The Jordan Harbinger Show - 433: Larry Lawton | From Jewel Thief to Honorary Cop Part Two

Episode Date: November 19, 2020

Larry Lawton (@LawrenceRLawton) stole over $18m in diamonds and spent 11 years in some of the toughest federal prisons in the country. He works with The Reality Check Program to keep youth out of trouble that would land them in prison, and is the co-author of Gangster Redemption: How America's Most Notorious Jewel Robber Got Rich, Got Caught, and Got His Life Back on Track. This is part two of a two-part episode. Check out part one here! What We Discuss with Larry Lawton: How heavy is a million dollars in cash, and how quickly can you haul it away while evading the watchful eyes of authorities and tattletales? What major crimes do not carry a statute of limitations? How should you react if you're ever threatened in a place that's getting robbed? How much of a percentage does a professional robber get from fencing stolen goods? As a master of the skills important for pulling off successful heists -- and then getting caught anyway -- how would Larry have used these talents if he had it to do all over again? And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/433 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Find Conspiruality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. coming up on the Jordan Harbinger show. I always wanted to be that fly on the wall. It's such exhilaration. It's like you won. You know, your adrenaline goes for the first hour. And then once you start calming down, it's like, wow, I just did it. And then it's, you know, you're still good until you get rid of it

until you get the cash in your hand. When I got the cash in my hand, then it was a whole different animal. Then it's, oh, now you're really... Then it's party time, number one. I was Atlantic City and it was cocaine and it was women and it was everything you can think. So it was just like off the charts, a party time, off the charts. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people.

If you're new to the show, we have in-depth conversations with people at the top of their game. Astronauts, entrepreneurs, spies, psychologists, even the occasional jewel thief. That's what we're doing today. this is part two of our interview with Larry Lawton. If you haven't heard part one, stop right now, go back and get part one. This is the continuation of that episode. You won't want to jump in in the middle of it. It's going to make no sense.

Come on, you knew that. If you're wondering how I managed to book all these folks, quick reminder, six-minute networking. It's our free course on building a network for personal or professional reasons. That's over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Love it if you go there. That stuff's been a game changer. All right.

Here we go with part two, our continuation here with Larry Lawton. I am curious, when you go into the store and you're casing the store, you're acting like a normal customer, you're saying you're a contractor, you want to upgrade, your wife's ring. Are you worried that this might just be some movie stuff, but like, are you worried that you're leaving prints and that those people can see you and recognize you, or is that not really a concern at that point? Not a concern at that point. I don't touch anything. Not only that, I alter my appearance.

I don't put the skies on, but I alter my appearance. I might not have a mustache or a goatee. I always had one, so it'd be clean-shaven. Or my hair, I had hair. It would be parted a different way and a different color. So, I mean, I just did little things. And you should have seen some of the descriptions. Red hair, five foot seven, 300 pounds.

I've had six foot four. I'm five, nine, but I've had all these crazy descriptions. I used to laugh at those in the paper. and it just goes to show you how off eyewitness descriptions are. It's just so unreliable. They're proven that many times, though. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously inaccurate, so there's no big surprise there at all.

And so you go in, when you are executing this, you know what you're going to take when you get in, right? Because you only want to steal stuff worth stealing. It seems like you can... No, no, no. I emptied the whole store. You emptied the whole store? Oh, really?

Okay, because I've heard other thieves be like, just steal what's worth stealing. Don't take everything. So you just, like, screw that. When you go to a jewelry store, Jordan, it's all worth stealing. It's all worth stealing. You know, come on. I even had a, it's a funny thing on my YouTube channel.

I used to take a clock. From the store. Yeah, like a, they'd have like a little small antique clock or a little something. I just took it. I don't know what it was about that. I just took them. And I always took a clock out of a store. I don't know if it was symbolizing time or something.

I don't know in my own head. But I emptied every shelf and the safe and the back room. So, yeah, I got everything. And you took the security system tape so they'd have no footage. Back then, I would take the tape. At times, I couldn't open the tape. I'd take the home machine. Yeah, that's faster.

Yeah, I would just rip it out, literally, and take the home machine. You ever see Home Alone, that movie? Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Wet Bandits, where they turned the faucets on. So your thing was the clock. Yeah, it was kind of weird. And it was not because I was robbing before that movie. But, yeah, it was kind of weird.

I loved clocks, and there'd be some nice, like, you know, diamond-encrusted clocks on the, you know, something they're selling or something. I always grabbed the clock. And they're bulky to a degree. I mean, some of them were smaller. But I wouldn't rob a clock, like a grandfather clock or something like that. Sure, yeah, yeah. It was something I could put in a bag. But it was just my thing.

I don't know what it was. It was crazy. Where are the clocks now? Oh, I'm sure I gave them away for gifts for everybody in the world. Oh, okay. So there's like somebody at home is like, I got a clock because I'm. gift and it's covered in diamonds. I wonder if this is real. He gave it to me from my bar mitzvah. I gave a lot of stuff away, so jewelry, so there's some stuff people have out there for sure.

I guess it's better than getting caught with a bunch of stolen clocks, which would be super embarrassing. That'd be a bad way to go, eh? You know, I never got caught in the store. Thank God. Never got caught with anything. So that's another good thing. Yeah. But, you know, the close calls, all that kind of stuff. But that's the nature of the beast in whatever you do. And there is risk. everything you do. I don't care what it is. It's just a matter of what kind of risk. That's all it is. I heard that a lot of times people will plan things backwards, right? Like they plan the getaway first and then work backwards. Is there any wisdom in that? Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, I used to

make sure I can get away with it before I even did it. I mean, you plan it to a degree backwards. I mean, if I had to alternate a little road here or there to go out and knew it was safe, I would still do it. But I knew my getaway beforehand. So yes, you do work. backwards in its own way. Because what good is robbing something if you don't get away with it? I mean, that just defeats the purpose. You know, the goal was to get out and you might get less, but you're out. You know, you want to optimize everything you're going to do.

So you had your plan. That's why I said when I'm looking at the store and seeing if nobody could see in me and what the getaway plan is, does the back entrance have a way to get out when no one will see you and you can get another three-minute head start, whatever it is. They don't know what direction you went in. So there's all of those things come into play when you're casing a store. How long are you inside the actual store? Oh, one store.

You're in there. It depends. Ten minutes sometimes. I was in one store for 20-something minutes. It was a cop call waiting out front. Not for me. He was just waiting out front for something else. And then I'm going up to the door.

Get the fuck out of here. You know what I mean? And he was just talking to people and whatever. Then he finally left. They gave him another minute. Then I walked out. Oh, so you were just waiting him out with a bunch of stolen merchandise in the store. Bags of bags, three pillowcases of jewelry.

Oh, that must have been nerve-wracking. And he's sitting there like opening up his coffee, looking at his scratch-off lottery tickets. You're like, why here? Yeah, something like that. It wasn't, yeah, he was talking to people. And I'm like, well, get out of here. Just person walked down the street. He talked to him.

Get the fuck out of you. And all the stuff is waiting at the back door, ready to go. go out because I didn't want to have to go out and then I don't know. He's right there. And then it would have been, oh, shit, that would have been a close call. So there's no alarms going off. Like when you break the cases or, I opened it with a key. Yeah, that seems easier. Why break it? I mean, yeah, avoid the alarm, right? Avoid getting cut. Why do everything? Why just open this up, take it out, put it in a bell case and goodbye? Again, that's not rocket science, that part of it. The rocket science comes in with the picking of the place, planning the place, and having the out.

and everything else. But inside is pretty cut and dry. I had plans. You go here, you go here. You take these cases. You take these cases. I got the safe and I got the person and I got the back rooms and we're done in, you know, maybe seven minutes, 10 minutes, whatever it's going to be.

And, you know, how many people, if somebody walks at the door, what do we do? Who goes and gets it? You know what I mean? Because if a person walks in, they're in on a robbery and I put them down too. I used to use flex cuffs and put them. down. Like zip ties, right? Like plastic handcuffs? Right, right. Exactly. Zip ties. Is it just you or like, who else is working with you? You got a crew with you or no? I had a crew with me, two other guys. Okay. How do you pick those guys? Well, that's the probably, yeah, you better know them

better than you know yourself. Yeah. And I did. I knew them both. One was my brother. That's not a secret. And he ended up going to prison. The other one is he ended up passing away. So yeah, you can't really just pick some schmo off, uh, from the bar like, to go do this with you because you need to be able to trust that they're going to come through on everything and not flip on you, right? Well, yeah, it's not even a flip. Yeah, first of all, you have to panic. You know, I tested one time one person and he couldn't do it.

He ended up panicking, but I had a backup. I'm not going to be stupid to just trust someone on a major job without having a backup. And he did, he panicked. It takes a lot of balls to do what we did. That's number one. And once it's a go, it's a go. It's not like, oh, shit, maybe it can't do it. No, it's a go.

Oh, so what happened? He just wouldn't go and do it, or was he the driver? Nope, he was in there. He was supposed to bring the car around back on a single, and he panicked and left. But I had an alternate plan. He's lucky he didn't be killed either, but yeah. Yeah. I had an alternate plan that worked out well.

In heist movies, they always show the brains of the operation, right? That would be you in this case, conducting a meeting where they go over the play. Right, there's a whiteboard and they're in a basement. Is that just a device they use in film to explain the robbery, or is there like a you guys have where you're like, all right, you know, this is the A-Team plan where there's like little chess pieces. No, no, no. There is a plan and there is meeting and there's a lot of talking and there's a lot on the way

on the way back, a lot of communication, a lot of it to calm nerves, but a lot of beating into the people what their job is, but there's no, nothing written down. You don't write down anything and then, oh, okay, let me, why don't I just get a diary then and keep the cops really informed. There's nothing written. It's right here. It's in my head and I'm pointing to my head. But it's right in my head.

Who's got to do what? Where they got to go. Timing. And if I say go and I'm forever pounding it into them, you know, what to do, what to do. You got the right side. You got the left. When we go in, don't move. You know, if anybody moves, I got them.

You know, don't go there. Don't go here. You just keep doing what you're doing. We got to get out in this amount of time. If the alarm goes off, we're going. we're on a go. If the alarm goes, get ready, and we all hit the door, and we're done. But you pound that into people.

You don't, that's like training. It's like any kind of baseball team or anything. You trained for that. You are pounding it into him. So it's second nature that he does what you ask him to do. Are you yelling at the people in the store to do what you need them to do? Or are you being calm when you're in the store? Oh, me?

I'm being calm. When I originally jump in, when I first take him down, it's, Get down, get down, on the floor, on the floor. When I jump over the counter, it's pretty intense. But after that initial thing, there ain't a sound in the store. It's quiet. I mean, it's, okay, don't open your eyes, keep your head down, look to the wall. Don't open your eyes, close your eyes, we'll let you know, blah, blah, blah.

And they're tied up already. Oh, right, because you've got the flex cuffs and everything. Right. I never gagged somebody. I never gagged them. I don't want anybody to choke or anything like that. Oh, yeah, I was going to say it doesn't seem that harmful. But yeah, I guess somebody could choke.

Huh. Was there ever, I mean, people must have been scared to death in there. Did you ever run into anybody who tried to be like a brave guy or anybody who just didn't understand what was going on? Yeah, I ran into a guy. This was funny where I was robbing a jewelry store in South Florida. And I ended up having like seven, eight people, maybe 10 people. I don't know.

So many people I ran out of flex cuffs. I couldn't do their feet. I used to do their feet in hands. They ended up having only do their feet. So this one guy was just talking shit. Like, yeah, this is bullshit? And I'm thinking, is this guy a cop or something? Who the fuck is this guy?

I go up to him and I take out his wallet and he's not a cop. He's a nobody. And I take his jewelry off. He had a rich chain, a gold chain band around his thing. And I looked and it was fake. And I started laughing. I says, you for gazing motherfucker, shut your fucking mouth. And two clerks, employees started laughing.

because this guy, I guess, used to come in and try to think he was a big shot, and he wasn't a big shot. And they started laughing, and I just started crying. He shut up. And it was so funny. So he's over there flexing, and you're like, you're not even wearing a real gold. I said, you fucking Fagasy, Fagasy, meaning, you know, fake. I said, you fake Fagasy fuck.

I said, shut your fucking mouth. Oh, is it funny. Now, obviously, cash is the best because you don't need a fence to sell it, But cash is super heavy. I guess there's not enough cash to be too heavy in a robbery, right? At a jewelry store a few thousand bucks. No, no, no, no. Bullshit.

Oh, no, no, not enough. Listen, you could carry a lot of cash. But the biggest robbery, besides the billion dollar jewelry art in Germany, the biggest robbery ever was in France in a hotel room in Paris, and they robbed $134 million worth of diamonds. Now, even if they only got 20 percent, 20% 134 million is what, 26 million, 130, $28 million? How would you lift up $28 million in cash?

Do you know how much that weighs? Yeah, we did it. I don't know what, it's like 70 pounds per, what is it, a million? I'm going to look at this up right now. How much does cash weigh? A bill weighs a gram. So depending on the bills, obviously. What was the total amount in 100?

Well, let's assume it's $100 bills. What was the total amount of money? One bill is a gram. And it's $134 million. Okay, $134. You couldn't lift it. Oh, yeah. So it's a lot.

So a million dollars is 10 kilos. So I'm going to do this into pounds. So it's 25 pounds, a million dollars. Yeah, 22. So if we do this on the calculator, so you said $134 million. Right. So that's like 3,000 pounds of cash. It's over a ton.

I mean, what are you going to do with that? That's like a pickup truck. Weight. Exactly. I mean, and they walked away with that. kind of money and walked away out the door in a briefcase, in a briefcase, just got up, left, and walked in a briefcase. I was on the news about that for a long time. Like I said, let's just say, for fact, he only got $28 million. What is $28 million way? What did you say

it's 22 pounds a million? It's 22 pounds for million. Yeah. So 22 times, you said $28 million? Right. Yeah. I mean, that's still 600 plus pounds, man. Right. You can't lift it. You can't lift that. There's no way. You can't lift it. You know, it's trips and trips or whatever it is. If you had to pick it up in 50-pound bags, 70-pound bags, you know, where you're going to go? How many trips you're going to make? I'm telling you, diamonds was the way to go. But you had to have it out because there's always another man. Obviously, as I always say, cash is king. Because, listen, I wouldn't mind robbing an armored car vehicle. I knew guys who planned heists on depots, cash depots, where the armored cars pick up their money. It's like, you know, they have rooms of 20 million in it, 30 million. Now get me a truck and get it all out of there and then get the truck to another place. And then you're done. Then you just lay down for a while. I heard you turned down a $12 million robbery.

What happened there? Well, you know, I'm so glad I did. It worked out that if I did, it would have been a kidnapping. It would have been everything else. And it wouldn't have been a statute of limitations on it, right? Anyway, it was a robbery in the Bihima, not Bihamah, the, oh, the Fountain Blue Hotel. I won't forget. It was in the Fountain Blue, and it was eight stern jewelers.

And I planned it, had dynamite built that looked just like diner. I was going to put dynamite on the manager to open the store, and he opened it about 20 minutes before the guard came in. And I was going to put dynamite on and go in with him, empty the store, go out. and I was going to have his family being held with dynamite and tell him if you do anything and you know, you're dead and he don't hear from me. We're going to blow everybody up and we're leaving. If you pull over, you're going to blow him up.

I had this thing planned right down to the, I mean, really good. And we were waiting in the bushes of his house once. And a dog spotted us. And I called it off right then and there. I said, it's not going to go. Too many variables. And it was the best move ever made, Jordan, obviously. Yeah.

No kidding. You would have ended up with a lot, and that's a lot of cash to trust people with. Like your brother can probably trust, but still so much. No, no. That would have been easy. I would have got about $5 million,

$4 million, whatever. I was going to tell them, listen, give me a couple million right up, pay me a million this month, a million, the people I know, and get rid of it that. I don't think I would have had a problem with the money end of it.

That would have been the easy part for me. The harder part for me would have been the, I mean, there's never a statute of limitation then. I never did anything where it's not a statute of limitation. So it's not like I murdered somebody and now they're going to get you. Right. There's no statute of limitation on me. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Larry Lawton.

We'll be right back. Now back to Larry Lawton on the Jordan Harbinger Show. For people wondering if in case you don't know, statute of limitation is how long they can go after you for a crime. So if you rob someone or you do some fraud eight years later or whatever the statute of limitation is, then it's like, oh, you got away with it. It's too late. But things like murder, kidnapping, I think also certain types of. No, treason, murder, and kidnapping. That's it.

Most of them are five, not seven. And there's a couple seven. But there is now a few that child sex stuff. They've made the statute 10 years and even made some of them 20. So there is some changes on for that crime. but no robberies or this. And the reason they can get drug deal is for a longer sentence is like, I know a guy who was a drug deal.

He got out of the business, totally out of the business. He was out of the business four years already. A friend calls him and says, hey, listen, can I borrow your boat? I got a load of dope I want to. He goes, I'm not in that business. He hangs up on the guy. But that phone call kept him in a conspiracy. Just kept him in the conspiracy.

Because he knew about the crime. Right. And the statute of limitation went another five years. And he'd have getting caught and convicted. You know, he was out of it, but because he, that phone call that continued the conspiracy, and that's what happened to him. Interesting. Yeah, you don't want to mess with the statute of limitation because, of course, the court,

prosecution is going to look for any nexus, any connection to anything you've done. You're going to have a hard time finding a judge who goes, well, I like getting people off on a technicality where they will never get punished for the things that they've done. They're going to go, all right, you know, if you don't believe it, challenge it all the way up to the Supreme Court if you want to, but you can do it from jail, buddy. That's to a degree. There are judges, especially in the federal system that are more really law bound. And you'll see that more in the Fed.

The state systems are corrupt because they're all elected. You got to remember that. They're elected people, which is a bad system because they got to give favors and they got to campaign. They got to do everything that's wrong with the system. Yeah. Judge Jordan, tough on crime. Yeah, exactly.

The federal system, once they're appointed, they don't give me fuck who you are. Right. And that's why I don't ever worry about the Supreme Court picks. A lot of people do. But I asked him, I said, let me ask you a question. What about John Roberts? What did he do? When you get into that position, everyone thought he would go with the Obamacare and this or that.

He struck it down to when you become a Supreme Court judge or a federal judge, you don't answer to anybody, man. I mean, you can't get fired by the president, this guy, Congress, doesn't mean shit. Your real conscience comes in. And if you're a constitutionalist judge, you're going to go to by the Constitution, period. If you're an activist judge, that's different. you're going to be an activist judge. But if you're a pure constitutional judge, you know, those are the kind of guys that are going to go by their conscience because they don't give a fuck.

Now, what they said to get in there and the hearings and all the bullshit that counts, who gives a crap? It's what they do. And they're there. Look at all the justices, all of them. They've changed in a lot of ways. Every one of them have changed deeply. And I was just watching the study on this because of this news person, Comey Barry,

or whatever her name was, Amy Comey Barrett. So I'm just reading a whole bunch of stuff on that. And it makes a lot of sense now. How do people react when they're being robbed? You know, are people freaking out universally or are there some people that just start crying? Like what, you know, the one guy was acting tough? What's the usual reaction? And what do you do?

The usual reaction is, okay, and they stay silent and stuff. I've seen them laugh. I've seen them cry. The laughings make me laugh. That's weird. Yeah, it's just a reaction. Nervous laughter. Yeah, that's exactly what it is.

And most of them just don't hurt me. And listen, no professional is going to hurt you. You're better off getting robbed by a professional than you are by anybody else. Obviously, it shouldn't be robbed. And we're not promoting that on this channel or any channel. But the people that are the most freaked out are the ones you wouldn't expect it. You know, like, I've seen an old lady say, hey, you should get more stuff. This place robbed me.

Are you kidding me? You know what I mean? And I'm like, Jesus, she was in there complaining or something. And I'm like, holy shit. So, I mean, you don't know what the reactions are going to be. And it's kind of weird when the laugh or the cry, you try to calm them down. Anything you calm them down. So listen, nothing's going to happen.

You just shut up. Don't open your eyes. We'll be out of here in a minute. It's not your shit. I never even took the jewelry off the people. Like, if he had a wedding ring on or something, I didn't touch it. That was something personal. Now, I'm not saying if it was in there, I'm sure I did screw up.

But, you know, whatever's in the shop is in the shop. But if it wasn't in that shop, it was on that lady's finger, I wasn't ripping her finger off, you know. Yeah, no, I guess that makes sense. It seems like you could have done it, but that's just purely conscience, right? Because you could have gotten it. You were getting away with it anyway, right? You just didn't want to do that to the customers? Yeah, oh, absolutely.

I got away with it. That's not even close. Not even thinkable. Yeah, of course I could. But no, I didn't. You get, what, 30% of stuff that you fenced? Like, what sort of split do you get when you give it to somebody else who sells stolen goods? Sure, it depends.

You know, that's a rough estimate. It's good one. There's certain pieces you'll get 40%, some you'll get 20%. You know, depending on what it is, how hot it is at the time. A good pick is 30%. And you'll be right.

Those guys take a lot of risk because they're storing stolen stuff after receiving stuff from people who are being chased or investigated. Then they got to sit on it for a while and move it around and then they got to find somebody to buy it

and then they got to take that money and then they got to go back to you and give you some money. That's just something. such a risky gig, man. They take the diamonds, right? They give you the cash up front. Oh, up front, okay.

You got a million dollars here's $300,000. Okay? You got your $300. Now, they already have that melted down, taken out. It's being reset. It's like as if they bought diamonds again. You know, it's like they bought a low. And now they put it out and it's maneuvered.

And I knew a lot of my diamonds went to California, was sent to California. And when it was sent to California, that's what they did. They moved it out of there. Unless it's such a signature piece, then they break them right up, right up. But like a regular piece that's nothing, it's a normal. You'll see a thousand of them in a thousand. In two stores, you'll see 25 rings just like that. They're not going to touch that.

It is what it is, and it's good. Now, unless it has what they call Lazare Kaplan, Lazare Kaplan are a laser-cut diamond. Those have a serial number in them. I was wondering about that because they could put that in there on the side so small you couldn't even see it, right? Right. Well, a Lazar Kaplan diamond can't be seen,

except with a 10-powered microscope. The serial number can't be seen, right? Right. You mean? Ten-powered microscope. Can't be seen with the naked eye. So it's very important that you, you know, you don't rob that because you got caught with that.

Now you got caught with a serial number diamond. The other one's hard to prove. They have what they call Bert's a ticker because they're all bullshit. It's all burs. It's all freaking diamond game. The diamond game is a big hustle game. Let me tell you. How do you take something and take 80% off?

Because it's fucking marked up 100%. I mean, you know, it's a crazy game. I often tell people, the biggest mistake people make, the third largest purchase you'll ever make, Jordan, is a house, a car, and then a diamond. Are you married? I am, and I went through and did a show about the diamond hustle and about how it's just like complete BS.

That's why when you go to return a diamond that you just bought yesterday, they're like, all right, I'll give you 30% of the value. And it's like, what are you talking about? The policies are bad, but even so, like the whole thing, as you know, is set up to be a cartel by De Beers so the prices are controlled. They're not worth anywhere near what they are sold for, so they're not an investment by any stretch because a wholesaler or somebody who buys them with their actual cost, it's maybe 10, 20, 30 percent of what, if that, of what you're paying in the store. The margins are like enormous.

Talk about pinning it. I know how it works in De Beers and how they make a jeweler come there and they take three bags and put them in a room and say, you each get that bag's two million, that Beds 2 million, that begs two million. Take which one you want or one million, two million. And you have to take the garbage that's in it or not. And, you know, a lot of people don't notice. The Russians were going to open up mines they had and would have tanked the market. But the beer is went in and bought them out for billions and billions and billions of dollars because otherwise the whole market's done. The whole industry is done. And the worth of stuff is just done. Obviously, it's a beautiful piece of stone. It's great. But what's the value? What's the

interesting value of it. Like there is a value to copper, you know, for conduction and zinc and certain things. But there's diamonds. There is some value, obviously, there's tools or certain other things that are made for. But you're right, the manipulation. And I watched guys rob people and manipulate people, and people don't do their research. And they're going in and getting hoodwinked on a purchase that's going to be the third largest purchase you'll ever make, unless you're buying airplanes and shit. I'm talking about a regular person who buys a house, a car, and then a diamond, you know, for their wife. They might buy a $50,000 car, but I'm going to buy a $10,000 dime. What else are you going to buy heavier than that, you know, per se? What do you feel after a robbery?

What's like going through your head as you're running out the door after you get back to your campsite or your motel room or whatever? I always wanted to be that fly on the wall. It's such exhilaration. It's like you won. You know, your adrenaline goes for the first hour. And then once you start calming down, it's like, wow, I just did it. And then it's, you know, you're still good until you get rid of it until you get the cash in your hand. When I had the cash in my hand, then it was a whole different animal. Then it's, oh, now you're really, then it's party time, number one. I was Atlantic City and it was cocaine and it was women and it was everything you can think. So it was just like off the charts, a party time off the charts. What was your largest

personal take from a robbery? Like how much after you fence everything, you split it with the crew, you know, what's like the smallest you ever made and the largest you ever made in one gig? One gig, a 400K in my pocket after paying everybody doing everything. And then that multiple times is up there. I was robbing like most of the stores are around a million, million two, million three, depending. Smallest was about 75,000 in my pocket. And I was, I can remember that store that was in Savannah, I think we got $250,000 worth. It was a suck-ass store. And after paying everybody and the trip and I said,

what a fucking waste this was. But it was a chain store. It was a freedman. Most of them were pretty good because I cased them very well. I didn't just case them, you know, they had to be right in all aspects. I left cities. I left areas because they weren't right.

And then you go to another area. And I had them planned out where to go before even started the trip. When I knew my safe had under $50,000 in it, I would then start thinking about the next robbery. How many a year were you running like eight, ten, or like five? No, no, about three to five. Okay. Because I robbed about 20-something stores in six years, seven years, something like that.

So you're doing like a million bucks a year, give or take, in like 1980s money, really? Oh, yeah, yeah, late days, early 90s. A couple million bucks tax free in today's money? That's pretty good. Oh, more than that after it's all said. I lost three million in casinos. But I also ended up buying stuff with it and then working the money by putting it on the street, they call it, and making loan chalk money and being a bookmaker and buying nightclubs and buying things that made money, too. And then when you're not playing by the rules, you're making money until you fucking burn it.

Or I burned a pizzerie or I did so many things. When you say burn it, do you mean literally like lighted on fire because it's not making money anymore? I went for the insurance money. Yep. If you read the book, that holes in there. Yeah. I mean, I just want to make sure we get all the good, juicy details for everybody. Yeah, I did a video on that.

I actually went back to the pizzeria. It's not a pizzeria. It's a Mexican restaurant now, but at the plaza, it's there and everything. It was surreal going back to that area. Did you ever think I might get caught doing this? You know, you always know you're going to get caught or think you're going to die. There's no question about that. But it wasn't like I said, oh, this is the day I'm getting caught.

If you did, you'd be an idiot because then you wouldn't do it. But you know deep down this is the life you live, and there's only two ways out, get caught or not. This is the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Larry Lawton. We'll be right back. I just wanted to take a moment and thank you for supporting the show. I know the ads can be a pain. I try to make them entertaining for you,

and I only pick products that I like that I use. So please do support those who support us. Visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. if you need a quick link to all of the sponsors in one place with all of our little codes, Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. Don't forget, we've got worksheets for every episode of the show. Those are in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. And now for the conclusion of our episode here with Larry Lawton.

I know your brother got shot during one of the robberies. What happened there? Wow, the last robbery were Phyllis Hills. Oh, was your last time? That was the last robbery. Was it your last because he got shot? Or was it just luck, quote, unquote, that he got shot on the first. final round. Because of that one, the police work was so intense that they ended up getting us.

I did not know this at the time. The FBI would flood an area. And when they would flood the area, they used to go to every jewelry store in the whole like 20 mile radius and ask, do you see anybody with this ammo, blah, blah, blah. This one lady said yes. Oh, this nice young man came in here. And I got his license plates. I was going to sell him a ring or something of that nature. And it happened to be a car I rented, but I didn't rent it. A guy who worked for me, Fat Tommy rented it. And when he rented it, I was a co-driver. And when they looked me up as a co-driver, boy, the alarms went off, organized crime. I had a couple other convictions for drugs, not major, like I was got caught with 35,000 cash and five grams of coke back in the day. And that was all from jewelry

robberies. You know, they thought they had a drug deal. I was never into drug dealing, but they thought they had a drug deal because of the money and it stuff, but it was really jewelry money, and I was going to gamble. But anyway, unspenotes to us, about three weeks before the robbery, somebody stole an air conditioner on the roof of the building. None of us knew this. It was a plaza. And when we went into this store, a neighbor heard commotion, but just thought it was something

maybe on the roof or something again. It was coming over, and she looked in the window. And when she looked in the window, it was go, go, go. And that's when we ran out and the guy somehow got out of his flex cuffs. And I took six guns with me. Like he had six guns. It was a gun nut. And all of a sudden we're running out.

We hear the glass above us. Splatters. Shot fire. Holy shit. We're bucking out of there. I jump in the car. I ducked like down in. I see the guy level his gun at my head.

Oh, man. Right at the windshield. because the car's pulled in straight. He levels the gun, levels it right in my head. I duck. The bullet skims the top of my head. I mean, another inch I'm dead. And my brother leaned forward to go low too,

and it went in his back, then into his arm. And it's still in his arm. He goes, I'm hit, I'm hit. I go, I'm hit because there was blood coming down my head, you know, a little bit. But it was a scrape. I didn't feel anything in the adrenaline. And it's pumping. But again, having a planned getaway. Literally, where to go, what road to hit.

Everything was planned to the 9th. And we ended up getting back to Brooklyn and getting cleaned up. I was going to drop more for the hospital. He says, I'm here. I said, I'll drop you out. He goes, no, no, no, I'm all right. I'll be all right. And he was, thank God. I think about that. If he would have died, that's a murder. Yeah. And it's your brother. And it's your brother. I was just a sad. How do you live with that? So anyway, and we ended up getting back to Brooklyn, getting them cleaned up, getting me cleaned up, getting the car fixed, did everything. And because of that FBI work more intense on that robbery than ever, they got us. Really?

So did any family members go like, oh, how did, I don't know your brother's name, but how did he get shot or how did he get his arm hurt? No, no, no. The only one who knew about it was we were going to, we were the funny story. We were going to take him to a vet. We had a friend who used to go to the track. I said, hey, Uncle Louis, I need a doctor. My brother got shot.

Cause he goes, well, I got a veterinarian will do it, you know, under the table. It can't be a doctor that you know. At the time, my mother worked, she's an RN, and she worked at a doctor's office. And when we got back to Florida, my mother doesn't know. My mother's the most innocent woman. I'm not kidding in your life. We end up telling my mother, hey, mom, we were playing with guns in the bar and Davey got shot. He's all right, but what do we do now?

And we can't go to the hospital because if he's, Then I shot him. I'll go in trouble. So my mother took him to the clinic and fixed them up and didn't take it out. She knew there would be more damage taking the bullet out than trying to leave it in there. And she gave him tetanus shots and she kept antibiotics and she fixed them up, so to speak. Oh, my God. Your mom must have been freaking out.

I don't know. You'd think she would be, but she wasn't, Jordan. My mother's a New York woman, you know. My dad was a union construction. He was a union delegate. He built the world trade centers. He was in the fringes of little things. Do you think she knew, like, oh, they were playing with guns at the bar, and she's just like,

I don't want to know. She had to know, right? A part of me thinks that. A part of me does think that. Yes, what you just said. But I don't know. My mother never, this is a true statement. My mother never in her life used the word fuck.

And I'm not that I use it every day either, but, you know, it's a word that comes out when you're doing a story or whatever, but she's never even cursed. ever in a life. She's 80. My mom, I take care of my mom, Jordan. I don't know if you knew that. Oh, she's still around? You got to ask her if she knew.

You know, she's not great. She's 87. She'll be 88. She's still with it. And I take care of her. That's what I do now. I am home to take care of my mom. I mean, she took care of me those years, so I take care of her.

Yeah. She might not remember, and she might not want to revisit that now that I think about it. No, no, she's all right. Because she'll just, oh, be quiet. Who cares about that? I'll say. You know, that's how she'll do it. She's, you don't care. She sits and plays Suduko all day and watches Steve Harvey and the Game Show Network. I mean, it's just so, you know, Joe is so funny. My mother's watching Match Game 74. I says, Mom, everybody on this show is

dead. She goes, I know, but I didn't see the show. I said, you're crazy. Match game 74. The show's 56 years old. I said, it's crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy. 46 years old, the show. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's like watching Johnny Carson host something or whatever, or like Ed McMahon and like all these old shows. So, all right, so you said you finally got caught by the FBI.

How did they piece this together? They didn't catch you in the act, right? They did investigative work and found you. You have any idea what it was? Oh, yeah, I told you. They got the lady, and then they ended up putting it together. They had a filing on me. I didn't notice.

They were looking for me for six years. And they had it once said I was the biggest. that ever did it. They were looking for me for a long time and they put all these cases together. Took them a while, took them over a month and a half just to figure that out. They ended up having four eyewitnesses after the fact of knowing me, but they ended up closing the case on over 20 stores. Oh, wow. Yeah. They got their man, so to speak. And then what we did was what we called it Rule 20. A Rule 20 is when you're in court, Jordan, and you'd get all your cases brought to one district. So it gets handled in one spot. And that's it. How many stores did you, in total,

did you, Rob, or should I say, how many stores did you get caught for? Well, yeah, a good point. I was convicted for four stores and closed, I think 21, 22. I don't even know. There might be a few more out there. Might be. Yeah, might be. And I ended up getting four 12-year sentences. I had to beat a gun charge. They charged me with a gun. I didn't use a gun. So I beat the gun charge. And when I beat the gun charge, that's when it got the 12 years. Did you stash any money? I mean, I know everyone probably asked you that. And the answers will always know, right? Like, every time I talk to somebody who's in the mod, they're always like, I wish I did, but I didn't. What can I say? Every single one. Exact answer. Nobody ever stashes any money, eh?

No. Well, you know, let me tell you something. That's a funny story because John Gotti once said, Any man who has a 401k or he's got a retirement fund, I'm going to kill him. Because you didn't retire in this life. You live to the hustle. You'll see them up until Sonny Francis, which is Michael Francis's father, just died. I think it was near 100. And he was hustling right up until the day died. Literally, that age, you think, I'm retiring.

Fuck no. You'll see them 75. They slow down, but they're always scheming, always conniving, always bookmaking, and always doing something. It's in their blood. It's in your blood. I don't know how it got out of my blood. I think seeing the destruction I've seen in my own life

and not wanting to lose my grandkids. You know, I lost my kids. My son was six years old when I went to prison. I got out and he was 18. My daughter was 15 months old. I got out and she was 13 years old. So if that don't hurt you, nothing's going to hurt you because I lost their lives.

Now I have two grandkids. and he's four and the others too. You think I'm going to do anything to go lose their lives? Not a chance. So I always say if I go to back prison now, I'm to kill you because I'm going forever. I'm not going to go half ask on the deal. And I look at that like I was a lucky one, Jordan, to be able to get out in my life because of going to do time and not ratting.

I wouldn't rat. I don't believe in ratting to this day. To this day, I believe a person's word should mean something. I've heard you say that the most important skills in a heist are organization and planning, staying calm under pressure, knowing that you've built all of those skill sets in spades and you were successful at what you did. Do you wish you'd chosen a different profession? And if so, what do you think you would have done if you did choose a different path? Great question. Great question. You know, I'm a believer in fate. I think things happen for a reason.

Why am I alive? Literally people say, I'm like, like nine lives. I got about three left. So I don't know. I think it's fate. I think I would have been good at anything, to be honest with you. I think I'd have been a great lawyer. I did the law work in prison, won cases in the law, and it was very good at the law. Still am. I like to help people. I know it's a weird say, well, look at a profession you want. You want to rob people. But I was also like a robin hood. I threw parties, the crazy things with people. But as far as I think I would have a lawyer, people always say, do you regret? I don't regret a thing, Jordan. What I do doing is different. Absolutely. Bill Gates said that. Guys, the richest man in the world, and he says, I'd do different.

You know, doesn't mean he's not going to be rich. It means he's going to do things different, take away to bad. I mean, I wish I could and go back and do it, but you can't, so you have to live with it. And when you live with it, you have to accept it and forgive yourself and then hope people forgive you and make amends, which I've tried many, many times to do. But you can only do so much, and now it's about helping people more to not make the choices I made. Listen, I'm not the only guy like me who thinks like me who might go about that drug path, you know, like you said earlier. How about the kid who doesn't know his dad was drunk drugs? And you named a great scenario. That was a great, great scenario you did. And I look at that and I'm hoping. And I get, you know, one of the blessings I

do have, Jordan, is I get many, many, many emails of people saying to me, Larry, you saved my life. This meant more to me. I'm not doing drugs anymore. I was in a bad place. I had depression and you helped me out of it or a lot of things. And those things that are one, you got, I get the idiots too. Fuck you. And, you know, you're always being a criminal. Yeah, you get some of those. But not, I got such weighted to the good. And that makes you keep going and makes you say, you know, you're doing the right thing. Larry, thank you so much. is there anything I haven't asked you that you want to make sure that you get out? Of course, we'll link to your channel, your book, everything in the show notes. But other than that,

am I missing anything? You got everything. Yeah. Well, good. Larry, thank you so much. Super interesting story. Really appreciate the candor. And your mission now to keep people away from what you were doing back then is admirable. I mean, a lot of guys could have just got out of prison and said, screw it. I'm just going to write a bunch of, you know, glorify this and make some money. Dig up some money and leave. Thanks, Jordan. I've got some thoughts on this episode, but before I get into that, here's a preview of my

conversation with Dr. Dennis Carroll. He chases the flu and other pandemics all across the planet. This interview was recorded at the very start of COVID-19, and it's even more relevant now. A new influence of virus that is transmissible and is deadly. That is what will then sweep around the world as a pandemic. The 1918 flu, at the end of World War I, we had 50 to 100 million deaths. That was 50 to 100 million deaths when the world's population was 1.8 billion. So think about it today.

Even if it took us 300,000 years to hit the billion mark, we've been able to add 6 billion in just 10 decades. 6 billion people. Yeah. And by the time we get to the end of this century, we're going to be right on the age of 12 billion. Oh, my God. The speed with which an influenza virus can move a stack. Were a virus to emerge today, within one year, a year later, two billion people would likely be infected. And if it were as lethal as the 1918, which had a mortality rate of 3%.

You're talking about hundreds of millions of people. Oh, my God. The fact of the matter is time marches on the societies we live in today that we take for granted will be a footnote in history, 500 years. from that. The architecture that we surround ourselves with, they will be ruins or forgotten. It's not a question of if there will be epidemics, there will be pandemics. It is a question of when. For more on why influenza could be the next catastrophic global pandemic and what we can do about it, check out episode 320 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. This was epic. I told you it was going to be amazing. That's why we do two parts because it's

freaking worth it. Larry's dad was in construction. He said, nothing goes up or down in New York City unless you're mobbed up. So he would go with his dad on payouts to drop off construction money to the mob guys. And I think that was kind of his first entree into that world. He saw a lot of these folks. And he had a natural or unnatural distrust of authority. He mentions this in his book. We didn't talk about it in the show.

But he was abused by a priest in church as an altar boy when he was younger. So he stopped going to church and started pocketing the money. His parents gave him for the collection plate. and he bought beer with it on Sundays instead of going to church because he was, he's working through some stuff. And obviously back then, people didn't talk about that kind of thing. It just wasn't talked about. That's why this is such a problem now. So there's a part of me that thinks maybe this instilled a distrust of authority because the system had failed him. So it's no wonder that he gave in to sort of some of that baser, more primal instinct, which is fear, violence, mafia, organized crime.

He later joined the Coast Guard, though, and he told a story in his book about finding 80 bales of marijuana floating. And I think it was like Hudson, the Hudson River, something like that between New York and New Jersey. Seventy-seven bales made it back. The other three were under a bridge, and he went and picked him up later with a boat. So this is a guy who sees opportunity everywhere. He was loan sharking. He talks in the book. This is a fun book. There's a lot of videos about this, too. He talks about loan sharking. And if people didn't pay, what he would do is either steal their car or he would put a sternal can underneath the car. So if you ever go to a buffet, those little canisters that are on fire, heating food for long periods of time, that's sterno. It's like a really pure alcohol, I think.

And what it does is it burns pretty clean, but they would light that, put it under the car, and it would light the car on fire or blow up the car. So this guy was a freaking mess. You already heard earlier in the show that he threw a Molotov cocktail at somebody fishing and the guy to jump off the pier. I mean, this is a troubled kid. He used to rob drug dealers and take the cash and the dope, but never used violence. He was however armed. I wanted to clarify this, because it sounds like he's just this violent, horrible guy, but he never used. used violence against people, supposedly, according to him, but he was armed. He also mentioned that if they're robbing a place in a different city, they don't drive crazy, they don't park poorly, they stay in

the hotel, they don't go out, they don't want to be known in that area. Kind of the opposite of Grand Theft Auto, right, where you're just running people over because they're in your way, right? So this is a guy who maintained a low profile, went in, studied the area, got out. And of course, when they got out of the robbery, they got out of town, they went to the fence, the person where they could sell all the loot. They would sell it in under 24 hours. They had multiple drivers, multiple vehicles. They'd torch the one they left behind. There's a time they even went camping after a robbery to lay low. This kind of stuff, it's just an insight into a completely different world. Just absolutely unbelievable. Another interesting tidbit here was that after prison, Larry told me after he got out,

he couldn't make any decisions. Because inside prison, you make so few decisions that when you get out, it's harder to make decisions again. So, for example, he'd go to eat at a restaurant with a friend, and he would just say, I'll have what he's having, because in prison you don't have choice. And his friend eventually stopped him and said, no, no, no, no, hold on. We're going to look at the menu. We need a few more minutes. We're going to look at the menu.

You get what you want. Let's do this, because he didn't even have that mechanism in his brain anymore that said, okay, I'm going to think about what I want and pick. It's interesting that just the system just sort of broke him of that. He's out now. He's doing a lot of good. We'll link to his stuff in the show notes on the website. Please do use our website links if you buy the books or anything else. That stuff adds up and supports the show. Worksheets for this episode in the show notes. Transcripts for this episode in the show notes. There's a video of this interview going up on our YouTube at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube.

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