 Americans pride themselves on being civic-minded people, but for most of us, it's just that. Something in our minds. Civic duty is something we think about. We know concern. We consider participation. But seldom think of risk as part of our civic duty. Lewis Peters got a chance to do more than think about being a good citizen. He received the ultimate test, and what he did for his community and his country was, in the words of Patriot Nathaniel Hale, above and beyond the call of duty. The story begins here in Lodi, California, a suburb of Sacramento, at Lewis Cadillac Car Dealership. Lewis was just a normal American businessman, doing a job, doing that job well, too. On a quiet afternoon, Lou sat down to tell the whole story to Roger Young, inspector in charge of public affairs for the FBI, an old friend of Lou and Marilyn Peters. And over the years, in 1970 through 1977, we became very successful and was quite prosperous. And it was during the first part of June of 1977, when a local contractor by the name of Elmer Birch came into my office and said, Lou, I have some people that want to buy an agency. And I said, it's not for sale. He said, but name any price. He said they've got all kinds of money and they really want to buy your agency. And after me saying no a couple of times, I finally said $2 million. So it was a couple of days later he came back and they said the $2 million was okay. He said, have you ever heard of Joe Bonanno, senior? And I really hadn't, so I said no. And he said he's the head of the mafia for the whole United States. Well immediately I changed my whole train of thought to negative to positive because right away I want to know what the hell does he want to do? Why does he want to come into Lodi? So I said to Elmer, I said, if I'm going to deal with these people, I'm going to deal with them direct. And he said, okay, well I'll set up a meeting. So I got into my Cadillac and drove to the chief of police in Lodi and told him what happened. And the first thing he said is, oh my God, because he could see all kinds of problems. He said, what are you going to do? And I said, well I'm going to the FBI. So I went down to the office and they ushered me into one of their interview rooms I guess. And then in came, I don't know, four to five agents. And I told them the story. Then they had photographs and I picked out Bill Bonanno. Joe Bonanno, I wasn't too sure. There was enough shady characters there that I couldn't pick him out because I hadn't spent that much time with him. His was just a brief interview, I mean a brief introduction. So then they asked me if I would help them gather intelligence information. And I said I would have to think about it tonight and I said I'll let you know tomorrow. And so I called them and told them yes, I would do it. I didn't understand why these people wanted to come into our county. And I just, I wanted to find out because I know from past experience that once they get in a town, there's just a bunch of animals that take advantage of everyone and everything that they can. Lou, did you ever have any concern for your safety, any fear in this operation? No. Never even thought about it. I felt it was the right thing to do and I just did it. I was asked to help and I was more than willing to help the FBI. So I discussed this with Bob Anderson, the FBI agent in Stockton, that the combination they wanted me to buy property and real estate and in order to do this, I felt that I should be single. I should also be single so that I'd have a reason to move out of the house and get an apartment in Stockton and set up an operation in Stockton. And of course they said that's impossible. You can't get a legal separation from UI. I said this is, you just can't do that. It's not expected. No one would ever ask you. And I said no, but I said I'm just stating what I'm going to do. I came home and told my wife I wanted a legal separation. It had to be tough though when you came home and told Marilyn here's what I'm going to do. What kinds of things happened that night? The hardest part was telling the girls. Did you tell the girls why or just what? I told them that I was on a project and I had to be single in order to do this. Were you having any second thoughts? Wasn't it getting a little expensive in terms of time and effort? It got more expensive, but I could see that there was a tremendous need for this information for the Bureau and I was willing to sacrifice because I felt it was important and I felt it was right and because we didn't want these animals in this county or in any county in the United States but certainly not here. So we found a, Bob and I found an apartment in Stockton and he got the apartment upstairs and they were putting all this electronic equipment. They had the fireplace all turned up upstairs and they lowered a man upside down down the chimney and built shelves and put audio-video cameras behind the wall and had microphones in the walls. They had two cameras set up. One was facing the living room couch and one was facing this dining room table here. It was my dining room table in the apartment. So it was quite an elaborate setup that we had in the apartment in Stockton and Bob Anderson upstairs handled all the tapes and he was aware of when the people were coming into my apartment and he would activate the audio-video and do all the mechanical work upstairs. How was it in the apartment, Lou? You've been a family man. It had to be a little lonely after a while. It was many lonely nights that I spent in the apartment. But as I told my wife, I said, look at it as if I had to go into the service on my true duty. Although I had been in the Marine Corps for three years, I explained that to her that it was like, I was going into the service for a short period of time. At some point, Lou, you had one sufficient confidence of Joe Bonanno to go over to visit his home, him at his home in Tucson. In all these meetings, I tried to portray myself as a very close friend. Like, for example, one time when he came to Lodi and he saw the agency, I was driving him back to my apartment. He was sitting in the car next to me and I said, you know, there's something that I would like to say, but I don't want to bother you. He said, no, Lou, go ahead. He was always very polite to me. And I said, you know, my dad came from the old country and I said there's a lot of mannerisms and things that you do just like my dad and I said my dad, as you know, passed away a couple of years ago and I said you're like a second dad to me and he was very pleased that I felt that way towards him and it was a continuing process of using everything that I could think of to get close to him and the resemblance of his mannerisms and my father's is like a jackass and a human being. But again, I used everything. It was just a continuing process in my mind of getting closer and closer to the old man because I felt that's where any intelligence information would come out from the old man. It had to by this time be taking a little bit by surprise, didn't it, that you had been really getting a lot further than the advice that the FBI tended to indicate you would be the position to be in, including the stay in his home and now going out to dinner with him. Did this have any special effect on you? Did you see this as giving you more opportunities to do something? I just felt that I was getting close enough to him now that things would probably start happening. I even volunteered when I knew that I was going to Tucson to have a nagra. I said I won't be able to remember everything. I said why don't you give me a nagra and I can change the tape and pick up anything that's important. I said no, no, it's too dangerous. They wouldn't let me do it. I was willing to do it because I wanted to nail him. But I always tried to use everything and probably the hardest part for me was to try to keep my mind going three steps ahead of him and yet remember everything that was said so that I could tell Bob in my column, like a debriefing session, everything had happened because I didn't have any tape or anything and it was all by memory. How was the case coming now at this point in time? Was the FBI satisfied with the way things are going? Yes, the FBI was satisfied and I was very disappointed because I felt I was failing. Although I turned in I guess 67 names of people across the country that were involved with the Banana family most of them they had never heard of before. And I think it was probably in November or it was in the month of November of 1978 that they wanted to close everything down and pull out the monitoring devices in the apartment and Bob and I talked about it and I wanted to continue because I hadn't succeeded yet and I felt that something was going to happen before too long and I said, we've got to keep it open we can't close it down and Bob spent hours writing a report and all the reasons why we should stay open and so again we got the OK to leave it in operation for another couple of months then in January they came in and said OK, this is January of 1979 they said at the end of February it's closing period no more reasons or anything it's closing because they felt that they overextended themselves to a degree and they were right on the borderline of whether we should continue the operation and they wanted to close it they had not made a decision at that time as to whether they would prosecute or not based on what they had or they didn't have adequate information they felt to do anything and so then they were trying to figure out OK, how are we going to get Lou out of this situation well I had two heart attacks back in 75 or 76 so they thought they would set up a fake heart attack to get me out and they wanted to subpoena me before the federal grand jury as another reason to get me out and I said no I don't want to go before the federal grand jury because they said there will be 19 more people that will know what I've been doing I said I don't want to do that so I thought about it and I said well all right, send me the subpoena I changed my mind and I said might as well get this thing over with do it and do it right that will give me a reason for calling the old man so on the morning of the 15th of February 1979 I was sent the subpoena to appear before the federal grand jury everything was formal and legal so I went to the office that morning and I called the old man's home and he said what are they looking for the records well when he said that I don't know why but it triggered in my mind the fact that I did sell a Cadillac for Bill Bonanno and he wanted all the money in cash because I guess the Treasury Department had his three companies banking or checking account secured and the car was registered to one of the corporations and he wanted all cash which I gave him and he had to sign all the receipts and everything so I was protected then I mentioned this I said the only thing that I can think of is this car and I explained it to him that he wanted cash and the reason why and I said that's why I called because I didn't know what to do he said well you cannot discuss this with the grand jury because you'll hurt the boy and he said we discussed it a little bit more and then he said can you pull the records so when he said that I knew I was getting on solid ground and I said yes I can pull the records he said pull them and rent them I said fine I'll do anything you want me to do you know that and just build up his confidence and I never asked him for what or how he wanted me to do this I let him tell me what he wanted I did not want to get involved in entrapment which had been discussed with me many times I had to be careful not to lead them into something that they had to bring it up and once they brought it up then it was open territory for me so we discussed the records and he asked me several times to pull the records to destroy them it wasn't just a casual remark and I would play I'm a little hard of hearing anyway but I played a little hard of hearing and had him repeat several times that he wanted me to pull the records and destroy them so he did repeat yes he said pull the records and destroy them because it will hurt the boy that ended the conversation I took the tape out of the recorder in my office and went to Stockton and went up to Bob Anderson's apartment on the tapes if there was anything important he always made a duplicate so he asked me should I make a duplicate I said well I said you might as well there might be something on there that would be important and so he was duplicating the tape and we were listening to it and all of a sudden he jumped up he said you got him he was excited you know as much as I was and then in the next couple of months we were able to get Jack D. Filippi on perjury and obstruction of justice I think there were seven counts against Jack D. Filippi and I think they have him on five I could be off one or two charges but then on April 5th of 1979 I did go before the federal grand jury and I did testify When did the trial take place? It started probably some of the preliminaries towards the end of May of 1980 and I went down to testify and get ready for the trial probably the first week in June and the prosecuting attorney was getting the dates that he was going to cover and wanted me to refresh my memory and going over the evidence that we had then he looked up at me and he said Lou Peters he said you're my biggest problem and I said what? he said you're my biggest problem he said how in hell am I going to explain you to the judge to convince him of everything that you've done for the bureau he said I could walk up and down the streets of America for ten years and would never find another Lou Peters who did you have any special feeling after your testimony was over for long days how did you feel when you came down off the stand? I felt great I felt great and when the judge brought down the verdict on September 2nd of 1980 he did state in the in the report that the evidence and the testimony of Louis Peters left no doubt to the guilt of both Bonanno and Jagdy Philippi which kind of made me feel good Lou as you look back is there anything you would have done differently? the only thing that one thing that I would change when they asked me if I would work with them I would have said yes instead of waiting to the next day as I told one of the attorneys at the justice department I couldn't understand why they terminated it because they could use that same evidence six months down the road because I felt I was very close and with them knowing that I had this information I pulled all the records I did what they wanted me to do and I kind of made a statement to the old man that well this should really bring me into the family he said Lou you're already in the family and they didn't mean just friends I was looking for something bigger than just obstruction of justice and I felt if I'd had more time I could have gotten something more concrete, heavier that maybe they'd have dragged him from his home instead of calling him on the phone and asking him to come down he is 74, 75 years old but he's also a killer murderer and the hurt that he's created for people across the country he doesn't deserve any sympathy he doesn't deserve anything but the punishment that the law requires based on the conviction that he has received Lou let's talk just a little bit about the nature of the beast the organized crime family I feel that well during the case I said to Bob Anderson I said who came up with this organized crime and he said what do you mean I said who came up with the name organized crime and he was puzzled by my question because it's a term that the Bureau and the Justice Department use for any white collar worker that's involved in illegal activity or a group of white collar workers and he said why do you ask that and I said because I think they're the most disorganized group of people that I've ever met in my life I said no wonder they go broke because by the time they make a decision you could lose your business I said I make my decisions quick and fast and today not sometime down the road I was that was the biggest thing that I was totally amazed with their total disorganization that they have maybe it's their way of being very cautious and very protective but that's the thing that almost made me a nervous wreck is to get them off dead center and get them moving you've talked about your contacts with FBI agents in particular Agent Bob Anderson and Raphor that you two developed over the years what kinds of things did Bob and other FBI people indicate to you which helped develop your confidence in them they are very sincere caring about me as an individual I would come up with some really wild ideas about because I wanted to nail them and they were always very protective of me making sure that my safety was always number one on their list and when I would meet agents they had a very sincere feeling about me caring or pleased to to work with me because I was really trying to do something that they've been trying to get businessmen to do all over the United States there's a time I believe when you have to stand up and be counted for and I agree that I probably want the extreme but that's my way of life when I tackle something I believe and going at it 100% Lou and decisions were made during the course of the investigation were they joint decisions you would participate in them and sometimes what you would it was more of a like a round table discussion not all of them but most of them anything it was you know really important or would have some effect on me personally it was always discussed ahead of time and the general path that I was to take was laid out and but I always felt made to feel that I wasn't just another citizen that they really cared about me and if the same thing happened again and I knew the results or I knew someone else having the same problem I would still go to the FBI suppose a businessman were to come to you and ask for advice what kind of advice would you give him Lou? well I believe that 90% of it would be covered in his own mind because if he felt that it was the right thing to do he would have the feeling inside that I have a responsibility depending on how deep he wanted to get involved I suppose even if he got involved just on the periphery at some point he may have to go public with that cooperation does that change things in terms of concern for one's family safety? well I suppose it would I wanted to go public for one reason which I've already mentioned and that is that I would hope that businessmen across the country would stand up and be accounted for and if these animals came into that town that they would at least call the FBI to let them know they're here they may be nervous they may be scared but not half as nervous or half as scared as if these people actually did get in that community and took control of city hall and took control of the police department they'd have more problems than they whatever dream could exist if they didn't stand up to do what's right when I when I heard the news of the conviction that they were both found guilty I felt that all the time and all the waiting and all the effort was certainly with the effort because of the conviction and I was very proud of what I did for my country on September 2nd 1980 Joseph Bonanno and Jack D. Philippi were convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice Bonanno was sentenced to 5 years in prison D. Philippi also convicted of perjury was sentenced to 2 years in prison on June 12th 1981 in Sacramento Louis Peters received the Attorney General's Award for Meritorious Service Assistant Director Roger Young presented this high commendation as Lou's family looked on I was very proud of everything that I did for the FBI and I'd be very proud to do it again