0:15

Pushkin, previously

0:23

on deep cover. By

0:26

the late spring of nineteen eighty five, Ned

0:28

Timmins was deep into his investigation

0:30

of the drug smugglers. One

0:33

of the three major players, the Gentleman Smuggler,

0:35

was now behind bars, but Ned

0:38

was still on a mission to get Mike Vogel,

0:40

the grocery guy. I had

0:42

it in such a way, did I really control

0:44

the marijuana industry in Michigan. His

0:49

other target was Lee Rich mister

0:51

beach club. I'm the boss,

0:54

Okay. I called the shots. If

0:56

they wanted to load, or if I was going to load

0:59

something, I could secure the boat, playing whatever.

1:02

But for now Ned couldn't do much

1:04

about the case because in the fall of that

1:06

year, his cover was blown and

1:09

there'd been a threat on his life. So

1:11

the FBI sent Ned and his wife Kathy

1:14

off to northern Michigan to hide together.

1:17

They had to sit quietly and wait it

1:19

out. This is not

1:21

any kind of a life that I want

1:23

to lead. This

1:26

isn't what any

1:28

of us signed up for.

1:32

For Kathy Timmins, going into hiding

1:34

wasn't just scary. She had her

1:36

own work, her own career at the FBI

1:39

that she now had to put on hold. She

1:41

was tired of Ned's undercover persona

1:44

Ed Thomas, messing everything up.

1:46

Oh. I was very angry. I was very upset.

1:49

I was scared, you know. And then

1:51

I just had to let it be, let it go, just

1:55

be up there and sit and wait to

1:57

make matters worse. She didn't feel

2:00

well. I thought I was sick or something, or

2:02

maybe just really really tired, because I just kept

2:04

falling asleep. And then I started feeling the queasiness

2:06

and everything, and I thought, oh, maybe I got

2:08

pregnant. After being

2:10

in hiding for about three weeks, the

2:12

FBI calls and tells Nedd and Kathy

2:15

the coast is clear. They had caught

2:17

the bikers who had planned to kill Ned. So

2:20

Ned and Cathy come out of hiding. They go

2:22

home. Kathy, who's still not feeling

2:24

well, visits the doctor and learns

2:27

she is pregnant. In

2:29

a way, the timing wasn't ideal. Their

2:32

lives had just been turned upside down,

2:35

and yet Kathy took this as a sign

2:38

like God meant it to be, because we had been

2:40

married for how many years by then, and

2:43

I had never gotten pregnant, and

2:45

I never did anything not to get pregnant. So I

2:47

just thought, oh, okay. You know I'm Catholic.

2:50

You know, it's like, okay, this is

2:52

meant to be. Now.

2:54

All she had to do was tell Ned. I

2:57

thought that he would be thrilled

3:01

and that this would really

3:03

help to bring a closure to all

3:05

of this craziness with this undercover

3:08

work. I asked, Ned, what

3:10

were your thoughts about having kids? Given

3:12

the nature of your work, it

3:15

wasn't time. Did you

3:17

think you ever wanted to have kids? You

3:20

know, I really didn't give it much thought, you

3:22

know, I was just consumed by work

3:25

and what we were doing. So

3:27

when you get back from this trip to

3:30

northern Michigan and she's like, I'm

3:32

pregnant, what is

3:34

your reaction? Well,

3:37

yeah, it's just well, I guess we're

3:39

gonna roll with it. You know. I'm

3:48

Jake Halper and this is Deep

3:50

Cover Episode

3:53

seven. The honeymoon is

3:55

over. After

4:23

he comes out of hiding, Ned is

4:25

back working on his case against Lee rich

4:27

Mister Beach Club, but for the

4:29

time being, there was no easy way

4:32

for Ned or the FBI to apprehend

4:34

Lee. Extraditions from the Caymans

4:37

were rare, plus, Ned says down

4:39

on the Caymans. Lee was kind

4:42

of a robin Hood figure, a beloved

4:44

outlaw. Lee

4:46

was the robin Hood who had taken

4:48

care of all the bankers and all the people on the island

4:51

and buried friends

4:53

and relatives and paid

4:55

for everybody's expenses. He had

4:57

a big heart, and he took care of a lot

4:59

of people, and it

5:01

would have been probably impossible

5:03

to get him extradited out of there. So

5:06

on the one hand, Ned was frustrated

5:09

that he couldn't apprehend Lee, but he

5:11

also knew that Lee was kind

5:14

of trapped, and he knew this because

5:16

of a conversation that they'd had when they

5:18

were in the Caymans together. We

5:20

had always talked alone a lot, and

5:23

I just turned him one day. We're probably

5:25

having a drink or something. I said, Lee, why don't

5:27

you get the hell out of us? Just

5:30

quit And Lee said

5:33

I can't. They'll kill me. And

5:36

I believe he meant the Columbians would

5:39

kill him.

5:43

Lee was on the hook for a million pounds

5:45

of marijuana that he'd ordered from the Colombians.

5:48

And that, by the way, is he shitload

5:51

of marijuana. Look, this

5:53

isn't an exact science, but I

5:55

talked to was a smuggler who once saw this much

5:57

weed down in Colombia and he described

5:59

it as a quote fucking

6:02

mountain end quote. He

6:04

actually built a small fort up

6:06

on top of it and slept there. So

6:09

you get the idea. Lee

6:12

was under pressure to move that much marijuana.

6:15

And remember Lee's go to guy,

6:17

Stephen Kaylish, the Gentleman's

6:19

smuggler. He was in custody at

6:21

this point, so Lee pushed

6:23

ahead without his star smuggler,

6:26

tried to move at least some of it. He

6:28

arranged for a tug boat to to a barge

6:30

with one hundred and sixty five thousand pounds

6:32

of pot on it up to Virginia.

6:35

The boat was intercepted by the US

6:37

Coastguard and the cargo was confiscated.

6:40

It was a total disaster. It's

6:44

all scrapped. It was done. You

6:46

know, at this point, Lee

6:48

is finally feeling ready to just get

6:50

out of the business. You know, I

6:53

was just I was tired of it. I didn't need it,

6:56

And I blame a lot of that on myself for not

6:58

being strong enough to tell people I

7:00

don't want to do this, I'm done. It

7:03

was a moment of reckoning for Lee. Remember

7:05

from the very start. Lie says he'd gotten

7:08

into the marijuana business so he could chill

7:10

with his buddies, non

7:14

violent beach guys, you know, lived

7:17

on the beach to surf and fish and

7:20

never hurt anybody. Okay.

7:23

Even as his business grew and he became

7:25

really wealthy, this was still

7:27

his credo. He had the yacht

7:30

which the queen borrowed, and the beach

7:32

club, but the funny parrot and the cool

7:34

house that rock stars came to visit. It

7:38

had been fun for a long time until

7:40

suddenly, well it really wasn't

7:43

anymore. And

7:47

then, as if this weren't already perfectly

7:49

clear, Alvin Connor came

7:52

knocking. I know Lee rich.

7:54

For years Alvin was the

7:56

chief Inspector of narcotics for the

7:58

Cayman Island Police Force back in

8:00

the eighties. Were used to search

8:03

all his private plea and you come

8:05

in eer week two

8:07

three time were

8:09

all these girls? Pretty

8:11

girls used to bring. Alvin

8:14

says he had suspected for a while that

8:16

Lee might be involved in the drug trade.

8:19

Nothing solid, just chatter, which

8:21

isn't surprising this was a small

8:23

island. Inevitably people talked.

8:26

Alvin says, he searched Lee's private plane

8:28

and number of times, but never found

8:30

any drugs. But then

8:33

one day in January of nineteen eighty

8:35

six, about six months after Ned

8:37

had left the island, Alvin says he

8:39

got a tip which led him to believe that

8:41

Lee might have some drugs at his house.

8:46

This was all that Alvin needed, just

8:48

a lead, a whiff of something, because

8:51

on the island, Alvin had a reputation

8:54

for chasing assent. If

8:56

can't you see me come in to see the

8:59

dog is here? You called me the

9:01

dog? Wait? Why do they call you the dog?

9:04

Mar Juanna, I smell it. They

9:07

say that I smell it. If day I'm

9:09

gonna find it. They called

9:11

me the dog to see the dog? Come, no, and

9:16

the dog. He was coming for Lee.

9:18

He didn't know about Ned Timmins or the FBI

9:20

investigation. He just wanted to

9:23

bust Lee rich. So he heads over

9:25

to Lee's house. I

9:28

say, we're here to look for drogs. Alvin

9:31

says. He searches the room and finds about

9:34

an ounce of cocaine. He arrestedly

9:36

on the spot for drug possession. Lee

9:41

says the whole thing was a setup.

9:43

They planted a two or three grams

9:46

or coke in my house and

9:48

came in and raided the house. My

9:50

mother's in the house, and I think I had

9:53

about eight people staying in the house at that time.

9:56

So it was a big scene when they took Lee

9:58

away in handcuffs. The whole thing

10:00

was upsetting for Lee, in part because his

10:02

mom was there. She started making a fuss,

10:05

and Alvin confronted her. I

10:07

say, if I'll shut your mouth,

10:10

I rescue you and jadge rob

10:12

structing police officer saw.

10:14

I rescue you and charge you and

10:17

charge you for the school keen too. The

10:20

message to Lee seemed to be clear, I'm

10:22

not afraid of you. I'll mess with your mom

10:24

if need be. Alvin

10:31

took Lee down to the police station, booked

10:34

him, locked him up, but soon

10:36

Lee got out on bail around five thousand

10:38

dollars. That's the amount that Alvin

10:40

recalls anyway, which was nothing

10:43

to Lee. Yeah,

10:45

you were like a king, big

10:47

shot, like a big shot, and nobody

10:49

could touch him. He tells Lee,

10:52

if the judge you won't let you go down, he based

10:54

that boy, gonna do my job for

10:57

Lee. The biggest fallout from all of

10:59

this was that he had to give up his passport.

11:01

The police claimed that he was a flight risk, so

11:04

they insisted that he'd leave his passport with

11:06

them at the station, so he'd

11:08

have to go and ask for a back if you ever

11:10

wanted to leave the island. Lee

11:13

was beginning to feel trapped. Around

11:16

the same time, he was hanging out at

11:18

a local bar on Grand Cayman when

11:20

he bumps into a guy he knows who works

11:22

for Scotland Yard. Lee buys

11:25

him a drink and he goes rich. He

11:27

goes, I'm I'm gonna tell you something. Goes. Don't

11:30

take your boat out past

11:32

twelve miles, don't go out on the bank fish,

11:34

and don't leave the island. They're

11:37

trying to get you on a coastguard

11:39

cutter or something off a Cayman, he

11:42

said. And I'm just telling you that because you're a decent

11:44

guy. It seemed like the walls

11:46

were really closing in on Lee. Now his

11:49

business partner, the gentleman smuggler,

11:51

was in jail and quite possibly talking

11:54

to US authorities. The dog

11:56

was pursuing him on the island, and now

11:58

the Scotland Yard guy was telling him don't

12:01

take your boat too far off shore. So

12:03

I knew then from what he told me that night,

12:06

They're really onto my ass. Okay,

12:09

and I started making

12:11

arrangements. I was going to leave, and

12:14

I was going to Europe, to Portugal.

12:17

Actually, Lee's grandfather was

12:19

Portuguese, and he figured if he could

12:21

get there, he might use that familial

12:23

connection to get his status as a resident.

12:26

He thought he'd be safe there. So

12:29

in May of nineteen eighty six, a full year

12:31

after Ned first visited Lee in the Caymans,

12:33

Lee got ready to make his escape,

12:36

and then this chance would have it, Lee

12:38

got a visit from a friend which

12:41

derailed everything. And

12:46

that friend was Tommy Lee

12:48

Base, you know, from Motley

12:50

Crue. Lee

13:05

Rich was about to flee the Cayman Islands,

13:08

but he had a scheduling

13:10

conflict. A buddy was coming to town,

13:13

Tommy Lee Basse, founding

13:15

member of the band Motley Crue. In

13:18

the mid nineteen eighties, Tommy Lee

13:21

and his bandmate Nicki six were

13:23

the bad boys at the heavy metal world. I

13:25

remember you feel for the last time you motherfucker's

13:28

liked the party? Is that true?

13:33

Well, if you're a perverse fuck

13:36

yeah,

13:38

I fucking knew it. I just knew

13:40

it. Tommy Lee and his bandmates had come

13:42

to visit the Caymans a few times before. Turns

13:45

out the band's manager, Doc McGee,

13:47

was one of Lee's investors. They all

13:49

got along famously. Tommy

13:53

even wrote about the first time that he'd met Lee

13:56

in Motley Crue's memoir The Dirt.

13:58

Here's a clip from the audio book and just a heads

14:01

up. For some reason, the narrator calls

14:03

Lee Leigh. Anyway,

14:06

Lay walked into the doc's rental house with a

14:08

Natashak case. The first

14:10

words we spoke to him were gimme, gimme,

14:12

gimme, because we knew what

14:14

was in that fucking attache case. Mountains

14:17

of white powder to stuff up our noses.

14:20

Lay opened the case and gave us a little rock.

14:23

In the memoir, Lee then shuts his briefcase,

14:25

locks it, winks and tells them if

14:27

they can open the combination lock, Tommy

14:30

can have the rest of it. We were

14:32

so coked out that we actually thought

14:35

we were coming up with every single permutation

14:37

of three numbers. Finally,

14:40

I went into the kitchen, grabbed a butcher knife

14:42

and cut the top of lace thousand dollars leather

14:44

briefcase, glittering inside

14:46

like white gold were fucking dozens of

14:48

huge plastic bags filled with coke.

14:52

So there you have it. An epic drug dealer,

14:54

an epic rock star who loved drugs.

14:57

It was a friendship made in heaven. Tommy

15:05

wasn't traveling to the Caymans alone. He

15:07

was coming with the latest love of his life life,

15:09

the actress Heather Locklear. She'd

15:12

started in a few hit TV shows like Dynasty

15:15

and t J. Hooker, where she played a rookie

15:17

cop who once even goes under

15:19

cover herself as a call girl. Yeah,

15:22

hook where are she supposed to wear? Her water and my

15:24

trick bag? An alcol girl never parts

15:26

with her trick bag. Don't get any ideas

15:29

about helping me on with it. It's fine, just where

15:31

it is. Heather and Tommy.

15:33

They'd met backstage in an Ario Speedwagon

15:36

concert. Their relationship would become

15:38

fodder for e Hollywood. The

15:40

bad boy of rock had found his princess.

15:43

Tommy was now living the life he had famed,

15:45

fortune and love. The happy couple left

15:47

for a three week honeymoon in the Cayman Islands.

15:50

Tommy was coming to visit to spend his honeymoon

15:53

on the Cayman Islands, seeing his good

15:55

buddy, Lee, the guy with the

15:57

magic suitcase. Listall

16:00

remembers just how excited Tommy

16:03

was heaves head over heels

16:05

on this girl. He said, I really

16:07

want to come back here and spend my honey, and

16:09

I said, don't worry, I'll take care of you.

16:11

You know, Lee could have told him,

16:13

no, the timing's bad, man, My

16:15

drug empire is falling apart. I may

16:17

soon be imprisoned. But

16:20

that was just not mister Beach Club's

16:22

style. His buddy was coming to

16:24

town, so his escape plan to Portugal

16:27

would just have to wait. Lee arrange

16:29

for a nice condo on the beach for Tommy

16:31

and Heather, and I

16:33

got a call the next day after leaving

16:35

him there that night from the manager

16:38

of the condo asked me to remove

16:40

them from the property, both of

16:42

them, because they were up all night running up

16:44

and down in the parking out high on whatever.

16:47

Not a huge surprise. From the Motley

16:50

Crewe memoir, you get a sense for how Tommy

16:52

partied. Gimme, gimme, gimme, so

16:55

Lee, he moves the couple to another condo,

17:00

but the situation doesn't get

17:02

any better. It was one big headache

17:04

for Lee. So they decide,

17:07

let's go to Jamaica. It'll be better over there.

17:09

Lee books them some villas, makes all the

17:12

arrangements, and he decides

17:14

that this trip to Jamaica will be the

17:16

perfect excuse to run for it.

17:19

So he goes to the Cayman Police and somehow

17:21

or another manages to get his passport

17:23

back. Lee says he's just flying

17:25

with some friends to Jamaica for a mini vacation,

17:28

but his real plan is to keep going

17:31

to London and then onto Portugal. So

17:34

he packs a briefcase with some pocket money

17:36

thirty thousand in cash, and boards

17:38

a plane with Tommy and Heather from

17:40

Montego Bay, Jamaica. That

17:45

night, when we flew to Mobay. When

17:47

I come off the airplane, one

17:50

of the girls from the counter, does

17:52

she call me by my name? She goes Lee.

17:55

I looked at her two

17:57

agents waiting on you inside

17:59

the customs area. There two

18:02

agents and like that, Lee

18:04

understood had to be the FEDS.

18:07

Somehow they'd been tipped off. What

18:09

Lee didn't know at the time was that the FBI

18:11

had a source who knew about his trip and

18:14

ratted him out, and

18:16

now here he was on the ground

18:18

at the Montego Bay Airport, walking

18:21

right into a trap. Here's

18:24

Tommy's got up one of these boomboxes.

18:27

Okay, up on his shoulder,

18:30

and he's jagging at around holler and

18:32

he's dragging this Heather with him. Okay,

18:34

going ahead of me, and

18:36

so I went

18:39

behind him, went into customs,

18:41

and sure enough those agents came up to

18:43

me. Tommy made us started

18:46

confronting him too. You know, hey, what he

18:48

hadn't done anything, you know, and so

18:50

they've threatened to arrest him,

18:53

and that was the end of that. Tommy

18:56

and Heather went one way, and the two

18:58

FBI agents escorted Lee out

19:00

of the airport and into a car where

19:02

a Jamaican police officer was waiting for them.

19:09

They then all head to the hotel where the FBI

19:11

agents were staying so they could grab their

19:14

stuff. We go to the

19:16

hotel and

19:19

the two agents get out of the car and

19:21

we're sitting in the parking lot. I'm in there with this cop

19:24

and the cop that was in the

19:26

front seat driving us. He was one

19:28

of the cops I used to pay off. And

19:31

I said, listen, you don't you remember who I am?

19:33

You know who I am? So he goes I can't help

19:35

you, Rich, I said, I'll

19:37

never forget it. So you know, I was

19:39

kind of threatening him, and I said, all

19:41

I gotta do is let me run. He goes, I can't

19:43

do it, so he wouldn't let

19:45

me out, and that was it.

19:48

The two FBI agents got back in the car.

19:50

They drove to Kingston and caught the next

19:52

flight back to the US with Lee

19:55

in custody. In

19:57

Motley Crue's memoir, Tommy Lee Base

20:00

takes full responsibility for all of this, saying

20:02

that he and Heather caused the downfall of one

20:04

of the country's biggest drug smugglers,

20:07

all because they didn't want to go to Maka

20:09

alone. Tommy writes, Heather

20:12

and I felt terrible. We had no one to

20:14

show us around Jamaica. Now

20:20

that he was in federal custody, Lee Rich

20:22

began to mull over where exactly

20:24

he'd gone wrong, and he recalled

20:27

something that his business partner, Mike Vogel,

20:29

the grocery guy, had told him.

20:32

Mike was the distributor who ran the enormous

20:34

drug warehouse back in Detroit, and

20:37

Lie says Mike he had never really

20:39

liked Tommy and Heather thought they were trouble.

20:42

Lee remembers him saying repeatedly, stay

20:44

away from those people. They're going to be your

20:46

downfall. Mike

20:50

Vogel was right, in fact, more

20:52

right than he knew. In a way, Tommy

20:55

and Heather would also be his downfall,

20:58

because at the very moment that Lee was

21:00

being apprehended in Jamaica, there

21:03

was another operation targeting Mike

21:05

Vogel back in Detroit. When

21:08

we come back after the break, Ned

21:10

Timmins and the FBI make their

21:12

move on the grocery guy.

21:29

Back in Michigan, Ned was itching

21:31

to arrest Mike Vogel. The idea

21:33

was to get both of these guys, Lee and

21:35

then Mike, almost at the exact

21:38

same time, so neither one of them

21:40

would tip off the other. Everything

21:42

had to be perfectly synchronized this

21:46

moment, it was the culmination of almost

21:49

three years of work on Ned's part.

21:52

It had been an epic journey, taking

21:54

him from a roadside biker bar in Detroit

21:57

all the way to the glitzie beaches of the Caymans.

21:59

And during this time Ned's case had

22:02

steadily grown, merging with other investigations

22:04

in North Carolina, Louisiana,

22:07

and Florida. Other agencies had

22:09

gotten involved too, like the d EA,

22:11

the IRS, the Coastguard, US

22:14

Customs, and a slew of state

22:16

and county investigators. Together,

22:19

the authorities had built a strong case against

22:21

the smugglers, and

22:24

throughout this time Ned had kept pretty

22:27

close tabs on Mike Vogel, and

22:29

apparently Mike had picked up on this.

22:31

That's what he told me. Anyway, Mike

22:34

boasted to me that he had sources within

22:36

the FBI. He added rather

22:38

cryptically that he knew all about

22:40

Ned. Did I sit down have lunch

22:43

or dinner with him? Now? Okay, I

22:45

just I was aware of them.

22:47

I was very aware of them. I remembin

22:50

the day that Ned

22:52

Timmins he ever got

22:54

involved with me, I

22:57

wish I had never heard my name. So

23:01

on May twenty third, nineteen eighty six, the

23:04

same day League gets arrested, Ned

23:06

Timmins is staked out at Mike Vogel's

23:08

house in Milford. We

23:11

had the whole swat team out there laying in Vogle's place

23:14

all night long waiting for word

23:16

that they had Lee and custody. And once

23:18

we got word that they had Lee in custody, then

23:20

we had Vogle's house, his

23:23

Ned and his FBI team are getting ready,

23:26

something really weird happens.

23:28

According to NED, a black

23:31

panther starts stalking the woods.

23:34

A black panther in Michigan. Okay, so

23:37

there was some sightings of it, and

23:39

we're in the swat team moonlightning. We've been laying

23:42

out there all night, night vision everything, and

23:46

this panther had been released. People

23:49

had seen it and reported it. You know, that there's a black panther

23:51

run around out here and there some cattle had been killed.

23:53

And so we're all laying

23:55

out there talking on our radios and you

23:57

know, waiting for word to hit the house. And

24:00

this panther was screaming

24:02

like this in

24:06

the night, in the moonlight, and

24:09

you know, you know what's out there someplace, and

24:12

you're laying in the grass and

24:14

it was a bit nerve wracking. Okay,

24:19

So I was skeptical about this story. Seemed

24:22

like another NED tail that would be well

24:24

impossible to fact jack and then

24:27

I found an article from the Time dispatched

24:30

from the town where Mike Vogel lived,

24:32

confirming that yes, there had

24:34

been over thirty sightings of this

24:36

large predatory cat. Anyway,

24:40

NED was focused on getting the job done Meanwhile,

24:43

Mike is in his house asleep next to

24:45

his wife Julie. I

24:48

had drive away suns, you know, put you

24:50

know if anybody's coming on your property. Okay,

24:53

and I always beep

24:56

beep, beep, beep beep. Julie

24:58

looked at me and said, what was that? Such of the fetche

25:01

I could tell you know, you don't

25:03

have twenty beeps

25:05

going off for one car. It was

25:07

a whole group of them that came. They

25:09

had I RS guys, I had FBI

25:12

guys and a few DA guys

25:14

and Michigan State Police and

25:17

of course Ned Timmins was there too.

25:20

And in this moment when Ned Timmins

25:22

g Man shows up to arrest Mike

25:25

Vogel, master criminal, it

25:27

isn't some kind of tense standoff. They

25:29

don't stare each other down or cuss

25:31

each other out. Mike says that Ned

25:34

was pretty friendly, cordial, that

25:36

was the word he used, like two boxers

25:39

after a fight. All the swagger

25:41

gone and now just the

25:43

handshake. He

25:47

allowed me to go ahead and take a shower and

25:50

say goodbye to my wife and kids. Yeah,

25:52

we're going to prison. Mike

25:56

Vogel was indicted in federal court in Detroit.

25:59

The indictment alleged that he and a fellow

26:01

smugglers were responsible for importing

26:03

at least five hundred and sixty

26:06

six thousand pounds of marijuana.

26:08

Investing its estimated that over

26:10

the years they smuggled as much as

26:12

one billion dollars worth of drugs

26:15

into the US. Vogel

26:17

played guilty That same year, he was stripped

26:19

of his wealth forfeiting, among other

26:21

things, a boat, five cars,

26:24

and four homes in Michigan. He

26:26

was sentenced to twenty five years in prison.

26:29

Lee was arrested that Vogel was arrested, and it

26:32

became was all on the paper and the

26:34

whole lay of everything, and the

26:38

story made big headlines actually, and

26:40

for a moment Ned was kind of famous. An

26:43

article in the Detroit Free Press chronicled

26:45

Ned's adventures. An anonymous

26:47

source told the paper that Ned quote

26:50

made the case end quote. The

26:52

source went on to say, I've seen

26:54

a lot of undercover agents, but this

26:57

guy special. He's

26:59

got ice in his veins, and

27:01

he's a tough cookie, one of the new breed.

27:03

He's a high caliber agent who

27:05

has that unique ability to be able to understand

27:08

and worked with the people. He's been sent undercover

27:11

to investigate. For Ned,

27:13

it was vindication. He had spent

27:15

the better part of three years playing the role

27:17

of his alter ego. In a way,

27:20

he'd built Ed Thomas from the ground up. His

27:22

backstory, his demeanor, his friendships,

27:25

his hard drinking, hardy riding lifestyle,

27:28

and Ed Thomas had served his purpose.

27:31

It was as if all the risks that Ned

27:33

had taken, all the close calls, all

27:36

the paranoia, all the boundaries

27:38

he'd pushed somehow or another,

27:41

it had all worked out. So

27:46

maybe it was finally time to be done with undercover

27:48

work. After all, Ned

27:51

had a big win under his belt. Plus,

27:53

at almost the exact same time of these events,

27:55

in May of nineteen eighty six, there

27:58

was other big news. Ned's

28:00

son was born, and Ned

28:03

the action craving, sometimes

28:05

reckless, hardy riding undercover

28:07

guy. He of his son,

28:10

Cathy says that the baby was attached to him

28:13

at the hip. Oh

28:15

yeah, no, they were like freaking frac

28:17

I mean, as soon as he came in the

28:20

door, he'd picked him up. I

28:22

don't think he would put him

28:25

down. Just about every picture I

28:27

have he had this

28:29

shark that he caught while we

28:31

were on our honeymoon down in

28:33

the Keys, and here's this hammerhead

28:36

shark and he he has it installed

28:39

in the den of our home. And

28:44

so he'd put the baby up there, up on top

28:46

of the shark, like as if he's riding the shark,

28:48

and take a picture, you know. I mean,

28:50

he just couldn't get enough of our

28:53

oldest son, you know, even if

28:55

his parents would volunteer to you

28:57

know, Oh, leave the baby here and we'll take care

28:59

of him now now he's gone with us. Wow.

29:03

Yeah, did that make

29:05

you feel hopeful about Yes? I feel

29:08

and so yes, I felt very

29:10

very hopeful and good, good

29:14

about things. And I

29:17

felt that, you know, whatever

29:19

work he was going to wrap up then on Matt and

29:21

then that would be the end of that

29:24

case and he'd move on to the next set

29:26

of cases. I'm

29:28

like, oh, thank god, back to normal

29:30

life. But it did never

29:32

go back to normal life.

29:36

As it turns out Ned's case, it

29:38

wasn't over, not really. Mister

29:40

beach Club and the gentleman smuggler would

29:43

have their day in court, so there'd

29:45

be a trial, but that wasn't

29:47

all far to the south, down

29:49

in Central America, the silent

29:52

partner, the General Manuel

29:54

Noriega. He was still at large,

29:57

operating with impunity, but that

29:59

was about to change. Word was getting

30:01

out about what the General had been up to, and

30:04

in Washington, DC, a political

30:07

shit storm was brewing. Next

30:24

time on deep Cover, I

30:27

just knew that the

30:29

information that I could divulge about Noriega

30:31

and his activities were a

30:34

bombshell. There's no doubt

30:36

in my mind that there's ramifications

30:39

that go all the way to the top. But

30:41

I mean literally from Reagan on down. Deep

31:03

Cover is produced by Jacob Smith and

31:06

edited by Karen Shakerjee. Our

31:08

story edit is Jack hit original

31:11

music, and our theme was composed by Luis

31:13

Gara and Flawn Williams is our engineer.

31:16

Fact checking by Amy Gaines. Mia

31:19

Lobell is Pushkin's executive producer,

31:22

and Ned's novel is read by Walton Goggins.

31:25

Special thanks to Julia Barton, Heather

31:27

Fain, Carl mcgliori, Lee, Tom

31:29

Mullad Maya Kanig, Eric

31:32

Sandler, Aggie Taylor, Kadija

31:34

Holland, Zoe Gwenn, and Jacob

31:37

Weisberg at Pushkin Industries. Special

31:39

thanks also to Jeff Singer at Stowaway

31:42

Entertainment. I'm Jake Albern