The Cornbread Mafia: A Homegrown Syndicate's Code of Silence and the Biggest Marijuana Bust in American History

by James Higdon

  So, there you go. Deputy US Marshal Jimmy Habib claims that Rosa Goff's death was prompted by a "falling-out" with Johnny Boone and that she "tried to incriminate him"; that isn't true. He says her body was found "in a barn"; that's inaccurate. He says Johnny "was not happy with Jeff" for building his house; also not true, according to the police who responded to the scene of Jeff's death. And before going on national television to speak as an alleged expert in the case, Jimmy Habib never bothers to call any of the policemen who worked those cases, and neither does Keith Greenberg, Justin Lenart, Angeline Hartmann or anyone else atAmerica's Most Wanted.

  And here's something else worth knowing about Deputy US Marshal Jimmy Habib: Ten days after I beat my subpoena, on February 13, 2009, he shoots an innocent pregnant woman, according to documents filed with US District Court.

  That night the marshals receive intelligence that a fugitive from Chicago is spotted driving near the state fairgrounds in a rental car with his girlfriend, so Habib and a Louisville Metro police officer, both in plain clothes, jump into an unmarked van and head toward the fairgrounds south of downtown.

  The unnamed fugitive has an outstanding arrest warrant for being a felon in possession of a firearm. The intel suggests the fugitive will be at a hotel, perhaps at the Ramada Inn. As Habib and the LMPD officer cruise the Ramada Inn parking lot, they see a man driving a rented Chrysler Sebring, whom they incorrectly identify as the fugitive, although he does have his girlfriend with him-and two children in the back seat.

  They watch the Sebring drive into the parking lot of another hotel and park, but the occupants do not get out. The police officer drives Habib to a nearby Thornton's gas station to meet another deputy marshal driving an unmarked black Chevrolet Suburban. Then the Sebring pulls into the same Thornton's parking lot, so the fugitive squad decides to take the Sebring down.

  The LMPD officer pulls the unmarked van along the Sebring's passenger side and cuts it off from the right, while the black Suburban parks on the Sebring's driver's side, surprising the Sebring's occupants: Marcus Brewer and Courtnie Pruitt. In the back seat are Pruitt's two children: their one-year-old son and her seven-year-old daughter. They're from Glasgow, Kentucky, and they rented a car to celebrate Valentine's Day and their son's one-year birthday.

  What happens next remains in dispute: Either Habib approaches the Sebring from the front with his US marshal's badge hanging around his neck, announces, "Police, let me see your hands!" and then draws his handgun only after the Sebring starts to move, or, according to Marcus Brewer, something different happens-

  While Brewer and Pruitt are looking for a hotel room, they pull into the gas station, where two unmarked cars attempt to block them, and men not wearing police uniforms leap out of the vehicles pointing guns at them. So, Brewer, thinking he is being robbed, hits the gas.

  Brewer's Sebring does not touch Habib nor either unmarked vehicle, but after the car passes by Habib, the deputy marshal aims his service pistol and squeezes off three shots at the departing Sebring. One shot nearly hits the gas tank, and another blows out the back windshield, raining shattered glass over the children in the back seat and striking Pruitt, who is pregnant, in the back of the arm.

  When Habib realizes that he has shot an innocent pregnant woman and traumatized her children, he attempts to save face by charging Brewer with committing wanton endangerment in the first degree and endangering the welfare of a minor, charges that a judge quickly dismisses.

  As of the deadline of this book, Jimmy Habib remains a deputy marshal with a badge, a gun and a paycheck, even while being sued in federal civil court for excessive use of force. In addition to paying his full salary, the federal government is providing Habib's defense counsel at taxpayer expense.

  Johnny Boone grew marijuana one time too many, exposing him to the life sentence imposed by the 1994 Three Strikes law. The 2,421 seedlings found in flowerpots on his property in May 2008 will send him to prison for the rest of his life if the authorities catch him, but according to the Washington County sheriff and the Kentucky State Police, he did not kill Jeffrey Boone nor Rosamond Goff, no matter what Jimmy Habib, the US Marshals Service or America's Most Wanted try to claim.

  "Marshals is a dirty bunch of sons of bitches,"Johnny Boone tells me in 2007, a year before he becomes a fugitive, as we sit on the front porch of the house his son Jeff built on their Walker Lane farm. "Everybody will tell you DEA is the nastiest, dirtiest, most illegal organization, [but] marshals is right on top. You know what you got in the marshals is a lot of city cops, a lot of county cops, a lot of deputy sheriffs, a lot of even state policemen-I met one-that sign on to become a marshal.

  "They usually start moonlighting with the marshals, and if they pass all the little inspections the marshals give'em, they'll take em on because they need marshals all the time.

  "And so you got a lot of low-life motherfuckers. City cops who are usually fixing to lose the job they're in because some kind of heat coming down.... Hey, listen, marshals like a little motherfucker who will knock somebody out.

  "You know, they have a crew that goes out every night in Kentucky. This is a night crew, and they got-the way I found out about it is I seen all this shit. In the old days, they had this little old office there, and they got this stuff written on the board, and you could see these chalk marks. I got to studying them, and I seen it was a night crew, and what they do is they go out and look for fugitives-and they beat them motherfuckers to death when they catch'em, if they have to. Stomp their ass to death."

  As of the deadline of this book, Deputy US Marshal Jimmy Habib remains on the case of Johnny Boone because he has done such a good job of catching him so far-over three and a half years of taxpayer-funded searching with no results. If Boone and Habib ever make eye contact, Habib is going to say, "Stop!" and Boone isn't going to stop for a second because Boone has no respect for someone like Habib. What happens next seems clear, given Habib's trigger-happy background. The only thing that could prevent this likely outcome-the shooting death of Johnny Boone at the hands of the US Marshals Service-is if the charges against John Robert Boone are knocked down from the US Attorney's Office to statelevel charges in the Commonwealth Attorney's Office so that Boone is no longer facing life in prison for the crime of allegedly possessing seedlings in flowerpots. Or President Obama could grant Boone a pardon, but the likelihood of something like that happening is next to zero.

  "I'm afraid they're going to kill him," Charlie Bickett says. "Just like they done Charlie Stiles."

  When writing nonfiction, the quotation mark is king. Anything enclosed in quotation marks in this book was said, sung, written or testified to in court under oath. Inside the quotation marks, ellipses (...) indicate where I have pared down what people said, whereas dashes (-) indicate pauses in their speech, and brackets ([]) indicate words inserted to improve clarity or flow.

  Sources for all quotes as well as other fact-based reporting or research along the way are cited chapter by chapter below, although much of the sourcing should be self-evident in the text because I left intact a lot of the texture on the police reports, court transcripts, press accounts, FOIA documents and interviews that constitute this story.

  There are also a number of confidential sources in this book who provided information but who asked not to be named. Such is the reality of reporting in a world governed by a code of silence. I used anonymous sources only when necessary, and I will explain each instance as best I can in the following notes.

  PREFACE

  Because the preface functions as a sort of overture for the narrative arc of the whole book, its sources range from church historians to popular music to federal court transcripts.

  The story arc of Johnny Boone comes from interviews with Boone, FOIA records from his DEA and FBI files and extensive transcripts from his 1987 bust in Minnesota. The phrases "Cornbread Mafia" and "largest domestic ... in American history" were first uttered by an assistant US attorney at a Louisville press conference on June 1
6,1989.'Ihe word cartel is used in many internal documents, released by FOIA, to describe this organization.'Ihe word inconceivable was used by Agent Phillip Wagner of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, from his sworn testimony.

  The story arc of Bobby Joe Shewmaker in this chapter and the rest of the book is based largely upon the court documents from his 1985 trial. Shewmaker declined requests to be interviewed for this book. Plans for a CCE prosecution are revealed in internal task force documents, released through FOIA.

  The sources for the early history of Catholics in Kentucky, including the foundation of Holy Cross, will be covered in my notes for Chapter 1.

  The concept of "God's Law" versus "Man's Law" bubbles up in several family histories but is specifically mentioned by one newspaperman to another in an episode from 1958 that will be covered in Chapter 2.'The parade of Prohibition-era headlines comes from the Lebanon Enterprise from 1919 to 1933.

  Information about Al Capone's last trip aboard the Dixie Flier comes partly from Capone: The Life and World ofAl Capone by John Kohler and partly from interviews con ducted at the Kentucky Railway Museum in New Haven, Kentucky, where Engine No. 152 is housed.'Ihe sources related to John Dillinger will be discussed in the notes for Chapter 1.

  'Ihe story of Hyleme George getting caught in 1946 with sugar ration stamps came from the file kept on Hyleme by the librarians at the Courier journal. Details about who played Club Cherry come from interviews with Obie Slater and others.

  On page 76 of The Life and Times of Little Richard, the Authorized Biography by Charles White, Richard says, "`Lucille' is after a female impersonator in my hometown. We used to call him Queen Sonya. I just took the rhythm from an old song of mine called `Directly from My Heart to You' slowed down, and I used to do that riff and go `Sonya!' and I made it into `Lucille."'

  The fact that "Sonya" became "Lucille" at Club Cherry in Lebanon was confirmed in an interview with Bill Samuels Jr., former president of Maker's Mark distillery. Samuels hired Little Richard to play one of his lavish Derby parties and invited among his many guests Elmer George, who brought Obie Slater as his guest. During an intermission, Samuels witnessed Obie and Little Richard reminiscing about old times, where Little Richard confirmed the story that "Lucille" was named after Lucille Edelen, manager of Club Cherry.

  In Tina Turner's authorized autobiography, I, Tina, written with the help of MTV newsman and Rolling Stone editor Kurt Loder, there is nothing to confirm or disprove the relationship between the Turners and Hyleme George at Club 68.

  "It's Gonna Work Out Fine," released as a seven-inch single in 1961 by Sue Records, became Ike and Tina's second hit record.

  Anecdotal references to the connection between the return of soldiers from the Vietnam War and the rise of the marijuana-growing industry were verified by reviewing a government report from 1974: The Vietnam Drug User Returns, commissioned by President Nixon, which concluded that only 41 percent of Vietnam soldiers had smoked pot before the war and that they were mostly from cities on the West Coast; over 90 percent of soldiers became exposed to drugs in Vietnam, and in nearly 75 percent of the units, pot smokers outnumbered nonsmokers. In addition to the 41 percent who smoked before the war, 28 percent of American soldiers began smoking pot in Vietnam, 11 percent within their first forty-eight hours in-country, making marijuana second only to alcohol as the US military's drug of choice; when other Vietnam veterans returned home elsewhere in America, most found that their old friends had discovered marijuana in the two years they had been away, and one in five found that more than half of his friends were getting high.

  Before Vietnam, the nation's exposure to marijuana and other drugs was largely confined to major cities, but after Vietnam, drug patterns across geographical regions became indistinguishable. In short, Vietnam marijuanafied America and Marion County along with it.

  The parade of pot-related headlines comes from the Lebanon Enterprise from 1979 to 1989.'Ihe quotations from Johnny Boone at the end of the chapter come from interviews I conducted with him in 2007 and 2008.

  PART I

  CHAPTER I

  The history of the Catholic settlements comes from a variety of sources, including Humble Beginnings: A Bicentennial History of St. Charles Parish and Early Catholicity of Marion-Nelson- Washington Counties 1786-1986, by Joseph E. Mudd; An American Holy Land.•AHistory of the Archdiocese ofLouisville, by Reverend Clyde F. Crews; History ofSt. Charles Church and the Centenary of the Congregation, 1806-1906, by the Reverend J. J. Pike; History ofMarion County, Kentucky, Vol. 1, compiled by the Marion County Historical Society; Kentucky Moonshine, by David W. Maurer with the assistance of Quinn Pearl and the microfilm archive of local newspapers, including the Lebanon Enterprise and its antecedents.

  'Ihe story of the Reverend DeRohan, the drunk Irish priest, comes from Humble Beginnings, Chapter 3, where Mudd states, "Somehow, this alcoholic priest had wandered down into Tennessee ..." and "Father DeRohan knew that he was his own worst enemy and did not attempt to blame anyone else for his problem." In his footnotes, Mudd cites "Mattingly, M. Ramona, THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON THE KY. FRONTIER, p. 43" as his source on DeRohan.

  My interview with Jacky Hunt, retired state police detective, was conducted in 2011 and continues throughout the text.

  The date of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix was verified using a source from its period with lots of cultural insensitivity crammed into the title and subtitle, Red Men of the Ohio Valley: An Aboriginal History ..., by J. R. Dodge, published in 1860, from the Harvard College Library.

  'ere is no shortage of sources for marking the foundation of Holy Cross by Basil Hayden in 1785, so for simplicity, I will cite the Reverend Crews's An American Holy Land, pages 36-39.

  Bishop John Lancaster Spalding's estimate of "fifteen hundred Catholic souls" killed by the natives comes from Humble Beginnings, page 32, and Mudd cites as his footnote Spalding's biography of his uncle, The Life of the Most Reverend M. j Spalding, D. D., page 16.

  The Reverend Badin's honor of being the "first priest ordained in America" can be found in numerous sources, including Bishops and Priests of the Diocese of Bardstown, by John A. Lyons, 1976, and An American Holy Land, page 44.

  "'Ihe Kentucky Robespierre" comes from the Reverend Crews's An American Holy Land, page 40.

  "By 1840 ."The facts listed here come from the "History of Lebanon," by Dr. J. F. McElroy, published in the Lebanon Enterprise in installments in 1910.

  Kentucky is one of twenty-nine states with a town named Lebanon and one of thirtythree states with a town named Springfield.'Ihere are twenty-two states with both a Lebanon and a Springfield; of those twenty-two, Kentucky's Lebanon and Springfield are the nearest to each other at nine miles.'Ihe Lebanons and Springfields of New Hampshire and New Jersey tie for second-nearest at forty miles apart; and the Lebanon and Springfield in Colorado are farthest apart at 428 miles.

  "Hurrah for ... Uncle Ben!" comes from an account written for the Enterprise by Mrs. Ellen C. Jenkins on July 14, 1914, and reprinted in the History of Marion County, Vol 1. The source for the paragraph on the prewar distilling years comes from History of Marion County, Vol. 1, pages 140-145.

  "'They are having a stampede in Kentucky ..."'Ihis telegram from President Lincoln has been reproduced many places, including page 167 of Lincoln of Kentucky by Lowell Hayes Harrison and in "Raiding Strategy: As Applied by the Western Confederate Cavalry in the American Civil War" from the journal ofMilitary History, Vol. 63, Issues 1-2.

  "'Ihe day after ... oath of allegiance." Information from this paragraph comes from Dr. McElroy's History ofLebanon.

  The letter from Englishman William Bradbury comes from While Father Is Away: The Civil War Letters of William H. Bradbury, edited by Jennifer Bohrnstedt, University Press of Kentucky, 2002, page 112.

  The statistics related to Lebanon's commercial activity immediately following the war come from Dr. McElroy's History of Lebanon. The census figures from 1870 and the list of bourbon brands produced before Prohibi
tion come from the History of Marion County, Vol. 1.

  The June 8, 1872, abstinence rally at St. Mary's comes from a contemporary press account. All the news related to the beginning of Prohibition comes straight from the Enterprise microfilm.

  The fact that a crude steam still could produce three hundred to one thousand gallons of moonshine a day comes from Kentucky Moonshine, by David W. Maurer, University Press of Kentucky, 1974, page 69.

  The connections between the heists of Marion County liquor and George Remus, the gangster from Cincinnati, become evident when one reads Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, by Daniel Okrent, pages 198-199.

  The reporting on John Dillinger comes from a variety of sources, beginning with an interview with Eula Ray Kirkland, a local Gravel Switch historian.'Ihe date of Dillinger's parole from prison comes from FBI.gov.'Ihe quote "gambling and enjoying the gay night life of the city" comes from an account in the Lebanon Enterprise, as do all the headlines and details of the story, including the license plate number of the blue De Soto coupe.

  The 2004 book john Dillinger: The Life and Death ofAmerica's First Celebrity Criminal, by Dary Matera, confirms much of the reporting in this book regarding Dillinger's Kentucky connections. Matera confirms the connection to Gravel Switch's Frank Whitehouse on page 72, ". . . Matt Leach and his [Indiana] state police detectives were in Kentucky connecting Dillinger to the Whitehouse brothers and scrutinizing the freshly repainted stolen DeSoto from Dillinger's White Cap days. Frank Whitehouse, nabbed for a subsequent stick-up, agreed to trade what he knew for the quick release of his brother George, who he claimed was clean. He told investigators about Dillinger's World's Fair trip, but little more ..."

  On pages 374-375, in a footnote to explain why Dillinger's wallet was "overflowing with fifties" (p. 62), Matera details the Gravel Switch robbery, confirming that the indictment handed down in October named "Maurice Lanham, James Kirkland, and John Dillinger as those responsible for the holdup of the People's Bank of Gravel Switch on August 8 ..." But Matera says the getaway car was a "blue Dodge," not a DeSoto.