0:15

Pushkin previously

0:24

on deep cover. In

0:26

the mid nineteen eighties, the FBI took

0:28

down a massive drug smuggling ring

0:31

which was importing huge loads of marijuana

0:34

from Colombia into the United States

0:37

with the help of agent Ned Timmins.

0:39

The three ring leaders were caught and imprisoned.

0:42

Case closed, or so it appeared,

0:45

until one of the ringleaders, Stephen

0:47

Kaylish, revealed that there was a silent

0:50

partner, and he was none other

0:52

than General Manuel Noriega,

0:54

the ruler of Panama and a top

0:56

CIA asset. This prompted

0:59

congressional hearings and an

1:01

indictment. Meanwhile,

1:03

Ned was still busy at the FBI. Thanks

1:06

to all of us undercover work, Ned still

1:08

had all minds of contacts in the drug

1:10

world and they were

1:12

still paying off. In fact, he

1:15

was getting even deeper into the illegal

1:17

drug trade. These are the people

1:20

that would have supplied the drugs

1:22

to likely rich. There

1:25

are the people that controlled everything on the Earth coast

1:27

to Columbia. At

1:31

one point, Ned pose as a buyer

1:33

and he busted a smuggler who was bringing

1:35

in cocaine and marijuana into the US.

1:38

So another win for Ned, and

1:41

it also opened yet another door

1:43

for him. Afterwards, Neddie

1:45

got a call from the smuggler's wife, a

1:47

woman from Colombia. We'll call her

1:50

Simone.

1:57

Simone reached out to Ned because she

1:59

wanted to help her husband. Basically, she

2:01

wanted to get his sentence reduced or get

2:04

him moved to a better prison. Simone

2:06

had information to trade, so she

2:08

contact did Ned, hoping to make a deal.

2:11

She was connected with the biggest people in the cartels

2:15

and talked a good game. She knew what she

2:17

was talking about, she knew the right names. Ned

2:20

was eager to work Simone's connections,

2:22

but he was also leary about messing

2:24

with the Colombians. I don't think

2:26

twice at killing you the Colombians.

2:29

Anything can happen, you know. Remember you don't

2:31

know anybody but yourself. So

2:38

Ned had his concerns, but he's

2:40

still interested in working with Simone. Seeing

2:42

where her connections might take him. He

2:45

decided to ask his wife, Kathy Timmins

2:47

for help. At the time, Kathy

2:50

was busy with her own work at the FBI and

2:52

she was pregnant with their second child. So

2:55

Ned said, I want you to come down and meet

2:58

her so that you know she has someone

3:00

that she can call as the backup person to me,

3:03

you know, blah blah blah blah blah blah,

3:05

as in here we go again. I

3:07

mean she'd been through this before, like

3:10

when Ned came home with Toby Anderson,

3:12

the violent country western singer, and

3:15

now this I

3:18

always was being introduced to his

3:20

his informants or his co operators

3:22

as as like the backup person. You

3:25

know, I wasn't listed as the case

3:27

agent or anything like that. I

3:29

think it just gave Ned a

3:32

feeling of you know, and may and maybe

3:34

he did it to try and further show

3:37

the the co operator

3:40

you know that here's

3:42

here's someone else that you know has

3:45

got your back. So despite

3:47

it all, Kathy agreed to meet Simone,

3:50

Ned's latest source at a hotel

3:52

in Detroit. I went down

3:55

to the hotel and then met her, and you

3:58

know, she spoke

4:00

briefly and he

4:02

said, well, you know, if you need anything, give

4:05

me a call. You know that you're

4:08

gonna be working with Ned. But

4:11

on the way home, Cathy had second

4:14

thoughts about the whole arrangement. I

4:17

mean, she was strikingly beautiful

4:19

woman and now she's sitting here

4:22

with no husband, she's

4:25

got no other connections. Besides, Ned,

4:28

it's not a not a good situation

4:30

to have your husband involved in. I

4:33

mean, you can almost predict trouble. I'm

4:41

Jake Albern and this is deep

4:44

Cover, our final

4:46

episode nineteen eighty nine.

5:13

Yes, hey, is this is

5:15

Jake. How are you? I'm

5:18

okay? Thank you? Can you're hear me? Okay?

5:21

That's Simone. There are a

5:23

lot of details about her story that I can't

5:26

share with you. I need to protect her identity.

5:29

But here's what you need to know. After

5:31

meeting Ned, she started brainstorming

5:33

with him about what intel she could

5:35

offer. She was still hoping to

5:37

help her husband, who at this point was

5:40

in federal prison in Michigan. Will

5:44

please started conversations,

5:46

a lot of conversation. It

5:49

was, as I said, a person that you could

5:51

trust. But she was

5:53

scared about ratting on the cartels and

5:56

ultimately she got cold feet.

5:59

It was too dangerous. So I

6:01

didn't know want to take one point, and

6:03

this meant she couldn't help her husband.

6:06

But she actually kept meeting with

6:08

Ned, and I think one

6:11

of those days who were sitting

6:13

in the restroom, i'll attracted

6:16

to each other. Simone says that she

6:18

trusted Ned more than that that

6:20

he seemed like a hero to her. That's

6:22

the word she used, whoa

6:25

because the way he moved,

6:27

the way he taught his security, he's

6:30

self confident, how muchure

6:32

he was, and those were

6:35

things in his personality that I

6:38

was attracted. Simone

6:43

eventually told Ned that she was willing

6:45

to connect him with other sources.

6:48

She knew another Columbian who needed

6:50

help and he was willing to talk.

6:53

Simone even offered to meet Ned in Venezuela

6:55

and make the necessary introductions. They

6:59

spent a week down there together. Oh,

7:03

Jake, it's almost like

7:06

the two of us were separated from the world.

7:09

You know, just sat her own, drank wine and talked

7:13

about other stuff. And well,

7:15

just intelligence is beautiful, you

7:17

know. I mean you walked through

7:19

the airport whether and people were running into pilings

7:22

and walls and dusts staring

7:24

at her. You know. I spoke with another

7:27

FBI agent who was down in Venezuela

7:29

with them. He told me that Simone was

7:31

beguiling. He said, quote, she

7:34

didn't walk, she glided. She

7:36

was quite the beauty and she knew how to

7:39

use it too. This agent

7:41

suspected that Ned and Simone were

7:43

getting a bit too close, but he

7:45

didn't say anything, in part because Ned

7:47

was such a veteran at this type of work. Ned

7:53

and Simone did have an affair.

7:56

It actually started just a few months after they

7:58

met. It was like an escape,

8:01

an escape from what, escape

8:05

from drug cases and

8:07

FBI and and uh,

8:11

you know, stress and whatever.

8:14

It was a release. It

8:17

was almost like I didn't care anymore. What

8:21

do you mean you didn't care about what exactly? I

8:25

was totally burned out

8:27

with the FBI and the stress

8:29

of running big cases like this

8:31

and dealing with other divisions

8:34

and other agencies, and you

8:36

know, it's very complicated to work big

8:38

cases and abide

8:40

by the rules and and all the

8:43

legal issues and FBI protocol

8:45

and everything. It was just an

8:47

escape. I

8:53

asked Simon if she ever felt pressured

8:56

or coerced by Ned. She said

8:58

no, never, that their feelings were mutual

9:01

and her family adored Ned. I

9:04

was really also with

9:07

me, was like,

9:10

so he was sick. I

9:13

know. Yeah.

9:19

All of that being said, Ned's

9:21

affair created some serious problems.

9:23

Obviously, it was not good for his marriage

9:26

and professionally well, Ned

9:28

was a federal agent. Someone was

9:30

providing information to the FBI, and

9:33

Ned was supposed to be assessing the value

9:35

of her intel. Could she or her connections

9:38

help the US government or not? Now,

9:41

NED couldn't really make that call objectively.

9:44

There was a conflict of interest and a

9:46

power and balance too. It's

9:49

not too ethical, it

9:52

wasn't too honorable, Hannah. It

9:56

just happened after it started.

9:58

Did you have a moment of like, oh

10:01

shit, what

10:03

have I done? Kind of thing? Yeah,

10:05

I mean you always had thoughts that it's the

10:07

wrong thing to do. It's it's nothing

10:10

you want to want to become public er or

10:12

whatever. You know. It

10:15

was just kind of spiraling out of control.

10:19

I didn't know where it was going to land. While

10:27

all this was going on, Ned's biggest

10:30

case, the one that helps spark congressional

10:32

hearings and the indictment of Noriega,

10:35

that case was still simmering. The

10:37

defendants in the case we're all serving time.

10:40

Mister beach club, the gentleman smuggler,

10:42

and the grocery guy. They're just counting

10:45

the days and the weeks and the months

10:47

until one day in mid December of

10:50

nineteen eighty nine, when something weird

10:52

happens. On that day, Stephen

10:54

Kaylish, the gentleman smuggler says

10:56

he was thrown into solitary confinement.

10:59

Well, solitary you have no access

11:01

to television, radio, I mean you get

11:03

a blanket, pillow, food, you

11:06

don't have contact with other prisoners. It's

11:09

basically for protection. Stephen

11:12

had been watching the news for weeks and

11:14

had an inkling that something big was

11:16

about to go down in Panama. You

11:18

know, they've ratcheted up this whole,

11:21

this whole thing about Noriega and

11:23

Panama. It's in the news almost

11:26

daily. Noriega's

11:28

waving a fucking machete around. I

11:31

mean, I'm watching them just fall

11:33

to pieces, you know, but I mean

11:35

the guy's office rocker. For

11:38

over a year, Noriega had been thumbing his

11:40

nose at the US, basically saying,

11:42

you guys want me gone, but you can't do anything

11:45

about it. Remember, thanks in large

11:47

part to this investigation and Stephen Kaylish's

11:50

account, Noriega had been indicted

11:52

as a drug trafficker, and it seemed

11:54

like this indictment was now fueling something

11:56

bigger, like the US might actually

11:59

take action. In his novel,

12:01

Ned writes about how big a deal it would be if

12:04

the US could take down Noriega.

12:08

Ned knew the very little of what he was doing made

12:10

any real difference in the drug war. It

12:12

was a cynicism that came with a territory. As

12:15

long as there was demand, there would be people

12:17

willing to run the risks of supply. As

12:20

long as twenty million Americans were smoking

12:22

dope, there would be dope in America.

12:25

There would be cocaine and heroine, and

12:27

for the pill poppers, there would be crooked doctors

12:30

and false prescriptions. He knew

12:32

that, but getting to a guy like Noriego

12:34

would make a difference. Down

12:38

in Panama, Noriego was presenting

12:41

himself as the great defender of his country

12:43

and its canal. He delivered impassioned

12:45

speeches, hyping his role as the hero,

12:48

almost like pr stunts, the way

12:51

a promoter might hype an upcoming fight between

12:53

two heavyweights. And this is

12:55

when Noriega appeared, wielding

12:57

a machette as he spoke to a crowd,

13:13

and eventually all of his taunts

13:16

they hit home. With President George Bush

13:18

Senior. Part of the problem was

13:20

optics to the public. Bush

13:23

sometimes came across as mild mannered

13:25

and even meek when he was running

13:27

for president. Newsweek even ran a cover

13:29

story about Bush that would become infamous

13:32

called Fighting the whimp Factor. And

13:35

now here was Noriega, the uber

13:37

alpha male, waiving his machete.

13:40

Gradually tension mounted. The

13:43

US issued sanctions against Panama

13:45

and tried pressuring Noriega to step down.

13:48

Noriega just dug in his heels. So

13:51

the stage was set, and then

13:53

a group of Panamanian soldiers opened

13:56

fire on four off duty US

13:58

servicemen. Good evening every

14:01

science an American military man was killed by

14:03

a Panamanian fruit Saturday night, President

14:05

Bush and Panama's military dictator,

14:07

General Manuel Noriega, have been

14:10

circling each other from a distance. Bush

14:13

addressed the nation and laid out the case

14:15

for war. Many

14:17

attempts have been made to resolve this crisis

14:20

through diplomacy and negotiations.

14:24

All were rejected by the dictator

14:26

of Panama, General Manuel

14:28

Noriega, an indicted drug

14:31

trafficker. They

14:37

called the invasion operation just

14:40

cause it was a big undertaking,

14:42

involving nearly twenty six thousand US

14:44

troops and three hundred aircraft. During

14:50

the fighting, twenty three US servicemen

14:52

died, hundreds of Panamenians

14:55

were killed, maybe more. The exact

14:57

death toll remains in dispute. Some estimates

15:00

are in the thousands. It's a

15:02

little stomach churning to think about the number

15:04

of people who died to capture a single

15:06

man. And

15:10

for a while, Noriega himself was

15:12

nowhere to be found, which back

15:14

in DC was rather awkward.

15:17

I've been frustrated that he's been in power

15:20

this long, extraordinarily frustrated.

15:23

The good news he's out of power. The bad news

15:25

he has not yet been brought to justice. US

15:29

forces eventually tracked down Noriega

15:31

hiding in the Vatican embassy. They

15:34

tried to smoke Noriega out by blasting

15:36

rock music deafening volumes. I

15:44

actually remember watching this all unfold

15:47

as a kid on TV. The soldiers

15:49

played songs like We're not going to take it

15:51

by Twisted Sister. US

16:01

generals eventually called off the tactic after

16:03

a Vatican officials complained anyway.

16:07

Noriega eventually turned himself in and

16:09

that was it. The last member

16:12

of the smuggling syndicate was in custody.

16:22

After his capture, Noriega was flown to

16:24

Miami, where he went on trial. He was

16:26

found guilty and sentenced to forty years

16:28

in prison on eight counts of drug trafficking,

16:31

money laundering, and racketeering. Officially,

16:34

that was the end of the story, neatly packaged

16:37

with a bow operation just

16:39

cause, a righteous effort to take down

16:41

a drug trafficker. But I

16:44

gotta tell you, like so many people,

16:46

I never really believe that this is why the US

16:48

invaded. So I talked with John

16:50

Dingis, a former MPR journalist who

16:53

covered Noriega at the time. He also

16:55

wrote an excellent book on Noriega called

16:57

Our Man and Panama. I

16:59

don't buy the theories that

17:02

are put forward of

17:04

why the invasion was done other

17:06

than a raw exercise of US power.

17:09

For John, there war wasn't about drug

17:11

trafficking charges or our desire to

17:13

restore democracy in Panama. I

17:16

think it was a power decision

17:19

by George Bush, the

17:21

fact that Noriega had defied him personally.

17:24

You don't fool around with the US government

17:27

in the way that Noriega was doing it. That's

17:31

it the old rules of the playground.

17:33

A little guy acts out, the big guy

17:35

puts him in his place. It's a classic

17:38

gangster move. In

17:43

the end, seems like what Ned Timmins

17:46

and Stephen Klish helped provide. Wasn't

17:48

a motivation for war, wasn't

17:50

a cause? They just provided

17:53

a convenient excuse when

17:59

we come back. A moment of reckoning

18:01

for Ned, both for his marriage and

18:04

his career. Months

18:25

before the invasion, as the whole conflict

18:27

between Bush and Noriego was still heating

18:29

up, Ned was facing problems of his

18:31

own. He'd been having an affair with his source,

18:34

Simone, and he was still working

18:36

with her now down in Miami. At

18:38

some point he started to worry that his colleagues

18:40

were spying on him. Like he remembers

18:42

this one day when he was driving around.

18:46

I was starving, so I whipped around

18:48

a few times and pulled into like a burger king

18:50

or something, and all of a sudden,

18:53

here's what I

18:55

believe was an agent comes running through

18:57

the alley and prep

18:59

radio fell out of

19:02

his waistband and

19:04

I look and I see him jump in a car and pretty

19:07

obvious FBI surveillance. Suddenly

19:11

the paranoia that Ned felt down in the

19:13

Caymans kicked back in. There

19:16

was a supervisor in Miami. I

19:19

strongly believed that, you know, he when

19:22

I'd come into Miami for the meetings, that he'd

19:24

have me surveiled. I would

19:27

meet with Simone, but never, you know, there

19:29

was never an overnight stuff or anything.

19:32

I meet, whether he usually had somebody else with me, whatever,

19:35

you know, I think he kind of felt something

19:38

was going on. Meanwhile,

19:40

back in Detroit, Cathy gets a call

19:42

from Ned's boss. He'd been in touch

19:45

with the supervisor down in Miami. Apparently

19:47

the guy who'd been watching Ned and

19:50

the supervisor in Miami had said that Ned

19:53

was in trouble and that they

19:55

were pulling him in, and

20:00

that Ned was having an

20:02

inappropriate relationship, a

20:05

sexual relationship with with

20:08

the female operative,

20:11

and that that Ned

20:14

denied it, but that they were going

20:16

to be sending him home. Kathy

20:22

says she'd actually suspected what Ned

20:24

had been up to for some time. Kathy

20:26

was an investigator, and a good one. She'd

20:29

found hotel matches in Ned's coat one

20:31

night and pieced together that he'd been visiting

20:33

a hotel where Simone was staying. You

20:36

know, you can imagine it's a typical

20:38

married fight at that point. It's

20:40

got nothing really much to do with the FBI

20:43

or his undercover work, and I couldn't have cared less

20:46

about his undercover work at that point, I

20:49

just said, you know, I don't want to I don't want

20:51

to talk to you about it. I don't

20:53

you know, I don't want you near

20:58

me. Then

21:00

there is the issue of what would have happened to Ned professionally,

21:03

what the consequences might be for having an

21:05

affair with Simone. Typically,

21:08

what you would do next in the FBI is you

21:10

start an investigation to find

21:12

out what may or may not have

21:15

also been compromised. On that case, I

21:18

don't believe that they opened one up on him

21:20

because he basically came home and said

21:22

that he was going to resign. Ned

21:24

says there was no investigation. He says

21:27

he came back from Miami and resigned on

21:29

his own accord. At the office

21:31

in Detroit. No one knew why Ned

21:33

suddenly disappeared. Even his

21:35

partner Linnis then a Lavish's was

21:37

mystified. I think everybody

21:40

was kind of scratching their heads. It was kind of a shocker,

21:42

saying, gee, what happened?

21:45

Question was you know, I'm saying, literally

21:48

thinking back at it, nobody really knew. Was

21:51

he terminated or did he leave on his own?

21:54

No, there was no real explanation as to why

21:56

he was there. One day, when the next day he's not. Officially,

22:00

the FBI said it wouldn't talk to me about

22:02

Ned, but I did speak with one of

22:05

Ned's former supervisors from the early

22:07

eighties. He wasn't there when Ned resigned,

22:10

but the way that it all played out for Ned, it

22:12

didn't really surprise him. The supervisor

22:14

told me that back then, in certain situations,

22:17

agents did sometimes just resigned

22:20

to avoid a big, messy investigation. He

22:22

also told me that six years was a

22:25

very long time to do undercover work. At

22:27

one point, I asked, Ned, why

22:30

didn't you just walk away before things

22:32

got out of control, like back

22:34

when your first son was born. I

22:36

don't know if if you want to call

22:39

it an addiction, adrenaline addiction,

22:41

or you know, whatever it was.

22:46

That's all I lived for was I

22:49

mean, you know, I love my kids. I talked

22:51

to him every day. Yet

22:55

you know they're on separate size

22:57

of the US, but I can you know, I can't spend a lot

22:59

of time with them, but you know, we

23:02

we talk every day. I

23:05

don't know what would happened. Maybe

23:09

if I could pull

23:11

the throttle back hand, all things would have been a lot different,

23:14

But it didn't happen. So, Cathy

23:17

says she respects what Ned accomplished as

23:19

an agent, but it's all overshadowed

23:22

by the cost that it exacted on both of

23:24

them personally, And she still

23:26

wonders how and if it might have all

23:28

played out differently, if somehow Ned

23:30

had been able to walk away from the undercover work,

23:34

if he had just been working cases.

23:37

You know, you don't have those opportunities. You can't go

23:40

sit at a bar all day if you're working cases. You

23:42

know, you can't go off

23:44

on these. You can't create a whole

23:46

new persona of yourself. You are who

23:49

you are. You're just an FBI agent.

23:51

You're not God, You're not some movie

23:54

star, you know, having dinners with fancy

23:56

people in fancy places, and you

23:59

know, you're just an average person.

24:02

If you remove the undercover work from the equation,

24:05

might our marriage have failed over time because

24:07

of alcohol and fooling around

24:10

the stuff. Maybe, but we

24:12

will never know. In any

24:14

case, After he stepped down, Ned's

24:17

colleagues at the FBI did throw him a little

24:19

goodbye party. It was at

24:21

this restaurant in Oakland County.

24:24

Some people from the other law enforcement agencies,

24:26

from our old police department came, so

24:28

it wasn't hugely attended,

24:31

but you know, there were enough people there, and you

24:34

know, they gave him a plaque and wished

24:37

him well, and you know, we all had lunch, and you

24:39

know, he gave a little talk about

24:41

how he'll miss the FBI, and you

24:44

know, but this is what he wants to do now. And

24:48

he worked so hard and that's all he

24:50

ever wanted to be, was an FBI agent, and

24:53

he just threw it all away,

24:56

literally threw it all away. Looking

25:04

back, Ned says at the undercover work,

25:06

it kind of slowly wore him down, and

25:09

that's why he resigned. I'd

25:11

just had it was

25:14

out of gas. I wanted to do something different,

25:19

you know, I had just exhausted with

25:22

the FBI. And

25:26

I'm sure he was. But the way he

25:28

talks about it, it's clear to me that these

25:30

were his glory days. And honestly,

25:33

I think part of Ned is still stuck in nineteen

25:35

eighty nine. He talks about everything

25:37

that happened like it was yesterday, boasting

25:40

about the role that he played in history. And

25:42

there is a certain logic to his conviction.

25:45

Ned flipped Toby, which led him

25:47

to shine, which perhaps more than anything

25:49

else, led to the downfall of Lee Rich

25:52

and in a way, Stephen Kalish too. Without

25:55

them, there's no star witness to testify

25:57

against Noriega, and without that,

26:00

well, there's much less of a pretext for invading

26:02

Panama. A bit of a stretch,

26:05

maybe, but it's not crazy. When

26:24

I was done reporting this story, I went back

26:26

and reread Ned's novel. What struck

26:29

me most was how and where it ended. The

26:31

image that we're left with is of Ned at the

26:33

very top of his game. Ned

26:36

was back to the less glamorous, if more direct

26:39

work of hitting the dealers where they lived. He'd

26:42

gotten so used to undercover work he

26:44

would literally walk from a courthouse where he

26:46

had been testifying and make a buye

26:48

in his suit and tie. He didn't

26:50

give a fuck anymore, and it only

26:52

made him even better at the work. In

26:55

the novel, Ned doesn't resign from the FBI.

26:58

He just goes right back to work chasing

27:01

bad guys. And

27:05

in the very last scene of the book, Ned

27:07

is down on Louisiana. He's

27:09

just finished visiting Lee Rich in jail, and

27:12

he's at some hotel, sitting at the bar.

27:14

The lighting is very dim, and mysterious,

27:17

and he meets this woman who's clearly

27:19

simone. It's their first encounter. He's

27:22

just having a drink and she walks in.

27:27

Using the mirror behind the bottles of booze on display

27:29

on the top shelf, he watched the figure

27:31

of a woman moved through the dim light. He

27:34

turned as she got close enough, and

27:37

found himself looking into the face of one

27:39

of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. She

27:42

put a newspaper in front of Ned. It

27:44

was an article he had read, an article

27:46

about the case and ultimately about

27:49

him. Are you this agent?

27:52

Ned turned to face her fully. The

27:54

fuzzy edges of perception given to him by

27:57

the whiskey started to straighten themselves

27:59

as he scanned the room to be sure she was alone.

28:02

Columbians were known to use women as assassins,

28:05

or maybe she was just marking him for another. But

28:08

apart from a few the drunks in the room given

28:10

her the once over, no one was paying

28:12

any attention to him. Who's

28:15

asking? The

28:17

woman goes on to tell Ned she knows

28:20

someone down in Columbia who's in deep trouble.

28:24

Ned took her by the elbow and guided her to a seat

28:26

next to him. What is it you

28:28

need, he asked. She looked

28:31

back at him with tears glossing the

28:33

surface of her eyes. We

28:35

need your help. And

28:43

that's how it ends, kind of suddenly.

28:46

I guess you could call it a cliffhanger or

28:48

a teaser for a sequel, but you

28:50

get the basic idea. Ned is

28:53

about to go off on another adventure to

28:55

help this damsel in distress. While

28:58

he never directly admitted it to me, I

29:01

think Ned spends a fair amount of time thinking

29:03

about how this all might have played out differently.

29:06

In addition to his novel, he teamed up with different

29:09

and cranked out two screenplays, one

29:11

called Dope and the other called The Came

29:13

In Connection. Like the novel,

29:16

they read kind of like alternate versions

29:18

of history, parallel universes,

29:20

with the same characters but different outcomes.

29:27

He had some guy that was writing some screenplay

29:31

or something out in La and and

29:35

and I said, Ned, the whole

29:37

story doesn't make any sense unless you tell

29:39

the end. It's really

29:41

not a success story at all, you know.

29:43

I mean, sure his cases might have worked

29:45

out great, but you know it is not a success

29:48

story at all. And

29:51

no one knows them better than

29:53

Ned. Later

29:56

on, I told Ned what Cathy said. That's

30:02

that could be looked at that way. You know,

30:05

well, I mean it took a toll. You

30:09

take a psychological and a physical beating

30:13

for all this stuff, you know, so everything

30:17

you pay a big price for. It's

30:19

almost like I was on a rocket and as no matter

30:21

how high is that rocket going to go before it turns

30:23

around falls back to Earth. I don't

30:26

know. Would you know that rocket was going to run

30:28

out of gas one day? So

30:31

maybe it did, you

30:34

know. It's

30:40

been about thirty five years since Ned Timmins

30:43

made his big bust, sending a whole host

30:45

of criminals away to prison. Mike

30:51

Vogel, the distributor, the grocery guy.

30:54

He stayed in the Detroit area, in that quaint

30:57

little town right out of a Norman Rockwell painting,

30:59

kind of the last place you might expect to find a

31:01

former crime boss. Mike

31:04

also served ten years in prison. His old

31:06

life on the outside gradually fell apart.

31:09

When you get out, or actually when you

31:12

go in, there's a realization you

31:14

don't control a fucking thing. You

31:16

don't control anything in your life except

31:19

maybe when you breathe and when you don't breathe,

31:23

and I was aware

31:25

that gone

31:27

that long, no marriage could survive

31:30

it, none whatsoever.

31:33

By the time he got out, Mike's ex wife

31:35

had remarried, and when Mike went to pick up

31:37

some of his old furniture from her house, he

31:39

saw that his kids had posted some of their artwork

31:42

in the kitchen on the fridge. When

31:44

he took a closer look, Mike saw that his

31:46

kids had changed their last names. They'd

31:49

taken on the stepdad's last name. Mike

31:51

confronted his ex wife, said,

31:54

what the fuck are you doing? This

31:56

is Oh

31:59

well, that's the way it was. You

32:02

can't hold blame for people that believe

32:04

they're doing the best for other

32:07

people. Mike

32:09

told me that he later reconnected with his kids,

32:12

that he developed a relationship with them, but

32:14

it took time. Sadly, just

32:17

before this podcast was released, Mike

32:19

passed away at the age of sixty nine.

32:24

As for Stephen Kaylish, he told me that

32:26

he had to come to terms with the past. Over

32:29

the years, a lot of stories have surfaced

32:31

about Noriega and how brutal he was

32:33

that he'd had a rival executed. Stephen

32:36

claims that this wasn't the Noriega that he

32:38

knew back in the early eighties. Still,

32:42

it was a moment of reckoning for him. I

32:47

wish ashamed. It's

32:51

probably the best description ashamed

32:53

that I would. I had done

32:56

so much and tied myself

32:58

so closely to a man that

33:00

was capable of such atrocities.

33:05

After getting out of prison, Stephen started

33:07

a telecom business that made cards,

33:09

you know, the ones he's swiped. He says

33:12

that his business did very well, and he

33:14

ended up moving into that big mansion out in Hawaii

33:16

where I visited him together. He

33:19

and his wife, Faby run a horse ranch

33:21

that offers equine therapy, you

33:23

know, peace of mind through horses.

33:30

The reality is, in the

33:32

years that I've been here with Faby, I've learned

33:35

a great deal about myself and a great

33:37

deal about many things I was not aware of. And

33:42

you know, quite frankly, I never expected

33:45

to be in a place where

33:47

I'm at peace. Well,

33:49

I feel safe, truly

33:53

safe. As

33:59

for Noriega, he served seventeen

34:01

years in federal prison in the United States.

34:04

He was eventually extradited to France,

34:06

where we spent about a year incarcerated on money

34:09

wandering charges. Then he was

34:11

extradited again, this time to Panama,

34:14

where he spent roughly another five years in

34:16

prison. He died at the age of eighty

34:18

three. Lee

34:26

Rich, you know, mister beach Club. He

34:29

was supposed to do thirty years in prison. In

34:31

the end he served ten. His

34:33

sentence was reduced after he cooperated

34:35

with the congressional hearings. When

34:38

I caught up with him in Florida, he broke

34:40

out a photo album that included pictures

34:42

of him in jail. Lee showed

34:44

it to me the way he might crack open an old

34:46

high school yearbook. This is

34:48

prison, this one. This

34:52

is all of us in Lafayette, Louisiana

34:55

in prison. That's

34:58

the main players and all those

35:00

trials with Bogel, Kayalus

35:03

and myself. At one point

35:05

he actually came very close to trying to

35:07

break out of prison. Week, if you

35:09

can believe it, Lee left prison to get

35:12

dental work done. He was escorted

35:14

by a transportation officer named Gene.

35:19

Minute I got into van, should give me the key, I don't do

35:21

my handcuffs in the back and

35:25

always brought me food. And

35:27

then I got the no, Gene all right, and we

35:29

would have our little thing on the side going

35:32

to the dentist. I actually

35:34

spoke to Jeanne. She told me that little

35:36

thing on the side. He was just a friendship

35:39

anyway. That's when Lee hatched his plan.

35:42

He had a pilot who was going to land a plane

35:45

not far from the dentist's office. Just swoop

35:47

down and pick him up. But first

35:50

he'd have to get away from Gene steal

35:52

her car. Basically, just

35:54

tell you you got to get out of the car now and take

35:57

the key from the van. Just leave her

35:59

standing in the parking lot. So

36:01

the big day comes, He's sitting in the

36:03

car with Jeane. He's about to make

36:06

his big move when he realizes there's

36:08

no gas in the car. It's almost

36:11

empty. Okay, I

36:13

would have got down the road, made me three miles outside

36:16

the road and no gas, out of gas, no

36:18

money. I would have inbusted escape. So

36:21

I left alone. I went back to to jail that

36:23

night and cried my sorrows. And

36:27

Lee also says he couldn't do that to Jeanne

36:29

because he really cared about her deeply.

36:31

In fact, he and jean they

36:34

ended up getting married Kathy

36:38

Timmins. She and Ned got divorced.

36:41

Kathy raised her kids two sons, almost

36:43

entirely on her own, and she went on

36:46

to have a really distinguished career in the FBI.

36:49

After nine eleven, she worked under Director

36:51

Robert Muller to help set up an office

36:53

that shared intelligence and worked with state

36:55

and local law enforcement. She's retired

36:58

now, never remarried. She still

37:00

stays in touch with Ned. You

37:04

know, people were always surprised at, you know, how much

37:06

we always still talked over the many years

37:09

because I think he you know, we had

37:11

so much that we knew about one another, and you

37:13

know, at the core what that's like

37:16

being a police officer, being an FBI agent,

37:18

working these things our

37:20

families. Back in two thousand

37:23

and eight, Ned and Kathy actually worked

37:25

a case together. Ned had been hired

37:27

as a private eye to solve a particularly

37:29

vexing murder down in Georgia. Ned

37:32

knew he need help from a really good investigator,

37:34

so he asked Kathy to help him review the

37:37

case, and briefly, once

37:39

again they were a team. He's

37:42

still never been able to actually

37:45

leave that undercover role. He's

37:47

never really replaced the people

37:49

that he knew, the people that he was

37:52

close to. It's like he'd never moved

37:55

on. He never moved on from it. It

37:58

stayed with him, and it's like he's

38:00

still trying to find

38:03

the end of it. It

38:05

is. It's like he's still trying to find the end

38:07

of the story. Ned

38:13

Timmins still lives in the Detroit area. He's

38:15

a successful private eye, runs a company

38:17

called Legal and Security Strategies.

38:20

He's handled security for local media outlets

38:22

and right now he's trying to chase down the

38:24

guys in China who are counterfeiting American

38:27

tobacco products. He also specializes

38:29

in jet ski fatalities, investigating

38:32

how and why people died while

38:35

zipping around on their jet skis. After

38:38

leaving the FBI, Ned and Simone

38:40

were together for about two years. Ultimately

38:43

it didn't work out. They still stay in touch.

38:46

In fact, Ned says that he periodically sends

38:48

her a few hundred dollars to help with the bills.

38:53

Over the years. Ned He's also stayed

38:55

in touch with Lee Rich. In the late

38:57

nineteen nineties, Ned built a house down

38:59

in the Caymans. Two of them actually got

39:02

a big boat, and he started hanging

39:04

out with Lee again. At that point, Lee

39:06

was out of prison and the Caymans were still

39:08

his home. Even though he was no longer

39:11

the island's Robin Hood. Lee

39:14

Rich and I were friends undercover, and

39:17

we were friends when he got arrested, and

39:20

we still talk once a week because

39:23

our personalities congealed

39:26

or whatever you want to call it. I

39:29

love that he used the word congealed.

39:32

The two of them remained close friends to this day.

39:38

Recently, Ned planned a trip down to the Caymans.

39:41

Lee was supposed to come too, but he had some health

39:44

issues and he couldn't make it. Ned

39:46

went anyway, and I tagged along. Down

39:49

in the Caymans, Ned he seemed

39:51

to be some in his element. Sure,

39:53

he was now in his seventies and walking with

39:55

a limp, but he seemed to love reprising

39:58

his role as a man of mystery. At

40:00

the time, he was working on a bounty hunting

40:02

deal to locate a highly sought after a

40:04

US fugitive. He had a driver

40:07

taking him around. Big guy almost looked a

40:09

bodyguard. At one point we

40:11

headed over to the house of Lee's old butler,

40:14

Burtley. You may remember him.

40:16

This is the guy who took Ned fishing for conk

40:19

back when Ned was undercover, and at the

40:21

time Ned thought Burtley was actually going to kill

40:23

him. Later on, when

40:25

Ned lived in the Caymans, they actually

40:27

became friends. Burtley passed

40:29

away a few years back, and now Ned

40:32

was visiting his widow. Hey,

40:37

who's there? You remember me? Ned

40:39

ye talking?

40:45

They sat down and reminisced about old

40:47

times, back when Burtley was still alive.

40:50

Ned seemed genuinely happy, caught

40:52

up in all the memories. And

40:55

as we were getting ready to leave, Ned

40:58

very discreetly took out his wallet

41:00

and slipped the widow some money to

41:03

help out, make sure that she was

41:05

all right, okay, get

41:08

run all

41:12

right, thank you okay.

41:17

Then he shuffled back to the van, and

41:23

for a moment I had this strange

41:25

sensation that I was watching a play,

41:28

and in it, the role of the Islands Robin

41:31

Hood was being played not by

41:33

Lee Rich, who was out sick, but

41:35

by his understudy, a man

41:38

who knew the role, had memorized it in

41:40

fact, and played it well.

41:58

Deep Cover is produced by Jacob Smith

42:01

and edited by Karen Shakurge. Our

42:03

story editor is Jack hit. Original

42:05

music and our theme was composed by Luis

42:08

Gara and Flown Williams is our engineer.

42:10

Fact checking by Amy Gaines, Mia

42:13

Lobell as Pushkin's executive producer.

42:16

Ned's novel is read by Walton Goggins.

42:19

John Custer is Pushkin's art director,

42:21

and our show art and character illustrations

42:23

were drawn by Victor Kurlow. You can

42:26

see them on our website, deepcoverpod

42:28

dot com. The site was created by Tyler

42:30

Adams. Special thanks to

42:33

Julia Barton, Heather Fain, Carl

42:35

mcgliori, Lee to Mullad, Maya

42:37

Caning, Eric Sandler, Aggie

42:40

Taylor, Kadija Holland, zuwek

42:42

Gin and Jacob Weisberg at Pushkin

42:44

Industries. The first version

42:46

of Ned's unpublished novel was written by

42:48

James Coyne and edited by Andrea

42:51

McLaughlin. Lee Rich has just published

42:53

a memoir. It's called In Too

42:55

Deep. It has the full story of his life.

42:58

Stephen Kaylish also has a memoir on

43:00

the Way The Last Gentleman Smuggler,

43:03

so please check them both out. Additional

43:06

thanks to Sophia Kiafulis, Twi,

43:08

La Gore, Scott Vieira, Nathan

43:10

Saunders, Elizabeth Ostman, and

43:13

James Baxter. Tape sinks this season

43:15

were by Elizabeth Eads, Barbara Sprunt,

43:18

Robert Jamison, Audrey McGlinchey, Greta

43:20

Weber and Sean Cologne. And

43:23

a very special thanks to Jeff's singer

43:25

at Stowaway Entertainment who uncovered

43:27

the story and thought I should tell it. I'm

43:31

Jake Albern