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Ronnie Earle was a Texas legend. During his three decades as the
district attorney responsible for Austin and surrounding Travis
County, he prosecuted corrupt corporate executives and state
officials, including the notorious US congressman Tom DeLay. But
Earle maintained that the biggest case of his career was the one
involving Frank Hughey Smith, the ex-convict millionaire, alleged
criminal mastermind, and Dixie Mafia figure. With the help of
corrupt local authorities, Smith spent the 1970s building a
criminal empire in auto salvage and bail bonds. But there was one
problem: a rival in the salvage business threatened his dominance.
Smith hired arsonists to destroy the rival; when they botched the
job, he sent three gunmen, but the robbery they planned was a
bloody fiasco. Investigators were convinced that Smith was guilty,
but many were skeptical that the newly elected and inexperienced
Earle could get a conviction. Amid the courtroom drama and
underworld plots the book describes, Willie Nelson makes a cameo.
So do the private eyes, hired guns, and madams who kept Austin not
only weird but also riddled with vice. An extraordinary true story,
Last Gangster in Austin paints an unusual picture of the Texas
capital as a place that was wild, wonderful, and as crooked as the
dirt road to paradise.
Homer Maxey was a war hero, multimillionaire and pillar of the
Lubbock, Texas, community. During the post-World War II boom, he
filled the West Texas horizon with new apartment complexes,
government buildings, hotels, banks, shopping centres and
subdivisions. On the afternoon of February 16, 1966, executives of
Citizens National Bank of Lubbock met to launch foreclosure
proceedings against Maxey. In a secret sale, more than 35,000 acres
of ranch land and other holdings were divided up and sold for
pennies on the dollar. By closing time, Maxey was penniless. Maxey
sued the bank and every member of the board of directors, including
long-time friends and business partners. Almost fifteen years, two
jury trials and nine separate appeals later, the case was settled
on September 22, 1980. Broke, Not Broken, the story of this
record-breaking, precedent-setting legal case, illuminates a
community and a self-styled go-getter who refused to back down,
even when his opponents were old friends, well-heeled leaders of
the community, a bank backed by powerful Odessa oil men and the
most formidable attorneys in West Texas.
Homer Maxey was a war hero, multimillionaire, and pillar of the
Lubbock, Texas, community. During the post-World War II boom, he
filled the West Texas horizon with new apartment complexes,
government buildings, hotels, banks, shopping centers, and
subdivisions. On the afternoon of February 16, 1966, executives of
Citizens National Bank of Lubbock met to launch foreclosure
proceedings against Maxey. In a secret sale, more than 35,000 acres
of ranch land and other holdings were divided up and sold for
pennies on the dollar. By closing time, Maxey was penniless. Maxey
sued the bank and every member of the board of directors, including
long-time friends and business partners. Almost fifteen years, two
jury trials, and nine separate appeals later, the case was settled
on September 22, 1980. Broke, Not Broken , the story of this
record-breaking, precedent-setting legal case, illuminates a
community and a self-styled go-getter who refused to back down,
even when his opponents were old friends, well-heeled leaders of
the community, a bank backed by powerful Odessa oil men, and the
most formidable attorneys in West Texas.
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