Julian Dorey Podcast - #301 - Most Evil Cartel, Diddy, Luigi & Darkest New Cult | Jeff Nadu

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/JulianDorey (***TIMESTAMPS in Description Below) ~ Jeff Nadu is a Sports Bettor, Content Creator, Hoops Junkie, Mafia & Crime Independent Reporter & Host of  @thesitdownwithjeffnadu  JEFF'S LINKS: X Personal: https://x.com/jeffnadu X Podcast: https://x.com/sitdowncrimepod INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/thesitdowncrime/?hl=en YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@UCMYV0eyKQFhNZwLXpx7I0Ng FOLLOW JULIAN DOREY INSTAGRAM (Podcast): https://www.instagram.com/juliandoreypodcast/ INSTAGRAM (Personal): https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey/ X: https://twitter.com/julianddorey JULIAN YT CHANNELS - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Clips YT: https://www.youtube.com/@juliandoreyclips - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Daily YT: https://www.youtube.com/@JulianDoreyDaily - SUBSCRIBE to Best of JDP: https://www.youtube.com/@bestofJDP ****TIMESTAMPS**** 0:00 - Jeff Nadu 15 Years in Media, Nadu’s Barstool Story, Greatest NBA Gambler 10:25 - The NCAA NIL is out of control 15:30 - No Male Leaders in Society 17:40 - Biggest Drug Trafficker of all time & John Thompson 21:27 – Mexico Most Dangerous Place (Cartels), El Mayo Capture (CIA Asset) 30:19 – El Mayo’s Takedown, Florence SuperMax Colorado, Drug War & What Has Happened 38:14 – Sackler Family Worst Drug Empire, The Wire 44:34 – Diddy Case Indictment (Super Weak), Idaho Case Also Weak, Tyree Case 57:20 - Luigi Mangione Case, Ar-Ab Rapper Drug Story 1:06:14 – FBI 20,000 Federal Informants, Mafia Takedown (Incredible), Rudy Giuliani & Mafia 1:14:17 – Ex-Cons Don’t Like Rats, Mob Assassination Story 1:27:27 – Raj Wall Street Took the Fall, Sammy the Bull 1:44:44 – Mobsters Replaced & Lifestyle, Criminals Live Among Us, Ex-Cons Retreat to Florida 1:50:59 – Mobsters, Military, and CIA Spy on “Do You Ever Recover?”, Matthew Hedger Story 1:59:38 – Eric King (Ferguson Riots), Jeff’s Father Passed Away, Criminally Insane Section Story 2:02:14 – Getting Into Mob Content & True Crime 2:15:07 – New Rising Cult (Extortion Groups) 2:26:34 – Most Disturbing YouTube Channel Exposing Reality, Most Dangerous Social Platform 2:32:14 – Government Agencies Don’t Let Kids Use Phone (Social Media Disruption) 2:38:44 – Leaving Barstool Sports 2:52:15 - NADU CREDITS: - Host, Editor & Producer: Julian Dorey - In-Studio Producer: Alessi Allaman - https://www.youtube.com/@UCyLKzv5fKxGmVQg3cMJJzyQ Julian Dorey Podcast Episode 301 - Jeff Nadu Music by Artlist.io Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If I told you some of the things that I've come across as doing what I do, like Sammy the Bull Gravana. I've interviewed him. He's a vile creep. He got five years for that John Gotti case. That was a story. This is a true story. You can look it up.

He killed a 16-year-old child. He had thought that this kid was a rival of like a biker group, and he killed him in cold blood. And now he makes a ton of money on YouTube talking about it. This is a guy who's threatened me recently. He basically said on camera that he would make me get on my knees and sleep. It's just kind of wild that if a rat who was in the mafia and killed 20 people, he could hypothetically move in next door to you. You would never know. Roy DeMeo is arguably the most depraved person ever connected to the mob. He was a part of the

Gemini lounge crew and there were two people in that group, Joey Testa and Anthony Center. They probably killed 30, 40, 50 people and they're living in society that's great and nobody knows who they are i got a quick story for you about drugs this is insane this is a guy you should probably have on actually hey guys if you're not following me on spotify please hit that follow button and leave a five-star review they're both a yeah i gotta tell you man this studio is sweet thank you man like appreciate that i'm blown away your operation i'm a big fan of yours you've done some great interviews thank you i'm honored to be on here That's very cool to hear because I've watched you on the periphery of the internet now for not a decade. That I've been.

Probably about seven, eight years, something like that, where it's always like hashtag Nadeau and there's some shit going on with Barstool. I never know what it means, but I'm just like, it's funny. Like you're following along with it. That's the thing. When people ask me what I do, I would just say I'm in media. Like I don't really ever know what to say yeah because like i have a podcast but i also do sports betting and i do crazy videos yeah and like i think that's probably where people know me most but yeah i've been on the internet long time yeah man i mean it's over 15 years now so but you don't you do different things so many like like right now

obviously and we'll talk about some of it today yeah but you have the sit down which is a show that focuses on a lot of organized crime stuff that it can include like the cartels and all that yeah but like you're a sports betting guy you're a reaction video on anything guy which i do watch all those whenever you react to something people like your camera angle is just fucking hilarious i feel like that i feel like I can feel the air. If I told you the story behind that camera angle, you wouldn't believe it. Let's hear it.

And it's taken me to uncharted levels. So back when I was fat, right? So that video was kind of why I did those camera views like that. Because I was fat. I wasn't trying to show, maybe not there, but I wasn't trying to show my chin. Yeah, you look good now. Thanks. You look real good now.

Back then, there were like four chins. But anytime I would record something, I was like trying my best to like angle it where I didn't get that kind of shit. So when I ultimately went to Barstool, I remember Dave Portnoy said to me, that's how he had found me, through these kind of videos. Oh, the reactions. Yeah. And one of the guys that works there, he's like a stable there, this guy Dan Katz, Big Kat.

Oh, yeah, yeah, Big Kat. I know him. He had went to Dave and said, I got a guy you're not going to." His look. -"He's real." Yeah, he is. And I remember, at the time, I was giving Big Cat a lot of gambling picks, basketball picks, things like that. We were winning. I had, like, a decent relationship with him.

And he came to me and he said, "'Do you wanna meet with Dave?' This was back in, like, 2018. Way before gambling even was legalized. And I'm like, yeah, absolutely. And I remember I trudged up to New York, all 345 pounds of me. And I had on a, I want to say a Nike tracksuit. And back at the time, they're- It's a Philly tuxedo.

Yeah. At the time, they had an office on 27th and Broadway. It was before they moved to the one they're in now on 7th Avenue. And I remember I woke up, I get off the elevator and I look to the right and there's Dave's office. He goes, you the guy? I said, yeah. He goes, you look like a gambler. He said, come in. So I went in and we talked for a little bit and he took a liking to me i think pretty quickly that was one thing about dave that i always say he was always very straight up with me um i had a lot of skeletons in my claws i still do um i'm not proud of some of the things i've done on the internet and some of it had to do with barstool i'd said some shit about employees

that were working there and i had to get through some things first but those videos really i think got on the important news right yeah and that was we were talking about kind of getting hired there it's like there's no there's no resume you you submit yeah you were telling me this off air and by the way everyone like we're going to talk about some of the research jeff has been doing today including on this cult i've never heard of that's insane but i really want to go through the barstool stuff because I'm just curious about it. As someone, I was telling you off camera, I've been a... or same-day withdrawals. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager Ontario only.

Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Fan of them like on the periphery forever, right?

Like I don't listen to the shows or stuff like that, but the clips, the quick stuff, like it's's fucking hilarious so you feel like you kind of know some of the stuff that's going on but you know they're always like live streaming everything in the office and it seems like it's just like almost everyone's man on the street there and you're telling me that that's kind of how they hire you there's like from when you're contacted for the first time i remember when when big cat told dave about me i remember i got a dm from dave portnoy but he wasn't verified back then you had like famous people were verified yeah it's like so i was thinking to myself is this really him yeah and i remember looked it up and i found out it was him and it was kind of just like hey

uh somebody told me you're funny. Do you want to come up and meet me? I was like, yeah. And, like, even when you get hired, like, there's no, like, HR person you deal with. Like, it's like Dave will hit you up and be like, hey, do you want this? And, like, two days later, he'll respond and be like, oh, I can do this. And then I can do that. And sometimes you'll get on the phone with them or whatever. Can you hand me a napkin for the contract? No, there is actually a contract. Okay. can do that. And sometimes you'll get on the phone with them or whatever. Can you hand me a napkin for the contract?

No, there is actually a contract. Okay. I got that. But, like, it's very, like, rudimentary. He hires everyone personally. That's cool. So, like, no one's there, like, because of someone. He has to, like, write off on everything.

And when you go in there into, like, HQ or anything Barstow, there's always multiple cameras around. It's like any reality show you do. And I think that's one thing that I had success with there. When I was in those offices, which again, most of my time is remote. But when I was in those offices, I was always getting into shit with people, which I think in a way, like that's how when you're in media, you have to be willing to get into the dirt with people. Because if you just sit there and,

how are you? Like it's boring as shit. You got to have some fun. And that's one thing that Dave taught me. A lot of the time at Barstool taught me. I've always tried to be, not try to be, I always was like controversial.

I was going to say shit that some people won't. And give an example. Do you really want me to? Yeah. Okay. I don't want a woman to talk to me about sports ever. No. On one basis.

I wouldn't talk to women about nail polish. Like, I mean, let's just be honest. And you're working at Barstool Sports, too, where they have some women talking about sports. You skip those shows? If that's what they want to do, that's cool. But when I, like, I don't want to hear, you know, Jameel Hill tell me about getting hit by a quarterback.

I mean what does she know about that? You feel me? Like – so I would – and it wasn't just shit I would say like that. It was like shit I would say about other people. Like, yo, you suck. I don't like listening to you. You're an asshole. I don't want to hear you.

And there are people like conflict. But I always try to be unapologetically me. And sometimes that got me into trouble. And I think it's just better than being blah and boring. Yeah. Dave said you're the best basketball sports betting expert he's ever seen. I think he tweeted that out maybe six months ago or something. No, that was – It's uncanny. That was back right when I started, I remember i i think he tweeted out maybe six months ago or something he's like no

that was it's uncanny that was back right when i started i remember oh he tweeted back then he tweeted again though recently okay yeah he may have he said i think he i think he said something along the lines of like he might be ugly but no one knows more about college basketball than him and uh and like when i go back to like the beginning of my career, like when I was in high school, you know, I've been gambler since I was a child. Since you were a kid. Eight years old.

What the fuck were you gambling on? Just thing, football games, basketball. Lunch money kind of deal? Yeah, things like that. And I remember like at the Super Bowl, we'd always have a party and we'd have like pools. And I would always ask my dad to be doing you know be in them you know over under like that and then when i was in high school i remember i go to the barbershop play parlay cards they if you're gambled back then you knew they were like

these little slips you do like a three-team parlay 25 would pay you like uh 130 usually if you had all three and i just fell in love with gambling really um i never really had that kind of like gene in me where i have to gamble to survive but i've just always liked looking into numbers and it's not all gambling like well i don't go to casinos like i don't i don't care about playing blackjack or roulette for me it was poker and sports betting yeah i loved poker growing up yeah I think a lot of people did. Like, if you grew up in the 2000s, you know, watching... Rounders.

Yeah, or high-stakes poker or something like that. And there was this guy, Phil Ivey. Oh, Phil Ivey was incredible. And he, like... I remember, you know, I just watched some of the things that he had did, and I remember he had said in his early life he played poker at the Trop in Atlantic City.

Yep, he used to eat with Jerome. No home, Jerome. Yeah, and he would lose all his poker at the Trop in Atlantic City. Yep. He used to eat with Jerome. That was his idea. And he would lose all his money and sleep under the boardwalk. Yep. And I thought of that. I was like, wow. And I remember I played there. I got a good story for you off camera about that.

Yeah. Okay. I can't tell one off camera. Off the issue. Okay. But yeah, I remember I played 2-4-6 limit at the Trop, which is like literally the worst game. The Trop.

Like I'd buy it for 40 i buy it for 40 i'm playing with like geriatrics people can't see that's that's a but you learn how to play live yeah because live is way different than like oh your friends are like online yeah i never played online ever it's hard i was on full tilt i remember i remember you were that black friday i remember you know when they when got on the website and it was seized by the federal government. But yeah, I always enjoyed gambling. And college basketball was my bread and butter. College football, college basketball.

I grew up watching it. I was a Penn State fan when I was a kid. And I just liked the numbers. And then as gambling kind of got bigger and bigger, there were so many resources to learn about gambling. But hold on a minute. How do you know? Because you legit do. Like I've seen some of your tweets and stuff and I'll like look at it and like look up and be like, Jesus Christ.

How do you know about like East Bumblefuck University's like seventh man and how he plays in the second half? Well, I think to be honest,'s there's a like there's models and and like statistics for everything like there's like a lot of it's not just me and and i'll give like shout outs to like ken palm which if you're a college basketball person everyone has a ken palm right ken palm is this stats aggregator that you can essentially search any team in the country all 364 whether it's lafayette College or Duke you know Citadel or Eastern Washington and they'll show you all the players every stat you could want you know stats you probably never even heard of but they mean something to the game and like efficiency type

things yeah a lot of efficiency type things but like there are two different types of turnovers. There are live ball turnovers, and then there are turnovers that are forced by you, your team. So like it would be called non-steal turnover percentage. A non-steal would be stepping on the end line, traveling, things like that. But there's stats for everything. And it's really just about finding schematic matchups that work. You know, a team that on defense plays a lot of zone if they're playing a team that can't shoot threes and have to get to the rim i don't problem they're not gonna have success yeah like a lot of the time

yeah and it's just about following like it's a it's a 365 day your business because nowadays with college sports on the national title in college basketball a month ago, I believe there were 3,000 kids in the transfer portal. 3,000 in D1? Now remember. In D1 basketball. In D1, yeah. There's 364 teams.

364 teams. There's 12 guys, 15 guys on each team. I think there's approximately 10,000 kids or kids or so and 3 000 of them are in the transfer it was like around 30 25 30 and and that's the thing now like with people like me like a team could be totally different one year to the other oh yeah and it's like it wasn't as difficult because a lot of time a coach would be at a school for years. Had a program. Yeah, now it's not about that. It's about where can I go to make the most money.

You know, did you hear Jim Laranega's retirement speech? Yeah. He's an old school guy. He's an old school guy, but there's, I mean, it's almost like haunting how he explained it. Where he said part of the reason he was stepping down midseason, Jim Laranaga was the head coach of Miami at the end of his career. He took him to the Final Four last year, stepped down midseason, I believe, this year. And he said, you know, we got to the Final Four for the first time in however many fucking years or maybe first time ever at Miami last year. And after we lost, you know, I'm sitting around having the season ending team meeting and everyone's like coach we

love you we love it here and the next day fucking eight of my players entered the portal there was a kid this year michigan went i want to say sweet 16 lead eight they had a kid the day of the game in the portal is that even legal he, I think, was redshirted basically, but still. That's crazy. And I think in a way, what we've taught kids is loyalty means nothing. Yeah. But I also look at a kid and I say to myself, what should they be loyal to? Well, that's the thing.

I have a theory on this. I'd love your thoughts because you're in the shit on this stuff a lot more than I am these days. But the NCAA was this good old boys club, the Mark Emmerts of the world and whatever. Gimme, gimme, gimme. We'll collect all the money. Yeah, fuck you, Reggie Bush. You're making us a billion dollars, but you get nothing. Don't you dare buy that Acura.

And then when you do do it it we'll take all your everything things away you never won the heisman trophy right it didn't even happen so i think they fought it for so long and it was so ridiculous because my best friends in college i went to d1 double a and they had a 60 hour a week job they were all football players right so like i saw how much this fucking took out of you even not at the level of like division one so i I was always for like, these kids should, should be able to go make money. Even if it's not from the university, they should be able to go make sponsorship deals and stuff like that. A hundred percent.

But like, I feel like after it built up for so long, the guys like Emmert were like, all right, you want this? Fuck you. We'll give it to you. And they set up a system that was designed to crash in on itself and make a mockery. And now there's no happy medium either. No. So it was either you get nothing or there's no regulation on the rules already.

Yep. So you have a kid on one team making $2 million and you have a kid making very little. Yep. So it's – and what we're seeing is it's destroying the game. Yeah, look at all the coaches retiring. But you also look at – and I want to go back to what you said about Laranega. And like I think in a way, this is one of I think the major issues we have in America currently is we don't have any male leaders anymore. So for instance, like when I was growing up, there were so many community people,

like men that weren't your father, but like your YMCA coach or the Boys and Girls Club, or like there were places for young men to go to, right? And like high school basketball, public league meant something, right? Whether it's Philadelphia or New York City. Nowadays, the public school system is shot out. So no one goes to them, right? And in turn, most of the kids that can't afford or maybe just aren't good enough to go to a magnet school or a charter school or don't have any money, they're swallowed up by a system.

They turn to crime generally because they have nothing else. They have no leader. Their mother's working 60 hours a week. And I look at people like, you know, like a John Thompson, right? Yes. Who's at Georgetown. Legend. My favorite coach of all time is John Chaney at Temple University.

Another legend. A guy who threatened to choke John Calipari at one point. I'm going to choke you. Yeah. I'll kill you. I'll kill you. And the reason I loved him is because he was amazing

he was a prop 48 coach and I don't know if you even know what that is prop 48 I don't know what that is prop 48 was basically it was the kids who weren't smart enough basically and they were essentially not allowed to play and people just gave up on them

they were from bad areas bad neighborhoods and Ch and cheney essentially went into them and said i'm gonna work with you i'm gonna get you to a good gpa i'm gonna work with you i'm gonna make you into a man you're gonna play for me and if you do good you could play for my program and then i'm gonna hopefully get you into college and hopefully you'll go on and go to the nba or at least have a a job in life and you look at someone like like Aaron McKee, a guy who played in the NBA for years. He was a prop 48 kid. Simon Gratz High School. John Thompson did it.

If John Thompson didn't exist, Allen Iverson would not exist. A hundred percent. That's a crazy story. Allen Iverson was in prison. Yes. And Ann Iverson, Allen's mother, called John and said, give him a chance. Yep. And John was the only one that gave him a chance.

Do you know about the drug dealer with John Thompson? You ever heard about this? The drug dealer? No. Okay, let me tell you about this. I know the Iverson story well, but not this. One of the biggest drug traffickers ever. He recently died within the last six months.

This guy, Rafel Edmond. Oh, I know that name. Yeah. Probably... Can we pull him up a lesson, Rafel Edmond? Oh, I know that name. Yeah. Probably. Can we pull him up a lesson? Rafe Edmond? Yeah, probably on the short list

outside of New York City, one of the biggest drug traffickers American born of all time. This guy was making 20, 30, 40 million a month.

A month? Yeah. Selling crack. Frank Lucas shit. Way beyond that. Yeah. This, Rafe Edmond was.

Oh, this one? Yeah. Oh, he just died. Yeah, he died was... Oh, he just died. He died late. Well, it's funny because he actually became a rat in prison. And he was released late 23, I think.

And he died like six months after. Wow. So at the time in the 80s, he essentially adopted and gave out crack and brought it to Washington. That's how the crack epidemic started there. Like he owned Southeast, Southwest DC and was making a ton of money. And he was, I mean, he'd go into like an Italian clothing store

and drop 400, 500,000. And he loved basketball. Rafe played basketball, big basketball guy. And he loved Georgetown. And in the 80s, they were the premier basketball team in the country. Lonzo Mourning, guys like that. John Turner. Dikembe. Yep. guy and he loved georgetown and in the 80s they were the premier basketball team in the country yeah lonzo morning oh yeah john turner yep and rachel was sick courtside and john thompson had found out that rachel was taking his kids to the club john turner lonzo morning yeah and you know

john didn't say much he just said go get him and bring him to me. And they said, it's Rafe Webman. He ain't going to come see you. He goes, tell him I want to see him. And Rafe said, absolutely. He walks in, I'm going to see John Thompson. I'm going to sit down with John Thompson. They shut the door, and they said for like the next hour,

John Thompson just railed into him. Stay the fuck away from my players. If I ever see you by my players again, da-da-da-da-da. And Rafe will never came to another game after that. They said that's how much respect John Thompson had. That he basically told the biggest drug deal in the country to get lost.

Don't come back. Because he cared about his kids. He did. John Thompson, like, and you brought it up, but if you go through the Allen Iverson story and what he did there, and of course people say right away, well, of course, if there are generational talent, you know, you'll make an exception. But that time, but Allen, Allen was a great, I mean, Allen was like a historically good Virginia football and basketball player.

He was a better football player than basketball player, which is fucking crazy to say. He was in prison for a bowling, which that whole story is a mess as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But still, what I'm saying is like, we that whole story is a mess as well. But still, what I'm saying is, like, we don't have those type of coaches anymore. Most coaches now, all they care about is winning games, going to Final Fours,

which is fine. You obviously have to do that to get paid and whatever. But caring about a kid who comes from a broken area or maybe doesn't have a father, those coaches cared more, I think, than the ones do now. And they're all gone. You know, the Laranegas who have been around 50 years.

The Nick Sabans, like these guys are leaving. Yeah. And listen, I don't – it's probable that those coaches that are coming now are better coaches. They're smarter coaches probably. Do they care as much about kids becoming men and being good people in society? I don't know. What's up, guys? For the next 20 minutes of this conversation, Jeff and I got deep on the 2000s NBA era and some other things related to that. That was kind of totally off topic for the video. So I decided to make that a patreon episode and i'm going to pick up our conversation right now at the part where we start talking about the cartels so here we go even like people that go to like mexico for vacation i think are insane like depends where you go i i would never step

foot in mexico not ever no never i mean i haven't so i can't speak to it but there there are nearly 200 countries on the planet go to go to another one they're like they're about they're about 30 countries that i would never go to like i don't care like why aren't you going and i mean obviously the answer is going to be cartels but specifically like why aren't you going to somewhere in mexico that's like a resort area sure because drug cartels literally run those places and again that maybe tulum there's like certain areas of tulum they're really nice but you're still going to have military walking on the beach you're still going to have all that sort of thing and i guess i'll say to most people you'll probably be fine and there's probably 10 20 chance something will happen

but it's you need an atm but you need an atm you go off the beaten path and you're gonna get stuck up and they're gonna steal all your money in your account yeah you ever seen the video and like the gay couple that got pulled over on the side of the road? That was right outside of the resort. That's a good point. People don't realize that outside of these city centers... For instance, two years ago, there were four individuals from South Carolina that went to Mexico for a surgery. They're from South Carolina. I don't know if you remember that story. No.

Four of them, they drive from South Carolina to Texas. They go through the border at Matamoros. They go into Matamoros, and they're going to this plastic surgeon to get much cheaper plastic surgery. They're in a van. They're mistaken for Haitian gangsters. Oh, no. And the Gulf Cartel. Oh, I do remember this.

Yeah. There's a group called the Scorpion Group that run Matamoros. They're basically, they have barricades and you see a group of four people that are not mexican driving through it barreling through you're gonna think they're like the ops so they're apprehended and kidnapped two of them were killed two were released back to the country but i mean that's they like send the bodies back as an apology or something they sent back to five people no they they tied them up and gave them up to the united states oh my god but like that's the kind of shit we're dealing with like a simple i'm gonna go to tijuana get

some medication can be like really bad yeah it's definitely i mean we've obviously had some people in here from ed calderon to cat schultz to john Norris, talking more from the U.S. side, to Jorge Ventura, Luis Navia, who worked with all these guys. And they all talk about it. Like, they run the whole country. Like, there's no denying that. You would think that, like, there's places where they're not dumb enough to do shit. But to your point, I've heard stories. I don't know if it's Cancun.

I can't remember but some of these resort places you know people will be like pulling into the town and there's like bodies hanging you know from the side so i see what you're saying i mean like i have people that i know that like i live in san diego and they'll be like oh yeah i drive to rosarito every couple of weeks and it's like you drive into me. Like that's one thing I would like no – like maybe flying to Tulum. Okay, I get it. But driving into Mexico is insane. Like that's an insane idea. Because at the end of the day, like if I'm a criminal group and I see you, him, and me driving into Mexico, I would extort you too.

Yeah. Like who wouldn't do that? I'd be like, I'd see your haircut and I'd be like, no, this is a real guy. Maybe not me, but like you and him, you and him are fucked. Like your whole wallet's gone. Because I'm jacking you up

and I'll probably steal your car and like, that's it. Like, that goes on in this country. You know, like you go to the wrong neighborhood, they're going to, they're going to strip you down. Like, so you, like, and in a world where there are absolutely no laws, it's anarchy. There is no laws. Those cartels run.

And as Calderon will tell you, there are hundreds of cartel groups. It's not just like the Sinaloa. That's when people are like, it's the cartel is going to get me. It's like, well, which one? Because there's hundreds. Have you followed like the whole aftermath of this to get me it's like which one yeah because there's hundreds what's have you followed like the whole aftermath of this el mayo thing sure all right what's going on so i had some tiktoks on this that went crazy viral but one thing people and i'm sure these guys have

told you and like i remember when like i'm i'm a proponent of – I think the biggest problem this country faces as a whole is not the economy, not anything. It's the drug war is a complete failure at every level. And it's completely affected policing. It's affected every segment of our community. And well, now it's affecting white people, so we care about it all of a sudden. But for years, it wasn't. So nobody cared about it. That's just the truth.

Yeah. It's affecting white suburbia, so we care now. It's sad that that's true, but that is true. But it was funny when El Chapo was apprehended by the United States and they paraded him like they do. They have all the cameras and stuff. They basically said like, it's the end. The drug war's over now. We've gotten our guy. It's like, first of all, he's not even the leader of it.

They painted him as the boogeyman, and they've always painted Chapo and the Sons as the boogeymen. But it was really El Mayo. Yeah. He was a part of the El Mayo faction, which at one point they were close, him and Chapo. Yeah. He was a part of the El Mayo faction, which at one point they were close, him and Chapo. Yeah.

El Mayo and those – and Chapo came up under the Guadalajara cartel many years ago with Rafael Caro Quintero and all these other guys, which if you've watched Narcos, you know that. Of course, yeah. Narcos, Mexico. Yeah. And they band together and they have the western side of Mexico, the coastal areas, the Jalisco, Sinaloa, that area. And a lot of big ports there, right? that area, and a lot of big ports there, right? Manzanillos, a lot of big ports. So they turn drug trafficking inward. And a lot of Mexico has always been a trampoline. When you look at drug trafficking, it starts in Ecuador, Colombia, that area. It then transfers trampolines into the United states mexico's your trampoline you follow what i'm saying yeah um and and they you know transform drug trafficking we all know that but eventually

they get into arguments fights um and what's crazy about the cartel world is they're all rats they all telling each other like all of them to the are you referring like that in the capacity of to law enforcement or just in general like if you look into like a chopper's trial one of the chief witnesses was almayo's son vincente vincente zambada he was a son who i mean they they do this and it's way different than like costa nostra the mafia where like cooperating is a no-no. But then you look at like – But there's a lot of them that do that. Yeah.

Like you do it to get people out of the way. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Especially big people. But yeah, when El Mayo was apprehended, I mean, I for years thought he was a CIA asset personally. Long before this. Yeah, I think a lot of people thought that because if you –

Yeah, what made you think that because if you look into his background his wife had a brother who was a cia agent in cuba back in like the 60s and i forget his name but i'd interviewed i don't know if you've ever spoken to luis chaparro i haven't yet we're trying to make that happen he's a guy you should get on because he he had kind of done some deep research on this i believe his last name is garcia um and this garcia he was in with castro and the united states and cuba and he ended up going out to the west coast he lived in california he started selling marijuana and he had made inroads he had eventually his sister had met ishmael Mayosambada. They got married. And a lot of people I think for years thought that he was an asset.

Remember, he was the only leader of a cartel in 50 years that had never been arrested. Yep. Anything. But part of that also like the little devil's advocate is that he was the stone cold opposite of El Chapo. He was quiet in the hills, grandfatherly. But a lot of guys were like that. There's a lot of traffickers that are like that. And again, they're so powerful, does it even matter?

I mean, but people, I think, for a while wondered, how is he able to continue to operate? And nobody does anything about it yeah um but i think in the end he'll probably die before he sees much prison time anyway he's very old i mean what happened there though that whole takedown i've asked a few people about that that was crazy well you look at even like the chapitos the sons of el chapo yeah like like they're all very interesting because like you have like you have, like, Yvonne, who's, like, kind of, I would say, the most powerful son. He's obviously, I think, the heir apparent to his father.

But then you have, like, the youngest, Ovidio. He's kind of, like, weak. Like, he never really should have been in that life. And his father even knew that. That's why I called him the mouse. He was a very, very like timid guy and i think in a way like they broker with the united states on certain things like get my brother out and we'll give you this guy or right get this guy you know and i'm sure his father even tried to get get some get

released like his father's in the adx right so the adx is end of the road there's no human contact with anybody. And he's been whining for years. He's been in the ADX for years. That's the last place I'd ever want to be. And he's in H unit, which is Sam's prisoners. Sam's is special administrative measure, which means a judge has to put you in Sam's.

There's only a certain amount of people in Sam's. They have like a shittier place within that place? Inside it. There's range 13 which is you're talking about florence adx supermax in colorado correct that sam's unit is terrorists um that's like where they have ramsey yusef ramsey yusef uh the shoe bomber yeah um uh the underwear bomb like all those guys and then they have people like el chapo, Joe Carson, I have the Boston Marathon guy, Dylan Roof, people like that. They're in Sam's unit.

So they have no human contact with anybody. And Chapo has been writing letters to the judge, Brian Kogan in his case and whining about it. I can't see my family. My wife's not even allowed to come here. And I think you have to ask yourself at some point do we have to look at this and say this is cruel and unusual punishment even for people like that correct because at the end of the day we have a series of laws we have in this country where

even people like that and i know i'm not going to say there are people that should have the same laws as us but you have to treat them in a certain way um but i think he probably even tried to move to maybe get out of that prison like we'll barter we'll give you this for this right so he may have been behind the whole which i think's off limits they'll never let him out adx he's he's escaped like three times he's never gonna happen those were all mexican prisons though right and he's never gonna get out of adx but if he could broker maybe to like USP, which is one level below. Right. But even like you look at the litigation for these people.

I recently talked to an attorney that – I didn't have him on my show. It was kind of off the record. But he was dealing with a client that was a high-level trafficker. And he told me there is – the trial is a joke. There's no like – they just bring like rats up on the stand and just – they say this happened. It's like, oh, OK. It probably happened and that's that. Yeah.

Yeah. It's not incentivized. Yeah, because there's such a push on we need to take these people off the street, especially this administration, because they paint the boogeyman as the drug trade is the problem, and these are the people that did it. The Ovidio Guzman, the Ivan Guzman, the Chapitos. They didn't create fentanyl. Fentanyl comes from China. It doesn't come from Mexico.

But they do funnel it. They traffic it. Yes. Right. But everybody traffics. They all traffic fentanyl. Yeah, but they're getting it in all defense here, though. They're getting it Yes. Right. But everybody traffics. They all traffic fentanyl. Yeah, but they're getting – in all defense here though, they're getting it across the border. They're the experts.

Anybody listening and I'm going to ask you too, has the price, has the amount, has anything in the drug trafficking world changed whatsoever when El Chapo was arrested? No. No. It's like – Did it cost any more? It's like cutting off a leaf of a tree. Oh, well. Right.

It's like taking a thing of sand out of the beach. It's a complete and utter waste of time. But – And there's one way to fix it and they'll never do it because people will be up in arms about it. They're already up in arms about it. Legalization? Yes, but it would have to be... And I've heard David Simon talk about this,

the creator of The Wire. Great show. But I would urge you, if you're a fan of the show, to watch some of his talks that he does. He'll do interviews with PBS, things of that nature. And he's a big advocate for the drug trade, the drug war. Not for the drug trade, but the ending of the drug war, because it has completely changed society.

And he talks about how, think if we as a country, the people at the top, the president, Congress, all these different people, where they just stopped for a second and looked at what has happened to America. The America they left behind. Those people have never been to Philadelphia or parts of New York City. They don't know what really goes on.

And think if we were to – like you look at Kensington in Philadelphia, right? It's insane. It's this open-air drug market. Yes. But if we actually put time into it, it could work. We just piecemeal and throw it into one area with no research and just be like hey everybody do drugs here and it's okay think if we had like places to go where people could do these drugs right because they're going to do them anyway yes whether they're legal

or not it would eliminate the black market where you go to a regulated clinic where drugs are not filled with poison and arsenic and all this different shit. And we give you a platform that's tax-based where we use some of the waste of all the money we've gotten from this war. And we put it in a programs for people. And we say, these five people, your friends have all gotten clean. What if we entice you to get clean too? And then maybe we could take some of the vacant properties we have because we have millions of them around America. We can get some contractors to flip them with government money. And we could put these people into homes. And maybe we can enforce and put them back into the workforce.

Because again, we do have an unemployment problem, don't we? Yes. I mean, why don't we try to take this like – Unreported unemployment, by the way. Right. And Simon talked about this. Like, we should look at it like the New Deal, which we did after the Great Depression, where we reinforced people to say,

you are not doing anything for our economy currently. I mean, you look at 10, 15% of this country. They're completely useless to the economy they don't pay taxes they live in another world and we're talking about homeless drug addicts people like that criminals they're going to be there and they're already a problem so why don't we try to find a way to take a large percentage of them get them clean get them help with mental health and try to reinvigorate the community again i don't understand why we just let this happen but what i do because there's a lot of money behind it yes criminal police departments make i mean 85 of the arrests are

probably drug related yeah and you've heard like joe rogan's made the point for years that you'll look at these cities and they have like something called a homeless coordinator that's making 300 grand a year. They're incentivized not to get rid of their job. Right. It's like the administration nightmare. And that's why nothing will change here because there's so much money in hunting people basically. Yeah. Because we don't know where to put them.

Yeah. So we just put them in prison. And it's also, it's easy. It's easy to just kind of discard a person and whatever. And people will always, people like. It's sick. That's what they do. And people will say to me, why would we legalize drugs?

What would that do? Look at Kenston. Right. But let's say we actually started with Kenston and we tried it there and we took all the people that are drug addicts and shooting up on the street and we put them into like a facility and we just tried and started somewhere. And think if everyone got behind it. But most people don't care because they don't deal with it. It's not in their backyard.

Yes. Someone in middle America doesn't care, right? Yeah. Well, you make a good point though too. People started caring about this more when it started happening to suburbia. And also what you're talking about too that should be said on top of this is that we had the biggest cartel right here legalized in America with the Sacklers and the disgusting shit that they did to this country. Getting people who never would have been addicted to drugs,

addicted to all kinds of drugs because you gave them shit they didn't need at way too high of a dose and lied to them about what you were giving them. Exactly. I mean, it's just crazy. I mean, I think that's the sad part about most drug addicts because if you ask them, I mean, none of them chose to become drug addicts. I mean, it was really just you started doing Oxy because you got in a car accident.

Before you know it, you're down on Kensington-Somerset and you're buying a $10 bag. Yeah. And now it's, I mean, it's not even drugs anymore. I mean, fentanyl now is just poison. Any drug now is poison really. So there's so much cut in drugs that like, I mean, they're not drugs, but that's the big thing about regulating an industry. I remember when gambling was regulated, gambling went from being in pool halls and back rooms. Now it's a regulated business. We have an oversight committee that runs it to make sure that people are getting paid.

Casinos are doing things the right way. Think if we had a regulated industry for narcotics where heroin, for instance, without the cut in it and all that, and it's done the right way, people aren't dying on their feet. It's just – It's a really, really tough conversation for a lot of reasons. It's one I struggle with. What I will say is a guy like David Simon, you don't have to agree with all the things he said, but it is absolutely someone you should hear out because – I don't just say this because I was a fan of the show but like the wire is one of the most brilliant things ever made and look at the show actually look at it's a documentary with actors yeah and a lot of the things 20 years ago that they put out the same thing have come true yes

yeah and and i think it really should be required viewing for every person i agree because you know it's it's it's it's a city that takes place in baltimore yeah and like what you mentioned like money like the homeless coordinator like any time you have a an incentive or statistic based business where if you do well you'll get paid more right so you look at how drugs have destroyed policing, right? We see policing where we see all these protests and people are, you know, the stop and frisk and all this different stuff, people running in homes, cops and stuff.

Think if we eliminated the drug arrest stuff, the low-level arrests, and we focused police departments on real crime, violent crime. Like I heard a stat that in the federal prison population, there are 160,000 federal prisoners in America. And like 10% are violent offenders. Yeah, no, it doesn't surprise me at all. So it's like, where are the violent offenders? Right.

It's like, well, they're on the street. And that's why crime is insane. And now we have it where we don't really prosecute anyone, or we didn't for a while. Maybe it's changing a little bit, but no civilized society can operate like that. Yeah, we've operated in such insane pendulums when it comes to law and crime. It's not healthy. And they've shifted so fast back and forth even over the last 15 years i'd say it's probably been like four shifts we talked about it earlier it's one extreme or the

other yes and there's no like hey let's just focus on getting bad people off the street it's no let's arrest everybody or let's arrest nobody or right like Like it's never just – and Simon also talked about like policing and he looked in the show. Like the people that get promoted are the ones that have the most arrests. That's right. So like – and those people that are promoted, let's say 20 years or 30 years ago, they're now sergeants and teaching younger police how to police. Yes. Which is the wrong way and then 40

years down the road we look at all our police and we say integration did nothing so it doesn't matter if they're black police officers or white police officers they're just doing it wrong yep and and we wonder why all this bad stuff happens most cops are so scared to even police now too yes because of like ways like uh con consent decrees and stuff yeah so like i don't know how or why people would choose to be a cop nowadays i i've never understood like what's the yeah you're you're making a great point because they're they're kind of burning from both ends of the stick and in the both ends of the candle in the wrong way on the one hand they're afraid to do their job because everything's on video and can be changed and the context can be changed. And on the other hand, when they do their job,

they're incentivized to hit a quota, which means they're going to make mistakes. And there's someone who pays for that in some way, whether it be through a fine or a criminal record or both on the other end. And so there's a human cost and it, and it takes away moral judgment. I always talk about this. Everything is just a downstream effect from some asshole. Who's got to say that they did this statistic so they can win on a Tuesday in November. And I see it. We we've done a lot of podcasts in here talking about the difficulty with the court system and what that incentivizes. Like I had Brian McMonagle in here for episode 115, one of the greatest defense attorneys of all time.

Sure. And he came from the prosecution side, as many do, to the defense side. And, you know, nicest guy ever. I've known him all my life. Literally one of the most moral people I've ever known. And I always wondered, like, how does he of all people deal with the idea? Not that he would ever say this, but I'll say this from the outside, deal with the idea that he represents some really guilty people, like a lot of them. And he's got to sit up at night about that. So it's like, I was asking him how you do that. And the big part, and he was honest about it and struggled with it. But he's like, you got to put the government to the test.

You have to make them do their job. That's why I do it. And one of the things that I've – on my social media have championed for is in a way, every person is innocent until proven guilty. Nowadays, they're not because the public eye like, for instance, Diddy, prime example. In most people's eyes, Diddy is guilty. Right? Would agree. Now, if you actually read the indictment,

if I told you it was one of the weakest indictments you've ever seen, would you believe me? Can you explain? I don't know what's illegal about it to be honest what makes you sad because most of the shit you hear about diddy is all this stuff that has never happened for instance like there's kids in the indictment he was messing around with kids and stuff there is none okay what base why do you say there's none because when you read the indictment it's i think it's 16 pages this current one now if they supersede it and add another one, a more serious one, we don't know that.

But the current indictment now basically states that he hosted these parties, whether it be at his house or another place. And he had people that got him women and people to come to it. They willingly went to it. OK? Just like anybody goes to a party. And they say that in the indictment. Right. There's nothing illegal about that.

Now, if you look into some of like the federal laws against, for instance, let's say I meet a woman in Ohio on Instagram. And I fly her to my house and we have sex. Technically, I'm breaking a federal law. If it's consensual though? i'm if i pay her essentially like let's say i take her to dinner and i buy her handbag technically that is illegal if you read into like federal law which diddy was essentially doing now they then go to these parties they get drunk which most people do at parties yep they take narcotics most people do that at parties yeah and there are cameras there and they're filmed now i'm not saying that maybe certain people did stuff they didn't want to do how would that be how could you prove that though how could i mean what i'm saying is a lot of the

indictment is like i i try to find like things that were illegal in it. Look, did he beat Cassie up? Absolutely. Yeah. We saw that. You're not basically you're not arguing that he's not a scumbag. You're arguing whether or not. And I'm also not.

Accusations whether he broke the law. Yeah. I'm just and I'm no attorney, but I'm just looking at and saying the court of public opinion has made it out that he has R-worded multiple hundreds of people. And what will happen ultimately is the feds will get him, his people, all the people that work for him, they'll flip on him. And he'll be the guy in the end that goes down for it because he was essentially in a way like the boss of a family, right? Where they'll basically say, well, he told me to do it, so I did it. I got that girl to come here. Now, that girl willingly got on a flight and came there.

She was probably paid for it too, and she went willingly. But there's also like the accusations, like it's kind of the Weinstein method, where there would be a... You, especially like with males too, like, you gotta do this, like'm gonna i'm gonna fuck you or you're not getting a record deal but but again then bring all hollywood up for an indictment then they all think they all do that yeah i mean that's that's a tale as old as time man

i'm not saying it's right type idea yeah yeah i'm not saying it's right but i mean if if let's say you're at a ditty party you're like some up-and-coming singer you're attractive beautiful girl i mean you're bordering on like like he comes he says hey you want to hook up you know i got you next time you need something how much is that going that goes on a lot doesn't Yeah, it's like we're bordering on like... And like this, people aren't going to like hearing this, but when you look at it legally, you can't say that that's not a very odd, uncomfortable gray area.

That's what I'm saying. It's not necessarily black and white, unfortunately. And that's my point. Like, I think you're close on a lot of things to like legal behavior. Like it's not as like cut and dry as you think. Now in the media, we've been made to hate him, which is fine. I get it.

But all I'm saying is – and we see this a lot in society where we hear something. The person is already guilty. We don't give them their day. Yes, yes. And then when they get off, it's like, oh, what a great guy. I cannot believe people did that. It's like, wait, hold on. A year ago you were saying –

That's right. It's a problem. I don't know if you follow that case in Idaho. Koberger? Yeah. I've seen you tweeting about this. You think it's a weak case? Insanely.

Why? He's the one who killed the the allegedly killed the four college students now no again this is why predicting this stuff can be hard because all we know is what we know yeah right there's a gag order on a lot of this stuff and even in the diddy case if they supersede the indictment tomorrow i could look really stupid i'm just only going off what we know now but what we know now about brian coberger okay do you have you seen a murder weapon no doesn't exist no have you seen him there seen him at the scene have you seen any photos video have you heard him there no okay do you know that his car was there? They did track this phone, right?

Hold on. A car was there that is similar to his car, which by the way, when they first put the year out, they got it wrong, the year of the car. Okay. Number two, phone pings do not put you at a location. They put you in an area, but they don't put you at a location. For instance, in Moscow, Idaho, there might only be two cell towers, three cell towers. It could ping five miles away. Just because he's in Moscow doesn't mean he committed this crime.

There's very little DNA other than a small amount on a knife sheath. Were they able to match it to him? No. Oh, yeah, they matched it to him. That's how they found him, through illegal means through DNA websites. They went to the feds, and the feds basically helped them get the profile, and they pinpointed it to his father.

Now, remember, they also— But it was on a knife sheath. It was on a sheath. Yeah, yeah, where the bodies were found. It was wedged in, the mattress basically on the side. Wouldn't that be pretty – even if they got it surreptitiously, which is a separate argument, isn't that pretty – But what if I also told you, which this has also been put out, there were multiple other male DNAs found in the house, not his, including blood that wasn't his. And number two.

Did he have partners doing it with him? Possibly, or just with other people. Number two, what if I told you the house was a party house? A lot of people went there. Could be anybody. There's also no audio, video. There's no surveillance. Nothing puts him at the house.

Nothing other than circumstantial evidence but he kind of looks like a crazy guy doesn't he he it's in him it might be an amanda knox but what constitutes that right carlo gambino looked like a regular grandfather but he was probably the most influential mafia boss of all time. You know? So you can't go off that. But we also add the fact that there's Reddit, there's people like Nancy Grace. There's people that, you know, don't put any sort of... They just don't like the person. So they don't give him the opportunity to defend himself.

We live in America, where you have the opportunity. And remember, the judge agreed with people like me because he moved the case out of Moscow to Boise because he realized they're not going to get a fair trial there. Throw in the fact, how do we know that crime scene wasn't contaminated? The roommates waited eight hours to call the police after it. Oh, I didn't know that. There were roommates, surviving roommates, two of them.

And they waited eight hours? Bethany Funk and Dylan Mortensen were the surviving roommates. Were they? They were up and texting each other during all this shit. Was it shock? I mean, they were texting each other. Like, hey, I think someone's in the house. Right.

You don't hear that? Four people were basically decapitated. You didn't hear that? Yeah, gruesome. And also, throw this in. How could a person who is in his 20s, is in college, who has never killed anyone as far as we know, he manages to systematically take out four people in eight minutes

and doesn't leave any blood, hair, there's none in his car, none in his house, nothing. It's very sketchy. Also, I think sometimes you have to, when you look at these cases as like a true crime person, why would he do this? What would be the motive? He's a guy going for his doctorate.

He didn't know these... Well, sometimes people are just a crazy person. Right, and that's true. I mean, Jeffrey Dahmer. But he has no known psychiatric problems as far as we know. He didn't know them at all. He didn't know any of them. But what social media does is, oh, he followed some of them online.

No, he didn't. The family said he did not know any of them. So, like, you have to weigh what's true and what's not. Yeah. Right. And, like, I just think we have to start looking at people and saying, we live in America, and if that was your brother or father or uncle or whoever, your boyfriend, wouldn't you want them to get a fair trial? Sure. And if they're guilty, they should go to prison.

And that's the difficult thing. It's like when someone seems really guilty, you want to be like, Oh, throw the book at him or whatever. But, and, and just like you were talking about with Florence ADX, like someone's a horrible person, put them in the worst bottom of the hole. You know, I don't say this to be a total bleeding heart or whatever, but there's a happy medium there. And I don't mean to say happy, but there's a medium with this stuff to where you have to be, if you're America, this great, beautiful experiment that, you know, we built this document, the Constitution that gives people these inalienable rights. There has to be the shining beacon on the hill type symbolism. And we need to exhibit that here. And the places where you most exhibit it are at the times when you want to exhibit it the least.

If Brian Koberger took them out, he should go to prison. 100%. And he should probably face the DP at the end of the day. But he is a person that is a citizen in America and deserves a fair trial, regardless of what he did or who he did it to. And it is the state or federal government's duty to prove that. Again, it's not my problem to prove. It's your problem. You brought it.

So a state prosecutor, it's your job. And my job as a defense attorney is to poke holes in what you did. And I'm sure McMonagle, I would just say, I would guess for me, if you asked me that question and I'm an attorney, I would say because everybody in this country deserves a fair trial. That's what it is. Someone, some of them, you know, it's not my job to judge. I don't care.

I'm here to be paid on getting them off and giving them a fair opportunity. Yes. And part of it is what if the government can throw the book at them in a way that's wrong, what are they going to do to the next guy? And there's thousands of people per year that do 30, 40 years in prison. And guess what? We find out somebody lied or some cop was an asshole. Yeah, we had a we had a case on the show that we handled. And my friend Ty tyree he's out of prison now he sat in prison for almost 30 years 30 years crazy think about that how old

are you you're like 32 okay yeah that's basically your whole life yes like that's insane to think about and he's still not fully exonerated and guess what they do they basically just sometimes they'll give you some money or something you might win win like a suit or something. But a lot of the time it's just have a good life. It's crazy, man. It's like, well, hold on a second. And then you read the case file and you see the kind of shit that was pulled. And you're like, what? Like in America this happened?

That's why like I'll never – and it's hard because there are sometimes you'll hear things and it's like you don't like they're not like i don't i'm not trying to say that i don't think anyone should go to prison or anything like if you do a crime and you're a bad person you should go to prison but absolutely we also have to give people their due due court you know even like that man gioni kid you know the you have to give them due process yeah like like Like in that case, I think it's going to be really hard to find 12 people that will find him guilty. Really? Yes. Why?

Because you have to have all 12 of them in unison agree. Do you know how many people hate insurance companies? Actually, yeah. How many people have been screwed even on like a low level? Meaning not on the facts but find them not guilty because it's a symbol. And you look at that case too. I mean, it's so pathetic. I mean, like the federal government, why did they pick that case up?

They don't handle murder cases. Well, I mean, he went across state lines. It's a federal case. Let the state of New York handle it. But they're all going to handle it's such a big case man of course it's a public we're going to get promotions out of it that's why we're going to well it's not actually i'm going to see this less cynically it's not even just that it is such a public it is such a public case it's one where you know someone of a multi well of a of a

public company that is like the biggest insurance giant in the country was gunned down in the biggest city in the world. It was not in aid of – like for instance, they'll handle murders in aid of racketeering. Sure. But like handling a singular murder case is a waste. They should be doing other things. Let the state of New York handle it. What I'm trying to say is though it's a resource-based case where like they're putting a lot of resources into this one

thing where i mean let the state of new york handle it and you you go out with more pressing businesses handle the things going on in new york city right in the southern district handle the the cartel groups handle the you know i just think it's a weird waste of resources but look at how they prayed him out and they make him out to be like he's you know el chapo oh yeah that's that's that's probably excessive it's just like a lot of this is why i struggle within america on so many issues man a lot of things can be true at the same time the kid can something obviously happen to him right like something mentally happened to him It's my best guess and your best guess what that is. You know, I'm not a doctor, but something went off with him. He, in the midst

of that happening, recognized something that is a huge problem. The health insurance industry is a disgrace. We've allowed it to be a disgrace. I'm talking about that from the governmental level. It's something that should be totally fucking reformed. But you also can't just go pick out a fucking technically law-abiding citizen and blow them away on 57th Street in the middle of everyone in society. Like you got to – and I'm not saying that it doesn't mean that the system is not going to continue to grind to a halt like it always does and change doesn't happen. And you're like, well, this is the anarchy that could spark it happening. I get that argument but we gotta be we gotta find another way as a society even if it's way harder and yeah his his like his way of doing it like again it didn't change anything i mean no my premium is still the same amount and like i still have the same

yeah so it's like i mean there was no real it's not like anyone was like, oh my god, let's rise up and fix this. Like this is a problem. Some Insular CEO was killed. I mean in the end – but you even look at him. Like I find people that do these things like he didn't think at all about it even. Like why do you still have all the belongings with you? Very strange. Like if he didn't have them with him, he probably would have a decent shot.

Yeah. I mean, you can't make him out in what he was wearing. The whole thing's off. And I'm not going to – we're not going to go crazy here. But, like, you look at it the first time and you're almost like, like, what? Did he, like, get MKUltra'd or something? If you had told me that was the kid that did it – like, when I first saw it, like, I've looked enough into, like, crime and, like, hitmen and stuff. Like, that was a –

Oh, I was getting the Nadeau breakdown the instant he was caught. Like, here's why he's not a pro. Like, step by step, play by play. Like, that was a – like, I saw that and i'm thinking like like even though he handled the gun it like no but if you watch the video he handled the the malfunction he was just like boom boom boom like it didn't even phase him yeah look do i didn't put it in the head that was a point you made right there he's like professional a hitman was shooting that yeah yeah two in the head that's it like it was very technical break yeah they're not going to shoot you in the head. Two in the head. That's it. It was a very technical break.

Yeah. They're not going to shoot you in like the back or something. Like you're hitting him in the head twice. Boom. And he also like, like him going to Central Park was like very smart. Like he did smart things, but then it's like, you still have the shit on you. Like in some McDonald's and Altoona, you still have a lot of the stuff. It's just like, I don't know.

But then you throw in the fact that he's attractive. People like, I mean, it's, it's, it's, some of these trials are huge and that's going to be a big one, but. Yeah. That one's going to, that one's going to be a weird one. But you look at when the feds come, like these kids today don't think enough about that when they do these things. Like, I'm not even talking about kids like him.

I'm talking about, like, young kids in the streets that are out banging on people and selling drugs. And they're really just going to hit you on RICO. Mm-hmm. And they're not even doing that now. Now they're hitting you with something called a 922C, which, if you're a felon, you cannot possess a weapon. And the feds are basically going out, and that's where they're taking people off the street now.

They're going to find – and they're going to go to an Instagram, right? And I see it in Philly all the time. I've looked into this a ton where you'll find these young kids, these rappers, these kids in the streets doing stuff. Yep, they have pictures where they have weapons clearly in their waistband or whatever. And they're looking them up and they're saying, Joe Blow is a felon. He did two years. Why does he have a gun on him? Let's bring him in.

And they're going to hit you with four years straight out of the gate. They're just going to take you off the street. Yeah. And why they do that and why you're off the street, they'll just keep your name there. And they'll just keep watching you. And they'll say, okay, so-and-so's back in the streets. How does he have all this Amiri and all these chains and stuff? Where's he making his money from?

Mm-hmm. Okay, let's look through him a little bit more. Let's put a little surveillance on him, him and his people. They're at 21st and Cambria. Let's put some surveillance on him. And they just, it's real simple. They're wearing it on social media. It's crazy.

And a lot of these guys, like, there's a case out of Philadelphia. This guy, A.R. Ab. I don't know if you know A.R. Ab. He was a big rapper. Drake shouted him out. A.R. Ab? A.R. dash A.B. Assault Rifle Ab.

He was a huge rapper. I'm not familiar with this case. Just A.R. Ab? A.R.-A.B. Assault Rifle Ab. He was a huge rapper. I'm not familiar with this case. Just A.R. Ab. He was on Vlad TV many times. This is a guy who was a street guy, and everything in his songs he was actually doing. To the point of, in his case, they brought the lyrics up. He went on Vlad and talked about,

I did this, I i did that and they just basically looked they watched him it's it's like that scene in better call saw i think the very first scene where like he makes this argument and then the opposing attorney comes up and just goes and then wheels in a tv just plays the video of everything happening and walks away. That's exactly what it is. And even in his case, they brought the lyrics up and his attorney tried to argue, this is just creative expression. It's not literal.

Then again, though, it was. They actually tied it to all the shit he was doing and he got 45 years. 45. Yeah. Basically, he was selling a lot of narcotics. They surveilled his entire operation. I mean, you have a guy on the street, he's got $500,000 on his kitchen table.

Where's your job? How? Where does that come from? Yeah. And that's how they get people. And a lot of the time when the feds come to you and they kick your door in, cases are already built. Yeah. So you fighting it is a total waste of time.

Yeah. They're going to come to you and say, you have two options here. Take our plea. So instead of giving you football numbers, we'll give you 10 years. Right. Or cooperate. And you're dead anyway. So do what you got to do.

You're not going to beat this. No one's going to beat you. You're not going to beat us. We have everything. We've already built our case here. And that's the choice they give you. And they already have it built. So you're done going to beat us we have everything we've already built our case here and uh that's the choice they give you and they already have it built so it's you're done yeah my issue with some of those and and like a lot of them they are making it that way and it's pretty clear and

yeah like they're they're getting their guy there's other ones though again you can talk about it slipped into the cracks where they're incentivized to make a case they rely on rats who they well that's all they rely on yeah but they but they really pressure people who are totally full of shit and they know it too why and then they make a case that's bullshit i saw recently that the fbi on the street right now has i think like oh you tweeted this 20 000 federal informants yeah and they're spending like anybody and there's and they're spending like 500 million a year on that and these are informants that are informing on everything from terrorism to narcotics like if the fbi didn't have informants they wouldn't

make any case right i mean other than the mafia the one thing the government did was stamp out the mob. They've done it better than anybody. Yeah. The American mafia from where it once was to where it is now is pretty unbelievable. Yeah, I knew through my grandpa, I knew the guy Jules Bonavolanta, who was on that famous team from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. He's the guy who invented invented donnie brasco and then his career ended with taking down goddy so he worked with kahlstrom and giuliani and fucking louis free sure and all these guys and like part of it was they kind of and this this is my takeaway

they knew how to think like those guys like like a guy like jules came from the streets of newark right he watched the mob like intimidated dad who owned a guy like jules came from the streets of newark right he watched the mob like intimidated dad who owned a fucking laundry shop that's what giuliani did too yeah the only thing about giuliani a lot of people don't know this his father was involved with the mob a lot of people don't know that he'll never tell you that how many were home his father was connected to the mob like he was a leg breaker for the mob a leg breaker yeah he was an enforcer sure really yeah i didn't know that um he'll never tell you that but i wasn't gonna ask him but yeah he always keeps that stuff out but he you know you look at you even look at where he was at one

point where he is now it's kind of wild yeah he was it's it's it's hilarious to me he was the most popular guy in the fucking country after 9-11. Like he was at the high of the high. He was America's mayor. He could have rode off like that. And he's just kind of gone down this stream in his career. And I don't say that because like, oh, he was up next to Trump. That's not what I'm saying.

It's like the guy he's become in doing that. And we've heard the stories on this podcast. John Kiriakou talked about how he tried to sell him a pardon i mean he operates like a mobster yeah he just became kind of also like a zany weird like yes character yeah but um but yeah i mean you look at where the mob was at one point i mean they were literally you know i know we won't go into this deep but like they literally were involved in getting rid of a president. Yes.

Like I think if you don't believe that the mob had involvement in that. Yes, they had involvement. You're crazy. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, Carlos Marcelo is, in my opinion, the most influential, successful mob boss of all time out of New Orleans. Why do you say him over Traficante? They're both very powerful. They were both in unison, very close people together.

They were very good friends. Marcello, you look at the swath of territory that he had, whether it was, I mean, people in Texas, I mean, all sorts of areas. But he hated Bobby Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy. And remember, the mob helped Kennedy get elected, right? Yes.

They won Illinois because of... Dallas and Chicago. Yeah. And Kennedy's father was a bootlegger, very involved with the mob years ago. And they feel the mob that they owed him something. Kennedy comes out of nowhere, he starts hassling in, bothering people. And a lot of people don't know that Marcello was the person that he came down on most. He dropped him in Guatemala.

I don't know if you've heard about that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Lou Ferrante talked about that. Yeah, and Marcello hated him. And they basically said, look, let's not kill him. Let's just get rid of John. And there's just too many. I mean, Lee Harvey Oswald and his connections to Marcello.

And if you even look into the Martin Luther King assassination. That one's a mess. James Earl Ray was really connected to the mob in new orleans oh that you you're putting that back to the mob i'm not saying they were but and if you look into marcello he hated blacks he was a fervent racist which is weird because he's an italian mob boss not liking well but it's weird though he's he is from sicily and he's actually born in tunisia oh it's it's no it's it's the funniest thing because like they we always joke about like the stereotypical racist like italian guy especially from the mob and it's like my guy it's in your bloodlines that's true and and it's like clayton bigsby right but if you look at like even like fbi files there was a lot of connection between James Earl Ray and the mob.

But either nor there. They were – this – at one point, they were going after – I mean they had every industry in America under their control. New York City at one point was – They built that. I always point to that. They built this fucking thing right here. Everything from the concrete being poured to everything. Yep. And now, I mean, if I told you some of the things

that I've come across as doing what I do, like, they're worried about me. You know, that's where they are now. There are certain guys that are worried about me. And it's like... And they lose getting too loud. Yeah, it's like... Or, you know, one of them has a podcast,

which is, like, if you you had told me that years ago – About Merlino? Yeah. Allegedly, he was the boss for years. Allegedly. Yeah. I mean – but it's crazy. You know, that's kind of where we are.

Yeah. What do you – because you – did you go on his show? Yeah. And you – I don't want to say something you said off camera. You don't want to talk about that part, right? Whatever. I don't care. All right.

Was this the show that happens now with him and Lil Snuff, which they – I got to give them this. Those guys hustle, man. They're working all the time. That concept was – you originally floated that a few years ago? Yeah. I had had an idea to do it. We had tried to make it happen. And this has been talked about.

There's another guy that's in my world. Him and I were kind of involved with it. We had the idea. It was a tough time around those times as far as getting it and making it happen. Now, I want to make this clear. I've known Snuff a long time. He is a perfect host for Joey. Oh, dude, he's so good.

And they know each other they've known each other for years it's just a perfect kind of yeah in unison thing and it's gotten to the point where you know it's right where they want it to be yeah for people out there by the way i kind of said this but just to be clear we're talking about joey merlino who is the allegedly the long-time reputed mob boss of the ph family. Now, I will tell you, in all the work that I do, I will tell you straight out, I don't believe he's still involved with the mafia. Today?

Yeah, I don't. You know what's crazy? Because it seems like he would be. I might believe you on that, actually. And I've also said, and I'll go one further, I think saying that he is a mafia member is also a little far well he was a made guy do we know that though and here's what i mean hold on a second dante and luigi's dude he was never charged in that he wasn't no he wasn't but you know what i'm trying

to say is... Allegedly. Hear me out for a second. And I've been called a Joey simp. Everyone thinks I stand up for him and stuff. What I'm trying to say is he was the son of a guy. His father was Chucky Merlino. He was the under-boss of Philly Mob under Nicky Scarfo. Very close.

Him and Nicky stabbed the guy when they were 20. They were very close. And all these... Brought them together for the rest of their life they came up together and then their sons nephews all got involved too and joey was involved with his friends they were out you know gambling things like that were they gangsters or criminals yeah but i think joey kind of constitutes himself as just a street guy i don't know if like i have a way that way that I can – there's a website I track that has ceremony dates and mob induction ceremonies. And like I don't even know when he would have been made.

The boss at the time, John Stamfin, him were – I know, but we don't – like we don't have all the inductions. I know there's been a lot of rats. No, I know there's been a lot. but you know how many of these fucking ceremonies happen? I'm faking and burning my fucking head. It happens in a basement in Atlantic City in Ducktown. You know what I mean? If there was a way that we could prove it, I would, as a betting man, I would say it's a coin flip that he's been made.

Made? Yes. Let alone, like you're skipping the, is you're skipping the i think it's just a charge i think it's just assumed i think it's assumed that because of who he was he was this larger than life guy but but ask yourself what do we actually ever want to let that happen but what do we he he didn't care he still doesn't care he does what he wants he does do what he is in his friend group he's the he's the guy i've heard he just walks in into a restaurant anywhere and just rips a bogue right in the

middle of the place and no one says shit and and i remember as a kid i heard him he called into sports radio too he called it howard eskin one time because they would call in as him yes and they were hassling him about eric lindros the papers he was hanging out with eric the hockey player eric lindros and people thought they were he was him about Eric Lindros, the papers. He was hanging out with the hockey player, Eric Lindros, and people thought he was giving him tips and stuff. I remember that, yeah. But what do we really know about Joey? Has he been involved with bookmaking?

Yeah, he admitted that. He went to jail for receiving stolen property. Right. But all the other stuff is just possibly, allegedly. I know the mob has made use in the past of of the media having a front guy for stuff we've seen that like they have the quote-unquote street boss they're like yeah he's the fucking boss like like who was fat Tony Salerno is a good example but like he was still even though he wasn't the boss he was effectively like the underboss of that family did you let me ask you this have you

ever heard Joey on wiretap talking about that kind of stuff? I mean, I don't know. All I'm saying is I don't think he was your prototype. If he were the mob boss, I don't think he was your prototypical one. I think he was just kind of someone who was able to find a way to find a weak. Because John Stanford is the weakest boss in the history of the mafia in any family. He was insane. He was making people that mafia in any family. He was insane. He was making people that weren't even Italian.

He was just a lunatic. Yeah, not well-liked. I think Joey recognized he was probably weak. A lot of the younger guys supported Joey. I'm trying to remember the timeline, though, because Scarfo goes away in 89, I think, right? It was early 90s. Yeah, so was Stanford immediately the guy after him, or was there one guy in between? So Stanford's an interesting story because I don't know if you know, but when Angela Bruner was killed in 1980.

Oh, yeah, blown away in the car. Stanford was the driver. Yeah, yeah. Stanford somehow gets out of it because we found out he was in on it many years later. He goes to prison. He comes out and he comes out at the right time because all the Scarfo people had been arrested. Chucky, Nicky, Philip Leonetti, all these people. Scarfo was crazy, bro.

Yes, he was. He's insane. Yeah. They all get arrested, and there's kind of this power vacuum. And Stanford had been in Philly for years. He was a Sicilian, but he was old school. He comes in, recognizes there's no one in the lead. He kind of assumes the role because no one else was going to do it.

And I think Joey, just at that point, was the right age. He has these friends. They're doing stuff in the streets too. What I'm saying is I'm not doubting that he's a mob guy. Of course he was at one point. But is he your prototypical guy like a John Gotti or a Vinny Giganti? No, I don't believe he is. Well, he was young.

Like, who was it? It was like the Changlini twins running around with him and stuff. They had their crew and it was like they were the young Turks. That's what I'm saying. Stanford was the old guard and then Stanford goes away. Who the fuck else was there? But that's what I'm saying. Is it conceivable to think that he's just a street guy, young guy?

He was larger than life, so they painted him as this. Look, I could see it on the one hand that him being the guy who then took all the publicity is useful for the guys like the legambis of the world who might have been really running it even back then possibly under your theory but i could also see how he was a terrible distraction and would have been a guy that they would have been like yo fuck this get rid of this dude but we were talking earlier about you don't beat the feds joey beat the feds multiple times. Yeah.

I mean, he beat multiple murder cases. Yeah, what was the name of his lawyer again? Fucking great lawyer. Eddie Jacobs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Still his lawyer. Yeah. He's still his lawyer, but he's not in the mob.

He's a guy who... He's a fascinating guy. I just think it's interesting to think about his career and how he's... Do you think we should have him on here? Yeah, for sure. He's just a really interesting guy, I just think it's interesting to think about his career and how he's... You think we should have him on here? Yeah, for sure. He's just a really interesting guy, I think. He's... If we do it, we'll bring up him and Lil Snuff and you gotta come up too.

If they'll have me, I'll join, sure. If they'll have you. He's gonna ask them, not me. No, I just don't want to impose... You know, and here's the thing with him. There are things that... I think when you're dealing with someone like him, even like Red Shea, who you had on recently, those guys, some of them won't even speak to me because I've had.

Yeah, you said Red wouldn't talk to you? I don't know if Red said he wouldn't. I think Red kind of just was like, I don't know that I want to talk to him because he had rats on him. And I was sad about that because I think Red's super interesting i've talked to him real dude yeah we've talked on dm and stuff but um i just think these are guys who that come from another world and and even someone like myself who like i've always made it clear i'm not in the streets i'm just a a guy who had interest analyst yeah i had i had this thing that i was interested in i had some downtime and i started it i never thought chris

collinsworth of the mob well collinsworth played all right i never played all right you're the chris berman of the mob there you go that's i guess what that's true um we'll do that but yeah i look it's been an interesting life i've had so far but well i gravitate towards it too because i don't know if i told you this but when i was a when i was like 15 i think i got assigned for european history we had to do our big research paper and the topic i was assigned was the sicilian mafia oh wow the shit over there yeah So I start digging into that, and I went right down the rabbit hole. And this was like when YouTube had all the documentaries on there of the mob, and I would just go watch those in my free periods during the day,

just like eating. Like the ones that were on A&E and stuff? Oh, yeah, exactly. Eating it all up and getting the whole history, researching it on Wikipedia. I knew every fucking thing. Like it's all still in there. And at the the time no one fucking gave a shit about this stuff and so after a while i got i'm like all right whatever i know all this shit but it's worthless and then in like 2016 2017 2018

people started fucking making content on it i'm like where the fuck you been but this was the shit like it was so fascinating to me because, again, like I talked about a minute ago. But whenever – you can't really see it on the board here. But on the other side of Jersey City on the far end of that wall right there, you got Route 78. And every time I come around that bend when you're coming past Bayonne and the skyline comes into view, it's a great fucking view. Every time I'll be on that road, doesn't matter what time of day, I'll look up and I will remember, like, holy shit, not one building there went up without their approval, anything post-1920. And they were making, like, off every yard of concrete, they were making a certain amount of money. Yeah.

Like, just think about the minute, like, I mean, how many yards of concrete were poured? It's insane. And they all ran those companies. Like Paul Castellano and all these other people, they all had their own companies. And they put monopolies on everything. It's just – I just am fascinated by what the government was able to do in ridding the country of them, how they did it. That's the one thing this government did at a good level is eliminate the mob. What do you think of the RICO law, which is effectively that was the ace in the hole. Yeah, it's a really questionable law, to be honest. Why do you say it's questionable?

Because you're basically putting someone at the top and you're making them responsible for everything that happens under it. And what I've learned is in like a lot of these cases involving, let's say an underboss or a consigliere, there basically are people that are charged with things that they were never involved in. So we're putting this like, we're putting this like group of things and everyone below it just is in automatically case in point. For instance,

when John Gotti, they had the tapes tapes the gotti tapes they were called where john went up to this apartment above the ravenite yep and they recorded and they had it on the lamp yes they recorded hundreds of hours of tapes a lamp yep john's consigliere guy frank lucasio was up there a lot of the time but you never heard him he never said anything he just said okay okay oh, Gravano was the underboss. Sorry, I was fucked up. Frankie Loke was the third.

He was a guy out of the Bronx. And Frank, ultimately, outside of Gotti, got life as well. And no one ever talks about Frankie Loke. And Frankie Loke said in his sentencing, the only thing I'm guilty of is being a friend of John Gotti's. Which is true, because if you look at why he went to prison when you're in the mafia particularly an underboss if the boss is in the room and says he's gotta fucking go you're just gonna be there and you're gonna yep we agree because that's what

you're supposed to do right you don't say hey no no I think we should let him live he's a good guy doesn't work like that you're like leaning into the left. No, he should live. Right. And nobody knew that, right? So you're not going to speak up and say anything. Yeah. That's what they got Frankie Luke on.

Basically just being there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's, I just think it's questionable and like, in some cases it's not even that close. Like there's a case out of, it's actually about 10 years he was kind of separate from the mob, but he was very close with them. The mob killed them back in 2016, I believe it was, 2014, around there. And the governing body of the Lucchese crime family

were basically all put in prison because the guy at the top, the feds allege, was the one that ordered it. And everyone below him, underboss, everybody, they were all involved in it because they were part of the governing body now the under boss was a guy steven crea he may have not even been a part of the meeting but he was just the under boss they threw him in on it too he wasn't there he didn't pull the trigger there there's part and and i'm i'm with you because again you

got to look give them the same due and look at it constitutionally so i do think there's some certainly some questionable far reaches of the rico law and i think we can point that out easily and i i get that part of me like when you talk about loke for example it's like you know you're hanging out with john gaudy though and and like well and i can maybe if i can't off the top of my head prove this in a court of law, yeah, he was in the mob. It's like you get what you sign up for. But it's not illegal to be in the mob. It's not? All right.

Are you saying that from a technicality perspective? It's not. There's no law against that. But if you go into the mob and you're made in the mob or even if you're associated with the mob it's the same thought of you're perpetuating a criminal enterprise but it's the same thought as if you're in a motorcycle club most of them will just say i'm a motorcycle enthusiast yeah there's no law against being like i guess i get what you're saying like it's a gang per se um and yeah i guess in terms of is he a guilty of being a mobster yeah but was he

guilty of murder that's where it gets and the government's favorite word is conspiracy yes for a lot of reasons yeah and any tom dick and harry can be arrested and put in the federal federal prison because of conspiracy right so you could just be on the phone talking about what they perceive as narcotics not have a job and they, well, I got a quick story for you about drugs. This is insane. This is a guy you should probably have on, actually, a friend of mine. I've interviewed him. He was a guy out of Baltimore.

He did about 10 years for selling cocaine. He definitely did it. He admitted to it, lived a tough life growing up, sold cocaine. He gets out about 10 years for selling cocaine. He definitely did it. He admitted to it. Lived a tough life growing up, sold cocaine. He gets out about 10 years ago. He's trying to have a straight and narrow life. He was a UFC fan. And in the Baltimore area, there was an event. He was going to go with a friend of his to an event. The friend calls him and says, like a few days before, hey, you want me to bring some of our the girls along our friends day before the fight i think he told me he called the guy he said yo you bringing those two white girls or no they go the fight whatever he gets indicted they were listening to his phone

calls and perceived that two white girls was two kilos they come to him and say, you're a felon. Yeah. You're on supervised release. Okay? Because, and you know what that is. That means you cannot... Can't do anything. Yeah, right.

It's a tale. So they go to him and say, we'll give you a plea. Take it or go to trial. Just like we talked about earlier. He said, I'm not going to fight it. So I think he ended up doing a year and a half. All because of he did on the phone yeah there's so now it had nothing to do with yeah no i i i hear you did you ever see the case of raj rajaratnam the hedge fund guy

i feel like i've heard that before i don't know okay so raj at the time back in – he was indicted in 2009 right after the financial crisis. He's one of the greatest investors to ever live. Gets found guilty in 2011 and at the time was given the longest sentence ever for insider trading. It was like 11 years. And I – as a kid because that was like post-financial crisis, I was following like the ins and outs of how the world collapsed. It was such a fascinating story, like dark, the whole bit. And so I followed a lot of that stuff and I followed that case, which was obviously litigated in the media. I thought he was guilty as all hell.

It seemed like a fucking slam dunk case to me. Years later, I get connected with him and he wanted to come on the podcast. This ended up being episode 87, and I hopped on the phone with him on a video call, and I told him to his face. I said, yeah, you know, I thought you were extremely guilty. No problem, but I'd love to talk with you about it. You're also, like, one of the smartest guys in the history of Wall Street,

no matter what happened here. So he was like, no problem. And he's like, you know, just do me a favor. Like, look into the case. I said, you got it. So I actually prepped the shit out of this. It's a podcast I'm not proud of because I think this is part of the reason why me not prepping podcasts works well. Because, like, I was so ready to go with that that I couldn't shut the fuck up.

You knew too much. Yeah. And, you know, he liked it because, like, I knew his case. But looking back on it, I would have much rather, like, him go through all the shit. But I remember looking through it, and my dad's an attorney, not a criminal attorney, but he was looking through the case too. And we're like, are we crazy or is this guy innocent? And a big part of the problem, the biggest problem in the case was that at the time, he was the first guy ever on Wall Street that was wiretapped. And he was wiretapped for like three years.

They were trying to get him because they didn't want him. They wanted Steve Cohen. Right. And you know about that, obviously. Like he was the basis of the show Billions. And they're like, oh, the way they looked at it, they're like this fucking immigrant. We'll get through him. He's an idealist.

Like we'll just scare the shit out of him. And, you know, he'll get a slap on the wrist, lose some prestige, but he'll be back and we'll get Steve Cohen. So they – he didn't crack at all, bro. He fucking – like he went and talked to them without a lawyer the day he got arrested. They spent like $1.5 million on his arrest in New York City. He didn't see it coming, and he goes to trial, and people are like, are you nuts? Like what are you doing? They litigate this in the media, obviously hook line and sinker got everyone including me and

With the wiretaps two things number one They were they were got illegally and it was proven in court in the Franks hearing that they were gotten illegally The judge said it the FBI lied. They shouldn't have gotten this but I'll let them in the trial Which is like fucking this is on record It's like even if he were guilty of sin He never should have gone to trial because the whole case was the basis of that and one rat who was a really bad guy Then they go to trial and they take these two I mean you see this all in all your mob cases you look at they take these two three years of wiretaps and they boil

it down to like a few things here and there and After he's found guilty the judge cashes in on it opens up his own private law firm where they specialize in defending against insider trading you know that's not a conflict of interest but he goes on on pbs front line and he admits and mind you he made all these mistakes in the trial but he said yeah the wire taps are tough because you're kind of guilty no matter what and the interviewer's like what do you mean and he goes well i can take a one sentence of you at five o'clock on a tuesday in 2008 where you're on the phone with your mom and

you say are you going to be home for spaghetti tonight and i can make that sound like a fucking rico that's the thing every that's my whole thing with conspiracy and some of the words they use. Because technically, every person in America probably every day commits a federal crime they don't know they commit. Every person in America? So hear me out on this. So let's say you and him bet $100 that you'll beat him to the end of the street in a race easy money he gives you a hundred dollars are you going to pay taxes on that no it's a federal crime technically yes i would i pay taxes technically yeah i just call my accountant now it's just

but but you you mentioned what you're talking about. You're dealing with the government. They could print money. Yeah. They literally have endless amounts of it. And then they do business with the worst people. Like Sammy the Bull Gravano is one of the most vile people. Oh, let's talk about him. Yeah. I've interviewed him.

He's a vile creep. And even to today. This is a guy who's threatened me recently oh he came at you yeah i i'm saying i'd love to see if you get fine he basically said on camera that he would make me get on my knees and suck his you know he hates me he would make you do that did you ask him how he would go about making you do that i i did he He didn't respond. But he was very unhappy with me. But you look at him. He's a vile fucking guy.

Even after the fact, he got five years for that John Gotti case. Yeah. Right? Then he became like an ecstasy dealer in Arizona. Him and his kids. Yeah. And now he like, I mean, this is a guy who, and he doesn't talk about this on any of his interviews he wouldn't even talk about it on my interview he told me blatantly do not ask me about this

or i'll get off the show i'll fucking kill you there was that was a story this is a true story you can look it up he killed a child a 16 year old child guy, Alan Kaiser. He was a kid. When? 1978, I believe. Not in the life? No. He was just like a kid from the neighborhood. He had thought that this kid was a rival of a biker group or something. And he killed him in cold blood.

Killed him. Where? It was in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. How do we know this? It's public knowledge. The FBI talked about it. They've talked about it in a thing. He's even talked about it. So they knew that in their plea deal?

Oh, yeah. Of course. A civilian. And he's come out to the point where he won't even – he doesn't even have the satisfaction to talk about it. He won't even say, I did it. He actually blames Louie Melito, his main guy. Yeah, just for context, I think we said this a few minutes ago, but Gravano was the consulieri to John Gotti,

ended up being the biggest rat in modern history for the mob turned on John Gotti. Yep, he was involved with 19 murders. Now, this is where Sammy, like, he didn't commit 19 murders he really only committed two that i know of that's nice and he actually what's crazy is they were alan kaiser the kid and this other guy was his first murder he ever committed other than that he was ordering them so he would say hey julian go take this guy. But he's still a really bad fucking guy. Yes.

And he learned so much by his five years that he then started selling drugs to kids in Arizona. And now he makes a ton of money on YouTube talking about it. So it's... Like, I asked John Gleeson, the prosecutor for Johnti i asked him why do you why would you even do a deal with someone like this like is this the kind of gotti say that again because it's gotti exactly that's basically what he said we didn't like we we we hated john gotti more than all them yeah and he basically said to me what sammy did was bad but the people that he cooperated against combined were way worse than Sammy.

So we were willing to do a deal with him. And you look at all these people that cooperate. Most of them are bad fucking people. They're not like, they're not like some, like I remember Sopranos in one of the seasons. Like it was like, you remember that episode where Tony and Pussy, you've seen Sopranos, right?

Of course, I've seen it like fucking a billion times. Remember when Tony and Pussy whack You've seen Sopranos, right? Of course. I've seen it like fucking a billion times. Remember when Tony and Pussy whacked the guy, Matt, that shoots at Christopher? Yeah, out at the George Washington Slept Here house. Slept Here house, yeah. I used to live like fucking a football field. Hackle Bernie State Park, I think it's called. I always drove by that. I'm like, that's where they did it.

Yeah. So if you remember in that episode, the witness was just this like regular guy. Yeah. And the scene happens where his wife hears on TV that it's a mob associate connected. And she's like, he's like, those cocksuckers. Because, like, the cops didn't tell him who it was. But, like, that's not the rats we're talking about here. These are not, like, regular people.

These are people that have committed a lot of the murders. And people say to me, like, why the fuck do you platform them then? And it's hard for me because like, I'm just trying to tell a history. Yes. And it's, I think that's different. Like, I want to talk to Red about that because you're, you are, to your point, you are trying to get to what happened here. And it's not about like, oh, I'm condoning everything this guy did. I've taken some of these guys to, I've taken them to the cleaners some.

I've asked them certain things. Like if you – like Sammy says a lot. Sammy the Bull will say, I cooperated against John Gotti because he was going to basically fuck me in the end. He was going to make me take the rap for everything, which is probably true. So then why did Sammy testify against Vic Arena from the Colombo family? Why did he testify against this person from the Bonanno family? You know, it's- Because once they got you, they said, we don't get part of you.

We get all of you. Right. I mean, you look at even like Joe Messino, a boss. He was the first boss to ever testify. What was that? Like 03, 06, something like that? He was arrested first boss to ever testify. What was that, like 03, 06, something like that? He was arrested in 03. 07, he got seven life—

Still in there. Seven death penalties. No, he's dead now. No, I mean it's still in there. Oh, yeah. You do know a lot, actually. But he had been convicted. He was facing the death penalty.

He then, right when the trial's over, he calls the judge. I want to see the judge. He decides he wants to flip. They then send him back in to MDC with a wire on. Yeah. And he gets all sorts of incriminating information, including the boss at the time, Benny Gorgeous. Yeah, the hair guy.

Yeah, saying, I'm going to whack, I want to whack the prosecutor. And I found a tape. You found the tape? Yeah, the tape. What, was it in the fucking dumpster? No, I found it on to whack – I want to whack the prosecutor. And I found a tape. You found the tape? Yeah, the tape. What, was it in the fucking dumpster? No, I found it on – where did I find it? I'm fucking with you, man. There's this terrific Reddit guy I know.

I hate Reddit. Reddit's a fucking cesspool. That said, there's a guy I know on Reddit. His name is Joe Puzzles. Joe Puzzles. Shout out to Joe Puzzles. This guy can get any wiretap. It's insane.

Vinnie Gorgeous, Joe Messina wiretap. I think I put it up on TikTok. The curious case of Jeff Nadeau. There's so many. There's so many of me. But you hear the wiretap. It's fucking wild. It's clear.

You can hear him. He's like, you say you wanted to whack the prosecutor what are we going to get out of doing and it's just like they had no problem just sending him in yeah there it is there it is

this is Joe Messino talking with Vincent Baciano Vinnie Gorgeous All right. This is Joe Messino talking with Vincent Baciano of Vinnie Gorgeous. Oh, he's making kill some of those brownies. Never! Never! Oh, he's leaning in. So he basically says, like, remember you told me about doing that? Yeah. And, you know, you can see him. You can clearly hear he's leaning into him, trying to get him to say it. And, like, that ultimately.

He's, like, leaning in, like. Yeah. A little louder. Yeah. Like, it's. You know, and you look at what Joe Messina happened to him. This is a guy who, in his career, I mean, took out dozens of people. Sonny Black, the guy in Donnie Brasco.

Yeah. He had Sonny Black killed, not because of Donnie Brasco. They'll tell you that. Oh, it wasn't. No. I didn't know that. Joe Messina talks about talks about in his court testimony he was fearful of sonny black as someone people respected and he might take it from him someday the boss title did he get sanctioned to do that though he just did it he just didn't need sanctioned sonny was underneath him there's a bunch of guys in the banana i just did a video video on a guy, Cesare Bonventre. He was this young Sicilian guy. A lot of people respected him. Joe killed him because of that as well.

Joe was power hungry. But you look, he gets a deal. He gets out about five years later, early 2010s, declines witness protection. And this is something I had reported on. I had gotten in contact with someone in Messina's family. They had reached out to me after he died a few years ago and they basically told me you know i really respect how you covered my father's death and they gave me information about where he was after the fact and i was fascinated by where they put these people don't you think it's really interesting like we were talking about where we live right these these areas these mundane areas in society and i found that joe messina was placed in cleveland ohio oh sorry to hear that yeah and he was given the name ralph rogers that was his nickname his real government name and i I'd asked the family member,

I said, so like, where did he live? She said, he lived in a 55 and over community. Like it just, your normal 55 and over. And he,

I was like, what did he do all day? She's like, he went to church every day, which I found interesting. And I've learned a lot of like criminals. They, they,

they're really religious. I guess they feel that like when when the end comes they'll be yeah they rectify it to themselves and then i think they'll make it right and she said he loves the casino and he likes going to tgi fridays and ruby tuesday a lot and there's no good italian food but he did find one place and like he acted the same way. People thought it was weird that this like New York guy was out in Ohio. And like, I was really fascinated by like,

they just put these people just in society. Yeah. They don't like, for instance, like they don't, they don't say it. Like if, if, if there's a, a, a Chomo, right. Living next door to you or near you, you can look that up. Right. In Pennsylvania, we have Megan's law. Right. You can look at us. If if a rat who was in the mafia and killed 20 people and was the boss, the bottom crime family, he could hypothetically move in next door to you. You would never know. I agree. I think it's crazy as well. Here's where you could make the logical argument, and this would really be a case-by-case basis though. You'd have to do a real psychological evaluation, which is imperfect to say the least, to determine how much a guy has a switch versus doesn't, meaning like the switch is always on versus he can actually turn it off. But, Joey, here's what I've learned about the mob, okay? All these people.

Even today, when you have a guy that does 20 years, it was in the mob, the likelihood of him retiring and going to get a regular job is little to none. What if the government's paying you, though? Well, as a rat, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But most of these guys reoffend, like Sammy. Oh, yeah, 100%. Who was the who was uh the fucking what's his face is dead franchise is dead he's fucking still going to prison when he was 100 years old right yeah he would walk the yard with raj up in prison he did more time in

prison than virtually any guy ever never always stood up too and that's the thing about these guys like they don't have a thing of like i'm just gonna go get a regular job it doesn't work but you're talking about the guys to get replaced somewhere went once they've gone into witsack and it's like the difference here and again some of them are straight i mean we can look at gas pipe casso and not that he got put into witsack but guys like that are actually fucking full-blown there's no saving them they're they're jeffrey dahmer types right but you have a lot of other guys who are unquestionably bad guys we'll go back but but here's the thing they signed up this is the difference between having one of those guys

sit across from me in the studio versus having some guy that killed his wife the guy that killed his wife killed his wife yeah right this guy now sammy the bull is a bad example because he killed a fucking civilian but this guy sitting across from me if he's a mobster signed up for a life where everyone else who signed up for that knows the stakes it's the can or the gun i agree with that and i think in that term but like if if the house next door to you a murder happened then they would tell you that when you die yeah like i guess like i also related to to like i'm not disagreeing with you i'm straw man if you look at like you know roy de mayo right yes roy de mayo is arguably the most depraved person ever connected to the mob right he was a part of the gemini lounge crew and there were two people in that group uh joey testa and anthony center the gemini twins they'd fucking cut you up like a

yeah do you know where they are today no free oh they're free these are that's a terrible example these are people that committed probably in an estimate jeffrey dahmer type they probably killed 30 40 50 people and they would do they And they would literally dice bodies into a thousand pieces. They got creative with it. And they're living in society. That's crazy. And nobody knows who they are. Agreed 100%.

That's crazy. It's also like if you look into like Chapo, the Flores twins, you've heard of them. They were like two twins out of Chicago. They're just living in society. Yeah, there's one who's coming on the show okay there you go yeah he's done a lot he's really interesting i i would love to i could listen to him talk for hours and that's like he's a fan of my show that's dope i'm a fan of him but like but julie think think about what we're saying He'll walk into this door right here. This is a guy who was selling hundreds and hundreds of kilos a year.

Yes. He was one of the most profitable people for the most profitable drug cartel on the planet. Now, I get that he gave information. He was like a really valued source. I get that. It's just kind of wild. And I don't think it's nothing illegal. It's just interesting.

And that's why, as I get older, this is why when I'm in public, I'm totally different than the person you see on the internet. I will not act that way in public because you never fucking know who you're talking to. You don't. it could be some old ass man fat guy and you don't even know it could be joe messina and i heard a story about joe where someone supposedly recognized him in person and he walked up and said are you joe messina and he goes no i don't know who that is in his New York accent I don't know who that is and it was him but like think about what you're like that could like he could do anything to you

it's just kind of crazy that like people just walk up to him yeah to be clear I want to be very clear I agree with you I'm strawmanning it is how they may look at it back there but it's a crazy system yeah like also like what are they going to do, though? Because the whole point is you're supposed to put them where they're not known, and that was the reward for them making the case. But you know what's funny? I've learned about, like, the FBI.

They don't do that, really. They don't do what? They usually put you, like, pretty close to where you're from. They give you the same, like, generally, like, generally, like, if your name's Joe in the mob, they'll give you a name Joe something else. Right. Like, a lot of them go to Florida.

I know that. Like, most rats live in Florida. Florida or Arizona. Uh-huh. And what's crazy about Florida, because I know a bunch of these guys, they all live in the same community. The villages? Like, similar. Not necessarily the villages, but like there may be –

They're going to live next to you, Alessi. There might be like a housing complex and like there might be one here and then down the street there's another. And they'll have barbecues together and they sit there and they talk about, yo, remember the 80s in Brooklyn? Like they all live together. It's pretty interesting actually. He'll fucking take them to church. He'll get them on the right side of the law real fast. Oh, that's a big thing for a lot of these guys.

They all found God. Yeah. He'll help them find him if they haven't. But can a person – that's what I think about a lot. Can a person be – maybe not a mobster, but can a person be rehabilitated? Like, for instance, like a cartel person, right? You see like these videos where you got people cutting off people's legs. Like how can someone see stuff like – it's even like military people.

How can you like do the things you do and then just come home and act like – You can't. You can't wipe the hard drive. Yeah. It's in there. I've talked with guys about this from all different angles of it, whether they be on the wrong side of law or if you want to call it the right side of law or whatever it may be. I was just talking with Andy Bustamante about this who was a covert spy forever and saw some horrible shit. It's like you can't get rid of that and there's no way you can be okay.

There was another guy we had in here actually that is insane. You ever interview the Nick Irving? Of course. The Reaper? I think I watched your, yeah, I think I was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That guy, like. Oh, you can see him seeing it.

Yeah. Yep. Like, I love, like, and look, I don't know how true the film is, but like, that American Sniper movie. Yeah, no, I know what you mean. Like, that movie, like, I love. It shows it well. Yeah. Yes. Like, even that new movie, Warfare. I haven you mean like that move like i chose it well yeah yes like even that new movie warfare i haven't seen it i haven't seen it either but the opening scene have you seen the opening scene it went viral i posted it went viral

it's like these movies they make you feel like like remember these are just regular people from america right and they just are are trained for like a period of time and they're just thrown in a foreign country and say, fight. Go, yeah. Just, yeah, go. And like they turn into like a guy like Nick Irving, right? Who has these like, and then you just say, okay, it's over.

Go home and have a good life. You and I can't understand it because we never did it. And a movie can give you an idea but we still have that suspension of belief where we know it's a movie even if we know what happened these are actors you know that's fucking ketchup being sprayed there is fucking crazy they made it look real but you know it's not yeah but there's a thing that happens i've been doing this long enough with enough guys from all different walks of life where you can see it behind their eyes. You can see like the lights either go on or off depending on what the situation is where like they're there. And like I'm in this enclosed

studio with them and they go there. And Nick Irving's one of them that did that. But I had this guy in here who maybe you should talk to because it's in your wheelhouse this guy matthew hedger for 275 and 290 who i could do this for the rest of my career and i may never get a chance to sit down with a dude like him he was what's called a knock you ever hear this it's a non-official cover for people out there that means it is they are completely deniable to the u.s government it's like the highest level spy there is they're're totally off books. If they get caught in another country, not only does the U.S. government not do anything about it,

they encourage the other country to, they might encourage them to be like, yeah, do whatever you want with them. So Matt Hedger was in the last, I don't know, decade of his career, he infiltrated the cartels. I saw that. He had a suit on?

I saw that guy. And so he went deep into the cartels and became that he had a shoot on i saw that guy and so he he went deep into the cartels and became one of their chief money launderers and he did things like it was crazy i had ed calderon sitting here a week after him talking about are we going to talk about the cia flipping guys high level at top five top ten banks to you know launder for the cartels and i'm like funny you say that i had that guy here last week who literally did that and told the story. But there's one story of the many that Matt tells that it's just like, holy shit,

where he talks about it. It was in 275. He talked about this. But he was taken to this warehouse when he was with the cartels. And mind you, he's a money laundering guy. He's not carrying the gun around or doing any of that shit.

But he's around these guys, the highest level guys. And in this warehouse, there's a money laundering guy he's not carrying the gun around or doing any of that shit but he's around these guys the highest level guys and in this warehouse there's a dude tied up on the floor crying and begging and beat up and on the table in the middle is like an eight or nine year old boy and it's the guy's son now this guy had allegedly stolen money from the cartel and it's all i don't remember how many people it was maybe it was 25el guys. They're all around the dude and Matt walks up and he's got to stand there and pretend this is normal. And they all took their turns taking a carrot peeler to the kid's face while he's screaming and his dad's screaming just as much. And you can see, you know, Matt's trained to internalize emotions. So he's still doing that when he's in the studio with me. But you can just see behind the eyes,

whatever the fuck is going on there is just burning. Well, I think, though, and I've looked into this with... One of the next things I'm going to get into with organized crime is the real mafia. The Kimura, the Andrangetta, the Sicilian mafia. And one of the big phenomenons in naples right now are baby bosses these gangs baby gangs yeah essentially uh 12 to 20 year old kids that get into the rackets and become bosses of groups small groups and i saw a documentary recently i

think it was maybe vice it was actually really well done where they profiled four kids that were from this these projects basically they're called the sales in naples if you've ever seen the show gomorrah greatest television show of all time yeah yeah it's good stuff they they profile this place and they interview the kids and these are young kids 13 14 years old talking about killing people doing bad things to people and and they interview the kids. And these are young kids, 13, 14 years old, talking about killing people, doing bad things to people. And they interviewed essentially a superior, a guy, maybe he's in his 20s. And they say to him, like,

why do you make these kids do this type of stuff? Like, why aren't you doing it? And he says, essentially, we need to take any humanity they have and remove it from them. Because in this world, that's not useful to them, really. We can't play this, Alessi. Sorry. Yeah, but go ahead, Jeff.

He basically says, like, what they have, like the ethics that they have or they were born with, we want to remove that from them because that's not useful to what we do. And she then asks, what happens if they don't kill? We kill them. They do what we say. We're the judge, juror, and executioner in these countries. And that's what I'm sure he'll tell you. They probably in a way wanted him to see that because this is what happens when you don't do what we say. That's 100% right. And I think that's why cartels are so powerful because they are so good.

And even you look at ISIS, they are so good at propaganda where they'll put so much – not even money. They'll just take a phone out and record something and they'll put it out. those cartel executions are put out is really just not only scare people, but to also say, we're the people here. You fuck with us. This will happen to you. And if you actually listen to the interrogations, they say the same shit always. This person did this and this will be the fate if you do it. So don't fucking do it. Yeah. There's a thing I think about often where it's like you don't empathize the act. And I'll explain this. But try to learn to empathize how this could have gotten to this point. And what I mean is let's look at the worst type of example.

You see a terrorist blow up 1,000 people. It's a horrible person going straight to fucking hell. At some point though, that person was a five-year-old kid. And I like to look at, I don't know if like's the right word, but I try to make myself look at where they came from and what might have clicked. Like, what made baby Hitler, Hitler, right? Because how can we avoid having that in the future? That's why I started the show that I have. Because I had looked at, I'd watched The Irishman.

That film. And I think the last half hour of it is a masterpiece. Yeah. Because we see a man who his whole life was celebrated. He was with all these famous mob guys, and he was getting this beautiful ring that nobody had, and he was the chief of this union. He was very powerful with Jimmy Hoffa. And in the chief of this union he was very powerful with

jimmy hoffa and in the end he realized he was an old man dying and he'd ostracized everybody he had nothing and he had nothing in the end and he died alone by himself didn't even know it was christmas and i started that and i thought about also what you just said. What makes a person, like what makes someone, what is so powerful about that code? That you go in a room and you take the saint, you burn it. What's so powerful where you will leave your dying wife to go kill someone for a group of men? What's so powerful about that? What's so powerful about being a member of a cartel? Or you look at, you know, terrorists.

It's power. Till the time they die, they feel like they're doing something very righteous. Yes. And in where they're from, it is righteous. I interviewed a guy about two weeks ago. Out of all the people I'll talk about today, this person you should have on your show more than any of them because he is incredibly interesting this guy eric king he was involved in the ferguson riots with michael or uh what was his name uh michael brown 2014 yeah he he was involved with throwing a molotov cocktail into a government office he got 10 years and he continued to be a

activist in prison which is you don't want to do that you don't want to piss off the government yeah eventually got into a fight with a guard and they sent him to the adx and he was in the adx for almost three years and you know what he told me he met richard reed the shoe bomber yeah and the way he and i almost felt when i was interviewing i almost felt like i don't even know how to respond to this where he said at one point he said i looked at richard reed as the richard reed from london that wasn't a terrorist because outside of that he was really nice guy he told me he's the nicest guy i've ever met and we talked about this and we talked about this and we talked about

that and he humanized this guy yes which is weird because like when we hear terrorists we don't humanize them and in a way they were all just a five-year-old kid just like you said yes and i think in terms of like terrorists we know why they become the way they are because it's all religiously based. But why does John Wayne Gacy, what makes him do that? And that's something that I've always searched for. And I think a lot of people that like true crime, they also search for it. Like, what is it about this? Why do they become this way?

What goes off in their brain? And I think a lot of them we find out, and if you look into some of their history, I think a lot of them we find out, and if you look into some of their history, I think a lot of it just comes from, you know, like if you look at a Whitey Bulger, you know, a lot of the MKUltra stuff that went on, I think a lot of people wondered, did that have some effect on it?

And a lot of the stuff that went on in World War II, a lot of those people that that happened to, the kids they had are the people we're talking about here. That 70s, 80s, where there was a lot of these serial killers and bad people did it have something to do with that maybe yeah it's that's an interesting interesting argument for sure and it's like you talk about the humanizing point though that's the thing it's like someone can just be off one percent of the time that's all it is because they're fucking Jack the Ripper when they're off. But that other 99%, they're like your fucking grandfather down the street.

It's very strange. You know, I'll tell you something. I've talked about this publicly once, and I'll tell you it here because I think it's a worthy place to talk about it. So, as you know, my dad died in 2023, and last year I dealt with a situation. I was having some problems problems and just grief had really overcome for me i was fucking super stressed out a lot going on and uh i i went to a facility for

five days it was like a behavioral place and i remember i didn't initially know i was going there but i guess they had said essentially what had happened is I'd come in contact with the police locally about a matter I was dealing with. And cop says to me, because I just don't think they wanted to deal with me. They said, you want to go to the hospital? And I said, I wasn't feeling right. And I said, you know what? I'll go. I'll get my vitals checked, make sure I'm okay. So I go and they take me to the psych ward because I had mentioned I was a mob content creator. I made videos about the mafia. So I think they had heard that and they thought,

what the fuck is this guy talking about? I-05. Yeah. Like, what is this guy talking about? So they take me to the psych ward and I didn't really know where I was. I just kind of answered their questions and, you know, I'm there six hours

and I'm like, I got to go home. Like, I got stuff to do tomorrow. So I go out to the lobby and I said, can I leave? And she's like, no, you can't leave. I said, so what do I do? She goes, go in there and sit in there and we'll tell you when you can leave. And I'd made a comment. I said, you better make sure I get out of here.

And they took that as a threat. Long story short, they take me to this place the next day. And I go in and I realized at that point I wasn't going home because I know what the rules are on a 302 patient in Pennsylvania. You have to stay there for at least 72 hours. And this was on a Saturday, so nobody's working. So I figured until Monday, no one's even talked to me. So I go in and I learned that this place has six units,

elderly, adolescents, co- i learned that this place has six units elderly adolescents co-ed all this place they take me to the section 300 which i didn't know what section 300 was but i in turn find out that it is the place where the criminals go the criminally insane go i sit in the bed and they introduce me to the guy next to me. He's on medication. He doesn't even know his name probably. I remember walking out to the common area and I thought to myself, and I'm fine by this point. I'm thinking like, where the fuck am I? What is going on?

And I hear people screaming and I hear people like just saying the most insane shit. And, you know, longer story short, I ended up staying there for a certain amount of time and they signed me out because I was completely fine in it. I think in turn was a big misunderstanding. They had thought I said I was in the mafia and, you know, as a hit man and stuff. And obviously I wasn't. I remember the psychiatrist says to me,

Julie, she says, she comes in money. She goes, I've never done this before, but I Googled you i said oh yeah what'd you find she goes you're pretty interesting guy i said yeah she goes you talk about the mafia yeah i said yeah i have a podcast she goes i think this is a misunderstanding that happened here she goes are you suicidal i said no you know homicidal? I said, no. Are you on medication? No. Do you want medication? No.

She goes, if you want to sign yourself out, you can. Just like that. Yeah. And then she goes, there's one caveat. I'm thinking I'm going to leave. I'm thinking, sweet. I'll be home by Monday night. You know, whatever.

She goes, in Pennsylvania, when you sign yourself out, 72 hours you gotta stay. So I'm sitting in a place where I have no phone. It was jail. You couldn't leave the unit. It was worse than jail. It's a strange purgatory. It really is. And I remember I said to myself,

I didn't know what I was gonna do. It was so boring. I thought, you know what? I'm gonna just do the programs. Maybe I'll speak to the chaplain, try to learn some stuff about stress and... I'm going on two years since I went to that. There's not a day that I wake up,

I don't think about that place. Like, in the things that I learned there and like, just... Like in a positive way. Yes. And like, the people that I met there. And it goes back to like, what you were talking about with why people become the way they are. I think I found out that a lot of people just have mental illness.

Like, and it's not pronounced. Most people, you'll never have it come across until something bad happens. Something that puts them into a bad place happens. They lose a job, they lose a girlfriend or boyfriend, they lose a family member, then it may persist and get kind of bad. Some people take it

and they go to a whole other place where they realize that life has been lost to them. They don't live for anything anymore. I'm going to just do what I got to do. I'm going to get known some way. I'm going to get known some way. And that's what I've learned with a lot of these. Like, if you look into, like, school shooters,

a lot of the reason and rhetoric they do what they do is just to get known. Yeah. If you read in, like, Klebold and Harris, the combine shooters... Oh, yeah. They talk about that. They, like, really wanted to be known for what they did.

They wanted a legacy. That's what they talked about in their manifesto. I said it a little bit ago when you were starting to get into some of this stuff. I said, it comes back to one word. It's power. People want to take back power in their life. You look at the terrorists, you look at the serial killer, you look at the school shooter, you look at the person that decides they're going to join the cartel because they're a part of something, join the mob because they're a part of something. They want to, even if it's an organization like that, they want to feel like they're a part of something where they are above other people

because for whatever reason they've been below other people. It's so interesting because there are certain guys that I've researched that are terrorists. They're homegrown, like ones that lived here or Canada or Russia or something. And you'll find that a lot of them were neo-Nazis before they became Islamic. It's weird. But you'll find that they just want to be a part of something. And you'll find that a lot of them were neo-Nazis before they became Islamic. It's weird, but you'll find that they just want to be a part of something.

Yes. But that's, I think, the biggest thing about what you said. I think a lot of people struggle with mental illness. And I think maybe outside of the drug war, I think mental illness is probably the biggest problem. And what's really sad is a lot of the people that were in that place, I ended up getting moved out of the criminal area. They moved me into the co-ed dorm, which was great because it was way better than the other. But I learned that the 32 people in my unit, all of them were on medication but me. They're all on antidepressants.

Lithium, all that shit that zonks you. And then I see that like the one good thing about this place, you know what it was? The food.ks, yeah. And then I see that, like, the one good thing about this place, you know what it was? The food. It was insane. If I could eat lunch every day, I would. It was that good. Oh, it's that good. Yeah.

And I remember sitting there, and I just spent a lot of the time observing people. And all the people, they had heaping plates of food three times a day. They're all overweight. They're all just depressed and i'm thinking like maybe it's the food that they're eating they just feel like shit all the time and they're on medication that they maybe don't even need to be on and i i learned quickly at that place that like once you say i'm not taking medication they don't care anymore about you you can assign yourself i'll go ahead as long as you're not on insurance.

That's the cheat code? And I was a self-payer at the time. Self-pay means I didn't have insurance at the time. So they realized that they're not going to be able to – they can milk you for two weeks on insurance because insurance pays. Right. Throw in the medication, they're making a ton of money. I told them from the beginning, you know I don't need it. I'm not taking medication ever. And as soon as I said that,

the whole tenor changed. Oh, Jeff, you're fine. You want to sign yourself up? Go ahead. Get the fuck out. Yeah. And they didn't bother with me. If I didn't go to the groups, they didn't care. They just get that bed freed up, bring somebody else in. But this was right after your dad died so i mean do you think it's pretty hard to be normal well yeah something and i like your mind's fucking with you and i've talked about like i i was dealing with some personal stuff just with i remember that week i was getting a lot of phone calls and people were just they weren't answering it was hang up and i just felt

like something was wrong like maybe i was a little paranoid you know um but i don't know something came over me and i i do think that that night i probably should have went to that place but what i learned is there's a lot of people that struggle with that kind of thing and some of it you know it's just very simple they may go to a place like that and be fine you'll never see it again and then some just act in a like a like that kid that did the the mangioni that kid he thought he could get on the front page of the paper and maybe make a change and he's gonna take that i'll do it he definitely no no no normal person does stuff like that normal people don't decide hey i'm just going to go to new york and take out a ceo like no something something yeah some crack there it doesn't work like that so i don't know i think all of it's just really interesting and you know i the mob just kind of is a thing that worked for

me but you know i think i've learned that just in crime there's just so many more interesting things too about it. Because the mob now is totally different, but it's these other groups that are way more interesting to me. You said your dad's the one that got you into all this stuff too? Yeah, I think in a weird way. Like I remember when I was real young, 9, 10 years old, kind of the way you were talking about with A&E. I remember my dad at night would watch TV in his own room. He would watch like the History

Channel and stuff. I remember those biographies would be on, you know, John Gotti or Al Capone. And that was my first kind of interest in it. But I was always a kid that like, I never played with like toys and stuff. Like I was watching the Weather Channel and like reading and stuff. And I loved history. You know, when I was a kid, I was a big history guy. I loved watching films about war and things of that nature. And I remember maybe 15, I bought the Gotti film, HBO version, Armand Asante. And I had it on DVD and I would watch it all the time. And I think early, and this is one thing, I actually referenced this when my father died. I spoke at his funeral and I talked about, out of the three, I have two siblings

and I have three kids. I was always enthralled by bad people, like villains. I didn't grow up in the hood. I wasn't a bad guy. Did you root for the villains in the movies? And I remember particularly, I got that Gotti film and I watched it. I thought, just John Gotti, so cool.

Coolest guy in the world. He's like regal. I'd watch these videos of him running down the street. They're cheering him on. And I thought, this guy's amazing. I remember at the same FYE that I bought the documentary or the film, they had a poster of John Gotti. Yeah. And I brazenly hung it on my front door to my bedroom

and you gotta know my dad is my dad was one of 15 okay 15 kids yes holy shit he did not go to eighth grade he started working for four dollars an hour as a laborer for a mason he built you know very big company so worked hardest worker you'll know greatest guy you'll ever know and i remember and i felt and i remember referencing this i remember he came home and i always remember my dad because i don't know if you know when your dad but when he'd run up the steps you would hear his legs like crack i don't know if you ever remember that legs cracking yeah like you hear i hear feet stomping no like when you when you when you're running up the stairs like maybe maybe not

everybody does it but yeah yeah i would hear my dad i would always know you should see you should see a doctor for that no it sounded just like any guy i guess i don't know but but i remember he he knocked he knocked on he knocks on my door he goes what's up with that poster? He goes, John Gotti. He goes, you know he's bad, right? Bad guy. I said, nah, he's cool. I said, dad, he's- I said, Teflon Don.

Yeah, I said, we watch him on TV. He told the government to F themselves. He goes, and I think he tried to get through to me. And he tried to get through to me my whole life and i think i only realized it when i started covering these people that they're all really bad people oh yeah and and i think back and i wish like if only i had to listen like if he was the hero you know in the end for me you know yeah but yeah you know what though you're a kid you don't know better and like you said then you learn about it yeah you figure it out sometimes it just takes that time to do it obviously your dad knew yeah you know but i think he probably at

the time is like why does he why is that his hero you know right like but i didn't know i didn't know there's something but there's a difference between rooting for the joker and batman and rooting for john gaudi in a movie about john gaudi right one is like the fuck you vigilante that you know kind of seems like he could be a Robin Hood and is larger than life that being like John Gotti even though he's not right the other is like oh this this is a sadistic psycho who's killing people right there's a difference but then there are people who do root for the Joker they do root for Jeffrey Dahmer in the movie and it's like oof something's off there and that is a bit of probably a mental illness

I mean but I guess I'll just say this the mental illness problem is oh it's rampant yeah I mean it's you think about you walk down the street how many people you run into that are struggling with something and again most of them will be fine

but we're just throwing medication at the problem and it's like in some way it's probably making them worse so it's a subscription model yes yes it's a big business so real fast jeff i just gotta run to the bathroom but we gotta come back and talk about that seven six yeah let's do it let's do it all right we're back so you had hit me up about this new cult you've been looking into a bunch that I've never heard of that it sounds sinister. Yeah, I don't think a lot of people know much about them.

I mean, but I think in terms of like organized crime now, like this is, I think, where we are, like outside of getting away from like drug trafficking and stuff like that, where we have these like organized extortion groups where, and there's a... What's the name of this group again? This group's called 764. Okay. And it's really not just one group. It's all sorts of different groups. And they're basically based on discord and other social media. And I want to reference, and I don't know if you could ever get this girl on your show,

but there's a woman on Twitter. She's an investigative journalist. I'll have to give you her info. Her name is BX. She's done some incredible reporting on this group to the point of like, she's been threatened by them. It's been pretty bad. And essentially what it is, is it's a collective of chomos, bad people who target kids from

communities on Discord, Roblox and like maybe bulimic Discord groups and like just kind of marginalized kids that are struggling maybe emotionally or mentally. And they kind of chummy up to them, try to their friend you know whether it's a friend or a love interest maybe they get them to send them a photo of themselves tell them their name where they're from they then progress to grooming them essentially to send them photos of themselves whether it's doing this on discord yes whether it it's naked or whatever, they'll then do it. And that's when they have them. And they'll basically use this to extort them.

And they'll say like – and they're all – a lot of them have become like very powerful in terms of they're doing this to so many people that the other kids in the group are looking up to the kids that are doing this. And you almost have to earn your way up to the top to do this so what they'll do is they'll they'll get like some young girl and they'll say um and this has been documented you can look this up um bite off your hamster's head on camera if you don't do it we'll put your pictures up um and and and i'm finding that like it's way more than that like they'll have people carve stuff into their skin um mutilate themselves um light themselves on fire um kill people on camera um kill people kids kill people on camera, there's a case out of Romania. There was a kid that was involved with 764 where he was on a Discord call. It's recorded. He's on a Discord call where he's talking to a kid and he says, I'm going to do it.

I'm going to do it. And you see in the distance there's a little old lady. She's like taking her garbage out. He's like, I'm going to do it. And he goes, show me. Oh, it's a video call. Yeah, it's a video Discord call. And the guy's like, show gonna do it and he goes show me oh it's a video call yeah it's a video discord call and the guy's like show me so he shows him and he walks up to the lady sprays her with like

pepper spray and she falls down and just starts kicking her in the head and then he slashes her throat and he like walks off he's like slapping and like he loves it and they found out that he was part of 764 and he was this pedophile basically that was wanted by interpol he was like 15 years old and basically was part of this group and what this bx is uncovered is that 764 is kind of a faction like a small faction on the internet of an accelerationist group of people and i don't know if you're familiar with accelerationism no it's basically people that want to cause chaos in the world to unravel the social order they don't believe in they believe in primitive like ways of life where

there's no government and there's no anything and these are people that a lot of them are based out of ukraine and russia and places like that And they're largely from like neo-Nazi backgrounds or like hooliganism where they believe in no order and they're going to do what they have to do to upset social order. And if you look recently into some of the recent either school shootings or there was even a case and your guy can bring it up out of Wisconsin, of a guy, Nikita Kossip. He was arrested two weeks ago. He killed his parents.

And the FBI released documents that he was in contact with a person from a group called MKU, Maniac Murder Cult, they're called. They're basically this acceleration group, and he was going to flee to russia and his goal was to kill the president and their goal is they come across and some of them are really high level kill the president here yes and some of them like what they're what they try to do is they search discord with like seven six four people and they try to groom them into becoming higher level operatives in a way. Oh, my God.

And the FBI is starting to take notice of this and putting out documentation of like press releases that if you're a person with a child in America, you need to look at what and who your kids are talking to. It's terrifying, man. And the Fifth Estate, they're probably they're out of Canada. The Fifth Estate, their documentary channel, they're out of Canada, the Fifth Estate. They're a documentary channel. They do documentaries on all sorts of things. They did a fantastic documentary on 764. And they interviewed a girl who, like,

her mother went to the Royal Mount to police and they didn't even know what this group was. They were like you. They didn't even know who they were. And they just, like, chalked ited it up as like pranks and shit. And what we have found is like Discord is a haven for this kind of stuff. And the guy that created 764 is this guy Bradley Cadenhead. You said he was like 14 when he created it?

Yeah, he was like 15 years old. Yeah, can you pull this kid up, Bradley Cadenhead? Out of Texas, 764. He looks like Charlesles manson's kid yeah he had one he was probably like i've covered i've looked in a lot of bad people this guy might be one of the worst people i've ever come across look at the second picture let's see yeah he was given 80 years or something yeah yeah his name he went by felix that was his uh code name but like some of like Wired and Washington Post

and Darsh Beagle, they've done some documentation on this group. And like, if you read into some of the press releases, like what these people do, it's pretty unbelievable. What was he doing? I mean, he was, I mean, there's a call where he talks about like he loved CP, like he's obsessed with it. And like he would, he would get people. I think he actually got the girl to bite off her hamster's head, I think.

Like kid. Yeah. And like a lot of these people, and what's scary about it, bro, is like a lot of this is like people from Brazil, people from Romania, other countries. And I would just urge people to like look into this group. They're real. This is not fake. Over the last year, we've seen dozens of people get indicted by the feds and given long prison sentences because a lot of these people are engaging in, you know, CSAM, which is – yeah, this is a really good – Washington Post did a really good piece on it.

They're engaged in like child sex abuse material. Yeah, this is another one. What do you think this is? Do you think this is – obviously we're seeing kids like Bradley are potentially pawns on the board here who are doing the bidding of what the community kind of makes them to become. But do you think this is like an op? No. You think these are other governments trying to fuck with different people around the world?

I think 764, people like this, they're mostly just like young people that are just trying to— Let me re-ask that question. Yeah. I'm not saying the young people aren't doing these things and aren't fucked up. I fully believe that. I don't think that's an op. I think maybe they're being...

Because the internet allows you to scan the whole world to basically create a magnet to find whatever you want for the best or worst ways. Do you think it could be some sort of fucking magnet that some government's doing? It's possible. To sow like chaos. I mean, Discord as a whole is...

A disaster. I'm really surprised that Discord's still allowed to be operational in America. I mean, and it's not just stuff like this. I mean, there's some screwed up shit on Discord. I mean, everything from like some of the weird sexual communities you know like it's just and there are there are youtubers that do really good work on like the dark sides of discord but it could be i mean i think it'd be a weird sob would it surprise me if you know like a russia

was involved probably not what's weird is a lot of the people from that maniac murder cult which these are people that are essentially terrorists. These are people that, like the guy that was running maniac murder cult, he was arrested a year or two ago. He got talking to an undercover FBI agent who, he was trying to get him to go to Times Square and hand out poison-laced candy to kids. Like it's like a large-scale terrorist attack.

The FBI agent was trying to get him... No, the guy was undercover he was talking to. This leader, the guy was undercover. He was trying to get the undercover to do this. He didn't know he was undercover. So they're trying to do these, like, events that... And if you look into some of the mass shootings recently, there was one out of Nashville.

There are some connections between them people those people and kind of this belief so again it's not it's not like my main area of something i'm focused i've just read into it recently and i've read some of her reporting and i've watched some of the documentaries on it and it seems like the fbi is finally starting to take it seriously but you know i would say if you have a kid out there maybe they're struggling with some things make sure you're looking into their phone because these people are ruthless it's very scary the idea i'm not a parent yet but you know bringing a kid up in the world now like you can't be a fucking helicopter with your kid because that's gonna make them worse but you know especially with this having access to this at a young age there's kids are smart man they figure shit out and then they don't and then they're dumb right they don't figure out what they're figuring out and they get themselves into weird situations it's

very scary and you can only parent so much. That's right. You can only be, like you said, you can't be completely over top on your kid because they're gonna wanna go out and do things. I think as long as you instill the right values, generally the kid will be all right, but... But nowadays, again, I didn't grow up during that time where, like, Discord wasn't around when I was 12 years old.

You know? The internet really wasn't around up until I was like a teenager. So, it's definitely scary, man. I i mean it's a scary world out there and you know these are the new ways that and again luckily the fbi is starting to crack down on these people and make it really bad for them um but i would i would urge you even to take a look at the rabbit hole of that you know some did you find out about this from BX, you were saying? Is that where you first heard about it? No, I found out.

So I found this out through the best channel I've ever come across on YouTube. It's a channel called Disturb Reality. I've talked to him. I've interviewed him. He is the best creator I've ever seen on this type of content. I want to see. Yeah, he it's the first one. Okay.

First one. First one. He essentially covers disturbing content on video. And he talks about everything from cartel executions to viral videos. I don't know if you know, but there's a weird community on the internet of people that are interested in gore. Oh, yeah. We've talked about it before.

That's like even the Run the Gauntlet shit, right, Alessi? Yeah, so everything from like Rotten.com, that stuff years ago. But there's a subset of like these videos and he basically watches them so you don't have to. And he not only includes what happens but he tells a backstory and he's actually if you like cartel history he's actually really good yeah i um i haven't seen this channel before i want but he um he's done some he's done some videos on 764 he did a video about some of the stuff they were up to and he

actually covered the Romania murder. Um, he did a video. And that's where I had gotten in on my wavelength. And I started looking into them, and I realized, like, this is organized crime at this point. This is a group of people who are kind of governing a certain way of doing things, and they're picking on people, really. And it's sad, because, because like there are a lot of situations

that I've found that people are actually offing themselves on behalf of this group. And they feel like they, you know, and this is the first I'm hearing about this group, but this phenomenon you're talking about where people, you know, get involved in shit online and then feel like they have no way out and off themselves. It's like they're afraid

to talk that's the other sad reality here they're like when it's kids they're afraid to talk to their parents about it and bring them in because you know they're like their parents they think they're doing something wrong yeah they'll be disappointed so it would be easier on my parents like that's where they get themselves i'll just do this and it's so what i think i think this is the sad like denouement that we're in because of, like, coronavirus, right? Mm-hmm. Like, I think a lot of this stuff

was introduced with that, where, like, kids just had, like, essentially a year where they were able to... More than that. Yeah, where we had nothing to do. And people like this, like, they're opportunists, they're leeches, and they're going to prey on weak people. And that's the sad part, is they're opportunists they're leeches and they're going to prey on

weak people and that's the sad part is they're going after weak people yes most of the people involved in doing this like you just said are our kids they're other kids doing this and most of them are larpers they're mostly just like jerk offs like you know with no social standing they're incels like and they they feel in a world like the biggest losers in the world are reddit moderators right like they're just like goofy like larpers who have no power in the world they do nothing in life and that's their job and we see on discord it's the same way it's just these goofy people that have no power in the world and this is the only power

they own and they then take it and they turn it inward and they just bully people you know i'm i'm blown away discord stills a lot around like i yeah i thought it would have been gone by now i think i was telling you off camera it's like the 4chan of covid yeah you know but what what you say about and look into 4chan and how connected 4chan is to school shootings, to all this stuff. There's a lot of people that use it. And it all goes back to the one instant moment, Columbine. Every shooter references that.

And when they, in their manifesto, said, we want this to be bigger than Oklahoma City and all this other stuff it has been outside of september 11th it is the most insolently bad moment this country has seen in 25 years no it's and because it's ushered in a movement yep and it's ushered in social rejects that worship it and then act it out and you make you made a great point a little bit ago where you were talking about the, the profile of these kids. It's,

it's all the same. It's always the same. Yep. You know, it's kids who feel, you know, and look, there are a lot of kids that are bullied.

We were all bullied at one point, but we're seeing now it's a lot of them are just like, there are a lot of bad ones now, a lot of bad kids that are neo-Nazi views or like. And you wonder, like, how is this going in someone's house? You don't know. Like if you're you're. Yeah. I mean, you really don't know what the kid's doing behind.

You don't know behind that black thing at the back. So you see what those algorithms do, man, regardless of what platform you're on. Could be everything from fucking Instagram to YouTube to 4chan. And, like, I will also say, like, and I'm sure this creator will tell you the same thing, I've seen every video on the surface web, probably, that's bad that you can see. And, like, I know after a while, like, I watch a cartel execution video or two,

and I'm like, I gotta stop watching this. Yeah. And like, you think about these young kids, they sit there and watch this shit all day. They then sit and they play a game that's so real, that, how can you not play it and think it's real after a while? You begin to realize, like, maybe this is part of my life, and this is me.

That's right. And that's why like i remember when when they blamed video games on this stuff and people like oh you can't blame music or video games and it's like i hate to tell you you can yeah definitely can it gets it gets weird because you have to especially live in america you gotta have a free market which is a free market of ideas and a free market of people being able to make decisions. It gets very strange when those decisions involve kids and that's where you have to put the onus on parents. But then parents aren't around and is that their fault?

And then the kids make decisions and they play these video games. Well, they got around that because they put that – remember that thing on video games? It was for 18 and older. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But they never cared. Right, yeah. It's just a lawyer figured that out. And people thought like, oh, if we put this on, like, I'm sure the people at the store won't sell it.

It's like. Yeah, it is definitely affecting our kids. And then you add in like COVID to me, that period was, you know, I guess you could say intentionally or unintentionally, depending on what actually fucking happened there. It was the worst type of Trojan horse because it put people in this, all right, we're all going to band together by going inside and going away from shit. And that, and then by the way, this is going to last a lot longer. So you're going to get used to it. You're going to get used to the comfort of not, you know, going past your fucking family room and not having a purpose other than to play video games and you have to do it and you have to do

it there's no other choice and everybody's going to do it so it'll be fine yeah and everybody massively goes to the computer and before you know it these communities pop up and it's i just wonder what will happen next you know because it just all evolves and gets worse and worse a lot of this stuff. It's, but luckily, like I said, the FBI is starting to look into it a little bit and, you know, hopefully they're bringing awareness to people. And like I said, if you have kids, just, you see that discord thing, you better look through that.

Oh, fuck yeah. It'll come across very innocent. It'll be like, hey, you know, I was a bulimic once. You know, do you need help? You know? All the high-level government people that I talk with, every single one, their kids do not have phones. I was always curious about, like, I don't have kids. You said you don't either. I mean, I didn't get a phone until I was 15.

Yeah, same. I mean, and I think I ended up getting it myself. I just wanted one. So I went out and got a prepaid. But like it wasn't – I got to get the lines checked. Yeah, it wasn't like it is now. Like you'll see like four or five-year-old kids.

They have phones. Yeah, it's crazy. What does a four or five-year-old kids. They have phones. Yeah, it's crazy. What does a four-year-old need a phone for? Oh, again, those same people I just talked about, when you start asking them about it, they get grim. Well, that's the thing, too. When they talk about those examples, you have no idea what you're doing. I was talking to my mother about that because we have nieces and nephews

and stuff that are younger. If you take the iPad away, they, like, start crying. Yeah. And, like, the parents will say, like, I just give it to them. And it's almost like a way to parent, actually, at this point, where, like, you don't want to hear them, so you just give them the iPad. And it's, like, what you're doing is you're doing that day after day for years on end. Kid turns into a robot, and it's, like, what did we do wrong? When I was a kid, we – like, you know, you know you're same age we played outside we colored we you know did stuff with our parents we went to amusement

parks like nowadays you're away for summer break you're playing this game and that game and fortnight and all this other stupid stuff no i listen, I never played video games. Of course you did. But that was before we went out and played outside. Yeah, my mom used to have a line from the pre-iPhone era when I was a kid where she's like, you can't let the TV be a babysitter. And now like, I mean, forget a TV. You got the phone. You got the iPad. The screen's on everything.

Everything's a babysitter. And if you don't, I think if you don't do that for your kid, they almost guilt you when they're old enough as you're not a good parent. All my other friends have this. Why can't I? And that's such a tough battle. And it's like, I don't, because you know, what do you do?

Yeah, there's stuff where parents do get too helicopter-y and protective and just can't let their fucking kid be a kid. I'm with that. But that's going to be a weird battle when it's like there is something that's... It's not like, oh, you can't see this movie or something like that, but it's like,

oh, I don't want you addicted to a fucking, you know, four-and-a-half-inch screen for the rest of your life in the palm of your hand. So even if your friends have this, I don't want you to have this yet. Like, that is where it's going to get very weird devil's advocate i mean i just told you i worship john gaudy as a kid so it's like i think you just kind of hope that you do enough for your kids and they learn enough you can grow

out of that though that's not an addiction that's just an addiction that's that's the thing you know what i mean that's the thing i'll take the john gaudy worship all day yeah yeah posters on the front bedroom door. I thought Vito Corleone was really cool. In some ways, I still do. I mean, you watch Scarface, you think Tony Montana's cool. But that's what movies do. But as my father always said, it's just a movie.

It's not real. That's right. This, as you said, the phone, it is real. And everything you do, and I've learned that the most. You've seen these videos. Some of these videos I'm not proud of. I wish some of these I could get off the internet. I mean, I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of.

But as I know very well, the internet lives forever. Because you could have something removed, but if someone's already screenshotted it. Oh, it's there. Yeah. So everything you do now, I mean someone's already screenshotted it. Oh, it's there. Yeah. So everything you do now, I mean, when you're out on, you know, talking to somebody and something happens in the corner, you don't know who's pulling a phone out. That's right. And they only take a certain part of it and send it to TMZ or to some news company. So it's, yeah, it's.

It's scary. It's a wild world. And that's why you're mafia and group like that. That's why they'll never last because you can't get in front of technology. Right. Back in the 30s, you could kill somebody and you'd be fine. Yeah. The mob and groups like that, they can't do this.

You go to this city right here, there's a camera every 20 feet. Oh, it's so, yeah. It's advanced in that way. I guess some of that's good so what they do is scary now the groups are on the internet right crypto and all that stuff so 100 yeah it's an interesting world what what happened with you leaving barstool though i didn't get to ask you about that because that's not like a lot of that wasn't discussed you don't have to say anything you don't want no no so i um so i worked at barcel two different times the initial time that's actually wild so i originally

got hired in 2020 march of 2020 i remember i went up to new york um i think it was march 12th of 2020 i remember the day before i went there the first coronavirus case was reported in New York City. And I thought, wow, this is interesting. I wonder what will come of this. And I remember getting on the train that day. There was no one on the train. It was insane. The Amtrak, there was no one on it.

And I remember going up, and we did a radio show that day. And I remember Portnoy said to me, he asked me to come into it. Because I had planned to start. The NCAA tournament was about to begin. Oh, that's your fucking Super Bowl. And that was my first kind of foray into Barstool. And I remember as the week went on, they canceled the tournament. Yes, I remember that a lot.

I said, holy shit, this is real now. I remember Dave said to me, he goes, we're kind of stuck right now. He goes, just take the summer and let's see what football, if football comes and we'll bring you back. You know, you could start then. And I remember I went home that night and I thought, wow, I have probably the worst luck in the world. I finally get a job at Barstool. I'd been in content for 10 years. This was going to take me to the next level. And I can't start because of this.

And that's actually ultimately what led me to lose weight. I remember I said to myself, you know what? I have a few months here. Nothing's going on. I'm going to finally deal with this now. And September came that year. and I think I remember we had remember it was like no fans and stuff? Oh yeah, in the stands.

I remember I got hired back and I worked till the following February and I had a beef with a co-worker. This guy Rico. Bosco? Yeah, yeah. It was really bad because it got really toxic for me man

like he um what was the beef over I couldn't tell you he just doesn't like me yeah um and what he would do is he would go to like co-workers and be like if you work what they do we're done I'm not working with you and he kind of just fucking ruined it. Like, it got really bad, like, to the point of, I had a podcast, he tried to, like, sabotage it. He actually was hiring people to, like, attack me on the internet through burner accounts. Oh, no. My family. It was really bad. Your family, too.

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And poor Don actually found out about it. And it was bad for a while. And it just got really toxic. And as someone who, and I've never really talked much about this, but I've always been able to make money off the internet. I always know that if the going got tough and I left Barstool, I could go right back to what I was doing. And I thought, you know what? This isn't what I want.

I'm just going to leave. I don't want to deal with this. And I ended up resigning. And I was always connected to Barstool. I always was going to leave. I don't want to deal with this. And I ended up resigning. And I was always connected to Barstool. I always was involved with shit. And occasionally I'd be involved with something that was going on. And I remember the end of 2021, I got asked to do Rough and Rowdy, which is the boxing.

Yeah. I remember all this content. Yeah. One of the employees, he called me out, Jersey Jerry. And we fought at the we fought december 10th 2021 and um in west virginia yep no laws yep i wasn't of an employee there at the time we did really well i made a bunch of money and i went back to doing what i was doing i actually started the sit down in, uh, in 2021 that year. I remember 2022 came

and Barstool called me. It was June of that year, 2022. And they said, Hey, we're doing this bar. It was a Barstool idol. It was called, it was essentially, I think 12 people, uh, vying for jobs at the company. And we did like all sorts of different things. Like we made our own videos. We did content, all sorts of different things. And they called me and said, we'd like for you to participate in it. Now you're not going to win. Oh, they told you that out front?

Yeah, basically. You'll get a bunch of views. It'll be great for your profile. And maybe you can impress Dave a little bit. So I said, you know what? It was June. I'm like, fuck it. I'll do it. It'll be great for your profile. Like, and maybe you can impress Dave a little bit." Yeah. So I said, you know what? It was June. I'm like, fuck it. I'll do it. They said, you gotta come to New York for,

I think it was five days, four days. And every night, someone would get voted off. It was like Survivor, basically. Yeah. But planned out ahead of time. Yeah. At least for me. But we did all these competitions, and, um... I remember that day, Dave was like, you know, Nate Doo was great this week.

Like maybe he'll come back. Maybe he wants to come back. And I ended up going back that few months later. So you always maintained a good relationship. Yeah, I always maintained a good relationship. And then 2023 came, basketball ended, and my contract was coming up. I had thought it was coming up.

It was a year contract. I had signed the was coming up. It was a year contract. I had signed the contract in, I think, June of 22. So it was coming up in summer of 23. And Dave's guy, Gaz, came to me and said, hey, what are you thinking for another year? Do you want to stay? We want to have you back. We're going to pay you $10,000 more. And I said, oh, cool. He's like, do you have a number though you're looking for? We're willing to pay you $10,000 more. And I said, oh, cool. He's like, do you have a number, though, you're looking for? We're willing to work with you. And I had talked to people that worked at the time, and I'd found out what they were making,

or at least what they told me they were making. And I had looked at the sit-down. I was making money on YouTube. I was making money on this podcast. I had all sorts of things I was doing. I was doing a lot of gambling content. And I thought 200, for me, was the number I wanted. So I went to content. And I thought 200 for me was the number I wanted. So I went to him, I said, 200. He said, all right, let me talk to Dave. Go to Dave. And Dave goes,

200. He goes, and basically- He said that just like he definitely said it. Yeah. He basically was just like, we're not doing 200200,000. He's like, we'll bring you back. And then I had found that I guess in the contract, it was a year contract with an optional year for year two at their option. Their option, yeah. Which they picked up and said, we'll bring you back and we'll give you $10,000 more. He said, you could take that or walk. I walked. more he said you could take that or walk i walked that day they do the rundown which is their daily thing they do i'm the story hashtag they do yeah it was a huge video i remember the day after new

york post puts me in it you look that up jeff they do new york post um and i i told you off the air. So my father, my father. Dave Portnoy calls Jeff Nadeau selfish pig over Barstool Sports exit contract dispute. So he, my dad. I think he wanted 200 a year. My dad calls me and he goes, you see her on the New York Post? I said, no. He goes, you should be proud of that headline. I said, he said, you won't wonder what you wanted?

And you left. And, you know, they made a big deal about it. And it was a problem for a while. And then, you know, things kind of go past it. And I think we're probably in a good place now. Yeah, part of it's content. I mean, come on. It is.

He's having fun. He's getting in the New York Post. And I know that. And I think in the end the end like i think i just got to a point and i'm at that point now with bar still where i think i'm just kind of past that point you know my life like i always realized like to me doing what i like to do owning it and and i think nowadays you can make a good amount of money owning stuff in media right yes and doing content and make getting views and building your own things plus i'm in control and i've learned that about me i can't work with people i need to be in control of everything and that's just how i prefer

to do it i have to do a lot more probably but that's just how i like to do it and i think in companies like that like you can only make one amount a lot of the time. I've learned in what I do, I have multiple sources of income, right? So I told myself this year, Instagram was something that I wanted to conquer. I'd never really used it. And I said, this year, I'm going to focus on trying to build Instagram, a following on Instagram, and a following on TikTok, and all this. So I was able to do it. And now I'm at a point where I make what I want to make.

Do I want to do this my whole life? No. There's a day where all this will end for me. I won't be doing it. You'll go away. I'm not going to do it at all anymore. And I always look at it like this. And I'll end this with how I looked at my life always.

In casino. At the beginning of casino, hear me out. De Niro's character is, like, sports better, very, you know, good at it. Ace Rusty. Yeah, sure. And he goes through all this crazy shit, right? He's the...

He runs Tangiers. He's on TV. He's a part of the Chicago outfit, essentially. He's involved with this crazy guy. They try to whack him, blow his car up. You know, all this shit happens. And in the end, he's right back where he started. In his house, betting on sports.

And I always envisioned in a weird way my life like that, where, like, I started gambling as a kid. And I remember so many nights, like, in my early 20s, where I bet way more money than I had. And I remember sitting alone in my house, watching the games, sweating them out, and a lot of the time winning and thinking like, this is what I enjoy. I love college football. I love, like, there's nothing better to me on a Saturday morning betting my games and just enjoying that. That's my happy thing, you know.

And I envision like I did all this stuff. I worked at Barstool. I fought in pay-per-view. I was on the New York Post. I've interviewed mobsters. I've went to a mental facility because they thought I was a mobster and I wasn't. Like all this crazy shit that went on. Like someday I just – and social media, as we talked about, is just crazy.

I just want to get to a point someday where I just – it's not my life anymore. And I've honestly always wanted in the next year or two to like own a real business, like something I can touch, whether it's food or something like that. Didn't you say your dad ended up owning a business? My dad was involved, still is. My family are very involved in business. My dad always taught all of us as kids to never work for anybody, go out and create a business.

And my brother and sister have their own businesses. And like I have as well, but I want a business that I can touch, you know? That like, I don't need to get views to get paid. businesses and like i have as well but i i want a business that i can touch you know that like i don't need to get views to get paid right like something i can be proud of and i can go to every day and you know honestly in my later life like i want to i want to help kids like that's always been my goal i always want to just make a bunch of money and just help kids and i'll i'll leave this story and it's actually pretty local to where we are.

You're familiar with Bobby Hurley? Of course. Okay, so he's one of my heroes. The reason for that is... Coach Hurley. Yeah, I don't know how much you know about him as a guy, but he basically was a probation officer for years in Jersey City, and he became a basketball coach at St. Anthony.

And he never took a salary. And the little salary that they gave him, he gave to the school. Yeah. And he won four national titles and dozens of state titles. They were a powerhouse. Yeah, and he took so many kids to the NBA. And he did it all just because he loved basketball. and he never went and got a job anywhere else, and he just helped kids become men and become productive members of society. good for once you know and like i think young men are just there's just not a lot of leaders

and i want to in my the town i live in um we have a public school and i i've always wanted to just be a coach and just maybe have a business and just disappear from all this media stuff and just i don't want to look at a mobsters my whole life so i think that's the end game eventually but for right now it's it's fun and you never know where i'll go next with it so that's really cool here talking to someone like you so yeah man look you're great at content i i love watching and i hope people who haven't heard of you before check out your shit but like it's cool to see that you have like a kind of full circle give back thing about it like you want to you want to get your own shit and have your own life and do things your own

way, which that's exactly what most of us want to, but then you also want to want to do something cool. And to look up to someone like coach early, who obviously, you know, his kids are now famous as well and have done some amazing things. Like that's,

that's pretty awesome. Yeah. So it's, you know, but for right now it's, it's what I'm doing is fun and people are learning a lot. It's cool. Like, I'm sure you have it happen to you. Maybe you don't, but I'm doing is fun, and people are learning a lot. It's cool. I'm sure you have it happen to you.

Maybe you don't, but I would think you're huge. I would think people come up to you. People come up to you. Do people come up to you and say they know who you are? Very rarely. So with me, I guess with bars. I'm under the radar. Yeah, with bars, I guess they do.

Like in my town where I live, I can't go to certain bars because I just be taking pictures all night with people. Yeah. But I think it's cool when someone comes up to me and they're like, hey, I saw that episode you did on so-and-so. Or I saw you on TikTok. That's the coolest thing that will ever happen no matter what. I can make all the money. But someone come up to you and be like, hey, I really content or that was really cool that you shared that that's super cool so i don't know if i could ever let go of that that's the cool part of all this but

well you're scratching your itch too you're making content about stuff you love too yeah whether it's an NFL draft or you know the mob or something and i if you follow me i can't say you won't be offended maybe at some point, but no, you're, I mean, this, you're a great follow.

It is funny as shit. You comment on all kinds of random shit as well. And I'm here for it, especially like on the new Twitter. Like I just say what you probably want to say, but won't, but won't say out loud. That's right.

And I'll take the shit. That's a good way to put it. All right, Jeff Nader. This has been fucking fun, man. Yeah. Thanks for, for doing it. I'm glad we can make it happen. I appreciate you guys having me. Thank you. Of course. All right. Everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back to me. Peace.