Elie Honig:
Before we start, just a heads up. As you might expect, there’s some violence and adult language in here, so if you got kids around, you may want to throw on some headphones first. Thanks. From CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network, I’m Ellie Honig and this is Up Against The Mob. One of the most important moments of any criminal trial is the defense attorney’s cross examination of the cooperating witness. Now, things often look bleak for the defendant at that moment. The cooperator has just spent hours, sometimes even days, answering questions from the prosecutor about his own life of crime show and also the defendant’s life of crime. If you simply stopped every criminal trial right at this moment, 99% would result in conviction. When the defense lawyer stands up to start his cross examination, he’s got a big job, chip away at the cooperator, show the jury he’s a horrible guy, a liar, a scumbag not to be liked or believed or even acknowledged.
There’s this one fairly standard line of cross-examination that some defense lawyers like to start with. “How many times have you met with the prosecution team to prepare for this trial?” The defense lawyer asks. “I don’t know, 10, 15,” the response will usually come from the cooperator. “10 or 15,” the defense lawyer will repeat incredulously as if he’s shocked to learn that prosecutors prepare witnesses for trial. “How long were each of these 10 to 15 sessions with the prosecutor?” The defense lawyer will ask his ire slowly rising. “Usually, most of the day, say six or eight hours each.” “Six to eight hours each!” The defense lawyer will shout, “Meaning you spent about 100 hours working with the prosecutor to get ready for your testimony?”
“Yep. It sounds about right,” the properly prepared cooperator will testify. By the way, we’d always prepare cooperators for exactly this line of cross examination. Then the defense lawyer goes in for the contrast making kill. “You’ve spent 100 hours with the prosecutor, but you and me, Mr. Cooperator, we’ve never even met until right now. Isn’t that so?” Usually the cooperator shrugs his shoulders and says, “I guess not.” “Defense point made. You’ve spent a ton of time working with the prosecutor, but you and I are total strangers.” Fairly of effective opening of a cross examination, unless it goes awry, which I only saw happen one time.
In one of my trials, the defense lawyer was, I won’t say a mobster himself, he wasn’t Italian, so he could never be made, but let’s just say he was a bit too close with some of the guys he shouldn’t had been hanging out with. He seemed to relish the mob lifestyle and want to be part of it himself even in some small way. Now, the cooperator had just spent days telling the jury about how many crimes he committed with the defendant, often coordinated from their main hangout, a social club in New York City.
These are basically storefronts where they hung out and committed crimes or planned crimes and they called this one, simply the club. Mobsters and wannabes of all types would filter in and out of the club looking to be part of the action. This defense lawyer starts in with the usual opening of his cross-examination of the cooperator. “How long have you spent meeting with prosecutors? How many days? How many hours?” And the rest. The defense lawyer gets all the usual answers. “Many days, many hours.” Then the defense lawyer in this one case goes in for the kill. “You and me, Mr. Cooperator, we’ve never met. Have we?”
The jurors turned their heads towards the cooperator. Now, usually this is when the cooperator simply says, “Nope, never met you before.” But in this one case, the cooperator looked puzzled. He made a face that I can only describe as a, what? Are you kidding me? Face at the defense lawyer. Then the cooperator says to the defense lawyer right in front of the jury, “No, I’ve seen you hanging out at the club a bunch of times.” If there was a live audience there, it would’ve reacted like when Michael Jordan used to dunk over some seven foot stiff. “Oh, it couldn’t possibly have gone worse for the defense lawyer.” Not only did the jurors laugh with the cooperator and at the defense lawyer, but now the jurors all knew the truth that the lawyer himself was a bit of a mafia wannabe. Don’t get me wrong. Yeah. That one lawyer was a bit of a buffoon and that one moment backfired on him badly.
But for the most part, defense lawyers are fantastic beyond description at their jobs. Many are genius at finding the cracks, exploiting the holes and challenging assumptions. I’ve seen defense lawyers pull off brilliant cross-examinations, expose witnesses who had once seemed credible as highly questionable, pull out acquittals or hung juries where I never thought they could, but I’ve also seen these guys make grievous mistakes come up flat, drop the ball. Defense lawyering is like any other profession, I guess. You’ve got your superstars and you’ve got your tomato cans and everything in between. Notice I didn’t say mob lawyers. That’s because most guys hate it when you use that phrase. They’ll take offense. Believe me, I’ve seen it. “I’m not a mob lawyer,” they’ll protest. “I’m a defense attorney.”
“Okay. You might respond, but you do represent a lot of mobsters, which kind of makes you a mob lawyer.” Trust me, I’ve had these exchanges. They don’t end well. Call them what you want, but I can call them a mile away. Whenever I was getting ready to do a take down, a large number of arrests all at once, 15 or 20 or 25 defendants, I’d always joke with my case partners and the FBI agents that I’d be able to predict exactly which lawyers we’d be seeing in court the next day at the arraignments. It never failed. New indictment, new slate of mobster defendants, same old roster of tried and true mob lawyers.
Elie Honig:
Our guest today is one of the best lawyers I ever dealt with. Murray Richman is a legend in New York legal circles. He has practiced for over 50 years, yes, 50 years and he is still going strong today. Murray has seen it all. He has handled 1000s of cases, 100s of criminal trials. He has represented celebrities, including Jay-Z, DMX, Ja rule, Lil Wayne. Over the years, Murray has represented mobsters from all five families at every level, bosses on down the line. Murray and I had several cases against each other. Me as prosecutor, him as defense lawyer, including a murder trial, where I prosecuted and Murray defended the acting boss of the Genovese family. I’ll leave you in suspense for now about how that one came out.
Elie Honig:
Murray himself even faced criminal charges, United States versus Murray Richman, many years ago and went to trial. I’ll leave you guessing about how that one ended too. If you’ve ever seen the great TV show, Better Call Saul, well, get ready to meet the real life version, Don’t Worry Murray. Murray Richman, welcome. Thank you for joining me today.
Murray Richman:
My pleasure, Elie.
Elie Honig:
Let me start with this because there’s varying opinions out there in the world and on the internet, the TV show, Better Call Saul. Is that show actually based specifically on you and you’ve been known as Don’t Worry Murray or is it just a coincidence?
Murray Richman:
It’s not based upon me per se. I believe that there’s certain episodes that may have some suggestion of that effect. The name Don’t Worry Murray existed long before Better Call Saul.
Elie Honig:
Absolutely. That I can vouch for.
Murray Richman:
It’s been existence in over 56 years.
Elie Honig:
Who gave you that? Who came up with that name for you, Don’t Worry Murray?
Murray Richman:
I got to tell you. I got a half a dozen guys, wise guys mostly, who say that they deserve the credit for that. Recently, Evelyn and I were down in Florida and we were having dinner with one of those guys and he said, “I gave you that name.” I said, “No, you didn’t Vinny boy, you didn’t give me that name.” He said, “No, I gave you that name.” I said, “You and a half a dozen, other wise guys.”
Elie Honig:
On that note, you talk about wise guys, do you have any problem with being referred to as a “mob lawyer?”
Murray Richman:
I think it’s a misnomer at this point. I’ve gotten that name because there’s a period of time that I represented all the various composed families that exist, but it’s not exclusive. It’s not only that kind of work. I’ve represented many, many people. I represent persons in all ethnic the groups. They call me a mob lawyer only because it sounds better than anything else.
Elie Honig:
You grew up in the Bronx in the ’40s and you’ve talked about what it was like growing up in that neighborhood. Can you describe your neighborhood sort of in terms of the ethnic and racial mix and how this led to you going down the road of law?
Murray Richman:
I don’t want you to perceive that the Bronx at that time was a massive slum. It was not. I grew up in a place called Crotona Park. I lived opposite a park. It’s supposed to be at this time, one of the highest crime rate areas in the city of New York. At that time, it was a beautiful place. It was a series of apartment buildings. We had friends in the apartment building, all five stories. There were no elevators by the way. If you had elevators, you were rich. In fact, when I first got married to be quite candid with you, my first building was a building with an elevator and I thought I hit the big time.
Elie Honig:
You grew up as the middle of three brothers, you said, and spent your days in the streets.
Murray Richman:
Well, look, you had nothing else. You had a two-bedroom apartment where three brothers lived in one room and your mother and father lived in the other room. My father was a house painter, immigrant status. My mother was an immigrant. My father didn’t become a citizen till 1965. He was a hardworking guy. During the second world war, not withstanding the fact that he was Jewish, he was still an enemy alien because he was born in Romania and Romania was a foreign country working on the side of Germany. We were not a family that had. None of the people had anything going for them. It was ethically-mixed neighborhood. There was a lot of Jewish kids, there was Irish kids, a lot of Italian kids, African-American kids, a lot, a great number of Puerto Rican kids and we all hung out together. It was quite common.
Murray Richman:
That’s what led me into working in the streets because initially, I have a degree in social work as well. I became a social worker and working with the youth board. In 1958, I joined the youth board. In ’59, I joined the Youth Council Bureau of the district attorney’s office, working in the courts with young kids who got jammed up. I went to law school right after that because my partner in the youth council bureau was a guy named Joe Gallibba, who went on to become a state Senator. And so, as a result, we both went to law school at the same time and we studied for the bar. That’s how I became an attorney. I’m in the court system 61 years.
Elie Honig:
Where did you go to law school and when did you graduate?
Murray Richman:
1964, New York Law School. It was so long ago, they called it New Amsterdam Law School.
Elie Honig:
Oh, is that right?
Murray Richman:
No, I just made that up.
Elie Honig:
Oh, okay. Oh, I feel stupid for falling for that. Good one though. Your first law practice was physically where?
Murray Richman:
In the back of a travel agency in the South Bronx on Wilkins Avenue, which no longer exists. It was literally in back of a travel agency.
Elie Honig:
You’ve said before that you kept a bottle of scotch on your desk. Why was that?
Murray Richman:
It was literally frontier law.
Elie Honig:
What do you mean by that?
Murray Richman:
You always crashed down for a living. If you made $100, you made a score. This is not one of those law schools, if you graduated and went to a firm and you did nothing but looked like you were doing something and billed by the hour. Remember that, in those days, they didn’t hire Jewish guys into the firms. I graduated second in my class and didn’t even get an offer. And so, I went out on my own, which is fine with me, the day after I was admitted to the bar, I opened up my office.
Elie Honig:
Where would you go? I mean, how would you actually hustle up cases for yourself?
Murray Richman:
I totally enjoy that. It was an adventure. It was terrific. At first, you had to get comfortable with what you were doing. I would take anything at the time, a ceiling falling in, a L & T case, a slandereutenant, a negligence case of any kind and small criminal case. But I knew I was always interested in crime, which I had spent all those years in the criminal courts as a social worker, watching lawyers try their cases, getting the feel for it. But then I was bouncing. I would go to bars, restaurants, clubs and it became the thing to do. On a Friday night, I’d go bouncing from one club to another and I’d pick up a case here and a case there and before you know it, I was a lawyer for all the guys in the South Bronx, the North Bronx and then in Manhattan and in West Chester. I built it.
Elie Honig:
You would pick up cases from bars, clubs, pool rooms, that kind of thing.
Murray Richman:
Oh yeah. One of the good ways you meet these people, you get around. You’re walking around, you meet the guys, the numbers runners, the small time bookmakers and that’s where you cut your i teeth on. There, there was a regular income. Every day, somebody’s getting pinched for book making. Every day, somebody’s getting pinched for numbers. You know what numbers is? Mutual resource policy play based upon the race horse at a particular track usually higher rear. I tell you this, because I recently cross-examined an FBI, supposing expert on gambling and this was a case just this past year.
Murray Richman:
He testified and he was supposed to be the expert. I questioned him about how he became an expert. He says, well, he’d been doing this for 40 years or 30 years, whatever how long he was doing it. He was saying that he knows all the methods by which people gamble. I said, then you must know what a mutual resource policy play is. He said, “Oh yes, policy.” I said, “How do you get the handle?” He said, “You get it from the newspapers.” I said, “Yeah, well, how is it determined?”
Elie Honig:
Oh, can I answer that Murray? I think, I know.
Murray Richman:
Go right ahead.
Elie Honig:
It’s like the last three numbers of the payout or something.
Murray Richman:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). You’re wrong.
Elie Honig:
Oh, all right, go ahead. Set me straight.
Murray Richman:
Okay. Okay. It’s not the last three numbers per se. You remember the numbers are determined individually. The first number comes out at approximately one o’clock in the afternoon, because that takes the first, second and third race. You take the handle and the total from the first, second and third race, and the last number of the three numbers you mentioned, it becomes the first number of the day that’s called a bleeder. Then, subsequently, the second number comes out at four o’clock in the afternoon, and that comes out and that’s also a bleeder, so you can bet on two numbers rather than three. Generally speaking, there’s three numbers. Subsequently, when the last number comes out shortly thereafter, then you have the number for the day, but they’re not necessarily coordinated from the newspapers alone, but you can divest it from the newspapers. The expert didn’t know that and the judge found them not to be an expert.
Elie Honig:
Wow. Oh, you got them just decommissioned right there as an expert.
Murray Richman:
Right there on the spot.
Elie Honig:
I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen, but next time the government needs an expert on gambling, I guess maybe you’d be available to testify.
Murray Richman:
I don’t think I’d be available for the government.
Elie Honig:
No, I don’t think that would work. But George Rossy was your first case sort of with a big time [crosstalk 00:15:31].
Murray Richman:
Major, major.
Elie Honig:
Yeah. Tell us about that case.
Murray Richman:
George Rossy, he was a titular owner of a bar and the nightclub called the Robin Hoy. Robin Hoy was a bar and restaurant with a Chinese motif and business wasn’t good. Apparently, there was a connection between the persons of, say, organized crime and George Rossy was arrested walking out of the establishment with certain gasoline cans and the place on fire.
Elie Honig:
Okay. Who was the place affiliated with? What family?
Murray Richman:
Allegedly, at that particular point, it was Lucchese family. In fact, that’s where I had met Carmine Tramunti. Carmine Tramunti was the alleged boss of that family all back in the early ’70s. I kind of liked him a lot. Terrific guy, terrific guy. I mean it.
Elie Honig:
Carmine Tramunti boss of Lucchese family, you’re going on record saying he was a terrific guy.
Murray Richman:
I’m going to say that I got some lovely letters from him from jail. He died in jail by the way.
Elie Honig:
Okay.
Murray Richman:
We tried the case, the arson case, and we got an acquittal.
Elie Honig:
How did you beat this case if George Rossy is caught walking out of a burning building holding gas cans?
Murray Richman:
I don’t want to make it seem as simple as that. It wasn’t where he was walking out and police snagged him as he was leaving. He was walking out of the building and there was gas cans in his car. The police stopped him and they said that there’s a direct connection. But again, here we have expert witnesses as being the cause of the entire problem. They had a fire marshal who allegedly said that this was caused with an accelerant and the basis of how he found it, be caused by his smell. By what they call alligatoring, when you have a fire caused where accelerate is burned, it’s not the accelerate itself that burns, but the fumes, which causes an unusual edge along the fire markings.
Murray Richman:
But they were unable to determine whether or not it was an accelerate of gasoline or anything else. Subsequently, we were able to establish from another expert that it was a fire that could have been caused by an electrical short and absented the direct connection between the cause of the fire and the person involved, charged with the fire and there was no basis to show that George Rossy was benefiting in any way. The jury found him not guilty.
Elie Honig:
You won this mob case essentially by getting the better of the technical experts?
Murray Richman:
Yeah. An interesting aspect of that, that’s where we hit the jackpot. That night, it was a jury that came in at 10 o’clock on a Friday. Those days we worked late. My office was waiting for their verdict and then as soon as the verdict came in, we called, next thing I knew I got a call from Tramunti and some other people involved and we were out for the evening. We went bouncing.
Elie Honig:
You went out that night with the boss of the Lucchese family to celebrate the not guilty verdict.
Murray Richman:
It was a great feeling. Great. You’re on top of the world. I’m a young man starting out, literally starting out my practice, maybe five years or six years into it and you hit the jackpot, and you hit the jackpot because everybody saw you with him and you walked into a, a packed club. We went into a place called the Golden Hour. That was a place that existed up in the Bronx. There was literally 400 people there. We walked in and as we walked in, the band that was on top of the bar played the theme from the Godfather. It was ironic. It was the very year that the Godfather had come out.
Murray Richman:
There I was and it’s a very heady response. You get fully yourself. Look, a lot of this is ego. You know that as well as I do. You can’t get up in front of a jury and believe that what you’re telling them and convince them that you are doing something without having some degree of knowledge as to what you’re doing and feeling that you can convince them.
Elie Honig:
I will not disagree with you on that.
Murray Richman:
In terms of juries, nobody can tell you. We tried a case together, you and I?
Elie Honig:
Yes.
Murray Richman:
I told you this then and I’ll tell you this now. The best summation I have ever seen by a prosecutor was you. That was one of the reasons I agreed to do this with you because of my respect for you. I didn’t expect it out of you. I thought you’re just not a nice guy, young US attorney who’s going to bullshit to have the way through. You got up there and kicked us and that was impressive. I told you that. I said that. I even turned to your father who was sitting in the audience. I said, “That’s one God about the words I used.” I told him how well I felt about your summation. That’s why I’m here.
Elie Honig:
Murray. Thank. You know that means so much to me and now we’ve set it on the record and that’ll go on my resume and maybe my tombstone someday, that you’ve given me that.
Murray Richman:
But it’s true. I tell you, Elie, I’ve tried over 400 jury trials to date and I’m not sure I want to try anymore to be quite candid with you. But the fact of the matter is, and I’ve seen a lot of prosecutors, some very impressive guys, some guys who think they’re very impressive, some guys who become mayors in our city of New York. For example, you know who I’m talking about?
Elie Honig:
Hypothetically speaking, yeah, I know of course, Rudy Giuliani, yep.
Murray Richman:
Could not shine your shoes on that one.
Elie Honig:
Wow. I am humbled. Thank you for that, Murray. That is, great-
Murray Richman:
Don’t be too humbled. Don’t get crazy about this.
Elie Honig:
I know. I want to talk a bit about that case in a bit, but first, there’s a fascinating chapter in your career where you, Murray Richman, got indicted and tried by the FEDS in the late 1970s. Tell us about it.
Murray Richman:
- The trial started January 10th, 1978 and completed February 9th, four weeks on trial.
Elie Honig:
Who charged you and what was the charge?
Murray Richman:
Southern District of New York.
Elie Honig:
Okay.
Murray Richman:
Who charged me, I, along with four other people. One of them state Senator Joseph Gallibba, the person I mentioned earlier. Another person who subsequently became a state Senator Efrain Gonzales and others and we went through a very difficult time. The charge, it was really based on a windfall profit. We had purchased a piece of property from the Hebrew Home for the Aged and here it comes in with the lack of street smarts and the US attorney’s office held them to a bad situation. They didn’t even understand what the closing was all about and they didn’t understand the tax consequences.
Murray Richman:
I bought it and allegedly sold it the same day. The fact is, I actually went into the contract nine months before, held the property to closing because there’s a window of opportunity in the state tax law between January 25th and March 12th, that you can have a non-taxable transfer from one charitable organization to another without taking tax consequences. That’s exactly what they did, but it looked like it was a transfer the same day. But it took nine months in doing it and they didn’t grasp it, but they were more interested in taking me down and taking a couple of state senators down and they didn’t do their homework and it was a sloppy.
Elie Honig:
How did that feel to see an indictment? I mean, you’ve seen thousands upon thousands of indictments, but United States versus your name versus Murray Richman, what did that feel like for you?
Murray Richman:
It was one of the most traumatic experiences one can imagine. There could be nothing worse. It was literally the United States of America versus me. It was frightening and it was devastating and I stayed awake many a night worrying what will happen to my family because one did not necessarily perceive that you’d get an acquittal.
Elie Honig:
Did you represent yourself in that case?
Murray Richman:
Well, I didn’t intend to do that. I had two attorneys, one of whom literally didn’t show up and the second was hired for the purpose of giving me background on the law.
Elie Honig:
You needed that.
Murray Richman:
I did. To be honest with you, the nicest and the nuance of the federal law, you need somebody who’s an expert in that area. In that case, I had Avy Anolik, a very good lawyer and a very good friend. He’s gone now. But I did a lot of the examination myself and I testified. I testified for two days, 12 hours.
Elie Honig:
Wow. Who did your closing argument? Did you do that yourself?
Murray Richman:
I did.
Elie Honig:
Oh my goodness. You stood up in front of the jury and said, “Here’s why I am not guilty.”
Murray Richman:
Yeah and that was it.
Elie Honig:
Let me ask you this. During your trial, the moment when a verdict comes in, as a lawyer and I’ve been through this many times, you’ve been through it hundreds of times. I mean, that is a scary moment for the lawyers, forget about for the actual person, I mean, for the person, the defendant, who’s about to be judged guilty or not guilty, I think I would pass out. I mean, what was that moment like for you when they said, “In the case of United States versus Murray Richman, foreperson of the jury, how do you find?”
Murray Richman:
You do feel like passing out? The lightheadedness you feel is almost you’re holding on, literally holding on to the table in front of you, hoping you don’t embarrass yourself.
Elie Honig:
How did that case come out?
Murray Richman:
Acquitted. Everybody was acquitted. You don’t get acquittals to the Southern district. Do you know that?
Elie Honig:
No. That is very rare to have a not guilty verdict. Murray, I want to talk a little tactics with you, courtroom tactics, because God knows you’ve had more experience than anybody. Let me talk a little bit with you about jury appeal. Because one of, I think, the gifts that you have is the ability to connect with the jury. I’ve seen a lot of lawyers-
Murray Richman:
I was going to tell you. I was going to tell you just about that now, in terms of selection of a jury. Look, it’s a romance. There’s no question. You’re charming the jury. You’re talking to the jury. You’re spending time with them. You’re seducing them in every word and while that jury is your jury, you love them. You watch for them. You see which juror has a cough and you ask the court officer to get them a drink. Whatever the case may be, you’re on top of that jury. Once the trial is over, you walk out of the case, the jury gets hit by a bus, I wouldn’t stop.
Elie Honig:
It’s so true. I mean, you used to be like, “I was walking in the courtroom today and I saw one of the jurors get off the elevator. Oh, what was she doing? What did she… ?” Right. You’re obsessed with the jurors while you’re on trial. As soon as they run to the verdict, you’re like, “God, go home.”
Murray Richman:
Yeah. It’s real, but you have to watch. What do you look for? You want the juries to like you. You are on trial. That’s the one thing I learned, when I myself was on trial. You’re on trial in each and every one of the cases. Many times the juror sees you in the role of the defendant. They’re going to give that result to you. Sometimes you have a defendant that’s so unlikable that you feel like beating him down with a stick and he may not even be guilty and his very presence will ensure that he will be convicted.
Elie Honig:
You’re right. I mean, the jury typically will not hear the defendant’s voice, but they will hear your voice throughout the trial. Talk to us a bit about your use of humor with juries because I know that is a technique that you and some other attorneys use very effectively. Prosecutors are taught, you’re not there to make anyone laugh, but the defense lawyers have a different role.
Murray Richman:
A laughing jury is acquitting jury. They like you, they’re going to laugh. I use humor a lot. For example, in the West Chester Premier Theater case, you may have seen that one. I tried it in the Southern District of New York, the judge, it was Bob Sweet, wonderful judge. He used to be deputy mayor under Lindsey. There was 11 defendants on that case. It was a big case. It was Warner Communications and the mob. The West Chester Community Theater was a theater in white, I think it’s on route 119 where they used to have top notch entertainment and they have Sinatra and, and Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. and the mob would set up chairs and both the mob and Warner Brothers were skimming money off the top.
Murray Richman:
I looked at my client. My client was tough guy, Mikey Coco. I said, “How do I make him different? I’m going to get lost in this shuffle over here. I have 11 defendants.” You couldn’t tell the defendants, the wise guys from the business guys. The Warner people looked just like the wise guys. They all had nice sharkskin suits that they all are mixing up. I said, “How am I going to make my guy different?” I put him in a farmer gray overalls and a flannel shirt and he sat there for nine weeks on trial. He slept throughout the whole trial and I didn’t even bother questioning a single witness. I read my book. When the judge went down the line, he said, “Counsel, any questions Mr. Jones, Mr. Richmond?” I would say, “No questions.” About six and a half, seven weeks into the trial, I couldn’t sit anymore. My backside was hurting and there was a witness that had nothing to do with my client.
Murray Richman:
By the way, I questioned every witness before they went on by talking them in the hallway, which the other lawyers didn’t do. I went out in the hallway to chat and talk and find out what he was going to say about my client. I went out, talked to this witness. He didn’t even know my client. The judge came down, “Mr. Richmond, any questions?” I stood up and says, “Yes, your honor.” He was shocked. It was a stunning thing. I walked up to the podium slowly and I said, “Mr. Witness, do you know my client?” Whisper. One of the jurors almost on cue said, “Counselor, can you speak up?” I said, “I don’t want to wake my client.” And broke out in laughter. My client slept throughout the whole thing. The judge looked at it. He had to take a recess.
Murray Richman:
When they came back, my client was still sleepy. The jury started to laugh again. He declared the end of the day’s work and that was the end of that. The jury came back guilty on everybody-
Elie Honig:
Except Mikey Coco.
Murray Richman:
My client was acquitted. He walked.
Elie Honig:
Wow.
Murray Richman:
That’s matter of record. He walked. That was a big case. It was one of the biggest cases we’ve ever had in the Southern District of New York, that involved Warner Communications, that involved members of the Gambino family, that involved all kinds of groups. It also gave me the opportunity to meet Frank Sinatra.
Elie Honig:
Oh, tell us about that.
Murray Richman:
Well, four of us, four of the lawyers, wanted to meet Sinatra. We just wanted to meet him. We said, “We may use him as a witness.” One of the defendants on the case was a guy named Louis Polseli. He was called Louis Dome. We called him Louis dome because he was bald and he had a big dome. Louis Dome arranged the meeting.
Murray Richman:
When Sinatra was in town, we went to Radio City Musical the four of us and we met him in the back. We would question him and chat with him and then he’d say, “You guys got tickets for the show?” We said, “No, Frank.” What happened? He set up four chairs in the back, which is skimming so that we could see the show. We saw the show and after the show he says, “Well, do you have plans? I said, “I don’t know, Frank. What do you want?” We all went to dinner with him to Louis Dome’s place, which was separate tables at 25th and 3rd and we hung out till three, four o’clock in the morning with him. He was terrific with us, wonderful.
Elie Honig:
Wait, did you list Frank Sinatra on your witness list?
Murray Richman:
Nah, it was just nonsense.
Elie Honig:
Okay. I was going to say-
Murray Richman:
We just wanted to use that as a basis.
Elie Honig:
I was trying to imagine getting a witness list that says Frank Sinatra on it as a prosecutor, but yeah. Okay. Let me ask you this Murray, after all these years and all these cases, do you still get butterflies in your stomach when you’re about to talk to a jury, when you’re in that moment of truth?
Murray Richman:
Absolutely. Before the case starts, you doubt yourself, “Can I do this case?” And as soon as you get up there and open your mouth, you’re running, you’re there. It’s no longer frightening anymore. You’ve got control. You said, “How do you select a jury?” You become a juror. When I talk to the state court selecting a jury, I get as next to the jury box as I can. I lead into the jury box. I step across the threshold. With a step into the jury box, I rest my leg to show that I am part of them. I’ll tell them stories, I’ll tell them jokes or I’ll recite the Bible quotations. I’ll do anything. Bible’s always good to go and there’s always some believers there. It works. It works and it’s a great story. It’s fun. I’ve described trying a case, especially when it goes successfully as the most fun you can have with your clothes on.
Elie Honig:
I guess I’ll sign on to that. But it’s also, as I think you talked about, Murray, it’s a grind. Right? I mean it is stressful, and difficult and that moment when you’re speaking to the jury is really just sort of the culmination of a lot of grunt work that goes into it.
Murray Richman:
That’s the high. For example, my openings and summations, I write out the entire summation. I don’t use it, but it helps speak. In the night before the summation, I get up two o’clock in the morning and work through to five, writing out, from ladies and gentlemen to thank you. When I get up before them, I don’t even use a note like yourself. That’s the way to do it. Tell me, is there any heavier moment, higher moment than you are when you’re addressing the jury? You’re flying. You don’t need drugs. I’ve never used a drug in my life. Why do I need a drug when I can get in front of a jury?
Elie Honig:
Completely agree with that. It is a rush, a high, like you’ve never felt. I know exactly what you’re talking about. By the way, speaking of preparation techniques, you once gave me a great one that I use whenever I can, which is, you told me that you like to sing if you’re in your car driving to a court event, to a trial and sing to loosen up your voice, but to loosen up sort of your spirit as well.
Murray Richman:
Oh yeah. My favorite two songs is a song done by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers called I’m a Criminal Defoe, That’s What I Do, is one of my songs.
Elie Honig:
That’s a song?
Murray Richman:
Yeah, it is.
Elie Honig:
Okay. Can you sing it?
Murray Richman:
Nah, I can’t.
Elie Honig:
All right.
Murray Richman:
I’m a criminal lawyer. That’s what I do. It’s it talks about a guy who’s walking to court with his young client in a drug case. Then I also sing, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? Which is one of my favorite songs. I sung it in my daughter’s engagement party of years ago. But I do that to loosen up my voice, get myself relaxed, work myself into a fit. I have a driver and my driver used to be one of the four cheers in the singing group, so he gives me background sounds.
Elie Honig:
He harmonizes for you.
Murray Richman:
Yeah, he does. He does.
Elie Honig:
Wow. Well, so you had a distinct advantage over me there because you’re in the privacy of a car with apparently a professional singer to help you. The problem-
Murray Richman:
No. No. I’m the professional singer. He’s just background.
Elie Honig:
He’s your background singer. But the problem for me was, I took the path into the city and then I had to walk through Manhattan. So, if I was belting out a song, I think I would’ve turned some heads, but I do love that piece of advice and anyone out there who’s in a speaking job should follow Murray’s advice and just sing a little bit before you get out there.
Murray Richman:
You’ve got to be relaxed. The reality is, let me tell you another story. I have a case in front of Bronx Supreme Court. I have six defendants, I have the lead defendant and it’s a cock fighting case, a bunch of Dominicans. I think the prosecution wants to go to trial and they have a good case and cock fighting is a felony and it’s moral turpitude. They’d all be thrown out of the country if we don’t get a misdemeanor. How am I going to force a misdemeanor? I really was toying with this. That weekend, I went shopping with my wife at the time and there was a three-foot cock, literally.
Elie Honig:
A rooster.
Murray Richman:
A rooster.
Elie Honig:
Yeah.
Murray Richman:
A rooster. Yeah. It folded up, it was just beautiful. It cost me $35. I bought it and I walked into court the following Monday and with my trial bag ready. This was a big courtroom. It was like all purpose part. There was 200 people sitting in the audience. They call my case. I step up with my brother lawyers and I open my bag and I put the cock on the top of the table. Judge looks at me, “What’s that?” I says, “Judge, that’s my cock and I need my cock in court.” He looks at me and he says, “What?” I says, “Judge, that’s my cock.” He waves over to the prosecutor, “Bring it to the prosecutor.” Or he says, “Come on, come up. Come up. Give Richman whatever fuck he wants. Just give it to him. I’m not going to spend six weeks listening to his cock.”
Elie Honig:
Listening to his cock humor. More good point.
Murray Richman:
I got my misdemeanor, walked out of the courtroom and that was the end of that.
Elie Honig:
Right. Well, hey, whatever you got to do. Right?
Murray Richman:
Yeah. That’s a true story by the way, 100%.
Elie Honig:
Listen, Murray.
Murray Richman:
I wish this is a visual. I would bring the perpetrator here.
Elie Honig:
What happened with the with the rooster? The three foot rooster?
Murray Richman:
I still have it. It’s in my office. It’s right on top of my library.
Elie Honig:
Say you always keep the proof.
Murray Richman:
I have a whole bunch of little aids like that. I’ve used toy cars to get down on the floor to describe chases. When I zoom it, it’s through reductio ad absurdum. You reduce it to the absurd. If you reduce it to the absurd, you can waste the prosecution’s case. You know how stiff most prosecutors are. If you reduce it to something that’s funny, they’ll let their ass off and the juries will buy it.
Elie Honig:
Yep. Murray over your career, do you even have any way to estimate how many mobsters, made guys and meaningful associates you’ve represented?
Murray Richman:
Over 1000.
Elie Honig:
Wow. Do mob guys understand, “He’s a lawyer. I’m not going to drag him into my criminal activities.”
Murray Richman:
I never had that problem. To be honest to God, I never had that problem. Early on in my career, it was during a non infringing case, I had the foolishness of having a meeting over my house at the time. It was about 11 defendants. We had 11 lawyers. We met in my house and subsequently that night, two of the defendants ended up dead under the Throgs Neck Bridge. Phillip D and Philip J. Manfre. My wife, Macy, rest in peace, said “Never again. You don’t bring stuff home with you and you don’t. Look, some of the clients you represents.” Mob guys are like every other guy. Some of them are good. Some are not. some will lie to you. Some will not. Some are decent, as much as decent can be and they’re like anybody else. I’ll tell you one thing they’re, generally speaking, more truthful than those legitimate people in our society.
Elie Honig:
How do you mean that?
Murray Richman:
You know where you stand. You talk to a mild guy, who’ll tell you, “Yeah, I did this or I didn’t do it.” Or “I can do this. Let’s see if we can do it.” They never asked you. I have never been asked to do anything wrong, never.
Elie Honig:
In all the years that you-
Murray Richman:
All the years, nobody ever told me. When I read about the fixing of juries by the Gotti case and all that, I’ve never seen that. I’ve never had part of that. Maybe I’m naive. Maybe I’m foolish, but it’s never happened to me.
Elie Honig:
Speaking of the way you interact with your mob clients, I mean, do you typically have a straightforward conversation with them along the lines of, “You’ve been charged with extorting this bar. Did you do that?”
Murray Richman:
You know better. You never ask a question to a client if he committed the crime, because it’s not a question you need to know the answer to.
Elie Honig:
Why not?
Murray Richman:
Because you’re not there to. You’re there to defend him and if you know the answer and you know that you may have to put up on the stand or do other things, you can’t subordinate perjury. If he tells you he did it and you put him on the stand, he says he didn’t do it, you’re subordinating perjury. You can’t do that. It’s a violation of cabinet of ethics and it’s not smart lawyering.
Elie Honig:
You intentionally refrain from asking your clients, “Are you guilty or not?
Murray Richman:
All my clients, whether they’re the mob or otherwise, I don’t care.
Elie Honig:
Yeah. Okay. I think that’s fairly common in the defense world for the reasons you say. At some point in your career, you started defending hip hop stars as well.
Murray Richman:
Yes.
Elie Honig:
How did that happen?
Murray Richman:
By accident. A friend of mine was very much into the hip hop community and he was quite ill. One of these hip hop guys was charged with rape and he said, “I was not even in town. I don’t know how I could have done it.”
Elie Honig:
Can you say who it was?
Murray Richman:
Yeah, it was DMX.
Murray Richman:
(singing)
Murray Richman:
He says, “I was not even in town.” But, of course, the DA’s office knew better and they were charging him. Interestingly enough, in this rape case, we had all the accenture months of rape, semen stains, et cetera. We took a DNA process and bam, he was not the guy and we were able to clearly establish that he wasn’t. Initially, the DA got up and said, “We have insufficient proof to make the case.” I said, “Just a second. I’m not accepting that as a defense, as a dismissal. I want you to say what the truth is, that he is not the person, not insufficient, that he didn’t do it and he could not have done it.”
Elie Honig:
Did they do it?
Murray Richman:
Of course, they did it, but it was like pulling teeth. They knew it was the truth but they didn’t want to seem like hey were just not doing the right thing. It was a question of ruining a man’s career or not and that worked. From there, I went on to represent at that particular point, Jay Z Shine with Puffy.
Elie Honig:
Murray, we talked about earlier that you and I had had several cases together over the years when I was an organized crime prosecutor and we tried one case together or versus one another, however you-
Murray Richman:
That’s one case even anybody listening to this will know the end result of that case because one of the defendants on that case is the guy who killed Whitey Bulger in jail.
Elie Honig:
Yes. That was Freddy GS, who was one of your client’s co-defendants and I’ll never forget that day because when the story came out, that Whitey Bulger had been attacked and killed in jail and there was stories out there saying his eyeballs had been gouged out and when it was reported that it was Fodius Freddie Gius my first reaction was, “I can’t believe it, my guy ended up doing this.” My second reaction was, “Of course, it was Freddie Gius because he’s was a dangerous guy.
Murray Richman:
Of course. Freddie Gius is the guy who told his friend who had just been made. “You’re a made guy. Let’s go out and kill somebody.” “That’s a great idea.” He took a shovel and hit his brother-in-law in the head and killed him. What craziness?
Elie Honig:
In that case, which you’ve just given us a quick preview of the craziness in this case, but this case involved two murders that were completed, a third attempted murder, where a guy was shot nine times in the Bronx, but lived and then two other murder conspiracies. So, it was five total murders, attempted murders, murder conspiracies. Your client in that case was a guy named Artie Nigro. Tell us who Artie Nigro was.
Murray Richman:
Artie Nigro, allegedly, he was the acting boss of the Genovese family.
Elie Honig:
Okay. Acting boss, meaning what?
Murray Richman:
Allegedly that he was supposed to be what the euphemistic call the godfather.
Elie Honig:
Yeah. Okay. But acting means sort of filling in. Right?
Murray Richman:
Filling in because there was other people who were supposed to be in that I will not go into.
Elie Honig:
Yeah. Okay. But he was holding the seat of boss of the Genovese family.
Murray Richman:
Yeah. He was not a boss, the boss.
Elie Honig:
Right. The, there’s only one, correct.
Murray Richman:
Yeah.
Elie Honig:
One thing that I found interesting about that case and I did see, really only in the mob world, then you don’t see this in other types of cases is there was never any serious plea talks. Right? You get a narcotics case, a fraud case and there’s going to be plea talks all the way up to the end and 95% or more of them are going to plead. But there seems to be this ethic in the mafia of, you don’t even engage the possibility of a plea. Can you tell me, without violating any confidences, about that generally?
Murray Richman:
Well, that’s the long of the case as you can see by the recent cases. But the fact of the matter, at that time, it was generally believed that if you took a plea, you were ratting yourself out and a rat is a rat is a rat.
Elie Honig:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Within the mob, that was the code.
Murray Richman:
Yeah.
Elie Honig:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Now, we charged Artie with orchestrating and, and ordering and approving, however you want to call it, the murder of a guy named Al Bruno. Just for our listeners, Al Bruno was a made guy who the Genovese family dispatched up to Springfield, Massachusetts to sort of run the rackets there. Our allegation, the prosecution’s allegation was that, for various reasons including the suspicion that Al Bruno was cooperating and that he was stealing money, our allegation was that your client Artie Nigro authorized this hit, and it went on down the line and they ended up recruiting this guy, Frankie Roach, who popped up out from behind a soda machine and shot Al Bruno many times, right in the midsection, right in the middle of the street.
Elie Honig:
This case was a little bit tricky because Artie Nigro was, of course, we didn’t allege anywhere near the physical scene. We relied on cooperating witnesses who testified. This went up to the boss, to Artie and he authorized it. Tell us a little bit about sort of, if you remember your defense in that case, but also more generally, what’s your approach when you’re cross-examining a cooperating witness who points at your guy and says, “He said to do it.”
Murray Richman:
This is the unusual thing that occurs in the federal court, not in the state court. The art of the rat, you call him the CI, the confidential informant, you call him the cooperating witness, he’s the one who benefits the most. Here is the lie that exists there. The prosecution alleges that the person’s cooperating because he wants to rid himself of the burden of being a criminal and change and hopes that the judge finds it in his heart to give him a sentence taking into consideration his cooperation. You know that he’s expecting not to go to jail and you know that he will probably not go to jail.
Murray Richman:
Not withstanding, in the 56 years I’m practicing law, I have never seen one of those guys actually go to jail. I remember in the West Chester Premier Theater case, just as a side, that they had Jimmy Fratyiana was the informer who had fled to 19 murders, 19 murders and didn’t do a day in jail in order to get people on a fraud. I thought that was rather disingenuous best. In Artie’s case, I remember the first witness I understand was some guy who owed money to bookmakers in Florida. I forgot his name. I examined him. That was the first witness.
Elie Honig:
Oh, I remember who you’re talking about. I can’t remember the name either.
Murray Richman:
I knew him because I knew him like every other faker especially bookmakers. He got up there and he concocted the most convoluted story in the world. You guys had to have known it was convoluted. You had to have known it was a lie and yet you put it forth as if it were the truth. My client, Artie Nigro, I’m not going to tell you he was a holy than thou character. In fact, I was stunned that he was an acting boss, stunned, because he’s a guy. I just didn’t figure it. He said, “Murray, with all due respect, I’ve got a lot of things in my life, but what this guy’s testified to is bullshit.” I believed him.
Elie Honig:
Let me respond to a couple of those things. First of all, there’s no way we believed or knew that a guy was lying and would put him on the stand. Absolutely not.
Murray Richman:
It was so beyond. Anybody who had any experience on the streets would have known. You guys rely a lot on the FBI guys who really don’t have that much street experience. They’re FBIs. Everybody believes FBIs. It’s a great thing to be. But the fact of the matter is, it blew my head off. Anybody with any street experience would’ve seen what was the nonsense here.
Elie Honig:
Well, let me let you talk about this case, a couple things. When we talk about cooperating witnesses in general, I disagree with this notion that we try to turn it into this sort of redemption song, where he wants to rid himself of a burden and it’s this emotional thing and he wants to change his life. I mean, we are very, I was always I’ll say, very clear and explicit with a jury and with the cooperator himself, “This is a business deal. I mean, he wants to get his time reduced.” We prepared them to testify. I’m doing this because I’m hoping for a big reduction in time. I remember we even would tell these guys sometimes in preparation, “If you’re asked by the defense lawyer because they asked sometimes, “How much time do you want to do in jail?” The answer is, “However long you want to do in jail? What’s the answer? The answer is zero. “I want to get out today.”
Elie Honig:
I was always very clear with cooperators, with judges, with juries, “This is business.” Now there’s ways you can assess whether the guy is being truthful or not. You can look at the other evidence and our primary cooperators in that case were the two guys. We referred to Anthony Arada, who was a made guy. He was already sort of right hand in this thing and the main witness against your client and then Felix Tranghese who was a little bit more removed, but also a made guy. I mean those guys, by the way, they did do several years in prison, both of them too. I want to move on to a couple sort of big picture topics before we wrap up. Let me just put it sort of simply, do you believe in objective truth?
Murray Richman:
That’s a tough thing to say. I quoted in the past the statement by Isaac Presheva saying in a crown of feathers and that says, “The only truth there is, is there is no truth.” Truth is subjective. Truth is how you perceive things to be. What I believe in is the truth. What you believe in may not be, which person who believes in any religion is not subjective in that belief and which person who believes in any other religion must objectively deny the existence of the truth of that other religion. It’s all by its very nature a rather amorphous term.
Murray Richman:
It’s like justice. It’s like justice. It’s in the eyes of the beholder. Let’s face it here. Most defense lawyers will get on here and say nice things about the US Attorney’s Office, nice things about the procedure, the justice system. Maybe it’s because of my age and the time I have in there and lack of years ahead as to it, I no longer believe in it. I don’t think it’s a fair system. I don’t think we have manifest justifications to do half the things we do. I think that the federal system is literally no better than the state system, except it looks nicer and you have persons who went to better schools. They don’t necessarily know more, but they went to better schools.
Elie Honig:
Earlier in your career, did you have more faith in the system?
Murray Richman:
Yes.
Elie Honig:
What’s changed?
Murray Richman:
I tell you, I started this business and getting into the law, believing in truth justice in the American way. I really truly believed it. I was a good, honest kid, really. I was awed by what I came to see in the criminal justice system. June 15th, 1959, I walked in as a social worker. I had never been to court before and I was in awe and I became a lawyer six years later or five and a half years later and it was a different, different view, entirely different view. I’ve seen so much of this life. I came into the system believing all the truths. I saw the beauty of the court and was most impressed with everything I saw. I was awe of every judge. I thought the wisdom man spoke from the bench.
Murray Richman:
Then I had an experience. This is shocking. I don’t think I’ve ever publicly said this. I was a young, maybe 21, 22, maybe 23 at most, still not a lawyer. We used to hang around the judge’s chambers in between breaks. We’d smoke. At the time, I was a smoker and the DA would hang around there and the judge would hang around there and there’d be three or four lawyers, maybe three, four prosecutors. And one of the lawyers walks in, drops an envelope on the judge’s table and he says to the judge, “This is your spending money for Puerto Rico and the tickets.” And the judge says, “Thanks, Benny.” I saw corruption. I was 22 and a half, three years old. This is a DA sitting there, there’s everybody sitting there and I realized that what I believe was not necessarily what it was.
Murray Richman:
It broke my heart. I didn’t even know where to go. I didn’t even know who to turn to. I didn’t know what to do. We’re talking 60 years ago, 59 years ago. If you do things long enough and you see things… A federal agent once said to me, I said, “Why do you have that attitude?” He says, “Well, if you live in dirt, all you see is worms.” We live in dirt. At least I do. I’m not saying that my clients are, which I don’t feel necessarily, but I think the system by itself is a dirty system. I don’t love anybody of anything. I don’t love cops or criminals. To me, much of them are the same.
Elie Honig:
Do you believe that all of your clients were innocent and does it even matter?
Murray Richman:
No, it doesn’t matter.
Elie Honig:
Why not?
Murray Richman:
This is the motto of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. I’m there as Liberty’s last champion. I’m the break water upon which the massive energies of the prosecution has to hit before it gets to my client. I am there to hold off the deluge. Sometimes I’m successful. In fact, if you go by score on trials, I’m very often successful, but that doesn’t mean a thing. You know that. You’re as good as your last trial.
Elie Honig:
Yeah, very true. By the way, thankfully, the Nigro trial that we just talked about was the last trial that I actually did.
Murray Richman:
Really?
Elie Honig:
Yeah. Well, I went on to the AG’s office and I-
Murray Richman:
I remember that I called you to congratulate you.
Elie Honig:
You did, you did. In fact, I was going through some of my stuff recently and I found really nice note that you had sent me and the timing was a great coincidence. Speaking of coincidences, I just want to close with this, Murray. I’ve heard you say before this, I think this beautiful thing that your father would say, and you’ve said that your father would say, “Mosia, life is a dream.” I love that on its own. Right?
Elie Honig:
But the thing that really catches me is, my grandmother who passed away 12 years ago or so, she was a Holocaust survivor, polished Jew, put through the concentration camps, came here with nothing, raised my father, Murray. She used to say something very similar. She would say to us, “It’s all just a blink of an eye.” You just open your eyes one day and there you are and everything that’s come before it, it’s a blink of an eye. I thought, “Wow, it’s a very similar philosophy to what Murray’s father told him.”
Murray Richman:
My father was a house painter, not an educated man, he knew and he said, “Mosia, life is a holm. Holm means dream and it’s as real as the experiences you’ve had yesterday. Whether you had those experiences yesterday or you dreamed those experiences yesterday, the effect upon you today is the same. You’re shaped by your dreams, you’re shaped by your experiences and in many instances, they’re no different. If you dream high, those dreams can shape your views and shape your identity.”
Elie Honig:
Murray, I want to thank you for spending the time with me and it was a real pleasure catching up with you and learning about your, I think it’s safe to say, one in a million career that you’ve had. Thanks very much, Murray.
Murray Richman:
Elie, thank you very much.
Elie Honig:
Well, as you can surely tell, there’s so much about Murray that I find fascinating, not just his war stories about his life as a defense lawyer, over many, many decades, which are better than any movie, not just his humor and his wit and his candor, but Murray also brings some real wisdom and perspective to any discussion of our criminal justice system. He and I don’t agree on everything, not even close, as you just heard. I have more faith in our system than he does and he seems to have lost much of the faith that he did have. God knows he’s entitled. He’s been at this long enough. I still believe that all or nearly all of the players in our system operate in good faith, do their best and try to play within the rules, judges, prosecutors, jurors, and yes, even defense lawyers.
Elie Honig:
Murray, as you heard, is more jaded. He seems thoroughly disillusioned with not just prosecutors, but with the entire process. Murray actually called me the other day, just to check in and to say hi. It was great. We caught up and I asked him at one point, “Are you still working?” He said, “Yeah, of course, but now only two days a week.” I asked him, “Why don’t you just retire altogether, enjoy life a little bit.” Here’s what Murray said to me. He said, “This is how I enjoy life. This is what I do.”
Elie Honig:
On the next episode of Up Against The Mob, we’ll talk with Jack Garcia, an FBI agent who went deep undercover, and penetrated the Gambino crime family, like few, if any, have ever done before or since. If you saw the movie Donny Brasco, our next guest is the real deal.
Elie Honig:
That’s it for this episode of Up Against The Mob. Thanks again to my guest, Murray Richman. If you like, what you heard, please rate and review the show on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners to find the show. As always, please send us your thoughts or questions to letters@cafe.com. Up Against The Mob is presented by CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I’m your host, Elie Honig. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The senior producer is Adam Waller. The technical director is David Tatasciore. Music is by Nat Weiner. The CAFE team is Matt Billy, David Kurlander, Sam Ozer-Staton, Noa Azulai and Jake Kaplan. Special thanks to Nate White for his help with research. I’m Elie Honig and this is Up Against The Mob.
