You Busy This Weekend?12
A most unusual bank robber I prosecuted was a homesick young German named Kai Reinhold. His mother had married an American named Webb and moved with him to West Point, home of famed bluesman Howlin’ Wolf. Lonely and friendless, the teenage Reinhold tried to find some bluesmen but ended up with a bad crowd of crackheads instead. One of them, who held court in the backroom of a local pool hall, was so professional at cooking crack that he was nicknamed “the Chef.”
One day, Kai (pronounced like “sky”) was especially despondent and appeared suicidal to the sympathetic crackheads. All he wanted was to return to his homeland. “Ain’t no problem,” said a new associate, who seemed to know the legal system quite well. “Just get yourself arrested for some federal beef and they’ll ship you home. Don’t rob no liquor store or nothin’ or the state will slap you down on Parchman Farm.” Persuaded, Reinhold decided to rob a bank, figuring if he got away with it, he would buy a one-way plane ticket to Germany. If he got caught, the government would deport him there for free. It seemed a foolproof plan.
Reinhold asked his associates for the loan of a gun, believing from American movies that you needed one to rob a bank properly. “Oh no,” they said. “A gun is a ten-year rap stacked on the robbery. The Feds don’t like those guns. They’ll send you off to the pen.” Trusting his new friends, Reinhold accepted the loan of an old rusty butcher knife to use as his weapon. The next day, Reinhold calmly walked into a bank in West Point and approached the teller. “I want $2,000,” he said. “Do you have an account with us?” she inquired politely. “No, this is a robbery. I need the money to fly to Germany.” Smiling, the teller said she could not help him unless he had some collateral. He pulled the butcher knife from his sleeve and said, “I’m serious. I won’t hurt you, but I’m desperate.” The teller realized he was not joking and thought he might be crazy. Still, he looked so young and harmless, handsome even.
Reinhold began to notice the teller more closely. She was young, blonde, and quite attractive. As she handed him a stack of bills that enclosed an exploding dye pack, she activated a silent alarm that rang at the police department. Smiling, he looked at her more closely. “You look really good. Would you go out with me this weekend?” The teller was not scared but puzzled and said calmly, “I don’t think that would be a good idea under the circumstances.” He continued his wooing. Finally, as Reinhold reluctantly left the bank, local police caught him with both the loot and the knife. My friend, Assistant U.S. Attorney Vernon Miles had the case but was transferring from our Oxford office to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Puerto Rico to “chase women” as he explained it, so Vernon willed the case to me, knowing my love of quirky bank robberies.
After an appropriate but unsuccessful mental exam found that Reinhold was merely foolish rather than crazy, he pled guilty to unarmed bank robbery. His entire take was $556.77, not enough for a ticket to Germany, not even right after the 9/11 plane bombings. An amused Judge Michael P. Mills gave Reinhold the sentence required by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines of forty-one months in prison, much of which he had already served in custody between November 2001, when he was caught, and August 2003, when his mental exams were over and he was finally sentenced. According to the court docket, he never paid his lawyers. I still wonder what happened to him.
Would You Like Biscuits with That?13
My all-time favorite victims in a bank robbery case were an eighty-eight-year-old lady in Itawamba County named Euple and her sixty-year-old caretaker, Earnestine. While the ladies were minding their own business early one Wednesday morning in March 2006, three fleeing bank robbers broke into their home near the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. The ladies had heard of a robbery on TV the night before. When the caretaker heard someone forcing open the front door, she said, “I bet it’s those bank robbers.”
She was right. Three men from Memphis had robbed the Renasant Bank in Smithville in nearby Monroe County and were fleeing back to Memphis. Going way too fast in their gold Pontiac Grand Am, they ran right off the end of an unfinished approach road into the swamp near the waterway. The men waded all night through ten miles of marshes and mosquitoes until they saw the ladies’ house at first light and decided to take shelter there. “They were wet and dirty and smelled bad, but they were very nice and respectful and treated us well,” said the caretaker. “They were tired and hungry so we cooked them breakfast.” Although legally the ladies were hostages, their cool and caring demeanor seemed to soften the young bank robbers. The men “politely” asked for the car keys. “They said they just wanted the car and would not hurt us. They even offered to buy us gas and refill the tank. They took the car, but ran it right away into the ditch before they could even get out of the yard,” she said.
Then the ladies’ steel magnolia side came out. They saw officers hiding in the woods and figured their house was surrounded, which it was. They also figured the robbers might not continue to be so nice. Unbeknownst to them, the FBI, police and sheriff’s deputies were meeting at the nearby Ozark Baptist Church and seriously considering rushing the house with a SWAT team, not knowing that things inside were going so well.
The older lady finally made the robbers an offer: “I’ll get my son to come pull you out. I’ll tell him you just got stuck.” The robbers agreed. “I’ll need to explain it to him though, so he won’t be suspicious. I also need to get my morning paper. I really miss my Daily Journal each day, and you shouldn’t be going out there.” The robbers fell for it.
The older lady whispered the whole situation to her son when he got there, and he pretended he could not get the car out of the mud. The robbers finally realized they were surrounded by officers, and a tense standoff ensued for an hour or so. Then they released first the caretaker and finally the 88-year-old lady. After a further three-hour standoff the robbers decided to surrender. The ladies’ cool courtesy under extreme stress probably contributed greatly to the happy outcome. After it was over, the president of the Renasant Bank of Smithville gave some sound advice for bank robbery victims: “A robbery is something you hope never happens, but unfortunately it does. The way our people handled it was outstanding. They just did it by the book, stayed calm. Let the professionals handle it. Nobody should try to be a hero.”
But it was the ladies, amateurs trained only in good manners, who turned out to be the real heroes—and the real professionals. The robbers were prosecuted and convicted in state court for bank robbery and kidnapping. The prosecutor was assistant Tupelo district attorney Clay Joiner, who has since joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oxford and at the time of this writing is serving as U.S. Legal Counsel in Kirkuk, Iraq, for two years.
The Honey Bun Bandit14
In September 2003, Kevis “K-Money” Wilson organized a group to rob the Caesar’s Grand Casino at Tunica. K-Money first approached Jason Godown, whom he had picked up hitchhiking and who was living with K-Money in nearby Walls looking for either work or “a good score.” K-Money told Godown he had someone inside the Grand Casino who would help them with a robbery, a cashier, who like K-Money, was African American. K-Money told Godown he figured the robber needed to be white, reasoning people would be less suspicious of an inside job if a white person robbed an African American cashier. K-Money probably thought too much. Amateur sociology is not helpful to real robbers.
Godown approached his fiancée, Linda Stevenson about the robbery. Stevenson was an attractive twenty-three-year-old blond stripper who had performed at various establishments across the country, including Platinum Plus, a notorious “gentlemen’s” club in Memphis. Stevenson agreed to participate. Godown and K-Money traveled to the Grand to case the area where the insider, Nataisha, worked at the “transaction point,” where patrons cashed in their winnings. K-Money made plans for Linda to meet Nataisha so they would recognize one another during the robbery.
Godown, Stevenson, and K-Money met at Nataisha’s apartment and discussed what should be said during the robbery. Nataisha agreed t
o call on the phone to signal she had a “full bank” for Stevenson to rob. Casino procedures required cashiers to comply with all of a robber’s demands. Stevenson was told to say “This is a bomb. Don’t make any sudden moves. Give me all your big bills and give me ten minutes to get out. If you don’t, there’s a man over there who will detonate the bomb.”
On the day of the robbery, Godown, Stevenson, and K-Money’s girlfriend met at K-Money’s apartment. When Nataisha called to signal that it was time to rob the casino, they started to leave. But K-Money asked that everyone go inside, where he had them kneel. Stevenson later testified she feared something sexual was about to happen, but no. Instead, K-Money led the group in a prayer for the success of the robbery, sort of reminiscent of some people’s belief that God cares who wins football games.
Stevenson entered the casino and approached Nataisha’s cage wearing a big dark wig and long coat. She pulled out a gift-wrapped box, placed it on the counter, and told Nataisha it was a bomb. In their haste, the only box the robbers found in K-Money’s kitchen to use as a fake bomb was an old box of Honey Buns. Later, when a bomb squad opened it and found the box, reporters matched the box with the blonde Stevenson and began calling her the “Honey Bun Bandit.”
As planned, Nataisha handed Stevenson all the money in the drawer—more than $65,000—and Stevenson fled. Nataisha began shaking and acting as if she were having a seizure. Another cashier alerted the shift manager. Another teller heard casino guests hollering, “She got robbed; she got robbed.” A check of Nataisha’s bank revealed there was no money in it. Since the alleged bomb was still on the countertop, casino security took the threat seriously, saying, “It would have been unwise to assume it was a hoax.” Casino patrons near the cage were evacuated, and all casino restaurants were shut down. The Memphis Bomb Squad arrived and ordered a full evacuation: “Every human being in the place has to be removed.” The casino security chief said such evacuations are extremely rare because casinos operate twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and evacuations are very costly for the casino. The robbery had occurred at approximately 10:00 P.M., and the casino was closed until approximately 5:30 A.M. the following morning.
After robbing the casino, Stevenson fled with Godown north on Highway 61 to a Memphis hotel where they had rented a room. K-Money divided the stolen money: Nataisha got $11,000, Godown and Stevenson approximately $27,000. K-Money kept the rest.
Due to several slip-ups, the robbers were all quickly caught. Stevenson pled guilty and agreed to testify in return for a reduced sentence. Due to her good looks and the nature of her fake bomb, the press was all over her case as the “Honey Bun Bandit.” At trial, a defense attorney confronted a nervous Stevenson about her “sweet deal.” She replied, “It’s not sweet to me, I’m going to the pen.” The defense attorney tried again: “You don’t like being seen in a jail uniform, that orange jumpsuit, do you?” The question seemed to settle her nervousness a little: “Actually, I always thought I looked pretty good in orange.” No further questions.
2
CORRUPTION IN POSITIONS OF TRUST
Lawyers, Judges, Supervisors, Sheriffs
Introduction
Prosecuting public officials and other prominent citizens for corruption brings conflicting reactions from the public. For some, it deepens their cynicism about government: “They’re all crooks—I told you so.” Other times, a few public officials criticize us prosecutors: “Every time y’all prosecute another sheriff or county supervisor, it makes the rest of us look bad.” The latter view has a grain of truth, but to me it is a price worth paying. If you don’t prosecute corruption, you end up with a national reputation for immorality in public life like New York City for sex scandals, Chicago for rigged elections (“vote early and often”), or our fun-loving neighbors in New Orleans, which is not called the Big Easy for nothing.
My favorite Louisiana corruption story, surpassing even the scandals of Governors Huey “Kingfish” Long and Edwin “Vote for the Crook” Edwards, allegedly involved a grand jury in Jefferson Parish, home turf of alleged Mafia boss Carlos Marcello. For many years, grand jurors there had a tradition of throwing lavish dinners to celebrate the end of their yearlong term fighting crime. One year things got out of hand. People say that jurors not only ordered the finest dishes and wines and capped off the evening with the usual expensive cognacs and Cuban cigars but decided to share the experience with families by putting cases of champagne and boxes of cigars on the parish tab to take home with them. When new grand jurors were sworn in and reviewed the outrageous dinner bill of their predecessors, they indicted its predecessor grand jury for corruption. In Mississippi, we’ve seen corruption, but we will never really rival our beloved neighbors, who know how to throw a party.
In the wake of our own corruption scandals, the Mississippi Legislature has tried several times to enact reform laws. Many say our core problem is our propensity to elect rather than appoint nearly all of our public officials. No other state has as many elected officials as Mississippi. We elect everyone from constables to Supreme Court justices. Our highway commissioners are elected, as are our insurance commissioners and transportation commissioners. Some school superintendents are elected. Statistics can, of course, always be misleading, but using our own small sample, it does seem that we have prosecuted more elected officials for corruption than appointed officials.
Not all of our cases were predictable crimes. One police chief was supervising an attractive young female probationer/informant. When he informed her that she would have to have sex with him to continue on probation, she reluctantly complied, but carried a tape recorder in her purse and taped their sessions. One fine evening when the chief demanded “the usual,” she played him one of the sex tapes and told him, “My lawyer has a copy, so don’t even think about grabbing this one.” She demanded a weekly cash payoff or else she’d inform the FBI and the chief’s wife. He paid but soon ran short of cash and looked for a new source of funds. As head of the local Crime Stoppers fund, he controlled its finances and promptly bled it dry to meet her demands. When caught by a routine audit, he pled guilty, resigned, and went to federal prison. She went on to become the bartender at our favorite watering hole.1
Corruption among sheriffs was more routine and predictable. Although the great majority of Mississippi sheriffs are upright and honorable (and don’t have beer bellies), we convicted over a dozen during my years as prosecutor. Most of these cases involved bribes received in return for not enforcing laws against crimes like running gambling houses and beer joints in dry counties, which a substantial minority of citizens thought should be legal. The antics of some of the more colorful ones, such as Harvey Hamilton of DeSoto County and Don Spradling of Itawamba County, are recounted here in some detail. The case of Sheriff Johnny Nunnally of Tishomingo County was more unusual. When a local convenience store owner who didn’t like Nunnally put up a big flashing electric sign mocking the sheriff, Nunnally had an informant plant drugs in the store owner’s home and busted him for possession. We then busted the sheriff for planting them. After his release, he became a highly successful fundamentalist preacher.2
Sheriff Steve Shuffield of Water Valley, just south of Oxford, was a sadder case. After a serious back injury, he became addicted to prescription narcotics and started obtaining large doses from inmate trusties and began exhibiting bizarre behavior. Despite heroic efforts by loyal friends like highly respected sheriff Buddy East of Oxford, all attempts at intervention failed, and we finally had to prosecute Shuffield for prescription drug fraud, forcing his resignation.3 Other sheriffs prosecuted included Bud Michael of Prentiss County (meth)4 and two consecutive sheriffs and their deputies from Tunica County, John Pickett and Jerry Ellington, for corruption.5 It seems like the second sheriff would have learned from the downfall of his predecessor, but human nature is a strange thing.
In one election, Randy Roberts of Pontotoc thought his secretary was working for his opponent. Roberts wiretapped the secretar
y’s phone, leading to a federal conviction and his resignation.6 Roberts was apparently not much impressed by his conviction, however. At the next election, in a field of twenty candidates (must be a great job), he again ran for sheriff but was defeated. More fortunate was the macho John Alan Jones of Humphreys County, who was caught and convicted for receiving bribes to allow illegal honky-tonks to operate wide open in his county and for failing to pay federal taxes on his income from the bribery. When informed that his sentence was only eighteen months in federal prison, Jones pronounced himself unimpressed: “I can hold my fist up a bear’s ass longer than that.” Upon his release, despite being barred as a convicted felon from carrying a gun, he ran for sheriff again. The forgiving voters reelected him, gun or no gun, apparently believing in old school, bare-handed law enforcement. People said his opponents were offering more law enforcement than voters really wanted and voted the honky-tonk ticket.7
The sheriff of Montgomery County, caught with an odd mix of moonshine and counterfeit money in the trunk of his patrol car, had a deputy’s sister put a voodoo hex on the jury. It didn’t work.8 One especially good corruption case came from Red Banks in Marshall County, where the FBI opened an undercover beer joint/pool room complete with a boogie-woogie piano player as the undercover operative. That operation, called Dirty Pool, was launched to catch truck thieves coming out of Memphis, but it quickly blossomed into a sweeping corruption/drug sting when the DEA meshed its undercover cocaine operation, Mojave Desert Snow, with Dirty Pool. Before the agents were through, we had convicted not only several national-level drug dealers and local truck thieves, with more than forty convictions in all, but also several local public officials, including a county supervisor, a notorious constable called “Big Jerry,” and even a local school board member, for receiving bribes to protect drug deals.9
From Midnight to Guntown Page 10