Criminal - Witness

Episode Date: December 7, 2018

We speak with a man who has given thousands of people new names, told them where they would live, and warned them they could never go back home. For more, check out Gerald Shur's book, WITSEC. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts. Sign up for Criminal Plus to get behind-the-scenes bonus episodes of Criminal, ad-free listening of all of our shows, special merch deals, and more.  We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop. Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's BotoxCosmetic.com. That's BotoxCosmetic.com. Once you are away, you may tell anybody you are away. You cannot tell them where you are. You cannot communicate easily through the internet. All you can do now is one them. This is Gerald Shore. He's given thousands of people new names, told them where they would live, and warned them they could never go back home. And they have a sheet with the rules,

a sheet of 8x10 piece of paper, and they sign that piece of paper that they will abide by the rules. You know, 8 by 10 piece of paper. And they sign that piece of paper that they will abide by the rules. And the rules are, you know, we don't want to go through the list, but the essentially it's I will be a good person and

live a normal life. Above all else, keep your head down. You have to get a new job and a new place to live in a new city with a new social security number and no credit history. If you meet someone you like, you can never tell them who you are or where you're really from. You can't bring them home to your parents.

All of these rules were the invention of one man, Gerald Shore, the father of the Witness Protection Program. Back in the 1960s, he was working for the Department of Justice on organized crime when he realized there was a problem. Organized crime, specifically the Italian mafia, had its own set of secret rules. And these rules made it impossible for law enforcement to get anyone convicted. Here are the rules of organized crime,

as Gerald Shore summarized them in a 1963 report. You may not engage in an affair with the wife of another member. You may not engage in an affair with the sister or daughter of another member. No stealing from another member. No acts of violence against another member unless approved by the boss. No handling narcotics or deriving a profit from their sale. Many people have pointed out that this one doesn't seem to be taken too seriously. But the most important rule of all is silence. Do not give information about the organization to any outside person, especially the police. Some say the rules are explained to mafia initiates

during a sort of ceremony. The crime boss pricks your finger and then smears the blood onto a picture of a saint. Then the picture is put into your hand and set on fire. You have to hold it while it's burning and repeat the oath. And then you're introduced to everyone else as, quote, a new friend of ours. If you break the rules, you'll burn like the card. How could a member of an organized crime group come forward and testify and live? I mean, they would murder him before if they knew he was going to testify or murder him after he testified

and indeed might even murder other members of his family. And so I thought we needed a way to offer some kind of protection and we certainly couldn't protect him at home or in the city, we'd have to move them someplace. And so from that came the idea of the Witness Protection Program.

It's against the law not to testify because you're scared. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that not even the fear of death can diminish your legal duty to testify. But that doesn't stop people from being scared. As Gerald Shore realized, people only talk when they feel safe. So he found a way to protect them. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. In his 34 years running the Witness Protection Program, Gerald Shore says he interacted with every single witness who entered it. Today, he's 86, and he agreed to tell us some, but not all, of what he knows.

Yes, I'm happy to help out. Good. There's only one area that I cannot go near, and of course, there isn't anything that is classified. Yep. Good. Gerald Shore grew up in New York City in the 1940s. His father owned a dress shop in the Garment District,

a part of the city that was, to use Gerald's phrase, mob-infested. So, in order to keep his business running without any trouble, his father was friendly with the people he needed to be friendly with. Gerald remembers mafia guys at his bar mitzvah. When he was 15, he was eating cheesecake at a restaurant with his father when two men walked by and greeted them. His father said, I know them from work.

Later, Gerald read in the newspaper that they were suspected of throwing sulfuric acid in a journalist's face at that same restaurant. Following organized crime became his hobby. I used to clip articles out of newspapers about organized crime and save them. And I started a scrapbook. He went to college, got married, and went to law school in Texas. He had two children and started his own legal practice in Corpus Christi.

And then, one day in 1961, he read in the Dallas Morning News that Robert Kennedy was expanding the organized crime division at the Department of Justice. And that was, of course, something that struck me, whose hobby was organized crime. So when I saw that he was going to have an organized crime drive, I went up to Washington and wound up leaving my practice and going to work for the organized crime and racketeering section of the Department of Justice. His job was to collect evidence that would convict mob members. His

territory was New York City. And he started to notice very quickly that the mafia's code of silence was going to get in his way. People who talked got killed. He had the photographs of dead bodies to prove it. Even with police protection, potential witnesses wound up dead. Famously, in 1941, the most feared hitman in New York, called Abe Kid Twist Rellis, agreed to testify against a high-ranking mafia boss. He had six police officers guarding his room at the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island. And then, on the morning he was scheduled to testify, he fell from his hotel window, six stories to his death.

Newspapers called him the canary who could sing but couldn't fly. In 1961, a heroin smuggler named Albert Agueche from the Buffalo crime family threatened to inform on the family's boss, Don Stefano. About a month later, his body was found in a field naked, his front teeth knocked out, and a reported 30 pounds of flesh cut from his body. Gerald remembers one man who'd worn a wire for the FBI. He'd been caught and had wires jammed through his skull to send a message. After you deal with a thousand or so, more of them, more than a thousand, there's not much shocking left. Gerald Shore knew that in order to get any results in the courtroom, they would have to find a way to keep these witnesses alive.

In the early days, he was just making it up as he went along. No one had ever done anything like this before. He has stories about U.S. Marshals chasing down a family pet, flying a boxer in to spar with a bored witness, and even paying for one witness's wife to get breast implants, a facelift, and dental work. But eventually, he settled on a system. Can you take me through the steps of entering the program? If I were a potential witness that needed help, what are the steps?

Well, the steps of getting into the program are what are the crimes that they're testifying, the witnesses testifying to, how important is that witness to the case? I mean, there's a considerable evaluation and that you are in danger if you testify. Then they will ask you if you would agree to relocate. If you would, they then send an application form to my office where my staff evaluated the information they provided

and what was involved in relocating, how many people, how many children. And then a psychologist will examine the witness and members of the family. So all that information is then sent into the Office of Enforcement Operations in the United States Department of Justice. And there they have a staff of people that really run the program. And a staff works it up, reviews it, makes their recommendation. And if the director decides it's true, sounds good, let's go. And they go ahead and send it over to the marshal service. So Deputy United States Marshal would go to the witness's home,

assess their needs, how many adults, how many children, is anybody sick, and evaluate the situation. And all of that information is gathered. Now that's as far as I'll take you with one breath. After all of that, the family is relocated to a secret location in Washington, D.C., where families entering the Witness Protection Program go for kind of an orientation. And then they're told how to act. And people will work with them on getting used to their new names and so on.

So it's getting them used to the documents and used to the new name and using it and responding when someone calls them. Witnesses and their families get to keep their first name and their last initial. Gerald wanted to give them time to catch themselves when they were signing a check. He also didn't want anyone to accidentally turn their head when their old name was called. And that's the sort of thing you have to practice.

Children had to practice writing down their new name over and over. And everyone got a whole new set of documents. So they would have a new driver's license, new school records. Whatever you would normally have would be changed into another name legally. Legally, right, legally. I mean, a judge would perform the usual procedure associated with name changes. You have to leave everything behind. Photo albums, diaries, drawings your children made.

Your memories become a kind of liability, and you're coached on how to change the subject when someone asks you about yourself. The name of the school on your children's report cards changes. The grades stay the same, even though Gerald says some parents have asked for artificial improvements. We have been asked by people who have been in the military if we would make them officers, you know, make somebody a lieutenant. And, of course, we're not going to do that.

The papers they get will reflect exactly as the real papers do, only the names changed. Did people ever want to change their pasts? Like, have this opportunity to create a new identity, and so tell you to make them from here or here, or tell you to say that they did this or that? Well, we will not make up a past to pass on to others. We will report that they were carpenters, if that's the case. But the problem is, who are they going to give as a reference? You know, if you can't give the name of the deputy marshal,

that gives away something very peculiar about you. You're dealing with a deputy. How do you get a job if you don't have any work history? At first, I went out to several corporations. I had a friend who worked for the United States Chamber of Commerce, who's located in Washington, D.C., and he was very interested in crime and fighting crime. And I mentioned to him that we were going to relocate people, but we have to find them work. And so he said he'll set up a meeting with five or six corporate presidents

for a luncheon and it'll be in a private room and i would explain the program to them and uh and he said if they agreed that the majority of them agreed to help you. He said, then I will help you forever. And the result of that meeting was we put together almost, I think, 1,000 corporations that agreed to assist hiring relocated people. And it worked very, very well. Gerald says that the Witness Protection Program will support you financially for the first six months in your new location. But then you do have to get a job and take over your own expenses. The program couldn't afford to support everyone forever. In the early days, they spent as much as $1 million

relocating some witnesses. It was controversial. Yes, there were people that were very concerned about it. And concerned about the appearance of moving families, paying money for them to do that, and how would we deal with that, but the actual total cost of doing it. And I think I estimated that we would have five families in New York City in one year. And I think it turned out, I think they had 25. So I'm obviously not good when it comes to math.

Critics have asked whether it's buying testimony, which is illegal. One marshal has said about a famous witness, the truth is, we were buying his testimony to some degree. I know the Justice Department will deny it, but it is what we did. How else would we ever get inside? Gerald says that 95% of the witnesses who've entered the program

were involved in a legal activity themselves. And some critics asked whether it's fair to everyone else to move criminals into unsuspecting communities. Did people who ever entered the program commit more crimes? Yes. Yes, about 15%. What would happen when someone who was in the program committed a crime? would you get involved? Yes, and we would place him in another prison if he's convicted. If he's arrested by the state, a state, we would know it because witnesses are fingerprinted,

and all their fingerprints are sent to the FBI. When an arrest is made in any city in the country, the prints of the prisoner are sent to the FBI. So anytime they're arrested, we get a notice. And in one of the early surveys, again, the number 15%, 15% committed crime again. That must be incredibly frustrating. Well, we consider it a great success because the criminals who go to prison without being in the witness program, a much, much higher rate of them commit crime again. Whereas those in the witness program that are in prison,

when they get out, they're getting help, getting a job. They're no longer in the society with friends that are criminals. You know, they have someone out there to help them. So I think the help, this personal assistance, is the most important reason for us having a very low recidivism rate. There have been some notable exceptions. In 1979, a bank robber named Marion Pruitt was serving time in an Atlanta prison when he agreed to supply information about who had murdered his cellmate. The Witness Protection Program relocated him to Albuquerque. Two years later, Pruitt beat his wife to death with a hammer and burned her remains in the desert.

He then killed five more people and robbed a series of banks before he was caught. He later admitted that he had murdered his own cellmate and framed another man for it so that he could get into the Witness Protection Program. As one high-ranking U.S. Marshal once said, It's a problem program. It's always going to be a problem program because every element in it is human. Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story,

a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Hey, it's Scott Galloway, and on our podcast, Pivot,

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How were the cities? How would you decide Bobby's going to Tucson and Cheryl's going to Tacoma? How did you pick the city? The first thing you would look at is your workload. You have witness security inspectors throughout the country, but they can only handle so many witnesses at one time, and handle their needs. So you would look at the workload, and so that would eliminate certain cities.

Then you would try to find one in which they would be comfortable. But if you'd always talked about wanting to live in San Francisco, they wouldn't put you in San Francisco. Too easy to guess. Still, they tried to match witnesses with cities that might suit them. You know, it's very difficult to adjust, you know, from New York City to Idaho. I think the hardest thing is, well, several elements. The community you live in is different. Having to adjust to that. Having to lie to their neighbors for the first time.

And they have a made-up history, and that's what they have to tell the neighbor. The normal things that you do in life, the first time they go to a grocery store and use a charge card and a new name, and remembering to sign the slip with the new name, not the old name. I guess also being cut off from all your family that's being left behind. That's very difficult. And when a mother dies that's left back home and they want to go to the funeral, we will somehow make arrangements for them to not necessarily be at the funeral, but they will get to see their deceased relative, the mother or father, whomever, privately

in the funeral home. Gerald has said, being relocated was something I would not wish on anyone. The only reason to do it was if it was your only hope to stay alive. They can leave the program any time they want. And if they want to go back home, they can go back home. All the witnesses are told, don't go back home, among other things. There was a guy in 1972 who was in the witness protection program and decided to break the rules and go check on his house.

His house had been rigged with a bomb, and when he opened the front door, it exploded and killed him. But, according to the U.S. Marshals, not a single witness who follows the rules has been harmed or killed while under active protection. They report that since 1971, they've successfully relocated and given new identities to more than 8,600 witnesses and nearly 10,000 of their family members. Did anyone change their mind once they learned what they'd have to do? Yes. Yes, there are people who have left the program and have even gone back using their real name. And some are very free about that, but that's their choice. In 1975, a New Jersey hitman named John Tully entered the program.

He was relocated to Austin, Texas, and given the new name John Johnson. He set himself up with a pretty successful fajita and hot dog stand business. Everything was going well until 1991, when he decided to run for mayor. For some reason, he announced he would put John Johnson off to the side for now and told everyone who he really was. He provided journalists with his seven-page rap sheet and said his cooperation with the government had helped to convict nine people. He said he'd been a thief before running for office,

which was better than everyone else, who, quote, got into office and then started crooking. He received 496 votes. Gerald Shore says that a lot of these cooperating witnesses are used to feeling like a big deal, and to now have to live quiet, simple lives is hard. As he puts it, time was frozen for them. Being away from a life you've lived 40 years with the patterns you've developed, the friendships you've made,

and changing, and suddenly you're in a wilderness. You don't know anybody. You're not a rising star. You're just another person. In our next episode, we'll speak with the son of a Colombo kingpin who testified against his father and then had to enter the Witness Protection Program. Criminal is created by Lauren Spohr and me.

Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Audio mix by Rob Byers. Special thanks to Natalia Luderman. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com, where we have a link to our shop, where we've got all kinds of new things, like a tote bag featuring my favorite art of a baby bird skeleton.

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