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Speaker 2: Previously on Crook County, Kenny got some new orders, so.
Speaker 4: Not only working and running whorehouses, I'm doing occasional hits
Speaker 4: on the site, all right ordered hits.
Speaker 2: And we met a new boss.
Speaker 1: Big Fat Pollie. He always gave me my assignment.
Speaker 2: Kenny's twin brother, Rich revealed an abusive childhood.
Speaker 5: I remember eating dog food because I was so damn hungry.
Speaker 5: You know, some of the torture stuff I wouldn't. I
Speaker 5: never speak of it ever.
Speaker 2: And remembers Ken as a troubled kid.
Speaker 5: You could see why he could be an enforcer because
Speaker 5: he just had that mentality, very violent mentality.
Speaker 2: My name is Kyle Tequila. Welcome to Crook County.
Speaker 1: There was up evil in the synding in the outfit.
Speaker 1: At that time.
Speaker 4: The clubs were being taken over by different factions drugs.
Speaker 1: There was a there was a big turf war for drugs.
Speaker 4: There was a lot of upheoval at that particular time,
Speaker 4: so I was able to backdoor my shit out at
Speaker 4: that time.
Speaker 2: Episode six. Fire in the Sky.
Speaker 6: They're reporting this afternoon on the worst commercial air disaster
Speaker 6: in the United States commercial aviation history.
Speaker 4: There was a plane that went down in Chicago at
Speaker 4: DC ten that I actually witnessed.
Speaker 1: This plane going out.
Speaker 6: At o'hairfield, Flight one ninety one, American Airlines bound for
Speaker 6: Los Angeles. The account of possible disaster victims is ranges
Speaker 6: from two sixty three up to two hundred and seventy nine,
Speaker 6: some as high as two hundred and ninety.
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy nine, the tragic crash of American Airlines
Speaker 2: Flight one ninety one.
Speaker 6: Shocked the hew Hill is now in position at o'harefield
Speaker 6: to give us our first direct on the scenes report.
Speaker 7: You're standing at the oasis on the Toll Road overlooking
Speaker 7: the seed of this crash. There are no survivors, No survivors.
Speaker 2: Ken was leaving a shift at the club and stopped
Speaker 2: to pump gas at a station near O'Hara Airport when
Speaker 2: he witnessed the plane make a cartwheel in midair and
Speaker 2: nose dive into the ground shortly after takeoff.
Speaker 8: Many rescue vehicles leaving the area, more coming in fighting
Speaker 8: rush hour traffic to get there. Just an unbelievable sight.
Speaker 8: Hundreds of people milling around wishing that they could help,
Speaker 8: wanting to help.
Speaker 3: I'm sure, but the heat is.
Speaker 8: So intense from the smoldering wreckage it's almost impossible to
Speaker 8: get close to some of the areas of the plane
Speaker 8: that are left.
Speaker 2: The scene left an enormous impression on Kenny's mind, and
Speaker 2: over the course of the next few months, an idea
Speaker 2: began to form that maybe one day he could be
Speaker 2: a firefighter.
Speaker 4: It's just like I saw all the fire trucks, the police,
Speaker 4: everybody converging in on this.
Speaker 1: I'm like, Dad, I'd be a cool job, dude.
Speaker 9: They are still taking bodies out every few minutes. The
Speaker 9: firemen are still here. All of these emergency emergency personnel
Speaker 9: quite dedicated to the task, highly professional people, but of
Speaker 9: course touched by the emotion of this this day and
Speaker 9: this night.
Speaker 4: So I just did a little bit of research. And
Speaker 4: back then research he had to go to a library,
Speaker 4: you know. So I did a little of a research,
Speaker 4: and I knew I did not want to be in
Speaker 4: the outfit of my whole life. It's just I just
Speaker 4: knew I didn't want to do that. And even though
Speaker 4: I was on natural but I just simply didn't.
Speaker 1: Want to do it.
Speaker 2: But it was only an idea, and a crazy one
Speaker 2: at that. He was deep in the outfit and there
Speaker 2: was no way they would ever let him go. So
Speaker 2: he put it behind him and went back to work.
Speaker 4: But I always knew, and this is kind of a
Speaker 4: and this is kind of bizire, but I always knew
Speaker 4: that the less I knew, the better chance I had
Speaker 4: of surviving. Now we flipped that coin. I'm doing hits,
Speaker 4: all right. You know that's knowing too much. So I'm
Speaker 4: in the mode of, you know, don't get nosy, don't
Speaker 4: ask questions.
Speaker 1: Do your job and go home.
Speaker 4: However, I guess the people that are attracted that business
Speaker 4: and are in their business are not There's no paper trail.
Speaker 4: And back then it was strictly papers, no computers, and
Speaker 4: I had strictly paper. And if you didn't have a
Speaker 4: paper trail, you didn't exist. These people were living, they
Speaker 4: were tangible, They ate, they breathed, they did bad.
Speaker 1: Things, but they didn't exist.
Speaker 4: Everything was done with cash, you know, Like I said,
Speaker 4: you walking to a goddamn car dealer and nineteen seventy
Speaker 4: nine and buy a fucking Coop Deville for twelve thousand
Speaker 4: dollars cash, because that's all they wanted was cash. And
Speaker 4: no one's asking any fucking questions. You know, I'll give
Speaker 4: a fuck who this guy is. Here's your application, Well,
Speaker 4: I mean, whatever you're filling out there, use whatever fucking
Speaker 4: name you want. You know, I got that cash in
Speaker 4: my hand, baby, it's just packed right there. So it's
Speaker 4: a cash world. No one's asking questions now that you
Speaker 4: can never do that now, that's impossible.
Speaker 2: You can't.
Speaker 1: You can't live like that now.
Speaker 4: And you can't get away with the stuff that we
Speaker 4: got away with.
Speaker 1: Now it would be impossible.
Speaker 2: I asked Chicago Tribune reporter Jeff Cohen to weigh in
Speaker 2: on this general period in the outfit.
Speaker 10: To Chicago in the seventies and the eighties, you're still
Speaker 10: dealing with the leftover organization of basically the Compone era.
Speaker 10: At that time, it was still very kind of a
Speaker 10: top down organization. You still had major bosses, You had
Speaker 10: the Tonyocardo characters who were running the outfit. And it
Speaker 10: was that leftover organization, the organization that came out of
Speaker 10: prohibition and was able to gain a foothold in Chicago
Speaker 10: by having tentacles that went into government and went into
Speaker 10: the police department and went into unions that allowed them
Speaker 10: to sort of operate with impunity, and they weren't afraid
Speaker 10: of law enforcement because a lot of times they had
Speaker 10: the good enough control of law enforcement that they didn't
Speaker 10: really need to be fearful of that, and so that
Speaker 10: let them expand into basically almost all manner of life
Speaker 10: in Chicago. There were certain neighborhoods where you couldn't even
Speaker 10: open up a hot dog stand without getting some kind
Speaker 10: of the permission and or street loan from somebody who
Speaker 10: would then have a piece of that business going forward.
Speaker 10: So you had money moving through the city at all
Speaker 10: levels that they controlled through legitimate businesses and definitely through
Speaker 10: illegitimate ones.
Speaker 2: As the years dragged on, the image of the plane
Speaker 2: crash still haunted him, and he found himself no longer
Speaker 2: able to suppress the urge to move on from the outfit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the reason I was the reason I remember that
Speaker 4: plane crash so much is because that's when I decided
Speaker 4: I wanted to be a paramedic firefighter. You know, I
Speaker 4: figured that's my career. Now, I'm going to do this
Speaker 4: because I don't want to do what I'm doing. Everybody
Speaker 4: that worked in that business, that was their career and
Speaker 4: their minds, that's what they were going to do forever.
Speaker 4: I knew that that's just that's just not going to happen.
Speaker 4: It's just it can't happen.
Speaker 2: Ken had made up his mind and put a plan
Speaker 2: in place to eventually leave the outfit. With his current
Speaker 2: responsibilities taking up most of his time, he knew it
Speaker 2: would take years to finish all the classes required to
Speaker 2: get his paramedic license before he could even begin to
Speaker 2: look for a job, but none of that would even
Speaker 2: matter without the approval of the higher ups, which he
Speaker 2: knew was impossible. So he went back to his old boss, Mickey,
Speaker 2: the maid guy, who first saw potential in a young
Speaker 2: kid who had robbed his nephew and offered him a
Speaker 2: place in the outfit.
Speaker 4: I was young, I still had a chance to get out,
Speaker 4: and he's kind of liked me, and he knew that
Speaker 4: would not be a look life for me, so he
Speaker 4: kind of encouraged me on the side to just you know,
Speaker 4: go ahead, get your education, all right.
Speaker 1: But so he was like a mentor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was like a fucking fu mentor.
Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, I mean he was like, you know,
Speaker 4: I mean I looked at him like a dad.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I asked Jeff if he's ever heard of anything happened
Speaker 2: like this before someone getting out of the mob.
Speaker 10: I have a couple of friends who, as you know,
Speaker 10: everybody in Chicago kind of knows somebody who knows somebody
Speaker 10: kind of thing where there were these two sons and
Speaker 10: their dad was a Chicago police officer and also basically
Speaker 10: like the sub boss of Kimiski Park. So all the
Speaker 10: concessions going in and out of Kimiski, they controlled it,
Speaker 10: and they would skim it and take money out.
Speaker 2: Of the ballpark and blah blah blah.
Speaker 10: So they allow some of that to happen for the
Speaker 10: reason that you said, I think in episode one where
Speaker 10: somebody who has value who's going someplace, they allow them
Speaker 10: to kind of do that because they think it's something
Speaker 10: that they can use in the future. So when I
Speaker 10: heard you tell that story, I was like, Yeah, that's
Speaker 10: kind of a thing they let They let some people go.
Speaker 2: So, with the green light from Mickey Ken hit the books, I.
Speaker 4: Start studying to be an EMPT paramedic. All right, I
Speaker 4: get my EMT. I could take the fire department test anyway. Anyway,
Speaker 4: So I go through that trade. I am working in
Speaker 4: the outfit, and I'm studying to be an EMPT because
Speaker 4: I want to get out of a fire department. I want
Speaker 4: a career, I want to get out of this business.
Speaker 2: But he was still years away from passing any tests,
Speaker 2: and I still had a job to do managing the club,
Speaker 2: and that responsibility came before all else.
Speaker 4: So I remember working the front door of the whorehouses
Speaker 4: and studying my EMT bush. While I was working the
Speaker 4: front door at the whorehouses, I distinctly remember that they
Speaker 4: thought I was nuts. You know, what the fuck you
Speaker 4: want to do that for? Let's go out and party,
Speaker 4: you know, I just told them, listen, I got.
Speaker 1: More important shit to do.
Speaker 4: Okay, more important to me, so and I think they
Speaker 4: respected that. So I think they impressed the bosses too,
Speaker 4: you know, because I wasn't.
Speaker 1: I wasn't doing what everybody was doing. I was trying
Speaker 1: to move on.
Speaker 2: Part of that responsibility included hiring new girls, and one
Speaker 2: new girl in particular, lit a fire and Ken that
Speaker 2: almost cost him everything. Over the years, while Ken was
Speaker 2: working the club, he had seen hundreds of girls come
Speaker 2: in and out of the business. Some lasted longer than others,
Speaker 2: but many of them would be there one day and
Speaker 2: gone the next. It seemed to be the nature of
Speaker 2: the trade. But every now and then a girl would
Speaker 2: show up that seemed different than the rest, somehow out
Speaker 2: of place in this cruel, dark world they occupied. One
Speaker 2: of those girls was named Honey.
Speaker 1: Honey. Honey was my girl, you guys, Honey was the
Speaker 1: best man Like, we just hit it off. I can't
Speaker 1: explain it.
Speaker 4: Just one of those people you could sit on and
Speaker 4: talk with and just have a conversation for hours without
Speaker 4: even having to think about what you're going to talk about.
Speaker 4: Or he could just sit there and talk about nothing
Speaker 4: and feel just as comfortable.
Speaker 1: Just as safe, as peaceful as having a great conversation.
Speaker 4: She was just one of those people who I felt really,
Speaker 4: really comfortable with, and she felt very, very comfortable with me.
Speaker 2: She must have been special because Ken was breaking one
Speaker 2: of the cardinal rules of the business. Never get emotionally
Speaker 2: involved with the talent.
Speaker 1: We would date. I dated her.
Speaker 4: I feel like, I'll be honest with you, I think
Speaker 4: I fell in love with her. I really do.
Speaker 1: I think I fell in love with that girl. I
Speaker 1: asked him what she looked like. Yeah, kind of short.
Speaker 4: I don't know, maybe five four little baby doll cuts,
Speaker 4: you know, short bangs, you know, down the sides of
Speaker 4: the cheeks, back of the cheeks, and then cropped up
Speaker 4: on the neck. You know, just I don't know what
Speaker 4: they call them, baby dolls. I used to call them
Speaker 4: baby doll cuts.
Speaker 1: She wore red lipstick drove me insane. Red lipstick drives
Speaker 1: me insane. She wore it all the time.
Speaker 4: And she had those sparkling, beautiful eyes, so you could
Speaker 4: swim in them.
Speaker 1: I could just dive go swimming in her eyes. And
Speaker 1: that smile. Man, that got me every fucking time. It's
Speaker 1: a great girl.
Speaker 2: Ken knew he would need to tread carefully with Honey,
Speaker 2: but the attraction was too strong. They were lovers and
Speaker 2: friends and would spend many nights confiding in each other.
Speaker 4: She would and I would come to work, you know,
Speaker 4: stressed out because I was in school a lot, and
Speaker 4: I you know, I knew I had to work of
Speaker 4: late shifts and you know, it's tired. But I'd walk
Speaker 4: in the door and she would be waiting for me. Man,
Speaker 4: she was always so loyal, and there she would just
Speaker 4: I'd see that big smile on her just, you know,
Speaker 4: just everything went away, all the bad stuff went away.
Speaker 2: But Honey wasn't the only woman in Ken's life.
Speaker 4: I was seeing Honey when I was dating your mother, Kyle.
Speaker 1: We weren't married. We were dating, and we.
Speaker 4: Would for quite a period there, just like all people
Speaker 4: when they first start dating. Maybe not all people, but
Speaker 4: in our particular case, we would break up for a
Speaker 4: time and then get back together. Would break up for
Speaker 4: a time, get back together, and for a couple of
Speaker 4: years there. Your mother and I broke up, and that's
Speaker 4: when I did a lot of this mobster work. We
Speaker 4: did a lot of it when she was when I
Speaker 4: was broken up with her.
Speaker 2: I asked my mom what she remembers about these years if.
Speaker 11: We got married when we were engaged at nineteen and twenty,
Speaker 11: I would have been divorced at twenty two. But the
Speaker 11: relationship kept coming back, back and forth back. It was
Speaker 11: like we would break up and he would see people
Speaker 11: and I would see people, and we would be like
Speaker 11: in a bar at the same time. He was somebody
Speaker 11: and I was somebody. But it kept going on for
Speaker 11: eight years.
Speaker 2: The simple fact is Holly was a civilian, an innocent,
Speaker 2: and not a part of this life. So Ken continued
Speaker 2: to keep a wall up between his two worlds, but
Speaker 2: Honey was on the inside, and he could be himself
Speaker 2: around her. With Honey, there was nothing to hide.
Speaker 1: She was one of a kind.
Speaker 4: I don't think I met anybody ever like her, even
Speaker 4: even your mother, who I got along.
Speaker 1: I loved your mother.
Speaker 4: I still love your mom, but it was just it
Speaker 4: was a difference. It was different, I think because we
Speaker 4: were both doing that stupid work.
Speaker 1: She was a horror I was running a whororhouse. You know.
Speaker 4: I think I think we had that little thing in common.
Speaker 4: She was a soulmate, you know, almost like a soulmate,
Speaker 4: like a companion. We both escaped together, us together. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I was her escape and she was my escape, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 2: And there was certainly a lot to escape from during
Speaker 2: this period in the Outfit. The growing popularity of cocaine
Speaker 2: in America had given rise to powerful and violent drug cartels,
Speaker 2: which led to intense warring among rival organizations with origins
Speaker 2: from all over the world competing for the same Chicago turf.
Speaker 2: There were gun battles in the streets, an attempted takeovers
Speaker 2: of Outfit businesses all across the Chicago Land area.
Speaker 1: There was a couple of attempts to take over the clubs.
Speaker 4: There was a Russian group of Russians, maybe Ukrainians, maybe Georgians,
Speaker 4: I don't know, Eastern European and they were coming into
Speaker 4: to take over the clubs, not just ah, not just
Speaker 4: the club I was working, but the clubs in that
Speaker 4: whole area there. And dude, I don't know what is
Speaker 4: going on here, I really don't. They just appeared and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: it was a fucking gun battle that broke out. I
Speaker 4: mean I remember, I remember yanking my peace and coming
Speaker 4: right out of right right over the top of my
Speaker 4: desk and just.
Speaker 1: Unloading, just unloading on the mouth.
Speaker 4: The guy that was talking doing all thought. I just
Speaker 4: filled him up full of lead. His whole face was
Speaker 4: loaded up, and I don't think the guys were expecting that.
Speaker 4: So they pulled their pieces, but they left, They turned
Speaker 4: around and ran.
Speaker 1: They didn't stay.
Speaker 4: And I don't know why they could have had me
Speaker 4: because I was I only had a couple of shots
Speaker 4: left and then I had to make a phone call.
Speaker 4: We had to get them out of there. So some
Speaker 4: people came and wrapped them up in clear plastic. I
Speaker 4: don't know why clear plasts, but he was clear plastic
Speaker 4: for him, cleaned up the mess and took him where
Speaker 4: they took him, put some buried them some foundation somewhere
Speaker 4: because we had construction companies.
Speaker 1: We would pay to.
Speaker 4: Put our bodies into foundations that they were working on
Speaker 4: nothing no no residential stuff, but all commercial stuff.
Speaker 1: And they were on the payroll and they got paid.
Speaker 4: You know, it'd be a it'd be a midnight poor
Speaker 4: you know, they put the lights up and bring a
Speaker 4: truck out and midnight poor.
Speaker 1: They'd be pooring a concree we at two o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning and we'd be dropping bodies.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I mean everything was pre arrange, you guys.
Speaker 4: Guy's got to realize it's a business man. It's a
Speaker 4: business And a lot of people had their fingers in
Speaker 4: the pie, all right, so called legit people and so
Speaker 4: called not legit people.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 4: Everybody had their fingers in the pie. Everybody was getting
Speaker 4: a piece, all right. And that's what kept the piece,
Speaker 4: because everybody was getting a piece.
Speaker 12: Sixty seven year old Roy Williams, head of the powerful
Speaker 12: Teamsters union, guilty on all counts. Fifty nine year old
Speaker 12: Allan Dorfman of suburban Deerfield, guilty on all counts. Dortmund
Speaker 12: of Chicago, insurance executive and former consultant to the Teamster's
Speaker 12: pension fund as close ties to the crime syndicate. Fifty
Speaker 12: three year old Joseph Joey that Clowned Lombardo Lombardo of Chicago,
Speaker 12: guilty on all counts. Lombardo has been identified by federal
Speaker 12: investigators as a high ranking member of the Chicago crime syndicate. Lombardo,
Speaker 12: who had never been convicted.
Speaker 2: Of him The nineteen eighties was a tumultuous time for
Speaker 2: organized crime in America. The FBI had ramped up efforts
Speaker 2: to fight corruption and the mafia stranglehold on local governments,
Speaker 2: labor unions, and law enforcement.
Speaker 12: Forty five year old Thomas O'Malley, a former Chicago policeman,
Speaker 12: guilty on all counts. Messa and the other four defendants
Speaker 12: face up to fifty five years in prison.
Speaker 2: Unprecedented cooperation across major federal agencies led to many high
Speaker 2: profile prosecutions of mafia bosses, corrupt government officials, and crooket
Speaker 2: cops all over the country.
Speaker 13: The message from this jury is quite clear and that
Speaker 13: at least in this district, but that conduct charged in
Speaker 13: the indictment, when proven by the government, will not be tolerated.
Speaker 2: On top of all this, the turf wars were still raging.
Speaker 4: There was up evil in the outfit at that time.
Speaker 4: The clubs were being taken over by different factions. Drugs,
Speaker 4: there was a there was a big turf war for drugs.
Speaker 4: There was a lot of up evil at that particular time.
Speaker 2: All this chaos was taking its toll on the power
Speaker 2: structure of the organization, and a feeling that this could
Speaker 2: be the beginning of the end permeated the outfit.
Speaker 14: The Chicago Outfit had, especially in the seventies and eighties,
Speaker 14: still almost like a corporate type of structure, where you
Speaker 14: had you had a singular boss, you had almost like
Speaker 14: a board of directors, guys who were close to him
Speaker 14: who would go and make some of the key decisions.
Speaker 14: And then underneath them you would have people at the
Speaker 14: coppo level or people running individual street crews, and then
Speaker 14: under them you might have lieutenants who were kind of
Speaker 14: like their their bosses on the street.
Speaker 10: You would direct you know, groups of six, seven, eight
Speaker 10: made guys who are really in the organization, and then
Speaker 10: beneath them they might have all sorts of different associates
Speaker 10: and operators who were a part of the organization but
Speaker 10: not plugged into that level, but they would still do
Speaker 10: the bidding of crew members or especially a street crew boss.
Speaker 10: So you had this kind of corporate hierarchical structure, pyramid
Speaker 10: type structure. And so when you have a conspiracy case
Speaker 10: that kind of chops the head off the snake. The
Speaker 10: organization tends to sputter and scatter.
Speaker 2: People at all levels of the outfit and or panicking.
Speaker 2: Some turned government informant and entered witness protection. Other staged
Speaker 2: bold robberies or assassinated high level operatives.
Speaker 10: The whole way that the outfit operated, which was to
Speaker 10: try to be in the shadows. Nobody really knows what's
Speaker 10: going on, kind of directing things behind the scenes. That
Speaker 10: started to become impossible when surveillance got so much better.
Speaker 10: They're sort of traditional struct sure just kind of became
Speaker 10: possible to run without bringing major, major heat, and so
Speaker 10: it just kind of it crumbled into looser groups.
Speaker 2: They were turning on each other and fear and bodies
Speaker 2: were dropping. Nobody knew what would happen next, and nobody
Speaker 2: was safe.
Speaker 4: Eventually, Paul started taking a leg in the honey and
Speaker 4: there wasn't a whole hell of what I can do, man,
Speaker 4: But you know, she was a pro, so she.
Speaker 1: Did what she was supposed to do.
Speaker 4: He was hitting on her, physically abusing her, and you know,
Speaker 4: we talked about it, but there was nothing I can do,
Speaker 4: and there was nothing she could do.
Speaker 1: He was you know, he's a.
Speaker 4: Made guy, he's a boss, but he was out of
Speaker 4: line doing that. You're not supposed to do that in
Speaker 4: our business. You're not supposed to do stuff like that.
Speaker 4: So he was fucking up. Made guy or not, he
Speaker 4: was fucking up man. And eventually it was going to
Speaker 4: catch up to him.
Speaker 2: But the abuse continued, and Kenny Helpless could only watch
Speaker 2: as it happened.
Speaker 4: Then one day Honey disappeared. He disappeared off the map.
Speaker 4: She was there one day and gone the next. And
Speaker 4: I fucking knew that fucking fat, greaseball bastard I had
Speaker 4: something to do with it. I didn't give a fuck
Speaker 4: at that time. I was angry. I took care of
Speaker 4: that bastard myself.
Speaker 2: Ken could never prove what actually happened to Honey. In
Speaker 2: the same way it's possible that Pollie was involved in
Speaker 2: her disappearance. I suppose it's just as possible that she
Speaker 2: simply ran away from the abuse and is still out
Speaker 2: there somewhere. I have no way of knowing the time.
Speaker 2: Ken had his suspicions, and he made his choice, and
Speaker 2: he would deal with the consequences if they came.
Speaker 4: I have some heat on me for a while for
Speaker 4: nothing ever happened with that. Nothing ever happened with that.
Speaker 4: They weren't worried about me at that time. There was
Speaker 4: a lot of changes going on, so I was able
Speaker 4: to back door out.
Speaker 1: And I knew that, so I backdoored out of that shift.
Speaker 1: Perfect timing for me.
Speaker 2: Maybe it was because of all the turmoil taking place
Speaker 2: at that time, or maybe Kenny just got lucky. Either way,
Speaker 2: it seemed he had dodged a bullet. So he continued
Speaker 2: his studies and looked forward to the day he could
Speaker 2: leave this hell behind.
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened to her. I miss her,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: She was quite a girl, man, and now a new
Speaker 2: problem had just walked in the front door and put
Speaker 2: a gun to Kenny's head.
Speaker 5: I'll split your fucking head open again because I'm fucking stupid.
Speaker 2: I don't give a fuck about jail. That's my business,
Speaker 2: that's what I do.
Speaker 1: Tony Splatchro came in and I recognized him. I know
Speaker 1: who he was.
Speaker 4: In the movie Casino, Joe Pesci played him just so
Speaker 4: he got an idea what.
Speaker 1: A guy is.
Speaker 2: Tony the ant Spilatro was a feared enforcer who rose
Speaker 2: to great power within the outfit.
Speaker 4: I never talked to him before, and I never introduced
Speaker 4: to him before, but I know who he was.
Speaker 1: He was a legend. Basically an asshole, but a legend.
Speaker 2: In the seventies, he was sent to Las Vegas to
Speaker 2: head up the organization's ambitions in the growing casino industry.
Speaker 7: I don't know whether you notice or not, but you
Speaker 7: only have your fucking casino because I made that possible.
Speaker 2: He was famous for a short stature and even shorter temper.
Speaker 4: Little guy. I don't know why he was such a beast.
Speaker 4: He was little, Oh grease ball.
Speaker 9: Wait the fuck you get off talking to people about
Speaker 9: me behind my deck, going over my head your fucking warrant.
Speaker 4: Don't ever go over my fucking head again.
Speaker 2: You mona fuck are you? He was violent and unpredictable,
Speaker 2: but ultimately successful in racking up huge earnings for the outfit.
Speaker 2: He was greedy and ambitious. He ran a gang of
Speaker 2: thieves who would break into hotel rooms, wealthy estates, and
Speaker 2: jewelry stores. Murder rates in Vegas had spiked to unprecedented
Speaker 2: levels since his arrival.
Speaker 12: Man by the name of Tony Spilatro has attracted the
Speaker 12: attention of law enforcement officials, some of whom thinks Palleatro
Speaker 12: is the most cunning and dangerous member of the crime syndicate.
Speaker 2: By the end of the nineteen seventies, Spilatro would become
Speaker 2: a loose cannon and his illegal antics were becoming public
Speaker 2: knowledge and attracting heat from local and federal law enforcement.
Speaker 15: Spilatro would eventually be linked to as many as twenty
Speaker 15: five mob related killings witnesses died.
Speaker 2: In December of nineteen seventy nine, the Nevada Gaming Commission
Speaker 2: officially blacklisted Spilatro, which legally barred him from entering any
Speaker 2: of the state's casinos, the very ones it was his
Speaker 2: job to oversee. He would spend the next several years
Speaker 2: going back and forth from Vegas to Chicago, wreaking havoc
Speaker 2: and asserting his dominance wherever he could.
Speaker 4: So he came in and wanted to take over the clubs.
Speaker 4: He was going to take over the clubs. He stuck
Speaker 4: a gun right in my fucking head. He says, I'm
Speaker 4: taking over these clubs, and I says, okay, these are
Speaker 4: your clubs, because I was gonna have I was just
Speaker 4: gonna end up working for him anyway.
Speaker 1: I didn't care who random clubs.
Speaker 4: Just let me finish my job so I can finish school,
Speaker 4: get a job, and I don't care who.
Speaker 1: I work for at that point.
Speaker 2: But Ken never saw Tony again, and he never did
Speaker 2: end up taking over the club, but his reign of
Speaker 2: terror continued. In nineteen eighty three, around the time he
Speaker 2: stuck a gun to Ken's forehead, he was tried for
Speaker 2: the brutal murder of two Chicago gang members.
Speaker 15: He was acquitted. There were at least fifteen other arrests,
Speaker 15: not a single conviction. Law enforcement officials had yet to
Speaker 15: beat Spilatro in court. A longtime Chicago mob observer reported.
Speaker 12: Some predict Tony will take a big fall someday, but
Speaker 12: it hasn't happened yet. So far, Spilettro has lived a
Speaker 12: charmed life.
Speaker 2: But that charmed good luck was soon coming to an end.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty six, the outfit had had enough of
Speaker 2: Tony the ant Spilatro and his crew, and orchestrated a
Speaker 2: mass hit of nearly a dozen mobsters, including Tony and
Speaker 2: his brother Michael, a hit made even more famous by
Speaker 2: its brutal depiction in the movie Casino.
Speaker 4: He Found him and his brother The found him in Indiana,
Speaker 4: all baseball batted up, buried in a shallow grave in Indiana.
Speaker 16: With dozens of crime figures from Chicago, New York and
Speaker 16: other cities recently convicted or indicted, there may be a
Speaker 16: shortage of mob men available who could run Las Vegas's
Speaker 16: rackets as profitably and as efficiently as federal authorities believe
Speaker 16: Spilatro did.
Speaker 4: You couldn't asked for better timing to get out of
Speaker 4: the outfit than what happened there, with all the chaos
Speaker 4: that was going on.
Speaker 1: You know, I was already in for eight nine years.
Speaker 4: By then, so I knew that was my cue, and
Speaker 4: I took it, and I was gone.
Speaker 1: I was gone.
Speaker 2: Next week on crow County.
Speaker 4: Just when I think I'm getting away from the shit,
Speaker 4: I'm covering up thirty fucking cops who are out there
Speaker 4: murdering fucking people and a million fucking years that I
Speaker 4: ever think that's gonna happen. I mean, I mean, who
Speaker 4: even thinks of shit like that?
Speaker 2: Crook County is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Tenderfoot
Speaker 2: TV in association with Common Enemy. All episodes are written, produced,
Speaker 2: and hosted by me Kyle Tequila. Executive producers are Donald
Speaker 2: Albright and Payne Lindsay. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set.
Speaker 2: Main title song is called Crush by the band Starry Eyes.
Speaker 2: End credit song is called Aloha, also by the band
Speaker 2: Starry Eyes. Sound mix by Cooper Skinner. Thank you to
Speaker 2: Orren Rosenbaum and the excellent team at UTA for their support,
Speaker 2: and to my fearless attorney Wendy Bench for her guidance.
Speaker 2: To stay updated on all things Crook County, follow us
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Speaker 2: a voicemail by visiting crookcountypodcast dot com. For more podcasts
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Speaker 2: continues next week.
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