Chapter 2

What I am referring to is the juror, Mr. Loggens, standing up and saying to the judge that he didn't vote his conviction. This is a good question. Why wasn't there a miss-trial called by Judge John Hill? Why was the judge denying Sol's right to put evidence before the jury? Was it this suppression of evidence that caused a juror to be convinced intuitively of Sol's innocence?

Sadly, this man was claustrophobic. He also had a heart disease. He panicked and voted with the other jury people. He did this so he could be let out of the confining room in which he had been placed, to decide Sol's fate. After the verdict the juror stood up to tell the judge he hadn't voted his conviction. The judge chose to ignore this. Hill let the conviction stand as was. It's good that we have a fair court system in this country, don't you think?

All the jurors asked Judge Hill for leniency for Sol. What did Judge Hill do? He gave Sol 10 years. I would have hated to have gotten a sentence when Judge Hill wasn't being lenient, wouldn't you? The conviction stood. This was in spite of the fact that the man that Sol was supposed to have defrauded (Jasper Burkett) asked the judge to grant probation. He signed a document after seeing all the suppressed evidence. He believed that Sol never intended to defraud anyone. This was a man who was supposed to have lost $50,000 by Sol's miss-deeds. Sol even promised to pay Jasper back though it was clear that Sol had never received a dime of the money.

It's the devil to pay to do time when you hadn't done the crime. Everyone knows that in this country you get your day in court. Everyone knows that in this country you have a right to a speedy trial by your peers. You have the opportunity to put your evidence out in front of a jury, for all to see. If you are innocent you will go free, right? If not, you will go to jail. Everyone knows that the bad guy always goes to prison. The good guy always does well. I used to be one of those, 'everyones' that knew until I had my eyes opened.

We really haven't progressed too far. Our system is a slightly disguised form of a medieval idea. This was the idea of, "the Divine Right of Kings" where anything the king did was O.K. It was obvious that God wouldn't have allowed him to be king If it were otherwise. Despite how you think the system works, or what you have been told, there is the "real world" to deal with. The real world is different from what you have been told. At least, I know how it was when I found the "real world." In "the real world," if "they" want to get you, chances are, " they " will. If you don't know who "they" are, "they" are the ones doing the getting. In this case, "they" wanted to get Sol. They also wanted to get anyone connected with him. They were after Sol's friends or family. It all stemmed from his original sins that happened back in the late 1950's.

He had made too many powerful people look stupid. He had to be made an example of. People couldn't be led to believe that someone could get away with all Sol had done. If we let Sol off easy someone else will do something worse.

Sol will be the first to tell you that he was guilty back in the 1950's. He also will tell you that he did the crime and he did the time. If you do the time you should be left alone. That isn't the case when you know what Sol knows. Sol knows all the dirt about the "they". This is the same "they" that is out to get people. Not only are "they" out to get him "they" have the money and the power to do it.

Sol told me that if he had it to do over he would have never tried to mortgage anything that didn't exist. His original downfall had to do with his borrowing money against non-existent fertilizer tanks. These tanks had been moved around and the serial numbers changed. It had been done in a way that on paper it would appear like there were more tanks than existed. The deal wasn't designed to hurt anyone. The money was then to be used to build grain elevators. I'll explain in another chapter how Sol had received the contracts. He got them the accepted way. He bribed the politicians. The government was going to lease them from him to store government grain.

Everything came down around Sol's ears due to a credit company inspector. The inspector took notice that the serial number on the fertilizer tank had been altered. The number from the day before had bled through the new paint job. The idea was to cover the old numbers with a paint job. The numbers would be changed so that one tank would appear to be another. The tank was also moved to a new location and the old color changed. The old numbers were then replaced. It was given a new number the next day. When this scam was exposed Sol was in more danger than he bargained for.

He was an embarrassment to the crooked politicians that he had been dealing with. The real danger was that Sol knew who he had bribed to get the grain storage contracts. If he talked political careers would be ruined! Sol had never stopped to consider what desperate men these governmental crooks were. Politicians would stop at nothing to cover up a bribe. I say bribed, maybe this sounds a little strong. Lets us change that. We will just call it under the table political contributions.

What ever we call it, the scandal would serve to ruin political careers of anyone thought connected to Sol. Most politicians panicked when the news of their indiscretion became public. All the politicians ran around saying, "Billie Sol Who?" No one would admit publicly that they knew him. Strangely, they had been glad to receive the kick backs. These were the kick backs that enabled them to gain and maintain power.

All that is history now, and will be better dealt with in other works in its detail. It will be interesting reading. We should see the way that corruption ruins governments as well as people's lives. Can we to work together?

How far have we come? Did we really abolish the idea of debtor's prison? Now, the government borrows all the money. This causes money to be in tight demand. When individuals want to borrow some of it they must commit some type of fraud to get the loan. Nowadays you must prove to the bank that you don't need the loan in order to get it. If you didn't need the loan why would you ask for it? This being the case, you have usually committed some manor of fraud by applying for a loan.

In this case the worst crime that was done wasn't the one that Sol committed, it was that of the politicians. There had been a gross misuse of governmental powers. It was the fear that Sol would expose all this that hurt him. Sol had to be discredited to save the politicians' skins. It was done in a way so he wouldn't be taken seriously. No one would believe him when he told the people about how government really works. It is time that these details come to surface.

Wisdom can be distilled from the mistakes of the past. Thus, when Sol went to trial in 79, he was framed. The government, who had been obviously influenced by vested interests, prevented Sol's attorney from presenting to the jury documents that proved his innocence. The mail fraud that Sol was supposed to have committed against J. H. Burkett was not as the prosecution portrayed it. What actually happened? Funds had been taken out of accounts which Sol had no control over. Burkett ended up holding the bag after investing 50 thousand dollars in a company.

This company was milked by a man named Billy D. Pyron. Who was Billy D. Pyron? Was he acting on his own? Was he acting for his own interest? Was Pyron entangled with the fraud against Sol that the politicians had perpetrated? Was Pyron a part of the government's plot? Was he an unknowing pawn who preceded the government's invasion of our privacy. Was Pyron a part of the government's attempted entrapment? Was he a government agent sent to reveal vast sums of money that Sol, or I was supposed to be hiding? What happened to all that money that was missing after Sol's empire fell?

Sol gave that money to Lyndon and others that we mentioned before as political bribes. It was done under the table and without any records. The tax part of the accounting would have been paid later. First, Sol's government contracts for grain storage would have covered this.

The deal was revealed and fell apart before any of this happened. Sol was left holding the bag. The contracts were canceled. The politicians weren't about to give back the money or take the blame. He couldn't very well tell the IRS the money went to bribe the president.

You ask me, how do I know all this if I only knew Sol since 1975? That is easy. Sol and I sat up night after night peeling dumpster vegetables and talking. He lacked reason to lie to me. It wouldn't have made him any money and there was nothing else to gain.

The two counts Sol was framed with the second time he was sent to prison were; 1. Conspiracy to conceal assets. 2. Mail fraud.

Sol was to start his second term in prison. The only thing different about this time, was that he was framed. . . . . . . . . . . .. In the process my name had been smeared. My name appeared in the national news media, as the results of the government sham. This sham was supposed to pass for an unbiased investigation. It was conducted by the FBI, the IRS and the Treasury Dept. In one article my name was miss-spelled. They spelled my name as, " Fred McCalis, ", who was carrying Sol's wife. Patsy fainted from stress after seeing her husband framed. The reporter spelled my name wrong. It is spelled "Michaelis"; in the future. . . OK. I hope not to be a part of such sad news regardless of how they spell my name.

In retrospect, the government never proved that there were any assets to conceal. A letter from the prosecuting attorney stated there were no assets found by the investigation. How do you conceal "no assets?" On the second charge, how did the government ignore an affidavit from Burkett? This was the man who was supposed to have been defrauded. The affidavit said that the accused was innocent. Burkett, the victim, wrote the affidavit. This was someone Sol meet while attending Sunday school at his church. Did this good church going man lie about not being defrauded?? His name was J. H. Burkett. The man that actually got Burkett's money was a man by the name of Billy D. Pyron. Lets look at what Pam Estes wrote in her book. What did Pam have to say about her dad concerning this mater?

These are direct quotes from her book, "Billie Sol, King of the Texas Wheeler Dealers." ____________________________________________________________ Billy Pyron was one of the endless stream of promoters seeking out Daddy who passed Sue's inspection and got into see him. [Pam is talking about "Sue Goolsby" Sols' secretary] That first meeting resulted in Billy's buying a chain of CB-radio stores in Abilene, named Frenchman's Creek. Billy Pyron was a sharp promoter. He had married a rich Tyler heiress. Shortly there after, he was on a roll in Abilene. It was soon after that when he gave Sue Goolsby his power of attorney. He did this so she could sign for him at real estate closing and save him from having to come to Abilene every time he closed a deal. He was later to deny on the witness stand having signed the letter giving her that authority. Fortunately for Sue, she had saved the original letter, and hand writing expert confirmed Billy's Signature. ----------------------------------------------------------------- In another section of Pam's book she says this; _________________________________________________________________ My former brother in law thought Daddy should have Richard "Racehorse" Haynes as his legal representative. He felt more than a little responsible for part of Daddy's dilemma because it was he who got Daddy involved in the Frenchman's Creek CB business. Daddy, to save his son-in - law's job, got Billy Pyron to purchase the company, and that led to the Jap Burkett loan, the Sue Goolsby indictment, and much of the other grief and aggravation.

---------------------------------------------------------- In still another section of Pams book she says the following;

_____________________________________________________________ The Government was Set to Bring three separate charges against Daddy. One was for fraud in inducing Jap Burkett to invest $50,000 in Permian Petroleum and Billy Pyron's Frenchman's Creek CB business. Another was for selling non- existent steam cleaners for oil field equipment to leasing companies. That sounded very much like the deals for fertilizer tanks in the 60's. The last was for conspiracy to conceal assets from the IRS. That was the indictment that his family and friends were tied to. At the time we decided to go trial, we had no idea whether the government would follow through on its threat to indict all of us or whether it would drop charges against everyone except Daddy. [ I was one of the friends that Pam talks about here that they threaten to get.]

--------------------------------------------------------------- Lastly Pam says this in still another section of her book; ______________________________________________________________ Jap Burkett was probably the most damaging witness against Daddy. He told how he had been persuaded by Daddy to invest $50,000 in Billy Pyron's CB business, which later failed. He appeared to be just a simple old farmer who had suffered during imprisonment in World War II, where he got the nick name "Jap," and now he was suffering at the hands of a master swindler. The jury ate it up.

The fact was we had the paper work that showed were Pyron had milked the account that Sue deposited the money. Sol never even got near that money. The Johnson appointed Judge never allowed us to put that paper work before the jury.

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Pam made me out to be an idiot savant in her book. People have asked me why that never made me mad. Why should I have gotten mad? The label may have been the only thing that saved me from being framed like her dad had been. In the '79 trial, anyone that was considered competent was threatened with indictment. The title "Idiot Savant" wasn't Pam's original idea anyway. A reporter by the name of Frank Clifford, hung that one on me. He worked for one of the Dallas newspapers. Here's what Pam said about me, and my involvement in her daddy's affairs.

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Fred Michaelis. who was affectionately called the "front" because the prosecution was convinced that was what he was. PARDON ME FOR BUTTING IN TO PAMS' ACCOUNT OF MY PART IN THINGS, BUT SINCE I'M THE AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK, IT WILL BE OK. I COULDN'T RESIST SHOWING YOU THIS NEWSPAPER ARTICLE, AT THIS POINT, BECAUSE IT REINFORCES WHAT PAM IS SAYING HERE. [SORRY PAM, YOU WERE DOING A GREAT JOB, AND WE WILL GET RIGHT BACK TO YOUR ACCOUNT OF THINGS RIGHT AFTER THIS ARTICLE FROM THE REPORTER NEWS PAPER ARTICLE DATED JUNE 18, 1979. "AN AGENT OUTLINES ESTES DEAL "