Speaker 1: Ridiculous. Crime is a production of My Heart Radio? Is
Speaker 1: Aaron done? Oh? Nothing? How you doing girl? I'm good?
Speaker 1: Um listen, you know it's ridiculous. I have been waiting
Speaker 1: to see you because I have got a fresh ee
Speaker 1: for you. All right? You ready? Yes? You know? Baseball
Speaker 1: players are hell of superstitious. Yes? Did you know that
Speaker 1: some of them pete on their own hands? And it's
Speaker 1: not a superstition. They do it for Skincare you no that?
Speaker 1: I swear to God. Chicago Cubs outfielder Moises so Lou
Speaker 1: has gone on the record saying that he urinates on
Speaker 1: his hands during the season, throughout the season. He's not alone.
Speaker 1: There are other ones like Je Posada, he said, and
Speaker 1: I quote, you don't want to shake my hands during
Speaker 1: spring training, and he on their hands because they believe
Speaker 1: it toughens them up. Now, I looked into it and
Speaker 1: there is your eha in urine, and it is something
Speaker 1: that you'll find in like moisturizers, lotions creams. But it
Speaker 1: is used to soften the skin, not to harden it.
Speaker 1: So they're in there, in there, I don't know, the
Speaker 1: locker room, urinating on their hands in the shower, thinking
Speaker 1: they're doing something, they're doing the exact opposite. And I
Speaker 1: looked up the fact that if you wanted to actually
Speaker 1: have this work, you would have to like pee in
Speaker 1: a bucket and then soak your hands for like five minutes.
Speaker 1: So you can't just like pee on your hands and
Speaker 1: that'd be enough to get to you into one big bucket.
Speaker 1: They could like soak their feet in it. Yeah, that's ridiculous,
Speaker 1: urinating on yourself. And I'm making this is like that.
Speaker 1: That is male skincare if I've ever heard of it. Wow, Yeah, ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Hey do you want to know what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 1: I'm here for it. Strip clubs, elected officials, lots of cash,
Speaker 1: and last Vegas. How did I know that last part
Speaker 1: was coming? This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd
Speaker 1: and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always murder free
Speaker 1: and one hundred percent ridiculous. Let's talk about Vegas, Baby, Vegas.
Speaker 1: You know, like it's one of those places that people
Speaker 1: have strong opinions about it. Do you like it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I do in a in a certain way, a certain way,
Speaker 1: like driving away? Why not? No? I don't like going
Speaker 1: is like I'm a Vegas tourist. Whim. I'm not a gambler.
Speaker 1: I want to go to a conference there. You don't
Speaker 1: want to go with a bunch of people for like
Speaker 1: a hen party or whatever they call no bachelorette. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you suddenly English. I like that. This is more fun. Um. No,
Speaker 1: I got family there, so I like seeing my family
Speaker 1: in their cool parts to Las Vegas and old downtown. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool too. Yeah. I had family there for
Speaker 1: a while, so that's all I know. I so we
Speaker 1: know it. We're insiders. Yeah. So Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada,
Speaker 1: United States Planets. I've been there. Yeah, you have um
Speaker 1: in the nineties, do you remember the nineteen nineties? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just after the eighties. Totally were you right before?
Speaker 1: Were you born then? Was I around or was I
Speaker 1: born in the nineties, which is the question were you
Speaker 1: Were you alive in the nineties. I was totally alive
Speaker 1: in the nineties. I can't prove it, but I was.
Speaker 1: In the nineties, Vegas tried to have this like whole
Speaker 1: family friendly thing going on. Okay, that's when they opened
Speaker 1: the ex Caliber Hotel all ladies. Yeah, um, and they
Speaker 1: did Paris and all those like the Island, the big
Speaker 1: pirate ship out in front. Um. They had video game
Speaker 1: arcades put in, and a lot of the casinos have
Speaker 1: like kid friendly shows. The MGM Grand put in a
Speaker 1: theme park kind of it's not there anymore, but they
Speaker 1: used to have like an amusement park behind the hotel
Speaker 1: um and then went and wild the water slide park
Speaker 1: on the strip. So lots of family stuff going on
Speaker 1: in the nineties. Here's the problem. Gamblers didn't really want
Speaker 1: a lot of kids scurrying around under feet kids like
Speaker 1: little ash trays. The kids can't be hanging out on
Speaker 1: the casino floor and so it's like, well, they can
Speaker 1: can't be breeze through. You can be in transit walking through. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But then that's so, you know, there was way more
Speaker 1: money to be made in like the escapist, high end
Speaker 1: fantasy getaway for adults than in the family stuff. So
Speaker 1: eventually all that went away, and then the whole what
Speaker 1: happens in Vegas Days in Vegas thing, Oh that was subsequent. Okay,
Speaker 1: They're like, we know we're a money yeah, let's let's
Speaker 1: they overcorrected. They were like yeah, so um, but in
Speaker 1: the middle of the family friendly fun era, UM the
Speaker 1: Las Vegas Sun newspaper called the nineties quote a golden
Speaker 1: age for political corruption in Las Vea. So we got
Speaker 1: all this family stuff and it is just scandal after scandal.
Speaker 1: Once again, getting back to basics exactly, I'm going to
Speaker 1: tell you about a truly Vegas scandal that involves all
Speaker 1: the good Vegas elements. It's got strip clubs, check, cars, check,
Speaker 1: cash check, check, liquor che check, real estate development, emergency,
Speaker 1: roadside assistance. I think I got Bengo the Patriot Act
Speaker 1: Ski school. I definitely okay that you did this. So
Speaker 1: and it also has a fantastically ridiculous name. But I'll
Speaker 1: get to that. The crime is crime, like the whole thing,
Speaker 1: the whole story. Let me let me set the stage first.
Speaker 1: So Michael Gallardi, he's the owner of Cheetah's Strip Club
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas. Familiar, Yeah, it's famous. It's where show girls. Yeah.
Speaker 1: His dad was a man named Jack Gillardi, and he
Speaker 1: owned about fifty strip clubs all around the country. And
Speaker 1: he has a nickname like Big Jack Gillardie Jackie. Um.
Speaker 1: So Michael's grows up with this dad who owns all
Speaker 1: these strip clubs. He's a sign of strip clubs. Yes,
Speaker 1: he's ambitious. He wants to be like Pops. So he
Speaker 1: sees the success of Cheetah's and he wants to expand.
Speaker 1: So he gets all these architects and designers and they
Speaker 1: draw up his vision for a mega strip club like
Speaker 1: the Final Boss of Strip Cheetahs, but like with a
Speaker 1: buffet line and a sushi bar. Got you. This one's
Speaker 1: going to be located a mile off the strip, on
Speaker 1: the other side of fifteen. If you're familiar with Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: Clark County, Nevada, USA, or Earth, So there's pretty much
Speaker 1: nothing around it in he's trying to scope this out
Speaker 1: and it's not really that different. Despite the incredible development
Speaker 1: in Vegas over the decades, this place was enormous twenty
Speaker 1: seven thousand square feet. Damn, that's a warehouse. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like a home depot of taking your clothes off and
Speaker 1: like those forkliss blocking aisles. Sometimes, um, it looks like
Speaker 1: or it's more like a Costco edge stripping the end
Speaker 1: of a nile, so it looks like a little pasties.
Speaker 1: It looks like it looks like a mini Bellaggio. They
Speaker 1: get it all drawn up proto Tuscan meets grecians, stucco columns,
Speaker 1: desert fever dreams, quasi Mediterranean and luxurious. Yeah, which is
Speaker 1: like that is that has become Vegas architecturally, Like we
Speaker 1: get an urn in here, yeah, and some columns. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna need some palm tree okay, big arches, cold detailing. Course,
Speaker 1: you gotta mix in some Moorish too, Hediterranean. And you
Speaker 1: know what, they wanted to call it Jaguars because jaguars
Speaker 1: che is fun to say because it's like kind of
Speaker 1: like cheater che. Jaguars is like a bad football team.
Speaker 1: He's like, you know what, sexy? Well, and then the
Speaker 1: next one is cougar. The senior said, no, have you
Speaker 1: ever heard of jaguars? Okay? Um? It was the first
Speaker 1: mega gentleman's club in Las Vegas. Okay, And I stopped
Speaker 1: getting Mega Gentleman's club quarterly, so I don't keep up
Speaker 1: on the industry anymore, right, right. They had booze b
Speaker 1: o z alcohol, full nudity. Oh wow, so no food?
Speaker 1: They did have food. I don't know, he needn't ship
Speaker 1: why not? How it goes? You know what, Let go
Speaker 1: there and let's go into the earthiness of it. Um
Speaker 1: and then Also, what they said were full contact lap dances.
Speaker 1: It's like tackle lap I was not flag contact. Flap
Speaker 1: you around a little bit. But that's the problem right here,
Speaker 1: full contact. An ordinance had just been proposed that would
Speaker 1: prohibit all touching between dancers and patrons. I'm sorry, I'm
Speaker 1: still in full contact lap dance over here. I've imagined
Speaker 1: going to the doctor. Violent. What happened, Mr Burnett, Well,
Speaker 1: I got a boob in the eye. Docket hit me dance.
Speaker 1: I know someone who had his nose broken by some
Speaker 1: memories industrial string industrial. It was full contact. Yeah, no, anyway,
Speaker 1: so that's amazing that with that aside um, the ordinance
Speaker 1: was saying that you couldn't know touching between dance there's
Speaker 1: and patrons will there goes the full contact except for quote,
Speaker 1: hand to hand, tipping, hand to hand. Yeah, no sitting
Speaker 1: on anybody, no squatting around, no rubbins, just delicate pirouettes
Speaker 1: and then like a chased handover of a crumpled dollar
Speaker 1: bill from the sweaty paw of a patron to the
Speaker 1: beglittered hand of a dancer. That's what that was. Don't
Speaker 1: mind the cocaine, Yeah, don't exactly step over the pile
Speaker 1: of cocaine on before. How did this ordinance come to
Speaker 1: be introduced? You're wondering, Not really, but I was the
Speaker 1: city council. They had a mandate from Okay there it
Speaker 1: is one of the one of the Clark County commissioners,
Speaker 1: and they're like county supervisors, but with an incredible amount
Speaker 1: of power. So Clark County, where Las Vegas is located,
Speaker 1: the county commission just like runs everything. Okay, so it's
Speaker 1: very like the South where the county's running more than
Speaker 1: the city. Right. So one of the Clark County commissioners
Speaker 1: heard from the cops that quote, blatant sexual acts were
Speaker 1: taking place in some of the clubs under the guys
Speaker 1: of flap dancing. Now blatant is that like a criticism
Speaker 1: or hello, where have you been? Like did you just
Speaker 1: get born there? Like come on for you? Like no,
Speaker 1: everyone knows this is what happens, right, come on, that's
Speaker 1: the deal. It's like massage part of this because they
Speaker 1: have back problems. So this Clark County commissioner disgusted, enraged
Speaker 1: truly or it was an election year for real, and
Speaker 1: then she proposes a no touchy ordinance. That's what hands off. Um.
Speaker 1: So this proposed ordinance plus zoning use permits, plus liquor
Speaker 1: licenses plus other bureaucratic issues were big trouble for Michael Galardi.
Speaker 1: So she hit him with the book basically like here,
Speaker 1: here's a list of things you gotta checked in. People
Speaker 1: contact and lawyers are gonna help you with it. Good luck.
Speaker 1: His dream was in dangers erin Oh, just drowned in paperwork.
Speaker 1: Enter Lance Malone, the red tape cutter. I mean the
Speaker 1: name right, Gallardi. He reaches out to Lance Malone at
Speaker 1: the end of Lance Malone, I just like saying his
Speaker 1: name Lance Malone, or like a magician. But this is
Speaker 1: that Lance Burton is a big magician. Lance Malone. He
Speaker 1: was another Clark County commissioner. He was a pal of
Speaker 1: Gallardis from high school and he'd been on the commission
Speaker 1: for two years when Galardi reached out. They make a deal,
Speaker 1: GALLARTI says, I'm gonna pay you five thousand dollars a
Speaker 1: month in exchange for favorable votes. You got a new job,
Speaker 1: that's all corruption. Now you have two jobs. Um, that's
Speaker 1: a damn fine deal. I'd say that's a pretty good deal.
Speaker 1: But it's going to take more than just one vote
Speaker 1: to get GALLARTI what he wants. It wasn't like it
Speaker 1: was like a tipping point thing seven person commission, and
Speaker 1: so he he wants to lock him in. He's I
Speaker 1: don't want, I don't want. So Malone is like, I
Speaker 1: can think of three colleagues who could be bribed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: He's like, just off the top of my head, I
Speaker 1: got three. We're kind of a block. Malone starts by
Speaker 1: suggesting sheet because like it's like an algorithm, like work
Speaker 1: out with grafts and um. He starts testing this woman
Speaker 1: Aaron Kenny, and she was a former casino waitress who
Speaker 1: opened an advertising firm in nineteen nine and then she
Speaker 1: gets elected to the Clark County Commission in two thousand.
Speaker 1: When Gallardi approached her, she was thirty nine years old.
Speaker 1: It's pretty young. Like, so in total over the years,
Speaker 1: Aaron Kenny accepted between a hundred and fifty thousand and
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand dollars from Gallardi, which is a pretty
Speaker 1: good chunk of change for not a lot of work.
Speaker 1: But there's a good amount of risk, right, This is
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars a month, and she got a hundred fifty. Well, no,
Speaker 1: I malone is pretty. He's just break him off. He's
Speaker 1: doing special deals for each one, so um Gallardi. He
Speaker 1: also claimed to have a number of quote intimate encounters
Speaker 1: with Kenny in that time. They were cash, they were
Speaker 1: cashing in chips. Yeah, so here's my favorite cash transaction.
Speaker 1: Uh So Aaron Kenny meets up with Michael Gaillardi at
Speaker 1: the site of his new home in the hills overlooking Vegas,
Speaker 1: and before they're going to meet up in a construction trailer,
Speaker 1: they're like, la, la, you know how to treat all Gallardi.
Speaker 1: He's like standing at the trunk of his car for
Speaker 1: a while. What's he doing. He's counting out ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in bills on the trunk of his car. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and then he's putting him into a special container
Speaker 1: for her, something luxurious. Sarah, What luxurious container was that?
Speaker 1: The Crown Crown Royal bottle? You got it? The bag,
Speaker 1: the Crown Royal bag. Yeah, He's like, I want something
Speaker 1: special for my lady before we go into this cone.
Speaker 1: He gave her ten in a velvet Crown Royal bag. See,
Speaker 1: you know how to treat a woman, right, Like a
Speaker 1: romantic oh yeah, the way you do anything is the
Speaker 1: way you do everything, and how there's a crown royal
Speaker 1: kind of guy. I like to look, baby, I did
Speaker 1: it right. I feel that velvet. Wow. So anyway, so
Speaker 1: he runs for governor lieutenant governor lieutenant governor in two
Speaker 1: thousand two, and like right before the election, her campaign
Speaker 1: the balance was negative three d and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: She was in debt. Her campaign was right before writing
Speaker 1: a lot of checks or campaign couldn't. That's a lot
Speaker 1: of debt for that kind of campaign. But later she
Speaker 1: had missed us stealing a lot of money from her
Speaker 1: campaign was the one. She's the one who yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So she's you know, she has she's in the situation.
Speaker 1: She calls Lance Mellow, he's her own consulting team, and
Speaker 1: she says asks about GALLARTI and quote, tell me what
Speaker 1: I've got to do, but I've got to have money
Speaker 1: from him. I'm on my knees begging. So right after that,
Speaker 1: she gets a check from GALLARTI for tho dollars. She's
Speaker 1: three fifty and he's like like here, I poured a
Speaker 1: little drop in the bucket. The bucket back. She lost
Speaker 1: the election. Yeah, so she she was never charged with
Speaker 1: campaign finance crimes, even though she was also wrapped up
Speaker 1: in other bribery charges related to money that she got
Speaker 1: from these real estate developers. So she was dipping all
Speaker 1: over the place. She gave up her commission seat, and
Speaker 1: then she later got a gig as a consultant with
Speaker 1: one of the real estate developers who was paying her
Speaker 1: off before. And that's how that works. I think you
Speaker 1: know what her new salary was at that gigo. Dollars
Speaker 1: a month. Dang, dang, dang. Okay, let's take a quick break. Wait,
Speaker 1: dollars a month, a month, so that's thirty thousand every
Speaker 1: two months, and then that's a hundred and eighty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year as a consultant for the real estate agents.
Speaker 1: Not already Okay, that's a side, yes, yes, totally paper um.
Speaker 1: All right, so quick break, and then we come back.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you about the rest of the murderers
Speaker 1: row he assembled. There's more, all right, sus Aaron. When
Speaker 1: we were last here before, we went outside and ran
Speaker 1: around and I got I got all musty and dusty. Well,
Speaker 1: I like to go out and exercise and kind of
Speaker 1: like get my energy out because I'm a really high
Speaker 1: energy person. What's Elizabeth like? High energy person? Yeah? She
Speaker 1: speaks really really quickly. She hates to be comfortable, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: She loves stress and inconvenience, so frustration is her jam.
Speaker 1: So before we went out and did wind sprints in
Speaker 1: the street, UM, I was telling you about Michael GALLARTI
Speaker 1: strip club man. Uh, Lance Malone bag man, and then yeah,
Speaker 1: and then commissioner Kenny councilwoman Kenny. I guess she was
Speaker 1: a commissioner, um, and how she was going to be
Speaker 1: making what do we calculated out a d as a
Speaker 1: quote unquote consultant. I could do that, um anyway, So
Speaker 1: we've got two more people that Lance Malone has to
Speaker 1: bring on board in order to be able to fix
Speaker 1: Still got the gated votes for Glarti because you got
Speaker 1: to get Jaguars open. Come on, we're all about innovation
Speaker 1: in this world. What's next mega stair conditioning bill for
Speaker 1: that place? Oh my god, you're right. And then like
Speaker 1: disinfectant okay, so just drained in the middle. You know
Speaker 1: how in Vegas, like it's so hot and it's such
Speaker 1: a dry heat that like you rely on evaporative cooling,
Speaker 1: and they're all those spray systems to keep well. They
Speaker 1: just put disinfectantly with disinfect and glitter glitter identified. Oh
Speaker 1: you've been in jaguar as you're covered in a fine
Speaker 1: patina of glitter. You put a black light on him. Alright,
Speaker 1: So Lance Malone, he's he's paid vote number one. Aaron
Speaker 1: Kenny paid vote number two two more number three. Mary
Speaker 1: Kincaid Chauncey. Yeah, she owns a flower shop at and
Speaker 1: she also served on the Commission from to two thousand
Speaker 1: and four. She was six seven years old when she
Speaker 1: was approached by Gaillarti in two thousand. He's got a
Speaker 1: pair on him to go to a sixty seven year
Speaker 1: old flower shop owner and being like, hey, can I
Speaker 1: make you dirty strip into a florist? I mean, come on,
Speaker 1: you gotta have some stones to walk into a florist. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that he uh Gallardi said he paid her eighty
Speaker 1: five grand in total over their business relationship. That's nothing
Speaker 1: close to what Aaron Kenny was getting, but she was
Speaker 1: also not getting anything close to but still it's a
Speaker 1: good amount, right, m have been freaky So August two
Speaker 1: thousand one, Mary Kinkaide Chauncey. She gets eight hundred dollars
Speaker 1: from Gallarti via Lance Malone, and then she votes to
Speaker 1: approve a liquor license for Jaguars. Good that she checked
Speaker 1: it off. Good to her money. She confirmed her integrity
Speaker 1: was worth the low low price of thirty eight Like,
Speaker 1: who cares what the votes for liquor whatever touches. But
Speaker 1: it's a bummer, like for it to be known you
Speaker 1: can be bought for so little. Do you think that,
Speaker 1: like the correct people are getting together and being like,
Speaker 1: here's her price, I'll tell you right now. Or is
Speaker 1: it one of those things that people don't talk about
Speaker 1: salaries where they don't talk about your corruption amounts, Like
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how much. You know that you
Speaker 1: can get what you need for thirty eight hundred, But
Speaker 1: they're like, you know, wait till after the holidays and
Speaker 1: then prices go down. We've got grandkids, so she'll put
Speaker 1: out a lot for the holiday. It was August two
Speaker 1: one hundred October two thousand one. She gets five grand
Speaker 1: from Malone up and then she voted to approve additional
Speaker 1: liquor licenses for his clubs. So okay, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: it was it was more than one. She understands the assignment.
Speaker 1: She later gets five grand um that she said was
Speaker 1: a campaign donation for her son's unsuccessful bid for North
Speaker 1: Las Vegas City Council, and then she set up some
Speaker 1: sort of strip club event for her adult son. Does
Speaker 1: Nevada even have campaign finance or overside or is that
Speaker 1: like they have like a law against it they like
Speaker 1: you cannot look at she sets up a strip club
Speaker 1: party for her adult son. I don't know if it
Speaker 1: was a campaign event, like I told you, Mary freaky
Speaker 1: like I got that from her right away. Mary, I
Speaker 1: set up a party by strip club for my son.
Speaker 1: By the way, I'm gonna need Bunny to be there
Speaker 1: because she's my favorite. That's just what moms do for
Speaker 1: their boys. Yeah, I mean, that's what my mom did
Speaker 1: for my seventh birthday. Party. Was so nice of her.
Speaker 1: I've seen the picture Misty Mountains was there was amazing.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't mind to go with the
Speaker 1: literate like like Misty Canyon's I got nothing. It was.
Speaker 1: It was a formative experience for you. Okay, So March April,
Speaker 1: I'm just listening them. This is fun. Can I take
Speaker 1: over July August, your turn, March April. You messed it.
Speaker 1: You gotta go back. That's the order. They're in A
Speaker 1: two I'm sorry to March April tune two thousand two.
Speaker 1: She gets we're talking about you know, of course, Mary,
Speaker 1: what's her bucket? She gets three more five thousand dollar payments,
Speaker 1: and then she continues to vote in favor of Gallardis
Speaker 1: clubs flowers. The flower shop needs a new roof. She did, though,
Speaker 1: she voted in favor of the no touching rule. So
Speaker 1: she voted I don't understand, and voted in favor of
Speaker 1: the no touchy rule. So that means she said no
Speaker 1: touching in the clubs. So what everything that Gallardi didn't want?
Speaker 1: So she approved the liquor, she approved the licensing, everything else.
Speaker 1: But she's like, but you can't allow the dancers to
Speaker 1: touch them. So either she got confused and thought she
Speaker 1: was just supposed to vote yes on everything, or my
Speaker 1: guess is that it allowed her plausible to my ability.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing with that one, because she's like the old lady,
Speaker 1: not old lady, but she's like a six seven year
Speaker 1: old grandmother. She can't be in there going. I think
Speaker 1: the dancers should be able to put the boobs in
Speaker 1: the guy's faces, dollar bills and do each other's faces.
Speaker 1: Everything else is pro business. Yeah, you can do that
Speaker 1: and so and I'm figuring she knew that there were
Speaker 1: enough votes to cover the You know that it would
Speaker 1: it would be knocked down. Yeah, if you're going to
Speaker 1: throw the World Series, you gotta get a couple of hits. Exactly, exactly,
Speaker 1: So the ordinance was not approved. They could touch all
Speaker 1: they wanted, full contact. Stripp eron ees Um, here's something
Speaker 1: I love, Zaron, Yes, is it trains? No? I do
Speaker 1: love trains. So um. According to Gallardi's later testimony, Kinkaid
Speaker 1: Chauncey also asked Gallardi for fifteen thousand dollars so she
Speaker 1: could send her grandson to ski the grandkids. Yes, I'm on, Mary, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got my thumb with She asked for fifteen thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: and GALLARTI was like, here's four grand He's just the
Speaker 1: constant lowballing. He's consistent with that. Let's make a deal.
Speaker 1: Like you're desperate, I'll give you four grands. Did your
Speaker 1: grand water school to going to like Shamany Maybe he's
Speaker 1: maybe he's gonna train for the Olympics, or maybe that
Speaker 1: was when she said that she did air quotes around
Speaker 1: ski school. Really is Cocaine's like, my grandson has a
Speaker 1: ski school problem and I need to get help for him,
Speaker 1: need to go to school. Um, so we've got we've
Speaker 1: got Kinkaid, Chauncey, We've got Aaron Kinney, We've got lots
Speaker 1: malone and then all of these overseas by the LARTI
Speaker 1: we need one more vote. Yes, we got to get
Speaker 1: it over the top. And that brings us to Dario Herrera. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've gotten a good feel on Dario. Well, okay, in
Speaker 1: two thousand, he's twenty seven years old. I love this,
Speaker 1: I know. And he's the chairman of the Commission. So
Speaker 1: he's already dirty. Yeah, well he's just like, no, someone's
Speaker 1: behind he's chairman at He's made big moves for a
Speaker 1: young guy. He's handsome. Yes, he's a former UNLV football player.
Speaker 1: Oh so he's a local hero, super charismatic. Well, he
Speaker 1: was raised in Miami by a single mom, came to
Speaker 1: the US from Cuba, and he's in Vegas. Charismatic guy.
Speaker 1: He's like this big rising political star. He spoke at
Speaker 1: the two thousand Democratic National Convention. Really yeah, wow, he
Speaker 1: was on track to like go far. He was a
Speaker 1: protege of the U. S. Senator from the Great State
Speaker 1: of Nevada, Harry read UFO, Harry the late Harry Reid,
Speaker 1: that was like one of his mentors. So he was
Speaker 1: like he was in position, and Harry Reid ran a
Speaker 1: pretty queen ship from what I le. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: not one of the like Louisiana. Harry Reid was a
Speaker 1: really really good man, really good man. Um So. In
Speaker 1: late so this is before he speaks at the Democratic
Speaker 1: National late nine, Lance Malone approaches Herrera about a bribe
Speaker 1: in exchange for favorable votes for Galarty. Hey, you want
Speaker 1: to join our team, he will give you five grand
Speaker 1: a month. So he's like getting he's getting Lance Malone
Speaker 1: level money because he's the Cheese of Caman and he's
Speaker 1: just you know, he's he's going to be there for
Speaker 1: a while. Yeah, And it's like he know, we can
Speaker 1: hitch a wagon to this star. Yeah, he's right, You're right,
Speaker 1: he's a rising starts and you're gonna want to get
Speaker 1: sway with him, right. Herrera accepts. He says, all right,
Speaker 1: He's like I like new trucks, and he gets paid
Speaker 1: fifteen to twenty times between late nineteen and mid two
Speaker 1: thousand three from a mouse between five thousand and ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars each time every month. Yeah, pretty much. So
Speaker 1: he's just GALLARTI said. Over the course of four years,
Speaker 1: he paid Herrera about two hundred thousand dollars. How much
Speaker 1: is this warehouse of stripping worth that he's just able
Speaker 1: to check after month after it just to get it proved. Well,
Speaker 1: he has all their money. Figure he's gotten another money,
Speaker 1: but in his mind it's worth it so much. That
Speaker 1: tells us how much they're making. Yeah. Yeah. So in addition,
Speaker 1: Herrera and his friends quote were treated to thousands of
Speaker 1: dollars and drinks and lap dances at Mr Galardi's clubs.
Speaker 1: So he's getting the cash and then he and his
Speaker 1: pals can just roll into whichever going to get like
Speaker 1: the full V I P S treatment young men. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've seen it. They love that. They do love that
Speaker 1: so and none of it was ever reported by Herrera
Speaker 1: on financial disclosure forms. How would you put that? You
Speaker 1: would have just like, I mean, you've got to drinks,
Speaker 1: free drinks or you know whatever, the you know, dance
Speaker 1: like strenuous activity on my lab. And it's going to
Speaker 1: need a receipt for that use calisthetics full contact Caalisthetics UM.
Speaker 1: Spring of two thousand one, Gallardi paid for a golf
Speaker 1: outing for Harrera, again not reported UM, during which Harrera
Speaker 1: later admitted that he received sexual favors from a cheetah dancer.
Speaker 1: Behind the bushes, It's like something out of an eighties movie, right,
Speaker 1: it is gross? Okay, not because of three. Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: Like why I think it's so gross. I'm not. I'm
Speaker 1: not hung up on the like public fornication, whatever. I
Speaker 1: don't want to look. I don't want to say that
Speaker 1: is gross. But here's what's gross. When I hear about
Speaker 1: these kind of trips, like behind the bushes, you start
Speaker 1: picturing cartoon people don't know, Well, that's how I normally picture,
Speaker 1: but in this case, no, it's the opposite. I start
Speaker 1: thinking like like stuff about ants and small small small
Speaker 1: sticks and like dog poop hidden and leaf piles. That's
Speaker 1: what's behind bushes, you guys. And they want to go
Speaker 1: back there. Who knows spiders. They're doing public corruption, public fornication,
Speaker 1: and you're like, have you guys, thought about the spine.
Speaker 1: I'm saying, you're gonna go and like remove at least
Speaker 1: some clothing and you're in. You could be standing in
Speaker 1: a pilot dog poop. Not if there's just a bunch
Speaker 1: to leave something. Are you really enjoying it? Well? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so anyway, gross, very gross. You know it's like you
Speaker 1: always see like even in movies where couples like are
Speaker 1: reclining in a meadow just like kissing. They're they're on
Speaker 1: thinking time you're watching, you're likens pokey rock sticks, you know,
Speaker 1: like a centipede, a caterpillar. Would that be like fun?
Speaker 1: Do you ever imagine the fun? How many caterpillars have
Speaker 1: you smashed? And now we won't have now we won't have.
Speaker 1: But over here you're like, well, you know we if
Speaker 1: we walk, we're taking steps on the into the life form.
Speaker 1: That's why I float everywhere. So anyway, herreras and dog
Speaker 1: poop and leaf piles um Herrera he wasn't brand loyal
Speaker 1: when it came to entertainment because he also allegedly got
Speaker 1: free services at strip clubs not owned by Gallardi, Like
Speaker 1: he went to Crazy Horse two and Olympic Gardens, and
Speaker 1: they were like Dario and so September two one, he
Speaker 1: just became a college athlete and never looked back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: completely wotly. Could you imagine if he never got caught
Speaker 1: and like today we're like President Herrera has imposed full
Speaker 1: contact strip clubs at all voting location. Yea, if he
Speaker 1: didn't get caught, Yeah, okay, he'd be senator president. I'm
Speaker 1: with you. Go. On September two one, Lance Malone gives
Speaker 1: Dario Herrera quote thousands of dollars in cash in a
Speaker 1: car outside Landry's Seafood restaurant on West Sahara Avenue. Please
Speaker 1: tell me there was like a brown paper bag and
Speaker 1: in there. This is not glamorous stuff. Like they're not
Speaker 1: in tailored state. They are in a strip mall parking
Speaker 1: lot across from Palace Station Casino, which is like a
Speaker 1: local casino on the strip. Someone's always not a cigarettes.
Speaker 1: They're handing each other a couple of thousand dollars. Like
Speaker 1: when you think about the volume of money to be
Speaker 1: made at the strip clubs, which they we've seen, like
Speaker 1: the amount that Doti is willing to spread around, but
Speaker 1: then also how much he's willing to break him off.
Speaker 1: He's always lowballing. He's not giving them huge portions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so it's kind of crazy, like he's these little
Speaker 1: pittances really to these guys. Um and then Gallardi also
Speaker 1: offered Herrera a Lincoln Navigator, which Herrera declined. He called
Speaker 1: the suggestion quote a little bit too obvious. He's like,
Speaker 1: Zaren's going to talk about trucks. Yeah, this is like,
Speaker 1: you know, like number three on the list of what
Speaker 1: a young man on whose corruption is going to be
Speaker 1: doing can navigate? The navigator? Is it black with tinted windows?
Speaker 1: It should have been like a Ford to Yes, nobody
Speaker 1: would look at that, No one, No one expects that,
Speaker 1: just like the Spanish inquisition. September two one that same month,
Speaker 1: as they sat in the parking lot of a defunct
Speaker 1: now closed steakhout or seafood restaurant, Harrera voted to approve
Speaker 1: a liquor license and they used to permit for jaguars.
Speaker 1: Finally got in his vote. So we got Gallardi, the
Speaker 1: strip club King, Lance Malone, the bag Man, Kenny Kinkaid,
Speaker 1: Chancey Chauncey whatever, Herrera, Girl, Mary and Herrera lots of cash,
Speaker 1: Ski school in delicate acts on the golf course, let's
Speaker 1: take a break. When we come back, I'm going to
Speaker 1: tell you how it worked out for all them, So,
Speaker 1: Saron Elizabeth. When we left off, Michael Michael Gallardi strip
Speaker 1: club King was paying off four Clark County commissioners in
Speaker 1: order to get the appropriate approvals and expand his empire
Speaker 1: of Las Vegas gentlemen's clubs. Make the dream of Jaguars
Speaker 1: come true. People need it's so important, so full contact, touchy,
Speaker 1: touchy and totally nude. And the crab rangoon, I mean
Speaker 1: like we're talking bare souls of feet. Um. So aside
Speaker 1: from his places in Vegas, now, I just can't think
Speaker 1: of crab ringing things of that nature. So besides the
Speaker 1: places in Vegas, Gallardi he also owned a street club
Speaker 1: in San Diego, which also was named Cheetah's. You know,
Speaker 1: just worked the first word the brand. In the late nineties,
Speaker 1: the FBI first began investigating Alarty after rumors emerged he
Speaker 1: was using his San Diego club to launder money for
Speaker 1: drug dealers. Oh yeah, that investigation didn't go anywhere though, However,
Speaker 1: during its course, the FBI caught Galardi saying, quote, I
Speaker 1: own every county commissioner in Vegas. Right now, I've got
Speaker 1: them all on the payroll. That's not something you should
Speaker 1: brag it up. Yeah, just stated right, that's something you
Speaker 1: think in your head and you're like, no, you go, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty cool. Um. And they're like smiling and nodding
Speaker 1: about nothing. Don't worry about it. It's none of your business.
Speaker 1: I just think funny thinks sometimes. So cool um. Okay.
Speaker 1: And with that, this new this new operation, this new
Speaker 1: FBI endeavor is born, and it's called Operation g Sting.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I like it. Yeah they do. They do
Speaker 1: it up right. You have to say the a lot
Speaker 1: and we have to type it a lot. So let's
Speaker 1: make it something dumb. Guys, they just want to close
Speaker 1: mouth chuckle, Operation g sting. Can you imagine them coming
Speaker 1: up with like they're having a little meeting and the
Speaker 1: guys are throwing names and like the brainstorm on the whiteboard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to know the ones that were rejected. Thunderstruck
Speaker 1: not thunderstruck again, but we could do like the song
Speaker 1: don no aberation nid is. So this Operation g Sting
Speaker 1: was a joint effort between the FBI, Las Vegas Metro
Speaker 1: Police Department and the I r s oh. I thought
Speaker 1: you're gonna say one of your TV shows and the
Speaker 1: b A U and they're like Las Vegas C S
Speaker 1: I and Engine one eight from Los Angeles Fox TV
Speaker 1: show nine one one. I've never show, but what I
Speaker 1: love about it is it wherever they're located in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: They also answered calls all over l A County, anywhere
Speaker 1: anywhere like Elsinore. They'll be. They can go to Vegas.
Speaker 1: Why not a lot of peoples stop at Baker and
Speaker 1: they pose in front of the giant thermometer. It um,
Speaker 1: all right, where were we? FBI? Vegas, Metro I R S.
Speaker 1: So the FBI they used video surveillance and wire tapped
Speaker 1: phone calls between Lance Malone, Michael Galardi and the other suspects.
Speaker 1: A lot of the conversations that they listened to happened
Speaker 1: in one of the Commissioner's cars, which had what the
Speaker 1: legal documents referred to as a quote on Star type
Speaker 1: navigation system. So they keep saying an on Star type.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was actually on Star or whatever.
Speaker 1: The Star like, look, we don't want to hurt the brand,
Speaker 1: and so for clarification on Star, can you name another
Speaker 1: so it's it's a subscription based communication serve some cars.
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen that ad where someone totals their
Speaker 1: car and it's all out of it and then the
Speaker 1: on Star operator comes on and tells them they're brave
Speaker 1: and okay and to live their truth. No, well, we
Speaker 1: don't watch TV, so we've never seen it. But apparently,
Speaker 1: yeah it is. It's pretty funny, like the on Star
Speaker 1: you're going to be okay, don't You're ones like you know,
Speaker 1: we've seen that you've been in an accident. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: do that. Yeah, but I didn't know we go to
Speaker 1: like live your truth. Now they don't. I was making
Speaker 1: that part of but you've believed it, I sell it
Speaker 1: so good. Um alright, so uh, it's got all the
Speaker 1: emergency stuff also hands free calling in GPS, navigation, and
Speaker 1: then remote operations to the car itself. Down was super
Speaker 1: technologically advanced in those days. That was like it was
Speaker 1: expensive and it was like a high end thing to
Speaker 1: have in your car. Um. The FBI asked the quote
Speaker 1: on Star type company to put the system in the
Speaker 1: commissioner's car into what's called stolen vehicle recovery mode. That yeah,
Speaker 1: stolen vehicle recovery mode opens up a communication line to
Speaker 1: the car so that anyone monitoring the system can hear
Speaker 1: what's going on in the car without the occupants knowing it.
Speaker 1: Back in the early two thousands, now these days, stolen
Speaker 1: they have stolen vehicles slow down where they remotely slow
Speaker 1: a stolen car to stop. There's remote ignition blocks, so
Speaker 1: if a car gets stolen, the ignition gets deactivated, so
Speaker 1: if it's shut off, the thieves can't restart it. I'm
Speaker 1: guessing that's like for carjackings. They're stolen car injection seats
Speaker 1: right out of the top of the car, and then
Speaker 1: there's one where as soon as they started back up again,
Speaker 1: the like floor of the car is just covered an
Speaker 1: old desiccated French fries and it smells bad. And then
Speaker 1: ants come and they're like, oh, that happened to me
Speaker 1: once in the bushes, So I won't tell you what
Speaker 1: I'm differing back there. So, like, the company initially complied
Speaker 1: with the FBI requests, but then they resisted, and then
Speaker 1: the case went to the courts, where eventually the Court
Speaker 1: of Appeals ruled that the eavesdropping was not allowed, but
Speaker 1: not because of privacy concerns, and I guess technical commercial
Speaker 1: concerns basically the copyright. No. The court said that by
Speaker 1: both getting close. The court said that by putting the
Speaker 1: quote on Star type system in recovery mode quote, it
Speaker 1: would render it inoperable in an actual emergency. So it
Speaker 1: was more consumer safety than privacy. You're no longer getting
Speaker 1: what they paid for. Their privacy is a myth babyce
Speaker 1: the commercial issue no worries. FBI is like, guess what, guys,
Speaker 1: We've got the Patriot Act. That means that we can
Speaker 1: get evidence in other places. So, just to recap, the
Speaker 1: USA Patriot Act was enacted right after and the two
Speaker 1: thousand one Anthrax attacks. Remember those, Um, did you know
Speaker 1: that USA Patriot is an acronym for uniting and strengthening
Speaker 1: America by providing appropriate tools required to intercept and obstruct terrorism.
Speaker 1: Remember it was dumb because you can see the poor
Speaker 1: assistance and staffers trying to come up with Again, I
Speaker 1: would like to see the rejected list yes, yes, of
Speaker 1: acronyms for US Patriot Act. So the Patriot Act has
Speaker 1: three main areas. First, it expanded surveillance abilities phone tapping
Speaker 1: both domestic and international, to interagency communication regarding resources and
Speaker 1: counter terrorist efforts, and then three increased penalties for terrorism
Speaker 1: crimes and an expanded list of activities which would qualify
Speaker 1: for terrorism charges. That's a huge one right there. So
Speaker 1: like the really worrisome parts of the Patriot Act where
Speaker 1: the authorization of indefinite detention without trial of foreign nationals
Speaker 1: a little recent and then um, the permission that was
Speaker 1: given to law enforcement to search property and records without warrant,
Speaker 1: consent or knowledge war untless wire tapping and search because
Speaker 1: like basically the FBI could issue their own subpoenas and
Speaker 1: those were called National Security letters, and that would order
Speaker 1: businesses or organizations to surrender data and documents without probably
Speaker 1: cause or judicial oversight. Yeah. And the back dooring right
Speaker 1: where they just allow them to go in well yeah,
Speaker 1: because like the letter contained a gag order, which meant
Speaker 1: that the recipient couldn't disclose that the that the letter
Speaker 1: was ever used. In Operation g sting Um, the FBI
Speaker 1: used the recently pass Patriot Act to quickly obtain financial
Speaker 1: records of its targets. And this is the first time
Speaker 1: that the Patriot Act was used against local politicians Vegas,
Speaker 1: neither Vegas or Miami. They were neck and neck on that.
Speaker 1: So like, basically, the FBI sent a letter to the bank,
Speaker 1: no judge looked at it to approve it. The bank
Speaker 1: had one designated person who received these letters. Since generally
Speaker 1: legal counsel um, the designated recipient had to turn over
Speaker 1: the files to the FBI, and the bank couldn't tell
Speaker 1: the customer whose files were turned over that they had
Speaker 1: been handed off to the FEDS. All this is happening.
Speaker 1: They have no idea. It's a situation that's completely ripe
Speaker 1: for fishing expeditions. And then the definition of terrorism got really,
Speaker 1: really broad, so everything's running amok um. When the use
Speaker 1: of the Patriot Act in these cases was made public
Speaker 1: in two thousand three, Representatives Shelley Berkeley of Nevada, she
Speaker 1: was then a representative, said quote, I didn't vote for
Speaker 1: the Patriot Act to allow the FBI to go after
Speaker 1: strip club owners. Well, well, guess what happened. You didn't
Speaker 1: read the whole thing. And so the executive director of
Speaker 1: the a c LU commented, quote, no one can suggest
Speaker 1: that they are in any way, shape or form involved
Speaker 1: with terrorist activity, meaning the strip clubs. And then Senator
Speaker 1: Harry Reid of Nevada to old the New York Times
Speaker 1: quote he was not aware that the money laundering provision
Speaker 1: was in the bill when he voted for it in
Speaker 1: late two thousand one. He said he did not expect
Speaker 1: the bill to be as widely used as it had
Speaker 1: been in domestic investigations that had little or nothing to
Speaker 1: do with international terrorism. He said he thought the bill
Speaker 1: was about thwarting terrorists, not, as he put it, quote
Speaker 1: naked women. The FBI, however, said the patriarch was used
Speaker 1: quote clearly within the legal parameters of the statute. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Zaren Elizabeth, I want you to close your eyes. Wait wait, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want you to picture it. Oh. Yes, It's mid
Speaker 1: May two three. It's a weekday afternoon. You're the mop
Speaker 1: boy at Jaguars and you've just started your shift. The
Speaker 1: new shift of dancers has also just arrived, and they're
Speaker 1: getting ready in the dressing rooms. You're hanging out in
Speaker 1: the manager's office, going over the supply list and catching
Speaker 1: up with the manager himself, a guy who later identified
Speaker 1: himself in the press as just joe Ce. Okay, uh.
Speaker 1: You hear a commotion out in the lounge. You hear
Speaker 1: that you guys exchange glances just like the countless times
Speaker 1: before when you both figure a fight or of some
Speaker 1: sort is going on, and like Joe's got to go
Speaker 1: assist the bouncers and shutting it down. He opens the
Speaker 1: office door and there are two agents with their guns
Speaker 1: drawn staring back at him. You slide down in your seat. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: other agents are using a battering ram to open the
Speaker 1: liquor room door. They're reckoned shop. I'm not getting paid tonight.
Speaker 1: It's a good old fashioned FBI raid baby now. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I put the mob down, Grab what every booze you
Speaker 1: can walk on and see what you can pawn. Gilardi.
Speaker 1: Other Vegas businesses Cheetahs and the Leopard Lounge. Uh they
Speaker 1: were also rated, as well as Cheetas in San Diego,
Speaker 1: which was also being investigating. Um I love the San
Speaker 1: Diego to Vegas pipeline. Oh it's it's strong, it is real,
Speaker 1: it's real, it's here, it's not going anywhere. It is angry,
Speaker 1: is so living. It's truth right now? Um So what
Speaker 1: were the suspicions that the FBI had. According to their
Speaker 1: search warrant, they were looking for financial records, receipts, canceled checks,
Speaker 1: campaign contributions, improvised explosive devices, yes, like glitter bombs, of
Speaker 1: any records about gifts to Clark County commissioners and their
Speaker 1: spouses dating back now. It should be noted that when
Speaker 1: they brought in Aaron Kenny for questioning, she almost immediately
Speaker 1: admitted she'd been taking bribes and agreed to testify for
Speaker 1: the prosecution. Immediately She's like, he's like digging, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a seat. I took bribes. They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: oh wait, we thought you were someone else. In September
Speaker 1: two thousand three, Gallardi pleading guilty to conspiracy in San Diego.
Speaker 1: He testified that he gave thirty four thousand, five hundred
Speaker 1: dollars in cash and contributions to three city councilmen there.
Speaker 1: So I mean he is spending a lot of money
Speaker 1: in various municipalities. In return, he wanted them to repeal
Speaker 1: a two thousand law that prevented strip club patrons from
Speaker 1: touching dancers. He's really into context. He wants people to hunk.
Speaker 1: He just wants to get people together, coziness and touching
Speaker 1: and people like you know that someone loved them. He
Speaker 1: just likes cozy things, coziness of incredible amounts of money.
Speaker 1: He succeeded, the law was repealed. Um he gets sentenced
Speaker 1: to fifteen months in prison for bribing San Diego officials.
Speaker 1: He told the reporters in San Diego that the bribery
Speaker 1: was quote, just part of business. He wanted to explain,
Speaker 1: I grew up in Vague and that is just part
Speaker 1: of how you do business. Do you know who my
Speaker 1: dad is? I think I think people feel the same
Speaker 1: way everywhere about politicians. People think they're all corrupt, and
Speaker 1: I agree with them. I can buy anybody. In October
Speaker 1: of two thousand three, just a month later, he pleads
Speaker 1: guilty to one count of violating the Rico Act. Always
Speaker 1: with the Rico, always with the most powerful legal development.
Speaker 1: It's remarkable. Um. He said that over a period around
Speaker 1: the decade, he paid out over four thousand dollars to
Speaker 1: public officials. It's not that's actually yeah, it's less than
Speaker 1: I would have thought, yeah, based on how much he
Speaker 1: was thrown around. But that's what he said anyway. So
Speaker 1: there was a Department of Justice press release that said, quote,
Speaker 1: some of the matters which the defendants corruptly influenced included
Speaker 1: the passage of a Clark County ordinance that increased the
Speaker 1: separation between strip clubs from five hundred to one thousand feet,
Speaker 1: the issuance of zoning, use permits and liquor licenses for Jaguars,
Speaker 1: the controlling and harassing of Galartiss and his competitors, the
Speaker 1: defeat of a proposed ordinance that would have prohibited all
Speaker 1: touching between dancers and patrons except hand to hand tipping.
Speaker 1: So it's like they increased the amount of space, but
Speaker 1: then also you know they controlled and harassed his business competitors,
Speaker 1: and that's what are you gonna do. So the trials
Speaker 1: for the Las Vegas Clark County Commissioners um all of
Speaker 1: them involved, began in the spring of two thousand and
Speaker 1: six and it lasted more than seven weeks. Gilardi testified
Speaker 1: that his bribery of Vegas public officials first started back
Speaker 1: in when he paid then then councilman to solve a
Speaker 1: licensing issue around Cheetah's right after it. I was just
Speaker 1: sixteen years old. He was looking for his dad in
Speaker 1: the summer. This is a hard working kids, he said.
Speaker 1: He paid another unnamed politician five thousand a month in
Speaker 1: the mid nineties in return for political influence. Uh He
Speaker 1: claimed that many other city officials, including the mayor, various judges, cops,
Speaker 1: district attorneys, had also been bribed and or bribed and
Speaker 1: or bribed you know that's a new thing, or given
Speaker 1: perks like free drinks, lap dances, sexual favors whenever they've
Speaker 1: visited Cheetahs, golf clubs in the area, or you know,
Speaker 1: poop bags for going behind bushes. Um. He said that
Speaker 1: he had fifteen to forty attorneys on the list who
Speaker 1: could quote get free drinks and lap dances at Friday
Speaker 1: afternoon lawyer days at his club. Friday afternoon lawyer he
Speaker 1: held lawyer days. You're going to lawyer days down to
Speaker 1: Cheetahs and then. But all the other officials he referred
Speaker 1: to were never charged. And it should be noted that
Speaker 1: defense lawyers for all these former county commissioners, they claimed
Speaker 1: that Glardi was prone to making wild accusations, exaggerations, and
Speaker 1: outright lies. Now did the commissioners get through their trials
Speaker 1: soon enough to go back and get re elected immediately?
Speaker 1: Because figuring Vegas politics, there's still Lance Malone. He was
Speaker 1: charged in Las Vegas with conspiracy, wire fraud, extortion under
Speaker 1: color of official right. Rico Caterminal forfeiture, you know, just
Speaker 1: a grab bag and so at first he pleads not guilty,
Speaker 1: but then he gets convicted in the San Diego case.
Speaker 1: Because I guess he's dipping into the situation out there,
Speaker 1: he changes his plea. He pleads guilty in Las Vegas
Speaker 1: to violating federal racketeering laws for bribing commissioners. Okay, so
Speaker 1: he he pleads guilty. In two thousand and seven, he
Speaker 1: was sentenced to six years in prison and he was
Speaker 1: released inn He ran a pizza shop when he got out,
Speaker 1: but it's closed now and I have no idea what
Speaker 1: he's up to these days. Was the pizza not good
Speaker 1: or did the front dry up? Who knows its front?
Speaker 1: I hope he's living his best life. I hope he's
Speaker 1: living his truth. I'm always reading for that me too,
Speaker 1: U Dario Herrera. He pleaded not guilty. He said that
Speaker 1: the only money he accepted from Gallardi was a ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollar campaign contribution. Um. He did admit that he'd
Speaker 1: get free lap dances, and he did admit to an
Speaker 1: affair with one of Gallardi's employees. He was found guilty
Speaker 1: of the affair of so mid two thousand and six.
Speaker 1: He gets convicted of seventeen counts out of nineteen that
Speaker 1: he's charged with of corruption, wire fraud, conspiracy, extortion. He
Speaker 1: gets sentenced to fifty months in prison, a fifty dollar fine,
Speaker 1: and then he had to fourfeit sixty grand more than
Speaker 1: four years. He did thirty months in prison, so just
Speaker 1: under three years. Um July, while still on supervised release,
Speaker 1: he was arrested on a charge of domestic battery in California.
Speaker 1: It kind of started spiraling, but by seventeen he was
Speaker 1: running a marketing company and volunteering at an organization that
Speaker 1: helped people find work after being released from prison. So yeah,
Speaker 1: and here's some here's some quotes from him. I accomplished
Speaker 1: great things and then I did some terrible things, and
Speaker 1: I failed miserably and spectacularly, over and over and over again,
Speaker 1: like okay, I am a Fitzgerald story of America. He
Speaker 1: said I was unfaithful, I was very arrogant. I thought
Speaker 1: I was above the law. And then he said, I
Speaker 1: wanted to repair the relationship with my kids. I wanted
Speaker 1: to make amends with those I've hurt, including the community.
Speaker 1: And here I am, you know, eight years later, finally
Speaker 1: being able to stand up in front of people and
Speaker 1: admit the things I did. So here we have this
Speaker 1: guy at the time of the downfall political golden boy
Speaker 1: could have been a national figure. You know. So he's
Speaker 1: repairing things apparently you're undone bias hubs and now he's
Speaker 1: repairing his human Yeah. Yeah, so again he's another we wish.
Speaker 1: I wish he's living his best life. Mary Kinkaid Chauncey
Speaker 1: with Florence, my girl. She's the one she wanted to
Speaker 1: ski school, ski school for her grandfa. She gets convicted
Speaker 1: on thirteen of fourteen counts of corruption. Uh he gall
Speaker 1: already testified that he paid her between seventy five and
Speaker 1: eighty five thousand dollars. She gets busted for accepting more
Speaker 1: than seventeen thousands. So I guess the you know fuzzy numbers.
Speaker 1: Both her son and her daughter testified against her, against
Speaker 1: her embarrassed, I'm guessing it's the son who you know,
Speaker 1: your mom throws you an event in the strip club
Speaker 1: and look at that ungrateful wretch. Then he son who
Speaker 1: didn't get the party, not one for Trevor or not
Speaker 1: for me. Despite despite the evidence against her, she maintained
Speaker 1: her innocence, and she later appealed her case but lost,
Speaker 1: so she was sentenced to thirty months in prison. She
Speaker 1: was also fined around seventy s ordered to give back
Speaker 1: d dollars in goods Ski's give us all the Skis.
Speaker 1: She spent two years in prison and after her release
Speaker 1: she worked at the Las Vegas Church. She insists to
Speaker 1: this day that she was wrongfully convicted um, even though
Speaker 1: there's ample proof in en she talked to the local
Speaker 1: channel eight news. Um she's a great grandmother of twenty
Speaker 1: five now, by the way, and she said she wants
Speaker 1: a pardon. She said, quote, I don't think I ever will,
Speaker 1: but that would be nice to do that, because I
Speaker 1: don't know if there's a stigma to it. Does she
Speaker 1: know that a pardner is ultimately an admission of guilt?
Speaker 1: Apparently not. So then we get to Aaron Kenny, Aaron,
Speaker 1: the one who started as a casino waitress, opened an
Speaker 1: ad agency, connoodled with Gallarti, took bribes right and left girl.
Speaker 1: She pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiracy and fraud,
Speaker 1: and then she and Gaillarti joined forces and testified against
Speaker 1: everybody to her. So she gets she gets sentenced to
Speaker 1: thirty months in prison and is given a very large fine.
Speaker 1: She spent around twenty six months in prison. She gets
Speaker 1: released in June of two thousand nine. Um. She still
Speaker 1: owed a hundred and thirty thousand dollars in fines for
Speaker 1: her conviction. Um, she's another one who seems to have
Speaker 1: dropped off the radar. I did find that she seems
Speaker 1: to have some sort of consulting business. Now I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you the honest to God's truth. I
Speaker 1: have people I could ask who would tell me exactly
Speaker 1: where she is, but I'm not going to do that. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll ask you later. Thank you so. Michael Galardi he
Speaker 1: pleaded guilty, as we know, to that one count of
Speaker 1: racketeering in Vegas in two thousand and seven. He was
Speaker 1: sentenced to thirty months in prison. Because of his cooperation
Speaker 1: with the FBI and the fact that he was not
Speaker 1: an elected official, the judge gave him a lighter sentence
Speaker 1: and the key to Las Vegas. He also had to
Speaker 1: pay five thousand dollars in fines. He's got the money. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He had to forfeit three point eight five million dollars
Speaker 1: to the government for what just just like like you know,
Speaker 1: you got the money. It's dirty given to us. We
Speaker 1: threw darts at a board. This was the number we
Speaker 1: came up with. He also had to give up his
Speaker 1: business interest in both Cheetahs and Jaguar. I don't need
Speaker 1: to sell it to his cousin or whatever. Pretty much,
Speaker 1: he was allowed to serve both his San Diego and
Speaker 1: Las Vegas sentences concurrently, and by he said he was
Speaker 1: no longer running strip clubs. What is he doing? I
Speaker 1: don't know. Now he's in a used car deal who knows?
Speaker 1: Who cares? The neon sign at Cheetahs in Vegas came
Speaker 1: down and the club was officially closed. It's now called
Speaker 1: the Library Gentleman's Club and according to its website, it's
Speaker 1: Las Vegas is only premium full nude strip club. Okay,
Speaker 1: truth be told. I'm pretty sure I've been there. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you have. I have a friend who lives in Vegas,
Speaker 1: and I quote unquote friends. Yeah, he's a ski instructor.
Speaker 1: But I have a friend who lives in Vegas. He actually,
Speaker 1: I swear to God, a DJ, and he would take
Speaker 1: me to places that DJs take you too. And that
Speaker 1: was one of them, well still glitter on. Probably every
Speaker 1: time you sneeze, couldn't get it out of the dress.
Speaker 1: So with the toppling of the cheetah sign, which I
Speaker 1: don't do, you needed a moment. So ends another ridiculous
Speaker 1: chapter in Las Vegas history. And that's my tale of
Speaker 1: Operation g sting that. What's your ridiculous takeaway? Aren't you
Speaker 1: happy as I'm over here just beaming like I got
Speaker 1: like rosy cheeks like that in the glitter that's the shine? Um.
Speaker 1: I think my ridiculous takeaway is if I was to
Speaker 1: open a strip club, I wouldn't name it after like cats,
Speaker 1: I would, but I would pick an animal and it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be like one you would think of. It would
Speaker 1: be like, I don't know, like ard Varks is exactly
Speaker 1: like the rusty armadilla. You're like, why would that? How
Speaker 1: is that sexy? I'm like, exactly, I'd open slots. It
Speaker 1: would just be like a bunch of gals lay it
Speaker 1: around and like really comfortable like comfortable valure. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: like really soft socks and like you know, you just
Speaker 1: get to recline and lay around and pay to say
Speaker 1: sexy things they know, and then the clients walk through
Speaker 1: and they look at you hang down to the sexy
Speaker 1: part and if they stare for too long, you go
Speaker 1: get out of here. Come on, now, what do you
Speaker 1: think I'm doing here? We're a bunch of slots and
Speaker 1: it's like it's toasty and chill. There's leaves on the ground.
Speaker 1: Leaves on the ground in the back of the club
Speaker 1: for those who were so inclined. I like the Since
Speaker 1: you asked, what's your ridiculous takeaway? I like I like
Speaker 1: all the ridiculous details and things just in general in life. Um,
Speaker 1: but I and and in our stories are fun stories
Speaker 1: that we share. But like this one has really good
Speaker 1: little details. The crown royal bag, Dude, I can't I
Speaker 1: still can't believe that. Like, if you're going to give
Speaker 1: a gift of love put in I want to think
Speaker 1: what could hold money? And that what would be money size?
Speaker 1: And you're like, what holds money? What would I use
Speaker 1: to woo a lady? Yeah? What was the most decaded
Speaker 1: thing I can think of? Super fancy? Wow, they're rich.
Speaker 1: I like the guy you know fooling around in the
Speaker 1: bushes you do with the ants on? The ants on
Speaker 1: is crawling up that Yeah, they're brush, they're finding ants
Speaker 1: like an hour later, like coming out of their shirt. Um,
Speaker 1: and there's like what do you smell that? And they're
Speaker 1: checking their shoes like lifting. Um. I love the request
Speaker 1: for ski school, but oh my god, everything about Mary story,
Speaker 1: all of it is so mundane and cheap. It's also
Speaker 1: foolish and greedy. But it's mundane and cheap, and like,
Speaker 1: I think my takeaway is that the things that we
Speaker 1: think are edgy and necessary and desired are pretty ridiculous
Speaker 1: when you see it from a distance. Yeah, it's it.
Speaker 1: So that's it for today. You can find us online
Speaker 1: at Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram. Hey you
Speaker 1: do you have a tip for us about a ridiculous crime?
Speaker 1: You want to hear about? Email us Ridiculous Crime at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. They couldn't they forward me these emails? Um,
Speaker 1: God bless the person who is supposed to be running
Speaker 1: that email anyway. Yeah, do you need advice about criming?
Speaker 1: You know, asked Saron Um. Twitter has jokes while twitters
Speaker 1: around uh Instagram as pictures. You know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm trying to get into my
Speaker 1: I have a shift at exactly I know you're about
Speaker 1: to be yes, it starts in like ten. I can't
Speaker 1: just you know, I'm not a robot, Szaren. I can't
Speaker 1: just turn it on and off. I have to transition
Speaker 1: just putting into slippers slippers and laying down. I'm an
Speaker 1: artist and in the biz we like to to present fully.
Speaker 1: So whatever with your social media's and your you know what,
Speaker 1: it's the whole Internet. It's going to collapse any day now, anyway,
Speaker 1: who cares. I saw an avenue five that were running
Speaker 1: out of lithium, so yeah, yeah, so you know, if
Speaker 1: everything breaks, then I'll just like record these on the real,
Speaker 1: too real, and leave them in the bushes and people
Speaker 1: can dig them out and listen, look at for the
Speaker 1: dog poop. That's it to the next sorry. Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 1: is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarin Burnett, produced and
Speaker 1: edited by Mayor of Magic City Dave Kusten. Researched by
Speaker 1: on Star operator Marissa Brown. The theme songs by Thomas
Speaker 1: Make It rain Lee and Travis Cheetah Boy. Dutton Executive
Speaker 1: producers are Glitter Remover, Ben Bolan and Loose Slight Heeled
Speaker 1: Polisher Noel Brown Say It One more Time. We Dequeous.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeart Radio. Four more podcasts.
Speaker 1: To my heart Radio, visit the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.