The Bluegrass Conspiracy

by Sally Denton

  Brown was only slightly more forthcoming when interviewed by Rawls, who pressed for an answer. Confronted with inferences that the cash withdrawals were the profits of a drug-smuggling operation, Brown apparently decided to choose the lesser of two evils, hoping voters had forgotten his earlier campaign statements that he was not a big gambler. To Rawls, Brown for the first time admitted publicly his reasons for the withdrawals: “One real bad night” gambling in Las Vegas in 1981.

  Maybe gambling had long been a staple of Kentucky life, but the revelation that a sitting governor had dropped $1.3 million in one night at a Vegas casino aroused even the most apathetic constituent. Perhaps the irony of Brown’s actions would have been lost on more Kentuckians if their state had not been one of the poorest in the nation.

  “ ‘I operate in cash, which is my right,’” the governor told the New York Times, regarding the withdrawals and transfers of large sums. “‘I worked hard for my money, I made it legally and I paid the taxes on it. If I want to take it out of a bank in wheelbarrows, that’s my business. It’s my money and I can do with it what I want.’”

  He described his betting habits as “recreational”: “‘Sometimes I forgot I was governor and had some fun, but I never made a bet I couldn’t afford. I’ve taken care of my responsibilities, provided handsomely for my first wife, set up trust funds for my children, given $3 million to charities. If somebody wants to fault me for poor judgment that’s fine, but there is nothing illegal in my activities.’”

  The New York Times story signaled the beginning of the end for Brown. The proverbial icing on the cake was the telethon disaster. Officially declared a bust, grossing only $2.75 million, Brown had incurred the wrath of Democratic party chairmen from numerous states. Brown seemed to fall apart—both emotionally and physically. He refused to appear at a press conference, issuing a statement instead in which he belittled the federal probe and alluded to unspecified discrepancies in the Times story. Infuriated by an earlier Times story that had been critical of his administration, Brown had fired off a letter to the publisher of the Times offering to pay a million dollars to the newspaper’s favorite charity if it could find a state “better run” than Kentucky. “Apparently the New York Times doesn’t know how to accept a gentlemanly Kentucky challenge,” Brown told reporters after the Times failed either to respond to his letter or to publish it.

  But the Times story was only the beginning as a barrage of national reporters who found that Brown’s high-stakes gambling and cash withdrawals made good copy suddenly inundated the state.

  The Los Angeles Times reported that the Miami grand jury was considering evidence that Brown had encouraged the bank not to report the withdrawals. That story also quoted sources with the Nevada casino regulators who said Jimmy Lambert was an associate of J. Dan Chandler, who was under investigation in Nevada.

  The Las Vegas Sun reported that Brown had lost more than a million dollars in a baccarat game at Caesars Palace. The European card game famous for its fast pace was Brown’s game of choice, according to the Sun. That same story revealed that Brown had lost half a million dollars at the Horseshoe Club and had taken more than five years to repay the outstanding debt.

  Time magazine published an overview of the controversy, focusing on Brown as the common link between the elite and the netherworld. “Lexington, Ky., has always had a pretty high opinion of itself. The Idle Hour Country Club, the inner sanctum for Thoroughbred horse breeders and other bluebloods, is about as smugly exclusive as such places get. Lexington’s upper-class chat just now should be preoccupied with the annual Keeneland yearling sale… Instead, each day the conversations are thicker with unsavory gossip.”

  Newsweek too drew attention to “The Woes of John Y. Brown. “ Recounting an earlier incident when Phyllis was conducting a televised interview of Muhammad Ali, the weekly news magazine portrayed Brown as a politician who tactlessly acted on impulse. “[Phyllis] Brown asked the former heavyweight boxing champion about his best fight. While Ali pondered the question, Kentucky Gov. John Y. Brown, Jr. wandered over to give his wife an assist: ‘Why don’t you ask him about his fights with his wife?’ Ali, who has had his share of marital strife, was stunned. ‘Man,’ he said to the chief executive of the commonwealth of Kentucky, ‘you really are stupider than you look.’”

  By late June, Brown-bashing by the media was chic. Finally, the local papers got into the act. BROWN’S FOIBLES TEND TO OBSCURE HIS ACHIEVEMENTS, pontificated a Courier-Journal columnist. “Matters have come to an astonishing pass when the state’s highest elected official spends the better part of an hour answering questions on virtually nothing else except his gambling habits, other aspects of his personal lifestyle and his association with people under investigation.”

  Presumably uncomfortable at having been scooped by the national media, the Lexington Herald-Leader published a sanctimonious prediction that Brown’s career in national politics had come to a standstill. “One of the startling things that can befall a politician,” wrote editor John Carroll, “is to discover, after years of seeking national attention, that the nation is actually listening. Some have been pained to learn—as Gov. John Y. Brown Jr. is now learning— that the floodlights can shine without mercy, illuminating one’s weaknesses in terrible detail… Four years ago, Brown was mildly embarrassed when it was discovered that he, a candidate running as a businessman, did not know the meaning of the term affirmative action. Such a gaffe in a national campaign could be damaging, if not fatal.”

  MIGHTY STRANGE BEHAVIOR FOR A STATE’S HIGHEST OFFICIAL, declared the venerable Courier-Journal.

  Jokes became rampant about Brown’s cabinet slogan, “Kentucky & Company—The State That’s Run Like a Business.” T-shirts and bumper stickers popped up that said: KENTUCKY & COMPANY— A STATE YOU CAN GAMBLE ON; or, with apparent reference to the Company, KENTUCKY & COMPANY—A STATE THAT’S RUN LIKE A DRUG OPERATION.

  Unamused, Brown apparently decided it was finally time to face the music. His eyes bulging with tension and rage, the governor answered questions put to him by a mass of state and national reporters. Brown promoted his image as a gambler, apparently to dispel suspicions and rumors regarding his friendship with drug smugglers. But it seemed nearly as impolitic to recklessly wage staggering amounts of money. Vowing to give up gambling for the rest of his term, Brown refused to answer specific questions about his gambling losses or the cash withdrawals.

  Four days after the press conference, Governor Brown underwent emergency open-heart surgery after complaining of chest pains. When he suffered respiratory failure after the operation and lapsed into a coma, even his medical condition became rife with sordid rumors.

  Ralph Ross couldn’t help feeling sorry for the guy. Ralph could relate, better than anyone, to a man whose life was suddenly in shambles.

  Closed-circuit television monitors were camouflaged in the gigantic oak trees near the gateposts. The white mansion was hidden from the busy road, more than a quarter of a mile down a curved asphalt driveway. Ralph inched his new Subaru sedan up to the gate, reached a long arm out of the window to push a button that would be undiscernible to an unknowing visitor. The front gate, heavy as a barn door, swung open to allow Ralph’s entrance. At that moment, a bell rang in the main house, alerting its occupants to an intruder. Within seconds, two seemingly vicious Doberman pinschers—aptly named Napoleon and Gideon—bounded across the manicured lawns toward the entrance. Ralph had already pushed the second button that was mounted on a post twenty feet inside the property. Behind him, the electric gate closed slowly. His car window glided up just as the guard dogs reached his car. Their menacing scowls turned to playful barking the moment they recognized Ralph.

  “Get off me, you sorry animals,” Ralph joked as the dogs attacked him with affection, running circles round his legs.

  “Anybody home?” he yelled through the back screen door of his sister Thelma’s house.
/>
  It seemed awfully quiet to Ralph, considering the number of cars parked out back. Thelma responded from across the yard.

  “We’re all out here by the pool,” she said. “You’d better get over here. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

  Ralph lumbered over, the sun beating down on his head.

  The massive rectangular swimming pool was crystalline blue. He had helped Thelma with the annual cleaning and preparation for summer, which entailed days of vacuuming and chemical testing. Lounging on the expensive outdoor furniture was an unlikely crew, looking hot and uncomfortable in their professional clothes. He nodded at the two reporters who had come by to check out the story. They seemed out of context there, drinking gin and tonics prepared for them by Thelma, file folders stacked on the um-brellaed round table, anxiously awaiting Ralph’s arrival.

  “At least you’re alive,” Thelma said to Ralph.

  Ralph’s teenaged niece floated on a raft in the pool. “Hi, Buster,” she yelled to her uncle, using Ralph’s nickname from his youth. “Glad you’re back.”

  Ralph was slightly embarrassed and ashamed. He knew that everyone present had been up most of the night panicked, believing that he had been killed. At that very moment, his daughter Christie was in the protective custody of police in South Carolina. Ralph’s ex-wife Vivian and her new husband were en route to the Myrtle Beach resort area to retrieve Christie—a terrified coed.

  It had started the night before, around 1 a.m., with a phone call to Christie’s hotel room. She and some friends had driven to the vacation spot famous for its onslaught of college kids. They had gone out to dinner that evening, then to a local bar for a couple of beers, arriving back at their room just after midnight.

  The moment they entered the room, the phone rang.

  First inside the door, Christie ran to answer it.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Is this Christie Ross?”

  “Yes it is,” she replied, not recognizing the male voice.

  “We’ve just shot your dad, and you’re next.”

  Christie hysterically summoned the local police, and efforts began immediately to locate Ralph back in Kentucky. Awakened in the middle of the night, Don Powers went to Ralph’s apartment when the telephone had failed to rouse him. When Powers found a vacant apartment, calls rang out to everyone Ralph knew. Have you heard from Ralph tonight? Have you seen Ralph tonight? Do you have any idea where Ralph could be tonight? A BOLO, be-on-the-lookout, was issued, and state police searched roads in the Lexington and Lawrenceburg area for Ralph’s car. Ralph’s friends in the FBI were alerted to the incident.

  It wasn’t until 6 a.m. that Ralph dragged himself home from a date, to be confronted by a “bunch of cryin’ kin.”

  Ralph may have sat idly by as Henry Vance and Drew Thornton played their mind games with him, but he was not about to allow his children to be victimized.

  He took the Myrtle Beach incident as a warning, and though it hurt his pride to do so, his good sense told him it was time for him and Christie to get the hell out of Kentucky. Otherwise, someone was liable to end up dead.

  “Too hot in Dodge,” he joked with his friends before leaving. “Reckon I’ll be back when things cool off.” Packing his car with the bare necessities, Ralph and Christie headed West in search of a remote location in which to temporarily land. Settling in a small town in the Rocky Mountains that had only one road leading in and out, Ralph rented a condominium with two bedrooms and a fireplace, bought them each a pair of skis, some longjohns, and parkas, enrolled in private ski instruction, and burrowed in for a long, cold winter a thousand miles from home.

  Ralph found the same kind of solace in the West as had generations before him. He spent his evenings at one of a handful of cowboy bars where he blended in with dozens of others who had sought out a less complicated life. No one recognized him or asked him personal questions, and he never mentioned that he was a cop. Only a handful of friends and family members knew his whereabouts, diminishing his chances of being tracked down by Drew’s boys. Though he carried his gun at all times, for which he had a permit from ATF, Ralph looked over his shoulder less often. He couldn’t forget the look in Drew Thornton’s eyes when Drew testified for the prosecution at Ralph’s trial. From the witness stand, Drew had pointed his finger at Ralph and said: “That man’s the one who put me in jail.” At the moment Ralph had realized that someday Drew would try to have him killed. Ralph also knew that Drew and Henry Vance had discussed murdering Ralph, and that Vance had said he wanted to “personally” take care of the job.

  Every day, he rode the chairlift to the top of the mountain and awkwardly maneuvered his cumbersome, middle-aged body down the steep slopes, cursing his ineptness every inch of the way. Every night, he drank whiskey or wine and contemplated his remaining days. Although he found peace in the majestic beauty of the mountains, he knew it was but a temporary respite. Ralph didn’t want to spend the rest of his life skiing and boozing it up, spending his retirement income on older divorcees, but he felt powerless to change anything.

  His friends kept him apprised of events in Kentucky, making it easier for Ralph to gauge the necessity for his continuing absence. He was not surprised to learn that Drew’s girlfriend, Rebecca Sharp, along with four of Henry Vance’s relatives, had filed a $1.2 million civil suit against him claiming their constitutional rights had been violated by Ralph when he wiretapped Vance’s phone. Ralph scoffed at the appearance of Randy Reinhardt as the attorney for the plaintiffs. He never ceased to be baffled by the fact that an attorney with obvious ties to the likes of Drew Thornton and Henry Vance could enjoy reputable standing in his profession.

  Once again Ralph was faced with the unpleasant task of retaining an attorney. This time, the thought of spending thousands of dollars to defend himself was disgusting. If the lawsuit had been brought anywhere else in the country, Ralph would have shrugged it off, certain any judge would throw it out. But he knew from experience that the damnedest things could happen in Lexington. He began worrying about his legacy. What would he, a convicted felon, leave to his daughters when he died? A successful civil suit would wipe him out. Not only had he lost his job, but also his lifetime of financial savings was in jeopardy.

  Small victories temporarily elevated his spirits. Right after the turn of the New Year, Jimmy Lambert was indicted by a federal grand jury in Lexington. Charged with fifty-nine counts of possession or distribution of cocaine, marijuana, or methaqualone, one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, and one count of violating federal firearms laws, the governor’s friend faced a lifetime in jail. Named as co-conspirators with Lambert were Phillip Block—nephew of former governor Julian Carroll—and Spendthrift executive Arnold Kirkpatrick.

  In a surprise accompanying indictment, Anita Madden was charged with conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and theft of government property in connection with the leak of more than a hundred pages of grand jury testimony to Lambert. She had allegedly been the recipient of stolen carbon copies of grand jury proceedings, from which she then typed a transcript for Lambert.

  Ralph read with amusement the newspaper accounts sent to him by his sister Thelma. “…a confident and sardonic Lambert, wearing cowboy boots, jeans and a hat that advertised Red Man chewing tobacco, joked with reporters about the investigation and needled federal prosecutors as they passed by,” Ralph read in the Herald.

  In a profile of the hostess laureate of Kentucky, reporters speculated about Anita’s age. “In 1981 she took an accidental overdose of medication and was found unconscious at her home. She was listed in critical condition for two days before regaining consciousness… Mrs. Madden had long kept her age a secret, but the paramedics who took her to the hospital listed her as 48 years old. Her husband, who said she was 39, later disputed that

  Ralph assumed that would be the end of it. Lambert would never stand trial. H
is collaborators would never allow their shenanigans to be bandied about in open court, The FBI was hoping Lambert would point the finger at some of his more prominent co-conspirators. But Ralph knew better, Jimmy Lambert would never flip. He’d be a dead man if he did.

  Ralph also suspected that charges against Anita would be dropped, as in fact they were.

  Brown—who had completed his gubernatorial term and announced plans to run for the U.S. Senate—issued statements denying that he had ever been a target of the Lambert drug probe. Hedging his bets though, he retained former Watergate prosecutor James Neal to accompany him to an interrogation by the FBI.

  Pleased as he was with the culmination of the Lambert investigation, Ralph felt little personal satisfaction or mitigation. Remarkably, he still believed that the bad guys usually got caught. Some just took longer than others,

  (Subsequently on June 7, 1984, Lambert, under a plea bargaining agreement, pled guilty to a single drug conspiracy charge, the fifty-eight other counts against him were dropped. In pleading guilty, Lambert admitted using cocaine and giving it out to houseguests and others.)

  BOOK TWO

  Bluegrass Justice

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  By the time the Jefferson County homicide unit arrived at Harold Brown’s Louisville apartment on March 20, 1984, the grisly scene had already been compromised.