The Boys from Biloxi: A Legal Thriller (44 page)

The elections of 1979 were quieter than usual. Fats Bowman was unable to convince anyone to run against him, so he coasted to another four-year term, his fifth. With gambling and prostitution under control, his “protection” rackets were seriously curtailed and the criminals didn’t need him. The strip clubs and bars were still busy, but with nothing illegal to offer they had little to fear. The pesky state police maintained a presence with undercover agents and informants. The city of Biloxi had a new administration and its chief of police was determined to keep the nightclubs in line. The Malco boys were serving time and their underlings still ran the businesses, but the other crime lords were content to obey the laws. The DA was a hotshot who wasn’t afraid of them.

In need of revenues, Fats envisioned a gold mine working with drug traffickers.

In April of 1980, the Mississippi Supreme Court unanimously upheld the capital murder conviction of Hugh Malco. His lawyers filed thick briefs and asked the Court to reconsider, another step on a long road. Months would pass before the Court ruled again.

In June, Keith received a phone call from a stranger who claimed to have a letter smuggled out of Parchman. He drove to a
café in Gulfport and met with a man with only one name: Alfonso. His story was that he was a close friend of one Haley Stofer, a drug runner Jesse had sent to Parchman for fifteen years in 1975.

Nothing about Alfonso warranted even the slightest level of trust, but Keith was intrigued. The man explained that he had visited Stofer at Parchman and was asked to deliver a letter to Keith. He handed over a sealed envelope with
d.a. keith rudy
printed in block letters on the front, then lit a cigarette and watched Keith open it.

Dear Mr. Rudy: Sorry about your father. He sent me away five years ago on a drug smuggling charge, of which I was guilty. So I have no ill will toward him. At the time I was involved with some traffickers out of New Orleans. Through contacts there, I am in possession of highly valuable information regarding the involvement of your sheriff in smuggling operations. The drugs, primarily cocaine, enter the country through New Orleans and are air-dropped to a certain farm in Stone County, property owned by your sheriff. I can provide more information, but in return I want out of prison. I swear I know what I’m talking about. I swear I am legitimate. Thanks for your time, Haley Stofer.

Keith thanked Alfonso, left with the letter, and returned to his office. Since Jesse’s files had been destroyed in the bomb blast, Keith went to the circuit clerk’s office and dug through the old records. He found the Haley Stofer file and read it with great interest.

In his third year of law school at Ole Miss, Keith had visited Parchman on a field trip with a class in criminal justice. One visit was enough and he had never thought about going back. However, the letter from Stofer intrigued him. He also had a perverse desire to see how awful the place was now that so many of his enemies were there. As a DA, he would have no trouble gaining access to death row. He could even arrange a meeting with Hugh, though he had no desire to do so.

A week after meeting with Alfonso, he took the day off and drove alone five hours to Parchman. He enjoyed the solitude, the absence of constantly ringing phones, and the daily grind around the courthouse. He thought a lot about his father, which was not unusual when he was in the car by himself. He longed for the lost friendship of a man he practically worshipped. Typically, when those thoughts became burdens, he popped in a cassette and sang along with Springsteen and the Eagles.

North of Jackson, when the hills flattened and the Delta began, his thoughts turned to Lance and Hugh Malco, two men he had known his entire life and who were now locked away in a miserable prison far from their beloved Coast. Lance had been there for five years and by all accounts was surviving as well as could be expected. He was in a safer camp in the general population, had his own cell with a television and a fan and better food. With more money than anyone else at Parchman, he could bribe his way into almost anything but freedom. And, after five years, there was little doubt he was scheming to manipulate the parole board and get out. Keith was watching as closely as possible.

Hugh, on the other hand, was stuck in an eight-by-ten cell for twenty-three hours a day, in suffocating heat in the summer and freezing cold in the winter.

Keith had seen death row and had sat on an empty bunk, with the door still open, as had all the law students on his field trip. He could not imagine how anyone, especially a person raised with such privilege, could survive from one day to the next.

A fleeting image made him smile as he neared the prison’s front gate. The two boys, Biloxi All-Stars, blasting back-to-back home runs in a playoff game against Gulfport.

Keith parked and managed to purge the Malcos from his thoughts. He checked in at the administration building and was practically waved through. Because he was a district attorney, the authorities brought Haley Stofer to him. For two hours he listened as the inmate told his remarkable story of being forced undercover
by Jesse in return for a lighter sentence. Stofer took full credit for getting the indictment against Lance Malco for prostitution, the charges that finally nailed him. He admitted he skipped out on Jesse, was later captured and returned to Harrison County, and faced the full wrath of the DA when he met him. Jesse showed some gratitude and agreed to a fifteen-year sentence. The max was thirty. Now, Stofer had served enough time, in his opinion, and wanted out. His contact in New Orleans was a cousin who still worked for the traffickers and knew everything about their smuggling routes into Mississippi. Sheriff Bowman was a key figure and was about to get even richer.

Such a major bust would be too complicated for the DA’s office, so Keith called FBI agents Jackson Lewis and Spence Whitehead. They in turn contacted the Drug Enforcement Agency, and a plan came together.

Keith leaned on the state police and arranged for Stofer to be transferred to the jail in Pascagoula, in Jackson County. It took him a month to make contact with the cousin in New Orleans. So far, everything Stofer said was verified by the DEA.

Just after midnight on September 3, Fats Bowman, with his longtime chief deputy Rudd Kilgore behind the wheel, took a leisurely drive north from Biloxi and arrived at one of Fats’s farms in rural Stone County. Two other deputies blocked the only gravel road leading to the farm. Fats and Kilgore met two operatives in a pickup truck with a camper over its bed. The four men waited at a hay shed near an open pasture, drinking beers, smoking cigars, and watching the clear, moonlit sky.

A team of DEA agents materialized from the woods and quietly
arrested the two deputies guarding the gate. A dozen more heavily armed agents moved through the darkness and monitored what was left of the little gang. At 1:00
a.m.
, on schedule, a Cessna 208 Caravan swept low over the pasture and circled. On its next pass, it dipped to less than a hundred feet off the ground and dropped its cargo, six plastic boxes heavily wrapped in thick plastic. Fats, Kilgore, and the two operatives quickly loaded the packages into the pickup and were about to leave when they were surrounded by some serious-looking men with plenty of firepower. They were arrested and whisked away to an undisclosed location.

The following day, at the federal courthouse in Hattiesburg, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District presided over a crowded press conference. Standing beside him was Keith Rudy, and behind them was a row of federal agents. He announced the arrests of Sheriff Albert “Fats” Bowman, three of his deputies, and four drug traffickers from a New Orleans syndicate. On display were one hundred and twenty pounds of cocaine with a street value of $30 million. He alleged that Sheriff Bowman’s cut was 10 percent.

U.S. Attorneys were notorious for hogging the spotlight, but he was quick to give credit to Keith Rudy and his team from Biloxi. Without Mr. Rudy, the bust would not have been successful. Keith spoke and returned the thanks, and said that the work his father began in 1971 had come to fruition. He promised more indictments in state court for the elected officials and criminals who had run roughshod over the law for so long.

The story was huge and had legs, and for days the
Gulf Coast Register
and other newspapers in the state ran follow-ups. Keith’s handsome face was splashed on front pages from Mobile to Jackson to New Orleans.

At Parchman, Lance Malco cursed the news and faced the reality that he would not be getting out of prison anytime soon. Hugh eventually heard the news but had other concerns. His appeals in state court had been turned down and he faced years of habeas corpus appeals in federal court.

After six months in a county jail, Fats Bowman pled guilty to drug trafficking in federal court and was sent away for twenty years. Before leaving jail, though, he was given a weekend pass to go home and say goodbye to his family. Instead, he drove to his hunting cabin in Stone County, went to the lake, walked to the end of the pier, pulled out a .357 Magnum, and blew his brains out.

Haley Stofer was paroled and ran for his life. The state police coordinated a witness protection program with federal agents and sent him away, with a new name, to live peacefully in Northern California.

With Lance and Hugh Malco tucked away, and Fats Bowman dead by his own hand, and life relatively quiet on the Strip, Keith became bored with his role as the chief prosecutor on the Coast. The job was his for the foreseeable future, but he wanted a promotion, and a big one. Since having lunch with Governor Bill Waller as a young lawyer, he had dreamed of seeking statewide office, and an opportunity was brewing.

Late in 1982, he drove to Jackson and had lunch with Bill Allain, the current Attorney General, hoping to discuss the future. Allain was rumored to be preparing for a run for the governor’s office and Keith pressed him on it. Allain, ever the politician, would not commit, but Keith left the lunch convinced the AG’s race would soon be wide open. He was only thirty-four and felt too young for such an important office, but he had learned that in politics timing was everything. Mississippi had a tradition of reelecting its attorneys general until they died in office, and if the position was about to be vacant, it was time to make his move.

The AG’s job would certainly be more challenging than that of a local DA, but Keith knew he could handle it. He would have an entire office of dozens of lawyers representing the state’s legal business, civil and criminal, and there would be new challenges every day. It was also a high-profile office, one that could lead to an even higher one.

The only aspect of the job that Keith would not discuss with anyone was the specifics of its Criminal Appeals Division. As the
boss, he would have ultimate control over all death penalty appeals. Specifically, those of Hugh Malco.

Keith dreamed of witnessing the execution of the man who killed his father. As the attorney general, he could almost guarantee that day would come sooner rather than later.

The appeals were mired in the usual, interminable delays of post-conviction strategies. But the clock was ticking, if ever so slowly. Malco’s appellate lawyers had so far impressed no one with the merits of his defense. There was little to argue. The trial had been free of serious errors. The defendant had been found guilty because he was in fact guilty.

In January of 1983, Lance Malco filed an application for parole. He had served eight years of his sentence for prostitution, had been a model prisoner, and was eligible for parole.

The five members of the parole board were pressured by Keith, Bill Allain, and many others, including the governor, to say no. By a vote of 5–0, parole was denied.

For Keith, the relief was only temporary. Because of his good behavior in prison, Lance’s sentence would soon end, and he would be free to return to the Coast and resume operations. With Fats dead, and honest men running both the sheriff’s office and the city of Biloxi, no one knew what mischief Lance would create. Perhaps he would attempt to go straight and stay out of trouble. He had plenty of legitimate properties to oversee. But whatever he decided to do, Keith would be watching.

With her husband’s return imminent, Carmen Malco finally filed for divorce. Her lawyers negotiated a generous settlement, and she left the Coast and moved to Memphis, only two hours from Parchman. She visited her son on death row every Sunday.

She did not visit her ex-husband.

In February, Keith, Ainsley, and the rest of the Rudy clan threw a large announcement party at the Broadwater Beach Hotel near the Strip. The main ballroom was packed with family and friends, most of the local bar, the courthouse gang, and an impressive group of business leaders from the Coast. Keith gave a rousing speech and promised to use the AG’s office to continue to fight crime, specifically the drug trade. Cocaine was raging through the country, and south Mississippi was riddled with distribution points that changed weekly. The cartels had more men and money, and the state, as usual, was lagging behind with its interdiction efforts. Without getting too carried away, Keith took a generous share of the credit for cleaning up the Coast, but warned that the old vices of gambling and prostitution were nothing compared to the dangers of cocaine and other drugs. He promised to go after not only the narco-traffickers and street pushers, but also the public officials and cops who looked the other way.

From Biloxi, Keith and Ainsley flew to Jackson for another announcement event. He was the first candidate to qualify for the AG’s race and the press was interested. He drew a nice crowd at a Jackson hotel, then met with a group of trial lawyers who had money and were always politically active.

Keith had about a hundred friends from law school scattered around the state, and for the past six months had been priming that network for support. Since he was not challenging an incumbent, his friends were eager to get involved and most of them signed on. From Jackson, Ainsley went home and Keith hit the road in a leased car, alone. For eighteen straight days he crisscrossed the state, meeting with volunteers recruited by his lawyer pals, glad-handing his way through courthouses, speaking at civic clubs, talking with editors of small-town newspapers, and even hustling
votes in busy shopping centers. He stayed with friends and spent as little as possible.

In his first campaign trip, he visited thirty-five of the eighty-two counties and signed up hundreds of supporters. The money started trickling in.

His strategy was to run hard in the southern half of the state and carry the Coast by a wide margin. One likely opponent was from Greenwood, in the Delta. Another was a state senator from a small town near Tupelo. Several others were being discussed, but all of them lived north of Jackson. There was no clear favorite for the vacant office, not until a newspaper editor in Hattiesburg informed Keith that he had placed first in an unofficial poll. When this became a story, on page four of the first section, Keith ran a thousand copies of the article and sent it to his volunteers and supporters. The same editor told Keith the Rudy name was highly recognized. The candidate embraced his role as the front-runner and worked hard to convince everyone else.

Since losing to Jesse in 1971, Rex Dubisson had built a high-powered law practice specializing in offshore oil rig injuries. He was a making a fortune and was active in the lawyers’ organizations. He leaned on his fellow tort stars and passed the hat. When he felt like they weren’t serious enough, he passed it again. Then he hosted a cocktail party at Mary Mahoney’s and informed Keith that he had raised $100,000 and was promising at least that much by summer. Rex was also busy picking the pockets of national trial lawyers and tort firms, and was optimistic that even more money could be raised.

Over a quiet drink, Rex told Keith that the trial lawyers needed a friend and they saw him as a rising star. He was young, but youth was needed. They wanted him in the governor’s mansion to help with their fight against the rising tide of tort reform.

Keith made no promises but happily took the money. He quickly hired a Jackson consulting firm to organize his campaign. He hired a driver/gofer and opened a small office in Biloxi. By late
March there were four other men in the race, two from Jackson and two from further up north. Keith and his consultants were delighted by the growing field and hoped that even more would join the fray. Their internal polls continued to show him ahead and extending his lead. Roughly 40 percent of the state’s population lived in the twenty southernmost counties, and the Rudy name was recognized by 70 percent of those polled. Number two came in at a whopping 8 percent.

But the best campaigns were fueled by the fear of losing, and Keith never slowed down. Beginning in April, he left Egan in control of the DA’s office and hit the road. He kissed Ainsley goodbye before dawn on Monday and gave her a big hug when he returned after dark on Friday. In between, he and his team swarmed every courthouse in the state. He spoke at rallies, churches, backyard cookouts, bar lunches, judges’ conferences, and had coffee in the offices of countless small-town lawyers. Every weekend, though, he was at home with Ainsley and the girls, and every Sunday the family attended Mass with Agnes.

His thirty-fifth birthday fell on a Saturday in April. Rex Dubisson hosted a beach party and invited two hundred friends and campaign workers. July Fourth fell on a Monday, and a huge crowd gathered for an old-fashioned stump speech at the Harrison County Fairgrounds. Bill Allain and five others were in a hot race for the governorship, and all six were on the card. Keith was well received by the home crowd and promised virtually everything. Two of his opponents spoke as well. Both were older men and veteran politicians who seemed to realize they were trespassing on Rudy territory. The contrast was revealing. Youth versus age. The future versus the past.

Two weeks later, on July 17, the
Gulf Coast Register
and the
Hattiesburg American
ran editorial endorsements of Keith Rudy. It proved contagious. The following week a dozen county newspapers, almost all of them near the Coast, followed suit. Not surprisingly, the Tupelo daily endorsed the state senator from that part
of the state, but on Sunday, July 31, two days before the primary election, the state’s largest paper,
The Clarion Ledger
in Jackson, endorsed Keith.

On August 2, almost 700,000 voters went to the polls in the Democratic primary. With massive support from the southern end of the state, Keith led the ticket with 38 percent of the vote, double that of his second-place opponent. As usual, success attracted money, and it came from all directions, including some powerful business groups eager to make friends and join the parade. The Rudy consultants were ready, and within three days the campaign was running slick television ads in the biggest markets. His opponent was broke and could not answer.

In the August 23 runoff, Keith Rudy walked off with 62 percent of the vote, a landslide that not even his consultants predicted.

In November’s general election, he would face much weaker opposition from a Republican. At thirty-five, he would become the youngest AG in the state’s history, and the youngest in the country.