# Nixon's Millions: The United California Bank Burglary

An episode of [Ridiculous Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1608230191), 25 Jan 2024, 48 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/0b4bcc39-7ba2-453f-aaac-ae510011dd80/e70e2f01-d69a-46e0-9060-b101013ddf89/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=3a4c50f5-ff69-4807-aa26-ae510011dd8e

A crack team of seasoned bank burglars strikes in a tony enclave in Southern California. A tale as old as time. Only they are from Ohio. And the money in the vault might belong to Richard Nixon. And that money may have been extorted from Jimmy Hoffa. And Jimmy Hoffa may have hired this crack team of seasoned bank burglars to steal his money back. There's a lot to get your head around on this one. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
[0:03] Speaker 2: Sarah Burnette, Elizabeth Dutton. Is that you? Yes?
[0:06] Speaker 3: Do you want to know what's ridiculous?
[0:08] Speaker 2: No?
[0:08] Speaker 4: But I know you do, and I got an answer
[0:10] Speaker 4: for you. You're ready, Okay? Elvis Presley, Okay, ridiculous? Did you
[0:16] Speaker 4: know that dude had some goth in him?
[0:19] Speaker 3: Really?
[0:20] Speaker 2: Yeah?
[0:20] Speaker 4: He wanted to be like rockabilly goth. He was after
[0:22] Speaker 4: that Edgier look psycho. He was really a blonde. He
[0:25] Speaker 4: dyed his hair black so he would look tough.
[0:28] Speaker 3: I didn't know that.
[0:29] Speaker 2: I know he was a natural blonde, total blonde, like
[0:32] Speaker 2: real blonde, and he died eyebrows and hair black so
[0:34] Speaker 2: he could be like, I'm tough, Elvis. I come from
[0:37] Speaker 2: the streets.
[0:40] Speaker 4: It's like if he needed like a touch up, he'd
[0:42] Speaker 4: like see like a shoeshine guy and be like, hey man,
[0:43] Speaker 4: can you touch up my side?
[0:45] Speaker 3: What are there any pictures of him blonde?
[0:48] Speaker 2: I'm sure, yeah, I can find one for you. Just
[0:51] Speaker 2: why I just picture Elvis Presley is a blonde.
[0:54] Speaker 3: It's hard.
[0:55] Speaker 2: Did he die everything? Oh? Did the apes match the carpet?
[1:01] Speaker 2: Is the question?
[1:02] Speaker 3: Yeah?
[1:02] Speaker 2: I don't know. If the hound dog rolled that way.
[1:05] Speaker 3: I think he was just completely bare from the neck down.
[1:08] Speaker 2: He was more concerned about his blue suede shoes.
[1:10] Speaker 3: He was he had just yes, move no hare anywhere anyway.
[1:17] Speaker 2: That's ridiculous, Blonde Elvis.
[1:19] Speaker 3: Do you want to know what else is ridiculous?
[1:21] Speaker 2: I am not a crook, way, my boy, Tricky Dick.
[1:44] Speaker 3: This is Ridiculous Crime, A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers,
[1:49] Speaker 3: heists and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free
[1:52] Speaker 3: and one hundred percent ridiculous. Saren, Elizabeth, remember the Hole
[1:59] Speaker 3: in the Ground game. I talked about how La is
[2:02] Speaker 3: the bank robbery capital of the world. Completely, it's quite
[2:05] Speaker 3: a distinction, it is, well, Zaren. Yes, we're back at it.
[2:09] Speaker 2: Oh. I love it La. I love robbing banks.
[2:11] Speaker 3: I know La bank robbery. I love robbing La Banks
[2:14] Speaker 3: with you. I'm gonna be honest here. I thought I
[2:17] Speaker 3: already did this one, okay, like not the heist in
[2:20] Speaker 3: real life, but like I thought, I already told you
[2:22] Speaker 3: about it, and then I and then I remembered how
[2:25] Speaker 3: it all went down. See when I was writing my outline,
[2:28] Speaker 3: which I don't know if I've spelled this out here
[2:31] Speaker 3: before for everyone but I'm going to break the fourth.
[2:34] Speaker 2: Wall for a second fourth wall.
[2:36] Speaker 3: When we do these shows, the person telling the story
[2:38] Speaker 3: comes up with an outline of the story and points
[2:41] Speaker 3: that they want to make, and the other person has
[2:43] Speaker 3: no idea what story they're going to hear, so there's
[2:45] Speaker 3: no script that we back and forth. Anyway, I was
[2:48] Speaker 3: writing my outline for.
[2:49] Speaker 2: The whole Now that's how that magic trick works.
[2:52] Speaker 3: A little behind the scenes.
[2:53] Speaker 2: Watch what producer Dave is wearing next.
[2:56] Speaker 4: I mean every time he wears a special outfit, and
[2:58] Speaker 4: that's because it's in the mood.
[3:00] Speaker 3: Anyway, I was writing my outline for the Hole in
[3:02] Speaker 3: the Ground Gang, and I had some intro stories that
[3:05] Speaker 3: I included amuse boosch as you often say. So I
[3:08] Speaker 3: started telling the one I'm going to tell you today,
[3:10] Speaker 3: But then I realized it was too big just to
[3:12] Speaker 3: be an intro, and I needed it to be its
[3:14] Speaker 3: own thing. I needed it to live its truth.
[3:17] Speaker 2: Of course, yeah, let it have its journey.
[3:19] Speaker 3: But I'd written a chunk of it before scrapping it. Ah,
[3:23] Speaker 3: And because I'm me, I didn't save what I wrote.
[3:27] Speaker 3: Just delete, delete, delete, that's what.
[3:29] Speaker 2: You zero, lie.
[3:30] Speaker 3: Well, it gave me deja vu when I started writing
[3:33] Speaker 3: this one, and I was worried that I was like
[3:35] Speaker 3: going to write it and repeat when I'd already done, which,
[3:37] Speaker 3: to be fair, will likely happen at some point because
[3:40] Speaker 3: you know me. Well, oh well that said. This is
[3:43] Speaker 3: the United California Bank.
[3:45] Speaker 2: Robbery, United California.
[3:48] Speaker 3: United California Bank. Of course, it's a Los Angeles based
[3:52] Speaker 3: banking institution, one hundred and seventeen bank branches throughout California.
[3:57] Speaker 3: UCB started in eighteen sixty eight as the San Francisco Bank,
[4:02] Speaker 3: and then it expanded all through southern California. You know,
[4:06] Speaker 3: it had a bunch of mergers acquisitions until it was
[4:09] Speaker 3: sold to Sanwa in nineteen seventy two. Yeah, nineteen seventy
[4:14] Speaker 3: two an important year for United California. It was sold
[4:18] Speaker 3: to Sanwa. But that's also the year it got hit hard.
[4:23] Speaker 2: Really.
[4:24] Speaker 3: Yes, this particular branch I'm going to tell you about
[4:27] Speaker 3: was the United California Bank in Laguna Neguel An affluent community.
[4:31] Speaker 2: Yes, very nice, that's a This.
[4:33] Speaker 3: Is like it was a small branch bank in like
[4:36] Speaker 3: a shopping center less than one hundred feet from California
[4:40] Speaker 3: Highway one Pacific Coast Highway, not to be confused with
[4:45] Speaker 3: CPK California Pizza Kitchen.
[4:47] Speaker 4: And even though I was only inuntil then California for
[4:49] Speaker 4: a while, I still call it the PCACH instead of
[4:51] Speaker 4: pach and pear.
[4:52] Speaker 3: People only say, yeah, you do rid of them, You
[4:55] Speaker 3: do the whole the article in front of the highway.
[4:58] Speaker 3: So I say highway five, you say the five five.
[5:01] Speaker 3: I say I'm going to get on five eighty. You
[5:03] Speaker 3: say I'm gonna get on the V.
[5:05] Speaker 2: Five that way.
[5:07] Speaker 3: Yeah, and I just say five eight anyway. That's a
[5:09] Speaker 3: that's a Northern California Southern California distinct.
[5:11] Speaker 4: People used to say, though that they don't say anymore,
[5:14] Speaker 4: is I five. You don't used to hear that as
[5:16] Speaker 4: much anymore.
[5:17] Speaker 3: Yeah, I do remember everyone calling it I five. When
[5:19] Speaker 3: I lived in the South, they would call it number whatever.
[5:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, number nine. Yeah, that's very much the highway system.
[5:25] Speaker 3: So now that we've gotten that up, of course, yes,
[5:27] Speaker 3: so pH the one to you p to me, but
[5:32] Speaker 3: not CBK California Pizza Kitchen. There's an embankment between where
[5:37] Speaker 3: this bank is and pH, so you really I can't
[5:40] Speaker 3: see the highway from the bank, and you can't see
[5:43] Speaker 3: the Ocean from there either, even though it's right there,
[5:48] Speaker 3: you know it's a nice neighborhood when it's right on
[5:51] Speaker 3: the Pacific Ocean and you can't look at the streets
[5:54] Speaker 3: on Google street View.
[5:55] Speaker 2: What do you mean?
[5:56] Speaker 3: It totally killed my vibe.
[5:57] Speaker 2: Like they wouldn't let the Google truck dragged.
[6:00] Speaker 3: The little man to the map. They don't let the
[6:03] Speaker 3: Google trucks. Sometimes that happens in like gated communities, but
[6:05] Speaker 3: sometimes not the main roads of it. But I can't
[6:09] Speaker 3: see it. I can't see what it looks like. I
[6:12] Speaker 3: can tell you that it's really beautiful down there, Yes,
[6:14] Speaker 3: super Tony. I went down the coast a little and
[6:16] Speaker 3: then tried to look up on Google street View. But
[6:21] Speaker 3: it's a bit of a cove. I do the heist crew.
[6:27] Speaker 3: I'll get to on a moment. They made a bunch
[6:30] Speaker 3: of scouting trips to this place. They checked out the
[6:32] Speaker 3: surrounding area, they got the layout of the bank down,
[6:36] Speaker 3: and then they had a total lock on the security situation.
[6:39] Speaker 3: And they weren't local. They were operating out of Ohio. Wow,
[6:44] Speaker 3: it's a long way from Ohio to Lagoon and again.
[6:47] Speaker 4: And it's not a spot you would pick. You never
[6:49] Speaker 4: hear about lag outside.
[6:51] Speaker 3: Twenty four hundred miles from their base. It was back
[6:55] Speaker 3: in a warehouse in Ohio that they built a replica
[6:58] Speaker 3: of the bank for the crew to study.
[7:00] Speaker 2: I love this.
[7:00] Speaker 3: I know they were practiced breaking into safety deposit boxes there.
[7:06] Speaker 3: This couldn't have been a cheap undertaking.
[7:07] Speaker 2: No, the sounds finance.
[7:09] Speaker 3: What it tells you, though, is that the expected hall is.
[7:11] Speaker 2: Going to be gay. Yes, they know something.
[7:13] Speaker 3: Yeah, so this heist crew, let's meet them. Please come along.
[7:17] Speaker 3: We'll start with the ring leader, Emal Dincio. Okay, and
[7:21] Speaker 3: he was born in Goshen, Ohio, in nineteen thirty six.
[7:25] Speaker 3: If it's Goshen, I don't care. So he started doing
[7:29] Speaker 3: zi crime in high school. He and his brother they
[7:32] Speaker 3: broke into hundreds of banks at night in high school.
[7:35] Speaker 3: According to Emil quote, banks were like gifts. Somebody gives
[7:40] Speaker 3: you a gift, you take it. We weren't out there
[7:42] Speaker 3: to hurt nobody. We were just out there to take
[7:43] Speaker 3: the money.
[7:44] Speaker 2: We're looking for fun. We're young, we're dumb. We like gifts.
[7:47] Speaker 3: So Emil he was linked to a minimum dozen bank
[7:52] Speaker 3: burglaries that took place all throughout the sixties and seventies,
[7:56] Speaker 3: with a total take estimated at over thirty million dollars. Yea,
[8:01] Speaker 3: so this makes him one of the USA's most successful
[8:04] Speaker 3: bank robbers. This is what he said, quote thrill of
[8:07] Speaker 3: the money and just doing it, knowing it's sitting there.
[8:10] Speaker 3: It was so easy. You wouldn't believe how easy it
[8:13] Speaker 3: was morons. So he handled the alarms while his brother
[8:18] Speaker 3: James took care of explosives. Emil said, quote there was
[8:22] Speaker 3: nobody else doing what we was doing, and we knew
[8:25] Speaker 3: what we were doing. Me and my brother, I know
[8:27] Speaker 3: of nobody any better. Okay, on top of the game,
[8:31] Speaker 3: top of the heat. Oh completely, So they brought in
[8:35] Speaker 3: other experienced criminals to back them up. There was Charlie
[8:39] Speaker 3: Brockle and he was sometimes known as the Silver Fox
[8:43] Speaker 3: and I'm and serious and then his other nickname was
[8:47] Speaker 3: the Creep for real. Yeah totally. So he was from
[8:50] Speaker 3: Colin Widow.
[8:51] Speaker 2: Or the Broccoli Guy.
[8:53] Speaker 3: But is Brockel So he was a burglar. He's also
[9:01] Speaker 3: a hit man.
[9:02] Speaker 2: Oh sounds fun.
[9:04] Speaker 3: Then there was the Dencio's nephew, Harry Barber.
[9:07] Speaker 2: See I'm telling you, Harry Calf.
[9:09] Speaker 3: Yeah, he was an accomplished thief and he was a
[9:12] Speaker 3: great getaway driver. So he was born an alliance A
[9:16] Speaker 3: something something alliance, Ohio birthed him out. But then he
[9:20] Speaker 3: moved to southern California with his family in nineteen fifty
[9:23] Speaker 3: six because his mom, Viola, she had really terrible arthritis
[9:28] Speaker 3: and she needed warmer driver.
[9:29] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, totally go out. Moved to the desert.
[9:31] Speaker 3: Yeah. So it was in southern California that he learned
[9:34] Speaker 3: to drive like a madman.
[9:35] Speaker 2: It's a great place to do it, especially at that
[9:37] Speaker 2: time in the.
[9:38] Speaker 3: Late fifties early sixties. He got forty one speeding tickets.
[9:42] Speaker 2: Wow.
[9:43] Speaker 3: And so he also got his license.
[9:45] Speaker 2: I was going to say, usually you can't get that high.
[9:47] Speaker 3: No, you can't. His parents were totally tired of his antics,
[9:50] Speaker 3: so they sent him to live with his grandma in Ohio, Ohio. Yeah,
[9:55] Speaker 3: they're like, you got to go back there. He goes
[9:57] Speaker 3: back to Ohio, gets a new driver's license. It's a
[10:00] Speaker 3: job working for Uncle Emil. So next we have Emil's
[10:05] Speaker 3: brother in law, Charles Mulligan, another crook, and lastly Phil Christopher.
[10:10] Speaker 3: He was an alarm thief and he was known as
[10:12] Speaker 3: like a super thief in Cleveland. He was the super
[10:15] Speaker 3: thief of Cleveland. So we got Emil, James, the thief
[10:20] Speaker 3: of Cleveland, Brockel, Barber, Mulligan, and.
[10:25] Speaker 2: Christopher that's on the back of a satin jacket.
[10:29] Speaker 3: Totally. This is the heist crew. Yes, they have one target,
[10:34] Speaker 3: not just the United California Bank UCB and not upright
[10:38] Speaker 3: citizens breed. No, they were also after thirty million dollars
[10:43] Speaker 3: in that day.
[10:44] Speaker 2: They knew that thirty million would be there.
[10:46] Speaker 3: That Richard Nixon reportedly got as a campaign bribe from
[10:50] Speaker 3: notorious mobster posing as a union man, Jimmy Hoffa.
[10:53] Speaker 2: Wow, So they're after half his money that he gave
[10:56] Speaker 2: to Nixon on the sly and they know it's there,
[10:59] Speaker 2: Nixon in the Ohio. How deep are they involved in
[11:02] Speaker 2: the Union?
[11:04] Speaker 3: We're going to come. We'll get so much in our
[11:07] Speaker 3: brains today, so many questions.
[11:09] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[11:09] Speaker 3: March eighth, nineteen seventy two, Ronald Barber, Emil's nephew, he
[11:14] Speaker 3: rented a townhouse near the bank and he paid one
[11:17] Speaker 3: thousand dollars cash to lease it for three months and
[11:20] Speaker 3: that was going to be their operations base.
[11:22] Speaker 2: Sure.
[11:23] Speaker 3: So like a week later, there are two teenagers that
[11:25] Speaker 3: are on a hike in the area and they found
[11:27] Speaker 3: an electric motor that had been converted into a drill
[11:30] Speaker 3: and then they also found a commercial sledgehammer, a custom
[11:34] Speaker 3: made lead sledgehammer, three concrete drill bits, and a can
[11:39] Speaker 3: of roofing tar.
[11:40] Speaker 2: This is all this left out just hanging out.
[11:42] Speaker 3: So they take all the stuff over to the Laguna
[11:44] Speaker 3: Beach Police Department and they turned it over to the
[11:47] Speaker 3: Sheriff's department as like found property, Like someone dropped all
[11:49] Speaker 3: their drill bits.
[11:50] Speaker 4: These guys really got the Scooby Doo treatment for these
[11:54] Speaker 4: medaling kids.
[11:55] Speaker 3: Well, the tools they were not tied to the bank
[11:57] Speaker 3: robbery until like weeks after.
[11:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, but still it's run.
[12:00] Speaker 3: Yeah. So the crew they practiced getaway driving and an
[12:04] Speaker 3: Oldsmobile eighty eight. Wow, because like Barber, he's the getaway driver.
[12:08] Speaker 3: He was a huge Steve McQueen fan. Yes, and he
[12:11] Speaker 3: modified the trunk of the car to like hide the
[12:13] Speaker 3: tools properly. So March tenth, nineteen.
[12:16] Speaker 2: Seventy getaway is that the idea? Yeah?
[12:19] Speaker 3: Okay, mulligan. He shows up at the home of a
[12:23] Speaker 3: childhood friend of his from Youngstown, Ohio named Earl Dawson
[12:26] Speaker 3: sometimes went by the name Early so Dawson not a criminal.
[12:31] Speaker 3: I mean he had like a couple of DUIs. He
[12:33] Speaker 3: was a retired marine.
[12:34] Speaker 2: He's a citizen.
[12:35] Speaker 3: He's a citizen. So Mulligan he asks Dawson, the marine,
[12:40] Speaker 3: can I leave this car here? Yeah, in nineteen sixty
[12:44] Speaker 3: two Oldsmobile eighty eighth and Dawson said, quote, he said
[12:48] Speaker 3: he wanted to leave the car at my place for
[12:50] Speaker 3: a while. I thought he meant to leave it parked
[12:51] Speaker 3: at the curb, but he wanted it in the garage,
[12:54] Speaker 3: out of sight. So Dawson he doesn't see Mulligan again
[12:57] Speaker 3: until the twenty sixth of March, so this was on
[13:00] Speaker 3: the tenth. It's like he's just hiding the car in
[13:03] Speaker 3: the girl for a fortnight. Right on Friday, March twenty fourth,
[13:07] Speaker 3: the heist kicked off. So the team they used a
[13:11] Speaker 3: vacant building next to the bank as their entry point.
[13:14] Speaker 3: After dark, they disabled the alarm system. They sprayed surfboard
[13:18] Speaker 3: repair foam into the same alarm. That's an expanding phone.
[13:21] Speaker 2: Oh, that's brilliant.
[13:22] Speaker 3: And the creator of the foam, Gordon Grubby Clark, in
[13:25] Speaker 3: a factory just a few miles away from our Yeah,
[13:28] Speaker 3: so they're buying local.
[13:29] Speaker 2: That's what I'm trying to say, support local businesses.
[13:31] Speaker 3: So that hardened foam kept the alarm clapper from ringing
[13:35] Speaker 3: the bell. Brilliant, And then Barber said, quote they all
[13:38] Speaker 3: got sprayed. We'd seen the we'd seen it meeting the
[13:40] Speaker 3: goop in the past, and we thought we'd try it.
[13:42] Speaker 3: It worked very well, so you know they're testing thingsterial science.
[13:46] Speaker 3: I love it completely. Sheriff's detective James Sidebotham.
[13:49] Speaker 2: Yeah and a half.
[13:51] Speaker 3: This is what he said about this whole alarm trick. Quote.
[13:54] Speaker 3: When we got out of there a couple of days later,
[13:56] Speaker 3: the electric motor that runs the clapper was still humming,
[13:59] Speaker 3: like they couldn't the whole thing off anyway. There was
[14:02] Speaker 3: also an interior alarm. Emil took care of that using
[14:06] Speaker 3: a vault meter to pick up the sonic alarm wires
[14:10] Speaker 3: that he first cut and then re soldered, so he
[14:13] Speaker 3: like detected all the wires. He deactivates the alarms, and
[14:17] Speaker 3: then the crew left the bank for an hour. Well, yeah,
[14:20] Speaker 3: they wanted to wait.
[14:21] Speaker 2: And see if any aside for it has to rest.
[14:25] Speaker 3: They wanted to see if anyone was alerted to this,
[14:29] Speaker 3: So they sat there listening to the police scanner like
[14:31] Speaker 3: me on a Friday night.
[14:32] Speaker 2: Yes, listen, Elizabeth, as we call it.
[14:34] Speaker 3: Exactly when they saw that the coast was clear and
[14:38] Speaker 3: no one was a wiser, they went in. They scrambled
[14:41] Speaker 3: up to the roof of the bank. The guys had
[14:43] Speaker 3: taken twenty burlap feed sacks worth of dirt from the
[14:47] Speaker 3: ground around South Shorores Baptist Church, the Sacred Ground. I
[14:50] Speaker 3: suppose they carried this up the ladder and down into
[14:54] Speaker 3: the crawl space, and it was there that they laid
[14:56] Speaker 3: out sixteen sticks of dynamite, sixteen in the dirt or
[15:00] Speaker 3: and the on top like in the bags of dirt.
[15:03] Speaker 3: So they're in the crawl space above the vault. So
[15:06] Speaker 3: you know they lay that, they lay it all they.
[15:08] Speaker 2: Do make it basically making shape charges. Yeah.
[15:10] Speaker 3: I guess they're like trying to muffle they so the
[15:13] Speaker 3: bag eleven of the bags are stacked to form a
[15:15] Speaker 3: blast shield, yeah, and the other nine are put directly
[15:18] Speaker 3: on top of the dynamite to like muffle the sound
[15:20] Speaker 3: but also drive the impact it went down. Ye.
[15:22] Speaker 2: Yeah, they're basically trying to blow a hole in the road.
[15:24] Speaker 3: Yeah. And you know what coublamoblamo. After the blast emial,
[15:28] Speaker 3: he melted the vault's rebar reinforcements with a blowtorch sixteen
[15:33] Speaker 3: sticks of dynamite, not enough still to get that out,
[15:36] Speaker 3: so at first the men only took the bank's loose cash,
[15:39] Speaker 3: which was like a little over fifty two thousand dollars.
[15:41] Speaker 2: It's still a good haul.
[15:43] Speaker 3: E Meal, Chuck Mulligan, Ronald Barber. They went back to
[15:47] Speaker 3: Dawson's house, asking Dawson if they could be alone and
[15:51] Speaker 3: have a meeting. So Dawson agrees, and he and his
[15:55] Speaker 3: wife go to a nearby bar and they bring Mulligan
[15:57] Speaker 3: with him, and then they come back home.
[15:58] Speaker 2: A couple own house, his own house. Takes his wife kind,
[16:02] Speaker 2: we need to have dinner. These guys need to talk.
[16:03] Speaker 3: And Mulligan's like, I'll go with you. I'm a little hungry.
[16:06] Speaker 3: So he gets back to the house. The three guys leave,
[16:08] Speaker 3: and they allegedly also left behind some of their burglary tools,
[16:12] Speaker 3: which was evidence that would later convict them. So later
[16:15] Speaker 3: on Sunday evening, the crew returned to the bank. They've
[16:18] Speaker 3: blown in. Now they're like that was on a Friday night,
[16:21] Speaker 3: so like let's go back and let's see what's going
[16:23] Speaker 3: on there. Their presence was recorded because one of the
[16:26] Speaker 3: men smashed the timelock clocks that were inside of the
[16:29] Speaker 3: vault door, and that's what helped them not be discovered
[16:32] Speaker 3: for another almost sixteen hours. Four hundred and fifty eight
[16:36] Speaker 3: safety deposit boxes were opened over the weekend using those
[16:40] Speaker 3: custom sledgehammers that they'd honed in a warehouse back in Ohio.
[16:43] Speaker 2: The bad sledgehammer in.
[16:45] Speaker 3: Those boxes twelve million dollars in bonds, cash, and jewelry,
[16:49] Speaker 3: according to Barber quote. I think it was closer to
[16:52] Speaker 3: fourteen million dollars. But you know what, the FBI knows
[16:55] Speaker 3: more than we did. Evidently they were there. Some of
[17:00] Speaker 3: the crew. They took their share of the booty and
[17:02] Speaker 3: they piled it into rented cars and they drove back
[17:05] Speaker 3: on to Ohio. A couple of the others decided to
[17:08] Speaker 3: fly back. There were no witnesses. Let's take a break,
[17:12] Speaker 3: we come back. I'll tell you how this went for
[17:14] Speaker 3: the crew. Welcome, Hey, you thanks for joining me.
[17:38] Speaker 2: So you're gonna take me to Ohio?
[17:39] Speaker 3: Now, No, we're gonna stay at California for that. So
[17:43] Speaker 3: the United California bank robbery happened on a Friday night
[17:46] Speaker 3: and then the Sunday right after Monday rolls around and
[17:50] Speaker 3: of course the bank's gonna find out. So staff showed
[17:52] Speaker 3: up and they couldn't get the timelock to work. Remember
[17:55] Speaker 3: he smashed it, and also remember those it's the automatic
[17:58] Speaker 3: lock on the bank vault. So this this wasn't a
[18:00] Speaker 3: two factor key like I think b of A had.
[18:03] Speaker 3: This is the one that wouldn't open until the bank
[18:05] Speaker 3: opened in the morning. So they thought it was just
[18:08] Speaker 3: a system malfunction that people working at the bank, and
[18:11] Speaker 3: so they called locksmith to come and fix it. Locksmith's like,
[18:14] Speaker 3: I can't do it.
[18:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a time, So they said.
[18:19] Speaker 3: They sent the locksmith up into the crawl space to
[18:22] Speaker 3: try and come from the top like get it somehow,
[18:26] Speaker 3: like open the thing from the inside, which like that
[18:28] Speaker 3: doesn't make any sense, but anyway, I think he was
[18:31] Speaker 3: more climbing up in there to see if there were
[18:33] Speaker 3: like wires that he could like have shortened, of rats
[18:35] Speaker 3: chewing on it.
[18:36] Speaker 2: Whatever.
[18:37] Speaker 3: He sees the blast hole. Yeah, So once the bank
[18:40] Speaker 3: manager was able to get inside the vault, you know,
[18:43] Speaker 3: locksmith jumps down opens it. From the inside. They found
[18:46] Speaker 3: a mess concrete dust everywhere because of the explosion, and
[18:49] Speaker 3: then bonds, cash, collectible jewelry urns with their ashes tipped
[18:55] Speaker 3: and scattered all over.
[18:56] Speaker 2: Why would people have their beloved family members in.
[18:58] Speaker 3: A safety posit I don't know, is that a thing anyway?
[19:04] Speaker 3: So the bank employees call the FEDS.
[19:06] Speaker 2: They calling the fbis like I didn't do this.
[19:08] Speaker 3: He's like, I had no part of this. A detective
[19:11] Speaker 3: from the Orange County Sheriff's Department, Keith Robert, Sergeant Keith
[19:15] Speaker 3: Roberts said, quote, the boxes were removed and stacked carefully,
[19:18] Speaker 3: but then it looked like they found a bonanza, maybe
[19:21] Speaker 3: a lot of cash in one of the boxes, and
[19:23] Speaker 3: everybody went a little nuts. They apparently began ripping open
[19:26] Speaker 3: the boxes and scattering the contents wildly like they were
[19:29] Speaker 3: on a treasure hunt. So love he's able to piece
[19:32] Speaker 3: it together. FBI Special Agent James Conway was on the scene.
[19:36] Speaker 2: Not James Conway quote, it.
[19:38] Speaker 3: Doesn't take a detective to figure out that this burglary
[19:41] Speaker 3: is different. With two beaten alarm systems, explosives, and several
[19:45] Speaker 3: steel rods, this is a heavyweight job.
[19:48] Speaker 2: Oh there were.
[19:49] Speaker 3: One hundred and twenty five FBI agents assigned to the case.
[19:55] Speaker 2: Damn one hundred and twenty five. They really want to get.
[19:57] Speaker 3: This, Oh yeah, definitely. At this point, it's like one
[19:59] Speaker 3: of the big manhunts and FBI history, and.
[20:01] Speaker 4: It's possibly involving Nixon's thirty million dollars of bingo.
[20:05] Speaker 3: So the FEDS they had a good clue in their pocket.
[20:08] Speaker 3: One of the bank customers saved her deposit box memento currency,
[20:13] Speaker 3: so she and her husband they would go on vacation
[20:17] Speaker 3: and they'd get cash and she would put like each
[20:20] Speaker 3: one in an envelope and mark where they got it,
[20:24] Speaker 3: like when they get change back from purchases.
[20:26] Speaker 4: Okay, it wasn't even like this is a drakma.
[20:31] Speaker 3: It was like no, not even that. It was like
[20:33] Speaker 3: I went to Cincinnati, which oh my gosh, h not
[20:35] Speaker 3: even yeah, I went. Yeah, And then but she kept
[20:39] Speaker 3: she recorded all the serial numbers, like I guess she
[20:42] Speaker 3: had like a scrap book at home.
[20:44] Speaker 2: That's a bizarre I mean whatever, they.
[20:47] Speaker 3: Have all this cash and the serial numbers for them
[20:50] Speaker 3: now they just have to find it.
[20:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
[20:52] Speaker 3: So two months after the Lagoon and Nigel heist.
[20:55] Speaker 2: On May four, for the FBI.
[20:57] Speaker 3: Right May four two, the vault of a small branch
[21:03] Speaker 3: bank in Lordstown, Ohio gets broken into. It had all
[21:07] Speaker 3: the signatures and mo of the United California job A
[21:10] Speaker 3: Meal's crew did it. They got four hundred and thirty
[21:14] Speaker 3: thousand dollars in cash.
[21:16] Speaker 2: Which is a lot that good at that time.
[21:18] Speaker 3: Ye, why why so much cash in there?
[21:20] Speaker 2: Why so much cash?
[21:21] Speaker 3: Thank you for asking. It was the cash for the
[21:23] Speaker 3: paychecks of auto workers employed at the nearby General Motors.
[21:27] Speaker 2: Oh, the Lordstown plant.
[21:28] Speaker 3: Yeah, so now they done did it?
[21:30] Speaker 2: Okay? They just based off GM and Richard Dick. Yeah.
[21:33] Speaker 3: So by May twenty fifth, Emil Mulligan, Christopher Barber, they're
[21:38] Speaker 3: the suspects for both jobs. Keep in mind too, remember
[21:41] Speaker 3: who else we talked about HAFA teamsters.
[21:43] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm wondering about this when the unions and
[21:45] Speaker 2: the mafia come involve.
[21:46] Speaker 3: So the FEDS they figured the guys had to get
[21:49] Speaker 3: from LA to Ohio, and they also had to get
[21:52] Speaker 3: from Ohio to LA. They checked rental car records, airline manifests.
[21:57] Speaker 3: Their fingerprints were found on tickets dated March fifteenth traveling
[22:02] Speaker 3: from Cleveland to LA. These are the tickets that they
[22:05] Speaker 3: had on their way to get.
[22:06] Speaker 2: To heist, flying to the heist.
[22:08] Speaker 3: Yeah, and so the FBI wouldn't say how they got
[22:10] Speaker 3: a tip to search thousands of United Airlines tickets in
[22:14] Speaker 3: their files. But this is where they say that the
[22:16] Speaker 3: investigation really like kicked off. This is the beginning of it.
[22:20] Speaker 3: So with the airline tickets as a lead, the FBI
[22:22] Speaker 3: tracked down a cab driver who remembered picking up the
[22:25] Speaker 3: group and driving them to ninety eight oh three San
[22:28] Speaker 3: Carlos Avenue in Southgate Total and Southgate is where Barber
[22:33] Speaker 3: had landed he when he was sent out as a kid. Oh. Interesting,
[22:36] Speaker 3: So there's like this house is like a cute little
[22:39] Speaker 3: two bed, one bath stucco house. It's only seven and
[22:42] Speaker 3: twenty eight square feet. He has a tiny house. It
[22:46] Speaker 3: was the home of Ken and Viola Barber.
[22:48] Speaker 2: If I'm not mistaken, those homes were built prefer to
[22:50] Speaker 2: be workers home.
[22:50] Speaker 3: So yeah, exactly, So Ken and Viola Barber. Viola is
[22:55] Speaker 3: Emil's sister and Harry and Ronnie's mom. So the cabby,
[23:00] Speaker 3: super nice guy from Ghana. He remembered them because they
[23:03] Speaker 3: gave him a one hundred dollars tip at the time. Wow,
[23:06] Speaker 3: they showed the cab driver a picture of meal Yep.
[23:10] Speaker 2: Generosity dooms Yeah exactly.
[23:12] Speaker 3: So now Ronald and Viola were in on this too.
[23:15] Speaker 3: They were subpoenaed on May thirty. First, FBI agents found
[23:19] Speaker 3: registration forms that the Dincio brothers had filled out, and
[23:23] Speaker 3: Chuck Mulligan's name was on there too when they stayed
[23:25] Speaker 3: at the Jubilee Motor Inn back in February of nineteen
[23:28] Speaker 3: seventy two, and they got records of phone calls made
[23:32] Speaker 3: from the motel to the Dawson house in Tustin. So
[23:36] Speaker 3: Earl Dawson lives in Tustin. June second, nineteen seventy two,
[23:40] Speaker 3: FBI agent's James Conway, James Conway and Frank Cally they
[23:46] Speaker 3: went to Dawson's house but no one was home. A
[23:48] Speaker 3: neighbor is like, oh, you looking for Earl? Like yeah,
[23:51] Speaker 3: we're looking for him.
[23:52] Speaker 2: He's like, where's Early Ben.
[23:54] Speaker 3: He's down at the bar down the street, and they're
[23:56] Speaker 3: like okay. So then they go down there and there's
[23:58] Speaker 3: Earl playing holding of friend. So they drag him home
[24:01] Speaker 3: for questioning. It goes on for hours. They're in there
[24:04] Speaker 3: with him drunk. Yeah, but remember how Dawson had been
[24:08] Speaker 3: a marine, so had Callie, and he used that to
[24:12] Speaker 3: establish a connection between the two. And and so you
[24:17] Speaker 3: know you quote you served your country well, Callie said
[24:21] Speaker 3: to Dawson, outside of a couple of drunk driving things,
[24:24] Speaker 3: You've never been in trouble, but these people used you.
[24:31] Speaker 3: Earl answers him quote, I was always a little suspicious.
[24:35] Speaker 2: Got him.
[24:35] Speaker 3: Yeah. So then Dawson, while they're having this interrogation in
[24:39] Speaker 3: his house, Dawson gets a phone call Caller Mulligan, and
[24:43] Speaker 3: he's like, listen, I'm going to beat your house in
[24:45] Speaker 3: a couple hours. I need to pick up that old
[24:47] Speaker 3: smobile and go get rid of it. And uh, Dawson said,
[24:52] Speaker 3: you know, said Mulligan told him. Mulligan's on there. Like,
[24:54] Speaker 3: I'm kind of worried. I'm being followed right now, and
[24:58] Speaker 3: I'm going to try and lose the tale. But go
[25:01] Speaker 3: to this bar called the Walnut Room and I'll meet
[25:04] Speaker 3: up with you there. And so special Agent Cali, with
[25:07] Speaker 3: Dawson's permission, had been eavesdropping on the phone. Can I
[25:11] Speaker 3: tell you a little bit about the Walnut Room in Tustin, California?
[25:15] Speaker 2: No, of course, yes, I want to know about the
[25:17] Speaker 2: Walnut Rooms.
[25:18] Speaker 3: Heard he is a serious dive bar in a strip mall. Yes,
[25:22] Speaker 3: it's currently between a ninety nine cent store and a
[25:25] Speaker 3: hot pot place.
[25:27] Speaker 2: Perfect. Got hungry, I don't have a headache, and you
[25:30] Speaker 2: need some tile and all. I don't know.
[25:32] Speaker 3: I don't know what was there in the seventies though
[25:34] Speaker 3: it currently has a four point three Yale rating. I
[25:37] Speaker 3: mean it's a high rating. They have like, you know, books,
[25:40] Speaker 3: some bar maids, and that's like one of their selling points,
[25:44] Speaker 3: and they advertise as a dive bar. So anyway, that's
[25:47] Speaker 3: where they have an Instagram. So the Walnut Room, Dawson.
[25:51] Speaker 3: He gets off the phone with Mulligan, Cali and Conway.
[25:54] Speaker 3: They call their superior special agent, James Cagna Sola. He
[25:59] Speaker 3: gets search warrant for the Olds eighty eight. Judge signs
[26:03] Speaker 3: it off. It's eight at night, eight as fast as
[26:05] Speaker 3: he can. Oh, yeah, signs it off. The agents. They
[26:07] Speaker 3: popped the trunk of the car and they find the
[26:09] Speaker 3: burglary tools.
[26:10] Speaker 2: Oo.
[26:10] Speaker 3: They also found three gold coins that belonged to a
[26:13] Speaker 3: Laguna beach man who said they were lost from his
[26:16] Speaker 3: safety deposit box when it had been robbed.
[26:18] Speaker 2: Ma Cannix.
[26:19] Speaker 3: Meanwhile, Dawson heads over to the Walnut Room waits for Mulligan.
[26:24] Speaker 3: Mulligan breezes in at eleven at night. The cab driver
[26:28] Speaker 3: who took Mulligan to the Walnut Room later tells the
[26:31] Speaker 3: FBI that the ride he gave to Mulligan was like
[26:34] Speaker 3: a doozy. He drove Mulligan from Lax to Hollywood to Tustin. Wow,
[26:41] Speaker 3: and he had to take a bunch of side trips.
[26:43] Speaker 3: Mulligan's like, okay, cover here, no, no, no, to go around
[26:45] Speaker 3: this way, go back to that seven eleven, trying to
[26:47] Speaker 3: lose tale.
[26:47] Speaker 2: See that church down the road, go there, pull map
[26:49] Speaker 2: parking lot.
[26:50] Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So Mulligan had the cab driver sit with
[26:53] Speaker 3: him in Dawson for twenty minutes while he waited for
[26:56] Speaker 3: a tale to show.
[26:56] Speaker 2: Up, and wonder what they talked about.
[26:58] Speaker 3: I don't know. But what he didn't know is that
[27:00] Speaker 3: the agents were already sitting at the bar.
[27:01] Speaker 2: Exactly, just waiting, Like, could you can't hear already Mulligan.
[27:04] Speaker 3: He eventually lets the cab driver go, starts talking to Dawson,
[27:08] Speaker 3: and Dawson's like, Chuck, do you have something to do
[27:11] Speaker 3: with that two million dollar bank robbery and Lagun and
[27:13] Speaker 3: Miguel and Mulligan says, now, Earle, you know me better
[27:17] Speaker 3: than that. Besides it was more like five million this guy.
[27:22] Speaker 3: Uh So they like sit there and they're chatting like
[27:25] Speaker 3: another hour and a half.
[27:26] Speaker 4: These guys are such the side characters of a TV show,
[27:29] Speaker 4: you know, like the seventies TV show.
[27:31] Speaker 3: Yes, yes, So Mulligan agrees to stay the night at
[27:34] Speaker 3: Dawson's house, okay, and they leave the bar, but in
[27:38] Speaker 3: the parking lot the FBI, of course, yeah.
[27:42] Speaker 2: Everywhere at the FBI.
[27:43] Speaker 3: At this point, Sheriff's Sergeant Roberts said, quote, Mulligan was
[27:46] Speaker 3: one of the coolest men I have ever seen in
[27:48] Speaker 3: that situation. Usually a guy I'll try and give you
[27:51] Speaker 3: some smart comeback, but he just didn't say a word.
[27:55] Speaker 3: So he keeps all the quips for his friends.
[27:58] Speaker 2: It's not giving away for free Mulligan.
[28:00] Speaker 3: They booked him in la rather than Orange County because
[28:03] Speaker 3: they didn't want the rest of the gang to catch
[28:05] Speaker 3: wind of the arrest. But that didn't work because a
[28:08] Speaker 3: reporter was monitoring the police scanner and got the information
[28:12] Speaker 3: right from a dispatcher.
[28:13] Speaker 2: They hear the name.
[28:15] Speaker 3: Yeah, So Ronald Barber disappeared from his Southgate apartment and
[28:19] Speaker 3: stayed gone for eight years.
[28:21] Speaker 2: Smart man.
[28:22] Speaker 3: He wound up living under an alias in rural Pennsylvania.
[28:25] Speaker 2: That alias Tiki Barber.
[28:27] Speaker 3: So he said, quote, everybody knew that I didn't like
[28:31] Speaker 3: the cold, so I figured the last place they'd look
[28:33] Speaker 3: for me was where it would be cold. I used
[28:36] Speaker 3: to send them postcards all the time from Florida and
[28:38] Speaker 3: Hawaii wishing them Merry Christmas. I throw them off the scent.
[28:42] Speaker 2: I like that A smart move, right.
[28:44] Speaker 3: June thirteenth, nineteen seventy two. So we're like a few
[28:47] Speaker 3: months after the robbery or burglary, I should say. The
[28:50] Speaker 3: agents checked Ronald's phone records and saw that he made
[28:53] Speaker 3: calls to a lagoon in nic gall number that was
[28:57] Speaker 3: the real estate agent that he rented the townhouse three months.
[29:01] Speaker 3: The real estate agent led the FBI agents to the
[29:04] Speaker 3: town home, and then that's where they found these guys
[29:06] Speaker 3: hadn't cleaned up everything. There were dirty dishes. No, they
[29:10] Speaker 3: tried to clean up most of them, Oh really, but
[29:12] Speaker 3: they didn't clean up the kitchen. And there were fingerprints
[29:15] Speaker 3: on the dirty dishes of Dincio. The barber brothers, Mulligan
[29:19] Speaker 3: and Christopher.
[29:20] Speaker 2: I bet also in the bathroom.
[29:22] Speaker 3: Yeah, probably June twenty first FBI agents they arrested the
[29:26] Speaker 3: alarm guy, Phil Christopher in the closet of his house.
[29:30] Speaker 2: They found I thought they read in the closet of
[29:33] Speaker 2: his house, he's.
[29:35] Speaker 3: The arrested alarm guy Phil Christopher.
[29:36] Speaker 2: Period.
[29:37] Speaker 3: In the closet of his house, Comma, they found a
[29:41] Speaker 3: paper bag that had like a little over thirty two
[29:44] Speaker 3: thousand dollars in the majority of it still in the
[29:46] Speaker 3: bank wrappers in the vands. Yeah, there were two loose
[29:50] Speaker 3: fivers that were also in the bag, and those turned
[29:52] Speaker 3: out to be some of the memento currency. Girl yep,
[29:56] Speaker 3: that she had all the vacation money serial numbers. Zarin,
[30:00] Speaker 3: close you out. Please do you want to do? I
[30:05] Speaker 3: want you to picture it. It's June twenty sixth, nineteen
[30:09] Speaker 3: seventy two. You are an eight year old boy. You've
[30:13] Speaker 3: been peppering your uncle with endless questions about his time
[30:16] Speaker 3: in World War Two. He was in the Pacific Theater.
[30:19] Speaker 3: He tells you harrowing tales of his time and the
[30:22] Speaker 3: seabe's working day and night to shore up Henderson Field
[30:25] Speaker 3: in the Solomon Islands. He tells you of the backbreaking work,
[30:29] Speaker 3: the onslaught of artillery fire they took from the Japanese
[30:32] Speaker 3: during the Guadalcanal Campaign, the high stakes of it all,
[30:36] Speaker 3: freedom and liberty across the globe or at risk, he
[30:38] Speaker 3: tells you. He also tells you about the gold bars
[30:41] Speaker 3: he and his buddies found in the downed Japanese zero,
[30:44] Speaker 3: and how they dug a hole and they buried them
[30:46] Speaker 3: in the sandy soil along the airstrip, knowing that one
[30:49] Speaker 3: day they would return to dig them up and live
[30:52] Speaker 3: like kings. What he doesn't tell you is that all
[30:55] Speaker 3: of this is a fiction. He doesn't tell you that
[30:58] Speaker 3: he has flat feet, connect the fact that he has
[31:01] Speaker 3: coke bottle glasses and has always had them, even in
[31:04] Speaker 3: photos of from when he was a kid. He doesn't
[31:06] Speaker 3: tell you that he pushed paper at the Combined Munition's
[31:09] Speaker 3: Assignment Board in Washington, DC during the war. He filed
[31:12] Speaker 3: papers and he typed up notes. He was part of
[31:15] Speaker 3: important work, to be sure, but it wasn't death defying.
[31:18] Speaker 2: Or heroic worst injury paper cut.
[31:20] Speaker 3: Yes, but you don't know that. No. All you know
[31:23] Speaker 3: is that your uncle Bart is a war hero. Who
[31:25] Speaker 3: tells amazing stories of adventure and daring do. And now
[31:29] Speaker 3: it's Monday, June twenty sixth, nineteen seventy two. School is
[31:33] Speaker 3: out and you're standing in front of your house in Youngstown, Ohio.
[31:36] Speaker 3: Cars whiz by as you stare across the street. Last
[31:40] Speaker 3: night you looked out your window and seen a man
[31:42] Speaker 3: digging a hole in the empty lot across the street.
[31:45] Speaker 3: You watched as he put something into the earth. Was
[31:48] Speaker 3: it an old buddy of your uncle, come to plant
[31:50] Speaker 3: their riches for him? You are determined to get to
[31:54] Speaker 3: what you are now sure are gold bars, untold wealth
[31:57] Speaker 3: destined for your brave uncle. You jog across the street,
[32:00] Speaker 3: garden spade in hand. You see right away that there's
[32:03] Speaker 3: a patch of disturbed earth that's been stomped down to
[32:06] Speaker 3: avoid detection. Suddenly you are at Henderson Field in the
[32:10] Speaker 3: Solomon Islands. It's humid. You hear planes and artillery fire
[32:15] Speaker 3: in the distance. Explosions detonate, and you know the enemy
[32:18] Speaker 3: is getting nearer. You drop to the ground and crawl
[32:21] Speaker 3: on your belly toward the spot in the dirt in coming.
[32:24] Speaker 3: You yell as you roll and tumble quickly to your
[32:26] Speaker 3: right and keep scooting forward. The inner life, the interior
[32:31] Speaker 3: movie playing in the mind of an eight year old
[32:33] Speaker 3: boy is a thing of wonder. You reach the hole
[32:37] Speaker 3: and you start digging. Machine gun fire rages in the
[32:39] Speaker 3: distance as warplanes buzz you. Your shovel hit something hard.
[32:43] Speaker 3: You scramble to pull it out of the ground. It's
[32:45] Speaker 3: a thermois You open the thermos and there it is bills,
[32:50] Speaker 3: a giant wad of cash. Suddenly a shadow is cast
[32:53] Speaker 3: above you. Someone stands over you. It's not an enemy combatant.
[32:58] Speaker 3: It's not one of your fellow CEB's at your mom.
[33:01] Speaker 3: She asked what you have, and you sheepishly handed over
[33:05] Speaker 3: ninety eight thousand dollars belonging to a meal Dinzio. The
[33:10] Speaker 3: next day, Dincio was arrested. Good job, Saron, Hey me
[33:14] Speaker 3: and my ma so. Ten hours after the arrest, his
[33:18] Speaker 3: home was searched and a gold plated silver dollar coin
[33:21] Speaker 3: was found, as well as a twenty dollars bill in
[33:24] Speaker 3: his mother in law's purse, and both of those items
[33:26] Speaker 3: got tracked back to the United California Job. Soon enough,
[33:30] Speaker 3: LA federal grand jury issued indictments charging Dincio, Mulligan, Christopher,
[33:35] Speaker 3: and the Barber Brothers. Let's take a break, Tiki and Ronde. Yes,
[33:40] Speaker 3: we've taken a look at the how. When we come back,
[33:43] Speaker 3: we'll investigate the why.
[33:45] Speaker 5: Ooh hello Elizabeth, Hello, Elizabeth, Elizabeth.
[34:09] Speaker 3: Zaren United California Bank robbery Elizabeth. Emil Dencio just go yeah,
[34:16] Speaker 3: totally totally busted. He's like, shakedown, breakdown.
[34:20] Speaker 2: You're busted.
[34:22] Speaker 3: There's his neighbor kid. Apparently his daughter wound up like
[34:26] Speaker 3: hating the neighbor kid. Really, yeah, because he's like, I
[34:28] Speaker 3: always hated that kid, the one who does yeah, yeah,
[34:33] Speaker 3: I think she went on to become a public defender,
[34:36] Speaker 3: if I'm not mistaken.
[34:37] Speaker 2: Oh really, one of those like the Juliani flip.
[34:39] Speaker 3: My dad's a gangster, the public defender with her same
[34:42] Speaker 3: name and who cares. So there's a trial and I'll
[34:46] Speaker 3: talk about that. But let's look at something Emil told
[34:49] Speaker 3: that La Times on November twenty sixth, nineteen seventy. Oh
[34:53] Speaker 3: that's quote. Just wait till this thing is over. I'll
[34:57] Speaker 3: give you a story, a real story. They're a bunch
[34:59] Speaker 3: of frame artists. Oh so, Cordy Nomil quote. In May
[35:04] Speaker 3: of nineteen seventy two, high level government officials ordered FBI
[35:08] Speaker 3: agents to steal items, including flashlight batteries from my garage
[35:12] Speaker 3: to find my fingerprints to plant as evidence, and then
[35:15] Speaker 3: they used the theft to convict me for the nineteen
[35:17] Speaker 3: seventy two bank burglary in Laguna Neguel, California. They then
[35:22] Speaker 3: covered up the agent's theft. The FBI director falsified dates
[35:26] Speaker 3: on FBI laboratory reports, and the Attorney General at the
[35:29] Speaker 3: time ordered his assistant US Attorney, John F. Walter to
[35:32] Speaker 3: prepare and suborn false testimony for FBI and civilian government witnesses.
[35:37] Speaker 2: Of course, to get to d'anzio. I mean, like everyone knows,
[35:40] Speaker 2: he was pretty much crime boss number one, so he
[35:43] Speaker 2: thought that this would help help his case.
[35:45] Speaker 3: Apparently, in the early odds, reporter Keith Sharon he tracked
[35:49] Speaker 3: down Harry Barber, the getaway driver. He took Barber out
[35:53] Speaker 3: to dinner in exchange for details about the heist.
[35:56] Speaker 2: Why that they just hit it off? No, but they
[35:57] Speaker 2: did meet.
[35:58] Speaker 3: Up at a Denny's in Diamond bar California.
[36:00] Speaker 2: Wow.
[36:02] Speaker 3: Good eggs, though, so Barbera said. It was Jimmy Hoffa
[36:06] Speaker 3: who clued in a Meal to the thirty million.
[36:08] Speaker 2: Dollars inside job.
[36:10] Speaker 3: Yeah. So Barbera says, Hoffa told him about the campaign
[36:13] Speaker 3: money that was being kept at the Lagoon in Negel Bank,
[36:16] Speaker 3: hidden there by Nixon. Keith Sharing, the journalist said quote,
[36:21] Speaker 3: Nixon would meet with donors, and Nixon would say, if
[36:24] Speaker 3: you can give me a million dollars, you can give
[36:25] Speaker 3: me two million dollars. Nixon would take their extorted campaign
[36:29] Speaker 3: contributions and he would hide it somewhere in One of
[36:31] Speaker 3: those places was lagun in Neguel, California. It makes sense
[36:34] Speaker 3: he was from around there.
[36:35] Speaker 2: Oh, it totally makes sense.
[36:37] Speaker 3: So in nineteen seventy one, there was the nineteen seventy
[36:39] Speaker 3: one Federal Election Campaign Act, and before that there wasn't
[36:43] Speaker 3: a limit on like the methods that politicians could.
[36:46] Speaker 2: Use contributions, right, Yeah.
[36:48] Speaker 3: So this deadline's approaching on the new law, and then
[36:51] Speaker 3: politicians were just like desperate to do a money grab.
[36:54] Speaker 2: How much can we get like a dry sponge.
[36:56] Speaker 3: Nixon head of the pack, which, like I'm telling you, tricky. Yeah.
[37:00] Speaker 3: And so one of his cash grabs was from the
[37:02] Speaker 3: International Brotherhood of Teamsters led by Jimmy Hoffa.
[37:06] Speaker 2: I wonder when he was dangling before them at the time.
[37:09] Speaker 3: Haffa was four years into a thirteen year prison sentence
[37:13] Speaker 3: for bribery and jury tampering. So Nixon made a deal.
[37:16] Speaker 3: He's like, I'll give you a pardon. Of course, it's
[37:18] Speaker 3: going to cost you. You got to give me three
[37:20] Speaker 3: million in cash and the teamster's endorsement because that's like
[37:24] Speaker 3: a democratic endorsement.
[37:25] Speaker 2: They work.
[37:26] Speaker 3: Plus Haffa would be banned from all union activities for
[37:29] Speaker 3: eight years. So Haffa gets out in seventy one because
[37:34] Speaker 3: his sentence is commuted by Nixon. He uses his mob
[37:37] Speaker 3: connections to find out where Nixon is hiding the teamsters money.
[37:40] Speaker 3: So he's like, i'll give you three million. I'm about
[37:42] Speaker 3: to steal it right back. He wanted revenge on Nixon
[37:45] Speaker 3: because he lost his teamster's president year.
[37:47] Speaker 2: Sure, so he gets.
[37:48] Speaker 3: In touch with Dincio to steal it back. According to Haffa,
[37:52] Speaker 3: most of the money that Nixon had aside from his
[37:55] Speaker 3: teamster's money, was from extorting dairy farmers in exchange for
[37:59] Speaker 3: raising the price of milk milk. Oh and this was
[38:01] Speaker 3: infamously referred to as Nixon's milk money.
[38:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so that's what that's wow.
[38:06] Speaker 3: According to Barber, quote Nixon was not one of our
[38:09] Speaker 3: favorite people to begin with. We were told that Nixon
[38:12] Speaker 3: was hiding some money.
[38:13] Speaker 2: Nixon wasn't even Nixon's favorite people.
[38:16] Speaker 3: So we figured he wouldn't cry to nobody. Who's he
[38:18] Speaker 3: going to cry to? He stole it himself exactly. He
[38:21] Speaker 3: can't call it cop exactly. So March two thousand and three,
[38:24] Speaker 3: Keith Sharon he wrote an article for the Orange County
[38:26] Speaker 3: Register called Bang for the Bucks. Good paper, Yeah, it
[38:29] Speaker 3: is a good paper. In it, he said that Dencio
[38:32] Speaker 3: and his crew took the job to steal the thirty
[38:34] Speaker 3: million in milk money. Emil said, quote, really, we were
[38:38] Speaker 3: after two boxes to start with President Nixon's boxes, so
[38:42] Speaker 3: we got them first and got the money out of
[38:44] Speaker 3: there and secured it. Was real nice that he doesn't
[38:46] Speaker 3: want to talk about the others.
[38:48] Speaker 2: But was it the thirty mel? Did they rob Nixon
[38:50] Speaker 2: or not?
[38:51] Speaker 3: They apparently it sounds like they did.
[38:52] Speaker 2: But then what did the money it gets?
[38:54] Speaker 3: It gets vanished. So back to nineteen seventy two. In July,
[38:59] Speaker 3: while he's incarcerated in a waiting trial, Dincio, he gets
[39:02] Speaker 3: chummy with a fellow burglar, Richard Arthur Gabriel. Gabriel. He
[39:07] Speaker 3: would later testify that between July twenty fifth and August tenth,
[39:11] Speaker 3: he and Dencio had about seventy five conversations during which
[39:16] Speaker 3: Dincio gave Gabriel lessons on bank robbery. Sure you know,
[39:20] Speaker 3: it was a mentor mentee situation, and he and he
[39:24] Speaker 3: fully admitted his involvement in the heightst and so Denzio
[39:28] Speaker 3: told him that he picked that branch quote because there
[39:31] Speaker 3: were a lot of rich and retired people in the area,
[39:34] Speaker 3: and there was an obstacle near the bank, so you
[39:35] Speaker 3: couldn't be seen. So he's not telling him the Nixon. Sure, Dincio,
[39:40] Speaker 3: he told Gabriel that he wasn't worried about Dawson as
[39:43] Speaker 3: a witness because Dawson was quote blind in one eye
[39:46] Speaker 3: and couldn't see very well out of the other. He
[39:48] Speaker 3: can't identify me in court. We'll see and here's well,
[39:52] Speaker 3: actually he's wrong. So not about being blind in one
[39:56] Speaker 3: I think he was, But Dawson was able to identify
[39:59] Speaker 3: Dincio in from thirty feet away.
[40:01] Speaker 2: I was gonna say, he's got one good.
[40:03] Speaker 3: One good eye. So Gabriel said, quote, he stopped me
[40:06] Speaker 3: one day and asked if I knew anyone who owned
[40:09] Speaker 3: or managed an apartment or motel. He said he wanted
[40:11] Speaker 3: to be able to register so he could place himself
[40:13] Speaker 3: there during the time of the burglary, and then Dencio
[40:16] Speaker 3: also asked Gabriel if he quote knew a girl who
[40:19] Speaker 3: could get to say she was with him at the time.
[40:22] Speaker 3: He's just alibi shopping, you.
[40:23] Speaker 2: Know, abroad. Hey, I just see someone.
[40:25] Speaker 3: So Dincio offers Gabriel twenty thousand dollars in negotiable bonds
[40:30] Speaker 3: from the heist. By August fourteenth, Gabriel's free, he's out
[40:34] Speaker 3: of jail working with the FBI. So Dencio he was
[40:39] Speaker 3: able to eventually bond out. His family put up everything
[40:42] Speaker 3: they could as collateral, and he kept in touch with Gabriel.
[40:45] Speaker 2: There were penthals.
[40:46] Speaker 3: Yeah. He's like, I've told you everything that I shouldn't
[40:49] Speaker 3: be telling.
[40:49] Speaker 2: So now we're fat one time at prison camp.
[40:53] Speaker 3: So he reaches out to him, like, hey remember me.
[40:57] Speaker 3: Gabriel's like, I will totally arrange for your alibi. I
[41:00] Speaker 3: got you boo. So Dncio he just he's like on
[41:05] Speaker 3: the edge of having this alibi. Gabriel's like, you just
[41:07] Speaker 3: have to call this person and set up the details
[41:10] Speaker 3: with them. I can't presume to know what you want
[41:12] Speaker 3: to say. And so Dencio calls that person was an
[41:15] Speaker 3: FBI agent recording the entire conversation.
[41:19] Speaker 4: So, if you're a criminal and somebody tells you you
[41:21] Speaker 4: need to make a contract with a killer or someone
[41:23] Speaker 4: for an alibi, it's going to be a federally.
[41:25] Speaker 2: Federal right time.
[41:26] Speaker 3: Yeah. So Gabriel also is told by Dncio that there's
[41:30] Speaker 3: a plot to have Dawson murdered to keep him from testifying.
[41:34] Speaker 2: I was wondering about that.
[41:35] Speaker 3: Turns around, he's like, look, Feds, I got even more information.
[41:38] Speaker 3: This guy is just a conduit of information to the
[41:41] Speaker 3: FBI that gets used in court, that little bit of information.
[41:44] Speaker 3: So Gabriel testified, and then the prosecution rested within an hour,
[41:50] Speaker 3: and then the next day, on October twenty seventh, at
[41:53] Speaker 3: the very end of the day, the jury read their
[41:55] Speaker 3: verdict guilty on all charges of bank burglary, conspiracy, and larsening.
[42:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like, we got I'm going to hit the weekend. Yeah.
[42:02] Speaker 3: The stolen items still needed to be recovered, though, sure,
[42:05] Speaker 3: and it was rumored that they hid everything scattered across
[42:09] Speaker 3: the country, But I mean, think about it. Didn feels
[42:11] Speaker 3: like burying it in the thermos across the street if
[42:13] Speaker 3: it wasn't for you. Over the years, some of the
[42:16] Speaker 3: items have been recovered, but the majority of it remains
[42:19] Speaker 3: missing to this day.
[42:20] Speaker 2: Really yeah, like the million of Nixon's money.
[42:23] Speaker 3: Probably many of the bank holders just couldn't remember what
[42:27] Speaker 3: they had in the boxes, and others never reported.
[42:31] Speaker 2: They have that memory work for really rich people. They
[42:33] Speaker 2: have the worst memory that some.
[42:35] Speaker 3: They couldn't even reach some of them. We need to
[42:38] Speaker 3: talk about what was in.
[42:38] Speaker 2: Your don't remember how to answer a phone?
[42:40] Speaker 3: Yeah, the heist it inspired books, films, documentaries, masterminds. On
[42:45] Speaker 3: Court TV, they did an episode about it and called
[42:48] Speaker 3: a Meal's crew quote the best bank burglary crew that
[42:51] Speaker 3: the FBI has ever seen. And they said that a
[42:54] Speaker 3: Meal had quote planned it for months, executed it to perfection,
[42:58] Speaker 3: and stole millions from the ultra secure vault. It was
[43:01] Speaker 3: the most amazing bank burglary in history.
[43:03] Speaker 2: It was the best show.
[43:04] Speaker 3: Oh did we hear that? A lot?
[43:06] Speaker 2: We do. There's a lot of superlatives thrown around about
[43:08] Speaker 2: bank robbers.
[43:10] Speaker 3: Director Mark Stephen Johnson. Oh, he made a movie about
[43:14] Speaker 3: the heist titled Finding Steve McQueen. Oh yeah, I've seen,
[43:18] Speaker 3: and he said, quote, it's an amazing story. It's one
[43:21] Speaker 3: of those When I first read the script, I thought
[43:23] Speaker 3: that can't be true. I kept googling it, thinking, how
[43:26] Speaker 3: did I not know about this story. This gang of
[43:29] Speaker 3: guys from Youngstown said let's go to California and rip
[43:31] Speaker 3: off the president of the US. They hated Nixon so
[43:34] Speaker 3: much they decided to go through with it, even though
[43:37] Speaker 3: they knew the risks. It's this strangely perfect footnote in
[43:40] Speaker 3: American history.
[43:41] Speaker 4: I got agree with them too, and ripping off Nixon,
[43:43] Speaker 4: how much fun would you well?
[43:45] Speaker 3: And then he also said, quote, it's such a fascinating
[43:47] Speaker 3: part of the world. It's amazing for them to come
[43:49] Speaker 3: from this part of the world and aim so big.
[43:52] Speaker 3: This is a movie about identity and people, and we
[43:55] Speaker 3: really tried to capture the spirit of Youngstown. People from
[43:57] Speaker 3: Youngstown are very proud of where they're from. It's a
[44:00] Speaker 3: tough town. You've got to fight for what you've got.
[44:02] Speaker 2: We had a.
[44:03] Speaker 3: Screening in Youngstown and people loved the movie. The only
[44:06] Speaker 3: thing they were disappointed in is we didn't use real names.
[44:09] Speaker 2: Ooh, that's cool.
[44:11] Speaker 3: So it was rumored that the crew never ended up
[44:15] Speaker 3: stealing Nixon's money, and that they had actually hit the
[44:17] Speaker 3: wrong bank.
[44:17] Speaker 4: That's what I'm guessing is that they did not pull
[44:20] Speaker 4: off the thirty mil high.
[44:21] Speaker 3: Right, But is there a lot? Barber argues this. Barber
[44:26] Speaker 3: argues this quote, it was his, part of it was his.
[44:30] Speaker 3: Usually when somebody robs a bank, they send four or
[44:32] Speaker 3: five FBI agents. This man sent one hundred and twenty five,
[44:36] Speaker 3: so you know he was pissed. And then Barbera said quote.
[44:40] Speaker 3: That still doesn't mean he was saying that's my money.
[44:43] Speaker 2: No, it says I want to catch these guys who
[44:44] Speaker 2: tried to get I think.
[44:45] Speaker 3: It was all in one bank.
[44:47] Speaker 4: It's yeah, spread around exactly. I don't think thirty million
[44:49] Speaker 4: is sitting in one box. I think there's multiple millions
[44:51] Speaker 4: in multiple banks. But in the one hundred and twenty
[44:54] Speaker 4: five FBI agents suggests they got part of it.
[44:57] Speaker 2: Definitely, I'm with.
[44:57] Speaker 3: That, agreed, so Zaren, what is your ridiculous takeaway?
[45:01] Speaker 4: Oh my god, it wouldn't be an amazing if they
[45:04] Speaker 4: would have robbed the whole administration like they got Nixon.
[45:06] Speaker 4: They got Kissinger, they got Spiro agnew they just robbed
[45:09] Speaker 4: them all. Yeah exactly. I mean that's by ridiculous takeaway,
[45:14] Speaker 4: shoot bigger next time.
[45:16] Speaker 2: I agree, Elizabeth, smooth, so easy. I don't natural.
[45:21] Speaker 3: I don't know how you do it.
[45:22] Speaker 2: That's because I'm interested curious what you say.
[45:26] Speaker 3: So dulous takeaway. I really I think it's clever to
[45:31] Speaker 3: spread the stuff around if you're going to hide it
[45:33] Speaker 3: if they haven't recovered most of it, you know.
[45:36] Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm with you on that.
[45:37] Speaker 4: And Hafa, it's like interesting he hires this crew to
[45:41] Speaker 4: be his guys to pull it off, and yet they
[45:44] Speaker 4: pull it off and then get busted and just the dumbest.
[45:46] Speaker 3: Yeah, well they may not have had the best information
[45:49] Speaker 3: to work with.
[45:50] Speaker 2: Sure was kind of dumb.
[45:52] Speaker 3: The fingerprints on the.
[45:53] Speaker 4: They're supposed to be like the best of the best.
[45:55] Speaker 4: So this is like if Oceans eleven got caught because
[45:57] Speaker 4: somebody sent a.
[45:58] Speaker 3: Postcard inclined to just I've out there.
[46:00] Speaker 4: Not fly, definitely no fly, and also not using rental cars.
[46:04] Speaker 4: Don't you have anybody buy little bum cars, buy crappy
[46:08] Speaker 4: cars for cash from towns that people don't care exactly.
[46:11] Speaker 3: See, we're much better criminal we should go.
[46:13] Speaker 2: Into crime together. We learned so much.
[46:15] Speaker 3: I know, I know. It's like a training camp. Uh, Dave,
[46:20] Speaker 3: Captain Dave, give me a talkback.
[46:26] Speaker 2: Oh my god, I love Cheat. I love this show.
[46:37] Speaker 2: Good jobs.
[46:42] Speaker 3: Yes, Uh, that's it for today.
[46:45] Speaker 2: I always enjoy those I do.
[46:47] Speaker 3: I love the talkback so much. I love to hear
[46:48] Speaker 3: their beautiful pace. You can find us online at ridiculous
[46:52] Speaker 3: Crime dot com. We are also at Ridiculous Crime on
[46:55] Speaker 3: both Twitter and Instagram. You can email Ridiculous Crime at
[46:58] Speaker 3: gmail dot com and as we're saying, leave a talk
[47:01] Speaker 3: back on the iHeart app. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by
[47:09] Speaker 3: Elizabeth Dutton and Sarah Burnett, produced and edited by Dirty
[47:12] Speaker 3: Dave Houston. Research is by Teamster bosses Marissa Brown and
[47:16] Speaker 3: Andrea Song. Sharpened Tear theme song is by Laguna, Miguel Jiggilows,
[47:20] Speaker 3: Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by
[47:24] Speaker 3: Botany five Hundred. Executive producers are Empty Safe Deposit Boxes,
[47:28] Speaker 3: Ben Bowlen and.
[47:29] Speaker 2: Noel Brown, Redicusquime Say It One More Time.
[47:41] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
[47:45] Speaker 1: my Heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts, or
[47:48] Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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