Corrupt Police Officer: I Arrested Drug Dealers, Then Sold Their Drugs! There’s Massive Corruption Going On Today! - Mike Dowd
Guests: Mike
Full transcript · Read the full conversation in order, with its original context.
§01Transcript — part 1
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I’ve never heard a story like this in my life. A story of drug trafficking, bribery, kidnapping, and even murder, which earned you the nickname of "America’s Dirtiest Cop." I want to know everything.
Okay, but let’s just be clear: if you choose to have a conversation with me about this, you’re going to hear things that you won’t like. Being a New York cop was the greatest job in the world, but it’s not built for somebody to come in and be the "knight in shining armor."
You’re working minimal wage, civilians are against you, and you’re directly told not to make drug arrests. Why? Because they’ve got a budget to manage. The average amount of overtime for one crack arrest was 18 hours. So, that leads to the streets becoming unwieldy.
What happens is a guy like me with an entrepreneurial spirit shows up and says, "There’s a way to control this. I can’t arrest them, so I taxed them." And that escalated. Greed is powerful. But what happens then? You become God.
I was making more than the President of the United States by protecting one of the largest drug trafficking organizations in New York. But I was losing control, and I became the face of New York City’s corruption problem. People wanted me dead. Then in 1992, you were arrested, and you admitted to hundreds of crimes.
But what about your family at this point?
You know, that was tough. They’re really special people.
Michael, we spoke to your parents. Do you want to see what they said?
I’m Carol Dowd, and I’m Michael Dowd’s mother.
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Michael, when people do interviews with you, they often describe you as New York’s dirtiest cop. I watched that over and over again in your interviews, and I wondered as I watched people calling you that, how that makes you feel?
Not good. It’s a touchy subject, but I accept it. I’ve turned it into something where I’m able to chaperone an audience because of it. But it’s not nice to hear that. More importantly, it’s not nice for your parents to hear something like that. Thank God they’re still alive. It’s not a happy day when your mother sees your name on the front page of the newspaper for nothing good.
And how many crimes did you commit while you were a New York cop?
It may have been thousands. Every time I did something that was inappropriate—so, you’ve got to step back for a second. Every time a police officer puts on his badge and takes that oath, he’s basically taking a risk on everything he does that can end him up in jail. Everything.
That’s really a very difficult position to be in. Everything you do legitimately can end you up being sanctioned or arrested. So I would suggest basically anything I did or any interaction I did could have been considered with some kind of criminal intent.
What are the variety of crimes that you committed as a New York police officer?
Every time you take something from somebody—money, cash, drugs, personal property—it’s basically a robbery because you have a gun on your hip and you’re using a position of power. So you would start with robbery, extortion, burglary.
I’ve taken tapes back in the day, VCR tapes. There was a lot of good stuff on VCR tapes. I mean, we can get a little humorous here, but the reality was some guy’s porn collection might be missing. These are the things you ran into. Their cash, their gold coins. When someone’s dead, it’s really hard for them to complain about what’s missing. You cross all the lines of decorum when you do something like that.
Did you steal someone's porn collection?
Maybe. It could have been. But the guy was dead. He couldn't use it anymore. He was smoking crack, okay?
I’m in the 94th Precinct in Brooklyn now, which is Williamsburg. It was becoming lovely when we were there. They started opening up some studios. We got a call for a DOA—someone was murdered. We show up and the guy is sitting in his couch with a knife in his side.
You walk into this home and there’s a guy on his couch with a hole in his side with the knife still in it. He’s bled out. The place looked like there was a party that didn’t stop. While I'm there, I’m sitting around waiting for the boss to show up and the detective squad to show up. I’m rummaging a little bit looking for evidence of the crime scene, and sure enough, I hit the button on the VCR and there’s porn on the TV.
So I’m saying, okay, he’s dead, there’s crack evidence—the crack was all gone, by the way. No one leaves crack behind. There were cigarette smokes and beer bottles everywhere. It’s July. It’s 100 degrees and this apartment has no air conditioning.
So what does any self-respecting 20-something-year-old man want at this point? Not the porn per se, but the beer. Every beer bottle is empty. Right below the apartment is a bodega. So we go downstairs, tell the guy we'll be upstairs for a few hours, and he hands us a six-pack of Coors Light.
me and my partner Tom walk in, we each have a beer, we’re sitting there bullshitting, waiting for the boss. Boss walks in, she looks around, she goes, "I want every beer bottle in here printed, and in the refrigerator." Now, I had just put the six-pack in the refrigerator when she walked in.
They know I’m corrupt, but they can’t prove it. I’m on what you would call secret probation. They’re watching me like a hawk. Now I’ve got a detective who’s looking at me like, "We just had a beer. Our fingerprints are inside the refrigerator." He’s scared. I’m not. I go, "Sarge." She goes, "What?" I say, "In that refrigerator, there's a six-pack of Coors Light, and my fingerprints are on the bottles."
She looks at me and goes, "Of course it’s you. Of all the people in this police department, it would be your fingerprints inside the refrigerator on a Coors Light bottle at a homicide scene." There had only been four homicides in this precinct this year and I had been at three of them.
I go, "Yeah, doesn’t look too good, does it Sarge?" She goes, "I’m going to go downstairs to my car and make a phone call. Get rid of that and don’t do it again."
Did you steal the porn collection?
Yes, it was already in the car. I mean, that's all he had—a knife in his belly and a porn collection. And you didn't steal the knife? No, that was evidence. But you put his porn collection in your car. Yeah. Wow.
You originally trained to become an accountant and dropped out because of a woman, right? And you wanted to follow her, so you ended up joining the Police Academy in 1982 at 21 years old. When you joined the academy, did you do it because you wanted to be a police officer and serve and defend?
No. That’s not why I joined. I joined because I wanted a job.
So when you stood there and took that oath, did you mean it?
No. I mean, if you say no, it means you have no concern or care. So it was an immature "yes." I felt full of pride when I said it.
As part of your training, you did some integrity training and ethics training to make sure officers stay on the straight and narrow.
One of the things I would suggest on that is we weren’t necessarily trained on integrity or ethics; we were trained on "this is what would happen to you if." Don’t take $5 or $50 from a motorist because that will lead to you being arrested and being all over the news, and then all the cops will hate you. It was never really explained to you as a student in the academy the depth of the lack of integrity and what you’re actually affecting.
Like the fundamental issue if we don’t trust law enforcement and the downstream consequences?
Yes, because it destroys the very fabric of what people trust in law enforcement. When you need help, you’ve got to call somebody, and the person that shows up has to be trustworthy. Now, I would argue that because I robbed money from drug dealers and even their drugs, you could still trust me. That’s what I would argue. If you’re not doing those things, essentially, you’re safe with me and I will give you the best police service you’ve ever asked for.
There was a comment made at the end of your training by an academy instructor which basically said: to be successful as a cop, don’t follow these ethics rules you were just given.
Yes. He said to us in the academy class, "If you live by the rules that these guys espouse in Internal Affairs, you’ll never make a successful cop. Just cover your ass." Those were his words.
What did they mean by that?
Basically, always have a partner be on the same page. Let’s say something was handled inappropriately—maybe there was some excessive force used, which I’m not fond of nor am I in favor of—but there may be times where you might have given a guy an extra elbow. It happens. You’re mad, you spit in my face, I put the cuffs on you, I give you a shot. As long as your partner and you have the story straight, you can pretty much get away with most things that are not unreasonable.
And the police all kind of agree that they won’t snitch on each other. It’s called the "Blue Wall of Silence."
Let’s just be clear: the first person that’s going to snitch on you is a cop, okay? However, more chances than not, they try not to. That’s just the facts. Because what cop wants to go out on patrol knowing that if something goes down and it goes a little sideways, I have a chance to help you or I can call for backup and wait? You don’t want that relationship with me, right? We’re trying to get home tonight. So it really puts people in a very precarious position.
Because you need those other cops for your own personal survival, so you don’t want to be snitching on other cops.
That position in this society is not built for somebody to come in and be the knight in shining armor and say, "Listen, Officer Dowd, that was not appropriate. I’m going to have to report you right now." Before he goes to report me, I’m going to either bludgeon him to death because now he’s taking my livelihood away, he’s taking the food off the table of my family. You don’t look at it like you’re getting the guy in trouble; you look at it as you’re taking a career, a livelihood, incarceration.
A mechanic goes to work and they say, "Can you get six cars done today?" "I’ll try." You get six done and there’s a bonus for you at the end of the day. A cop goes to work and they’re looking to screw him the whole time. The department and the civilians. "I didn’t like the way he handled me." They make a complaint. Your boss goes, "I got the people complaining, Dowd. I’m going to have to give you a shit assignment." The whole time, someone’s against you.
They’re trying to find some kind of chink in your armor, something you did wrong. And it’s really to cover their ass. A fireman goes to work, you know what they do? They save lives. They put out fires. They eat a good meal. They have a great gym. No one’s in there going, "We’re looking to take you for this." A cop shows up on a scene, he’s going to give me a ticket, he’s going to arrest my husband. It’s just such a degrading position to be in.
One of the big factors leading to your decisions was this crack epidemic, but then it also seemed like the police at the time didn’t actually want you to arrest people. In the decade that you were a police officer, you didn’t do that many arrests.
43 arrests in ten years. I could make 43 arrests in a month if I really wanted to.
If you weren't corrupt at that time, how many arrests do you think you probably should have made in those 10 years based on the crimes you observed?
500.
So about 90% of the things you should have arrested someone for, you didn't. Why?
You couldn’t keep the police on patrol if they were making arrests. The system would get so jammed up. The average amount of overtime for one crack arrest was 18 hours. You would be paid for that—time and a half. So then the department has to pay you more money if you do an arrest, then process the arrest through the corrections system, then the court system. You’re talking 150,000 arrests a year in Brooklyn alone. The city doesn’t want you to be arresting people because they’ve got a budget to manage.
Were you ever directly told to stop arresting people?
Yes. "You really didn’t make a dent on it, and now there’s two men off patrol." Your making arrests was causing a problem. There’s less police available, and the robberies, the murders, and the rapes in those communities were extremely high. They’d rather have them sell crack than have people getting robbed and raped and murdered.
It’s all incentives. If you made more arrests, the city would have a bill because they had to pay cops overtime, but also you’re going to have more cops off the street, which could also lead to more crime. So you were incentivized not to arrest people.
So what does that lead to? That leads to the streets becoming unwieldy. There’s no control. So what happens is a guy like me with an entrepreneurial spirit shows up and says, "There’s a way to control this. I tax these people, or arrest them. One of the two. And I can’t arrest them, so I taxed them."
Let’s talk about that first experience of you taxing the first person, which I think was in 1983. Your starting salary when you joined the police was $18,000 a year. You pulled someone over in 1983.
Yes, that’s the first time there was a tax levied. That was the first time that I committed an actual money crime. I was 23 or 24. We called it a "Puerto Rican mystery" back then. The guy was from Puerto Rico and he had no paperwork, no license, or anything like that. He had just bought the car. I pulled him over—no plates. He’s got a stack of hundreds in his bag, and I’m looking and I’m saying, "You’ve got like $2,000 worth of tickets and I’m supposed to take your car from you. But you know, I like lobster. Leave me enough money for a lobster lunch, this whole thing can go away."
So the kid was quick on his feet. He left a couple hundred bucks on the back seat. I left that scene with the money and I was very uncomfortable because it was the first time I actually solicited something like that. But it was almost like I won something.
As a cop, did you ever get sexual favors because you were a cop?
I would say it was available and I’ve taken advantage of it. You’re driving by in a police car and a girl says hello and you go and you go fuck her. Did I ever do that while working? Yes. That's my biggest sin in the world—getting laid while working in the car. The lights and siren only went off once from a blowjob because the girl’s ass hit the buzzer. 3:00 in the morning in the back of a courtyard of a nine-story building.
Your boss, your sergeant around that time—did he know that you were doing things like this?
Not then, no. But shortly thereafter there would be a situation where my sergeant—it was a murder scene, a dead kid, 20 years old, shot in the head, and it was a marijuana spot. There’s money, there’s drugs. It’s overwhelming when you come across these things and there’s a dead body there and you’re entrusted to handle all this stuff and you’re broke.
So I took a little thin stack of hundreds and put it in my pocket. Turned out it was like $600. And as the crime scene was being processed, in walks my sergeant, Sergeant James Otto. He says, "Is this it?" Like two or three pounds of marijuana. And like $1,500 in cash stacked over here. He goes, "Is this it?" I go, "Yeah." But I felt like he was asking me too much. So I go, "Well, I did have this," and I take out a thin stack of hundreds. And he goes, "Oh, anything else?" I go, "No, that’s it." I said, "You know, I didn’t want it to get full of blood."
Later on that night, I run into him at a "choir practice" they would call it—out bullshitting and having a couple beers. I said, "Sarge, let me ask you a question. What if I kept that $600?" He goes, "I was annoyed that you gave it to me." Just picture the moment. You’re 20-something years old, you’re broke, you’re in survival mode. You’re out having a couple beers with your buddies and your boss, who’s got 20 years on the job, says to you, "If I don’t see it, it’s yours. But let me know so you can throw me something later on." It was like the whole vision of this thing changed at that moment. He’s basically saying if you get there, it’s yours. Take what you can before I get there because I don’t want to witness it because I don’t want to have to witness it.
When you reflect on that scene that you arrived at—you said there was a 20-year-old man that was dead. Did seeing those scenes ever bother you?
Initially. My first DOA was my first day. A guy jumped off a building and landed on his head. That bothered me because the family showed up; it was horrific. I began to see people shot, stabbed. You have a total disconnect really quickly.
The first shooting I was at, we were doing a midnight shift and these guys were doing a burglary of a car—they were stealing tires. I said, "Hey, we should stop these guys," and my partner was like, "Nah, let them go, it’s late." Someone flags us down, "Hey, this guy is trying to steal tires off a car." So now I said, "Look, we’ve got civilians complaining." Turn around, go back about two or three blocks, the guy's dead in the street.
And I see a tire iron. So I said to the people, "Was there a tire iron?" and they point over to the street where the tire iron was. This guy could have shot us. Like, he’s dead, it could have been us, or if we did toss this guy, he could not be dead. So when you come that close to death itself, your survival instincts give you the ability to disconnect fairly quickly from those types of scenes.
Did you ever show up to a scene where you saw someone dead or dying and feel sad?
Yeah, a couple times. One that strikes me a lot, I was talking to the guy as he was going out—I knew he was going to die. He was stabbed in the stomach and he’s looking at me and he goes, "I’m getting cold." I go, "Yeah, it’s going to be okay." He says, "I’m getting cold, officer." I said, "It’s going to be okay, we’re going to get you to the hospital." The ambulance showed up like five minutes later. He was barely conscious and he wasn’t going to make it, and he died. And that was sad because I couldn’t do anything for him.
You saw a lot of stuff. Why did that affect you?
I felt bad because I was talking to him, knowing he’s going to die. One other time I felt really bad, some guy—young guy, big, heavy-set, strong. I knew it was a sexual thing—they had sex. And the fucking guy was like 35 years old. And he was either dead or dying—he had a heart attack. And I wanted to give him CPR. It would have been my first actual CPR case. And the two cops I was working with go, "Nah, don’t worry about it. Go get the ambulance."
I’m like, "But shouldn’t we do CPR?" "No, no, no, you go outside." I was the rookie, and these two old-timers were like, "Don’t worry about it, it’s going to be all right. Go outside and direct the ambulance in." Like two minutes later the ambulance showed up, they started CPR on the guy, and he died. To not render aid when you think you can make a difference, that hurts.
Why did they tell you not to render aid to him?
I don’t know. They didn’t tell me why. And it was very disheartening because I think I could have helped save the guy. But what am I going to do, wrestle with these guys? Senior cop on the scene is in charge.
At some point, you started actually dealing drugs. How did you get into drugs? When was that "Eureka" moment that you realized that you could sell drugs?
My partner at the time took some home out of the blue, and he came back and handed me a couple hundred dollars one day. I said, "What’s that for?" He goes, "That shit we’ve been throwing out is cocaine. I got somebody that wants it." So he’s bringing me cash. I was like, okay, well this ain’t that bad. For me, it was like I didn’t see it, I didn’t do it, so I was okay with it. And then it becomes like anything else: it softens the blow for the next step, and eventually I would lead to me just whatever dope I found I would take.
Did you start buying it to sell it from drug dealers?
At some point, I started buying it, yeah.
How bad did it get with the drug dealing when you were a cop? Because it almost sounds like you’ve at this point given up being a cop enforcing the law.
It’s a dichotomy, right? Because I put the uniform on, I go to work, and if you are not in the drug business, you’re going to get a good police officer. If you had a car accident and you needed a police officer to take the report, bring you to a hospital, I would do all the arrangements, do the best I could. If you had gotten robbed, I would do the report, I’d take you to a hospital if you were injured. But if you were in the drug business, you were mine. You were mine. Simple. I mean, how else can I say it? I owned you.
What do you mean by "you were mine"?
I owned you. In every regard. Whatever I wanted. You were mine. I could take their drugs, your car if I wanted it. A guy gave me one. Coats, jackets, gold, chains, whatever.
What was your biggest heist as a police officer?
They weren’t that large. I’d say $40,000 to $50,000 at one time. Which back then was good money. You’re talking two years' salary. That tripled my salary that year. Things like that come along. We would call that a "score," right? As opposed to an ongoing thing.
Every job in East New York, nine out of ten was involved with drugs. You’re exposed to it. It’s your choice on how you deal with it. You’re the boss. You show up, you’re the boss.
Were your colleagues around you doing the same?
The accurate answer is some were. The best description is you would never know. I might because I know what’s going on, but if you were a cop that was not involved, you would never know. Because I’m not going to tell you. Now, if you happen to say something to me—hey wait a minute, something went down there—I’d say, "And what do you want to do about it? You want in?"
I’ll tell you a funny story. We go to a scene—long story short, the cops show up behind us, and they go, "Oh, that’s Dowd and his partner. Leave them alone." And they turn around and they walk away. So the officers knew—"I don’t want to see what they’re doing because then I’m culpable or responsible for what they’re doing." And that’s how it became.
When you show up at a scene like that, how do you get the money and the drugs without other officers seeing you?
One time I put it in a laundry bag which was still loaded up with heroin and cocaine. And I happened to be lucky—there was a row of garbage pails along this person’s entryway. As the sergeant was walking up the stairway to investigate the scene with us, to secure it and make sure everyone’s doing what they’re supposed to do, I take this bag and I go like this and I put it in the garbage pail. He comes up to me, I go, "Sarge, there’s a guy dead in the doorway, they shot him through the eye hole. I said there’s another guy shot upstairs and there’s a bunch of guns and stuff up there." I go, "But there’s so many cops here, I’m going to go 98," which means I’m going to go back on patrol. He goes, "Good idea." I’m like, "Good, we agree." So that gets me away from the scene. Now he goes up the stairs, I go back into the garbage pail, pick up the green laundry bag, and put it in my car and I leave.
And then you get loads of cash. What do you do with the cash?
In that specific case, I drove right to my drug-dealing friend’s place, who had an auto-body shop. I went right to his shop, I dropped off the dope with him, and he called his buddy that sold heroin in the area and that recycles back into money.
Were you ever scared?
No. I should have been more cautious. It was in the back of my mind for probably five years. Just never left. And thus, you constantly are—your anxiety level is up, your body starts to go numb, and you wonder what’s wrong with me. What’s wrong with you is you’re living like three different lives. You have a wife, you have a girlfriend, you have drugs, you’re a cop, you’re selling drugs, you’re shaking people down. It’s never good.
Did anybody know what you were doing at home?
I would leave that up to her. But the mink coats and the new cars and the trips around the world—you don’t do them on a cop salary. But you never said it. She knew enough. And did she ever give you advice? "Stop." That’s what she said. "Stop. I don’t need this. I’d rather have you. Imagine that. I’d rather have you and sleep under a bridge."
And why didn't you stop?
Can’t. You can’t stop that easily.
I read this story that a lieutenant had put a complaint against you for a trivial matter and you retaliated by reporting them to Internal Affairs for being in a drug house. And then this sort of led to a situation where you received death threats over the phone from that lieutenant.
Yeah. I’m working in Coney Island—I was sent to Coney Island to get away from East New York because they knew I was hot. Bottom line with him was I end up in a dispute with him somehow. He was a cop. He had a Mercedes-Benz. His license plate on the back of his car said "B Scott." Less than a month later, I’m out in Long Island and there’s the car. There’s only one "B Scott" in New York plates. I pulled over and I said to my wife at the time, "Get a good look at this guy." And he went up into a crack house. I went home and I spoke to my neighbor who was my wife’s uncle, who was a detective in the 102 Squad with 28 years on the job. I told him the story and he goes, "Listen Mike, anything but drugs. You’ve got to turn him in."
It was hard for me to do this because now I’m turning on a guy that I know is involved in drugs and I know what I had done previously. So I call Internal Affairs and they were at my house in 45 minutes. Long story short, they put a lineup in front of me, I picked the guy out. Within a week or so, I’m getting phone calls to my house at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning every day for about a month’s length of time.
So finally I go, "What do you want, bro? Enough is enough." "I’m fucking your wife every time you go to work. I’m fucking her." "Oh, really?" "Yeah, she gets off the train and I pick her up and I bring her home and I fuck her." I said, "Why don’t you come by and we’ll straighten it out right here, you and me?" He goes, "Why don’t I put a bullet in your fucking head while you’re standing there in front of the window?"
So he could see you?
I don’t know. I didn’t know who it was. It took me years to figure out who it was. But in the interim, I ran into him again. I essentially arrested him without arresting him—I gave him summonses. And he was so pissed off he made a complaint against me. At this point, he was suspended for being "the gun" in a drug case in Harlem. He was the collector in Harlem for a drug organization. It turns out he was an officer who had a job collecting money for a drug organization in Harlem.
You met a guy called Baron Perez. Who is Baron Perez?
Baron Perez is the guy who owned Auto Sound City at the time. He was what you would call a middleman in any deal in Brooklyn. He ran a car shop which was not a front—he ran a legitimate business—but in his business would be all the dealers in Brooklyn. And that's where I met La Compañia.
What is La Compañia?
La Compañia was a Dominican drug organization that ran small nickel-and-dime spots throughout the city—lots of them, dozens of them. They were based out of bodegas. And they’re one of the most powerful drug organizations in New York City at the time.
At the time, I'm getting paid $600 every two weeks as a cop. And this drug gang—I told them if they want the protection, it was $8,000 a week. They said, "We’ll pay it." So they paid me $8,000 a week for the first week. And then they were shorted me $700. So they paid me $7,300 instead of $8,000. So I told them I need the rest of the money, and they said, "We’re not paying you." So then I threatened them and I shut their business down. I parked police cars in front of their business for a week, and then they put a hit on me.
What does it mean when someone puts a hit on you?
They suggest to anybody that is willing to shoot and kill this cop, they’ll pay them. Baron Perez said there’s a hit on you by La Compañia. I went out that same day, I saw the boss’s car—I never met the guy in my life but I knew his car. I pulled him over. He didn’t know who I was. I told him license, registration. I just threw the papers back in his lap. I said, "You got to put a hit on me?" He turned white as that pen because now I’m standing over him and he’s sitting down in a little tiny Renault. I said, "If you want to put a hit on me, why don’t we clear it up right here? I’ll let you get out of the car, we’ll do ten paces, walk off, you turn around, I’ll turn around, and we’ll shoot it out."
Did you mean that?
I meant every word of it. I thought I was going to win. He goes, "No, no, no." I said, "Well, you take the hit off." My pager went off 20 minutes later and he said the hit’s off. He said I don’t want to do any more business with you, there was the $700, please leave us alone. So you got your $700 in the end. Correct.
At some point after that, you met a guy called Adam Diaz, who is a much bigger Dominican drug dealer. He’s making a million dollars a week, selling $50 million a year in cocaine. How did you come to meet him and what was the arrangement?
Through Baron, same way I met La Compañia. We had a nice sit-down, him and I, we had a discussion. I said, "If you want to talk to me, you bring $24,000 in cash." He agrees. I explain to him what I can do—nothing really, but I make it up. I said I can surveil your buildings and your locations and if I know of any impending raids, I could give you a heads-up. Diaz started paying me $8,000 a week. Split it with my partner. That was more than the President of the United States at the time. I could do very little for him, but I promised him a lot.
And I actually performed for him. I probably was involved with him at this point for about three or four weeks. I was able to pick off a pending raid. I walked into his store, picked up two Heinekens, walked up to the counter, opened up the Heinekens, and told the guy behind the counter—I didn’t know the guy—I go, "Shut it down." He looks at me, I go, "Shut it down." You don’t know me, I don’t know him, but he knows. Within an hour and a half, they were hit with a team of 30 or 40 narcotics detectives, and I don’t think they found a gram of salt in the place.
There was another occasion where you saved Adam Diaz.
That’s when they got the robbery with coke and Franklin. Franklin and Coke were the local bandits; they robbed all the drug dealers because they were just straight-up killers. And they went to his spot. They gave up as much as they could, and someone called 911. I hit mark-one right down there and I pulled out. I was the first car on the scene. I shut it down. I think it’s a 90X-ray, which means it’s unfounded. So that would stop the police approaching the location.
Basically I have the scene closed down. There’s a guy upstairs, the cops are upstairs taking shit out, like cash and drugs. The thieves couldn’t get it all; there was just too much. I go, "What are you guys doing?" They go, "We found..." I go, "Listen, do you have a search warrant to go in that house?" They go, "No." I go, "So what are you doing? You can’t just go in there and take the shit out." So they got bags of cocaine and money. So I got the cops to put the cocaine and the money back in the fucking house. Don’t ask me how, but they did it.
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One of your friends when you were a cop was called Officer Venable, and he was shot in the head by associates at La Compañia. You were the first cop to arrive on the scene of Officer Venable, who later died in hospital. And you said that you had a lot of guilt over it.
Well, because it’s just the whole thing. I was involved in drugs in East New York, and I was involved in protecting drug organizations. And now a cop that I didn’t know was killed—and that doesn’t matter that I didn’t know him because he’s a cop. It’s not acceptable. And now the guilt that I lived with was that I was protecting people that may have either dealt with those people or been associated with those people. But they killed a cop.
What does Tyson say? "Everything’s all good until someone punches you in the fucking nose." Well, that’s like getting punched in the nose—like what am I really doing? It was hard to swallow. First of all, in East New York, the cops are the greatest in the fucking world. They dealt with the worst scenarios that mankind can present. And at that point, no cop had ever been killed in East New York. Some had been shot, some had been injured, but no on-duty police officer had been killed ever in East New York till that day. It’s almost like I was connected to it. So it was tough.
It was tough on me as a human being, never mind as a cop that was doing wrong. I mean, we allowed them to stay in business. Even though there was little you could do, the fact that you knew what they were doing and the fact that you partook in some of the spoils of it, you feel that you’re directly connected and responsible.
When you say you feel bad, how did that manifest?
I would say that that’s when I really took that turn into drugs and alcohol more deeply. And that’s when I ended up probably three to six months later, I ended up in rehab.
Were you depressed?
What a cop does, what I did, was I would go in my bathroom, close the door, and read the paper and cry. Now, I don’t deserve any sympathy for that; it was just my way of letting go of all the guilt I was living with throughout my career as a cop. Just because it was a way to release all the built-up stress, anxiety, guilt. Because I knew my internal strife about what I was doing was wrong, I was not able to publicly grieve. Who am I going to tell? "I’m really feeling bad right now. I robbed drug dealers and I sold some cocaine and now there’s a cop dead as a result of cocaine." Who do I tell that to? It’s my own prison.
At this time you were on drugs as well?
Alcohol, drugs at this point, yeah. Also, you were losing your marriage. Even in spite of losing my marriage and my kids and my house, it wasn’t the driving force. The driving force was I was going to lose my job. At this point, I didn’t want to lose the job; I’d rather leave the job on my own terms than lose the job.
Who had you become?
I became the direct result of poor decisions and the environment that I was in, which I can see looking back. I became whatever was in the environment; I became part of the environment. I was no different than the people that were selling crack cocaine or robbing drug dealers because they all did each other that way. A lot of people say, "Well, that’s the environment they grew up in." You know what? I can see that. So I can relate to that. It doesn’t excuse the behavior, we all know that, but I became the environment I was living in.
If I’d asked your wife at the time, "What’s Mike like as a human?" what would she have said to me?
She probably would have said he’s a lost soul and an asshole. You become God—like you get the God complex. Like you feel indestructible. But you see yourself declining. It’s the weirdest thing in the world. You know you’re going down a rabbit hole, but the whole time you have this false armor on.
What was the rabbit hole you were going down?
Drugs, alcohol, women, violence. Violence is coming. I mean, you’re turning into a violent potential killing machine. I was going to become the exact thing that you would have said you don’t belong in the street ever in your life again.
And you went to rehab and when you’re coming out of rehab your intent is to straighten up your life?
When I came home, it was an eye-opener because I thought, great, I’m going to get a fresh start. It turned out that when you become a straight-laced guy when you’ve been known to be corrupt, the process of getting to become a police officer in full respect is very, very difficult, maybe never. It may never happen. So in my case, because I tried to do the right thing—and I’m not trying to shift responsibility because it’s always your own responsibility—cops got nervous because "This isn’t the guy we heard about, so that means he’s here to set us up."
So when you came back from rehab they thought you were working as an informant?
Correct. Yes, very well played. Yes, that’s what they thought: that I was now working for the man and I was here to get them. They would shun me, not want to work with me, not want to partner with me, not want to back me up, not invite me to any social gatherings. So I was basically an outcast now. I went from being the guy that ran shit to an outcast.
And what did that mean for you as a cop?
Well, it meant that you were isolated and that you had no camaraderie. You didn’t have the reason that you enjoyed being a cop because you had brotherhood, camaraderie, safety, protection. I basically didn’t have that anymore and that affected me in my decision-making going forward from there. So I just couldn’t stay stopped. It’s like being an alcoholic. You can stop it, but you got to stay stopped.
How long were you in rehab for?
Two years. Not locked away in rehab but what they call "modified assignment" for two years.
And you tried to resign/retire from the police on disability at one point?
Well, I was hoping that they would offer it. Messages were being dropped: "This guy’s no good, and they’re going to arrest him soon if he continues on." The words to me were: "You’re going out one way or the other and it’s not through disability. You’re either getting arrested or fired."
Someone looking at this story would probably go, "Why didn't you—if you knew that they were onto you, if you knew that they were investigating you following you for months and months and months, why didn't you just stop?"
You know when the kid goes into the barn and there’s a pile of hay and shit and manure and someone tells him there’s a diamond ring in the middle of that pile of shit? And the kid gets a shovel and he starts shoveling looking for that diamond ring? That’s who I am. I’m that guy looking for that little diamond in that pile of shit. I’m an optimist.
You thought it would all be okay.
Listen, I was in prison for 14 years—well, I was sentenced to 14 years which by the way was a pretty fair sentence overall, I guess. And every day in prison I thought the next day I might go home. And I did that for 12 and a half years. That’s how powerful the mind is.
I was born in '92, and in '92 that's quite a significant year for you because this is the year you were arrested. What happened that day? Take me into that day when you were arrested by the Police Department.
So, it’s ’92, the day after the Rodney King riots, May 4th, May 5th. I had just made a deal with Kenny Eurell, my ex-partner, who was in a cocaine business with him, his wife, and his friends at the bowling alley. Kenny Eurell kept calling me up for drugs because the price had doubled. And he knew that if anyone could get it I could, and I did. So I got him a couple packages of cocaine, let’s say three or four. In the meantime his phones are tapped because he was the target of an investigation on Long Island.
The following day I’m driving around and my radio is extremely quiet. No one’s calling. I’m getting a little suspicious. I just picked up a package with Kenny, I pull up to the station house and I see a car there that looks strange and I see two guys in the front seat. I walk into the station house with my partner and the desk officer points—he says, "The captain wants to see you." In walks these two guys that were in the car that were out in front of the precinct with their badges out: "Lieutenant so-and-so, Internal Affairs. We’re taking you for a drug test."
And sure enough, went downstairs, got changed—I couldn’t even get changed, I couldn’t get my clothes off, they were so close to me. I couldn’t bend my knee, they were like right up my ass. I’m like, "Excuse me, guys. Am I under arrest?" They go, "No, no, no. Are you sure? Because you’re awfully close here."
Anyway, they put me in a car, I get in the back of the car. I say I got to smoke. I had cocaine in my pocket now because it was in my clothes. I couldn’t take it out and leave it in my locker with them standing there. I go, "Guys, can you open a window? I’m smoking a cigarette," like chain-smoking. "Yeah, that’s okay, we’ll be all right. Are you sure you guys aren’t going to choke out? No, no, don’t worry about it." I’m trying to get the cocaine thrown out the window.
Anyway, they pull up to Lefrak City and there’s probably 60 cops—sergeants, lieutenants, captains, and inspectors—all of them lined up with their brass on, all in uniform. I’m like, "What the fuck is this for a drug test? A little strange." I get out of the car, I go, "I can’t dump it here to there. They’re everywhere. I can’t even dump the coke."
So I get upstairs to the 16th floor and there’s the lieutenant who’s been waiting for me for years. He goes, "Dowd, how are you?" I go, "Good, sir. How are you?" He goes, "Good." He hands me the cup: "Go take a piss." Now, I had just done a bump and a vodka, so I knew I was hit. I turn around and in walks my mother’s cousin from Suffolk County Police Department and says, "Mr. Dowd, you’re under arrest for conspiracy to distribute narcotics."
So did you think you were going to jail for the rest of your life at that point?
No. Not even a week. I didn’t think a day. I figured I’m going to make bail and I’m going to beat the charge. That’s how I’m thinking.
How did it feel when you got arrested?
It was the biggest moment of relief. That was the best feeling in the world, almost. Like almost. Like I was like, "Finally it’s over. It’s finally over. I can go on with my life somehow." I didn’t know it would take almost 15 years. You’re relieved? When I was going to work every day, I was going to work with anxiety and fear. I no longer had to have that fear. It was gone. Of course I didn’t know what I would be facing. I figured this will work out—like that’s how I thought.
You know when you say you’re going to work with anxiety and fear? Earlier on you said you weren’t scared of being arrested.
I wasn’t scared of being arrested; I was afraid of ruining my life. And living a double life. I’m lying to my wife, I’m lying to my family, I’m lying to the department, I’m lying to myself, I’m lying to my young child. Everything is a lie. So there’s anxiety and fear in that. The fear of arrest really never entered my mind. It’s funny when you describe being arrested and you reference it almost like it was your moment of freedom. I still do today. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.
If I could encapsulate and put that in a bottle, the peace I had at that moment, I could probably live in that peace my entire life and wish for that peace. The peace that comes over you when that pressure comes off your life because I no longer have to live a lie.
Obviously most people can’t relate because they’ve never been in such a situation where they’ve been like arrested, but I think to some degree people can relate with the feeling of living a life that’s like inauthentic to them and then something happening which forces them to course-correct.
Yeah. I mean, some people kill themselves. Other people overcome it and become the better version of themselves. Either they make lemonade out of the lemons or they go on to become ruinous. So, and I told you I’m looking for that diamond in that pile of shit, so to me it was freedom.
How old is your child now? Your son?
I have two. My oldest son is—he’ll be turning 40. And my younger son is 33 or 4.
So what advice, based on your experience in that moment, would you give to your kids about living an authentic life and lying?
So, it’s—and you’ll know this from life itself—it’s easier to tell the truth in the end than it is to lie because you have to remember the lies every day and live with the pressure of being uncovered. So accept the hard knocks that come along with living honestly and you’ll turn out to be a better person.
So part of my lesson is if you don’t have any bumps in the road of life, you really don’t know that much about life, right? You have to learn how to overcome adversity. So go ahead, live a good life, do the best you can, and if there comes a point where you want to, let’s say experiment with something or take risks, just accept the consequences. If you’re going to stick up a bank, there’s going to be consequences. Maybe. And if there isn’t any consequence, it’s going to haunt you. There’s always a consequence. Everything has a cost.
I think about that just in day-to-day interactions that it’s like it’s easier to have the difficult conversation now versus avoiding it and then it becomes an even more difficult situation.
You’re logical. People that live in fear of consequences, they don’t think of that; they think of the immediate consequence, immediate gratification. A guy wants to get high because he wants to feel this now, but he doesn’t realize that later on that cost, the consequence to that job, career, freedom, future, relationships—all the damage one incident can cause. But if you own up to something immediately and accept the responsibility for it, people have a choice then. You know who I am; you can either interact with me or not, but I don’t have to have a false front on when I speak with you or interact with you.
That must be quite a challenge still for you today because you know you now go on podcasts, you interview, talk about what happened in your life and you know there’s a lot of things that you did that are hard to say. But you’re also battling with this new reality of being honest about everything.
So it’s not hard for me to say anymore because if you choose to have a conversation with me about those things, you’re going to hear things that you may or may not like, but you chose to be in this conversation. You, your audience—people that, listen, there’s a lot of people that hate me out there. But I know this for a fact: I have people today reaching out to me that have attempted suicide 10, 15 times. Cops that had the gun in their mouth and then their son walked in the room and then I spoke to them the next day. I mean, I can go down a list of them.
So you never know what being honest and fully disclosing the tragedy of life, the experiences of life, can do for the next person. And so that’s really where I’m so happy that I’ve been able to do that. I have a purpose and it keeps me connected. You know, look, once you’re a cop, you’re sort of always a cop in a way. I mean, there’s going to be cops: "He never was a cop, he was a bad guy." Well, you know what, fuck you.
You eventually get released on bail after that first arrest, which I think comes to a lot of people's surprise because I think some people thought that you were going to be in prison for the rest of your life. But your family put up some assets to get you out on bail. That was a $350,000 bail. It doesn’t straighten you up.
No. When I get out on bail, I’m clear-headed but I don’t know what to do because I’ve never been in this situation. I don’t have a job, I have two-three mortgages to pay, I have a condo on the ocean in Myrtle Beach, I have three homes. The tenants stopped paying the rent because they saw I was arrested. Now I’m back in the chase again to try to get my life back together, and then it turns into a whole new scenario comes my way.
I’m out on bail, I end up making a plan to go to Nicaragua to become a shrimp fisherman.
Wait, let’s pause there a second. So you’re out on bail and you plan to escape the US?
Correct. But I can’t go if I don’t pay my family back. I can’t leave them homeless. Okay, so when you go out on bail, your family are basically guaranteeing the money. So if you don’t return from bail, they got to sell their homes to pay my bail. They’ve got to get $350,000. So what you want to do is you want to get $350,000, give it to your family, so that you can escape the US.
There’s a woman that owes this drug organization a half a million in cash and 10 kilos. All we have to do is go get the money from her and the drugs, and I can pay my family back and we can—I can leave the country and Kenny’s going to join me. My partner’s back in.
But that wasn’t the plan. The plan was never to kidnap her; the plan was to go in with some flowers, push her out of the way, take the money and the drugs. But Kenny was working for the federal government now, wearing a wire. He called me up for the drugs that brought me into his conspiracy and they made me the kingpin of his conspiracy.
How long had you known Kenny?
I had known Kenny since 1985. So now it’s 1992. Seven years. You’d been friends a long time. And Kenny intentionally wears a wire and pulls you into a conspiracy working with the federal government where they’re trying to get you to potentially kidnap this woman, steal her stuff. Correct. And the whole—and leave the country.
So what does that do? That takes me from a low-life drug dealer to a low-life kidnapping murderer guy. So then I’ll never go home. You see? You see how they—they’re good. They’re good. They take you from being a drug dealer who’s going to get 15-20 years to a murderer-kidnapper.
You took the bait though.
Took the bait. Swallowed it like a pig. So you’ve left jail, you’re out on bail, Kenny starts putting in your head this idea of potentially kidnapping or stealing from this woman. You don’t know he’s working for the police. And on the day of this attempted kidnap/robbery, you’re arrested. Again. Relief again?
No. Now I’m angry. Now I’m pissed off. I’m a rat in a corner trying to get out. You throw some cheese in front of me, I go and eat the cheese, and then you poison the cheese, which is Kenny bringing the poison pill to me of this kidnapping theory that unfolds.
Why did you take the bait there? Why didn’t you just—because you talked to me, you said you had relief when you were arrested that first time.
§02Transcript — part 2
That’s the dichotomy of this whole thing. I was—it was the greatest relief of my life. But I jumped back in like a fool. Fear always comes out first for me—fear of not being able to provide for now I got a wife and two kids. Because I was told I’m getting 25 to life by the state of New York. That’ll make anybody consider running. Now you’re a police officer in your 30s, 25 to life. So you know you’re getting 25. So maybe 30. So now I’m 30-something years old, if I get out at 60 maybe, if I live through it. I’m looking to go. Bottom line. Now whatever opportunity comes along, I’m looking to hit on it, whatever I can do. So I’m like that fish—they dangle that bait, eventually that fish is going to bite that hook.
What happens to the bail? Do your family get to keep their money?
Yes, because I got arrested.
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What about your family at this point? Your mom and dad?
Well, I remember being in court. I only went to court once and that was the day of sentencing. And when they said the amount of days he would be away, I didn’t really—it didn’t like hit my mind, right? Because it was in days, it wasn’t in years, you know? And somebody says that could be 15 years. Everything was going smooth in our lives and then all of a sudden this hit. When I saw him, I guess my first reaction was I love him but I wanted to just reach in through the bars that were between us and say, "What did you do this for?" you know?
I can only imagine the emotions that must go through your head when you find out something like that.
Yeah, it’s terrible. Believe me, it’s terrible. Especially when you think you’re dealing with something else; you’re dealing with a kid who was honest and reliable and smart and good. Absolutely shocked. I was angry, very angry at him. "How could you do this?" that type of thing. She took eight months to come see me. Eight months? Yeah, and then she finally came and she—she didn’t want to let me go. You know, that was tough. She had—she went to church every day for 12 years.
Why do you think that moved him so much?
I don’t think he ever really sits back and thinks about the other people. You know, the other people in his life—his father, his mother, his family. It was all about him. It wasn’t about anybody else around him. It made me feel glad that he felt sorry because he never really says this in front of us. But it made me feel glad that he remembered that I went to church and prayed for him. He had good parents, believe me. And I don’t know why this happened to him. He was a skinny little kid on the corner with a police uniform on and the authority I guess went to his head. I’m not sure.
Mom was always the—the weather vane of what’s right and wrong, right? I fought with my mother my whole fucking life because she always kept me on track—well, tried. She’s tough. She’s still tough. Mother holds you to account. But she loves you still. She went to church for every day. I never knew that. I only found that out about a year ago. I’m home fucking 20 years. She only told me that about a year ago.
Why does that move you so much to find that out, that she went to church every day when you were in jail?
Because we—my mother’s not very lovey-dovey. Because my father was, you know? But my mother was raised by nuns, you know? Very cold and calculating. You never knew she had a heart. I mean, for someone to go to church every fucking day? They must really love you. I guess it speaks for itself.
You know, I had to have some discipline raising that many children. You have to have discipline. And of course you kiss them goodnight, you kiss them goodbye. You love them, but my showing my love was like making them breakfast. I made them breakfast, you know? So that was kind of a way to show your love. I was here for them all the time, but I was not—I was not mushy. And he’s right, it was hard for him to understand what I was going through because I never showed my emotions to them.
The only emotions they would get is: "Get up in the room and clean it up. Get upstairs you and hang those clothes up." You know, so there was always that direction or order. So I was pretty tough. But that’s the way I am. I think because of the way I was raised, I didn’t have a happy childhood. But that’s, you know, that could be a reason why I was tough. But I was tough. Maybe I was too tough.
What is that range of emotions you feel about them now in the wake of all of this?
That they persevered. They persevered when I didn’t think much of their—travails that they were going through. I wish I could be them to my kids. When I reflect on it, I’m like I’m not them. I could never be them. I just can’t. But yeah, it’s really heavy for me but—I don’t think anybody ever asked me that question before because that’s really—I mean, I’m 64 years old, bro. My parents are 80s. Days on this earth are numbered for all of us and we don’t know when the next one’s going to come or not and with them, I call them almost every day just to see, you know, hear their voice, make sure. Check, you know, everything good? Yeah, okay, good.
Is there guilt associated with them in particular?
I don’t even know what guilt is anymore sometimes. I just think it’s—I have compassion for what they’ve had to deal with. So if you could translate that to guilt, I guess so, but for me it’s more like they’re amazing—that’s amazing what they did and what they still do. There’s a lot of gratitude though. I am so grateful. That would be the best way to describe it. Yeah, because I didn’t have that for my parents growing up because I was the one. I was the star. I was going to bring my family someplace. And in the end, it came back to the people that I was always told not to be. Like, don’t be like Dad, be somebody else. My mother, she came from a broken home. Don’t be like your mother, be somebody else. But they—these are the perfect people. It all comes back to them really, if you think about it. Without them I’d be—I’d be in. I’d be inside.
You left jail after 13-odd years. When you were 43 years old you left. I would say I was 44 actually when I stepped out the door. Yeah. And you went back home. To their house. Yeah, that’s quite the story. I looked out the window and I saw my brother’s two kids—I didn’t know their names. And I’m looking at these two kids—those are my nephews. I don’t even know who they are. I don’t know their names. And then you see the tears flowing, that’s—was ten times—first shower I took in freedom and I didn’t know if it was the water or my tears that were cascading over me. I had to rebuild a life from there, but without them and that shower, without that moment of realizing the loss. See, people don’t realize the loss. The loss is from the time you graduate high school and finish two and a half years of college, you left that, and then there’s the next 20-something years of your life—a zero. Is a zero. You come out to zero. You are zero. I don’t have a car, I don’t have a dollar, I don’t have any clothes. I have nothing. And now I’m 44 years old, but I had two wonderful people.
Does this corruption still go on in the Police Department today?
Oh, it’s massive. So it’s still happening now? Massive. It just everything changes, but it’s still corruption. So when I was a corrupt police officer, the corruption was at the lower level because it was street-level corruption. Today, it’s all up at the top and it’s plenty of it. It’s all about big budgets and money and power.
Listen, they had the girl bend over and get taken up the ass. The police chief grabbed the lube from his location, bent the girl over the couch and fucked her in the ass. Recently? Yes. And he was paying her for it on overtime. Who was this? This was a sex worker or—this was a fucking lieutenant. Oh, so the chief was having sex with the lieutenant? Yeah, because she needed money to pay her bills. He gave her $200,000 in overtime pay. This is what goes on. That’s the corruption that goes on today.
Do you think there’s still drug corruption going on with drugs and drug dealers and stuff like that?
Not to the extent that it was. No. But there’s always some—here’s how it—today, corruption is today hit and miss. Scores. Opportunity. There’s no systematic corruption today. There may be a few, but very few. Cops showing up at somewhere finding something and taking it. That would be the corruption you would run into today more than anything else in that level of corruption. But systematic corruption of the bureaucracy itself is massive.
What was the most money you made in a day? You said it was $40,000. And was that the—the funny thing is I could have made $150,000 if Diaz said I should have taken the money from the robbery where they left the money behind. He said, "You should have taken that money, at least I know someone would have got it, because then the cops got it."
I loved being a police officer. I didn’t think that I would. It’s the greatest job in the world if you have the support that you need. You can have a wonderful day as a police officer, you can have a horrible day, but in the end all you really want is love.
Don’t we all. Mike, we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they’re leaving it for. And the question that’s been left for you is: "What is the gift that the universe, life, or God has put you here to share?"
Well, if you don’t mind, I’m going to say it again—just everybody needs more love. Just love. Just love each other. Listen. Just listen to your friends, listen to your neighbors. Just listen. Patient love. Why? You’ll find that we have more in common than we don’t.
Mike, thank you. It’s been an absolute pleasure speaking to you. I mean, what an incredible life you have lived. "Incredible" is a very intentional word there, because you’re right, it does sound like it’s a movie effectively. It sounds like you—some of the stories that you’ve told and the things you’ve been through are unthinkable, but in the context of the human side of everything you’ve shared, it also makes sense. We go through experiences in our lives and we can kind of take one or two routes. And that experience you went through—the love you did or didn’t have, the words that went said or unsaid—can take any of us in any direction. Even me sat here today, there were moments in my early life where I remember a friend turning around to me and saying to me one day, he said, "You’re either going to be a millionaire or a criminal." He’s one of my best friends—it was my friend Joe. I remember exactly where I stood when he said it because I knew it was the truth. Like, I knew it was the truth. I knew that effectively I was so desperate to be successful that that desperation would take me to great lengths. And those great lengths, especially when you’re a young man and you don’t understand consequence in the same way, those great lengths can trip you over any kind of moral boundary. Fortunately, I was really scared. So I was like scared. I was—there was early parts of my career where I was offered opportunities to go in a certain direction, especially when I dropped out of university, and they explained to me the situation, and I was too scared to take them up on the offer. And actually the path of least resistance for me was going into business and building businesses and doing those kinds of things, but it all stemmed from an underlying probably insecurity, but also fear and just desperately wanting to live a better life. And kind of like what you said about your parents, desperately wanting to be more. If you think about business and entrepreneurship as well, it is like self-punishment. So it’s like a huge risk, huge punishment, great uncertainty. So to do such a thing, to start a company, to take that big of a risk, there’s going to have to be a pretty strong macro tailwind driving force that’s making you do that. And a lot of the time having sat here with CEOs and founders and people that have achieved great success, it’s much of what you’ve described—it’s maybe a parent that didn’t love me enough, it’s maybe living in your father’s footsteps, it’s maybe being bullied in school, it’s maybe being told you aren’t good enough in some way. And that’s the escape velocity that propels us into a better or worse life. Thank you so much, Mike. I really appreciate it. What a journey.
We launched these conversation cards and they sold out. And we launched them again and they sold out again. We launched them again and they sold out again. Because people love playing these with colleagues at work, with friends at home, and also with family. And we’ve also got a big audience that use them as journal prompts. Every single time a guest comes on The Diary of a CEO, they leave a question for the next guest in the diary. And I’ve sat here with some of the most incredible people in the world, and they’ve left all of these questions in the diary. And I’ve ranked them from one to three in terms of the depth—one being a starter question, and level three (if you look on the back here, this is a level three) becomes a much deeper question that builds even more connection. If you turn the cards over and you scan that QR code, you can see who answered the card and watch the video of them answering it in real time. So if you would like to get your hands on some of these conversation cards, go to thediary.com or look at the link in the description below.
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