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Jimmy Marks dead at 62

By Bill Morlin
Staff writer
June 28, 2007

(File photo) View slideshow

Spokane Gypsy leader Jimmy Marks, a cultural and sometimes controversial centerpiece of the community, died at 11:58 a.m. today at Sacred Heart Medical Center, a family spokesman confirmed.

Marks, who turned 62 on Valentine’s Day, had been in critical condition at the hospital since last Friday when he suffered a heart attack in the chair at his dentist’s office.

“He died well, quietly, with his family around him,’’ said Russell Jones, a Spokane attorney and long-time family friend.

Funeral arrangements haven’t been announced.

The funeral is expected to include the cultural Gypsy wake -- a celebration of life that lasts over a series of days, with feasts and commemoration of the deceased.

Jimmy Marks became a quasi-public figure in 1986 when police officers raided his home and that of his father, Grover Marks, looking for stolen silverware.

But courts later ruled the police raids were illegal, triggering a contentious legal battle between the Marks family and City Hall and the Spokane Police Department.

Jimmy Marks became the leader of Spokane's Gypsy community, or Rom, as he preferred it be called, after the death of this father, Grover Marks, in 1997.

During Grover Marks funeral procession, Jimmy paid the hearse driver a tip to stop by City Hall. Jimmy Marks opened the door of the hearse and invited Grover’s spirit to forever live in City Hall.

Jimmy Marks said that act was part of a “Gypsy curse” he had placed on the city and its civil servants for their misdeeds and lack of cultural sensitivity to the Rom community.

Recently, in interviews, he talked about reversing the curse in a “double chicken ceremony – one extra crispy and one regular.’’

The Gypsy curse was part of Jimmy Marks’ brand of humor and sarcasm – the kind that put him on television news and in the headlines, Jones said.

Jimmy Marks frequently said it was his intention to be cremated and have his ashes scattered with the ducks in Riverfront Park, so “my quacking will be heard forever.”

He was a regular at City Council meetings and a sharp critic of police and the city attorney’s office.

“I’m still bitter,’’ he said on June 18, the 21st anniversary of the police raids on his family homes.

He once passed out pacifiers to City Council members, and he often referred to them as “poor babies.”

Not long after Grover Marks’ death in 1997, the city of Spokane agreed to pay the Marks family $1.43 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit the Gypsy clan had filed as a result of the police raids on their homes in June 18, 1986.

"The apology is the check, and this is what we expected," a smiling Jimmy Marks said the day the settlement was announced, while lighting a cigar with a fake $1 million bill.

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