that they might give. Sol surely didn't want to end up with either of these two options. He decided to remain quiet. As it turned out, the truth made him a feared man.
He was endangered by those who feared he would talk. Repeated efforts have been made to discredit him, so he wouldn't be believed if he ever did tell the full story. The use of powerful positions and financial clout was used to cloud and distort the truth. Sol told me that he just wanted to set the record straight. He wanted history to be recorded correctly about the events that followed. He saw the fallacy of the corruption that he had been engaged in.
He told me that if one does business with the government that is the way it had to be done. Otherwise, someone else who was willing to do business the way politicians wanted it would get the business. There was a little unaccounted-for money that had been spent. Sol couldn't afford to record this in his books. When the smoke began to clear there were astronomical figures that Sol was supposed to owe in unpaid taxes to the federal Government.
IN AN ARTICLE DATED 12-9-76 FROM THE SAN ANGELO STANDARD TIMES THE FED WANTED ONLY 43 MILLION DOLLARS FROM SOL.
This was one of many accounts of that debt. In a federal tax suit filed in U.S. District Court in Abilene, Texas on April 8th, 1979, the Internal Revenue Service asked for a judgment against Sol. It alleged that he owes about $20,260,118. In another allegation against Sol, it was said he owed about $23,784,377 in back taxes. This was including penalties and interest for the years 1959-1962. Then Estes asked that both cases be combined. The article went on, "...The government may never collect on the Estes' tax liens. The liens resulted from income Estes made on nonexistent fertilizer tanks on West Texas farms and from government grain storage contracts."
SUCH ARTICLES BROUGHT ME INTO THE ARENA OF PUBLICITY. MEDIA ATTENTION AND LEGAL ENTANGLEMENTS KEPT PEOPLE BUYING DRINKS FOR ME. THIS WENT ON FOR AN INCREDIBLY LONG PERIOD. YOU CAN'T BLAME THEM FOR TRYING. AFTER ALL, THEY PROBABLY FELT I LIKE I MIGHT SAY SOMETHING IF I HAD ENOUGH TO DRINK. . . . . . . [MILLIONS SOMEWHERE]
An article written by Jere Longman, who was a staff writer for the Dallas Times Herald on February 12,1978, speculates that the United States government thought Sol had money hidden somewhere. This article explained what a ridiculous situation Sol found himself in after he was paroled from his first prison term. The parole stipulation was that he not engage in any self-employed or promotional business activities. Still, the government went ahead with the suit. A federal government source close to the case said they wanted to avoid expiration of the statute of limitations on the tax claims. They hoped that they could recover several million dollars. Nearly everyone suspected Sol of having squirreled millions of dollars away.
Can you envision the difficulty inherent in the dilemma? What would it be like to be suspected of having millions of dollars when, actually, you are flat broke?
I was in a mess for just being Sol's friend. How did I get myself into such a mess? It all started when I had a few platonic dates with one of Sols' lovely daughters. Jan later married one of my best boyhood friends, Dearld Bright. Before their divorce they had a beautiful daughter named Star Bright. Isn't that an attractive name?
Sol and I soon discovered that we had a sixth sense type of communication. We quickly became good friends. In fact, a short while later, I was invited to move into his house to live. I didn't work for him like so many people suppose. The only connection that I have with him is we are good friends. We shared the same house for about four years. The results of this association led to some funny, bizarre, and otherwise unusual events in my life. Some events have been so funny that they are not so funny.
Ha ha ha. . . . funny uh? I think so. Can you imagine sitting in a tit bar and having the girls buy your drinks? They were doing it just in case I happened to be lying about not being the one hiding Sols' money. It was an alcoholics' dream. A scantily clad cutie on each knee and a drink in my hand. It is just too bad that I couldn't have held up any longer. I had so much fun that it nearly killed me. Everyone wanted to buy me a drink just to hear more about Sol.
The whole mess left me in the most ridiculous situation that anyone could ever imagine. First I suffered guilt by association. The government felt that I might be hiding an astronomical sum of money for Sol. Because I was Sol's friend I fell under investigation with Sol. Sol had said some untruths while drunk. They took the word of a drunk. Sol was in a blackout drunk when he said that I had fronted his deals for the last 15 to 18 years.
He didn't even realize that he said it. When the transcripts of the tapes made by the government agents were released I recieved much unwanted publicity. Since that time many people have presumed that I must be hiding up to $56 million for Sol. Sol was intelligent and lucky to be able to live in a manor that caused him to appear wealthy.
Sol was living in a beautiful four bedroom house. The house was located on lovely Lytle lake in Abilene Texas. He was driving an expensive gold Cadillac while he claimed to be financially destitute. He was paroled to work for an almost defunct company. This company couldn't even pay the seven hundred a month that it had promised Sol. It did furnish him with the car he drove.
Patsy, Sol's wife, had to come up with the gas money by washing dishes and waiting tables in a Mexican restaurant. As for the house that Sol was living so sumptuously in, it belonged to his brother, John. Sol had financed him through dental school.
When Billy Sol met with his financial and legal downfall his brother was already enjoying a very good life. This was due to the education Sol had been able to endow him with. Now it was his brother's turn to help Sol. He reciprocated the kindness to Sol and his family. Sol's brother did not forget what Sol had done to help him in the past. Sol and his family were to live at forty Castle Drive, Abilene, Texas. It is great to have friends and family. Don't you agree?
This really chapped the Governments' ass. Here was a man who bore a mystery. What happened to the missing money when Sol's empire fell? The same man now had the audacity to live well. I don't think the government believed Sol. The only reason Sol was now able to live well was due to the kindness of those he had helped in the past. What the Government didn't realize was Sol's biggest secret wasn't hidden money. The secret was that he had no secret.
This was not to say that Sol didn't have hidden assets. The assets were far different than those supposed by the government. Maybe you will discover some of them by reading this book.
The more I denied knowing anything about the money, the more people bought me drinks. With this situation I was under pressure from an inordinate amount of unwanted publicity. I think it had a lot to do with my becoming a paranoid alcoholic.
JUNE 4TH OF 1978, THE GOVERNMENT WAS MAD, BECAUSE WITH ALL THEIR INVESTIGATION THEY STILL DIDN'T KNOW WHERE THE MONEY WAS. IN MY OPINION THE GOVERNMENT PRESENTED A THREAT TO THIS MAN'S FAMILY AND FRIENDS FOR WHAT THEY THOUGHT THE MAN HAD DONE. CAN THEY DO THAT IN THIS COUNTRY? THE ARTICLE FROM THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS 6-4-78 REVEALED THE FOLLOWING;
Sol revealed that the Government tried to blackmail him. They did this by threatening to indict one of his daughters. They also planned to indict his brother, his former attorney, and a longtime friend if he did not plead guilty. They wanted him to accept a single count of conspiracy to conceal assets. Sol's family knew, as I did, the charges where trumped up. He was not guilty of any of the charges.
Sol and I tape recorded a telephone conversation with the government prosecutor about the threatened indictments. We did so without his knowledge. We even presented the transcripts of the tapes to the press.
In this taping Jack Bryant, Sol's attorney, and Sol outlined the details of the threat with Assistant U.S. attorney Jim Rolfe. In the transcripts and in a memo to Estes, Bryant said the federal government would indict Sol and Sue Goolsby. She was a close friend from Lubbock and Sol's secretary. They threatened to indict her for fraud, mail fraud, and transportation of stolen property concerning an alleged bogus oil field steam cleaners rental operation.
Whether you realize it or not, when you are indicted for anything, it is serious business. Innocent or guilty, for a person to get adequate legal help it costs a great deal of money. The legal help that is supposed to be furnished to an indicted person who does not have access to a considerable amount of money to hire a personal lawyer is not adequate.
There are no funds to investigate anything for the defendant's side. The government has all the funds it wants to hang you. The premise that one is innocent until found guilty simply does not work in our system. If they want you they will more than likely get you. They will totally disregard your innocence status.
Sue Goolsby went in debt for $20,000.00 to pay her lawyers. This amount was the cost of preparing for a case against her that was never prosecuted. The government also would seek to indict Estes' oldest daughter, Abilene realtor Pam Tedford, Sol's brother, Abilene dentist Dr.John L. Estes, and Jack Bryant (Sol's attorney) for conspiracy to conceal assets to avoid taxation.
As Sol said in the article, he was seriously considering pleading guilty to charges that he was innocent of to protect his family and friends. He said, "I just couldn't put them through that." One of Sol's sons-in-law, Morris Lindsey III, and Sol's brother, John, both said that the family would not allow him to accept the offer. At one point Sol actually accepted the plea bargain. He later reversed his decision, only to fight a losing battle in court.
At one point, the Internal Revenue Service had verbally threatened me to attempt to secure my cooperation. This was very disconcerting. They wanted me to confirm their lies about Sol. I knew they weren't true. The exact words that they used were, " We will get you later." I didn't really understand what they meant when they said it. It was only after they framed Sol, in 1979, by paying off the judge, that I understood.
They got the judge to disallow our evidence from going before the jury. Then I began to realize the full implications of what the IRS meant by, "We will get you later." I lived in the woods of Austin, Texas for the better part of nine years since shortly after the 1979 Estes trial. While there I was pondering what they meant by thier threats. These threats were made shortly before they framed my best friend.
ARTICLE FROM FORT WORTH STAR TELEGRAM DATED JUNE 23, 1978 SAYS GOVERNMENT ADMITS SPENDING 4.2 MILLION ON THE ESTES CASE.
The Fort Worth Star Telegram, on the date of June the 23, 1978 came out with an article that made me more than a little nervous. G. Brocket Irwin, Sol's new lawyer, showed me the (as of then) nine volumes of government files compiled on me by the FBI. This knowledge would have made anybody nervous. The article claimed that the government had spent an admitted 4.2 million dollars having Sol followed around and investigated.
Since Sol and I where almost inseparable for the four years that I lived at his house, his investigation became my investigation. There was as much in Sol's files about me as there was about Sol. When the government agents infiltrated Sol's life they also invaded my privacy. When they made tape recordings of Sol's conversations I was there, being taped also. Of course, It didn't help my FBI file when Sol got drunk. While he was in a blackout drunk he talked. He told the agents that I had been fronting his deals for the last 15 to 18 years.
For all practical purposes Sols file and mine were the same. From the years 1975 to 1979 we had been together almost constantly. As of the date of the fore-mentioned article, the exact amount that the IRS had spent was $4,260,291.70. It was admitted that this figure could have been much higher. That was because the full report was not in at the time of the article.
The reporters contacted Sol and told him how much the government had spent on having him investigated. He chuckled and said, "Four million dollars is a lot of money to spend on a dry hole, as we say in Texas."
A FORT WORTH STAR TELEGRAM ARTICLE DATED JUNE 19, 1979, TITLED " WITNESS DOUBTS ESTES' HIDDEN FUNDS. " WAS NOT BELIEVED BY MANY PEOPLE, THOUGH IT WAS TRUE. . . NO HIDDEN FUNDS. . .
Surely the government didn't spend 4.2 million dollars and then admit there were no hidden funds? That would be like admitting a mistake. When our government makes a mistake someone innocent usually pays. This was the case with Sol. The government's chief investigator admitted that there were no hidden funds. He could not document any concealed assets that Sol might have had. Raymond K. Horton of Midland Texas had been Sols' boss. He was being accused of several counts of conspiracy to hide Estes' assets.
Although, there were no assets to hide, on July 12, 1979 the headline of the Dallas Morning News was as follows: "Estes Convicted of 2 Counts." How do you get convicted of "Conspiracy to conceal assets " when there are no assets to conspire to conceal? The answer is, in our political system, despite what the civics books tell you, if certain people want your ass, they probably will get it. If your lawyer doesn't know the law, that's OK. He'd damned sure better know the judge! In our case, it was the other side that knew the judge.
The judge disallowed our evidence by saying that all our documents were forged. Sol received more than 100 phone calls that week. The calls were mostly from people concerned about the mounting pressures on him, his family, and friends. He told one caller that he was so broke he was glad they weren't calling him collect. He told another caller, " I've done my time and I haven't violated my parole, but they are still hounding my family and me." Sol was innocent but his family and friends were being threatened with being framed.
It is somewhat difficult to win a case when the judge wont let you put your evidence before the jury. On August the 7th 1979, the bleak news of Sols' sentence was announced in the Dallas Morning News. The article recapped his former activities of 1965 when he was convicted of swindling West Texas farmers through mortgages on non-existent fertilizer tanks. Pam, Sols' oldest daughter said, "I didn't speak out and ask for mercy, I was not going to ask him [Judge Hill] for mercy. "He's not God." Sol had no comment, but his Attorney said that he would appeal.
G. Brockett Irwin never stopped filing papers on Sol's behalf. I became aware of how much work that he had done after Sol got out of prison many years later. I visited Sol then in Abilene. I returned briefly to Abilene from my Austin hobo hide out. I returned to help Sol organize his massive files.
Sol's conviction had stood in the face of some very strange circumstances. Never mind that one juror had stated that he had not voted his conviction. He said that he had voted against the other jurors until the very last. Then he had reversed his vote, not because he believed Sol to be guilty. He had a heart condition and claustrophobia. The reason the juror gave for concurring with the others was that he had to get out of the small room. He said, "I felt, if I did not get out of the little room, I would die." To spite all this, the Judge let the conviction stand.