Happy Father's Day!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Don't touch that doury channel. It is Sunday at seven
pm and you're locked in to The Hard Truth with
John Deaton on iheartch WRKO six eighty am. Happy Father's
Day to everybody out there, especially you good fathers who
are gutting it in and putting it in, making sure
your kids know that they're loved, spending time with them.

(00:22):
Father's Day is very important. I think that one of
the downfalls of the American society has been the absence
of fathers. I was one of those children who had
an absent father, and we might talk a little bit
about that, but I want to be positive because there's
a lot of fathers out there that are doing everything

(00:44):
they can to provide for their families, to be a
protector for their families, and to love their families. And
so today is your day. Remember you can contact the
show at John at Hard Truth Show. That's John at
Hard Truthshow dot com. And you can follow me on

(01:06):
x at John E. Daton one listen. Being a father
is the greatest joy of my life. And I have
three daughters, and there's a wide separation and age. I
was married for about twelve years and during my first

(01:30):
marriage uh, my only marriage so far, but that's probably
gonna change here in the near future. Olivia was born
and Olivia is twenty five years old. She lives in
California now. She graduated USC. Jordan is twenty three years
old and she graduated U mass Amhurst and has spent

(01:55):
the last year in London getting a Masters in neurosign
And I have a six year old who is in
kindergarten in Bolton, Massachusetts, where I live. Layla and I
have two step kids. I have Jackson, who's sixteen, and Mackenzie,
who's thirteen. So I got to tell you something. I

(02:18):
was scared to death when I found out that my
ex wife was pregnant. Obviously, we had been married for
a few years and it's not like it was an accident,
but when she told me she was pregnant, I never
felt such anxiety in my life. And when I say anxiety,

(02:44):
I mean to my bones, to my core. And I
think the reason is, or I know the reason is,
is because I was so afraid that I was going
to be like my dad. And you know a little

(03:05):
bit about my story if you tuned in from the
first show. I wrote a book called food Stamp Warrior
where I talk about this. But unfortunately, I was born
in a place in Detroit, Michigan. I was the fourth
child between my mother and my father, and actually I

(03:28):
was the third child of my mother and father. My
oldest brother, Todd, was two weeks old when my dad
met my mom. But unfortunately, my dad was a degenerate gambler.
And what I mean degenerate gambler, I mean the most
degenerate type of gambling that you can imagine. And my
dad who actually left Kentucky. They were living in Kentucky.

(03:53):
My father's from Kentucky, my mother's from Kentucky, and my
dad had a loan shark after him. He was big
time into this loan shark for I don't know what
it was. I think it was twenty thousand dollars if
my memory serves me correctly. And the loan shark basically

(04:14):
and put a contract out of my dad that my
dad's both legs were to be broken in three several places,
in three separate places, I should say, in each leg.
And so my dad grabbed my mother and my three
older siblings and said we're going to Detroit. And so
they drove to Detroit on a whim's notice and my

(04:37):
dad went and got a job at Ford Motor Company.
It was the boom, this would be nineteen early sixties,
and so it was the boom of the heyday of
the automotive industry in Detroit. And so unfortunately, my dad
moved us to the worst neighborhood in Michigan, and Highland Park, Detroit,

(05:01):
for the last forty years, has been ranked in the
top five worst places to live in America. That's where
I was born and raised for the first seventeen years
of my life. And my dad just dumped us there
and disappeared, and he was in addiction to his gambling.

(05:22):
I really didn't see my dad much. I write in
my book Food Stamp Warrior, one of my first memories
is my fifth birthday. And it's going to sound sad,
but there's a big positive to this story, so just
bear with me. But I was five years old and
it was my birthday and my dad had promised that
he was going to come pick me up and my mom.

(05:44):
My mom had left my dad when I was about
three years old, and so we're living in the inner city,
in the worst part of the hood that you can imagine,
and I'm sitting on the front porch from nine o'clock
in the morning until nine o'clock at night. I'm waiting
for my dad to show up. And he promised. And
my mother always was a straight shooter with me, even

(06:05):
at a young age, and I asked my mom, I said, Mom,
you know you think Daddy is gonna pick me up
for my birthday? And she said, well, he said he would,
but you know your father, which means he probably won't.
And so I sat there waiting for my dad, and
I cried because at night time came, I knew he

(06:28):
wasn't coming. And I woke up the next day, well,
next morning in my bed, my mother had said I
fell asleep on the porch waiting for my dad, and
took me and carried me to the bed. And so
from that moment I really didn't have a lot of
interaction with my dad. I remember he came to one

(06:51):
high school football game of mine, and he showed up
unexpectedly of my awards night for high school graduation, and
I won a bunch of awards, and he showed up unexpectedly,
and I saw him in the back and he was
wiping tears away, and I didn't know if the tears

(07:13):
were because he was so proud of me, or if
the tears were just guilt eating at him. Who knows,
Maybe a little bit of both. But I'll give you
a true story of why something so bad ended up
maybe making me the father than I am. And let
me tell you something. It's Father's Day. So I've been

(07:36):
a marine. I'm the first one to graduate in my
high school. I'm a college graduate. I'm a law school graduate.
I was a judge advocate in the Marine Corps. I've
held multiple titles in my life. I've won awards in
my life. I won the Defender of Freedom a ward,
Lawyer of the Year Award, Consumer Advocate of the Year award.

(07:59):
I was a special Assist in the United States Attorney.
Lots of titles, but the greatest title of my life
is being a dad. And people ask how you identify yourself.
I don't identify myself identify myself as a as a marine.
I don't identify myself as a lawyer. I identify myself

(08:23):
as a dad because when I leave this world, I
should be able to say that I left good human
beings behind, as in my children, and that I did
my best, and that's my goal in life. Of course
I wanted to make money, and of course I wanted
to accomplish things and help people. But at the end

(08:44):
of the day, when I'm put into the ground, it
will be was I a good father? And so I'm
going to share a story with you. That's the true story.
I write about it in my book Food Stamp Warrior
about one of my last interactions with my father. And

(09:05):
so I basically was working as a forklift driver during
the day in Michigan and Detroit, and at night I
was waiting tables in Mexicantown in downtown Detroit. And I
was working a good sixty seventy sometimes eighty hours a week,

(09:25):
working at five in the morning as a forklift driver,
loading from railcar, unloading rail cars, and then loading you know,
eighteen wheelers, and then I would wait tables at night.
And I was saving up money for law school, and
I needed as much money as I could because I

(09:45):
was coming to Boston and I was going to go
to New England School of Law. And the tuition at
New England School of Law back in nineteen ninety two
was eleven thousand dollars for the year and the most
that I could qualify for student loans, because I would

(10:06):
never qualify for any kind of private loan. I grew
up on welfare and food stamps. There was no one
that was going to help pay for my law school.
The most you could get from a Stafford student loan
back then was eleven thousand and five hundred in nineteen
ninety two. So I was going to get eleven thousand,
five hundred for that first year of law school, and

(10:28):
eleven thousand of it was going to tuition. And that
didn't count books, and that didn't count food, and that
didn't count rent, and that didn't count the tea, and
that didn't count everything else that you need to survive on.
So I was working my butt off as much as
I could to save money for that law school. And

(10:50):
I had saved up, you know, whatever it was. I
think it was like twelve thousand dollars. I'm working as
hard as I can. It's nineteen ninety two, and it's
about two weeks before I leave for Boston and my
dad he comes up to me and he says, Son,

(11:10):
I need to borrow twenty five hundred dollars because his
truck had broken down and he had no way to work,
and he told me if he didn't get a car
that he was going to lose his job. And if
he lost his job, you know, all the things you
can imagine he was saying to me. And I looked

(11:31):
at him and go, Dad, I'm never going to blan
you that money. You'll never pay me back. You'll probably
go to the racetrack. You know, I don't even know
if your car is really broke. You could be lying
through your teeth. That's how bad my dad was. And
my dad could sell you anything, man. He was a
talented man. It's unfortunate. But we're coming up to the break.

(11:53):
I'll finish the story when we come back. You're listening
to The Hard Truth with John dene Welcome back to
the show. You listen to The Hard Truth with John
Deaton on WRKO. All right, so before the break, we
were talking about the story of when I loaned my
father twenty five hundred dollars. You know, when I think

(12:14):
about wasted talent, I think about my dad because he
was a much smarter man than I am, and he
could have been anything he wanted in life. But this
gambling disease of his just destroyed any potential that he
would ever have. But he basically begged me, and I
said no many times, and then my dad literally just

(12:38):
went on this tyrant of what kind of man do
you think I am? I see my son busting his butt.
Do you know how proud I am of your son?
I see you working eighty hours a week. You're the
first one to graduate high school. You did it. I
never helped you. I was never there. But God, you'll

(12:58):
never know how proud I am of you. What kind
of piece of s you know? You think I am? Son?
You think I wouldn't give you your money back? I
get paid two weeks the friday before you leave, and
if you give me the twenty five hundred, I'll give
you three thousand. So I'm thinking to myself, and I'll

(13:18):
be honest with you. Hearing my dad say that he
was proud of me, I'd never received that kind of
affirmation from my father. I never really had a relationship
with him. And as hard as I like to think
I was, you know, we all have our sauce spots.
And so I loan my dad that money, and my

(13:40):
dad that night went to the racetrack with that twenty
five hundred dollars I gave him, and guess what he won.
He hit super trifecta and he won eighteen thousand dollars,
and my dad, instead of bringing me my three grand

(14:00):
he got on the plane and he went to Las Vegas.
And from what I know, my dad hit in Vegas.
He was up one hundred thousand dollars. And he stayed
in Vegas for several days, and on his way back
to Detroit from Las Vegas, he couldn't afford a sandwich.

(14:22):
He had lost every single dime in his pocket, including
the twenty five hundred dollars that I had loaned him.
And he came back and I went up to him
and I said, I need my money. I'm headed to Boston.
And he looked at me and he said, now you
know I don't have it, son. I blew it at
the track, and I blew it in Vegas. You know,

(14:44):
I'm surprised you even gave it to me. That's right.
My dad actually was blaming me for being stupid enough
to give him the money. That's pretty much what his
argument was. And I knew how difficult that first year
law school was going to be for me. I never
imagined how it was because I got diagnosed with, you know,

(15:08):
reassessed for cancer, and I had some treatment, and let's
just say I couldn't work for a while, and I
was so poor that I almost thought I was going
to have to drop out that first year, so that
twenty five hundred dollars would have made a big, big
difference for me my first year of law school. And
my dad just didn't give a crap, and so I

(15:31):
was pretty upset. It's the first time that I ever
almost started putting my dad on it. But basically, as
you can imagine, I'm extremely angry. Now, let me just
tell you that I was so poor that I was
going to be homeless for a little while in Boston.

(15:52):
That's how poor I was going to first year law school.
And my dad took this twenty five hundred dollars that
he saw me kill myself to save, and he didn't care.
In fact, it seemed like sabotage to me that he
wasn't gonna help me. Fine, but you don't have to
try to hurt me so bad, you know. It was
almost like instead of an act of love and active

(16:15):
hatred towards his son. So I basically look at my
dad and I tell him what I think of a
pos that I think he is, that I think he
is the scum of the earth and all of this.
And then after that confrontation, I'm walking away and my

(16:37):
dad said the worst thing he could say to me,
and the worst thing he could say to me is
he said, son, I know you're gonna make it because
you've always made it, and I know you've been through
a lot. And what my dad didn't know was that

(16:58):
between the ages of nine and eleven, in that hell
hole that he left us in Highland Park, Detroit, I
was raped for two years brutally. I was raped, I
was beaten, and you know, there were days I wanted
to die. So when he said to me, I know

(17:19):
you've been through a lot, I stopped him. I got
in his face and I said, don't ever say that
to me again in your entire life. I even looked
at him and I said, if you say it one
more time, I'm going to knock you on your butt.
Except I said it a little bit differently, as you
can imagine. Now, my dad didn't know what I was

(17:41):
talking about. When I looked at him, I said, you
have no idea what I've been through, and I said,
I called for you, and you never came to rescue me. Now,
my dad didn't know, because no one knew. No one
knew until I wrote it in my book forty years.
But then I looked at my dad and I said,

(18:04):
you know, if I ever have kids, I will be
the effine opposite of you. Dad. And my father, being
the man that he is, put his hand on my
shoulder and he said, well, then if that's true, son,
if you become a dad and you're the exact opposite

(18:25):
of me because of me, then I guess I've done
my job as your father. That's exactly what that man said.
And the audacity said, now why am I telling you
that story? I'm telling you that story because as I
sit here talking to you on the radio and to

(18:46):
you people out there, my dad was right, because you
either break the cycle or you continue the cycle. And
for me, that's what I think helped me be the
dad I am. I think that's why when my ex

(19:08):
wife told me that she was pregnant, that the absolute
fear entered my body. I had anxiety for nine months.
Will I be like my dad? Will I be selfish?
Or will I will I show my kid love. I

(19:29):
grew up feeling unloved by my father all my life,
and I think that's why I gave him the money
to hearing you know that he was proud of me,
and that he had these thoughts of me, something I
longed for as a child that was never there. And
I know now that being worried about being a father,

(19:53):
being concerned that I was not going to be good enough,
was an indication that I probably probably would be a
good father. And when Olivia was born, my life changed.
Jordan was born. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe
I could love that much. All the things that I

(20:16):
liked to do didn't seem important to me anymore. I
just loved being a father, and so I guess I
have to say thank you to my father in many ways.
You know, when I wrote my book, Food Stamp Warrior
was very cathartic for me. It was my way of

(20:36):
making peace and going through those stories. I did cry
when I wrote the book at many times. In writing
the book and readliving some of these very tough memories,
I forgave my dad while I wrote that book, and
forgiveness is important because you know, hate is a burden

(21:03):
that you don't want to carry because it impacts you
in so many ways in life that you just don't understand.
It impacts your relationships, and it impacts you as a father.
If you carry hate in your heart, it will limit you.
It will limit you in your adult relationships. It will

(21:25):
limit you and your parental relationship and your relationship with
your children. And so writing Food Stamp Warrior was probably
one of the best things that I could have ever
done in my life because it allowed me to forgive
my dad. So despite the trauma that I've been through,

(21:48):
on Father's Day, I can say Happy Father's Day, Pop.
You know, rest in peace, all right. So in my
book Food Stamp Warrior, I say that my Laila saved me.
And earlier I told you that I sort of identified
as a dad when Olivia and Jordan, I became so

(22:12):
consumed with being a father that that's all I cared about.
Now when I say that, meaning I worked my butt
off because I got to have to get out of debt.
I want to be able to pay for their college
and so they don't struggle like I do. It consumed me.
When I say being a father and the responsibilities of

(22:34):
being a father and making sure at the same time
that I provide for them, that I somehow teach them,
you know, how to be a good human being, and
I teach them to appreciate hard work, and more importantly,
that they know how much I loved them. But then

(22:55):
something happens to all of us as parents. They grow up,
you know, they grow up, and they they moved Now

(23:15):
they don't need you like they used to. And so
for someone who was so consumed with being a dad,
when my daughters got older and they were moving away
to college, it sent me into crisis mode. And then, unfortunately,

(23:40):
my mother was dying at the same time, and I
was having nightmares about the child rapes, my best friend
Derek dying in my arms when I was seventeen years old,
and I couldn't understand what was going on. Welcome back
to the show. You are listening to The Hard Truth

(24:02):
with John Deeton on Ihearts WRKO. I beat it all,
I became successful, I had money in the bank. And
why am I thinking about being raped when I was
nine eleven years old? Why would I be thinking about
it forty years later? Why was I letting it bother me? Now,

(24:22):
I never let it bother me before. I pushed it down,
and it all came crashing. They're gone or they're leaving
my mom my, hero's dying, and I'm having these you know,
trauma events nightly. And so I started taking Xanax, and

(24:47):
because of my injury to my back, I had access
to pain pills and I started self medicating, and it
got pretty bad, to be honest with you, and I
write about it in the book. And then you know,
I was going to be done with having children. And
I met Christy and I fell in love. And Christie

(25:09):
moves in with me, and she already had two children,
even though she's younger than me. She was done. I
was done. And so I go to the doctor to
get a physeectomy. And this is kind of funny story.
I got a little emotional, but I'll tell you the
funny story. I go to the doctor to get a
vasectomy and the doctor says, well, you know, you have

(25:32):
only one testicle because of my testicular cancer. And I
had a benign tumor in my petuitary gland which was removed.
So I have all this damage to the petuitary gland,
which controls your hormones and I'm approaching, you know, fifty,
I am fifty years old at the time, and so

(25:52):
the doctor says, with your all that medical issues that
you've had in your age, I can snip you, but
the chances of you getting Christy pregnant pretty slim to not.
And being the typical coward man that we all are
when it comes to snip or no snip, I'm gonna

(26:14):
choose no snip if i don't have to. And so
about a year later from that doctor's appointment, Christy tells
me the wonderful news that she's pregnant and so but
at the same time that she told me that she
was pregnant was around all of this, you know, my

(26:34):
mom dying and the nightmares and the night tears from
the unexamined trauma of my past. And I say thank
God for Laila and thank God for the unexpected. And
it just shows you that you never know what life's
going to hand you. Because with my daughters leaving and

(26:58):
not needing me, when you're looking this baby's eyes, you
realize the baby didn't have to be here. Every decision
that you make, you're impacting that little child. So if
you take a pill because you're hurting and you don't

(27:19):
want to hurt anymore. You're taking that pill. Isn't just
about you anymore. It's about that little girl, that little baby.
And so I knew, and to be honest with you,
sometimes you don't have enough love for yourself, but your
love for your children, the love for my three daughters,

(27:39):
was enough to pull me out of that. And I
sat down and I said, I got to deal with this,
and so I started writing. After my mom died, I
started writing Food Stamp Warrior and started the healing process.
And here we are. Layla turned six on February eighth.

(28:02):
She is in kindergarten and the best thing that ever happened.
And I'm gonna let Layla interview me for a couple
seconds because she's thrilled to know that she's going to
get to hear her voice on the radio. The Hard
Truth is paid for by the Dton Law Firm. I've

(28:23):
been representing mezathelium and lung cancer victims for twenty three
years across the Commonwealth. If you were a loved one
being diagnosed with mezathelioma or lung cancer and we're exposed
to asbestos. You contact me at the Dton Law Firm.
That's Dtonlawfirm dot com. You can also reach me here
at this show at the Hard Truthshow dot com. That's

(28:46):
John at Hard Truthshow dot com. John at Hard Truthshow
dot com.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
Welcome back, Yeah, listening to the Hard Truth with John
d n and Layla Dean.

Speaker 3 (28:58):
Happy Father's Day, Okay.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
Ladies and gentlemen. I got a special guest in the
studio and that is Layla Deaton. And so today is
Father's Day or the day that this is recorded as
Father's Day. So I have the most special guest that
I could have, my six year old daughter, Laila Leayla.
How you doing?

Speaker 3 (29:21):
I'm doing great?

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Tell why don't you tell the audience who you are,
how old you are, and where you live.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
I live and botamsuch S and I'm six years old.

Speaker 3 (29:35):
My birthday is in February eighth.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Okay, now you you sound a little different. Did something
recently happen that makes the way you say certain words
change a little bit?

Speaker 3 (29:52):
Yes, I lost both of my two front teeth, both
of them, yes, both of them.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
The fairy tale, I mean, did the tooth fairy visit you?

Speaker 3 (30:04):
Yeah? She gave me six dollars.

Speaker 1 (30:07):
Six dollars.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah, I did set up a little game for her
and it was one and five, so we're thinking that's
one for the fun and five for the tooth.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
Well, I have to tell you that when I was
your age, I got like a quarter, So I guess
that's what they call inflation, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
And when you first lose it, Tooth's got a Paisleysouth
for the night because Paisley's tooth fairy gives her.

Speaker 3 (30:39):
Seven day dollar.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
Whoa, that's that's a very special tooth fairy to give
seventy dollars. Anyways, So any questions you want to ask
your father for Father's Day?

Speaker 3 (30:53):
Yes, how is Father's Day so far?

Speaker 1 (30:58):
Well, it's going to Father's Day when people hear this show.
And I can tell you that it's a special day
for me because being a dad is the best thing
that ever happened to me. So I'm very thankful for
Olivia and Jordan and Layla, and I have a stepdaughter

(31:21):
and a step son, Jackson and Mackenzie.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
I have a few things to tell you all.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
The first one of those things is that my dad
really appreciated when I was first born because most of
the kids were all first grown up when I was born.
I had a lot to go through to get all
settled in the family. Right now, people keep saying this,

(31:50):
I look like I'm like seven or ten years old,
and I don't know why.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
Okay, anything else you want to ask before we in
this part of the episode?

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah, I do you think the show is going to be?

Speaker 3 (32:13):
I mean, do you think this family is great or awful?

Speaker 1 (32:20):
I believe my family is awesome, great, awesome, terrific. You
name all the positive words in the world, and that's
my family.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
You've been listening to the har Chests with Leyla Dian
and John Dear.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
I've been representing mezathelium and lung cancer victims for twenty
three years across the Commonwealth. If you were a loved
one being diagnosed with mesothelioma or lung cancer and we're
exposed to asbestos, you contact me at the Dalton Law Firm.
That's Dtonlawfirm dot com. You can also reach me here

(32:56):
at this show at the Hard Truth Show dot com.
That's John at Hard Truthshow dot com. All right, welcome
back to the show. This is John Deaton and you're
listening to the hard truth. I got a special guest
with me. I'm gonna let him introduce himself right now.
The best way to describe John is a whistleblower who

(33:16):
has went forward told the world what he learned firsthand.
And he has now taken his cause to the Attorney
General of the United States, Pam Bondi, and referred an
investigation into what has been called the Heathy Hotels. But
first John introduced yourself to the audience.

Speaker 4 (33:39):
Well, John, thanks for having me on. It's a great
honor and a pleasure. You're doing great work, Like you said,
I'm John Featherston. You know, I'm a longtime local and
state elected official in Massachusetts and made a big mistake
about two years ago thinking that I could help out
with the migrant crisis here in Massachusetts. And I'd like
to think, you know, at the end of the day,
we did a lot of good. A lot of people

(34:01):
want to throw rocks and stones at the migrants and
blame the migrants for a lot of these problems. I
personally don't. I met a lot of great people, lot
of individuals. Joe Biden Moore heally told them to come
to America because everything was free so large majority of
the people I worked with were good people, just trying
to make a better life for themselves. But I will

(34:22):
tell you, in the process of doing that more, Heely
has failed every single migrant that has come to Massachusetts.
Set up no expectations, no demands of them to learn
English language, or get even find work at some points,
because a lot of times the migrants would find that
once they found work that they would lose their benefits,
their EBT cards, their whole security. So you didn't want

(34:44):
to work, and she's failed them because she's provided everything
for free for them. But you also had a huge,
and I can't stress to the public out there not enough,
a huge problem with crime in the shelters. John and
I've talked about the three or four rapes that I've
reported to the national media, sex trafficking I've reported to

(35:07):
the national media. But you know a lot of things
that the public doesn't here because you know, the rapes
justifiably get you know, all of the attention. There is
tremendous ebt card fraud in these shelters. There's tremendous vendor
fraud in these shelters because they know no one's checking,
so they just submit invoices and they just get paid
because there's money to pay it. There's sex trafficking, there's drugs.

(35:32):
There was a famous incident right after Christmas where an
AR fifteen was found in a shelter in Revere. I
actually worked in that shelter for a very limited time,
covering another director's vacation there. You can't hide an AAR
fifteen in the Revere Quality and hotel because the rooms
are very very small. They're old and they're small. So

(35:55):
how did the baseman do not know that this guy
had a gun in his room? How did this case
manager not know that he was dealing fedel out of them?
So these case managers cover up for these guys too,
you know the migrants too.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
How did you now? You said that you you wanted
to help, so just so the audience knows how you
directly involved.

Speaker 4 (36:18):
I've been I've been a Massachusetts a Housing commissioner for
going on almost twenty years, so you know, I'm I
wouldn't say I'm an expert in anything, but if you know,
when it comes to housing in Massachusetts, I'm probably you know,
pretty more much experience with people. So the governor needed
somebody that could come in and you know, know how
to manage the situation, you know, manage a crisis situation.

(36:39):
When I said, you know, I've been in elected government
for a long time, a chairman of my local Board
of select and chairman of my local Board of Health.
But I also know how to house people because that's
what I did for the Commonwealth. I was, you know,
Housing Commissioner for the Commonwealth. So brought me in and said, hey, listen,
we've got you know, a couple thousand people coming to
the country. You know, you help out and you know,

(37:01):
more importantly work to get people house. So you know,
I agreed to help out with you know, the situation,
and the flow never stopped. The flow just kept coming
and coming. And I famously have told the story a
couple of times, but I'm happy to tell it again.
I ran into the Governor back in twenty twenty three.

(37:23):
In December of twenty twenty three at Gillette Stadium, they
held the Army Navy game at Gillette and I was
there and the Governor was there, and I literally ran
into her in the end zone for Navy at the
game and said, hey, listen, I'm really struggling in the
migrant shelter. I really think it would be in everybody's

(37:44):
best interest to you know, have a meeting maybe, you know,
with the lieutenant governor and local officials and public safety officials,
you know, set up a task force and try to
talk through some of these big issues that we're having.
John has an excellent idea. Call my own office on
Monday morning. Well, I was in December of twenty twenty three.
She hasn't called me back since. And I called her

(38:06):
numerous times afterwards, trying to set up meetings and schedule stuff.
And then when I told the famous story of the
guy who impregnated his own daughter in the shelter, I
called her again and said, hey, listen, we have a
serial rapist in the shelter. Called the district attorney maryon
Ryan and told her the same thing. To this day,
that man has not been held accountable, and neither one

(38:28):
of them have been acknowledged and public that there's even
an issue.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
What did they do? What did they do with him?

Speaker 4 (38:37):
When Mayor Wu had to testify in Congress, Congress asked
her about that rape, they made it the first question
they asked her, and she answered and said, hey, it
didn't happen in Boston. It's not my problem. She was
aware of it. Congress was aware of it, the governor
was aware of it, The district attorney was aware of it.
The mayor of Boston is aware of it. Still nobody's

(38:58):
held held accountable. It's disgusting in its concerning.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
Now, what happened after this report? After he was, you know,
found to have raped his own daughter, he didn't go
to jail. Where did he go.

Speaker 4 (39:16):
He admitted that he was proud of raping his own
daughter because he was going to have another grandchild because
of it. He said in his country where he came from,
And I don't want to be graphic for your listeners,
but he said, in his country, if a woman bled,
you could have sex with even if she was from
your family. So he was proud of it. When DCS

(39:39):
the Apartment of Children and Families in Massachusetts, through an interpreter,
told him that they were removing his daughter from his custody,
he lashed out at me and got angry with me
and tried to come over the table and get with me.
So the hotel general manager called nine one one and
called the Marlborough Police. Marlborough Police came and by the
time they everything had been like kind of calmed down,

(40:02):
and I had removed myself from the room and was
just waiting in the hallway. So the Marlborough police came
up to me and said, well, what are your plans
for the night with him? And I'm like, aren't you
putting them in handcuffs and locking them up?

Speaker 1 (40:14):
Nope.

Speaker 4 (40:16):
I'm like, what do you mean Nope, And they're like,
transfer him to another shelter in Worcester. I'm like, the
guy just admitted he impregnated his own daughter, and you
want me to transfer him to another shelter. And they
kind of got mad at me and said, you know, hey,
why are you getting lippy with me. I'm like, the
guy just admitted, you know, a heinous crime. He needs
to be locked up. No, it's complicated, it's difficult. You know,

(40:37):
the governor wants these hotels. We want to keep things
out of the press. So, long story short, the taxpayers
paid for an uber ride for him to go to
the Queen's shelter and Worcester, which is not a good
place to go. But so fast forward. That was in
May of two thousand and twenty four. I pass forward

(41:00):
to August of two, twenty twenty four, and I met
the Scrub Dub car wash in Marlborough, Massachusetts, washing my car.
Who do I see? This guy comes up and waves
at me and hey, hello, how are you? My heart
was in my throat. You know, I'm thinking, Oh my gosh,
this guy's either gonna stab me, shoot me, kill me,
or something like that. Nope, still walk in the streets.

(41:24):
So he was eventually arrested. Nobody knows where he is.
We're told that he was arrested, but I can't get
an arrest photo. I can't get an arrest booking of him,
and we don't know where he is. And hope, I mean,
I pray every day that he's going to be held accountable.
But that wasn't the only rape that these shelters. There
were other rapes that I personally drove teenage girls to

(41:47):
the Marlborough Police Department, and I actually drove one of
the girls to the Westboro Courthouse to get a restraining
order against the guy. And I know this guy's never
been arrested.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
What what do you think is the car for this mentality?
The even the officers were like, oh cause you mentioned
something about the governor. We want to keep this silent.
We want to I mean, is that what's going on? John? Like,
what would cause officers to turn their eyes away from

(42:17):
a child rapist? And and and know we want to
We don't want to cause any commotion. I mean, are
they all getting kickbacks? I don't. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (42:27):
You tell me, because here's the thing. And I've talked
to state troopers. I've talked to FBI agents. I've talked
to them on the record, off the record. I've talked
to local city police officers. Uh, no, bigger law in
order guy than you're gonna meet them me And to
the person, all of them are disgusted with this. The

(42:49):
state troopers are disgusted with it. And if we have time,
I can talk about why they're discussed. But the local police,
the marble, they all hate it. They hate it, they
hate it. They hate it. But chain of command and
the chief Nope, heally hotels. We keep you know, you know,
we keep the peace. That's what we do. We keep
the peace. We keep the peace. We keep it out

(43:09):
of the papers, we keep it out of the headlines,
because that's what the governor wants. So the mandates coming
down from on high is that, you know, keep it,
keep it out of the news, keep it out of
the papers. I mean, you and I were able to
expose some of these stories to Fox News, and I
was able to, you know, get stuff out to Newsmax.
Never once in the last year and a half has

(43:32):
a legacy media station in Boston, Channel five, Channel four,
twenty five channel you know, NBC Boston. Never once has
called me. I'm pretty easy to get hold of, not
even looking for a statement, much less to do a
story on the thing. So it's obvious to me, a
man who's been in you know, Massachusetts politics for twenty

(43:54):
five years. It's coming from the governor. It's coming right
from the governor. Keep this out, you know, so if
you want access to anything, you keep this out of
the papers. You keep this out of because nationally people
read these stories and go, oh my gosh, how is
this going on? But if you don't pay attention to
the national news, and you only pay attention to your

(44:14):
local morning news, you have no idea this was going on.
So it's all by design, it's all by now.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
I want to touch on something you said, and I
made a big deal about this when I ran for Senate.
You know, because I said that we need to secure
the border. I went to the board. I learned that
twelve million was the number that Border Security told me
that had crossed the border during the three and a
half years of the Biden administration up until that point.

(44:42):
And you know, I got caught a racist and a
xenophoone because I said I want the border to be secured.
And my whole position was the vast majority of the
migrants are good people. There's no doubt about it. And
if anyone can identify with them wanting a better life
to escape poverty, it's me. But it was just math.
If you have twelve million, and ninety nine percent are good,

(45:04):
one percent is one hundred and twenty thousand. If it's
ninety five percent, then it's six hundred thousand. And so
I also said that what they're doing is actually perpetuating
xenophobia and racism because they're giving all these benefits to
these illegal migrants who come here while people who've been

(45:26):
here their entire lives, haven't participated in the American dream,
who are not giving thousands of dollars and they're not
giving free uber rides, they're not giving EBT cards and
then they don't take it out on the governor, but
they'll take it out on the immigrants and be like,
these people get this, and these people get that.

Speaker 4 (45:43):
Agree with you, not one hundred percent, but one thousand
percent that this is in the end of the day,
this is cruel to do this to the migrants because
you bring people to Massachusetts not a great weather state.
I think that's fair to say. Some people say the
first maybe I'll tell you it's the second most expensive

(46:03):
state to live in the Commonwealth. Massachusetts is the only
state that has right to shelter on So that's why
most of the migrants choose to come to Massachusetts. But
if you don't learn the language, because the governor didn't
put any expectations on you learning the language to stay
in the you know, a year and a half in
a migrant hotel, maybe you get you know, maybe you

(46:24):
work under the table, or maybe you make minimum wage. Well,
you know, John, you can't you can't live in Massachusetts.
If you make minimum wage. And let's just say you
made thirty dollars an hour, you still can't afford live
in Massachusetts making thirty dollars an hour with children and
you know, rents and utilities and stuff. So what the

(46:45):
one thing that nobody ever talks about is two years
from now, when the free subsidies finally run out from
home Base and you know, you know the Healey hotels,
what's gonna happen. You're gonna have mass evictions. You're gonna
have mass homeless.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (47:01):
At the end of the day, the thing I am
most mad about is what you started this interview. We
have failed the migrants. We've spent four billion dollars and
we've failed it. It's like, you know, like when the
Red Sox invested in a huge free agent and it
doesn't work out, or the Celtics or the Patriots. People
are outraged about that, But they're not outraged about four

(47:24):
billion dollars on a migroan crisis. One because they don't
know about it. They don't know what's going on because
it's not covered by the mainstream media. But two it's
it's just it's been a failure financially, humanitarian, public safety wise.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
So Uh.

Speaker 4 (47:39):
There are some lonely days and long days like why
am I doing this?

Speaker 1 (47:43):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (47:43):
And some days I think I'm I don't want to
do it anymore. Uh, but you know I have to
do it because the truth needs to get out.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Well, God bless you, thank you for being on the show.
I look forward to seeing seeing you soon. I'm sure
i'll see you out there, and God bless you brother,
keep it up.

Speaker 4 (48:02):
Thank you, John