Locked In with Ian Bick - Poker Machine Crime Enforcer | Paul Schiffbauer Sr.

Episode Date: September 10, 2023

Army veteran Paul Schiffbauer, Sr. got a civilian job that led him to a criminal enterprise. Hired to collect money from vending machines, Paul was soon in on the real purpose of his company — to run an illegal gambling operation. This was the early ‘90s in Maryland, and video poker games were only supposed to be used for “amusement” purposes. Paul moved up in the organization and ended up lobbying politicians, making “political donations” that were really pay-offs, and racketeering, money laundering, fraud, extortion, and bribery. Paul wrote a book about his experiences called “Amusement Only” and talks with Ian about his life 30 years ago and what he’s up to now. Big thank you to FACTOR for sponsoring this episode. Go to: FACTORMEALS.com/lockedin50 and use code lockedin50 to get 50% off your first box. Connect with Paul Schiffbauer Sr.: https://www.youtube.com/@pigeonface Connect with Ian Bick:  https://www.ianbick.com/ 00:00 Intro  00:40- 01:01:20 (FACTOR AD)  02:20 Childhood  04:14 Military and wanting to be a FBI Agent  06:30 Connection to the Vending Business and Start 14:44 Growing up middle class 18:34 Why Law Enforcement? 19:19 Operations of the Vending Machine business  25:16 Finding out he’s doing something illegal 34:05 Gambling Machines 37:10 First Raid reaction and Blackmail 40:12 Factor AD 42:17 Politicians able to Diverge Laws  50:45 Engaging in Illegal Activities  59:01 Enforcer  1:09:24 Wire Tapped and FBI investigation  1:22:09 Relief of avoiding any trouble  Subscribe to our membership program on YouTube to get early access to interviews, see behind the scenes photos, live chat with Ian & more: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRvVklIft6DMelVW18M0oBw/join Powered by Q29 Productions, LLC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Sit back, relax, and enjoy my interview with Paul Schiffauer, Senior. Paul, welcome to Lockton. Thanks for having me here. Thank you for coming. What did you drive three or four hours to make it? out here. I think it was about 18. 18. Oh, wow. It was five hours. It was a nice trip. I didn't realize coming up here how many mountains they were. Yeah, this is, anytime we have a guest that comes from a far distance, they're always saying how like in the middle of nowhere this place is. And usually I drive

a lot of the guests from the airports. They think I'm kidnapping them every time, but it's a good icebreaker. But it was neat coming, you know, coming around. I'm thinking, I thought we'd see more city, which is, you know, we didn't really see. You don't see the city all the way we came up. because you think New York, New York City, Manhattan, when we have people coming from, like, other states, that's what they're expecting to see. They're not flying into the New York City airports, and then they're just, like, surprised that this is New York

because you hear just like city, industrial, all that. But awesome, pleasure to have you here. Let's jump into it. Beginning of your story, where are you from? Where were you born? Where did you grow up? I was born in Baltimore. A neat little fact.

I was born March 26, 1967, Easter Sunday. Easter Sunday. That's why my parents named me Paul. Not that they're overly religious, but they thought Easter Sunday. When I was four, my had an older sister who was six, my parents thought something was wrong with me. I didn't talk. I didn't cry. I didn't carry on.

I didn't do anything. So they took me to the doctors. And when I get to the doctor, he says, you just have a good kid, you know, because my sister's nickname was Hurricane. She was all over the place. And he's like, no, you just have a good kid, you know. So then I'll tell a little story. When I was six, you know, I was talking more, getting ready to go to school. You know, it's half day in kindergarten.

And my mother, it's back, my mother's 80 years old. She was reminding me of this a couple weeks ago. She goes, you remember your first day of school? And it's six, you really don't. And she goes, yeah, we get to school when you're like, you know, holding in not to cry. And she's like, Paul, if you don't cry, after school, we'll get you whatever you want. And I'm like, thinking, thinking, it's like, what do you want?

And I said, a Coke and a knife. It was a plastic knife, you know. And they were like, okay, so I got out of school and they gave me a Coke and a knife. So the knife kind of stuck with me because I was always interested in weapons. And the transition from that is when I got out of high school. I was an honor student, National Honor Society up the 10th grade, 11th and 12th grade. you know you get involved with the kids and you know you stray you know I never had a C in my life till 10 like 11th grade and then a couple Ds in 12th grade but I was trying to fit in so I'm like you know

what you know I want to be a fed that's my goal in my high school yearbook I wrote you know uh military I was going in the U.S. Army uh criminal justice degree and hopefully FBI it's written in my yearbook I couldn't uh plan it better if I wanted to make a movie or something just kind of crazy you know So, you know, I go in the military and my job, I pick a skill job to be basically a gunsmith. So I'm thinking like, okay, to further trying to get the FBI, I have the military background. I had a top secret security clearance because of my job. And when I get out, you know, I'll get out, transition, you know, to be trying to be a Fed. So after I got out of the military immediately, you know, I'm trying to become a couple of

cop right away. Baltimore Police, Baltimore County, the state, and Toronto County. I'm trying all of them. And I'm working in the process, too, at a hotel where I eventually meet my fiance and my wife and my future boss when I was involved in the vending business. So, you know, doing the thing, doing the thing. And then, of course, you get sidetracked when you're in a relationship. So I passed a lot of the things with the police and all, and I'm just kind of waiting, wait, waiting, waiting, waiting. And this is going into meeting my wife or dating and all. So at that point, we're getting serious, and she starts inviting me around these family

outings. And there's always two people there that everybody went to, you know, gravitate towards. And it was a guy named Phil, who was a Baltimore County Liquor Board Judge. He ended up being the longest serving judge out there. And Sonny, who was my future brother-in-law, future boss. And they always sat in the back and they talked, they talked lingo, that people really didn't understand and all. And they started asking me questions early on when I was going to these functions.

And to mind you, I'm still trying to city police, get in there, school, I'm going to go to school. That's my career. That's what I want to be. And they start to ask me questions and this and that. and they find out, you know, you're thinking like, this guy wants to be a, you know, a cop and a Fed, he's, he's a straight shooter, you know.

And Sonny's thinking like, and Phil's thinking like, you know, he'd be a good guy to, you know, help you with their business because it's all cash. It's, you know, the vending business, it's all. At that time, it's just cash. There's no credit card machines. It's just strictly cash. So, you know, after about five or six times, you know,

these parties, they had a party. It was crazy. my buddy Phil who were friends to he died. He was, my kids called him Uncle Phil. He wasn't family, but he was family to the business. And family to us in a sense. He had actually walked my wife down the aisle when we got married. That's how close you were.

So, you know, eventually, you know, they talked me and they taken this job. And under the premise that, you know, there was an 18-month, a two-year-old to become a cop. And that was the first step, become a cop. get in there, finish my schooling, criminal justice, and then move on. Either go the ballistic route with the FBI through my Army career or try to be a field agent. Either one, that's what I wanted to do. So one night, you know, I think, okay, maybe I'll work for these guys. So one night I'm at the hotel.

This is probably almost a year into dating. We're a serious now because we're planning a wedding. And Sonny had came in the hotel. He would stay there a couple nights a week for business because he would be in town to do collections. You know, and all the collections were done early in the morning because you wanted to do it early because you don't want to get stuck up. You know, because there's always a risk of that. And he always said, I want to be out early before people start stirring, you know, get in and out. So he came to a hotel this one night and he's like, hey, you know, I got off at 11.

And he said, hey, can you come up to my, you know, my. hotel room and he got off and I'm like yeah yeah I'll come up so I'm thinking like I'm pretty sure he's gonna offer me a job or asked me to do something for him and my my fiancee my wife now I say I think so too just listen to what he has to say so I get off I go up there and he's sitting in the room he was a big smoker I mean he smoked I mean he's always smoking I mean every because back then you could smoke everywhere he always had a cigarette his mouth and I go up there and he's talking about immediately his business what he does I have an event company. I bought it for a couple years and, you know, I have some problems. I'm dealing,

it's all cash. We're talking, you know, he wasn't one of the biggest operators, but he was pretty big. I mean, he was making 50, 60,000 a week, you know. It's a lot of money, it's a lot of money in the sense that you place poker machines out in bars and restaurants and there's really no work. You know, you loan him some money, they sign a five-year contract, and you just collect the money. occasionally they break down you fix him you do whatever so he's telling me at the business and they had pool tables and jukeboxes and things like that too and so he says i like you to come work for me you know i'm thinking like well you know i want to be a you know a fed and this and that i don't know if i said i don't know if this is for me because you know the is there a legality with these poker machines

and he's trying to say oh it's a gray area and it was it was a gray area because these things at that time were classified as amusement-only devices. Like what you would see with the rental company is that? Like a Pac-Man machine. Yeah. You know, there's amusement only. It was only illegal if you got caught paying off on them. Like exchanging money.

Yeah. It was gambling, you know. So, you know, he said, so, you know, and I said, well, I'm not sure what I want to do. And so he had this briefcase by the floor. He lays this briefcase up and he pops it open. And there's stacks, I mean, there's stacks of money in this briefcase. It's like six stacks bundled. Boom, boom, boom, boom.

And I'm looking at it. And he goes, this is my, he had a partner time, because this is my cut for the week. And I said, you know, it's a lot of money. So he grabs a stack and he throws it to him, you know, catch it. It's $5,000, you know, bundled up, you know. I said, man, this is more money that I made my first year in the Army. Yeah, it's $5,000.

He goes, you know, he's like, I trust you. I think I know you. And he goes, I want you come work for me. And he says, you know, starts you out. You can go, you can, you'll start working with the cigarette guy. You'll run the cigarette route. You work with every guy because it was important that every single account knew my face. You know, because you just don't wear a shirt that says Bob's vending and you're walking there

and you're opening the machine that has $10,000. It doesn't work like that. Everybody had to know me. So I'm like, I don't know. You know, I'm holding this money thinking. He goes, he goes, I'll tell you what. And at the time, you know, Baltimore City Police was starting. This was 1990.

I think the starting salary was 21,000 a year, which I guess that was decent. Coming out of the Army, I think I was making my last year in the Army, I was making $899 a month. But they were paying all your expenses, like living, food. Oh, yeah, if I lived in the barracks here, I wasn't married. So if you live in the barracks, you got food, you have to buy your own clothes. I mean, but you had food, you had medical, you had shelter, and you had all the, all the, uh, tent space you want when you go play war games. I mean, because you're constantly, I was in Germany of three and a half years.

There was still a threat of the Russian, so we played a lot of war games and we, uh, we trained a lot. I mean, so we spent a lot of times in the woods. So how old are you when they offer you this $5,000? Well, I was 23, so. That's a lot of money for a 23-year-old. So this is what he did. He says, it wasn't just a five, thousand dollars he goes I'm holding it and he says what if I start you I'll start

you at thirty five thousand dollars a year and I'm thinking like thirty about that I don't know anything about this business like you know the police could have started 21 I think the feds at the time were probably 30-ish maybe at that time and I see goes and you know Phil he's a judge he knows everybody in Baltimore County Phil knew everybody he was at there so long at Baltimore County he knew city city officials He knew state senators, state congressmen. I mean, he was a big man.

I joked. He rubbed elbows with everybody. So he was a guy, family, but he knew everybody. If we needed to talk to somebody or straighten something out or get something squared away, he would point us in the right direction. So he offers me $35,000 a year. And I'm thinking like, and he goes, look, in 18 months, say two years, so we'll get you right in there.

You know, he works for Baltimore County. He's a judge there. He'll get you in there. No job. Yeah, no job. He'll get you in there. And I said, I said, okay, you know, if you think it's safe and it's not going to cause me any problem with my, you know, future career, I'll take it, you know.

So I get ready to throw the money back to him. He said, no, that's all yours brother. He goes, that's a bonus, sign a bonus. I'm like, you're giving me, I just haven't worked a day for you. You're giving me five grand. He goes, yeah, it's all your brother. He goes, tell. Tell my future wife, don't tell her, I don't care.

That's your mind of you keep it. And I'm like thinking like, I'm like kind of like on this high like, man, you know, because I never had $5,000 at that point ever, let alone having it in my hands. So that's kind of how he got me involved in the business. You didn't think there was any red flagged at that point? Or does the money just consume your mind that it alleviates any red flags? You know, the money, like I said, I wasn't as stupid. I was an honor student and all.

But I'm thinking like, how can I, you know, maybe I can use them in a way, make some money, try to stay out of trouble. And eventually I'll get in, you know, he'll do what he said. Phil will pull some strings and I'll get in the police department and then move on with what I want to do. But there's always a catch. Did you guys grow up with money? No. No, my dad, my dad worked three jobs of us growing up. Starting out when I was a kid, I don't remember this.

He was a milkman. He was one of these guys who came to your house. With the glass bottles? In the little thing. Yeah, he was, that's what he did. He was a milkman when we were kids. And he teased, he always had this story. He had terrible scars on his calves.

And I'm like, Dad, why do you have all the? He goes, well, certain houses. where I would deliver milk, you know, they had dogs. At one house, the two donut dog, one was a three, so we'd throw these donuts, and he knew one dog would be three donuts, one, two, three. And he'd run, you'd run, get the bottles and leave, but sometimes he'd get bit. One time he got bit so bad, I mean, that the, and he never was, like, suing anybody. My dad was like old school. He just, he just would deal with it. And he was cut pretty bad, and the people insisted they paid all those medical bills and all.

But then later on, as I got older, he ended up working for General Motors, which was a good job. He had 38 years there, and he retired from that. But at a young age, we all had to work, like I worked at 14 because they didn't have, if I went to go to the movies twice a week, they couldn't afford that, my parents, because there were three other kids. I mean, they could send me once, but if I wanted to go two or three times, I'd have, you know, I had to have some money. So we all, all my brothers and sisters, we all had that work ethic where we would, we started working early and we'd do whatever we had to do. So, um, side story was like my mother would make comments when I was, uh, when I got in that business. And she, she was fine out about it. She always did. She would make comments, you know, like, you know, I wasn't, you know, I was born yesterday. I wasn't born yesterday, but I know about this stuff at all. And she said, she told me one day. And she goes, Paul, she goes, when you were a kid, you were a kid, you know, I was born yesterday.

you know, some of the neighborhood kids would come over that my mother didn't like. She goes, I wouldn't let you play with them. You were sick. You couldn't come out. You were getting a bath. She goes, these people you're running around with now are those kids that I refuse to let you play with. You know, parents, no. They have that sense.

They know. I would, my dad would do that back in the day. Like, he would, I got a bad feeling about this group of kids. And they're right. And, of course, when you're younger, you're like, ah, you don't know what you're talking about. They're good people. I get the same things from my, my sons. Yeah, I'm sure you do that to your kids. You know, and they're like, Dad, you know, like, yeah, I do know what I'm talking about. I've been through a few things. Yeah. But yeah, there's always a catch with, with the money. And so the quick thing,

two weeks later, I gave my notice at the hotel because my wife was my boss. And I gave me two weeks, and then I'm in the business. I'm there. I show up. And which I thought was I when I show up, partner didn't know anything about this. He didn't know he just hired me and he didn't know he hired me that 35 grand a year. He's like we don't pay our top mechanics 35,000 hours here, this guy off the street, which I'm going to be family. I'm going to be his, you know, I'm his future brother law. So, you know, Sonny ran things, you know, like sunny would pull me aside. He goes, look, you know, I was the president, CEO, vice president, I'm the treasurer. And he said, I'm the treasurer for a reason because if they kick the door and

They're not getting me. They're getting the president of the country. Now, mind you, Sonny was like a genius. He's like 140, you know, but his whole mindset was all the years when I was picking things up was about crime. It was about how he can make money, you know, how he can do things. And I kind of picked that up, picked that up, picked that up, picked that up, picked that. So eventually I kind of worked my way out of it down the road. Why do you think you wanted to go into law enforcement so bad?

I mean, I wanted to help people. I mean, it's like... But was that the real reason, like, looking back on it, or did it, like, see the cool? Probably because I wanted to carry gun. Is that that that was it? Yeah, but I carried a gun anyway. I think, I mean, we were talking earlier. I wanted to be an FBI agent all through high school up until, like, sophomore year until I started planning events.

I was, like, fixated on it. And it's interesting that to become an FBI agent, you need to have, like, top grades. Like, the academics need to be there. I mean, and, like, have, like, nothing on your record. I mean, like, no blemishes. And I didn't have... I still don't know. Well, I still don't have a record, per se. I mean, I mean, but, you know, there's incidents where it could have been bad, but I got out of certain things. So now that you're older and you're looking back on it, do you realize that you kind of like threw away your childhood dreams to go down this path over essentially money in a way because you got fixated on that?

Yeah, I really got, I mean, I got two things that got me sucked in was being 23 and, you know, when you were 23 and you had money. Well, I was in prison at 23. Oh, sorry. Okay. Well, well, you. You know, they would take, you know, it was like a wine and dining type thing. And I always say, too, it was kind of like cops and robbers. Because when I got in it really knew the business, we were always, you know, we wouldn't say certain things on the phone. We all had radios in our cars, you know. We wouldn't say certain things on the radios.

We always watched when we went in and out of accounts, who was around. If we were out drinking, because part of the job was, you know, because part of the job was, going out drinking and bars trying to get accounts because we have accounts that you want to keep a lot of them are under contract but you can risk losing them on the contracts up so you're always trying to draw more more accounts in which which cost money but um you know part of what sucked me in it besides the money was when we went out to some of our clubs we had a lot of little rinketing bars corner bars and all but we had nightclubs too that we you know they gave my hundred grand load of hundred grand that put put potting machines in there when we would walk a little bit of money

in these places were packed. You know, I'm, you know, I'm 23. I'm walking in, you know, and he had the gold, you know. He looked like, he looked like a May guy. I mean, he wasn't. I mean, all these guys, all these operators were, it was organized, but it wasn't, it was organized crime, but it wasn't Lecoa or Noster. It wasn't the Italian mob, but they all met and they all knew each other.

But so when we would walk in these clubs, he'd bring me in there, I mean, we'd walk in, they're like, the bartender, you, you, you, get up. And these guys are like, what the fuck? And they're like getting mad. They're like, get up. They're like thinking like, what the fuck we get up? And sometimes these are big dudes.

I'm thinking like, man, I've got to fight for deceit. And what are we doing? And so they get, they go, they're machine men. Oh shit, they get up. They just jump up because they knew, you know, we're called machine men, because there's poker machines and this and that. We carried money. And like I said, eventually after a few months, I started carrying.

carrying guns. Why did they call it a vending machine business, though? Because... Was that the front for the whole thing or the cover-up? The front, it was actually, it was legal. It was legal to have a vending company. And but vending at, you guys weren't doing like chips or like chips and sodas, right? Yeah, initially they had coffee and snack, but they got rid of that because there's no money in that. So they shifted it very quickly. They had coffee and snacks and they also had the vending business. So when he, when Sonny bought in two years before I got involved, he sold all the coffee and snacks because you're making pennies. Okay.

The money was, you know, we had 110 cigarette stops. And like 55 were bars where we had poker machines, jukeboxes, things like, and that's where you make all your money. That's where like the push, the old cigarette machines. I was in Texas a couple months ago. You push it or you pull the handle. Most of them were you pull the handle or you have the big ones where you push it. And that was back when bars you could smoke in the bars. Yeah.

And we had them in like convenience stores. We had them in like, you know, catering halls. I mean, we had them everywhere. But, you know, the thing was these things, you know, were legal under the guise of amusement hourly. So when you showed up on this first day, is it like a warehouse? Yeah. Like you're 23 years old.

It's crazy. The guy, his co-owner didn't know I was coming in. The secretary is like, she's trying to ask me questions. He was like, just sit down. And then, but he had all the guys there, all the guys that worked there. Now, mind, you just don't, you don't come off the street saying, hey, I want to come work for you. It don't work like that. because of the, you know, the illegality of things you're doing.

But you didn't know anything was illegal at the time. You might have had suspicion. Yeah, I had suspicion. He kind of put it as, I'll just, you know, you'll run the cigarette route, which is, you know, it's legal. You'd burn cigarette route, you know. And that was normal, yeah. Normal. And then you help my move, move machines around and maybe learn to fix them.

So you thought it was a regular full-time job? A regular gig. I'm going to do it 18 months and two years. I'm going to make $35,000 a year. And you're happy. I'm happy. My future wife's happy. We're saving for a house.

You have no kids yet at this time. No kids yet, no, no. So I go in the shop, and it's a bunch of rag-tag guys back there, you know. I mean, it's, you know, the cigarette guy, we call it him Buttman Dave. Cigarette butts, butt, man Dave. And it had a night mechanic we call it two-gun-ow. This guy had carried two guns, you know. The mechanic carried two guns.

Why is a mechanic carrying gun? That's not a red flag? Well, yeah, then again, another red flag. I mean, I was seeing these things. but I'm you know you're like you know the money maybe buying I can deal with this I'll deal with this for two years because I'm not going to be doing all that you know I'm telling him I'm not going to be doing all that and then the day mechanics and then the collector so I and he tells all the guys back there you know you're going to I had to run with everybody you know because everybody had to know me every all the bartenders all the bar owners you know every single account cigarette accounts they had to know who I was you know like I said, because anybody can come in with a set of keys and say, oh, I work for a Joe's vet. I've never seen you before.

I've had them call, like, when I was new and I had keys on my own, and they weren't familiar, maybe it was a different bartender there. They would call the shop. Do you have a guy that looks like this, says his name, says, you know, just to make sure they wouldn't let you go near the machine, thinking I'm going to steal, rob or something. Yeah. Just to verify.

So I did all that. I ran with everybody, everybody got to know me, and then it started getting interesting when I was getting ready to do the collections. And I think the very first time that I'm realizing, because you're talking about the illegality, was when I'm running with a guy named Rob, he's a mechanic and he's a mover. He's this big black fella. He's like 6'4, 380 pounds. And Sonny's telling me, he goes, you know, you get him out there, you move his ass, you make

can move I'm like, who hell's making this guy move? He's 380 pounds. He's six foot four, you know. So I show up at the shop early and we're moving, we're supposed to move some equipment around. So we're taking off and then we hear over the radio, it's Janice. She radio, she's radio and Sonny says, we got hit. The 19th hole we got hit. Police are there. I'm listening in because we can hear all the conversation and Sonny's like, he knew me and robber in the truck. You guys get down there. They gave us 15 minutes to open, come down to open machines up or they'd smash them up with sledgehammers. That was being nice, because usually they didn't.

They smashed the shit out and take all the money at them, take the computer board, then they call you up and say, come clean your mess up. And each machine was about $2,500. But these guys said, they gave us a courteous. 15 minutes show up, open them up, you know, so. The cops. The cops. So they notified you got 15 minutes.

We were close, thank God. Why do they need to get into the machines? They're taking all the money. It's a raid. Oh, but I thought that part's the illegal part of the business, no? Yeah. See, this place got popped paying off a cop. So they were just taking everything. So what they do is they go in there, you know, they act like, and these guys that are undercover, you wouldn't know.

They got long beards. They look like. Like the movies. They look like vagrants, you know. And so this guy was in there playing a machine and he got, he was at, you hang for a while. You try to get to know the bartenders are on. You got paid off. And so they get the warrants

So they come in That they're doing a raid They come in there They're doing a raid So we get down there And it was the craziest thing I tell the story And one of the stories

I have out there And we walk in the place They're like, who the fuck are you? And we're like We're in his big trucks Says Bill's amusement Like we fucking work For the vending company

And so Sonny told Rob Tell Paul don't say shit Because I wasn't been on a raid Before I would just start To learn everything This is the first interaction with police So he goes, don't say shit.

Say as little as possible. They ask you something, you just move equipment around. So we go in there, and it's fucking nuts. We go in there, and it's like it's snowing inside the bar. I'm like, what the fuck is going on in here? They have the ceiling towels, and the cops are in here with a pool stick. They're banging these towels. Bang, I'm like thinking, what are fucking banging these towels?

And like the flakes are coming down everywhere. So me and Rob will walk in. Who has the, who have the keys? Rob raises his hand. They'll come up with these machines up. And we're just thankful they didn't smash the machines up because they're tearing his fucking bar up. And while they're tearing a bar up,

because they're looking for the register. Because when you get rated, they associate every penny in that bar with illegal gambling. So they're going to take your register money, any money in the save. They clean you out. They take all the money out of the machines,

every penny in that bar. Even though it's owned by a different company, the machines. Yeah. Yeah, because it says on the machine for amusement only, we don't condone gambling. We just put it in there, you know. So that's the cover for the operators, you know. So they stop knocking these tiles down and one guy's behind the bar.

Just give us a drawer. Give us your money. Then we'll get the fuck out of here. They got the money out of machines. It was like $3,000. They put it on the bar. They can count it. They give you a ticket.

Give the owner a ticket. The owner are not us. And then they're dumping out his coffee. They're dumping out his sugar. They start smashing bottles. Then they go back and knocking the towels. And I'm thinking like, what the fuck? So in the meantime, I could pull aside by one of the cops.

And I'm like, like, holy shit, what's you know? He's, who are you? I'm like, I just started working here. I'm just moving equipment around. And I was nervous. And he's like, give me your ID. I give my ID. I am shaking.

Give my ID. And because I never really, I mean, not speeding tickets at all, but not like this kind of interaction, you know, because I'm realizing at this point, hey, this is right, this is fucking right. These guys are you getting rated. So he pulled with me, sighs, asked me questions. What do you do for a company? I said, officer, I just started.

I'm just moving equipment around. I don't, you know. You know, they're using these machines for gambling and said, I don't know anything about that. I just move them around, you know. And he's like, how long have you been doing this? I said a couple months, he's like, you need to find another lot of work. That's what he told me. Wow.

So I go about my way, so there's still messing, they're still knocking the place up. There's tearing these towels up. And then Rob finally gets the ass and says, officer in the floor drain. The money's in the floor drain. So the owner of the place, I think his name was Gerald Robinson. He screams at Rob, starts calling him all kinds of names. So the cop goes behind the bar. He pulls the drain out of the floor, and there's a mason jar in there.

There's $1,500 in there. That's where he hit his money at night. He didn't have a save. He put in the mason jar, put it in the drain. Who's going to bust in the joint think there's money in a drain? So he's costing, and then he stopped banging a place up. That's all they wanted. Just give him the money up.

So he leaves, and this is how it works. And I'll explain it through Rob telling Jarrell. So the police are like, okay, and we're waiting around. They're like, okay, they got the boards, they got the money. There's a circuit board. Rob, let's Rob take the circuit board out. We're normally just, would tear it out and destroy the machine. He let him take a circuit board out.

He gives it to him. And then we're standing around waiting. And they're like, what are you waiting for? Rob goes, we're just waiting. Just waiting. So they put the paperwork down and Rob's like, you guys finished? He's like, yeah, we're done. So they leave the paperwork on the bar to the enter and they walk out.

They're done. So this is how they operate. So Drell starts hauling it raw. Hey, why did you tell them about the 15? hundred bucks he's like look dude they're gonna find that money and it they're gonna break everything in his bar up until they found that money and he says this is how this is how it works this is how all the operators work it's not written down so if i if we we that account we loan like 25 or they loan 25 grand over you know they got five years of paid back so and they get

their money back pretty quick within a year so you get your money back within a year you take a five hundred a week or whatever then you have four-year ride you know that you know. So he told him, you know, the deal is it's not written down because it implicates the operators, the vendors, that if you get rated, if they get rated, what happens is, you know, they come in, Sonny came down with two boards for one. So Rob puts these boards back, a machine locks it up, boom, we're up and running. As soon as they walk out, 15 minutes later, we're up and running. So he gets a receipt, $3,000 from the poker machines, counts out $1,500, bucks gives it to the borrower that that would be his app you know so we eat the 15 grand

and then he said what do you take kind of money you take for your wretched 500 bucks 1500 bucks your whole he gives them a business card what's this this is the lawyer that's going to represent you in court that we take care of so it's not costing them anything but grief and rob had told him you know why he showed him where the money was because Sonny had to pitch in for the damage, you know, for all the towels and some other shit. So Rob tried to stop a bad situation from the place where they're getting wrecked up by these guys. So, you know, they were a front for us. They were gambling for us.

Nod, nah, no, went awake. We were just, hey, we just put it, we didn't, we didn't know there's gambling going on in there. Is that, was it an old saying in a hopper you go, book, Bocard, maybe I think, there are gambling going on in here, you know? I think it's a little, I think it's a little, I think it's a little, I think it's a little, I think It's an old movie. It's something like that. So this is like your real sense, your real taste that there's something illegal going on. That's like six months, six months in it. And I didn't like the fact that they had my name. But I wasn't being drugged the court. It was just the owner of the bar. But like said, he's covered. He's got a lawyer.

We pay the court cost. He was whole with all the money he lost. The lawyer's being paid for, courts being paid for, fines are being paid for. he's up and running. He's back in the business. So your company, your boss's company pays for all that because they need to keep him going. Yeah. And that's how they all operate it. That's how all the operating. Now, what kind of gambling games are they? Are they slots or they just like, what is it?

They're cabinet poker machines. The two ones that we, the two ones that we had out there, your standard five-card draws. There weren't, there weren't handles, because that's too much sloddy, you know. Buttons, you know, hit a button, put your money in. Is it digital? Is there?

Yeah, screen rolls. Is it like an old Pac-Man system? Just trying to picture. It's an old, if you Google, you know, old poker, it's just five-card draw. They don't exist anymore? Oh, they're still out there. Oh, yeah, there's still out there. And then the other ones we have were called eight-line machines where you had, you could bet eight lines.

And they would spin, you know, it would spin and you'd get bell bonus and things like that. So that's the kind of machines they were. And like I said, every once in a while, you know, the political people would try to out. long, you know, so we would try to stay ahead of them through, through connections and they, we would bribe them, but they call political donations, you know? So aren't these, are these machines, like if a cop goes up and plays it, does it, does it on the outside look like it's just like an imaginary winning and not a real winning? Because that's a gambling aspect if there's actual money being exchanged.

Well, the only way, how you get popped, this is how you get popped because I had, I had, my bar was called the Curb Shop, I owned it 23 years, never got popped. So you had these machines too. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. When I got out, I kept my bar and I kept my machines for myself. Okay, and we'll get into that. Yeah, yeah.

But, you know, what happens is for you to get busted, three things have to happen. So you're playing the machine, playing a machine, playing a machine. Okay, you see, say, 2,000 points of cure. You know, you want to. So if it's a quarter machine, 25%, it's 500 bucks, right? So what the police, the police have to see these things happened. They have to see, so that means they have to sit in close proximity to where the machines are.

And a lot of our bars, we had machines like angled, like certain ways where, at least in my place, they were in the corner and the front. There weren't any seats close. So if you're playing the machines, the nearest seat was like maybe eight, nine feet away. So you really got to like, you know, so you know you're a cop, you know. So the cops have to see the points secure, you know, acquire 2,000 points. Then they have to see the points disappear because we had knockoff switches. Like car, you know, a garage door opener. We had it behind the bar. So if somebody would hit the machine, usually like at my place, they were trained.

I said, just sit your ass down. Don't say a fucking thing. And they would sit there. And then when I thought it was clear, I would get them the money. If there was somebody, one person at bar didn't know, I didn't get it. money money. So the cops had to see the points disappear. Then they had to see you physically handing them money. And that always came from the bartender? The bartender. Interesting. So it doesn't come from the machine like it is now. No, no, nothing spits out. So wasn't that sophisticated.

No, nothing spits out of the machine. But do they insert money into you? Oh yeah, I take it. But that's fine for amusement purposes. Bill acceptor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, bill acceptor. Yeah, yeah. Okay. That's cool. So now at that moment when this raid, this first raid you experienced happens, what do you think is going through your mind that you're not like, all right, I want, want to stay focused on my police career. I can't be involved with this. I'm going to just find something else until that. Well, I had, well, it was, sonny knew I was a little shaken up, you know, so he takes me out to dinner, you know, we're going at the dinner. And he stayed in town a couple nights a week because he ran around a lot of his wife. And I found out that, like,

that week, when that raid happened, he takes me out of the dinner. And we're going to one of our accounts. He's like, you know, this doesn't, this doesn't happen all the time. And, you know, this, you know, trust me, you know, it's cool, you know, it's rare, you know, it's rare, you know, they got your name, but nothing's going to happen to. The bar on this charge, not you, you said the right thing, you just move machines around. So then these two girls come walking in, this bar. And the reason I noticed is because they were stunning. And I'm thinking, like, they're two-overdress for this freaking bar, you know. Now, Sonny Moni was 20 years older to me, you know, and they come walking over and they're sunny.

So this one braw kisses them on the mouth, hey, how are you? And I'm thinking like, what the fuck is he about to get me into? And this other chick comes around. And I'm in faith with my wife, 34 years. And this other girl comes walking around, she puts her head on my shoulder. And she says, find me drink handsome? I'm thinking like, what the fuck is going on? And I'm like, yeah, I put some money up.

And he's like smiling. And he's like, and I found out later on that his whole, his whole thing was he, he always wanted to get something on somebody so he can control you. You know, I found it out through conversation with Phil later on. But thank God that particular time my pager goes off. Bd-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D, you know. And he's like, oh, ignore that, ignore that. We're going to have some fun. I said, no, no, man, I got to get this call.

So we had an answer service after hours where we would call in, you know, the shop closed at five and it went to an answering service. But real people answered. And it was one of a good stops. They had three machines there. We made a lot of money there. And one of the machines was jammed up. So I said, I got to get over there, man. Because there's people lined up to play these machines.

They can't put money in it or losing money. So, oh, yeah, you got to get over there. Because you're coming back right. I said, no, no, no, no, I'm done. I'm going home. Because I wasn't getting wrapped up with this. With this girl, apparently was for me. And he goes, all right, all right, when you get home,

these girls weren't out. And I was with you all night. I said, hey, ain't no problem. So I'm starting to learn to pick these, you know, pick these things up. So that was a play for him, I guess, to try to get something on me, you know. And he tried that several times all the years I worked with him. And I just, I didn't fall for that shit, you know, because I saw what he did to people. You know, was he had to money or he got pictures on one state Saturday once when they took him to Vegas.

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That's code locked in 50 at factormeals.com slash locked in 50 to get 50% off your order. Yeah, what would they do to try to like divert laws from getting passed and whatnot in this? Well, after when I was, uh, started doing a lot of collecting and all, then it was like he goes, I started to go on to political functions. And I meant, you know, future mayors, future governors, uh, a lot of state senators. from Annapolis, not the U.S. Senate, but state senators, state congressmen, a couple of U.S. congressmen. And he made sure he knew a lot of these people. So what they would do, there was probably dozens of operators, vendors, but there was like five main, five main ones that had probably

85% of all the action. And Sonny was in that group. And the biggest guy was Joe Rockon. He had about He probably had 150 poker stops. I mean, this guy was making $150, $200,000 a week. I mean, and, you know, these guys, there was reports on, I think in 2006, you'll look it up, was called the Bell Report, and they were talking about how these guys, these operators, these machine guys, weren't paying taxes in hundreds of millions of dollars. They weren't. They just paid what they had to.

That was it. So we would go to these meetings, you know, like every other. the month once a month. It was kind of like to work out any grievances because they didn't want to, like I said, they weren't out shooting people like the mob and they would talk about, you know, don't step on my toes or if this guy's not happy with me, maybe I'll sell you his account if he's got a couple years left on the contract. So they'd try to work things out. And usually Phil would show up because Phil knew everybody in Annapolis and all of a sudden, and these, these, I can say it runs some of the bitch. These guys, every couple years they'd put a bill up on purpose.

So key senators knew what we're up to, you know. But they would tell the guys that didn't like our business, hey, put a bill up saying, we're going to totally out all these things. They're done. No amusement and only nothing. And so somebody would craft a bill. So Phil would come to these meetings and say, hey, there's a bill coming out. And the whole six years I was there, probably four or five times they did this.

And Phil would say, man, there's a bill coming out. you know, it's got a totally out of all these machines. Now, mind you, these guys are making big bucks. I mean, they're also chipping it out. They're going these functions. They're buying tickets for functions that didn't exist. You know, like they would say, hey, I got a function coming up. You know, can you buy some tickets?

You bought tickets. There was no function. Not all the time, but just to get money. So this one particular time, he's like, this bill's coming out. And they're like, you son, he's like, why, what do they want to stop? it. That was a deal. How much to stop it? And it feels like they went 100 grand. It's all cash. Just spread it around. And they acted like it was a lot of people. It was a few people in Annapolis on the Senate side and the House side that controlled everything. And those were the guys

that are getting getting the money. So how many people they paid off? I don't know. They could have pocketed the money themselves that did two key people. But you know, you show the money out. That bill goes away. You know, it sounds like Ozark right now. Have you seen Ozark? I've seen Ozark, yeah. But Ozark, to me, was kind of over the top. I mean, because... But it does happen in the world, right?

It does happen. And my mother told me, too, and I thought she said, you're too young to be so cynical. Because when I was at some of these functions, you know, I'm eating, you know, future mayors. I'm shaking her hands. They didn't know my name, but they knew I was with these guys with money, you know, because I was privy to hanging out with them and doing things.

And then, like, say there's women around hanging out, and they're, oh, we're kissing the baby. and all this shit. But some of these guys were fucking scumbags. I mean, like it's my mother said, she wouldn't let me hang out with these people. But these guys were being voted in office.

You know? And it's just like, I'm thinking like, man, is it, this the world that fucking corrupt? I mean, it's just, just on that local level, you know, shelling out 100 grand to kill a bill. But then all year long, you're donating to their campaign,

$10,000 a year. It's all influenced by money. It's all influential. Because, you know, now in Maryland, now they have slots. So it's kind of, you know, these machines aren't as, you know, rampant as it was. But back then it was her piggyback. But they do that now anyways with real estate deals. Like you see when they want to build, I've seen in Danbury where I live, you know, they wanted to build like a sports betting place and they shot it down and it's all influenced by money. Who has the power? Do you think that still happens on a larger scale? After seeing that firsthand? Yeah. And it's like, you know, on that level, that local level, you know, whether it's the. Annapolis or the city council or the Baltimore County Council. I mean, it was much smaller. Mind you, it was the 90s. They amounts were much smaller, but it went on.

If you wanted to get something done, it got done. If you had money, I'll give you another example, things getting done. Sonny had had, he lived out of state. And back then, like states weren't tied together as far as, you know, like, I guess with traffic or something. It took a while for like states to interconnect with with information. And he had lost his license in Maryland when he lived there and failure to peers and things like that. And he'd moved out of state, got a license out of state.

He just totally ignored, you know, the fines and shit he had to pay in Maryland. Well, he got pulled over one night and got locked up. Faire to go to court and pay all these tickets and all. So he's pissed off. He gets Phil, judge, you want to judge buddy, come up. I got bail him out of jail. It's funny at Judge Beal and he had to jail. So he's like, man, he goes, I got like, you know, $10,000 and this and da, da, da, da. You know, they want to put me in jail because it's been like five years. I didn't go to court and this and that. He thought he'd never get a ticket in Maryland. So Phil says, well, I know the senator. And back then, senators were in charge, and there still are different areas, you know, agriculture, you know, education, and this one center. was in charge of the DMV, the apartment Metterbeagles. So he sets up a meeting with him.

And the senators didn't like come around shops. They were careful where they met. And the same thing, they don't like talking with that. So Sonny met him out and told him what the deal was. And he says, all right, $15,000, I'll take care of it. And Sunny knew it was like $10,000. It's just fines, lawyers. And he might go to jail.

So what happened was that's senator, I don't use his name. but he used people's names sometimes you get in trouble. So he went to the DMV because he was head of the DMV at the time. And he went in there, went to the computer. That was it. No record on it. You know, it's interesting that you're explaining this because this is like what happens in the criminal justice system. Yeah.

Now, like the guys with the money, unless they really screw up, like you look at the Sam Bank been free issue where he got freed at one point then he locked them back up. Yeah, now he's in jail now because he just got so many chances. but the average person that doesn't have his money or power is not going through all that if they're wrapped up like that. The same thing with Trump, the same thing with all these guys with money. And I told my son, my mother's son for years, you know, every year he was like president of the seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade, ninth grade, he wanted to be president of the United States. Now he's in the marketing, thank God. You know, helps me out, helps something. So I told him, I sat him down one day and I said, because I, you know, he didn't know me in that business.

I mean, I was, he was, that's another story. But I said, think about it. I said, would you spend $50 million of your own personal wealth to become a U.S. senator? Does that make sense to you and to make $195,000 a year? They get way more than that and kickback. Yeah. Look at McConnell. They said it's not worth like what, 50 or 60 million?

All of them. I think 10 years ago I saw, it was a stat out there 10 years ago, they said 53% of the Congress, the House and the Senate. or multi-millionaires. Now, how do they represent anybody on the street? They don't. They don't. They don't. But if you know those people, if you have connections, you get things done. So when's like the first time it starts to really turn where you're starting to do illegal activities in this business, where it's not just you're just like, I'm not really a part of this. I just work it for. I got plausible deniability. Well, legal activities I can talk about. he put me in, he always put me in bad situations where he liked a bet. He gambled a lot. This is your boss. Yeah. Okay. And one night we're leaving this political function. It was a guy running for county executive, Baltimore County. And we're dressed up and I hate it. You made a comment years ago. You like to wear shorts and shirt. Yeah. I was the same. I didn't like getting dressed up. He's like, brother, you got to get dressed up.

And how old are you at this time? It's probably two years in. Going on two years in. Okay. So he goes, we leave this political event. He goes, get in my car. We're going for a ride. I'm thinking, okay, maybe we're going to go look at a new spot or something. But we went way out in the county. Now, mind you, these back to the poke machines, they were only illegal in two jurisdictions, Baltimore County, Baltimore City, Baltimore City, Alabama, crazy, isn't it?

Yeah. But all the key politicians were from Baltimore City, Baltimore County. So it makes sense that it adds up. So we're driving up, I meet, we're driving out to Harvard County, and we pull up to this bar, and it's a fucking redneck bar. No offense to redneck. I had a lot of my customers were rednecks. I mean, no offense.

But it had, I mean, trucks, Confederate flags. I mean, it was like one of those bars. Dirk. I'm like, what the fuck are we doing out here? I'm thinking, like, and I didn't have my peace with me. I left it in my car, you know, because we were going to this political event. I left in my car with him. And you're legally allowed to carry?

No. Even as a service member, a former service member you can carry at that time? No. Eventually I did, but not at that point. I was kind of shooting the dice with that. So you're already doing something illegal. I didn't think it would be illegal. Carrying around a gun?

You're 25 years old. It was just casual back then? Yeah, yeah, it was kind of casual. Okay. Because you think you're never going to get caught. That's true. I mean, eventually, I mean, when I bought the bar, I bought the bore 93, which is getting close.

I was illegally could carry. And then, but prior to that, I didn't have a license. Yeah, but Paul, you don't think that there's any sort of illegality with you're working for a vending machine company and you carried a gun? Like you ask what are these vending guys now? They're not carried guns. It's just a little wild, don't you think?

Like I said, it was like playing cops, robbers for real. Okay. It was like, am I got to get caught or not? It was, I guess it was kind of like a high. So by that point, you know you're not becoming a cop or an FBI agent. There's no way. I pretty much know because, you know,

once I started collecting, like doing, I was a rap man doing collections because he's out running around broads. and I'm doing collections and all, you know, I was getting like a $2,000 extra stipend a month. And then if I did other things, I would get paid extra money if I did other things. All right. So this event happens. What happens?

So we go, this event happens. We go out into the county somewhere. And there's like spots right in front of this bar, you know, and I think like, do you, why don't you park right out front? There's always a reason why he did things. And always was a reason. So he's looking around, looking around. He was looking for somebody. So we pull out and he parks behind the building like two buildings down.

So we go on this place. I said, maybe I think we're a little over-dress for this place, you know, because it's, you know, you're a country music and all. And maybe you got this when you went to prison. But if you ever walk into a place and you walk in, everybody fucking stops. I think the fucking jukebox stop. We walk in there up at the door. It was like, everybody's like, like, who to fucking these guys?

I mean, it was crazy. Then I got like this feeling in my gut like, what am I? the fuck am I doing here. So in sunny fashion, you know, he's, he always had to sit facing the door, always had to see, because he was getting, I was finding, I was finding a bad reputation, he was stiffing people, he was fucking with the other operators, like if one of their accounts was calling us up, he would try to jump in and get the account and say, oh man, I didn't know was your account. You know, they came to me for money and he was playing like stupid, but he started stepping on their toes, you know, on their toes too.

and uh you sit down he orders a beer throws up cash i'm thinking like we usually run a tab and he says stick by he goes keep an eye on me i said okay all right he goes to the jukebox and i'm thinking like that motherfucker better not play any fucking uh country

you like country you know and uh i said uh barbara stray sanders i said man because we're gonna be jumped so i'm watching them drinking my beer now my this guy comes walking in this long here a guy goes walking in and he sees sunny and he gets a drink and he puts it down he goes over to jukebox and I see him tap him on the shoulder and I'm thinking like I never I didn't know the guy I'd never seen

him before so I'm thinking like okay so I stand up and I always had a roll of quarters on me and the reason I had a roll of quarters like we had the answer service so back then you had pay phones and I called the answering service you push two or three and they say oh you have a call at pagoda lounge or whatever you know so I always had a roll quarters on me so I get up I see him walk outside he nods to be like you know we're going outside so I'm like all right so I put these quarters in my hand I'm walking the guy didn't see me walking so by the time I get outside they're scuffling I mean and sonny's not he talked a lot of shit but he wasn't a tough guy I mean he you know oh this and that but he he couldn't back he back anything up so the guy had him was like you know bang you know so I'm

I'm thinking of I can't let him get fucked up you know you know So I go over, grab the guy, throw the guy down on the ground, you know, pretty easy. And then he gets up, who the fuck are you? And I said, I always would have these crazy one-liners.

I said, I'm the guy who's going to ruin your fucking knife. I don't know where I always would come up these crazy one-liners in like a situation like that. So he stands up and he had, I know he had a fucking buoy knife. He had a buoy knife, right? And I'm thinking like, he starts,

he's coming at me. And I guess I'm going to be like he's going to hit me and I see him reaching him back. back trying to grab that, looking to grab in the life, or trying to scare me, maybe. So I just, I mean, he swung at me, and I just called him top of the head with a handful of quarters, which is like having steel on your hands. And he just, bang, he just hit the dirt. And I'm like, son, let's get the fuck out of here. So he goes there, right, son he's kicking a shit out, kicking him in the face and all. People are coming out. I said, let's get the

fuck out of here, man. I said, before we get more trouble, so I drag him off. And that's why hid the car around the corner there so we drive off and I'm thinking like what the fuck did you get me into man he goes he goes oh I plan to meet that guy here said you plan to meet him here I said you knew you're going to fight him he goes oh no no he goes you're going to fight him he goes I just told him to meet me here I said what the fuck was this about but this was another guy he was laying bets off with not a he bet he bet he bet up with a lot of people there's a guy and a tang guy who was connected he would bet in the city but but he never stiffed him because this guy was connected to Jersey.

But this guy, he would leave bets off to. Excuse me. And he said, he won like 10 grand last month, but he was down seven. And he said, fuck you, I'm not paying you. I'm not paying you. And that's how he was. If you owed him a nickel, he wants your money. He'd stomp your head in the dirt for a nickel.

But if you, well, he wouldn't, he could get me or somebody else to do it. But he said, he told the guy, you know, I'm going to fucking give you the money. And he goes, when I see you, I'm going to fuck you up. So Sonny goes, I'll make it easy. I'll meet you wherever you want me to meet you. So that's why he went to this bar. So I said, I'm driving back and I'm like piss. I'm like, dude, man, you know, you knew this was going to happen?

What if I wasn't here? He goes, well, I wouldn't have been out here if you weren't here. I wasn't coming up here without you. I said, man, this is fucked up. Man, this shit's got to stop. You know, I don't get any more. And he's like, it was always money. So he said, open the brief, open like thing.

you know, it is a club box, over the glove box, and there was an envelope there, he goes, take it, it's yours. So what the box is? He's like, take it, it's yours. But up, it's two grand there. I said, what's this? Where he goes, for taking care of my problem. So you were becoming like the enforcer a little bit for this?

Yeah, and I did, you know, and I was drinking a lot. And, you know, if, I don't drink like you used to, but I was drinking a lot too. And when you drink, sometimes you're a different person. I was, my wife would say, you know, she used to call me a, you were a criminal back then. Did you look at yourself as a criminal? Oh, no.

Why did you think? Because you knew right from wrong. Like, you knew that this is... Yeah, I knew I was doing things that are illegal, but I'm like, I'm not out, you know, I'm not out whacking people. I'm out doing shit like that, so I mean... What's like the worst thing you were doing

during that time period? Oh, I wanted guns of people. I mean... Just casually. Well, not casually. I mean... But like, you were okay with doing it. Like, you were...

I didn't like to do it, but sometimes that's all somebody understands is the threat of violence or the actual violence happening to you. And this is just to collect money? It wasn't all the accounts. It was like, we had a lot of accounts, we had no problems. It was always the same accounts where there are dirtbags, you know, and like, you know, running horrors or drugs.

And I'd have a go, and we're making a lot of money at some of these spots. And I'd go in there say, look, man, you can't have, you know, prostitutes and drugs in there all night because we're going to, you're going to lose a spot, go to jail, and we're going to lose a spot. And we got, you know, 50, 60 grand time have been here. I'll give you this one crazy story that this one guy had a straighten him. He's the only place that, he's the only guy to have my home phone number because we're making so much money here, about $10,000 a week.

And I would have to go over there every day and dump the machines. And dump of the machines means that if the police would come in and raid, if you let the money all there all week long, they get all the money. So you would dump machines periodically that did what, real well. That way, they're not in the machines. And you give it to the owners of the bar and they use it for cash and checks or for gamut, or they hide it somewhere. So that way, if you got raided in the middle week, they're not getting all your money. So this particular guy had my phone number. And he called me up like 3.30 a morning. He's like, I need a dump. I need a dump.

This guy with Richie Stump. Crazy. You always wear, always wear shorts. He had a, you always wear a Hawaiian shirt. He had one of those haircuts. What did they call it? Hair, like this, like down on the back, had a big comb, and Sonny would call him stutter fuck. I'm like, man, I thought that was rude. Why do you call this guy a stutter fuck? I felt bad for him. But then after a while, knowing the guy, I'm thinking like, he had such a bad Coke problem. That's why he stutter all the time, you know, because he's just doing so much coke. So anyway, I got 3.30 more to go over there, and he had a front bar. It was like a nightclub bar, his big, huge front bar, and then he had these heavy doors, and in the back was another bar. He was a big, it was another bar. He was a, it was a

He had a bar there, pool tables, and our poker machines. And he ran that was an after-hours place. And it had a backdoor to get to it. So when the bar closed, I mean, he had truck dealers, you know, people who were gamblers, bookies. He knew all those guys. And they would come in there and play cards all night because they're all high. They're standing up.

Then he would have prostities in there. So this particular night, he calls me up, I need a dump, I need a dump. I get here at 4 o'clock in the morning. And we had to come around the back down in an alley because it was a back door. I'm beating on the door. I hear this music. What the fuck?

You told me to come over here. It's open. The fucking thing's open. It's four o'clock and the bar closed it to. So you ever see a Caligula? No, it's a Collegia. I can't even say it. It was about the botry and room about all the sex parties and shit they would have.

So when I pulled this door open, I'm like, what the fuck? There's three guys playing the poster. machines. One guy's getting a job, you know, by a blow job. Yeah. You don't have to censor it. Yeah, one guy's getting a blow job. One guy's banging a braw or a pool table. And, you know, there's lines of Coke and he's, and Richie's dancing around. Hey, Paul, he's fucking high as a guy. Hey, hey, God, good to see. I need a dump. I said, why isn't this door locked? Oh, I knew you're coming. I said, you stupid motherfucker. I said, that door's got to be locked. I said, said, I mean, we had a hundred grand invested in this spot. We're making $10,000 a week,

but we don't want to lose it because this guy was trouble. And I said, get these people away from these machines, you know, I got to get in there and dump the machines. So he scoots them all over. He does line. He puts some lines on the bar. They go over there and dump the machines. I think I dumped like $5,000. So he needed that money because these guys are cashed and checks. When they're winning, he's paying them back. So he went through all his money. So he needed more money to keep these guys here. And I had him in his office. I said, I said, man, I said, you're fucking up. I said, that door should be locked.

I said, I just pulled it open. What if a cop came back, throw back, but if somebody dropped the dime saying, you're having an app to ours parties? They pull that door open. They see prostitutes. They see sex sacks going on. There's a bag of cocaine on a bar.

I mean, you're out of business, and then we're out, we're out 100 grand, you know. So, oh, no, don't tell Sonny. I said, yeah, I'm going to fucking tell Sonny, you know. I said, this happens again. There's going to be a problem. He didn't believe me. There was a problem.

Next time I went back and it happened again, I had to hand him around a little bit, pushed him through the wall, pushed him so hard his shoulder blade and the head was kind of like indebted into a wall in his office. And I was so enraged. I pulled my revolver out. And I wasn't going to kill the guy.

But I mean, I never be that mad. You never have that mad where you would want to do harm to somebody? That's how enrage I was. Because you're calling me up, consistently in the middle of the night to come over here and you're just fucking up and we're going to lose we're losing we're going to lose money and that time I messed them up I beat him up pretty good it stopped for a while you know because the drawer was short and we found out he wasn't paying his electric bill and it kind of all was escalating that this my anger like you're you know you're

going to screw us out all this money you have in there so sunny tell you tells them, you know, we're going to put Paul in with you. Me, I'm going to be your partner. I say, there's no fucking way I want to be that guy's partner. I'm a babysitting the guy now. He goes, no, no, no, no. You know, I said, I said, yeah, I want to win a bar one day, but I'm not being his fucking partner.

He goes, well, he better figure something out. So, well, he finds his partner. This guy named Paul Monk, who's got an insurance company. So we did a background check. He owns an insurance company at all. and everything is running smooth he's taking care of things and all so then they had this idea that

we're making so much money here there's a barred down the street called Clayton's that was for sale much smaller but he said hey we can do the same thing down there we can push some of these guys down to play because they're lining up here down there after hours and maybe we'll double our money you know

so it worked for a while and then I find out this guy Paul was a big Coke dealer I said only fuck this is put in the damn fucking fox in the henhouse. I'm like, so Sonny goes, you need to go over and straighten this out. I'm like, what the fuck do you want me to do?

You know, we're making money. We know we're making money off of the guy staying late, him providing them drugs to keep them up all night, the prostitution. I mean, that was their thing, but we're benefiting from it. So I said, what do you want to do?

What do you would do this Paul guy? What do you mean to say? So that's scary you at all? Knowing like that that's the real the realities of that life and that you were around that? Yeah, it caused me to it caused me to sleep with a 38 or my pillow for years even when I got out. And to this day, I still have a 38 rape while I'm might have dead. Now, when you had this gun and you were carrying it around, you were pointing it at people when you had to, did you ever have the intent to kill these people? You have. Like, would you have been comfortable pulling the trigger if it came down to it or was it more just a show? It's like this is what I would say that most people, you kind of know people. Like if you know somebody's, you're in prison, you may know, you may know somebody's going to back off. If you say I'm going to bust you up or whatever, they may back, okay.

You know, if you, you're mad enough to say, and sometimes it was like, we got jumped one night. And we were getting, I mean, we were getting fucked up. Five guys jumped us. And it was some girl Sonny was running with. And her boyfriend was like this bodybuilder. He found out about it. And he was getting away. And three guys were jumping me and all.

And it was funny. One guy, he was like fucking punch me in the back. I heard his ass. He hit my fucking revolver with his fist. So I'm on the ground. I'm like, I'm like getting my ass. I just pull that fuck her out and said, all right, back the fuck up. Or you're not going home.

And I said, get the fuck off in. No one pressed you. Well, I was threatened to hell was going to get whacked because they weren't armed at the time. But I think I was about two times I was threatened. I was going to get killed. When you were in the military, were you doing any acts of violence or anything? Or were you not in the heat of a war? No wars.

It was peace time. But I mean, there's a certain... You're trained to kill, though. You're trained to kill. And there's a certain... I always say it's brainwashing. You go in there to shave your head, everybody looks alike. And you march and you sing songs about killing people and O-A.

And then you do things that you didn't think it could do. You got to run 15 miles. thousand push-ups a day, you're doing all this crazy shit. So they make you, they, it's like brainwashing. They make you like kind of invincible. And I, and I had that, you get that for a while when you get out because you think that nothing's going to happen to you. No. You know, nothing's going to happen to you. Now, a lot of our guests that come on the show, usually their story ends with prison. You don't get arrested by any of the stuff that you're involved with. No, I mean, I had, you get out of the lifestyle. Well, I got out, thank God, but I was

What kind of pushed me, if we have time, what kind of pushed me in that direction was it was in 90, he split from his partner for different reasons. 95, 94 to 95. So it's like a five-year run you had. Yeah, it was six years I got on 96. I started noticing Crown Vicks at some of the spots we were at. Undercover cops? Yeah. I mean, I'm doing all the collections and I'm telling Sunday Night Navy, I see Crown Vicks here outside of my apartment.

And, you know, one of those things. I said, I'm just telling you. But he always thought he was 20 years older than me. I didn't know. I said, I'm on the street. Sure not. You're not around. You're going to fucking vacates.

You're going here. You're going there. So then a year went by, a year of these Crown Vicks. And I stopped seeing them. And he went home. He would go home on Fridays. And he got mail. And he got this by mistake from his lawyer.

It was total mistake. He got a letter from the phone company at the time. and it said the feds no longer request any more wiretaps from your phone. And he's like, what? And he gets a lawyer and a lawyer says, you should have never got that. It was a mistake by the phone company. So his lawyer is like, you know, what do you do? And he's telling me, he goes, well, he wasn't home much just on the weekends.

He goes, if your home phone's tapped, your shop phone's tapped, and anybody you talk to, everybody, I went to bar at the time, my bar phone, my house phone. And in fact, when the feds came to see me, they had canceled checks. They had conversations, parts of conversations. And they had me going in and out of different bars, you know, because they, this was, So the feds do come to see it. Oh, yeah, yeah. So we split up.

We ended it, we ended it, we ended it in a bad way. We, we ended in a pretty bad way. He was trying to, he wanted me to buy the company. And I'm like, no fucking way. I said, it's only been a year. year the feds can take forever i said i don't want it he was trying to push everything on me so then he had to ask at me and i had the bar and he's like and he starts piecing off his company you know 25 here so other vendors were buying his spot so i go in the shop one day we're barely talking he's leaving me

notes and it was a contract signed this contract you know five-year contract with your bar the curb shop at me and i fucking ripped it up i fucking ripped up left on the table i left my fucking keys here i locked the shop up i threw my fucking key in a mail mail slot so he caused me on You motherfucker, this is 96. How dare you, all I've done for you? He starts threatening me. He said, okay, you've got to come over here and straighten this out. I said, oh, okay, we're straightening it.

So I drove over there and I had my pistol in my pocket because he was like enraged. I knew he had an M1911-81 he had. But see, from a previous life, he had a felony charge. I don't want to go into that, but he couldn't legally own a gun. So I go in there. he's telling me to sign this thing and all I said I might fucking sign it you know he goes well I'm gonna do this and that you you know you leave me your business and say this and that he was threatened me and I said I'll tell you what you know I'll buy the equipment from you

25 grand because it was his equipment I said I'm not signing the contract I'm not going with any other operator you at least know me that I mean all the shit I did for him I said I'm not signing a contract that you're gonna flip it over to x ys ys eventing and they're gonna control my shit, I'm not doing it. I pay you for the machines. And he's like, and he's bitching about it. So I told him, I said, he started thread to me. And I, I, I, I heard a click in my pocket. You heard click of my revolver. And I knew him. He, he was a, a voice, not a, you know, and he got white. He got white. I just told him. I said, look, I said, if anybody, this is the last time we're going to talk. I said, and I'll send you the money for the equipment. I said, if anybody comes sniffing around

my place calls me shows up feds whatever I said you're not going to be around and I said to keep on your family so you say this you didn't say shit I walked out back out it's the last time I saw him 96 but then 2000 the feds call me four years later I haven't talked you know they had nothing but time yeah so they were they were watching us in 90 if 94 90 95 I haven't talked to him to 96 they call me I'm in an apartment I'm building I'm building a 3,500 square foot house on a half acre you know my dream house All because of the bar business you got into well. I sold my first house made 60 grand I mean I was making a hundred ten thousand I knew to show enough Because my CPA was good show enough to

Live so They call me on my phone at the apartment. I'm like how they fuck? They get the they get everything and she says this is agent Smith and I said what can I do for? She goes We need to come talk to you to them And I'm like, what about? Oh, we can't say. You have this address, and she knew the apartment address. And I said, 685-2022. She said, what's that?

I said, my attorney, click. She fucking slammed the phone down. And you know sometimes how hard it is to get to an attorney. I may call, you may call. You may get them, maybe on a break, hour later, call you an afternoon next day. It wasn't five. It's a chase to fucking call lawyers. It wasn't five minutes.

My phone's ringing. It's my lawyer. Because it was a feds. the IRS and he's like Paul I said yeah he goes to Sydney he goes you know what it's about I said yeah he goes she's told me she's coming to talk to you tomorrow she's dragging your ass before grand jury what do you want to do I said well I guess she's coming to see me tomorrow he goes you want me there I said now I know what's about but they showed up the next day flipped their badges they come in she's talking to me asked me questions had canceled checks

saying, oh, we know you're, you knew how much money he was making. You're going in this bar and this bar this time. And I said, Agent Smith, I said, did you have cameras in the bar? I said, how do you know what I'm doing in those bars? I could be going on there and fixing stuff. You don't know what I'm doing at his bars. It's all speculation, you know. Well, this and this, we had this conversation.

I said that doesn't mean anything. I don't know. You got nothing. So she starts asking about the curbshop. My bar. She goes, oh, we know you have two poker machines, and it's just us talking. You know, you pay off your customers, but it's just us talking, you know, it's okay and all. And the one agent sitting at the end of table, he didn't say one fucking word, he didn't say five minutes. He just sat there taking notes looking at me. Didn't say a fucking thing. And she was just us talking. I said, you know, I'm not going to answer that lot of questioning. I'm not going to incriminate myself. I said, you want to talk about something else? You'll talk my brother-law. I talked about these checks. I talked about these guys. I talked about these guys. these accounts you saw me going into. I said, I've answered everything I want to answer. I said, so anything else you need to call my attorney, have a nice day.

Close her book up. She was pissed. Well, we need to go out the back way. I was on the first floor in the apartment. I was waiting for my house to be built. So they go out the slider. My wife goes, why do you go out the slider? I said she's looking around for like a Ming-Baz or something.

She's looking for something incriminating like I have all this money or something, you know. So that was 2000. That was the first and the last time you talked to the Fed. No, no. They came back. 2004. Four years later ago. I'm at the bar.

I'm at the bar. She calls me at the bar. And I'm in my big house at this time. And she goes, this agent Smith. She goes, we need to come serve you. You're a material witness. The United States versus Sonny Warner. He got arrested.

He got arrested. It's like 22 counts. Racketeering, money laundering, blah, da, da. I mean, you know, they give you all these, you know, charges of space in seven or eight years in jail. She goes, we need to come serve you. I'm thinking, oh, fuck, I thought this was over. So I called my attorney up. I'm like, man, he goes, you don't want to be on trial.

You don't know what the fuck don't want to ask you. I said, well, he goes, I tell you what, he goes, I tell you what, he said with a federal beef, when he says, I'm going to come serve you, you could be served as a witness. He told me they have 30 days from the time they notify you, the service. I don't know, factual or not, if that's what you told me. So the time's kicking down one day, two, day, three, eight. I lost like 15 pounds of 20 days. I need to lose weight, but not like that, you know. It's a hell of a way to lose weight.

Yeah. So in the 28th day, it's all over the radio. It's all over TV. It's all over the paper. They got them on three counts. He ended up doing her in 18 months, 18 months of federal prison. He would, they got her for putting one point in four point $2 to $5 million in two personal accounts in two years where he said he made no money and then when he

got out he had paid number 700,000 so I always told me I thought he thought I was an idiot I said why don't you just pay some taxes he didn't want to pay any taxes you got to pay something I said pay something because and they called up to him but I was a stupid kid I was 20 years younger you know I'm paying tax I'm showing I mean I made a lot of money that but I mean I showed enough that when the feds came and looked at me I was okay but I was thinking about something last week, four months before the feds came, I had this audit. The state called me up, and they served me and served my account, the state of Maryland. And they said, we're doing a complete audit of a view personal business.

So, okay. So my account calls me, says, who the fuck do you piss off? I said, what do you mean? He goes, I haven't had an audit like this in 35 years. And this is a state audit. He goes, I'm talking federal. It's worse than a federal audit. So I'm thinking my brother-in-law dropped a dime with me.

So they got all my shit. I knew what I was doing wrong. I did something to kind of fuck them over. I don't know if I should say. So when it's kind of funny, you might get a kick out of this. I learned some crazy shit from Sonny. That's one thing. So I had four boxes.

You had to keep four years of shit in your bar. And it was all in beer boxes with vanilla and those every month, 12 months, four boxes. Yeah. So he's like, got to bring these boxes down here Monday morning. This was a Thursday. So I'm like, fuck, man, I don't want them to look through my shit.

I knew what I did. I know what I was doing wrong, you know, money laundering, things, clipping, and this and that. So I fucking hose all the boxes down with water. You hosed them with water? Yeah, I stuck them outside. It was sunny out. It stuck them outside. And I threw bread in and I'm and shit.

And my place was like by a river. And fucking rats reet holes in them and roaches got in them and all kinds of bugs. And then I put them back in a bar. and paper that was like stuck together and all so that I took him down sonned I had my accountant Sunday he took him down to his office and I've carried him and he's like what the fuck he goes what the fuck happened he's your boxes I said I said it was unfortunate my had it in the bar I had a water heater it was called a low boy and there was mounted in the ceiling because it wasn't a lot of space and I had to replace a year ago so my story was this is this is what happened the water heater

you're busted and all my boxes were already as the water heater. I'm gonna bust it soaked the fucking boxes and Rodin's got in there say hey, these they called and they were bitching, you know, just something wrong this paper. I can't get the shit. They're freaking out. It was her or her boss going through all my shit. So they were mad. So they went through it and she said

all we found you, you're stealing $100 a day from your retro tape. I said, what? But, you know, it's not computing $100. So I said, give me the tape. This is after a month. I got the tape and I went through it with my accountant. He goes, it's like 0.01. It was accounting error. So she comes back in and she goes, you need to sign a three-month extension.

First, to keep looking. And I said, I'm not signed it. So I'm not signing it. So you have to sign it. I said, I don't do anything. I said, the error you accused me of $100 a day. You thought, oh, you got to be for $100 a day over umpteen years. I said, it was 0.01.

It was like a penny. you had an addition error. Well, you still need to sign it. So I'm not signed it. You call, do what you want. Call my attorney, do whatever. I'll give you shit. I'm not signed it.

So she left in a huff. And then two weeks later, she sent me a letter saying my account was clear. But then I go back to four months later when the feds came to see me, I think they sent them in to try to find something to leverage me. I think that's what happened.

It didn't work? It didn't work. Do you ever think that I could have been you that got arrested if you stayed on? a little bit longer and you didn't get out of that life. Oh, yeah, because, like I said, you got to end it up in prison. Yeah, like the night Paul Monk was murdered, I got called up, his partner, Richie called me up to go over there.

And I show up because he goes, you know, out of gun and all. We didn't know if somebody's coming against us and all. And they called me over and they're talking to me, what's your name, where we're at, you know. They didn't drag me in, but they had all my information. Who can we talk to you to to prove where you were at? And then Richie's like, I just called him. I said, my wife, son. go see my wife. You know, I just left the house. So, I mean, I was very, it's not wood, but I was very

lucky. Do you think about that now, like how you live your life now? Do you appreciate maybe your life a little bit more? Yeah, I do because, you know, I think money can blind you. And it does. And you tend to maybe overlook things or maybe don't look at things a certain way. You know, I was making good money. And, you know, when I opened, when I bought the bar in 93, I was still with them. And then 96, I stopped seeing them. It took a few years for me not to run into people that were in that business, which I was glad. And even my, like I said, I was a different person about it.

I tell these stories. And I was, there's crazier stories. I mean, if you had three days, I could tell you crazy stories that you wouldn't believe that the shit he got me into. But my kids didn't know. Like, he was godfathered of my old son. There's pictures in church and all. When I left him, my son was three and a half. My youngest wasn't even born yet.

The any reason my son found out about this, he knew we had family we didn't talk to, that I had a manuscript I was working on years ago in a box, and he was 14 looking at it. He's like, did this, he's reading? He's like, did this stuff happen? I said, well, yeah, it's based on some reality, but it's, yeah, some of that stuff happened.

But as now they're older, and I tell them more stories that were, my wife's like, like, what did you never tell me that? Like, I didn't tell her a lot of things. And I would leave the house, say, don't answer the phone, don't go to their door. Don't talk to anybody. Somebody pulled me, do not say anything. I tell them that all the time. But it was kind of, I look back, it was, like I said, it was like playing cops and robbers for real.

But there's, I didn't think of the repercussions. And so I think the Paul Monk thing, when he got, when he got murdered, and then when the feds were, or one week, that could have been pretty, pretty heavy. Now, what's your motivation to, like, share your story now and not just keep a, in the past? I don't know. I mean, it's, I mean, partly, I think it's a story. I think there's a story there to maybe people would want to hear or see or, you know, watch. And just that don't, you know, it's easy to be sucked up in something over fame in a way.

Not that I was famous, but you felt like you were somebody when you went in, they cleared these spaces for you. Oh, you know, and it was the same meeting the politicians. They come over, shake my hand. They didn't know my name, but they knew I was with Sunny, you know. And it's just, that's, it's not all what it's cracked up to be. Are you sharing it for motivational purposes, or is it more about the financial gains that could come from sharing a crazy story? I think it's kind of both because, you know, when I was, you know, writing with my, my co-writer, Darren Hobson, that I forgot about things.

I'd forgotten about Phil, he gave me my first gun. It was a 22. A judge, here a judge gives me a gun. It tells me, you didn't get it for me. So I started remembering all these things. I'm thinking like, yeah, that was, why was I wrapped up in that? You know, it just, and I was lucky to get through it. And I think the other motivation thing was when my son was an infant, you know, three years, you know, and I'm looking at them. And I'm doing these crazy things, you know, dealing, we had to deal with some Italians at one point. I'm thinking like, man, I want to be around to see my kids, kids grow up and be successful and not.

you always want your kids to do better than you. I don't want them to get any of trouble. So they didn't know that for years, they didn't know, they knew I owned a bar. That was it. And they didn't know that part of my life. Are you worried that people might, you know, take your story in a way where they might think that you're promoting that lifestyle

by sharing about it? That they may. People can think what they want. I mean, it's, you know, it's, you know, I think it's an interesting story. Like I said, I wrote a book about it. about it, but we made money on the book. But I think it's a story too that, you know,

things aren't always rosy out there. You know, you know, you had to fast money and you're thinking you get sucked into it. You get like, man, and it just wasn't just my salary, was money for doing this, money for doing that money. I mean, I had more money at that time than I know what to do with. And, but that shouldn't be a driving factor.

I mean, you know, if you're making money, great. But be happy doing it and hopefully there's no repercussions about how you're making the money. What do you want the biggest takeaway to be for someone that hears your story? Whether it's a kid or an adult, what do you want them to learn from you? Don't play with bad guys. It's pretty straightforward. Don't play with bad guys. Because bad things happen.

That's good. Well, Paul, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Thank you for having you. Yeah, pleasure talking to and hearing your story. and, you know, it's good for the audience to hear about stories that don't necessarily end bad. They have bad elements to it, but there could be some good and, like, avoiding the bad, yeah, because we hear about the trenches people go through because of their decisions. Now we're hearing the other side of it of what could have been, but it didn't happen.

I was very lucky. Yeah, and hopefully that serves as like a guidance and kind of like a message to people that might be engaged in stuff now that haven't been caught. think about the long, long term around occasions because it's life short. Yeah. Yeah, you know, life's short. And I was in the Army for four years and that's as close to prison as I want to be. Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of crazy stories about the Army and prison and all that type of stuff. But yeah, Paul, thank you and have a safe trip back.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. It was great.