Roy Ames

Roy Clifton Ames (April 8, 1937 – August 14, 2003) was an American record producer in the Texas blues scene, most famous for signing musician Johnny Winter in the mid-1960s. Between 1964 and 1986, Ames was arrested multiple times for producing and distributing child pornography involving young boys in Texas.

Ames also had alleged ties to American serial killer Dean Corll and some of his victims.

Early life

Ames was born on April 8, 1937, to Raymond and Valorie Ames in Beaumont, Texas. He graduated from Beaumont High School in 1955 and later worked at his father's car dealership.

Music career

In 1959, Ames entered the music world. He claimed his first job was with King Records as the Texas sales manager, then moving on to Motown. A few years later, he would become a promoter and distributor for Duke/Peacock Records. Sometime in the early-to-mid 1960s, Ames founded his own label, Aura Records. The names of his record labels changed throughout the latter half of the decade, with his most well-known being Clarity Music. During his tenure as a producer, he would record songs with various Texas blues artists, often with dodgy contracts. Some of the artists he cut tracks with include Jimmy "T-99" Nelson, Leonard "Low Down" Brown, Harding "Hop" Wilson, Weldon "Juke Boy" Bonner, and most famously, Johnny Winter.

Johnny Winter

In 1963, after a brief stint in Chicago, Winter returned to his home state of Texas after a slew of successful gigs. Shortly after, he encountered Ames, who was working as a promoter for Duke/Peacock Records. Ames signed Winter, apparently promising access to Don Robey's Houston-based record labels. They began to record songs using the studio of Houston-based producer and Ames' collaborator, Huey P. Meaux. Winter claimed that he never met Meaux, but he and Ames worked together on producing some of Winter's songs, with Meaux making copies of the records and putting out his own versions concurrently with Ames. Winter and Ames went on to produce many songs and albums together, oftentimes under interchanging band names. Some of the work they produced was ''Gone for Bad'', ''Leavin' Blues'', and ''Comin' Up Fast''.

Ames worked with Winter until he left Texas in the early 1970s, specifically to get away from Ames. Winter had animosity towards Ames: "He was my manager but never got anything done as far as my career; he just got a percentage of my records. Roy was also a pornographic artist—he took pictures of little boys to sell to perverts. He did that all the time, even when he was doing records. I don't think he ever stopped taking pictures. We recorded some songs for Roy but never made a penny. He said he was putting too much money into promotion and wasn't recouping enough back." After his time with Ames, Winter moved to New York.

Early crimes

On August 28, 1964, Ames was found to be in possession of lewd photos, which resulted in a $100 fine. He was arrested the following year on July 13, 1965, on suspicion of possessing lewd photos after police received information that he was taking nude photographs of young boys, for which he was not charged.

Ames continued to get into trouble for petty crimes throughout the mid-1960s. On September 14, 1965, he was arrested on a warrant from Waller County for writing a worthless check. On February 29, 1966, he was arrested for shoplifting, for which he made bond the following day.

On April 3, 1968, the FBI launched an investigation into Ames when a 37-pound package of lewd pamphlets broke open while it was being moved through the Love Field airport. The employee handling the package reported the contents of the package to authorities, which led to the Texas offices of the FBI getting involved. The package had been sent from Guild Press Ltd., 507 8th St SE, Washington, D.C., on March 27, 1968. Authorities taped up the box and allowed it to reach its intended destination in Houston. On November 26, 1968, the U.S. attorney in Houston stated he would take no action in the prosecution of this case and ordered the evidence to be disposed of.

Alleged ties to Dean Corll

A call was made to the Houston Police Department on December 22, 1973, from a Mr. Schakel, a probation officer from California in charge of a 25-year-old inmate named Richard Van Payne. Schakel told officers that Payne stated to him that he had been in a warehouse in Houston, where he claimed to have seen photographs of the mass murder victims. Five days before the HPD received the tip from Richard Van Payne, Ames was arrested for sending child pornography through the mail. Ames' arrest resulted in the seizure of approximately four tons of child pornography from his Houston warehouse on 406 Oxford Street. This arrest followed a series of child pornography-related arrests in light of the Dean Corll investigation that led to one of the largest takedowns of its time in Los Angeles in October 1973. Ames considered the subjects arrested to be "small time" compared to the scope of his operation.

The Waldrop Brothers

Ames popped up on the radar of the Houston police on February 8, 1971, from a missing persons report filed by Everett Waldrop, father of Corll victims Jerry and Donald Waldrop. Waldrop believed his sons were with Ames, who he said was a "homosexual & gathers kids & takes movies". On February 18, officers attempted to talk to Ames after pulling his rap sheet, which included three traffic violations. They then followed up on the address for the traffic warrants, leading them to "Pierre Cook and Associates, Photographers". They spoke to the owner, who said he did not know Ames but received his mail and bills. From there, the HPD labeled the case as inactive.

Waldrop called police again on March 7, 1971, to furnish new leads. He reported that he got a number from a reliable source and called a man named Bill Walls. During the call, he claimed that he heard a sex party in the background and to have heard one of his sons speaking. He gave an address to police, who found that it was not in the area that Waldrop claimed it was.

The Waldrop brothers were eventually recovered from the mass grave under Corll's boat shed on August 9, 1973, and identified as bodies #13 and #14 through dental records. A partially filled-out HPD offense report was found with one of these bodies. That same day, Waldrop called the HPD wondering if his sons may be in the mass grave. He reiterated to officers that his sons were mixed up with Ames and Walls and that he was unable to stop them. Their causes of death were ruled as asphyxiation.

Steven Dale Ahern allegations

On August 31, 1973, police began investigating a lead sent to them from a letter postmarked August 24 from a California man named Steven Dale Ahern, who was a homosexual prostitute and pornographic model.

In his letter, he made allegations to police that there was a large organization in Houston producing pornographic material involving children. He said that he would be able to identify Corll victims in these magazines. He further stated that in 1971, he was flown out to Houston with his fare paid to meet Ames and his partner Charles Anson after putting an ad in ''The Advocate''. There he was photographed by Anson and stayed the night with him and Ames. He also said that Ames knew Dean Corll and used him to exploit young boys.

Officers gathered the publications mentioned by Ahern and found what they believed to be Corll victim William Lawrence on the second page of ''Hot Rods'' #3. William's father came into the station to identify the photo but said it was not his dead son. Police, however, felt there was a strong possibility that it was. Houston police contacted the LAPD to ask about Ahern, who confirmed that he knew of him and that some of the information that he came up with was accurate. The police then called Ahern on the phone, who furnished more details. He repeated the contents of his letter but added that in 1971, he was invited to an alleged S&M party by Ames and Corll at the latter's Pasadena apartment. He further states that he believes Ames took 30% of the pornographic photos that were circulating around the country and was responsible for around 90% in the area.

1975 warehouse raid

In February 1975, Houston police were tracking down a stolen bike when they accidentally stumbled upon a warehouse full of pornographic photos, literature, and films of young boys. The police ended up seizing 2–6 tons of material, including 1,000 magazines and books, 1,000 reels of film, and 15,000 color slide photos of boys. The police said that the boys photographed ranged from 8 years old to late teens. As they began to identify the boys in the photos, they realized that some of them were now adults in the Houston area, indicating that the ring had been in operation for quite some time. Police were able to identify 32 of the boys depicted in the photographs. 11 of the identified photographs appeared to be pictures of boys that were victims of Dean Corll, over one-third of his known victims. The police elected to not follow up on the lead, with the head juvenile officer stating, "the parents of the boys have suffered enough; there would be problems with positive identification; and we had the leader of the porno ring anyway". This led to the arrest of Ames in March, along with four other men out in Santa Clara, California, including a high school teacher and photographer who had been running an operation for more than 10 years. It turned out that Ames had operated mail outlets in Beverly Hills and San Francisco through his firm, New Atlas Distributors. Ames was held on a $150,000 bond, facing two counts of sexually abusing children and one count of employing a child to sell and distribute pornographic literature.

In April, Ames was arrested again at a warehouse located at 4932 Glenmont. There they seized two tons of child pornography. He was charged with mailing obscene material and forcing boys into prostitution. Ames pleaded guilty to federal charges of mailing obscene films and magazines involving homosexual acts with young boys on July 25, 1975. In court, Assistant US Attorney Scott Campbell and Ronald J. Waska said that the government had evidence that Ames recruited boys from the Houston area and paid them to perform homosexual acts with each other and adults while Ames filmed and photographed them. Campbell also stated that Ames was a national distributor of obscene matter and made his headquarters in Houston. His sentencing was set for August 25 of that year. He would be free on a $310,000 bond in the meantime before eventually being sentenced to a federal prison in Springfield, Missouri. When sentenced, Ames laughed at the notion that his incarceration would impact the operation of his business.

It is still debated whether or not Dean Corll's crimes had any meaningful link to larger child pornography and trafficking networks, including Ames. Regardless of the veracity of the links, the arrests related to child pornography and trafficking in response to the Houston Mass Murders, including those of Ames, would spur on public outcry that led to government hearings on the subject of child exploitation in 1977. New laws specifically targeted towards combating child exploitation in all of its forms were passed as a result of these hearings.

In 1993, Susan McLemore, the younger sister of Corll victim Willard Branch, mentioned that while attending a party at Corll's home, she recalled witnessing four men who were often in Corll's bedroom. Though she could not remember the fourth man, reporter Evan Moore mentioned that he thought one name mentioned in the 1973 police report, which was Ames, matched the man.

Accomplices

Bryant Aaron Burch and Leonard Edward Cunningham were two individuals involved in aiding Ames' child pornography business.

Despite Ames' imprisonment, both Burch and Cunningham continued to run a child pornography business out of the Houston Heights neighborhood.

1981 arrest

On March 19, 1981, Ames was indicted by a federal grand jury on a single count of interstate transport of an obscene film after he sent a pornographic film featuring two boys under the age of 16 to an informant in Springfield, Massachusetts. The informant then led U.S. Customs agents to the mailbox containing the parcel sent by Ames. On March 24, Ames was arrested in a Houston parking lot when he tried to sell 25 pornographic films to undercover Customs and Postal Service agents. Ames was facing up to 10 years in prison and $10,000 in fines. He was held on a $100,000 bail while awaiting a removal hearing on April 2 to determine if he'll be brought to courts in Massachusetts.

He was extradited to Massachusetts, where he would go on trial. Musician and former Johnny Winter bassist Isaac Peyton Sweat testified against Ames. Sweat was being managed and promoted by Ames in 1980–1981 and stated that he was aware of Ames' pornography stash in his Houston warehouse but advised against him selling it. Ames planned to use the funds from the sale of the porno film to finance the career of Sweat. A man by the name of Jim Dolan acted as an intermediary between Ames and the undercover agent. A $700 check endorsed by Ames to facilitate the purchase of the film was used as evidence against him in court. The trial concluded on May 22, finding Ames guilty. On June 15, he was sentenced to five years in prison. Sweat was later found dead of a gunshot wound in his garage on June 23, 1990.

On July 26, 1983, Ames made an appeal to the courts to reduce or end his sentence, claiming that his sentence was illegally imposed. On July 29, the courts rejected his appeal, stating that they found his sentencing to be fair and reasonable. He attempted another appeal on June 8, 1984, this time adding that he believed his conviction by the district court was unjust since it relied on "an ex parte report forwarded to the Parole Commission, which contained material misrepresentations as to heappellant's identity and character" and therefore illegal. The court disagreed with his assessment, and on September 12, they again rejected his appeal.

Music lawsuits

Ames was paroled in 1986. After this, he did not incur any more charges relating to child pornography or similar offenses. With his newfound freedom, Ames re-entered the Texas blues scene. He amassed a collection of over 8,000 master tapes and various pieces of vintage memorabilia from the scene that he started to sell under his label, Home Cooking Records.

In the early '90s, many artists and their surviving relatives banded together to file a lawsuit against Ames for the unlawful use of their images and music. Multiple artists accidentally stumbled across Ames' compilations when being searched for. One such person was the widow of then-deceased blues artist Harding "Hop" Wilson when a blues fan pointed out that her late husband's songs were being sold by Ames' label. Many other artists, including Joe "Guitar" Hughes, Leonard "Low Down" Brown, Weldon "Juke Boy" Bonner, and relatives, made similar discoveries. Dismayed, many of them launched a class action lawsuit against Ames.

The artists successfully sued Ames, with both Houston and Dallas juries favoring the fourteen artists filing suit against Ames and his labels. This resulted in Ames having to pay $260,781 in damages to the plaintiffs. An additional $110,559 was awarded to the estate of Freddie King. It was revealed that Ames would often not sign his artists to a proper contract and use demo recordings that he copyrighted and sold as part of his catalogue, even to overseas outfits like the Japanese label P-Vine or Britain's Ace Records, all without paying royalties to the artists. This was a practice common in the blues scene, but Ames' case set a new precedent for the practices he was successfully sued for. Ames also sold unauthorized memorabilia, like a supposed concert poster from the 1950s featuring Joe "Guitar" Hughes. Hughes claimed that the poster was a complete fraud, citing the use of "Guitar" in his name before he began using it in 1985. He went on to call Ames a "crook", calling him "the Texas Music Rapist".

Johnny Winter commented on the ordeal, saying that "Roy Ames is the worst" and adding, "When I see Roy's name on n album I know it's going to be trouble. If he put it together nobody is going to see a cent of it, except him that's for damned sure. This guy has screwed so many people it makes me mad to even talk about Roy. It's hard for me. My lawyer always says, 'You'll never get anything from the guy. He's so dishonest and so hard to track down that even if you sue him and win, getting the money is a whole different thing.' Maybe things have changed. I hope they have; maybe we can get him."

Later life and death

Throughout the 1990s, Ames had a multitude of offenses for DWI arrests starting in 1990. In December 1998, Ames received his third DWI and pleaded guilty, subsequently suspending his license for two years and leaving him on community supervision for a ten-year period. In September 2000, Ames received his last conviction for driving with a suspended license.

On August 14, 2003, at the age of 66, Roy Ames died of natural causes at his West University home. He left behind no heirs. Upon hearing the news of Ames' passing, Johnny Winter would comment, "He died unhappy—at least that's good", adding, "He died out of jail though, which is amazing. It's funny he didn't die of AIDS, as promiscuous as he was."

See also

* John David Norman
* Claudius Vermilye

Notes

References

Sources

*
*
*
*
*
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ames, Roy
1937 births
2003 deaths
20th-century American criminals
Adult magazine publishers (people)
American magazine founders
American magazine publishers (people)
American male criminals
American people convicted of child pornography offenses
American people convicted of child sexual abuse
American record producers
Child sexual abuse in the United States
Criminals from Texas
Organized crime
People from Beaumont, Texas
Texas blues