soloflex equipment
One of my favorite authors, Douglas Valentine has written some of the best exposes’ on CIA crimes. He reported in a tweet that he is preparing to write about the assassination of a Federal Judge, and I think I have some supporting information.
So, here goes, from an article I wrote several years ago:
There is an old saying that’s something like; “Behind every great fortune is a great crime”.
In the case of Soloflex inventor, designer and CEO Jerry Wilson, that saying is true. Jerry Wilson made his seed money for Soloflex the old-fashioned way; drug running.
Soloflex founder and pilot Jerry Wilson
Wilson is a fascinating yet enigmatic character who successfully piloted his Soloflex invention as well as the planes he loaded with prime Colombian marijuana.
He is a deep thinker, a man’s man who has treaded the fine line between cop and criminal. At his Oregon-based Soloflex factory he’s the benevolent cop, but his current standing is a far cry from the man steeped in the drug trade and associating with a cast of characters linked to the assassinations of President Kennedy and a Federal judge in Texas.
I had the experience of touring Wilson’s Soloflex factory while on a maintenance crew. The employees looked like they were having a great time at a great workplace. Their break time was spent playing video games in the lunchroom or shooting hoops outside. The factory was spotless and efficient. Wilson hit the big-time when he switched from magazine adds for his innovative machine to full-length infomercials on cable TV. One year he made $98 million in sales with a net profit before taxes of $54 million. At the time, he was producing 900 Soloflex machines a day. The modern era of Soloflex is a model of the perfect workplace, but it received a leg up through the criminal underworld.
Wilson was born to be a pilot; his early boss at Callen’s Flying Service near Roswell had a record of shooting 110 eagles in one day from an airplane. Ranchers at the time had bounties on all predators. One of his relatives, “Uncle Dude” was a well-known bootlegger and pimp who died after being shot in the back.
Wilson’s mix of good and bad luck began when he was a pilot for The Chagra Brothers.
The Chagra Brothers leaving a courthouse
Lee Chagra was the oldest of three brothers. By all reporting, he was a slick criminal lawyer, cocaine addict, high-stakes gambler and head of a small but powerful criminal organization. Joe Chagra, Lee’s law partner was cleaner and slightly more responsible but Jimmy appears to have been the root of a lot of family trouble. Wilson has written that Lee and Joe Chagra offered seed money for Wilson’s Soloflex invention.
Wilson was the Chagra’s pilot, and was soon incorporated into their drug trade. This of course, was at great risk and peril. When the crew branched out from Mexico to Colombia, Wilson spent a little time in a prison near Santa Marta Colombia. His biography states that the avocados were great and that wives and prostitutes were allowed to visit once a week. The operation fell into disarray when they were busted in Ardmore Oklahoma. Dubbed “The El Paso Ten”, they were released with a hung jury. It appeared that the jury found out that the cops had stolen somewhere around 4,000 pounds of the 21 thousand-pound shipment and that was the end of the trial.
Lee and Jimmy Chagra were famous in the southwest. Lee for representing drug traffickers in court, Jimmy for trafficking drugs, and both for their expensive gambling habits. Casino’s in Vegas sent airplanes to pick them up when they called. Lee was known to take two or three strippers home at night for cocaine-driven orgies. Jimmy was said to emulate Lee, and Joe stayed fairly clean by comparison.
From Wilson’s biography, it’s unclear when he parted ways with the Chagra’s but he did go on to contract flying services for celebrities and mail shipments. He makes a point of saying that he always paid his taxes.
By 1978 the justice system was closing in on the Chagra brothers again, this time for good. Federal judge John Wood, dubbed “Maximum John” for the lengthy sentences he handed out, had his sights set on Jimmy Chagra. Wood, who had long family ties to Texas law enforcement and a prosecutor named Kerr were poised to give Chagra a life sentence without parole. In a complicated series of events, the once-powerful Chagra network began to unravel. Someone it seems, had positioned a van near the car driven by Federal prosecutor Kerr. The doors flew open and shotgun and rifle fire exploded on Kerr’s car. Despite the ambush, Kerr survived.
Meanwhile, Lee Chagra allowed entrance to his fortress of an office to two men who killed him. On December 23 1978, two soldiers from Ft. Bliss were sent by a distant family member of the Chagra’s, Lou Esper, in an attempted robbery. David Leon Wallace and Don White shot Lee Chagra and stole around $450 thousand-dollars. An open vile of cocaine was on Chagra’s desk and a cigarette was still in his mouth. His boots, where he kept thousands of dollars, were removed. The large amount of cash was looted from the next room. Friends and family said Lee feared he was being stalked, and those fears proved true.
On May 29 1979, a sniper shot Federal Judge John Wood in the back as he was leaving his home. That was the same day Jimmy Chagra was originally scheduled to appear in Judge Woods court. This began the largest manhunt in history at the time. In a secretly recorded jailhouse conversation, Joe and Jimmy Chagra had discussed details of the assassination. Joe Chagra took the rap and was sentenced to ten years. Jimmy was reported to have been released into the witness protection program. The hitman was none other than Charles Harrelson, the father of actor Woody Harrelson.
The signifigance of Harrelson being involved is huge.
Charles Harrelson
Charles Harrelson
Harrelson had also admitted to being involved in the Kennedy assassination. After President Kennedy was shot, three “tramps” were arrested, questioned and released. They are said to be Frank Sturgis, Charles Harrelson and E. Howard Hunt. Sturgis and Hunt were with the CIA.
(Allegedly) Sturgis, Harrelson and Hunt
The intelligence connections may run deeper. In reviewing notes from a 1990’s interview, a source had named to me the man who claimed to have flown the hit man in the Judge Woods murder from the scene of the crime. He was a CIA contract pilot my source had worked with in Alaska.
Of all this cast of characters, only Jerry Wilson of Soloflex survives.
Wilson went on to sponsor a host of progressive causes. He mounted a campaign to remove a powerful Republican Congressman from Oregon. He funded plans to shut down Oregon’s Trojan Nuclear power plant. He ran for Governor in 2010.
Wilson didn’t suffer gunshots or lengthy prison time. He could have died dozens of times flying. The only bad news that crossed his radar screen was the arrest of his son Brian for felony gun possession from a previous crime.
Brian Wilson’s guns
Jerry Wilson has indeed lived a charmed life. Despite brief incarceration, he used his resources well and built the Soloflex empire.
I’m sure he has a lot more stories to tell.
My previous post, Dojorat.blogspot.com,
John Titus July 11, 2011
Current post 4/16/19
Wow, woke up this morning to memories of Soloflex and the huge estate of Jerry Wilson and thought I’d do a little digging. Never expected to find this blurb. I went to school with Jerry’s daughter in the early 90s. The rumor at the school was that drugs had been shipped in the Soloflex tubing and that accounted for his wealth. But seeing how much he cleared in profits on Soloflex alone makes that seem unnecessary. Considering his origins, though, who knows.
What I do know, having visited his Washington County mansion several times is that he had a LOT of dough- an impressive hilltop estate, enormous garage with luxury cars, olympic size swimming pool with statues of wolves around it, several houses, including one that looked like an observatory, a heli-pad (did I imagine that?) and acres and acres of land.
One party was unsanctioned by Wilson himself and featured an interesting cast of characters from all over town. The other, was clearly known to him, as there was no alcohol allowed. I made the stupid, adolescent mistake of running through the woods from his backyard to our car in the dark to grab beer. I nearly put out my eye on line of barbed wire that had been strung between trees at head height. Who would do that? The barb hit me square in the nose and I spent the rest of the party trying to stop the bleeding.
The truth is indeed stranger than fiction. Thanks for the info above. How did you come upon the stories?