3 | Coming Clean

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Speaker 5 Shocked today after an arrest in the infamous Gilgo Beach murder scene.

Speaker 2 The morning of July 14th, 2023, is one I'll never forget. The day they finally caught him.
Lisk, the Long Island serial killer.

Speaker 5 59-year-old Rex Huerman from Long Island is now charged in the murders of three women.

Speaker 2 10 years earlier, we had gone on our own hunt for Lisk. And even though we didn't find him, I had no idea how close we came.

Speaker 6 We're learning that Rex Huerman may have called a documentary filmmaker. Will you at my house tonight?

Speaker 8 Yes, we're looking for you.

Speaker 2 But as we dug deeper, we discovered the hunt for a serial killer was only half the story.

Speaker 7 There is no other way to describe this except explosive.

Speaker 3 Former Suffolk County Chief of Police James Burke was put in handcuffs. Steve, he's still denying the accusations.

Speaker 2 I'm Josh Zeman, and this is Monster, Hunting the Long Island Serial Killer. Available now.
Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 2 Crook County is released weekly and brought to you absolutely free. But if you want to hear the whole season right now, it's available ad-free on Tenderfoot Plus.

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Speaker 7 This episode also contains subject matter, including graphic depictions of violence, which may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 3 Previously, on Crook County, I got recruited into the mob when I was 17 years old.

Speaker 2 My father, Kenny, lived a secret double life for over 20 years.

Speaker 10 I didn't know he was in the mob until maybe 20 years after you guys were born.

Speaker 2 He was also hiding a destructive heroin addiction.

Speaker 12 It's crazy to have someone that was so strong in my life and he was everything to me. So we fucking punch him in the face over drugs because he was destroying our fucking family.

Speaker 2 Until it almost killed him in 2013.

Speaker 8 And he called my son Kyle and he asked Kyle for help.

Speaker 2 No more secrets, no more lies. It's time I learned the truth.

Speaker 2 My name is Kyle Tequila. Welcome to Crook County.

Speaker 3 Listen, there are girls in and out of there for years and years and years and years and years, all right?

Speaker 3 Go in there, crack a deal with the client, come back to us, pay us our fucking portion, go to work, get out quick, and wait for the next guy.

Speaker 3 These girls were pure, pure business, and they made a ton of fucking money.

Speaker 2 Episode three.

Speaker 3 Coming clean.

Speaker 3 My son, Kyle, Justin and Jesse. Bro.
Hey.

Speaker 3 Good to see you, man. How are you? Hello.
How's it going Justin?

Speaker 3 Hey, Jesse. What's going on, brother? Justin lives with me.
Jesse's the

Speaker 3 house manager. Alright.
And I'm the king. The king, okay.
Perfect. Well, where does the king live? Right here.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 Today, I'm visiting my dad for the first time in a year.

Speaker 2 He's showing me around his place of work. A group of small apartments that serve as a halfway house for people in recovery.

Speaker 3 So this is one of our units here. It's a a girl's house.
Alright. How many units are there? We got four units.
That's cool. Little compound, huh?

Speaker 2 That noise you hear is a carpet cleaning crew getting a unit ready for another client.

Speaker 3 Everybody's out of here. Five o'clock and I'm going, well, you know what? No, you can leave.
Go.

Speaker 2 He also lives here in one of the units.

Speaker 3 Nice, man. It's better than the last place.
You think it's better in the house?

Speaker 3 Uh, the house felt like really cramped and your room was like in weird in the living room. Well, Mike, look at my room here.
Oh, yeah, well, let's see. Well, that's okay.

Speaker 3 Listen, it doesn't cost me a dime. This is Mark took my pain in the ass.
Hey, buddy, Kyle.

Speaker 3 This is my son, Kyle. This is the kitchen.
Son, that's your real father? Real father, real son.

Speaker 3 Real father, real son.

Speaker 2 You have a good stock. Look at this handsome man.
I know.

Speaker 3 Yes, he did well.

Speaker 13 So you bet you look from him?

Speaker 2 You look from him? No, my mom.

Speaker 3 I figured that much. Definitely.

Speaker 2 It's hard to believe it's already been six years since I dropped him off at rehab. He's still not his old, strong, matured self.

Speaker 2 I don't think he ever will be, but he's come a long way from the shaking, broken down man I picked up from the airport in 2013.

Speaker 3 I'm gonna ask you guys Lily while we do this interview, because he needs quiet. I'm gonna do condominium and yoga.
What are you talking about? I'm trying to go get Blade. Alright, go get Laid.
I yoga.

Speaker 3 I don't want to interrupt that. I'll be there.

Speaker 3 I'll be in the bathroom for a minute.

Speaker 3 Okay, yeah, yeah. All right.
Sounds good, guys.

Speaker 3 Well, Sinatra, huh?

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's Mark. Set the mood.
I like it.

Speaker 3 Feels right that we're talking about the mafia and you got Sinatra on the background.

Speaker 2 We decided to do the interview in his room because of the noise. It's a tight space with little but a twin bed against the wall and a crate with a cheap lamp on it.

Speaker 3 I mean maybe bring a chair in here or you can sit on the bed.

Speaker 2 It honestly reminds me of my freshman year dorm room at SIU. All that's missing is a Bob Marley poster tacked to the wall.

Speaker 3 I'll sit on the bed. You'll talk into it.
I'll just sit right there or something like that.

Speaker 13 And so so

Speaker 2 we begin.

Speaker 3 Fill me in here.

Speaker 2 What are you doing these days and where am I right now?

Speaker 3 Right at the very moment, I

Speaker 3 am the manager of a sober living area where we have four apartments that we have clients in that are far enough in their recovery, at least 60 days of recovery, but they live under my direction in these apartments here.

Speaker 3 Being a drug addict myself

Speaker 3 who has been sober for six years,

Speaker 3 I am working with those people and we could hold up to six girls and ten guys all in separate apartments and I run that. I'm in charge of that.

Speaker 3 I babysit. That's basically what I do.
I babysit. I drug test, I breathalyze.

Speaker 3 I make sure they're on track. I make sure they're looking for work.

Speaker 3 I make sure there's not too much idle time with them. I try to, I try, what my job is, is to get them ready to go back out in the world.

Speaker 3 That is what I chose to do.

Speaker 3 We are very, very sick people,

Speaker 3 and I am a firm believer in AA.

Speaker 3 It saved my life.

Speaker 3 While on the other hand, drugs ruined my life.

Speaker 3 It ruined everything, ruined my family, ruined my homes, ruined my businesses, ruined everything.

Speaker 3 Because I was a raging addict, a raging heroin addict, believe it or not, at my age.

Speaker 3 So I came out here to California with my son. My son got me into treatment six years ago.

Speaker 3 I had a couple relapses, but they got me sober.

Speaker 3 And now, like I said, I've been sober for six years, and now I work with these people

Speaker 3 and that is what I do now

Speaker 3 to

Speaker 3 thank God

Speaker 3 for not letting me be dead

Speaker 3 or something else what happened to my family

Speaker 3 so that's my give back

Speaker 3 That's what I do. I'm gonna help the people that need to help the most

Speaker 3 Because I know I needed a man.

Speaker 3 I needed a bad.

Speaker 3 So does...

Speaker 3 That's what I do.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 This is a big moment.

Speaker 2 One that I honestly wasn't expecting.

Speaker 2 I have never in all my life.

Speaker 2 Seen my dad cry.

Speaker 3 Anybody that listened guys, you guys got family members that are drug addicts alcoholics there's someone in your family somewhere a grandparent an uncle an aunt it's genetic it carries down that gene

Speaker 3 maybe your kids maybe some of you kids listening to this

Speaker 3 go get help

Speaker 3 you cannot control this you cannot it is the sniper it is the devil

Speaker 3 It lays in wait for you and it will take you out at your weakest moment. Go get help.

Speaker 3 Saved my fucking life.

Speaker 3 It saved my life, that's for sure.

Speaker 3 Does anybody...

Speaker 3 Does anybody around you know about any of this stuff? No.

Speaker 3 Are you kidding me? No one knows anything.

Speaker 3 Oh my god, they have their, they,

Speaker 3 you know, they know I'm from Chicago.

Speaker 3 They know

Speaker 3 I've got a little bit of an accent. They hear it in my, they hear wordings that I say, stuff that I say.
And

Speaker 3 I think they snicker behind my back that I'm a

Speaker 3 gangster, you know, from Chicago. But they don't know anything.
I don't tell them any stories. I do not share.
We do a thing in treatment, in AA, that's called sharing. We share our life story.

Speaker 3 You know, what got us into treatment. But I've never shared.
That's the one thing I I haven't done with AA is share because

Speaker 3 it's not something I really choose to share.

Speaker 2 Starting a few months into his recovery, I would regularly visit him. It was during these visits that he started opening up about his past.
The story here, the memory there,

Speaker 2 but never the whole picture.

Speaker 2 It seems he's finally ready to tell me everything.

Speaker 2 Thanks for joining me on Crook County. For ad-free listening and exclusive content, dive into TenderfootPlus.com, right there in the show notes.

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Speaker 15 This is Jonas Knox from Two Pros and a Cup of Joe, and on Fox One. Now, you can stream your favorite live sports so you can be there live for the biggest moments.

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Speaker 2 I'm gonna warn you, this story is very complex, with a lot of characters over several decades long.

Speaker 2 I'm gonna do the best I can to break it down into easy-to-digest chapters.

Speaker 2 Some characters may come in and out of focus as the story progresses, so I may remind you about them with a little description or a previously heard soundbite.

Speaker 2 If you still find yourself getting lost, well, that makes me a shitty storyteller, so I'm sorry. But if you do have questions or just want to say hi, please visit us at crookcountypodcast.com.

Speaker 2 You can even leave me a voicemail, which I may play on a future audience QA episode. So that's cool.
You can also follow us on all socials at CrookCounty Podcast.

Speaker 2 Okay, let's jump back to the very beginning.

Speaker 2 A 17-year-old kid named Kenny just got accidentally recruited into the outfit for robbing a drug dealer.

Speaker 3 So these two come up on me. I'm sitting down

Speaker 3 and I'm going, I'm thinking to myself, ah, fuck. Here we go.

Speaker 3 And I'm completely unprepared, completely.

Speaker 3 Came up on me and the bigger guy goes, the older guy goes, is that him?

Speaker 3 and the kid goes yeah that's him that's the guy that robbed me uncle

Speaker 3 he ran a fucking crew so he tells me he goes are you looking for a job

Speaker 3 yeah i'm looking for a job i'm starving here that's how i got in the fucking outfit so i got it he was impressed

Speaker 2 oh that reminds me before we dive into this I had a serious conversation with a criminal defense attorney about all this. He's very worried about this story going public.

Speaker 11 You need to be careful. No matter how much you disapprove of what your father did, you're going to have the FBI breathing down your back because he's not just a street thug.

Speaker 11 He's connected to a syndicate. If your dad was serving life for murder, the government would be far less interested.
Please understand

Speaker 11 that with your dad being alive, that means others are alive. The information is too recent.
The 1980s is yesterday. And I really believe that it's a mistake.
I would encourage you not to do it.

Speaker 2 I also asked my dad to weigh in on this, and here's what he said.

Speaker 3 They're all dead, man. Yeah, you have to realize that I was really young.
That's why they call me kid.

Speaker 3 Everybody was at least 10 years older than me. At least 10 years older than me.

Speaker 3 And if they're not dead of old age, they're dead from a hit. They're dead from an overdose, or like I said, dead from old age.
I don't think there's anybody left. I doubt it very much.

Speaker 2 So, after talking it through, we both agreed that for his own safety and mine, to give fake aliases to everyone involved in the outfit, and to remove or obscure any specific identifying details about people, places, and dates.

Speaker 2 I should also note that there's no way for me to prove any of this, since most of the information was never reported anywhere that I'm aware of. I'm going solely here on my dad's word.

Speaker 2 And I'll leave it at that.

Speaker 2 So, without further ado, let's meet our first character in the outfit. The maid guy who recruited my dad, Mickey Gennaro.

Speaker 3 He was a powerful man, good guy,

Speaker 3 businessman, well-dressed, well-kept,

Speaker 3 well-spoken, good-looking guy. Always took time to say hi to me.
Always took time to chat with me just a little bit. I never saw him do that with anybody else.

Speaker 3 Always took a couple minutes out to say hi to me. And I liked the way he behaved.
He didn't act like a gangster, okay?

Speaker 3 He acted like a normal person. He wasn't a sociopath, narcissistic, you know, mobster guy, you know.
Those guys love to play the part. Love to play the part of gangster.

Speaker 3 I never could understand that greaseball bullshit.

Speaker 3 But he didn't do that. So I admired him.

Speaker 2 Mickey was also the son of a notorious street boss they called the old man.

Speaker 3 And he was at that time in Cook County the king of the chop shops. They'd heist a car, they'd heist a truck with cars on it and

Speaker 3 bring them back to his shops, chop the shit out of them, change the numbers, and shipped them out. They shipped them out all over the world, you know, as far as Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 3 I mean, they were going all over the world, these cars. And it was a big, big, big moneymaker.

Speaker 3 I only saw him a couple times, kind of a gravelly old guy, if I can remember correctly. He looked like a typical fucking greasy gangster.

Speaker 3 I don't know how else to put a real fucking greaseball, you know, but he was a very powerful man.

Speaker 2 Kenny spent his first year working for Mickey until he learned the ropes.

Speaker 3 I was an errand boy when I first started. A low level, very, very low level, dropping money off, collecting gambling money.
No hits yet, but you know, doing some beatings.

Speaker 3 But I always had somebody with me, so I was like assisting the person that was doing the heavy work. So that's kind of where I learned how to do heavy work.

Speaker 2 It didn't take long for Kenny to prove his worth. So Mickey gave him a new job.

Speaker 3 I was selling dope for him on the side. I'd get a half a key, I'd break it up.
I had a scale. Some of it I'd cook up for the free base clients, and the rest of it I just ate-balled up.

Speaker 3 And I can't remember how the freebase sold. I really can't.

Speaker 3 I don't. That was, you smoke that shit.
Well, that stuff was insane. It would just

Speaker 3 a rush of euphoria would just

Speaker 3 just just

Speaker 3 look like a tidal wave, just knock you over. And the problem is now you're chasing that shit all the time because you don't get that after that.

Speaker 3 You get that first hit, that's it. You're not going to find that.

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 3 you know, you're always chasing that first blast.

Speaker 3 Anyway,

Speaker 3 all right, but he wasn't supposed to do that. That would have been bad for me, and that would have been very bad for him.
Because I was just taking an order. All right.
And I was just obeying orders.

Speaker 3 But you can't do that, man. You cannot do that.

Speaker 2 No selling dope. This is one of the many strange rules the outfit had for itself that I find fascinating.
Their entire enterprise is built on crime. But drugs are where they draw the line?

Speaker 3 We could not sell dope, people. We could not sell dope.
We were not allowed to sell dope. If you got caught selling dope, you were in big ass fucking trouble.
Because that could bring heat on you.

Speaker 3 The whole thing, we don't want to bring any heat on any of us.

Speaker 3 So if you're going to do something stupid like sell dope it's gonna bring heat on you people were coked up all the time so you're dealing with people that were

Speaker 3 high 24 7 on coke

Speaker 3 so no one's in a really right mind you know no one's sober everybody's up and it dictated a lot of things it got a lot of people killed that actually makes good sense and of course everyone knew the risks But many guys did it anyway.

Speaker 2 The money was just too good. And Kenny, he was happy to take a small slice of it.

Speaker 3 Listen, here's the deal: man, this was quick, fast money. All right.
This was not my career. This is not what I chose to do with my life.
I'm 17 years old. All right.

Speaker 3 I'm living in the backseat of my car.

Speaker 3 I'm hungry. I'm a survivalist, you know, and it's a job and it's income.
You know, I can start to get some security in my life, at least get an apartment, you know.

Speaker 3 So I'm taking this. I'm jumping on this.

Speaker 2 As I got deeper into the details of my dad's life story, I began to wonder just how much of this stuff is actually true. The no-selling drugs thing, for example.

Speaker 2 How do I even attempt to verify something like this? Or any other inner workings of an organization notorious for their secrecy?

Speaker 2 Especially in the 70s and 80s when the mafia moved through the streets with near impunity.

Speaker 2 I thought it would be a good idea to find an outside perspective on the inner workings of the outfit, a mafia expert that could weigh in when necessary throughout this series.

Speaker 2 So I reached out to veteran crime reporter Jeff Cohen of the Chicago Tribune.

Speaker 2 Jeff is an expert on organized crime in Chicago and covered one of the largest mafia trials in history, the infamous FBI Operation Family Secrets.

Speaker 2 that almost single-handedly took out the entire Chicago outfit in 2007.

Speaker 2 I sent Jeff a few rough versions of these episodes to get him up to speed.

Speaker 16 That's quite the family tale you've got there.

Speaker 11 Yes, it is.

Speaker 2 Unfortunately, yes, it is. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Thankfully, he agreed to add his voice to this story. So I asked him about the no drugs role.

Speaker 16 Yeah, as crazy as that sounds, it is actually true that most of the time drugs was not their business. For a variety of reasons, I guess.

Speaker 16 I think it was more difficult for them to control, I think is one of the elements that was typically a problem.

Speaker 16 You had large amounts of money moving between people that they couldn't necessarily keep their fingers on.

Speaker 16 It was also a real area of heat back, especially in the 80s, when you had sort of the war on drugs. It just was not a clean business for them.
It wasn't something that they could run tightly.

Speaker 16 make sure stayed under the radar, they could get reliable money out of it. It was none of those things.
It could go sideways in a minute. You had major federal heat on it all the time.

Speaker 16 And it was just more trouble than it was worth, I think, a lot of times for them, even though it was big, big money.

Speaker 16 But, um, whorehouses, chop shops, um, any kind of illegal business that's along that line definitely would have been within the outfits' purview at that time.

Speaker 16 Um, you know, whorehouses, especially, anything related to sex and vice-they typically had a piece of it across the Chicago area.

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Speaker 5 On eBay, every find has a story. Like if you're looking for a vintage band tea, not just a tea, the band tee from the last show your favorite band ever played.
You wore it everywhere.

Speaker 5 Then your BFF started wearing it, which is cute until they unfriended you and took it with them, which was not so cute. Anyway, now you're on eBay.

Speaker 5 And there it is, same tea from the same tour, still living in your memory, rent-free forever. See? The things you love have a way of finding their way back to you.

Speaker 5 But eBay isn't just forgetting whatever your ex-BFF stole back. It's also for that rare championship foul ball you caught, then heroically gave to the kid next to you.

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Speaker 14 Visita tu Los Macercano in East Arcas Avenue in Sunnydale.

Speaker 15 This is Jonas Knox from from Two Pros and a Cup of Joe. And on Fox One, now you can stream your favorite live sports so you can be there live for the biggest moments.

Speaker 15 That means NFL Sundays, college football games, NASCAR, MLB postseason, and more.

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Speaker 2 Eventually, Mickey saw a new opportunity for Kenny within the outfit. Something a little more permanent.

Speaker 2 It introduced him to a man named Jack Erickson, a crew boss who would end up playing a much larger role in entrenching Kenny within the ranks.

Speaker 3 My boss, my crew boss, was Jack. Jack, Jackie Lamaz Erickson.
Great guy. I love Jack, man.

Speaker 3 I really admired him. He was a great guy.
Well-kept,

Speaker 3 still a gangster, but a well-kept gangster. You know, his jeans were even creased.
You know, he was one of those guys. Everything was perfect on him.

Speaker 3 Clean, neat, nails done, manicure, pedicure, one of them guys, you know.

Speaker 2 Jack became sort of a father figure to young Kenny.

Speaker 3 Oh,

Speaker 3 he was a mentor. He trained me.
He trained me. He just took me under his wing and he trained me.
I was the young guy. You got to remember, I was the absolute youngest guy there.

Speaker 3 These guys had 20 years on me. You know, I was the kid.

Speaker 3 So he just kind of took me under his wing and trained me, took care of me, you know, make sure I did everything good.

Speaker 3 You know, make sure I didn't get in trouble. Make sure he had my back.
You know, I felt safe. I just felt safe when I went out to do bad work because I knew I had the,

Speaker 3 you know, the mob behind me. The outfit was on my back.
You know, I had that

Speaker 3 always to fall back on. So that kind of relieved a lot of the fear.

Speaker 2 Jack also had a very important job within the outfit. One that required a unique kind of personality and responsibility.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he ran the whorehouses every night. Just bouncing from whorehouse to whorehouse.

Speaker 3 Checking on the bank, seeing how things are going, making sure nobody was selling dope, making sure the girls weren't too high, because they were always high.

Speaker 3 Making sure the guys weren't too high, because they were always high. You know, just kind of keeping things runnable, you know? babysitting, basically.
Kind of like what I do now for a living.

Speaker 3 Babysitting a bunch of drunk addicts, alcoholics.

Speaker 3 That's kind of what he was doing back then. So

Speaker 3 that's what Jack did.

Speaker 2 Jack saw a lot of potential in Kenny.

Speaker 3 He trusted me. He trusted me because I didn't steal money.
I didn't do dope while I worked. I didn't sell dope while I worked.

Speaker 3 I just did my job and my count every night, right up there every night for years, man.

Speaker 3 It's hard to find an honest guy in the fucking outfit I was a I was an anomaly I don't even want to say a rarity an anomaly and so he made him an offer he couldn't refuse running the door at one of the brothels in Cook County

Speaker 3 so for the years I spent working in the whorehouses the clubs and they were scattered all over Cook County DuPage County and Kane County We can only put them in the unincorporated areas because we have the county police pretty much taken care of.

Speaker 3 We'd rent a house, a single family home, and we'd get in there, gut it to an extent, put about six bedrooms in there, small rooms with little peepholes.

Speaker 3 We had a peephole in the door and a peephole in the walls. Not everyone could be peeped, but if we could peep them, we peeped them.

Speaker 3 The living room would stay as a living room, the kitchen would stay as a kitchen.

Speaker 3 We had a front area where they came in, little foyer area there, where we would take their ID, look them up the um card catalog that we had we actually gave them a id can you believe that

Speaker 3 match the id with the picture the picture with the face and then we'd let them in

Speaker 3 now how did they become members they would come in

Speaker 3 i want to be a member of this club you know just a guy there's a million people out there that want to join whorehouses guys are horny bastards okay

Speaker 3 The people that frequent whorehouses know where whore houses are. You don't have to advertise this shit.

Speaker 3 they just know where they are they would come in and want to join the club so we would put them through a process we would make sure we check their employment

Speaker 3 the check their ID

Speaker 3 we even had something with county with the county vice guys where we would have them run something by them I don't know what it was I can't remember but we would run something with them

Speaker 3 And then after we got him checked out, I didn't do the checkout process. That wasn't my job, so I can't really expound too much on this.

Speaker 3 So anyway, they became members through a process that we put them through pictures and verification basically we wanted to make sure they weren't vice

Speaker 3 the honest vice we wanted to make sure they weren't the honest vice how's that sound uh

Speaker 2 sounds like my dad was a bona fide pimp that's how it sounds you know you'd think after all this time nothing would shock me anymore but you would be wrong

Speaker 2 All right, what was it like once you got inside?

Speaker 3 A guy would come in,

Speaker 3 bring him in, introduce to the girls who'd be sitting there. The girls would stand up.
I'd introduce him to all the girls by name, Jane, Ferrell, Cindy. We did have drinks.

Speaker 3 It wasn't a bar, but they would go, you want a drink? They'd go back in the kitchen. They make the guy a drink, mostly just beer, beer, and wine.

Speaker 3 And then they would sit and talk to the girls. And it could go on anywhere from 10 minutes to two hours.

Speaker 3 Some guys just came in there and just partied with the girls, sat and partied with them.

Speaker 3 We didn't mind. They were members.

Speaker 3 Plus, when somebody else came in, it made that person rush a little bit because there was someone else in there. That guy that's already in there was going to take the girl that this new guy came in.

Speaker 3 You know what I'm saying? So they maybe kick it up a little bit. They pick up their make their choice a little bit faster.

Speaker 3 So, um,

Speaker 3 they'd come in, chat it up with the girls, decide who they like. The girl would take them back to one of the rooms

Speaker 3 and they would negotiate a deal.

Speaker 3 So much for whatever sex they wanted.

Speaker 3 They'd seal the deal.

Speaker 3 The girl would leave the guy in the room. The girl would come out, come see me,

Speaker 2 and say,

Speaker 3 $100 for blowjob and missionary sex. She would hand me $50, half to take,

Speaker 3 and then she would be on her way. That was the end of the operation.
That was how it worked. Very simple.

Speaker 3 Did things ever get out of control? Oh, yeah, they got out of control. People come in drunk or all coked out,

Speaker 3 but

Speaker 3 they got their asses beat bad. We would make a phone call, and there would be four muscle showing up within 15 minutes.
And it was just,

Speaker 3 you know, they'd be, when we got them to their cars, they'd be, we'd put them in their cars and they'd be half hanging half in, half out, and just

Speaker 3 counting stopped by and they knew it was a whorehouse there and

Speaker 3 but we wanted to keep them on property

Speaker 3 we'd get them out on the street in their cars and uh

Speaker 3 yeah they they didn't last long they got they got beat pretty bad they got beat really bad

Speaker 3 um

Speaker 3 just like who are these people just drunks just drunk assholes are they members no yeah yeah these these are members yeah these are members or a guest of a member or a guest of a member member could bring in one guest, all right?

Speaker 3 And, you know, you know, alcohol and drugs turns people weird, man. People go stupid sometimes.

Speaker 3 I mean, 90% of the time it was fine, but that 10%, there was, you know, something would go wrong. That's just, that's just, that's just law of average, man.
Something's bound to go wrong eventually.

Speaker 3 But we, but we jumped on that quick.

Speaker 2 I have to keep reminding myself, he's still only 19 at this point. Everybody else's age is fresh out of high school, going to bars and trying to get laid without a care in the world.

Speaker 2 I can tell you I was an absolute moron at 19. That's a fact.

Speaker 2 But I can only imagine three years selling drugs and handing out beatings at a brothel for the mafia will make you grow up real fucking fast. I wonder, can you even try to have a regular life?

Speaker 3 What would you do in your free time?

Speaker 3 I don't know.

Speaker 3 Hang out. I had friends.
You know, some friends that I'd hang out with. Do normal guy stuff, you know? Watch football on Sundays.
I was just a normal guy. Just a normal young guy.
That's all.

Speaker 3 Go to bars with my friends. You know, pick up chicks.
You know.

Speaker 2 He tells me he wasn't looking for a girlfriend, let alone anything serious. But one night, as things do,

Speaker 3 All that changed.

Speaker 3 Met her at a club called SOP, some other place in the Splains, I think it is.

Speaker 3 Saw her sitting at the end of the bar.

Speaker 3 Beautiful redhead,

Speaker 3 sexy.

Speaker 3 I fell in love with her pretty quick.

Speaker 3 So I just walked up to her.

Speaker 3 Just as a matter of course of time, we just ended up

Speaker 3 dating.

Speaker 2 I'm sure you've guessed it already. But that pretty little redhead at the bar was my mother.

Speaker 3 I thought your mother was beautiful. I think I was 19 when I met her.
She was 20.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I had to listen. I had to work to get your mother, damn it.

Speaker 3 It wasn't easy. She wasn't, she wasn't like one of the whores.

Speaker 3 I could just say, hey, come on, let's go. I had to work for that.
I had to work for your mom. That was a job.

Speaker 3 That was a job. That was a job, man.

Speaker 3 It was worth it, though.

Speaker 3 It was well worth it.

Speaker 3 Next week on Crook County.

Speaker 3 Just look at me now and tremble.

Speaker 3 We would have to take bus every once in a while, just so Crook County cops could show that they're making some progress here when half the motherfuckers are running their own hordes on the side out of our fucking clubs.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Executive producers are Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set.
Main title song is called Crush by the band Starry Eyes.

Speaker 2 End credit song is called Trouble, also by the band Starry Eyes. Sound mix by Cooper Skinner.

Speaker 2 Thank you to Oren Rosenbaum and the excellent team at UTA for their support, and to my fearless attorney Wendy Bench for her guidance.

Speaker 2 To stay updated on all things Crook County, follow us on all socials at Crook County Podcast, or leave us a voicemail by visiting crookcountypodcast.com.

Speaker 2 For more podcasts like Crook County, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app or visit tenderfoot.tv. Thanks for listening.
The story continues next week.

Speaker 2 I'll never surrender.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'll never surrender.

Speaker 2 Thank you for tuning into Crook County. New episodes are released weekly, completely free.

Speaker 2 But if you're itching for more, check out Tenderfoot Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit tenderfootplus.com to subscribe for early access to the full series. Plus, an ad-free experience.

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