Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Casino Boss Explains How To Beat The System...

Episode Date: December 7, 2024

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When we got the machines, there's control switches inside, 60% payout, 50%, 40%. You had to hide that. They were splitting like 60,000 a week. I never got hit by the cops because I would money laundered too. Me and my boss, we started to date, and she feels comfortable enough to take me to her family functions. And a lot of these functions were at her brother-in-law's house. Now, he was 20 years older than me.

They started asking me a lot of questions. Like we're off the bat. Oh, but how is it? How is the military? What did you do? what are your future plans? I said, you know, hopefully FBI, this and that. And so they felt like I felt like it was like, Sonny was like interviewing me.

And then he started talking about, you know, what he does. He goes, I own a vending business. You know, I'm thinking, okay, pool tables, jukeboxes, things like that. He goes, well, you know, I have poker machines too. And we'll, you know, we can talk later about that. So initially he wasn't telling me a lot about that. So there's one particular line. It was probably four months after I first met him and started to go on these functions.

he came to check in an hotel was 11 o'clock it was he checked in he goes what time to get off kiddo and i said 11 o'clock he goes come on up so i go up there and he starts telling me up the business now this guy was like he was like very very smart but he used it for crime he had this briefcase sitting by his bed and he knew i'd be like looking at it and he's telling me at the business the poker machines and this and that and it's gray area and he says i'll start you at 35 000 a year I'm like to start 35,000 I'm like 35,000 he goes yeah what do you think

I said I don't know then he opened this briefcase that I'd been staring at he did this you know he's very tactical and he opened it up he said this was this week this was 30 grand in there

it was six bundles of money banned up 5,000 each and he threw a bundle to me so I grab it I'm holding this bundle I said man he goes what do you think about that I said that's more money

I made the first year in the Army five grand It was. And I said, I never had that much money in my possession ever. He goes, well, you come work for me. You'll move equipment around. You'll learn how to fix things. You'll learn the whole trade.

And eventually maybe you'll be a route, man. And so he's like saying, would you consider work for me? And I'm like, I don't know. This thing made, you're talking about poker machines. He goes, well, we're kind of like, we're kind of like bankers. You know? But in a way, it's true because what was going on if you, if you worked for Joe's bar, And he's selling it.

He wants to get out. So you're the bartender. And he wants $300,000. $300,000 is not a lot of money, but it didn't come with the property. It was just a liquor license to a little corner bar. You go to a bank, they're not going to loan your money. You're nobody. So they'll come to guys like these operators and say,

hey, I'm looking at Joe's bar. He wants like $25,000 down. And they would go check it out. If they thought they could make the $25,000, they loan them back in a year, get them to sign a five-year contract. They do the deal. But in the process, if they loaned the money, they tie up their liquor license. So they're not going to lose a dime.

So if the guy fucks up, they call them the note, throw them out, put somebody else in there. So they were always protected. And he says, we're just providing a service. You know, these guys want to buy business and all. But also, they're putting in illegal gambling devices. Where is that's part of the deal? That's part of the deal. The part of the deal is we put these machines in there, and under the guys,

all the machines had for amusement only, that cover the operator's asses. We don't know they're gambling. them, we just put them in there. And if they got pinched, they take the hit and they went on. So he's trying to sell this to me. Who takes the hit? The bar owner. The bar owner takes the hit. How this works is that when it's not written, like all these operators, there's five main operators that met that were like this organization. There's dozens and dozens of them, but the five main ones would meet and discuss problems, and they wouldn't step on each other's toes. but the unwritten rule was that the police come in here and they raid you and when they raid you

they take every time in the place any money in the drawer they clean you out and what they'll do is i'll give you an example say they do a raid they come in there's 1500 bucks there's 2 3,000 the machine so they'll count it out 3,000 machine they'll put a ticket up and they you have 1,500 bucks in your bank to start the day the borrown who does so take that money 1500 bucks leave a thing so they got 4,500 bucks. And then what they do with the machines is this one particular time we got a call. I just, it was like my six month in, I'm kind of jumping ahead a little bit, but my six month in, I'm riding with this guy named Rob.

He's a mover. He's like six foot forward, big black guys, 380. And we're going around and move equipment. And the morning, we had a, there's a woman that worked in the shop. We all had radio. She answered a phone and would radio out, things going on. So we're taking off for the day at 7 a.m. As soon as we take off, we get a call.

uh she's like uh base of three we just got hit and we're i'm like looking because i'm i'm six months in at the time we just got hit and i'm like what he's like where he's like t bird lounge the cops called yeah 15 minutes to get down there we're gonna bust them up that was nice because sometimes they just go in there they wreck them up with them all and they're in pieces so they they gave us 15 minutes to get down there so we go trumping down there we pull up and this is a story we just got crazy. It just kind of changed my mind away about being a cop. So we walk in that place and the cops,

the two uniformed cops in there, they had two uniform vehicles outside and two plane cars outside. So we walk in there and there's like snow falling from the ceiling. And I mean snow, like there's tiles, there's white tiles. So the two uniform cops are like, bang, bang with pool sticks. They're knocking the tiles in.

They're like kick, boom, boom. And what they were after was they're looking, the guy wouldn't give us back. bank up. He was hiding somewhere. They're like, just give the bank up. And they're tearing a place up. And they're, and I'm like, look around. Like, what the fuck's going on? These cops are you know, not going to destroy this place. And the uniform guys like, who are you? And we're like, we work for the vending company. And I was told, Sonny at radio, I said, let, he goes, let Pauli know what to say before we got in there. Because I didn't know what was going on. And Rob looks at me and

says, don't say shit. He goes, don't say a thing. If you've got to say anything, you move equipment around. That's it. This is my six month being in there. I'm still kind of learning, learning what's going on. So the one cop pulls me. So, who are you? I'm like, uh, so and so, give me your ID. So I give my ID. And he's like, all right, you know, they're doing, uh, illegal gambling in here and this and that. And I said, sir, I don't know anything. I don't know what's going on. That's move equipped around. He's telling you be doing this six months. He goes, you might want to find out of work. I'm like, oh, okay. So I kind of back off. They tell Rob, Rob has a keys. They get his license.

same thing. And Rob's like, Rob doesn't say shade's like, he's a big guy just shrugging his shoulders. He opens machines up. He brought a screwdriver with them because he wanted to take the boards out. Because otherwise, if you yank them out, you ruin the whole machine because there's two harnesses that hook up to the boards. And if you pull them out, you rip the harness up. So they were cool in a sense other than tearing the bar up. They let us open them up. He takes the money. The money would fall in buckets. They take the buckets out where all the cash is in. robin duds the boards gives them the boards that's what they wanted so that's when they counted three grand out i was talking about earlier give me a ticket the 1500 they found in the in the in the floor drain

the guy didn't want to give it up because they were smashing bottles and rob finally said hey go in the floor drain that's where the money is the owner jerell got pissed off you motherfucker and rob's like they're they're going to find it anyway they're tearing your place up the breaking bottles they're knocking you're going to spend way more than 1500 it affects all this damage yeah so they count the money So we're the standard. I'm like, like, I didn't know what was going on. I'm like, thinking, like, this is new to me. And Rob's just sitting there like, it's no big deal.

So they count the money, $3,500, they leave my ticket. They leave all the paperwork. You're charged with legal gambling, this and that. And then they look at Rob, the cops look at Rob and say, you stand. Rob's like, and I still don't know what's going on. So once they leave the bar, once they leave the final paperwork and they leave that bar, they're done. They can't come back. They're done.

So, Jarrell screaming and yelling at Rob, you and Rob goes, look, you know the deal, the unwritten role. This is the unwritten role. At $3,000, you know, they took out of the poker machines that you have a ticket for. Sonny's going to come down. He's going to give you $1,500 of it at your end. So we lost $1,500. You're $1,500 from the drawer they took. You're going to get that $1,500 back.

We're going to put two new boards in those machines, which we did in an hour, they're up and running. Now, the reason they gave that $1,500 up, he told him, he goes, look, now, Jarrell, they were tearing your bar up. They're knocking your ceiling and tiles out. They're busting bottles. Now we've got to give you money for that. Also, we leave my card. We get them a high-priced lawyer, pay all the court fees, fines, miss work. It's not written down, but we take care of them.

They're whole. Right. They go to court. Slap on the wrist. We had accounts to get five times in a year. Never close them down. Right. Just slapping a wrist.

So that's kind of how that went round. And a lot of the operators, that's what was going on. And it was just the craziest thing that I'd ever seen, but that's how the system works. And for a while, these operators were protected because, when machines were amusement only, that protected them. The only difference is that it wouldn't protect them, that with these machines, how they worked. There's a board, there's a power supply, there's a bill acceptor. a monitor. That's pretty much it. That's pretty much it. But when we got the machines, we had to clean them out. And clean them out means you couldn't have an accounting mode.

We had to have an accounting mode in there because they had to register coins in and coin out. They tracked everything. You couldn't lie. They would have a coin in number to coin out number. You couldn't push a button to bring it up. You had to hide that. So we'd have one of our guys who was really good with electronics. He'd wire something. in there where you like took this wire here and you put a clip to it and ran it over here and then accounting mode will come up if they found an accounting mode in your machine the police they would come after us oh that thing's clearly for illegal gambling because you have an accounting mode in you have a coin there's coins in and coins out and how you click the things off

it was like a remote control for garage door but you just hit a clicker boom and it would come off how do these people get their money you said there's coins in coins out When you settle, like if you, if the machine, say the machine takes in $4,000 in one week, it's going to say $4,000, you know, whatever, $4,000 and stay they pay out $1,000, pay out $1,000. Okay, so your net $3,000, your split's going to be $15 and $15. Sometimes where we had problems, if an owner was an asshole or he thought he could get over, he would say, oh, no, no, no, that's wrong. I had $1,500 paid out.

wait a minute the machine says a thousand somebody's line somebody's ripping you off but somebody's got not all the guys we had like 50 some bars not all the guys were liked up but some were

they would try to get over any way they could and we would say hey no that's that's your that's on you you either got somebody stealing from you a bartender had a bad night maybe they put I paid $100 that one night there's nothing paid out

so we had to stay on top of some of these guys some guys we collected whatever you say is good we're just going to go by that and they didn't have a grief with us. But some guys you had to watch and stay on top because any way they can get over,

they would try to get over. How does the machines work? Like, okay, so you put, are you putting in cash and then it gives you a receipt to take to the bartender? No, no, there's no receipt. No, no, how they work, like how the cops have to catch you,

how they catch you is that three, they come in undercover. And some of these guys, they look like bikers. They sit in a bar to look like a freaking biker. They have to see three things happen. They have to watch somebody playing a machine and say 2,000 points occur on the machine,

a quarter machine to be 500 bucks. So you have to see that for one. The second thing they need to see that those points vanish. So somebody behind the bar is hitting a remote control, boom, and it clicks them off. The next thing you have to see the end of the cycle to get the warrant is the bartender slide them to 500 bucks.

Right. And I'm taking it. And that's it. You're legal gambling. You're using them for legal gambling. But we had told these guys because of this, you know, the guys that would have safes, don't leave a lot of money in your safe because... Case you get hit.

You know, you leave $15,000 and you're safe. Oh, me, you know, technically we've got to cover that. But we would tell these guys, don't leave a lot of money. A lot of the guys would leave them in their cars. Like when I had a place, I had a little safe where I kept money in it, but also had an area in the back where I hid the money. So if they got in the safe and got some money, they're tickled. They weren't going to, you know, knock through my towel.

always really look around the place. So you had to do shit like that, too. So if I go in, I put $100 in the machine and let's just say I win $500, the bartender's monitoring the thing and he's giving me the money that I won. Yeah. But usually, like my people that work for me, I like ingrained in their mind. And I never got hit. 23 years, I never got pinched because I would ingrate in their mind if there's one person in

this bar that you don't know. Right. Don't pay out. Don't, don't, because that could be the guy. Especially, some of these guys are, well, I shouldn't call cops stupid, but some of them are. They would sit like right next to where the guys are playing. Right. Like they're right here in the corner and they'd sit right here and they drink a beer for two, three hours and they keep, you know, you're a cop.

I even had one, and they'd lie too. I had one one night in my place and I happened. The girl called out sick and I had, I worked all night at 2 a.m. I didn't do it at often, but I had to. And the next day I opened, it was Sunday, Mar. morning I had come back in an open and these two dudes come in and they come in and for one I would never play one of these machines unless I knew the people in the bar otherwise you're throwing your money away because I'm not going to pay you off so these two guys come in Saturday uh to Sunday morning

they started putting money in the poker machines and I'm watching them I'm thinking like who are these motherfuckers I don't I wouldn't walk in a bar and start feeding 20s in these machines right and they start starts about oh yeah we were in here last night yeah hitting them hard and the girl last night paid us off. I worked. She paid us off and yeah, yeah, we had a great time. Yeah, it's a great place and all. I said, oh, that's great.

And they're playing the machine. I said, you mean the redhead, Debbie? He worked last night. Paid you off? Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was cool. Yeah, yeah. I said, oh, you must be somewhere else. I don't have anybody like that works here. All right. And they're like, and they've left. For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty

Breakfast Trio, your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. Right. So sometimes they'll try to scam you. They'd do whatever they can trip you up to try to say, you know, like I was not knowing that I worked the night before. And then here they come in trying to set me up. Right. Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, how hard is it for them to just play a win and have you hand them the money? It's hard to win. No, you can win. It's just you don't, you're not going to get paid out unless somebody is you are.

Oh, so then what? Then they just, they hit and they go, hey, this thing owes me money. I had guys would hit for like 500 bucks. They're like, hey, I'm like, we don't pay off, dude. What? And they get mad. I'm like, sorry. I don't know who they were.

weren't getting paid off. Right. Because, you know, I'm not taking a chance. What if they say? How do I get paid off? I just, I just fed this 80 bucks into this machine. I just hit for 500. How do I get my money? I said, do you see that sign on the machine? It says for amusement only. Right. That's it. Oh, that's a problem. Oh, some guys would try to be like, I'm like, get the fuck out. Yeah. Because you can't take a chance. You know, you can't take a chance because it's good, the cost of going to court and all that stuff. Yeah. And is, are these machines, I'm just curious. you say poker machines is it actually like they're playing poker or is it like a slot machine there's two no there's two type there was draw poker where you had the five-card draw

and then there was the eight-line machines we call them charity masters you know you can bet eight lines we made them like nickel machines because people like to bet multiple lines you can bet eight bets on each line so eight times eight nickels so people would tend to bet more money and they spin and all of it so like the slot machine without the handle me and sunny were out one night and he was getting itched to gamble and he found out that there was this after hours club where they had roulette blackjack they had all that shit and he's like get in the car i'm like okay i i after a while i don't like get in his car whenever i did it we got in trouble something happened or he got me in trouble so we go we're in harford road we drive over the bell air road

and there's this garage there's old stinking garage and there's like bmwes mercedes jaguires all this i'm like man this guy must do good freaking work because this garage looks beat up. And I said, what are we doing here? It's like one o'clock in the morning. He goes, we're going up there. They had a second floor. And they had a fire, like a metal fire escape going upstairs.

And we see this well-dressed guy going up the side of the building. He goes, we're going up there. I'm like, okay, so he hands me $25 grand. I'm like, stopping $25 grand in my pockets. And we go up there and he knocks on the door. This guy, big guy, a Italian-looking guy comes out. He's got a gun in a holster. I'm like, oh, shit, what are we getting into?

He's like, what do you want? We're like, rolling. Roland was the guy controlling the game but the guy's actually funding it backing it were these two Italians out of New Jersey we didn't know

but they were the you know the guys looked like out of Central Kansas thing as a sopranus so we're in there and he's walking around he's gambling and it like I said

it's just like a mini casino but over this dirty ass garage girls walking around half naked with shooters and all so Sunday's gambling he goes you can gamble if you want I said no no no so I'm giving him five

giving him five he's going through his money quick and it was like four clock at a morning. I said, dude, man, I can get to get out of here. I got to go home. You know, I'm married. My wife's going to give me shit. Oh, brother, you're with me? I said, I said, that was starting to wear my wife coming home five, six o'clock in a morning. I know what I'm doing. So Roland gives me a ride in my car. I go home. I get home about five my wife gives me some shit. It was like one of those, what times you get in? Two, five.

You know, they knew. Yeah, they know. So the phone rings at six. And he's like, it's sunny. Hey, man, I'm over here. You got to, you got to do my route. And I knew how to run his route. He was training me to do that. So I go run his route, do his collections. I get back to the shop. When I get there, the secretaries, Janet's like, these guys keep calling here. I'm like, who? These two Italian guys are calling here looking for Sonny saying he needs to call him back. They're looking for him. Where's he at? He should have been here. And this is like noonish after that night, the gambling night. So he beat me. We had beepers back then. He beats me. And he says, meet me at, call him. He says, meet me at Bell Act diner. He was at his hotel. So I go to Bell

like diner and he's sitting there he love the smoke he would make love to a cigarette it was so funny the character in the script we do he smokes all the time and he's sitting there with his head down smoke and didn't even touch his food still look he's fuck i mean he's fucked up and i said what's up man he goes oh man i fucked up i fucked up i said what happened he goes uh i lost 30 grand last night i said no shit i gave you 25 i was holding it for he goes no no i bar 30 from the house i said what yeah i said you got a fan man he goes i fuck them him y'all I don't believe in Italians. I said,

dude, it was Roland's game. I said, but these Italians are fun of it. We don't know anything about these guys. Eh, fuck them. I'm paying him shit.

Here, but he's a badass sitting at the booth. Yeah, I'm like, okay. So he was the next, he goes, tomorrow you ride with me.

Why? Why am I riding? Well, because I had a 38 and a shotgun, 28 and 28 shotgun. I'm thinking I'm riding with you. Yeah. So I go riding with him the next day.

And we do our things. We get back to the shop. He opens the garage. He pulls his car in the garage. He never parks his car in the garage. Never. He's hiding it. We go in the shop.

As soon as we get in the shop. Now, mind you, the shop is very secure. It's an undescript building. The way you know it's there, you got to know it's there. It's a metal door. There's a window. You can see through with bars. And there's a buzzer.

And you don't get in unless you get buzzed in. That's any way you get in anything. And when you go in that door, that door, boom, it slams behind you. It's very secure. And then there's another door inside. not as secure, but there's a second door to get through, just in case. So we get to the shop, and Janet's just like, Sonny, these guys are gone.

They have a tank. They sound like, they have Italian accents. They said they're coming here. So his partner, I was sitting in the office saying, what the hell's going on? What's going on? That's nothing. That's nothing.

Don't worry about it. He's like, what the fuck you mean? Don't worry about it. Because these guys are calling saying, you know, the money, they're coming over. They go, we don't need this shit here. Because you know, you don't want any attention. of what they're doing. Yeah.

So, because I don't worry about it. I don't worry about it. Don't answer the phone. Don't answer the door. That was his excuse. And I goes, no, you call them up

and you tell them you're not good to pay them. Don't bring that shit here. Ah, no, no, no. Now, how the office is laid out, you come in the office, she's behind the desk. There's a little narrow pass way

to get there. Here's Ira's office. Sonny's office is right here. It's got like a heavy door. All the county machines is safe. It's secure. I mean, you're not going to get in that office because of the safes and all the money in the county room. That's his

office. So we're sitting there and I'm, I'm in the back, there's a door behind Ira's office. I'm in the back sitting there behind the door listening in thinking like, I'm holding the shotgun thinking like, man, I hope nothing goes down. He's, he's like acting like nothing's going to happen, but I'm thinking something's going to happen. So the phone stops ringing and all. It's like four o'clock. And I hear the, we hear the bus. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. So I was like, who is it? Janet's like, oh, it's the male lady. male lady i let her in so i'm listening i hear the woman come in then i hear these these two guys are coming i hear the scuffle so they wait for her to open they were waiting

outside so they come busting in and i'm like what the fuck and then they come in and they're like we're sunny we need to see him so janice was getting ready to say he was in the office right when they're coming in i hear this boom he slant sunny slams his door shut boom he's he's locked in he's not Ian Bickle, he's locked in. He's a little hit to Ian Bick. He's locked in there. No, they're not getting in there. So Janice was getting ready to give them up.

And I was like, oh, no, hey, hey, hey, you cut her off. Come back. Let's talk about this. Come back in guys, you know. I'm like starting to shake now, think like, man, something's going to go down. And these guys come walking in and I'm listening. And I was like, what can I do for you guys? They're like, Sonny O's this $30,000 yesterday.

He didn't pass. today we're here collect 35 and i was like uh well you got to see sonny you know i got nothing to do it they're like no no no no no because he had this accent i'm not going to do it they're like no no no no no you know 35 we're going to collect 35 today and i was like i can hear i can see what he's doing in my head he must have stood up or heard his chair go back and go this is 1993 what are you going to do it's 993 what are you going to do it's 993 what are you to do they pummeled them they jumped on them and they're like wow i can hear him what i can hear him wail on them through the door i'm listening sunny's door did not open up i'm like motherfucker i can't let they could put

$35,000 of damage on them in the hospital something like what the fuck something i'm like i got to say the guy's whaling on i got to see them so i bust that door open with my 20 gauge and i come out of there and i cocked that sucker and let him see around come out of it shell come out and let him know it was loaded so they stand up they stand up and they're looking at me they're big dudes And it's funny, but I swear, like, time stopped. And I could smell yorn. I think Naira pissed himself. Cheapotan, Kilone, and Garuk.

I could swear I smelled that. And this one guy looked at me, and he started to step forward. And he goes, and I goes, what the fuck are you going to do? And I said, take one more step and you'll find out. In meantime, I'm like thinking like, man, am I got to kill these guys or what? Well, they believe me. So they just went like this, and they started backing out. And I was like, was kind of walking towards them.

I said, get the fuck out. So they got on out of there. I didn't know if they were armed or not. I didn't give him a chance. I just kind of got him out of the place. And then the door opens. Sonny comes out. Oh, he said, hey, you saved the day.

Oh, thanks, Pauley. I did it. So Norman gets up, what the fuck is going on? You see, he's all busted up? Oh, yeah. He's busted up. His jaw. He's bleeding.

He ended up being bruised the next day. He said, what? the fuck you're trying to do, you know, you're going to get us killed. I said, Sonny, these motherfuckers went away. I said, they will see me later. So what the hell you think that? I just pointed a gun at him. They're going to have killed me. Oh, no, no, no, I've got to get this taken care of. I said, you need to get it taken care of like ASAP, like fast. Like, me and Norm were kind of like, me and I were kind of like ganging up on him. Oh, don't you worry, don't you worry? Now he's not worried. He's not worried now because I ran him

out of the office. So he gets on the phone. And we were like Phil, Phil, Phil the judge knew a lot of people. So he calls Phil, start calling these police commanders that they knew. Of course, there's some grift. You've got to give some grift. And what was said was it was four o'clock in the afternoon when this happened. They started rolling over there six or seven. They weren't coming back tonight because they knew it would be closing down. They would probably come back the next day. So when he called the one precinct, the guy says, look, at eight o'clock tonight, somebody needs to make a phone call from the pay phone before we had cell phones. cheering psychic had a call from a pay phone and say you heard gunshots from the second floor of that

address and they'll send the cavalry and he's looking to me i'm like i'm going to make the call i said okay i guess i'm going to make the call so i drove over there close by not too close i made the phone call gunshots they came busted a place down they they locked everybody up now these guys these guys They had guns on them. They didn't, I mean, I carried a gun illegally too, but I never got caught. But they had guns on them. And they had, I guess they had a record. And they got sent out pretty quick because he paid people off.

They knew some politicians. They got them, they got them pushed out of town pretty quick. I don't know where or wherever they went to. I think they had a warrants up in Jersey. Like, they got them out quick. So Sunday was concerned, and I was concerned, like, were these guys connected? We knew they were Italian. We didn't know if they were connected or not.

So one of the guys that we knew was an associate was this guy named Johnny Palano he owned a sub shop on Hartford Road He had a book He didn't mess with poker machines He was a bookmaker He wouldn't handle less than 500 a game

I mean he was big time And Sonny also would bet with this guy a lot Always paid him He wasn't going to stiff him Because his connections with Jersey So he goes, I know who would know Johnny Palano would know I said okay go talking

He goes I want you go see Johnny Palano I said why the fuck Why am I involved? Well, he, that's, he talked all the years I was with him. He talked, he was one of these guys. He was like 5-8, 140. He talked this big game. And I'll say, I wasn't, I wasn't a tough guy. I'm telling these stories because of the situations I was put in. I got in one fight in high school. Right. But with him, I got like six. Right. So I mean, I'm not saying I was as, I wasn't. I was just put in these circumstance situations, which I had to get out of. So he's like, you know, talk to Johnny Palano. Johnny Palano knew me. And I'm like, okay, you know, so it was like four or five days went by. And I'd go walk and do it with sub shop.

And it was funny. He had this sub shop. Never wanted to draw attention to himself. But his son made the best subs. He would use it to launder his money. Right. But at noon, there's 50 people waiting outside. There was only like three little tables in his joint.

I mean, it was a few tiny shit. He would be on the phone doing deals, money, whatever. Always had a clean apron. silk pants silk shirt gold all the shit the jewelry not ever dirty and he told go go see johnny you know you find out so four days went by so i go in there i'm like thinking like i have my 38 with him i think not that i'm going to get a shoot out with this guy because i know he's associated with the jersey people but i didn't know what was going to happen so i go in there sit down and i order something and i see him come out of the kitchen and he comes walking over to me and he's like smiling at me

stand there of the table. I'm like, looking up like this, like, yeah, hey, John, what's up? He's like, I heard what happened. I said, you hear what happened? He's like, I heard everything. I know, I know what happened. I said, okay. He goes, you know what? You're lucky. You got lucky. I said, got lucky. What do you mean? Those two guys, yeah, they were tan. They were from Jersey, but they weren't they weren't anybody that I know or anybody they weren't associated with anybody I know they were like kind of freelancers right you know this trying to set something up and saying using that thing like I got nothing against Italians or the mob that they're you know they're serious people but they were trying to use that Italian persona that we're connecting you know

we're moving in right but they weren't at that level yeah they weren't at that level they weren't connected anyway they weren't connected anyway they weren't even associates they were just saying we're Italian, we're going to, they're trying to, you know, move their way in. So I said, that's good to know. He goes, he's like, Johnny's looking at me, goes, you got lucky. And I said, I'd rather to be lucky than dead. And he goes, I'm not saying these guys, I'm going to come back down here look for you. But he goes, you got lucky this time. And I said, thank the Lord for that. So that's kind of how that thing ended with the, with the Italians and then moving the money. One of these guys, I didn't talk about last time I talked to you, one of these guys,

that used to raid us, the sergeant, when he retired, six months after he retired, he's in the vending business. He's in the vending business. And we actually, we would go to these meetings once every other month with the main guys, and he called a meeting, Joe called a meeting. He was the biggest operator. And he's like, we've got a problem. And we're like, what's the problem?

He said, this guy just retired from the police. He's getting accounts, like some of their accounts, and his pitch is like, look, you know me. I used to raise your bars, you know, but now I'm in the vending game. So, hey, you know, come join me. You know, you want him any problems. I'll know if you can get popped. I'll keep him getting popped. So he was stepping on these guys' toes. And the guys that met didn't do that. This guy didn't give a shit. He thought, I'm his ex-cop. I'm going to do, I'm going to do this and do that. And so at the meeting, Sunday's response was, we got to, we got to show this send this guy a message. We're going backtrack to that.

It says that. Yeah. And it says that we have to send him. Elon Musk doesn't say that. No, business doesn't say. Yeah, he says we're going to. This is right after the shot.

This is after the Italian thing with the shotguns. This is when this happened. And they knew about it. The guys in the group knew about it. They're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we don't need an Italian job here. Right. I'm not stealing the name of the movie of the Italian job. They're like, well, we don't need an Italian job.

They knew. But what they thought was Sonny was bragging about it, that him and me, he came out. out and I came out and we ran him out. Right. So he was like, oh man, yeah, we ran him out. Yeah, and he's like, no, we don't need that shit here. We don't need you, you know, putting a gun on the cop, the next cop. That's no good. So Sunday goes, let us take care of it. I'm like, look and I'm like, let us take care of it. Who's us? I'm like, who's us? Us is you. Us is me. He goes, we're going to take care of it. Like, Sonny, you don't get this up, you know, we're dealing with the next cop. We'll take care of it. Actually, it worked out this time in a sense.

So we go, we're leaving. I said, what do you want me to do? I go, what do you want me to do? He goes, he's got two places in the city. The guy just started out six months. He had like eight joints. But he was taking it from the other guys. All right.

And they didn't like that. Using the premise that I'm a cop, you know, I could get arrested, you know, protect you and all. So Sunday goes, he's got two places like within a block of each other, two little bars. He goes, we had this guy we used to use to go and smash machines up. We called him crazy. He was a friend of mine, childhood of friend of mine. Called him crazy Steve. name was Steve. I don't use his real name. He was in and out of jail. He was a friend of my brothers

and he kind of took one of me because he was abused as a kid. His parent, his father and brother or the brother used to beat the shit at him. And he had a terrible child. But when he would come stay at the house with my younger brother, I would take them guys in the movies when I got old with our ball and beer. So he kind of looked up to me. But he was crazy. And if I would say, go, go hit this guy in the head. He'd go for nothing. And we used him before and some stuff. So he goes, go, he's like, sometimes you go, get that crazy Steve. And see if he'll do it. I said, I know. I said, why don't you want me to do it? He goes, you can't have a record. I said, it didn't bother you before. I mean, you know, I never, I never got called doing

anything. But he goes, I don't need you to have a record. I said, okay, whatever. So I get crazy Steve and I drive him. I tell him what I'm going to do. We picked like Tuesday night. It was slow. And I gave, he got a mask, gloves and a tire iron. And there's two machines. Like there's one hit one. You bust up two-poke machines, a jukebox, a pinball machine in both places. It was like $45,000 with damage to the ex-cops place. So we didn't get caught, got out of there, we gave him $1,000. He made out, he was tick with the death. He would have done it for nothing, probably, for me, this guy.

But $1,000 he had. So about a week later, this guy calls Joe up. He was the main operator, has most of the accounts. The big guy. The big guy. He's got 150 counts. He was like the, we used to say to him, he was a guy, like, he'd been in, so long like years ago you could shake your hand that was it not anymore you could you had to have

the contract because people are shit he was old school but now you got lock everybody with the contract or lean so this guy calls him up says can i come see you and joe's like oh yeah yeah sure yeah so he comes to see him and he says i got he's like i got i got this second hand i wasn't at that meeting he goes i got the i got the message and jose what what do you mean what message he goes you in here because i hear he had some problem you know something you know he's i hear you had some problem you know i got the message he goes i i get it don't that any if any of your accounts come to me and and want to switch i'll approach whoever is is in there and say hey they're looking to get out you know if you want if you don't want them to get out let me know i'm not going to

step in your toes if you're done with them we'll sit and work out of deal and joe goes that's how we work that's that's how it works we don't jump on each other's toes so So the reason he didn't want me to get called or anything because he had planned down the road to split from Ira. And the curbshop, the bar owned, was Ira's best account. Like Sonny had accounts he collected, Ira had accounts. Most of the accounts Sonny had were once he brought on because he would go out and drink and carry on. That was part of the job. My wife tolerated.

It's part of the job. No, it's crazy as shit. We'd go to the bars that we had. machines in, spend money, hang out, and we go to bars, we didn't have machines in, spend money hanging out saying, hey, we're going to support you, we're going to, you know, playing the game. Him and I were going to, he was going to split. I didn't know this. So Sonny's, like I said, Sonny's a bright guy. He's thinking way ahead. He's like, you're going to buy the curbshop. I said, does I know that? Because that's like his, that's been his family, his, his father-in-law,

who they brought the business from, that was his account. They've had this account. They've had this he's got 30 years it's his best stop right i said is iron in that he goes fuck iara you're going to buy that bar i'm going to set you up i'm like okay so when it came that was going to be for sale ira wanted to put somebody that he knew in there to protect that stop and sonny's like no no no we're giving that to paulie everything he's done for us we're going to we're going to let him have it it's going to be his joint and i would be just like they do anybody else let me 25 grand down pay the guys back it's my joint

but they never made me sign a contract because I'm in the group I'm in the circle but he premeditated this because after after the Italian thing

and there's another incident where the police thing I was kind of like looking to get out I was like looking to get out too so right after it was right after Christmas he said

he basically left him a note and said we're done, we're splitting. We just pulled equipment out of the shop late at night that we need it. And he set up another shop and he left, he was good to leave a notes. He didn't want to talk to you at the front. He left a note saying out of the 50 spots, he only took 15, but he took 15 of the best ones.

But the money was equivalent. You know, he had 35. He had 15. The money was the same, but the 35 was more bullshit because some of you had like little local stores you're making 300 bucks, 700, shitty areas. It's more work, too. more work. So he looked at it as it's even. You have more. He left the most of the equipment and we kind of moved out. And I was going to sue him and but you can't go to court or shit like

this. Right. I mean, it's just like when we got, if we got somebody went and busted up our machines or robbed us, we don't call the police. Right. They're not going to respond. We just deal it. We put new machines in. We fix it, do whatever because it's illegal activity. We're not, we're not going to. That was a gray zone. for us it is more like the twilight zone but my it's crazy with when uh years ago uh my boys growing up they never they didn't know me they didn't know me in that business and i didn't want to know me in that business he was sunny and his wife were godfather to mow with his son and the last time he saw him my son was three years old and he's 30 now and we haven't talked since and he

He, um, years ago, he was 14. I did, like a manuscript years and years ago. I was working on something. I just put it in the box. My son was 14. And he found it. Because like I said, we never talked, we never, me and my wife never talked about this stuff. The only thing she would say when they got older about me, my wife would say, yeah, your father was a criminal.

And he, and sometimes he was a nice guy. My wife would say that. I mean, I wasn't not nice to her. Yeah. But I guess leaving at 3 o'clock in the morning with a gun when somebody called me and telling her don't answer the door, don't answer the phone, she's thinking like, what the hell are you getting into? And she always thought I told her everything. No, I didn't. Right.

I couldn't. You know, and I didn't want her to worry. No, I didn't want her to worry. But she knew, like I said, she knew that I was doing criminal stuff. And I had to, and that wasn't me because anybody, like when Paul was reading the man. manuscript at 14, he was reading and he said, is this stuff true? Because he's like, I'm doing this, doing that, Karen and Ghana. I said, well, you know, I'm embellishing a lot of it. It's just, you know, it's stories. But as he got older, and I sold the business in 16, I said, he's like,

you know, I wrote more a fictional account. And then I'm more open about the podcast, about what really happened. And they're like, what? And even when I had the bar for 23 years, I bought the bar 93 because I knew I was going to, you know, from Sunny, and I was trying to slowly work my way out because I knew shit was going to get bad. And it did because the feds got involved. I'll tell you that story. And they didn't know, they didn't know me that life. And people in the bar that knew me this happy Joeville bar owner when I started doing these podcasts and then TikTok and all, they're like, what? They're like, they couldn't believe because they didn't see me as that. didn't because I wasn't I wasn't that guy like when you go to jail when you're in jail I've

never been in jail thank God you have to act a certain way you can't be you can't be like oh yes you can't be a nice guy I mean you got to be curt sometimes and and deal with the problem but let me go back to really what what ended everything with me and sunny we got away we got away from Ira we split up so what was steering me to get out finally after all this shit we had this one account in Baltimore County, which was one of our big accounts. We loaned this guy 100, well, Sonny loaned him 100 grand. But we're making like between our end, 5 and 10 grand a week, which is pretty good money. But this guy, this guy was kind of off the hinge.

I mean, he was, Sonny would call this guy Stutter, because he stuttered so bad. And I felt bad at first. I'm like, man, that's fucked up. He's got a, you know, speech impediment. He's calling him stutter fuck. But I found out, this guy did so much powder. I mean, he, I mean, he was. so high all the time. That's why. So I'm like, you know, and he always wore a Hawaiian shirt,

shorts and flip-flops. He had long hair in the middle with big comb. I don't care of it's 20 degrees. He's always a dress like that because he's always super high. So he had a good, he had a good stop. But the problem was I had to like babysit his ass. And I'm thinking like, man, I don't want to babysit this guy. Oh, you got to go over there and do this and do that. So one night, he's the only guy I have my home phone number. Like I said, there's no cell phones. And he called me one night. three in the morning. I need a dump. I need a dump. And what a dump is, is that he's in there, he would loan money, cash checks, and they're paying people off, and they're dumping the money back in. He had three machines back there, and he needed money to keep these guys there. And

his place was unique, had a big nightclub up front, and the back, he had a back bar, as big as the bar that I owned, with like a heavy door, and he had after-hours parties back there. He had a bar, full table, three-poke machines, and he had a steel door in the back. So he called calls me up. I need a dump. I need a dump. Three o'clock in the morning. My wife's like, what's going on? I said, I got to get out. I got to go, you know, same thing. Take my gun, get a briefcase. So I go over there and I hear this loud music. It's 4 o'clock in the morning. The bar should be shut down. But they're just after hours joint. So I'm tap on his metal door or nothing. I pull the door. It opens up. I'm like, what the fuck? So I go in

and I'm pissed. I locked the door. He's like, oh, Paulie, how you doing? He's off high. and there's two guys playing the poker machines two of the guys are playing it and these girls are blowing them while they're playing it like caligula right there's blind all over the bar here guys are doing blow some guys banging this on the pool table hey uh he's i'm saying like what the What's going on in here? I said, you're going to get those closed down. Oh, I need a dump. I said, get them away from the machines. Because these guys get blow jobs, right? He's scooting them out of the way.

It's crazy. I'm like, you know, I don't know if you've ever seen something like that. It's crazy as shit. Like something you see in a porn movie. Right. Of course, that's shit like that. You go home, how's your night? Oh, you don't tell your wife.

So I dumped the machines. We get it out. It was like $5,000. Count it all out. He signs a ticket, and they settle at the end of the week. He needed that money to keep these guys there. So I tell Sonny about that. And he's like, man, you got to keep it on him.

You know, you can't operate like that. I said, what do you want me to do to back door? So same thing. I went over another night, same thing. Back doors, I'm, this time I'm pissed. I go on, we settle on the shit in his office. And I'm red face. I'm like pissed.

Like, I don't need this shit. And I'd like grab and I slam up against a wall. It wasn't drywall. It was like particle board thin. And his shoulders went through it and his head went through. And he said, oh, he stopped starting for a minute. It was kind of funny in a way. And I said, man, I've got to come over here again.

the back door's open. I said, we're going to have a major problem. And I said, this is nothing to what you're going to get. Now, like I said, I didn't like being that guy. But this, some of these guys, that's all they understand, is somebody knocking them in the head. So I went back to Sunny the next day. We're making a ton of money.

He goes, well, I'm going to put you in there. What do you mean? I'm going to, you're going to own, I said, I'm not, no way. I'm not going to be involved with that guy. I said, it's bound to get popped or something. I said, I'm not dealing with that Coke, whores. I'm not dealing with that shit. He goes, well, something's got to happen.

Okay, a couple weeks went by, this guy, Paul Monk. You can Google, you can Google this guy if you want. This guy Paul Monk comes in. They're friends. dressed real nice, slack, shirt. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size? Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus,

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Guys would sit there and wait, wait, just to play. And these guys are playing. They're like drooling to get, to play the machine. and he said there's a bar down the street for sale mile away that we'll buy that and we'll push some of these guys down there so sonny's like okay that's that's a pretty good job let's do let's do that so we did that about a month and then i get word sonny gets word that this pole monk is dealing heavy powder and i'm thinking holy fuck that's like letting the fox in the henhouse because dick 's got a bad problem so sonny goes you need to go straight that out i'm like i got a straight i got to i should

get her, I should put a shirt, get a shirt, I'm going to straighten this out. So I'm like, what do you want me to say? Because straightening out. We, you know, that shit's going to get us closed down. Get them closed down. We're out of $100,000. The loan. So I go over to see Paul on first he denies. I said, look, I know you're dealing. Blow. I said, I've no problem of how you make money. I don't give a shit. But I said, kind of how it left is kind of crazy. I said, there's got to be a amount of blow that you leave in this bar. Because he's like, his argument was, man, we're making all this money because I got to go powder. I got the girls and they're spending money. We're keeping them up all night.

I get it. But if you get pop, we're losing our money. You're losing the joints. That's it. Everybody's going to go to jail. He's all right, all right. I tried to maintain that. So a month went by, and he's working the other joint, the other bar.

Dickey calls me, Richie calls me up. Another call, this call was serious. Three o'clock in the morning. I answered the phone. Paul got hit. So what? Paul got murdered. Oh, murdered?

Murdered. I said, what? He goes, bring your shit. Get over here. Shotgun in 38. I'm thinking, this scared my wife. She goes, what's going?

I said, I got to go. I said, she's, what's up? And I'm, like, kind of shaking. Because I didn't know if it was, they're coming after us. Because that point, Sonny was kind of stepping on toes. They're coming at us. I don't know what it was.

So I go over there. The tape's around. And I could only get so close. And this cop's like, who the fuck are you? I'm like, I'm just, I'm a friend. I didn't say I was the operator or vendor. I don't want to say that. because they would be thinking, like, oh, is something to do with that, gambling?

I said, I'm just a friend. I'm just, you know, and who are you? Where are you at? And I said, I was sleep. If you sleep hot at night, you know how disruptive that can be. Whether you're having trouble falling asleep, you're waking up sweating in the middle of the night or all of the above. That's where ghost bed can help.

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and use the code Cox at checkout. Again, that's ghostbed.com slash Cox with the code Cox at the checkout to save a whopping 50% off site wide. And Richie goes, oh, so I just call caught him up. I just called him up. We're all friends. He came over. And he said, okay, so he didn't bother me. So it ended up, that was never resolved. We didn't even never result. Like they never found out who killed him? To this day. Where did they kill him? In the parking lot, that bar that they

bought, they would party in the back. They left down the stairwell. There's one light outside on the pole in the back there. That light was out that night. Somebody shot it. out. And when he came down to steps, the two guys that were with them, I knew him. Because John, John and Steve, I think their names were. And they were up there partying with him. So John and Steve walked around this side of the car. And Paul was going this way. Dumpster was here. This guy comes around the dumpster. They said, hey, they saw the guy. Like, Paul. And before he could turn, pop, you got hit in the back of head. He went down. And then the guy pointed the gun to the two guys. They hit the dirt. They thought they were

next he kind of rolled him over and i shot him twice in the chest it ran off yeah that's not a robbery no it's a professional hit right so we're like we didn't know what was going on so it's fucked up with son he was you know he's like oh man that that like gives me like street crap maybe people are thinking i'm thinking like you're idiot i'm like you want you want that don't you want people thinking you were involved i i didn't even tell them i was an operator when i didn't say i was machines not that i don't would be involved in that shit. So time went by, and then the next big thing to happen was when after I bought the bar, he split from, he split from Ira.

I bought the bar. This is going into 94, 95. He has a handful of accounts. He's starting to lose some of the accounts. He's like, he's getting high. I can tell he, I asked, I confirm him. No, no, I'm not doing, I'm like, dude, you're acting erratic. Like, you're letting some of these accounts go.

You know, they want the redo the contract. You're like, he didn't give a shit. And then he started, I guess he woke up after I had to talk with him. And one of the accounts was for sale. And he goes, I can't lose, I can't lose any more accounts. I got that guy, I got to keep him. I said, well, go talk to him. The guy's like, nah, I don't want to resign with you.

I'm just going to move, go on my own or whatever. He goes, well, you're not going to, he goes, where you're not going to get your license renewed. Because Phil, the liquor board chairman, the judge. And he's like, bad bullshit. So he goes and has a meet with Phil and tells Phil, I need you to hold his license up. He's done it in the past so I can get some money out of this guy, either sign a contract or try to get some money out of him. Phil goes, there's a problem. His lawyer was a guy that Phil grew up with.

They're friends. He goes, I got a problem. I knew this guy since I was like 10 years old. I can't, you know, I can't. He goes, you've got to do something, Phil. You've got to help me out. And Phil goes, I don't know. the day of the hearing, Phil never gave him an answer. So Phil, the day of the hearing, there's a lot of people, like 45 people in the hearing room. Sunday calls me in the morning. He goes, I want you to go, he goes, take your ass to that hearing and stand up in the back and make sure Phil sees you and stare at him. And here, Phil walked my wife down the aisle when we got married. To the day he died, my kids called him Uncle Phil. He was like family. He wasn't blood, but he was like family. Right. It was kind of a mentor in a way. I mean, he was less evil than Sunny.

He was bad, but Sonny was evil. That's kind of how I look at it. And I go and I stay, I walk in there before the hearing is over. And I stand, I'm standing up in this guy. He says, you need to sit down. I'm sitting down. I stand up and Phil sees me. He's like talking, they're asking questions about people, about should they get the license, should

or transfer, he looks up and sees me. And I'm just kind of looking at him. Not that I ever would threaten Phil, but Phil knew that I was doing some work for Sonny, straightening people out and shit like that. And I would never, I would never do, but he, he's implied. It was implied. So he looks at me and they call for a recess. This was on Thursday.

And then he come back and he says, we're not going to decide this till Monday. We're going to reconvene Monday. And every, there's like an upward. Like what? It's supposed to be a simple transfer. Right. No one's contesting it. So he tells me, he, I see him later.

He calls, he gets somebody to tell me I go back in his office at the liquor board. He says, tell Sonny's got the Monday to do whatever he's got to do. That's the best I can do. Yeah. And the bar owner now is questioning whether he's going to get his license or not. So that wasn't good enough leverage for Sonny. Sonny's like signed a five-year contract. You're not going to get your license.

I already held it up. He ended up getting like 10 grand of the guy. All right. Okay, 10 grand. I mean, he wanted a five-year contract, which could be worth 50, 60, 70, 80 grand over time. He was happy to get something, but still he wasn't happy enough. Right for that. Phil was a piece of shit.

He didn't talk to Phil anymore. So I'm thinking at that point Phil just got you 10 grand Phil just got you 10 grand And if Phil was a piece of shit I'm next Right I'm next

And I was next Because he started Not coming around I'm doing all the shit I started seeing Crown Vicks I'm seeing these Crown Vicks And I'm like what the fuck They're at my apartment

I live in an apartment They're down where I'm collecting and all So I tell about a month of it I tell Sonny that I said dude i'm seeing oh you're full of shit you know what you're talking about is it because crown vex are popular yeah yeah and he's like you know you know he's 20 years older me i'm 20 some years old i don't know what i'm talking about i said dude i'm telling you i'm seeing these crown vicks everywhere so he comes with one day and mind you he was like like running around with girlfriends going

to Vegas going to jersey go home and play the he plays a dad father on the weekends he's this great guy he's a saint so he comes to me one day and we drive i always drive around the certain spots This place was Brandon's pub in Harvard Road in the city. And I drove around down like this, and there was a Crown Vic down here. And he's like, he ducks down in the seat. He goes, oh, my God, you're right. I said, I told you. So he could just be careful, you know.

So a few weeks went by, I stopped seeing him. So I told him that. I said, I stopped seeing him because we're in the clear. We're good to go. I'm like, I don't know. I mean, they were, I've seen them for a couple of months. I don't think we're in the clear. Oh, no, we're good to go.

So we kind of acted like we're in the clear, when the clear, we're in a clear. clear. And then he comes to me and says, you know what? I'm, I'm thinking about getting out. I want to get out. And now, years ago, one of the ploy was when I was going to get out of there when I was done, he's like, I'm going to give everything to you. I'm going to just going to give it to you. I made enough money. He goes, I'll tell you what. He goes, I'll sell you everything for $200,000. Think about it. I said, I said, I thought about it. I don't want it. He turned, that minute he turned on me. I'm a piece of shit. So now I'm still working for for months.

He wasn't talking to me. I'm running everything. I would go there, leave a money, pick it up Friday, and leave. I'm like, what the fuck? I'm fat, you know, I'm treating me like a piece of shit. I'm doing all the, all the work. He's still thinking, I know he's thinking something's going to happen. Six, seven, eight months went by.

We stopped seeing Crown Vicks, but they got, they got nothing but time in the world. So he comes and says, you know, what do you think? You think you're going to do it? I said, nah, no, I'm not going to do it. He asked me again. And so then chose Rockind's guy that did what I did was Rakai, shows up in my bar at the curbshop. And he goes, hey, Paul, I'm doing. He goes, I'm here.

So what are you doing here? He goes, I'm here checking all these places out. Sonny's selling his accounts. And you're on here. You're one of them. And I'm just checking out. Is this right? And I said, well, I'm not contractually obligated to Sonny.

Well, he goes, what it says right here you are. I said, I'm not. I said, it's not part of that deal. I said, whatever he's selling, he's selling. I ain't part of that deal. And he goes, well, I said, I don't give shit what he said. I'm a part of that deal. You got no contract.

Like, he can't provide any contract with me. I got no contract. Within a week, I go to the office, leave the money on this desk in the office. There's a contract that said sign. A five-year contract sign. Right. So I rip it up. I said, fuck you.

I rip it up. Throwing the desk. I left all my keys there. I said, I'm done with you. I left all my keys there. And I had a key to lock the door. locked the door through the mailbox. So by the time I got home, the phone's ringing.

My wife answers. I can hear him yon. He's cussing my wife out left. Your husband, I feel. He's teaching this store. He's just blurting off shit. I took the phone. I said, what the fuck's your problem?

You motherfucker all I did for you? All he did for me was loaned me $25,000. I paid him back when I bought the bar. So I did. I never had a contract with him. You couldn't do this and that. You owe me? I said, dude, I said, I paid you back.

You need to come over here when you straighten this shit out. I said, I'm not coming over, unless you're calm, because he's like a caged animal. Now, mind you, he didn't have, he didn't have a permit to own a gun because he had a fraud case, a felony charge years ago for something else. But I knew he had an M-1911, A1, a 45 caliber that he carried. And he kept it in his desk. He wasn't supposed to because of the felon, being a felon, I knew he had that. So when I went over there, I'm thinking like, this might not end good. And I pull up there, and I have my 38, I work coat, I have my 38 in the coat pocket. So I go in there, I open the door, I look in this office. I said, I'm, dude, I'm not coming in unless you're calm. Oh, yeah, I'm calm. We're going to work this out. You know, you just can't, you just can't get out of here. I said, I had another contract there. Because you just signed that. I said, I'm not signing it. And he starts, yeah, this and that. You can't watch your part all the time. And this and that. He starts threatening me.

And I said, I'm like, don't threaten me. You don't know what I'm capable of. I said, I know what you're capable of because I was doing some of it. So don't tell me, I don't know what you're capable of. He goes, you owe me this. And he's yelling and scream. I said, I don't know you shit. I said, I don't know you shit.

So he's going back like this. And I think he's going to go for that gun to try to threaten me. So I go, I reach my hand. And here's that click in my pocket. And I had the 38 up like this. And he just stood. back he stood back and put his hands on his and i said look motherfucker i said you have more to lose than i do and i said you're not going to be around to watch your family so i said don't come around my

building don't don't call my house don't bother my wife don't do anything to me don't do anything we're done and i said i tell you what i'm going to do because i knew how he worked he had all the serial numbers of all the machines that I had in my bar. He had them all. And I knew how he operates. And he would try to sue me saying it was his equipment and call some, you know, put a lien or something. So I said, I tell you what, I said, I'll give you 20,000. I think I said 15 or 20,000. I think 15,000 for the equipment. I said, I'll give you 15,000 for the equipment. And I'll give you 20,000 as a per diem just to get, that wasn't good enough. I said, take it or leave it, take or you get nothing. That's what I'm going to give you. And I said, well, I said,

When I leave this office, I'm never going to talk to you again. I was sending you your money. And I just rolled running out of office the last time I talked to him. What did he say? I mean, did he say, I'll take it? He didn't say shit. He had no choice. I said, take or leave it.

He didn't say shit. Now, he got pissed off because he called my attorney. I never signed anything pertaining to that. I sent him, it was like 15 checks I sent him. I wasn't going to send him cash. He'd do the same thing. Oh, he's got my machines. I got the serial numbers right here.

You know, try to sue me for it then. I wanted him to receive these checks. And I wrote on everyone for equipment. and whatever, and he cashed them all. So that's how I got out of that. You know, it's, it was not a happy ending, but it wasn't any, but we, we hadn't talked since. I think my wife saw him in 2001 at a wedding,

and he stayed clear of her. He didn't go anywhere near her. Okay. Well, so, I mean, you never? Never heard from him again, never saw him again. What about the judge? What was the judge's name? Phil.

Phil. He, like I said, we, he dumped him in 94, 95. He was a piece of shit because he wouldn't really hold that license up. We were going trips together. He'd come to my kids' birthday parties. They called him Uncle Phil. And when he died in 08, this is another kind of weird thing. He wanted me to be one of his paw bears.

I'm like, okay. And the paul bears were like, one was a, uh, looking for judge. One was like a major, Baltimore County police major. One was like another politician in the county. Then it was like two guys that had like big, big restaurants that everybody knew and me. And after the thing, after the party at the end, people would come up to me. They're like, excuse me, who were you? Who are you?

Because they, they didn't know, Phil knew me in that light. Right. They didn't know me from that. So it was kind of weird. It was surreal that, you know, doing it. And I want to backtrack one second. Like somebody had asked me on another pod that how did these guys control these politicians? And the brass taxes, like years ago in the 40s, 50s, 60, 70s, most of the guys that were politicians locally, county, city, state, Annapolis.

They started out that bar owners, restaurateurs, club owners, they were seen in the community. So they ran and they became politicians. and how they maintain the power to keep these machines, they knew the operators. And the operators at some point helped them out, got them in business, loaned them money, helped them with their campaign, and then he became local politicians.

And the other crazy thing is that in the state of Maryland, they're legal to use for amusement-only devices. The only jurisdictions they're legal in is Baltimore County, Baltimore City. Every other county outlaws them. So most of the politicians that were under the thumb came from Baltimore City and Baltimore County.

Any jurisdictions they were legal in. Okay. Okay, so my other question is, so what did you do after that? You just, you own, how many bars? I just owned one bar. That's all I did it was one because it was one of our better accounts.

I can talk about now how much I was making. I mean, I was making from those poker machines had two in there for years, five grand a week. That wasn't what I was making from the bar. I mean, my wife kept track one time. I was making, I think one of the books, and she says, and I told her to stop doing this. She goes, you know, she goes, you know you gave me $150,000 in cash last year. I'm like, don't keep that written down. That wasn't the money that I had. Yeah, yeah. That I was doing stuff with. And people are like, it was a 2,000 square foot bar. Right. And people are like, we had this, I had this house built in Shrewsbury

in 2,000, 3,500 square feet. And people are like, my neighbor's like, I know the little bar, are you making enough money to live in this house? I said, yeah. They thought like, how in hell you live in this house as big with that little tiny bar? Right.

But I, you know, I made enough money through there, so. Did you ever after, you know, after you separated from Sunny, did you ever, did your bar ever get hit by the? cops? I got, I never got hit by the cops because I became friends a lot of, after that, not the influence from the machine business, people like me. I mean, whether, I'm nice, I'm like, I believe you. I'm like one of the nicest guys, unless you cross me. I'm the nicest guy you ever meet. And these guys kind of took elect, I like to me, judges, uh, the ex-governor would come in, um, lawyers, uh, people that were in the city politics.

I had a party for this one judge's husband once. I closed the bar down, I had a party. So I didn't have to pay anybody off. They liked me. But I did have one situation that was right before the feds came to see me because they came to see me at one point. I had this, I had the, it was a state audit. The comptroller showed up on a Thursday.

You'll like this story. And they gave me this paperwork. And I'm looking at the paperwork. I'm like, what's this? They go, they serve my accountant too. You have to Monday to get all your information to your account to Monday, and you need to be there while we audit you. I said, okay.

So my account calls me, he goes, who did you piss off in the state of Maryland? I'm like, what are you talking about? He goes, this is like a major audit. He goes, this is worse than the IRS. He goes, we're going to have two people from the state of Maryland down here going through your records. He goes, you need to bring them down by Monday. I said, okay, this is something I learned from Sonny. I said, okay.

So I had four years by law in the bar. And I had them in the beer box. And every month was a packet. So it was 12 months and it was four years. So I'm thinking, man, I know, I know what I'm doing wrong. I mean, I know if they find it, I'm fucked. So what I did was, it was summertime. I took this box outside.

I ran the hose on all the shit, around the hose on them. And I broke up breadcrumbs and shit and put it in there. And I left it out overnight. Rats got in there. digging holes, mice were in there, ants, roaches. It, like, it was, it would be like, the boxes up. So I put them inside. I take them to my accountant's office Sunday, Sunday afternoon.

He met me there. He said, what the hell happened to this? What the hell happened to your stuff? Because the shit stuck together from the water and drying out. I said, you won't believe it. He goes, what? In the bar, I had a water heater. It was called a low boy.

It was mounted in the ceiling, which is true. And under it, I had all my boxes. because my stock room was really tight. It wasn't much storage. So the water heater had to be up in the ceiling. And I had it replaced like six months ago. The one busted. But my buddy worked for that plumbing company.

And I got him to make a new ticket saying it just did it last month. So she came and she was hot. The one of the agents came in. She's like, what the hell? I said, the water heater busted. You know, I had this shit stored there underneath them. I tell you where I'd stored. Here's a receipt right here.

Because she can believe how it fucked up. I said, it's all there. you want the paperwork. It's there. I'm sorry about the shape of it. Right. So they were like, and my account called me, oh, they are so pissed off. They're like pulling, trying to get shit when it was stuck together. So it ended up. She found, they wanted to find something. She says, well, we found a receipt. You're stealing $100 a day based on your registered tape. I'm like, what? So we need an extension, a three-month extension to go through your stuff. I'm like, then my heart's, I mean, my heart's like up in my throat. I just lost 15

pounds in a month. I wasn't trying. You know, you have somebody looking at you. So I go to enter and get the tape and I'm going with my account. We're going over to add it up. I said, it's 0.01. It's a penny. She fucked up. So she comes back on Monday and did you sign the papers for the extension? I said, I'm not signing it. You have you. You're like, you have to. I'm like, no, I don't. No, no. If you asked me to sign something, I don't have to. I said, I'm not signing it. She goes, well, I said, me and my accountant, it's one penny off. not a not a hundred dollars you had an error she's because we still have the signs i said i'm not signing anything i said agent whatever name was i said do what you want call my attorney do what you

want i'm not signing it so she stormed out and two weeks later i get a letter letter saying that you're clear that you're fine start putting weight on again oh yeah we start taking medicine yeah once i started taking blood pressure medicine that puts the weight on um okay so what happened with the feds the feds the feds like you slipped out of there before they yeah 96 96 i was out i was done with sunny nothing i didn't hear anything i'm running i'm doing 2 000 i get a i'm in an apartment i'm building my house the 3 500 square foot house i'm in an apartment we're waiting the kids are little everything's piled up they call the apartment she says it was agent smith she goes uh mr shiftbauer she goes this agent smith turn of revenue service i need to come see you tomorrow

I'm coming to see tomorrow, 10 at this address. And I said, 685-2022, she goes, what's that? My attorney, click. It wasn't five minutes. You call your attorney, maybe you'll get them an hour later, next day. Wasn't five minutes. My phone's ringing. Oh, it's Sydney.

He goes, you know what it's about. She's told me, she's going to come see you tomorrow, drag you before Northern Virginia, a court, you know, grand jury. She goes, what do you want to do? I said, I ain't going before. He goes, I don't want you to be going before a grand jury. He goes, I don't know. He goes, I don't know what they know.

I goes, I don't know what Sonny's told them because I was. How did you know it was Sunny? I mean, I know you cut it. Yeah. But did she say? No, she didn't say. When she showed up, I'm in the apartment on the first floor. They come down, knock on the door.

She flips a badge. I'm Agent Brown. The other guy flips a badge. Didn't say if he was IRS or what didn't say who he had a badge, but I didn't know if he's IRS or what he was. she sits down here i'm here my wife's here he's there he doesn't say one fuck a word for 45 minutes he just sits there with a notepad looking at me he's just looking at me and she's asked me all these questions he had to cancel checks that i you know she had those she had receipts to where

i deposited cash 10 000 cash in his accounts 30 000 account 30 000 cash in his business accounts i said they're his accounts well you know you're you know what he was doing we got you going in out of these bars I said did you have cameras in the bar agent smith well no we know you know how much she was trying to find out how much money i knew he was making and i said i just i was in there giving him pool chalk you don't know what i was doing in there so she was trying to say i was complicit i knew what was going on she's trying to tie you into a conspiracy trying to try me into it and i didn't i didn't give her anything up and then she at the end of she goes well you know you have the curbshop and you have poker machines it's just us talking you know just us

talking, you pay off your costs, regulars, you know, just us talking here and all. And I said, Agent Smith, that's great. You think, you know what I do in my business? I said, I'm not going to seizure incriminate myself. And then she asked me again, I said, I'm done. I'm done. My wife's like, I mean, I didn't yell scream. I said, I'm done talking. Well, I said, I'm done. You want anything else call my attorney? She slams her book. He slams his, we're leaving through the back. I'm on the first floor. It's a slider. I'm like, help yourself. It's wet outside. Don't slip. It's grass. My wife goes, why did she leave through the back?

I said, she's looking around. What's in plain sight? What's in plain sight? What's in plain sight? Okay, that's 2000. 2004, I think I'm in a clear. I think everything's quiet. I'm living my life.

Best Burger in Baltimore, Baltimore Magazine doing my thing. Michael Phelps is coming in a bar hanging out. And I get a phone call at the bar, Agent Smith. She goes, I need to come serve you as a material witness for the U.S. government against Selling Warner. I'm like, what? And she's like, yeah, where can I serve you at it? 30 Berkshire Drive, my house.

I said, yeah, that's 45 minutes. I said, just serve me at the bar. I'm always at a bar. I don't want her coming to my house. I had expensive furniture out and a lot of nice stuff. Oh, no, no, no, I got to serve at your house. I'm thinking like, what law says you have to serve at my house? I said, okay, I'll be there 2 o'clock tonight.

I'll be there 2 a.m. You will come up? I get off at you. I said, serve me at the bar. So I call my attorney, goes, you don't, you don't want to be. on that stand you don't know what they're going to ask you and I knew I never said anything like this before I knew he wasn't going to say me about me because he was he was worried as shit because we we were involved in other things that they weren't looking at that they

they weren't talking about and he would not I knew he would not bring me into this because if I brought some of this stuff up he would he wouldn't probably see the light of day. Right. And I'll take that to my grave. So my attorney was like, what do you mean? You don't think you're going to say, I don't think he's going to say anything about me.

They wanted him, but they were trying to say I was complicit. So I call my attorney, he's like, he said they have 30 days to serve me once they say, you're going to be served. I don't know if it's true. That's what he said. It's counting down, count now, count it, like 28th day. I said, I lost 15 pounds real quick.

It's on the radio, it's on the TV. in the paper, copped the plea. It's like four counts, four or five counts. Was he incarcerated or was he out? He was out. Fed time, year and a half. I think it was like $6.50 initially back. You have a lien on his property for seven something.

And then there was another amount to be determined, which I don't know, it may have been another three or four hundred gram. But he was still racketeering. Like he tried to sell some of his stuff. He ended up keeping it, but he bought a nightclub, a strip club, and still continue to do have machines and all that. So he was still rolling in the racketeering business. And they finally got him.

I mean, you said he got a year. Year and a half. That was nothing. What happened when he got out? He went right back to it? I kind of don't know. I mean, I really don't know what he was doing. I didn't have any conversation with.

My family didn't have any conversation with him. My kids had never seen him. I mean, if you look, if you look them up, you can see, from pictures, old pictures, him holding my son up when he's three. So we don't know where Sonny is. And does he get to keep the money? No, he had to give a bunch of...

He gave, he gave $6.50 and then another $3.50. And then he's got to lean for $7 something on his house. So all the... You know, if he paid that in taxes, Matt, he'd probably been okay. Yeah. And I, he always argued with me. I'm like, you got to pay something. Yeah.

You got to pay something. He was, I'll fuck them. They'll never get me. That was his... That was his addict. They'll never fucking get me. I'm like, they always get you. Those guys are always jackasses, you know, the guys that, you know, God, I'm not paying that.

Really? You're not going to pay a ticket? They're going to suspend your way. Like, they're going to win. I'll give you another, you remind me of something. When I first started working for him, years ago, there wasn't, if you got a ticket in the state, it didn't transfer to another state. They didn't know about it. Right. He got a bunch of speeding tickets in Maryland. Faird appears, I mean, a bunch of them. He moved to Virginia at that time. Got a license of Virginia. He's good to go. He was coming through speeding one night. This is like five, six, seven, eight years later gets pulled over by Maryland State Policeman. They run his name like, oh, you got a bench warrant, this and that,

failure, peer. He gets locked up. He calls Phil. I was just working for about a year then. He calls Phil up. Phil goes down and gets him out. He goes, how can I get out of this, man? I got to pay all these, you know,

the judge is pissed off because I didn't pay anything. It's been eight years. I've moved out of state, got an out-of-state driver's license. And Phil goes, I know a guy you can talk to is that local senator and the senator was in charge of the DMV, the motor vehicle administration. So they had a meeting and he said, give me 10 grand. Well, 10 grand made a guy out of that deal, maybe, I don't know, how bad it was.

He goes, give me 10 grand and it's gone. So he gave the politician 10 grand. He went down to the DMV, gets on the computer. Nothing. didn't exist, gone. That's how connected these guys were. If you paid the right guy, he said, you have no more,

you're not even the system. There's nothing there. Thanks to a local senator, who was in charge of DMV at the time. Yeah, there's a, yeah, there's, it's funny how, how corrupt, you know, especially at the lower, lower levels,

they can be super corrupt. They can be super corrupt. And people like, when you tell stories like people on the outside, like, no way, it's not like, Yeah, it's not always like that, but it is like that sometimes. I mean, I bribe the politician, you know. Yeah, I mean, it's sometimes it's like when I had the bar, I mean, threw a party for somebody or come something,

and they may look the other way for something or do you a favor. I had this guy locked up one night. He came in, he was drunk, he put his fist through my jukebox. And I'm glad my son stopped me. I was drinking the guy. I was drinking at home. And my bartender said, this motherfucker, put his fist in a jukebox.

I was like, and he had a shop, like, I half a mile from where my place was. So I grabbed my shotgun. I tell my son, I'm fucked up. I said, we're going out and ball. I'm going to blow his store for our windows out. We're driving down there. Do you remember that?

You remember this? Yeah. I'm fucked up. I'm driving down there. I'm like, we're going to drive by. I'm going to, and we're going to, and we're going to, so he's, we're going down. We get halfway there.

He's, dad. You know, think of it. It's a bad idea. Then finally, I'm like, yeah it's firing a weapon in city limits I said it's probably bad idea so I drove back home and so then a buddy of mine was a cop

I told him what happened so he came in he got pictures of these people and had a picture of him and goes to the bartender he goes which one did it in the lineup and the bartender goes he did

he went every Friday night knocked on his door turn around sir he locked them up for the weekend So the guy's lawyer calls me, said, you're saying, so why'd you have my client locked up for a weekend? He was going to pay you. I said, it'd been three weeks.

Yeah, he wasn't going to pay me. I won my money. Then we went to court. He goes, well, he'll give you $100 a week. I said, no, what on my money now? It's $1,500 and replace the screen in the jukebox. Yeah. So I had favors like that.

I mean, it didn't really cost me anything. I mean, buying beer and food and shit for a while. I was thinking I wrote a story for a guy they used to go to their competitors, and they would just pull up in the parking lot. And they would take slink, they had those, like, like really nice slings and they would take ball bearings and just shoot out. And then he was like, this, this happened, like just con. We could do it all the time.

They're knocking holes in the windows, taking out their signs. I mean, this is just constantly. He's like, oh, you can shoot those things. He was then you sit there and shoot, you know. There's no sound to it. Yeah, 40, 50. Yeah. He's like, just knocking it.

It's like, their front of their building is always shot to shit. And eventually the, the strip mall owner will be like, yeah, you got to go. yeah yeah like you're these guys who i don't know what you what your problem is but somebody just got somebody like yeah somebody like i'm replacing these windows yeah so you can if you want to you can make somebody miserable oh yeah yeah i'd done that in the past too but you don't have to fire a shotgun at them and no yeah that's a bad idea the ball bearing things way better yeah one time this these girls were giving me some shit they had a beauty salon i owned the bar and i owned all the parking and they kept booking these things these events weddings and like there's like 30 cars out there

I'm like, yeah, I'm a nice guy. I'm a nice guy. I keep repeating that. You're taking up my parking. Oh, a tough shit. I'm like, no, no, no. Then I found out it was like on a Sunday. They had this major wedding event.

And I'm thinking like, they ain't, dang, he's in my parking lot. So this guy, you go, he goes, I got an idea. He goes, what time are they doing this thing? I said, like 8 o'clock in a morning on the Sunday. He goes, I'll stick super glue in her key lock. They'll never, they'll never get a, they'll never get a, go, I'll never get a locksmith down here in time. They didn't.

They didn't. It ruined the person's wedding. They lost the business. I'm like, that's, that sucked. They came over and told me, said, oh, my God, that's terrible. He would do such a thing. I was thinking, well, I was thinking you were going to have somebody park a tow truck in the front, just start towing the vehicle.

Oh, I did that too. I had a guy park on the hill, like, right, he'd hide on the hill. And I'd be like, go ahead. he'll latch him take him out of there have you seen those tow truck guys have you seen them

on TikTok? Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah they're quit down just sitting there boom got the guy

and then they drive off and you see the guy running out of the house yeah yeah they're uh and there's one guy he wants to fight everybody

he repo guy the black fella yeah he's like come on you want to come at me he's like some super MSF he knows all the

the karate and this and that and he beats everybody's ass big guys he goes, come on at me. And he challenges everybody. He's like, I'm taking your car no matter what.

He goes, I'm going to put you down, take your car no matter what. Better give me a car. Just take the car. And what else we got? I got some questions. Okay. So.

Don't hear my lawyer? Maybe not. So with these machines, are they, do you guys control the payouts? Are you able to determine? That's a good answer. That was a problem with me and Sunny we had because a lot of these machines,

there's control switches inside. So I knew you throw certain toggle switches, you know, 60% payout, 50%, 40%. Sonny would like, he went to rape you as quick as he could, 50% or 40%. And my argument with Sonny was, I said, look, you know, if we're making $2,000 a week, 2000 a week, $1,500, eventually these guys stopped playing it. Yeah. Then again, I'm stupid. I'm young, I don't know.

And then we're making $300 a week and used to be $2,000 because you're getting greedy. I said, let them win $60. My machines were set at like 60, 40, 60, 40, 65. I let them win a lot. You know why? They're going to put the money back in. Yeah, they get excited. They put it back in.

So you're going to get it all. And so, yeah, you can control them, yeah, the percentage. Yeah. Yeah, I was just curious if, yeah, so 60, 40 was. That's what I ran, because they would win a lot and then they get drunker and put it back in. Does this stuff still go on today? Yeah. It still goes on today, but not as much because they got slots.

Slots are legal now. and they're not as prevalent as they used to be. So that was the other thing these operators would do. All the years they were paying off these politicians, it was also to keep the slots away. So that was the other reason why they... And once the older times, the older guys started dying off that were in charge,

you know, the young guys were like, fuck it, I can give me these policies any money. And it was through and demise because, oh, they say, it's true, we'll get the slots. We'll get the slots in here. They still have machines, but they're not like they were. What happened with that other partner? Do you know what happened with him?

Not Sunny, but... He sold... He couldn't deal with it. So he had a... His one main mechanic, he like, fucking, I'm just going to sell everything. He sold his stuff, this one mechanic. He lived like a five-year period.

And he moved to, like, the Caribbean. He just got out of town. He was smart. Yeah. Because the feds maybe wrapped him up, too, because they were connected at one time. And it was shortly after they split that the feds were looking at Sunny.

What are these guys, it, Sonny's like just not paying his taxes, but I mean, how do you pay your taxes on just straight, like, are like, are these guys figuring out, like, the one guy you, well, you, no, it was Sonny, wasn't that, that had the, somebody had a sandwich shop and he, so he's trying to run money through that. Yeah, Johnny Palano had a supplement, what you do is like, these names, bro. Johnny Palano. So what, what do you do is, because I was, I was, I would money longer too.

All right. And what you do is like, if I needed to have, say my, my bar is doing 15,000 a week, right, his little bar. And I needed to make a little bit more. money or show more money. I might fund in 2000, 3,000. Not real crazy. You don't want to go from 15 to 25. Yeah. So you fund a little bit in there, and you're going to pay 6% sales tax. Yeah. Okay, well, 6%'s fine because I'm cleaning the money up. Yeah. And unless somebody comes and audits me, which they did, but they didn't find it anyway. They're not going to prove

that. So you funneling enough money to where it's not going to throw a red flag up. How do you go from 15,000 or 25,000, a one week? So that's how you would launder money. Sub-subshops a same way. He'd have all these sales and then he would just slowly put money, you know, more money instead of deposit at 2,000, maybe 3,000, not every day. You can't dump a ton of money in there. You just do it incrementally. And maybe over time your business is increasing, but it's not. Yeah, yeah. And then you're, you just deal with paying the 6% to sales tax. So they're getting 6% sales tax. They're happy and you clean the money up, the gambling money up. Hey, you guys. If you like the video, do me a favor, hit the subscribe button.

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