Latest / Drawn of History / John Kiriakou Tells Prison Stories(M4A_128K)

Transcript

John Kiriakou Tells Prison Stories(M4A_128K) · Drawn of History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Was being in prison kind of fun?
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: Um, fun. No, I, no, I wouldn't say fun.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Like what was kind of cool about it? I've always
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: wanted to go to jail.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: You know, there's this old saying that you don't go
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: to jail to make friends. And I made some lifelong
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: friends in jail. Um, mostly named Gambino, Lucchese, Bonanno.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. Genovese.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: So a lot of good storytellers in there, I bet. Oh, Listen,
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: those guys were so honorable. I learned so much from
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: those guys in just 23 months. Lessons I'll carry with
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: me forever.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Real honor.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: It's funny, the Italians were the smallest, they call them
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: gangs in prison. The Italians weren't a gang. I'll use
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: the word gang just for the purpose of this response.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: They were the smallest gang in the prison, yet commanded
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: the highest level of respect.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Really? More than the blacks and the Latinos?
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: The blacks and the Latinos were always at each other's
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: throats and they had, like for example, it was Crips
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: and Bloods and there was this uneasy peace between them
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: just because it's not worth upsetting the apple cart and
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: everybody goes to solitary and then gets spread out all
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: over the country. For the Latinos, it was far more
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: complicated because it was Burachos, Norteños, Latin Kings, MS-13, Mexican Mafia,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: and then the individual cartels. So overall, there's one gigantic
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Hispanic prison gang called Pisces, and then within Pisces are
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: all the different divisions. Yeah, and the Pisces, if you
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: were Hispanic, you were automatically in Pisces whether you liked
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: it or not, and you had to work out every
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: single day. Oh, that's pretty good. For the coming race
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: war with the blacks. Right, and the whites are like,
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: we have nothing to do with this. Yeah, I would
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: just want to do it just to get in shape. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you need motivation.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: We had Aryan Brotherhood.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: What's that? What are they doing? What are they up to?
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: You know, Aryan Brotherhood of Texas is far more violent
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: than Aryan Brotherhood. And they're not, it says right there,
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: they're not connected. I never met anybody from the Aryan
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Brotherhood of Texas. Aryan Brotherhood at a low security prison
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: just wants to sort of, you know, go along to
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: get along. Yeah. Yeah. You stay out of my way.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: I'll stay out of yours. My very first day in prison,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: my very first hour in prison, when the, when the
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: guard dropped me off in my cell, the only thing
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: he said to me the whole time I was, you know,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: checking in and getting processed was if somebody comes into
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: your cell uninvited, that's an act of aggression. And I said, great.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Thank you. I've been here 40 minutes. I'm going to
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: get my ass kicked now. Hmm. Sure enough, as soon
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: as he left, these two guys walked into my cell,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: just walked right in. One of them had a swastika
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: that took up his entire neck and then came up
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: onto his face. And the other one had, fuck you,
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: tattooed on his eyelids.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. I mean, that's, yeah.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: And so I jump up.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I go, what do you want?
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Because I thought, you know, if I'm going down, I'm
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: taking one of them down with me at least.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: What do you want?
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: And the one with the swastika, he says, you the
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: new guy? I go, yeah, so?
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: This sounds like a story from like the 1940s, John.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Isn't it awful? It does sound real, bro.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: I said in my second book, prison is a combination
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: of seventh grade, the Lord of the Flies, and a
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: mental institution. And it's set in the 1950s. That's hilarious.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: So I go, what do you want? He goes, you
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: the new guy? I said, yeah, so? And he goes,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: I'm standing there like this. He goes, you a f
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: * * *? And I go, no, I'm not a
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: f * * *. He says, you a rat?
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: No, no gays allowed. You a rat? I said, no,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I'm not a rat. You a chomo?
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: I go, I don't know what that word means. He goes, chomo,
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: child molester. I said, no, I'm not a child molester.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: That's good.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: And then he says, you can sit with the Aryans
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: in the cafeteria.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: And I was like, oh.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: I guess I'm with the Aryans now. But then a
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: couple of months later.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Simple rules.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: I was across the hall from a captain in the
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Bonanno family. And he said to me one day, he goes,
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: let me ask you a question. Why do you sit
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: with those Nazi retards every day? And I said, I
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: don't know. I said, my first day here, they just
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: told me sit with them. And he goes, from today,
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: you are with the Italians. I said, it's about time.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: That was it. Yeah. Took you long enough. You got drafted. Yeah.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: But they were the best. Yeah, but a lot of
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: good stories, dude. Any good story come to mind from
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: somebody like a good story you heard in prison? Yeah,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: there's one.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: I'm actually, you're going to think less of me and
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: I don't care.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: That's fine.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: I could tell you some stuff. That would probably make
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: it even. There was a guy in my housing unit
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: who was a serial killer. He was called Truck because
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: he drove long distance trucks from the East Coast to
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: the West Coast. And he would pick up prostitutes at
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: truck stops and he would rape them and murder them,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: drive them a couple of hundred miles down the highway
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: and then dump the bodies out. So the cops estimated
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: that he killed 14. It was probably more than that.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: But he strangled one and she survived. And she was
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: able to give the cops the license number. Now this
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: was in the days before DNA testing.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: So this guy- Before DNA testing?
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this was in the 70s.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, he'd been in for a long time. He was
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: doing life. Got it.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: So- For reasons that were never clear to me, this
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: guy constantly sought my approval. He was full of shit.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: He would come up. He had the worst breath because
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: he had just these black and rotten nubs where his
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: That used to be his teeth.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: That makes my fucking dicks off, dude.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's awful.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Awful.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: He goes, you CIA? And I said, yeah, I used
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: to be. He goes, I did work for the CIA.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: I ran a shrimp boat full of weapons to Angola.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: I go, get the fuck out of here. I didn't
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: know he was a serial killer. I go, get the
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: fuck out of here. Shrimp boat to Angola. Have you
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: ever been on a shrimp boat? And I walked away.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: People are looking at me like, are you crazy? Do
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: you know who that is?
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't know who it was.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: So instead of making him mad, it just made him
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: more actively seek my approval. So I'm a big Pittsburgh
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Steelers fan.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: And he would say, Hey John, the Steelers are the
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: game of the featured game of the week. I saved
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: you a seat in the TV room. I'm like, ah,
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: thanks truck. Like, okay, John, I know you listen to
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: classic rock. There's a new classic rock station, 1600 AM.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: You should check it out. I'm like, okay, thanks truck.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: In the meantime, There's this guy we called Cat in
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: the Hat because he had this oddly elongated head, like
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: a birth defect, kind of giant cat in the hat head.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: And he comes up to me one day and he said, hey,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: I heard you had an empty bunk in your cell.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: I want to move into your cell. I heard it's
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: a good cell. And I said, well, not so fast, buddy.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: I said, we don't allow any pedophiles in our cell
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: and no rats. I said, what's your crime? He goes,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: murder for hire and no f * * k. I
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: don't even care about that.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But the other guy, I can't speak for the
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: other guys.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: I was trying to like, I was trying to be
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: a part of the group, you know, but go on,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: go on.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: So, uh, so he says, uh, I, in murder for hire,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: I said, I don't think I like that any better
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: than the pedophiles, the rats. What were the circumstances? And
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: he said, I owed the mob a lot of money,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: a hundred thousand in gambling. I couldn't pay it. So
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: I took out a life insurance policy on my business
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: partner and I hired a hit man to kill him.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: And the hit man got caught. I said, let me
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: think about it. Well, think about it. I went straight
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: to the law library and I looked up his case
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: and that wasn't it at all.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: It was true.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: He owed the mob a hundred thousand. He took out
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: the life insurance policy. He hired the hit man. He
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: got caught because of course he's going to get caught.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Where's the first place the cops are going to go?
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Where the money went.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: And he ratted out the hit man so that he
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: wouldn't get the federal death penalty. Instead, he got 20 years.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: So I said, no rats in the room. So he
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: was mad at me. Anyway, one day, Jake Tapper comes
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: up to the prison to interview me. And I get
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: called down to the lieutenant's office. Normally, if you're called
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: down to the lieutenant's office, it's to go to solitary.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: If you come back, usually it's because you ratted somebody out. Well,
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: I went down there to sign the waiver so I
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: could give Jake Tapper the interview. So I'm sitting in
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: the TV room next to truck. Truck was very, very
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: sensitive about being called a chomo because that girl that
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: he strangled was 16, which technically made him a chomo.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: So truck's sitting here. I'm sitting here. Right here is
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: cat in the hat with his back toward me. He's
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: on the computer. There's like this internal internet, not internet,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: internal email system. He doesn't see me. I'm sitting 18
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: inches away from him. And then he says to the
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: guy next to him, do you hear? Kiriakou got called
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: down to the lieutenant's office. He goes, that guy's a
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: fucking rat. He went down there to rat us out.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: And I just sat there watching the game. And then
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: truck says, that fucking guy just called you a rat.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: And I said, an hour ago, I heard him call
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: you a chomo, which was a total lie. I just
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: made it up. He didn't say a single word. He
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: just stood up, walked over here and beat this guy
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: almost to death. They had to land a helicopter in
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: the yard to life flight Cat in the Hat to Pittsburgh.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: They gave Truck five more years. Cat Scan in the Hat, huh? Yeah,
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: it's Cat Scan in the Hat. See, how come I
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: didn't think of that? Because I'm not a comedian. I
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: should have put that in my book.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Is there any real value in me
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: thinking of that? That's a good question.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Six weeks later, Cat in the Hat.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: is finally released from the hospital.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: He comes.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: He's all fucked up still. And he's like this. Somebody
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: had told him what had happened. He goes, I wanted
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: to say I'm sorry for calling you a rat. I
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: should never have said that. And everybody stops to look
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: to see what I'm going to say. Well, what am
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: I going to say? Ah, forget it.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: It's all water under the bridge. I go, listen, look
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: at me. Look at me.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: And he lifts his head up. And I said, so
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: help me, God. If I ever hear my name cross
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: your lips ever again, you're dead. And they won't even
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: find you.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: So everybody's like, ah, the CIA guy's tough after all.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: But I said in the book, one of my rules
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: that I learned at the CIA, let others do your
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: dirty work. And then I get called down to the
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: lieutenant's office again. Because as he's beating him, I sat
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: back down. I'm watching the game. Everybody else runs. As
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: soon as there's a fight, everybody just runs like cockroaches.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: That's insane, though, man. Right? So I'm watching the game.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Kiriakou, lieutenant's office, immediately. They always do it the same way.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: It's like they're caricatures of themselves. So I go down there.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: And one of the lieutenants, there are two of them.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: And he says, so tell us about this fight. I go,
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: what fight?
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: What fight?
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: You're going to be a smart guy now. I said,
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: The fight.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: We had four cameras showing you saying something to that
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: crazy person. And then he got up and beat the
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: other guy. I said, I was watching the Steelers game.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: I don't know what you're talking about. Hmm. Oh, you're
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: not going to tell us about the fight. I said,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: you know what? Maybe I will tell you about the fight.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Maybe it was you that started the fight. Did you
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: ever think of that? Maybe it wasn't me. I was
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: an innocent bystander. Maybe you put them up to fight
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: each other. I think I might make a complaint against you.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: He goes, get the fuck out of my office. And
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: I wrote in my book, rule number one, admit nothing,
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: deny everything, make counter accusations. And as I was walking out,
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: I just said, exactly.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Dang, bro. I don't even know what to think anymore.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: You know, I figured. Sometimes that's where you get people
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: to that point. You're like this, you know.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: They pushed me and pushed me and pushed me. And
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: at sentencing, the judge sentenced me to a minimum security
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: work camp. And the CIA was furious that I got
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: such a light sentence and I was going to a
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: minimum security camp. So the CIA intervened to send me
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: to a low security prison, which is an actual prison
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: with the double walls.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Why'd they do that? They were furious. The CIA was?
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: When I was first charged, I mean, this is a
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: potential death penalty case. Three counts of espionage for talking
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: to ABC News and the New York Times? Because you
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: were talking to them about torture, right? What cases specifically
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: were you talking to them about?
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Abu Zubaydah.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: And they were furious because nobody had ever confirmed that
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: there was a torture program. And I said, it was illegal.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Besides being immoral and unethical, it's illegal. You want to
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: torture people, God bless, but you got to change the
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: law first. We're a nation of laws.