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You're listening to Crook County.

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals participating in the podcast.

This episode also contains subject matter, including graphic depictions of violence, which may not be suitable for everyone.

Listeners of the individuals participating in the podcast. This episode also contains subject matter including graphic depictions of violence, which may not be suitable for everyone.
Listener discretion is advised. Previously on Crook County, Kenny got some new orders.
So not only working and running whorehouses, I'm doing occasional hits on the side, all right, ordered hits.

And we met a new boss.

Big fat Pauly.

He always gave me my assignment.

Kenny's twin brother, Rich, revealed an abusive childhood.

I remember eating dog food because I was so damn hungry.

You know, some of the torture stuff, I wouldn't.

I never speak of it, ever.

And remembers Ken as a troubled kid.

You could see why he could be an enforcer. Because he just had that mentality.
Very violent mentality. My name is Kyle Tequila.
Welcome to Crook County. Crushed by the wind the outfit at that time.

The Cubs were being taken over by different factions.

Drugs, there was a big turf war for drugs.

There was a lot of up evil at that particular time.

So I was able to backdoor down in Chicago at DC-10. Did I actually witness this plane go down? At O'Hare Field, Flight 191, American Airlines bound for Los Angeles.
The account of possible disaster victims ranges from 263 up to 279, some as high as 290. In 1979, the tragic crash of American Airlines flight 191 shocked the country.
Hugh Hill is now in position at O'Hare Field to give us our first direct on-the-scenes report. We're standing at the Oasis on the toll road overlooking the scene of this crash.
There are no survivors. No survivors.
Ken was leaving a shift at the club and stopped to pump gas at a station near O'Hare Airport when he witnessed the plane make a cart wheel in midair and nosedive into the ground shortly after takeoff. Many rescue vehicles leaving the area, more coming in, fighting rush hour traffic to get there.
Just an unbelievable sight. Hundreds of people milling around, wishing that they could help, wanting to help, I'm sure.
But the heat is so intense from the smoldering wreckage, it's almost impossible to get close to some of the areas of the plane that are left. The scene left an enormous impression on Kenny's mind.
And over the course of the next few months, an idea began to form. That maybe, one day, he could be a firefighter.
It's just like, I saw all the fire trucks, the police, and everybody converging in on this. I'm like, man, that'd be a cool job, dude.
They are still taking bodies out every few minutes. The firemen are still here.

All of these emergency personnel quite dedicated to the task.

Highly professional people, but of course touched by the emotion of this day and this night.

So I just did a little bit of research. In fact, I didn't research.
You had to go to a library,

you know. So I did a little research and I knew I did not want to be in the outfit my whole life.
It just, I just knew I didn't want to do that, even though I was a natural, but I just simply didn't want to do it. But it was only an idea, and a crazy one at that.
He was deep in the outfit, and there was no way they would ever let him go. So he put it behind him and went back to work.
But I always knew, and this is kind of bizarre, but I always knew that the less I knew, the better chance I had of surviving. Now, we flip that coin.
I'm doing hits, all right? You know, that's knowing too much. So I'm in the mode of, you know, don't get nosy, don't ask questions, do your job and go home.
However, I guess the people that are attracted to that business and are in their business are not, there's no paper trail. And back then it was strictly paper.
There's no computers, all right, strictly paper. And if you didn't have a paper trail, you didn't exist.
These people were living, they were tangible, they ate, they breathed, they did bad things, but they didn't exist. Everything was done with cash.
You know, like I said, you could walk into a goddamn car dealer in 1979 and buy a fucking Coupe de Ville for $12,000 cash. Cause that's all they wanted was cash.
And no one's asking any fucking questions. You know, I don't give a fuck who this guy is.
Here's your application. I mean, whatever you're filling out there, use whatever fucking name you want.
You know, I got that cash in my hand, baby. That shit's packed right there.
So it's a cash world. No one's asking questions.
Now that, you can never do that now. That's impossible.
You just, you can't live like that now. And you can't get away with the stuff that we got away with now.
It would be impossible. I asked Chicago Tribune reporter Jeff Cohen to weigh in on this general period in the outfit.
Chicago in the 70s and the 80s, you're still dealing with the leftover organization of basically the Capone era at that time. It was still very kind of a top-down organization.
You still had major bosses. You had the Tony Accardo characters who were running the outfit.
And it was that leftover organization, the organization that came out of Prohibition and was able to gain a foothold in Chicago by having tentacles that went into government and went into the police department and went into unions. That allowed them to sort of operate with impunity.
And they weren't afraid of law enforcement because a lot of times they had a good enough control of law enforcement that they didn't really need to be fearful of that and so that let them expand into basically almost all manner of life in Chicago. There were certain neighborhoods where you couldn't even open up a hot dog stand without getting some kind of permission and or street loan from somebody who would then have a piece of that business going forward.
So you had money moving through the city at all levels that they controlled through legitimate businesses and definitely through illegitimate ones. As the years dragged on, the image of the plane crash still haunted him, and he found himself no longer able to suppress the urge to move on from the outfit.
Yeah, the reason I remember that plane crash so much is because that's when I decided I wanted to be a paramedic, a firefighter. I figured, that's my career now, I'm going to do this, because I don't want to do what I'm doing.
Everybody that worked in that business, that was their career. In their minds, that's what they were going to do.
Forever. And I knew that that's just not going to happen.
It just can't happen. Ken had made up his mind and put a plan in place to eventually leave the outfit.
With his current responsibilities taking up most of his time, he knew it would take years to finish all the classes required to get his paramedic license before he could even begin to look for a job. But none of that would even matter without the approval of the higher-ups, which he knew was impossible.
So he went back to his old boss, Mickey, the maid guy who first saw potential in a young kid who had robbed his nephew and offered him a place in the outfit. I was young.
I still had a chance to get out. And he just kind of liked me and he knew that would not be a good life for me.
So he kind of encouraged me on the side to just, you know, go ahead, get your education, all right? So he was like a mentor. Yeah, he was like a mentor.
Like a weird fucking fucked up mentor. Yeah, yeah, I mean, he was like, you know, I mean, I looked at him like a dad, you know? I asked Jeff if he's ever heard of anything happen like this before, someone getting out of the mob.
I have a couple of friends who, as you know, everybody in Chicago kind of knows somebody who knows somebody kind of thing, where there were these two sons and their dad was a Chicago police officer and also basically like the sub boss of Comiskey Park.

So all the concessions going in and out of Comiskey, they controlled it and they would skim it and take money out of the ballpark and blah, blah, blah.

So they allow some of that to happen for the reason that you said, I think, in episode one, where somebody who has value, who's going someplace, they allow them to kind of do that because they think it's something that they can use in the future. So when I heard you tell that story, I was like, yeah, that's kind of a thing.
They let some people go. So, with the green light from Mickey,

Ken hit the books.

I start studying to be an EMT paramedic, all right?

I get my EMT, I get to take the fire department test.

Anyway, so I go through that period. I am working in the outfit,

and I'm studying to be an EMT

because I want to get on a fire department.

I want a career.

I want to get out of this business.

But he was still years away from passing any tests. And he still had a job to do.
Managing the club. And that responsibility came before all else.
So I remember working the front door of the whorehouses and studying my EMT book while I was working the front door of the whorehouses. I distinctly remember that.

They thought I was nuts.

You know, what the fuck you want to do that for?

Let's go out and party.

You know, I just told them, listen, I got more important shit to do, okay?

More important to me.

So, and I think they respected that.

So, and I think they impressed the bosses too.

You know, because I wasn't doing what everybody was doing. I was trying to move on.
Part of that responsibility included hiring new girls. And one new girl in particular lit a fire in Ken that almost cost him everything.
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Over the years, while Ken was working the club, he had seen hundreds of girls come in and out of the business.

Some lasted longer than others, but many of them would be there one day and gone the next.

It seemed to be the nature of the trade.

But every now and then, a girl would show up that seemed different than the rest.

Somehow, out of place in this cruel, dark world they occupied, one of those girls was named Honey. Honey was my girl, you guys.
Honey was the best, man. We just hit it off.
I can't explain it. Just one of those people you could sit down and talk with and just have a conversation for hours without even having to think about what you're going to talk about.
Or you could just sit there and talk about nothing and feel just as comfortable, just as safe, just as peaceful as having a great conversation. She was just one of those people who I felt really, really comfortable with, and she felt very, very comfortable with me.
She must have been special because Ken was breaking one of the cardinal rules of the business. Never get emotionally involved with a talent.
We would date. I dated her.
I'll be honest with you, I think I fell in love with her. I really do.
I think I fell in love with that girl. I asked him what she looked like.
Yeah, kind of short. I don't know, maybe 5'4".
Little baby doll cuts, you know, short bangs, you know, down the sides of the cheeks, back of the cheeks, and then cropped up on the neck, you know, just, I don't know what they call them, baby dolls. I used to call them baby doll cuts.
She wore red lipstick. Drove me insane.
Red lipstick drives me insane. She wore it all the time.
And she had those sparkling, beautiful eyes. So you could swim in them.
I could just dive. Go swimming in her eyes.
And that smile, man, it got me every fucking time. It's a great girl.
Ken knew he would need to tread carefully with Honey. But the was too strong They were lovers and friends And would spend many nights confiding in each other I would come to work, you know Stressed out because I was in school a lot And I knew I had to work a late shift And, you know, I was tired I'd walk in the door, and she would be waiting for me, man.
She was always so loyal and there. I'd see that big smile on her, and it just, you know, just...
Everything went away. All the bad stuff went away.
But Honey wasn't the only woman in Ken's life. I was seeing Honey when I was dating your mother, Kyle.
We weren't married, but we were dating, and we would, for quite a period there, just like all people when they first start dating, maybe not all people, but in our particular case, we would break up for a time, and then get back together, break up for a time, get back. And for a couple of years there, your mother and I broke up.
And that's when I did a lot of this mobster work. We did a lot of it when she was, when I was broken up with her.
I asked my mom what she remembers about these years. If we got married when we were engaged at 19 and 20, I would have been divorced at 22.

But the relationship kept coming back, back and forth.

It was like we would break up and he would see people and I would see people.

And we would be like in a bar at the same time he was somebody and I was somebody.

But it kept going on for eight years. The simple fact is, Holly was a civilian, an innocent, and not a part of this life.
So Ken continued to keep a wall up between his two worlds. But Honey was on the inside, and he could be himself around her.
With Honey, there was nothing to hide. She was one of a kind.
I don't think I met anybody ever like her. Even your mother, who I got along.
I loved your mother. I still love your mom.
But it was a difference. It was different.
I think because we were both doing that stupid work. She was a whore.
I was running a whorehouse. You know, I think we had that little thing in common.
She was a soulmate, you know, almost like a soulmate, like a companion. We both escaped together, us together.
Yeah, I was her escape and she was my escape. Absolutely.
Yeah. And there was certainly a lot to escape from during this period in the outfit.
The growing popularity of cocaine in America had given rise to powerful and violent drug cartels, which led to intense warring among rival organizations with origins from all over the world competing for the same Chicago turf. There were gun battles in the streets and attempted takeovers of outfit businesses all across the Chicagoland area.
There was a couple attempts to take over the clubs. There was a Russian group of Russians, maybe Ukrainians, maybe Georgians, I don't know, Eastern European, and they were coming in to take over the clubs, not just the club I was working, but the clubs and that whole area there.
And, dude, I don't know what was going on here. I really don't.
They just appeared. And, yeah, it was a fucking gun battle that broke out.
I mean, I remember yanking my piece and coming right over the top of my desk and just unloading on the mouth. The guy that was talking, doing all the talking, I just filled him up full of lead.
His whole face was loaded up. And I don't think the guys were expecting that.
So they pulled their pieces, but they left. They turned around and ran.
They didn't stay. And I don't know why.
They could have had me, because I only had a couple shots left. And then I had to make a phone call.
We had to get them out of there. So some people came and wrapped them up in clear plastic.
I don't know why clear plastic, but they used clear plastic for him. Cleaned up the mess and took them wherever they took them.
Buried them some foundation somewhere because we had construction companies that we would pay to put our bodies into foundations that they were working on. No residential stuff, but all commercial stuff.
And they were on the payroll. They got paid.
It'd be a midnight pour. They'd put the and bring a truck out and midnight pour.
They'd be pouring concrete at two o'clock in the morning and we'd be dropping bodies. So yeah, I mean, everything was prearranged.
You guys, you guys got to realize this is a business, man. It's a business.
And a lot of people had their fingers in the pie. All right.
So-called legit people and so-called not legit people.

All right.

Everybody had their fingers in a pie.

Everybody was getting a piece.

All right.

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The game starts here. 67-year-old Roy Williams, head of the powerful Teamsters Union, guilty on all counts.
59-year-old Alan Dorfman of suburban Deerfield, guilty on all counts. Dorfman, a Chicago insurance executive and former consultant to the Teamsters Pension Fund, has close ties to the crime syndicate.
53-year-old Joseph Joey the Clown Lombardo, Lombardo of Chicago, guilty on all counts. Lombardo has been identified by federal investigators as a high-ranking member of the Chicago crime syndicate, Lombardo, who had never been convicted of him.
The 1980s was a tumultuous time for organized crime in America. The FBI had ramped up efforts to fight corruption and the mafia's stranglehold on local governments, labor unions, and law enforcement.
45-year-old Thomas O'Malley, corrupt government officials, and crooked cops all over the country. The message from this jury is quite clear, and that at least in this district, that conduct charged in the indictment, when proven by the government, will not be tolerated.
On top of all this, the turf wars were still raging. There was upheaval in the outfit at that time.
The cubs were being taken over by different factions, drugs. There was a big turf war for drugs.
There was a lot of upheaval at that particular time. All this chaos was taking its toll on the power structure of the organization.
And a feeling that this could be the beginning of the end permeated the outfit. The Chicago outfit had, especially in the 70s and 80s still, almost like a corporate type of structure where you had a singular boss, you had almost like a board of directors, guys who were close to him who would go and make some of the key decisions.
And then underneath them, you would have people at the capo level or people running individual street crews. And then under them, you might have lieutenants who were kind of like their bosses on the street.
You would direct groups of six, seven, eight, 10 made guys who are really in the organization. And then beneath them, they might have all sorts of different associates and operators who were a part of the organization, but not plugged into to that level.
But they would still do the bidding of crew members or especially a street crew boss. So you had this kind of corporate hierarchical structure, pyramid type structure.
And so when you have a conspiracy case that kind of chops the head off the snake, the organization tends to sputter and scatter. people at all levels of the outfit were panicking.
Some turned government informant and entered witness protection. Others staged bold robberies or assassinated high-level operatives.
The whole way that the outfit operated, which was to try to be in the shadows, nobody really knows what's going on, kind of directing things behind the scenes. That started to become impossible when surveillance got so much better.
Their sort of traditional structure just kind of became impossible to run without bringing major, major heat. And so it just kind of, it crumbled into looser groups.
They were turning on each other in fear, and bodies were dropping.

Nobody knew what would happen next, and nobody was safe.

Eventually, Paul started taking a lake into honey,

and there wasn't a whole hell of a lot I could do, man.

But, you know, she was a pro, so she did what she was supposed to do. He was hitting on her, physically abusing her.
And, you know, we talked about it, but there was nothing I could do. And there was nothing she could do.
He was, you know, he's a made guy. He was a boss.
But he was out of line doing that. You're not supposed to do that in our business.
You're not supposed to do stuff like that. So he was fucking up, made guy or not.
He was fucking up, man. And eventually it was going to catch up to him.
But the abuse continued and Kenny, helpless, could only watch as it happened. Then one day Honey disappeared.
He just disappeared off the map.

He was there one day and gone the next.

And I fucking knew that fucking fat greaseball bastard

that had something to do with it.

I didn't give a fuck at that time.

I was angry.

I took care of that fat bastard myself.

Ken could never prove what actually happened to Honey.

In the same way it's possible that Polly was involved in her disappearance,

I suppose it's just as possible that she simply ran away from the abuse

and is still out there somewhere.

I have no way of knowing.

But at the time,

Ken had his suspicions

and he made his choice

and he would deal with the consequences

if they came.

I had some heat on me for a while,

but nothing ever happened with that.

Nothing ever happened with that.

They weren't worried about me at that time.

There was a lot of changes going on.

So I was able to backdoor out, and I knew that.

So I backdoored out of that shift.

Perfect timing for me.

Maybe it was because of all the turmoil taking place at that time.

Or maybe Kenny just got lucky.

Either way, it seemed he had dodged a bullet.

So he continued his studies and looked forward to the day he could leave this hell behind.

I don't know what happened to her.

I miss her.

You know? She was her. I miss her.
You know?

She was quite a girl, man.

And now, a new problem had just walked in the front door

and put a gun to Kenny's head.

I'll split your fucking head open again.

Because I'm fucking stupid. I don't give a fuck about jail.
That's my business. That's what I do.
Tony Spolatro came in and I recognized him. I know who he was.
In the movie Casino, Joe Pesci played him just so he got an idea of what a guy is. Tony, the aunt Spolatro, was a feared enforcer who rose to great power within the outfit.
I never talked to him before, and I never introduced him before, but I know who he was. He was a legend, basically.
An asshole, but a legend. In the 70s, he was sent to Las Vegas to head up the organization's ambitions in the growing casino industry.
I don't know whether you know this or not, but you only have your fucking casino because I made that possible. He was famous for his short stature and even shorter temper.
Little guy. I don't know why he was such a beast.
He was just a little greaseball. Where the fuck you get off talking to people about me behind my back going over my head? Your fucking warrant don't ever go over my fucking head again, you motherfucker, you.
He was violent and unpredictable, but ultimately successful in racking up huge earnings for the outfit. He was greedy and ambitious.
He ran a gang of thieves who would break into hotel rooms, wealthy estates, and jewelry stores. Murder rates in Vegas had spiked to unprecedented levels since his arrival.
A man by the name of Tony Spallatro has attracted the attention of law enforcement officials,

some of whom think Spallatro is the most cunning and dangerous member of the crime syndicate. By the end of the 1970s, Spallatro would become a loose cannon,

and his illegal antics were becoming public knowledge

and attracting heat from local and federal law enforcement.

Spallatro would eventually be linked to as many as 25 mob-related killings. Witnesses died.
In December of 1979, the Nevada Gaming Commission officially blacklisted Spalatro, which legally barred him from entering any of the state's casinos, the very ones it was his job to oversee. He would spend the next several years going back and forth from Vegas to Chicago, wreaking havoc and asserting his dominance wherever he could.
So he came in and wanted to take over the clubs. He was going to take over the clubs.
He stuck a gun right in my fucking head. He says, I'm taking over these clubs.
And I says, okay, these are your clubs. Because I was just going to end up working for him anyway.
I I didn't care who ran the clubs just let me finish my job so I can finish school get a job and I don't care who I work for at that point but Ken never saw Tony again and he never did end up taking over the club but his reign of terror continued in 1983 around the time he stuck a gun to Ken forehead, he was tried for the brutal murder of two Chicago gang members. He was acquitted.
There were at least 15 other arrests, not a single conviction. Law enforcement officials had yet to beat Spallatro in court.
A longtime Chicago mob observer reported, some predict Tony will take a big fall someday, but it hasn't happened yet. So far, Spallatro has lived a charmed life.
But that charmed good luck was soon coming to an end. In 1986, the outfit had had enough of Tony the Aunt Spallatro and his crew, and orchestrated a mass hit of nearly a dozen mobsters, including Tony and his brother Michael.
A hit made even more famous by its brutal depiction in the movie Casino. They found him and his brother, they found him in Indiana.
All baseball battered up, buried in a shallow grave in Indiana. With dozens of crime figures from Chicago, New York, and other cities recently convicted or indicted, there may be a shortage of mob men available who could run Las Vegas' rackets as profitably and as efficiently as federal authorities believe Spalatro did.
You couldn't ask for better timing to get out of the outfit than what happened there with all the chaos that was going on.

You know, I was already in for eight, nine years by then.

So I knew that was my cue and I took it.

And I was gone.

I was gone.

I was gone.

Next week on Crow County.

Just when I think I'm getting away from this shit,

I'm covering up dirty fucking cops who are out there murdering fucking people.

In a million fucking years

that I ever think that was going to happen.

I mean, who even thinks of shit like that? Crook County is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Tenderfoot TV in association with Common Enemy. All episodes are written, produced, and hosted by me, Kyle Tequila.
Executive producers are Donald Albright and Payne Lindsey. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set.
Main title song is called Crush by the band Starry Eyes. End credit song is called Aloha, also by the band Starry Eyes.
Sound mix by Cooper Skinner. Thank you to Oren Rosenbaum and the excellent team at UTA for their support, and to my fearless

attorney, Wendy Bench, for her guidance.

To stay updated on all things Crook County, follow us on all socials at CrookCountyPodcast,

or leave us a voicemail by visiting crookcountypodcast.com.

For more podcasts like Crook County, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app

or visit tenderfoot.tv.

Thanks for listening.

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