The Bingo King Is Dead. Long Live the Bingo King.
For two decades, alongside the likes of John Monfrey and Morris Jaffe, Eddie Garcia was one of San Antonio’s behind-the-scenes powers. When he was shot dead last September, the good ol’ amigo network died too.
Yolanda Garcia says: James Legate is innocent...it’s sad that he has been in prison for over ten years for a crime that he did not commit, what is even worse is that they had a witness that testified that a "Political" figure had put a hit on Eddie Garcia and was paid $50,000 for killing Eddie, but no one wanted to listen to the truth, rather they convicted an innocent man, just because of his prior record of drug possession. There is something terribly wrong with our justice system. How can they sleep at night? (July 7th, 2009 at 6:59pm)
(Page 2 of 3)
WHEN EDDIE GOT INTO BINGO IN THE late seventies, it was still illegal in Texas. Not that it wasn’t being played: Churches and charities in all of Catholic South Texas had been in the business seemingly since the Battle of the Alamo, subverting gambling laws by requesting “donations” at the door rather than charging admission. The games were small, however, and they were not well attended. Eddie realized that with proper ambience and advertising, there were huge profits to be made—if not by the charities in whose names the games operated then certainly by the landlord. His first parlor, the Woodlawn Ballroom, was only marginally successful, leading him to conclude that the law needed to be changed.
In 1980, Eddie crusaded with customary passion and success for passage of a constitutional amendment. By the end of the decade he was the landlord—or “licensed authorized commercial lessor,” as rent collectors were called once the games were regulated—of four bingo halls. Rounding up sponsors for the games was easy, since Eddie had plenty of contacts from his days with Monfrey. With legalization, however, came rules to be obeyed and government agents to ensure that they were, a problem Eddie never completely solved. “Eddie Garcia stretched the law every way he could,” says one licensed lessor. “He was an in-your-face type of guy with the agencies, and he used LULAC and other Hispanic groups as leverage.” In the beginning bingo was regulated by the state comptroller, then by the TABC, and then by the Lottery Commission. In 1989 Eddie pushed successfully for a change in bingo regulations that froze the issuing of new commercial lessor licenses, thereby making existing licenses far more valuable. Madla, his friend at the Capitol, was named to the Senate Interim Committee on Charitable Bingo and continued to look out for his interests. In 1993, for instance, Governor Ann Richards had nominated a member of the Holy Cross brotherhood to the Lottery Commission. Because it was between legislative sessions, Daly served for nearly two years before he could be officially confirmed. He never was, however, because Madla blocked his confirmation in committee and the full Senate never got a chance to vote. Daly was (and still is) the executive director of the Texas Catholic Conference and appeared to be perfect for the position, but Madla thought him “unsympathetic to the charities.”
Eddie and his minions did not take criticism lightly. In the early nineties, when the San Antonio Light first bestowed his now-famous nickname upon him, he detested it: He regarded himself as an entrepreneur and believed that his talents were never appreciated. Later in life, however, he quit sparring with journalists, hired a publicist, and began wooing them, offering his favorites sweetheart deals. Eddie never doubted that someday he would find the big score, a success so unqualified that the skeptics would have to stand and salute.
He came close on at least two occasions. In 1985 Morris Jaffe’s son Doug—who was president of the Jaffe Group, the family holding company—brought in Eddie as the president of Falcon Foods, which was losing $200,000 a month on its food-service contracts, including a big one with Lackland Air Force Base. Eddie began to turn the business around, though unfortunately the government did not renew the Lackland contract, despite overtures from Bustamante. Then, in 1988, Eddie worked on an agreement with the Kickapoo Indians to build and operate a 7,000-seat bingo hall on the tribe’s reservation near Eagle Pass. The Kickapoo contract could have been Eddie’s ticket to the big time, and it probably would have been if he’d kept his mouth shut. He envisioned pots of $500,000 or more in an environment free of state regulation, and he had every reason to be optimistic. The Indians were Bustamante’s constituents, and the congressman—who as a young man had worked in the fields alongside men who were now tribal elders—wrote Eddie a glowing letter of recommendation. The deal never came together, though, and while Eddie blamed negative media coverage, as usual he was his own worst enemy. Friends recall that he had been telling anyone who would listen, “We got a congressman on board! We got the Bureau of Indian Affairs! We got it wired! This time we’re gonna cut the big hog!”
In situations like this, Eddie practically invited enemies to thwart him—and they often did. In December 1990, as Eddie was in the middle of talks with the Kickapoos, word leaked that the feds were looking into the negotiations and all the other business practices of Eddie and his friends. Initially the targets of the probe were Eddie and Bustamante. But the investigation, which lasted almost four years, eventually expanded to focus on the Jaffes and nearly everyone else in the network.
While Justice Department investigators interrogated dozens of San Antonio businessmen and politicians, a federal grand jury subpoenaed business records and called a seemingly endless stream of witnesses. It took its direction from a prosecutor in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Unit: Jackie Bennett, Jr., better known today as one of Ken Starr’s prosecutors in the Whitewater probe. As in Whitewater, damaging information mysteriously made its way to the media, making Eddie and the others sound more corrupt than the evidence indicated. “Eddie believed that Bennett was twisting information and hiding behind the secrecy of the grand jury,” remembers Jack Paul Leon, another attorney who represented him. “He tried going to the media to rebut the charges, but it was like throwing fuel on the flames.” Convinced that Bennett’s actions were racially motivated and related to the FBI anti-discrimination case, Eddie filed a $1 million civil rights suit against him (the suit was ultimately dismissed).
As the investigation limped through its third year, an editorial in the San Antonio Express-News advised, “Fish or cut bait.” Bennett had already opted to fish. In July 1992 the prosecutor had charged Doug Jaffe and two of the Jaffe Group’s lawyers with conspiring to make $19,000 in illegal campaign contributions to Democratic candidates. It was a questionable case—the kind of thing that would normally be adjudicated in civil court—and to members of the network, it seemed part of an ongoing vendetta. In 1989 Morris and Doug Jaffe had been hauled before a congressional committee to explain an oil deal that involved U.S. Speaker of the House Jim Wright and allegedly earned them a profit of $340,000 on an investment of $99,000. The FBI had also investigated the sales of refitted Boeing 707 jets by one of Doug’s companies to buyers in South America, implying that he was engaged in money laundering. Doug believes Bennett’s motive was political payback and that his true targets were his father and Henry B. Gonzales. As the chairman of the House Banking Committee, Gonzales had launched an investigation that showed that U.S. government grain guarantees were used to help Saddam Hussein build his war machine.
In November 1992 a San Antonio jury acquitted Jaffe and his lawyers of all charges. Following the verdict, federal district judge Lucius Bunton called the case a “witch hunt” and rebuked prosecutors, warning them against “wasting time on rinky-dinky matters.” Bennett had no intention of backing off, however. Within weeks, Doug Jaffe received a letter informing him that he was the target of yet another investigation. The FBI had uncovered a $35,000 check written by him to Eddie, another by Eddie to Bustamante, and back again. The alleged conspiracy began in 1986, when Eddie was working on Jaffe’s Falcon Food contract with Lackland. At the time, according to Bustamante and Jaffe, the Bustamantes needed $35,000 to pay off a home loan in Virgina. When Albert ran into Eddie and explained he was about to borrow that amount against a lien on a house he’d recently sold in San Antonio, Eddie—ever anxious to help out a friend—asked to buy the note himself. Albert agreed, and Eddie wrote him a $35,000 check. To cover it, Eddie went to Jaffe and asked him to write a check for that amount. Jaffe did so without asking why or what it was for. When Rebecca Bustamante found out that Fast Eddie had bought the note, she demanded that Albert buy it back. A few weeks later, Albert borrowed $35,000 from San Antonio Savings to repay Eddie, who returned the note. Eddie then repaid Jaffe using Albert’s check, which ended up in one of the Jaffe Group’s bank accounts at Horseshoe Bay, the resort Jaffe owned a piece of at Lake LBJ. Elsewhere, the feds discovered another $30,000 that the Jaffes had paid to Rebecca Bustamante for consulting services.
My Library
