0:03

Welcome to episode 286 of

0:08

FBI retired case file

0:10

review with Jerry Williams. I'm

0:13

a retired agent on a mission to

0:15

show you who the FBI is and

0:17

what the FBI does through my books,

0:20

my blog and my podcast case

0:22

reviews with former colleagues. Today

0:24

we get to speak to retired agent

0:27

Corey Magookan who served in the FBI

0:29

for 20 years. Corey was first

0:31

assigned to the Chicago Division and

0:34

the West RA, our resident

0:36

agency, where he was on a gang

0:38

squad that focused on the western

0:40

suburbs of Illinois. In

0:43

this episode, he

0:44

reviews the investigation he led

0:47

targeting the Latin Kings operating

0:50

in the city of Aurora and

0:53

Operation First Degree Burn,

0:56

a cold case multi-agency task

0:58

force which resulted in

1:00

the nation's largest ever cold

1:03

case murder takedown. 31 Latin

1:06

King members were charged

1:07

with 22 murders going

1:10

back two decades. For

1:12

his work on this case, Corey

1:14

was the recipient of several recognition

1:17

and achievement awards, including

1:19

the Star of Distinction from the Chicago

1:22

Crime Commission. According to Wikipedia,

1:24

the almighty Latin King and

1:27

Queen Nation, known simply as

1:29

Latin

1:29

Kings, is the largest Hispanic

1:31

and Latino street and prison

1:34

gang worldwide. Later in his

1:36

career, he became an instructor

1:38

at the FBI Academy, where he was

1:40

the confidential human source program

1:43

manager for new agent trainees.

1:45

He then transferred to the Office of

1:47

Congressional Affairs, where he served

1:50

as a congressional liaison. But

1:53

missing the case work, he eventually stepped

1:55

down and returned to the case

1:57

agent position at the Washington

1:59

Field Office. WFO. He was

2:01

on squads that worked intellectual

2:03

property, computer crime, and

2:06

intelligence matters. During the last

2:08

part of Corey's career, he was selected

2:11

for his dream job as a

2:13

leadership instructor for the National

2:15

Academy. After several years

2:18

of teaching graduate and undergraduate

2:20

classes to law enforcement executives,

2:23

he was hand selected to serve as

2:25

the chief of the National Academy

2:28

running the program until his retirement.

2:30

Currently, Corey is working as

2:32

the senior vice president of law

2:35

enforcement relations for the nonprofit

2:38

Dedication to Community, D2C,

2:41

bringing the police and the community together.

2:44

He is also the coach training director

2:47

for Performance Protocol, building

2:50

strong and capable leaders within

2:52

law enforcement agencies by providing

2:55

personal and professional development.

2:57

Both positions allow Corey

3:00

to continue spreading the best practice

3:02

lessons from the National Academy.

3:05

After the case review, Corey and I

3:07

chat about the National Academy and

3:09

law enforcement coaching. Good stuff.

3:12

Now before we get to the interview, I want to give a

3:14

shout out to my friend Patrick O'Donnell,

3:16

who's running the Cops and Writers

3:19

Interactive Conference 2023,

3:22

also known as Cop Camp. In

3:24

Cop Camp, you'll learn how to improve

3:26

your crime stories at a real working

3:29

police and fire academy complex.

3:31

The instructors will cover topics

3:33

from firearms to fingerprints.

3:36

Cop Camp is June 1st through

3:38

June 4th in lovely Appleton,

3:41

Wisconsin. Unfortunately, I won't

3:43

be there because I'll be at Thriller Fest

3:45

in New York, but you don't have to miss

3:48

Cop Camp. To learn more about the Cops

3:50

and Writers Interactive Conference, go

3:52

to premeditatedfiction.com.

3:56

If you want to know more about Thriller Fest,

3:58

visit my website.

4:00

JerryWilliams.com. In your

4:02

podcast app's description of

4:04

this episode, there's a link to the show notes

4:06

at JerryWilliams.com. You'll also

4:09

find links to where you can buy me

4:11

a coffee, join my reader team, and

4:13

learn more about me and my books. Thank

4:15

you for your support. Now here's the show.

4:20

I want to welcome my guest, retired

4:22

agent, Corey McGuchen. Hey,

4:24

Corey, how are you? I'm doing great.

4:27

Thanks for having me.

4:28

I'm really excited about this because

4:31

news reports tell us that

4:33

the murder rate in our cities

4:35

today is sky high.

4:38

To be able to look at this case that

4:40

you're going to talk about today that occurred

4:43

many, many years ago, I think it

4:45

will give us maybe hope

4:47

that we're going to be able to get a handle on

4:50

what's going on today.

4:51

Yeah, I hope so, because this is a story cooperation,

4:54

and I think that's part of the answer.

4:56

I've read the different articles and

4:58

links that you sent me, so I have

5:00

a fair understanding of this

5:02

case, but I guess we could say

5:05

it involved the Latin Kings and

5:08

just the

5:09

total takeover that

5:11

they had of a city near

5:13

Chicago. Where do you want to start?

5:16

When I landed, when I came out of the academy and I landed

5:18

in the West RA of Chicago, the

5:20

West Resident Agency, we were focusing

5:22

on Aurora, Illinois. And I think it would be helpful

5:25

Jerry to paint the picture, take you back

5:27

to 2002 and what that city looks like

5:30

and what was going on there. Aurora

5:32

sounds like a lovely place, but I

5:34

guess at the time it wasn't. Yeah,

5:37

it had to pull in on hard times when I got there.

5:39

It's along the Fox River. There's a lot

5:41

of communities that take advantage of the waterfront.

5:44

They have nice historic beautiful homes,

5:47

but Aurora just kind of falling into a bad

5:49

place. It's actually the second largest

5:51

city in Illinois. And almost nobody knows

5:53

that outside of Aurora. It's a

5:55

typical Midwestern city, but back

5:57

then it was about 160, 170,000. It

6:00

eventually got to about 200,000 people

6:02

when you get a few years later into the

6:05

timeline. It's one of those Midwest

6:07

cities, mid-size. It was

6:09

very diverse, pretty large

6:11

Hispanic population, a decent

6:13

African American population, and

6:16

a mixed white population, and a little bit

6:18

of others, really, really diverse. But

6:20

the gangs have slowly, since the 1980s, taken

6:22

over. And

6:24

the Latin Kings were kind of the big dog,

6:27

and that's a gang that's very popular in the

6:29

world, and had a lot of numbers. So

6:31

it makes sense that over the years,

6:34

they kind of set up a franchise in

6:36

Aurora, which is 40 miles

6:38

to the west of Chicago. There's also

6:41

a big rival with the Latin Kings called

6:43

the Insane Duces, which was another

6:46

Hispanic gang, predominantly. But

6:48

it had some of the black gangs coming out of Chicago.

6:50

It had the Kings for Recycles. It had the

6:53

Vice Lords. There was the Maniac

6:55

Latin Recycles, the MLDs. Quite

6:58

a few gangs, but the big dogs

7:01

were the Latin Kings who really

7:03

tried to run the city, and were

7:05

very proud about that. So they were

7:07

predominantly the ones who were creating

7:10

the most violence and instigating

7:12

things. So it was a lot

7:14

of crime, a lot of drug

7:17

trafficking, and just in general,

7:19

the city was very much suffering when I arrived

7:21

in 2002. As far as numbers,

7:24

can you tell us how many members they

7:26

had? On the registry, the

7:28

police obviously worked very close

7:30

with us, and they had had several hundred

7:33

registered Latin Kings. Now

7:35

some of those had been when

7:38

they were younger part of it and kind of faded away

7:40

or moved, some were incarcerated, some

7:42

were deceased, but there was always new younger

7:45

people coming in. That was really the difficult

7:47

part, is there were so many 13, 14, 15-year-olds

7:50

who were hanging

7:52

around the gang. They were just going

7:54

to get into it. There was no way around it. They

7:56

were going

7:57

to choose to be, particularly

7:59

for Hispanic, they were going to be.

7:59

to be an insane deuce or a Latin

8:02

King when you're from certain parts of the city. And

8:04

there really didn't seem to be a very good third

8:07

option of not joining either. They were kind

8:09

of caught up in that. Well, that's fairly sad

8:11

to hear that there were no

8:14

options.

8:15

There was a few cops who came from

8:17

the neighborhoods who really were valuable

8:19

because they understood that community

8:21

so well.

8:22

But like they mentioned, most of the people

8:25

who they grew up with didn't take that path.

8:27

There's very few success stories. And

8:29

so I think we really saw it as we

8:31

want to give the people a chance. We want

8:33

to give these young people a chance to try to

8:36

reduce the gang influence to

8:38

a point where people can make other decisions and

8:40

we can have kind of a virtuous cycle

8:43

instead of a vicious cycle going on in that

8:45

town. One thing I want to highlight, Jerry, is

8:47

I'm going to talk a lot about my

8:49

experience the FBI, what we did, but this

8:52

was absolutely a concerted

8:54

effort by all folks. We took

8:56

the lead as the FBI for the Latin Kings.

8:58

We had the most agents, we're just one of the largest

9:01

federal agencies out there. But

9:03

the ATF, who was also working in the area

9:05

and doing the gang work, focused on the

9:07

insane deuces. We had the DEA

9:10

and Customs and IRS all

9:12

participating in their own way. Obviously,

9:14

they were police department, the King County

9:17

Sheriff's Office. Everyone

9:19

was putting their focus together on this

9:22

city, trying

9:22

to do what we could to clean it up.

9:24

I'd have to say that really reminds

9:27

me of that J. Edgar Hoover

9:29

quote, and I know we have it at the Memorial

9:32

at Quantico, where he talked about the most

9:34

effective weapon against crime is cooperation.

9:37

The efforts of all law enforcement agencies

9:39

with the support and understanding of the American people,

9:41

that's exactly what we lived. I

9:43

think that's how we got done, what we did

9:45

get done. Was this a task

9:48

force? It was a Sage Tree's task

9:50

force. We did have several officers

9:53

from the Aurora Police Department who are working

9:55

with us. And sometimes King County

9:58

would be participating, but not officially on the

9:59

task force. But what that allowed us

10:02

to do was, as some of you may know,

10:04

when you're on a task force, it allows those federal

10:06

dollars to be freed up

10:07

to get more resources

10:10

to the cops who then in turn work

10:13

with the FBI specifically on those tasks.

10:15

We were able to get cars and radios

10:18

and phones and everything to allow them

10:20

to also be able to do some of the federal paperwork

10:23

that we're going to need to take these cases to federal

10:25

court

10:26

and get real heavy sentences on

10:28

the gang members.

10:29

I land there on Iquanaco and it just

10:31

could not have been better for a young

10:34

age. I was 30 at the time. I'd been

10:36

a cryptologic airborne Spanish linguist

10:38

in the Air Force before. So I had no law

10:40

enforcement background. At the Gold Academy, you

10:42

learn what you got to learn. And I arrived there and

10:44

they're just rocking and rolling with what's going

10:47

on. There was a senior agent named Paul

10:49

Bach, who was just a wonderful man.

10:51

He'd been working out there for many, many

10:54

years, had all the relationships in place

10:56

and just the right attitude towards

10:58

working hard for the people

11:01

in those communities and doing what we could. So

11:04

great mentor to fall right into the

11:06

situation. They're already up on a wiretap. And

11:08

so immediately you're put into the

11:10

Title III room, listening to calls

11:13

and doing surveillances and using a lot

11:15

of the investigative techniques, the

11:17

sophisticated ones particularly that you need

11:19

to take down these violent groups. And

11:22

you were selected for that. I take it because

11:24

you spoke fluent Spanish? I'd like

11:26

to give the FBI credit of being

11:28

able to see that. But when I was coming out of

11:30

the Academy, they just created this

11:33

squad. They'd always had Paul and a

11:35

few others working gangs in the Western suburbs.

11:37

And they realized the problem was significant

11:40

enough that they created a West

11:42

RA gang squad. And

11:44

they shifted some people there. And I think I might

11:46

have been the next guy coming out of the Academy and

11:49

they needed more bodies. So I landed in

11:51

a great

11:52

place where everyone wanted to be because everyone

11:54

lives in a city called Naperville, which is all that

11:56

way. Shorter commute. People are very

11:58

envious of me that I got straight

11:59

out there and I'd say just incredible

12:02

work happening, hit the ground

12:04

running. I had a lot of fun doing that too,

12:07

really, putting those skills to use that

12:09

weren't just part of training, but were necessary

12:11

and good mentors, 5,000 calls

12:14

recorded. What was really unique

12:16

of our first case, there was a target

12:19

that went by the name Orko who was a big

12:21

time drug trafficker. He was a Latin King, but

12:23

he really focused on the business side of

12:25

the drug trafficking and he was very good at it. He

12:27

did his business right. He showed up when he said

12:30

he would, he was very efficient and

12:32

he was very careful. So it kind of made him a hard

12:35

person sometimes for us to

12:37

be surveilling and trying to gain our evidence

12:40

on. And perfect timing

12:43

when we were done with the wiretap, we

12:45

were on like our 59th of 60 days

12:47

and the wiretap's about to go down. We're still

12:50

not sure where the supply is coming

12:52

from and he gets the call and

12:54

another load is ready. He's going to

12:56

go meet his supplier and get

12:58

more cocaine. They were trafficking in kilos

13:00

of cocaine. So we set up the whole surveillance

13:03

team. We got playing overhead

13:05

and we were going to find out where

13:07

the source of supply was coming from. What's

13:10

funny, we later arrested them and we got some

13:12

background on what was going on. It

13:14

was just his practice. He was doing odd things. He

13:16

was on a highway and he would take like

13:18

a U-turn. He would go

13:20

under a bridge and just pull over the

13:23

side of the road and stop for like 10 minutes. Very

13:25

careful person. Well, it worked.

13:28

As he was going through the city of Chicago, we

13:30

actually lost him, our surveillance. We

13:33

were very disappointed, but we waited for him to come

13:35

back west. Eventually we saw his

13:37

car. He was coming back, heading back

13:39

home to Aurora. And when he got in town, we had

13:41

a marked gear that pull him over. That led a

13:43

little chase. He realized he

13:45

had cocaine and he was going to get trouble. So

13:48

he tried to make it away. He didn't foot chase.

13:51

He was caught and there's 50 kilos

13:53

in his trunk. So that was a nice

13:55

prize at the end of the wiretap.

13:57

I'm surprised that somebody had his.

13:59

level didn't send somebody else out.

14:02

Actually, maybe he met with the people,

14:04

but I guess I'm watching too much TV,

14:07

but would have an underling

14:09

actually transport the cocaine

14:11

back into the city. Robert

14:13

L I

14:24

gotta tell you Jerry, it's pretty rare.

14:26

Typically, the frustration of an agent is

14:29

surging a ranged drug deal that's going

14:31

to happen at 7pm. So you start getting set up about 6

14:34

o'clock and they're such bad businessmen. They

14:36

put it off, put it off. It doesn't happen to like 1130 at

14:38

night. So you're just wasting a lot of time because

14:41

they're just not serious about what they do. He

14:43

was, and I don't think he trusted other

14:45

people. He really took it on himself.

14:47

It was bizarre. He was married, which

14:49

was odd for the gang members in their young twenties

14:52

out there. He had two kids and it was

14:54

like every day he was like, I'm going to work. And

14:56

he left the house and he did his thing and

14:59

to make money and came back home. So he was

15:01

very unique. Robert L Sounds like one of those

15:03

kids that would have opted

15:06

for another life if there were

15:08

more options. Jay Hay I'm telling you, we'll talk

15:11

about this in a little bit, but I spent a lot of

15:13

time with him after he was arrested and he was cooperating

15:15

and we're just spending a lot of time transporting

15:18

them interviews. I've said, man,

15:20

if you were born in a different situation, you would have been

15:22

the CEO of a company or something. He really was

15:24

smart, hardworking, good intuition

15:27

on things. He had all the right stuff. It's just

15:29

he put it towards drug trafficking and

15:31

he was very successful because 50 kilos is a lot of cocaine.

15:34

You figure even man, then we're going $20,000 per kilo

15:38

if you're getting it pretty cheap, maybe more like 25,000

15:40

per kilo. So that's serious weight and

15:43

that's serious money he's dealing with. He

15:45

really rose up. What's funny is

15:47

the next day, the Latin Kings didn't really

15:49

trust him because like I said, he focused

15:51

on the business and he wasn't really

15:54

as heavily into the gang that they

15:56

didn't want him burning witness. So

15:58

they wanted to bail him out. So they got money together.

16:01

They show up at the County office

16:03

the next day with $500,000 in cash. Fortunately,

16:07

like I said, Paul Bach was the old agent

16:09

out there who'd been around and he had

16:12

the connection. So someone called him and let him know. And

16:14

he was like, count that money really, really

16:16

slow. So we were able to get to a prosecutor

16:18

and get some paperwork and basically seize

16:21

that $500,000 as suspected

16:23

drug proceeds, which we then eventually

16:26

kept. He was not released. So

16:28

to him at this point, it's still

16:31

the state got me, they got whatever I

16:33

need to fight this. He's got a lawyer, but

16:35

we were near the end. So it was only about

16:37

a month later. We did our first federal

16:40

suite where we took 19 people

16:42

from that case, from those wiretaps and

16:45

arrested them. We were able a couple months

16:47

later to add 12 more. And

16:49

then it was when we got into 2003,

16:51

we even did a third. We

16:54

were able to get 58 different people

16:56

arrested. 35 being Latin Kings, all

16:59

based on that drug trafficking conspiracy,

17:01

all based on Oracle, the

17:04

main target, most of them cooperated.

17:07

One thing I have to say is that

17:09

all of these guys grew up playing

17:11

the system in Aurora. They would do

17:13

what they do. They would get caught. They

17:16

would fight the case. They would be looking

17:18

at 10, 15 years. An

17:21

overwhelmed state's attorney would

17:23

let it flee down. Then they would get

17:25

good time served and four years

17:27

later they'd be out. And then they get caught again. And

17:30

that was basically revolving door of their

17:32

life. It's just the game they played

17:34

and the game they understood. So I got to understand

17:37

we come in federally and it's all based on your

17:39

criminal history points or your sentencing.

17:42

And then on the other side is how much

17:44

broke we have of the amount of drugs that you

17:46

were involved with. And when we start saying

17:49

you're involved with multiple kilos and

17:51

your criminal history is really bad, you're starting

17:53

at 30 years federally. And you're going

17:55

to serve 85% of that. If everything goes

17:57

perfect, that got their attention. real

18:00

quick and all of the

18:02

loyalty and the gain comes

18:04

first and not snitching all that stuff.

18:07

Well, when you're looking at 30 years

18:09

plus 85%, almost all of them had the same reaction. They

18:12

all basically said, what do I got to tell you to make

18:14

this better? And so they all started cooperating,

18:17

which led making it easier for

18:19

the others who maybe didn't want to cooperate because everyone

18:21

was going to testify against them. They realized

18:23

they had an OK, so they realized they might as well

18:25

just cooperate as well and reduce the sentence.

18:28

So that's just how we did our work out there. So

18:31

it was like dominoes and one falling after

18:33

another. They were. And as

18:35

soon as you said, hey, we already got enough operators. We're

18:38

not even sure we care if you cooperate

18:40

at this point, right? They were almost like begging. Well,

18:43

my lawyer says I'm looking at 28 years,

18:45

but I might be able to get this down to like 16 or 17

18:47

if I cooperate. I want to cooperate.

18:49

What do I got to do? So that really opened up

18:52

what was going on in that city from

18:54

that maybe original suite of those 58

18:58

and the information they gave us, which allowed us

19:00

to do more and more and more.

19:03

Can we go back a little bit and talk

19:05

about the wire and what it

19:07

was producing? What were you hearing

19:10

on the wire that allowed you to

19:12

make these arrests? Yeah, absolutely. And

19:14

I'll tell you, I got really fluent

19:16

in how they talk, which kind of shocked me.

19:19

I was joking about the street, Cory version

19:21

of myself, because it was all

19:23

coded language. It's not the way you

19:25

talk in public in general. You'd call

19:28

Oracle. You like hate Oracle. You good.

19:30

Which meant

19:31

do you have a supply? Like yeah,

19:33

I'm good. Is that okay? I want to

19:35

come through. What's just mean read up or come to your house

19:37

or whatever. He's like, okay, why don't

19:39

you meet me behind the thought? We always

19:41

go. What do you need? They wouldn't

19:43

say ounces and they were typically buying ounces

19:46

cocaine from him. They would say onions

19:48

or tires or something, which

19:50

we would laugh when they say I want three and a half

19:52

onions or three and a half tires. Who's

19:55

ordering a half a tire? You know, how are you going to explain this

19:57

way? So we knew from. having

20:00

a lot of intelligence exactly where they were going to

20:02

meet. Typically, we're there first and we're getting

20:04

photographs. We are listening

20:07

to everything. We are getting the license

20:09

plates and pictures. And a lot of aspects,

20:11

once we got you, we got you. I don't know how you'd

20:13

have any chance of not being

20:15

found guilty with all the evidence we collected

20:18

and we required before we would even

20:20

come arrest you. Occasionally, they would talk

20:22

violence on the wire.

20:24

But again, this is Oracle. Business man

20:26

is allowed to just straight up dismiss. He

20:29

then talked a lot about the game stuff

20:31

and so it wasn't working. So we had people later

20:33

that would do that. But he was, how

20:35

do I sell as much drugs as I can as

20:38

fast as possible, get reloaded, and make more

20:40

money.

20:41

Right from the beginning, I think we were

20:43

looking strategically at getting

20:45

the right people because with some of these drug conspiracy

20:47

cases, you need to do some

20:50

control buys, we call them, where you have to get

20:52

a source or get somebody, an undercover, someone

20:55

to go buy drugs from somebody a couple

20:57

of times using the same telephone.

20:59

And then you're able to tell a court, I have proof

21:02

this person is using this telephone for these

21:04

drug transactions because three times we've

21:07

had a source or an undercover or something, call

21:09

this number, say these things, and buy

21:11

drugs, and then be able to get up on a wire

21:13

cap. A lot of this led to

21:16

cooperators wanting to have others can

21:18

help them cooperate by coming in

21:20

and saying, we can be that for

21:22

you to help you get more people. We

21:25

know the other drug users who's moving seriously

21:27

and who you can get. So like you

21:30

said, it was dominoes for them cooperating

21:32

and whatever, but it also became almost like a domino

21:35

effect of all the other people we got access

21:37

to in the city. We had limited resources.

21:39

Our squad was 12 agents, but

21:42

only a couple of us, me and my partner Larissa

21:45

mainly focused on Aurora, and

21:47

some pairs of the other agents were focused

21:49

on the other cities in the western suburbs.

21:52

So we didn't have unlimited resources, so we

21:54

had to be strategic. So we were looking

21:56

at going at those that we thought would make the most

21:58

impact. lit controlling

22:00

the most drugs or had

22:03

rape within the gangs. For instance,

22:05

one thing I found interesting is we were able to,

22:08

with a very good United States attorney who

22:10

really was willing to let

22:12

us try to make a difference. We

22:15

went after one of the leaders of the gang

22:17

and he'd been a thorn in the side in

22:19

that city for many, many years.

22:22

The rumor was that he had land

22:24

in Mexico and some like farms

22:27

and some businesses. He was very

22:29

connected to some Mexican cartels

22:32

and he had a lot of resources, a lot of money. So we

22:35

were worried about him fleeing if we ever

22:37

went after him because he had a place to go and apparently

22:39

money stashed away. Well, we did go after him

22:42

and we got enough operators and

22:45

evidence to go do a search warrant

22:47

on a place he had. In the search

22:50

warrant, we came up empty for drugs,

22:52

but we found multiple scales. We

22:55

were able to send those to the lab and they were

22:57

able to find trace detection amounts

23:00

of cocaine

23:01

on those scales, which allowed us to

23:03

charge them.

23:05

Dry conspiracy, we called it. We charged

23:07

them because of all the witnesses

23:09

we had of dealing with him,

23:12

of seeing him have multiple fuels

23:14

of cocaine, and then finding the scale on his

23:16

property and having witnesses be able

23:18

to identify those scales as the ones he

23:21

weighed them on when they made purchases, all

23:23

that. We were able to arrest him and get

23:25

a major person off the streets.

23:27

The one thing Paul Bach and I were really

23:30

fascinated by is, again, we were

23:32

afraid this guy would run and he went to trial.

23:34

And at one point we're waiting and

23:36

he is not locked up at this point, but he comes

23:38

into federal court room in Chicago and we're

23:41

waiting for the jury to come back. We get

23:43

a note from the judge's secretary

23:45

that the jury is finished with the

23:48

first part, but they still have to move on

23:50

the second part, so they're going to be a while.

23:52

Well, there's only a second part if they find

23:54

guilty on the first part. Basically, it's like

23:57

they found him guilty of the drone trafficking

23:59

and now they have to figure out how much drugs

24:02

they can put within the conspiracy for his sentencing.

24:04

So he knows he's guilty. And as soon as that

24:07

said, he drops his head and he goes to the

24:09

bathroom and we walk away. The pitch hits

24:11

us. Oh my God, this guy, he knows

24:13

he's guilty. He's going to run. So we were

24:15

able to get the marshals and kind of block the doors

24:18

and keep an eye on him. And he never did make the run for

24:20

it. He showed up a couple hours later, took

24:22

a sentence, was given 30 years and just one

24:25

more box check for us, kind of getting

24:28

the people who are harming that community off the streets.

24:30

And why do you think he didn't run? Because

24:33

he knew that you were watching him and he was, there

24:35

was security in the courthouse. It's

24:37

really fascinating. And Paul Bach and I

24:40

talked about this, the fact that we're not sure

24:42

why, because we were quiet about

24:44

letting the marshals know and all of that.

24:47

The answer is Jerry, I don't know, because I'm thinking

24:49

why not make the run for it. You're about to go down

24:51

for a long time. So I'm just glad he did.

24:54

He was an important person. That's just one

24:56

more detour off of that main case.

24:59

Like everyone starts cooperating and you start getting lots

25:01

of information. You say, okay, what can we do with this new information

25:03

we got? How can we be judicious and

25:05

go after the people where we get the most bang for our

25:08

buck? And another interesting thing of that

25:10

initial case is another leader. I

25:13

think at this point, she is the leader of the game

25:15

and we're able to get him arrested,

25:18

but this is within the state, not

25:20

federally. He goes by Oso.

25:22

Oso's locked up and he's

25:24

calling in some odd people to come

25:27

visit him while he's locked up.

25:28

And we know he's the leader of the gang and he's

25:31

probably trying to hand off the power

25:33

of the control of the Latin Kings to others or

25:36

maybe still call the shots from the inside. What

25:38

do you mean by odd? He's got people who wouldn't

25:41

typically come anywhere near anything

25:43

law enforcement because they themselves maybe wanted.

25:46

They're some of the worst of the worst. A

25:48

lot of times we'd see the visitors being girlfriends

25:50

or relatives of others within

25:52

the game, but the gang members themselves

25:54

showing up seem pretty gutsy because they

25:57

knew that would draw attention.

25:58

But he specifically had asked

25:59

or a gang member who

26:02

was maybe the most violent out of them

26:04

all shows up and you have

26:06

no right to privacy when you're incarcerated.

26:08

It's well known. So we're listening to everything. It's

26:10

being recorded. We're listening. And there's just

26:12

some odd blanks. He's

26:15

saying, Hey, we need to do this. And then that's

26:17

it. He's like, you know what I'm saying? And

26:19

we're not following it, honestly. When he's

26:22

done, the visitor goes away, he's

26:24

cut back up and on his way out, we

26:26

see he throws a piece of paper in the trash can in the

26:28

corner. So we go get it. And we can tell

26:30

it was a scrap piece of paper that

26:32

he'd written something on it, but he had erased everything. We

26:35

didn't know what was there. We sent that to

26:37

the lab, to the question documents

26:39

section, and just amazing the work they

26:42

did. They were able to pull out everything

26:44

that was written. And he was giving

26:46

the address for the witness against

26:49

him. Wow. And he wrote quotes about,

26:51

this is the only way I go down that this guy's

26:53

living. You need to go handle this business.

26:56

And we were able to take the recording and the gaps

26:59

and obviously show something written that filled

27:01

in the gap, perfectly that told the story. So

27:03

it was one of my first examples of

27:06

working with the lab and some of the incredible technology

27:09

and resources we have. All right. So

27:11

my question is how long did that take?

27:13

And in the meantime, what happened with

27:15

that witness? I don't know if this is normal,

27:18

but the lab got back to us

27:21

within like two or three days. Fortunately,

27:23

nothing happened with the witness as soon as we got the

27:25

results. And we saw the address on

27:28

the note and we knew who lived there. And we

27:30

put in the context exactly what they were talking

27:32

about. We were able to get people over there

27:34

to get that person moved and checked

27:36

them. He ended up getting 30 years. So again, we

27:39

took another gang member leader down,

27:42

another Latin King down. But I tell

27:44

you what's funny, Jerry is left a vacuum.

27:46

We're doing good work. Oracle's kind

27:48

of the big deal to draw craft. He's helping his

27:50

gang members get supplies so they can sell it

27:52

so they can make money and they're relying on him. So

27:55

we take that away and we're taking some

27:57

of the leaders of the gang away. vacuum,

28:00

and you got some of the younger, not as

28:02

mature people who filled the void. And

28:04

in some ways, it made it almost worse.

28:07

Then we had to turn our attention, okay, what's the next thing?

28:10

And it's a group called the Latin Hornboys

28:12

who are kind of an offshoot of the Latin

28:14

Kings, but were friendly. And eventually

28:17

they just all merged and there were no Hornboys.

28:20

It's a term we use because they used

28:22

to be a thing, but they weren't anymore. They were just

28:24

Latin Kings now, but they grew up in a

28:26

certain neighborhood. They were all tight, very friendly

28:29

with each other. So they kind of filled that void.

28:31

A new target that went by Eskimo

28:33

started being able to get a big supply

28:36

of drugs. Some of the people he was

28:38

tight with started rising through the ranks

28:40

and taking the leadership position within the gang.

28:43

I don't want to say we were right back where we started, but

28:45

that didn't put an end to the gang. The Latin

28:47

Kings were still out there. It just didn't stop the gang

28:50

from doing the shootings and everything they were doing

28:52

because we made the initial rest. They just reloaded

28:54

and they were going at it again. When you

28:56

say it made it worse, what do

28:58

you mean? It made it worse and that

29:01

now we were left trying to figure

29:03

out who's calling the shots, who's doing

29:05

what. There used to be typical paths

29:08

with the old leadership of who they went to,

29:10

who did what, who was the enforcer,

29:12

which was in charge of certain things within

29:14

the gang, who was number one, the Inca,

29:16

the Kaseke, the number one, the number two,

29:19

and all the different roles. Well, when you have a

29:21

shakeup in leadership and then shakeup in personnel,

29:23

now there's group people out there doing those same roles,

29:26

but we don't know who they are. They're kind of undisciplined,

29:28

they're younger, now they need to prove themselves.

29:31

So maybe they're not feeling they've really

29:34

done enough violence or shootings

29:36

of the insane deuces or other rivals

29:38

to merit the spot so they're out to prove that

29:41

they deserve what they got and that they're

29:43

there for the gang. So almost a little uptick

29:46

in some of the violence in the shootings. What

29:48

we notice over time is once the Latin Kings

29:51

started causing more problems, there would be retaliation.

29:54

Obviously, the insane deuces aren't just going

29:56

to take it, they would look to

29:58

find the Latin Kings somewhere not there. paying attention

30:00

that they could shoot and kill. And the gangster

30:02

disciples, the same thing, or the vice lord.

30:05

So the kings were always instigating

30:07

the problems as they went,

30:09

the city and the violence seemed to go. So even

30:11

more, we knew this is where we needed for

30:14

our focus. Not that it was important

30:16

what the ATF was doing with the insane

30:18

deuces of their arrests and everything else,

30:20

but we knew if we were going to make a

30:22

real difference in the city, it had to be at

30:24

the expense of the latin kings. We were able

30:27

to move on to a next case with

30:29

Eskimo, same thing, we were able to

30:31

get up on a wire, listen to the calls,

30:34

hearing the same thing. This predication

30:36

for the wire, was it concentrating

30:38

on drug activity or had you

30:41

moved now to the violence, the violent

30:43

crime and the murder aspect of the case?

30:46

It was still the drug conspiracies,

30:49

that was a bread and butter with our arrests and

30:51

with the authority that we had

30:53

federally as the FBI. The drug conspiracies

30:56

came with a big punch and sentencing

30:58

and normally would get a large

31:00

swath of them out of the way. Typically

31:02

we're chasing the drugs and hoping to

31:05

get more knowledge on the violence in the shootings.

31:08

And something unique happened with the case with

31:10

Eskimo is, I think in hindsight,

31:13

the prosecutor working the case, assistant United

31:15

States attorney was just busy with a little

31:17

bit of a foot off, it is, hey, we need more,

31:19

we need more, you're not really ready

31:22

for the arrest yet, go get some more evidence. And

31:24

it was, we really need someone on the inside

31:27

to tell a story in case nobody cooperates.

31:30

It left me in kind of a weird position

31:32

of, okay, I gotta find someone on the inside,

31:35

I'm just going to go against the entire gang

31:37

and their friends and cooperate with me. It

31:39

was serendipitous that that was put

31:41

on me because going through the wire

31:44

and I always, as a case agent, I listen to every call

31:46

all the thousands of them. So you really got to know

31:48

people, their intonations, things they

31:50

talked about. And there's one guy, Andy,

31:53

who just seemed not like the rest.

31:56

I just felt like maybe he's the one. So

31:58

I did something that I was. judged

32:00

for not being as tactically smart,

32:03

but I talked my squad into doing. We

32:06

used the evidence we had to get a search warrant

32:08

just to have a conversation with them. We did

32:10

the search warrant early in the morning, quietly,

32:13

no more units. We almost snuck

32:15

up to the back door of where it lived. Instead

32:17

of knocking down the door, I called him on the cell

32:19

phone and said, Hey, this is the FBI. You need

32:21

to come open your door. We need to talk. Now

32:23

it's a little bit of criticism that he could have

32:26

gotten a gun and been ready for us to enter.

32:28

We lost our element of surprise. He could have been flushing,

32:30

whatever evidence, but I felt the case was

32:32

already strong with the wiretap. It's not like

32:34

we needed more evidence. What we needed was

32:36

a cooperator. I was able to go and he

32:39

opened the door. He let us in. We searched. I

32:41

was able to sit down at a kitchen table with them for

32:43

a few hours and it's kind of explaining the situation.

32:46

Here's where you are. Here's the evidence we already got on

32:48

you. You can tell us to pound sand and wait

32:50

a couple of months. And when we come back, your life will never

32:52

be the same. Or you can say, I'm willing

32:54

to help you guys now to make it better on myself.

32:57

And Jerry, probably the biggest surprise in my career

32:59

was when Andy says, I've been waiting

33:02

for this opportunity my entire life. He

33:04

said, I'm tired of this crap. My brother

33:06

got killed in this. I'm tired

33:09

of faking. I'm this hard guy. What

33:11

do I got to do? So he came on board

33:13

as a source to do recordings

33:15

and do everything he could. That's

33:17

when things get real easy, right? When you got someone on

33:19

the inside, getting them on tape,

33:21

admitting everything. And then when you go to trial, it's

33:24

very easy. Before you move

33:26

on,

33:26

you saw that. What was

33:28

it about him? I mean, you picked him

33:31

as the person to become

33:33

the cooperator and you were right. What

33:35

was it that you saw in him? I mean, obviously

33:38

he's another one of those kids who would

33:40

have chosen a different option if

33:42

there was one available. How did you know that? I

33:44

think it was less than what he

33:47

like said on the wiretaps. It's what

33:49

he didn't do. He was never out there

33:52

really trying to put the bravado out.

33:55

Occasionally he would be like de-escalating

33:57

things that it felt like he was doing

37:59

much time was going into work. If

38:02

someone like Andy would call at 8pm and

38:04

I'm eating dinner and he said this and that

38:06

just happened, I had to say, excuse me, you know,

38:08

my family and go take that call and spend an hour

38:11

doing things to make sure he was

38:13

safe. It felt like a full-time job, just keeping

38:15

him safe in some ways.

38:17

Once it became known, he was a cooperator. A full-time

38:19

job that was definitely

38:22

not a 9-5.

38:27

It's

38:49

a pool because not only do you gotta, but you want

38:51

to.

38:59

As

39:19

I have plans, now again, you gotta

39:21

find balance and it's hard. Once

39:23

you really, those downloads start falling,

39:26

as you said, and more and people start

39:28

giving you more information that leads to more

39:30

people giving you information, pretty soon

39:32

it's almost overwhelming. Let me tell you Jerry,

39:34

like one of my favorite things I want to make sure I say

39:37

is about Andy. He ended up doing everything

39:39

he had to do. I remember the one time he was

39:41

frustrated with the prosecutor. She said, okay,

39:43

we're going to charge Andy with this much or

39:45

that. He's looking at like 16 years.

39:47

I was like, when

39:50

I flipped him, when I recruited him,

39:52

it was a promise we would take care of him the best

39:54

we could. They're like, well, if we give a cooperator

39:57

two-minute deal, it looks like we bought his testimony

39:59

at Hertzart. So that was one time

40:01

I really, really felt the prosecutor wasn't

40:04

right. They ended up, okay, we'll charge them

40:06

less. We'll charge them with this. We still, we got to charge

40:08

them. Like, okay, I think that's understandable. He

40:10

ended up doing, I think just over five

40:13

years and he would keep in contact with me

40:15

a little bit, just cause he felt some kind of loyalty

40:17

to me. And he knew that getting five years

40:19

was a great deal and I found out

40:21

my way to help with that. Well, he did his time while

40:23

he called me years after that and

40:26

say, Hey, probably have no idea what I'm up to. And

40:28

to think this guy had moved way

40:30

out of the area. It's hard to get a job when

40:32

you're coming out of prison. He got one. He

40:35

was doing manual labor and I won't say a lot

40:37

about what he's doing, but eventually he worked

40:39

his way up, became a manager. He was able to get

40:41

all of his kids to move with him. He

40:44

was making a really good salary. He

40:46

was in charge of like a higher people as

40:48

a leader. He told me all of his kids were

40:50

in school and on the honor roll. He was just living

40:52

a good life. He was that one that turned it

40:54

around and is a great citizen and keeps

40:57

his kids on the straight and narrow, met

40:59

someone, married them, kind of living the American

41:01

dream. That was always one of my favorite things, my

41:03

whole career of all the things. It's not just

41:05

about how many people you put away and for how many

41:08

years to me, that's even a better story of

41:10

what happened with Andy.

41:11

That's a great story. I think many

41:13

agents listening have at least one

41:15

of those stories too. And it's always

41:18

a highlight of our careers. I

41:20

have one too that I was actually able to get

41:22

the Philadelphia Inquirer to do a

41:24

story about one of my informants

41:27

that turned into a model citizen,

41:30

even attending PTA meetings. I'm glad

41:32

you had that too. Yeah, we do what we got

41:34

to do and we do it right. When it comes

41:36

to law enforcement and community,

41:39

I think we just want to make the community better. That's a highlight.

41:41

This is, I'm sure yours is.

41:43

At Kroger, we want our fresh produce to

41:46

meet your expectations, which is why we're

41:48

dedicated to doing up to a 27 point

41:50

inspection on our fruits and veggies, checking for

41:52

things like scarring. In fact, only the best

41:54

produce like zesty oranges and crisp

41:56

carrots reach our shelves because when it comes to

41:59

fresh, our high.

41:59

What are your standards? Me, fresh or produce. Kroger,

42:02

fresh for everyone. Save big on your

42:04

favorites with the buy five or more, save a dollar

42:06

each sale. Simply buy five or more participating

42:09

items and save a dollar each with your card. Kroger,

42:12

fresh for everyone.

42:14

Let me just move quickly through and slide

42:17

to another kind of wire cap, another case,

42:20

another suite. But all along the way, we're

42:22

collecting these operators

42:24

who were arrested and witnesses. That

42:27

really helps us to gain a lot of

42:29

information. And again, strategically, we

42:31

knew we need to crush the Latin kings

42:34

because they instigate. And if we

42:36

could get them to do less, we think everything would

42:38

quiet down. Along the way, we

42:40

were putting together primarily my

42:42

partner, Larissa, and by now

42:45

Paul, the old agent, the supervisor, which

42:47

was really good for us, think, okay,

42:49

maybe Rico's the way to go because federally

42:52

we can't charge murder. That's not on the

42:54

books unless it's Rico. And to make sure

42:56

people understand Rico

42:58

is racketeering, influence, and

43:01

corrupt organizations. It

43:03

was built to go after the

43:05

mafia basically in like the seventies.

43:08

What it does is if you can prove someone's part

43:10

of a group and they're committing crimes

43:12

and further into that group, they can get bumped

43:14

in with that Rico. Every one of those predicate

43:17

crimes and further into that group

43:20

gets them in the Rico and Rico's going to be 20

43:22

years per crime that you can charge

43:24

people with. So we were looking at that.

43:27

Murder is an underlying predicate crime within

43:30

Rico. And so are some of the shootings and

43:32

the drug trafficking that's bringing the money to

43:34

the gang and all these things. So we're building

43:36

a Rico and we're going to get all the

43:38

worst of the worst off the streets that we didn't

43:40

wrap up with the drug trafficking. That

43:43

bumped along for quite a while with the US Attorney's

43:45

Office. And I think it was Paul

43:47

as our leader who finally like really pushed

43:49

them on why we're being delayed. They

43:51

basically came out and said, I don't think we're going to prosecute

43:54

Rico. That's a lot of work. We don't have any

43:56

one of the office with experience to do it. Chicago

43:59

may be famous for Rico. filled with that was many

44:01

years ago, no one that works here currently

44:03

had anything to do with that. We just want to keep charging

44:05

the drug trafficking that's nice and easy and

44:08

gives them big sentences. Why would we

44:10

go through all of this? Wow. So

44:12

it's quite the letdown after all the work, all

44:14

the background that we did on all these guys.

44:17

So I thought, okay, we got to get something out of all this

44:19

work. I knew we collected some information

44:22

on burgers. Some of those were going

44:24

to be the predicate acts for

44:26

certain gang members. So I turned to a

44:28

guy named Mike Nellis, who was a detective at the work

44:31

lease department. Just an incredible guy

44:33

who'd been there 20 something years, born

44:35

and raised in the town, kind of a hometown hero

44:37

baseball player, knew that community inside

44:40

and out, had been a detective for a long time and

44:42

knew every case, even if they weren't

44:44

his. I turned to Mike and I asked,

44:46

okay, well, we got to get some of this information to you

44:49

to charge the murders through

44:50

the state.

44:51

I said something about the information

44:53

we had from Walmart walk traders. And

44:55

he knew nothing about it. He was like, what do you mean? Like,

44:57

yeah, it's in the reports we gave to the

45:00

task force officer. And I was like, well, that's

45:02

never made it to me. How do I not know this?

45:04

We realized that the information just wasn't

45:06

working like it should have. I sat down with Mike

45:09

and I said, let me call up every case file that we've done

45:11

where we focused in Aurora or Latin Kings

45:13

and searched the word gun, murder, homicide,

45:16

shooting, whatever. And it just starts spitting

45:19

out all kinds of reports. And he starts

45:21

reading them and realizing, Oh, this is this murder.

45:23

Oh, this is that murder. Oh, this is that murder. And

45:26

suddenly we're looking at a pile

45:28

of documents with information

45:31

on murders that as the detective,

45:33

he didn't know about, we realized we

45:35

didn't really extract all the information

45:37

we could out of the people

45:39

we arrested because we focused on our drug

45:41

conspiracy. We would get all the information about

45:44

all the wiretap calls and all those things.

45:46

And we'd say, yeah, while you're being interviewed,

45:48

what do you know about murders in Aurora?

45:51

And they give a little bit of information. We write it down

45:53

and be satisfied.

45:54

We realized there was something there. We took

45:56

it to the state's attorney and they said

45:59

a lot of

45:59

talking about cold case murders that

46:02

will probably never prosecute like, let's take a shot,

46:04

take a swing, get whatever evidence we can,

46:06

we'll charge them, we'll see what happens. So

46:08

that led to the creation of the Cold Case Task

46:11

Force. And we grabbed a few others at

46:13

the West Arrater in Chicago and a few other officers.

46:16

Me and Mike took the lead on that. We

46:18

would find the cooperators through

46:20

our federal cases, track them down.

46:22

Like I remember, Feng was the first one, which flew out

46:24

to Los Angeles, federal incarceration

46:27

there.

46:28

The first time we looked at the reports and

46:30

what he said, Mike asked something, he

46:32

goes, okay, you told them two years ago

46:34

in an interview, you knew this

46:37

guy did that murder. How do you know that? And Feng

46:39

says, oh, I was there. And I can't remember

46:41

Mike looking at me like, really? You didn't follow up with that question.

46:44

So he's like, well, tell us. And he told

46:46

the entire story. Oh, yeah. Well,

46:48

I knew where a gun would be solved. Rival against your disciple.

46:51

We knew he was a GD. So I knew

46:53

where a gun was dashed because I used to be an enforcer.

46:55

We went under this trash can, got a gun, went

46:58

looking for him. We eventually found him.

47:00

He saw us, he ran. But then

47:02

Sharky jumped out of the car, chased him down, shot him

47:04

three times, jumped in the car, it threw the gun

47:07

in the river and we went and hit.

47:08

All right. So I take it he's not

47:10

aware that even though he's saying someone

47:13

else committed this murder, with him

47:15

admitting his participation, he

47:17

could be charged with that murder also.

47:20

Several of them asked the question and

47:22

we would say, you were looking at a

47:24

lot of time, 36 years, you

47:27

got it down to 18, you couldn't cooperate with

47:29

us. You still are cooperating with us. And

47:31

I think they kind of just realized they were in this

47:33

far. They just keep cooperating. And no one

47:35

ever told us no. That's a very good point.

47:37

Now, at the end of the day, they did become

47:40

witnesses and they, some of them

47:42

got charged concurrently with what they were already

47:44

serving. So it didn't add more time

47:46

onto them. It was handled very well

47:48

from the state's point of view because they allowed us to just

47:51

go around, get all these witnesses,

47:53

get their statements. They created

47:55

a special grand jury specifically for

47:58

this investigation. And one of them, I think, was a very good point. Another part

48:00

of the story that's important is it's all about

48:02

the cooperation. Mike Millis

48:05

was such an integral part of

48:07

Aurora PD and what he did. What we would

48:09

do was go after witnesses who

48:12

years before when the incident

48:14

happened basically told police Carl and say, and

48:16

I'm not going to talk to you, but now we're re-approaching

48:18

him years later. And sometimes they're in a different stage

48:20

of life and he had enough respect because he treated

48:22

them so well over his 20 something years

48:25

of being caught that they would have the conversation first

48:27

of all. And they'd normally have a story about, Hey, remember

48:29

when I caught you when you were a teen doing

48:31

this stupid stuff and I let you go? They're

48:33

always like, yeah, you always treated us right. He

48:36

said, well, now I need something from you. We're diving

48:38

back into this murder case. You were there. We

48:40

need you to testify. None of them wanted to,

48:42

but almost all of them agreed

48:45

to finally say, okay, enough is enough.

48:48

There's a family out there hurting. You were there. You

48:50

were in the car when it happened. What really happened? And

48:53

then we start planning that person's testimony

48:55

matched. The person that we locked up

48:58

pretty soon, we were able to make these cases. We

49:00

were able to send everyone. We could take up

49:02

through the grand jury. At the end of the day, we

49:04

got charges for 31 people charged

49:06

for 22 murders. Some

49:09

of them were incarcerated the rest, right? We had that big

49:12

sweep day again, where we just went up,

49:14

routed them all up. And there was only

49:16

one or two that we didn't know where they were. And

49:18

we had to chase them for a while, at least from

49:20

my googling 31 charged with 22 murders

49:22

of the largest

49:25

cold case murder suite. Ever to have happened. Before

49:27

I hit the record button, we were talking a

49:29

little bit about murders and Aurora

49:32

and comparing them to murders in

49:34

Chicago. Could you talk about that to

49:37

give people an idea of how many were

49:39

killed in this gang violence in this

49:41

town? I did research on this.

49:43

I find it interesting that 1984 was

49:46

the first gang murder, but from

49:48

the eighties through like 2000, it

49:50

went from two to three per year, maybe,

49:52

to eventually when you get to the

49:54

2000s, you're looking at 20 plus

49:57

per year with Aurora's

49:59

population. If you do comparative

50:01

math with Chicago, it's pretty much

50:03

the same rate. I know everyone points to Chicago

50:06

or always has for the number of murderers in

50:08

pure numbers, it's a huge number, but

50:10

when you're talking 26 murders in

50:12

Aurora with 160,000 residents,

50:16

that's the rate at or higher than

50:18

Chicago. You're getting two or three murders

50:21

per month. There's only that few murders

50:23

because they're not very good at shooting. There's a whole

50:25

lot of shootings. They're just not very proficient.

50:28

2002 when I landed, come out of Academy

50:31

early 2002 and that first Oracle

50:33

case, 26 murders that year. And

50:35

I was just common. That's just the way it was by 2012, 10 years

50:37

later, they had zero murders for

50:41

the first time since 1946.

50:44

Since that cold case murder sweep

50:47

in 2007 and then going into 2008, murders

50:51

just kept dropping, kept dropping. It

50:53

was quite remarkable. The city was actually

50:56

growing. You had like 200,000 people now,

50:58

the second largest city in the state. Shootings

51:00

are down 69%. Murders

51:02

are down and nothing in a stapler and

51:04

glow for the rest of the time. Other

51:07

than you may remember, they were

51:09

in the news in 2019. They

51:11

had a shooter in a factory. He was mad

51:14

at his employer. He went in and shot six or

51:16

seven people in an incident there. Their

51:18

murders overall had been extremely low,

51:20

never really getting above 10 cents. They

51:23

quieted down. I think it proved our

51:25

theory right that the Latin Kings were the problem.

51:27

They were always initiating the violence and

51:30

a lot of the other acts of violence were

51:32

in retaliation. The city was able to have

51:34

a resurgence. More jobs started

51:36

moving in. Business would move in. Now the reputation

51:39

changed and it wasn't as bad. There were more

51:41

economic opportunities. And look,

51:43

I don't want to dismiss what politicians

51:46

were doing, what some nonprofits

51:48

were doing to also tackle this

51:50

problem, trying to get youth

51:52

to get other outlets. It was absolutely

51:55

a joint effort by lots

51:57

of entities, everyone kind of pushing in the

51:59

right direction. in the same direction, that

52:01

city absolutely had to turn around. A lot

52:03

of people point to that cold case sweep

52:06

as one of the main reasons. It

52:08

kind of put an exclamation point

52:11

on all the federal cases over time and

52:13

that we're not going to stand for it any

52:15

longer. This road, that's where it's going to lead you.

52:17

You're no longer going to play the state system, do a

52:19

few years and be back out doing the same foolishness.

52:22

If we come after you, it's game over.

52:24

Well, I know that in FBI

52:26

language, the goal is to

52:28

disrupt and dismantle criminal

52:31

enterprises. But in this particular

52:33

case, you're going through it on state

52:36

charges. Could you talk a little bit about the support

52:38

that you got from the front office that

52:40

agreed that the FBI would

52:43

be involved and would support all of this

52:45

work, but these murders are going to

52:47

be prosecuted in the state system?

52:50

Yeah, and I have to say that once or

52:52

twice when asking for things I

52:54

would hear, like an ASAC

52:56

or something, kind of ask the question,

52:58

well, what are we getting out of it? And that was rare.

53:01

But I have to say, our relationship

53:03

with the Aurora Police Department was so great.

53:05

Again, remember, 12 agents took over

53:07

to all the western suburbs, me and Larissa

53:10

primarily working in Aurora. So when we needed

53:12

something, we would ask the word PD, hey, we need help

53:15

with surveillance. They'll say, hey, we'll send you 10

53:17

guys. We'll send the gang squad and the narcotics

53:19

squad out playing levels to help you constantly.

53:22

They were supporting us and

53:24

giving us resources. So there were times

53:26

when they needed something and

53:29

it was like, we're just working together. Just going

53:31

to be times we're going to give up a whole lot of federal resources

53:33

to support the state cases. If

53:36

they needed something particularly, there's a few

53:38

times they called and said, hey, you guys,

53:40

FBI, a lot of resources, we got those issues or something

53:43

you can do. And whether it was a tech

53:45

agent or something very specific

53:47

or technical or cyber wise,

53:49

we're like, that's why we're here. We're going to support you

53:52

too. So the relationship was

53:54

great. I thought the leadership really gave

53:56

us a lot of room to

53:58

do what we needed to do. trust us. As

54:01

a matter of fact, it's just reminiscing with Paul recently

54:03

trucking through this. And I'll just tell a quick story.

54:05

Jerry, we got a source who came

54:08

from the police department because he

54:10

was mad at the game when he was locked up. He felt they

54:12

didn't treat him right or they didn't take care of his family.

54:15

He was kind of out to get them. And he got ahold

54:17

of the police department upon getting out. They were like, well,

54:19

if you want to be a good source, she'll work for the feds.

54:22

So they brought him to me. And he did a

54:24

lot of good work against his own gang. At

54:26

one point, he convinced his gang that

54:28

they wanted to have a gang meeting that he could

54:31

find a location and realize, again, when

54:33

you're looking at the RICO and some of these things,

54:35

we have to prove here on the gang, like getting

54:37

you on video at a gang meeting is

54:39

incredible evidence for us. We were able

54:41

to acquire a house that he convinced

54:44

the gang members that it was a vacant

54:46

house that he had access to, that we wired

54:48

up. He had the gang have their meeting

54:51

at this house. Meanwhile, our

54:53

leadership approved. We needed to be there, protect

54:55

him in case something went wrong, in case

54:57

one of the devices was found. But the neighborhood

55:00

wasn't real good for us to have people

55:02

in place. So we actually went into the

55:04

attic with long guns, with masks,

55:07

with our monitoring information so we could hear

55:09

what was going on below. We're one

55:11

floor above about 80 Latin

55:13

King gang members having a meeting.

55:15

And then eventually they went down to the basement. Paul

55:18

was joking as the supervisor said, how did you get

55:20

leadership to allow you to do that? And like I said,

55:22

first of all, they trusted us. We've been doing such good work

55:24

for so long that there was trust. But

55:27

he said, I told him that we would find a ballistic blanket

55:29

put down

55:29

beneath us. And he started shooting through the ceiling.

55:32

Ballistic blanket? Yeah, I

55:34

don't know what that means. Does that exist? But

55:37

whatever he said, you know, this is probably what

55:39

off planes work like they are now. You

55:41

could just kind of have a verbal with the ASAP

55:43

or the SAC because the SAC asked

55:45

questions. I answered them and he said, OK, be

55:47

careful. I remember we're up there in that

55:49

attic. Try not to move around too much, not

55:52

make any noise. We're able

55:54

to listen only to places

55:56

where our sources

55:58

listeners may not know this without a. judge's

56:00

signature, you can't listen to a conversation

56:03

unless there's a consenting party. Or our consenting

56:06

party is our source, but he's moving from room

56:08

to room to room. And if he's not in a room,

56:10

we can't listen. We have to stop listening back room

56:12

and move to the room where he moved. But

56:14

fortunately, we hear him having

56:16

a conversation with somebody and one of

56:19

the young gang members comes

56:21

up and tells us, there's feds out there. Of course,

56:23

our ears perk up there. He says, yeah,

56:25

I was driving here like two blocks down in

56:27

a brown car. There's two white dudes sitting

56:30

in there. I know their feds. I know exactly

56:32

who it is. It's Tom from our unit

56:34

who's, you know, a perimeter out there. So

56:37

they decide to give that young kid

56:39

a gun. And he says, I'm not afraid of feds.

56:41

I'll go kill both of them right now. And he

56:43

leaves the house. So we're scrambling to

56:46

get comms with Tom without being too

56:48

loud, being up in the attic. But eventually we're able to

56:50

get ahold of him and say, Hey, you've been made,

56:53

get the hell out of there. Just go far, far away. Be

56:55

nowhere near there. Weirdest reminiscing

56:57

that they let us do that was incredible evidence.

57:00

It became important in a lot of ways. I'm

57:02

not sure if today they would let something like that fly.

57:05

I wonder, yeah. When we're talking

57:07

about these murders, were they mostly

57:10

gang related murders? Who's being killed?

57:12

Not that it makes a difference that

57:14

it was another gang member. Life and

57:17

thou shall not kill still needs to be

57:19

respected. But I would like to

57:21

get understanding of who was being

57:23

murdered and what their families

57:26

were thinking, because no matter who you are,

57:28

you've got a family behind you. And initially

57:31

when these murders were not being solved,

57:33

was that another motivation for you

57:35

to move forward with this? Tom Bilyeu Great

57:37

question, Jerry. And he asked all

57:40

of it. What's interesting is if we're

57:42

talking the Hispanic population in Aurora

57:44

back when I'm out there working in the early

57:47

2000s, the first generation

57:49

Hispanics came in. I'm

57:51

sure there were short times they came in

57:53

without a lot of education, not knowing the language,

57:56

trying to make it. They will go to hardworking

57:58

people. It was there. children

58:01

who were the ones who became the gang members. A

58:03

lot of these guys you would see like

58:05

their parents were not happy at all

58:08

with this. They didn't understand how the streets

58:10

had taken away their kids. They're working

58:12

multiple jobs and their kids are left in the streets.

58:14

Just to put that in place, all the young

58:17

kids in certain parts of the town

58:19

were one of the gangs. The

58:21

shootings were typically gang to gang. They

58:23

want out being serial killers

58:26

murdering people for no reason. There

58:28

was purpose behind all their voters. However,

58:31

they didn't always get it right. If they saw

58:33

somebody who was Hispanic that they

58:35

didn't know,

58:36

like well you're not a Latin King, you must be an insane deuce.

58:39

If they saw somebody black, if you're a Latin King,

58:41

you're like well you're either a Vice Lord or a gang's

58:43

disciple, so you're a rival gang member. There was

58:45

a Marine home elite who was just

58:48

seen as soon to be a gang

58:50

member when he wasn't and was shot and killed. That's

58:52

one of the cases we closed. It was actually that third

58:54

suite. Roman Lucio was the one who did that

58:56

and he had to admit that to us as he became

58:59

a operator, how he felt bad that he didn't

59:01

realize that it was a Marine.

59:16

Tell

59:26

your car to Carvana. Visit Carvana.com

59:29

or download the app to get a real offer in second.

59:34

Another military connection actually. There was one, a 17 year

59:36

old kid whose mother was deployed

59:39

to Germany. He was living with his grandmother

59:41

and he'd bounced around in military installations. His

59:43

mother always had a regret that she felt

59:46

her son kind of wasn't ready to understand

59:48

the streets because he grew up on military installations.

59:51

At 17 when she gets deployed, he

59:53

goes to live with Grandmother Aurora. He ends up

59:56

being killed, assumed to be a gang member when he's not

59:58

and all, just because

59:59

of a house at one point and someone drove by and

1:00:02

saw him. It was a young gang member

1:00:04

who needed to do his murder to prove

1:00:06

the gang his worth or whatever and saw

1:00:08

it as an opportunity and took it.

1:00:10

Some of the stories after the

1:00:12

sweep went down, the relief of

1:00:15

the family is pretty powerful.

1:00:17

Some of these kids were mixed up in the gangs,

1:00:19

but still there was a hurting family out there.

1:00:22

This kid was 16,

1:00:24

17. Yes, he was out there at the gang, still doing stupid stuff, but

1:00:26

he would have grown out of it. He was a good kid. He

1:00:28

was funny. All those things. There's

1:00:31

really humanity in all of them, in particular

1:00:33

families. Every one of these was

1:00:36

just a horrible tragedy. Perminable had

1:00:38

they not done that. One more I'll say,

1:00:40

just to underscore how bad it

1:00:42

can be with these gangs, there was one

1:00:44

we charged for with where a guy

1:00:46

was hanging around with the gang and because

1:00:49

of some odd situations, we always had sorcerers

1:00:51

that helped

1:00:52

us take the kings down. We do

1:00:54

our job right. They never know who our sorcerers are.

1:00:56

So they start speculating. They speculated

1:00:59

the young kid who was kind of new around the gang.

1:01:01

I think he was only like 16. They're like,

1:01:03

are you really a Latin king? You're not that slitch,

1:01:06

are you? And whatever. And they didn't like his answers.

1:01:09

So they just started beating them. They beat

1:01:11

them not quite to death until

1:01:14

they gave a baseball bat to a

1:01:16

guy nicknamed Midnight, who took

1:01:18

the bat to his head and finished the guy off. Took

1:01:20

his shirt and his shoes and ran off and left his body there.

1:01:23

There was always a motivation about

1:01:25

the gang behind the violence,

1:01:27

but they got it wrong so much. So

1:01:29

many lives destroyed, families ruined

1:01:32

over or stupid, stupid things.

1:01:34

So being able to be a part of helping

1:01:37

to really lessen that is

1:01:39

pretty incredible because that was a

1:01:41

PD, a sheriff's office, the FBI,

1:01:43

the ATF, the DEA, US Attorney's

1:01:46

office, county prosecutor, like everybody

1:01:48

all working together, white or trur

1:01:50

around to go from those kinds of senseless

1:01:53

murders to the gang members

1:01:55

are still out there. There's still problems here and there,

1:01:57

but they don't feel that they own the city

1:01:59

that can.

1:01:59

do what they want. They kind of know those repercussions

1:02:02

for what they do now. One thing I just want

1:02:04

to highlight real quick here, Jerry, there's one more

1:02:06

murder is very noteworthy.

1:02:08

Obviously, there are 31 charged with 22

1:02:11

murders, plus along the way, collaborators

1:02:13

are giving us information, we're able to charge a few more,

1:02:16

so that number is actually larger. But when

1:02:18

this is all said and done, there were a police

1:02:20

department comes up and says, Hey, there's

1:02:22

one more murder that's played this city. It's

1:02:25

not solved. Is there anything we can do? And it's

1:02:27

a six year old kid who was killed

1:02:29

while sleeping

1:02:29

back in the 90s. I

1:02:32

said, well, let me look into it. It's kind of a noteworthy

1:02:34

case, but I didn't know a lot of details

1:02:36

and it never really came up in what we were doing.

1:02:39

Come to find out that the person

1:02:41

who allegedly did it knew that cops

1:02:43

were on to him and had moved to Mexico

1:02:45

and been down there for many, many years. It was never come to back.

1:02:48

So there's no way to get him out of Mexico. And

1:02:50

we don't really didn't have enough and charged him anyway

1:02:53

even get in a arrest warrant. It was just people

1:02:55

knew, but there was no one willing to testify. No, we'll

1:02:57

crunch witnesses, particularly like all

1:02:59

agents

1:02:59

do. You hit up all your sources

1:03:02

and you say they want to know anything. And I had a

1:03:04

source who was able to say, I think I can get in contact

1:03:06

with him

1:03:07

and actually was able to call them based

1:03:09

all on everything that had been newsworthy about

1:03:11

all the arrests and get in touch and

1:03:13

say, what's going on? Yeah. Your name didn't come off.

1:03:15

You should be good.

1:03:17

But the guy reiterate, I'm never leading Mexico.

1:03:19

I'm certain they're going to arrest me the minute

1:03:22

I step foot in the United States, but I'm

1:03:24

not going to pull the trigger. I shouldn't have to

1:03:26

be stuck down here once the same prosecutor

1:03:28

who had done the cold case murder sweep.

1:03:30

We'd asked what he thought about that. And he

1:03:32

said, look, we would like to get this case solved for

1:03:35

this family. Particularly. We could find

1:03:37

a way to get him to testify

1:03:39

that he wasn't the trigger puller, but he was there. We

1:03:41

could work with him. I can't find my source. So I

1:03:43

got to find a way. So I was able to get a defense

1:03:46

attorney, agreed to represent this guy in Mexico

1:03:48

and use my source to kind of hand

1:03:50

them off to say, Hey, I was talking to this

1:03:53

defense attorney, whatever story he's got to tell.

1:03:55

So now we got a defense attorney

1:03:57

and communication with the guy in Mexico.

1:03:59

And the state's attorney

1:04:02

and us, so we're able to communicate, we're

1:04:04

able to strike a deal that if he will come back

1:04:06

and testify, he'll get charged with some low

1:04:08

level and not the murder itself.

1:04:11

The prosecutor says, but he's got past a lie

1:04:13

detector test. So I set up one of our political

1:04:15

firsts to go down to Mexico to give

1:04:17

him a lie detector test and the defense

1:04:19

attorney happens to own like some

1:04:22

vacation home in like one of the resort

1:04:24

towns where they, everyone could meet. As

1:04:26

the guy did not trust us down in Mexico,

1:04:28

but with his defense attorney, he was willing to go to his

1:04:31

place. Well, then we find out it's illegal

1:04:33

to do a polygraph in Mexico that

1:04:35

if we tried, they would seize the equipment and arrest

1:04:37

the agent. We feel we're stuck, but then the

1:04:39

police department lets us know one of their guys

1:04:41

is certified as a voice stress

1:04:43

analyzer. And I'm not even sure what that is.

1:04:46

Me either. Yeah. It's going

1:04:48

to tell you according to your voice, if you're lying or telling

1:04:50

the truth, the prosecutor says, Hey,

1:04:52

we'll also accept that. If he can pass that.

1:04:55

It's just like a laptop you take with you.

1:04:57

That one in cause an international incident as

1:04:59

the FBI, I kind of just back out and let the

1:05:01

police department get their guy, send him down to Mexico.

1:05:04

The guy passes. So we arranged, we bring

1:05:06

them back up. He becomes a source.

1:05:08

I was thinking it was somebody in Mexico

1:05:11

was a voice stress. It was

1:05:13

somebody with their Aurora police department.

1:05:15

Yes.

1:05:15

Now, whether that's legal in Mexico or

1:05:18

not, I don't know. I didn't ask. I

1:05:20

felt that was their job. I figure out the legalities

1:05:22

or they did what they got to do. It was just a laptop

1:05:24

about fancy equipment. So probably it was pretty

1:05:27

easy for he came back and then he became

1:05:29

my source full time job. He's

1:05:31

got to do a lot of work and give me a lot of information

1:05:33

so they can get paid so he can live and

1:05:35

afford to live because when you're a source

1:05:38

for the FBI, you can't commit crimes. So

1:05:40

they can't go out there doing illegal things to make money. So

1:05:42

it's only source making money will stew everything. He could

1:05:44

provide me information

1:05:45

so that I could pay him for a short period.

1:05:48

He was able to cooperate with several murders, particularly

1:05:51

the Nico Contreras murder. He

1:05:53

testified and he said, here's

1:05:55

what happened. He was a Latin King.

1:05:58

He flipped and became an insane dude.

1:05:59

which is rare. First time I'd ever

1:06:02

heard of it. And there's a family connection,

1:06:04

somehow it happened. But the insane deuces

1:06:06

thought, well, we gotta know you're really

1:06:08

loyal to us now, so you need to prove

1:06:11

it. You need to kill a Latin king.

1:06:13

As a matter of fact, they pick a guy who he was basically

1:06:15

friends with when he was a Latin king. You gotta go

1:06:17

kill that guy. Talking through it, he

1:06:20

said, well, I do know where that guy sleeps. This

1:06:22

place in the basement, there's a window

1:06:24

right there. The leader of the gang sends

1:06:27

him and another insane deuce member

1:06:29

out to do the job. They go to the back of the house

1:06:32

and he testifies that. When they get there, he's

1:06:34

just like, man, I can't do it. And the guy's trying

1:06:36

to go, man, you gotta do it. You gotta prove yourself. They're

1:06:38

gonna kill you if you don't do this. And

1:06:41

he's like, I don't know. And the other guy says, I'll

1:06:43

do

1:06:43

it. And grabs the gun out of his hand, shoots

1:06:45

multiple times through the window. They can't really see

1:06:48

in the basement. They just shoot through the basement window.

1:06:50

And then they run, jump the car and leave. And

1:06:52

later realize the intended target

1:06:54

was not home that night. And his six-year-old

1:06:56

nephew, Nico, had gone to sleep in his uncle's

1:06:59

bed and was shot twice in the back and killed.

1:07:01

No, that's terrible.

1:07:02

Yeah. And it really was that

1:07:05

needed to be sold because that was such

1:07:07

a stain. Like what kind of city are

1:07:09

we? Then a six-year-old gets murdered and years

1:07:11

and years and years go by and nothing happens.

1:07:14

Very fortunate that all worked out that

1:07:16

the person came from Exo-Ed to testify, found

1:07:19

some other evidence. The driver

1:07:21

of that incident got charged with 60 years

1:07:24

and the shooter 70 years. And

1:07:26

doing a little research with this, I had no

1:07:29

idea that this happened. But I saw

1:07:31

an article for 2018,

1:07:33

Nico's three-year-old brother at the time of

1:07:36

the murder. And 2018 became an

1:07:38

Aurora police officer. And I just think

1:07:40

that's really cool. They never kind of gave up on

1:07:42

the city and they're on the right side of things.

1:07:45

There are some good stories out of all this that

1:07:47

the town's trying to rebound, people trying

1:07:49

to do the right thing and that maybe good can win

1:07:51

here.

1:07:52

That's beautiful. Hearing the story

1:07:54

really gives us an understanding

1:07:57

of what policing can mean

1:07:59

to the community because I'm sure when

1:08:01

that case was solved that

1:08:04

many members of the community who were

1:08:07

uncomfortable or who questioned

1:08:09

the presence of police realized

1:08:12

the benefits of what policing is

1:08:14

about and that it's all about keeping

1:08:16

the community safe. Actually, that

1:08:18

family held a celebration in 2010

1:08:21

in a park to recognize everybody

1:08:23

who helped. I had moved on to clinical by that

1:08:25

time. I saw newspaper articles. It was

1:08:28

thanking the police and the FBI

1:08:29

and the whole system and the community.

1:08:32

That's at the far end of the range

1:08:34

of the good that can be done. It's back

1:08:37

to that from Hoover, the most effective

1:08:39

weapon against crime and flopration and

1:08:41

a big part of that is the community.

1:08:43

Technically, Mike Nellis was able to get community

1:08:45

members to finally say, okay, we're

1:08:48

going to come on board with the police

1:08:50

and the FBI and we're going to testify.

1:08:52

That's what it's all about. You're right,

1:08:54

Jerry. There's a lot of crime happening

1:08:56

right now. I'm not saying this is the perfect

1:08:59

game plan for how to do things, but I do

1:09:01

know it's got to be police working with

1:09:03

the community. You got to bring them on your side. You got

1:09:05

to let them know we're there for the right reasons and we're there to

1:09:07

help because

1:09:08

it's the only way to get through this.

1:09:10

It must be so validating to

1:09:12

understand that that family,

1:09:15

the little six-year-old's family, felt

1:09:17

so good about the resolution

1:09:19

of that case that his brother became

1:09:22

a police officer. That's the ultimate

1:09:24

validation of the work that you did. I

1:09:26

just found that out recently when I was doing

1:09:28

a search and I'm still living off a high from

1:09:30

reading that a few days ago. I really appreciate

1:09:33

you doing a case review of

1:09:36

this cold case and drug investigation

1:09:39

against the Latin

1:09:40

Kings that resulted in

1:09:43

making the city of Aurora safer

1:09:45

today. Aurora is not well known except

1:09:47

for the movie Wayne's World was allegedly

1:09:50

supposed to be a reward. It's because the writer was from that

1:09:52

area. I used to say when I talked

1:09:54

about Aurora, it's like, if you've seen Wayne's World, it's

1:09:56

nothing like that. Well, as time goes

1:09:58

on, it's getting closer.

1:09:59

to that version of the movie where it's just

1:10:02

a good city to live and work with schools.

1:10:04

Hopefully it's on the right track. This case

1:10:07

had an enormous impact

1:10:10

on the city of Aurora. Plus,

1:10:13

it was an unbelievable investigation

1:10:15

with remarkable results. What

1:10:18

type of rewards did you

1:10:20

and the team receive for this case?

1:10:22

Along the way, there were several between

1:10:25

the county, the PD. A

1:10:27

big one was the Chicago Crime Commission

1:10:29

for the whole area of Chicago

1:10:32

at a big event. That one really

1:10:34

sticks out because it was

1:10:36

a lot of competition, obviously, in the entire

1:10:39

region and kind of a black tie affair.

1:10:41

You got to bring in your spouse and you got the

1:10:43

Star of Distinction Award and all these

1:10:45

things. So, absolutely

1:10:48

felt that it was recognized

1:10:50

over and over and over. And the joke is my

1:10:52

wife's a teacher. She says, I've been teaching

1:10:54

special ed for 20 years. No one's ever thanked me. Every

1:10:57

time you turn around, you seem to be getting another award.

1:10:59

But really, everybody was so

1:11:01

appreciative that the county

1:11:04

would go out of their way to host a dinner

1:11:06

and give an award and that. So, several

1:11:08

things came from it and Chicago

1:11:10

Crime Commission was the big one. I don't remember if

1:11:12

I mentioned this to Jerry, but in 2008, Officer

1:11:16

Mike Nillis I worked with was IACP's

1:11:18

Police Officer of the Year for the Nation

1:11:20

after the cold case, murder, and well-deserved,

1:11:22

like I said. That could not have been

1:11:24

done without him. He was uniquely qualified

1:11:27

and it lived 20-something years as

1:11:29

an incredible cop. That reputation allowed

1:11:32

him to break through to people and get people

1:11:34

to agree to do witnesses in really hard times,

1:11:36

well-deserved. JS

1:11:38

We're at the part of this case review,

1:11:40

this episode, where I asked my standard

1:11:43

question of when and why you

1:11:45

joined the FBI. JL

1:11:46

I joined in 2002. I'll

1:11:49

tell a quick version of the story, Jerry.

1:11:52

I lowered the educational requirements

1:11:54

for the FBI. I was in the Air

1:11:56

Force. I was a Spanish linguist. I knew

1:11:58

I wanted to do something that

1:11:59

mattered. But I was in the Air Force

1:12:02

for 10 years, during the 90s. One of the guys

1:12:04

was leaving to go join the FBI, Willie

1:12:06

Rios. I was like, wait, how's he going

1:12:08

to the FBI? And as the first time,

1:12:11

I kind of understood, okay, the background

1:12:13

of what I'm doing with intelligence

1:12:16

and all this stuff is something the FBI

1:12:18

is looking for. I loved the way

1:12:20

of getting a degree. I was doing online correspondence

1:12:23

courses. I was always traveling with the Air Force, so

1:12:25

I couldn't go to traditional classes. So I found

1:12:27

a way to get a degree through Thomas Edison

1:12:29

State College to put credits together.

1:12:32

I was open. I was in Omaha at the time.

1:12:34

I asked the Omaha office. They said, no, you're

1:12:36

good. Eventually moved down to Panhandle, Florida

1:12:39

and applied from there as I was getting out of the military.

1:12:41

They came back and said, you don't

1:12:44

have a resident degree. That's

1:12:46

not good enough.

1:12:47

So after being accepted and waiting

1:12:50

like a year or two where there

1:12:52

was no academy classes happening at the time

1:12:54

and they were doing background, I got the note, your

1:12:57

degree is not good enough. I appealed through

1:12:59

my congressman who is now a newest

1:13:01

personality, Joe Scarver. I got a rejection

1:13:04

letter saying, no, your degree is not good enough.

1:13:06

Well, five months later, I get a call from the applicant

1:13:09

coordinator in Jacksonville. They say, hey, we've

1:13:11

changed our educational requirements. Your

1:13:13

degree is not good enough. You went back in? I'm like,

1:13:16

yes, I do. It really didn't affect my

1:13:18

timing of coming into the Bureau because there just

1:13:20

was not much hiring happening in 2000, but

1:13:24

then after 9-11, I remember thinking,

1:13:26

okay, I bet we start hiring and it was like

1:13:28

a tall within a week. They get ready. We're ramping

1:13:31

up classes. We're going to be doing them every two weeks.

1:13:33

So I got in right after 9-11 kind

1:13:35

of a funny story, Jerry, when I'm moving from Chicago

1:13:38

to the DC area, because I need to get

1:13:40

out of that life. I've gone through my files

1:13:42

and I find that rejection letter. Sorry,

1:13:45

your degree is not good enough. And it's signed

1:13:47

by unit

1:13:47

chief Mike Mason, the very

1:13:50

next piece of paper

1:13:51

that's just in my personal file is

1:13:54

AD Mike Mason. Congratulations

1:13:57

on having one of the top 10 gang cases

1:13:59

of the year.

1:14:00

I know Mike Mason, did you ever tell

1:14:02

him that story? I told him the story.

1:14:04

I don't know that he really got it. Because I was trying

1:14:06

to joke, he tried to beat me out saying I wasn't

1:14:08

good enough. Then when I finally got in, he told me, hey,

1:14:11

it was one of the best cases of the year. Yeah, I just

1:14:13

thought that was funny. They told me, you're lucky,

1:14:15

Corey. When they called me, it's like, how am I lucky?

1:14:17

This upset my life. I didn't know what I was going to do with the rest

1:14:20

of my life. They're like, well, as of

1:14:22

today, you should be able to fly

1:14:24

to be an agent.

1:14:25

You're already through stage 1, phase 1, phase 2

1:14:27

background. You're going to be the first person to

1:14:30

ever let in with the non-resident degree in

1:14:32

our eyes. That's my joke, that I single-handedly

1:14:34

lowered the academic expectations to be an agent.

1:14:37

Wow. I guess nowadays,

1:14:39

so many people get a degree

1:14:42

online. But I guess at the time, it

1:14:44

was something that was new

1:14:46

and that they weren't sure about.

1:14:49

Yeah. I remember doing a little research trying to say,

1:14:51

why is my degree good enough? I took all the real classes

1:14:54

and all of these things. I was doing research

1:14:56

at the time, all the universities that

1:14:58

had online courses. I didn't get

1:15:00

a good answer, but it was just like, well, the way you did it

1:15:02

wasn't good enough. But yeah, nowadays, it wouldn't

1:15:04

be even a consideration.

1:15:06

The work that you did on this particular

1:15:09

case shows everyone that

1:15:11

you had what the FBI needed.

1:15:14

Thank you. It was truly one of the joys

1:15:16

of my life. Like I said, I could have done it 24 hours a

1:15:18

day. You just knew you were

1:15:20

making a difference. So it's easy to be

1:15:22

all in.

1:15:23

Absolutely. I want to talk

1:15:25

about what you did later in your

1:15:28

career before we talk about what you're

1:15:30

doing now.

1:15:31

My initial thing, I moved out of Chicago.

1:15:33

Like I said, I didn't know how to find balance. So

1:15:36

I got a job teaching new agents

1:15:38

at Quantico. That's fantastic. I was doing

1:15:40

a source recruitment because I had a lot of experience

1:15:42

doing that. I always knew I loved teaching.

1:15:44

That's something that's just a passion of mine. So

1:15:47

I did that for a while. I dreamed of the

1:15:49

Office of Congressional Affairs, and I took

1:15:52

that job and realized the commute to

1:15:54

DC was a burden for having

1:15:57

a family and trying to coach my daughter's softball

1:15:59

team.

1:15:59

other things that was really difficult.

1:16:02

So I ended up stepping down after

1:16:04

several months and just went back to case work.

1:16:06

To me, that's where the real work is. So

1:16:08

I was able to trip along the initial anonymous

1:16:11

case, even though I was an insider guy and tried

1:16:13

to help. So that was fascinating. Did some

1:16:15

intellectual property rights crimes. I

1:16:17

was able to use my knowledge of a lot

1:16:19

of the subpoenas and affidavits

1:16:21

to take down a lot of illegal sites

1:16:24

selling NFL jerseys and some intel work

1:16:26

before my dream job opening

1:16:28

up a teaching at the FBI National Academy.

1:16:30

I'm a leadership nerd. I always wanted

1:16:33

to be part of teaching leadership. I

1:16:35

got that job. I was able to do that for several years.

1:16:37

I got promoted to be in charge of all the

1:16:39

instructors at the National Academy. And then

1:16:41

my last several years, they moved

1:16:44

me over to run the program. So

1:16:46

I ran the FBI in a until I retired

1:16:48

in January of 2002. All

1:16:50

right, if you could just take a moment to explain

1:16:53

what the National Academy is

1:16:55

for those who have no idea

1:16:57

that the FBI even has such

1:16:59

a program. Yeah, it is truly,

1:17:02

we say, it's like one of the greatest educational

1:17:05

programs in the nation, yet nobody really

1:17:07

knows about it. Every year we bring in 267

1:17:09

law enforcement executives from around the world

1:17:11

four times a year.

1:17:14

Right now we're bringing in about 30 internationals,

1:17:16

the rest are domestic, lieutenants, captains,

1:17:18

deputy chiefs. They're going to live

1:17:20

with us for 10 weeks at the FBI Academy

1:17:22

in Quantico. And it's in residence. They

1:17:25

are taking six classes that are

1:17:27

certified through University of Virginia as

1:17:29

an instructor. You are teaching classes

1:17:31

for UVA. And so they're all earning 17

1:17:34

credits. They have to take a leadership course. They

1:17:36

have to take a physical fitness course, but

1:17:38

it's just this unique thing where

1:17:40

we build this network of people that we bring

1:17:42

in and we do everything we can to give them a great experience,

1:17:45

to give them the best speakers, the best

1:17:47

education, and make it like a finishing

1:17:49

school for law enforcement executives. Many

1:17:52

chief jobs say almost like a

1:17:54

requirement FBI in a grad.

1:17:56

We let the field pick who comes in for every

1:17:59

opening we have. We have a thousand who want in

1:18:01

or more. It's very competitive.

1:18:03

You prepare them to be the best leaders they

1:18:06

can and make law enforcement the best you can. Incredible

1:18:08

program. Paul

1:18:09

Jay It certainly is. And it is

1:18:12

the highlight of

1:18:14

what we talked about before, and that

1:18:17

is law enforcement partnerships.

1:18:19

It's a foundation where a lot of that is built

1:18:21

on. Paul Jay There's been 55,000 graduates,

1:18:25

and the network is strong. When you're a National

1:18:27

Academy graduate, you go to database,

1:18:29

you call someone else, and you say, Hey,

1:18:31

I'm an NA grad. I think we're up to our 285th session

1:18:33

now. And you

1:18:35

say, Hey, I'm a grad from whatever year. The

1:18:37

person says, what do you need? You just work together.

1:18:39

You solve cases, you get things done.

1:18:41

The networking is incredible. I don't know

1:18:43

where we'd be without it.

1:18:45

Paul Jay We retired

1:18:47

in 2022 from that great job you had running

1:18:50

the National Academy. What are

1:18:52

you doing now? Paul Jay I tell you, the reason I left

1:18:54

is because I had an opportunity. It's a non-profit

1:18:57

called Dedication to Community. It's all about

1:19:00

bringing community and placing them together. My

1:19:02

role coming in as the Senior Vice

1:19:04

President for Law Enforcement Relations is

1:19:06

to use the credibility by the career and the National

1:19:08

Academy and all that to say this is really

1:19:11

good training. This is something that

1:19:13

will improve the ability

1:19:15

of your

1:19:15

officers to build better relationships,

1:19:17

but it also helps the community

1:19:20

understand cops. That position

1:19:22

was offered, and I retired because

1:19:24

of that. But I always take on more than

1:19:26

I can chew. Before I retired, one of the

1:19:29

agents I worked with named Pete Cordier

1:19:31

left to get on a really good corporate

1:19:33

job. And I remember him telling me that he

1:19:35

had gotten hired and been assigned a coach.

1:19:38

And he talked to me about the role of a coach.

1:19:40

And I guess I was ignorant of how

1:19:43

many professions have coaches for

1:19:45

how

1:19:45

to help people get better and make the best

1:19:47

out of everyone. Paul Jay As far as Beta

1:19:49

later, our manager? Paul Jay

1:19:51

Just in general, like the being the best version

1:19:53

of yourself, there's some executive coaches,

1:19:55

white coaches kind of can have a bad name.

1:19:58

But in general, it's I'm going to focus

1:19:59

on you and help you see things about

1:20:02

yourself you don't see and just help make you

1:20:04

better. So I got really intrigued

1:20:06

when Pete said, Corey in the private sector,

1:20:08

everybody who has significant responsibility

1:20:10

in decision-making as a coach, that's just

1:20:12

how it works. And I remember thinking who

1:20:15

has significant responsibility in decision-making? Chiefs

1:20:17

of police. Yet they don't get that support.

1:20:19

I actually went through like a year and a half long program

1:20:22

to get certified as an international coaching

1:20:24

Federation certified coach

1:20:27

saying, I want to coach some chiefs, try to help

1:20:29

make people better. Along the way came

1:20:31

at this time, it was an axon now it's been

1:20:33

rebranded to performance protocol, but they

1:20:36

created a company specifically

1:20:39

to bring coaching to law enforcement.

1:20:41

I realized rather than coaching a few chiefs,

1:20:44

if I took a role with this company, I

1:20:46

could like really make a huge impact

1:20:49

on the coach training director one of two, I built

1:20:51

the training where we bring in good

1:20:53

people who understand law enforcement and

1:20:56

who want to learn to be coaches and humans from training.

1:20:58

And then they're out there,

1:20:59

basically like a dating app clients will

1:21:02

come on the website, they'll search

1:21:04

through profiles, they'll find like a good match,

1:21:07

and then they'll just start a coaching client relationship.

1:21:10

That's still being built, but I think it's going

1:21:12

to change the profession quite a bit. I think we're

1:21:14

about to hit a tipping point and really

1:21:16

make a big difference in law enforcement. What's

1:21:18

the name of both of those? The first

1:21:21

one is dedication to community. And I'd

1:21:23

point anyone who's interested in the work we're doing

1:21:25

in South Florida, the Miami Heat are a big part

1:21:27

of that in the Miami Police Department. We're

1:21:29

doing great work. We call it D2C, but

1:21:32

it's dedication to community. The other one

1:21:34

is performance protocol. That

1:21:36

is the law enforcement coaching. We're trying

1:21:38

to help with the issues and recruiting

1:21:40

and retaining and just help make people better.

1:21:43

All right. For those who are very

1:21:45

curious to learn more about the work you're

1:21:47

doing now, I'll have links in the show notes for

1:21:49

both of those companies. Well, it sounds like

1:21:52

you've had a lot of experience

1:21:54

and leadership and coaching.

1:21:56

I absolutely can't wait

1:21:59

to hear.

1:23:59

about this case and information

1:24:02

about the Latin Kings in general. There's

1:24:04

also a link to other FBI retired

1:24:06

case file reviews episodes about

1:24:09

gangs and drugs and a link to

1:24:11

learn more about the FBI National

1:24:14

Academy. I hope you enjoyed

1:24:16

the interview and that you'll share it with

1:24:18

your friends, family and associates.

1:24:21

You can show me just

1:24:22

how much you liked it by buying

1:24:24

me a coffee. There's a link in your podcast

1:24:27

app's description of this episode,

1:24:30

or you can visit

1:24:30

jerrywilliams.com and

1:24:33

tap on the little coffee cup icon

1:24:35

in the bottom right hand corner of my website.

1:24:38

Don't forget to follow FBI

1:24:40

retired case file review on your

1:24:42

favorite podcast

1:24:43

app. Now this podcast is

1:24:46

all about true crime, but if you're also

1:24:48

interested in crime fiction, once

1:24:51

a month via my reader team email,

1:24:54

I keep you up to date on the FBI and

1:24:56

books, TV and

1:24:57

movies. When you join my reader team,

1:24:59

you get access to my FBI reading

1:25:02

resource, a colorful list

1:25:04

of more than 70 books about

1:25:06

the FBI written by FBI

1:25:09

agents who have been guests

1:25:10

on this podcast. There's nonfiction,

1:25:12

crime fiction, true crime and memoirs.

1:25:15

You'll also get my FBI reality

1:25:17

checklist where I debunk 20 cliches

1:25:21

about the FBI and receive

1:25:23

news about what I'm up to and

1:25:26

about my FBI

1:25:27

nonfiction and crime fiction

1:25:29

books. I wanna thank you for listening

1:25:32

to the very end. I hope you come back

1:25:34

for another episode of FBI

1:25:37

retired case file review with

1:25:39

Jerry Williams.

1:25:40

Thank you.