Most lawyers will tell you that claims like this don't get very far, but Odis Briggs wasn't a lawyer.
Trading on decades-old lore among blacks in rural Chambers County, southeast of Houston, the one-time Beaumont nightclub operator convinced descendants of freed slaves that he could help prove that their ancestors were cheated out of land in the Anahuac oil field.
Hoping to recover millions in royalties, 17 families sold cows and dug into savings to give Mr. Briggs $120,000 for land-title research and a lawyer to file suit. But Mr. Briggs did little work and ultimately admitted that he spent the money on day-to-day expenses and "living the Hollywood-type life."
He was never prosecuted, and in an ironic twist driven by the interplay of racial politics and legal technicalities, Mr. Briggs, who spent more than four years in jail after being cited for contempt of court, became a civil-rights martyr while his victims still await their day in court.
| The rest of Bruce Nichols' registration-required Dallas Morning News article "Man who admits bilking black families: I'm a victim too" makes our head spin: as we understand it, Mr. Briggs is black. It's like watching a Chris Rock joke write itself.
posted in articles on February 23, 2004 1:47 AM | t (0)
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