 Welcome to the original gangsters podcast. I'm your host Scott Bernstein and today we're going to bring on a special guest, someone that I've known for about a decade and I've grown very fond of. He, you know, we talk about people on here that have lived in movie script. Well, we're going to kind of. He definitely lived in movie script, but it's kind of from a different angle, a different perspective, his name is Paul Zabersky, former attorney in the Detroit mob kind of an in house council for the jackaloni crew for 20 plus years. And I hope I'm not offending you when I when I say, you had a reputation around town for a while is kind of a Macomb County fixer quote unquote. Well, yeah, absolutely. It's that's a fact. Okay, I mean, whatever they made it public, you know, I mean, there's not another lawyer in the state of Michigan that has many cases thrown out as me, and there's nobody even close. And there's 35,000 lawyers in the state of Michigan, and not one will step up and challenge me on that. But probably, you know, I met him in some of my reporting duties. And again, he this guy is just has so many great stories. He has written a book called from Pepperdine to prison, which discusses his roller coaster career in law as well as getting caught up in a drug case about what six years ago. Yeah, you're running for judge. Yeah, just to clarify. I mean, there's not one person ever other than the FBI that classifies this as a drug case. Okay, we can talk about your we can talk about your case. Oh, I don't care about talking about my case. But do you know what I went to prison for. Well, I know it had to do with trying to secure, you know, cocaine for social events. It didn't really look like you were necessarily selling cocaine. I went to prison because I my third indictment I was facing 105 years and a $10 million fine, and I would not cooperate with the federal government. I mean, I had heard things about the federal government. I was a fan of the FBI until I got targeted. When you get targeted, you either flip to give information or you go to prison. You let yourself get jammed because there's no other alternative. Well, they use what are called Gustavo tactics. They bleed them till you plead them. So on my third indictment, I was just running out of money. You know, I mean, I've been a millionaire three times in my life. Okay. And from where I come from, I really didn't care about the money. Well, you could say that when you have it, you know, yeah. And when you don't, it's a little bit harder. So I wrote this book as a public service than anything else. I had no idea on how corrupt the federal government was, and what they will do to get information from you. And we know that the area that you came from, McComb County has been under scrutiny well before your case hit and now well after your case. Oh, Scott, put it this way. Adjudicated for being a kind of a hotbed of corruption. Yeah, folks, put it this way. We only had two prosecutors, what they call district attorneys and other cities. In the last 50 years, both were federally indicted in the amount of corruption. I got to put it in perspective. There's only 800,000 residents in McComb County, Michigan, often called the most corrupt county in the United States. There's 10 million in LA County. There's 5 million in Cook County. There's 5 million in the boroughs in New York and Miami. I don't know, three, four million, you know, in in now political corruption is now number one on the FBI hit list. Overtaking child pornography, pedophilia, bank robbery, cartels, mob activity, political corruption is number one. So when they see a guy like me, a lawyer, a criminal defense lawyer with access to information, which I have a ton of, which I was sitting on for 30 years. I shut my mouth when I watched all kinds of egregious activity, mainly in the courts, judges, prosecutors and law enforcement. And I shut my mouth. I kept quiet. They knew when I was running for judge, it was like a perfect storm. I mean, it was an eye of the of the storm here. We'll just press on this guy and squeeze him. He'll give us information and we can continue our investigations, you know, in their main target was our prosecutor Eric Smith. When I get so many cases dismissed, well, it made sense to them. And I own a condo in Colombia, Medellin, Medellin, they called Medellin. Medellin, man, you know, in Colombia, I own a condo over there. So they put in the newspapers that I was trafficking two kilos of cocaine from Detroit to Medellin, man. I mean, what's the fucking. So people understand, you know, I've read the I've read through the case file, the people that Paul was dealing with in these narcotics transactions. These were not mobsters or drug king pins. Oh, these were like small, you know, relatively small time. Absolutely. But see, they lead the bigger thing. You got to remember, I'm going to Mexico with the head with the president of the Teamsters Union. I'm going to Mexico with the chief judge on the circuit court in Macomb County, you know, all these political big shots and all that stuff. And, you know, I know people in law enforcement. And, you know, they were very comfortable talking in front of me because I'm one of the few guys that worked my way and I wasn't born into that, you know. And it's just, you know, I just learned early on that everybody had their price and the political corruption is rampant. And the FBI's got a good case to justify their existence for this, but they call cases like mine collateral damage. So you don't have to be guilty of anything. Scott, they can they can manufacture, orchestrate, manipulate. They can create a very brand new charge, which my case had no precedent. I went to a fucking federal prison when they say one year actually cost me six years on my life and about a million dollars because they couldn't get a forfeiture or a seizure or anything out on my property. They put you in in federal prison in Mylon, Michigan, which was lucky for you. It's not that far from Detroit, but it's a serious place with serious. A lot of mobsters, mob shot callers, biker bosses, drug kingpins are put in Mylon. Yeah, well, they have they have them all separated now. So then most of the mobsters are gone. I think my point though, Paul, just so the audience understands, you didn't go to a club fed. No. You didn't go to some low. You know, I was listening. Here's the drug dealer. You were you were buying drugs from him. He went down to fucking Morgantown, where they don't have any fences. It's a camp. I was supposed to go there, but I ended up in a prison. You know, it's a serious prison, you know, right. And this is what the federal government can do to you. You know, if you do not cooperate with them, I just chose to sit on my fifth amendment rights and I thought that the truth would set me free. But in, you know, as a central sense, it did, because I got rid of all the garbage. Paul, let's just go back, you know, you grew up in Detroit, the went to Pepperdine Law School. Yes, I grew up in the east side of Detroit from very low income family and all that. And we were just taught at, you know, people on the other side of the tracks go to college. We don't go to college. I understand you're a lawyer too. I didn't know that. I went to law school and I got a degree. I don't practice. Right. I don't even. Yes, I'm a JD. You don't practice anymore. I'm happy to brag about the fact that I'm not a lawyer. For people that might not know about Pepperdine, that's in Malibu, California. Yes. Pepperdine is a fact. You're literally going to school in a postcard. I mean, it's the most gorgeous campus I've ever seen in my life. You're on a mountain overlooking the Pacific Ocean. To put it in perspective, Scott, Pepperdine is in fact the third most expensive law school in the United States behind Harvard and Stanford. Okay. Now they changed the name to Caruso Law School because Mr. Caruso donated $40 million to Pepperdine to change the name. So it's good to get it. That's the way it works. It's a big bunny school. You know, as a matter of fact, when we would see movie stars around, you know, being in Malibu and all that, and the Pepperdine students kind of look down on the movie stars because they don't have as much money as the students. I mean, in our parking lot, there's a Mercedes, there's Porsches, there's a Lamborghini. I didn't even have a fucking car, man. I have a bicycle over there. You're up in the mountains. It's literally, it's so breathtaking. I'm not someone who gets chopped up by nature, but when I was in Malibu driving on Pacific Coast Highway. You can't help but miss it. It's just the most beautiful, picturesque setting you could ever imagine. Oh, yes, absolutely, man. I mean, she said, I'm everything about it, but law school's hard. You know, see, I went to college only because I was a victim of police brutality at 19 years old. And I just couldn't understand how this happens in the United States of America. And it's very common over in Cook County in LA County, you know, and it's pretty common here in Detroit area, you know, at the time it was anyway. I mean, to put things in perspective, they beat on this Rodney King for like, I don't know, 12, 17 minutes. We had our own Rodney King in Detroit, Malis Green. Malis Green for like five minutes before they killed him because he wouldn't show him his license. You know, and then this Tyrell Nichols for a few minutes before they killed him, George Floyd for 11 minutes. They, I haven't recorded from witness statements and everything that they beat on me while handcuffed for two hours. You know, they pistol with me, opened my head up, stitching the whole thing broke my wrists. You know, they kneel on the handcuffs for your wrist break, you know, the whole thing. And I mean, and I had a, I had a witness came forward about a year later after we filed, we were filing a lawsuit. So that's how I ended up going to Michigan State. And I was like, I just wanted to be educated. I didn't understand how they can get away with it and cover it up. And interestingly, in my case, in that police brutality suit, they had, you know, phone calls as ladies calling the police department. Hey, they're, they're pistol whipping a guy on my, on my front lawn, you know. And in it, in the hanging up on her, I mean, she calls back again and she calls back again. She had it all recorded because she had a digital clock, you know, call that 1201, 1220, 1235. Now they're pistol whipping him, you know, they're killing this man. Well, he stole a car, he tried to escape from the police, listen, you know, mind your own fucking business, that kind of shit. Well, you know, this lady was just afraid to come out of her house. That's all. But we found her about a year later by complete, I don't know, happenstance, I guess. She was at a Detroit Tiger game talking about, you know, what she witnessed. And my aunt was sitting behind her. She tapped on her shoulder. Yeah, I lived right down the street. We found a witness. She said the exact same thing I said. And then the police claimed that there was an electrical power outage from 12 o'clock till 3 in the morning when all this happened. So therefore there were no tapes. There was no evidence. They just covered the whole thing up. And I got some money from it. So I went to college, you know, after college, after Michigan State, I was broke. My parents didn't, they would have gave me the money to a college. One of your college, they just had limited resources, you know. And so I got a scholarship to go to Pepperdine, which was pretty bizarre to me. I don't know how I mean, it just happened. And here I am going to Malibu. I'm just from the kid from the east side of Detroit, man. And I was like, wow, I'm in law school. Well, that's cool. I don't have to work. You know, you know the feeling, right? But just to give people just some quick, you know, slice of knowledge from the Detroit underworld that we just referenced. The Rodney King thing happened in April of 1992. Paulie's situation, I'm sure, happened in the early 80s. Mine happened in 1980. Yeah. Okay. So early 80s. The Rodney King situation in LA was April 92. In Detroit, we had our own version of Rodney King, which was Malis Green, which was only six months after Rodney King. Right. I went, listen, Scott, Scotty, I went to one of my first fundraisers I went to was Buttson and Nevers. Right. So people know the difference was Rodney King wasn't killed. Malis Green was murdered. Murdered by these two cops. And these Buttson and Nevers. Yeah. I went to a fundraiser for Buttson. Okay. I didn't know it at the time. I thought it had something to do with the courts. When I get in there, I'm donating $200 to these two cops that killed this fucker. And I'm like, what the f... So I went in the kitchen and I pulled my car in the back and I unloaded the cases of liquor they had for all these cops were in there. And I just took off. I wanted my... You can imagine how bad I wanted my $200. Paulie, what year did you come back to Detroit and get into the bar here? It took me a little while in the bar. Yeah, it was like 87, 88. I passed the bar in 88 and I graduated 86. Okay. But I was in California and I was partying a little bit. So I stayed out there a little longer. My last student loan came in late. And so I was lightening up, you know... At what point did you meet Frank the Bomb and Mr. Vito Giacolo? Frank the Bomb. I was best friends with Sam Scarce. I'll tell you who was the best friends with the Bomb. The Bomb. The Bomb was all... Well, I seen him as a kid when I was younger, a teenager. When I used to go to Mr. Paul's shop. Paul, Sam, the whole Iterage, the whole thing. But I became friends with them right around that time. Around, let's say, like 89, right around there, right before 90. And I was taking the bar exam at the time. And I met him up at the lake. We were partying. And he says, hey, man, is this our new lawyer? Man, he says, this guy's all fucked up. What the fuck? He says, well, you know, he says he's a good guy. You know, one of us, this kind of thing. And my uncles happened to work for some of the Detroit mobsters and all that other stuff. So, you know, I had some credibility and this and that. But we just hit it off from like the very first day. Well, frankly, I would say that I spent more time with him than any other person in the last 40 years. I have really, really positive feelings towards Frank the Bomb. I mean, I'm not going to... You know, it is what it is. He was not... He was a gangster to the core. It was in his DNA. He was a criminal. Every cell of his being. But he was very good to me. You know, so... Never put a stand in my pocket. Never trying to put a stand in my pocket. To me, okay, you got to understand in my world, these guys, when I was with these guys, they were the most honorable people that I knew. Because, you know, I did criminal defense work. So, you know, a lot of criminals and most of them are just guys that drink too much or do too many drugs and they screw up. And then I knew some people in law enforcement that weren't flying straight. You know? And then you meet the real criminals, the judges and prosecutors and... Oh, my Lord. It doesn't hold a candle to the organized crime. It doesn't. And these guys, they protected me more than to try to draw me in. Now, there's some factions in the Detroit mob that try to draw me into this or that. But I was always protected by these guys. Because, you know, Jack Doku, he liked me. I don't know why. I didn't even know him back then. You know, he covered for me. I was always getting in trouble. You know, that's no secret. But I got along really good. Franklin Bob was just a good, honorable guy. You know what I mean? In that world, he was. In that world, just like... Look, so when I get to prison, one of the first guys that was waiting to meet me was Randy Yeager, Matt, you know, from the Outlaw Motorcycle Club. He's the president who got taco in there from the International President. So, the Bob... Yeah. Paul, just so you know, our audience is... It's very widespread. So, I always like to let people know, you know, you can't assume that they know everybody in Detroit. Oh, yeah, right, right. I get it. So, Jack Doku was the long-time Godfather in the mob. Right, yeah, he was the one. Right, I get it. Franklin Bombomarito, who we're talking about here, was a... A capo. You know, we talk about OGs on the pocket. Yeah. He is the OG of all OGs. Right. But without question, the most colorful character... Well, if you're a YouTuber, Taco comes up as America's number one gangster. Yeah. If you're a YouTuber. And Taco was the International President of the Outlaws. Right. And, you know, his right-hand man was Randy Yeager. And the bomb, just so people know, the bomb was the Detroit mob's liaison to the bikers and the Outlaws that we're talking about now. Taco Bowman was the Outlaws Godfather for a long time was basically Detroit. Right. And then Randy Yeager, who Paul is talking about, who we met in jail, was one of Taco's right-hand men and ran all of the outlaw activities. Hey, man, I got it correct. He didn't jail, man. He was fucking prison. Prison. Sorry. And Randy Yeager ran all the stuff in Northwest Indiana. Yeah. He's responsible for the largest bombing in American history outside of Oklahoma and New York City. Yeah. Where he bombed that whole Chicago city block, but nobody died. But he pled guilty to five murders and a one-man recall and all that. And he's getting out in 2025. Yeah. I just got a letter from him. I can't show it to you. Well, I think the point is that your relationship with Frank Bomarito, and at this point when you're going away, Frank was dead. Yes. Well, he's still dead friends of friends. Right. So it shows that it, who you know can sometimes help you even after that. That's gone. Total. I mean, you get total prison respect because I didn't recover. Scott, put this in perspective, man. Everyone that gets targeted by the FBI. Yeah. Save one in about a million. I know they got a 99.9% conviction. 99.999% flip rate when you're a lawyer over 50. You could just look it up and Google it, man. Everyone cooperates. I chose not to, facing 105 years. Then that got dismissed and they re-indicted me. And I didn't even know what the fuck it was. Hosting a house party, you know, where some people got high. I didn't know I was responsible for someone else's actions, but it's not a party till someone gets high. So that is a badge of honor. So tell people like it's the late 80s. At this point, Billy Jack aloney, who was Frank's kind of rabbi in the mafia, Billy Jack was one of the street bosses of the Detroit mob, him and his brother, Tony Jack. They ran the streets for half, over a half century. And Billy was more of the good cop and Tony Jack was more of the bad cop. And playing in that role of being the good cop and being more of a jovial, you know, good time Charlie type with being Billy, he gravitated towards Frank the bomb. Oh, he loved it. They were so unconventional. The bomb was in a five year bit for him. Right. But the bomb and Billy were inseparable. And I remember there, you know, there would, I saw something in a wiretap once where Billy was getting, I think I forgot who it was, but he was talking to somebody who was complaining about Frank. And he's like, what you're saying might be true, but it doesn't matter. He's my guy. Yeah. He might be a son of a bitch, but he's my son. That's the reason that he magnetized towards me is because when I first met him, I was a little fucking, you know, hurry a little bit. I didn't recognize him. I'm sitting with him at the table, man. And I go, Hey, man, you wouldn't know it by the degenerate crowd that's here tonight. But there's a big deal because the old man's coming here and they're not supposed to be in the same room with him and Frank the bomb. The bosses come and he goes, is that right? He says, let me tell you this story. My brother Tony says, why do you hang around with this one guy? He says, I take them all over the fucking world. He's a dirty, nasty, no good motherfucker, but I like him. He said, so I'm starting to like you. Does that make you a fucking degenerate? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. I said, who is this old man? It's fucking Billy Jack. The guy who whacked off him, by the way. Allegedly. Allegedly. Why doesn't anybody ever come out and say it? The guy who whacked off him. I mean, I've said it. I think that the, I'll get your, I'm interested to get your opinion on this. Coming from a guy that was, you know, immersed with a lot of the top suspects in the Hoffa case for much of your career and represented some of those guys. Why do you think that in the overall narrative in terms of American mythology, pop culture, what you see on television, what you see in the movies, why do you think Detroit always gets marginalized in an assassination and a murder that they were 100% in controlling? But if you watch the Irishman or you watch other adaptations, it looks like we were just, we're side players. Detroit being known as one of the most violence cities in America. Everybody knows that, you know. But Detroit was like the nonviolent mob. They were whacking people like they were in Philadelphia, in New York, in Miami, in LA. They weren't doing that. It was a weapon of last resort. Very high profit market. Because gambling was so big in Detroit, Chicago, you know, sports book. It was the biggest in America here. And up until then, now that's true national attention, but they didn't have the technology to the DNA and all that other stuff to connect that all that up. And my understanding was they, they didn't mind, Huff, they kind of liked them. Well, Billy and Tony liked them. They sold their lies with them for 30 years. But they're never going to find a body when they start this digging up every couple years. They're going to find, they're never going to find that body because it doesn't exist. And I used to fuck, listen, it was taboo to sit at the table, you know, when you're at the closed meetings and stuff and never bring up Huff or you can't say the name, but I did it all the time because the old man got a kick out of me. And I go, hey man, I go, hey, Mr. G, what the fuck man, tell me what you did with Huff. I scripted it out, man. I'll write the shortest book of all time. He goes, what's the other shortest book? I said, but great Scott, Shepson, Scotland. Fuck it, man. I'll write a one-page thing, man. Show me your diagram is the fucking thing. He just started lying. Oh, will the devil start cracking up? And then he switched to talking. It took this woman, I'm serious. He didn't know that I didn't speak full of time. And I don't, I just, I'm just half of the time. And I don't know, I don't know. And they switched to Italian. And then you look at me and I'm Nazi, but he ought to get me on, but he took the man, you know, like everything's okay. I don't want to buy. And I don't even speak Italian. It took him like five years to catch on. And the mom knew what I did. And he just, he was, that was funny, amusing, you know. I told you the bomb and Billy used to refer to the Hoffa case as the secret recipe. Yeah. We're never going to find the secret recipe. No, no. Yeah. See, how did he say they ain't going to find nobody because there ain't nobody, you know. Oh, Scotty, can I tell your viewers this? They might get a kick out of it. When I met Scotty, I was asked to, there were three mob bosses there, two captains, a couple of associates. We're at Luchiano's, you're talking. And this thing was a, so they come to me, Paulie, man, you got to do your job. You're the concierge, you know. You're the concierge. If it gets you paid or gets you laid. Okay. 30 years ago, it meant something. I don't mean nothing nowadays, but anyway, just bursting thing. We've got a, I'm bursting. I said, how do I know that name? I got a journalist that's coming around. Yeah. He said, well, he's coming to parties. He's interviewing people. He's got a camera and shit. I said, oh, yeah, but he ain't filming nothing. It's just a fucking photo. No, no, it's a real camera. He's filming people. We got to know. I said, so what do you want me to do? They said, well, we want you to, you know, want to see what's going on. Can you, you know, you get along with anybody. I said, well, yeah, man. I'll do you one better. I'll take him down in New Orleans. And you know, maybe open up. Just so people understand, there was another bit. There was a business opportunity for all of us out in New Orleans. Okay. And they knew that I was going out there with another partner. Right. Yeah. There was nothing illegal or nothing about anything. I was just told to ask. Right. So Paul, I kind of knew. I had an idea that Paul was there to watch me. I said to the guy, I remember telling this one boss on the mob in Detroit. I said, what was he wanting me to do? Well, get him drinking. Get him to open up. I said, I don't even think that guy drinks. I've seen him around. He doesn't see. He told her to me, but whatever. It's just, well, some ammunition, this and that. I said, what do you want me to do? Slippin' a Mickey. And he said, well, that's not a bad idea. I go, hey, man, I ain't doing all that. I fucking asked the guy. So I do. When I got down to New Orleans, I remember you calling me about seven o'clock. So we just got in the room. We're going to take a nap. I go, take a nap in New Orleans. Fuck, are we on the same page here, buddy? No, man, we're going to party, man. Let's go. And I kind of forgot what my job was to do down there until I got a call from this guy. Hey, what's up with Bernstein? Oh, I got to get back to you. I forgot to hit the guy. We just had a good time down there, right? Remember when L left his camera on the river? Yeah. And then we almost met. We were all going back on the same flight. I remember we, we, it was a wild night, the night before that. And then we almost missed it. I just reported back to him. Hey, guys, a journalist, he's educated. And, you know, he's just doing his job. That's the way I saw it. And, you know, I think there was a, people are scared or intimidated by what, by what they don't know. And nobody knew who I was. Scott, you know. I wasn't Italian. I wasn't an East Side. And he's Jewish, too, on top of it. Right. And out of it, on a kind of out of nowhere, I pop up in the late 2000s. Oh, yeah, man. Oh, yeah. And everybody was kind of like, who is this guy? He had his big conspiracy theory and all this bullshit. You know, I said, the guy's just doing his job. I think, I don't think he's got any ulterior motives. Other than he's going to probably be somebody someday. I don't know. So the first time I met Paul, I want to say, I put out my Detroit mob confidential documentary in 09 or, it was either 09 or 10. And I got a message from the bomb who I had over the previous, let's say three years had written about, he was in the doc. He was in the book and someone told me, hey, the bomb wants to meet you. And I was, I'll always, I'll meet anybody. I'm not someone who hides behind my computer screen. I'm someone who believes in. Yeah, I was respected there. Right. And so I went at, I made sure I, you know, took the proper precautions and I went, and that was the first time I met him. And I met Paul, I believe at, at that event. It was at East, East Side Manor. Yeah, that Eastport. Yeah. He used to hold like a Tuesday night spaghetti night. They do the fucking karaoke, drug me nuts, man. All the daggers, excuse me, I can't say all the Italian guys in there would sing like Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra and all the bikers would be Johnny Cash. Remember that? Yeah. And Frank would get up and do his Frank Sinatra, put my way. And then he'd do his other, he'd get up and he'd rap. So, so I met him. So around, let's say I met him in 2009, 2010. He was still, you know, standoffish with me to a degree and guarded and I don't blame him. He was a, you know, kind of an active, he still was an active member of the Detroit mob at that point. At some point, a couple of years later, after Billy Giacalone died, Frank kind of went independent, was, was kind of blocked. He had no problem talking about anything that was on public records. So at that point. The man in 26 years in prison. Yeah. Now the modern federal prison system is dramatically different than the old federal prison system. But Frank, it's, it's, it's, it's horrible in there. The conditions, I mean, to give you a perspective in one of you, I've lived in the doors are metal and they're so warped that not one door can close. So you can't have a lockdown. They're just all running around screaming yelling till four in the morning. Every, there's no loud every fucking day. It's a horrible place. For the bomb for a guy that let's say up until he was 60 had done a lot of prison time. Let's say between, let's say his ages of 20 and 60. He didn't do any time. He didn't do any time his last 25 years on earth. You were doing shorter sentences. We're getting attempts on a solicitation of murders 20 years. What they would plead to an attempt. This is five years. And then they used to have parole so they could get out early. And there's no more parole in the federal system. You can't, there's no early remixes. You know, when the bomb beat his last case, the last case the bomb took, well, last big case he took was the war in the bombing, the bombings of the trash companies. Right. And then John pre know that I actually, I actually represented him on his last case. He went to the city of Mount Clements where he was charged with an assault charge, assault and battery. He was 66 or 68 at the time. And I asked him, I should have cranky. I will get rid of this case. But they love, these gangsters love to talk in court. They're very comfortable talking in court because they're always in a fucking court. You know, probably more than me. But anyway, so I said, please don't say nothing. I'm going to get rid of this case. And the judge looks at the file and she doesn't have the, there's sometimes on the lean check, if there's more federal, they won't have the record, you know, unless they have to look actively look for it. And she knows everybody in Detroit area knows what he has. You know, just where's his criminal history? I said, and then by myself, don't talk. He says, what do you mean? You mean I hit somebody? He said, no, I ain't hit nobody in 20 years. I shoot motherfuckers, but I ain't hit nobody in 20 years. And it's on a fucking record record, you know, everybody's in the courts looking. I'm like, come on, come on, man. The first time I saw the bomb, I didn't meet him at this point. It was at Jackie Giacalone, who's Billy Jack's son, the alleged current mob boss of the Detroit family, went on trial for a Rico. We talk about 99.9% connection rate for the feds. He beat the case. Well, he had an indictment set aside. Yeah. But so, but I want to just play on the story. You just told. So I'm in the gallery. And they probably didn't recognize me at this point. And I could hear. It was the first time I was ever a face to face with, with all these guys, like with Jackie, Frankie, and Billy Jack were all in court. And I could hear Billy say to Frank. Well, I'm trying to think what the, yeah, I can hear Billy say to Frank. When the verdict comes in, please be quiet. Don't, don't make a scene. And the verdict comes in and it's not guilty. And the bond. Thank you Jesus. That's the great jury system of the American justice system. He just starts, starts doing a victory lap in court. He was, you know, and he did. In fact, I hate to be stereotypical, but he looked like every gangsters that's been in every movie since the 20s. Okay, didn't he? He was very unapologetic. You know, if you just looked at him, he looked like wow, you know, if you passed you on the street, you'd go wow. And he was just a stick, he was just a stick up kid. And he wasn't a guy that was really born into the mob, even though we had some cousins. But you know, he was a stick up kid that made his name Robin people. And one day he robs either a game. It was Carl's shop house downtown. But I thought that was after the cross. I don't know. He got caught. He robs some place that was connected to Billy Jack alone. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. And then Jack and Billy. That's right. I was only taught not to talk about that kind of shit. So I think that was like 67 or 68. The Carl's chop house thing was I think 69. Yeah. When Frank famously went in and we got him a plaque for his birthday. I'm robbery at the proprietor of Carl's chop house for 20 minutes, which was a very popular steakhouse. Was one of the Jack Loni's favorite spots. Yes. And I used to go there when I was a young kid with my grandparents because they go Jack Loni, man. You know, he had that prosthetic leg. Yeah. Right. From the knee down. It was prosthesis. Right. He lost his life. My leg for the eighth time or whatever. And I was in track. And they have a car pick me up when you have coffee, like three or four times a week over there. And he would take his leg off. He goes, Hey, Paulie, man, I'm on my last leg over here. Sorry. Me with the wagon. It was like, you know, then my kid, one time my son comes and sees me at the coffee shop with a more outside. He's like, that is that like, you know, Jack Loni, the guy that's on the news of them. I go, yeah. And I go, Hey, Mr. G, this is my son. He said, go get Paulie a bottle of Diego red from the car. You know, so they give my son a bottle of wine. My son's like, Oh my God, I'm going to keep this. I'm going to frame it. I'm never going to drink this. You know, like a week later, I went to his apartment. You know, it's in the garbage. Anyone say a negative thing about Billy Jack alone? Oh, this man could talk among paupers and princes. It's, you know, any level of society. He was very comfortable with them. Very well read. I mean, he was a good guy. I don't, I know him as a good guy. Maybe they did some bad things in the regular world, but not in their world. You know what I mean? It's kind of hard to explain. They were very, it wasn't just a Detroit thing with them. I mean, Billy and Tony could go to any city in America and they'd roll out the red carpet. Now, when I was in my own, I wanted to meet the guy that ran the joint. Now, Mylon's about the fifth largest prison in the United States. You know, they got about 16, 70 hundred people. And I said, who runs this joint? And they said, well, it's big mold from Chicago. So I said, well, I want to get my currency through him, but I already got credibility. So he'll fuck me the money's fucking by stuff, you know, they can't get the commissary in currency stamps. So I go to meet Big Mo and he's like, Hey man, Big Mo wasn't much on conversation, but he's like, you know, I heard you connected you to gangster lawyer. And I'm like, well, I used to be, I guess. And he's like, well, he says, you know, Mr. Tony Giacalone, I was in Florence, Colorado with them, you know, he's a good dude. He said, but he'd be fucking with the guys nonstop. I'm like, yeah, I didn't really know Tony. He's been, I mean, he was in prison before I turned 18. I don't know. He's been in prison a long time. So Tony, Tony actually didn't do when you, when you, you know, go kind of go pound for pound. Tony did some time when he was younger, but as a wise guy, as like a, as the, you know, the street boss, he only did that one kind of that one seven year sentence between 79 and 86. He did some, I think some shorter things maybe in the 60s, but Billy did more, Billy did more time than Tony did. Oh, I'm unaware of that. I didn't think Billy did that much time. I think he got a... Well, Billy did a, Billy did a bunch of like three, four year bit, like three, four year bits. Yeah. And then the last time they got it, he got a year, which you've got to understand. Billy did six years on the, on the game tax case, which was the big Rico that came down against all the leaders of Detroit mob in 96. Frank Zabam and Jackie Giacalone were not indicted in that. Right. But you know the funny thing about the game that can shoot straight because there were taxing people on the street. In other words, we had a bar on Southern Mount Gratiot and, you know, bars, you know, you have gambling operations on it and they come to you and they want you to pay a street tax. Most people just voluntarily give it up. You know, they want about 800 to 1,000 a month. If you're taking any action in there. And like, you just tell them, well, fuck yourself again. You know, it's a different day and age. And most people were giving it up voluntarily. That's what they got finished for. That's not a very high profit scheme. No, it was all shakedowns. They didn't have any murders in that indictment. Exactly. It was, it was, it were 30 year shakedowns and, and illegal. And they all, and they're now in the modern day, everybody cooperates too. You know, whatever, you know, the guys involved, whatever. But everybody cooperates. Yeah. So you have, you have a situation where Detroit is actually a, an outlier in the sense that they have not had a lot of cooperators. They have not had a lot of guys die in prison or, or die in the streets. Absolutely. You're right. And you know, you've got to understand Detroit is the pipeline to Canada. All the narcotics that we're coming through from, you know, come through Montreal or Toronto. They come in the pathways of, you know, St. Clair County or Detroit. And that's where the outlaw and clubhouse, the very small bastion of the outlaws, but it's a pipeline to Canada. And they work hand in hand with the Detroit. Well, they call it mafia. I don't, I never said that word. It's the, the outfit. I don't know. Yeah. Detroit, people don't know that. Like, you know, Chicago, they call it the outfit. It's more of an understood term in Detroit. The newspapers and the media call it the Detroit mob or the partnership or the combination. Yeah. I had a connection to the New Orleans mob or outfit. That's the birthplace of the mob. Right. In America in the 1800s, but in Detroit, they called the outfit as well. I didn't have a connection to any Detroit guys. I was, I had to, instead of going and getting in trouble for some of my antics, I did a rehab stint down there in Mississippi. And one of the traffic countries that was related to him was the grandson or whatever, maybe by marriage. Doesn't matter. And that's how I met that guy. And I met some guys from New Orleans. So they knew some guys from Detroit after that. And I would go, well, I mean, I didn't, boy, you went to that world when we were down there, but you know. No, we didn't meet. I didn't, we didn't meet with any wise guys down there. We're down there for a, I don't think it ever came up. You and, you and your boy, one of your boys, Brian, we're down there for something different. And we ended up hanging out. Right. It never came up. I didn't know what we were doing. We definitely did not run in there. I would have taken you there, man. I mean, I would have loved to. No, don't. I'm not saying it like I would have been opposed to it. If you want to say, hey, I got some, some Marcello Prime Family Soldiers introduced you to. In case you didn't notice, I was kind of busy anyway. And so, so talk a little bit about. I'm working with the bikers that you met through. You know, it's funny, man. I got to tell you this. I got to tell you this. I shouldn't say working with, but like representing them. Well, okay. I'll just tell you about it. Wouldn't this lawyer try to rip me off on a referral fee. Now, you know, all lawyers, we get one third of anything you refer to another lawyer. And this guy, I understood that he got 120,000 cash. And I called the lawyer up and I says, hey, man, you sent me 5,000. You know that means you owe me 40,000. That's cash off the top. We paid referrals off the top because the longer the money stays in your pocket, the more it becomes yours. So you just do the right thing. And he said, no, I will pay you when I will amortize these payments in 1099 you and all those other lawyer talk. I said, what the fuck you talking about? He says, I'm the biker lawyer here in Detroit. I represent all the bikers. And he said, and fuck you or who you know, or who you think you know, I will pay you when I feel like paying you over the next two years. And I said, well, you know, I say, you know what that movie the Lincoln lawyer, you know, the part where the bikers chased the lawyer down the car. That doesn't happen in the real world. It's a matter of fact that hardly ever pay. We do favor for favor type things. And I said, well, then, okay, I called Frankie the bomb. Tim and a few biker types went over to the office and the lawyer paid me within the hour in a bag. And I tax his ass for that too, man, you know. So I guess who I thought I know was pretty cool. Did you spend time with Taco? I know I met him a few times. Yeah. What was it? What was he like? They say he had a look that could kill you with his eyes. Well, I'm going to say one of the first times I met him, I said, I called him Harold, which is a no no in that world. His name was Harry Taco Bowman. Right. But you can't call him Harry or Harold. And I just like to fuck with you. So I go, Hey, Harold, you want to hear a good one? And he just fucking stared at me like kind of pissed off. I said, yeah, the guy came to my office the other day. He wants to sue you because he lived in Gross Point and the guy cut his lawn for like two years and Taco wouldn't pay him. So I go, yeah, man, he wants to sue you, man, for nonpayment of fees. And he goes, well, how's that lawsuit going? I go pretty fucked up. I think I lost it. I was negligent or something. He started cracking up with sociopathic, you know, by nature. But I love him pretty much. You mentioned that he lived in Gross Point. We talked about him on an episode earlier this fall. We did a whole kind of life in, we call it life in crimes of Taco Bowman. And he moved into Gross Point where all of the, the big wise guys were, were all the compost in my boss. Well, he's from Marysville. It's the smallest, it's closest thing to Mayberry RFD that I've ever seen because that's where I live right now. It's up in the sticks. It's a good 45 minutes from Detroit. Well, here's the funny part, man, the feds. They've got these tactics to break you to, I mean, just bleed them for you, bleed them, that kind of stuff. I mean, here I moved to Marysville. It's two hours away from downtown Detroit. It's two hours? Two hours? I just said 45 minutes. It's two hours. No, no, no. It's about an hour and a half to two hours. No, wait, or it's two hours. Two hours. I didn't realize that battle was a far away. No, the Eastern District of Michigan, the court is five minutes from my house. That's where my court is. You're on court? Yes. Five minutes from my house. Okay. The feds would make me, they would call me to go downtown to drug tests and alcohol tests, sometimes three times a week, 10 times a month. My court order said three times a month, but they were constantly doing this to harass you and rouse you and the whole thing. And they would clog in a phone call. You got to be downtown. The Marshalls are going to pick you up and blah, blah, blah. Man, you just got to pack it up. You got to go to the all day affair. And I bring it up in front of the judge and the judge says, well, you know, I can't believe our, we don't have the sophistication to test him here. But that's all that was said. And they still made me go downtown constantly. This happened for two and a half years. Did you ever have to take Frank the bomb to the feds office in downtown Detroit? No. No, no. You were just handling the McComb County stuff? I was at his house when the feds came to see him. They were looking for taco when he was on the run. He was at his house. Yeah. And I fuck. I didn't want to talk to no FBI guys. He was just like, he was laughing about it. Yeah. He said, oh, he told the FBI guy, yeah, I just seen taco. He just popped the fence in the back. He was with Jimmy Hoffa. He told the FBI guys and they started laughing and they laughed. I would want the extra of it. But when the FBI comes, by the way, when the FBI comes to see me the very first time Scott, the very first time, you know, nine agents don't come close unless something's up. You know what I mean? And when I said, hey, man, you know, this guy you're talking about this drug dealer, he got popped by the DEA. Where are you guys from? They all flip their cards all at the eye. So I already knew it was nothing to do with drugs. They wanted information on judicial bribery, political corruption and delivery of mob money for political influence. That's what they wanted. So they go on to see your phone. So they started going through my phone. Every person probably close to never that's got a bunch of mob bosses, narcotics, undercover cops, a bunch of criminals, you know, with well-known names and stuff like that. And when they got the Scott Bernstein, they got, you know, I had your number with my phone. Sorry about that. But anyway, they said, Bernstein, is that the Scott Bernstein? I said, yeah, the author guy. They said, yeah, well, we don't want his number. We definitely don't want his number. We need to start laughing. So I didn't, I was thinking, what the fuck, is this Bernstein FBI guy or something? Yeah, let's be very clear that there are some people that somehow believe that I'm like an arm, like a media arm of the federal government when that couldn't be further from the truth. Well, I mean, what are you supposed to think when you're surrounded by FBI agents in your house? That's never happened. I'm just saying, I feel like when anybody actually meets me, any of the people that I write about when they finally, if, you know, for both of our sakes, we get to kind of have a meeting of the minds. I think they help them away with the now that that is, again, the furthest thing from the truth. I will take a wise guy's word for what they're telling me. A lot of times I'll take it over what the feds are taking or telling me. I make my own decisions. I'm objective. I know it's being shaded on both sides. Scotty, I used to be a big fan of the FBI because I've witnessed so much criminal activity amongst judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement. I witnessed so much of this stuff that, to me, I thought, wow, the FBI, you know, they're there to clean this stuff up. I didn't know how rogue they were. They're becoming a fourth branch of government without any checks and balances. The only check and balance they have is the attorney general who rubber snaps whatever they do. So they've just become, I mean, they're unlimited funding. They have nothing but time. And anything that's in their path, they're going to destroy if you don't give them information. It's, listen, they hired 1,000, over 1,000, who stop old agents after the World War II. They brought them here to America to set up the FBI playbook. The only difference is they don't beat you with, you know, pistol whip, or pull your fingernails out or shot treatment and stuff like that. You know. I want to ask you something, and it's totally okay if you don't want to go there, but I was able to get my hands on a photo from a source and it looks like there was a point in the 2000s where the leadership of the Detroit mob was holding meetings at your, either at your house or your office. Again, you don't have to, you don't necessarily have to come. It definitely demonstrates the level of trust they had with you. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, everybody knew I wouldn't talk. I mean, everybody knew. I just was built into this world. You know, I mean, it was a perfect fit. I know. I didn't talk about it. I mean, not to, not like, I did a couple of things with these guys and we made money together, but you know, I didn't never kill. I never whacked nobody. You had nothing to do with that kind of stuff. No, but what I'm saying though is that picture shows me, without you telling me this, just me getting my hands on this photo that the, I think the photo was from like 2000 and maybe six. Oh, I think I know what you're talking about. She didn't want to allow no pictures there. What happened was, she wants to have the photo and it was like, Billy Giacalone, Alan Health, Tony Paolo, Jack Giacalone. Right. Yeah. They're all, yeah. What happened was I, Giacalone's daughter, I used to get my haircut from her husband over at Gross Point. So we had a little connection there. And I asked her one time, I says, I know there's no pictures allowed. You know, but would you take this picture? Would you orchestrate to take this as a present for a friend of mine? That's what I said. And she did it. So nobody would screw with her because it's just the daughter took it. And then she gave him a copy of it. What did you think of Tony Paolo? He's a nice guy. That's all I know him as a very nice guy. Very respectful, very nice guy. He was a down river guy. He didn't really. He wasn't from our side of town. I don't know. Yeah. It made me down river, but he was a very nice guy. And he was an Allen Hill, through whatever his name is, Jackie's best friend, the Jewish bookie. Yeah. And then what's selling Jewish guys to bring up? Man, we went on a 98 foot yacht. And I never forget this. I thought it was going to be like Donnie Brasko, you know, with the bottles of shared pain in the bras and the jacuzzi and all that shit. And in the old man freaked out because the Jewish guy brought a broad to the boat, you know, and he freaked out. He's like, there's no broads coming to this party. They'll fuck the whole party up. You know, real old school shit. I'm like, wow, we're going on a yacht and old women. That's a trip. What business do we need to discuss? Am I coming back alive? I don't know. You know, you know that the FBI believes that Tony Palazzola was actually with Billy Giacalone when Jimmy Hoffa was murdered. At least that's the belief of the FBI. Billy Giacalone was unaccounted for that afternoon. He had shook his surveillance unit. Yeah, he's always going to be unaccounted for. Yeah, I just understand from my perspective that he didn't really want to do that but that order came from New York. Well, it definitely was something that, you know, everybody needed to sign off on. It wasn't something that you could just do without consensus. So, yeah, there was a lot of coordination between Detroit, New York. You know, in the scheme of things, here's Jimmy Hoffa. Jimmy Hoffa takes this union pension fund and then a guy in Chicago does the same exact thing a couple years later. That guy in Chicago. Tony Accardo. Yeah, he did the same thing. Right. Tony Scalattro and Joey Ayupa. Did you hear the most, did you hear that most recent? You probably didn't hear about it. That some old cop from Milwaukee came out a month or two ago and said that Joey Ayupa, who was the Chicago mob boss, had an office body buried under Milwaukee County Stadium. Right. He just retarded. I don't know. Somebody wants to get noticed. Another want to be, hey, incidentally, have you ever met more wannabe gangsters than the East Side of Detroit? I mean, seriously, I lived around the country. I had a condo in South America. I've been to Europe. I've never met so many wannabe gangsters. Yeah, we could, you know, people talk about, you know, the kind of Jersey Shore influence in the New York youth culture. And I would say that it's analogous to what you have sometimes on the East Side of Detroit. But these guys could have their own little Jersey. They could have their own Jersey Shore show. I absolutely agree with you, man. That was a Jersey cheer. I can't even tell y'all. I thought, man, I looked out the window. I said, man, New York is so awesome. I went to Chinatown, Little Italy, and a real Jewish Kelly, man. You know, I was in heaven. And I looked out, I said, man, I didn't realize they have a coastline here with the waves coming. And the guy goes, hey, asshole, what do you think you're at? I go, I'm in New York. He said, oh, man, this is Belmar in New Jersey. I'm like, oh, he goes, New York. That's three hours away, dude. I was partying a little bit. So just let people know what, let's talk about your case for a second, and then we'll get to the book. OK, I am, in fact, the first. We'll let people know where they can get. OK, I'm, in fact, the first American citizen that's ever been to a federal prison for what they, where I pled to, was aiding and abetting drug trafficking where people did some lines of cocaine thereby creating the possibility that they might do another one. Not necessarily at my house, maybe down the street, maybe at a bar or maybe on Venus or fucking Mars. I don't know where else, but that's what I pled to. When I went up to the, they'd never fulfilled the element of profit. There's never been an allegation over 100 interviews, not one allegation. So I brought it up to the judge and it's on the federal record, by the way, verbatim. Brought up to the judge, there's no element of profit and the judge says, no, I disagree. It's what economists refer to as psychic rent. That means I profited in my own mind. So I said, well, that's the judge if I can go to fucking McDonald's buy a Big Mac fucking fries and a Coke and pay for it with the profit in my fucking mind. There's my fucking lawyer nodding out in the court and shit. She said, shut up or you're going to do another two years. So how did, what's the rationale there that you benefited by somehow these people are going to like you and do you favors because you're giving them cocaine? No, I never gave anybody or introduced anybody. If somebody wants to do it, I don't know what's up for them. What's the thought process behind psychic? Well, they tried to get me to sign this plea agreement that I set the drug dealer up with customers, which never I was facing 105 years at the time and I still wouldn't sign it. Then they helped me dismiss that and re-indicted me on this aiding and abetting theory. Now, I'm on the fucking Google. You just hit the fucking name. I'm the first person ever in the eastern district of Michigan to do 500 hours of community service hard labor. They put, I mean, this is to the 2000s they consented to the hard labor for no money, 500 hours, they only use community service to bar down jail time. They couldn't, in my case, because I maxed myself out on the guidelines, period. I never thought I was going to go to prison. At least I was told I wasn't. So they maxed me out on that and I still got 500 hours out of first day on the job. They gave me a sledgehammer and they suddenly start knocking out fucking bricks and taking these 50 to 70 pound boxes up two flights of stairs. It was, like, I don't know, what do you call it, excessive? So they nailed you for brokering coke deals without actually taking a percentage of the said deal? No, that wasn't okay. There's not even a ledge that I did that. It's not even a ledge. But if they're saying you were aiding and abetting, doesn't the aiding and abetting mean, A, you're helping facilitate the deal and, B, the property crisis. The first charge Scott was using an electronic device to facilitate drug trafficking, ordering a gram of cocaine. Now, that's done for people that don't want to touch the product, but they trafficked it by a computer or a phone. I was not, all I did was order a gram for myself or two. That's all I've ever done. And when I was running for judge, I don't remember I was on a few weeks' time being a judge. And I reached out and told the newspapers. I said, despite my prior indiscretions, I'm still the most qualified for this, for this judgeship or whatever the fuck you call it. I was already retired. I didn't need the money or nothing like that. I mean, for what I come from, I was already rich beyond my wildest dream. You know, I got a condo, I got a building, I got a place in the, you know, whatever house, all that shit. Everything was just about paid for. So I figured I'll retire or just, you know, give the store away until they kick me out the match. You're running for lower working class in hardship cases. So tell people how you started writing the book called, it's called From Pepperdine to Prison. It's a great read. It's a fast read. And you really get an inside look into this. I'm telling you, I say this about everybody, but it's, it's a, it's a, it's different with Paula because again, you're seeing it from a completely different lens. It's a movie script. I mean, it really is. You know, a lot of people tell me that, that it's a read more like a movie. I don't know because I watch a ton of movies. I love movies and I'm just, I'm just a movie junkie. And I used to work at 20 Century Fox in California. I got a job there. It was in 1985, man. I was making $20 an hour and I never went to the league. I've only went there one time to the legal department. I just walked around watching Hollywood film movies. So what was the process like of writing the book? You know, writing the book was not, I don't know. It's just kind of kind of natural to me. My mom used to be a book junkie. So she'd read me books all the time. So my mom was always reading books ever since I was a kid. And writing was not that hard. Just kind of like, I was kind of at, I'm like, I'm out of a job. I'm out of a career. I don't know what to do. Well, maybe, you know, maybe this will be my public service to educate the public, see what comes out. Now at the time I was still under federal probation and the threats of the federal government. They're still pulling me over all the time. You know, and all that other stuff. So I was kind of backed up. I didn't want to get me re indicted. I'm like, if you notice, I was not charged with any bribery, no tax evasion. They put in a petition. Did they get you for any of public corruption, even though they were claiming they were this big? Every lawyer, every gangster in the world gets a tax evasion charge because we deal in most cash. So my mom, when I had to go to the federal government to be audited, I mean, I mean, boxes, three boxes of documents going 10 years back in the last time when my taxes were well, if I claim 267, 287, 313,000, and that's just a tax money. Who knows what happened with all that cash? Everybody still thinks I got it buried and I'm living on a Michigan bridge car. Okay. I'm living in a van down by the river. Well, tell everyone where they can get it. Oh, oh my God, it's available. Now it's available on all kinds of mediums. I'll tell you the only white lie I said in this book is right on the cover. I try to make myself look six foot three because I'm not six foot three. I never will be, but I just thought it would be funny to do that. But it's available on Amazon or you just go www.frompepperdinerprison.com and yeah, I got a lot of good feedback because the people that are paying for this are paying inordinately into the system of corruption and there's a very secretive world just like the mob guys are. The judges are the same way. Listen, the worst criminals I've ever seen are from judges. The guys that you're paying to administer justice, fair and impartial, it's nothing like that. And I'm not saying all of them. I'm saying in my view, around 50%. I mean, I could get to a lot of these guys, you know, money talks, you know what I mean? When you watch a judge steal a 10 pound bag of cheese, what do you think he'll do for real money? When you watch a judge grab one of your envelopes of cash and stick it in his fucking pocket because he thinks you owe him because you're making money in his court. He's taxing, right? What do you think he'll do for real money? Now, I'm not the only one that's happened to, I understand from the editors in New York City which is the best editing firm I believe in the country, Kevin Anderson and the associates that I'm just the first person to write about this because it's a very secretive world and nobody wants to cut their own throat. In my case, I don't care. I'm old enough. I'm never going to give my law license back by the way of doing things that's over. You've got to be a realist, you know what I mean? And I figured, why not? I write a book. I wrote it like the first half of it. I started writing. I had a computer, a laptop. I never read on social media, none of that. So I just, I handled it. And then I got a computer delivered to me. And every day I'd write, Paul is an asshole, Paul is a big asshole, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Paul is an asshole, lives a marital, blah, blah, blah. You've got to have a good sense of humor to live through what you've lived through. Why not? I mean, what's the other, I mean, going to fetal positions, I'm sucking your thumb, I want my mom and all this shit. Yeah, I felt like being in prison. I got up on solid care, man, and locked out because they get propagandaized bullshit about early release. They gave me the early release at the prison. They called me up to the thing. So where's, are you going to be ready? You ever ride home when you get out of here? I'm like, that's six months from now. I don't know. That's tomorrow morning. And the next day at 8, 8.15, I was out. I went directly to the halfway house to get a tether. And they locked me down in this room for solid, you know, for COVID and all that shit. So I'm in a room with 14 guys. I sat on a milk rake for three days. And I finally got up dad. Then after two weeks, I got an infection in my eye. So they allowed me a trip to the hospital. And then they didn't know what to do with me for their short staff. So they stuck me in like a broom closet with the security screens. So the telephone, they give you those at work or the TV, you know, you just sit there and stare at the wall, man, trying to figure things out. And I'm in bad company by myself, man. I've got 16 personalities that all want to be heard from. And the last one, you need a fucking hockey helmet and a fucking drill bowl, you know what I mean? It doesn't know that. But one thing they underestimated was my perseverance and my faith in God through Jesus the Christ. And that's it. Call it whatever you want. What does Buddha say the best religion is the one that brings you into the light? It don't matter what path you take. Just try to take a path, man. Then go post it a little bit. So you don't do nothing bad. No. I want to leave with one quick anecdote that kind of, I think, encapsulates what Paul is talking about in Macomb County. And I'm not going to mention the names of judges, but I'll just give one situation that popped up in the last decade where you had two guys that are allegedly part of the Sicilian faction of the Detroit mafia. They were trying to shake down a competing business owner that had opened up an Italian restaurant across from their Italian restaurant. Oh yeah, they beat that guy with a baseball bat. They beat the guy with a baseball bat. I mean, with an inches of his life, he's charged in Macomb County for attempted murder. The case gets chopped down to some third degree assault. I'm not exactly sure. I don't want to be misquoted, but it ended up being like four or five months in county jail and the rest done in home confinement. This really, really upset the feds who felt like there had been some chicanery behind the scenes. They came in and hit them with a rico based on the same exact occurrence. But at the end of the day, the one brother only ends up doing about 18 months. Well, you got to ask yourself this question, Scott. Why does that same judge keep coming up in all these controversial situations? Just ask yourself that. And then you have a situation in the federal court system, and again, I'm not going to mention any names. Jack Toko, who was the godfather of the Detroit mob convicted of being the godfather of the Detroit mob, convicted of being the number one defendant in a racketeering conspiracy and in a situation where every other contemporary of his around the country would be doing 30 years, he gets sentenced to a year or less. And the feds had to come in and appeal it. He ends up doing like 18 months. The differences in my case, listen, every McCombe County, Michigan had more indictments than LA County where 10 million people, or Cook County, they have more indictments here depending right now, right here and now. This is all current. And every single one of these politicians saved Dean Reynolds, who took his case to trial, he was a low guy in a poll and he's doing 17 years. All these other politicians, the prosecutor, his assistants, the whole fucking gamut of these people, they're all keeping their pensions. Most of them kept their jobs, you know, because they cut deals with the feds. Well, you mentioned Eric Smith. Nobody went to prison. The prosecutor went for a few months, Smith went to prison, right? And they put him in a camp, and he got out early. This is the prosecutor that we were talking about early in the interview. He's trying to jam you. Meanwhile, he's brought down in a huge corruption case and has to go to prison. Look, I came on the radar in 2011, but I understand because I threw a fundraiser for Eric Smith because his office dismissed the drug driving that I had. I had a couple of men on the level. Anyway, so I vowed never to drink and drive again and that was 17 years ago and I never had, you know. And so I was just grateful and our mothers grew up in the same neighborhood. He said, well, Eric Smith's half Italian, you know that, right? His mom's Italian. With my mother, they went to school together. So we had a little conectionary and he treated me pretty good. He doesn't work hard or nothing, but everybody knew what was going on. Dude, you can go to the fucking prosecutor's office or alcohol. It's $1,750. I would go there with $500 in an envelope with a post that you just had to give this there. You know, they're all taking cash, you know. I'm not saying what I did was all right, but it was helping a client out and helping somebody with hardships out. Nobody was getting hurt. You know, I mean, say you're Scott Burstein. You had too many drinks, you came to me. Hey, Paulie, what can you do, man? I can't have this on my record. You know, okay, with the right amount of money, then we can do this or that. I don't see no harm in that. I mean, you're not, as long as you're hitting a school bus full of kids and shit like that. You know what I'm saying? Paulie, you were an amazing tour guide or curator to take us in this journey through your life and through the halls of this kind of work justice that we have in Detroit and in your relationships and experiences with some of these big time Detroit mob guys that were tied into the Hoffa case. This was awesome. This was one of my favorite interviews I've done. Paulie, thank you so much. Come on, man, you're awesome. You know, I never in a million years think I'll be talking you on a Zoom. I think that's my first time I ever Zoom. Well, we're going to do another in-person one. Christopher, just to tease it out here. Yeah, but you got your buddy Steve Fishman who's one of the best lawyers in Detroit as the number one attorney gangsters of shit like that. You know, I called him on the phone after I seen him on the TV to just ask him about something. He said, hey, man, what are you trying to do? Reopen your face and go, no, I'm trying to shut up other people. Just tell me that I don't have a case. Okay. You were pretty cool about it. This was great. And again, we're going to do another one that's going to be for a, just for a Detroit media outlet, but we'll also share it on Original Gangsters podcast and that will be a little bit probably more centered on his case. But that's going to come up in the next couple months, but this will be on YouTube and on Apple iTunes Spotify. We are incredibly great. You joining us was very gracious and being as forthright as you've been and giving us this great insight and perspective. I'm just going to be honest with you too. I touched on it in the book. I touched on a lot of things in the book. So some people are aware, but now I have the freedom to say whatever I want and whatever. It's kind of cool. That was awesome. Thank you, Paulie. Have a great holidays. We'll see you next week on another long form episode of the OG pod. I'm Scott Bernstein.