Drug kingpin accused in slaying of federal judge

Jamiel Alexander “Jimmy” Chagra, a drug kingpin accused of leading a 1979 conspiracy to assassinate the federal judge set to preside over his drug trial, has died. He was 63.

Chagra, who was living in Mesa, Ariz., and had been battling cancer since November, died Friday, said his sister, Patsy Chagra of El Paso.

U.S. District Judge John Wood Jr. was shot to death May 29, 1979, outside his San Antonio home. Wood was known as “Maximum John” because of his tough sentencing of drug dealers. Chagra faced indictments on several narcotics conspiracy charges at the time of the assassination.

Hit man Charles Harrelson, the father of actor Woody Harrelson, was convicted of murder and died in federal prison last year while serving two life sentences. Chagra was acquitted of most charges in Wood’s death, including conspiracy, but he was convicted of obstructing the investigation and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

He pleaded guilty in a failed 1978 assassination attempt on Assistant U.S. Atty. James Kerr and was sentenced to life in prison.

Three months after Wood’s slaying, Chagra was convicted of masterminding an international drug-smuggling venture. Afterward, he became a fugitive for about six months until he was arrested in February 1980 by Drug Enforcement Administration agents and Las Vegas police while driving down the Las Vegas Strip.

A month later, Chagra was sentenced to 30 years on drug charges.

His third wife, Elizabeth, was found guilty of delivering $250,000 to Charles Harrelson to kill Wood. The mother of three children by Chagra, she was sentenced to 30 years and died in prison in 1997 of ovarian cancer at age 43.

Chagra’s younger brother, Joe, served 6 1/2 years after pleading guilty in 1982 to conspiracy charges stemming from Wood’s murder. A disbarred lawyer, he was killed in a car crash in 1996 at age 50.

Chagra’s older brother, Lee, was also an attorney who defended alleged drug dealers in the Southwest and had argued cases in Wood’s courtroom. At 41, he was murdered during a robbery of his El Paso law offices in 1978.

Jimmy Chagra was freed on parole in 2003. Because he helped prosecutors on unspecified cases while he was imprisoned, he was placed in the Federal Witness Protection Program.

Born in 1944, Chagra was the son of an El Paso rug salesman of Lebanese descent who had moved to Texas from Mexico. Chagra turned to the lucrative marijuana and heroin smuggling trade in the 1960s. By the time of Wood’s slaying, prosecutors said, Chagra’s drug empire stretched from Florida to Las Vegas, where he was known as a high-roller. Chagra’s defense attorney was Oscar Goodman, who was later elected mayor of Las Vegas.

El Paso writer Richard Baron, who now lives in Santa Fe, N.M., said he had started working on a book about Chagra but stopped after his subject wouldn’t cooperate. He said Chagra was living under the name of James Madrid at a trailer camp in Mesa.

Information about survivors was incomplete Saturday.