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Speaker 1: For confidence in your financial plan. Look for a CFP professional.

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Speaker 1: When your financial advisor earns the CFP certification, it means

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Speaker 1: he or she is trained to provide ethical financial planning

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Speaker 1: across a holistic range of topics from retirement and investing

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Speaker 1: to taxes and estate planning, all in your best interest.

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Speaker 1: So with a CFP professional, you'll feel confident in your

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Speaker 1: financial plan today and tomorrow. Three letters do make a difference.

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Speaker 1: Visit Let's make a Plan dot org to find your

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Speaker 1: CFP professional. You realize this is it. This is the

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Speaker 1: last time we're going out in the field together with

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Speaker 1: your fuzzy wandy way at me and my microphone too.

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Speaker 1: Are you going to miss my badge? Yes? Yes, Austin

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Speaker 1: and I have spent a lot of time together and

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Speaker 1: one of our favorite things to do is to tell

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Speaker 1: each other dad jokes. It sounds like your nose is running.

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Speaker 1: Oh god, Tomato, Dad Tomato, Baby Tomater walked down street.

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Speaker 1: Dad Tomato goes back, stumps on baby Tomato and says

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Speaker 1: catch up. He's good. Yeah, I love these jokes. So

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Speaker 1: where are we going right now? We are going to

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Speaker 1: visit the Cubs. We are on twenty third Street, walking

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Speaker 1: in to the law offices of the one and only

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Speaker 1: the law Slinger Roun Koopy. Why why are we going

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Speaker 1: to see Koopy? Because I fucking I'm obsessed with him

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Speaker 1: and I want more. We're going into Ron Coopy's office

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Speaker 1: to interview him about his life and the cases that

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Speaker 1: he's worked on, to get a little bit more of

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Speaker 1: the cubs, because the Coups is the man and he's

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Speaker 1: a great storyteller. Please knock loudly, Hey where are you?

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Speaker 1: I'd see you in a hammock from Crimetown. I'm io

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Speaker 1: till it right. And this is a special bonus episode

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Speaker 1: of the Ballad of Billy Balls. Hello, Hey, Io run Koobi, Hey,

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Speaker 1: how are you good? So where is Billy Balls buried? Now?

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Speaker 1: Just send me all that ship and I'll try to

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Speaker 1: get something out in the next few days. All right,

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Speaker 1: want Wait? What do you mean you get something back

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Speaker 1: to vanyway? I didn't intend. What caused work for you

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Speaker 1: is to submit a fresh oil. Um, my office will

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Speaker 1: do that. I'm pleased to report that Zeno's paradox has

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Speaker 1: been resolved and the arrow indeed has hit the target.

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Speaker 1: The NYPD has sent us a comp if you will,

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Speaker 1: of records do you think there's any possibility that Billy

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Speaker 1: didn't have a gun? Yes, but there's nothing to support

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Speaker 1: that theory and everything to support the notion that the

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Speaker 1: comp is telling the truth. Epilogue three, The Law Slammer. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: thanks for having us. From Ron's writing a floral Hawaiian

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Speaker 1: shirt and shorts and no shoes, We follow a barefoot

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Speaker 1: Ron into his conference room and start talking. Can you

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Speaker 1: tell me about where you come from and how you

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Speaker 1: came to Law a little bit? Can I ask you

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Speaker 1: yes or no? Questions that I read on the internet? Yes?

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Speaker 1: Is it true that you lived in a commune when

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Speaker 1: you were a teenager? Yes? Is it true that you

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Speaker 1: worked on a tugboat in Saint Croix? Yes. Ron didn't

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Speaker 1: want to talk about growing up in Cleveland, Ohio. But

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy four, when he was seventeen, he found

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Speaker 1: himself on Saint Croix in the US Virgin Islands. I

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Speaker 1: was on my way to California from Ohio. I was calling. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I was never really good in geograph. He went down

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Speaker 1: to visit a friend and he had a beautiful to me,

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Speaker 1: beautiful beach house and it was right next to what

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Speaker 1: was then a Calypso bar. This is like to me, paradise,

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Speaker 1: beach bar, beach bar, beach bar, and I don't even

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Speaker 1: have to put shoes on. I mean, it all worked.

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Speaker 1: I got a job on a tugboat and it was

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Speaker 1: like filled with all these old West Indian semen who

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Speaker 1: were always brewing these weird teas from plants and stuff.

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Speaker 1: And I would, you know, trying to make conversation because

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Speaker 1: we didn't have a lot in common, as you might imagine.

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Speaker 1: So I got interested in herbal teas and herbal medicine

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Speaker 1: and West Indian medical systems and stuff. At this point,

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Speaker 1: Ron's eighteen, He's spending his days learning about medicinal plants

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Speaker 1: on a tugboat and then coming home to the beach

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Speaker 1: drinking and getting high and hanging out. Then he met

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Speaker 1: a girl. I fell in love with her, she fell

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Speaker 1: in love with me. She left to go to Maine

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Speaker 1: and Ron followed. But he soon learned a bit more

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Speaker 1: about his sweetheart, sort of discovered that she had slept

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Speaker 1: with pretty much every guy and a substantial chunk of

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Speaker 1: the women in South Portland, which didn't bother me except

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Speaker 1: for the fact that I kept bumping into the wall

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Speaker 1: everywhere and it's like, Hi, yeah, you too cool. Ron

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Speaker 1: decided to get out of there and go to college

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Speaker 1: in Kansas. Was at the University of Kansas, great midwestern institution,

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Speaker 1: where he studied anthropology, focusing on those medicinal plants that

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Speaker 1: he learned about on the tugboat in Saint Croix, African

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Speaker 1: traditions and Spanish West Indian tradition. And he's not shy

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Speaker 1: about how well he did. He had a four oh

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Speaker 1: average and all this other shit. So I was the

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Speaker 1: best anthropology student they had seen in a fucking generation.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I just was. So when a faculty committee

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Speaker 1: turned him down for a big fellowship, he was shocked.

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Speaker 1: And so I'm walking to the bar and I bumped

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Speaker 1: into the head of the committee and I said, Hey,

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Speaker 1: what happened. Why didn't I can't recommend it? And he

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Speaker 1: said the committee didn't like your attitude. So I asked

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Speaker 1: what was wrong with my attitude? And he said, they

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Speaker 1: found you condescending and arrogant. Okay, went to the bar.

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Speaker 1: All the bartender and he said, yeah, you ought to

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Speaker 1: go to law school. They like people like that. There.

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Speaker 1: I wasn't doing anything else that I had nothing scheduled

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Speaker 1: from my future, so I thought, yeah, I signed an

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Speaker 1: idea we may share. While in law school at Cornell,

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Speaker 1: Ron began interning with one of the most famous civil

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Speaker 1: rights lawyers in the country, William Kunsler. William Kunsler defended

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Speaker 1: the Chicago Seven and counted Martin Luther King Junior, and

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Speaker 1: Malcolm X among his clients. There is no credibility in government.

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Speaker 1: It was all lies to justify Wotton cold blooded murder.

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Speaker 1: Public officials who sanction and condone mass murder must themselves

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Speaker 1: be indicted by a civilized society. The first summer of

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Speaker 1: Ron's internship, this is now nineteen eighty two, Kunstler was

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Speaker 1: defending two men in a murder trial, James Yorke and

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Speaker 1: Anthony la Board. York and Laboard were two former Black

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Speaker 1: Panthers who had gotten pulled over for a bad tail

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Speaker 1: light by two police officers, and you know, both officers

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Speaker 1: approached the car in a simple traffic stop. York and

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Speaker 1: Laboard allegedly came out shooting. One of the police officers died,

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Speaker 1: the other was shot many times but survived. And so

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Speaker 1: it was a very very very very high profile trial.

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Speaker 1: And we're going to be opening statements, and there was

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Speaker 1: going to be a lot of media coverage, and I'm

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Speaker 1: just carrying Bill's briefcase. Bill and young intern Ron head

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Speaker 1: off to a courthouse in Queens for opening statements. We're

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Speaker 1: going to the subway and I bend over for something

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Speaker 1: or Bill drops a paper and I bend over and

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Speaker 1: my pants rip right along the middle scene crotch to

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Speaker 1: ass and it's like, I'm I am now freaking out, Okay, Like,

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Speaker 1: I know Bill's concerned about the fate of two black

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Speaker 1: political prisoners and going to prison for the rest of

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Speaker 1: their lives and stuff like that, and I recognize that

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Speaker 1: so really important and shit, but I am like now,

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Speaker 1: and there's gonna be a lot of media there and

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Speaker 1: and Bill looks at me in his way, that's fine,

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Speaker 1: and then says the immortal words, just a cock flop

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Speaker 1: out during my opening might be one of the best

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Speaker 1: stories I've ever heard. Don't let you cock flop out

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Speaker 1: during my heart. Yeah, it's It's not listed in quotes

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Speaker 1: by William Kunstler in NIAC or whatever that is, but

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Speaker 1: their words to live by. Ron continued to work with

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Speaker 1: Bill Kunstler, eventually becoming an unofficial partner in his law firm,

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Speaker 1: and the two men were very close. He was my friend,

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Speaker 1: my mentor, my teacher, my critic, a great guy to

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Speaker 1: hang out with. Guy taught me everything that I know

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Speaker 1: about lawyering, and he was the guy probably most most

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Speaker 1: important in terms of my future career. I mean, all

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Speaker 1: of those things were incredibly wonderful, but he was the

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Speaker 1: guy who got me entree into a world and communities

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Speaker 1: that otherwise would have been alien With Kunstler, Koby worked

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Speaker 1: to defend people like the daughter of Malcolm X, associates

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Speaker 1: of the so called Gambino crime family, and members of

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Speaker 1: the Hell's Angels. So the Ohio Hell's Angels Charter Cleveland

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Speaker 1: charter called Counselor's Office, I think this is in ninety

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three of their members were charged with a

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Speaker 1: murder allegedly, I mean, according to the government, there were

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Speaker 1: two people in Sandusky, Ohio who drove yellow VW microbuses.

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Speaker 1: One of them was a large, heavy set, bearded member

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Speaker 1: of the Outlaws motorcycle club, with whom the Hell's Angels

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Speaker 1: had a longstanding disagreement. The other was a big, heavy set,

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Speaker 1: bearded but utterly harmless record store clerk guests. Which one

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Speaker 1: got killed? Yeah, record store clerk. So the FEDS took

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Speaker 1: over the case, and we're making this a very big deal.

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Speaker 1: And the Cleveland charter of the Hell's Angels called and

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Speaker 1: asked if Kunstler would be interested in the case. Bill

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Speaker 1: said great, you know, so we set a fee that

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Speaker 1: was a lot of money by our standards then, and

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Speaker 1: Kunstler sent me out to pick up the initial retainer

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Speaker 1: or whatever it was. But you know, basically put a

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Speaker 1: face to the firm. Koby flies into Cleveland, and awaiting

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Speaker 1: him at the airport is an escort from the Hell's Angels. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I get in the car with the giant guy who

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Speaker 1: picks me up huge, like human armoire style, and guy

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Speaker 1: looks at me this is hey, are you Jewish? And

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Speaker 1: like I'm processing this question really quickly. It's like, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, my mother's Jewish, so Jews considered be a

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Speaker 1: jew man, I'd be a Jew under the Nuremberg laws,

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Speaker 1: but I don't subscribe either the Halacha or the Nuremberg laws.

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Speaker 1: And I certainly don't believe in any guns. So in

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Speaker 1: my junior right rapid cycling. But I figured, you know,

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Speaker 1: that was not the answer. So I said, yes, this

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Speaker 1: is I am too. And we went first to get

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Speaker 1: something to eat at Corky and Lennies, which is a

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Speaker 1: historic delhi in Cleveland Heights, Ohio where the Hadassa ladies

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Speaker 1: would go and eat corned beef. And we walk in

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Speaker 1: this guy wearing his Hell's Angels patch and me and

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Speaker 1: my suit, and we bump into his aunt who's sitting

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Speaker 1: there with the Hadassa ladies, and she's like, Selins, Oh,

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Speaker 1: how wire you? This is my nephew. It's like fuck man.

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Speaker 1: After what can only be assumed is a delightful lunch,

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Speaker 1: Ron is driven to a meeting point to pick up

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Speaker 1: the first installment of the payment. We go to a

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Speaker 1: nondescript office where I meet some of the other guys

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Speaker 1: and they give me the initial installment, which was fifty

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars, which was a lot of money at that

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Speaker 1: time and certainly more money than I had ever seen

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Speaker 1: in my life. Is cash, yeah, yeah, Staxo hundreds wrapped up.

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Speaker 1: So I have a briefcase and I start loading in

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Speaker 1: the briefcase. The guy crossed the table from me says,

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Speaker 1: aren't you going to count it? I said, no, it's

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Speaker 1: fifty thousand, right, he said, yeah. I said, no, I'm

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Speaker 1: not count it. Not because I trusted them, although I did,

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Speaker 1: but because I'm not going to sit here with a

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Speaker 1: bunch of people watching me one hundred two hundred, three hundred,

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Speaker 1: four hundred, five hundred six. I'm sorry, did I say

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Speaker 1: twelve thousand, three hundred? I was that twelve thousand, four hundred. Yeah. No,

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Speaker 1: I'm not gonna fuck around like this. So I started

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Speaker 1: laying my briefcase and somebody behind me says there's been

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Speaker 1: a change of plans. So I turned around and there's

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Speaker 1: this guy holding an AR fifteen at my head. Oh

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Speaker 1: fuck right, So I look at him, and I look

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Speaker 1: at the gun, and I look back across the table

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Speaker 1: to the person dealing with just sort of waiting in.

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Speaker 1: And what I'm thinking is, well, they certainly didn't invite

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Speaker 1: me out here to steal their own money back and

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Speaker 1: kill me, right, I mean, there's just no point to that.

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Speaker 1: So I don't quite know what's going on, but I'll

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Speaker 1: just sit here and wait for somebody to tell me

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Speaker 1: the punchline. And they all start laughing and put the

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Speaker 1: gun down. Hilarious. I didn't get the joke, it just

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Speaker 1: it didn't make any sense to me. And what I

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Speaker 1: didn't realize really until reflecting it many years later, was

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Speaker 1: this was a gut check. The Swiss their way of seeing.

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Speaker 1: If somebody pointed a gun at the guy who's going

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Speaker 1: to be their lawyer, he would like shit in his piss.

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Speaker 1: I'm oh, that's a gun. Don't kill me, don't I

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Speaker 1: a daughter? And I passed not because I was brave,

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Speaker 1: but because I was confused and bemused, which my guess

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Speaker 1: was a perfectly acceptable substitute for courage. The scare tactic

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Speaker 1: by the Hell's Angels may have been a joke, but

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Speaker 1: later in his career Ron would face a different threat

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Speaker 1: that was definitely real. Sammy the Bull Gravano wanted to

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Speaker 1: murder you. Hopefully the way you said it is accurate

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Speaker 1: past tense. That's after the break, all right. So to

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Speaker 1: get to the point where the lost Slinger, Ron Kuby

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Speaker 1: is receiving death threats from the mobster Sammy the Bull Gravano,

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Speaker 1: we have to go back to nineteen ninety two, Good Evening.

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Speaker 1: It's a guilty verdict that prosecutor's hope breaks the backup

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Speaker 1: organized crime in New York City. Gambino crime boss John

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Speaker 1: Gotti and his co defendant Franklin Casiol guilty on a

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Speaker 1: host of felonies that John Gotti had avoided conviction in

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Speaker 1: three previous trials. But then his one time underboss, Sammy

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Speaker 1: the Bull Gravano, agreed to cooperate with the government and

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Speaker 1: testify against it. Jury believe the government star witness mafia

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Speaker 1: turncoat Salvatore Sammy the Bull Gravano, john Gotti's best friend

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Speaker 1: in betrayer. As part of his deal, Gravano confessed to

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Speaker 1: nineteen murderers and was placed in the witness Protection program.

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Speaker 1: But then he might just be the most famous snitch

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Speaker 1: of all time. But now Salvatore Sammy the Bull Gravano

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Speaker 1: was planning to murder New York City Attorney Ron Kubi.

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Speaker 1: What happened was so fairly short time after he was

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Speaker 1: placed in the witness protection program, a woman came to me,

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Speaker 1: young woman whose father was murdered by Gravano, and she

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Speaker 1: had put together like a loose group of people, almost

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Speaker 1: always the youngest daughters of mob guys who had been

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Speaker 1: killed by Gravano. I mean he was responsible for He

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Speaker 1: took responsibility for nineteen murders. Now after time passed, the

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Speaker 1: youngest daughters were pissed, and we're especially pissed that Gravano

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Speaker 1: was looking as though he was going to profit by

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Speaker 1: writing a book called Underboss. And so they came to

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Speaker 1: me wanting to know if there was something they could do.

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Speaker 1: So there are all these mob princesses walking in and

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Speaker 1: out of my office and it's like, okay, I'll take

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Speaker 1: the case, and they talked me into doing it. I

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Speaker 1: called the press conference to announce the following of the

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Speaker 1: case at Guard Giulio's restaurant in Toney Island, Old Italian

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Speaker 1: place in Brooklyn, and everybody showed up, more cameras than

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Speaker 1: I had ever seen in my life. Families came together

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Speaker 1: for the first time today fighting a book deal that

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Speaker 1: could mean big money. Does Sammy the Bull Gravano? And

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Speaker 1: I do remember thinking myself, holy shit. You know, innocent

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Speaker 1: black man railroaded by crep cops. Two or three reporters

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Speaker 1: on armed black man killed by racist cops, maybe one camera,

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Speaker 1: a couple of local reporters, wall of blonds, everybody. The

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Speaker 1: FBI has rapped Gravano up in the American flag and

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Speaker 1: called a hero and we're here today to try to

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Speaker 1: put an end to that, but that may be easier.

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Speaker 1: So I filed the case, and at that time I

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Speaker 1: had a radio show on WABC, I think it was

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Speaker 1: Saturday mornings at that point, and I would talk about

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Speaker 1: the case Curtis. This was around the year two thousand.

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Speaker 1: The show was called Curtis and Koubi Ron and his

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Speaker 1: co host would talk and argue over current events and

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Speaker 1: take calls from listeners. What I did not know about

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Speaker 1: at that time was something called streaming audio. Yeah, I know,

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Speaker 1: I just didn't know about it. But it was a thing,

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Speaker 1: and it was the thing that mister Gravano had from

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Speaker 1: his home in Arizona. He's still in the Witness Protection program. Well,

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Speaker 1: at some point he had left, but that's not announced.

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Speaker 1: And it wasn't so much the lawsuit that bothered him.

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Speaker 1: It was like a lot of things I was saying

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Speaker 1: about him personally. What did you say? What did I say?

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Speaker 1: You know what? That's actually that's on my tombstone. That's

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Speaker 1: absolutely the one thing I want on my tombstone. Was

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Speaker 1: it something I said? I'm not going to repeat the

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Speaker 1: things that I said, but frankly, had I developed more judgment,

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Speaker 1: which I eventually did. I would not have said them

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Speaker 1: there was no reason for me, as a lawyer to

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Speaker 1: personalize this case against him, but I did. And so

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Speaker 1: he was listening and was getting more and more and

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Speaker 1: more pissed, until eventually he decided that he was going

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Speaker 1: to have me killed. And it was unclear exactly how

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Speaker 1: that is the specific method that was going to be used,

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Speaker 1: but the actual plan had been developed, as I found

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Speaker 1: out in some detail. He had dispatched one of his lieutenants,

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Speaker 1: a guy named Pascucci, to have me killed in Texas.

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Speaker 1: And the idea was that he would call the office

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Speaker 1: and say, hey, you know, my name's you know, Joe whatever,

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Speaker 1: and you know, I'm a friend of somebody who's locked

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Speaker 1: up in Texas. He's heard about you, wants to meet you.

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Speaker 1: But the idea was I would fly down to Texas.

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Speaker 1: I would be met at the airport, which you know

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Speaker 1: people do. I mean, I did the Senate Health Angels,

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Speaker 1: and so I was going to fly down there and

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Speaker 1: you guy picked me up and and the only as

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Speaker 1: the Daily News put it, the only case I would

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Speaker 1: get would be a case of lead poisoning. And I

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Speaker 1: think that he did call but I ad made it

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Speaker 1: a policy not to take cases in Texas after they

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Speaker 1: executed one of my clients, I really didn't want to

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Speaker 1: go back there, so I just never responded. Then when

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Speaker 1: that didn't work, the next place they were going to

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Speaker 1: have me killed. My wife and daughter and I regularly

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Speaker 1: when she was little. When to what's the happiest place

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Speaker 1: on Earth, Disneyland, disney World, I've never been. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I used to go out when she was a little girl.

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Speaker 1: They were going to have me killed at Disney World,

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Speaker 1: the happiest place hung Earth. I mean again, nothing came

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Speaker 1: of it, and there was no like plan whether you

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Speaker 1: know he was going to dress up his goofy or something,

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Speaker 1: because you know, half away in this case law of force,

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Speaker 1: when it was like monitoring the whole thing, not that

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Speaker 1: they bother to give me a heads up and arrested

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Speaker 1: everybody involved, including Gravano. I found out about all of

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Speaker 1: this after it happened. It was a little creepy. There's

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Speaker 1: a daily news. I mean, to cover the daily news

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Speaker 1: with a really bad picture and the headline one mo

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Speaker 1: hit for Sammy. That's insane. But besides just being creepy,

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Speaker 1: I mean, did you feel any stronger feelings. Did you

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Speaker 1: feel scared? Were you scared for your family? You know,

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Speaker 1: it was all after the fact. You know. Let's say

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Speaker 1: you're walking down the street with your headphones on, not

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Speaker 1: paying any attention, and a giant piano falls out the

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Speaker 1: window right behind you. Yeah, I mean, holy shit, that

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Speaker 1: could have killed me. But he didn't. You're safe, would you?

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Speaker 1: I mean I would be more afraid of pianos falling

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Speaker 1: out of windows then, like, were you? Did you think

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Speaker 1: that maybe this wasn't over? Yeah? Yeah, sure. But I

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Speaker 1: also felt that mister Gravano, at that point, facing twenty

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Speaker 1: years had bigger fish to fry, so to speak, than me.

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Speaker 1: Mister Gravano's lawyer, I sort of reached out to her

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Speaker 1: to reach out to him. I heard back that everything's fine.

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Speaker 1: I know mister Gravano was released about a year ago.

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Speaker 1: I think mister Gravano is happy to be out of prison.

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Speaker 1: I think his family's happy he's out of prison, so

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Speaker 1: hopefully everything's fine. Why do you do what you do?

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Speaker 1: Why do you fight for the people that you fight for.

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Speaker 1: I don't know anyone who sincerely knows how to answer

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Speaker 1: that question, because that requires a lot of I think

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Speaker 1: deep understanding of personal motivation. Almost everybody dresses personal motivation

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Speaker 1: in the clothes of doing good, and so I would

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Speaker 1: need much more therapy than I'm interested in, or that

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Speaker 1: have time for, or I care about to unpack that.

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Speaker 1: So I just don't anymore. Ron says he's got more

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Speaker 1: important things to think about. I'm going to work on

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Speaker 1: the case today, and I've got tickets to the Stones

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Speaker 1: concert tonight. Yes, thanks Ron, Yeah, thank you, Ron. You

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Speaker 1: it's a good name. It wasn't bad. Came up with

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Speaker 1: it on the top of my head. I hope you're

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Speaker 1: not going to the bathroom barefoot? Are you doing barefoot? Bathroom? Roun?

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Speaker 1: Oh my god? Be careful, oh god. And one of

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Speaker 1: the one of the things that I try to do

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Speaker 1: is to teach by example. And if enough guys see

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Speaker 1: me standing there in the men's room by the uneral barefoot,

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Speaker 1: they'll stop peeing on the floor, I believe. But I

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Speaker 1: hope for you. Thanks Ron, and thanks to everyone listening.

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Speaker 1: I'll see you next week. Crimetown is Zach Stewart Pontier

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Speaker 1: and Mark Smirling. The Ballad of Billy Balls is hosted

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Speaker 1: by me Io till it Right and Maiden partnership with

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Speaker 1: Cadence thirteen. You can find me on the Internet and

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Speaker 1: Io loves you on everything And if you want to

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Speaker 1: know more about my story, pick up my memoir Darling Days.

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Speaker 1: We have a voicemail setup for you to call us.

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Speaker 1: Here's a message about the cubes we got this season.

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Speaker 1: Ron Kobe's a cool motherfucker. If you'd like to leave

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Speaker 1: us your own voicemail, please do I love it so

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Speaker 1: much give us a haul at five to seven zero

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Speaker 1: three nine two nine six six zero. This episode was

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Speaker 1: produced by Me and Kevin Shephard. Our senior producers Austin Mitchell,

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Speaker 1: editing by Zach Stewart Pontier and Mark Smerling. This episode

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Speaker 1: was mixed by Sam Baer, music by Kenny qcac. Our

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Speaker 1: title track is Dark Allies by Light Asylum. Thanks to Daniella,

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Speaker 1: Ariah rachel Leie Wright, Emily Wiedemann, Green Card Pictures, Alessandro Centaurro,

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Speaker 1: Bill Clegg, Ben Davis, Orn Rosenbaum, the team at Caden's thirteen,

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Speaker 1: and Andrew in San Francisco, and of course, my mom,

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Speaker 1: without whom none of this would be possible.