The Curtain Falls On My Criminal Career

And then... as if it were preordained back in 1970, the curtain fell on my criminal career... 6 o'clock in the morning, May 16, 1990, and the doorbell rings... my partner in life says 'who could that be?' and heads for the door.... I know right away that this can't be good so I grab the cash that is in my bedside night-table and quickly hide it in the bathroom (about two grand)... I hear loud footsteps and lots of voices in the house... the kid wakes up... the housekeeper wakes up... i come out of the bathroom and I'm looking at a drawn gun pointing right at me... 'Get down on your stomach!!' the guy yells... and i'm like 'okay okay... i'm not violent..." and drop to my knees and flop onto my stomach... "Are there any guns in the house?" he asks rigidly... I reply, "just the shotgun in the closet..." and next thing he's got my shotgun and i'm being cuffed...

Meanwhile, even though they had an arrest warrant but no search warrant, there is the 'in plain sight' bullshit and the arrest team that made it into the house is everywhere, rifling through every possible place. They are in my office... looking under beds... opening cupboards, closets, file cabinets, going through bags and anything else that's lying around or within their grasp... Apparently, 'in plain sight' is just a euphemism for 'strip search the whole mother fucking place.' But I know... I really know... that there is absolutely nothing for them to find... no dope... no money... no paperwork... nothing... zippo. Fuck them... I need my lawyer and they aren't going to find shit in my house.

More in my mind is my kid... aged 2 and a half and he has no earthly idea what's going on... It's action city in my house and he's just along for the ride... And I hope they aren't taking in my wife too. Please God leave my family alone...

The bedroom guy realizes I'm no threat and lets me up to call Gerry the lawyer... He has been waiting for this call and tells me to just 'Don't answer any questions! Don't say anything about anything! I'll see you downtown and we'll get you out." ...music to my ears... I can do that. They let me throw on sweatpants and a sweatshirt... I walk down the hallway and see at least two or three teams of guys looking through all the open drawers they can find and I see one guy look at the guy marching me out and shaking his head side to side... Silently saying "Nothing here...'

And so it goes...  as I move into the legal world and court system of our free society.

A lot of what happened that day is a blur... as you might imagine, there was a lot happening both to me and around me. The main guy must have read me my rights although I have no recollection of it. They had a female fed who stayed with my wife while she threw on some clothing. Meantime, I remember the awful feeling of seeing my son and being unable to hug him goodbye with my hands cuffed behind me... true suckage emotionally. I can see and remember odd bits and pieces... disconnected moments... images that are really tough to forget.

There were agents literally everywhere... They were in every room of the house, walking the grounds around the house, checking the pool cabana, rummaging through the garage.. and they didn't have a search warrant. Unfortunately, in my numbness, I didn't have either the legal help or presence of mind to point this out. But it didn't matter because there was nothing to find, evidence-wise... The bastards seized our beautiful white and red convertible Mustang... took my Saab... and everything that was in them. Even today, I open an occasional CD jewel box and find it empty (I know it's old technology but we have a lot of them), and I know immediately that the CD was in the fucking Saab.

Months later, we started getting summonses for unpaid tickets on the Mustang. The fuckers used it on surveillance jobs and paid no attention to any rules of possession or evidence (not to mention parking restrictions). Their attitude was that anything we had was subject to seizure and they acted with total impunity. Basically it was a 'fuck you' from them to me. I didn't know it at the time but they took whatever they thought might possibly be of serious material or evidence value. Like I said, there wasn't any evidence but material? We materialed the shit out of life and they love to drive cars away. Good bye Mustang Sally.

I remember getting led to the back seat of the unmarked and the head guy turning around from the front seat saying "Today is going to be the worst day of your life. You really should start your cooperation now since it's going to happen anyway." And I know he's right about the day being low on the list of days but I'm not saying shit until I see my attorney. They had to move a half dozen cars that were blocking the driveway so we could leave. When I kept quiet, the other guy in the car became chatty... "You might get lucky with the news cycle today... Sammy Davis and Jim Henson both died so you won't be front page." At least something went my way... But that didn't stop Channel 12 local news from covering the moment. We were in all the papers and on all the channels to different degrees. I was a 'local businessman', a 'drug kingpin', etc etc... This was a major sweep as they went after about 20 people at the same time.

At my house, there were DEA, ATF, state police, county cops, town cops... I wouldn't be surprised if the fucking dogcatcher didn't show up. And all the while I'm thinking that I'm way down the ladder from where this started. WTF is it that makes me such a target?