American Desperado (45 page)

*
Joey Ippolito, who died in 2002, was connected to the Bonanno family and had ties to Meyer Lansky. Ippolito, like Jon, is believed to have provided loans to developer Donny Soffer for the development of Aventura. After a conviction for transporting several tons of marijuana to Long Island, he went on to operate restaurants in Malibu and Brentwood, California. For a time O.J. Simpson’s confidant Al “A.C.” Cowlings worked for Ippolito as a bodyguard. Ippolito was arrested for cocaine trafficking shortly after the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman and was the subject of rumors that he had ordered hits on the pair as a result of a drug deal gone bad. Through it all, Ippolito cultivated celebrity friends. Actor James Caan reportedly posted bail for him following a 1994 arrest. According to Eddie Trotta, a former criminal associate of Ippolito’s who subsequently went straight, “Joey is the one who made up the story that he helped kill Ron and Nicole because he wanted the fame. He was my best friend, and I can tell you he was a complete nut. He once broke out of a minimum federal prison work camp by having a limousine service pick him up. He made it past the gates, but they arrested him two minutes later.” Trotta was himself once arrested with Ippolito by the LAPD while the two were visiting their friend James Caan in his Los Angeles home.

†
With San Pedro providing legal help, Garcia was acquitted of murder in the shooting death of his victim Rafael Torres. He was freed and appears to have turned his back on the criminal underworld.

46

J
.
R
.:
By 1979 my business was booming. I celebrated that year by betting a half-million dollars on the Super Bowl. The Steelers were playing the Cowboys at the Orange Bowl, and I put my money on the Steelers. Bookies took unlaundered cash, and paid unlaundered cash when you won, so it was almost play money. I bet mostly to increase my pleasure in watching the game.

When I bet, I liked to watch my games on TV. Sometimes when my team didn’t do well, I’d break things, and I’d rather do that in my home or in a bar where I’m comfortable. But a couple days before the game, Merc Morris called me. “You want to go to the game?”

Even though it was my preference to watch it on TV, I wasn’t going to turn him down. “Sure, Merc.”

He laughed. “Then you’ve got to pay your dues.”

That night I’m in the living room of my Coral Gables party house, and there’s a knock on the door. I open it up and see Merc with a wall of monster guys behind
him—several Pittsburgh Steelers. Soon as they come in, Merc says, “Break the shit out, man.”

I threw down a quarter from my party stash, and everybody starts inhaling fat rails of the purest coke in the world. These guys were giants, and they snorted mountains of blow. A couple of these guys were heroes to me, and I was so interested, listening to their stories, it wasn’t until dawn that I thought,
I got half a million dollars on these guys, and they’re fucked up out of their minds a day before the game
.

It occurred to me that maybe I ought to call Bobby and put some money on Dallas to cover my ass. I said to one of the Steelers, “Are you guys going to crash from doing all this shit?”

I’ll never forget it. One of them looked me in the eyes and said, “Listen to me, bro. This whole Pittsburgh-Dallas rivalry is hype. They make it out like Dallas could win. Dallas sucks. I don’t give a fuck if I play at three-quarters of my ability and every other motherfucker here plays at half his ability. We are the better team. I promise you, bro. We are going to win. Go bet your fucking money.”

“All right, bro.”

Another Steeler said, “I’m going to get you on the sidelines tomorrow. You can watch us up close. We won’t let you down.”

“Okay, man. That’s a very strong thing to say.”

When I went to the Orange Bowl, I watched the Steelers win from the sidelines. It was a close game,
^*
but they came through. The whole team went wild, but they didn’t forget about me. One of them ran over to me and said, “Bro, I hope you brought some shit for us. We’re having a party at the Eden Roc.”
^†

Before I went to the game, I’d told a driver of mine to wait in a separate car outside the Bowl with a kilo of blow. I knew that win or lose, the Steelers were going to want to party. I had my coke guy follow me to the Eden Roc. Before we even got to the floor where the Steelers were having their party, the elevators reeked of weed.
Upstairs they had a suite with a row of bedrooms filled with an endless variety of women. One of my new friends on the Steelers comes up to me and says, “I’m going to get you laid. You like black women?”

“Bro, I like women, period.”

My friend points to a hot black girl, and she comes over. He says, “You’re going to fuck this man so hard he’s going to bleed from his dick.”

This girl took me away, and she kept at me for hours. It wasn’t until I was stumbling out of the Eden Roc the next morning, watching the sun rise over Biscayne Bay, that I even remembered I’d bet half a million dollars on the game and won.

*
The Steelers won 34 to 31.

†
The Eden Roc is a classic Miami Modernist hotel that opened in 1956. It’s now part of the Marriott Hotel chain.

47

J
.
R
.:
In early 1980 Fabito asked me to help with a new situation. His older brother Jorge had found an American pilot who was good at flying coke into the country. The Ochoas were always looking for new ways to move product. They understood that when you run something illegally, you have to always change how you do business. Over time cops get wise, snitches snitch, competitors move in. The Bahamas were getting heat from the U.S. government. On top of that, the Ochoas were leery of Carlos Lehder. I’d met him by then, and the guy was crazy. He was worse than Albert San Pedro with his voodoo. Carlos Lehder hero-worshipped Hitler. He talked about this openly. I don’t care who you are, if you talk about how you want to make a Nazi state in South America and become the new Hitler, people will lose confidence in you.

This new pilot they found could pick up their coke in Colombia and fly it into the United States, but there was one problem. He would only land his plane in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana. He owned a hangar at the airport there, and at the time Baton Rouge was not being watched as a drug-smuggling center.
^*
That was a positive. The bad part was that this pilot had no interest in moving the coke once he got it into his hangar. He wanted the Colombians to pick it up. Louisiana was all rednecks. There were blacks and Cajuns in Louisiana, but no Spanish. A Colombian in Louisiana would stick out.

Fabito asked me if I’d go with him to Louisiana to meet his pilot and figure out a way to have drivers pick up his coke. We flew on a commercial flight to Baton Rouge. On our way Fabito told me his family believed the pilot was trustworthy. But Fabito did not like him. Something about the guy rubbed him the wrong way.

The pilot’s name was Barry Seal.
^†
We met him at a coffee shop in a Ramada Inn. Barry Seal wasn’t a tall guy, but he was big, maybe 220 pounds, and he made a lot of noise. He was boisterous. He looked like a braggart. When we sat down, he cracked a joke and overlaughed, so people looked at us in the coffee shop.

Fabito jumped right to business. He said, “Barry, Jon’s my friend. He’s my
compadre
. He is me. And what you and him do, he don’t have to ask me. You guys just get the shit done we need done.”

I would know Barry for the next six years. He was definitely a blowhard. He drove around in an Eldorado convertible with the top down, no matter what the weather. All I ever heard him say was “I’m the best at this. I’m so good at that.”

Barry could back up his bragging. He was a great pilot. He loved to fly. For smuggling, he used propeller planes. Small planes can land in more places and fly low under radar. But for fun, Barry liked to fly a Learjet.

Soon after I met Barry, he flew to Miami for a meeting. When we finished, I told him I was heading to a horse race in New Orleans. At that time the racehorse stable I’d founded to launder money was going strong, and I went to different tracks around the country to buy horses. Barry said, “I’ll give you a ride.”

We drove out to Opa-locka.
^*
Barry had a little Learjet. It was a sharp-looking plane. When we got in, Barry said, “I’m going to give you the best ride you’ve ever had.”

When we took off, he stood that plane on its tail. We went straight up, like in a rocket ship. When we get to the top of the sky, he said, “You think that was good? Wait until we go down.”

That motherfucker, he turned the plane nose down. Then he turned the plane upside down. I don’t normally get scared, but the motherfucker got me scared. I give him credit for that. After we landed, he said, “The Learjet is the safest plane made. The Swiss originally made this as a fighter plane. Even if we lost power, I could glide it in. It’s the only jet that will do that.”

That was Barry Seal. He loved flying like I loved robbing people. Some people said he was a cokehead, but I never saw him high. I never saw him chase women. He had a girlfriend, his secretary. She was in love with him. He was in love with her. When he was on
the ground, they were inseparable. That was his whole life outside of flying.

Barry could fly in as much as a thousand kilos at a time—more than most pilots back then. After he landed, he’d stack the coke in his hangar. This used to drive Fabito crazy. He wouldn’t even close the hangar doors. Barry didn’t give a fuck. Ground work was beneath him.

That was my job—organizing the cars, the drivers, the stash houses, so Fabito’s Colombian distributors in Miami and New York could get their coke.

I
BECAME
the guy Fabito turned to when there was a problem. I didn’t have any special skills except that I was a gringo who could operate in America. When it came to the Ochoa family, my word was my bond. I was becoming almost like a straight businessman inside their organization.

The Colombians the Ochoas brought into the United States to be their soldiers—driving their cars, protecting their stash houses—were Indians from the mountains. They were peasants with gold teeth and guns, and they were the backbone of the Ochoas’ U.S. distribution system. They ran coke to New York, Los Angeles, and anywhere between where they found buyers. These were the guys I delivered the Ochoas’ coke to. In return, they gave me the Ochoas’ money.

Whenever you have coke flowing in one direction, you get money flowing back. Cash and coke of the same value were about the same size. The only difference was cash was about half the weight. If I moved a hundred kilos of coke, I’d get about fifty kilos of money back.

These exchanges didn’t go smooth at first. The Colombian soldiers tended to do things like they were in a gangster movie. They’d bring the money in one car, followed by five more cars loaded with guys carrying machine guns and knives. They were good guys, but one day they’re in the jungle and the next day they’re driving around Miami, heavily armed, with trunkloads of money and coke. Most
were out of their minds on cocaine and
aguardiente
. It’s a lucky thing they didn’t have sobriety checkpoints in those days. These maniacs would have just slaughtered the police.

The first thing a Colombian mountain hick did when he landed in Miami was buy a $500 car and install a $1,000 stereo. The first exchange I did with them, I picked a quiet parking lot. These guys rolled up, drunk, heavily armed, blasting their stereos. They were going to bring the cops on a noise violation alone.

After that I met with Fabito and told him, “We got to change how your guys work. Let’s have everybody relax. Keep everything low-key. Nobody needs to drive around with guns sticking out of the car. We’re all on the same side here.”

My way to deliver coke, or pick up money, was to keep everybody anonymous and separate. If I’m delivering coke, I have my guy drive a car with it in the trunk to a normal family restaurant like Denny’s. He leaves the car in the parking lot and hides the keys in a ledge in the men’s room. He walks out and gets picked up down the street by somebody else. The guys bringing money do the same thing with their car at a different restaurant. Once we get the keys to the money car, we tell them where the car with the coke is and where the keys are hidden. This way everybody is safe.

It would be very hard for cops or a do-gooder asshole citizen at one of these restaurants to see that drug deals were happening. Our activities were invisible.

As I used more and more drivers for my cars, I avoided hiring street people. I didn’t need armed guys for this. I used kids trying to earn money for school, or working guys who needed a couple extra dollars for their mortgage. They were happy to earn a few bucks driving a car from point A to B. They didn’t want to look in the trunk or ask stupid questions. They just wanted to earn their pay. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I never had a problem with these kids. The few times I did, they were very sorry.

I gave my drivers fake licenses. I’d found a guy whose cousin worked at the state licensing bureau. For a couple hundred bucks, I could send someone in to him, and he’d take their picture and
issue a license in a fake name, and put it all in the main computer so if a cop ran the license, it came up as legit. If one of my guys got arrested, they could use the fake ID. I’d bond them out, and they could skip their bail. Obviously, once a guy was arrested, the heat took their fingerprints, but the system was so slow in those days, a guy could usually get out before they figured out who he really was.