Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Saren Yoh, Elizabeth Duddon, Hey, what's up?
Speaker 3: Please keep it down?
Speaker 4: Oh? Sorry?
Speaker 2: Why are we whispering?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Hold on, let me look. Okay, it's clear, let's go.
Speaker 3: We're good.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank god.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 3: Okay, so listen. Yeah, do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 5: Yes, Oh, sit back down. Yes, yeah, you start whispering. Okay, listen, ready.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm ready.
Speaker 5: Harlem Globetrotters. Okay, they're not ridiculous at all. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 5: Pope John Paul the Second No, also not ridiculous. But
Speaker 5: do you know they were on the same team. No,
Speaker 5: and by that I mean literally, Pope John Paul the
Speaker 5: Second was an honorary Harlem Globetrotter.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, And.
Speaker 5: He met them in Saint Peter's Square on October first,
Speaker 5: nineteen eighty six. The meeting went so well that fourteen
Speaker 5: years later, the second time they met, they showed up
Speaker 5: and they presented him with an autographed basketball and a
Speaker 5: jersey of his own with his name on it, number
Speaker 5: seventy five in honor of the Globetrotter's seventy fifth anniversary,
Speaker 5: and they said the quote they were making him giving
Speaker 5: him a new title, one befitting the man, and they said, quote,
Speaker 5: this prestigious title recognizes an individual of extraordinary character and
Speaker 5: achievement who's made an everlasting mark on the world. So yeah,
Speaker 5: they said that similar to the Pope, the Globetrotters have
Speaker 5: touched tens of millions of people around the world as
Speaker 5: moral leaders and champions of human rights. I shouldn't have
Speaker 5: paused so much pause kind of mass that up, but
Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying. Anyway, John Paul too was
Speaker 5: an honorary Globetrotter and also a saint. So the Harlem
Speaker 5: Globetrotters have a saint on their team.
Speaker 3: That's amazing. Do you like do you think he ever
Speaker 3: put the jersey on?
Speaker 2: I think he played that night in it skills with exactly.
Speaker 3: Do you think it's like in a museum or is
Speaker 3: it in a box somewhere?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 2: I bet Benedict had it burned.
Speaker 5: Pope Benedict, He's like burned this probably that's what the
Speaker 5: smoke was when he got elected with he was the
Speaker 5: seventh person to be an honorary Globe trot So there's
Speaker 5: not a lot of them Oh yeah, he's like, they're
Speaker 5: seventh man.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm going to look up and see who the
Speaker 3: others are. Okay, okay, so that is ridiculous. Do you
Speaker 3: know what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 2: No, that's right. I came here to ask you.
Speaker 3: Having your name become a word in the dictionary because
Speaker 3: of something you did.
Speaker 4: Oh my dream.
Speaker 3: This is ridiculous. Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists,
Speaker 3: and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and
Speaker 3: one hundred percent ridiculous. Okay, I was waiting for that. Saren,
Speaker 3: you're a bath guy, right, yeah. I think we've talked.
Speaker 2: About bad bath and beyond.
Speaker 3: Baby, what is your ideal bath?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 5: It's like, what do you mean, like the bathtub or
Speaker 5: like the type of bath? Just walk me, walk you
Speaker 5: through my favorite bath.
Speaker 2: Okay? So there?
Speaker 5: Am I a bubbles or no bubbles person, Elizabeth, No surprise,
Speaker 5: I'm a bubbles person.
Speaker 3: Oh you are?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Oh yeah, you gotta have some bubbles. Why not?
Speaker 5: You're doing it, beat deck and enjoy it, luxuriate. So yes, bubbles, yes,
Speaker 5: bath bomb maybe if I'm in the mood, but probably not.
Speaker 3: Sometimes the salts.
Speaker 5: If my muscles are aching, but maybe I'm gonna baby
Speaker 5: drop in a little Doctor Bronner's, you know, just get
Speaker 5: a little that pepper mints feel.
Speaker 2: I like that one. That's always a nice one. And
Speaker 2: then I want the temperature of.
Speaker 5: The water to be extremely hot, so hot that it's
Speaker 5: like one of those Japanese baths. But they do it
Speaker 5: with fire, so that's really nice because it doesn't then
Speaker 5: tickle the skin. I've here, but my bass, they tickle
Speaker 5: the skin like it makes the skin itch.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh my god, this is like it's like red.
Speaker 3: You're like red.
Speaker 5: Yes, I want to look like a like a silkwood shower.
Speaker 5: That's what I'm going for. So then I sit in
Speaker 5: there for like thirty forty minutes, and I wear I
Speaker 5: wear my reading glasses, and I bring a phone and
Speaker 5: I read the day's news, the day's events, my email.
Speaker 5: I catch up with friends. It's awesome. Sometimes I bring
Speaker 5: a slice of cake in there if I want I relax,
Speaker 5: like you want me to keep going on. I can
Speaker 5: tell you about the drinks, like tell you, but the music.
Speaker 2: I like candles.
Speaker 3: Do you have like duckies?
Speaker 5: No, no floaties, nothing that I'm breaking. I'm not bringing
Speaker 5: anything anything into the water. But I have I have
Speaker 5: I like I will admit when I was like a
Speaker 5: very young bachelor and I was bathing, I would sometimes
Speaker 5: bring a beer or two into the bathtub and then
Speaker 5: I would float the empties in the water. So it
Speaker 5: looks like I meant the beginning of like a movie,
Speaker 5: like like Smoking the Band at two, it's like a
Speaker 5: really depressing part of the movie. Yes, exactly, it's like, Oh,
Speaker 5: we're at the park before his life.
Speaker 2: It's better.
Speaker 3: For You're a bad guy. That's great, that's cool for you.
Speaker 3: Do you like bads? You also? Do you like Italian culture? Italy? Italians?
Speaker 2: Never heard of it?
Speaker 3: Okay, I like Italy and Italian culture and Italians. I
Speaker 3: think we've talked about that before. You like planes, right,
Speaker 3: I love them. You said you've always.
Speaker 5: Wanted to learn to fl I always wanted to learn
Speaker 5: to fly. I'm against helicopters, but I love.
Speaker 3: Planes, right, and so aviation it thrills you the most.
Speaker 3: And we've talked about that. Yes, I really love talking
Speaker 3: about the San Francisco Bay Area. Yes you did, and
Speaker 3: I've done that to death.
Speaker 2: Anders I don't care and.
Speaker 3: I won't stop. I love Bay Area history and culture.
Speaker 3: It's in Memmisota. No, And anytime I can tell a
Speaker 3: Bay Area.
Speaker 2: Story, I will, Yes, you will.
Speaker 3: I am annoying that way, Dave, Dave, you love a
Speaker 3: good immigrant story for sure? Yeah, Hell, who doesn't.
Speaker 2: Who doesn't.
Speaker 3: We need people coming to the US. And we've talked
Speaker 3: about that before. So I have a good one for
Speaker 3: us today.
Speaker 2: Sounds like that you're hitting all the bums.
Speaker 3: It's something for everyone. Come on, It's something we haven't
Speaker 3: talked about yet. Though. Oh what if I just started
Speaker 3: repeating all the old ones. I want to tell you
Speaker 3: the story of a family.
Speaker 2: We could just tell each other's the ones that you've done.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you that.
Speaker 3: Time when you were talking about Yeah, I'm.
Speaker 2: Gonna tell the one you did, but I'm gonna do
Speaker 2: it funnier, faster.
Speaker 3: So this is the story of a family. A family
Speaker 3: that's scrappy and sharp, big dreams, bigger work at a
Speaker 3: family that sticks together through thick and thin until they don't.
Speaker 3: I'm going to warn you that this story has more
Speaker 3: history than crime.
Speaker 2: Okay, just coming in up top, Just indulge me.
Speaker 3: I was looking into this and I was so taken
Speaker 3: with the story of this family that I figured, I
Speaker 3: just make it work.
Speaker 2: I'm so curious.
Speaker 3: So this is the story of Giovanni and his wife Teresa.
Speaker 3: He was the patriarch of a large family in Casarsa
Speaker 3: de la Delicia.
Speaker 2: Is this badonna's father, That's why they only have first name.
Speaker 3: Yes, everyone only has first names. So this Cassara de
Speaker 3: la Delicia. It's a farming community in northern Italy, northeast
Speaker 3: of Venice, northwest of Trieste.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So it's an idyllic setting, very nice, gently rolling hills, vineyards.
Speaker 3: There's a beautiful church in town. As you can probably guess,
Speaker 3: I went a Google street viewing and I want to
Speaker 3: go there.
Speaker 2: How was your tour?
Speaker 3: It was fantastic. So it's this lovely little Italian village.
Speaker 3: But it had some issues at the turn of the
Speaker 3: twentieth century when Giovanni and his family lived there. Jack poverty.
Speaker 2: Oh that is an issue.
Speaker 3: Yea, not so great. So Giovanni he was a carpenter.
Speaker 3: He was a very hard worker who came from a
Speaker 3: long line of farmers and dog workers. Teresa kept a
Speaker 3: tidy and efficient home. Giovanni and Teresa had thirteen children.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, she was blown out, so they kept that
Speaker 2: bed warm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Rakaylee was one Valeriano Francesco.
Speaker 2: What do people do before there was radio and TV?
Speaker 3: Well, we know now, thirteen kids Giuseppe, Gillian though, Jacondo, Felicita, Angelina, Anquila,
Speaker 3: Candie though, Chilila, any cosmos stella nice, Jilia nice. Yeah,
Speaker 3: those are thirteen kids. So money was obviously tight. I
Speaker 3: mean you have to feed fifteen people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're feeding two basketball teams.
Speaker 3: Basically, Giovanni and Teresa they wanted their children to succeed,
Speaker 3: to have all the things that the world had to offer.
Speaker 3: So the boys they studied to become engineers, the girls
Speaker 3: trained to be seamstresses. Yeah, all right, it's nineteen oh seven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes perfect sense.
Speaker 3: Europe is changing, the whole modernizing. Yeah, the whole world's changing.
Speaker 3: Giovanni he felt war coming.
Speaker 2: Yea, the Empires are about to follow.
Speaker 3: Well oh yeah, and he didn't want to lose his
Speaker 3: sons in battle, so he came up with a plan.
Speaker 3: He decided to take his sons and move to the
Speaker 3: United States.
Speaker 2: Good plan, imagine.
Speaker 3: Common plan at that time. It's in small group after
Speaker 3: small group, they scattered out in the American West. They
Speaker 3: spoke only a little bit of English, and some went
Speaker 3: to Idaho, others went to my home state, California, La
Speaker 3: San Francisco. They worked any job that they could. Paolo
Speaker 3: whose great grandson of Giovanni, He said, quote, they dug ditches,
Speaker 3: built railroads, did everything they could to make a buck
Speaker 3: and send it back to Italy and try to get
Speaker 3: the rest of the family over. So these are just hard,
Speaker 3: hard workers. Slowly but surely that's what they did. They
Speaker 3: got everyone over. The first wave of the family came
Speaker 3: in nineteen oh seven, nineteen twenty. The whole family was here,
Speaker 3: dribs and drabs. Don't forget the brothers had all studied
Speaker 3: mechanical engineering. So while they may have been picking oranges
Speaker 3: or stocking warehouses to get by, they were saving the
Speaker 3: money that they made to start a business. In nineteen fifteen,
Speaker 3: they opened a machine shop in Berkeley, California. Oh wow,
Speaker 3: right on San Pablo Avenue, the wide boulevard that cuts
Speaker 3: its way across the East Bay. You know, the building
Speaker 3: is still there, It still stands. It's currently a kind
Speaker 3: of posh furniture store called Fenton McLaren one. Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 3: back in the day they made airplane propellers there.
Speaker 2: Oh cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one of the sends Rik Kaylee. He was super
Speaker 3: geeked on flying in.
Speaker 2: Those big wooden airplane Okay, yeah, these.
Speaker 3: Were like nineteen fifteen, so Rik Kayley Aviation super into it.
Speaker 3: He'd worked as a mechanic for James McDonald of McDonald Douglass,
Speaker 3: so he was working for him checking out planes at
Speaker 3: the nineteen fifteen Panama Pacific World's Fair in San Francisco.
Speaker 3: So he studied planes. He was constant looking for a
Speaker 3: way to improve upon this new technology. He invented a
Speaker 3: lightweight propeller with a windward pitch that was called a
Speaker 3: toothpick propeller, and it was new, no one was doing it.
Speaker 3: It was super efficient. It caught the eye of the government,
Speaker 3: and the US Army Air Corps made it their standard equipment. Right.
Speaker 3: Charles Lindberg used it good on this feature instrumental in
Speaker 3: the US air presence in World War One. If you
Speaker 3: want to go look at it, it's on permanent display
Speaker 3: in the Smithsonian in Washington, DC.
Speaker 2: So basically he's the one who took the propeller and candidate.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So with that cool invention getting them attention, the brothers,
Speaker 3: they worked together to come up with something else, another improvement.
Speaker 3: They designed the first fully enclosed high wing monoplane built
Speaker 3: and flown in the United States, the J seven. So
Speaker 3: before this, pilots are just out there whipping around in
Speaker 3: the wind, ye scarf sedance, and now they're inside a
Speaker 3: cabin fully enclosed. So the plane exactly. The plane weighed
Speaker 3: eighteen hundred pounds, was a bigin It cost a fortune
Speaker 3: to build. The whole family worked on it, all seven
Speaker 3: brothers plus the wives and the sisters. They stitched together
Speaker 3: the canvas to cover the wing frames, so it was
Speaker 3: a huge family effort. The plane also had a ton
Speaker 3: of successful flights, which was a serious accomplishment in the
Speaker 3: early days of eighties. Yeah, they flew it in and
Speaker 3: out of the Bay Area. And then they had an
Speaker 3: idea a way to recoup the money that they'd poured
Speaker 3: into this thing. So passenger service was their idea. Plus
Speaker 3: maybe work as a mail plane. So they angled to
Speaker 3: get a contract with the US Postal Service and they
Speaker 3: started going on runs. They did a test flight from
Speaker 3: San Francisco to Reno, Nevada for the Post Office and
Speaker 3: it went well. Around the time that they're getting ready
Speaker 3: to sign this contract with the Postal Service. They decided
Speaker 3: to do another trial run. This time they were going
Speaker 3: to take passengers out to Yosemite because they felt like
Speaker 3: this is that, you know, people are getting more into
Speaker 3: a tourist run exactly, and more and more people from
Speaker 3: the Bay Area wanted to.
Speaker 2: Rich want to go, and they can afford the tickets right.
Speaker 3: So for this daring mission, they got a twenty three
Speaker 3: year old hot shot named Harold Bud Coffee to fly
Speaker 3: the plane.
Speaker 2: Bud Coffee, Bud Coffee.
Speaker 3: He was from Modesto, California, lovely town in the Central Valley.
Speaker 3: He was seasoned and confident, twenty three years old. He
Speaker 3: was Bud Coffee Man. This isn't the greatest. So he
Speaker 3: was a second lieutenant or lieutenant as they say across
Speaker 3: I love thinking in the Army Air Service and he'd
Speaker 3: been an aviation instructor in San Diego and then he
Speaker 3: got into commercial aviation.
Speaker 2: He's twenty three years old.
Speaker 3: He made the first ever passenger flight into Stockton, California.
Speaker 2: Oh that's right there, first one to fly to that city.
Speaker 3: He was the first to land at the Feather River
Speaker 3: Inn in Lake Tahoe.
Speaker 6: He was it was Bud coffee.
Speaker 3: He flew in a record time of over twelve hours
Speaker 3: from Laramie, Wyoming, to San Francisco to relay photos of
Speaker 3: the celebrated Jack Dempsey George Carpentier boxing match.
Speaker 2: It was that bud coffee that but okay.
Speaker 3: Legends three years old. So on this inaugural flight to
Speaker 3: Yosemite was aviation writer John Kakke, machine shop plant technician
Speaker 3: Archibald Duncan.
Speaker 2: McLeish Archie, McLeish.
Speaker 3: Archie, McLeish. Jacondo, whose brother Raka was the one who
Speaker 3: designed the plan.
Speaker 2: The second oldest, I think so, yeah, one of the oldest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Riquella he's the oldest, and then Jacondo's like
Speaker 3: third maybe anyway, So those are the other people and
Speaker 3: four on the on the plane up up. They flew
Speaker 3: over the California Central Valley on their way to beautiful
Speaker 3: Yosemite Wild one of my favorite places, by the way, Yes,
Speaker 3: it's been a while since I've been there because it's
Speaker 3: two blasted crowded.
Speaker 2: You know. One of my favorite places is the sky right,
Speaker 2: not the.
Speaker 3: Same for me. You could not go in a small
Speaker 3: plane anyway. I miss you with yes smite uh So
Speaker 3: July twelfth, the plane, piloted by Bud Coffee, landed in
Speaker 3: a meadow in front of El Capitan, incredible mountain in
Speaker 3: the pasta you're talking about, Yeah, exactly. Park officials and visitors,
Speaker 3: they all came out to marvel at the machine. Coffee
Speaker 3: and a bunch of the mechanics did a comprehensive one
Speaker 3: over on the plane to make sure it was in
Speaker 3: good shape to fly back. Two days later, dudes get
Speaker 3: back on the plane. They cruised back to the Bay Area.
Speaker 3: They're going to make a pit stop in Coffee's hometown
Speaker 3: of Modesto. He actually just wanted to see his girlfriend.
Speaker 3: He totally so, Like, he swoops down the roar the
Speaker 3: engine over the town brings this people all outside to
Speaker 3: see this amazing plane because it's a big deal. He's
Speaker 3: waves and then tragedy struck. Oh no, yeah, stop laughing.
Speaker 3: The left wing came off and the fuselage fell to
Speaker 3: the ground.
Speaker 2: Oh god.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. So some thought that Coffee tried an acrobatic
Speaker 3: maneuver that went wrong, like maybe he hit an air
Speaker 3: pocket or something. Investigators blamed a flaw in the design
Speaker 3: of the plane. It was too heavy and imbalanced, like
Speaker 3: apparently the radiator was all big out in the front
Speaker 3: like who knows there were no survivors. News of the
Speaker 3: crash took up the entire front page of the Modesto
Speaker 3: b newspaper and including like gruesome photos, it's horrible at
Speaker 3: different times. I suppose no discretion. So anyway, despite the
Speaker 3: family living in Berkeley, Jacondo was buried in Modesto.
Speaker 2: Also, I think back then just about the newspapers, they
Speaker 2: generally knew and experienced more horrors. Oh so what was
Speaker 2: what a horror was was very different for them, totally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, people were not sheltered from things. So Jacondo, he's
Speaker 3: buried in Modesto. His grave marker said he was quote
Speaker 3: a martyr of the aviation, loved science, music, and pictorial art.
Speaker 3: His motto was Koele navigari necessit est and in flying
Speaker 3: high over the mountains and valleys, he constantly demonstrated how
Speaker 3: man is able to conquer the air. His name and
Speaker 3: work shall remain forever. So the Latin phrase translates to
Speaker 3: we have to sail, we do not have to live.
Speaker 2: Hey.
Speaker 3: Anyway, obviously the families devastated. Teresa, the matriarch of the family,
Speaker 3: she put her foot down no more planes.
Speaker 2: Oh that's it.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: That was the last one of us going up in
Speaker 2: the sky.
Speaker 3: Costa no more. So it wasn't too bad of an idea.
Speaker 3: I mean, she'd lost her son, that's enough reason not
Speaker 3: But they were also you know, they're swimming in debt
Speaker 3: with this. Ava got the trauma of oh yeah. But
Speaker 3: then and they had the heat on them that there's
Speaker 3: thinking that like, this wasn't designed very well. So they
Speaker 3: had all this attention, but they didn't have money from it,
Speaker 3: and they obviously didn't get that USPS contract. So the
Speaker 3: family ended their aviation company and moved on. What they
Speaker 3: did next would change everything. It would change the career
Speaker 3: and life trajectory of every single family member. It would
Speaker 3: revolutionize homes and healthcare. It would create something iconic. It
Speaker 3: would make their surname a household name, something known in
Speaker 3: the world over. Let's take a break, so curious. When
Speaker 3: we come back, I'll tell you that last name, and
Speaker 3: I'll start getting to an actual crime. Zaren Elizabeth, let
Speaker 3: me continue telling you this tale. I'm sure, okay, So
Speaker 3: I'm telling you the story of Giovanni and Teresa and
Speaker 3: their thirteen kids. They moved from Italy to the US,
Speaker 3: specifically California, extra specifically to Berkeley. I love Berkeley. So
Speaker 3: this family started an aviation business in which every single
Speaker 3: member of the family had a job, but the wild
Speaker 3: Blue Yonder claimed one of the boys, so the family
Speaker 3: shut down operations.
Speaker 2: More family business.
Speaker 3: There's no way they could go on. They had to
Speaker 3: come up with a new business and that was It
Speaker 3: wasn't really a problem since the entire family was super
Speaker 3: clever and inventive. I mean, they came up with a
Speaker 3: new plane, they came up with a new propeller. Sure,
Speaker 3: their minds just automatically assessed mechanical situations, broke them down,
Speaker 3: figured out how to build them back better, and innovators
Speaker 3: the whole bunch.
Speaker 2: Then they invented the monorail.
Speaker 3: It was so amazing. So no, they there were stumbles.
Speaker 2: And more track guessing who they are going.
Speaker 3: So Rickela in nineteen thirty seven, he was only fifty
Speaker 3: years old, he died of a massive heart attack.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: So Giuseppe took over the family business for a little while,
Speaker 3: and then finally Candido, the youngest son, he took over
Speaker 3: and that was a new era. So this time they
Speaker 3: stayed on the ground, and they innovated the water pump
Speaker 3: game water pump. So just as their aviation timing was
Speaker 3: pretty good, their move into water pumps was equally fortuitous.
Speaker 2: They invented the dental pick.
Speaker 3: Yes, so agriculture in California booming at all ways. More
Speaker 3: people meant more food was needed, more land had to
Speaker 3: be put to absolute optimum use.
Speaker 2: Before Ellen's Valley, So it's like a different water system.
Speaker 3: So they came up with irrigation systems for orchards, and
Speaker 3: then they also developed a line of deep well injector pumps,
Speaker 3: the cousin of the thermal lance the deep well injector pump.
Speaker 2: I'm sort of think maybe I might not know this family.
Speaker 3: They came up with these ingenious inventions and then they
Speaker 3: would sell the patents to big corporations in exchange for
Speaker 3: royalty too. Oh that's smart, so smart the geniuses. So
Speaker 3: this water pump stuff was a huge success. On like
Speaker 3: the planes, they raked in money, and they expanded the
Speaker 3: business to keep up with demand. As the company grew,
Speaker 3: so did the staff. And that staff was primarily made
Speaker 3: up of their grown children and cousins and their kids business. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so they moved their factory to a larger location along
Speaker 3: the Bay shore line in Richmond, just above Berkeley. The
Speaker 3: building's still there by the way. I used to drive
Speaker 3: by it every time I took my sweet bear, the
Speaker 3: Late Elliott to a point Isabel Dog Park.
Speaker 2: Oh, the largest dog park in the nation.
Speaker 3: Aka best place on Earth. So this family nineteen forty one,
Speaker 3: Candido had a boy. He named him Kenneth, Kenneth Jacuzzie. Oh,
Speaker 3: my goodness, the Jacuzzi family, son of Candido Jacuzzie. Yes,
Speaker 3: this is the Jacuzzi family. So how do they get
Speaker 3: into hot So.
Speaker 2: This is a family they got Eddie Murphy Wett.
Speaker 6: Yes, yes, it's gotta make you sweat too hot hot
Speaker 6: m So how.
Speaker 3: Did they get into hot tubs?
Speaker 2: I don't know. One foot at a time.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you. When Kenneth was eighteen months old,
Speaker 3: Kenny Jaccuzzi, he was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.
Speaker 3: It's some serious, terrible stuff. So it's an autoimmune disease
Speaker 3: where the body fights itself. Essentially, there's inflammation in the joints,
Speaker 3: but also in the organs and like bones, erode, joints
Speaker 3: deform it's really really painful. Doctors didn't think he'd see
Speaker 3: his third birthday, so it was rough. He was an active,
Speaker 3: healthy kid, and then suddenly he wasn't because he got
Speaker 3: a nasty case of strep throat and that led to
Speaker 3: rheumatic fever, which led to.
Speaker 4: Ra Oh wow.
Speaker 3: They didn't have antibiotics like we do now, so you know,
Speaker 3: it was like basically a bacterial infection. Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 3: So he started to lose his mobility. Doctors said that
Speaker 3: if he did make it, every year would be borrowed time,
Speaker 3: and if he managed to grow up, he wouldn't grow
Speaker 3: old and he'd never live independently. So the family tried
Speaker 3: having him put in a full body cast to straighten
Speaker 3: his limbs, but that didn't work. They gave him injections
Speaker 3: of gold salts and that's what they were calling the
Speaker 3: gold standard. I suppose it may have helped, who knows.
Speaker 3: And then they heard about hydrotherapy. So the family lived
Speaker 3: over the hill from Berkeley in Lafayette, California. Berkeley, though,
Speaker 3: is where the hydrotherapy treatment for Kenneth was. There was
Speaker 3: a Hubbard tank at the hospital there. So the Hubbard
Speaker 3: was an oval shaped tub with a wooden bench in it,
Speaker 3: and the patient would sit on the bench and water
Speaker 3: would swirl around the patient's body to relieve stiffness and
Speaker 3: improve flexibility. Yeah yeah, provided Kenneth with incredible relief. His
Speaker 3: parents started taking him twice a week because suddenly he's
Speaker 3: just loosening up. He can move a little bit better. Pain.
Speaker 3: Oh completely, as you will.
Speaker 2: Where you started out was in a bathtub of hot water.
Speaker 3: Exactly in your mama's bed. So it took the family
Speaker 3: an hour each way to get to the hospital for treatment,
Speaker 3: driving over the hill. While his parents would have driven
Speaker 3: to the absolute ends of the earth to take him
Speaker 3: to these appointments, it's still war on them. So one
Speaker 3: day Kenneth's mom came home from the drive and she
Speaker 3: asked Candido the dad, if it would be possible to
Speaker 3: make one of these machines for the house. You know,
Speaker 3: you work in water pumps. She's thinking, like, come on now,
Speaker 3: And thus the J three hundred was born. So this
Speaker 3: this thing made everything is the jay whatever with them,
Speaker 3: the plane was the J South. So this thing, it
Speaker 3: made a whirl of warm water just like the Hobbard,
Speaker 3: but it could be attached to a whole bathtub, and
Speaker 3: so like the Hubbard let patients only sit upright. This
Speaker 3: way you could lay down and kind of get the
Speaker 3: back and everything as well.
Speaker 5: So, oh, thus the seat in the jacuzzi right, this
Speaker 5: isn't the full but that's why you see those seats
Speaker 5: in the jauz.
Speaker 3: That's one of the reasons for it. Yeah. So Candido
Speaker 3: invited his son's doctor to come and look at his invention,
Speaker 3: and the doctor was just blown away. He asked Candido
Speaker 3: to make more for other patients, at which point Candido's
Speaker 3: business acumen kicked in. He decided to patent it and
Speaker 3: market it. Yes, so this was a big jump for them,
Speaker 3: not the patenting a design part, but the marketing. They'd
Speaker 3: always made products that were sold to larger manufacturers and distributors,
Speaker 3: and Candido he wanted to own this Holly. He didn't
Speaker 3: want to distribute it through anyone else.
Speaker 2: Smart.
Speaker 3: He wanted to go up against the big dogs of
Speaker 3: the appliance world. Okay, it took convincing, but he got
Speaker 3: the family on board that.
Speaker 2: Like singer sewing machines would like I don't know, like
Speaker 2: maytag ge maytag.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So he and his brothers they honed the sign
Speaker 3: and they started selling the J three hundred and nineteen
Speaker 3: forty nine. They were available in bath supply shops and
Speaker 3: pharmacies at the very beginning. Then the Jacuzi brothers took
Speaker 3: their machine to the full market in the mid fifties.
Speaker 3: It was they said, it was a quote lightweight, portable
Speaker 3: hydro massage unit, perfect for the tired businessman or harried housewife,
Speaker 3: for the golfer with sore muscles, for the aches and
Speaker 3: pains of senior citizens, for frolicking youngsters, and for those
Speaker 3: who just want to relax and pamper themselves with a
Speaker 3: hydro massage bath. That's you at the end, that's me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is me though. So was this a portable Yes?
Speaker 3: So this is like plug it in and then you'd
Speaker 3: like into the wall and then you drop the unit
Speaker 3: into the bath.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 3: And so it's totally portable.
Speaker 2: It's basically all of the filters and everything.
Speaker 3: This isn't like a total filter no, Yeah, it just
Speaker 3: drops in and.
Speaker 2: It's whirling around here. Yeah the pomps I guess right.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the J three hundred was featured on Queen
Speaker 3: for a Day. Oh yeah, TV show.
Speaker 2: I've heard about that.
Speaker 3: That's great concept. Like women would be asked about their
Speaker 3: hard luck stories and the audience would decide who had
Speaker 3: the most upsetting, heartbreaking story. I heard clause meter.
Speaker 5: This was insane the show they would go on there
Speaker 5: and these hard luck stories were like crazy hard luck story.
Speaker 3: You would currently they have to battle it out with
Speaker 3: applause meter.
Speaker 2: You're like myself.
Speaker 3: So the winner was named Queen for a day, Like,
Speaker 3: and what do you get? You get a crown and
Speaker 3: a crown, but then you get prizes that are like
Speaker 3: kind of related to yourself. Kenneth Jacuzzie said, quote, every
Speaker 3: time a queen had a story that had some medical
Speaker 3: related aspect to it, one of the prizes was a jacuzzie.
Speaker 3: The name Jacuzzie became known overnight.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so that's right.
Speaker 3: Little Kenneth commented on this because Kenneth is a survivor,
Speaker 3: so he's talking about this later on. Right, the water
Speaker 3: helped him immensely, but they said he wasn't going to
Speaker 3: live to like c three or eight. Right. His family
Speaker 3: worked tirelessly to make sure he had everything he needed
Speaker 3: to thrive. His progress was noted through the years in
Speaker 3: local papers that like applauded every single milestone. There's just
Speaker 3: tons of articles. He was wheelchair bound, but that didn't
Speaker 3: make a lick of difference, which is how it should
Speaker 3: be in this world. So the kid they didn't think
Speaker 3: would make it to eight at the outside went on
Speaker 3: to get a master's degree work in Italy for the
Speaker 3: family business. He got a gig as the director of
Speaker 3: the Office of the Americans with Disability Act for the
Speaker 3: state of Arizona. He was a lifelong advocate for ada
Speaker 3: and writes of people with disabilities. He got married. He
Speaker 3: wrote a book called Jacuzzie, a Father's Invention to ease
Speaker 3: a son's pain. Damn. He was an extraordinary human being
Speaker 3: who lived to the age of seventy.
Speaker 2: Five against all odds. You know what that is, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: proof of the beauty and power of bathing.
Speaker 6: Bathing, Thank you, Base Jacuzzie couldn't do that with a shower.
Speaker 3: So back to Queen For a day, twenty million people
Speaker 3: watched each show. Roy Jacuzzi, who worked at the factory
Speaker 3: in the summer as a teen, said quote, We ran
Speaker 3: ads that claimed heal headaches, heart disease, sexual drive, everything.
Speaker 3: We demonstrated door to door in people's bathrooms. So they're
Speaker 3: just out there hustling. People were a little spooped though.
Speaker 3: They didn't really want to submerge something that was plugged
Speaker 3: into an electrical outlet into their bath tub.
Speaker 2: I want to be electrocuted just to feel good.
Speaker 3: Well, they thought it would be like trying to heat
Speaker 3: your bath water with a toaster. Yeah, so, Zarin, close
Speaker 3: your eyes, I want you to picture it. You are
Speaker 3: Roy Jacuzzi. You've graduated, and now you work in the
Speaker 3: Jacuzzi Brothers offices full time. Yesterday a salesman came in
Speaker 3: and complained about how customers wanted the whirlpool but they
Speaker 3: were afraid of being electrocuted, and then discovered all charred
Speaker 3: and blistered in the tub that they were just relaxing
Speaker 3: in no bueno. So this was a problem you'd heard
Speaker 3: from a bunch of people. They wanted to be relaxed,
Speaker 3: but they also didn't want to die. So no matter
Speaker 3: what you did, you couldn't seem to convince people that
Speaker 3: this was perfectly safe.
Speaker 2: You could have both, Yeah, why not?
Speaker 3: You left work and you decided to go for a
Speaker 3: walk along the shore of the bay. There were some
Speaker 3: mudflats not too far from the offices that you like
Speaker 3: to visit, you know, at the end of a stressful day,
Speaker 3: just to unwind.
Speaker 2: Of course, I love a mud flat.
Speaker 3: Who doesn't. You watched a gorgeous sunset there everywhar and again.
Speaker 3: So though you know the birds are flying over, you
Speaker 3: know you hear cars in the distance. You slip off
Speaker 3: your shoes, you walk into the kredy sandy mud. I'm
Speaker 3: all for a walk on the beach, believe you mean,
Speaker 3: but this is gross, dude, whatever you're lost in thought.
Speaker 2: Just leave a man to his mudflats.
Speaker 3: You just have to figure out a way to get
Speaker 3: the water moving without putting something attached to actual voltage
Speaker 3: right in the water. So as you stare at the
Speaker 3: muddy sand, you see bubbles, bubbles forced to the surface
Speaker 3: by little clams. They push the air out and off
Speaker 3: it goes, bubbling out at your toes.
Speaker 2: I need diesel powered clams.
Speaker 3: You've got it. You scramble up to your car and
Speaker 3: you race back to the shop. You peel up to
Speaker 3: the cob and sprint into the building, hoping to catch
Speaker 3: your great uncle Candido before he heads home for the day.
Speaker 3: Luckily he's there at his draft desk. Deep in thought.
Speaker 3: You slam your hand down on the desk, startling him,
Speaker 3: I've got it. You explained to him that if you
Speaker 3: installed jets coming from outside of the tub that there
Speaker 3: wouldn't be any wiring in the water and people would
Speaker 3: feel more comfortable. It was easy enough using their water
Speaker 3: pump technology, sealing materials and new age polymers make it
Speaker 3: self contained like the original plane. Plus now we sell
Speaker 3: them a whole ass tub.
Speaker 2: Oh brilliant, more material.
Speaker 3: Candido looks you square in the eye. You've done it,
Speaker 3: he yells, and then you high five and you get
Speaker 3: suspended in a freeze frame that traps you until this
Speaker 3: very day. So Jacuzzies always have an answer. The family
Speaker 3: wasn't on board initially, like every big decision, but you
Speaker 3: had the old Jacuzzi moxie and got your way. The
Speaker 3: true Jacuzzie was born. The family then made it into
Speaker 3: the Oxford English Dictionary, Oh My Dream Jacuzzie noun a
Speaker 3: large bath incorporating jets of water to massage the body.
Speaker 3: Origin named after the Italian born American inventor can Ito Jacuzzi.
Speaker 3: So notice that it only says Candido. That's the official line,
Speaker 3: But the truth is it Roy Candido's grand nephew is
Speaker 3: the one who came up with the logistics in the idea.
Speaker 3: We don't know if that's who knows, but whatever, But.
Speaker 2: He wasn't there for the bubbles in the car you were, Roy, Yeah, Oh,
Speaker 2: you're right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know if he honestly, I don't know
Speaker 3: how it came to him stealing my thunder. I made
Speaker 3: that up. So Jacuzzi's they're really coming up in the world,
Speaker 3: and not just the people, the actual baths, the Jacuzzie bathtubs.
Speaker 3: They were glamorous and sexy and some wholesome at the
Speaker 3: same time, really and associated with what we now obnoxiously
Speaker 3: call wellness.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it was like a health It was like
Speaker 2: a health thing.
Speaker 3: It really didn't start to get sleezy into like the eighties.
Speaker 5: I did the late seventies with the marine San Francisco saying,
Speaker 5: and then you add in the eighties where they go, oh,
Speaker 5: I want that in Modesto, I want that in Minneapolis.
Speaker 3: We had them all over at that other people wanted.
Speaker 3: It was actually movies and TV and media that started shampoo.
Speaker 5: The movie, the Warren Baty movies as types of movies
Speaker 5: in the seventies were showing that that that norcoal la
Speaker 5: like I'm a swinger vibe all of a sudden, people
Speaker 5: like wanted in Bristol, Connecticut.
Speaker 3: Well, and the Jacuzzie was a status symbol in an
Speaker 3: America desperate for status.
Speaker 2: Totally, that's very early eighties.
Speaker 3: So Elizabeth, you're asking, Elizabeth, please, I come to you
Speaker 3: with tears in my ear.
Speaker 2: Look at my eyes.
Speaker 3: There must be a crime in here somewhere.
Speaker 2: Cry my cheeks.
Speaker 3: Hold fast, young sailors.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: It's roiling up from under the surface. It's ready to
Speaker 3: bubble and swirl around you.
Speaker 2: I sense it coming.
Speaker 3: When we get back from this break, we'll get into crime.
Speaker 6: All right, jacuzzieoooo.
Speaker 3: So, while the Jacuzzie was taken the world by storm,
Speaker 3: dark clouds were forming over the factory, and Rich Candido
Speaker 3: had always been let's say, a tough bossuh. He made
Speaker 3: decisions without consulting the family. But that was pretty much
Speaker 3: necessary because like, the number of family members employed was
Speaker 3: almost north of two hundred people by the mid sixties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, forget babies sick with Jacuzzie.
Speaker 3: So in fact, there's a really great article in the
Speaker 3: San Bernardino Sun Telegram about the Jacuzzi family having a
Speaker 3: family reunion at the Columbo Hall in Oakland, with one
Speaker 3: hundred and eighty eight family members showing up, including nine
Speaker 3: of the original thirteen kids. Damn, obviously there weren't kids anymore.
Speaker 3: So anyway, it was a big deal, like this is
Speaker 3: huge family.
Speaker 2: Yeh, slung a cat and without hitting a no.
Speaker 3: So that the core group was still there though, sure
Speaker 3: what remained of the original siblings and their children and
Speaker 3: the children's children. They ran the whole thing you in Richmond, Yeah,
Speaker 3: the main offices in Richard. Is it right by the
Speaker 3: five right where eighty and five eightieslit right split?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's and they needed to make right at the beginning.
Speaker 5: I used to live on that pimple of a hill
Speaker 5: in Albany, and I used to look down on where
Speaker 5: the jacuzzis are lined up there against the back wall.
Speaker 3: Called Jacuzzi Drive, like I used to drive when I
Speaker 3: would take the dog to the dog park, I drive
Speaker 3: right by Jacuzzi Drive, And never really I just.
Speaker 2: Thought, well, that's you know, you've seen them right, They're
Speaker 2: all lined up all the spot I've been going past,
Speaker 2: all of this history.
Speaker 3: All this spot exactly. So Candido, he thought that the
Speaker 3: best way to manage the Jacuzzi money was to form
Speaker 3: a holding company in Switzerland.
Speaker 2: I've had that same thought.
Speaker 3: And he also felt that this would minimize taxes. That's why, right,
Speaker 3: So a splinter faction of the Jacuzzis disagreed. Ridolfo and
Speaker 3: Rosy Jacuzzi along with Reno Stella Silvano and George Marin.
Speaker 2: There's a man named Reno Jacuzzi.
Speaker 3: No no, no, Reno Marin, so Reno Stella Silvano and
Speaker 3: George Morin another part of the family. They all filed
Speaker 3: suit to stop the transfer of assets. So Rose Jacuzzie
Speaker 3: was the widow of the original sibling, Jellindo Jacuzzi, and
Speaker 3: Ridolfo was their son. So this splinter faction thought the
Speaker 3: choice might be, how do you say the illegal to
Speaker 3: put it all in Switzerland. They also felt that this
Speaker 3: was a way for Candido to conceal funds from the.
Speaker 2: Rest of everybody. Yeah, not just the taxes, right.
Speaker 3: Well, Candido he had a powerhouse lawyer, a notorious man
Speaker 3: who would later go on to be the mayor of
Speaker 3: San Francisco, Joseph Alioto. No way, if you have any
Speaker 3: interest at all in San Francisco history. As an aside,
Speaker 3: here you have got to read a book called Season
Speaker 3: of the Witch by David Talbot. It's about San Francisco
Speaker 3: from the late sixties through the early eighties, which is
Speaker 3: my favorite era of California history. Anyway, it's a great book,
Speaker 3: and Joseph Alioto shows up in there quite a bit.
Speaker 3: I've heard plenty of stories about the Alioto family over
Speaker 3: the years out side of this book. Good, inspirational, bad, terrifying,
Speaker 3: always entertaining though. So anyway, ou Alioto was Candido's lawyer.
Speaker 3: Alioto told him just go ahead and transfer everything over.
Speaker 3: Let just go ahead, said, you're the boss. You're the boss.
Speaker 3: You can do it whatever you have. So the cousin sued.
Speaker 3: They're like, actually no, you can't. So back in nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty one, they filed suit against the other remaining original
Speaker 3: family members, demanding that Candido be removed from his position
Speaker 3: as president of Jacuzi Brothers, Incorporated. They also wanted the
Speaker 3: Swiss holding company deal canceled. They said that overseas assets
Speaker 3: of the firm were sold to a Swiss holding company
Speaker 3: for about a million dollars less than the fair market value.
Speaker 3: The sale price was listed at one point two million,
Speaker 3: so the six complainants. They had about fifteen percent of
Speaker 3: Jacuzzi Brothers stock, and they wanted a complete accounting of
Speaker 3: all the company's financials, something that hadn't been given thus far.
Speaker 3: In nineteen sixty three, a judge awarded this Splinter group
Speaker 3: six point one million dollars in the matter. That's like
Speaker 3: sixty million dollars today. Was the one million they said
Speaker 3: they were cheated out of, as well as five million
Speaker 3: for the actual assets themselves. Hot damn so never fear.
Speaker 3: Shortly thereafter, Candido at All filed a relief plea. They
Speaker 3: wanted these six million dollars judgment voided, and they said
Speaker 3: that they had been denied due process.
Speaker 2: So this thing.
Speaker 3: You'll see. So they said that the judgment wasn't valid
Speaker 3: without a court determination setting out the exact amount. And
Speaker 3: then on top of that, they said that if they
Speaker 3: did have to pay it, it would ruin them in
Speaker 3: the business, and the court's like and I supposed to
Speaker 3: care about this. Yeah, So there wasn't any movement on
Speaker 3: the case until nineteen sixty six. So while the world
Speaker 3: was introduced to the luxury line hydrotherapy pool, the Splinter
Speaker 3: Faction was suing Candido and the others once again. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they said that he fraudulently transferred company stock shares and
Speaker 3: real estate worth more than two million dollars to other
Speaker 3: family members in order to keep the Splinter group from
Speaker 3: collecting the six million dollar judgment.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: They wanted the real estate and the stock put into
Speaker 3: receivership and then sold to pay them what they were owed.
Speaker 3: At long last, it finally came to a close at
Speaker 3: the end of nineteen sixty seven, a court determined that
Speaker 3: the Swiss holding company was, as the judge put it,
Speaker 3: a quote alter ego of Candido. What they said, because
Speaker 3: they're like, basically, it's not a Swiss holding company, it's you,
Speaker 3: Candido of the he was. There are three people on
Speaker 3: the board of the of the holding company. Oh, he
Speaker 3: was the head of it, and the other two had
Speaker 3: had documents that had like no dates and their signatures
Speaker 3: and no one can finued this.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: So it's his alter ego.
Speaker 2: So they came to a settlement and my vice president
Speaker 2: Ken d do and.
Speaker 3: So they figured like, Okay, this is how we're going
Speaker 3: to get Candido to return the assets, and he agreed,
Speaker 3: and he'd also have to personally pay a judgment of
Speaker 3: sixty thousand dollars, which is like half a mill today.
Speaker 3: What's really wild is that the court awarded more than
Speaker 3: eight hundred thousand dollars in attorney's fees on this and
Speaker 3: that was the largest award recorded for fees in California
Speaker 3: at that time. So that's like seven million dollars today.
Speaker 2: Koozies making history twice Zoozies.
Speaker 3: So Candido, he gave a statement from the new company
Speaker 3: headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas. Right, they moved everything else
Speaker 3: at Rock. I don't know the cheaperose so it probably
Speaker 3: the labor you know, the Richmond that was a union
Speaker 3: shop and they had a couple strikes there over the year.
Speaker 3: So he gave this statement. He said that settling it
Speaker 3: all was in the best interest of the company and
Speaker 3: its shareholders. And he said they were cleaning house in
Speaker 3: management and the executive suite. Everything's gonna be fine. We're
Speaker 3: just going to move forward from here. And he's like,
Speaker 3: by the way, we're also going to build a new
Speaker 3: plant in Milan, Italy, my home country. Isn't that cool
Speaker 3: for us?
Speaker 2: Love that?
Speaker 3: And they're like, yeah, that's cool for you. You know
Speaker 3: who else was moving to Italy. What year sixty sevens.
Speaker 2: Moving to Italy in sixty seven, that's top. I don't know, Candido.
Speaker 3: Oh and you want to know why tax evasion?
Speaker 2: No, I could have guessed that one.
Speaker 3: So Candido hadn't been paying his taxes, okay, and Zarin,
Speaker 3: that is a crime.
Speaker 2: That is technical. You got it well.
Speaker 3: Here the view is great from here for city, it
Speaker 3: marks the beautiful. So crimey. So nineteen sixty nine, Candido
Speaker 3: he gets indicted on charges of evading more than sixty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars in federal income tax. And like for those
Speaker 3: who like to do inflation calculation, that's like half a
Speaker 3: million dollars. Yes, today, it's a lot, but it's not
Speaker 3: a lot in the grand scheme of like his wealth.
Speaker 2: It's more that I want to pay, but it's not
Speaker 2: a lot for his wallet.
Speaker 3: Right exactly. So a bench warrant was issued, all right,
Speaker 3: and the charges were only for sixty thousand dollars, but
Speaker 3: the IRS made sure to note that he actually owed
Speaker 3: a lot, more like around one point three million, which
Speaker 3: calculates out to ten million dollars today, which is okay.
Speaker 2: That's a lot. That's a lot.
Speaker 3: But there's Candido nowhere to be found. He off to Italy.
Speaker 3: The papers all said Milan. But I found that in
Speaker 3: family obituaries they would list their surviving family members and
Speaker 3: they always noted him as living in Portanone, which isn't
Speaker 3: far from cassarso where they were originally from. So that
Speaker 3: kind of makes sense. So to avoid the bench warrant
Speaker 3: and the I R S. Candido moved to Italy. Going home,
Speaker 3: He's like double douce as I'm out, and he made
Speaker 3: his way to the IRS most wanted list.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't know the IRS had.
Speaker 3: And what's interesting is the papers are all confused about Okay,
Speaker 3: they have this bench warrant for sixty grand, but they
Speaker 3: say he owes one point two million. Why isn't Why
Speaker 3: not the one point two million like that?
Speaker 2: Maybe that was maybe the one was criminal and the
Speaker 2: other was negligent.
Speaker 3: Perhaps that's a good point you should have written for
Speaker 3: the papers in the sixties. So he splits his time
Speaker 3: between Italy and Mexico because there was no extradition treaty
Speaker 3: for tax evasion in those yeah, and for tax evasion
Speaker 3: in those countries at that time.
Speaker 4: I didn't know that.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's changed. I started to look
Speaker 3: at up and then I got down into this rabbit hole,
Speaker 3: and I realized it doesn't matter because we're talking about
Speaker 3: how it was in the late six exactly. Let go, Elizabeth,
Speaker 3: let's live in the moment. Get off my back, sarahen
Speaker 3: I didn't look it up. So anyway, Mexico, he worked
Speaker 3: on building a luxurious home there, and there were other
Speaker 3: like high flyers and celebrities and rich people in this
Speaker 3: little area of Port of Iarda where he was going
Speaker 3: to build a house. He had it made, and then
Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy six things changed. Candido Jacuzzi had a
Speaker 3: heart attack in Puertoviarda. He was paralyzed from the chest down,
Speaker 3: and then they flew him to Houston, Texas for surgery.
Speaker 3: And he hadn't been on US soil since nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 3: This is nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 2: So you coming back from medicine, Candido.
Speaker 3: Uh huh. So he still had that five count tax
Speaker 3: evasion hanging over him.
Speaker 2: Get handcuffed to his hospital.
Speaker 3: He was up against ten thousand dollars in fines and
Speaker 3: five years in prison for each count. And you know,
Speaker 3: I'd hang out in Italy and Mexico too. If I
Speaker 3: were him, live it up.
Speaker 2: Heck, I hang on Barbados, anywhere, anywhere but here.
Speaker 3: So but he goes to Houston. His attorney, being an
Speaker 3: officer of the court, had to do the right thing,
Speaker 3: so he called the Justice Department to let him know
Speaker 3: that his client was back. Baby.
Speaker 2: Oh he really did, and if he need.
Speaker 3: Him, he's in Houston. So he was arraigned in his
Speaker 3: hospital bed.
Speaker 2: Oh I did it.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, by a US magistrate. They will totally, Oh,
Speaker 3: they will totally. Bail was fifty thousand dollars and he
Speaker 3: secured that with his daughter's home back in Lafayette, California.
Speaker 3: Oh did she know the house on Upper Happy Valley Road?
Speaker 3: Oh wow, yeah, so I think that was the house
Speaker 3: that he had and his daughter. So later that year,
Speaker 3: the Jacuzzi brothers sued John Jacuzzie, Candido's son, for illegally
Speaker 3: transferring eight hundred and seventy one thousand dollars in stock
Speaker 3: to a Mexican trust and they wanted twenty million dollars
Speaker 3: in damages. Right, So, John Jacuzzie is such a great
Speaker 3: name to use to like check into a hotel or
Speaker 3: make reservations or like, if you have to give a
Speaker 3: man on the street in view on TV, what's your name?
Speaker 2: John Jacuzzi, John Kacuzzie, Table four.
Speaker 3: So I don't know whatever happened to that lawsuit, the
Speaker 3: one about transferring to a Mexican trust. John Jacuzzi also
Speaker 3: had been living in Mexico for some time. He was
Speaker 3: in the papers for evading the draft, I suppose for
Speaker 3: the Korean War, which I didn't whatever.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know people did that.
Speaker 6: I didn't think they did.
Speaker 3: But in nineteen fifty.
Speaker 2: One he ran out to me, you'd be presiding and
Speaker 2: so he was.
Speaker 3: Like going to be arrested, and he said, no, I
Speaker 3: went there to work for my family's coming.
Speaker 5: But at the beginning of the Korean War, everybody treated
Speaker 5: it like World War two, like the Act three or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, we have to do it again.
Speaker 4: We got to.
Speaker 2: So I think at the very beginning you could see
Speaker 2: people being upset about Yeah, I think that's right. Afterwards
Speaker 2: it turned into a police action, so it made it.
Speaker 3: Makes sense his you know, John is in uh, you know, Mexico,
Speaker 3: and he goes down there. And so I don't know
Speaker 3: whatever happened with the trust thing. I'm not even sure
Speaker 3: how Candido resolved things with the irs, like it's not
Speaker 3: in any of the papers, and.
Speaker 2: I'm sure we both know the answer. He paid them
Speaker 2: some money and then they were like, this is good enough.
Speaker 3: But he still had plenty. So in nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 3: he gave an interview to Sports Illustrated. Of all places,
Speaker 3: there you go. He felt that the problems with the
Speaker 3: company all came from including non family outsiders. Who did he'
Speaker 3: said quote When there were just us brothers, we'd put
Speaker 3: a bottle of wine on the table, and that's solve
Speaker 3: our problems, he said, Today there are too many of
Speaker 3: us to do.
Speaker 2: That sounds like my dad's brothers pretty much.
Speaker 3: So in nineteen seventy nine, the Jacuzzis sold their share
Speaker 3: of Jacuzzi Brothers to Kid Incorporated Kidd Company, a New
Speaker 3: York conglomerate.
Speaker 2: To nineteen seventy nine seventy nine.
Speaker 3: Wow, the company made five point six million dollars in
Speaker 3: yearly profit on ninety million dollars of revenue, and the
Speaker 3: family made fifty nine million dollars off that deal.
Speaker 4: Damn.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot. They spread that around, like there's
Speaker 3: a Jacuzzi family winery up in Sonoma. It's apparently like, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's them, one of the great grandkids or something like.
Speaker 3: So they they've kind of spread out and held on
Speaker 3: to the wealth. He got away with tax evasion. So
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty six, Candido Jacuzzi passed away at the age
Speaker 3: of eighty three at his winter home in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Speaker 3: And at his death he held he wants to well,
Speaker 3: you know, I think like his son was living in Arizona, Kennis.
Speaker 3: You know, he's working with his family. Yeah, and I
Speaker 3: think so he was with his son.
Speaker 2: And it was probably didn't climate Scottsdale. It was a
Speaker 2: good climate for Oh yeah, I get that.
Speaker 3: So he had fifty patents at the time of his death,
Speaker 3: fifty and you know, like I said, got away with
Speaker 3: tax evasion.
Speaker 2: So bravo to use her a tip of the head.
Speaker 3: That's Aaron, What is your ridiculous takeaway? I think ask?
Speaker 2: Oh, well, I will ask you what yours is. I
Speaker 2: don't have one, but go ahead, Oh really, okay, well
Speaker 2: I'll just share mine.
Speaker 5: Then the Jacuzzi brothers, I had no idea like that.
Speaker 5: I've been driving past such like northern California history all
Speaker 5: this time, and I was so close to it, and
Speaker 5: I was like, oh man, and then have these like
Speaker 5: these names and we don't have never heard anybody tell
Speaker 5: this story. How does how can both of us Northern
Speaker 5: California people and we've never heard the Jacuzzi story?
Speaker 3: Right, I know, my ridiculous takeaway. Thank you for asking?
Speaker 3: Well I wait and so yeah, no, I I'm with you.
Speaker 3: I'd never heard this story. I see the name wrong.
Speaker 3: I never associated I guess I never even thought about
Speaker 3: where does the name Jacuzzi? No?
Speaker 2: I also, I never really thought of it as an
Speaker 2: American invention. It makes perfect sense, tell me.
Speaker 5: So I thought it was like, you know, the Hitachi
Speaker 5: came in from somewhere outside and gave American's pleasure.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna skip that and say I am a particular
Speaker 3: fan too of that. It all came out of helping
Speaker 3: Kenneth h and that I love that, just like the
Speaker 3: whole family pours into making Kenni's life livable. Yes, and
Speaker 3: he goes on to live to seventy five.
Speaker 2: I do love that.
Speaker 3: That is like, it's just incredible.
Speaker 2: So, and you know, once again, power baby, right exactly.
Speaker 3: The power of the bad. That's it. That's all I have.
Speaker 3: You you can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com.
Speaker 3: We're at Ridiculous Crime on Twitter and Instagram. There's an
Speaker 3: email address, leave a talkback on the iHeart app and
Speaker 3: that's it. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and
Speaker 3: Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Dave Jacuzzi.
Speaker 6: That's Him.
Speaker 3: Research is by Marissa Jacuzzi and Andrea Jacuzzi Jacuzzi. The
Speaker 3: theme song is by Thomas Jacuzzi and Travis Jacuzzi. Post
Speaker 3: wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred and a. Jacuzzi.
Speaker 3: Executive producers are Ben Jacuzzi and Noel hot Tub.
Speaker 1: Ridicus Crime, Say It one More Times Crime. Ridiculous Crime
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