0:08

School of Humans. This

0:12

is racket Inside the Gold Club,

0:15

Episode six Tantrums

0:17

and Torture. As

0:20

an episode title gives away, this

0:22

episode contains details of graphic violence

0:27

from a few good men to judge Judy.

0:29

Pop culture has loved to dramatize what happens

0:32

inside the courtroom. In the

0:34

musical Chicago Chorus, Girl Roxy

0:36

Heart's lawyer tells them to give

0:39

him the old razzle dazzle that'll

0:41

shake off a murder charge. Here's

0:44

lead defense attorney Steve Sado trials

0:47

our theater, but with

0:50

freedom and liberty and steak. It's

0:53

not simply about how well you

0:55

perform. It's performance

0:57

that ends in a given result.

1:04

But the most scandal is parts of the Gold Club

1:06

Trials were juicier than fiction. Day

1:09

two featured a damn table dance.

1:13

It's May fifteenth, two thousand and one.

1:16

This was all let's say method

1:18

acting by Jacqueline Bush's lawyer,

1:21

Bruce Harvey. For his opening

1:23

statement, he spoke in the first person as

1:25

if he were Bush himself. You

1:28

know, I don't understand this. I'm charged

1:30

in a racketeering conspiracy that starts

1:33

in nineteen eighty three. Nineteen

1:35

eighty three, that's count one

1:37

of the indictment. That's where

1:39

I start. I was born

1:41

in October of nineteen sixty eight. Let's

1:44

figure that out. So when this racketeering

1:46

enterprise started, I was fourteen, fourteen

1:49

years old. Harvey

1:52

wondered how the Gold Club's premiere exotic

1:55

dancer and champagne saleswoman got

1:57

mistaken for a racketeer and a prostitute,

2:00

and figured he had no choice but to demonstrate

2:03

the difference. And I had my

2:05

counsel hit hit the button

2:07

on the boom box and

2:10

jumped onto the table and said,

2:12

here's what Jackie Bush does.

2:15

Here's what she does. She's

2:17

not a decision maker. She strips.

2:20

And I started dancing, and I was taking

2:22

my coat off, and I was swinging my coat

2:25

over my head, and everybody was

2:27

going, holy shit, what the fuck is

2:29

this. I don't know whether anybody

2:31

else has really ever jumped up on the table

2:33

in federal court in an opening statement. There's

2:36

a certain style that he's developed. Again,

2:39

here's sado. Bruce is a really

2:41

good looking guy, ponytail,

2:45

tall, thin, traumatic,

2:48

tremendous courtroom presses. The

2:50

presiding judge for the trial, Judge Willis

2:53

Hunt, wasn't impressed. He

2:55

tells Harvey to get off the table, but

2:58

Harvey wasn't finished. I'm

3:01

thinking, Okay, what can I do next? On my

3:03

ideas got shot down. The place

3:06

was packed, so I put my cope back

3:08

on. I walked out into the

3:10

audience and I just picked

3:12

out some poor guy that was sitting

3:14

there. I had no idea who he

3:16

was or anything like that. And I sat

3:18

down next to the guy and I started talking

3:21

to him, and I said, Hey, how's

3:23

it going? Can will you buy

3:25

me a drink? What are you doing here?

3:27

Where are you from? You know? I started giving

3:29

him that the whole dancer kind

3:32

of seduction routine

3:34

to get him to buy me a bottle of champagne.

3:37

Guy was totally embarrassed. I remember

3:39

he was like turning beat red between

3:44

the athletes and the mobsters set to testify

3:47

a swarmer. Media had already descended

3:49

upon downtown Atlanta, but then

3:52

ESPN and the New York Times caught wind

3:54

of the stripteas by the silver ponytailed

3:56

lawyer. Everybody said my dance

3:58

sucked and that I'd

4:00

never make any money for either

4:03

myself or my employer. So

4:05

no, there was there wasn't a career

4:07

change. But I

4:10

know that at the end of the day, it's going to be in my

4:12

epitast. It's certainly going

4:14

to be in my eulogy, and then everybody

4:16

will start laughing and go home. Unfortunately

4:19

for the judge, Harvey's table dance

4:21

wouldn't be the first time the court was out of order,

4:31

you know, for opening statements and closing

4:33

arguments. The courtroom was just packed.

4:36

I don't think I don't think there was an empty seat in

4:38

the in the courtroom. This is Bill

4:40

Rankin, who's a reporter for the Atlanta Journal

4:42

Constitution. He covered the whole

4:44

trial. He'd had the government with

4:47

Art Leech and Glenn Baker and some of the

4:49

agents someone. Then you have all all

4:51

these defense attorneys and their clients on the

4:53

other side, and there was Judge Willis

4:56

Hunt, who is if I

4:58

thought he'd handled the case as well as he could,

5:01

he was. I think his main challenge

5:05

was just order between the attorneys,

5:07

because there was a lot of vitriol.

5:09

I mean, this was no holds barred,

5:12

and they got real personal a couple of times,

5:14

especially during opening statements, where

5:16

there were accusations from the defense, and

5:19

Judge Hunt called him out on it with

5:22

these interpersonal conflicts, perhaps

5:25

Judge Willis Hunt didn't stand a chance.

5:28

They know what the government wants to hear, and

5:30

they believe that's what salvation is.

5:32

They believe it's with the devil. That's

5:34

what they believe it is. They believe it's

5:36

with the persecutor. I mean the prosecutor.

5:40

This is from the opening statement of Dwight Thomas.

5:43

Thomas represented Reginald Bernie, the

5:46

retired officer accused of tipping off

5:48

the goal club of permit checks and police

5:50

raids. And it was

5:52

a big deal that he called Art

5:54

Leach a persecutor instead of a

5:56

prosecutor. I don't know if that was a slip

5:59

of a tongue and that that's

6:03

Thomas today. Back then, he

6:05

tried to Brush's mistake off. But

6:07

when Leech raised an objection, saying

6:09

that he wouldn't tolerate such personal attacks,

6:12

Thomas didn't. Sounds sorry. It's

6:15

kind of like my mom has said, hit dog,

6:17

holler. He said, mean

6:19

that you if you throw a rocket a doll and

6:22

you hate him, he'll yell. Well,

6:24

I threw a rocket somebody in that courtroom

6:26

and they yelled. Tensions

6:34

were high, and during the course of

6:36

opening statements Sado actually

6:38

almost got hit. An

6:40

FBI agent who had been working the case,

6:43

Mark Sewll, threw a videotape

6:45

at him. In September

6:47

two thousand, prosecution wanted

6:49

to arrest Steve Kaplan for contacting

6:52

Jennifer Romanello, the Gold Club's

6:54

old receptionist and Norby's girlfriend,

6:56

who became an eye witness. His

6:58

attorney said Kaplan didn't realize this

7:01

was illegal. However,

7:03

Steve said all suggested that it was far

7:06

more inappropriate. Was Mark Sewell's

7:08

relationship with Romanello. We

7:11

had gotten her telephone records and

7:13

there were some very late night

7:16

calls from

7:18

her number in Florida where she was to

7:22

an Atlanta area code. And

7:24

I talk about late night, I'm talking about

7:28

three in the morning, four

7:30

in the morning, the time when people

7:32

should be sleeping. Sad I'll discovered

7:34

that all these late night phone calls were

7:37

to Mark Sewel. So I

7:39

start asking her questions about agent

7:41

su and her response to that is,

7:44

well, you know I've talked to Mark many

7:47

times, not agents who

7:50

Mark. So

7:52

I'm talking I'm asking your questions

7:54

about how often did she talk

7:56

to him? He's only supposed to be

7:59

an agent. And then I pull out

8:01

the phone records and I say, and when you talk

8:04

to him at three am

8:06

on this day, were you talking

8:08

about the case? Wait? Let

8:10

me see, you're not married, right, But mister

8:12

Sue is correct, and you're

8:15

calling him at three am in the morning. What

8:17

are you all talking about? Are you trying to give him some information

8:20

that you just happen to remember? Oh? No,

8:22

Mark and I just to talk all the time about

8:24

all kinds of things. And

8:26

Sue is sitting there at

8:29

the prosecution's table and

8:31

he's getting redder and redder

8:34

and redder. And you

8:36

can tell, obviously the whole thing

8:38

here is something's going on between

8:40

the two of them.

8:43

When she gets off the stand, the

8:45

judge leaves, and now the courtroom

8:48

is Sue and me

8:50

and a few of the defendants, and

8:54

Sue is steaming, and

8:58

he looks at me and he says,

9:01

how dare you suggest that I

9:03

was having an affair with her? And

9:06

I said, I haven't said any such

9:08

thing. And

9:10

he lost it, and he picks

9:12

up a video tape and throws

9:15

it at me in the courtroom

9:18

and begins to march

9:21

towards me, gets in my face.

9:24

I don't lose it. I just stand there and

9:26

he just goes off. Steve

9:30

Saydal and the government. They

9:33

locked horns all the time.

9:35

Journalist Bill rankin again. But I

9:37

think the agents in the case didn't care

9:40

for him at all. And there was one moment when

9:42

he was Steve

9:44

was asking the prosecution

9:47

for a video date that they had promised to turn

9:49

over, and Mark Zeul just flung it at him

9:51

like thurn it at him like a frisbee and

9:55

stunned him. When court resumed,

9:58

they reported it to

10:00

Judge Hunt and our leach out to apologize,

10:03

and I think that says a lot

10:05

about what was going on, you know, and you don't see

10:07

that kind of thing. You know, people are more professional,

10:10

and you'd hope they

10:13

had had enough of each other, even though they

10:15

had a long way to go. The

10:19

judge comes back out and he says,

10:21

I understand that there was a bit of a problem,

10:24

mister saint out, Do you want us to do anything

10:26

about that? And I said, oh,

10:28

no, your honor. Things like that just

10:30

kind of happened in trials. As

10:34

May turned to June, Judge Hunt threatened

10:36

a mistrial over the complete lack of decorum.

10:40

We'll be right back on

10:50

April thirtieth, two thousand and one, A

10:52

couple of weeks before the trial, the

10:54

Atlanta Journal Constitution ran a front

10:56

paid story about all the mobsters who

10:58

would be taking the stand. It explained

11:01

how Art Leach arranged for these men to testify

11:04

and in exchange, he'd recommend

11:06

reducing their sentences. It

11:08

was written by Bill Rankin. One

11:11

day, Steve Sado gave me a call and

11:13

said I could come over to his office and look at

11:15

some files he had put together. And

11:17

I'd spent hours and hours reading

11:19

through all the deals

11:22

that these mobsters

11:25

and really violent people

11:27

were getting from the government. It

11:30

was kind of chilling,

11:32

actually to see what some of these people had done.

11:36

The story also quote Sado who said,

11:38

if you were to look up the words liar

11:41

and criminal in the dictionary, the

11:43

names of these witnesses could be included

11:45

in the definitions. And the

11:47

thing is giving Rankin all

11:49

of this information was intentional

11:52

on Sado's part. He wanted

11:54

this story to run. I

11:56

had spent months and months listening

11:59

to how bad the Gold Club was, all

12:01

these leaked stories about the individuals

12:05

and what people were supposedly

12:07

saying, and what had happened to them, and how

12:09

horrible it was, so I

12:12

gave Bill Rankin in the AJC enough

12:15

information about these sortid

12:18

witnesses for him to write basically

12:20

a Sunday story of

12:23

several pages outlining who

12:25

would be expected to testify against

12:27

Steve Kaplan and the Gold Club. And

12:29

the story was astonishingly

12:32

detailed. The

12:37

AJC story begins one

12:39

star witness cut a man's ear

12:41

off in a bathtub. Another

12:44

shot a woman in the neck after she dropped

12:46

her kids off at school. A

12:48

third, a self proclaimed two

12:51

bit leg breaker, beat a man

12:53

with an axe handle. Sadal's

12:57

hind releasing this information about the

12:59

sordid government witnesses just right.

13:02

The article came out the day of jury selection.

13:05

That way, the fact that Art Leech was

13:07

reducing sentences for murderers would

13:10

be fresh in the minds of the public and

13:12

potential jurors. The

13:15

government was so upset

13:17

because now for the very

13:19

first time, it's terrible witnesses

13:22

had been exposed. Jury's

13:26

election went well. Leech next

13:29

two of the original twelve jurors. One

13:31

of them used to work in Miami. More

13:34

specifically, he used to install

13:36

AC units in an apartment complex

13:39

the juror knew was owned by the mafia.

13:42

The defense blocked a Christian radio

13:44

listener, a member of Mothers

13:46

Against Drunk Driving, and a Jehovah's

13:48

witness. Judge Hunt

13:51

also disqualified jurors who were either devoutly

13:53

religious or believed that new clubs

13:55

should be banned. Sata

13:58

was so pleased with this election he told

14:00

the Atlanta Journal Constitution, It's

14:03

the best jury I've seen in twenty years

14:05

in federal court. Defense

14:18

was intent on showing that the most unsavory

14:20

characters in the courtroom weren't the people

14:22

on trial, but the ones under witness

14:25

protection. Rangan's

14:27

AJC story would be brought to life

14:29

before the jury's eyes. The jury

14:32

had to come face to face with prosecution's

14:34

eyewitnesses, mobsters,

14:37

torturers, killers. Early

14:39

on in the trial, there was one snaphou Art

14:42

Leach had John Gotti Junior transported

14:45

from a New York prison to Atlanta,

14:48

but Gotti Junior pleaded the fifth he

14:50

did not testify. Leach

14:52

never explained why he brought Gotti down

14:54

from New York, not even to Gotti's lawyer.

14:57

But if the point was to show how dangerous

14:59

it would be for the mafia to infiltrate the South

15:02

he already had plenty of eyewitnesses and

15:05

they were getting good deals. Bill

15:08

Rankin wrote about one witness, Dino Basciano,

15:11

in his article. They

15:13

asked him all the stuff he'd done, and he said, murder,

15:15

conspiracy to murder, attempted murder,

15:18

armed robbery, burglary, arson,

15:20

cocaine trafficking, gun trafficking,

15:23

and a couple of others. He said, you

15:25

name it, we did it. But he got

15:29

an incredible deal from the prosecutors

15:31

to testify in the Gold Club case. He

15:34

said he had been paid by the government one

15:36

hundred and eighty eight thousand dollars to relocate

15:38

his family six times, and

15:41

instead of getting a life sentence, he

15:44

was given six years in

15:46

prison. And I

15:48

guess his most important test on he at the trial

15:50

was that he saw Kaplan slip envelope

15:52

stuffed with cash to a

15:55

Gambino crime captain, Shorty

15:57

Mascusa. Another eyewitness

16:00

was Big John Gibbons. At

16:02

the time, he was a four hundred pound

16:04

gangster who had some dealings with Kaplan

16:07

at his club. In book A Raton, Michael

16:10

de Leonardo's lawyer, Craig Gillen cross

16:13

examined him. Gillan

16:15

asked Gibbons to walk through all the criminal

16:17

acts Gibbons had done, starting

16:20

with routinely beating people up, which

16:23

Gibbons called wamping people up. And

16:28

I walked him through on cross examination

16:30

all the things that he did and all

16:32

in the things that he would do to save himself.

16:35

Yeah, all right, you know

16:37

you've talked about beating people up. He would call one thing

16:39

him up. You know you'd do this, you'd do that,

16:42

that's right. Now. Another thing

16:44

you would do is you worked

16:46

in deception, correct, you

16:48

would dress up as a federal

16:50

agent, FBI agent or d agent

16:53

with your buddies, and then you would then

16:56

have badges, warrants. What you

16:59

would stop known drug

17:01

dealers in South Florida, get

17:04

out with walkie talkies, pretend like

17:06

you're arresting them, arrest them

17:08

so their bodyguards aren't jumping in

17:10

and creating a fight with you.

17:13

And then what you did is you didn't

17:15

take them, did you, mister Givens. You didn't

17:17

take them to jail, of course not. You

17:20

took them back to

17:22

your torture chamber. Well,

17:24

what do you mean by the torture team, Well, you know your

17:26

apartment, correct, And

17:29

that's when you began the process

17:31

of torturing them. Yes, to

17:34

be precise, Given's torture chamber

17:37

was his bathtub, your

17:40

bathtub, correct, because

17:42

you wanted to have people

17:44

in the bathtub because it helps, you

17:47

know, with that messy cleanup problem when you've

17:49

been cutting people up all day and

17:52

can just hose down the tub. That's right.

17:55

Gillan then explained Given's torture methods.

17:58

This part is pretty gruesome, so skip

18:00

forward a couple of minutes if you'd rather spare yourself

18:02

the details. By the way,

18:05

torturing people is hard work, isn't

18:07

it. It can be. You

18:09

can really work up a sweat torturing people.

18:11

Yes, you can. We

18:14

went through all the things that he did. He would

18:16

he would, you know, slice up people's

18:18

nostrils and put lits cigars up

18:20

their nostrils. He would threatened to cut

18:22

off their their testicles.

18:25

He would you cut off one NaN's

18:27

ear. Whatever

18:30

it took to get the information is

18:32

what mister Gibbons was prepared to do. Now,

18:35

when you're torturing somebody, there's

18:38

this there's a fine line between

18:42

torturing somebody enough and

18:45

inflicting enough pain on

18:47

them so that they will tell

18:49

you where the drugs and money is

18:51

correct, that's right, but not

18:54

too much pain where

18:56

you kill them. Correct, that's

18:59

right, because then they can't tell you where the drugs

19:01

and money is. That's correct. Killan

19:04

looked over at the jersey. They're

19:06

horrified, looks set at all and

19:08

they look on their faces. They're simply horrified

19:13

at this guy being in

19:15

the witness chair, being that close

19:18

to them. And then we get down towards

19:20

the end. So I said, well, so then you became

19:22

a government witness. Yes, but

19:25

you did that because you were indicted

19:27

by the government and you conspired

19:31

to have every single

19:33

witness in

19:36

your trial murder. Correct.

19:39

Now you got caught on that, so

19:42

you weren't able to get them. You weren't able to have them

19:44

killed, That's right. So I guess you decided.

19:46

I'm kind of on a roll at this stage,

19:49

So I guess you decided that if you can't

19:51

kill them, you want to join them.

19:54

Gilan is insinuating that the only reason

19:56

Gibbons is testifying is because he

19:58

knows he will get less present time if

20:00

he does so, not because he

20:02

knows of any criminal activity Kaplan

20:05

Leonardo and the rest of the Goal Club

20:07

defendants did, but to save himself.

20:10

And you know what all these people wanted to do is

20:13

they wanted to give testimony

20:16

sufficient to where the government

20:19

would say, all right, we're going to give

20:21

you not only witness relocation

20:24

money, but we're going to let you out. And

20:26

what they really wanted to do, and

20:28

I think it was the most frightening thing to me, to

20:30

everyone in the jury, was that these

20:32

were people that were eventually

20:34

going to be back in our community.

20:39

Bill Rankin felt a similar way to Gillen

20:41

about the mafia witnesses that

20:43

the crimes they had committed were so much worse

20:45

than whatever the Goal Club defendants were being

20:48

accused of that it was ridiculous

20:50

to have them testify to get time reduced.

20:53

You know, they cut so many deals with

20:55

these really bad guys. You know in the

20:57

government probably would have said, you know, we cut deals

20:59

with sharks to catch you

21:02

know, bigger fish, but some people would

21:04

say they were letting a

21:06

whale go to catch minnows. In

21:08

the Gold Club case, they're cutting deals with

21:10

killers and torturers to get a

21:12

guy who runs a strip club. So

21:15

I think it's just a matter of proportion. There

21:18

were no murders here, and that

21:20

I knew of so you kind of were

21:22

left wondering, why

21:25

go to all this trouble. We'll

21:27

be right back. Between

21:37

all the ridiculous moments, there was plenty

21:40

of time to doze off. Some testimonies

21:42

went on for days, specifying

21:45

and rehashing details that seem mundane,

21:49

but the jury at the Gold Club trials sat attentively.

21:52

They reacted to powerful testimony. They

21:54

had a sense of humor, especially

21:57

when Art Leech's PARADEI of Gangsters took the

21:59

stand. One of the witnesses,

22:01

David Campo, tried disguising

22:04

himself with dark shades and a fake beard.

22:07

The next day, the jurors all wore Graucho

22:09

glasses to mock him. But

22:12

then this tactic of bringing in gangsters started

22:14

backfiring on the prosecution. Jurors

22:17

were getting fatigued with all the gruesome details,

22:20

especially when the connection these men had to

22:22

the Gold Club seemed unclear. The

22:24

jurors started to ask, why are

22:26

these guys here? Prosecutor

22:30

Art Leach was frustrated. He thought

22:33

the jurors were missing the point. The

22:35

Kaplan's alleged involvement with the mob

22:37

meant that he was culpable enabling

22:40

these dangerous people to do their work. They

22:45

it should have been able to see at this point

22:47

just how dangerous these people are.

22:50

You know, this is a real

22:52

organization. It's an organization

22:54

where you've got people like Kaplan who are the earners.

22:57

In other words, they're generating the money to

22:59

keep the organization going. But when they need

23:01

somebody killed, they have people

23:04

like those people that I've but on the stand

23:07

who with the telephone call can go

23:09

out there and murder

23:11

someone and then go off and have their

23:13

dinner. He brings up the Sopranos

23:16

at the time of the trial, it's in its third

23:18

season, and from my

23:21

perspective, that is

23:23

what I'm seeing in the Sopranos, because that was

23:25

portrayed in the Sopranos as well. But

23:28

the jurors were looking,

23:30

i think, viewing the

23:33

Sopranos kind of in a romantic sort

23:35

of way and ignoring the

23:37

really ugly side of what

23:40

mafia organized crime is

23:42

all about. Art

23:47

Leach may well have a point about this. Also

23:50

in the courtroom with the defendants was Michael

23:52

de Leonardo, the alleged mobster

23:55

and capo. Leet said he was

23:57

at the top of the Goal Club operation,

23:59

with Kaplan, handing off money and

24:01

protection feast him to give to the Gambinos.

24:04

The Leonard was a larger than

24:06

light presence. Attorney

24:09

Bruce Morris was very impressed by

24:11

him. Michael de Leonardo

24:13

was the slickst and I don't mean

24:15

slick in a negative way, slick

24:18

as in right out of GQ magazine.

24:21

This guy was about, you know, five eleven,

24:24

combed his hair straight back, was

24:27

you know, a reasonable build,

24:29

not not slender but not too

24:31

muscular, and certainly not overweight. Wore

24:35

you know, tailored suits. You

24:38

could see your reflection in a shine

24:40

on his shoes. You know, his

24:42

shirt was freshly pressed.

24:45

And he was very quiet, kept

24:48

to himself, and was

24:50

reputed to be quite the ladies

24:53

man. He was very he was very

24:55

courteous. He was the guy if ten

24:58

of us were walking into the courtroom,

25:00

he would be the guy to hold the door

25:02

open for everyone else. And

25:05

what made Michael de Leonardo even more

25:08

alluring as a character was his nickname

25:10

Mikey Scars. He wore

25:13

literal scars on his face. His

25:16

lawyer, Craig Gillen, used the Leonardo's

25:19

gritty appearance to his advantage. No,

25:22

these scars weren't battle scars, So

25:25

I unveil this big, huge

25:27

poster, the picture of

25:30

poor little innocent Michael Dellionardo,

25:33

eleven years old with

25:35

his face had had been chewed

25:37

up by a dog in the neighborhood.

25:41

And literally, in that second

25:44

Mikey Scars was transformed

25:46

from this pirate like scary

25:49

guy into the eleven year old

25:52

Michael de Lionardo who had been

25:54

the victim of a dog attack

25:56

and left scars on his face, and

25:59

literally you could see in the jury kind

26:01

of walking back. I could see two

26:04

or three people on the jury tearing

26:06

up because they must

26:08

have had the same impression everyone

26:11

else did that Delionado

26:13

had to get these scars in some sort

26:15

of nassive street fight. But

26:18

that wasn't the case. By

26:22

week twelve, one juror was dismissed

26:24

because he couldn't take what he was seeing anymore.

26:27

Judge Hunt some of the lawyers to his chambers

26:30

to break the news. Here's

26:32

how to Attorney Steve Saydal. Judge

26:34

Hunt one morning says,

26:37

I need all the lawyers to come into chambers.

26:39

We have to take up a very serious matter. Judge

26:42

Hunt starts telling a story about one of the

26:44

jurors and the judge says, one

26:46

of the jurors came to see me

26:50

and he told me that

26:52

he had done a bad thing. So,

26:54

now you know, we're all on the edge of our seats. We're trying

26:56

to figure out what's going on. Is

26:59

this going to throw out the trial? We're gonna have a mistrial?

27:01

What is this? He says.

27:03

The juror then gets down on

27:06

his knees and begs

27:08

forgiveness for what he's done. So

27:10

the judge says, I told him to get up off his knees

27:12

and just tell me what happened. He said, he wrote a letter.

27:15

The juror wrote a letter. It

27:18

just says, well, okay, he says,

27:20

and I sent it to the prosecutor. And

27:24

just as you send a letter to the prosecutor,

27:27

he said, yeah, it was an anonymous letter, but

27:29

I sent a letter to the prosecutor. All

27:32

the defense attorneys turned to Art Leach, They

27:35

want to know about this letter. We all

27:37

look at the prosecutor and say what

27:40

about this letter? And the prosecutor

27:42

goes, oh, I got something. But

27:45

you know, I just glanced at it and I didn't

27:47

know it was from a juror. I just thought it was

27:50

from the public. Everyone agrees

27:52

that they have to get rid of this juror. But

27:55

Craig Gillen says, hold

27:57

on here a minute. We like to see the letter.

28:02

And as much as I'd like to take

28:04

credit for that, it was Craig. And

28:08

the prosecutor goes, well,

28:10

you know it's not here, it's at home. And

28:16

now we're insisting we want to see the letter.

28:18

And the judge, of course, now he's curious. He

28:20

wants to see it too, so he says, okay,

28:22

we'll recess court. Mister

28:24

Leach, you make arrangements to get the letter,

28:27

get the letter brought back down here, and

28:29

circulate the copy of the letter under sealed

28:31

to everybody in the case, all the lawyers,

28:34

so we can see it. And the

28:36

letter basically says, dear mister

28:38

Leach, we thought the government was

28:40

supposed to be the good guys. You're getting

28:43

destroyed. All of the jurors

28:46

think the government's case is not going

28:48

well, and saydal is attacking you

28:50

every single night in the media.

28:52

You gotta do something. You got to stop

28:54

him from attacking you. A

29:02

few days later, the jury was upset that

29:04

another jury wasn't paying enough attention.

29:07

The court dismissed her too. With

29:10

all these jurors getting kicked off, lead

29:13

defendant Steve Kaplan was concerned. Steve

29:15

comes to me, Steve Kaplan, and says, what's

29:18

this mean? And I said, this means

29:21

things are going really, really well.

29:24

Keep in mind, Rankin reported that

29:26

this juror had been on Leech's side. She

29:29

was pro prosecution. So

29:31

now we're of the opinion that everyone

29:33

on that jury

29:36

is inclined to go for us. Now that's trials

29:38

not over and things can change, saydal

29:40

Soon had as suspicions confirmed that the

29:43

jury was on their side. And this

29:45

wasn't even inside the courtroom. It was

29:47

during a lunch break. Now,

29:50

I don't eat lunch during trials, never all

29:52

I do. I get locked in the courtroom

29:55

and I continue to prepare. I don't eat

29:57

anything, if anything. I used

29:59

to have coke and Eminem's so

30:02

I would be hyped up for like the next three or

30:04

four hours, which works well. But

30:06

Steve and Larry went out. That would be

30:08

Larry Glade, the Gold Club's accountant who

30:10

was also on trial. And Steve

30:13

comes back and he says, I gotta talk to you. I gotta

30:15

talk to you, and I said, okay.

30:18

He goes, it's really really important.

30:20

I said okay, okay. So we go out in one

30:22

of the anti rooms and Steve says

30:25

something just happened with the jurors. And I'm thinking

30:27

to myself, oh no, oh

30:30

no, and he goes, yeah, do

30:32

you want to hear? And I said, yeah, you gotta tell me. He goes,

30:34

So we're at this restaurant

30:38

and we're standing in line and

30:41

this group of jurors is it's several

30:44

people in front of us, and they see

30:46

us, and they motioned us to

30:48

come up, and Larry

30:50

and I go up and they say, we

30:52

know you're working so hard. We

30:54

want you to step in front of us and

30:57

so you can get your lunch and

31:00

get back and work. What

31:02

does that mean? What does that mean? He says, what does

31:04

that mean? I said, it means good. Just assume

31:07

it means good. But remember you really can't

31:09

have any interaction with them.

31:11

So they loved him. They literally loved

31:13

him.

31:17

Here's Prosecutor Art Leech. He

31:20

saw it a different way. I

31:22

was really concerned with jury

31:24

Tampa as well. There

31:26

is a motion probably midway through

31:29

the trial, where I had gained

31:31

information that Steve

31:33

Kaplan was interfacing

31:36

with one of the jurors, and I

31:38

mean, that's enormously disturbing. So

31:41

you know, it's just things that you have to watch

31:43

out for. It's kind of a hallmark of

31:45

organized crime that they always go after

31:48

the jurors. So you know, we

31:50

were trying to be alerted to that situation

31:52

as well. To

31:57

be perfectly honest, we think the trial was going

32:00

remarkably well on

32:08

the next episode of Racket, and

32:11

then we had the FBI parked on

32:13

the other side of the cul de Sac every

32:15

time we're coming in and out there at the back of their truck

32:17

taking pictures of us. My cross

32:20

was designed to get him to a point

32:22

where the only logical

32:24

conclusion was that he

32:27

was a pimp. This

32:29

man can't keep his mouth shut. You

32:31

can't get him to answer a question

32:34

that she moved her mouth and

32:37

looked at me and said fuck you. She

32:40

was so pissed when

32:42

the prosecutor asked, did you have sex

32:45

with yet that little grand and he just said both

32:48

of them. You know, I got a

32:50

call that the King of Sweden was gonna

32:52

sue me for slander or something,

32:55

which was kind of funny. I'm

32:58

Christina Lee. This is Racket

33:00

Inside the Gold Club, Oh

33:05

Hi hasband

33:07

Acking Racket

33:12

Racket, Oh

33:15

My Life by

33:19

My Life Hasbanding,

33:29

Ohhi Life.

33:33

Racket Inside the Gold Club is a production

33:36

of School of Humans and iHeartRadio

33:39

Rackets, written and narrated by me Christina

33:41

Lee and produced by Gabby Watts.

33:44

Caroline Slaughter is our supervising producer,

33:48

Special thanks to Taylor church In Sonam

33:50

Bashi. Music is

33:52

by Claire Campbell and sound design

33:55

and mixes by Tune Welders. Executive

33:58

producers are Brandon Barr, Elsie

34:00

Crowley and Brian Lavin, along

34:02

with Scott Grubman and Lauren Zimmerman.

34:05

M hm oh

34:13

booh, booh

34:18

booh.

34:34

School of Humans