Robert Angleton's father was Nicholas Angleton. When he was called Nicholas Angletos, the Greek cabin boy jumped ship at Port Lavaca, Texas in the 1920's. He moved to the East Coast, got married, and got a construction job building barracks in World War II. After the war, Nicholas Angleton started building garden apartments.
Robert's brother Roger Nicholas Angleton was born in 1942, while Robert, or Bob, was born in 1948. They were born into a wealthy family, and Nicholas took the boys every once in a while to Greece, where they sailed a yacht. Bob shaped himself into an obedient, sophisticated, and controlling person. He majored in the arts and sciences at Syracuse University, and moved to Florida in the late 1970's with his brother. Both of them got married;Robert had married an airline stewardess named Lollie. The brothers had a restaurant which later went under.
In the late seventies, the brothers Angleton had moved to Houston, Texas. Roger went into real estate while Bob sold used cars. At first, Roger was more successful than his brother. Roger had major success with his business, while Robert did not have success with his business. Since a nasty sibling rivarly took place, Robert wanted a way into riches. To do that, he became a bookmaker. The used car business went kaput and Bob became a full time bookmaker.
Sometime in the late 1970's or early 1980's, he found a woman named Doris McGowen Beck in a bar inside the West Loop. Robert was already married to Lollie, and Doris was already married to a man named William Beck, yet the two fell in love. Bob took Doris to dinner at Ruggles in 1982, and got married shortly after. They both divorced their previous spouses. On August 1, 1984, Doris gave birth to Nicole Angleton and Alessandra Angleton, their two twin girls. They had settled into Bellaire, Texas by the early 1980's.
Bob fired brother Roger Angleton from his betting operations in August 1990. That event had Roger committing extortion against Bob. He demanded for money that he felt that Bob owed him, and threatened many punishments, including having Bob ratted out.
Robert Angleton cornered the Houston sports betting market by ratting out his smaller rivals to the Houston Police Department, and in agreement, they never arrested him. Some estimates said that he brought in more than one million United States dollars per year. Robert eventually grew so rich that he, along with his wife Doris McGowen Beck Angleton, and his daughters Alessandra Angleton and Nicole Angleton, to River Oaks. Doris and Robert had very different personalities;Doris was warm and sociable, thus winning her many friends.
His wife was murdered on April 16, 1997, which helped expose his bookmaking. His extortionist brother, Roger Angleton, committed the crime. Robert was 48 years old at the time his wife was murdered. The state of Texas believed that Robert and Roger had a blood contract. Since Doris was divorcing Robert, she would have taken a share of his profits, and she would have exposed his bookmaking scheme.
Either way, Robert was in a precarious situation. The state of Texas found him innocent on the charge that he murdered his wife, but the state fined him because of his bookmaking.
However, the United States Department of Justice decided to indict him on January 24, 2002 for conspiring to murder his wife, which is a different charge than the crime the Texas court charged him under. He was supposed to keep an ankle bracelet on. However, he had fled the country on June 12, 2003 with three false passports. He was supposed to be at the trial five days later, on June 17.
However, he had been arrested the same day for passport fraud in the Netherlands, and could have been sent back to the United States. He had carried $140,000 worth of cash and jewelry.
The Dutch had scheduled an extradition hearing on January, 2004. He is also going to be charged on passport fraud and bail evasion. His $300,000 bail was withdrawn. A man named Lorenzo Sarinas was accused of obtaining the false passports for Robert Angleton.
He is currently being held at The Dome in the Netherlands.
If found guilty, Robert could face a life imprisonment sentence.