This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast, More What You
Here, Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive. He's an award winning director who's worked
as a Hollywood screenwriter and made features, commercials, music videos, documentaries,
and also a professor at Loyal and University of New Orleans teaching film and screenwriting.
Stephen stab has teamed up with his partner for an extraordinary project. Her
name is Courtney cookie Hood, a former model and ex wife of Columbian drug
cartel and journalista. Is what they have teamed up for. It is the
dangerous and improbable life of cookie Hood, who ended up cracking the Iran Contra
scandal Wide open. Greetings guys reading, Good morning, Hey Lee. I
want to tell you something before we get into all the journalisa things that I
graduated from Yukon High School. Oh well, as a kinky dinky would just
happen to appear. I was born and raised in New Iberia, Louisiana,
just west of New Orleans. We know it well, we know it well,
we do. We also went to Western Oklahoma State. You know,
so I'm swasso. You are a swassoo alum. Yeah, Okay, enough
of that. I just wanted to say that. Well, let's start with
you. What brought this story to your doorstep? Well, I'm a filmmaker,
a screenwriter, and I get a lot of people approaching me with crazy
stories. This story was the craziest one anyone ever approached me with. And
I literally thought it was BS when I heard it. And the craziest part
of this the next day, she brought me the receipts. Cookie brought me
this box. We call us the the box, and in that box was
passports, press passes, pictures with celebrities and well, first day for clippings,
Yeah, letters from Dan rather go. You know you know Ed Ed
Bradley, Mike waf even Lee Carter. She was a penpower with Jimmy Carter
and Courtney Cookie Hood You what your I mean, what's your story? What
got you involved? First of all with a Columbian drug cartel and then that
led to being the manager of CBS sixty minutes field office in Managua. H
called me Cookie Lee, but my mother was from Nicaragua. I was raised
in both countries. I know both cultures extremely well. And I started off
as a model in my younger years in New York City, then rekindles a
friendship I had with a childhood friend from Nicaragua in Miami, not knowing that
he was very deep into the drugs worlds and the drug games. And that
happened, of course, and then and I left him, I found myself
back in Nicaraguo, tried to check out the revolution, so to speak,
and that's when I was approached by NBC and CBS to run their bureau.
For the reasons I mentioned earlier, I spoke both languages, I knew both
cultures, and my contacts on every side were just so numerous to even uh
name. And that's how my career started. Cookie Hood by the way,
as Studio West Louisiana. Oh okay, lady, necessary mass practica. But
what I what I was getting at is the Journalista is the name of the
podcast. You can hear it on the iHeartRadio app and everywhere you get podcasts,
this remarkable story of cookie Hood along with Stephen StEB Now, Stephen,
when this story came to you, did you instantly think touching podcast or did
you have something else in mine? Oh? Absolutely, I had something else
in mind. We've written a script, I've got a big pitch deck.
We are out there pitching this in La getting really far, and this iHeart
thing showed up out of nowhere. We and they and they offer us a
really great deal to make the podcast. And I told everybody I was working
with in La, stop the press, to stop everything. We're doing this
podcast because this podcast is going to be our opportunity to tell her story,
like in this really personal, intimate way that I think has you know,
that's aspirational on a lot of levels, obviously on personal levels, but also
on a business level. So I think, no, I was not thinking
podcasts, but I think this podcast is the best thing I've ever done.
I'm so proud of it. Cookie Hood mentioned getting away from the Colombian drug
cartel, Kingpan. How'd you manage to do that without having to have somebody
constantly taste your food? It was easy. We were childhood friends. I
came back to New Orleans to take care of my mother, who was ill
at the time. I had a one year old son, and we parted
as friends and we remained friends until the day he died, so that was
never an issue. And the fact that I had made some deep friendships within
the cartel, including Pablo Escobar, Freeway Rick Ross out in La It was
all just another day in the life of Cookie. I have a friend who
enjoyed the nose candy, if you will, and I used to tease him.
I used to tease him that he gets he does so much cocaine.
He gets critic he gets Christmas cards from Pablo Escobar. But Steven, she
really did at Christmas cards from Bambo Escamar. Oh. Yeah, and she
understalls that he was at her wedding. I mean, it's crazy. He
provided all the party favors. Yeah, and the best man at the wedding
was the bongo player for Santana. It's crazy. Well, Cookie, at
what point did you realize the Iran Kantra thing was starting to spill out before
you? Well, we as journalists in Latin America, specifically in Nicaragua,
we knew there was some funny business going on. We didn't know what was
going on or how it was going on, but we always knew there was
something shady happening in the background. And what happened was literally like manna falling
from heaven. Sandinista soldiers shot down a CIA plane. Everyone was killed except
the kicker, and his name was Eugene hasitt Bus. He survived, and
all the evidence they had on the plane survived. I had access, exclusive
access to the evidence that was confiscated by the Sandinistas, and one of them
was a business card of a vice president of a Swiss bank, and on
the back there was a series of numbers that the Sandinistas had labeled as a
phone number. I knew it wasn't a phone number. I knew at the
time that it had to be a Swiss bank account. And I also had
to ask myself, what are these lowly pilots kickers doing with a Swiss bank
account? So I called CBS in New York, CBS in Washington. I
told him, look, guys, I don't know what I have here,
but I have something big. This is what I've got. You guys,
run with it and let's see what comes of it. The rest is history.
Well it's quite a bit of history, and there's a lot of details
and it Steven esteb when this all started to leak out, the Reagan administration
just kept saying, I don't remember, I don't remember. I mean,
comedians were actually saying, hey, if we ever sell guns to people who
hate us, maybe out to jot it down. We had a joke with
a comedian friend of mine, Randy Kretico, and the joke was, how
do you know you have counture cocaine when you buy a Graham half of its
stare and the other half is out accounted. Well, Steve, it's a
big story and everybody then knew it, and I you know, I tell
people all the time, like a lot of younger people who've heard of Iron
Country but have no idea what it is. Yeah, it literally was as
scandal as big or bigger than water Gate. Oh yeah, nine to eleven
and January six, everything that we're going through now. It's remember eleven different
Reagan administration of inials were convicted, including the Secretary of Defense and the National
Security Advisor. That is a massive problem, and of course they were pardoned,
but it is a huge This was a big lawbreaking situation, and I
think it really connects us to where we are now. I mean, these
scandals come up, basically, there's one every decade, and this was the
biggest one of the eighties for sure. Well and Steve, I don't have
a lot of time left, but it seems like the scandals of today have
learned from the scandals of like Iran Contra, what to do and what not
to do? You would think great. The name of the podcast is Journalista.
It's available everywhere you get podcast, including the iHeartRadio app. A fascinating
story Cookiehood along with her partner Stephen StEB Well. Thank you for bringing the
story to us. I could talk to you all day. Yeah. Thanks
for having the gong y. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to
Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast. Remember to listen to The
Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation