Yesterday morning I opined that I thought the FBI should turn its attention to Fort Worth and investigate how it was the City of Fort Worth came to send in agents to raid Steve Doeung's home on Carter Avenue.Find out who gave the orders and then find out their connection to the natural gas drillers currently poking holes all over Fort Worth and you'll have yourself another North Texas Corruption Scandal, maybe bigger than the current big one in Dallas.
Well, I had barely hit the publish button on "Largest Corruption Case in Dallas History, Is Fort Worth Next" when I got a message from my #1 Blogging Co-Hort, Elsie Hotpepper, telling me something very interesting that I find very bizarre that I had never heard a word about. Til Elsie told me.
Okay, let's say, hypothetically, that it was Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief who gave the raid on Steve Doeung's home order. We already know he is in deep with Conflicts of Interest due to making over $600,000 a year from the various gas drillers operating in Fort Worth.
Well, that is just ridiculous, you're thinking, Mayor Moncrief would not stoop so low as to order a raid on a private citizen to intimidate him into not fighting Chesapeake Energy and its plan to run non-odorized gas under his property.
Apparently Mike Moncrief has relatives, other Moncriefs, who do believe he will stoop so low as to engineer a raid when he's feuding with someone.
Back in the early 1990s Mike Moncrief was feuding with his relatives over the splitting up of the family fortune, going so far as to sue his uncle, Tex Moncrief, over how his grandparent's estate was divvied up. Tex Moncrief told his son, Charles, that Mike Moncrief was an "ingrate" for turning against his family.
The Moncrief Family Feud escalated to Fort Worth Scandal status early one morning in 1994 when a swarm of gun-toting IRS Agents raided the Moncrief's headquarters in downtown Fort Worth, removing a truckload of documents.
The IRS had been pointed towards the Moncrief documents by Moncrief accountant Billy Wayne Jarvis. Jarvis had been an accountant for the Moncriefs for 14 years and claimed he was afraid of getting in trouble for helping the Moncriefs commit tax fraud. And so he went to the IRS.
In addition to talking to the IRS, Jarvis was also talking to Mike Moncrief. Due to the connection between Jarvis and Mike Moncrief, the Charles Moncrief side of the Moncrief family suspected Fort Worth's current mayor helped bring the IRS ire on the family.
By 1996 the government dropped criminal charges against the Moncriefs, who settled with the IRS to the tune of $23 million. In 1998 Tex Moncrief lambasted the IRS and called for reform when he appeared before the United States Senate's Finance Committee. The Moncriefs were additionally outraged to learn in federal court that their accountant, Jarvis, had conspired with his lawyers to turn in the Moncriefs for a $25 million reward.
Charles Moncrief, hoping to restore his side of the Moncrief family's good name, wrote a book, Wildcatters: The True Story of How Conspiracy, Greed, and the IRS Almost Destroyed a Legendary Texas Oil Family.
Charles Moncrief makes it real clear, in his book, that his side of the family does not approve of Mayor Mike's side of the Moncrief family, charging Mike Moncrief with "living off the hard work his family has done in the oilfields."
The feud between the two sides of the Moncrief family continues in current day Fort Worth. The Charles Moncrief side of the Moncrief family contributed funds to the opponents of Mike Moncrief in the last mayoral election. An election which Moncrief won with 70% of the vote of the 6% of Fort Worth eligible voters who bothered to vote.
Were the Moncriefs the inspiration for the fictional Ewing family of Dallas fame?
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