Draft:Roy Ames

Roy Ames
Ames in custody in March 1975
Background information
Birth name	Roy Clifton Ames
Born	(1937-04-08)April 8, 1937 Beaumont, Texas, U.S.
Died	August 14, 2003(2003-08-14) (aged 66) West University Place, Texas, U.S.
Occupations	Music producer child pornographer magazine publisher
Labels	Aura Records Clarity Music Home Cooking Records

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

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

Early life

Ames in the 1955 Beaumont High School yearbook

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 before venturing into the music scene.

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 would found his own label, Aura Records. The names of his record labels would change 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, musician Johnny Winter returned to his home state of Texas after a slew of successful gigs. Shortly after, he encountered Roy Ames, who was working as a promoter for Duke/Peacock Records. Ames would sign Winter, apparently promising access to Don Robey's Houston-based record labels. They would begin to record songs using the studio of well-known Houston-based producer and Ames' collaborator, Huey P. Meaux. Johnny claimed that he never met Meaux, but him and Ames would work 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 would go on to produce many songs and albums together, often times under interchanging band names. Some of the work they produced were: 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, saying that "Roy Ames is the worst" and adding, "When I see Roy's name on (an 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."

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 would continue 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 would make 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.

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 Houston Police Department received the tip from Richard Van Payne, Ames was arrested for sending child porn through the mail. Ames' arrest would result in the seizure of approximately four tons of child pornography from his Houston warehouse on 406 Oxford Street. This arrest led to federal indictments of one count of conspiring to send obscene material and 10 more specific mailing charges filed in September of 1974.

The Waldrop Brothers

Corll victims Jerry and Donald Waldrop

Ames popped up on the radar of the Houston police on February 8, 1971 from a missing persons report filed by Everette Waldrop, father of Corll victims Jerry and Donald Waldrop. Waldrop believed his sons were with Roy 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 located a Donald Ames and spoke to his wife, only for her to tell the police that her husband was of no relation to Roy. Officers then noticed that Mrs. Waldrop had followed them to the address. They checked in with her and realized she was intoxicated, to which the officers sent her home, telling her that they would update her if anything was found. 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.

Mr. 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 claimed to have heard one of his sons speaking. He gave an address to police, who found that it was not in the area that Mr. Waldrop claimed it was.

The Waldrop brothers would eventually be recovered from the mass grave under Corll's boat shed on August 9, 1973, and identified as bodies #9 and #10 through dental records. A partially filled-out HPD offense report was found with body number #9. That same day, Mr. 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 Bill Walls and that he was unable to stop them. Their causes of death would be ruled as asphyxiation.

Steven Dale Ahern testimony

On August 31, 1973, police began investigating a lead sent to them from a letter postmarked August 24th from a California man named Steven Dale Ahern, who was a homosexual male prostitute, pornographic model, and member of the American Nazi Party. He was also visited by the FBI on June 6, 1968 over a series of threatening phone calls that he made towards Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.

In his letter, he told police that there was a large organization in Houston producing pornographic films, photos, and literature. 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 was good. 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 S&M party by Ames and Corll at his Pasadena apartment. He further states that he believes Ames took 30% of the pornographic photos that are circulating around the country and was responsible for around 90% in the general area.

1975 warehouse raid

In February of 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 photographs of the boys ages 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. It turned out that Ames had operated mail outlets in Beverly Hills and San Francisco through his firm, New Atlas Distributers, with his product reaching as far as Sweden and Austria. Ames was held on a $150,000 bond, facing two counts of sexually abusing children and one account of employing a child to sell and distribute pornographic literature.

In April, he 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 plead 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 has evidence that Ames had 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 25th 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.

Danny's testimony

In 1980, James Neff, a staff writer for The Plain Dealer, would interview a victim of Ames in a March 16th edition of the paper. The victim assumed the name of "Danny". The reason for his anonymity was that he was the member of a prominent Houston family, stating that his grandfather had millions and that his father was pictured with governors and nationally prominent figures, claims that were confirmed by authorities. Danny began his story at the age of 11, the time he was forced to have sex with his father. His father would then turn over Danny to his good friend, Roy Clifton Ames. Ames would make Danny appear in more than 50 pornographic films. The two became close, with Danny saying they "rolled around Houston in Ames' Rolls Royce, drinking and tearing up the town". Danny had several jobs in Ames' warehouse, including opening mail, serving as a production assistant on his porno shoots, and both processing and sending out orders. Some of the films he sent out even featured himself.

Danny's father would be arrested in connection to Ames' ring, but his family's influence paid to keep his name out of the papers. His father's lawyer coerced Danny to sign a statement saying that the charges against his father were a complete lie. Those charges were then dropped. Danny would go on to live with his grandparents and enroll in college, unsure what his father was up to. The article includes another detail about Ames' 1975 arrest, the seizure of an international mailing list containing approximately 10,000 names.

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 US 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 US Customs and Postal Service agents. Ames was facing 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. Isaac Sweat would later be found dead of a gunshot wound in his garage on June 23, 1990.

On July 26, 1983, Ames would 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 would attempt 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 [the] appellant's identity and character" and therefore illegal. The court disagreed with his assessment, and on September 12, they again rejected his appeal.

Music lawsuits

Roy Ames at the Austin Record Convention in 1988 (second to right)

Ames would be paroled in 1986. His next legal affair would be a DWI in 1990, but he would otherwise not incur any more charges relating to child pornography or similar offenses. With his new-found freedom, Ames would re-enter the Texas blues scene. He would amass a collection of over 8,000 master tapes and various pieces of vintage memorabilia from the scene that he would begin 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. Many artists would accidentally stumble 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, would make a similar discovery. Dismayed, many of them would launch a class action lawsuit against Roy Ames.

The artists successfully sued Ames, netting each artist around $2,000 as part of the settlement. It was revealed that Ames would often not even 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. Ames would also sell unauthorized memorabilia, like a supposed concert poster from the 1950s featuring Joe "Guitar" Hughes. Hughes would claim that the poster was a complete fraud, citing the use of "Guitar" in his name before he began using it in 1985. He would go on to call Ames a "crook", giving him the name, "the Texas Music Rapist".

Death

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.

See also

• John David Norman
• Phillip Paske
• Claudius Vermilye