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Speaker 2: You are now listening to True Murder The most shocking
Speaker 2: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 2: written about them Gaesy, Bundy Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every
Speaker 2: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 2: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 2: host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 5: Good Evening, an incredible four decade account of murder, power,
Speaker 5: and corruption in one of the country's largest police departments.
Speaker 5: In nineteen seventy nine, the grusup slang of a thirteen
Speaker 5: year old boy riveted the suburbs of Suffolk County, New York.
Speaker 5: As a county hustled to bring the case to a
Speaker 5: dubious resolution, local teenager emerged with a convenient story to tell.
Speaker 5: For his cooperation, Jimmy Burke was rewarded with a job
Speaker 5: as a cop. Thus began Burke's unlikely assent to the
Speaker 5: top of the one of the country's largest law enforcement jurisdictions.
Speaker 5: He and a crew of like minded allies utilized vengeance.
Speaker 5: Gangster tactics and political leverage to become the most powerful
Speaker 5: and feared figures in their suburban empire, until a Pilford
Speaker 5: bag of sex toys brought it all crashing down. Jimmy
Speaker 5: the King is the story of the rise, rain, and
Speaker 5: paranoic fall of a corrupt cop and his regime, a
Speaker 5: crime family with badges and guaranteed pensions. Novelistic in detail
Speaker 5: and piercing in its political insight, this book will leave
Speaker 5: you questioning who modern policing serves, who it protects, and
Speaker 5: who it praise upon and abandons. The book that we're
Speaker 5: featuring this evening is Jimmy the King, Murder, Vice, and
Speaker 5: the Reign of a Dirty Cop, with my special guest,
Speaker 5: journalist and author gus Garcia Roberts. Welcome to the program.
Speaker 5: Thank you for this interview, gus Garcia Roberts, Thanks.
Speaker 3: For having me on. Very excited.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much and for this incredible book and
Speaker 5: this interview.
Speaker 6: Let's start off, because there's so much to cover.
Speaker 5: Right with the center of this story, how it all
Speaker 5: began with in nineteen seventy nine with Johnny Pious, a
Speaker 5: thirteen year old tell us what happens April twentieth nineteen
Speaker 5: seventy nine.
Speaker 3: Sure, so in Smithtown, New York, which was us is
Speaker 3: a suburb about forty to fifty miles east of New
Speaker 3: York City, the body of thirteen year old boy was
Speaker 3: discovered behind a schoolyard in suburbia out there, and that
Speaker 3: was John Pius. And the police found six small stones
Speaker 3: stuff down his throat and he had been badly beaten.
Speaker 3: And so it sort of created like this existential crisis
Speaker 3: in these young suburbs was twenty years previous, and then
Speaker 3: potato farmland to find out who did it and and
Speaker 3: make them accountable.
Speaker 5: So right away Suffolk County is it is called, and
Speaker 5: their detectives assigned to this. What happens right from the
Speaker 5: very beginning of this investigation, How does it proceed?
Speaker 3: Well? So, one of the first things that the detectives
Speaker 3: noticed Pius's body was that he had an imprint on
Speaker 3: his face that they called it a Greek cross and
Speaker 3: essentially was a design that was clearly from the bottom
Speaker 3: of the footprints, as in one of his killers or
Speaker 3: his killer had apparently stopped on his face with a
Speaker 3: with a sneaker that was distinctly of the Puma brand.
Speaker 3: And so you know, the homicide detectives of Suffolk County
Speaker 3: for decades before this and for years after this, were
Speaker 3: sort of like a unique tribe, you know, as I
Speaker 3: learned in reporting the story, I mean this book, and
Speaker 3: that you know, they relied almost purely on the sort
Speaker 3: of hunches and instinct and the way that they closed
Speaker 3: cases with very little exception, was by getting confessions. You know,
Speaker 3: they had very little use, for example, for forensics. So
Speaker 3: from the very beginning, these detectives seized on the idea
Speaker 3: that this kid had a puma imprint on his face,
Speaker 3: which to them meant that it had been other kids
Speaker 3: who had done this, because you know, children wore puma sneakers.
Speaker 3: And so the way that they went about trying to
Speaker 3: solve this case was by essentially at random, dragging teenagers
Speaker 3: former classmates of John Pious had some and slightly older kids,
Speaker 3: almost all of them miners, though, dragging them off the
Speaker 3: street and into interrogation rooms and lying to their parents
Speaker 3: about where they were, not allowing the kids to have
Speaker 3: access to lawyers and interrogating and the goal was pretty simple,
Speaker 3: interrogate them until they confessed. And during one of these
Speaker 3: interrogation sessions. One boy did confess. His name was Peter
Speaker 3: Carterrero and you know, like others, he had been separated
Speaker 3: from his parents. He and a couple of other friends
Speaker 3: had been locked in a precinct for hours at end,
Speaker 3: and the parents were concerned that there had been another
Speaker 3: killing because they can find their kids, and cops that
Speaker 3: told them that they didn't know where the kids were.
Speaker 3: And at one point Peter Carterreiro, who really was sort
Speaker 3: of the least likely suspect, one of the least likely
Speaker 3: suspects among this group in Smithtown, to admitted a murder.
Speaker 3: He was basically he was literally a boy scout who
Speaker 3: had never been in trouble before. Eventually, police drive him
Speaker 3: to the scene of the crime and he confesses in
Speaker 3: the backseat of their car, and he implicates three of
Speaker 3: his friends, his brother and two friends. And the confession
Speaker 3: is tape recorded, and what he later claimed is that
Speaker 3: the detectives, before they you know, started the tape recorder,
Speaker 3: told him exactly what to say, so he implicates himself
Speaker 3: and three other friends. The and the and the murder
Speaker 3: of John Pins.
Speaker 5: Now you detail the techniques that the homicide squad utilizes
Speaker 5: in this investigation. And you also talk about the prosecution's
Speaker 5: rule in this early on.
Speaker 6: Tell us about the.
Speaker 5: Prosecution's rule early on, if that was typical or not,
Speaker 5: and what about witnesses.
Speaker 3: Right, So, typically the prosecutors, you know, this county would
Speaker 3: get involved once there was an arrest the charges. But
Speaker 3: I think because this case kind of had such seismic
Speaker 3: importance to the residents of Suffolk County and it was
Speaker 3: you know, covered with like screaming headlines and newsday at
Speaker 3: the local newspaper, at one point the DA's office he decided,
Speaker 3: you know, we need to get involved earlier, and you know,
Speaker 3: a sort of determination to get charges as quickly as
Speaker 3: possible sort of came about. And so the prosecutor who
Speaker 3: handled the case and he went to the precinct the
Speaker 3: night that these that Peter Carteriro and his friends were
Speaker 3: being interrogated was a guy named Tom Spoda, and so
Speaker 3: Spoda sort of, you know, he listened to Peter Carteriro's
Speaker 3: confession on tape after it was done, and by his
Speaker 3: own account, he was sort of underwhelmed. One the confession
Speaker 3: did not really at all match the facts of the
Speaker 3: crime scene, and in fact, you know, it contradicted it
Speaker 3: in pretty key ways. One of them, for example, was
Speaker 3: Peter Carteriro said in the confession that his brother Mike
Speaker 3: after during the attack on John Pius, and his brother
Speaker 3: Mike put Pius's bicycle up against the tree behind the schoolyard.
Speaker 3: But the fact of the crime scene was that bike
Speaker 3: was actually on the ground when when bystanders first discovered
Speaker 3: the body, and it was later placed up against a
Speaker 3: tree by one of those bystanders who discovered the body,
Speaker 3: and then when police arrived, when certain detectives arrived, they
Speaker 3: saw that the bike was up against the tree. But
Speaker 3: in fact, you know, the sort of unrefuted court testimony
Speaker 3: that it was not. So what you have you had
Speaker 3: several examples of that were sort of like a hell
Speaker 3: embedded in the confession and embedded in other statements that
Speaker 3: come out, and sort of the cast serious doubt and
Speaker 3: those statements and you know, kind of begged the question
Speaker 3: was for these facts planted by the tex so anyway,
Speaker 3: So Botas sort of knew that he had a problem here,
Speaker 3: and then one you know, there's these contradictions, and you know,
Speaker 3: even more primarily Peter Cartero was fifteen years old and
Speaker 3: he was in a detective's car and being interrogated without
Speaker 3: lawyer or parent, which was illegal under New York state law.
Speaker 3: So you know, most likely, as would have eventually end
Speaker 3: up happening, the confession would be tossed. So what Spota
Speaker 3: needed was was sort of like his hallmark his style
Speaker 3: of prosecution, which was witnesses who were later privy to
Speaker 3: supposed confessions. So he sort of started putting out feelers
Speaker 3: among all of the wayward kids of Smithtown, looking for
Speaker 3: those who might have a story about one of these
Speaker 3: four kids confessing to them later. And so this process
Speaker 3: took months, and you know in the book, I sort
Speaker 3: of compare it to the mobsters, you know, gathering together
Speaker 3: pretending like nothing is nothing is wrong, where in reality
Speaker 3: they're they're sort of wondering who's going to snitch on
Speaker 3: the other to the fence. You have all the sort
Speaker 3: of kids of smith Town, typically those who you know
Speaker 3: or juvenile delite, must have been in some trouble before,
Speaker 3: and you know they're gathering in that summer following the murder,
Speaker 3: gathering in bleachers or fields and you know, hanging out.
Speaker 3: But there's an undertone to it because some of these
Speaker 3: kids are tempting to get statements implicating the others and
Speaker 3: bring them to the prosecutor's office. And that's eventually what happens.
Speaker 3: And one witness among a crew of burglars and drug
Speaker 3: users who were the town emerges as the most solid
Speaker 3: witness in this case. And a guy who sort of
Speaker 3: you know, outlives the tape confession and outlast the other
Speaker 3: witnesses in the case. And that guy is the is
Speaker 3: the main character for lack of a better term, of
Speaker 3: the book, which is who is Jimmy Burke?
Speaker 5: You say, born James Charles Brooke in October nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 5: but his father's in law enforcement is and his grandfather
Speaker 5: as well. Tell us a little bit about the background
Speaker 5: of Charles James Charles Burke.
Speaker 3: Sure, so he was from originally from you know, like
Speaker 3: so many characters in this book, And if you're familiar
Speaker 3: with with Long Island, this won't be surprising because there's
Speaker 3: sort of a pipeline from the outer boroughs to Nassa
Speaker 3: on particularly separate county. As you know, city dwellers kind
Speaker 3: of gain upward mobility and move out to the Burkes.
Speaker 3: So he was from Ozone Park, Queens, which was a
Speaker 3: very tough neighborhood home to the Gambi crime family. And
Speaker 3: you know, my reporting is as a younger kid, he
Speaker 3: was actually tremely smart and actually quite a good student.
Speaker 3: I'm in a dutiful student at a Catholic school there.
Speaker 3: He had moved to Smithtown shortly before the murder, and
Speaker 3: that appeared to sort of really change his personality. It
Speaker 3: was following a divorce between his parents and his mom
Speaker 3: had remarried, and he sort of me he kind of
Speaker 3: fell in with this crew of kids that you know,
Speaker 3: their their peers derided them as pit people because they
Speaker 3: hung out in an area behind Smithtown High School East
Speaker 3: that was referred to as the Ping and is typically
Speaker 3: where people smoked cigarettes and the kids, you know along
Speaker 3: out there were off intruants and drug users and Jimmy
Speaker 3: sort of proudly proclaimed that he was a drug user,
Speaker 3: and he hung out with a crew of kids who
Speaker 3: were known to be smith Town's you know, leading burglars,
Speaker 3: so much so that you know, they tracked the price
Speaker 3: of gold and they would sort of go through people's
Speaker 3: unlocked doors because of smith Town, they didn't really lock
Speaker 3: their doors because they felt so comfortable in suburbia go
Speaker 3: through people's unlocked doors and rifle through jewelry boxes that
Speaker 3: come out with gold and pawn them off. And so
Speaker 3: that's who James Burke was at the time that he
Speaker 3: emerged as Quota's sort of key witness. He was fifteen
Speaker 3: years old. He was very poor student, and there was
Speaker 3: signs that he was on the police radar and that
Speaker 3: he was bound for trouble. But he was also a
Speaker 3: very smart and manipulative kid, and so once he sort
Speaker 3: of became Spotah's witness. Unlike his pals who also became
Speaker 3: as Spota's witnesses in these cases, you know, those guys
Speaker 3: kind of wanted nothing more to do with cops and
Speaker 3: prosecutors other than what they had to do, you know,
Speaker 3: particularly to get out from under some case of their face.
Speaker 3: But Jimmy had a fascination with the homicide squad and
Speaker 3: with the top prosecutors of Suffolk County, and as you mentioned,
Speaker 3: his father and his grandfather were both YPD and so
Speaker 3: he starts hanging around the offices and he almost becomes
Speaker 3: like Tomsta's works this strange sight of this teenager hanging
Speaker 3: around homicidal and he kind of becomes indispensable to those offices.
Speaker 5: You talk it's not a humorous book, but you talk
Speaker 5: about that through Spoda. Their workshopping the story for the
Speaker 5: grand jury found that humorous, but it is telling that
Speaker 5: that's what you called the progression of the story that
Speaker 5: Jimmy Burke was telling on behalf Ofoda.
Speaker 6: Thomas Boda.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, one of my favorite gets as a reporter,
Speaker 3: you know, doing this book was was a video that
Speaker 3: I got from nineteen eighty one where it was Spoda
Speaker 3: seated at the desk sort of having the various teenage
Speaker 3: witnesses that had become the glue in this case come
Speaker 3: in and talk about how Peter Carterro and his brother
Speaker 3: and his friends said, how they were implicated and statements
Speaker 3: made these kids, and it was really interesting watching. And
Speaker 3: one of them was Jimmy Burke and he comes in
Speaker 3: and he meets Tom Spoda, and this interaction is filmed
Speaker 3: by somebody filming on behalf of the DA's office, and
Speaker 3: it's really interesting watching these interactions, particularly with Jimmy Burke.
Speaker 3: His story doesn't match what he later says on the stand.
Speaker 3: And then you sort of see, you know, in later
Speaker 3: times when because makes other testimony in the case, sometimes
Speaker 3: years later the testimony keeps shifting, and so the way
Speaker 3: that I saw that video was they were still workshopping
Speaker 3: what he was going to say. And you know, essentially
Speaker 3: what Burke did say and what he said, you know,
Speaker 3: in various trials because you know they were there were
Speaker 3: four defendants, was exactly what the prosecutor's office I needed
Speaker 3: him to say. And as I as I write, you
Speaker 3: know that later was directly rewarded by the prosecutor's office.
Speaker 5: So you outline how they try to guarantee fill in
Speaker 5: the holes. Thomas Boda and his minions try to plug
Speaker 5: up the holes and and use their resources. You talk
Speaker 5: about someone named a Locke and another guy named Thorpe
Speaker 5: in prison.
Speaker 6: So so tell us about this plan.
Speaker 5: And how they get these guys further involved and further
Speaker 5: incriminated in these crimes.
Speaker 3: Right, So, in some jurisdictions, they you know, prosecutors try
Speaker 3: to stay away from jail house wins because they are inherently,
Speaker 3: you know, not to be believed because one there people
Speaker 3: in the jail house. They're people that have interactions with
Speaker 3: the criminal world and are you know, in all like
Speaker 3: they had criminals themselves, which is why they're in jail,
Speaker 3: and two they have something to work work out from
Speaker 3: under you know, they're in jail, they are can directly
Speaker 3: benefit from prosecutors and police liking their story that they
Speaker 3: are to tell. But in Suffolk County that's just not
Speaker 3: the case, at least around it this time. They you know,
Speaker 3: jailhouse snitching was so popular that there that again there
Speaker 3: would be sort of auditions where the inmates would get
Speaker 3: for a detective and say what is especially in a
Speaker 3: high profile case where the detectives and prosecutors were seeking informants,
Speaker 3: they would tell a story about what that inmate told
Speaker 3: them while in the jailhouse with them, and the detectives
Speaker 3: would typically pick the person whose story they liked the best,
Speaker 3: And so that sort of happened in this case. You know,
Speaker 3: the stuff that couldn't be covered by the needs, that
Speaker 3: couldn't be handled by Burke and by other teenage witnesses
Speaker 3: along with him, were handled by a couple of very
Speaker 3: dubious jail house witnesses. And you know, I guess the
Speaker 3: one problem is how do you get a jail house
Speaker 3: witness to inform on somebody who's not in jail, Which
Speaker 3: was a problem in this case because these kids. Once
Speaker 3: they were indicted, they were out on bail quickly and
Speaker 3: didn't spend any time in jail. And so you have
Speaker 3: these cases that popped up where the kids were caught,
Speaker 3: you know, with low level burglaries which were no doubt
Speaker 3: done on their part. Like for example, in one of
Speaker 3: the cases, one of the defendants was caught in having
Speaker 3: stolen the set of walkie talkies from his high school.
Speaker 3: And the informants who sort of helped, who sort of
Speaker 3: set him up in that case, one of them was
Speaker 3: Jimmy Kirk and the other one was another teenage witness
Speaker 3: who was known as an informant and set down. So
Speaker 3: by those means, they get these kids in the jail
Speaker 3: houses and then from there sort of sort of open
Speaker 3: game for arden criminals who kind of first of all,
Speaker 3: they get the newspapers out there, so they read about
Speaker 3: the high profile cases and then they know how to
Speaker 3: spin the facts for the cops. And so, you know,
Speaker 3: one a pair of these jail house and mad speak
Speaker 3: became the key witnesses for one of the defendants, and
Speaker 3: they you know, the story was again extremely convenient. You know,
Speaker 3: one of the jail house witnesses said that one of
Speaker 3: the defendants basically spilled his whole saga exit which which
Speaker 3: pretty much matched what the police have said about killing
Speaker 3: John Pious and you know, including complete dialogue from all
Speaker 3: the players. And this was a witness who had a
Speaker 3: documented drug addiction problem, and he had received a deal
Speaker 3: in return for his testimony. And so you know, basically,
Speaker 3: through this like patchwork method, typically relying on witnesses who
Speaker 3: had something to gain from their testimony, the prosecutors build
Speaker 3: convictions against these four kids. There was no actual physical
Speaker 3: evidence tying them to the murder of John Pies. Yeah.
Speaker 5: So you talk about the convictions of all of these
Speaker 5: young men, the Cordereros and the brothers, and also eventually
Speaker 5: Tom Ryan, and you say the only person that Burke
Speaker 5: was not involved with in decimating with his testimony was
Speaker 5: Tom Ryan.
Speaker 6: And right after that you write that there.
Speaker 5: Was a reversal of fortune for Jimmy Burke in that
Speaker 5: those convictions for his dui were helped by law enforcement.
Speaker 5: Tell us how his fortune changed and what happened to
Speaker 5: those charges and how his life seemed to be turned
Speaker 5: around by this event.
Speaker 3: Sure, and if I get just emphasize, you know, during
Speaker 3: his testimony against these various defendants. The inconsistencies were blatant.
Speaker 3: For example, in one trial where he's testifying its one defendant,
Speaker 3: a buddy of his, he might say that that person said,
Speaker 3: you know, a incriminating statement at a certain place. I'm
Speaker 3: you know, in Smithtown, Nears, I believe in you know,
Speaker 3: new high school bleachers. And then in his testimony against
Speaker 3: another one of the defendants, he might say that guy
Speaker 3: said the exact same thing in the exact same place,
Speaker 3: at the exact the same time of year. And so
Speaker 3: it was almost like he was just you know, taking
Speaker 3: stock testimony that was incriminating and it helped get a
Speaker 3: conviction in one case, putting it in the mouth to
Speaker 3: the other. So you know, he was a very useful witness,
Speaker 3: you know, in the early years of this case. And
Speaker 3: and he had gotten a d UI had then not
Speaker 3: shown up a court to address it, and then there
Speaker 3: had been a bench warrant made out to his for
Speaker 3: his arrests. This became an issue when he applied to
Speaker 3: become a police officer with the NYPD, and you know,
Speaker 3: there was a lot of other reasons why he would
Speaker 3: have been unqualified, including you know, documented drug use and
Speaker 3: the fact that you know, his friends were basically your
Speaker 3: crew of the most troubled kids in spit town, and
Speaker 3: by his own word, were also convicted murderers. So he
Speaker 3: had he had black marks against in applying to become
Speaker 3: a cop. The main one, you know, from a sort
Speaker 3: of strictly procedural point of view of the vetting policies
Speaker 3: of a police department, was the idea that he had
Speaker 3: not shown up to court to deal with this bench warm.
Speaker 3: So one of the prosecutors in the pious case at
Speaker 3: that time wrote on a Suffolk County DA stationery the
Speaker 3: Senate to NYPD and and said, essentially excuse for having
Speaker 3: incurred a bench warn. The reason why was because he
Speaker 3: was supposed to be in Suffolk County testifying in a
Speaker 3: major case, and so he couldn't be in the neighboring county,
Speaker 3: Nasa County to addresses duy, and that's why he had
Speaker 3: a benchwarn. And the NYPD accepted that. And I don't
Speaker 3: think that they fact checked it, because you know, I
Speaker 3: did just using transcripts of the pious case, which clearly
Speaker 3: the pious prosecutor was implying that those that was the
Speaker 3: case that Burke was testifying in and there's testify in
Speaker 3: court the day that he incurred the bench warn. Not
Speaker 3: only that, but at one point he was actually asked
Speaker 3: in court, why did you get this bench warn by
Speaker 3: a defense attorney and he said, I had a roofing
Speaker 3: job to do that day, so he you know, he
Speaker 3: he contradicted the prosecutor's version of events. And you know,
Speaker 3: I tried to ask the prosecutor, who's now a prominent
Speaker 3: defense attorney in Suffolk County, about that letter, and he
Speaker 3: refused to answer any questions about it. So, you know,
Speaker 3: I think the only I have no reason to think
Speaker 3: anything other than the DA's office lied in order to
Speaker 3: reward Burke for his dubious testimony, and in doing so,
Speaker 3: they made sure that he was not denied a career
Speaker 3: as a police officer. And you know, sort of from there,
Speaker 3: the rest is history as far as Jimmy Burke is concerning.
Speaker 5: Now we're going to get into the retrials. But at
Speaker 5: the time, what were the sentences for the four boys, Ryan,
Speaker 5: Rob Brenzick and the Mike and Peter Court de Torrero.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Cortorero stuff one between nine and twenty five years
Speaker 3: to life, So all of them had life sentences. Some
Speaker 3: of them could have been trolled earlier. It was all
Speaker 3: sort of up to the parole board as far as
Speaker 3: how much time they would end up server.
Speaker 5: Now you talk about the rise and assent of Jimmy
Speaker 5: Burke after this, so he's with the NYPD. His dream
Speaker 5: tell us about the and the arise, and also there
Speaker 5: are some proubling developments like Judge Stewart Nam and investigations
Speaker 5: on the rise as well. At the same time tell
Speaker 5: us what happens.
Speaker 3: So he puts an eight year in the NYPD, somewhat typical.
Speaker 3: Suffolk County PD is today the highest paid police force
Speaker 3: in the country, and back then it was also highly paid,
Speaker 3: and so the goal of many cops was to get
Speaker 3: out there. So so and he succeeds in doing so.
Speaker 3: He does a year in NYPD, and then he is
Speaker 3: able to put in his papers and get a job
Speaker 3: instead of the Suffolk PD. And so, you know, Suffolk
Speaker 3: County is a really interesting territory because it's a large
Speaker 3: amount of cops from all over Long Island and also
Speaker 3: from New York City live in Suffolk County, and so
Speaker 3: it's sort of like a cop controlled block, including you know,
Speaker 3: the political forces are very much behold in secus and
Speaker 3: so one defense attorney described it as was, for example,
Speaker 3: homicide de Texas out there with the princes of the
Speaker 3: county that they can do anything that they wanted. And so,
Speaker 3: you know, you sort of see that in the highest
Speaker 3: case in the way that the detectives behaved, and that
Speaker 3: wasn't an isolated incident. In basically every homicide case that
Speaker 3: is what they sought to do is get a confession,
Speaker 3: and typically it came with allegations that they have brutalized
Speaker 3: their suspect, and in often creative ways. You know, one
Speaker 3: of their favorite methods was using a phone book, putting
Speaker 3: a phone book on the suspect's head and beating its
Speaker 3: head with the phone books so that there's no visible
Speaker 3: marks left enough in a mug. And sometimes this was alleged.
Speaker 3: Other times, you know, this abuse was was proven. You know.
Speaker 3: The the issue with the issue with Suffolk County is
Speaker 3: it's a place where, you know, as I said, the cops,
Speaker 3: the cops run the polyp. The cops control sort of
Speaker 3: every layer of it. And so you had a problem
Speaker 3: arise when when Burke was a young cop, which was
Speaker 3: not related to Burke, but was sort of telling about
Speaker 3: the way that his career went from there, which was
Speaker 3: a judge started growing suspicious of the testimony in his court.
Speaker 3: And his name was Stuart ma'ham. And among the among
Speaker 3: the cases that the hyprobile cases that had come before
Speaker 3: his court were two of the pious cases. And in
Speaker 3: those cases he had, you know, he had sort of
Speaker 3: he had made clear that he believed that he agreed
Speaker 3: with the jury when they convicted those defendants, and he
Speaker 3: sent us into twenty five to life. But in the
Speaker 3: following cases, sort of in the next couple of years
Speaker 3: to come, as he later wrote in a memoir, he
Speaker 3: kind of his understanding of the nefariousness of Suffer County
Speaker 3: sort of became more clear to him, and he started
Speaker 3: to believe is that prosecutors and detectives are perjuring themselves
Speaker 3: in murder cases. And he complained to the governor and
Speaker 3: there was a pretty wide ranging state investigation that took
Speaker 3: place of Suffolk County. One of the characters who were
Speaker 3: investigated was Tom Spoda and Tom spot It was investigated
Speaker 3: for being involved in a alleged scheme in which cops
Speaker 3: would be paid one hundred dollars to refer tickets or
Speaker 3: I'm sorry to refer dui clients to a law from
Speaker 3: private law firm, which which is illegal. He denied doing it.
Speaker 3: So you have this kind of wide ranging investigation. You know,
Speaker 3: when it's actually published years later, it's really scathing and
Speaker 3: it you know, basically it implicates the top leaders of
Speaker 3: the Suffolk County DA's office and the PD for overseeing
Speaker 3: a culture of corruption and competence in which, you know,
Speaker 3: homicide cases were watched in the narcotics squad, the cops
Speaker 3: were getting high off of their own supply. There was
Speaker 3: framing of defendants, just pretty horrible stuff blantly stated by
Speaker 3: this very esteemed state commission. And so you sort of think,
Speaker 3: you know, this might clean up the place, but in fact,
Speaker 3: you know, Suffer County is resilient, and it didn't clean
Speaker 3: up the place. And most of the the sort of
Speaker 3: law enforcement hanchos who were named in the report, including
Speaker 3: Tom Squota, just continued to become more powerful people. And
Speaker 3: so that's sort of the environment where Burke was a
Speaker 3: young cop and that he later sort of learned to
Speaker 3: navigate those rungs of power very well.
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Speaker 5: to hire. Now we were talking about Jimmy Burke and
Speaker 5: Thomas Spoda and them eventually avoiding any kind of prosecution.
Speaker 5: And you detail in the book the punishment for Judge
Speaker 5: Nam by the police community, basically law enforcement community. Burke
Speaker 5: and his friends. Well, let's talk about the retrial of
Speaker 5: these poor four once we're teens, when now we're adults.
Speaker 5: What happens with their retrial bids? Parole tell us a
Speaker 5: little bit about that, all right.
Speaker 3: So all four boys who are initially convicted, their cases
Speaker 3: were then thrown out. The convictions were then thrown out
Speaker 3: on appeal, and for a variety of reasons, one of
Speaker 3: them being that the you know, the their convictions relied
Speaker 3: on the confession which which was found to be coerced, right,
Speaker 3: and so one of the boys, Peter carter Row, the
Speaker 3: one whose confession sort of led to all of it,
Speaker 3: was never retried and the other three sort of went
Speaker 3: through this long odyssey, much of it reliance on Jimmy
Speaker 3: Burke's testimony of convictions, successful appeals reconvictions. And so you know,
Speaker 3: for example, one in one of the cases, that of
Speaker 3: Rob Brinswick, after his case was overturned, he was getting
Speaker 3: ready to go to trial again, and you know, he
Speaker 3: had some good news in that his case was transferred
Speaker 3: to Brooklyn from Suffer County. So his lawyer was excited
Speaker 3: because you know, a Brooklyn jury is a lot was
Speaker 3: very different from a Suffolk County jury. And he was
Speaker 3: offered a deal that his lawyer said was would be
Speaker 3: malpracticed to turn down. Even though his lawyer maintains and
Speaker 3: Rob himself maintains that he was wrongfully convicted. It was
Speaker 3: sort of an unheard of deal if you're familiar with
Speaker 3: criminal procedure, in which one Brinsick wouldn't have to implicate
Speaker 3: anybody else. He could testify as to the facts very vaguely,
Speaker 3: and he would essentially it what was offered what was
Speaker 3: advertised as as time served. And so he ended up
Speaker 3: beating guilty. And you know, another of his co defendants,
Speaker 3: Tom Ryan, didn't want to do that, and he would
Speaker 3: and he took it back to trial and he was
Speaker 3: convicted yet on the word of an ex girlfriend, one
Speaker 3: of these informants from Smithtown and who said that she
Speaker 3: had who said that he had made a pseudo confession
Speaker 3: to her. And then another Michael Carteriro, Peter's brother, was
Speaker 3: convicted largely on the testimony of James Burke. And this
Speaker 3: again was one of these cases of sort of shifting
Speaker 3: testimony by work, and you know, their their case, and
Speaker 3: that that saga sort of continued for them, where Ryan,
Speaker 3: after Ryan's case was again conviction was again overturned, he
Speaker 3: was offered a similar deal to Brinsic, where it was
Speaker 3: essentially time served or you can take the chances and
Speaker 3: perhaps face another life sentence. And by then and by
Speaker 3: then Ryan, you got to remember, these guys were teenagers
Speaker 3: when this happened. The youngest was fourteen, Cortouro, you know,
Speaker 3: the oldest was sixty, and so by then there, you know,
Speaker 3: by the time this saga reaches this point, they're middle
Speaker 3: aged men. And and so Tom Ryan, you know we
Speaker 3: would already face who would already spend more than two
Speaker 3: decades in prison, decided that he could risk it, and
Speaker 3: he he also took a plea deal, and Mike Cortouro
Speaker 3: eventually was was paroled. And and so you know, at
Speaker 3: one point in the saga, that same State Investigative Commission
Speaker 3: that Judge Nam had had sort of sticked on Stufford County,
Speaker 3: they opined about the idea that this extremely favorable plea
Speaker 3: deal was offered to Rob Brenswick with all of these
Speaker 3: odd trip wires, including even that like John Pius's family
Speaker 3: couldn't sue him, said, you know, stuff that sort of
Speaker 3: mixed them with criminal and this stuff. You don't you
Speaker 3: don't really see m deals they and they said essentially
Speaker 3: it was a completely inappropriate use of prosecutor's power, and
Speaker 3: that it was essentially more concerned with with pr than injustice,
Speaker 3: and and sort of that's sort of how these cases unraveled,
Speaker 3: which the suber County DA's office, you know, through various
Speaker 3: at this point, various das, various prosecutors. Support is always
Speaker 3: kind of a constant, though they were, you know, clinging
Speaker 3: to these convictions. And and no matter if if the
Speaker 3: you know, the flee deals, the facts of the flee deals,
Speaker 3: or the in which the defendants sort of stated what happened,
Speaker 3: if those if those circumstances didn't make sense with each other,
Speaker 3: that didn't matter. And it and even if they you know,
Speaker 3: they were basically offering time served these guys, what really
Speaker 3: mattered was the idea that their convictions were were upheld.
Speaker 3: To me, that sort of shows the importance of James
Speaker 3: Burke and what he wrote, you know, in the beginning
Speaker 3: of his career was the idea that that he was
Speaker 3: the glue of these cases and for that reason he
Speaker 3: was very important.
Speaker 5: Now we go to the falldown of Jimmy Burke, and
Speaker 5: part of that is a woman that he meets named Lorita,
Speaker 5: a prostitute and a known heroin and cocaine dealer as
Speaker 5: you write, and then they fall in love. This love affair,
Speaker 5: many people hear about it. There's rumors abound, and so
Speaker 5: investigators do hear about this as well. Tell us a
Speaker 5: little bit about this relationship and the fallout from it.
Speaker 3: Sure, so you know, as a young beat cop at
Speaker 3: one of the toughest precincts in Suffolk County, you know,
Speaker 3: he starts this romance with a with a sex worker
Speaker 3: named Marita Rickenbacker, basically one of the more notorious kind
Speaker 3: of creatures of the street in Suffolk County. Everyone in
Speaker 3: Burke's precinct knew about her, except for apparently him. Because
Speaker 3: when Internal Affairs hears about this investigative about this that
Speaker 3: they're told about it by other sex workers. And so
Speaker 3: they started investigating Jimmy Burke. And when they dragged Jimmy
Speaker 3: Burke into an interrogation room and ask him about it.
Speaker 3: You know that Burke is accompanied by union lawyers. He says,
Speaker 3: you know, he says, for one, that he was unaware
Speaker 3: of Rickenbacker's criminal history even though he was a street
Speaker 3: cop specializing in narcotics and the same preacinct. But you know,
Speaker 3: there's a lot that sort of that essentially gets swept
Speaker 3: under the rug in that investigation. One was the idea
Speaker 3: that Burke was doing drugs with Rickenbacker, which she told
Speaker 3: me he was. That she told DIA B cops, the
Speaker 3: Internal Affairs bureau pups that he wasn't, and so sort
Speaker 3: of via that means mostly because he has this Rabbi
Speaker 3: and Tom's Boden, who's the various stages. He's a top
Speaker 3: Detectives Association attorney and at one point the DA, the
Speaker 3: district attorney a Furcus protected and so you know, his
Speaker 3: career is he never really faced the serious consequences for
Speaker 3: major internal affairs investigations, and so he continues his rise
Speaker 3: un abated. There's always kind of this secret with his career,
Speaker 3: which is that he had this kind of very embarrassing
Speaker 3: internal affairs past involving his romance with a sex worker.
Speaker 3: Because of New York laws, at the time, all internal
Speaker 3: affairs records were confidential, so it's sort of like a
Speaker 3: there's rumors about it, and it's clearly something he's embarrassed,
Speaker 3: but it doesn't come out until much later.
Speaker 5: Tell us about as we talked about in the introduction,
Speaker 5: about this faithful event where a couple of thieves are
Speaker 5: jiggling doors. They're down on their luck, they're junk He's
Speaker 5: and their thieves and they break into Jimmy Burke's vehicle.
Speaker 6: What do they run away with and what do they find?
Speaker 3: So they pull out of his unmarked police truck a
Speaker 3: duffel bag and there's one sort of main character here
Speaker 3: among these two thieves, which is his name is Christopher Lobe,
Speaker 3: and he pulls out of the duffel bag and pulls
Speaker 3: out sex toys and pornography and other sort of sexual implements.
Speaker 3: And at this point Burke has risen all the way
Speaker 3: up the top of to the top of one of
Speaker 3: the largest police departments in the country. He's chief of
Speaker 3: department and he's been that for less than a year,
Speaker 3: but he now controls, you know, elite units, and so
Speaker 3: he has some of these elite cops put on the
Speaker 3: case of the guy who stole his stuff. And so
Speaker 3: at one point he joins three of those detectives in
Speaker 3: the interrogation room and all four of them slap around
Speaker 3: Chris Low. Work is the most work, gives Low the
Speaker 3: most vicious beating, and you know, you have a precinct
Speaker 3: cops witness that. You also have a bunch of cops
Speaker 3: at Lobe's house who also witnessed Burke at his house,
Speaker 3: which which is not protocol. And so from there this
Speaker 3: sort of massive federal this massive cover up the suits
Speaker 3: because the Feds learn about the beating and start poking around,
Speaker 3: and you sort of see like an instinctive reaction by
Speaker 3: by cops ranging from you know, lowly highway patrol to
Speaker 3: you know, top tenants. Also in the prosecutor's office, the
Speaker 3: DA himself thoms boda. That's top prosecution prosecutor, Chris McPartland
Speaker 3: and other prosecutors. They all they all sort of join
Speaker 3: ranks to lie. They lie in grand jury's, they lie
Speaker 3: in uh, they lie to frontal agents and basically they
Speaker 3: just cover up the fact that Burke beat up Chris Low.
Speaker 3: And it's this long, long cover up that spans years
Speaker 3: and leaves to this point in the book I sort
Speaker 3: of described I sort of think of it as like
Speaker 3: you know, the mom movie Good Fellas, in which all
Speaker 3: of these characters are you know, kind of breaking down
Speaker 3: from the from the paranoia. Uh, and yet they keep
Speaker 3: their stories. It's extremely hard to make these cops of
Speaker 3: prosecutors move off their lives and sort of and give
Speaker 3: up Jim's James James Burke and tell the truth about
Speaker 3: what they saw.
Speaker 5: It's interesting to the bag when you talk about the dildos,
Speaker 5: is that he is able somehow to come in and
Speaker 5: take that bag away and bring it, like you say,
Speaker 5: to his home, so that there is no inventory of
Speaker 5: what was in that bag. So but there is a
Speaker 5: report of later of course no eye witness to what
Speaker 5: was actually in the bag, but there is a police
Speaker 5: report later that says there were certain items in that bag,
Speaker 5: wasn't that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And some cops, you know, once the whole thing
Speaker 3: on Rautels, cops sort of started to tell the truth
Speaker 3: to the Feds, and so they confirmed that there was
Speaker 3: dildo's that they hid, and that there was also pornography.
Speaker 3: And the big question is what kind of pornography? And
Speaker 3: a more point, it's a ledge that work had child
Speaker 3: pornography in its back. The FEDS don't believe that, and
Speaker 3: I think pretty compellingly. Well, you know, one of the
Speaker 3: things they say is child phornographers typically don't label their
Speaker 3: contraband with you know, a cover that lets you know
Speaker 3: child pornography either way, for you know, had phornography in
Speaker 3: his bag. And and yeah, that was one of the
Speaker 3: most stunning things to me was just how quickly it
Speaker 3: was not even spoken among the cops who, for example,
Speaker 3: Lobe's house, you know, one of them sees a pill
Speaker 3: jar biag of those in the garbage. Immediately, you know,
Speaker 3: the dildos they're got, All this stuff sort of vaporizes
Speaker 3: and it's like just an unspoken cover up with not
Speaker 3: even covering up a crime, just some or slightly embarrassing,
Speaker 3: you know, sort of invoice of what was in the
Speaker 3: Duffel bag that probably would it has been on some
Speaker 3: police reports that they would have never released publicly anyways, Right,
Speaker 3: And so to me it said a lot about this
Speaker 3: this you know, certain corners of police culture where the
Speaker 3: cover up is like muscle memory.
Speaker 5: You also talk about, in keeping with that support that
Speaker 5: you're talking about, is that Burke has some powerful supporters
Speaker 5: along the way, like Commissioner Kieran, And but at the
Speaker 5: same time there's people that he like Pat Kuff, Patty
Speaker 5: Cuff who laughed in Burke's face at one time. There
Speaker 5: are people coming back to the prosecution of Jimmy Burke
Speaker 5: from his past, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So you see, you know, you sort of see
Speaker 3: throughout burkstrajectory there are cops at the are sort of
Speaker 3: mid level who try to warn those at the top,
Speaker 3: like this guy is not an appropriate candidate to rise
Speaker 3: up the ranks of this department. One of them was Pennicoff,
Speaker 3: who was the internal affairs investigator, one of them who
Speaker 3: handled their Arida Rickenbacker investigation. And as you said, during
Speaker 3: Burke's interrogation, when Burke said he had a sterling reputation
Speaker 3: in the police department, Kuff, thinking about some of the
Speaker 3: more graphic allegations against him, involving load to Ricomack, involving
Speaker 3: sex and their sector car in his sector guard laughed
Speaker 3: in his face. And Burke never forgotten that. So you know,
Speaker 3: that's an example of one of the characters who kind
Speaker 3: of never kind of out to work. And another is
Speaker 3: a top MS thirteen detective named John Olive, who Burke
Speaker 3: hadn't been detted against, at one point removed him from
Speaker 3: a task force where he was investigating MS thirteen murders.
Speaker 3: Also a couple of detectives who who sent an anonymous
Speaker 3: letter to top officials in Suffolk County explicitly warning them
Speaker 3: that Burke was not cut up to be chief of
Speaker 3: department and listing the allegations against him, most of which
Speaker 3: turned out to be completely accurate and were ignored by
Speaker 3: top people in the in the county, including the county executive,
Speaker 3: who is the top elected official, who read the letter
Speaker 3: and completely disregarded it because at that point he was
Speaker 3: sort of beholden at James Pirk. So what you see,
Speaker 3: you know, these these cops who are trying to do
Speaker 3: the right thing and there, and you know, I think
Speaker 3: they were for the most part, just concerned that the
Speaker 3: department was going to completely embarrass itself by having this
Speaker 3: guy at its helm, which you know was traufetic and true.
Speaker 3: And and they are kind of, you know, not only ignored,
Speaker 3: but for the most what their career is getting destroyed
Speaker 3: by Burke and others others who are sort of in
Speaker 3: perks role for trying to speak up against them.
Speaker 5: Let's use this as an opportunity to stop for a
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Speaker 5: Now let's talk about his fall, what finally and who
Speaker 5: finally brings them down and how and all of the
Speaker 5: people that go down with him.
Speaker 3: So he had a mark at a right hand man.
Speaker 3: His name was James hatey Haicky was the Lieutenant of
Speaker 3: Criminal Intelligence, which was an elite squad was in Soccer
Speaker 3: County pet and this was sort of the squad that
Speaker 3: had access to all sorts of intel on both criminals
Speaker 3: and political characters. And they were kind of Burke's a
Speaker 3: glorified goon squad, and so Kiky becomes the middleman, which
Speaker 3: is how he later described it in the cover up,
Speaker 3: where he puts extreme pressure on the detectives who are
Speaker 3: also involved in a low beating to not talk to
Speaker 3: the Feds. And initially that works. The Feds, you know,
Speaker 3: have a lighty investigation. They try to speak to to witnesses,
Speaker 3: and they like sort of blanket suffer County, it's Penis
Speaker 3: and everyone. All these cops stick to their lives, and
Speaker 3: so the federal investigation is closed. The problem is Burke
Speaker 3: is sort of drunk on power at this point, and
Speaker 3: so he orders a wire tap on one of his enemies,
Speaker 3: John Oliva, and he wanted to see if Oliva was
Speaker 3: if Oliva was a source for embarrassing stories that were
Speaker 3: coming out to Newsday and one about burke relationship with
Speaker 3: Marida Rickenbacker, and he ultimately has Oliva arrested on trumped
Speaker 3: up charges for trout is. Oliva was, as I said,
Speaker 3: he was in a federal task force investigating him s
Speaker 3: thirteen before Burke sort of removed him from that. And
Speaker 3: so the Feds liked the lead. The federal government liked
Speaker 3: the leader, and so when they learned that that was happening,
Speaker 3: that there was this tromped up wire tab where Burke
Speaker 3: was listening to conversations that Oliva was having, including with
Speaker 3: federal agents, that seemed to be the last straw, and
Speaker 3: they basically, you know, seemed to finally take notice that
Speaker 3: the real notice that the you know, this county was
Speaker 3: essentially county law enforcement was essentially being run by organized criminals.
Speaker 3: And so they started using methods that were more serious
Speaker 3: than they had before, including and promising people immunity if
Speaker 3: they were to testify. So you ultimately have detectives who
Speaker 3: start to get pulled over to the federal side, and
Speaker 3: it's you know, like any mom with really right. Once
Speaker 3: you lose one, then the others are all sort of
Speaker 3: scrambling because they because they know they're either going down
Speaker 3: or they got it on the Fed side. And so
Speaker 3: the guy who really became you know, the Samy, the
Speaker 3: oul Gravano in this case was was Jim Hicky, who
Speaker 3: was Burke's right hand and so he had been in
Speaker 3: all these rooms for Burke and the DA and top
Speaker 3: top corruption prosecutors explicitly discussing how they were going to
Speaker 3: cover up this crime, you know, with full knowledge that
Speaker 3: they were obstructing justice. And Hickey, who suffers multiple sort
Speaker 3: of like breakdowns you know, in the narrative book, including
Speaker 3: one where he sees giant lizards driving catalog. So he's
Speaker 3: suffering this going through these crazy mental episodes. He he
Speaker 3: ultimately becomes the chief witness, and the federal unraveling leads
Speaker 3: to Burke mentor Tom Spoda also being convicted of federal crimes,
Speaker 3: to going to federal prison, as does Burke himself.
Speaker 5: And what of any kind of reform of Suffolk County
Speaker 5: as a result of this, You know, I think.
Speaker 3: That remains to be seen. Like I've sort of described before,
Speaker 3: Like I've sort of described before, there's been efforts to
Speaker 3: sort of reform Suffer County before that it looked pretty
Speaker 3: for vertical and they didn't and that didn't actually happen.
Speaker 3: So I think it w might be naive to think,
Speaker 3: you know, because Burke and his cronies were removed, that
Speaker 3: don't happen this time. But you know, I think that
Speaker 3: remains to be seen.
Speaker 5: Now, what of the you know, this investigation ultimately obviously
Speaker 5: looks at the Johnny Pious case and what had happened
Speaker 5: from that as a result of them obviously looking at that,
Speaker 5: what did they do or conclude?
Speaker 3: Well, And I really appreciate, you know, like doing this
Speaker 3: interview the sort of focus on the case, because I think,
Speaker 3: what's what's t maskets lost in this is the idea
Speaker 3: that there's four boys now men, who lost a big
Speaker 3: chunk of their lives due to testimony from convicted liars
Speaker 3: now right, Jimmy Burk and Tom Spoda was the prosecutor,
Speaker 3: and and so you know, I know that defense at
Speaker 3: one point, you know, pulled the file of the adult
Speaker 3: records of the DA's office concerning the case. They at
Speaker 3: least looked into it, but I think they were always
Speaker 3: looking into it. Basically, don't understand Bunk relationship to Spota.
Speaker 3: I don't think that they actually examined the case unfortunately,
Speaker 3: and so you know, you have these three of them
Speaker 3: are still technically convicted murderers, and you know, the Suffer
Speaker 3: County has recently, in recent years sort of had a
Speaker 3: reckoning in which the DA's office has re examined some
Speaker 3: convictions that were very similar made by the on the
Speaker 3: side squad around the same time, often involving you know,
Speaker 3: people separated from their from their lawyers and families. There's
Speaker 3: one where a guy was he was exonerated and his
Speaker 3: you know, he was around the same age as these
Speaker 3: four boys. So to me, you know, this is the
Speaker 3: case that I think cries out for for re examination.
Speaker 3: And so in you know, in my reporting, I found
Speaker 3: multiple sort of you know, for lack of a better word,
Speaker 3: suspects or at least people of interest that were completely disregarded.
Speaker 3: But just because they had at that point seized on
Speaker 3: these four boys, and it would be after getting a
Speaker 3: profession out of one of them, you know, they weren't
Speaker 3: eager to look at another suspect. And so I did
Speaker 3: a lot of reporting on the pious case. And but
Speaker 3: I you know, there's a limit that for example, works
Speaker 3: fellow witnesses wouldn't speak to me, to to a man,
Speaker 3: you know, multiple around six people who were involved in
Speaker 3: this prosecution, none of them was saying anything even though
Speaker 3: decades later, which to me seemed notable. You know, as
Speaker 3: a reporter, typically you'll you'll get one or two people
Speaker 3: that are willing to talk. And it made me wonder,
Speaker 3: why why don't any of them want to talk about
Speaker 3: their testimony in this case, and so people like that,
Speaker 3: who I think the DA's office, it probably gets to
Speaker 3: Taco a lot easier than I could. And so, you know,
Speaker 3: I would love to see the Suffolk County law enforcement
Speaker 3: establishment sort of acknowledge, Hey, this this case was built
Speaker 3: on a tainted foundation. And you know, these guys may
Speaker 3: be out of prison, but you know they deserve to
Speaker 3: at least have a reexamine. Heck, John Tias heard it
Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy nine. Deserves to have an actual, you know,
Speaker 3: investigation as much as can be done at this point
Speaker 3: as to as do who killed them. So that's what
Speaker 3: I'm to say with this book.
Speaker 5: Are you saying that there's a you have a bigger
Speaker 5: hope for this book other than the story being completely told?
Speaker 3: Is?
Speaker 6: Do you have a bigger hope for this book? And
Speaker 6: it's a I.
Speaker 3: Mean, you know, this book is a journalist to get
Speaker 3: enterprise where I essentially tried to report all of it
Speaker 3: all that I could. But I think, you know, in
Speaker 3: getting very deep into the pious case, it seemed to
Speaker 3: me that there was no evidence. You know, perhaps those
Speaker 3: four boys that were convicted, maybe they did it, but
Speaker 3: there's no evidence that any more so than there is
Speaker 3: any other, you know, random boy in smith Town, he
Speaker 3: might have been interiorated. So yeah, I think that that,
Speaker 3: you know, one of the goals that sort of developed
Speaker 3: as writing it was a hope that the authorities in
Speaker 3: Suffolk County might sort of take the findings in the
Speaker 3: book and use them to re examine what happened to
Speaker 3: the posse.
Speaker 5: How disturbing as you can as you can conclude, was
Speaker 5: this whole story in how difficult it was to bring
Speaker 5: these bad cops and their behavior to light and to justice.
Speaker 3: It wasn't it was easy, right, I mean, there's a
Speaker 3: very strong tendency towards secrecy by the police and by prosecutors,
Speaker 3: and so kind of at every juncture, you know, you're
Speaker 3: you're sort of blocked. And the one example is not
Speaker 3: being able to see internal affairs records. Another is one
Speaker 3: that you might even think with you know, is a
Speaker 3: good policy, which is in New York, if somebody is
Speaker 3: acquitted at trial, all of their court records are stealed.
Speaker 3: But you know, I came across cases where Jimmy Burke
Speaker 3: was the main witness and there are allegations that he
Speaker 3: lied in the during court, but the court records are
Speaker 3: sealed because it resulted in an acquittal. So you sort
Speaker 3: of have this kind of very black box of a
Speaker 3: of a justice system and and and the guys who
Speaker 3: run it. So you know, that was difficult. It was
Speaker 3: also difficult to get people to talk initially. But I
Speaker 3: think once, once, once it was probably similar to what
Speaker 3: the FEDS felt right on, one sort of key player
Speaker 3: in this one of the detectives spoke to me. I
Speaker 3: think words spread that, hey, I'm not gonna be the
Speaker 3: only one talking to this guy, and so I ended
Speaker 3: up getting a lot more interviews than I would have
Speaker 3: would have thought. But you know, I think it's a
Speaker 3: it's a it's everything that occurred in this book only
Speaker 3: occurred because of the secrecy that surrounds this culture of policing,
Speaker 3: and so that was definitely took some time to pearce.
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
Speaker 5: I want to thank you so much, Gus Garcia Roberts
Speaker 5: for coming on and talking about your new book, Jimmy
Speaker 5: the King, Murder, Vice, and the Reign of a Dirty Cop.
Speaker 5: For those that might want to check out contact you
Speaker 5: about further information about this, potentially tell us about your
Speaker 5: Twitter connection.
Speaker 3: Sure, come come seeing me on Twitter at g Garcia Roberts,
Speaker 3: so that g G. A R C I, A R
Speaker 3: O B E, RSS and men please reach out.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much, Jimmy the King, Murder, vice and
Speaker 5: the reign of a dirty Cop. Thank you so much,
Speaker 5: Gus Garcia Roberts, and you have a great evening.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 3: This is wonderful. Thank you, Bye, good night,