How a Texas Paper Brought Down Billie Sol Estes

May 16 (Bloomberg) -- Billie Sol Estes, the Texan con manwhose exploits rattled the administrations of Presidents John F.Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, died in his sleep May 14. From apenniless background, Estes built up a $40 million West Texasempire of cotton, grain, real estate and fertilizers, and thenlost it all when a series of newspaper articles in 1962 revealedthat many of his dealings were fraudulent.

Estes once wrote that “Everything I touched made money.”The truth was that everything he touched was tainted. Hisdownfall toppled five federal officials, was linked to sevenmysterious deaths and was rumored to have almost cost Johnsonhis spot on the 1964 presidential ticket (though you won’t reada word about Estes in Robert A. Caro’s four-volume biography,“The Years of Lyndon Johnson”). As it turns out, even the storybehind the story that brought down Estes has a shady element.