 Welcome back into the original gangsters podcast. I am your host Scott Bernstein along with my partner in crime my co-conspirator Jimmy Bucci Lotto the doctor. Hi everyone This week we are very very excited to bring in Pulitzer prize winning author Podcaster just an overall media superstar Jake Halpern who is the host of the Acclaimed deep cover podcast. They're in season two. We're gonna focus on season two, which is called Mobland and it goes into a Corruption investigation in Chicago that that targeted the Chicago outfit and their reach into the Cook County Political machine legal system and so forth. There was a four-year plus investigation the Started in the early 80s didn't you know in terms of the Cases everything didn't get adjudicated. I don't think until but you know into the 90s One of the biggest undercover operations in American history, if not the biggest and Jake is is taking the audience in this on this fascinating Crazy compelling journey In in podcast form where you're hearing it from the the horse's mouth if you will Bob Cooley Who was one of the mob lawyers that was involved in this and wired up Jake? Thank you for joining us. We are honored Oh guys, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me on the show So why don't we just dive into the deep into the ocean on deep cover? So first season was about a Political drug Intersection it actually had some basis in the city Detroit With an FBI agent that was undercover in a biker gang and then eventually ends up with Money that's going to Panama and Noriega and it was crazy But didn't have a ton of traditional Italian organized crime Season two. It's it's quite And I say this in the most positive ways that you're engulfed in in OC And in in Chicago OC always Crosses over with politics So tell us how you how you came across Operation Grey Lord and wanting to do this as your second season yeah, so I finished the first season of the podcast and was looking to do an undercover story and There's actually I guess I'll give her a plug Jerry Williams has a it's a former FBI agent who has a Podcaster she interviews She herself is a former FBI agent and she's interviewed by 200 or 250 former agents She almost she basically debriefs them So I called up Jerry and I said If you were me, what would you do next? You've you've talked to so many FBI agents and she said check out Grey Lord And it's kind of said what you said at the beginning biggest undercover operation ever In Chicago in the corrupt court the corrupt court system in Cook County So I started talking to Terry Hague Who was the guy that went undercover in that and that? Operation and and for complicated reasons. I wasn't able to eventually do the Grey Lord story But along the way he said Terry did he said, you know, you got to talk to this guy named Bob Cooley Bob Cooley was a mob fixer He was the guy the mob relied on if if one of their hit man got in trouble for murder And they needed to get him off and bribe a judge Bob Cooley was the guy that hire he he he was the interface between the outfit in the political system and He's got quite a story to tell and he basically betrayed the mob You should talk to him and you know usually these guys want something you call them up and they you know And I get it they want they want to cut of the action or there's not that much to be had in nonfiction storytelling But I think I must call Bob on the right day because I called him that first time and he just started talking And he didn't stop for the next nine months And I've never met Bob in person. I've reported on his activity both as a fixer for the outfit as well as a Cooperator, but would you say I mean if someone asked me to just kind of describe him and I'm interested in if my my description from kind of a Third person fits your description as a first person that's worked with him I would say like this guy came right out of central casting from You know Hollywood if you wanted to put together what like kind of a Slick but kind of sleazy mob attorney Looks and acts and talks like it's like to me Bob Cooley kind of fit that and I say that both kind of In a positive way and I guess also to a negative way because you could take it that way No, I mean it's like it's one of these things too is like does life imitate art or does it art imitate life? Like is this the way he is or is this the way he thinks he should be to be the mob fixer? But totally and he made a point of pride and never wore a tie because he said, you know I didn't have to I was Bob Cooley He wore a gold chain when he went to City Hall he parked in the mayor's parking spot Kind of like hey, I can park here if I want that's awesome He would take his dog everywhere any restaurant. He went he would you know, but it was a fancy joint You know, he takes the dog in it's all part of his advertising brand that the rules don't apply to me He's doing this all to impress and attract a certain type of clientele, which is the organized crime set now What's interesting about bomb is he's not Italian guy. He's an Irish guy who comes from a family of Irish cops and his dad By all accounts was as straight as they come had studied it to be in the priesthood was a completely honest cop and in a police department that wasn't necessarily known for that and Bob and then Bob had some brothers who were lawyers who were also straight and Bob was basically, you know the black sheep of the family He was getting in trouble with the nuns at the Catholic school since like, you know as soon as he could go to school and he really tilts off in this other direction where He gravitates towards the mob. So in some ways when you look at his background It's unlikely, you know that he that he goes into this line of work and presents as he does But I think that's what makes him interesting also Let's talk about what this bus netted when you're talking about Almost a hundred public officials being indicted in this case Almost all of them in federal court and and most work were convicted I mean, that's that's mammoth Yeah, so so that's absolutely right now just to kind of be clear here that there's ends up being two separate undercover Investigations the first is gambat that that's the one that you're talking about that has something like a hundred indictments and it's huge and it Then then comes gambat which is the one that Bob was involved in now Just to kind of it kind of lay the groundwork for some of your listeners who may be less familiar with it What happens enough and Grey Lord, which is the one that comes first with a hundred indictments? Basically Cork cook County is totally corrupt. I mean you get a parking ticket. You get a DUI Whatever it is you walk into the courthouse and it's like the hallways of the courthouse are just lying with these guys Asking for money. They will pay off the judge There's not is it's an understanding if you can afford it. You are going to circumvent justice So what Grey Lord does is they get this squeaky clean? Former prosecutor named Terry Hake who's just had it with how corrupt the system is and he flips over and starts posing as a dirty Defense lawyer, but he's really working with the FBI and he really brings the house down on a lot of this Everyday corruptions going on in the court. I mean and you don't have to be a wired up guy I mean a mod up guy. It could be me knowing nothing walking in there. Oh, don't don't pay that ticket I just talked to this guy here. So after Grey Lord happens There's like a hundred indictments the system does get significantly cleaned up But what doesn't happen is that the mob has its almost own Protected system of corruption that has like something of a firewall around it and it does not go down in Grey Lord and the mob Continues to be able to use this system to protect its own to protect his hitman when they get in trouble to protect its bookies And so what Bob does and it's kind of the second act of the story and in Gambat is One day he walks into the prosecutor's office Totally off the street and it just a random day and says in effect You may think you have changed the system with Grey Lord But let me tell you the mob guys are still operating with impunity and I can help you change that because I am the mob's fixer I know where all the bodies are buried proverbially I know how it happens and I will help you bring it down And so the feds are intrigued but they're also like really I mean it's the guy I talked to said it was like Does this guy have a Messiah complex? This is the prosecutor. I've talked to who met Bob He said he said does this guy have a Messiah complex maybe but who am I to say no to the Messiah? So he was so just intrigued enough that he that he let Bob keep going because if what Bob was saying was the truth It could really kind of dismantle the mob's chokehold on on the city government And this is corruption in the city of Chicago. I mean, I know I'm stating the obvious here, but I mean this dates back hundred years With with you know the kind of pay-for-play quid pro quo between the streets and and the the halls of power In Illinois, Chicago Cook County um, and I want to touch on the actual individuals that formed that said firewall the the Chicago outfit had at least two guys if not more that were fully initiated mob members that were either alderman's or people in City Hall and the two that I'm Thinking of right now are Pat Marcy and John dark John Diarco And Pat Marcy's real name was a Pesquale Marchione and he Americanized it. Yeah, and he was You know if Bob Cooley was the fixer from the lawyer point of view Pat Marcy was the fixer in City Hall That's right in the in the halls of power and Pat Marcy was the guy that that Bob Cooley was answering to And in fact Remember I told you the story about how Bob was you know the gold chain and the no tie and you know walking his dog into the Restaurant, I mean Bob is aspiring to have the kind of organized client crime clientele That's what he wants But his big break comes when he meets this guy Pat Marcy that you mentioned Pat Marcy You know as far as I can tell we were talking about this a little before when I'm Mike but These guys in that business cards that laid out exactly what their position was But I think Pat Marcy was the mobs political boss if the mob needed Whatever it was a case fixed or a law passed or a judge in a position Marcy was that guy and so when Bob has a chance to meet Marcy for the first time Bob realizes if I can befriend this guy I'm I'm gonna be in I'm gonna be the mobs, you know go-to guy This is of course well before Bob flipped and that first time that he meets Marcy Marcy says Yeah, can you fix this case with this hitman's on trial for murder? And Bob fixes the case and that becomes thus becomes Bob's Kind of rise as as a lawyer that Marcy and the other outfit guys can count on And Marcy let's let's let everyone know Marcy had quite the auspicious Debut in the underworld as a henchman for the one and only Al Capone So I mean you're talking about a guy that's roots were you know planted Firmly at a time when Chicago outfit was on the rise Yeah, that's I'm you know, I'm interested. Do you say that because that's what I do you think that's true? My research has told me that to be the case. Yeah, I mean you I think you would know better than me I know that I'd heard that from Bob and other people But I could never tell you know, was that apocryphal was this or is this or was this real? No, I mean, you know and pat uh as we were mentioning He ran he was an alderman for the first ward Uh ran the first ward, which was downtown chicago meaning like yeah, you were you're talking about interfacing. I mean you are the you are the public face of Of Cook county, I guess to a degree. I mean you're you're the elected representative and then john uh, john darko uh, john darko was the uh democratic committeeman And uh, fred rody was uh, was another alderman. I'm not sure the what what pat marcy's official title was it's interesting because usually at least in the united states the point is to to find someone in politics who you can Corrupt or bribe and then they they go along but to actually have a made member Be a public official that that's pretty extraordinary. I mean, I mean sometimes that happens in like palermo Like with the Sicilian mafia, but but that's pretty extraordinary in the united states I think chicago is probably one of the only case studies where I where I can think of I mean maybe new york at some point But really chicago is the only example. I can think of where made guys are also public officials There's like this integration. It's pretty interesting. I mean in detroit. We had I know i'm digressing here In detroit, we had william buffalino senior who was depicted in the movie the irish men Ray romano played him and that he was a union boss and a very very very esteemed Criminal defense attorney, but he was also a made member of yeah, he never he never held he never held public office He never had public office, right? But he was he was a definitely a political figure for sure and you know it makes sense if you think about it because if you think about how how the mob eventually Goes down or takes this huge blow. It's because bob culley who was not a made guy He was a he was a hired gun. They were subcontracting the workout to bob culley, right? He was this irish guy who was a cop from a family of honest cops You know etc etc and they're paying him to do their work and so Event and it's eventually bob that betrays them. It's not pat marcy that betrays them So it makes sense to me that if you could Have your guy on the inside be You know a member of the tribe so to speak, you know a made guy who you can really count on that it's a safer bet It's just you're right james. It's so bold to think That that could happen and in fact it was funny. I think this was I think this was diarco seniors Uh campaign slogan was I'm sure I read this in the paper His when this is johnny diarco's father who also had mob ties They jokingly said his campaign motto was vote for diarco and no one gets hurt This isn't like this isn't like a secret. This is not like, you know, no one knows what's going on This is more or less happening, you know in plain sight and so when that happens Yeah, I mean there's not even a pretense of of kind of you know Riding the system of its of its uh more You know unsavory elements. It sounds like it reminds me of I know jake has some experience with uh, I think graphic novels If i'm not mistaken, but it reminds me of uh gotham doesn't this whole setup sound like A gotham city like a comic book And that cooly is uh two-face, you know, um, I can't think of what the character's uh, what two-face this character that harvey Dent harvey dent That's what it reminds me of Yeah, it's it's it's got you know, we know these stories. I grew up in buffalo So I'm I meant that had they had their own mob stories But I remember growing up and hearing the stories about you know, was the Was the 1960 presidential election fixed and dead people voting and you're kind of listening to what you're thinking like That sounds far-fetched and then as you start digging into this You come away thinking no, this is totally plausible. This is a system that is fundamentally corrupted Um and and bob kept the interviews of me. He said you're so naive. You're so naive because I would I'd be like really but I think I I I think it was A little hard to wrap your head around just how Just how dirty and corrupt it was And I think it it also demonstrates If if you look at uh, what bob cooly did for the government that yeah, it was in the loop It was downtown clearly but The corruption also spread out into the neighborhoods. I mean, I I know Where a lot of my research dovetailed with bob cooly was with marco demico Uh, the consigliary of or the reputed consigliary of the chicago mafia for a long time recently I believe he died from covet Um, and was uh, no-nose defranzo's top advisor They were all they were out in elwood park now. Yeah, it's still cook county But it's not people that know chicago You know downtown chicago is in an area called the loop which is you know The hustle and bustle of the loop you you start getting out into the neighborhoods. It's a different feel and although I don't believe demico went down in in gray lord or gambat he was Collateral damage, I guess because he was going to cooly to fix things when cooly was working for Uh, the the government and and was wired up, uh, and and ended up sending demico to prison for about a decade Yeah You know, uh, so it just it shows you that it was more than just pat marcy and and john d'arco Uh, d'arco in the loop. I mean you had other people utilize clearly. I mean, you know the outfit had, uh Um Get out of jail free card, I guess Right through people like cooly and marcy and you know anybody that had access to to the uh, you know to the administration of the Outfit or had friends that could help people within that outfit orbit They were gonna, you know go to the well as much as they could yeah, I mean I almost started to think of it from like a A kind of corporate standpoint, you know like corporations offer their employees benefits, you know, they offer them health They offer them dental child care, etc Like what the outfit is offering is But the most fundamental protection you could have which is to say if you join our Organization and you you know, you you you do what we tell you to do And you you you collect the street tax you pay you're part of this system Our system and in our system if you get in trouble, we got a guy We got a few guys who are down there in city hall and they will make sure That you don't get in trouble and you are safe you are bulletproof with us And so on one level it obviously helps the organization function so that they can do all these illegal things Whether it's you know gambling or prostitution or extortion But it's also a huge incentive for like for recruitment and for morale among You know the corporations members if you will if they know oh if I stick with these guys I'm set because they've got pat marcy and they've got john diarco and they've got bob cooly And so I think that that's one of the important things that that happens as a result of this is when bob is successful and The mob loses its ability to have this chokehold this corruption They also could no longer offer their members that same level of guarantee and protection that if you you stick with us They're going to be safe And so I actually think that Helps explain how one of the reasons that You know the the outfit comes out of this weakened After after gambat you can probably make and I shouldn't say probably you can make a direct link as I think about it from gambat and gray lord To family secrets, which was the what I wrote my book about which was the the case that came down in 2005 and really decimated the The top half of or top half of the administration at least in the chicago mafia and You know they had the the first ever Chicago mob cooperator and nicky slim calabrese who came from the 26th street china town crew and it makes you You know piggybacking off of what jake just said it makes you think that if that had been Before gray lord and gambat and guy and even if it wasn't mars marcy and diarco It was guys that had replaced them and marcy and diarco hadn't gone down in the whole you know The whole thing had enough Falling apart maybe nicky calabrese never becomes the The the star witness you think of dominos and maybe and maybe the operation family secrets never happens Yeah, I know it's cliche, but you think of the dominos falling. I mean that's what i'm like visualizing And and I think I want to hear your comment on another thing and part of this is just amplifying What we've already said but given a little more color to it You look at historically the top bosses in the chicago outfit even till modern times and this is now 25 years plus removed from gray lord and gambat and uh your 17 years removed from when one family secrets uh first dropped All the top guys With some exceptions most of the top guys They die free men With very few criminal convictions I think of guys like tonia cardo Yeah, and and the most recent boss to pass away. John. No nose to fronzo um Yeah, there's the joey lambardos and the jimmy marcellos which are exceptions guys that died in prison But you know These are guys a cardo lasted 40 40 plus years on the throne uh defranzo lasted 20 30 years on the throne and and these guys were like Tiptoeing through the landmines Yeah, and and the reason why is what you what you find out in season what you discover that jake You know so brilliantly delivers to you in season two of deep cover with mobland and it tells you why in the chicago outfit people were were protected. I mean and more than just You know normally saying in the mob you're protected. You're with us That that can really only go so far in most mobs that that kind of once you leave the street That protection's gone But in in the outfit that it's there. They're there in some ways. They're a unicorn because they were able to keep it Going in that direction for someone Yeah, that's that's right. I mean I I think that it gets me thinking too about one of the central storylines that we follow in this and this is It is why bob did it so when he comes in right? He's this he's this hired gun Who's who's their lawyer who you know, they say fix this case and he knows to the judge and he does it And he does this well for a long time until one day when he walks into this prosecutor's office and kind of out of the blue and the fbi Basically vets him the way that the cia would do if a soviet defector walked in off the street And he like who is this guy do we trust him and in fact I talked to these guys and they had no idea why he had done this They said Was he a double agent? Was he a mole was he had he was he dying of cancer had he lost his mind? um And in the end they actually can't come up with a good reason for why but when they put the wire on him he does start Bringing in audio of all the guys. He says he can get And so they have to I talked to this one agent Steve bowman and this is like 30 years later. I said steve. Why did he do it? And he says, you know, I I still can't tell you why And so there's all these conspiracy theories about Did he who did he owed money to it and what it was doing? Uh, why did he do it and did he have ulterior motives? Um, I will tell you why I think he did it I think he did it and I don't really actually I kind of alluded to this in the podcast, but I mean I think he did it because He works his way up as high as he can get as an outsider as this irish cop that he was But he's stuck That in the end taking orders from marsy and marsy says basically in no uncertain terms You'll do what you're fucking told And and and bob Strays from that a few times And they threaten him and he has to leave town and he They in the end that's the bargain that bob isn't made. That's the bargain these guys make is it's like the military It's a chain of command and bob Feel stuck in that and he also gets angry that marsy Owns him the way he does And I think that for bob He's a gambler and he's impulsive And my personal take is that when he walks in in that office that day as much as anything It's a i'm gonna hit the nuclear button I'm gonna take us all down. Fuck you. You can't tell me what to do And he never came out quite and said that but he said it in different ways That that's I think actually Why he did it and I think that he also you know, he'll go on and it's true He said he wanted to clean up the city and I think there was truth to that too But I think that there was ego there and I think that in the end it was a power move The only problem for bob, of course, was that it blew up his entire life And he's been hiding more or less ever since Does he does he think that would but he still thinks it's worth it His decision. Does he ever have did he ever have regrets? Okay, so I can't give a total spoiler to this. Okay. Yeah It's that's that's the million dollar question that I had in my mind, which is that like You know, because he's I visited him in this little he was rents a room in this little house out in the southwest where he's like eking out a really modest existence and I talked to him for like nine months on skype kind of like we're doing And then and he there was a you know with all these guys, I'm sure you saw to scott There's a lot of bluster mythology. I'm like, oh I'm the baddest Scrape through it. Yeah, totally. I'm gonna up scraping and scraping and scraping till you get to the truth. Totally. And look, we are Fair enough. We all have our shtick. I have my shtick. You have your shtick with these guys No shtick is like it's it's thicker requires more And you know And when I went out and visited him, he said, you know, there was kind of no hiding how he lived He lived this really modest existence with his like, you know, stockpiled pringles and v8 And the floor of his room and he said you you see how I live and And basically he says Yeah If I could go back I would have been crazy to do what I did and I won't give you all the details of this conversation But basically after nine months of kind of all this is in this grade and He's just like left with this this in this room and in this place of of of pretty profound regret Yeah I actually never thought we would get there because it's it's at odds with this other story that we he started off telling It what did his family make of his you're saying his family, you know, they're a family of cops Uh by all indications on you on the straight and narrow Uh, what was their assessment of their relative brother son when he's you know, the most well known flashy mob lawyer in chicago Oh, so that's that's that's a that's a question that I was really interested in and what I did is over the course of the Whatever 10 months that I was reporting it. I interviewed maybe five of his siblings And and they all had different perspective and I'll show you two that I thought were most interesting He had another brother who was a cop who was a clean lawyer I mean he would have been a prosecutor and a well-respected prosecutor and then he became a clean criminal defense lawyer And the crazy part is these two guys bob and his brother the clean I'm blanking his name denis now denis who was the clean criminal defense are they worked in the same office? They shared a desk um, and I just thought like isn't this kind of the perfect uh, kind of Metaphor whatever for the problems of the system. There's these two brothers Sharing a desk one is clean one is dirty. They can't disentangle each other And what denis said to me was that in general He presented the guys that were bribing because the guys like him had to work three times as hard to get the same results And so that was frustrating to him. I said, did you ever try to talk bob? He said no, I wouldn't have made a difference I wouldn't have been able to talk bob out of what he was doing and I didn't want to know half the things he was doing um, the other side of that is when bob flipped and it became public that what bob had done bob left town and denis his brother who we shared the desk with Was deeply worried that the outfit was going to exact revenge on him because and the fbi said Oh, the the the mob doesn't usually do that and they don't go after relatives and and that is historically true But if you're going over your wife and kids like, you know So that was the that was one seven the other sibling that I interviewed in the podcast I thought was just so interesting was a guy who Was a yoga instructor in vermont. He worked at a a gay run yoga retreat center I mean, he could not have been more different than than bob and and he had a really Interesting thoughtful and pretty profound take I thought on who bob was and how bob ended up the way he was he said to me um He said at the very end of the podcast and he said the thing you have to understand about bob is He's capable of doing good things And he's capable of doing very bad things But the difference between the two doesn't matter to bob All that matters it is that he's someone that does big things That he's a man that matters And I was like wow that basically depicting an amoral character and so Trying to do my due diligence as a journalist I had the uncomfortable or I thought was going to the uncomfortable moment of reading this quote back to bob Like that his brother said which you know you've got to do And so I this is when I was in person and I kind of I was nervous about this Like, you know, who wants to be relaying this news from one guy's brother to the next and I said Bob, what do you make of that expecting bob to get hot under the collar? and bob said well In a sense, he's right I can see how he says this And that was one of those moments where sometimes like the shtick with bob and he would just kind of Just be honest about things so It's a long-winded answer But the bottom line is by talking to the siblings bob comes into focus in a way that is so much more Three-dimensional than when I would have just talked to him for however many hours I did Doesn't that description though that his brother gave Kind of answer our question about what the motivation was I mean, he wanted to do big things. Yeah, I mean, I thought the same thing. Yeah, that's he did big things on on both sides of the Of the line. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm not a psychiatrist, but I'm a criminologist not a psychiatrist, but I was thinking of Exactly what you're talking about and and what jake described is like He's already the big mob lawyer and it's like people who are wired that way. It's like, okay. What's next? What's next? I've I'm here. I'm doing it. I've already mastered this thing What's the next big thing and now and now you're going to take them down your 25 years 30 years removed What do people think when they think bob cooly? They think I mean even in and jake and the deep cover people at pushkin are are taking the the notoriety aspect of it and you know Putting it on steroids so everybody knows but even before even before jake and deep cover came around What was bob cooly known for he was known for this Yeah, what was known for it really wasn't the fact that he was a mob fixer attorney It was a mob fixer attorney who decided to cooperate to cooperate and and there was all these ginormous ripple and and let me just be clear about this. I feel like I I do have to say this um You know in in researching what bob did not taking bob's word for it But particularly talking into his two fbi handlers a steve bow and a marie dyson What he did took Not just enormous courage. I mean like kind of un unimaginable courage to go in because it Not just day in out week out month out for years doing this Um, it also took resourcefulness. He had to think quickly on his feet I mean he People have this idea of oh, yeah, he he became an informant now. This was a guy who was gifted as an undercover agent And who showed enormous courage and that's aside from the moral issue We can debate the morality of what motivated into the cows come home But you got it you got to give him that and you got to give him that the effect of what he did did Make a huge effort to clean up the corruption that was going on in the city And so the way that only way that I could think about this was to kind of compartmentalize these parts of the story and There's the last bit is the kind of why he did it and do we see him as a moral and a moral whatever and you can debate about that um But those other things do stand for on them on themselves and I I just feel like to give bob is a do That has to be clear You know, I want to bring something else up related to this. Um The way the system works for for the outfit and maybe jake or scott can speak to this This this probably also gave the italians leverage in the underworld In the sense that if you're african-american organized crime outlaw bikers latino organized crime You know that the italians are the ones that have the political connections And so I imagine pretty big equal. That's what I mean I suspect that that gave the outfit leverage to in the underworld over other Ethnic organized crime groups are just you know street gangs outlaw bikers. Uh, can either one of you speak speak to that? Scott you'd go first. Well, I'll say that I think the timing and the time frame of of uh, gray lord and gambad and what and what bob was doing um coincided with Uh, a time when the outfits power was waning right and I think it made that feather in their cap or that gun in their arsenal Uh having those people in city hall having those people in the first ward Being able to a puppeteer the way that they did Wasn't equalizing or it was a leverage point for groups that back in the 30s 40s and 50s and 60s Didn't have anywhere near the power of the outfit But as the 70s and 80s and 90s are coming the the pendulum is shifting a little bit and I'm digressing slightly, but I will say that what bob coulee did He cut that or what his cooperation led to Was cutting the head of the snake off and the head of the snake was pat marsy and and he's never been replaced and marsy ended up I mean The bus For all intents and purposes killed pat marsy pat marsy died Under indictment. I don't know if trial it started or it was about to to to start he died He had a heart attack during the trial right so um That that in so many ways Was the end of an era and it was kind of like a before and an after and and there's really i'm not to say that the chicago outfit doesn't have uh leverage points in local politics or In judicial systems. I'm not saying that it's a hundred percent gone. No, I think was was especially with local pd. Yeah local police department What's going on now in in cook county? Compared to what was going on pre Gray lord gambat and marsy's death It's not they're on they're in they're in different galaxies Yeah, so there there has been a major major change Uh from from bob coley's cooperation and I know I started answering one question Finished answering another one, but yeah, I know a natural segue to me. No, it's interesting I mean there there are obviously other factors that are weakening organized crime or I mean like There's off-track betting. There's you know, there's there's things that are like that are eating into what I mean because the My understanding is that gambling is where the outfit was making the majority of its money It's the wheel that it all spins around. It's it's it's it's a it's economy I mean really it's the gangland economy. Uh the the straw that serves that drink is illegal gambling Yes, that's that's that's my sense from talking to the prosecutors and and that's starting like You know, I think around the the time of the 80s and this is when off-track betting is starting to become More more profitable. Um, you know, they do have their hand in some of the casinos obviously, but um, I think that their profit potential was dropping anyway, probably and and so It's not just that that that that you know, these operations took them down. Um I think that the other thing to think then there's a separate question of you know Does the demise of the mob create other organized crime opportunities? I think that's kind of what what james is asking about And it makes me think of these like old antitrust cases where when they break the monopoly of these, you know corporate bohemists that it does It does open up the opportunity for competitors to come in They're not like we're never going to eliminate the the the demand that exists for the services that criminals offer, I mean, what you know That's why they what do they call prostitution the oldest profession. Um, and so I think that There's always going to be a market for it and no that that's the kind of problem That's the kind of whack-a-mole problem that the law enforcement always faces as you you bust one and then Another one is going to pop up and so yeah, the the outfit gets weakened But then, you know, it creates opportunities for, you know, mom and pop criminal a and b to to give a shot at it Yeah, uh, let me um Ask you a question related to future endeavors involving the deep cover brand Or as much as you could share with us I'm guessing because of the popularity of these podcasts There's been quite a clamoring for television and film rights Is there anything you can tell us about, you know, if we'll if we'll be if we will be seen a scripted version Uh of of the stories that you tell at any point on, uh, you know, there's a thing I can tell you that for season one, which is the story of the Detroit base FBI agent who infiltrates this drug smuggling ring And he's undercover for like five years and he works his way all the way up to the top where he's basically It's like noriega and control that story Uh, they are developing into a tv show now I can tell you also that, you know, you these things often die out, you know, typically die on the vine Who are you talking to here, jake? Yeah. Yeah, right. You know, I'm doing this for seven eight years. I've seen that Are you probably doing it longer? But I've seen no, no, no, you saw you know about it I know, you know, what do they say? I have a buddy out in hollywood assistant What is some like 10 miracles have to happen? Uh, we can get made so I think we're like two miracles in there But yes, I mean it could happen. Um But I'm not like I'm not holding my breath. Um, just because, you know, but I think it's interesting with with all the, uh, explosion of of the television streaming It that it what I will say that I it does seem to be slightly different now is that They're looking for content. It seems to me that that is world-based that can sustain an ongoing narrative um, and so you know If you just have a story that has like a very finite beginning middle and end versus a story that has a whole cast of characters Where you can follow them all and it's an interesting world. It's the latter that's gonna um, so anyway, I don't know, uh, that that's where that's at Are we doing a uh, are we in preparation for a third season? Yeah, I'm actually I have an idea that I'm presenting to the people at pushkin tomorrow. Um, you know, I want to be thoughtful about I don't want to jump the shark we've all we've all we've all been fans of Of tv shows or you know where you know What is melbrook saying in spaceballs god willing? We're all meeting spaceballs part two the quest for more money Nice baseballs reference great. Yeah love spaceballs So I don't I don't want to do that, you know, I don't want to like just you know kind So the idea that I actually have for three I I can't fully get into it, but it's a departure It's not a undercover agent. It's not organized crime. It is someone living a double life. It's a woman actually Um, so it's but it's a fine balance. It's not such a departure that if you like the first two, you'll be like, what the hell is this? Um, plus, you know how it is You don't want to feel like you're just working at the widget factory where you're just you know You want to you want to kind of get excited. So we I've been With podcast with this kind of podcast. I mean There's this you know, I'm sure you guys have seen it. It's I got to feed the beast It's like feeding the parking meter and it's like keep the episodes coming because you get advertisers and stuff But when it's reported uh It takes time to report it and also You want it to be good, you know, um, and so I I'm resisting the temptation to just kind of like do the next one that that that the obvious choice because I want to be a story that i'm proud of and that feels like, you know The listener's not just thinking jesus guy's cashing it in and giving a shock, you know, I don't want to do that You know, we have uh conversations all the time scott and I about You know people that come out of the woodwork that want to come on our show And scott and I will have discussions like is was this person a big enough deal? Will our audience actually find this interesting and i'm not trying to insult anyone But but sometimes we we take a pass and uh, you know, we we we want because that quality we try to keep it as consistent As we can we don't want to be, you know, just slamming no someone over the head with something Yeah, like we if we wanted to We could do every we could do every episode on jimmy hoffa. I mean if we want to get right Yeah, uh, because we're we're such, uh, yeah, we're in the middle of the the whole hoffa Investigation here in detroit and i've written a lot about or we could do, you know We could do white boy rick, uh for for 20 episodes, but we try to um Mix in i mean obviously we both have our expertise Yeah, but we try to mix in as much variety as we can and i i always I go ahead. Sorry jake. We could say no, no, sorry. You finish I was going to say that I always have to check myself Because i'm such a nerd And if I get really excited about something a lot of times i'll go to i'll go to jimmy or i'll go to my girlfriend And i'll be like we should do an episode on this and they'll be like only you are interested That's great. You're the only person That's a beautiful thing about working with uh a friend who tells you the truth So I just I sometimes I have to ask myself like is this something that i'm I want to learn about or is it something that my whole audience would like to learn about Yeah, the thing that's cool about what you guys do is your stories are interconnected You know, it's like there's all these these kind of like it's almost like you know I love these novels these alan first spy novels where these Where the a small character in one novel appears in the other novel and then you kind of get the sense that the stories are all Delicately interconnected and I feel like that's the cool thing about The kind of stories that you guys cover is that there are all these connections So you can kind of come back to it and crisscross over it um Also to be honest with you and the people have pushed and probably wouldn't you know I feel like you're the business model of your about kind of podcast is just better because The hard part for me what I face is Is I have to go into this production period where I even if i'm racing it's going to take me You know six to 12 months to to to produce 12 episodes and in the in the in that lag period The feed goes dead and you hope that you know the listeners like it enough that they'll You know get back into it when it comes on but it's not ideal um I feel like there's almost there should almost be a model where You haven't you all you have a feed where you almost switch off like you tag team in and out But anyway, all i'm saying is for the listeners of your show. They know they know there's a steady I'm gonna get a show on You know regularly and I think it's a I think it's a big advantage It's so cool though that we're in a time now where long-form storytelling Uh is being embraced more than ever. There's more bandwidth and you know for people that love podcasts and I'm I'm I'm now making the opposite argument Uh, but you know people that love podcasts can just dive into something like you know deep cover Uh and just immerse yourself Uh in it's so it feels so multi-dimensional and visceral when it when a podcast is done right A long-form storytelling podcast is done right and you're all your senses are being stimulated and you're you're you're seeing it even though it's not Being shown to you on a screen you're seeing it Yeah, and the only way like a story like that in in the past would be told would be someone would have to get a book deal Right and you might not get a book deal and now we have this new this new medium You know where you could tell these great stories and you don't necessarily have to go through the gauntlet Yeah of getting a book deal and you can do them on you know, you can do them over 10 episodes or 20 episodes I got a little peek behind the scenes of the long-form Storytelling podcast when I was a consultant on crime town Um With the gimlet media people. Yeah, um, they did their first season on Providence, Rhode Island Their second season was on Detroit and I helped them with their Detroit stuff And man, I I gained such a newfound appreciation for what people like yourself and uh, my boy Zach Uh pointer stewart over that I worked with with uh on that It's just an in mark spurling. Oh just the the the craft. It's just to be to be able to do what you guys do It's there's a real craft to it and it's more than just splicing together interviews Yeah, I I mean, I think that I didn't even fully appreciate it but You know when I think about what it takes to produce what they do at pushkin to do it well I mean Here are those names right at the end of the episode You're like could all those people possibly be involved and most of them really are because they have original scoring They have an amazing musician that scores for television And it's actually listening to the podcast and scoring Kind of reacting to the to the content. There's someone finding archival sound. There's um fact check It's rigorously fact checked It's more rigorously fact checked than a lot of the other journalistic places I've written for And also they they pay me they paid me on the first season when I wrote about ned I flew to hawaii to meet this guy who was steve calish this huge smuggler. I was down in the came ins with ned I was I was in the back swamps of north carolina with You know seeing where the where they they came in in their area in this day and age It it's really rare that anyone will will put those kind of resources behind A nonfiction story and so I'm I'm I'm really grateful to pushkin that that they've done it. Um Honestly to be when you talk about that movie deal the first season My hope is that they make the the television series just so pushkin gets enough money They can say we we broke even on halperin's project Let's let's let him keep taking his travels because it's really hard to find anyone that will pony up to give you those kind of resources No, I know But if we if we have a little bit of time left, uh, can we can we ask you about the first season? We just tease it a little bit further. You know, we're we're basing detroit Even our audience is global. We got you know listeners on all five continents But just kind of tell us with the um or tell the audience How that story started in detroit, okay So I'm gonna I'm gonna start with how I how I'm gonna answer that question about I don't need I'm gonna start a step before that about how it came onto my radar So a guy that I know out in hollywood sent me a manuscript For a book. It didn't even have a a title page. It didn't have the author I didn't know if it was a novel or it was nonfiction It it just started something like, you know, detroit, you know, 1983 biker bar and it starts telling the story So I I start reading it, you know Just thinking all right what the hell was slow day at the office kind of thing And and what emerges in this novel is this tale of an fbi agent who's working fugitives in detroit And gets a lead on a guy named toby anderson who's a country music singer who's also a felon So he goes to this bar Where toby anderson is performing that night and he's up on stage And after he comes down from a set on stage he follows into the bathroom And grabs him and arrests him and brings him out of the bar And there's almost a huge battle gun battle of the bar and when they get anderson in prison They flip him and anderson basically starts telling him in so many words that there's this massive marijuana smuggling ring This is back in 83 that is like the amazon or the ups of marijuana smuggling bringing in Plain loads of hundreds of thousands of pounds of marijuana And it has big connections down to the camons and beyond it sounds like too crazy to be true But ned this guy who's just working fugitives who flips this guy convinces his bosses To let him go undercover and try to infiltrate this drug smuggling ring And he does this for the next five years working basically his way up So this is the story that's so I call back the guy that sent me this manuscript and I said Is this true like what the hell is this is this a novel is this nonfiction? He said no as far as I know, it's true I'll put you in touch with the guy who wrote it at the center of it Who's ned who's a retired FBI agent living in detroit So I hop on a plane. I fly out to detroit. He's now working as a as a private detective And he starts telling me the story and insisting that almost all of it is true Just a few names changed here and there and this became this year-long odyssey In which it turns out that in fact it was a drug smuggling ring And the person who effectively sat at the top was Manuel Noriega who was The president or the general that was running Panama and when this whole undercover operation gets blown open it leads to indictments Uh and uh an around about way to the invasion of Panama So the tagline was guy walks into a bar to make a routine arrest and it sets off a sequence of events that leads to international war So when I was like, this is crazy. And so I spent any way that the better part of a year Do interviewing and finding all the people involved in telling the story and that's season one of the podcast Yeah, so for for our audience that's from detroit and that's interested in all the detroit stuff we do Ned timmons Was a Detroit FBI agent for 25 years and he was considered the you know Numero uno in terms of guys that you wanted to send undercover to get the job done I've heard stories from a lot of different people in the office that you know net and this wasn't said in a negative way They're like, you know, neg ned march to the beat of his own drummer You know, he was kind of allowed to kind of do his own thing Because the work that he was doing was so different than the work. The rest of us were doing, you know, traditional Work in oc or or or work in Drug gangs or cartels or whatever, but ned was You know was was was really like there was kind of a mythology around ned and Then I would hear it On the other side of the some guys didn't like him, right? Well, you know some guys, you know I think there's always this Rub, yeah, you know people that are undercover undercover. Yeah, they look at them. Oh, they're glory hounds. They're glory hounds. They're cowboys They don't have to Uh, you know play by our rules. Yeah The guy that I was quoting sainty march the beat of his own drummer was saying it in a in a in a very Complementary. Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, I had heard some people that were just like not talking about ned per se But just talking about undercovers I kind of it's like I think in the military. They say the same thing about snipers or like they're certain they're pre medanas or whatever but ned was just known as you know Probably the best undercover agent that was working in that office at that time And uh worked a lot of different types of cases So I know he was working oc, but then he was also working bikers. He obviously did this whole thing that led to The noriega thing for younger people that might not know it You know, there's a famous line in a rick ross song. He says I knew noriega the real noriega. He owed me a thousand favors Yeah, not the rapper noriega, but no Rick ross the damper Ships out noriega. Yeah the dictator noriega was by the way was um To get in the weeds here. Was michael palmer involved in this case marijuana trafficker Yeah, he was in fact the full michael palmer store is one that I would love to tell. Yeah um He was he did know ned uh, and He was he was involved and there was that that the movie that was that the tom cruise movie that they that was kind of American American hustle. Yeah No, uh, uh, whatever American about about the cia very seal right american I gotta There was a moment where they started to look into him and not net one of the other guys the fbi agents. I talked to said uh, they got called into the boss's office and Uh, we're and there were two other guys there that didn't know where they were and they were told in no uncertain terms um You're gonna let this one go Yeah, I ask we one of our contacts was the head of the dea in detroit and I asked him one time having lunch About michael palmer and he was like he goes, you know michael palmer So he and I was like, well, I know I know of him I never met him personally, but I I mean the reason why i'm interested is I think you could connect him to the cia contra Thing and I and I think he was sending guns down south bringing marijuana back up and and he was possibly or likely a national security asset There's there's there's a whole story to that and I and I I Haven't I don't think that guy's ever gonna talk, but I like I hold out hope that maybe he'll change his mind He's getting older yeah And I don't know whether he's still working in some Copa I don't know, but yes, he's There's no question. I think at this point that he had some role in all this Yeah, I'm eager to get ned uh In studio to just go, you know, he worked uh the 1991 uh big Rico case against the jackalones and alan health that came down in No, not sorry came down in no came down in 91 Isiah thomas was called in front of the federal grand jury to account for his interactions with the jackalones and alan health Uh in 1990 as the pistons were winning their second Championship and ned was in the middle of that whole investigation And I'm really eager to to get him to to talk about that and then obviously we'd want him to talk about season one But this was uh, really, uh, I could not have scripted this any better. Uh, jake, thank you so much Why don't you tell all of our audience where they could find you uh personally and then all the all the deep coverage Yeah, absolutely. So, um, the I'll start with the podcast. It's called deep cover There's two seasons season one is the drug wars. That was the story We're just telling you about and then season two is mob land, which was the bob coulee story And you can get that on apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast Yeah, it's called deep cover and yeah, I have I mean, I've got a website jake howlpern.com But I would say, you know, you're just check out the podcast I think that the listeners your listeners would enjoy it and Um, we'll definitely I think you guys have been talking about doing a cross promotion I hope we can send some traffic your way Because you guys haven't I always find the podcast that I enjoy the most listening to are ones where It's an actual conversation It's not just, you know, a bunch of scripted questions and um, yeah, this was a lot of fun Yeah, thanks jake and uh, we wish you luck and hopefully we'll have you back on again And I just want to remind our audience to please subscribe to us follow us on social media instagram facebook We're on twitter, uh, we have a presence on youtube. Hopefully that's going to uh be expanding and hopefully this episode At some point we're recording it. We'll be on a video You'll be able to listen to the audio very soon, but hopefully the video will be up soon And uh, please check out deep cover podcast I'm jimmy butchilato and scott Bernstein. Thanks jake howlpern and mark behind the glass. We'll see you next week. We're out Yeah, thanks