[SPEAKER_00]: previously on cocaine air.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we fly an airplane where they're fully chicks.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we take a key-load cocaine, open it up, put it on top of the table, cut a window, put it on a similar platter, and have added party for the weekend.
[SPEAKER_01]: In 1986, TJ Dominguez is making $20 million a month.
[SPEAKER_01]: Flying cocaine for Pablo Escobar,
[SPEAKER_01]: But after Pablo refuses to pay TJ in cash and starts paying him with cocaine, TJ becomes a cocaine kingpin in his own right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Adjusted for inflation, he is now earning more than $100 million, every single month.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did what no other smuggler had ever done in the history of smuggling, and that is fly my own plane, try my own boat, bring it in, transport it on the land, sell it, collect the money, take the money, send it to Europe, bring it back longer and invested it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when dozens of armed federal agents surround the 8,000 square foot mansion, TJ is storing his tons and tons and tons of cocaine in, his underlings start to panic, especially Yale, who picks up a loaded gun and is about to start shooting.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, I'm not going back.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not taking me alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: They want me to have to come chupy.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's got the machine that I was in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, these guys are going bonkers.
[SPEAKER_01]: But TJ, sensing there's more to the story than meets the eye, disguises himself as a gardener and goes out on his own secret recon mission.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to go on to test the order.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they say anything, they may all speak Spanish, and I say, I'm just the long guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's like grab a broom, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just open the garage door.
[SPEAKER_00]: I look over and I see all the cars out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not really looking over there, but I'm looking from the corner of my eye and I'm push-proaming all the pavers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when one of those armed federal agents notices TJ sweeping the driveway,
[SPEAKER_00]: The yells at me really loud.
[SPEAKER_00]: You all were there with a broom.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what happens next?
[SPEAKER_01]: No one sees coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what the hell's going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Jonathan Walton.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is Cocaine Air, the TJ Dominguez story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Episode 6, the tail spin down.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm push-primming all the papers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, you, he yells at me, so I don't look up.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a hero, but they were the broom.
[SPEAKER_00]: He yells at me really loud.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I look up and stop pushing the broom.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, what, me?
[SPEAKER_00]: You go, yeah, you get back in the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, wow, what's going on?
[SPEAKER_00]: He goes, we get a few gittips that's armed in the house across from the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get back in the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, yes, sir, right away.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm right in the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, guys, break up the beer.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not here for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's just such a, like, how could that not be there for you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, not because arm fugitive across from the house that was held up in the house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody did them that there was a fugitive that the government had been after.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were there for you, not us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, we got probably two or three thousand Cubans right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys are like, thank you back and out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, right away.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if federal agents with guns drawn, were lined up and down my street, and I had tons of cocaine inside my house.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is nothing anyone could say or do to convince me that they're not there for me, but TJ just seems to have a sixth sense about this kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Has anyone accused you of being psychic?
[SPEAKER_00]: Psychic?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, actually, I have been not that term psychic, but I've had a lot of people tell me that I've got an incredible force like to be able to see into things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do feel like I have a little bit of a crystal ball.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe, you know, people say that it is this, my little guardian angel, that it's always protected me and looked up over me.
[SPEAKER_01]: TJ is clutching a gold necklace with a medallion, depicting an angel with wings and a halo, standing above a man crouched down on his knees.
[SPEAKER_01]: This medallion is smaller than a dime, much smaller, and yet it has huge meaning for TJ.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was given to be my oldest system when I was first born, she was 11 years my senior.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know where nothing went right on my neck, except this little guardian angel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm a strong believer that I should have been dead many, many, many, many times, or have been arrested many, many, many, many times.
[SPEAKER_00]: I sometimes get a feeling Jonathan, Dad, I know what's going to happen before it happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because why on earth would you think it appropriate to grab a broom?
[SPEAKER_01]: You got federal agents surrounding your house full of
[SPEAKER_01]: kilos and kilos and kilos, thousands of kilos of cocaine, they're obviously there for you, it would appear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I would appear that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why would you think, oh, let me just walk out here with a broom and see if I can find out what's up.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you did find out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's something that I would
[SPEAKER_00]: attribute to not really a vision, but a feeling of, I can't take this tension anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: These guys, you know, and he wants to shoot everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got the other guy, we're pointing fingers at each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: This situation is not getting any better.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've always said something to all my guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't tell me twice we got a problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: We got a problem I heard at the first time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ideal and solutions, none of the problems.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only thing I can change is the solution.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't want to hear that we have a problem that these guys are out there already.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, they're out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So please, it's not dwell on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: How the hell are we going to get out of here?
[SPEAKER_01]: And at the time, this is all happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: Federal agents are lined up on your block.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there anything?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you say to yourself?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have a hunch or an inkling wait a minute?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think they're here for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, I never would come on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would have never thought bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are the odds that they're there for a fugitive across a tree from my house?
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm sitting there full of cocaine.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, what are the odds on that?
[SPEAKER_00]: You can any script that thing for a movie?
[SPEAKER_00]: Zero zero zero.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I thought at that point, I'm busted.
[SPEAKER_01]: But still you went out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess you figured I have nothing to lose.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me know There was a word.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's gonna happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let it happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to sit here and then in on torture myself It's like when I got kidnapped and the guy's told me he's gonna kill me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's gonna kill me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's gonna kill me You know you told me ten times you're gonna kill me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you know what man stop with a bullshit kill me Or let me talk Because I've got a solution for this if you let me open up my mouth
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got a solution for you and for me, you kill me, your prawns are still there, my prawns is ending.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got nothing to worry about, I'm dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, for I'm not losing anything, it's over.
[SPEAKER_01]: For nearly 10 entire years, TJ smuggles marijuana and then cocaine into South Florida and makes hundreds of millions of dollars doing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But sadly, by the time he has enough money to get his dad's sugar mill in Haiti off the ground, it's no longer viable.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I went back to Haiti, I had enough money to buy half a Haiti.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's when I went to look at my dad's old sugar mill that was closed down.
[SPEAKER_00]: The government had acquired it and, you know, you know, you want something to get screwed up, give it to the government to run.
[SPEAKER_00]: They will certainly put it in the gutter and they didn't, the sugar mill was closed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything was just abandoned.
[SPEAKER_01]: and TJ comes to a profound realization, standing in the rubble of where his father's sugar mill once was, and if you're at all familiar with that old Humpty Dumpty Nursery School rhyme, then you know that all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again.
[SPEAKER_01]: TJ suddenly realizes, for the first time since his father died,
[SPEAKER_00]: I jumped on my plane, and I flew back down here, and I didn't look back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just now almost muggler, and I stayed as muggler, and then I started cleaning up a lot of the things that I was doing, tightening up things, structuring my smuggling world as a corporation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I created divisions, you know, land division security division, aircraft division, and I started putting buffers along the way, and I ran it like a business.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not in the drug business, I'm in the transportation business.
[SPEAKER_01]: At this point, TJ owns the world's largest Lamborghini dealership.
[SPEAKER_01]: He owns a cell phone company, a housing development.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not to mention a fleet of charter airplanes and boats,
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got dozens and dozens of employees and hundreds of millions of dollars coming in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when people tell me how lucky I am, you know, my answer is always the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I found out the harder I work, the luckier I get.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as is often the way in these tales, TJ's luck eventually runs out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And his ultimate downfall is almost Shakespearean.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the guy responsible for TJ's demise is somebody he knows.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody he loves, somebody he trusts with his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jack, who teaches me how to fly, who knows pretty much everything about me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He knows more about me than I know about me.
[SPEAKER_00]: We became almost like a family.
[SPEAKER_00]: We really were the group of ours.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were like the night to the round table.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I've called my aircraft company, Excalibur, after the sort of King Arthur.
[SPEAKER_00]: We sit around a table before the trips.
[SPEAKER_00]: We map them out.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: What happens is Jack's making a lot of money, millions of dollars a month, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: And with the money, he couldn't really handle it, and he started partying too much.
[SPEAKER_00]: He started going to strip clubs, bringing all the girls home.
[SPEAKER_00]: going through a kilo a week more in a few days.
[SPEAKER_00]: Giving up Coke.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like if it was just candy and going through money and so forth and so on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And film me.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for cameras filming himself laying in bed with all of flock of women.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I told him, Jack, may you not have to slow down.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're getting out of control, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's winter.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, winter and south Florida, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like maybe 60 degree weather early in the morning, 65.
[SPEAKER_00]: Guys, sweating.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's got blood coming out of his nose.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just dripping.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, Jack, this is gonna have to come to an end, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna put you on a rehab.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, we're gonna clean you up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not telling you to stop doing drugs.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just telling you it's your out of control.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what will the hell are you to tell me what to do with my own personal private life?
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, I'm the guy that cares for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, well, I, F and made you.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, you made me?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Chad, when I first met you who being a cheeseburger a day, a bite for breakfast, a bite for lunch and the rest of the dinner.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were living on a shoebox I said that I rescued you from.
[SPEAKER_00]: You made me, I said, that's such a thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I really got upset with that statement.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, okay, you're out from underneath my umbrella, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: From now on, I don't want to see you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want nothing to do with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turning in all the keys to the airplanes.
[SPEAKER_00]: don't go near anything that I control on or I'm with.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he gets so pissed off at me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know fine, I go have a meeting with the rest of my guys, I said some things that you know that I'm not really proud of today, I said something has to happen to Jack.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a liability.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a bad liability right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: If something doesn't happen to Jack, he's gonna bring us all down.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's how to control.
[SPEAKER_00]: He knows too much.
[SPEAKER_01]: TJ's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jack is actually about to bring them all down.
[SPEAKER_01]: And any other drug lord would have had Jack murdered.
[SPEAKER_01]: To eliminate the threat.
[SPEAKER_01]: But TJ could never do something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even though he knows, Jack is going to cost him his freedom.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, get a piece of paper.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right now, put a date on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gonna bring us all down.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said he's going to bring us all down.
[SPEAKER_00]: I walked away from that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's late 1987, and Jack is out of the picture, and out of Tige's operation.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one knows where he is for months, and then one day out of the blue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jack comes to see me at my car dealership.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's got a guy with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, he said, hey man, he said, yeah, what's up, Jack, haven't seen you, are you doing man?
[SPEAKER_00]: I see you still partying, huh?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I'm not these change.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, he goes, yeah, well, you know, I ran out of money, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you run out of money, you know, I'm saying to myself, you made millions of dollars.
[SPEAKER_00]: I gave you airplanes, I gave you cars.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gold watches.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you run out of money?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, his lifestyle and he wasn't making any money because that had dried up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a fountain, you know, for the cash flow.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he had acid still and no cash flow.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, well, what do you want with me, man?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know?
[SPEAKER_00]: So he says a new you to hook me up with a connection.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, who's this?
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, that's my pilot.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi, how are you?
[SPEAKER_00]: The Jack's hiring a pilot.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, you're pilot, what are you going to do to start a small airliner's something?
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you going to do for ya?
[SPEAKER_00]: You a human, come on, B.I.C.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have no idea what they're talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: At that point, there's something about Jack and this new stranger that seems fishy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So TJ, standing there in the middle of his Lamborghini dealership, with customers and sales people coming and going, puts an end to Jack's line of questioning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, Jack, look, I have no idea what the hell you want from me, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if you want to do a charter business in this and that, you know, have at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good luck.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, you want a car.
[SPEAKER_00]: You hope you're up at the car.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, don't talk to me about strange things, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no idea what the hell you're talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know what that guy was, and I just didn't have a good feeling about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that guy was working for the government.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jack made him at a bar.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the guy was setting up Jack.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now Jack brings me into the picture, tracks nothing, I'm everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what started to tail spin down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jack goes out and he buys a headboat
[SPEAKER_00]: and then he buys 10 kilos in the Bahamas.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to bring in 10 kilos of cocaine.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what happens now is that the guy was working for BSO, which was a broadward share of the apartment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they said jack up.
[SPEAKER_00]: and he was being so broadened the feds because it was D.A.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the bust, so they bust Jack.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jack gets nailed for like 10 kilos, something's stupid like that, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: Next thing I know, I'm hearing from Jack calling one of my lawyers he needs a lawyer, he needs a trouble.
[SPEAKER_00]: So of course I'm gonna go out there and look off for a hand big as for too many reasons.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to hire the lawyer.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't want to make sure that the lawyer represents him, but he represents me too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't want to say that all lawyers are crooked, but trust me, the loyalty is to Frankie.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know if I'm not putting the hundreds on the table, I don't know what the hell's going on here.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a smart thing to do, to control the lawyers.
[SPEAKER_00]: You control the lawyers.
[SPEAKER_00]: You control them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I hire the lawyer and you tell him what's going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, you know, it's a, you know, they set them up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And your name's come up, though, but Jack is good, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: So next thing I know, he's representing him, but they're putting more and more pressure on Jack.
[SPEAKER_01]: But federal prosecutors know, Jack is just a small fry.
[SPEAKER_01]: and they want to bust a big fry.
[SPEAKER_01]: They want TJ Dominguez.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, they offer Jack a get out of jail free card if he agrees to turn on TJ and tell them everything he knows.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he knows everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: and then suddenly, just as TJ predicted, they came out to me, they were surveilling me, helicopter from the roof of my house, cars in front of my house, I'd go to dinner, they'd be there dinner, the other table, two tables away from me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as the months pass, the case the U.S. government is building against TJ,
[SPEAKER_01]: They're picking off his low-level employees and scaring them into cooperating.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're getting waiters and bartenders who interact with TJ to wear wires.
[SPEAKER_01]: And record his conversations.
[SPEAKER_01]: At this point, TJ knows his days walking around as a freeman are numbered.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got literal fortunes, stashed away in banks all over the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for a moment, TJ contemplates getting in the cockpit of one of his 30 airplanes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just flying out of the United States to safety.
[SPEAKER_01]: To one of the many countries without any extradition treaties with the U.S.
[SPEAKER_01]: and live out the rest of his days, as a very wealthy and very free man.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you could have left before they arrested you with gazillions of dollars in what's absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: So why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why did I choose this day?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because it was destiny, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a known for me to leave.
[SPEAKER_00]: But was there an intellectual calculus that I thought it was emotional?
[SPEAKER_00]: More of my family?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because intellectually, I would have been gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Prune.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would have definitely gone on the ground.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what my head would have said.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in his heart, there's just no way to take him flee and leave everyone else holding the bag.
[SPEAKER_00]: because of the love that I have for my family in dedication and people defend on me and I just didn't want to run or look coward, you know, it was a manly thing to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: So TJ decides to stay and face the music and then things get really crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like the universe hired Brian DePama to direct this next scene in TJ's life.
[SPEAKER_00]: My arrest was amazing, my arrest was really, really amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: The four or five in the morning, boom.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was that kind of explosion right here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I know the sound of helicopters?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then all of a sudden I wake up and it all happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like a movie.
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole thing blew up on my face.
[SPEAKER_00]: The noise from the helicopter, the charging, the house, the cover wall, the wall with people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just take five to six agents.
[SPEAKER_00]: Multiply that time, four to five agents, see who's over 100 people in my house.
[SPEAKER_00]: Helicopters on the roof.
[SPEAKER_00]: They wrote the whole neighborhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: They came in through the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: all running toward me, dressed in black swat outfits.
[SPEAKER_00]: I raised my hands up and I said, listen guys, I know the routine.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no need for all these violence.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm on a kneel down.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I kneel down.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've put me on the floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had rifles all around me, like circling wagons like this on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I looked at a couple of them and I said, God, y'all aren't, man, you guys are more nervous that you're gonna shoot me by accident.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get the god darn gun off my head.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't need all this bullshit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm already laying down.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is overkill.
[SPEAKER_01]: TJ fully cooperates with his arrest.
[SPEAKER_01]: And federal agents put him in jail.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then, federal prosecutors throw the book at him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got indicted on an eighth, 48.
[SPEAKER_00]: Back in the day, the eighth, 48, which is continuous criminal enterprise.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the worst charred at United States S on their books.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was created for major organizations, not everybody qualified.
[SPEAKER_01]: But TJ qualifies, because he is actually operating a continuous criminal enterprise.
[SPEAKER_01]: smuggling and then selling tons and tons of cocaine, all over the United States.
[SPEAKER_01]: Using planes, boats, cars, houses, and then our modda of business fronts and employees.
[SPEAKER_00]: My indictment came out of Washington, DC by the attorney general at the time because now they're charging me in the central district, they're charging me in Georgia, they're charging me in and Detroit.
[SPEAKER_00]: One prosecutor told me, I said, what the hell are I doing in Detroit getting dated up here for like seven tons of cocaine?
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never been to the Detroit, I don't even drive Chevy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure you gotta say that, dude.
[SPEAKER_00]: The guy goes, he's not letting die you over.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every state you fool over.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's a trial, he is not planning to attend.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a completely different plane.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking to the Lord, and I'm planning my exit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Over the fence with a helicopter.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really a great plane, actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you heard that right, TJ actually starts laying the groundwork for a spectacular escape.
[SPEAKER_00]: I bought a chopper to just jump me over the fence of the prison.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what I had a car waiting for me in a back canal,
[SPEAKER_00]: And I checked into how long it takes for the government to fire up the helicopter because it's going to take them a good five minute to put an airplane or a helicopter in the air.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in that lent to time, jumping me over the fence, my plan was, you know, I had everything the pilot came to see me, I told him I said, listen, I want you to put the chopper down on the ground.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not a James Mum movie, I'm not jumping off our roofs, not Dom Cruz, I'm not jumping grabbing the skits and pulling myself up.
[SPEAKER_00]: You land the chopper on the ground, I'm going to walk up to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he was supposed to pick me up.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're flying over the fence.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there was a canal.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not too far away.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to put the chopper in the water.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to bury the chopper and put the chopper in the lake.
[SPEAKER_00]: The blades will stop spinning when they hits the water.
[SPEAKER_00]: Had a small air tank.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I'm going to come out of the water where there's a car waiting for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm taking that car to an airport where I had an airplane waiting for me and I'm going to switch over to an airplane and I'm going to Haiti, I can land there and I have very strong Haitian friends that lined up a refueling station but I was going to sit in Haiti for maybe a week or two and then from there I go straight to Columbia.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I just live in the jungle.
[SPEAKER_00]: The sort of things out as I go along, I was going to make it up.
[SPEAKER_01]: But TJ makes the mistake of telling another inmate, a guy he used to work with about his plan.
[SPEAKER_01]: And TJ actually invites this guy to escape in the helicopter with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this guy turns out to be a snitch.
[SPEAKER_01]: and rats TJ out to the prison warden, who ends up putting the kibash on TJ's escape.
[SPEAKER_00]: Next thing I know, I get thrown in confinement.
[SPEAKER_01]: Solitary confinement.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's punishment for planning that audacious prison break.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why he's been almost three years and two years in something in solitary confinement.
[SPEAKER_01]: You were two years in solitary?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like every day by yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every day by myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every day by myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: In a cell, by myself, by myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for that entire time, TJ is in a small 6x9 foot cell with a cot, a sink, and a toilet that he has to ask a prison guard to press a button and flush from the outside every time TJ goes to the bathroom.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, who me?
[SPEAKER_00]: He was, yeah, you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't look so tough in there now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, you're talking to me?
[SPEAKER_00]: He was, yeah, I'm talking to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't look so tough.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I said, do I even know you?
[SPEAKER_00]: And he goes, no, but I know who you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you're the bad-ass blah-blah-blah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't look so tough in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got something to ask you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does he want to ask me something?
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, go ahead, what is it?
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, was it worth it?
[SPEAKER_00]: was all of that things that you did worth it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at you now.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't look so tough in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got up slowly, walked up to the door, steel door with a little foreign chewing dough in between our face.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, was it worth it?
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, okay, listen, before I answer the you, that question, I got something that I'm curious about.
[SPEAKER_00]: How is it that you get up every morning?
[SPEAKER_00]: to come here, to feed me three meals a day, to flush my toilet.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know how I got here?
[SPEAKER_00]: I got here by seven agencies that arrested me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was handcuffed up on my neck.
[SPEAKER_00]: They kicked my butt all the way to this cell that you got me in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't come voluntarily here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I came in here against my will.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, so I go back to what intrigues me about you.
[SPEAKER_00]: How is it that again you come here to provide me with security?
[SPEAKER_00]: To feed me three meals a day, you can't call your wife because you're in prison and to flush my toilet, voluntarily.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be going home one day, but let's look at your situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't get fired, you do 25, 30 years in God darn prison.
[SPEAKER_01]: How did he respond to that?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's how you respond it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Turn around, sit in nothing to me, walk away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three days later, he comes back.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, you know, I haven't slept in three days.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, what do you mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, she's thinking about what you told me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, you're right.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're right.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I don't get fired, I'm gonna do 30 years in jail.
[SPEAKER_00]: Impressing.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really got me messed up.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he said, well, I didn't mean to mess you up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just wanted to share some thoughts that I had with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you're asking me, was it worth it for me?
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been with a beautiful, is woman in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I've had, you know, swam for the highest chance of the leaders, I had a bomb in my life, not quantity quality.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say you and the other hand, you don't have quality and you can have a lot of quantity spending 30 years in jail.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I meant.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry if he spent three days without sleeping.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he said, man, all right, just, you know, walks away.
[SPEAKER_00]: about two weeks later, he comes back, knocks on my door again.
[SPEAKER_00]: The main is now I get up, I say, now I want, so I walk up to the window, he says, hey listen, I, I applied Miami Beach Police Department got accepted, you changed my life when you get out of this place, call me up and we'll have a beer together.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my, no, wow, he says, you changed my life, I owe you that.
[SPEAKER_01]: TJ is still in solitary confinement at this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: and now he turns his attention to fighting the sprawling federal case against him.
[SPEAKER_01]: To mount his defense, TJ hires a team of super-expensive and super-talented lawyers.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of whom is the infamous Afli Bailey.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who go on to become a member of O.J.
[SPEAKER_01]: Simpson's Dream Team.
[SPEAKER_01]: responsible for getting OJ off on murder charges.
[SPEAKER_01]: Athlete Bailey convinces TJ, he can help him be these charges, no problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he makes a deal with prosecutors where TJ would only have to serve 18 months in prison if he flips and helps prosecutors bust other drug lords.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told F. Lee Bailey when he told me, I got you 18 months.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what you're going to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to roll on everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know that term, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, what do you mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: Roll on everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got a copy deal, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, this is too much.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't fight this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Too many, too many code of fenders.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't beat a case like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, everybody's flipped.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're the only one in prison.
[SPEAKER_00]: everybody cut deals.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to give you life.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to get natural life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say natural life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as scared as T.J. is at the prospect of life in prison,
[SPEAKER_01]: he adamantly refuses to flip on anyone, especially Pablo Escapar, who is still operating his cocaine empire in Colombia at this point, and TJ is now really pissed at F. Lee Bailey, for charging him $200,000, for essentially nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, can't go to trial.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, what did you tell me this before when you were in my car place?
[SPEAKER_00]: You said you knew you'd have to leave Bailey and you patting your chest, I got some sort of like car sand movie, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, what happened to that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd have to leave Bailey.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you tell me you can defend me?
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, I could defend you, but we're not gonna win.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, okay, give me my money back, and he gives me this long face.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not giving you your money back.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I lean forward, and I said, look, I got very little bit to lose now.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't give me my F and money back by a remote control to start your god darn car every morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: My Colombians, they're still all out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: He gave me my money back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hired some of the lawyers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And those other lawyers helped TJ cut a new deal with prosecutors, whereby TJ agrees to plead guilty, and he agrees to teach government agents exactly how he smuggled all that cocaine into the country right under their noses.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then after when I debriefed with them, how I did the smuggling, how I organized everything, the intelligence that I created to surveillance on them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They want them to go to work for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They actually want them to go to work for them as an agent, which I wouldn't do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, I would not do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then they want them to do seminars and teach them lecture on how I was thinking in the things that tail-tailed signs.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they actually published so many books manuals.
[SPEAKER_00]: that were distributed in so many different countries based on how I swamable and the things that I put together to create my OECC, continue its criminal enterprise.
[SPEAKER_01]: But TJ turns down the government's job offer and just pleads guilty and throws himself at the mercy of the court.
[SPEAKER_00]: I played guilty, they consolidated all my charges.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every agency that indicted me wanted a piece of me to justify my assets that they all divided among themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I played guilty to custom charges in portation of cocaine, in portation of marijuana.
[SPEAKER_00]: I played guilty to distribution of marijuana, cocaine.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I played guilty to money laundering.
[SPEAKER_00]: I played guilty to, which is really crazy, because you know, I said, can I usually guilty to the CC, which encompasses everything?
[SPEAKER_00]: But no, they want it all broken down infractions
[SPEAKER_01]: If TJ had gone to trial and been found guilty by a jury, he'd be looking at life in prison.
[SPEAKER_01]: But because he played guilty, sparing prosecutors the expense and the arduousness of a trial, and because TJ helped educate government agents about his smuggling operation, by the time
[SPEAKER_01]: He pays his debt to society for all that drug smuggling, and he's a free man today with big plans.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're out of here on a prison what two days now?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, three days.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here we are talking.
[SPEAKER_01]: TJ is actually starting an entirely new business, a line of cosmetic adjacent products, believe it or not.
[SPEAKER_01]: And even though he's more than 70 years old, he's got the spark and the energy of a man half his age.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he severely lacks the one thing that I think holds most people back in life.
[SPEAKER_01]: You see, TJ Dominguez is simply not afraid to fail.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, there's no shame in failing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Filling is when you quit.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, falling down, pick yourself back up again and go forward, my God.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you're gonna fall, you fall forward.
[SPEAKER_00]: That means you gained two steps already.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're an optimist.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, glasses always have full for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Never empty.
[SPEAKER_00]: I even told one of my wives, I don't know which one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I got it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what's one on my headstone until when you're going to put on their formation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, what do you want what do you mean put on there she just might come back
[SPEAKER_01]: How insane is it that cocaine air actually started out as a crazy story when those two shady bankers scam TJ and episode one?
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a victim of a coin which pushed me in the direction that I actually ended up in.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're into crazy con stories, check out my book, Anatomy of a Con artist, available on Amazon and everywhere else books are sold.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm taking what I've learned from investigating hundreds of con artist cases over the years and distilling it down to the 14 red flags you can use to spot the scammer in your life before they con you or anyone you love.
[SPEAKER_01]: To see some incredible photographs documenting TJ's life, go to CocaineAir.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're enjoying CocaineAir, please hit that share button and text it to your friends and family right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you feel comfortable, leave us a five-star review.
[SPEAKER_01]: Reviews really help other listeners find us.
[SPEAKER_01]: CocaineAir was created, written, and executive produced by me, Jonathan Walton, for Jonathan Walton Media.
[SPEAKER_01]: executive producers, Evan Goldstein, and the inimitable T.J. Dominguez.
[SPEAKER_01]: Audio engineering by me, Jonathan Walton.
[SPEAKER_01]: All sound design and editing was done by the super talented Puneath Shanoi from podcast fundits.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the cocaine air cover art is by Bobby Animation.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got a lot of fascinating untold stories like Cocaine Air coming down the pike at Jonathan Walton Media, so subscribe and keep an ear out.