Crazy White Mother

From fake IDs to guns, Ecstasy and GHB, Doug Havard was one-stop shopping for Dallas' spoiled rich kids

A A A Comments (0) By Glenna Whitley Thursday, Dec 26 2002

Maybe someone will get a trip to Brazil out of it.

Douglas Cade Havard was salutatorian, senior class president and co-captain of the football team at The Winston School. In his semi-secret life, he was arrested for armed robbery and allegedly ran credit-card scams.

By the time he got arrested, Jeremiah Simmons--pictured here with his son--was hoping to give up thug life for a rapping career.

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Simmons knows Havard had to be the one who got the police on his tail. But he didn't know until recently that his former friend had been charged with selling GHB and running a counterfeiting ring. Simmons shakes his head.

"I thought he was smarter than that," Simmons says. "He should have learned from me. I know his mentality. He was feeling invincible."

A year ago, Simmons pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery, even though his court-appointed attorney, Andrew Farkas, was convinced he'd be acquitted for lack of evidence. But Simmons, who fired Farkas and hired a lawyer, had grown tired of the way he was living. He'd started using his own product; his girlfriend had moved out because of his temper.

"I had a guilty conscience," he says. "I hit the guy. It was the first time I'd ever really hurt someone. I felt I deserved to be punished."

Simmons will be out of the penitentiary in a few years. The man who studied his every move, however, is facing decades in prison if he's convicted, and his legend continues to grow. From behind the glass screen, Simmons laughs, remembering how he and his former "student" joked about going to China for some egg foo yong. "He messed up for real," Simmons says. "He just wanted to be somebody he wasn't."