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How Witness Protection Works · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: from how Stuff works dot Com. You've heard the rumors before,
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Speaker 1: perhaps and whispers written between the lines of the textbooks. Conspiracies,
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Speaker 1: paranormal events, all those things that disappear from the official explanations.
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Speaker 1: Tune in and learn more of this stuff they don't
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Speaker 1: want you to know in this video podcast from how
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Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:42
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. That there is Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
0:45
Speaker 1: but that they're down the road a piece, etcetera. I
0:49
Speaker 1: am down the road, apiece. I'm sure you are. I wish.
0:52
Speaker 1: Have you ever committed a crime? Charles? I've never been
0:57
Speaker 1: caught or convicted of committing a crime, Josh, But you have.
1:01
Speaker 1: I've never been convicted of the crime. Talk is big
1:05
Speaker 1: on c y a crime. Everyone's made a right on
1:09
Speaker 1: red when they shouldn't have. Sure have committed a crime.
1:12
Speaker 1: Everyone who listens to this podcast knows that I started
1:15
Speaker 1: out early as a thief and stopped shortly afterward. Remember
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Speaker 1: the firecrackers in the pac Man shirt? Ye yes, um,
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Speaker 1: If you committed crime. You've got your own thing going on, right, sure,
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Speaker 1: But what happens if you witness a crime. You're just
1:30
Speaker 1: some innacent person and you see somebody shoot somebody else
1:34
Speaker 1: in the head. The blood comes spurting out and like
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Speaker 1: a big arc and the eyes go glaze and you're
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Speaker 1: just standing there watching this and you get a good
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Speaker 1: look at the person who did it. What do you do?
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Speaker 1: You get the heck out of there. You call a cop. Yeah,
1:49
Speaker 1: that's a good first step. And what what may end
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Speaker 1: up happening? And I think this is where you're going,
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Speaker 1: is you may end up a witness that has to
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Speaker 1: go to court and testify against this bad, bad person.
2:01
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, Uh, part of our constitution actually, I
2:04
Speaker 1: don't know if it's in the constitution, but let's say
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Speaker 1: a general protection that any individual has is protection against
2:11
Speaker 1: being coerced into testifying against somebody. It's an individual's right
2:16
Speaker 1: to choose whether or not you want to testify, and um,
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Speaker 1: a lot of people choose not to. Yeah, very much.
2:22
Speaker 1: It's a big problem. Actually, Uh, there there's a lot
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Speaker 1: of people who do witness crimes that you say, I'm
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Speaker 1: not doing it. I'm not going to get involved exactly.
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Speaker 1: One of the reasons why is because there is a
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Speaker 1: longstanding tradition of witnesses being murdered when they testify or
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Speaker 1: agree to testify, especially in circumstances where you're dealing with
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Speaker 1: gangs or drugs or racketeering crime. Yeah, but some of
2:47
Speaker 1: the heavy hitters. Sure. I mean, if you're gonna go
2:50
Speaker 1: up river for twenty years and you've already killed a
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Speaker 1: bunch of people, what's one more witness? Exactly? Right? Um. So,
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Speaker 1: the the US federal government and actually some other countries
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Speaker 1: have this as well. I looked into that, did you
3:03
Speaker 1: when you come up with well, we'll get to that later. Okay,
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Speaker 1: they have something called the Witness Protection Program, commonly thought
3:10
Speaker 1: to be called the witness Relocation Program. That's kind of
3:13
Speaker 1: an aspect of the larger program, right exactly. So let's
3:17
Speaker 1: let's go back to the nineteen sixties. Okay. So we're
3:21
Speaker 1: the guys that are dressed funny in nineteen sixty exactly.
3:23
Speaker 1: And I haven't figured out yet if people can see us,
3:26
Speaker 1: can't see us, or just ignoring us. I think we're observing. Okay, Um, so, Chuck,
3:31
Speaker 1: it's the nineteen sixties. John F. Kennedy's father, Joseph has
3:35
Speaker 1: just stolen the presidential election for him. Uh, and he's
3:39
Speaker 1: put his brother Bobby in his attorney general. They have
3:43
Speaker 1: turned on the very mafia that helped get them New York,
3:48
Speaker 1: I think, Illinois, uh, some key states in the presidential election. Now,
3:54
Speaker 1: up to this point, there was no mafia. There was
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Speaker 1: an unrecognized entity. It existed, but as far as the
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Speaker 1: federal government, including and especially Jayer Hoover, it wasn't real.
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Speaker 1: Organized crime in the United States wasn't real, and there
4:09
Speaker 1: certainly wasn't a mafia. Well, Bobby Kennedy comes in, is like,
4:13
Speaker 1: there is a mafia number one and number two, we're
4:15
Speaker 1: going after him. Um. And so the Kennedy administration goes
4:20
Speaker 1: after organized crime. They they they very famously started interviewing
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Speaker 1: crime bosses, some of whom said that they were patriotic
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Speaker 1: Americans because they pay their taxes, that kind of thing. Uh.
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Speaker 1: And the mafia becomes part of the collective consciousness of
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Speaker 1: the United States. Right by nineteen seventy uh, there was
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Speaker 1: actual real strides made in combating organized crime, one of
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Speaker 1: which was the Organized Crime Act of nineteen seventy Organized
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Speaker 1: Crime Control Act, thank you chuck, just to be specific,
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Speaker 1: which was introduced by who Arkansas Senator John McClellan in nine. Yes,
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Speaker 1: he had an aid who actually drafted the legislation forum
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Speaker 1: That would be g. Robert Blakely. And it was a
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Speaker 1: large bill. So what he did, and like many bills,
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Speaker 1: there's a lot of things kind of snuck in. There're
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Speaker 1: not snuck in there, but inserted. He uh inserted a
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Speaker 1: little thing about witness protection for the first time officially
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Speaker 1: thanks to a guy named Gerald Schuer who created the
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Speaker 1: witness protection program. He was a U S attorney, had
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Speaker 1: the ear of Blakely. Yeah, and he was a U
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Speaker 1: S attorney under Bobby Kennedy. So in this provision in
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Speaker 1: nineteen or in this Act of nineteen seventy, there's a
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Speaker 1: provision that says the Attorney General can basically allow the
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Speaker 1: federal government, I guess the Marshall services named in it
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Speaker 1: to protect any witness by any means they need to.
5:44
Speaker 1: So there you go. That's pretty wide latitude. It was
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Speaker 1: revised in nineteen eighty four to include family members as well. Yeah,
5:52
Speaker 1: the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of eight four, right, and
5:55
Speaker 1: it's been going ever since then. Better known as van
5:58
Speaker 1: Halen nineteen eighty four. That's the alternate named alternate. Yeah,
6:04
Speaker 1: um man, you just made me want to do the robot, didn't.
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Speaker 1: Um So, Chuck. We've got the Witness Protection Program. Everybody
6:14
Speaker 1: knows about it. It's it's been um part of popular
6:17
Speaker 1: culture since its inception. Movies, especially right, um the al
6:21
Speaker 1: and All the movie Betsy's Wedding My Blue Heaven. Yeah,
6:25
Speaker 1: one of your favorites. Right, I love that movie. I
6:27
Speaker 1: know you don't like it. I it's not that I
6:30
Speaker 1: didn't like it. I didn't like Steve Martin. I didn't
6:32
Speaker 1: buy his character. Not you weren't supposed to buy his
6:36
Speaker 1: Martin doing a Mafio. So that in and of itself
6:39
Speaker 1: is comedy. That makes me a schmuck. Not necessarily. Everyone's
6:42
Speaker 1: in title Loui's own opinion here, a's stuff. You should know.
6:44
Speaker 1: Our motto is to each his own. Sure, so you're fine, Chuck.
6:48
Speaker 1: But there was another little movie that's arguably the greatest
6:51
Speaker 1: gangster movie ever made, possibly better than The Godfather. That's
6:56
Speaker 1: a tough one, it is, but the fact that it's
6:58
Speaker 1: even competing with the Godfather, it's a lot about it.
7:01
Speaker 1: That movie is a little Martin Scorsese movie called Goodfellas,
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Speaker 1: based on real life events, based on a book called
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Speaker 1: Wise Guys by Nicholas Plague yep, and based on a
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Speaker 1: famous rat snitch called Henry Hill, who ray Leota played
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Speaker 1: in the film. Yeah, and Henry Hill was a real dude,
7:18
Speaker 1: and he really did uh snitch on the um? What
7:22
Speaker 1: was the what was the family? The Luchese crime family?
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Speaker 1: And he took the stand and and was in the
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Speaker 1: witness protection program for a while. He's clearly not anymore
7:32
Speaker 1: because he's on Howard Stern all the time. Uh No,
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Speaker 1: but he was in the witness protection program. He was
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Speaker 1: a problem child from what I understand. And ladies and gentlemen,
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Speaker 1: may I announce Mr Charles W. Bryant doing a dramatic
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Speaker 1: reading from the movie Goodfellas. Silence please. We ran everything.
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Speaker 1: We paid off cops, we paid off lawyers, we paid
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Speaker 1: off judges. Everybody had their hands out. Everything was for
7:55
Speaker 1: the taking. And now it's all over. That's the hardest part.
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Speaker 1: Today everything is different. There's no action. I have to
8:01
Speaker 1: wait around like everybody else. Can't even get decent food.
8:05
Speaker 1: After I got here, I ordered spaghetti with marinara sauce,
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Speaker 1: and I got egg noodles with ketchup. I'm an average nobody.
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Speaker 1: I get to live the rest of my life like
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Speaker 1: a schnook. Thank you, Charles. That is the last scene
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Speaker 1: from Good Fellows when Raino does goes out to get
8:20
Speaker 1: the paper. Story imagines Joe PESSI just shooting up such
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Speaker 1: a classic. So you can tell from that passage brilliant
8:30
Speaker 1: by the way, buddy, thank you. You can tell by
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Speaker 1: that passage that UM witness protection is not a lot
8:35
Speaker 1: of fun necessarily, especially if you are a high flying
8:39
Speaker 1: mafios So you have to go become some regular Joe
8:42
Speaker 1: and Tempi. Yeah, absolutely right, Um chuck, I'm about to
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Speaker 1: blow your mind. My man, I've been waiting on this.
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Speaker 1: You're ready. My Blue Heaven also based on Henry Hill.
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Speaker 1: Was it really? Do you want to know why? Uh?
8:55
Speaker 1: I don't know. Nicholas Pelegy married one Nora Efron the screen. No,
9:03
Speaker 1: I kid you not. I went back and cross references. Yes,
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Speaker 1: those two got married in Ron who wrote My Blue Heaven.
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Speaker 1: Both movies were based upon joint interviews they conducted with
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Speaker 1: Henry Hill. No kidding, I kid you not? Did she right?
9:18
Speaker 1: My Blue Heaven h huh did not know that? Wow? Yep,
9:22
Speaker 1: So there you go. There's a cocktail party tidbit. Yeah,
9:25
Speaker 1: that's good. Didn't I know they were married? Are they
9:26
Speaker 1: still married? Yeah? As far as or do you have
9:29
Speaker 1: a rubbed out? Not yet, but she doesn't know too much.
9:33
Speaker 1: By this time, he's got some concrete boots with her
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Speaker 1: name on him. Alright, So, Chuck, let's talk about the
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Speaker 1: actual witness Relocation program, which in the industry is called
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Speaker 1: whit SEC. Yes, officially took hold in nineteen seventy. Since then,
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Speaker 1: hush your mouth, there have been more than witnesses and
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Speaker 1: family members have entered this program and been protected and
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Speaker 1: relocated by the U. S. Marshals. Right, and by family
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Speaker 1: Chuck means by marriage or blood, not by you know, crime, family, right,
10:04
Speaker 1: right of course, like hide my wife and kids along
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Speaker 1: with me? Right? Yeah? Okay? So um, who's eligible? Chuck? Well,
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Speaker 1: you have to apply, and the ultimately the application, you know, ultimately,
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Speaker 1: the the Attorney General gives the stamp of approval, but
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Speaker 1: they take certain things into account, like, uh, what you're
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Speaker 1: going to testify against, right, it's gotta be big, sure,
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Speaker 1: and probably there also can't be any other witnesses that
10:33
Speaker 1: have the same information as you that don't need to
10:36
Speaker 1: be because it costs some money. So I got the
10:38
Speaker 1: idea that they want to try to avoid it if possible.
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Speaker 1: But if if you have the information and you're guaranteed
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Speaker 1: to show up and testify, and you definitely are going
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Speaker 1: to need protection because of this testimony, then there's a
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Speaker 1: good chance that you might be accepted. Usually it covers
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Speaker 1: people who have information big time about organized crime, racketeering, UM,
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Speaker 1: major drug offenses, UM, terrorist activities. Yeah, that's kind of
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Speaker 1: a new on the scene. That is new and also
11:07
Speaker 1: fairly new on the scene are people who are members
11:10
Speaker 1: of gangs that have information about gang members, big ones.
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Speaker 1: A lot of them are are fit that mold these days. Right. So,
11:18
Speaker 1: prosecutor trying a case has a witness puts in an
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Speaker 1: application on his or her behalf to the Justice Department.
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Speaker 1: They have a special bureau called the Office of Enforcement Operations,
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Speaker 1: right uh, and they get with the Federal Marshal Service
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Speaker 1: and basically all these agencies come together to interview the person.
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Speaker 1: They create a dossier on the potential witness. I love
11:42
Speaker 1: that word, by the way, thank you. And one of
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Speaker 1: the things that they come up with, is what kind
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Speaker 1: of a threat that person will pose to his or
11:49
Speaker 1: her new community that I never thought about a lot
11:51
Speaker 1: of times, Well, you clearly haven't seen my blue heaven
11:54
Speaker 1: then a lot of times, Um, these people are criminals themselves.
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Speaker 1: And you know, just because the government's moving you doesn't
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Speaker 1: mean you're a reformed person. True, although we should say
12:06
Speaker 1: there's a recipativism rate of sevent in the witness relocation program. Right,
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Speaker 1: if you are we're a criminal and you are turning
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Speaker 1: state's evidence, you're protected. There's a seventeen percent chance that
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Speaker 1: you will go on to commit a crime while under protection.
12:22
Speaker 1: It is a bone head, word, isn't it? Uh? Compared
12:26
Speaker 1: to uh, paroled cons, that's not too bad considering that,
12:31
Speaker 1: uh it's yes, there's a forty percent chance that will
12:34
Speaker 1: go on to commit another crime while on parole or
12:37
Speaker 1: off parole. But sure, right, um, so it's not too shabby.
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Speaker 1: And so far ten thousand I believe more than ten
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Speaker 1: thousand criminals have been convicted from witness testimony from witnesses
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Speaker 1: in the witness Relocation program. So it's chance success rate
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Speaker 1: of conviction. When when they're using someone who's turning state's evidence,
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Speaker 1: which is why it's going on still and why it
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Speaker 1: has such a spectacular budget. Apparently this year or in
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Speaker 1: two eight, they had a thirty eight million dollar budget
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Speaker 1: the Marshall's office did just for witness relocation. Don't you
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Speaker 1: get sixty grand a year? Yeah, let's talk about that, chuck.
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Speaker 1: So let's say that you've been enrolled in the program,
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Speaker 1: You've been accepted. Uh, what happens is you get a
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Speaker 1: T shirt says witness Protected person. You remember that Simpsons
13:23
Speaker 1: where they go in the witness relocation program? Yes? I do. Yeah? Um,
13:27
Speaker 1: and did you see that onion article? I sent you
13:30
Speaker 1: a witness protection parade. FBI cancels annual Witness Protection Parade.
13:34
Speaker 1: Yeah that was good. Um. So you've been enrolled in
13:37
Speaker 1: the program, you moved out to Tempe, and you are
13:41
Speaker 1: living a new life, right, Yes, you're no longer living
13:44
Speaker 1: a life of crime. So you were a criminal, or
13:46
Speaker 1: so you were a normal person. You don't have your
13:49
Speaker 1: job any longer. No, you gotta get any job to
13:52
Speaker 1: get to this point. To get to Tempe from say Philly,
13:55
Speaker 1: there are some things you had to do first. Detroit, okay, okay,
13:59
Speaker 1: all right to get for them. Detroit to tempt you,
14:01
Speaker 1: there were some things you had to do. First. Number one,
14:03
Speaker 1: if you have outstanding debts, you gotta pay them first. Yeah. See,
14:07
Speaker 1: this is something I never would have thought of. No,
14:09
Speaker 1: I would think maybe they would just kind of settle
14:11
Speaker 1: those because what if you can't pay your debts. I
14:14
Speaker 1: imagine that if you have good enough information, they'd pay
14:17
Speaker 1: them for you. But I think that part of the
14:20
Speaker 1: program is they want you to do that if you can.
14:22
Speaker 1: If you and they, I imagine wouldn't know whether you
14:25
Speaker 1: have the money or not. Um, But yeah, you have
14:28
Speaker 1: to pay your outstanding debts. Um, they will change your name.
14:33
Speaker 1: You get to pick it, though, do you get to
14:35
Speaker 1: pic which surprised me. They suggest that you keep the
14:38
Speaker 1: same initials and or the same first name. That surprised
14:42
Speaker 1: me too. Well, think about it. I mean, if somebody's like, hey, Johnny,
14:46
Speaker 1: and you look and that was your old name, but
14:48
Speaker 1: your new name, you know your new names, you don't
14:50
Speaker 1: want to do that. Yeah, but it also makes it
14:52
Speaker 1: easier to find once they put out this alert that hey,
14:56
Speaker 1: they're probably gonna have the same initials and maybe the
14:58
Speaker 1: first name. But who wants to go to Tempe? Yeah,
15:01
Speaker 1: that's good. Point. All right, so that they are you
15:04
Speaker 1: have to clear your debt, they change your name, you
15:06
Speaker 1: get all sorts of new records, new birth certificate, new
15:09
Speaker 1: Social Security card and all this is handled on the
15:11
Speaker 1: down though. But there are records of you changing your name,
15:15
Speaker 1: changing your social Security number, but it's all sealed. Yeah,
15:19
Speaker 1: I mean apparently happens just like a regular name change,
15:21
Speaker 1: but they seal it off instead of allowing it's it's
15:24
Speaker 1: not public record. Names runer. Once you get to Tempe,
15:27
Speaker 1: you are um given housing or they help you find housing.
15:32
Speaker 1: I think it's a temporary thing at first while that
15:34
Speaker 1: they just want to get you taken care of immediately,
15:36
Speaker 1: and then later on they will help you out with
15:38
Speaker 1: your ultimate like living after life scenario um and to
15:42
Speaker 1: help you live out your ultimate life scenario. How much
15:45
Speaker 1: do they get a year, did you say, Chuck? Sixty thousand?
15:48
Speaker 1: There called substance payments are on average sixty thousand per year.
15:52
Speaker 1: And I didn't see in the article that they ran
15:54
Speaker 1: out over. Yeah. I couldn't determine whether or not. Once
15:57
Speaker 1: you get your job, I didn't know if that was
15:59
Speaker 1: to tide you over until you got a stable career,
16:01
Speaker 1: or if that was for life. I don't know. I
16:03
Speaker 1: don't know either, um, which one could argue, and I'm
16:05
Speaker 1: sure many critics have that basically, this is the government
16:08
Speaker 1: paying for testimony. Yeah sure, I never thought about that. Um.
16:12
Speaker 1: But you have to try to get a job, or
16:14
Speaker 1: you can be dropped. You can't be dropped, or you
16:17
Speaker 1: they can stop giving you the subsistence payments. Yeah, I
16:21
Speaker 1: think that's what happens. But you can go on to
16:22
Speaker 1: welfare if you want, right, But they tried. The marshals
16:25
Speaker 1: are responsible for I think they said they have to
16:27
Speaker 1: give you one job opportunity. They have to bring you
16:30
Speaker 1: one job opportunity. Alright, So Chuck, like you said, they
16:33
Speaker 1: get you out of Detroit to Tempe as fast as
16:35
Speaker 1: they can. They get you whatever, temporary housing until you
16:38
Speaker 1: can find real housing. You're getting sixt k a year. Uh,
16:41
Speaker 1: and you're trying to find a job. But sometimes trials
16:44
Speaker 1: drag out for a while. What do they do, I mean,
16:47
Speaker 1: do they just leave you alone? What happens when it
16:50
Speaker 1: comes time to go to trial? This is the most
16:52
Speaker 1: dangerous part. Kind of like stealing a nuclear weapon. The
16:56
Speaker 1: easiest time to steal one is when it's in transports.
16:58
Speaker 1: Same with protective witness, protected witness. You've got twenty four
17:04
Speaker 1: hour protective custody like around the area of the trial
17:08
Speaker 1: to and from the trial. Clearly, and they use all
17:10
Speaker 1: kinds of little tricky ways to make sure that you
17:12
Speaker 1: stay alive. Right. Gerald sure wrote a book called wit sec.
17:16
Speaker 1: Remember he's the founder of the witness Protection program. Yeah,
17:19
Speaker 1: he did, uh, And in it he talks about how
17:21
Speaker 1: witnesses were delivered by fishing, boat, by mail truck, armored car. Yeah,
17:27
Speaker 1: and actually they often use armored cars as decoys. Well,
17:32
Speaker 1: they bring a witness into in in a normal car
17:35
Speaker 1: to the trial. He did that with famously with the
17:38
Speaker 1: mafia member Joseph Barboza. Who don't you kind of have
17:42
Speaker 1: to say it like that, but yeah, clearly, if your
17:43
Speaker 1: name is Joseph Barboza, you're born to be in the mafia.
17:46
Speaker 1: It occurred to me, right now, we're really treading on
17:48
Speaker 1: thin nights. We might get greased by the FBI, the marshals,
17:53
Speaker 1: or the mafia. So they cover you before trial, they
17:55
Speaker 1: cover you after trial, especially during transport, and then after that.
18:00
Speaker 1: All you have to do is if you remain in
18:02
Speaker 1: the in the program, you can remain in it for
18:05
Speaker 1: the rest of your life and you just check in
18:07
Speaker 1: once a year, I believe is what it is, unless
18:09
Speaker 1: you're moving that kind of thing. Yeah, and you you
18:11
Speaker 1: definitely have to let them know when you're moving, so
18:14
Speaker 1: it's not just that they move you to the dump
18:15
Speaker 1: and ground of Tempe. There are some rules to follow,
18:18
Speaker 1: and we should say that the Marshall's Service is quite
18:21
Speaker 1: fond of pointing out that no one who's ever followed
18:23
Speaker 1: the rules of the Witness Protection program has ever been killed. Yeah, Josh,
18:27
Speaker 1: there are two rules actually, which is you can never
18:29
Speaker 1: go back to where you were originally from and you
18:32
Speaker 1: can't get in touch with like friends and family members
18:34
Speaker 1: from your past life. And apparently, um, it's getting more
18:38
Speaker 1: and more difficult to get people to follow the rules.
18:40
Speaker 1: Which why is that, Well, apparently people are dumber than
18:44
Speaker 1: they used to be, sort of what the what the
18:47
Speaker 1: deal is from what I read is that, Um, the
18:49
Speaker 1: nature of the crimes these days, with gang members and
18:52
Speaker 1: the like, you're getting younger and younger people turning state's evidence.
18:57
Speaker 1: So it's not like the old days of Sammy the Bowl.
19:00
Speaker 1: Gravano is like in his fifties and he turned state's evidence.
19:03
Speaker 1: What was the story you sent from Newsweek that one
19:05
Speaker 1: girl seventeen seventeen, she was a member of I think
19:09
Speaker 1: MS twelve, yes, which is an Hispanic gang um in Virginia.
19:14
Speaker 1: I think it's all over the place. But she was
19:16
Speaker 1: based in Virginia and she turned She apparently had a
19:19
Speaker 1: very vivid memory that what what's that quote? That quote
19:22
Speaker 1: is beautiful? Yes, her court appointed a lawyer said she
19:26
Speaker 1: wasn't just a witness, she was like the rain Man
19:28
Speaker 1: of witnesses. Yeah, she'd like to talk, so she spilled it.
19:31
Speaker 1: Bro she did. Uh, and they relocated her successfully to
19:35
Speaker 1: Kansas City. I think, yeah, they moved her to Kansas City.
19:38
Speaker 1: She did a while. Uh did a good job for
19:39
Speaker 1: a little while, and then I was like, oh, I
19:42
Speaker 1: missed my friends. L O L let me get back
19:43
Speaker 1: in touch with my friends and had them come out
19:45
Speaker 1: and visit. Yeah. At one point her handler came out
19:49
Speaker 1: to check on her. And apparently her handler was supposed
19:51
Speaker 1: to be her stepfather, and she um hid her MS
19:55
Speaker 1: twelve friends in the bathroom the weekly hotel. They had
19:58
Speaker 1: put her up um while he visited. She was really
20:03
Speaker 1: trying to stay alive, very she wasn't and you know what,
20:06
Speaker 1: she didn't know. She didn't actually she yes, she got
20:10
Speaker 1: homesick and lonely and went back to Virginia and what
20:13
Speaker 1: two days later they found her floating in the river
20:15
Speaker 1: I think some other some other person in the witness
20:18
Speaker 1: relocation program. Uh. An official of it called her a
20:21
Speaker 1: fatality waiting to happen. Yeah, they knew she wasn't in
20:25
Speaker 1: for the long haul, right, So it is becoming increasingly
20:27
Speaker 1: difficult to protect people. Um, but the as we said,
20:31
Speaker 1: the marshals have a really good budget. They are what's
20:35
Speaker 1: been called the gold standard of witness protection. If you
20:38
Speaker 1: go down to the state and local level, if you're
20:41
Speaker 1: a witness secret protection, you're probably going to die. Yeah,
20:45
Speaker 1: there are states. A few states have their own programs
20:48
Speaker 1: that good ones. I think usually up to about five
20:51
Speaker 1: hundred thousand is about as much as a state throws
20:53
Speaker 1: into witness relocation. And remember, you have to be testifying
20:57
Speaker 1: in a federal trial to get witness protection from the U. S. Marshals.
21:03
Speaker 1: If it's just a state or local trial, it's comer
21:06
Speaker 1: at the sheriff's office exactly. That's you're you're getting that
21:09
Speaker 1: level of protection from what I understand most um, most
21:13
Speaker 1: of the protection you can expect will be to be
21:15
Speaker 1: put up in a weekly motel for a couple of
21:17
Speaker 1: weeks until the trial, and a bus ticket out of town,
21:21
Speaker 1: maybe a security deposit for down payment on an apartment
21:25
Speaker 1: somewhere else. That's about it. And that's when Javier Bardem
21:28
Speaker 1: shows up at your front door with a with a
21:31
Speaker 1: cattle killer. Yeah, and as a result, a lot of
21:34
Speaker 1: witnesses are murdered every year in state trial uh in
21:38
Speaker 1: New Jersey apparently won't work with anyone who has a
21:41
Speaker 1: criminal record. Yeah, So prosecutors are like, this guy can
21:45
Speaker 1: shut the case, but he wants witness protection and you
21:48
Speaker 1: won't give it to him because he sold crack before
21:51
Speaker 1: something New Jersey. You know, I lived there there they
21:54
Speaker 1: don't have or at least where I was, they didn't
21:56
Speaker 1: have Um County sanctioned waste disposal. So it was literally
22:01
Speaker 1: like the Sopranos. The trash guys would come and it
22:04
Speaker 1: would be like lu Chonese trash service on the side
22:07
Speaker 1: of the truck and these guys would get off the
22:10
Speaker 1: truck and remove your trash. And I always remember thinking, Wow,
22:13
Speaker 1: that's an excellent front. So that's it for witness protection.
22:17
Speaker 1: You can read the article on the site by typing
22:19
Speaker 1: in Witness Protection in the handy search bar how stuff
22:22
Speaker 1: works dot Com. We're sorry, we don't have a lot
22:24
Speaker 1: more to present to you, but it's kind of a
22:25
Speaker 1: hush hush program. Yeah, they do have other programs in
22:28
Speaker 1: the rest of the world. We we briefly mentioned that,
22:31
Speaker 1: but um, Canada has it, New Zealand, I think Jamaica
22:34
Speaker 1: has one that's reportedly not very good, and um, what
22:37
Speaker 1: else South Africa and Kenya, New Zealand, oddly China. You
22:41
Speaker 1: already said New Zealand, Well it's even otter now. And uh,
22:46
Speaker 1: Israel has one that starts slated to start next year.
22:49
Speaker 1: So good luck Israel, Good luck with the witness Protection program. Um,
22:54
Speaker 1: let's see. I guess since I already said handy search
22:56
Speaker 1: bar and then chuck started up again, that means it's
22:59
Speaker 1: time for or listener mayl I'm gonna call this a
23:10
Speaker 1: listener mail from Jordan's. How's that for straightforward? All right? Josh,
23:16
Speaker 1: you may remember recently we did a show on the
23:18
Speaker 1: Clovis people. I do remember. You want to recap that briefly. Sure,
23:22
Speaker 1: the cloths people were thought for a long time to
23:25
Speaker 1: be the first inhabitants of the Americas that they came
23:29
Speaker 1: around about twelve thousand years ago. Uh. And then a
23:34
Speaker 1: discovery no, I'm sorry, ten thousand years ago. Then a
23:36
Speaker 1: discovery of a site in Chile um On uncovered people
23:41
Speaker 1: who had lived there twelve thousand years ago, completely turning
23:45
Speaker 1: the field of anthropology on it. Tier So Jordan's is
23:48
Speaker 1: an archaeologist in Kansas. He writes in he just graduated
23:52
Speaker 1: from uk Go j Hawks, I'm a longtime listener. I
23:55
Speaker 1: love your podcast about the First Americans. It was entertaining
23:58
Speaker 1: and well researched. There was one mistake, however, I can't
24:01
Speaker 1: let go. As an archaeologist working on the plains, Josh
24:05
Speaker 1: mentioned there was no evidence of Clovis people on the
24:07
Speaker 1: plains to explain how they traveled from the Bearing Land
24:10
Speaker 1: Bridge all the way to Chile. Uh. Clovis sites are
24:13
Speaker 1: found throughout the plains, but they're not as many of
24:16
Speaker 1: them as in other regions of North America. The problem
24:19
Speaker 1: is that and here's where he starts. Stand there it
24:21
Speaker 1: out a little bit. The problem is that Paleo Indian
24:25
Speaker 1: records on the plains are deeply buried due to massive
24:29
Speaker 1: sedimentary deposition. Following the Clovis time period. Hey, uh, this
24:35
Speaker 1: means that most of the known sites are in valleys
24:37
Speaker 1: where streams have down cut and exposed the deep sediments
24:40
Speaker 1: on the banks containing the closed deposits. So basically the
24:43
Speaker 1: record could be several meters deep and only easily seen
24:46
Speaker 1: in cut bank exposures. That leads to sampling bias when
24:51
Speaker 1: compared to regions east and west of the Great Plains,
24:53
Speaker 1: A minor quibble, I will admit. So uh, he wrote in,
24:57
Speaker 1: and I wrote him back, and he wrote back again
24:59
Speaker 1: and said, at uh, if you're interested for context, there
25:03
Speaker 1: are a lot of pre Clovis investigations currently going on
25:06
Speaker 1: all around North America. In fact, a major, a major
25:09
Speaker 1: research area here at KU is searching for pre Clovis.
25:13
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of sites in North America
25:15
Speaker 1: that are convincing. Just uh, they're not Monte Verde. So
25:19
Speaker 1: he said that the Bearing Land bridge. His theory is
25:22
Speaker 1: that there were quite a few tricks across that by
25:24
Speaker 1: different people's during various periods. And um, I just wrote
25:28
Speaker 1: an article and evolutionary geneticists who found evidence of an
25:32
Speaker 1: evolutionary bottleneck at the Bearing Land. So yeah, that supports
25:37
Speaker 1: what we were talking about so or what the Clovis
25:39
Speaker 1: police say. Jordan, good luck brother Jordan. Keep keep up
25:43
Speaker 1: this Indiana Jones. Stuff. Yes, very thrilling life, that of
25:47
Speaker 1: an archaeology and imagine. If you want to correct Chuck
25:50
Speaker 1: and I, it's not that hard. You can send in
25:53
Speaker 1: an email to Stuff. Hold on, you thought I was
25:57
Speaker 1: going to give the email. I just didn't you. I
25:59
Speaker 1: thought nope. First, I want to say, if you have
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Speaker 1: a spare twenty five dollars lying around and you feel
26:04
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26:07
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Speaker 1: developing world and in the United States. Right right, you
26:15
Speaker 1: can find our page at www dot kiva dot org,
26:19
Speaker 1: slash team slash stuff you should know. And again, if
26:24
Speaker 1: you want to send us an email now, you can
26:26
Speaker 1: send it to Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot
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