The Associated Press is reporting today that Billie Sol Estes, the legendary Texas con man, was found dead at his home in DeCordova Bend, 60 miles southwest of Dallas. He was 88 and apparently died of natural causes. Once incredibly famous--or infamous--Estes twice served time in federal prison for fraud, most notably for a 1960-era fraud that involved obtaining loans on nonexistent collateral that resulted in financial ruin to many farmers in West Texas.
In early 1998, when Estes was charged again with fraud, I recounted some of his life story to date in verse. My apologies to Rudyard Kipling.
Billie Sol Nutso
You tell the ignoramus
About con men so famous,
Their names often are equivalent to crime.
There's Ponzi and Bob Vesco--
He fled the country, presto!
Their separate exploits are a paradigm.
Now in Texas' sunny clime,
Where we used to spend some time,
Watching institutions looted blind and fall,
Of all the blackened crew
The foremost one we knew,
Was the Lone Star wheeler-dealer, Billie Sol.
He was Sol! Sol! Sol!
Friend of politicians many, Billie Sol!
He ended up in prison
For collateral what isn'
The best known rogue of his era, Billie Sol.It was during Sixty-Two
His Pecos cover blew.
It's simple how he hosed the big-time banks.
They had lent large money,
Thinking it was honey
Backed by thirty thousand fertilizer tanks.
But in reality,
There were few tanks to see,
For Billie Sol had taken all the cash.
Alas, the Texas farmer,
Befriended by this charmer,
Who signed the mortgage note; he soon would crash.
It was Sol! Sol! Sol!
Forty million was his tab to victims all.
A Texas jury said,
Go take a prison bed.
Six years he ended up behind the wall.Congressional committees
Had field days with these pities.
Veep LBJ said, ``Who is Billie Sol?
``We're each a Texas Dem,
``But don't rush to condemn
`` 'Cause the state's just dang too big to know them all.''
In Nineteen Seventy-Nine,
Billie Sol again would shine,
Back in court for five more counts of fraud and stuff.
The claim: He hid some dough,
So taxes he'd not owe.
The evidence against him sure looked tough.
It was Sol! Sol! Sol!
Under oath he said, ``The truth I sometime maul.''
The jury took his view,
Acquitted him of two
But gave him four more years for all his gall.Now aft' a time of slack,
Ol' Billie Sol is back,
In Brownwood charged with tax fraud counts--a bevy.
They say he drew some funds
From businesses he runs
And used a tax-exempt to duck the levy.
He entered quite a plea;
No guilt--insanity!
He says he don't know right from not.
But should he ever walk
By keeping much such mawk,
The his'try books will make him unforgot.
Yes, Sol! Sol! Sol!
You synonym for swindler, Billie Sol!
Though we've cited you and jailed you,
By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You've more chutzpah than the others, Billie Sol.
Postscript: Billie Sol Estes later changed his plea from not guilty by
reason of insanity to simply not guilty. On April 28, 1998, state District
Judge Stephan Ellis in Brownwood dismissed the indictment altogether.
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