 Welcome into the original gangsters podcast. I'm your host Scott Ernstine along with my co-host partner in crime co-conspirator the doctor Jimmy butchers Hi, everyone. Thank you for watching and listening. Just want to remind everyone Please subscribe to us on YouTube our video channel and please subscribe to our audio channel. We're on Spotify Google I Apple podcast and Please spread the word and we appreciate your kind Comments a lot of really supportive words online. I would say probably 90% of the comments are very Supportive and generous the other 10% not so much Right but the majority are very supportive, so we appreciate that but yeah, please like share subscribe Against spread the word today. We're going to talk about some Newsy sports meets mafia Icons in the world of athletics meet icons in the world of organized crime some stuff that's been in the news lately regarding Phil Mickelson and A new book that's come out by a former partner of his a guy named Billy Walters who if You believe the hype is the the biggest the single biggest individual gambler in America and Billy Walters and Phil Mickelson were partners in a betting operation where they kind of shared resources and pooled money to put some real big big big time money bets on on various sports in the late 2000s early 2010s and then they had a big falling out Billy Walters ended up going to jail for insider trading Believe that Phil Mickelson could have Help them out and got him out of the the jam with the feds the feds were jamming Mickelson as well and from that a lot of Backstory on Mickelson's gambling addiction has filtered out into the public purview and Walters in this book the big headline grabbing Number that he threw out was that Mickelson in like a six or seven-year period Gambled a billion dollars. He alleged that Mickelson gambled on the Ryder Cup, which would be a pretty major violation You know Pete Rose asked and So that's all kind of what's coming out in the last week or two Mickelson has denied betting on the Ryder Cup that he was involved in and Admits that he had a really bad gambling addiction What we're gonna do here at the OG pod is we're going to Deep dive Phil Mickelson's run-in with the Detroit Mafia Back in the early 2000s and all that came out in court records during federal racketeering trial of alleged Detroit mafia boss Jackie Giacalone in 2007 it was early in my Crime reporting career and I was there for the verdict He was quit it but in the court testimony it came out that Bill Mickelson was owed a half a million dollars in gambling winnings From the Giacalone crew and that the Giacalone crew Told him to kick bricks and they stiffed him for the money then they went after a Guide that was kind of partnered up with Mickelson in the same way that Billy Walters was In the in the late 2000s a guy from Detroit Don D. Serrano Dandy Don and That's there's a lot to unpin Jimmy any initial thoughts before we jump in Yeah, there's a lot so When we talk about Phil I think some people are surprised that in this day and age professional athletes can get in trouble with sports gambling and we had You know Dan on before to talk about his book interference. That was an audio only episode people can find that we haven't had him on video yet We talked about a lot of NFL guys getting in trouble with sports betting but that was more like 60 70s 80s and then Michael Francis has been on our show talking about it with college athletes But today I think some people might be surprised to find out that professional athletes can get into trouble Gambling because I think a lot of it is well these guys make so much money. How can you possibly? Not have enough money to cover your bets and become compromised Do you want to speak to that just before we get into like that the actual organized crime element of it? you know, it's it's it's been a lot of athletes and You know, you can trace it directly to the goat Michael Jordan, right Michael Jordan Had to testify at a federal racketeering drug trial because he was running around with two of North Carolina's most infamous drug and gambling kingpins and It looked to a lot of people that he could have been compromised at the very least He had to account for what was going on and checks that he was writing them And just like with Mickelson, we're not talking small numbers. We're talking million dollar checks and You know to put it in context legal gambling in this country outside of Las Vegas in Atlantic City and you know reservations Indian reservations and Riverboats and whatnot other than that we've only been legal here for what a couple years Yeah, I think up until that point any big time Bets that were being put down Whether or not you were putting it down with a mob or you knew you were putting it down with a mob The guy behind the guy behind the guy was the mob Yeah, and I also think it's it's about how much money these guys have access to so it I know some some guys that I'm friends with from from the old school from the old days Who are some degenerate gamblers? they had if they had access to Tens of millions of dollars they'd be they'd be they'd be betting that you know what I mean like they wouldn't be So it's it's maybe difficult to imagine if you're just a regular working-class guy like how can you get that much trouble? but if you have the bug the gambling bug and you have access to resources it it's The possibilities are endless in terms of how much trouble you can get into is that you know I mean we hear about athletes all the time not with gambling just they make bad investments They give money to their entourage and for those of us who are working people It's like how can you you have access to tens of millions of dollars? How can you possibly go broke? It depends on the person right well and and and to you know pull back even further and this is just pure speculation, but Phil Mickelson Less than a year ago or maybe less than 18 months ago He bailed on the PGA. He took a hundred and fifty million dollars upfront to go you know be on the live tour and Especially after this news came out in the last couple weeks through a lot of people that think that was a that was purely To get his head above water move. Yeah, and he needed that 150 mil and he needed it quick because of gambling debts and whatnot or or maybe even not gambling debts, but financial wreckage in his life due to either current gambling debts or past gambling debts And when you're talking a billion dollars in six years seven years This is a guy that admittedly has been betting since he was ten eleven years old. I Can't imagine the number for for the last he's you know in his early fifties now I Can't imagine the number for a 40-year gambling career if there's a six-year window when he's back in the bill Yeah, so let's let's like try to follow the thread here. So then how can How does someone who's betting that kind of money? eventually Find their way to organize crime Figures because that's where kind of interest us because just some average athlete who's a degenerate gambler, you know but what why it interest us is because Eventually some of these guys who get in trouble find their way, you know into You know, butting heads with organized crime figures, you know, if we're gonna talk about the Detroit group This is a part of a long line of Nexus points between the Detroit Mafia's jackaloni crew and various professional athletes In the state of Michigan and we're talking about The back to the 1950s Back when when Tony jackaloni and Billy jackaloni Jackie Jackie's uncle and father respectively We're first emerging in the local underworld as you know the faces of the Detroit Mafia and Bobby Lane the Detroit Lions Greatest quarterback of all time all the respect of Matt Stafford He was caught Running around with with the Kratos and the jackalones and the NFL told Detroit They had to they had to trade him and they did and Bobby Lane when he was leaving Detroit, you know cursed the franchise We haven't that was back in the late 50s So, you know, then it went to the 60s Alex Karris Who people our age probably knowing more as George Papadopoulos on the sitcom Webster? and You know, he was suspended from the NFL for a year in the early 60s for running around the jackalones and and Owning parts of Restaurants and bars the jackalones had active sports books operating out of Denny McClain Last 30 game winner and in MLB missed a pretty significant stretch of the 1967 pennant race because of an alleged altercation with Billy jackaloni Jackie's dad where McClain wasn't paying his debts But because he was you know, this all-star pitcher. He didn't have to pay what he was owed and ran into Billy jackaloni on a on a yacht, I think and yeah, and Billy jackaloni broke his toe Yeah, I said I and Denny McClain was kind of a Huskier guy Yeah, they said I don't know that Danny McClain was from Chicago. He said I don't know how they do things in Chicago But in Detroit we pay our debts fat boy. That's what he said Yeah, yeah, because because Vito or Billy he was he was bigger dude, but he was athletic, right? And and Denny was was he was athletic because he was an MLB, but he was he was a little bit chubbier For he was a bigger dude. So yeah, apparently said fat boy on all the two things in Chicago Yeah, I was just gonna say add one more thing about the Bobby Lane because this is another great story They were they were paling around to the extent that they had a party bus remember the party bus that I think Vito used to drive it It was Thomas who was his driver. Yeah, they would have these what do we talk about them? An audio not on video but that and some of our audio episodes. They'd have these like For what for the time period these luxury buses that were outfitted with stripper poles And blackjack tables and poker tables. Yeah, and they would go they would they would follow the lions And sometimes the tigers I think on road trips around the Midwest And then a lot of the athletes instead of going back to Detroit with their team They'd jump on the jackal only party bus You know Bobby Lane was what that was that was that he was the biggest the the guy that was always with them And so that one of the reasons why there were NFL wanted him out of here lots of allegations of point shaving with Bobby Lane A lot of his own teammates talked about how he was very aware of point spreads Not that he ever through games but manipulating point spreads And then that brings us to Jackie jackaloni who's the kind of the mafia prince who became the mafia king if you believe the FBI and His personal run-ins with professional athletes at least what we know from court records are from the 80s where He was running all of the gambling for his dad and uncle uh Had just kind of gotten his button had become made was either a captain or about to become a captain And the Detroit mafia would run Backdoor casino nights this kind of floating high stakes craps games would be at different establishments or residences and as a way to draw These high rollers a lot of times they would if they could they would host these casino nights in At mansions of professional athletes. So the two that that made it into into a federal Accumentation was Tommy the hitman hernes the professional boxing champion and then isiah thomas at the hall of fame detroit pistons point guard who Never got charged with anything But had to go in front of federal grand juries had His his bank records subpoenaed There were a lot of informants telling the detroit FBI that isiah was manipulating point spreads for jackie jack alone and alan health jackie jack lonis best friend right hand the general biggest bookie in in the state of michigan for 40 years um, and that brings us that was In the late 80s early 90s Yeah, let me just let me just jump in one more. I'm sorry to I know that's a better segue, but we also forgot to mention um Sam finazzo and jimmy quasaranos connections to professional boxing. Yeah back in the day So so tommy hers was doing the same kind of thing but isiah was doing hosting these uh hosting these gambling nights How we know about tommy's is because tommy's brother Killed his girlfriend or something at one of these events And there was a bunch of litigation and he had to kind of admit to what was going on and there was an automatic weapon there And they're like, why was there an automatic weapon there? And he's like, well, we had to have security Well, what did you have to have security for? um so Yeah, the detroit mafia controlled all of professional boxing in detroit uh from you know prohibition through the 80s and you know starting probably from the 30s 40s into the 80s and 90s It was controlled by uh little sammy finazzo and jimmy the goon quasarano uh motor city boxing gym with sammy finazzo's headquarters and You know every major boxer in detroit history Hers was controlled by the mafia. I don't want to say that but a lot of the the the guys that were coming up including joe louis And those people in that era Had people behind them that were connected to the detroit organized crime group By the time we have tommy herns. He was surrounded by a lot of the black gangsters But not necessarily the italians though. He was interacting with the italians in these gambling settings Yeah, we've had people can check out our video episode with daryl chambers. Uh the legendary rest in peace Um pro boxer and uh dynamite chambers right uh drug kingpin of detroit He was a pro boxer and we asked him about the italians and you can watch in the video He talked about how the the italians would be at the um, they always had front row seats and um, you know, he said it was kind of a it was a big deal There'd be a buzz when like the finazzo and the the italian guys would would uh come into the scene but tommy herns You see isaiya We're getting a little off subject, but i'll just spend a minute on this. No, it's okay. It's good isaiya He wasn't really Running around town socializing with mob guys um he was Letting them into his house to hold these events and gambling with them, I believe but uh I don't think isaiya was like going to you know dinner with them or going out the clubs with them tommy herns on the other hand was Surrounded by on a day-to-day basis some of Detroit's biggest african-american crime alerts uh, so there was a kind of a difference there although isaiya seemed to get in a lot more trouble with the feds than herns ever did even though they they tried to To nail herns and never could they never nailed isaiya either, but isaiya had to go in front of a federal grand jury and uh explain why he was caching hundreds of thousands of dollars a month through a grocery store Avoiding a bank and using a grocery store that was owned by his neighbor and close friend and mcdenna who was A convicted mob associate Yeah, is he's he's still alive isn't he's still around and still owns a lot of grocery stores. Yeah, that's what I thought and uh he um He ended up uh Getting indicted isaiya never did um, but the story broke when the pistons were repeating in 1990 when they they won back-to-back mba championships and some of the glow of that championship was If you were paying attention, I mean, I wasn't as a 12 or 13 year old But if you look at the news headlines from that era Uh, a lot of talk was that this the channel 2 in detroit, which was um CBS at that at that point Broke all of this Isaiya being called in front of federal grand juries being allegedly tied to jackie jack aloney and alan hill Right as the pistons were winning a championship It it was coordinated. Look coordinated. It was coordinated isaiya ended up getting into a fist fight with one of the reporters When he was coming off the plane With the trophy in hand from from portland Yeah, I I mean I remember those teams and I was a big fan of those bad boys teams But I as a kid. Yeah, I don't I don't ever remember like that in the news at all, but um But I say adamantly denies that he was involved in anything related to point spread manipulation Yeah, he actually he has he gets takes it really is you know takes it personally It's pretty irritated Bring that up, but also I mean from social media We've had the FBI agents on our show and we've also talked to them off the record, but um, we've been on record on the show That uh, mark aguayre went to them and was worried that uh, he actually tipped off the f because mark aguayre and isaiya were close And aguayre, yeah, he tipped off. I mean aguayre. That's why the aguayre they traded for him Isaiya pushed for that. I mean we need it. It was the right it was the right trade But but isaiya helped facilitate that that trade they were so close Met with fiet mark aguayre While he was driving from his home to the palace of arburn hills to play in a eastern conference final game in Is either 89 or 90. I think it was 89 um stopped to meet the fbi And and tell them how worried he was about isaiya and the people that isaiya was In debt to or could have been in debt to or might have been in debt to And you got to remember back then unlike now Salaries were much Much small, right? So if you're isaiya thomas, you're making a million a year and i'm not Let's take isaiya thomas name on it. You're whoever sports athlete making a million a year You owe somebody a quarter million dollars half a million dollars That's a huge part of your Sleep, you know, it's all relative. Yeah, it works well Yeah, and and I think my sense is to be fair I know my sense is that from talking to these guys that mark aguayre was not Worried that isaiya was compromised in terms of performance, but he was worried about his safety That was that was his concern. Yeah, he was worried that The detroit mafia was going to hurt him. Right. Yes. It was going to hurt isaiya, right? Um And that was at a point in time where not just in detroit but around the country where the mafia still kill people They don't really do that as much anymore So I don't think phil mickelson as we segue Uh, well, he was never in debt to them. I got it. So let's just let's go. Yeah, okay. Let's push it forward. So, um The isaiya thomas and the and let me also just say before I push it forward It wasn't just isaiya thomas that was implicated Uh in that 91 riko case that hit the jackaloni crew uh, it was James buda edwards And some other pistons That were were tied into that edwards Had some issues back when he was in phoenix before he got to the pistons With with some drugs and gambling allegations Let's play a man part of that too or who I don't remember. Uh sally it's interesting because sally When he went on when john sally went on a dj vlad. Vlad asked me about it and he You know, he was quick to dismiss it. Yeah, but uh, yeah from Sources that I've talked to who were first hand sources Uh sally was at a lot of those john sally was at a lot of those gambling nights Not I don't think he's ever been implicated in point shaving. I want to be very clear with that, of course. Yeah Um, james edwards was even though he was never charged or cleared um, and uh But he he knew a lot more than he was willing to say on on vlad Yeah, and also, um, I I know we're all over the place, but this just popped in my head and um, it's just a It's just a side note because it's it's not germane to our story about the jackalones, but The detroit redwings in the 1990s had a lot of russian players that were Comprom well, I shouldn't say compromise. They were being extorted by the russian mafia Like like the the mafia back in russia not like not like the russian mafia in in brooklyn, but The the russian mafia in russia. So I don't know just here in detroit. You have all these kind of Points of intersection as you point out where professional athletes get in trouble with with gangsters as you pointed out Not just Italian gangsters black gangsters russia russian gangsters. It's kind of a history So bad boys are a thing of the past And in the early 2000s, you had the going to work pistons different group that won a championship That's the era that we're going to be in even though none of the pistons were involved in this but Phil Mickelson, um at that point was you know at the at the apex Him and tiger woods were you know number one and number two In the world in terms of notoriety in terms of popularity in terms of money And mickelson again isn't shy about The fact that he had a gambling addiction He somehow I believe In las vegas In the early 2000s He meets a very colorful Intriguing character named dandy don de serrano and I I'll someone kind of explained Dandy don to me like this. So I don't want to take credit for it He was explained to me as think if Ace rosting from the senile Was molded with Hugh Hefner of the playboy empire and then They added a little tony stark From ironman Yeah, and you find a guy to hang out with yeah, you get dandy don de serrano. You have this, uh Notorious playboy gambler Gambler trust fund Multi-millionaire his family Had a an auto part manufacturing Empire coalheading And never really had to work But like to live large Dressed in the finest clothes drive the finest cars date the prettiest women And in gamble Huge Rumors is that he He that in in one of the big detroit mob busts of yesteryear They confiscated a million dollar Check that he had written for a Super Bowl A Super Bowl bet loss and I think I could kind of check for yeah So that's the kind of guy and in in in the 90s He was the like billy walters was the number one gambler in america uh Or is now or was over the last 20 years Dondi serrano in detroit in the 90s and early 2000s was the biggest gambler in detroit most action biggest bets volume and uh You know, he lived and breathed it so he meets bill michelson And michelson starts Using dondi serrano to broker bats to the jackaloni crew alan health the the jewish mafia associate uh jack and jackaloni's best friend right hand man and and health is taking michelson's action via de serrano um Dondi serrano Starts to run into some cash flow issues Uh liquid liquidity uh ability to get his hands on the large sums that he was losing Wait, wait, let me pause for a second because that's a really good point just because a guy has astronomical amounts of money As you point out the liquidity. I mean, that's a that's an important point. That doesn't always mean you can go to the atm And then take out, you know, 10 million dollars or whatever Even if you technically you have that in your portfolio, it doesn't mean you have it on hand, right? Right And de serrano starts to get a little desperate and starts According to court files and informants starts to fix The backdoor gambling nights that the Detroit mafia is hosting um and scamming players Which I don't think that that's not what upset the jackaloni crew I would upset the jackaloni crew is he wasn't sharing a piece of the proceeds with them Uh, but he was from what I people I've spoken to that he started to do that because he needed to find ways to Payback that's faster and this coincides as he's losing bill michels bill michelson's on a hot streak and This is all happening in 2002 2003 And come like spring of 03 michelson is up 500 000 dollars and Wants to cash out Uh, but de serrano can't cash him out Uh, he goes de serrano goes to health And asks that health cover it and helps us. I don't care if it's film michelson. No, no, I won't right um, and then michelson Talked to some people uh about who who was behind de serrano Uh, and it kind of reminded me a little bit of uh When I was covering the chicago mob's a family secrets trial. There was that famous piece of FBI bug where joy the clown lombardo is talking to more shanker who was a mob attorney who owned a piece of Uh, a vegas casino that the chicago mob wanted him to sell And he was haggling over selling the shares or how much money he was going to get or wasn't going to get and Lombardo was there with alan dorfman Who was a jewish another jewish mob associate? and it's like Shanker had just been dealing with dorfman hadn't been dealing with lombardo And lombardo comes in to like as the closer And and it's like hey listen morris like The you've been dealing with alan and alan's meek But the guy's behind alan the guys behind me They're not meek They're anything but meek and they're going to kill you if you continue on this behavior pattern of Of pushing back on what we're telling you to do in and he and I I was in court when this was played It says how old are you now morris and morris says? 75 he's like well, let me tell you this you're not going to reach your 76 birthday if you don't do what I'm telling you to do right Jesus So I believe there was Some type of conversation like that that that phil mickelson was made aware of who these people were and if you're phil mickelson, I guess and you're Those are the kind of swings you're making you know those kind of wins and losses You know you you walked he walked away. He didn't he didn't try to collect Uh, he realized that uh, he had gotten I don't know I wouldn't say it was guzzle. I mean guzzle goes the other way you guzzle a bookmaker You don't guzzle a customer but uh He got taken advantage of and he was relying on de serrano De serrano wasn't a mob guy. He was mob adjacent mob affiliated but uh But that brings us to an altercation That occurred in the weeks after this that De serrano had with jackie jack aloney and this was in june or july of oh three so The reason that de serrano couldn't pay back mickelson was because de serrano had a 300 thousand dollar Cab uh To hilf and jack aloney that he couldn't pay and He was dodging jackie and allen sat up a meeting that De serrano didn't realize jackie was going to be at uh, and it was at a Pretty famous restaurant in detroit not the Well, I should say the establishment or the building is famous. It's been a lot of different things back then It was called the beach grill at one point. It was brownies um Popular right on the water right on lake st. Clair Uh in st. Clair shores michigan right couple Miles from girls point, which is where you know all the detroit mafia lived all those years where de serrano was brought up and let's let's uh Point out that de serrano wasn't italian. I believe he was Yeah, and yeah, it's misleading because because the name sounds italian, but I I don't I don't think it I think it was like, uh That was belgian. Yeah dutch or belgian. Yeah, something like that dutch and uh Uh So summer of oh three De serrano shows up at the beach grill. He's sitting there alan's there another guy's there They think that they're just you know meeting to shoot the shit uh for lunch And after about 10 minutes of small talk in walks jackie jack aloney who takes a seat across from de serrano and starts screaming at according to testimony at at uh at trial And starts hollering at him. Why why haven't you paid us the 300k you owe us? This is getting ridiculous Oh, look at the car you just arrived in. Oh, oh look at the the the Rolex on your on your wrist Uh, you don't look like you have trouble with money. Why are you not paying us? What you owe us? The fbi believed that this was extortion de serrano went in front of a grand jury And they indicted jackie For for on a racketeering case a bunch of other people got tied into that case too including alleged Honsiliary street boss peak toko But toko Plet out did two years. It had nothing to do with this. It was something else within that rico Where peak toko was was running a sports book But jackie took it to trial was the only Co-defendant in that 2006 rico indictment to go to trial And a lot of this came out in court testimony and in in discovery de serrano Was the was the fbi star or was the us turning star witness and Kind of fell apart on the stand he failed to remember some things he had said in the grand jury and He said he refused to acknowledge Under oath that he felt threatened By jackie. He he said he felt he said he was in shock at what was Happening that he wasn't expecting to see jackie jack alone and the jackie jack alone. He was all of a sudden sitting across from him and Being aggressive and abrasive, but he said he didn't feel intimidated And that eventually created the reasonable doubt for for jackie jack alone need to be acquitted Well, I mean I have to editorialize here a little bit and we take grief on both sides from if you look at some of the comments Like some people will criticize us and say oh Because you're not street guys. You shouldn't be talking about these topics. These are like the mob fanboys but then we also get grief from the law enforcement Fanboys who say that we romanticize gangsters and we glorify gangsters and and I by the way I just I reject both of those Characterizations, but people can think what they want But what I'm about to editorialize the people are going to accuse me of of romanticizing gangsters On that side, but I think that's a bullshit charge. I mean to me You I mean, I you know, I don't want to talk to autobiographical, but um um The environment that I grew up you don't you don't welch and You owe 300 k Like you pay your fucking debt or or you might get in trouble I mean, I'll just give one example And I'm talking about the street level someone I know someone owed them five grand And uh, they were ducking the person the person found them at one point beat to kick the shit out of them Person press charges. They did a few weeks in county jail But like that's what I'm talking about that and that's just for five grand Like you have to know what you're you're getting into so Um, I'm not saying I wish anyone harmed So I don't I don't want people to take this the the wrong way, but I feel like that was pretty Cheap to go after Jackie on something. Look how they did it and and Let me give a five second editorialization of my own It's not a secret for people that keep tabs here in Detroit That if your last name is jackaloni even more so than if your last name was toko's really which were the CEOs of this The the jackalones were more of like the front bosses even though they had a ton of autonomy I'm not trying to take away right what billy and tony were But they still had guys above them. Yeah And If you had the last name jackaloni if you have the last name jackaloni You know, you're gonna be a target and And They're gonna come at you guns blazing You know metaphorically and in this case just like, you know, this is fbi 101 or federal prosecutor 101 They saw dandy serrano as a way to get to Jackie and alan and Don serrano was a lot easier to Get to do what you want if you're the government then alan and jack They thought that they could use Don to put jack in prison and that would have been jack's third federal Jackie third federal conviction. It would have been a long sentence. Probably had it gone away for 10 years It wouldn't have been two years. Yeah. No, I yeah, I understand the logic. I just think uh, I think it's weak, you know So I let me just add on the final part of the story that I neglected to five minutes ago That the meeting at the beach girl wasn't the end of it There was another meeting four or five months later Again arranged by alan health and a guy that that worked for alan vinny for lenny. I think his name was they called him vinny beans um And they set it up at a strip club on eight mile Which if you're if you're not from detroit and just know the movie eight mile that whole strip of eight mile going about 10 miles Uh his strip club to strip club after strip club after strip club um, and over the years the mob is you know It's been kind of a an easy way to extort money and uh Jackie and alan were known to spend a lot of time at strip clubs And alan was the one who liked the strip clubs um Jackie would would sit there with a drink and watch and alan would get lap dances um So they meted us in the back of a strip club and at that point is when Jackie tells allegedly jackie tells D serrano, or maybe this is actually in a court file. I'm not sure Tells de serrano. You don't just owe us 300 k you owe us 350 k We're tacking on a 50 000 penalty because we found out that you're fixing games with us and not sharing proceeds at our own games Yeah, uh, and at that point is when The feds They're like, you know, they smell blood in the water They know that de serrano's worried that you know, he could be physically harmed And they they swoop in Who is tipping them off though de serrano himself? How are they getting winners? I don't I don't I don't know and I don't want to speculate. Yeah, okay. That's fair. Yeah, that's fine but I don't know. I know that dandy serrano was someone that Avoided a lot of law enforcement scrutiny over the years. Yeah um, he is Or I should say he was he died. Yeah, he's deceased. I think he decided he died a year or two ago And this is when all this bill michelson stuff actually made it in To the newspapers because it was uh, it was really Unless you were there in court When that testimony was given And the detroit media by that point wasn't doing gavel to gavel gavel to gavel coverage I only went to one day. It was a week-long trial only went to the last day I probably should have gone to the other days But that didn't make it out into the papers until two years ago when the detroit news Was doing reporting on jackie jackalone's tax issues Uh, he owed a half a million dollars In back taxes Um, and had been held in contempt of court made it on the front page of the newspaper De serrano had recently died Phil michelson is coming into town And this was all coalescing and I think it was late june of of 2021 And the paul egan great crime reporter for the detroit news just I think As he's doing research on de serrano and jackie jackalone. He trips upon transcripts of Of the court of jackie's trial where phil michelson's mentioned and the dat's mentioned and now he didn't get Uh reimbursed and they put it on the front page of the paper the day that michelson lands In detroit and michelson like lost his shit Yeah Refuse that i'll never come back to the city troit Um, yeah was really upset at the detroit news Um, but uh, none of that would have surfaced If jack jackalone hadn't gotten into tax issues, which it looks like he's resolved now Well, um, I mean, I would also say this and I'm again. I'm just being descriptive here I'm not saying I would wish anyone harm, uh, but This this individual they're no longer with us, but they're lucky that they didn't know Tony or billy 350 k Yeah, let's just put it that way and then there was another thing yet play here And I want to be very clear, uh, when I put this name out there that we're just stating facts um so From from what I was told Dondi serrano had to leave detroit after he testified Um against jackie even though he his testimony ended up helping jackie jackalone They were upset the detroit mafia was upset that he even took the stand Of course had been in front of a grand jury and they booted him out of town and he went to las vegas. That's where he died Uh, he had spent a lot of time in vegas over the years anyway. Yeah, but his nephew Where he was able to take refuge Is derrick stevens who is like the new steve win of las vegas uh owns 10 11 casinos in the downtown area including the d which is a detroit themed casino Uh word is that he's gonna now move now that win is out of las vegas Derrick stevens is gonna move is is trying to move onto the strip now huge name in las vegas and let's be very clear derrick stevens has never been linked to any organized crime activity or Anything shady he has all above board is his his empire is as impressive as anything that I think it's been built in america Yeah, he's a he's a pretty mainstream figure. I mean he's in vegas What he's done to downtown is is amazing. I mean in the early 2000s downtown was As dead as dead could be and he he he created the freeman experience Uh, it's it's something to really you have to go really the experience And see it to really understand what it is and it's a whole new slice of life in vegas outside of the strip And something that's very accessible and affordable um And it's it's brilliant. We had a longer discussion shameless self promotion with larry henry by the way if you want to listen to our Vegas episode we did a few weeks ago. We the three of us. I thought it was far was little we digressed a little bit But it was a fun discussion about the evolution of vegas and how the the what what I call what I always Referred to as old vegas. That's what my family always said and how this sort of like renaissance there So i'm just pointing out derrick's name and I and I know derrick and hit the siren benny Uh, and uh, you know, he's a great guy a great businessman And I have zero Reservations about you know putting scott bernstein's son of approval on on on derrick steven's not that he needs it Uh, he's a multi he's a billionaire at this point if he wants to advertise, uh, though We're more than happy and I love the circa which is his relatively new hotel of you know the bringing the strip experience downtown Uh, it's the first over 21. You got to be 21 to have a reservation there. I've been there and it's great, uh, but If derrick steven's was I mean who knows what de serrano would have done, but being able to kind of go somewhere away from where you're not wanted anymore And it's kind of like a I know kind of a golden parachute. I guess Where he was able to go there he didn't really have to Go underground or anything He was able to get I think he got some jobs as a greeter um I'm sure he was gambling And just kind of lived quietly there his last 10 to uh 10 15 years But I'm sure it helped that his nephew was this huge You know mogul that was on the escalator to Uh, you know to the stratosphere When when he when he got that well my understanding from talking to uh street sources in new york Is that this is pretty much the the standard operating procedure now for close and oyster that if a guy welches and he owes a lot of money is you're just cut off You go in exile. Don't show your fucking face around here ever again But but the days are over of You know the guy's going to disappear or something like that because it just brings too much heat back to your old point about You know they used to kill people for shit like this and that's becoming less and less common It brings too much heat. So wouldn't you say this is sort of a common? um Or I don't know if it's a common This this is right not an outlier at least that that Okay, you you fucked up and so now we just don't ever want to see your face again And that you know and you're cut you're basically you cut off And in fact, I'd say that if we if we played the game of what if this happened 50 years before Oh, jeez And it was tony and billy my god Unlike alan health who didn't give two shits about phil mickelson, right if it let's just just interchange Arnold palm or a ben hogan and i'm not trying to besmirch there right it's just a rare reputation But let's just say that the detroit mob owed those guys money I'm pretty certain the jackalones would Take a fence to the guy that they were Connected to Welching on bets to someone of that, you know level of prominence and hold that guy responsible. Yeah You didn't and who knows what would have happened whether we're just beating or you end up in the trunk of a car But yeah, so he was just told to get out of town and he went to vegas and died quietly and uh It's just interesting to bring it all full circle here after that. Uh billy walters book is coming out or it's out A lot of headlines the last couple weeks Just want to kind of let people know about mickelson's trials and tribulations with the detroit mob billy walters admits in in the book that he was run out of vegas in the 80s by towing spelotro And that uh spelotro wanted a piece of him Instead of giving him a piece he just left And then waited for spelotro to implode Which he did And came back to town Yeah, the the it's interesting these these examples of uh You know gambling the mob professional sports or even even collegiate sports. Um We've had some episodes, you know, like where michael francis talks about it dan moldea You can go back to the black socks scandal There's a lot of really interesting intersections. We want to have our friend sean patrick griffin on Uh griffith on soon to talk about his book about the nba Uh scandal with the ref. So I really like these kinds of um stories. I think they're um, they're interesting and I would say Also a little bit of an editorial I think there are some mainstream I won't mention any names. I think there are some mainstream sports personalities who are Very naive About these sorts of things that they think to the extent that that there are these intersections It was 40 50 years ago. And I think they're really naive. I would just say that Because even if you're betting online right now not with you know mgm or The fan duo or draft kings, but you know other online betting apparatus and platforms just because they're not being advertised as you know Joe shark the bookie who you're who you're who you're paying, you know Joe shark and and uh jimmy bag of donuts could be Yeah, or probably is somewhere Tied in behind that. I mean the last big detroit gambling bust wasn't that long ago It wasn't that big but uh one of p toko's guys and um It was him Pushing people to an online site where they were getting you know kickbacks Yeah, and sometimes celebrities whether it's film or sports They like to rub elbows with gangsters. I mean if you if you think that that's something from you know We talked about a few episodes ago Philly's black mafia Muhammad Ali with major cox and that was the you know 60 70s if you think that that's Something that's you know only happened back then I would say you're naive Obviously not every celebrity of course not there's a god knows how many celebrities I'm just saying It gets brought to our attention On occasion that there are certain celebrities who like to even to this day like to rub elbows with With uh with with gangland figures and that doesn't mean they're compromised. We don't know. I'm just saying Um, it's more common than I think some mainstream sports personalities like to think Well, I enjoyed this um, I hope you I hope the audience did um We'll have a couple more quick haters for you, uh coming out and then we'll be back next week with another full length episode Thanks, benny behind the glass jimmy anything else to say? No, just thank you everyone. 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