 Welcome to the original gangsters podcast. I'm your host Scott Bernstein. This is part two of O.J. Simpson and the mafia. This is going to be a three part series on O.J.'s long time connections to the underworld and organized crime that seem to have gone kind of under the radar with all of the coverage of his alleged murder of his wife and her friend Ronald Goldman and that very iconic 1994 double homicide, 1995 trial. Everybody knows O.J. Simpson was a legendary NFL football player, broadcaster, actor, personality, died this week of cancer. A lot of people are going over his legacy. And I am giving my audience deep dive into his various mob connections, narcotics operation connections and investigations into him and those by both federal and local authorities that never resulted in any charges. But there's no question dating even back to the 1970s. While he was a pro athlete, he was being investigated for rackets. I mean, for booking bets and dealing drugs. When he retired from the NFL in 1979, he moved from Buffalo to back to California. He was on the heels of two separate narcotics investigations in Buffalo that he had been a target in both state investigations, Buffalo Police Department and New York State Police. And was, you know, never got caught up in those investigations. Actually, they never got charged in those investigations. The authorities believe that he was dealing drugs to pro athletes in Buffalo via contacts in the Buffalo mob through popular nightclubs and bars, places like the executive in Mulligan's and Casey's Nickelodeon. And then Simpson retired in 79 returns to California becomes an actor becomes a broadcaster. And there are more investigations. He's being investigated throughout the 1980s for bookmaking, narcotics trafficking, and prostitution high end prostitution. He was all alleged. Again, nothing was charged but the authorities had informants telling telling them that OJ wasn't just doing Monday night football or, or, you know, acting in the naked gun. He was dealing drugs and booking bets for elements of the mob. And according to his, some of his FBI files that I've been DEA files and I've been able to get my hands on the informants were naming like over a half a dozen crime families and organizations that OJ was either at the very least socializing with at the very most doing illegal activity for. And then Robert Kardashian's name makes them to a lot of these allegations and Robert Kardashian the patriarch of the reality show kingdom that is the Kardashian Empire. He was wasn't alive to really see any or wasn't alive to see any of it. He died in 2003, but the Kardashian name first came to prominence in, you know, the American pop culture sphere via OJ Simpson and Kardashian Robert Kardashian being best friends Kardashian being part of his legal dream team when OJ went on trial in 95. And you just heard the name, Robert Kardashian kind of after the OJ case as being this mover and shaker in the legal community. He was also known as kind of an innovator in the music community with some of the businesses that he was able to start. And then after he died, his ex-wife, Kris Jenner and his daughters, Kim, Courtney and Chloe, as we know, just, you know, rocketed to global superstardom kind of based on some of the notoriety that their dad's name and had and sex tape that Kim had done. And anyway, but but back then nobody knew who the other Kardashians were people just knew who Bob Kardashian was and he was a big player in Los Angeles was never charged with any crime. So let's be very clear, but informants were putting him at the center of some of these activities that OJ was being alleged to take part in including cocaine trafficking and sports bookmaking through some of these criminal organizations. And we had, you know, mafias that were connected to Italians, Armenians and Russians that were these allegations were made about in terms of a Cosa Nostra, you had crime families that span the country. You had three New York crime families that were named. You had Colombo, Bonanno and Gambino that were named in these by these informants in these allegations. You had the Buffalo Cosa Nostra crime family, the Magadino crime family that he had been connected to previously. And then you had the California LA mafia. So, and then you have the also you have the decalvocantes out of New Jersey, these are all families and groups that OJ was tied to in one way or the other. Bob Kardashian was caught on some wires talking to some nefarious figures allegedly bragging about his role in some of these activities never went anywhere. Some of these guys that didn't have the best track records in terms of credibility were coming out and naming Kardashian again never went anywhere. It should be noted as I'm wrapping this up that the NFL security was investigating OJ during his broadcasting days before the murder case throughout the 80s and early 90s they were getting tips that OJ was using information that he was getting in locker rooms and on the field during his broadcasting career and using them to feed the mafia or other organized crime groups information related to gambling that they can manipulate point spreads with and what and what not. And then there's allegations that he was kind of a broker or a mediator for celebrities that were either betting or doing drug deals with mobsters and guys that would get in trouble with either back betting tabs or other issues. OJ would like act as like a facilitator for sit downs and mediations and like take a piece of whatever some of money was negotiated to make the problem go away. So, again, Bob Kardashian was cleared OJ was never charging this OJ did have his house raided in Miami in a drug investigation in the 2000s. We'll come back next time with part three and discuss was the Nicole Simpson Ron Goldman murder actually a mob hit and how a former friend and alleged criminal associate of OJ Simpson mob affiliated Bush Casey was murdered just two weeks after the the Simpson Goldman case in a brutal triple execution. And there's a lot of lingering questions even 30 years later if there was any ties between those two homicides we'll go into that in part three for OJ pod I'm Scott Bernstein out.