- 2 months ago
Hustlers Gamblers Crooks (2024) Season 2 Episode 6- The Dirty Cop
🎬 Welcome to T-ShowTV
🌏 Chinese • American • ENG • Turkish & more
📜 All with English subtitles
💖 For drama & movie lovers worldwide
🚀 New uploads, endless stories, pure emotion!
🎬 Welcome to T-ShowTV
🌏 Chinese • American • ENG • Turkish & more
📜 All with English subtitles
💖 For drama & movie lovers worldwide
🚀 New uploads, endless stories, pure emotion!
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:01When you're a cop in the 80s, whatever you wanted, you could have.
00:05You're selling marijuana or cocaine and you got killed and there's a million dollars on a floor.
00:09Who's is it?
00:10It's mine!
00:11F*** it!
00:14I had the dress clothes on underneath.
00:16That was the best move I made in planning this whole thing out.
00:20I wanted to make money and I was willing to break the law to get it.
00:23I'm cheating the IRS like a mother f***er.
00:25I was snorting cocaine off the dashboard of my patrol car.
00:32I creamed through a velvet rope that I had no clue was even there.
00:38The guy put a hit on me.
00:39So I'm about to either kill someone or get killed.
00:42IRS, DEA, ATF.
00:45And I'm sitting there looking like, oh f***.
00:48There was no way in Hell's Half Acre that they had me dead to rights.
00:52I mean, you can't make this f***ing up.
00:55I'm Mike Dowd and I was one of the most corrupt police officers in America.
01:09I was born in Brooklyn.
01:12My great-grandfather was a police officer.
01:15My uncles on my father's side were in law enforcement.
01:19And three of my uncles on my mother's side were police officers.
01:22So at 21 years old, I had taken the police test, I did well on it, and I joined the police force in 1982.
01:31New York in the 80s was a war zone.
01:34Hey!
01:35Go, go!
01:36Every day, there was a shooting or a stabbing on my beat.
01:45So initially, you're overwhelmed.
01:48And as a police officer, when you're brand new, the speed of the street is scary because you're going from one place to the next, constantly with your life on the line.
01:56I was scared, and I got tears in my eyes saying, what am I doing?
02:02I'm risking my life.
02:05You can almost smell blood on the streets.
02:08Someone's gotten shot.
02:09Someone's gotten stabbed.
02:11I'm like, holy f***.
02:13This is f***ing real.
02:14After three to six months in East New York, you have the experience of a 10-year veteran in most police departments.
02:22Because you've handled probably 300 to 400 jobs in a month and backed up on 600 jobs.
02:29So you've been called to and responded to over 1,000 jobs in a month.
02:34You realize that now you have to put on that armor.
02:37You had to be in charge, take control.
02:38And once you realize that people are looking to you for this, everything starts to change.
02:44That being said, it was not a well-paying job.
02:48New York is a very expensive place to live.
02:50It was going to be very difficult at that salary.
02:53I come across a murder scene.
02:57Guys in the alleyway.
02:59We end up going upstairs, working our way up the stairs.
03:04In the scene, there's cash everywhere.
03:07There's marijuana everywhere.
03:09And I'm looking at this going, here's another guy.
03:13And I have cash and marijuana in front of me.
03:17You have to realize, at this point in my life, I'm 22, maybe 23.
03:22I was like underappreciated, overworked.
03:25I think I was clearing $280 a week.
03:29And I'm saying, this $600 can change everything for me right now.
03:32I took $600 of the probably $1,500, $1,800 in cash there and put it in my pocket because it was a sliver of $100 bills.
03:42Who's going to miss this?
03:43So Sergeant Otto came to the scene.
03:47He said to me, is this all the money that was here?
03:49I turned to him with that guilty conscience and I reached in my back pocket and took out the $600 and said, this is also here.
03:58And when I did that, he shook his head left to right and it told me that I should have just kept the money.
04:03I wasn't sure what was going to happen next.
04:06Was I going to get written up?
04:08Like I felt like I was caught.
04:11Fast forward the end of that night, we go to a bar out in Long Island.
04:14I'm drinking and the Sergeant, who never comes, happens to be there that night.
04:18So I said to the Sergeant, I said, Sergeant, what if I kept that money?
04:22He says, if it happens before I get there, I know nothing about it, you take it, it's yours.
04:28That changed my life.
04:29Because he was basically saying, if no one knows about it, it's yours.
04:36When I realized cops had the freedom to steal from criminals, it was open season.
04:41If there's an opportunity that comes along where if you're selling marijuana or cocaine and you get killed and there's a million dollars on it, who's is it?
04:48The city?
04:50It's mine!
04:50F*** it!
04:51Why would you want to spend all this time at work when you could just take the money from the drug dealers and go home early?
04:56I mean, that's how I looked at it.
04:58At some point, I began to just respond to every shooting and every murder scene.
05:03Because when you're a cop in the 80s, in the ghetto, whatever you wanted, you could have.
05:08It's all yours.
05:10But my life as both a cop and a criminal was about to explode.
05:14So let's paint the scene for you.
05:19I'm working with my partner, Kenny Urell.
05:22We get a call for shots fired.
05:25Of course, I raced to the scene because now I'm in tune with my partner that anytime we come across some drugs that we can sell or weapons or money, we're going to try to take some.
05:34Show up, it's hard to open the door, there's a body laying against the door, so we had to push the door open.
05:41And while we're entering the location, there's people still robbing the place.
05:47We don't know this.
05:48All we hear is drawers being opened and closed and slammed and windows being opened and s*** flying out the windows.
05:56I mean, they're trying to get out.
05:58And we're trying to get in, but I'm scared.
06:01I'm yelling, police are here!
06:02Police!
06:03They start shooting.
06:04There's bullets flying.
06:09I'm yelling, get the s*** out!
06:11Please, go!
06:13And then finally, they just left.
06:19So now I'm looking for money or drugs.
06:22And there it is.
06:24This s*** cache of drugs and cash.
06:27It was filled to the top with cocaine wrapped up and a lot of money.
06:32We had one of these green laundry bags with the rope around it, so I loaded everything in it.
06:40The cops are now arriving at the scene, because this is a heavy scene.
06:44So I'm walking out of the building now with this satchel filled with drugs.
06:49Outside, on the entranceway to the home, is the sergeant that I don't know.
06:53We're not on the same page like the other sergeant.
06:55I don't like him.
06:56He don't like me.
06:57What am I going to do now?
06:57So as he's coming towards me, there's a row of garbage pails, and I take this green bag and I throw it in the garbage pail.
07:06He walks past me, goes upstairs, he's dealing with the bodies, he's dealing with the whole crime scene.
07:12Forty minutes later, I go back to the garbage pail, pick the s*** up and leave.
07:15I felt unstoppable, and the fact that it was wrong and you were getting away with it made you feel doubly more unstoppable.
07:23It was like bad on top of bad on top of bad times two.
07:27There was many ways to get money from these situations.
07:30And then there was the opportunity to sell drugs.
07:32Well, you have to realize, I had an entrepreneurial spirit.
07:35I'm stuck in the civil service job, and now here I am, given the opportunity to get cocaine at cost, if not given to me.
07:44And it's worth $800 to $1,200 an ounce.
07:47And so I began to sell cocaine.
07:49I found one or two clients, childhood friends that trusted me, and I trusted them.
07:54I had a very successful cocaine business.
07:56I was probably making $1,500 a week selling drugs.
08:00The cop thing is just really a facade.
08:03And that's really what ended up happening to me.
08:05I became a drug dealer more than I was a cop.
08:08And eventually, I did a couple of blasts, and then I did it every day.
08:12I loved it. I couldn't stop.
08:14My criminal activity was escalating out of control.
08:18I began informing a local drug dealer on the presence of local law enforcement, the undercover teams that were in the area.
08:26For example, the Diaz organization, he had three or four spots in East New York that he sold kilos of cocaine out of a bodega.
08:35And I knew the police would come in later on to bust his store.
08:40So I walked into a store that was selling drugs.
08:43I know the owner, but I don't know the counter guy.
08:45I had my uniform on, picked up two Heinekens, walked up to the desk, popped open the Heinekens on the bottle opener.
08:52I said, close your store down.
08:55And I walked out the door.
08:56An hour later, 40 minutes later, the team hit the store to take it down.
09:05They couldn't find a gram of salt in the place.
09:07What came back to me from the Diaz organization was, thank you very much, you saved us.
09:11From being arrested, I became worth my weight in gold, as it said.
09:18So my yearly salary at this point in my career was about $27,000 a year.
09:22I was getting $8,000 a week to give Diaz information.
09:27When you get that money in your hand, you feel like you're God.
09:31The whole world changed.
09:33Brand new Corvette, parachute pants, trips to Vegas, to Bahamas, to Cayman Islands, Bermuda.
09:40I mean, what's this guy making, $23,000 a year?
09:44I mean, come on, do the math.
09:46So here I am, I took a job to clean the streets of drugs and drug dealers and criminals, and
09:55now I've become one.
09:56And it was horrific.
09:59It was destructive.
10:01It was a suicide mission that you didn't want to admit you were on.
10:04The stress would have my body go numb, the whole left side of it, from being under that
10:09constant pressure of living a double life.
10:12I basically lost control.
10:14I didn't give a s***.
10:15I mean, I was snorting cocaine off the dashboard of my patrol car.
10:19And there were days where I had drug deals in the car with kilos on them, and we'd drop
10:22them off somewhere.
10:23That's how flagrant it became.
10:27At this point in my career, I've worked with several different drug organizations.
10:31They're paying me $8,000 a week to offer protection, to give them a heads up if there's
10:36any undercover in the area.
10:38One day, one of the people that we were involved with, he showed us $700.
10:42Now, they were a very violent organization.
10:47They had, at this point, I think, 28 murders under their belt.
10:51But you never take abuse in the street, because that's a sign of weakness.
10:56They short me $700.
10:57So then we proceeded to close down his business by parking in front of his business every
11:02day.
11:02Arraged the clients.
11:04Long story short, the guy put a hit on me.
11:09I'm about to either kill someone or get killed.
11:11When they put the hit on me, I was notified vis-a-vis the beeper system back then.
11:19They wanted to know that they put a hit on me because of the pressure I was putting on
11:22their store, and they were going to take me out.
11:24Now, I never met the guy in person, but I knew his car.
11:27That day, I came to work, and I'm sitting there in the car, and here goes the car down
11:32the block with the guy who put the hit on me.
11:34I give a little whoop, he pulls over.
11:38He only put the hit on me a couple hours earlier, and here I am at his door.
11:42Knock, knock, who's there?
11:44I asked him for his license, registration, and he had no idea who I was.
11:48All I could pray for is if he had a gun in that car that was clearly visible, if I shoot
11:54him, it will be a justifiable shooting.
11:58What do you want me to tell you?
11:59I'm not going to wait for him to shoot me first.
12:00And sure enough, nothing falls out of the glove box.
12:05He hands me his license, registration, and I just took it and threw it right back in his
12:09lap.
12:09I said, you put a hit on me?
12:12I go, you want to do this?
12:12Let's do it right now.
12:14He turned as white as it goes.
12:15He just looks up at me.
12:16I go, call it off, or we'll get out here and do it right now.
12:20He goes, I'll take care of it.
12:23I let him go.
12:2525 minutes later, my pager goes off, my beeper.
12:27So I got to 700, and the hit was taken off.
12:31I was lucky to come out of it alive.
12:37May 6th, I get put on a modified patrol assignment.
12:42I had just stopped off at the bar on Meeker and Graham.
12:45I just did a couple of blasts of cocaine, got my vodka 7, and we get a 10-2.
12:51Anybody out there in the police world knows, when you get a 10-2, that means report to the
12:55precinct, I looked at my partner, and he looked at me.
12:59I said, this is a little weird.
13:01You don't generally get a 10-2, but I'm smelling something.
13:06So we head back to the precinct, and I pull up the wrong way, and there is a car sitting
13:12there that I've always been waiting for.
13:16A four-door sedan, two guys in the front.
13:19It's an internal affairs.
13:22I walk in with my partner.
13:23The 10-2 was reported to the desk.
13:25Walk in, look at the desk officer, and he looks like something's wrong.
13:30He goes to me, he points to the front, goes, go see the captain.
13:36Turn around, and in walks these two guys from the street.
13:39And they look at me, and they go, they pull out their bed like I'm under arrest.
13:44They go, Lieutenant so-and-so from headquarters, we're here to take you for a department-ordered
13:48drug test.
13:49Now, I don't know this at the time, but the entire internal affairs division is there.
13:55Internal affairs division in the New York City Police Department is about 160 personnel.
13:58Now, they're all there at this arrest.
14:02So I'm getting marched in, and they open the elevator.
14:05There's two chiefs on the elevator.
14:07I ain't seen one chief in my career, maybe once or twice.
14:10I'm like, this is insane.
14:12This is a very important piss test, I'll say, you know?
14:15And we end up going upstairs, taking the piss test.
14:17I, fill that up, that's done.
14:20You're under arrest.
14:21For what?
14:23For your spirit is to distribute narcotics in Suffolk County.
14:26What members are saying?
14:27No, so I said, okay.
14:29Turn around, put my hands behind my back.
14:31It goes through my pockets.
14:32I pull out a bag of cocaine.
14:34I mean, you can't make this up.
14:37From internal affairs, said to me, you're now in the big leagues.
14:40It's the United States of America versus you.
14:44And we take nations over.
14:47Good luck.
14:47And then I end up in a cell that night, and they closed the door on the cell.
14:55And I said, this is my life, inside this room.
15:02And it was cold.
15:06Ultimately, I would be sentenced to 14 years for racketeering by the federal government.
15:11My name is Luke Blankenheimer, and I robbed a bank, completely unarmed.
15:21So I grew up in Cato, New York, a very small town just north of Syracuse.
15:30And the only thing you could do in Cato, New York was play football and work.
15:33So I did both those things.
15:35My grandpa's a car salesman.
15:37My dad's a car salesman.
15:38But I had a very strong desire not to go in the car business.
15:42And in Cato Meridian, football is a way of life.
15:45And that's what I wanted to do.
15:48When you're the captain of the football team and you're the quarterback, you're pretty much invincible.
15:52I had a great throwing arm.
15:54And I believed that if I worked really hard and played good football and I kept my grades up,
15:59that there was a snowball's chance in hell that I could get a scholarship.
16:03And then all of a sudden, one day, there was a letter giving me a Division II scholarship.
16:07And I started to have visions of a life that was outside of Cato, New York.
16:11But then it was a homecoming football game.
16:16And I remember it like it was yesterday.
16:18I dropped back and I looked up and I'm keying on the quarterback and I'm watching his hips and I'm watching his eyes.
16:23So I started sprinting.
16:24There's a full head of steam at this guy.
16:30I threw my right shoulder into his hip section.
16:38For a moment, I lost consciousness because of the pain.
16:42Between that hit and us hitting the ground, I'd also suffered a concussion.
16:47I dislocated my shoulder.
16:51And about a month later, I got another letter in the mail, except this one was telling me that they were taking away my scholarship and I was no longer going to be able to play football.
17:00It was devastating.
17:02It was a dream gone, washed away in one moment.
17:04What's my next move?
17:07What do I do?
17:08Well, there's one thing that I've known how to do since I was seven years old.
17:11It's wash a car, show a car, and talk to a customer.
17:15So I got a car sales job.
17:18And then all of a sudden, I was making two, three grand a week.
17:22I bought a brand new Ford Mustang GT six months in.
17:25At 20 years old, I bought my first house.
17:29But I'm making a bunch of money.
17:30Like, I'm not making any progress.
17:33Football was the thing that I did that made me feel like nothing else.
17:38I went and talked to an orthopedic surgeon.
17:40I could do a one-day surgery.
17:41I would have my throwing arm back.
17:42So I decided to get a surgery.
17:46And it didn't go well.
17:48I was in a lot of pain.
17:50And the remedy from the surgeon was 80, 90, 120 milligrams of hydrocodone every single day.
17:59That is more than what some stage four cancer patients are on.
18:03And that was the beginning of a very, very bad downturn for me.
18:09I started using a lot of drugs.
18:11I started using heavier drugs.
18:14I lost my job.
18:15Next thing you know, my house is repossessed.
18:18The first car gets repoed.
18:19The second car gets repoed.
18:21And eventually, one day, you wake up on a couch in a shared house in the rough part of Syracuse.
18:28And you're reaching over for your pill bottle to see if there's anything there that can get you high before you wake up so you don't have to live in reality today.
18:38I'm living with a girlfriend.
18:40I did whatever I could to try to get drug money.
18:43I was driving her car.
18:45I had managed to talk her into letting me drop her off at her job, take her car for the day, and go work, which meant get high, get the courage up to go boost or steal, go to the pawn shop for the fence, sell the goods, get more money for drugs, get enough drugs to carry me through the following morning, and then go pick her up from work and bring her home.
19:07And this happened for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks.
19:10So I dropped her off at work one morning, and there was a lot of banks.
19:15I remember it very vividly.
19:18And this thought comes into my head, how much worse off would I be if I was in prison?
19:26Not much.
19:26In fact, if I went to prison, I probably wouldn't have access to drugs.
19:31And I said, you know what?
19:32I'm going to rob a bank.
19:35If I get away with it, I'm going to get a bunch of money.
19:38I think at that time I planned on going to Malibu, California, because there was a rehab that I had heard of that was a really good rehab and it had a high success rate.
19:45Or if I went to prison, I'd be forced to clean up.
19:49You would think when that epiphany hits you that you would then start to plan a bank robber.
19:54But I didn't.
19:56I got a gray sweatsuit.
19:59Underneath it, I had put business clothes.
20:02I wore a bandana around my face because I guess that's just what bank robbers do is they wear bandanas.
20:07So it was kind of like a token piece that I needed to have.
20:10And to top it all off, I also had a pair of sunglasses that I recently stole from a local Deltasonic.
20:16I've committed, right?
20:17I'm all in.
20:18I'm going to rob a bank.
20:20And I have no plan.
20:21I'm just looking at banks.
20:22This one looks like it has too much security.
20:25This one looks like there's no good way to get in and out.
20:28And this one looks like I think I know somebody that works there, so I don't want to go there.
20:32But then I come around the corner and I see this bank.
20:36It's a corner lot.
20:37It's a standalone building.
20:39It's not connected to anything.
20:40There's a wooded area behind it, which leads to a parking lot.
20:43And all of a sudden, it just this culmination of perfect situation comes together in front of me.
20:49And I'm like, well, if I'm going to do it, this is the bank.
20:52So I park in a parking lot that's probably three and a half blocks away.
20:58When I parked the car, that's when the real flash of adrenaline hit me.
21:03Now it's like, dude, am I really going to do this?
21:06In that moment, I made the decision, I'm doing this.
21:09And I got out of the car, I left the doors unlocked, and I left the keys in the ignition.
21:15And I started making my way towards the bank.
21:18I get to the intersection, I cross over, and I walk up to the front door.
21:23And it was the point of no return.
21:25I knew at that moment, my life would never be the same.
21:28When I put my hands on the door, it felt like it weighed about 1,000 pounds.
21:39When you're standing in front of a camera in a doorway of a bank, dressed like a bank robber,
21:43it's not like you can turn around and say, you know, I was just kidding, trick or treat.
21:46You're in, and you're done.
21:49And when I pulled the door open, it was like there was just a rush of adrenaline and dopamine
21:54that came over at me all at once.
21:55And all of a sudden, I was having fun.
21:59I said, all right, I need you to put the money on the counters.
22:03I want the money from the drawers, no die packs, no sequential bills.
22:07Put it on the counter, fan it out so I can see it.
22:10You, don't move.
22:11I'll be out of your hair in no time.
22:13Everybody goes home.
22:15And they did nothing.
22:16I got blank stares.
22:18And I looked at the tellers, and I said, move.
22:23And these poor 50 to 60-year-old women who were shaking,
22:27were taking this money, and they were fanning this currency out across the counter.
22:31And it was so cumbersome trying to put the money into the bag.
22:34And I can tell you, for all the potential bank robbers out there,
22:37you're going to want to go with nitrile latex gloves next time.
22:40And I tied the bag, and I looked up at both of them, and I said, ladies, thank you very much.
22:45You're going home safe.
22:46I appreciate it.
22:47I turned around, and I careened through a velvet rope that wasn't but two feet behind me
22:53that I had no bloody clue was even there.
22:56I was so mad in that moment.
22:58I was like, man, I was Danny Ocean there for a minute until I tripped over the damn rope.
23:03But nevertheless, I had the money.
23:05I was clean, and I was pushing out the door.
23:08Ahead of me is the wooded area.
23:11I made my way from the bank three blocks over behind the parking lot that I had put the getaway car at,
23:17and I didn't get seen by a single soul.
23:19There wasn't a camera on me.
23:21That was literally the best move I made in planning this whole thing out.
23:26But I remembered I had the dress clothes on underneath.
23:30I'm scratching and clawing at this thing, trying to get it off.
23:32I'm soaked with sweat.
23:33I'm filled with adrenaline, and I can tell you that I panicked because I patted my pockets, and there were no keys.
23:43I think the keys fell out in the bank.
23:45I'm like, oh, my God.
23:47And then I remembered that when I got out of the car, I left the keys in the ignition so this wouldn't be a problem.
23:55And then I was so nervous that I took all this stuff off and threw the bag of money and the sweatshirt on the ground
24:00and almost ran away from it.
24:01That's how fleeting your thoughts are at that time.
24:04All of a sudden, I looked over.
24:07I remember this lady looked at me, and I immediately felt like a young kid trying pot for the first time.
24:13She knows.
24:15She went, have a good one.
24:17And I smiled and I nodded.
24:19And I'll never forget that.
24:21In that moment, I realized I was getting away with a bank robbery.
24:24And I started heading up Route 11.
24:27It wasn't a cop in sight.
24:30Where I had to pick my girlfriend up from work was directly across the street from the state trooper barracks.
24:35Now, I can tell you I did not think that one through.
24:38So I'm driving down this road, and there must have been seven to ten state troopers, just one after the other.
24:47And I started to feel like I was on the run.
24:51I go to her.
24:53I pick her up.
24:55We get to the house.
24:56As she's in the bathroom, I open the plastic bag, and I kind of dumped it out all over the bed.
25:02I started counting.
25:03And as I got to about $5,000 and realized that I was only about halfway there, it dawned on me that I had gotten away with just shy of $10,000.
25:13They literally had no suspects, no nothing.
25:16And they never do this.
25:18They aired every angle, the audio, everything on the evening news.
25:23And they pleaded, please, if anybody has any information pertaining to this bank robbery, reach out to us and let us know.
25:29Four days after the robbery, my girlfriend and I pull up into our driveway.
25:36And I can't tell you exactly, but I can tell you there were somewhere between seven and ten police vehicles that converged on our lawn.
25:44And she looked at me with a look that could burn through your heart and directly into your soul and said, what did you do?
25:55And I said, nothing.
25:57Just don't say a word.
25:59What ended up happening was the lady that lived downstairs that owned the house saw me the day that I left, all dressed for the bank robbery.
26:07When they finally aired all that footage, she said, I think he's the guy that robbed that bank.
26:14I opened the door, and this guy just screams at the top of his lungs, turn the around.
26:22Are you Luke Lunkenheimer?
26:24You know, I say, why?
26:25I took the opportunity to mess with him a little bit, and then his voice, his tone changes dramatically, because I'm asking you.
26:33We go back and forth a few times, and finally the guy says, listen, we should talk about it downtown.
26:38I think the cops thought this was a shoe-in.
26:45I think they were going to roll up on me, and I was going to throw my hands up and say I did it.
26:49I had another plan, because there was no way in Hell's Half Acre that they had me dead to rights.
26:57I was going to make them work for it.
26:58And he says, the description is six-foot-plus athletic white male driving light-colored Ford Taurus, missing hubcap, fleeing scene of bank robbery.
27:09You want to explain that to me?
27:11I said, officer, you're all athletic, and three out of the seven cars that pulled up on my lawn were light-colored Ford Tauruses, two of which were missing hubcaps.
27:21So we all going to jail today?
27:24He goes, all right, man, you got us.
27:26You're not under arrest.
27:26You don't want to talk.
27:27You don't have to talk.
27:28So just give us a few minutes.
27:30We'll get the paperwork, and we'll get you processed out of here.
27:33And then my radar went up.
27:35The way those cops gave up, that's when I realized something else was going on right now.
27:46They had sat with my girlfriend.
27:48They had asked her, has he been acting funny lately?
27:51Has he had a little bit of extra cash lately?
27:54And then they decided to tell her that I had robbed the bank and said, now that we've told you that he robbed the bank, doesn't this all make sense?
28:06And she goes, well, yeah, I guess.
28:08They said, okay.
28:09They spun the tablet around and said, sign right here.
28:14And the guy comes in, and he goes, we got you, man.
28:18I was charged with robbery third, which is the charge they give you when you rob a bank and you don't use a weapon.
28:25They told me I was looking at seven to 14 years.
28:28And through a series of plea deals, I was sentenced to one year in state prison and three years of post-release supervision.
28:37So I had made a choice, and the choice was get the money and go to rehab or get the money and go to prison.
28:43My name is Sean Gumby, and I found ways to cheat the IRS and make my clients tens of thousands of dollars.
28:56I grew up in a city in northern New Jersey called Clifton, New Jersey, with a single mother, and I didn't have no father figure.
29:05Early on, I was given a lot of responsibility.
29:08I washed cars.
29:10I delivered pizza.
29:12And I started caddying on the local country club by my house, man, and it changed my life.
29:17I had never seen this type of wealth, ever.
29:23These motherfuckers had tall dollars, man.
29:25They had tall dollars, and they all drove like Mercedes and BMWs and Ferraris and s***.
29:32Well, it's one big lucky world.
29:36I wanted to be like these dudes, man.
29:38I would ask them, like, yo, what do you do?
29:41A lot of the members of the club were stockbrokers, investment bankers.
29:47A lot of them told me that accounting is probably, like, the best foundation for a business career.
29:55And they encouraged my decision to get an accounting degree.
29:58And once I graduated high school, the country club that I caddied at even gave me a scholarship to go to college.
30:05My first three semesters, I made the dean's list, but I had started selling weed in high school.
30:14So when I went to college, I started selling cocaine.
30:18A lot of young people my age was doing that in the late 80s, early 90s.
30:26Got busted, got a felony conviction, went to jail.
30:30I still managed to graduate college, but here now I got a felony conviction.
30:35And a lot of companies didn't want to hire me, man, making it tough for me to find a job.
30:41And I remember my mother, she told me one day, she says, why don't you, why don't you do taxes?
30:48You an accountant, you got that accounting degree, why don't you do taxes?
30:53I was like, man, I don't want to do no taxes, man.
30:55I don't want to do that s***.
30:58s*** got hard.
30:59And I said, s*** it, I'm going for it.
31:01I said, yo, let me try this tax thing, man.
31:05When I first started doing taxes, most of my clients were low-income, working-class people.
31:11So the return ain't too foxy.
31:14The first year I did 19 returns, man.
31:18And I was charging them $75.
31:21Ran that credit card up, couldn't pay it.
31:24Had no food in the crib, other than a can of chocolate cake frosting.
31:28I said, I ate that s***.
31:30And I'm like, yo, Sean, you flat broke and you hungry.
31:35I wanted to make money, and I was willing to break the law to get it.
31:40I needed to save my business.
31:43What I realized real quick was that if I could cheat the tax code, give deductions that people
31:48really didn't get, they weren't entitled to, make up Schedule Cs, make up jobs, and help
31:54my clients get bigger refunds or lower how much they had to pay, I knew they was going
31:58to go back to their job or to their family and say, yo, you know, my man got me this back.
32:03You know what I'm saying?
32:04Look, that's all you got back?
32:06Oh, that's all he says you're going to get back?
32:07Go see Sean.
32:08And then when they would come, I would make it my business to get them back bigger refunds
32:15so I could get the account.
32:17And then my business grew from that, cheating the system.
32:21Then I was charging more, so my revenue grew.
32:24That's the way it went.
32:25There are a lot of things that I would do to exploit the United States tax code.
32:32So one of the things that I used to do, and this is definitely against the law, right?
32:40You can take kids and put them on other people's tax returns, either giving them a lower amount
32:47to pay or a bigger refund.
32:49Somebody I knew said, yo, Sean, I got this lady, she's here illegally, but all three of
32:56her kids are born in the United States and they all got social security numbers.
33:00I told her, I said, listen, I'll give you $600 per kid because I knew with the earned
33:06income credit, anybody that made between $12,000 and $18,000, you take that W-2 and you put
33:14two kids on there or three and they was getting back like $9,000.
33:20So I would look through my client's tax returns because I knew who made that amount of money
33:29within that range.
33:31And I'd say, yo, I got a dependent for you, but it's going to cost you $900.
33:38So I was charging them nine, giving her six, I'm keeping three, $300.
33:43So they happy, she happy, I'm happy.
33:47And I made a lot of money that way because she then referred me like two other girls from
33:53Mexico that didn't have social, you know what I'm saying?
33:56I probably had, man, toward the end, maybe 20 kids.
34:01But it's one big monkey world.
34:04I'm cheating the IRS like a mother.
34:06I was doing $200,000 a month in February alone.
34:11I'm getting the kind of money I had never had before, more than my mother ever had.
34:15I'm buying all high-end.
34:17If you want to live life like a hand.
34:21And I'm dressing like this, I'm super fly.
34:24I became them dudes on the golf course.
34:28That lifestyle that I saw on the golf course, I achieved it.
34:32And if I wanted to maintain it, I had to keep bringing the law.
34:38I thought for sure I was getting away with it.
34:42I was chilling like Matt Dillon.
34:44But man, little did I know, the worst day of my life was finna happen.
34:52The used car business is the cesspool of society.
34:55If there are alcoholics in a neighborhood, they will end up working here.
34:59But the local car dealership.
35:01If there are cocaine addicts in the neighborhood, they will end up working here at the local car dealership.
35:08Sex fiends, weird people, nut jobs, psychos.
35:13Everybody at a car dealership has a cross to bear or a skeleton in their closet.
35:17And I was no different.
35:18You tell me anywhere else in the world where a collection of the world's most derelict people can all make $70,000 to $120,000 a year with no college degree,
35:30come in late every day, not follow the rules.
35:33But as long as they perform and they sell, they still have a job the next day.
35:36And I'll tell you that you're in the car business and there's no other place like it.
35:40I never will forget that day they came to my office, man.
35:46I get up, I ride to the office.
35:50It was a lot of cars in the parking lot.
35:54I get out, I walk into my office, to the door.
35:59There are people, they had the bulletproof vests on, big motherfuckin' white boys, right?
36:07And he had the badge right here.
36:11And he had the search warrant rolled up.
36:14He says, you Sean Gumby?
36:15I said, yeah.
36:16He said, we got a search warrant.
36:18We coming upstairs with you.
36:20I open the door and we go upstairs, they follow me.
36:24I'm like, oh, what's going on here?
36:26I open my door.
36:2718, 19 agents come flyin' in my office with them blue windbreakers.
36:37FBI, IRS, DEA, ATF.
36:44They had a windbreaker convention at my office, man.
36:48Everybody had a windbreaker but me.
36:50I was scared to death, man.
36:51And they just went all over my office and I'm sittin' there lookin' like,
36:55what the ****, oh ****.
36:59They took all of my files, all of my checks.
37:03They took all of the tax returns, all of their W-2s, all of their information.
37:06And I had to piss, right?
37:10So I tell him, I said, yo, I gotta go piss.
37:14He said, all right, come on.
37:16When I got up to go in the bathroom, both of them **** came in the bathroom with me and stood right next to me while I'm pissin', man.
37:22And I'm like, oh ****, man, that's when I knew I had ****ed up.
37:33I was indicted for 28 counts of aiding and abetting and insisting in the preparation of fraudulent tax returns.
37:44And then when the **** went down, my own clients cooperated against me.
37:50Same mother **** I helped.
37:52People I helped put their life back together.
37:54People I knew 20 years.
37:57I didn't tell Sean to do that.
37:59When it came down to it, they shot me in the head, man, to save themselves.
38:05I go to court and I plead guilty.
38:10And I'm hoping they give me some home confinement or probation.
38:15No, they gave me 18 months in prison.
38:19I was such an idiot, man.
38:21I was dumb.
38:23And I got punished for it.
38:25As I should have.
38:29I came back to a world that didn't exist when I went away.
38:39And I was only gone only 12 and a half years.
38:42And I came home my first day out of prison.
38:45I get in the shower.
38:46My first shower in freedom.
38:48And it comes out.
38:50I just start bawling.
38:52All the pressure of the life that I did to myself.
38:58No one else.
38:59I did this to me.
39:00I don't even know if the shower's wetting me or my tears are wetting.
39:05That's how much I'm bawling my eyes out.
39:09I mean, it's the first real cry I had since I got arrested.
39:13So now I have the opportunity to turn that full new leaf over.
39:17By the grace of God, I have a wonderful relationship with my two boys today.
39:23Who I am today is I'm a giving, forgiving, and understanding human being because of the track record that I've had.
39:30I have no reason nor right to judge anybody.
39:32And I hope that people give people that have been through what I've been through a chance in life.
39:36We all make mistakes.
39:38You knock down seven times.
39:39As long as you get up on eight, you can change the life of yourself and others around you.
39:43And I hope I do that.
39:46You've got a choice when you're in prison.
39:47You can live in the prison or you can live outside the prison.
39:50If you live in the prison, time goes by a lot quicker.
39:53You can have a lot more fun.
39:54But it institutionalizes you.
39:57And I didn't want to become that person.
39:59I simply focused on everything that lived outside the prison.
40:03And I started planning for my future.
40:06I went back to what I know.
40:09I own three car dealerships today.
40:12I get high by handing out paychecks.
40:14I'm very happy with my life, but I've got to say, reliving this is making me want to go rob a bank again.
40:19It was so much fun, dude.
40:21I'm not going to lie.
40:22It was so much fun.
40:23My prison experience was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me in my life.
40:35There was no more phone calls.
40:37There was no more W-2s.
40:39There was no more tax returns.
40:40There was no more faxes.
40:42There was no more emails.
40:43There was no more clients.
40:44And I was just like, oh, man.
40:48I feel so good.
40:50And I was dead ass broke, but I felt free.
40:57All of the material that I had acquired was shackles, man.
41:03I didn't let that prison experience break me.
41:06I got physically, spiritually, and mentally fit while I was in there.
41:10And today, I have an online fitness training business that I help people transform their lives,
41:19change the way they feel about themselves, and become a better version of themselves, man,
41:24as a result of the mistakes that I made.
41:27So you can always make a comeback.
41:29It's never too late.
41:30You can always be making a shout-out on me that I do not want to learn.
41:40You're not going to dare believe in the life of people, but I hope for you to try.
41:42I'll be in there once again.
Be the first to comment