 Welcome to the OG pod. I am Scott Bernstein. We're going to do a quick hitter edition. Some news coming out of Philadelphia related to the junior black mafia. And from that, I want to tell a story about some an altercation from about 25 years ago that I don't know if a lot of people know about. So we all know that the Bruno Scarfo crime family and the African American underworld in Philadelphia have always worked very close together dating back to the 1970s. First with the Philly black mafia black brothers incorporated through the through the Bruno Scarfo era. And then as Joey Merlino and his crew took over in the early nineties, the junior black mafia, which were the the teenage Aaron boys for the 1970s guys that were coming into adulthood in the 80s during the crack era, they created an offshoot of the Philly black mafia known as the junior black mafia or the JBM. So on gangsta report this week, I wrote a story about the history of the relationship between junior black mafia and the Bruno Scarfo crime families. Go check that out at www.gangstareport.com. But it should be noted that this year you had a former shot caller of JBM, Kevin Bowman, they go went by the nickname K black was released from a life prison sentence. He's back in Philadelphia right now. It served 33 years for a JBM related murder from 1989. His attorney worked tirelessly to get his appeal in front of a judge who tossed it out back in March for prosecutorial misconduct and judicial error from researching Kevin Bowman and the late 80s, early nineties connections or ties between JBM and the Merlino crew, which there were a lot. This group worked together much better and more intertwined and more money made than the the 1970s group. That was kind of a situation where Angelo Bruno wanted his guy Longdron Montorano to work with the original Philly black mafia that the black brothers incorporated on drug deals. But they weren't as the rackets were not as layered. The interests were not as interspersed when the Merlino crew came up and took power. They had a lot more in common with the junior black mafia guys. One of the big JBM guys, one of the founders, Tracy Mason and goes by the nickname Tasker T grew up on a Tasker Street Tasker Avenue in South Philly. Most of the JBM and black brothers guys were from North Philly or West Philly. But Tracy Mason came from South Philly, worked in the Atlantic City casinos in the 80s and got very close to a lot of its Italians and was really able to bridge the gap, became very close to Joey Merlino, your Google Joey Merlino and Tracy Mason. You'll find a dozen photos over the years. So what I didn't know, and I guess this wasn't a secret, but I I've recently been made aware of it was in the late 1990s as the first run of the Merlino crew was coming to an end and they were about to go to jail for about a decade. And you had a lot of the JBM guys that were going to start filtering out of prison because they had been in for a while. You had a situation that could have turned violent where you had JBM and the Merlino crew at odds. And it got so bad that in February of 1999, you had JBM members bum rush Joey Merlino's house, his mansion in the Brittany Estates neighborhood, where a group of JBM members showed up unannounced, pushed their way into the house and the police were called. I don't know the specifics of it, but I can imagine that the Merlino crew would see this as a as a huge slap in the face, a huge disrespect. I think that the the brewing tension was related over the way that money was being chopped up and shakedowns gambling and drug affairs. But Trent Picard, TC Picard, whose brother Julius was one of the major JBM guys, but Julius was killed in 1995. And his brother kind of took over his his his his JBM crew. But the TC Picard was the person that was leading this attack, I guess, on on Joey Merlino. But luckily for both the the JBM and the Merlino crew, Tracy Mason was coming out of prison that very month. So like, I think it was two weeks after this incident at Joey's house, Tracy Mason came came out of prison and he squashed the beef. And from that point forward, they've been working together just like they had been before that. But it's interesting to note that if it wasn't for Tasker T, Tracy Mason, the OG from the JBM has nothing but love and respect from the upper echelons of the Bruno Scarfield crime family, the Joey Merlino crew, they love Tracy got another Benny Gough, Beamer Benny were guys that they were very close with in the JBM. And Tracy Mason made it all good. But it's interesting to note that in between these these eras of of flourishing relationships or flourishing relations between JBM and the Philly Italian mafia, there was this one patch of unrest. But just wanted to share it and say that, you know, Kevin Bowman is out of prison now. He was for a very short period of time, he was a street boss of JBM before he got locked up. But he's out. You know, congratulations to him and his attorney for working so relentlessly to get him out. And if I read through the case, it was a dirty case. They allowed the star witness had written five statements to the police only signed one of them. So only one of them he would put his name to. But the judge indicate this is just one of a myriad of of errors that were made that deprived Bowman of getting a fair trial out of those five statements, only one of which was signed, all five were were put in front of the jury to to consider as well as a lot of documents that did not make their way in discovery to the defense. One of them being a guy that looked like he admitted to being involved in this that had nothing to do with the guys that got arrested. There were some ballistics evidence that look like it was manipulated. So Kevin Bowman is free. And the nap, you know, and I'm sure Kevin Bowman has gone and is gone off into the sunset and is in his JBM retirement. So I don't want to imply that that that black Bowman has anything to do with what's going on right now. But right now, I do believe and I do have good sourcing that what's left of JBM is still working very closely with the Philadelphia Italian Mafia, the Merlino crew. So just give me an update on that and telling an interesting little story about back when things weren't so copacetic for Jimmy, he'll be back on the long form podcast later this week. And for Benny behind the glasses, who's our MVP, keeping us moving, keeping us the train on the track, moving at 1000 miles an hour. Got Bernstein, OG pod out.