'Scandal' Annotated Contents

Following is an annotated table of contents for the "Scandal" section of Texas Confidential! "Sex," "Murder," and "Mayhem" tables of contents with chapter descriptions appear as separate posts.

1) Jean Lafitte: Pirate Jean Lafitte was certainly one of the most fascinating, dashing, and enigmatic figures in early 19th century America, and the last place he is verifiably known to have lived and tried to carve out a fortune for himself was in Texas.

2) Rogues of the Alamo: Even heroes have pasts, and just about everyone associated with the Texas Revolution of 1835-1836 in general and the Battle of the Alamo in particular had something they would have just as soon have remained hidden.

3) “Ma” and “Pa” Ferguson: Back before the term “power couple” would have meant anything to people, that is exactly what “Ma” and “Pa” Ferguson were. Unfortunately, they abused the power they controlled and their names became a byword for government malfeasance.

4) The Veterans’ Land Board Scandal: In 1954, the managing editor of the tiny Cuero Record newspaper uncovered a scheme in nine south Texas counties that led to charges of fraud and conspiracy to defraud veterans being filed against numerous members of the General Land Office. (Investigative reporter Roland Kenneth Towery is shown here after enlisting in the armed forces during World War II.)

5) King of the Wheeler-Dealers: In the late 1950s, Texas financier Billie Sol Estes launched a ponzi scheme of such epic proportions that it ultimately shook the Kennedy administration and forced numerous members of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to resign in embarrassment.

6) The Sharpstown Stock Scandal: In January 1971, attorneys for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging stock fraud against a number of influential Texans, including a Houston banker and real estate developer, a former state attorney general, and a former state insurance commissioner. (Developer Frank W. Sharp, namesake of the scandal, is shown here.)

7) The Duke of Duval County: For more than 30 years, George Berham Parr absolutely controlled politics in his county, suborned them in adjacent ones, and influenced them even on a state and even national scale.

8) Charlie Wilson’s Whore (and More): It is amazing in a state as tightly-wrapped and conservative as Texas that an elected official with a taste for booze, drugs, and hookers who also helped arm the enemy America has fought for more than a decade could become a virtual folk hero. (Wilson is shown here on a trip he took to Pakistan during the Soviet war in Afghanistan.)

9) The Enron Scandal: The Enron Scandal: In 2001, the massive Enron Corporation declared bankruptcy and it was revealed that it had applied its vaunted innovation to deliberately perpetrating one of the greatest financial frauds in history.

10) Rathergate: Journalist and Texas native Dan Rather took some heat when it came out that memos he presented on 60 Minutes claiming President George W. Bush was derelict in his duty in the Texas Air National Guard in 1972 were forgeries.

11) A Spacewoman Scorned: For a decade, U.S. Navy officer and astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak was one of the shining stars of America’s space program, until early 2007, when she dropped from the heavens in an incident that was as strange and chilling as it was sordid. (Note: Nowak is one of our cover girls and an image of her appears on the book with the caption "Spacewoman Dons Diapers to Hunt Hussy!" The photo shown here also appears in the book with the caption "Is she or isn’t she … wearing an adult diaper? Only deranged astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak’s stalking victims know for sure.")

12) The Love of Money … : It is truly said that love of money is the root of all evil, and this unbecoming fondness has tainted the reputations of innumerable politicians the world over, Texas included. Some of the Lone Star politicos whose greed has gotten the better of them are recognized here.

13) Friday Night Lies: In 2010, all eyes in Odessa, Texas, were on a young man everyone knew as sophomore Jerry Joseph, a standout player on the Permian High School basketball team. In May of that year, however, authorities arrested Joseph and revealed that he was actually seven years older than most of his classmates. (Joseph, looking as much like a sophomore as he ever did, is shown here following his arrest.)