WEBVTT - Crosshairs - E7 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:06.559 Murder in Miami is a production of iHeartRadio previously on 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:09.480 Murder in Miami. So it's the fall of nineteen eighty 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:13.560 four and basically, you agree to go to Georgia to 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:16.680 help Lamar Chester, who you fully believe is a drug 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:20.200 smuggler and who fully believes that you were in the CIA, 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:23.119 create a gray mail defense. 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:24.720 Pretty much. Yeah. 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:29.400 Operation Lone Star was a sprawling federal investigation of money laundering. 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:34.200 Lamar Chester's involvement with a Nasau trust company and ownership 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:36.199 of islands became the focus. 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:40.720 There's over ten thousand coal cases in Miami Dade, which 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:44.839 is a staggering number. The eighties were a very large 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:47.600 part of the ten thousand cases. 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:51.839 The star witness, in fact, the whole point of the 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:57.160 hearings was this tall, slim woman in her thirties, Leslie Bickerton, 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:03.600 who the newspapers were building as Lamar's bookkeeper and mistress. 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:09.440 The government had been implying, if not outright stating with 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:13.880 witnesses fed to alligators, the portrayal that they were doing 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:14.800 of Lamar Chester. 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:18.720 Chester had told her that he quote got rid of 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:23.360 a man and fed him to the alligators. And she 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:36.880 says that he mentioned the man's name as Ed Clayton. Hey, Lauren, Hey, Phil, 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:41.840 So I think I actually found Leslie Bickerton. Definitely the 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:42.360 right one. 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:43.960 Are you sure you spoke to her? 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:47.960 Not exactly so I've been texting the correct number, but 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:50.920 it wasn't until I connected with her brother that she 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:51.800 responded to me. 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:53.360 And what'd you say? 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:57.480 That's a little complicated. So she's not willing to speak 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:01.880 with me yet, but she is willing to communicate via 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:08.480 an encrypted service so nobody can intercept our communication. 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.600 I guess, well, why all the secrecy. 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:15.960 Because Phil, after all these years, she's still afraid for 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:23.680 her life. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco, and this is murder 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:40.560 in Miami. When Leslie Bickerton and I first connected in 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:44.200 April of twenty twenty two, she insisted that going forward, 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:47.359 we only do so in an absolutely secure way as 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.959 an end to end encryption. Once we settled on a means, 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:53.680 it still took her over an hour to respond to 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:56.520 my initial explanation of who I was and why I 0:02:56.560 --> 0:03:00.840 was reaching out. She was extremely guarded and acious as 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:04.440 to exactly why I was searching for her. After stressing 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:07.519 she was extremely private and extremely careful as to who 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:10.919 she let into her life, she offered me this ominous 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:15.360 warning quote, you have no idea, she typed, what you 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:19.799 are stepping into. Trust me, she continued, I know this 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:23.920 as a fact, unquote. The Leslie Bickerton I would grow 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:26.760 to know bit by bit and over months of encrypted 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:29.680 texting was a woman who still very much bore the 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:33.080 scars of the experience of crossing paths with many of 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:37.080 the names you've now heard, especially Bob Adams and Lamar Chester. 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.720 It became obvious that, unlike Phil who has an interesting 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:44.680 tendency to look back on even the more troubling aspects 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.280 of his experience with intercept with a bit of a 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:51.480 bemused chuckle, Leslie finds nothing amusing about having been drawn 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:55.080 into a federal investigation. In fact, she still lives in 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.360 fear of the individual she became intertwined with, even the 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:04.000 one she still hasn't identified. Our early communications were halting, sporadic, 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:06.840 and somewhat cryptic, as I sought to give her a 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:09.880 level of comfort and trust while dealing with the limitations 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.600 of texting. What became very clear, though, was her significant 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:16.559 trepidation over revisiting the lone star period of her life 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:20.120 at all, and her belief that sinister forces beyond her 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:24.880 control at the time were still at work. Today. Like Phil, 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:27.560 she seemed to be struggling to put together the pieces 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:31.000 of that period of her life. But unlike Phil, she 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:35.440 very much felt to be a target of violent threats. Quote. 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:37.840 There was a contract out on me, and I know 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:41.359 much more than I should, she texted, But I was 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:44.159 too naive and stupid not to realize what I was 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:46.720 involved with and had to find out a lot more 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:50.320 after the fact. Unquote. She went on to offer this 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:54.600 warning if I decided to proceed, quote, be very careful. 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:00.640 When I updated Phil, it was with a much greater 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:03.200 sense of concern about the story we were tackling. 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:04.839 So are you still texting? 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:08.160 Yeah, just texting. But you know, I have to say 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:14.599 she is extremely concerned about her safety and honestly very 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:18.880 convinced that I'm putting myself in harm's way by even 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:19.960 revisiting any of this. 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:23.640 Oh come on, now, I've been poking around this the 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:27.159 last ten to fifteen years, and the heat is off. 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:30.120 I can understand she would have been worried back then, 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:34.000 for sure, bodies turning up all over the place, but 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:35.920 it's been forty years now. 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:38.840 Yeah, but you weren't even indicted. She was a witness, 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:42.040 and she believed at the time she was told there 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:45.679 was a contract out on her life, and she's still afraid. 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:47.960 I think part of the reason why it was so 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:51.120 hard to find her was because she went to great 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:52.640 lengths not to be found. 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:57.680 It's been hiding for forty years. That's no, it's no 0:05:57.800 --> 0:05:58.320 way to live. 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:02.559 I don't know. I mean, it's easy for us to say, 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:05.680 but she was told her life was in danger and 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:09.600 that people were incentivized to kill her for payment. And 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:12.280 even if that's no longer the case, it's not like 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:16.120 she ever got some kind of formal update that her 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:17.120 nightmare was over. 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:17.440 You know. 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:20.679 It's like they've been playing a capture the Flag game 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.119 and it moved on and ended, but she's still in hiding. 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:26.040 Nobody told her it was over. 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:29.719 Well, maybe if she talked to me, I could assure 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:34.159 of something or other. I mean, I understand that she 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:37.560 was scared at one time. Once upon a time, there 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:40.320 was certainly something to be scared of, and I'm still 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:42.720 trying to figure it out myself. So maybe we have 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:43.560 that in common. 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:48.440 Leslie and I would continue communicating via encrypted texts for 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:52.479 several months, bonding over our shared love for all things canine, 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:57.080 eventually swapping photos of our dogs and piecing together. Are 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:01.000 still evolving grasp of what happened during the Low Star investigation. 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:04.480 She also shared she found Chester's claims to have been 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:09.360 involved with CIA operations plausible. The CIA, she wrote, has 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:13.120 a long involvement with a drug trade since Vietnam, Heroin 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:17.840 and cocaine ongoing in Latin America, the Bahamas, Africa, Middle East, 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:24.240 especially Afghanistan. It's a Pandora's box unquote for anyone not familiar. 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:28.560 Pandora's box basically means opening an endless source of troubles. 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:32.360 It springs from a Greek myth about the world's first woman, Pandora, 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:36.880 whose curiosity led to the unleashing of evil upon mankind. 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.440 Leslie eventually agreed to speak with me over the phone, 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.119 but it would be another several months before she would 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:48.360 consent to taping our conversations. By the time I heard 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:50.680 her voice, I very much felt I knew the woman 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:51.400 it belonged to. 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:57.119 Going back forty one years, I never saw it coming, 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:00.280 had no idea, but then I didn't grow up with 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:05.240 those kinds of people. I understand it now. I was 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:10.480 just so trusting and naive, really naive. I've realized this 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:13.480 over the years. What happened to me from forty one 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:16.720 years ago has been with me my entire life. 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:20.560 I mean, it stole my life and I stole my voice. 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:24.040 And she's internalized that loss for forty years. 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:26.400 I've never told anybody what I've told you. 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:30.280 In the course of our extensive exchanges, Bickerton, who had 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:32.839 been reduced to almost a cliche in the articles I'd 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:36.280 read covering Chester and Lone Star, would reveal herself to 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:40.040 be a complicated and fiercely intelligent woman with a wry 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:44.240 sense of humor and a rather fascinating unorthodox upbringing. 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:46.840 Part of my life, I grew up in New England, 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:52.600 camping and hiking and sailing. My father always had us 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:55.319 out in the middle of nowhere, all of us, and 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:57.800 I'm the oldest in my family. My mother always said 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:00.960 she never know if he'd come back from a hurricane. 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.720 My father was like, let's go watch the hurricanes come 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:07.200 in the tide, the water everything. 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:12.280 Her father was the pioneering venture capitalist John Bickerton, as 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.439 legendary in the field of finance for his innovative influence, 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:20.080 as he was for his eclectic personality, despite his considerable 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.840 career accomplishments and belonging to a rarefied social realm that 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:28.720 included Rockefellers. According to his obituary quote, he was happiest 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:32.079 walking along the Marblehead Causeway during the height of a 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:36.120 hurricane with his eager children in tow, waiting for the 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:39.920 next rogue wave to hit the causeway wall and drench 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.640 them all. Unquote. 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.000 I grew up that way my whole life. It was 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.280 a sense of adventure. We knew the people who started 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:54.240 outward bound, where you go on remote islands as kids 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:57.480 and you learn how to survive on your own. This 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:00.839 is not one of these all inclusive resort. 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:02.160 This wasn't club med. 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:06.880 It was not club med. No, no, no no. And 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:09.000 I know how to hunt, and I know how to fish. 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:11.000 And because I grew up part of my life in 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.560 the Hawaiian Islands, I knew how to fish what they 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:18.199 call a Hawaiian sling. Are you familiar with that? 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:21.400 Okay? So this is all. 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:25.320 With indigenous in the Hawaiians. So a Hawaiian sling is 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:27.079 basically a spear. 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:28.600 We would take a. 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:31.480 Piece of wood, hollow it out in the middle and 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:34.880 take surgical tubing and wrap it so it adhere's to 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:39.040 that wooden tube. It's like a bow and arrow, okay, 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:43.560 except that the stainless steel shaft is probably maybe like 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:46.400 five feet long with a barb on it. So with 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:49.559 the Hawaiian sling, you hold your breath and you go 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:54.240 snorkel and you dive underneath the water to catch your food. 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:58.200 I mean we all free dived. We didn't have tanks. 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:05.560 And in addition to mastering outdoor survival techniques, sailing was 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.400 also a huge part of a Bickerton upbringing and remains 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:10.480 a particular passion for Leslie. 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:13.280 Being a New Englander, we look down on people with 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.679 motor boats, just like, if you're going to be a sailor, 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:19.240 you better learn how to sail, You better know how 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:21.680 to read the sky, how to read the water, all 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:21.960 of it. 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:26.480 By the time Leslie Bickerton, who also dabbled in modeling 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:30.200 while living in Hawaii, crossed paths with Lamar Chester, she 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:33.560 was barely thirty years old and fully putting her upbringing 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:37.560 around finance and formal training and taxation and accounting to 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:40.960 work in an environment she knew very well the Cayman Islands. 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:43.920 The beginning of nineteen eighty one, I was over in 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:47.920 the Cayman Islands before I had even heard of Lamar Chester. 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:51.240 I was working in the Caymans because I have a 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:57.079 CPA background and an international tax background. In the Caymans, 0:11:57.400 --> 0:11:59.199 a person named Stephen Greenberg. 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.080 Greenburg was the Miami based tax attorney who started working 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:06.240 with Chester after Lance Eisenberg was indicted. 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:10.880 Who was there vacationing with his family. I met him 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:15.200 to the Christian that I was working with working for, 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:19.760 and Stephen asked, you know if I be interested in 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:24.000 meeting Lamar Chester over in the state side. This man 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:27.200 owned some islands in the Bahamas, was looking for somebody 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:30.680 to do offshore work, and that he might be interested 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:33.199 in the work that we do with offshore accounts. 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:36.640 Offshore accounts are utilized for what purpose? 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:46.520 To utilize for both legitimate and illegitimate people, banks, trust companies, 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:50.360 people with a tremendous amount of money, So Hollywood people, 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:54.719 wealthy people in the States, wealthy people from other countries, 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:59.240 religious organizations such as the Mormon Church. 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:00.600 We met. 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:03.600 Yes, you'd be very surprised at what people where they 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:09.000 put their money, and businesses and corporations who have sub corporations, 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:17.400 insurance companies. Illegitimate people like the mob, you know, mafia, drugs, smuggling, guns, smuggling, 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:21.200 trying to where they so called wash their money to 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:25.679 make it look legitimate coming into the Cayman Islands setting 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:28.280 up a bank. So you could actually set up a bank, 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:32.080 a legitimate bank, a trust company and put your illegal 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:36.200 money in there if it's illegitimate money or you don't 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:39.560 want to pay the taxes to the IRS right instead 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:43.600 of being paid directly by another company for your work, 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:46.920 you have that money then deposited directly into what they 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:52.880 call an offshore account. Thereby it never touches directly the 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.720 state site where the IRS can get a hold of 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:58.880 it and legitimately say, hey, you know, you owe x 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:02.360 amount of money based on your earnings that year. And 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:05.160 then you can use that money then to set up 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:07.960 another bank. You can get pretty detailed and involved. But 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.680 then you can have a subsidiary in the US. So 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:13.760 all this money gets washed almost like the tides coming 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.360 in and out, and it's been there for a long time, 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:21.400 it hasn't changed. So that's what offshore does literally physically, 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:27.680 you're not having your funds come directly into the United States, So. 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:29.160 It's a gray area. 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:30.120 Very great. 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:36.040 Yeah, it's not necessarily legal, but it's not necessarily illegal exactly, 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:40.840 which is exactly why the very rich, whether by illicit 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:44.360 means or not, are very fond of offshore accounts as 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:48.040 a means of hiding their assets. Those islands have always 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:51.920 been known as tax havens for the rich and famous. 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:57.240 Yes, absolutely, there are a lot of loopholes that these 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:03.600 big tax lawyers confine that are so buried, very sophisticated 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:05.320 individual loopholes. 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.960 Apparently Lamar Chester was interested in utilizing some of these 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:13.040 sophisticated loopholes when he initiated a meeting with Leslie in person, 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:17.080 which would, as with Phil Stanford, take place at the 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:21.000 mutiny in Coconut Grove in February of nineteen eighty one. 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:25.080 I met him for dinner at a hotel that they 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:27.880 had put me in, so I did not know of 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:31.080 this hotel ahead of time. I had not a clue 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:36.240 this hotel apparently was known for all the drugs smugglers. 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:39.720 Did he make it clear at that dinner meeting why 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:42.160 he wanted to hire you and what he wanted you 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:43.080 to do for him. 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:48.239 He was interested in my background, just my own personal background, 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:50.920 so the sailing and the growing up on islands, and 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:55.640 the tax and the CPA, and thought that he could 0:15:56.200 --> 0:16:01.960 utilize my expertise for lack of a work to help 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.960 him with different businesses that he had running in the 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:09.520 Bahamas and maybe elsewhere, and maybe setting up an account 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:11.200 in the Caymans. 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:13.560 It was at that time that he told. 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:18.520 Me that he on these islands in the Bahamas, and 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:20.720 if I ever wanted to go there or stay there, 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:24.360 I'd be welcome to he'd arrange it for me. Back 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:27.960 in that time, I mean I wasn't married, I didn't 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:29.920 own a homes, I didn't own a car. 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:32.080 I had a sailboat. 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:37.520 So the option of living on the island was something 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:40.800 that made the job offer appealing to Leslie's sense of adventure, 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:43.800 even if there seemed to be some strings attached. 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:46.840 I don't know if at the first meaning he told 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:49.160 me he was married or not, I'm not sure. 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:50.760 And he also had. 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:53.400 A farm or some kind of a farm up in Georgia. 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:57.160 But again the hook for me was the islands and 0:16:57.200 --> 0:16:59.000 the Bahamas. 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:02.000 And the hook for Chester was likely in part the 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:07.280 very unique access the privileged patrician and bohemian somewhat sheltered 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:10.760 beauty sitting before him could provide, in addition to her 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:15.560 offshore tax shelter savvy. How much older was Chester than 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:19.880 you were twenty years something like that. Yes, so you're 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:24.400 barely in your thirties and he is a much more 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:28.720 sophisticated worldly man. And it sounds like he is honing 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:31.640 in on what makes you tick that first night at 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:37.440 dinner and realizes that the islands that he owns would 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:39.560 be a huge draw for you. 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:40.320 Yes. 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:43.680 Do you look back in retrospect and feel like he 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:45.240 was reading you? 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:48.000 You know, it's an interesting question, Lauren. 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:53.240 I've come to recognize far too late in life that 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:58.119 I don't think that way, and I didn't recognize that 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:00.600 other people do think that way, that they size you 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:03.400 up to see what they can get from you. I've 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:07.280 never been that way. It's a flaw in one sense, 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:12.800 because it leaves you vulnerable. So yes, he sized me 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:18.600 up immediately. And it was with the islands. Darby and 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:24.640 the Bahamas have an opportunity to go there, and I thought, sure, okay, 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:25.359 why not? 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:28.280 It's a hell of a piece of bait to have 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:34.040 this island paradise that you can offer to people as 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:37.520 a place to visit, a place to live that seems 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:51.639 like it's completely protected and utopia. Yes, yes, I was 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:54.919 struck the Bickerton, like Stanford, was at a point in 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:57.479 her life where she was drifting a bit, sort of 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:00.720 following her fate where it led, which made it much 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:03.600 easier to get sucked into the orbit of someone with 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:08.160 an agenda. Oddly enough, you were perfectly suited to take 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:12.480 Chester up on the offer to go live on his island. 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:20.080 Yes, a place like Darby and some of the out islands. 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:25.119 It's a test of courage, it's a test of adventure, 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:29.560 a test of intellect. It's a test of how you 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:31.160 connect with nature. 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:32.159 That's me. 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:34.560 When did you do that? And how long did you 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:36.320 live there in relative solitude? 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:36.560 Right? 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:38.000 Oh yeah, absolutely. 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:41.320 I brought my dog with me, my dope, i' mean 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:45.399 pincher Cavena. So it was Cavena and there was another 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:48.640 little dog there, a Mutt Island dog. 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:52.080 And that was it. There was nobody there. 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:56.040 To serve me or watch over me or any of that. 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:59.560 But I knew I was capable of being able to 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:03.359 exist that way, and it was again another adventure for me. 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.920 Remember Leslie had taken her dog to Darby. It will 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:11.000 play a major role in her testifying for the prosecution. 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:14.480 In addition to accepting the challenge of living on the 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:17.520 island and the job with him, Leslie Bickerton would also 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:21.240 become romantically involved with Chester. All three of those things 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:22.440 would come back to haunt her. 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:25.600 I had not a clue of what I was walking into, 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:28.720 but the draw was the Bahamas and the islands. 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:33.240 Leslie was not naive and had a pretty immediate inkling 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:36.560 that marijuana was Chester's likely livelihood. 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:39.560 I didn't know he was involved with cocaine. If I 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:43.320 had known that he was involved with cocaine smuggling and 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:48.520 how extensive his operations were, and his involvement with the 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:53.760 Colombian cartel and Central America and the FEDS, I wouldn't 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:55.439 have touched him. I wouldn't have come near her with 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:59.440 a ten foot pole, no way. He deliberately withheld all 0:20:59.480 --> 0:20:59.760 of that. 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:04.640 But Leslie, in particular so marijuana smuggling as almost part 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:08.320 of the adventurous spirit associated with the sailing set in 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:08.960 the islands. 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:13.600 The Bahamas has an interesting history. They were known for 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:17.879 piracy in the Bahamas. These islands, I mean they're really small, 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:21.359 They're not big like Jamaica or the Hawaiian Islands. So 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:24.320 once upon a time, this is where the pirates would 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:27.840 sort of hang out and go back and forth between 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:32.280 the States and the Bahamas and Jamaica and Europe. 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:34.120 Because they knew the lay of the land and anybody 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:37.720 who was pursuing them would probably end up wrecked because 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:42.639 they didn't understand the proper entry points and exit points exactly. 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:47.439 And that legacy carried on, and I think it just 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:52.000 really exploded again when you think about like the Vietnam War, 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:58.720 the sixties, anti war, anti government, highly educated people dropping out, 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:02.640 you know, the hippie movement, and there comes the marijuana 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:07.879 in the seventies. And if you grew up sailing, I 0:22:07.880 --> 0:22:10.320 mean I grew up on the ocean and the other 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:13.440 people that I know, there was always a sense of adventure. 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:15.720 When you're sailing, you know what the weather's going to 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:19.919 present to you. And so during that time period you 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:23.360 had the marijuana. Okay, you had the hippie movement, this 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:27.920 is before cocaine. Then you have this enclave of sailors 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:33.919 people that are highly educated, anti establishment, and there comes 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:38.400 the Bahamas and it's kind of a perfect storm. 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:42.680 Every island in the Bahamas has its own unique personality, 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:49.240 some untouched by civilization until recently, miles of unspoiled natural 0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:53.040 beauty here for you to explore, are thousands of islands 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:53.600 and keys. 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:59.440 It sounds like the perfect storm of this rogue frontier, 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:06.240 which is easy to romanticize with the anti establishment game 0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:11.040 event where suddenly there's this gold rush, but it's marijuana, 0:23:11.200 --> 0:23:13.639 because at that time there were a lot of people 0:23:13.640 --> 0:23:16.480 who believed that it was just a limited window because 0:23:16.760 --> 0:23:19.960 marijuana was going to be legalized sooner rather than later, 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:22.760 and if you were going to make money, that was 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:23.560 the time to do it. 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:26.680 And that's actually what drew a lot of the guys 0:23:27.119 --> 0:23:30.280 to Lamar, you know, the sailors, at least with the 0:23:30.320 --> 0:23:32.720 marijuana smuggling, that it was an event. 0:23:32.760 --> 0:23:33.960 Sure, it was like sure, why not? 0:23:34.600 --> 0:23:37.679 And I think they were clueless as to how they 0:23:37.680 --> 0:23:41.320 were being used and how it fit into a master 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:45.520 plan that Lamar already had that none of us knew about. 0:23:46.400 --> 0:23:49.120 But while she was staying on Little Derby, Leslie became 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:53.600 aware that Chester's smuggling was much more prolific and diversified 0:23:53.760 --> 0:23:54.800 than she initially thought. 0:23:55.400 --> 0:23:59.359 That was the first time Lamar flying the and into 0:23:59.480 --> 0:24:04.760 NASA to customs, well outside customs, and they all knew 0:24:04.800 --> 0:24:09.000 one another. The local guys knew Lamar quite well. That 0:24:09.080 --> 0:24:12.479 was my first indication that I'm not going through what 0:24:12.480 --> 0:24:17.040 I would call the normal procedures. In the Caymans, you 0:24:17.119 --> 0:24:20.920 went through customs, trick customs, that was a non issue. 0:24:21.200 --> 0:24:25.280 But the Bahamas, we just cleared through everything. I didn't 0:24:25.600 --> 0:24:28.399 have to go in line and show my past. I 0:24:28.400 --> 0:24:32.680