Word: ammonia
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...dirt cascading over the case of the Pecos Ponzi. Other developments: > Senator McClellan's Investigations Subcommittee announced that it would investigate the suicide (apparent) of William Pratt, 31. Chicago office manager of Commercial Solvents Corp., the New York firm that sold $5,700,000 worth of anhydrous ammonia to Estes, mainly on credit, hoping to be repaid from his grain-storage income. While no connection with the Estes case was evident, Pratt, asphyxiated by carbon monoxide in his car, left a bizarre note: "The bells even toll when a rat dies. The burden of guilt is on my shoulders...
...1950s, Estes had gone into business as a distributor of anhydrous ammonia, a cheap, efficient nitrogen fertilizer widely used in large-scale farming. Indeed, the stuff has become as necessary as water to the farm economy of West Texas. Estes got way behind in his anhydrous ammonia bills from Commercial Solvents, and by 1958 he owed the firm some $550,000. He went to New York and sold officers of the firm on a complex deal: under the agreement, Commercial...
Solvents not only deferred payment of the $550,000 debt but agreed to lend Estes an additional $350,000-a credit of $125,000 for future purchases of anhydrous ammonia, plus $225,000 to enable Estes to get started in the grain-storage business. Estes, now into Commercial Solvents for $900,000, promised to pay off the debt in installments over a five-year span. As part of the overall deal, Estes agreed to assign to Commercial Solvents 100% of the fees he got for storing grain...
...Commercial Solvents in effect agreed to ship him all the anhydrous ammonia he wanted-as long as the grain-storage money kept rolling...
...nonexistent anhydrous ammonia storage tanks. The ammonia is a gas under normal atmospheric conditions; it must be stored in tanks to keep it liquid. Working with Superior Manufacturing Co., a Texas firm that made ammonia tanks. Estes persuaded a lot of West Texas farmers to go through the motions of purchasing tanks from Superior on credit, taking out mortgages on them, and leasing them back to Estes. Estes conveniently made the lease payments equal to the mortgage payments, so the farmer would not have to pay out any money. Estes explained to the farmers that he needed the tanks...