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Speaker 1: before we get into anything, I feel like I have
Speaker 1: to just disclaimer that we have like the natural New
Speaker 1: York sound in the background again, because it's warm here
Speaker 1: and this room just gets very stuffy if I don't
Speaker 1: have the windows open. So your ambulance is here. Church
Speaker 1: Bell is all types of beautiful day part of the bey. Honest,
Speaker 1: it is beautiful here in New York City with Ken
Speaker 1: Steiger in studio UM. Before we get into Ken's background.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say, great, um response to the
Speaker 1: Michael Aams episode that we did the other day, Uh,
Speaker 1: there's still those people. Even saw people on Twitter saying
Speaker 1: to you, there's one guy was like, I can't believe
Speaker 1: you've been duped by this guy, Jack. But I feel
Speaker 1: like those people didn't listen to the podcast yet because
Speaker 1: everything he says he really backs up with accounts, with
Speaker 1: the amount of interviewing that he did. And I don't
Speaker 1: think there's really much you could disprove from that interview. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's okay to question it or refute it,
Speaker 1: but um, it's a question of what are you refuting.
Speaker 1: What's specifically what claims are not true? And I didn't
Speaker 1: write the book. The book is a book called American
Speaker 1: Cipher written about bo Bergdahl, And um, I didn't write
Speaker 1: the books, so I can't tell you, you know, ad,
Speaker 1: But I'd recommend people read it for themselves and look
Speaker 1: at the end notes and look at the source thing
Speaker 1: and make up their minds. Yeah. I mean, I even
Speaker 1: saw on the Software Radio Facebook page that the first
Speaker 1: response to the article was from Boberg starting not from
Speaker 1: bo Park at all, from Matt vier Kent, who was there,
Speaker 1: and he just wrote bullshit, And Michael responded to him
Speaker 1: and he was like, Hey, I would have loved to
Speaker 1: have interviewed you. What in this interview, you know, was
Speaker 1: I inaccurate about And I didn't see a response from
Speaker 1: that yet. But I feel like for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: and I'm not speaking on Matt's bad for anybody else,
Speaker 1: but it is somewhat I think of an emotional response.
Speaker 1: It's a very emotional subject for people. Yeah, that especially
Speaker 1: if you were in that unit and you guys got
Speaker 1: punished for this guy walking off basse, you are going
Speaker 1: to have some emotion to that, and you are going
Speaker 1: to be attached to Yeah, this guy's a trader. I'd
Speaker 1: be piste, there's no question. Yeah. So it's it's completely understandable.
Speaker 1: But listen back to that episode, because I I thought
Speaker 1: Michael did a great job of just getting into the
Speaker 1: facts of what went down, and I just didn't hear
Speaker 1: anything that was refutable. So it's I don't buy into
Speaker 1: that either of us were duped by anybody, Uh, I think,
Speaker 1: And and I mean, if so, what was the reason
Speaker 1: for him writing this book. He's certainly not gonna get
Speaker 1: rich quick writing a book that the media kind of
Speaker 1: refuses to have him on because he's shooting down the
Speaker 1: narrative of both the liberal and conservative established. I can
Speaker 1: tell you for sure, you don't get rich quick by
Speaker 1: writing books like that and upsetting people. Yeah, well with that.
Speaker 1: In studio with us is a guy with a very
Speaker 1: unique background, Kenneth Steiger, former FBI special agent. And I
Speaker 1: was actually thinking and saying it Ken when he walked in.
Speaker 1: It's really rare we get someone with his background. We've
Speaker 1: had John Gilman years ago, who did some work with
Speaker 1: the FBI. I think that's the only guest we've had
Speaker 1: on with a background and the FBI. You on the
Speaker 1: other end, and been in the FBI for decades. And
Speaker 1: before we get into your background as a special agent,
Speaker 1: the way you were referred to us was our friend C. J. Ramon,
Speaker 1: So I figured you would get into your background with Chris,
Speaker 1: who we were both saying as just an are and
Speaker 1: great guy and major talent. Here's a wonderful guy. Um
Speaker 1: it was kind of funny. I Um. I was out
Speaker 1: in Babylon and Um, I was actually just having dinner
Speaker 1: with my son and was standing at the bar and
Speaker 1: having a drink, just finished the night and comes to
Speaker 1: Slady and started talking to her and she goes, oh,
Speaker 1: my brothers C. J. Ramon from the Ramons. I said,
Speaker 1: get out of here, you know, come on, you know,
Speaker 1: and I just thought it was a bunch of bs
Speaker 1: sort of. And what happened was we started talking and
Speaker 1: then we started dating, and then years later we got married.
Speaker 1: And you know, it developed a great relationship with Chris.
Speaker 1: I mean, what a great talent, what a great guy.
Speaker 1: You know, he was in the Marines and the whole
Speaker 1: story how he got into the Ramons is a great,
Speaker 1: great story and really very unique, right. And um, I've
Speaker 1: been there when he's been putting his songs together and
Speaker 1: you know, getting the music over to his bandmates, and
Speaker 1: how he was recording in a garage band and to
Speaker 1: see his creativity and his knowledge of a lot of
Speaker 1: subjects and he's just a great guy. And and uh
Speaker 1: I missed him. Moved out to California, out in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: but we used to see him all the time. I
Speaker 1: great father, you know, took care of his his kids.
Speaker 1: His uh son Liam is autistic and to see that
Speaker 1: kid blossom and the intelligence he has and you know
Speaker 1: he's making a life for himself out in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a great success story. You gotta tell
Speaker 1: the Andrew Wilcos story though that you're telling, okay that
Speaker 1: this is kind of funny. I I listened to Andrew
Speaker 1: Wilcow all the time, you know, when I'm in the
Speaker 1: car and you know, those hours, and it's one day
Speaker 1: he sees talking and he was, I really like punk rock,
Speaker 1: you know, I really enjoyed that. And he goes, you know,
Speaker 1: I saw the Ramons at Jones Beach and he goes,
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan. So he said what at the
Speaker 1: end of the contract, went up to him and I
Speaker 1: got them to autograph my my tickets and he said,
Speaker 1: I got C. J. Ramone to autograph it. You know,
Speaker 1: what a great guy. So I'm sitting in there and said,
Speaker 1: you know what this would be, This would be funny.
Speaker 1: So I dialed up from my car and I call
Speaker 1: it and I don't know why it went through. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's his lines are always packed and everything else.
Speaker 1: At the first ring, it goes right through, and the
Speaker 1: producer answers, what would you like to tell Andrew? I said, well,
Speaker 1: tell Andrew, I'm married to c. J. Ramone's sister. He goes,
Speaker 1: hold on right away. It was its possibly could be
Speaker 1: I I just don't remember. But uh, next thing, you know,
Speaker 1: Andrew gets on the on the radio at the turn
Speaker 1: my radio down. He goes, so, you're married to c. J.
Speaker 1: Ramone's sister said, yeah, I said, what a great guy.
Speaker 1: I said, what you don't really know is you know
Speaker 1: that he was in the Marines and he's played for
Speaker 1: the Remon with the Ramons for over eight years. He
Speaker 1: tours all over the world. But really he's a conservative guy.
Speaker 1: He goes, what, I can't believe that. I said, it's true.
Speaker 1: I said, he has you know, he was brought up
Speaker 1: to respect the flag. You know, he's a he's a patriot,
Speaker 1: you know, and he served as time, you know, served time,
Speaker 1: and he's a great guy. And he goes, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'd really like to interview him, you know, can you
Speaker 1: do me a favorite? Just hold on and we'll get
Speaker 1: your information and stuff. So what happened was they put
Speaker 1: me on hold. All of a sudden, we lost the call,
Speaker 1: and then I called back a couple of times and
Speaker 1: finally got through and the producers to thank god he
Speaker 1: called that. I thought we're gonna lose you forever. So
Speaker 1: what happened was I hooked him up with C. J.
Speaker 1: Ramone Chris Ward, and um uh. They made a date
Speaker 1: for him to go into Andrew's studio. So Chris calls
Speaker 1: me up and he says, hey, I'm going tonight to
Speaker 1: see Andrew Will coolly interviewed and we talked about Liam
Speaker 1: and my music and all that stuff. He goes, he's
Speaker 1: gonna have a car picked me up, come on with me.
Speaker 1: I said, sure, So I went to his house and
Speaker 1: sure enough, there was the limit of there we go in.
Speaker 1: So he went to the studio. I met Will Andrew
Speaker 1: Will cow with a great gentleman. He is and uh.
Speaker 1: I was walking around the studio and that's and that's
Speaker 1: how he's awesome. And he said to view Chris several times,
Speaker 1: you know about music conservatism, and you know, you know
Speaker 1: these rock and rollers actually being conservative. And I think
Speaker 1: he's got a few more guys that came in. You
Speaker 1: know a lot of these guys don't want to come forth. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because they they're afraid of hurting their career in the closet.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. But some of them. We've had on him,
Speaker 1: We've had had on philba Bonti from All That Remains,
Speaker 1: also a former marine UM and he became a friend
Speaker 1: of Aaron Lewis, which when he found out Aaron Lewis
Speaker 1: from stand was a fan of his. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's it's one of those like the rest is
Speaker 1: History stories. I know Chris from that gig and then
Speaker 1: coming over here, he's kind of come along to what
Speaker 1: we do and he is an all around great guy.
Speaker 1: And I did get to meet his son, who uh,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people, especially with this stuff
Speaker 1: in the media out there and the stereotypes, don't really
Speaker 1: understand the spectrum of people who have autism because, as
Speaker 1: you said, his son is a brilliant guy and he's
Speaker 1: genualy knowledgeable about a lot of subjects. He absolutely is.
Speaker 1: I mean he would come over our house and he
Speaker 1: would start talking about um, you know, the Greek civilization
Speaker 1: and then just go through all the statistics. It was phenomenal.
Speaker 1: And then you know he's actually written a few books
Speaker 1: and has been produced by UM, produced by Amazon, and
Speaker 1: he's he was working at a m a grocery store
Speaker 1: out east and he was actually sitting there doing autographed
Speaker 1: in his books. So here's a he's a young man
Speaker 1: that has autism, actually has written books. He's writing more
Speaker 1: stories now. He's really He gets on my computer, gets
Speaker 1: on garage band, he put he puts together sounds that
Speaker 1: are just phenomenal. I'm not into wrapping stuff, but he was.
Speaker 1: He was doing that and just one take, it was phenomenal.
Speaker 1: The brain that this kid has, he's really very, very bright.
Speaker 1: Like you said, there's different types of autism, and it's
Speaker 1: incredible to see, like these people can do things that
Speaker 1: I could never do. No way, Yeah, there's no way.
Speaker 1: And um I read an article once about how there's
Speaker 1: certain types of autism that the people who haven't really
Speaker 1: thrive in jobs like computer programs, and they can, I mean,
Speaker 1: and just do some incredible things. Really, we really do.
Speaker 1: And he's a great young man. And you know, you
Speaker 1: can see how he's blossomed through the years. You know,
Speaker 1: he he was non verbal for quite a while, he
Speaker 1: couldn't even speak, and to see the progression and to
Speaker 1: see what he's grown into. And he's really a good
Speaker 1: young man and he's he's making a life for himself
Speaker 1: out in San Francisco, doing very well, um, so getting
Speaker 1: into your background of course here, Uh, I don't know
Speaker 1: where to begin because you've been you've been involved in
Speaker 1: so many things. For example, you've been assigned to top
Speaker 1: tier organized crime investigation, is the case age for the
Speaker 1: Coombo crime family. And then as we were speaking on
Speaker 1: the phone, as I book this, you were involved in
Speaker 1: taking down Bernie made Off. Yes, So I mean where
Speaker 1: to begin? Where's let's begin, because I want to hear
Speaker 1: like some old school g Man stories from when you
Speaker 1: first joined the bureau, and I bet it was very
Speaker 1: different back then. It was a totally different world. You know,
Speaker 1: we didn't have the technology that they have now, and
Speaker 1: everything that we did was you had to go wait
Speaker 1: miles out of the way just to go a few
Speaker 1: inches forward. And that's really exactly how it was all
Speaker 1: the time, you know. So when I first came in
Speaker 1: with the organized crime back in the eighties was the
Speaker 1: number one investigated priority of the U. S. Government Department
Speaker 1: of Justice. So we had a task force with New
Speaker 1: York City Police Department, local police departments in the FBI,
Speaker 1: and we put a full court press on on the
Speaker 1: families and uh, when happening crime families all five families,
Speaker 1: And what happened was Joe Banano wrote a book, Yes
Speaker 1: has been your on your honor? Are an honorable man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's it. So he started talking about the commission,
Speaker 1: that that is a commission that they ruled. Body was like,
Speaker 1: you don't do that. So what happened was Rudy Giuliani
Speaker 1: reads the book, he goes, let's go after the commission,
Speaker 1: and that was the whole gist of what they did.
Speaker 1: We had each squad, we had five organized crime squads,
Speaker 1: all in New York. We had them up in Westchester,
Speaker 1: Long Island, and UM in New York, and each squad
Speaker 1: was in charge of investigating each organized crime family. And
Speaker 1: I was assigned to the Colombo family. We had UM
Speaker 1: a great supervisor, Damon Taylor. The man was a genius,
Speaker 1: unfortunately passed away, but he he was steps ahead of
Speaker 1: where we wanted to go when he wanted to go
Speaker 1: after and they had all kinds of wiretaps. My first
Speaker 1: year and a half, almost two years, all I did
Speaker 1: was sit on wire taps, phone taps, you know, UM,
Speaker 1: restaurant bugs and things like that. So we I was
Speaker 1: in the case as I was just one of the
Speaker 1: guys that you know, did surveillances and you know supported
Speaker 1: the major case is so Um. After a couple of
Speaker 1: years of the investigations, because these cases take a long time,
Speaker 1: we ended up arresting um um agatting warrants actually for
Speaker 1: Carmine Persico, Dominic Montmorano and Jerry Langella. That's uh. Jerry
Speaker 1: Langella was a consigliari um. Carmine Persco was the boss
Speaker 1: of the family and Dominic Montano was the under boss
Speaker 1: and we had a restaurants. They arrested all the commission,
Speaker 1: all the members of the commission, and these three took off.
Speaker 1: They were in the win. We couldn't find them. They
Speaker 1: were fugitives. So after a few weeks, in a month
Speaker 1: or so went by, they made Carmine Persco a top
Speaker 1: ten fugitive and a very good friend of mine, Ken
Speaker 1: Brown had the case to go and arrest him. I
Speaker 1: can't tell you what he had to write daily reports
Speaker 1: down to headquarters. This is how things have changed. Daily
Speaker 1: reports and and uh send telegraph telegraphs down to headquarters.
Speaker 1: What did you do today? What did you do for
Speaker 1: the week? And they wanted everything accounted for, every minute
Speaker 1: of his time and We were out all over the place.
Speaker 1: We went to every social club you could find, and
Speaker 1: that social up in there. They don't like that too much.
Speaker 1: They don't want you in that place. So that's what
Speaker 1: we did. We shook the trees and everything else. And
Speaker 1: this is a very unique story. There was a fellow
Speaker 1: I could tell his name because he was in the
Speaker 1: Witness Security program and he was testifying everything he had.
Speaker 1: Carmine Persico just disappear. We couldn't find him, and there
Speaker 1: were reports he was in South America, you know, out
Speaker 1: west and all this other kind of stuff. But he
Speaker 1: had all these We had a lot of informants out there.
Speaker 1: There was a fellow that calls up the office in
Speaker 1: New York and he says, I know where Carmine Persco is.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to this special agent well the
Speaker 1: special agents not in New York. And said, okay, we'll
Speaker 1: try to get him to you. Didn't work. He called
Speaker 1: back again. I think he called like four or five times.
Speaker 1: Finally the found out that the agent that he wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to was an s A c out in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles Division. He had going up to the ranks.
Speaker 1: This fellow was an informant way back back in the day,
Speaker 1: and he was a brother in law of Carmine Persico. Okay,
Speaker 1: now the funny story, well, the unique story of it
Speaker 1: is he was married to his Carmine Persicos sister and
Speaker 1: he had a girlfriend from England, and he was stealing
Speaker 1: money from Carmine Persico. That was Carmine was going to
Speaker 1: use just to escape. It was stuck in a roof
Speaker 1: and the ceiling of the attic, and he was stealing
Speaker 1: cash and spending it. He goes and Carmine was planning
Speaker 1: to flee, so he knew it was only a matter
Speaker 1: of time before he's going to see that money he's missing,
Speaker 1: and he's gonna be killed. So he was desperately trying
Speaker 1: to get the agent. The agent comes from California, comes
Speaker 1: to New York. We pick him up, and I go
Speaker 1: and I pick up this witness and we bring him
Speaker 1: to the office and he tells me he goes, carmines
Speaker 1: up in my attic and he's been there for the
Speaker 1: last month and a half, and uh, he's going to flee,
Speaker 1: and he goes, you know, I'll let you know what's
Speaker 1: going on, and you know what's happening. So they built
Speaker 1: up the rapport again and sure enough what happened. Within
Speaker 1: about three weeks, Carmine Persico, Dominic Montmurano, and Jerry l
Speaker 1: Angelo had a meeting that they're going to plan their
Speaker 1: escape out of the country and they were going to
Speaker 1: meet at the Sources ex sources house. So we knew
Speaker 1: the time they were going to be there and the
Speaker 1: date and everything else, so we planned strategically where to
Speaker 1: go when everything else and how to set up so
Speaker 1: you knew where he was. But you waited for this meeting.
Speaker 1: So we get all three of them, so they came.
Speaker 1: They all came in, went in the house, We surrounded
Speaker 1: the house and then next the you know, Carmine tried
Speaker 1: to escape out the back and my supervisor no, no no,
Speaker 1: go out the front, and they arrested him. Carmine Persco
Speaker 1: is a very very bright man and only had a
Speaker 1: high school education, and um, he knew the street laws
Speaker 1: and he knew regular laws, and he actually defended himself
Speaker 1: in trial. He didn't, yes, he did. He and he
Speaker 1: did a pretty good job for a guy that's never
Speaker 1: you know, no formal educational law degree or anything. And
Speaker 1: the judge told him he because you know what a
Speaker 1: waste you are because you you did such a great job.
Speaker 1: If you were applied your self to regular society would
Speaker 1: have done fine. But one of the unique things about
Speaker 1: Carmine and organized crime. I remember, um when I was
Speaker 1: I used to teach at St. John's University organized crime
Speaker 1: there and one of the quotes from Carmine Persco was
Speaker 1: there was a bookmaker that had a certain corner over
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn. He goes, why do I have to pay
Speaker 1: you money every every week? He goes, Carmine Persico says, look,
Speaker 1: we're like the government. I'm protection for you, and I
Speaker 1: gave you the right to work here, so as a result,
Speaker 1: you gotta pay me. So you have to pay me
Speaker 1: every week. And that's the way it's done. And for
Speaker 1: restaurants to operate, you gotta pay me to make sure
Speaker 1: nobody breaks up the place. Nobody, you know. And actually
Speaker 1: they're the ones breaking up the place, and they threatened
Speaker 1: them and things like that, you know. But they that's
Speaker 1: how they explored a lot of money. I live in
Speaker 1: a Italian American neighborhood in Brooklyn, and um, it's not
Speaker 1: the same as it was back in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 1: But those people they're at they're out of they did
Speaker 1: their time, they're back and you know, trying to go
Speaker 1: legit and we have normal lives and uh, but you
Speaker 1: still hear the old stories, you know, the guy who
Speaker 1: got shot over a game of cards, um, all that,
Speaker 1: like Donnie Brasco kind of stuff was going on and
Speaker 1: um and yet one of the there's a one guy
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood who was an Italian immigrant runs a
Speaker 1: sandwich shop and he was getting shaken down by the
Speaker 1: Italian mob. Like how messed up is that you immigrate
Speaker 1: from Italy, come here the land, home of the free,
Speaker 1: land of the brave, and now you're getting shaken down
Speaker 1: by the organized crime. It's really amazing, you know. And
Speaker 1: they really don't have a conscience, a lot of these mobsters,
Speaker 1: you know. And it's whatever money that he can get
Speaker 1: from you. And I'll give you an example. I had
Speaker 1: a case on again. That was the first case I
Speaker 1: was with, and I had all the cases in between.
Speaker 1: I had one of the unique things you're talking about,
Speaker 1: Brooklyn over in Williamsbrooke Brooklyn Um. Uh. Sunny Francis's nephew,
Speaker 1: Carmine Francis. His nickname was Tuttie to U T. T. I. E.
Speaker 1: And he had UH social club on Leonard Street, and
Speaker 1: it was very unique. I would try to do surveillances
Speaker 1: the whole neighborhood during the summer. They sit on the
Speaker 1: stoops and you drive down there. And obviously the cars
Speaker 1: that we had at the time when not undercover cars.
Speaker 1: I'm driving down with a big Chrysler and They're all
Speaker 1: looking at me, and I could see them like pointing
Speaker 1: and things. Oh I did would just go slow down
Speaker 1: there so I get a couple of license plates and
Speaker 1: just see who's hanging out there, so I get documented.
Speaker 1: But even the neighborhood was watching for him, you know.
Speaker 1: And um so it's it's it's ingrained in the in
Speaker 1: the in the neighborhood, in the culture, and they're afraid
Speaker 1: of them, but they also protected. It's very little crime
Speaker 1: other than their crime. Right, if you don't see outsiders
Speaker 1: coming in there, you know, um mugging people and everything else,
Speaker 1: that's not going to happen, you know. But one of
Speaker 1: the unique things when I was working a case with
Speaker 1: um Um what happened was after just a backtrack, when
Speaker 1: Persico went to jail, his son was also in jail.
Speaker 1: Um little alley boy Um Alphonse Persico, and as a result,
Speaker 1: he had nobody to run the family while Carmine was
Speaker 1: in jail. So he had a fellow name Victor Arena.
Speaker 1: His name was his nickname was Little Vic. He was
Speaker 1: a little guy about five four, ruthless man. And he goes,
Speaker 1: you're gonna take over until my son comes out. He goes,
Speaker 1: it's okay, no problem. Now what got us into that
Speaker 1: case was UM. They were in UM involved in killing
Speaker 1: racehorses for the insurance money. You can't believe these these scams.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a true story. There was a
Speaker 1: racehorse named Finns and what they did was they would
Speaker 1: put the horse in races, all right, and Vic would
Speaker 1: be part owner, and you have a couple other guys,
Speaker 1: mobsters and unsuspecting investors, and the horse would win a
Speaker 1: couple of races. But the races were fixed, He's no
Speaker 1: doubt building up the horses credential exactly. And then what
Speaker 1: they did was, once you want a couple of races,
Speaker 1: they would syndicate him. And there are a lot of
Speaker 1: multimillionaires that want to be investors, investors and owned part
Speaker 1: owner of a winning horse. They're giving hundreds of thousands,
Speaker 1: if not even millions of dollars. So they have all
Speaker 1: this investment money in it, right, and it's all go
Speaker 1: into the mob pocket. Then they go to the insurance
Speaker 1: company and said, look we got we just syndicated this
Speaker 1: this horse for six million dollars. We want to insure
Speaker 1: him for that. Sure, they're paying the premiums out of
Speaker 1: the money they got from the investors. So what they
Speaker 1: did was they this horse in particular fins Um after
Speaker 1: a wild Once they got the insurance, they waited a while.
Speaker 1: They injected the horse with heartworms and they did it
Speaker 1: out east in winning edge form out Long Island, and
Speaker 1: the horse started having problems. They called in the vet
Speaker 1: and the vets said too late. You can't do anything
Speaker 1: for the horse. So they ended up getting insurance company.
Speaker 1: Called the insurance companies, look this horse is going, you know, suffering,
Speaker 1: So they said okay. They brought their vet in, looked
Speaker 1: at him, documented it, okay, put him down and they
Speaker 1: paid six million dollars for that horse. And that's all
Speaker 1: in the Mob's pocket. And that's what that was the
Speaker 1: introduction to um Victor Arena and I I knew that
Speaker 1: he was meeting organized crime figures all along all across
Speaker 1: Long Island. They were in virtually every catering hall Manor
Speaker 1: East out in Long Island. Tommy O'shera was behind the
Speaker 1: scenes owner of it. They killed him because he was
Speaker 1: stealing money from the carning industry and skimming money out
Speaker 1: of Manner East. And uh, it's one of the charges
Speaker 1: that was against Victor Arena. And two fellows had actually
Speaker 1: murdered him. Uh. Actually they recorded Victorina and said, yeah,
Speaker 1: we we killed them. You know, he was on tape.
Speaker 1: And I mean, that's how ruthless they are. And you
Speaker 1: were telling me some interesting things about how technology is
Speaker 1: developed in terms of you know, bugging cars of people
Speaker 1: and recording devices from your time to now. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: in the old days, if um, um, they used to
Speaker 1: do recordings, they would put they would sneak in a
Speaker 1: car and they would hook up a wire transmitter all right,
Speaker 1: and they would have to follow the car. You have
Speaker 1: to be within a hundred yards. That's how bad the
Speaker 1: technology was. And oftentimes these people are very stept to
Speaker 1: find who's around him. They for the common car and
Speaker 1: it was really an antiquated way to do it. But um,
Speaker 1: you know it worked too to a degree. And what
Speaker 1: happened was, and I put a bug in Um Victorina's
Speaker 1: driver's car. And his nickname was Chubby Ordino, and he
Speaker 1: had his brand new Buick and he used to drive
Speaker 1: Um Victorina around. But what happened just prior to doing
Speaker 1: the car bug, I had a place all set he
Speaker 1: was he was meeting all these mobsters in and actually
Speaker 1: he's a deli uh near Cedarhurst. It was called the
Speaker 1: Wiltshire Delhi, and he had a little room in the
Speaker 1: back and I had all our surveillance guys there I was.
Speaker 1: I had written the after David had a court approval
Speaker 1: everything else to put the bug in there. And then
Speaker 1: he wasn't given up the power when Alphonse little Alley
Speaker 1: Boy came out of jail and Carmine Persco warded him
Speaker 1: to be killed from jail. So here I am. I'm
Speaker 1: doing the oldest to get the bug in the darned Delhi.
Speaker 1: And it would have been a killer. They he was
Speaker 1: meeting ten fifteen guys a day, and I guarantee you
Speaker 1: they we're talking about illegal activities. I had a bunch
Speaker 1: of sources that gave me the information about it, so
Speaker 1: then Carmine Persico has his boys out there try to
Speaker 1: kill him. Now he's on the way and he takes off.
Speaker 1: So we already am months and months. I'm saying, you
Speaker 1: have to go miles to go a few inches. And
Speaker 1: that's what that's what organized crime work happens, you know,
Speaker 1: Is that that that kind of leg work. Is that
Speaker 1: ultimately what changed the game. And I don't want to
Speaker 1: say the downfall of the Italian mafia, but I mean
Speaker 1: it's not what it was a few decades. But they
Speaker 1: they're gonna come back though. You think they're gonna come
Speaker 1: back because the FBI now is looking more into terrorism
Speaker 1: and international terrorism and organized crime is not that much
Speaker 1: on the on the on the scope, and you'll see
Speaker 1: you'll see more and more as time goes on. In
Speaker 1: the next five ten years, you're gonna see the coming back.
Speaker 1: I think those families just can't give it up. They
Speaker 1: can't give it up. They can't go legit and that's
Speaker 1: their lives and what they were actually tried to do,
Speaker 1: especially the Columbo family, they were they were investing in
Speaker 1: a lot of catering holes apartment buildings, and they put
Speaker 1: it into legitimate business and they had you know they
Speaker 1: had the gas tax. But I'll get back to your
Speaker 1: this statement about the bugs. We actually had surveillances on
Speaker 1: Victor Arena and his driver. Now this is the Columbo
Speaker 1: War going on. Now, this is now every struggle, big
Speaker 1: power struggle for the control and the soul of the
Speaker 1: Columbo family. Victor Arena was not going to give that up.
Speaker 1: He had his side of alliance. Carmine Persico had his side.
Speaker 1: Carmine Persco had all the sociopaths and the psycho killers. Okay,
Speaker 1: Victor didn't have that many killers on his side, and
Speaker 1: they were shooting at each other all the time out
Speaker 1: in the streets and Brooklyn Queens. They killed the fellow
Speaker 1: about three miles from our office out on Long Island
Speaker 1: at a hotel. So what happened was we knew that
Speaker 1: the driver was picking up through our surveillances, was picking
Speaker 1: up Victor Arena, and he'd have guys go in the
Speaker 1: car and they would talk. So we put a bug
Speaker 1: in the car. But it was the first time he
Speaker 1: used a certain technology. I don't really want to go
Speaker 1: too much now because they don't want to reveal it,
Speaker 1: but it was, you know, used phone technology, things like
Speaker 1: that and we actually stole the driver's car and swapped
Speaker 1: it with the exact duplicate no ship, Yeah, because the
Speaker 1: car was right next to his bedroom. So they wheeled
Speaker 1: it out and they put the other car in there
Speaker 1: because Casey woke up to look at the car. You know,
Speaker 1: we didn't want to see something missing, so they replaced it.
Speaker 1: They took the car into one of our shops and
Speaker 1: then they they loaded the thing up with recording devices
Speaker 1: and transmission devices and things like that. Very very unique
Speaker 1: and that was just the start of the cutting edge
Speaker 1: of the new technology. I mean now it's phenomenal what
Speaker 1: they have and I mean that day, that's how we
Speaker 1: we would have done it in Iraq back and then
Speaker 1: and when I was there, you know, during the war, UM,
Speaker 1: and we were targeting insurgents cells, right, But it's one
Speaker 1: of those things. Is one of those UM. It's interesting
Speaker 1: for me for you know, military nerd like me. You know,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of things that were learned from
Speaker 1: law enforcement that the military wasn't really good at at
Speaker 1: the time. UM. And the Brits were actually further ahead
Speaker 1: of us in the seventies, eighties, even in the nineties,
Speaker 1: maybe because they had that experience of going after the
Speaker 1: i RA and the U. S. Military was just getting
Speaker 1: into counter terrorism. We didn't really know how to do that.
Speaker 1: It's amazing how our country adapts and our our soldiers
Speaker 1: of military, they do phenomenal work. I mean, very bright guys.
Speaker 1: And they figured it out, you know, and as you said,
Speaker 1: you know, use that technology and you know, you save
Speaker 1: lives and you end up getting the bad guys. So
Speaker 1: then you swapped out the bugged car for your decoy,
Speaker 1: put it back where it belongs exactly, and they never
Speaker 1: new a thing. They never knew a thing, and they
Speaker 1: were in they were in that car for hours at
Speaker 1: a time. The problem with the technology was it was
Speaker 1: so new it would overheat. So we'd have about an
Speaker 1: hour's worth of really great conversation all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: boom would show it out, and we were able to
Speaker 1: monitor it back at our office. That was the beauty party.
Speaker 1: You didn't have to follow them. So it would cut
Speaker 1: out after about an hour and then take about a
Speaker 1: half hour and get back up and they continue their
Speaker 1: conversations and we recorded, and all those conversations used against
Speaker 1: them in a trial. Maybe maybe this is getting like
Speaker 1: a little too Hollywood. But did you ever have experiences
Speaker 1: or any of your your teammates have these experiences where
Speaker 1: the mafia started targeting you and going after you or
Speaker 1: your family, or started trying to run intelligence operations on
Speaker 1: your office. But we we definitely know that they had
Speaker 1: lookouts at our offices at New York. Not out in
Speaker 1: Long Island I'm aware of, but definitely in New York.
Speaker 1: And we had one agent fellow named Dennis Budua was
Speaker 1: a case agent, and the word was that they wanted
Speaker 1: they were so mad at him because he was so
Speaker 1: effective in his job. They wanted them out. So they
Speaker 1: actually transferred him down to headquarters. You know, if that's
Speaker 1: that's the only case that I'm aware of, because they
Speaker 1: know really not to mess with us. It would have
Speaker 1: been too much, because absolutely, because it would have been
Speaker 1: you want out war on your hands. You know, you
Speaker 1: don't want the government coming at your full boar. And
Speaker 1: as I said, even when looking for Carmine, Persco were
Speaker 1: at every single social club. We basically we're in their
Speaker 1: faces all the time. They can't and they can't operate
Speaker 1: when you're but you guys were never shooting at each other.
Speaker 1: That that was like the line that was never crossed,
Speaker 1: never crossed. Uh. We had one I arrested six of
Speaker 1: our arena's um associates and they were planning to go
Speaker 1: kill somebody and we knew they were in in a
Speaker 1: brownstone in in uh in Brooklyn, and we went there
Speaker 1: at like four o'clock in the morning and knocked on
Speaker 1: the door, raid FBI and and when literally when you
Speaker 1: saw Mario Puzo's film that The Godfather, these guys were
Speaker 1: on the mattresses. There was like six mattresses all laid
Speaker 1: down in the apartment and that's where they were sleeping.
Speaker 1: And that's what they were just waiting to go and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, for their orders who they're going to kill,
Speaker 1: and get all the information and go kill the other side.
Speaker 1: And we arrested all of them. You know. One interesting
Speaker 1: thing that we had. You know, sometimes he was very
Speaker 1: successful with sources and sometimes you're not. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a sometimes a crap shoot. I had this one source,
Speaker 1: excuse me, we nicknamed Joey's Shoes because he used to
Speaker 1: sell sues and stuff and he was he was a
Speaker 1: lone shock victim. And twice, you know, he says, look,
Speaker 1: I gotta pay this guy five grand, and I said, okay,
Speaker 1: I got authorization, we're gonna make the payment. I wired
Speaker 1: the guy up. Next thing, you know, the wire didn't
Speaker 1: you know, nothing worked. I said, well that's not too cool,
Speaker 1: you know. And I said okay, So I said, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna give you one more chance, all right. Another another
Speaker 1: guy you owed money too, So we get five thousand
Speaker 1: dollars cash, give it to him. We wire him up.
Speaker 1: The same thing happens. So that's ten thousand dollars were out.
Speaker 1: And I said, you know what you've done. And that
Speaker 1: was it. So what happened was two days later, just
Speaker 1: so what happens. He goes. Look, I got information that
Speaker 1: this guy named Pulley guns Bavaria, bav Aqua, they're gonna
Speaker 1: go and murder a personal guy. They found him and
Speaker 1: he's going to go home and pick up a couple
Speaker 1: of guns and then he's gonna go into Brooklyn somewhere
Speaker 1: I don't know where. So we go. We rushed. I said,
Speaker 1: you'd sure this. He goes. Absolutely what happened. We got
Speaker 1: the bureau helicopter, we got the surveillance squads. We went
Speaker 1: and everybody we could find from my squad, I went
Speaker 1: to the fellow's house and store him go in. He
Speaker 1: came out a few minutes later, and he was out
Speaker 1: in hot Pog that's where he lived. And he got
Speaker 1: on the parkways. He was going like a hundred miles
Speaker 1: an hour. I couldn't believe it. And he went down.
Speaker 1: I went down to um Um the Southern State Parkway,
Speaker 1: went all the way into Brooklyn, and he pulled in
Speaker 1: and he went into a brownstone in Brooklyn and we waited,
Speaker 1: and we waited and waited and waited. Other people went
Speaker 1: into the building. He came out about four or five
Speaker 1: hours later. We stopped him. Now, one of the biggest
Speaker 1: things when we stopped the war was a lot of
Speaker 1: these fellows that were um mobsters. They had prior records
Speaker 1: and they all carried guns. And I allowed to have
Speaker 1: a gun. So you catch a felon, convicted felon with
Speaker 1: a gun, it's a five year count. So we just
Speaker 1: take him off the street. So he comes out of
Speaker 1: the driveway and he's got a young guy with him,
Speaker 1: and uh, we stopped him. He had a gun with
Speaker 1: him and a bull proof vest on both of them,
Speaker 1: and we arrested him and uh, you know, they ended
Speaker 1: up stopping somebody from being murdered that night. We don't
Speaker 1: know who they want to kill because they never corked
Speaker 1: it up, but it was stuff like that was like reactive,
Speaker 1: and it was just amazing how we were able to
Speaker 1: even stay with him. We had the you know, the
Speaker 1: plane up there and everything else. It's wild and how
Speaker 1: often do these guys end up flipping on each other?
Speaker 1: Or is a murder like sit for real? Or no?
Speaker 1: That you know? The last of the Mohicans is like
Speaker 1: a sunny Frenzies. He wouldn't come across with anybody. And
Speaker 1: and my Forte was getting guys to cooperate and developing
Speaker 1: sources when they were going to violate Sunny Frenzies. They
Speaker 1: wanted me to go and arrest him and pitch him.
Speaker 1: I said, look, this guy is not going to do it.
Speaker 1: He's a true believer. So we went to arrest him.
Speaker 1: He was sitting with some of the mobsters and I said, Sonny,
Speaker 1: you know gonna arrest you. You gotta go with us.
Speaker 1: He goes, can I at least finish my pasta fazule
Speaker 1: before I go? So they have a sense of humor,
Speaker 1: you know, to it. I said, now you can't finish
Speaker 1: your pasta fazul. It is a true story. So get
Speaker 1: him if we get him out of the restaurant. I
Speaker 1: didn't even put the cuffs on him there because it's
Speaker 1: all about respect to you. Don't want to embarrass him
Speaker 1: in front of people. So I got him in the cars.
Speaker 1: I have to put the cuffs on it. And I said,
Speaker 1: they want me to talk to you. He goes, you
Speaker 1: wasting your breath. Before I even get another sentence out,
Speaker 1: I said, well, I gotta give you a pitch. He goes, okay,
Speaker 1: you give me a pitch. Gave him the pitch and
Speaker 1: everything else, and I talked to him for about a
Speaker 1: couple of hours. You know, I talked Tod's family and everything.
Speaker 1: There was no way. Now that's the old style, old school. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you look at Joey Massino. It was as the
Speaker 1: Bonano family. He rolled on everybody. You know. So this
Speaker 1: that many many years later. That was about maybe ten
Speaker 1: years ago. I think Joey Masino, Uh, he cooperated. He
Speaker 1: had his walls in his house loaded with cash and
Speaker 1: he said, I got like, I don't know, five million
Speaker 1: dollars in the walls. They ripped down the walls they
Speaker 1: found all the cash there, like, and they just arrested
Speaker 1: a couple of members of the Banano family a few
Speaker 1: years ago on old murder charge. Yeah yeah, yeah. And
Speaker 1: it's still after the Gambinos. The Colombos aren't. I mean,
Speaker 1: we really did a good job on the Colombos, but
Speaker 1: the Gambinos are still running around. The Bananos are still there.
Speaker 1: Lu Case he's still there, Genevise, Genevese. I mean, they
Speaker 1: were all going out there and they're just starting to
Speaker 1: solidify more and get their power base, you know, because
Speaker 1: they have a lot of other organized crimes. You know,
Speaker 1: you've got the Armenians, you got the Russians. You know,
Speaker 1: they have to vibe for that power for those areas.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so cool hearing these stories from you,
Speaker 1: because I feel like you watch movies like Casino and
Speaker 1: you feel like, oh, this is Hyperbolee, this is exaggerabwood,
Speaker 1: and what you're saying is the real deal, that this
Speaker 1: is really how it goes down. Yeah. Absolutely, Um, It's
Speaker 1: it's really what they do. I mean, some of these
Speaker 1: guys are absolutely geniuses. They're funny as heck. You know,
Speaker 1: I've I've interviewed many of them you know, and arrested
Speaker 1: a lot of them, and they'll sit there and you
Speaker 1: sit and they'll they're bright as can be, and you know,
Speaker 1: next thing, you know, that's that's their life. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the most accurate movies an organized crime was
Speaker 1: Good Fellows. That was right down the line. It was
Speaker 1: just truly amazing how these people could go kill somebody
Speaker 1: and go have dinner with their mother to people like
Speaker 1: you in order to get an accurate portrayal of that,
Speaker 1: you know. I don't know if they really did, you know, um,
Speaker 1: but it was I'm sure they talked to a lot
Speaker 1: of mobsters, you know, and they got the story because
Speaker 1: that one, that movie was just spot on, the best
Speaker 1: one I've ever seen, was right on it. So I
Speaker 1: definitely really want to hear about Bernie Madoff. I think
Speaker 1: that's a subject of great interest for this audience and
Speaker 1: of myself. And you're could you talk just first about
Speaker 1: how you transition from going dealing with Italian organized crime
Speaker 1: to white collar crime. I mean, I'd like to trans
Speaker 1: how I did it. Actually, I used white collar crime
Speaker 1: techniques against the mob because it was so hard to
Speaker 1: get them on recordings and social clubs, and as I said,
Speaker 1: I had to go miles to go two inches just
Speaker 1: to try to get a bug in a certain place.
Speaker 1: But once you realize that a lot of these guys
Speaker 1: are still involved in white collar crimes. They were in
Speaker 1: they were in um commodities markets. Uh, they were in
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff, all kinds of ways to manipulate
Speaker 1: markets and and doing white collar crimes. So we started
Speaker 1: to do that and I finished my last case when
Speaker 1: organized crime was basically the Arena case and everything. Then
Speaker 1: I went over to the foreign counter intelligence side. Then
Speaker 1: what happened was I actually was on a on a
Speaker 1: golf trip with with a friend. He goes, you know,
Speaker 1: we're looking for somebody to do asset forfiture work for
Speaker 1: the FBI. And he was a he was an agent,
Speaker 1: he was a supervisor, very good friend of mine, and
Speaker 1: he said, we're looking for somebody to do asset forfeiture.
Speaker 1: I said, I'm ready. I was fifty five years old,
Speaker 1: ready to transition to after my career. He goes, really,
Speaker 1: I you know, you're a go ghet it with the
Speaker 1: you know, the FBI and everything. I said, Look, time
Speaker 1: has changed, you know, it's time to go and do
Speaker 1: something else. So what happened was a a. I put
Speaker 1: my resume in, they hired me. It was pretty funny
Speaker 1: because they didn't you couldn't get a break of service
Speaker 1: how the government works. If I retired on a Friday
Speaker 1: and I didn't start the next Monday, you have a
Speaker 1: break in service. So they have to do a whole
Speaker 1: background investigations, which could take up to a year. So
Speaker 1: I actually retired on February three and started doing this
Speaker 1: February six, so I didn't have any time off, you know.
Speaker 1: So what I did we started working um asset furniture
Speaker 1: cases and now we're looking at the bank books and
Speaker 1: records and things like that to follow the money. And
Speaker 1: Bernie made Off was just an amazing guy. I can't
Speaker 1: believe he did what he did, all right. I wasn't
Speaker 1: the case A and I just did the asset forfeiture side.
Speaker 1: The case A had the case and they had some complaints,
Speaker 1: so they started investigating him. They had the SEC looking
Speaker 1: at him. And now this is a man that was
Speaker 1: in charge of NASDAC way back, I mean, very reputable guy.
Speaker 1: You would never think that he would do something like
Speaker 1: SEC executive. Yeah. Absolutely. And then the man I mean
Speaker 1: I never met him personally. But this man had no conscience.
Speaker 1: People were begging him to take their money because he
Speaker 1: was promising them fantastic returns on their money. And actually,
Speaker 1: I have a friend of mine who was a real
Speaker 1: estate developer. One of his friends said, look, you gotta
Speaker 1: go to Bernie made Off. You take all your money,
Speaker 1: put it in there, and you know he's going to
Speaker 1: give you a twelve percent a month on your money.
Speaker 1: And my friend said, that doesn't sound right. I'm not
Speaker 1: doing that. He goes, Thank goodness, I didn't do that.
Speaker 1: So what happened was I started following the corporation's money
Speaker 1: and his personal money. He had accounts over the Isle
Speaker 1: of man Or for England, and which I wasn't really
Speaker 1: that familiar, and I found I found a couple of
Speaker 1: billion dollars of they are tax havens. He had came
Speaker 1: in islands, he had houses all over And what we
Speaker 1: did we started to do really a financial work up
Speaker 1: on him. So when it came time to arrest him,
Speaker 1: we seized all his assets, okay, and we got the
Speaker 1: really good fundamentals on where everything went. He spent so
Speaker 1: much money, and unique aspect was I went. I went
Speaker 1: to his office right after he was arrested. His office
Speaker 1: was nothing spectacular, to believe it or not. You would
Speaker 1: think that somebody had these billions of dollars of assets
Speaker 1: and everything else, that he would have a super office.
Speaker 1: It really wasn't. One of the unique things. I walked
Speaker 1: into his office. He had this three ft screw right
Speaker 1: behind him. It's like a little rusted screw. And all
Speaker 1: I can think of is when somebody came in there,
Speaker 1: they don't know, but I'm gonna screw you. That's that's
Speaker 1: my interpretation. What why would you ever have to have
Speaker 1: a screw sitting there behind you, a three foot screw right,
Speaker 1: a big old um wooden screw. So we all rusted.
Speaker 1: And he had like a little cone of silence, believe
Speaker 1: it not, in his in his office, he had a
Speaker 1: little section was all glassed in and he had a
Speaker 1: little thing from music in there so we can have
Speaker 1: private conversations and nobody could hear it. So you knew
Speaker 1: he's backing that up. But it was truly amazing. I
Speaker 1: went into his computer room. He had an old dot
Speaker 1: matrix printer, you know, with the green stripes and white stripes.
Speaker 1: With everybody got the same um investments. They were just
Speaker 1: different amounts exactly the same. Tidn't see what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Everyone was they couldn't make up all kinds of they
Speaker 1: didn't invest anything, okay, and they would give people their
Speaker 1: statements on old dot matrix printers. Holy shit, I mean,
Speaker 1: I saw it. It was unbelievable. And everybody, from what
Speaker 1: my knowledge is, they everybody had the same exact investments
Speaker 1: but different amounts. So you had to have somebody on
Speaker 1: the inside that knew what everybody's account was, and they
Speaker 1: had to plug in the numbers, and it was I mean,
Speaker 1: it's still incredibly sloppy. I mean absolutely, It's unreal that
Speaker 1: he got away with it so long. That's my point.
Speaker 1: I can't believe that people would. You know, when people
Speaker 1: look at things like this, you know, human nature is
Speaker 1: amazing feature. And people when it comes down the money,
Speaker 1: you know, they look at wow, I'm gonna make fantastic money,
Speaker 1: and they look at their statements. Look at it, I'm
Speaker 1: now worth two million dollars. I only gave him five
Speaker 1: hundred thousand or something. You know, they're they're figuring, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna let it ride. The guy's doing great stuff for me.
Speaker 1: But meanwhile, I was living a lifeful luxuries, got all
Speaker 1: these boats, and it's really crazy stuff. So you were
Speaker 1: able to apply some of the techniques that the FBI
Speaker 1: used in combating organized crime to go after Bernie's assets
Speaker 1: and shut it all down at once. Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: use the white called crime techniques, good bank records, you know,
Speaker 1: wire transfers, everything else we could find and uh, it's
Speaker 1: really amazing. Everything is computerized. Now we get this stuff
Speaker 1: and we could really do a work up on somebody.
Speaker 1: You can say it's exactly where they're spending the money
Speaker 1: with how much comes in, how much goes out, and
Speaker 1: where it goes. And that's what we did. We traced
Speaker 1: their money all over the world. I remember one of
Speaker 1: the big controversies with Bernie made Off was when when
Speaker 1: he got arrested, a lot of people were debating whether
Speaker 1: his wife really knew what was going on. I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear your take on that. I find it very
Speaker 1: surprising that she didn't have any type of knowledge what
Speaker 1: he was up to. I mean that that's obviously the
Speaker 1: defense that she had to use because there was no
Speaker 1: other defense for it other than lack of knowledge. Now,
Speaker 1: this guy, you know, he was one of the biggest
Speaker 1: rip offs of a Ponzi scheme in world history. And
Speaker 1: she had absolutely no clue. And then you look at
Speaker 1: the two sons. The one son committed suicide right after it.
Speaker 1: You know they knew what was going on. They had
Speaker 1: to know, and the remorse and the problems and the
Speaker 1: construction of the family, and um, you know, there's no
Speaker 1: doubt in my mind she had to have an inkling.
Speaker 1: What was not only more of an inkling, but she
Speaker 1: had some knowledge of what's going what happened. Do you
Speaker 1: think there's another Bernie made off out there somewhere? There's
Speaker 1: always going to be a Murdie made off, no matter
Speaker 1: what I can give you cases that we worked. There
Speaker 1: was one out in the Long Island. Um, this guy
Speaker 1: named Nicholas Cosmo had a company called a Copy. He
Speaker 1: had over a hundred million dollars from five thousand investors
Speaker 1: out Long Island, and he was promising. He's said, we're
Speaker 1: doing short term bridge loans to companies. The guy was
Speaker 1: already a felon, alright, so that shouldn't be It's not
Speaker 1: allowed to do it. Nobody's nobody was watching him or whatever.
Speaker 1: And they had a hundred million dollars worth investment. These
Speaker 1: people turned in their four oh one ks the I
Speaker 1: R A S because it was such a great investment.
Speaker 1: And they had these young kids selling the stuff they
Speaker 1: were in there is like a boiler room and making
Speaker 1: phone calls sound. That's exactly, that's exactly the type of
Speaker 1: thing that happened. And finally, you know, and he started
Speaker 1: taking their money and investing in the commodities high risks investments.
Speaker 1: The guy was horrible. He lost everything, He made no money,
Speaker 1: and they were all living. You know, these even as
Speaker 1: the guys that were selling the product, they were making
Speaker 1: ten million dollars, seven million dollars out of this. They
Speaker 1: were these young kids are twenty three years old. There
Speaker 1: the richest could be. And when you can't pay the
Speaker 1: you know, the money out, everything collapsed. And that's how
Speaker 1: they got them out there. You know. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you have any visibility on this whatsoever, UM, but
Speaker 1: this case does intersect with UM, with finance and and
Speaker 1: perhaps white collar crime is uh. Jeff Epstein was a
Speaker 1: teacher in Brooklyn and he had this meteoric rise somehow
Speaker 1: becoming a hedge fund to only billionaires and within a
Speaker 1: few years and and now the I mean, he's not
Speaker 1: on trial for white collar crime, but he's on trial
Speaker 1: for human trafficking underage girls. Huge, huge scandal um quins
Speaker 1: and from he was, I mean he he traveled in
Speaker 1: some big circles. Circles. Yeah, but anyway, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to ask if you I'm not familiar with that, but
Speaker 1: you know, that's the thing. A lot of these investment
Speaker 1: guys that do these Ponzi schemes and everything, they are
Speaker 1: very intelligent, articulate, and they can they can sell you anything.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing that they suck in these people.
Speaker 1: It sounds great, you know, like like you said, with
Speaker 1: a mob boss. I mean, why do you think they
Speaker 1: don't just contribute to society in a in a lawful way.
Speaker 1: Is it ego? No, it's it's well how they brought up.
Speaker 1: You know, these guys are from the school of hard knocks.
Speaker 1: You know, most of these guys were became street thugs.
Speaker 1: They were in gangs, you know, and you needed to
Speaker 1: do that to survive on the streets. That's exactly, and
Speaker 1: especially in the old days, you know. And now it's
Speaker 1: I don't think it's like that so much. I mean,
Speaker 1: you see John gott his son had enough because he
Speaker 1: knew that the Feds are always going to be on him.
Speaker 1: He didn't want any more of it, you know, so
Speaker 1: he got out of the life, you know, but not
Speaker 1: really went legit. And but these guys, you know, like
Speaker 1: again Carmine Persico and all these Luczy and these guys,
Speaker 1: they grew up in the on the streets and they
Speaker 1: had you said, either kill, would be killed. And then
Speaker 1: they just graduated, got bigger, and they thought a better schemes.
Speaker 1: You know, they got into drugs. Or retired NYPD cop
Speaker 1: telling me about busting up the Irish mob here in
Speaker 1: the city. They were he said, they were crazy west
Speaker 1: He's crazy, just like out of their minds on cocaine
Speaker 1: all the time, drunk off their asses. I had sources
Speaker 1: that told me some of those guys are actually doing
Speaker 1: hits for the mob, for the Italians, and they crossed
Speaker 1: lines there a little bit. They go out there, kill
Speaker 1: somebody and get paid and that was it. You know.
Speaker 1: They were very very ruthless back on the on the
Speaker 1: West Side. Wow, the latest guy to be arrested in
Speaker 1: Ponzi scheme or high profile figure. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you followed was that guy, Craig Carton on Sports Radio
Speaker 1: sixty six. I mean, I know it's like a Western thing,
Speaker 1: but you know, to pay back these massive gambling debts.
Speaker 1: That that was pretty crazy. And this guy, who was
Speaker 1: a number one rated radio host making millions of dollars
Speaker 1: is now going to be in jail for the next
Speaker 1: three years. Isn't that crazy? You know? And you look
Speaker 1: at it. You know, people, if they have a dead
Speaker 1: end and they know that something's going to happen to him,
Speaker 1: they come up within, you know, creative ways to get
Speaker 1: some financing. And I'm sure that's what he did. And
Speaker 1: with this ticket scheme, yeah, I mean but crazy, you know,
Speaker 1: just why would you do that? Because you're gonna pay
Speaker 1: the piper sooner or later. You know, somebody's gonna catch
Speaker 1: onto it. And a lot of times so these people
Speaker 1: don't look down the road what's gonna happen, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh, they just do what works expediently for them.
Speaker 1: There they got the money and they don't look at
Speaker 1: the consequences. Yeah, for those outside of New York who
Speaker 1: might not know, I mean, this guy's like a local
Speaker 1: celebrity here on you know, Sports Radio sixty six, major channel,
Speaker 1: and he was, uh, you might know a little bit more,
Speaker 1: but he was basically taking money from these major hedge
Speaker 1: fund guys and promising them tickets to big events, you know,
Speaker 1: Metallica and and other big concerts, and he apparently did
Speaker 1: not really have these tickets, and he was using that
Speaker 1: money to pay off gambling debt. And according to him,
Speaker 1: he had this massive gambling problem. I heard him give
Speaker 1: the whole interview on UM. I'm trying to think of
Speaker 1: where it was, but he he did an in depth
Speaker 1: interview about this on ESPN radio and said that he
Speaker 1: was such a gambling addict that he would get into
Speaker 1: at four am for his morning show. Uh. And there
Speaker 1: were nights where he would get a helicopter to a
Speaker 1: casino around here like Foxwoods at midnight, uh, and gamble
Speaker 1: for a few hours, get into his radio show. And
Speaker 1: you know, his his wife didn't know it was this
Speaker 1: big of a problem, and he got so caught up
Speaker 1: in it that he needed to pay this debt some way, right,
Speaker 1: you know that the it's really amazing. I don't not
Speaker 1: up on it really right now, but you know how
Speaker 1: it's always difficult to get theater tickets, concert tickets and
Speaker 1: I had a source way back. This is back in
Speaker 1: the eighties, and he started one of the first ticket
Speaker 1: broking companies in UH in existence and over New Jersey
Speaker 1: was it was allowed, you know, it was legal. And
Speaker 1: he had this company called Concert Bandwagon. And what he
Speaker 1: would do is he go to Old every major show,
Speaker 1: go into the guys that had the tickets and pay him.
Speaker 1: He goes, he ever knows, these guys make thirty thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: but they have a million dollar boat. He goes, that's
Speaker 1: because we're paying him off and they're making all kinds
Speaker 1: of money. Again, I don't know what's going on now,
Speaker 1: this is way back. And he would get the prime
Speaker 1: seats on every show, every every concert you know, and um,
Speaker 1: you know Madson Square Garden, and he'd be paying these
Speaker 1: guys off and he and he would take the tickets
Speaker 1: and he'd sell them for a thousand dollars. He pay
Speaker 1: face value for it selling a thousand, two thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: and it's it's amazing amount of money he was making.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you, um and talk about the
Speaker 1: politicization of the FBI, but before we get there, the
Speaker 1: other assignment you had, which I find very interesting is
Speaker 1: that you worked UM foreign counter intelligence for the bureau. Uh.
Speaker 1: What was your experience like there, as far as you
Speaker 1: know what you're allowed to talk about, Well, it was
Speaker 1: very unique. It was kind of funny how how things
Speaker 1: end and then something else begins. I had UM, I
Speaker 1: had one of the major sources in in the in
Speaker 1: the FBI an organized crime, and it was my opinion
Speaker 1: that my supervisor didn't want me to have him anymore
Speaker 1: because he had friends. Whatever, you wanted somebody else to
Speaker 1: have this source. So the next thing I know, he's
Speaker 1: given me a hard time. I had a huge battle
Speaker 1: with him one day and I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm leaving the office, you know. And I leave the office.
Speaker 1: I got a phone call and it's from a supervisor
Speaker 1: on the Foreignencounter Intelligence side and operations, and I have
Speaker 1: no idea what they did. And I had met this
Speaker 1: fellow and he was in an informant unit down to headquarters.
Speaker 1: I was there for two weeks and we became very
Speaker 1: good friends. His name was Mike Fallon, very smart guy, articulate.
Speaker 1: He goes, you know what you can. He goes, you
Speaker 1: have a great reputation and everybody knows you knows you
Speaker 1: are a good worker and we'd like to have you
Speaker 1: over in our unit. And he said you'd be interested
Speaker 1: as sure, definitely answer. He goes, really, I said yeah.
Speaker 1: He goes, this was on a Wednesday, and he goes,
Speaker 1: when can you start? I said, how about Monday? He goes,
Speaker 1: you're kidding me. I said, no, I'm ready. I've had
Speaker 1: enough with this and everything else because you're always fighting
Speaker 1: Department of Justice and things like that, which we can
Speaker 1: get into late if you want. But I had enough.
Speaker 1: He goes, Okay. I made the phone calls, so then
Speaker 1: called my my current boss. I said, I'm ad at you.
Speaker 1: I'm leaving, and he goes, that's fine. And I was
Speaker 1: going by monday. And this was a unit. Um in
Speaker 1: the in the FBI, we worked with other intelligence agencies.
Speaker 1: We did some magnificent, great stuff for this country. And UM,
Speaker 1: I can't talk about techniques or anything like that, but
Speaker 1: I can tell you this that we we were well watched.
Speaker 1: You know, we watched a lot of good things, and
Speaker 1: we we did a lot of good things for our country,
Speaker 1: a lot of intelligence gathering things. And it was six
Speaker 1: some of the best years I have had. And um,
Speaker 1: I'm saying before I said, you some guys when they
Speaker 1: don't have knowledge of what's going on, and see all
Speaker 1: you guys, you know, we don't do anything there because
Speaker 1: they don't know. And I said to him, I said,
Speaker 1: let me tell you something I did more on one
Speaker 1: day than you've done it in ten years for the
Speaker 1: safety of this country. You have no clue. And this,
Speaker 1: this is a great unit, and these guys do some
Speaker 1: fabulous stuff. There's some great brains out there, I mean,
Speaker 1: far beyond what I have that really can think on
Speaker 1: how to go against our adversaries. And that's what we did.
Speaker 1: We went and we have. As I said, virtually every
Speaker 1: country is after us, and I'm talking you know, Great Britain, France,
Speaker 1: or Japan, China, Russia, they're all looking to try to
Speaker 1: get an edge over us economically. And this we're trying
Speaker 1: to watch and keep up to make sure that we,
Speaker 1: you know, we can athwart their their efforts towards us.
Speaker 1: And there's been a lot of talk in the FBI,
Speaker 1: but in every across our government about counter terrorism since
Speaker 1: nine eleven, and we put the focus there for a reason. Um,
Speaker 1: but how would you rate this threat that comes from
Speaker 1: adversarial nations. Well, I think it's it's always going to
Speaker 1: be there because you people that have such different cultures
Speaker 1: from us that they're jealous and the religious fanatics that
Speaker 1: are out there and they don't care if they die
Speaker 1: doing what they you know, what they do. It's your
Speaker 1: experience over in Afghanistan and such, right, And that's the
Speaker 1: scary part. When you have somebody that doesn't care, how
Speaker 1: are you going to thwart this? And that's why our
Speaker 1: intelligence gathering has to be top notch, and even as
Speaker 1: good as we can be, you're gonna miss things because
Speaker 1: there are people that are very quiet, very stealthy, and
Speaker 1: they have they figure out whatever ways we can find them.
Speaker 1: They learn that, then they find alternate ways to communicate
Speaker 1: and alternate ways to commit these hannis hineous acts, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's always going to be there, and that's why
Speaker 1: they took the FBI made it more into UH intelligence
Speaker 1: for terrorism everything because you know, what happened in nine
Speaker 1: eleven should never happen every again. But it's it's scary,
Speaker 1: you know, really, especially with Iran, with the technology they
Speaker 1: are getting. They don't care what they do and their
Speaker 1: main goal is to take us down whatever, which way
Speaker 1: they can. Is that a tough balance for the bureau
Speaker 1: to find to balance counter terror some between versus say
Speaker 1: organized crime, say countering intelligence operations from foreign countries. I
Speaker 1: mean you have to find a balance between absolutely things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they look at the stacks. You know, we have the
Speaker 1: being coounters down in headquarters that they count bodies and
Speaker 1: what who's a lot of to certain programs and things
Speaker 1: like that, so they know to put certain people, you know,
Speaker 1: a certain amount of people for the terrorism aspect. And
Speaker 1: they've really gotten quite prolific at it. They've gotten very
Speaker 1: very good at you know, looking at who the suspects are,
Speaker 1: the countries. Uh, you know, we have very good ability
Speaker 1: to monitor conversations, you know, and the coordinating with the CIA,
Speaker 1: the n s A. And you know that's why when
Speaker 1: when you look at like i'd say, maybe civil libertarians
Speaker 1: that worry about the government big brother, well, you need
Speaker 1: to do things to be to be protected, to protect
Speaker 1: our population exactly. So you have some good some bad,
Speaker 1: you know. But you know, at the end, no matter what,
Speaker 1: it's always going to change. It's it's like um uh
Speaker 1: an amba morphing into something else, you know, And that's
Speaker 1: what they're doing. In the terrorism aspect, and they're gonna
Speaker 1: come up with unique ways. One of my scariest feelings are,
Speaker 1: you know, they can miniaturize atomic bombs, you know, and
Speaker 1: you look at Iran. They don't care what they do.
Speaker 1: They can come into in. One of the concerns was
Speaker 1: a dirty bomb in New York. What would that do
Speaker 1: to our economy if they set something off? You know,
Speaker 1: you're just send little pieces bit by bit and get
Speaker 1: an apartment and then let it go. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. We have to be really diligent about it.
Speaker 1: And that's why the the FBI and the government's really
Speaker 1: is looking at the terrorist aspect. It's very, very scary.
Speaker 1: And the other question that we wanted to ask you
Speaker 1: that we want to talk about, well, first off, I
Speaker 1: just want to say I love talking to guys like
Speaker 1: you can because I love talking to cops because it's
Speaker 1: uh like my normal work, you know, working as a journalist,
Speaker 1: I often talk to people in the intelligence community. I
Speaker 1: often talk to people in the military and I're like,
Speaker 1: I can't really talk to you about that, jack, you know,
Speaker 1: But with cops, what you guys do all becomes public
Speaker 1: knowledge after the prosecute exactly the case of the case
Speaker 1: public knowledge. So I mean, you guys can really go
Speaker 1: in depth and talk about, you know, the ins and
Speaker 1: outs of this. So it's like a really great conversation,
Speaker 1: So thank you. But um, we want to talk about
Speaker 1: the politicization of the FBI. And I mean I have
Speaker 1: as a as a lay person, I've never been a
Speaker 1: law enforcement officer looking at it and seeing on the
Speaker 1: outside in and um, I'm not particularly partisan. I don't
Speaker 1: whatever my feelings are aren't about President Trump. And I
Speaker 1: just want to see the facts come out. And if
Speaker 1: there's corruption, I'd like to see prosecutions, but I'm not
Speaker 1: interested in witch hunts, right, So I watch what's going
Speaker 1: on in the public sphere, and um, you know you
Speaker 1: had even mentioned to me some things about Comey and
Speaker 1: Brennan and making people, um, who were directors of the
Speaker 1: CIA or the director of the FBI making these pretty
Speaker 1: bombastic statements in public, and UM, it's like, wow, these
Speaker 1: are they're retired now, I get it, But these are
Speaker 1: instant tuitions that once prided themselves on unemotional objective analysis
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. And you know that's that's the upsetting part
Speaker 1: about all of this. That these these leaders came out
Speaker 1: and in making all these public statements and their whether
Speaker 1: you're feelings on Trump, but one way or the other,
Speaker 1: they should not be making these statements, you know, because
Speaker 1: when Brennan, you know, made all these statements at what
Speaker 1: Trump has done, his treasonist and all this other kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, and then he's and then he has the
Speaker 1: nerve to say, well I got some bad information. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was surreal. I said, listen, the CIA does not
Speaker 1: get bad information. If you get bad information, you don't
Speaker 1: use it well. And furthermore, if he had information and
Speaker 1: he said it on I mean, that was an illegal
Speaker 1: statement he made. That was a divulging of classified information.
Speaker 1: That's crazy, it really is. That's illegal from the get go.
Speaker 1: So the the upsetting aspect is when you when you
Speaker 1: really and do an analysis of these leaders from Brennan
Speaker 1: to come to Clapper, these guys that they look more
Speaker 1: of an appearance of like political hacks, and they do
Speaker 1: real leader is of the federal institutions that they represent.
Speaker 1: And I have never seen a director of the CIA
Speaker 1: or the FBI come out with statements like they have.
Speaker 1: Usually when the director's done, whether they get fired or
Speaker 1: they leave, they go into public life, or they retire,
Speaker 1: and you just go off into the sunset like the
Speaker 1: old Westerns, you know, right off, and that's it. These
Speaker 1: guys are not going away. What do you think of
Speaker 1: Bob muer then um as a director, he wasn't the
Speaker 1: best around, to be honest with you, but he's very
Speaker 1: adept man um. I don't know when he found that
Speaker 1: there was no collusion or whatever, and I'm only going
Speaker 1: by what I see in reports. I have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with anything out of that. But Mueller, it has
Speaker 1: always been known as a stand up guy that would
Speaker 1: do the right thing, and I think he gave it
Speaker 1: a good shot, you know, to do what he could
Speaker 1: do um and investigate and found nothing and you gotta
Speaker 1: live with it. That's that's what it is, you know.
Speaker 1: And this discourse that's going on between the political parties
Speaker 1: to try to get a political advantage, I think it's
Speaker 1: just hideous. Do you think he did a good job
Speaker 1: at s thing? Impartial? I think overall, I haven't really
Speaker 1: read the report. I just you know that here is
Speaker 1: ready summaries and things like that. I think it's okay,
Speaker 1: But when you look at who he had is on
Speaker 1: his team. You know again what I gave an example
Speaker 1: earlier before we went on air. I said, when I
Speaker 1: first became an FBI agent, one of our instructors said,
Speaker 1: you see that emblem up there as his Department of
Speaker 1: Justice and the FBI underneath it. He goes, the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice has been trying to take over the FBI
Speaker 1: for years, and he goes, so far now this and
Speaker 1: he said, so far we've been able to repel them,
Speaker 1: But there's gonna be a time when the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice is going to come in and they're going to
Speaker 1: be in management and they're gonna run what's going on now.
Speaker 1: The problem is a lot of Department of Justice employees
Speaker 1: are political appoint theees. So now you have people that
Speaker 1: are political appoint theees coming into a law enforcement agency. Now,
Speaker 1: human nature being the way it is, then you look
Speaker 1: at things you know that we're done. It's kind of
Speaker 1: scary to see the end result what really happened out
Speaker 1: of this stuff? And I guess the truth will come
Speaker 1: out later on. And in the FBI, the who are
Speaker 1: the political appointees? There's the director, he can appoint anybody
Speaker 1: he wants, the personnel, director assistant, but the director is
Speaker 1: the only real political appointee. Well, he's the first and
Speaker 1: only appointee by the president, and then he could bring
Speaker 1: in whoever he wants. And that they never did that
Speaker 1: years ago, back from um the very beginning, you know,
Speaker 1: and nobody brought in politicians who are people that were
Speaker 1: in political appointed positions. You know, when we had Jack Devine,
Speaker 1: who was the director of Operations for the CIA at
Speaker 1: one time, we interviewed him and he said, you know,
Speaker 1: the agency is actually very lucky in the sense that
Speaker 1: our only political appointee is the director and maybe his
Speaker 1: chief of staff. But that's about it. Well, I can
Speaker 1: tell you a story. There was James Calstrom, whose assistant
Speaker 1: director in New York. He was there for a number
Speaker 1: of years. Were there for Flight eight hundred. I was
Speaker 1: in the command center out there in ma Richus, which
Speaker 1: was quite an experience. UM. But Jim Calstrom, you know,
Speaker 1: he he gave a speech one time and I actually
Speaker 1: really noted that he said, call me, brought in a
Speaker 1: bunch of sycophants, and he didn't like call me one bit.
Speaker 1: And he said what he's done to the bureau is
Speaker 1: really really bad. And he's assistant director. He had a
Speaker 1: lot of context. So if that's who I rely upon
Speaker 1: people like that and then say, wow, you know that's
Speaker 1: that's what this man did. What do you think? What
Speaker 1: what is the before we get it a little bit
Speaker 1: deeper into it. What is the appropriate relationship between d
Speaker 1: o J and FBI? What what what are their lanes? Well,
Speaker 1: the lanes should be. The FBI is an autonomous investigative agency.
Speaker 1: We handle the investigations there that up there, the cops,
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice are the prosecutors. Now, we investigate
Speaker 1: the case. Sometimes we need subpoenas, sometimes we need cord orders.
Speaker 1: We have to work with the U S. Attorneys to
Speaker 1: get the orders and everything. They're supposed to provide services
Speaker 1: for us to make these cases. You process, to process
Speaker 1: everything and make sure that we follow the law, which
Speaker 1: we do. I have never seen anybody ever cut corners. Okay,
Speaker 1: but what they're supposed to work with us. Now, the
Speaker 1: lane is that they prosecute and we if they don't
Speaker 1: feel they have enough evidence, all right, go out and
Speaker 1: get more evidence. We go and get the more evidence,
Speaker 1: give it to them. Okay, Now we have enough and
Speaker 1: we have witnesses, we have tapes, we have financial records,
Speaker 1: and they'll go and prosecute and you work together and
Speaker 1: prepare for trial and then you do the trial together.
Speaker 1: And that's the way it's supposed to work. But now
Speaker 1: it's to a degree with the Apartment of Justice. Is okay,
Speaker 1: I want you to go here and go talk to
Speaker 1: this guy. I want you to do this, and that
Speaker 1: is that lawful? There, you're a team. I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think it's illegal at all, but
Speaker 1: it's it's this is what's happening now. They're taking over
Speaker 1: UH basically the direction of cases and of law enforcement
Speaker 1: investigation and that. And that's the scary part. Again. A
Speaker 1: lot of these people, again the assistant the United States
Speaker 1: Attorney's Southern District, Eastern District, across the country, their political
Speaker 1: point these the president appoints him. So when you have
Speaker 1: president like Obama, he put a lot of rule people
Speaker 1: in there. So that's that's in the culture. And they
Speaker 1: were in there for a very long time and they
Speaker 1: started pointing other other people. So when you look at
Speaker 1: what happened with the Russian investigation with you know, with
Speaker 1: the UH silicious, salacious UH dossier and things like that,
Speaker 1: and then or and all these people, they were all liberals,
Speaker 1: and you you kind of wonder, you know, what's really
Speaker 1: going on here? And they who directed who you know,
Speaker 1: did the FBI have this case and then brought it
Speaker 1: to them. I don't know, it looks like the Department
Speaker 1: Justice brought it over to the FBI, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I suppose maybe it'll all come out in the wash
Speaker 1: and it's something for the history books. But just from
Speaker 1: my perspective, it does seem pretty clear that they hyped
Speaker 1: it up to such an extent. And um, I am
Speaker 1: glad we live in a country of you know, due
Speaker 1: process where they you know, they did their investigation that
Speaker 1: came back said, okay, well there wasn't collusion. We looked,
Speaker 1: but it's not there, right. I have worked on over
Speaker 1: thirty wire taps. I've I've sat on the wires up
Speaker 1: in Connecticut where I was up there, I sat on
Speaker 1: wires down here. I wrote a bunch of Affi David's
Speaker 1: and I'll give you a perfect example of a situation
Speaker 1: that happened in the Department of Justice. We were doing.
Speaker 1: I was doing the the Affi David for the Car book.
Speaker 1: I had four different sources, and one source was a female,
Speaker 1: and she worked in an office of this lawyer where
Speaker 1: Victory was having all his meetings. We're a better place
Speaker 1: to have a meeting because they know they can't bug
Speaker 1: at the guy's a lawyer unless we get enough problem
Speaker 1: cause which Department of Justice doesn't want to go after attorneys.
Speaker 1: Which I had a hard time getting a search warrant
Speaker 1: for his office. Believe me, it took me well over
Speaker 1: a year. It was crazy. So they my source was
Speaker 1: worked for the attorney and she was in with the mob,
Speaker 1: and the mob was in the office every single day,
Speaker 1: and she was my source giving me all this information.
Speaker 1: So we're writing the Affidavid and the U S attorneys sist.
Speaker 1: The United States attorney that was working with me said, okay,
Speaker 1: read my part that I put in there. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: you really can't. I said, you're putting down the persons
Speaker 1: of female. She works the hours from eight until five,
Speaker 1: you know, and she's in the office every day and
Speaker 1: that's her bona fides for the information. I said, he
Speaker 1: can't put that in there. She goes. If that doesn't stay,
Speaker 1: they we're not doing the order. So I'm sitting there
Speaker 1: looking at her. You didn't want it in there because
Speaker 1: would blow your sword absolutely that that source will be
Speaker 1: dead in ten minutes after this gets revealed. There's no
Speaker 1: doubt about it. So I said, you know what, I said,
Speaker 1: what you could play this game and said, all right, fine,
Speaker 1: leave it in there. They left it in. We finished
Speaker 1: the whole thing and finally it took weeks to get
Speaker 1: it together. Before we put the car bug in. He said,
Speaker 1: that's a go if you really look at what happens
Speaker 1: with wire taps, and a lot of people in the
Speaker 1: in the country don't understand us. We're getting the problem
Speaker 1: causing the FBI, and we work with the Department of Justice.
Speaker 1: So after we finished writing the affidavit and to get
Speaker 1: the order it goes back. We send a copy down
Speaker 1: to FBI headquarters, the legal unit. They look at it,
Speaker 1: they look at it with a fine tooth comb, and
Speaker 1: it goes down to the Department of Justice in their
Speaker 1: review unit, and then it goes up through different realms
Speaker 1: of authority and it has to be approved all the
Speaker 1: way up. I can't tell you how many times take
Speaker 1: this period out, put a COMI here, crazy little even
Speaker 1: radical things, and it goes all the way up to
Speaker 1: the top, and then it's finally approved by the assistant
Speaker 1: director and also Department of Justice, U S. Attorney, they're representative,
Speaker 1: and then it comes back to us and then we
Speaker 1: go to the court and swear it out before a judge.
Speaker 1: So I was very cognizant of every bit of information
Speaker 1: that was true and accurate, and you stood up there.
Speaker 1: I was still nervous because sometimes you don't know if
Speaker 1: the source is going to be lying to you or whatever,
Speaker 1: but you try to do the best you can to
Speaker 1: corroborate it. So I always made sure I corroborated by
Speaker 1: not only one source. I had four sources in this
Speaker 1: one particular AFFI David. And I was still nervous swearing
Speaker 1: out because I was worried that something might not be
Speaker 1: true and I'm gonna go to jail. That's why this
Speaker 1: fires a warrant is kind of scary because that's the
Speaker 1: level that I has to go to. So any how,
Speaker 1: what happens was the get it all done, and the U. S.
Speaker 1: Attorney's assistant says, okay, let's get a signus. I'm not
Speaker 1: signing it because why not, I said, you take that
Speaker 1: paragraph out that reveals my source. She went nuts, I'm
Speaker 1: getting you fired. Called my as called him up personally
Speaker 1: right in front of me. I want ken Steiger fired.
Speaker 1: What he has done is an abomination. We want to
Speaker 1: get this thing done. He's keeping us from doing it,
Speaker 1: and he's stopping the whole investigation. And this will not
Speaker 1: happen now, Don said to the Assistant United States Attorney.
Speaker 1: If ken Steiger said, it doesn't belong on that after David,
Speaker 1: it does not belong there. Take it out or forget it,
Speaker 1: big balls. Really absolutely, she was, as my mother would say,
Speaker 1: she was met at than a wet hen. I'm telling it.
Speaker 1: She was so mat and she had to take it out.
Speaker 1: What's the big deal? Take a paragraph out? You're you're
Speaker 1: getting stuck on something that you can have somebody killed.
Speaker 1: And it didn't matter to her. And that's one of
Speaker 1: the things the differences I find between the FBI. When
Speaker 1: we we've developed these sources, you become a little bit
Speaker 1: emotionally involved with these people. Want you don't want to
Speaker 1: see him get killed. You don't want to seem getting
Speaker 1: beaten up. And they're calling you, they're calling me when
Speaker 1: problems come up. The Department of Justice, they look at it.
Speaker 1: They don't care. I mean, it's just a name to them,
Speaker 1: and they don't mind if people get burned at times,
Speaker 1: some of these assistants, and it's kind of scary, and
Speaker 1: that's the that's the difference. And we have to go
Speaker 1: back out on the streets and if you burn somebody,
Speaker 1: what's your reputation going to be? If the word gets
Speaker 1: out that you had somebody as a source and the
Speaker 1: guy gets burned, you know. So it's it's really it's
Speaker 1: really a tough road to go down. From your perspective,
Speaker 1: this is increasingly a problem that the Department of Justice
Speaker 1: is intervening, their coming in laterally and telling the FBI
Speaker 1: where they need to go, what they need to do.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, yes, you know, it's it's very very
Speaker 1: difficult for these agents, and I know, especially out on
Speaker 1: Long Island. You know, they're working the Gang Task Force
Speaker 1: out there, and you know, some of these assistants, you know,
Speaker 1: sit there. I want it done this way, and you know,
Speaker 1: and they have some battles and the FBI loses almost
Speaker 1: every single one because the management backs up Department Justice.
Speaker 1: You know, hey, we have to get along, you know,
Speaker 1: and that's you have to do what's right. I'd rather
Speaker 1: do what's right first and even lose a case than
Speaker 1: do something that I have to live with for the
Speaker 1: rest of my life. It's somebody's gets killed or something happens,
Speaker 1: you know, And I mean is also part of it,
Speaker 1: sounds like part of the division between you know, labor
Speaker 1: and management. I mean, if prosecutor doesn't walk the streets,
Speaker 1: they don't necessarily know where to look in the first place.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's exactly. That's like somebody like you knows
Speaker 1: that part of it. Absolutely, we're out on the streets.
Speaker 1: And again I say, we're out of the streets, something
Speaker 1: I was for years. But you know, you're out there,
Speaker 1: you're talking to people, you're developing sources, and it's it's
Speaker 1: not easy. I mean, it's it's not easy to get
Speaker 1: somebody to do something, especially in organized crime venue, to
Speaker 1: get them to talk to you when their nature is
Speaker 1: not to talk to you. And everybody, you know, human
Speaker 1: nature is very unique. Some people might be mad at somebody.
Speaker 1: They'll give you information, or they might want money or
Speaker 1: revenge or whatever, and they use those tools in your
Speaker 1: tool bag to get these people to talk to you.
Speaker 1: And when you're out there dealing with these people, and
Speaker 1: then if the apartment of Justice. They don't care. So
Speaker 1: what are you going to do? You know, again, you're
Speaker 1: sitting there at some people. Somebody might get killed, they
Speaker 1: might get beaten up. I had one source that was
Speaker 1: that was shot and killed, all right. He was he
Speaker 1: was in a hotel room. I don't know who did it,
Speaker 1: but they talked about it from other sources and he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: we've got this guy, you know. And I couldn't put
Speaker 1: a case together, you know. He was shot right in
Speaker 1: the heart in the hotel room. And it still affects me.
Speaker 1: And I saw the man dead there, you know, and
Speaker 1: it really bothers me. And the guy was a family guy,
Speaker 1: and he was a guy who had the ticket operation.
Speaker 1: He was a bookmaker too, you know. He did all
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff with a Colombo family and he had
Speaker 1: a great family, a nice wife, the kids, I met
Speaker 1: them and stuff. And then the man's dead now, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's it's really it gets upsetting. But when you
Speaker 1: have the Department of Justice and there they put a
Speaker 1: wall down. A lot of these people they don't have compassion.
Speaker 1: They don't understand what you're doing out on the streets.
Speaker 1: And now you're a repute. I have a reputation. I
Speaker 1: had a reputation out there. I was a good guy
Speaker 1: who do always do the right thing. You know, something
Speaker 1: you were saying earlier brought another question to my mind.
Speaker 1: You were talking about civil libertarians and kind of the
Speaker 1: line between people having their personal privacy and freedom and
Speaker 1: you guys or what you you did do? Having to
Speaker 1: watch over that. Now in today's um society, we've had
Speaker 1: a lot of these lone wolf attacks where people find
Speaker 1: out on Facebook. You know, if you look at the
Speaker 1: San Bernardino shooting that these guys were radicalized, and people say,
Speaker 1: why why didn't we do anything? When they're posting all
Speaker 1: this stuff about in some cases radical Islam in some
Speaker 1: cases other some other radical ideology. Where is the line
Speaker 1: on that where you know, someone gets a knock on
Speaker 1: their door because they're posting something completely insane on Facebook,
Speaker 1: and you know, we could get someone out of commission
Speaker 1: before they actually go through with an act like that. Well,
Speaker 1: that's that's the problem. You'd be violating people's rights when
Speaker 1: he's going to monitor him. But if they're posting out
Speaker 1: on Facebook, you know, the FBI can't be everywhere, and
Speaker 1: that's the problem. You have million people, how many members.
Speaker 1: There's not that many FBI agents, really actual badged agents.
Speaker 1: There's not very many. I don't know, I might be
Speaker 1: around tops ten thousand all across the world. When I
Speaker 1: came in, it was five thousand of them of us,
Speaker 1: you know, and that that was very very few. So
Speaker 1: when I finally became an FBI agents, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm only one of five thousand, you know, throughout the
Speaker 1: whole world. But what they did was when Louis Free
Speaker 1: became director, he ended up putting UH league ats leevelutches
Speaker 1: and put FBI and all the all the different embassies
Speaker 1: throughout the world. So because he knew terrorism was going
Speaker 1: to start the perk up and he was way ahead
Speaker 1: of the curve on that. So when you look at it,
Speaker 1: you know obviously Facebook, and this is what the problem
Speaker 1: is with the libertarians and stuff. I mean, we look
Speaker 1: at Apple when we're trying to get the information from
Speaker 1: the terrorists, they co operated zero. They would not give
Speaker 1: us information. So the FBI had to go to a hacker.
Speaker 1: From what I understand, they paid the guy a million
Speaker 1: dollars to hack into the phone so you can get
Speaker 1: all the data. And that's the that's the problem. Here.
Speaker 1: You know, when you look at you know, Facebook, they're
Speaker 1: not cooperative like you really think they should be, because
Speaker 1: the FBI is not just looking at everybody they have
Speaker 1: problem cause they they have a reason to think that
Speaker 1: something is happening. They're not just going after Joe Schmoe
Speaker 1: for this for the sake of going after him. You know,
Speaker 1: I gotta waste your time with that. So somebody obviously
Speaker 1: made might have made a phone call. So hey, you
Speaker 1: gotta look at this guy. You look at the postings,
Speaker 1: and you know, you want to find account information and
Speaker 1: then overly cooperates. The gotta get court orders. I mean,
Speaker 1: it takes a long time, and by that time, that
Speaker 1: guy could be out committing Hannah's heineous acts, you know,
Speaker 1: killing people. You know, just like the last week, I
Speaker 1: think it was mostly revolving around Twitter actually, but there's
Speaker 1: this big consternation like how come Twitter has no problem
Speaker 1: being able to censor a group like ISIS or al Qaeda,
Speaker 1: but they can't censor white nationalists. And I mean the
Speaker 1: people just don't understand that they are these legal distinctions,
Speaker 1: like ISIS is on the Foreign Terrorist Organization lists, there
Speaker 1: are foreign entity there on the FTO like, fuck them.
Speaker 1: They don't have any rights. Americans, even Americans who express
Speaker 1: ideas we really disagree with and we really don't like,
Speaker 1: like white supremacists, there are American citizens. They have legal protections.
Speaker 1: There's a big difference between two. Well, that's the whole thing.
Speaker 1: You know, when you're in law enforcement. They drill that
Speaker 1: into you when you go into the academy and every
Speaker 1: day when you're dealing with the U. S. Attorney's Office.
Speaker 1: You don't want to violate anybody's rights. And that's what
Speaker 1: I always I kind of joke a little bit about
Speaker 1: organized crime. They have no rules. You know, they go
Speaker 1: out and do whatever they want. Terrorists have no rules,
Speaker 1: But law enforcement have rules. You have guidelines, and we
Speaker 1: don't go out and violate people's rights. And I know
Speaker 1: there are all these conspiracy theories that the FBI is
Speaker 1: doing all this stuff and you know your phones are
Speaker 1: clicking or whatever. They don't. They don't have that ability.
Speaker 1: Believe me when I tell you that it doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: So I gotta tell you something that that kind of
Speaker 1: ties into this. Uh. I worked with a guy I
Speaker 1: won't I won't mention his name. Um in one of
Speaker 1: my earlier gigs who um was like a huge fan
Speaker 1: of Fight Club and I guess he had some bad
Speaker 1: instance at an Apple store in New York City. On
Speaker 1: his Facebook page, he wrote his name which I won't say,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's out there, but might walk into an
Speaker 1: Apple store and Fifth Avenue within a mary light a
Speaker 1: R ten gas powered semi automatic weapon and pump around
Speaker 1: after around into one of those smug, fruity little concierges,
Speaker 1: which he paraphrased from Fight Club, and you know, some
Speaker 1: agency came to his door. He get a knock and
Speaker 1: they looked into it. You know, ultimately he got off
Speaker 1: because they realized there was no real threat there. But
Speaker 1: it was just so insane to me that this guy
Speaker 1: went to court over this and he's like, I'm a
Speaker 1: disabled Army veteran. You know this is not what I
Speaker 1: fought for. You don't fucking write that on Facebook. I
Speaker 1: don't care who you are. I don't I don't care
Speaker 1: that you were an army veteran. You know. I thought
Speaker 1: it was such a lame excuse. And then you know,
Speaker 1: NPR did a piece on this guy and it was
Speaker 1: very sympathetic towards him. And I'm not sympathetic towards him
Speaker 1: in the least, you don't write that you're threatening to
Speaker 1: kill civilians. I mean, he's like, but but it was
Speaker 1: a movie quote. Well, we don't know the context of that, right,
Speaker 1: And you don't say that's the problem. You don't know
Speaker 1: where these people are really coming from. You don't know
Speaker 1: the background. So when you see something like that, what
Speaker 1: if they didn't go and talk to him and he
Speaker 1: did kill a bunch of people, and then we'd be
Speaker 1: looking at you. Why didn't you do anything? Exactly you
Speaker 1: knew this was happening, you didn't do anything. So at
Speaker 1: least they address it. You know, common sense in life
Speaker 1: goes a long way, and some of these people do
Speaker 1: not have any common sense. And why would you host
Speaker 1: something like that? Why do I swat teams coming up
Speaker 1: my door? I fought for this country and you can't
Speaker 1: use that as an excuse for that type of behavior.
Speaker 1: It's like people like I know you've heard it Ian
Speaker 1: people who call up to like Howard Stern and start
Speaker 1: talking about killing the president. Yeah, and you know Howard's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you you can't say that, man, Like well, that type
Speaker 1: of stuff. I mean, we've had some crazy stuff when
Speaker 1: I worked on Willcow and you know, we had to
Speaker 1: dump that type of stuff. That's why you have the
Speaker 1: eight seconds away. Um. You know, even on shows that
Speaker 1: are uncensored, they have it because you could curse on
Speaker 1: that show. But you can't go on air and threatening
Speaker 1: to kill someone. You know, you have to dump that
Speaker 1: type of thing. And and you don't know when someone
Speaker 1: is being humorous and so when someone is not. Remember
Speaker 1: OPI and Anthony a few years back got suspended from
Speaker 1: x uh what was x M at the time for
Speaker 1: the merger because they had a homeless guy in studio
Speaker 1: and he said he wanted to rape Condoleeza Rice, you know,
Speaker 1: and the whole argument was like, is this is this
Speaker 1: free speech? And they were saying, well, you know, when
Speaker 1: is a homeless guy going to get the uh, you know,
Speaker 1: opportunity to rape the best defense, you know, but that's
Speaker 1: a threat. So it works for the administration and you
Speaker 1: can't say things like that. And you know, I'm sure
Speaker 1: they're thinking that this is funny, you know, let's say
Speaker 1: they're kind of comics and stuff. But that's the problem.
Speaker 1: You know, now the tenor of the times now, you
Speaker 1: just don't know where people are coming from so you
Speaker 1: have to, you know, really be cautious. You don't want
Speaker 1: to violate people's rights, but you have to make sure
Speaker 1: that you have the due diligence and you do the
Speaker 1: right thing. We're in a world where school shootings are happening,
Speaker 1: crazy place violence. Yeah, it's really a shame that the
Speaker 1: country is. I think there's so many people now, I mean,
Speaker 1: you have all three fifty million people. I always looked
Speaker 1: at it. There was always there's always a certain amount
Speaker 1: of insane people per per one people. You have three
Speaker 1: fifty million people. There's a lot of crazy people walking
Speaker 1: out there. And if you look at what happened, you know,
Speaker 1: back in the days, we used to have Pilgrim State Hospital.
Speaker 1: A lot of these people are putting into institutions. Then
Speaker 1: you have the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, creed More. They did
Speaker 1: a study on that and all that stuff was done.
Speaker 1: Now these people are out in the streets, they have
Speaker 1: no place to go, and then you get into social
Speaker 1: media and you don't know what's gonna happen. I mean,
Speaker 1: they don't take that medication. There's people doing shootings and
Speaker 1: broadcasting it on Facebook Live. I mean, and I think
Speaker 1: the goal of many of these people is to become immortal,
Speaker 1: to become famous. They have nothing else to live for.
Speaker 1: And with the current climate, you can become more famous
Speaker 1: than ever now for committing a heinous act of working
Speaker 1: hard from nine to five that your entire life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, look at Hinckley, you know, they just I mean,
Speaker 1: band was insane, trying to kill Reagan and stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: and just these people act on their impulses and they
Speaker 1: can't stop. And the man they was insane for a
Speaker 1: long time. You know. I think it's worse today with
Speaker 1: with the Internet, with social media, that that these people
Speaker 1: are in a sense committing copycat crimes that they see
Speaker 1: someone else doing. Like oh yeah, that's absolutely because you know,
Speaker 1: now it's out there, they can you can look up
Speaker 1: anything and you can see actual visual visual representations of
Speaker 1: what these people did, and they get you know, these
Speaker 1: people who you know have mental issues, and they look
Speaker 1: at and say, I could do that. You know, I'll
Speaker 1: be famous. I'll show them, you know type of thing.
Speaker 1: You know what, This might have been a better question
Speaker 1: for someone like Dan Bongino, who was Secret Service that
Speaker 1: we had on, But I'm wondering your take on it.
Speaker 1: With the last two presidents in particular. You know, you
Speaker 1: have Barack Obama, who is the first black president. There's
Speaker 1: plenty of white supremacist activity out there. Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: hated by all types of groups. How many you know,
Speaker 1: serious death threats to the president do you think intelligence
Speaker 1: has towards it. I think they have dozens and dozens
Speaker 1: for both, you know, and these people, you know, they
Speaker 1: get so incensed, and especially with the media, and there's
Speaker 1: not much so much um um material that's out there
Speaker 1: through the Internet. These people access it and they get
Speaker 1: all worked up over it, you know. I mean both
Speaker 1: presidents were pretty divisive, even stuff that's not true exactly,
Speaker 1: and they believe this stuff, you know, and people post
Speaker 1: things that you know that this is the truth and
Speaker 1: what you know, this is what happened, and when when
Speaker 1: in fact it's not even close to being reminds me
Speaker 1: of like that Pizza Gate thing where the guy with
Speaker 1: a with a rifle shows up at a pizza party
Speaker 1: or a pizza parlor in DC because he thinks the
Speaker 1: Democrats are running like pedophile parties or some crazy shit.
Speaker 1: In investment, It's like you know, just think anybody can
Speaker 1: post anything and that's the scary part, and people will
Speaker 1: will believe it. Yeah, I mean, we've discussed it. This
Speaker 1: is why the families of the Sandy Hook victims, of
Speaker 1: those children are suing Alex Jones, because they, you know,
Speaker 1: felt there were threats on their lives from him coming
Speaker 1: out there. There was one guy who was a part
Speaker 1: of the family who started an organization to kind of
Speaker 1: take down the speech, the conspiracy stuff out there about
Speaker 1: the Sandy Hook families being actors and it being a
Speaker 1: hoax and watching that, uh what what would you call it?
Speaker 1: The disposition the deposition Alex with Alexe Jones, the thing
Speaker 1: that was that stood out in particular because I actually
Speaker 1: wanted to learn more about, you know, why they were
Speaker 1: suing him in particular. But so one of these guys
Speaker 1: started an organization to get rid of this type of
Speaker 1: speech out there on the internet, but he was not
Speaker 1: public about who was. And Alex Jones went out there
Speaker 1: and gave this guy's po box number on the air,
Speaker 1: revealing his identity. And the lawyer questioning Alex Jones was saying,
Speaker 1: you know, doesn't this mean that one of your fans
Speaker 1: who might be mentally ill or something could wait outside
Speaker 1: the po box and possibly shoot this guy. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are serious things out there. To some people, this
Speaker 1: is just a guy giving out, you know, using his
Speaker 1: free speech. But to other people this could um there
Speaker 1: could be a death involved in in someone that they
Speaker 1: believe is involved in some crazy conspiracy theory. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of mentally ill people out there consuming media. And Uh,
Speaker 1: it's weird because I am a true believer in one
Speaker 1: understand free speech at the same time that I would
Speaker 1: say that does cross the line of free speech when
Speaker 1: it could involve I don't know. There just has to
Speaker 1: be I guess the way I would put it in there,
Speaker 1: there has to be some responsibility of what you put
Speaker 1: out there, knowing that there are people who could consume
Speaker 1: what you're putting out there and believing whatever you're saying
Speaker 1: and want revenge for whatever it is you're putting out there. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, civility is going by the wayside, you know,
Speaker 1: and the people that they're faceless entities behind a keyboard
Speaker 1: and they feel that they could say whatever they want
Speaker 1: and go after him and like an Alex Jones or whatever. Again,
Speaker 1: use some common sense. Whatever you say and do can
Speaker 1: affect other people's lives that people could die, get are
Speaker 1: injured or whatever. But it seems to be less control,
Speaker 1: you know. And you know, I grew up back in
Speaker 1: the in the fifties and sixties. You respected people, you know,
Speaker 1: even go on their property and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Everybody had your own little lane and everything. Nowadays, you know,
Speaker 1: they don't mind getting in your face. And they're doing
Speaker 1: all things on the internet and saying horrible things and rumors.
Speaker 1: And look at the kids at school. I mean, I
Speaker 1: mean kids have been committing suicide because they've picked on
Speaker 1: all through the internet and everything. This is horrible and
Speaker 1: because and that's just immature activities. And these these kids
Speaker 1: have been killing themselves because the statements of other people,
Speaker 1: and they get ganged up on and where they're gonna go?
Speaker 1: What are they gonna do? People just say these things
Speaker 1: on on the internet or on social media, and they
Speaker 1: think there aren't any consequences of exactly know, they don't
Speaker 1: think through how it impacts other people, right absolutely, especially
Speaker 1: you know in what you're talking about, you know, a twelve, thirteen,
Speaker 1: fourteen year old kid, they obviously take things a little
Speaker 1: differently than a grown man. Yeah, you know, their brains
Speaker 1: aren't developed yet, they don't the common sense is out
Speaker 1: the window. And then you know, they just they do things,
Speaker 1: you know, and then very impulsive and it could be
Speaker 1: very negative. You know. As I said, he's here all
Speaker 1: the time. And remember there was one case where one
Speaker 1: of the girls mothers was actually uh tweeting and texting
Speaker 1: about this kid. You know, she was ugly, remember that,
Speaker 1: and the girl committed suicide and the mother was involved
Speaker 1: with it. You know, I mean, just crazy stuff. I
Speaker 1: mean this, this is a breakdown of society. Really when
Speaker 1: you look at this type of stuff, you know, where's
Speaker 1: the respect, you know, and that's that's the one thing.
Speaker 1: And then law enforcement, you know, we really go out,
Speaker 1: you know and try to respect everybody, respect their rights
Speaker 1: and do the right thing. And and you want if
Speaker 1: we always did it. If you're gonna do a case,
Speaker 1: you're gonna do it right. They're no shortcuts. And I
Speaker 1: remember the report. I asked me one day about Sunny Frenzies.
Speaker 1: He said, you know, do you think he was really
Speaker 1: set up with his bank robbery? And I said, listen,
Speaker 1: I've been around for forty four years. I have never
Speaker 1: seen anybody frame somebody because you couldn't get him on
Speaker 1: other other charges, you know what I'm saying. So either
Speaker 1: we get him right and do it the right way,
Speaker 1: or you don't do it and you get beat a lot,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, just you can't make cases and
Speaker 1: it's happened. You know. Have you ever thought about going
Speaker 1: through your old case files, maybe interviewing some of these
Speaker 1: mobsters and writing about it. Absolutely, Um, there's two guys
Speaker 1: I want to interview and talk to it. I want
Speaker 1: to Victorina just got out of jail, I understand, and
Speaker 1: there's other fellow, Dennis Pappas, who was the lawyer. And
Speaker 1: do you think they would be cool like sitting down
Speaker 1: having a beer. I could think, you know, as my understanding,
Speaker 1: as Victorina became a preacher in jail, so there might
Speaker 1: be a shot there. So I was going to write
Speaker 1: him the next thing I know, he's he's out of jail,
Speaker 1: so we'll see what happens. Because I've had so many
Speaker 1: unique experiences with these guys. I mean, not many people
Speaker 1: worked organized crime like I didn't had the cases and
Speaker 1: especially the Columbo War, and you know how everything transpired,
Speaker 1: and you know, there was all kinds of crazy accusation
Speaker 1: aations about this fellow um AN agent, Linda Vecchio, that
Speaker 1: he was on the mob's side, and was. I mean
Speaker 1: it was. It got really nasty there for a while.
Speaker 1: It was horrible, And I just made sure no matter
Speaker 1: what I did, I stayed in my lane. I stayed
Speaker 1: true to the case and did everything the right way
Speaker 1: to cut any corner. So I knew I'd never have
Speaker 1: a problem with anything. But you know that the informants
Speaker 1: are really they're very, very tricky. They're double edged sword. Um,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a source that he gives you great information,
Speaker 1: but next thing you know, you don't know if he's
Speaker 1: going back to the mob and say, you know, they're
Speaker 1: gonna put a bug in you got social club. And
Speaker 1: I think that happened to me a couple of times,
Speaker 1: once in particular, and um this guy named Scarpa was
Speaker 1: a source. He ended up he was involved in the
Speaker 1: columbu where he was killing people all over the place,
Speaker 1: and he was a source. And I'm almost positive he
Speaker 1: was one guy who was asked and I was going
Speaker 1: to put a bug in the social club. Next thing
Speaker 1: you know, they ripped the entire social club, apart and
Speaker 1: they put an apartment in there. Something happened, you know,
Speaker 1: and that tells me something happened with the guy um
Speaker 1: as I said, a double edged sword. And that's why
Speaker 1: you have to be You don't take a gift from
Speaker 1: these guys. You don't socialize with them, you don't hang out,
Speaker 1: you don't go out with their families, you don't go
Speaker 1: to weddings, you know, as friends or whatever. You just
Speaker 1: it's a business, uh position, and you just do everything
Speaker 1: in the right way and you'll never have a problem.
Speaker 1: And that when I go to bed at night, I
Speaker 1: put my head on the pillow because I know I
Speaker 1: did the best I could every single day. I treated
Speaker 1: these guys with respect, and I did the best I
Speaker 1: could with all the information that we had, and we
Speaker 1: got a lot of guys the right way. And I'm
Speaker 1: very thankful for that, and you know, good time doing
Speaker 1: it and very unique experiences for sure. I just I
Speaker 1: would love to be a fly on the walls. Uh see,
Speaker 1: if you ever, like, sit down have a drink with
Speaker 1: some of these guys. And I'm just curious that there
Speaker 1: would be like some mutual respect or if they'd be
Speaker 1: like I mean, I could understand if they hold a grudge,
Speaker 1: you know, if you threw, you threw them in the slammer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I didn't do the illegal activities. Yeah, yeah, tell people,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm sorry. I mean they made their choice,
Speaker 1: you made yours. You know. It's almost like the old
Speaker 1: game of Cops and Roberts, Ye of the bad guys,
Speaker 1: and it's our job to go chase him and and
Speaker 1: get him and get him right, you know. And you know,
Speaker 1: they fought the best they could in court and everything else,
Speaker 1: and you know, and they were judged by twelve members
Speaker 1: of the appears, and they were convicted. And that's that's it.
Speaker 1: They had many bites of the apple, and you know
Speaker 1: it's actually in your your favorite you know, you can.
Speaker 1: All you have to do is convince one juror that
Speaker 1: you know it's not right. And what they did, they
Speaker 1: convicted him, and that that's it. You know. I'm curious
Speaker 1: what you think some solutions are of what needs to
Speaker 1: be done at the FBI right now, because we've pointed
Speaker 1: out a lot of things that are going wrong. How
Speaker 1: can we turn this around? I think the new director,
Speaker 1: from the information I have, he's doing the right things.
Speaker 1: He's changed all the upper management, Um, all those people
Speaker 1: that were involved in in the that the investigation with
Speaker 1: the struck and all all those people were all gone.
Speaker 1: So we had to put some good, responsible people in there.
Speaker 1: And I don't know who they are in particular because
Speaker 1: I haven't really followed up on things that I've heard.
Speaker 1: He's put in great people in leadership, and um, he's
Speaker 1: righting the ship, you know. And when you look, you know,
Speaker 1: I think the rest of the stories you have to
Speaker 1: be written about the uh the do ci A and
Speaker 1: how the case even got started. As I said, when
Speaker 1: I did wire taps and uh Affi David's, I made
Speaker 1: sure I was right down the line and I everything
Speaker 1: was factual at best of my ability. I did everything
Speaker 1: in the right way. When you look at you hear
Speaker 1: the stuff about how they did this, it's disconcerting, you know.
Speaker 1: And then again these silly tests, text messages got out,
Speaker 1: you know, between the two or whatever. I just I've
Speaker 1: never seen that in my life. As I said, I've
Speaker 1: been around the FBI for forty four years. I never
Speaker 1: saw that. And we don't and we're in the office,
Speaker 1: we don't talk politics. Doesn't happen. These people are mission
Speaker 1: oriented you know, obviously not the military. But you know,
Speaker 1: these guys, everybody does their job and they have fun
Speaker 1: doing it. They you know, they engage each other and
Speaker 1: talking like a regular like a family, and that's what
Speaker 1: they call it, the FBI family. And we respect one
Speaker 1: another and they do the cases. But I have never
Speaker 1: seen anybody ever talk politics, text politics, hate presidents or
Speaker 1: anything like that. You know, you always kept that inside
Speaker 1: your professional side. You just did your job. Between that
Speaker 1: and what was going on with the UH the who
Speaker 1: was the security manager for the Senate Select Committee on
Speaker 1: Intelligence UH talking to reporters and clearly had a political bias.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, you're right, it's disconcerting. It should never
Speaker 1: happen that stuff. I know, the reporters, they had jobs
Speaker 1: to go out there. It's like develop informance and they're
Speaker 1: going out to develop their sources as law enforcement to
Speaker 1: find out what's going on and going to the Congress
Speaker 1: or whatever to try to get stories. Well, you know what,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stories that really don't should not
Speaker 1: be told, you know, for the general public, because you
Speaker 1: know it's it's secret information and trying to do the
Speaker 1: right thing and the stuff that comes out, you know,
Speaker 1: you're actually breaking down our our society by giving that
Speaker 1: information out. And you know, some of it could be
Speaker 1: vitle and good, but other stuff because you have a
Speaker 1: political agenda. I don't care what your agenda is. You
Speaker 1: just do your job and do it the right way,
Speaker 1: and then when you're done with your service, you walk away.
Speaker 1: And that's why I think it's upsetting that called Me's
Speaker 1: out there doing what he's doing, tweeting and writing books
Speaker 1: and doing all that stuff. Just you had your turn,
Speaker 1: you swong, and you hit the ball a couple of
Speaker 1: times and you missed, and then you go on, just
Speaker 1: go and live your life. You know, when when Comey
Speaker 1: was I think he was tweeting out pictures of like
Speaker 1: him with the Wou Tang clan. That was the moment
Speaker 1: where I was like, Okay, this guy has fallen in
Speaker 1: love with himself with He's fallen in love with his
Speaker 1: own legend where we're off the rails, and I know
Speaker 1: I have friends that you know like him. He was
Speaker 1: a prosecutor in in New York at one time, and
Speaker 1: he was very highly respected, very likable guy. I mean
Speaker 1: he walks into a room. You know, he's so tall,
Speaker 1: like six ten or something is quite a presence, and
Speaker 1: all my friends teld me that the guy was a
Speaker 1: great guy, and then I don't know what happened. You know.
Speaker 1: It's one thing we talked about when people go down
Speaker 1: to headquarters, he gets kind of like a lobotomy type
Speaker 1: of thing because he's a lot of the management there.
Speaker 1: They're not real long term and best degators that understand
Speaker 1: the streets and how it goes cases. A lot of
Speaker 1: the people do three to five years out on the
Speaker 1: streets and they go up in management and they go
Speaker 1: down to headquarters. The same with Brennan. I mean, he
Speaker 1: was a case officer for a hot minute and then
Speaker 1: spent the rest of his time as a bureaucrat. And
Speaker 1: that's the problem. You can't have bureaucrats that haven't really
Speaker 1: done the job. I'd rather see somebody with ten, twelve,
Speaker 1: fifteen years worth of experience out on the streets then
Speaker 1: getting down to management down in Washington, because they understand
Speaker 1: what it takes to get the job done. They understand
Speaker 1: how it is to work. And a difficult as you
Speaker 1: have with the Department of Justice to try to get
Speaker 1: cases pushed forward. I can't tell you the battles that
Speaker 1: I had with these people who was unbelievable. Just to
Speaker 1: be objective here though, you know, as you're saying there,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of firsts in terms of what's going
Speaker 1: on with the FBI right now, the information being put
Speaker 1: out there the other side of that coin, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's people listening thinking it is. This is also
Speaker 1: the first time we've had a president publicly go out
Speaker 1: there and criticized the FBI on his Twitter and say
Speaker 1: a lot of things that that are pretty outraged and
Speaker 1: ask you know, hackers, talked about how great wiki leaks is.
Speaker 1: You know some things that we haven't seen before. You
Speaker 1: know what, if you if you really look at Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: who he is. The man was a construction icon in
Speaker 1: New York. He had to deal with the mob, he
Speaker 1: had to deal with labor units. He's a tough guy.
Speaker 1: He's a street guy, and somehow he gets elected president
Speaker 1: of the United States. And that's who he is. I mean,
Speaker 1: he had to he has to fight a lot of battles.
Speaker 1: He had all kinds of lawsuits everything else. And I'm
Speaker 1: not justifying what he's doing. What I'm saying he's a
Speaker 1: street brawler, and it's we've never had a street or
Speaker 1: brawler as a president of the United States, and he
Speaker 1: believes what he believes. And you know, I really think
Speaker 1: when he was doing those speeches that he was joking,
Speaker 1: you know, release that stuff. You know, I think it
Speaker 1: was more ingest than anything else. But you know, your
Speaker 1: words have consequences to you know. And it's the big
Speaker 1: thing is when he came in that's not presidential. You
Speaker 1: really shouldn't be saying that type of thing, you know,
Speaker 1: But but this is who the man is. He's a
Speaker 1: street brawler, and you take it to him, he's going
Speaker 1: to go after you. And I mean of them could
Speaker 1: criticize it, but it's what got him elected absolutely. You know.
Speaker 1: I remember that famous thing during the debates of Jeff
Speaker 1: Bush saying, you know, Donald, you're not going to criticize
Speaker 1: your way to the presidency or insult your way to
Speaker 1: the presidency. And he did. Yeah, I think America got
Speaker 1: really tired of the same old thing the years and
Speaker 1: years through in that and out they see the Congress
Speaker 1: that's not doing their their their job properly, and they
Speaker 1: called it the swamp, which there's no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: You know, when you look, you know, you know again
Speaker 1: we talk politics now, you know, term limits are a
Speaker 1: great incentive for these people to do the right thing.
Speaker 1: These people been in Congress thirty years, they're eighty years old,
Speaker 1: they've been there forever. Their institutionals, uh and institution They
Speaker 1: sent Trump as a wrecking ball exactly, And that was
Speaker 1: my point I was going to make. He came in,
Speaker 1: he goes, look, this is a this is a mess
Speaker 1: down here. I'm gonna do the best I canna straighten
Speaker 1: it out. And that's why they put a brawler in there.
Speaker 1: And I forget what right has said. You know, the
Speaker 1: Republicans and the Conservatives always like they go to these
Speaker 1: battles and they talk a little bit, but the Democrats
Speaker 1: come out with knives and they attack and they make
Speaker 1: all kinds of accusations, you're racist, you're doing all this stuff. Well,
Speaker 1: he's the first guy that's come in and said, well,
Speaker 1: you guys are the bad guys. You know, you're the
Speaker 1: ones that are ruining the country. And that's his opinion,
Speaker 1: you know, And he's a brawler and they're not used
Speaker 1: to that, and they can't take it. And that's why
Speaker 1: there's so so much discourse now because how dare you
Speaker 1: come after the institutions and everything else. You know, Uh,
Speaker 1: look at Lindsey Graham, you know, my my friends on
Speaker 1: the other side, but meanwhile they hate each other, you
Speaker 1: know that, you know, and he keeps on calling them
Speaker 1: the friends and things like that. You know, but that's
Speaker 1: collegial activities that you know that you should be basically
Speaker 1: nice to him and put your point across and try
Speaker 1: to get votes and pass legislation. But it's gotten so
Speaker 1: vicious at this point. It's really it's really scary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I don't know how you turn the clock back
Speaker 1: on that. I mean, jeez, term limits, that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's the way I look at it, because you know what,
Speaker 1: these guys know, they're going to be elected time and
Speaker 1: time again. I could say whatever I want. We could
Speaker 1: force you know, our our opinions on people and things
Speaker 1: like that, and get to be like the Harry Reids,
Speaker 1: you know, we're just there forever and they you know,
Speaker 1: and as if you look at these guys, you know,
Speaker 1: I forgot who wrote the book throw them all out.
Speaker 1: I think it was it was all the inside dealings
Speaker 1: that they're doing in Congress. That these guys that when
Speaker 1: they leave their multimillion yeah, Well, Harry reads a good
Speaker 1: example exactly exactly. You know the story I heard that
Speaker 1: you bought property and Nevada and they put a railroad
Speaker 1: through there and he made multimillions. You know. This is
Speaker 1: stuff that shouldn't happen, you know, And that's why I
Speaker 1: think if you really did have term limits, people will
Speaker 1: be more. You know, like you do your service in
Speaker 1: the in the in the military or the FBI, and
Speaker 1: then you go and live your life, you know, and
Speaker 1: that's going there's it's an honorable thing to do service
Speaker 1: for our country, to legislat and things like that. Do
Speaker 1: your time, and that's why I think it was designed
Speaker 1: by the founding fathers. Do your time there, do the
Speaker 1: best you can, and then go on with your life.
Speaker 1: I know we've we've taken up a lot of your time.
Speaker 1: But there's one thing I did want to ask. I
Speaker 1: don't know if Ian has anything, but one other thing
Speaker 1: I did want to ask before we let you go
Speaker 1: is um about how Hillary Clinton was handled with the
Speaker 1: private email server. And I think a lot of us
Speaker 1: were surprised that she got off clean on that when
Speaker 1: I mean, just tell you my opinion. I think that
Speaker 1: when I was in the Army. If I had a
Speaker 1: private email server in my basement and I was had
Speaker 1: classified information going through there, I'm pretty sure I would
Speaker 1: be in Leavenworth for thirty five years at least. You
Speaker 1: kind of answered your own question. Yeah, all right, because
Speaker 1: especially when I was on a foreign counter intelligence side,
Speaker 1: and she's been around the block quite a few times, right,
Speaker 1: she was senator, she was um and involved the government.
Speaker 1: She knows what secret, top secret, classified information is. We're
Speaker 1: all apprized of that when you go in the first
Speaker 1: day you sit down, you told about all these different categories,
Speaker 1: and her in the State Department, she knew exactly what's what.
Speaker 1: And it's quite obviously again I'm only going by what
Speaker 1: the reports are. She set that server up because she
Speaker 1: didn't want her information to get out there. She didn't
Speaker 1: want for you to request exactly exactly. And the thing
Speaker 1: is they even said that they found emails from the
Speaker 1: President Obama going on on that server. When they did
Speaker 1: get whatever the emails they did get, that's a problem,
Speaker 1: all right. So she knew she was not supposed to
Speaker 1: be considered privileged information, like right off the bat, we
Speaker 1: shouldn't even know that absolutely. So this is I think
Speaker 1: what Comy. Did I think he felt she was going
Speaker 1: to be president and he didn't want to go away
Speaker 1: after her. But I have never seen anything like this
Speaker 1: before in my life. Okay, as I said, before, the
Speaker 1: FBI investigates, the o J prosecutes, Okay, for um Lynch
Speaker 1: to go to Comey and say, well, you make this
Speaker 1: the announcement and decision. This was controlled by the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice. There's no way Hillary Clinton should have had
Speaker 1: a server wherever and have classified information and said, when
Speaker 1: I was on the foreign counter intelligence side, if I
Speaker 1: did that or send emails, we have what's called stew
Speaker 1: phones and scrambled uh you have UM internal communications UM Internet,
Speaker 1: intronnet and everything else. What she would what she did
Speaker 1: from what I understand from the from all the reportings,
Speaker 1: she had phones, iPads and the server and they're all connected.
Speaker 1: When she walked into uh, into a Russian embassy, you
Speaker 1: talk to anybody, I guarantee you they got everything that's
Speaker 1: on her phone. They got everything that was on her
Speaker 1: iPad because they were not UM. They were not UM
Speaker 1: what they call it. They weren't coded, they weren't were
Speaker 1: encoded and whatever. They can get that information just by
Speaker 1: walking into a building, and that's a scary part. So
Speaker 1: god knows what information they really got. And that server
Speaker 1: was not protected, one could have gotten into it. They did,
Speaker 1: and they gave the guy who ran at the I
Speaker 1: T guy got immunity. Yeah, but that's the crazy thing
Speaker 1: about it. When you see to do a regular case,
Speaker 1: you don't grant immunity all across the board. I mean,
Speaker 1: you grant immunity in exchange for testimony exact. There's like
Speaker 1: that's how it works. You're coughing up everything will give
Speaker 1: you a immunity. Um, they destroyed the the server, they
Speaker 1: destroyed phones, took SIM cards out when theyre subpoened. That's
Speaker 1: illegal as hell. Yeah, it's obstruction of justice right there. Okay,
Speaker 1: and then you look at you know when Colmy said,
Speaker 1: well she definitely had classified and secret information on on
Speaker 1: the emails. Each one is a violation, you know, it's
Speaker 1: a it's Tile eighteen I think section seven thirty nine.
Speaker 1: And whether it's intentionally or unintentionally, the consequences are there.
Speaker 1: And I really felt that again analyzing this, I think
Speaker 1: he felt she was going to be president. He didn't
Speaker 1: want to. He would have been fired or who knows.
Speaker 1: I mean, it would have been a constitutional crisis. You
Speaker 1: gotta have somebody elected and you're gonna charge it with felonies.
Speaker 1: And when we talk about the undermining of institutions, I
Speaker 1: mean President Trump is a part of that. He has
Speaker 1: undermined institutions for sure. But also when we see things
Speaker 1: like this where the director of the FBI is just
Speaker 1: essentially blessing off on crimes and not prosecuting in this
Speaker 1: case Hillary Clinton, and that's an undermining of the institution
Speaker 1: in our system of laws. Look, it has to be
Speaker 1: the same equal justice under the law for everybody. And
Speaker 1: they knew what they have. Again, I I never looked
Speaker 1: at this stuff. I don't know personally. I'm just going
Speaker 1: by all the reports based on when he gave that
Speaker 1: that statement that no reasonable prosecutor a prosecutor. My gosh,
Speaker 1: I can't tell you that up there was no precedent.
Speaker 1: He said, there was no intent. The tent is not
Speaker 1: part of the statute. You could reach the statute on part.
Speaker 1: It doesn't say if you intend on doing it, you
Speaker 1: do it on purpose. You know, it says any transmission
Speaker 1: of any communication. If you eve a broefcase full of
Speaker 1: classified documents downstairs and Grand central station. You're responsible for
Speaker 1: the absolutely, you know. And it's and you you know,
Speaker 1: they had that one fellow that was on a nuclear submarine.
Speaker 1: He took a picture of his workstation, this is where
Speaker 1: I work. He was in jail, you know, and he
Speaker 1: got prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and
Speaker 1: he I think it was sentenced to six or nine years.
Speaker 1: I think Trump commuted the sentence. He got him out
Speaker 1: because it was just he just took a picture and
Speaker 1: they went after him. So you look what she did.
Speaker 1: He was a dumbass, not a criminal. Yeah, absolutely, And
Speaker 1: then you look what she did. You know, she knew
Speaker 1: what the rules are. Why would you do that asleep?
Speaker 1: Because you didn't want to for your information to get out? Well,
Speaker 1: that's intent there, so you know you don't do that.
Speaker 1: And that God knows how much classified information and secret
Speaker 1: information got out to to our adversaries. They haven't even
Speaker 1: addressed that at all, correct, you know. So that's the
Speaker 1: scary part. So you know, hopefully they'll get to the
Speaker 1: bottom of it, you know, and maybe I don't know
Speaker 1: if they're going to charge you later on or whatever,
Speaker 1: but the right thing was not done. And then I
Speaker 1: don't think, you know, she's a golden child there or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know, it's nothing will happen, but it should be
Speaker 1: noted that you know, she did do this stuff and
Speaker 1: she was she should have been prosecuted. But I think
Speaker 1: one of my friends who knows called me. They said
Speaker 1: it was like on a fence trying to do a
Speaker 1: tight rope, trying to play both sides, and he couldn't
Speaker 1: do it. And what he did, he made the wrong decision.
Speaker 1: But maybe in his mind he made the right I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure he was in a tough position, and I'll
Speaker 1: say that, you know, but I wouldn't want to be there,
Speaker 1: you know. And I would have said to Lauretta Lynch,
Speaker 1: you're the prosecutor, you say it, I'm not. I'm just
Speaker 1: the investigator with the investigative agency. You don't make prosecute
Speaker 1: of decisions you do. And I would have had the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice do it. It's not his in his
Speaker 1: realm to do that. I don't know if his ego
Speaker 1: why he did that, but it was not the right thing.
Speaker 1: That he had a responsibility to protect the integrity of
Speaker 1: the bureau. And that exactly because if he would if
Speaker 1: we would have going back to the Department of Justice.
Speaker 1: But they all know that their political pointees a department
Speaker 1: of Justice, you know, so who knows how that would
Speaker 1: have gone. But there's no way he should have given
Speaker 1: that statement at all. And that's that was and it
Speaker 1: really hurt the FBI. And you know, I tell you,
Speaker 1: I have known so many guys in the FBI. You
Speaker 1: go to we go to golf outings for fundraisers and
Speaker 1: things like that, and you talk to these people. These
Speaker 1: these people gave their lives, you know, the whole lives
Speaker 1: to dedicate to law enforcement to do the right thing
Speaker 1: and investigate the right way and make sure the right
Speaker 1: thing is done. And when you see something like this,
Speaker 1: you know, where's the equal justice under the law, you know,
Speaker 1: and you've got to do the right thing if and
Speaker 1: if you don't, why are you there? And that's that's
Speaker 1: the problem that a lot of people have. And I
Speaker 1: guarantee a lot of current agents and support people and
Speaker 1: a lot of retired agents of upset at this whole
Speaker 1: transformation of what's going on to destroy the FBI's reputation.
Speaker 1: Really bothers a lot of us because we work so
Speaker 1: hard to do the right thing. This has been an
Speaker 1: awesome discussion. Before we wrap up, I'm gonna have the
Speaker 1: text c J. Ramone for sure and thank him for
Speaker 1: getting us in touch with you. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I it's been an honor to come here and talk
Speaker 1: to you folks, and uh, you know, I've had a
Speaker 1: varied experience and it's very nice guys, and real pleasure
Speaker 1: to sit down here and talking with Yeah, thanks for
Speaker 1: coming in. There's really been amazing. Thank you so much. Yes,
Speaker 1: So before we wrap up, I always like to let
Speaker 1: you guys know what we have going on here, be
Speaker 1: sure to check out Create Club. It's a club foremen
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Speaker 1: free on iPhone or Android, and our homepage as always
Speaker 1: softwarep radio dot com where you can see our full
Speaker 1: archive shows. Keep up with us at SOFTWAREP Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get the video up of Ken on our Instagram
Speaker 1: so you can see all that cool stuff. And I
Speaker 1: always post those highlight videos, but this has been great.
Speaker 1: I usually end the show with you know, what do
Speaker 1: you want to plug? But I don't think you have
Speaker 1: anything that you're plug You know, I have no nothing
Speaker 1: to plug at all. I just you know, doing My
Speaker 1: thing is asset fullfiture. And I have a lovely wife
Speaker 1: c J ramone sister, and I have a great life
Speaker 1: going right now. So one day I'll retire, but I'm
Speaker 1: still really enjoy what I'm doing. Um I think I'm
Speaker 1: still doing some positive things for our country. And um,
Speaker 1: you know, asset forfeiture. Actually, I don't know if I
Speaker 1: really explained it. It's taking It started off with the
Speaker 1: organized crime and that they would go to jail, but
Speaker 1: they still have all their assets when it came back out.
Speaker 1: But now it turned into the white collar crime side too,
Speaker 1: and these guys it's billions of dollars. So you know,
Speaker 1: we're getting victims back money that they had stolen from
Speaker 1: them timely. So they get they put in for it
Speaker 1: and they get money back. You know, not not made
Speaker 1: whole a lot of times, but they get a lot
Speaker 1: of money back from as being victims. So that's why
Speaker 1: I would look at houses, cars, bank accounts, and we
Speaker 1: take that and you know, it really helps out society.
Speaker 1: So it's it's been good. I got another few years
Speaker 1: to go yet with that, so it's been good. It's
Speaker 1: it's important work and I appreciate you coming in. It's funny.
Speaker 1: I just watched a video. There's a clip that one
Speaker 1: of our regulars, UH Navy CEO Eric Davis posted on Instagram, UH,
Speaker 1: from like a lecture that he gave, and he was
Speaker 1: talking about how all the free and for nation that
Speaker 1: you get out there, it's it's like an advertisement for
Speaker 1: something and someone is selling you something. So he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, you have to buy good information because that's
Speaker 1: what you're gonna get. The reason I bring this up
Speaker 1: is because it's not always true not to bash and
Speaker 1: what he said at all. But every now and again
Speaker 1: we get a guy on like you who is not
Speaker 1: pushing a book. You don't have social media. You're just
Speaker 1: here because you want to get your story out there.
Speaker 1: And it's it's cool because it's unbiased information or I
Speaker 1: mean it's biased from your own perspective, but you know,
Speaker 1: you just want the information out there for people to hear,
Speaker 1: and you're really not trying to sell anything. And I
Speaker 1: really appreciate it when guys like you make the effort
Speaker 1: to come in just because you want that information out
Speaker 1: there for the public. And it's been a great you know,
Speaker 1: almost two hours here. Yeah, it's amazing. I went by
Speaker 1: so fast, you know, I said, I really thank c
Speaker 1: J hooking me up with you guys, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's been a real pleasure. And you know, just we
Speaker 1: try to do a lot of good still even to
Speaker 1: this day. And there there are a lot of people
Speaker 1: out there because he's you know, we look at social
Speaker 1: media how bad things are every day, and you look
Speaker 1: at the news, how horrible, But there are people that
Speaker 1: are fighting, the adults, you know, doing the right thing.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to continue and then keep on going.
Speaker 1: Maybe I will write that book. I hope you do.
Speaker 1: I hope you will be interesting. Thank you again so
Speaker 1: much for having me. Really it's a real pleasure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you. You've been listening to self Rep Radio. New
Speaker 1: episodes up every Wednesday and Friday. Follow the show on
Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter at self rep Radio