August 8, 2019 • 32 mins
iO and Austin pay a final visit to everyone's favorite lawslinger, Ron Kuby.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
For confidence in your financial plan. Look for a CFP professional.
When your financial advisor earns the CFP certification, it means
he or she is trained to provide ethical financial planning
across a holistic range of topics from retirement and investing
to taxes and estate planning, all in your best interest.
So with a CFP professional, you'll feel confident in your
(00:22):
financial plan today and tomorrow. Three letters do make a difference.
Visit Let's make a Plan dot org to find your
CFP professional. You realize this is it. This is the
last time we're going out in the field together with
your fuzzy wandy way at me and my microphone too.
(00:44):
Are you going to miss my badge? Yes? Yes, Austin
and I have spent a lot of time together and
one of our favorite things to do is to tell
each other dad jokes. It sounds like your nose is running.
Oh god, Tomato, Dad Tomato, Baby Tomater walked down street.
(01:07):
Dad Tomato goes back, stumps on baby Tomato and says
catch up. He's good. Yeah, I love these jokes. So
where are we going right now? We are going to
(01:27):
visit the Cubs. We are on twenty third Street, walking
in to the law offices of the one and only
the law Slinger Roun Koopy. Why why are we going
to see Koopy? Because I fucking I'm obsessed with him
and I want more. We're going into Ron Coopy's office
(01:48):
to interview him about his life and the cases that
he's worked on, to get a little bit more of
the cubs, because the Coups is the man and he's
a great storyteller. Please knock loudly, Hey where are you?
(02:12):
I'd see you in a hammock from Crimetown. I'm io
till it right. And this is a special bonus episode
of the Ballad of Billy Balls. Hello, Hey, Io run Koobi, Hey,
(02:45):
how are you good? So where is Billy Balls buried? Now?
Just send me all that ship and I'll try to
get something out in the next few days. All right,
want Wait? What do you mean you get something back
to vanyway? I didn't intend. What caused work for you
(03:05):
is to submit a fresh oil. Um, my office will
do that. I'm pleased to report that Zeno's paradox has
been resolved and the arrow indeed has hit the target.
The NYPD has sent us a comp if you will,
of records do you think there's any possibility that Billy
(03:32):
didn't have a gun? Yes, but there's nothing to support
that theory and everything to support the notion that the
comp is telling the truth. Epilogue three, The Law Slammer. Yeah,
(03:59):
thanks for having us. From Ron's writing a floral Hawaiian
shirt and shorts and no shoes, We follow a barefoot
Ron into his conference room and start talking. Can you
tell me about where you come from and how you
came to Law a little bit? Can I ask you
(04:22):
yes or no? Questions that I read on the internet? Yes?
Is it true that you lived in a commune when
you were a teenager? Yes? Is it true that you
worked on a tugboat in Saint Croix? Yes. Ron didn't
want to talk about growing up in Cleveland, Ohio. But
(04:45):
in nineteen seventy four, when he was seventeen, he found
himself on Saint Croix in the US Virgin Islands. I
was on my way to California from Ohio. I was calling. Yeah.
I was never really good in geograph. He went down
to visit a friend and he had a beautiful to me,
(05:08):
beautiful beach house and it was right next to what
was then a Calypso bar. This is like to me, paradise,
beach bar, beach bar, beach bar, and I don't even
(05:29):
have to put shoes on. I mean, it all worked.
I got a job on a tugboat and it was
like filled with all these old West Indian semen who
were always brewing these weird teas from plants and stuff.
And I would, you know, trying to make conversation because
we didn't have a lot in common, as you might imagine.
(05:51):
So I got interested in herbal teas and herbal medicine
and West Indian medical systems and stuff. At this point,
Ron's eighteen, He's spending his days learning about medicinal plants
on a tugboat and then coming home to the beach
drinking and getting high and hanging out. Then he met
(06:17):
a girl. I fell in love with her, she fell
in love with me. She left to go to Maine
and Ron followed. But he soon learned a bit more
about his sweetheart, sort of discovered that she had slept
with pretty much every guy and a substantial chunk of
(06:40):
the women in South Portland, which didn't bother me except
for the fact that I kept bumping into the wall
everywhere and it's like, Hi, yeah, you too cool. Ron
decided to get out of there and go to college
in Kansas. Was at the University of Kansas, great midwestern institution,
where he studied anthropology, focusing on those medicinal plants that
(07:02):
he learned about on the tugboat in Saint Croix, African
traditions and Spanish West Indian tradition. And he's not shy
about how well he did. He had a four oh
average and all this other shit. So I was the
best anthropology student they had seen in a fucking generation.
I mean, I just was. So when a faculty committee
(07:22):
turned him down for a big fellowship, he was shocked.
And so I'm walking to the bar and I bumped
into the head of the committee and I said, Hey,
what happened. Why didn't I can't recommend it? And he
said the committee didn't like your attitude. So I asked
(07:46):
what was wrong with my attitude? And he said, they
found you condescending and arrogant. Okay, went to the bar.
All the bartender and he said, yeah, you ought to
go to law school. They like people like that. There.
(08:10):
I wasn't doing anything else that I had nothing scheduled
from my future, so I thought, yeah, I signed an
idea we may share. While in law school at Cornell,
Ron began interning with one of the most famous civil
(08:31):
rights lawyers in the country, William Kunsler. William Kunsler defended
the Chicago Seven and counted Martin Luther King Junior, and
Malcolm X among his clients. There is no credibility in government.
It was all lies to justify Wotton cold blooded murder.
Public officials who sanction and condone mass murder must themselves
(08:53):
be indicted by a civilized society. The first summer of
Ron's internship, this is now nineteen eighty two, Kunstler was
defending two men in a murder trial, James Yorke and
Anthony la Board. York and Laboard were two former Black
Panthers who had gotten pulled over for a bad tail
(09:17):
light by two police officers, and you know, both officers
approached the car in a simple traffic stop. York and
Laboard allegedly came out shooting. One of the police officers died,
the other was shot many times but survived. And so
it was a very very very very high profile trial.
(09:39):
And we're going to be opening statements, and there was
going to be a lot of media coverage, and I'm
just carrying Bill's briefcase. Bill and young intern Ron head
off to a courthouse in Queens for opening statements. We're
going to the subway and I bend over for something
or Bill drops a paper and I bend over and
my pants rip right along the middle scene crotch to
(10:04):
ass and it's like, I'm I am now freaking out, Okay, Like,
I know Bill's concerned about the fate of two black
political prisoners and going to prison for the rest of
their lives and stuff like that, and I recognize that
so really important and shit, but I am like now,
and there's gonna be a lot of media there and
(10:25):
and Bill looks at me in his way, that's fine,
and then says the immortal words, just a cock flop
out during my opening might be one of the best
(10:48):
stories I've ever heard. Don't let you cock flop out
during my heart. Yeah, it's It's not listed in quotes
by William Kunstler in NIAC or whatever that is, but
their words to live by. Ron continued to work with
(11:08):
Bill Kunstler, eventually becoming an unofficial partner in his law firm,
and the two men were very close. He was my friend,
my mentor, my teacher, my critic, a great guy to
hang out with. Guy taught me everything that I know
(11:30):
about lawyering, and he was the guy probably most most
important in terms of my future career. I mean, all
of those things were incredibly wonderful, but he was the
guy who got me entree into a world and communities
that otherwise would have been alien With Kunstler, Koby worked
(11:53):
to defend people like the daughter of Malcolm X, associates
of the so called Gambino crime family, and members of
the Hell's Angels. So the Ohio Hell's Angels Charter Cleveland
charter called Counselor's Office, I think this is in ninety
nineteen ninety three of their members were charged with a
(12:13):
murder allegedly, I mean, according to the government, there were
two people in Sandusky, Ohio who drove yellow VW microbuses.
One of them was a large, heavy set, bearded member
(12:35):
of the Outlaws motorcycle club, with whom the Hell's Angels
had a longstanding disagreement. The other was a big, heavy set,
bearded but utterly harmless record store clerk guests. Which one
(12:59):
got killed? Yeah, record store clerk. So the FEDS took
over the case, and we're making this a very big deal.
And the Cleveland charter of the Hell's Angels called and
asked if Kunstler would be interested in the case. Bill
(13:22):
said great, you know, so we set a fee that
was a lot of money by our standards then, and
Kunstler sent me out to pick up the initial retainer
or whatever it was. But you know, basically put a
face to the firm. Koby flies into Cleveland, and awaiting
(13:46):
him at the airport is an escort from the Hell's Angels. Yeah.
I get in the car with the giant guy who
picks me up huge, like human armoire style, and guy
looks at me this is hey, are you Jewish? And
(14:06):
like I'm processing this question really quickly. It's like, well,
you know, my mother's Jewish, so Jews considered be a
jew man, I'd be a Jew under the Nuremberg laws,
but I don't subscribe either the Halacha or the Nuremberg laws.
And I certainly don't believe in any guns. So in
my junior right rapid cycling. But I figured, you know,
that was not the answer. So I said, yes, this
(14:30):
is I am too. And we went first to get
something to eat at Corky and Lennies, which is a
historic delhi in Cleveland Heights, Ohio where the Hadassa ladies
would go and eat corned beef. And we walk in
this guy wearing his Hell's Angels patch and me and
(14:52):
my suit, and we bump into his aunt who's sitting
there with the Hadassa ladies, and she's like, Selins, Oh,
how wire you? This is my nephew. It's like fuck man.
After what can only be assumed is a delightful lunch,
Ron is driven to a meeting point to pick up
the first installment of the payment. We go to a
(15:15):
nondescript office where I meet some of the other guys
and they give me the initial installment, which was fifty
thousand dollars, which was a lot of money at that
time and certainly more money than I had ever seen
in my life. Is cash, yeah, yeah, Staxo hundreds wrapped up.
(15:40):
So I have a briefcase and I start loading in
the briefcase. The guy crossed the table from me says,
aren't you going to count it? I said, no, it's
fifty thousand, right, he said, yeah. I said, no, I'm
not count it. Not because I trusted them, although I did,
but because I'm not going to sit here with a
bunch of people watching me one hundred two hundred, three hundred,
(16:04):
four hundred, five hundred six. I'm sorry, did I say
twelve thousand, three hundred? I was that twelve thousand, four hundred. Yeah. No,
I'm not gonna fuck around like this. So I started
laying my briefcase and somebody behind me says there's been
a change of plans. So I turned around and there's
(16:34):
this guy holding an AR fifteen at my head. Oh
fuck right, So I look at him, and I look
at the gun, and I look back across the table
to the person dealing with just sort of waiting in.
And what I'm thinking is, well, they certainly didn't invite
(16:56):
me out here to steal their own money back and
kill me, right, I mean, there's just no point to that.
So I don't quite know what's going on, but I'll
just sit here and wait for somebody to tell me
(17:18):
the punchline. And they all start laughing and put the
gun down. Hilarious. I didn't get the joke, it just
it didn't make any sense to me. And what I
didn't realize really until reflecting it many years later, was
(17:39):
this was a gut check. The Swiss their way of seeing.
If somebody pointed a gun at the guy who's going
to be their lawyer, he would like shit in his piss.
I'm oh, that's a gun. Don't kill me, don't I
a daughter? And I passed not because I was brave,
(18:05):
but because I was confused and bemused, which my guess
was a perfectly acceptable substitute for courage. The scare tactic
by the Hell's Angels may have been a joke, but
later in his career Ron would face a different threat
(18:28):
that was definitely real. Sammy the Bull Gravano wanted to
murder you. Hopefully the way you said it is accurate
past tense. That's after the break, all right. So to
(18:55):
get to the point where the lost Slinger, Ron Kuby
is receiving death threats from the mobster Sammy the Bull Gravano,
we have to go back to nineteen ninety two, Good Evening.
It's a guilty verdict that prosecutor's hope breaks the backup
organized crime in New York City. Gambino crime boss John
Gotti and his co defendant Franklin Casiol guilty on a
(19:17):
host of felonies that John Gotti had avoided conviction in
three previous trials. But then his one time underboss, Sammy
the Bull Gravano, agreed to cooperate with the government and
testify against it. Jury believe the government star witness mafia
turncoat Salvatore Sammy the Bull Gravano, john Gotti's best friend
in betrayer. As part of his deal, Gravano confessed to
(19:40):
nineteen murderers and was placed in the witness Protection program.
But then he might just be the most famous snitch
of all time. But now Salvatore Sammy the Bull Gravano
was planning to murder New York City Attorney Ron Kubi.
What happened was so fairly short time after he was
(20:06):
placed in the witness protection program, a woman came to me,
young woman whose father was murdered by Gravano, and she
had put together like a loose group of people, almost
always the youngest daughters of mob guys who had been
killed by Gravano. I mean he was responsible for He
(20:30):
took responsibility for nineteen murders. Now after time passed, the
youngest daughters were pissed, and we're especially pissed that Gravano
was looking as though he was going to profit by
writing a book called Underboss. And so they came to
me wanting to know if there was something they could do.
(20:54):
So there are all these mob princesses walking in and
out of my office and it's like, okay, I'll take
the case, and they talked me into doing it. I
called the press conference to announce the following of the
(21:16):
case at Guard Giulio's restaurant in Toney Island, Old Italian
place in Brooklyn, and everybody showed up, more cameras than
I had ever seen in my life. Families came together
for the first time today fighting a book deal that
could mean big money. Does Sammy the Bull Gravano? And
(21:39):
I do remember thinking myself, holy shit. You know, innocent
black man railroaded by crep cops. Two or three reporters
on armed black man killed by racist cops, maybe one camera,
a couple of local reporters, wall of blonds, everybody. The
FBI has rapped Gravano up in the American flag and
(22:02):
called a hero and we're here today to try to
put an end to that, but that may be easier.
So I filed the case, and at that time I
had a radio show on WABC, I think it was
Saturday mornings at that point, and I would talk about
the case Curtis. This was around the year two thousand.
(22:26):
The show was called Curtis and Koubi Ron and his
co host would talk and argue over current events and
take calls from listeners. What I did not know about
at that time was something called streaming audio. Yeah, I know,
I just didn't know about it. But it was a thing,
(22:48):
and it was the thing that mister Gravano had from
his home in Arizona. He's still in the Witness Protection program. Well,
at some point he had left, but that's not announced.
And it wasn't so much the lawsuit that bothered him.
It was like a lot of things I was saying
(23:08):
about him personally. What did you say? What did I say?
You know what? That's actually that's on my tombstone. That's
absolutely the one thing I want on my tombstone. Was
it something I said? I'm not going to repeat the
things that I said, but frankly, had I developed more judgment,
(23:34):
which I eventually did. I would not have said them
there was no reason for me, as a lawyer to
personalize this case against him, but I did. And so
he was listening and was getting more and more and
more pissed, until eventually he decided that he was going
(24:03):
to have me killed. And it was unclear exactly how
that is the specific method that was going to be used,
but the actual plan had been developed, as I found
out in some detail. He had dispatched one of his lieutenants,
(24:27):
a guy named Pascucci, to have me killed in Texas.
And the idea was that he would call the office
and say, hey, you know, my name's you know, Joe whatever,
and you know, I'm a friend of somebody who's locked
up in Texas. He's heard about you, wants to meet you.
(24:48):
But the idea was I would fly down to Texas.
I would be met at the airport, which you know
people do. I mean, I did the Senate Health Angels,
and so I was going to fly down there and
you guy picked me up and and the only as
the Daily News put it, the only case I would
get would be a case of lead poisoning. And I
(25:09):
think that he did call but I ad made it
a policy not to take cases in Texas after they
executed one of my clients, I really didn't want to
go back there, so I just never responded. Then when
(25:29):
that didn't work, the next place they were going to
have me killed. My wife and daughter and I regularly
when she was little. When to what's the happiest place
on Earth, Disneyland, disney World, I've never been. Yeah, yeah,
I used to go out when she was a little girl.
(25:50):
They were going to have me killed at Disney World,
the happiest place hung Earth. I mean again, nothing came
of it, and there was no like plan whether you
know he was going to dress up his goofy or something,
because you know, half away in this case law of force,
when it was like monitoring the whole thing, not that
(26:11):
they bother to give me a heads up and arrested
everybody involved, including Gravano. I found out about all of
this after it happened. It was a little creepy. There's
(26:32):
a daily news. I mean, to cover the daily news
with a really bad picture and the headline one mo
hit for Sammy. That's insane. But besides just being creepy,
I mean, did you feel any stronger feelings. Did you
feel scared? Were you scared for your family? You know,
it was all after the fact. You know. Let's say
(26:55):
you're walking down the street with your headphones on, not
paying any attention, and a giant piano falls out the
window right behind you. Yeah, I mean, holy shit, that
could have killed me. But he didn't. You're safe, would you?
I mean I would be more afraid of pianos falling
(27:16):
out of windows then, like, were you? Did you think
that maybe this wasn't over? Yeah? Yeah, sure. But I
also felt that mister Gravano, at that point, facing twenty
years had bigger fish to fry, so to speak, than me.
(27:37):
Mister Gravano's lawyer, I sort of reached out to her
to reach out to him. I heard back that everything's fine.
I know mister Gravano was released about a year ago.
I think mister Gravano is happy to be out of prison.
I think his family's happy he's out of prison, so
(27:59):
hopefully everything's fine. Why do you do what you do?
Why do you fight for the people that you fight for.
I don't know anyone who sincerely knows how to answer
(28:22):
that question, because that requires a lot of I think
deep understanding of personal motivation. Almost everybody dresses personal motivation
in the clothes of doing good, and so I would
(28:43):
need much more therapy than I'm interested in, or that
have time for, or I care about to unpack that.
So I just don't anymore. Ron says he's got more
important things to think about. I'm going to work on
the case today, and I've got tickets to the Stones
(29:05):
concert tonight. Yes, thanks Ron, Yeah, thank you, Ron. You
it's a good name. It wasn't bad. Came up with
(29:26):
it on the top of my head. I hope you're
not going to the bathroom barefoot? Are you doing barefoot? Bathroom? Roun?
Oh my god? Be careful, oh god. And one of
the one of the things that I try to do
is to teach by example. And if enough guys see
(29:50):
me standing there in the men's room by the uneral barefoot,
they'll stop peeing on the floor, I believe. But I
hope for you. Thanks Ron, and thanks to everyone listening.
I'll see you next week. Crimetown is Zach Stewart Pontier
(30:23):
and Mark Smirling. The Ballad of Billy Balls is hosted
by me Io till it Right and Maiden partnership with
Cadence thirteen. You can find me on the Internet and
Io loves you on everything And if you want to
know more about my story, pick up my memoir Darling Days.
We have a voicemail setup for you to call us.
(30:44):
Here's a message about the cubes we got this season.
Ron Kobe's a cool motherfucker. If you'd like to leave
us your own voicemail, please do I love it so
much give us a haul at five to seven zero
three nine two nine six six zero. This episode was
(31:09):
produced by Me and Kevin Shephard. Our senior producers Austin Mitchell,
editing by Zach Stewart Pontier and Mark Smerling. This episode
was mixed by Sam Baer, music by Kenny qcac. Our
title track is Dark Allies by Light Asylum. Thanks to Daniella,
Ariah rachel Leie Wright, Emily Wiedemann, Green Card Pictures, Alessandro Centaurro,
(31:34):
Bill Clegg, Ben Davis, Orn Rosenbaum, the team at Caden's thirteen,
and Andrew in San Francisco, and of course, my mom,
without whom none of this would be possible.
For confidence in your financial plan. Look for a CFP professional.
When your financial advisor earns the CFP certification, it means
he or she is trained to provide ethical financial planning
across a holistic range of topics from retirement and investing
to taxes and estate planning, all in your best interest.
So with a CFP professional, you'll feel confident in your
(00:22):
financial plan today and tomorrow. Three letters do make a difference.
Visit Let's make a Plan dot org to find your
CFP professional. You realize this is it. This is the
last time we're going out in the field together with
your fuzzy wandy way at me and my microphone too.
(00:44):
Are you going to miss my badge? Yes? Yes, Austin
and I have spent a lot of time together and
one of our favorite things to do is to tell
each other dad jokes. It sounds like your nose is running.
Oh god, Tomato, Dad Tomato, Baby Tomater walked down street.
(01:07):
Dad Tomato goes back, stumps on baby Tomato and says
catch up. He's good. Yeah, I love these jokes. So
where are we going right now? We are going to
(01:27):
visit the Cubs. We are on twenty third Street, walking
in to the law offices of the one and only
the law Slinger Roun Koopy. Why why are we going
to see Koopy? Because I fucking I'm obsessed with him
and I want more. We're going into Ron Coopy's office
(01:48):
to interview him about his life and the cases that
he's worked on, to get a little bit more of
the cubs, because the Coups is the man and he's
a great storyteller. Please knock loudly, Hey where are you?
(02:12):
I'd see you in a hammock from Crimetown. I'm io
till it right. And this is a special bonus episode
of the Ballad of Billy Balls. Hello, Hey, Io run Koobi, Hey,
(02:45):
how are you good? So where is Billy Balls buried? Now?
Just send me all that ship and I'll try to
get something out in the next few days. All right,
want Wait? What do you mean you get something back
to vanyway? I didn't intend. What caused work for you
(03:05):
is to submit a fresh oil. Um, my office will
do that. I'm pleased to report that Zeno's paradox has
been resolved and the arrow indeed has hit the target.
The NYPD has sent us a comp if you will,
of records do you think there's any possibility that Billy
(03:32):
didn't have a gun? Yes, but there's nothing to support
that theory and everything to support the notion that the
comp is telling the truth. Epilogue three, The Law Slammer. Yeah,
(03:59):
thanks for having us. From Ron's writing a floral Hawaiian
shirt and shorts and no shoes, We follow a barefoot
Ron into his conference room and start talking. Can you
tell me about where you come from and how you
came to Law a little bit? Can I ask you
(04:22):
yes or no? Questions that I read on the internet? Yes?
Is it true that you lived in a commune when
you were a teenager? Yes? Is it true that you
worked on a tugboat in Saint Croix? Yes. Ron didn't
want to talk about growing up in Cleveland, Ohio. But
(04:45):
in nineteen seventy four, when he was seventeen, he found
himself on Saint Croix in the US Virgin Islands. I
was on my way to California from Ohio. I was calling. Yeah.
I was never really good in geograph. He went down
to visit a friend and he had a beautiful to me,
(05:08):
beautiful beach house and it was right next to what
was then a Calypso bar. This is like to me, paradise,
beach bar, beach bar, beach bar, and I don't even
(05:29):
have to put shoes on. I mean, it all worked.
I got a job on a tugboat and it was
like filled with all these old West Indian semen who
were always brewing these weird teas from plants and stuff.
And I would, you know, trying to make conversation because
we didn't have a lot in common, as you might imagine.
(05:51):
So I got interested in herbal teas and herbal medicine
and West Indian medical systems and stuff. At this point,
Ron's eighteen, He's spending his days learning about medicinal plants
on a tugboat and then coming home to the beach
drinking and getting high and hanging out. Then he met
(06:17):
a girl. I fell in love with her, she fell
in love with me. She left to go to Maine
and Ron followed. But he soon learned a bit more
about his sweetheart, sort of discovered that she had slept
with pretty much every guy and a substantial chunk of
(06:40):
the women in South Portland, which didn't bother me except
for the fact that I kept bumping into the wall
everywhere and it's like, Hi, yeah, you too cool. Ron
decided to get out of there and go to college
in Kansas. Was at the University of Kansas, great midwestern institution,
where he studied anthropology, focusing on those medicinal plants that
(07:02):
he learned about on the tugboat in Saint Croix, African
traditions and Spanish West Indian tradition. And he's not shy
about how well he did. He had a four oh
average and all this other shit. So I was the
best anthropology student they had seen in a fucking generation.
I mean, I just was. So when a faculty committee
(07:22):
turned him down for a big fellowship, he was shocked.
And so I'm walking to the bar and I bumped
into the head of the committee and I said, Hey,
what happened. Why didn't I can't recommend it? And he
said the committee didn't like your attitude. So I asked
(07:46):
what was wrong with my attitude? And he said, they
found you condescending and arrogant. Okay, went to the bar.
All the bartender and he said, yeah, you ought to
go to law school. They like people like that. There.
(08:10):
I wasn't doing anything else that I had nothing scheduled
from my future, so I thought, yeah, I signed an
idea we may share. While in law school at Cornell,
Ron began interning with one of the most famous civil
(08:31):
rights lawyers in the country, William Kunsler. William Kunsler defended
the Chicago Seven and counted Martin Luther King Junior, and
Malcolm X among his clients. There is no credibility in government.
It was all lies to justify Wotton cold blooded murder.
Public officials who sanction and condone mass murder must themselves
(08:53):
be indicted by a civilized society. The first summer of
Ron's internship, this is now nineteen eighty two, Kunstler was
defending two men in a murder trial, James Yorke and
Anthony la Board. York and Laboard were two former Black
Panthers who had gotten pulled over for a bad tail
(09:17):
light by two police officers, and you know, both officers
approached the car in a simple traffic stop. York and
Laboard allegedly came out shooting. One of the police officers died,
the other was shot many times but survived. And so
it was a very very very very high profile trial.
(09:39):
And we're going to be opening statements, and there was
going to be a lot of media coverage, and I'm
just carrying Bill's briefcase. Bill and young intern Ron head
off to a courthouse in Queens for opening statements. We're
going to the subway and I bend over for something
or Bill drops a paper and I bend over and
my pants rip right along the middle scene crotch to
(10:04):
ass and it's like, I'm I am now freaking out, Okay, Like,
I know Bill's concerned about the fate of two black
political prisoners and going to prison for the rest of
their lives and stuff like that, and I recognize that
so really important and shit, but I am like now,
and there's gonna be a lot of media there and
(10:25):
and Bill looks at me in his way, that's fine,
and then says the immortal words, just a cock flop
out during my opening might be one of the best
(10:48):
stories I've ever heard. Don't let you cock flop out
during my heart. Yeah, it's It's not listed in quotes
by William Kunstler in NIAC or whatever that is, but
their words to live by. Ron continued to work with
(11:08):
Bill Kunstler, eventually becoming an unofficial partner in his law firm,
and the two men were very close. He was my friend,
my mentor, my teacher, my critic, a great guy to
hang out with. Guy taught me everything that I know
(11:30):
about lawyering, and he was the guy probably most most
important in terms of my future career. I mean, all
of those things were incredibly wonderful, but he was the
guy who got me entree into a world and communities
that otherwise would have been alien With Kunstler, Koby worked
(11:53):
to defend people like the daughter of Malcolm X, associates
of the so called Gambino crime family, and members of
the Hell's Angels. So the Ohio Hell's Angels Charter Cleveland
charter called Counselor's Office, I think this is in ninety
nineteen ninety three of their members were charged with a
(12:13):
murder allegedly, I mean, according to the government, there were
two people in Sandusky, Ohio who drove yellow VW microbuses.
One of them was a large, heavy set, bearded member
(12:35):
of the Outlaws motorcycle club, with whom the Hell's Angels
had a longstanding disagreement. The other was a big, heavy set,
bearded but utterly harmless record store clerk guests. Which one
(12:59):
got killed? Yeah, record store clerk. So the FEDS took
over the case, and we're making this a very big deal.
And the Cleveland charter of the Hell's Angels called and
asked if Kunstler would be interested in the case. Bill
(13:22):
said great, you know, so we set a fee that
was a lot of money by our standards then, and
Kunstler sent me out to pick up the initial retainer
or whatever it was. But you know, basically put a
face to the firm. Koby flies into Cleveland, and awaiting
(13:46):
him at the airport is an escort from the Hell's Angels. Yeah.
I get in the car with the giant guy who
picks me up huge, like human armoire style, and guy
looks at me this is hey, are you Jewish? And
(14:06):
like I'm processing this question really quickly. It's like, well,
you know, my mother's Jewish, so Jews considered be a
jew man, I'd be a Jew under the Nuremberg laws,
but I don't subscribe either the Halacha or the Nuremberg laws.
And I certainly don't believe in any guns. So in
my junior right rapid cycling. But I figured, you know,
that was not the answer. So I said, yes, this
(14:30):
is I am too. And we went first to get
something to eat at Corky and Lennies, which is a
historic delhi in Cleveland Heights, Ohio where the Hadassa ladies
would go and eat corned beef. And we walk in
this guy wearing his Hell's Angels patch and me and
(14:52):
my suit, and we bump into his aunt who's sitting
there with the Hadassa ladies, and she's like, Selins, Oh,
how wire you? This is my nephew. It's like fuck man.
After what can only be assumed is a delightful lunch,
Ron is driven to a meeting point to pick up
the first installment of the payment. We go to a
(15:15):
nondescript office where I meet some of the other guys
and they give me the initial installment, which was fifty
thousand dollars, which was a lot of money at that
time and certainly more money than I had ever seen
in my life. Is cash, yeah, yeah, Staxo hundreds wrapped up.
(15:40):
So I have a briefcase and I start loading in
the briefcase. The guy crossed the table from me says,
aren't you going to count it? I said, no, it's
fifty thousand, right, he said, yeah. I said, no, I'm
not count it. Not because I trusted them, although I did,
but because I'm not going to sit here with a
bunch of people watching me one hundred two hundred, three hundred,
(16:04):
four hundred, five hundred six. I'm sorry, did I say
twelve thousand, three hundred? I was that twelve thousand, four hundred. Yeah. No,
I'm not gonna fuck around like this. So I started
laying my briefcase and somebody behind me says there's been
a change of plans. So I turned around and there's
(16:34):
this guy holding an AR fifteen at my head. Oh
fuck right, So I look at him, and I look
at the gun, and I look back across the table
to the person dealing with just sort of waiting in.
And what I'm thinking is, well, they certainly didn't invite
(16:56):
me out here to steal their own money back and
kill me, right, I mean, there's just no point to that.
So I don't quite know what's going on, but I'll
just sit here and wait for somebody to tell me
(17:18):
the punchline. And they all start laughing and put the
gun down. Hilarious. I didn't get the joke, it just
it didn't make any sense to me. And what I
didn't realize really until reflecting it many years later, was
(17:39):
this was a gut check. The Swiss their way of seeing.
If somebody pointed a gun at the guy who's going
to be their lawyer, he would like shit in his piss.
I'm oh, that's a gun. Don't kill me, don't I
a daughter? And I passed not because I was brave,
(18:05):
but because I was confused and bemused, which my guess
was a perfectly acceptable substitute for courage. The scare tactic
by the Hell's Angels may have been a joke, but
later in his career Ron would face a different threat
(18:28):
that was definitely real. Sammy the Bull Gravano wanted to
murder you. Hopefully the way you said it is accurate
past tense. That's after the break, all right. So to
(18:55):
get to the point where the lost Slinger, Ron Kuby
is receiving death threats from the mobster Sammy the Bull Gravano,
we have to go back to nineteen ninety two, Good Evening.
It's a guilty verdict that prosecutor's hope breaks the backup
organized crime in New York City. Gambino crime boss John
Gotti and his co defendant Franklin Casiol guilty on a
(19:17):
host of felonies that John Gotti had avoided conviction in
three previous trials. But then his one time underboss, Sammy
the Bull Gravano, agreed to cooperate with the government and
testify against it. Jury believe the government star witness mafia
turncoat Salvatore Sammy the Bull Gravano, john Gotti's best friend
in betrayer. As part of his deal, Gravano confessed to
(19:40):
nineteen murderers and was placed in the witness Protection program.
But then he might just be the most famous snitch
of all time. But now Salvatore Sammy the Bull Gravano
was planning to murder New York City Attorney Ron Kubi.
What happened was so fairly short time after he was
(20:06):
placed in the witness protection program, a woman came to me,
young woman whose father was murdered by Gravano, and she
had put together like a loose group of people, almost
always the youngest daughters of mob guys who had been
killed by Gravano. I mean he was responsible for He
(20:30):
took responsibility for nineteen murders. Now after time passed, the
youngest daughters were pissed, and we're especially pissed that Gravano
was looking as though he was going to profit by
writing a book called Underboss. And so they came to
me wanting to know if there was something they could do.
(20:54):
So there are all these mob princesses walking in and
out of my office and it's like, okay, I'll take
the case, and they talked me into doing it. I
called the press conference to announce the following of the
(21:16):
case at Guard Giulio's restaurant in Toney Island, Old Italian
place in Brooklyn, and everybody showed up, more cameras than
I had ever seen in my life. Families came together
for the first time today fighting a book deal that
could mean big money. Does Sammy the Bull Gravano? And
(21:39):
I do remember thinking myself, holy shit. You know, innocent
black man railroaded by crep cops. Two or three reporters
on armed black man killed by racist cops, maybe one camera,
a couple of local reporters, wall of blonds, everybody. The
FBI has rapped Gravano up in the American flag and
(22:02):
called a hero and we're here today to try to
put an end to that, but that may be easier.
So I filed the case, and at that time I
had a radio show on WABC, I think it was
Saturday mornings at that point, and I would talk about
the case Curtis. This was around the year two thousand.
(22:26):
The show was called Curtis and Koubi Ron and his
co host would talk and argue over current events and
take calls from listeners. What I did not know about
at that time was something called streaming audio. Yeah, I know,
I just didn't know about it. But it was a thing,
(22:48):
and it was the thing that mister Gravano had from
his home in Arizona. He's still in the Witness Protection program. Well,
at some point he had left, but that's not announced.
And it wasn't so much the lawsuit that bothered him.
It was like a lot of things I was saying
(23:08):
about him personally. What did you say? What did I say?
You know what? That's actually that's on my tombstone. That's
absolutely the one thing I want on my tombstone. Was
it something I said? I'm not going to repeat the
things that I said, but frankly, had I developed more judgment,
(23:34):
which I eventually did. I would not have said them
there was no reason for me, as a lawyer to
personalize this case against him, but I did. And so
he was listening and was getting more and more and
more pissed, until eventually he decided that he was going
(24:03):
to have me killed. And it was unclear exactly how
that is the specific method that was going to be used,
but the actual plan had been developed, as I found
out in some detail. He had dispatched one of his lieutenants,
(24:27):
a guy named Pascucci, to have me killed in Texas.
And the idea was that he would call the office
and say, hey, you know, my name's you know, Joe whatever,
and you know, I'm a friend of somebody who's locked
up in Texas. He's heard about you, wants to meet you.
(24:48):
But the idea was I would fly down to Texas.
I would be met at the airport, which you know
people do. I mean, I did the Senate Health Angels,
and so I was going to fly down there and
you guy picked me up and and the only as
the Daily News put it, the only case I would
get would be a case of lead poisoning. And I
(25:09):
think that he did call but I ad made it
a policy not to take cases in Texas after they
executed one of my clients, I really didn't want to
go back there, so I just never responded. Then when
(25:29):
that didn't work, the next place they were going to
have me killed. My wife and daughter and I regularly
when she was little. When to what's the happiest place
on Earth, Disneyland, disney World, I've never been. Yeah, yeah,
I used to go out when she was a little girl.
(25:50):
They were going to have me killed at Disney World,
the happiest place hung Earth. I mean again, nothing came
of it, and there was no like plan whether you
know he was going to dress up his goofy or something,
because you know, half away in this case law of force,
when it was like monitoring the whole thing, not that
(26:11):
they bother to give me a heads up and arrested
everybody involved, including Gravano. I found out about all of
this after it happened. It was a little creepy. There's
(26:32):
a daily news. I mean, to cover the daily news
with a really bad picture and the headline one mo
hit for Sammy. That's insane. But besides just being creepy,
I mean, did you feel any stronger feelings. Did you
feel scared? Were you scared for your family? You know,
it was all after the fact. You know. Let's say
(26:55):
you're walking down the street with your headphones on, not
paying any attention, and a giant piano falls out the
window right behind you. Yeah, I mean, holy shit, that
could have killed me. But he didn't. You're safe, would you?
I mean I would be more afraid of pianos falling
(27:16):
out of windows then, like, were you? Did you think
that maybe this wasn't over? Yeah? Yeah, sure. But I
also felt that mister Gravano, at that point, facing twenty
years had bigger fish to fry, so to speak, than me.
(27:37):
Mister Gravano's lawyer, I sort of reached out to her
to reach out to him. I heard back that everything's fine.
I know mister Gravano was released about a year ago.
I think mister Gravano is happy to be out of prison.
I think his family's happy he's out of prison, so
(27:59):
hopefully everything's fine. Why do you do what you do?
Why do you fight for the people that you fight for.
I don't know anyone who sincerely knows how to answer
(28:22):
that question, because that requires a lot of I think
deep understanding of personal motivation. Almost everybody dresses personal motivation
in the clothes of doing good, and so I would
(28:43):
need much more therapy than I'm interested in, or that
have time for, or I care about to unpack that.
So I just don't anymore. Ron says he's got more
important things to think about. I'm going to work on
the case today, and I've got tickets to the Stones
(29:05):
concert tonight. Yes, thanks Ron, Yeah, thank you, Ron. You
it's a good name. It wasn't bad. Came up with
(29:26):
it on the top of my head. I hope you're
not going to the bathroom barefoot? Are you doing barefoot? Bathroom? Roun?
Oh my god? Be careful, oh god. And one of
the one of the things that I try to do
is to teach by example. And if enough guys see
(29:50):
me standing there in the men's room by the uneral barefoot,
they'll stop peeing on the floor, I believe. But I
hope for you. Thanks Ron, and thanks to everyone listening.
I'll see you next week. Crimetown is Zach Stewart Pontier
(30:23):
and Mark Smirling. The Ballad of Billy Balls is hosted
by me Io till it Right and Maiden partnership with
Cadence thirteen. You can find me on the Internet and
Io loves you on everything And if you want to
know more about my story, pick up my memoir Darling Days.
We have a voicemail setup for you to call us.
(30:44):
Here's a message about the cubes we got this season.
Ron Kobe's a cool motherfucker. If you'd like to leave
us your own voicemail, please do I love it so
much give us a haul at five to seven zero
three nine two nine six six zero. This episode was
(31:09):
produced by Me and Kevin Shephard. Our senior producers Austin Mitchell,
editing by Zach Stewart Pontier and Mark Smerling. This episode
was mixed by Sam Baer, music by Kenny qcac. Our
title track is Dark Allies by Light Asylum. Thanks to Daniella,
Ariah rachel Leie Wright, Emily Wiedemann, Green Card Pictures, Alessandro Centaurro,
(31:34):
Bill Clegg, Ben Davis, Orn Rosenbaum, the team at Caden's thirteen,
and Andrew in San Francisco, and of course, my mom,
without whom none of this would be possible.
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