Speaker 1: Hello, It is Ryan and I was on a flight
Speaker 1: the other day playing one of my favorite social spin
Speaker 1: slot games on chumbacasino dot com. I looked over at
Speaker 1: the person sitting next to me, and you know what
Speaker 1: they were doing. They were also playing Chumpa Casino. Coincidence,
Speaker 1: I think not everybody's loving having fun with it. Chumpa
Speaker 1: Casino's home to hundreds at casino style games. You can
Speaker 1: play for free anytime, anywhere, even at thirty thousand feet.
Speaker 1: So sign up now at Chumbuck Casino dot com to
Speaker 1: claim you're free. Welcome bonus, that's Chumbuck Casino dot com
Speaker 1: and live the Chumba Lane.
Speaker 2: No necessary dvoid whereverbit By lost the terms conditions of
Speaker 2: eighteen plus. With Lucky Land Slots, you can get lucky
Speaker 2: just about anywhere.
Speaker 3: Really, beloved, we are gathered here today. Has anyone seen
Speaker 3: the bride and groom?
Speaker 4: Ri?
Speaker 2: Sorry we're here. We were getting lucky in the limo
Speaker 2: and we lost track of time.
Speaker 1: No Lucky Land casino with cash prizes that add up
Speaker 1: quicker than a guess registered Well.
Speaker 4: In that case, I pronounce you lucky.
Speaker 2: Play for free. Lucky Landslots dot Com. Daily bonuses are waiting.
Speaker 2: No purchase necessary BOID. We're prohibited by lock eighteen plus
Speaker 2: terms and conditions applag See website.
Speaker 1: For loop Tabian.
Speaker 3: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 3: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 3: written about them Gaesy, Bundy, Dalhmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 3: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 3: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host,
Speaker 3: journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 5: Good evening, two hundred FBI agents and Nassau County Police
Speaker 5: officers combined forces to form a dragnet hunt for his
Speaker 5: kidnappers and rescue him. Teshley handcuffed and chain to the
Speaker 5: walls of the closet in the Bronx with a medical
Speaker 5: bandage wrapped around his head to cover his eyes. His
Speaker 5: captors demanded his wife Janet, drop a bag with seven
Speaker 5: hundred and fifty thousand the equivalent of four million dollars
Speaker 5: in today's currency, in a locker at Penn Station, making
Speaker 5: the Jack tesh ransom one of the highest in US
Speaker 5: history at that time. FBI and Nassau County Police detectives
Speaker 5: spent over a year before finally uncovering the meticulously planned
Speaker 5: kidnapping ploy hatched by radical mastermind Richard Warren Williams. The
Speaker 5: FBI internally dubbed the Jack Tesh kidnapping Operation jack Nap.
Speaker 5: The real life crime drama that followed proved stranger than fiction,
Speaker 5: involving a tense across the country manhunt, a trailer in California,
Speaker 5: stuff with tens of thousands of ransom dollars hidden inside,
Speaker 5: a contentious jury trial that dominated New York City headlines
Speaker 5: for months, a guilty verdict that was overturned twenty one
Speaker 5: years later on a controversial technicality, a retrial stymied by
Speaker 5: a mysterious fire that incinerated court records, and a civil
Speaker 5: verdict ruling that the kidnapper paid Jack Tesh back the
Speaker 5: ransom money plus interest. Operation Jacknapp tells the incredible true
Speaker 5: crime story that continues even now. Indeed, as of this writing,
Speaker 5: no one knows where the majority of the ransom money
Speaker 5: is located inside. Tesh also details his offer of a
Speaker 5: reward to anyone helping track down the still missing money
Speaker 5: and kidnappers. The book that we're featuring this evening is
Speaker 5: Operation Jacknap, a True Story of Kidnapping, extortion, ransom and
Speaker 5: Rescue with my special guest author Jack Teesh. Welcome to
Speaker 5: the program, and thank you very much for a Green
Speaker 5: Innis interview. Jack Tesh. Thank you, Dan, good evening. Thank
Speaker 5: you very much for joining me and joining our audience.
Speaker 5: Let's go right to November twelfth, nineteen seventy four. Tell
Speaker 5: us a little bit about where you're living at this
Speaker 5: time in Long Island. Just tell us a little bit
Speaker 5: about your background just before we talk about November twelfth,
Speaker 5: nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 4: Okay, Dan, anyway, my wife, by the way, is sitting
Speaker 4: next to me, my wife Janet. At the time, I
Speaker 4: was thirty four years old, My wife was barely thirty.
Speaker 4: We lived in the King's Point section of the town
Speaker 4: of Great Neck. We lived a low key life in
Speaker 4: a very modest house. We had two at the time,
Speaker 4: two young children. One was six and the other one
Speaker 4: was two years old. Third wasn't even born then, born yet.
Speaker 4: In the family business. I worked in a family business
Speaker 4: manufacturing steel construction materials, and it was we had a
Speaker 4: nice life, raise a modest life, very modest, raising our
Speaker 4: two children.
Speaker 5: Tell us about November twelfth, nineteen seventy four. You say
Speaker 5: you're write at around six forty pm. You were driving
Speaker 5: your car home from work as usual, but it was
Speaker 5: unusual someone was following you, and then you arrived home
Speaker 5: in the driveway. What happened right after getting out of
Speaker 5: that car.
Speaker 4: Yes, it happened to be a very foggy, rainy rain
Speaker 4: evening and I was as I was driving home, and
Speaker 4: normally we lived in a dead end street and a
Speaker 4: dead end the main road going to the house was
Speaker 4: it was a dead end peninsula and our particular street
Speaker 4: was a dead end street, so it was very unusual
Speaker 4: to have any cars other than when I was driving
Speaker 4: this particular night, there was a car right behind me,
Speaker 4: and I even said to myself, boy, this unusual. And
Speaker 4: I pulled into my driveway. It was about a forty
Speaker 4: five to fifty minute drive home from my office. I
Speaker 4: pulled into the driveway up to my garage. It was closed,
Speaker 4: and I normally left the car outside facing the garage,
Speaker 4: and I pulled into the I pulled up to the garage,
Speaker 4: shut my lights off, and I looked up at the
Speaker 4: garage and it was pulled it up, and I said,
Speaker 4: what is that? I just shut my lights off, and
Speaker 4: I just checked my lights again they were off. I
Speaker 4: looked behind me. There's a car right behind me, and
Speaker 4: I looked in the rear view mirror. I get out
Speaker 4: of the car, and on my left, on the driver's side,
Speaker 4: there's an individual with a ski masks, ski mask and
Speaker 4: a silver colored pistol pointing at my head. On the
Speaker 4: right hand side was another individual, taller with a ski
Speaker 4: mask and with a sort of shotgun pointed at me
Speaker 4: at that moment, and they said basically, you're coming with
Speaker 4: us and or we're gonna blow your head off. For
Speaker 4: the moment, I thought, well, what do I do? Do
Speaker 4: I run which I could have, which I could have
Speaker 4: to the back of my house where there's a woods
Speaker 4: which I knew very well and felt I could do that.
Speaker 4: And then I in a split second, I said, well,
Speaker 4: if I do that, will I go in my house,
Speaker 4: which was twenty five feet away. So I didn't. I
Speaker 4: didn't run. They led me with the gun to my
Speaker 4: head to their car, which was a small little Ford Mustang,
Speaker 4: and they pushed me in the backseat of the car.
Speaker 5: Now they told you to lay down. You didn't get
Speaker 5: to see anybody, and quickly they put something on your
Speaker 5: eyes so that you weren't able to see, and told
Speaker 5: you to get down on the floor and all you
Speaker 5: could smell was this gasoline can. So what did you
Speaker 5: do in terms of realizing that you were in this?
Speaker 5: You were kidnapped, you were abducted. But what did you
Speaker 5: first do in terms of trying to potentially help yourself later?
Speaker 5: What were you? What were you? Uh? But what would
Speaker 5: you think to do?
Speaker 4: Well? It w W What they did? Was they what
Speaker 4: they said, We're gonna going to rob you and let
Speaker 4: you go, so just calm down, relax, We're not gonna
Speaker 4: uh keep you. And they put putty on each of
Speaker 4: my eyes and then over the putty they put a
Speaker 4: pair of uh of glasses so I couldn't see anything.
Speaker 4: And yes, there was a gasoline. The a gaso pushed
Speaker 4: me down on the back and it was a f
Speaker 4: a small Ford Mustang. Tight in the back seat. They
Speaker 4: pushed me down, put handcuffs on, and they said we're
Speaker 4: gonna drive you uh to our area, uh rob you
Speaker 4: and let you go. And I just uh tried to
Speaker 4: think about every little thing the ride. There was a
Speaker 4: went over a bridge, there was a toll machine. The
Speaker 4: sounds that we went over some hills. I just tried
Speaker 4: to remember to see if I could possibly remember the
Speaker 4: route they were taking. And I thought, as much as
Speaker 4: we excuse me, I thought I remembered as much as
Speaker 4: I possibly could under the circumstances.
Speaker 5: Now back at the house, meanwhile, your wife, Janet is
Speaker 5: just discovering your absence, and you were late, which was
Speaker 5: somewhat unusual. She wanted to go to movies with her friend,
Speaker 5: and so she put the kids to bed and came
Speaker 5: downstairs and saw your car. What did she do after
Speaker 5: realizing that you weren't around? Who did she call?
Speaker 4: Well, the first call that she called was my office
Speaker 4: to find out what time I left. She got a
Speaker 4: hold of She got a hold of somebody to say
Speaker 4: what time did Jack leave? Where was his car? And
Speaker 4: she got that information, and then she called some friends
Speaker 4: of ours in a panic that my car was in
Speaker 4: the driveway and I was nowhere to be found. So
Speaker 4: a couple of our friends came over and searched around
Speaker 4: the house, searched in the garage, searched in them as
Speaker 4: much of the wooded area as they could, just to
Speaker 4: think if I wanted off, or was bleeding somewhere, or
Speaker 4: laying down and still nowhere to be found. She then
Speaker 4: called the local police. We lived in an area that
Speaker 4: had a small local police department, and she called the
Speaker 4: local police. They came over and they really were no
Speaker 4: help at all to her. Unfortunately, they they kind of
Speaker 4: brushed it off as well, you know, maybe he's out drinking,
Speaker 4: or maybe he went off with the next to a neighbor.
Speaker 4: They they kind of laughed the whole thing off. So
Speaker 4: she then called my family, my brother. I had two brothers,
Speaker 4: and in a panic, she didn't know what to do.
Speaker 4: She finally called. It was either late that night or
Speaker 4: very early the next morning. She finally called. We had
Speaker 4: a very close friend of the family who was an
Speaker 4: assistant district attorney in the in the Nasakhani and called
Speaker 4: him and said, look, my husband cars in the driveway.
Speaker 4: He didn't come home, he never called, and there's something
Speaker 4: terribly wrong. And the individual that she called, who ultimately
Speaker 4: became a Supreme Court judge, he was an Ada and
Speaker 4: sisted district attorney at the time, knew me from when
Speaker 4: I was a child, knew me when I since I
Speaker 4: was four years old. So he picked up a phone
Speaker 4: and called the chief of detectives of Nasakhani and said, look,
Speaker 4: I know this. I know Jackson's he's four years old.
Speaker 4: I know the family all my life. This is totally
Speaker 4: out of character fan not to come home, not to call,
Speaker 4: and nowhere to be found. There's something terribly wrong. And
Speaker 4: that started the ball rolling, the the the UH. All
Speaker 4: the higher ups, the chief of detectives, the deputy inspector,
Speaker 4: and a staff of people came over to the house.
Speaker 4: They set up tape recorders on the phones, on all
Speaker 4: on all our phones, the in the old days that
Speaker 4: they were the what do you call it, big tapes,
Speaker 4: tape tape recorders. UH. They called the FBI in and
Speaker 4: that was the point where the the the investigation really started.
Speaker 4: Thank goodness, my wife called then because the first ransom
Speaker 4: call there were three. The first ransom call came in
Speaker 4: that evening from the kidnappers, and luckily the it was
Speaker 4: all recorded and they attempted to trace it, but they
Speaker 4: didn't stay on long enough to trace the call. From
Speaker 4: that point on until I was released seven days later.
Speaker 4: The fb there was three two FBI agents, a male
Speaker 4: and a female, and a Nasser County detective sergeant that
Speaker 4: moved into the house and slept there. They were there
Speaker 4: twenty four to seven with my wife.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 4: And that's when the the Horrabian.
Speaker 5: You you segue back and forth between the two incredible
Speaker 5: scenes between where you are held captive and your wife
Speaker 5: and your family are held captive. To a great degree.
Speaker 5: Your son, your seven year old, almost seven year old,
Speaker 5: was never comfortable with this, and and no one could
Speaker 5: give him the answers that he needed to understand where
Speaker 5: his father was and where all these people were in
Speaker 5: their home. But meanwhile, your nightmare was just beginning. So
Speaker 5: you are taken from that car again. You were brought
Speaker 5: into a building. What happens you talk about the search
Speaker 5: and the conversation you have with the keeper. Tell us
Speaker 5: about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we drove for about forty five fifty minutes, give
Speaker 4: a take, as they mentioned before, over a bridge, up
Speaker 4: a hill. Finally they stopped and they said, wait, we're
Speaker 4: going to take you out of They take you out
Speaker 4: of the car and we're going to walk you into
Speaker 4: a building. And they took me out of the car.
Speaker 4: I was blindfolded, one on each side holding my arms,
Speaker 4: and they told me that three steps you walk up,
Speaker 4: then you walk another three steps up and we're going
Speaker 4: to guide you into a room. And they guided me
Speaker 4: into a room. I was standing straight up and they
Speaker 4: the first thing they did was methodically search and take
Speaker 4: everything out of every pocket. I was wearing a suit
Speaker 4: and a raincoat. They went through every every pocket in
Speaker 4: the raincoat, every pocket in the suit, took everything out,
Speaker 4: went through my wallet, went through all my identification, and
Speaker 4: that started questioning me and they said, you know, we
Speaker 4: think we're we're not going to let you go so fast.
Speaker 4: We think we're going to keep you for a while.
Speaker 4: They then guided me over to a closet and pushed
Speaker 4: me into the closet onto the floor. It was probably
Speaker 4: two feet by five feet, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: I heard the sounds of chains, and I said, what
Speaker 4: the heck could that be? They had chains which they
Speaker 4: looped through eyelets that they apparently had screwed into the
Speaker 4: wall on each side. On one side was where my
Speaker 4: head and shoulders were. I couldn't lay down flat. I
Speaker 4: had to sort of half lay down, and they took
Speaker 4: that chain, put it around my neck with a lock,
Speaker 4: and then the other chain they looped around my feet
Speaker 4: with a lock to an eyelid on the other end.
Speaker 4: Of the closet with a little bit of slack on
Speaker 4: each side, so I could barely sort of sit up
Speaker 4: and kneel if I had to. And the then they
Speaker 4: put a gag on my mouth, which I couldn't understand. Uh.
Speaker 4: They they eventually took that off, you know, w you know,
Speaker 4: later that evening or the next morning, I don't remember,
Speaker 4: but they Uh, I did have a gag and that
Speaker 4: when they started questioning me, they had to take the
Speaker 4: gag off. And then the questioning started. The s the sessions. Uh.
Speaker 4: They spent hours questioning every possible thing they could possibly
Speaker 4: ask me about my my life, my parents, my father,
Speaker 4: my mother wasn't alive, then my wife, my wife's family,
Speaker 4: my brother, my brother's two brothers. UH, bank accounts, uh,
Speaker 4: the the uh, the ant, the artwork uh uh any
Speaker 4: possible thing of value. They wanted to know everything about that,
Speaker 4: everything about the company, people that worked for the company.
Speaker 4: And apparently they knew more than they let on. As
Speaker 4: the interrogations went on during the week, it was obvious
Speaker 4: they they knew more and they were making sure I
Speaker 4: was telling them the truth. They they had answers to
Speaker 4: the many of the questions before they asked the question,
Speaker 4: and that came out very obvious. So in the closet
Speaker 4: was a bucket to relieve myself, and that's where I
Speaker 4: was for of the total of seven days, about half
Speaker 4: the time I was chained in the closet with handcuffs.
Speaker 4: They never did take those handcuffs off. And after about
Speaker 4: half the time they took me out of the closet
Speaker 4: and put me in the same room a bed, and
Speaker 4: they took the same chains and chained the chained the
Speaker 4: bed around the frame. So I was still chained, but
Speaker 4: I was in a bed.
Speaker 5: Now, what kind of conversations? What kind of conversations was
Speaker 5: the captor having with you other than these questions and
Speaker 5: narrowing it down, he wanted to know about the bank account,
Speaker 5: specifically about the company Acme Steel partition that you were
Speaker 5: vice president of and your father had founded the company. Yes,
Speaker 5: he wanted to know those particulars, and he was asking
Speaker 5: you questions like if Janet was excitable and basically trying
Speaker 5: to find out and determine which person would be better
Speaker 5: to deal with in what you realized soon enough is
Speaker 5: a ransom and a kidnapping. So how do they prepare
Speaker 5: you and what are some of the questions that they
Speaker 5: try to get from you, and then how do they
Speaker 5: prepare you for this ransom and to communicate with your
Speaker 5: wife in the chance of getting this ransom.
Speaker 4: That's exactly You're exactly right. They knew more than of
Speaker 4: course that they let on they had. I never knew,
Speaker 4: by the way, I never knew until I was released
Speaker 4: in FBI headquarters in Manhattan, how much they asked for
Speaker 4: and how much they got. They never let on. But
Speaker 4: they did know quite a bit about the company and
Speaker 4: quite a bit about my family, and they kept targeting
Speaker 4: in who was the person, whether it be my brother,
Speaker 4: my father, my wife, most likely to be able to
Speaker 4: get that money together and and meet their demands. The
Speaker 4: what I didn't mention is that these individuals were radicalized
Speaker 4: and blatantly anti Semitic. From the minute I came came
Speaker 4: into that room till the men and I left. They
Speaker 4: they they preached, they raved, they ranted, They they didn't
Speaker 4: stop with their rhetoric, radicalized rhetoric of they they they're
Speaker 4: the were the haves and they're the have nots, and
Speaker 4: they're going to take what they want to take and
Speaker 4: get what they want to get and they're going to
Speaker 4: do it.
Speaker 5: Now, as well as this radical idea or radicalized idea
Speaker 5: that they were writing wrong by saying things too like
Speaker 5: you guys shouldn't keep all the money and being Jewish
Speaker 5: people that being and that that basically a Jewish people
Speaker 5: and other people had built their their fortunes on the
Speaker 5: backs of black people and poor people. Those part of
Speaker 5: the gist of what he was saying. How did they
Speaker 5: prepare you? We're talking about the tape recordings.
Speaker 1: Casino asking people, what's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
Speaker 2: Lucky? In line at the Delhi I guess ah, in
Speaker 2: my dentist's office more than once.
Speaker 1: Actually do I have to say?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: You do?
Speaker 1: In the car before my kid's PTA meeting?
Speaker 4: Really?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 4: Excuse me?
Speaker 1: What's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
Speaker 2: I never win?
Speaker 3: And tell well, there you have it.
Speaker 1: You could get lucky anywhere playing at lucky landslots dot
Speaker 1: com play for free right now?
Speaker 2: Are you feeling lucky?
Speaker 1: No brig just necessary foid where my long eighteen plus
Speaker 1: terms and conditions of pluck seems a retails? Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: it is Ryan. I'm not sure if you know this
Speaker 1: about me? But I'm a bit of a fun fanatic
Speaker 1: when I can. I like to work, but I like
Speaker 1: fun too. It's a thing. And now the truth is
Speaker 1: out there, I can tell you about my favorite place
Speaker 1: to have fun. Chumba Casino. They have hundreds of social
Speaker 1: casino style games to choose from, with new games released
Speaker 1: each week. You can play for free, anytime, anywhere, and
Speaker 1: each day brings a new chance to collect daily bonuses.
Speaker 1: So join me and the fun. Sign up now at
Speaker 1: chumbacasino dot com.
Speaker 2: No pursuscessary where I lost terms conditions eight.
Speaker 5: Pul tell us how they prepared you and what they
Speaker 5: got you to say in those tape recordings that we're
Speaker 5: going to be forwarded to your wife.
Speaker 4: Well, they were very specific of what I should say,
Speaker 4: and they were I at least two. First, they took
Speaker 4: a picture I helped. They gave me a local newspaper
Speaker 4: w which had the date on it, took a picture
Speaker 4: of me holding up the newspaper. They from my uh uh,
Speaker 4: not not my whole body, from my from the mid
Speaker 4: midwaist up. Then they prepared me exactly what to say,
Speaker 4: very specifically, what to say? Who who? Who? Who's gonna who?
Speaker 4: Who should get the money together. They never told me
Speaker 4: the amount, who should get the money together, who should
Speaker 4: make the payoff? What should they be wearing? They shouldn't
Speaker 4: tell anybody, especially the police. And by the way, very
Speaker 4: very important. The newspapers knew about it, knew about the
Speaker 4: abduction shortly after it happened, and the and the FBI
Speaker 4: and the police went to see them and said, please
Speaker 4: don't publicize this until we get the victim back. And
Speaker 4: in those days they listened and they did it. And
Speaker 4: I could tell you that that saved my life because
Speaker 4: they had that radio blasting in the other room listening
Speaker 4: and they I'm sure they just couldn't figure out why
Speaker 4: it wasn't on the radio. They the newspapers honored, honored
Speaker 4: the request.
Speaker 5: They asked you questions like how much money you had
Speaker 5: forwarded to the Jewish Defense League as well, just to
Speaker 5: demonstrate where their mindset was.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, I didn't even know what they were talking about,
Speaker 4: to be honest with you, but they they this rhetoric,
Speaker 4: the anti Semitic rhetoric pro pro radicalized, was pretty much
Speaker 4: constant during the whole week, and the raving and the ranting,
Speaker 4: and and it didn't stop. They just and I just
Speaker 4: I mean, I listened, what kind of work could I do?
Speaker 4: Nothing I could do, and I just prayed a lot.
Speaker 4: The they and by the way, only one. There were
Speaker 4: at least four involved, it could be more, but a
Speaker 4: minimum before two in my driveway, and there were others
Speaker 4: in the other room I heard walking and talking, but
Speaker 4: only one of them ever spoke to me, or one
Speaker 4: other spoke, but only like one or two sentences. But
Speaker 4: only one was the one that talked to me. Came
Speaker 4: in three, four, five times a day into the room
Speaker 4: I was in, and he was the on the keeper.
Speaker 4: We called him the keeper. He was the only one
Speaker 4: that spoke to me of anything of any significance.
Speaker 5: After all this intel that he gained from you about
Speaker 5: your family, about business dealings, about virtually everything, you noticed,
Speaker 5: you know, you noticed that they were zeroing in on
Speaker 5: the bank accounts from your business. They asked you how
Speaker 5: many bank account you had at your company, and you
Speaker 5: told him there was a general one and another payroll one,
Speaker 5: and they said how much money? And you said fifty
Speaker 5: thousand dollars in total. Now he left and he didn't
Speaker 5: return for a long time. When he came back, what
Speaker 5: information did he have and what was your explanation for
Speaker 5: something that made him very irate?
Speaker 4: What happened was he when he came back, he said,
Speaker 4: you did not You didn't tell me about the pension,
Speaker 4: pension and profit sharing company accounts. And I said, I
Speaker 4: didn't tell you. I didn't mention it because that's not
Speaker 4: my money. It's not the company's money. It belongs to
Speaker 4: the employees. And I don't. I didn't. I don't have
Speaker 4: access to that money to take. It doesn't belong to me.
Speaker 4: And he went into a TI rate and he obviously
Speaker 4: knew about the accounts, and he said, who signs the checks?
Speaker 4: I said, I'm one of the signatories on those checks.
Speaker 4: He says, so you do have access to the money.
Speaker 4: I says, I said, yes, but it's not mine to take.
Speaker 4: And then he didn't question me any further on that
Speaker 4: because he knew the answers to that question before I
Speaker 4: before he asked the question, so I couldn't I told
Speaker 4: him what it was.
Speaker 5: Now, meanwhile, Janet has has called the old friend Jed
Speaker 5: Orenstein the DA and so gotten things straight now and
Speaker 5: the police now that they took Janet to the bank
Speaker 5: and realized that you didn't take out any withdrawals, they're
Speaker 5: now believing that there's something to this. The kidnappers didn't
Speaker 5: call for twenty six hours, and you say that there
Speaker 5: was a blessing because the recorders weren't set up at
Speaker 5: that time. And when Janet got the first call, you
Speaker 5: describe in the book this incredible exchange because your wife
Speaker 5: is again a very very strong, strong person in your corner,
Speaker 5: but also she is shocked and no one is prepared
Speaker 5: for this kind of pressure and tension. So after that
Speaker 5: phone call, what was said in that call and then
Speaker 5: what was created after as a result of that phone call.
Speaker 4: Well, the phone call came to the house, as I mentioned,
Speaker 4: and was recorded, and the FBI and police were there.
Speaker 4: They told Janet to try to keep him keep the
Speaker 4: individual on the phone as long as possible, but he
Speaker 4: was very clear, I have Jack, I have him, and
Speaker 4: unless you meet our demands, we're going to kill him,
Speaker 4: basically in so many words, and you have to listen,
Speaker 4: and we're going to get back to you with specific demands.
Speaker 4: She tried to keep him on the phone, she couldn't,
Speaker 4: and they then they couldn't couldn't trace the call. But
Speaker 4: that's when they knew I was alive, they knew it
Speaker 4: was a kidnapping, and the that's when the all the
Speaker 4: police and the rest of the authorities got involved.
Speaker 5: What did the keeper tell you about your family cooperating
Speaker 5: with police? What did he warn you about?
Speaker 4: Well, only that that if the family didn't cooperate, he
Speaker 4: was going to kill the whole family, my wife, my brother's,
Speaker 4: the entire family and they had better cooperate or he
Speaker 4: was going to kill them all.
Speaker 5: Right, Now you have this incredible group of people assembled, FBI,
Speaker 5: Nasau County detectives and now everybody's on board once they've
Speaker 5: got this call and they realized the magnitude of this case.
Speaker 5: And you say that these people that were put in
Speaker 5: your home for months different people, but FBI agents arouse
Speaker 5: risen to the challenge, and also that they became close
Speaker 5: friends and helped your family survive this ordeal. Who are
Speaker 5: the people that the kidnappers suggest did that they deal with?
Speaker 5: And uh so who did who did they decide?
Speaker 4: Yeah, the kidnappers want specifically wanted my brother out of
Speaker 4: at A and of the of the company, my brother
Speaker 4: and my family, my wife, those are the only two
Speaker 4: they wanted to deal with, and they wanted them to
Speaker 4: deliver the ransom money. Uh in the place that they
Speaker 4: said they which we can get into the payoff, but
Speaker 4: they they're the only two they wanted to deal with. Now.
Speaker 4: Having said that my wife, there was a female agent
Speaker 4: at the house, and if my wife wasn't up to
Speaker 4: making the payoff, the female agent was going to go
Speaker 4: in her place. And they tested my wife to make
Speaker 4: sure that she was up to that challenge. And she
Speaker 4: It was a pretty rough, pretty rough evening of testing,
Speaker 4: and she did. She passed all the tests, and she
Speaker 4: insisted that she had to make the payoffs. She didn't
Speaker 4: want anybody else to do it. They may know that
Speaker 4: it wasn't her, and she didn't want to take a
Speaker 4: chance on losing me on doing something that they told
Speaker 4: her to do.
Speaker 5: Right. Part of the technology at that time, there's no
Speaker 5: cell phones. They equip your brother and your wife with
Speaker 5: two way radios. We'll talk about what happens when they
Speaker 5: try to make this drop for the ransom money, what
Speaker 5: happens with that technology. But how else do they prepare
Speaker 5: your wife and your brother for this exchange of money.
Speaker 4: Well, other other than that the briefing them, you know,
Speaker 4: the kidnapping, there's no books, or there's no technical manuals
Speaker 4: FBI manuals on kidnapping because everyone it's it's a rare crime.
Speaker 4: To to starters, it's not it's not that prevalent of
Speaker 4: a crime. And everyone is totally different every kidnapping. This
Speaker 4: is what they told me later, They said, we don't
Speaker 4: have a protocol because each one is different, and it's
Speaker 4: as the as it evolves, as the kidnapping evolves, is
Speaker 4: that's the we we we decide what the next step
Speaker 4: should be. So in our in my case, it was
Speaker 4: my my brother who got the money together, and my
Speaker 4: wife and they they were wearing too a you know
Speaker 4: what do you call that? FBI equipment, radios in their
Speaker 4: ears and all that, but the radio it didn't work underground.
Speaker 4: None of these, none of the police radios, none of
Speaker 4: the FBI radios, and none of their equipment actually worked
Speaker 4: under in Penn Station, the busiest train station in the world.
Speaker 4: The technology wasn't advanced. Today the radios do work underground.
Speaker 4: In nineteen seventy four, they did not work underground. So
Speaker 4: there was no communication unfortunately, between my wife, my brother
Speaker 4: and the the police and the FBI. And by the way,
Speaker 4: there were four hundred and fifty FBI and police scattered
Speaker 4: throughout all of Penn Station and all the surrounding streets
Speaker 4: all around that evening, and nobody can not only could
Speaker 4: they not communicate with them, but the police couldn't communicate
Speaker 4: between each other. It was under on the ground between
Speaker 4: the concrete and the steel. So there was that was
Speaker 4: something that was and possibly they knew about it that
Speaker 4: I wouldn't. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if
Speaker 4: they If they knew, the radios wouldn't work, and that's
Speaker 4: why they chose that location to do it.
Speaker 5: One sorry party.
Speaker 4: One of the actually one of the theories of the
Speaker 4: of the police is that one of the four or
Speaker 4: more of these people were somehow, shape or form at
Speaker 4: one time affiliated with the police to know that they
Speaker 4: didn't think the average person would even think about that, right.
Speaker 5: What was the instructions from the kidnappers regarding the money
Speaker 5: that was the ransom seven hundred and fifty thousand or
Speaker 5: with the instructions and and what did the police advise
Speaker 5: them to do? What eventually did your family do to
Speaker 5: counter what they had said?
Speaker 4: Well, couple a couple of things. Number one, the amount
Speaker 4: of money they asked for was seven hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: thousand dollars. Very specific The majority of it was to
Speaker 4: be a one hundred dollars bills and a very very
Speaker 4: small amount of it was to be in smaller bills,
Speaker 4: but the bulk of it ane hundred dollars bills. They also,
Speaker 4: my family discussed with the police. It was a crazy,
Speaker 4: insane sum of money to ask for, and they asked,
Speaker 4: should we negotiate, Should we negotiate with these kidnappers? This
Speaker 4: is a ludicrous, crazy summer money. And the answer from
Speaker 4: the professionals were, if you can gather the money and
Speaker 4: pay it, don't negotiate. We done in the case, In
Speaker 4: everything we know so far about this case, we would
Speaker 4: not if you can't. Obviously, if you can't come up
Speaker 4: with the money, that's another story. But if you can,
Speaker 4: don't negotiate, we'll get the kidnappers back. Well, we'll catch
Speaker 4: them and we'll and we'll get your money back well.
Speaker 4: But so there was no negotiation. The amount that they
Speaker 4: asked for was the amount that was ultimately paid them.
Speaker 4: They were very specific of where they should make the
Speaker 4: phone call, which was a outside of p u S
Speaker 4: on the street, outside of the initial phone call outside
Speaker 4: of Penn Station in New York City and told them
Speaker 4: where to go from there what locker track seventeen There
Speaker 4: would be a bank of lockers and go into a
Speaker 4: certain locker and take out a black bag. And I'm sorry,
Speaker 4: the the the bag, the the initial bag. What was
Speaker 4: one of the backtrack The one of the calls that
Speaker 4: came to the house was that take take the money,
Speaker 4: go to the Exxon station around the corner from my
Speaker 4: brother's house he lived in another town, and go into
Speaker 4: the large garbage pill that's there, and there's a black
Speaker 4: bag in there. That black bag is the big you're
Speaker 4: to use to put the money in. So that was
Speaker 4: either the second or the probably the third call. And
Speaker 4: they did. They took the bag, they took it TOPI headquarters.
Speaker 4: Then they took it to the bank and they gathered
Speaker 4: all the money together and put the money in the bag. Now,
Speaker 4: the other thing, they were very specific the money should
Speaker 4: not be new money, it should be old money. Well,
Speaker 4: the bank on a one day's notice, where are they
Speaker 4: going to find seven hundred fifty of old money? So
Speaker 4: it ended up being new money and in consecutive numbered
Speaker 4: bills the less. So what they had to do. What
Speaker 4: I'm told is they laid out the money around the
Speaker 4: table and a dozen FBI agents took each each each dollar,
Speaker 4: each one hundred dollar bill, each bill, and crumpled it
Speaker 4: up to look like old money, and then of course
Speaker 4: mixed up all the numbers. They recorded all the numbers.
Speaker 4: They knew exactly what the numbers were, but they mixed
Speaker 4: it up and mixed in the smaller bills and crumpled
Speaker 4: up the other bills and then put it in the
Speaker 4: black bag to the payoff.
Speaker 5: Now, with this payoff, it was elaborate instructions back and
Speaker 5: forth so that these kidnappers could ellude escape in penn station.
Speaker 5: But also they back and forth details about the drop,
Speaker 5: telling buddy exactly what to do and where to put
Speaker 5: this in the one then what locker? What happens with this?
Speaker 5: There's a hitch? Tell us about this hitch.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, they was very specific where to put the money,
Speaker 4: and they my brother and my wife put together and
Speaker 4: my brother put the money into a locker and inadvertently
Speaker 4: took the key, took the key with him. He wasn't
Speaker 4: supposed to take the key out of the locker. Took
Speaker 4: the key with the locker. They went to go find
Speaker 4: them pick up the money, and they couldn't get into
Speaker 4: the locker, and the there were calls back and forth,
Speaker 4: you know, landline calls back and forth with the kidnappers,
Speaker 4: and said yelling at my brother that he's deceiving them
Speaker 4: and they're gonna kill me, and what did he do,
Speaker 4: and there's no money and all this stuff. So then
Speaker 4: my wife went back and said, this was on the
Speaker 4: street by the way the payphone. They went back up
Speaker 4: to the street to make these phone calls. Then they
Speaker 4: went back into the penn station at the track seventeen.
Speaker 4: My wife and my brother and my wife realized Number One,
Speaker 4: he put the money in the wrong locker, not in
Speaker 4: the locker that he was supposed to put it in,
Speaker 4: put it in the locker above the one that he
Speaker 4: was supposed to put it in, and then took the
Speaker 4: key of the locker that he was supposed to put
Speaker 4: it in. So lo and behold, the money was sitting
Speaker 4: in an unlocked locker above the locker that he was
Speaker 4: supposed to put it in while they are outside calling.
Speaker 4: So my wife realized all this, and they then took
Speaker 4: the money out of the locker that it wasn't supposed
Speaker 4: to be in, put it in the locker that was
Speaker 4: supposed to be in, and left the key the way
Speaker 4: they were supposed to leave the key. And there was
Speaker 4: a duplicate of that bla same black bag that they
Speaker 4: brought the money in. There was a duplicate of it
Speaker 4: that they were to walk away with. Now they so
Speaker 4: they they they ultimately did the right thing and they
Speaker 4: walked away. The police then the the the kidnapper, probably
Speaker 4: the keeper, went and collected the collected the money. He
Speaker 4: was wearing a hat and glasses and a mustache and
Speaker 4: all that to disguise himself. Police have a schematic, you know, sketches,
Speaker 4: plenty of sketches of them. They tried to follow him,
Speaker 4: no remember the radios didn't work under ground, so they
Speaker 4: followed him as much as they could until he got
Speaker 4: on one.
Speaker 2: With lucky lancelots. You can get lucky just about anywhere.
Speaker 3: Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today. Has anyone seen
Speaker 3: the bride and broom?
Speaker 2: Sorry, sorry we're here. We were getting lucky in the
Speaker 2: limo and we lost track of time.
Speaker 1: No Lucky Land casino with cash prizes that add up
Speaker 1: quicker than he gets registered.
Speaker 4: In in LU case, I pronounce you lucky for.
Speaker 2: Lucky landslots dot com. Daily bonuses are waiting. No purchase necessary.
Speaker 2: Boyd were prohibited by lock Team plus terms and conditions
Speaker 2: of playing Sea website for details.
Speaker 4: You know a subway New York City, a transit subway,
Speaker 4: and they lost them. They couldn't communicate. Now having said that,
Speaker 4: I when I asked the the the person in charge,
Speaker 4: the inspector, I said, well, what happened? You could They said, Jack,
Speaker 4: we could have grabbed them. That wasn't the plan. The
Speaker 4: plan was to get you back. The plan was not
Speaker 4: to grab the one kidnapper that we could have grabbed.
Speaker 4: The plan was to get you back safe, and we
Speaker 4: got you back safe. So they lost the kidnapper. Ultimately
Speaker 4: I was released, Thank goodness, you were released. But the
Speaker 4: danger wasn't over. You described the incredible elation for you
Speaker 4: and your family and seeing Janet again for the first time.
Speaker 4: You filthy. After a week, you have to be debriefed.
Speaker 4: It wasn't a process where you just went home and
Speaker 4: then when you went home there was this actual danger.
Speaker 4: What was the danger and how did you and your
Speaker 4: family and the police and FBI respond. You know, The
Speaker 4: danger was the constant threats. The police didn't know who
Speaker 4: these people were. I they were, they were? Were they
Speaker 4: part of a bigger group? Where they from this country?
Speaker 4: From not this country? Where were they? They didn't know.
Speaker 4: And the amount of threats and knowledge that they knew
Speaker 4: frightened certainly frightened me, and to the extent, to the
Speaker 4: extent that when they drew when I went. It was
Speaker 4: picked up that evening and I was driven to uh
Speaker 4: FBI headquarters in Manhattan on sixteen ninth Street. I didn't talk.
Speaker 4: I wasn't talking. I said, look, if I talk, my
Speaker 4: family isn't safe anymore. And I had no idea of
Speaker 4: the money, the amount the payoff, I had no idea.
Speaker 4: But I just wasn't talking. And until they until they
Speaker 4: brought my family in, and I talked to my family,
Speaker 4: and I saw that they were safe and found out
Speaker 4: a few of the particulars. And I spoke to the
Speaker 4: chief of detectives. I said, look, his name was Ed Curran,
Speaker 4: I said, Ed, or did mister Curran? I said, are you?
Speaker 4: I'm not really going to talk unless I know that
Speaker 4: my family has full uh protection. Until these people are caught,
Speaker 4: I don't we don't know who they are. The threats
Speaker 4: were to the extent they were gonna eliminate the entire family.
Speaker 4: And I can't live like that. So they then huddled
Speaker 4: and they came back to me and they said, Jack,
Speaker 4: we assure you you will get full protection your family
Speaker 4: and yourself until this case has resolved. And by the way,
Speaker 4: they lived up to it. They they live. They lived
Speaker 4: up to that. The police they they didn't know who
Speaker 4: these they were part of a radical group or individuals,
Speaker 4: or they didn't know anything. It came, you know, during
Speaker 4: the investigation the way down, they they were able to
Speaker 4: piece things together. But the the police did give us.
Speaker 4: They they gave us the first month, we had the
Speaker 4: FBI and detectives around the clock at our house if
Speaker 4: I left the house. And after the month, the FBI
Speaker 4: didn't supply anybody anymore, and the police came in and
Speaker 4: the police assigned five permanent police in shifts twenty four
Speaker 4: to seven shifts for about a year until things calmed down.
Speaker 4: So they were with us for a year.
Speaker 5: Now, what are the you talked about the police looking
Speaker 5: into trying to find these people, and they had no idea.
Speaker 5: The idea about the bank accounts especially when you gave
Speaker 5: them information about the questioning from the keeper and these people,
Speaker 5: these kidnappers, but from the keeper specifically. So what do
Speaker 5: police where do police look? Naturally?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well apparently they apparently they knew about the company
Speaker 4: pension plan and the company profit shearing plan. The company
Speaker 4: at the time was not a big company, but it
Speaker 4: didn't have any debt, didn't have any bank loans, and
Speaker 4: it did have a a for a company that size,
Speaker 4: for a very good employee pension and profit shearing plan.
Speaker 4: They had knowledge of those plans. So the first thing
Speaker 4: they did was interview anybody currently working for the company
Speaker 4: and anybody that had worked for the company. There were hundreds.
Speaker 4: The company I think at that time had about two
Speaker 4: hundred people, and I think they from my recollection, they
Speaker 4: interviewed four or five hundre going back ten years, anybody
Speaker 4: that ever worked for the company or had a close
Speaker 4: affiliation with the company. And they tracked these people down
Speaker 4: and interviewed them. And actually one individual that had worked
Speaker 4: for the company for fifteen years in our engineering department,
Speaker 4: had worked for us for fifteen years, had left the
Speaker 4: company and had gone to work it went on his
Speaker 4: own into some kind of a business. He didn't. He
Speaker 4: didn't make it in that business, and he ended up
Speaker 4: working for a similar competitor. I was a similar company
Speaker 4: located in New York also, and they went they called
Speaker 4: them and interviewed him the plea. And the way they
Speaker 4: did it was when an FBI agent went County police
Speaker 4: went out as a team. They went interviewed him the
Speaker 4: first time, and they just didn't like all of his answers,
Speaker 4: and they called them up and they said his name
Speaker 4: was Charlie, Charles Berkeley, and they said, Charlie, we'd like
Speaker 4: to come interview you again with some unanswered questions. So
Speaker 4: they went back a second time, interviewed him a second time,
Speaker 4: and they analyzed all his questions and his answers, and
Speaker 4: they called him again and said, Charlie, you know we
Speaker 4: need to talk to you again. Do you mind, And
Speaker 4: they set up an appointment with him, and he never
Speaker 4: showed up, and he disappeared and left his family four children,
Speaker 4: and they lived in co Op City, wife and four children,
Speaker 4: and disappeared for I believe it was at least two years. Yeah.
Speaker 5: The FBI also released a composite of the person that
Speaker 5: picked up the ransom with the fedora On. How useful
Speaker 5: was that or helpful was that?
Speaker 4: Well, he was the one that picked up the ransom
Speaker 4: with the fedora On was apparently the same the keeper
Speaker 4: that was the only one that really spoke to me
Speaker 4: and the only one that I had contact much content
Speaker 4: I had most ninety eight percent of the contact with
Speaker 4: He was the one that was eventually caught, tried and
Speaker 4: ended up getting twenty five years to life. Richard Warren
Speaker 4: Williams was his name, and he was a childhood friend
Speaker 4: of Charles Berkeley, the one that worked for me that
Speaker 4: took off. They went to school together, elementary school together.
Speaker 4: They even went to they were both in the in Korea.
Speaker 4: By the way, Charlie Charles Berkeley was a paratrooper during
Speaker 4: the Korean War and they and they went into the
Speaker 4: army together. These were very close friends. And they were
Speaker 4: both extremely intelligent, very well educated, very well spoken, and
Speaker 4: that was the connection. They were childhood friends.
Speaker 5: You write about some of William's background after he left
Speaker 5: your company. They had a checkered past in terms of
Speaker 5: a success. Tell us a little bit about how his
Speaker 5: life evolved after leaving the company.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, Berkeley was the one that left the company.
Speaker 4: Williams actually never worked and didn't work for the company,
Speaker 4: but he did have a very checked past at the
Speaker 4: He ultimately was a very very successful real estate broker
Speaker 4: in California, had his own brokerage company, had people working
Speaker 4: for him. He then became a pilot and he went
Speaker 4: to one of the one of the West African countries
Speaker 4: and ran a charter service. He was a pilot and
Speaker 4: ran a charter service. He actually taught college for a
Speaker 4: while out in California. Although he wasn't a full college graduate,
Speaker 4: he was able to. He got a job teaching teaching
Speaker 4: higher education. So he had he was very very intelligent,
Speaker 4: had many many jobs and by the way, the him
Speaker 4: being a pilot and owning a plane one time was
Speaker 4: actually the one piece that did him in that they
Speaker 4: were able to try to start tracking him down through that,
Speaker 4: and they did even although he lived in New York,
Speaker 4: he was living in California, and he was ultimately caught
Speaker 4: in California and brought back to New York for trial
Speaker 4: and sentencing.
Speaker 5: When you talked about his background too, he ended up
Speaker 5: at a real estate company and he was doing really well,
Speaker 5: and part of the information that they had is that
Speaker 5: he began putting black militancy posters around the office, and
Speaker 5: it turned off customers and the staff itself, and he
Speaker 5: was even told but very much like when he was
Speaker 5: in captivity, he said to that person, I will do
Speaker 5: as I please. I am the boss, and you've got
Speaker 5: a lot of that when you were in captivity. A
Speaker 5: lot of that same sentiment that I am the boss,
Speaker 5: you won't tell me, and that kind of attitude was
Speaker 5: the information that they got that sent his career into
Speaker 5: a downspin earlier on.
Speaker 4: You're correct, the exact rhetoric that he professed while he
Speaker 4: was apparently a successful businessman broker was the identical rhetoric
Speaker 4: that he preached to me. Totally radicalized, totally power the
Speaker 4: haves and the have nots Anti Semitism came through, came
Speaker 4: through very very strong, and he was a smart guy
Speaker 4: that took the wrong road.
Speaker 5: You talk about this incredible trial and how expensive, how
Speaker 5: the media treated this as well, how important this story
Speaker 5: became in the area and nationally and internationally as well.
Speaker 5: The trial itself, he went through a couple of lawyers.
Speaker 5: At first he said he wanted to defend himself. Then
Speaker 5: he settled on an attorney named Cain and Caine, if
Speaker 5: you could describe it as a vigorous defense to say,
Speaker 5: the least motions as many motions as possible. Delays and
Speaker 5: combative nature in court was characterized by his behavior in court.
Speaker 5: Talked about lengthy pre trial proceedings and then jury selection,
Speaker 5: and then finally, almost three years later, there becomes there
Speaker 5: is the trial, and you are to testify at that trial.
Speaker 5: Tell us about just a little bit about the trial
Speaker 5: itself and the hoopla surrounding it.
Speaker 4: You know, the trial, you're correct. He went through several
Speaker 4: attorneys until he settled on this Donald Cain, who was
Speaker 4: known as a very very aggressive lawyer. It was a
Speaker 4: seventeen week trial, a lot of pre trial hearings and
Speaker 4: forty five witnesses. It was the longest trial in Nassau County.
Speaker 4: It was in state court. By the way, this was
Speaker 4: not federal court. And the reason it wasn't in federal
Speaker 4: court was that it didn't go across straight lines. It
Speaker 4: stayed in New York State. So New York State tried
Speaker 4: the case. The the It was very very contentious. Now
Speaker 4: me as the victim, I was only allowed in the
Speaker 4: courtroom when I testified and out of those seventeen weeks,
Speaker 4: I only was brought brought into testify I believe three
Speaker 4: or four occasions. And I was questioned by this Donald Caine,
Speaker 4: questioned by the prosecuting attorney, and cross examined by Caine.
Speaker 4: It was not a very pleasant experience, to say the least.
Speaker 4: The it was. It was nerve wracking to having to
Speaker 4: face him at that time, sitting sitting in the courtroom.
Speaker 4: But the trial lasted all this time because of the
Speaker 4: contemptuousness of both Williams, who carried on a lot himself,
Speaker 4: he was a jailhouse lawyer himself, and and Kane. And
Speaker 4: it's amazing that the judge, the judge lived, you know,
Speaker 4: accepted a lot of it. There were things he much
Speaker 4: that he wouldn't accept, but he accepted a lot more
Speaker 4: than I thought, uh he would have or should have accepted.
Speaker 4: But the judge was very cool headed. The witnesses were
Speaker 4: were great. They brought witnesses in from California, They brought
Speaker 4: brought witnesses and for all over the place. And how
Speaker 4: can you, how can you dispute when you when you
Speaker 4: have ten thousand dollars in a money belt on your
Speaker 4: on your person, which Williams had when he was caught
Speaker 4: of the serial numbers of the money that was part
Speaker 4: of the ransom money. How could you get out of that?
Speaker 5: So there there was all kinds of solid evidence that
Speaker 5: Cain argued about. He argued for or asked for a
Speaker 5: mistrail two hundred and fifty times. So I don't know
Speaker 5: if that's a record, but that is an incredible amount
Speaker 5: of times to be asking for a mistrial. And in fact,
Speaker 5: you were the last witness of mister Caine, Attorney Kane
Speaker 5: in this hearings, weren't you?
Speaker 4: I believe so? But that was there. I was up
Speaker 4: at least three times, you know, and my wife too.
Speaker 4: My wife of course was a witness also, but once
Speaker 4: and then they called me back a second time, and
Speaker 4: then they called me back a third time. And those
Speaker 4: were the only times I mentioned I was even allowed
Speaker 4: in the court room. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Now, the result of this trial, after this incredible amount
Speaker 5: of time and all the histronics that Attorney Kane exhibited
Speaker 5: at this trial, what was the verdict?
Speaker 4: The verdict kidnapping, extortion, guilty guilty verdicts and a twenty
Speaker 4: five to life sentence. Now, a twenty five to life
Speaker 4: sentence in New York State means you don't get out
Speaker 4: in twenty five years. It means you first can apply
Speaker 4: for parole, and normally you're not. You're never allowed out
Speaker 4: in twenty five years. It could go twenty eight, thirty,
Speaker 4: thirty five years, but in New York State twenty you
Speaker 4: got a twenty five years to life.
Speaker 5: The verdict twenty five years to life. How much did
Speaker 5: this settle you and your family? How much did this
Speaker 5: put things to rest? How much did this heal this
Speaker 5: what you'd realize later as PTSD? How much did this
Speaker 5: do to settle your entire family after this verdict and
Speaker 5: this lengthy ordeal of a trial.
Speaker 4: Dan, that's a very good question, you know, not much,
Speaker 4: because we knew there were at least three others out there.
Speaker 4: They got the main guy, but there's no question there
Speaker 4: were three others that that they that they didn't get,
Speaker 4: and not because they didn't try. Very odd So it
Speaker 4: was it was a little a little bit of solace,
Speaker 4: but not really a whole lot, to be honest.
Speaker 5: You talk about in April, in April nineteen eighty, a
Speaker 5: couple of years after this July twelfth sentencing nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 5: Charles Berkeley turns himself in and he's been missing since
Speaker 5: nineteen seventy six. What happens with this effort to try
Speaker 5: to bring him to justice?
Speaker 4: Very good question, and I'm I it was four years
Speaker 4: now that you mentioned that. I said two years before
Speaker 4: a mistake. He took off f from four He t
Speaker 4: actually took off for four years. Why his b while
Speaker 4: his buddy went to prison for twenty five years to life.
Speaker 4: What happened was, as the story goes, he went to
Speaker 4: a reporter. He missed his family, and he said, I
Speaker 4: and and the ah. He went to a reporter he said,
Speaker 4: look I I I'm gonna turn myself in. I missed
Speaker 4: my family. And he did turn himself in, and they
Speaker 4: reporter walked him into h E the FBI or police headquarters,
Speaker 4: and they he was already indicted. So he was uh
Speaker 4: F the for the for the same crime that Williams was.
Speaker 4: So the district attorney that handled the case called him in.
Speaker 4: I guess he was out on bail called him in
Speaker 4: and said, look, Charlie, we are we are prepared to
Speaker 4: offer you full immunity if you tell us you're you
Speaker 4: came back, you missed your family, You're going to go
Speaker 4: through a trial like like like your friend Williams went through.
Speaker 4: We're going to offer you full immunally if you tell
Speaker 4: us everything, everything from the beginning. What did Berkeley do?
Speaker 4: He's sitting in in uh in the district attorney's office.
Speaker 4: He gets up, he said, I don't know what you're
Speaker 4: talking about, and he walked out. This is the arrogance
Speaker 4: of these individuals. And by the way, Williams was also
Speaker 4: offered during the course of a lenient leniency and all
Speaker 4: of that, if he would tell the whole story, same thing,
Speaker 4: he wouldn't wouldn't say a word. Now having said that
Speaker 4: with Berkeley, and he was ready to, he was indicted
Speaker 4: for the same similar crime, you know, indictment that Williams said,
Speaker 4: and he hired a lawyer and the it was over.
Speaker 4: The indictment was overturned. It was overturned, and he walked
Speaker 4: out of Freeman.
Speaker 5: Yes, nineteen ninety six. It was based on It was
Speaker 5: based on back again on that the judge did an
Speaker 5: admirable job, but Kane was again effective and aggressive attorney
Speaker 5: like you say. And then they went back in the
Speaker 5: appeal and said that there was a contentious issue over
Speaker 5: eliminating three black jurors, or or the DA was asked
Speaker 5: to prove that they didn't racially profile three black jurors
Speaker 5: when was a jury selection.
Speaker 4: Well, this was that was talking about Williams. Yeah. What
Speaker 4: happened was this was a federal This was a federal law,
Speaker 4: and the law, the law originally was that any prosecuting
Speaker 4: attorney or any defense attorney when selecting a jury, they
Speaker 4: were allowed X number of preemptory challenges. In other words,
Speaker 4: if a juror, they brought a jura up there and
Speaker 4: the either the prosecuting attorney or the or the defense
Speaker 4: attorney didn't like that jura for any reason whatsoever, black,
Speaker 4: he had purple hair, he had whatever, and they said, look,
Speaker 4: we don't want them. You didn't have to give a reason,
Speaker 4: and you could knock the jura out. They got each
Speaker 4: side got X number federal law. The federal government changed
Speaker 4: the law in the nineties where it where it said
Speaker 4: if you want to challenge, if you want to knock
Speaker 4: out a juror, you had to have number one a
Speaker 4: very good valid reason. You had to tell the reason
Speaker 4: to the judge, and the judge ruled on whether it
Speaker 4: was a valid reason or not so, and it was retroactive.
Speaker 4: And retroactive mean that that that prisoners not only Richard
Speaker 4: Richard Williams, there were dozens, many, many others that were
Speaker 4: entitled to a new trial because of the law. And
Speaker 4: the were black jurors that were knocked out of the
Speaker 4: jury pool. And the district attorney that as much many
Speaker 4: notes twenty one years later that he that he salvaged
Speaker 4: and they accepted most of what he said that apparently
Speaker 4: there was one one juror that his notes were not
Speaker 4: that clear on and why he was knocked out, and
Speaker 4: that led to the reversal of the trial, of the
Speaker 4: indict of the sentence.
Speaker 5: Interesting in practical terms, you talk about filing a civil
Speaker 5: suit against Williams, and you also talk about that he
Speaker 5: was a great You talked about he was very bright,
Speaker 5: and you noticed that right away that he became an
Speaker 5: effective jailhouse lawyer while he was in there filing lawsuits
Speaker 5: against the prisons that he was in for certain things.
Speaker 5: But let's talk about the civil suit against Williams. What
Speaker 5: did you believe that you could gain from it and
Speaker 5: what did you gain from it?
Speaker 4: Well, the civil suit I was brought in federal court,
Speaker 4: not state court, and we sued him in civilly for
Speaker 4: recovery of the seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I
Speaker 4: brought him into By this time I was I was
Speaker 4: seething mad. I brought him into civil court on at
Speaker 4: least three occasions for depositions. The depositions were two hour
Speaker 4: depositions at least maybe longer. I ultimately got a civil
Speaker 4: award in civil court for the seven hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: thousand dollars plus interest for all those years. So the
Speaker 4: award ended up to two point two million dollars or
Speaker 4: some number similar to that. And I went knowing Williams
Speaker 4: and the authorities always felt that Williams got the bulk
Speaker 4: of the money number one, and that with his real
Speaker 4: estate successful real estate background, that he invested the money.
Speaker 4: And so we tried to search as much as we can,
Speaker 4: and I spent money trying to find to search records,
Speaker 4: and we ultimately we couldn't find anything. Now that doesn't
Speaker 4: mean it's not out there. It means that he was
Speaker 4: smart enough. He had a brother living in the Virgin Islands,
Speaker 4: he had a couple of he had four children, he
Speaker 4: had wives. I mean, who knows where the where the
Speaker 4: money was invested, under whose name, and where it is.
Speaker 4: We just couldn't find it and the authorities. The authorities
Speaker 4: believe it's out there, and that's one of the reasons
Speaker 4: I offered in the book. I offered a reward for
Speaker 4: information the return of some of the money, plus or
Speaker 4: information on the kidnappers that were not brought to justice.
Speaker 4: I offered the fifty thousand dollars reward in the book,
Speaker 4: and not only that, if any of the money is collected,
Speaker 4: I'm not even keeping it. I'm donating it to the
Speaker 4: Federal Law Enforcement Foundation, which is a very fine organization
Speaker 4: taking care of federal and local police and time of need.
Speaker 4: I think they did a superb job. They were compassionate,
Speaker 4: they were smart, they were tenacious, and they did what
Speaker 4: they could. And I hold no re or regrets to them.
Speaker 4: But it's out there. We strongly feel it's out there.
Speaker 4: We just have that. I still have this judgment, an
Speaker 4: act of judgment.
Speaker 5: You talk about that it looks like my calculations about
Speaker 5: thirty eight thousand dollars was recovered from the house and
Speaker 5: then the wheelwells of the vehicle. I could be wrong
Speaker 5: on that, but there's certainly a lot of money that
Speaker 5: left unfound. You got to talk at the civil trial,
Speaker 5: You got to say something at the civil trial to Williams.
Speaker 5: What was the gist of what you had to say
Speaker 5: and how did it feel to get that off your chest?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, yeah, I got to say what they call it,
Speaker 4: I guess a victim's impact statement. And I got up
Speaker 4: and I wrote this thing out myself and I said, well,
Speaker 4: now I'm gonna just let it, let him have it.
Speaker 4: And basically what I said was, you terrorized my family.
Speaker 4: You terrorized me for those days. You you and I
Speaker 4: am going to go after you, you every member of
Speaker 4: your family, your children, your wives, and we're going to
Speaker 4: find that money and we're gonna and Williams, if you die,
Speaker 4: I'm going to go after your estate and we're gonna
Speaker 4: find it and we're gonna get it. You're not gonna
Speaker 4: get away with this. So basically that's what I told him,
Speaker 4: And I mean, obviously it was a lot longer than that,
Speaker 4: but that was the gist was I got my payback
Speaker 4: and there's nothing that he can do now to me.
Speaker 4: And he terrorized myself and my family enough, and if
Speaker 4: the money's out there, we will find it. And by
Speaker 4: the way, the reason, the reason we decided to offer
Speaker 4: the reward now and it's in the book. We offered
Speaker 4: a reward in the book early on for information leading
Speaker 4: to we didn't know it was Williams and Lo and
Speaker 4: behold who noted the police that they think they have
Speaker 4: some information Williams's brother, Rudy Williams. Rudy Williams comes notifies
Speaker 4: the police that he has some information that the police
Speaker 4: may be interested in. And he was this Rudy Williams
Speaker 4: was a thief in his own right, and he did
Speaker 4: meet with the police a few times. He did give
Speaker 4: them some information, not a whole lot, but enough that
Speaker 4: it probably helped. And then he came after the reward money.
Speaker 4: So this is his own brother the what was I
Speaker 4: going to say? And Lo and behold, Rudy Williams and
Speaker 4: his fourteen year old son shortly after were shot executions
Speaker 4: in the basement of their house, also in Westchester County.
Speaker 4: So that's what happened to Rudy Williams, and the crime
Speaker 4: has never never really been solved, one hundred percent solved.
Speaker 4: He was into gambling and it could very well have
Speaker 4: been part of his thievery over the years, not connected
Speaker 4: to the k kidnapping, but anyway, he was killed.
Speaker 5: Yeah, incredible. So in this book you write quite a
Speaker 5: bit about and we didn't really get into it because
Speaker 5: it would be much much longer interview, but about your
Speaker 5: horror in your one week's stay in captivity, not knowing
Speaker 5: whether they were going to kill you, because at first
Speaker 5: they said they were going to just rob you and
Speaker 5: let you go, and then you finally said, well, why
Speaker 5: didn't you just rob me in the driveway. So you
Speaker 5: had your suspicions and for good reason that you thought
Speaker 5: they're just gonna kill me. They're gonna kill me. You
Speaker 5: talk about in this book throughout how you survived, how
Speaker 5: your family survived, and you give credit to those people.
Speaker 5: Tell us, as you write in the book, who you
Speaker 5: give great credit to in this for your survival and
Speaker 5: how things turned out favorably.
Speaker 4: Well, firstly, my wife, I mean she had the with
Speaker 4: two little children to raise. She she was incredible, strong woman,
Speaker 4: thirty year old. I mean she was a kid. She was,
Speaker 4: I mean, we were all young. She was incredible. The
Speaker 4: the the I think I think the the police were incredible.
Speaker 4: They helped my family together. My brother was incredible by
Speaker 4: the way, he was the original target. We didn't get
Speaker 4: to talk to that. But they tried to get him
Speaker 4: twice on two separate occasions, not knowing what the kid
Speaker 4: not knowing that it was a prelude to a kidnapping,
Speaker 4: but two separate about three months, three four months before
Speaker 4: they got me, they tried to get him and both
Speaker 4: of them were both instances were foiled. He he suspected
Speaker 4: something he didn't know was a kidnapping. He suspected they
Speaker 4: tried to lure him to on two different occasions, to
Speaker 4: lure him to to once to come to the Westchester
Speaker 4: County Airport and once to go back to our factory
Speaker 4: in Brooklyn on a Sunday night the rain, and he
Speaker 4: he just thought there was something didn't sit right, the
Speaker 4: story that just didn't the lower story just didn't sit
Speaker 4: right with him, and he didn't fall for it, luckily,
Speaker 4: And about three months after that they came after me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and in retrospect he realized what that was, but
Speaker 5: not until the kidnapping and afterwards and then realized, yeah, you.
Speaker 4: Know, at the airport, they tried to lure him at
Speaker 4: the airport. See, he suspected something was wrong. It was
Speaker 4: a small private airport, and he brought his wife, my
Speaker 4: son who was sleeping in his house for the weekend,
Speaker 4: and they had a big dog. And instead of going alone,
Speaker 4: he went, you know, all four of them went together
Speaker 4: and they must have gotten scared the kidnappers and said, look,
Speaker 4: we what are we going to do? You know we
Speaker 4: have and and they took you know, they must have
Speaker 4: taken off and there was nobody there. Obviously. That was
Speaker 4: one time and he realized didn't know it was a kidnapping.
Speaker 4: He said, this whole thing smells bid. I don't know
Speaker 4: what it is, but it just doesn't sit right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you had your own suspicions that night in November
Speaker 5: nineteen seventy four when you thought it was unusual for
Speaker 5: somebody to be following you as well, and then when
Speaker 5: they engaged in conversation and again you had that split moment.
Speaker 5: Am I going to run? But you decided not because
Speaker 5: it might endanger your family. You in this book Operation
Speaker 5: jack Nap capture every excruciating moment that you are in captivity,
Speaker 5: held in the dark, a bucket to relieve yourself, and
Speaker 5: just horrible, horrible conditions that you endured, not knowing what
Speaker 5: would happen to you, what would you be your fate?
Speaker 5: And meanwhile, your brave wife and your two sons didn't
Speaker 5: know either. So it's an incredible tale as you segue
Speaker 5: back and forth between your captivity and a captivity of
Speaker 5: sorts with your family, with FBI and police handlers in
Speaker 5: the home. I want to thank you very much, Jack
Speaker 5: Tesh for coming on and talking about Operation jack Knapp,
Speaker 5: A true story of kidnapping, extortion, ransom and rescue. Thank
Speaker 5: you very much. I know this book is available on
Speaker 5: Amazon everywhere. I urge people am.
Speaker 4: All of the booksellers. It came out June second, so
Speaker 4: actually this month, yes doing doing very well and and
Speaker 4: the reward is very clearly listed in the book.
Speaker 5: Yes, that's Wally, Yes still out there. The money is
Speaker 5: out there, and the reward for any information for that
Speaker 5: money its return is there. Thank you very much, Jack Tesh.
Speaker 5: It's been a delight Operation Jacknap, A true story of
Speaker 5: the kidnapping, extortion, ransom and rescue. Thank you very much,
Speaker 5: Jack Tesh. Good night, good night,