{"id":257489,"date":"2013-05-14T14:55:43","date_gmt":"2013-05-14T19:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/?p=257489"},"modified":"2013-05-15T16:10:47","modified_gmt":"2013-05-15T21:10:47","slug":"60s-texas-swindler-billie-sol-estes-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=257489","title":{"rendered":"&#8217;60s Texas Swindler Billie Sol Estes Dies; Was Tried in Tyler"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2013\/05\/Billie-Sol-Estes.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2013\/05\/Billie-Sol-Estes-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Billie Sol Estes\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-257525\" \/><\/a>GRANBURY (AP\/STAFF) \u2014 Texas con man Billie Sol Estes, the colorful 1960s swindler whose case became a national sensation, has died. He was 88. County Sheriff Roger Deed says Estes was found dead in his home by a caregiver early Tuesday.  Estes&#8217; name was synonymous with Texas-sized schemes, greed and corruption. He became notorious in 1962, when he was accused of looting a federal crop subsidy program in a scam involving phony financial statements and non-existent fertilizer tanks. Several lower level agriculture officials resigned. Along the way he accused fellow Texan Lyndon B. Johnson of numerous crimes. <!--more--> <\/p>\n<p>On April 5, 1962, a federal grand jury indicted Estes and several associates on fifty-seven counts of fraud and conspiracy. Trials were scheduled in Tyler for September 24 and in El Paso for December 10, 1962. Estes\u2019 trial in Tyler began on October 30, 1962; he was convicted of fraud and sentenced to eight years in prison. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the conviction on June 7, 1965, because of pretrial publicity.  He was convicted in 1965 of mail fraud and conspiracy and served six years in prison. He was convicted again in 1979 of pulling off another scheme and served four more years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GRANBURY (AP\/STAFF) \u2014 Texas con man Billie Sol Estes, the colorful 1960s swindler whose case became a national sensation, has died. He was 88. County Sheriff Roger Deed says Estes was found dead in his home by a caregiver early Tuesday. Estes&#8217; name was synonymous with Texas-sized schemes, greed and corruption. He became notorious in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=257489\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8217;60s Texas Swindler Billie Sol Estes Dies; Was Tried in Tyler<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-06 23:30:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=257489"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":257726,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257489\/revisions\/257726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=257489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=257489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=257489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}