[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the 80s. I am Meg.

[00:19] Jessica: And I am Jessica. And Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City, where we still live and where we.

[00:28] Meg: Podcast about New York city in the 80s. I do ripped from the headlines and.

[00:33] Jessica: I do pop culture.

[00:35] Meg: So officially winter. Yes, we did Thanksgiving. That happened.

[00:39] Jessica: It's gone.

[00:41] Meg: Moving into Christmas, which is feels like it's happening like tomorrow.

[00:46] Jessica: Yes,

[00:47] I feel the same way.

[00:48] And I feel like that's kind of one of the troubles of being an adult.

[00:53] Like nothing is stretched out, everything is compressed. And I don't know about you, but as I age I feel like it's even more telescoping. Like just down to nothing.

[01:05] Meg: I mean,

[01:06] one good thing at least from my perspective, this used to be such a crazy, crazy time of year that like I would get sort of heart palpitations. I mean with two kids and family and travel and all that kind of stuff, it was just too much.

[01:21] And now that the kids are adult ing adult adjacent,

[01:28] it's like. And that I've taken a lot of pressure off myself. Like my Christmas card usually lands at like Valentine's Day,

[01:36] but it's always a great card.

[01:38] Jessica: That's, that's just like life these days.

[01:40] Meg: And just to take that pressure off myself and not to feel the pressure to like make Christmas this perfect thing for the two kids, you know.

[01:50] Jessica: Well, I think that's a really common theme that the madness of the holidays is self inflicted pressure frequently. No, there's a lot of other people messing around with you. I'm just saying that those who want it to be perfect,

[02:06] it's a big responsibility or just happen.

[02:10] Meg: Okay, well then there's the whole it happening. Okay, fair, fair pretty much lands on my shoulders.

[02:16] Jessica: Well then I'm glad that the children being not children is a big plus.

[02:22] Meg: Absolutely. We don't have to coordinate around Sant and his lap and all that kind of stuff.

[02:29] Jessica: It always sounds creepy to me. I can't help myself. That man's lap, it's. It's on the checklist.

[02:36] Meg: But yeah, it's going to be really busy because I guess like Thanksgiving was so late this year.

[02:43] But also I'm kind of excited for it too. I don't mind,

[02:47] I don't know the bustle of New York right now.

[02:49] Jessica: I, as you know, I'm going back to London and I'm sort of looking forward to seeing what Christmas is like there. I've been laughing my head off because the people I Work with Thames and Hudson have been kidding me.

[03:01] They're having their Christmas party while I'm there.

[03:03] They're like, oh, you're Jewish. You can sit in the corner with a slice of pizza like, you *******.

[03:09] But yeah, there's go to Harry for sure. Have you seen. I don't know if it's out yet. I bet it isn't the John Lewis commercials. Are you familiar with these?

[03:17] Meg: No.

[03:17] Jessica: Every year, John Lewis Department store does a Christmas commercial that is so sweet and heart wrenching that, like, people do reaction videos of themselves crying at the John Lewis commercial.

[03:31] Meg: So I'll.

[03:32] Jessica: I don't know, maybe it'll be good. Maybe it's going to be all over the place.

[03:35] Meg: That's a British thing.

[03:36] Jessica: Yeah.

[03:36] Meg: Okay.

[03:36] Jessica: Yeah, it's like. It's like heart wrenching. Anyway. So sweet, it hurts. Yes.

[03:53] Meg: Jessica, this is not a festive question, and it's not going to make you go, ah, I remember the lovely day.

[04:02] Jessica: Is it morbid? Is it morbid?

[04:04] Meg: No. But you've referenced this before, so I kind of know your feelings about it, but I would love for you to elaborate.

[04:11] Jessica: Okay.

[04:12] Meg: You went to law school in the 90s.

[04:14] Jessica: I did.

[04:15] Meg: And you eschewed defense law.

[04:19] Jessica: Oh, very much.

[04:20] Meg: Now I just want you to talk a little bit more about that than you have before. What was. What. Did it even cross your mind that might be a cool thing to do?

[04:29] Like, did you hang with the defense people at all? Were you like, ooh, we used to be friends, but now you're a defense lawyer, and now I can't hang with you anymore because you're different.

[04:39] Like, what? Why not defense?

[04:41] Jessica: Okay. Well, actually, I have a very.

[04:44] I think it's an interesting spin on it, which is when I was in law school, the O.J. trial was going on,

[04:50] and so,

[04:51] And I've said this on this podcast before, that my evidence professor, Barry Scheck, was part of that legal team. So there was more focus on defense litigation than I think I would ever normally have even paid attention to.

[05:08] You know, I stopped practicing law. And I think I've said it on this podcast, but I know I've told you,

[05:14] when I had that moment of being in a conference room across the table from opposing counsel, and I was like, you are a scumbag.

[05:23] You are not my people.

[05:25] And you're in a shiny suit,

[05:27] and I am like this. You're.

[05:30] You're a dirty person. Like, I can't with this. I'm done.

[05:34] Meg: So it wasn't the criminals, it was the lawyer.

[05:38] Jessica: Yes. So wait, it gets worse. No, criminals are criminal. Like there's always going to be criminals, whatever. It's that the,

[05:45] the people who were attracted to criminal defense are a very particular breed.

[05:53] And you could tell really quickly as a law student which people had gone to law school. Usually very young people go to law school because they're going to buy themselves a personality.

[06:06] And there are certain people who are like, criminal defense.

[06:10] I'm going to talk in the courtroom, I'm going to be aggressive and, and it's just a certain kind of scumbag. And you're just like.

[06:18] So that was not, that was not my crew. I was, I was in the mediation crew. So it couldn't have been more diametrically opposed.

[06:26] Meg: That. But that is interesting that it's,

[06:29] it's not only what interests you, the subject matter that interests you or the way that your brain works that's best suited to a certain kind of law, but also just like the personalities of the people.

[06:41] Jessica: Well, I think we all know. And you know this in your world, everybody knows this in whatever world they work in.

[06:47] These are people you spend more time with than your family.

[06:50] And so if you are not with your people who vibe at the same frequency that you do,

[06:57] your life is garbage.

[06:59] Meg: And.

[06:59] Jessica: And so I think that's the. And the other thing is that I got very tongue tied in court, which is surprising,

[07:06] but I would get very like,

[07:08] which is very bad as a defense attorney.

[07:12] So that was not gonna happen.

[07:15] Meg: Thank you for sharing.

[07:16] Jessica: I am happy to. I'm so excited to hear what you've got.

[07:20] Meg: My sources are a book called the Defense Lawyer by James Patterson.

[07:28] But it's true crime, true crime, not fiction.

[07:32] Gods of New York by Jonathan Mahler that everybody's talking about. This is a big book that came out this year and it is a treasure trove of stories for us and the New York Times.

[07:49] On Thursday,

[07:50] July 9, 1987 at 4:15,

[07:54] defense lawyer Barry Slotnick was rushing from his office in the Transportation Building at the corner of Broadway and Barclay at City hall park in lower Manhattan, kind of caddy corner,

[08:08] to the courthouse. I know it well.

[08:10] He had an early dinner reservation and after that was planning to return to his home in Scarsdale.

[08:17] His longtime driver,

[08:19] Roberto was waiting for him on Broadway.

[08:23] Barry was one of the most well known lawyers in the country at this time. So this is Prio J.

[08:33] His firm had gotten John Gotti off.

[08:37] He'd defended Joe Colombo in front of the Supreme Court and Carmine Persico for trying to bribe an IRS agent. And was currently defending Democratic Congressman Mario Biaggi, which will be another story that I will tell because it's cray cray.

[08:58] He was known for his creative tactics.

[09:02] He pointed out that under the RICO law,

[09:05] previous crimes can be put into evidence,

[09:08] in essence, flying in the face of double jeopardy.

[09:11] That's not fair argued.

[09:14] And this argument helped to get Gotti off.

[09:17] I mean,

[09:18] it.

[09:19] Eventually, as we all know, Gotti went to jail. But in these early trials, Gotti got off because of this and also because Gotti paid off a jury member $60,000.

[09:31] Jessica: Well, that, that really, it really helped.

[09:34] Meg: But at this time, that wasn't public knowledge. And Barry Slotnick definitely said, ooh, that was me and my genius.

[09:43] Jessica: Just like a criminal defense attorney, John.

[09:45] Meg: Gotti was like, yeah, sure, you're great at your job, you know, whatever.

[09:50] And this is all we found out later that this is how he got off from Sammy the Bull,

[09:57] which is a callback to our episode 11 Bull Spills the Beans and Back to Old Broadway.

[10:06] Barry was able to get the New York Court of Appeals to declare the contempt statute was unconstitutional,

[10:15] leading to Joe Colombo's acquittal.

[10:18] He argued that Carmine Persico was not the head of the Colombo crime family, but rather in the upper echelon.

[10:28] Now, this did not get his client off. He's still got five years, but it set him up better in prison.

[10:35] Quote,

[10:36] do you use the word echelon on the theory that no one in prison will understand it?

[10:42] Asked Judge Nickerson.

[10:47] Congressman Mario Biaggi was in hot water.

[10:52] He'd been accepting favors for influence for years.

[10:55] Barry's argument would be that while he accepted the favors, he didn't follow through with the influence.

[11:03] Jessica: Well, that is a creative defense.

[11:07] Meg: See what I mean?

[11:08] Jessica: He's, yeah, if you do that, you're just a thief.

[11:12] Meg: He's thinking outside the box.

[11:14] Jessica: There is no box.

[11:16] Meg: Now back to July 9th.

[11:18] Barry's going to his early dinner right now. The previous month, and this is the biggest of Barry's trials to date,

[11:27] he had been able to get Bernie Goetz off with a slap on the Wrist for shooting four unarmed black teenagers in the subway back in 1985.

[11:41] He loved a high profile defendant and had said publicly that he was willing to defend anyone except for pedophiles.

[11:51] Jessica: You got to draw the line somewhere.

[11:53] Meg: I got to draw the line.

[11:54] Now, Barry was easy to spot.

[11:57] It had been suggested that he tried to dress down for certain juries who may be put off by his $2,500 Fioravanti suits. Is that how you pronounce it? Fior suits and $15,000 Piaget watches.

[12:15] But he said he didn't own casual clothes.

[12:19] He.

[12:21] Barry.

[12:23] Was the Bronx born.

[12:25] Jessica: I swear to God, I was just gonna say to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Barry from the Bronx.

[12:32] Okay.

[12:34] Meg: He was born of Orthodox Jewish Russian immigrants.

[12:38] He had found his first clients by sitting in the front row at court,

[12:42] waiting for someone who needed representation. So definitely came from really nothing. Humble beginnings.

[12:51] His practice grew, and he'd earned his prominence in the field. And the spoils that came along with it.

[12:58] On July 9,

[12:59] he was carrying two alligator skin briefcases.

[13:03] As he approached the waiting limo,

[13:06] Roberto popped the trunk from the driver's seat. And just as Barry was putting the cases in the back,

[13:14] he was hit by. From behind by a man with a club with a nail in it.

[13:20] Jessica: Ooh.

[13:21] Meg: Barry turned to block the next blow with his arm.

[13:26] He then ran into the park with the assailant following after him and suffered more blows.

[13:33] The attacker, wearing a dark helmet with a dark face plate, then jumped onto the back of a scooter driven by a man who also had a dark helmet.

[13:44] Roberto drove Barry, covered in puncture wounds, to Beekman Downtown Hospital,

[13:50] where he found he also had a fractured wrist and a back injury, and his watch was missing.

[13:57] Quote,

[13:58] I have no idea why this happened. I didn't see who did it. I was hit from behind.

[14:04] It could possibly have been a mistake. It was one of those things where somebody was using a baseball bat and thought I was the ball.

[14:12] Jessica: No, it's a good sound bite, but it's like if you constantly muck around with mobsters, someone might get ****** for something. Barry.

[14:21] Meg: Speculation went wild.

[14:23] Was the attack somehow connected to the Bernie Getz trial?

[14:27] Half the city was appalled that he had gotten away with shooting those four kids.

[14:32] This is a callback to episode seven, Terror on the two Train and Virgin's Gone Wild.

[14:39] Or maybe someone was upset with one of Barry's Mafioso clients and was taking it out on Barry.

[14:46] Now, Barry insisted publicly that he thought it was a mugging.

[14:50] There had been an article about him the previous week saying he wore $25,000 watches. They had upped it at 10 grand,

[15:00] and his watch was missing.

[15:02] But he also had to admit privately that it didn't really feel like a mugging. The assailant hadn't said anything. No. Give me your wallet and watch or anything.

[15:13] So who was behind the assault?

[15:16] Was it a mugging?

[15:18] Possibly targeted due to his offensively valuable watches.

[15:23] Did it have anything to do with The Mob.

[15:26] They were sketchy clients, after all.

[15:29] Maybe a rival Mafioso was lashing out.

[15:33] Barry's wife Donna hated that he defended these guys. They notoriously did not pay their legal fees.

[15:41] Or maybe it was some kind of protest in response to the Bernie Getz verdict.

[15:47] Do you have any theories?

[15:49] Jessica: I mean, the mind boggles.

[15:52] It could be. What I think is that it was not a mugging, and taking the watch was to throw people off the scent.

[16:01] I'm just going to add a possibility in here that's. That's.

[16:04] I'm sure not correct. But maybe it was Donna.

[16:09] Maybe Donna was like, I want out of this rat race, and he's not stopping doing it.

[16:16] Maybe a club and a nail.

[16:18] That's enough.

[16:20] Meg: That'll do him in.

[16:21] Jessica: Exactly. She got so the kid who normally, you know,

[16:24] mows the lawn, she's like, hey, I can give you 10 more bucks if you follow Barry with a nail.

[16:30] Meg: Well, it is interesting because she was. There's something to that theory because she was trying to get him to just. Can you please just defend, like, ordinary, normal people rather than these, like, super friggin scary people?

[16:44] Jessica: And sometimes when people won't listen to you, you have to up the ante a tiny bit, make them listen to you.

[16:49] Meg: And then he has to say, you're right, it is really scary out there. That is. It was her, at her insistence, that they moved from New York City to Scarsdale in the first place because she had had it.

[16:59] She was done with the city and all of its dangers. She's very dangerous.

[17:05] Jessica: Great choice of husband,

[17:08] Donna,

[17:09] as she puts on her. She slides on her $15,000 watch.

[17:13] Stop working so much, Barry. Snap.

[17:17] All right, go ahead. Sorry. That's my theory.

[17:21] Meg: One week after the attack,

[17:23] Gregory the Grim Reaper Scarpa snitched to his FBI handler that Carmine Persico,

[17:33] also known as the Snake,

[17:35] had ordered the attack and.

[17:38] Oh, my God.

[17:39] Jessica: Wait, wait. But hadn't he been defending Persico? Yes. And so did he not do a good enough job?

[17:45] Meg: I'm about to tell you, but I've got to. I cannot wait to do a deep dive on Carmine Persico, because he is a character, all right?

[17:55] Jessica: He's. I'm sure he's really sane. Okay?

[17:58] Meg: Apparently, he thought Barry had done a crappy job defending him back in 1981. Remember?

[18:07] He got five years.

[18:09] He was, but, you know, upper echelon rather than the head.

[18:14] So, you know,

[18:16] I guess that helped him get poor parole. And he was paroled.

[18:19] He had done his time and was out of jail when he was indicted in 1984 on multiple racketeering charges.

[18:29] And at this point, he was like,

[18:32] I'm not going to do any of. He didn't hire Barry. He didn't hire anybody. He went on the lamb.

[18:38] And he wasn't arrested until four months later at his brother in law's home in Hempstead, Long Island.

[18:44] Go further. Carmine. Carmine is way too close.

[18:48] Jessica: Carmine. Although, you know what I think of actually, when I think of Carmine going on the lam,

[18:53] like,

[18:55] so not equipped to blend in, right? And so I'm thinking back to Robert Durst and how he was like, the only way that he could get away with it was in women's clothing and mute, which I don't think Carmine would have been able to pull off.

[19:11] You could pull that up.

[19:12] Meg: He then, okay, so he. They. They find him. They find him. He then acted as his own lawyer.

[19:20] Jessica: I felt this coming with the hubris and the anger at the lawyer in.

[19:26] Meg: The Mafia Commission trial,

[19:29] which was a huge trial that brought down all the heads of all the different families. It was ginormous. And he was like,

[19:39] I'm gonna do a diy.

[19:42] Jessica: This one, I believe it's more. I got this.

[19:45] Meg: But he was convicted surprise. On June 14, 1986, and sentenced to 39 years in prison. In January 1987,

[19:56] after more things came up, he was sentenced to an additional 100 years with no option for parole.

[20:06] According to Scarpa,

[20:07] our snitch,

[20:09] Carmine arranged for the attack on Slotnik from his jail cell. He had a grievance. He was like, go do that now. Do you want to hear a fun fact? I guess I could.

[20:20] I mean, I'm living, spoiling everything about,

[20:23] like, this amazing guy Carmine. Okay, but this is so good. Okay? And this, absolutely. This isn't even rumor. This is proven true. This is fact.

[20:32] At the same time that he arranged for the attack on Slotnik, he also ordered a hit.

[20:40] Not an attack, but an actual hit.

[20:43] See, Slotnik, he was like, just rough him up, right? But this guy, I want this guy dead.

[20:48] A lawyer called William Ehrenwald.

[20:51] Guess what William Ehrenwald had done to Carmine.

[20:55] Jessica: He was rude.

[20:57] Meg: How did you know he was disrespectful?

[21:00] Jessica: Isn't that like what all Mob Mob movies are like? You disrespected me. I gotta kill you.

[21:05] Meg: He was a prosecutor who was disrespectful. He had said something to the press that made Carmine go, and you, you're dead. But it gets really dark.

[21:15] Jessica: The two hitmen and now the likeness Ends.

[21:20] Meg: The two hitmen that he'd hired to kill Ehrenwald accidentally killed Aaron Wald's father, George.

[21:31] Jessica: Oh, no.

[21:32] Meg: Oops. So then, acting Colombo boss, because Carmine's in jail, you need an acting boss. Joel Kasachi. Okay, I think C, A, C, A.

[21:43] Jessica: C, E. C, A, C, A, C, E. Yeah, Kasachi, Kasachi.

[21:50] Meg: He had no choice. He had to have the two hitmen killed, who had botched the hit, and then had to get the second set of hitmen killed.

[22:03] Jessica: Okay, you know what this reminds me of? There's this fantastic movie from, I think the 80s might be the very early 90s with Tracy Ullman and Kevin Klein called I love you to death.

[22:16] Meg: Oh, yeah.

[22:17] Jessica: And River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves are two hitmen who cannot get it right. So I'm just thinking that, like,

[22:26] the hitmen and the killing, and we need more guys and getting them in and. Oh, it's your dad, George. Oh, my God. This is a comedy of errors waiting to be made into a film.

[22:36] Meg: So many dead people. So. Including the guy's dad, George.

[22:41] Jessica: I mean, that's an oopsie. That's a real oopsie.

[22:44] Meg: Now, Casace got in trouble for that. But Carmine was already in jail.

[22:52] And was going to be there for 100 years without any possibility at all.

[22:56] Jessica: Did you say his name was Joe or Joel?

[22:58] Meg: Joel.

[22:59] Jessica: What an unusual name for a mob person. You don't hear that every day. I'm just putting. Putting that out there. Unusual.

[23:08] Meg: For his part,

[23:10] Barry Slotnick refused to believe that Carmine had arranged his attack.

[23:15] Quote, I know it's not true, he told the Post.

[23:18] It's absurd.

[23:20] It really was a mugging.

[23:22] The police did uncover the fact that there was an article in the newspaper earlier noting that I wore a $25,000 watch. I was attacked, and one of the people who attacked me grabbed my watch.

[23:33] And he really didn't want to talk about that anymore at all. Barry Slotnick did not.

[23:38] Jessica: Well,

[23:38] yes,

[23:39] that was a good move, Barry. Keep it stum on the mob. What you think of the Mafia possibly trying to **** with you.

[23:48] I mean,

[23:49] be quiet.

[23:51] Meg: Yeah, yeah. Just like.

[23:52] Jessica: No, no, they're great guys. They would never do this.

[23:55] No,

[23:56] it's common to be mugged with a bat with a nail in it. That doesn't smack of Mafia of justice at all.

[24:03] Meg: He could just as easily have been one of the hit targets. I mean, disrespectful versus not doing your job well.

[24:11] Jessica: Well, that's why he was blabbing like, nobody. They're Great guys. I love them. They're fantastic. These are my wonderful people.

[24:17] Meg: Favorite people in the world.

[24:18] Jessica: They're tremendous.

[24:20] So that is quite,

[24:22] quite a tale. And Barry Slotnick.

[24:25] Now, let's bring this back to my. My original commentary. You can tell the guys who are gonna be that when they're in law school,

[24:35] they reek of it. Barry would have gotten it from someone eventually.

[24:39] Meg: He lived a long, lovely life.

[24:42] Bar association loves him. He never did anything corrupt, as far as we know.

[24:47] And he retired in Florida, and his son joined his practice, and he stayed married to Donna and.

[24:55] Jessica: And he still walks amongst us.

[24:56] Meg: No, he's dead.

[24:57] Jessica: Oh, well, then there you go.

[24:58] Meg: But of natural causes.

[25:14] Jessica: So this is a sweeping tale across the ages,

[25:17] but it takes place in Hell's Kitchen. A little backstory.

[25:22] Like all neighborhoods in New York City,

[25:25] there was organized crime in Hell's Kitchen. But it wasn't the mob.

[25:30] It was the Irish Mob.

[25:33] And in 1890,

[25:35] the name of the organized crime group in control was, amusingly, the Gopher Gang.

[25:43] And they had great names like Stumpy Malarkey,

[25:47] Mallet Murphy. Amazing One Lung Curran.

[25:51] Meg: Only one.

[25:52] Jessica: Not only the one, Battle Annie, who was a member of the Battle Row Ladies Social and Athletic Club.

[26:00] Meg: Hmm.

[26:01] Jessica: She sounds like she's someone who would swing a bat with a nail in it. Seriously. And my favorite, Goo Goo Knocks.

[26:08] Like most mobsters, they fell out of favor by killing each other and a few other folks.

[26:15] And so the ascendant group was called the Hudson Dusters.

[26:19] Meg: Ooh, I love that.

[26:21] Jessica: They were brought into existence by my favorite Goo Goo Knox. He pulled in Kid York. My. Now this is actually my favorite name. Circular Jack.

[26:34] Meg: I can't even visualize.

[26:36] Jessica: Ding Dong. No last names applied.

[26:40] They were election fraudsters employed by Tammany hall to make sure that the right guys got into City Hall. But the problem with the Hudson Dusters was that they were all drug addicts.

[26:56] Meg: Oh, no. What drug?

[26:58] Jessica: They loved their cocaine dusters. Are we getting there? The Hudson Dusters. And they got into a lot of dust ups because they would have wild cocaine parties,

[27:09] get all jacked up, go into the street to find people to beat to pulps, and then move on. But unfortunately, they also liked the morphine.

[27:19] So within. In a very short period of time,

[27:22] they all OD'd and died.

[27:26] I don't mean to laugh at their misfortune, but that was they. They finally fell apart in the late teens.

[27:32] Okay, in the 20s. And there were a bunch of other gangs that moved around Hell's Kitchen and the Hudson river area. For quite some time.

[27:44] But in the early 60s,

[27:47] the Westies were the ascendant group.

[27:51] They were founded by Mickey Spillane. They were responsible for 60 to 100 murders between 1968 and 1986.

[28:00] Now interestingly, their thing was they were in tight with the unions,

[28:05] the longshoremen,

[28:07] Machinists,

[28:09] International Longshoremen's association and aerospace and sheet metal workers.

[28:16] They like to use those guys as cover for a lot of activity.

[28:22] So Spillane,

[28:23] not the Mickey Spillane of Detective Different.

[28:28] He was a very bad boy and he had a lot of enemies. Now the thing is that Mickey Spillane,

[28:36] he knew that the Italian mafia would be useful for him and they knew that he was useful for them. So they were kind of in bed a little bit together.

[28:44] But that never goes very well.

[28:47] Mickey Spillane was very involved in racketeering.

[28:51] Now we talk about racketeering on this podcast, but I don't think we've ever given a definition of what it is and it's relevant to this story.

[29:01] So racketeering is organized crime where a coercive or fraudulent illegal scheme is put in place, where a service is offered but that service is not provided. But money is due for this non existent service.

[29:20] Meg: Like protection.

[29:22] Jessica: Yes, but it's, it's even more, it can be even more elaborate. So you know, we're, we're going to do all of the garbage removal.

[29:31] Thank you for paying us monthly.

[29:32] Meg: Got it.

[29:33] Jessica: We're not doing it. Unions are useful because you could hire no shows.

[29:38] So you get, you get your guys on the books. They never work, but you collect the salary.

[29:44] Meg: I saw that on the Sopranos.

[29:47] Jessica: Indeed.

[29:48] Very easy to do in construction and waste management.

[29:52] You get people on the books and you pay them, but they're never actually there. So that's racketeering.

[29:58] He did a lot of that. He did a lot of construction graft.

[30:02] So again, skimming on construction sites. Maybe you're taking an order that is being delivered and selling it elsewhere.

[30:10] He was responsible for building, or was partly responsible for the racketeering and the building construction of the New York Coliseum,

[30:19] Madison Square Garden and the Jacob Javits Convention center in the 1970s. He got in with the Genovese crime family.

[30:27] They wanted control of the construction that Mickey had going on at the Javits Center.

[30:32] Spillane effectively fended them off. He didn't let them get a piece of it.

[30:38] The Genovese family were ****** off,

[30:41] so they went ahead and killed his top three lieutenants.

[30:46] Not good. Spillane was not happy. Nonetheless,

[30:51] he did not retaliate but he continued his activity.

[30:55] In 1977,

[30:56] Spillane was murdered by a mob contract killer on behalf of Jimmy Coonan, who was part of the Westies.

[31:06] Now, Jimmy Koonin was a bit of a live wire and a bit, let's just say it, nuts.

[31:12] Meg: I feel like we've talked about him before.

[31:14] Jessica: I feel like that's the name of one of the police officers we talked about, but I could just be having.

[31:19] Meg: Aphasia or I could be having deja vu, but I'm pretty sure we've talked about Jimmy Coonan.

[31:27] Jessica: Well, the thing is that Jimmy Coonan saw the writing on the wall. He wanted control of the Westies,

[31:35] and so he got in good with the Italian crime bosses and the crime families.

[31:40] He did a favor for one of the footmen. So that footman turned around, and in 1977, as a way to ingratiate himself with the ascendant boss, he saw the writing on the wall.

[31:52] He killed Spillane for Jimmy Coonan. So Jimmy Coonan was no dope.

[31:58] He turned around and gave the Javits contract to the Genovese crime family, and they gave him a cut, and they made sure that he stayed in place.

[32:08] In fact, the person he gave the contract to was Anthony Salerno. All of that brings us, very unexpectedly to 1982. Okay, and what happens in 1982?

[32:21] I'll tell you what happens. On August 23, 1982, the USS Intrepid is brought to Pier 86 on West 46th Street. It sails into place.

[32:35] The majestic USS Intrepid. Why are you laughing?

[32:39] Meg: The reason that this sounds really familiar.

[32:42] Jessica: Oh, hell.

[32:47] Meg: I totally researched this story, but I didn't write it.

[32:53] Jessica: Oh, I thought you were going to say that. I was so crazy that you've done this story, and I didn't remember that we did it for the podcast. I don't think we did.

[33:01] No, we didn't.

[33:02] Meg: I don't think we did.

[33:03] Jessica: But I have definitely.

[33:05] Meg: But I have been,

[33:06] like, reading in a car on a road trip.

[33:09] And that's why all of this stuff would be like, Jimmy ****. I'm like, yeah, and this second you said Intrepid.

[33:15] It's a good story, Ken. Continue.

[33:17] Jessica: Indeed.

[33:18] So the USS Intrepid sails into Port Forever on West 46 at Pier 86. Now, it took a lot for this to happen.

[33:30] So in the late 70s,

[33:32] a group of rich New Yorkers decided that this would be an important thing to put into the harbor.

[33:42] You know, it's patriotic. It shows the history of warfare It. And it's a museum of what's really cool. And they thought would get a lot of traffic, which is planes and helicopters and submarines.

[33:56] Meg: And I remember that it was. They really thought. Because, like, nothing was going on on the west side at that point. And they were like, this will be a destination.

[34:05] Jessica: Well, unfortunately for them, the construction of the Javits center was happening. Which will come in. In a moment.

[34:12] So in 1978, that was when real estate developer Zachary Fisher got a bee in his bonnet that this should happen. And he chose the Intrepid because it had been in so many.

[34:24] Three wars. World War II, Korea and Vietnam. And it had been decommissioned in 1974. So it was still in good shape. That was the thing.

[34:34] So he decides this is a great idea.

[34:37] It's actually brought into the pier June of 1982, and it opens to the public in August. Now, the museum,

[34:46] interestingly, was staffed by union workers from the ILA local 1909 International Longshoremen's Association. 1909. You just gave that look of. I see where this is connected.

[35:05] Meg: Yeah. It was a woman, right. Who was working.

[35:08] Jessica: Wait, wait, wait.

[35:09] Meg: Sorry, sorry.

[35:09] Jessica: It's coming back to me. Yes. So the museum was staffed by these ILA Local 1909 workers.

[35:16] Now,

[35:17] the ILA had put 30 staff members into the museum, including Sissy Featherstone, wife of Jimmy Coonan's number two.

[35:28] Mickey Featherstone.

[35:29] Meg: Yes. Who was a big.

[35:30] Jessica: No, no, no. Don't say anything. Don't say anything. Don't say anything.

[35:33] So Sissy, on her own, came up with the bright idea that when. And she was selling tickets, she was going to sell them twice.

[35:42] So she sold them, and then she sold them again. Two sets of books.

[35:46] Great.

[35:47] Okay. The Westies are starting to clean up.

[35:50] Yay. So in addition to skimming,

[35:53] this was a wonderful opportunity for the Westies and Jimmy Coonan and Mickey Featherstone to put a whole bunch of no show employees in place. So that's how they were getting the money out of this opportunity.

[36:08] However, the museum was not doing well. It was doing very terribly,

[36:14] partly because of the Javits Center. There was nothing else on the Hudson. The Javits center was being constructed. It was an eyesore. People did. It was also,

[36:24] the city was very divided about. As we've talked about on this podcast about the existence of the Javits Center. So there was just nothing going on. It was deserted. There was nothing to.

[36:34] There was no traffic. And Hell's Kitchen was known as dangerous. It was not a destination.

[36:41] So the museum is Kind of languishing,

[36:44] not doing well.

[36:46] So they filed for bankruptcy in 1985.

[36:49] Because of the bankruptcy, forensic accountants come into play.

[36:56] Forensic accountants are hired to figure out what.

[37:00] What exactly the museum's profit and loss is,

[37:03] and if its report of 16.5 million in assets and 28.4 million of debt is true.

[37:12] So in doing this,

[37:13] they uncovered the skimming and the no shows.

[37:17] Coincidentally,

[37:19] federal law enforcement and New York DA Robert Morgenthau have been investigating the Westies and working on indictments that could take the whole network down.

[37:30] The Intrepid was the tip off that gave them what they needed to connect some of the missing dots in their case.

[37:38] But they still had a problem.

[37:41] They knew what had happened.

[37:43] They knew how it happened, but they didn't know exactly who did it. Okay?

[37:48] So In March of 1987, March 26th of 1987,

[37:54] Morgenthau and U.S. attorney for the Southern District, our old friend Rudy Giuliani. Rudy, dye my own hair, Giuliani.

[38:04] They INDICT the top 10 Westies, including Jimmy Coonan, on RICO charges, including murder, extortion, kidnapping, loan sharking, gambling, and drug dealing.

[38:18] Now, while the Intrepid gave them the proof of activity, again, how are they going to find out who to connect to these crimes?

[38:26] Well,

[38:27] one thing I didn't tell you is that Mickey Featherstone had already gone to jail to cover for Jimmy Coonan.

[38:36] Meg: Okay?

[38:36] Jessica: He didn't enjoy that very much,

[38:39] and he didn't want to get caught up again.

[38:41] So he turned state's witness, and as of 1986,

[38:46] he sent Koonin and eight others down for 25 years. Plus, they went down in 1988. And he has been in witness protection since 1987 and still walks among us.

[39:00] Meg: Do we know where?

[39:01] Jessica: Isn't that the point of protect? Witness protection?

[39:04] Meg: Jimmy the Bull is like, I don't like Arizona. I'm coming back to New York.

[39:07] Jessica: I think Mickey was really happy to be where he was,

[39:10] considering that he had a bunch of sociopaths killing each other that he knew was not going to end well and had been in the midst of all of this. So I can only imagine that she was whisked away with Mickey.

[39:23] But Mickey,

[39:24] very interestingly, was known to be one of the most violent members of the Westies.

[39:29] And nonetheless, he was the one who was like, you know,

[39:33] this may not be the life for me.

[39:36] Okay? So he got smart.

[39:38] And that is how a museum took down the last of the big gangs of Hell's Kitchen.

[39:47] And after that happened,

[39:50] the museum Thrived because the Javits center was finished.

[39:54] All kinds of businesses and restaurants opened in Hell's Kitchen to cater to the runoff from the convention center.

[40:02] And then they found the museum,

[40:05] and it is now one of the top attractions in New York City.

[40:09] Meg: It is. And now they've got that wonderful esplanade that we should have on the east side, too. I'm a little bitter about it, but whatever.

[40:17] Jessica: We will remain bitter. We won't do anything about it, but we will.

[40:21] Loudly bitter. I want an esplanade.

[40:26] So there you go. That is. That is my mob story.

[40:29] You really gave me a heart attack. And I. Because I've done this before where I brought back a topic that we've already done, and I'm like, I don't know where.

[40:36] Meg: Brought back something where I'm like, you told this story before.

[40:41] Jessica: Oh, yeah.

[40:44] Look. I have many. Which is fine. Which is fine. I have many charms, but being organized and remembering things are not among them.

[40:52] Meg: Isn't that crazy? I mean, I thought I was losing my mind or having, like, a deja vu moment, but I totally read. I'm sure many. If your source was in New York Times.

[41:01] I read many of the same New.

[41:02] Jessica: York Times, New York Post, and a great website that's. It's called, like, Mob Corner.

[41:07] Meg: And I can't remember why I ended up not doing. I think I got distracted by something else that, you know, I was like, no, no, I want to do this one first.

[41:14] So I sort of shelved it, but, like, ages ago.

[41:17] So I'm not crazy. Neither of us is crazy.

[41:20] Jessica: Oh, my God. It's like. It's like the opening of the heavens. We've been anointed. Thank God.

[41:35] Meg: I mean, our tie in.

[41:37] Jessica: I mean, writes itself. You know, for all the times that we've been, like, really straining to find.

[41:43] Meg: Something, this is our little holiday gift.

[41:46] Jessica: This is a gift. The mob, the organized crime, and the.

[41:51] Meg: People who supported them.

[41:53] Jessica: Indeed. The killing, the maiming, the hurting, the skimming, and the graft. There it is. That's actually, like, the name of a law firm.

[42:06] That's even better. It.