Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - What Casinos Don’t Want You to Understand About the System

Episode Date: March 28, 2026

Paul Schiffbauer Explains how Illegal gambling works.⁣ ⁣ Pauls's Links https://linktr.ee/themachineman⁣ ⁣ Get 50% sitewide for a limited time. Just visit https://GhostBed.com/cox and use code COX at checkout.⁣ ⁣ Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7⁣ ⁣ Send me an email here: [e-mail]⁣ ⁣ Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content?⁣ Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime ⁣ ⁣ 📧Sign up to my newsletter to learn about Real Estate, Credit, and Growing a Youtube Channel: https://mattcoxcourses.com/news⁣ ⁣ 🏦Raising & Building Credit Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/credit ⁣ 📸Growing a YouTube Channel Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/yt⁣ 🏠Make money with Real Estate Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/re⁣ ⁣ Follow me on all socials!⁣ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/⁣ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrime⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart⁣ ⁣ Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox ⁣ ⁣ Check out my true crime books! ⁣ Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF⁣ Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM⁣ It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8⁣ Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G⁣ Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438⁣ The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K⁣ Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402⁣ Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1⁣ ⁣ Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!⁣ Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX⁣ ⁣ If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:⁣ Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69⁣ Cashapp: $coxcon69 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At Desjardin, we speak business. We speak equipment modernization. We're fluent in data digitization and expansion into foreign markets. And we can talk all day about streamlining manufacturing processes. Because at Desjardin business, we speak the same language you do. Business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us. And contact Desjardin today.

We'd love to talk. Business. When West Jet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to WestJetting since 96.

Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. Ah, where are my gloves? Come on, heat. Winter is hard, but your groceries don't have to be. This winter, stay warm. Tap the banner to order your groceries online at voila.ca. Enjoy in-store prices without leaving your home. You'll find the same regular prices online as in-store.

Many promotions are available both in-store and online, though some may vary. You don't need AI agents, which may sound weird coming from service now, the leader in AI agents. The truth is, AI agents need you. Sure, they'll process, predict, even get worked on autonomously. But they don't dream, read a room, rally a team, and they certainly don't have shower thoughts, pivotal hallway chats, or big ideas. People do. And people, when given the best AI platform,

they're freed up to do the fulfilling work they want to do. To see how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. Okay, when I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation. a lifetime. I wonder if my out of office has a forever setter. An IG Private Wealth Advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center.

Find your advisor at IDPrivatewealth.com. When we got the machines, there's control of 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 a 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 was 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 this one particular, it was probably four months after I first met him and started going on these functions. He came to check in an hotel. It 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,

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 this gray area. And he says, I'll start you at 35,000 a year. 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've been staring at.

He did this, you know, he's very tactical. And he opened it up. He said, this was my half this week. It was 30 grand in there. It was six bundles of money banned up, 5,000 each. And he threw a bundle to me. He said, 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 from 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. So he's like saying, would you consider work for me? And I'm like, I don't know. This thing may, you're talking about poker machines. He goes, well, we're kind of like, we're kind of like bankers, you know? And, but in a way, it's true because what was going on if you, if you work for Joe's bar and he's selling it, he wants to get out. So you're the bartender.

And he wants 300 grand. 300 grand 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 would come to guys like these operators and say, hey, I'm looking at Joe's bar. He wants like $25,000, like, $25,000. 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 loan them 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. guys want to buy business and all, but also they're putting illegal gambling devices.

Whereas 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 with 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 $1,500.500, there's $3,000 in the machine. So they'll count it out, $3,000 in the machine, they put a ticket up. And they, you have $1,500 in your bank to start today. They, the barren who does.

So take that money, $1,500 leave a thing. So they got $4,500. 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 four big black guys, 380. And we're going around to move equipment. And the morning, we had a, there's a woman that worked in the shop.

We all had radio. She answered the phone and what 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. She's like, base of three. We just got hit. And I'm like looking, because 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. you have 15 minutes to get down there we're going to 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 gave us 15 minutes to get down there so we go trumping down there

we pull up and this is a story which we just got crazy which kind of changed my mind away about being a being a cop so we walk in that place and the cops the two uniform cops in there they had two uniform vehicles outside two 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, those 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 shit's falling. And what they were after was they're looking, the guy wouldn't give his bank up. Right. He was hiding somewhere. They're like, just give the bank up. And they're tearing a place up. And I'm like, look around.

Like, what the fuck's going on? These cops are, you know, knocking these, 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, Sunday 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 sixth 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, so-and-say, give me your ID. He's like, give my ID.

And he's like, all right, you know, they're doing illegal gambling in here? than 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'll be doing this six months. He goes, you might want to find a lot of work. I'm like, oh, okay, so I kind of back off. They tell Rob, Rob has the keys. They get his license, same thing.

And Rob's like, Rob doesn't say she'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 ripped 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 for all the cash is in. Rob and does 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 him a ticket. The 1,500 they found 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, Dorell got pissed off. you motherfucker and Rob's like they're gonna find it anyway they're tearing your place up they're breaking bottles they're knocking towels down you're gonna spend

way more than 1,500 it takes all the standards 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 to leave a 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 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 tiles out. They're busting bottles. Now we've got to give you money for that.

Also, we leave them a card. We get them a high-price lawyer, pay all the court fees, fines, miswork. It's not written down, but we take it. take care of them. They're whole. Right. They go to court. Slap on the wrist. We had accounts to get you hit five times in a year. Never closed 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 for 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, there's a monitor. 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 registered 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 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. Well, like, wait a minute. The machine says $1,000. Somebody's lying. Somebody's ripping you off.

But somebody's got, not all the guys, we had like 50-some bars. Not all the guys were like that, but some were. They would try to get over any way they could. And we would say, hey, no, that's the one you. You either got somebody stealing from you. A bartender had a bad night. Maybe they put, I paid $100 at 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 are you putting in cash and then it gives you a receipt to take to the bartender?

No, no. No, there's no receipt. No. How they work, like, like how the cops have to catch you, how they catch you is that three, they come in undercover. And some of these guys will look like bikers. They'll sit in a bar

to look like a frigging biker. They have to see three things happen. They have to watch somebody playing a machine and say 2,000 points secure on the machine, 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 the cycle to get the warrant. is the bartender slide them the $500

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 you're safe

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 knock through my towels or 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 ingraten your mind if there's one person in this bar that you don't know. Right. Don't pay out. Don't, because that could be the guy. Especially some of these guys are, 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 late in my place. and I happened, the girl called out sick and I had, I worked all night to 2 a.m.

I didn't do it at often, but I had to. And the next day I opened, it was Sunday morning. I had come back in and open. And these two dudes come in and they come in. 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 they're not going to pay you off.

So these two guys come in Saturday, Sunday morning, they started putting money in the poker machines. And I'm watching them. I'm thinking like, who are these motherfuckers? I know, I wouldn't walk in a bar, and start feeding 20s in these machines. Right. And they start spout,

oh, yeah, we were in here last night. Yeah, hitting them hard. And the girl last night paid us off. I worked. Right. 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? They worked last night, paid you off? Yo, yeah, yeah, yeah. She was cool. Yeah, yeah. I said, oh, you must have been somewhere else.

I don't have anybody like that works here. All right. And they're like, and they go left. All right. One plus one equals more of the greatest stories. Hulu on Disney Plus. Stories about survivors. The most dangerous planet.

Family. Retribution. Murder. Prophecy. Beer and propane. Bally Dillard. Blake Pantha. The Thunderboots.

The ultimate soldier. Chicago. All right. The best of the best stories. Now with even more from Hulu. Amazing. Have it all with 3-1 Disney Plus. So sometimes they'll try to scam you.

They'll 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, 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, the issue you are. Oh, so then what? Then they just, they hit and they go, hey, this thing owes me. I had guys who 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. They weren't going to pay it off. Because, you know, I'm not taking a chance. What did they say? How do I get paid off? I just, I just fed this 80 bucks in and this machine. I just hit for 500. How do I get my money? I said, 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 f*** 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 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?

No, there's two type. There was draw poker where you had the five-card draw. And then there was eight-line machines, we called 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 spend and all of it. So like the slot machine without the handle. Me and Sonny were out one night and he was getting itched to gamble and he found out that there was

his 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, 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 Hartford Road. We drive over the Bellet Road. And there's this garage there. It's old stinking garage. And there's like BMWs, Mercedes,

Jaguars, all in 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. Because 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. my pockets. And we go up there and he knocks on the door. This guy, big guy, Italian-looking guy comes out. He's got a gun on a holster and's like, oh shit, what are we getting into? 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, out of New Jersey. We didn't know.

But they, they were, you know, the guys looked like out of Central Kansas thing, a sopranist. 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, 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 five.

He's going through his money quick. It was like four o'clock in the morning. I said, dude, man, I could get to get out of here. I got to go home. You know, I'm married. My wife could give me shit. Oh, brother, you're with me? I said, that was starting to wear my wife coming home, five, six o'clock in

the morning. I know what I'm doing? So Roland gives me ride in my car. I go home. I get home about five o'clock. 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 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 had?

He should have been here. and this is like noonish after that night, the gambling night. So he beat me. We had beepers back down. He beats me. And he says, meet me at a call him. He says,

meet me at Belak diner. He was at his hotel. So I go to Belak diner, and he's sitting there. He loved 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 fucked. I mean, he's fucked up. And I said, what's up? And I said, what's up? And I said, what's 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 borrowed 30 from the house I said what yeah I said

you got a fan man he goes I fuck them I don't believe in Italians them guys I said dude he was Roland's game I said but these Italians are fun of it we don't know anything about these guys

eh damn I ain't paying him shit yeah but he's a badass sitting sitting at the booth yeah I'm like okay So he was the next, he goes, tomorrow you're riding with me. Why? Why am I? Well, because I had a 38 and a shotgun, a 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. You go in the shop. As soon as we get in the shop. Now, mind you, the shop is very secure. It's an undiscript 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. It's just in case. So we get to the shop and Janice's like, Sonny, these guys are gone. They have a tag. They sound like they have Italian accents. They said they're coming here.

So his partner, I were sitting in the office saying, what the hell's going on? What's going on? Ah, that's nothing. It's not something. Don't worry about it. He's like, what the fuck you mean? Don't worry about it.

He goes, these guys are calling saying, you know, the money and they're coming over. They go, we don't need this shit here. Because you don't want any attention to what they're doing. Yeah. So, because, don't worry about it. 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, call them. You tell them you're not good to pay them. Don't bring that shit here. No, no, no. Now, no. Now, how the office is laid out. out. You come in the office. She's behind the desk. There's a little narrow past way they get there.

Here's Ira's office. Sunny's office is right here. It's got like a heavy door. All the county machines, the 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 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 shock and 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 4 o'clock. And I hear the, we hear the bus. Beep, be, be, be, be, beep.

So I was like, who is it? Janice's like, oh, it's the male lady. The male lady. I let her in. So I'm listening. I hear the woman come in. Then I hear these two guys are coming.

I hear the scuffle. So they wait for her to open. They were waiting outside. So they were, they come busting in and I'm like, what the fuck? And then they come in and they're like, where's 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, Sonny slams his door shut. Boom, he's locked in. He's not Ian Bickle. He's locked in. 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 him up.

And I was like, oh, no, hey, hey, he cut her off. Come, 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 owes us $30,000 yesterday.

It was supposed to pass. He didn't pass. Today we're here, collect 35. And I was like, 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.

35. we're going to collect 35 today. And I was like, I can see what he's doing in my head. He must have stood up and heard his chair go back and go, this is 1993. What are you going to do? It's 1999. What are you going to do?

They pummeled him. They jumped on them. And they're like, wow, I can hear him, whack, wow, what? I can hear him wailing them through the door. I'm listening. Sonny's door did not open up. I'm like, motherfucker. I can't let, they could put $35,000 of damage on him in the hospital.

Something I go, what the fuck? something I'm like I gotta see the guy's whaling on I got to see him 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 what's 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 I are pissed himself Chebatan-Colon-Garuk I can swear I smelled that and this one guy looked at me and he said and he's just one guy looked at me and you started to step forward and I he goes and I used what the fuck are you going to do and I said take one more step and you'll find out meantime I'm like thinking like man 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're armed or not I didn't give them a chance I just kind of got them out of the place

and then the door opens. Sonny comes out, oh, he said, hey, you saved the day. Oh, thanks, Polly. 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 it. 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 them. 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, 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 got to give some grift. And what was said was it was four o'clock in the afternoon when this happened. They start rolling over there six or seven. They weren't coming back tonight because they knew we'd be closing down. They would probably come back the next day.

So when he called the one precinct, the guy says, look, at 8 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 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 pushed out of town pretty quick.

I don't know where or wherever they went to. I think it had a warrants up in Jersey. They got them out quick. So Sonny was concerned, and I was concerned, like, were these guys connected? We knew they were Italian. We didn't know if they're 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? Yeah, 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, 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 in high school. But with him, I got like six. So I mean, I'm not saying I was as, I wasn't. I was just put in these circumstances situations, which I had to get out of. So he's like, go 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 go walk into a 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's 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 him, go see Johnny, you know, if 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'm thinking not that I'm going to get a shootout 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 and 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 standing over 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 heard what happened? He's like, I heard everything.

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 Italian. 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 tomorrow. I bet they're, you know, they're serious people. But they were trying to use that Italian persona that 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, you got, 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 Italians and then moving the money. One of these guys, I didn't talk about it last time I talked to,

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 him eating, Joe called a meeting. He was a 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 from getting popped. So he was stepping on 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 this and do that. And so at the meeting, Sunday's response was, we got to, we got to show 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, he says, 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, 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, whoa, 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 and I came out. And we ran him out. Right. So he was like, oh, man, yeah, we ran him out. Yeah, we're. 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, an ex-cop. That's no good.

So Sunday goes, let us take care of it. And I'm like, looking at it. Let us take care of it. 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're not going to 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 a friend of mine. Called him crazy Steve. He was Steve. I don't want to 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 older, I bought him 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, he's like, sometimes he'll 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 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 them, I tell them what I'm going to do. We picked like Tuesday night. It was slow. And he got a mask, gloves, and a tire iron. And there's two machines.

Like it was one hit one. You busts 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's 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 it so long, like years ago, you could shake your hand. That was it. Not anymore. You had to have the contract because people are shit. He was old school, but now you have to lock everybody with the contract or lean. So this guy calls him up and says, kind of 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 secondhand.

I wasn't at that meeting. He goes, I got the, I got the message. And Joe's like, what do you mean? What message? He goes, you didn't hear? He goes, I hear he had some problem, you know, something, you know, he's, here he 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 want to switch, I'll approach whoever is in there and say, hey, they're looking to get out. You know, if you don't want them to get out, let me know. Am I going to step on 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 how it works. We don't jump on each other's toes. 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,

our head 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. Right. 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 father-in-law, who they brought the business from, that was his account. They've had this account 30 years.

It's his best stop. Right. I said, does iron in that? He goes, fuck I hear. You're going to buy that bar. I'm going to set you up. I'm like,

okay. So when it came that it was going to be for sale, I ever 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 Pauli. Everything he's done for us, 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 $25,000 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 the, after the, the, 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 left, basically left him a note and said, we're done. We're split. 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 note.

He didn't want to talk to you at front. He left a note saying out of the 50 spots, he only took. 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. That'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 down. And I was going to sue him. But you can't go to court or shit like this. 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 with, 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, years ago, my boys growing up, they never, they didn't know me. They didn't know me in that business. and I didn't want him to know me in that business. He was Sonny 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, years ago, he was 14, I did, wrote 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, 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 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. I couldn't, you know, and... You 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, and that wasn't me, because anybody, like, when Paul was reading the 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 gone. 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'd write, 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?

What? They're like, they couldn't believe because they didn't see me as that. 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 like, oh, yes, you can't be a nice guy. I mean, you've got to be curt sometimes and deal with the problem. But let me go back to really what ended.

everything with me and Sonny. 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 five 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 to obey. And I felt bad at first. I'm like, man, that's fucked up. He's got a speech impediment. He's calling him stutter fuck. But I found out this guy did so much powder. 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 if it's 20 degrees. He's always a dress like that because he's always super high. So 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. He had a big nightclub up front. And he was 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 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 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. and 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, Pauley, how you doing? He's off high. And there's two guys, three 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 blow. Lined all over the bar here, guys are doing blow. Some guy's banging his in the pool table. Hey, yeah, he's, I'm saying, like, what the fuck is going on in here?

I said, you're going to get those clothes down. Oh, I need a dump. to 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've seen 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 an eye on him. You know, you can't operate like that. I said, what do you want me to do? The back door.

So same thing. I went over another night, same thing. Back doors open. This time I'm pissed. I go in, we settle 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 the 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, if I got to come over here again, the back doors open.

And 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, 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, there's 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, wars. 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 were friends. dressed real nice, slack shirt, had an insurance company. And Paul had this idea. He goes, hey, I can come in, you know, help him out, try to keep him straight. And they had an idea because guys would line, we had three machines,

sell six of these guys were sometimes, guys would sit there and wait, wait, just to play. And these guys are playing. They're like drooling to play the machines. And he said, there's a bar down the street for sale a mile away that we'll buy that and we'll push some of these guys down there. So Sonny's like, okay, that's a pretty good job. Let's do that. So we did that about a month.

And then I get word, Sonny gets word that this Paul Monk is dealing heavy powder. And I'm thinking, holy fuck, that's like letting the fox in the henhouse. Because Dick has got a bad problem. So Sonny goes, you need to go straight that out. I'm like, I got a straight, I got a, I should get it, I should put a shirt, get a shirt, I should, I'm going to straighten this out. So I'm like, what do you want me to say? Because straightening out. You know, that shit's going to get us closed down, get them closed down, around $100,000, the loan.

So I'd go over to see Paul on first seat and I said, look, I know you're dealing. Blow. I said, I have no problem with 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, you leave in this bar. Because he's like, his argument was, man, we're making all this money because I got to go, pal, 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 up. Another call, three o'clock. 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, only,

so this scared my wife. She goes, what's going? I said, I got to go. I said, she said, 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, Sunny 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. As the makers of the coolest beds in the world, ghost bed is your go-to for cooling mattresses, cooling pillows, and cooling bedding. From their signature ghost ice fabric to patented technology that adjusts to your body's temperature, every ghost bed mattress is designed with cooling in mind. So whether you want a plusher mattress that cushions your shoulders and hips, or a firm option with exceptional support, your ghost bed will keep you cool and comfortable all night long.

When you purchase a ghost bed mattress, your comfort is guaranteed. You can try out your mattress for 101 nights, risk-free, to make sure it's the right fit for you. Plus, they offer free shipping, and most items are shipped within 24 hours. If you're not sure which GhostBed is right for you, check out their mattress quiz. You'll answer a few questions and get a personalized recommendation.

Even better, our listeners can get 50% off sitewide for a limited time. Just visit ghostbed.com slash Cox, 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, Officer, I just called 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 him, I knew him. John and Steve, I think their names were. And they were up there, they're 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. And they said, hey, they saw the guy. Like, Paul. And before he could turn, pop, you got hit in the back of head. 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 they 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 sunny was you know he's like oh man that that like gives me like street cred maybe people are thinking i'm thinking like you're idiot i'm like you want you you want that don't i don't want people thinking you're involved i i didn't even tell them i was an operator went on her i didn't say i was machines not that I don't want to be involved in that shit. So time went by and then the next big thing that happened 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 ask, 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 to redo the contract. You're like, he didn't give a shit. And then he started, I guess he woke up after I had a talk with him,

and one of the accounts was for sale. And he goes, I can't lose, I can't lose any more counts. 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 or nude.

Because Phil, the liquor board chairman, the judge. And he's like, buy bullshit. So he goes and has a meet with Phil and tells Phil, I need you to hold this license up. He's done it in the past so I can get some money at 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 got to help me out. And Phil, because I don't know. So 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.

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 walk in there before the hearing is over. And I'm standing up and this guy 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, it was 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, 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 money 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.

And 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, 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, ah, 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, 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 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 vick 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, I've seen them for a couple months. don't think we're in the clear. Oh, no, we're good to go. So we kind of act like we're in a clear, we're in a clear. And then he comes to me and says, you know what? I'm thinking about getting out. I want to get out. And now years ago, when 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 give it to you. I made enough money. I'm going to give it. He goes, I'll tell you what. He goes, I'll say everything for 200,000. Think about it. 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 him money, pick it up Friday, and leave. I'm like, what the fuck? I'm fat, you know, I'm just 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 Vix, 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? said, nah, no, I'm not going to do it. He asked me again. So then Joe's Rockind's guy that did what I did was Rite guy, shows up in my bar at the curbshop. He goes, hey, Paul, I know him. 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 Sunny. 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, I ain't part of that deal. He goes, well, I said, I don't give a shit what he said.

I'm a part of that deal. You got no contract. Like, he's 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 his 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. Throw in the desk. I left all my keys there. I said, I'm done with you. I thought 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 I can hear him yawn he's cussing my wife out left 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 loan me 25 grand 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 he had a fraud case a felony charged years ago for something else but i knew he had an m1911 a1 a 45 caliber that he carried and he kept it at his desk he wasn't supposed to because of the felon being a I knew he had that. So when I went over there, I'm thinking like, damn, this is my, this might not end good. And I pull up there and I have my 38, a work coat, I have my 38 in the coat pocket. So I go in there. I, I look, 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, work this out. You know, you just can't, you just can't get out of here. I said, I'm not, you had another contract there. Because you just signed that. I said, I'm not signing it. And he starts, this and that, you can't watch your part all the time and this and they, he starts threatening me. And I said, I'm like, don't threaten me. You don't know what I'm capable. 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 us. 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 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. 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, $15,000 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. He said, take it or leave it. Take her. You get nothing. That's what I'm going to give you. And 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 in the 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. I sent him, it was like 15 checks I sent him cash. He did the same thing. Oh, he's got my machines. I got the serial numbers right here. know, tried 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 was an ending. 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. Okay.

Well, so, I mean, you've never. Never heard from him again. ever saw him again. What about the judge? What was the judge's name? Phil. Phil. 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 kid's 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 paw bears were like, one was a liquor board 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, 50, 60, 70s, most of the guys that were politicians locally, county, city, state, Annapolis, they started out that bar owners, restaurants, tours, club owners, they were seen in the community. So they ran and they became politicians. And how they maintained 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 do you, did you own? I just have 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. I had two in there for years, like 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 years I made $110,000 on the books. And she says, and I told her to stop doing this. 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 that I was doing stuff with. And people were like, it was a 2,000 square foot bar. Right. And people were 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 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 a machine business, people like me. I mean, whether, I'm nice, I'm like, I'm like, I believe you. I'm like one of the nicest guys, unless you, unless you cross me, I'm the nicest guy you

ever meet. And these guys kind of took elect to me, judges, the ex-governor would come in, lawyers, people that were in city politics. I had a party for this one judge's husband once. I closed the bar down, I had a party. So they, I didn't have to pay anybody off. They, they liked me. But I did have one situation that was right before the feds, the feds 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, the same paperwork. You have to Monday to get all your information to your accountant to Monday. And you need to be

there while we audit you. I said, okay. So my account calls me, goes, who did you piss off in the state of Maryland? Like, what are you talking about? You go, 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. Because 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 a beer box, and every month was a packet. So 12 months, and it was four years. So I'm telling you, 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 boxes outside. I ran the hose on the on all the shit, around the hose on them. And I broke up breadcrumbs and shit and put it in there. I left it out overnight. Rats got in there were digging holes. Mice were in there. Ants, roaches.

It was, it would be like the boxes up. So I put them inside. I take them to my accountant's office Sunday afternoon. He met me there. He said, what the hell happened? What now 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 the 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 order he'd have 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. 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 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 count. We're going over and adding 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 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, I said, me and my accountant, it's one penny off, not a, not a hundred dollars. You had an error. She goes, we still have to sign. I said, I'm not signing anything.

I said, I'm not signing it. 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.

Start taking medicine, yeah. Once I started taking blood pressure medicine, that puts the weight on. Okay, so what happened with the feds? The feds... Like, you slipped out of there before they... Yeah, it would have. 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'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. apartment. She says, it was Agent Smith. She goes, Mr. Schiffbauer, she goes, Agent Smith, Attorney Revenue Service. I need to come see you tomorrow. I'm coming to see you tomorrow 10 at this address. And I said, 685-2022. She goes, what's that? My attorney, click. It wasn't five, one, five minutes. You call your attorney. Maybe you'll get them an hour later next day. One 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 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 but 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'd cut you knew, 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 of order for 45 minutes. He just sits there with a notepad looking at me. He's just looking at me. And she's asking me all these questions. He had to cancel checks that, you know, she had those. She had receipts to where I deposited cash, $10,000 to $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 was trying to tie you into a conspiracy. Trying to tie me into it. And I didn't, I didn't give her anything up. And then she, at the end of it, 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. 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

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 best burger in baltimore bottomer 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 from here. 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 of a lot of nice stuff. Oh, no, no, no, I got to serve at your house. I'm thinking like, what?

what law says you have to serve in my house? I said, okay, I'll be there two o'clock tonight. I'll be there 2 a.m. You'll come up? I get off at you. I said, serve me at the bar. So I called my attorney. He 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 anything about me because he was worried as shit because we were involved in other things. that they weren't looking at, that they weren't talking about. And he would not, I know he would not bring me into this. Because if I brought some of this stuff up, 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 called my attorney, he's like, he said they have 30 days. to serve me once they say you're going to be served. I didn't know if it's true. That's what he said. It's counting down, count now, count the 28th day. I guess I'd lost 15 pounds real quick. It's on the radio, it's on the TV, it's in the paper. Cop the plea. It's like four counts,

four or five counts? Was he incarcerated or was he out? He was 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 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 I didn't have any conversation with my family didn't have any conversation with my kids had never seen him I mean if you look if you look them up you can see but from pictures old pictures him hold my son up when he's three so we don't know where son he is and does he get to keep the money no he's he had to give a bunch of he gave he gave uh seven six 50 and then another three 50 and then he's got to lean for seven something on his house so although you know if he paid that in taxes that 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,

he's, that was his addict. They'll never fucking get me. Yeah. I'm like, they always get you. Those guys are always jackasses. You know,

the guys that, yeah, God, I'm not paying that. Really? You're not going to pay a ticket? They're going to suspend your life. 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 it to another state.

They didn't know about it. Right. He got a bunch of speeding tickets in Maryland. Fared to peers, 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 Phillip.

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. It was the 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 Tangran. Well, Tangran 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. Yeah. I mean, I bribe the politician, you know. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, 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 through the jukebox. I was like, and he had a shop like a half 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 blow, I'm going to blow a store for our windows out. We're driving down there. 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, so he's, we're going down, we get halfway there, he's, dad, you know, think about, think of it. Then finally I'm like, yeah, it's firing a weapon in city limits.

I said it's probably a 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 Bart Turner goes, he did. All right.

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 going to. 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 want 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 to 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 slingshots, 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. Yeah, 40, 50 of them is here. 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 your problem is, but somebody just got it out. Yeah, somebody like you. I'm replacing these windows, yeah. So you can, if you want to, you can make somebody miserable. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've done that in the past.

But you don't have to fire a shotgun at them. No, yeah, that's a bad idea. The bull 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 take it up my parking. Oh, that's up. 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, Dane. They need my parking lot. So this guy, no. He goes, I got an idea. He goes, what time are they doing this thing? I said, like 8 o'clock at him.

on the Sunday. He goes, I'll stick super glue under key lock. They'll never, they'll never get a, they'll never get a, they'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'd come over, they came over and told me, said, oh my God, that's terrible. He would do such a thing. I was thinking, well, obviously, 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. You'll latch him, take him out of there. Have you seen, listen, those tow truck guys. Have you seen them on TikTok? Oh, yeah. Yeah. They're quitting 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. And there's one guy who wants to fight everybody. He repo, 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 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 the car. Just take the car. Just take the car. And what else we got? I got some questions. Okay. So. Don't get 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 Sonny 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 2000 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 bucks a week and used to be 2000. 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 them these policies any money.

And it was through their own demise because, oh, they say, screw, look at 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's 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. 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?

I get Sonny's like just not paying his taxes. But I mean, how do you pay your taxes on just straight? Are like, are these guys figuring out like the one guy you, well, you, no,

it was Sunny. It wasn't that, that had the, somebody had a sandwich shop and he's trying to run money through that. Yeah, Johnny Palano had a summit. What you do is like, these names,

bro. Johnny Palano. So what do you do is because I was, I would money a longer too. All right. And what you do is like, if I needed to have, say my borer's doing 15,000 a week.

It's a little more money. And I need it 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% is 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 to 25,000 to one week? So that's how you would launder money.

Sub-shop's the 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 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, hit the bell so you get notified of videos like this. Also, do me a favor, leave a comment, share the video. Also, check the description box. We're going to leave all of Paul's social media links in the description box so you can click on it, go to his stuff, follow him, subscribe, do everything that you're supposed to do. I really do appreciate that. Also, please consider joining our Patreon. It's $10 a month. It really does help Colby and I make videos like this. We put Patreon exclusive content and we put unedited videos on there. So if you don't like the dubbing, by all means, join Patreon 10 bucks.

You get it undubbed. I really appreciate you guys watching. Thank you very much. See you. Below. Hey, I'm Seth Schackner. Check out my new show, Breaking Down the Biz. Every week, I sit down with people who actually make movies, music, and media happen.

Executives from Sony, Universal, Apple, NBC. Together, we cut through industry jargon and hype to show you how the business is built. What's key to making everything come together? and why it matters to you. From iTunes impact on the music industry to the advent of AI, from the Taylor Swift ticket sales fiasco, to Bad Bunny's meteoric rise,

we break down the stories, the numbers, and the negotiations that shape the industry. I've been in the trenches of the entertainment industry for several decades with leadership roles at companies like Sony, Paramount, and Jive Records. My guests and I are going to provide

the same thoughtful, concise insights that I'm trusted to bring on TV networks like CNN and NBC. surrounding the industry and its culture-defining moments. We'll touch on the business of music, filmmaking, and streaming, and the emerging technology of our time. If you've ever wondered what really happens behind the scenes of the entertainment business, this is a bite-sized insider guide.

Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform or watch us on YouTube, so you never miss a beat. Let's make sense of this industry together.