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Speaker 2: For more information, check out the show notes. Enjoy the episode.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Crook County. The views and opinions expressed
Speaker 3: in this podcast are solely those of the individuals participating
Speaker 3: in the podcast. This episode also contains subject matter, including
Speaker 3: graphic depictions of violence, which may not be suitable for everyone.
Speaker 3: Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 4: Chicago, Chicago.
Speaker 2: Exciting. This is a nineteen seventies era Board of Tourism
Speaker 2: advertisement for the city of Chicago. Fine. It's overflowing with
Speaker 2: sunlit city scapes and joyful, smiling faces of young people,
Speaker 2: families and tourists, all locked in a state of perpetual
Speaker 2: eight millimeter textured happiness and wonder of this city of
Speaker 2: broad shoulders, this great city by the lake. Look north
Speaker 2: now that glittering shopper is Paradise, proudly dubbed the Magnificent Mile.
Speaker 2: It really does look like a wonderful place to live.
Speaker 2: A place with endless possibilities, or anybody, no matter who
Speaker 2: you are or where you came from, can get a
Speaker 2: fair shot at the brass ring.
Speaker 3: Shot.
Speaker 2: There is something you've just got to see for yourself.
Speaker 2: But only a few miles from the bright lights of
Speaker 2: Michigan Avenue, there's a different stretch of road, the dark
Speaker 2: corner of the windy City you won't see in any
Speaker 2: board of tourism commercial. It's a place where the cops
Speaker 2: are just as crooked as the criminals, where drugs and
Speaker 2: prostitution run rampant, and where a young mafia hit man
Speaker 2: they call that kid, is parked outside of a dark,
Speaker 2: dilapidated apartment building, waiting for just the right moment to
Speaker 2: make his next move.
Speaker 1: It's about nine pm at night. I'm in an apartment
Speaker 1: complex in a neighborhood that I really don't know very well,
Speaker 1: and I'm listening to my song, the songs that I
Speaker 1: always play before I do something sketchy like this, and
Speaker 1: that's sympthy for the double deesus.
Speaker 5: Needs introduce myself.
Speaker 2: I'm a mad It.
Speaker 1: Just does something to me. I don't know what it does.
Speaker 1: It's just part of my routine. I sit in my
Speaker 1: car and I do what I always do. I breathe,
Speaker 1: I make myself aware. I heighten my senses, my sight,
Speaker 1: my smell, my hearing. I don't know how I do it,
Speaker 1: but I do it. As I'm listening to the music,
Speaker 1: I feel my senses start to kick in. As they
Speaker 1: kick in, the moment arises. The moment always hits me.
Speaker 1: I don't know how it hits me, but I know
Speaker 1: when I'm ready for the moment. Out of my car,
Speaker 1: walk up to the apartment complex, ring the buzzer. This
Speaker 1: asshole comes to the buzzer, announces his name. I said,
Speaker 1: this is Ken. I'm coming up for the coke. It says, fine,
Speaker 1: come on up. Buzzer hits. I walk up the stairs.
Speaker 1: I reach my right hand behind my belt on my back,
Speaker 1: knock on the door with my left hand. As the
Speaker 1: door opens up, I pulled my arm out with my
Speaker 1: twenty two and I put it right in his forehead.
Speaker 1: Back it up, I tell him. He backs it up.
Speaker 1: His eyes were as big as saucers. I want to
Speaker 1: say his name, dude, but I can't. Will you? Will
Speaker 1: you added his name out of here? Skick back it
Speaker 1: up to the bathroom. He didn't move fast enough, and
Speaker 1: I wanted him to know I meant the fucking business here.
Speaker 1: So I beat him. I had him twice right cheek,
Speaker 1: left cheek, backed off, put the gun back up to
Speaker 1: his forehead, backed him up into the bathroom. Got to
Speaker 1: the bathroom. Get on your knees. He would have gotten
Speaker 1: his these fast enough, so I dropped him with my
Speaker 1: left foot. I got him right behind his right knee.
Speaker 1: That dropped him to his knees, pushed him down towards
Speaker 1: the toilet, grabbed the cuffs that were in my left
Speaker 1: rear pocket and cuffed them right behind the base of
Speaker 1: the toilet. There he sat. I can't remember exactly what
Speaker 1: I said to him, but I was dead serious what
Speaker 1: I said, But I really can't remember. Anyway, I waited
Speaker 1: like I was asked to do. Knock at the door
Speaker 1: comes and three of my boys come in. Showed them
Speaker 1: to the bathroom. I backed out because it wasn't my head,
Speaker 1: it was just my setup. It wasn't my head. Went
Speaker 1: back into the living room, sat and waited. Heard some commotion,
Speaker 1: a muffled gunshot. I know that's the end of the story.
Speaker 1: The boys walk out. Where's the dope? Can ransacked his bedroom,
Speaker 1: found the dope, got about three or four honces of
Speaker 1: what was called at the time, it was pink cocaine.
Speaker 1: What the hell they call it back then, Peruvian, So
Speaker 1: I don't know. Anyway, it was coke, all right, because
Speaker 1: that's what everybody was doing back then. Uncomfortable brought him
Speaker 1: to the living room, started tearing up the carpet inside
Speaker 1: the living room, wrapped them up in there, and left
Speaker 1: them until tomorrow. What normally happens is or what was
Speaker 1: already set up, was not by me, but it was
Speaker 1: already set up to have a carpeting company come in
Speaker 1: the next day, put in a new carpet, take him out,
Speaker 1: put a new carpeting, lay it, and then me leave.
Speaker 1: Spent the night waited for the carpeting people. In the morning,
Speaker 1: they arrived about nine o'clock. They took him out, wrapped
Speaker 1: up in the carpet, brought up a whole new carpeting
Speaker 1: and padding, laid that down. I left the door unlocked,
Speaker 1: and I left. That was the end of him. That's it.
Speaker 1: Story's over.
Speaker 2: Holy shit, I'm your host, Kyle Tequila. Welcome to Crook County.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Crook County.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there's no doubt about that.
Speaker 1: It's a den of thieves.
Speaker 6: Dead was a fucking crazy bastard.
Speaker 1: We don't know who he is really. People are dying.
Speaker 1: Is he doing this every night? What about retribution from?
Speaker 1: Could it be the mob? Could it be police? What's
Speaker 1: the worry there? I've done criminal defense now for almost
Speaker 1: thirty seven years.
Speaker 5: It takes one guy.
Speaker 1: Out there who's in his late to say, who's that fucking.
Speaker 6: Asshole Kyle who thinks he can just get on.
Speaker 1: A goddamn microphone on a podcast and start publicizing this shit?
Speaker 4: Like I started having flashbacks about his legs being broken
Speaker 4: when he went out to check them out, and I
Speaker 4: was like, holy shit. He changed his address to hours
Speaker 4: now these fucking people. Can I find him at our address?
Speaker 2: I'll give a shit about kat He did what he did,
Speaker 2: and if he's got to pay, he's got to pay.
Speaker 1: It destroyed our life, It destroyed our prriage, It destroyed
Speaker 1: my kids, It really destroyed everything. Just why I think
Speaker 1: I'm getting out of his ship, I'm right fucking back
Speaker 1: in it. It's a double It's following me wherever the
Speaker 1: fuck I go. I can't shake this down of a bitch.
Speaker 1: He won't leave me alone.
Speaker 2: Episode one, Give me your fucking money.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna put my voice on nothing, are you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're guess I'm gonna tell the story. Uh huh.
Speaker 2: All right, I'm interviewing Kenny the Kid for the first time.
Speaker 2: He's a big man in his mid sixties, with a
Speaker 2: full head of jet black hair combed and styled with
Speaker 2: only a few strands of gray, wearing a clean white
Speaker 2: T shirt and reading glasses with thick black frames. He's
Speaker 2: handsome in a rundown sort of way. He kind of
Speaker 2: reminds me of a down on his luck Clark Kent,
Speaker 2: you know, Superman, but fat oh.
Speaker 1: Man, I'm not good at this. Man.
Speaker 2: Just whenever you feel like it, just start talking.
Speaker 1: But what am I? Okay?
Speaker 2: He's not used to having a microphone in his face
Speaker 2: and seems to be having a little trouble getting comfortable
Speaker 2: with me.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm very confused on this, Kyle, and I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna talk. Okay, I'm just gonna talk. I really don't,
Speaker 1: it's just it's I really kind of don't understand what.
Speaker 2: It goes on like this for a while, but eventually
Speaker 2: he starts talking.
Speaker 1: This is a story, well story, it's not not a story.
Speaker 1: It's it's this is this is my story basically the
Speaker 1: experiences I've had, most of them not by choice, that
Speaker 1: just ended up like I never thought I what ended.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised I'm sitting here, you know, I I technically
Speaker 1: I shouldn't be sitting here. You know, Historically people don't
Speaker 1: make it, They just simply don't make it. But I
Speaker 1: think I was low level enough, and I didn't want
Speaker 1: to make it a career. I you know, I want.
Speaker 1: I didn't want. I didn't do the things that the
Speaker 1: other people did, trying to move up in the outfit,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to get their own crews, trying to
Speaker 1: make more money. I did fly under the raidar and
Speaker 1: I really didn't want to know what the hell was
Speaker 1: going on where I became a trusted member. You know,
Speaker 1: we're not going to worry about Kenny. You know, Kenny
Speaker 1: does his job. He keeps his fucking mouth shut, He
Speaker 1: doesn't steal any money, he doesn't do fucking drugs while
Speaker 1: he's working. He's not running hors on the side, our horizon,
Speaker 1: the side. He does what he's supposed to do when
Speaker 1: he goes home.
Speaker 2: Kenny spent over twenty years working deep inside the legendary
Speaker 2: Chicago Mafia, also known as the South Side Gang or
Speaker 2: simply the Outfit, which rose to power in the nineteen
Speaker 2: twenties during Prohibition under Torio and Al Capone. They were powerful, ruthless,
Speaker 2: and violent, with tentacles spreading all the way to Florida
Speaker 2: and California, a vast criminal empire spanning nearly one hundred years,
Speaker 2: making its fortune off bootleg liquor, illegal gambling, prostitution, extortion,
Speaker 2: political corruption, labor racketeering, loan sharking, and murder for hire.
Speaker 2: Since the days of Capone, the outfit has been led
Speaker 2: by a who's who of powerful bosses like Frank the Enforcer, Nitti,
Speaker 2: Paul the Waiter, Rika Anthony Big Tuna Accardo, and Salvator
Speaker 2: Momo Giancano. When Kenny was there in the seventies, eighties
Speaker 2: and early nineties, the bosses were Joseph Joey doves A Uga,
Speaker 2: Sam Black, Sam Carlisi and John No Nos Defranso. It
Speaker 2: was a period of great prosperity and they were stronger
Speaker 2: than ever.
Speaker 1: Cook County in the Chicago area. Okay, Chicago is actually
Speaker 1: in Cook County, and we worked in the unincorporated areas
Speaker 1: because the unincorporated areas are you know, we owned you know,
Speaker 1: we owned the judges. We owned the fucking cops. You know,
Speaker 1: we owned them, you know, so we can work freely,
Speaker 1: all right?
Speaker 3: And what did you do?
Speaker 1: I was a low level I ran whorehouses and I
Speaker 1: did them and I did hits. You know. It was
Speaker 1: just a low level guy and my crew. You know,
Speaker 1: the money that we made in our crew worked its
Speaker 1: way up the ladder to the big bosses. You know,
Speaker 1: you're in the fucking trenches, man, This is low level,
Speaker 1: in the streets, in the dirt, in your face, the backbone,
Speaker 1: and the fucking outfit. That's where the money came from.
Speaker 1: It came from us, and we pushed it up, all right.
Speaker 1: We're not the fucking captain sitting back while his troops
Speaker 1: were in the fucking trenches fighting it out, fucking hand
Speaker 1: to hand to knife, all right. We are the guys
Speaker 1: in the fucking trenches, hand to hand, knife to knife,
Speaker 1: all right. That's where we are. That's how down, that's
Speaker 1: how far down the ladder we were, all right, fucking
Speaker 1: clipping people and running fucking whoes.
Speaker 2: He takes a long pause and seems to be deep
Speaker 2: in some old memory.
Speaker 1: I just don't want to glorify this because there's nothing.
Speaker 1: There's no glory here. I mean, I try to forget
Speaker 1: these stories, and I've been trying to forget these stories
Speaker 1: for years and years and years. You know, MY goal
Speaker 1: wasn't to run hornhouses and fucking kill you know people.
Speaker 1: You know, I was doing what I had to do
Speaker 1: to have a normal life and raise a normal family. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's all I was doing. I was I didn't have education,
Speaker 1: I didn't have the opportunity for an education. I didn't
Speaker 1: go to college. I barely got out of fucking high school.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I just survival mode. That's all, just really as simple,
Speaker 1: and I survived.
Speaker 4: Look.
Speaker 2: I don't know much about the mafia. I mean, I
Speaker 2: guess I know as much as anybody who's seen a
Speaker 2: movie or TV show about it. But sitting here with him,
Speaker 2: listening to him talk, watching him remember these terrible things,
Speaker 2: I feel confused. I just don't see what you would
Speaker 2: expect to see from someone who's had a life like this,
Speaker 2: you know, a hardened criminal with bodies under his belt,
Speaker 2: some kind of monster. Instead, I see a tired, sad man,
Speaker 2: genuinely hurt that this was his life. I have to know,
Speaker 2: how does someone like that get wrapped up in all this?
Speaker 1: I got recruited into the mob when I was seventeen
Speaker 1: years old, and completely unbeknownst to me, I was the
Speaker 1: last thing on my mind. And there's my parents got divorced.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not going to go into the fucking wall.
Speaker 5: Was me?
Speaker 1: You know, I had a rough childhood bullshit, but I
Speaker 1: got tossed out of my parents got divorced. I wasn't
Speaker 1: happy about it. I got tossed out of my house
Speaker 1: at gunpoint by my mother. Go figure. So I mean
Speaker 1: that'll give you an idea of a kind of family.
Speaker 1: You know, I grew up. God rest their souls. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right. I love my mother dearly, and I love
Speaker 1: my father dearly who's dead. But you know, they they
Speaker 1: just did the best they could with what they had
Speaker 1: and the culture that they grew up in. Okay, So
Speaker 1: I get tossed out sixteen years old. I'm living in
Speaker 1: a backseat of my fucking sixty eight Camaro for about
Speaker 1: three or four months. I need money, all right. I
Speaker 1: know this fucking clown, it's dealing dope, dealing fucking Mexican
Speaker 1: dirt weed. Because back then it was I don't know,
Speaker 1: the shit they got now is insane, but it was
Speaker 1: just straight Mexican dirt weed back then, and he was
Speaker 1: I think you think he had placidos and Quailu's so
Speaker 1: placid was Quailu cash and Mexican fucking dirt. Weeat so
Speaker 1: and I knew we hung out at the fucking kmart,
Speaker 1: So you know, I watched him for a while. I
Speaker 1: kind of figured out his pattern, you know, And I
Speaker 1: don't know why did. It just made sense to me
Speaker 1: to just kind of sit back scope him for a
Speaker 1: while so when I hit him, it would be the
Speaker 1: best time or the best situation what anyway, came up
Speaker 1: on him and rob this fucking ass. I had a
Speaker 1: fucking pencil and came up kind of from the side
Speaker 1: I was came because kind of walked on bottom on
Speaker 1: on an angles. I was on the left side and
Speaker 1: came close enough where I didn't seem to be where
Speaker 1: it wasn't threatening, but close enough where I could pivot
Speaker 1: and put the pencil in his back. He had a
Speaker 1: jacket out, so I used the rubber you know, you know,
Speaker 1: the eraser part, and believe it or not, if you
Speaker 1: stick that thing in there hard enough, you know, just
Speaker 1: you know, have somebody to do that to you when
Speaker 1: you're not expecting it, and you know, being told that
Speaker 1: I need your cash and I need you dope, and
Speaker 1: I need it right now, all right, And I got
Speaker 1: a fucking nice stuck in your back, reach into your
Speaker 1: pockets with your left hand and hand me back that shit.
Speaker 1: So I get the dope, I get the money, push
Speaker 1: him forward, tell him not to fucking turn around, and
Speaker 1: we're on our way. He goes off in a sprint.
Speaker 1: I go off, do a round and come back to
Speaker 1: my car. Never really saw him except for two days
Speaker 1: later when I did see him, But I saw him
Speaker 1: with someone else and two other guys off in the background.
Speaker 1: So these two come up on me. I'm sitting down
Speaker 1: and I'm going I'm thinking to myself, ah fuck, here
Speaker 1: we go here, and I'm completely unprepared, completely came up
Speaker 1: on me, and the bigger guy goes, the older guy goes,
Speaker 1: is that him? And the kid goes, Yeah, that's him.
Speaker 1: That's the guy that robbed me. Uncle. He marde a
Speaker 1: fucking crew. He's a mob dude, all right, you know
Speaker 1: we're talking send to get her. Alphad guy all right,
Speaker 1: So he tells me, He goes, are you looking for
Speaker 1: a job? Oh, yeah, I'm looking for a job. I'm
Speaker 1: just fucking starving her. That's how I got into a
Speaker 1: fucking outfit. That's what I got. He was impressed.
Speaker 2: A rough childhood, a tumultuous marriage, a mother pulling a
Speaker 2: gun on her own son, homelessness, desperation, all leading to
Speaker 2: one fateful moment, a bad decision that would define a
Speaker 2: young kid's entire life and the life of his future family.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course you had a family. Yeah, I had
Speaker 1: a wife, and I had two children, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to keep them as far away from it as possible.
Speaker 1: I wanted them to have every advantage in the world
Speaker 1: that I didn't have, so they had every opportunity to
Speaker 1: have a good life, you know, raise their own families.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a good provider. I loved my family.
Speaker 1: I still do you know very much.
Speaker 2: How much did your family know about your time in
Speaker 2: the mafia.
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody, nobody knew anything. I didn't want anybody
Speaker 1: to know I was I was kind of embarrassed. My wife,
Speaker 1: you know, she was purposely bliss you know, money was
Speaker 1: coming in and she had you know, she was secure
Speaker 1: and she was raised her kids, and you know we
Speaker 1: had a nice suburban life. You know, so like all
Speaker 1: the wives of people that were involved in the outfit
Speaker 1: or you know, blind by choice.
Speaker 2: Okay, how do you keep an entire life of crime
Speaker 2: away from your friends, away from your family? How does
Speaker 2: your wife not know or your kids? It seems impossible,
Speaker 2: But I know it's true. I know because I was there,
Speaker 2: because Kenny is my father, and I had no idea
Speaker 2: about any of this until now.
Speaker 5: He's a dark days last him and I'm lost in.
Speaker 2: Away Crook County is a true crime podcast about my father,
Speaker 2: Kenny the Kid Tequila's rise through the ranks of one
Speaker 2: of the most notorious organized crimes in and it gets
Speaker 2: in the country, the Chicago Outfit. We'll exploring great depth
Speaker 2: my father's life of crime and it's profound and lasting
Speaker 2: impact on my family to this very day.
Speaker 1: I don't know he was in the mob until maybe
Speaker 1: twenty years after you guys were born.
Speaker 6: It's crazy to have someone that was so strong in
Speaker 6: my life and so be fucking bad, dream in the
Speaker 6: face over drugs because he was destroying our fucking family.
Speaker 1: You could see why he could be an enforcer.
Speaker 2: I'm blind, rage, out of control, violent person.
Speaker 1: You were sitting on a bombshell and you probably didn't
Speaker 1: realize it.
Speaker 2: Crook County is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Tenderfoot
Speaker 2: TV in association with Common Enemy. All episodes are produced,
Speaker 2: written and hosted by Me Kyle Tequila. Executive producers are
Speaker 2: Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay. Original score by Makeup and
Speaker 2: Vanity Set. Main title song is called Aloha by the
Speaker 2: band Starry Eyes. End credit song is called Crush, also
Speaker 2: by the band Starry Eyes. Sound mix by Cooper Skinner.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to my wife Nicole for not leaving me
Speaker 2: after she found out about all this shit, and a
Speaker 2: big thank you to my extended family for sharing their
Speaker 2: painful memories with me, which no doubt we're never meant
Speaker 2: to see the light of day, not to mention broadcast
Speaker 2: the entire world. I hope we can all find some
Speaker 2: healing through this journey together. Thank you to Orrin Rosenbaum
Speaker 2: and the excellent team at UTA for their support, and
Speaker 2: of course to my fearless attorney, Wendy Bench, who's an
Speaker 2: absolute badass and a total rockstar. To stay updated on
Speaker 2: all things Crook County. Follow us on all socials at
Speaker 2: Crook County Podcast, or leave us a voicemail by visiting
Speaker 2: crookcountypodcast dot com. For more podcasts like Crook County, search
Speaker 2: Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app, or visit tenderfoot
Speaker 2: dot tv. Episode two is available now. Subscribe to Tenderfoot
Speaker 2: Plus at tenderfootplus dot com to binge the entire season.
Speaker 7: Time I inst but so tall, sustayes so cold, it's
Speaker 7: nustand don't do thet that no tests, don't trust.
Speaker 5: Not trusted, Doc Blue and endless dafe one.
Speaker 2: Thank you for tuning in too, Crook County. New episodes
Speaker 2: are released weekly completely free, but if you're riching for more,
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