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Pete Halat

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Some Biloxi casinos.

Pete Halat is a former mayor of Biloxi, Mississippi,[1] in the United States, who was convicted for conspiracy in 1997.[2]

Background

Biloxi (/bɪˈlʌksi/ bi-LUK-see) is a city of 44,054, in Harrison County, Mississippi, United States.[3]

Biloxi was known to be seedy and corrupted by the Dixie Mafia in the 1920s and it got worse between the 1950s and 1990s.[2]

The FBI investigation (lead by now retired FBI agent Keith Bell[4]) eventually ended the city’s long tolerance for wide open, illegal gambling and seedy striptease clubs with allegedly exorbitantly priced drinks.[5]

Biloxi is now home to several legal casino resort hotels, with 24-hour gambling, concert entertainment shows, and several restaurants.[6][7][8][9]

History

Early years

Former Biloxi Mayor Pete Halat and Vincent Sherry had been law partners since 1981.[10]

Vincent Sherry had been appointed a circuit judge in 1986.[2] Both he and Pete Halat had made a major financial windfall via fees for defending Mike Gillich Jr., a former Biloxi striptease lounge owner[11] and the suspected 'King' of Biloxi's strip clubs.[2]

Dixie Mafia Killings

Kirksey Nix was later involved in the 1987 murder-for-hire killing of Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife Margaret (both 58) in Biloxi.[5][12]

Kirksey Nix was running a dating scam on gay men in the hope to get enough money to bribe his way out of prison The dating scam run out of Pete Halat's law office after Vincent Sherry left to become a judge.[4]

His co-conspirator, Biloxi Mayor Pete Halat, had apparently stolen hundreds of thousands of missing US dollars from Kirksey Nix to cure financial issues and the blamed it on his law partner, Vincent Sherry. Kirksey Nix believed him and ordered the unjustified hit. [13]

Conviction

Pete Halat was elected mayor 1989 and lost a re-election bid in 1993.[10]

Halat was convicted in 1997 of the crimes of conspiracy to commit racketeering, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 18 years in prison.[10][14]

Rehabilitation and release

Halat was released in 2012 having served 15 years, 9 months and 7 days,[15][10] after which he worked at church in Hattiesburg during 2012. [16]

Pete Halat still says he had no part in a murder plot.[17][5]

The co-conspirators

Kirksey Nix

Kirksey McCord Nix, Jr. (born 1943) is serving life imprisonment in Angola State Penitentiary.[12][13][18]

Mike Gillich

Mike Gillich died of cancer in 2012.[13]

Thomas Holcomb

The other conspirator was Thomas Leslie Holcomb, a Texan hit-man, convicted of carrying out the killings and died in prison in 2005.[13]

The chief investigator

Lead FBI agent Keith Bell has now retired.[4]

Media portrayals

A 1999 episode of The FBI Files details the FBI investigation of the Dixie Mafia, Pete Halat and Kirksey Nix, pre-empted by the 1987 murder-for-hire killings of Mississippi Circuit Court Judge Vincent Sherry and his wife Margaret in their Biloxi home.

References

  1. ^ "The full-time mayors of Biloxi". www.biloxi.ms.us.
  2. ^ a b c d "The Justice Story: The Dixie Mafia Murders".
  3. ^ Bureau, U.S. Census. "American FactFinder - Results". factfinder.census.gov. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  4. ^ a b c Ballou, Howard. "Sherry murders shocked gulf coast 30 years ago".
  5. ^ a b c "An 'ice cold' murder conspiracy ended Margaret and Vincent Sherry's lives 30 years ago".
  6. ^ "Tentative re-opening plans for Biloxi casino resorts" (2006), City of Biloxi, www.Biloxi.ms.us, webpage:Biloxi-Casinos.
  7. ^ "Isle of Capri selling Coast casino for $45M to Golden Nugget - Mississippi Business Journal". Msbusiness.com. Retrieved 2017-05-02.
  8. ^ Perez, Mary (May 22, 2012). "Margaritaville Biloxi opens with a concert heard 'round the country". The Sun Herald. Gulfport, MS. Archived from the original on May 25, 2012. Retrieved 2012-05-23. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  9. ^ Margaritaville Casino closes in Biloxi Retrieved 2014-11-02
  10. ^ a b c d "Former Biloxi Mayor Pete Halat released from halfway house, ending sentence in murder plot".
  11. ^ "Mike Gillich, conspirator in 1987 Dixie Mafia murders in Biloxi, dead at 82".
  12. ^ a b "About: Kirksey Nix". dbpedia.org.
  13. ^ a b c d Ballou, Howard. "Sherry murders shocked gulf coast 30 years ago".
  14. ^ "The Dixie Mafia". Federal Bureau of Investigation.
  15. ^ Staff, WLOX. "Halat sentence is over; Family screams "free, free, free"".
  16. ^ "Pete Halat working at church in Hattiesburg - Law.com".
  17. ^ "Pete Halat - The Mississippi Link". themississippilink.com.
  18. ^ "Mississippi takes "Dixie Mafia" inmate - Picayune Item". www.picayuneitem.com.
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