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Speaker 6: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 6: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 6: written about them. Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every
Speaker 6: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 6: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 6: host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 5: Evening. A legend in the biker community, Peter Big Pete
Speaker 5: James was the most revered gangster in the Outlaw Nation.
Speaker 5: He first perfected his skills with the Hell's Angels, the
Speaker 5: Outlaw's chief rival, before persuading thousands of disgruntled members from
Speaker 5: splintered Outlaws chapters to unite. Together. They formed a powerful
Speaker 5: criminal syndicate involved in extortion, contract murders, drugs and arms, trafficking,
Speaker 5: money laundering, and assassinations. Then a shocking medical diagnosis knocked
Speaker 5: James sideways, forcing him to face a new life on
Speaker 5: the outside of the organization he built, dodging snitches, federal
Speaker 5: law enforcement, and contract hits. In the Last Chicago Boss,
Speaker 5: James provides a startling and unprecedented expose into the inner
Speaker 5: workings of the Outlaw Nation from the unique perspective of
Speaker 5: its renowned leader, all brought to life through never before
Speaker 5: revealed interviews, police files, wire taps, recordings, and trial transcripts.
Speaker 5: Bookd featuring this evening is The Last Chicago Boss. My
Speaker 5: Life with the Chicago Outlaws was my special guest journalist,
Speaker 5: author and attorney Carrie Drobin. Welcome to the program, and
Speaker 5: thank you very much for agreeing to this interview. Carrie Drobin, thank.
Speaker 4: You so much for having me my pleasure.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much. Wonderful book again, incredible information, just
Speaker 5: when you think you've read it all. Tell us a
Speaker 5: little bit how you came to and please explain your background.
Speaker 5: I know that you're the co author of Vegos, Mongols
Speaker 5: and Outlaws, and Prodigal Father, Pagan's Son, and Running with
Speaker 5: the Devil you Want, a Best memoir autobiography, and a
Speaker 5: two time winner for True Crime Award for the True
Speaker 5: Crime Award. Tell us a little bit about your background,
Speaker 5: some of the books you've written, and why you say
Speaker 5: very early in the book that this is almost perhaps
Speaker 5: the culmination of your life's work. Tell us a little
Speaker 5: bit about what this book means to you and how
Speaker 5: you came to want to write this book. Tell us
Speaker 5: a little bit about that background.
Speaker 4: Okay, sure, well, I kind of fell into writing about
Speaker 4: motorcycle gangs. It was not something that I ever in
Speaker 4: a million years thought that I would pursue or write about.
Speaker 4: I started out as a novelist and I had written
Speaker 4: to fiction books before I was approached by the undercover
Speaker 4: operative who was working for the ATF in Operation Black Biscuit,
Speaker 4: and that was the subject of my first book, Running
Speaker 4: with a Double It later became a landmark criminal investigation.
Speaker 4: It was the first ever infiltration of the Hell's Angels
Speaker 4: by law enforcement. And it was a book or a
Speaker 4: project that I turned down three times. I had no experience,
Speaker 4: I had no agent, I had never written true crime before.
Speaker 4: I had no background even in journalism. As I said,
Speaker 4: I was a novelist and a lawyer. So I didn't
Speaker 4: really have a concept of how big a deal this
Speaker 4: original book was and how tremendous a project it was
Speaker 4: going to be, and so I approached it sort of
Speaker 4: as ignorance as Bliss at the time, and I began
Speaker 4: just sort of I hit the ground running, and I
Speaker 4: started doing interviews with the operatives involved, and ironically I
Speaker 4: realized halfway through that even though I had turned down
Speaker 4: this project, I really was probably exactly the right person
Speaker 4: to write that book. And I was primed for writing
Speaker 4: other outlaw motorcycle books because I grew up living in
Speaker 4: an undercover world. My parents both were covert, and so
Speaker 4: I was already living an undercover life, and at the
Speaker 4: time I was married to a detective homicide detective who
Speaker 4: worked largely undercover, and so my whole life at the
Speaker 4: time was very much living a double life. So I
Speaker 4: could relate very well to the operatives in Operation Black Biscuit,
Speaker 4: and so I was actually, I mean, that book sort
Speaker 4: of set that the framework for my later work. And
Speaker 4: so when I finished Running with the Devil and the
Speaker 4: odyssey that that created, I had somebody say to me,
Speaker 4: you know, don't be surprised if you get approached by
Speaker 4: someone from a rival gang who wants you to write
Speaker 4: their story from the inside. And at the time I
Speaker 4: thought that was hilarious, and in fact, that is exactly
Speaker 4: what happened. And I was approached by Anthony Mangini, who
Speaker 4: is lt in the book Prodigal Father Pagan's son, and
Speaker 4: he was born into what he called it he describes
Speaker 4: as born into madness, and so he was born into
Speaker 4: the organized crime family where his father was the founder
Speaker 4: of the Pagans motorcycle gang, and they are one of
Speaker 4: the chief rivals. They're one of the Big five. And
Speaker 4: so he asked me to write his story, and then
Speaker 4: I wrote enough. After that book came out, Charles Falco,
Speaker 4: who is the subject of Vogo's Mongols and Outlaws, read
Speaker 4: Running with the Devil and came to me and asked
Speaker 4: me to write his story. So they sort of really
Speaker 4: sort of piggybacked on each other. And Big Pete, ironically enough,
Speaker 4: his clubhouse, his North Side clubhouse, was prominently featured in
Speaker 4: Vogo's Mongols and Outlaws, and Charles Falco, who was an infiltrator,
Speaker 4: had actually been in attended parties at Big Pete's clubhouse.
Speaker 4: So when Peter James aka Big Pete read Voggo's Mongols
Speaker 4: and Outlaws, he identified that and he called me up
Speaker 4: and he said, you know, I have a story. I am.
Speaker 4: I was the boss of the Chicago Outlaws, and I'd
Speaker 4: like you to write my story. So everything sort of,
Speaker 4: you know, piggybacked from Running with the Devil, and I
Speaker 4: developed a niche and an expertise in this area, and
Speaker 4: that's how I came to write these books. And so
Speaker 4: to answer your question, how is this the culmination of
Speaker 4: my life's work, Well, Big Pete's book, in his story,
Speaker 4: it took about two years to interview him, research it,
Speaker 4: and write the book, and it took a lot out
Speaker 4: of me, and I realized, you know, in working with
Speaker 4: Peter James, he was a phenomenal character, just a master storyteller,
Speaker 4: very funny person. And through the course of my interviews
Speaker 4: with him, I learned not only so much about the
Speaker 4: Chicago outlaws, the gang lifestyle, motorcycle gangs, one percenter gangs,
Speaker 4: but I also learned an awful lot about myself, and
Speaker 4: you know what compelled me to write in this kind
Speaker 4: of underworld that I was very familiar with. So it
Speaker 4: was a really fascinating.
Speaker 5: Journey, certainly.
Speaker 6: Certainly.
Speaker 5: Now you start off by talking about Big Pete, and
Speaker 5: he grew up with a couple siblings in a small
Speaker 5: town outside on the outskirts with a sky. So tell
Speaker 5: us a little bit about his early life and his
Speaker 5: early influences.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So what's particularly extraordinary about Big p is that
Speaker 4: he knew from probably the age of seven, maybe even
Speaker 4: before that, that he wanted to be the boss of Chicago.
Speaker 4: Not necessarily the boss of the Chicago Outlaws, but the
Speaker 4: boss of the city of Chicago. And this is a
Speaker 4: pretty extraordinary statement for somebody that grew up in a suburb.
Speaker 4: He grew up in a pretty modest family, didn't have
Speaker 4: a lot of money. He was the first of his
Speaker 4: siblings who attended college. He joined fraternity, he played football,
Speaker 4: He had aspirations that once upon a time, to be
Speaker 4: in politics. He was a very smart, kind of cutting person.
Speaker 4: But what really influenced him was he had read The
Speaker 4: Godfather from a very early age. The Godfather was like
Speaker 4: his Bible, and he had read it at least seven
Speaker 4: times before he was twenty one, and he had highlighted
Speaker 4: various passages and could quote from it. And that was
Speaker 4: really a huge influence for him. He also was very
Speaker 4: influenced by his uncle, who went to Marquette, and he
Speaker 4: was a very well educated man. He was a businessman originally,
Speaker 4: and he went to school to become a CPA. But
Speaker 4: what happened with his uncle was his uncle sort of
Speaker 4: introduced him to the glamorous lifestyle of Chicago. He would
Speaker 4: show up periodically and take him into the city, and
Speaker 4: Pete just fell in love with Chicago. In fact, in
Speaker 4: the book, I kind of equate Chicago, who is almost
Speaker 4: a metaphorical mistress for him. It was somewhat of a
Speaker 4: just a magical, fantastical place, and his uncle really personified
Speaker 4: that for him and showed him that this was the
Speaker 4: life he could have. So his uncle eventually winds up
Speaker 4: finding him his life in the course races, and so
Speaker 4: he kind of qua I introduces him to that underworld,
Speaker 4: and Pete is measmerized by it, So he's influenced by that.
Speaker 4: He's also influenced that. One of the really interesting things
Speaker 4: I found in this book is here's this family who's
Speaker 4: very very close to They play board games as as children,
Speaker 4: and that's that's their form of or their major form
Speaker 4: of entertainment. So they played Risk and the Chinese game Go,
Speaker 4: they played Monopoly, and so through the board games and
Speaker 4: this is really how I framed his memoir, he learned
Speaker 4: how to, you know, use pawns to move across the
Speaker 4: board and put people in checkmate. He learned how to
Speaker 4: take over territories by playing the game Risk. He learned
Speaker 4: about properties and boundaries from playing Monopoly, and so these
Speaker 4: were all huge influences in his life and really sort
Speaker 4: of led him every He says in the book that
Speaker 4: everything he did in his life led him one step
Speaker 4: closer to his goal of becoming boss, and he saw
Speaker 4: the Outlaws as a vehicle to become the Boss. So
Speaker 4: it wasn't necessarily that he wanted to join a biker gang,
Speaker 4: because as his story progresses, you can see how he's
Speaker 4: become the leader of almost every i want to say,
Speaker 4: prototype of what ultimately he would become. So he becomes
Speaker 4: a frat leader, for example, and he learns how to
Speaker 4: you know, manipulate the frat brothers that he has. He
Speaker 4: becomes an Order of the Moose when he joins the
Speaker 4: you know, the Moose Lodge. So everything that he does,
Speaker 4: even you know, forms his own clubs, he's every every
Speaker 4: step he takes is a step toward becoming that basically,
Speaker 4: the CEO of a criminal organization and become the Boss
Speaker 4: of Chicago.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's very interesting, it's almost comedic, but it isn't.
Speaker 5: In that he goes to this what you would think
Speaker 5: Moose Lodge, a pretty innocent place, and he, as you right,
Speaker 5: he brings in thirty five of his friends and in
Speaker 5: Docne doctrinates him into the Loyal Order of Moose. So
Speaker 5: he gets thirty five votes, and later Pete is the
Speaker 5: governor of the Loyal Order of his Moose. So he
Speaker 5: starts in humble beginnings, but he has the same plan
Speaker 5: always and it's conquer and get what he wants and
Speaker 5: be the boss. You also talk about that he realizes
Speaker 5: that education is a key, and so it's not incongruous
Speaker 5: to be a tough guy but also be educated. And
Speaker 5: also he talks about his love of football, or at
Speaker 5: least his skill in football. So what does his athletic ability,
Speaker 5: at least at that time, and his idea that education
Speaker 5: is important, how does that what does he do with that?
Speaker 4: Well, I think he realizes early on, and I think
Speaker 4: he really he really could have been anything that he
Speaker 4: wanted to be. He could have been a lawyer, he
Speaker 4: could have been he jokes. I don't know that he's joking.
Speaker 4: Actually he's half serious that if he had not been
Speaker 4: the boss of the Chicago Outlaws, he might have been
Speaker 4: a televangelist. Because what he realizes early on is that
Speaker 4: with education, knowledge is power, and he can manipulate you
Speaker 4: know what, he perceives as underlings people that are not
Speaker 4: as smart as he is or not as cunning as
Speaker 4: he is. And so, you know, as he rises in
Speaker 4: the ranks, he finds vehicles aka the Chicago Outlaws, to
Speaker 4: elevate him and to give him some kind of clout
Speaker 4: in the world of the mob, you know, the outfit,
Speaker 4: and in the world of basically being able to corral
Speaker 4: thirty eight other clubs to under his umbrella. So he
Speaker 4: sees education as a way to get power and a
Speaker 4: way to really manipulate. I guess is a better way
Speaker 4: to say it. But he's basically manipulating people that are
Speaker 4: not as smart as he is or as cunning as
Speaker 4: he is. And the whole idea that he plays in
Speaker 4: football is again it's employing the whole metaphor of gamesmanship,
Speaker 4: because he is almost Some people refer to him in
Speaker 4: the book as the gentleman gangster because he's he's very fair,
Speaker 4: he's very smart, but in the end he always gets
Speaker 4: what he wants. And so in football everything is rules,
Speaker 4: and you have rules of engagement, and you play by
Speaker 4: the rules, and each person has their own position in
Speaker 4: the game. And you know, he would argue that it's
Speaker 4: positions of hierarchy, you know, so not you know each
Speaker 4: member of the team. You operate as an ensemble, but
Speaker 4: each team member has their specific do and role. And
Speaker 4: so that's very much akin to what it was like
Speaker 4: to run an outlaw motorcycle organization. There's rules and hierarchies
Speaker 4: and rank and file, and everyone operates as an ensemble, right,
Speaker 4: all for one, one for all, But everybody knows, you
Speaker 4: know where they are in the pecking order, and everyone
Speaker 4: knows the rules of the game.
Speaker 5: You talk about in this about the what adios means
Speaker 5: to outlaw nation. So tell us about the state of
Speaker 5: the rivalry that we talked about in the introduction when
Speaker 5: we talk about the Hell's Angels, tell us what the
Speaker 5: that that time, What did Big Pete? What was the
Speaker 5: reality of the situation between Outlaws and the Hell's Angels
Speaker 5: at that time in Chicago.
Speaker 4: So Adios means angels die in outlaw states.
Speaker 5: And so.
Speaker 4: The war that was going on in the early nineties
Speaker 4: and was sort of trying to be perpetuated in during
Speaker 4: Pete's reign, is that Angels did not have territory in Chicago.
Speaker 4: That was a that was an outlaw nation and so
Speaker 4: the whole war and the whole battle that continues to
Speaker 4: be fought between these outlaw motorcycle gangs is a battle
Speaker 4: for turf. And turf of course, gives you prowess and
Speaker 4: the drug trade and the arms trade, and in all
Speaker 4: of these these other you know, under the radar enterprises.
Speaker 4: So it's very important for the outlaws to maintain that
Speaker 4: control and that territory, and then that's the whole objective
Speaker 4: of the game. So you have when the Outlaws changed
Speaker 4: considerably since the early nineties, and Peete's rerain went from
Speaker 4: the nineties to about twenty fifteen. The core values remained
Speaker 4: the same, but during the early nineties there was a
Speaker 4: movement to defend turf against the Hell's Angels, and so
Speaker 4: Chicago was there was like a warlike frenzy going on.
Speaker 4: It was a hunter prey mentality, and there was even
Speaker 4: the sort of mantra cripple or kill, cripple or kill
Speaker 4: the enemy.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 4: At the time in the nineties, there was this movement
Speaker 4: to convert the Hell's henchmen, who already had a foothold
Speaker 4: in Chicago. They were going to convert them to the
Speaker 4: hell of Angels. So the Outlaws were opposed to the
Speaker 4: Angels establishing a Midwest presence, and so they aggressively protected
Speaker 4: their territory. And in nineteen ninety four, Taco Bowman, who
Speaker 4: was the Outlaws international president and he's now serving life
Speaker 4: in prison, he led the charge when he ordered the
Speaker 4: Outlaw regional boss at that time to bomb the Health Henchmen.
Speaker 4: And so there were a number of fire bombings that
Speaker 4: went on, and it was, you know, the Outlaws had
Speaker 4: a presence in Chicago that you know, they were known
Speaker 4: as the this dangerous, reckless group of you know, Hellians
Speaker 4: that were that were firebombing things just to keep the
Speaker 4: Health Henchmen from encroaching on their territory and obviously the
Speaker 4: healths Angels. So what happened during Pete's reign was very
Speaker 4: interesting because Pete says often in his book that you know,
Speaker 4: if you don't have if you're building an army and
Speaker 4: there isn't a war, then your soldiers are going to
Speaker 4: become lax. And so, you know, what was happening was
Speaker 4: he was having meetings and runs. You know, runs were
Speaker 4: events that were organized by the Outlaws, and there would
Speaker 4: be Outlaws who would either be late to the meetings,
Speaker 4: not show up at all, or ask Pete, you know,
Speaker 4: could we skip this week because I have to take
Speaker 4: my old lady out for a Valentine's Day, you know event.
Speaker 4: So it was almost diluting the presence of the outlaws
Speaker 4: because there wasn't a real war. So what Pete had
Speaker 4: to do, which was cometic and also functional, was he
Speaker 4: had to invent a fake war. So he would corral
Speaker 4: the outlaws on a weekly basis and he would go hunting,
Speaker 4: and he would hunt for Hell's Angels. Hell's Angels that,
Speaker 4: by the way, did not exist in the places that
Speaker 4: he took this group of outlaws too. So he would
Speaker 4: convince the outlaws that he was training that Hell's Angels
Speaker 4: were everywhere they were encroaching in on their territory. They
Speaker 4: had to go to these various bars and scout them out,
Speaker 4: so they would wind up in brawls with mostly Polish
Speaker 4: community had nothing to do with Hell's Angels at all,
Speaker 4: but he had to keep that image going and that
Speaker 4: persona going. And so there are a number of very
Speaker 4: funny scenes I think in Last Chicago Boss that really
Speaker 4: highlight that, including this whole crazy excursion to Sturgis where
Speaker 4: they're surrounded by Hell's Angels. They think they're surrounded by
Speaker 4: Hell's angels and they're going to be bombed at any
Speaker 4: moment or sniped, and it's just not the reality. But
Speaker 4: they have to keep illusion up in order to keep
Speaker 4: the whole goal and objective. The whole reason for the
Speaker 4: Outlaws to exist is to defend their territory. So if
Speaker 4: there isn't anything to defend, then you know, they cease
Speaker 4: to become this dangerous, powerful presence.
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Speaker 5: What is different with Pete's philosophy in terms of rivals
Speaker 5: and in terms of recruiting and in terms of again
Speaker 5: what they call puppet clubs, support clubs. What is his
Speaker 5: philosophy and if it's different than past president's philosophies.
Speaker 4: Well, Pete has a brilliant idea actually that his philosophy is,
Speaker 4: you know, we want to be inclusive, not exclusive. And
Speaker 4: so traditionally the Outlaws and actually many biker gangs traditionally
Speaker 4: have been exclusive. They've been very you know, they've been
Speaker 4: accused of being white supremacist. They certainly don't allow women
Speaker 4: into their clubs, can't hold positions of power, positions of office.
Speaker 4: And so Pete saw this as a detriment. He believed
Speaker 4: that if you include every club, then you have some
Speaker 4: modicum of control over everyone. So he had women in positions.
Speaker 4: You know, he formed this Confederation of clubs. So women
Speaker 4: were not members of the Outlaws, but they were They
Speaker 4: held positions like secretary in the Confederation of Clubs, which
Speaker 4: was unheard of because Outlaws did not answer to women.
Speaker 4: And so that was one, you know, thing that he
Speaker 4: completely dissected and changed. The other thing he did was
Speaker 4: he corralled a host of African American clubs that were
Speaker 4: under his umbrella. And he had this this real ability to.
Speaker 4: He just had such charisma and charm that he was
Speaker 4: able to get these clubs to follow him and so,
Speaker 4: and that's it's really unprecedented in the biker culture to
Speaker 4: do that. So he had he wanted to dispel that
Speaker 4: myths that they that the Outlaws were a white supremacist organization.
Speaker 4: But mostly the reason he did it was he believed
Speaker 4: that if you didn't you know, clubs were going to
Speaker 4: form anyway. They and he had them approach him almost
Speaker 4: on a weekly basis, thing, you and we want to
Speaker 4: form a club. And so they had to get Pete's
Speaker 4: approval to form a club because Pete was boss. So
Speaker 4: if Pete said no, these clubs would form anyway, they
Speaker 4: would go underground and he would have no control over them.
Speaker 4: And that is in fact what happened to one of
Speaker 4: the clubs that's described in a book, where they become
Speaker 4: rogue clubs, and when they're rogues, then they become a threat.
Speaker 4: So Pete's idea was get them all under his wing
Speaker 4: so he could at least know who the players were,
Speaker 4: know what they were up to, what territories they controlled,
Speaker 4: and he would be able to control them and manipulate
Speaker 4: them as needed. So it was a very smart move
Speaker 4: on his part and it was unprecedented, and I think
Speaker 4: even he would say, you know, the core values of
Speaker 4: the Outlaws were the same throughout, but that was one
Speaker 4: way that he splintered off and was able to really
Speaker 4: gain a foothold and tremendous power in the city of Chicago.
Speaker 5: To maintain that power comes some brutal behavior. And you
Speaker 5: also talk about that where the h Hell's Angels have
Speaker 5: no specific clubhouses, there had been a federal raid, eleven
Speaker 5: outlaw arrests, ninety four prosecutions, which included twelve murders, three assassinations.
Speaker 5: Just describe some of this for people that are getting
Speaker 5: a little bit caught up in the charm and charisma
Speaker 5: of Big Pete. Some of the stuff that just as
Speaker 5: descriptions of some of the murders that you have in
Speaker 5: this book. Some of the stuff was incredible.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, you know, I think that that is a
Speaker 4: common misperception. There's a public and a private persona that
Speaker 4: the Outlaws and in fact most outlour biker gangs will have,
Speaker 4: and that's because they don't you know, they don't want
Speaker 4: the public's opinion is sort of the you know, they
Speaker 4: want to be popular in the public opinion poll, But
Speaker 4: what actually goes on here in order to capture this
Speaker 4: territory and turf. They're not you know, huddling in negotiations
Speaker 4: at a meeting and decide being you know, who's going
Speaker 4: to control what areas. In the nineties, this was particularly prevalent.
Speaker 4: Prevalent under Taco Bowman's rule. They would have just horrific
Speaker 4: murders were it with almost execution style. There would be
Speaker 4: There's one I think described that I describe in the
Speaker 4: book where the body is dragged the body of a
Speaker 4: woman actually is dragged for miles until parts of her
Speaker 4: start to fall off and you know, into the roadway.
Speaker 4: And so there's no there's no end really to the
Speaker 4: brutality or the brutal measures that they will take to
Speaker 4: maintain their turf. I mean everything from fire bombings to
Speaker 4: executions to you know, like like I described the bodies
Speaker 4: being dragged across the roadways. There was a when they
Speaker 4: when the Outlaws go to Sturgis's described in the book.
Speaker 4: They they hear of to somebody being gunned down while
Speaker 4: they're getting an ice cream cone at you know, a
Speaker 4: convenience store. So it was that random and that brutal,
Speaker 4: and so the presence and the fear of you know,
Speaker 4: being sniped or being hunted down was definitely real. And
Speaker 4: there are mentions, you know, there's there's this, I mean,
Speaker 4: it's kind of it's written in a cometic style, but
Speaker 4: really what happens is Pete has you know, he describes
Speaker 4: it as basket number one and basket number two, and
Speaker 4: so basket number one are problems that are handled, and
Speaker 4: they can be handled easily without you know, any hint
Speaker 4: of violence. Basket number two requires more, you know, stronger measures.
Speaker 4: And so the implication with basket number two problem children
Speaker 4: are they need a heavier hand, and so sometimes that
Speaker 4: heavy hand is going to result in beatings. And the beatings,
Speaker 4: you know, I think Pete's phrases, you know, you don't
Speaker 4: have a good brawl or good beating until somebody goes
Speaker 4: to the hospital. And so that's really what happened at
Speaker 4: you know, they Pete would round up his his soldiers
Speaker 4: or his his recruits and they would go to different
Speaker 4: bars in Chicago and they would just start brawls. And
Speaker 4: the bar fights were not what you and I might
Speaker 4: think of as a bar fight. These were bar fights
Speaker 4: where people almost died during the bar fights, you know,
Speaker 4: and so people would go to the hospital there were
Speaker 4: you know, heads were stomped on. I mean, so that
Speaker 4: was really is really part of the culture of the
Speaker 4: biker culture. And so I think it's a it's a
Speaker 4: bit of a misnomer where the public is so enamored
Speaker 4: with the biker culture. I mean, I know, like sounds
Speaker 4: of anarchy, for example, glamorized in some parts the biker
Speaker 4: culture in the same way that maybe the Sopranos did.
Speaker 4: But you know, TV and reality are very different and
Speaker 4: so so so yeah, that's that's really what's going on
Speaker 4: behind the scenes.
Speaker 5: You talk about just in continuance of that idea. That
Speaker 5: was very, very surprising to me is the extent.
Speaker 3: Of that.
Speaker 5: Idea that it's a glamorous lifestyle to the point where
Speaker 5: there's big Pete's talking about all these altercations that with
Speaker 5: police officers and actually bike clubs called Rebel Knights, where
Speaker 5: there's police officers and sergeants and people working in an
Speaker 5: organized crime in these clubs, and so tell us as
Speaker 5: you do, and it's incredible that Pete is negotiating with
Speaker 5: and in associations with police officers that are in motorcycle clubs.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know. This is the very odd thing about this,
Speaker 4: and I've encountered this a lot, and it's it just
Speaker 4: it makes I mean, it makes sense to me. Only
Speaker 4: only from this perspective is that there is a glamour
Speaker 4: associated with being a part of a club. There's a
Speaker 4: huge distinction between club and gang, and I can get
Speaker 4: into that in a minute. But so there are law
Speaker 4: enforcement personnel who will join biker clubs, and the biker
Speaker 4: clubs are very very so they have very similar trappings
Speaker 4: to the outlaw motorcycle gangs that they are actually trying
Speaker 4: to control and cripple. So what happens in Chicago and
Speaker 4: in Big Pete's book is that he befriends a lot
Speaker 4: of the police officers because his mantra is, again, it's
Speaker 4: better to have, you know, cops that are friends rather
Speaker 4: than being friendly to cops. And what he means by
Speaker 4: that is that, you know, he the cops needed the
Speaker 4: outlaws in order to control the crime. Okay, it's a
Speaker 4: very strange symbiotic relationship, but the cops actually welcome them in.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: It's sort of like different kinds of snakes, right, we
Speaker 4: want what is it the king snake, I think that
Speaker 4: eats the rattlesnake or something. I mean, that's that's kind
Speaker 4: of what that relationship was. So the cops needed the
Speaker 4: outlaws in certain areas in order to control the crime.
Speaker 4: The outlaws needed the cops in those areas so that
Speaker 4: they could continue to work in their criminal activities and
Speaker 4: have the cops turned a blind eye. And so this
Speaker 4: was very prevalent, and I describe it in the book,
Speaker 4: particularly with one group of police department and one shift
Speaker 4: it was the night shift, and these police officers were
Speaker 4: they turned a blind eye to the outlaws, but not
Speaker 4: to the point where they shunned them. They actually wanted
Speaker 4: to be a part of them. And so Rebel Knights
Speaker 4: is a motorcycle cops motorcycle group that you know, espouses things,
Speaker 4: you know, we are a club do we just like
Speaker 4: to ride motorcycles. We enjoy motorcycle riding. And that's what
Speaker 4: they have in common with outlaw biker groups. The differences,
Speaker 4: as they would argue, is that one engages in criminal
Speaker 4: activity and the other does not. But the very strange
Speaker 4: thing about that is is it's a fine line because
Speaker 4: if you even go on their websites, you can see
Speaker 4: the similarities. They have a they have bylaws and the constitution,
Speaker 4: they have club dues, club rules, they have a member's
Speaker 4: only roster. They don't allow women, and I think that
Speaker 4: some of the cop clubs now may allow women in,
Speaker 4: but not in positions of power, even down to some
Speaker 4: of the music that is on the different websites. It's
Speaker 4: very interesting and strange. But if you look at outlaw
Speaker 4: biker gangs, they borrow the rank and file and hierarchy
Speaker 4: structure from the military, as do police agencies. So they're
Speaker 4: borrowing from very similar systems, but one is warping it
Speaker 4: and the other is not. And I kind of lead
Speaker 4: that leave that up to their reader's discretion as to
Speaker 4: whether or not that's the case, because there's a very
Speaker 4: fine line. In fact, there's a scene in the book
Speaker 4: I describe where the police officers have several tattoos which
Speaker 4: you know, identify them with their particular police club, and
Speaker 4: they were getting in trouble or reprimanded by their police
Speaker 4: agencies for having these tattoos because it was difficult to
Speaker 4: differentiate the police officers from the gangsters. And so that's
Speaker 4: also very very similar to what happens in biker gangs.
Speaker 4: You know, you'll have the tattoos identifying with them to
Speaker 4: the particular biker gangs. You know, they all have to
Speaker 4: have a certain type of motorcycle, they all have to
Speaker 4: follow a certain rank and file, they all have rules.
Speaker 4: So it's really it's fascinating, and I think Pete's book
Speaker 4: highlights that more than any of my other books, although
Speaker 4: I'm certain it's prevalent in other biker gangs as well.
Speaker 5: You also talk about another fascinating element of this also,
Speaker 5: and then I've read about this before, but not to
Speaker 5: this extent, about the probates. And so Pete talks about
Speaker 5: himself being a probate, and I couldn't believe the stuff
Speaker 5: he had to say. We're talking about who's your daddy
Speaker 5: kind of thing. So if you could and he becomes
Speaker 5: a probationary member of the Outlaws at forty three years old,
Speaker 5: so he's not really young. So tell us about what
Speaker 5: the probates really mean, what that can entail, and if
Speaker 5: you could just give us a little bit of this
Speaker 5: daddy dialogue that I was in the book, so.
Speaker 4: Well, probates are are there are very similar to you know,
Speaker 4: if you're a member of a fraternity. For example, I mean,
Speaker 4: I think the biker gang is really like a criminal fraternity.
Speaker 4: So you've got brothers and their brothers that are sponsored in.
Speaker 4: So probates are the bottom of the rank. And when
Speaker 4: you want to become a member of the Outlaws motorcycle gang,
Speaker 4: you have to start at the bottom and you have
Speaker 4: to probate for it least six months. There's really not
Speaker 4: a minimum requirement. Some will probate for years before they're
Speaker 4: actually sponsored in. So probate will have a sponsor who's
Speaker 4: usually already a member. Well, they have to be a
Speaker 4: member of the Outlaws gang or biker gang. Sometimes there
Speaker 4: in Pete's case, he was sponsored by a regional boss,
Speaker 4: which is not normal, but that's what happened. So when
Speaker 4: you probate, very similar to a fraternity, where you're going
Speaker 4: in as a pledge and you're prospecting for that particular fraternity.
Speaker 4: So Pete was probating for the Outlaws. So you have
Speaker 4: to envision this. So Pete has already been the top
Speaker 4: of every organization that he's formed or been a member of,
Speaker 4: So he was the top of his fraternity. He was
Speaker 4: the governor of the moose. He had his own club
Speaker 4: prior to being an outlaw, which was called the Loyal Order.
Speaker 4: He was the president of the Loyal Order, so he
Speaker 4: was already primed to be an outlaw because that was
Speaker 4: his goal, but he still had to start at the bottom,
Speaker 4: so he was and he has this wonderful scene. So
Speaker 4: Big Pete is big, Okay, he's larger than life and
Speaker 4: he's also a very large man, and so he describes
Speaker 4: it as he was actually protected somewhat because of his size.
Speaker 4: So the other big members took him under his wing
Speaker 4: and sort of you know, pulled him aside and didn't
Speaker 4: have him do a lot of the real grunt work
Speaker 4: that a lot of the probates do. But essentially they
Speaker 4: work as slaves. I mean they have to be at
Speaker 4: the beck and call of any member to do whatever.
Speaker 4: So some for example, will have to stand hours and
Speaker 4: hours in tremendous heat without any water or food or anything,
Speaker 4: and they'll stand for you know, twenty four hours or
Speaker 4: more just because they're supposed to guard motorcycles. But the
Speaker 4: thing that Pete describes is he's they're emasculated. So they're
Speaker 4: not even given a name, they're not identified by names.
Speaker 4: They're identified as probate or if they're asked, you know,
Speaker 4: the thing that you're describing is who's your daddy. So
Speaker 4: he had to basically say, you know, my daddy is
Speaker 4: you know, whoever his sponsor was, and so people couldn't
Speaker 4: believe that he had a regional boss sponsoring him. So
Speaker 4: they didn't believe him when he said, you know, my
Speaker 4: daddy is so and so and so. Then they would
Speaker 4: make fun of him. They'd say, you know, he'd say
Speaker 4: my name is Big Pete and they'd say, well, we're
Speaker 4: going to call you Peter Pan, you know, or p
Speaker 4: d and so they would they would try to emasculate them,
Speaker 4: and that's really similar to hazing. So the whole purpose
Speaker 4: of probating is to break you down so that if
Speaker 4: you can't make it through the probationary period, then you
Speaker 4: can't make it as an outlaw. So, you know, in
Speaker 4: addition to trying to dehydrate people, they will you know,
Speaker 4: make you serve them beer. They'll make you stand behind
Speaker 4: the bar, and sometimes you're in the middle of a
Speaker 4: fight that happens and you get beaten up. There's a
Speaker 4: you know, so there are a number of scenes like
Speaker 4: that where he's he's somewhat protected because he's big and
Speaker 4: he's pulled aside, but he's also subjected to the emasculation
Speaker 4: of you know, these other members, which is very difficult
Speaker 4: for Pete, as you can imagine, because he's used to
Speaker 4: being in a position of power.
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Speaker 5: we were talking about Big Peats and his ascension in
Speaker 5: the Chicago Outlaws. Let's talk about some more serious stuff,
Speaker 5: just to demonstrate, as you do in the book His Power,
Speaker 5: the seriousness of the situation, their ongoing fight with the
Speaker 5: Hell's Angels. When you talk about the Odium swap meet
Speaker 5: in Chicagoland, tell us about what they thought this was,
Speaker 5: how this thing turns into something much worse, and also
Speaker 5: explaining the people that think that they can be neutral
Speaker 5: and not be involved in the fight between Outlaws and
Speaker 5: Hell's Angels.
Speaker 4: Okay, so the Odium swap meet was well. Swap meets
Speaker 4: were a big opportunity for the Outlaws to really not
Speaker 4: only showcase who they were as a show of force
Speaker 4: and a presence in Chicago, but it was also to
Speaker 4: show any potential rival gangs that they were the boss.
Speaker 4: So they had the Odium swap meet was a big deal,
Speaker 4: and it was the sponsor or, the person that was
Speaker 4: organizing the Odeum Swap Meet traditionally always knew that this
Speaker 4: was an outlaw venue, and so you know, they would
Speaker 4: they would be prepared for the Outlaws to appear at
Speaker 4: this venue. And what happened during this particular Odium swap
Speaker 4: meet was the Outlaws were not prepared and so what
Speaker 4: they encountered when they arrived was they had to stand
Speaker 4: in line like the others in order to get into
Speaker 4: the swap meat. And the reason that it turned into
Speaker 4: a disaster was because it was spearheaded by a person
Speaker 4: by the name of Santa, who's identified in the book.
Speaker 4: And he doesn't know he's kind of operating it from
Speaker 4: the framework of a corporate entity instead of you know,
Speaker 4: we're a criminal we're a criminal syndicate. So so he's
Speaker 4: trying to follow the rules as if he was a
Speaker 4: corporate player. So he stands in line and he tells
Speaker 4: big Pe, you know, we have to stand in line,
Speaker 4: we have to check our weapons at the door, you know,
Speaker 4: all this stuff. So he's trying to play by the
Speaker 4: rules of you know, the square world, the quote unquote
Speaker 4: square world, which isn't how it operates inside the Odium Swapmeet.
Speaker 4: So Pete knows the score and he knows what's about
Speaker 4: to happen. And so they arrive a day after everything's
Speaker 4: been set up, So all the booths have already been
Speaker 4: set up in the Odium Swap Meet, and so Pete
Speaker 4: knows that if the booths have already been set up,
Speaker 4: then whoever's setting up those booths aka Hell's Angels could
Speaker 4: stash weapons under you know, the venue or the boots.
Speaker 4: So he's already prepared and he tries to prepare his men,
Speaker 4: you know, the people from his club that this could
Speaker 4: potentially happen, and they don't have anything. They're not armed
Speaker 4: except with pocketknivees. So one of the members of their
Speaker 4: group winds up just creating kind of chaos in the
Speaker 4: swap meet because he's trying to find the weapons. He's
Speaker 4: trying to uncover whatever, you know, ambush they're about to happen,
Speaker 4: And sure enough, they do get ambushed, and one of
Speaker 4: the members get stabbed and so at this and then
Speaker 4: of course they flee because they don't want to be
Speaker 4: there when the police arrive. But what happens at this
Speaker 4: swap meet is Pete encounters a group that is not
Speaker 4: affiliated with any particular turf, so they call it they
Speaker 4: want to be neutral, and there's no such thing in
Speaker 4: Chicago as to be neutral, because you have to align
Speaker 4: yourself with either the Outlaws AKA one of the subsidiary
Speaker 4: groups who is part of the Confederation is also part
Speaker 4: of the Outlaws and under the Outlaws wing, or you're
Speaker 4: just going to be flying solo and if you're flying solo,
Speaker 4: you're you're just open to be attacked and you're not
Speaker 4: going to have any defense. Nobody's going to come to
Speaker 4: your aid. So it's really impossible to be a neutral club.
Speaker 4: And Pete demonstrates this because one of the members, who
Speaker 4: you know this neutral party is, gets stabbed, you know,
Speaker 4: or sees the stabbing, and he comes to Pete after
Speaker 4: the swap meet and he knocks on Pete's door and
Speaker 4: he's just frantic, and he says, you know, okay, okay,
Speaker 4: we don't want to be neutral anymore. Where we want
Speaker 4: to be We want to join the outlaws. And Pete
Speaker 4: slams the doorness space and he says, you know what,
Speaker 4: it's too late. You've already aligned yourself as a neutral party,
Speaker 4: so you're on your own. So it really emphasizes the
Speaker 4: danger of being individual. You can't be individual in this world.
Speaker 4: You have to conform, and you have to conform to
Speaker 4: the criminal syndicate that controls the entire city. So it's
Speaker 4: pretty eye opening because everyone has their their faction. I mean,
Speaker 4: either you're part of the outfit or the mom or
Speaker 4: you're part of the outlaws, or you're part of that
Speaker 4: group of thirty eight clubs that is under the confederation
Speaker 4: under aka the Outlaws.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you just said Pete took his cue from the
Speaker 5: Chicago world with the mafia and who you said who
Speaker 5: sometimes chopped up bodies and disposed of the remains as fertilizer.
Speaker 5: You do talk about or Pete talks about some of
Speaker 5: the things he does to avoid arrest. And he has
Speaker 5: a partner named Bastardo, Yes, probably ample naming of that guy.
Speaker 5: So and also you talk about this l A. M
Speaker 5: A and another cop and also another talk about neutral ground.
Speaker 5: So you could tell us a little bit about Pete
Speaker 5: and his idea and his influence from the outfit.
Speaker 4: Well, Pete is very closely aligned with the outfit. He
Speaker 4: used to do, you know, prior to him becoming the boss,
Speaker 4: the outfit used the Outlaws to do a lot of
Speaker 4: their dirty work. So they used them as their muscle.
Speaker 4: They were kind of soldiers, and so Pete gained entry
Speaker 4: into the outfit, or he gained respect from the outfit
Speaker 4: by doing some of those some of that work, and
Speaker 4: some of that included being sort of the taxman and
Speaker 4: going and collecting debts for the outfit. So he would
Speaker 4: go and drive up to people's houses and take all
Speaker 4: of their property, you know, but he was very polite
Speaker 4: about it. You know, he would say, I'm taking this,
Speaker 4: and you know, he would leave. Sometimes he would leave
Speaker 4: one hundred dollars for you know, the remains, so that
Speaker 4: they wouldn't be completely destitute. So, you know, again gentleman gangster.
Speaker 4: But so he was able to work his way into
Speaker 4: the outfit to at least get some respect from them.
Speaker 4: So he took that cue because you can't again, you
Speaker 4: can't have any rogues in this culture. There can't be
Speaker 4: an independent and there can't be a neutral. So the
Speaker 4: Lama group was again a group of it was the
Speaker 4: forget what it stands for now Latin Motorcycle Association. But
Speaker 4: they didn't want any part of the Outlaws. They didn't
Speaker 4: want to be controlled by them, and they kept showing
Speaker 4: up at this venue that again was predominantly the outlaw venue.
Speaker 4: And so when they showed up the first time, Pete
Speaker 4: warned the president of the Lama group, he said, you know,
Speaker 4: you can't come here again. This is my turf. And
Speaker 4: he told the owner of that venue that they were
Speaker 4: not to have the Lama Group there because this was
Speaker 4: again outlaw turf. So he gave him a past the
Speaker 4: first time. The second time he shows up and a
Speaker 4: Lamas are there again, and this time he says, you know,
Speaker 4: we're going to have a brawl because this is our
Speaker 4: turf and you're not listening to us. And so there
Speaker 4: would be instances where he encountered the LAMA members. You know,
Speaker 4: he didn't have it at that venue out of respect
Speaker 4: for that owner, because that's what the outfit would do, right,
Speaker 4: They wouldn't create a scene at that place. So what
Speaker 4: happens later on when he encounters a LAMA member, you know,
Speaker 4: that's when the threat becomes real, and that's when the
Speaker 4: fight becomes real. And the guy, the LAMA member, goes
Speaker 4: home and he's got you know, a broke nose, or
Speaker 4: he's completely beaten up, or he threatens him and says,
Speaker 4: you know you're going to find you know, a body
Speaker 4: part of you if you don't watch out, you know,
Speaker 4: cut off your ear and have that as warning not
Speaker 4: to encroach on outlaw turf.
Speaker 5: Now you talk about other close calls for Big Pete
Speaker 5: in terms of law enforcement making any kind of arrests,
Speaker 5: infiltrating this gang at all, or getting any kind of
Speaker 5: intelligence on him to make any kind of arrest. But
Speaker 5: you do talk about a couple of close calls, and
Speaker 5: you do talk about this vehicle that is found with bloodspatter.
Speaker 5: Tell us a little bit about that. What do people
Speaker 5: or what do police ascertain from that or surmise from that.
Speaker 4: Well, Pete is very careful to never be the person
Speaker 4: who actually does any of the criminal activity. So like
Speaker 4: a mob boss, he removes himself from the actual crimes
Speaker 4: there happening. And so a couple of things that he does,
Speaker 4: which again is taken from the mafia, is he will
Speaker 4: send an underling out, or he'll send Bustarto out to
Speaker 4: do his dirty work or do his bidding, and he
Speaker 4: will use code language and he'll say, you know, it's
Speaker 4: kind of going back to the basket number two thing. Well,
Speaker 4: he'll say, we're going to get the white van. And
Speaker 4: you know, I don't want to know any details. I
Speaker 4: don't want to know too much information, but whatever you
Speaker 4: have to do, I just want you to report back
Speaker 4: to me that the job has been done. So that's
Speaker 4: how he removes himself from from the actual activities. So
Speaker 4: when law enforcement, and he's very careful to never be recorded.
Speaker 4: That was his big thing. You know, I don't ever
Speaker 4: want to hear my voice on tape because that means
Speaker 4: that I've been surveiled and that I've you know, given
Speaker 4: out information. So he cautions his his crew, the outlaws
Speaker 4: that they're in his his club or in his chapter,
Speaker 4: that they're not to speak in reguar regular language. So
Speaker 4: he'll say things to bus starter like, you know, how
Speaker 4: was the cheeseburger or how was the you know that
Speaker 4: is the hamburger well done? You know, and things like that,
Speaker 4: so that he's never caught in that kind of scenario.
Speaker 4: So so when the Feds do surveil him, in fact,
Speaker 4: he describes I mean, it's it's really quite crazy that
Speaker 4: there are several instances where Pete knows that the federal
Speaker 4: surveillance van is across the street from him watching him,
Speaker 4: but he's never caught in anything because he's never the
Speaker 4: one doing it. His hands are never dirty, so he'll
Speaker 4: be the one that delegates, he'll be the one that
Speaker 4: follows up, but he's always removed from the scene. There's
Speaker 4: one particular case that the FEDS are watching pretty closely
Speaker 4: where Pete installs gambling machines in different clubhouses, but he's
Speaker 4: very careful to never install one in his own clubhouse.
Speaker 4: So when the FEDS are surveilling this activity or this
Speaker 4: gambling activity, Pete's very confident that he's never going to
Speaker 4: get pulled into it because he doesn't have one in
Speaker 4: his own clubhouse. You know, he's not the one that's
Speaker 4: you know, his hands aren't dirty. In other words, other
Speaker 4: people are doing it, so, you know, and he'll he'll
Speaker 4: caution them, you know, he'll say, well, you know, use,
Speaker 4: he'll use code language when they're collecting money from the
Speaker 4: gambling machine. So it's all very well orchestrated and very
Speaker 4: well masterminded. And that's how he keeps himself separate. So
Speaker 4: so when the FEDS, you know, will find a van
Speaker 4: with blood in it, they can never trace it back
Speaker 4: to Pete because he's not directly in it.
Speaker 5: You talk about you mentioned it the again. It's almost comedic.
Speaker 5: The police escorting the outlaws because they think they might
Speaker 5: be ambushed at Sturgis, and you say, Pete travels with
Speaker 5: a Mac ten three fifty seven magnum forty caliber glock.
Speaker 5: Tell us about this almost comedic thing where the police
Speaker 5: have to protect them and what they think might happen,
Speaker 5: because it is very very interesting before we talk about
Speaker 5: the murder of one of his sidekicks, Hojoll.
Speaker 4: So Sturgis is this, I mean, it's famous, very famous
Speaker 4: motorcycle rally. You know, anyone who's anybody shows up at Sturgis.
Speaker 4: And so the Outlaws of course showed up, but they
Speaker 4: weren't allowed to enter Sturgis. So the police, you know,
Speaker 4: they had to get a campground that was outside of Sturgis.
Speaker 4: And the reason they couldn't enter Sturgis there was a
Speaker 4: there was a murder that had happened very close to Sturgis,
Speaker 4: and so there was all kinds of surveillance and police
Speaker 4: around the area. And so the outlaws kept to themselves
Speaker 4: in this campground and they believed for you know, several
Speaker 4: days that they were going to be ambushed or sniped
Speaker 4: by the House Angels because they didn't have a lot
Speaker 4: of information, They didn't know what it actually happened or transpired.
Speaker 4: They just knew that something had happened up the road
Speaker 4: from them in Sturgis. So they never actually got to Sturgis.
Speaker 4: So on one particular you know outing where they were
Speaker 4: allowed out of their campground, they were escorted by police
Speaker 4: to a neighboring town. Again not Sturgis, just a neighboring
Speaker 4: town where they could get pizza. And you know, there
Speaker 4: wasn't even anything to do in this neighboring town. It
Speaker 4: was it was it was kind of a ridiculous outing.
Speaker 4: But I described it in the book, and this is
Speaker 4: exactly how it happened. They they got on all of
Speaker 4: their their gang you know regalia. They they wore all
Speaker 4: of their outlaw insignia. They got onto their bikes and
Speaker 4: they were going to show a real show of force
Speaker 4: where they were all going to ride and packs and
Speaker 4: get to this neighboring town. And so so there's this
Speaker 4: this tremendous show of force. The police escort them there
Speaker 4: and and the police you know, pick them up and
Speaker 4: take them back. But on the way back, Pete is
Speaker 4: leading this pack and he runs into a deer and
Speaker 4: the deer is the force of his motorcycle sends the
Speaker 4: deer into a ditch. And Pete's motorcycle is a little bit,
Speaker 4: you know, messed up, So he pulls off to the
Speaker 4: side of the road. He's in the ditch. It's starting
Speaker 4: to get nightfall, and he tells the rest of his group,
Speaker 4: you know, go on ahead, I'm going to wait here.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna fix my bike. But he is alone in
Speaker 4: this ditch, and the whole his thought pattern is, oh
Speaker 4: my god, you know, I'm a moving target for any
Speaker 4: Hell's Angel sniper. I'm just sitting out here in a
Speaker 4: ditch with a dead deer. And nobody from his pack
Speaker 4: stays with them. In fact, they're all whizzing by him
Speaker 4: and they and they say, you know, we have to
Speaker 4: get back to the campgun before nightfall. So nobody's with him,
Speaker 4: and so finally pe Pete decides, you know, there's no
Speaker 4: way he's going to be a sitting duck for the
Speaker 4: Hell's Angels. So he waves down a police officer, and
Speaker 4: the police officer says, you know, well, you killed a deer.
Speaker 4: You know you can get a ticket for that out here,
Speaker 4: because you know, you're not allowed to kill a deer.
Speaker 4: So the whole scenario is very absurd that here's Pete
Speaker 4: worried about getting sniped by a Hell's Angel. The cop
Speaker 4: is about to write him a ticket for killing a deer,
Speaker 4: and then Pete turns it around and he says, well,
Speaker 4: if you're going to write me a ticket. I need
Speaker 4: to get back to my campsite safely, and so I'm
Speaker 4: going to need a police escort, And so he flips
Speaker 4: it around and the police wind up escorting him back
Speaker 4: to his campground so that Pete is not sniped by,
Speaker 4: you know, a Hell's Angel that might be lingering in
Speaker 4: the bushes or the woods. So that's an excellent example
Speaker 4: of how cunning and smart and manipulative Pete is because
Speaker 4: he's going to use the situation to his advantage, and
Speaker 4: he certainly did in this very it's actually a very
Speaker 4: hilarious scene in the book. But he flips it around,
Speaker 4: you know, and gets what he wants out of it.
Speaker 5: You talk about in the beginning his different philosophy, not
Speaker 5: more inclusive obviously and non discriminatory towards all kinds of people.
Speaker 5: Rather have that than have division. How successfully was was
Speaker 5: he in uniting these Greek gangs and motorcycle clubs not
Speaker 5: affiliated with the Outlaws or the ha Hell's Angels, And
Speaker 5: was he what was is? Was there any opposition from
Speaker 5: other outlaws to what he was doing? He was.
Speaker 4: Extremely successful in getting the these thirty eight other clubs,
Speaker 4: many of whom were African American clubs, Polish clubs, I
Speaker 4: mean clubs that you'd the outlaws would just absolutely hands
Speaker 4: down shun. He got them under his wing. He was
Speaker 4: the head of the Confederation of Clubs, and he was
Speaker 4: a masterminded that he would have meetings there where all
Speaker 4: of these thirty eight club members would show up and
Speaker 4: they would listen to him speak. So he was extremely
Speaker 4: successful at that. But he did get a lot of
Speaker 4: flak from his own for that, because they didn't want
Speaker 4: to First of all, they didn't want to answer to
Speaker 4: a woman. Second of all, they didn't want to answer to,
Speaker 4: you know, any member of a Polish club. They didn't
Speaker 4: want to answer to African Americans. But he was able
Speaker 4: to master this and so even though his own club members,
Speaker 4: the outlaws did not want to be a part of
Speaker 4: the National Confederation of Clubs because of this, you know,
Speaker 4: they started to dwindle, he stayed in that position of power.
Speaker 4: So even though he got flack, he was able to
Speaker 4: maintain that power. And I think his reasoning for the
Speaker 4: outlaws was, again, we don't want roague clubs. We want
Speaker 4: them to support us. The more people that support us,
Speaker 4: the more Scouts so to speak, you have, you know,
Speaker 4: people that are aligned with the Outlaws, will keep the
Speaker 4: others at bay, they the Hell's Angels out, because ultimately
Speaker 4: that was the huge goal of keeping the Hell's Angels out.
Speaker 4: But he did have, you know, splinter groups within these
Speaker 4: thirty eight clubs that didn't want to follow Pete, and
Speaker 4: that was a problem for him to contend with. So
Speaker 4: there was a Polish club in particular that you know,
Speaker 4: splintered off and when Pete eventually, i mean at first
Speaker 4: he denied them club ship when it could form a club,
Speaker 4: they went off and became a rogue club. So there
Speaker 4: was always that threat that people weren't going to follow
Speaker 4: him or going to form their own clubs, and so
Speaker 4: that's what he was always contending with. But he was
Speaker 4: enormously successful at getting these clubs under his wing, and
Speaker 4: that again is very unprecedented that there's not been anyone
Speaker 4: else in the history of outlaw motorcycle gangs that has
Speaker 4: been able to accomplish that or do that.
Speaker 5: There was though in the course of this book it
Speaker 5: seemed that despite anything, he had a grown dissatisfaction with
Speaker 5: the leadership in in Outlaw Nation and and some of
Speaker 5: his underlings himself and other chapters. So what was it
Speaker 5: his main criticism of these other chapters and what did
Speaker 5: he think was lacking.
Speaker 4: What was lacking in them was an ability to well, well,
Speaker 4: really to to be a part of a team. There
Speaker 4: were there were definitely ones that that would go off
Speaker 4: and be their own, you know, they wanted to either
Speaker 4: form their own leadership or or have their own you know,
Speaker 4: way of handling things. And so there was one in particular.
Speaker 4: There were really chapters, outlaw chapters that he was having
Speaker 4: to contend with on on multiple levels. There were leaders
Speaker 4: that that were not really leaders anymore. They were sort
Speaker 4: of you know, holding down full time jobs. They were outlaws,
Speaker 4: you know, sometime or part time outlaws, and some of
Speaker 4: them weren't ready to follow anything they did. Some of
Speaker 4: them weren't even based in Chicago, they were based in
Speaker 4: the suburbs. So he was having a hard time contending
Speaker 4: with them. And so, you know, after a while where
Speaker 4: he would have meetings and you know, ask other outlaw
Speaker 4: chapters to attend, they would start to dwindle off. They
Speaker 4: would say they had other functions to do. So you know,
Speaker 4: eventually there's a point in the book where he said,
Speaker 4: you know, becoming an outlaw as a lifestyle. It's not
Speaker 4: something that you do part time. It's not something that
Speaker 4: you do whenever you feel like it. You know, you
Speaker 4: have to commit to this. So he was having trouble
Speaker 4: with some of the leaders of some of these chapters
Speaker 4: committing to not only him, but the whole value system
Speaker 4: in the Outlaws, and so I think that was part
Speaker 4: of his part of his issue.
Speaker 5: To put a face on it. Like very much like
Speaker 5: the beloved sopranos that we mentioned, Big Pete has a
Speaker 5: life outside of the motorcycle club, the gang organized crime
Speaker 5: as it were, and that person being his wife Debbie.
Speaker 5: Tell us a little bit about their relationship and who
Speaker 5: Debbie was in real life before she entered into this
Speaker 5: world with Peter.
Speaker 4: With Pete, Debbie provides a really fascinating perspective on what
Speaker 4: it's like to be a not only married to the boss,
Speaker 4: but also a female in this outlaw biker culture. And
Speaker 4: so Debbie comes from the corporate world. She has a
Speaker 4: college degree, a master's degree, she's in it. She absolutely
Speaker 4: has no background at all in the biker culture. So
Speaker 4: what's fascinating about her is that she said she wants
Speaker 4: very much to support Pete in his endeavors. No matter
Speaker 4: what he wants to do, She's there to support him,
Speaker 4: and that gives her a lot of pleasure and a
Speaker 4: lot of personal satisfaction. And so she writes in there
Speaker 4: that in the book that while the public perspective or
Speaker 4: perception of being a female in the biker culture is
Speaker 4: they're treated worse than dogs, she had a personal goal.
Speaker 4: She wanted to be respected in this misogynistic world. She
Speaker 4: wanted to be respected as the best old lady they
Speaker 4: had ever seen. And to her, that would give her
Speaker 4: enormous satisfaction because not only would she be supporting Pete,
Speaker 4: but she would be breaking the mold, so to speak.
Speaker 4: So she thrust herself into being the property of or
Speaker 4: the old lady of Big Pete, which is really a
Speaker 4: fascinating perspective. Now, Pete absolutely adores Debi, and that is
Speaker 4: very evident through out the book. And so for him
Speaker 4: to balance what it means to be a boss right
Speaker 4: where he's constantly being barraged by women wanting to be
Speaker 4: not only you know, to have sex with him, but
Speaker 4: to introduce him to things that you know, I'm sure
Speaker 4: Debbie would not be happy with Pete's always having to
Speaker 4: balance that so, and he does that quite well in
Speaker 4: this world because his devotion in his love is always
Speaker 4: for Debbie and that never waivers, either before he becomes
Speaker 4: an outlaw or even when he's an outlaw, and so
Speaker 4: he's always in the role and the In fact, at
Speaker 4: one point he tells her, you know, you can't come
Speaker 4: to these parties anymore because I can't protect you. So,
Speaker 4: you know, he treats her as an equal. But in
Speaker 4: the biker culture, women are not equal. Women are not
Speaker 4: even classified as people in most scenarios. But Debbie lends
Speaker 4: a completely different perspective on that, and she introduces, you know,
Speaker 4: just she's wanting to She actually says in the book
Speaker 4: that she feels more comfortable in the biker world than
Speaker 4: she did in her corporate world, and it's because she
Speaker 4: has something that she needs to prove.
Speaker 5: Now, there's some things that happen, like we talk about
Speaker 5: all the close calls, and then there's this dramatic moment
Speaker 5: where somebody named Pinky, and you can tell our audience
Speaker 5: who Pinky is and the relationship he has with Big Pete.
Speaker 5: But there's a phone call where she starts it with
Speaker 5: I may have said some things, tell us a little
Speaker 5: bit about this phone call and what.
Speaker 6: It leads to.
Speaker 4: So Big Pete is very enterprising during this whole time
Speaker 4: that he's the boss of the Outlaws. He's involved in
Speaker 4: all kinds of different business dealings, the escort business, the
Speaker 4: you know, anything that will help him make some money
Speaker 4: he's involved in. So Pinky is somebody that he is
Speaker 4: involved in. He's making his Schwarsky crystals. She's he's helping
Speaker 4: to back it or finance it. So that's how he
Speaker 4: initially meets Pinky, and Pinky goes on and she has
Speaker 4: this business where she's making bandanas with the Schwarsky crystals
Speaker 4: on the bandanas, and she's trying to market it to
Speaker 4: the bikers. And so Pete's involvement in that is he's
Speaker 4: trying to back it and trying to recoup a piece
Speaker 4: of the profit. But she's really, you know, spearheading the business.
Speaker 4: But she goes She calls him up at one point
Speaker 4: and says, I'm going to Florida for vacation. Is there
Speaker 4: anybody down in Florida that I can stay with her
Speaker 4: that you can hook me up with? So he does.
Speaker 4: He hooks her up with you know, some of his friends,
Speaker 4: and so that's the last two years of it. But
Speaker 4: Pinky gets involved in she's trying to sell drugs to
Speaker 4: and she winds up selling them or engaging in drug
Speaker 4: activity and with an undercover and so as part of
Speaker 4: her pre bargaining or her deal to get a lesser sentence,
Speaker 4: a lesser repercussion, she gives up Pete. She says, you know,
Speaker 4: I happen to know Big Pete. So when she makes
Speaker 4: this phone call the Peat, she says, you know, I
Speaker 4: may have said a few things to this undercover guy.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is how she describes it to Pete.
Speaker 4: And so Pete, you know, of course, has gone ballistic
Speaker 4: because not only does he have a double problem, he's got,
Speaker 4: you know, the Feds potentially on his back. Even though
Speaker 4: Pete hasn't done anything, he doesn't know what Pinky has
Speaker 4: told them. And second of all, he doesn't want Debbie
Speaker 4: to find out about Pinky. You know, he doesn't want
Speaker 4: her to think that something else was going on with
Speaker 4: Pinky that wasn't going on. So he's got this whole
Speaker 4: thing going on in his head for this. But but
Speaker 4: the Feds do wind up showing up unannounced and they
Speaker 4: arrest Debbie and they arrest her for drug charges and
Speaker 4: it's just ludicrous and you know, nonsensical, but they arrest
Speaker 4: her and she winds up spending some time in jail
Speaker 4: in Florida for charges that make absolutely no sense. And
Speaker 4: so Pete is beside himself and has to you know,
Speaker 4: figure out a way to get not only the charge
Speaker 4: is dropped, but Debbie out of jail. And he almost,
Speaker 4: you know, as what's tantamount to a nervous breakdown to
Speaker 4: try to rectify this and get her out because she's
Speaker 4: the last person in the world that would ever have
Speaker 4: any criminal charges or anything to do with with drug activity.
Speaker 4: So that that's his close call with the Feds, and
Speaker 4: in ps he wins that the case gets dropped and
Speaker 4: you know, it's been a complete mistaken identity case and
Speaker 4: Debbie's released from jail, and the FEDS wind up paying
Speaker 4: Pete money for their mistake. So it's a it's just
Speaker 4: a crazy whirlwind, but it's it's not it's an irony
Speaker 4: that he he almost doesn't recover from. You know, here
Speaker 4: he's led his entire life very you know, close, holding secrets,
Speaker 4: close to the vest, never you know, getting arrested for anything,
Speaker 4: having a great rapport with the police and the FEDS,
Speaker 4: and the last person he ever expects to turn on
Speaker 4: him is Pinky, you know. So it's almost like that
Speaker 4: famous line, you know, a woman can bring you down
Speaker 4: and so and so that's what happens in this case.
Speaker 4: And it's pretty out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you describe very much. It's almost like the Sopranos
Speaker 5: scene when they come to the Soprano home. There's a
Speaker 5: big knock on the door. Federal Task Force guns drawn,
Speaker 5: dressed in full battle gear as you write, krevlar vests, helmets,
Speaker 5: plastic shields, and they arrest Debbie. But it's drug possession
Speaker 5: of two Vikadin pills. Yeah, so it's a little bit overdone,
Speaker 5: We'll say.
Speaker 4: Yes, overkill. It's it's crazy, and it's because obviously because
Speaker 4: of who Pete is and they're trying to defense. It's
Speaker 4: almost like a cat and mouse game where the FEDS
Speaker 4: have always wanted to get Pete on something and they've
Speaker 4: never been able to get him on anything, and they
Speaker 4: thought that this was their big cup, their big opportunityy
Speaker 4: to you know, snag Debbie on something and then it
Speaker 4: would lead to something that Pete was involved in and
Speaker 4: of course it didn't. It wound up being this you know,
Speaker 4: complete circus, complete overkill, and Debbie wasn't involved in it
Speaker 4: at all.
Speaker 5: Now, in the midst of all of this, we say that,
Speaker 5: you know, you say you're right. Normally what would happen
Speaker 5: is obviously people in this lifestyle get killed. How are
Speaker 5: they get arrested? And that didn't happen with Big Pete.
Speaker 5: Tell us what happens and what does he do? What's
Speaker 5: his reaction to the news?
Speaker 4: Well, Pete, and Pete would say this, I think that
Speaker 4: he's lived a charmed life. He's lived very carefully, very calculatingly.
Speaker 4: He achieved his goal and his dream in life, which
Speaker 4: was to be the boss of Chicago. But what brings
Speaker 4: him down is something that he cannot control. He would
Speaker 4: never have expected and he's helpless to defend against and
Speaker 4: it's cancer. So when he learns that he has kidney cancer,
Speaker 4: he's devastated by the news because he realizes that it's
Speaker 4: the end of the road for him, you know, not
Speaker 4: necessarily because it's terminal, which it is, but because he
Speaker 4: will not be able to lead the way that he did,
Speaker 4: because he's going to have to go through medical procedures,
Speaker 4: and he's going to be relegated to a position of
Speaker 4: having to be subservient, which is not what he's used to.
Speaker 4: And the real irony of that scene where he learns
Speaker 4: that he's got kidney cancer is the book opens where
Speaker 4: he is sort of in the waiting area of the
Speaker 4: regional boss Greece, who's been shot, and Greece has to
Speaker 4: convalesce for many months after the shooting. He's never the same,
Speaker 4: and so's it's an interesting, almost an ironic twist at
Speaker 4: the end that Pete finds himself in the same position.
Speaker 4: And so when the book opens with Greece, many of
Speaker 4: the regional bosses are trying to discuss what to do
Speaker 4: with the problem of Greece, because you can't have somebody
Speaker 4: in a position of power who has to be on
Speaker 4: medical leave. So Pete is asked to step down. He's
Speaker 4: asked to resign because he can't lead and also go
Speaker 4: to all of these treatments for his cancer, and that's
Speaker 4: really devastating for him. So he doesn't gradually and he says,
Speaker 4: you know what, I'm I'm I'm going to be back.
Speaker 4: You know, this isn't the end. I'm going to be back,
Speaker 4: and so he he appoints two people in positions of power,
Speaker 4: and he specifically picks people that he knows will not
Speaker 4: do a good job, and he does it on purpose
Speaker 4: because he doesn't want to be replaced. And he tells
Speaker 4: these two people, you know, I want you to report
Speaker 4: to me what's going on. So he thinks he can
Speaker 4: lead virtually, you know. And what happens, of course, is
Speaker 4: the two people that he appoints don't report back to him.
Speaker 4: He starts to lose control of the people that he's appointed.
Speaker 4: He doesn't know what's going on at the parties anymore,
Speaker 4: and so he's distanced more and more because of his illness,
Speaker 4: and the regional boss has come to him and they say,
Speaker 4: you know, well, we want you to maintain or still
Speaker 4: begin in control of the COEC, which is the confederation
Speaker 4: of clubs, the thirty eight clubs that he's gotten under
Speaker 4: his wing, but we don't want you to be the
Speaker 4: boss of this outlaw chapter because you can't be that.
Speaker 4: So for a while Pete tries to do that as well,
Speaker 4: and then he finally appoints somebody to take over that
Speaker 4: position because he just can't do it anymore. And so
Speaker 4: it's a very interesting you know, almost the escalation of power,
Speaker 4: and it's an interesting close to the chapter of his life.
Speaker 4: And when he started to tell me his story, it
Speaker 4: was a very interesting experience because, you know, he came
Speaker 4: to me and he said, you know, I want to
Speaker 4: tell you my story. I am dying. I don't know
Speaker 4: when I'm going to die, but I'm dying and I
Speaker 4: want to make sure that the truth gets out there.
Speaker 4: So it was sort of like, you know, a priest
Speaker 4: taking a confessional, and it was it was an extraordinary experience,
Speaker 4: and it was also very moving for me because it's
Speaker 4: hard for me to know. I felt like I had
Speaker 4: a huge responsibility to tell the story the way that
Speaker 4: he wanted it told because he was not going to
Speaker 4: be here for very much longer. And so it sped
Speaker 4: up the process for me of interviewing him and making
Speaker 4: sure that I got the book done and out before
Speaker 4: he died so that he could approve of it. So
Speaker 4: it was sort of hiss his last gasp, you know,
Speaker 4: to tell me everything, get it out on paper, and
Speaker 4: make sure that he his life story was preserved.
Speaker 5: Before we talk a little bit more about that. Last
Speaker 5: wish is death wish that this the truth come out.
Speaker 5: He talks about again ironically, one of these members named
Speaker 5: Judas and the fifteen outlaws who burst into a group
Speaker 5: called Twisted Images. Tell us what this retribution was and
Speaker 5: who was in front of and why Big Pete, despite
Speaker 5: his murderous background, would not approve of this and criticized
Speaker 5: this event.
Speaker 4: Twisted Image was one of the groups that Pete had
Speaker 4: gotten under his wing under the thirty eight, and he
Speaker 4: had befriended the leader of Twisted Images, and they were
Speaker 4: throwing a party and they did not invite the outlaws,
Speaker 4: which is really you know, it's sacrilegious, you know, not
Speaker 4: to do that. But it was a party where he
Speaker 4: had family members and he had his young children there
Speaker 4: at the party. And so because the outlaws were snubbed Judas,
Speaker 4: who was the leader of that of Peach chapter at
Speaker 4: that time, and he asked Cyronic that his name is Judas,
Speaker 4: and he lived up to his name. But he went
Speaker 4: and invited himself and he crashed the party. And so
Speaker 4: when he got to the party, he took the leader
Speaker 4: of Twisted Images and he beat him to a pulp,
Speaker 4: almost killed him, but he beat him unconscious in front
Speaker 4: of his daughter, who I think at the time was seven,
Speaker 4: and so Twisted Image. The leader of Twisted Images called
Speaker 4: up Pete and said, they're they're brutalizing me. They're here.
Speaker 4: You have to do something about it. And Pete was
Speaker 4: in a very interesting position because even though he was
Speaker 4: friends with this leader of Twisted Image, he could not
Speaker 4: disagree with what Judas had done. He couldn't disagree that
Speaker 4: the outlaws needed to show their presence, they needed to
Speaker 4: get retribution for being snubbed from this party. So he
Speaker 4: was not against what Judas had done and bringing his
Speaker 4: varage of people there to beat up the leader. What
Speaker 4: he couldn't stand and what was so difficult for him
Speaker 4: to accept, was that the beating happened in front of
Speaker 4: the child. Pete had his own, you know, code of ethics,
Speaker 4: and he really despised people that hurt women and children.
Speaker 4: And he had a very hit a saft spot for
Speaker 4: you know, single moms or you know children, particularly because
Speaker 4: he had such an adoration for his own mother. So
Speaker 4: while he agreed with what Judas did, he disagreed with
Speaker 4: how he did it. He could not have any type
Speaker 4: of retribution against Judas because then he would be going
Speaker 4: against his own in favor and in support of this
Speaker 4: support club Twisted Images. So it was a really interesting,
Speaker 4: almost symbolic of everything that Pete stood for and everything
Speaker 4: he needed to continue to stand for in order to
Speaker 4: be revered and respected in his own outlaw community.
Speaker 5: What did Big Pete feel about this book? What was
Speaker 5: his take on this what was his impression?
Speaker 4: He was he was overwhelmed and extremely grateful for the book.
Speaker 4: He was extremely thankful that his story got out, and
Speaker 4: I mean he to this day. We are still friends
Speaker 4: and he during the writing of the book. It was
Speaker 4: interesting because the very first thing he did when the
Speaker 4: book got accepted by Saint Martin's was he sent me
Speaker 4: a dozen roses. And he said, you know, I don't
Speaker 4: really know quite what to give to an author. He said,
Speaker 4: if you had given a performance on stage and had
Speaker 4: done an amazing performance, you would give the performer roses.
Speaker 4: You know, That's how he equated it. So he sent
Speaker 4: me roses. And then during the writing of the book
Speaker 4: he would send you know, good Dive of chocolates, and
Speaker 4: he sent me Chicago pizza because he wanted me to
Speaker 4: experience Chicago's I'd never been to Chicago, and so you know,
Speaker 4: through the whole writing of it, he was very respectful,
Speaker 4: very grateful, very considerate of the whole project because he
Speaker 4: was he was a fascinating person to interview, very funny,
Speaker 4: very smart. But you know, even he has said off
Speaker 4: and he's like, you know, I can be difficult, But
Speaker 4: I actually didn't find him difficult. I found him very
Speaker 4: refreshing in a lot of ways. But so you know,
Speaker 4: towards the end of this, when the book actually came out,
Speaker 4: he was just so overwhelmed. He couldn't he said. He
Speaker 4: wrote to me, he said, I couldn't even imagine what
Speaker 4: it would be like to see not only his picture
Speaker 4: on the front cover, but to see his life story
Speaker 4: memorialize the way that it was. So he was he
Speaker 4: was very happy with it.
Speaker 5: You talk about that you did form a fierce friendship,
Speaker 5: full of poetry, confession and heart. What did he respect
Speaker 5: the most about what you had done in terms of
Speaker 5: was there a realism that he saw in this book,
Speaker 5: an honest depiction of outlaw lifestyle that he hadn't seen before.
Speaker 5: Not only an honest depiction of his life and his
Speaker 5: role in the Outlaws, but also a more realistic depiction
Speaker 5: by Virtue of the work you did and the work
Speaker 5: he did to help you do that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's that's accurate. I think he wanted
Speaker 4: to He wanted to kind of shatter the myth in
Speaker 4: some ways. I mean, he he loved being an outlaw,
Speaker 4: he loved being the boss of the Chicago Outlaws, and
Speaker 4: he you know, he still upheld all of the core
Speaker 4: values of what the Biker Gang represented to him, but
Speaker 4: he was very disillusioned by the Biker Gang toward the
Speaker 4: later you of his life in that gang because not
Speaker 4: behaving the way that he really believed that they should
Speaker 4: behave or that they originally behaved when Taco Bowman was
Speaker 4: leading the charge, and he was very disappointed by that
Speaker 4: and disillusioned by that. I mean, they weren't out there,
Speaker 4: you know, hunting house angels. They weren't really personifying the
Speaker 4: brutality in his mind that they used to do. So
Speaker 4: he wanted to show what the Outlaws really had become,
Speaker 4: which was, you know, this band of misfits that were
Speaker 4: gathering together that were almost play acting being outlaws rather
Speaker 4: than being outlaws. And so he was very disappointed in that,
Speaker 4: and I think his hope would always be that they
Speaker 4: would return to the blood, blood thirsty, warrior like people
Speaker 4: that they once were. And I think his realization, or
Speaker 4: his sad reality, was that maybe they never would be
Speaker 4: that again because everything has changed now, you know everything,
Speaker 4: but the way the old Outlaws really had to reform
Speaker 4: and transform into become something else, and he was disappointed
Speaker 4: in this illusion that they had not become that. So
Speaker 4: I think this book for him was as satisfaction that
Speaker 4: he was getting that out there. He didn't want there
Speaker 4: to be a misperception anymore. He wanted it to be
Speaker 4: an accurate rendition of who the Outlaws were.
Speaker 5: It's definitely he is a very very complex figure and
Speaker 5: very some things seem to be almost incongruous with each other,
Speaker 5: but he is definitely a larger than life character and
Speaker 5: you have definitely brought that to the reader an incredible story,
Speaker 5: and of course all of the adventures that are his
Speaker 5: reign as Outlaw Nation president and leader are very are
Speaker 5: captured incredibly in your book. I want to thank you
Speaker 5: very much much, Garry Drobin for coming on and talking
Speaker 5: about the Last Chicago Boss, my life with the Chicago Outlaws.
Speaker 5: For those people that might want to contact you or
Speaker 5: see some of your other work. Do you have a
Speaker 5: Facebook page, website? Tell us about how people might be
Speaker 5: able to contact you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the best way to contact me would be through
Speaker 4: my website. It's just my name Karridrobin dot com and
Speaker 4: that will lead to all of the other links to
Speaker 4: my other social media Facebook and my other books.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you very much, Carrie, it's been a very
Speaker 5: it has been a big pleasure. Thank you very much
Speaker 5: and hope to talk to you.
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you so much. By Bie