Jackpot

by Jason Ryan

  Two weeks after Byers was recaptured and less than a month after the arrest of Rhoad, another kingpin was removed from the dwindling list of Operation Jackpot fugitives. For weeks, Forbes had been prowling around New York State, looking for Foy, chasing leads in the Catskills and Manhattan. Many didn’t pan out, and those that did were frustrating, bringing Forbes and fellow Jackpot investigator Chuck Pittard to places Foy had been some time earlier. He was still always a step ahead.

  Toward the end of March 1985, they were back in New York City, interviewing a woman at her Manhattan apartment. She was a friend of Foy and holding onto some of his money and many fake identifications. She hadn’t wanted to talk, but did so after Forbes gently suggested she could be arrested for aiding and abetting a fugitive. In the middle of the interview, the phone rang. To everyone’s surprise, says Forbes, it was Foy on the line. He told the woman he was on a ski trip, but coming to New York with his family. They were in need of a place to stay, he said, so maybe she could find them a flat. He’d be arriving soon, just as soon as it stopped snowing. There was a blizzard outside.

  The woman carried on the conversation while the agents scribbled questions on a notepad for her to ask. When she hung up, they were still unaware of Foy’s exact location, but they started making inquiries with the National Weather Service as to where there was a blizzard. The answer, says Forbes, was “Telluride is catching hell.”

  After checking passenger lists of flights coming into New York from Colorado, they discovered reservations made in the name of a known Foy alias, all connecting through Denver. On March 28, 1985, undercover Customs agents in Denver identified Foy and his wife in the airport, but let him board his flight instead of making an arrest. Foy’s wife says she knew something was amiss, having noticed strange men around them.

  “Agents knew we were there, they sat next to me. I think they knew I knew, maybe not,” writes Liafsha. “I told [Barry], advised him to leave the airport, but, as usual, he disregarded my advice.”

  After the flight left, the agents called New York, advising their colleagues that Foy was on his way, due to arrive just after nine o’clock that evening. Forbes headed to LaGuardia Airport, eager to make the arrest after nearly six months of work trying to locate the kingpin. Once the flight landed, he and other agents waited in the Jetway for Foy to emerge. Passenger after passenger streamed off the plane, but no one matching Foy’s description. Forbes was flabbergasted. How could Foy have slipped through his fingers again, especially after the Customs agents in Colorado assured him he was on the plane? Desperate to solve the conundrum, Forbes rushed onto the plane with six other agents. They fanned down the two aisles of the large jet. It was empty, save for the flight crew and a family with young children in the back of the plane, gathering their things. The parents were striking, wearing three-quarter-length mink coats and leaving little doubt in the men’s mind that Dad was Barry “Flash” Foy. The kingpin, who was wearing a gray three-piece suit under his coat, paid little attention to the plainclothes posse of federal agents heading his way, confusing them for the plane’s cleaning crew.

  “Barry Foy, you’re under arrest,” said a Customs agent, flashing his badge and confronting Foy in the left aisle. At the same time, Forbes cut across the center row of seats and snapped handcuffs around Foy’s wrists. As the metal clasps swung shut and clicked, Foy’s fifteen-year career as a smuggler was over. He was three days short of his thirty-fourth birthday.

  Unlike two years earlier, the summer months of 1985 would feature no spectacular show trials. The latest group of Operation Jackpot defendants were no mere hired hands with unfamiliar faces. It would be near impossible for Bob “The Boss” Byers, Barry “Flash” Foy, and Tom “Rolex” Rhoad, to shake their notoriety. The government could call dozens of witnesses able to point the men out in court and detail their innumerable transgressions. The kingpins had little chance of beating a conviction.

  When Byers was returned to South Carolina to face charges related to his September 1984 escape from the Charleston County jail, U.S. marshals were careful not to allow him another chance to flee. He was kept locked in a five- by seven-foot cell twenty-four hours a day, and given limited use of a telephone. When he did call a relative or his lawyers, marshals dialed the phone number for him, handed him the receiver, and listened to his side of the conversation. Byers ultimately pleaded guilty to escape charges and was sentenced by Hawkins to eight years in prison, running consecutive to his original punishment. “The Boss” had thirty-three years in prison ahead of him. After pleading guilty, he kissed his pregnant wife and held her tight. He would not witness the birth of his daughter, nor her childhood.

  In May 1985, Foy and Rhoad, bosom buddies and accused smuggling masterminds, were to be tried together. Foy gave notice that he might use a defense of insanity, while Rhoad planned to stick to a plea of not guilty. But three days before trial, the men reversed course and struck plea agreements with the government. Operation Jackpot may have been winding down, but the kingpins knew plenty of other drug traffickers around the country and world, and federal agents were eager for any information they might pry from Flash and Rolex. In exchange for their cooperation and pleading guilty to the kingpin statute, prosecutors would recommend a sentence of no more than twenty years. Foy got just about all of that, handed a term of eighteen years in prison. During his sentencing hearing his lawyers disclosed that Foy had been previously diagnosed with psychotic tendencies and was a heavy user of cocaine and LSD, which contributed to his mental instability. Hawkins sympathized, but, in an escalation of his anti-drug rhetoric that squared him with the Reagan administration, stated his conviction that even at the height of the Cold War, drug smugglers like Foy were more dangerous to the United States than communists. In prison, Hawkins said, Foy could receive drug and psychological treatment.

  A week earlier, Rhoad’s defense counsel had been determined to do better for their client. They packed the courtroom with hometown supporters from Branchville and Bamberg, South Carolina. Those who could not make it had been asked to write letters, which were read in court, creating a glowing portrait at odds with Rhoad’s conviction as a marijuana kingpin. The savings and loan president said she believed Rhoad wanted to make amends. The local superintendent said his behavior was always above reproach. The reverend’s wife said Rhoad and his family loved the Lord, their church, their state, and their country. Rhoad’s football coach recalled how the gutsy player, who suffered from asthma, was discharged from the hospital to play in the state championship game. He threw three touchdowns in the 35–7 rout.

  At the same time, they confessed confusion at how the bright young man they knew in small-town South Carolina had lost his way so badly.

  The government was effusive when describing Rhoad’s cooperation, classifying him as one of the most helpful suspects they debriefed. Prosecutors described how he disclosed safety deposit box holdings across the country and wired money from his Bahamian bank accounts to a government account in Charleston. Letters from other police agencies around the country mentioned the unique information Rhoad disclosed to them about other suspects. On a scale of one to ten, said Forbes, Rhoad earned a ten in terms of his cooperation. One of Rhoad’s lawyers, Robert B. Wallace, made a point of mentioning to Hawkins the harm that may come his way in prison for such actions.

  “He will be ridiculed. He will suffer indecencies,” said Wallace. “He will even suffer perhaps threats.”

  After the list of character witnesses was exhausted, another of Rhoad’s lawyers, Sol Blatt Sr., began a lengthy impassioned address to the court. Blatt was a man of enormous stature in South Carolina, representing Barnwell County for nearly fifty-four years in the state’s general assembly. For thirty-two of those years, he was speaker of the House. Blatt’s influence was legendary, and he was a member of a small group of politicians known as the Barnwell Ring that occupied many of the leadership positions in South Carolina during the midtwentieth century.

  Now ninety year
s old and in poor health, Blatt, who came into the courtroom in a wheelchair, said this appearance was likely his last in a courtroom. With the same voice he used for countless stump speeches, courtroom arguments, and legislative oratory in his storied political and legal career, Blatt made a desperate plea on behalf of Rhoad as he leaned unsteadily against the defense table. He beseeched Hawkins to be merciful:

  He’s made his peace with his God. He believes God has forgiven him for his sins. And now I plead with your Honor to do that which God himself has done and give him a chance. Show him mercy. Some day we all must face our maker. Me soon. Because now, I have climbed down the mountainside into the valley from whence no traveler returns, and shortly, it can’t be long, I must face my God, and I know if he does not show to me that mercy that I want and need so badly, that the penalty I will have to pay would be too extreme.

  Won’t your honor do as much? Can your Honor do less than God himself would do? Isn’t it only fair to a human being to say, well, you have sinned, you have repented, you have prayed, and you are saved? I will not throw a roadblock in your path.

  Blatt said he would have despaired should his own son, a federal judge in South Carolina alongside Hawkins, have become entangled in drug running. Finishing his speech, he charged Hawkins with the responsibility of Rhoad’s salvation.

  “My soul cries out to you to help him … Tom Rhoad is a fellow man of mine. He is a child of God. Won’t you help that child of God as God has helped him? God has forgiven him. You can do no less, your Honor. I plead with you to help this man in his hour of need, and I believe that God will bless you if you do.”

  For his part, Rhoad was contrite. He pledged to be an example of the destructive power of drugs and to use his legal knowledge to help fellow inmates straighten out their lives. He mentioned that his fiancée was in the courtroom, and that he longed to settle down with her. He said the last five months in jail provided him ample time to reflect on his past and to imagine his future. Choking back tears, Rhoad said he figured he could only look ahead:

  When I get out, and I hope in the not too distant future, I would love to get into youth counseling, because I got a message for the youth of the country. I can tell them that if they use drugs, they are going to ruin their lives. If they get involved in selling drugs, they are going to go to jail … I am sorry for what I have done to society and sorry for what I have done to my family. Most of all, I am sorry for what I have done to myself. I have learned all the money in the world can’t buy you happiness, and all the money in the world is not worth a dime compared to your freedom and your family.

  After hearing Rhoad’s remarks, Hawkins called a recess for fifteen minutes. The judge, an acutely sensitive man when sentencing the most typical of defendants, was impressed by the considerable crowd in the courtroom and the comments made by Blatt, who was one of South Carolina’s most venerable statesmen. But Hawkins was also a stickler for equal treatment, and he was careful to distance himself from political influence. For any difficulty he might have had in deciding an appropriate punishment, he was at least aided by the prosecutor’s recommendation that the sentence not exceed twenty years in prison and the statutory requirement that a continuing criminal enterprise conviction not be less than ten years in prison.

  When court reconvened, Hawkins spoke of the issues he grappled with in deciding punishment. That Rhoad was a lawyer bothered him, since he felt the criminal actions of all the lawyers convicted in Operation Jackpot tarnished his beloved profession. Regardless, he said, he would not punish Rhoad any more severely. When listening to Rhoad’s remorse, he took it with a grain of salt, shrewdly observing that the kingpin’s rehabilitation started the moment he was identified in San Diego. Before then, he was “living it up, doing everything he could from the fruits of his illegal activities.”

  Perhaps most frustrating to Hawkins was the fact that for every drug smuggling defendant he sentenced to years in prison—the number of which he had long lost count—the trafficking of illegal drugs had not lessened. In fact, despite Reagan’s War on Drugs, there was even more of a drug problem in the United States. Hawkins mentioned listening to a radio report the day before, just before sentencing Byers to an additional eight years in prison:

  The General Accounting Office, which reports to the Congress about the success of congressional committees among other things, report[ed] that the government’s fight against smuggling drugs was lost. More coming in than ever came in with all these millions, maybe billions for all I know, of dollars that have been appropriated for that very purpose. So much cocaine in the country that the price is falling every day, meaning the supply is so great. Of course, if the price falls, then it makes it available to economic groups that could never have afforded it before.

  Hawkins fretted that despite reading everything he could about drugs, hopeful of finding some solution, there seemed to be no stopping its use and import. He said they could all pray for the eradication of drugs, “but really I doubt if there’s much hope for it. At least in my lifetime.”

  Still, the federal judge was not ready to throw in the towel. If drug smuggling was to be stopped in future generations, there must be deterrents. From the bench the best deterrent he could dispense was time behind bars. No matter how persuasive the speeches made in the courtroom, Hawkins believed he had an obligation to uphold the law that Rhoad and the associated gentlemen smugglers flagrantly flaunted. Justice required him to consider more than the recent emotional arguments:

  They were eloquent pleas that the attorneys and others made for Mr. Rhoad, and I would have to be [an] awful cold-hearted, hard person not to have been affected by them, and I am affected by them. By the same token, I am also affected by the misery and the heartache that I see in our community and in our nation that comes about as a result of drug trafficking.

  … I hope, Mr. Blatt, that [Mr. Rhoad] is conscientious and serious about working with misguided persons, because where he’s going, there will be plenty of misguided people … a lot of misguided people who did not have the opportunities that were afforded Mr. Rhoad for education, stations in life.

  Winding up his thoughts, Hawkins delivered the sentence. Rhoad would serve fifteen years in federal prison.

  Just weeks before Byers, Foy, and Rhoad were sentenced, McMaster had resigned as U.S. attorney for the District of South Carolina, casting an eye toward his political future and asking not to be reappointed. In his four years as the state’s top federal prosecutor, McMaster’s most significant achievement was Operation Jackpot, resulting in the arrest and conviction of more than one hundred marijuana and hashish smugglers who had managed to avoid law enforcement for years. More important than these numbers was his belief that Operation Jackpot could be replicated in any part of the country, the task force serving as a model for effective drug enforcement. Before leaving office he sent a letter to each state representative, suggesting that a statewide drug task force be formed, along with a special grand jury.

  McMaster’s name was synonymous with the drug investigation, and indeed it was his efforts at the beginning of his appointment that created the task force and gave it the freedom to operate. If some employees bristled at his management, others credited him for letting them participate in the biggest and most interesting case of their careers. A few months after he left office, he described his role as an overseer and supporter, enabling competent staff to do the hard work:

  I didn’t do it. The agents did it, and the young deputy U.S. attorneys in my office were able to take their work and build good cases for court.

  I’m just proud that I was able to help by putting the force of the U.S. attorney’s office behind the effort, and I’m proud to have been a part of Operation Jackpot. If it had happened anywhere else, like maybe Washington or New York or California, Hollywood would come along and make a movie. It’s that good a story, and it’s true.

  After leaving his U.S. attorney’s position, McMaster said he would soon run for political office, but was mu
m on which one it might be. Privately he told friends he was interested in one day becoming president, but first might run for governor, lieutenant governor, or a congressional seat. The problem with these designs, noted South Carolina political columnist Lee Bandy, was that McMaster wasn’t very well liked by fellow Republicans, with some members of his own party threatening to ambush him should he make a run, unless the thirty-six-year-old lawyer did “some serious fence-mending.”

  The biggest complaint about McMaster was that many of his actions as U.S. attorney were transparently political. He annoyed people from every camp. The smugglers, of course, despised him, accusing him of going overboard to punish them for nonviolent offenses. Defense attorneys were appalled at some of his pretrial comments, which seemed to violate a gag order imposed by Hawkins. In December 1983, Steven Bernholz, one of the North Carolina lawyers representing Les Riley while he was imprisoned in Australia, brought many of these comments to Hawkins’s attention in a letter:

  During the year or so that the “Jackpot” cases have been making countless headlines, we have observed with some mild chagrin the innumerable and widely reported pronouncements of the United States Attorney made in the context of formal press conferences, interviews, informal comments, and leaks. Even though I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting him, the handsome visage of Mr. McMaster has greeted me almost weekly in the newspapers I have read over morning tea. I already feel as if we are old friends. I admit that my vexation over this media campaign has, at times, become pronounced. On those several occasions, Mr. McMaster has clearly deviated from his own announced “policy” of not commenting “one way or another about the activities of Operation Jackpot,” and then proceeded to make extrajudicial statements which appear to be calculated to and, in my opinion, do inflame the passions of the listener and reader.