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[Sound Design] We are beyond FM.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Beyond FM.
[Sound Design] The future of broadcasting is here
[Adam] is here
[Sound Design] is here. Up and Adam with Adam on
[Sound Design] teal. It's community content from Concentrate. It's Up
[Intro] and Adam with Adam on teal.
[Advertisement] Well,
[Adam] Well, thanks so much for being up at
[Adam] Adam. Happy Monday. My name is Adam Monteil.
[Adam] Hope you had a great weekend, gorgeous outside.
[Adam] Lots of winning. We're kinda wrapping up two
[Adam] different places for you to win. Obviously, Blend
[Adam] Fest happens over the weekend. That's gone. But
[Adam] World of Pinot Noir happening this weekend as
[Adam] well as festivities beginning later this weekend going
[Adam] through the weekend for Slow Comedy Fest. So
[Adam] get to adam on teal dot com. For
[Adam] Slow Comedy Fest, we got some tickets including
[Adam] Best of the Fest, which is on Sunday,
[Adam] March second. But listen to this, Thursday, eight
[Adam] PM, Jokadelic Tales happening at blast eight two
[Adam] five in AG. Tickets for that. Also, tickets
[Adam] for Friday's event, which is called Silly Saison.
[Adam] That's at Libertine. Again, that's the twenty eighth.
[Adam] And then Saturday, March first, only the nasty
[Adam] survive at Slow Brew. This is Saturday, nine
[Adam] thirty PM. This is going to be, you
[Adam] know, if you like your comedy, a little
[Adam] naughty. Oh, yeah. You like a little bit
[Adam] r rated, a little naughty comedy, this is
[Adam] for you. It's called Only the Nasty Survive.
[Adam] Get to adamon teal dot com. And one,
[Adam] you can just go right off the homepage
[Adam] and try your hand. But in the message
[Adam] part, let me know what show sounds like
[Adam] fun to you that you wanna go to.
[Adam] Is it Best of the Fest on Sunday,
[Adam] March second? Is it Saturdays? Right there, I
[Adam] told you. Only the nasty survive. Maybe you
[Adam] want some, mid to late week, jokadelic tales
[Adam] at blast eight two five because you're in
[Adam] the five cities. That's Thursday at eight. And
[Adam] then again, Friday at nine, silly season at
[Adam] liberty. Lots going on with the fifteenth annual
[Adam] Slow Comedy Fest. Your last chance to win
[Adam] right now. Get to adam on teal dot
[Adam] com, and good luck. Also, like I mentioned,
[Adam] World of Pinot Noir, tastings this Friday and
[Adam] this Saturday at the Bacara Resort in Santa
[Adam] Barbara. Ritz Carlton, baby. It's on. I'm gonna
[Adam] be doing an episode of The Poor, both
[Adam] during both big tastings, Friday and Saturday. So
[Adam] completely kinda different event. There's a lot of
[Adam] winning for you at adam on teal dot
[Adam] com. Get registered, and we'll see you there.
[Adam] Alright. Later in the show, we're diving into
[Adam] a story that's bigger than headlines. It's about
[Adam] trust, betrayal, and how two men turned one
[Adam] of the most respected uniforms into a deadly
[Adam] disguise. Best selling author and award winning journalist,
[Adam] Michael Kinnell joins us to talk about Blood
[Adam] and the Badge. His latest book, New York
[Adam] Times bestseller that uncovers how two NYPD detectives
[Adam] secretly worked for the mafia. Not just leaking
[Adam] intel, but pulling the trigger themselves. Now this
[Adam] isn't just cops and robbers. It is a
[Adam] story of power, corruption, and how the people
[Adam] meant to protect us sometimes become the biggest
[Adam] threat. Stick around. It's a conversation that goes
[Adam] way beyond the badge, and it's a really
[Adam] interesting chat with a really interesting author. Before
[Adam] we get into our lo fi headlines, mark
[Adam] our calendars because Lumina Knights is back at
[Adam] the stunning pavilion on the Lake Natascadero. And
[Adam] now, it's happening three nights, May first, second,
[Adam] and third. That's right. The first two nights
[Adam] sold out. We told you about this when
[Adam] they were selling tickets. So they just added
[Adam] an extra night Thursday, May first. This year's
[Adam] theme transformation celebrates the powerful changes we're creating
[Adam] for survivors and our community. Get ready for
[Adam] an unforgettable evening packed with live music, incredible
[Adam] dining, local wine, beer, and of course, Dancing
[Adam] with Our Stars. Watch familiar faces from around
[Adam] the Central Coast take the stage, shining a
[Adam] light on healing, empowerment, and hope. And it's
[Adam] more important now than ever to show some
[Adam] love to Illumina Alliance. With everything going on
[Adam] and questions if their grant money and federal
[Adam] help money is gonna come through, it's just
[Adam] I just implore you and beg of you
[Adam] to show them some love. Get to Illumina
[Adam] Alliance dot org. For the event, go to
[Adam] Illumina Alliance dot org slash events, and I
[Adam] got a link in the show notes for
[Adam] you. I'll be the MC of the night.
[Adam] Can't wait to celebrate with you. Tickets won't
[Adam] last, so grab yours again. Lumina alliance dot
[Adam] org, and let's transform lives together.
[Sound Design] Up and Atoms, lo fi headlines.
[Adam] Well, San Luis Obispo is facing a disturbing
[Adam] trend with youth coaches crossing the line. Most
[Adam] recently, twenty two year old Trevor Mason, a
[Adam] JV football coach at Morro Bay High School,
[Adam] was arrested for allegedly selling counterfeit Adderall near
[Adam] a school. The search of his home turned
[Adam] out more suspected narcotics, including psilocybin mushrooms along
[Adam] with packaging materials, suggesting drug sales. But Mason's
[Adam] arrest is just the latest. In twenty one,
[Adam] a girl swim coach convicted for sexual misconduct
[Adam] with a student. And in twenty twenty three,
[Adam] a basketball coach was fired over similar allegations
[Adam] that's sparking serious questions on how people in
[Adam] these trusted roles are being vetted and how
[Adam] schools can do better at protecting students. What
[Adam] a story, though. Alright. California news. Our high
[Adam] speed rail project was supposed to revolutionize travel,
[Adam] connecting San Francisco to LA. And then it
[Adam] was like, oh, maybe we'll just stick to,
[Adam] like, Merced, something stupid. It was just some
[Adam] Central Valley thing, like, two places that no
[Adam] one gave a you know what to go
[Adam] to or go from and to. But this
[Adam] high speed rail between San Francisco and LA
[Adam] was supposed to be done by twenty twenty
[Adam] for thirty three billion dollars. Fast forward to
[Adam] twenty twenty five, and the project's price tag
[Adam] has tripled to a hundred and six billion
[Adam] with not only no finish line in sight,
[Adam] but no track on the ground to begin
[Adam] with. And now the US Department of Transportation
[Adam] is questioning whether the state should keep the
[Adam] four billion in federal funding. People looking objectively
[Adam] at what's going on, it's a textbook case
[Adam] of government waste. Many are wondering if this
[Adam] bullet train will ever even leave the station,
[Adam] or is it just another California dream? Derailed
[Adam] by politics, mismanagement, this one is one to
[Adam] watch. And locally, in Cambria, a routine coffee
[Adam] run turned into every pet owner's nightmare. Annie,
[Adam] a twelve year old Samoyed, was napping in
[Adam] her family's black Honda CR V when the
[Adam] car was stolen from a parking lot. Hours
[Adam] of panic followed until a worker at Lynn's
[Adam] restaurant spotted the car in their lot, Annie's
[Adam] fluffy white ears poking up from the back
[Adam] seat. The good Samaritan called the police and
[Adam] Annie's family who rushed over to find their
[Adam] dog and car completely intact. Deep breath. Thank
[Adam] god. Annie was a little hungry, a little
[Adam] shaky, but safe. And the car, not a
[Adam] scratch on it. Just a quarter tank of
[Adam] gas missing like the thief almost took her
[Adam] for a joyride. CHP's still investigating, but for
[Adam] Annie's family, the only thing that matters is
[Adam] that their little child, that's what they are,
[Adam] these dogs. They are family members, no doubt,
[Adam] is back home. Also, just so a lesson
[Adam] can be learned here, this was a case
[Adam] of the car owner, I believe, leaving their
[Adam] keys on the floor of their car, like,
[Adam] just taking out the keys, dropping on the
[Adam] floor, and then going in. Yeah. Probably not
[Adam] the best idea, especially when you have such
[Adam] precious cargo in the car. So I'm sure
[Adam] that they learned a lesson, and I'm just
[Adam] glad that they, their car, and most importantly,
[Adam] their dog is all safe and sound. This
[Adam] is kind of a crazy story. Freight trains
[Adam] rumbling through the Mojave Desert have become unlikely
[Adam] targets for high stakes robberies. It's like pirates
[Adam] on the rails now. The latest heist is
[Adam] all about sneakers. Thieves made off with about
[Adam] three hundred thousand dollars worth of Nike Air
[Adam] Jordans from a stationary train loading twelve hundred
[Adam] seventy eight pairs into a U Haul and
[Adam] then making their getaway. But Nike, they had
[Adam] the last laugh. Those boxes, they all had
[Adam] GPS trackers. Police traced the stolen kicks to
[Adam] an Anaheim parking lot, arrested the crew on
[Adam] the spot. It's part of a growing trend
[Adam] of cargo thefts targeting high end goods, turning
[Adam] remote train routes into hot spots for organized
[Adam] crime. Glad they got these guys. And finally,
[Adam] in South Carolina, death row inmate Brad Sigmund
[Adam] has chosen the firing squad as his method
[Adam] of execution set for March seventh. And if
[Adam] it goes through, it's gonna be the first
[Adam] US execution by gunfire in fifteen years. Sigmund,
[Adam] who's sixty seven, was convicted of murdering his
[Adam] ex girlfriend's parents in o one. His lawyers
[Adam] say the choice isn't about preference, it's about
[Adam] fear. South Carolina's lethal injection process has been
[Adam] shrouded in secrecy with botched executions reported in
[Adam] recent months. One man appeared to be suffering
[Adam] drowning like suffocation, while another required multiple doses
[Adam] of the pentobarbital. Sickman's legal team says he's
[Adam] faced with an impossible choice, electric chair, lethal
[Adam] injection, or a firing squad. If he survives
[Adam] the initial round of gunfire, state protocol allows
[Adam] for a second volley after ten minutes. Critics,
[Adam] including a South Carolina judge, call the method
[Adam] cruel and unconstitutional. Sigmund, now a devout Christian,
[Adam] has expressed deep remorse for his crimes. His
[Adam] lawyers say executing him serves no purpose except
[Adam] to send a chilling message that South Carolina
[Adam] doesn't believe in redemption no matter how sincere.
[Adam] It's really a tough story all around no
[Adam] matter where you fall, whether it's on capital
[Adam] punishment, being an advocate for the victim and
[Adam] their family, and just if you're gonna engage
[Adam] in capital punishment, just getting it right.
[Sound Design] Up and Adams, lo fi headlines.
[Adam] Alright. Today's guest, someone who doesn't just write
[Adam] about crime, he writes about what it reveals
[Adam] about us. Michael Kinnell is a best selling
[Adam] author and veteran journalist who has appeared in
[Adam] the New York Times, the New Yorker, Sports
[Adam] Illustrated, and more. His latest book, Blood and
[Adam] the Badge, tells the almost unbelievable true story
[Adam] of two NYPD detectives who weren't just bending
[Adam] the rules, they were actually working as hitmen
[Adam] for the mafia. The story about corruption, but,
[Adam] yes, also the ambition, loyalty, and how power
[Adam] can twist sometimes everything it touches. Michael, thanks
[Adam] so much, man, for being up in Adam.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Yeah. Thank you, Adam.
[Adam] You know, as you peeled back the layers
[Adam] of this story, what haunted you most about
[Adam] the way these men operated within the NYPD
[Adam] for so long? Was it their their methods,
[Adam] their boldness, or or the system that enabled
[Adam] them?
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Yeah. I mean, I think it was the
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] just the the, the level of, of deception
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] that they had had engaged in. We're talking
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] about two decorated NYPD detectives who were secretly
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] on the mafia payroll, and they were passing
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] sensitive police and FBI information along to the
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] mob, who was under investigation, whose phones were
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] tapped, who was about to who was who
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] was, who was about to be arrested, and
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] most importantly, who in the mafia ranks, was
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] a rat, a fink, a squealer, a canary,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] as they called them, who was, in other
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] words, who was secretly informing on his brethren.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] And then the just to answer your question,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] then these two detectives would facilitate their the
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] murders of these of these betrayers. And at
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] least one case, they pull the trigger themselves.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] I mean, this is this is, you know,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] this is dark stuff. Right? The, decorated, high
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] ranking detectives were actually committing murders.
[Adam] Were they just in it so deep that
[Adam] they were enthralled with what was encompassing them,
[Adam] or do you think even them, like, when
[Adam] that moment happened, that one goes, oh my
[Adam] god. What did I just what did I
[Adam] just find? What did I do? What did
[Adam] I just do?
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Well, and that's a really good question. One
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] of these detectives, a man named Louis Eppolito,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] was born into a mafia family. His father
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] was a Gambino capo known as Fat the
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Gangster, and his uncle was a capo known
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] as Jimmy the Clam. So Louis grew up
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] in this world, and he betrayed his family,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] rebelled against his family by joining the police
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] department. But I think the I think that
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] the the, you know, the the the code
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] of the mafia somehow stayed with him, And
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] it was as if he was it was
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] as if he was a mafiosi masquerading as
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] a cop or maybe the other way around.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] I'm not sure.
[Adam] Yeah.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] So for him, I think in his mind,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] there was a sort of there was a
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] sort of swagger and prestige, to to, to
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] being in the mob. And, he was he
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] was acting that out even as he was
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] a detective.
[Adam] Yeah. You know, your book doesn't just recount
[Adam] events. It really humanizes the consequences. When you
[Adam] spoke with people impacted by epilido and, how
[Adam] do you say that last name of that
[Adam] other gentleman, Caracapa?
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Caracapa. Yeah.
[Adam] And Caracapa's crimes, what did they teach you
[Adam] about resilience, even forgiveness?
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Yeah. I mean, one of the things that
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] was really I'm not sure if this exactly
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] answers your question, but one of the things
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] that was just by the amazing experience about
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] reporting on this book is that I I
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] spoke to a great deal of people who
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] had had had suffered because of this episode,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] detectives, DEA agents, family members of the victims.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] And if you're a reporter, you don't really
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] always know how far you can go in
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] asking people about it. And it really surprised
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] me how candid people were and how much
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] they were willing to talk about it and
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] help me understand, you know, help me understand
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] the story and, and really walk me through
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] it.
[Adam] You know, when we think of organized crime,
[Adam] we often think of a a mafia infiltrating
[Adam] from the outside. But here was the n
[Adam] and the NYPD infected from the inside. What
[Adam] does that inversion say about the fragility of
[Adam] these institutions?
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Yeah. That's a really good question. I mean,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] part of what was happening in that case,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] and this really surprised me. I would not
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] have known this before I did the reporting
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] on this book. What was happening in this
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] case was that the mobsters and the detectives
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] had all grown up with each other. They
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] had all grown up in the same neighborhoods
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] in South Brooklyn, and Staten Island. They had
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] gone to the same schools. They had dated
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] the same girls. And even as adults, they
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] even drank in the same bars. And the
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] the detective who ultimately brought these two corrupt
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] cops down, was friends with a lot of
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] the mobsters. Inverted, as you say, and kind
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] of incestuous all of this was.
[Adam] And if you could sit down with either
[Adam] Eppolito or Caracapa, knowing what you know now,
[Adam] what is something a question or or what
[Adam] would you wanna ask each of them?
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] I mean, Steven, Louis Eppolito was from a
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] mafia family as we've said. So we can
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] imagine that his motivations were just kinda like
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] he was mixed up in his head about
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] whether he was a a cop or a
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] mafiosi. Stephen Caracappa is the person I would
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] most like to have talked to because, it's
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] it's hard to know why he did this
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] exactly. On some level, I think he did
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] it for the money. They were on a
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] monthly retainer. They were paid four thousand dollars
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] a month and then paid bonuses for participating
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] in murders. But would that really Karakappa, I
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] don't think it was. I think it was
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] more about he felt the need to be
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] a part of this secret life. He felt
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] the need to be involved in this sort
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] of dark very dark conspiracy. I think on
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] some way, he felt like he wanted to
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] pull one over on on people. So that
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] his his role in all of this is
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] is still very murky and mysterious.
[Adam] You know, you spent your career investigating, writing
[Adam] about corruption and crime. After immersing yourself in
[Adam] stories like this, how do you view the
[Adam] concept of of justice? Does it still feel
[Adam] attainable?
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Well, I I don't in writing this book
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] and discussing this book, I don't wanna suggest
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] that in any way that the NYPD and
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] other law enforcement entities are cesspools of corruption.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Of course, the NYPD in particular has had,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] has had terrible periods of corruption. And and
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] today, there, is suffering through a spasm of
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] allegations at the top along with the mayor's
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] office. But the majority the probably the vast
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] majority of cops are are good cops, devoted
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] cops. I think this this was just this
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] case of Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa was
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] just a freakish freakish aberration. So I think
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] I think the rule the rule is fairness
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] and justice, and this is was this was
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] just a, a an aberration.
[Adam] Yeah. Kind of what you're going to in
[Adam] a second. At its core, this story is
[Adam] about betrayal. Betrayal of the badge, of the
[Adam] public, and even of their own integrity. What
[Adam] do you think drives someone to cross that
[Adam] line so completely?
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Yeah. What a great question. I mean, it's
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] why why were they doing this? They had
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] a lot more to lose than to gain,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] by doing this. I think for I think
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] for lep Louis Eppolito, again, going back to
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] the fact that he was from a, a
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] mafia family. He was in some way trying
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] to fulfill his father's ambitions for him. He
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] was trying to pay allegiance to his father's
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] family, the family that Kappa. Like, I mean,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] who knows? He was he was a very,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] very dark character, and, I just it's very
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] hard to know what he was thinking.
[Adam] You know, the mafia is often romanticized, though,
[Adam] in popular culture. But your book kinda shatters
[Adam] that illusion. How did writing this story challenge
[Adam] your own perceptions of organized crime?
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Well, it's very tempting to think of or
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] of mobsters as just universally being bad guys,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] and for good reason. They I mean, they
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] are bad guys. They do a lot they
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] did a lot of bad stuff. But what
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] I hadn't really fully appreciated until I worked
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] on this book was how much humanity there
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] really is there. I mean, for people who
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] grew up in certain Brooklyn neighborhoods at that
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] time, the mafia was like a shadow government.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] They were the they were the mobsters were
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] the, you know, the big shots in in
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] in the neighborhood. And, these young men would
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] be recruited into the mafia because they envied
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] the they envied the the glamour and the
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] prestige and the money. And then once they
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] were in it, they were trapped. I mean,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] really, nobody gets out once they're in the
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] mafia. And, in many cases, they were not,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] you know, natively not bad people, but they
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] got caught up in a bad business.
[Adam] You've been praised for your ability to weave
[Adam] investigative reporting with human storytelling. It's one of
[Adam] my favorite aspects as I've learned more about
[Adam] you. How do you balance the cold hard
[Adam] facts with the emotional undercurrents of a story
[Adam] specifically like this?
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Well, what a good question. I'll say a
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] couple of things. One is I really did
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] not wanna write history with a capital h.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] I didn't wanna write a Wikipedia entry. I
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] wanted to write something that was vivid and
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] truthful and real, you know, all real, but
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] would also feel like a movie, would feel
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] like a like a like a Netflix series.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] You know, it's a very violent it's a
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] very violent story, Adam. It's it's grisly. I,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] you know, I don't like violence. I don't
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] like I'd, squeamish about violence when I see
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] it on the screen. But on the pages
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] of the book, it doesn't bother me. And,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] in fact, if you write a book like
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] this, I think you you have to be
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] aware that you're competing for the reader's attention
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] with TikTok or Netflix. And so I kinda
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] felt I've kinda felt like the violent episodes
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] in the book were were an asset because
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] it helped me to it helped me to
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] keep, keep the story moving along and and
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] hopefully, gripping.
[Adam] And as you wrote about these victims of
[Adam] these crimes, did you find yourself carrying any
[Adam] of their stories with you long after the
[Adam] book was done? Were there ones that maybe
[Adam] stuck with you?
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Yeah. I mean, the main the main hero
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] of this story is the detective Tommy Dades,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] who was the one who stumbled on some
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] evidence just as he was getting set to
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] retire, and he revived a an investigation into
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] these corrupt cops that had lain dormant and
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] been abandoned by federal prosecutors and the FBI.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] He really almost single handedly revived this case.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Tommy and I have spent God knows how
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] many hours on the phone and visiting each
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] other, and we've become, very, very close friends.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] And to get to know him and the
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] story of his life, which I describe in
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] the book, is just unbelievable. The things that
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] he went through in the course of being
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] a detective in Brooklyn in the seventies, eighties,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] and nineties. I mean, just the the bravery
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] and and the trauma, and his dedication to
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] getting it right.
[Adam] You know, you've written about some of the
[Adam] darkest corners of human behavior. Does driving does
[Adam] driving into these stories ever make you lose
[Adam] faith in humanity, or does it even deepen
[Adam] your appreciation for resilience, for justice?
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Yeah. I think the latter. I think the
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] more more more the latter, Adam, I think
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] it's it's, you know, these cops appear to
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] have gotten away with with all of this.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] They were doing this, work for the mob
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] for more than a decade, and they had
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] been involved in a dozen at least a
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] dozen murders. And they retired. They took their
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] police pensions and moved to a subdivision on
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] the outskirts of Las Vegas. Oddly enough, they
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] lived across the street from each other. And
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] this was all in the rearview mirror. And,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Louis Eppolito, launched a career as a as
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] he wanted to have a Hollywood career. He
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] was in he had minor parts in a
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] dozen movies, and it looked like this everything
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] was good for them. This was they were
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] gonna get away from this all of this.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] And just due to the dedication of a
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] handful of DEA agents, FBI agents, Tommy Dade's
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] investigators in the Brooklyn DA's office, they they
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] were they were brought to justice. They were,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] they were tried and convicted and went to
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] jail.
[Adam] You know, someone who's explored, really, crime and
[Adam] betrayal to such depth, do you think there's
[Adam] a a point where maybe accountability and redemption
[Adam] that that they intersect, or are some acts
[Adam] just unforgivable?
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] What what a question. I mean, I think
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] some acts are are, you know, are beyond
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] redemption. For example, Stephen Caracappa and Louis Apollito,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] as we've said, passed along a lot of
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] sensitive police information to the Lucchese crime family.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] They weren't always right. And they passed along
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] information about a young man named Nicky Guido
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] that the Lucchese underboss was looking for. And,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Nicky Guido had been involved in a botched
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] assassination attempt as an act of revenge. The
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Lucchese's intended to kill him. So they got
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] the information about Nikiquito from Eppolito and Caracapa,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] and they shot Nikiquito on Christmas day outside
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] of his family home in in, Brooklyn. And
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] it turned out they had the wrong Nicky
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Guido. Same name, but wrong guy. The person
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] they killed was a twenty six year old
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] young man, a good guy by all accounts
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] who went bowling with his friends. He played
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] on a softball team. He aspired to be
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] a fireman. And that family was shattered by
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] this as you can as you can imagine.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] The family never never recovered. And just, you
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] know, it's an un unforgivable act.
[Adam] Yeah. Wow. Did you ever explore other families,
[Adam] other cities' families? I had a a small
[Adam] kind of familial moment where I crossed paths
[Adam] with Peter Milano of, you know this is
[Adam] years ago when I was in my twenties
[Adam] and, you know, from familial ties and spent
[Adam] a couple afternoons with them and just listened
[Adam] to his stories and were, like, I'm thinking
[Adam] in my head, like because no one ever
[Adam] says, oh, family, I'm not it's but you're
[Adam] listening to all these stories of enterprise and
[Adam] and just how sweet you're walking the family,
[Adam] everyone around the family, and everyone's loving each
[Adam] other. It was just I'm like, this is
[Adam] way this is incredible. This what is going
[Adam] on? And that romanticism, and I was feeling
[Adam] it. I was singing around. And he and
[Adam] his family were just so nice. And did
[Adam] you ever get into some more of the
[Adam] organized crime families and and and look into
[Adam] all of those?
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Well, not in not in this book. In
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] my previous book, which is called The Brotherhood
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Betrayed, I do describe how the mob originally
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] I I will say organized crime became organized
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] in the nineteen thirties. And and it was
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] very hierarchical and structured and played by very
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] specific rules. And the way Lucky Luciano and
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] other famous, gangsters, Bugsy Siegel, etcetera, set it
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] up back in the day was that the
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] headquarters, the sort of board of directors was
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] in New York City, but then there were
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] franchises in cities all across the country. You
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] know, Chicago, Saint Louis, Miami, Los Angeles, and
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] they acted almost like like McDonald's. You know,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] they acted like, these little these little, spin
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] offs, that were kinda semi autonomous, but they
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] had to report to the big bosses back
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] in New York. So they were you know,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] historically, they were everywhere, but they reported back
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] to the board of directors in New York.
[Adam] And they seem to die differently or or
[Adam] kind of come out of influence or I
[Adam] don't even know what the right word is.
[Adam] But I mean, like, you know, Cleveland didn't
[Adam] have these ties to LA. And then I
[Adam] remember reading this article in the Las Vegas
[Adam] Review Journal years and years back, like, well,
[Adam] the last person in the LA crime family
[Adam] turned the lights out. I mean, so it
[Adam] it seemed like these certain pieces, they did,
[Adam] like, fizzle, didn't they?
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Yeah. I mean, they each had their they
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] each had their own identity and their kind
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] of their own stories and their own arcs.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] You know, I mean, like I said, the
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] one the one the one thing that united
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] them was that they were part of the
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] same same organization. And I'll tell you one
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] very quick story. When they wanted to assassinate
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] somebody, they didn't they tended not to do
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] it themselves. They would call New York, and
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] New York would send somebody out. It was
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] like a business trip. The the hitman from
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] New York would come out and pack an
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] overnight bag that contained a gun and a
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] rope. And they would fly in, and they
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] would do their job, and then, you know,
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] fly out the next morning. And it was
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] very you know, it was it was businesslike.
[Adam] Wow. Well, I can't tell you how much
[Adam] I enjoyed your time. Awesome book. And, we
[Adam] got a link in the show notes for
[Adam] the audience and more. So thank you so
[Adam] much for being Up and Atom, Michael.
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] Thank you, Adam. I really I really appreciate
[Michael Cannell (Guest)] your interest.
[Adam] Good shad. The conversation really hits deeper than
[Adam] just a scandal per se. Blood of the
[Adam] badge isn't just about dirty cops. It's about
[Adam] what happens when the systems we trust start
[Adam] literally working against us. Thanks again to Michael
[Adam] for shining a light on a story that's
[Adam] just as relevant now as it was then.
[Adam] Links in the show notes. Don't miss it.
[Adam] Check out that book. Alright. Before we bounce
[Adam] out of here, get you into your Monday,
[Adam] and tell you about some more winning, let
[Adam] me remind you about the fifteenth annual Slow
[Adam] Comedy Festival. February twenty seventh through March second,
[Adam] four days of nonstop laughs. Over forty comedians.
[Adam] And again, names you've seen on Netflix before,
[Adam] on Comedy Central before, on Max. Twenty shows
[Adam] across ten venues from Paso to AG, and
[Adam] it all wraps up with the best of
[Adam] the fest at the pack at Cal Poly.
[Adam] So don't miss your chance to check out
[Adam] Comedy Gold tickets selling up fast. Slow comedy
[Adam] festival dot com. Go to adam on teal
[Adam] dot com. Your last and final chance to
[Adam] win your way in. And let me remind
[Adam] you what like I did before. I got
[Adam] tickets to Saturday nights. Only the Nasty Survive.
[Adam] That's at Slow Brew or Rod and Hammer
[Adam] Rock, I should say. Thursday, Jokadelic Tales at
[Adam] Blast eight two five in AG. Friday, Silly
[Adam] Saison Libertine. And then I do. I have
[Adam] tickets for Best of the Fest. So So
[Adam] let me know what you want in on.
[Adam] Go to adam on teal dot com, and
[Adam] use that message tab or that message field
[Adam] to let me know. Alright. Some new episodes
[Adam] of my wine content. Brand new episode dropped
[Adam] Friday of Where Wine Takes You, talking in-depth
[Adam] with Thomas Rice of Kraftwerk Design. He was
[Adam] on the show last week here talking a
[Adam] lot about graphic design and AI, but we
[Adam] dive deep into wine labels and the whole
[Adam] marketing. So if that branding is interesting to
[Adam] you and you love wine, it's gonna be
[Adam] a great conversation. It's the brand new episode
[Adam] of my podcast, Where Wine Takes You, with
[Adam] Passa Wine. The podcast at Feedspot called the
[Adam] number three podcast on their list of top
[Adam] one hundred wine podcasts in the country. Check
[Adam] out where wine takes you. And last night,
[Adam] dropped a brand new episode of The Poor
[Adam] talking all about world of Pinot Noir. We
[Adam] had on Tim from Presque Isle. We did
[Adam] the show from Presque Isle. It's just absolutely
[Adam] beautiful. Just gorgeous there. Also, Nathan Carlson from
[Adam] Center of Effort, Stacy Jacob from World of
[Adam] Pinot Noir, brand new episode of The Pour,
[Adam] where we taste it, we spill it, we
[Adam] leave it it all on the table, dropped
[Adam] last night. Wherever you're listening to this show,
[Adam] you can also listen to that one. Those
[Adam] two. Alright. Thanks so much to Moonshiner Collective
[Adam] for original music on the show called Start
[Adam] Again. Check them out. March twenty ninth, Rod
[Adam] and Hammer Rock live performance, new music. It's
[Adam] gonna be a one of a kind. I
[Adam] heard they got Nick Larson from Proxima Parata.
[Adam] Gonna be performing with them. It's gonna be
[Adam] really one of a kind show. Moonshiner Collective
[Adam] dot com for tickets, and make sure to
[Adam] stream them wherever you get your music. At
[Adam] Her Table is coming up. Don't forget at
[Adam] her table dot com. Links in the show
[Adam] notes. We'll also have a post roll all
[Adam] about At Her Table as the show ends.
[Adam] Thanks for rating, reviewing, subscribing to the show
[Adam] means a ton. Wherever you're listening to it,
[Adam] sharing with a friend, spreading the word, and
[Adam] helping others discover this community, it means a
[Adam] lot. Well, have a great rest of your
[Adam] Monday and a beginning to your week. Till
[Adam] tomorrow, I'm Adam Montiel. Thanks a ton for
[Adam] being up and at them.
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