Jimmy Hughes – From CIA operative and mafia hitman to evangelical pastor

Article from the Honduran newspaper La Prensa, written by Jessica Figeroa

Translation by Mario Andrade

Talking about his dark past was always part of his testimony as a conference speaker. Despite the new life that he found in God, he yet seems to have unsettled scores with justice. Things caught up with him 28 years later.

The Rev. Jimmy Hughes is the founder of the ‘Gateway of Hope’(Puerta de Ezsperanza) Rehabilitation Center, which rescues youth gang members in Honduras, and is also president of “Free The Oppressed Ministries,” established in Zambrano.

He was arrested last Saturday at the Miami International Airport as he prepared to travel to Honduras.

He is accused of being involved in the ‘Octopus Murders’ that occurred in 1981 in California.

The victims of an execution-style shot to the head were: Fred Alvarez, 32, Patty Castro, 44, and Ralph Boger, 42, according to the Riverside County Sheriff, Dennis Gutierrez. Hughes had arrest warrants.

The CIA trained him, the FBI protected him

The Salvadorian newspaper ‘El Diario de Hoy’ published on July 6 of 2003, an interview with Hughes, in which he described his life before joining the ranks of the CIA. He also mentions how he ended up being an elite military-trained hitman for the Mafia, ‘until God rescued him.’

Excerpts from Jimmy Hughes 2003 interview:

The end of the Vietnam War in 1973 marked the beginning of my military career. My instructors and teachers were American fighters who survived operations against the Vietcong. I was 17 years old and aspired to climb the ladder in the military.

I enrolled in each course no matter how hard it was. I attended schools in parachuting, scuba diving, escape and rescue operations, as a prisoner of war, resistance and survival in jungle, sea and desert environments. I specialized in plastic explosives and as a sniper. In six years, the military training that I received, including the Rangers and Delta Force, transformed me into an elite soldier.

At the age of 23, I began working for the CIA in covert missions outside the United States. In Asian countries, Europe and South America, I fought to defend the rights of others. I helped people who wanted to be free and to fight dictators. The US Army did not train me to be a cold-blooded killer, but to defend my country and the enemies of democracy and freedom.

After several secret missions, I left the CIA, and four years later (1984), I left the Army and went to live a quiet life in California, never imagining that my bloodiest  were yet to come.

Collecting tributes

While serving in the military, I had an Italian friend who often spoke to me about a ‘Padrino’ (Godfather), and I never paid much attention; I thought those were just things you see in the movies.

My first job in the mob was collecting money from those who did not pay their bills, and that included broken legs, arms and heads with baseball bats.

Although the Army I had already gotten a taste of what it was like to kill, with the mob, I offered my talent for gifts or money. I would murder someone for five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty thousand dollars. The most I got paid for killing somebody was fifty thousand dollars, because it was professionally done. This was how at age 27, I sold myself to evil.

I became the confidant of the Godfather, who was in the business of casinos. I was the bodyguard for his children. I became a famous hitman for the mafia; everybody in the United States asked for Jimmy Hughes.

By that time I was addicted to cocaine. I loved cocaine. I had a terrible addiction; I would always carry the drug in my pockets. I drank hard liquor all day. I always had terrible nightmares because I had shed enough blood to fill a pool.

Free Death

One day, the Godfather called me and gave me an order to kill a suspect for thirty thousand dollars. To my surprise, I knew this guy; we used to be friends. But in the mafia, ‘business is business.’ When I arrived at the guy’s home, I was no longer a normal person; I had been exposed to so much violence that I had become a demon. I said hi to the guy and went into his house.

He never imagined that he had just opened the door to death. But inside the mansion, there were five other people who were drinking and snorting cocaine. I thought, ‘I must get this done for the $30,000 that I was being paid;’ however, I did not know who the other five were. Then I thought to myself that I would do a service to society by doing them all. The other five would be added to the contract… for free.

The night began to fall and when I took my gun out, no one noticed it because they were too drugged and drunk. They were all talking nonsense, so I began: “Bang, bang, bang…”

Everyone around me was dead within seconds; no one moved. They were totally unprepared; no one was expecting to die. I had shot all of them in the head. But right after it all happened, and as I was still holding the gun in my hand, between a pool of blood, I would see shattered face of the man that I was paid to kill, and it would feel as though I would see my reflection in a mirror.

The hairs in the back of my neck stood up as I saw my own bloody image. At the same time, I began to hear a voice say, “Jimmy: You know that I love you and I forgive you.” I said to myself: “Oh God, I’m either going crazy or I did too many drugs and I had killed so many people in my life.”

In that horrific scene, I somewhat laughed, but then big chills came down my spine.

My heart almost stopped. Then I heard the same voice again: “Jimmy: You know that I love you and I forgive you.” Then, I ran out of the place, leaving half a dozen dead for thirty thousand dollars.

Trapped in the solitude of my home, I took the phone and decided to call my mother, who was as a Christian missionary in Guatemala.

“Listen,” I said to her, “I do not know if the FBI is going to catch me or if I should turn myself in. I don’t know if I’m going to go to jail or if the mafia is going to kill me, but I want you to pray for me. I will not die or go to jail without setting things right with God.”

She prayed intensely for me over the telephone line from Guatemala, with me in California, and God in heaven. It was then when I first experienced the immense power of prayer, a power greater than any weapon ever held in my hands.

From the mafia to the FBI

The next day, I went to see the Godfather and told him I wanted to quit, and that I would never kill anyone anymore and wanted to be alone.

He looked like he was seeing a mad man. He paid me the $30,000, but I immediately said: “Jimmy, you know the rules, you know you’re putting your own life in danger.”

I replied: “Yes, I know, but if something happens, we all die.” The FBI, the Justice Department and the Police had already been after me. They wanted to pick my brain to see how much information they could get about the mafia. But they had no evidence against me; I was a professional and never left a fingerprint at the crime scenes. I was proud of that. I was very careful with that, because of my training, I was very professional.

When they realized that there was no evidence against me to take me to court, I went into the Witness Protection Program of the FBI in exchange for giving the authorities some information.

I then devoted myself to God; I studied theology and graduated as a reverend and now, I serve the mafia of good, led by the Godfather of salvation and eternal life, Jesus Christ.

Extradition to California

James “Jimmy” Hughes, 52, faces three counts of murder for killing his friends Alfred Alvarez, Patricia Castro and Ralph Boger and one count of conspiracy, according to a criminal complaint for extradition filed last Thursday.

It was not immediately clear if Hughes had hired a lawyer. The lawsuit alleges that Hughes would have conspired with the Indian tribes in association with financial consultant John Philip Nichols, son of Paul Nichols, and others in the days immediately before the murders.

The reservation is located near Indio, in a rural area of Riverside County about 130 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
Major Nichols died in 2001. The arrest warrant for Hughes was published in August by the Sheriff’s Department of Riverside County, after a joint investigation with the state attorney general’s office, said Evan Westrup, a spokesman for the Attorney General.

The State is taking the lead in prosecuting the case because the district attorney of Riverside County, Rod Pacheco, is a distant cousin of Hughes.

State officials are trying to get Hughes to be extradited to California, the process could take a month or more. Hughes left California after successful investigations and reappeared in 1995 when he founded the Jimmy Hughes Ministries, which provides services to abused women, drug addicts and others in Central America, according to its website.

Projects in Honduras

Jimmy Hughes Ministries operates in Zambrano (Honduras) through his foundation Free the Oppressed, which in Spanish is called ‘Ministerio Liberen a los Oprimidos.’

Other organizations include:

• The Prince of Peace Children’s Home.
• The Rainbow House.
• Casa Santiago catering services for missionary teams.
• Gateway of Hope Rehabilitation Center for Young People.
All of these centers are located in the village of Zambrano, north of Tegucigalpa, where he lived with his family.

 

Link to original article in Spanish

Book Mark it-> del.icio.us | Reddit | Slashdot | Digg | Facebook | Technorati | Google | StumbleUpon | Window Live | Tailrank | Furl | Netscape | Yahoo | BlinkList