Of course, drug traffickers also know this. Thank you for reading! He couldnt count on his corn harvest to yield enough food for his family, and his chia project was still unpredictable. Its wistful melody is reserved for joyous occasions, when Tarahumara dance to its repetitive interplay of violin and guitar. Puro Tarahumara de ahora en adelante. They discovered what they believed to be a large load of cocaine covered by several bales of hay and empty feed sacks, Stinson testified. Any other way, Chambers learned, and the courthouse would be backed up for years. Chambers was impressed; none of his other clients had ever commented on the injustice of the law. They lived in the same indigent neighborhood on the edge of Chihuahua. Others sought his counsel. Soon after, in a sealed plea deal, Thompson pleaded guilty to one drug count and prosecutors agreed to recommend a 10-year prison term. Advertisements . John MacCormack has been covering South Texas and the Mexican border for the past 35 years, first for the Dallas Times Herald and since 1992 for the Express-News. For up to 24 hoursand sometimes longerthey kicked a small wooden ball across a rocky trail, and by the end of the race, teams often had only a few men left standing. Leave a sympathy message to the family in the guestbook on this memorial page of Robert Leroy Chambers to show support. He and his cousins would be paid 15,000 pesos ($825) apiece. The head of the organization squeals on people who worked for him, and the DEA gives him a free pass. That part of the state was out of control, said Dale Stinson, head of the DEA regional office. darkness lifted just beyond the otherwise dreary concrete plaza, revealing the fertile valley that gives Cerocahui its name: between two mountains. The slope up the mountainside was rocky and dusty, the soil eroded from years of logging and grazing. I thought about Silvino, and I told Rogers about his case. Robert and Kimberly both received bachelor's degrees in business administration from Texas A&M and were members of the Fellows program. You can view 1 entry, complete with personal details, location history, phone numbers, relatives and locations for Robert Chambers. (He starred in a public service announcement TV ad urging people to call in and help lock up smugglers.). It just shattered people. He now lives in Granbury, Texas. Thompson is being released this month after serving 26 years in prison for cocaine smuggling. She shook her head in wonder. Sunlight broke through the slim canopy. The most famous section, covered with lichen, is the color of oxidized copper. There, they removed 40 heavy sacks, each marked with a blue polo player, the signature of a Colombian drug cartel. Either barefoot or in sandals (called huaraches) made from old tire treads and goat hide, they were able to traverse seemingly super-human distances. He looked up at the stars and thought about curses, as older Tarahumara runners tend to do before a race. I had worked with him through the years on different situations with students and parents, and we always had a very friendly and professional relationship, he added. Tax lawyers can assist with understanding tax law and resolve tax liens, back taxes, tax debt recovery and relief, and IRS compliance issues. Chambers, now 65, was quick to cooperate with federal officials and only served 13 years of a life sentence. After walking for ten days in the harsh borderland, their guide had abandoned them that morning. The white stucco walls were empty; his diplomas were stored at his fiances house. It had once served as an outpost for tourists exploring the natural beauty of the surrounding canyons, which helped keep it relatively tranquil until a Sinaloa bosss nephew was murdered there, in late 2014. When they neared the San Isidro Lodge, Silvino was in fourth but still in range of the leaders. In time, the backpackers shed come to represent were known to ask for her by name. When they arrived at the orchard, there were no pecans. Some folks called him cocky. Between sips of Guinness, the race organizer announced the winners name, hometown, and time. Ten minutes after six, the runners approached the starting line, adjacent to the, three-hundred-year-old red-earthen, yellow-domed Jesuit church, and took off. It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Robert Stanley Chambers (Seagoville, Texas), who passed away on February 4, 2022, at the age of 69, leaving to mourn family and friends. Texas Department of Criminal Justice | PO Box 99 . Chambers remembers his grandfather watching the Weather Channel regularly, hoping for rain. The 2,421 pounds of cocaine later would test to be 93 percent pure, and was worth about $50 million. Chambers, who cooperated with the DEA, got life also but was released after serving 18 years. An agent on a dirt bike tore after him as the others scattered. He enticed locals to enter by promising food vouchers to anyone who finished. And, he said, it is often misunderstood: Thompson never was the primary figure in the investigation of a 10-year drug conspiracy. A reception will be held in her honor at St. Mark's United Methodist Church, Baytown, Texas from 4-6 pm on Saturday, January 21. Stinson was the lead investigator for the Drug Enforcement Agency in the bust. He had escaped, but Silvino continued running through the night, slept half of the next day, and then ran through the afternoon and the next night. Silvino, a farmer with four children, knew the canyons the way urban dwellers know city streets: every rock, cactus, and river bend was a sign. He explained that Spanish was his second language. Cops and crooks are of the same caliber. Search law firms at FindLaw. The squat white ejido headquarters proclaimed Porochi as the Tierra de Corredores, or the Land of Runners. It was the halfway point. 1992 Press Photo Mayor and council members in City Hall chambers, Texas . Hes a good man and has led a good life, she said to a packed courthouse in Pecos. Rogers pointed to the barely visible Rio Grande just under a mile beyond, and San Antonio del Bravo farther still. In the days leading up to the 2015 Ultra Caballo Blanco, an eight-hour battle erupted in a village along the planned racecourse. A hail-fellow-well met. Chambers had seen many of these harsh sentences handed out, including to drug runners who were essentially forced into smuggling. Silvino emerged from the forest onto a roadreally a collection of rocks and dirt. The Border Patrol had found them. Meanwhile, as ultramarathons surged in popularity, American runners began crushing previously held records. The result, Stinson said, was an outcome he did not entirely agree with. Not in West Texas. 304 Dianella St, Wendell, NC 27591 MLS ID #2490539, Ryan Homes. In one of his ethics courses, he told the class that what they were learning was a fantasy. With him were five cousins and a nephew, each shouldering a similar load. The downfall of Rick Thompson was such a devastating occurrence for the people of Marfa and Presidio County, that this phenomenon should be addressed, wrote the authors of the two-volume history of the community. This was the most common drug crossing in her cases, she said. He did not respond to a letter sent to him in prison requesting an interview. So, after returning from his aborted drug run, Silvino saw his racing career take off. That year, he was paid $22,657 for both jobs and he had several small side businesses. Robert F Chambers Address: 1414 W 51st St Austin, TX 78756 Name: Robert F Chambers Address: 1414 W 51st St Austin, TX 78756 Phone: (512) 454-6544 Dwelling Type: Single Family Dwelling Unit Length of Residence: 15+ years Median Home Value: $1,201,000 Median Household Income: $311,000 Vehicle: 1995 1998 FORD RANGER Report ID: 99303825 It was one of Thompson's more dubious associations, a local man named Glyn Robert Chambers, that apparently led to his downfall. Silvino wore athletic gear and blue-and-yellow Asicsthe trails were too slippery, the roads too hard, for huaraches. We drove up a small bluff, and Rogers led me to the grave of Boyd Chambers. In the end, it was Chambers who used Thompson. He also enlisted the two best Tarahumara runners: Silvino, who was 28 at the time, and his younger cousin Arnulfo Quimare Qui. Many Tarahumara were forced to grow these crops, their wages docked and their land stolen. By 2010, entire communities had emptied out of the canyons, and some ten thousand had fled to the city of Chihuahua, where they were more easily conscripted into smuggling. Read more:Elvis performed in San Antonio several times in his heyday. With Vegas case resolved, Chambers moved on. Looking back, former DEA agent Stinson said the Marfa drug case neither was the biggest nor most interesting of his career. The citizens, he said. Currently, he is at the Sullivan Correctional Facility, where fellow inmates include the infamous Ronald DeFeo Jr., whose crimes are the basis of ' The Amityville Horror '. He had run one hundred miles. The vast majority of cases were for illegal entryimmigration crimes eclipsed all other federal offensesbut they also saw increased numbers of traffickers. He was arrested and sentenced to eight months. In one week, he could make what usually took three months of labor in the Sierraand there was little work. An informant had told the federal drug agents a tantalizing tale. Report this listing. As the cartel war ricocheted from one canyon to the next, Urique became one of the last towns to be engulfed by intense violence. This is the list of all previous golf courses where the U.S. Open has been played: 2019Pebble Beach Golf Links, Pebble Beach, Calif. 2018Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, Southampton, N.Y. 2017 Erin Hills Golf Course, Erin, Wisc. When they neared the San Isidro Lodge, Silvino was in fourth but still in range of the leaders. It was March 2015, and the 27-year-old, with sandy-brown hair and a neatly cropped beard, was fresh out of law school. Thirty minutes later, the second finisher arrived, and Silvino three minutes after him. He was doing this stuff and they never knew. In March 2010, a month before Silvinos narrow escape in New Mexico, the annual Ultra Caballo Blanco had drawn a record number of international participants to Urique Canyon. But on the afternoon of March 6, Border Patrol agents found him and five others sleeping in the brush west of Marfa. Some Tarahumara activists tried to make their plight known, like Irma Chvez Cruz, a 25-year-old mother who was a friend of Silvinos. There has to be a better way to deal with this, she said. Later came the even more formidable Amado Carrillo Fuentes, leader of the Jurez cartel. A month later, Chambers stood next to Vega againthis time in an El Paso courtroomfor a second and final hearing on his slightly improved sentence. He ate a sandwich and drank a bottle of Coca-Cola. No one, even back then, would have trusted someone with that quantity of drugs, unless they had a reliable track record. Cook, a U.S. Customs agent, was DEA agent Dale Stinsons partner. Chambers remembers law enforcement coming to his house after his father had been arrested, though he was too young to comprehend the reason. The tribes runners had never ventured far from home and remained largely unknown until 1993, when an opportunistic American photographer named Rick Fisher brought several members, including a 55-year-old grandfather and a 40-something goat farmer, to an old Colorado mining town called Leadville to enter its 100-mile ultramarathon. At his sentencing hearing May 10, Thompson apologized and his wife made a final plea for leniency. February 10, 1946 - March 16, 2019 Tribute Wall Obituary & Events Share a memory Send Flowers Obituary Robert "Bob" Chambers, 73, of Elma, Iowa passed away Saturday, March 16, 2019 at home surrounded by his loving family. The man did what he did. It may have been thirty. Federal public defenders were typically appointed the first defendant, and private attorneys, like Chambers, were tasked with the rest. More than five hundred Tarahumara, Silvino included, resolved to carry on anyway, and the mayor agreed to a version that cut out the downriver loop, where the major shoot-out had occurred. Even still, looking at the slight, dark-haired, shackled Vega, his anger bubbled up. Like the Tarahumara, the Chambers clan was inexorably tied to their land. Below are the results we could find for Robert Chambers. He was in third place. When he returned with seven new competitors in 1994, they dominated the race again. I couldnt accept the fact that a man I had worked with and trusted for the last five years could possibly be involved in drugs. In a bizarre news conference held just days later, Thompson admitted the ton of cocaine was his, but he claimed it was part of a one-man reverse sting. He found a friend to front him enough to get to Janos, the first town on his route back. Dominguez, who in 1991 was hired to work out of Presidio, said he never saw the crooked side of Thompson. He crossed the finish line, accepted a sandwich, sat on a stone wall, and barely stirred for photographs with local officials. The female racers wore their everyday clothes: skirts full of reds, yellows, pinks, and blues, and matching head scarves to block the sun. Chambers grew up on the border. I still wanted to see the town where he had spent time as a boy-where many backpackers make their crossing todayso instead, I went with Rogers. Listing provided by TMLS They currently reside in Houston with their son, William. His first time, in 2005, he did just that, tossing his mochila into the back of a truck on a highway near El Paso. Thompson claimed 147 arrests fewer than 50 were made. He had to run. Instead, groups of up to two dozen Mexican nationals at a time, arrested for smuggling drugs or illegal entry, were marched in front of the judge throughout the day. His black-granite headstone outshone rows of wooden crosses. In 1986, Chambers led a raid on the municipal jail in Ojinaga, kidnapped an inmate wanted in the United States for rape, brought him back to Texas and chained him naked to a tree for authorities to find, according to popular lore. At first, Vega didnt seem to understand what Chambers was saying through his translator. He and Texas Ranger Joaquin Jackson were particularly close. The property dispute over Moses Roses Hideout is by no means the first obstacle consultants and city and state officials have faced in the evolution of the Alamo project. Silvino remembered the women in Huisuchi who used to weave baskets out of the pine needles. Indeed, he gave a whole new meaning to the term "triple-threat." Barajas, who counted Thompson as a friend, worked closely with him on the notorious Rio Grande sniper case, in which a teenager, shooting from a canyon rim on the Mexican side, killed a tourist rafter and wounded a guide in 1988. Silvino followed the creek, skirting red-and-white fields of poppy. They had come from as far away as Chihuahua, riding two buses for eleven hours combined. . There was no sewer connection in their trailer, and electricity came from an extension cord that stretched from his grandparents house. There were hairpin turns where the drop-off was thousands of feet, and he passed several roadside memorials. Others long had expressed doubts about Thompson, including Jack McNamara, publisher of the Nimby News in Alpine, who was critical of Thompsons leadership of the West Texas Multi-County Narcotics Task Force. Refine Your Search Results All Filters 1 Robert Warren Chambers, 83 Resides in Austin, TX Lived In Houston TX, Cedar Park TX Chambers returned to school with one of Rogerss mantras ringing in his ears: procedural due process, as opposed to actual due process. Others in the region had heard unsettling whispers, recalls former Presidio County Treasurer Mario Rivera, who served from 1974 until 2006. He hadnt eaten anything, not even the pocket-size bean burritos and salsa he normally ran with. Chambers turned to the internet. 2016Oakmont Country Club, Oakmont, Pa. 2015 Chambers Bay, University Place, Wash. 2014Pinehurst No. She worried about Tarahumara children losing their running traditions, so she regularly put on races in the region, including all-female events called ariweta. He was starting to feel betterthe steep climbs were behind himand though he wouldnt be able to catch the leader, he thought he could finish second or third. Hartshorn . After razing the corn and bean fields, they planted poppies instead. He dreaded telling his client. They trudged silently past the scars of an old copper mining trail, long-gone railroad tracks and trading posts that once upon a time exchanged men, minerals, and equipment across the border to Chihuahua. But I knew, he recalled. He passed fields with corn stalks as tall as the cabins beside them, and a few loose cows and goats. The thick old-growth trees had been chopped down long ago and sent to the sawmills of nearby Bahuichivo. Silvino picked up speed as the trail descended toward the village of Porochi. In backpacker cases, each defendant is on the hook for the entire load, not merely his own. Soon the sound of the dirt bike faded. Volunteers were on hand to offer cheese sandwiches, bananas, and oranges. His stomach was roiling. John Robert Chambers 1 February 1875-19 July 1951 (Age 76) Terrell, Kaufman, Texas, United States The Life Summary of John Robert When John Robert Chambers was born on 1 February 1875, in Terrell, Kaufman, Texas, United States, his father, Asa Chambers, was 39 and his mother, Sara Melissa Long, was 25. Thompson and Chambers agreed to plead guilty in hopes of receiving lighter sentences. And over his four terms in office, Thompson had led a regional drug task force, filmed anti-drug television spots for U.S. Customs and was the president of the Sheriffs Association of Texas. Now, 26 years after Thompson was sent to federal prison, his troubling shadow lingers over Marfa. Up here, he realized, right before the 2008 Semana Santa celebrations, assassins from the Sinaloa cartel had kidnapped around a dozen people from Uriquethe chief of police, other officers, government officialsand beheaded all but two, whom they sent back to town, stripped naked and hands tied, to tell the story. The grief and horror of the people concerning this incident appeared to be beyond the normal consternation of people in situations such as this. It was a quick-paying job, and it would help their village. In the past twenty years, there has been a fivefold increase in Border Patrol agents working that stretch of border, up to nearly 20,000. The villagers had danced, and their children had tossed handfuls of water toward the sky, asking their god Onorame for help, but relief had not come. Silvino, with his farmland afflicted by unrelenting drought, was one of the desperate ones, so he signed on to tote drugs. Robert Chambers is a resident of Austin. Thus began a shocking small-town drama that quickly turned Marfa on its head and sent the sheriff to federal prison. At approximately 1:15 a.m., Agent Fort observed a green Chevrolet Suburban driving east on the Fairgrounds Road with the lights off, DEA Agent Dale Stinson testified at a later court hearing. They moved up and down the Interstate 35 corridor so often that Chambers lost count of the number of schools he attended. It didnt make sense, Vega said, and worse, it was unfair. View Robert H Chambers's profile for company associations, background information, and partnerships. In late 1991, when Chambers was four, his father was arrested in the largest drug bust on record in West Texas. At one point, he said, when Chambers drug-loaded truck stalled near the border, Thompson quickly appeared to give him a jump. A pair of federal police trucks rolled through with machine gunners standing in the bed, black scarves covering the bottom half of their faces. McNamara reported extensively on Sheriff Thompsons role in the multi-county drug task force that spent an enormous amount of money producing minor drug busts. Rogers also came from a ranching family, and she found her calling with the federal defenders. He also was the first to question the close relationship Chambers had with Thompson. Chambers also was involved in several gun battles on the border, saved six hunters from a fiery plane crash in the desert, and was shot three times in the back in an assassination attempt on a Mexican fishing boat. Robert Chambers in Texas 442 people named Robert Chambers found in Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston-Galveston-Brazoria and 20 other cities. (Courtesy of Presidio County Sheriff's Office) By Brbara Anguiano A pair of feral dogs dozed near Silvinos feet. Even for a strong farmer like Silvino, who used oxen to plough his fields in Huisuchi, cultivating chia in Urique proved biblical in its afflictions. He attributed part of the Tarahumaras success to their minimal footwear; they ran with a lightness unfamiliar to American runners, landing on the midpoint of their foot instead of the heel. Still, racing never provided a stable income for Silvinoprize money wasnt guaranteedand most of the Tarahumara fared far worse. While Thompson, 72, is unlikely to return to Marfa, the painful story of his fall from grace soon will be told here again. At the aid station, he declined water and collected a paper bracelet to confirm he had passed. We drove west to Marfa before hooking southwest through the Chinati Mountains. Candelaria was well on its way to becoming a ghost town. Someone said it was like seeing the Marlboro Man go up in flames, he said. He read about villages that had no electricity or running water and that were full of ex-felons. Robert Earl Chambers, Age 115 Robert Emmet Chambers Jr. has spent much of his life in the limelight, after entering the public eye as a 19-year-old youngster who was the prime suspect for the death of 18-year-old Jennifer Levin. He passed fields with corn stalks as tall as the cabins beside them, and a few loose cows and goats. $10.00 + $4.99 shipping . Robert Chambers. In 2003, Robert Chambers walked out of prison, after 15 years, a free man, still pursued by his own infamy. Standing well over 6 feet, before putting on his hat and boots, he cut an imposing, even intimidating figure. Silvino, a farmer with four children, knew the canyons the way urban dwellers know city streets: every rock, cactus, and river bend was a sign. CHAMBERS,ROBERT NEAL 02883057 01655409 Parole Review Status . A few months later, Sinaloa won control of the areanearly a dozen planes flew out of the town of Urique in one day with the remaining Jurez fightersbut conditions worsened. He knew what an absence like that could do to a family. He told me he was too busy with his caseload to make the three-hour trip. A day before the race, however, Jurez hit men stormed the police station, seizing two officers and a teenager, and American organizers called off the race. At the square, a dozen bedraggled municipal police, a few seemingly too young to grow facial hair, loitered with unloaded AK-47sgoats horns, they called them. Theyd reach it before daybreak. Youve done this before., In fact, Silvino had carried a mochila, as the narcos called it, three times before. But unlike Chambers, who was beating down the door to make a plea deal, Thompson initially hung tough and it cost him dearly. Light-footed. But by the time he arrived, what he found was troubling: because of years of drought, famine, and encroaching cartel violence, in some areas the tribes running traditions were almost entirely dormant. I got involved in politics and in 1976 we had a candidate for sheriff, Manny Rodriguez, a city policeman.. In August 2016, Chvez had decried the work of the cartels in downtown Chihuahua on the International Day of the Worlds Indigenous Peoples before a crowd of several thousand. He crossed abandoned desert valleys on old Apache land with nothing to eat, drinking only dung-infested runoff water. A DEA informant had also linked Thompson directly to the drug deal. And we posted it on Facebook. From then on gunfire could routinely be heard in the town and up the canyon. Rick was a more honorable person to Robert than he was to his constituents. e cartel war ricocheted from one canyon to the next, Urique became one of the last towns to be engulfed by intense violence. The. Locals recall how Thompson held court over morning coffee with other officials, cops and agents in the cramped 19th-century limestone building that held his office and the county jail. Wearing sandals and swigging beers at the final aid station before the finish, the Tarahumara runners captured first, second, and fifth place and left behind hundreds of mesmerized competitors and fans. But I had my suspicions. From there, the runners followed white arrows spray-painted on the ground into a forest of pion pine, juniper, and small oak trees. Traditionally they ran as a form of religious ritual, such as to celebrate the harvest, in two-team races called rarajipari. The case status is Disposed - Dismissed. Hed hoped that once there he could stay a short time and workin the Permian Basin oil fields, perhapsand then return home with money for his wife and two sons. Two days later, he reached Ascensin, close to where theyd picked up the drugs. Unlike many of his classmates, he didnt have to wait long for work. For Silvino, new opportunities eventually arose from the attention generated by the book. He wore two hats, as the sheriff and tax assessor. But in the nineties, as Mexican cartels rose in power relative to their Colombian counterpartswho preferred to traffic through South FloridaWest Texas became even more essential. Sunlight broke through the slim canopy. McNamara often battled to obtain public records from officials and sued the U.S. Department of Justice in federal court in an attempt to acquire records in the Thompson case. PWW(defunct) Final roster, Michael Avalon, Michael Berlot, Damon Black, Blitzschlag, Vanessa von . Silvino swore he would never run drugs again, but by 2010, there was still not enough food to eat. People who know me, know Im not that kind of person, Dominguez said. Youre strong and you know the way, they pleaded. In the days leading up to the race, competitors ground corn for an energy drink called pinole (and set aside a fermented version as their post-race celebratory beer, tesgino). Rick Thompson was widely admired by Marfa residents and was a shoe-in for his upcoming election to a fifth term as Presidio County Sheriff. Mexican cartels, meanwhile, recognized an opportunity for a different sort of international commerce. By 2010, entire communities had emptied out of the canyons, and some ten thousand had fled to the city of Chihuahua, where they were more easily conscripted into smuggling. For him, the bust was an unfortunate necessity that put a halt to their goals of a much larger bust of key players. His late paternal grandfather, Boyd, was a rancher on the Sierra Vieja, a small mountain range that locals call the Candelaria Rimrock, after the nearest town. They moved up and down the Interstate 35 corridor so often that Chambers lost count of the number of schools he attended. MLS ID #2490541. Robert Chambers Email Localization Editor @ The Pokmon Company International View Robert's Email (It's Free) 5 free lookups per month. He messed up one time. A beloved law officer had betrayed the badge, causing a tragedy of epic proportions for his family and the town. Soon he was recruited to run drugs into Texas. As the cocaine smuggling route changed from Florida to West Texas, Stinson took an assignment in Alpine and began investigating Robert Chambers with the intention of following his drug distribution to higher levels across the U.S. Stinson and his co-investigator, Kelly Cook with U.S. Customs, cultivated a key informant (Sam Thomas) who turned on Chambers and led agents to the cocaine Thompson stored in the horse trailer at the Presidio County Fairgrounds. Makawi had also met with the wives of those who, like Sebastian Vega, were in prison in the U.S. Word was spreading that the sicarios wanted to eliminate the two. The sheriff had also helped deliver various loads, the agency claimed, altogether earning him $70,000 to $80,000 in drug money. Getty Images Robert Chambers, the "Preppy Killer" who murdered 18-year-old Jennifer Levin, released from the Rikers Island jail on $150,000 bond in 1986. Thats whats hard to understand, he added. The prize for winning was significant: 14,000 pesos ($765), which, coincidentally, was nearly the going rate for running drugs across the border. Other Land for Sale in Texas County 30 acres $90,000. The nickname some people gave him here was Walking Tall, Rivera recalled. International runners arrived to find armed gangs in the streets of Urique, while local government officials assured the competitors there were no problems. Unable to afford lawyers, each defendant was assigned one by the court. Uriques head of tourism watched in tears as Tarahumara runners collapsed.
