WEBVTT - The Interview 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:01.760 Previously on Number one. 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:02.120 Dad. 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:04.800 One day I got a phone call from Rich who 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:09.160 was with Manny in the basement, and the marshals came storming. 0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:13.680 In good morning, calling the case of AT and T 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:16.480 Corp versus Manny veter defendant. 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:20.959 Veter impersonated a New York Telephone company employee stole two 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:24.439 night TAEL telephone enclosures and was prosecuted for a class 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:25.240 eve felony. 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.040 And then down the road as I'd speaking, I say, hey, 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:31.160 did this ever get resolved? And I remember one discussion 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:33.239 where he said, you wouldn't believe what happened. I had 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:35.479 it in a warehouse and somehow the warehouse was broken 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:37.520 into and a whole bunch of stuff was taken. 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:44.240 If you had to guess how that evidence became missing, 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:45.320 would you put it? 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:45.559 Pat? 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:48.559 Yeah, it's a hard thing to speculate if he was 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:52.120 involved in it, but it was just a very good 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:55.600 piece of luck for him that they couldn't bring the 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:56.600 case forward. 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:58.880 I want to show you something, Give me two seconds 0:00:58.920 --> 0:00:59.400 of your time. 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:04.000 Yeah, yeah, I got a guy. 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:05.480 Since she's assistant. 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:09.920 What I expected meeting my father to have a surprise 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:12.679 or two, but I definitely did not see this coming. 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:17.880 I have another sister who's half my age, and she's French. 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:23.600 Lying, stealing. 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:26.200 I got in trouble a little bit in different ways. 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:28.720 Everything I had was just street smarts. 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:31.440 Right now, I'm sitting down with my father, Manny Veeter, 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:34.399 in my old living room on Long Island, asking him 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:37.440 everything I ever wanted to know. Hopefully I'll get the truth, 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:40.280 but who knows. I mean, he is a con man. 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:46.959 I went to Baru College during nineteen seventy to nineteen 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:48.040 seventy three. 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:51.040 When you're doing well in college in school. 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:53.600 Yeah, I cheated my way through college. 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:56.200 How could you not do well? If you're a bad cheater, 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:59.720 then you suck. Yeah, you had to be the best, 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:01.200 and I was the best. 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:03.720 A lot of people say colleges where they figured out 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:06.560 their path in life, and it turns out my father 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:09.200 is one of those people. That's whereas days as a 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:12.880 con artist began. Would it have been easier to actually 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:14.720 have studied for some people? 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:18.120 Yes, for me, that's not the way it worked out. 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:21.120 Tell me how you cheated in college? 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:22.840 By the way, you know, everything I'm saying is all 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:27.320 bullshit and lies, right, Yeah, exactly, good say that to me. 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.359 Everything you're saying is all bullshit in lines right, none 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:35.320 of the trick right. This is number one, dad? 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:43.520 So how would you go about cheating in college? 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:46.920 I decided that if I wanted to get good marks, 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:52.560 logically get a copy of the exam before the exam began. 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:55.480 I figured out how I. 0:02:55.440 --> 0:03:00.680 Could do that, and then I would disperse the exam 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:06.040 amongst friends of mine who collected money. They made money 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:10.079 selling the exams. We had pretty small kids graduating from 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:10.640 that school. 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:12.679 How much would you sell the exams for? 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.040 Oh, put a price tag on it for three to 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:17.440 four hundred dollars an exam. 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:18.000 Wow. 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:20.720 What I didn't tell my father in that moment is 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:24.720 I also stole exams in college, which is crazy. I 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:27.200 had no idea we had this in common, but I 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:29.720 didn't want to give them the satisfaction in knowing it. 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:31.919 How would you get them? 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:32.240 Like? 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:34.280 How would be access to them? 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:36.360 I knew where the exams were being kept. 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:40.440 Any major classes you were taking, whether it was the 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:47.840 law accounting, had a department accounting department, law department, and. 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:50.240 I figured out. 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:55.040 That those departments somehow had to get the exams printed. 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:58.119 Back then, they called them mimeograph machines. 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:06.760 And I knew that mistakes are made. And what happens 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:11.120 to the mimeograph machines when they make a mistake, They 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:14.360 take them back copy throw in a garbage. So I said, okay, 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:19.760 I'll pick the garbage. And I took two really smart 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:23.080 kids gave it to them so they could get an. 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:25.680 A plus rather than just an A. 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.719 They would have to give me all the answers, and 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:32.360 I told them they had to be perfect or they'd 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:33.400 never see another example. 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:35.720 And I got it. 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:40.040 And it's not like both of us, me sitting here 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:41.600 and the guy who's sitting there. 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:45.360 How the hell do we have the same answers? You know? 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:47.720 And if anybody questioned. 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:50.600 Who did you say I cheated from? 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:52.880 We don't even sit next to each other. What are 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:55.240 you talking about? Right? 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:59.960 You're able to deny, deny, deny, deny because you can't 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:01.039 take back guilty. 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:02.640 Was this successful? 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:06.159 I mean it's very successful. I was making more money 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:07.400 than a professor was there. 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:10.599 I asked my father about one of his earliest jobs 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:13.520 out of college. We're out of all the departments he 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:15.400 was hired to work in security. 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:18.560 I got offered a job with Pan American Airlines. I 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:20.360 don't know if you ever heard of them. There were 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:26.400 big airlines. They were like twa Luftanza. There were one 0:05:26.440 --> 0:05:28.640 of the big four in the world. 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:29.920 They put me in. 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:34.320 Charge of security. Ordit in security And how long did 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:35.040 you work at pan. 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:37.120 Am for until they fired me? 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:40.479 So what led to you getting fired? 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:42.560 Back then? 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:44.840 You didn't come up to the desk and they type 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:47.800 in your name, take your credit card? 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:50.880 Okay. They didn't have that technology. 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:57.600 The ticket was handwritten by the woman behind the desk okay. 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:03.120 And the fraud was were fraudulent tickets that were being 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:06.599 handwritten to get on a plane. See, they didn't even 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:09.800 know exactly how many seats were sold till they manually 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:14.880 counted the tickets and I slipped into shit, let's put 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:15.440 it that way. 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:19.040 Yeah, And they got that's it. They could just fire 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:19.400 you for that. 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:24.159 They could remember I'm the guy in ordered to in 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:24.719 security and. 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:25.560 I'm fucking lion. 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:28.880 And then so, but now you don't have a Tanam job? 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:30.840 What are you thinking about doing for a career. 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.520 I needed something to do, so I said, Hey, my 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:35.800 fall was in a furniture business. I loved selling and 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:38.320 bullshitting and putting those two things together. 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:46.280 I asked my father about his fime furniture store Designer's Gallery. 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:50.000 After dozens of buyers claimed they were cheated, the State 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:53.599 Attorney General's Office filed suit yesterday against Veter Sales Inc. 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:56.200 What was Designer's Gallery. 0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:01.400 Designer's Gallery was the name of a medium to high 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:06.440 end furniture business that I started. I did have help 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:11.440 in getting into the furniture industry through my father in law, 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:16.560 Ben Wolf, at that point, in order to gain more credibility, 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:19.280 and this is where a lot of my scams began. 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:24.160 I said, well, Manny Veeder in the furniture bill, who 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:28.400 the hell is he? But Manny Wolf was the son 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:32.040 of Ben Wolf, who had a store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:35.960 at two seventy five Broadway. I wanted something that was catchy, 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:42.480 that could basically identify with young people and middle aged 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:47.840 people who could buy furniture and spend more money. 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:50.520 Did you start off in the furniture business as being 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:51.520 an honest businessman? 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:53.800 Absolutely? Absolutely. 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:58.200 Now that brings me into the next step which got 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:03.760 me into trouble. I became a transshipper. I invented that 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:08.400 word transshipper. Now people came through me and they go, oh, 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:11.160 I want Ethan Allen or Drexel Heritage. 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:12.360 These were big. 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:18.200 Names in the furniture industry, but they wouldn't sell to me. 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:22.360 They sold only to authorize dealers, like you can't buy 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:26.200 a Vovo at a BMW guy unless you have two dealerships. 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:30.000 So I went ahead and I said, how the fuck 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:32.840 am I going to get these big names to sell me? 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:37.800 So I needed another scam because everybody already knew who 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:41.440 I was as a designers gallery, and they knew me 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:42.080 in New York. 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:45.480 So I said, screw this. 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:49.560 I'll set up an address in Boston and I'll set 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:51.319 up an address in Maryland. 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:54.439 But I needed a good name. So what was that name? 0:08:55.720 --> 0:09:01.000 Armed Forces Sales and Services. What is Enforces Sales and 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:04.160 Services do? When I went to introduce myself to these 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.719 guys who didn't know who I was, I said, well, 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:11.880 we are the ones that furnished all the embassies in 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:13.400 France in Italy. 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:15.319 That's how the furniture gets there. 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:18.080 You send it to me, I put it in the container, 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:19.360 and I send it overseas. 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:21.400 You should never left the United States. 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:25.360 I've never known about any of this before, but I 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:28.280 got to admit, this is another brilliant scheme by my 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:31.920 dad for his entire life. Using quick thinking and deception, 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:34.080 he's been able to come up with a solution to 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:34.760 get him ahead. 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:38.079 If I could think it, I could make it work. Okay, 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:42.040 it's all about delusion. Like a magician. I was a 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:47.000 magician in the furniture business. They were figuring schmucks embassies 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:49.679 all over the world. Right, But what they didn't realize 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:51.720 how many times are they going to change their furniture? 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:53.600 Right? Exactly? 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:57.680 Umforces sales and services. I may have some business cards 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:03.840 still left over. I'll give you nice furniture. However, I 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:08.000 got a little greedy guys in my area said, Manny, 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:10.040 how the hell did you get Drexel? How did you 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:12.440 get this? How did you get that? I said, well, 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:15.400 I have a contact. You couldn't get it. Who could 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:15.800 get it? 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:19.080 Man? He wolf could get it. So they would call me. 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.839 I'd have these things shipped to a bogus address or 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:29.240 warehouse where I was doing my trucking with, sent it there, 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:32.960 and then take it and send it to the guy 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:33.680 who wanted it. 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:35.960 But he got to the point where the. 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:39.240 Guy at the warehouse was also delivering furniture for other companies. 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:41.400 So he'd asked me could you do a favor for 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:44.280 so and so do it for me? Okay, he's helping 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:47.400 me out. I open it and the furniture would come 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:51.360 in and I've got four thousand dollars of inventory for 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:55.840 Joe Piazza that he ordered from me, and he said, 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:57.200 could you send it to me. I'll pay you as 0:10:57.240 --> 0:10:59.960 soon as I get paid. Well that's where I was stupid, 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:02.440 because I got to wait for him to get paid. Fuck, 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:06.480 you pay me now if you want the furniture. And 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:10.560 that's when they started to threaten me. And I had 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.360 a family. I didn't want to get threatened. They figured, 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:13.840 what am. 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:14.160 I gonna do? 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:16.400 My goodness, I'm not gonna go after them legally, So 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:25.040 I called Anthony, and Anthony got involved and basically had 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:27.280 to go down, pay a visit to these people. 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:28.840 And make sure we got paid. 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:30.840 So who is Anthony? 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:35.800 Anthony came from a family of the good old boys, 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:38.480 and you wanted to be on the right side of 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:42.840 Anthony because if you didn't and you crossed him, he 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:44.439 would follow you to work. 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:46.560 And wait for you to get to your job, and 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:48.760 then when you'd get into that big elevator that took 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:50.080 you up to the forty fourth floor. 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:55.480 He'd step in, punch in the face, walk out the elevator, 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:56.560 and the doors were closed. 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:57.880 Nobody could get them. 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:02.200 You're gonna meet Anthony sounds like he's going to kick 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:02.800 the shit out of me. 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:06.319 Not unless you deserve it. 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:12.199 And one of my very famous customers was lat Trapeze. 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:13.719 Now you've probably never heard of that. 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:14.280 You kids. 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:20.400 Latra Pee is located at seventeen East twenty seventh Street 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:24.000 is a unique club open to freethinking adult couper. We 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:28.280 offer a relaxing, nope pressure environment, complete repeated swimming pools 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:32.480 and that same dyscopi. Latru Peeze may not be for everyone, 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:34.080 but you won't know until. 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:34.280 You try it. 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:40.160 In the nineteen eighties, Latrapeze was the mecca of sex 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:43.480 clubs in New York and my father was responsible for 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:45.319 supplying them with their mattresses. 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:51.199 Gross the Jersey Mob opened up latrap Pees. Well, they 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:53.959 came to me and they say, come down to our place, 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:58.360 which was off Park Avenue and twenty something Street. 0:12:59.160 --> 0:12:59.720 I walk in. 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:03.480 It's like what you would refer to maybe as madam 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:05.360 who is the manager there. 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:08.920 It was like a big empty almost warehouse. 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:12.320 But with lights, you know, he goes, well, we're going 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:18.160 to need carpeting, and we're going to need mattresses. I said, 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:20.680 what kind of mattresses you're going to put in here? 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:22.559 Ones I go on the floor. 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:28.080 That are waterproof or sperm proof. I said, what are 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:29.480 they going? They're going to fuck here? 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:32.160 She said to me here, I am listen to this 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:34.800 woman who was like twenty years older than me. Yeah, 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:37.720 this is going to be a fuck house. Most of 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:42.560 these girls were like cookers, and when it came time 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:45.920 to get paid, they told me, go fuck yourself, Anthony, 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:47.840 you better get a hold of your dad. 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:51.200 Who is Anthony's father, Anthony. 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:54.840 He was a tough guy. 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:57.880 I don't know if my father is telling the truth here, 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:02.040 but I am loving this story. So you told Anthony Jr. 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:05.320 That you have an issue that you're getting paid up. 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:08.480 And he said, don't worry about it. I'll hold my father. 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:12.240 He'll take care of it. His father sent some people 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:16.280 down there, which, from my understanding was that day two 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:18.959 men walked into the Latrapeze and. 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:21.480 The guy who told me to fuss myself was there 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:22.760 with a couple of his buddies. 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:27.680 And the story, Anthony calls me my father just took 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:30.440 care of everything. He wants us to go down there 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:33.080 tomorrow to pick up our money. 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.720 So I meet with Anthony. 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:40.560 We go down there, and I told your mother, I'm 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.400 walking in now. That was I had the first cell phone, 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:47.480 which was a motor flip phone. I said, if I 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:51.360 don't call you back for bullshit in five minutes, donal 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:53.600 nine one wanted to tell him to come to that thinkers, 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:55.400 I'm getting locked in a freezer somewhere. 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:58.320 I have to pause here to say how insane it 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:00.920 is that my father would put my mother through this 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:04.440 kind of stress all because of, in his words, greed. 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:08.720 Plenty of people have legitimate furniture businesses that provide for 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:12.720 their family, but legitimate was never enough for my father. 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:16.520 He needed more, even if it put him, my mother, 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:18.480 and his kids in danger. 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:24.120 So we get there and the guy who refused to 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:27.160 pay me is now wearing big sunglasses. 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:28.440 Like he's a movie star. 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:31.360 The reason why I had the sunglasses while he took 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:34.320 off this, he says, you didn't have to call anybody. 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:35.440 Just look what they did to me. 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.680 You know, he had a big black eye and nose 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:42.840 was cut up here. They made sure I got my 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:45.960 money on top of that, they took an extra fifty 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:51.080 percent added to that. Okay, so now I had another 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:55.080 two thousand dollars which I had to give to Anthony 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:57.640 to give to those guys collection fee. 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:01.120 What did my mom say when you call her to 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:02.680 tell her? I mean, you're a guy who's in the 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:05.440 furniture business. You're telling her, if you don't hear from 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:07.640 me in five minutes, call the police. 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:09.400 She just went along with it. 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:12.040 And if I told this is what we got to 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:13.680 do with, this is what we got to do because 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:14.680 I got to collect that money. 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:15.160 We need it. 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:19.160 Hearing this really made me feel for my mother because 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:21.680 she clearly didn't have much of a choice in the matter. 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:25.160 She was a stay at home mom raising three kids 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:29.720 and relied on her husband to provide. But unfortunately that 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:31.560 husband was a crook. 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:33.320 She was trapped. 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.640 What was the downfall of Designers. 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:47.800 Gallery New York State Attorney General. 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:51.080 They had enough complaints where they needed to put a 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:55.400 stop to me legally, and that's how they do it. 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:59.760 They do it through their legal machine that they have 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:03.400 and trying to fight The Attorney General is trying to 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.440 fight New York State because their resources, to a. 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:08.480 Certain point are unlimited. 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:12.879 But I found out that the Attorney General has a 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:16.359 budget and they got to make things pay. So the 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:18.680 longer I can fuck them over and drag them out, 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:21.920 they're going to realize that they're not getting any bang 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:22.679 for their dollar. 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:25.200 And that's what I did. 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:28.439 So they were going to wear me down by me 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:30.560 having to pay for a lawyer to come and represent me. 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:33.800 But I never went to law school, and I became 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:34.879 a lawyer overnight. 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:37.880 And your mother can tell you that she saw how 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:38.439 I worked. 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:41.240 And I went to court and I sat in on 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:43.440 different things in court, and I listened and I made 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:48.440 notes terms that I would use, and things that other 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:53.240 attorneys were doing to fuck other attorneys, and I picked 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:55.960 up on it, and I knew the way I was 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:58.479 going to get around this was to drag this out 0:17:58.560 --> 0:17:59.960 as long as I could. 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:03.520 For loopholes my father used against the Attorney General managed 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:06.560 to keep him out of jail, but eventually he was 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:07.760 forced to close up shop. 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.600 They put a order in on me that I can 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:13.399 never be in a furniture business again. 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:15.679 They're even allowed to sit in a chair like you're 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:17.600 doing right now, only. 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:21.199 If it's a toilet seat. Well, let's put it this 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:24.600 way somebody like yourself. I would never try to scam. 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:28.880 And I never went after the poor people who didn't 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:33.600 have money. I went after the big companies. But it 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:38.040 wasn't something I intentionally did. I unfortunately got into a 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:43.600 situation where the money wasn't coming in and I couldn't 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:46.359 pay my bills, and they pulled the rug from underneath me. 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:47.440 It's as simple as that. 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:50.640 It was a business decision by a lot of these companies, 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:53.960 and word got around, don't do business with manny. 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:56.919 Here's how I know my father is a great con artist. 0:18:57.359 --> 0:18:59.760 In the moment when he was saying all this, I 0:18:59.880 --> 0:19:03.560 was completely convinced by his justification for all the lies 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:07.800 and schemes. But hearing it back, it's clear he's simply 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:12.320 a man painting himself as the victim. He didn't unfortunately 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:16.080 get into a situation. He put himself there. It was 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:20.280 his choice to become a transshipper, to lie about furnishing embassies, 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:24.040 and to get involved with the mob. My father isn't 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:27.240 a man bound by some moral code. He's simply a 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:30.280 victim of his own hubris who assumed his house of 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:31.520 cards would never fall. 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:33.240 Would you have done anything different? 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:34.320 I would have. 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:39.280 Robbed the bank taken more money on a one shot deal. Yeah, 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:41.439 but you know, everything was a learning game for me. 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:45.040 I could see what I could do and where I 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:46.000 wouldn't be noticed. 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:49.960 I learned that was part of my technique, which I 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:51.600 still use to this very day. 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:55.280 I knew my father went from the furniture business to payphones, 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:58.119 but I never really knew how it all started. I 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:01.120 couldn't wait to get the full story on payphone Plus. 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:06.239 Somehow I read about an article that payphones were going 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:09.880 to be available on the retail market. This has got 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:15.360 to be about maybe nineteen eighty nine. I threw ten 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:19.159 thousand dollars into that business, and each phone at that 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:23.320 time cost me eleven hundred dollars, and I bought six phones, 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:27.240 now all my payphones. I bought the best payphone on 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:31.840 the market, and mine looked identical Toma Bell New York 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:34.920 Telephone Company, because AT and T was manufacturing it for them, 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:39.600 So it was the perception people already knew this got 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:40.520 to be a good phone. 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:42.480 Just to give people an idea of the scope of 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:47.080 how large payphone Plus was, can you name different types 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:49.639 of businesses that you had accounts in. 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:53.680 I had phones in the tri state area, which included 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:59.840 Long Island, five boroughs, Upper New Jersey, Westchester, Rockland County areas, 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:03.840 about two hundred phones total. I had phones in Macy's, 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:11.080