Ex-inmate sues over poker pot

Des Moines resident Calvin Wright says Las Vegas' mayor illegally kept money from a game played years ago at a prison in Kansas.

A former federal inmate and poker buddy of mobsters has sued the mayor of Las Vegas, accusing Oscar Goodman of illegally pocketing the pot from a high-stakes card game played nearly a quarter-century ago.

Calvin Orin Wright, a Des Moines resident released from federal prison in 1989, sued Goodman in U.S. District Court this week, alleging that Goodman indirectly threatened him to stop Wright from authoring a story about his prison experiences.

A spokeswoman for Goodman originally responded to questions about the lawsuit with laughter and said she would discuss it with the mayor. Subsequent requests for comment went unanswered.

Court papers allege that Wright, who in 1980 was serving time for transporting a stolen aircraft across state lines, was one of several Leavenworth inmates involved in a no-limit Texas hold 'em poker game played at the penitentiary in Kansas that October.

Goodman, then a defense lawyer for reputed mobsters and high-profile criminals, allegedly was assigned to serve as "the bank" and hold a $500,000 pot for the participants, which included one of his clients.

Wright, who now makes deliveries for a Des Moines dry cleaner, said the game included drug dealers and murderers, all of whom were serious card players.

"There wasn't none of us joking," Wright said this week.

His lawsuit contends that Goodman's client, Texan Jimmy Chagra, was the only other player left in the game when the participants decided to end it. But Goodman never paid.

Court papers insist that Wright at the time was "50/50 partners on all gambling operations" behind the prison's bars with Chagra, who was linked to one of the most notorious murders in Texas history.

Chagra, a Las Vegas high-roller with Colombian connections, was implicated in the 1979 shooting of a federal judge in San Antonio. His brother ultimately pleaded guilty to hiring Charles Harrelson, the father of actor Woody Harrelson, to kill U.S. District Judge John H. Wood, who was to preside over Chagra's drug trial. Chagra was acquitted of most charges in the slaying, but he was convicted of obstructing the investigation.

He also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison for a failed 1978 plot to assassinate Assistant U.S. Attorney James Kerr of San Antonio.

Court documents show Wright tried most recently to collect on his poker winnings in January, when he sent Goodman a handwritten proposal demanding $75,000 and an $1,800-per-week job as a "research and development contract consultant."

If Goodman agreed, Wright promised, Goodman would be entitled to "edit your name where it may occur prior to marketing production" of the story.

Wright contends that it was roughly a month later when he received a phone call from Chagra, who said he had gotten Wright's phone number from Goodman. In a subsequent conversation, according to the lawsuit, Chagra told Wright that Goodman was "very upset and angry" and that Wright "had better back off from writing this story or else."

Chagra, whom Wright said he now suspects of being in the witness relocation program, could not be reached for comment. A government Web site for locating federal prisoners, which contains information about Wright, discloses no record of Chagra.

By JEFF ECKHOFF
REGISTER STAFF WRITER

News Added: 20 March, 2005

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