The Cornbread Mafia: A Homegrown Syndicate's Code of Silence and the Biggest Marijuana Bust in American History (51 page)

The next morning, February 9, Lamb saw the three Maine men talk again briefly before Hunt went back to the courthouse. Later that day Maraman received word to separate the three men because the judge had issued a sequestration order. Maraman then split up Hunt, Haskell and Villacci, leaving Haskell in his original cell on the west end of the third floor.

With Hunt gone, Haskell began to confide in Lamb even more and even asked his advice. Haskell, Lamb would recall, was very confused about what to do. Haskell told him that the DEA had set him up in Maine and that Hunt, his friend, had ratted him out. Haskell was afraid to testify against the Bicketts, he said, because the whole thing was a setup, but he felt compelled to go along with it because he didn't want to lose his family or be confined for a long time. Haskell, depressed, said he was going to lose either way.

On the day Lamb pleaded guilty to his own federal case, he rode with Haskell in the same van from the jail to the courthouse. They were placed in the same holding cell, near the marshal's office, where Lamb saw Hunt and Villacci.

After Lamb entered his plea, as he walked to the bathroom, he saw Hunt, Haskell and Villacci together in the first holding cell with a television just outside the cell. Lamb could hear a VCR machine playing tapes and could hear laughing and talking from the holding cell.

"That's not the house you were in," he heard one say to another.

An hour or two later, during another bathroom break, Lamb saw the three Maine convicts still in the same cell together. Later Lamb rode back to the jail with the three witnesses against the Bicketts. After Hunt and Villacci were dropped off at another jail, Haskell told Lamb that they had been viewing VCR tapes of houses and people related to the case to get their stories straight.

The evening after Haskell's first day on the stand, he returned to his cell and told Lamb that he had gotten his story all confused and mixed up. That night a US marshal delivered to Haskell a copy of his statement.

"You may want to look at this," the marshal told Haskell. Haskell spent the whole night reading and rereading the statement that he had signed before the trial had begun.

On the morning of Friday, February 16, before Mike Haskell took the stand for the second day of his direct examination by Assistant US Attorney David Grise, Judge Simpson held a colloquy at Grise's request because Grise wanted to introduce as evidence the fact that Hunt had been wearing a wire. Even though Grise wasn't allowed to discuss the content of the suppressed tapes, Grise was concerned that the credibility of his witnesses was in jeopardy.

"What I intend to do," Grise proposed, "is reveal that the setup for the microphones was that their conversation concerning this marijuana transaction would be broadcast over transmitters to government agents with receivers ... to show Mr. Hunt and Mr. Haskell had every reason in the world to play it straight with the law enforcement officers because they believed that the police could hear everything that was being said over the monitors . . . "

"Let's make it clear," Judge Simpson said. "You are talking aboutyou want to get in evidence the fact that they were wearing transmitters and so-called body wires, not that the transmissions were tape recorded at a remote reception post."

"That's correct," Grise said.

Judge Simpson asked to hear from the other attorneys.

"Judge, I'm going to add a little something new to this problem," said Tim McCall, Joe Keith Bickett's attorney.

"Go ahead," the judge said.

"We believe-my client and I believe-that the tapes do not represent the entire conversation that took place on that occasion....These tapes had been, in fact, tampered with.... Remember, I asked Miller Hunt if he knew about the fact that somebody had come up on horseback at the time during this conversation? We have witnesses that came up during the conversation, and that part of it is out of there [not on the tape]. So, I don't want you to think that I'm not going to seek to introduce at that point in time either the tapes or some testimony about the tapes based upon the court's ruling."

"I may affect this by giving Mr. McCall some news he didn't know," Grise offered.

"Let's have a free-for-all here," the judge said. "Tell everybody."

"The fellows who went in, Mr. Hunt and Mr. Haskell, neither of them was wearing a tape recorder. They could not turn off the tape because they didn't have a tape on them."

"I didn't say, `turn on,"' McCall replied, frustrated by Grise's strawman argument.

"There were two recording places," Grise continued. "One in the airplane and one on the ground.... The only people who could have turned off the [tape]-"

"Are the agents," McCall interjected.

"Are the agents," Grise said, nearly at the same time.

"All right," McCall said.

"And they had to get together-the people on the ground had to get together with the people in the plane and decide to turn it off at the exact same place and turn it on at the exact same places in advance when they didn't know exactly what was going to occur."

"All I can tell you is-" McCall started before the judge interrupted.

"Well, I appreciate everybody saying-well, let me say this,"Judge Simpson said. "It occurred to me that, Mr. McCall, the evidence that ... what is on the tapes is only a selected transmission, in which case the inference would be that the United States only wanted to show the bad parts of the tape as opposed to other parts, which might be neutral or of benefit to your clients.... If the inference can be drawn from your evidence most favorably to your position, it would be that the tapes were stopped and started by the United States in order to basically set up your client and eliminate from the tapes any information which may have exculpated himself or made statements that indicate a lack of any element of the crimes. [But] that would not be necessary if this jury did not hear the tapes.

"In other words, your evidence is: Here is the rest of the story. But they don't need to hear the rest of the story if they don't hear the first part of the story.... If they don't hear what was on the tape, they don't need to know what was on the tape may-that may have been started and stopped. I can't see myself . . . "

"I view it differently than you," McCall told the judge, "but I respect your position."

"I don't see how it would be relevant," the judge said.

"Judge, I think it would be relevant in this respect," Robert Fleming, Gary Allen's lawyer, said. "The premise that David [Grise] relies on [is] that these people had to be telling the truth because they knew the law enforcement officers were listening to their every word, and that is based on the premise that the law enforcement officers are straight guys, wouldn't do anything underhanded. But if the law enforcement officers told them, don't worry about a thing, fellows. If you get into there and we don't want to hear it, we'll turn off the tape ... then I think that destroys the premise that this was an up-and-up deal from the get-go.

"I think Mr. McCall would be entitled to introduce that so that there was collusion between these people that anything we don't want to hear ain't going to be on there, so don't worry about that, fellows.... If you get into something that might be beneficial to the defendant, we'll take care of that. We'll just press a button and stop the tape....

"I think that attacks or rebuts the proposition that the guy that went in there is, you know, just so worried about every word being recorded for posterity."

"Judge," Grise said quickly, "I am compelled to mention the preposterous nature of a conspiracy between the FBI and the DEA and the Kentucky State Police to edit these tape recordings while the events are occurring and then to share that information, this conspiracy information, with Mr. Haskell and Mr. Hunt, so they sure would never tell anybody."

"Well, Mr. Grise,"Judge Simpson said from the bench, "you lose me when you start telling me how preposterous things are because that's not my function, to determine whether it's preposterous or not.... The defense lawyers, I don't think, are necessarily smearing anybody. They're doing their job.... I will just rule on this and move along.

"All right. Mr. Grise, I am not going to permit you to prove [that Haskell and Hunt were wearing body wires].... The defendants have come up with clever arguments that would implicate the entire tape, and that's getting into issues too ancillary. So, I'm going to not permit you to get into that.

"Bring the jury in," the judge said to the bailiff.

At 10:45 a.m., after an argument of more than an hour over whether the witnesses' body-wire transmitters could be discussed in open court in order for the government to bolster their credibility, the jury entered the courtroom.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," Judge Simpson said to the jurors. "So much for our 9:30 starting time."

After the colloquy, Assistant US Attorney David Grise began reexamining Michael Haskell-after Haskell's memory had been refreshed by the US marshal, who had delivered Haskell's previous statement to him in his jail cell.

"OK. Now where did you go after you left Joe Keith Bickett's house?" Grise asked. "Oh, excuse me. One more question, one more question about Joe Keith before I leave. Anybody ride up on horseback while you were there?"

"No, not that I know of," Haskell said.

"OK. Didn't see anybody riding a horse?"

"No."

"Is that something you think you'd remember, seeing somebody ride up on a horse?"

"Yeah, I would if I had seen somebody. No, I didn't see anybody on any horse."

On March 9, 1990, the Courier journal announced the Bicketts case verdict with the headline, "US Jury Convicts Three More Members of Marion `Corn Bread Mafia' Drug Ring." The jury deliberated for a day and a half, the Courier journal stated, and reached its verdict without information related to the possibly tampered-with audio tape or the collusion of the government's witnesses in the Bullitt County jail.

On the day after the Bicketts'conviction, at 2:38 p.m., the phone rang in the US Attorney's Office. Assistant US Attorney Cleveland Gambill answered.

"For David Grise, concerning the case yesterday," the caller said rapidly in a husky voice, "I'm going to get you."

When Gambill asked the caller for his name, he hung up.

Despite this threatening call, David Grise declined the extra security detail offered to him by the US Marshals Service. The Jefferson County Police Department patrolled Grise's residence three or four times a night to ensure his safety while Jimmy and Joe Keith Bickett prepared to serve their 240-month and 300-month sentences, respectively.

With that, the Cornbread Mafia, as it had become known to the public a year earlier during the task force's press conference, had effectively been shuttered. Although many men continued the tradition of growing marijuana in and around Marion County, it would never be at the size or scale it had once been.

"USP Terre Haute had one major advantage," according to Howard Marks. "One couldn't be transferred to anywhere worse." Within a few years of arriving at "Terror Hut," Marks would be transferred elsewhere, which, by definition, was a step up. In April 1995, Howard Marks was granted parole and deported home to the United Kingdom, where he was later released.

In 1992, a new prison opened in eastern Kentucky. FCI Manchester was established to help house the rising federal prison population, a growing percentage of it POWs in the War on Drugs. Jimmy and Joe Keith Bickett were two of Manchester's first residents, entering just after it opened in January. Built for six hundred medium-security inmates and 150 minimum-security inmates in its camp, Manchester has been described by a former inmate as a "fortified college campus," filled mostly with men coming to a lower-security facility from the USPs in Terre Haute, Atlanta and Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

Johnny Boone received word in January 1993 that he, too, would soon call Manchester his home, but he would come later because of paperwork problems, arriving in April. In Terre Haute, Boone felt like a caged animal in a deadly circus, where any day could be his last. His three years in the "gladiator school" caused him to be on alert at all times, ready to spring into deadly force at a moment's notice. As soon as he arrived in Manchester, a wave of stress left his body, as if the caged animal had been released onto a nature preserve. And there waiting for Boone were the Bickett brothers and a whole assortment of Kentucky men locked up for the same reason as himself. It was homecoming, of sorts.