The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Teenage Crack-Cocaine Mogul Reveals How He Built A Multi-Million Dollar Crack EMPIRE In New York City

Episode Date: November 17, 2024

Titone Rosavelli, also known as "Tito," shares the untold story of how he co-founded New York City's infamous "Yellow Top Crew," one of the most powerful and violent crack cocaine organizations of the 1980s. Tito opens up about his journey from a teenager hustling on the streets to leading a crew that controlled the Upper West Side with an iron fist, managing a network of over 40 workers, and amassing fortunes that were beyond his wildest dreams. From organizing street-level crack sales to evading specialized police task forces, Tito dives deep into the high-stakes world of his teenage years. He reveals how he and his partner, Chango, expanded their empire by setting up operations in abandoned buildings, negotiating with dangerous suppliers, and outsmarting rivals with strategies that made them untouchable on their block. In a world marked by deadly competition, 20+ homicides, and relentless violence, Tito offers a firsthand account of life inside a drug empire, the rise of the crack epidemic, and the challenges of evading law enforcement. Tune in for an unfiltered look at the dangerous dynamics of New York City's drug trade, the rise and fall of a teenage kingpin, and the life-altering consequences of fast money and power. Go Support Tito! Shop: https://www.instagram.com/west.side.boutique_/ This Episode Is #Sponsored By The Following: PrizePicks! Download the app today and use code CONNECT to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup! Rocket Money! Stop wasting money on things you don’t use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to https://RocketMoney.com/connect Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you can sell a half a key in three days, I'll give you half a key. If you can sell 100 grand, if you could sell 10 grand, just make sure you calculate and let me know what you can do in three days because in three days I want my money. And you got 20 bricks in a suitcase. You buy them for seven in Puerto Rico, they're 18 over here. And I turn that 18 into 40. If you don't give me my drug, I'm going to shoot you.

We're going to push the button on this situation. It was memorable. We was making money that we never imagined. Titone Rosaveli, aka Tito, is the co-founder of the Yellowtop crew. one of New York City's largest and most violent crack cocaine organizations. At the young age of 15, he and his partner, Chango, let a crew of 40 workers selling tens of thousands of crack files daily on the Upper West Side. Their operations were linked to over 20 homicides and numerous shootings.

They were so violent that a special task force from the New York City Prosecutor's Office was set up for the sole purpose of taking them down. After going back and forth to prison, Tito is finally free and run. running a legal business on the same street where his crew used to hustle. If you're in New York City, make sure to check out his shop, Westside boutique. For more of his insights and a walking tour of his old neighborhood, visit patreon.com slash the Connect show. It was an honor to speak with this man, a true OG.

Tito, right here on The Connect with Johnny Mitchell. We got bad work, police on the block, and an active war that's going on. I can't wait to get upset to handle something that I need to handle. You understand what I'm saying? So we introduce the level of violence that people hear about. Right before I got locked up, I was going to get like seven people hit for a brick. They put out a hit on me, I got a shot. I turn around and I see this guy about to take his shot.

Boom, I drop. He keep hitting. Boom, boom, boom, boom. That's when I see the lights behind me start to flash. And I didn't even think. I just hit it. I was driving like my life depended on. Then I parked the car, popped out, closed the door, and I started running.

and he pulls out a burner, shank, it's like six inches. And he passes it to me. And he goes, here, that's yours. Don't ever leave the cell block without this. He was the reason I made it out of that place alive. Why do you think you mentioned your father was a heroin addict? Yeah. On and off, right?

Yeah. Struggle with drug abuse. Do you feel like the Puerto Ricans were the heroin addicts back then? Yes. At that time, there was the one that was known for that. And Dominicans was known for consuming Coke. Do you know why there's a difference in these drug preferences and nationalities? That's because they came in contact with the dope first.

Because ironically, I overheard a Puerto Rican telling another Puerto Rican that the Dominican mother is going through today what the Puerto Rican mother went through back in the 70s and 80s. Right. So they were just, the Puerto Ricans were just the first immigrants. And back then, heroin was the big drug in the in the ghettos. And therefore, they became the ones addicted to it. Whereas now you're aware in the 80s, your generation, and there's Coke everywhere. Yeah, there's Coke everywhere. That makes sense. And Scarface, the Scarface was sniffing Coke. Mm-hmm. And back then, it wasn't taboo, kind of like it is now. It's real,

taboo for hustlers to use coke, to use drugs. But back in the early 80s, I think even the drug dealers, the kingpins, were sniffing. I mean, that's the generation right before us. Their culture was okay for sniffing. Then when we transitioned in 88, 89, you was not a, you was a cokehead. You understand what I'm saying? So we looked down on that, like that, yeah, drug use. If weed was something that we tolerated to an extent.

But even that, it was a point, because I started smoking weed late as far as for the hood. You know what I'm saying? Because I started smoking weed when I was 18, going on 19. Wow. And now, mind you, you know what I'm saying? And I was outside. We had 107th Street. We established 107th Street when I was.

16 year old. You understand? So we were already outside from like 14, you know, establishing ourselves, you know, making our ranks. Like, but yeah, so I think I started late smoking weed at 18, you know. And if you would smoke weed while you was working on your shift and I found out, you was out of there. Wow.

And if someone was able to like, yo, let me know if he's see him hot, then I'll pay you what I was going to pay him. and you out of there. Oh, so you incentivized your workers to snitch on each other if someone was breaking the rules. Even if you wasn't my work and you just happened to be in the neighborhood

you already knew that by letting me know that dude got high, you got $100. You ain't have to even be my word out. You could just be from the neighborhood and we knew you. People wanted to get down with your crew because there was a good wage to be made.

Yeah, of course. A lot of people wanted to get down. It was money to be made. You understand what I'm saying? And then you down with the With the situation, with the it crew, like you're able to move and maneuver. You have a certain type of respect, you know? So, yeah, people wanted that.

A lot of people wanted that. How many people do you think you had working or, you know, involved at one time? At any given moment, like, it wasn't going to, like, you know, they say we got arrested with 48. And yeah, at one point, another, everybody did something, you know, allegedly, you know. So it never was all at the same time. At one time, we probably have 19, 20 people running at that one time. Then you got a bunch of just people that's down with us, but they freelance. You understand what I'm saying?

Like, they just did when it gets violent. Like, when it's time to go to war, then they're on deck. But they have the green light to go around the neighborhood, establishing little spots. And they'll come get the work from us and open up over there. They could do that. Not everybody could do that.

So that was a privilege, you understand? So that's how a lot of the guys made money too on the side. So running the operation, 1920 people, from the table to the lookout, to the picture, from the shifts, shit like that, transporter, back and forth.

But you had out. dudes on the outskirt there was down with us, rep us, but didn't work a shift. Their money came from whatever they did on the side with our blessing, you understand? And usually it was our work. So, we're benefiting anyway. So you're 16 when you met Chango, your co-D, your partner, your friend. You're on 107th. And, you know, I think being in proximity to Manhattan.

Manhattan, too, is a benefit. Because like you said, the way that you made real money in the drug game back of the day before cell phones and everything was a delivery, you had to have prime real estate. Yes. And New York is all about prime real estate. Yes. It's difficult to get good real estate. I mean, yeah, very difficult on both spectrums on the legitimate side, you know, location is difficult unless you have the money. And then the illegal aspect on that side of spectrum is difficult unless you have.

have the guns. Yeah. And not just the guns, the ability to use those guns, the determination, the willingness, just because you got a gun that means that you're willing to use it. But you guys were working out of buildings, I believe, that were basically abandoned, right? Yeah. Nobody was paying attention to them. Builders was there for years and nobody never paid attention.

There was people selling crack there before us. And the landlords didn't even come around? I mean, I never seen no landlord for the abandoned building. But then we had another building that we used to run. through. But the landlord lived in the building, and he had became an attic, and he was backed up on taxes. So he was just waiting for the building to get marshaled, I guess, took him from him.

So we was riding that shit to the wheels for a law. So he fell in debt with me. So I basically had an apartment there rent free. You understand what I'm saying? So in that sense. But the abandoned building, nobody thought about that shit as far as to to sell drugs out of it, you know? And they were selling drugs right in front of it

and risk a sale, but nobody was thinking about going in there until we went in there. So that was your guys' kind of brilliant thought was, hey, we're actually gonna move the operations indoors. Yeah, safety, of course. You know what I'm saying? And then we kids, so our imagination is still running crazy at that time.

And then you look at movies and shit like that and you remember that back in the day, that's what they used to. saw, like people selling in a bandit building out of a hole, you know what I'm saying? Or a cell, if you in an apartment, they had the cylinder that they let out with the string and push the drugs through. Like, everything was safety, you know what I'm saying? So we saw the abandoned building.

It was being used, but not for a spot. Somebody had like a clubhouse in it. You know what I'm saying? Right. So I went and spoke to the guy and told them, you know, I kind of brokered the deal with them to take over to go in there. But then I broke the deal because I was getting ridiculed by Chang and

Pito while, you know, like, yo, you're really going to pay rent for an abandoned building? Like, you really did. And I'm looking at it like, this is the smart thing to do so we could just go in there without having to, you know, go in there, blazing and shoot.

You understand what I'm saying? But they still caught my vein. They still got, you know, my pride or my ego to work against me. So after the first week that I paid the second the only way, where he came back, I was like, I'm not paying you for an abandoned building, bro. Oh, bro, I'm not paying you for no abandoned building.

Take what I gave you as, you know what I'm saying? And that's that. Other than that, I'm not paying you from a building. Now it's up to you what you want to do from there. So we already had a body in the hood. So people were like, you know, these kids are different, which is what I meant to tell you. Like in the Bronx, you see young kids hustling in Manhattan,

especially in the upper west side. And Harlem is different, but in the upper west side, the drug dealer was still trying to portray an image of a loyal Biden citizen. You understand what I'm trying to tell you. Like I grew up in a culture where the gangster was trying to act like a gentleman. Like he was trying to convince you that he's not a gangster, that he's not in the streets. Like versus now everybody trying to convince people that they're a gangster.

Like, I want you to know that I'm a gangster. Like, really? No, I don't want that. That's not the culture that I grew up. And I appreciate that because we were doing illegal shit. Fuck, I'm, you know what I'm saying? So it was those type of people. So the youngans, they didn't really see a lot of the things that was going on because they was putting on these facades. The mother would be working in a regular job, which is in a factory.

She might have a little side hustle on the side. And then you had the father doing another job. And then the big brother probably hustling. So combined, everything looked good. beautiful. You understand? It looked like a middle-class situation. A lot of people from the hood back then were actually from stable two-parent households.

They were just kind of working for, you call them like the working port. Yeah. So it's like the same mentality as when you watched the Italians from back in the day that's you're doing a bunch of crime, but you're coming home being like a husband and a father and you don't want your kids to really know what you're doing outside. That was the mentality and the culture. Right. in the Upper West Side before we jumped out the window.

Then you and Chang go changed all that. Yeah, yeah, he turned that out. So what happened was this is one of the reasons that Chang really came and sought me out. I was selling crack in Bronx, but I was living in Manhattan. So after school, I would go to the Bronx, hustle to a certain time, and then come back to Manhattan, go to sleep, you know, whatever, whatever, and go to school, repeat the same shit. There was a girl that had agreed to get busy with me,

and my man had an open crib. So we're going over there. I had a crack. I had cracks and a gun on me. I told my men, yo, hold these cracks. I don't want to be walking around that, and I just took the gun with me, right? Cool.

He showed the crack to another friend of ours. That friend on some hating shit, like some malicious shit, like just, like, Fuck it. Told his older brother. They ran up on him search. They found the drugs. Now, I'm the worst kid in the neighborhood.

I'm the evilest. I'm saying. Nobody wants their brothers or nobody around me. Now, I don't have an older brother. I'm the oldest one. So I don't have no one to defend me. I don't come again from that family. Yo, his uncle's such and such.

Or his father's, I didn't have none of that. So I'm fending for myself. in this particular incident, they took the drugs. When I come find out, they're like, yo, I don't want you. You know, I remember to the day there's a school yard where my grandmother used to live at on 109. There's a school, and then they got a school yard. In the middle, PS-165, they got a little school yard. People used to congregate there.

And on the weekend, they'll play little stickball shit like that. So I go over there. I need my drugs. So I'll go over there. And the brother there, he sees me, he run up on me. He's on me like, yo, I don't want to see you with my brother. I'm quiet. Listening.

And when he finished, I'm like, all right, cool. Where's my drugs at, though? You're not getting shit. Da-da-da-da-da-da. Fuck out of here. You're fucking, you lucky. I don't smack you.

All types of shit. Like, when I'm listening, when he finished, I said, where's my drugs at, though? I need my drugs because I got to pay for that. You're not listening. I pulled out the gun. If you don't give me my drug, I'm going to shoot you. Oh, I don't want to see you with him.

I got my drugs back. You understand what I'm trying to tell you? And eventually his brother was still with my friend, you know what I'm saying? He still jumped out the porch and wanted to follow. But yeah, that's how we turned out. The young kids were doing that. So when Chang heard about that incident, him needing money and willing to jump out out the window too, he wanted to ask me, who or how I got on.

And so in those courses, when I'm coming home late, that he's coming home late, because everybody had to go home and we don't have nobody to hang out with, we'll bump heads, and then we'll start talking, and then it just started becoming like, before we did anything, we probably had seven, eight discussions where we used to bump heads,

and we'll just be in a building talking for hours, like, yo, what you think about this? How will you do this? But where would you go? Like, he would be picking my brain and I'll be exploring ideas. You understand what I'm trying to tell you? And that's how that basically relationship

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this like middle class drug dealing landscape. Because you guys were actually had to survive. You're from, you were a poor as it gets by New York City standards. Yeah. Wow. Okay, that makes sense. I wasn't homeless. I wasn't, you know, like, again, we just lived off welfare.

So I didn't have cable. Yeah. I didn't have a VHS unless someone passed it down after a while. You know what I'm saying? And you didn't even have adult supervision. Like, you didn't have a time to be home. home. I mean, I don't get it wrong, though.

I had a curfew, but it wasn't the curfew that my peers had. Like, if my peers had to be home by seven or when the light come down, I had to be home by like 10. You understand what I'm saying? Before everybody starts shutting down or go to sleep. You think so that sense. But I still had a curfew. I still had to get good grade.

If I failed, I get an ass whipping. If I do something wrong and they teach a call, I'm getting an ass with him. But I still had more freedom than that. average peer. My average peer. But yeah, my mom wasn't trying to let me. They try to do the right thing. Don't get it twisted.

Like, they ain't want me to be in the street. But, you know, my mom told me, I remember my mom's telling me, yo, listen, doing all the right thing, go to school, do all that. But she knew that I was outside running around. This is before drug. This is just me fighting and getting into little shit. So she was like, yo, listen, if you ever do something and you know it's going to get back to me,

you better tell me yourself, so I won't look stupid if somebody tells me and I'm going to respect it, even if I don't like it. I'm like, I held it to it. When I started selling drugs, after a week, I went over there, showed her the gun in a hundred cracks.

Look, this is what I'm doing right now. She was flabbergasted, but she couldn't really say shit because you already made a commitment to be it. I'm holding you to that. You know what I mean? So now what she's saying is, don't play with nobody's money.

Make sure you pay everybody their money. and I don't want this shit for you, but don't play with nobody's money and don't use that shit and try to have an exit plan with this shit. Like, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So she just basically, she ain't,

she ain't know how to deal with it. She said one thing. She ain't know that I was going to come back with this shit, you know what kid usually do come back and tell my mom, remember, you told me to tell you whatever it is that I'm doing. Look, I'm selling crack now. And I got a gun.

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and North Carolina. Drink responsibly. B-21. So you guys said when you first took this building over, you'd already had a body on you. Can you talk about that? The West Side, yeah, we had a body. All right.

So now you said something about like introducing the violence. Yeah, as far as the kids, we introduced that whole situation. Other than that, you know, some people would get back down. There's a lot of fist fight. And somebody might get shot in the leg or a dude might shoot in the air. every few months or whatever. That was, you know, that was it. Stab, baby, or, you know, that was it.

Now, Makatumba is from the neighborhood, but he made his mark in the low-e-sah. That's a whole different culture. It's a Puerto Rican culture. It's the main dope outlet of New York City at the time, Alphabet City. You know, they were even that movie, though, all that shit. So as a worker, he was already rich because he was working off of 30%.

$30 off a bundle. A dole was 10 bags at that time. You selling $100,000, you're getting $30,000 profit. From there, yeah, you break down your workers or whatever. But even if you go home with $10,000 a day, that's a lot of fucking money today. So imagine in 86, 87.

But along with that, where all the stories of because what happened was who is Makatumba? Macatumba is what I consider and Chan consider our big homie. Like a mentor. Yeah.

So he was like, you know, oh, that's the big homie. That's the only person that I can say in the street that I looked up to in that manner and that, you know, I consider him like he could be my father. Even though he was an old enough. Like I ain't have no complex with that. Like I wanted to be known as his.

God, his young and his affiliation with him, you understand? So that's who Makatumba is. From the neighborhood, he kind of grew up like us. He was always kind of rebellious. He always was getting in trouble, shit like that. And he ended up going to a school in the Loi Sa. I think it was part to a park. I think it was, don't quote me.

But it was a school down there. He met kids from the Loi Sa. Started hanging out there. Kids over there were selling drugs, making money. You had young kids driving big whips and shit like that. So he got down with that. Now he's selling dope. But in the course of that,

there's a lot of bodies going on. You know what I mean? So he's participating on that. And he's going crazy because he's not from down there. So in your mind, it's like, I'm not from here. Nobody knows me. So this could never get back me. You live up town, bro.

Like, you got to relax. But still, he never did get back to him. He died before anything. But that was that. Then he was in the newspaper being spoken about as a king ping without a case. So that was big news. Like how the fuck?

They got a whole article on you talking about you are suspected king ping in the lowest side, nickname and all. And you don't have an indictment. It was like, how the fuck? That was crazy. Usually when you get an article in a newspaper,

you were already in jail, you know what I mean? So that was bringing the name around the neighborhood. Then he used to come through with a lot of exotic cars. Porsche, Cherokee, Paff, all the shit that was pop, Infinity.

is maximum, everything that was popping at that time, he was coming through. And then there was the rumors about him having a whole car lot where he parked all his cars. You know what I'm saying? So all of these things was resonating. Right. So you looked at him and said, oh, shit, you can get rich in this game. Yeah. Now, look, this is the ill thing because when that whole situation happened with the kid that

with my friend, with his brother with the crack and all that, that shit spread like wildfire because they was trying to get everybody in the neighborhood to shun us, to shun me, blackball me, you understand? Don't fuck with this kid, don't let your brother be with him or none of the other, your sister can't be here. This kid right here is bad news. He's not going to be able to make it to. He's 16, 15.

You know, they already have prediction. I'm here now still, but anyway, thank God. But when they came to Market, which they also looked up to because Marker is the tough guy, he's putting in work, he'd getting money, like he, you know, so they're trying to tell him. him like, yo, these kids are. Market was kind of impressed by our audacity and our, you know, determination to get some money.

So at the beginning, he looked at it like an opportunity for himself. He's like, fuck, let me establish some dope up here. Now, mind you, Market lived in the same building than my grandmother lived in. He lived on the second floor. My grandmother lived on the fifth floor. So I know Market all my life, I never hung up with him. He's older than me. But I knew he was.

We always seen them in passing. And he knew my mom babysitted him, had babysat him for a minute for a while at one point. So we had history in that sense, you know. So he called for me and for Chang. And was like, yo, let's go over here. And let's see what this block got. Get into the dope.

With the dope you, in six months you, he gave us a story in a car drive that by the time he parked and let us out, I had a Cherokee. I mean, I had a wrangler Jeep, a Selika. All this shit in my mind, I'm like, I'm about to be rich. The way he sold it to us, I'm like, I'm about the, by the time of summer come, which probably was a month and a half to go, I'm like, I'm going to have a wrangler, the Selica.

I'm spending a lot of money. That shit ain't go nowhere like that. He was disappointed with it like, this shit ain't real no money. So he was like, yo, you know what? Hold on. Did he put you guys down with heroin at the beginning? Yeah. Okay, so you guys...

And the Upper West Side, though. Yeah. Yeah. He said, go take this block. Yeah. And let's see what happened. Now, mind you, the Upper West Side is not really known for heroin. Mm-hmm.

But there was a time where a little pocket was, then it wouldn't do out. He went to go see. Back then, you would go check a block. How much is this block? Or it's a $100,000 a day block. There's a $15,000 a black. Dude's checking like that. So he checked that block.

It was $15,000 a day. So that's kind of low numbers. But pocket change to take care of his guy. So we wouldn't do it none of that. We were selling $2,000. I'm making $300. Chang making $300. I'm 14, 15 at this time.

That's good money. You know what I'm saying? We come tomorrow. We sell the other pack. He's like, where the fuck? Like, forget about that. Put his under his wing. Is that because it just weren't enough heroin junkies coming to that area?

That and the fact that we was leaving after we sold 20 bundles. We were just content. You weren't working hard enough. Yeah, we wouldn't working hard a hard. So he didn't see it like a work. for time. So what he did was being here already liked us and he took a liking to us, he was like, yo, listen, just go to school. And when you get out of school, you can hang out with me and I got you. So every week, he would give us each 20 bundles. And we would give it

to someone and the money that we get back, we would keep it. We didn't have to give him a percentage and take a percentage and keep trying to build. So every week, we make it like $16, $1,700. I was still going to school when I started hustling. And we had the picture. We used to look at the, from the window, from my class was right there, and the block is right here. So I used to look from the window to make sure that he was still on the block, like he wasn't roaming around, like he was putting in that work. So you were supervising an employee from geometry class. Word.

It was actually home room. Yo. Word. He's giving you free bundles? Free bundles. After they bag up, he's like, you know, there's always something left out. Yeah. He gave the extras.

Yeah. So that's how we was taking care of that. And then after school, we would hang out with him. So whenever he ate, we ate. Whenever he bought sneakers and we with him, he got sneakers. So we wasn't even really spending this money. So we were doing all types of different shit. Like I would keep buying work and giving it to them spots that I had before him.

Right. Not letting them know that I'm doing that. So the guy that was running around with us before we got with Market, we'll continue to eat because when we went with Market, it's like he didn't bring all our friends with us that was trying to hustle with us at that time. You know what I'm saying? So that was that. So did you guys save any of this, I'll call it grant money? You didn't even get a loan. You got a grant money. I don't know. We ain't saved none of that shit. I mean, we saved it for the moment, but there's always the reason to spend money. So then when did it turn into

crack and then how did, who caught the body, when did it turn into crack and then how did you get that building? The crack. The first building. The crack was first. The market came in a picture and it was dope. Market got killed. He didn't leave his no motherfucking trust or none of that shit. Whether or no whale or none of that shit, we backed the square one. So we got back to hustle it. We would give him a kid on the east side work.

I told you, I was buying work and giving it to certain people. This particular person was the person that we used to give the dope tool back first. When Michael was given it the 20 bundles, we used to give it to him. Then he lost his job as a super. Puerto Rican guy, he was a super on our side. For some reason, he reminded me of my father. So I had like a certain type of affinity like with him, if that's the right word. And I always helped him out.

I always had like a sore spot for him. Like I felt bad for him. But he reminded me of my pops too. He was older. Boom, boom. So he had called this when he went to the east side and told us, yo, listen, they gave me permission to sell crack over here. And the east side, everything is branded.

The dope is branded. The Coke is branded. The crack is branded. And the West Side ain't no brand. It was disorganized. You got red top, I got red top, whatever bottle we caught at that day. You understand what I'm saying? Right.

So that was something else that we was a fan of, the branding, to be distinguishable. So when Maca died, the guy that I was going to the east side with, he had got locked up. But there was two colors in the building, black top, which was him, and yellow top. which was another guy. The guy from the yellow top, one day asked us if we could sell him weight. We didn't sell weight. So it was like, no, we don't want to wait,

but, you know, yes in case, what you needed. He needed some bullshit like two ounces or some shit. So it was like, I was like, because I'm the one having a conversation. And I'm like, I don't do that. But this is what I could do for you. Yeah, because it was nickels over there. And we introduced trays.

So we had nickels and trade. It was only $5 over there, and we introduced $3 bottles. Boom. So I said, listen, this is what I could do for you. The bottle that you sell for five, I'm going to give them to you for three. And now you make $2.00, $2 a bottle.

You don't got to worry about investing your money. I sold it to him. He accepted it. So now we got the little black, but I'm giving him his yellow tops too. The guy that we knew went to jail. His wife was there. We tried to still give her packs to maintain.

she messed it up she ended up leaving now we just got to do with the yellow top we're giving them packs the kids from the neighborhood is starting to notice us coming in because we're driving in a cab going to building and go back out the building jump in the cab and go back to the west side so they know that we're not from there that we're putting work from there so that's not sitting right with people you understand what i'm saying but they're not approaching us they don't see a point of entry i guess you what I'm saying? So they beat the do up. The dude beeps me.

Like, yo, I need to speak to you who come to my house. These people, um, beat me up. So we go over there, me and Chang, uh-uh. This is my own little venture. Even though Chang is, Deb, Chang really didn't put too much attention to this shit. He knew what it was, but this is my own venture. You know what I'm saying? Like, but he still was a party when we put it with us.

That's, so I'm like, yo, don't worry about this. situation, we're going to take care of it for you. Don't worry about it. Just go back tomorrow. He's like, fuck that. I don't want to do that anymore. I'm not a drug dealer. I started doing this shit because I lost my job. Now people's putting hands on me. It's time for me to go.

All right, so let me get the keys to that room, though. You said, you're not going back. So could I stay with the color and the keys? He's like, yeah. I'm like, all right, we're going to give me. He's like, I don't want nothing. Just take the key, pay the rent or whatever. We ain't never pay shit, but. And that's that.

I don't want nothing to do with that. I'm like, all, cool. I tell Chang. Now, Chang implements like, yeah, we used to go by work in Washington High 141st, you know, but it's cooked up. It's garbage. It's whipped up.

They got combat. Like, it's bullshit. So everybody had got caught on to that. Before, it used to be a supermarket. Everybody knew that go to Broadway. You're going to score. Now you was like, we're going to go to Broadway, get some bullshit, or probably beat. So that's the reputation.

They started getting it. Right. Chang is like, yo, listen, let's buy Coke from such and such that's known for having great Coke, even if it's a point higher than the average, but it's great Coke. Let's cook it up, pure, and let's open up with that. I'm like, all, fuck it, let's do that. So that's what we did. Today's episode is sponsored by Rocket Money.

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Thank you, RocketMoney for saving me a bag. All right, let's get back into the show. So Chang had the Coke Connect. No, he just, we just knew a guy in the neighborhood that was known for having great Coke, but they always spoke about how he was expensive. Like if they were selling for 23, he would be selling for 25. Right. So people are, they'd be selling for 25, but then they were here right out.

after that, but that nigga Coke is good, though. Oh, this is the guy that own the shoe store? No, no, no, that's Fogarty. Oh, okay. So was that how drug connects worked back then? Like, was Coke so ubiquitous, meaning everywhere, that you would know a guy, like, the neighborhood would know that's the guy that has weight, but he's selling bricks for 25,000.

So, I mean, it was so, was that how it actually was? Because now it's a complete secret, right? Yeah, the secret. Now, everybody has so much coke that you had people who, hustling you, like, I got coke. I need you to buy this off me, you understand? Right. It was kind of similar to like,

when it first started getting imported here according to the movie Blow. The connect was the customers. Now the connect was the Coke dealer, the Coke. The plug was the customers. They wanted to get, like you remember the dude from the salon, the beauty style,

and the kind of like, you know what I mean? He was a plug because he had a bunch of people to sell to. So he was the connect. Right. Versus when we were the connect was the dude that had the Coke. Yeah. So in other words, they almost needed you more than you needed them. There were so many plugs holding wholesale weight.

They needed groups like you to get it off. And then you had groups like us controlling so much real estate. Yeah. So you didn't have too many options to sell that to anybody. No, that's just really interesting because I came up in the era where the Coke, the wholesaler, the plug, the Mexican guy. that was a secret. And to know him was so valuable, it was proprietary. You didn't give away your connects.

That's a certain level. Yeah. And back then, that person was the Colombian. Right. So nobody was really trying to introduce you to a Colombian. Right. But there was so many Colombian bringing in work that work was everywhere. Right.

Everybody had their own Colombian to an extent. You understand what I'm saying? So. Yeah, the Dominicans were the whole. wholesalers getting it from the Colombians who were the importers. Yeah, the Colombians felt comfortable with the Dominicans doing business in that sense. There's a little language barrier or the language similarities. I mean, you can't even say that because you could have dealt with the Cubans.

You could have dealt with the Puerto Ricans, you know what I'm saying? But I think the Dominicans had the numbers too, you know? What numbers? The demographics, the population. Nah, because Dominicans is a minority compared to Puerto Ricans. Dominicans is a minority compared to Puerto Rico. Oh, interesting. We came after them and, you know, essentially, you know what I mean?

At far the wave, you know what I mean? The Puerto Ricans was here. They had the grocery store, the cab bases and all of that. Then, you know, it moved on to the Cuban. I think the Cuban before the Puerto Ricans, then the Puerto Rico, the vice versa, and then the Dominican. Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you? Yeah, I wonder why the Colombians felt comfortable dealing with the Dominicans.

Maybe because the Dominicans were really about that. Maybe they were the newer immigrants just like Colombians. Who knows why? I think that is it because. I guess the Puerto Rican that they ran into was Americanized. Yeah. Didn't speak a lot of Spanish. They didn't speak a lot of Spanish.

The cultural and the Dominican was the most resemblance that they found amongst their culture. You understand what I'm saying? And being that they could relate to the fact that the majority of the Dominican at that time came from like the rural area. Right. You got them that came from the capital, but not as much like the rural area. was really trying to rush out of there. So they could relate to the countryman, the compassino, you know what I'm saying like that.

And they knew the humbleness. But they also could control them too because if you fuck up, I'll go take care of your whole family and your town. You understand? So it was a way to control shit too. Yeah, yeah. Both Colombians and Dominicans were willing to, like, commit violence that Americans just don't commit

because there's so much law enforcement here. I mean, that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, then, but not even though, because you got to understand between the crack, well, that shit was crazy out here because there were the old cameras. That's true. Okay, so then, okay, so now you guys got the spots. You actually, Yellowtop crew started hustling on the east side. And let me finish that real quick. So what happened?

After you gave me the key, then we went and we bought the work and we cooked it up and all of that shit. And we came up with this plan that nobody else is knowing about it in that neighborhood. We opened up at 8 o'clock in the morning. We came into the building at 7 in the morning, had everything situated at 8. Nobody really gets up at 8 o'clock in the morning in the hood. You understand what I'm saying? Unless you're selling dope.

Crack is more of a later drug ongoing. You know what I'm saying? So we did that. And by the, there wasn't nobody there to see if come in that way. By the time everybody came out and started trickling outside, it was a whole different setup, like 9, 10 West Side kids over here that you don't know controlling this.

A picture in the building, there's a kid in the window with a Mac 10, you know what I'm saying, just swinging it waiting for somebody to get stupid. And we outside with bikes and, you know, Chang doing his fly shit, sitting on a milk crate reader in the newspaper, or at least acting like it, I don't know.

But that was the scene. So imagine you waking up and you got, All these people set up here, like they've been here forever, but you've never seen these individuals. So that shop factor right there kept them off balance. And it was basically off balance into the city shutters down. When the city shut the building down, like they put gates and closed it down because they was running too rampant

because it was a single room occupancy building. Like it was rooms. And we was running around like New Jack City kicking. And whenever somebody moved out the room, we'll kick the door and switch. the lot and nobody was really going in there to try to demand rent so we had five six rooms you understand what I'm saying so we were running ramp it on that shit and the spot the coke was bomb like we was killing them we was we took over that whole

situation we was doing like at at 15 was a me maimuff and that summer me and chang celebrated each stacking a hundred thousand dollars each after all expensive like in three months, stat right there. And not counting all the money we ran through all the OJ. Because back then it was more OJ before we started driving it was more OJ. But it's $25 out of the now. We'd be taking this shit for the whole day. What is OJ?

Cab, a taxi. Okay. So with the music and the rim, we're in that shit the whole day, $25 out of the $9. And now are you, are these yellow tops that you're selling out of this building? Now we're selling yellow tops out at that building. And it's $3.00 and $5 bottles. And you already have people working for you. Yeah, we got the team.

We got a pitcher. We got a shooter. We got the lookout. We got a team. You got somebody like driving the customers in? Like letting them know. We got a person out front, which is the lookout, which is also yelling out yellow. And the customers know.

But we don't have to do too much of that because once the first wave tested to work, it will spread it. Now everybody's rushing to build it. Did anybody from the east side try to run up on you? Um, no. At the end, and they wasn't even running up. If it wasn't because the city shut the building down, we probably would have still been there. You know what I mean?

But they had dudes that was locked up, like when we set up and came home. Like, they hope and shit like, yo, wait to such and such come home. And then son will come through and try to like fill us out and realize like, we're not trying to hear none of that shit. We're going to go all the way with it. If you put us in that route, so they'll try to be friends and be cool with us and try to get down with us. You understand what I'm saying?

But, wow. I mean, at 15 years old, dude, I mean, like, what are white boys in Portland, Oregon?

When I was 15, we were like lighting our farts on fire and giggling and talking about how old dude, I finger banged a chick and high-fiving. You guys were menaces. You were selling, you were fucking crack kingpins. I mean.

15 years old, not even enough to drive a car, dude. Yeah, I wouldn't say menacing because... Well, you're tough, though. I mean, yeah. I mean, okay, I kind of took menacing ass like if we was terrorized in the neighborhood. No, I'm just kind of using that as a funny word. Like, you're doing adult, high-level adult crime.

Yeah, yeah, that's a fact. And making a huge profit. Like, $100,000 at 15 years old in 1987 is like a million dollars now. That's a fact. So you're already what we call hood rich at 15. The building gets shut down. So you just move it over to home. Now we're going to the west side.

Now you're going back home, 107th. Okay, so. But we already caught the body, which was what you was actually. Yeah. Go ahead. Can you? Because what happened when Michael got killed. Yeah.

The person that we started buying the Coke from, that had the good Coke, had a lieutenant, a worker that he trusted, that he gave him a little bit of authority to make decisions. And that guy took the chance on us and gave us a brick, a cocaine, on consignment. So the fact that he took the chance on us, we was aware of that. So we appreciated that. So we was making, all of us was making money. Now, before we started working with them,

they had put out a hit. That little organization put out a hit on what people know as Sammy Santana. Who's that? One of the bodies, the first body that we got. So they put out a hit on them. The people came, he didn't die. They shot him up, but he didn't die.

So these people are petrified. They know he's coming back with a vengeance. He was known to be supposedly one of the henches. for a guy named Calderon from the Bronx that was extorting people on Brooks Avenue and all of that. He was charging rent out there. So that was a big feat because that's a big violent neighborhood. So for you to charge rent over there, you really had to be extremely violent. You understand what I'm saying?

He was supposedly one of the henchmen. I don't know how true it is. That's what people would say. So now they, like when this dude come out, they know he's coming. So they're scared. So they're trying to get somebody to clean up the act. Being that we ran with Maki, Maka is known for being a gun boy and all of that shit.

They already thought that we had participated and we didn't say we did it. So when they asked us that we could fix that situation for them, we were like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But we was walking them. You know what I'm saying? Until the dude said something that made us feel like, now we have to really expedite this. You understand what I'm saying?

Because it's going to affect us. The dude used to go to school with my mother. Now think about this real quick before I see here. Imagine you in the eighth grade. And I'm pretty sure you know female classmates there that you used to bug out with and joke with or whatever y'all was cool and shit. So picture that girl and think about that. In the future, five years later, she's going to have a kid that down the road is going to be responsible for your murder. that's kind of ill right when you think about it like that so yeah this dude felt that i guess he thought

he was doing the right thing and he told my mother which was his classmate at at one point and he knew listen your son is hanging out with these people that did this to me everybody know they did that to me and everybody know that i'm coming if your son happens to be there when i come he's leaving too he could have just said yo tell your son to stay away from them because of bro i fell offend it. So that's when I was like, you know what? Nah, we're going to push the button on this situation. So one of the guys that we had with us and said that that was his calling, he wanted to

be a shooter. This is your opportunity to see if you were the shooter, even though he had caught something before that wasn't confirmed, but I performed. And that was the first body that we participated in the hood. Like, you know, we just planned it out. I'm going to be here with the bike. I'm going to pull the car right here. You hit them from here.

You pass it right here and et cetera. And it was a success? You killed him? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where was it? What, did the body happen? Yeah, where the hit go down. In front of a barbershop between 109th and 108th and Amsterdam Avenue.

So that must have really rock the neighborhood. Oh, yeah, hell yeah. That was, they had not seen something like that. not saying that people who haven't gotten killed, but it just probably happened that they was gunning for this dude and they happened to catch them in our vicinity. It wasn't a domestic body, sort of speak.

It wasn't something that was in-house like, oh, we know who did this and this, you know what I mean? That's like an organized crime hit. That's like an assassination. Type shit. Did your mom know it was you? Or your crew? Afterwards.

I mean, not immediately, like, But after hearing the rumors and yeah. Okay, so, and it's pretty obvious when there's a domestic hit in the neighborhood by a group of dudes that even though nobody can confirm it, everybody talks, everybody knows. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody more or less know. I mean, that hit was in broad daylight, too. So it wasn't like we were really hiding. It wasn't no masking or not.

It was just, I know you was here. You know that I was here, so shut the fuck up. But nobody was really trying to talk anyway. You understand what I'm trying to tell you? So we were in years. So now you guys are like official. Yeah, but now mind you, that body happened while we were still on the east side. So now when the east side got shut down, when we came back to the west side,

it wasn't a problem for us to go shopping for real estate over there. You understand what I'm saying? We were just looking for somewhere that was going to be beneficial. But since we used to hustle on 105th, like that's where we was freelancing crack before we got down with market, everybody was. was more or less between 104 and 106 in Columbus up and down that little strip. So I would go out that we would buy work, a half of eight, 662 grams, me and Chang. And we would take turns pitching the bundle.

Like I'll pitch a bundle. He looked out and then he'll pitch a bundle. And when we finish all the work, then we split the proceeds and, you know, re-up, etc., etc. So we was doing that. And then market came in the picture. But in the course of market coming in the picture, there was some guys in the neighborhood that used to be hustling. Also, there's a bunch of people hustling.

But these guys that grew up here, the majority was immigrants, Hicks, that came from DR, etc. They were the one the majority hustling up and down the strip. And you had a few people from the neighborhood that was hustling, you know what I mean? Right. But it was basically these small little freelance groups.

Yeah, freelance. Every time about it, you know what I mean? So now in the course of market, putting it under the wing, you got a guy from there that's coming up with a bright idea as he's going to shut down all the Dominicans and they're going to take one of the abandoned buildings and they're going to open up there and they're going to control the neighborhood like that and that's it and the crew is going to be the only one out there which is the birth of purple right I don't know if you heard of the before and that was your competition

right yeah they was the time at first they wanted a recruiters we was like not working for you even because everybody's older than us. We're competing with people that's seven, eight years older than us. You got to understand that. Well, I'm outside at 14. These people is 21, 20. You understand what I'm trying to tell you? So I'm competing with that.

Yeah. So these guys are like, yo, we're going to put your work. We're like, not working for you, bro. Like, you bugging out. Then market comes in a picture. We hang out with market. Then market gets killed. We back to selling drugs.

We're in the east side. They over there. They made their spot. Purple. They cleaned everything up. And they got a driving spot. Now when the building shuts, we go back. One of my codified's, he goes, when we go back there,

we go right back to 105th. Disregarded, they just clinked that shit up. He opens, he puts a grand opening side from the, from the supermarket, from one tree to the light pole, and we just sat there with a milk crate and shit, and was like, we opened. So the dudes is looking at it like, oh, this is about to go crazy right now. So when the owner of the spot came, he pulled me to the side.

He's not no sucker. He ain't soft. He just understood that this is not going to be good for nobody. We're going to lose more than we win. Even if I win or get you or you get, there's no win. So he's telling me, listen, bro, it's not fair that y'all did this. Y'all already know that we established this. Y'all go anywhere else.

I'm a reasonable dude. I don't know how to see shit. How they, you know, so I'm like, you know what? You're right. So we're going to go to 107. And we went to the 107. And what building did you select and why? The first spot?

We just went on the streets at nighttime next to the building. And then after that, like within probably like two weeks, we were already inside the building, the abandoned building, which then fell. And even going into that shit, people try to give us some type of resistance. I mean, like, you know, you can't hustle here. We're like, you're bugging. I'm not trying to hear that shit. I remember coming down with a soil shotgun.

sitting on that shit like if I were with a chair on the corner. Like, tell me who, who said I can't work out here? Buggling. I went to this school. Mom happened to have an apartment here now. I can't tell me none of that, which is not the same excuse that I'm going to accept because when dude told me, you all lived there, I say, go get your lease and show me where I say you can sell crack on that shit. You know what I'm saying?

You could live up there and sleep, but you can't sell no crack out here. So how did you consolidate all of that into the building? Did you just, did you have to shoot anybody else? or was your work so well marketed and so good, meaning the quality of the crack was so good, you just took everybody's customers. Now, but at that time, they were selling $10 bottle because it was just coming down from a drought.

So when the drought comes, the work gets more expensive. Of course, well, we probably sold at $5. They selling that 10. But when the drought finishes, people try to still keep that extra 10, you know, because the customer don't know when the drought went out, but we do. So we fucked everybody's price up

and started selling for $5.00 what they were selling for $10 that automatically brought a crowd to us. You understand what I'm saying? And no, I'm lying. That wasn't the first. We did. Buy one, get ones.

And that brought the crowd to us. And when they seen what it was, and the fact that we were so consistent, like you could come there and you know that you're going to find the spot open. Versus you coming from over there and Homeboy might be there or not. So that was another thing.

You could walk from wherever comfortably knowing that when you get there, you're going to be able to make a purchase. It's going to be good work. You're not going to get robbed. So that's why basically distinguished us. Even when we was doing war, like when we had war with other crews, they can't fuck with it because we're in the abandoned building. We're on a hill.

We're going to continue to hustle while we're shooting up your block and your workers don't want to be out there no more because who want to get shot? shot. They don't got the same type of protection that we had. So that was another thing that kept it strong in the hood. So that probably didn't take long. As far as what? Getting all the customers because you're- No, immediately. Immediately. Once they seem to buy one, get one and they came and then they realized that it was good work, then you start getting people for more type of shit because what happens is we selling, we wholesale into the hood at a minuscule

level. So you got people from downtown coming up to town buying our work and taking it downtown and selling it for $5, $10. You understand? I'm trying to tell you. So not only are we getting those that are using it. Yeah. We're getting people that making money off this shit. Buying $3 bottles uptown and going downtown and selling them for five. I would say 10, but to be safe, five, they still make it money.

So they're coming up buying two, 300 bottles minimum. You understand what I'm trying to tell you? They reen up. Okay. So what did that flow look like? What is an average day in just that building? If you were making, you know, 100,000 and three months on the east side and that SRO building. What is what is one week? What does one day and one week look like on 107th Street for you guys?

It's not that I made 100,000 in three months. I saved up 100,000 after fucking up a lot of money. Right. Okay. Because the problem with us is not making money is the money management. Usually that's the problem with the majority of us. We don't have financial literacy. You understand what I'm saying? So if you don't have someone that do, you're going to be fucking money up. You understand? So the west side, that particular, because in a day, we could probably push four or five bricks throughout the neighborhood and different things. But that main spot, we was doing at least two bricks a week, just there bottled up. You understand? So that's looking like 250, 300 grams.

Just in that spot bottled up daily. At the worst case scenario, we're doing a key a week. That's still a $20,000 profit after paying the table, the picture. And those, and those, that key thousand grams is broken down. How many bottles of crack is that? Like, Changos said like 30 to 40,000, right? Dependent on what you're selling. When we were selling deuses, we're doing, I'm asking for 20,000 bottles back.

But they bagging up 22,000. But that was that shit that we used to let them keep their little. extras, something like what market did, what us is shit. So besides getting paid for bagging up, you could also keep the extras. You understand what I'm saying? So there you go, you got 2,000 bottles to split up amongst y'all. You know what I'm

saying? And shit like that. So in that particular, then it might be something that we're doing bigger. So it all depends what the price range is of what we're selling at that moment to determine how many bottles or whatever we bag up. And so now you got one spot moving, one abandoned building. When did you get your next piece of

property. See, all our other property came about, it was already there. And we just switched suppliers. You dig? So we was the first young group to come outside. After us, there was other young groups that came out. We opened it up. We turned the hood out.

As they say, we started a whole different type of situation where now young kids is out there hustling and people is starting to accept it. It's becoming conventional now. So you got one building rocking. How do you expand from there? Okay. So what happened was, like I said, kids started coming out and hustling afterwards. Now, what they doing is searching for little real estate.

There was little pockets in the neighborhood that we really didn't pay attention to. This particular situation that happened when we took over most of the situation, like the neighborhood with the crack shit, The building collapsed. The abandoned building collapsed. When the police got tired of dealing with the building because they couldn't get us, you know what I'm saying? They tried quite a few times to get us and they never could.

So the last solution was to put cinder blocks through all the windows and seal up the building. All right, cool. We just told the workers leave this window open, that window open, boom, boom, and we paid them. So we still had actions to the building they kind of certified it for us, if anything. Now, the weight of them cinder blocks, nobody took them into account.

Now, they put all these windows, brand new cinder block. This building been there for over 10 years abandoned, just holding the ceiling and all that, being rained on and all of that. This wood is eroding. Yeah, I know that in hindsight. Back then, I'm not thinking. So luckily, we used to work from 6 o'clock in the evening to 6 in the morning to six in the morning.

We didn't like working in the daytime because that's when all the police and all the sales come down. So we used to push everybody else to the daytime. You could hustle in the daytime. At nighttime, when we come out, everybody shut down.

And whatever other spots there was out there, like I told you, you had to sell for $3 if I was selling that too. Okay, cool. Interesting. So you let the independent dealers hustle during the day as long as they sold for hire. No, in the day, you could sell for whatever you want.

Okay. The night was prime time. Right. That's where people want to be at. You could hide in the darkness. You understand what I'm saying? You could see police coming and shit like that. And you have more users out because it's coke.

It's a nighttime drug. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that too. But, you know, crack kids are always getting high. And when they're trying to get hot. That's so interesting. So you guys actually allowed people from outside of the crew to get money during the day, take the risk, keep the customers in the neighborhood. So keep it as a crack strip, but then at night, we're going to take the real money.

I mean, I didn't even look at it like, I didn't even look at it like that, but it makes a lot of sense that way you put it. I would have been great at crack dealing. Anyways, we didn't do it with that design. What happened was we was, the day was riskier. That's when they do the sales. That's when the police is out. You don't know, you know, there's more people outside. So you can't see nobody really coming at nighttime.

is only the deer living in the crackhead and the people from the neighborhood. So we was able to determine everybody walking. These cinder blocks, though. The building drops at one almost 2 o'clock in the afternoon, which was saved us because if it would have dropped that 630, 640, it would have killed whoever it was in there. So half of the building dropped, half of the builders stood up. Like, you could look at that shit and you see the fuck,

and bathtub hanging where this floor fell and this shit is still there, waiting and all of that. So that's what happened. So it became a hatherd until they knocked all that shit down. In the course of the building dropping, it was one of them times that we had got some bad work. So now the customers are complaining from the work. The building drops, it becomes a hathered.

They park two cop cars there, one on the block, one on the ab to make sure no, walks in there because you can get hurt. This building can collapse. So they want everybody to stay away. So now what's happening with our customers? They're not trying to come. First, the work is bad, plus the block is hot.

So we really losing money. You understand what I'm saying? We're not making no money. And that, right there, these kids down the block start selling crack and baggies. 12, 12, those little wee bag, but the tiny one, that was new. the customers fell in love with that packaging. It was easier to stash. I guess it seemed like it was more in there than before.

They just fell in love with that packaging. So the bottle shit that you knew, like the tops and the valve, that shit was like becoming obsolete. Really? Yeah. So being that these kids introduced that, the whole wave is like they just hit the go wave. So they getting, man, money right behind it between Manhattan Avenue

and Central Park, they got all these kids that down there, like eight, nine different colors doing numbers with all our customers and all of that shit. And everybody else, they're hearing about this new packaging. They're killing them. They start buying mad guns. But we're dealing with this situation up here, plus we're going to war with red top also at the same time. So we got bad work, police on the block, and an active war that's going on.

because we're chasing out these dudes from a block next door to us. But I'm like, all right, don't worry, I'm going to go handle that down there. Because now they're buying gun, they're shooting it up. When we walk down there, like, to the store, they're yelling, they color out more than they have to. But it's like letting us know that they're out there. Like, that's a little disrespect. You think I'm a crackhead. You're yelling out of you.

But we're like, all, we're going to go, you know, we're going to handle that when the time comes. Sure enough, building got clear. I took their packaging. How did the building get clear? they cleared it out. They demolished the rest of it, which is now a garden. Okay.

They demolished it. They cleared it out. It wasn't no more risk factor. Now we just have to find a way how are we going to sell our drugs now, which, you know, we just took a couple, another building.

The kids down the block, now we took their packaging idea. They were selling it for five. Now we're selling it for three. You can't set it for three. I'm going to fuck. So now we took all our customers back, Using those 1212s?

Yeah. Those little baggies. Yeah, you found a way to bag it up. We're going to make, if you making, let's say for example, if you make $400 off an ounce, we're going to make $200. But we're going to sell triple the amount of ounces that you sell. You know what I'm saying? So I happen to get sick too, right?

In that whole course, and I stood down. So in the course of me staying down, I was a big fan of old school mafia movies. So I'm looking at mobsters with Lucky Luciano, Maya Lansky, and how they came about and put the five families together. I don't know if you're familiar with that movie. So I basically did a mobster move with them. Went down the block, took him over to Central Park.

Yo, come on, let go. I was smoking weed now at this time. This is already 18, 18 year though. Yo, let me holl at you. Go to the park and basically gave them a deal that they couldn't refuse. I was like, listen, y'all out here hustling. you're buying work from the Hicks the Hicks don't give a fuck about y'all

you're just a customer I'm going to give you all the same work Uncle Simon for the same price or maybe a point higher but at least with me y'all niggas is fucking with somebody that y'all got a team if you don't take the work

then that means that you don't like me that means that you're going to let somebody walk past you up the block to do something to us even if you overheard him saying it so you can't be around here anyway So who's down with us? Everybody was down. All right, cool.

Just let me know what you could do in three days. I don't go fuck up with one gram. Calculate what you could do in three days. In three days, I want my money. And that's how I was. Every three days, I go down the block, everybody dispersed, bring me back my money. And that's how those blocks started coming around.

And then if another, and usually these blocks that we was controlling, I wouldn't really make it money. I just was putting my people in position. Like, oh, you want to do that? Go take that block. And they'll go over there. Like, yo, they said that we're,

We could do that, boom, and they'll splat. And then that's how, and then I'll give you work eventually. But it wasn't like I was making a bunch of profit. We was generating money. Don't get me wrong. I made money off it, but I was letting my people's eat. I see. So you were kind of giving them wholesale work.

Yeah. And the cruise, not directly on your strip, but around it, you were giving them wholesale off of your pack. Yes. And were you giving them already crack cooked up? No, no, no. You're giving them powder. Wait, yeah, powder.

How much would you give these crews? Whatever they can sell. If you could sell a half a key in three, I'll give you half a key. If you could sell 100 grand, if you could sell $10,000, just make sure you calculate and let me know what you can do in three days

because in three days I want my money. Oh, interesting. So you guys had your whole crack, million dollar crack operation, but you're also moving bricks, chipping off blocks. So you were running through a lot of keys, too. Yeah.

I didn't realize that. At the end, because we were never really on that wait shit, but once I did that move, and it wasn't like we were just wholesaling to everybody. We was just wholesale into those people in our neighborhood in our, vicinity. Yeah, like our turf.

You know what I'm saying? Whatever we controlled from 106 to 110 from Central Park West to Real Side Drive, whatever it had to do with crack, we had something to say. From 106 down to 100th Street over there, that was purple and shit like that and then the guy did the project.

But then we had Amsterdam, 105th and 4th and 3rd, which was red top, but then after Horsalue and 3rd was murdered. we took the block. So we had that area also. So we had like basically from

103rd in Amsterdam going all the way into our neighborhood. And then when they crossed 106, we had the five avenues running back and forth and shit like that. How many crack crews do you think existed in New York at this time like that? Hundreds?

Yeah, hell yeah. Hell yeah. This is a very familiar story. The only difference is besides that we were so publicized is that we were so young doing this shit. Usually we had young dudes selling drugs, but they was part of an organization. You never really had young dudes running the organization.

It's funny because, sorry, there was a kid that came up and he was explaining himself to me. Like, yo, this, this and that. He just wanted to make sure that I understood that he didn't mean no disrespect, even though I wasn't thinking about that, but once he spent off, one of my co-defendant that was there, that he was like one of them,

you know, he's one of the shooters, but now we older, we know, but there's a lot of us that still around, you know, we go up to you'll see, but he's like, yo, T, what old time is that we give that type of respect to that we looked up to? I'm like, I don't know, I'm like, but I'm saying from out here, I said,

bro, the old time is was acting, asking us for permission to do shit. Like, we don't know what I'm saying? Like, we really have that, that opportunity because they was coming to us to get our blessings on what they wanted to do, you know? So. Is that because you guys were, had the bodies on you?

Yeah, hell yeah. We had the body. We had the money. We was, um, we was, um, very. Well, you carried yourself in a certain way too. That's a fact. Wow. So you were 15.

How, what, what years are these before you guys fell? 15 years old to how old? In 89, I was 15. And 90, I was 16. And 94, we went to jail. Right. So what do you think the height was? Looking back, what year was like the golden year?

Every year had his moment. You know what I'm saying? It's like, I don't know. You're familiar with Fat Joe? Of course. Like they say like every summer He's good for a hit Mm-hmm

So we kind of had a hit every year Like we always had a moment of That we that was memorable Like you know what I mean If you're talking about 90 when we went to the east side It was memorable We was making money that we never imagined We put a hundred thousand dollars together each

At that age you know what I'm saying We may wait more But to stack that The first hundred that we stacked up was like Oh shit I had $100,000 dollars Right So, do you remember when you made your first million? Well, we made our first million when that $100,000, you understand?

But to stack it up a whole million, for me, we spending too much money on lawyers and guns and cars and mistakes. So, but at any given moment, we had $200,000, you know what I'm saying? And if we really needed the million, we knew what we had to do, just buckle down for a month or so or two, you know what I'm saying? They just stack everything. But I'm not going to say until, you know, I had 10 million in the closet.

No, no, no. We ran through a bunch of millions, though. But got to remember, we was kids. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So we don't even know how to spend this money. We don't know how to buy a call. We don't know how to do it.

So we just spending money and giving money to our friends. Yeah. We was losing like, and the east side, we was losing like $2,000 a day in shorts. Shorts? Yeah, like, yo, what happened? $2,000 is missing. I don't know.

I think this and we didn't give a fuck. Right. We were like, all right, fuck it. Next time you got to make sure. But then between $1,000, $2,000 daily. Yeah. Off the books. That's a cost of doing business, you know.

Someone's always pocketing, you know, I'm sure you had workers that pocketed 10 here, 10 there. Yeah. That adds up. Yeah, in the way that we didn't feel it. And we actually factor it in. Mm-hmm. Like they factor in 10% loss in a store.

Like, you know what I'm saying? Did you use, see the crack demand decline at all? I don't know. I heard about that shit after I was locked up. Okay. So up until 94, it just was busy. Booming.

Booming. Do you remember one particular year that was the busiest? Or was it just, was it a matter of how long you wanted to be out there working? There was never a matter of demand? I mean, you had fluctuations. right? Because, again, somebody might open up with some Coke that's a little bit better than mine or has a gimmick that's a little bit better than mine and they might just take the flock for a little bit. You know what I'm saying? So you have those moments, but every year we would make money. So it doesn't sound like Yellow Top had a bunch of buildings. It sounds like you guys were always moving depending on when you needed to. Is that accurate? No, we just move at the beginning to establish ourselves.

And then after the east side, due to the fact that the city shut it down, that was the only reason we moved. After we'd that, we was in 107 steady until we went to jail. Yeah. We was adding land. We was conquering shit around us and shit like that. Yeah. But the spot was the spot until we left. Okay.

And ironically, my shop is right on that same block. Wow. So. Unrecognizable, I bet. Or there's still landmarks? Marks. Yes and no. But yeah, you got the garden, but it got flower within it now. Before when you saw it, it had bricks in there. I'm saying? But the structures is there, just with the exception of little remodeling here and there and all of that.

Did you guys bring crime to the neighborhood? Like, did you feel like all of the crack business that you basically built in that area? We definitely raid the crime rate in the neighborhood. I'm not going to deny that. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that to brag or whatever. It's just the truth. Come on, nobody was doing what we was doing. You understand at that time? Like, people was selling drugs, coke, sniffing, and dancing. Everybody was happy.

You know, social club era, no bars and shit like that. And we was open market, everything, selling drugs, shooting people, 16, 17, driving foreign, cars, beemers and all that, that shit looks crazy to people that's older that've been working all their life and now they see a 15, 16 year old driving all these luxury cars, got these his park. I don't even have a license. I don't even know who the fuck is paying for this insurance.

I just know that I'm paying it. I don't know if it's progressive or I don't know nothing. I don't even know who is the name on the registry. I just know this is my car and that they put all the paperwork to. So when I get pulled over, I don't go to jail. Who's they? Who would put that together? Travel agency. They had a bunch of travel agency that would hook up insurance for cars or get you on, um, um, um, um, um, trips, packages and or try to do some taxes, shit like that. So they always had someone that they could put the car under someone else's name and get your plate and it.

And I'm, you know, 16, 17 year old. I don't got no license. And I don't got no reason to be, you know what I mean? So I always needed someone to help me out with that. Did your mom, was she blown away? Was she aware of how you came up? Yeah, hell yeah. Because I went from being Millie's son,

which is what they call my mother, because my mom's is where I learned my gangster shit from, because my mom wasn't, you know, an easy cookie. She was, like they say, a tough cookie. Like, my mom was out there fending, you know what I mean? Like, she was treating dudes like dudes. Like, dudes treat chicks. My mom would treat dudes

like that. Like, you know, she fucked with you. And once she don't like you, that's it. She don't like you. If you don't like it, that's your problem. And that's that. You understand? And you're going to have to hold that.

Fast forward now, I'm outside. And I'm doing this shit. So it becomes Tito's mom. You understand? She's still doing what she's doing. But now it's Tito's mom. Don't play with Tito's mom. Because that's Tito's mom before it was.

That's Millie. And that's Millie. And now it's different. But my mom knew what it was. And she wasn't happy with with the career that I chose and my grandmother wasn't, but they was at least happy that I wasn't working for somebody and, you know what I'm saying?

I was at least successful in the fucking field that I chose. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, you had your own crew. Yeah. So I remember my grandmother, my grandmother never accepted money from me, but I knew that there was a moment that she was proud because she tried to handle things that best.

Before I moved out, she took a drawer and put a cylinder because I used to have guns. And one time, my little brother grabbed one of the guns. So she was like, before anything happened, so she had a regular bureau draw. She got my uncle to put a hole in it, put a cylinder.

So now that just gave me free reign. So now I got all, like, 16 guns in there, shotgun, 9mm attack, 22. I'm like, she just gave me permission to put all the guns right here. So she kind of enabled you. To an extent, but she wasn't trying to do it. She just was trying to keep it.

safe in her own way. Like my brother won't touch that. I won't lose it, whatever. But I remember she used to watch a lot of Chuck Norris movies. Chuck Norris used to be having MacElevens. So she used to be telling my arm when she used to be ready. Tito got one of those. Go, Tito, go bring that gun over here.

Look, that's the same one that you got in the movie. That's some foot-ass shit, man. That is some hood-ass shit. Okay, so that's what it is. You're a man now. and your mom is proud of you. I mean, she's happy that I'm not out here being anybody's flunky. That if I'm doing this, at least I'm being successful in that field.

You understand? I'm respected and shit like that. So you guys loved guns. You had 16 guns yourself. I mean, at that point, we had more guns than that. You know what I'm saying? And yeah, we just felt that that was the tool of the trade. And that was what distinguished us from a lot of people.

Like, anybody could go go get some money and all that boy. who's gonna hold this shit down. So we introduced the level of violence that people hear about in the West I could before that you weren't hearing about that. So we started all that murder shit, you understand what I'm saying? And then that turned everybody else. Every, you know, we're not the only one. There's other people that are caught body than the neighborhood.

You know what I mean? And one year within eight months, 24 murders was caught. And 93 between February and then count what, October, 10 months, eight months. Just on the west side? In our neighborhood. Wow. And our precinct.

And were those all, were you responsible? Your crew responsible for all those? He was allegedly responsible for some of them. And then there was other people that was responsible for others. You understand what I'm saying? There was just a lot of shit going on. There was a, and then at that particular year, there was a dude that was selling guns. And dudes stuck him up for guns.

And he had boxes of guns. So now everybody has guns. what you think happens. Did anybody get popped for any of those bodies at the time? I'm not talking about the indictment, but for actually at the time of the shootings, did anybody get popped? Not at the crime.

Months later, you had dudes that got picked up, but we would beat them or they would get dismissed. There was just one body that made it seem like they were going to dismiss it, but they just used it to hold people in place until the indictment drop. But um did you ever do any of the shooting yourself after you already got on? Yeah, I mean, well, in the beginning stages, you got to put examples. You understand what I'm trying to tell you. So yeah, I had to do certain shootings because niggas is not going to just jack you for not shooting.

You know what I'm saying? But I'm not going to sit here and tell you, oh, that's my forte. My forte is more structured, but I know what I got to do when I have to do it. There's people that like doing that shit. They get a kick out of doing that shit. That's just part of the trade for me. You understand? I don't have to be upset to go do it,

but it's not something that I choose to do. If we could get through the situation amicably, they're not rather that. Well, 24 bodies isn't amicably. So what were... You're not responsible for the 24, though. But once you guys, once you and Chango were successful drug dealers, did you stop putting in work yourselves and just give orders?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, definitely. Okay. I mean, but in one way or another, we still put in work. We might stop going and pulling the trigger, but we still might be driving you or we might still be over here watching. It depends. You understand what I'm saying? There was still certain things that was going on. But, you know, after that, there was no reason for us to be out there.

We're controlling the situation. You've got to protect us without us. This shit is not running. When someone will get picked up for a murder from your crew, did you go get, how do they beat these cases? Did you guys pay for their lawyers? Yeah. Okay. All that.

Like, shit, before they get to the priest and the lawyer, the radio, calling over there to them don't talk to my client. And we pay for the lawyer that you had a bail and we could make your bail because it wasn't really about affording the bail. It's making it because how we justify $20,000, you understand what I'm saying? We don't have nobody with that work history. You understand what I'm trying to tell you? So that was another thing.

And you didn't really see a lot of bail bonds men in New York at that time. So if we was able to make the bail, then you're going to get built out. But if we didn't, usually we're going to. we didn't make the bail because you didn't have a bail. You know what I'm saying? And we would take care of your lawyer, your commissary. You got a girl and a kid. We're taking care of her.

You understand what I'm saying? We're giving her her own money every week. Like, for example, we had one guy. We used to give his girl $750,000 of the week. Yeah. Besides paying for his lawyer. Right. Besides giving her the money to go see him and put money on his books.

She didn't have to take that from the 750. You understand what I'm saying? And that was our way to, you know, That's what we used to do. So nobody ever told on you? As far as what? Like if they were down from murder, they never. Started coming into play after the big indictment.

Right. But I'm talking about at the time, nobody ever friendered you guys. That's dope. No. How much did it cost to beat a murder? How much do you have to pay a lawyer to beat just like a body? I mean, it depends because we had Lynn Stewart. And Lynn Stewart could be pricey for you, but not for me because she had a mother

nurturing relationship with us. You understand? she took, first of all, that was Market's lawyer, Res and Peace, her tool recipe, and she met us through him, and she already had a liking for Market. And then she was so intrigued with our age that she just took a mother role for us.

And when Market got killed, we got up to represent Chang because he got caught in a stolen car with me, and he never went to court, so he had a warrant. So when we got older, the warrant started affected them, and that's where we hired Lynn. And ever since then, she always dealt with her. So, like, if she's going to charge you $10,000 for a case, she's going to charge it $6,000.

I'm trying to tell you. So murder for us would cost, like, between $20,000, $40,000, depending on how intensive. You know what I'm saying? But if it was just a two-day, three-day trial, we probably gave her $20,000, $25,000. You know what I'm saying? And that was the family friend's discount. Yeah. Okay.

And how could you beat a murder? This is before cameras, obviously. So when the murders either got thrown out, did the murders usually get tossed? Or did you actually have to beat them in trial? Well, we got a lot of tent murders tossed out. We got one murder tossed out. Like, you know, they just didn't have enough to proceed. And then when we beat that trial.

Okay. And how is that? Was that lack of evidence? or like how what was the strategy behind that before cameras the witnesses the way had was not credible to the jury okay so and then ironically is crazy because when this person was going to trial that's when i started going attending his trial and on my way to go see him when i'm going into the courtroom there's a guy talking to a lady which i assumed was a lawyer she was but not the lawyer that I was thinking so I haven't seen this guy for a little while but he looks

healthier he used to smoke but he's from the neighborhood so I'm like yo what's up bro how you doing now when I sit down they bring him he's one of the witnesses so that chance encounter made him think that I came there to see him testify so he switched the whole testimony so they only had him and this lady that used to smoke crack from the neighborhood doing the case. You know what I'm saying? And he was like a little bit more credible than her, but she was more details. So they were combining them and running that whole shit that, you know, these are the only people that's outside that time.

That's why we got them. But he switched his whole situation up at the district attorney perplex. Like, what the fuck? You just told me a whole bunch of it. And then my lawyer basically asked the jury. jury because the other person was a person that was smoked. And she never stopped smoking. So she would understand looking still cracked out type shit.

She was eloquent, but you could still see she was cracked out. So my lawyer asked the jury, would you let this person sit, you know, take care, babysit your home while you're on vacation? Just think about that. So why would we put this kid's life in their hand and they came back with a non-guilty verdict? Wow. And he thought and the other witness, the guy thought you were there to intimidate him. When you just happened to be there just to go support your boy.

Wow. I didn't even knew he was part of the witness. You see the first episode of The Wire? That's the Stringer Bell shit. Oh, yeah? He's in there. He's in the courtroom trying to get his homeboy off and a witness is up there and he's just doodling, sitting in the front road, just kind of looking up. Oh, yeah.

I got to check that out. I've seen a few of the series, but I always caught through the spot. sporadically because I wouldn't jail when that shit was big. You know, your guys' story has a lot of, a lot of the wires, uh, storylines in them. And you don't believe how organized it is. And actually, what's funny is Utah, we've had drug dealers from Baltimore on the show and they're like, Baltimore didn't run like that. It was, it was pretty, it was very turned down. There weren't a lot of murders.

Uh, New York guys. ran everything because they, Baltimore cats are bumpkins, their hicks. New York guys would come down there, make all the money, and just get the fuck out. But you guys really ran that shit the way the, like organized, real, like, organized crime style.

I mean, yeah, yeah, we did to the best of our ability. But I think that the wire was based a little after everybody turned out New York. It was a time where you could go from New York to D.C. or someplace else and everybody being in awe with a New York person. Now you go to somewhere else and you're already suspect they're ready to blow your head off. Like New York is not really welcomed a lot of places and shit because they feel that we was arrogant and we're going over there to take over shit and all that.

I never really was on the out of town hustling shit. But I could relate to why people probably started feeling bad because you're going over there to take their money, they chicks. and then you're trying to talk down on these people, how you think they're going to feel? So once they started realizing that they could do this shit on their own, they started killing us. Yeah.

And in the early 90s, that's when it became very popular. It was Giuliani era, or coming up to the Giuliani era, so it started to get hot. And I asked Chango, I'm like, why didn't you guys take it out of town?

This is when drug dealers were, like, fleeing New York to go to all of these other places on the East Coast, because it was just you could be low-key and make all the money. You guys stayed in the fucking the middle of the beast, the middle of the war.

I mean, we would ask that then, but we was making out-of-town money on the block. And despite the fact that, yeah, we understood that Giuliani started, you know, making shit a little hotter. It wasn't affected us yet. You understand what I'm saying? So were these raids that I know you guys

were just working at night, 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., but did they, They start to raid you at night? No, they just, you know, police do the regular routine, try to run up, you know, the patrol person. They didn't want to deal with us at nighttime. It's a risk. You don't know what's going on.

And then you got to remember, this is the era where people are throwing refrigerators and buckets off the roof at police. Like, I used to go up to beat cops because at that time they put like 2,000 new officers on the street to walk around. And you have officers that come and they'll be on the corner for like. 20, 30 minutes. And still there. And I'd be like, yo, bro, you think you're going to change something? Get the fuck out of here. You hear 20 minutes.

Everybody left. We showed you respect. Why the fuck you're still here? And we was throwing fucking refrigerator, an air conditioning. There'll be a different. Like, get out of here. Bro, you're not going to stop the drug trade.

You come. We leave for a while. Then you leave. What the fuck are you doing? And they were looking out of me like, yo, this thing is crazy. You even know I'm a cop. I'm like, and leave.

Word. And they left? Yeah. And then all the customers came back. And all the customers came back. Word. We ain't have no respect after a while for like uniformed cops. You were then undercover and one of them, like, you know, how you call it, like task force and shit.

We were then really jacking you. We would be like, get out of it. Did anybody get pinched where they did raid you guys, the task force? Did any of your workers get pinched on buys? Yeah. I mean, I had a, well, not too much buys because, again, we all. with was pretend you can't really do a sale with us. Yeah.

And even if you did a sale with us, you were not going to be able to grab us because we're in a building. You understand what I'm trying to tell you? So it wasn't that. It was like apartment raids. Something happened. Like when one incident,

a guy got shot downstairs, police supposedly was told that he ran into our apartment so it gave them the green light to break the door down without a warrant. One of my guys got arrested. He had a $50,000 bail, but his mom's had a property in Florida.

So we was just able to put the property up. And then I just paid for the fee and the 10% and his lawyer. That was one incident and shit. And then there was an incident where nobody got caught there, though. But they raided. They found a whole bunch of guns, grenades, drugs and shit like that. But you didn't really have a lot of workers going off to prison for selling the pieces, right? Wow.

For bodies. Violent shit. That's why usually we get caught for. Right. And you sounds like you beat most of those. Yeah. So it wasn't really until the big indictment came down, but the state, what was it? Who were the law enforcement bodies?

Huh? Who were the law enforcement bodies? It was state with assistance from, you know, DEA and shit like that. But it was a state case, you understand? Within a federal case. So who were those? And that's super unusual. Now if you guys were doing that, that would be a Fed.

case, the feds would love that kind of shit. So was it like the New York City Task Force? Or it was a task force that they put together in the district attorney called H.I.U. Homestai Investigation Unit. So they put together that task force a bunch of district attorney that was going for, you know, quote-unquote drug gangs. They don't want to say organized, you know what I'm saying? But they was going for these things.

and they had a judge that was riding with him, which is Leslie Crocker-Snyder. You understand what I'm saying? So she was not there as an impartial judge. She was riding with the district attorney. You understand what I'm trying to tell you? She would, in her own way, correct the district attorney if she saw that person leading towards something

that could go into an appeal. Right. Wow. You understand? That is dirty. And she was the one that introduced, like implemented the consecutive sentencing. Usually you get court for a body,

but now you get in charge for a body, a gun, whatever. When you get arrested, you get 25 years for the body, then seven years, let's say for the gun, but they'll run a concurrent. So the 25 swaloo. She was like 25, 10, 150 years. What? Word.

She gave Fat Danny from the Wild Cowboy with 158 and one-third. And I think the one-third was what really made him feel like, what the fuck? You gave me 158 years. You really needed to waste your breath to talk about one-third. What do you think the motivation behind that was?

Making a name. Right. It's her name. She made a name. She wrote a book. She was running for district attorney of Manhattan. At the end of the end of the

the day, it made a statement all around the board. It was the climate. You had Giuliani as mayor, you had Pataki coming into office that was tough on crime. Like, it was a whole different atmosphere that was justified due to the whole year that was going by before that ramping with the crack. People felt like they had enough. But the ill thing about it is that once we got off the street, the residence in the neighborhood realized they made a lot of the, they made a lot of the a mistake. Why? Because now the crackers is running rapid, breaking into cars, hanging out in the building, dirtying shit, raping. You understand what I'm saying? Robbing, stealing. When we was outside, they were then doing none of that. They would do that wherever that,

you know what I'm saying? They didn't get away with that. And, you know, usually go into a suburb area, whatever, you know what I mean? But they were then doing that in the hood. did any of the residents rat on you guys? They started giving information about us towards the end. They was doing community meetings and the reason that I know that is because we used to have,

you remember, I don't know if you're familiar where when Con Edison used to run around with their trucks and get on the light pole and they have that big orange phone hanging there that they used to test the line, they'll clip it and be on an orange phone don't see if we've got a phone line. So we had obtained one of them

shit from a Con Edison dude that was smoking. And we used to just be wherever we used to have the apartment at. Because we had various apartments throughout the neighborhood where we used to stash at. So wherever we'll go to the window, find the phone line, scrape it, clip it, and use other people's phone

and start audio and video and shit like that. So there was a scheme where you used to go and dial a certain number, hang up, and they'll ring back. like if somebody's calling you. So that was a trick. We used to play with people. Put that there.

Hello, hello. So I did that. When I picked up, the owner picked up. So now I'm acting like if I'm a detective from the 24th priest. And I'm detective such, such, I just wanted to know if you was aware of the community meaning coming up. Oh, yeah, yeah. We spoke about it.

I'm like, oh, shit. That's how I found out. That's how you found out who was ratting. That's how I found out that they was investigating us in that sense. Oh, wow. And that that person was, you know, going to those meetings. Wow. And what can you do, though, right?

You're selling dope. You're 18 years old, 19 years old, and they're just trying to live their lives. Do you understand why some of the residents, do you understand looking back why ordinary people can't accept what you guys were doing and live in a society? They couldn't accept it at the moment. Like I told you, after we was gone, they understood the value. You dig? And after a while, they understand that we just were selling a product that wasn't sanctioned yet. And once they understood that, but at the beginning, they were brainwashed to feel like they're cleaning up the neighborhood.

You don't need this. You don't need your kids to go to school looking at these people doing this, this and that. And they went with that. They bought that at the beginning. But they just didn't realize that they would be a dup too. Because now they cleaned up the area, but you got the cracker's running crazy. Now you got the gentrification.

Now you got the landlords coming through, offering you $20,000, $40,000 for an apartment for a person that never seen that at one. They think they got rich. Now they move into Florida or whatever for two, two years. Now they're coming back to the neighborhood renting a room. Yeah. So they realized that they got duped too.

Sure. You know what I'm saying? Was there one reason or one murder that you reflect on that was like, Oh, yeah, that was like the last straw. That's when they started to really come down on us. I mean, what they really came down for, we were then directly, we didn't sanction that. Chang'all, I did not sanction that,

even though it was guys amongst us that was held responsible for these murders in Harlem on 112. What happened was there was a weed spot over there. And we had some kids that were from Puerto Rico, that was bringing bricks from Puerto Rico, from Puerto Rico and we befriended them and they used to hang out with us while the keys was being sold. That's a different story.

So now they go in a buy weed and a spot in Harlem over there. So on the way back to the neighborhood, this is 112 so now they go 11, 10, 8, 9, whatever, boom. They play a reggae don't. So, you know, Harlem is predominantly black.

So, you know, they hit them with the mea, me, that shit. and someone felt courageous enough and took two, three shots at the car and hit the door. They ain't hit nobody in the car, but hit the door. Made everybody skid off, you know,

they don't know what the fuck this dude shoot, and they don't know if it's a beef or this dude just doing that some bullshit. So, you know, skid off, get back to the neighborhood, strap up, come back, shoot the whole block up. But when they come back,

it's not the same people that was there that did this shit. Someone told them, dude, do these kids? is from the hill. They're coming back. So everybody dispersed. Now you got three kids there.

They just came out of after school waiting for the bus. These kids is immigrants from PR. They don't know no different. They just, for lack of a better way of saying it is, it was some black kids. These is black kids. And they killed one, paralyzed another, shot another. And being that these kids was young,

but disclaimer, we were teenagers also. So they just were the younger teenager, you know what I'm saying? And it was an innocent bystand and people was, you know, an uproar. That's what made them really come in. And like, like, let's finish this shit. You understand what I'm saying? Right. How long were they investigating you before they arrested everyone?

They, at far, like, they've been investigating us in one way or another since we was out there. You know what I'm saying? However, when they really put the case in. And all that said, it was eight months investigation from what I recall and heard. That's what I heard. It was like an eight months, nine months investigation. And that was the New York City Task Force, the NYPD, help from the DEA. Help from the DEA, you know, Fed and shit like that.

But it was a district attorney. HIU. It was a task force coming out of the district attorney, which it was a different hit because you're not coming out of a precinct. You're coming out the court itself. Yeah. The people that behind you are the district attorney and the judges. You understand?

So they fill in a different type of power. Wow. So they picking up the ramble, the Chuck Norris of every different precinct that got one of those cases. Like you got people that worked on the Wild Cowboy cases. You got people that worked on the Jericho, on the shower posse. All these officers that was in these neighborhoods on some, we got to get these dudes. And nobody in the precinct was trying to pay attention. like, yo, leave it alone.

And they finally got somebody downtown. You know, they picked this dude like, yo, you gunhole, you down with us? That's what makes up H.I.U. Right. Different officers that was gun hold on a crew in their neighborhood. Yeah. From different parts of the city.

Got recruited by the district attorney's office from downtown. And then now they're this task force. It's specifically there to take down crews like crack crews. They got a bunch of homicides happening. They're implementing comp conspiracy. this point. Right. They introduced it. The law was on the books forever. Nobody was really utilizing the law. This judge said she would utilize the law. Right. That was the only way that they was able to come through and sweep because before that, you're just grabbing one person here by chance.

Yeah, one-offs. You know what I'm saying? So. And New York is interesting. It's unusual like that because they actually have state racketeering laws. Because when you hear racketeering, you're, oh, you're like, this is of the feds. But in New York, there was so much organized crime that they actually had state cops also dealing with it, which I find fascinating. Like as far as like the state cops dealing with the, like the state of New York is running organized crime laws.

Oh, yeah, yeah. The feds do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That judge is really the one that implemented. Like I said, the law been on the books forever, but nobody felt compelled or the need. to use it. Right.

You know what I'm saying? Oh, everybody probably, they felt that it was too complicated. Right. But this judge was willing to go and write the warrants and, you know, sanctioned the warrants and accept them call that. Like, nobody really probably was trying to deal with that. They were just trying to do the eight,

eight hours and hit the gate. Yeah. This judge got behind them. These district attorneys was hungry because every time, there wasn't nobody beating those cases either. You understand what I'm trying to tell you? Yeah. So they was really running like the feds, like you said,

because the feds got like a quote-unquote 99% whatever. So nobody was being these cases that they was getting lights out. Because this judge was already responsible for members of the shower posse. That was the first law. That's the first person that they implemented that shit on. Then it came, some other people that you didn't read here, but like the jury curbs. These were some kids from Washington High Dominican Hick do.

They was doing a whole bunch of shit. a whole bunch of murders, a whole bunch of money, drugs, and then the wild cowboys. And you know what I'm saying? And then after I got watered down, they just started putting everybody in there, you know what I mean? But these people that took these cases was nobody district attorney. Then after this case, they call in shots.

You understand what I'm trying to change? They basically writing their own check. So what kind of, when they began, did they identify you in Chango at the beginning of the investigation, this eight-month investigation? Did they immediately identify you guys as the leaders? Yeah, because what you got to understand, like I said, they've been investigating us for the beginning one way or another.

But it's a cop that's gunhole usually in these precinct. They got all the intel, and he's probably bringing it into his superior. His period's like, yeah, yeah, don't worry, we get to it. And then finally somebody comes with more power than his superior and be like, let me get this. So they already gave him the rundown. They went to every precinct and got someone that knew. about the crew. They heard about the crew and all of this shit that's going on. They feel,

they already, um, hearing about the difficulty of grabbing us up because we never got this on us or we hiding. You know what I mean? Nobody want to say nothing. So how did they, how did the other precincts know that you and Chango were the guys though? Did, did, not the other precinct, our precinct. So how did they know that you guys are the guys? Is it obvious? I mean, is it obvious because you guys never had shit on you? Right. You know what I'm saying? We outside and the cracker's talk, you know, for lack of a better way, no, I ain't trying to be distrared, but that's how we call them. They spoke when they went to the precinct. They ain't give them information that could lead to us getting arrested at the moment, but

they got intel, like, who's the boards, who's the shooter, who's the pitcher, who's the looker? So they had this information for years already, you know what I'm saying? And then we didn't do too much to dispel it because now when you come through, you see in me in an exotic car and in jewelry. And I'm not working. You understand what I'm trying to tell you? And you never have, when they pull you over, you never have shit on you. I don't never have nothing on me, not even a license.

So when did you remember the day it all happened? I'm sure you do. As far as what? When we all got arrested, I mean, my shit happened June 10th. I got arrested for a murder and then two weeks later, the diamond dropped. I got shot me. I got shot. They put out a hit on me.

I got shot in May. Wow. How did that tell us about that? The guy that we was given, that gave us the first brick on consignment, years later ended up putting out of head out on me. Wow. And, but he did that because he wanted to sell drugs in our part of the hood. Dope.

But we knew what type of dude he was. So what happened was when he was giving us that key that we appreciated so much for him taking a chance, he was making eight points. off of us, which was unheard. So now every 10 day, you make it $8,000 with no problem. You're making $24,000 a month beside your regular hustle that you're doing. You love us. So then the body drop, which was for them, he got involved with the body without having to,

you understand? Like he was supposed to be a backup. Like if shit go crazy, then you come in, but nothing went crazy. But he just wanted a, so he shot the dude while he was in the floor. So what happened? When you first hear shots, what you do? You duck. Once you stop hearing shots, you get up.

Once you get up, you see the dude shooting his shots now. Bang, bang. Everybody saw him. Then he drops his beeper. And he lives around the corner. So everybody knows you, bro. So three months later, they came, they picked him up. They really couldn't do nothing.

They released him. in the course of him being picked up and a couple of months that he lasted in jail, we learned the prices because everybody's trying to give us work. I give it to you for this price, this, right, this, probably this, they don't know that he... So we're like, oh shit, this dude was getting...

But we didn't feel it because we were still doubling our money or more. So when he came home, we were like, we were willing to work with you, but you gotta meet these prices. So he felt like we were supposed to take it at his price like if he had a partnership with us in our spot, like, bro, you don't got nothing to do with this spot.

You were supplying work and anybody here got work so you can't get these numbers so that was when the friction started happening. He didn't say nothing about it but that was like, all right, cool.

And then time went on and we were going, I was going with my son's mother was going to Florida. Right? I had just caught a tent murder. I got let out and I was like,

I thought I was going to have to lay up. So since they let me out, I was like, yo, we're going to Florida. Awesome. Celebration shit, right? Boom, I got caught. I got caught for a shooting on 141st in Broadway.

I got arrested. Boom. I got $50,000 bail. Nobody went into the grand jury. They let me out. Two weeks later, no indictment. Then six months later, they dropped the case because nobody ever came in to testify. But they called me at the scene.

Somebody pointed me out at the scene, but never went to proceed with it. So they made the arrest, and it was nothing else. after that. Okay, cool. I get out. I'm super happy because it was going to be a problem for me to justify $50,000 bail. So they let me out my own recogniz. No money. I'm talking to this guy, and I'm like, yo, I need a half a brick real quick because I'm about to go to the floor. I want to leave this behind. So he tells me, I'm about to get a brick from this dude right now. I'm going to DR. I'm going to debt him for the brick. So I'm going to give you the half of the half a brick.

You do what you do and you get it to me. So in my mind, like, you're dead in him. I'm dead and you. So I'm saying. So I kept the half of brick. He ain't like that. And, but he never said none about it. Then he wanted to sell dope.

He knew that we didn't sell dope, but I didn't feel comfortable having him stationed in my neighborhood because I know he's going to be able to keep tabs on us and learn our business. And before you know it, he'll be like, knock him off, knock him off and we got this. You understand? So that became a friction. So he came up with the bright idea of putting out a hit on me and Chang. Wow. And I'm the only one that got hit.

How did it happen? He sent people. He paid some people from Brooklyn now that I know, you know what I'm saying? He paid some people out of Brooklyn. They first came and they shot at Chang. You guys were out in front of your building? Yeah, we were outside. But when they shot at Chang, I wasn't around.

So when they told me about it, I didn't really put too much stock into it. I was like, this is some random shit. you probably got somebody nervous while they was going to the store. Because the way they explained the store, they were in the store. Duke came in, uh, uh, and then he shot. So I'm like, they could probably came in. Y'all spooked him and he shot. Boom.

Then I'm hanging in front of the building. All right, we got a build. We got three buildings down from the building that we're pitching at at that moment that they selling from. I'm hanging out there. It's a summer night. It's May. And I'm chilling there.

So one of the guys that are in jail, his girlfriend is there, we're supposed to give us some money. She already got my nerves worked up because every time we give her money, she said that it's $20, $30 missing. But the people that's giving her the money is other guys that work with us.

So she's able to get over. Like, they're not going to try to go against her. So now I'm like, you know what? I know she's doing some grimy shit. So I'm like, yo, go get the $750 and get them shit and get them shit and singles. All of them shit.

So you could imagine $750 in a single. I'm doing that to be spiteful. But at the same time, I'm looting time. A girl just pulled up. She's like, you let's go to BBQ. Like, nah, no, no, I'm doing something. I highlight me when you come back. She leaves.

I'm in front of the building with one of my guys. The girl, her sister. We're waiting for one of my other guys to come down with the money. I'm in like the doorway of the building. I look that way. I see three guys coming. But for some reason, it felt,

funny. They come in between 105th, 106. They're walking down that way. We are between 106 and 107. They got to cross the street and then come. So now I'm looking at this people and I'm like, eh, so I tell the guy, yo, let's break

out. And what's so? Now, some dudes is coming over here. I don't like the way they look. I'm not thinking that it's a hit for me. I'm thinking there's some, they're going to try to shoot the blackup or some dumb shit. I go to the building and I tell my guy, you, let me get the gun. He told me, yo, I just left the theater the police been running up in this shit too much.

He's like, why? Like, some people are funny. He like, go inside. My pride was like, nah, I'm thinking they're going to shoot the block up. So I felt it's going to look funny that I just went in the building, left everybody outside and they shoot the block up. So I go outside. When I'm turning around, the guy, I guess he thought that I had grabbed the gun.

So from the middle of the street, like, he's crossing the street to come towards me. When I turn around, he's still in the middle. so he just starts shooting from right there. When I see him pulling up his hand, I put up my hand. The bullet went through my arm and hit me in my head. I try to do what Chang does

and play dead. That shit didn't work for me. I was my like, bad, get the fuck out of here. So he was still shooting. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Police was pulling up the block in the process.

Freeed, they get into a shooting exchange. I get up and run in the building. And that was it. This is the building where I ended up getting shot. The dude was coming from right there, like from the street. So when I, yo, let me get the gun. You know, there, and I turned around. He just lifted up.

Boom. I just, police ran out. I got shot. I came out of the next day. Thank God. The bullet didn't penetrate. My head, it got stuck. I pulled it out myself.

I wonder if putting up your hand stopped the... Yeah, it did. Saved it from going into your skull. Yeah, it went through here there. It didn't hit no bone. But at the end of the day, I... I attribute that to my higher power, God. You understand?

Because Biggie got shot through a car door with a nine. Right. I got shot through my own. It just ain't hit a bone and get stuck. It just went through here, came out through here, and hit him here. But it slowed the bullet down enough. Yeah, enough. But a car door, I would think, would slow down the bullet even more than.

Right. Right. So I say that it wasn't my time to go. Wow. So that was that. That's wild. Okay. So now the beef is on.

So that was in May. Yeah. Did you guys go back and find that guy? Yeah, I got shot on a Sunday going into Monday. I'm trying to get out the hospital once I realized that I'm good. But I got, I guess, called a catheter. The shit, they put through your penis when you, so I'm scared to pull that shit out. I don't know where the fuck that shit is hooked on to.

You know what I'm saying? So, but I keep telling the nurse, yo, I'm good. I got to go because I know the homicide is coming. I don't want to deal with that, even though I'm supposedly the victim in this situation. But the lady wrote me off and homicide was right there. Now, homicide knows us for years. We've been through this dance many a time. So Tito, Rivera, I need to speak to me.

I don't know nothing. All right, cool. Let that be your statement, but you know the formalities. I'm like, all, cool, because now we got to cordial respect. Now that we're friends or we kicking it. I know you're after me. You know that it's my job to stay away from you. It ain't personal.

You know what I'm saying? So you conduct yourself with respect and you're respected amongst your circle. So I'm going to treat you. You understand what I'm saying? It was more or less like, I guess you can relate to the movie where he, when they was talking with each other.

So not that deep, but yeah. So he comes and he's like, yo, I'm like, I'm like, I fuck it. But now I'm saying to myself, I want to see who fucking did this shit. because they got some people I don't know where this head came from I don't know if it's purple

I don't know where because the dude that put the head out on me we just spoke the blunt the night before together he's telling me let's go to Florida you know what I'm saying they put me in they like come on

boom they like before you come you want to see a lineup maybe you recognize them I'm like yeah let me see but I'm doing that for my own so I don't know none of these people But I could tell who's involved because you got a bunch of people that's addict that don't look anxious other than they just don't want to be there no more versus a dude that got clean clothes, there's wrinkle that looks stressed out.

It's easy for me to determine that this is the person that. So you saw the shooters in the lineup that they picked up. But then, of course, you said, no, I don't know. I don't know these people or whatever they can be. Wow. So now. That's out of a movie. So now this happened Sunday going into Monday.

They pick me up Monday. I get out the priest and I go through the song and dance. I get out the priest and I don't know nothing. I go home. Oh, they put me in a room. Before they put me for the lineup, they put me in a room. Look at the grimy shit. They left me in there by myself.

They got a board, blackboard. And they got such and such pace such and such and such to hit such and such. And he went and got. So when they put the name there, I'm like, this is a cold war that nobody knows about. So this is valuable information. You understand the information they put on the board, they put, who put the hit out on me?

They put all of that. Who put the hit out on me? Who he paid? Who that person paid? They put, because the person they got caught initially told on his whole crew and gave him the rundown. So they were like, yo, they paid $20,000 to this dude. This dude gave $5,000 to this dude.

This dude went and got, you know what I'm saying? So they had the whole rundown. So they put me in there so I could see that. So now I could be like, oh shit. All they did was gave me the information that I knew. And like I said, I shot Sunday, went to the hospital, came out Monday morning, went to the precinct. Tuesday, I brokered the deal. Wednesday flew the kid in from Puerto Rico.

Thursday, I went into, like, oh, not even, like, that same way. I went to go, um, inspect the car in Terrytown. I had bought a Bima and I had to inspect it because it was a salvage title. I had bought a crash at that time. And I fixed it. So I was taking it over there to get inspected. And the guy was leaving. And Chang seemed the opportunity.

So he went and got the kid that I flew in. And then that situation, they shot the kid up, you know what I mean? So they killed the guy. He didn't die to somebody, um, played ambulance and threw him in the car and took him and him St. I'm saying loose, which is like three blocks away. Um, but he's going through. a lot of complications in life, you know what I mean?

Because he got shot in his hip, his nuts, his throat. I mean, nine times. So one moment, he's in a wheelchair, one moment. Like, he's got a lot of complications. So you, all these years later, you've, you still hear about him. Yeah, in 2010, this shit happened in 94, a month before me getting arrested. And then in 2010, And I seen them in downstate correctional facility,

which is a hub where everybody meets to wait for their bus to go somewhere else. So he didn't see me. I saw him. And I sat next to him and I was like, I called them by a nickname that only people from the neighborhood would know. And when he seen me, he's like, oh, shit, I'm like, what I don't take that shit personal. So I got my last hit. You understand what I'm saying?

So right now we could be all the core you you want. I just want to see what you want to do. You know what I'm saying? So I seen him then. Then he wrote me a letter talking about, you know, let bygone be bygone. Because we grew up with each other. He lived in the same building that my grandmother lived in also on the first floor. So we all grew up with each other.

You know, that's how that should go. But, yeah, I saved them. So, okay. And then you get picked up a month later. The indictment comes down. Yeah. All these people. How many people got arrested?

48. Wow. Yeah, 48. But I didn't get arrested with the indictment. I got arrested for a murder. Okay. My pops died. I bury my father, June 9th, and police came and grabbed me June 10th.

I guess they let me bury my father. Wow. They were already following us. And then, you know, that night, I guess they secure the tuck in. As they call it, like, ah, he's in for the night. And they prepared the raid, and they came at Snatch Me up. What was the murder? It was a murder that happened on Amsterdam with this kid named Modesto.

it was a whole that $1, $2 price range shit and people showing resistance. And I was telling them that if you continue to do it, you already know what it is. And they called out bluff. And he trying to impress them being that he just immigrated from D.R. Trying to, like, I'm down. I'm here. I'm willing to get money. And his career was cut short.

Like, he tried to stand out there with them. And he was one of the person that got killed. So you got, was it a drive? by shooting? Is it a walk by? It was a walk by? Uh-huh. Did you pull the trigger or was it an order? No, no, no, no, no.

Okay. I was watching TV. So they were, they were trying to basically undercutting you guys. Yeah, they were trying to run their own situation and show, um, a front, like, we don't care, we're not scared of them, like, we do what we want to do. Mm-hmm. So we allow that to happen then what you think everybody else is going to do, start testing us, you know what I mean?

Right. So we try to speak to them. We gave them an ultimatum and they ain't go with it. and then we just had to do. Look, I'm proud to say that we didn't start no problems. We finished them shit. You understand? Because we didn't go into 107 with the exception of the first initial resistance,

which was over in a couple of minutes. We didn't have to go in there blading. You dig? We got that shit. We bubbled. And then we maintained it. Now we're just protecting it from everybody that they want to probably infringe. So if you got a nigga talking about he's going to kidnap you

and shit like that, and you know that he's capable of doing it, then what you're going to do? Wait for him to kidnap you. And that was another thing to distinguish us, that we was able to tell when you were going to do something before you wanted us to know. So we're going to get you before. Like one kid sent the letter.

All right, one kid was in jail, pittled talking with another friend of us telling us how he was going to get us when he come home, how we sleep on him, how he could walk in these places and we don't search him. Boom, boom. So the kid worked, wrote the letter, sent it to us. I knew it was valid.

He came home. And you already know. So this Modesto gets killed. How did you get tied in? None of the murders was, nobody was really charged with those murders towards the end. They started hearing rumors. They were grabbing people.

There was really no evidence. But the judge was, was in Snyder at the time with another judge, was given the prosecutor an opportunity to gather the evidence to justify these arrests. When they arrested me, there was already like two people locked up for that murder for like nine months already, 10 months.

You know what I'm saying? There was two of our guys that already locked up for that murder. And boom. So now when they bring me in, the judge is like, you bringing me another defendant and no evidence. I'm putting this case on for the 30th, if it was June. I got locked up June 10th. For the 30th of June. And if you don't have no evidence just to,

find this defendant's arrest, I'm going to make sure that he makes bail. I'm like, oh, shit. But we got the indictment like the 24th or the 28. Like, she knew what the fuck she would do. Yeah. Oh, wow. So they kind of brought you in there knowing there was going to be a big indictment. Yeah, yeah, of course, because I'm the one of the guy that could have got away.

Yeah. I'm not pitching. I'm not there on the block consistently. I'm there sporadically. So if I happen to hear that they raided the block, what you think I'm going to do? Run. Would you have run? Like after going through all this prison time and all this bullshit, do you think you would have,

if you could have fled back to the D.R? I don't think it would have been a good idea. And me going to D.R. It would have not mattered anyway because I was born here. I'm a citizen. They could go get me. You understand? So it would have not mattered.

And then that shit is tiring. You understand what I'm trying to tell you. And you got to have a lot of money for that. Right. So probably if I had the opportunity, I probably would have ran. I don't know for how long, but in retrospect, I'm glad that it happened the way it happened

because it's over. Okay, so the 48 people get arrested. How long did you and Chango, you were on Rikers while you were fighting the case? Yeah. So we know Chango was getting let out in the middle of the night to go, to go, you know, hang out with this cop.

Yeah. And he was also perhaps, He was having some kind of relationship with one of the assistants to the DA. What a, what a G. We really were impressed by that. Yeah, me too. Yeah. I was impressed too.

I didn't, oh, I didn't participate in another. I didn't get those privileges. I didn't get that. How long were you on the island fighting your case? Two years and change. Right. When you got a lot of people like this, these cases last a long time. Sometimes you got two, three cases.

two or three trials from the same case. Understand what I'm saying? So, yeah. But as far as those privileges, only privileges that I got in jail was the one that I created in there. It was smoking mad weed in there, you know what I'm saying? And getting an officer to go buy food for me and shit like that.

And as far as females, I never really focused on trying to bag a female. They really didn't peak my interest because I always had my wife and she was bad and she was doing everything for me. I need to do that and not that. You understand what I'm saying? So I wasn't the one trying to bag a CO. I wasn't the one trying to get a pen pal because I always had someone by my son.

Yeah, and also, Chango was doing that as a way to manipulate to get the crew better sentences. Yeah, I mean, it turned out that way. He saved a lot of people's lives and retrospect. You understand what I'm saying? So, yeah, I guess, you know, he kind of, in a way, became our lawyer too.

And finagle certain things, which allowed us to be here today. And those that are not here today because in reality they chose not to because they gave everybody an opportunity to make it home. Even if they offered you 20 years, they offering a dude that is charged

with four murders for 20 years. Like, you know what's going on. Like if I tell you, you know, you got green and yellow boxes on right now. We don't see them. But you know if you have them shit on. So you could be like, this thing will know or he don't know.

You understand what I'm saying? Now you can put. play and be like, you know what, I'm a deny and we're going to take it to trial and then it's up to me to prove it, but you know that when we get to the gritty, you got them shit on. So we knew that these people knew something. So, um,

so did you see the evidence? Did they have to show you in discovery? Or is it different because it's like a bigger conspiracy case? I mean, they're supposed to, but I'm not, I wasn't well versed with the law as far as the technical aspect. I just know about private lawyers and putting money behind it. But now we all in jail.

So I didn't know like the particulars like I might know now about how laws work and shit like that. I just knew we were arrested. And when they gave me the indictment, it was 95 pages. And I was reading that shit like a book. And it was like, I could see what the, I know what was

going on because I was there. So I'm like, somebody really, really spoke to these people. Because they got this shit down to such and such, such yelled out yellow on this day. Like, damn. Okay, so somebody within the Yellowtop crew is cooperating. It was a guy that when they put out the head on me,

the dude was giving pictures. It's not, this is before Instagram. So you can't really get pictures from me. So somebody that was down with us stole pictures and gave it to the opposition. And he gave those pictures to the guys from Brooklyn so they could know who they was coming to get. When that shit failed,

he thought we knew that he was the one that set us up. I didn't know. I don't be just looking for my guy. Like, yo, what's up? He gave himself up. And being that he was so petrified, he went and started talking to the district attorney.

Now, he had told us that he was approached before, but we didn't believe him. We thought he was just saying that because he came late to work. So you're making stories up, bro, like, fuck up. So he never brought it up. So now when all this happens, he knows who to go speak to. like, you know, they're about to kill me.

He gave the whole shit up. Was he a key, he was probably a key element in making their case. Yeah, he was the star. He was the one that they put, they had all the shit that they needed, but they just needed someone credible within to collaborate. So get the indictment. But I feel like for them to offer guys that have four murders 20 years, no, they don't do that.

The government doesn't do that unless they're not sure that they have an airtight case. They got a pretty good case, but they're not willing to risk, the embarrassment of losing at trial. But then they still get their statistics, right? Yeah. This happened right after Wild Cowboys. That was a six-month trial, I want to say, probably longer. Right after that, you don't want to go into another six, seven-month trial. That's a lot of money.

You just made an example. if you could make another example by getting, because that's how they wanted us to do, is to all cop out at once. When you tally it up, you just gave out a thousand years. You understand? So you're still going to be able

to sensationalize your story in the paper. You understand what I'm trying to tell you? And nobody's going to look at you like you just let anybody get away with anything. 20 years is still 20 years at the end of the day. Wow. Yeah, so they get their statistics. And then you guys, the ones who agree to cop out

and plead get to go home. Yeah. And the ones from your crew that didn't are doing life. Yeah. Out of everybody, there's three people that's still incarcerated behind this case because they chose to go against the grain and go to trap. Yeah. These people were offered cop out themselves, you understand?

But for whatever reason, they didn't take them. And they would have been home by now. Hell yeah. Everybody's home. Wow. Everybody. Everybody's home from the other crews and all that. whoever took out took they please i ain't talking about no bullshit snitch and shit i'm talking about like

those they took they paid took 20 years 22 years 15 years shit like that everybody's home yeah everybody i was telling chango it's remarkable like if you get pop for one murder you're just a guy running around uptown and you kill somebody you're probably gonna get 25 to life but have four murders wrapped inside of this gigantic conspiracy case and you could take a plea in be back in under 20 years. Yeah. It's kind of crazy how the justice system works sometimes. But you got to look at it that 120 was given to you.

You made them go through a whole bunch of shit, and now they're giving you that 20 versus you telling them, let me get that 20. You know what I had, you had to go to trial to earn to give this dude 25 years or 20 years. You had to go through trial, a whole bunch of shit, him pleading this, versus another person is like, you, I'll take that 20. You didn't have to do much for that.

So why did you have to wait two years before? Because they didn't want to give us cop-outs. They didn't want to give the main people in the case. They didn't want to just give us cop-outs. Understand what I'm saying? If they wanted us to cop-out together. Right. You understand?

Because if it was 15 of us, like 15 of us that they wanted us to cop out, a universal cop-out. if one of them don't go, he could throw off the case. So if they got to go with you, they might as well go with everybody, which makes the case that much stronger because you might be sitting there for sale only,

but you're sitting next to a dude's charged with murders. When they come for that guilty, you get as collateral damage, you're going to. Nobody don't think about like, oh, he didn't do the sale, but he think you're all guilty. And especially after doing so many months of a trial, it gets to the point where the jurors get tired. I know a juror that compromised on giving a friend of mine's life because she wasn't comfortable with convicting them for the death penalty when they had the death penalty in New York, like in 96, 97. Giuliani, I mean, Pataki introduced that.

He was facing the death penalty. he went to trial. There was people that felt he was innocent, some of the felt that he was guilty. It was towards the holidays. If they would have kept on, they ain't going nowhere until you come with a verdict. Just to go home,

they compromised and gave him life. Like, fuck, we're going to convict them, but we're not going to give him a death penalty, but we'll give him life. Now we can all go home. Right. You know what's that? Just so you could make it home a couple of hours early

and you could sleep comfortably instead of saying, yo, you put me in a death penalty, she just gave me life just so you could make it home. You don't want to be here no more. Like that's where it's air when you think about it. So all these factors were kind of working in your guys's favor. Like what's it?

Well, holding out, holding out. And all these political reasons, the reasons that the state didn't want to drag a trial out played in your favor because they ended up giving you guys plea deals. Yeah. I mean, you see, the Wild Cowboys came right before. that was an extensive trial. They didn't really want to put that court

through that whole vigorous situation again. And they ended up having to. Anyway, now, excuse me, now, yeah, them sort of don't give them, sorry, you'll give water. So now, right there, they don't want to spend that money. They tie it. And they get everybody, that's how they were going to do it.

If they get everybody out the way, They just saved a bunch of money. What saved us was I had a cop on a payroll. And they started realizing before me that that could be a problem for them. So now they're coming back trying to ask like if they being cool. Now, that's when they start to want to give me a, they want me to cop out admitting that I had a cop on a payroll. Do they want you to give up the cop to?

I mean, technically because if I'm admitting it, you understand that I had a cop on a payroll, yeah, I had a cop on payroll. Yeah, I had a cop of payroll. But at the end of the day, it's not my guys. I'm not betraying my people. I don't go fuck about this dude. You understand what I'm saying? You're not my friend.

We ain't grow up. You're a cop. You're going to put me in jail if I don't pay you and do what I'm supposed to do with you. You understand? So now I'm getting all my money's worth. Yeah, I had that on payroll. Fuck this, nigga. You understand what I'm saying?

And that was that. So now. So you gave up this cop. Technically, I didn't testify against him. I didn't write a statement on them or whatever the case may be. But when I pled guilty to my conspiracy, part of my agreement, my plea was admitting that I had a cop on a payroll. Did tell us about him really quick.

How long had you been working with him? And what were you paying and what was he doing for you? He was a dude that was from downtown that was friends, right, with a guy that migrated up there, that caught a shooting. So now the guy that caught the shooting up there that migrated that used to be around, he was kind of grimy in his way. He ended up being our co-defendant, too. So being that this cop came up there that he used to have under the wing,

he was having that cop going around, taking people stash because he knew every, So you're not going to stop a cop from taking your stash. And once people get tired of it, then they'll come back and be like, you pay this and then you'll be able to be good. So he brought it to our attention in a different manner. Like, yo, this guy, he could help you out and all that. But at the end of the day, if we didn't go with that deal, he's not going to just let us rock. You understand what I'm saying? So it was depending on the information at the time.

I don't really think that he got no money because I was giving him $500,000, $1,000, depending on the information and shit like that. But that lasted for like seven months, eight months before we got arrested. Does you get any valuable information from him? Yeah. I mean, at the moment, like, we got a picture back from a warrant that one of my guys had from juvenile. So they had a picture up, so he took it down. Not nobody's thinking about him.

He would let us know when, like, you know, not no intricate, like these fucking raids that happen with H.I.U., but anything that was coming out of the precinct and shit like that, he would let us know if I'm buying work and he's on the beat, then, you're on. I'm about to go buy these bricks. Hold me there. So, you know, he'll have his hat off it. And I knew that I could walk and, you know, shit like that. Right.

But, um, okay. But they was like, you know, yeah, you had to, because what happened was the dude that God is locked up. That was the star witness. When he was testifying, he spoke about the cop. That's how they came to know about this cop. They were already told about it. But when he said, yeah, um, because they told, um, one of the guys that we shot, like, you want to work with us?

He said, I'm not working with nobody in the 24 precinct because they got cops on payroll. When they started testifying, they bought the cop again. So they were like, they got to be something with this cop. They started asking questions. They found out that I was the initial person to do business out of this. So then they, yo, you did business with this cop? So they tried to do it in a way, I believe, where it wouldn't come back and bite them in the ass and people could be like, oh, you're getting a conviction for this and this and that, you know, a reversal because this cop was corrupt. Right. But it still worked out. So you just corroborated what the snitch from your crew already told them.

Yeah. I see. So did that guy ever, did the cop ever do time? Do they ever arrest him? I think he got locked up. But I don't really think he did much time. He probably did a few months or whatever.

Sounds like they wanted to really sweep that under the rug. Yeah, yeah. I think he got like a one year. And out of that, you do like eight, nine months or ten months or some shit like that. And one flat or one or one or three or some shit like that. But he didn't really do no time. Right. And that was it.

He just faded to black. I see. Okay. So how much time? What was your sentence? 30 years. 30. With the possibility of making it home in 12.

If I did the right thing, as far as behave, it didn't lose my good time. Then I had an opportunity if I was bugging out to come home in 20 years on a CR conditional release. But if I fucked that up, then I got to do 30 years. Hmm. So. I ended up doing 21 years. But I did 12 and then I came home and the district attorney had a hard off of me because they felt that I got away with a bunch of shit because I'm back in the neighborhood.

I'm still young. I'm still active. They still think that I'm influential. I started dealing with the music when I first came home. The music? Yeah. So I'm running around with prominent rappers at the moment and, you know, I got a studio. So making it seem bigger than what it is, you know what I'm saying?

I still had money when I came home from before and people looked out for me when I came. So when you combine that, I had more money than the average person at that moment. You dig? So they was salty behind that. Like, oh, this dude is over here basically laughing at us, even though that's not what I was doing. But they felt like that because I still looked young. I came home. I'm 33 years old or some shit like that.

Yeah. And I'm still looking young. So they like, what time? Like, this dude really got away with all this shit. You can't believe it. You did. 12 years is nothing for all that shit you did. I did almost 13.

And that was because I went in there with a portfolio. I did college. I did a bunch of therapeutic programs. Like I utilized my time productively. I ain't going there and become a born-again Christian. I was a bird. No, I just maneuvered. I still had the yard active.

I still was doing what I do. But I would utilize my time productively. Like I wanted a GD. I wanted public speaking classes. I was in all of those. I wanted to control the answer. And they class because at the same time, I'm controlling the callout slip. So maybe I want to put 10 of my friends on that list.

There's different places of the jail. So this is way to control, but it's still also showing a positive side. And you learning by default. I took a Bible study course just to put it in my portfolio for school, I mean, for parole, but I still learned about the Bible. So you got paroled your first time in front of the board? Yeah, but they made me wait a little bit. Like, they were going to give it to me,

but they just had to figure out a couple of other stuff, and then they let me out. So technically the first time, but not right there meeting. That's why I'll be like 13, the first. You know what I mean? So what happened when you came home? Now you're running around with these rappers.

Did something else? I'm coming home and I'm just basically convincing the people that I'm not on no bullshit just by my action. I'm like, oh, I'm not on no bullshit. Just so you can see. I'm not coming. A lot of people thought I were going to come out there, open up crack, drugs, try to control, try to live in the 90s.

I'm like, I'm past that. I'm trying to do this. You know what I'm saying? So until recently, it's just been a lot of kissing babies, hugging old ladies, letting people know that I'm not on no bullshit. But what happened, though? You only said you did 21 years. Yeah, because I came home and then I got caught up in another traffic and drug case just because my name popped up on the wiretap. and they had a heart on for me

and they was able to justify the arrest and I had to plead guilty. I felt like I had to plead guilty because I wasn't going to get no wins with them. You understand what I'm saying? Was this a Fed trial or? No, it's a state case. What was it over?

Some crack or? Nah, cold. Another trafficking case. Shit. That's all I've been to jail. I got arrested three times. There's only been trafficking cases. What year was that?

Did you want back and? again. 2010. Okay. So you were only out for a couple of years. Almost four years. Okay. And I went back in and I gave them, because I had 18 years of parole, but I got confused with

the flat bit, not understanding that my flat bit is going to turn into a split bit because I owe so much time that it ate up the bid that I had. So now I'm doing a split bit because I got 17 years left on parole. So they heard me for like five and a half years for some years. some bullshit just because of my name. So I had to bite that bullet. But you got caught up on a wiretap? I don't know.

Yeah, I got caught up in a wiretap. We was talking about 18 bottles that they popped in a club. They thought we was talking about 18 keys. So now that gave them the justification to listening to my phone. Now I'm driving through Harlem and I see another guy that I got a rep that I was locked up with. Like, yo, what's a? Again, I'm doing the right thing. in construction, but I'm not shunning the drug dealers.

I'm not being judgmental. You do what you do. I do what I do. I always see other people. There was mad people that were doing nine to five jobs. They used to hang out with it. They never would jail. That wasn't the case with me, though.

So what happened was my men is still hustling. We go clubbing or, you know. So they're telling me about 18 bottles. That's how they start tapping my phone. Now, I'll meet the kid. He's telling me he needs work. I don't got work because I'm not doing nothing. But my man got work.

I know you're not a cop that you were in jail with me. I know he's not a cop that he's my cold defendant. I put them together. Yo, bro, this kid is going to call you. He's good bread. Don't worry about it. I'm at work in Brooklyn. This is taking clear in Manhattan.

Police hear the conversation, follow the dude. Doob bought a few grams of coke or whatever. They snatched them up. They say that I facilitated a safe. The average person, they would have not. arrested him. No, of course. But being that my name came along with it. And every time that, like, when I got arrested, my district attorney from 93, 94 would be in my arraignment with my case, just telling that district attorney, give him the max. Don't. That hard on, as you say.

So I had to bail out on that case, on $300,000 bail. Jesus. In order for me to get a decent cop out. They was trying to kill me. They was trying to give me. 11 years cop out. Wow. So you just seven off that? Nah, I did. I pled guilty to... I did the five and a half, right?

Then I came home and got caught up in another. I told you, I got caught in two trafficking cases. Now, I got caught in that trafficking case, and they gave me four years. But now I don't owe no parole. Yeah. So I only did 35 months after that. And that's...

I've been home ever since. Now I got my certificate of good conduct. Yeah. Now I go inside Rikers Island and give kids, you know, reentry programs so they could come home and get a job. You know, I'm helping out to do that I was before. Right. Yeah. Wow.

Tell us about the legitimate businesses. We got a shop in the block. I'm encouraging the individuals to open up in the hood. Like, you know what I'm saying? So I got a T-shirt hat spot. Like, you know, you can go get T-shirts hat, sneakers, stuff like that. Different thing, like a boutique vintage type stuff. What's the name of the store?

Westside boutique. And then we got a cleaner across the street that I had encouraged one of my other guy, yo, take your money, do this. So we got a cleaner's called A Cleaners Near Me. So it's across the street. And we just encouraging other dudes to open up and invest. And then you got to do this dealing with the music. Like I was supposed to go to the Billboard Award next week.

So are there still people from the neighborhood living in that? living on that block. Wow. That's good. Not everybody took the money from the developers, you know? Nah, there's a lot of people there, and now the people accept me again, you know what I'm saying? They happy with me. They see that I'm not on no bullshit, and they understand the value of having me in the neighborhood.

So it kind of feel like a darn because they don't, patron, eh, because they understand now that the chances of somebody coming to rob or disrespect are slim. And I don't know if you're familiar with the drill scene. Rapper. Yeah. So, you know, these kids can only move within a couple of blocks of their neighborhood. Yeah. So my block tends to be Switzerland. They get to come chill there and relax and smoke.

And I don't care what gang you with. Nobody going to disrespect over here. You wait for him to go over there. Then you can handle that. But over here, everybody could breathe easy. I wonder if anyone's still hustling up there. They're hustling on the other avenue, but I don't allow felonies to be conducted.

around me. Wee is legit now. Only thing, if you don't got to permit, you could get a violation or some dumb shit. But felony, we don't allow felonies around me. So you're really the dawn of that neighborhood still. I mean, I guess in a positive way. I mean, it's an, you know, a lot of people, like you were saying more or less earlier, I'm not the first one that came home and opened up a business, but I'm one of the few that opened up a business on the same block that he was doing all his dirt on. Usually people go open it up in another borough and another state and or whatever. So for me, there, a lot of people be like, yo, but you don't be nervous that all this shit, you're responsible,

and you still be out here, and there's victims. I got, I got a brother of a victim that sits down and have coffee with me and we drink and we eat, because when I came home, I went and explained to him that I'm not running around here sticking my tongue out. This was what was happening at the time, and we all signed up for it. Like, we don't have no innocent bystander with the acceptance of that,

the people in Harlem that we don't really have nothing to do with we didn't sectioning even though with our God and we understood them because they got shot at but all our shit was targets

you understand what I'm trying to tell you so we don't got no innocent bystand we don't got no crackhead bodies we don't got no none of that we got targets so these people who are dying with guns on them and shit like that these people got their own bodies

their own shit you understand you guys were in a drug war yeah so they understood that yeah you know I'm saying like yo my brother was not a fucking easy pill to swallow. Like he was out here, so he got caught with either him or me. Do you still, though, there's sons, young black man that get killed and they've got

families, and it's the ripple effect is pretty insane, right? And now their kids grow up in the cycle. Do you feel bad about some of the bodies? Do you look back now and say, damn, he... One of them, I don't lose sleep. I'm not trying to sound cool, but I don't lose sleep about none of this shit because again, we didn't start this shit. It was either them or us.

So that, but there's one that I felt probably that we could have handled differently, you know what I'm saying? Because he was from the neighborhood, he was a friend of ours, but he was a dangerous kid. And he was talking, menacing, you know what I'm saying, that he was about to, and we didn't have no reason not to believe him. You understand what I'm trying to tell you? So after me trying to have him take a different take on the situation,

and him still persistent, then I feel like I can't do nothing else about it. But then in retrocelling, I'd be like that. I probably could have did this or I could have did that, you know what I'm saying? But, hey, it's done. But I don't lose sleep because it would have either been him or me, you understand, or one of us. And my grandmother always said, I'd rather send you commerce every money than take you flowers. Is your mom still living? My mother still living.

My grandmother passed away. My father passed away. my mother lives in Florida she made it out yeah she's good though she's good what a what a story man what a

what a time to be alive in New York yeah yeah we survived all of that man you survived a lot of the crack everything have you ever sat down and talked at length like this about what happened

like you and Chango ever commiserate like that or do you just let the past be the Like us, um, like us, um, reminisce or whatever. Yeah. Are you like that was a crazy thing we did? Yeah, it happened. Like, personally.

Yeah, the audacity, the walls for you guys to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like I said, personally, I don't really bring this topic up a lot because I don't want people to think that I'm trying to live off the past. You understand? Like, I did that then, but look at what I'm doing now. You understand what I'm trying to tell you? So, a lot of people want to live off the past.

and they get stuck. I didn't want to be that person. So when we do reminisce, it's because it naturally came up. Something came up that brought us to that moment, like whether it was a song or a car or a statement and then we'll reminisce. Or if one of the youngings come and asks a question,

I don't have no problem, you know, explain it and clarify. Yeah, well, I really, really appreciate it, Tito. Thank you for having. And check out West Side Boutique. The link is going to be. be in the description. Can we send people your way? Yeah, yeah.

Like I said, I vet people, but and I mean that by even like I got a yacht party. And what I do is if it's a 200 capacity boat, then I just look for 20 or 40 of my friends to invite 10 or 5 of their friends and therefore there will be a six degree of separation.

And even though I don't know you, I'm going to be able to figure out who invited you immediately because there's only but so many people but they also keeps everybody feeling smooth because they see that everybody here is invited so nobody got to feel defensive so the energy and the vibe is cool but yeah that's how i do so even with the shop like yeah i can promote it but then i don't go too hard because okay well if you're listening and you're in new york or if you're up in Harlem or uptown, uh, go tell them and we sent you. Um, tell me, tell them you found it on the connect. Yeah, 946 Columbus Avenue.

Yep. I come through and shit and, um, we're going to treat you right. So let's switch over to Patreon now, patreon.com slash the Connect show. Uh, Tito, uh, much thanks again, man. It's, uh, there's not many stories left like yours. So I'm happy that we got it on wax. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nah, um, I wish we would have had more time.

We would have took it through the neighborhood. Yeah, we might do that still. We might do that still. Let's walk outside and see how much daylight we got left. All right, you guys, take care.