Billie Sol Estes
Billie Sol Estes (b.1924 -) was a Texas-based financier who defrauded the federal government out of millions of dollars of agricultural subsidies in the late 1950s and early 1960s by claiming fraudulant cotton production. He remains an important figure in the John F. Kennedy assasination story, claiming that Lyndon Baines Johnson was "in on it" in order to cover up his own dealings with Estes which Kennedy was having investigated.
Billie Sol was born in Abilene, Texas in 1924. After marrying in 1946 he moved to the small town of Pecos, where he founded his first business selling irrigation pumps powered by natural gas instead of considerably more expensive electricity. He used his profits from this business to start another selling anhydrous ammonia fertilizer. Profits from both made Estes a small fortune.
In the late 1950's the US Department of Agriculture started to control the price of cotton through a pool system, giving out quotas to farmers with careful control over total production in order to maintain a steady price. This limited overall production and Estes' businesses started to suffer. So he decided to become a "farmer" himself, and came into contact with Johnson, then the youngest minority leader in Senate history. Over the next few years he developed a huge scam of up to $21 million a year to grow and store cotton that never existed, apparently with "kickbacks" to Johnson to keep it under wraps.
On June 3rd, 1961 Estes' contact within the Department of Agriculture, Henry Marshall, was found dead due to carbon monoxide poisoning from a hose leading to the exhaust pipe of his car. The death was ruled a suicide, although this was highly suspect considering he had aparently been killed by five gunshots from a bolt action .22 calibre rifle. Rumours began to circulate that Marshall had been killed because he had become aware of Estes' scam. On April 4th, 1962 Estes accountant, George Krutilek, was also found dead, once again from carbon monoxide poisoning from a hose leading to the exhaust pipe of his car. This too was rather suspect, as he had a large fresh bruise on his head. Krutilek had been questioned by the FBI about Estes the day prior.
On April 5th, 1962, Estes and several business associates were indicted by a federal grand jury on 57 counts of fraud. Two of them, Harold Orr and Coleman Wade, died before the case came to court in October. Johnson's own lawyer, John Cofer, refused to put Estes on the stand, and Estes was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to eight years in prison. A federal case was also brought against Estes, and began in March 1963. He was eventually found guilty of fraud of more that $24 million, and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
Before the trials had even opened, on June 24th, 1962, Senator Department of Justice, claiming that Estes, Lyndon B. Johnson, Mac Wallace and Cliff Carter had been involved in the murders of Henry Marshall, George Krutilek, Harold Orr, Ike Rogers, Coleman Wade, Josefa Johnson, John Kinser and John F. Kennedy. Caddy added: "Mr. Estes is willing to testify that LBJ ordered these killings, and that he transmitted his orders through Cliff Carter to Mac Wallace, who executed the murders."
