Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh - How To Money Launder & Defend El Chapo w/ El Chapo's Lawyer

Episode Date: April 5, 2020

What up people, I've been watching Ozark and I had to learn how money laundering works, so I sat down with one of El Chapo's lawyers Jason Goldman to break it all down. He also told me how he defends ...the alleged worse people in the world, and the one group of people he couldn't defend. His name is Jason Goldman and he's an attorney with the law offices of Jeffery Lichtman. INDULGE! https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-goldman-155b58b0 https://twitter.com/jasongoldman_

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 What's up, everybody? We got a great episode. I don't want to take too long before we get into it, but I'm going to be joined by one of El Chapo's attorneys, Jason Goldman. He's a criminal defense attorney here in New York. And he used to work for the district attorney of New York, and now he's gone on to the criminal defense side. And yeah, he was part of El Chapo's team. He's defended tons of cases. And I wanted to learn how money laundering works. So not only is he going to explain to us how money laundering works. I've been watching Ozark. I'm not going to give away any spoilers, but I needed to really understand it.
Starting point is 00:00:36 I didn't think the show explained it that well. So he's going to explain how money laundering works, how these drug cartels and other illegal businesses wash their money so they can use it, why we wash our money, why it's important to. And also he's going to get a little into how these criminal enterprises work and how lawyers defend them. I asked him, I was like, do you ever feel bad defending someone like El Chapo? And he goes, I actually felt worse when I was working for the prosecution. Yeah. He feels better defending El Chapo than when he was working for the prosecution, trying to prosecute people like El Chapo. He explains it brilliantly. And so, yeah, let's not waste any more time. Without further adoason goldman uh jason i've been watching the show
Starting point is 00:01:26 ozark now we've spoken before about this and for anybody who hasn't watched the show we're not going to give away any spoilers but basically the show is about a family that launders money for a mexican drug cartel right and i thought who better to explain how money is laundered than someone who has defended the leader of a Mexican drug cartel? This is the perfect situation. So let's start at the beginning. What is money laundering? Money laundering 101, I think Marty Bird explains in one of the episodes. But look, money laundering is you have a pile of cash that you got from a dirty business, whether it be bookmaking, obviously narcotics, you know, something along those lines. And you're sitting on a pile of cash.
Starting point is 00:02:17 Now, like he says, you can't take that money and just go spend it freely like you would because you made it from a legitimate enterprise. The IRS will be all over you if you're making a huge purchase. You need to show legitimate income always. So money laundering is a way to make that money clean, to show that it came from a clean business source in some sense of the word. Now, most people probably watching or listening go, okay, well, when I was a kid, I had a lemonade stand. The IRS didn't know shit about my lemonade stand. That money was maybe clean, maybe dirty. I didn't have a permit to sell lemonade on the street. I was essentially, I had a dirty business,
Starting point is 00:02:55 right? I didn't need to clean that money. Why does someone who sells drugs need to clean the money? Well, it's at its most basic form the lemonade stand is not illegal there's nothing legal about selling lemonade what's illegal and what's always going to be illegal is selling drugs right um running uh you know being a bookmaker running a gambling operation illegally right um prostitution um human trafficking things along those lines um some massage parlors those are going to generate illegal incomes and you need to find a way to clean it yeah okay now you need to clean the money because somewhere along the line the irs is going to get involved right like you don't need to clean a lemonade stand because you're not making enough money. But hypothetically speaking, if the lemonade stand was bringing in $20,000 a day, you might have the state going, hey,
Starting point is 00:03:49 you don't have a permit to sell shit on the street, right? Well, it's not so much that. I think what you and I guess a lot of the viewers are confusing is kind of the second step. So really, you can make a million dollars off a lemonade stand, you can make a million dollars in a nail salon, that would be weird, it wouldn't be common. But it's still I mean, the IRS can dig all they want. And if you could show that you did that much business, that's fine. You don't need to clean the money because you did a great job at selling lemonade, or getting people into this, you know, nail salon, which doesn't happen very often. So why is it the IRS is even asking questions,
Starting point is 00:04:25 right? In the show, they talk about this $10,000 thing, right? Like you can't make any purchase over $10,000. One of the things that happens in the show is they basically say, hey, you can rob. I think Marty even says to one of the girls working with him, he was like, yeah, you can steal my money, but if you don't know how to clean it, it's useless. Now, I'm watching that going, no, it's not useless. I could buy things with that. Why can't you buy things with dirty money? You can't do it because, and this is what's different in today's day and age than back in the day, is everyone uses credit cards now. Everything's done electronically. And in the 1900s, early 1900s or middle of the century, it was a cash business. So you can go buy that Lamborghini in cash and it just looked like a regular transaction. My parents bought their first car, the Toyota Corolla in cash in New Jersey.
Starting point is 00:05:15 How much was it? Oh God, that's a great question. I don't know. But they went to Jersey, they bought a brand new 1983 or 84 Toyota Corolla in cash. And I think the New Jersey taxes were lower. That's why they went to Jersey to go buy it. Yeah. Okay.
Starting point is 00:05:30 Yeah. Now you're saying you cannot do that. You can't make a purchase of $20,000. I can't just go buy something. You can still do it, but it's going to be scrutinized by the IRS because it's rare now because everyone uses credit and you have that much cash on hand. That's the whole thing. If you have 20,000 or a hundred thousand dollars on hand to go buy your Lamborghini there, they want to know where that cash came from. How do you have
Starting point is 00:05:56 that much cash on hand? So something gets triggered when you buy something that's expensive. Yes. And it basically goes, the IRS goes, oh shit, someone's buying something expensive. Let me see where this money came from. Yes. That's how it all gets triggered. So something automatically gets triggered. Yes. Okay. Now it's very interesting. So if you had this million dollars and you just want to buy Snickers for the rest of your life, you're good. IRS never knows. But if you got that million, you want to buy a house, you want to do anything like that, the IRS gets triggered. That's what he says in the first episode. He says you can go buy groceries for the rest of your life, but you don't want to buy groceries.
Starting point is 00:06:29 You want to be rich and go on vacation to a beautiful resort somewhere. I'm a millionaire. I want to live like a millionaire. Of course. Okay. So we need to clean the money. Yes. So by clean the money, it basically means we need to make that money that can't purchase
Starting point is 00:06:43 anything legal so it can purchase whatever the fuck i want and the irs minds their own business and then you could still do it later on in cash but you can say if they come after you can say i'm going to show you exactly how i got a million dollars in cash on okay what is the most common way to clean that money we have a million it we let's say we made it uh from uh some drug shit who cares a massage parlor the the the cream of the crop do us a favor move your uh computer down a little bit there you go that's a little bit up perfect there it is technology a little deficient on the zoom you're good you're good talk talk to me um a casino would be the the golden ticket to cleaning money now they do that
Starting point is 00:07:24 in the show they get to a casino i'm not ruining anything ticket to cleaning money now they do that in the show they get to a casino i'm not ruining anything there's a season three they haven't died yet so you know must be legit uh they get a casino um why is casino the best it's this simple when you clean money you want to show that you made as much income as possible. You want to cook your books. Yeah. So you don't want to say that you made $10 million. You want to do $20 million or $30 million in revenue. The more, the merrier. Right. This guy has $500 million to clean.
Starting point is 00:07:54 So what you want to do in any business, whether it be a restaurant or a casino or a nail salon, is you want it to make it look like the customers put that money into your system, not your dirty money. So if I have $10 million in a duffel bag that's dirty that the cartel gave to me, and you go to a casino and you know the owner, you own the casino, people gamble there. All you have to do at the end of the night, this is on a really simple basis, is make it look like your casino made $20 million as opposed to the actual $10 million it made. A casino is easy because a casino is a cash business. People don't play roulette with their credit card.
Starting point is 00:08:32 Right. They put in cash, they get chips. No IRS, no federal agent is going to track down every single person that attended the casino that night and say, tell me exactly how much you spent. Question. If you buy $10,000 worth of chips or more, is the IRS alerted? I believe they are. So then you're still fucked. Well, they're not alerted. They're alerted when you win $10,000 or more.
Starting point is 00:08:58 But if you lose, which is what you would want to do if you were laundering money through a thing, you could basically lose an infinite amount of money in the casino. I mean, that's the whole point of a casino. The odds are you're going to fucking lose, right? So then you wash it that way. Okay, so that's later on. Early on the season, they buy a fucking restaurant. What are the most common ways to launder money?
Starting point is 00:09:19 You hear people do it through a restaurant or a nail salon. You always hear these Vietnamese nail salons are actually front score, drug money, et cetera. How would you launder money through one of these businesses? You lie about the amount of manicures you're getting? Yeah, you lie. You cook your books up. So that's cooking the books.
Starting point is 00:09:34 So you really do 10 girls nails, but at the end of the day, you're like, no, we actually did 20. Here's the cash for the 20. Exactly. An Italian restaurant, we sold in real life tonight 10 lasagnas we report that we did 30 lasagna we did 30 lasagnas okay perfect i understand it it makes sense the money goes into the business right now you have to pay taxes on that money that has went into the business correct so is the money launderer basically going, I don't mind giving the government 20, 30% on the top.
Starting point is 00:10:09 Yes. Now, if the government is getting their cut, if the whole point, if the whole reason why money laundering is illegal is because you're circumventing the government getting their cut, and now you found a way for the government to get their cut, why do they care?
Starting point is 00:10:24 Money laundering is not illegal because you're circumventing the government from getting their cut. That's tax evasion. Money laundering is illegal because they don't want you to profit off of doing something illegal, such as selling drugs in the United States. So it's basically something that they invented so they could get drug dealers because oftentimes you can't nab the drug dealer. Essentially, that's exactly what it is. Racketeering, the drug dealer. Essentially, that's exactly what it is. Racketeering, all these types of things.
Starting point is 00:10:47 That's exactly what it is. There's no way we're going to get El Chapo handing a bag of Coke to someone else on the street and exchanging money. But we can get him advising other people to wash this money. Precisely. Interesting. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Now this is making a lot more sense.
Starting point is 00:11:04 So I have this restaurant. I basically say I have more lasagnas, et cetera. What often happens in the show is, and they talk about this a lot, is like upgrading the place. So they buy new carpets, they buy new ACs. Are they lying about the amount of ACs that they're buying? So they say, I'm going to buy, I'm going'm gonna buy 10 acs they just buy two there's there's two schools of thought to this um the easier explanation and kind of the not as exciting one is that the company that they buy these goods and services from are a shell company for the actual cartel so it wouldn't be that realistic. And this is kind of
Starting point is 00:11:45 where TV comes into play. Yeah, that's possible that that happened. Obviously, Ozarks, you know, the the first season takes place over a short amount of time. Yeah, it's unrealistic that the cartel was able to own an air conditioning company, something along those lines, if they did, then yes, you can say, I bought 25 ac units and i spent a hundred thousand dollars the company only gives you four units and that extra cast just got sent into the cartel directly that's one that's one explanation the other one which is more realistic um and again they don't really explain either way in the show so it it can be either of these versions. The second version is if you up your expenses. So if you say to a contractor, look, I want $3 million of carpet, but I want your books to reflect $7 million. And my books are going to reflect $7 million. $7 million. And my books are going to reflect $7 million. Then later on, when you say I made $8 million this year to the IRS, it only looks like you turned a $1 million profit, 12%. That's
Starting point is 00:12:53 not really going to raise suspicions as much. So you just, you lowered your own adjusted income. And now you're not even paying taxes on that money. What was that? You're not even paying taxes on that revenue because it's not revenue. That's the nice double dip of that is that you kind of get the tax evasion part by paying the expenses out as well. Right. Because if you just cleaned it flat, the government's going to take their chunk. And on a million dollars, they might take 45% or 50%.
Starting point is 00:13:20 But if you act like that million dollars was expenses, the government doesn't touch it. Now you get that million clean. Yep, the government doesn't touch it. Now you get that million clean. Yep. You double dip it. Ah, and that's where you get hit with the laundering and the tax evasion charge. Exactly. Okay, okay, okay. It makes it look, but at the same time, even though you get double the money, it also is a way to add that extra step of layering.
Starting point is 00:13:45 it also is a way to add that extra step of layering because if the feds are onto you or the IRS are onto you and they go to the blue cat lodge or somewhere else and they see, it looks like a piece of crap. They're going to say, how did you make $8 million this year? But if they show up and there's new carpeting and new windows and new AC units, it looks like you actually might've did this business.
Starting point is 00:13:59 Okay. So they are spending a little money. Yes. So you do spend a little money, but you're basically looking at this like, I can spend, if I gave my money to the government, it would be 50%. If I spend 20%, and then I act like this whole thing is expenses, actually save 30% on top. Yes. In that way, yes. Okay. So you're penny pinching, you're pulling shit out,
Starting point is 00:14:23 and you're already doing illegal stuff. So you don't worry about breaking the law with tax evasion when you're hanging people from a bridge, is the least of your concerns. No. Okay, so you mentioned shell company. They keep talking about this on the show, and they keep talking about the value of moving money around constantly. What the fuck is a shell company, one?
Starting point is 00:14:47 A shell company is it's to hide ownership of who actually owns a company so the air conditioning unit company a shell company is the llc or the company behind the ownership of that it's just it's a fancy word for owning a company without disclosing it so it's a company that can be owned without a name attached to it? Yeah, it happens all the time. Within America, you can own a company and then nobody is the... Well, a lot of the times they set up the corporation in Panama or in the, you know, British Virgin Islands or sometimes in Switzerland back in the day before their laws got a little bit tighter is they set up these companies offshore.
Starting point is 00:15:23 And then a company that's offshore can still do business in the United States. Absolutely. And that's when you talk about, okay, now I'm understanding you're having your money in the Caribbean or these types of things. So this offshore business runs an AC company or a construction company, let's say. Correct. Right. And you hire the construction company to clean out your backyard. And you hire them to do a million dollars worth of cleaning. Right?
Starting point is 00:15:49 Yes. Your backyard looks clean. Right? You pay that construction company. They didn't really do anything. Exactly. That money goes right to your account, which is the construction company. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:15:59 That money's clean now? That money is, it is clean. That money is clean. Now you just have to pay the taxes in panama you have to pay taxes in the in the country where the company where the construction took place which is fine okay um it's more about getting that money offshore to you know even though it's clean it's still dirty obviously from where it came from once it hits those foreign accounts mean, that's the best you can do in terms of getting out of United States jurisdiction where the crime took place. That's why you see in both of Wall Street when they tape a zillion dollars around the girl and they go off to Sweden or Switzerland because they didn't have the same reporting rules as we do. So once the money's there, it's like your safe haven.
Starting point is 00:16:43 It's like a tax haven. So once you get the money there, you're good. How do you get the money back out? Or can you just pay off your credit card bill via the bank account attached to that company? Like if I want to buy a Lamborghini in the US, but all my money is in this foreign bank account in Panama or Switzerland, whatever it is, can I just use my credit card regular and just pay my bills through that? You can do it. I mean, you can set up either a joint account or it can be wired the same way that you do within the United States. Your money is just coming from this company that you own in Panama or that another business partner owns in Panama. And that's what you're using to
Starting point is 00:17:17 pay for your Lamborghini or pay for your apartment in New York, whatever it may be. pay for your Lamborghini or pay for your apartment in New York, whatever it may be. So question, having these offshore accounts is only illegal if the money going into them is illegal? Correct. The offshore account, having an offshore account is not illegal. It's not illegal at all. Obviously, if the funds are being sent in illegally, that can make them illegal, but having the account itself is not. They're over the place and it's completely okay yeah so when you hear about like apple holding all of their money in china or wherever the fuck it is so that they don't have to pay american taxes on the money that in no way is money laundering that's not money laundering completely kosher no i mean look they're regulated those big companies companies, heavily by the IRS.
Starting point is 00:18:08 You see with Amazon a little bit in terms of what their books look like with expenses and income, and that's a whole other world. But money laundering is kind of the opposite of that. It's cooking the books, and these companies aren't involved in it. It's more like you see with the Marty Bird example. And some banks have been involved in it as well. But there's nothing illegal about having an offshore tax haven set up like that. But what's illegal is where that money got there from. Okay.
Starting point is 00:18:42 So you worked on both sides. Most excitingly with Chapo. What can you speak to what they were doing to launder their money? Well, for full disclosure, just to start off with, I did only join this law from right towards the end of the Chapo case. Right. But, you know, what's in the record and what's what's public is that you could speak. what's in the record and what's, what's public is that you could speak. Yeah. I mean, the cartel was so,
Starting point is 00:19:10 and is so gigantic that, you know, they set up a few different ways to try to launder money. And again, this is what kind of came out in trial testimony and through reports, but they just had a lot of runners. That was one of their, their ways to do. And I think Marty might've mentioned it in, in season one is you can have people go to banks all over America and elsewhere and deposit very small amounts and they won't get noticed at all. Smurfs, they call them, right? Smurfs.
Starting point is 00:19:35 It'll take a very long time. Some of them will get caught. But if you have the patience and the organization is big enough, I mean, it's right under the government's nose, but that's the easiest way to go about it. But it takes so long because these people can only deposit a couple thousand bucks at a time. They got to go under 10,000. You have to. And that's the thing is, even if you go right under 10,000, that'll raise suspicion. Some people think, oh, I can just keep going to the bank and deposit $9,500 every week.
Starting point is 00:20:04 Yeah. That is just as bad as putting in $10,000. So now you just need hundreds of people doing this constantly. And that's more people that can get caught, more people that can get compromised, more people that could potentially snitch and you end up getting fucked over. That's one way as well. Another way is, and I think the cartel has been alleged to do this a little bit, which is, you know, taking the illegal cash in the United States, buying commodities, t-shirts, maybe some produce,
Starting point is 00:20:35 some other things, and literally driving to Mexico and selling them on the street or selling them to vendors and turning the cash that way as well. Now I heard, yeah, there's something called like an underground peso exchange or something like that, right? Where, and I heard this was kind of cool. Maybe you can correct me on this, but I heard that there's often a broker and the broker will connect the cartel, right? With somebody in Mexico that needs something and somebody in America that has something. Right. So for example, there's this store in Mexico that wants to buy, sorry, that wants to sell
Starting point is 00:21:09 sofas, but they have to get the sofas in order to sell them. Right. So the cartel goes, hey, we're going to buy the sofas from the people in America. Right. We're going to buy that with drug money. Right. You just pay us when we get the sofas. Now I'm selling sofas.
Starting point is 00:21:23 I'm not selling drugs. Perfect. Now, the person that they're buying the sofas from in America, the cartel, I guess, uses the drug money to purchase the sofas. They do. And that doesn't get hit with the IRS or anything? Well, that's the same thing like he talks about early on is you can't push the envelope. You know, sofas would probably be
Starting point is 00:21:45 up there towards the more you know larger purchases that could be made but it literally might be something as small as t-shirts um little trinkets that you buy at a hobby store and bring them down and you see these vendors on the street sell them it's a small turnaround but that will not raise any suspicions you You move up to sofas. Obviously, that's a little bit larger of a purchase through cash, but it still would not raise huge eyebrows like if you moved up to a car or something along those lines. Did Castro have to deal with any of this shit or did this all happen afterwards? Chapo?
Starting point is 00:22:23 Castro. Not Castro. Escobar. Sorry. Did he have to deal with this all happen afterwards? Chapo? Castro. Not Castro. Escobar, sorry. Did he have to deal with this kind of stuff? Yeah. My knowledge is not as much, again, because like I talked about in the beginning, it's only late 1990s or mid-1990s till now where the credit card industry and electronic transfers are more prevalent.
Starting point is 00:22:49 But he was thriving in the 70s and 80s when the world was cash. Yeah. And you could just move around the cash and it wasn't a big deal at all. A little bit more. That $10,000 thing really fucked everything up, huh?
Starting point is 00:23:02 It really did. This whole technology just makes everything more difficult. I think it makes it easier. Now, any restaurant that only accepts cash, are they laundering money? I hope not because I frequent a good amount of them, and they're some of my favorite restaurants, so I hope that they're not engaging in anything illegal, and I hope that they're going to stay alive. Now, that's the politically correct thing to say.
Starting point is 00:23:26 There's no doubt that restaurants that only accept cash are, you know, they're opening themselves up to that possibility or that kind of scrutiny is that it's so easy. And if they're not, the other question is, are they evading taxes? Because that's kind of the opposite of money laundering. Evading taxes is you're underreporting. You sold 10 lasagnas that night, but you're saying you only did five lasagnas in revenue. And you're just making that margin so small between your income and expenses that at the end of the day, you're going to pay no taxes at the end of the year. Right. Because you don't have to profit. You just have to prove you sold enough lasagnas to pay the electric bill, to pay the rent, and to make sure that you can continue living, right?
Starting point is 00:24:06 Essentially, yeah. And when you really push the envelope, you can even say that you took a loss on the year and that you're owed money by the IRS. Really? Of course. But, you know, that can only go on for so long, obviously. Now, Native Americans— I thought a lot of these startups go for years and years, and everyone says, you know, how does Uber, how does this company, how do they function when they say they lost $560 million? You know, they didn't make any money this year because they're getting a huge
Starting point is 00:24:33 tax break. They might be getting a refund and it's because they're operating, operating at a loss each year. Eventually they're going to turn a profit. So restaurants, I know in New York City and elsewhere, some people talk about a 10 year turnaround. So for the first 10 years, you're not going to be making any money. You might be operating at a loss. Yes. I mean, you can use that if you were actually making a profit and you wanted to, you know, engage yourself in criminal behavior, you can still say that you took a loss that year and obviously you didn't. Do you think it's possible there are employees that don't know that they're working for a drug front or like a laundering business, et cetera?
Starting point is 00:25:14 I'm sure. I'm sure there are. Would you say most? I can't speak to their knowledge on it. I mean, look, I keep bringing up the nail salon because it's kind of a classic example. And these workers on the front lines are really, they're not with it enough to know what the owner's doing in terms of their own books. or the feds or even the local police will either arrest that person with good cause or they'll try and set up some sort of sting operation or undercover operation to see what exactly is going on in the place and how much business they're doing or not doing and that's how they get this ball rolling question one you know el chapo is guilty of running the cartel right allegedly allegedly right okay this is good and i understand that is your job right uh of running the cartel, right? Allegedly. Allegedly, right? Okay, this is good.
Starting point is 00:26:07 And I understand that is your job, right? Does he just say, no, I don't do it? I thought he's pretty open about it. Like, yeah, I do it, but you just got to prove that I do it, right? Sort of. Look, I don't want you to get killed and i and i have a follow-up question to that because i'm curious about like you see as lawyers for the cartel allegedly are you concerned about your life absolutely not people always always ask that they say you know whether it be cartel any other crime um organized crime
Starting point is 00:26:48 street crime whatever it is they say are you concerned or nervous or scared and i say no we're their last line that they're we're their best friend if we're doing our job right um what if you're not i mean didn't he get locked up he did he did i don't think anyone was able to to save him from that. Look, my boss did the trial and he had the jury deliberating for seven days, which is a minor miracle given how much evidence was against El Chapo. Seven days they were deliberating. Right.
Starting point is 00:27:15 There was mountains of evidence. There was cooperators. I would deliberate too. What? I would deliberate too, right? Am I really going to say guilty to a guy who runs a drug cartel? Yeah, I'd have to think about that. It's a good point. It's a good point. But look, they were sequestered. I don't think their life was in danger. And certainly as a defense lawyer, people ask that question, but I've never felt that way in my life that I was in bad, you know, faith or in danger with one of our clients. Now, I'm sure you've gotten this question before. How do you reconcile it, right? Like,
Starting point is 00:27:53 where do you go? Okay, am I defending these bad guys or who are alleged bad guys? How do you, is it hard to stomach it? I mean, don't get me wrong. I have a cell phone that's made by child slaves. Okay. I use it every single day and I fucking love it. I mean, don't get me wrong. I have a cell phone that's made by child slaves, okay? I use it every single day and I fucking love it. I'm no good person. We're all part of bad shit. What is your, how do you reconcile the proximity to you have to it?
Starting point is 00:28:15 I found it to be pretty easy. There's two sides to every story. I really have. I really have. It's not difficult. How? I found it harder to sleep when I was a prosecutor than when I become a defense attorney. Why? Go on that. Well, that's just how
Starting point is 00:28:31 I'm wired. I'm wired a little bit differently. Just to break this down for people that are listening or watching right now. So, you used to be on the other side. You used to work for the state trying to convict the drug dealers. Now you're working for the alleged drug dealers and cartel bosses, etc. or people doing these type of crimes and you're trying to make sure the state can't convict the drug dealers. Now you're working for the alleged drug dealers and cartel bosses, et cetera, or people doing these types of crimes. And you're trying to make sure the
Starting point is 00:28:48 state can't convict them. You said it was tougher to sleep when you were trying to convict the bad guys than trying to get them off? That's just me personally. And I'm definitely in the minority on that. But I saw from the inside and look, there's great work to be done as a prosecutor. And there's some really bad people that should be in jail. And there's some bad people that I put in jail or help put in jail. But that didn't outweigh, I think, the overreach by the police and by prosecutors sometimes in going after people that didn't do much wrong. All I can tell you is that I've been to Rikers Island. I've been to prisons around New York State and other states.
Starting point is 00:29:29 Right. And one day in prison is enough to make someone straight. I can promise you that. Straight as in not homosexual or straight as in like you're not going to be? No, for that it's the opposite. Yeah, that's going to open you up. One day is enough to put someone on the straight and narrow. I've seen people that think they're hardened criminals
Starting point is 00:29:55 and have done something which a lot of people would consider bad and they look like a bad person. And I visit them after they've spent their first five days on Rikers Island. And I can tell you right now, they'll never jaywalk again in New York City or elsewhere because it's a terrible place. You don't think it's kind of like getting a speeding ticket where like right afterwards you go, I'm never speeding again.
Starting point is 00:30:15 And then you drive the speed limit for an hour. You're like, fuck this. Well, that doesn't do anything because you just got let off. But that's what I'm saying is when you go to jail or the threat of jail is there, it's a whole different ball game. And people toss around these sentences like three years for this amount of drugs or five years for having two guns on you, you know,
Starting point is 00:30:33 whatever it may be. And until you go to those facilities, you don't see how bad they are. I mean, look at us. We're all quarantined. We're in these apartments with TVs and Netflix and we're complaining. We're complaining out of our ass and it's crazy. And these people are in prison. They're doing way different things
Starting point is 00:30:50 out of their ass. None of the amenities that we have, other things are happening. And it's crazy. So this is a good example. They're all under home confinement right now and everyone's complaining. Yeah. So you said, so for you, the way you reconcile it was you felt that jail is so awful that putting anyone there made you carry a weight that was incredibly uncomfortable. Whereas when you're getting the guys that have been accused of drug dealing, even if you truly believe deep down that they are, you think that sending them to jail is just such an awful experience. You'd rather get them off. At its base level, yes. I think jail does nothing to
Starting point is 00:31:31 make anyone better. America has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's prison population. Yeah, exactly. Let's go. Flex the muscles so so that's that's one of the issues but look even if jail is not in the question i have a lot of people that allegedly committed crimes that aren't facing a jail sentence right i just see the toll that it takes just getting arrested and being put through the system their significant other leave them, their jobs fire them, their kids hate them, they get divorced, whatever it may be, and they have no other lifeline. And I've seen people at their lowest probably had, you know, it's more like being a therapist than a defense attorney sometimes calling, you know, calling me in the middle of the night and their world's falling
Starting point is 00:32:20 apart. Right. Because of what happened to a lot of people that you know i represent have never been in trouble before and they're never going to be in trouble again and they got caught up in something and i've just seen that i like to figure out why people have done certain things and usually there's a deeper cause down there and i can justify it. You know, like what? Well, I can speak on this example. Because the case is over. But, you know, I represent someone or represented someone that was alleged to have, you know, been in a relationship with a girl that was underaged. you know been in a relationship with a girl that was underaged um and he was obviously an older gentleman right and when i tell people the beginning of that story yeah they just say well how could you physically you know how could you sleep at night and second off how could you defend him anyways you know that he did it and then I tell the rest of the story. I say one,
Starting point is 00:33:25 the girl sent him a fake birth certificate showing that she was 18 instead of her actual age, which I won't tell you what it was. Second, what was it? It was low. Second, was it teens?
Starting point is 00:33:37 Yeah. Yeah. 13. No comment. So, so, whoa, she sent him a fake birth certificate yeah she had her own brother she had her own brother yeah text her and say that she was 18 as opposed to her actual she
Starting point is 00:33:58 literally called her brother and said i'm gonna text you i want you to tell me my age via text she took that message and screenshotted it and sent it to this guy that I represent to say, look, my brother said I'm 18. Third, she went to his house while he was home. And then lastly, he's paralyzed from the waist down because the cop shot him three times in 2012. So he was already paralyzed. Correct. So he can't have sex anyway? He physically can, but he can't take control of anyone. Put it that way. Got you. Got you.
Starting point is 00:34:32 Got you. Yeah. So she needed to get away if she could get away. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, this is a wild case. So then you defended him. Did you get him off?
Starting point is 00:34:42 Well, I only defended him after the trial took place. I defended him in the post-conviction efforts, which are still going on right now. Yeah. Now, did you ever look at him and be like, bro, I mean, sometimes you got to trust your eyes. I told him, I said, dude, you're an idiot. Good. But that's the thing. Being an idiot doesn't make you a criminal.'re an idiot. Good. But that, but that's the thing. Being an idiot
Starting point is 00:35:05 doesn't make you a criminal. That's a good point. And that's easy. I can sleep all day with that case. I, he's one of the nicest guys. You know, I talked to him. I set up legal calls with him because he's in a facility right now. And that's, that's easy for me to sleep with. No problem. That is a good, that is a good distinction to point out. There's so many different people. People just don't realize that there's so many. Look, Harvey Weinstein, you can call him any name you want. You cannot want to have dinner with him.
Starting point is 00:35:32 You cannot want him to be your uncle or your father or whatever it may be. There's all these different things. But you have to separate, did he rape someone or is he just a monster? And there's a difference, and people don't get that all the time. Yeah, yeah, there's levels. I think it's very difficult there's levels to it you know there's it's it's way different holding somebody down and raping them is way different than going so do you want to be in shakespeare in love yeah exactly i think most like rape victims that have experienced like the severity of a rape in an alleyway would definitely take the Shakespeare in Love role rape over what they experienced. Probably.
Starting point is 00:36:14 I think it's a good offer. I guess Shakespeare in Love was kind of hot back in the 90s. Oh, yeah. Won an Oscar. I mean, he came through. He delivered on his promises. There's one thing that you have to say. He was a big quid pro quo guy.
Starting point is 00:36:22 True. He delivered on his promises. There's one thing that you have to say. He was a big quid pro quo guy. Um, but, but I guess the jury, you know, saw it a little bit, a little bit differently on his end. So, I mean, he was, he was definitely cooked. Um, actually talking about movies, do you think people launder money through movies? Um, like you ever see like a horrible sequel and go oh no they're cleaning money yeah that that's definitely very possible for a really shitty movie possibly no if you're doing game of thrones or something like that maybe you're not laundering money but they're i mean
Starting point is 00:36:57 they're all these like b movies made right or like d movies made they're meant to be shitty nobody's profiting off these movies something else has to be going on right i guess that's what's one way to that's one way to cook the books but you have to show that you're going to make some income from that so you have to promise that the box office um you know would do 20 million dollars in sales so you can throw in your extra 10 million before you lose everything do you have to make income or can't you just run it through? If you own the production company, can't you just inflate all the costs? Well, are you saying to invest in the movie using the dirty cash? Let's say the movie costs $200,000 to make.
Starting point is 00:37:35 You say it costs a million. You just cleaned your money, right? Inflate all the costs. Yeah, that could be one way of cleaning it. That could work. Are you teaching me or am I teaching you you're running the show here you're throwing the hypotheticals at me you know a million different ways look you don't see the money laundering as much as you see the tax evasion i don't think so yeah the tax evasion is where they get it okay i don't want to take too
Starting point is 00:37:58 much of your time but lastly um i heard certain people discuss like how the city of Miami came to be in that like people say like drug money built Miami, meaning it built. Al Pacino. Say again. Scarface, Al Pacino. 100 percent. 100 percent. Right. But it's like they literally built skyscrapers from drug money. And maybe you have experience with this with like El Chapo or is it Chihuahua, Mexico or something like that that his or Sinaloa or something like that?
Starting point is 00:38:25 Yeah. Like now, again, allegedly, et cetera. Or maybe he's convicted now. So we could say it's always allegedly, even if they're convicted, always allegedly. So are there places that we frequent regularly that would not exist in the same capacity without that huge influx of drug money? Miami being one of them. I think absolutely. I think a lot of, look, on a grand scale, possibly, you know,
Starting point is 00:38:58 the high rises and the casinos and those sort of things, but just draw back to almost any, especially Miami, but, you know, elsewhere, it's any of those cash businesses. It's the small, you know, mom and pop restaurant. It's the, the, you know, the massage parlor somewhere else. You love those massage parlors, dog. You keep talking about those massage parlors. It's on the top of my head. It's like the most classic example. I think I lived in the East 60s. When I first moved to the city, you saw it go down in Palm Beach last year with Robert Kraft and a bunch of other people i mean that's how they that's how they dig into these is because the victims the the you know the workers they are possibly victims of of sex trafficking or prostitution you know they're the
Starting point is 00:39:36 ones that are at the most base level of this operation going on and that's how you cook the books you saw it right there they always try to make something bigger out of it. And that's why that, that example is on the top of my head because, you know, it's pretty prevalent. And I was reading about it a little bit, um, recently and it's right. You see, if you see, um, a business in a high rent place, it's always empty. And you say, how is this restaurant still in business? How is this nail salon still in business? It's in the middle of Manhattan and it's always empty. It looks like a dump. Boom. That's a red flag. Okay. Cryptocurrency.
Starting point is 00:40:17 Has that entered the laundering and tax evasion equation yet? And in what way? It definitely has. How is it done and how is it used? I in what way? It definitely has. How is it done and how is it used? I don't own any of these things. I don't even get it. But how would one launder with crypto? This is going to be very tough for me to answer because I'm technologically deficient. Bitcoin's the next wave next wave we talk about the last 15 20 25 years credit cards and wire transfers bitcoins like the 2020 and into the future of the version of that um you know i think it ties more into kind of what you see with with stock manipulation um and and things along those lines is not so much money laundering it's more pump and dump schemes um you know bitcoin's like a fiction out there and these people behind it can
Starting point is 00:41:13 you know value it at a certain level um so they pump a lot of money into it the stock goes up and then they get the fuck out on a basic sense yes but look it's just as confusing but not laundering you don't think people are trying to launder through Bitcoin or they're not giving people Bitcoin instead of sofas or paying an air conditioning unit company, you're paying, um, you know, Bitcoin or someone that accepts Bitcoin to, to do these services. It's possible. It creates another paper trail. Uh, all right, guys, we're gonna take a break for a second and pay some bills here. That's right. We got blue chew sponsoring this episode of the quarantine Chronicles,
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Starting point is 00:43:48 actually someone was arrested recently. I think a professor at the University of Miami that teaches about this stuff. He was arrested for money laundering. And he was doing it in a really non-complex way at all. He was into his bank account. He was receiving illegal funds. I think it was from Russia or somewhere else. He hooked up with these people that were running something illegal overseas. They wired into him $200,000 a week, whatever it was. All he was doing was withdrawing, I think, 90% of the money, keeping 10% for himself. And he was giving that 90% to another guy that was involved in the operation and just circling it back to the hands in Russia. And it was that simple. That's all he was doing. They were trying to
Starting point is 00:44:34 clean it by showing that he was, you know, fulfilling services for them in America, whatever it was. He had nothing set up, no shell companies, no front businesses, nothing. It was like all on paper, you know, for some sort of service that he was running for them. And that's all he was doing. And he was just withdrawing money and giving it back to them. So just an idiot. And it was like every week he was getting like $200,000 into his account. Okay.
Starting point is 00:45:00 And he teaches this stuff. I just read about it. It's from University of Miami. Forgot the guy's name. Top rate education Florida offers, huh? Look, sometimes you do something so obvious, it doesn't raise as much flags as the more complex schemes. Ooh, question.
Starting point is 00:45:15 Gold. I'm going to throw out a hypothetical issue. You let me know if it's possible. I have all this cash. I buy gold, okay? I melt the this cash. I buy gold, okay? I melt the gold down so there's no, like, markers on it or anything. It's just gold, okay? I take that gold.
Starting point is 00:45:36 I can sell that gold for cash, right? Or I can take that gold somewhere. No? Take it to the Diamond District, maybe. Take it to the Diamond District. And then somebody asks me, hey, where'd you get that gold? I can always be like, well, I found it in the ground. My grandfather gave it to me. Right? There's no way you could trace gold. No, you can't trace it. But try giving that explanation, I found it in the ground, to the federal agents that come
Starting point is 00:46:02 knock on your door. They don't watch Gold Rush? They're not into movies. I've dealt with them a lot. The sense of humor is not that high, and they don't watch as many movies. I'm just saying with a precious metal, right, that is completely untraceable, or buying diamonds or these things, once you get it into that form, aren't you off scoffery? They're always going to trace it back.
Starting point is 00:46:26 I found a diamond. You can't just go, I found the diamond. I was at Tiffany's. It must have fell on the floor. I scooped it. I'm out. Is the video at Tiffany's going to show that? Not Tiffany's.
Starting point is 00:46:37 Maybe outside in the street or something. There's just no way that they can prove that you did anything illegal for that once it's in the mineral, right? Maybe you can pull it off one time and you'll be scot-free. Maybe once. But after that, you're saying they're just going to monitor my every single step and then eventually find out what I'm doing to get this money. I think they'll probably find out on the first time
Starting point is 00:46:57 because they're going to get video from somewhere. They're going to get some sort of trail that shows that you didn't just stumble across a piece of gold. God damn it, Jason. I know. I wish it was easier, but these people just don't really get away with what they think they are. Okay. When you're going through the El Chapo case or any of these other cases, right, and you
Starting point is 00:47:19 see the steps that these people are going through, right, to continue their illegal businesses, right? There are 15 different step process. The money is changing over hand in hand and thinking about these crazy schemes and buying a submarine just to get drugs into America. Do you ever want to look at them and go, if you tried this hard to just make legal money, you'd make as much money? I don't because they probably wouldn't make as much money. It would take them a lot longer. Look, being a criminal is easier.
Starting point is 00:47:50 You can make it pretty quickly. You can make it quickly, right? But to do it at the highest level, right? To do it at the highest level. You don't think that they could be a millionaire with no stress? You don't think Chapo could probably be a millionaire with no stress if he just did something legal with the work ethic and the leadership ability? I mean, it's a good question. Look, everyone starts at a very low level.
Starting point is 00:48:17 My dad always said this to me. He said, people don't start off at this huge level you're pushing you know a hundred thousand dollars of narcotics you're you know involved in organized crime and you're setting up a gambling book that's doing a million dollars a year you don't start at that you start very very small right you see how easy it is to get away with something um you know whether it be a small level of tax evasion whether it be a small you know drug sale on the street. Get caught up in it. And you get caught up in it. And that's the whole thing is that you see how easy it was. And it is easy in the beginning. It appears to be easy in the beginning. No one's going to catch you,
Starting point is 00:48:56 like you said, on your gold example, or, you know, selling a small dime bag to one of your friends, whatever it is. But it's five years later when you saw how easy it was and you got up to this grand scheme, and now obviously you're under someone's radar. Someone's snitching against you. You're just not going to get away with it. I don't think they ever stop and sit to themselves and say, wait, hold on.
Starting point is 00:49:19 I should just go do something legitimate now, even though this is going perfectly for me because I'm going to get caught soon. You just caught up in it was el chapo cool i i again i wish i could give you a better answer i only met him for about 10 minutes on the very last day when he was being sentenced um you know in brooklyn and then sent away to colorado he's he's definitely practicing good social distancing right now. Um, he doesn't have to worry about that. He'll probably come out on top compared to all of us, but my, look, my,
Starting point is 00:49:52 my boss represent him really well. The jury was out for seven days. Um, you know, he really took over the case and El Chapo was very grateful for that. He, he hugged him. His wife comes by our office, you know, and she's sweet. So he seemed to be a cool guy. Is the wife hot? What was that? Is the wife hot? Look, she's a good-looking lady.
Starting point is 00:50:19 Good answer, Jason. She's a good-looking lady. You know, but him and then even the people that are much lower down, you know, everyone's situation is different. But everyone that walks through the door and some people say this when they find us, you know, they say, is my case going to be treated with the same level of care as an El Chapo or some of these other people that you guys have represented? And I say, look, you know, I treat every single person as if their life's on the line. It actually the clients that, you know, on the outside, it looks like their cases is less high profile or less serious. They have just as much consequence as anyone else. They don't need to be a celebrity or a professional athlete, or something like that for their case to matter
Starting point is 00:51:06 because you know there's a lot of consequences for getting arrested and getting put into this you know criminal justice system so they get treated the same yeah but the stakes are a little higher for who though I mean for you guys because if you guys mess up you know you could disappear
Starting point is 00:51:22 no no no no I told you in the beginning I never felt you know I don't think anyone's ever felt threatened but if you guys mess up you know you could disappear no no no no i told you in the beginning i never felt you know i don't think anyone's ever felt threatened but if you do your job right um you know you're their last lifeline and they literally had to say publicly i'm not going to do anything to the jurors now you only have to say that because every juror is like i think he's going to do something to us right right? I mean, look, the judge was taking those extra steps to make sure that everyone, jury selection, you know, had to be impossible for that case just to get people to want to sit on the jury. But, you know, they were sequestered. They were, you know, kept anonymous.
Starting point is 00:52:06 you know, kept anonymous. And I think that I'd like to think, and I do think that they were deliberating for seven days because of, you know, how good of a defense was put up for him. Right, right. And look, a great point was brought up is that, you know, and my boss, Jeff, did a great job of. Yeah. What was your guys' argument? How did you guys defend him? What'd you say? There was a lot of arguments, but, you know, one argument that you always sneak in, in a case, in a lot of cases, a defense attorney, but especially in this case, is you just look at each juror and you say, you're a taxpayer, right? Yes.
Starting point is 00:52:31 You want to know how much money just was put in to bring this guy into our country, to trying him and to housing him in federal prison. You don't even want to know how much money, 15 million, 20 million, $50 dollars, you know, to prosecute El Chapo in Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn when this guy never stepped foot here. He lived in Mexico. That does that make anyone's conduct legal or illegal? No, it doesn't, obviously. But that's something that you sneak into a jury and even on low level cases. obviously, but that's something that you sneak into a jury and even on low level cases. When I was a prosecutor, I was left with a terrible task. One case, literally had to go to a jury trial for a guy that hopped a turnstile. He hopped a turnstile. He got into the subway. He was arrested. And he would not accept what we call an ACD, which very quick, it's essentially a dismissal.
Starting point is 00:53:27 It's a dismissal. If you don't get arrested in six months, he wouldn't accept it. Everyone is not guilty. And out of principle, this guy would not accept it. And he was sitting on Rikers Island. He could have walked out of Rikers Island if he accepted the deal. And he didn't do it because he wanted to put, you know, to challenge the government. So I, as you know, three months into being a prosecutor and three months out of law school, had to try this case. So the jury panel comes in, everyone's missing work, no one's getting paid, they're brought into this, you know, piece of crap courtroom in Brooklyn. room in Brooklyn. I'm sitting there in my suit and I stand up and I say, this case, actually my opening line, I said, who took the subway here? And everyone raised their hand. And I said, who paid for their subway ticket? And everyone raised their hand. And I said, would it piss you off to learn that the guy next to you on the subway, who's bumping into you,
Starting point is 00:54:25 who smells, who knocked over your coffee on your morning commute, he didn't pay for his ticket. And I got a quick chuckle and a quick couple hands went up. And then I think they realized that I was prosecuting this guy at the other table, who had a Bible verse tattooed from his eyebrows to the back of his skull and was asleep at trial for fare evasion for $2.75. And I lost a lot of the crowd there. I could have all the video in the world, which I did. I had two police officers testify to say I had everything. He did it. It was on video. And they let him go? Obviously. Because what we just talked about, the defense attorney got up there. He stood up and the first thing he said, he goes, guess why you're here today? He goes, you're here over $2.75. He goes, that's why you're here. You're not at your jobs.
Starting point is 00:55:10 He goes, you're at jury selection and you're going to listen to this trial because the government is using your tax paying money to prosecute my client over $2.75 that he stole from New York City. So they said he wasn't guilty of something that he did? Absolutely. But he is guilty. You see him doing it. Doesn't matter. Yes, it does.
Starting point is 00:55:32 That's jury nullification. That is, we don't care because this law just doesn't make any sense. Ah, that's different. So it's like, we just don't give a fuck. Yeah, and there's a lot of don't give a fuck. I lost... So after that, you're like, you know what? Fuck this, where the drug dealer's at. I need to defend them.
Starting point is 00:55:48 I did a handful of those cases and, and definitely some bigger ones. And I still lost them, um, as a prosecutor. And that's obviously when I realized, you know, when I lost a few of the bigger ones where there was actual victims, you know, there's no victim in a $2.75 New York City subway case. But when people are victims of shootings or domestic violence and you still lose, that's when it's time to change sides probably for me. So that was kind of my journey. If you can't beat them, join them.
Starting point is 00:56:24 Yeah, if you can't beat them, join them. Yeah, if you can't beat them, join them. I always knew that I wanted to switch over anyways. I was just doing it more for experience. Is there anyone you won't defend? There's one class that I would not defend on its face, which would be terrorists. Ooh. I can't say that I've been,
Starting point is 00:56:43 look, I've only been doing criminal defense for about a year so I have not personally been approached yeah you're still selling dime bags bro once you get to the big stuff yeah I can't say that look I can't say that terrorism would sit right I'm from New York I live through 9-11
Starting point is 00:56:58 you know I've seen that and I just don't it'd be very tough to stand by you know someone that committed an act of terrorism but look even for those there's a case here we go there's a case this is what i mean there's two sides to every story but there's um i love them i love them you go for the quarantine for everyone that's quarantined, I think it's on HBO still. There's a documentary. It's called the Newberg Four or something along those lines.
Starting point is 00:57:30 And the FBI got some sort of hunch that these guys in upstate New York, not too far from New York City, were involved in terrorism. They were planning a plot in New York City. And they set up a sting operation, they set up an undercover to go up there and kind of befriend these four guys, you know, to learn about them a little bit. And these guys had guns, and a few other things, but they weren't criminals. They didn't, I don't think they've ever committed a crime before. And there was not much by way of a plan to actually commit any sort of crime of terrorism. But the FBI was so engaged by this hunch that they had that they sent this guy up there, and he did, and this is what the documentary is about, is he really entrapped them. It's called entrapment, into going through with this plan that they never really had plans to go through.
Starting point is 00:58:21 And I think they were convicted, and then they got out on an appeal, but it showed that they had no reason or, or plan to commit this crime until the FBI agent got there, befriended them and said, look, I got these bombs in my basement. I'm thinking about targeting this area. Are you guys in for this? Um, you know, we need to pursue, you know, this cause, whatever it may be. And he kind of brainwashed and trapped them. So he radicalized them. He radicalized them. And interesting. And that it just goes to show that, you know, the people at trial, the jury that heard that case,
Starting point is 00:58:58 they probably didn't see that. And now the documentary sheds light on it, you know, or the attorney didn't do a good enough job of showing that that's what happened. It's a tough thing to defend. That's the kind of case that i would defend it looks like terrorism but it's really not i mean he radicalized them the whole way yeah i saw that when i was an intern at the bronx district attorney's office this is when i knew i wanted to become a defense attorney i was listening to endless hours of phone calls between this low level heroin dealer in the bron and someone from the NYPD. He was working, obviously, as a snitch or as an undercover.
Starting point is 00:59:31 The guy, every week he would say, look, I want to get out of this. He was a Hispanic guy from the Bronx. He dealt a little bit of heroin. But every time he said, look, this is the last time. I want to get out of this. I want to do out of this. I want to, you know, do something legitimate with my life. I don't want to be exposed anymore. I don't want to do this anymore. And every week the undercover would say, look, I got another,
Starting point is 00:59:57 you know, a hundred buyers. I got it. We're about to make a lot of money. Let's do it for another week. And he pushed him and he pushed him, um, for years and he built up a huge case. And then they arrested him on these major trafficker charges and this guy i heard the phone calls he didn't want to be involved in this he didn't so there is a lot of corruption on the on the prosecution side it's not look it'd be unfair to call it corruption um you know at the end the day, did those undercover agents put a gun to this guy's head and say you're going to deal with heroin for me? Everybody makes a choice, but they lead you down the road to a certain choice. They lead you down. You don't hear about this much at all, huh?
Starting point is 01:00:37 Because by the time it hits the newspaper, it's just the headline, drug dealer arrested. You don't really find out how he becomes a drug dealer. This is why entrapment exists huh yeah but the entrapment defense look the entrapment defense at the end of the day is very very very tough because you need to show that you had no disposition whatsoever but for that contact made to you by the you know the undercover and usually these people are predisposed look the heroin dealer in the bronx he was drug dealing um but what caught me and what didn't sit right with me was every week when he said look i really am done don't come to me with any more buyers and then
Starting point is 01:01:15 every week the guy would say look i know you said you're done but i just found a million dollars that we can you know we can flip a million quickly to these sit through these buyers you know in downtown manhattan and he would do it fuck so that's a good example that tied in i know that that documentary about the newberg case was pretty spot on but look in general terrorism would be pretty tough to to stand next to and defend but there's a lot of good defense attorneys that do it i mean a lot of people just want to make sure that a person gets a fair trial. They get a fair disposition. A lot of it has to do with death penalty, which is more of a philosophical approach. I mean, there's death penalty attorneys that just take on those cases just because.
Starting point is 01:01:59 It doesn't matter who it is. It doesn't matter who it is, the Boston Marathon bomber, Oklahoma City bomber. It doesn't matter who they are. They always sayathon bomber, Oklahoma City bomber. It doesn't matter who they are. They always say their first line, those defense attorneys at trial, they say he did it. They say, I'm not denying one thing. He did it. He set off this bomb. He goes, all I want you to talk about with you is why he shouldn't be given the death penalty.
Starting point is 01:02:18 Okay. Talking about bombing. Have you ever had a joke ready for like when you were talking, when you're given your, what is it called? Summation. Summation. And have you ever had that joke? You thought it was going to kill. You thought that the jury was going to laugh and then it just sunk. I honestly, I haven't because I I've seen jokes not work out as much as they, you know, I I've seen them not play as well. Does your client look at you like, bro, what are you doing right now? Like my life is on the line and you're trying to get chuckles from these nine assholes that want to go back to work. It's not a good situation.
Starting point is 01:02:52 It doesn't read well. It doesn't read well. I do a fair share of appeal work. So I look over transcripts that other attorneys did at trial. Yeah. And you see these jokes, especially when you don't hear them and you just read them on paper. And I read them and I just think in my head, I'm sitting at my desk and I read the transcript and I just think like this client must have wanted to kill this guy. Like,
Starting point is 01:03:13 what is he talking about? This was a terrible idea. The jury probably hated him. This joke was awful. So I've always kind of steered away from the humor aspect, but it does work if you're if you present it correctly. It definitely could work. My man, dude, you want to humanize with the jurors. You want to show that you're the realistic one. You're representing the little guy over here. Even, you know, making El Chapo look like the little guy representing the underdog and the government, the big bad government is going after him with your taxpaying money. Yeah. That's the issue. It's all about your taxpaying money.
Starting point is 01:03:48 Hit them with their pockets, right? Just think about the subway turnstile case. It'll stick with me forever. 100%. Bro, thank you so much, man. And again, tell them where they can contact you if they need a great attorney or if anybody else. Just let them know.
Starting point is 01:04:01 Yeah, absolutely. Jason Goldman, an attorney at the law offices of jeffrey lickman okay and if it's good enough for el chapo is good enough for you hope so my man thank you so much man for taking the time i really appreciate you jason be good all right thanks for having me stay safe peace thanks

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