DECEMBER:01 | Federal fraud trial for Estes on the docket

JUNE: 11 | Housing deal enters Estes probe.

MAY: 03 | Estes probe goes deeper, newsmen descend on Pecos.
21| Swiss cache rumored, Estes fraud case creates fallout.

APRIL: 02 | Grand jury probes suspicious tank transactions.
16 | Estes bankrupt; Attorney General holds tank hearings.
26 | Grand jury indicts Estes; Finance companies sue, are sued.

MARCH: 01 | More tank transactions uncovered in Reeves, other West Texas counties.

FEBRUARY: 05 | Newspaper reports bogus fertilizer tank transactions that lead to downfall of Estes empire.

JANUARY: 11 | Farmers fight to retain Braceros. Temperature falls below Zero.

PHOTOS:

Billie Sol Estes is furloughed from Big Spring federal prison camp in 1983 for publisher's release of a book about him, written by daughter Pam from more than 20 years' notes and collected information. (9.6KB)

Billie Sol Estes, in checkered coat, is interviewed at the Big Spring federal prison camp in late October, 1983, shortly before his parole. He began a 15-year sentence in 1965 after conviction for federal mail fraud and conspiracy. Creditors claimed Estes owed them $38 million. (AP Laserphoto, 26.6 KB)

Leaving federal prison in Big Spring in mid-November, 1983, Billie Sol Estes kisses his wife, Patsy. (AP laserphoto, 22.4KB)

Former con-man and wheeler-dealer, Billie Sol Estes, whose circle of friends once included Lyndon Johnson, sits in a Brady,Tex. restaurant Sept. 3, 1997. After two federal prison stints, Estes has quietly settled into Brady on the fringe of the Texas Hill Country. (AP Photo by Ron Heflin, 18KB).