Speaker 1: Previously on Number one.
Speaker 2: Dad.
Speaker 3: One day I got a phone call from Rich who
Speaker 3: was with Manny in the basement, and the marshals came storming.
Speaker 4: In good morning, calling the case of AT and T
Speaker 4: Corp versus Manny veter defendant.
Speaker 5: Veter impersonated a New York Telephone company employee stole two
Speaker 5: night TAEL telephone enclosures and was prosecuted for a class
Speaker 5: eve felony.
Speaker 6: And then down the road as I'd speaking, I say, hey,
Speaker 6: did this ever get resolved? And I remember one discussion
Speaker 6: where he said, you wouldn't believe what happened. I had
Speaker 6: it in a warehouse and somehow the warehouse was broken
Speaker 6: into and a whole bunch of stuff was taken.
Speaker 1: If you had to guess how that evidence became missing,
Speaker 1: would you put it?
Speaker 7: Pat?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a hard thing to speculate if he was
Speaker 4: involved in it, but it was just a very good
Speaker 4: piece of luck for him that they couldn't bring the
Speaker 4: case forward.
Speaker 2: I want to show you something, Give me two seconds
Speaker 2: of your time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I got a guy.
Speaker 2: Since she's assistant.
Speaker 1: What I expected meeting my father to have a surprise
Speaker 1: or two, but I definitely did not see this coming.
Speaker 1: I have another sister who's half my age, and she's French.
Speaker 2: Lying, stealing.
Speaker 5: I got in trouble a little bit in different ways.
Speaker 5: Everything I had was just street smarts.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm sitting down with my father, Manny Veeter,
Speaker 1: in my old living room on Long Island, asking him
Speaker 1: everything I ever wanted to know. Hopefully I'll get the truth,
Speaker 1: but who knows. I mean, he is a con man.
Speaker 5: I went to Baru College during nineteen seventy to nineteen
Speaker 5: seventy three.
Speaker 7: When you're doing well in college in school.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I cheated my way through college.
Speaker 2: How could you not do well? If you're a bad cheater,
Speaker 2: then you suck. Yeah, you had to be the best,
Speaker 2: and I was the best.
Speaker 1: A lot of people say colleges where they figured out
Speaker 1: their path in life, and it turns out my father
Speaker 1: is one of those people. That's whereas days as a
Speaker 1: con artist began. Would it have been easier to actually
Speaker 1: have studied for some people?
Speaker 5: Yes, for me, that's not the way it worked out.
Speaker 1: Tell me how you cheated in college?
Speaker 5: By the way, you know, everything I'm saying is all
Speaker 5: bullshit and lies, right, Yeah, exactly, good say that to me.
Speaker 1: Everything you're saying is all bullshit in lines right, none
Speaker 1: of the trick right. This is number one, dad?
Speaker 7: So how would you go about cheating in college?
Speaker 5: I decided that if I wanted to get good marks,
Speaker 5: logically get a copy of the exam before the exam began.
Speaker 2: I figured out how I.
Speaker 5: Could do that, and then I would disperse the exam
Speaker 5: amongst friends of mine who collected money. They made money
Speaker 5: selling the exams. We had pretty small kids graduating from
Speaker 5: that school.
Speaker 7: How much would you sell the exams for?
Speaker 5: Oh, put a price tag on it for three to
Speaker 5: four hundred dollars an exam.
Speaker 7: Wow.
Speaker 1: What I didn't tell my father in that moment is
Speaker 1: I also stole exams in college, which is crazy. I
Speaker 1: had no idea we had this in common, but I
Speaker 1: didn't want to give them the satisfaction in knowing it.
Speaker 7: How would you get them?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 7: How would be access to them?
Speaker 2: I knew where the exams were being kept.
Speaker 5: Any major classes you were taking, whether it was the
Speaker 5: law accounting, had a department accounting department, law department, and.
Speaker 2: I figured out.
Speaker 5: That those departments somehow had to get the exams printed.
Speaker 2: Back then, they called them mimeograph machines.
Speaker 5: And I knew that mistakes are made. And what happens
Speaker 5: to the mimeograph machines when they make a mistake, They
Speaker 5: take them back copy throw in a garbage. So I said, okay,
Speaker 5: I'll pick the garbage. And I took two really smart
Speaker 5: kids gave it to them so they could get an.
Speaker 2: A plus rather than just an A.
Speaker 5: They would have to give me all the answers, and
Speaker 5: I told them they had to be perfect or they'd
Speaker 5: never see another example.
Speaker 2: And I got it.
Speaker 5: And it's not like both of us, me sitting here
Speaker 5: and the guy who's sitting there.
Speaker 2: How the hell do we have the same answers? You know?
Speaker 2: And if anybody questioned.
Speaker 7: Who did you say I cheated from?
Speaker 2: We don't even sit next to each other. What are
Speaker 2: you talking about? Right?
Speaker 8: You're able to deny, deny, deny, deny because you can't
Speaker 8: take back guilty.
Speaker 1: Was this successful?
Speaker 2: I mean it's very successful. I was making more money
Speaker 2: than a professor was there.
Speaker 1: I asked my father about one of his earliest jobs
Speaker 1: out of college. We're out of all the departments he
Speaker 1: was hired to work in security.
Speaker 5: I got offered a job with Pan American Airlines. I
Speaker 5: don't know if you ever heard of them. There were
Speaker 5: big airlines. They were like twa Luftanza. There were one
Speaker 5: of the big four in the world.
Speaker 2: They put me in.
Speaker 7: Charge of security. Ordit in security And how long did
Speaker 7: you work at pan.
Speaker 2: Am for until they fired me?
Speaker 7: So what led to you getting fired?
Speaker 2: Back then?
Speaker 5: You didn't come up to the desk and they type
Speaker 5: in your name, take your credit card?
Speaker 2: Okay. They didn't have that technology.
Speaker 5: The ticket was handwritten by the woman behind the desk okay.
Speaker 5: And the fraud was were fraudulent tickets that were being
Speaker 5: handwritten to get on a plane. See, they didn't even
Speaker 5: know exactly how many seats were sold till they manually
Speaker 5: counted the tickets and I slipped into shit, let's put
Speaker 5: it that way.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And they got that's it. They could just fire
Speaker 7: you for that.
Speaker 5: They could remember I'm the guy in ordered to in
Speaker 5: security and.
Speaker 2: I'm fucking lion.
Speaker 1: And then so, but now you don't have a Tanam job?
Speaker 1: What are you thinking about doing for a career.
Speaker 5: I needed something to do, so I said, Hey, my
Speaker 5: fall was in a furniture business. I loved selling and
Speaker 5: bullshitting and putting those two things together.
Speaker 1: I asked my father about his fime furniture store Designer's Gallery.
Speaker 6: After dozens of buyers claimed they were cheated, the State
Speaker 6: Attorney General's Office filed suit yesterday against Veter Sales Inc.
Speaker 7: What was Designer's Gallery.
Speaker 5: Designer's Gallery was the name of a medium to high
Speaker 5: end furniture business that I started. I did have help
Speaker 5: in getting into the furniture industry through my father in law,
Speaker 5: Ben Wolf, at that point, in order to gain more credibility,
Speaker 5: and this is where a lot of my scams began.
Speaker 5: I said, well, Manny Veeder in the furniture bill, who
Speaker 5: the hell is he? But Manny Wolf was the son
Speaker 5: of Ben Wolf, who had a store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Speaker 5: at two seventy five Broadway. I wanted something that was catchy,
Speaker 5: that could basically identify with young people and middle aged
Speaker 5: people who could buy furniture and spend more money.
Speaker 1: Did you start off in the furniture business as being
Speaker 1: an honest businessman?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Absolutely.
Speaker 5: Now that brings me into the next step which got
Speaker 5: me into trouble. I became a transshipper. I invented that
Speaker 5: word transshipper. Now people came through me and they go, oh,
Speaker 5: I want Ethan Allen or Drexel Heritage.
Speaker 2: These were big.
Speaker 5: Names in the furniture industry, but they wouldn't sell to me.
Speaker 5: They sold only to authorize dealers, like you can't buy
Speaker 5: a Vovo at a BMW guy unless you have two dealerships.
Speaker 5: So I went ahead and I said, how the fuck
Speaker 5: am I going to get these big names to sell me?
Speaker 5: So I needed another scam because everybody already knew who
Speaker 5: I was as a designers gallery, and they knew me
Speaker 5: in New York.
Speaker 2: So I said, screw this.
Speaker 5: I'll set up an address in Boston and I'll set
Speaker 5: up an address in Maryland.
Speaker 2: But I needed a good name. So what was that name?
Speaker 5: Armed Forces Sales and Services. What is Enforces Sales and
Speaker 5: Services do? When I went to introduce myself to these
Speaker 5: guys who didn't know who I was, I said, well,
Speaker 5: we are the ones that furnished all the embassies in
Speaker 5: France in Italy.
Speaker 2: That's how the furniture gets there.
Speaker 5: You send it to me, I put it in the container,
Speaker 5: and I send it overseas.
Speaker 2: You should never left the United States.
Speaker 1: I've never known about any of this before, but I
Speaker 1: got to admit, this is another brilliant scheme by my
Speaker 1: dad for his entire life. Using quick thinking and deception,
Speaker 1: he's been able to come up with a solution to
Speaker 1: get him ahead.
Speaker 5: If I could think it, I could make it work. Okay,
Speaker 5: it's all about delusion. Like a magician. I was a
Speaker 5: magician in the furniture business. They were figuring schmucks embassies
Speaker 5: all over the world. Right, But what they didn't realize
Speaker 5: how many times are they going to change their furniture?
Speaker 2: Right? Exactly?
Speaker 5: Umforces sales and services. I may have some business cards
Speaker 5: still left over. I'll give you nice furniture. However, I
Speaker 5: got a little greedy guys in my area said, Manny,
Speaker 5: how the hell did you get Drexel? How did you
Speaker 5: get this? How did you get that? I said, well,
Speaker 5: I have a contact. You couldn't get it. Who could
Speaker 5: get it?
Speaker 2: Man? He wolf could get it. So they would call me.
Speaker 5: I'd have these things shipped to a bogus address or
Speaker 5: warehouse where I was doing my trucking with, sent it there,
Speaker 5: and then take it and send it to the guy
Speaker 5: who wanted it.
Speaker 2: But he got to the point where the.
Speaker 5: Guy at the warehouse was also delivering furniture for other companies.
Speaker 5: So he'd asked me could you do a favor for
Speaker 5: so and so do it for me? Okay, he's helping
Speaker 5: me out. I open it and the furniture would come
Speaker 5: in and I've got four thousand dollars of inventory for
Speaker 5: Joe Piazza that he ordered from me, and he said,
Speaker 5: could you send it to me. I'll pay you as
Speaker 5: soon as I get paid. Well that's where I was stupid,
Speaker 5: because I got to wait for him to get paid. Fuck,
Speaker 5: you pay me now if you want the furniture. And
Speaker 5: that's when they started to threaten me. And I had
Speaker 5: a family. I didn't want to get threatened. They figured,
Speaker 5: what am.
Speaker 2: I gonna do?
Speaker 5: My goodness, I'm not gonna go after them legally, So
Speaker 5: I called Anthony, and Anthony got involved and basically had
Speaker 5: to go down, pay a visit to these people.
Speaker 2: And make sure we got paid.
Speaker 7: So who is Anthony?
Speaker 5: Anthony came from a family of the good old boys,
Speaker 5: and you wanted to be on the right side of
Speaker 5: Anthony because if you didn't and you crossed him, he
Speaker 5: would follow you to work.
Speaker 2: And wait for you to get to your job, and
Speaker 2: then when you'd get into that big elevator that took
Speaker 2: you up to the forty fourth floor.
Speaker 5: He'd step in, punch in the face, walk out the elevator,
Speaker 5: and the doors were closed.
Speaker 2: Nobody could get them.
Speaker 1: You're gonna meet Anthony sounds like he's going to kick
Speaker 1: the shit out of me.
Speaker 2: Not unless you deserve it.
Speaker 5: And one of my very famous customers was lat Trapeze.
Speaker 2: Now you've probably never heard of that.
Speaker 7: You kids.
Speaker 9: Latra Pee is located at seventeen East twenty seventh Street
Speaker 9: is a unique club open to freethinking adult couper. We
Speaker 9: offer a relaxing, nope pressure environment, complete repeated swimming pools
Speaker 9: and that same dyscopi. Latru Peeze may not be for everyone,
Speaker 9: but you won't know until.
Speaker 2: You try it.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen eighties, Latrapeze was the mecca of sex
Speaker 1: clubs in New York and my father was responsible for
Speaker 1: supplying them with their mattresses.
Speaker 5: Gross the Jersey Mob opened up latrap Pees. Well, they
Speaker 5: came to me and they say, come down to our place,
Speaker 5: which was off Park Avenue and twenty something Street.
Speaker 2: I walk in.
Speaker 5: It's like what you would refer to maybe as madam
Speaker 5: who is the manager there.
Speaker 2: It was like a big empty almost warehouse.
Speaker 5: But with lights, you know, he goes, well, we're going
Speaker 5: to need carpeting, and we're going to need mattresses. I said,
Speaker 5: what kind of mattresses you're going to put in here?
Speaker 5: Ones I go on the floor.
Speaker 2: That are waterproof or sperm proof. I said, what are
Speaker 2: they going? They're going to fuck here?
Speaker 5: She said to me here, I am listen to this
Speaker 5: woman who was like twenty years older than me. Yeah,
Speaker 5: this is going to be a fuck house. Most of
Speaker 5: these girls were like cookers, and when it came time
Speaker 5: to get paid, they told me, go fuck yourself, Anthony,
Speaker 5: you better get a hold of your dad.
Speaker 1: Who is Anthony's father, Anthony.
Speaker 2: He was a tough guy.
Speaker 1: I don't know if my father is telling the truth here,
Speaker 1: but I am loving this story. So you told Anthony Jr.
Speaker 1: That you have an issue that you're getting paid up.
Speaker 5: And he said, don't worry about it. I'll hold my father.
Speaker 5: He'll take care of it. His father sent some people
Speaker 5: down there, which, from my understanding was that day two
Speaker 5: men walked into the Latrapeze and.
Speaker 2: The guy who told me to fuss myself was there
Speaker 2: with a couple of his buddies.
Speaker 5: And the story, Anthony calls me my father just took
Speaker 5: care of everything. He wants us to go down there
Speaker 5: tomorrow to pick up our money.
Speaker 2: So I meet with Anthony.
Speaker 5: We go down there, and I told your mother, I'm
Speaker 5: walking in now. That was I had the first cell phone,
Speaker 5: which was a motor flip phone. I said, if I
Speaker 5: don't call you back for bullshit in five minutes, donal
Speaker 5: nine one wanted to tell him to come to that thinkers,
Speaker 5: I'm getting locked in a freezer somewhere.
Speaker 1: I have to pause here to say how insane it
Speaker 1: is that my father would put my mother through this
Speaker 1: kind of stress all because of, in his words, greed.
Speaker 1: Plenty of people have legitimate furniture businesses that provide for
Speaker 1: their family, but legitimate was never enough for my father.
Speaker 1: He needed more, even if it put him, my mother,
Speaker 1: and his kids in danger.
Speaker 5: So we get there and the guy who refused to
Speaker 5: pay me is now wearing big sunglasses.
Speaker 2: Like he's a movie star.
Speaker 5: The reason why I had the sunglasses while he took
Speaker 5: off this, he says, you didn't have to call anybody.
Speaker 2: Just look what they did to me.
Speaker 5: You know, he had a big black eye and nose
Speaker 5: was cut up here. They made sure I got my
Speaker 5: money on top of that, they took an extra fifty
Speaker 5: percent added to that. Okay, so now I had another
Speaker 5: two thousand dollars which I had to give to Anthony
Speaker 5: to give to those guys collection fee.
Speaker 1: What did my mom say when you call her to
Speaker 1: tell her? I mean, you're a guy who's in the
Speaker 1: furniture business. You're telling her, if you don't hear from
Speaker 1: me in five minutes, call the police.
Speaker 2: She just went along with it.
Speaker 5: And if I told this is what we got to
Speaker 5: do with, this is what we got to do because
Speaker 5: I got to collect that money.
Speaker 2: We need it.
Speaker 1: Hearing this really made me feel for my mother because
Speaker 1: she clearly didn't have much of a choice in the matter.
Speaker 1: She was a stay at home mom raising three kids
Speaker 1: and relied on her husband to provide. But unfortunately that
Speaker 1: husband was a crook.
Speaker 2: She was trapped.
Speaker 7: What was the downfall of Designers.
Speaker 2: Gallery New York State Attorney General.
Speaker 5: They had enough complaints where they needed to put a
Speaker 5: stop to me legally, and that's how they do it.
Speaker 5: They do it through their legal machine that they have
Speaker 5: and trying to fight The Attorney General is trying to
Speaker 5: fight New York State because their resources, to a.
Speaker 2: Certain point are unlimited.
Speaker 5: But I found out that the Attorney General has a
Speaker 5: budget and they got to make things pay. So the
Speaker 5: longer I can fuck them over and drag them out,
Speaker 5: they're going to realize that they're not getting any bang
Speaker 5: for their dollar.
Speaker 2: And that's what I did.
Speaker 5: So they were going to wear me down by me
Speaker 5: having to pay for a lawyer to come and represent me.
Speaker 5: But I never went to law school, and I became
Speaker 5: a lawyer overnight.
Speaker 2: And your mother can tell you that she saw how
Speaker 2: I worked.
Speaker 5: And I went to court and I sat in on
Speaker 5: different things in court, and I listened and I made
Speaker 5: notes terms that I would use, and things that other
Speaker 5: attorneys were doing to fuck other attorneys, and I picked
Speaker 5: up on it, and I knew the way I was
Speaker 5: going to get around this was to drag this out
Speaker 5: as long as I could.
Speaker 1: For loopholes my father used against the Attorney General managed
Speaker 1: to keep him out of jail, but eventually he was
Speaker 1: forced to close up shop.
Speaker 5: They put a order in on me that I can
Speaker 5: never be in a furniture business again.
Speaker 1: They're even allowed to sit in a chair like you're
Speaker 1: doing right now, only.
Speaker 2: If it's a toilet seat. Well, let's put it this
Speaker 2: way somebody like yourself. I would never try to scam.
Speaker 5: And I never went after the poor people who didn't
Speaker 5: have money. I went after the big companies. But it
Speaker 5: wasn't something I intentionally did. I unfortunately got into a
Speaker 5: situation where the money wasn't coming in and I couldn't
Speaker 5: pay my bills, and they pulled the rug from underneath me.
Speaker 2: It's as simple as that.
Speaker 5: It was a business decision by a lot of these companies,
Speaker 5: and word got around, don't do business with manny.
Speaker 1: Here's how I know my father is a great con artist.
Speaker 1: In the moment when he was saying all this, I
Speaker 1: was completely convinced by his justification for all the lies
Speaker 1: and schemes. But hearing it back, it's clear he's simply
Speaker 1: a man painting himself as the victim. He didn't unfortunately
Speaker 1: get into a situation. He put himself there. It was
Speaker 1: his choice to become a transshipper, to lie about furnishing embassies,
Speaker 1: and to get involved with the mob. My father isn't
Speaker 1: a man bound by some moral code. He's simply a
Speaker 1: victim of his own hubris who assumed his house of
Speaker 1: cards would never fall.
Speaker 7: Would you have done anything different?
Speaker 2: I would have.
Speaker 5: Robbed the bank taken more money on a one shot deal. Yeah,
Speaker 5: but you know, everything was a learning game for me.
Speaker 5: I could see what I could do and where I
Speaker 5: wouldn't be noticed.
Speaker 2: I learned that was part of my technique, which I
Speaker 2: still use to this very day.
Speaker 1: I knew my father went from the furniture business to payphones,
Speaker 1: but I never really knew how it all started. I
Speaker 1: couldn't wait to get the full story on payphone Plus.
Speaker 5: Somehow I read about an article that payphones were going
Speaker 5: to be available on the retail market. This has got
Speaker 5: to be about maybe nineteen eighty nine. I threw ten
Speaker 5: thousand dollars into that business, and each phone at that
Speaker 5: time cost me eleven hundred dollars, and I bought six phones,
Speaker 5: now all my payphones. I bought the best payphone on
Speaker 5: the market, and mine looked identical Toma Bell New York
Speaker 5: Telephone Company, because AT and T was manufacturing it for them,
Speaker 5: So it was the perception people already knew this got
Speaker 5: to be a good phone.
Speaker 1: Just to give people an idea of the scope of
Speaker 1: how large payphone Plus was, can you name different types
Speaker 1: of businesses that you had accounts in.
Speaker 5: I had phones in the tri state area, which included
Speaker 5: Long Island, five boroughs, Upper New Jersey, Westchester, Rockland County areas,
Speaker 5: about two hundred phones total. I had phones in Macy's,
Speaker 5: Jack Laane Sabarro's, Costco Gold Nugget Casino in Vegas.
Speaker 2: I had phones everywhere.
Speaker 1: Take me to acquiring an account and the perception you
Speaker 1: would give off of who you were.
Speaker 5: Okay, Well, first thing I went out and did was
Speaker 5: I had a couple of shirts.
Speaker 2: Embroidered AT and T.
Speaker 5: I have a truck outside that's painted the same color
Speaker 5: as an AT and T truck, and I.
Speaker 2: Have an AT and T logo and business cards.
Speaker 5: In fact, I got a helmet for you kids, helmet
Speaker 5: and I put an AT and T sticker on it.
Speaker 2: A few you remember that I do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you embroidered these AT and T shirts. Right,
Speaker 1: Are you going into a place and telling people you
Speaker 1: work for AT and T or No?
Speaker 5: No, no, no, that's just smoking mirrors. They made the assumption. Hey,
Speaker 5: if I went to Night in the Game and bought
Speaker 5: an Island New Jersey? Am I a goalie for the Islanders?
Speaker 5: Am I defenseman? Whatever you want to think is okay
Speaker 5: with me as long as it doesn't come out of
Speaker 5: my mouth.
Speaker 1: Aside from making people think he worked for AT and T. Apparently,
Speaker 1: another way my dad was able to grow his pay
Speaker 1: phone business was by paying out larger commissions than his competitors.
Speaker 5: In fact, I taught your cousin Mason, I started him
Speaker 5: in the phone business. So I took Mason with me
Speaker 5: and we went and there was a phone in front
Speaker 5: of this store, and I told the owner, I'm going
Speaker 5: to pay you a higher commission than you're getting. Now, well,
Speaker 5: we're putting our phone up here.
Speaker 1: You offered to pay them a better commission. How could
Speaker 1: you afford to do that?
Speaker 5: Very simply knowing that in four or five months from
Speaker 5: now they are going to cut my line the phone
Speaker 5: company for non payment. So you wouldn't pay the phone bill,
Speaker 5: all right, that I'd have a six hundred dollars phone bill,
Speaker 5: and they threatened to cut it off. But I was
Speaker 5: opening up different accounts under different names all the time.
Speaker 1: Now they cut the phone line, that phone, now, what
Speaker 1: happens to that at that establishment?
Speaker 2: You just take it out.
Speaker 5: What I did was I was two steps in front
Speaker 5: of them all the time. I would call up the
Speaker 5: phone company and I would tell the phone company. I'm
Speaker 5: now transferring this to this and this company. Okay, Now
Speaker 5: they changed the name from payphone plus XYZ, so a
Speaker 5: new lease on life, a new lease on life, and
Speaker 5: you continue.
Speaker 2: To do that.
Speaker 1: So why not just pay your bill?
Speaker 5: Because I was a greedy fuck and I wanted the
Speaker 5: money and I wanted it.
Speaker 1: Now, I'm sure a lot of my dad's answers to
Speaker 1: my questions have been filled with lies, but this time
Speaker 1: I know he's telling the truth. Yes, he's a swindler,
Speaker 1: a schemer, a con man, but at his core, he's
Speaker 1: simply a greedy fuck. Do you ever remember going around
Speaker 1: with me and sing a headset for a payphone?
Speaker 2: Did I do that with you? Holy shit?
Speaker 5: I must have been really fucking crazy. I don't remember
Speaker 5: vandalyzing somebody's phone or anything.
Speaker 2: I really don't, and be a stupid thing for me
Speaker 2: to do that with you?
Speaker 1: There, Yeah, well I remember that, so I went down.
Speaker 5: I don't know what to tell Listen, if you remember that,
Speaker 5: and I don't take your word on it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it doesn't seem like it would be something that
Speaker 7: you would do.
Speaker 2: I probably do worse, but yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1: Once we were on the topic of payphones. I had
Speaker 1: to ask my father about a certain mobbed up strip
Speaker 1: club in Queen's that was mentioned by his former employees
Speaker 1: Mark and Rich.
Speaker 3: These are made mafia guys, and every time we would enter,
Speaker 3: Nanny was greeted warmly. He would hang out, they would
Speaker 3: catch up, they would talk, they would joke.
Speaker 2: It made me uncomfortable with to the owner. There was
Speaker 2: like his owner guys.
Speaker 1: And he was real. He was just like Sketchy. Tell
Speaker 1: me about Wiggles.
Speaker 5: Wiggles was a topless and bottomless strip club located on
Speaker 5: Queens Boulevard.
Speaker 2: He has sixty third Drive and.
Speaker 5: I always made sure I put a phone right next
Speaker 5: to the dressing.
Speaker 2: Room for the women.
Speaker 1: Who owned it.
Speaker 5: A fella I knew by the name of Vinnie.
Speaker 2: Vinnie. What gumbats?
Speaker 7: Could you say his name?
Speaker 2: Do we have to You're walking on dangerous ground here.
Speaker 7: Any We're fine, We're fine.
Speaker 2: What are in? We're fine, We're fine.
Speaker 5: If the only people that listened to this or the
Speaker 5: FBI and the police.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll leave it. We'll leave his name, we'll
Speaker 1: call it, We'll call him Vinnie. My father was hesitant
Speaker 1: for good reason. The Vinnie. I'm asking him to talk
Speaker 1: about was the former head of the de Cavalcanti crime family.
Speaker 7: So how'd you meet him?
Speaker 5: Well, I was there one night and who comes in
Speaker 5: but Vinnie. We started talking and he asked me what
Speaker 5: am I doing here? I told I'm the guy who
Speaker 5: does the telephone and he had a problem with his
Speaker 5: phones and I fixed it and we started chatting, and
Speaker 5: what was.
Speaker 7: This situation with his phone?
Speaker 5: The guy who hooked it up before I ever looked
Speaker 5: at it, didn't do such a good job. He was
Speaker 5: very sloppy and wires were not properly punched on as
Speaker 5: they used the term to the block. And I just
Speaker 5: redid it and things were working fine.
Speaker 1: When I spoke with Mark, he told me my father
Speaker 1: found a tap in Vinnie's phone.
Speaker 3: He found taps and he was able to take those
Speaker 3: out and also inform them that they were actually being
Speaker 3: spied on, and so he's like a hero in this circle.
Speaker 1: I had to ask my father if this actually happened,
Speaker 1: Was there anything ever that you noticed in his phones,
Speaker 1: like say, anything that was ever like bugged or you.
Speaker 5: Wouldn't see a bug because the bugs were not bugged
Speaker 5: directly in the location, although sometimes that may have been
Speaker 5: the preferred way to do it. But a few miles
Speaker 5: away is where the Queen's district attorney had his offices,
Speaker 5: and usually when they were bugging somebody, they would bug
Speaker 5: it in that particular building, which was across the street
Speaker 5: from the courthouses, and this way nobody would ever see
Speaker 5: what was going on, and nobody would be suspicious. But yeah,
Speaker 5: there are ways to tell if a line is bugged.
Speaker 5: You need sophisticated electronics to see what's going on.
Speaker 1: So how would you know? Just curious, how would you
Speaker 1: know that that's where a district attorney would bug a phone?
Speaker 2: Like I watched a lot of movies.
Speaker 1: Did you ever help Vinnie out?
Speaker 2: Let's put it this way.
Speaker 5: If Annie would ask me to help him out, or
Speaker 5: I would have no problem doing it. I don't think
Speaker 5: you'd want to be on his bad side.
Speaker 1: My father may be a great liar, but sometimes you
Speaker 1: have to look at what he's not saying. He doesn't
Speaker 1: say that he never found a bug in Vinnie's phone,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't flat out say he never helped Vinnie out.
Speaker 1: I kept pressing him for more information, but that was
Speaker 1: all he was willing to give me. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: remember as much as I can from when I was
Speaker 1: a kid. I'm only between probably like eight to eleven
Speaker 1: at this time, while you were doing the payphone plus business.
Speaker 1: What eventually happened where you eventually had to stop?
Speaker 5: Well, I had to stop because AIGHTE and T sent
Speaker 5: me a letter saying that I shouldn't be walking around
Speaker 5: what a AIGHTE and T had on or a logo
Speaker 5: since I'm not an employee, and I basically told the guy,
Speaker 5: the vice president from AT and T who called I
Speaker 5: told him to go fuck himself.
Speaker 1: I guess word got around that you were wearing this
Speaker 1: stuff or accounts were under the assumption that they were
Speaker 1: dealing with AT and T rightly.
Speaker 5: And then you know they were probably filming me and
Speaker 5: taking pictures of me walking around like that.
Speaker 1: So you get this vice president who called you up,
Speaker 1: you tell him to go fuck himself, and what happens
Speaker 1: after that?
Speaker 5: I get served with papers to cease and desist otherwise
Speaker 5: they'll take further action. And me, being the prick I
Speaker 5: am and the hard ass, I told them I thought
Speaker 5: I told you to go fuck yourself last time.
Speaker 1: What happened next?
Speaker 5: AT and T got an order from the federal judge
Speaker 5: the US Marshal and some AT and T employees arrived
Speaker 5: at the home at about five thirty am in the morning.
Speaker 2: And demanded entrance, and I let them in.
Speaker 5: They started gathering things along with their attorneys. They started
Speaker 5: gathering a lot of my personal stuff and anything that
Speaker 5: might incriminate me, anything that might be evidence to show
Speaker 5: that I was acting as an AT and T employee,
Speaker 5: which meant anything with an eight and T logo. And
Speaker 5: they basically ransacked my office and the downstairs area of
Speaker 5: the house, taking items that would put me out of business,
Speaker 5: wouldn't let me operate anymore. And they had a truck
Speaker 5: pull up and they were loading up the truck. And
Speaker 5: to say the least, it was very embarrassing for my family.
Speaker 5: Neighbors saw something was going on. They had no idea
Speaker 5: that thought I was probably the biggest drug dealer in
Speaker 5: dick Shills. I felt shame and putting my family through this.
Speaker 5: I've got my son downstairs looking at what's going on
Speaker 5: with eyes that look like, hey, Dad, I want to
Speaker 5: help you, I want to protect you. And my ex
Speaker 5: wife went upstairs, and you know, it was not a
Speaker 5: good situation to be in. I caused a lot of
Speaker 5: heurd for everyone, and I don't want to use the
Speaker 5: excuse that, look, I had to make a living, I
Speaker 5: had to sustain them. And here you are a single
Speaker 5: breadwinner in the family, living in Dick's Hills, and you're
Speaker 5: trying to keep up with the Schwartzes and the Cohens,
Speaker 5: and it's not really that easy.
Speaker 1: I think one of the most crucial elements to being
Speaker 1: a great con artist is the ability to ignore all
Speaker 1: the possible consequences of your actions. Most people can't do it,
Speaker 1: but my father was the master. All the switching of
Speaker 1: names on accounts and fake at and t gear. You
Speaker 1: have to ignore it, the very real possibility that it
Speaker 1: all might blow up in your face. Like my dad said,
Speaker 1: he's a greedy fuck. He wants the big house in
Speaker 1: the nice neighborhood, the extravagant vocations to California and Europe. Frankly,
Speaker 1: we all do. But most people think about the price
Speaker 1: they'd have to pay to get those things. My dad
Speaker 1: is not one of those people. I do remember being
Speaker 1: in that situation and thinking that it's awkward that this
Speaker 1: is happening, that federal marshals are in the house. At
Speaker 1: any point, did I know that we never talked about it.
Speaker 1: But why didn't we ever talk about, like, Hey, this
Speaker 1: is a tough thing that I got involved in and
Speaker 1: that I never should have done. You never really brought
Speaker 1: up the fact that this was an embarrassing thing to
Speaker 1: the family. I mean, you're saying it now, but not
Speaker 1: back then. Why not?
Speaker 5: Well, because it was a very hurtful time and which
Speaker 5: led up to other things later on in life shortly after,
Speaker 5: and I wanted to forget about it as quickly as
Speaker 5: I could put that behind me. Which it didn't go
Speaker 5: behind me because I was dragged into court and I
Speaker 5: told your mother, if you don't come to court and
Speaker 5: fight this with me, they had your name on the papers.
Speaker 5: You got to be cleared. What happens to me doesn't matter,
Speaker 5: but you have to be cleared.
Speaker 1: So what ended up happening with AT and T?
Speaker 7: What was the end result?
Speaker 5: The end result with AT and T was that the
Speaker 5: case was dismissed. Oh and the other thing that happened
Speaker 5: was the evidence that they took. They came back with
Speaker 5: a story that the truck that they used was broken
Speaker 5: into in the night and a lot of their evidence
Speaker 5: was taken out of the truck, which the judge said,
Speaker 5: who drove that truck and they said it was eighteen
Speaker 5: T employees. Okay, so where was the truck? They said
Speaker 5: it was brought to a secure AT and T facility.
Speaker 5: So what are you saying. We're saying that it was
Speaker 5: mister Veda that broke into the truck.
Speaker 2: Do you believe something like that?
Speaker 1: Can you believe something like that?
Speaker 2: How the fuck am I going to break into a truck?
Speaker 1: What do you believe happened to that evidence?
Speaker 2: How to funck? Should I know?
Speaker 1: Would you say you took it?
Speaker 2: Never? That's important?
Speaker 5: How the fuck am I going to get on a
Speaker 5: secured facility that had cameras all around? How could I
Speaker 5: have possibly have done it? I mean the truck left
Speaker 5: with us marshals.
Speaker 1: I guess the only way to get into a secured
Speaker 1: AT and T facility with maybe being looking like somebody.
Speaker 7: Who worked for AT and T.
Speaker 1: Sure, do you think you would have been screwed if
Speaker 1: that eviden instant to go missing?
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
Speaker 5: Hey, on my deathbed, you can ask me the question
Speaker 5: and my memory may come back to me.
Speaker 1: What was I expecting my father say yes, I stole
Speaker 1: the evidence. If I learned anything from him, it.
Speaker 8: Was deny, deny, deny because you can't take back guilty.
Speaker 1: So you're stealing exams in college, you're moving money around.
Speaker 1: When it comes to the furniture business, you know, not
Speaker 1: even delivering furniture to people. Then you get involved in
Speaker 1: the phone business and you have AT and T logos
Speaker 1: on your sweatshirt, you're passing up business cards. At any
Speaker 1: point where you're like, why don't I just do a
Speaker 1: legit business, make this payphone business legit and see where
Speaker 1: that goes.
Speaker 5: Well, everything started out legit. It's just unforeseen reasons. I
Speaker 5: may have made a left turn instead of a right turn.
Speaker 5: And you know, when money's good and it's coming in,
Speaker 5: you just don't want it to stop, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I had money okay, until we were spending it, you know,
Speaker 5: quicker than we could make it. So that's just just
Speaker 5: the way. When it was poor planning on my side.
Speaker 5: Sure I made mistakes, but for some reason I was
Speaker 5: able to rectify things and move on with my life.
Speaker 5: A lot of things happened that were worse than that,
Speaker 5: and you know, that's it.
Speaker 1: So things are winding down at the house and we
Speaker 1: headed back outside, and then something unexpected happened. My father
Speaker 1: out of the blue face times. My half sister Miriam,
Speaker 1: who lives in Paris and who I've never met.
Speaker 2: That's a You're going to say hi to your sister.
Speaker 2: She wants to say hi to you.
Speaker 5: Actually, hey, somebody wants to say hello to you.
Speaker 2: You look pretty. Don't bite your nails please, honey. Okay,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Hey, how's it going. You know what I am? You
Speaker 1: know who that is?
Speaker 7: I am your half brother.
Speaker 1: Very nice, right, I heard a lot about you, and
Speaker 1: I know this is like the first time I'm talking
Speaker 1: to you, but I just wanted to say hi and
Speaker 1: introduce myself and then if you ever come to the
Speaker 1: United States, I'd be happy to, you know, meet up
Speaker 1: with you. And I have Instagram and stuff, and you know,
Speaker 1: you could always message me on there and stuff if
Speaker 1: you want to know anything or anything like that. I'm
Speaker 1: super you know you're you're my half sister, but you're
Speaker 1: my sister. You know, I don't mean say half you're
Speaker 1: my sister. And I think it's really cool nice. It
Speaker 1: was very nice meeting Miriam, and I do hope that
Speaker 1: I meet you one day in person.
Speaker 7: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thanks for doing that.
Speaker 7: Yes, you're very sweet.
Speaker 1: As I stood on the front lawn of my childhood home.
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe I spoke to my sister, Miriam. Miriam
Speaker 1: and I may not know each other, but even over FaceTime,
Speaker 1: I could tell she had a million questions she wanted
Speaker 1: to ask me about our father, probably a lot of
Speaker 1: the same questions I had when I was her age,
Speaker 1: and we couldn't talk about any of it because Manny
Speaker 1: was hovering inches away over my shoulder. So, Miriam, if
Speaker 1: you're listening, I hope this podcast helps clear up a
Speaker 1: lot of the things you want to know.
Speaker 2: I care for.
Speaker 1: Thanks great. On the next episode of Number One Dad,
Speaker 1: I am on my way to New York City to
Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden. I'm gonna be seeing a Rangers game
Speaker 1: with my dad. I can't believe I just said that
Speaker 1: we have actual access. We don't need to jump lines,
Speaker 1: jump ropes. Everything's good. We got legitimate tickets with fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's no phone when you come in legally.
Speaker 1: Number One Dad is a production of Radio Point, Big
Speaker 1: Money Players Network and iHeart Podcasts, created and hosted by
Speaker 1: Gary Veeter. Executive producers are Gary Veeter, Adam Lowett, Alex Bach,
Speaker 1: Daniel Powell, Houston Snyder Kenneth Slotnik and Brian Stern. Written
Speaker 1: by Gary Veeter and Adam Lowett, Produced by Bernie Minsky.
Speaker 1: Co producer is Taylor Kowalski, Edited and mixed by Ian
Speaker 1: Sorrentino at Little Bear Audio. Recording Engineer is kat Iosa.
Speaker 1: Original music by Andrew Gross. Special thanks to Charlotte DeAnda.
Speaker 1: Jonathan karsh Is creative consultant. Executive producers for Big Money
Speaker 1: Players Network and iHeart Podcasts are Will Farrell, Hans Sonni
Speaker 1: and Olivia Aguilar. Sound services were provided by Great City Posts.