The Cornbread Mafia: A Homegrown Syndicate's Code of Silence and the Biggest Marijuana Bust in American History

by James Higdon

  Cliff Todd was an interesting character. Decades before coming to Marion County with the prison, he worked as an epidemiologist, testing the sex workers at Pauline Tabor's brothel in Bowling Green for sexually transmitted diseases, and according to Todd, the girls were always clean.

  He found himself in the prison-building business by complete accident when in 1982 he bought at auction the old Waverly Hills Tuberculosis Hospital and Sanatorium in southern Louisville, while at the same time the state was undergoing an acute prison shortage. Strong local opposition in Louisville doomed the Waverly Hills project, but Cliff Todd kept his eye out for a property that might be suitable to refurbish into a prison.

  "Then I heard that St. Mary's Seminary was for sale,"Todd later said.

  To make the deal for the college at St. Mary's, Cliff Todd traveled to Coos Bay, Oregon, to meet the property's previous owner, Ken Keyes, and stayed with Keyes for four days.

  "Oh, he was incredibly smart," said Cliff Todd of Keyes. "He had more intelligence than most people in his thumb, which is about all he could move below his neck.

  "I took him to the doctor-apparently being paralyzed like that is bad on your kidneys. So, I took him to the doctor and helped him up onto the table. I really enjoyed talking with him. You know, he got stricken with polio the week after he got out of the Navy...

  "He was so smart, I just never understood why all those beautiful young women practically threw themselves at him. He had been divorced two or three times, and when I was there, he was about to marry this other one."

  When Todd returned home, he possessed a deed to 150 acres and campus buildings, but he had no guarantee that the state would grant him a contract to run a prison there.

  "And I bought it without ever having a contract, without ever knowing it was going to be a prison. And then, when the residents of Marion County found out it was going to be a prison, there was going to be a hell of a fight there."

  In urban Jefferson County, the county judge executive controlled the fiscal court like a CEO, but in rural Marion County, the court's magistrates, elected from the county's nine precincts, held more power. While Todd was in Texas at a conference for prison administrators, he received a phone call from a person who told him that the Marion County Fiscal Court had met that Thursday night. The courtroom had been so full of people that they had to move the meeting to a bigger courtroom. The people in attendance demanded that Todd not build a prison in Marion County, and the fiscal court agreed.

  "But I couldn't give up ... so I hired lawyers," recalled Todd. Among Todd's lawyers was local-boy-made-good Jack Smith, whose effectiveness as a local boy was greatly diminished when he arrived in Lebanon driving a new Mercedes-Benz.

  Despite the court's first vote, Todd and his team realized that the magistrates on the fiscal court would have to vote again on the prison.

  "I think all the magistrates were sort of, in a way was, uh-not `bought,' but I don't know what word you want to use with Cliff Todd," Charlie Bickett later said, "because a lot of people were against it at first."

  "We reached out to all of them [the magistrates], but some were more easy to work with than others, certainly [J. E. `Squire'] Bickett," Todd said. "Seems like all of them would be on my side one week, and then come back and say, `I can't do that. I'd be going against my people.'

  "But finally we were close enough that we thought it was time to really dig our heels in and do or die. So, we rented an empty office building across from the courthouse and put an ad in the paper that we would be taking applications on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of a certain week. It was the week that the fiscal court would be meeting on Saturday to approve or disapprove of the prison.

  "So, in three days we gave out 2,800 applications for sixty-five jobs, but they could not fill them out and leave them.' They had to bring them back on Saturday morning. So, when they brought them back at 8 or 8:30, the fiscal court meeting was to convene at nine o'clock.

  "I will never forget. People walked across the street and filled that courthouse. They had tobacco sticks and signs-anything that they thought would be helpful-and they chanted, in unison, with those tobacco sticks banging on the floor, `We want jobs! We want jobs! We want jobs!'

  "Well, how could the magistrates sit there and look at them and not vote for the prison? And that's what got it done."

  For the elected officials, the vote carried with it the consequences of any divisive public issue.

  "Of course, that's why Judge Donahue got beat; that's why Daddy got beat; that's why Caldwell got beat," Charlie Bickett recalled. "Because of that prison because they all voted for it. After the election it was in the paper, `Courthouse cleaned.'... Cliff was a good man, but he wasn't too liked in Marion County because of that. You know, an outsider come in and put up a prison."

  "I was driving out to the facility one day," Cliff Todd recalled, giving an example of the local hostility toward him. "And there was a dairy farm before you get to St. Mary's. And a cow had had a calf, and the creek was up because it had just rained. Well, I was sure that that calf was surely going to try to get up and fall into the creek.

  "So, I stopped and knocked on the dairyman's door, and I said, `You have a cow over here with a calf, and I'm afraid it's going to jump in that creek.'

  "`I know who you are, and we don't like your kind around here,' and that's all he said.

  Yet, despite the difficult dealings with the locals, Cliff Todd wasn't ignorant of the ways of Marion County. Todd was born in 1928, and his father brought him on several occasions in their Model T Ford to Marion County in search of moonshine, which they bought by the gallon. And along his eccentric career path, Todd met a few people with connections to Marion County in other ways.

  "Cliff was just a good man, had plenty of money and the foresight to see about private prisons," Charlie Bickett recalled. "Johnny Boone and him had previous-uh-relations, as far as under the table and all that."

  The prison developer and former prisoner had done business in the past through their mutual interest in cattle breeding.

  "I came upon a breed that people were trying to import from Europe," Cliff Todd said, "Maine-Anjou from the area of Maine-Anjou, France. But you can't import cattle, so we brought in the semen through Canada [mislabeled as a domestic breed].

  "So, we bred our cows-first we'd have half-breeds, the next generation three-quarters, and so on until eventually you have a purebred. And that's where I met Johnny Boone.

  "Johnny Boone and I were directors of the Maine-Anjou Association, and we met usually once a month somewhere, in Louisville or wherever. He built up quite a herd.... We got into this in about 1969.

  "We were very friendly then, socially friendly, but along the way another breed was brought into the United States-Chianina-and that's an Italian cow. And they are wild; they're crazy! They would run like a quarter horse. When they turn, they would go with both front hoofs at once.

  "Anyway, I went to South Dakota and bought seventy-five heifer calfs that were still nursing their mommas, but they were to be delivered in November at no less than 350 pounds.

  "Well, the man I bought them from delivered them, but he-we knew he was in Kentucky by noon, but he didn't deliver the cows until it was after dark. The next morning, I could tell that quite a few of them were very much underweight. So, I pulled out seventeen of the seventy-five and weighed them, and they were like 225 pounds. So, I stopped payment on his check.

  "He didn't want to give me a refund or take them back. He didn't want to do anything. I later found out that he hired Johnny Boone to rustle those cows. They were on a farm where no one was living at the time.

  "Johnny Boone, with a crew, came in-and we never could understand how you could do it-and rounded up those seventy-five wild-ass heifers, got them on trucks in trailers and took them to Washington County.

  "But some people saw these-they didn't know they were my cattle-but they saw cows drove through Finchville that looked like they were sardines. Some of th
eir heads were on top like they were walking on one another.

  "Anyway, that night-I felt like Johnny Boone had done it, and he had several farms. Between twelve midnight and four a.m., I was visiting every farm he was known to have been and didn't find them.

  "Finally, on Saturday, I was in Springfield, and somebody told me to go to the stockyards. Well, there were my heifers with padlocks on the gates.

  "Well, I thought: `OK, no big deal. I'll go have Johnny Boone arrested.'

  "So, I go to the sheriff's office.

  "The sheriff looked at me, and he said: `Mr. Todd, I could give you a warrant, but do you see that burned lot over there?' He was pointing out of the window of his office. `That used to be a big tobacco warehouse, but Johnny Boone had a disagreement with the owner of that, and it burned down.' He said: `I would advise you to get you a truck and take your cattle home, and I'll cut the locks for you.'

  "So, that's what I did. I ended up hiring the same guy that Johnny used to take them, at my expense, of course.

  "But later on, a few years later, Johnny and I became definitely speaking friends and talking. Bygones were bygones."

  Yet, the people of Marion County had a much more difficult time letting go of their animosity toward Cliff Todd and his prison. Little did they realize that had they been successful in stopping Todd's plans, St. Mary's could have become something its Catholic founders would have deemed far worse.

  "As the deed was given to me, and all papers were signed, the attorney handling the closing on the deal told me," Cliff Todd recalled.

  "He said, `Mr. Todd, I've been authorized to offer you a profit of $100,000 on the facility if you will close within thirty days.'

  "Well, that was hard to say `no' to because I had nothing really. I was hopeful of getting a contract, but it was a long way off-but I gritted my teeth, and said, `no.'

  "I found out later that the interested buyer was a Baptist organization out of Texas."

  Luckily, it never came to that, and Cliff Todd brought only prisoners to Marion County and not Texas Baptists. With the plan for the prison approved, Todd focused on honoring his commitment to fill his job openings with locals looking for work.

  "I promised to give jobs, and I promised to give jobs only to Marion County people,"Todd said, "with the exception of three or four top people like my warden, and I stuck to that.

  "So, we employed Marion County people, and we paid more than the regular minimum wage. And some of the businesses were fighting us, I found out later, because they thought we were lifting the wage scale.

  "One man came up to me and asked for a job. He told me his name, and his last name was Tabor.

  "I asked him: Are you related to Pauline Tabor?'

  "He said: `She's my aunt.'

  "I said: `You're hired.'...

  "J. E. Bickett wanted his son [Charlie] to have a job. Well, without a doubt, his son was going to get a job. J. E. was a big help, not just as a magistrate, but in many ways. He was a generous man and helpful in any way he could be. If we needed a tractor, he helped with that. If we needed vehicles, he helped us get them, and I'm sure he made some money on it, too, but who cares?

  "For some reason, I became a friend with Charlie Bickett more than any other officer I had. He seemed like a genuine person."

  "I was on drugs bad then," Charlie Bickett recalled regarding his life before starting work at the prison. "I was on cocaine, and my marriage was shaky. I knew I had to get out of that bar. I seen two or three people get killed in that bar. Quack Livers shot hisself there ... and Ronnie Ellis got shot right below me there. I found a guy hung himself, me and Joe Downs found him dead. Billy Downs, Jack Lamkin shot him.... Then I seen a couple of shootouts."

  Although the killings of Ronnie Ellis and Billy Downs had been shocking and perhaps avoidable, the suicide of Quack Livers had been far less surprising because Quack made a habit of punctuating his point of view with a game of Russian roulette. He would say things like, "I don't care what anybody thinks. If anybody tries to stop me, I'll shoot 'em just like this," and then he would pull his revolver, spin the cylinder, put it to his head and pull the trigger. Every time, the hammer hit an empty chamber, and the gun said, "click." Every time except the last time.

  Quack was at Squire's Tavern, and old Jack Lamkin, the man who killed Billy Downs, came in and told Quack that the air in one of his tires was low.

  "Nobody tells me what to do with my car!" Quack shouted.

  "I don't care what you do," Lamkin said. "I'm just telling you your tire is low."

  "If anybody touches my car, I'll shoot'em," Quack said. "Just like this."

  Pull, spin, point, squeeze and BLAM! The body of Quack Livers dropped to the floor, and Charlie Bickett called the priest for the all-tooregular duty of administering last rites in Raywick.

  Soon the door opened, and Joe Keith Bickett entered, stepping over Livers's body.

  "Give me six beers," he told his brother Charlie.

  "Did you see Quack there?" Charlie asked him.

  "Yeah,"Joe Keith said. "He's dead. Give me six beers."

  Charlie gave him the beer, and Joe Keith left. After the door shut behind him, someone in the bar said, "That's one cold motherfucker."

  "Anyway, I had enough of it," Charlie recalled nearly thirty years later. "I just figured sooner or later, my odds were getting slim. People getting locked up ...

  "I was one of the first twenty people they hired [at the prison], I reckon, and that's when I approached Johnny Boone one day when I had a chance. I'd been running that old bar down there since 1971 up to that date, and I was sort of half-crook anyway because I knew all the-knew everybody I needed to know, let's just put it like that."

  Charlie Bickett wanted the job at St. Mary's, but he was concerned about what people would think about a Bickett working at a prison. He didn't want to ruin his reputation.

  "And so I approached Johnny one day and told Johnny I had an opportunity to get a good job ... and he said, `Man, go for it.' Johnny Boone of all people! You know, I always respected him, so I thought if I got an endorsement from Johnny Boone, I could give a shit less what everybody else thinks."

  Once Bickett got the job, how did he like it?

  "I loved it. I loved it," he recalled. "When they hired me, I was in charge of cleaning the place all up. They gave me a road crew, and three out of the ten people were all from Marion County, local boys, doing time up here.

  "Hell, I went through the ranks from an officer to a corporal to a sergeant to a lieutenant to unit director to, uh, assistant temporary deputy of security and programs. When they left-the deputy director of security or programs-went on vacation or went to a seminar, I took their place."

  What would have happened to Charlie Bickett without the prison?

  "I'd probably be doing time," he said. "There's not a doubt in my mind. There wouldn't have been a way out for me if I would have stayed in that bar. It's not because I wanted to be there. It's not because I wanted to see the things I saw there. It was just the times.

  "So, anyway, Johnny Boone and Cliff Todd saved my life."

  On July 25, 1984, in the middle of the prison drama gripping Marion County, President Ronald Reagan held a rare evening press conference at the White House, during which he discussed a wide range of foreign and domestic affairs in order to shape the public debate before the political and media elites departed Washington for their August vacations.

  "Please be seated," the president said to the assembled press corps. "I have a brief statement here. The Congress is back this week for a session that's lasting only until August 10. But that's enough time for the House of Representatives to approve legislation that would benefit all Americans.

  "Among the many important issues now facing the Congress is legislation that will help reduce deficits, reward work and thrift, make our cities and neighborhoods safer and increase personal liberties throughout our land....

  "I have talked with the House Republican leadership. They have
pledged to try again to bring six key measures to the floor for a vote. "First, a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget....

  Second, a proposal granting spouses working in the home [equal] retiring rights....Third, a proposal offering incentives for investment in seventyfive enterprise zones.... Fourth, a bill allowing tuition tax credits.... Fifth, a comprehensive anticrime package to crack down on criminals through restrictions on bail, tougher sentencing and stricter enforcement of drug trafficking laws. And sixth, an equal access bill permitting religious student groups the same freedom to meet in public high schools....

  "These reforms are long overdue, and they would benefit all the people.... It's time to test the new realism and to see if the Democratic leadership will move from words to action."

  In the ensuing press conference, the president answered questions from reporters on topics ranging from tax policy to Geraldine Ferraro's claim that Reagan wasn't a good Christian because his budget cuts had hurt the poor and disadvantaged.

  "Well, Helen, the minute I heard she'd made that statement I turned the other cheek," the president quipped.

  Others asked the president about the CIA's secret war in Nicaragua, about negative campaign tactics, about entitlement programs, interest rates, voting registration in the South and access of American nuclearpowered ships to the ports of New Zealand. But no one asked the president anything about his views on the potential long-term costs of his proposed anticrime legislation.

  Two months later, on September 26, the House approved the president's anticrime package as the 98th Congress hurried to clean up its business before its imminent adjournment. When President Reagan signed the bill into law, he enacted the most far-reaching expansion of the federal government's law enforcement powers in its history.

  "The legislation, for the first time.... abolishes parole and completely overhauls the Federal bail and sentencing systems," reported the New York Times. Twenty years later the Supreme Court would rule whole sections of this law unconstitutional.