How Texas Conman Billie Sol Estes caused scandal for Washington

“Notorious Texas Scammers.” “A wheelchair dealer is well connected.” “Splendid scammer in Texas.” Author of a “Texas-sized legacy of scandal”. These were the headlines that swept West Coast to East Coast newspapers in 2013 when Billie Sol Estes died at the age of 88 at her home in Granbury, Texas.

It’s been more than 51 years since the Texan embarked on a more notorious tour across the front pages of the country, but that time has done nothing to tarnish his reputation.

In places where there are people dealing in business — human beings with all the ugliness and ugliness — there will be bad behavior. Ponzis and pyramids and a rainbow of other fraudulent plots. But Billie Sol, as it was commonly called, added a dash of wisdom to his multimillion-dollar scam that came to light in the early 1960s. He didn’t just push investors out of the money. their hard-earned money, which he did so in such a charismatic, well-connected and unrepentant manner that it infected politicians and presidents, leading to several resignations and seven worthy deaths. doubt.