Charles Harrelson (1938-2007) was a minor figure around the world of poker and the World Series of Poker, but he gave poker a big national black eye. Harrelson, the father of actor, Woody Harrelson, abandoned his family when Woody was seven to become an outlaw, including a poker player, and cheater. He was also known to rob poker games. Harrelson was convicted of a murder-for-hire in Texas and did time in prison. While there, he practiced cheating at cards all the time, until he was rather good. He'd brag about his cheating abilities, and he'd say he was a hit man. This was incredibly rare. On TV, there are hit man all the time. Harrelson was thought by some Kennedy assassination theorists to have been involved as a shooter. Harrelson even confessed, but recanted.
At the forerunner to the World Series in 1969 in Reno, Harrelson was there, and he was known as a hit man at that time.
Charles Harrelson's wife knew Jimmie Chagra the big dope dealer who had lost large sums at poker in Las Vegas. Chagra had created a big game of expert players like Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, Sailor Roberts, and Puggy Pearson at Binion's Horseshoe. Harrelson and confederates had a plan to get Chagra in a high stakes poker game and cheat him. James McManus wrote that the Binion family introduced Harrelson and Chagra. This was hugely false, and known to be false from books, trial testimony, and one of the biggest investigations in U.S. history way before James McManus wrote his lies about this event, for which he was sued and lost.
Harrelson, and his wife, approached Chagra, and Harrelson offered to kill the Judge for a sum. Later, the fee was set at $250,000 to kill a federal judge, Maximum John Wood, known for his long sentences. Chagra was facing trial for being a huge international dope dealer with ties to Columbia. These discussions happened at the World Series of Poker, and in a massively publicized trial, the connections to poker were repeated often.
James McManus wrote several false things about Chagra/Harrelson/and the Binion's. He wrote that Chagra was laundering money and stated that Jack Binion was a crook. He said very wrongly that the "Binion family" introduced Harrelson to Chagra. The most ignorant thing that James McManus said about this got his publisher sued. He said that four people: Jack Binion, Benny Binion, Ted Binion, and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, then Chagra's attorney sat in booth 1 of the Sombrero and plotted the murder of a federal judge. McManus said the contract was for $50.000. He wrote this after the massive trial and investigation which involved seventy federal agents. Mayor Goodman's lawyer called the publisher threatening to sue. They settled for an unreported amount, believed to be $50,000, a full-page advertisement apologizing in the New York Times, and removal of these false, offensive, and child-like passages from future editions of McManus' books.
When he was captured out on a Texas highway, Charles Harrelson confessed to being one of the shooters in the Kennedy assassination. He was all coked up. For years, people had said he was one of the three tramps in Dealy Plaza on the day of the assassination, but that was discredited. One of the big journalists, Jack Anderson, believed he was a shooter. I do not. I think Oswald was the only shooter. It was a small conspiracy headed by New Orleans Mafia Don Carlos Marcello. A few guys were supposed to help Oswald escape, then kill him. Simple.
Jimmy Chagra got out of prison. He came to the World Series in 2007, but is now dead. Charles Harrelson died in prison. Here is a YouTube video of a Charles Harrelson interview. He says he confessed to Kennedy and Judge Wood assassinations, but brings up his "state of mind."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpVlqh14WHY
Last edited by Johnny Hughes; 09-26-2011 at 12:38 PM.