[SPEAKER_05]: Speak softly loud, and hold me warm against your heart.
[SPEAKER_05]: I hear your words, the tender trembling moments die.
[SPEAKER_04]: Welcome, everybody.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's another Hollywood Godfather podcast.
[SPEAKER_04]: And tonight we're thrilled.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you, you, the audience is going to be thrilled.
[SPEAKER_04]: When you hear this guy's story, I just heard bits and pieces of it.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I love a man who has a criminal mind.
[SPEAKER_04]: But before we go for introduced our guest, Pat, my co-writer, friend, and compudry on this podcast forever.
[SPEAKER_04]: How are you talking about?
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm fine.
[SPEAKER_04]: How you doing?
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just rocking, man.
[SPEAKER_04]: I can't believe it's going on, but it's all good than God.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, we're about to introduce our guest, but before that, I want to tell our
[SPEAKER_03]: who this person is.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I've known Joe a while.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've been out of touch for a while, but we first met quite a few years ago when he was involved with some problems, which we're going to be talking about, but he's led an amazing life.
[SPEAKER_03]: And let me just run it down.
[SPEAKER_03]: His name is Joseph Acupente, he graduated from Brooklyn College, where you earned a BA degree.
[SPEAKER_03]: He always wanted to go into law enforcement.
[SPEAKER_03]: In January 1969, he joined the U.S. Army
[SPEAKER_03]: where for six years he started as a military policeman in 1972 Joe's appointed as a customs patrol officer where he was assigned to investigate international smuggling and organized crime in 1976 Joe transfers to INS as a special agent where he became the country's foremost one of the country's most experts on the ethnic organized crime and me and Johnny know a lot about that anyway I'm ready to
[SPEAKER_03]: I love, but our ethnic organized crimes starts with Italian, you know, but anyway, Joe worked deep on the cover and infiltrated a drug cartel that lets one of the largest cocaine seizures at that time.
[SPEAKER_03]: In 1984, Joe became the youngest agent to be promoted to Chief of the New York City Anti Smuggling Unit.
[SPEAKER_03]: So here's where the trouble begins.
[SPEAKER_03]: In 1989,
[SPEAKER_03]: Joe initiated a multi-agency task force, Project Bodega, investigate a drug cartile implicated in the murder of an NYPD police officer, his name was Buzak, and I remember the case very well.
[SPEAKER_03]: In retaliation, the cartile set up Joe on fabricated civil rights allegations led to his prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment.
[SPEAKER_03]: However, due to public outrage, President George H. W. Bush,
[SPEAKER_03]: granted Joe executive clemency on January 15, 1993, and on December 23, 2020, President Donald J. Trump granted him a full and unconditional pardon and a personal apology for Joe's injustice.
[SPEAKER_03]: In 1995, he established a National Police Defense Foundation where he still volunteers as its executive director, Joe has been instrumental in
[SPEAKER_03]: He also established a congressionally recognized safe cop program that helps arrest and convict criminals who shoot at or kill a police officer.
[SPEAKER_03]: Joe's not a riot is a humanitarian.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a tribute to his operation kids program, which arranges life-saving operations for children worldwide.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's been recognized for these efforts by the media, elected officials, state legislatures for our end governments, including Pope Francis.
[SPEAKER_03]: Joe served on the executive board, but I'm not finished yet.
[SPEAKER_03]: Joe served on the executive board of several fraternal police organizations, which include the federal agents, PBA as president for 18 years.
[SPEAKER_03]: Today, Joe's considered one of the most decorated federal agents in the United States, credited with three attorney generals awards, and 78 commendations from the Maritory Service and Valor.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's with great pleasure and honor that I introduced Joseph Occupente to the show.
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome, Joe.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's be receiving a deed mine.
[SPEAKER_03]: No.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm telling you, Joe.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have a question.
[SPEAKER_03]: But what if you're done lately?
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you don't need to join in the after that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll do my life and life that's important to leave your legacy, especially for your family.
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... want to know a little about who grandpa was uh... they'll get a kind of an idea of who i was and what i stood for well i said you and i you and i met when you uh... in the late eighties early nineties when you first started having a problem and i uh... i endeavor to help you out as did a lot of people and uh... you're doing all the guests on the show what you've accomplished and
[SPEAKER_03]: and what the federal government recognized to include two sitting presidents uh... watch what's your contribution was to law enforcement in this country but it wasn't always like that you got wrecked over the calls by a very cleverly blotted uh... Mexican cartel was out the american cartel which was the Dominican cartel okay i know i get it right eventually uh... a cartel that endeavoured to put you away literally for life
[SPEAKER_04]: That is going to be a story to have for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, well, Joe, Joe has a book, which has just been published, called Framed.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the subtitle is, I never stood a chance.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I urge everybody, I mean, well, what we're going to talk about now doesn't even touch the full scope of what this man went through.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I urge you to buy the book once again, it's called Framed.
[SPEAKER_03]: I never stood a chance and we'll discuss that at the end.
[SPEAKER_03]: with with you desire to go into law enforcement.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I've been there, but explain it to the listeners.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's somewhat of a funny story.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, my mom was a school crossing God with the NYPD.
[SPEAKER_02]: We lived down the Lower East Side Manhattan.
[SPEAKER_02]: And on payday, she would always bring us bring me to the fifth precinct.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like royalty.
[SPEAKER_02]: And from that day on,
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, I want to be an NYD PD police officer, and that was my dream, and back in 30, 40 years ago, they had a special program that you're aware of called the police training program, where you can actually take the test, the physical at the age of 18, work in a civilian capacity, and then upon the age of 21.
[SPEAKER_02]: automatically be appointed as a police officer.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was the first online, I took the test, I passed the flying colors, but when I went to the physical, there was one problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was the hyperquiming at that time, was five foot seven, and I only measured five foot six.
[SPEAKER_02]: So everyone said, go to a chiropractor.
[SPEAKER_02]: He could stretch you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I did, and I went through a chiropractor, but he only stretched me a half an inch, and I was still sure I had an inch.
[SPEAKER_02]: So my dreams are being an NYP police officer,
[SPEAKER_02]: uh uh interest in languages.
[SPEAKER_02]: I speak Italian and Spanish and I found that the Treasury Department was hiring customs patrol offices of down the New York Seaport met um you know in the airports and I applied and loaned behold they didn't have a hyperquimant and I got appointed.
[SPEAKER_03]: Before you go on to something that was not where I'm.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're on a low-resided Jelib because that's what Johnny and I come from.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I live on Madison Street and I went to St. Joseph's near Catron Street.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they were.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Nicarbaca Village.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, that was our area, what Johnny and I grew up.
[SPEAKER_04]: I was our mom or a street.
[SPEAKER_04]: We had to break that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I was on a list about...
[SPEAKER_02]: I was a street where you were in the rich area.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I know it's a bit straight.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what happened is back then in the 50s, they were knocking down the tenements that were there to rebuild it with city projects and lo and behold, we got to notice the vacate and my dad decided to go to city projects and sheeps have paid.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that basically where I lived to the age of 21 in the inostrant projects on Avenue,
[SPEAKER_02]: But I opted, even though I lived right in front of sheeps at high school, I ended up deciding to go to Madison high because that had an expanded language program that included Italian.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's what basically happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: I graduated my father at the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: We didn't have the funds to send me to a full-time college.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I literally took seven years for me to go to night school to get my degree and I worked at the post office in Chipsa Bay.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then, like I said, at the age of 21, I found out about the customs job and I took it.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's great, and how long have you been doing it?
[SPEAKER_04]: How long were you in the customs zone?
[SPEAKER_02]: I worked for customers for about five years.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what I learned was very important.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, oftentimes people hear about organized crime and their immediate reaction is a traditional Italian organized crime.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's far from being good fruit.
[SPEAKER_02]: different international crime syndicates, with basically his epic organized crime, was far more organized, but yet,
[SPEAKER_02]: No one was fit, people in the justice department at that time was fearful to investigate his ethnic war organized crime syndicates, fearful that they might be labeled as racists.
[SPEAKER_02]: But was clear when I transferred to immigration, I was assigned basically in the Washington Heights area, which was predominantly Dominican.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was there, we're really, we all right, became one of the foremost experts on Dominican organized crime.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I learned the diversity of criminal activities that they basically were doing, you know, respect to a drug trafficking activity, Dominican organized crime with principally the vendors for the of cocaine and that time crack on behalf of the Colombian cartels.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it was, what exactly was your physician, did you go on to cover a new special agent, but then eventually I got a promotion and was a senior special agent.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then what happened was around in the early 80s.
[SPEAKER_02]: They started to learn, you know, my name was getting out there because we were making some substantial arrests.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was focusing on the different travel agencies up there, which was the hub to facilitate human trafficking, sea level, fraudulent documents.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was talking about diversified criminal activity.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you talk about Washington Heights?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, in Washington Heights.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what happened is, eventually, some of these kingdoms approached me and attempted to bribe me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And at that point, you know, what I learned was in many foreign cultures.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's common practice in their country to attempt to bribe a public official.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they thought that maybe by bribeing me,
[SPEAKER_02]: I would see some of my enforcement efforts.
[SPEAKER_02]: But instead, I went to the FBI.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was assigned a very dear guy of the FBI.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was the same age young.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had a lot in common.
[SPEAKER_02]: His name was Phil Scala.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as you may know, Phil Scala later became the group supervisor of organized crime at 26 federal
[SPEAKER_02]: three years, I worked on the cover, posing as a corrupt government official, doing all kinds of destroying files on criminal aliens, actually smuggling in illegal aliens and titanized states.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, while this has taken place, being monitored by the FBI.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it's a funny story.
[SPEAKER_02]: who owned several travel agencies, and we were getting ready to invite her.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had all the charts and all the evidence is in the witnesses and the undercover tapes of our reformer to make buys from her.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then all of a sudden the reception says to me, Joe, there's Dulce in the receptionist office who wants to see you.
[SPEAKER_02]: and loan behold had you know what to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I called the U.S. Attorney's Office, but she took it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But you were on the cover, she didn't know you were on the job, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew I was on the cover.
[SPEAKER_02]: The funny thing about it is, you have to someone would bribe me and they were arrested.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought that would cease.
[SPEAKER_02]: But instead, they figured they didn't give me enough money.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why I arrested that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: So do say comes up.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I bring it to a Roman.
[SPEAKER_02]: This was escalated by the time, but Rudy Giuliani, who was the U.S. attorney.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he said, look, why don't you monitor the conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I go into a little office.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the only thing I had available with talking within minutes was the tape recorder.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I put it in the desk and lo and behold, she came and then she,
[SPEAKER_02]: very attractive that you basically said, look, I know you're Italian, I know what you've been doing and I know you're ready to arrest me and I would appreciate you listen to me, I can make you a very rich man.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I couldn't believe it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I said, are you trying to set me up on bribery?
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, stand up, empty out from pocketbook.
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew she was being sincere about the bribe.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then all of a sudden I said, look, in law enforcement, I wouldn't do anything unless I had my partner.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so what happened is we sat up in meeting the next day.
[SPEAKER_02]: We went back Rudy Giuliani at the time, says Joe, what do you think?
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, hey, I think she's up there with
[SPEAKER_02]: in the drug trade.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he said, I tattoo a great.
[SPEAKER_02]: But on this two years, I worked deep on the cover, which included going to the Dominican Republic and meeting some of her Colombian drug modes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as a result,
[SPEAKER_02]: we ended up making one of the largest cocaine seizures at that time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And believe it was in 1984, 1985.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm much.
[SPEAKER_02]: The, at that point, my, my boss and you probably know, you have walked the pottery.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was, oh yeah, yeah, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: He promoted me to chief of the anti smuggling unit, which is the human trafficking.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not talking.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not talking at that time or maybe you was 100 hundred kilos.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't recall it's such a long time.
[SPEAKER_02]: But back then, we didn't have tons that we were having today.
[SPEAKER_02]: In any case, I loved it and I became like I said,
[SPEAKER_02]: a young conscientious supervisor and I started realizing that immigration has unique powers.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I knew all along that these international drug quantals, whether you're a career, you're in the sex trade, whatever criminal activity you're permeating, it involves aliens.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's my jurisdiction.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what we started to do is we wanted to get involved in the war on drugs.
[SPEAKER_02]: Immigration wanted to, at first, my Washington was a little skeptical because immigration was probably one of the most underfunded agencies.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a lot what we see today.
[SPEAKER_02]: The mayor's after an immigration officer, immediately, you're a racist, politically incorrect.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hooked up with other agencies, Port Authority and DEA.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we were making literally kilos of seizures.
[SPEAKER_02]: Daily.
[SPEAKER_02]: at the Guadier at what authority bus terminal at the end tract station.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was so simple.
[SPEAKER_02]: We simply would approach them and they would engage.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it would not engage, but eventually I was able to distinguish that they were an alien.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I put my immigration hat on.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they were found to be illegal.
[SPEAKER_02]: One many cases, not carrying their green card, which is a misdemeanive violation.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we arrested him and lo and behold, the search incidental to arrest, resulted in these keys as a cocaine.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was very significant.
[SPEAKER_02]: So basically, everything was going good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Excuse me a moment.
[SPEAKER_02]: That all of a sudden, October 18, 1988.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not one.
[SPEAKER_02]: But two New York City police officers unmurited within the same day, hours apart on two separate incidents.
[SPEAKER_02]: Both engaged, one was police officer, the police officer, who was simply a non-decover, making a buy.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the street Dominican agent, Snoode,
[SPEAKER_02]: as an integrity test to see if you are a cop, Deshut to sample it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the officer declined to do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: His name was Christopher O'Band, and as a result, they assassinated him.
[SPEAKER_02]: And probably someone you knew, Captain Sal Blando of Manhattan North.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know Sal very well, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: He called,
[SPEAKER_02]: the commissioner, the commissioner ended up speaking to Walter Connery and said, we need Joe Locker 50 up there with his agents.
[SPEAKER_02]: And on the whole, we eventually we eventually solved it, identified who the killer as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the funny things about it is the first person we were able to get, they were detaining at the police station
[SPEAKER_02]: and land the West Bay here if I would interview it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I went through my immigration scenario and I said, where are you from?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it on the American, on Puerto Rican?
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, oh, you're Puerto Rican.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, let me ask you a quick question.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a little map here and I took out a piece of paper and I drew the island of San Juan.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, I want you to put in X with a train station this.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's no idea.
[SPEAKER_02]: The jerk.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, he puts it that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, well, yeah, there is no trace case instead of one.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're a Dominican.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I arrested him.
[SPEAKER_02]: We got his fingerprints.
[SPEAKER_02]: We were able to confirm, in fact, he was a Dominican national.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we hadn't federally prosecuted for force claimed to be in the United States, so to say.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's funny.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a felony to force me claim you're a US citizen.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then, you know, eventually when we were successful, I got to call about Michael Bueshatt.
[SPEAKER_02]: Michael Bueshatt was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.
[SPEAKER_02]: He and his partner had a call to respond to an apartment building in Washington Heights.
[SPEAKER_02]: And while he was waiting for the,
[SPEAKER_02]: It was an aided pool, some of them were sick, so they normally respond to those kind of calls to PD.
[SPEAKER_02]: So while he's waiting for the elevator, unbeknownst to him, a drug rip off had just occurred, and the guys were walking down, and one of the neighbors told him, be careful, you've got the police down in the lobby, and that was viewshack.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, do Shaq was a smart street, it was a street savvy cop who noticed that he was trying to hide something under his jacket.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when do Shaq said, hey you, come over here, I want to ask you a couple of questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: The guy bolted and do Shaq ran after him.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as a result, a guy turned around and shot and killed due shack.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wasn't just the case where a due shack was basically killed during a combat reload?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_03]: That wasn't the case.
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, I'm thinking of another cup.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the funny thing about it is of the actual killers was stopped.
[SPEAKER_02]: running away by a street cop who had heard a 10-13 go over the air.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, when he grabbed the one guy, the guy said, no, no, I'm running to see you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go hurry a policeman with shot and the cop in the chaos.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let him go and went and then realized later that was the bad guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we went and I got to be honest with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is no greater experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: to work with the detectives with the NYPD.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had the distinct honor we're working with first graders from the three-four squad from major case.
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, the squad supervisor was who I gained a lot of respect for was Joe Resner, who just retired as the chief of internal affairs for the NYPD Joe Resner.
[SPEAKER_02]: So as a result, we solved the murder.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, what I learned was the cartel that was implicated, who was the intended rip-off ran a big major drug cartel out of a place called San Francisco de Moncaris.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I pulled this file and I looked at it,
[SPEAKER_02]: And I realized, he himself got a green card by fraud.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I also learned that he was buying up groceries though as a Washington Heights, called bodegas, where he was using them to facilitate his drug trade and other criminal activities.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I convinced
[SPEAKER_02]: of my bosses, even in Washington, that we should create project Bodega, and I put together a multi-agency task force with about maybe eight or nine different agencies and YPD.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had representatives from post-wants back to the DPA of Customs, it was a task force, and
[SPEAKER_02]: in what started, I believe, in August or September of 1989, we started Project Bodega and started to investigate all these bodegas from this crime ward, and we'll just call them by the name Freddie.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as a result,
[SPEAKER_02]: We were making seizure, if the seizure arrest, if the arrest, and we were basically, like they say, in rock and in rolling.
[SPEAKER_02]: Washington, D.C. was very happy.
[SPEAKER_02]: We were basically doubling out as the distance.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, little bit of sudden, I find out that the cartel was
[SPEAKER_02]: putting together a plan to frame me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know about it at the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: They first were thinking of killing me, but then realized that it only bring more federal lead on them.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the in-house council for the drop cartel was a former assistant in the United States attorney said no.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's set them up on federal civil rights.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's say that he's violating our rights.
[SPEAKER_03]: OK, Joe, let's just pause here for a second.
[SPEAKER_03]: Johnny, it's the time for our, uh, a commercial.
[SPEAKER_03]: A sales pitch.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, please.
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll be right back.
[SPEAKER_04]: Don't go anywhere.
[SPEAKER_04]: We know we live.
[SPEAKER_04]: Cordaleon vodka on March 9th was picked as the best vodka for martinis in the world by the robberboard.
[SPEAKER_04]: By calling 518-713-405-4518-220-946-3, it could be shipped directly to the house, the finest vodka in the world by Rob Rupport.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm now known as the Hollywood Godfather, and this is my story.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm happy to say Hollywood Godfather Rob Agrafi is now playing on most platforms, Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, listen to Joel Ortiz, famous rapper, and arsenic to heat radio, multi-platelet of produce of a Sony, produce this record, I'm proud of it, this 12 tracks, you gotta listen to this.
[SPEAKER_01]: you lying in a room with, so I broke a broomstick in half and let it groove with the concrete in a bathroom floor, it had a new tip, stashed it behind a toilet in case I ever had to use it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I wear back.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have a question, Joe, just before we went to the break, you said how you put this organization together with different divisions of law enforcement, how many different divisions and who was really fonding this because earlier on, you said you had no budget.
[SPEAKER_04]: So me being a lay person, this seems like a major operation that did a lot of damage, and at that time, my next question is, where are you able, like they do now, seas, and like the Riko Act, and get the assets to refund what you're doing through that or not?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, normally, let me, you're absolutely right.
[SPEAKER_02]: First of all, immigration was the poorest agency, what ended the part in the justice.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had no money.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what we did have was the caliber and formats.
[SPEAKER_02]: Many of them were not interested in the money.
[SPEAKER_02]: They wanted the ability so we could help them and a family member legalize their status.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you have that ability and it's relevant today.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you are helping and you're a government informant, you can get a special visa for extensions.
[SPEAKER_02]: So in the case of Project Bodega, believe it or not, we did need no funding because it was very simple.
[SPEAKER_02]: We got a lead, we had, let's say, 12-bo date is that we flew up, or we had intelligence that they were involved in drug trafficking.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I would go in, and I would identify myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would speak Spanish, and I would tell them that a very serious allegation has been made against them that their engaged in drug trafficking.
[SPEAKER_02]: and that they're employing illegal aliens.
[SPEAKER_02]: I used a technique that was taught to me by the government called the Reed School of Interviewing.
[SPEAKER_02]: It teaches you, you don't be a tough guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: You come in like a nice guy, with empathy.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what I did is I went into my agent's did, and we basically presented them with an allegation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we would say we would like any cooperation.
[SPEAKER_02]: was the allegations true.
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course, no one's going to say they're involved in drug trafficking.
[SPEAKER_02]: So many of them, the majority of them, the fact, said, no, it's not true.
[SPEAKER_02]: And at that point, you say, do we have your consent to search?
[SPEAKER_02]: And at that point, they actually signed a consent to search form, which was in the Spanish language.
[SPEAKER_02]: And within five minutes, we ended up finding the contraband.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's crazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: So at that point, the word was around what we were doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had customs.
[SPEAKER_02]: Customs was very much interested because there was a serious increase of Middle East grocery stores in addition to the Dominican grocery stores.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the ATF was very much interested in the guns that were being sold.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had a drug enforcement administration who, in fact, we seized the monies and we turned the monies over to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had postal, postal inspectors.
[SPEAKER_02]: We were finding stolen now.
[SPEAKER_02]: We were finding food coupon through it.
[SPEAKER_02]: almost all kinds of crimes we were uncovering.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had ATF because many of them were convicted felons and possession of guns.
[SPEAKER_02]: We had the IRS involved who was working in tandem believe it or not with the DEA because they were looking the income tax evasion aspect of drug trafficking.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was so good that
[SPEAKER_02]: the Manhattan District Attorney's office, asked us to be a part of their asset task force, asset for the task force.
[SPEAKER_02]: And assigned me three ADAs to process our project bodega arrests.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of which, believe it or not, was John of Kennedy, Jr. Oh, wow, who works for me?
[SPEAKER_02]: really was a great guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was a great guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in my book, I do a little comedy, but it was a true story.
[SPEAKER_02]: One day John Kennedy looks at me and he says, you look depressed.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, yeah, my wife Angela is going to kill me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was supposed to have dinner with another couple and this mocks and probably the third dinner I had to cancel.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I said, I don't have to cover it to the caller and let her know.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he says, get her on the phone.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll talk to her.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe she knows who I am.
[SPEAKER_02]: She might give you a pass.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's funny that he calls her and he said, hi, Angela, hi, I'm on John F Kennedy, Jr. And she said, yeah, yeah, where's my husband?
[SPEAKER_02]: What's going on?
[SPEAKER_02]: And he said, well, look, we made an important arrest, Joe's prime.
[SPEAKER_02]: And believe me, it was frustrating it because she did not believe what we was.
[SPEAKER_02]: And eventually he had to meet a phone.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says, I see why you don't want to fall on.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's just a such a nice guy that I said, do me a favor.
[SPEAKER_02]: Will you write a nice little note to my three daughters?
[SPEAKER_02]: And he did.
[SPEAKER_02]: He wrote a lovely note.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a nice, kind of great.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I had them in my house.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was a great guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So in essence, in the response to your answer, it was basically no cost to anyone.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's why immigration and Washington loved it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because they weren't spending any money.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was just a matter of having multi-agency.
[SPEAKER_02]: Each agency was happy.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were getting their statistics on our first bodega hit that we have.
[SPEAKER_02]: another funny story.
[SPEAKER_02]: I go in, I introduce myself and go through this scenario.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I noticed the guys were in a shoulder holster.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, I hope you have a permit for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he says, yeah, yeah, I said, well, I need to see the permit.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's thinking, and he's thinking, I said, look, we have two options.
[SPEAKER_02]: You show me the permit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to have to arrest you
[SPEAKER_02]: So he gives us permission, signs the form.
[SPEAKER_02]: He opens up to stay safe.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what do we find over, I think, was $275,000 in drug proceeds, which of course he is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, he should have, he should have, he should have, he should have, he should have, he should have, he should have, he should have, he should have,
[SPEAKER_02]: So that even empowered us even more because on the first two three operations, we were making all kinds of seizures.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was good.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there was a problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: Joe occupancy didn't see a problem and this led to the other segment.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, what I found out was that the Dominican Federation,
[SPEAKER_02]: that I was investigating, had strong political contacts in the city hall, and he misrepresented to the mayor that Project Bodega was violating the civil rights of hardworking merchants,
[SPEAKER_03]: Civil rights, you know, those of all nurses who don't know who think it was, he was our first black mayor back in the 80s.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he was one of our smears.
[SPEAKER_03]: He destroyed the city anyway.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he destroyed you almost.
[SPEAKER_03]: Who's Dickens?
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, Dickens.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I got to be honest from true in the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: I could be burned ones, but I'm not going to be burned twice because many of the people I did change the names of many of the characters.
[SPEAKER_02]: Simply because it's regardless whether it's three years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: They still have the power of retribution.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I run the National Police Defense Foundation, which is regulated by the federal government or a 501C3.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: I changed the names of the characters, but the point was that's what happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was very naive, not to believe the political power possessed by farming drug fluids in the United States.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's amazing.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, but the other thing is like, you wrote the book now when you should be retiring and not looking behind or over your shoulder.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you're saying that some of these names probably could be figured out who they were.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that probably are.
[SPEAKER_02]: But let the reader go ahead and I'm sure it's Googled and it's public information.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because anything that I wrote in the book, I have a copy here is the front lines of the newspapers.
[SPEAKER_02]: that shows, New York Post, the framing of a cop by Mike Mackillary, a Pulitzer Prize winner.
[SPEAKER_02]: Quartel used system to bring down an innocent agent.
[SPEAKER_02]: Did the lawyer set up and target a set up of occupanty?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's another point.
[SPEAKER_02]: As I mentioned, the Quattel had an in-house attorney who was a former assistant U.S. attorney.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what we learned from a credible informant that not only was he the in-house counsel, but was actually involved in the drug trade.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just who was house counsel?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the informant we had, who is a registered NYPD employment, worked in the law office.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she told me, and she revealed what happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: She was the one who wrote a heard them talking about setting me up on federal civil rights.
[SPEAKER_02]: At first, I took it with a
[SPEAKER_02]: Come on, I was a federal agent.
[SPEAKER_02]: I worked in this particular judicial district.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't believe it.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no.
[SPEAKER_02]: Federal prosecutor is above it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't see it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she said, you calling me a liar?
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, no, no, but whatever it's to you have.
[SPEAKER_02]: She said, well, I'll have actually the names, the document numbers, of each person who got a favorable disposition.
[SPEAKER_02]: Plus, if you don't believe me, put a wire on me and I'll go in and I'll get them on tape and gauge in the drug trafficking activities.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, wow, why didn't you do that?
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, hold on.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I go back to my boss, Walter Connery, you got to realize he was in charge of the internal affairs bureau.
[SPEAKER_02]: with the NYPD, that was a job to expose corruption.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says, Joe, what do you want to do?
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, I want to work it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, I want to call the project.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to call the investigation project S-squire.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, well, you know what you got to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I called the judicial district the chief of the criminal division.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I present the case there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he says, who is there?
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, who have you spoken about this case?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, well, I spoke to Mr. Connery and a couple of my agents.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, I don't want you to talk to anyone.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would want to personally debrief this inform.
[SPEAKER_02]: And have her bring whatever evidence she has.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, in the federal government, when you do a sting operation, another government investigation, you cannot do it unless you have authorization and permission from the judicial district.
[SPEAKER_02]: So a week past two weeks past, and I said, and Kyrie would say to me, what's happening on Project Deskland?
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, I'm waiting for the word from the U.S. Attorney to authorize.
[SPEAKER_02]: So eventually, I called.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I spoke to the chief of the criminal division.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said to him, what's the status?
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, we can't do the case.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I done that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what do you mean we can't do the case?
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, client attorney privilege.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, look, client attorney privilege.
[SPEAKER_02]: I understand, because she works for an attorney's office.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you're a drug, engage in crimes.
[SPEAKER_02]: That client attorney privilege has no bearing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he must have been on the payroll.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not making that comment.
[SPEAKER_02]: But one of the allegations that was set for it, was that this cartel, Freddie, was having sex and drug parties for certain federal prosecutors.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was an element of it, and so I couldn't go forward.
[SPEAKER_02]: I went to the FBI, the FBI wanted to do the investigation, and the supervisor later told me, we can't do it either, they're refusing to do it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, what I learned through the grapevine was a year prior to me going, they arrested a federal prosecutor.
[SPEAKER_02]: for stealing coke FBI made an arrest of a fairer prosecutor in that judicial district for stealing cocaine.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he had come to Joe occupanty with another potential scandal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Plus, so I surmise that together with Dinkens, knowing the type of investigator I was, they said, let's present the evidence to Grand jury and loan behold.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if 70 somewhat officers that were on the search, I was the sole defendant.
[SPEAKER_03]: fully charged with exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Conspiracy to commit conspiracy to federal civil rights violations was also false statements that they said every time in my investigator report when I said that on such and such date a consensual search resulted in X, Y, and Z seizure, they're saying that was not
[SPEAKER_02]: uh uh that was a false statement because it wasn't consensual.
[SPEAKER_02]: These people that they presented before the grand jury which told about seven of the bodega people were either related by family, brothers or members of the executive board of the Federation.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, Joe, was this the first time this has happened to a federal lesion?
[SPEAKER_03]: It is a landmark case.
[SPEAKER_02]: What ended up happening, what ended up happening is it's the bad guys which I called them who testified before the grand jury, purged themselves that they were law-abiding.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was the first step.
[SPEAKER_02]: We proved, as you will hear, several times they weren't law-and-body, they engage in criminal activities.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hold that, sir.
[SPEAKER_04]: What do you say?
[SPEAKER_02]: Hold that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hold that, though, because I know we're running out of time.
[SPEAKER_04]: Would you like to do another episode with us?
[SPEAKER_04]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, I'm going to say tonight to our people right now.
[SPEAKER_04]: And tune in next week, because we told you this is going to be amazing guests.
[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, I mean, this is just the first half, and now he's got a serious problem here.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, but not all of that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I like the fact, just because of my criminal mind, of the corruption on the level of this corruption.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: You took about mayors that had the department, she's talking about the whole judicial system.
[SPEAKER_04]: caught up and also I think they just didn't care about him.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, not whether there was too many people.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm saying they gave him up as the escape boat, let us leave us alone.
[SPEAKER_03]: That, you know, it's always a feather in a prostitute as had to lock up a cup, you know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've been close, not as close as Joe.
[SPEAKER_03]: He went, he went the whole route.
[SPEAKER_03]: He got convicted.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I mean, I've been under investigation.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was in the papers, you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: But going after them, my 15 lieutenant, Giuliani was the guy.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I mean, I could understand why they went after him.
[SPEAKER_03]: But after a while, it becomes like a snowball effect.
[SPEAKER_03]: And they had to get him, and they got him.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're leaving this,
[SPEAKER_03]: this episode at a very important time because now is when you're looking at a seriously life-altering situation here, which we're going to deal with in the second episode, Joe, this has been a hell of a story.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for sharing it with us.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, Joe.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, probably the most interesting guest in the most important guest, not to diminish who the other people were celebrities and all that, but these stories, I mean,
[SPEAKER_04]: And you'll live it.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't make this stuff up.
[SPEAKER_04]: If I was writing a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a
[SPEAKER_04]: Hollywood Godfather podcast, another great story.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you, Joe.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you, Pat.
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll be back next week.
[SPEAKER_03]: Have a good night.
[SPEAKER_03]: Goodnight.
[SPEAKER_05]: If you're feeling sad and lonely, there's a service I could rent at, I'm the one who loves you only.
[SPEAKER_05]: I could be so unsatended, calm man.
[SPEAKER_05]: Don't be afraid you can calm man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's late but thank you for tuning in to the Hollywood Godfather podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can contact Gianni Russo, Patrick Pitcharelli, or myself, Megan Haran, with your questions and comments through the contact section of our website, HollywoodGodfatherpodcast.com, which is where you can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can click on the call and leave us a message at 646-7776-3038.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember to follow us on Instagram at Hollywood Godfather and on Facebook, as well as leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'd like to know what you'd like about what we're doing, what you'd like to hear in the future, and anything else you might suggest to improve our podcasts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most importantly, hit the subscribe button.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll be back next week with stories of the mob and Hollywood, as well as answers to your messages.
[SPEAKER_05]: Forever call me, don't be afraid you can call me Made it's late but just call me, tell me and I'll be around I'll be around