Michael Dowd

00:00All right, here we go Boom there we go, so uh first of all welcome. Thank you. Thanks for doing this appreciate it. Thanks for having me Your fucking documentary That might have been one of the craziest documentaries I've ever seen in my life the seven five people haven't seen it Dude what a fucking crazy life you lived Jesus Christ, do you feel lucky to be alive you're embarrassed? I'm embarrassed because you know I'm looking at people that supposed to respect law enforcement and and it's almost you know Almost almost glorifying some of the crazy shit we did. I don't think it's glorifying. I hope not. No, it's definitely not I don't think it is. It's I think it's an honest portrayal of people going off the rails because they didn't have I mean that you had the ability to do so, you know, I mean that's what it was debauchery, right? I mean, it's just Untamed and and yeah

01:02Yeah, the ability to get away with things that you could no one else could well I think we're seeing today with law enforcement with all the stuff that's going on with all these kids getting shot and all these all this these videos that get taped of police abuse we're seeing that for the longest time This stuff just wasn't filmed that there was a lot going on me. We've all witnessed I'm sure you more than anybody but we've all witnessed some cops that were out of control and that I think that's just what happens when people have power and You just kind of they they get a little crazy They you know when you don't have anybody checking that power and then on top of it in your situation There was cocaine and there was crime and there was all sorts of craziness I mean, I learned about your documentary from Nick DiPaolo

01:51He was on my buddy Ari Shaffir show and he was raving about this documentary and it wasn't even out yet It was you had to pre-order it on iTunes, right? I fucking hate that when you want to watch something right away I think I feel people calling me like in the middle of the night. Where's this documentary? I can't get it I'm like, let me call the people at all three media, you know, like they don't give a fuck, you know, they just They're just like oh, we're sleeping right now. We're on California time. I said okay. Oh, they're not awake yet Whatever just ruinous what did Nick see like a pre-screening or something like that? Did he see it in the movies? Did you um, I don't know I think I hate to say this on the air, but I think he pirated it That's illegal That's illegal because he had heard about it. Oh somebody and he couldn't get it right and I was like Kicking the ground saying, you know

02:38Who's promoting this goddamn thing? They you know, it's about my life and people asking me a lot of questions about it and I'm like, why don't you go see the documentary? Well, after like a week of trying to get it then they throw their hands in the air and they're like we can't get it So I had a lot of frustration over the way it was distributed, but I wasn't involved in it. So I white in that part I white knuckled my way through that whole thing It was intense shot that off one I'm gonna tell you you and your audience how I mean, I'm a I'm a nut like I love Adrenaline shit, but I really can't sit through most things and when the movie was um Premiered the first time it was seen ever by myself as well. I sat by the door Thinking that one i'm gonna be bored or two. I'm not gonna like the the content in the movie and just leave the theater

03:21And uh, and my family and some friends were there, you know, not everybody, but you know select people showed and uh I sat by the door and like in a minute and a half. I just turned around the seat and didn't fucking move And that's hard for me to do. I mean you'll see throughout this Conversation here. I i'm all over the map, but have you always been all over the map? Um Uh, you know, I think it's the brooklyn the expressiveness with the body, you know We speak more with our body than our mouth for some reason I don't maybe we've short-tongued on the language english language, but uh Just the way we I don't know be a cop you always watch your back, you know, so There's a lot of uh, you know, I don't know how to explain it's just that's the way we speak Now this it's a very well done movie, but excellent the subject matter itself the actual story itself the facts involved in the story are

04:09Fucking completely insane. I mean you you guys, um You were involved in so much craziness. It was out of control, but here you are you're out on the street You're doing podcasts You know you're doing press for the movie. Yeah, you know It's got to feel weird for you to have gone through that. It's different lives You know in the way I see it, you know, it's a young young boy young man police officer convict inmate parolee And now i'm somebody else it's just weird how You know like a chameleon you just change with with the environment and that's how you adapt and overcome anything is you Just have to learn how to live within the environment you're in and It seems like that's that doesn't seem the same first of all, you know, let's be real I was 23 24 years old when most of these incidents took place and then they carried on The more

05:00Detailed the criminality took place later on as I got closer to my 30 year number But you talk I'm 54 today So my perspective on everything I did and my perspective on the world today is way different than it was back then You know yeah whenever I try to watch a documentary about people doing crazy I always imagine myself like what would I do if I was in that situation like how how would I have reacted if I was a young man and I probably would have been right there with you. Yeah, you know It's sad, but you know what's sad about that is it's people giving the opportunity to do wrong and they can get away with it You have to ask yourself this question if I could take that 200,000 large right now just you know plain out question and never have any negative consequences happen to me now I'm not saying because you broke the moral code of policing and all that shit

05:50I'm just saying just be a normal human being walk up find 200 large No, one's gonna miss it. It's not yours and you're never gonna have any bad karma or anything happen to you. Would you take it? It's a good question And you don't know until you're right there No, one's no one even no one even knows except for one person that it's theirs And it depends on where you are in your life life you're broke you got kids you got a mortgage you have rent to pay your car's broken down You got no gas money if you're a 55 year old man, and you have a happy family and you have a good career You make a phone call and probably do something nice and you get on the news and look at this Michael Dowd What a gentleman gave away two hundred thousand dollars. He found in a bag. Well, I didn't know what to do with it I'm good. My life is good. You know, I got a house in the hills and you're on blow

06:3624 I started popping that And also It's interesting because you're constantly around people that are making insane amounts of money and they're doing it by breaking the law Yeah, let's let's let's focus a little bit here. This is the 1980s Crack epidemic East New York, right? So no action I do is justified. Okay, right right I did wrong I and I paid the fucking price. I hope you know some people want me for life Some people want me dead, but you know what? Fuck you too. All right. I'm here. I'm out I did my time right I served it straight up I walked the track by myself for 12 fucking years kiss my ass goodbye Okay, so now I am here to talk about the stories that made the story the seven five what it is I didn't bring this upon myself I mean the actions all that yes But somebody approached me from hollywood want to do a documentary about this commission called the marlin commission

07:27I told them it's a piece of shit deal do a story about the boys from the seven five And I think you'll have a good movie So what was the original thing they wanted to come to you about? Well, I was the the main focus which is a thread throughout the documentary is that there was these hearings called the marlin commission, which if people know history they can go back to the nap commission when persico person uh serpico persico is a guy that did time with Colombo family, but uh So serpico uh, it was a cop who got shot in the face in the movie serpico And uh in fact he actually commented on this documentary to tiller russell the uh director I got a I don't know it's two in the morning because you guys out here don't know a fucking time It's two in the morning my my text message goes off because it's 10 30 at night 11 o'clock at night

08:14I just got a phone call from serpico saying it's the best movie he's ever seen in his fucking life You know and i'm like fuck serpico because I really don't like serpico to be honest with you because he said some nasty things about me One and two he was a rat so But you know he said well mike he's uh americana he's history, you know, and so I got to give him his props I said fine, but I really don't want to hear he liked my movie So fuck him, but he's I've gotten against him really, but you know certain people you keep at a distance and he's one of them that I would choose to I'm gonna shake his hand and say you're a good guy The serpico thing he he ratted out other corrupt cops. Is that what it was? Yeah, he did the right thing Yeah No, and like I mean that's the way it is right was that movie accurate that al pacino movie I can't look I must dare

09:02Yeah, what is the word is the word that it was accurate? Um, the word is that the shooting was not quite the way they said in the movie itself, but he turned in his partners You know they will he they wanted him to take the money and he wouldn't take the money and you know He was intransigent about it and yeah, someone shot him in the face Now I've been in the building half a dozen times in nine-o precinct. They actually shot another movie there by uh One of the other actors. I can't think Well, what's interesting is your partner When you were your partner in this film? James Alsblush calls um in a lot of it with you, and he never wound up doing it any time. Yeah, I mean, this story can go in many different directions here, Joe. Kenny was, let's consider a good cop, you know, he was there for the money. What was his last name? Urell. He was there for the money. He would make

09:54calls, he'd lock everybody's husband up. Like, you would have a fight with your wife in the ghetto, and this was a daily thing, you know, and he would go there and lock you up and take you out. That was his gig. He did that for years. That was his overtime money. And I told him, I don't really like to do those things, and we got together. He had like a specialty? That was his specialty. Domestic violence? Ironically. Ironically. Oh, deep. The story goes deep. Ironically. I understand what you're saying. Isn't that something? It always is. So he would arrest these guys, and how would he make money doing that? Well, you'd get overtime. Every arrest would land you at least eight, sometimes 16 hours of overtime depending upon what time you made the arrest. Oh. So he'd be able to make the arrest and go to sleep for fucking 12 hours and make $600, $700 on someone's misfortune, and, you know,

10:47they may have been legitimately arrested. I'm not saying they weren't. So how would he make money off of going to sleep? I don't understand that. Well, when you're waiting to book a prisoner, slash potential inmate, you have to wait for hours and hours and hours. So you would sleep on newspaper racks, boxes in a hallway, central booking. You know, central booking was like a mass unit. Really? So you arrest a guy, and then you go take a nap somewhere? That's how it was. Wow. Yeah, so you would get paid to lock somebody up. So that's why the city was against arresting drug dealers, okay? This whole thing turns into a whole conundrum here. Yeah. Like that word? Anyway, the crack epidemic caused the city to go broke in many ways because you'd have police officers arresting people for minor drug offenses that were, you know, it was crime, you know, and cops are supposed to arrest people for crime. So what happened was

11:39it would cost so much to process an arrest that they would sort of discourage you, and by that, I mean, they wouldn't say, don't do that, it was never in policy, but you would find yourself on a footpost somewhere, like I would get the post down in Vandalia by the weeds while there was drag racing there at night, and that was it, you know, and so I would get, like, eye allergies from standing in the weeds if I made arrests for drugs. Really? Yeah. So that's how they would discourage you from making arrests. And just to save money. Well, what do bureaucracies exist for? You know, profit and loss, you know? But that's a... They don't exist for the people. We, as police officers, are supposed to serve the people, you know, and then you become part of a system that's not there for them, they're there for themselves. So were you there before the crack epidemic and during... I was there just before the crack epidemic started. In fact,

12:24we didn't know what it was. We used to toss people just because we get drug calls, you know? So you toss someone, what the fuck is this? We'd be throwing it out, we didn't know what it was. Wow. And then one day, one of my partners brought it home and he came back with like $500 and said, that's what that shit was last night. I go, what is it? He goes, it's cocaine. I go, you gotta be fucking kidding me, you've been throwing this out. Wow. And that was 84-5, slash five. Yeah, I remember hearing about it because I was in high school at the time and people started talking about crack. Like you would hear it in the news, crack epidemic and then this violence and crime epidemic. Well, you heard about it because Len Bias. That's right, yeah. You were in Boston at the time? Yeah. He was the basketball player that was drafted by the Celtics and he never played a day because after he got drafted and they gave him this big signing contract

13:13and everything, he went out and partied, did some crack, had a bad heart on top of it and killed himself. Yeah. So Ted Kennedy put these laws in place which put half the urban kids in federal prison for fucking life sentences which now Obama's rightfully, in many cases, rightfully undoing and that's a big political issue that we might not want to get into. Well, it was a crazy... One of the only things I agree with him on is that. Ted Kennedy? No. Oh, Obama. Obama. Right, yeah. Well, that's a big one. The war on drugs is one of the most ridiculous ones. Well, it's ridiculous. They should just get rid of all drug laws and let people go to rehabs. Yes. And there'd be no money in it. I agree. I mean, simple. Yeah, exactly. Make it simple. Well, I mean, they've known that since the organized crime epidemic of the prohibition. Right, yeah. It's the same shit. That's what empowered organized crime, the ability to make shit tons of money.

13:59That's what's going on down in Mexico right now. They're making money off the fact that drugs are illegal in America. When this is all going down, for people on the outside like me, I had heard about it, but I didn't know how much of it was real. You hear things about the news and the news being they blow things out of proportion. It turned people into criminals. And look at us. I mean, we were good guys. Most of us were good guys from hardworking families, cops, firemen, blue-collar people, sanitation workers, bus drivers, plumbers, electricians, and you became a cop. You thought you were still in the same genre of blue-collar. You were the ones that equated to Beirut. It was like going to fucking Beirut. And supervisors were just happy that you were there and that we can all go home today. So you took an odd 10, 20 grand. No one really gave a fuck. The problem was when people start complaining and make noise,

14:54then it brings attention. So when you're there, before this is happening, how much different was the environment that you were policing before crack and after crack? Was it noticeable? It was like a storm. It was like a fucking tornado came in and ripped the fucking community right apart. Now, don't get me wrong. It was urban ghetto that survived the 60s and the turmoil and all that stuff. And you had your racial breakdowns within communities. But I got there in, I want to say 83. I'm old now. So I got there in 83, 84. So it was there about a year and a half. And it was getting crazy because Coke was expensive. Coke was 50,000 a key. So it was tough for the inner city community to have it. But it was around. And then when it dropped down to like 15, 20,000, 14,000 a kilo because of crack and the volume of, I guess, whoever was bringing it in, you know, there's many theories on who was helping bring it in back then. It's just,

15:56everybody can now get it. And everybody now experienced the, you know, the studio 54 high. Now the kid in the inner city was experiencing for five seconds. Bang. Goodbye. Ooh, I loved it. Now they're looking for their next hit. And it was just, So it just radically changed. It was blood. It was blood on the streets everywhere. It was fucking ridiculous. Wow. Now when you got... Every day. Every day. Every day. You just saw gunshots, knives. Death. Stabbings and shootings every day. Wow. It was exciting. Yeah, I'm sure. It was fucking great. Well, that seems like part of it to me. Like when I was watching this, I was like, geez, it seems like in a way you're kind of having some fun. Oh, I had fun every day. I didn't want to miss work. I do. I believe you. I hated fucking three-day swings. And the cops who listen to this, a lot of cops hate me, but they sort of respect me in a way because they understand. Not respect for what I did. Right.

16:51By honesty, I hope that's what they take from this. Because you got a lot of cop fans and shit like that and they respect you and the martial artists guys. You know. Most of them are really good guys, but they get it. It's the ones who get what I'm talking about that will appreciate this conversation. You and I haven't. Well, I think if you're a cop in Orange County and you're a police officer in Irvine and you're dealing with a little bullshit here and there, you got to kind of know there's a big fucking difference between that and East New York in the 1980s during the crack epidemic. I hope you do. Because if you don't. You got to know. And you got to know what's the difference between, I mean, it seems like it wasn't just you. It seems like your entire precinct was kind of full of shenanigans. Well, let's put it like this. And this is to take nothing away from the, at that time, let's say 90% were all legit. Guys going to work

17:36with their lunch pail and going home and waiting for the next paycheck. I mean, I used to forget my paychecks because I was making so much money. That's the truth. And that got me in trouble. I started this whole investigation on me. Because you forgot your paychecks. I kept forgetting to pick them up. And you pulled up your Corvette. Yeah, yeah. Well, that was, the lieutenant spot I pulled it in. That sort of pissed him off. Anyway. You know, sometimes you want to make a point like, fuck you. He's trying to take my girlfriend away. Fuck you. Parking in your spot. You're not getting her or the spot now. Oh, that's hilarious. So it was just, it seemed like it was a lot of fun. Like, there was this one, one case where you guys were talking about where you kept circling the block. Listen, I got a better story. That was fun. That was fun. But I'm going to, I brought a cheat sheet with me because, you know, I got like 600 stories here.

18:23Right. And I'm working with a guy named Rob Sear right now. Him and I are starting to collaborate on, we're going to do maybe the book again. You know, we got to. Please do. Well, this is a process here. You know how things, you know, you've been probably through this yourself personally. We got some people in, but I'm talking with, we're dealing with Sony a little bit. We're trying to get this thing right. I think Rob Sear, who's an ex-New York City cop, who's done a couple bestsellers, he might be the right one to put the whole thing together with me. I can speak. He can write. He knows the color in the middle. Right. You know, we're a writer and could make it happen. Especially since he was a cop. He was a cop and he's got some credibility. He does the Gotham comedy show in Manhattan. I don't know. They run some live shows sometimes. live from Gotham? From Gotham. Yeah, right, right. On AXS TV? Yeah, he does a lot of that stuff.

19:10Okay. So he's involved in that. So he's got some credibility. He does it as a comic? Does he do stand-up? No. No, he's just, he's in the productions part of it and stuff like that. But he's a writer and he wrote two bestsellers. So, I think we're going to have him talk with, what's his name? Lesher. What's it? Lesher from the, John Lesher, I think his name is. there guys. Who's that? He's got the Academy Award list, yeah. Oh, okay. So, we're going to have a little discussion, him and I. About doing a movie or something? About the 7-5 movie. Sony owns the rights. Right. We're just trying to make it work right now, you know? So there's a lot of discussion going on on making it come together properly. So Sony owns the rights to do a dramatic recreation? Recreation of the 7-5. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Yeah. I think you've got to do a book though because I've got to imagine there's no way they're going to jam that into.

19:59I'm going to tell you a funny story. So, I'm on patrol in Brooklyn and I'm working with, I can't remember, it could have been Kenny, I don't fucking know, I don't care because I'm just telling you from my perspective. And down the block comes this guy Chickie. Chickie's in the movie. Yeah. Yeah. He's pissed. And he's in the back of his trunk of his car, the trunk is wide open in the back and he's got this Joker poker machine in the back of his car, right? The patrol car. What's a Joker poker machine? A gambling machine? It's a gambling machine, yeah. You put your money in and they don't pay out but they do pay out if you know the right people behind the counter there. So it's a gambling device that you can get away with gambling or not, you know? We hand out candy, instead they hand out money depending upon who the patron is. Oh, I see, okay. So it was back in the 80s, that was the gig. So we're driving down the block

20:44and here comes the sergeant. He's driving this way, I'm driving this way. I helped him load the machine into the back of the patrol car because it's heavy, you know? It's about a thousand pounds, this machine. So he loads this into the back of his patrol car and up pulls the sergeant. You know, the sergeant has no idea what's going on. It's like, what's going on? Oh, this guy pissed me with Chickie. So I was saying, this guy pissed me off. You know, the guy behind the counter, you know, he made me pay for soda or something like that. Meanwhile, he's got illegal joker poker machines in his store. So Chickie says, that's it. These your machines? He goes, yeah. The owner, the patron of the store. He goes, yeah, that's my machine. So he says, okay. He takes the machine, blows him in the back of his car. He's going to take him home and empty him out because there's $4,000 in quarters in the machine, right? So he's pissed.

21:32The guy made him buy a soda for a dollar. Now he's going to take all the quarters out of the machine. So here comes the sergeant. The sergeant is driving by. He's on probation. Cops go on probation and they pass. Then they move, stay patrolman steady. A sergeant goes from patrolman to sergeant and then he's on probationary period. So here comes the sergeant on probation. He's this four or five year veteran cop with a joker poker machine in the back of the trunk of his car. And he goes, what's going on? He says, oh, the guy pissed me off, sergeant. I'm not letting him do this illegal gambling shit. There's everywhere. Every fucking store has one, right? Right. So it's just, there's 600 stores, there's 6,000 machines in the precinct, but this one's got to go, you know? So the sergeant says, what are you doing? He says, I'm taking it. He goes, why? Well, the guy pissed me off. He was rude. He's disrespectful. And this is illegal.

22:16It's a crime. And we got guys getting shot, murdered, stabbed, selling crack on every corner. He's taking this guy's joker poker machine. So that's how insignificant these things normally are. So the sergeant's like, Chicky, he may have disrespected you and you may be pissed off, but you got to put it back, please. Sergeant's like, he's like, why, sergeant? He goes, oh, I'm on probation. I don't need any problems. So, P.S. We go, okay, sergeant, no problem. Bring it back. So Chicky turns around, looks at me. He goes, all right, sergeant, we're putting it back. We drove back to the store. Sergeant left. Went right from his, right from the store to Chicky's apartment. Like you said, you wanted two apartments before? Anyway, he had an apartment local in the precinct. So he went to the apartment, dropped the joker poker machine off as his apartment. I mean, these are the things we would do, you know, because,

22:59just because you could. Just because you could. Because you could. Well, it seems like it was just, there was a lot of excitement. Like, doing all that, like, driving around the block store was my favorite because you were driving around the block for like an hour and a half. Yeah. Well, because Chicky didn't get there in time. He didn't have a car. Chicky had left the job because of all the investigations. You got that from the documentary. Yeah. So, I needed someone, Kenny wasn't available, so, I don't even know if I was working with him yet. You know, he'll say he probably was, but whatever. Anyway, so, he, Chicky had his car in the shop being repaired, so I'm like, you gotta be fucking kidding me. I need someone now with a car and a badge. That's all I need. So, I didn't want to lose sight of the house in case, you know. Well, for people who haven't seen the documentary, what was going on? Well, what house, there was a burglary call

23:44at the house, so we responded as patrol people, and we checked out the place, and inside was two young girls who were sitting there on the floor in this home, you know, with the door knob broken off. And they said that they were given permission by the owner of the home to spend the afternoon or day here in her home. Well, where, I asked her, well, where did the owner happen to be since, you know, you broke the door and all up to get in. Oh, she's in prison right now. I said, oh, and for what? And she goes, well, I think for drugs. I said, okay, very good. Thank you. So I turned left hard, and there's a box of fucking shoes, piles of box of shoes. If anyone knows anything about the drug business, they spend a lot of money on their personal shoes because what else are you going to spend money on, you know? Right. You can't build a new house in the ghetto, you know, you're just wasting your money, but you could have a lot of shoes.

24:29So I saw all these boxes of shoes, nice, high heels, pumps, all this stuff. So I said, okay, there's a girl in here spending a lot of money on shoes, and the furniture looked pretty good for the location. So I opened the closet, and there's a fucking duffel bag filled with cash. I pick up, actually, that's really not exactly what happened. Some anti-crime guy went in there, picked up the bag. He looks at me. I look at him. I go, what are you going to do, voucher this? Come on, we spend all day vouchering the money. Leave it there. He looks at me. He looks at me. He goes, all right. He puts it down. I put my hand in the bag and start stuffing the money in my pockets, but I didn't have enough room. I was wearing summer clothes. I didn't have my winter uniform on with the jacket where you can stuff everything. So anyway, I said, this is not going to work. There's too much money here. You can't run out of a building

25:14with a bag filled with money and have the cops see you because they're going to say, where'd the bag go, right? Right. So my enemy was the cops at this point. So I found a way to circle the house for an hour and a half in every possible direction you could, and then Chickie finally pulled up with another guy that was retired from the job. They walked in with their Duke badges on and the landlord lets them in and yeah, up there, they just left that apartment right up there. And he went in, he'd come out with the bag and about a minute later I pulled him over. Boop, boop, pulled him over. How'd we do? Real good. I go, what are you going to do? He goes, let's go to Atlantic City. I go, great. I go back to the cell phone. I go back to the pay phone on the corner. Back then we had the original car phone. You would drive the patrol car up on a curb and just reach out to the fucking AT&T phone booth so you'd sit in the patrol car

26:02and dial the precinct. So I dialed the precinct. It was a free call by the way. You'd have to pay for it. and, hey boss, yeah, my wife needs me at home right now. You know, one of the kids broke a toe. Whatever, whatever excuse you can come up with. Okay, no problem. Come in. You can take lost time. It's called lost time. So I told the girl in the car I was working with, who was an IED plant, by the way. She was an internal affairs plant sitting with me the whole time. I said, okay, I said, you know, I got to go home. My wife just paid. We had beepers back then. My wife just paid to me. The kid's sick or something. And so I went back to the precinct, signed out, went to Atlantic City in a limousine. And so I cleaned the money. The girl who was driving around with you as you were going around for an hour and a half was a plant? Yeah, she was an internal affairs cop. Wow. I don't think I've ever told anybody that. But yeah,

26:48she was an internal affairs cop. So did she get suspicious? Did she ask questions while you were driving around in a circle for an hour and a half? I told her. I said, just in case someone comes back and breaks in the, you don't want to see this people's house get ransacked or anything. Right, right, right. She didn't know there was money in there, otherwise she would probably voucher to, you know. Right. We didn't let her know that. Right. But did you know she was a plant? Yes. So you knew? Yes. Wow. Very good job they did of hiding the plant. In fact, I had a beer with her two days before. But it seemed like all this stuff that you were doing, all these criminals that you were dealing with, like the heightened sort of environment that you were in must have been very addictive because there was just so much going on. There was so much action. It was, listen, when you're 28 years old and you're driving to work and you got the nerves

27:37on one side of your body freezing up on the other side from your head to your arms going numb, yeah, there was a lot of shit going on. Why was it going numb? I don't know if it was from the coke or from the nerves. Just because you didn't know what was going to happen from one day to the next but you just couldn't get out of it. The stress must have been insane. Yeah, it was insane. I would pull over on the side of the road and say, okay, if I die over here, it's okay, they'll find me. Like, that's how crazy. So if you die from a heart attack, you die from coke? Yeah, I didn't know what it was going to be. Wow. Driving to work, I'm not sure. So I'd feel my body starting to go out. So I'd pull over to the right so I didn't hurt anybody. I'm very conscientious here, right? That's weird. Wow. So there was so much going. I mean, how much coke were you doing? Not that much. You know, I was a steady bumper. I wouldn't do a lot, you know.

28:22You're just doing it all the time. Yeah. So it wasn't like giant Scarface-like quantities. If I did lines like that, I'd be dead. Yeah. I don't know how they did it. I tried that once. It almost killed me. When you were testifying in that film, that was one of the more intense parts of that movie because you were just 100% open, 100% honest about it. Yeah, to my own fault. To your own fault? Yeah. Do you think you shouldn't have? Some things I just should never fucking mention. Like what? Like with the girl and the money under the fucking Bible. Excuse me, God. You know, I'm still scared of God. You know, he come and get me. I ask forgiveness every day, you know, but, you know, that was the most horrific thing I ever did, I think. You know, of the thousands of things I did, I took some, someone's $340, whatever it was. I don't know. I don't know. He counted better than me. But was, it just seemed like, it seemed almost for you at the time,

29:14like when I was watching it, like you were just so overwhelmed with the pressure of everything that it was almost a relief to get everything off your back. When they locked me up, when they, if I tell you how the arrest went down, it's insane. But anyway, when they finally put me in the car and tell me I'm under arrest, it was like, now I can go to sleep. Really? I can actually sleep. And funny thing of it all was, you know, this is a little touching maybe, but we're not, but I try to be lighthearted here. I call my wife from the county jail and she goes to me, Mike, please don't take this the wrong way. She says, but I had the best night's sleep in my life last night because I knew where you were. I said, you gotta be fucking kidding me. That's hilarious. I don't know. Because I knew where you were. I knew where you were. She slept like a baby and I had roaches crawling in my ears, but yeah, it's okay. How much of what was going on

30:06did she know about? She only knew that I was doing wrong for the most part and she knew there were drugs involved, but she didn't, never, you know, touched it, got involved in it, you know. She just begged me every day, stop. But it seems like you kind of can't. It's hard. Does anybody ever go corrupt and then just go cold turkey like a heroin addict? Good story. Yeah? I tried. Did you? I called internal affairs. Really? Yeah. When? How old were you? I was a cop. I was in the middle of my heyday and I said, I'm going to have to stop and turn over a new leaf. My son was born and I had to become a responsible father, I said, and this is not going to work out doing what I'm doing. Right. So I was in Coney Island, which is where I think the movie's going to start if they do it the way I suggest. I'm in Coney Island in front of Nathan's. Right by Nathan's is the bumper car station where everybody goes and drives the bumper cars

30:59and they bang into each other. It was a rainy summer. There must have been 30 good days and the rest were lousy for the whole summer. And this is one of the days that it was. And up pulls this Mercedes Benz, a guy in the car with the gold rope chains and the whole drug package going on. I just turned my head to my partner and I said to him, look at the fucking gold on this guy's neck. Now he's got boombox going, those big woofers and everything, convertible Mercedes. That's all I said. All of a sudden I hear yo, yo, yo, yo, yo. And I don't turn for yo, yo, yo, yo for nobody. But I hear the footsteps, feel the weight of it and I just glance back and I see a shield in the guy's hand, a big black dude monster. I go, what's up? What do you want? You don't know who the fuck, yo, yo. I said, whoa, whoa, what's going on? He goes, you said, I asked you, can I park here and you said, can't you read? I said, where'd that happen?

31:50That conversation. All I did was turn to my partner. And he was a cop? Yeah. So he was undercover? No. No? No. So he was a corrupt cop too? He was a corrupt cop, yeah. Wow. I didn't know this, I didn't know him. So you thought he was a drug dealer? I thought he was a drug dealer. All I was doing was complimenting, commenting the package he had. Right. You know, the hookup. Giant gold. Yeah, the hoops. Mercedes. The girls had the hoops with the dollar signs. Right. It was the package. The girl had hoops with dollar signs? Yeah, you know how that. That was the 80s. Oh, those are the best. Yeah. Any girl with a hoop, dollar sign, that's my kind of girl. Yeah, I mean, you know. I just like it when they wear it on their sleeve. It's clear. It's pretty clear where this is going, right? Right. So anyway. So he doesn't know you're a cop. I'm in uniform walking up beat in Coney Island. I was sent to Coney Island detail because I was

32:37in trouble in East New York. So he's giving you a hard time and he knows you're a cop. Yeah, I'm in uniform and he's giving me a hard time. A very embarrassing moment because you don't do that. You don't punk each other out like that because now you create a scene where something has to be, you know, mediated. So he's probably coked up at the very least. I'm not going to answer for him. Who knows? But he's whacked out, let's put it that way. Something's going on. Something's going on. Yeah, he's full of himself. Yes. He's full of self-importance. Who the fuck does he think he is when he's talking to me? Right. Talk about self-importance, right? So anyway, he makes this big scene and I can't squelch the scene. The sergeant comes and it's over with. Okay. About a week. I could tell the story different ways but the fact is a couple days, a couple weeks later go by. I'm out sick which I should be home in my house but I'm out.

33:21I just left the beach with my wife. I'm driving home from the beach and I see this car parked on 111 right across from the cleaners which is known for having a crack spot. above it. Anyway. And it's his car and it's his fucking name on the license plate. That's how I know it. Well, the car stands out but it has his name on the license plate. You can't fucking, you can't miss that. Right. And I asked my wife, I said, what does he look like? Get a good look at him because I don't want to, I don't want to stop, turn around, make it obvious but I could see him, you know, I've seen him a few times. I had an argument with him for 20 minutes. Anyway, long story short, I go home, I call Internal Affairs. They rush to my house. Joe Tromboli, the guy in the movie that says he gets the hair on the back of his neck stood up. He comes in my house with Lieutenant Maher. They start grilling me about my fucking life. I'm like, I called up on a guy

34:05selling drugs. No wonder why no one talks to you people. Anyway, Lieutenant Maher sends Joe Tromboli out of the house and I go, Lieutenant, is this about me here? Because I'll just get a fucking lawyer. I don't know what's going on. I called you because some guy was selling crack around the neighborhood. He goes, well, how do you know he's selling crack? I said, look, I don't know but he's in a crack spot and he's a cop. So I'm telling you, all right? So I want to turn off a new leaf. Start my new life. I got a new baby. Everything's going to be good now. I'm going to be a good cop. Four weeks later, three weeks later, I'm getting calls at midnight. Not midnight. It's two in the morning. I'm getting calls at three. I work six or two shifts at Coney Island. Three o'clock in the morning my phone rings. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. This went on for about, if I say three weeks it could have been two, whatever. It went on for

34:46an extended period of time. Finally I get the guy to talk one day. I go, bro, what the fuck, man? Why don't you just come out with it? He goes, I'm banging your wife every day when she gets off the train in Brentwood. I said, really? That's nice. Yeah, when she comes home from work, she don't work. Yeah, okay. So when you go off the train from work, you're picking her up in Brentwood and you're banging her. He goes, yeah. I said, okay. So what else can you tell me? I says, well, why don't you come to my house? I tell him, and we just do this since you seem to know where I am. He goes, why don't I put a bullet in your fucking head right now, he tells me. And I'm standing Meanwhile, my wife's screaming and they're fucking, who the fuck is this? I'm like, shut the fuck up. I'm trying to get the guy's finally talking. You're fucking this whole thing up. So now I'm sucking sand out of the bottom of my rug and trying to stay alive and crawling

35:35into the back room where my son and my wife are sleeping. They're not anymore. And I'm like, I can't believe this. This guy's fucking, he knows where I live and he's got to be a cop. I don't know that he, until that moment, I realized, because no one has my number and cops can get each other's number by calling the precinct. I said, I want to get in touch with so-and-so. I want to get in touch with so-and-so. And we have private numbers in a log at the precinct that you can get my number at if you need to speak to me. Turns out that he was already arrested. He was out on bail when he's doing this to me. So it was the same guy. Same guy. The gold chain guy. Yeah, same guy. So here I am trying to turn over a new leaf. You asked a question. I didn't, you know, I didn't pose this. You said, so what if I went cold turkey like a heroin junkie and tried to start from there? Well, I did. And look what happened to me.

36:19They threatened to kill me. They threatened to kill me. That's the beginning of it. Then I leave the Coney Island detail. I go back to the 7-5 and no one wants to work with me. So if you go to the documentary, you hear, Mike's no good. Stay away from him. Mike's no good. He says, they didn't want to work with me because they heard I was a rat. Wow. Because I gave up a cop for corruption. Right? He wears a wire. I never did, by the way. Kenny's good with them. I never wore a wire. I never really gave up a good cop or a cop that did, a guy was selling drugs on fucking Long Island trying to do the right thing. Turn him in. I know they're looking at me for drugs. We're not no more. I gave up the game. I wanted to be straight. So you can't go straight is what I'm trying to tell you. Once you get labeled in the police department, you're done. Because no one would work with me because I was straight.

37:01Well, no one wanted to work with you because they thought that you were untrustworthy because you were turning this cop in. Well, that's what I'm telling you. Right. But they would never admit to that. They go, anybody you talk to now says, no, he was rogue. He was corrupt. Right. But the fact is, they wouldn't work with me because they were afraid I was going to turn them in. And if you hear in the documentary, he says, well, Kenny says, the only thing he could turn me in for is having a beer. He mentions that Mike and I had a beer together and I could just walk away from this partnership and they put us in the farm together, which I went to the farm three times. So I'm pretty good with the farm too. What's the farm? The farm is where you go when you go for a rehab. You know, like if you need help. Yeah. Like intervention. Like they do interventions today. Right. Well, they did farms back then. Farms?

37:42Yeah, you went to the farm. Like an actual farm? Yeah, you would go to the farm. Like where cows are and shit? Yeah, where cows are. They had a fish pond. They had hay fields and shit. And what would you do there? Just relax? No, you'd dry out. Yeah. Okay. It was a place for mostly alcoholics, but you know. And they called it the farm? It was called the farm. Okay. Yeah. And cops would go there too? Anybody would go there. You'd be in rehabilitation. Okay. But it was known as the farm. Right. Yeah. It's renowned in the police department lingo. Okay. Yeah. So I went to the farm three times in like nine months. Wow. I needed to. Well, they were after me too. You know, they were fucking hard on me. And two of my friends just went to prison. Walter, who's in the film. They went to a prison for a robbery they committed. Was Walter the big guy? Yeah. Walter's the monster guy. Yeah. Yeah. Always helps having a giant guy.

38:31You gotta have something. The fluff. The fluff is good. He was a pretty sharp guy too, but you know, he was young and dumb too. So he wound up going away. Did Chickie go away? And then he did a short bid. He did like two years and he came home. Chickie went away for nine months. And then they came back and they needed work. So I helped find them work. Different times, you know. Right. Chickie went to work for Adam as one of my point men. When I was off, I put Chickie on the clock. So if I wanted to go home, you know, do my, you know, go home after work, I'd have Chickie cover the next six or eight hours of shift that they would be, the bodega would be open selling their cocaine. Now that's where it gets crazy. The bodega. That's where it gets crazy. Well, that was when you guys escalated. Yeah. When you got involved with the cocaine dealing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what it was was the handwriting was on the wall that,

39:21because the 7-7 precinct went down for shaking down local thugs and drug dealers. And the rumor was that 7-5 was going down. So we stopped doing that. I went to Coney Island. Half the guys left the fuck at the precinct to just quit, quit the police department. Chickie wanted them. And when I came back to the 7-5, no one wanted to work with me. And in fact, one of my first days back, I hook up with Walter, who's a rookie kid, didn't know anything except that, you know, he liked to make arrests and get involved and shit. And then I'm like, dude, you don't know who I am. I just don't want, I just want none of, nothing to do with this stuff. And he's like, yeah, I'll make the arrest. And he looked at him, okay, you're going to really stop crime in here. You're going to make an arrest for a fucking, for a drug. Okay, good. But I want to do it because I don't want the attention.

40:05Meanwhile, Joe Tromboli, the guy that's following me, he's across the street watching us interact. This whole time. I called for, that's a long story. I called for the sergeant to give us a scratch so we can be done for the day. Scratch means the sergeant comes by and gives you a notification that you're on where you're supposed to be. I'm asking the sergeant to give us a scratch just by calling something over the air, not asking for the scratch because that would be inappropriate. But I would call in a car, license plate, and the sergeant shows up, gives us a scratch, we're done for the day. I get in my private car, go to the bodega, pick up four hamburgers, eight pack of little nip Bud Lights. No, they weren't Buds, they were regular Buds back then. And the sergeant is following us the whole time. He's watching us do all this shit. Now I'm over in the other end of the precinct

40:46because it's one of my favorite bodegas who makes a nice burger. And we came back to the spot, ate the stuff, threw the shit out the window. Because it was the ghetto, and that's what you do like an asshole. Instead of respecting the community, you fuck the community because you're an idiot, you know, you're dumb, young and dumb. So I threw the eight pack of beers out the window. The sergeant sees it flying out the fucking window. He goes and grabs the cans. Now he's going to call me in and investigate me for drinking on the job. But Walter stood up and said, no, we didn't have nothing. He goes, I got the fucking cans. He goes, they were on us. Walter held his mud early on. So you got to love him. He could have lost his job because he was on probation. When you guys started dealing with the guys who owned the bodega, that's when the documentary gets most crazy. Right.

41:31And that's when it seems like you guys had escalated. You'd gone from just taking a little money here and there and having some fun and going to Atlantic City. Now you are deep. We're deep, yeah. In serious drug dealing. Yeah, yeah. And that's why, you know, when I had the meeting with Diaz, I said, listen, just to talk to us, you got to pay us money. Because I don't know where this is going to go, but I know it's going deep. Right. You know, so I came up with a number, 24,000. Don't ask me why I didn't say 44,000. I have no idea. I just, I think in my mind it broke down like this. Three months clear pay for each of us. Right. If the taxes at that time, we probably would have cleared, you know, do the math, you know, 3,000 a month, whatever it was at that time. And I said, okay, so let's have three or four months of clear pay. So if we get jammed up, we can survive.

42:15Like that's the number I came up in correlation to something like that. So it was in case you got kicked off the force? Yeah, right away. Yeah. Okay. Um, brilliant, brilliant thinking, right? Knowing that something was not going to be good at the end of this. And where's that guy now? He's in like the Dominican Republic or something like that? Yeah, get him on the phone if you want. Really? Oh, I get him all right now. He was fucking hilarious. He's one of the best characters in the movie. Speaking of him, he asked me to give you this. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, beautiful. I don't know if you like cigars. I do like cigars. What kind is this? Yeah, this is the Adam Diaz King of Brooklyn cigar. Well, he's got his own cigar? Yeah. Jesus Christ. We just started, it's in the development process right now. But if you check out the label, you really can't see it well. But there's a picture of him with the unibrow.

42:57Did you see the movie here with him with the unibrow? Yeah, his unibrow was tight. His unibrow. Yeah. I respect the commitment to a unibrow. Yeah, he was, yeah, yeah. These smell good. Yeah, no, no, they're tobacco letta in Dominican. Do you smoke these? They're delicious. Do you smoke? Me and Marty had one. You smoke one right now? Do you want? No, no, I wouldn't do that, but I would. They're delicious. You can. That's okay. We can smoke them. We've got a little air machine behind us. If you wanted to, we could. All right, let's do it. If you wanted to, yeah. We've got a knife shaming? Yeah, I don't know. A pair of scissors? These are delicious, by the way. I don't have a clipper. Yeah. But. So, he, but he's a fucking character, that guy. He's a pisser. He's a pisser. And that fucking unibrow, that's a commitment. I'll tell you. All these pussies today. I'm going to tell you a story.

43:37Trying to take away a couple little wax in your eyebrows. I know I do it too, like a bitch, but you know. Do you? Sometimes. You pluck your eyebrows? No, I don't pluck. I shave. Do you really? You shave the middle? Right in the middle. Otherwise, I might have. I used to have more hair there than now. I don't know what happened. I think from doing this all the time. Yeah, from frowning? Just fucking. You wore it off? Yeah. Or maybe from the mat. I definitely had more. Maybe. Getting choked. Yeah, right? Bad defense. So a funny story with Adam, and I think most people appreciate this. I hope they do. Adam's paying me $8,000 a week right now, and I don't see him for two weeks. Now I'm getting a little fucking nervous, right? Right. What do we got? Oh, a pair of scissors. There you go. What the fuck happened to these scissors? What are you doing, Jamie? Getting crazy when I'm not here?

44:19So Adam Diaz and I haven't seen each other in two weeks, and I'm getting a little annoyed because I want my money. I want it on time. And part of the deal was, whether you're making money or not, you're paying me because we've already opened the door to this. I'm going to start living the life. Right. And can you open that, Mike? I'm just going to start living. I got my neck is killing me. What's wrong with you? I got two vertebrae I banged up there. Yeah? Yeah. Someone probably grabbed me the wrong way. I hurt myself at work. Right. Yeah. Just recently. So Adam Diaz. So anyway, I haven't seen this guy, and he owes me now two weeks. Right. Okay. And if you learn anything about me, I don't like to be owed, and I don't like to owe. I like to pay. I like to be paid on time, and I'm always early. So anyway, I finally see him. He's got the red Porsche. I mean, 911 Targa, 22 years old, right? Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.

45:16911 Targa, blonde hair, blue-eyed Dominican, 22 years old, convertible. There he goes down New Lots Avenue, where New Lots and Vermont meet in this little triangle. And so, and Kenny's with me in the car at the time, probably the first time he was. But anyway, so. He's pretty good. I just love the fact that I'm smoking that dude's cigar. Yeah, I just hit the fucking mic. So, so I pull him over, and he goes, he doesn't know who it is. Right. So Diaz is getting pulled over by the police in East New York, and I'm his hook. Right. But he doesn't know that it's me, because he doesn't recognize it. All he sees is blue. You know? Right. This tall guy, and he's sitting down low in the Porsche. So. License registration, insurance card. He's fumbling around looking for his shit. He probably doesn't have anything. But anyway, so, he's got his Dominican pants on, his nice loafers. He's a sharp looking kid. Right.

46:17He's always dressed to the nines. He looked good. And finally he goes, I look at him, I go, Adam, it's me. He goes, oh, I'm out on a mic. He jumps up out of the car. Hey, give me a hug. What the fuck? Where you been? Like, I'm annoyed. Right. I'm annoyed, but I'm being nice. Where you been? I was in Yale. Yale? Yale. Jail? I go, wait, hold on. Spanish jail? Bruno, this is all I, this is the only thing I can coin in my life that I know of. Right. So I go, Yale. You're in Yale. He goes, yeah. I go, how long were you in Yale? He goes, three, four days. I go, okay. You're up in Yale three or four days. I said, who do you know in Connecticut? I swear to Christ. Who do you know in Connecticut? He goes, Connecticut. I go, yeah, Yale's in Connecticut, the college. He goes, no, no, no. Not college. I was in Yale, Rikers Island. He says that perfectly. I go, you mean jail, not Yale? He goes, yes, Yale. I go, son of a bitch.

47:15So I think I coined this fucking term, jail, not Yale, or Yale, not jail. Agreed? This is 1987. Okay. How long have you been hearing that term? Yale, not jail? Yeah. Never. Were you in jail, not Yale? No. No, I heard it 34 seconds ago. So here's the thing. So here's this guy saying, I wasn't in Yale. I was in Yale. I'm like, you mean jail, not Yale. There you go. He just can't say jail? He couldn't say it. Yeah. Well, he texts me all the time. He goes, instead of going ha, ha, ha, he goes, J-I, J-I, J-I. J-A, J-A. Yeah. They do that all the time. Yeah. What is that? I don't know. That's ha, ha, ha? Mm-hmm. That's so strange. Yeah, that's how you know if Spanish people make fun of you. Yeah. J-A, J-A, J-A. Okay. Yeah. So anyway, so just, you know, you can't make that up, you know. Where were you? I'm thinking he's in college, you know, because he's a sharp kid.

48:14But why didn't you automatically assume, like I did, that he meant jail? I'm not as sharp as you are. But you're around Spanish people all the time. Because he's out in the fucking street. He's out in the street driving a Porsche. If he was in jail, who the fuck let him go? Right. The guy sells kilos and let him second. Well, how did he get out? I don't know. I didn't want to ask too many questions. I just wanted my money. You want me to learn about me? I don't ask a lot of questions because if I don't like the answer, I'm going to get really fucking mad. Right, right, right. I just want the money. Who? But dealing with a guy like that and dealing with an organization like that, you had to know that, okay, now I've taken this giant step. I'm involved with a serious murderer cocaine dealing motherfucker. Like this is horrible. Yeah. It's horrible. It's horrible. You sell your soul.

49:04And, you know, what's to say other than this? I got a little annoyed with him, right? So I'm not living at home anymore. My life is a disaster. A complete disaster. So I call my wife up. I says, listen, things aren't going too good, hon. You want to get back together. I want some stability in my life. Right. So she goes to me, I'm okay from here. Oh, no. How can you blame her? She goes, I'm okay from here. And so she goes, I go, listen, I'm going to Dominican Republic. And I'm going with this woman I'm seeing at the time who was a police officer, a sweetheart girl. Anyway. And I go, would you go with me instead? She goes, take her. Have a good time. This is my fucking wife telling me. Wow. Take her. Have a good time. Take her. Have a good time. And when you get back, we'll talk. I mean. Wow. What a good kid. That's what I'm saying. That's a good woman right there. I ruin everything I touch. Anyway. Wow.

50:01I hope my girlfriend doesn't get this. You know, sometimes like I think adversity makes some women better. There's some women that like dealing with a, no offense, asshole husband. Yeah. Sometimes it just makes them a better person. They just, they learn how to like roll with the blows better. They learn. They learn a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Because they're sitting back observing this whole disaster take place, you know. Yeah. Because they're trying to stop you and you ain't listening. Yeah. So, so I go to Dominican Republic. Right. And, uh, and I'm on, uh, I'm on the plane and there's this guy with a beard, um, well groomed. He's making small talk with us, me and the girl and he's got some woman with him. Look, I'm on vacation. I'm not going there to fucking rob anybody or make any deals. I'm going there to see my Dominican drug kingpin and see, see if we can get the money pipe flowing again.

50:48I'm a little distraught here now. My income's cut way down. I'm only making about two, three thousand a week. I was getting six, seven thousand a week between his payoffs and all my other shakedowns going on. You know, I was doing good. Now I'm getting a little tight, you know. I got fucking four homes. I got a kid I want to put away for his college. Sorry I never made that. But anyways. You know, so there's a lot of things I got planned here and he's fucking it up right now because he's hiding in Dominica. Right. So I'm going to see him. So I get off the plane and, uh, they're speaking Dominican to me, these people. And I can speak a little Spanish. Uh, so I said, yo soy policía en Nueva York. Yo tiene un taxi o coche. Yo tengo un transportor al casa del campo. And I'm talking to a cop in uniform with a sergeant stripes on. Right? Right. The cab drivers start beating them up. Start beating the cop up?

51:35Yeah, they're grabbing and pushing them, trying to knock them out of the way because they want to take the ride. And I want this guy because he's big and he's a cop. He's going to mediate for me and get me the right price. Because I know they're going to look to take, you know, take advantage of the gringo from America. Anyway. I end up fucking paying, paying hand and fist for this ride. Right. But in the interim, some guy steps over to me, the guy that was on the plane with me, and says, hey, how you doing? What are you guys doing? Where are you going? And I'm like, what, are you here on vacation too? And we're talking back and forth. I'm going to see this buddy of mine, Diaz. He's a bodega owner in East New York. And the guy's like, oh, really? Where does he live? I go, I don't know, someplace in La Romana, whatever I said. Turns out it was the DEA. They fucking followed me on the plane.

52:20How did you not automatically assume that? Because I'm a sociable guy. Like, as soon as you said, I'm talking to this guy, I'm like, oh, Christ. You saw the movie. I guess that's what the problem is. I'm looking at it. You're looking at it from the movie. I'm fucking 27, 28 years old. Maybe I'm more paranoid than you. Yeah. Well, I'm 48. If I was 28, I probably would have told him everything too. That's what I'm saying. I'm down there. I'm on vacation. I'm there to have a good time. Right. And I'm just looking for a friendly face. Right. And he speaks Dominican. And don't worry, I'll take care of you. He says, I'll get you where you got to go. I said, great. The DEA guy says, I'll get you where you want to go? I didn't know it was fucking DEA. Oh, fucking Christ. So anyway, we end up in the car. We get all the way to El Casa de Campo. I think he took three different ways to get there. So we finally get there.

53:04And they put us in this house with four different couples. What? Like we're sharing a fucking house with somebody now. Okay. No one's there. Who are these other people? I don't know them. Okay. I want a lover's retreat for the weekend. Right. And they got me in a house. Like for people who want to go camping and hang out together and sweat or something. I don't know. So I look around. I go, there's four other couples in this fucking house. Like I'm sharing a kitchen. I'm sharing this. I'm like, I'm not here for this. Right. So they drive us back to, I said, no, get me out of here. So now they drive us back to this little retreat right by the beach. Get in there. Everything's good. Have a nice time. And I'm calling at him every night. I'm in your country, bro. I fucking, like, do you see how I'm here, Joe? Right. I'm in L.A., Joe. Right. I live in Long Island. I'm here. I don't fuck around. I'm coming. I'm coming. Right?

53:53So I tell Diaz, I'm here. He goes, his wife, he won't answer the phone. His wife says, he's playing basketball. Now, if you saw Diaz in the film, he's five foot three. I don't know. Maybe he's shorter than five foot three. But he's cute. He's five foot three and cute. So I'm, okay. That's 1030 at night. I heard Prince is really good at basketball. Does he use his lips? It was on the, Charlie, Charlie Murphy talked about it. So this guy's playing basketball. So I'm calling him every day and every night. Now I'm, now I'm a little annoyed. I'm in your country. Right. Okay. I'm here. Okay. Show respect. Show up. Right? Right. Plus the fact that you owe me fucking like $14,000 right now. I'm getting a little nervous. Maybe more. Three weeks, four weeks pay. I'm talking about myself, you know? Right. So I'm a little annoyed. But I'm spending $1,000, $1,500 to come see you for a reason.

54:37Actually, $4,000 by the time I figured the trip out. Fuck it. Anyway, so he's playing basketball. It's midnight. I call his fucking house. Now I'm mad. Midnight. I'm bringing this fucking phone. His wife answers the phone at midnight. Mike, he's playing basketball. I said, you got to be fucking kidding me. It's midnight. He's 5'3". How much basketball could he possibly be playing? I'm in his country. I said, this is fucking disrespectful. Tell him I said that. I don't know if you're going to have someone hit me, kill me. I don't fucking know. I'm pissed. At this point, who cares, right? Anyway, we turn around. We leave. We're getting ready to get on the plane. About an hour before the plane, I'm staying in El Emporador Hotel in the center of Santo Domingo. And there's a casino downstairs. I love to fucking gamble, right? Atlantic City. Every time we hit a big load, we hit Atlantic City. So I'm in the casino.

55:21The lights go out. In the casino. I got like 20 minutes. I put American money and Dominican money. I use American. I hit him for like 6, 800 large, right? In like 10 minutes. They want to stab me. They don't want to let me leave. They're trying to hold me feet there. I got to catch a fucking plane. Like, I don't know. It's a 40-minute ride from where I am. So I got to get going now. They're like, you're catching in? I go, yeah, let me go. They got flashlights on the table because the lights go out like every hour or two. They go out for like 15 minutes. The casino's not. Yeah, back then they did. So they stand there with flashlights making sure everybody's money is not getting stolen or robbed from them. I cash out and I leave. I get on the plane and come back home. So I get home. On the way home, I get strip searched in the airport. Now, you've got to be kidding me.

56:03Coming from the Dominican Republic, there's nothing but packages with people with ropes and cardboard boxes. Right. I got luggage, like real luggage, you know? These people have stamps on the side, yayo, on the fucking side of their boxes coming in, right? Women have their thighs cut open so they can stuff packages of fucking Coke in their thighs, right? But I'm coming in with my little bag and my little guinea tea, whatever the fuck I'm wearing, coming from Dominica, and I'm getting strip searched. I'm getting searched in the airport. So I'm looking around and I'm saying, this is fucking some setup. Anyway, it's a setup. Right. Now, Mike Dowd is finally waking up, you know? Right. And I go, it's that fucking Tromboli. I didn't know his name. I thought it said Trattbaum. His name is fucking Tromboli. I go, it's that fucking Trattbaum. I know it is. Anyway, gets strip searched. She gets cavity searched.

56:48She gets cavity searched. I broke up with her on the plane. On the plane? Yeah, on the way back. Because I was going to, my wife said, okay, go have fun. Come back. We'll talk. Right. So on the way back, you're like, look. Look. This ain't going to work out. Yeah. I'm going back to my wife. I'm going home where I belong. Right. Anyway. So, yeah, she's distraught. Now she's getting bent over. I just fucked her. And now these people are fucking her. So it's horrible. I mean, we're laughing because, you know, life is, you know, horrible, you know. Well, after the fact. After the fact. Right. Exactly. So anyway, so we get home and whatever. We do our last deeds. And outside the fucking sub. I didn't want to tell her. Someone was outside fucking taking her license plate numbers down. They had flashlights on the inspection stickers for our cars.

57:34Turtle Affairs was outside, you know, marking the locations and the times and everything else that I was at the house. I didn't want to tell her. I spook her. So anyway, a week goes by, two weeks go by, whatever it was. Finally, I'm at Barron's shop, Autosound City, where this whole thing basically centers around. And Adam's there. And I want to fucking, I don't know if I'm going to bite him, kick him, hug him or stab him. I'm fucking, I want to kill him. Right. Mike, what the fuck? I was in your country. What the fuck is wrong with you? He goes, the DEA had your phones while you were in Dominican Republic. He said, they tapped you. They followed you. He said, I was warned by the Dominican police department to stay the fuck away from you. Wow. You think he would have sent a pigeon or something? Send me a message? Well, he probably couldn't. Probably, probably couldn't trust anybody. Well.

58:25It's probably one of those situations where, what can you do? If you're, if you know that you're being tapped and you know that they're watching, it's probably best to just play basketball. That's what he was doing. Playing basketball all the time. That's what you got to do sometimes. Just lay low and hope that he sees you. It makes sense. Yeah. Well, he's a smart guy. Well, how did you avoid getting killed? That's, that's what is most shocking. That you were involved with, I mean. Listen, you go into a ring, you think you're coming out, right? Yeah. That's it. So, do you realize now, like, we're looking back on it, like, Jesus fucking Christ, like, I came really close. Well, the more serious affront that I faced was that guy Cello that's mentioned in the documentary. And why I say that is not because at any moment something could have, could have gone wrong in any deal, you know.

59:14Because at some point I began purchasing the coke from these guys because they couldn't constantly front your fucking kilos because they loved you. Right. And I could no longer provide them protection because I wasn't, they took my guns and badge away. Actually, I surrendered it. Let's not, let's keep it real. I surrendered my gun and badge. Why did you surrender it? Because I was trying to get off the job on a psycho disability. Psycho disability? Yeah. You know, I mean, it makes sense. Right. But they gave me my guns back. This was what's ruinous. They gave it to you back. They go, nope, we did an investigation. We decided you're A-OK. You're good. And I'm reading the fucking papers. You don't even know. This is surreal. I'm reading. See this piece of paper I have here? On this piece of paper, there's a guy. He's about 90 years old. This is no joke. Not written on here. But there's a 90-year-old guy.

59:59He's the head shrink in the whole New York City Police Department. He's got this piece, this dossier in front of him. He leaves it out. And I'm in there to get my gun and badge back. He's 90. So he turns around. He's got to go about, I don't know, 50 feet this way. Open a locker. Put a lock on it. Take my gun and my badge and give it back to me. So I'm sort of like doing a neck twist and curl. And it says four or five separate allegations for selling narcotics out of a red Corvette. And this guy is giving me back my gun and badge. I'm like, this is fucking unbelievable. This is the first time I ever saw officially in writing what they had me under investigation for. There's 19 different fucking listed investigations. Four specifically at one period of time from like 86, 87, 88. Eight specifically laid out week after week what they were looking for me for.

60:50I'm like, and this is from a red Corvette, so I knew exactly what time that was. I only had the red Corvette for a short period as well. So I'm like, I can't believe they're giving my shit back. I mean, this is, now I know I'm scared. I don't, now, you know, what do you do? Do you think that they were giving you shit back so that you could keep doing what you were doing to catch you on more shit? Was that the idea behind it? They don't ever want to catch you. Really? They don't ever want to catch you. They want you to stop at that point. So they don't want to catch you because if they catch you, it fucks with the whole department. It's a black eye for everybody. Okay. Which is true, and it's hard. You know, listen, what I did was not good. We know that, right? We're just talking about it right now. Do you know that, what was it, Tamir Rice? Is that the kid's name? The 12-year-old kid that got shot?

61:34They decided that it was okay. That there was nothing wrong. The investigation showed there was nothing wrong with the way the officer acted. He got out of his car within two seconds, shot this 12-year-old kid who had a gun, fake gun, toy gun. Joe, a lot of these things that you mentioned, I don't know all the facts on. I'm not here to bash what cops do because what they do is an impossible job, right? The problem is that everybody makes mistakes, and when you're a cop and you make a mistake, it can cost somebody their life. Yeah. And that's the reality, you know? And, you know, if you ask me, is there other solutions and other alternatives, I say absolutely. You know, give the cop the body cameras. Give him more body cameras. Why not? I mean, you know, everybody else is filming. You might as well be the one filming it. Yeah, the problem is this story.

62:22I mean, it's a totally unrelated story, but this story was on camera. You know, I caught a little glimpse of some stuff, Joe. I try not to pass judgment because I'm not the one there. I've been in hundreds of – listen, in East New York, I pull my gun out every day. I probably pull my gun out 15 times a day. Really? And I never shot anybody. So you pulled your gun out to warn people? You pulled your gun out to be careful? Let them know that this is serious and that I need to know where your hands are right now. Your hands are my threat. Right. And if I don't see your hands and you don't comply with me with your hands, then I may have to kill you. Right. May have to. I don't want to. Right. But I'm letting you know. It's amazing that you never shot anybody. Yeah. Close. A couple of times. I actually almost shot a cop once. Really? Yeah. Undercover? Yeah, undercover. Jesus.

63:07He was beating up some – he had a gun on a kid. And I told him to drop his gun. He wouldn't drop his gun. I was with Kenny that time. He could probably tell the story as well because he remembers everything perfectly. Do you talk to that guy anymore, Kenny? Not really. We're not – you know, we don't have a good relationship. Let's put it that way. I would imagine that would be a strain on the friendship when a guy puts you away for 12 years. It's not even that anymore. It's more the way he's handled things since then. And he's just – listen. I don't begrudge him for what happened to his life. He made decisions in his life based on more than just his own freedom, okay? His wife's freedom was at stake as well, okay? Right. His children's being put into a foster home possibility was there because – Right. I understand. Dory was directly involved in certain things, his wife.

63:50You two together on a podcast would be fucking epic. Well, we tried – a lot of these we couldn't do together. Why? We worked on a lot of these. We wouldn't sit in the same room. I – listen, because I really don't want to give him the credibility that he does not deserve because he continually – we have – we're at odds over certain things. Aspects of the story. Certain aspects of the story and when I confront him and he just says, well, you're a liar. You know, what do I have to lie about? What do I have to fucking lie about? Right. I'm the guy who did the fucking time. Right. I have nothing to lie about. If you remember things differently than I, that's fine, you know? But the reality is – I'm just going to touch on it. Okay. Briefly. This kidnapping slash murder slash whatever, execution slash bullshit. The thing at the end. The thing at the end. We weren't going to the woman's house to do that. Okay?

64:39You weren't. We were going to the woman's house to survey her house. He insisted that we woke up to the front door. I said, what are you out of your fucking mind? That's not even in the plan. That doesn't make the tapes. That's not even in the plan, Kenny. Yeah, well, I'm not driving all the way here and not going up to that front door. First of all, that shouldn't even be a discussion because we're not going up to the front door. There's other people involved in this that are going to go in and come out. Didn't they get you on recording saying that you had to get rid of this woman? He said that. You don't hear is what he's saying for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, saying they're going to execute him, Mike. You know they're going to execute him. I'm like, who? Who's going to execute him? The Colombians, he keeps saying. Right. First of all, where are the Colombians? Second of all, they're not here.

65:21And third of all, whatever. We throw whatever. I want to get past the conversation. Right. Because I sense he's fucking taping it. You sense that? I sense it. I've asked him numerous times, Kenny, you're wearing a wire. Come on. Just tell me the truth. Was this before he was wearing a wire? You thought he was wearing a wire? No. While he was wearing a wire. So you knew when shit was going down. It wasn't making sense. So I kept saying, are you wearing a wire? No, no, Mike. I would never do that to you. I'm like, I want to believe this guy. You know? I want to believe him. It should be one of those things like, remember in those old stupid TV shows where you'd have to say, you'd ask a cop, are you a cop? And they would have to tell you. You remember that? Well, people fucking believe that, which is goddamn hilarious. You know, if a cop, if you just ask him if he's a cop, they're going to tell you. Yeah, right. What?

66:05Yeah, right. Good luck. Fucking fantasy land are you living in. Good luck with that one. That's goddamn hilarious. Actually, a cop is allowed to do a bump if he has to stay alive. Well, they're allowed in Hawaii to fuck prostitutes. Well, that's good. I'm on a job there. Did you hear that? That's true. It's a recent thing. They made a recent decision that police officers in Hawaii are allowed to have sex with prostitutes on the job as a part of an ongoing investigation. Well, because they can't get enough on their own? I mean, come on. Well, because they have to find out things and the prostitutes won't trust them unless they fuck them. You got to fuck me, and then we can talk. Yeah, that's how they work. Okay. It's intimacy. Like I said, let's go there. Intimacy. We'll open up our own private detective agency. Well, undercover women wind up fucking drug dealers and stuff all the time, right?

66:52It's a dark secret, isn't it? Or at least it is in the movies. Well, they could have gotten me pretty easily that way then, couldn't they? Why didn't they do that? Yeah, why did they send Kenny in there? They could have sent any hot Latino broad in there. Yeah, with a tape recorder in her pussy. Yeah, she just had to have it in the neighborhood. I would have been done. Just send in one of those little dime packages. Well, the tape recorder back then, though, were fucking giant, monstrous VCR-looking things. Did you imagine? And I didn't check them because I was too proud. Like, you wouldn't do that to me. Oh. And my brother says to me, Mike, did you toss him? I go, yeah. I didn't. Wow. And thank God I didn't that day. Well, thank God. I mean, what's the difference? I'm doing my time either way, you know? Right. But what if you'd killed him or something? Or what if you guys had gotten...

67:37That would have been messy. Yeah. That would have been messy. Thank God. In other words, thank God I didn't find out. Yeah. Well, anything could have happened. Right. You don't know. And there would have been assault and violence involved. Right. Right. That would have been another level to something else. And you're threatening a witness. How the fuck did I know he was a witness until a minute ago? Right. Exactly. That's the sneaky thing about it. Now, you went away for 12 years? Well, I was sentenced to 14 years. I took a plea agreement that was 10th to life. Okay? That's the plea. That was the plea. So how does that work when they say 10th to life? They offered me 24 to 30. Ooh. That was my first offer. I called my lawyer. What the fuck? Did I kill somebody? He goes, that's just the way the federal government is. I said, that's nice. So 24 to 30 was my first offer. Now, what pisses me off is here's a guy.

68:20He doesn't realize what he just did to a guy who was eating in my house a couple weeks ago. Uh-huh. And now he doesn't realize that instead of just doing our time together, like just take the... Let me backtrack a little bit. Right. Okay. And we'll try to remember that where we were. Okay. When we were out on bail, Kenny had some options, as I did, to either cooperate with the government and give everything up and just go on and do your married little bid and your life, whatever. It might have not been too little. It might have been more. So I get offered a shrimp boat trip, a job in Nicaragua to run a shrimp boat. A shrimp boat? Yeah. Who the fuck is offering you a shrimp boat? Yeah. The owner of the Astoria Hotel, Astoria Manor in Astoria, Queens, he's got a catering hall with a bunch of weddings. And most weddings, they love to have shrimp at every wedding. He has 11 rooms in the catering hall.

69:10So he's got 11 people, sometimes twice a day, filtering shrimp through his business. So he says, Mike, you're going away for a long period of time. He said, so I got an option for you. I need a shrimp boat captain in Nicaragua. You want to go? I went, I'm in. So, you know, I'm looking for anything to grab onto at that point in my life. And I go home and I'm like, I give Kenny a call. I said, Kenny, listen, I want to talk to you. Mike, I don't know if we should talk. I said, Ken, let's meet and talk. So we have a conversation. And he says, Mike, I got a pension. I got a wife and a kid. He says, I'm not giving that shit up to go shrimp. If I have to do a little bid, I have to do it. Fine. He says, but I'm not giving it all up to go shrimp boat fishing in Nicaragua. I said, OK, done. Story done. Case closed. Done. Never happened. OK. Three, four days later, maybe less, two days later, the phone rings.

69:57Mike, I'm interested in going fishing. I go, what are you talking about fishing? So he comes to see me. He says, now, I see the fucking DEA over here. I see something over here. I see everybody. I'm being followed. I go, what are you talking about? He goes, I want to go fishing. Remember the fishing trip you were talking about last week? I go, what fishing trip? Fucking, you know, the Marlin fishing trip? What fishing trip? He won't say the word. Shrimp boat in Nicaragua. Why? Well, it has to come from me. Why does it have to come from you? Because if you're working for the government at this point, you can't be the one that entraps the person. Oh. It has to come out of my mouth. So him saying the fishing trip. Let's go fishing. Yeah. Right. So he wants you to, because he wants you to say, I'm going to skip the country. Correct. He wants me to say, you mean, like I do. Right. The shrimp boat job in Nicaragua? Right.

70:49Yes. He goes, yes. He jumps up out of his fucking chair. I'm like, look, I know what the fuck are you so excited about? And now I know something's wrong. Oh, what a shitty actor. Yeah, he's ridiculous. So now I go, okay, something's not right. And I start finding the fucking setup everywhere around me. And he's opening the window in his car. His hair's perfectly quaffed. I said, Kenny, what do you open the window for? The fucking air conditioner's on. It's 95 degrees out. Your hair's going to get messed. Oh, no, no. Anyway, he disputes that. Why would he dispute that? Anyway, so now think of what just happened. He's now come back to me and says he wants to go on the shrimp boat trip. Right. He goes home. I go home. I said, listen, it's a good idea. We need a half a million plus because I can't leave my family broke. All their houses are up for fucking bail. Two days go by.

71:39And some Colombian calls me up and says, I need a half a million dollars of this. I need a half a million dollars recovered and 10 kilos from this woman's house in Jamaica. Same number. Just what I need. Exactly what I needed. Right. It's suspicious. Yeah. A little bit? I'm a little suspicious as well. But I can't believe God is good, I'm saying. He's great. Look what he's doing for me. So you really believed it. They played it off well. So, and I'm looking for anything. I don't know. I'm desperate. Are you doing coke at the time? No. No. No. Okay. Six weeks clean. Wow. I was in jail. So I was out on bail. And no one would sell anything to me. So I tried to pick up a package. My own dealer wouldn't sell it to me. Wow. That's when times are tough. Yeah. When a coke dealer won't sell you blow. My own guy. My own guy. Too hot, man. Yeah. I'm not going to go to Yale. Yeah. I'm not going to Yale.

72:30So I end up in a discussion with him. And this thing presents itself. And he's all over it now. Yeah. I want to go. I go. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Kenny. You didn't want to go before. He says, yeah, but now I want to go. Like, he's like fucking screaming it. I'm like, okay. It sounds a little odd. Are you wearing a wire? No. Oh, okay. Just checking. Just casual. Just checking. Anyway, so on and on and on we went, and eventually the sting was sad, and this thing turned into what it turned into. And, you know, it is what it is. Well, you dispute it in the film. You say that you... Yeah, but I dispute the premise of the beginning of the whole process. With the woman, there's a controversy back and forth. I never saw her, never met her, never intended to touch her, myself, personally, ever. Now, how she was going to get in my car, begged and gagged and whatever, I don't fucking know. Okay?

73:24But the fact is that we weren't supposed to do anything to her. So, for people who listen to this that haven't seen the documentary, there was sort of like a last thing that you guys could do to make a shitload of money, and it involved kidnapping a woman who would eventually be murdered. Well, this is in the film, right? It's horrible. Yeah. Yeah. All these eventuals... How much were you willing... All these eventuals are nothing that I never had anything to do with the eventuals. I never knew them. He knew them. And they spoke Spanish, so how the fuck did Kenny know what they were saying? Right. I don't know. Maybe the government translated for him. So, but what part, if any, were you playing in or anticipating playing? I was going to take the money from a woman's house. Come on. You could do that in your sleep. Take the money from a woman's house and the drugs and go home.

74:11Split it up with the Colombians and go. Somehow along the way, whether it be the government fishing, Kenny fishing, someone pushing, this woman was going to go from being... Money that wasn't hers. It was a drug dealer's money that was killed. Right. Her husband was a Dominican drug dealer who was killed. Uh-huh. By whom? I can't answer that question. But the fact is that he had a half a million in cash in that home, according to the setup people, and 10 kilos. And we can take it all and split it down the middle, and you'll have your money. You can leave the country. I mean, very convenient. Very. Yeah. Very convenient. What an asshole I was, right? Wow. What a crazy scenario, though. So, and that... So it went from shaking down street drug dealers for a couple hundred a day to, you know... But see, that's like an attempted murder. That's a whole conspiracy... Were you trying to get me a new charge? No, no, no.

75:01I'm not. But I'm saying, like, they obviously couldn't pin that on you. Otherwise, you would have went away for a lot longer than 12 years. So you answered that question. So, but it seems like that was something they were trying to concoct to make everything a lot more severe. Okay. Now, when you go away, you went... Think about how many years you were involved in actual crime. How many years do you think you were involved as a cop committing crime? Well, every time you put the uniform on and you don't do the right thing, you pretty much commit the crime. Right. And you have a gun on you. So how many years was that about? I'd say a solid five. A solid five years. So it's not that bad to go away for 12 for a solid five years. No, no. I mean, you want to minimize my sentence now? I mean, every day is a long fucking day. Come on. I'm sure. But I was going to bring that up, too.

75:44But what is it like when you go in there? I mean, first of all, you're a cop. They know you're a cop. Yeah. Everywhere I went, they knew. What is that? I was the first person they knew on the compound when I hit the compound. And what is that? It's like having 1,800 men times two, because they each got two eyes, most of them, not all. So you have 3,600 eyes on you, never mind the 600 staff in there watching you 24-7. Watching you, threatening you? You know, you eyeball someone that could be a threat, right? You're in a fight game. Yeah. Eyes can mean either compliance or fuck you, and then it's up to you. How do you want to handle this? Did they think of you as almost one of them because you were also involved in crime? There was a strange relationship. Many of them wished that they were me because they would love to have had that power.

76:33I mean, dozens, if not hundreds, have said, man, I wish I was a fucking cop. All right? I mean, really? Are you really? It's like having superpowers if you were a criminal. Yes. Well, if you see the film, it felt like you were God. Right. You could do anything you wanted. It was horrible. Well, that's what was my point about having that kind of power. In prison, you have none. Right. You have the least one they want. You and the child, Melissa. You know. So is that how they lump you in? Right in the same category. Wow. Yeah. So basically, when they say I walked the yard by myself for 12, other than Mickey Monday, who came up to me and said hello to me. Who is Mickey Monday? He's that blonde-haired guy from the Cocaine Cowboys. You ever seen that? Fuck yeah. Yeah. He's my buddy. That's my friend Billy Corbin's documentary. Both of them. Cocaine Cowboys 1 and 2. That guy's your buddy? Yeah. You went to jail with him?

77:21I got a picture of him. The two of you together must have had some fucking great stories. We were together last week in Miami. Jesus Christ. I was in Miami in his favorite fucking greasy spoon spot down there. Oh, he's out too? Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah. I was sitting there with this guy, John Cardillo, who does a radio show on iHeartRadio down there out of Fort Lauderdale. He and I, he's a retired cop. And he's a great host on the show. And we're talking about maybe doing something together too as well. Wow. The good cop, bad cop show. That sounds like a great idea. I'll be fucking pissed. First of all, if you don't have a podcast, there's a fucking crime being committed right now. You should absolutely- I don't know how to do one. Fucking easy as shit. Jamie will tell you. It's easy. I don't know. It's easy. He's sweating over there. Well, this is a way more complex setup than anybody really needs.

78:08I mean, we only do it this way because it's kind of fun to have video of it. Are we live streaming? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, we're live right now? Yeah, we're live right now. Yeah. How's my hair look? You look great. How's mine look? Wonderful. It's easy. I wish I had done this when I was 20. But the point is, all you need is a little MP3 recorder. If we had a little recorder that's the size of a cell phone like this, I've done a bunch of them. The size of Kenny's recorder. Well, no. He wishes he had something this small back then. But I've done a few of them just with my iPhone. We just set it down on a table, and the microphones in these things are really good. You could do it, and then you upload it. It's fucking easy as shit. Yeah, but I need someone like you to feed off of. I'm not, you know. Yeah, but you just get it. You just find somebody. You just find somebody in the street. I'm telling you.

78:54I should get one of the guys that I shook down. You could do that. Funny story. I'm at one of the premieres, and I did a lot of those. That's a great idea, actually. I'm at a premiere, and I see these guys come walking up, and they look fucking, they look a little haggard, you know? And they're looking at me with that cheapest look, and I'm like a semi-star of the thing, so I got to look all proper and everything, and look, you know, all ever-dite. Mm-hmm. And up comes these guys. They look like they're from the street, you know? Right. So they got their hats on sideways, half their teeth are missing, and the guy sticks his hand out, and he goes, Mike. I go, yeah? Who are you? He goes, I used to hang out on Picking and fucking, Picking and Norwood, or Picking and, not Norwood, because Norwood doesn't mean it, but Picking and Crescent and Picking and Chestnut. I'm like, okay.

79:42He goes, yeah, you used to shake me down. I'm like, oh, really? Oh, Jesus. He goes, but we both made it. Like, it was like almost a fucking initial bond that you couldn't imagine. Right. Like, in other words, I did my bid. Whatever he did, you know, 30 fucking years later, he's shaking my hand. Wow. At a movie premiere thing. It was just, he was like, we're proud of you? I don't know if that's, like, that makes sense. Wow. Like, we're proud of you. You lived through it. Look at us. They're like, only like 10 people lived through it, you know? Right. Those three and me and a couple other people. So, in a sense, well, you're both survivors, in a sense. Right. And there was respect. Yeah. There was respect. It was nice to see. That's bizarre, right? I tell you, a couple cops came up to me. They really didn't like it, but they didn't like it. But they came up and hugged me and said, hey, man, you made it, you know? Wow.

80:27Go on with your life. Which, really, to me, you know, I have to be honest with you. You know, you're still a cop in your heart, you know? Yeah. You're a fighter. You're a fighter in your heart, you know? You know that. You know? It's respect. That's a, what a strained relationship between you and the other cops. Well, you give up your whole community. Yeah. You know, when you fuck up like I did, you gave up, you know, and my whole family is involved in it, you know? The police department, fire department. So you destroyed your relationship with that whole community. And that's how you grew up. So I basically destroyed every fabric of my, of who I am, you know? But then again, they have to watch that documentary and be fucking entertained. They loved it. I've had people come to me. No, listen. It was back then, you know? So now they know. And they know who I am as a human being. I really mean good.

81:09I don't always do good, but I do mean well. Right. Well, like, like I said, if I was 23 years old and I was living where you're living and doing that job, I probably would have been right there with you. I probably would have. You're one in a thousand that said the same exact words. So is it some comfort? Maybe it is. There's some comfort in that. Well, I, you know, there's this, um, I used to have this different look about people. I used to say, well, you know, you're responsible for your own actions, which in a sense you absolutely are, but you're all, there's also this concept that all of your own actions and whoever you are in a lot of ways are determined by your environment, by how you grew up, by what situation you find yourself in, by the circumstances you find yourself in, in that situation. Yeah. And there's a, there's a lot going on there. And then there's the fun. There was a lot of fun.

82:01That's a fucking problem. I have to say, I have to say. That's, when I was watching that documentary, I was like, this guy looks like he's having a great fucking time. I don't know if that's a good thing. It's not a good thing. Yeah. It's not a good thing. It's not, but I did. But here's the thing, right? One of the things you alluded to is like, who's bringing the fucking drugs into that community? You know, who's bringing the drugs into the country? And I hate to go all crazy conspiracy theory. Yeah, I know. But the reality is there were a bunch of rogue. CIA. CIA agents were bringing it in. A bunch of rogue agents. With Ali North's crew. Yeah, I know. Yeah, Ali North's crew, the fucking. The Mena Airport out of Arkansas. Mena, Arkansas. With Bill Clinton's family was involved. I was in jail with his cousin. Yeah, what was the guy that got killed? Barry Seals. Barry Seals was the pilot.

82:45There's all these photographs of him with all these Colombian drug lords. And this guy, he was murdered on his way to testify. He had George Bush's phone number in his fucking pocket when he was killed. There's a lot of fucking shit going on with this. There's so much money involved in drugs. That's why I'm for total legalization, decriminalization of all narcotics, everything. Because you make criminals out of people that are generally not criminals. Yes. There's just a lot of money. I mean, a guy goes to school, becomes a stockbroker. He finds out that the real money is in being a criminal. Instead of making his $60,000, $70,000, or $100,000, he wants to make $6 million. So he has to be a criminal. So that's a choice he made, though. He made that choice. But being exposed to the opportunity, people find out who they really can become. Yes. Or we, you know, I like to say, you're not what you've done.

83:42It's what you've become afterwards, though. Like someone hurt somebody, you know, in a moment of rage or something, or inadvertently does something, or they go out of their way to do something. Because for whatever the deriving reasons are. So they're forever defined by that act. Yes. But that's not necessarily who someone is. Well, people love to forever define people by that act. Because they, in some way, are very happy it's not them. Right. And so they want to say, you're a piece of shit forever. I write you off forever. Right. How many people did what I did, got away with it, and are throwing fucking stones at me? A lot. Okay. I'm sure. Okay. Listen. Go back into the histories from between, let's go, 85 to 95. Uh-huh. Every single, call it ghetto precinct, because that's what it's called in the police world.

84:35Every single ghetto precinct had a scandal very similar to mine, except maybe not to the depth, like you had initially said. Like when I really got into the paying and straight out dealing with the guys. Well, let's be honest. You're an all-star. You're an all-star in the world of corruption. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. It's what it's like. It's like, you know, there's guys that take it to the next level. I mean, not everybody can be Ronda Rousey. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? You had her last night on TV. Guys take it to the next level, and you took it to the next level in the world of police corruption. And my mother and my children are quite proud of that. But you know what I'm saying? I mean, whenever you have any sort of an act, whether it's a guy who's a marijuana dealer or a guy who's a fucking bow hunter,

85:18you're going to have people that just take it to the ultimate. They take it to the furthest extreme. And that's what you did as a corrupt cop. I just found ways to continue to get better. So, like, when you say, like, a guy like Serpico, like, you think he's a piece of shit, or you think he's a... Well, you know what? I have nothing personal against him. I know, but you understand that... I wouldn't hang out with him, you know, for any period of time. But you kind of dabbled in that when you turned on the guy with the gold coins. Right, and I found out that it wasn't good. Right. Right. It quickly went back to being a criminal. One, it paid better. And two, it was a lot more fun. Now, when you go away, okay, and you're in that... What prison did you go to? I was in several. I started out in NCC New York. I did two years there waiting to be sentenced. So that's a state? It's all federal. All federal.

86:04It was federal. And it's not the camp that you think it is, by the way. And then I was sent out to Mariana, Florida. That's nice weather. Well, it was 105 in the summer. Did you get to go outside? Oh, yeah. No, what happened was I was in isolation for nine months. Nine months. In total isolation in NCC New York. What is that like? It's the worst thing in the world. It's total deprivation, sensory deprivation, everything. Is the lights on all the time? Not always, but depending upon the location you're at, sometimes they keep a light on so that they can see you. Wow. What does it feel like? The worst thing about being in isolation is your loss of interpersonal skills, which I I don't know if I have any anyway. But just when you pass people in a physical manner, you don't know whether they're going to stab you or you should stab them. You should hug them. You should shake their hand. It's total...

86:55It's hard to explain, but it's like that physical presence of another person next to you in your space. I mean, you're a fighter. You're a cop. Someone gets in a certain space. You need to protect yourself. Right. Well, being a convict slash inmate slash prisoner, when someone steps into your personal space, of course, you need to check them. But when you're in isolation, you don't know what it is. Like, your personal space becomes whatever you can grasp. Right. Whatever you can control. So when I was first... Example was my first pass somebody. We had a room, let's say, the size of your studio here. And he was like, he was out on the floor and I was out on the floor at the same time, which is very odd in my situation because I never wasn't around anybody. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to respond to his presence in my world. And he was another guy that was also in solitary?

87:45For a short period of time. He just got in trouble for something. But at that point, I was probably in, at that moment, probably five or six months when I was... So five or six months with no contact except when they feed you? Right. And when they feed you, they talk to you? No. They throw the food through a slot and you go. No one says anything to you? Very little. Very little interaction. How are you today? You know? Yeah, good. I'm good. Great. I just finished another book. Right. So that's the entire extent of your human interaction for nine months. Essentially, yes. You do get visits once a week or something like that for an hour with your family members. Wow. You know, and that's a little different because it's a warm thing. You know? Mm-hmm. But people that are criminals and convicts and the same... You're not really touchy, lovey-feely type thing. Right, right, right. So you don't know how to respond.

88:35You know? Yeah, I would imagine, like, didn't Bradley Manning... I think he was in for, like, two years plus before he became Chelsea Manning, right? Two years plus solitary, no interaction with anyone, and I believe no clothes because they were worried about him killing himself. Hanging himself. Yeah. Yeah. Or herself. I don't know when. When is the transition? I don't know. When do you officially say him or her? I don't know. I don't know. Either way, but, like, I've heard it argued that, like, you go insane. Like, if you leave someone alone for two or three years and there's no interaction at all with other people, you might as well just fucking shoot him. Yeah, I saw guys used to sleep underneath their bed, put the mattress on top of their bed and sleep underneath it. Underneath, like, the bed would hang up the wall or something. I don't know. I didn't want to ask them. Wow.

89:19It was just like, that's what their life became. You become insane. Yeah, Pappy Mason is one of the guys that, uh, he killed a cop and, uh, was responsible for the killing of Eddie Burns, I think. One of the officers that was executed. And he used to sleep under his bed. It was part of the fact that he wanted to be, known to be psycho rather than be responsible for what he did. Oh, so he was doing things like. Yeah, but then it became him. Ooh. Yeah. Horrible. And his dreads were fucking, like, 12 feet long. Ugh. Yeah. His life became whatever, you know. I have no sympathy for what he did. Right. But just people, human beings in general, that's what happens when they start to go on the other side of that. Well, the thing about the Bradley Manning case is even more fucked up is because all he did was expose crime. I mean, that was the guy who gave away the WikiLeaks documents. Oh, okay.

90:07And he gave it to Julian Assange. Now they're both fucked. Julian Assange is stuck in a fucking embassy in London. He can't move. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. They just recently, I think in the last couple days, they got rid of his 24-hour guards. He had guards outside the gate making sure he didn't bolt. Uh-huh. And now they're like, yeah, fuck the guys. He stays. He's done. Yeah, where's he going to go? Poor fucker. He's stuck in this, I think, the Ecuador embassy. Mm-hmm. And so he's fucked there. And then Chelsea Manning is fucked in jail forever. And they're never going to let her out now. And that's it. And it's all exposing crime, which is even more fucked up. Yeah. Because Julian Assange is not a criminal. Bradley Manning is not a criminal, other than the crime of exposing government corruption and documents. So I'll give you an interesting detail on one of the hundreds of stories. My boys, they do a shakedown.

90:58They robbed this bodega, which is why Chickie and Walter become my buddy. I mentioned it briefly before. So they're out on bail. Walter's living in my house. And Tromboli, one of the internal affairs detectives, is constantly at my house, like surveilling my house and shit. And Walter, Chickie's out on bail, getting ready to do a little nine-month bid. Walter's getting ready to go upstate for two and a half years because he was on duty. He was the police officer that was still on the job. And so I find out that they're getting ready to go to trial now. They're all putting themselves, this is prior to their pleas, they're getting ready to go to trial. So I get in touch with Barron. And I tell Barron, tell the owner of the bodega that he needs to leave the country right away because trial's coming up in a week. So Barron reaches out and tells the guy that, you know, the cops stopped by my office today

91:59and said, you guys got to leave the country. You got to leave the country. And he says, you know, you got to leave because things can get bad if you don't leave the country. So the guy leaves the country immediately. I get a phone call from one of the guys, whether it was Walter or Chickie, he says, the fucking trial's been, but they don't know. The trial's been postponed. I said, okay, good. I don't know the details, but I know he's gone. I had him leave the country. So about eight or ten months later, the case is ready to fall apart. But Internal Affairs goes and arrests this guy's wife or sister. She's working in some bookie spot, one of those bodegas that sells numbers and didn't really sell food. And they arrest his wife and tell him they're going to deport her and keep her kids and put them in PCW, one of those Bureau of Child Welfare. So, or call your brother and tell her to get back here.

92:57I can't come back. They're going to have me killed. So he comes back under protection. And the trial goes forward. But the fact is that what I'm getting at, what I'm telling you is that's what you can actually do when you're a cop. If you really don't want something to happen, you could actually have that kind of control over a situation. Well, because, I mean, it wasn't them who did it. It was us who did it. We had this guy leave the country. So these are the stories that the book can lay out, or even if the movie takes a spin in that direction. I mean, there's really some intense shit that we were able to do. I mean, if a guy put a complaint in against us, we'd go to his house. You know, if you wanted to complain that the cops treated me unfairly or something like that. Really? You know, you got to realize what you were dealing with. Well, that kind of shit goes on to this day. I'm not on the job.

93:49That kind of shit. Subtle versions of that. Yeah. I'm not going to disparage anybody here. I'm just telling you what we were able to do back then in order to keep our moving the ball forward. Right. You know, that's the way you could do things. You know, if a guy put up what they call the civilian complaint against, let's say, yourself. And you were either my buddy, one of my coworkers. You're not going to go to the guy's house and say anything. But you might have your friend sit in front of his house for a week. And just freak him out. Yeah. You don't have to do anything. Right. I think it's enough. It's pretty clear. And we did that to Cello, the Kingpin drug dealer. And that's when he tried to threaten to kill me. Right. Remember for the movie, he put a hit on me because I sat in front of his bodega because he shorted us $700. I sat in front of his bodega for a week, probably.

94:39And then he notified Baron that he put a hit out on me. I don't know if that was part of the fluff or the reality is. So Baron called me and he says, there's a hit on you. So that's when I went and I found him the next day and day one, whatever it was, and pulled him over and confronted him in the street. And he called a hit off and got my $700 too, which was a nice day. Kenny says I never gave him the $350. He's got to be full of shit. I mean, he wasn't there, like I said. I don't remember. Wow. Now, when you go away, okay, you do your nine months in solitary. Right. Why did they put you in solitary initially? Cop. Because you're a cop. Just to protect you? Yeah. So once you get out of solitary. Yeah. Now you're in with everybody else. And what is that like? Absolutely. Yeah. A little, you know. Should I go back? Solitary or not? Is this maximum security? Yes. Minimum maximum? High security. So you're dealing with?

95:34Everybody. I was in there with the guys. You named their names. I was there with them. You know, the, you know. Gotti's crew was on the 11th floor. I was on the 9th floor, the 7th floor. You know, in MCC. And so, I mean, Gotti's crew, whatever. But all the gangbangers were in there that were around that time. You know. In fact, some of my good buddies were cop impersonators. You know, they were one of those gangs that was going out, you know, basically executing. I wasn't executing anybody, but they were. You know, they were going in as cops and executing the drug dealers and taking their money. So they were going in with lights, the whole deal? Yeah. Badges. Badges, coats, bulletproof vests, 38 Smith & Wessons and taking. Killing people. Yeah. Killing people and taking their drugs. I mean, that was the 80s. And it's Brooklyn and Manhattan and the Bronx. And when you're in there and you go from solitary to.

96:22Just general population. General population. You know, you got to watch your back every step of the way. What is that like? You know, it's like how when I was driving to work, wondering if I was getting arrested every day. What was the first day like? The first day like they let you out and now all of a sudden, do you have to share a cell with somebody? Yeah. Who's the guy? I can't recall. You don't know who you share the cell with? There was hundreds. Hundreds of guys? Yeah. Just different guys all the time? Different guys all the time. You're in transition. In MCC New York, you're in transition. You know, I ended up sharing a cell with Patsy Conte one time was one of the wise guys. You know, they try to keep the white guys with the white guys because prison is very racially divisive. Uh-huh. You know, black guys with black guys, white guys with white guys. That's how it was.

97:05You know, Spanish guys with Spanish guys. You know, so that's just the way prison is. Now, do you have to align yourself with particular groups or anything while you're in there? Listen, no one's going to align themselves with me. You know, but the happenstance is that when you're in MCC New York, it's like 60 percent. Black guys, 35 percent Hispanic guys, 2 percent Asian, and 1 percent white. So... I think you're missing some numbers. For God's sakes. Don't hold me to the... Let me get my pen out. Hold on. So it was, yeah. And so, like, even if you were a wise guy in the street, you saw a white face, you know. Right. You talked, whether you liked each other or not, you know. I understand. And, you know, being I was young and still a little, you know, not... I was in pretty good shape at this point. Now we're down about a year or so and doing probably, you know, 600, 800 push-ups, 1,000 push-ups a day.

97:53Chin-ups, dips, backbends, you know, the whole bit. Right, right. You know, now I'm at least in great shape. I'm doing the bar. I'm doing 160 pull-ups, you know, frontwards, backwards. And people see you moving around. They're like, okay, you know, this isn't an easy trip. Right, right, right. You know, no matter what you think of me, I was a cop or not, it wasn't an easy ride. Right. And then, you know, all the older wise guys, you know, they're feeble guys, most of them. When they finally get arrested, most of them are banged up anyway. They're 65, 70, you know. What happens to those guys when they get in? Well, they align themselves with a young guy who does most of their bidding. And hopefully you don't have to take a knife for one of them or something like that. But, you know, look, they got money. When you got money in prison, it's like money in the street, you know.

98:33And when you're in, okay, so when you go from being in solitary to general population, like, what are your days like? Well, there's different worlds. You know, MCC New York, you're in a jail. So you're really just inside a building. And some people have jobs, some people don't. Jobs meaning they go to the kitchen, they cook, and they provide meals for the rest of the prison. I was in like an orderly. I'd have to clean a floor, something like that. And basically sat there and waited to get sentenced. It was horrible. You know, you sat inside a building. You know, you come and you look like a piece of paper. You're so white. You got no sun. You got no vitamin C or D or B or E or G, whatever the fuck the vitamins are from the sun. You got none of them. And the food's horrible. And you can't wait to get sentenced. Right. Because you want to go out and live a life.

99:20Now, being a sentenced prisoner opposed to a prisoner in waiting, like a bride in waiting, you finally get out. You know? So how long is this waiting period? It was two years. So for two years. So nine months, solitary. Inside a building. And then another year, 15 months, you're just in this jail waiting to be sentenced. Waiting to be sentenced. So finally you get sentenced. And then what happens? Sentenced. I get sent to, I get put on a Learjet. It was like first class. Really? Yeah. I get taken from MCC New York in a limousine, a prison limousine, over to Teterboro Airport where the federal jet is. The Learjet. Me and like two other people get on this jet and they whisk us off to- Two people? Yeah. Yeah. They whisk us off to Florida. We land in Jacksonville. We pick up some girl. I don't know. Then they whisk us west. So this is how they transport prisoners? They put them in a federal jet? Yeah. Yeah. In my case.

100:13In my case. Okay. Yeah. Because I was leading the region. Okay. Yeah. They have a big bus. Normally, they'll deposit you along the way. And then some people get moved around on different sized jets. This happened to be a Lear, which is like a four or five passenger jet, which was nice. I don't know. I'm trying to be like a VIP. This is wonderful. This is great. I love this. They have peanuts? No peanuts? No peanuts. No peanuts? Lots of nuts, if you like. But no peanuts. And so then- Back there was a cute girl on the plane with me. Really? This is good. A prisoner? Girl prisoner? Yeah. Yeah. How'd that work out? I don't remember her name. But anyway, she was cute. I got to look at something. Where's she going? But she just elbowed me a little bit, you know? Where's she going? I don't know. To a woman's prison in Tallahassee. What does she do? I don't know. We don't talk. We don't talk. You didn't ask her questions? Fuck no.

100:59I'm not an interviewer. You seem like a talkative guy. I am, but I'm fucking trying to keep my world small. When you're a guy like me in prison, you don't open your mouth. You don't talk to anybody. You don't elicit a conversation with anybody. That had to be really difficult for you. Very. I would imagine. Horrible. It was like pulling my tongue out and throwing it on the ground for fucking 12 years. So you're just doing this for survival purposes. Just stay in your own little world. Because you open yourself up, people want either in or to use things against you. Right. You know, like in the free world, but in this case, it's a microcosm. Right. You know, it'll come back to you real quick, the way people use information against you. Wow. So I go from there, and then I end up in some small county jail, which I end up with one of the guys from Cocaine Cowboy who ends up dying.

101:44A couple of them did, but this fellow here is telling me, I got to get the fuck out of here. And I'm in the county jail, and it's like a piece of barbed wire around this fence. And he's telling me, there's a guy in a tree, tree house. There's a guy in a tree house with a shotgun. That's it. A shotgun? Yeah. That's it? Well, it's security for this little county jail. But only a shotgun? Yeah. He's sitting up there with a shotgun. How far away is he? 60, 80 feet from the barbed wire fence. Oh. Yeah. They can kill you for 60, 80 feet. Yeah. Oh, he'll get you. If he's not sleeping. I'm like a shotgun. But they're only making $10,000, $12,000 a year. Oh. So he's saying, hmm. And he's big money. Cocaine Cowboy guys. He's thinking he could have some money sent to this guy's fucking, I don't know, his mother. Who the fuck knows? All you have to do is give the guy something that puts him out. Some chew. Some tobacco.

102:29One of these cigars. Give him a pill that knocks him out. Like, tell him. Yeah. Yeah. He's not responsible. I'm going to dummy up your drink. And I'm going to jump. And no one's going to know how it happened. You're going to wake up in a puddle of your own spit. We should have done time together. That's what I would have done. This is real simple here. Yeah, but you're 48. Yeah. These guys. Oh, they're doubly young. I mean, they weren't that young, but these guys, you know, they were already fighting for their lives. When El Chapo, when that guy got out and he dug that hole a mile long underneath the. They gave him a pill? No, but didn't you respect that? I respected that. I'm not even a criminal. But what part? The fact that they had the fucking, the thought process involved in digging a hole. This is what they do every day. I know, but I mean, still, I was like, I got to respect that. Well, you had to know.

103:13The guy made a fucking mile long tunnel with electricity and an electric bike. When you got that kind of money, you're getting out. Okay? And there's a lot of people getting paid along the way there. Apparently he's got a hundred million dollar bounty on Donald Trump. Oh, really? Donald Trump talks shit about Mexicans too much. Oh, whatever. Let's not talk politics here. It's not even political. Well, assassinations are political too. But when guys want to get out, you know, and you all day, that's all you're thinking about. How the fuck do I get out? They were digging out where I was too. Did they? They caught him. Did they? Yeah, well, someone gives you up. Right. Because they want to go to a better place. Right. Like, let's say, I mean, I end up in Mariana. Well, let me tell you this. Okay. So I get off the bus and I'm like, this is going to be fucking horrible. I got to do another.

103:58Now, at this point, another 10 and a half years like this. Walk in a fucking place like this and it's hot. It's fucking the middle of the summer. Like, I was going to say July, whatever it was. And Panhandle of Florida, it's fucking hot. It's a hundred. I get off the bus and I see this, you know, this fence and gate and shit. And it looks okay, you know. And they bring you into R&D. It's like you're a package. They bring you into R&D. They process you. They give you the, if you ever see them on TV, they got the fucking bags. They got their bedroll. They got their bedroll in their hand. It has some of their clothes and shit. And you're walking through this compound. And this guard opens up, guard, whatever, Mac. He opens up the port to this compound. And I say to myself, strike me dead. Now, I just came from a fucking hole in the wall for years. Like, two years.

104:44I've been looking at nothing but cement and polish on the floor. And he opens up and I see a luscious fucking place. I probably, other than my vacations in the Cayman Islands, this was the most picturesque place I've ever seen. Like, up close and in person. Now, it doesn't matter. It's two years I've been seeing cement. Right. I mean, lush. Flowers, colors, beautiful. Grass, beautiful. Cement, gorgeous. A big, beautiful chow hall with my name saying, come and eat. You know, I haven't had a good meal in fucking forever. And the food was good? I was eating fucking hash. The food's going to be good no matter what. So, I go like this. I go to myself. This is fucking paradise. I swear to God. I just finished saying it and the guard goes, welcome to paradise. Whoa. Like the thing we had this morning with the new Coke and the old Coke. Oh, that's hilarious. And I'm going, fucking God.

105:37I don't want to let him know that I agree. Wow. I fucking agree. So, when he's saying welcome to paradise, is he fucking with you? No, because he knows where I just came from. Right. You understand? And he knows that this is nice. Right. It's a college campus with fences around it. Right. But the inhabitants are not quite college people. You know, the average sentence was, I think, 18 years when I worked in that place. And it was 300 and I want to say 40 some odd men that were never going home, that I was never going to bunk with. Okay. Those are the dangerous ones. Right. You know what? They're the least dangerous. The nothing to lose guys? Not the ones that are doing their time. You know? Why are they the least dangerous? Well, because they just want to live their lives out. You know, it's the young bucks that, you know, they just want to make a name for themselves.

106:28And, you know, they don't see the 10 years, 15 years from now they're going home. They just see the same immediate gratification that got them there. Right. So, right now, I like your sneakers or I like your fucking soup. You know? And I don't have any soup because my parents, I don't even know my parents. You know what I mean? So, I don't get the extras. You know, prison's about extras. You know? If you get extras in prison, you'll survive. You know? So, explain that to me. Commissary. You know? Okay. People live on the commissary in prison because it's like it's part of rebellion. No one wants to be beholden to the government for what they're going to give them. So, when you go into prison, yeah, you get a good square meal. You know? The food's okay. You know? It's cooked for fucking 1,800 men. Right. There's plenty of... It's a control mechanism. Okay? Food is a control mechanism.

107:13Exercise is a control mechanism. And all the frills are control mechanisms. How do you control a population? Water. Food. Sex that they can't have. So, certain things are a control mechanism. Food and exercise in prison is a control mechanism. So, the way to control guys is to provide them with a good meal. You know? And you don't want to lose that good fucking meal. Right. So, you're going to be good. Because I just came from a place where I was eating shit out of a plastic container all day long. Now I get a plate with a knife and a fork. I can eat like a gentleman. You know? You start to feel like a human being again. But the problem is the guy next to you is... You know? You don't want to take him home, necessarily. You know? Unless it's me. The guy next to you is not getting the same food? No, he's getting the same. And he wants that. Right. So, he wants to maintain the status quo.

108:03So, if he's down there doing a life sentence, he's okay with it because he's accepted it. Right. It's the young guys that, you know, think that, you know, they want your food or they, you know, they want to get over. The get over mentality. You have to let go of the get over mentality. Otherwise, you're going to live that fucking happy life in prison. The get over mentality. Meaning you're always looking to get ahead a little bit. Right. A little scam. A little this. Yeah. Scam a little. Weasel a little that. Weasel a little bit of eggs. Sell them to this guy. A lot of people send money home from prison. So, it turns into another rat race. Now, when you say the commissary, like, what can you get at a commissary? Well, one of the big things are stamps. So, you can use that to barter. Stamps. Stamps is like currency. Stamps and tuna fish are currency in prison. So, you can send letters. You can send letters.

108:46So, you have to have stamps to send a letter home. You can gamble. Gamble. Yeah. Right. What kind of gambling? Well, sports. Usually, it's sports gambling. And then there's cards. You know? And there's cards or checkers or chess. You know, people gamble on anything. So, can you watch games and stuff like that? Well, the unit I stayed in had five or six TVs. Really? In a common area. Yeah. One had the rap station on. One had basketball all the time. And the other one had Spanish TV. So, then you had CNN once in a while, which we saw the 9-11 attack. And they all come out looking at me. Mike, did you see what happened? I'm like, yeah. Okay. You know. They looked at you because you were a cop? Of course. I was from New York. I was a cop. Oh, right. You know. All the staff and everybody came. You know. It was a difficult fucking moment, to say the least. Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine.

109:30So, I went through a lot of that stuff in prison. So, in the commissary, you can get extra things. Extras. Yeah. You need extra food? Extra food. Yeah. What kind of food? Well, like I said, tuna fish, octopus. Octopus. Oh, yeah. Jesus. Some places. Yeah. So, you know. But you got to buy it. How much does it cost? Well, if you paid a dollar for a can of tuna in the street, it was $2.50 in there. Like, that type of thing. You know, whatever the current rate is, you paid a little bit more in prison. Right. Yeah. And then, if you're working in prison, you have very little money, right? You get very little money. So, the money from the outside is what you maintain. So, guys that go to prison and have outside connections with family that would still help them support themselves become a commodity in prison. So, you know, you're a hustler in prison. So, you like to take extra eggs and make some egg salad, let's say.

110:11Because guys work out all day long. That's what they do. They want to increase their protein. They want to stay in shape because they want to go home one day. You know. And so, you learn to adjust your life in order that you have an end game. Some kids only care about today. You know. And some of them don't go home because they end up getting in a fight or stabbing. They're killed. Whatever. You know. And then they get another bid because of that. They get another bid because of that. And there you go. So, is that what you did most of your time down there in Florida? I did five years plus in Mariana, Florida. And then I wanted to get closer to family. You know. So, because I was getting ready to be released. I had not. You're talking seven years. I'm anticipating a release in about three or four years, which didn't turn out.

110:49And I lost a year when I got on a plane, which is a legal argument that I made for the next five years and lost. But I wanted a year off down in Mariana, Florida for my drug program participation. But I had to go to court to get it. So, when I got on a plane to come back to Devins, Massachusetts, where I served in Ayer, Mass. Are you familiar with that area of Massachusetts at all? Where's Ayer? What's Ayer? It's near the W, Fort Devins. It's west of Boston, about 45 miles. Okay. Worcester? Worcester. Right. It's near Worcester, Mass. Okay. Anyway. So, they had to open a new federal prison there. I wanted to get closer to my family. So, I ended up getting on a plane. You know, you request. You make a request. Right. Got on a plane. They've fulfilled my request. I ended up in Devins, Massachusetts, and when I got off the plane, I lost a year off my sentence.

111:40Because I'm now in a different legal jurisdiction than the legal jurisdiction that I was in in Florida. So, you have to do an extra year because of that? So, I got the year put back onto my sentence that I earned off, and I just wanted to fucking... I was on fucking medication. It's like, you guys, can you just send me back? They went, no. Oh. Yeah. So, I love the federal government. So, you had to do an extra year just to come to New York. Yeah. Because I wanted to get closer to my family so they would get to know me as I get released. You know, you want to get a closer bond with your family. Make it easier for them to visit. Make it easy for everybody. Right. Visiting. Exactly. And then, so it closed me another year. So, I ended up in a fight over that. And fist fight. Whatever. I lost my fucking mind. And I ended up causing a hunger strike. You caused a hunger? You went on a hunger strike? I organized one.

112:25It wasn't about it. Oh, Jesus Christ. I couldn't do it. I can't go six hours without eating. In fact, I'm getting hungry right now. I helped organize a hunger strike. So, you organized a hunger strike if you didn't participate. Yeah. I participated for an hour. I got locked up in an hour. You don't know. The stories are crazy. So, I ended up in MCC New York again. The place where I had just... Oh, no. Back in the fucking hole over there. In isolation. Oh, no. So, I caused another hunger strike there. Oh, God. And that time, they listened to us. And they shipped me out to McKeon, Pennsylvania. And I did like three years there. I mean, it just gets... Oh, it gets tired just going through this shit. You know? And you live the life out there. And, you know... I don't need any sympathy, by the way. Just, it is what it is. You know? Yeah, no. I'm not giving you any sympathy. I'm just trying to think about what it was like.

113:13To add a year to someone's sentence, they actually called for an ambulance. After they told me. You want an ambulance? I'm like, I'm not sure. I was going down. Right, right. I don't know what happened. It was like, you know... I can imagine. I fought for five years to get this fucking... Actually, four years to get this sentence. Reduced a year. And now you gave it back to me in one day. Because I got off a plane in your fucking state. I hate this fucking state. Send me back to Florida. No, you got... Here's the good news, she says to me. Hot bitch. She goes, here's the good news. The good news is you got four years to fight us. Oof. I just got finished fighting them for four years. Oh. And it cost so much to fight these cocksuckers. You have no idea. I'm living on stamps. And the goodwill of people sending me money. And some of the money that I earned in prison. You know? It's fucking horrible.

113:58Now, are you allowed to make money off of your case now? Um... I did a lot of research. The people I'm involved with. And, you know, unless there's a specific victim that was specifically out there. Unless a guy says I stole his kilo. You know? I don't know who... What's he going to do? What are you going to do? You'd have to prove how many kilos you sold. Right. Or didn't get... I know, so... So it's not like a violent crime. Like O.J. Simpson can't make money off of... Yes. Yes. Right. But the details are slightly different. Because, you know, I was a... I don't know what the fuck you would call it. But, you know, the people that researched for me said that there is... The law... That son of Samuel law does not directly affect you. Yeah. It would make sense. You'd have to have a specific victim that you victimized. Right. And then you profit off of that. Or for their misfortune. Right. Right. Right. That you caused.

114:47Right. Yeah. So this is not that. Right. This is... I mean, the son of Sam executed people on Long Island, you know? In fact, the guy, the detective's name is a distant cousin of mine, Timothy Dowd, who arrested him. Really? Yeah. Oh, that's... They caught the son of Sam? Yeah. Oof. Yeah. So, you know, my family's got the legacy on both sides, I guess. Pro-con. Yeah. Now, what is it like the first day he got out? You know, I thought you might ask that question. How could I not? Yeah. Well, the first day I got out, there's different outs, okay? You get released to a halfway house. So I was in McKeon, Pennsylvania now. I was finishing my bid, and my parents wanted to send a limousine to pick me up and welcome me home like a big shot, you know? Right. But not in a boisterous way, just to show me love. Show me love, right? So I said, you know what? No. I want to take the bus home, the Greyhound.

115:35So I got on the Greyhound bus, and I drove the Greyhound bus. I didn't drive it. I was a passenger on a Greyhound bus to MCC, not MCC, the bus terminal in Manhattan. And my family was there waiting for me, you know, about 10, 15 of them were there. It was a nice welcoming, but all I can do is say, I need a quarter. And they're like, what do you need a quarter for? I said, I need to fucking make a phone call. I said, can anyone get a quarter? I need it right now. I'm panicking because I'm running late. And the halfway house, and I'm a rules follower sometimes, so I don't want to go back. So I need to notify the halfway house I'm going to be running late because the bus was late. Right. So all of a sudden, people start handing me these things to talk on. What the fuck is that? Cell phones. What the fuck is that? They go, it's a phone. I go, well, dial it for me. I never dial it. I don't know what I'm doing.

116:24Right. So you'd never seen a cell phone before? Never saw a cell phone before. Wow. That's not true. I saw the original cell phones. The brick? Yeah, the bricks. I was the original handler of the bricks. But now I had no idea what these things. Did you have one of those things? No, but my drug dealers did. Oh, all those. They had those like the ones from Gordon Gekko and Wall Street? Yeah, they looked like this. They were squared. And then they had the ones with the long cords. Uh-huh. They could take them out and talk on them. They had a suitcase and carried around. Yeah, they were my heroes. Right. Could you imagine? I'm calling my house from, my wife's going, what are you calling from? I go, oh, you don't want the drug dealer's cell phones right now. The guy's like, I said, do me a favor, erase that number when I finish talking.

117:04So you called the halfway house and now you have to, do you have to live there for a while? Now I have to live there, which is back in the ghetto. I'm back in the ghetto living in a halfway house. And I'm out about, I don't know, two or three days. And the newspaper are out front circling like fucking bees around honey or flies on shit. They're all over the place. And if someone snaps a picture, a guy puts it on the front page of the Daily News and says, Dowd still walks like a cop. It wasn't me. You walk like a cop? Yeah. What the fuck does that mean? Well, you know, we know. They know what they're saying. Twirling a baton? Nah. You know, I'm a white guy in the ghetto walking like I owned it. Oh. Yeah. So this guy was. Interesting. But it wasn't even you. It wasn't me. It was somebody else. So the guy sues and gets a half a million. I'm still broke. Really? Yeah. That guy sued and got a half a million dollars?

117:48That's what I was told. He was walking like a cop. Yeah. Well, they put his picture on the front page of the. Oh, that's hilarious. And they tarnished his criminal image that said he was a rogue cop. He was only there for something else. That's hilarious. That's hilarious. So he had to deal with that. This is the Daily News. The Pro Bream. What was it? Which one? It was the Daily News. Yeah. Well. There you go. There you go. Well, how's it? Enough said? Well, people. Yeah. People who don't know those tabloid newspapers in New York. Those are hilarious newspapers. The fucking covers are always very funny. Yeah. Right. Not when your face is on it for fucking like six months. Yeah. Well, I would imagine. Do you save any of those? No, but yes. Me, no. I mean, I didn't want to have it in my property when I landed in a different institution. Like, oh, this is you. Let me just put these up on the wall. Yeah.

118:35Some family members have like every one, I guess. Now, when you get out and you're in the halfway house, how long do you have to stay there? I want to go back to prison. Really? Yeah. Because the halfway house is that bad. No, because I don't know what to do. So you're institutionalized. I'm done. Yeah. I'm cooked. Wow. I'm cooked. This is not good. That's what they always say. I'm cooked. I don't know what to do or how to do. I don't know how to walk across the street. And I'm afraid because if I walk across the don't walk sign. I'm standing there. Imagine standing in Brooklyn in front of a don't walk sign for like five minutes. And there's no fucking cards. I'm standing there waiting for the don't walk sign to turn so they have their hand or the people. Because you just don't want to do anything stupid. I don't want to do anything wrong. Right. Because they're following me everywhere I go. Wow.

119:13I don't want the news people snapping a picture of me walking across against the don't walk sign. So the post guy comes up to me and says, Mike, I don't want to acknowledge him, but when I look at him. Right. He goes, can you just sign this affidavit for me that this is you that I'm about to take you a picture of? I go, do your fucking job and leave me alone, please. Oh, sign an affidavit. Yeah, sign an affidavit because the other guy just sued the fucking Daily News. That's hilarious. Hilarious. That's hilarious. So I'm taking a shower. This is my epic moment. My first shower in freedom, I talk about this often because it's epic. And I'm looking out the window and there's my brother's two kids. I don't know these kids. I never met them. My mother's apartment upstairs. My mother's house upstairs. Looking out. The shower has a window.

119:57I'm looking out and I see these two little kids running across my brother's lawn next door. My brother was a cop retired because of me. But he got a pension, thank God. Anyway, it's another story. Played good hockey player. So that's why he got his pension. Anyway, so I see these two kids. And I realized the loss that, you know, I mean, the whole world took place while I walked that track by myself, you know. Right. And my brother, who idolized me to no end, now has two kids. And I don't even know mine. And I'm like, oh, my God. This is fucking horrible. And now I got to make a living. And the first thing I want to do is help those that I left behind, you know, yours truly included. And I'm like, I don't think I can do this. And I'm in the fucking shower crying so hard that I don't know if I'm getting wet from the shower or my tears. And, like, I don't know if you've ever cried in your life. I'm a man.

120:52I can say it. You know, I've never. I don't cry. Okay. I've wept so hard. I wept so hard that I wanted to take a nap when I was done. It was just like shit just kept pouring out of my body. Wow. My first shower in freedom was like I was getting all the poison of life. You know, because, you know, you got to realize, this is, at this time, I'm 44 years old. I have nothing. Zero. My whole life is a fucking zero at 44 years old. But you still have kids and you have your freedom now. I don't have anything. But you're out. I have nothing. I don't have kids. Someone else has kids. I happen to be a guy that they heard about. I have nothing. It'd be easier for me to turn around and go back. Wow. So you really wanted to go back? Of course I didn't want to. You didn't want to. It just seemed like the easiest thing to do was to go back. And thank God, at that moment, I had good parents and solid family support.

122:00And a couple of young kids that wanted to get to know me. You know? Because, I don't know what else to say. I mean, just, it was like, I didn't know what to do. I had to go earn a living. I never had a fucking job in my life. I was a cop. So what did you do for a job after that? Because it's got to be hard to get a job. I still can't get a job. Do you want one? Well, you got one for me? If I had one, I'd give it to you. Listen, I'm a good worker. I need a real podcast network. That's what I need. I need to actually have a network. Start giving guys like you shows. Yeah, I couldn't get a fucking job. But my brother was doing some construction. And I mixed up with the construction industry for about four or five years. And I did pretty well. And that was in the boom time. So anybody who could hold a brush in their hand or a hammer in their hand got a job. And they made a decent salary.

122:50And I turned down some union office because I have family that runs one of the unions. And I turned it down because I needed money now. I wanted to try to help now. And so I did what I could. And, you know, listen, they put an ankle bracelet on me when I got home because I was banging one of the chicks from the halfway house. You're not supposed to do that, by the way. You're not supposed to? No. Why not? I don't. They own you? Are you free or are you not free? Well, because she's a convict, too. So you can't associate with convicts? Right. But you're sleeping in the house with them. Right. But you can't fuck them. Right. Can you hug them? No. No patronizing or matronizing or sexualizing any of them. Oh. So it was very difficult. I broke the rule from the day. I broke the first rule. So did you get in trouble for that? Yes. Breaking that rule? Eventually. What do they do? What do they say?

123:40I tried to get rid of her because she was a psycho. I found out. Oh. Gee, how weird. Psycho ex-con? That doesn't even make sense. Didn't make sense. And I won't talk disparagingly about the dead, by the way. She pissed. Oh, what happened? Yeah. I think I don't live or something. Anyway, but horrible. Horrible death. Yeah. But I had to get away from her. So I made a decision to go back to prison just to get away from her. Really? Yeah. And she threatened to call, and she did. She called my probation officer. And he came and put an ankle bracelet on me. He spared me prison. He put an ankle bracelet on me. And then I got jammed up again with the ankle bracelet on because I said I was going to church, but I didn't. Where'd you go? I don't want to put it out there. Okay. But it wasn't bad. It was at someone's house. Right. I was getting laid. I understand. They wouldn't let me leave my house. So finally I got out.

124:25So you were under house arrest. Is that what the... Yes. Yes. That's what the ankle bracelet does. It keeps you within a beacon of the machine. Yeah. Fucking... So I was willing to go back to prison to get rid of this relationship. And I almost did. Jesus Christ. So that was my re-entry into society. So how much time do you have to spend doing this halfway house thing before you're free? Well, that's like... But what it is, you go from halfway house to home confinement. And then after home confinement, you go on to supervised release. Home confinement. So you confined your home for during the... During the hours of the... Like if you're not working, you're locked in your house. Wow. And that's... Yeah. Yeah. So they can call at any minute. So you can't go to the movies. No, but you can ask for permission to go shopping and things of that nature, you know, and then come back in. It's all... You're clocked.

125:11You're checked constantly on your time. I don't understand that. Like why is that if you're free? If you're free and if you can go to the movies... Well, you're not free. You're not free. You're not free yet. You're still part of your sentence, which is why I said 12 and a half years, not 11 years, nine months, because the last six months of my prison sentence was in the street. Wow. And then from there you do five years of supervised release. Which is when she called up on me when I broke up with her, you know, and then he was fucking pissed. I mean, how could you blame the guy? Right. I've been lying to him for like two, three years now at this point when she fucking drops a dime on me. That's pussy. It's pussy. That's what I said. He says, well, I'm going to tell you. He said, what are you... I said, look, you're going to tell the judge that I fell in love? Come on. Yeah. No. She was the love judge.

125:53Judge Kimba Wood, the one that was all over the news. What happened to her? I don't know that story. I don't want to talk bad about judges. I may see them again. Well, you don't have to talk bad. No, she got jammed up with a relationship she was working in. Oh. And it was all over the news. They disparaged her. She didn't understand. That's what I thought. Nope. She's not quite as understanding as you think. Hypocrites. How dare they. So then how do you... What do you eventually wind up doing for work? So I continue on in the construction field and I can't remember. I did. No. I continue on in the... Oh, limousine driving. I ended up being a limousine driver. The job that Kenny actually got me fired from before I went to prison because I got a job driving a limousine for one hour but never drove a limo. Because my... I don't want to tell you this. I'm going to tell this story.

126:40I'm about to get a job driving a limousine. So Kenny goes, where are you working? Where are you working? Well, he's wearing a wire. I go, I'm starting driving a limo tomorrow. I'll have some decent pay. All the plans about leaving the country are off. Well, no one even fucking really knows the depth of this. Right. This is why we're out on bail. So I go, I'm good. If I get a job driving a limo, I'll make, you know, $600, $800 a week for now. I got a lot of money coming in. Rental incomes. I'm good. I had four homes and a condo on the ocean. And so he turns around and he says, where, where, where? I go, where? What do you fucking care where? He goes, well, in case I want a job. So I go, I tell him, I don't know. It was in the fucking newspaper. It was in Deer Park somewhere. Boom. Next day, I go to start the job. I'm on my way in. I just bought the last $300. I bought a suit, black suit.

127:27Guy goes, I go, I'm on my way. I says, I haven't heard from you. He's supposed to call me and tell me what time to be at the shop. He goes, we got a problem. I go, what's the problem? He says, I got a visit. I go, what? He goes, I got a visit. They're going to open my books and my taxes and leave me a new asshole if I give you a job here. I said, you got to be kidding me, motherfucker. I just spent my last $300 cash because the government takes everything when they get you. So now I can't even get a job fucking doing that while I'm out on bail. I wouldn't have had the desperado to leave the fucking country. So can he set that up? I don't know. Allegedly. I don't know. Possibly. Probably. Probably. I'm sure. Wow. So it wasn't just wearing a wire. Come on. It was conspiring. It's just fucking ongoing. He fucking walks around. He saved someone's life. Yeah, you fucking ruined mine. Wow. Probably saved it in a way, too.

128:19Yeah, I'm not mad. Just keep it real. He saved my life in a way. No, you know what? The cops saved my life. Right. They locked me up. Wow. I couldn't get a fucking package after that. You're sitting on a gold mine, though. You are sitting on a gold mine. These fucking stories. Oh, the stories are fucking ridiculous. If you just write it, can you write? Can you type? I can do a lot of things. My shoulder hurts, though. Well, yeah, you keep doing this. You keep doing this twist. It's numb. What's going on with it? I got a fucking two-pinch. A stinger in your neck? I got two-pinch. Yeah? Two vertebrae. What do you call this? Have you ever... Do you know what spinal decompression is? I'm in treatment right now. What are they doing for you? I'm doing the physical therapy act. I've had some serious spinal shit. Bulging discs and stuff. That's what I got. Working out. Yeah. You can get rid of that. I've got rid of it 100%.

129:08I'm working on it right now. I'm working on it. Yeah. It's a process. You just got to do it slow. Yeah. Spinal decompression is a big thing, too. Stretching. Like hanging by your neck and shit? They have these things that you can actually set up. They're fairly cheap. You just set them up on a door. They hang off the back of the door like a little chain. Actually, my friend Denny has one that he likes even better than that. It's inflated, actually. And you put it on your neck, and he's got some spinal issues, too. And it actually just lifts. You inflate it. You pump it up, and it kind of lifts up on your neck and stretches. Because a lot of it is either injury or bad posture, and everything gets compressed, and it stays compressed, and the discs pop out. And what you've got to do is relieve some of that compression. And one of the ways is these – I have this one. It's like a harness. I strap it under my chin.

129:57I Velcro it in place, and then I crank on it. Click, click. It pulls my neck. Click, click. It pulls my neck. You're not nervous or afraid that you might overdo something? No, no, no. No, it's not that – it's not painful. Listen, to change this up for a second, you're right, but I appreciate the medical advice, you know, because I'm in pain. But themikedow.com, people can get my – they can download the 75 from my website. And after that, I might get 25 cents if they do that. Oh, do you get a cut of that? Okay. A little something. So it would be nice. I'll definitely send people. It would be nice. I mean, I lost my job due to the documentary. What job was that? I was doing mechanical services in a location that I'm still in flux with them, right? Even when you're fucking describing a legit job, everything is – Well, the problem is – well, you've got to understand something.

130:50I lost the position because of my past. Mm-hmm. So if I put their specific location – Oh, I understand. No. I'm still trying to work something out with them right now. So they found out about your past? They knew about it when they hired me, but the documentary became so compelling and riveting, so interesting and so detailed that probably some cop called up and said, I don't want my wife working with this guy around. Right. And the fucking CEO said, find a way to get rid of him. Yeah. Well, listen, they're doing you a favor. I swear to God, you're sitting on a fucking gold mine. These stories you have, and you have – I guarantee you, you probably have a fucking thousand of them. All your years on a job? Easily. Ten years. Ten years, five months I did in the street. Yeah. You just need to sit down with somebody and write these out and then edit them and make the most compelling ones.

131:41You could probably have a fucking 500-page book. Oh, 500. Yeah. I'm trying to cut it down. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Cut it down. But if you cut it down to the gems and just, you know, honest about all the fucking craziness and all the weird shit that's going on in your head and the family and the pussy and the drugs and – God damn, it's a gold mine. I'll fucking buy it. I'll buy it in a goddamn heart rate. You know, my friend Joey Diaz is a nut for crime books. He's turning me on like a fucking hundred crime books. He's always like, Joe Rogan, you got to read this fucking book. And it's like – Do you have the kind of time to read? Because today a lot of people don't. That's good. Well, you get on planes too. Yeah. Planes help. That's a good time. I just force myself a couple days a week to force myself to go to bed right before I go to bed to sit down and read something. That's good.

132:25And that's – you know, that's what I used to do in a joint. I've read probably 400 or 500 books while I was away. Yeah. So, you know, I try to expand my vocabulary. However, when you start talking police terms, your vocabulary narrows back to the vocabulary you use while you're doing your job. Yeah. Like, fuck you, motherfucker. Get over here and get down. Right. Right now. Let me see your fucking hands. Right, right. And don't fucking move. Meanwhile, I want you to raise your hands. Well, the audio books are great too. Yeah. I love that because I'm always stuck in traffic and especially – How do you like the cigar so far? They're very good. They're really not bad, right? Yeah. I put it down after – Yeah, no. – we're talking. Yeah, I know. It's hard. It's hard. It's rude. Keep it lit. It's rude. No, it was great. It was good though. It's a good cigar. It's a good cigar. It's a very solid cigar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So –

133:05And it's funny. It's got that guy's fucking face on it. Yeah, right. The little unibrow and everything. It actually has – the detail is really, really cool because it has the street in there. You don't see it. It has the location of his drug spot in the fucking van on the cigar. Where can you buy these? Well, we're working on them right now. We're putting them together. You know? There's a big tobacco letter, they call it, in Dominican Republic who saw the documentary. Oh, that's hilarious. And Adam didn't know. I said, Adam, do you have a relationship with this company? He says, yeah. I said, well, go tell them who the fuck you are. So he went and saw them and they saw the documentary and I think they listened to Artie's podcast with me or something. And they went, holy fuck, yes, we got a cigar for you. So he put his face on this fucking cigar. I think I'm going to get mine to say the 7.5 on it.

133:51Oh, that's a good move. And Dowd maybe, you know. That's not bad. So you can – Even just Dowd. Well. Dowd cigars. Now, this guy, Adam, is he stuck in – He can't. He can't come here. Yeah. We can call him if you want to call him. I mean, he's dying to say hello. But you know who's really more interesting? Who? Walter. Yeah? Well, Walter seemed interesting. Walter's pretty fucking – You want me to give him a call? Can we do that or no? Well, there's no need to do it now. But listen, this ain't the first podcast you and I are going to do. I'm sure we've got many more things to talk about. And as more things come out and you start doing things, I'll be happy to help you promote it. Well, that'd be nice. Yeah. You'll have me back when the book comes out? Fuck yeah. All right. When do you think that's going to – I mean, have you started? Well, it's in flux right now. I just –

134:30You know, because the thing is we've got to see a couple of publishers. Right now, they're a little nervous. What the fuck is wrong with that? I don't know what to say. Listen, you pussies. I don't know what to say. Well, it's not – he's done the time. Shut the fuck up and write the book. So what happens is people can't get behind a bad guy. Oh, my God. But you know what? I did bad things. I don't think I'm that bad of a guy. You know what I mean? I hope not anyway. I've known a lot of bad guys. I don't think you're a bad guy. No, thank you. I think you did bad shit. But like I said, I could have done that same shit. Yeah. I think people being honest. If you're honest about circumstantial situations that you find yourself into and poor decision-making and being young and doing drugs and then also being involved in a heinous crime-riddled situation.

135:14Like your environment that you're in, you're going to these places, these ghettos. You're constantly around crime. You're constantly around drugs. And I got to imagine, like as you detailed in the documentary, the crime aspect of it slowly sort of started creeping in. It gets you. It gets you. And I was young. And I was young and impressionable. You know, when you see a [age unclear] kid in a Jaguar with a gooseneck fucking equalizer, he's the bomb, you know? And he's got, you know, $25,000, $30,000 in his pockets. And he's got ropes and diamonds hanging on his neck. I'm like, what the fuck? Yeah. And what am I doing here? Right. Listen, it's wrong. But it doesn't seem that wrong sometimes. Do you remember the first piece of crime that you did while you were a cop? Like, do you never forget your first pussy? Pussy, like it's an object. First woman. Excuse me. Pardon me, people.

136:06First woman that you've had sexual relations with. Not with that. Yeah. Who's that? Not with that. Monica. Anyway, Monica Lewinsky. I did not have sexual relations. He did one of these things with the thumb. I did not have. But his finger bent. He did something. Fucker. He had cigars and everything in it. He should have had one of these. He should have. Yeah. Well, that's another story of a rat, right? Not even her. The other chick. The ugly one. Remember the whole story? Oh, that one. Yeah, yeah. The blonde? No. Monica Lewinsky was friends with some old hag. Yeah, the blonde. That ratted him out. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember. No, the blonde was a different one. Oh, that? Clinton was on a rampage. Yeah, he did good. He's the last great American dick sling in president. Yeah, yeah. Because now you're not allowed. You're not allowed anymore. We lost what it meant to be. Do you think Putin's laughing at these fucking idiots?

136:59Oh, my God. Laughing. Please, I don't want to get into it. Laughing. Ha, ha, ha. Yeah, yeah. Checkmate. You know, yeah. He gets ahead and then shoots the hooker and throws her off the top of the Kremlin. Perfect. And just laughs. No witness. He doesn't even have to. It doesn't matter if it's a witness. He doesn't care. It doesn't matter. He doesn't even have to shoot him. They get nuclear poisoning drops for these people. Oh, they have all kinds of things. But do you remember, like, the first crime that you committed? Well, the one I talk about often is, because I, listen, when you're a cop, if you're not doing what you're supposed to do by the book, you're on the edge of committing a crime every fucking time. Right. Okay? So every time you even let somebody off when they're supposed to be arrested. Yeah, you basically have committed a crime, you know? Right.

137:37Because you've used this as a discretion in an area where there was no discretion. Right. You know, so, you know, so, but the thing I talk about is when I took the money from the Hispanic kid, the Puerto Rican kid, in the movie, I talk about it. Yeah, what was that situation? Well, he had what we call the Puerto Rican mystery at the time. Puerto Rican mystery? Yeah, I mean, and listen, I love Puerto Ricans. They're my favorite people in the world. They're fun people. They're the best. The best. You know, they got the Remy. They got everything going on. The bodegas. I love them. They helped me grow up. I love them. They're very friendly and family-oriented. And they ruined me at the same time. They love them. And they ruined me at the same time. So what happened was there's this vet driving down in the ghetto. When you see a vet in the ghetto, you're going to notice it, right? Right. I mean, look at me. Yeah.

138:17I put it in a little tent spot because I've got to be noticed. But so this kid's got this vet, and I pull him over, and he's got nothing. I mean, nothing. No license plates. No insurance. I mean, no plates on the fucking car. Right. Just driving it. So, but I noticed he had a thick wad of hundreds in his fanny pack back then, you know? I still wear one. How dare you say back then? See that? Fuck yeah. Yours is dual. Yours is dual. You know, it's got a zipper on here, too. Oh, you got the whole thing. Let me tell you something. Come on. Look at that. I started wearing one again not too long ago. I wear one. I don't give a fuck. I'm married. I'm not trying to get any pussy. Yeah, you don't need to. If you're not trying to get laid, you wear a fanny pack. Good for you. Like a man. There you go. Even if I was trying to get laid. Don't get yourself in trouble. Fuck you with a fanny pack. You don't want a fucker.

138:59That's what I think. It's too much work. I don't need you. I don't have to dress up for you. Get the fuck out of here. There you go. We'll have to wear cologne next. No, don't do anything. Don't do the cologne. Fuck that. Never. Headaches. Never. I get headaches. I wouldn't want to do it. So I pull the guy over. I have respect. I pull the guy over and he goes, this is my shit. I got nothing. But he's got Benjamins and Franklins in his fucking bag. Right. So I decide that he could buy us a nice lobster lunch. Because, you know, everybody eats lobster for lunch. Right. So he says, I said, so, you know, lobster lunch, kid? You know. He goes, yeah, yeah. I go, yeah. I said, and leave it on the back seat. I don't want you handing me nothing. Right, right, right. Because I'm scared. Right. I don't want someone to see it. So this is the first thing. Yeah, it's the first thing. Oh, that's right, yeah.

139:42So he leaves a couple bucks on the fucking back seat. I don't know if it was $100 or $200 or $100. Well, there's no back seat in the Corvette. Yeah, but this was the back seat of the police car that I had him in. Oh, I see. Yeah. Okay. Oh, he was in the car. Yeah. I see, basically. He's getting in the car. And so he just takes a couple hundred dollars out of his pocket. Leaves it on the fucking seat. And then he says, thanks, sir. Okay, you have a nice day. I don't ever want to see you again. You hear me? Because I'm down pattern. I'm scared to death. How long had you been on the job at this point? About two years, a year and a half. Wow. So for a year and a half. I was good as could be. Straight as an arrow. Six months in the academy. Six months in the academy. But that doesn't really count. Yeah. Right. A year in training. A year in training. So now I'm in East New York, and I see money. Wow.

140:25So it's really only a couple months on the job. A couple of months. Free. Free. Actually, under your own discretion. Right, because you've got to realize I saw quite a bit go on in my training. Now, what did you see in your training? Well, I was confronted with a... This is an odd story. I was confronted with training officers. But by the time I get to training, they had 3,600 cops graduate the academy the same day. Okay? Now, just think about that. That's the size of the sixth largest police department in the country. And now we hit the street like a bunch of fucking cockroaches. It's going everywhere. Right? And we don't know what the fuck we're doing. That's the last thing a cop knows what he's doing when he's at the academy is nothing. He has no clue. Okay? All he knows is it's like an accountant who graduates accounting school and says, go check this guy's books. Oh, my God! Right.

141:08You know, what the fuck you're doing? Actually doing it in practice. Yeah. Now you're doing it. Right. You're like, okay. You know, one of the first things that happened to me, I walked out of Madison Square Garden. It was graduation day. My father's there. My father's a retired fireman. He's standing there with me. We're walking down the street. And I'm wearing the dress blues. I'm sharp looking. Pretty young. I haven't shaved yet. And some woman comes walking up to me. Officer, officer. And I'm looking like this. Where's the fucking officer? My father goes, that's you. Wow. I go, yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. She goes, do you know where the Empire State Building is? So I go, I'm trying to find the Empire State Building. I'm on 34th Street in Manhattan. Where's the Empire State Building? 34th Street in Manhattan, 5th Avenue. It's two blocks straight in front of me, right? Right. So I go, I'm looking around.

141:54I go, I'm going to stand there. Go down two blocks, make a left, right? Right. Just make a left. That's what you tell people. So my father goes, Mike, it's straight ahead. I go, what the? Oh, yeah, go straight ahead up there. It's on your right. And then you look up. You see the spire at the top of the Empire State Building right there. So anyway, that was my first day, you know, of being a cop. I didn't know I was. Right. I actually am on now. Right. Now you're actually a cop. Now I am on. Now I realize the magnitude of this uniform you got on. People come to you. Right. Oh, shit. But what did you see? It's going to be serious. What did you see in the academy? So in training. Well, in training. In training. It's past the academy. Academy is a bunch of shit. So in training, now I do six months in the street by myself. No one wants to, because they're training the other rookies first.

142:37I was in the second tier of training. So now I'm learning the street a little bit. You know, I'm learning how to get a donut. You know, whatever. I got to throw it in. You're learning how to get a donut. You know, what's the, would you say hi? Because they give cops free food, right? Yeah. Most places. Well, they did. Legitimate establishments. Legitimate establishments. Yeah. You know, but sometimes, some places do, some places didn't back then. Really? If they didn't, you didn't go back. So. I thought everybody did. Well, you would think it's not a crime, but it is. So you can't. It's a crime? It's a fucking crime. What? Yeah. So that's what I'm saying. Wait a minute. So that's what I'm saying. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. That's what I'm saying. It's a crime to give cops a free meal? It's a fucking crime. It's a crime. That's wrong. Yeah. That's wrong. Right. That's fucked up.

143:18You could give your construction worker a free fucking meal. What about a fireman? Can you give a fireman a free meal? Same thing. That's a crime? Crime. Whoa. But they cook for themselves nice. They cook a nice meal on their fire. Which I end up going to them quite a bit. But anyway, so now I'm committing crimes. No. Now you're wandering around trying to get donuts. Right. I'm getting donuts. Right. And that's it. You know. And I'm like running. To like radio calls. You ever see like cops running in uniform? You know. It's like a little silly. Right. Because you're walking the beat. Because you're walking the beat. You know. Right. But you're a rookie. 10-54. Which is an aided case. You know. Someone's got. You know. A hernia. Whatever. You know. Where. Location. You don't know what the fuck it is. You know. You start running. You know. Four blocks later. You see the patrol car sitting there. And they're like. Kid.

144:02You don't fucking run to these things. That's what I think a patrol car's for. Oh. Okay. We just wanted to help out. Get up all day long. I want to see something. You're waiting to see some action. Something. Right. So anyway. This goes on for six months. So finally my first tour in a car. I get with these two veteran detectives. Who have 22 years on the job each. And the precinct that I was in. Had just finished their scandal in the newspaper. It was called the 110 Sergeants Club. Who my neighbor actually was involved in. He went to jail. But anyway. So. Getting right to the meat of it. So. He says to me. This veteran. He goes. You know. The last guy. Don't ask me how this conversation started. He goes. The last guy. That's connected with the scandal. He fell over a railing. On the fifth floor. During a Christmas party. In the snow. And he died. I said. Well what do you mean? They go. What it is. Is he was wrecked. He told on.

144:57The cops in the 110 precinct. And he fell over the top of the railing. I said. How do you fall over the top of a fucking railing? Right. You're being. It's a four foot. Right. Broad iron railing. How do you go over the top of it? Right. He just did. He just managed. Yeah. So he. I don't know if they considered it a suicide or accidental death. But it was not a homicide. So they told me. That's what happens when you. Turn in another cop. So I said. Okay. I'm on the job now. A little less than a year. Six months in the academy. Six months chasing people around. I didn't know what I was doing. Eating donuts. And now. I'm being told by veteran cops that. That's what happens if you tell on a cop. That they murder people. Well. That things can happen. Right. Mysterious. You can mysteriously get injured. Doesn't seem that mysterious. How old are you now? 48. Okay. Back then. It was pretty mysterious. Back then.

145:54I was scared to ask what happened to him. Okay. I'm good. But I think I put the dots together. Yes. I bet you did. Don't tell on a cop. Right. So right away you're like. Done. Well this is. That's done. And then within a week or two I see him robbing fucking cocaine from spots. I wasn't allowed. Same guys. Same crew. Not them. Same crew. But same. Right. So you're seeing right away. It was in Corona. Elmhurst. Jackson Heights. Which is called the cocaine capital of New York. Actually the world at the time. It was more than Miami. Because it was where the. They called Little Columbia. It was all the. All the major Colombian cartels were shipping their cocaine to Jackson Heights and Corona. And it was being shipped out around the whole metropolitan area from there. Oh. And it was. It was huge. Because they had the airports there. They're fucking. Kennedy and LaGuardia. They ran them. You know.

146:38They ran all the fucking transportation in and out of those locations. Oh. So they would get jobs. Or get people that would get jobs doing that. Pilots. Baggage handlers. Baggage handlers. It was fucking. Wow. Like a free for all. Wow. So. I'm working in this. Low profile precinct. But that's what really was going on in there. Right. And anyway. What else is there to say about it? So you're right away. So I'm exposed to what's going on. Right away. Right away. So you're being indoctrinated like almost instantaneously. I'm seeing a lot of things that don't add up. Right. And now I leave there and I go to the ghetto. And I'm like. Okay. I really should have stayed in fucking school. Because this doesn't look right. I got tears in my eyes. I got Elvis in the ghetto playing on my God Strike Me Dead. I'm driving down Sutter Avenue. I just got graduated from fucking Queens to East New York. And there comes In the Ghetto.

147:29It's the song In the Ghetto. Uh-huh. And the mama cries. And I got fucking tears in my eyes. Oh my God. I should have stayed in school. You're just hating your choice. You're just stuck. Scared. Scared. Scared. How long was it before you saw your first dead body? I had already seen that. Because that guy actually fell from a roof. Oh, you saw the guy. I've seen plenty of dead bodies by that point. Probably half a dozen at that point. So you actually saw the guy who fell from the roof? No, no, no. I saw a guy that fell from a roof though. I know what happens. Oh, a different one. Your head gets egg shaped. Yeah. So he committed suicide. Okay. But anyway, that was one of my first DOAs. But so now you're in the ghetto. And you're there. And you're scared. And you're saying, I got to sink or swim. You know, it's time. Either you're in the sink or you got to swim. And I had a choice to make. So I learned to swim quick.

148:16And I was probably in the precinct, you know, a day. I saw my first murder. And then. A day. Yeah. But it wasn't my case. So I really didn't handle it. A couple of stabbings. And then my first midnight shift, Jesus gets shot. Jesus gets shot. My first midnight shift. Jesus. Jesus. What happened to him? The story goes like this. I'm working with my buddy, Sal. Nice guy. He's a little older than me. A little more mature. He's really ready for this action. But he's not an active guy. So he just wants to. He wants to do his shift and go home. Great. But I'm not. I'm like, I want to be a cop. I want to do police work. Two guys work with a crowbar down the street. Or a tire iron down the street. It's one o'clock. Two o'clock in the morning. I'm like, Sal. That looks a little suspicious. He goes, what? I go, the fucking guy's got a tire iron in his hand. A little suspicious. What do you think?

149:03Mike, do you really want to get involved? I go, well, that's what you're supposed to do. We're the police. We're supposed to ask some questions. I mean, a guy's got a tire iron. It's two in the morning. What do you think? All right. So I make a U-turn. Go the wrong way on Fulton Street. Right by Cleveland. One of those streets. Cleveland, Fulton. And we're going back to check up on these guys. We drove past them. Now we're going back. And all of a sudden, we pull up, and there's a fucking scene in the middle of the street. Guy's got a hole in his head. He's laying on the ground. Obviously dead already. And I see a tire iron sitting right here like this. Right? But he's here, and the tire iron's over here about 15 feet away. And I go, what happened? They go, these two guys. I said, the tire iron? They go, yeah, the tire iron's right there. It was them. But the tire iron, they ran. So they shot this kid, Jesus.

149:57He probably went out and confronted them and said, what are you guys doing in the neighborhood with a tire iron? You know, stealing cars. Stealing cars, tires and hubs, whatever they could get. Right. So he confronted them. They shot and killed them. And they took off in the wind. So I go to Sal. I go, you know what? Not for nothing. I'm glad you didn't. I'm glad we didn't stop him first. But Jesus did. So that was my first actual shooting that I was the, what they call the first responding officer on the scene up. I was there about probably a week and a half. Wow. So I see my first murder in a week and a half. And this is before the crack. This is before the crack. So this is just straight. This is straight. Violence. You know. Poverty. Poverty. Ghetto. Let's just kill this guy because he confronted me. It's crazy. The idea that the poverty and the ghetto was already fucked up.

150:44The amazing thing was that it probably could have been us. Or they would have ran. Most people try not to shoot it out with the police. Right. But, you know, it's dark. You never know. He just could have. Right. And then I wouldn't have all this shit to talk about. Or more to talk about. Or more to talk about. Yeah. Or who knows. Yeah. It's just amazing that the crack came along and accelerated what was already fucked up. Yeah. You know. I don't know what to say. It was just. It was amazing. I'll tell you the one thing that was interesting during the crack thing when he took the cocaine from the Panamanian government. In the. The Panamanian army was involved bringing a lot of cocaine with Noriega through the. Into our country. Back then it was the Kango hats. Yeah. I don't know if you're familiar with the Kango. Remember the Kango. All that. All the Kango hats. They were getting robbed from people. So there's one kid.

151:37People are stealing Kango. They're fucking killing each other for the triple fat goose. Right. The triple fat goose. The Nike ears. And. And. And. And. And the Kango hats. So. This kid robs this guy for his Kango hat. Someone calls 911. On robbery. Suspect. Boop. Boop. Boop. He runs into a home over on. I think it was Van Sicklen. One of those streets up there. Right off Atlantic Avenue. And. He had been up on. The guy. The kid came off the subway. When the kid standing there waiting for him. Stole his Kango at gunpoint. And ran into his own home. So he knock on the door. Where the kid lives. He won't open the fucking door. The kid. Shut up. I ain't opening the door for you. So. He goes back upstairs and hides. The kid. That was a two family home. The people downstairs open the door. To a common hallway. Because they see the police. They don't want to fucking. They didn't do nothing wrong. They open the door. They go upstairs.

152:23The place has the shoes. The fucking beads. Separate in each room. You ever see the beads that separate the rooms? Why do they do that? So people make noise when they go through the room? No. It's sort of like. You're supposed to know that this is two different rooms. But they hang the beads. Oh. Okay. You know. That's like. This is a door. But it's really not. You know. You can see through there. Pretty good. So this is how it was. That's how the ghetto is. You know. Or they hang a curtain. Two different rooms. So we get inside. And we see all the shoes. And all the money that's spent in this place. And something's up. So we grab the kid. The kid downstairs says. That's him. We can't find a gun. So we end up going downstairs in the basement. And that's when you see me in the movie. Talk about this story. Where we found this fucking. Call it a suitcase. A wooden suitcase. It was fucking like. It was like two inch ply almost.

153:05That's how thick this suitcase was. Wrapped in leather. I couldn't get it open. I'm like. I'm a pretty fucking strong guy. I couldn't get it open. I'm trying to rip this thing open. I don't have the combination. And there's no one standing there with the gate. So finally one of my. My partner comes up with a hacksaw. And I start hacksawing this fucking thing open. And I'm. What am I worried about? I'm worried about the police. Right. There's police all around. This is an armed robbery suspect. So there's a half a dozen cops. Milling in and out of the place. I killed my buddy. Watch the. Watch the staircase. Because we're down in the basement now. Right. I cut this thing open. And the fucking. When you finally get it open. The plume of fucking cocaine comes flying out. And it smells like that bubble gum shit. Delicious. So I'm like. Holy shit. We hit pay dirty. I'm trying to get the shit out. And I'm. He goes.

153:45My partner goes. They're coming. They're coming. Like who? He goes. The owner. I go. No. Fucking. Never mind the police. The owner of the coke is coming. Oh. Oh. What do we do? Well. We can't lock him up. We're stealing his coke. You know. Right. It's like the worst. The worst position to be in. And I finally I'm walking out. I'm like. I put 15. 12 pounds on trying to get this coke out of his house. And he's looking at me like I stole something from him. I feel guilty. And. I go. Is that your stuff? He goes. No. No. Not mine. I go. Okay. See you later. Gotta go. So I get the patrol car. We go to the bodega. We weigh it. On a fucking scale. How much? It was like a pound and a half. Something like that. It wasn't. A pound and a half of cocaine is a lot of money. Right? Well. At that point. Yeah. It was. It was like. We got 28,000 for it. We got 28,000 for it. So I bought a condo with them. That's when I bought the condo.

154:33At least you were investing. That's smart. That's actually smart. Yeah. It's very smart. It's fucking smart. A lot of. I mean. You said you had four houses and a condo. I'm like. That's actually. For a guy doing blow. Robbing people. I wasn't doing blow at this time. At the time. Just selling it. Right. No. Stealing it. Or stealing it and then selling it. Yeah. I mean. You were selling it. I was. Technically. Technically. Right. Anytime you transfer cocaine. By the way. Yes. If you give me a half of eight ball right now. You've sold it. Really? Whether you take money for it or not. Oh. Just remember that. Now I know. What about pot? Don't give me anything. Same thing. When you transfer something. You don't have to give money for it. It's still considered a sale. Wow. Somebody tell it to Joey Diaz. Handles. Hands out fucking pot candies everywhere he goes. So you.

155:14This was like one of the first really big ones that you were involved with. Well it was an exciting one. To say the least. I left there. I went out into South Carolina and bought a condo on the ocean. So you would kind of like. But what happened was I went back to the location. Mm-hmm. To get more. Because there was a lot more in there. But when I got there. There was a fucking limousine out front. I swear to Christ. There's a limousine out front. With two guys. One stand on each side. With their full length trench coats on. Uh-oh. Like standing there like this. And looking right at us. Like what are you going to do? And I went. Let's get the fuck out of here. And I'm not. This is no. This is no yoke. I was like. Okay. I'm the police. And I'm scared to death right now. Gotta go. Jesus Christ. And how long. And then I end up in the joint with Noriega. That's a lot. You were in the same place as Noriega? Did you see him? No.

155:59He was in. They gave him his own house. Is he still alive? I think so. They gave him his own house? Yeah. He had his like. This little. They gave him a little warehouse. They got a little something going on with him. Who me? No him. Does the government have a little something going on with him? Oh I can't answer to the government. They'll come out. Give him some pussy. Keep your mouth shut. I hope so. No stories. I hope so. He hasn't said anything has he? Well you always hope that. I mean or you always hear that rather. Yeah. You know. Well listen. In the witness protection program you get pussy. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't in it. But I know from guys that were that got kicked out of it. And they get pussy while they're in the program? Yeah. Like the government brings them in? Well they bring them to a hotel to meet their family. Just for a reunion. Oh. Well that's your family though. I mean like Noriega. Whatever. We're all family.

156:44They got him in a warehouse somewhere. I would imagine he's got his own little spot. Listen. I can't. Imagine if you go there and it's all fucking plush carpet. Fucking beautiful TV. The story that everybody dreams of. Wow. You had some bid. You know. Well that's what everybody dreams of. It's like that Goodfellas scenario. Yeah. Right. It's not like that. Seeing the movie where they're cooking steaks. Yeah. Yeah. Slicing the garlic. Slicing the garlic. We slice garlic with razor blades. Don't kid yourself. Really? Yeah. Absolutely. And there is steak. Do you really get steak? Yeah. If you know the right people. Well what else can you get when you're in there? Can you get girls? You have to pay the guards. Really? Yeah. But it's rare. But it happens. Usually it's the guards you're banging. Female guards. Down here. Right? That's a shame. That was that upstate New York. But in the feds they're a little more classy.

157:26You got to send money to their private account. Oh really? Yeah. But you can. It all can be. Well anything can happen. If you have the right number. Really? Like what's the. How much you got to pay a guard to get some pussy? I think the going rate was 500. But I'm not sure. 500 bucks. So you pay them 500 bucks and you can get laid. Yeah. You don't hand it to them. You have it sent. Right. That seems like it would be worth it. I mean. I'm just saying. Of course it was right. I would have doubled that. Yeah. After a certain amount of time. It seems like a really good deal actually. Really? 500 bucks seems like a bargain. Yeah. Well these girls you know. They were out in the country. They weren't like city girls. So. But female guards would often times mix it up with prisoners. Listen. If I ever go back in fucking prison. Okay. This is not a good thing for me to say. So. Well you're not going to go back in prison.

158:04I'm just saying it happens. You're not going to go back in prison. No. But you never know. But listen. The government can find ways. But why would you. Why would they find ways? We have ways. Listen. It's not going to happen. I know. Thank you man. Keep your. Keep your nose clean. Yeah. Keep your nose clean. You'll be fine. Yeah. But that was what happened in upstate New York. Right? Those guys that got out. From what I understand. And a girl was supposed to wait for them. She was having a relationship with one of them. Yeah. And it happens. It happens quite often. It's a difficult position to be in. You're a woman getting attention by men who are. Most of them are in pretty good shape. Yeah. You know. Work out all day long. They can't do it. Sweet talk you. And you know. You haven't fight with your husband that day. And now you know. You're vulnerable like anything else. Mm-hmm. You know. It happens.

158:39I think Tupac's got a song about that. Doesn't he? The vulnerable? When I get free. Yeah. That's a. Just hand you a little piece of paper there. What's going on? Your son's giving you notes. What's he saying? I don't know. I should actually talk about that. What? That I made $38,000 with phone sex in prison. Did you really? Why would you not talk about that? Is it illegal? No. It's just. I'm over it. Wait a minute. I spent the money. Did you make phone sex for like. Calling up. Like gay guys would call you up? Is that what you mean? No. No. Oh no. They don't call you. You call out. All right. I don't have. I didn't have a hotline in prison. No. I had a. I had a. I had a following of people that. You know. So you. I had a. I had a. I had a woman that sent me books on dominatrix stuff. You know. She wanted me to dominate her. Master slave books. Mm-hmm. You know. Story of all. Right. I don't know if you guys.

159:24You guys might be too old for that. But it's not. Not old enough. Story of all was like an incredible book about a woman that liked to be. Sort of manipulated and whatnot. In some kind of ways. So women. Would contact you in prison. This woman sent me a bunch of books related to that. And then I would have phone sex with her on the phone. Of course. You know. And she would give you money? Yeah. I mean. Wow. Yeah. So a girl would pay you for phone sex. Yeah. That's pretty goddamn. You can say that. That's pretty special. Yeah. They called it cell phones. I was in a cell on a phone. But. Back then. Like. That's. That's pretty rare though. Isn't it? That like a woman would pay a guy for that. They. Like. They always say that. Men who are in jail for like murder and stuff like that. Right. Right. A lot of women would send them. Yeah. Yeah. I had a lot of fans. Yeah. Mostly women. Really? Listen. People are lonely. You know. Mm-hmm.

160:14People are lonely. Right. Even people in the free world are lonely. They need attention and affection from anybody. And. You know. It wasn't really done in a manipulative way. Right. Because I needed attention and affection too. Right. Right. Right. Right. And just so happened that she wanted me to do this. Right. Right. I got good at it. The guards would fight to get my. Because they would. Won't be listening. Because every conversation in prisons. I'd walk down the compound. They'd be looking at me like. Okay. When are you going on tonight? So you would like. Like going on like it was a performance. Yeah. Yeah. Like us now. They couldn't wait until I got on the phone. I don't know. I was sweating on the other end. I don't know. And they were listening. The guards were listening in? Yeah. That's fucking hilarious. So. So they got mad at me. They used to make me send the money home. You know.

160:56You got too much money in your account. You got to send it home. The guards would make you send the money home? Yeah. Because you can't have too much money in your account while you're incarcerated. Because then you could control people in the prison. Ah. Well. How much can you keep in your account? I don't know. They made. I had 16,000 in there. They said. Whoa. Whoa. You got to fucking send some home. And it's all from this one lady? Yeah. Did you have other people that you were doing this phone sex thing with? No. She was my. Well. A couple? She was the main. She was the payee. How much did you make her pay? I didn't make her. There was no salary. You know. It wasn't a. She just was sending you donations? She had an escort business. She had an escort business. Yeah. I didn't want to talk about this. Why would she not want to talk about this? She had an escort business. She had an escort business in Orlando.

161:38She ends up getting arrested for it. While I'm on the phone with her having sex. She gets arrested. Like they broke into her house? Yeah. Oh. Why? Why? Why? Why? Because she went on an escort. Why? So what? Right. Is there other shit to arrest people for? Well. The fact is that. God. She ends up going to trial. She ends up going to trial and winning. Oh. That's nice. So it's a great story for her. You know. Yeah. But my fucking donation stopped. Because she was going through hell. You know. Wow. That's crazy though. It was interesting. I would say so. Yeah. I would say at least interesting. You know. You have a life. We all live a life. We all do things. And as it turns out. You know. You can write books and movies about everybody's life. Everybody has. Listen to me. Right now. Your life is way more fucked up than most people's lives. Fucked up? Your book. I thought it was interesting. It's very interesting.

162:28But a lot of fucked up things are interesting. Yeah. But your story. I mean. Like you saying. Oh. Everybody's got an interesting life. You write a book about everybody. No. No. Listen. You wrote a book about. You know. Jamie's life. It'd be boring as fuck compared to yours. Oh come on. Look. He's got a beautiful shirt on. Well he's a great guy. Don't get me wrong. I'm just saying. No. No coke. No phone sex business. Forget it. No murders. He's never seen a dead body. I don't think. No. See. Everybody's got. You know what I'm saying. For real? Yeah. See. Oh shit. You've seen some shit. You just don't think you've seen some shit. You know what it is. You take things for granted. Sure. When you lived the life I lived. And even though like I'm lucky to be alive. You know. In many ways. You just. You know. Like you can. We haven't even discussed police work here. Barely. Yeah. Well the reason is because to me it was a normal day. You know.

163:13I handled 28 day jobs average a day. So. And I backed up on another 28. So. The reality is. You know. Fucked up things I was involved in. I mean. I don't tell you the story. I gotta tell you the story. Right. You're gonna. I hope you guys enjoy this one. This is entertaining. I laugh about it myself. And you know what. When I laugh. Don't take it the wrong way. Because it's just crazy. You know. I don't mean to demean anything. Or anyone. So. I'm getting ready to go to Atlanta. To the Bahamas. And. So what I do is I do. I do. I change my shift. From a. From a. From a four to twelve. To a day shift. So that. After the. After the day shift. I can go on my merry vacation. Instead of. Instead of ending at four to twelve at night. So. I get assigned. A prisoner. In Kings County Hospital. And. See there's so many fucking stories about my head. It just spins. So. Now you realize. I'm going on vacation. At the end of this shift.

164:06I'm going to the Bahamas. Or the Cayman Islands. I don't know. Someplace. I think the Bahamas. So. I don't. Now I have three days growth on my face. Now you. This is. This is how a cop thinks. I have three days growth on my face. Because I'm going away. You can't have growth on your face. As a cop. You just be clean shaven. You can have a mustache. But you gotta be clean shaven. Otherwise. So when you turn out. You gotta look tight. So now I'm in this hospital. Three days growth on my face. And I'm drunk. Because I just did it all nighter. Because I. I did a four to twelve. Instead of going home. I stayed at the precinct. Tapped down. You know. Half a dozen. Or a dozen. Whatever. And now I'm back at the hospital. Guarding this prisoner. I walk in the hospital. And. I take the handcuffs. I said to the kid. Where's the fucking handcuffs? He goes. He's a rookie. He goes. What do you mean? I go. He's a fucking prison.

164:50He's gotta be handcuffed. Well. He wasn't handcuffed when I got here. And I said. So I take the handcuffs. I said. Have a nice day. I put the cuffs on the guy. And cuff him to his bed. Officer. What are you doing? I said. For Christ's sake. You're a fucking prisoner. I gotta sleep. I got things. I got things to do here. Alright. I gotta sleep. Catch up. Because I'm going to the Bahamas tonight. Tomorrow. Long story short. Trying to shorten it. He goes. Look. I gotta take a piss. I gotta go to the bathroom. He's waking me up now. I'm sleeping already. He wakes me up. So I uncuff him. He goes to the bathroom. I fall back to sleep. I fall back to sleep. He's in the bathroom. Comes back. Wakes me up. Officer. I'm back from the bathroom. I said. Okay. I go to the bathroom. He goes. I just woke you up. What are you putting the fucking handcuffs on me for? So I go. Listen. Anyway. He goes. Now he wants to take a shower. So I go. Alright.

165:39Go take your fucking shower. I'm sleeping. I said. Wake me up when you come back. All of a sudden. About. I don't know. 10. 15. 20 minutes later. Officer. Yeah. It's a nurse. Your. Your. Your prisoner's gone. I go. Oh. No. Now. I didn't shave for three days. I'm drunk. Hungover. And I'm going to the Bahamas tomorrow. If you're making an arrest right now. You've got a problem. Because you've got to process the arrest all the way through. I've got 17 hours overtime stuck in front of me. I'm not making this Bahamas trip. Oh. Fuck. So I tried and put a description over the air of an escaped prisoner. Possibly escaped prisoner. Because I don't want to admit that the prisoner's escaped yet. Because I don't know if he is. But he's just not here. I don't see him. He's gone. So if I put over the air and escaped prisoner. I'm already. I just cost myself 10 days vacation. Okay. That's mandatory minimum. By law. In the police department.

166:35If you lose a prisoner. You lose 10 days vacation. Whoa. So now I'm not shaving. All right. I can't. I'm running around fucking King County Hospital. I left my gun. The only thing I have on is my gun. I have. So. You know. Cops have a jacket with their badge on it. I took the jacket off. So all I have is a radio and a gun. I'm running around looking for a fucking prisoner. Cops pull up. They see a guy with a radio and a gun. They don't see a cop in uniform. They don't know who the fuck I am. I'm putting over there. A possible escaped prisoner. So the communication. Oh no. Yeah. This communication. I don't get shot. But the communications officer on the phone goes. Says. Can you call me? So I call her off. What they call. We call it central. So I call central. Central. What's your number? So I call her. She goes to me. Officer. What is a possible escaped prisoner? It's either he's escaped. Or he's not. I go central.

167:25It's not something I want to put over the air. That the fucking guy's gone. I said. He may be gone. He may be down the block. He may be sleeping. I can't find him. She goes. Okay. She says. What's he wearing? He says. Hospital garb. Green hospital garb. Okay. So. She puts over the air. A possible escaped prisoner from Kings County Hospital. Wearing green hospital garb. 15 minutes later. 7-5 hospital post on the air. 6-7 sergeant. Yeah. What's up sergeant? Yeah. We have a guy here. Could you come meet us at the front lobby of the King? Now Kings County Hospital. People don't know. It's the size of a fucking. A whole neighborhood. It's huge. It's probably a mile this way. A mile that way. With 50 buildings in it. And it's like a guarded fence. But you know. There's no guards. And there's no real fence. It's just brick walls all over the place. So. All of a sudden he comes walking in with the guy.

168:19The sergeant and his driver come walking in with the guy. And all I can do is want to kill this fucking guy. Because I'm done. Now the duty captain has to come down. The duty captain is going to see that I haven't shaved. And so now I'm upstairs trying to shave. And I'm bleeding now. Because they keep these safety razors. They don't cut anything but you. So I'm shaving my face with this safety razor. I got blood all over me. I'm trying to wipe it up. Because as soon as he escaped. That's the first thing I did. After I called for the back. I started shaving his beard on my face off. Because I know I'm done. I'm getting interviewed by a duty captain. He's going to smell the fucking booze on my breath. And my face is not quaffed. So I'm done. Not because. This is going to bring attention to my drunkenness. So I'm shaving. I'm bleeding. In comes the sergeant. With this fucking inmate. Convict. Whatever he is. And perp.

169:03And I look at him. He looks at me. I go. What the fuck did you do? He goes. There was voices telling me I had to go. They were telling me I had to run. I go. I pick him up. You know. You get superhuman stings. I pick him up with one hand like this. I got him against the glass in Kings County Hospital. And I go to him. I want to fucking knock him out. But the sergeant's right there. Right. The sergeant goes. Take it easy. Take it easy. Take it easy. I go. He just cost me fucking ten days. I can't go on my vacation now. So. I let him down. And. I go. Drag him back to his. His. His. His appointed bed. Now I. I want to fucking. I want to put the cuffs around his neck. Right. I know I shouldn't have fucking. I don't know. I don't know. Voices are telling me. I look up on his bed. It says. HIV. Now back then. HIV was like. You know. Yeah. You're done. I'm done. Right. I think I got AIDS now. From touching him. From touching him.

170:00I think I got fucking AIDS. Right. So here I am. I just touched this AIDS patient. I'm dying. He's dying. And I'm going on vacation. And I'm not. What am I going to do now? How do you respond to this? So I don't know what to do. So I'm waiting for the duty captain to come by. I'm bleeding. I'm bleeding still. I got holes in my face. Right. Now. I can't even touch myself. I just touched him with my hands. Now I got AIDS on my hands. I'm bleeding. I'm done. I might as well just sign my death warrant right now. Not to mention. You know. I'm not making this vacation. So anyway. They come to relieve me. And how the story turns out is. I end up on vacation. In a timely manner. I'm supposed to process this arrest. The arrest took me about 15 minutes to process. So I walk back into the precinct. And the lieutenant on the desk goes. Doubt. You got to go back down to central booking. And process the arrest of that inmate.

170:50That escaped. I go. I do? He goes. Yeah. I go. I hand him a piece of paper. Here's the arrest report. The 61. The aided card. And my overtime slip. He goes. You done? This is the guy who's trying to bang my girlfriend. He goes. You done? The guy who's spot I parked in with the red Corvette. He goes. You done? I go. There's my arrest number. We hated each other. I go. There's my arrest number. There's the fucking complaint number. And there's the aided card. And there's my overtime slip. He knew I was going on vacation. He goes. He's fucking fuming. So P.S. I lost the perp. I got him back. And I still made the vacation. Wow. And I end up not losing the 10 days. They forgot to interview me. They forgot to interview you? Yeah. I ended up getting interviewed about a year later on that. And they took something from me. But it was like. It was like it was happenstance then. They took something from you?

171:41We have this old thing sitting around on our desk. I go. Whatever. It's over with now. So the sting wasn't there. And I. It's not going to lose my job. You know. I'm drunk. On duty. Losing a prisoner. Come on. Right. How did you not lose your job? You got lucky. Maybe. Did I? Definitely. I would have lost my job. I would have safe. Right? I don't know. I don't know. I mean. I hate to say everything happens for a reason. I fucking hate that saying. Sometimes it applies. It's scary. Jesus Christ. But you got to feel lucky that you went through all this and you're still alive and you're still healthy. I am very lucky and blessed. Yeah. Yeah. I am. I mean you've lived a. I mean to say you've lived a colorful life. I'm fucking tired. You'd have to be. I'm fucking tired. Jesus Christ. You've been running up hills. Look at him sweating like a fuck just telling you these stories. Carrying weights your whole life. On coke. On these sticks.

172:36These spindles of a leg. Jesus fucking Christ. It's a crazy story. And I'm sure you have a million crazy stories like that. That's an easy one. That was an easy one to tell. Yeah. That's a four minute one. Yeah. Yeah. I just couldn't imagine. I really do hope that this does become a book. Well I'd like to share the stories because they're interesting and funny. You know. Yeah. And you know what. A lot of people like to not. They don't want to give the recognition to. This is what life is. People live a life. And you have to share your stories with people. You know. You really do. You know. And I like to talk. Well and the time. It's like you were alive during the perfect time where all this happened. The crack era. Think about it. Right. The crack era. Well not just that. Like you started out before the crack era. The crack era happened while you were in. It destroyed a large community of people.

173:26And people that weren't even part of the community got destroyed because of it. And think about how much like would. How much of it would be different today because of cell phones. Because of the internet. I mean there's just. You know. We can bring this conversation in that direction. It wouldn't be the way it was. That's for sure. There's no way. And that's why I like. I talk about this all the time. I think that you really. You know. You have to get with it. You have to. You have to move along. The police society has to move along. You know. I. Listen. I tell a story in the movie. A cop gets shot. Right. I end up taking him to the hospital. And I didn't deserve to feel his pain. And that's. That's a really hard thing for a guy who was a cop. I didn't deserve to feel what happened to him and his family. And. You really. When you're a cop. You don't want to ever feel that way. I mean. I couldn't.

174:13Did you feel like you were a cop? You know what. I always. When you were in the middle of it all. You know what. You know what. Joe. I always felt like a cop. I just. Always thought I could come back and be a cop. See. You always thought like eventually I'm going to let this stuff go. Right. I'm going to grow up. Wow. Just never got a chance. I'm going to grow up. You piled up so much. You know. You know. It's. It's. It's a fucking crazy life man. It's really crazy. It's not a good. It's not a good life. You know. And the fact that we're. We're saying that. You know. I could sit on some. A pile of gold or whatever. And. I love to hear that. Everyone likes to. You know. It's just. You turn something bad into something good. Is. Is. Is. I say. Hey. You're doing. I'm mic'd out. You could do that to any cop. And they say. Hey Joe. Nice to meet you. I love you. I do that. I'm like. You know. Right. Do they really want to say hello to me. Right.

175:06Or do they want to just clean their fucking hand. You know. Right. I had a guy come up to me at. At. At. At one of those. Previews I did. Or screenings. And said. You're a fucking low life piece of shit. Go fuck yourself. It was a cop. Yeah. Yeah. I probably could have squashed him like a bug. But that's not the point. You know. Well you couldn't be here by what I was. But you know. The problem was I dabbled on both sides at the same time. That's why in the movie. They said. What were you a cop or a gangster? Both. You know. Yeah. There's that scene where the one cop sees you coming out. And he says. He looks at you. And he goes. And I don't see cop. I see perp. Right. Right. Well he's a douchebag. Is he a douchebag? Yeah. He's a douchebag. They don't like him. Why is that? No one likes him. Internal Affairs doesn't like him. Really? Yeah. I'm working with Internal Affairs right now by the way. You're working with them? Yeah.

175:53I didn't tell you that. House out. No. No. No. I'm training them. I'm training them. We're in the midst of finishing a training video for bosses, cops, and recruits. Three different videos. Wow. Well that makes sense. That seems like something that you would really be able to help with. Yeah. I think I could. And you know. I put a little. A lot of these films are so dry and boring. And I give a little character to the fucking training session. A little flavor. A little flavor. I mean listen. I met two beautiful women. And I'm being honest. Sincere. I spoke on one. One was the chief of internal affairs. And one was a lieutenant in internal affairs. Both smoking hot. Yeah. And for real. Right. And they would have had me in a minute. You know. If they just sent them in I would have been caught in 1987. But anyway. These two girls. Women. And they. They fucking just. They knew.

176:41They knew that their internal affairs division needed something that was. That's the word poignant. Or riveting. Mm-hmm. And they said we need you. Can you help us? They need some character. They need some character. Yeah. People don't pay attention to information unless it's distributed in an entertaining way. There's a big difference between just flat, boring, dry information. Right. And information that's got some flavor to it. Right. So I did something with them. And in fact. In fact. I spoke to them last week briefly. I told them. You know. Some of the things I was doing. They were sort of acting jealous. I said. Jealous. You got a fucking pension. Don't be jealous. Okay. I'm selling my soul right now. Just to make ends meet. You know. And they got a pension and retirement system. They're going to be fine. You know. You know. But interesting conversation with them.

177:22And so they're looking to do something with that and have me back and speak before academy class. Or you know. I don't know about the precincts. The guys might not open their arms to me the way the rookies are forced to. You know. And then I'm doing some colleges right now. I'm speaking at colleges. That's great too. That sounds great. Humanities classes. Some ethical classes for the law students and criminal justice departments. One of the police departments has actually reached out to me in the south. I don't want to put their name out there just in case they decide not to. But they have like 750 officers. They want me to come and actually speak. It's a great idea. It makes a lot of sense. It's a very smart idea. You know. Look. What I did was horrific. You know. I used a position to trust. I did my time. Now I hope I can help people avoid guys that can do what I did. Or pick up on it.

178:12And maybe I had to stop them before. Like this maybe guy has the characteristics of a guy that could go that way. You know. This is not an innocent happening. This thing just didn't happen because I was like greedy. Which is definitely part of the reason it happened. It happened because of a bunch of political things that were put in place back in the 80s. We started promoting people based on the color of their skin or their ethnicity. Rather than on the promotional ratings passing tests. And it was very very divisive. The police department became divided. And we all became our own actors. And it was a difficult time for the police department. And what you got from it was a lot of internal strife. Called we hated the job but we loved being cops. So it was very difficult. And the guys that loved being cops. That were true to the job. They became good cops and got their pensions.

178:57The guys like myself who turned into me. They began to rebel. They're telling you not to make arrests. You know. They're telling you not to do this. And your boss failed three tests. And you passed. You didn't pass them either. But you know. So you both should be in the same ground. Now he's your boss. Or she's your boss. So it was a very very political upturning upheaval. Within the police department itself. When this rife time in the crack era hit. All at the same time. Yeah. It's like a perfect storm. It was a perfect storm. The whole thing is a perfect storm. And they didn't want another fucking scandal. Like they had in the 7-7 precinct. Right. Wow. Which people aren't aware of. Unless they know the police department history. Mike we just did three hours. Oh fuck. That was it. That's three hours. Just fucking flew by. Make sure we talk about themikedown.com. Yes. That's themikedown.com.

179:42And that's where people should buy the documentary. The 7-5. And do buy the documentary. Because it is fucking five stars. Thank you. It's outstanding. It was well done. It was very very well done. And it's compelling. And so are you man. Thank you very much brother. I really appreciate it. I'm very happy to be here. We're going to do this again. Oh great. 100%. Thanks. Alright fuckers. See you soon.