John Kiriakou's Dead Drop - S2E10 Food, Glorious Food!

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

IN THIS EPISODE, meet Joey Casello. These days, Joey owns a great pizzaria in South Carolina. But, back in the day, Joey was one of the greatest prison chefs ever at Laretto. If you remember from the movie Goodfellas, the Italians weren't interested in the prison chow. Instead they cooked their own food - gourmet Italian meals - all prepared using a rudimentary (and incredibly dangerous) cooking system: a bucket of water and a live electrical wire that makes the water boil immediately. SHOW NOTESIf you're enjoying Dead Drop, please check out our other podcasts at Costard & Touchstone. Your next podcast binge is just a click away! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This podcast, it's a Costerton Touchstone production. I've talked a lot over the years about food in prison. I hate to even call it food, to tell you the truth. It was slop. On my very first full day in prison, it was a Friday. One of the Italians with whom I became very friendly, Pete Calabrese, mentioned offhandedly that it's Friday. That means it's fish day.

And I responded by saying, oh, great, I love fish. And he said, oh, don't eat this fish. We call it sewer trout, and it's not fit for human consumption. Well, he and I walked down to the chow hall together, and what I saw was something that I'll never forget. The guys in the chow line were slopping the slop onto your tray, but behind them were boxes, boxes of fish. And on the side of these boxes, every one of them,

it was clearly marked Alaskan cod product of China, feed use only, not for human consumption. And that's what they were putting on our plates. I looked at Pete, he said, I told you. And so I never, ever, ever ate the fish. I've also talked about another incident that happened about halfway through my sentence where every Wednesday night was so-called taco night.

And excuse the filthy thing I'm going to say. I once threw away the entire taco. And the warden saw me throw the whole thing away. And he said, in the old days, you could get written up for that. And I responded, I've eaten ass that tasted better than this taco. What do you do if you can't eat the food? If you won't eat the food, if you shouldn't eat the food, if the food is going to make you sick. I'm John Kirooku.

Welcome to Dead Drop. What Makes a Spy Tick? This is episode 10 in our series Doing Time Like a Spy. And as always, we thank you for listening. We thank you even more for liking, rating, reviewing, and commenting on the podcast on whatever platform you happen to be listening to it. Prison food is institutional food that other institutional food laughs at. No, that's actually not true.

It sneers at it. And with good reason, the prison authorities don't want to spend a single dollar more than they have to. Fold in a bunch of competing interests, plenty of corruption and greed, and the result is a hellish jambalaya of gastronomic awfulness. There was one incident where for Taco Night, they accidentally fed us dog food. The reason we know that is that the warden, months after the fact, sent everybody a memo saying, hey, sorry, but a couple of months ago on Taco Night, we accidentally fed you dog food.

It's not our fault. The packaging was mixed up at the meat plant. Yeah. They labeled dog food as ground beef, and they labeled the ground beef as dog food. The shame is not even that we were fed dog food. The shame is that we were fed dog food, and we couldn't even tell the difference. Right. So what did we do?

We relied on people like our guest tonight, Joey Casillo. Joey Casillo was one of the finest, I'm going to call them chefs at FCI Loretto. A lot of guys cook. The Mexicans all cook. cook, right? You have a trash can of water. You throw in a live electrical wire called a stinger. It immediately brings the water to a boil. You put some food in a plastic bag. Next thing you know, you've got a gourmet meal. The Mexicans ate to survive. We ate, and I say we, I'm including myself with the Italians, we ate as a culinary experience. Yes. Joey, welcome. Good to have you.

Thank you, John. Jolie, walk us through this man. When I first saw a stinger, I unplugged it. I said, oh, my God, what a health hazard. This is a live electric. And the Mexicans are like, are you out of your mind? We're making dinner. I didn't know what the heck they were doing.

But then when you cooked, when Mark Lancelotti cooked, it was like being in a restaurant in Little Italy. How did you do that? Walk us through it. Well, when I first came to the prison, I'll let me say this real quick. I didn't know nothing about prison just like you. Sure. So I walked in and this guy comes up to me.

I forget his name, a black guy. And he says, what's your name, sir? I said, Joey. And I'm thinking to myself, wow, you know, nice people here. Right. Talking to me. So everybody's laughing. And I'm like, what are you laughing at?

He says, we'll tell you later. Just keep talking to this guy. So I'm talking to him. He says if there's anything you need, Joey, you let me know. And I said, okay. So then I go back to myself, three guys come in that were laughing. And I said, can you tell me why were you laughing? He says, the guy is gay.

He wants to pick you up right away because you're new in the prison. Well, the word got out to Peter Calabrese. When he found out, he said, Joey. Stay away from them guys. If you find a twinkie or a piece of gum or a lollipop on your bed, don't touch it. Yep. I said, okay, Pete, I won't. So I was learning little things here and there.

And with the cooking, I knew how to cook on the outside with the stove, but like John said, the stinger. Mm-hmm. I blew what that was. So I bought one one one day. Oh, you're kidding me. So you didn't know what a stinger was? I learned watching, watching everybody cook. I said, oh, okay.

but the stuff they cooked was rice and the same things. John cooked pizzas. I cooked menagardi. I cooked spaghetti, meatballs. John, it was 2 o'clock in the morning. John's sound asleep. I said, I'm hungry. I'm going to cook.

I made, I think I made a pizza or men of Gardi, something I made Italian. So I crawled out. I walked to John's room. I said, John, he goes, yeah, I'm sleeping. I said, John, I got Italian food. He says Italian food and he got right up. I did. I did.

And this went on consistently. We did it all the time. Yeah. How about the calzone's you used to make? Let me talk about the calzone's for a second. So a lot of the Mexican guys used to cook. And like you said, it was rice, rice, rice, rice with this saison sauce or not even sauce. It was like an orange powder that had no flavor at all.

but they sold it in the commissary. And so they would sell these, they would call them calzone. And Pete said to me one day, why do you buy those disgusting things? And I said, oh, they're so, they're so filling and delicious. They got all kinds of stuff in him. He goes, it's not a calzone. It's a fucking burrito. Those guys wouldn't know a calzone if it walked up and introduced itself to them.

Yes. And so I said, you're right. And then you started making calzones. And I said, oh, my God, this is an actual. calzone like from an italian restaurant made in a trash bucket full of boiling water but wait a minute i i don't know if you knew this i never got i got some of the stuff from commensary i used to get it from the guards in the kitchen yes i wanted to ask you about that yes i had a good hookup right there especially when i got with the i don't can we say names on here sure why not we'll leave not

later if we have to. When I got with Nikki Carazzo, I had to learn the whole nine yards. Yeah, because Nikki was a very, very important person in a certain Italian-American subculture. Yeah. And very important

person. And as his status demanded, he got the best of everything, including the best food. Our friend Mark Lanzalotti, who was an absolutely brilliant cook. I once told him he fed me. It was on my birthday. It was my 50th birthday. He had a big bash for me. I remember. Remember that? I told my wife that night. It was the first time I had smiled in nine months. Yeah. And oh my God, how we laughed our heads off that night. But he made this

gourmet meal. And the very first thing he did, and he did this every time he cooked, is he would pull out all of his Tupperware. He would load the Tupperware with complete meals and send them to Nikki and to Pete and everybody else of that status. Yes. They had a crooked guard on payroll who was bringing in everything that we needed. You know, loaves of Italian bread, white wine for the Marsala sauce. We got pork loin. We got beautiful chicken breasts and fresh tomatoes and fresh mushrooms and onions and all kinds of stuff.

But bags and bags of pasta and sauce. It wasn't just crooked guards bringing it in from the inside, from the outside, rather. It was guards working in the kitchen. They're supposed to be guarding the prisoners that are cooking the food. They're actually stealing most of the food or stealing the good food and then selling it to you. Well, yeah, that's how it works. And you know our money was books of stamps and macros. Right.

So whatever Nikki wanted pasta that night. I saw it with books of stamps, pull the guy aside and say, listen, we want this, we want this with this. Within 20 minutes, it was in my room. When did you arrive, Joey? 2012. So you got there just barely before I did. I got there February 28, 2013. Yeah.

So when I first arrived, I was there maybe a week or two weeks. And one of the guards in the kitchen was fired and escorted out. And Pete told me, it was being. because he was allowing prisoners working in the cafeteria to steal food. And that was a very popular side hustle. They would just go from sell to sell to sell, selling food for bags of mackerel or books of stamps. But he would allow them to steal the food in exchange for a blow job. That they would blow him and then they could steal whatever food they wanted.

Yeah. They walked that guy out and they allowed him to keep his pension, which was not cool at all. But then they tightened things up. And I remember they used to frisk us as we would walk out of the cafeteria because God forbid you should have an apple in your pocket or a pat of butter that you want to take back to yourself. How did you get around all that? It was easy. It was just given to me all the time. I didn't have to walk out with nothing.

All I had to do, they say, who is this for? I said, Nikki. Go ahead. Done. Done. And when I brought it to Nikki's room, I was looking for him one day, right? He called Chris. You remember Chris?

Yes. Chris came down and said, Nikki wants you up there and now to cook. It was 10 o'clock in the morning. I said, okay, I'll go start cooking the pasta. While I'm cooking, getting everything ready, the peppers, the onions, the oil, everything. So Nikki says, all right, everybody out. I said, Nikki, you just call me up here to cook. I'm taking my hour nap.

out and come back in an hour. So I had to put everything away, come back and cook. Oh, my God. And when you were cooking in Nikki's room, it was the same as cooking in your own room. We're talking about a garbage bucket full of hot water. Brand noodle. Everything he had was brand new. The Mexican, their dirty bucket. The dirty. Yeah. Yeah. We actually used And there were four Mexicans in my first cell. Yeah. We actually used that bucket for trash. Yeah.

And then they would just pull the trash out, fill it with water, throw the stinger in, and make food. Right. It was disgusting. Yeah. Okay. So walk us through. How do you do this? You got the bucket.

You fill it with water. And then what? You fill it with water. While you're preparing everything, you'll put the stinger in. Tie it. And explain what? what a stinger is? A stinger is wires from an iron or TV, whatever they can get.

A lamp. Yeah. And it's square pieces of metal. They would get it where the metal makers, they had like a shop in there. Yes. Or they'd steal a face plate off the wall. So it was two pieces of metal with something in the middle so you don't get shocked. Well, I never got shocked.

But let me tell you, every time they raided us, they took my stinger. And I said to the guard, I said, I just want to tell you, you know I cook for Nicky, everybody in the prison knows. Okay, we won't take your stingoes no more. So then other guards would come, they would take it because they didn't know. I had 26 stingers after they let me had stingers in my locker. And I had them on the shelf wide open, nobody touched nothing. the respect we got because of Nikki.

Yeah. And I would just like to go on. I want to say something before we get into anything else. When I first came into prison, like I said, I didn't know nothing. I was sitting with the blacks eaten. You know, I had the black side. Right. We should say in the cafeteria, all African-American inmates sit on one side.

Yeah. Every one of them. On the other side, it's divided. And we talked about this in the past. The front table is what to call the good guys. That's white guys. Most of them are Aryans. White guys convicted of crimes that have nothing to do with child sex crimes.

And then the next table was Italians on the one side and Native Americans on the other. And then behind them were all the pedophiles and the rats. They had to sit together. Yeah. So go ahead. So I had colored guys when I had. first came to prison and myself. So they liked me, you know, joke around.

And I was the only Italian or white person to say the end word to them. You know how they all say? I was the only one to say that. Anybody else they would shank them. Yeah. They loved me. I just, I'm that kind of person.

Like me and you bond it real quick. Immediately. Yeah. So anyway, they said, you come sit with it. I said, okay, now I don't know nothing. I see all these people. I'm there for like two weeks, three weeks, eating there all the time.

So then finally, Nikki says, what are you doing sitting over there? I said, Nikki, I just got the, I just got here. I don't know much. He says, for now on, you're over here with the Gambinos. You're with us. Yes. I said, okay.

So then I'm Pete Selly now. Yes. He says, Joey, no, no, no, no. You're not with the Gambinos. You're with the Baninos. Yes. And I said, Pete, I don't know which way to go now. I don't know.

You know, Pete said the same thing to me. I was sitting with the Aryans only because the Aryans told me to. And then Pete said to me one day, we were walking out. Our cells were directly across from each other. And we were walking out. And he said, let me ask you something. Why do you sit with those Nazi retards in the cafeteria? Those were his exact words.

And I said, I don't know, Pete. When I first arrived, they told me sit with them. And then very dramatically, he puts his finger in the air and he says, from today, you're with the Italians. And then I sat with the Italians the whole rest of the time I was there. When you first started sitting at the Italian tables with us, Nikki would always go, I know he lives next door to you across the hall. Is he all right? You sure, Joe, he's all right.

I said, yeah, Nikki, he's good. I vouch for him. He's good. You don't know the stuff he asked me about you. I believe it because he asked Mark Lanzalati exactly the same question. He was genuinely worried because the guy didn't know the difference between the CIA and the FBI. Right. And he was afraid that I was a cop.

Yeah. Yeah. And Mark told him, he said, the FBI are cops and rats. The CIA protected us from the Muslims. That's what he told him. And then I was okay after that. I said, he's a good guy, Nick. He's a good guy.

He says, all right, then he's with us. I said, all right. We're made men now, Johnny. Seriously, right? I felt like I was. Yeah. I'll tell you, man, that was a community. The Italians, I say all the time that the Italians in prison, for stupid reasons, are considered to be a gang. They even have their own suffix on the prisoner number, 047. If you're 047, that means your mob.

And it's not fair. Right. But anyway, it's not a gang. Anyway, let's pretend for a moment that it is. Right. Of all the prison gangs, and these are major gangs, you got the Crips and the Bloods and the Latin Kings and the Buracios and the Nortezos and the M.S. 13 and this one and that one and the other one, the Italians were the smallest and the most highly respected. Yes. And that was hands down.

There were no exceptions to that. The Italians were universally respected. And another thing, too, the Italians were the only gang, in air quotes, that didn't have a shot collar. And they didn't have a shot color because they didn't need a shot color. You had made men at any given time. There were six, seven, eight of them. And they did everything by consensus. And we would all have to sit with them with the made men.

And if something was to go on, if somebody wanted. want it to beat somebody up or everybody would agree. That's how it worked in there. That's right. That's exactly right. I genuinely liked and respected them. Yeah. I'll tell you a funny thing too.

I was an expert witness in a trial last week. I was an expert witness for the defense. And this poor guy was charged with six felonies, all six of which carried a mandatory sentence of life without parole. And I testified on his behalf. He had a public defender. And in the cross-examination,

all the U.S. attorney wanted to ask me about, and he was mean about it and aggressive. All he wanted to ask me about was the Italians at Loretto. And that was I with the Italians? I said, you bet I was. And you said that they were honorable. And I said, and they were honorable. They're all convicted murderers.

I said, I don't know what they were convicted of. It was none of my business. I can tell you that in my dealings with them, they were all honorable to a man, every single one of them. In fact, I'm still friends with a lot of them because they were honorable. And so in the end, I'm very, very proud to say this. The guy was found not guilty on all six counts last year. Yeah, all six.

counts. That doesn't happen very often. But anyway, I want to get back to cooking. You've got this pipeline of real food, actual food. Well, it's not like you're sitting in your bunk reading out

of a cookbook. So how did you know what to make? How did you know how to plan what to make? And what do you do if you're halfway through a meal and you're like, oh, crap, I don't have any tomatoes or mushrooms or chicken breast or whatever. What do you do?

I always had it. We always had it. I never was out nothing. I don't know even what to say. It was there. It was there. Whatever we needed. Just like the movie Goodfellows, that's how we... Yeah, I say that all the time, Joe. That scene in Goodfellas was 1,000% true. We would... Colivario is... Yes. Even the garlic and that it liquefize in...

the oil, they ran that scene because it was true. And that's how we cooked every single day. And I'll tell you what, the Mexicans would use their ID cards to cut. We had razor blades. Yeah. I remember you, every month, for the prisoners who were too poor to afford commissary, they would give you a what did they call it the bag to keep yourself clean what do you what do they had a name for it yeah um anyway it included a disposable single edge razor and i remember you

breaking you're very strong i i should add i mean we're all 10 years older now but yeah but you're very strong and i remember you breaking open the single blade razor and taking the blade out and then using the blade to cut the garlic. That's how I started with the blade. I don't know this guard's name. I forget his name, white guy. He had long hair. Oh, I remember him.

He was a cool guy. I liked him. Yeah, I remember him. Walk by. I heard the keys and the chains. I said, I hide my singer. He says, no, Joey, it's just me. You don't have to hide it.

So he saw me with the little blade, you know, the little single blade. You cut yourself with it. Yeah. He says, wait till tomorrow. I had packages of big razor blades. Unbelievable. I said, are you telling me to go whack somebody or something?

Oh, you cook with this. I liked him. So what's cooking, it just comes to my mind. I can't even explain it. I mean, if I wake up in Nikki Wanat pasta or whatever, I would make the homemade sauce. I mean, they would bring me... From scratch.

Yeah, cans of tomatoes, the paste, olive oil. It was amazing. And I'll tell you what, if I didn't have nowhere to live like these bums that love prison, I would have stayed. I would have stayed in there. I'll tell you the truth, because I, if you ever go to prison,

I know you don't want to go to prison, but if you ever do anybody, federal prison, go to federal prison. Yeah, go to federal prison. I remember, I've said this, I'm going to say another not very nice word. But I remember three guys sitting in the TV room playing cards one day. It was the middle of the day. So everybody was away at work call.

I had a no-show job. Thanks to Italians, I had a no-show job. I walked in there for some reason and they were playing cards and they were in between hands. So the dealer was shuffling the cards. And one guy put his hands behind his head. he kind of kicks back and stretches. He looks around and he says, I got a warm bed.

I got free medical care. I got TV. I got three meals a day. No bills. He said, if we had pussy, this would be paradise. And I remember thinking, oh, man,

you've been inside too long, buddy. But they weren't even eating like the Italians were eating. We got to the point. Point, Joey, and I'm sure you remember this, my sentence was short. I was in 23 months. The last six or eight months that I was in, I never went to the cafeteria. Yeah, I never did either. There was no reason to. Only on certain things like a pizzas were. Pizas.

One night a week was pizza. One night a month was pizza night. Yeah. And let me tell you, we had trays and trays of pizza. Trays, they brought out, when Nikki was there, they brought out a whole big. It was like a pizza tray with pizza stacked. Everybody's looking at us like. Wow. Yeah. We didn't have dough.

That's the only thing we didn't have, pizza dough. Yeah. So we would use the wraps. You know, the big wraps the Mexicans would use. So I said, let me think of something here. These wraps are kind of small. Maybe it looks like a single pizza. So I would lay four or five of them down.

And it would come out to a big pizza, A large pizza. So with the garlic, I would chop the garlic like on Goodfellows. And I had a piece of metal and you would put olive oil on the metal. It was like a little cup and it would heat up and you would put the garlic in it and it would cook it. It would saute it. And the sauce, I did the same. I used the cans of tomatoes.

I heated it up. You put it in a plastic bag, you put it in the water, you tie the bag, close the bag, and it steams. And let me tell you, the smell from my food, everybody would come to myself. If I was going to sell it in there for cash, I'd have been rich today. Yes. The whole prison smelled like it. Joey's cooking, Joey's cooking. But let me tell you, sometimes I did sell stuff.

I said, let me sell stuff too. If you're enjoying Dead Drop, and of course, we hope you are, then while you're waiting for new episodes, I'd like to suggest another great, granular story podcast from the Custard and Touchstone family. Just the photographer with David Swanson does for photojournalism what Dead Drop does for spies. Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist David Swanson tells you stories his amazing news photos just can't, what it felt like being in all those dangerous places, like war zones and natural disasters, doing his job taking pictures. Having been to a few war zones myself, I can tell you this.

Just the photographer will put you right there, on the ground, right next to David. Inside his head, in fact. It's a hell of a podcast, and you can find it wherever you find your favorite podcasts or at costard and touchstone.com. There's a link in this episode's show notes. In fact, you'll find lots of great story podcasts at Costard and Touchstone. Like the donor, a DNA horror story, the hall closet, sage wellness within, and the how not to make a movie podcast. Who knows, your next favorite podcast might be just a click away.

Now back to Dead Drop. I was next to a cell. If you come out of your cell and your cell is to your back, and I'm on the right in front of you, the guy's on the left in front of you, they were mostly Mexicans. And their hustle, their hustle was to steal meat from the cafeteria. They mostly stole chicken. And then they would go sell to sell every day selling chicken or selling eggs. They sold a lot of eggs. In a bag, they would put it.

Exactly. Exactly. They would put it in plastic bags. So is that how you got your meat too? Was it just from the, from the cops in the kitchen? Or were you getting outside meat as well? I was getting it. I wasn't getting it from any, from the guys in there.

I was getting it from either the guards or the prisoners that worked for the guards. So they had good stuff. That's what I thought. Beef, turkey. As soon as I got it, I put it on ice. So it was good. I remember a lot of guys buying those scrawny, bony chickens from the chow hall and just keeping it on ice and then cooking it in the, in the afternoons. We didn't eat those bony.

I mean, you could really get a broth. Spread it up and make something. I don't know what they make. I used to sell my chicken. We got chicken like every Tuesday at lunch or whatever it was. And I used to sell my chicken for a bag of tuna to some guy that was like on this protein-only diet. He was trying to work out and build muscle or whatever. And he would buy my nasty chicken every week.

He'd buy the tray, the whole tray. Yeah, he'd buy the tray, exactly. And then I'd go back to my place and eat your food or go to Marks and eat his food. Yeah, we had some big bowls of food. I remember the parties? Everybody bring your bowl. Joey, I used to say, I gained 35 pounds in prison. So did I.

35 pounds. I remember you and I talking about it because you showed me a picture of yourself one time. And it was like, you know, Mr. Olympus, Mr. America competition. And then all of a sudden we got these bellies. Yeah. From all the pasta were eaten. Yeah. And the warden said to me one time, he said, hey, you're sure putting on a lot of weight.

I said, what are you, my tailor or my warden? Yeah. And then he walked away. Yeah. The only thing I didn't want to make in there was the hooch. No, I never messed with it. No. I wasn't smoking cigarettes.

I wasn't doing nothing. You'd go to the hole for three months for that's something stupid. Yeah. Not worth it. I remember the hooch, it was mostly. the Native Americans would make it. They would steal fruit from the cafeteria and then ferment the fruit and make moonshine out of it.

A couple of the black guys did, too. They would hide it in the drop ceiling of the TV room so that it wasn't tied to any one person. But do you remember, they found Hooch in the drop ceiling during the NBA playoffs. So they shut the TVs off. That was the punishment. Everybody got punished.

Nobody was allowed to watch basketball for the week. Well, I don't know if you remember this. Somebody hid the hoots somewhere and it was the bag popped. Oh. And I don't know if it was the warden's office or somebody's office that worked there that was high ranked. All the hoots went down in that person's office. Oh, my God. I don't remember that.

They locked down. Might have been before you came. The whole place got locked down. But they found out who did it. but imagine how stupid that person was to put it over yeah that's really stupid and the people who made the hoot are the people who had long sentences because of what they didn't care yeah they didn't care and it was like the the guys that just had to have a cigarette i mean i know i'm getting off the the subject of food but the guards in violation of of you know all the rules would chew tobacco and then they would just dig up into their lip and fling the tobacco onto the ground. And guys, yeah, guys would collect

the chewed tobacco, dry it out, roll it in toilet paper and then sell it for a Mac. Yeah. And people would smoke previously chewed, chewing tobacco rolled in toilet paper. Yep. Because they so desperately had to have a cigarette.

Yeah. Gross. Yeah. I was a heavy smoker with cigarettes. I didn't smoke nothing in there. No. But the minute I got out, I don't know, I bought a pack. So how is, you've got a successful restaurant right now, a successful pizzeria. You post on Facebook pictures of your beautiful food.

Yeah. How different is it now from when it was in there? Well, different is I can walk out to the refrigerator. I ask nobody, except my wife, she's the boss too. so but it's just it was a a really experience in there yeah but i yeah me me and you and the rest of the guys we had a good we had a good in there yeah i hate to say that you know people ask me every once in a while um if i miss it and i say absolutely not i don't miss anything about it at all nothing yeah but then you know when i'm sitting

here with Joey or I'm sitting with Mark Lanzalotti. Good times. Or Grant. Yeah, we actually, we made it okay for each other. Yeah. Yeah. I used to go down to Mark's cell almost every night because he was cooking every single night. And of course, he would give me just like you did, like two or three times more food than I could

possibly eat. Yeah. And so I'd eat until I was full. and then I'd, you know, go for the second seating two hours later and eat again and put on those 35 pounds. But the food was so good. I told you this and I told Mark that I would spend $35 for this in an Italian restaurant outside. That's how good it was. You, more than Mark, made desserts on top of it.

How in the world did you make dessert? And what desserts did you make? I made canoles one time for Niki. He couldn't believe it. He thought, where'd you get these from the outside? I said, no, Nikki. I bought, they had these little cookies and commensary, but they looked like a shell, and it looked like an Italian pastry.

Yeah. So I said, let me see what I need for this now. I got to ask the guard. So I need a heavy whipping cream, some kind of cheese. and I don't know, something else. Within, I say, a day or two, he brought it to me. And I just, I could taste it.

And I just taste it and I just taste like canoli. So what I made the canoles. Amazing. We made cakes. Remember the cakes we made? The cakes, I remember that. John, the cakes we made, they were like store-boughton cakes. They were.

They were. But you made a flowerless cake one time. Yeah. It was like a lemon cake or something like that. That was ridiculous. I was like, dude, you made this in a garbage pail? We even got lemons. And we even got lemons.

You made lemon cake from scratch. Have you adapted any of those crazy recipes to what you're doing now? Not really. No. It actually wouldn't make sense. be kind of depressing. I tell you, I go on TikTok sometimes, and I see these people that just got out of prison, and they're showing their family, this is how we eating, and they're cooking just like

they, he would have a stinger and everything. I would never do that. Bring that outside and do that. You know what I mean? He was kitchen at home with a stinger in the plastic bag and the garbage pill. Yeah. I don't want to go to that. No, no.

That's nuts. You know. Yeah, you don't want to do that. But not to change the subject, but I just got to say, again, when I first walked in the prison, two guys came to my room. One was Chris, and I don't know who the other one was. Nikki wants to see you. I said, okay.

So I walked up to Nikki's room. There was like four or five guys. I said, oh, man, to myself, what's going on? Well, Nikki says, sit down on this chair. I sat down. now the guys are standing here Nicky's behind me all of a sudden

he puts his hand on my head and he goes like this he goes I said to myself I said I think I'm going to get something shanked or something's wrong should I run or what should I do he goes you're lucky I like you Joey

you're lucky I like you I said Nikki yeah it was it was crazy stuff that went on there yeah he he was he was very important and very scary guy. I'll tell you, one of the things that I learned really quickly

hanging out with the Italians is you never, ever wanted somebody to say about you. You believe this fucking guy. Then you knew you were on the list. Yeah. Yeah. No, you never wanted to be this fucking guy. Who was Nikki's cellmate, the old guy?

Yeah. I remember it was I can't remember Gate I just I don't know I can't remember Gaitano is Gatano was his name He went by gate

The old guy Yeah the old guy Jake remember Jake Sure The old man Let me tell you a quick story He was going back He had life

Yes He was a high-ranked mobster too Upstate New York Yep Got life So one day We're all in a room and he says, guys, I'm going back to court.

I'm going to overturn my life. We're like, now he's, he's 72 years old saying this. Jake, we're so proudy. All right, let us know what happens. So he goes to court, comes back. He goes, I did it. They overturned my life. They gave me 50 years.

I remember that. We all, we all. Yay. Only 50 years. Hey. Hey, there was one guy from upstate. I won't say his name. He asked me if I would write his appeal.

He had 30 years. Yeah. I said, sure. Let me see your case papers. We'll figure something out. I'll write your appeal. Listen, I did what they convicted me of doing. I killed a guy.

Don't get me wrong, he says. If I could, I'd dig him up and kill him again. But 30 years, it's not reasonable. I was like, oh, man, that's not the right attitude. Yeah. What's next for you? You've got the pizzeria. you've moved actually you lived in uh in connecticut yeah Connecticut moved down in North Carolina so

so what's next I'm older now 58 years old I just turned at June 27th I'm gonna stay here I have a wonderful wife my mom has dementia I'm sorry lived here so that's why I came down because she something was wrong with her we didn't know what it was then I came down and found out she had dementia yeah took her in with me I will not put her in a home, John. No, you're a good son. And we live here now. I do my very best.

I'm the only child, so she took care of me all them years. That's right. That's right. I forgot you were an only child. Now it's my turn. Yeah. Yep. But I'm happy to be out.

I'm happy to be at in New York, Connecticut. Here is so peaceful. North Carolina is nice. Very nice. Oh, wait a minute, John. You know, we forgot. You're selling. I don't know if we could bring that up.

Which one? Oh, that crazy guy. The Afghan? John. Oh, my God. You got to do something with this guy. So John just go out to the yard. His name was Cher.

He had his arm blown off by an IED in Afghanistan. This guy was certifiably insane. Any psychiatrist in America would have certified him as insane. Yeah. Because we knew he was insane. sane. We plotted to push him over the edge. Just to get him transferred to another prison and be rid of him. You were a major part of that operation. My bunky was Frank Russo. He was the auditor general of Cuyahoga County, Ohio. And he was actually arrested while he was running for

governor of Ohio. Yeah. He would have won. Frank was a natural politician. But Frank said something. And when you and I finally pushed him over the edge and he lost his mind, they took him to solitary and then they sent him to another prison, Frank said, thank God, we finally got him into solitary because I was going to take a poop in his boots. Yeah. And he meant it literally. He was literally going to poop in the guy's boots. You did something to him that was so funny that 11 years later, I still laugh at.

about it when I think about it. Tell the story, John. You say it better. Oh, my God. So this guy was nothing but trouble. He had no respect for anybody's property. He had no respect for anybody's space or time. You remember how hot it was in our housing unit because we had no windows.

Yes. And so they had these gigantic fans. And he would just like pull his pants down and air out his balls in the, front of the giant fan and we're like dude you're going to get shanked doing that right nudity is unacceptable in prison and you're just standing there airing out your balls so we started doing things just messing with him and making a long story short what you came up with was so frigging hilarious he was a very very pious shia Muslim I mean it's kind of a disconnect being very, very religious and being very, very child molester.

Right. So, yeah, it's incongruous. Who could explain it? So anyway, he had this prayer rug that was his pride and joy. It was like the only possession that he cared about. John, I used to get sick of him, seeing him kneeling on that rug. Choke him every day, John. And you were so upset.

I said, John, we got to do something to this guy. I said, go to the yard. I'll take care of this, John. Okay. You did. You took care of it. You made me look completely innocent because it was out of the yard. Everybody thought that I was the one doing this stuff, and I was doing a lot of it.

But what really pushed him over the edge was you. So the guards were watching me. Yes. They were going to catch me, torture this guy, figuratively speaking. I went out to the yard to kill. time and walk around. And you... Took every locker first.

Yeah, you stole everything out of his locker. All of his candies, all of his food, his diet coax. You stole everything. So he opened the locker and it's just empty. He lost his mind, number one. Then you wrote a giant erect dick on the prayer rug. Yeah. Sharpie.

and so he tore the bottom it was on the bottom the bottom was just plain it was like a non non slip surface he tore it off and threw it away and then he said something that was so odd to me he said at least they didn't draw an asshole there's nothing worse than the human asshole nothing is filthier than the human asshole well that's all he had to say so i told you and then the next time he went out to play soccer you you you wrote on it asshole you are and then you wrote underneath Yoda yeah I don't know with stuff like that after John before we killed him we were going to kill him yeah he finally lost his mind yeah I ran down to the unit manager's office and I said I said shares having a mental breakdown. And so he called, well, the cops, S-I-S, they ran up.

You could hear the keys jingling from a quarter mile away practically. And somebody from medical. And they cuffed him. He was screaming, swearing. Yeah. He was going to fuck our mothers. He was going to fuck our sisters. He was going to fuck us up the ass.

He's going to shove his fist up our asses. And that was the last I heard of him. He was just screaming, screaming, screaming these obscenities. So they transferred him, right? They got him out of death. Yeah, they got him. They transferred him out before I left.

Yeah, that's what we went. And what really pissed, he had these, there were these two cousins or a cousin and a brother-in-law, they would come like every week and visit him. Uh-huh. And nobody told them that he wasn't in the prison anymore. And these guys, these guys drove up and came all the way to the prison from Washington. And they were like, yeah, he, he doesn't live here. Right.

Where is he? Well, I don't know. New Jersey maybe. I don't know. Oh, those guys were so mad. That's in the book, too, isn't it? Yeah. The book, right?

Yeah. Oh, man, we made his life miserable. Yeah, I couldn't take that guy no more. We had to get him out. We had to. For our own mental health, we had to get him out. Even the Muslims would not allow him to pray with them. Right.

He was nuts. And he was judgmental and he was cruel. and he would call, he would call, because most of the Muslims are are black Muslims, they're converts, and he would call them fake Muslims. Oh yeah, I remember. Yeah.

Yeah. And you're going to tell these, these totally ripped, stacked, giant black guys. Yeah. That they're fake Muslims, and they don't know what they're doing. And they're going to destroy him. And do you remember what we finally did or you did?

You put pork salami under his pillow. Oh, yeah. Yes. Wait, cut it. You cut it. I remember. I did. I cut it into slices and we laid it out under his pillow. And it was there all day. And it was so hot in the summer we didn't have air conditioning. So it's like 90 degrees in there. We used to soak our bath towels and water. Yeah. And lay on our beds with a wet bath towel just to try to cool off. So that salami was was, you know, cooking, fermenting all day under his pillow. And I remember after he freaked out and they took him to solitary, these black mussels. Muslims came to the cell and they stood at the entrance. Yeah. And the stain from the salami was on the pillow and the sheets. And one of them said, they'd done them in with the swine. Yeah.

Yeah. Honest to God, if it wasn't for Joey and Mark and Pete, I'm not sure how I could have gotten through it. Yeah, because when you came in, everybody was like, oh, the CIA, the cops, don't don't go near that guy. The first like four weeks, I kept my distance, I kept my mouth shut. Yeah, you did. I went to get a haircut.

And Pete was in there getting a haircut. Yep. And I just started making small talk with him. And he said to me, listen, I got to tell you, I know who you are. And you carry yourself far better than I expected you would. And I said, I appreciate that. I was trying to be as tough as I could. I said, truth be told, I'm not afraid of anybody.

Right. Which was bullshit, of course. But I said, I'm not afraid of anybody. And he said, good. Keep that up. Yeah. We were friends from then on. I still talked to Nikki's main guy there, George.

I don't know if you remember George. I remember George well. But that raspy voice. I talk to him all the time. Excellent. And I'm in constant touch with Mark and with Brett. Mm-hmm. Which came up in that trial the other day.

Well, you brag that you're still in touch with members of organized crime. And I said, yes, I am. and they're good and honorable men. Yeah. Which was not the response they expected. Right. They expected me to say, no, no, no. That was a lifetime ago.

I said, yeah, I talked to them all the time. And they're dear friends. And then I turned to the jury. Oh, I'm so proud of myself. I turned to the jury and I said, there was a crooked congressman from Ohio named Nye, Nye. He was in prison in Ohio, federal prison on a corruption charge.

you did 23 months, just like I did. When he got out of prison, he said, nobody goes to prison to make friends. But the friends that I made in prison are lifelong friends. That was true. There are a lot of people in prison who are innocent. There are a lot of people in prison who are guilty, but who don't deserve to be in prison.

And there are a lot of people in prison who are good and decent people. And those are my friends. And as I hope you now agree, one of those very good and decent people is my friend Joey. Thank you again for sitting in with me, Joey. I think I owe you dinner. A really good one.

In our next episode, we'll get back to the prison grind as my outdate approaches. I've got more reason than ever to keep my head down, but, you know, it's still prison. Prison rules still applied, and I had unfinished business that needed attending to. A whistleblowing federal prisoner's got to do what a whistleblowing federal prisoner's got to do. Until then, please don't forget to like, rate, review, or review, or... comment on the podcast, it really does help. Until next time, I'm John Kiriaku. Dead Drop is written by John Kirooku and Alan Katz. Costard and Touchstone Productions produces the podcast, and John Kriaku, Alan Katz, and Nick Mechanic are its executive

producers. This podcast, it's a Costard and Touchstone production.