The Deck - Joseph Pellicci (Jack of Hearts, Connecticut)

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

Our card this week is Joseph Pellicci, the Jack of Hearts from Connecticut. Joseph Pellicci was a father of three and a successful restaurateur when he was abducted and shot to death in 1973. Everyone in Stamford, Connecticut seems to know who’s responsible. The real mystery is...why hasn’t anyone ever been charged with his murder? Anyone with information about Joseph Pellicci’s murder is encouraged to call Stamford police at 203-977-4444. To learn more about The Deck, visit www.thedeckpodcast.com. To apply for the Cold Case Playing Cards grant through Season of Justice, visit www.seasonofjustice.org Follow The Deck on social media and join Ashley’s community by texting [phone] to stay up to date on what's new!

Our card this week is Joseph Polici, the Jack of Hearts from Connecticut. Joe was a father of three and a successful restaurant tour when he was abducted and shot to death in 1973. Everyone in Stanford seems to know who's responsible. The real mystery is why hasn't anyone ever been charged with Joe's murder? I'm Ashley Flowers, and in Stanford, Connecticut, a young woman named Tony was headed home after church. She was a couple of blocks away, driving on Wind Over Lane, when something caught her

eye. Parked by the side of the road at the corner of the intersection, was her red Pontiac, which she had loaned to her big brother, 32-year-old Joseph Polici. She was surprised to see it, because this isn't a road that people typically park on, because there's really no space to park. But she also knew the Pontiac was having some transmission problems, so she figured maybe it just broke down. In which case, Joe would have made the quick walk back to their parents' house. But when she got home, only their father was there. When she asked about Joe, her dad told her that he left the house about an hour and

a half ago, like around 11 a.m. They knew he had plans to visit his three children and then go work at Polychee's, which was this popular Italian restaurant that had been owned by their family for decades, and Joe tended bar and helped operate the place. So Tony called him there to find out what had happened with the car, but it wasn't Joe who picked up the phone. It was her other brother. He told Tony that Joe never showed up.

And that is when Tony started to get really worried. It wasn't like Joe to just pull a no-call no-show. So next, the family reached out to Joe's wife, Francis. Even though they didn't live together at the moment because of some marital trouble, Joe and Francis shared kids and they were trying to see if they wanted to reconcile. So they were in touch, and again, he had planned to go see the kids before work. But just like Joe didn't show up for his shift, when they got Francis on the phone, they learned that Joe didn't show up to see his kids either.

And that is when Tony's worry turned to fear. As time went by, the phone calls kept escalating. We're dizzy, you didn't get here. We were a close family. We only went home and to work at the restaurant, which was five minutes away. We never deviated. And you just knew in your heart,

you knew something bad happened. By now, the whole family was on high alert. And not knowing where Joe might be, his brother Anthony turned to the only physical thing that pointed to Joe's last whereabouts, the abandoned car. When he went to check out the Pontiac, the car was locked up tight, but he noticed something alarming. The center console was open, and that he knew is where Joe kept a gun. You see, Joe had actually been on high alert lately. He was having an affair with a woman named Aida, and his wife knew about it by that point, which probably wasn't helping with any potential reconciliation. In fact, it caused a lot of drama for him, with his wife, sure, but also with Aida's ex-husband,

33-year-old Fernando Mary. Fernando couldn't stand Joe. He had been threatening him for months, and while the threats didn't stop the affair, they must have really bothered him because, according to Stanford Advocate reporter, Angela Corella, Joe had been acting strange over the past winter. He was nervous. He'd like look out his window and check the street before leaving the house. He had gotten two guns, one for the car, and another that he kept on him.

He just wasn't acting like the upbeat happy-go-lucky guy that everyone was used to. Joe's family was aware of the situation, and right away they started wondering if Fernando was behind Joe's strange disappearance, especially because Fernando was acting sketchy that day. Tony said that he kept calling the restaurant that day, Sunday, and asking for Joe, and Fernando made it a point to let people there know, or to think anyway, that he himself was out of the state, which he wasn't. Francis and Tony went to the Stanford Police Department and tried to report Joe missing, but Tony said that they were told to come back in 24 hours.

However, someone might have taken the report because, in article in the Stanford Advocate, says that Joe was officially reported missing by his brother that Sunday at 5.30 pm. And the Connecticut Sunday Herald reported that an all-points bulletin was issued for Fernando that very night. Police were especially interested in finding Fernando after they spoke with Aida. According to former Stanford sergeant, Butchalupinachi, Aida told investigators that Fernando had visitation with his daughter from 1-6pm that Sunday. Instead, he showed up to her house around 11am and insisted on taking her early.

But within minutes, he brought her back and said that she wanted to play with her friends. So he left again and then returned at one like he was supposed to in the first place. Then, he only kept her until 3 that afternoon. To butch, this is weird, and he wonders if all that back and forth was part of some bigger strategy. Is he alibi then, so? Because the wife had him there who picked up the daughter for a short time and brought her a right back and then came back to get it, picked her up. She just got the alibi because he helped set up the

homicide. Plus, Iita told investigators about a disturbing conversation that they had when he dropped their daughter off. By then, she knew Joe was MIA, and she told her ex he better not be involved. Fernando reportedly told her that if he did something to Joe, no one would ever find him, because he would throw him over a wall. Not exactly a reassuring denial. But even with the family and police focused on Fernando, rumors started flying immediately that Joe's disappearance had nothing to do with a love triangle and everything to do with

the mob. The Mop. According to Daily Advocate Reporter Carrie Tesserero, word on the street was that Joe had gambling debts and owed money to some dangerous people. And there were plenty of dangerous people around. In the 1970s, Stanford was essentially controlled by the mob, specifically the infamous Genovies and Gambino-New York crime families who ran the local drug gambling, loan-sharking, and extortion reigns. But police maintained that the rumors about Joe had no merit, and butch added that money

wasn't an issue for the poliches. Their restaurant, located on the city's predominantly Italian west side, was thriving, and it was frequented by the rich and famous, like Joe Demagio, Tony Bennett, Danny Glover, and Walter Cronkite. It was the busiest restaurant in Fairfield County at the time, practically. If you went there on a Saturday night back in that day, there's a chance you're standing outside waiting. But the gossip was persistent, and it probably didn't help that Stanford PD put Lieutenant

Larry Hogan in charge of the investigation. According to Daily Advocate reporter Frank M. Fideli, he led the department's special services squad, which handled cases involving drugs and illegal gambling. He was also the founder and commander of a regional narcotic squad. Police told the Sunday Herald that Lieutenant Hogan was only supervising because he was familiar with the West Side and with the people who lived and hung out there. But it wasn't knowledge of the West Side that yielded a startling fine the day after Joe Vanished, Monday February 5th. A man

walking by a partially frozen reservoir in the nearby town of Greenwich spotted three guns and some keys laying on the ice. And I just have to pause here really quick and say, there's been a ton of conflicting news coverage about the guns, actually not just the guns but Joe's entire case. Butch told us that several key details that were reported are wrong, so we're primarily going with his information which comes from official records. And what he told us is when investigators collected everything from the eyes, they determined two of the guns. Both loaded, were registered to Joe, and the keys were to the Pontiac.

They couldn't tell who owned the third gun, a five-shot 38-calibre revolver, but they knew it had been fired because there were five-spent shell casings in the chamber. Revolvers don't eject those. That same day, Lieutenant Hogan got in touch with Fernando's lawyer, who arranged for him to come in for questioning, and he denied any involvement in Joe's disappearance. What's interesting is, Fernando actually used to be a family friend of the poliches, at least until Joe and Iida got together. But while Fernando admitted to reporters that he didn't like Joe, he said he still respected the poliches and sympathized with their grief over his disappearance.

Not sure if police believed Fernando, but I do know that they had already started to eye other potential suspects who took the investigation in a whole different direction. Because witnesses told officers about an unusual car on or near Windover Lane around the time Joe vanished on Sunday. A newspaper delivery man reported seeing a powder-blue Cadillac parked on a side street near Windover that morning, just before 11. There was a man sitting inside of it wearing dark sunglasses, and the delivery man said he

seemed out of place. A woman who lived right next to where the Pontiac was found told police that she also saw a powder-blue Cadillac. It was parked on the side of Windover Lane at the corner of the intersection when she left her house at around 11. Like I said earlier, cars don't generally park on this road, so the Cadillac caught her attention, and she too saw a man inside wearing sunglasses. She even took note of the personalized license plate.

She couldn't recall the whole thing, but she was able to give police most of the letters. Police asked Iida about the Cadillac, wondering if Fernando ever drove one like it. She told them he didn't, but she did know someone who did, and that someone just happened to despise Joe. That person was Joe's brother-in-law, Francis's younger brother, a 28 year old man that we're gonna call Joshua. He was reportedly furious on his sister's behalf

about the affair and unofficial separation. Police were able to quickly confirm that Joshua owned the Cadillac, and Joe's sister Tony grew suspicious when she heard about his Cadillac being in the area. So in an effort to do a little of her own investigative work, the next time Francis came over to the Pulicis house, Tony listened, as she called her brother.

Joshua told his sister that he was in New York. He had gotten hurt somehow and needed to see a doctor. But he admitted that he had been in the Westover neighborhood that Sunday when Joe went missing. He said that he and a buddy of his were testing out some walkie talkies. Francis asked him if he saw anything unusual while he was out and about, but he said no. When police interviewed Joshua a couple of days later, he initially denied being anywhere near Windover on Sunday. But when they told him that his car had been spotted by multiple people,

he finally conceded that he had been in the general vicinity, although he claimed that he didn't recall going on that specific road. He gave them the same walkie talkie story and said he dropped off his friend at a nearby school and drove around trying to connect with him from various locations. His friend is this 31-year-old man that we're going to call Alfred. Anyway, after that, they went back to Alfred's place and washed the Cadillac inside and out. I'm not sure if investigators asked him why he decided to wash his car inside and out in February, in Connecticut, in the freezing cold.

But apparently, the car still wasn't clean enough for his taste, because he said he also took it to a nearby car wash on Monday, and forgot to close one of the windows when he went through. You get where this is going, right? Joshua gave permission for police to search his car, but the right back seat was still soaking wet from the car wash debacle. The trunk was, too, although he told police that the car leaked back there, which they verified with the dealership he bought it from. It was, too, although he told police that the car leaked back there, which they verified with the dealership he bought it from.

Now, it was notable that Joshua mentioned hanging out with another guy, again this friend that we're calling Alfred. Because there's this thing that Butch told us, there was a man who was new to the neighborhood who reported seeing three guys on the side of the road, outside of a car, talking. Now, again, this guy's new, he didn't know any of them. But if one of those guys was Joe, it means that Joe was last seen with two men. But why would he be stopped in a weird area talking to two guys outside of his car? Especially if one of those guys was someone who hated him.

Well, Butch has a theory. Basically his theory is that Joshua approached him with some kind of excuse about going with him. And he thinks that Joe would have done this because when he talked to Joe's family and friends, everybody that knew Joe said that even though he knew Joshua hated him, he wouldn't have had a problem going with him. He would have just gone. Despite all the bizarre circumstances of Joe's disappearance that would have any crime junkies sounding the alarm, the Stanford PD insisted to reporters at the time that there were no

signs of foul play. Lieutenant Hogan told The Sunday Herald that Joe might just be on vacation. But the Polichi family didn't buy it, and it doesn't seem like many other people did either. Joe had never done anything like this before, and there was no logical explanation for his guns and keys turning up a town away, dumped by someone who hadn't realized the reservoir was mostly frozen. And they weren't comforted when the police searched that same area and didn't find a body because Joe's family believed that he had been abducted. Every step of the way it just got more dismal. Now the Polichese relationship

with Francis, Joe's wife, hadn't been great before all of this. And honestly that's kind of an understatement. This marriage was so toxic. She was not only toxic for him, she was toxic for her entire family. She made every year they were together completely miserable for all of us. She would get to the point where she wouldn't allow Joe to talk to us to see us or bring his children who would have to sneak his children to come see my mother and father. But things got worse once Joe disappeared. Because while Tony said Francis seemed genuinely upset,

she also rallied to her brother's side after police quickly started homing in on him. Francis said she didn't believe Joshua was involved, and he even moved in with her and the kids for a while. For nearly a month, Joe's loved ones waited and worried, but they didn't sit idly by. They conducted their own searches throughout Stanford and Greenwich,

Canvas neighborhoods, and put up a reward for information. Then on Friday, March 2, about 20 miles away in Westchester County, New York, a town highway department employee driving a road grader in North Salem made a gruesome discovery. According to the Sunday Herald, behind a crumbling stone wall and wire fence in a desolated wooded area was the body of a man. Joe had finally been found. But it didn't look like he was supposed to be found. The employee only saw him because of the high seat on the road grader that he was driving. Joe was on his back, fully clothed with a blanket secured around his head using green twine.

He still had his wallet with him, $55 in it and all. The medical examiner estimated that he had been out there for a few weeks, and the autopsy determined that he had been shot six times in the head and back. Since he was found in Westchester County, the homicide investigation fell to New York State Police, and even though law enforcement told reporters that there were no, quote-unquote, ganglion overtones to the murder. Back home in Stanford, those old rumors started bubbling up again, and everyone assumed Joe's death was a mob hit.

Everyone except his heartbroken family. The rumors circulating in the community were salt in already terrible wounds as they planned a funeral. Now, you might remember that Fernando, who is Aida's husband, Aida is the woman Joe was having an affair with. He made a very specific comment about throwing Jo over a wall. So, you might think Jo being found behind a wall would at least warrant some sort of follow-up conversation with him.

But no. They never bothered with him again. Never questioned him about it. Investigators at the time only focused on Joshua and his buddy Alfred. Joshua had gotten himself a lawyer since his initial conversation with police. He wouldn't speak with investigators again and he refused to take a polygraph. But Alfred was another story. Police had questioned him while Joe was still a missing person and he sat down for another

interview, this time with the New York State Police. He denied having anything to do with the murder and agreed to take a polygraph that same day. The polygraphist thought Alfred was being deceptive, but the machine malfunctioned at some point during the exam so they couldn't get full results. Alfred said that he'd take another one, but within days he hired a lawyer, and he never did actually take another one, but within days he hired a lawyer, and he never did actually take another one. He did however discuss a deal with authorities that would grant him immunity in exchange

for his cooperation. The problem was the wording of the proposal. It was almost like they were discouraging him from being a state's witness. He will not be prosecuted based on any statements which he makes to represent it as a being a state's witness. you're involved, you're going to be charged. So where is the immunity?" Plus, Alfred could still be charged if he had, quote-unquote, intentionally helped anyone kill Joe, which is exactly what they wanted him to admit to. My opinion, right between the lines, it's out of not to go operate. Butch said there's no record of Alfred ever admitting to anything, even during the discussion about this potential deal.

After he saw the sort of but not really immunity terms they were offering, he and his lawyer stopped communicating with authorities. But even without Alfred's testimony, investigators were at an advantage because they had physical evidence, and lots of it. The blanket that Joe's head was wrapped in was especially helpful. It held a treasure trove of clues. There was actually a name embroidered on it. Police found out who that person was, tracked him down, and learned from his mother that she

had given the blanket away a while back. They followed the trail of the blanket to the superintendent of an apartment building, who just happened to be, drum roll, please, Alfred's father. Alfred's mother told police that they had given the blanket to their son. Investigators also learned that Alfred's father had been hospitalized recently, and a friend gave him a get-well-soon gift,

a plant that was held together with green twine. The circumstantial evidence was piling up, so police were able to get a search warrant for Joshua's Cadillac for physical evidence. They processed it and found fibers that when tested matched the blanket and the green twine, along with hairs that were microscopically similar to Joe's hair. And speaking of physical evidence, Ballistics testing determined that the 38-caliber 5-shot revolver found at the reservoir was the murder weapon used

to shoot Joe six times, which meant that whoever shot Joe had to reload it. Police managed to trace the gun to a shop in Scranton, Pennsylvania, just a few miles from Joshua's family's hometown. They couldn't determine exactly who the gun was sold to, but they were confident all the evidence was strongly pointing toward Joshua and Alfred. Meanwhile, the police chees waited. For updates, for information, for someone to be held accountable for Joe's murder.

They were well aware of the developments that had been made up to this point, and knowing that investigators had so much evidence, they couldn't understand why no arrests were being made. And saying, no one could understand it, not the community, not Joe's loved ones, not even the police. So you might be wondering, hey Ashley, what the f*** are we doing here? How did this guy's face end up on a deck of cold case playing cards? Well, this is where it gets ugly.

Joe's story was supposed to be featured on a TV show called Justice Delivert, a doc you series about an investigative team trying to reopen and solve cold cases. As far as I can tell, the show never aired, but according to a write-up for it, there are three main reasons Joe's murder went unsolved. For starters, Lieutenant Hogan, who was still supervising Stamford's end of the investigation, was a little busy with other things at the time. If you recall, he was in charge of the regional narcotics squad, and in the years following Joe's murder,

he told the Stamford advocate that heroin use was on the rise in the city, which he would know, because as it turns out, Hogan was also running a drug ring for the mob. Stanford in the 1970s was notoriously corrupt. Organized crime infiltrated city hall, and government departments were rife with bribery, embezzlement, nepotism, and other wrongdoings. It was so blatant that, according to Angela Corella's reporting, officials would meet weekly with mobsters

to go over city business. And this corruption was most rampant in the Stanford Police Department. In his book Law and Justice in Everyday Life, Andy Tivo detailed how cops robbed liquor stores, burglarized homes, ran guns to Ireland, one sergeant was even a suspect in as many as five murders. I mean, sh** was out of control.

And Hogan allegedly wore a lot of criminal hats for the Gambino crime family. The guy that's involved in homicide, drugs, taken money from illegal carcades. You know he was involved as long as you could get a baller from. This was sort of an open secret. People in the streets knew, lots of cops knew, but everyone was afraid to tell on Hogan

and no one knew who to trust. Officers who tried to quietly complain to higher ups about what was going on were outed as snitches by those same higher ups. But you know what they say? What's done in the dark will come to light. It turned out that federal and state authorities were watching the Stanford PD. One cop even pretended to quit the force so he could go undercover and investigate his own department.

Although a mobster's sister who worked in city payroll blew his cover when she revealed that he was still getting paychecks. But honest police officers and other government employees who were sick of the BS started to contact Stanford advocate reporter Anthony Dolan. His articles eventually led to 15 city and state officials resigning getting fired, arrested, or indicted, and he won a Pulitzer Prize for his work. As for Hogan, he retired in 1977 under a cloud of suspicion. And in 1981, he was convicted on a heroin conspiracy charge and sentenced to five years in prison. But two years later, a federal appeals court voided the indictment after deciding the prosecutor, prejudiced the grand jury by bringing up unrelated and unproven allegations.

Court records show the prosecutor's suggested Hogan was guilty of misconduct when he was a police officer, and let it be known that authorities were investigating him in connection with two murders. Hogan was re-indicted on the heroin charge in 1984, along with one of those murders and another drug charge. According to Hartford Current Reporter George Gambassi, he was accused of being part of a scheme to steal cocaine from a drug dealer, and authorities said he was there when the

guy was shot and killed. But he never had his day in court. He died that same year of cancer. Now butch was not on the police force when all of this was going down. He joined the Stanford PD in 79. And in a first-ever twist for the deck, he actually married Joe sister Tony. So needless to say, he became very familiar with the case. And when he joined the detective bureau, he was allowed to help New

York State police work it off and on. But he also grew frustrated because what he quickly found out was that even though police were convinced from near day one that they knew what led up to Joe's murder, who was behind it, and to some extent how it happened, the aftermath of it was steeped in mystery. For instance, it was never clear why Hogan was put in charge of the case. Butch said Hogan later claimed it was because he knew the police as well.

But if he did, that wouldn't be a reason to assign him the case. Not to mention, butch said that the family couldn't stand him. They're an ambition of the sophistication. While the family is heartbroken and everything. He's asking Tony to go away with him for the weekend. As if that isn't a creepy enough thing to do to someone while you're supposedly trying,

but maybe just pretending to investigate their brother's murder, when Tony turned him down, he made sure to let her know that some lab results from Joe's evidence were due to come in soon. The implication being, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours." What's interesting is some investigators said they were able to work the case until it seemed like they were getting close to an arrest. Then, they'd be taken off with little explanation.

And we know certain leads were never followed up on. Take the Fernando situation, for example. Tony doesn't think that he was directly involved, but she does think that he might have known about what was happening. And butch speculated that Fernando could have shown Joshua an Alfred where to dump Joe's body. But, we'll probably never know since police apparently never revisited him as a suspect. There are also questions surrounding Joe's wife, Francis. She's always maintained that she had no involvement whatsoever in Joe's death. And we know she gave a statement to police. But Butch said there's really no documentation laying

out how she was questioned or what she was asked, that sort of thing. Butch spoke there's really no documentation laying out how she was questioned or what she was asked, that sort of thing. Butch spoke with Francis himself decades after Joe's murder. He said that she told him early on she didn't think her brother Joshua was involved. But as the years passed, she came to believe that he was, and she cut ties with him. As for Joe's sister Tony, she doesn't think Francis ever intended for Joe to get killed, but she does think Francis' good beating on the corner. That's exactly what she said, a good beating on the corner. And they got him on the corner, but they did more than just give him a good beating.

You believe that she did ask her brother to approach him and maybe put the scar in him a little bit? Yeah, yeah, I do. The point is, these are questions police should have been more concerned with back when everything was happening. But assuming the murder had nothing to do with Joe owing money to the mob, why wouldn't Hogan want it solved? Well, there are some theories. Like there was a rumor that Joshua's family had some organized crime connections in

Pennsylvania, and they had Hogan shut the investigation down. There's also talk that Hogan was paid off. So reason number one, why this case is unsolved, possible police corruption in the case. And to be clear, there was for sure police corruption happening right and left, but here it's just a theory. But that theory doesn't explain why authorities in New York didn't move ahead and press charges. Stanford had a missing person slash abduction case that stayed open even after Joe's body was found, but the homicide was New York's.

That segues into the second reason. As per Justice delivered, that is a lack of cooperation from both law enforcement jurisdictions. Now Butch said the departments did work together, and New York State police tried to reopen the case once. But I think Stamford always had more of a vested interest in solving it, after all Joe was abducted in their backyard. And for all we know, he might have been killed there too. That could help explain why the murder weapon was dumped in a Connecticut reservoir.

Maybe they were done using it by the time they got to New York. They should have come to case back here immediately. Butch isn't sure if the Westchester County DA ever put the case to a grand jury. But he presented everything he had to the DA's office at some point, and they didn't move forward with it. Which brings us to cold case reason number three. According to Justice Delivered, evidence went missing over the years. In the year 2000, DNA testing started getting popular.

Butch in a New York investigator made plans to bring the blanket to a lab to see if the newer forensic technology could help out. But when the New York investigator went to retrieve it from storage, it wasn't there. Butch was... FLOOR. Departments don't just toss out key pieces of evidence in homicides. He doesn't know how it could have happened or even when. I don't think I have ever seen an investigation with so many available answers,

leave behind so many questions, but there is still hope for this case. Because while Alphard died in 1997, Joshua is still alive, which means that if he was involved in what happened to Joe in any way, he can still be held responsible. Joshua is still living in Stanford today. He lives actually just a mile from the restaurant

and butch actually ran into him one time at the grocery store. Joshua initiated a conversation by saying, I know you, you're that s*** detective. Butch replied by saying, I'm a s*** cop, you're an effing murderer. And his only response was prove it in court. Not I didn't do it or this or that, prove it in court. That's exactly what Butch is trying to do

even though he's retired now. He lobbied authorities in New York to transfer the homicide over to Stanford PD, which they did in March of 2018. And even without the blanket, there's still physical evidence police can work with. It has been 50 years since Joe was killed, but to his sister, Tony, it sometimes feels

like it happened just yesterday. Joe was her best friend. We were really close. We did everything together. When he had his first child. I was only 10. At that time, the restrictions were pretty harsh and bringing children into hospital or stroke visitation. But he got me a pair of high heels. And he snuck me in to see his firstborn, very protective, very loving. I didn't have them long enough unfortunately.

Joe's loved ones have kept his memory alive from tributes in the restaurant, which is still open, to an annual memorial golf tournament to raise money for charity. And after years of a strangement, the family was thrilled to reconnect with Joe's children. But they've lost a lot over the years. Tony and her sister are the last polygies siblings left. Their other brother died in 2014 and their parents died years before that. Every time we think we have something, a sunspark a hole, it dies out. Maybe you can help keep the spark lit. Stanford police say that the case is open but not

active since they haven't gotten any new leads, but anyone with information is encouraged to call them. So if that's you, if you know anything about the murder of Joe Palichi, contact Stanford police at 203-977-4444. The Deck is an audio chuck production with the music by Ryan Lewis to learn more about the deck and our advocacy work visit the thedeckpodcast.com. So, what do you think Chuck? Do you approve? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa