February 18, 2025 • 33 mins
Ken walks us through his current day-to-day as he attempts to atone for his life of crime. Then we dive back into the past to his first years inside the mob -- dealing drugs and helping with collections. We meet to a few key mafia characters like “Old Man” Genarro, the Chop Shop King. Kenny gets his first big promotion.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
If you're listening to a tenor foot TV.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Podcast or girls, Krook County is released weekly and brought
to you absolutely free. But if you want to hear
the whole season right now, it's available ad free on
Tenderfoot Plus. For more information, check out the show notes.
Enjoy the episode.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
You're listening to Crook County. The views and opinions expressed
in this podcast are solely those of the individuals participating
in the podcast. This episode also contains subject matter, including
graphic depictions of violence, which may not be suitable for everyone.
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Previously on Crook County.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
I got recruited into the mob when I was seventeen
years old.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
My father, Kenny, lived a secret double life for over
twenty years.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
I didn't know if he was in the mob until
maybe twenty years after you guys were born.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
He was also hiding a destructive heroin addiction.
Speaker 5 (01:13):
It's crazy to have someone that was so strong in.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
My life and it was everything.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
So he fucking budged him in the face over drugs
because he was destroyed our fucking family.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Until it almost killed him in twenty thirteen, and he
called my son Kyle and he asked Kyle for help.
No more secrets, no more lies. It's time I learned
the truth. My name is Kyle Tequila.
Speaker 6 (01:46):
Welcome to Crook County.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Yeah, listen, there are girls in and out of there
for years and years and years and years and years.
(02:12):
All right, go in there, crap a deal with the client,
come back to us, pay us our fucking portion, go
to work, get out quick, and wait for the next guy.
These girls were pure, pure business, and they made a
ton of fucking money.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Episode three, Coming clean.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
My son, Kyle, Justin and Jesse BROI.
Speaker 7 (02:47):
I'll get about Jesse going on.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Brother Justin lives with me.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Jesse's the house manager, all right, and I'm the.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
King, the King, okay, perfect, Well, where does the King live? Today?
I'm visiting my dad for the first time in a year.
He's showing me around his place of work, a group
of small apartments that serve as a halfway house for
people in recovery.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
So this is one of our units here. It's a
girl's felt all right. How many units are there? You
got four units?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
That's cool? Well compound, huh. That noise you hear is
a carpet cleaning crew getting a unit ready for another client.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Everybody's out of here five o'clock and then go, well,
you know what, No, you can leave.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
No, he also lives here in one of the units.
Nice man.
Speaker 7 (03:33):
It's better than the last place.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
I think it's better than the house.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
The house felt like really cramped and your room was
like in weird in.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
A living room. Yeah, okay, listen, doesn't cost you dying.
This is marked yes, buddy, Kyle, because this is my son, Kyle.
This is the kitchen so nasty.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Real father, real father, real son.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
You know you have a book stock and I look
at his hands on my head. I know, yes, he
did well.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
So you got you look from him?
Speaker 6 (04:05):
You look from him?
Speaker 1 (04:06):
No, my mom, I figured as much that.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
It's hard to believe. It's already been six years since
I dropped him off at rehab. He's still not his old, strong,
masured self. I don't think he ever will be, but
he's come a long way from the shaking, broken down
man I picked up from the airport in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
I'm gonna ask you guys to leave. Why we do
this interview because he needs quiet. I'm gonna do come
and yoga. What are you talking about I'm trying to
go get laid. All right, go get laid.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I don't want to interrupt that. I'll bet yeah, yeah,
all right, sounds good.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Well Sinatra, huh yeah, set the mood.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
I like it feels right that we're talking about the mafia.
Speaker 7 (04:49):
You got Sinatra in the background.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
We decided to do the interview in his room because
of the noise. It's a tight space with little but
a twin bed against the wall and a crate a
cheap lamp on it. I mean, maybe bring a chair
in here, or you can sit on the bed. It
honestly reminds me of my freshman year dorm room at
si U. All that's missing is a Bob Marley poster
tack to the wall.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
You'll talk it, I'll just sit right there or something.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
And so we begin fill me in here, what are
you doing these days?
Speaker 1 (05:17):
And where am I right now? Right at the very moment.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
I am the manager of a sober living area where
we have four apartments that we have clients and that
are far enough in their recovery, at least sixty days
of recovery, but they live under my direction and these
apartments here. Being a drug addict myself, who has been
(05:45):
sober for six years. I am working with those people
and we can hold up to six girls and ten guys,
all in separate apartments, and I run them.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
I'm in charge of that. I babysit. That's basically what
I do.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
I babysits, I drug test, I breath alze. I make
sure they're on t I make sure they're looking for work.
I make sure there's not too much idle time with them.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I try.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
What my job is is to get them ready to
go back out in the world.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
That is what I chose to do.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
We are very, very sick people, and I am a
firm believer in AA. It saved my life, while on
the other hand, drugs ruined my life. It ruined everything,
(06:45):
ruined my family, ruined my homes, ruined my businesses, ruined
everything because I was a raging addict, a raging heroin addict, believe.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
It or not, at my age.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
So I came out here to California with my son.
My son got me into treatment six years ago. I
had a couple of relapses, but they got me so
over and now, like I said, I've been sober for
six years and now I work with these people, and
that is what I do now to to thank God
(07:24):
for not let me be dead or something else what
happened to my family. So that's my gift back, that's
what I do. I'm going to help the people that
need to help the most because I know I.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Needed a man, I need it a bad So that's
what I do.
Speaker 8 (07:56):
Yeah, this is a big moment, one that I honestly
wasn't expecting. I have never in all my life seen
my dad cry.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Anybody that listen, guys, You guys got family members that
are drug addicts, alcoholics. There's someone in your family somewhere,
a grandparent and uncle and aunt that Stanetika carries down
that gene.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Maybe your kids, maybe some of you kids listening to this.
Go get help.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
You cannot control this, you cannot. It is the sniper.
It is the devil. It lays in wait for you
and it will take you out at your weakest moment.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Go get help. Save me fucking life. It saved my life,
that's for sure.
Speaker 7 (08:53):
M Yeah, does anybody does anybody around you know about
any of the stuff?
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Now?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
No one knows anything? Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
They have their they you know, they know him from Chicago.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
I know I've got a little bit of an accent.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
They hear it in my they hear words that I study,
stuff that I say, and.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
I think the snicker behind my back.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
I'm a gangster, you know, from Chicago. But they don't
know anything. I don't tell many stories. I do not share.
We do a thing in treatment in AA that's called sharing.
We share a life story, you know what got us
into treatment. But I've never shared. That's the one thing
I haven't done with AA. Share because it's not something
I really choose to share.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Starting a few months into his recovery, I would regularly
visit him. It was during these visits that he started
opening up about his past. The story here, the memory there,
but never the whole picture. It seems he's fine, finally
ready to tell me everything. Thanks for joining me on
(10:18):
Crook County. For add free listening and exclusive content, dive
into tenderfootplus dot com right there in the show notes.
Tenderfoot plus is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts,
and other podcast players. You'll unlock access to early episodes,
upcoming bonus material. The tenderfoot podcast library of over four
hundred ad free episodes as well as subscriber only specials.
(10:41):
Subscribe now at tenderfootplus dot com. I'm gonna warn you
(11:01):
this story is very complex, with a lot of characters
over several decades long. I'm gonna do that I can
to break it down into easy to digest chapters. Some
characters may come in and out of focus as the
story progresses, so I may remind you about them with
a little description or a previously heard sound bite. If
you still find yourself getting lost, well that makes me
(11:23):
a shitty storyteller. So I'm sorry. But if you do
have questions or just want to say hi, please visit
us at crookcountypodcast dot com. You can even leave me
a voicemail which I may play on a future audience
Q and a episode, so that's cool. You can also
follow us on all socials at Crook County Podcast. Okay,
(11:46):
let's jump back to the very beginning. A seventeen year
old kid named Kenny just got accidentally recruited into the
outfit for robbing a drug dealer.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
So these two come up on me. I'm sitting down. Hey,
I'm going I'm thinking of myself. Ah fuck, here we go. Here,
I'm completely unprepared, came up on me, and the bigger
guy goes. The older guy goes, is that him? And
the kid goes, Yeah, that's him. That's the guy that
(12:17):
robbed me uncle. He ran a fucking crew. So he
tells me, He goes, are you looking for a job, Well, yeah,
I'm looking for a job. I'm a fucking starving her.
That's how I got into a fucking outfit. So he
was impressed.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Oh, that reminds me. Before we dive into this, I
had a serious conversation with a criminal defense attorney about
all this. He's very worried about this story going public.
Speaker 9 (12:45):
Well, you need to be careful, no matter how much
you disapproved of what your father did, if you're gonna
have the SBI breading down your back because he's not
just a street doug. He's connected to a syndicate. If
your dad was serving life for murder, the government would
be far less interested. Please understand that if your dad
(13:06):
being alive, that means others are a lot. The information
is too recent. The nineteen eighties is yesterday, and I
really believe that it's a mistake. I would encourage you
not to do it.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
I also asked my dad to weigh in on this,
and here's what he said.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
They're all dead man. Yeah, I have to realize that
I was really young. That's why they called me kid.
Everybody was at least ten years older than me. At
least ten years older than me. And if they're not
dead of old age, they're dead from a hit, they're
dead from an overdose, or like I said, dead from
old age.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
I don't think there's anybody left. I doubt it very much.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
So after talking it through, we both agreed that, for
his own safety and mine, to give fake aliases to
everyone involved in the outfit, and to remove or obscure
any specific identifying details about people, places, and dates. I
should also know that there's no way for me to
prove any of this since most of the information was
never reported anywhere that I'm aware of. I'm going solely
(14:09):
here on my dad's word and I'll leave it at that.
So without further ado, let's meet our first character in
the outfit, the made guy who recruited my dad, Mickey Gennaro.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
He was a powerful man, good guy, businessman, well dressed,
well kept, well spoken, good looking guy. Always took time
to say hi to me, always took time to little
chat with me, just a little bit. I never saw
him do that with anybody else. Always took a couple
of minutes out to say hi to me. And I
(14:46):
like the way he behaved. He didn't act like a gangster. Okay,
he acted like a normal person. He wasn't a sociopath, narcissistic,
you know, mobster guy. You know those guys loved to
play the part, love to play the part of gangster.
I never could understand that grease ball bullshit. So but
he didn't do that, so I admired him.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Mickey was also the son of a notorious street boss
they called the Old Man.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
And he was at that time in cook Connie, the
king of the chop shops. They'd heist a car, they'd
heist a truck with cars on it and bring him
back to his shops, chopped the shit out of him,
changed the numbers and shipped them out. They shipped them
out all over the world, you know, as far as
Saudi Arabia. I mean, they were going all over the
world these cars, and it was a big, big, big
(15:34):
money maker. I only saw him a couple times, kind
of a gravelly old guy, if I can remember correctly.
It looked like a typical fucking greasy gangster was to
put real fucking grease ball, you know. But he was
a very powerful man.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Kenny spent his first year working for Mickey until he
learned the ropes.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
I was an aaron boy when I first started, a
low level, very very low level, dropping money off, collecting
gambling money. No hits yet, but you know, doing some beatings.
But I always had somebody with me, so I was
like assisting the person that was doing the heavy work.
So that's that's kind of where I learned how to
do heavy work.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
It didn't take long for Kenny to prove his worth,
so Mickey gave him a new job.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
I was so I'd dope for him on the side
and get a half the key. I'd break it up
at a scale. Some of it i'd cook up for
the free based clients, and the rest of it I
just ate bald up. And I can't remember how the
freebase sold, I really can't. And that was you smoke
that shit whatever. Stuff was insane. It was just just
(16:42):
a rush of euphoria. Would just just just just look
like a tidal wave, just knock you over. And the
problem was Now you're chasing that shit all the time
because you don't get that. After that you get that
first hit, that's it. You're not gonna find it. So
you know you're always chasing that first blast anyway, all right,
(17:05):
But he.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Wasn't supposed to do that.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
That would have been bad for me, and that would
have been very bad for him because I was just
taking an order, all right. I was just obeying orders.
But you can't do that, man, You cannot do that.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
No selling dope. This is one of the many strange
rules the outfit had for itself that I find fascinating.
Their entire enterprise is built on crime, but drugs, so
where they draw the line.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
We could not sell dope. People, We could not sell dope.
We were not allowed to sell dope. You got caught
selling dope, you were big ass fucking trouble because that
to bring heat on you. The whole thing.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
We don't want to bring any heat on any of us,
So if you're going to do something stupid like sell dope,
it's going to bring heat on you. People were coked
up all the time, so you're dealing with people that
were fucking high. Twenty four to seven on coked, so
no one's in her really right mind. You know, no
one's sober. Everybody's fucked up. And it dictated a lot
(18:01):
of things. It got a lot of people killed.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
That actually makes good sense, And of course everyone knew that,
but many guys did it anyway. The money was just
too good, and Kenny, he was happy to take a
small slice of it.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Listen, here's the deal, man, This was quick, fast money.
All right. This was not my career, and this is
not what I chose to do with my life.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
I'm seventeen years old, all right. I'm living in a backseat.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Of my car.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I'm hungry.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
I'm a survivalist, you know. And it's a job and
it's income.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
You know.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
I could start to get some security more in my life,
at least get an apartment, you know.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
So I'm taking this. I'm jumping on this.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
As I got deeper into the details of my dad's
life story, I began to wonder just how much of
this stuff is actually true. The no selling drugs thing,
for example, how do I even attempt to verify something
like this or any other inner workings of an organization
notorious for their secrecy, especially in the seventies and eighties,
when the mafia moved through the streets with near impunity.
(19:13):
I thought it would be a good idea to find
an outside perspective on the inner workings of the outfit,
a mafia expert that could weigh in when necessary throughout
this series. So I reached out to veteran crime reporter
Jeff Cohen of the Chicago Tribune. Jeff is an expert
on organized crime in Chicago and covered one of the
(19:33):
largest mafia trials in history, the infamous FBI operation Family
Secrets that almost single handily took out the entire Chicago
outfit in two thousand and seven. I sent Jeff a
few rough versions of these episodes to get him up
to speed.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
That's quite the family tale you've got.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
There, Yes, unfortunately, Yes it is. Yeah. Thankfully he agreed
to add his voice to this story. So I asked
him about the no drugs rule.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
Yeah, as crazy as that sounds, it is actually true
that most of the time, drugs was not their business
for variety of reasons. I guess I think it was
more difficult.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
For them to control.
Speaker 5 (20:14):
I think it is one of the elements that was
typically a problem. You had large amounts of money moving
between people that they couldn't necessarily keep their fingers on.
It was also a real area of heat back, especially
in the eighties when you had sort of the war
on drugs.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
It just was not a clean business for them.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
It wasn't something that they could run tightly, make sure
stayed under the radar, they could get reliable money out
of it. It was none of those things. Would it
could go sideways in a minute. You had major federal
heat on it all the time, and it was just
more trouble than it was worth, I think a lot
of times for them, even though it was big, big money.
But whorehouses, chop shops, any any kind of a legal
(20:54):
business that's along that line definitely would have been within
the outfits purview at that time. You know, whorehouses, especially
anything related to sex advice. They typically had a piece
of it across the Chicago area.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Eventually, Mickey saw a new opportunity for Kenny within the outfit,
something a little more permanent, and introduced him to a
man named Jack Erickson, a crew boss who would end
up playing a much larger role in entrenching Kenny within
the ranks.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
My boss, my crew boss, was Jack Jack Jackie Lemus Erickson.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
A great guy.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
I love Jack Man, it was I really admired him.
He was a great guy, well kept. Still a gangster,
but a well kept gangster. You know, his genes were
even creased.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
You know. He was one of those guys. Everything was
perfect on him.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
Clean, neat, nails done, manicure, pedicure.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
One of them guys. You know.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Jack became sort of a father figure to young Kenny.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Oh he was. He was a mentor. He trained me,
He trained me. He just took me under his wing
and he trained me. I was the young guy.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
I gotta remember, I was the absolute youngest guy there.
These guys had twenty years on me. You know, I
was the kid. So he just kind of took me
under his wing and trained me, took care of me,
you know, make sure I did everything good, you know,
make sure I didn't get in trouble, make sure he
had my back.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
You know, I felt safe.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
I just felt safe when I went out to do
bad work because I knew I had the the you know,
the mob behind me.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
The outfit was on my back.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
You know, I had that that always to fall back.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
So that kind of relieved a lot of the fear.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Jack also had a very important job within the outfit,
one that required a unique kind of personality and responsibility.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
Yeah, he ran the horror houses every night, just bouncing
from horror house to horrorhouse, checking on the bank, seeing
how things are going, making sure nobody was selling dope,
making sure the girls weren't too high because they were
always high, making sure the guys weren't too high because
they were always high. You know, just kind of keeping
things runnable, you know, babysitting basically, kind of like what
(23:19):
I do now for a living, babysitting a bunch of
drug addicts and alcoholics.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That's kind of what he was doing back then. So
that's that's what That's what That's what Jack did.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Jack saw a lot of potential in Kenny.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
He he trusted me. He trusted me because I didn't
steal money. I didn't do dope while I worked, I
didn't sell dope while I worked. I just did my
job and my count every night right up there, every
night for years. Man, it's hard to find an honest
guy in the fucking outfit.
Speaker 9 (23:48):
I was.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
I was an anomaly. I don't even want to say
a rarity, an anomaly.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
And so he made him an offer he couldn't refuse,
running the door at one of the brothels in Cook County.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
So for the years I spent working in the whorehouses,
the clubs, and they were scattered all over Cook County
through Page County in Kane County, and we can only
put them in the unincorporated areas because we had the
county police pretty much taken care of. We'd rent a house,
a single family home, and we'd get in there, gut
it to an extent, put about six bedrooms in there,
(24:26):
small rooms with little peop holes. They had a peep
hole in the door and a peep hole in the walls.
Not everyone could be peeped, but if we could peep them,
we peeped them. The living room would stay as a
living room, The kitchen would stay as a kitchen. We
had a front area where they came in a little
fourier area there where we would take their id look
them up in the powered catalog that we had.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
We actually gave them a fucking idea. Can you believe
that shit?
Speaker 4 (24:53):
Match the id with the pitcher, the picture with the face,
and then we'd let them in. Now, how did they
become members. They would come in I want to be
membered as club. You know, it is a guy. There's
a million people out there that want to join the
warehouses or horny bastards. Okay, the people that frequent horror
houses know where horror houses are. You don't have to
(25:15):
advertise as shit, They just know where they are. They
would come in and want to join the club. So
we would put them through a process. We would make
sure we're check their employment, to check their ID. We
even had something with County but the County Vice guys
where we would have them run something by them.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I don't know what it was.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
I can't remember, but we would run something with them
and then after we got him checked out. I didn't
do the checkout process. That wasn't my job, So I
can't really expound too much on this. So anyway, they
became members through a process that we put them through.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Pictures and verification.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
Basically, we wanted to make sure they weren't vice, the
honest vice.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
We wanted to make sure they weren't the honest vice.
How's that sound?
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Uh sounds like my dad was a bona fide pimp.
That's how it sounds, you know, you'd think, after all
this time, nothing would shock me anymore. But you would
be wrong. All right, What was it like?
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Once you got inside, a guy would come in, bring
them in, introduce them. The girls would be sitting there,
the girls that'd stand up. I'd introduce them to all
the girls by name, name Sindy. We did have drinks.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Wasn't a bar, but they would go you want to
drink and go back in the kitchen.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
They make a guy a drink, mostly his beer, beer
and wine, and then they would sit and talk to
the girls.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And it could go on anywhere from ten minutes to
two hours. They could.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Some guys just came in there and just partied with
the girls. Sat partied with them.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
We didn't mind. They were members.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
Plus, when somebody else came in, it made that person
rush a little bit because there was someone else in there.
That guy that's already in there was going to take
the girl that this new guy came in, you know,
I'm saying, So they maybe kick it up a little bit.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
They'd pick up their make their choice a little bit faster.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
So right, come in, chattered up with the girls, decide
who they like. The girl would take them back to
one of the rooms and they would negotiate a deal
so much for whatever sex they wanted. They'd seal the deal,
the girl would leave the guy in the room. The
(27:26):
girl would come out, come see me and say one
hundred dollars for blowjob and missionary sex. She would hand
me fifty have to take and then she would be
on her way.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
That was the end of the operation. That was how
it worked, very simple. Did things ever get out of control?
Oh yeah, they got.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
I can sold people come and drunk or all coked out,
but they didn't.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
They got their asses beat bad. We would make a.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Phone call and there would be four muscle showing up
within fifteen minutes, and it was just you know, they'd
be when we got them to their cars, they'd be
We'd put them in their cars and they'd.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Be half hanging, half in, half out and just counting.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
Stopped by and they knew it was a whore house there,
and but we want to keep them on property. We'd
get them out on the street in their cars, and yeah,
they didn't last long. They got they got beat pretty bad.
They got beat really bad.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Just the way.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
Who are these people just drunk assholes in members?
Speaker 10 (28:41):
No?
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Yeah, yeah, these These are members.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Yeah, these are members, or a guest of a member
or a guest of them.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Member could bring in one guest, all right, and you know,
you know, alcohol drugs turns people weird. Man, people go
stupid sometimes.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
I mean ninety percent of the time it was fine,
but that ten percent there was, you know, something would
go wrong. That's just that's just, that's just law of
average man. Something's abound to go wrong eventually. But we
jumped on there quick.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
I have to keep reminding myself. He's still only nineteen
at this point. Everybody else's age is fresh out of
high school, going to bars and trying to get laid
without a care in the world. I can tell you
I was an absolute moron at nineteen, that's a fact.
But I can only imagine three years selling drugs and
hanging out beatings at a brothel for the mafia will
(29:34):
make it grow up real fucking fast. I wonder, can
you even try to have a regular life?
Speaker 1 (29:42):
What would you do in your free time? So, I
don't know, hangout. I had friends, you know, some friends
that I'd hang.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
Out with, do normal guys stuff, you know, watch football
on Sundays.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
I was just a normal guy. It's just a normal
young guy.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
That's all go to bars with my friends, you know,
pick up.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Chicks, you know.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
He tells me he wasn't looking for a girlfriend, let
alone anything serious. But one night, as things do, all
that changed.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
I met her at a club called SLPs some other place,
and the splains I think it is sa her sitting
at the end of the bar, beautiful redhead, sexy. I
fell in love with her pretty quick, so I just
walked up to her.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Just as a matter of course of time. We just
ended up dating.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
I'm sure you've guessed it already, But that pretty little
redhead at the bar was my mother.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
I thought your mother was beautiful. I think I was
nineteen when I met her. She was twenty. Yeah, I
had listen. I hadn't work to get your mother, damn it.
It wasn't easy. She wasn't like one of the whores
like you just say, come on, let's go.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
I had to work for that. I didn't work for
your mom. That was a job. That was a job.
I was a job. Man who's worth it?
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Them?
Speaker 1 (31:11):
It was well worth it.
Speaker 6 (31:17):
Next week on Crook County.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Just look at me now and tremble.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
We would have to take bus every once in a while,
just so Cook County Cops could show that they're making
some progress here when half the motherfuckers were running their
own horse on the side out of our fucking clubs.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Crook County is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Tenderfoot
TV in association with Common Enemy. All episodes are written, produced,
and hosted by Me Kyle Tequila. Executive producers are Donald
Albright and Payne Lindsay. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set.
Main title song is called Crush by the band Starry Eyes.
(32:05):
End credit song is called Trouble, also by the band's
Starry Eyes. Sound mix by Cooper Skinner. Thank you to
Orrin Rosenbaum and the excellent team at UTA for their support,
and to my fearless attorney, Wendy Bench for her guidance.
To stay updated on all things Crook County. Follow us
on all socials at Crook County Podcast, or leave us
(32:25):
a voicemail by visiting crookcountypodcast dot com. For more podcasts
like Crook County, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app,
or visit Tenderfoot dot tv. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 10 (32:38):
The story continues next week.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Thank you for tuning in to Crook County. New episodes
are released weekly completely free, but if you're riching for more,
check out Tenderfoot Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit tenderfootplus
dot com to subscribe for early access to the full series,
plus an ad free experience.
If you're listening to a tenor foot TV.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Podcast or girls, Krook County is released weekly and brought
to you absolutely free. But if you want to hear
the whole season right now, it's available ad free on
Tenderfoot Plus. For more information, check out the show notes.
Enjoy the episode.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
You're listening to Crook County. The views and opinions expressed
in this podcast are solely those of the individuals participating
in the podcast. This episode also contains subject matter, including
graphic depictions of violence, which may not be suitable for everyone.
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Previously on Crook County.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
I got recruited into the mob when I was seventeen
years old.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
My father, Kenny, lived a secret double life for over
twenty years.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
I didn't know if he was in the mob until
maybe twenty years after you guys were born.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
He was also hiding a destructive heroin addiction.
Speaker 5 (01:13):
It's crazy to have someone that was so strong in.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
My life and it was everything.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
So he fucking budged him in the face over drugs
because he was destroyed our fucking family.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Until it almost killed him in twenty thirteen, and he
called my son Kyle and he asked Kyle for help.
No more secrets, no more lies. It's time I learned
the truth. My name is Kyle Tequila.
Speaker 6 (01:46):
Welcome to Crook County.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Yeah, listen, there are girls in and out of there
for years and years and years and years and years.
(02:12):
All right, go in there, crap a deal with the client,
come back to us, pay us our fucking portion, go
to work, get out quick, and wait for the next guy.
These girls were pure, pure business, and they made a
ton of fucking money.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Episode three, Coming clean.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
My son, Kyle, Justin and Jesse BROI.
Speaker 7 (02:47):
I'll get about Jesse going on.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Brother Justin lives with me.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Jesse's the house manager, all right, and I'm the.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
King, the King, okay, perfect, Well, where does the King live? Today?
I'm visiting my dad for the first time in a year.
He's showing me around his place of work, a group
of small apartments that serve as a halfway house for
people in recovery.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
So this is one of our units here. It's a
girl's felt all right. How many units are there? You
got four units?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
That's cool? Well compound, huh. That noise you hear is
a carpet cleaning crew getting a unit ready for another client.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Everybody's out of here five o'clock and then go, well,
you know what, No, you can leave.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
No, he also lives here in one of the units.
Nice man.
Speaker 7 (03:33):
It's better than the last place.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
I think it's better than the house.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
The house felt like really cramped and your room was
like in weird in.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
A living room. Yeah, okay, listen, doesn't cost you dying.
This is marked yes, buddy, Kyle, because this is my son, Kyle.
This is the kitchen so nasty.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Real father, real father, real son.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
You know you have a book stock and I look
at his hands on my head. I know, yes, he
did well.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
So you got you look from him?
Speaker 6 (04:05):
You look from him?
Speaker 1 (04:06):
No, my mom, I figured as much that.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
It's hard to believe. It's already been six years since
I dropped him off at rehab. He's still not his old, strong,
masured self. I don't think he ever will be, but
he's come a long way from the shaking, broken down
man I picked up from the airport in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
I'm gonna ask you guys to leave. Why we do
this interview because he needs quiet. I'm gonna do come
and yoga. What are you talking about I'm trying to
go get laid. All right, go get laid.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I don't want to interrupt that. I'll bet yeah, yeah,
all right, sounds good.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Well Sinatra, huh yeah, set the mood.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
I like it feels right that we're talking about the mafia.
Speaker 7 (04:49):
You got Sinatra in the background.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
We decided to do the interview in his room because
of the noise. It's a tight space with little but
a twin bed against the wall and a crate a
cheap lamp on it. I mean, maybe bring a chair
in here, or you can sit on the bed. It
honestly reminds me of my freshman year dorm room at
si U. All that's missing is a Bob Marley poster
tack to the wall.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
You'll talk it, I'll just sit right there or something.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
And so we begin fill me in here, what are
you doing these days?
Speaker 1 (05:17):
And where am I right now? Right at the very moment.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
I am the manager of a sober living area where
we have four apartments that we have clients and that
are far enough in their recovery, at least sixty days
of recovery, but they live under my direction and these
apartments here. Being a drug addict myself, who has been
(05:45):
sober for six years. I am working with those people
and we can hold up to six girls and ten guys,
all in separate apartments, and I run them.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
I'm in charge of that. I babysit. That's basically what
I do.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
I babysits, I drug test, I breath alze. I make
sure they're on t I make sure they're looking for work.
I make sure there's not too much idle time with them.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
I try.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
What my job is is to get them ready to
go back out in the world.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
That is what I chose to do.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
We are very, very sick people, and I am a
firm believer in AA. It saved my life, while on
the other hand, drugs ruined my life. It ruined everything,
(06:45):
ruined my family, ruined my homes, ruined my businesses, ruined
everything because I was a raging addict, a raging heroin addict, believe.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
It or not, at my age.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
So I came out here to California with my son.
My son got me into treatment six years ago. I
had a couple of relapses, but they got me so
over and now, like I said, I've been sober for
six years and now I work with these people, and
that is what I do now to to thank God
(07:24):
for not let me be dead or something else what
happened to my family. So that's my gift back, that's
what I do. I'm going to help the people that
need to help the most because I know I.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Needed a man, I need it a bad So that's
what I do.
Speaker 8 (07:56):
Yeah, this is a big moment, one that I honestly
wasn't expecting. I have never in all my life seen
my dad cry.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Anybody that listen, guys, You guys got family members that
are drug addicts, alcoholics. There's someone in your family somewhere,
a grandparent and uncle and aunt that Stanetika carries down
that gene.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Maybe your kids, maybe some of you kids listening to this.
Go get help.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
You cannot control this, you cannot. It is the sniper.
It is the devil. It lays in wait for you
and it will take you out at your weakest moment.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Go get help. Save me fucking life. It saved my life,
that's for sure.
Speaker 7 (08:53):
M Yeah, does anybody does anybody around you know about
any of the stuff?
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Now?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
No one knows anything? Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
They have their they you know, they know him from Chicago.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
I know I've got a little bit of an accent.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
They hear it in my they hear words that I study,
stuff that I say, and.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
I think the snicker behind my back.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
I'm a gangster, you know, from Chicago. But they don't
know anything. I don't tell many stories. I do not share.
We do a thing in treatment in AA that's called sharing.
We share a life story, you know what got us
into treatment. But I've never shared. That's the one thing
I haven't done with AA. Share because it's not something
I really choose to share.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Starting a few months into his recovery, I would regularly
visit him. It was during these visits that he started
opening up about his past. The story here, the memory there,
but never the whole picture. It seems he's fine, finally
ready to tell me everything. Thanks for joining me on
(10:18):
Crook County. For add free listening and exclusive content, dive
into tenderfootplus dot com right there in the show notes.
Tenderfoot plus is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts,
and other podcast players. You'll unlock access to early episodes,
upcoming bonus material. The tenderfoot podcast library of over four
hundred ad free episodes as well as subscriber only specials.
(10:41):
Subscribe now at tenderfootplus dot com. I'm gonna warn you
(11:01):
this story is very complex, with a lot of characters
over several decades long. I'm gonna do that I can
to break it down into easy to digest chapters. Some
characters may come in and out of focus as the
story progresses, so I may remind you about them with
a little description or a previously heard sound bite. If
you still find yourself getting lost, well that makes me
(11:23):
a shitty storyteller. So I'm sorry. But if you do
have questions or just want to say hi, please visit
us at crookcountypodcast dot com. You can even leave me
a voicemail which I may play on a future audience
Q and a episode, so that's cool. You can also
follow us on all socials at Crook County Podcast. Okay,
(11:46):
let's jump back to the very beginning. A seventeen year
old kid named Kenny just got accidentally recruited into the
outfit for robbing a drug dealer.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
So these two come up on me. I'm sitting down. Hey,
I'm going I'm thinking of myself. Ah fuck, here we go. Here,
I'm completely unprepared, came up on me, and the bigger
guy goes. The older guy goes, is that him? And
the kid goes, Yeah, that's him. That's the guy that
(12:17):
robbed me uncle. He ran a fucking crew. So he
tells me, He goes, are you looking for a job, Well, yeah,
I'm looking for a job. I'm a fucking starving her.
That's how I got into a fucking outfit. So he
was impressed.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Oh, that reminds me. Before we dive into this, I
had a serious conversation with a criminal defense attorney about
all this. He's very worried about this story going public.
Speaker 9 (12:45):
Well, you need to be careful, no matter how much
you disapproved of what your father did, if you're gonna
have the SBI breading down your back because he's not
just a street doug. He's connected to a syndicate. If
your dad was serving life for murder, the government would
be far less interested. Please understand that if your dad
(13:06):
being alive, that means others are a lot. The information
is too recent. The nineteen eighties is yesterday, and I
really believe that it's a mistake. I would encourage you
not to do it.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
I also asked my dad to weigh in on this,
and here's what he said.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
They're all dead man. Yeah, I have to realize that
I was really young. That's why they called me kid.
Everybody was at least ten years older than me. At
least ten years older than me. And if they're not
dead of old age, they're dead from a hit, they're
dead from an overdose, or like I said, dead from
old age.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
I don't think there's anybody left. I doubt it very much.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
So after talking it through, we both agreed that, for
his own safety and mine, to give fake aliases to
everyone involved in the outfit, and to remove or obscure
any specific identifying details about people, places, and dates. I
should also know that there's no way for me to
prove any of this since most of the information was
never reported anywhere that I'm aware of. I'm going solely
(14:09):
here on my dad's word and I'll leave it at that.
So without further ado, let's meet our first character in
the outfit, the made guy who recruited my dad, Mickey Gennaro.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
He was a powerful man, good guy, businessman, well dressed,
well kept, well spoken, good looking guy. Always took time
to say hi to me, always took time to little
chat with me, just a little bit. I never saw
him do that with anybody else. Always took a couple
of minutes out to say hi to me. And I
(14:46):
like the way he behaved. He didn't act like a gangster. Okay,
he acted like a normal person. He wasn't a sociopath, narcissistic,
you know, mobster guy. You know those guys loved to
play the part, love to play the part of gangster.
I never could understand that grease ball bullshit. So but
he didn't do that, so I admired him.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Mickey was also the son of a notorious street boss
they called the Old Man.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
And he was at that time in cook Connie, the
king of the chop shops. They'd heist a car, they'd
heist a truck with cars on it and bring him
back to his shops, chopped the shit out of him,
changed the numbers and shipped them out. They shipped them
out all over the world, you know, as far as
Saudi Arabia. I mean, they were going all over the
world these cars, and it was a big, big, big
(15:34):
money maker. I only saw him a couple times, kind
of a gravelly old guy, if I can remember correctly.
It looked like a typical fucking greasy gangster was to
put real fucking grease ball, you know. But he was
a very powerful man.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Kenny spent his first year working for Mickey until he
learned the ropes.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
I was an aaron boy when I first started, a
low level, very very low level, dropping money off, collecting
gambling money. No hits yet, but you know, doing some beatings.
But I always had somebody with me, so I was
like assisting the person that was doing the heavy work.
So that's that's kind of where I learned how to
do heavy work.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
It didn't take long for Kenny to prove his worth,
so Mickey gave him a new job.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
I was so I'd dope for him on the side
and get a half the key. I'd break it up
at a scale. Some of it i'd cook up for
the free based clients, and the rest of it I
just ate bald up. And I can't remember how the
freebase sold, I really can't. And that was you smoke
that shit whatever. Stuff was insane. It was just just
(16:42):
a rush of euphoria. Would just just just just look
like a tidal wave, just knock you over. And the
problem was Now you're chasing that shit all the time
because you don't get that. After that you get that
first hit, that's it. You're not gonna find it. So
you know you're always chasing that first blast anyway, all right,
(17:05):
But he.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Wasn't supposed to do that.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
That would have been bad for me, and that would
have been very bad for him because I was just
taking an order, all right. I was just obeying orders.
But you can't do that, man, You cannot do that.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
No selling dope. This is one of the many strange
rules the outfit had for itself that I find fascinating.
Their entire enterprise is built on crime, but drugs, so
where they draw the line.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
We could not sell dope. People, We could not sell dope.
We were not allowed to sell dope. You got caught
selling dope, you were big ass fucking trouble because that
to bring heat on you. The whole thing.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
We don't want to bring any heat on any of us,
So if you're going to do something stupid like sell dope,
it's going to bring heat on you. People were coked
up all the time, so you're dealing with people that
were fucking high. Twenty four to seven on coked, so
no one's in her really right mind. You know, no
one's sober. Everybody's fucked up. And it dictated a lot
(18:01):
of things. It got a lot of people killed.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
That actually makes good sense, And of course everyone knew that,
but many guys did it anyway. The money was just
too good, and Kenny, he was happy to take a
small slice of it.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Listen, here's the deal, man, This was quick, fast money.
All right. This was not my career, and this is
not what I chose to do with my life.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
I'm seventeen years old, all right. I'm living in a backseat.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Of my car.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I'm hungry.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
I'm a survivalist, you know. And it's a job and
it's income.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
You know.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
I could start to get some security more in my life,
at least get an apartment, you know.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
So I'm taking this. I'm jumping on this.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
As I got deeper into the details of my dad's
life story, I began to wonder just how much of
this stuff is actually true. The no selling drugs thing,
for example, how do I even attempt to verify something
like this or any other inner workings of an organization
notorious for their secrecy, especially in the seventies and eighties,
when the mafia moved through the streets with near impunity.
(19:13):
I thought it would be a good idea to find
an outside perspective on the inner workings of the outfit,
a mafia expert that could weigh in when necessary throughout
this series. So I reached out to veteran crime reporter
Jeff Cohen of the Chicago Tribune. Jeff is an expert
on organized crime in Chicago and covered one of the
(19:33):
largest mafia trials in history, the infamous FBI operation Family
Secrets that almost single handily took out the entire Chicago
outfit in two thousand and seven. I sent Jeff a
few rough versions of these episodes to get him up
to speed.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
That's quite the family tale you've got.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
There, Yes, unfortunately, Yes it is. Yeah. Thankfully he agreed
to add his voice to this story. So I asked
him about the no drugs rule.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
Yeah, as crazy as that sounds, it is actually true
that most of the time, drugs was not their business
for variety of reasons. I guess I think it was
more difficult.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
For them to control.
Speaker 5 (20:14):
I think it is one of the elements that was
typically a problem. You had large amounts of money moving
between people that they couldn't necessarily keep their fingers on.
It was also a real area of heat back, especially
in the eighties when you had sort of the war
on drugs.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
It just was not a clean business for them.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
It wasn't something that they could run tightly, make sure
stayed under the radar, they could get reliable money out
of it. It was none of those things. Would it
could go sideways in a minute. You had major federal
heat on it all the time, and it was just
more trouble than it was worth, I think a lot
of times for them, even though it was big, big money.
But whorehouses, chop shops, any any kind of a legal
(20:54):
business that's along that line definitely would have been within
the outfits purview at that time. You know, whorehouses, especially
anything related to sex advice. They typically had a piece
of it across the Chicago area.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Eventually, Mickey saw a new opportunity for Kenny within the outfit,
something a little more permanent, and introduced him to a
man named Jack Erickson, a crew boss who would end
up playing a much larger role in entrenching Kenny within
the ranks.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
My boss, my crew boss, was Jack Jack Jackie Lemus Erickson.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
A great guy.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
I love Jack Man, it was I really admired him.
He was a great guy, well kept. Still a gangster,
but a well kept gangster. You know, his genes were
even creased.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
You know. He was one of those guys. Everything was
perfect on him.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
Clean, neat, nails done, manicure, pedicure.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
One of them guys. You know.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Jack became sort of a father figure to young Kenny.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Oh he was. He was a mentor. He trained me,
He trained me. He just took me under his wing
and he trained me. I was the young guy.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
I gotta remember, I was the absolute youngest guy there.
These guys had twenty years on me. You know, I
was the kid. So he just kind of took me
under his wing and trained me, took care of me,
you know, make sure I did everything good, you know,
make sure I didn't get in trouble, make sure he
had my back.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
You know, I felt safe.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
I just felt safe when I went out to do
bad work because I knew I had the the you know,
the mob behind me.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
The outfit was on my back.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
You know, I had that that always to fall back.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
So that kind of relieved a lot of the fear.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Jack also had a very important job within the outfit,
one that required a unique kind of personality and responsibility.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
Yeah, he ran the horror houses every night, just bouncing
from horror house to horrorhouse, checking on the bank, seeing
how things are going, making sure nobody was selling dope,
making sure the girls weren't too high because they were
always high, making sure the guys weren't too high because
they were always high. You know, just kind of keeping
things runnable, you know, babysitting basically, kind of like what
(23:19):
I do now for a living, babysitting a bunch of
drug addicts and alcoholics.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That's kind of what he was doing back then. So
that's that's what That's what That's what Jack did.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Jack saw a lot of potential in Kenny.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
He he trusted me. He trusted me because I didn't
steal money. I didn't do dope while I worked, I
didn't sell dope while I worked. I just did my
job and my count every night right up there, every
night for years. Man, it's hard to find an honest
guy in the fucking outfit.
Speaker 9 (23:48):
I was.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
I was an anomaly. I don't even want to say
a rarity, an anomaly.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
And so he made him an offer he couldn't refuse,
running the door at one of the brothels in Cook County.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
So for the years I spent working in the whorehouses,
the clubs, and they were scattered all over Cook County
through Page County in Kane County, and we can only
put them in the unincorporated areas because we had the
county police pretty much taken care of. We'd rent a house,
a single family home, and we'd get in there, gut
it to an extent, put about six bedrooms in there,
(24:26):
small rooms with little peop holes. They had a peep
hole in the door and a peep hole in the walls.
Not everyone could be peeped, but if we could peep them,
we peeped them. The living room would stay as a
living room, The kitchen would stay as a kitchen. We
had a front area where they came in a little
fourier area there where we would take their id look
them up in the powered catalog that we had.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
We actually gave them a fucking idea. Can you believe
that shit?
Speaker 4 (24:53):
Match the id with the pitcher, the picture with the face,
and then we'd let them in. Now, how did they
become members. They would come in I want to be
membered as club. You know, it is a guy. There's
a million people out there that want to join the
warehouses or horny bastards. Okay, the people that frequent horror
houses know where horror houses are. You don't have to
(25:15):
advertise as shit, They just know where they are. They
would come in and want to join the club. So
we would put them through a process. We would make
sure we're check their employment, to check their ID. We
even had something with County but the County Vice guys
where we would have them run something by them.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I don't know what it was.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
I can't remember, but we would run something with them
and then after we got him checked out. I didn't
do the checkout process. That wasn't my job, So I
can't really expound too much on this. So anyway, they
became members through a process that we put them through.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Pictures and verification.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
Basically, we wanted to make sure they weren't vice, the
honest vice.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
We wanted to make sure they weren't the honest vice.
How's that sound?
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Uh sounds like my dad was a bona fide pimp.
That's how it sounds, you know, you'd think, after all
this time, nothing would shock me anymore. But you would
be wrong. All right, What was it like?
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Once you got inside, a guy would come in, bring
them in, introduce them. The girls would be sitting there,
the girls that'd stand up. I'd introduce them to all
the girls by name, name Sindy. We did have drinks.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Wasn't a bar, but they would go you want to
drink and go back in the kitchen.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
They make a guy a drink, mostly his beer, beer
and wine, and then they would sit and talk to
the girls.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And it could go on anywhere from ten minutes to
two hours. They could.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Some guys just came in there and just partied with
the girls. Sat partied with them.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
We didn't mind. They were members.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
Plus, when somebody else came in, it made that person
rush a little bit because there was someone else in there.
That guy that's already in there was going to take
the girl that this new guy came in, you know,
I'm saying, So they maybe kick it up a little bit.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
They'd pick up their make their choice a little bit faster.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
So right, come in, chattered up with the girls, decide
who they like. The girl would take them back to
one of the rooms and they would negotiate a deal
so much for whatever sex they wanted. They'd seal the deal,
the girl would leave the guy in the room. The
(27:26):
girl would come out, come see me and say one
hundred dollars for blowjob and missionary sex. She would hand
me fifty have to take and then she would be
on her way.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
That was the end of the operation. That was how
it worked, very simple. Did things ever get out of control?
Oh yeah, they got.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
I can sold people come and drunk or all coked out,
but they didn't.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
They got their asses beat bad. We would make a.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Phone call and there would be four muscle showing up
within fifteen minutes, and it was just you know, they'd
be when we got them to their cars, they'd be
We'd put them in their cars and they'd.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Be half hanging, half in, half out and just counting.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
Stopped by and they knew it was a whore house there,
and but we want to keep them on property. We'd
get them out on the street in their cars, and yeah,
they didn't last long. They got they got beat pretty bad.
They got beat really bad.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Just the way.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
Who are these people just drunk assholes in members?
Speaker 10 (28:41):
No?
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Yeah, yeah, these These are members.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Yeah, these are members, or a guest of a member
or a guest of them.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Member could bring in one guest, all right, and you know,
you know, alcohol drugs turns people weird. Man, people go
stupid sometimes.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
I mean ninety percent of the time it was fine,
but that ten percent there was, you know, something would
go wrong. That's just that's just, that's just law of
average man. Something's abound to go wrong eventually. But we
jumped on there quick.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
I have to keep reminding myself. He's still only nineteen
at this point. Everybody else's age is fresh out of
high school, going to bars and trying to get laid
without a care in the world. I can tell you
I was an absolute moron at nineteen, that's a fact.
But I can only imagine three years selling drugs and
hanging out beatings at a brothel for the mafia will
(29:34):
make it grow up real fucking fast. I wonder, can
you even try to have a regular life?
Speaker 1 (29:42):
What would you do in your free time? So, I
don't know, hangout. I had friends, you know, some friends
that I'd hang.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
Out with, do normal guys stuff, you know, watch football
on Sundays.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
I was just a normal guy. It's just a normal
young guy.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
That's all go to bars with my friends, you know,
pick up.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Chicks, you know.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
He tells me he wasn't looking for a girlfriend, let
alone anything serious. But one night, as things do, all
that changed.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
I met her at a club called SLPs some other place,
and the splains I think it is sa her sitting
at the end of the bar, beautiful redhead, sexy. I
fell in love with her pretty quick, so I just
walked up to her.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Just as a matter of course of time. We just
ended up dating.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
I'm sure you've guessed it already, But that pretty little
redhead at the bar was my mother.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
I thought your mother was beautiful. I think I was
nineteen when I met her. She was twenty. Yeah, I
had listen. I hadn't work to get your mother, damn it.
It wasn't easy. She wasn't like one of the whores
like you just say, come on, let's go.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
I had to work for that. I didn't work for
your mom. That was a job. That was a job.
I was a job. Man who's worth it?
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Them?
Speaker 1 (31:11):
It was well worth it.
Speaker 6 (31:17):
Next week on Crook County.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Just look at me now and tremble.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
We would have to take bus every once in a while,
just so Cook County Cops could show that they're making
some progress here when half the motherfuckers were running their
own horse on the side out of our fucking clubs.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Crook County is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Tenderfoot
TV in association with Common Enemy. All episodes are written, produced,
and hosted by Me Kyle Tequila. Executive producers are Donald
Albright and Payne Lindsay. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set.
Main title song is called Crush by the band Starry Eyes.
(32:05):
End credit song is called Trouble, also by the band's
Starry Eyes. Sound mix by Cooper Skinner. Thank you to
Orrin Rosenbaum and the excellent team at UTA for their support,
and to my fearless attorney, Wendy Bench for her guidance.
To stay updated on all things Crook County. Follow us
on all socials at Crook County Podcast, or leave us
(32:25):
a voicemail by visiting crookcountypodcast dot com. For more podcasts
like Crook County, search Tenderfoot TV on your favorite podcast app,
or visit Tenderfoot dot tv. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 10 (32:38):
The story continues next week.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Thank you for tuning in to Crook County. New episodes
are released weekly completely free, but if you're riching for more,
check out Tenderfoot Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit tenderfootplus
dot com to subscribe for early access to the full series,
plus an ad free experience.
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.