Texas Swindler Dies: Billie Sol Estes, Famous Con Man And Symbol Of Corruption, Dies

A Texas swindler has died. Billie Sol Estes, the famous Texas swindler who was notorious for looting a federal crop subsidy program, has died at 88.

Estes was a lead con man in Texas for almost 50 years.  Songs like Allan Sherman's "Schticks of One and Half a Dozen of the Other" and the Chad Mitchell Trio's "The Ides of Texas" depicted him as a larger-than-life symbol of corruption.

Estes was on the cover of Time magazine, who called him "a welfare-state Ponzi ... a bundle of contradictions and paradoxes who makes Dr. Jekyll seem almost wholesome. He considered dancing immoral, often delivered sermons as a Church of Christ lay preacher," the magazine wrote. "But he ruthlessly ruined business competitors, practiced fraud and deceit on a massive scale, and even victimized Church of Christ schools that he was supposed to be helping as a fund raiser or financial adviser," Time magazine wrote

Estes was a con man and swindler who became famous in 1962 for the a scandal involving the looting of a federal crop subsidy program. During the John F. Kennedy administration, Estes was accused of a large scheme involving cooked books, phony statements, and farm equipment that didn't exist. He spent several years in prison for the swindling scheme.

However crooked Estes was, he was clever also. Mike Cochran, who covered the trial and subsequent trials for mail fraud and other charges, said of Estes "how many city slickers from New York or Chicago can make a fortune selling phantom cow manure?"

Estes and Lyndon Johnson were linked, but their relationships may not have been as tight-knit or dark as initially thought. Johnson, then Vice President, was accused of corroborating in the scandal, although it began during the Eisenhower administration.

Estes died in his sleep in DeCordova Bend, TX, his daughter told press on Tuesday.  His daughter said her father died peacefully in his recliner, with chocolate chip cookie crumbs on his lips.

"I thought he would meet a very violent end. We worried about him being killed for years," she said. A local funeral home also confirmed plans to handle services for Estes.  

Johnson, then the vice president, and Agriculture Secretary Orville Freeman came under fire during the scandal, though the scheme had its roots in the waning years of President Dwight Eisenhower's administration, when Estes had edged into national politics from his West Texas power base in Pecos.

Estes was convicted in 1965 of mail fraud and conspiracy to defraud. An earlier conviction had been thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court over the use of cameras in the courtroom. Sentenced to 15 years in prison, Estes was freed in 1971 after serving six years.

But new charges were brought against him in 1979, and later that year he was convicted of mail fraud and conspiracy to conceal assets from the Internal Revenue Service. He was sentenced to 10 more years but was freed a second time in 1983.

Former Associated Press correspondent Mike Cochran, who covered Estes' trials and schemes throughout the 1970s and '80s, recalled writing about how Estes made millions of dollars in phone fertilizer tanks - and noting, "how many city slickers from New York or Chicago can make a fortune selling phantom cow manure?"

"Billie Sol was a character's character," Cochran said. "I spent literally years chasing him in and out of prison and around the state as he pulled off all kinds of memorable shenanigans."