Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was A New York ATF Agent For 20 Years | Eric Immesberger

Episode Date: December 21, 2025

Eric Immesberger spent over 20 years as a New York ATF agent, working undercover, taking down violent criminals, dismantling gun-trafficking networks, and operating inside some of the most dangerous environments in the country. In this episode, Eric shares the real stories behind his career—from his early years as a Brooklyn detective to high-risk federal operations, major crime investigations, and the intense pressure of hunting armed offenders in New York. He opens up about the violence he witnessed, the criminals he pursued, the psychological toll of undercover work, and the personal sacrifices required to do the job. This interview dives deep into the realities of federal law enforcement: firearms trafficking, gang cases, task-force operations, trauma, mental health, and life after retirement. If you’re interested in true crime, federal agents, New York law enforcement, or raw stories of danger, survival, and justice, this is one of the most revealing conversations you’ll hear. _____________________________________________ #ATFAgent #FederalAgent #LawEnforcementStories #CrimeInterview #UndercoverOperations #TrueCrimePodcast #JusticeSystem #lockedinpodcast _____________________________________________ Thanks to AURA FRAMES, BLUECHEW & PRIZEPICKS for sponsoring this episode: Aura Frames: Exclusive $35 off Carver Mat at https://on.auraframes.com/LOCKEDIN. Promo Code LOCKEDIN BlueChew: Get 10% off your first month of BlueChew Gold with code LOCKEDIN. Visit https://bluechew.com/ for more details and important safety information Prizepicks: Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/IANBICK and use code IANBICK and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! _____________________________________________ Connect with Eric Immesberger: Website: https://www.ericimmesberger.com/ Support his wood work business: https://www.instagram.com/sendit_woodworking/ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 – The Mindset of Cooperation: ATF, First Impressions & Federal Reality 03:30 – From the Ground Up: Early Career & Entering Law Enforcement 10:00 – Growing Up Hard: Tough Childhood, Discipline & Survival Lessons 15:00 – Why I Became a Cop: Influences, Motivation & Education 22:00 – Becoming a Detective: College to the Brooklyn DA’s Office 27:00 – Federal Guidelines & Cooperation: The Decisions That Change Lives 36:00 – Confidential Informants: The Gray Area Between Justice & Survival 45:00 – Inside Federal Prison: Chaos, Power & Unspoken Rules 01:01:00 – Undercover Operations & Wild Prison Stories 01:14:00 – Breaking Into the ATF: Obsession, Rejection & Relentless Drive 01:22:00 – Explosive Federal Case: The “House of Gay” Home Invasion 01:38:00 – Entrapment vs. Real Criminals: How ATF Builds Cases 01:47:00 – Gunfights, Chases & Leadership Under Fire 02:08:00 – The Violent World of Federal Law Enforcement: Mental Toll & Trauma 02:24:00 – Walking Away: Retirement, Burnout & The True Cost of the Job 02:34:00 – Final Reflections: Street Lessons, Storytelling & Life Advice Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I see you can only meet two people tonight. People that cooperated and people that wish they would have cooperated because right now nobody knows your chain to the wall. How do you feel personally about letting someone out that's done something probably harmful to someone else just to get that bigger fish? Who was in these cells? Absolute savages within the federal system.

Can you break down the difference between an entrapment case versus not one? The phone rings. I got a grown crying man on the phone. He goes, I'm supposed to be part of a home invasion. I'm going to torture guy. I'm going to kill a guy. What's the case you'll never forget about from your time in the ATF? For more than 20 years, Erica Messberger hunted some of the most violent offenders in New York, undercover operations, gun traffickers, dangerous takedowns.

This wasn't TV. This was his life. Eric, welcome to Lockton. Thanks so much for coming on the show today. Ian, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the opportunity. It's an honor to be here. And your work, I've watched a lot outstanding. Thank you. And thanks to Steve Murphy, of course. The audience is going to get tired of hearing the name Steve Murphy, but he's the one that got us all these great, great episodes.

Steve is the man. I had a great time. I did three episodes on his podcast, and he's just a good guy that we looked up to. You go into the Lions then and you help is not coming. you are in another continent and you got to make your own luck you don't know who you can trust and we have the number one target Pablo Escobar and how do we put him in handcuffs they actually wound up ultimately he was killed in a gun battle but

him and Javier Pena they drilled that organization they drilled that guy I mean, hats off. It's dangerous enough going out and getting guys in the continental United States. Help actually will come. But when you're down in Columbia, you're on your own, very much on your own. And a small little team.

So I look up to that, you know, that level of work and his dedication to the craft, without doubt. And thank you for the amazing gift. everyone will be able to see it on social media by the time this episode comes out. Absolutely pleasure. You know, my dad always told me you show up at somebody south. You better ring the doorbell with your elbow. You better have something in your hands. Tell the audience the job you have going on now.

So right now, aside from running a house, dogs, kids, and sports and all of that, I started a furniture building company, send it woodworking out in Missouri. I was able to build the factory building right next to my house, which everybody that comes to the house, you got two houses. How did you do that? But that, it's not work. I love doing making, creating, executing on somebody's vision. I love that as much as I loved running and gun on with ATF. And then in the last 12 months with starting the speaking business and consulting and this whole crazy podcast world that I accidentally got introduced into from one of my guys that had been shot on a deal, it's awesome. I love it. And really the reason is I feel I've got things to offer through the experience, not only to law enforcement, but to corporate America where we take the lessons of crisis management, risk analysis,

how are we going to do this up? And it's the same principles that apply to a successful corporate unit, be it sales, fintech, anything like that. So that's really the golden ring that we're marching down to is getting those speaking gigs and really just given some information that somebody can use. Because if you tell a story with nothing behind it, it's just a great story. But if we have messaging and addressing surgically particular problems that units are having, how can we make this better, make this team not toxic, make it work, dysfunctional unit,

How do we make it functional? How do you take care of your hard chargers versus how do you coach up the people that are on a struggle bus? So phenomenal new adventure. I was telling Maddie. It's like I cannot sit still. I mean, I has 62 and a half now. Well, you're 62?

Hey. Dude, you do not look 62. Outstanding. If I have 10 free minutes in my life, I feel like I should be knitting a sweater. It's like I can't just sit. down and do nothing at all. So I'm blessed. I mean, health is wealth.

I'm in the driveway or the high school track every day. PT, functional fitness. I mean, I'm not running like 15 to 20 miles anymore, but I can probably still out push up most of my peers. I was the push-up champion my squad in Brooklyn. That was fun. How many push-ups? Okay, nonstop, easily bang out over 100.

Good push-ups. Not, you know, because my son in the Navy, he'll, if he sees a push-up, that's not perfect. One, one, one, the number doesn't go up. Here's the deal. You want to get good at push-ups? Deck of cards. Just throw them on a floor.

A face card is 10. Ace is a one. Every other card is its number. and you just bang them out. One deck, 400 push-ups. So the challenge is the time you need to do 400 push-ups. When I started doing it, it was like 16, 17 minutes, and then I got it down to like 12.

And to have the discipline to make every push-up as good as the first push-up, that's the craft. And it's just, you know, I wrote a saying on the wall of my shirt. shop. The way we do anything is the way we do everything. It doesn't matter. We're doing a push-up. We're making a board. We're doing an undercover. It doesn't matter. It's 110% 100% of the time. And I treat everything like it's the last game of the world series. Like my guys in New York, they got me a hoodie when I left that says, every day is game seven. And that's the way I really approached everything. And if a credo or a philosophy for how I approached

enforcement or anything else, like somebody actually asked me like, like, you know, what's your drive? What's your, you know, what, what do you think of? Like, what gets you at that level? I would tell them all the same thing. When I was a little kid, I heard a motocross guy, like on wide world of sports getting interviewed. And he said, and this stuck with me to this day, I'm like seven, eight years old, nine, who knows, listening to this. But this is what he said, he goes, when I do a dirt bike race, there's only three outcomes. I'm going to break me, I'm going to break the bike, or I'm going to win the race. There's no fourth direction, one of those three things.

So that's the way I really approached everything. Gusto, if you want to do whatever it is you want to do, you better be a 110% all in, much like your operation here. It's like I feel like I walked into like tier one Hollywood. Yeah. Where do you grow up, Eric? Yeah, so all over the place, like a gypsy. Probably the most length of time in one place, Long Island, zero to eight.

Folks got divorced. Went with my mom up to Albany, a downward spiral of living. living conditions, lived for a few years in a Section 8 project building, which actually was great for what I wound up doing because I got taught self-reliance. You have to make your own luck. You're in charge of whatever good or bad is going to happen to you. And probably most of the guys that I was running around with all went to jail. I went to a school for a few years that was shut down due to the unabated level of violence. Like they shut an entire school down due to the violence.

They couldn't get anybody to teach there. The teachers were scared. They were scared when I was there in the 70s. But again, getting, you know, win some lose some, the fights. And, you know, much like your experience, the first person that tries to bully you or extort you or rob you, you know, give me the dollar you have in your pocket. It's like, no, I'm not going to give you the dollar. I have in my pocket.

I got $3. I'm not giving you them either. And then you want, you know, once these animals realized that the easy targets were over there, and yeah, maybe they're going to take my dollar, but they're going to look like they were there. So that, I mean, and that at a young age, just learning how to the way you carry yourself, the way you speak to people. And I, even in the early days, I always made a habit. Respect is everything. I would respect anybody, whether they deserved it or not.

Yes, sir, no sir. Excuse me. Sorry, pardon me. and that went a long way towards solving every problem. Like as an undercover, the hair, the beard, the, you know, Corvette, the tattoo, props. All props. The only thing that mattered is how did you carry yourself and what tumbled out of your mouth. That made or broke you.

And I learned all of that in these like horrible living conditions. So finally I'm 13 years old. And my dad goes through a custody battle. He's like, I got to get you kids out of here. And back in those days, hey, the mom got the kids, you know, pretty much no matter what. So my mom did the best she could with what she had, but she had a lot of troubles, a lot of clinical depression. And I, you know, my brothers and I, we lived through multiple suicide attempts and, you know, months at a time. in hospitals and we're raising ourself almost so my dad says enough you're coming with us

and he loses like the judge is like my brother talks to the judge later he goes uh yeah i know you should have went with your dad but you know we just put people with their mom and my brother's like do you know the damage that that decision had so i raised my hand in the ninth grade and i say come and pick me up, pops, enough. I am coming to live with you. My brothers came shortly after, but I tell my kids this story. So I was 13, 14 years old.

Ian, everything I owned fit in a shopping cart, a shopping cart, which I wheeled down out of this project and waited on the sidewalk for my dad to come, my stepmother. And my kids would need a shipping container for all the stuff that they have now. But yeah, everything I owned at like ninth grade fit and probably not up to the top of it either. But again, self-reliance, you want to do great things.

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So my mom had iPom, so pretty much a mom, stay-at-home mom. My dad worked for the New York Stock Exchange after we get out of the Army. And, you know, real financial guy. He was the first guy in the family that had a college degree from NYU. so he drilled it into us. We were going to go to college if it bankrupted us. And we did. My middle brother and I, we both found great colleges for what we wanted to do.

He was finance. I was law enforcement. I went to John J. College. And as a uniform guy, free tuition. And it was almost free the price of City University in New York anyway. But yeah, at the point of cold sweats, you know, working school, got it done. When did you make the decision you wanted to go into law enforcement? It sounds crazy, but I remember all the times I had to call the cops to come to my house

when my parents were going at it. You're like, oh, that looks like a cool job. You know, like they actually knew me after a while. everything okay but the TV shows from like the 6th to Adam 12 all of those you know kind of procedural

cop shows that was an influence I'm like you know that's a that seems like a noble job we're not going to get rich but it's a job that you would do for free if you didn't have bills and then so after I go to live with my dad

and go to like a real school Fox Lane in Westchester County, and I only went there for ninth grade, then we moved again. But I had to assimilate back into society, if you will, like to normal kids standards, academic standards, where if you didn't assault a teacher, you were going to get an A. I had to actually learn, like, to be academic. But career day, ninth grade, police officer came in, and in the space of four, 42 minutes, I'm all in. Like, this is what I want to do.

And at that moment, I wanted to be a uniform police officer. I'm going to do that until I turn 63, the mandatory retirement age. And, yeah, that's all I want to do. And the course corrections, you know, that a career takes and you do other things. And then I really found I was only in uniform for a minute. and then into investigations, an detective, and then ultimately ATF, the Golden Ring. So did you become a cop while you were in college or after?

Yeah. While I was in, going to the academy in the day, driving down to Manhattan four nights a week, finishing up the degree. And then finally there was a point where I said, if I don't finish this degree, I'm never going to finish it. And that was like,

first of all, my parents were like, I want to be in law enforcement. Like, it's going to be a lawyer or a doctor, you know. A cop. It would be a cop. But then I always had the coolest stories at Thanksgiving and Christmas. So then, you know, everybody was excited about it. But so it was a cell at home.

But I did take two semesters, just, you know, 23 credit, 23 credit, finished the degree. And I had done an internship at the New York City Department of Investigation while I was in my early part of college before becoming a cop. And that was real investigative work. So it was the anti-corruption wing for New York City government. And there had been countless scandals. They poured money into this Department of Investigation deal.

like they had they had better stuff than probably a lot of the federal agencies had in New York because they had an open checkbook and they had people that knew what they were doing like we need this we need this we need this we need this so it was great I get my degree I call my old boss from the department investigation where I was an intern and I said hey I just got my degree and he's like I have a desk waiting for you and I started the next day and did four years there, then into a detective in the Brooklyn District Attorney's office for nine years, and then ATF for 21 after that. The best way to spread holiday cheer isn't singing loud for all to hear.

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degree to get as far as you did in your career that's a really good question um I don't think it's essential for the core skill sets that you need. However, so this cop in ninth grade, I go up, you know, after his little speech, and I'm like, give me the roadmap. Tell me what I got to do. I'm going to do it. This is what I want to do. So this is in the 70s, a uniform guy.

And this is what he tells me. He goes, okay, you really want to do this? You want to do it right? Take every single math class. It teaches you how to think logically. Take every single English and literature course. It teaches you at it right. And I never forgot what he said next.

He goes, he pulled it out of his pocket. He goes, the pen puts people in jail. If you don't know how to, with exact detail, write a report of what happened, in an event accurately and exactly as you got it. Sloppy work turns in to a loser trial, turns in to a plea bargain or a non-prosecution because the prosecutor is like, is a leaky bag of shit, I can't take this in the court,

could have been the best case in the world. But did you document? It's like a doctor. You didn't write it down. It didn't happen. So he said, take every English course, every writing course. So when I was in college, all my electives, math, writing courses.

I took every single math course. My high school offered, I took three years of math in college, calculus, statistics, all of it. Because I remember what this guy said, I'm like, that makes sense. And I did it. And sure enough, writing, you know, once I got into ATF where, you know, these massive, detailed investigations, if your reports were not like shitting Tiffany cufflinks, the prosecutor, federal prosecutor, you know, they have college, they have war degrees, they're going to look at this and they're going to be like, what am I going to do with this?

You know, there were guys that would show up to a district attorney prosecutor with a, you know, plastic milk crate full of Dunkin' Donut napkins with notes on them. And it's like, what is this? What is this? And I was like, I'm never going to be that. My stuff is going to be tight, tight, like Tuko, you know, from a better call salt tight. So I made certain if my name is signing the report as the approver when I was running the task forces or if I'm writing the report from my undercover or whatever, it is going to be. tight. And to the point, like, when I would have guys, you know, to be locked up, and they're like, I want my attorney. I'm like, great. I'll call them right now. The attorney would come down.

I would do the same thing every time. I go to the attorney before they go in, and I'm like, look, it's like a reverse proffer almost. Here's what I got. There's no secrets, you know, there's no secrets. If we've arrested you, I don't need the interview to prosecute, you you're done before the handcuffs went on. If you want to give a statement, that's, you know, gravy. If you want to help yourself, I'll sit here all day long with you. But when I brought stuff to a prosecutor and my name was on it, I'm like, look at it. So with the defense attorneys, I would say, hey, I got your client on video, audio.

He sold me guns on these three occasions. You sold me, whatever, or whatever the case. case that we were doing, I said, listen, the only word is cooperation. Your client is dead in the water. So go in and if they have something to help himself, because we only trade up. Like if they want to cooperate, they've got to give worse than them. And we're going to know everything that they did. So that's the word of the day. If you want to tell them to cooperate, great. They don't want to cooperate. They don't get treated any worse. They don't get treated any better. But they're not going to get the benefit of trying to help themselves. And in federal prison, well, you know,

the federal code is the sentencing guidelines are harsh federally for two reasons. One, make people want to cooperate. Two, put people in jail forever or quite a long time. There's only two directions for the sentencing guidelines. And that's it. Very, not a lot of people want to cooperate in the state, because unless you're facing multiple murders that we can prove, there's not a incentive to want to cooperate. It's like, I'll roll the dice. Yeah, I could probably get away with murder in this courtroom. Federally, it's a different story. And I would do the same reverse with the people that, that I grabbed. I'm like, here's the federal sentencing guidelines. Here's your offense. Here's your category from your criminal history.

See where they intersect? That's your sentence. That's where we're starting. And they see like, you know, say 200 to 240. And I said, yeah, that's not years. That's months. Oh, months? Yeah, 240 months due to math, divide 20 years. That's 20 years. And, you know, reality sets in. And I said, when I take you, because you're not getting a bail package at all, you're going to be remanded. And when the judge says detained, that means you don't get out. You breathe free air when you get done with your sentence, or if you go to trial that we win 99% of, you know, that's it. What do you want to do? And federally, I've only had. had maybe two or three people that said, take me to jail.

I got nothing to say to you. And then I would take another run at it. I would say, listen, I really want you to understand what you're looking at. You know, we don't have good time like the state has your number. It's going to be your number. And by the way, you're not going to be in prison in New York or the Northeast. I grabbed you in Brooklyn, you know, where you're federal. prison is going to be California. Why? Because we are going to remove you from everybody. How often is

your family going to take the, you know, 18-hour greyhound once a year, maybe? And I would also give him this speech. I said, listen, I'm going to treat you respectfully. I'm going to treat you like a man. Nobody is going to abuse you here. However, you're going to be put in a cage for a long time. your wife or girlfriend they're moving on your five-year-old daughter she's she's going to go to high school and she's going to graduate maybe she goes to college she graduates you're not going to be there she's going to get married you're not going to be there she's going to have kids you're not going to see them you're going to be an asterisk to your family think about that if you got a code and you don't want to roll on anybody because of the code, you need to be motivated

by what's important in your life. The criminal element will forget you in a week. Your family will take a little bit longer than a week. But when you're doing 20 or 30 years, you become not the guy anymore. So what do you want to do? And I've had two or three guys. Take me to jail. Got another say to you. And all of them were in Brooklyn. So, you said, hey? I respect your adherence to the discipline of the craft, your craft.

I hope you respect that I have given you every opportunity. I said, by the way, when I bring you to the MDC tonight, Brooklyn Metropolitan Adventure, I say, you can only meet two people tonight, people that cooperated and people that wished they would have cooperated. and people that wish they were to cooperate because right now nobody knows you're chained to the wall. Once people know you're chained to the wall, who's going to deal with you?

Nobody. They said, you have a window of cooperation because as fast as those cuffs went on, they can come right off, get you a lawyer, meeting with the federal prosecutor, cooperation agreement, and you are right back out,

and nobody knows that you got, brought in because we always try to, do we have a good chance of cooperation because this is a guy that really can bring us somewhere. You know, we would try to do the kidnapping the end of the day. They're not going to be presented that afternoon. You know, there's no federal arraiments at 8 o'clock at night. We got all night for you. Now the rules are very much tightened up as to how long You can interview somebody post the rest and all of that. A lot tougher to do what we do.

But back in the day, hey, it's harsh. But I didn't. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Levato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on Jol. My 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamava Theater.com. Only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary.

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Now, in a situation that you were just describing with the lawyer coming in and you giving them pretty much their options, the best money a lawyer could buy, what is that lawyer doing? Their responsibility is to, their client's best interest no matter the client,

no matter the type of case. The best interest of the client is always not go to prison. But reconciling that with, hey, you don't want to go to prison? You'll put your friends in prison. That are worse than you. And we already know who they are.

So the lawyer goes in because I've already given them the talk. I'm like, this is what I have. If your client wants to sit at trial in federal court, 10 blocks that way, and point at the 12-foot screen on the wall and try to tell a jury, that's not me selling those guns.

That's not me selling crack. That's not me, you know, you can try that. But, you know, the federal jury pool, extends beyond Brooklyn. It's the Eastern District, Queens, Long Island. I'm like, listen, I'm going home to eat a steak. You're going to eat a bologna sandwich tonight. Maybe you need a night to think about it, but then also think about everybody's going to know where you are. I will do everything to help you, but you got to want to help yourself. And if you don't want to do that, that's fine. How do you feel personally about letting someone out that's done something probably

harmful to someone else just to get that bigger fish? So great question. And there are not only parameters within ATF, but there should be some inner parameters of what you can live with. Anybody that is convicted of a sex crime, sex offense, were prohibited from using that person as a cooperator or an informant. That is a bridge too far. We are not going to cooperate somebody that's a sex offender at all. And no matter what they have, you want to historically cooperate from inside. We'll do that, but you are not getting out. And it's a crapshoot. In a perfect world, the cooperation moves quick. It moves from you want to cooperate to some proffer sessions. If you don't have an attorney, we'll get the U.S. Attorney's Office. They've got a list of private attorneys.

We'll get a private attorney in here right now to be your attorney. And you're going to plead guilty to some aspect of the conduct that we have you on, and you're going to get a cooperation agreement. So you're bought and paid for. You're out cooperating and working with us. You've already pled guilty. You're merely awaiting sentencing. And that cooperation agreement is ironclad. You lie. You re-offend. It gets torn up like it never happened. But what did happen, but what did happen, in is your guilty plea. And you're going to walk before the federal judge that's been following the breadcrumb in your case trail. And they're going to know you, you know, you screwed yourself, you violated your cooperation agreement. That means we just proceed the sentencing. And you're going to be

at the upper end of your guideline. And if you reoffended and there's another offense, it's only going to get worse. And then all the other things, if you were in a leadership role, you're going to you know, get points for your leadership role and it just goes on and on and on. It is a tough decision about putting a guy out there. Now, if it's somebody that was just an unbelievable level of violence, you know what? You're going to cooperate historically. We're not letting you out. You're a danger to the community.

How do I explain that we cooperated you? We put you out and then you harmed somebody. You want to run and be a fugitive? The last concern. We found Osama bin Laden. We can find you. It's constantly in the back of your mind. Did I allow a yet unknown victim to be victimized

because of the decision to let this guy out, to do stuff for us because we have a larger picture of worse, more violent people. Yeah, it is a, it's a case by case. And you've got to get your bosses on board on ATF. You have to have the federal prosecutor giving the thumbs up. Their boss is going to have to give the thumbs up. If it's a serious enough case, you're going to need the approval of, like, a deputy attorney general down in D.C., DOJ Maine.

It's a decision. Yeah. Guys that I've gotten out to cooperate, they've not done anything like violent, drastic. Some of them reoffended back in a drug and gun game. And right to jail, sorry. That's your informing agreement and your cooperation agreement. It's just a dirty world.

And you feel good because you've removed a violent segment from the community and hopefully you've removed further violent individuals based on your initial front line arrest. But yeah, it is a, it's tough. It's a tough decision. And there's no, it's gray. no extreme black, extreme white. Everything is gray. And if something bad did happen, it's like, if you're a good person, that should weigh heavily on you for the rest of your life. It's like, I have to live with that. When you're weighing violence, does it also depend on whether the

violence was committed against, say, like another gang member versus an innocent person that wasn't a part of, say, the life? That could serve. certainly be like if you really saw the path forward of cooperation and this dude was like middle management and he was going to be able to roll up the leadership yeah that you know your violence was amongst bad guy bad guy violence possibly a concern there's some maybe one or two guys guys guys guys that I said, look, there is risk, but I think the risk is worth a reward to cooperate this guy and put him out because he can do this, this, this, and this. And the U.S.

attorneys are, the federal prosecutor is like, bridge too far, not doing that. And I'm like, yeah, that's probably the right decision. We'll make our own luck. We'll make it work another way. We got him. We'll get somebody else. Now, these individuals who cooperate, do they go jail-free or do they ultimately end up serving some type of sentence? They will most likely, based on what the offenses were that you grabbed them on, with their 5K letter, which is the only vehicle that a federal judge can go below the sentencing guidelines. and that's what they're made these cooperators. It's like this one little sheet of paper, this is between you being in federal prison forever or not forever.

So yeah, if the offense was just so egregious that no matter the cooperation, you, you know, substantial assistance to the government is the phrase that's used, if you gave that substantial assistance and we can go through just, example after example after example of people that you're responsible for rolling up for us um you stand a phenomenal chance of getting just a few years you know you can't walk on this you may bite off uh like 18 months versus 360 months um it's probably worth it Don't show that paperwork to anybody. Might have a problem.

Sammy Gravano killed 19 people that he admitted to. But the risk reward of putting John Gotti in prison forever, the federal government said, Udivit, you take that deal, I'd take that deal, sir. Yeah. So 19 murders, Gravano got sentenced to five years. five years 19 murders was that worth it to the federal government it was because they did it and then he went to reoffend in Arizona on an ecstasy large scale ecstasy ring and he bit off a harsh sentence with that I've listened to his podcast stuff and and he is a skilled

storyteller and I can tell by the mannerisms, the voice, the cadence, his nonverbal communication. I completely see why he was successful in that life and also very successful as a cooperator. So you got to give the devil their due. I think he is a talented individual. I mean, he could have done anything. Michael Franzis, another guy I listened to, uh, talent, boundless, could have done anything.

I mean, he's the smartest guy that ever came out at organized crime. The smartest guy. The gas tax scam, bravo, Michael. Uh, nobody's going to do that, but everybody wished they could have done it and, and you perfected it. You bid off eight years, um, and you've got a completely, successful business of what you're doing now.

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your first $5 lineup. That's code Ian. Bick to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Prize picks, it's good to be right. I don't think that Goddy deal would have happened in today's world. I think it would have been like a PR nightmare. You know what? It was a PR nightmare back then. However, Gadi had so stuck his finger in the eye of the government, and he was just

a complete savage. That's a dude that had no morals, no sense of right or wrong. And Gravano, the tipping point for him was when they played the tapes where Gotti's shit talking him. And Gotti talked to Gravano and the other guys that were rolled up in that case and said, hey, the boss needs to be out. You guys need to take full responsibility for this. You go to Pritha. It's like, what? I'm like, what world do you live in?

No. But those two points for Gravano, you know, as he's described in many others, that was a bridge too far for him. It's like, this dude wants me to take the weight for everything he's responsible for and what I'm responsible for. No. So you were a cop and then you became a detective in the Brooklyn DA's office? Detective in the Brooklyn DA's office, again, that motocross attitude, I was. wanted to get in the special investigations unit. That was the secret squirrel unit that nobody really knew what they did, but these dudes were rainmakers, taken down the biggest crews, the best stuff

involved in really everything that was consequential. And Charlie Hines, the district attorney, was a former Marine officer. He was the man. He was like, I want to be. able to say my office not only prosecuted this, but we investigated it. We did the undercovers. We did it all. And it was a phenomenal marriage with the NYPD squad of detectives assigned to the office, absolute top-tier talent, and then combined with the detectives that were not NYPD like me. It was an unstoppable machine. And I've occasionally had to deal as a very occasionally, somebody that's not at the level.

I said, I'm never going to hold you to my standard, but you got to be held to some kind of standard. Like we need some production. Like, you have to be somewhat interested in what we're doing. But when I was working in those units like S.I.U. And the district attorney's office, the task force is an ATF. It's like I didn't have to deal with that, that.

Like I didn't have a general group where you get the bell curve. So I was just fortunate. I always was surrounded by just the best of the best that wanted to work as much as I wanted to work. It was a pure pleasure. If I didn't, you know, if I didn't have bills, I would have paid the government to be able to do this mission.

It's knowable. And the mission in the DA's office, very local, obviously, Brooklyn, you're doing Brooklyn-related cases, although those cases went here, there, and everywhere. But an ATF to work on the national stage make a difference, no matter where the facts led,

no matter where this crew at multi-state, Yeah, we're built for that. So that was like just incredible. And I'll give you a quick example of, I told you I was going to tell the federal prison story. So I'm an ATF in Brooklyn. I'm a street agent. So, you know, running and gunning, making cases.

My boss at the time, she was a hard charger. and she had done the original, she was part of the original, like, legit cocaine cowboys from Washington Heights to Dominicans. And she says, hey, I got a guy that I locked up. He's in a wheelchair. He is a paraplegic from getting shot, and he's evil. He's responsible for numerous murders. I got a call from him. It's in the FedMed, Federal Medical Facility, Federal Medical Facility, Federal Procedure.

prison in Springfield, Missouri. He wants to give, he's been approached to put together a murder for hire. Okay. She goes, get on a plane, take a few people, drill it down. If there's somewhere to go with this, do it. You don't have to tell me twice. So I get a phone call with this inmate in a wheelchair, who is a stone killer. And he says, hey, Gambino family captain that's in here, Greg De Palma. He was actually in prison for trying to extort $100,000 from Scores strip club in Manhattan. Yeah, good idea. But you're probably going to wind up in prison, which he did,

along with his kid who later cooperated and then tried to kill himself in prison. But anyway, I'm talking to this guy, one phone call. And he said, you got the story from Lori, my boss. Yeah, I got the story. I said, I'm going to jump on a plane and, like, meet with you. And he's, well, you know, I got to tell my counselor what's going on. And I probably SIS should, you know. And I'm like, hey, dude, you're not fucking saying anything to anybody.

you tell nobody nothing I'm coming out there to talk to you and nobody's going to know about what okay okay you know he's kind of you know that Hispanic lilting you know syrup evil okay

okay miss Eric okay I see you when you got out here okay good I grab my buddy that was in the academy with John L. Wanger the wanger and the newest agent in our group, a gal, Karen, and pretty much I said, look, I'm going to get this thing going.

We'll find out if we got something to get going. We'll get it going. And Karen, your newest agent, you can be the case agent, and you'll trill this thing. And she ultimately did. And fantastic job. We go out to the Fed Med. So this is like the first time I'm really in federal prison. There's a tower before the prison. They lower a bucket on a rope. Inside the bucket is this huge key that opens the steel door at that tower

that you can lock your gun up. You don't even bring your gun inside the facility and lock it up there. Okay, good, boom, do that. As we're walking up the stairs, who comes bounding out of the front door, almost like knocks us over, but she's in a huff, dressed in white, head to toe, Victoria Gotti, John Gotti's daughter.

Apparently she had a negative interaction with staff after seeing her dad. So, this is where Gotti landed. Good. I get to the first reception and, you know, my point of contact. And he's like, oh, ATFM Spurger, yeah. He says, the warden would like to speak with you before you. do anything. The warden. Okay. I go up to the war. I get escorted up to the warden's office. Big office. The warden, the deputy warden, the council for the prison, some other bosses.

There's like eight BOP people and the warden sitting behind his desk and nobody's smiling. I get brought in, the door is shut, and I got my two other agents. And this is what he says to me. He goes, don't fucking tell anybody what you're doing. He goes, who the fuck do you think you are? This is my facility. You're not going to tell me.

You're not going to tell my staff. I'm like, listen, my apologies. I'm from Brooklyn. I've been a cop in Brooklyn. thou fed. We compartmentalize like a lead box. We don't tell anybody anything until we know what we got. And then we decide who has a need to know.

Obviously, it's your facility. Yes, you have a need to know. I haven't even really talked, talk to this guy. I was going to interview him. Do we have something? Some way to go? Brief the appropriate people in. He goes, that's not how it works, pal.

He goes, you don't go past the first gate unless I let you go past the first gate. And it's a Mexican standoff because he's basically going to say, get back on your plane to Brooklyn. Okay. It's a pause like this. And I just said, look, let me tell you what's going on. Let me tell you what I know, which I don't really know a lot until I talk to this guy. But if this works out and there's some way to go, I'm going to be out here a lot. We're going to be out here a lot.

I'm going to bring you a box of canollies from 18th Avenue, Bensonhurst, every single time I come out here. And I don't mean a box with four. I mean a box with 20. Can we be friends? He goes, all right. Well said. Yeah. You can interview the guy.

Can you come back here and let me know when you're done if we're doing something because I haven't had a canolae in forever? Then I'll make them in Springfield, Missouri. Good. We talked to this guy in a wheelchair, and this is legit. Like, I know, like, the kernels of, okay, yep, you're speaking my language now.

So, the Palmer, this Gambino captain, he is now raging mad at another Gambino captain, Nicky Lasorca, won't a car dealership up in the Bronx, that Lasorca has not been paying money to this guy in prison that he was supposed to whatever it was. I had also heard that Lasorsa had the temerity to take over this guy's table at Rayos. If you're familiar with Rayos down, see. Not like a regular restaurant. It's like you've got a slide, you've got a table, you've got a time, and, you know. But the Palma was in bad graces with the Gambinos because it,

ultimately had come out that his kid had cooperated and he's like this guy's got such a big mouth it's like we don't want anything to do with any of these guys anymore okay but this guy wants the sorsa killed and he's thinking that this cocaine cowboy with his murderous savages that are still out running around the city can kill niki la sorsa and we percolate this we look at his wheelchair i get the manufacturer I tracked down the manufacturer, which was actually in New York City. We got an exemplar wheelchair. How are we going to wire this thing up?

We figured out a way that even if anybody looked at it, you're not going to find the recorder on this thing. And we repetitively sent him on several trips out there in to talk to De Palma, get it on tape. He did. And then De Palma says, I want the guy that you're going to get. You hook up with a guy.

He's going to point out the source. He's going to point out the business. And he did that. And by this time, we had, you know, Karen was running the case, case agent. And, you know, the wanger and I, we were off to our own adventures. But several trips to the Fed met. Now I'm getting to know the guards because they're getting some of these canoles. So now I'm genuinely.

interested. I'm like federal prison. I've been in Rikers Island like 500 times state prisons in New York. I've never been in a real, at a medical federal facility. He goes, oh, you want to see the Hannibal Lector Ward? This is where the guy did the research for Silence of the Lambs for the Hannibal character. He goes, it's not in a cave, but do you want to see it? I'm like, proceed. Let's go. and I saw, I didn't even know if I was in America, 20 cells on the first floor in a square, 20 cells on the second floor, it's floor to ceiling open, there's one pole in the middle and one black and white TV. Your only mission in life was to try to get a cell where you could see that TV. That was as good as life was going to get if you were in one of those 40 cells. Who was in these cells? absolute savages within the federal system. You've killed inmates. You killed a guard.

You did a serious assault on state. I mean, you had to, like, do a lot of things to get stuck in one of these 20 cells. Or your instant offense that you're in federal prison for is so frigging horrible that this is literally the unit for you. So I'm going around and I'm like, looking in the windows, they're telling me the story. All the magnets are on the door.

No utensils can only feed on paper. You know, crazy. All 40 cells, these are people are going to die in federal prison. They are never, ever getting out. So I look at one guy screaming. He's chained to the floor on a, like a poured concrete bed. And I'm like, and he's got like bandages on his face. I'm like, what's up with this dude?

guy he's telling me the story on all these guys he goes oh this guy uh sexual sadist multiple murders and he keeps pulling his eyeball out because he thinks he won't be able to see the victims anymore it's a fed med he pulls it out dangling down we bring him in we put it back we have to chain him to the floor so it can heal and then once it's healed and he does it again and he does it again and he does it again. That, I'm like, we do a guy like this. Now, they're very, they're, I have now gone in to their little toy kingdom, and they can't wait to tell me stories.

So, let me tell you, he goes, you know what a spork is? I'm like, yeah, the plastic spoon with the fork thing at the end. He goes, yes. He goes, well, we had a guy. that sexual sadist murderer, and he took a spork, heated it up against a light fixture. He would pliably roll the end,

jam it down his tool until just the end was sticking out and then say, hey, I need to get this removed, and they'd wheel him down to the hospital, hospital part, and they would remove it. Well, they wheel this guy down one time, except it's a new doctor at the facility. And the doctor's getting a story, and he says,

well, we're going to cure him tonight. And the guards are like, ha, can't wait to see this. He's done it like several times. Yeah, he's not doing it anymore. So the guy's sitting there. He's got the end of the spork sticking out of his crank. And the doctor wheels over the cart,

puts the, you know, those 22 caliber cleaning bread. rushes one foot long cutips, anticeptic, the forceps, like a pair of medical pliers. And he grabs the dude and the inmates like, whoa, whoa, whoa. He goes, you're going to numb me up? Like every time I come down here, he goes, well, you weren't numbed up when it went in. They said you could hear that scream at the other end of the facility. And the guy never did it again. Oh, my God.

Just give you the Jeeves right now. Yeah, I don't know if that's going to be in the AMA journal, but apparently that cure took. And just many other, you know, crazy stories. Now the guy in the wheelchair, didn't the people he was meeting with know he was in prison? Yeah, he's an inmate with them. So they approached him. So De Palma approaches wheelchair guy. In prison.

In the FedMed, in prison, knowing this guy's background and knowing that. that he had run an absolute unstoppable crew of murderers in Washington Heights. And he's like, that's the guy for me. He can get one of his guys on the outside to do this murder. So their meeting where you got him on wire took place inside the prison. Inside the facility, which then you're trying to arrange a meeting that would not arouse any suspicions. Like, you know, everybody would go into a day room where everybody's going to be walking around the yard. or something like that. So we had to be there when those situations were going to occur. So it doesn't

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That's promo code locked in. Visit BluTru.com for more details and information. important safety information. And we thank Bluchu for sponsoring the podcast. Now, couldn't you have put the wire anywhere? Because is he really going to get patted down in a prison? I wasn't taking the chance. And what about the guards? They didn't snitch or anything? Because I know when I was in prison, everyone talks. Like, if there's feds walking into a prison, the whole compound knows about it. I mean, the way we dressed in ATF, this would be dressed up. Like, we're just, you know, shorts and t-shirts and we want to blend about wherever we're the only place we put a suit on court that's it um

but there were i mean there were bad people everywhere in that prison so we had a lieutenant in the sys fully briefed him in so he was going to be our contact we were we were going to deal with nobody else in his shop but him. And we would use, like he would arrange a room that this guy could go into. We'd get him out of the chair, wire the chair up, and he would get brought back, or you got a phone call, you got to meet your counsel, you know, any reason to extract him from the conversation. And then we'd take the recording device out and, you know, rinse, repeat, did that a few times.

I wasn't taking a chance on the Palmer. Hey, I don't care where we are. I'm rubbing you down. It wasn't on him. It was part of the chair. So they could have thrown him on the floor and search him. You're not going to find it. You're not going to find it in the chair.

And the lieutenant made sure that he had eyes on these meetings with the videos from in the facility. Like if anything, you know, you're going to attack a. paraplegic we're going to come in and help you um but he was never challenged never confronted nothing could he have hypothetically pulled it off from prison like get a cell phone made the call to organize this hit so this was the spring of 2001 um i don't think cell phones were prevalent. I mean, they were getting prevalent out, you know, regular society, but inside the facility, I don't even remember back then hearing about cell phones within, you know, the inmate population like it is now. This, when I started listening, oh, everything is digitally

recorded now in federal prison. In two, you know, 25 years ago, when we did, you know, we're that's the case. We had to go out. It was state of the art at that time, micro-cassette digital recordings of every phone call that had been made, whether it was listened to, monitored, or not. So we had to determine every time the Palmer had used his code, pull that tape. It was like I was in the Raiders at a Lost Dark room with 10,000 little micro-cassette tapes trying to find the right one, put it in the recorder, listen, make a copy of it. The digital world now, like any federal agent doing that kind of case now, you don't have to go to the facility.

They will email you the digital recording, the electronic version of it. It's like, wish we had that back back. And we were going out to the Fed met. Like we would go for a week at a time to listen to tapes. Like Monday, through Friday, like, you know, like earmuffs impressions. like when you're flying out at the end of the week. But it was worth it. Guy goes to trial.

Not guilty. The most surprised person in the courtroom was the palma. And to this day, there's no rhyme or reason. When you're dealing where everybody in the case, cooperator, target, everybody is a bad guy, I don't know whether the jury felt, who cares? He's in prison and the Palmer wound up dying in prison. This kid was like a vegetable after trying to kill himself.

So that was like a self-corrected issue. I remember when Karen went within FBI agent because we're under your duty bound when you know that there is a actual plot of foot to harm somebody or kill them, bad guy, good guy, we give a warning. And they sat down with the Sorsa and said, you know, without giving him any details and knowing where it's coming from you,

we need to officially make you aware that there's an individual that has made overt acts to try to get you killed. Would you like our protection? Would you like, you know, can we interview you about this? And he's like, nope, thank you. Get a bagel down the corner, you know, no problem. And it was a non, it was as much worry as a cloudy day to him when they talked to him.

Now, the guy that cooperated, did he get any benefits? Yeah. You know what he wanted? He wanted one thing. He wanted to be moved to a federal facility closer to New York City. so his girlfriend or kid or whatever easier to come see him so that was an easy deal to be made that was an easy deal and i'll give you one better boom you're getting the exclusive right here now i'm the canoli king and everybody is happy these are legit canoles not the crap you know

it's not gas station sushi legit right well one of the guards that we've now were friendly with this guy, he goes, because Gadi is locked up there, and they're very stringent rules on how he is permitted to visit with his attorneys, how he's permitted to visit with the people who authorized to visit him. And he, so this is the information we get. Hey, guys are good guys. This guard, oh, I should percolate it even better. The initial information comes from wheelchair guy in the know with everything.

Who thinks he's a threat? He's in a wheelchair. But he's a savage. So he is the one that initially tells us about this. He goes, this guard, and he names him, is getting money from the Godi people to allow unauthorized contact with him. and furthermore on this date they're flying him to Vegas to have three days of fun thank you for helping us out really now normally you would go to the FBI with that not going to the FBI get the Lieutenant SIS hey call the warden ring a thing we need a meeting and I say this is gift wrapped here it is name of the guy

here's when he's going to be at the airport, going to Vegas, do what you will, and they locked them up at the airport. Quiet, hush, hush. But that would have never come to light any other way. And it's, you know, how, ultimately, how do you think you're going to get away with stuff like that? It's like, the reason God he is sitting there

is because he got, you know, cooperated against. You don't think that other people trying to get a benefit. They find out what you're doing. They're not going to try to get it. So what a wheelchair guy want? He simply wanted to be moved closer to New York City. That's it because that's all I want. I know I'm dying in prison.

I know you're not going to let me out. Not going to resentence me. I just want to be closer to the city. How did you make the switch from Brooklyn DA's office to the ATF? Okay. So in the DA's office when I was in SAU, we had a lot of money. We could buy drugs.

We could run undercover things. We could, what we didn't have a lot of money for was the purchase of firearms. Now, prior to, when I was still in the Department of Investigation, I was doing the most undercovers, and these are not dangerous undercovers like ADF.

These are like quick hitters, corruption, city employees, people that are trying to corrupt city employees to get stuff, and I would pose as the corrupt, up city official, attorney, whatever I was going to say I was, and I would get paid off. And I got paid off a lot, like a lot. It got to the point where to remove the entrapment defense because you have this, you know, what's your veras, pre-disposition to commit this crime?

They would say, what do you want? And I'm like, just give me what you usually give. Oh, you've done this before. No entrapment defense here. So I was doing so many of those. Department of Investigation says, hey, we want to send you to an actual formal undercover school. ATF, who I had heard of, but not really, they're putting on a one-week roadshow undercover school for state and local, we're putting you in it and knock yourself out. So not only was that course, like the best course I had ever been to, at that moment, just like the cop in ninth grade, I'm like, I'm going to be an ATF agent. And they're like, good luck, dude.

We have one opening, a thousand applicants for every single opening. And I'm like, I will not be deterred. I am going to be the dripping water on the rock. That's how the Grand Canyon got made. I applied the first. So the written test for ATF, three quarters of the people failed a written test. Like, that's the first thing you do, a treasury enforcement exam. It's like taking an SAT.

And there's pass, fail. Three quarters fail. You don't even move on to an interview. I put in for an opening, take the test. I passed the test. Don't even get called for an interview. It was called the Friends of the Director hiring. Like, unless your dad was playing tennis with the director

or, you know, the custodian for the ATF building, had a kid that wanted to be a, it's like, that's where it's, the jobs went. Like, if you didn't know somebody, you weren't getting a job. Awesome. I will not be deterred. I put in for it again. Same thing. Don't even get called for an interview, but I passed the written test. Another announcement, it passed the written test. And I'm almost, I'm like, if I don't get called for an interview, I get called for an interview, panel interview. And that is where the decision is made, they get to play Caesar. We're going to hire you, we want to hire you,

or you don't even have the job and you haven't even gotten out of the elevator yet for this interview. So, and I knew everybody in the office because in the DA's office, I was bringing all my CIs where we could do gun stuff. I was bringing them to ATF and working those cases with them. So I got to know all the ATF guys, including the Joint Firearms Task Force, Boss, Group 4 boss, Billy Frederick's stud, legend, Marine, was bandeted, had to play dead, all his unit was killed, crawled his way out of the job. I mean, tough, tough guy.

And he tells me, he goes, hey, I'm the guy that's telling you, I want you. You're getting in this time. And I'm like, we'll see. Alex Diatri was the assistant special agent in charge at the time. And I knew him. And he's now going to bring me to the panel interview room. And he stops me.

He's wearing cowboy boots and jeans. He goes, and he looks like Sylvester Stallone. He goes, you know what the saying there, right? Like, locked in. I got it. He goes, good, because there's no do over here. Good. Alex Diatri had been shot five times in the hurricane motel on South Beach, Florida, doing a Coke deal.

Ariel Rios, his partner, young ATF agent, shot and killed, never made it out of the room. Alex got shot five times in the chest with a 357, lived, went back to duty, and now he's the number two guy in New York. He says, you know what's saying there, right? Like, yeah, he goes, I can't say it for you. You got to stand up and perform. Good. I get a call. Hey, we want to repanel everybody that in.

interviewed in New York because the bosses feel we weren't allowed to ask enough questions. It's a very scripted interview. I'm like, oh, I'm in Seattle. I'll jump on a plane to me. No, no, no. We'll mail your package to Seattle. You'll interview there like in two days, which I did and got the offer. And when they asked me, what pay and location are you willing to accept?

So I knew the lowest grade you could get hired at was a GS5. That's like the janitor at a facility. I said, I'll take a GS5 in Guam. I just want to be an ATF agent. And it's all I want to do anywhere at the lowest pay. So when I get that FedEx letter, hey, job offer, it was Kansas City for a GS-12. which is the highest you could be hired at.

And most of the people in my academy class were hired at that GS-12. Everybody had been a cop, a detective, a federal agent somewhere else. And the average age was like 28, 29 years old. I was the second oldest guy in my class at 35, the old man, fastest runner. And still the push-up king. And we had a Marine DIY in our class, too. I still beat him on push-ups. Probably couldn't do that today, but yeah.

And when I got ATF, Ian, it was like the day you got this Hollywood studio set up, and it's like, I've arrived. That was my feeling. And I got to do in 21 years everything that I wanted to do. Undercover work, quick hitter stuff, special response team. operator, our SWAT team, street agent, task force, supervisor, stuff all over the country. I got to do everything. And I went at it like I can't, every day, I can't believe, I can't believe I've got this position. So when I got made supervisor, which will lead us into an awesome

story, who am I replacing Billy Frederick's joined firearms task force group supervisor? The guy that recruited me, I'm now going to take over the task force, his job. And everything in ATF starts on a Monday. This is a Friday afternoon. It's like in full metal jacket my last night on the island. I'm the last day, Friday afternoon. And the number two guy in the field division comes down to my unit in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a little secret squirrel building.

My boss, so not a two of them, are a hundred, hovering over me. They're standing. I'm sitting at my desk, my little two-foot cubicle. And they're like, hey, you know, you've been crushing it in the street,

but now you're going to run this task force. It's a little different. We want to make sure be mindful of this, be mindful of that, but, and I'm like, I'm going to live in that unit. I am going to hit it.

I'm going to make you guys happy. Good. The phone rings. I'm like, one second. I got a grown crying man on the phone. He goes, I'm supposed to be part of a home invasion. And we're going to torture a guy. I'm going to kill a guy.

And it's like, I want out, I want out, I want out. I want out. I'm like, where are you? Someone on the Long Island Expressway. Pull over. Don't move. We go out. We meet this guy.

This is like a Friday afternoon. Like I think it was the Friday before July 4th. It was like, everybody knows. Like, don't even come to work on. the Friday before the holiday. But we're all there. And it was a task force group that I was in. So we had NYPD detectives. We had the ATF agents. We go out and meet this guy. He tells this story. This is a story he tells us. He goes, listen, I'm supposed to be part of a home invasion crew. We're going to go to this guy's house, private house in Queens. He owns a

pizzeria. There's 300,000 in cash, in his safe. And the guy that masterminded this, he's from Lauderdale and he is in my house right now. He's waiting for me to get back. I told him I had to go out and do something. We'll do this when I come back. And he goes, we're going to tie this guy up. Give me the combo to the safe. And he doesn't want to give the combo. We're going to start cutting his fingers off with garden pruners. Okay. That sounds pretty real. And then if we have to kill him, we're going to kill him and get the 300. All right.

Who else is in the house? Well, the rest of the crew that's going to do this. My brother is one of them. He's really the contact with Steve. Steve is the mastermind of this thing. That's a grown man. And he's like whimpering telling this. He's got a wife beater and shorts on.

And I'm like, I'm going to put a transmitter on one leg, put a recorder on the other leg. You're going to go back in and you're going to get. Steve to tell the story again. I want it on tape what's going on. They're going to know. They're going to know. Dude, we're all going to be out there. I'm going to be listening to you. We'll be in there in two seconds. And he was renting the first floor of a private house in Queens, which everything is like glued together, brownstone row houses. This is a private house. Awesome. And he says, well, I also should tell you, Steve, I don't know his last name, but is Lincoln Continental with Florida the plates is parked in front of my house right now.

Get people out there. Watching the house, run the plate. It's registered to him, unbelievably. And now we start knowing who this guy is. Prior federal defendant for home invasions. Okay. Everything is starting to like, you know, the color by numbers is filling in. So now we're all set up roughly on this block.

We send now crying, man, back in. They get the story. And the conversations, what do you mean go over it again? Didn't I go over this enough? I'm going to tie the guy up, give us the code. I'm going to start cutting his fingers off and then I'm going to kill him. Okay, check, check, check. I think things are good.

This is what he says to the guy. Steve says this to the cooperator. Now go out to my trunk and get my bag of guns. We're doing this now. I'm mentally signaling the cooperator. Like I'm trying to telepathically tell him. you're not bringing a bag of guns into the house with this guy. Out the front door, walks across the street into the trunk,

and now he's crying again. What do I do? What do I do? He told me to get his guns. I don't know what to do. And he gets a gym bag and starts going back to the house. I'm like, move in, move in, move in. That's it.

It's a wrap. Ian, it was my official last day on the special response team. So I had my SRTM for the Wanger for other story. with me and so we got the two M-4s. Our crime cooperator is now on the up three step, four steps to the cementing porch before you go into the house. And it's like a jail cell door and a regular door. Regular door is open.

So now it's kind of a screen, but it's like a jail cell door. Like it's going to take us a second to rip that off. He drops the bag when we grab him. So now the bag of guns, which we later found. was a bag of guns. And that's now sitting on the cement. Launch this guy into the bushes. I don't want to do this anymore.

I'm like, get it together. And now we're ordering residents of the house, Steve, maybe we say his last name. Well, nobody comes out. Steve comes to the door. But now we got this jail door between me and him. And I'm probably closest to this guy. I'm standing on the ground.

The porch is up to like, you know, chest. And he's in the doorway. Like, he can't get the guns, but I can't get him either. I'm like, great. It's like a Mexican standoff. And I'm looking at this dude, strongest man alive. He is like a steroided out Arnold Schwarzen. Like all muscle.

Like this dude. Okay. This is going to be it to do. So now I'm giving him the commands. I'm like, Steve, open the door. It's over. You're under arrest. ATF.

It's a rap. Says nothing. Won't open the door. Staring at me. Death stare. I'm like, Steve, let's be gentlemen. So open the door.

You can look at the back. don't touch it. You can think about it. Don't touch. He opens the door, but now he won't step out. And I'm on him with the M4, as is the wanger,

and he takes one step out. Has said nothing. I'm like, Steve, get on the ground. Won't move. I'm like, Steve, get on the ground or I'm going to shoot you. And I took the safety off the M4. First time I ever had it pointed at a bad guy with the safety off.

Like if I manipulate the trigger and I had the three-round burst, game over. And he won't say anything and he won't get on the ground and he won't move. Another guy on the team comes up with an ass. Steve is focused in me. Guy comes up with an ass, strong dude. And he hits him three or four times like Babe Ruth swings, the legs, the arm, the back.

just looks at him. Doesn't say anything, doesn't move. No reaction to these Babe Ruth hits. The guy swinging the ass realizes now, I am definitely shooting this guy. He gets off the porch, and I'm like, Steve, get on the ground or it's over. Gets down to one knee, it's down to the other knee,

prones out, we need two sets of cuffs. He later told, Ian, this is what this guy later told me. You know, because people, you know, they hear this story, they're like, what do you mean you were going to shoot him? And I'm like, okay, I know who he is. I know his background. He knows he's going to federal prison forever

in his bag of guns, purported bag of guns in front of him. I'm like, you've checked every box. My life is in danger and everybody else's, including whimpering man hiding behind the cement ports. This is what Steve tells me later. He goes, the only reason I surrendered is I looked into your eyes. and I tried to make a decision,

can I take that M4 away from you and shoot you? Or are you really going to shoot me? You're really going to shoot me? He goes, the only reason I surrendered is because I looked at you and you were going to shoot me. It's the only reason I surrendered. I'd rather go to prison than get shot. Okay?

And from six, five, six feet away, it was going to sting. He gets down, we get two cuffs on him And now the crazy starts Searching him Don't touch my wig It's a $5,000 wig I'm like what I'm not going to touch a $5,000 wig

And then I'm looking at him He's got a goatee And I'm like Do you have a goate tattooed under your goatee? He goes, yeah, it makes it look fuller, doesn't it? I'm like, okay and then he just dude I got guys I can give you

I got guy you know I don't want to go to jail I don't want to go to jail I'm like okay hold on because now I hear some conversation with our people they're in the driveway looking at the backyard there's like somebody in the backyard the crew has now started to surrender out of the house cuff this guy cuff this guy cuff this guy

I'm like all right wanger we got the M-Force we will do our little SRT thing we'll clear the back year who's in the backyard. This is what I, Ian, this is what I see in the backyard. There's a dude in a lawn chair laid out reading the New York Times, wearing, and this is all he's wearing, hot pink shorts, it's a man, slathered in like Wesson Oil. And we're like, hey, police, don't move, put the paper down.

And by the way, get on the ground. Now we're closer to him And he goes, hey, do I really have to get on the ground? Get on the fucking ground. And he goes, I'm a member of NYPD. Okay. Did you hear that little commotion going on, that little magic show like at the other end of the driveway?

He goes, yeah, I didn't want to get involved. Okay. Let's just see who you are now. He goes, I'm a captain. I'm an openly gay captain. I don't need this trouble. I'm like, you know what? I'm going to go up to your second floor apartment.

He says, I don't know who these people are. I don't associate with them. I'm not part of that. Sure enough. NYPD captain. And he tells me, listen, I'm an openly gay, NYPD captain. And I have a written order that I'm not allowed in any men's room facility in the New York City. I didn't want to even ask him what the hell is.

is that all about? I'm like, all right, you're clearly not a part of this. Go back to reading your paper. He goes, okay. He literally goes, I got the New York Times open. I'm like, how could this story get crazier? And then it does. Now we go back and I'm talking to Steve. And he says, and he's starting to realize now my world just got turned into a closet. I'm drilled. I'm done. okay he goes I got guys I give you this

I give you this like he's giving me all this stuff before he's I'm like how much can you bench he goes well

I work out a few times a week with 400 and I believe them I'm like I'm like dude if we had to fight you you would you would have got shot

so now this is still in the front yard hasn't invoked Like this dude wants to relieve himself his conscience in the front yard. Double, double cuff, fine. And I said, give me something right now. You got something right now that I can verify like with my phone, what you stand in here?

He goes, I'll give you something right now. Easy. Give you one for free. He goes, call Fort Lauderdale Police Department. Get a detective on the phone from their burglary unit or whatever. And he goes, my crew and I, we do. just literally ripped like a refrigerator safe out of a cement floor at a commercial clothing store.

And he goes, this was like the first clue how the rest of the story went. He goes, it, well, I'm like, what's the name of this place? He goes, well, it's a clothing store that caters to the gay community. Like, what's the name of it? He goes, gay art. I call up, I'm like, don't move. What a DLPD? Yeah.

hey, crazy question, but is there a store named Game Art and was it recently burglarized a floor slave ripped out of four? And a guy like everybody had heard about it. He goes, oh yeah, that happened. He goes, it's a who done it?

I'm like, well, not anymore. It's not. I got the mastermind of that caper in handcuffs right in front of me up in New York City. He goes, oh, that's awesome. Great. That crew's responsible for all kinds of stuff. I'm like, okay.

I'm like, Steve, you're off to the races, buddy. That checked out. You're good. I'm like, I'm going to get you a happy meal. We're going to sit down. It's going to be great. Now it goes into like crazy, crazy zone. I got this steroid freak.

Two set of cuffs, rear cuffed. Wimpering cooperators, string bean tiny adult male brother is like, Steve, steroid freak. And he goes, Frankie, the brother. He goes, Frankie, I just want to kiss you one last time before I go to jail. They were lovers. Like, that was the connection.

The entire home invasion crew, gay, gay males. Okay. Yeah. Hey, you want to kiss your boyfriend? Why not? Go ahead. I'm like, we're not judging. You know, it's not 19.

30. If I could add a picture of this steroid freak, rear cuffed, kissing this string bean little guy cuffed, and they were in love. Like they were, it was like any guy or girl, like dad's going to prison. Like, that was the emotion. Awesome. Then it gets crazier. BMW pulls up

Two chicks get out To women Like centerfold Hot women I'm like Okay The driver says I own this house

What's going on? Tell her the story She goes I knew I shouldn't have rented to them She goes listen I only rent to the gay community Obviously you know I'm gay This is my partner

I'm like, can't make it up. The Wanger and I, we wanted to call it, because I had to hand the case off, it was my last day as a street agent. So Wanger's like, well, we're going to name this investigation, the house of gay. And I'm like, yeah, even in 2004, you can't name a case, the house of gay.

It's like, can't do it now. You certainly couldn't do it then. Then when reality started setting in, he uh, lawyered up and okay, I'm not going to be here all night interviewing you.

And, uh, good luck. Thanks for the game art thing. At least Lauderdale gets a little, you know, checkbox. Yeah. And, and, uh, then I took over the task force, uh, the Monday later. What happened to him? Well, he definitely bit off, uh, a term.

I don't, I literally didn't track it after that. He was like, once I took over the task force, that was a 24-7, like, we don't go home. This is what we do. We're all over the country chasing these gun traffickers and every other Hobbs act robbery crew, commercial arm robbery crews. Like, we would knock on them or home invasion crews. It was the golden years of that task force. Again, I couldn't believe, like, that I'm leaving.

this group of just hitters. NYPD, ATF, and New York State Police were all. It was probably at that time, we probably had almost 20 gun carriers in the group, which is more than double the size of a normal ATF group. And we were... How many discounts does USA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount.

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with obesity or overweight with a weight-related medical condition versus 2.2% to 3.1% in placebo arm. RX only. To stay informed about serious side effects, go to row.com slash safety. Everywhere. All over it, like peanut butter everywhere. And we were crushing the bad man. It's great. Now, you mentioned the term entrapment earlier. We'll have guys on the show tell stories about how they were set up and taken down. And people in the comments would be like, oh, that's entrapment. Can you break down the difference between an entrapment case versus not one? It's easy. And I can, and I can, and I can, you short story about that.

We don't make criminals. We investigate criminals. And the entrapment defense is, but for this undercover or informant, I never would have done that conduct. I never would have been a part of that, except for I needed the money. I, you know, it's always I needed the money story. That is the, that's why I did it. Okay.

Well, how do you destroy the entrapment defense? While you're doing the undercovers, you get the conversation of all the other things, other jobs that they've done similar conduct. Oh, you, you're part of a robbery crew? This is what I do, yo. Yeah, we did this, we did that. you know, I need like five guns.

Five guns, I get you 20 guns. Nikki from Brooklyn, that was the UC name I used all the time. Nikki from Brooklyn. Because I was like Joe Pesci everywhere outside of Brooklyn. Like I did undercovers in Missouri or South Carolina. It was like, Nikki from Brooklyn. I couldn't pass as any kind of Italian mob guy in Brooklyn. Now, outside of Brooklyn, who else talks like that?

Look at this guy. but we would get you to show predisposition. You have done this before. Now, if this is, everybody's got to have their first rodeo. If this is your first rodeo and the facts prove that, you know, maybe you have a defense against getting in this crew for this first time ever job because The first time I ever did it. It's everybody's story.

I never did this before. Okay. But when we showed the other 15 acts similar that you have done, the entrapment defense no longer applies. You are predisposed to commit the crime. Entrapment applies to somebody that at a left field, they got involved in this conduct, and they've got half a story of why they got involved in the conduct. But again, Ian, we don't want to make a criminal. We want to investigate real criminals.

So guys, gals that fall into that kind of niche, we dial them out. Or if they're in it to win it, and it actually is the first time and they did get sucked into something, every good federal case starts with a storyteller. And guess what? That's you. You want to be with us.

You want to be with them. Because if you're with them, you're going to go with them. You're going to go with them. You want to get out of this. You're going to cooperate. You don't have to cooperate. You can be with them.

You can or you can just bite off whatever it is. And in cases like that, it's like federal prosecute, there is such a competition for the time and attention of a federal prosecutor that you got to have fantastic violent stuff to get their attention, to get their time. to get on the grid, to get federal prosecution. Like, you could have five great cases. Dude, resources, time, and we got 25 other things that are like 20 times worse than your thing.

So good job, but take it to the state. So we always had that option that if we didn't want to, it wasn't appropriate to drill somebody federally, we could have the task force detectives, hey, could you just bring this, put it through as a state arrest and they can then be availed most likely a probation if that's what we're kind of pushing, but they're going to have to bite off the F. So, you know, the next time, it's not the first time. So constantly, we don't make criminals. We, you know, we're taught, hey, here's a hundred really bad people, but these two are the absolute worst. Those two get the attention. We could went after the other 98, but these two were the worst. They're real criminals. We're not making

somebody a criminal. It's not the first time. There is going to be no entrapment defense. They've been to prison. They've got multiple, multiple violent felony convictions. And that was always the first question. Like when my guys would say, hey, you know, our informant says, you know, he can do this guy, do this guy. All right, what's the criminal history on the target? Does he have a history of violence. He doesn't refer it to another unit because we're not expending our resources on that when we could be going after this. And that's just the way it was. But the entrapment defense, it's cut and dry. It's a legitimate defense and there are definitely people that fall into that crack. But we drill those people out.

and we get the real criminals, they discuss their already predisposed to commit this offense because they've already done it or they brag that they've done it. And we've had federal judges, you know, when people say, well, I just said,

I did those 10 other robberies, I really didn't do them. And the judge says, in for a penny, in for a pound. If you say you did it, and that's what all of this was based on, you're in it. You're not,

You know, you can tell that sob story to the jury, but, you know, the investigation shows otherwise. I never, ever wanted, and even as a cop, detective, agent, Ian, when I put handcuffs on somebody, they richly deserved it. They were violent. They were causing mayhem. they were destroying their little, you know, slice of the community, devastating their family probably more than anybody else. That's who we went after. Every day I wake up, I look in the mirror, I'm completely sad.

I never, ever did anything even, oh, I really need that extra number for the month. No, none of that. It's like, if you're in my handcuffs, you put your, yourself in those handcuffs and the case is done and it's a mega violent case. You put yourself there. I go to sleep in 30 seconds every night. I have no, should I have done this? Should I not done that?

None of it. I conducted myself and all my guys and gals similarly conducted themselves because I was the final arbiter of everything, does it pass go? The AUSA is federal attorneys. And I knew all of them because my wife was a federal prosecutor at the time. So they're all over my house. They're drinking my scotch. It's like I know all of these people outside of work.

And I would tell them all. If one of my agents or one of my task force detectives comes to you with a case, it's good to go. It has already passed my smell test because they're not coming to see you with a matter unless I've, you know, the passport, it's good to go. This is a legit, worthy investigation. So don't think that they're just throwing something on the wall to see if you want to go with it. This has been vetted by me personally.

And most of the time I would call ahead and said, hey, here it is. They're going to be coming down. It's good. Why say no one feels so good to say yes? What's the case you'll never forget about from your time in the ATF? We could be here till tomorrow, and I know you're on a deadline. I will tell you in 30 seconds, as a uniform cop over 40 years ago, the most terrifying case was a missing kid. You want to see parents that are frantic.

And this mom was like her 10-year-old kid, however old he was, gone, hours. The mom, every, you know, permutation of what could be happening to my kid because they had had out of fight and the kid's like, fuck you, took off. And this is in a rural area. It's bad. I found that kid. And when I brought that kid home to that mom, that was like, I remember it four decades later as being the one thing that I would never forget. but ATF-wise with the mega, absolute mega violence. I'll tell you a story, one of the shootings I was in, right towards the end of my career, no less.

One thing, so I was running the Gun Squad Task Force out in Kansas City. It was the biggest task force gun carriers of any ATF group nationwide. It was, and all these guys, like, top tier, we had a mind meld of the way that we should be doing this job. And it was like there was no disconnect, no friction, no anything. These guys were great. So I had my gun squad. The police department and every other federal agency, similarly, like the FBI Task Force was the career criminal squad, HSI had a task force, D.E.A. had a task force.

There was an interdiction group. There was an undercover squad of city detectives. We all were located in what we call the unit, a nondescript brick building that if you weren't in the unit, you didn't know about it and you didn't know where it was. The majority of the police department didn't even know where this place was. So one best practice is every morning started everybody with a morning meeting. And we would get a brief typically over the phone from the homicide unit or the assault squad

of whatever crazy violent act had happened overnight. Where do we want to parachute a good CI into? What neighborhood do we want to concentrate in? What massive violent problem is percolating from? the night before. I always sat in the back during these meetings because I'm working the phone and my cell phone and, you know, it's like, it's almost like missile command. It's like there's 20 things always going on at the same time.

But I'm listening to what's going on. And it was a quick 20, 30 minutes at the most. Snapshot view. This is what happened. One story gets thrown out there. It's, and I perk up because I hear the word trooper. And yeah, this trooper got held at gunpoint yesterday. He was by himself.

He's investigating a stolen car, stolen trailer, middle of nowhere. It's a meth house. And when he gets out of his car, he's in full of uniform. He immediately gets confronted with a guy with what he describes, sort off shotgun, pointed a rate at me. And the trooper, this trooper, his name was neat, no slouch. Like, this dude could pick up a car and move it. with his hands.

Tough guy. And he's like, oh, well, he's got a gun. I got a gun too. Except behind the bad guy are other, you know, meth heads like scurrying about. He's like, all right, background's a no-go. So he's trying to talk this guy. Put the gun down. Put the gun down.

Won't put the gun down. Keeps pointing at him until he gets to his stolen pickup truck, which led the trooper there to begin with. Then puts the gun to his head as he's driving away. And the guy's gone. okay I'm listening to the I'm like I stop everything I never like stop the flow but I'm I stand up and I'm like hold on who is looking at this happened yesterday afternoon this is like 830 in the morning who's looking at this who's on it they go well you know it's the troopers

and it was outside the city so you know nobody that I know of and I'm like Stand by to stand by. I'm like, I call up my neighbor, the troop commander. I'm like, hey, I just heard about this. I don't want to, you know, jump over the fence into your pasture if you already got 30 guys on a man hunt.

However, I will take my entire task force offline. We don't go home. This is all we do. We will track this guy down. He goes, oh, my God, Eric, if you could do that, I would be so appreciative. I got some uniform guys. we're doing some basic checks.

We're trying to find a guy. We're coming up with nothing. Guy's like a mirage. Okay. Game on. This is like, now it's 9 o'clock in the morning. I'm like, Scott was the troop commander. He's retiring at the end of the month.

He's a major now. He said, Scott, this guy will be in my handcuffs or somebody's handcuffs before the clock strikes midnight. Oh, that's great. I call the trooper that was subject to this thing. and I tell him the same thing. He's like, oh my God, got to be careful. This guy's a maniac.

I remember the word maniac. Good. So now I get all my guys around because they've heard all of this. And they go, hey, just heard that little check you wrote. We're going to have this guy by midnight. Now, Ian, you'll appreciate this. I always made sure any task force I had, I always had somebody under 30 years old.

Why? they grew up with that Google schmuggle, social media. They grew up with it. They grew up with a phone in their hand. They grew up with an iPad at the five-year-old that I go to a restaurant. It's their world. It's not my world. Their world.

Whenever ATF would issue me an iPhone, I would just throw the box at the youngest agent. I'm like, set it up, put it together, tell me what my password is, and show me how to use this thing. That would, you know, I was the guy like if I couldn't get Windows or Word to work, I was the guy that would almost want to throw the laptop through the window. I tell my kids, I was 33 years old before I got my first cell phone, 1996, 100 minutes a month, Nokia, antenna, that's it. You know, you'll never know to struggle, but there it is. So all my guys are gathered around.

They're like, and my youngest guy, he's like, how are we going to find him? We don't even know a name. And I'm like, easy. We're going to find his girl. we know her name, one of them, find a girl, find him. It's like in a common parlance, we sometimes you would say we're not going to find the bad guy. We're going to find the vagina who's going to find the bad guy. And that's how it worked.

So I'm like, here apparently is a Facebook picture from the girl that they dragged out of the house. and there's two guys in the picture. That guy right there, that's Mr. Sordoff shotgun. The other guy, we have him fully identified. He's got an ankle monitor on, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, so, you know, they had all percolated this stuff. My young guy. My young guy, Tommy Wagner, he had been a D1 walk-on.

He looked like he fell out of the shot caller at Pelican Bay. I mean, nicest guy in the world, but he had to look. he's my social media guy. I'm like, find that girl. I find everything about the girl. Find everything about the guy. Not our guy because they're going to find our guy. Good.

So the guy had, oh, her comment in the Facebook, two of my favorite guys in the whole world. Okay, good. We're on the right track. Fishing in the right pond, as they say in Missouri. Yeah, I had to learn a whole parlance out there. So non-sort-off guy has an ankle monitor on. We can find him.

He's supposed to be home. So now it's like 6 o'clock at 7 o'clock at night. And we have to drive like everything in Missouri is a 30-mile drive. Like you want to go to the food store? 10 miles. Everything is like a drive. And it's a drive to find this guy. But we get in front of him.

Ankle monitor guy is home. Who's he home with? Five-year-old daughter. that he had with the crazy girl, my favorite guys in the world. You, who's this other guy? Oh, his name is Jason. Okay, now we know who our bad guy is. Good.

Do you know where he is? No. Do you know anything? No. And I sort of had a fight with him because, you know, we both kind of with this girl. And I'm like, say no more. You're describing every meth addict in the world to me. Got it.

And you got the ankle monitor on. guess I guess the court decided that you were the least worst of two bad things between mom and you. Yeah, that's exactly. How'd you know? Almost like I was there. Good. Any, I said, listen, where's the girl right now? He goes, I have no idea.

I got her cell phone. I could, you know, but I can't call her cell phone. I have to use Facebook. I'm like, you know, all this is like, you know, I'm like, I've heard it, but I'm not like in the know. I'm like, and I'm literally like, how did you get this far in life? Like, what do you mean? Facebook messages? She's not going to answer someone.

Well, she doesn't have a minute. She has to be within Wi-Fi. And I'm like, I'm like, get her on the phone. And by the way, you're going to tell her that you got to announce a meth. You want to hook up with her. And she's not going to believe that that's where the acting abilities come in. Because right now, you need to convince her. you don't want to be part of this, you want to be with us.

Oh, goodness thing. And he says, oh, that makes sense. I'll tell her, you know, I just love her. I just want to be with her. Yeah, there you go. You're off. Come on, make it happen. She answers the phone.

Huh. And, yeah, I'm in room like 300, whatever, at the Crossland Motel in Independence, Missouri. As soon as she said, Crossland Hotel, Independent, Missouri, which is ground zero for everything that's bad with meth. It's like ground zero for meth. She might as well have said Bogota, Columbia, if they were all Coke heads. Yeah, I'm in Room 300. Come on over.

Okay. We tell ankle monitor guy, we're going to take your phone. We're going to give it back to you tomorrow, but you're not calling anybody. And by the way, if you say anybody, anything. and you give up that, you know, we're looking for this guy, you're going to be under an instruction charge, which probably means you're going to get more time federally than you're going to get whatever your meth cases

that you're wearing that little ankle thing. And you've got a five-year-old daughter to think of. So no phone calls. You go, oh, I promise. Okay. So now we've got to drive 30 miles to get to this hotel. But now it's like, you know, okay, now it's starting to come together. And before we left ankle monitor, he says, this dude is an absolute maniac.

Second time I'm heard listening to somebody say the word maniac, he goes, he is absolutely going to shoot it out. He's absolutely going to shoot it out with you. And he always drives stolen trucks. And he's a meth addict. And I'm glad I'm not going to be there. Okay. I said, okay, I have a fat team.

I got like almost everybody in my task force group like fat, fat team. But I call Independence Police Department. Great police department. We work with them all the time. And I had an independence detective on my task force. So, home run. So it just so happens. The sergeant on duty is a former task force officer with the FBI career criminal.

He knows the deal. He knows how we operate it. I'm not starting at square. one. He goes, all right, meet me in, he says this quick trip gas station parking lot. And he goes, should I get a guy or two? I'm like, can you get like five cars? He goes, ooh, yeah, I can do that. He goes, all right, I'm heading there. I'm going to have five cars, five guys, good. Resort you off to this gas station. Typical everything, ATF operation. It's on the hood of a car. Okay, here's what we got. Here's what we want to do. Crossland Hotel. As soon as we say Chris, San Hotel, the

Sarge goes, he goes, that is like a cesspool. He goes, there's no good people in that hotel. And by the way, it's huge. It's like massive wings outside entrances on walkways. I'm like, I know. Bad place. And he goes, there's only one way in and one way out. You got to go down this long hill.

It's like in a little tiny gulch, glitch, ditch, whatever. Okay. He goes, what do you? you want us to do. I said, all right, here's a deal. The guys, we're going to make contact with the girl if she's even in this room. And if she gives this guy up, when bad guy comes to meet her, he cannot leave. He goes, oh, I might have spike strip. He goes, every single car, wind upends Missouri. Every single car is a car chase. Everybody's got spike strips. Good. Because once he commits to the hotel, spike strip the entire entry road. Nobody in, nobody out. On it. Love these

guys. So now I go up with my team of 15 dudes to give the good news to room 300, whatever. Bang, bang. The chick opens the door immediately. And there's another dude in the room, not our bear guy. And he's like, the police are here. This is what I said. I'm like, Jason, say the dudes last, I'm like, where is he? Right now. She goes, I don't know, I don't know. I'm like, door number one, you have a warrant. And if I rip this room apart, I'm pretty sure I'm going to find a quantity of meth. She goes, I don't want to go to jail. I'm like, good. You're going to put this dude in jail. Get him on the phone and you tell him to come here. You tell him you got meth. You just want to get high with him and all of that. Well, he's going to know that I'm in

this hotel with this guy and this guy had a fight with him the week before and he's terrified to this guy. He's a maniac. Third person calling this dude to me. And she goes, he's going to shoot it out. He is, he's out of his mind. He's a meth addict. And he has no fear of the police. I'm like, okay, third time's a charm. I'm hearing the word maniac and he's going to shoot it out with us. Good. I put now, collaborator, girl, in the car. car with one of my task force guys. I'm like, go to the top of the hill. She's going to make the positive ID when this guy comes. We get all set. She makes the phone call. I'll be there in 20 minutes. Oh, you got to announce a meth. Be right there. Good. So we're all set up.

And the plan, the best plans are the simplest plans. We're not invading Iwo Jima. were making contact with this bad guy, prevent his escape, put him in custody. He doesn't get hurt, we don't get hurt, nobody else gets hurt. It's a beautiful day. And it's going to happen before midnight. I'm like, what could go wrong?

So the plan we had, and I was only one that had a taser. So I said, look, he's going to come in. When he committed two, three huge parking lots, I said when he comes in and he commits to a spot, when he's getting out of the truck, and I had a 2,500 crew cab with a just beasted out truck. I'm literally almost going to bumper lock his thighs, and he's got one opportunity to surrender.

If there's a second hesitation, I'm going to weld him. Easy, easy, easy, game over. And whoever he shows up with. good so my young under 30 agent who had been in my task force group for one week but he had been a cop in tennessee for a few years before he came on ATF my pelican bay shot caller i'm like you're going to stay in this girl's room with uh jimmy manly uh police task force detective and he was he's now their head negotiator i said you guys stay in the room he's never going to get to the room, but I don't want to have this guy floating around. We already got the

girl out there to make the positive ID. So stay in the room and take my ATF body bunker. You never know. Okay, good. It'll stop all shotgun rounds. Well, we're 360ed out in this parking lot. And the task force sergeant that I had out there that night was new to the task force himself, Not new to any kind of crazy work, but new to us. Good dude. Cliff. So we hear from the girl with my guy, positive ID. He's in a white, duly diesel, and it's stolen.

I'm not pinning that car in, you know, my truck versus the diesel. So I said, okay, as soon as I said, all right, we got the positive ID, I can't get out on my radio. Can't get out on my portable. We're in this depression and all of a sudden we're not hitting the digital repeater. Coms are down and the dude just rolled into the parking lot. I don't even have time to jump on a text.

I lean back and I'm like, I'm a tree. I'm a tree route. Don't look at me. Just keep driving. Just keep driving. This guy, one mile an hour, the entire parkline. He's looking at everything.

I'm like, you're not even looking at me. You don't see me. I'm nobody. I'm a tree route. Goes around to the back of the hotel. And now I'm waiting for somebody to say, all right, he's getting out of car. I don't hear anything.

And I'm like, okay, hope against hope that the radio's back up. They're not. And I'm like, I creep around. I go around. I'm like, you know, where's this? dude. If he's sitting in his truck, we're just going to pin it in and, you know, barricaded gunmen and we'll negotiate him, you know, we'll wait him out until he runs out of air and water.

Good. Well, by the time I get around, not in a truck, it's not in a parking lot, but I see he's just getting into the outer exterior, open air stairwell to get up to the top floor. Okay. Plan A's out the window, which it usually is. now we're going to make our own luck. I park and all my guys laughed at me when I did this, the New Yorker in me. I get out of the truck. Now, I didn't have my M4 because originally I was going to be the taser guy,

so my M4 is locked up. I take my alarm and I go, boop. I lock all the doors. So all my guys, I was like, why would you do that? I'm like, look around where we are. I'm like, in New York, if you don't, you know, you can have a crown Vic. You don't lock the doors.

You come out, all your stuff is gone. So they got a kick out of that. So now I'm the first time. So now I'm on the ground. Jason is now walking on the top deck, three levels above me. And he is now headed towards the room on the end where I've got Tommy and Jimmy and my bunker. And whimpering guy is now in the bathtub. He's here.

Don't let him in. Stay in the bathtub. Don't get out. Good. So all I had was my. Glock 40 Cal with the headlight and I've got it shined on him and I'm like Jason it's a wrap it's over you're under arrest get down on the ground and he's carrying a towel brown towel dark brown towel that's rigid like this long and I'm like I'm about a 110% sure that the

shotgun is under that towel and he's got a huge backpack on one shoulder and he just looked at me and starts running to the room and he's pounding on the door. He's like, the police are outside, cops are outside, let me in, let me in, let me in. And I'm like, you know, I could just shoot this guy right now. Totally justified.

Tommy is now behind Jimmy, who's got the bunker up, and Tommy goes, he's going to get in. And Jimmy just kind of smiles. He's like a jokester. He goes, yeah, he just might. Stay behind me, stay behind the bunker. Obviously, the door doesn't get opened.

and he runs. Now, this open-air craziness, now my guys are all out, everybody's like flowing. There's this open-air way. You get to the end of it, you either go left or right to whatever parking lot.

The majority of my guys that were on the ground, they go right, I got another crew heading up to the room. Myself and Owen Farris, task force detective, looks exactly like Tom's size more from the movie Heat.

Solid dude. He's got an M4. We're the only two guys to go left. And now, you know, we're doing our, you know, he's a former SWAT guy. You know, doing a parking lot thing, cars, everything. And we're by yourself. From the opposite end of this long-ass wing comes our bad guy running. No towel.

Shotgun in his hand. Still has the backpack. And he refuses to get down. Now, the way he's headed, if he comes to the open-air breezeway at the top floor, all my guys are on the other end of that breezeway. That's where the room was. And this guy's got the shotgun. I mean, there's no cat in the bag now.

It's like, we're out in the open. This dude knows we're everywhere. And the most dangerous person, Ian, that we can face is somebody not scared to die. that's the most dangerous guy in the world or gal so owen and i fire at the exact same moment no reaction now it's about a 35 40 yard shot and he's running in front of hotel windows ATF hates enforcement actions at hotels the chances of innocent people in getting hurt and a gunfight the risk is elevated. So I'm purposely aiming for a headshot

is if I miss, the round is going to go high. It's going to go higher than the window at a lodge in the top floor ceiling. I'm not going to kill. Mom, crackhead with a two-month-old crackhead in her hands. First shot, no reaction from either of us. I'm like, okay, that might be a vested opponent. I don't know.

Second shot, no reaction. He's now almost where he's going to disappear out of sight and go down that open air towards my guys with a gun in his hand. Now, I've been on our SWAT team. I've been a firearms instructor for a few decades. And I say, I'm doing a very controlled trigger pull. I put his head on my front side. site, pumping on a post.

Very controlled trigger squeeze, bang, goes right down. Like, oh, let's go tag him and bag them. Let's grab them. Radio's still not working. But all our guys have heard all these shots going off, and they think that there's a raging gun battle going on, and no comms, bad. The police department has all the road spike strip.

They hear the shots, bad. They've already called for, like, every reinforcement you could get. Owen and I were doing our tactical thing up the stairwell. We go down to where I believe that I've headshot this guy. There's the shotgun. No bad guy. No blood. Like, huh.

So we go through the breezeway, you know, doing our little thing. Go on the other corner and there is a scene going on. I recognize our bad guy. He's on the ground. One of my former military guys, ATF agent, Tyree, he's getting a tourniquet on this guy and the guy's still fighting. And I'm looking at the ground. I've never seen a human being bleed this much and live, much less fight. There is two puddles of blood like the size of a car hood, you know, that thick blood, that arterial blood.

And this guy's still fighting. They get him rear cuffed. They get the turnigan on him. Apparently, when he broke the corner, and he was purported to have a second gun, and he's got his hand up as if, well, as soon as they break the corner, Jimmy Whitmy bunker is there.

He's got his gun out and the conga line behind him. And it's one of these, like, you have a half you have a quarter second to make a decision and jimmy took the one shot it went right through his uh brachial artery wow yeah high close the shoulder that is a tough wound to control uh to do um bleed stop to bleed but they do and uh you know we constantly trained with tourniquets everybody had multiple turnicates. We were voted probably the most likely to be in a shooting incident. So we had all of that stuff with us all the time.

This guy, this is what this guy says. He goes, you guys just killed me. I want a last meal. He goes, what do you want? I want a mountain dew. We'll get you one in the hospital. I got one in my bag. Get it in the hospital.

And that was that. Now, the funny cop humor in this story is, well, I should say I'm never home. Eight days a week I'm working. We're all over the place chasing these bad guys. I'm never home. I'm like the guy that comes home to cut the lawn and you might see me for dinner once a week. But my middle son, who was like in a second or third grade at the time, he, you know, He's a daddy's guy.

He loves hanging out with me. So he begs me, he goes, hey, the annual field trip to the zoo, they're asking for parents. Could you please do it? I know you're so busy, but could you please do it? Come to the zoo, come to the zoo.

I'm like, I don't care what's going on. I'll be there. So when I walk in the house at dawn after this craziness, he's bounding down the stairs and he goes, oh, dad, you're already dressed. We're going to the zoo. I'm like, God damn right, we're going to the zoo. And we did.

I took a selfie with him and I said, someday, I'm going to tell him the story, you know, backtrack 11 hours after this photo to the craziness that happened. When I go through the crime scenes before I get home, I'm like, what caused this guy to collapse? You know?

So the crime scene guys are like, Well, where was he standing when you took your third shot? He was right here at the corner, like right where the gun is, right there. And he goes, all right, look at the siding in the wall. It's like, bing, bing. It's like that dude, matrixed 240 cows. Like every beer's a victory beer for him. Like, but it's so scared the crap out of him, you know, having a bullet hit an inch in front

and an inch behind, you know, my second and third shot. That caused him to drop the gun. Now, I'd like to say that we would have won that gunfight. You know, even a busted clock is right twice a day. So we won that. I was able to call the troop commander and the trooper before midnight. It was like 1145 was the shooting. I'm like, all right, Sinkovsky's shot.

He's going to live. And the surgeon told us if you guys hadn't tourniqueted him up, he would have died then and there. I actually sent Skyler the crime scene photo after we carted them away where you see my bunker and, you know. We're almost halfway through the year, and a lot of people are running on empty without fully realizing it. Grow therapy helps you find care that's covered by insurance before burnout becomes the baseline. Whether it's your first time in therapy or your 50th, Grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you, not the other way around. They connect you with thousands of independent licensed therapists across the U.S.

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How many years were you on the job by the time you retired? God, when you added it all up, it was probably about 36, 35, 36 years. So Owen Farris, my battle buddy now, he had been. the Boy Scouts had a little unknown program called the Explorer program. So when I was in high school, I became a police cadet at a town police department, not far from where I lived. And if you went through some rudimentary training, this is like the 70s, unarmed, but you're in uniform.

You could go out on patrol as an observer with the uniform guys and just soak it in. Is this job for you? So when I said, well, if you count like my explorer time, it's like maybe 37, 38, well, Owen, it might retire. He goes, that's real time. He goes, I did the same thing in the fire department. That's real time. It sounds like a guy in prison adding up all his county jail time and everything where they're looking at their sheet. Yeah, so that would.

And my task force, like most ATF agents, well, most, definitely more than half. if you go through your career without shooting somebody or being in a gun battle. However, in less than five years that I had that task force before I retired, my task force, either one of our operations or we were assisting another unit, nine shooting incidents. Yeah. Wow. Oh, and the Kansas City Police Department can't say enough good things about them.

They had SWAT SWAT, but then they had like street narcotics tactical SWAT guys. We had a unit of like eight guys and sergeant assigned to the unit. Everywhere, every arrest, every surveillance, every enforcement action, I had a SWAT team that went everywhere that we went. And they were the shooters most of the time on these bad guys. just talent unbridled like they were

they were just like they were the sharp knife that got pulled out damn near every day so except for the hotel shooting the one night unavailable every craziness was going on

so when I'm standing up there at the hotel balcony at the guys getting in the ambulance I'm on the radio and there's one frequency that blasts out on like every, every radio. Now our radios are working again because I'm on a top floor. And I say 1981 on traffic, the emergency channel for the police department in Kansas City. Well, 1980 series is the gun squad.

1981 is the ATF supervisor. 1980 is the PD task force sergeant. So, oh, the ATF supervisors at midnight, you know. something's going awry. I said, we just been in shooting, bad guys down, good guys are good. We've got independence police out here. Everything's good, guys on the way, bad guys on the way to the hospital. We're just doing the scene.

The city, like, emptied out, like water out of a condo. Like, every dude that I had known over the past several years, they're like, when we heard your voice on the radio, we didn't care that you had said, I don't need anything further. We were all going out there. to that because whatever it was, it was going to be worth the price of admission. I'm like, hey, come on out. When you do this line of work for that long, what's a mental and physical tool you have, like even to this day?

I mean, you look great, you know, for your age physically. You know, it's the unseen trauma. There's just, you know, we see stuff that nobody should see. we have to do things that the vast majority of society would not want to be a part of. But we do it with an intensity. And like when we show up, you know, it's like every day is game seven. We're there because we want to be there. The, I mean, the physical tolls just if you're doing the J.O.B and you're out there, you're just going to

to have owies and injuries like both my shoulder rotator cuffs are torn the surgeon's like i could probably repair to tears but you have no cartilage left so you can do all the push-up keep doing your push-ups but no pull-ups no yoga none of that you're going to dislocate both of those shoulders before you drop dead and it's going to really hurt you're going to know when you do it and there's nothing i i'm like the surgeon you know telling you not to do anything it's like the airline pilot telling you to go take the train. So I've got that awesome. Like if I ever got jammed in a behind the back arm bar,

that would, like it would, there would be no doubt in either mind what just happened. That hurts. So the injuries are there. Also, I had worked 9-11 on the search. for remains for months and months. You know, I'm sure there's a price to be.

I mean, we've already had one ATF agent from New York diet cancer directly related to work that exact work. Many other, there's probably more cops and firemen that have died of cancer related to 9-11 than died on 9-11. Because on 9-11, you were either fine or you were dead.

There was no in-between. So there's that. I mean, as far as the mental trauma, I mean, from another shooting back in the 90s when I was detective in the DA's office, I had been attacked by two guys and I wound up shooting one. The other one ran away. So I've got this, to this day, you know, these, about an every two or three month nightmare, I'm in an inescapable. situation, I don't have my gun with me or my gun doesn't work or I can't get to where I need to be and there's only one way this is going to end and it's not going to be good for me. And it's all related to that and other incidents. To the point, like I literally almost sleep with my hands under the

covers because I don't want to accidentally have one of these dreams and like, you know, lash out and my wife's like, what's wrong with you? The kids, they know. If you got to wake up, dad, shake the foot. I'm like, do not come close arms reach to me because I don't want for half a second to think I'm under attack. And, you know, my daughter catches a left jab to the face.

So when you try explaining that to people, like, what the hell is wrong with you? I'm like, hey, I guess you had to be there. And I'll bring you back to the hotel shooting. You know, there was the whole thing. Dad, you're going to go to the zoo. So the police department mandates you fire your gun. You got to go see the police psychiatrist and mandatory.

Good. So they asked me, like, Eric, we know your ATF, but we're mandated to go. Will you come with us? Of course. So I'm in the room. A few hours, female psychiatrist, she's doing a great job. You know, all the, I've been through this before, hitting all the buttons. At the end of it, she goes, okay, I think everything is pretty squared away here.

But I'm going to point at each one of you, I'm going to ask you, is there anything else we need to talk about? Do you want to come back one-on-one? Is there anything else we need to discuss here and now? I'm going to go one by one. to me, to Owen, to sergeant, to, I think there was another sergeant there. Jimmy, my negotiator, who actually fired the shot into the guy, he does one of these, she goes, Jimmy, and he does that slow breath release, and he's looking at the ground, like, what?

And he goes, I got something, I got a problem. She goes, do you want to discuss it with us here? You want to come back? He goes, he says, no, I'll discuss it. He goes, I can't get an erection anymore unless I smoke gunpowder in the air. I'm just kidding. She goes, yeah, I know you're just kidding. But you're coming back.

We still joke about that to this day. It was like that perfect icebreaker on a bad situation. And I think the guy we shot Bid off seven years. six or seven years federally seven years and instantly reoffended on supervised release so he's back in prison I guess doing his full number whatever that is yeah just and you know what I wish the dude although I so we listened to his recorded calls and he's talking to his mother and he's like yeah I just really wanted them just to kill me like well I sure didn't act like that.

But that's what he told his mom, whether he meant it or not. I don't know. I mean, and that's the other great thing, Ian, we show up. We do the absolute level human capacity best. The way we do anything, it's the way we do everything. So we don't have harbor any of these feelings like, you know, I wish I could have done this better. I wish I could have done that better.

I should have done this, should have done it. It's like, you know what? You're in the moment. the man in the arena, you come up short again and again. You did your level best. You have nothing, hold your head high. The first guy I shot in Brooklyn, he wound up living unbelievably. He had so much crack in his system.

It kept him going. Crazy. But I'm comforted that I can say, hey, you know, I haven't actually killed somebody. And whenever I'm talking to a group, especially if college students or any young people, invariably, first question, have ever shot anybody? You ever kill anybody? And I'm like, let me tell you about the 50 guys that I could have shot, but didn't. We resolved the situation with nobody getting hurt. Everybody went on to live another day.

And those are the real ones. It's not just me. It's every cop, every law enforcement, it's like there are replete with the, examples, guys, yeah, absolutely, every checkbox totally would have been justified killing this guy, but I didn't. Just because you can doesn't mean you have to. And the vast majority of those situations,

they get de-escalated, they get, you know, we're going to figure this out. And more proud of those instances where the mouth talked everybody down and everybody lived another day. Some of them didn't live too many more days, but, you know, we figured that out. In retirement, my daughter fancied herself, Edward Van Halen, pink strat, the whole get-up.

I'm taking her to guitar lessons at Guitar Center, strip mall. This is the stuff. This is the crazy stuff that happens in retirement. I would go out to the sidewalk, do all my phone calls, emails, the business, the craziness. Well, at the end of the sidewalk is a Chucky Cheese. And it's daylight.

And I've already seen the parents, parents, parents, little kids, they're going in for a typical kids party at Chucky Cheese. And then I see a grown, you know, 20-ish guy. He's on the sidewalk and he's like dancing, jumping up and down, looking in the windows. and I think the words I used to describe it was he was furiously masturbating himself looking in the windows of Chuckie Cheese

at this birthday party, you know, like first graders. And I'm like, you know what? I'm a plumber now. I don't have quite the guardrails that I did have. And I'm armed. I don't mowed a lawn without a gun. So now he looks up the sidewalk because it's just me. That's it.

And him. And he starts his little dance towards me. And I'm like, I'm not looking for a problem. But if you visit one on me, this is what I've been missing for a long time. And you want to do this at a first grader's birthday party? you know what I'm not saying what's going to happen but he resisted there was some resistance and you know there was I had to hold this guy for the real cops to show up but I do the right thing I call 911 and I actually call my buddy Owen Ferris who had now been a uniform sergeant

in that zone I send the guy over here right now this dude and he comes up to me and just like dances around, says something, is obviously blasted out of his mind, meth, and he goes into a Best Buy. Uniform guy comes, they grab him, he's arrested, he's living in an hotel room, he's got, you know, small quantity of meth, he gets locked up, and he's got a warrant.

Good. The detective, who catches this case says, well, you know, do you want, you know, you want to give me a statement, and you just want to, like, you know, forget. I'm like, I'll give you a statement, I'll come down and write the statement. I'm like, yeah, I'm all in.

Retired, doesn't matter. This guy thinks he can do this. That's beyond the norm, okay? So then I get a call, I do the statement. I get a call a few weeks later from a buddy of mine in Independence Police Department. They go, hey, you know, we came across this name and we saw a report that was filed

with your name on it, the statement. I'm like, yeah. I'm like, yeah, that guy's getting charged. And he goes, well, we just found him in the middle of the street. Hogtied with a bullet in the back of his head. Apparently, some others were more upset with them. And that's how his day ended. Holy cow.

Yeah. Did they catch you guys? What's the first question out of my old task force? Hey, where were you? Yeah. That's like some movie stuff right there. I, Ian, I, like, all my different task force, like the guys and gals would say, like, dude, you've got the black cloud. Like, things just happen around you.

Like, things just happen. On 9-11s, we got additional ATF people up. I'm with some of my old SRT guys. We're driving on the FDR northbound, lower Manhattan. It's like eight, four lanes here, four lanes there. And we're talking about this like black cloud thing. And I said, look, see all the way on the other side, off the southbound lane, see that guy sitting on that park bench with a backpack.

If you guys were not with me, that dude would be getting robbed right now. And then I would, you know, and nobody would believe it. I know sooner say those words. Then the dude comes up and jacks this guy for the backpack, cracks them and runs. Holy cow. Yeah. Everybody just looked at me like, did that just happen?

And I'm like, that's what I'm talking about. And that dude was gone. You know, we got uniform guys to help the victim and all that. But I'm like, yeah, okay? I don't know what it is. You've lived some life, Eric. I mean, just craziness. A guy escaped prison to, you know, pay me a visit.

he he didn't get killed but he's dead now but he he got grabbed what a gun well we definitely have to have you back on for a part too with all with your insane life and the stories that come with it i i can't tell you how much i appreciate the opportunity the you know value add to your adventure here with you know maybe some things that people you know haven't heard kind of that slant. I tell you, I love that guy Pike that you interviewed. Jeff Pike, he was great. That dude epitomized like everybody on my task force, his attitude, his go-getter. I'm like, if that guy wasn't in Virginia and he was in Brooklyn or Kansas City, I would have got him on my task force. I would have recruited him. And you know,

his dad was one of the deputy U.S. Marshals. I listened to the whole thing. Like to be one of 93 judicial districts, it's a political appointment. but it's not a bullshit political point. Like you had to have credentials to not only be nominated, but to be Senate confirmed and sit in that position. You're the leader of the entire marshal service

for that judicial district. Like, you got hard chargers under you. You know, if you want to play cowboy, you better have the hat. Yeah. Well, Eric, I appreciate you coming out here today. I appreciate the awesome gift and I appreciate your ability to tell a story. The audience is really going to love this episode. I, you know, it's still a blast to recount. You know,

there were plenty of bad times, but the crazy stories and the stuff that people like wouldn't believe unless they were there. But yeah, that stuff happened. Awesome. Well, you enjoy the rest of your day with Maddie Ice. I can't thank you enough. We'll see you again soon. And, and, and, and good luck on your adventure. Yeah, I'm heading to Saudi Arabia today.