Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to episode two hundred and twenty two
Speaker 1: of The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here with Dave
Speaker 1: park d back there producing in the Shadows, and our
Speaker 1: guest on today's show is Frank de Lesio. He spent
Speaker 1: twenty six years in the alcohol, tobacco and firearms, mostly
Speaker 1: doing a lot of undercover work doing infiltrations of motorcycle gangs.
Speaker 1: We're really excited to have Frank here today. So Frank, again,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us tonight on a Friday evening.
Speaker 1: Really appreciate it. Man. I want to start off by
Speaker 1: just asking you the question we pretty much start all
Speaker 1: of our interviews with, is about your origin story. I'd
Speaker 1: like to ask you a little bit about, you know,
Speaker 1: your upbringing, how you grew up, and sort of how
Speaker 1: that took you towards the path to law enforcement.
Speaker 2: Well, I was born and raised in Youngstown, Ohio, born
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty five, and that was at the height
Speaker 2: of when Youngstown was really rolling with the steel mills
Speaker 2: and everything. My dad was a police officer, was a
Speaker 2: police officer, we had firemen, so, you know, very ethnic town,
Speaker 2: melting pot you named ethnicity, and it was there. My
Speaker 2: family Italian Catholic, a lot of guilt loud at holidays,
Speaker 2: so you know, you know. So I went to Catholic
Speaker 2: schools most of my life. So that was challenging too
Speaker 2: because I was quite an experience, had a great time,
Speaker 2: but just a different experience than the public school kids had.
Speaker 2: Played football, that was my primary sport. I went to
Speaker 2: Ursula in high school, graduated from there, and I went
Speaker 2: down in West Virginia. I won't say I played on
Speaker 2: a team. I was on the team, but I made
Speaker 2: it one year and then it wasn't It wasn't going
Speaker 2: for me, so I went back and I told my
Speaker 2: dad I'm done. Of course, the disappointment, but I moved
Speaker 2: to Florida. My brother was living down there, so my
Speaker 2: buddy and I moved down to Florida. And after a
Speaker 2: couple of years and making three dollars and twenty five cents,
Speaker 2: it wasn't working out, so I said, I got to
Speaker 2: go back to school. Now. When I was at West
Speaker 2: Virginia as a forestry major, believe it or not, so
Speaker 2: I had no desire to go into law enforcement whatsoever.
Speaker 2: But when I went back, I started having conversations with
Speaker 2: my dad about law enforcement. So I ended up getting
Speaker 2: a criminal justice degree. I got out in three and
Speaker 2: a half years because I just wanted to get out
Speaker 2: of school. So when it started comes time to start
Speaker 2: applying for jobs, I applied to everybody, but ATF. I
Speaker 2: had no idea what ATF even was. Okay, So my dad,
Speaker 2: you got If you don't know anything about Youngstown, it's
Speaker 2: a it's a it's the it's the old Italian I
Speaker 2: know a guy, and I got a guy, because that's
Speaker 2: how it is. Right. So being Italian in Youngstown, you
Speaker 2: had as many friends, it might have relatives that were
Speaker 2: involved in some things. Right. I remember my grandmother had
Speaker 2: passed away and we were at the funeral and I'd
Speaker 2: only been hired like a week, and my dad says, hey,
Speaker 2: somebody wants to talk to you, and I'm like who,
Speaker 2: And it was Joey Naples. Now Joey Naples was ahead
Speaker 2: of the crime family in Youngstown. He goes, and I
Speaker 2: went over there. He goes, hey, I heard you got
Speaker 2: hired by ATAP. But I'm going, okay, the hell do
Speaker 2: you know that? Right? But it was very small community.
Speaker 2: So like in Youngstown, you know, you have people that
Speaker 2: went into firefighter, you know, they were policemen, public service,
Speaker 2: you know, working in the mills, the audo industry, US
Speaker 2: still republic, still cheating tube. They were huge then, right,
Speaker 2: So that was your path. But everybody everybody had a bookie, right,
Speaker 2: and so you were raised street smart, you learned. I mean,
Speaker 2: you hung out of places and everybody got along. Nobody
Speaker 2: said anything. I could tell you a story after story
Speaker 2: about that. I'll tell you what funny one after I
Speaker 2: got hired on the job. But so my dad goes, Hey,
Speaker 2: go down and see Freddie Kylitz and Wayne Lovin. Now
Speaker 2: Wayne was the rack the res an agent in charge
Speaker 2: in Youngstown, and Freddy was a friend of theirs. And
Speaker 2: these guys all hung out at the same bars. So
Speaker 2: and they were all revenue guys, right, this was back
Speaker 2: in the late eighties. So I go down there and
Speaker 2: they tell me about ATF and I'm like wow because ATF,
Speaker 2: which I again I didn't know anything, was very diverse.
Speaker 2: You know, we got alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives. Now,
Speaker 2: when it comes to the tobacco and alcohol, unless you're
Speaker 2: doing like moonshine, like thousand gallons and cigarettes transporting a
Speaker 2: thousand you know, tractor trailer atf for them, won't get
Speaker 2: involved in that. But it was at the height of
Speaker 2: you know, they talked about all the undercover they did
Speaker 2: when they were doing the revenue or that intrigued me, right,
Speaker 2: And this was at the height of when crack was
Speaker 2: just coming on the scene in the United States bad
Speaker 2: and about the guns and the violence, and that kind
Speaker 2: of intrigued me. So I took the tea exam and
Speaker 2: like most of my compadres who took it, passing was seventy.
Speaker 2: I failed at the first time by half a point,
Speaker 2: and I passed up by two points the next time.
Speaker 2: And come to find out, when I was at the academy,
Speaker 2: everybody's asking about what they scored. What they scored. I
Speaker 2: think we only had one guy out of twenty four
Speaker 2: at scored above an eighty. So I didn't feel too bad.
Speaker 2: Then I had it for like a big dumb ass.
Speaker 2: And then and then it started. I got assigned to
Speaker 2: Columbus and that was my first post, and off it went.
Speaker 1: So what was the funny story that you wanted to
Speaker 1: tell about getting the job?
Speaker 2: So I'd been on a job about six months, and
Speaker 2: uh so I go back to this bar called cyrax.
Speaker 2: It was on east side of Youngstown. And the one
Speaker 2: thing about the guys back then, Mike's Reki. Those guys
Speaker 2: never messed with drugs. It was all numbers, right, and
Speaker 2: it was all everybody hung out there. Cops hung out there,
Speaker 2: Cruft hung out there. But it was like a Switzerland
Speaker 2: neutral ground, right. But he ran Numbers out of there.
Speaker 2: Well he's dead now, so I can talk about that.
Speaker 2: And so one time I go in there. My dad
Speaker 2: was down there on a Saturday afternoon, and I go
Speaker 2: in there to, you know, just to have a drink
Speaker 2: with my dad. So we had pagers back then, right,
Speaker 2: So I get a page, and you could never just
Speaker 2: go into the back kitchen. You had to ask Mike,
Speaker 2: can I go back in and use the phone? And
Speaker 2: he said, sure, go ahead. Well, first he walked back
Speaker 2: there to make sure nobody was back there. So I
Speaker 2: walked back in here and I dial up the phone
Speaker 2: and I'm on the phone talking to my boss well income,
Speaker 2: and I can never remember the name of this guy.
Speaker 2: Incomes this guy, he's about eighty years old. All the
Speaker 2: tiny guy shuffling in with two grocery bags. And now
Speaker 2: they had a big butcher block table in the center right.
Speaker 2: So I'm watching him, and I'm watching him, and as
Speaker 2: I'm watching him, he starts stumping out all his cash.
Speaker 2: And as that's happening, on the phone and Mike walks
Speaker 2: in and I told him about Hey, I gotta go.
Speaker 2: I hang up, and Mike goes, Now, if you got
Speaker 2: to do something, you can do it. He goes, but
Speaker 2: before you do that, I got to talk to this
Speaker 2: dumb ass over here. He goes, Hey, do you know
Speaker 2: who that is? He goes, yeah, he goes, that's little
Speaker 2: Frankie Delicio. He goes, oh, he goes, you know what
Speaker 2: he's doing right now? He goes, isn't he in college?
Speaker 2: Mike goes, no, he fucking graduated. He goes, well, what
Speaker 2: is he doing? He goes, he works for fucking atf
Speaker 2: You idiot, the guy I thought was going to have
Speaker 2: a fucking stroke. I walked out of there, and my
Speaker 2: dad goes, where are you going to go? I gotta go.
Speaker 2: I'll talk to you later. And then that, I mean,
Speaker 2: that stuff happened all the time. I mean this because
Speaker 2: the Chunkstown I mean when I was growing up, when
Speaker 2: the car bombing wars were going on in Youngstown, so
Speaker 2: I hung around with this kid, Bobby Pogan right now.
Speaker 2: His dad was a connected guy, and so we would
Speaker 2: go watch Boom Boom Man Sene you fight great gold
Speaker 2: Gloves down in Strutt's at the Fieldhouse. Right now. I
Speaker 2: never knew anything about this, but it seemed kind of
Speaker 2: cool that they had like automatic car starters, you know,
Speaker 2: and anytime we would go, they would say, hey, we
Speaker 2: got to stop here to warm the car up. Well,
Speaker 2: that's when everybody was getting bombed, right, So his dad
Speaker 2: ended up going to going to jail, He got a
Speaker 2: shootout with the FBI. He went away for for some time.
Speaker 2: But you know, you just grew up and it was
Speaker 2: just a manner of people having guns to see you know,
Speaker 2: it was just you culturally, you know, you knew you
Speaker 2: were safe. But that's how we grew up in Youngstown. People,
Speaker 2: if you're from there, you understand.
Speaker 1: Right, right, and so but when you graduated from ATF training,
Speaker 1: they put you kind of back into your home turf.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, yeah, before that, they were well, we
Speaker 2: had guys that were in New York. They shipped them
Speaker 2: to LA. We had guys who were in LA. They
Speaker 2: shipped the New York for whatever you know, because that
Speaker 2: old adage, well you can't work in your own own
Speaker 2: hometown because you know that whole FBI think corruption right. Well,
Speaker 2: you know, so I ended up down at Columbus, Ohio,
Speaker 2: which was another shit show because atf used to have
Speaker 2: these things called punishment posts. So if you were an
Speaker 2: agent that wasn't performing or got in trouble, they would
Speaker 2: ship you to these different posts around the country. Well,
Speaker 2: Columbus was one of them. Before I got there, they
Speaker 2: had hired five new people in Columbus and they still
Speaker 2: had these three hanger honors and they eventually got rid
Speaker 2: of them. Tony Dindarti was a rack and he was
Speaker 2: brought in there for nothing else but to get rid
Speaker 2: of these guys. I showed up the first day on
Speaker 2: the job and the guy who was my training officer,
Speaker 2: John Lickey, German guy from from Chicago, that we were
Speaker 2: in a bay are sr desk were butted up to
Speaker 2: one another. I'm all full of piss and vinegar. I
Speaker 2: sit out at the desk and the other guys are
Speaker 2: watching him because I don't know John, but they know him,
Speaker 2: and he leans over his desk into my face and
Speaker 2: he goes atf is a vindictive outfit. They're gonna be
Speaker 2: out to get you. That was like five minutes on
Speaker 2: the job. A little did I know there was a
Speaker 2: lot of truth for that. But anyway, that was my
Speaker 2: opening DATF and it was like, holy crap. Well, so,
Speaker 2: you know, we had all new guys, and the relationship
Speaker 2: with ATF with the Columbus Police Department wasn't really that
Speaker 2: good because you know, they really didn't interact with them,
Speaker 2: especially in arctics. Well, like I said, we had a
Speaker 2: lot of young guys. You know, we went to the
Speaker 2: academy the old academys used to be because ATF was
Speaker 2: very thick in bringing a lot of state and local
Speaker 2: guys on because ATF is still one of the only
Speaker 2: federal agencies that doesn't require a college degree to come on.
Speaker 2: They'll exchange you know, work investigative work for your degree.
Speaker 2: So we had a lot of state and local guys
Speaker 2: that were coming on. You know, I didn't have any
Speaker 2: police experience. I was twenty four, but it was a
Speaker 2: good mix. And back then there was if you were
Speaker 2: like twenty eight or twenty nine, you were old. So
Speaker 2: they were bringing all these guys on and so we'd
Speaker 2: go through all our training where that's where I met
Speaker 2: one of my dearest friends, Dearren Kazlowski, who we kind
Speaker 2: of passed, went down the same way, and so we're going,
Speaker 2: you know, we're going to this training and you know,
Speaker 2: and you're learning everything. Well, then it comes to field ops, right,
Speaker 2: So field ops is the portion where okay, you're going
Speaker 2: to take all this stuff you learn and you're going
Speaker 2: to take it out into the practical exercises. Well, when
Speaker 2: I was there, the question okay, how many guys want
Speaker 2: to work undercover guys and girls, Like, if there were
Speaker 2: twenty four people, twenty two raised their hand and said, hey,
Speaker 2: I want to do it. Well, when I got was
Speaker 2: getting out of the academy, or when I was getting
Speaker 2: out of ATF in twenty fourteen, when I go down
Speaker 2: to instruct you were lucky to get two or three
Speaker 2: people to raise their hand because they're hiring different types
Speaker 2: of people, not worse people, but more professional people, you know,
Speaker 2: so different mindset. Right. So you know, I went through
Speaker 2: the academy, I ended up in Columbus. So as soon
Speaker 2: as I got there there there was four other guys
Speaker 2: and then we had our basically our training officer was
Speaker 2: one guy Don Mapley, who ended up becoming our boss.
Speaker 2: He took us all under his wing, and man, we
Speaker 2: just get informants and we would just start making buys.
Speaker 2: We used informants initially, then we would start rolling in
Speaker 2: to make crack buys this, and then we were just
Speaker 2: smashing door smashing door, smashing doors, right, So eventually we
Speaker 2: started stepping on the Columbus Police departments toes because we
Speaker 2: weren't deconflicting, so they were smashing our doors and we
Speaker 2: were smashing air doors. But the one thing to come
Speaker 2: out of that is they knew we wanted to work,
Speaker 2: so the relationship really grew. I mean, you know, it
Speaker 2: was a violent time in Columbus. There was a lot
Speaker 2: of uh, you know, street gangs, not like crips and
Speaker 2: bloods per se, but more like you know at hop
Speaker 2: street gangs that were controlling different areas. And then we
Speaker 2: had the Jamaicans, and then you had the Jaffakans. You
Speaker 2: had the you know, uh, the guys that were pretending
Speaker 2: to be Jamaicans that weren't and everybody believed because they
Speaker 2: had an accent, right, but those guys were shooting it up.
Speaker 2: It was it was pretty good. You know, and uh,
Speaker 2: so it was. It was a pretty wild time. But
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what. It's great training because you learn
Speaker 2: how to do everything. I mean, you were in the
Speaker 2: middle of everything. That's where we started getting our taste
Speaker 2: of undercover. And and we were running ops all the time.
Speaker 2: I mean there are days we were doing three four
Speaker 2: search warrants a day, just banging them down. We go
Speaker 2: make the buys and we go out and do that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. So it was, it was, it was
Speaker 2: a great place to learn. And Don was a good
Speaker 2: guy because you know, he he he took the time
Speaker 2: to train us, train us properly any any and he
Speaker 2: shielded us from a lot, you know. And I was
Speaker 2: you had you had guys back then who were stand
Speaker 2: up dudes that would fight with uh with management. Now
Speaker 2: our sack. Bill Wood was an old revenue or guy,
Speaker 2: good guy. If he wore, if you worked, he loved you.
Speaker 2: He didn't hire anybody didn't play athletics at any level.
Speaker 2: And we come to find that out after we all
Speaker 2: got hired. We're talking. He goes, oh, if you didn't
Speaker 2: play any kind of athletics, he wouldn't hire you because
Speaker 2: he believed that you need no TeamWorks sacrifice, you know,
Speaker 2: because it was like, you know, Frank, when you come on,
Speaker 2: you're going to miss anniversaries, you might miss holidays. And
Speaker 2: I took that to heart, you know, and everybody that
Speaker 2: I know that came on it it's had a successful
Speaker 2: career in ATF. You did miss a lot of that,
Speaker 2: a lot of personal time you loss with your family.
Speaker 2: But you know that, you know, that's the conversation you
Speaker 2: have with your wife when you get married, and they
Speaker 2: accept it or they don't.
Speaker 1: Could you tell us a bit about I mean, was
Speaker 1: that the extent of your undercover training at that time?
Speaker 1: It was sort of OJT.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, so ATF unlike other agencies because I worked
Speaker 2: a lot with FBI, HSI, de EA. They all have
Speaker 2: to go to an undercover school before they can work undercover. ATF.
Speaker 2: You go through the you know, the two week block
Speaker 2: at the academy. When you get out, you just have
Speaker 2: to raise your hand and say I want to work undercovered.
Speaker 2: If the rack or group supervisor feels you have the
Speaker 2: ability to do it, down the roads you go, now
Speaker 2: they're going to try to stick you with somebody who
Speaker 2: has been doing it or has experience and it's all
Speaker 2: OJT work. Now, we did have advanced undercover schools, but
Speaker 2: it wasn't requirement for you to go, So I never
Speaker 2: went to one. I've instructed at them, but because I
Speaker 2: was always involved in something, I got invited to go
Speaker 2: down and teach. But it was just I would say
Speaker 2: for the guys in ATF, ninety nine percent of what
Speaker 2: they they they learned, they learned OJT and on the
Speaker 2: streets and sometimes the hard way.
Speaker 3: You mentioned your relationship with the local PD, but you
Speaker 3: know ATF alcohol, tobacco, firearms, what you're doing, You're doing
Speaker 3: these drug warrants. How did how did you guys fit
Speaker 3: in with the DEA throughout your career? Did you was
Speaker 3: there a lot of cooperation? Did you step on each
Speaker 3: other's toes a lot?
Speaker 2: You know, to be brutally honest, because I'm gonna you
Speaker 2: know I we had you know, it's personality driven, Let's
Speaker 2: put it that way. You know, sometimes if the boss
Speaker 2: is good, your your agencies will click together because the
Speaker 2: guys will work good. If the bosses aren't good, or
Speaker 2: you got some agents that don't want to cooperate, Hey,
Speaker 2: ATF had a chair assholes like everybody else. You know
Speaker 2: what I mean, But you try to work with people,
Speaker 2: you find those few guys that you to get the
Speaker 2: job done, because that's what it's about. So, you know,
Speaker 2: I had friends with FBI, I had friends with DA,
Speaker 2: but most of the time, you know, they had their
Speaker 2: task forces and they were recruiting off of the you know,
Speaker 2: off of the local police departments. Well, us we went
Speaker 2: made our own ad hot task forces with the nark
Speaker 2: guys that we liked to. I mean, one of my
Speaker 2: dearest best friends in the world. He was fifty years old,
Speaker 2: as old as my dad when I came on. I
Speaker 2: did my first long term with him. He was getting
Speaker 2: out Tom Strasbaugh, I mean the stories, but you know so,
Speaker 2: but we were running and gunning and we you know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't They didn't give us the respect until we
Speaker 2: earned it, and we did earn their respect, and that's
Speaker 2: what we wanted to do to where we can get
Speaker 2: on equal park and we did with DEA, and we
Speaker 2: did with FBI. And some people you can work with
Speaker 2: and some people you can't. So you know, there wasn't
Speaker 2: such thing as deconflicting back then like the height as
Speaker 2: are now and where you deconflict some of your work
Speaker 2: so that there's not any blue on blue, uh, you know.
Speaker 2: But but that was always contentious because it was a
Speaker 2: need to know versus a right to know, and sometimes
Speaker 2: we didn't. We never deconflicted just because of the sensitivity
Speaker 2: of the case.
Speaker 1: Then law enforcement, what do they call that? Daxing, You've
Speaker 1: got a dax or decks.
Speaker 2: I've heard that.
Speaker 1: I've heard guys use the term to deconflict.
Speaker 2: Well, there's texts, uh the treasure. Well, basically height runs deconfliction.
Speaker 2: So what you do is so what you do is
Speaker 2: they have a they have a deconfliction center and other
Speaker 2: agencies represented. So if you have a target or an address,
Speaker 2: or you're going out to do a warrant or you
Speaker 2: have an investigation, you're supposed to send that in to
Speaker 2: them so that they can make sure that nobody else
Speaker 2: is either going to hit the same house or location
Speaker 2: and that there's no blue on blue situation. And you know,
Speaker 2: and if you're working the same target, this is where
Speaker 2: it gets tricky. If you identify the same target, then
Speaker 2: it becomes who has control of the target, And then
Speaker 2: that usually comes down to the US Attorney's office and
Speaker 2: who's investigraces with them, because sometimes agencies will get walled
Speaker 2: out of their own cases because somebody has a better asset. Now,
Speaker 2: you'd like to think people can work together and do it,
Speaker 2: and it does happen.
Speaker 3: So if you guys, and I don't know if this
Speaker 3: has ever happened to you, but when you guys have
Speaker 3: guys on like a deep cover and they're in with
Speaker 3: some serious hardcore players, right, some shitheads, and if you
Speaker 3: get rolled up by local PD or whatever because you're
Speaker 3: in this group of people and they're doing something nefarious,
Speaker 3: how do you how do you handle that?
Speaker 2: When you go to booking and stuff like that, you
Speaker 2: go to jail, I mean a lot of times. So
Speaker 2: the game has changed significantly on the long term. Infiltrations
Speaker 2: like guys like like the OG of All Law Motorcycle
Speaker 2: Gang infiltrations would have been Steve Martin with Langley and
Speaker 2: and Timmy Bunns and there was one other guy and
Speaker 2: his name's Escaping Me. They did the first which you
Speaker 2: would say modern infiltration of the Warlocks in Florida, and
Speaker 2: it was like, I need to know. There was no
Speaker 2: atf T even have OP plans back then, so it
Speaker 2: was like, hey, we're going to have to do something,
Speaker 2: and we're gonna do it, and we'll let you know
Speaker 2: how it goes. And if something bad happens, we'll call you.
Speaker 2: We won't because there wasn't all this oversight, which towards
Speaker 2: the end it was a ton oversight. So and that's
Speaker 2: where the case is. You know, if you got rolled up,
Speaker 2: we get stopped all the time. Right, So we had
Speaker 2: our identification. But you gotta understand, for atf for the
Speaker 2: stop them back in the late eighties early nineties, it
Speaker 2: was a collateral duty for one dude in the headquarters, right,
Speaker 2: and all he could do is maybe give you a
Speaker 2: social security number in a in a credit card, and
Speaker 2: they fucked that up right as a yeah, no, no,
Speaker 2: you could o good, you could yeah and uh. But
Speaker 2: but the problem was, you know because now mind you,
Speaker 2: there weren't even computers at this point in time, you know,
Speaker 2: and the cell phones were the brick phones and you
Speaker 2: had the old Motorola gray flip phone, right, so there
Speaker 2: wasn't a whole lot of technology. But the cops, right,
Speaker 2: they'd stop you, they'd run your license plate or they'd
Speaker 2: run your tag. All that stuff was covered, right, So
Speaker 2: you were good. You know, now, if you got caught
Speaker 2: with a gun, now, hopefully if you did have cover
Speaker 2: team out there you were work with me, they would
Speaker 2: flag those guys off so they didn't bother you. But
Speaker 2: we had we had our share guys that got arrested
Speaker 2: and went to jail, and then you got to deal
Speaker 2: with it after because then you know, the organization clubs
Speaker 2: were looking at you, the gangs looking at you, going Okay,
Speaker 2: what's happening now because.
Speaker 1: They have to maintain their cover.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, so you might have to spend a night
Speaker 2: or two in jail. We've had guys have to spend
Speaker 2: a night or two in jail because you know, they
Speaker 2: want to do all the bonding out and everything. You
Speaker 2: have to get your own attorneys and you have to
Speaker 2: work with the judges on that to try to get
Speaker 2: that right so you're not spending time in jail. Right. So,
Speaker 2: but yeah, there was a lot of times that things
Speaker 2: would happen that our guys would get stopped and pull over,
Speaker 2: especially on runs you get checked out. But our backstopping
Speaker 2: got better, I mean it did over time. Like my
Speaker 2: stuff during that time, like in my first case in
Speaker 2: Columbus that went three and a half years and it
Speaker 2: was all self acquire other than those two things, right,
Speaker 2: So I had to call people that I know, trying
Speaker 2: to explain to them what I'm trying to do, and
Speaker 2: they're like looking at you with three eyes and you know,
Speaker 2: but it was all your own back stopping to cover
Speaker 2: your ass because you know, but they hired private investigators
Speaker 2: to check you out. So it was it was a
Speaker 2: lot different than it is now. You know, the guys
Speaker 2: are smart, you know, Federal Penn stay Pin, they're the
Speaker 2: best college educational world because they know how we do things.
Speaker 2: So they start thinking outside the box. Now you know
Speaker 2: how to try to catch us.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know if you want to pick up
Speaker 1: that straight of thought or we.
Speaker 3: Actually i'd love to talk about before we even get
Speaker 3: into your personal story, I'd love to talk about the
Speaker 3: challenges of undercover work and for people who might not
Speaker 3: be familiar with like a cover, we talk about backstop.
Speaker 3: That means that you have a history. If you have
Speaker 3: an address and somebody goes to that address like that
Speaker 3: that there are backstops to your cover. When we talk
Speaker 3: about aged cover site, nobody has a credit. You know,
Speaker 3: if you get a brand new alias, that hasn't been aged.
Speaker 3: You have a credit rating of zero because you have
Speaker 3: a card that's never been used. You know, you don't
Speaker 3: have any kind of you know, uh, places where bills
Speaker 3: have ever been sent. And maybe back then it was
Speaker 3: harder to check that kind of stuff. Now though, I'm
Speaker 3: sure the gangs are much savviier when it comes to
Speaker 3: checking somebody out.
Speaker 2: How did how was.
Speaker 3: That undercover process for you when you infiltrated, when you started,
Speaker 3: and then how did it change through the years.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not going to get into the TTP, sure
Speaker 2: you know and all that, but what I can tell
Speaker 2: you is so when I got went into my first club,
Speaker 2: there was no check, right, it was based on my
Speaker 2: informant vouching for me, you know, them doing their own
Speaker 2: check scene where I lived, you know, just talking to
Speaker 2: me how I worked, what I did, Right, They did
Speaker 2: their own personal thing. But then when I went out
Speaker 2: to Las Vegas and was working a vagos, before you
Speaker 2: can get in, you had to fill out it was
Speaker 2: a one sheet application, right, ask you for a copy
Speaker 2: your driver's license, copy your social security card, where you
Speaker 2: lived and all that, and then you had to pay.
Speaker 2: And then they had a private investigator that was going
Speaker 2: to obtain some of your backstop like your birth certificate.
Speaker 2: You had to tell them where you were born and
Speaker 2: all that. And remember when I talked about self acquire, Well,
Speaker 2: the guy who gave me mine because we had we
Speaker 2: had a way to do, you know, for credit and
Speaker 2: stuff like that. You know, the thing is, it's no
Speaker 2: secret the bad guys know today because we've passed so
Speaker 2: many tests with them that we could take something digitally
Speaker 2: and make it appear as good as anybody else on paper. Right.
Speaker 2: It's the other things that are the challenges today. But however,
Speaker 2: so we had we had that, all those mechanisms, well
Speaker 2: not at that time in place. So one issue I
Speaker 2: had was so I filled out my application and something
Speaker 2: just didn't feel right to me. So I called a
Speaker 2: buddy of mine who had to use car lot, and
Speaker 2: I said, hey, run my social security number and tell
Speaker 2: me what you come back with. So he calls me
Speaker 2: ten minutes later and he's laughing, which is not good,
Speaker 2: and he says, hey, he goes, you got three people
Speaker 2: with that same social security number. I go, how to
Speaker 2: fucking after people? I go, it supposed to be issued
Speaker 2: to me only. So I make my call to headquarters
Speaker 2: our special co Operations division, and I talked to the
Speaker 2: young man who was in charge of the program and
Speaker 2: I said, hey, man, I got a problem with my
Speaker 2: social He goes, you can't. He goes, he goes, what
Speaker 2: number did I give you? And I gave him the
Speaker 2: number and their silence on the phone. Then I hear
Speaker 2: him go oh shit. I go, well, that's not good, dude.
Speaker 2: I go, already gave these guys my info. He goes, well,
Speaker 2: that was the number we used to test the system.
Speaker 2: I had a black mail hispanic mail in me, all
Speaker 2: with different credit histories floating around. Now, so that was
Speaker 2: one strike because then they start questioning me about that.
Speaker 2: Then the next strike was I had to acquire my
Speaker 2: own birth certificate. I had that all lined up right
Speaker 2: the day that this that the private investigator makes contact
Speaker 2: with the county. Guess what the guy had on board
Speaker 2: out sick he gets he gets called back to the
Speaker 2: to the private in vestcat and he goes, well, you know,
Speaker 2: it's a very good forgery, but it doesn't come back
Speaker 2: to that guy. So I'm under the hammer, getting hammered
Speaker 2: on all this because you know, but the thing is,
Speaker 2: greed is a beautiful thing, because they really wanted us
Speaker 2: in the club. So they were overlooking a lot of
Speaker 2: stuff because I had some shelf alasis, because we always
Speaker 2: had multiple and they got into this, why we're using
Speaker 2: this alien or why were we using that name and not
Speaker 2: this one? I said, because I don't know you motherfuckers,
Speaker 2: you know, and I'm not giving you my real shit.
Speaker 2: This is what I'm into. Anyway, they believe that we
Speaker 2: went down the road and you know, and then that
Speaker 2: case ended because the other agent who was working, Darren
Speaker 2: Keselowski cause who was working the case out and in Hollywood,
Speaker 2: got blown out of the water. They found out who
Speaker 2: he was. Uh, they still thought we were good, and
Speaker 2: I got a phone call talking about how they wanted
Speaker 2: to kill him. I wanted to kill him too, But anyway,
Speaker 2: so that sitting in real well. However, what it did
Speaker 2: prompt was the initiation of our undercover branch back in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight, where they're like, we got to fix this, right.
Speaker 2: I had no desire to go into that undercover branch.
Speaker 2: I was pissed. I just wanted to go to another post.
Speaker 2: But I got yanked in and three other guys were there,
Speaker 2: and we actually started our branch and we got a
Speaker 2: good sponsor and then we start doing our own backstopping
Speaker 2: the proper way, and you know, and it morphed. But
Speaker 2: you know, every time we do an infiltration, like I said,
Speaker 2: over the course of forty years, I think we've probably
Speaker 2: done twenty. Not all of them were long, but there
Speaker 2: were some that went long, and we're damaging, right, So
Speaker 2: they all talk, you know, they had meetings, even the
Speaker 2: adversarial clubs will talk about how they were infiltrated. And
Speaker 2: I'll tell you it came down to the applications changed.
Speaker 2: When the guys were going into the black rain case
Speaker 2: out in California, the Mongols case, three of them had
Speaker 2: to get polygraphed. Okay, they had to pass that. That
Speaker 2: was another shit show because I was running a branch
Speaker 2: at that time, and you know what ATF's concern was,
Speaker 2: this is how fucked up this was. We're talking about
Speaker 2: three guys who are getting in. They got a pass
Speaker 2: the polygraph. If they're in, they're in, right. Their concern
Speaker 2: was if these guys learned how to beat the polygraph, Well,
Speaker 2: if they ever come under internal affairs investigation and they
Speaker 2: have to take polygraph, how we know they won't be
Speaker 2: that's the pennymess bullshit, right, Yeah, So they ended up
Speaker 2: all taking the polygraph from passing and then they all
Speaker 2: got in and in that case, as sister, they did
Speaker 2: a whole man. They took down that whole play was
Speaker 2: that's probably the single best investigation in ATF from start
Speaker 2: to finish. The outlaw case in Virginia was very similar,
Speaker 2: and the Pagan case up in Long Island where they
Speaker 2: actually went and they took out the leadership like the
Speaker 2: no shit national presidents, international presidents and you know, but
Speaker 2: go ahead, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, finish your thought, but I'd like to
Speaker 1: backtrack a little bit to your personal experience or your
Speaker 1: introduction into into that world. But please continue.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it's just changed so much that these
Speaker 2: guys now, you know, they look at you and it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: they understand over the course of forty years that we
Speaker 2: could look at you all day long on paper, we
Speaker 2: know you're going to have a house. You know you're
Speaker 2: gonna have cars, you're gonna have motorcycles. We had guys
Speaker 2: that came to work with us just to verify we
Speaker 2: were working to take a look at how we worked,
Speaker 2: you know, security guys, you know, just to see what
Speaker 2: was going on. They come and look at your house
Speaker 2: looking for cameras, they do all that mess, right, well,
Speaker 2: you know, then they start thinking outside the box on
Speaker 2: what can they get you to do that cops would do,
Speaker 2: you know, Feds wouldn't do. You know, they don't worry
Speaker 2: about informants because although they can be damaging, they're looking
Speaker 2: for the you know, they're looking for the infiltrators, right, cops,
Speaker 2: law enforcement. So you know, so the game did change
Speaker 2: quite a bit towards the end. Guys, we're going through
Speaker 2: some pretty high hurdles to get in these clubs, and
Speaker 2: everybody thinks that we got in these clubs because we
Speaker 2: wanted to patch. It was never about the patch. You know,
Speaker 2: you can only go so far an investigation, right as
Speaker 2: a hangaround or an outsider, and sometimes that's good enough.
Speaker 2: You could do enough damage doing it that way, and
Speaker 2: it's better because getting a patch and deciding that I'm
Speaker 2: going to go in and probate a prospect, which could
Speaker 2: be from three months to a year. Right, you're at
Speaker 2: their beck and call, and it's hard to do business
Speaker 2: because everybody's watching you. So there has to be a
Speaker 2: real reason to get the patch, and that's so you
Speaker 2: can get on the inner sanctum and go further right,
Speaker 2: But that was never the goal. Everybody else say, you
Speaker 2: guys just want to get the pat. No, we don't know.
Speaker 2: That's the byproduct of the investigation, because then you really
Speaker 2: are owned by the club. You know, they watch you,
Speaker 2: they look at you, they see what you're doing. A
Speaker 2: lot of scrutiny. You know, a lot of those guys
Speaker 2: were right for the wrong reasons a choosing. You know,
Speaker 2: all the guys over the years of being cops, they
Speaker 2: just couldn't nail it down except for the one time,
Speaker 2: but other than that, you know.
Speaker 1: So walk us back a little bit to you know,
Speaker 1: you're a semi seasoned ATF agent. I take it at
Speaker 1: this point when you start doing the long term undercover work. No,
Speaker 1: but well, tell us about tell us about your entryway
Speaker 1: into that, into that line of work and how that
Speaker 1: came about.
Speaker 2: So when I was young, you know, I liked ride
Speaker 2: motorcycles and mini bikes and all that stuff. Right. So
Speaker 2: my one of the agents in the office, Rodney Russell,
Speaker 2: he had an informant who he did a big drug
Speaker 2: reco case on a bunch of black gang members, but
Speaker 2: this dude was white. But he also had ties to
Speaker 2: a lot of the biker clubs. Right, so I'm talking
Speaker 2: to Rod. Rod goes, hey, he's got some hooks into
Speaker 2: some of these clubs. He goes, would you be interested?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, shit, I like to ride motorcycles,
Speaker 2: but you know, I've never been around like club life.
Speaker 2: I didn't know really what that was about. So that's
Speaker 2: when I start calling Steve Martin and saying, Steve, Now
Speaker 2: he's in the middle of his investigation with the Warlocks.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get educated on how should I act,
Speaker 2: what should I what should I ask? You know? What?
Speaker 2: You know? How do I not piss these people off?
Speaker 2: So he's educating me. Right, So I've been going through
Speaker 2: a couple of bars in the area, just kind of
Speaker 2: getting and I didn't even have motorcycle. So my good
Speaker 2: friend Tom Strasbaal, who was on the Vice squad at
Speaker 2: the time, he had a motorcycle. So I had to
Speaker 2: go borrow his motorcycle to go start riding with these guys,
Speaker 2: and he was very gracious with that. So so so
Speaker 2: I'm riding motorcycle. So I get invited to a part Well,
Speaker 2: the CI gets invited to a party at this club
Speaker 2: called the Road Saints on the south side of Columbus.
Speaker 2: He goes, come on, he goes, this would be a
Speaker 2: great place for you to meet. He goes, the Avengers
Speaker 2: will be there. He goes, there might be some outlaws.
Speaker 2: He goes, there'll be some Road Saints. He goes, this
Speaker 2: a good place to get FaceTime. I go, I'm in now,
Speaker 2: I'm old. Was I that twenty? I've been on a
Speaker 2: job like three years, three and a half years, So
Speaker 2: this is like try by fire. So the CI shows
Speaker 2: up himself because he don't have a bike. He's there
Speaker 2: in a car. So I roll up on my motorcycle.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of people there, and you know, hey,
Speaker 2: how you doing? How you doing? An hour into the party,
Speaker 2: Columbus Police Department and Liquor Control come and raid the house,
Speaker 2: and I'm shit in my pan. So I take my
Speaker 2: gun because I don't want to I don't want to
Speaker 2: go to jail, right, So I throw my gun under
Speaker 2: the house. I'm getting rid of anything that can be
Speaker 2: construed as a weapon because we normally carried more than,
Speaker 2: you know, one gun. And so the police are patting
Speaker 2: down their ida and everybody, you know. And luckily, because
Speaker 2: I had been running out on the streets of you know,
Speaker 2: if Columbus told stuff that there weren't there wasn't anybody
Speaker 2: there that recognized me. Okay, So party breaks up. I
Speaker 2: go back to the bar the next day to see
Speaker 2: what's going on. I sit down at the bar. I'm
Speaker 2: having a sandwich and a beer. Two Avengers walking, two
Speaker 2: road Saints walking. They pulled me out. Now I'm I'm
Speaker 2: on a small guy by any stretch of the imagine it.
Speaker 2: In fact, I was. I was bigger back then, you know.
Speaker 2: And they pulled me out and they put me up
Speaker 2: on a wall at gunpoint and go who the fuck
Speaker 2: are you? And I'm like, what do you mean? Who
Speaker 2: am I? I go, I'm Tony, Tony Franco, that was
Speaker 2: my name, and they go, no, who are you? I go,
Speaker 2: I don't know what is So this went back and
Speaker 2: forth for a half hour on Hey, I was the
Speaker 2: new face that showed up the house got raided. Who
Speaker 2: are you are you? With? Ohio BCEI where I don't
Speaker 2: know where they came out of that, And it was
Speaker 2: like so for like I was getting hammered for like,
Speaker 2: you know, half hour guns. Well, eventually, I think because
Speaker 2: I was young and I was able to talk, you know,
Speaker 2: just talk. I had a good gift of gab. They're
Speaker 2: like all right, but it was like, you know, we're
Speaker 2: gonna be watching you kind of deal. So that was
Speaker 2: kind of discouraging. So so yeah, a little scary. So
Speaker 2: you know, so things kept on and I kept going
Speaker 2: around and then the stroke of luck for me. Now,
Speaker 2: at this time, I started pulling my buddy Tom Strasbaus
Speaker 2: start coming around and he was an art Now we
Speaker 2: had to be real careful because that guy had been
Speaker 2: a homicide and ardvice, so we had to kind of
Speaker 2: limit his exposure. But one of the best mentors I
Speaker 2: could have ever had in my life. So he taught
Speaker 2: me a ton and so we're sitting there and I
Speaker 2: started pulling him in. Well about a year into this, right,
Speaker 2: we've been buying LSD. We've been buying all kinds of
Speaker 2: stuff off the peripheral, the edges and a few club
Speaker 2: members from the Avengers. Well, I call it my friend now,
Speaker 2: my informant. I've known the guy for thirty plus years. Right,
Speaker 2: didn't have any criminal history. He had done a case
Speaker 2: down in New Orleans. Okay, so Easy Rider, if you're
Speaker 2: familiar with like Easy Rider magazine, Well, they used to
Speaker 2: do like rallies around the country, and Columbus was a
Speaker 2: big one, and they actually opened up a motorcycle shop
Speaker 2: in Columbus, and my informant and his best friend they
Speaker 2: ended up going to work there. Well, I got a
Speaker 2: call from an agent down in New Orleans and said, hey,
Speaker 2: I need you to do me a favor. We got
Speaker 2: to pay Tony some reward money for the case he did.
Speaker 2: He goes, do mine, going and seeing him and I'll
Speaker 2: send it up. I go, you know, we'll blend. So
Speaker 2: we stop at the Easy Rider shop, Tom and I
Speaker 2: and it had just opened and we walk in. Now
Speaker 2: his best friend who is now to see Stump, who
Speaker 2: we didn't know. We go, hey, we're looking for Tony
Speaker 2: and he's looking at us. Now. You know, I had
Speaker 2: at that time had real long hair, you know, and
Speaker 2: Tom looked like a bucket of shit too. We rolled
Speaker 2: in on motorcycles and he's like, he goes, well, hold on,
Speaker 2: and I see him take off up these stairs. So
Speaker 2: Tom and I follow him and we get up there
Speaker 2: and there's Tony's standing there and Stump and they're like
Speaker 2: grabbing shit to start beating the hell out of us.
Speaker 2: They're like whoa, whoa, whoa. We're like, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: They go, who are you guys? I said, David sent me,
Speaker 2: which was his control agent down and it was like everything,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of kind of softened out. And then
Speaker 2: within talking to Tony, you know, he knew that whole
Speaker 2: crowd because he used to be in a club called
Speaker 2: the Outright, the Outriders. It was there a long time
Speaker 2: ago that had become the Brothers, and we just start talking.
Speaker 2: He goes, Man, he goes, I get right back in
Speaker 2: with those guys. If you want, he goes, I'll work
Speaker 2: for you. And then it was like boom. We were
Speaker 2: off to the races. And for like the next two years, Man,
Speaker 2: we were running between Ohio, Michigan, Indiana. We were running everywhere.
Speaker 2: You know, uh, make buys, we dealt with, We dealt
Speaker 2: with just about everybody. You know. Uh. We had we
Speaker 2: had our share issues, but it was a different time
Speaker 2: because you know, I would tell my boss, Hey, I'm
Speaker 2: leaving Columbus, I'm going to Acor and then I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go up to the Muskegan in a couple other places
Speaker 2: a long way. I'll be gone for a week. Okay,
Speaker 2: just make sure you have contact with an agent and
Speaker 2: uh let him know if you buy anything. Just make
Speaker 2: sure you're passing off. That was our coverage. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: that was it.
Speaker 3: How if you guys, If you guys, I'm assuming you
Speaker 3: weren't necessarily patched at this time with any particular club.
Speaker 3: How did you guys get bona fides with these clubs?
Speaker 2: Not belonging to anybody in particular, you're just kind of
Speaker 2: like independent.
Speaker 1: You were one of the hangarounds as they say, right.
Speaker 2: Well, not for those clubs. We're more like independence. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so we you know, we were around, we were doing business,
Speaker 2: Tony like for the Brothers. Tony was friends with those guys.
Speaker 2: So that was the way in the issues we had.
Speaker 2: Now the other they had a couple other chapters, but
Speaker 2: they had the only other chapter Brothers they had was
Speaker 2: up an Akron and then it was the guys up
Speaker 2: in Michigan. Now the Guys an Akron. They were old school,
Speaker 2: hard ass on of bitches man, and they really didn't
Speaker 2: have an affiliation with any major club because most smaller
Speaker 2: clubs will you know, because they have, dude, They didn't.
Speaker 2: The Hell's Angels got along with them. They didn't get now,
Speaker 2: the brothers along with the breed at all. There were
Speaker 2: plenty of times when we went up there, we'd go
Speaker 2: hunt for them guys, you know, but but the Hell's
Speaker 2: Angels left them alone because they did their own thing.
Speaker 2: You know, they're a violent crew, but nobody really messed
Speaker 2: with them. They did, you know, for a long time.
Speaker 2: You know, they did their own dope, guns, grenades, whatever
Speaker 2: you wanted you can get from those guys. So so
Speaker 2: we eventually Tony, you know, we talked about getting back
Speaker 2: into the club, and then Tony got back in. Now,
Speaker 2: the guy who was the president of the club, his
Speaker 2: name was wamp he was you know. So let me explain.
Speaker 2: When we go into clubs, if they're in disarray, we
Speaker 2: generally go in and make the club better. We organize
Speaker 2: the crime better for them, if that makes sense that
Speaker 2: you know, they're all over the board, so we go
Speaker 2: in there and organize the crime so they're more profitable
Speaker 2: and more streamlined to make money. And they always like
Speaker 2: that about it. Most of our guys that ever went
Speaker 2: into a club within either going from a probate or
Speaker 2: a prospect usually went to an officer position right away,
Speaker 2: whether it was sergeant in arms or a treasurer or
Speaker 2: a vice president or even president. Because we were smart,
Speaker 2: but we had to be careful. We didn't want to
Speaker 2: be seem too smart, like we knew too much, because
Speaker 2: we never wanted to say we were coming for another
Speaker 2: club because and then they could check that, right, So
Speaker 2: we just had to be good criminals, and we had
Speaker 2: to offer, bring something to the table. And you know,
Speaker 2: when you go in as a young guy, what do
Speaker 2: you got to offer. I mean, you're a new guy
Speaker 2: coming in, right, so you're expected to be a little
Speaker 2: bit more rowdy, you know, maybe fight a little more,
Speaker 2: maybe drink a little harder. The drugs were a whole
Speaker 2: different issue, you know, with that if you guys wanted
Speaker 2: the whole simulation, you know, deception with an ATF became
Speaker 2: a big to do because you know, guys learned how
Speaker 2: to appear to be doing drugs but not and we
Speaker 2: got drug tested and nobody ever popped pausive, you know,
Speaker 2: and but we had to make it appear. Now, the
Speaker 2: older you got in those clubs, it was easier to
Speaker 2: fade that off because it's like Hey, I had a
Speaker 2: problem a long time ago. I don't fuck around. You know,
Speaker 2: if you're still dealing at the level you were when
Speaker 2: you were twenty five and you're now forty, something's wrong
Speaker 2: with you. Your bad crook, right, So you should have
Speaker 2: something about you and your game. You should be able
Speaker 2: to throw some money around and look like you know,
Speaker 2: it's all smoking mirrors, you know, make them believe what
Speaker 2: you want them to believe about your business. Yeah, how
Speaker 2: do you guys.
Speaker 3: Like avoid if you go in and you organize the
Speaker 3: club so they do crime better?
Speaker 2: How do you avoid it?
Speaker 3: Like the sort of the entrapment angle that a defense
Speaker 3: attorney's going to bring.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we don't tell them how to do a crime, don't.
Speaker 2: We don't direct the crime. Right, they're talking about how
Speaker 2: they're moving their drugs, and they're talking to us about
Speaker 2: how they're doing it. And you know, so we have
Speaker 2: this thing, you know, it's out there street theater where
Speaker 2: we do blue on blue deals that make the bad
Speaker 2: guys look like we're doing actual deals, but it's actually
Speaker 2: with cops, right or other law enforcement, and they see
Speaker 2: all you're legit because and we'll bring them along as
Speaker 2: bodyguards will pay them and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: you know, but we don't direct the crime, Paul. We'll
Speaker 2: do is we'll go in there, and we'll go in
Speaker 2: there and we'll say, well, how do you guys do it?
Speaker 2: It's like, well, you know, and we'll get into you know,
Speaker 2: how much they're selling, where they're selling, who they're selling to.
Speaker 2: You know, there were a lot of times in these clubs,
Speaker 2: so you know, it's like anything else. You spent a
Speaker 2: couple of years with people, You're going to get relationships.
Speaker 2: You're gonna find people we actually like. You know, there
Speaker 2: are only as a good as Tom Wance told me,
Speaker 2: he goes, there's only a few people in this world
Speaker 2: that don't have any redeeming qualities. And we came across
Speaker 2: a few of them. But most of these guys are
Speaker 2: likable or so the girls. I mean, you know, they're crooks,
Speaker 2: they could be assholes, but most of them are. Then
Speaker 2: you got the others that are just in these gangs,
Speaker 2: in these clubs because they want to be a part
Speaker 2: of something feel special, right, I can't tell I could
Speaker 2: tell you probably every guy that's done an infiltration and
Speaker 2: tell you they had somebody or a couple of people
Speaker 2: in the club. We I had at least three that
Speaker 2: would come up and say, hey, we want to get
Speaker 2: in the game. No, you know, why do you want
Speaker 2: to get in the game. I need to make money
Speaker 2: for my family. This isn't the way, dude. You know,
Speaker 2: if you get caught, you're going to prison. Yeah. And
Speaker 2: some of those guys you would make see the light
Speaker 2: and you could steer them, and then some were so
Speaker 2: held bent on it it was like, all right, dude,
Speaker 2: you want in a game, this is what we need,
Speaker 2: go find it. And then you know, you're saying, you know,
Speaker 2: you try to give them some consideration on the back
Speaker 2: side out but they but they go to prison, right
Speaker 2: because they don't want to listen. You know, you can't
Speaker 2: just say, hey, I'm a cop, don't do this, right,
Speaker 2: but you kind of steer them away that it's not
Speaker 2: the right thing for you to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Frank, for for people, the uninitiated people, most people
Speaker 1: are not going to be nearly as initiated as you were.
Speaker 1: Could you explain a little bit about what an outlaw
Speaker 1: motorcycle club is like, what that culture is like, the
Speaker 1: old ladies, the three piece patch, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, you know, so that Outlaw Motorcycle Club is
Speaker 2: generally distinguished by a three piece patch, which means you
Speaker 2: have the top rocker, you have the bottom rocker, and
Speaker 2: you have the center patch. And the center patch is
Speaker 2: usually going to be the mascot. Right, So let's just
Speaker 2: take the Outlaws, we'll say, right, So the top of it,
Speaker 2: we'll say Outlaws. The center patch is the skull and
Speaker 2: cross pistons, which they refer to as the Charlie, okay,
Speaker 2: and then the bottom used to be city designators now
Speaker 2: some of the old chapters and in most clubs they'll
Speaker 2: still have a city designator, but now they've all gone
Speaker 2: to states for the most part, you know that they
Speaker 2: own the state, and then they'll be the MC, the
Speaker 2: motorcycle club, right, so, you know. And then on the
Speaker 2: front they'll usually have various other patches and memory patches,
Speaker 2: and they're stages. So you start as to hang around
Speaker 2: and that could be as long as they want to
Speaker 2: get to know you, right, and it's changed dramatically, and
Speaker 2: then you go through a prospect phase. Prospect probate are
Speaker 2: interchangeable depending on the club you're in, right, and that
Speaker 2: period could be from three months, it could be up
Speaker 2: to a year, okay, Hell's Angels have have the longest that.
Speaker 2: You're generally a year. Everybody else folds in there somewhere, right,
Speaker 2: And then while you're prospecting and probate, you pretty much
Speaker 2: are owned by the club. So you got a sponsor,
Speaker 2: somebody sponsors you. You have to get you have to
Speaker 2: get voted to even be allowed to prospect probate, okay.
Speaker 2: So then once they say okay, then you're responsible to
Speaker 2: the club. People call you. You got to do all
Speaker 2: the bullshit. You got to watch the bikes, you got
Speaker 2: to clean the house. You know. We had guys that
Speaker 2: were digging trenches for their bosses, their yard work, I
Speaker 2: mean whatever. They're not supposed to do that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: But pretty much, you're there, bitch, until you get voted in,
Speaker 2: and the vote has to be unanimous or if one
Speaker 2: guy says no, you're out. So, and when it was
Speaker 2: originally used to be to the charter, to the chapter right,
Speaker 2: charter is pretty much what the Hell's Angels call it.
Speaker 2: Everybody else is a chapter right. Some people say charter,
Speaker 2: but mostly it sells angels to use that. And so
Speaker 2: you come up for vote right, they vote you in
Speaker 2: and then you get your full patch, which means in
Speaker 2: their phase. It's like a lot of clubs will have
Speaker 2: like if when you're a probate or probationary, you'll have
Speaker 2: a patch that says probate or probate probationary member of
Speaker 2: the club. Sometimes they'll give you the bottom rocker, just
Speaker 2: the bottom rocker and the MC. Sometimes they give you
Speaker 2: the bottom rocker and the top rocker sometimes, and then
Speaker 2: you progressively earn your patch until you get the center patch.
Speaker 2: Then they have probationary members guys that they bring in
Speaker 2: as full patches. You get a full patch right out
Speaker 2: of the gate, but then you'll have like a P
Speaker 2: or something that says you're a probationary member, which means
Speaker 2: you're a full patch, you have all the rights, but
Speaker 2: you're still on probation for a year. So they do
Speaker 2: that in special cases when they want to bring guys in,
Speaker 2: they think bring something to the table. So it used
Speaker 2: to be like there was a tree on how this went.
Speaker 2: That's a shrub. Everybody kind of does their own thing
Speaker 2: on how they bring guys in, you know, And it
Speaker 2: used to be where the chapter charter would vote for you,
Speaker 2: like if you had eight guys in there, those eight
Speaker 2: guys would vote. Now a lot of time it goes
Speaker 2: to a national vote, like you know, because now they
Speaker 2: send pictures. Does anybody know this guy? They send pictures
Speaker 2: into the prisons. They do their real due diligence on
Speaker 2: you to make sure that nobody knows you as a
Speaker 2: component informant before they bring it in because they've been
Speaker 2: stung so many times. I mean some of these clubs
Speaker 2: been stung two three times by ETF.
Speaker 1: And the drug I mean, correct me if I'm wrong
Speaker 1: that the drugs, explosives, prostitution. I mean they tend to
Speaker 1: be involved in a lot of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you're going to have obviously, you got
Speaker 2: the felons with the guns. There's a lot of extortion.
Speaker 2: There's you know, a lot of home invasion, you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of drug dealer, you know, gun running, a
Speaker 2: lot of explosives you can purchase. I mean, it's pretty
Speaker 2: much everything. They got their hand in prostitution. You know
Speaker 2: the thing about motorcycle clubs, it's like, you know, if
Speaker 2: you're not involved in that game, they're ghosts to you.
Speaker 2: People They might notice a motorcycle going down the road, right,
Speaker 2: but they don't notice the club because they stay to
Speaker 2: their own element unless there's a reason to come out
Speaker 2: of that element, because that's where their power and fear is.
Speaker 2: So you know, like take my mom, Oh I thowt
Speaker 2: a Hell's Angels rolling down going down the road the
Speaker 2: other day. No, Mom, no you didn't. I go, what
Speaker 2: did the thing on the back look like? She goes,
Speaker 2: it was like a big pig. I go, Well, that's
Speaker 2: not a Hell's Angel, mom, you know, but that's what
Speaker 2: everybody knows, you know. So everybody's a Hell's Angel. Everybody's
Speaker 2: an outlaw motorcycle game member. They want as a little
Speaker 2: do with the public as they want the public to
Speaker 2: do with them for the most part, other than trying
Speaker 2: to show a good posture like the toys for Tots
Speaker 2: and all that stuff that they try to do. But no,
Speaker 2: I mean so the people are oblivious to them unless
Speaker 2: you live in that world. I mean still today, I
Speaker 2: ride down the road pack a bicca by I'm looking
Speaker 2: over my shoulder to see who they are, just because
Speaker 2: I you know, that doesn't leave you right. Yeah. So,
Speaker 2: but people, if you don't live in that world. But
Speaker 2: it's a violent world. It's a very violent world. I
Speaker 2: mean women, you know there, you know, there's property of women. Now,
Speaker 2: either you belong to the club or you belong to
Speaker 2: a member. If you belong to a member, she hands off.
Speaker 2: If she belongs to the club, it's game on right
Speaker 2: to you know, and they serve at the beck and
Speaker 2: call women have. You know, it's you know, the club,
Speaker 2: the bike, and the women. Now a lot of guys
Speaker 2: won't tell their women that because they're afraid of them.
Speaker 2: But that's really how it goes, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: women are the that's the least concern on what's going
Speaker 2: on with those guys. Most of those guys, you know,
Speaker 2: it's the club first, because in the end, it's all
Speaker 2: about loyalty. Loyalty to the club. That's what it all.
Speaker 2: That's what it all comes down to. In that patch.
Speaker 1: And that first and filtration out of Columbus where you
Speaker 1: guys were running around doing cross state buys and everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, how how deep did you end up going
Speaker 1: on that one?
Speaker 2: Well, I had my patch for about a year and
Speaker 2: a half. In that one, I became the sergeant at arms,
Speaker 2: by informant became the president, and I mean we that
Speaker 2: was you know, the Brothers. It wasn't a big club, however,
Speaker 2: it offered a lot, so we seized the the Outlall clubhouse.
Speaker 2: There was another, a black one percenter club, true one
Speaker 2: percenter club called the Fantoms. They were based out of Chicago.
Speaker 2: They had a clubhouse in Columbus. We had another informant
Speaker 2: who was the only white member of that club. He
Speaker 2: was married to black girl, and he brought us in
Speaker 2: and we had stars and bars on our stuff and
Speaker 2: they didn't care because it was about business. I'll tell
Speaker 2: you a funny story about those guys. So they loved us.
Speaker 2: They just loved us so and we met them before
Speaker 2: we even got in the club because he was running
Speaker 2: while our other informant was running. So you had the Avengers,
Speaker 2: you had the road Saints, Like I said, the Outlaws.
Speaker 2: I mean we ended up season like six or seven clubhouse.
Speaker 2: We put like one hundred and thirty people in jail.
Speaker 2: It was a lot of dope, a lot of guns.
Speaker 2: It was crazy. But it's one of those things where
Speaker 2: it wasn't We weren't focused on one club. I mean,
Speaker 2: we were in the Brothers and we were focused on
Speaker 2: those guys, but we used it as a catapult to
Speaker 2: get in because the Outlaws were recruiting us hard to
Speaker 2: jump over there, and we're like no, because we didn't
Speaker 2: want to go. We we got a good thing going
Speaker 2: in that club because we could write our own ticket.
Speaker 2: We went, Tony and I went wherever we wanted to
Speaker 2: go at any point in time, and the club didn't
Speaker 2: ask us any questions. Where if we were in a
Speaker 2: big club like the Outlaws, people be watching you. There's
Speaker 2: you know, they have mandatory runs, they have all this
Speaker 2: Southern baloney. You got to you got to do to
Speaker 2: be in the club. So we were in a good
Speaker 2: spot there, but we were able to, you know, get
Speaker 2: into a good position with a lot of these clubs
Speaker 2: to they arrest a lot of people.
Speaker 1: And when did that or what was that decision point
Speaker 1: when I assume the US attorney is like, Okay, this
Speaker 1: investigation's over. Now we're moving in and making arrests.
Speaker 2: It's never the US attorney's decision, and it's always ATF's decision. Okay,
Speaker 2: And ATF's decision is, well, you guys have been running
Speaker 2: a long time now. At this point, we had just
Speaker 2: made another move into another club up in Michigan, which
Speaker 2: was going to be really good for us, but it
Speaker 2: was like, Okay, you guys been in a long time,
Speaker 2: three and a half years doing this, It's time to
Speaker 2: take it down. We weren't ready to come out, but
Speaker 2: you're going to do what you gotta do. Because we
Speaker 2: also got involved in this big cocaine distribution ring where
Speaker 2: they were bringing cocaine off the coast of Florida in
Speaker 2: Marathon and they were running it up to Severeville in
Speaker 2: Tennessee and then they were bringing it up through Columbus
Speaker 2: and up and then the North. But we ended up
Speaker 2: tying into this young kid who we were buying off
Speaker 2: of and he laid out the whole operation, which enabled
Speaker 2: the Columbus Police Department de EA to go up on
Speaker 2: a wire a Title three and they're like, hey, we
Speaker 2: got to take this down. So that was another catalyst
Speaker 2: that kind of drove our case because they were going
Speaker 2: to take it down and we would have been outed,
Speaker 2: you know. So wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's fascinating, like when you're because motorcycle gangs, but
Speaker 3: like so much of crime, right, we think of the mafia,
Speaker 3: we think of motorcycle with the gangs, we think of
Speaker 3: street gangs, but they are all partially tied together when
Speaker 3: it comes to in terms of like spreading drugs, like
Speaker 3: like a certain element might own a piece of it.
Speaker 3: But but they're all somehow a lot of times interwoven.
Speaker 2: Well. Traditionally, Hell's Angels and especially the Outlaws and Pagans
Speaker 2: have all done work for tradition l C. You know,
Speaker 2: they were their muscle, you know, uh, you know it
Speaker 2: just historically it's there. You know, They've always played a
Speaker 2: role in that, you know, in the traditional you know,
Speaker 2: mafia type of deal doing, whether they were moving product
Speaker 2: or whatever. That's that's always been around. I don't know
Speaker 2: so much now that it is in the United States
Speaker 2: because there's really not that much. You know, from what
Speaker 2: you see, it's more Armenian, Russian and everything else that's
Speaker 2: controlling the underground more so than the Italians. But you know,
Speaker 2: I could be one hundred percent wrong on that. I
Speaker 2: don't know. But the clubs are still involved in what
Speaker 2: you're seeing more now is the traditional white clubs, right,
Speaker 2: the motorcycle gangs, because there are you know, the traditional
Speaker 2: Ala motorcycle gangs you know are white and Hispanic, right,
Speaker 2: they don't allow the blacks in. If they do, it's
Speaker 2: an anomaly, right, Like a lot of clubs, like the
Speaker 2: bigger clubs can't have them, just can't. They're not accepted.
Speaker 2: But then you have one percent of black clubs like Thunderguard,
Speaker 2: you know, outcasts clubs like that violent all are they violent?
Speaker 2: And they kind of pair up with some of the
Speaker 2: traditional omgs and they're doing a lot of business together
Speaker 2: now because you know, they're all it's all about controlling
Speaker 2: turf and whatnot. In the old ways of where you
Speaker 2: know you had, it was very delineated on what clubs
Speaker 2: were where. Now it's not. They've all crossed over. And
Speaker 2: that's why you're seeing more shootings, more violence happening, because
Speaker 2: it's just there's no more lines of delineation. Everybody's starting
Speaker 2: still fighting for their turf.
Speaker 1: Interesting, so that one winds down and then as a
Speaker 1: as an undercover officer, I mean, I presumably you have
Speaker 1: to appear in court right as an ATF agent and
Speaker 1: testify yes, And I mean does that I'm just curious, like,
Speaker 1: doesn't that totally blow your cover as an undercover officer,
Speaker 1: like indefinitely? I mean in your case, it didn't, but
Speaker 1: I mean I'm curious how that works.
Speaker 2: Well, so I'll tell you. So most guys that I
Speaker 2: know that have done these cases, and in ATF there's
Speaker 2: like ten or twelve guys that have done these cases,
Speaker 2: and some have done multiple. Right. So when you're in
Speaker 2: those clubs for that long and you're ron those guys,
Speaker 2: you form allegiances. And I'm telling you, the night before
Speaker 2: the takedowns go down, and I've had conversations with all
Speaker 2: my buddies, it's like, man, I want to call this
Speaker 2: one dude and just tell them to run, you know,
Speaker 2: because then the Judas effect comes in, right, because it's twofold.
Speaker 2: The Judas effect comes in because it's there. Right. These
Speaker 2: guys were guys that are on a street, something happened,
Speaker 2: they had your back, they'd kill they fight for you
Speaker 2: without question, right, So you had that. Then the other
Speaker 2: side of it is is, Okay, I've been this dude
Speaker 2: for like two years, three years. I knew what I
Speaker 2: was doing all the time. Now this is going to
Speaker 2: be over and I have to reintegrate back into the
Speaker 2: normal agent. Right, So you're thinking about that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: So you know, when you look at how these things
Speaker 2: in and then I can tell you this much every
Speaker 2: case that I've worked or I've helped work, and you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of times they'll bring guys into dune these
Speaker 2: cases when they have takedown to come interview certain people
Speaker 2: to try to move them along to cooperate what our
Speaker 2: cases were done. And we had hard heads that didn't
Speaker 2: want to cooperate. The day they were taken down, we'd
Speaker 2: walk in the room and they would look at you
Speaker 2: and go sign up a bitch, you know, and some
Speaker 2: of them would be, hey, we understand it was a
Speaker 2: job and they get it, and or others didn't give
Speaker 2: a shit. You know. One of the biggest things they
Speaker 2: get wrapped around on. You know, because when you're talking
Speaker 2: to these guys, you're bringing in about ninety percent of
Speaker 2: your true life, just changing names, and you know, and
Speaker 2: if things happen and you tell them stories, they you
Speaker 2: know where there might evoken emotion out of them. They
Speaker 2: want to know, did you lie about that? Yeah? Was
Speaker 2: that real? Yeah? Because if you lied about that, Daniel,
Speaker 2: real asshole? But okay, because they just want to see
Speaker 2: how far you would go. Sometimes you straight out live
Speaker 2: about some things. But you know, but but it was
Speaker 2: a very unique dynamic. I mean every case that I did,
Speaker 2: you meet those guys and it's like, man, you know,
Speaker 2: in another world we might have been able to be friends, right,
Speaker 2: But then again, if they knew who I really was,
Speaker 2: would they really be friendly with me and treat me
Speaker 2: the way they treat me? Right? Right? You know?
Speaker 3: But if you weren't, if you weren't atf and they
Speaker 3: weren't you know, in an outlaw bike gang, had you
Speaker 3: met that are completely different?
Speaker 2: Two different people like that.
Speaker 3: This was somebody And you know, it's interesting because when
Speaker 3: we talked to like c I a case officers, a
Speaker 3: lot of times they'll say sort of similar things that
Speaker 3: you know that the people they work with, you know,
Speaker 3: the their agents or you know, the people, like they
Speaker 3: developed a report form with them, and this person might
Speaker 3: be a shithead doing shithead things. But it's like when
Speaker 3: you get to know somebody as a human being, if
Speaker 3: they're not just all shithead like, there's there are elements.
Speaker 2: There's Yeah, we had we had this one guy when
Speaker 2: I was doing the Brother's cases. Name was Doc and talk.
Speaker 2: He was a drug dealer, but you know he went
Speaker 2: a violent guy. I mean, he was a likable, real
Speaker 2: likable guy, you know, And there were certain members who
Speaker 2: would get together because it's very clubs are very cliquish,
Speaker 2: you know, they just are. And U he called up
Speaker 2: one day his son was a drug dealer too, and
Speaker 2: somebody went up on his to his to his son's
Speaker 2: house and shot him forty seven times with an ak right,
Speaker 2: And of course, you know his dad, who could be violent.
Speaker 2: I mean, he wanted to go start kidnapping people because
Speaker 2: it was his son was involved with some black gangsters,
Speaker 2: and he was just ready to start smoking everybody, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, we felt really bad for him, and we're
Speaker 2: trying to talk him off the ledge, which we did
Speaker 2: because you know, we did have genuine concern. We could
Speaker 2: have said, yeah, well go screw yourself and go do
Speaker 2: whatever you want. Doc, We're not getting involved in that,
Speaker 2: and he'd probably got himself killed, you know. Yeah. In fact,
Speaker 2: he liked me so much. After he had he had
Speaker 2: a lot of medical problems. We helped him out because
Speaker 2: he had backhand. He after we we arrested him. Within
Speaker 2: a year he was dead, but Tom Strausbon and I
Speaker 2: went over to visit him after he got I went
Speaker 2: to his house. He actually got a dog and he
Speaker 2: named it after my undercover name, So I guess I
Speaker 2: got that going for me. Yeah, so no, you do
Speaker 2: form those bonds.
Speaker 1: Yeah. After that initial case was prosecuted, I mean, then
Speaker 1: what kind of I mean, now you have a ton
Speaker 1: of experience in this world. I mean, how did the
Speaker 1: segue into the next infiltration happen?
Speaker 2: So a part of the case that we were dueling
Speaker 2: in Columbus took us out to Las Vegas and we
Speaker 2: were dealing with some guys out there, some some Mexicans
Speaker 2: out there, and we were buying meth. We were buying
Speaker 2: pounds of meth and bringing it back. So so there
Speaker 2: were some threats made and you know atf they're just terrible.
Speaker 2: You know, somebody makes a threat and the first thing
Speaker 2: is they want to move you. Right, I'm like, why
Speaker 2: don't you go? So let me back up and tell
Speaker 2: you a quick story. Sure, you guys will appreciate this.
Speaker 2: How times have changed. We had an agent in Cincinnati.
Speaker 2: He was investigating the Iron Horsemen, okay, and they tried
Speaker 2: to run him down with a car while he was
Speaker 2: on the street. Now, the sack at the time was
Speaker 2: Bill Wood, an ornary man. And you know he's a
Speaker 2: quarterback at South Carolina. He is a revenue. He calls
Speaker 2: up my boss in Columbus and he says, I want
Speaker 2: Frank and I want Dan. He goes, you send him
Speaker 2: the Columbus and he's gonna meet some boys there. He goes,
Speaker 2: and you're gonna go have a talk with the president
Speaker 2: of that club and you're gonna tell him what's what.
Speaker 2: And we did. He sent us down. There are four
Speaker 2: of us, went with one of the one of the
Speaker 2: agents from Cincinnati. Knocked on the door to check the
Speaker 2: president come out and he goes, gonna help. He goes
Speaker 2: and he laid it out. He goes, you guys fucked up.
Speaker 2: He goes, we're gonna find out who did it, and
Speaker 2: then we're gonna fuck with your club every step of
Speaker 2: the way until you guys turn in who did it.
Speaker 2: Within twenty four hours, they turned the guy over. That's
Speaker 2: how you handle business. It's not like you said. They're
Speaker 2: shee your nails. They knew again. Crooks don't Crooks don't respect.
Speaker 2: Excuse me, sir, how are you doing today? They power
Speaker 2: fear might. That's what they respect. If they don't fear you,
Speaker 2: they're not going to do anything you say. They're not
Speaker 2: going to come around. They're not going to talk to
Speaker 2: you because they're going to look at you like you're
Speaker 2: a big puss, you know. So that ended that. I
Speaker 2: mean they turned a guy in. Well, ATF didn't do that.
Speaker 2: In my case, it was like, Frank, there's four offices
Speaker 2: that are open and three of them were shipped and
Speaker 2: Las Vegas was the only one. And my wife awesome.
Speaker 2: She was always willing to work. And I I, you know,
Speaker 2: I had a conversation with her before we you know,
Speaker 2: we got married, and it was like, look, because we
Speaker 2: got married during my case and I owned that case. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was, and I and I told her, I said,
Speaker 2: you know, this is what I do, this is what
Speaker 2: I like to do. And she liked to move. So
Speaker 2: when I asked her, I said, how about Las Vegas?
Speaker 2: She goes, let's go, because I knew the boss out there,
Speaker 2: and I'd already been out there, and I knew the
Speaker 2: work was good. Plus they had just started an investigation
Speaker 2: because they called me and knew I was getting transferred.
Speaker 2: They were starting a case into the vogos who were
Speaker 2: recruiting real heavily out there at the time. So we
Speaker 2: packed up and we moved, and as soon as we
Speaker 2: got there, it was like Okay, vogos are recruiting. So
Speaker 2: I brought my informant, Tony out to Las Vegas with us,
Speaker 2: and went out with me and my wife. He lived
Speaker 2: in it. We got a house and he was living
Speaker 2: in here, and that's where I was living and with Stump.
Speaker 2: And so they said, just go to this tattoo shop.
Speaker 2: And this guy, Sharky, who is a vogo, he goes,
Speaker 2: he'll recruit you guys right in. Did you guys are
Speaker 2: big dudes? He'll ask you right in. So I didn't
Speaker 2: know how good the tattoo shop was. So the informant
Speaker 2: was going to get the tattoo because we needed a
Speaker 2: couple hours just to fill these guys out. So I said, Tony,
Speaker 2: I'll pay for it, get whatever you want. It was
Speaker 2: a terrible tattoo, however, or sitting it was. It was
Speaker 2: so bad. It was so bad. But about halfway through
Speaker 2: the tattoo, Sharky comes out with his colors, and of
Speaker 2: course we're playing stupid because we can't act like we
Speaker 2: know anything about club life. He goes, do you guys
Speaker 2: know what these are? And he held up a set
Speaker 2: of colors of the vagos and we're like, no, what's that?
Speaker 2: He goes to the Bogos he goes, you never heard
Speaker 2: of us, going no, dude, we're from back, We're back East.
Speaker 2: We know who you guys are. So he goes into
Speaker 2: this hole s field. He goes because we rode there
Speaker 2: on motorcycles and he goes, uh, he goes, why don't
Speaker 2: you guys come around? It was this is how easy was.
Speaker 2: He goes, why don't you guys come around. We're having
Speaker 2: a meeting like three days from now. Now are in Adu. Shit,
Speaker 2: And that's how easy that was getting invited in over there.
Speaker 2: Then that case again, you know, with the whole backstopping
Speaker 2: issues you know, started to you know, at first it
Speaker 2: was good because we were there and I think that
Speaker 2: case went in total like eighteen months. But you know,
Speaker 2: we were getting good. We were buying off of people,
Speaker 2: you know who we bought off of, which you guys
Speaker 2: will find funny, you know, Yeah, what's in it that
Speaker 2: that show? Yeah, I bought off of the we bought
Speaker 2: off of Joe Henderson. I used to go in that
Speaker 2: shop all the time because all the time and buy dope. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so we said, because it was only like a two
Speaker 2: blocks down from the a TF office. Flavored or not.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just the the shop. They make him
Speaker 2: look huge. It was this little box, but we used
Speaker 2: to go in there, my dope all the time. We
Speaker 2: put him in prison for a few years. But anyway,
Speaker 2: long story short, So we're going around you know now, Yeah,
Speaker 2: tramp Terry, who was the national president at the time,
Speaker 2: he took a liking to the informant and eye. He
Speaker 2: took a real liking to us. And at the same time,
Speaker 2: we were trying to get into uh uh Vegas, Darren
Speaker 2: because Lawski was trying to get into the Hollywood chapter.
Speaker 2: So we were making our in roads. Now, the thing
Speaker 2: is is that we would know him because we we
Speaker 2: were getting a little bit more credibility on our end,
Speaker 2: so we were going to help him move along. So
Speaker 2: I think I can't. I don't know how long into
Speaker 2: his investigation he was in, but he had an informant
Speaker 2: got t bone on a motorcycle and got killed. But
Speaker 2: Darren had given him his card from when he was
Speaker 2: back in Milwaukee or it was long. It was a
Speaker 2: long yeah, I think it was a Milwaukee card. But anyway,
Speaker 2: so that kind of dies off and Darren's working through
Speaker 2: his thing over there. We're working through our thing in
Speaker 2: Las Vegas, and we're cut through. Foreman and I are
Speaker 2: constantly traversing back and forth between Las Vegas and more
Speaker 2: so than even the club is right, and we're getting
Speaker 2: to know all these guys. Well, we come up and
Speaker 2: we're gonna you know, now, they're going to allow us
Speaker 2: the prospect, right. So, so there was some stuff that happened.
Speaker 2: So they had this run up in Reno and the
Speaker 2: Vogos were trying to make a statement up there, right,
Speaker 2: So they were going to go at it with the
Speaker 2: Hell's Angels. So again we go up there. They have
Speaker 2: us towed all their guns up there. They informing an eye,
Speaker 2: so we bring all the guns up. So they have
Speaker 2: this master plan that they're going to go to this
Speaker 2: Hell's Angels bar and I can't remember the name of
Speaker 2: it to save my life. And what they're going to
Speaker 2: do is they're going to wait for the Hell's Angels
Speaker 2: to come up the Reno chapter and when they come
Speaker 2: in there, what they're gonna do is they're going to
Speaker 2: push him out the back and they're going to beat
Speaker 2: the live and hell out. That's the plan. Well, we're
Speaker 2: having this meeting as a club and there's me and Tony,
Speaker 2: who aren't we're not even prospects at this point in time.
Speaker 2: They hand him a bat, me a hammer, and two
Speaker 2: other guys and they say get behind the bar, and
Speaker 2: they go, well, we flush these dudes out. It's your
Speaker 2: job to beat the hell out of them. Holy shit,
Speaker 2: And of course I'm looking at Tony. We're just you know,
Speaker 2: you can do nothing but laugh, right, we're chuckling. And
Speaker 2: so we go stand back there and we're just praying
Speaker 2: at God that something happens that we don't have to
Speaker 2: do this because it's going to turn in we don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So we're in We're out there for about a half
Speaker 2: hour and then I'll come a couple of vogos come
Speaker 2: out and they say, hey, okay, everything's good. They've had
Speaker 2: some negotiations and there we're good to go. We're like, okay,
Speaker 2: so that broke that, which was awesome, right that, you know,
Speaker 2: but the stress was was tremendous. And so we go
Speaker 2: back and now they're going to have a they're going
Speaker 2: to have a national meeting and it was happening in
Speaker 2: Las Vegas. So this is where we're going to start prospecting.
Speaker 2: Me my informant and cause so we all start prospecting
Speaker 2: on the same day. But you get brought up like
Speaker 2: so there was probably one hundred members there, one hundred
Speaker 2: two hundred members. You come into I think we're at
Speaker 2: the VFW hall. You go in there and they bring
Speaker 2: you up on a stage and they start and they're like,
Speaker 2: you know, are you willing to die for the club?
Speaker 2: Are you willing to fight for you really to do
Speaker 2: all this stuff? Right? You're like, yeah, you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll do whatever I got to do. Then they asked,
Speaker 2: is there anybody in here who's got anything negative to
Speaker 2: say about these brothers or why they shouldn't get into
Speaker 2: the club. And because we did what we did up
Speaker 2: in Reno, which wasn't anything but just stand there and tear,
Speaker 2: they were all these brothers are down, they stood up
Speaker 2: for the club and blah blah blah blah blah, you
Speaker 2: know all this mess and uh so we ended up
Speaker 2: getting our prospect Rockers, right. So we were prospecting for
Speaker 2: about three months now. There were times like like stupid stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, one thing to bother guys like us, are
Speaker 2: are some of these cop clubs out there that want
Speaker 2: to affiliate with clubs, and then and then and then
Speaker 2: a lot of the military clubs because we recruit out
Speaker 2: of the military hard, right. We were the thing. And
Speaker 2: we were at a we were an event in uh
Speaker 2: when we were with Vogos where I can't remember if
Speaker 2: it was the Choir Boys or what cop club it was,
Speaker 2: but we were sitting there with some of these with
Speaker 2: with some of them and a couple other clubs, and
Speaker 2: these guys were pointing out their own undercover guys that
Speaker 2: were in the crowd, like that guy over there that
Speaker 2: we're not going You guys are pieces of shit, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, And that's like. And then we were at
Speaker 2: we were at some function in Las Vegas and this
Speaker 2: guy Jack Roberts, he was an old school Las Vegas cop,
Speaker 2: big irishman, hands the size of my head, and he
Speaker 2: would talk about getting fights with the mafia dudes all
Speaker 2: the time. They would go to the bars just to
Speaker 2: get fights. He's just just a great guy, right, And
Speaker 2: so he was the only guy that was like covering
Speaker 2: me him. He and Randy Props was another agent in
Speaker 2: the office. They're really the only guys that knew was
Speaker 2: going on. So these guys contact Jack Robins from the
Speaker 2: Henderson Police Department, and they say, hey, we're gonn go
Speaker 2: out there and cover this event. And Jack goes, well, hey, dude,
Speaker 2: if you're going, go overt, because if you go overt,
Speaker 2: they won't mess with you. You know what I mean. They
Speaker 2: you're taking pictures. They expect that these two dudes show up. Man,
Speaker 2: they're taking pictures. They're trying to dress like they're they're blended.
Speaker 2: And of course, of course Tony and I are the prospects,
Speaker 2: right and CJ, who is our president, comes over and
Speaker 2: he goes, hey, go find out who those guys are.
Speaker 2: And I'm looking and I know because I know their pops,
Speaker 2: because they couldn't get anything else. And Jack said there
Speaker 2: might be two guys out there floating around. I'm going
Speaker 2: and I'm looking at Tony. So we walk over there
Speaker 2: and okay, we got to do we gotta do. I'm like,
Speaker 2: you know, we had guns. I had gone Tony, they
Speaker 2: haven't gun. I had gun. And I walk over there
Speaker 2: and I'm like, hey, man, give me who are you
Speaker 2: And they're like, oh no, man, I said, give me
Speaker 2: a driver's license. I'm like, fuck you guys, go give
Speaker 2: me a driver's license. So they're looking, I go, you
Speaker 2: better give me a driver's license. It'd be a problem.
Speaker 2: So they hand us over their driver's license right now.
Speaker 2: There they weren't they weren't there true name licenses, right,
Speaker 2: And then I was told we had to take their cameras.
Speaker 2: So we took their cameras and we smashed them right.
Speaker 2: And at this point, now the club has come in
Speaker 2: and circled them, and it's like, well, it's out of
Speaker 2: our hands. I go, if they're gonna beat them, they're
Speaker 2: gonna beat them right now. So at this point, CJ
Speaker 2: is the voice and he's telling them get the fuck
Speaker 2: out of here, blah blah blah blah blah blah. So
Speaker 2: they start walking back to their car, and of course
Speaker 2: CJ tells Tony and I again follow them back to
Speaker 2: their car and get their license plate. Now Jack is
Speaker 2: off on the side watching this, and I'm assuming these
Speaker 2: guys got guns. They have no idea who we are. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so we're kind of like followed them, half stepping, waiting
Speaker 2: for them, and Jack is watching because he didn't know
Speaker 2: what they're gonna do either. They're gonna pull their guns
Speaker 2: and start shooting, right. So this is the slow walk
Speaker 2: of about twenty five yards in his car. Well, we
Speaker 2: end up getting to the car and they get in,
Speaker 2: we get the license plate stuff. You noticed dumb sons
Speaker 2: of bitches drove their personal car, you know. I mean
Speaker 2: it doesn't sound like you know, they are not heroics
Speaker 2: and people are like, oh, you know, like the movies.
Speaker 2: It's things like that though, when it's happening and you're
Speaker 2: sitting there and you don't know if you're gonna get
Speaker 2: shot by you know, other police officers because of who
Speaker 2: they believe you are, and you're getting ordered to do things.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of times in these in these investigations,
Speaker 2: your chapter p or whoever president or whoever they tell
Speaker 2: you to do things, you don't say, well, why right,
Speaker 2: do it? You know. It's so there's there was a
Speaker 2: lot of that. I mean when we were with the
Speaker 2: Vogos again. So this was our final mud check before
Speaker 2: we were going to get patched in. It is about
Speaker 2: two thirty in the morning. We were all out. We
Speaker 2: go over to this one guy's house dog and we're
Speaker 2: all it's like three, they're all fucked up, you know,
Speaker 2: and they go, hey, we got to go collect. They go,
Speaker 2: you guys want to go, Well, that's not like that's
Speaker 2: you're going to go. I'll not say no. So we're like,
Speaker 2: they go, yeah, we're going. They go where we're going?
Speaker 2: They go, don't you worry where we're going? They go,
Speaker 2: We're going to take your car. We're going to take
Speaker 2: two trucks. Take off anything that says you know, uh,
Speaker 2: you know that relates to the club, whatever, go outside, mask,
Speaker 2: you know, put something over your license plate. And I'm
Speaker 2: looking at Tony. I go, this is I go, either
Speaker 2: they're playing with us or this is gonna be bad.
Speaker 2: So we go do what we gonna do. And then
Speaker 2: this one dude Tree, who is an absolute asshole. He's
Speaker 2: a guy that rode around with a bike. He had
Speaker 2: a bungee thing over to hold his tanks on. Bad anyway.
Speaker 2: So we get in our car. I'm driving, Tony's in
Speaker 2: the front. He gets in the back. He goes, hey,
Speaker 2: you guys got any guns on you. I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: which I did? I go, no, we have any guns?
Speaker 2: He goes, we all I got is thirty eight. He goes,
Speaker 2: you don't get anything bigger. I go, nope, this is no.
Speaker 2: I didn't bring anything out tonight. So we driving in
Speaker 2: North Las Vegas and we go into this trailer park.
Speaker 2: There's probably twenty trailers in here right now. Mine is
Speaker 2: about three o'clock in the morning. We pull in there
Speaker 2: three my car and two trucks and they go up
Speaker 2: to the door. They don't knock, they just kick it in.
Speaker 2: Now it's a single wide trailer and there's like, I
Speaker 2: think eight or nine of us. And as soon as
Speaker 2: we get with Tony and I were trying to get
Speaker 2: in the door. Once we get in the door, before
Speaker 2: we could even get in the door, they got this
Speaker 2: dude and they are plack, just beaten living shot. Well
Speaker 2: apparently he didn't pay them for some meth and some
Speaker 2: other things and he owed them, so they're beating a
Speaker 2: living hell out of them. And they're like, and they
Speaker 2: tell us they go pull the phones out of the wall.
Speaker 2: So we pull the cords out of the wall, and
Speaker 2: they go go check the rest of the house. So
Speaker 2: of course what do we find. You find a four
Speaker 2: and a five year old and a fifteen year old
Speaker 2: or so girl, And we pull them out. And all
Speaker 2: I told Tony is I said, look, I don't give
Speaker 2: a shit what happens in here. I go, they don't
Speaker 2: get near the kids. Yeah fuck it at that point, right,
Speaker 2: And they never made anybody, but we sat and watched.
Speaker 2: The wife got up, her girlfriend out of them what
Speaker 2: she was. She got up and got out off the
Speaker 2: couch to try to intervene because they're beating the snuff.
Speaker 2: They knocked her over the couch. Now, this went on
Speaker 2: because they started hauling out all his motorcycle parts. They
Speaker 2: loaded his bike into the truck. This went on for
Speaker 2: about an hour. Do you think anybody called the police?
Speaker 2: Not one peep, not one peep. That was one of
Speaker 2: the best charges we had because we got him for kidnapping.
Speaker 2: Home invasion. I mean, so, you know how I was
Speaker 2: talking about cover teams. I had one guy that was
Speaker 2: was my cover guy, Randy, And you know, we were
Speaker 2: out just social. If you're doing operation, you got you know,
Speaker 2: actually doing a buy, you got to get people, the
Speaker 2: right people out there. Well, we were just out socially.
Speaker 2: So after this is over, I'm looking at Tony, I'm going,
Speaker 2: how the hell am I going to explain this one?
Speaker 2: Because we basically did a home invasion. You know. Of course,
Speaker 2: the one thing I want to tell you guys is
Speaker 2: one of the things is before you go into these cases,
Speaker 2: you have meetings with the US Attorney's office, you know,
Speaker 2: the prosecutor's office, and you talk about what you can
Speaker 2: and cannot do. Okay, you know, fighting, don't throw the
Speaker 2: first punch, don't throw the last kick. Drugs, can't do drugs.
Speaker 2: We've had guys that were able to carry user amount
Speaker 2: of drugs because that's the role they played, so they
Speaker 2: could actually you know, give little bumps if they needed to,
Speaker 2: you know. Uh. But it was you know, it wasn't
Speaker 2: anything you know, really crazy that you could do, right, right, So,
Speaker 2: but you had those talks, you know, when we talked
Speaker 2: about you know, the language, whether it be swearing or
Speaker 2: you know, racial comments. You know, you don't want to
Speaker 2: sound worse than the criminals. Right, that's a problem because
Speaker 2: you know you've got to go testify. So that was
Speaker 2: all tempered, and that was all a proof. Well, we
Speaker 2: hadn't talked about doing a home evasion yet. Now, mind you,
Speaker 2: up until this point, Steve Martin had done the Warlocks case.
Speaker 2: I did the brother's case, and then I rolled right
Speaker 2: into this one. I didn't even take a which became
Speaker 2: an issue because after six months into the case, I
Speaker 2: got called on the carpet, meaning up the San Francisco
Speaker 2: our division was, and they were rail on me, going,
Speaker 2: you were supposed to take a year off. I go,
Speaker 2: I never got notified. I was supposed to take a
Speaker 2: year off. They go, you didn't get notified. I go, no,
Speaker 2: I go, tell me where that Let me tell me
Speaker 2: where that memo is? I go, I never got told
Speaker 2: I was taking a year off. And Gonzalez, who was
Speaker 2: the or Rodriguez who was the who was the deputy
Speaker 2: assistant over that thing. He called. He goes, how far
Speaker 2: are you in? I go him six seven months in?
Speaker 2: He goes, all right, he goes, fuck it, he goes,
Speaker 2: just just keep going. Then, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So I didn't really have them any break between those
Speaker 2: two cases were boom boom. So you know, so before
Speaker 2: I called my boss, who was a putts, I called
Speaker 2: the US Attorney's Office and laid it out to them,
Speaker 2: because generally speaking, if the US Attorney's Office is okay
Speaker 2: with it, ATFN on a box. So I called them
Speaker 2: and explained with and go, well, other than somebody getting
Speaker 2: beat up and whatnotuh, anything else happened to go just
Speaker 2: send somebody out there to take a report that something
Speaker 2: was done to go get the statement that they ended
Speaker 2: up using against anyway, So when I went back and
Speaker 2: I told my boss, I go, hey, I already talked
Speaker 2: to the US attorneys or good with it. He was like, okay,
Speaker 2: keep going. Then, no issues, you know, because it was
Speaker 2: a different whole, different reporting mechanism then. But you know,
Speaker 2: and then that case was going on and we were
Speaker 2: going good. And it's after the reno where we had
Speaker 2: gotten into that and we got voted in as prospect,
Speaker 2: and we've been running back and forth for you know,
Speaker 2: two three months, and prospect period for them back then
Speaker 2: was about three months. And they come up with they're
Speaker 2: going to have an officer's run down to Mexico. And
Speaker 2: it's like, so I call our at a shay up
Speaker 2: in Mexico and I go, hey, we gotta we gotta
Speaker 2: come to which I didn't know shit. I go, We're
Speaker 2: gonna come to Mexico. I goes it, okay, to bring
Speaker 2: our guns. He goes, yeah, you can bring your guns.
Speaker 2: He goes, you know, you just got to check them
Speaker 2: in at the MC. I go, MBC, I go, I go,
Speaker 2: I go, I go. We're coming across with the club.
Speaker 2: He goes, you can't come into Mexico with any guns.
Speaker 2: He goes, And we're like, what's the big deal. He goes,
Speaker 2: because the reporting requirements here are if you come in
Speaker 2: to Mexico as a law enforcement officer, he goes, we
Speaker 2: have to tell the federals to prosecute everybody that you're
Speaker 2: gonna come in, because you might as well come across
Speaker 2: the border and shoot yourself in a head. We're like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: how the hell do we get around this? So we
Speaker 2: had to start working our magic. So we put records
Speaker 2: in texts that said that we had been caught smuggling
Speaker 2: and doing some other stuff that we told the club,
Speaker 2: if we go down to the border and we're gonna
Speaker 2: have trouble getting back, you know we'll get back, we're
Speaker 2: probably gonna get arrested. So we had worked that out
Speaker 2: and then and then it was uh so, right at
Speaker 2: the last minute, they changed it and they did the
Speaker 2: officers meeting in uh in uh California. They told in formula.
Speaker 2: They go, They're like, you guys don't have to go
Speaker 2: because they changed the last minute. They go, they have
Speaker 2: enough prospects out there. They go, and they said, next
Speaker 2: week you guys will probably get you. Guys will get
Speaker 2: your patches. We'll just give them to your hair. So
Speaker 2: like right on, Well, they go down to this officers
Speaker 2: meeting and Darren Kaselowski goes there and he gets his patch.
Speaker 2: So he's a patch member. Okay, I think he held
Speaker 2: the patch the shortest of anybody in the history of ATF.
Speaker 2: Because what happened was his informants old lady who got killed.
Speaker 2: She got pissed because ATF wasn't doing anything. First she
Speaker 2: thought she should get some money or something, so she
Speaker 2: went to the club with his card. Now the fatal
Speaker 2: the fatal air. Of course, we're young again. We're not thinking,
Speaker 2: you know, cause his nickname that he used for the
Speaker 2: club was Cause. Okay, I you know, we we still
Speaker 2: laugh about this till till this day. But anyway, that's
Speaker 2: what he did. Well, they got she gave him the
Speaker 2: business card. They start calling around. If I get this wrong,
Speaker 2: he'll correct me when I see him. They start calling
Speaker 2: around and they found him at the Long Beach office.
Speaker 2: So they found Derek Kaselowski, a TF agent, at the
Speaker 2: Long Beach office. So, you know, Darren, like all of us,
Speaker 2: you try to scoot out, you go home, and he
Speaker 2: had a house with a garage and what on. So
Speaker 2: he comes back to his house. He goes in his
Speaker 2: house and he gets knock on the door. Junkie D,
Speaker 2: who was an international enforcer for the club, Sergeant Arms.
Speaker 2: He and some other members go in his house and say,
Speaker 2: where're you been? He goes, what do you mean? Wh're've been?
Speaker 2: I've been right here. They know you haven't because they
Speaker 2: were They had set up surveillance on him, and they go,
Speaker 2: what are you driving? He goes, I drove. I can't
Speaker 2: remember what he said he was driving. They go, no,
Speaker 2: you weren't, because they'd broken his garage and saw what
Speaker 2: he was, what he was, what he had in there.
Speaker 2: So because he used to park a car down around
Speaker 2: the corner, you know, different cars so he can come
Speaker 2: and go, those tactics have all changed. So so they
Speaker 2: took his patch, right, they didn't. They didn't do anything
Speaker 2: to him because they're not that stupid. If they're suspecting
Speaker 2: he's an ATF agent, they're not going to do anything
Speaker 2: to him. So he calls me and he tells you
Speaker 2: what's going on? And I'm like, holy shit. You know.
Speaker 2: The concern is are you okay, And the second is,
Speaker 2: how the hell are we going to circumvent ATF on
Speaker 2: this one? You know what I mean? Because he's got
Speaker 2: a report back, and uh, it wasn't like an hour later.
Speaker 2: I get this call and at the R undercover house
Speaker 2: in Las Vegas and it's Chunky Ed and Tramp who's
Speaker 2: the international president, and they're on the phone, and of
Speaker 2: course they obviously don't think I know anything about this.
Speaker 2: So I'm on the phone and I go, Hey, what
Speaker 2: Cause Cherry liked us, so he'd call us, and I go,
Speaker 2: what's going on? He said, we got a problem with
Speaker 2: your buddy. I go, which one? He goes, Cause, I go,
Speaker 2: what's the problem. Now, we had built a relationship with Cause,
Speaker 2: saying that we were doing business back in the Midwest
Speaker 2: prior to coming out here. So here's what he said.
Speaker 2: He goes. He goes, I think Cause followed you out
Speaker 2: here to continue his case on and when he saw
Speaker 2: you got in the club, he started getting around the
Speaker 2: club too. If you're to come and get after us,
Speaker 2: he goes, that's a big problem. And I'm like, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm like pretending, I'm going, Oh fuck, I go, So
Speaker 2: I go, well, what do you guys get how do
Speaker 2: you propose? What are you going to do? He goes,
Speaker 2: And then at this point Tramp goes, we're going to
Speaker 2: kill him junk. Ye goes, I'm gonna get off the
Speaker 2: phone now. So he gets off the phone. So it's
Speaker 2: just me and Terry on the phone now that I
Speaker 2: had this whole recording, and he's telling me. He goes,
Speaker 2: He goes, we got to do something, he goes. He goes,
Speaker 2: I don't expect that you'll do it, because you'll be
Speaker 2: the first one they look at. He goes, But we
Speaker 2: got to do something. So they were just talking about
Speaker 2: how they were, you know, because because of course Cose
Speaker 2: took all his stuff up and out it, but they
Speaker 2: had a starting place to look for him at his office, right.
Speaker 2: So so at this point we're like, oh man, I
Speaker 2: don't know hit. We're gonna have to take a break.
Speaker 2: So of course I get off the phone with him.
Speaker 2: I got to make a call to my office and
Speaker 2: tell him what's going on. And I ended up calling
Speaker 2: my sack. I didn't even talk to my boss really
Speaker 2: because he was a goof. And they're like, well, you
Speaker 2: guys got to shut it down. I go I think
Speaker 2: we're good, and of course, you know, being optimistic, I go,
Speaker 2: I think we could survive it. We should be able
Speaker 2: to stay. We can get rid of cause, but we could.
Speaker 2: We shouldn't be able to stay. They're like, you ain't
Speaker 2: fucking staying in that investigation. So we had to go
Speaker 2: meet a couple guys there were our sponsors, and we
Speaker 2: ended up meeting them and they hadn't even known what
Speaker 2: our own my own chapter didn't even know what was
Speaker 2: going on at the time, and Tony and I ended
Speaker 2: up turning our cuts into them and said, hey, we
Speaker 2: gotta we got to bolt out of here for a
Speaker 2: couple of months till we see what's going on, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. And then what ended up happening
Speaker 2: because in these investigations you always have running affidavits from
Speaker 2: day one. We learned the hard way, so everything is
Speaker 2: going as everything happens. The affidavid build, they build, the
Speaker 2: charge just build, so if something like this happens, we
Speaker 2: can go right to the prosecutor with what we got
Speaker 2: before grand jury, or even just get a warrants issued
Speaker 2: and go ahead and take everybody down. So that's what
Speaker 2: we did. We broke out of there and then it
Speaker 2: was like the following week we ended up hitting Las Vegas,
Speaker 2: a bunch of places in California, and there was another
Speaker 2: investigation that was going on down in San Diego. I
Speaker 2: think we ended up getting like sixty members out of
Speaker 2: that or something like that.
Speaker 3: But you guys are clean because they track all it
Speaker 3: all back to Cause and you were just two guys
Speaker 3: associated with him who they thought was being investigated by Cause.
Speaker 1: Tras went to the wind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they weren't looking at us like we were anything bad.
Speaker 2: But you know, we're stupid and naive to think that, oh,
Speaker 2: we could stay in this investigation, we'll be clean. They
Speaker 2: just think it's caused. You know, it comes to a
Speaker 2: point where you're so investigating, invested in these investigations right right,
Speaker 2: that sometimes you get tunnel vision and you lose sight.
Speaker 2: But that's why we always had guys. There was a
Speaker 2: peer support programming a tip, but it was guys that
Speaker 2: had did these types of investigations. Because Steve Martin happened
Speaker 2: to be a supervisor up up in uh San Francisco
Speaker 2: at the time who had done those other things. So
Speaker 2: obviously he came down and talked to me and smacked
Speaker 2: me around a little bit and give me my common
Speaker 2: sense back and said, Frank, you can't, you can't stay in.
Speaker 2: You gotta go. And then I didn't even think I
Speaker 2: had to move, but then my house, my tires got
Speaker 2: slashed on my g car, and then there were a
Speaker 2: couple of vagos who were hanging around a building, and
Speaker 2: then of course ATF lost its mind on there. So
Speaker 2: that's where it was. So what's gonna happen to me? Now?
Speaker 2: So I'm talking to my wife of course. Okay, So
Speaker 2: if you guys don't know me, I'm a big Beagle fan.
Speaker 2: We've had beagles for thirty plus years. I got three
Speaker 2: of them now. We had two then, and they're going,
Speaker 2: you guys, you got to go out of your house
Speaker 2: and stay in a hotel for until we can move you.
Speaker 2: That lasted one night and we went back to the house.
Speaker 2: I told my wife I'd rather take my chance with
Speaker 2: the dog being at the house. I got guns. The
Speaker 2: thing is, odds are I'm not going to say they
Speaker 2: wouldn't do anything because there are some looney tunes and whatnot,
Speaker 2: but they know that if they really did something like
Speaker 2: that and it would come back, the blowback would be tremendous, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, that doesn't help me or my wife. At
Speaker 2: the time, we didn't have any kids. But so anyway,
Speaker 2: so you know, I get so ATFB and ATF I
Speaker 2: had no desire. Headquarters was the least place I wanted
Speaker 2: to be. Now. At the time, John Cooper, who's a
Speaker 2: very dear friend of mine, when our case was having problems,
Speaker 2: he gets sent out from our Special Operations Division with
Speaker 2: another guy, Pete McCarthy to talk to us about the issues.
Speaker 2: And we rail into him and it's like, God, damn
Speaker 2: you guys, you just sucked. And it wasn't even his
Speaker 2: fault because he just got there. So when the case
Speaker 2: busted up, they said, okay, pick places you want to go.
Speaker 2: I said, okay, well I'd like to go to the
Speaker 2: Midwest or to the South or whatever. And I picked
Speaker 2: my four locations. They said, okay, and write up a
Speaker 2: justification letter. So I did. They said, okay, you'll go
Speaker 2: to one of those four places. The next morning, I
Speaker 2: go to the office about six o'clock and there's a
Speaker 2: teletype that I've been transferred to headquarters to go work
Speaker 2: in our new undercover shop. I was not a happy camper,
Speaker 2: not a happy camper at all. However, it's one of
Speaker 2: the best things I ever did. Because Coop had worked undercover.
Speaker 2: There was me, another guy, Craig Carrity great and another
Speaker 2: undercover agent, al Phoenix. So they were bringing guys into
Speaker 2: the branch who actually worked undercover and understood what was
Speaker 2: needed to get this thing off the ground. So I
Speaker 2: spent you know, two years up there learning about that
Speaker 2: whole process and getting integrated with everybody else who was
Speaker 2: doing it, whether it was you know, the you know,
Speaker 2: every part of the government really right. And then and
Speaker 2: then I was ready to go. Now, in the meantime,
Speaker 2: my wife and I I was fine with the Beagles.
Speaker 2: My wife wanted kids, so we ended up rush out
Speaker 2: and adopted a couple of kids too at the same time.
Speaker 2: So I'm getting ready to push out, and I had
Speaker 2: a good relationship with a couple of deputy assistant directors
Speaker 2: who had been my sacks. And I go, well, this
Speaker 2: is where I want to go. And the one, Malcolm Brady,
Speaker 2: really great guy. He goes, he goes, No, he goes,
Speaker 2: You're going to be He goes, You're going to go
Speaker 2: be the supervisor in Youngstown, in your hometown. I go
Speaker 2: I really don't want to do that, Malcolm. He goes, well,
Speaker 2: i'm going to tell you what's going to happen. You're
Speaker 2: going to do it or I'm going to fuck you.
Speaker 2: He goes, I'm going to put you somewhere you don't
Speaker 2: want to be. And I go, well, that's not nice, Malcolm.
Speaker 2: So I didn't even put in for the job. You
Speaker 2: have to put in for the job. I didn't get it.
Speaker 2: Put in for the job. I went for an interview.
Speaker 2: I had my interview, and then after the Tate was
Speaker 2: he was the sack of New Orleans, I had my
Speaker 2: interview too. Miss He goes, Frank, congratulations, you're going to Youngstown.
Speaker 2: God so, which was good. I went to Youngstown and
Speaker 2: you know, uh, that got me to Youngstown and I
Speaker 2: was there for five years. And then that's how we
Speaker 2: rolled into the Arian Brotherhood case.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, man, I mean that sounds like a pretty
Speaker 1: crazy one. How did that start to come about?
Speaker 2: For? On your end? So, there were Tom Doyle and
Speaker 2: a couple guys up at uh East Lake Police Department
Speaker 2: and in Lake County, the Hell's Angels been operating in
Speaker 2: Cleveland and they had opened up a new chapter up
Speaker 2: and up in the Lake East. They called it and
Speaker 2: uh and there they'd always been involved in something, right, well,
Speaker 2: they and and there were some Arian Brotherhood members that
Speaker 2: they had been dealing with up there who were manufacturing
Speaker 2: machine guns. Bro. You know when I talk about people having
Speaker 2: no redeeming quality, this guy had no redeeming quality. Jay
Speaker 2: Bloomquist just total whack job. So they say, hey, are
Speaker 2: you So they called me and they said, hey, we
Speaker 2: got like four or five informants would would be willing
Speaker 2: to come up here and interview him and then we'll
Speaker 2: go from there, you know, if there's something that you
Speaker 2: guys think you want to do being atf right. So
Speaker 2: we scheduled we go up an interview and we find
Speaker 2: two guys, Now they didn't know each other. One was
Speaker 2: going to be he was going to work on the
Speaker 2: Cleveland chapter of the AHA, and we had a captain
Speaker 2: and Arian Brotherhood who they had gotten out. He almost
Speaker 2: be a guy to death in a bar, but he
Speaker 2: wanted to cooperate, right, He was a captain in the
Speaker 2: state of Ohio. So we went up and we taught.
Speaker 2: Now I was a supervisor right now, at that point,
Speaker 2: when you're a fourteen or a group supervisor. I raq whatever,
Speaker 2: You're not supposed to work on a covery, you're supposed
Speaker 2: to oversee the crap, right. Well, I had a really
Speaker 2: good sack that I know, Chris Sadowski. You know, he
Speaker 2: let me do a lot of things and a lot
Speaker 2: of bosses were never allowed to do because he let
Speaker 2: me go help out on Jay Dobbinson's case. He let
Speaker 2: me help go help on a couple of the warlocks,
Speaker 2: k all these cases that I was able to go
Speaker 2: play with and which was nice. And uh so, so
Speaker 2: we're going to start this investigation and we're gonna we're
Speaker 2: gonna buy a machine Well, we're going to go meet
Speaker 2: aj because he can make machine gun stands. He was manufacturing.
Speaker 2: So we get it all together and we're going to
Speaker 2: go meet at this bar in Cleveland, and uh so
Speaker 2: we show up and I bring in another undercover from Virginia,
Speaker 2: Jeff Gramman, and he's going to be the guy that
Speaker 2: gets introduced. Well, you know, I'm dress like anything. So
Speaker 2: we're talking, and so I'm introducing him to Jeff and
Speaker 2: I go, he's going to go with you? And he goes,
Speaker 2: that won't work. I go, what do you mean it
Speaker 2: won't work? And this is where informants. This is. You know,
Speaker 2: some people call him confident human sources. We just call
Speaker 2: him in four minutes, you know. He goes, he won't
Speaker 2: do I go why? He goes cause I described you.
Speaker 2: I told him about you, And of course I'm looking
Speaker 2: at him, and I go, his name was Fred? I go, Fred?
Speaker 2: Would you tell him? He goes, well, I told him
Speaker 2: your name was Junkyard. I got saddled with that for
Speaker 2: amlost two and a half. I go, what the fuck Junkyard?
Speaker 2: He goes, yeah, I go, what else did you tell him? Well,
Speaker 2: that you did time with my dad in County, Okay,
Speaker 2: so that's how we know each other. I okay, and
Speaker 2: I go, and what else did you tell him? He
Speaker 2: goes that you and my dad would go into bars
Speaker 2: and you would wrestle bears for fun. I'm like, you're
Speaker 2: a idiot, right. So so we're sitting there and so
Speaker 2: I'm looking at Jeff. I go, where you're going? So
Speaker 2: I have to call my boss. I called I didn't
Speaker 2: call my I called my boss and I go, hey,
Speaker 2: I go, here's the situation. I go, I got to
Speaker 2: go to this meeting because if I don't go, it's
Speaker 2: not going to go anywhere. He goes, all right, we'll
Speaker 2: just go to the first meeting and back out. Well
Speaker 2: eighteen months later there was no backing out because AJ,
Speaker 2: although he liked Jay, he loved me. He just took
Speaker 2: a real liking to me. I got a phone call
Speaker 2: from that guy seven o'clock every morning. I had to
Speaker 2: be up and ready to record him because it was
Speaker 2: like clockwork. He had a construction. It was called ab Construction,
Speaker 2: very ingenious, and he he would employ on the books
Speaker 2: all of the AB's that were getting out on parole. Now,
Speaker 2: Tim Miracle, who is the adult parole officer for Ohio,
Speaker 2: he had all these guys on probation and parole, so
Speaker 2: he knew all of them and what they were about. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So anyway, so we get into this negotiation with AJ
Speaker 2: about machine guns. So he won't get the kits. I
Speaker 2: had to get the kits. I give him the three
Speaker 2: machine gun kits at first. He makes them in three days,
Speaker 2: come back beautiful, powder coated, function, perfect. So I said, well,
Speaker 2: let's see what he can do. So I said, I'm
Speaker 2: going to order ten and of course US attorneys off sile. Well,
Speaker 2: how do you know he's going to give them to you,
Speaker 2: and he wants say, I go, cause these guys don't
Speaker 2: operate like that. I go, it's a bond. If they
Speaker 2: tell you they're going to do something, they're gonna do it. Right.
Speaker 2: So so we go and I get him ten kits
Speaker 2: and about a week later he brings them to me, right,
Speaker 2: and he brings me nine. And then he says, and
Speaker 2: then he goes, well, let's let's go back to my office.
Speaker 2: He goes, I gotta, I want to talk to you
Speaker 2: guys about up anyway. So I go, where's the tenth?
Speaker 2: But he goes, I'll show you. So we go back
Speaker 2: and he goes in the back room and he pulls
Speaker 2: out this stand that he had powder coated pink and
Speaker 2: he put these little powderpuff girls all over it as
Speaker 2: a joke. He goes. He goes, man, he goes, I
Speaker 2: was just joking around. If he goes, if you want,
Speaker 2: i'll powder coated black, I go, no, no, I go,
Speaker 2: I'll take that one. That's kind of cool, because that's
Speaker 2: great Jerry at Peal, I mean, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: Look at his idiot. He doesn't even carr. He's making
Speaker 2: guns that look, there are pink with Powderpuff Girls on him.
Speaker 2: That's what his disregard. Way. J had ties into cops
Speaker 2: who were you know, who were running information for him
Speaker 2: that were selling them body armor. I mean, his dude,
Speaker 2: he was a captain and Arion brother two criminal, pure criminal,
Speaker 2: a lot of identity, theft, Robert, you name it. He
Speaker 2: was into it. You know, he was married to a nurse, trapped.
Speaker 2: He had a kid who you know, as we got
Speaker 2: around on the kid eight Cheetos and coke, that's all
Speaker 2: he ate. And he named him Dietrich Adolph blue Quist.
Speaker 2: Real treat right. Yeah, So so this starts to go. Well,
Speaker 2: while we're in there, you know, we go up and
Speaker 2: we're buying some dope off him. So he pulls in.
Speaker 2: He goes, hey, man, you guys ride motorcycles. And at
Speaker 2: this point I'm like, ah shit, I go you know,
Speaker 2: the ears go and I go, yeah, we ride motorcycles.
Speaker 2: Why what are you think? And he goes, well, listen,
Speaker 2: Darian Brotherhood has been trying to develop a club nationally
Speaker 2: for years. He goes, and he goes, and we got
Speaker 2: enough guys out right now that we're poised to do this.
Speaker 2: I go, no shit, He goes, We're going to start
Speaker 2: it here in Ohio. I go, so, what do you
Speaker 2: need from me? He goes, you got five guys? He goes,
Speaker 2: I got five guys. I can get five guys. I go,
Speaker 2: I got five guys. I know, and I'm committing before
Speaker 2: I can even do anything. But we're going to ride motorcycles.
Speaker 2: So hey, and I said, well, what's what's the objective
Speaker 2: here at AJ you know what are we doing? He goes, well,
Speaker 2: the objective is for us to kill the Hell's Angels
Speaker 2: and take over or shile. I go, that's a great plan.
Speaker 2: So you know we break. I mean, it's going. I
Speaker 2: mean it's perfect because you know, see the thing is
Speaker 2: people don't know about ATF, or really don't understand about
Speaker 2: ATF is a lot of law enforcem maidencies. When you
Speaker 2: talk about there's going to be guns there and these
Speaker 2: guys are have a real potential for violence, a lot
Speaker 2: of agencies back off of that ATF. The more guns,
Speaker 2: the more violent criminal you are. That's our wheelhouse. We
Speaker 2: want you to have guns there. We want you to
Speaker 2: be violent because that gives us our whole crux of
Speaker 2: being there. Because we used to get in these arguments
Speaker 2: with ATF about well, you're buying all kind of dope.
Speaker 2: We don't see a lot of guns, dudes, they're carrying them.
Speaker 2: Most crooks won't get off the gun that they're using
Speaker 2: to defend themselves. You know, they got smart, they learned,
Speaker 2: you know. So anyway, so I go back and I
Speaker 2: talked to my sack, Chris, and I say, here's what's
Speaker 2: going on. I go and I'm gonna have to be
Speaker 2: in it because he's expected me, because they're going to
Speaker 2: run this like an A B council. You know, we're
Speaker 2: gonna have members and whatnot. So it was like, man,
Speaker 2: I got five guys and my my very very dear friend,
Speaker 2: Freddie Rains was the only state and local guy who
Speaker 2: I just said, Fred, you want to work someone to
Speaker 2: cover with us? And he's like he had no idea
Speaker 2: what he was getting into none. So but that guy
Speaker 2: could buy dope off a rock, and you know, and
Speaker 2: uh so we started down this road, right, we started
Speaker 2: getting to know each other. So we had like, ah,
Speaker 2: on Saint Patrick's Day, we're going to bring our five
Speaker 2: guys and they're going to bring their five guys to
Speaker 2: a bar. So we bring our five guys in and
Speaker 2: we're talking to their five guys and we have no
Speaker 2: idea who these guys are. They introduce us to themselves,
Speaker 2: and we spend a good amount of time there and
Speaker 2: we leave. So we go get the brief by Tim
Speaker 2: Miracle in the in the task force guys, because we
Speaker 2: had formed a task force up there, and uh, Tim goes,
Speaker 2: do you guys know who you met with? I go, uh,
Speaker 2: you know one guy named David, another guy JB. They go.
Speaker 2: He goes, Dude, David is the head of the AB
Speaker 2: for the state of wohow. He brought it back from Phoenix.
Speaker 2: He goes, he just got out like six months ago
Speaker 2: for six counts of attempted murder and he killed a
Speaker 2: guy in jail and stabbed the guy and shot a guy,
Speaker 2: but they always kept running his stuff concurrent. He's dead now.
Speaker 2: He got his head about sawed off out in Victorville
Speaker 2: in federal penitentiary by the ABS because they thought he
Speaker 2: was stealing. But anyway, so we meet these guys and
Speaker 2: it's like he's got a JB twenty five years for murder.
Speaker 2: Paully he got hit for haul of dope between Oklahoma
Speaker 2: and he got motor who was he was robbery whatever?
Speaker 2: You know, all these guys had bought which was way right.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was right where we wanted to be.
Speaker 2: It was like, this couldn't get any better right now.
Speaker 2: Our thought was, how do we control the beast, you know,
Speaker 2: without getting too much shit with these guys? Right. Well,
Speaker 2: so on Hitler's birthday on April twentieth, that's when we
Speaker 2: had our coming out party, and the club was called
Speaker 2: the Order of Blood. And it's like, okay, which I
Speaker 2: didn't know anything about this. We're getting this whole historical well.
Speaker 2: You know, when Hitler went to prison and all his
Speaker 2: generals and our officers that came out, he gave them
Speaker 2: this this, you know, this metal, the Order of Blood.
Speaker 2: So that's where our patch came from. That's where the
Speaker 2: name of our club come from. So while they're designing
Speaker 2: the patch this this always makes me laugh at So
Speaker 2: it was an eagle, right, and it had two thunderbolts
Speaker 2: on the back of it, an eagle like the av
Speaker 2: Falcon eagle. And then I'm like, well, why aren't we
Speaker 2: using why don't we just use a swasti car. They're like, well,
Speaker 2: that would just draw too much attention. But on the
Speaker 2: front of our cuts we had a big swastika support
Speaker 2: couldn't break it up, right, So these guys. So anyway,
Speaker 2: so we just start rolling with these guys. We came
Speaker 2: out and you know, people don't understand the underground. So
Speaker 2: our first coming out party with these guys, we were
Speaker 2: up in Ohio and it was a Hell's Angels event,
Speaker 2: and this is where we're gonna bring out. We're gonna
Speaker 2: sell all our Nazi gear, you know, our swas because
Speaker 2: our club supports stuff, right, our thunderbolts. And so we're there,
Speaker 2: the Hell's Angels have their tent and and in fact,
Speaker 2: I think Sonny Barger was coming in to sign books.
Speaker 2: So there was a bunch of them there and and
Speaker 2: and in the caveat that So in Ohio, up in
Speaker 2: northeast to how they weren't supposed to be any new
Speaker 2: clubs that started, right, They're like, that's it, no new clubs. Well,
Speaker 2: a couple of the ab were friends with the Hell's Angels,
Speaker 2: they knew them, they didn't trust them. Nobody trusted each other.
Speaker 2: So I get invited to this meeting with UH with
Speaker 2: the informant in AJ and then there's two Hells Angels
Speaker 2: there and we go to this Denny's and we're sitting
Speaker 2: there and you know, most clubs will kiss their ass
Speaker 2: just because they fear them. Right, We're sitting there and
Speaker 2: they tell them, hey, we're starting a club. They go,
Speaker 2: what club? They go an a B club and they go, well,
Speaker 2: you know, we're not supposed to say. They go, we
Speaker 2: don't give a shit what you say. We're starting to club.
Speaker 2: This is the first time. This is why it was
Speaker 2: so great to be in this. You didn't care what
Speaker 2: the club said because your gang was a prison day
Speaker 2: and they knew it. They knew it. And I'll tell
Speaker 2: you a story that drove that point home to the
Speaker 2: Hell's Angels real quick. So they're like, okay, you know,
Speaker 2: just all right, they didn't balk. So we started the club.
Speaker 2: And then we showed up at that event. You know,
Speaker 2: they're Hell's Angels are They knew we were coming. But anyway,
Speaker 2: that ain't even the best part is we're there about
Speaker 2: a half hour to an hour. Next thing, you know,
Speaker 2: we got the Grand Wizard, we got a couple of
Speaker 2: night we got the Grand Dragon from the from the Klan.
Speaker 2: They're coming up. Welcome, brothers. We're you know, good to
Speaker 2: see you. You know, it's so good to see other
Speaker 2: people like us out here, and we're like, I'm telling
Speaker 2: you right now, they'd have let us go about another
Speaker 2: six months in that investigation. We'd have had our sheets
Speaker 2: inside that, no doubt in my mind, no doubt because
Speaker 2: you know, because people, you know, a lot of the
Speaker 2: old school, the clubs, you know, a lot of it
Speaker 2: is about white supremacy, right. I mean, they've gotten away
Speaker 2: from that. Like the Hell's Angels, you know, they used
Speaker 2: to wear a lot of a lot of things were
Speaker 2: Swaska stunderbolts, and then once Germany came in, they couldn't
Speaker 2: wear that anymore. They get fined. However, they were buying
Speaker 2: our stuff and not getting caught waring it. That's like
Speaker 2: a lot of clubs, you know, they'll wear the symbol,
Speaker 2: you know, because it stands for supremacy whatever. It was
Speaker 2: odd to see Hispanics wearing it, but okay, But anyways,
Speaker 2: so you know, as time went on, we had a
Speaker 2: really good relationship with both Cleveland chapters. But as we
Speaker 2: grew as a club, we became we started to get
Speaker 2: more powerful because people started to recognize we weren't subservient,
Speaker 2: we didn't answer, and that we truly were you know
Speaker 2: you guys, because all our records showed that we were
Speaker 2: you know, that we were criminals for the most part.
Speaker 2: And we kept a couple of guys that were clean
Speaker 2: just for throwdowns. And if you want to hear a
Speaker 2: funny story, I'll tell you this one. So you know
Speaker 2: how you think you're smarter than the average bear. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So we had been preparing to do this case for
Speaker 2: like three four months getting because because at the at
Speaker 2: the Pinnacle, at this case, we had twenty undercovers running
Speaker 2: male and female. Okay, so we started out with five.
Speaker 2: So we had to how we know each We had
Speaker 2: to get all that down right. So we had seized
Speaker 2: this Fleetwood Cadillac and it was an older one but
Speaker 2: it was nice. So that was my car because I
Speaker 2: was supposed to be the you know, the guy. Right.
Speaker 2: So we're getting ready to go up to our house
Speaker 2: and we had a big safe up there and everything
Speaker 2: where we would store stuff because guy would we had
Speaker 2: guys flying in from all over. But I had just
Speaker 2: picked a bunch of guys up well I picked uh
Speaker 2: three of them up in Pittsburgh. So we're going to
Speaker 2: our house. We dropped a couple of bikes off that
Speaker 2: we had purchased to get some work done. Okay, So
Speaker 2: it's like October, it's going into November, and so it
Speaker 2: was getting late in today and we're going up to Cleveland.
Speaker 2: Now it's like, if we go to the house to
Speaker 2: drop off all our stuff because some guys had crabs
Speaker 2: in their computers because we had to do our work,
Speaker 2: we were going to stash them to say it would
Speaker 2: it would if we went to the house and then
Speaker 2: had to go to the west side of Cleveland. It's
Speaker 2: like an extra two hours with the bikes. So it
Speaker 2: was getting late and we're like, okay, who's in favor
Speaker 2: of going to the house. Everybody's like no, let's just
Speaker 2: go get the bikes and be done with it. And
Speaker 2: I had like five thousand dollars I had to pay
Speaker 2: to pick them up with the work that was done.
Speaker 2: So we break from our route and we're going down
Speaker 2: Route ninety. Now there's me. I had long hair and
Speaker 2: a big beard. Everybody else shaped like this shaved head beard.
Speaker 2: And we're in a Fleetwood Cadillac and we're driving and
Speaker 2: we're going traffic. It's you know, it's traffic. I think
Speaker 2: this feed them was seven We were rolled like seventy
Speaker 2: five seventy six, and we pet there's an interdiction team
Speaker 2: sitting off on the left. Nobody told us that they
Speaker 2: hang out over there. That's just poor intelligence on our part.
Speaker 2: We passed this in addiction team and we all look
Speaker 2: at them, and they look at us like we are
Speaker 2: hit bearer than shit. They I mean, as soon as
Speaker 2: we pass them, boom they come out. There's three of them.
Speaker 2: They pull up behind us. They pull me over, and
Speaker 2: of course now we're en roll. So I got to
Speaker 2: be the asshole. So the one officer walks up to
Speaker 2: the side and he hits on a window. He said,
Speaker 2: roll your wind it out. So I roll it down
Speaker 2: like an inch. Can I help you? Goes? He goes, well,
Speaker 2: do you know why I stopped you. I wasn't speeding.
Speaker 2: He goes, yeah, you were speeding. I go, I was
Speaker 2: keeping with the flow of traffic. Dude, I go, that
Speaker 2: wasn't speeding. He goes, roll the window down. So I
Speaker 2: rolled the window down. And as I'm rolling the window
Speaker 2: down and I go and no, you cannot have consent
Speaker 2: to search the car. So he looks right at me like, okay,
Speaker 2: we're gonna play this game. Now, Remember how how I
Speaker 2: said we had a throwdown guy. Yeah, so Wayne Lester,
Speaker 2: who was a newer agent who we had to bring
Speaker 2: guys in who because we just had a shortage of
Speaker 2: guys right who who had capability but never been in
Speaker 2: this kind of situation. So Wayne didn't have a criminal history. Now,
Speaker 2: prior to getting into the car, I said, okay, does
Speaker 2: everybody have their guns in the trunk and in their
Speaker 2: bags so if we get stopped, we're not gonna have
Speaker 2: a problem. Yes. So soon as we get pulled over,
Speaker 2: Jeff Gramma goes, fuck, I got my gun. I go,
Speaker 2: all right, I go take the magazine, throw it in
Speaker 2: the front, throw in the glove box, throw the gun
Speaker 2: under his seat, because in Ohio that's just a simple
Speaker 2: improper handling on the firearm. Right. So the guy's going,
Speaker 2: I go, and you can't have consent the search. So
Speaker 2: they come over and they pull us out of the car,
Speaker 2: and so they put me in Wayne in a car
Speaker 2: and they put Jeff and Dan Osbalt in the other car.
Speaker 2: And Wayne's looking at me, goes, what's going on? I go, Well,
Speaker 2: if somebody's going to jail for that gun, it's you,
Speaker 2: Because you don't have a criminal history. So the rest
Speaker 2: of us are, you know, two three times felons. I go,
Speaker 2: so you're gonna have to take to hit And Wayne's
Speaker 2: like what, I go, Yeah, if if they don't give
Speaker 2: you a simple you're gonna have to own the gun.
Speaker 2: If they ask whose gun that is, it's yours. So
Speaker 2: they bring out the drug dog. Right now, we had
Speaker 2: cleaned this car. There's nothing going to hit on this car.
Speaker 2: So they walk the dog around the car. Once nothing.
Speaker 2: I go, good dude, we're right here. Nothing. They walked
Speaker 2: the dog around the car. Second time that officer put
Speaker 2: his hand on the window. Ledge dog sat. Because I
Speaker 2: have an alert, I go set up a bitch passive alert.
Speaker 2: He got alert, my ass right, So now they're gonna
Speaker 2: get in the car. They get in the front seat
Speaker 2: within you know a minute, I got a gun. So
Speaker 2: now now mine is the first day out on this investigation,
Speaker 2: and we spent quite a good bit of money getting
Speaker 2: I'm going, you can't. You can't believe it, right, So
Speaker 2: we're supposed to be better than this because Dan's worked
Speaker 2: the case, I work the case, Jeff worked multiple cases.
Speaker 2: We should know better, right, So I sit there and
Speaker 2: I say, waitne, I'm gonna have to heurt myself. He goes,
Speaker 2: what do you mean out yourself? I go, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: have to help myself to protect the case, because what
Speaker 2: are you gonna do? I go, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2: So I start banging my head on the window of
Speaker 2: this of this cruiser right. So Sergeant's like yell at me,
Speaker 2: shut up, shut up, stop it. So I'm about beating
Speaker 2: myself unconscious. Finally upser goes, what the fuck do you want? Go?
Speaker 2: I need to talk to you. So he pulls me out.
Speaker 2: I go, can we go to the back of the car.
Speaker 2: So he pulls. He goes, what's going on? I go,
Speaker 2: all right, well, I'm gonna explain something to you. I go.
Speaker 2: Might be a little bit sketchy for you to believe.
Speaker 2: I go, but I'm going to lay something down to you.
Speaker 2: I go. I'm an ATF agent. I go, And these
Speaker 2: guys are my targets. I go, and right now you're
Speaker 2: fucking up my deal. And he's looking at me, and
Speaker 2: I go, okay, if you want to verify who I am,
Speaker 2: I go, I got a bag in the back of
Speaker 2: that car. I go, this is the bag and inside it.
Speaker 2: There's a compartment that you got to, you know, pull
Speaker 2: some shit apart and get into. I go, my creds
Speaker 2: are in there. He goes, he's looking at me. I go,
Speaker 2: just I go, but you are the only one that
Speaker 2: could search that, because if these other guys it's going
Speaker 2: to be a problem. So he goes in there, and
Speaker 2: I could see him. That's right. He pulls my present.
Speaker 2: He looks, he shuts him. Now, mind you. While we're
Speaker 2: on the side of the road, about three or four
Speaker 2: more cruisers show up. I'm watching our seats get launched
Speaker 2: out of our car because they're tearing it apart. Right,
Speaker 2: So he goes, well, how do you want to handle this? Now?
Speaker 2: At this point, the lieutenants that were on our task force,
Speaker 2: they both show up and he goes, well, what do
Speaker 2: you want to do about the gun? I go, that
Speaker 2: little dude back there in the car with me, I go,
Speaker 2: just giving improper handling. He don't have a criminal history.
Speaker 2: I go, the other guys just let him go for
Speaker 2: right now. And he's like real cool about it. He goes, okay,
Speaker 2: all right. So anyway, long story short. After three hours
Speaker 2: on the side of the road, dark cars all they're
Speaker 2: They're like okay, they're wrapping up, and then like, okay,
Speaker 2: we got to put our seats back in. We gotta
Speaker 2: do okay. So we get back in the car and
Speaker 2: after something traumatic like that, the speed limit was seventy
Speaker 2: I think I was going forty because we're all looking
Speaker 2: at each other like we're supposed to be so much
Speaker 2: better than this, and yeah, this is day one. So
Speaker 2: I'm driving down a road. Car comes flying up behind.
Speaker 2: He lights me up. I'm going you gotta be shipped.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm like, I might as well just let's
Speaker 2: just quit right now. Pulls me over. It's the sergeant
Speaker 2: and to his they never said a word about me,
Speaker 2: and the case went on. I mean, I give them
Speaker 2: that credit. They never said a word anybody about me.
Speaker 2: But he comes up, he goes, you forgot this, and
Speaker 2: he hands me my five thousand dollars that I forgot
Speaker 2: that he even took off me when he searched me.
Speaker 2: I became so tunnel visioned. Holy shit. Yeah, I'm like
Speaker 2: God almighty. So we go we pick up the bikes.
Speaker 2: Now it's dark and it's cold, so the other guys
Speaker 2: take off in the car and we put all our
Speaker 2: gear on and our cuts on. Now now we've got
Speaker 2: our you know, and we start rolling down the same road. Right,
Speaker 2: we're on two bikes. Now, our face are all messed up.
Speaker 2: We got helmets on. Dude, we passed the same in
Speaker 2: addiction in it, they're out right behind us, the sergeant
Speaker 2: because he must' not. He rolls up and he's looking
Speaker 2: at us, and I'm on the I'm on the on
Speaker 2: the inside, just on it. I pulled my mask down
Speaker 2: and I'm like, as if to say, we're real, come on,
Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden they backed out and
Speaker 2: they went, I mean, you want to talk about a
Speaker 2: night of just self reflection, you know, just like dudes,
Speaker 2: everything that could have went wrong went wrong, you know
Speaker 2: it did, which woke us up because that case was
Speaker 2: different than any other case. I went, because those guys scrutinized,
Speaker 2: they had security guys. They wanted to know everything about you.
Speaker 2: They were constantly looking at guys getting out of prison.
Speaker 2: If they made deals. You're allowed to talk to this one,
Speaker 2: don't talk to that one, you know. So as we
Speaker 2: started off in in actually our house was in Geneva
Speaker 2: and the lake and then it was beautiful, overlooked the lake.
Speaker 2: It was a big house. We you know, we all
Speaker 2: kind of lived there, came and went, and we kind
Speaker 2: of expanded into a couple of cities. But the chapters,
Speaker 2: the chapters started to grow, you know, we started to
Speaker 2: get more members as guys got out of prison. Guys
Speaker 2: were bringing in people from prison. So it was, you
Speaker 2: know a lot of dope. Like, hey, you know, the
Speaker 2: one good thing about it is we So we had
Speaker 2: this house right and they had a big flagpole, so
Speaker 2: it's like there was no secret who we were, right,
Speaker 2: a bunch of Nazis. So we Nazi flag. My boss
Speaker 2: rode by there one time, just check the house. Hot.
Speaker 2: I get a call this, you got to take that
Speaker 2: flag down. I go, why, he goes, I take the
Speaker 2: flag down. He goes, it's a Nazi flag. I go,
Speaker 2: we're Nazis are He goes, No, he goes, it's too
Speaker 2: He goes, it's too much. So we ended up flying
Speaker 2: a pirate flag instead. However, all those people up in
Speaker 2: that area, we had people, I'm not shitting you. People
Speaker 2: would just knock on our door because we'd be outside,
Speaker 2: everybody's tattooed, you know, washing bike. People would just knock
Speaker 2: on the door, asking if we want to buy dope
Speaker 2: and guns. We had these two idiots to work for
Speaker 2: the city. You know, those big steel manhole covers. It
Speaker 2: was like Jeremiah Johnson. They would drop stuff off at
Speaker 2: our house with the big swastikas of thunderbolts on him,
Speaker 2: and then they would drop off these manhole companies. Right.
Speaker 2: So one of the guys ends up asking goes, hey, man,
Speaker 2: where are you getting these? They go, We're just pulling
Speaker 2: them off the street. He's like, so you leave the
Speaker 2: big holes on the street where we ride our motorcycles,
Speaker 2: you idiot, you know, But they would, I mean, we
Speaker 2: had there were councilmen that would stop up and talk
Speaker 2: to us. You would think, you know, in today's age,
Speaker 2: you know you talk about racism, people just don't know
Speaker 2: how much racism exists still today where people you know,
Speaker 2: we used to sell our gear. People would buy our
Speaker 2: gear tenfold. We had guys that were buying off of
Speaker 2: some black eyes. So we had a tent that these
Speaker 2: guys would give us on the main street at Geneva
Speaker 2: on Lake. I roll up with one of the other
Speaker 2: guys and I see two of our guys standing there
Speaker 2: who are buying up off a black eye. He's wearing
Speaker 2: our Avy support shirt. I walked up. They're laughing. I go, dude,
Speaker 2: you better get that off, I said, because if David
Speaker 2: Snow shows up over here, he'll kill that motherfucker. I go, you, guys,
Speaker 2: this isn't I go. Serious business, serious business. They're not
Speaker 2: gonna they're not gonna laugh at that right. So anyway,
Speaker 2: but we had people that were and wearing our stuff
Speaker 2: all over the place. I mean, we had clubs. When
Speaker 2: they got in trouble, they would call us to help
Speaker 2: defend them or work things out for them. And this
Speaker 2: is over time. We got to be pretty good friends
Speaker 2: with a guy named He's not he's out of the
Speaker 2: club now because of our I think our friendship Willie Beard,
Speaker 2: who was in who was in the Hell's Angels, And
Speaker 2: he took to us and he said, hey, you guys
Speaker 2: run your operations good. You do stuff the right way
Speaker 2: because you guys aren't any bullshit. You handle your business.
Speaker 2: And and we did. There were times where things would
Speaker 2: come up to where we would have to handle our business,
Speaker 2: you know, where guys would would try, you know, test us,
Speaker 2: and then it was on, you know, and and and
Speaker 2: it was over quickly because we did. We had a
Speaker 2: lot of big dudes in our club, and it was
Speaker 2: you know, it would get contentious because you know, we
Speaker 2: had the Pagans. We would go to Pagan territory. They're like, well,
Speaker 2: you guys are up in northeast Ohio, how can you
Speaker 2: have no affiliation with the Hell's Angels. We don't. Uh.
Speaker 2: In fact, one of the original council members for their
Speaker 2: brotherhood was a Pagan. So we ended up getting real
Speaker 2: good with the Pagans. We had some affiliation with the Outlaws,
Speaker 2: and we also had affiliations with all the other clubs
Speaker 2: that were up and around in that area. So we
Speaker 2: were running. We ended up having guys in Akron, up
Speaker 2: in Geneva on the Lake, and then over in Sharon, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: So we had three chapters by the time, and this
Speaker 2: thing was ballooning up. You know, we had guys calling
Speaker 2: from from the penitentiary that were calling asking us to join,
Speaker 2: you know when we get out, you know, so, I mean,
Speaker 2: it was, it was, and they were in the beauty
Speaker 2: of it was. They were all great violent targets. We
Speaker 2: had this one guy. There's some twist to this story
Speaker 2: that so if you got if you got the time
Speaker 2: for this. Yeah, yeah, JB, who was a member of
Speaker 2: Darion Brotherhood, right, he went down for murder. Okay, he
Speaker 2: was actually and we knew this, but he didn't know
Speaker 2: we knew this. He was actually an informant for Tim Miracle,
Speaker 2: who was the adult. Right, So while this case is
Speaker 2: going on, he's informing But guess who he's informing on?
Speaker 2: Only us, None of the other AB's not David because
Speaker 2: he was deafinitely afraid of David, right, everybody was. We
Speaker 2: were deathly afraid of David. You know, look at David.
Speaker 2: He didn't look like much but Puku anyway, So John
Speaker 2: Beason's starting to get too powerful. He's starting to want
Speaker 2: to do too many things that's going to get us
Speaker 2: down a road we don't want to go. So it's like,
Speaker 2: so how do we get rid of him? Because we
Speaker 2: had to get rid of AJ two. And I'll tell
Speaker 2: you how we got rid of him. This was before JB.
Speaker 2: But so we JB had showed some of the guys
Speaker 2: in the club that he hadn't cut right, So based
Speaker 2: on that, they executed a search warrant and they sealed
Speaker 2: the warrant and they arrested him. Okay, So JB had
Speaker 2: a bad heart. So he goes. He goes because he's
Speaker 2: going for role revocation now because he's out on parole
Speaker 2: and now he's facing federal charges. Well, he gets charged
Speaker 2: in federal court, and his attorney in Oprah Court says
Speaker 2: that he's an active informant because ATF signed him up too.
Speaker 2: He's an active informant for ATF any adult parole authority
Speaker 2: informing on the Hell's Angels in the air in brotherhood.
Speaker 2: Now I get this information, it's like we can get
Speaker 2: rid of them. So I called the US Attorney's Office.
Speaker 2: I go, are we allowed to put that out? They go, no,
Speaker 2: because if you guys put it out something happens in
Speaker 2: then we're liable. Right, I go, but what if I
Speaker 2: direct some people to go get a copy of the
Speaker 2: transcript and they read it. Then they go, you can
Speaker 2: do that because it's public information. So I did, so
Speaker 2: I had Paulie and David Snow go get the go
Speaker 2: get the transcript. So they called me all the way
Speaker 2: back from the courthouse in Cleveland, and and and David
Speaker 2: straight out he goes, that motherfucker's dead. He goes, he's
Speaker 2: a snitch. He's a rat now pollying him a good
Speaker 2: friends meaning JB fall We don't know the whole story
Speaker 2: goes fuck him, He goes, he's dead. Oh shit. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: well anyway, so, needless to say, so JB gets locked
Speaker 2: up right in, about two weeks later, he's dead, not
Speaker 2: from anything we did, but because of his heart gave out. Wow.
Speaker 2: However though, so so in the meantime, once it was public,
Speaker 2: I was able to call Willy Beard and said, hey, Willy,
Speaker 2: there's a problem with JB. Blah blah blah. He goes, well,
Speaker 2: let me know what you find out. So JB gets
Speaker 2: JB dies in prison. Well, to our advantage, I call
Speaker 2: up Willie and I go Willie Ja. I said, we
Speaker 2: don't have to worry about JB anymore. He goes, huh,
Speaker 2: I go, he's gone. He goes, oh, got to go.
Speaker 2: So now these sons a bit of state that we
Speaker 2: had him off them, which gives us so much credibility, right, unbelievable.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's awesome, right, We had a lot of
Speaker 2: things go our way that way. We just kept mounting
Speaker 2: because the first when we were in this club, it
Speaker 2: was like, well, everybody had to be like a criminal
Speaker 2: that did five years. Then it was a violent crime,
Speaker 2: then it was murk. This was self perpetuating within the
Speaker 2: other clubs, not us. We weren't putting this stuff out.
Speaker 2: So and the way we got rid of AJ was
Speaker 2: AJ again. So, in his infinite wisdom, the guy that
Speaker 2: was actually the informant for the Hell's Angels, they decide
Speaker 2: to go down to a Hell's Angels bar in East Cleveland,
Speaker 2: and AJ doesn't burnout in their bar, which angers that right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So the next as it should and the next day
Speaker 2: there's these drag races. Right now, it's a heavy Hell's
Speaker 2: Angel's presence. We're going. So we had a bunch of guys,
Speaker 2: we probably had till ten or twelve guys at that
Speaker 2: point go with us. I mean everybody went. So and
Speaker 2: AJ drove his truck because at this point we got
Speaker 2: to do something because the Hell's Angel want to kill him.
Speaker 2: They literally want to kill because they know AJ. So
Speaker 2: we pull into this event and here's Hell's Angels posted
Speaker 2: all over the place, right, and so we roll in
Speaker 2: and so it's me jb And and David stnune Up.
Speaker 2: David stone ever took an officer position at all it was.
Speaker 2: It was it was me, JB and and AJ at
Speaker 2: the time. So AJ was kind of out at this point.
Speaker 2: So David goes, he goes, hey, everywhere you see Hell's Angel,
Speaker 2: you guys go post up because everybody got a gun. Yeah,
Speaker 2: go post up. So our guys en angled out and
Speaker 2: we're posted up next to their guys. So Johnny Merchant,
Speaker 2: who is just this big animal and face, they're standing
Speaker 2: over there. So I go over with JB and we're
Speaker 2: talking and JV and and merchants like, where's AJ? Where
Speaker 2: to kick his ass? We're kick his ass? And now
Speaker 2: about now, all these guys, nobody's young, you know. Everybody's
Speaker 2: over forty years old, approaching fifty, you know, and this stuff,
Speaker 2: so it's like children anyway. So JB goes, you're not
Speaker 2: touching anybody in our club. I go, if there's anybody
Speaker 2: going to be disciplined, and it'll be us. What's the problem.
Speaker 2: So he told him what was gone. He goes all right,
Speaker 2: He goes all right, he goes, we want AJ. We're
Speaker 2: gonna he goes, and JB goes just stand by. He goes, Junkyard,
Speaker 2: come with me. So we go back and David's standing
Speaker 2: over there now, David. Okay, so just a little background
Speaker 2: on David. David got convicted of six counts of attempted
Speaker 2: murder because he held his girlfriend who was playing Russian
Speaker 2: Roulette before somebody escaped down an house called the police. Right,
Speaker 2: he got fifteen years. He came up for parole in
Speaker 2: eight When he went before the parole board, he told him,
Speaker 2: fuck you, I'm not I'm not telling you I'm sorry
Speaker 2: or anything. So they sent him to the youngs tom
Speaker 2: Max Security prison, where he orchestrated the Lucasfville riots from there.
Speaker 2: While he was in prison, we got from the guys
Speaker 2: that we talked to the security guys that work in
Speaker 2: the prisons. He stabbed the guy. He actually shot a
Speaker 2: guy in the head but he didn't die. But they
Speaker 2: ran everything concurrent when he got out of prison. Now
Speaker 2: this is Jay been up said he was living under
Speaker 2: his mother's trailer because he was in solitary twenty three
Speaker 2: hours a day. Like you couldn't go through a drive
Speaker 2: through because he goes, I'm not talking to the box,
Speaker 2: I mean. And when he first came around, this dude,
Speaker 2: he spent most of his you know, teenage years dry
Speaker 2: cleaning so he would wear dockers and polos and the
Speaker 2: worst tattoos you ever seen in your life. He was
Speaker 2: balding then, but just violent as hell. But you never
Speaker 2: know that if you just talked to him and met him.
Speaker 2: Seemed like half ass, normal guy. So we go back
Speaker 2: over and we're talking to David, and David goes. He goes,
Speaker 2: all right, here's how it's going to go. He goes,
Speaker 2: you go back and tell them motherfuckers. He goes. If
Speaker 2: they touch one of us, he goes, we will green
Speaker 2: light every hell's angel across the country. At that point,
Speaker 2: I've been in other clubs that I've been around other clubs,
Speaker 2: I've never felt that much power in my life that
Speaker 2: we're going to go over there and tell them this.
Speaker 2: And it was okay, I go, JB, that's your call.
Speaker 2: So we walk over there and they're and they know
Speaker 2: who David is and and JB said, I just got
Speaker 2: one message to pass to you. He goes, David said,
Speaker 2: if you touch one of our members, we're going to
Speaker 2: green light all your people across the country. They looked
Speaker 2: at us, You saw their faces. Everything changed immediately because
Speaker 2: they knew he had that power, you know, or he
Speaker 2: could get to those people who had that power, you know,
Speaker 2: and uh so things kind of change, you know, the
Speaker 2: format changed, and then you know they were having an
Speaker 2: officer's meaning, this is where we're going to be seen
Speaker 2: by all the other clubs. So we had these things
Speaker 2: called death marches because we never knew how they were
Speaker 2: going to turn out. It's just had to go do
Speaker 2: it because that's what was required. So usually it's only
Speaker 2: a couple of two or three members that are allowed
Speaker 2: to go, usually the officers that go to these things,
Speaker 2: and then the Hell's Angels lecture you and tell you
Speaker 2: how they're going to extort you for all their events
Speaker 2: that you have to prepay for and everything. Right, So
Speaker 2: I'm sitting there and face goes, hey, we're going to
Speaker 2: have this thing down here. I go, hey, man, none
Speaker 2: of our guys have ever been any of this, Like,
Speaker 2: do you mind if we come? Like I bring more?
Speaker 2: He goes, yeah, bring whoever you want, which saved our ass.
Speaker 2: So we go down this long road and of course
Speaker 2: our cover teams watching the drag races, they're not watching us, yee.
Speaker 2: So we go down this long path and there's this tent, right,
Speaker 2: so all the other clubs are sitting there and here's
Speaker 2: probably like six or seven of us, and they're saying, hey,
Speaker 2: this is a new club. Order Blood and a couple
Speaker 2: of the clubs drip up and say, hey, we thought
Speaker 2: you said there wasn't gonna be any new clubs. It says,
Speaker 2: shut the fuck up. They're here, and then they kind
Speaker 2: of started to figure out what we were about. Right,
Speaker 2: So this meeting breaks up. Now, Roy Bootsterer was the
Speaker 2: longest prospect in the history of the Hell's Angels. I
Speaker 2: think he prospected for three years. That's a long time.
Speaker 2: So we're so they asked us to stay back. There
Speaker 2: were two or three other Hell's Angels and this this
Speaker 2: this prospect, Roy Bootster, So they asked us to hang
Speaker 2: back and we're talking. So I'm looking out of the
Speaker 2: fore of my eye and Roy's putting on his sap gloves.
Speaker 2: He's turning his sod off shotgun towards us, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: so I'm bumped. A couple of guys goes, are you
Speaker 2: guys seeing his bullshit? So it was like we close
Speaker 2: ranks into the Hell's Angels because it's like, if he's
Speaker 2: going to shoot one of us, he's got to shoot
Speaker 2: down right, and JB didn't see it. He goes, what's
Speaker 2: going on? I go, just I go, I got time
Speaker 2: to explain. I close it up. So they start talking
Speaker 2: about what needs to happen and how we have to
Speaker 2: send some guys down to the j Bar so that
Speaker 2: they can apologize, which David was vietmamly against. But we're like, David,
Speaker 2: we got to exist here. We'll take care of that business.
Speaker 2: Let them. You know, we're kind of big because the
Speaker 2: plan was again to kill all of them, So it's like, hey,
Speaker 2: let's just think they're in control. You know, we're kind
Speaker 2: of guiding David. Let them think we're in control, and
Speaker 2: then let them go apologize. So two guys went down
Speaker 2: and apologize, so they couldn't do anything because we had
Speaker 2: closed ranks runner guys, so they just broke it up.
Speaker 2: So as we're walking back up the hill, JB looks
Speaker 2: at me, he goes, what the hell was that all about?
Speaker 2: I go, dude, they were getting ready to shoot us
Speaker 2: with that shotgun. He goes, what, I go, Yeah, So
Speaker 2: I told my guys, I go, we're gonna kill everybody
Speaker 2: here that's not wearing our patch and we're dropping our
Speaker 2: shit and getting out of here. And he looked at me,
Speaker 2: he goes, Junkyard, He goes, I only got one problem
Speaker 2: with that, And I go, what is? He goes, you
Speaker 2: need to fucking tell me that when you're gonna do
Speaker 2: shit like that. I'm like, okay, cool, well I'm telling
Speaker 2: you now, he goes, he goes. Because they didn't care.
Speaker 2: It was like, if you know, the patch was something
Speaker 2: that was just a novelty for them to be able
Speaker 2: to ride around and be a club. But the brand
Speaker 2: AB brand is what kept them together. We kept all
Speaker 2: of us together because we're the only guys that were
Speaker 2: part of an AB thing that never really went through
Speaker 2: the whole process of becoming an a B inside the joint, right,
Speaker 2: you know, which was unique in and of itself. I mean,
Speaker 2: they took pictures of us and sent them inside a
Speaker 2: joint to see if anybody knew us or anything like that.
Speaker 2: But you know, we were we were pretty much on
Speaker 2: equal standing with those guys.
Speaker 3: So how you know, go ahead, No, I'm just curious
Speaker 3: because you know, you're talking about a very interesting dynamic here, right,
Speaker 3: You're talking about the Hell's Angels and the Pagans and
Speaker 3: these motorcycle gangs who their guys sometimes get sent to prison,
Speaker 3: and when they do get toent to prison, I imagine
Speaker 3: generally have to rely on the Area and Brotherhood, which
Speaker 3: isn't a motorcycle gang. It's a prison gang that you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's it's a major protective and a violent force
Speaker 3: inside a prism. So now all of a sudden, the
Speaker 3: Arian Brotherhood is they're sort of outside the law when
Speaker 3: it comes to these motorcycle gangs, right, Like, they have
Speaker 3: a way more reach than a lot of these motorcycle
Speaker 3: gangs do.
Speaker 2: Well. So you know, every time you go into club,
Speaker 2: you learn their you know their background, their history. Right.
Speaker 2: So so of course Darren Brother is going to tell
Speaker 2: you at least like the Aaron Brother in Ohio was
Speaker 2: brought from Arizona. That's where David brought it back from.
Speaker 2: Right So in Arizona started from California. So you're going
Speaker 2: to learn the law of that. And so we were
Speaker 2: talking to David about that because he did not like
Speaker 2: the Hell's Angels. He hated them, And I'm like, David,
Speaker 2: what's the rough He goes, well, he goes it goes
Speaker 2: back to the riots in the sixties. He goes when
Speaker 2: we were he goes, you know, he goes, we were
Speaker 2: riding with the blacks. He used another term, right, he goes,
Speaker 2: he goes, We went to the Hell's Angels, you know,
Speaker 2: to see if they're with us, and they said, no,
Speaker 2: we're not. We're not white or Hell's Angels. And to
Speaker 2: this day that carries like they remember that. So like
Speaker 2: in state, in federal prison, they're okay. State prison, they
Speaker 2: keep away. Now, most clubs don't allow you to become
Speaker 2: an Aaron Brotherhood member. And being a club, right, Aaron
Speaker 2: brother don't care if you if you're in a club
Speaker 2: or not, you know what I mean. But the clubs
Speaker 2: don't want you because what happens is is divided loyalty
Speaker 2: then and who has the bigger stick? Now, you know,
Speaker 2: we got taught a lot about Aaron Brotherhood, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, we were buying off of guys. We bought
Speaker 2: off a black, We bought off of the Mexican mafia.
Speaker 2: We bought anybody because the color was green, right, if
Speaker 2: it was green, and we could make money. So you know,
Speaker 2: when you look at the hierarchy of white supremacist right,
Speaker 2: you have the true believers, but the thear In Brotherhood
Speaker 2: is more. It's a prison game. You know. When they're out,
Speaker 2: they're cliquish, they do stuff, But it's all all about
Speaker 2: pushing money back into the prison to help those guys.
Speaker 2: It's not like you knowsm and you know War all
Speaker 2: these other you know, white nationalists. It's not about that.
Speaker 2: It's they're all based on an ideology based on religion.
Speaker 2: They ain't Brethren is not based on like Christian religion.
Speaker 2: It's not based on that at all. So it's based
Speaker 2: on white is right. It's our group of guys. We
Speaker 2: do we do, we hold the power. Right. So when
Speaker 2: David made that statement to them, it kind of changed everything.
Speaker 2: From the Lake, these guys are like, hey, these guys
Speaker 2: are good, you know. And then and then the Cleveland
Speaker 2: chapter we started to get rubs with because they saw
Speaker 2: power shifting dynamic where a lot of the other puppet clubs,
Speaker 2: the smaller support clubs were looking to us, and we
Speaker 2: were real good about that. We go to the events,
Speaker 2: we pony up a bunch of money, we're buying loyalty. Right,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you a quick story. So they used to
Speaker 2: have these officer meetings, right, and so there had been
Speaker 2: some friction with us in a couple of clubs, and
Speaker 2: especially with the Hell's Angels, and it was coming to
Speaker 2: a head. So we're riding to the Earth Dogs was
Speaker 2: the name of his club. They got a real small clubhouse.
Speaker 2: But we're going to go over to the Bourne Free.
Speaker 2: Now they were a single chapter club, but they had
Speaker 2: a lot of members, like forty members, and we had
Speaker 2: become pretty tight with this guy, so we were going
Speaker 2: to go over to their clubhouse first in and ride over together. Well,
Speaker 2: while we're riding over there, there was four of us.
Speaker 2: There was yeah, there was four of us. Well there's
Speaker 2: a pack coming towards us. So I'm like, well, who
Speaker 2: the fuck is that? Well it was the Hell's Angels.
Speaker 2: They had like eight members and like two or three
Speaker 2: prospects are like, something's fucked up. That ain't right. They
Speaker 2: never bring that many people to these days. So we
Speaker 2: get over to the to the Born Free clubhouse and
Speaker 2: we walk in and two tall as the president, a
Speaker 2: nice guy, and we had become friends with some of
Speaker 2: their real good friends with some of their guys, and
Speaker 2: too Tall goes, somebody's fixing to get fucked up, and
Speaker 2: were like us. He goes, he goes, that's the way
Speaker 2: it looks. He goes, dude, he goes, I don't know that.
Speaker 2: He goes, the Hell's Angels got rep with you guys,
Speaker 2: and I go over what He goes, Well, the swordsmen
Speaker 2: were saying, you guys were in their territory selling dope.
Speaker 2: I go, we don't even go over there. What the
Speaker 2: fuck are they talking about? That is a puppet club
Speaker 2: for them, you know, for the Angels. So we're getting
Speaker 2: ready to leave, but this is how much Loyd tvse
Speaker 2: guys had for us. They go, look, if you want,
Speaker 2: they go, we'll invite the Hell's Angels back to our clubhouse.
Speaker 2: And he goes, We'll hide in the closets with shotguns
Speaker 2: and shit, and when they come in, we'll kill them all.
Speaker 2: We're like, all right, fucking sounds like a good plan,
Speaker 2: because at this point it's self preservation. If that's what
Speaker 2: it comes back to, that's what it comes down there.
Speaker 2: I'll give a shit, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 2: want to go home and see my family. Right. So
Speaker 2: we go over to this earth Dog clubhouse and you know,
Speaker 2: we go in and they're you know, reading the Riot
Speaker 2: Act and they're telling they want everybody solid security numbers
Speaker 2: and this and that, so they can start checking everybody,
Speaker 2: but they really wanted to check us. And myself and
Speaker 2: Grammar are in there and we're saying out loud because
Speaker 2: we're just a fighting you know, we're not giving you
Speaker 2: our shit, we're not giving you anything. And there and
Speaker 2: like the other clubs are like it's like being in
Speaker 2: third grade where you bark at the teacher, and the
Speaker 2: other clubs are like looking around, going holy shit. And
Speaker 2: then they're like, and there's not to be any you know,
Speaker 2: shit go down while we're here. So if you got
Speaker 2: a problem in another club, you handle it. So of
Speaker 2: course we did the exact opposite. So when the meeting
Speaker 2: broke up, the president and the swordsman walked out towards
Speaker 2: the was walking towards the uh the bonfire, so we
Speaker 2: scooped him up or like, and we're getting his ass
Speaker 2: about what he's saying. And of course Goose, who's no
Speaker 2: longer in a club, he's a big dude, and a
Speaker 2: couple other guys they're watching us. We're blatant defiance to them,
Speaker 2: and he comes walking over. He will not talk to us,
Speaker 2: and he starts, didn't I tell you to the other guy,
Speaker 2: and the swordsman, didn't I tell you you guys aren't
Speaker 2: supposed to handle aid business. And he's looking at him,
Speaker 2: going like, but they scooped me up right now. In
Speaker 2: the meantime, we didn't know how shit was gonna go.
Speaker 2: So Freddie and I think it was Oz. Those guys
Speaker 2: had got into a position of a crossfire because if
Speaker 2: it broke again, it was it was four against whoever
Speaker 2: wanted to draw their guns, right, So anyway, they bitch
Speaker 2: at them, We get on our motorcycles and we leave.
Speaker 2: Now Oz bolt and grabbing. We're going to meet some
Speaker 2: of the Pagans in Youngstown because they had a deal.
Speaker 2: So Freddie and I go to this truck stop and
Speaker 2: we're gonna grab something to eat, and you know, you
Speaker 2: try not to take stuff personal, but now I took
Speaker 2: this personal. So I called up Willy Bear and I said, Willy,
Speaker 2: I go, what the fuck is Goose's problem? He goes,
Speaker 2: what do you mean? I go, we're just at this,
Speaker 2: Meaning goes, what did he do? I go, he's telling
Speaker 2: us he wants this, he wants that. He goes, well,
Speaker 2: you know, Goose can kind of get like a a stop.
Speaker 2: I go, stop right there, I go do you know
Speaker 2: who the original Guestopo was fucking nazis us. We're the
Speaker 2: gonna stop hop we don't get told what to do.
Speaker 2: I go. And then so Freddy's eating and I'm watching
Speaker 2: him because he's like, where are you going with this?
Speaker 2: I said, I'm gonna tell you something, Willie. I said,
Speaker 2: you motherfuckers want to go, We'll go with you anytime
Speaker 2: you want. I go. You just tell us where and win.
Speaker 2: And he's like, whoa whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa whoa.
Speaker 2: He goes, we're not looking to fight at two front
Speaker 2: war because this is when they were battling and they
Speaker 2: basically got pushed out of Philadelphia when the Pagans busted
Speaker 2: them out of Philadelphia. He goes, we're not looking to
Speaker 2: fight at to to you know, a two front war
Speaker 2: with you guys. I go, I go, there's not gonna
Speaker 2: be a fight. I go. You guys just won't see
Speaker 2: it coming Willie. And he's like, God damn it, you know.
Speaker 2: And after that, after that, I'm telling you, we tried
Speaker 2: to poke that bear every chance we could get with
Speaker 2: the Hell's Angels, and they would they would get so livid,
Speaker 2: but they would never jump they would never jump at
Speaker 2: us ever, and it's just because not that we were
Speaker 2: a bunch of tough guys, but what would ensue if
Speaker 2: it happened, what they knew would happened, or what they
Speaker 2: believed what would happen. So, you know, so that was
Speaker 2: that was I mean you talked about it was one
Speaker 2: of those times in a club where it was like, man,
Speaker 2: this is where you know you got big dogs, but
Speaker 2: all the other guys are looking at you, going this,
Speaker 2: this could be a problem because this isn't These guys
Speaker 2: that are in the club they don't have a criminal
Speaker 2: record or they're afraid to go back to prison because
Speaker 2: that's their home, right, you know. So it was kind
Speaker 2: of unique in that way.
Speaker 1: So what what what was the tripping point for this
Speaker 1: this investigation that led to you know, you guys closing
Speaker 1: the net on it.
Speaker 2: I had a thumbsucker as an asack. I mean he
Speaker 2: was scared, like denied even having meetings at the USA's
Speaker 2: office with the sack. I don't remember being there. It
Speaker 2: was a fucking Saturday morning. Who comes in on a
Speaker 2: Saturday morning to have a meeting about what we're going
Speaker 2: to do. He wanted to shut that case down from
Speaker 2: the minute because he had no idea. You know, Thank
Speaker 2: God for guys like Steve Martin who were deputy assistant
Speaker 2: directors at the time that were fighting our battles at
Speaker 2: the headquarters level keeping our cases alive. Now, Chris Audowski,
Speaker 2: who was my sack, he was there, but the a
Speaker 2: sack wasn't passing the information up and down, so you know,
Speaker 2: so what ended up happened. The biggest thing that happened
Speaker 2: that shut it down was because, like I said, we
Speaker 2: were getting into some scenarios with you know, with the
Speaker 2: I could tell you countless stories about shit that happened
Speaker 2: with the Pagans. It almost became a big problem. But
Speaker 2: the big tipping point was I get a call from
Speaker 2: Willly Beard at like ten in the morning. This guy
Speaker 2: never was up at that time. He was a nocturnal animal,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. He goes, I got to
Speaker 2: meet you. I go, okay, I go. When he goes
Speaker 2: as soon as you can, I go, wait, I go,
Speaker 2: he goes, when could you meet me? I go, give
Speaker 2: me an hour, and he goes, and then he goes.
Speaker 2: He goes, and I have my car swept. I go, okay,
Speaker 2: So I know there's a problem. So I go where
Speaker 2: we're going to meet. He goes, meet me up at
Speaker 2: the McDonald's. I go, okay, I go, we're going anywhere?
Speaker 2: He goes no. I'm like, so, I had two guys
Speaker 2: that were at the house with me. I said, look,
Speaker 2: I got to go meet Billy. I have no idea
Speaker 2: what this is about. I go, but I need you
Speaker 2: to go up there and just cover me because I
Speaker 2: don't know what's going on. Willie and I had a
Speaker 2: pretty damn good relationship. So I pulled into McDonald's. He's
Speaker 2: in there. He goes, come, well, let's get my car.
Speaker 2: So I go sit in his car and I'm waiting
Speaker 2: for him to put it in drive because I ain't
Speaker 2: going anywhere with them. I'm going to stop that. And
Speaker 2: he pulls out this envelope. Then he hands it to
Speaker 2: me and I'm looking at it. He goes in. It's
Speaker 2: addressed to Hell's Angels, you know Lakey's chapter. He goes,
Speaker 2: open it up and tell me what you think. So
Speaker 2: I open up. I pull out this letter and I'm
Speaker 2: looking at and what it is is a picture of
Speaker 2: Jeff Grabman when he was a warlock. And Derek has
Speaker 2: lost you when he was a warlock. The Idea identified
Speaker 2: Jeff correctly, they and they identified Derek Kazlowski is another
Speaker 2: agent who we call Bailey, right, but Jeff had slimmed down.
Speaker 2: He really didn't look as much like that, and he's
Speaker 2: I'm looking at it. Of course, my ass is puckered
Speaker 2: and I'm kind of just looking. He goes, do you
Speaker 2: know those guys? I go, no, he goes, because they
Speaker 2: identify I go these guys ain't in my club. He goes,
Speaker 2: they're not. I go, no, I don't know who the
Speaker 2: fuck these guys are Willie. I go, what's going on here?
Speaker 2: He goes, Well, we got mailed this and in Cleveland
Speaker 2: got mailed this letter. Identify you guys. He goes, We've
Speaker 2: been having meetings. He goes. We don't believe those are
Speaker 2: your guys either. He goes, However, somebody might be trying
Speaker 2: to get in your club and infiltrate you guys. You
Speaker 2: need to be careful. I'm like, holy shit. Okay. So
Speaker 2: I'm like okay, So I grabbed the letter. I go
Speaker 2: back to the house and that's another one of these
Speaker 2: son of bitch. So I call, well, we were going
Speaker 2: to try to get around it, but the two state
Speaker 2: police guys that we had that were working with us
Speaker 2: from Pennsylvania, then they went right to their captain and
Speaker 2: it was like, because we know they're going to talk
Speaker 2: to our people and there's still coming back from that,
Speaker 2: we thought we could salvage it, really because they weren't
Speaker 2: actually accusing us of anything, right, right, and we weren't
Speaker 2: really doing business with them because at this point we
Speaker 2: had got really tight with the Pagans and we went
Speaker 2: to a wedding, so all this was happening at the
Speaker 2: same time. So we went to a Pagan wedding wedding
Speaker 2: for one of the Pagan members, and we didn't wear
Speaker 2: our colors or anything like that. And they had been
Speaker 2: talking to us because they were talking about us flipping
Speaker 2: patches and becoming Pagans. The Hell's Angels wanted us to
Speaker 2: become a prospect club for them. Up in Erie, We're like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: no no, because we like our own thing. So we
Speaker 2: go to this wedding. In about an hour into the wedding,
Speaker 2: Blucky who was the guy getting married, and he goes, hey,
Speaker 2: there's some guys in the back want to see you.
Speaker 2: Guys like okay, but only you're officers can come. So
Speaker 2: it was me, Dan and Jeff. We go back there.
Speaker 2: There's ten Pagans sitting back there, three of which are
Speaker 2: Mother Club members, which are there that's their pinnacle. There's
Speaker 2: thirteen of them that run the entire club, and then
Speaker 2: there's the rest of them that are there. And we're
Speaker 2: sitting there going all right, and they're like, Okay, who
Speaker 2: are you guys? They go, we know your brotherhood, but
Speaker 2: what do you want? What do you want with us?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, we want to do business with you guys.
Speaker 2: And then Pokey, who's dead now, who was a pegan.
Speaker 2: This guy he was a Puerto Rican who had a
Speaker 2: swastika on his arm, right, and so we were doing
Speaker 2: drug deals with him. Is like, and one of the
Speaker 2: guys said, Pokey, why do you have a swastik on
Speaker 2: your arm? You're Puerto Rican? He goes, that's so, that's
Speaker 2: so my daughters don't date any of those black guys.
Speaker 2: That's a fucked up philosophy, dude, I mean, you know. Anyway,
Speaker 2: but he's in there and he starts chirping. He goes,
Speaker 2: those guys got Ohio and Pennsylvania tabs. The mother club
Speaker 2: member said, shut up, shut up. We don't care about
Speaker 2: that because they thought of us as a cash cow.
Speaker 2: We could get, you know, how, we can start making
Speaker 2: some money. So we talked to them guys for about
Speaker 2: thirty forty minutes, and at the end this is what said.
Speaker 2: They said, we're going to take your pictures. We're gonna
Speaker 2: pass around see if anybody knows you, and then we
Speaker 2: want to know who's in your club. Well we are.
Speaker 2: We had so many informants that were ab guys that
Speaker 2: were either in the prison or out. We could have
Speaker 2: give them a list of fifty guys because they didn't
Speaker 2: know how many we had. They really didn't, and truly
Speaker 2: violent guys that would have been like holy shit. But
Speaker 2: because the outing with that picture, that was my asack
Speaker 2: was driving it downhill, driving it downhill. This is the
Speaker 2: point in the investigation where we wanted to get because
Speaker 2: now we'd have free reign to roll through Pagan territory
Speaker 2: to deal with whoever we wanted with their blessing, you know,
Speaker 2: with their blessing. And then my Asack comes out of
Speaker 2: nowhere it says, you guys got to end. You got
Speaker 2: two weeks to get out. It's like fucking two weeks. Wow,
Speaker 2: So we had to contrive this big plan that I
Speaker 2: had a brain aneurysm and died while I was down
Speaker 2: in Florida see my baby's mama. And of course those
Speaker 2: guys are all a lot of guys who want to
Speaker 2: go to Florida for fegoes. Now they cremated them already.
Speaker 2: Well then of course we had a running affidavit and everything.
Speaker 2: So what we ended up doing is, you know, we
Speaker 2: ended up you know, taking everybody down. I think we
Speaker 2: got like maybe sixty eighty people. We had. We had
Speaker 2: FFLs that were selling guns to us off like, we
Speaker 2: bring females in there and they would put their information
Speaker 2: and we pay them and they buy the guns for us.
Speaker 2: We had a bunch of unique things in there. But
Speaker 2: but the thing is is we did We had we
Speaker 2: had twenty undercovers running at one time. We had four
Speaker 2: females in that you know, we're either our girlfriends or
Speaker 2: running mules. We had guys that were living in three
Speaker 2: different areas. I mean, it was expansive. I mean, it
Speaker 2: could have went way much for ATF was getting fearful
Speaker 2: that it was growing too big beyond their control, which
Speaker 2: it wasn't a problem I mean, you know, all they
Speaker 2: had to do was bring in some more people to
Speaker 2: facilitate it because we were reaching out and touching everybody.
Speaker 2: You know. Uh, you know David Snow, this guy, for
Speaker 2: all his quirkiness, he got it that his own people
Speaker 2: were messed up. You know. So David he wanted to
Speaker 2: sleep over the house one night, and he would you know,
Speaker 2: guys would stay over our house every now and again.
Speaker 2: So I go, David, we don't got to bed. I
Speaker 2: go with the couch. Goes, I don't even bet. He goes,
Speaker 2: you got a sheet? We go, yeah, you got a sheet.
Speaker 2: So he makes this prison bed on the floor and
Speaker 2: we give him a pillow. I got to get up
Speaker 2: in the middle of the ank of the bathroom. I'm
Speaker 2: taking a piss. It's like four o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 2: And I opened the door. And it was because we
Speaker 2: always used to joke that he's going to kill us
Speaker 2: all in the middle of our sleep. And I opened
Speaker 2: the door and he is right there. I bought shit
Speaker 2: in my path. I go, David, can I help you?
Speaker 2: He goes, I got to take a shower like a
Speaker 2: David is four, He goes, I just need to take shot.
Speaker 2: You have a towel. The only thing that was hanging
Speaker 2: on the towel bar was a washcloth. I said, David,
Speaker 2: this is all I got. He goes, that'll do, brother,
Speaker 2: that'll do. I didn't sleep the rest of the night. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But then David and I got a good understanding. You know.
Speaker 2: He eventually wanted to come to our chapter. Like David was,
Speaker 2: he had sense we had an issue with one of
Speaker 2: the guys could come up with this concocit story and
Speaker 2: it didn't sit well with them, right, So we had
Speaker 2: a meeting in the house. So they brought up their
Speaker 2: five guys and it was like six or seven of
Speaker 2: us sitting in the house. Now it's fall but it's hot.
Speaker 2: They all show up. They're all wearing jackets, hands in
Speaker 2: pockets and all guys all got guns on right. Comes in.
Speaker 2: It's contentious, and Paulie, who's the security officer, starts going
Speaker 2: off like like, well, JB comes in. Anybody who's got guns,
Speaker 2: We got to put him on the table over there.
Speaker 2: We got to put them on the table. And so
Speaker 2: we're like, we don't have any guns, which everybody knew
Speaker 2: we had guns, right, So Paullie, now I didn't tell
Speaker 2: you this, But when I was doing a brother's case
Speaker 2: up an achron, Paulie hung around the brothers an akron.
Speaker 2: I knew him. I knew he never he never recognized me.
Speaker 2: So he was the security eye. This is a guy
Speaker 2: he was constantly on the internet scouring for stuff. So
Speaker 2: he comes in and he starts, listen, I was an Akron.
Speaker 2: He goes, there was these two atf guys. They come
Speaker 2: in and they took down all these clubs. And I'm
Speaker 2: sitting there and everybody knew. And you could see everybody
Speaker 2: kind of edging up, kind of moving their hands towards
Speaker 2: their guns, our guys because they're sitting there. And he goes,
Speaker 2: and he goes. He turns around to me and he goes,
Speaker 2: and that's and he points at me, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: here we fucking go. We're gonna have a slaughter right
Speaker 2: in his house. And he goes and that's why. And
Speaker 2: at that point I lost my mind. I jumped up.
Speaker 2: I said, Paulie, shit the fuck down. I go, you
Speaker 2: are fucking conspiracy theorist, you cashhole, blah blah blah. And
Speaker 2: I start railing on it right and we ended that,
Speaker 2: and then so I'm legitimately pissed. I go, we could
Speaker 2: all just and I you know, so I go and
Speaker 2: I grabbed this old chair and I'm sitting out on
Speaker 2: the path on the driveway looking out over the lake
Speaker 2: and David comes out. He goes, Junkyard, but if I
Speaker 2: sit out with you, I go, no, come on, David.
Speaker 2: So he pulls the chair. He goes jack Gyard. He goes,
Speaker 2: I like, how you guys do your business? He goes,
Speaker 2: I want to now at this point, we'd already bought
Speaker 2: a gun and too off David. He goes. He goes,
Speaker 2: I think I'm gonna transfer your chapter. He goes, I
Speaker 2: like how you got? He goes, I'm dealing with a
Speaker 2: bunch of idiots over here and we're and I'm just
Speaker 2: sitting there. I go, David, I go, I'm still pissed
Speaker 2: right now, I go, you guys come up here, we're guns, Like,
Speaker 2: what are you gonna kill us over something stupid? He goes, No,
Speaker 2: that was all JB trying to be I go that.
Speaker 2: I go, dude, that ain't fine. He goes, I'm in
Speaker 2: and all this right now, He goes, I'm done with
Speaker 2: this bullshit. He goes. He goes, we are going to
Speaker 2: be the power in this chapter. And see all this
Speaker 2: was kind of going along, and I mean we had
Speaker 2: reached you know, we had another guy. His name was
Speaker 2: wild Bill Millsaps. Right, well, this is after JB got
Speaker 2: outed and we are going to bring some other guys in.
Speaker 2: This guy had been in jail for armed robbery a
Speaker 2: couple times, right, So he gets out and they're going
Speaker 2: to bring him in. So we're at the strip club
Speaker 2: and we're just talking about expanding, and I just threw
Speaker 2: it out there. I said, well, Bill, you wouldn't happen
Speaker 2: to have any guns for sale, would you. He goes, fuck, yeah,
Speaker 2: I got guns. I go, well, can we get him?
Speaker 2: He goes, when you want to get him? I go tonight.
Speaker 2: So I had to send one of the guys back
Speaker 2: to the office, which was about forty minutes away, to
Speaker 2: raid the vault to get every penny we had. So
Speaker 2: we go. So I'm riding his truck and he's drunk
Speaker 2: and he's searching all over for his revolver that he
Speaker 2: can't find while we're driving and the other guys are
Speaker 2: following us. So we pull up to this pretty nice
Speaker 2: house and I'm like, there is no way this dude
Speaker 2: lives here, so we get out. We go into this
Speaker 2: house and his dad, older guy sitting in a chair
Speaker 2: watching TV, goes because, hey Bill, He goes, hey dad,
Speaker 2: He goes, your mom's going to be home in about
Speaker 2: a half fire. He goos, you need to get the
Speaker 2: hell out of here, because he knows. So we go
Speaker 2: upstairs into this bedroom and he's got guns everywhere. Right.
Speaker 2: He goes, well, how many one? I go, I'll take
Speaker 2: them all. I go, give me a good deal. I go,
Speaker 2: you got something I can carry him out in? So
Speaker 2: he gives me in this green like army duffel bag,
Speaker 2: and I got rifles and pistols and shotguns and whatever
Speaker 2: revolvers in there, probably about ten fifteen guns. We hear
Speaker 2: the door open to the house. It's his mom, June Cleaver.
Speaker 2: She comes in. She goes, hi, honey. He goes hi, honey.
Speaker 2: She goes, Bill's here. She fields up the steps. Hey Bill,
Speaker 2: He goes Abby down. Bill goes Abbie down. In a minute, Mom,
Speaker 2: Now again, we're pretty. We're not young, but we're old enough.
Speaker 2: I felt like I was five, because here we are.
Speaker 2: We got our k not to cuts on. I got
Speaker 2: this big bag of guns. We're walking down the steps
Speaker 2: and his mom goes, boys and we don't even I
Speaker 2: missus wild Bill, that's all we could call them. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he goes, would you guys like something to eat? I
Speaker 2: have some cookies, but we're going what the hell? None
Speaker 2: of us? It was. It was just the funniest shit
Speaker 2: I've ever seen in my life, you know, as far
Speaker 2: as there were a lot of stupid things that happened
Speaker 2: in these cases, but you know, some of those things
Speaker 2: you could just you know, these guys are just out there,
Speaker 2: and he was one of those guys. We're going to
Speaker 2: open a chapter an acrid he goes, Are We're going
Speaker 2: to kill every one of these times? I mean it
Speaker 2: was always kill, kill, kill. You know. We had to
Speaker 2: temper that kind of stuff. Yeah, because obviously that'd be
Speaker 2: a problem.
Speaker 1: Do do we have any questions for Frank?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would get it. I want to ask you
Speaker 2: when we get to these questions.
Speaker 3: I want to ask you a question because you mentioned
Speaker 3: earlier like the cop motorcycle clubs and the military medicine clubs,
Speaker 3: and generally those clubs are made up of veterans or
Speaker 3: cops who like to ride, and generally, like the one
Speaker 3: percenters don't tend to fuck with them because they're just
Speaker 3: doing their thing. They're not gonna not impeding on their
Speaker 3: territory in terms of like.
Speaker 2: Drugs and stuff.
Speaker 3: But right, but you do have those people in those
Speaker 3: clubs who for whatever reason idealize the one percenters and
Speaker 3: want to get closer. Like how how would you manage
Speaker 3: or did you have to manage that when members of
Speaker 3: these cop clubs or military clubs would want to get
Speaker 3: closer to the one percenters.
Speaker 2: Well, a lot of times, especially with the cop clubs,
Speaker 2: the one percenter clubs didn't want anything to do with them. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, they would try to force themselves in, and
Speaker 2: then every time there was an altercation or something would happen,
Speaker 2: these cop clubs would pull out, I'm a cop now,
Speaker 2: now I'm a cop, right I want to be, and
Speaker 2: then they would fall back on the badge, right right right,
Speaker 2: you know. So so that was so, that was all
Speaker 2: And they're not all bad, but the ones that choose
Speaker 2: to want to affiliate and go to the one percenter
Speaker 2: houses and do all that, there's no reason for you
Speaker 2: to do that. We still don't understand why is cops
Speaker 2: you even have to have a patch. Your badge is
Speaker 2: your patch. You mightn't have to put it, you know,
Speaker 2: but that's what they choose to do. But you know
Speaker 2: this has happened in court where you know cop clubs.
Speaker 2: You know they get in and they emulate the one
Speaker 2: percenter clubs, three piece patch and meetings, mandatory runs, and
Speaker 2: you know this has happened where they put these people
Speaker 2: on to testify in court. But what's the difference between
Speaker 2: what you do and what the one percenter clubs do?
Speaker 2: And there really is no difference. And the same thing
Speaker 2: when you get to the military clubs, they're again they're
Speaker 2: not all bad, but you know what the Special Forces
Speaker 2: is a big recruiting ground. Are people who have who
Speaker 2: have special Now I will tell you, like Jeremy Sheets
Speaker 2: and ATIF headquarters Mike Will those two guys were probably
Speaker 2: the two biggest supporters of the motorcycle cases throughout you
Speaker 2: know the time we've been doing them. But now they
Speaker 2: published law enforcement military first responders in out on motorcycle games.
Speaker 2: Those guys are constantly going out and briefing commands special
Speaker 2: mission units as well, and they're pulling people's clearances because
Speaker 2: of their affiliation. So you know, these guys. A lot
Speaker 2: of these guys got high level access. A lot of
Speaker 2: these guys are doing a lot of training, and they're
Speaker 2: recruiting these dudes into these clubs, you know, and then
Speaker 2: they're committing violence that are getting jacked up after a
Speaker 2: great year. Are a great service to the United States,
Speaker 2: you know, being in a military. They're getting hooked up
Speaker 2: with these these guys and they're screwed themselves up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating. H mc tyre, thank you very
Speaker 3: much for the very generous donation. Can you please explain
Speaker 3: why ATF isn't allowed by law to have a database
Speaker 3: to track guns and has to resort to a paper database.
Speaker 2: Okay, so everybody thinks that ATF has this national database
Speaker 2: on guns. What ATF has is so if it's an
Speaker 2: NFA weapon, you know, like a Title two type of
Speaker 2: weapon machine guns silence or short bailed shotgun, shortbailt rifle,
Speaker 2: those obviously you have to pay a tax stamp and
Speaker 2: those are registered right specialty weapon ATF. The only database
Speaker 2: ATF keeps and maintains is a multiple sales base. Okay,
Speaker 2: So what that means is if you buy two guns,
Speaker 2: two or more guns at one time, not long guns,
Speaker 2: but handguns. Okay, that gets reported. Now they change it
Speaker 2: on a south southwest border did to include long guns
Speaker 2: because all the stuff that was going across bast and
Speaker 2: furious and all that BS. Right, But the database is
Speaker 2: basically multiple sales. So what that is is for straw purchases.
Speaker 2: So you got people who are going out and they're
Speaker 2: buying guns for somebody else. Right, they get reported. We
Speaker 2: go back and we say okay, and people say, well,
Speaker 2: you don't have to tell them if you have the guns, No,
Speaker 2: you don't have to tell them. But most lawful people,
Speaker 2: if I come knock on your door and go why
Speaker 2: did you buy you know, four garbage guns, name one taskels,
Speaker 2: pick up some garbage gun, it's like a ninety nine
Speaker 2: hundred dollars gun. Why did you buy five of them?
Speaker 2: Can you explain to me why? And then normally they'll
Speaker 2: come up with the well, they either stolen something happened
Speaker 2: to them. I don't know what happened to them, and
Speaker 2: they're and up with other parts of the state. Are
Speaker 2: their gun crimes? So and what else you're used for
Speaker 2: is like investigative leads. If you buy you have people
Speaker 2: go out and buy multiple guns at multiple stores over
Speaker 2: the course of a day, a week, a month, right,
Speaker 2: and then their traffic outward you know, to other places.
Speaker 2: So and what else it's for we use it for
Speaker 2: is like if we're doing search warrants, and or if
Speaker 2: you're going to a house. If I go into the
Speaker 2: database and I see, well this house has you know,
Speaker 2: if it's a search warrant, well they you know, this
Speaker 2: house has been on the on the like five times.
Speaker 2: There have been multiple sales reported to your house. What's
Speaker 2: going on there? Right? So there's no central database like
Speaker 2: the tracks every gun you own, the eight the FFLs
Speaker 2: only have one obligation when it comes to multiple sales,
Speaker 2: and that's to report that when you buy two or
Speaker 2: more handguns at one time. Okay, so that that's what
Speaker 2: that's about. So it's you know, that's a big misnomber
Speaker 2: that did everybody? Ye know, I'll tell you something else
Speaker 2: about these FFLs. I because I used to go out
Speaker 2: to our farm's technology branch and Martin Furt all the time.
Speaker 2: You know, everybody thinks it's ATF that's jacket them, that's
Speaker 2: jacking them. Well, let me tell you something. They were
Speaker 2: selling those shotguns on those ar and Ak platforms, you
Speaker 2: know with the magazines. I saw it for like two
Speaker 2: hundred dollars one time, and then like two weeks later,
Speaker 2: I was at a gun show in Virginia over in
Speaker 2: Norfolkerry and they were up to like five hundred, and
Speaker 2: I just, yeah, I didn't tell the guy who I was.
Speaker 2: I'm just having to go why he's gotten so expensive? Though?
Speaker 2: He goes, Oh, ATF's getting ready to ban him. ATF's
Speaker 2: getting ready to ban him. I go in hearing, so
Speaker 2: I called John Spencer, who's in charge of our firem's
Speaker 2: technology branch, the guys who make these decisions, and I go, John,
Speaker 2: are these guys guns get He goes, No, he goes,
Speaker 2: All the FFLs are putting that out because they're driving
Speaker 2: a cost up. So everybody thinks that it's ATF screwing
Speaker 2: with them. It's not a lot of these FFLs or
Speaker 2: they self, you know, propose these these these hikes and
Speaker 2: all this and these shortages so they can and not
Speaker 2: all Again, there's a lot of good quality FFL's out there,
Speaker 2: but if there's money to be made at the behest
Speaker 2: of the people thinking something's going to go offline, then
Speaker 2: they'll do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we were talking. You were talking about
Speaker 3: the whole bumps. I think it was the bumpstocks, right like,
Speaker 3: because we were talking about bump stock those braces, yeahs, the braces,
Speaker 3: not bumpstocks, but braces.
Speaker 2: But well let me, well, let me take you about ATF. ATF.
Speaker 2: You know, hey, I love that agency. It you know,
Speaker 2: it gave me a career. It gave me a life,
Speaker 2: you know, gave me. It afforded me a lot of opportunity. However,
Speaker 2: ATF is a political football because between that and it's
Speaker 2: not really the alcohol and the tobacco, but with the firearms,
Speaker 2: the arson, the explosives, abortion clinic investigating all that stuff
Speaker 2: falls under the peer review of ATF. Right, So for
Speaker 2: years the NRA was battling and it still battles with ATF.
Speaker 2: When I came on in nineteen eighty nine, ATF had
Speaker 2: twenty five hundred agents. DEA had twenty five hundred agents. Today,
Speaker 2: DEA has over five thousand agents. ATF still has twenty
Speaker 2: five hundred agents. They don't want ATF to get any bigger.
Speaker 2: And when you talk about gun violence, like ATF is
Speaker 2: going to go in and solve these problems in Chicago, Memphis.
Speaker 2: They can't. They don't have enough people. All they can
Speaker 2: go in and tell you, hey, look, here's how we
Speaker 2: can help you. But those are state and local problems
Speaker 2: where they have to have the manpower to address it.
Speaker 2: ATF can't go in there. They don't have ATF should
Speaker 2: have five thousand agents if they want to be effective.
Speaker 2: They just Congress will not NRA's big money. Congress will
Speaker 2: just knock it off. The buney to expand ATF. And
Speaker 2: then the other thing about ATF is, you know, when
Speaker 2: we were under Treasury, it was rock and roll because
Speaker 2: we could we could do what we wanted under the
Speaker 2: purview of Treasury, and they backed us. Once we went
Speaker 2: under DJ we became the redheaded step child to FBI
Speaker 2: and DEA Right, who were third in line. So and
Speaker 2: we've been run by US attorneys, which that doesn't mean,
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean anything bad, but their attorneys, attorneys are
Speaker 2: risk adverse, they look at liability. They're not run by
Speaker 2: law enforcement official. Okay, DETL. Bock, I know him from Clety.
Speaker 2: He's a great guy. But the thing is is ATF
Speaker 2: is caught in this web of not being allowed to expand,
Speaker 2: to do what actually needs to be done. They do
Speaker 2: what Congress tells them because they don't have enough boom
Speaker 2: to push back. If you told the FBI, hey, we're
Speaker 2: going to electric cars, and you guys got to get
Speaker 2: on board the ATF or FBI would tell them kiss
Speaker 2: their ass. Atf we would park all our gas cars
Speaker 2: and we'd be riding electric cars. Because they don't want
Speaker 2: to get sideways with Congress because they're always fearful that
Speaker 2: the budget's going to get cut or something's going to
Speaker 2: get happened. There's a lot of good leadership, but there's
Speaker 2: also a lot of people that just don't want to
Speaker 2: stand up and take the fight. And that's how it
Speaker 2: was throughout a lot of He's undercover operations. Throughout you
Speaker 2: had a few guys that came up through the ranks
Speaker 2: like Steve Martin, Carlos Canino, Charlie Smith. You know, those
Speaker 2: guys made it up there. Those guys knew what it
Speaker 2: was like to be on the ground and go up.
Speaker 2: Then you got a bunch of guys that just promoted
Speaker 2: up through that. Not on my watch. I don't want
Speaker 2: any black marks by my name because I got to
Speaker 2: get to the next level. And when you lose the
Speaker 2: confidence that you right now you talk to all the
Speaker 2: guys that are out in the field, there's no safety net.
Speaker 2: There's no safety net, and that's and that's how they're operating.
Speaker 2: It used to be a very proactive agency. Now it's
Speaker 2: becoming more reactive agency, but so is most of law enforcement.
Speaker 3: Yeah, mac tire, thank you again for another very general's donation.
Speaker 3: How much of Hunter Thompson's book do you feel as
Speaker 3: accurate the Hell's Angels book?
Speaker 2: Whose book I dress? Thompson? I don't know if I
Speaker 2: read that book.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, mctyre, thank you very much. What do you
Speaker 3: know about the Booze Fighters outlaw club. They seem to
Speaker 3: draw a lot of active military and vets into their group.
Speaker 3: They used to have a clubhouse in Oknawa, Japan.
Speaker 2: You know the Booze Fighters are. You know, they're I
Speaker 2: think they're the oldest club. But they go by their
Speaker 2: alphabet and you know, you never really saw those guys
Speaker 2: get too criminal. I mean, most of them are. You know,
Speaker 2: they got a lot of cops, they got a lot
Speaker 2: of veterans. You know, it's more of a social riding club.
Speaker 2: I would say it's not I wouldn't you know, to
Speaker 2: classify them as an outlaw motorcycle gang only maybe because
Speaker 2: they wear a three piece patch and they subscribe to
Speaker 2: they but they're not. They're not in it like the
Speaker 2: rest of them are. I mean, they will associate and affiliate,
Speaker 2: but not to the degree that some of the other
Speaker 2: clubs do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was fastest. Thank you very much for it's
Speaker 3: just a sticker.
Speaker 2: Thank you. And then a couple of questions on Patreon.
Speaker 3: Oh, did your knowledge at tobacco from the ATF assist
Speaker 3: and starting your cigar company?
Speaker 2: Me? And how well, No, Uh, my cigar company, it
Speaker 2: kind of started because I like to smoke cigars, so,
Speaker 2: you know, in working in the government and still working
Speaker 2: in it, you know, contracting out, it was like sometimes
Speaker 2: you just want to get away from all that do
Speaker 2: something different. I started smoking smoking cigars years ago. Uh no,
Speaker 2: my not ATF has nothing to do with my business,
Speaker 2: thank lord. And you know it's all state regulated and
Speaker 2: I don't have to deal with the people in any way,
Speaker 2: shape or form, because, uh, you know, if I was
Speaker 2: doing cigarettes, it might be a little something different, but
Speaker 2: not with cigars.
Speaker 1: What what is your cigar company? Let people know where
Speaker 1: they can find it.
Speaker 2: It's Black River Tobacco Company. You could find us online
Speaker 2: at w w W Black Rivertobacco dot com. Uh, we
Speaker 2: don't sell cigars online yet, we have a bunch of
Speaker 2: you know, gear that we sell. If you're interested in
Speaker 2: buying cigars, Uh, you can call us and we'll ship
Speaker 2: them to you. I have to send you what our
Speaker 2: inventory is because I'm telling you, our country man, they
Speaker 2: don't want the banks don't want to take tobacco money.
Speaker 2: They don't have anything to do with cigars and cigarettes anymore.
Speaker 2: It's tough to find a uh you know, a bank
Speaker 2: that will take the money.
Speaker 1: And sounds like it sounds like Marxism to me.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's terrible, it is. I'm telling you can't even
Speaker 2: you can't even have advice anymore.
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: How does an undercover agent deal with initiation challenges for gangs?
Speaker 2: When it comes to a legal activity, you know, a
Speaker 2: lot the most illegal activity that they're going to have
Speaker 2: you do. Like I said, the one where we did
Speaker 2: the home envision was an anomaly. Most of it has
Speaker 2: to do with fighting, you know, or mud check. You know,
Speaker 2: it's you know, like I said, the drugs. You know,
Speaker 2: we've we've learned how to subvert that and get around that.
Speaker 2: But most of it, I mean, they're not going to say,
Speaker 2: here's a gun, going there and rob somebody, you know,
Speaker 2: go in there and rob a store. A lot of
Speaker 2: it is based on, you know, who your sponsor is,
Speaker 2: what they feel of you, because you'll see some prospects
Speaker 2: that you're treated like dirt, and then on the other side,
Speaker 2: you'll see some prospects that they feel might bring something
Speaker 2: to the club, like the old school peeing on the
Speaker 2: colors and pooping on the colors and pouring No clubs
Speaker 2: respect their colors. Now you know, they don't do that.
Speaker 2: The only club that's like that, really, the only one
Speaker 2: percent of club that's truly like that and is still
Speaker 2: the Pagans. They still run like they're in the seventies.
Speaker 2: I'll give them that. But everybody else, man, you know,
Speaker 2: they have one two sets of colors. They have their
Speaker 2: dress colors, they have their daily colors. It's it's it's
Speaker 2: a whole different world, you know, a whole different world.
Speaker 3: What effect, if any, did sons of anarchy have on
Speaker 3: outlaw monictyle gangs and law enforcement efforts to investigate them.
Speaker 3: Did they give away any trade secrets of note, you know.
Speaker 2: I I you know what was funny about that series
Speaker 2: is ATF was always portrayed as assholes in that series,
Speaker 2: which we all got a good laugh at because, you know,
Speaker 2: at first, I think the first couple of seasons, the
Speaker 2: vogos were the ones that were giving them their h
Speaker 2: what you call it, their expertise or whatever. And then
Speaker 2: after that then the Hell's Angels took it over. That's
Speaker 2: where every time anything related to ATF was brought in,
Speaker 2: it was always brought in in a bad light. But
Speaker 2: Sons are anarchy. For the first couple of years it
Speaker 2: was it was pretty spot on with a lot of
Speaker 2: the stuff that they talked about, you know, who were
Speaker 2: giving them their advice, who who were directing them. Then
Speaker 2: they kind of got way out of control, and you know,
Speaker 2: because you know, it's TV. You know, nothing in real
Speaker 2: life is ever as sexy as it is TV. There
Speaker 2: are some things that happened in some craziness, but it's
Speaker 2: nothing like sens ronic Sons of Anarchy at all. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't think it impacted any any investigations. It was
Speaker 2: on while other investigations were going on.
Speaker 3: You know, and then what is your opinion of how
Speaker 3: the investigation and prosecution and the wacout Twin Peak shootout
Speaker 3: was conducted at both the state and federal level.
Speaker 2: Do we have the whole story or is there still
Speaker 2: more to trickle out someday. You know, that case, you know,
Speaker 2: I had a good butte Deren kase Laski went testified
Speaker 2: down on that. I mean the fact that you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, I think there were some according to the
Speaker 2: guys that I talked to that were involved in that investigation,
Speaker 2: and it testified there were some balls that were dropped.
Speaker 2: There were people that should have been charged. I mean,
Speaker 2: if you watch the video, I mean, you know, it
Speaker 2: could only be so much self defense. But no, the
Speaker 2: stories out there there there wasn't anything that was being hidden.
Speaker 2: It was just in the way that they prosecuted the case.
Speaker 2: It wasn't it didn't bring h you know, a good
Speaker 2: a good end result. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I just you know, you know, you've talked about these
Speaker 3: really big cases with these you know, with these bad actors,
Speaker 3: very bad actors, and you know, there are gonna be
Speaker 3: people who comment later on about ATF and you know,
Speaker 3: the issues whether it's the EA A T have, you know,
Speaker 3: FEDS what is your response to people who who talk
Speaker 3: about like the federal, like if we were to talk
Speaker 3: about Ruby Ridge or whatever, you know, like when people
Speaker 3: because people are obviously gonna comment on this about the
Speaker 3: ATF going after the everyman, not that you know, not
Speaker 3: that Ruby Ridge was the ever man, but like, what
Speaker 3: would you say to people who are critical of organizations?
Speaker 2: So here's the deal. I can only speak for the
Speaker 2: guys that I that I know, uh uh, and that
Speaker 2: I respect. In law enforcement, you go after people who
Speaker 2: are doing truly evil, bad things. Right. If they're not,
Speaker 2: you let them go. I can tell you I never
Speaker 2: took it personal when you look at you know who
Speaker 2: you're targeting because they've either presented themselves in such a
Speaker 2: manner that they're doing something wrong. You know, everybody talks
Speaker 2: about ATF. You know the gun law. We don't write
Speaker 2: the gun laws. Congress rights the gun law. If you
Speaker 2: don't like the laws, go to your congressman, go to
Speaker 2: your senator and get them changed. We only enforce them.
Speaker 2: So if you're supposed to have a gun, have all
Speaker 2: you can. If you're not supposed to have a gun,
Speaker 2: don't get caught, because if you get caught, you're going
Speaker 2: to prison. So I mean it's like anything with the drugs.
Speaker 2: I mean, whatever they do. So you know, you can
Speaker 2: disparage law enforcement, you can dispair you know. You know,
Speaker 2: there's always allegations of entrapment. There's always you know this
Speaker 2: and that, and we're like go to court show where
Speaker 2: we're in trapp Because that's why I can tell you
Speaker 2: the guys that do, especially the infiltrations, Jay Dobbins, Mark,
Speaker 2: Denis Derrekkslowski, you know myself. You got Blake, I mean
Speaker 2: Blake Bowler, Darryl. I mean there's countless guys, right, Billy Queen,
Speaker 2: those guys. You know, people think because you're an undercovery
Speaker 2: or jackass, right, they think, oh, it's all funny games
Speaker 2: and you're out there drinking a cowboys. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: and even in our own agency, it's like all the
Speaker 2: skeleton needs to come out of the closet, dusted off,
Speaker 2: let it go, do the thing and get back in
Speaker 2: the closet. I had my sack told me one time
Speaker 2: he goes, Frank, all those tattoos he goes, you know,
Speaker 2: what will people think? I said, well, let me ask
Speaker 2: you something, Chris. And this was Chris ad ASKI, I said, Chris,
Speaker 2: I said, do you pay me for what I look like?
Speaker 2: He goes, no. I go, I can wear long sleeves
Speaker 2: like you do because you're a suit. I go, I
Speaker 2: don't aspire to be you and be a suit. I go.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you another question. I go, would you
Speaker 2: rather me be administratively sound or operationally sound? And he
Speaker 2: goes operationally. I go into my point. I go, all
Speaker 2: that other bullshit is administrative. You can't die from that.
Speaker 2: I go, So all the guys that did I know
Speaker 2: that did these type of cases, you know, and there's
Speaker 2: countless there. I'm missing people. I mean, Steve mart you
Speaker 2: have to be You have to know how to process everything.
Speaker 2: It wasn't until the mid two thousands where you were
Speaker 2: processing your own evidence, writing all your own reports, doing
Speaker 2: all of your electronic surveillance tapes, downloading them, transcribing them.
Speaker 2: I mean, you have to know something about the game.
Speaker 2: And like I said before, we never put anybody in
Speaker 2: jail who didn't deserve to be there. In fact, like
Speaker 2: I said, sometimes we would try to steer them away
Speaker 2: from the activity that they wanted to do. But because
Speaker 2: of the sexiness of being involved in a criminal organization
Speaker 2: run first all that goes along with that entire lifestyle.
Speaker 2: I mean you know that they get involved for that,
Speaker 2: and we try to tell people. You know, even today
Speaker 2: you see guys as well, why are you involved in that? Yeah?
Speaker 2: You know, there's no point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Frank, this has been one of the most like
Speaker 1: roller coaster ride over the top interviews.
Speaker 2: We have fantastic Yeah, in.
Speaker 1: Two hundred and twenty two episodes, and thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Talk for hours more and if you guys want to
Speaker 2: bring some of the other guys in, there is just
Speaker 2: so much more to talk about. Frank.
Speaker 1: I would love I would love to bring you in
Speaker 1: some of your buddies up here to Brooklyn to do
Speaker 1: another interview. Yeah awesome, and thank thank you so much
Speaker 1: for sharing your experiences with us.
Speaker 3: And and real quick, where can people find you? Again
Speaker 3: about discar, like wherever you're at out in public?
Speaker 2: Where can people find you? Well, they could find us
Speaker 2: through the cigar, But I also have another company called
Speaker 2: Hard Knocks Schoolhouse. It's HK Schoolhouse dot com. You can
Speaker 2: reach me there or you can reach me through the website, uh,
Speaker 2: the Black Rivertobacco dot com. There you go. We got
Speaker 2: social media and whatnot. And you know, I hope people
Speaker 2: aren't going to call, hey, you're an asshole. You and
Speaker 2: I go, you know, hey, I get a lot of
Speaker 2: people don't like, you know, the cops, and they don't
Speaker 2: like a lot of that, and we're used to it.
Speaker 2: So I'm thick skin by now You're not gonna get
Speaker 2: you know, you know, so it is what it is.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Well, Uh, fellas out there. We will be back on Tuesday,
Speaker 1: right d Tuesday with Andy Stump uh Cleared Hot podcast
Speaker 1: former Seal Team six officer I think n c O
Speaker 1: and then officer. Yeah, so we're we're really excited to
Speaker 1: have him on the show on Tuesday. Frank again, man,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on. I know, I
Speaker 1: know we ran way over our time, but it was
Speaker 1: it was it was worth it for us, and we
Speaker 1: definitely want to have you back on.
Speaker 2: We want to have you in studio. Geez. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: well that's okay, I'll come all right, I'll bring some
Speaker 2: guys and some yeah, and we'll have a good time.
Speaker 2: Just let me know we are down for it.
Speaker 1: We'll do it.
Speaker 2: Man. Hey, thanks guys. I really appreciate you having on it.
Speaker 2: I know I'm a different. I'm a different animal from
Speaker 2: what you guys are used to having on and you know,
Speaker 2: it's just my feelin's like, are you really going to
Speaker 2: go on your time? I go what, I don't care,
Speaker 2: it's you know, it is what.
Speaker 1: It is, different animals, same zews.
Speaker 2: I was trying. I mean, it's all great, you know,
Speaker 2: like we love it.
Speaker 1: Look final final comment I've said in the in the past,
Speaker 1: maybe privately, I interview a lot of like people from
Speaker 1: the intelligence community, special operations community, and I always run
Speaker 1: up against, especially doing a public interview like this, like
Speaker 1: I can't really talk about that. But with guys like
Speaker 1: you where your cases have been prosecuted, it's just like
Speaker 1: game on and you can tell the whole story from
Speaker 1: front to back, and it's just it's amazing.
Speaker 2: It is. Well, I'll tell you just one last comment.
Speaker 2: So sure, you know, just in dealing with some of
Speaker 2: the guys that we you know, on the military side,
Speaker 2: that would come to our training and we would go
Speaker 2: to their training, and you know, we we you know,
Speaker 2: got to make a lot of good friends and it
Speaker 2: was always funny because you know, we would sit there
Speaker 2: in awe and listen to their stories, right and and
Speaker 2: they're like, well, it's no big deal. This is what
Speaker 2: we do every day. And then we would tell our
Speaker 2: stories and they would sit there in allgle and holy shit,
Speaker 2: you know, just the mutual respect although the operations are different,
Speaker 2: sacrifices and the hardships are no less and that's and
Speaker 2: that's I think that's where the camaraderie comes with all
Speaker 2: of that. You know, people just you know, and not
Speaker 2: everybody has the same road, but there are a lot
Speaker 2: of different things to go along with traveling the road
Speaker 2: that a lot of us have traveled. Yeah, you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: absolutely hard.
Speaker 1: Absolutely well, we'll stay in touch, man, We'll love to
Speaker 1: do it again. And uh yeah, man again, thank you
Speaker 1: for coming on the show and I spend some of
Speaker 1: your Friday evening with us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we deeply appreciate it. You're gonna need to get
Speaker 2: bigger cops because none of us are small enough to.
Speaker 1: We got we got several other chairs we can push
Speaker 1: up here.
Speaker 3: Bean bean bags, I was just thinking about. Bean bags
Speaker 3: would be awesome. We'd have to like cut before anybody
Speaker 3: got out, because nobody.
Speaker 2: Wants to see roll it out of it rolling all
Speaker 2: exactly light.
Speaker 1: We'll see yeah, we'll say everyone to thank you, thank
Speaker 1: you friend.
Speaker 2: All right, thanks Avery, Ready to take care.