The control freak

(Apparently, only Fred Baron and God could figure out a system to ensure that only true memories are implanted.)

Right now, Baron & Budd has nearly 10,000 individual asbestos cases pending, mostly in Texas courts. The firm's muscle has enabled it to get some of the highest settlements in the country for its clients.

And those workers--hard-luck guys in states such as Alabama and Texas, where few laws existed to protect their safety--are, for the most part, grateful to Fred Baron's machine.

As one Baron & Budd client, Roger Freeman of Tuscumbia, Alabama, told me about his $57,000 in settlements to date, of which he's netted roughly half, "Anytime you ain't got nothing, it'll help. You can say what you want to say. It helped me catch up with a few bills."

As his only outward symptom of asbestosis--the buildup of scar tissue in the lungs and surrounding tissue--Freeman points to his continual and severe shortness of breath. He is no longer able to work, and scrabbles together a tiny bit of income by pulling apart old appliances and selling the metal for scrap.

Sitting in his back yard, tinkering with an old TV, Freeman doesn't mention another condition that may also contribute to his breathing difficulties. He's 67 years old, and he's toting 300 pounds on his 5-foot, 11-inch frame.

He says that no one cared about him until Baron & Budd took up his cause and got him a dab of money to salve the pain.

"If it hadn't been for Baron & Budd, then it wouldn't have been nothin'," Freeman says. "I praise the bridge that got me across, even if it was a raggly bridge."

Just how "raggly" is a matter in which federal authorities are now taking a keen interest.

It is all so bewildering for a man like Fred Baron, who clearly perceives himself as the little guy's friend.

Somewhere along the way, his whole self-concept has become very, very wrong, very distressingly wrong.

Additional reporting for this story was provided by Dallas Observer staff writers Christine Biederman and Thomas Korosec.