The True Story
THE LEGEND
Before the empire, before the trial, before twenty-seven and a half years in the federal system — there was a three-year-old boy in a colored hospital in Mississippi, holding his dying mother's hand while she told him: "You're going to make it."
James McKines carried those words through a segregated Las Vegas and the back door Baker showed him from a gold Thunderbird. Through an invisible empire built across three states. Through a laughing judge who gave him natural life. And through a kitchen table, decades later, where his son put a recorder down and said: tell me everything.
This is CHESTBUSTER: An American Legacy. Four books. One life. A legacy no prison, no system, and no obstacle could erase. Every word of it true.
United States v. McKines · 933 F.2d 1412 (8th Cir. 1991)
First man in his federal district charged under the continuing criminal enterprise (kingpin) statute. Sentenced to natural life. Commuted by President Barack Obama, October 27, 2016. Released February 24, 2017. Still cited in federal courts today.
ONE LIFE. FOUR BOOKS.
THE RISE. THE EMPIRE. THE FALL. THE REDEMPTION.