August 6, 2024 • 51 mins
At a young age, Aiden Gabor entered the family business being associated with a well-known crime family. Once in college, he was approached by two members of the Department of Justice, threatening to send his mother to jail. Aiden flunked out of college and joined the police force to report back to the DOJ members at their request. Aiden ended up in quite a dark place and has since found peace in the Baha’i faith.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:15):
- Hello and welcome to Introducing Me.
I'm your host Sarah. Istarted this podcast to get
to know other people and lifestyles while
discovering more about myself.
Each episode I will givea new guest a chance
to discuss their background,culture, interests,
or whatever they want to talkabout to help increase all
of our own worldviews.
Today I would like tointroduce you to Aiden Gabor.
Aiden is a former associateof a well-known crime family.
(00:38):
First being approached bythe Department of Justice
as a teenager to becomean undercover agent.
Since then, and a life, as youknow, doing undercover work,
he has written a memoir,found Peace in the Bahai Faith,
and has been diagnosed with ALS.
So Aiden is here to sharea bit about his life
and the different paths he has taken,
(00:59):
and I'm looking forward toconnecting with him today.
So thank you so much, Aiden.
Why don't you go ahead
and tell the audience more about yourself.
- Sarah, thank you somuch for having me on.
You know, it's an honorto be on your show.
Um, more about myself well,I guess you wanna look at it,
you know, everybody kind ofsays that it would be more of a,
(01:20):
uh, you'd see the cheesy,uh, uh, current, um,
movies on stuff like this.
But I started out very young
and my father was a, anassociate with a crime family
up in the, uh, east Northeast.
And I grew up in that type of atmosphere.
(01:41):
We'd have a lot of, uh,you know, gatherings for,
to moms and stuff in the old country.
Come in and we'd have the
food and the kids would get together.
And I was really big for my age.
So I'd get into scuffleswith uh, uh, boys four
or five, six years older than me.
And I held my own. Andyou know, we get out,
we had a dirt gravel road outby this as more of a driveway.
(02:05):
And after we went in thebackyard of one state
and uh, got in some pretty good fights
and that's how it startedout young with this.
And we, we'd had parties
and we had, Eddie was our cowboy owner
with the crew I ran with.
And it started out when I was about eight.
And we'd have be at the partiesand we'd ask for things.
(02:27):
You see that? And he'dsay, Hey, go get me this.
And you want respect at ayoung age, when elder asked you,
especially someone withhis stature, asked you
to get something, you just did it.
And as I got a little bitolder, he looked at me
and he goes, Aiden, do me a favor.
Whatcha doing? He goes, youwanna ride your bike over to,
he had his, I guess you call a garage,
(02:49):
but it was a garageslash like meeting area
where kind of people wentand they, they played cards
and shoot the pool witheach other and talk.
And it was also a garage.
Later on in my foundout it was a chop shop.
And they ran prostitution things,
(03:09):
but it was a garage, none nonetheless.
So I rode my bike up there
and he'd be like, Hey, dome a favor, take this package,
drop it off at this address,you know where it's at,
and you tell me generally where it's at.
He said, don't talk toanybody. Drop it off.
And then if they give yousomething, sometimes they were,
I don't remember if this went up,
bring it back, don't look at it.
(03:31):
And I'm, yes, sir.
And I would ride bike,just get to where I needed
to go drop off.
Sometimes they gave me,um, up something to return,
not they said thank you and walked away.
You know, drive, ride my bike back.
And I'd say, yeah, Idropped it off, thank you.
And he'd give me 20, 30, 40 bucks, depending how,
and I was nine years old at that time
(03:54):
and I would, you know, at that point, run
to the candy store here.
I'm a king at that time, you know,
and we'd run to the candystore with my buddies
and I would get all kinds of candy
and I, I would start doing them.
Kind of worked my way up there,
cleaning the shop a little bit.
You know, I still played sports
and I was still doingthings, but I would caddy.
(04:16):
But I tell my mom, I would go caddying.
And actually I ended up going
to see Eddie at the place, at the garage.
And I would learn things there.
As I got older, I learned howto drive, how to shoot a gun,
I would these, I thought thatwas the coolest thing in the
world, you know.
And about 10 or 11, Imet a guy named Nikki.
(04:36):
I didn't really put him in the book,
but Nikki was the part of thecrew that something happens.
It was all end all, Iguess you can say with him.
And he taught me how to use an ice pick
and where of right spots.
And at the time you thought,wow, this guy's weird.
But yes sir, you listened.
He was an adult and I worked my way there.
(04:58):
And eventually I worked my way up,
started drive Eddie, whatever.
They taught me how to driveand learned my way to do things
with them and did thingsthat we needed to get done.
And I stole a couple cars'cause it was a chop shop.
And at the time I sit there, you know,
I dropped the package off
and not realized who these people were.
(05:19):
But as I got older, I realized,okay, that's the mayor
and that's the, a police officer,
the police officers would being a shop
or a couple federal guys wouldbe in the, talking to Eddie.
And I remember one time Iasked her, I go, you gee man.
He goes, yes sir. Andhe showed me his badge.
Another one I go, you police officer?
He goes, yeah, show me hisbadge. I'm like, oh cool.
And that was it. And I went,did my thing is I got older.
(05:42):
I started driving for Eddie, like I said,
and then I started doing things.
He said, why don't you start collecting?
You know, I need you to go with Dominic.
Well, when I first metDominic, he didn't like me.
I just maybe didn't like my dad,
but he, he just, he waslike Eddie side kick,
I guess you call hissec his right hand man.
(06:04):
And Dominic would be the big collector.
He would be out there andhe would be collecting
and do what needs to get done.
And he was an enforcer.
The first time I methim, he pushed me down.
He just treated me likecrap. Everybody else.
One day I just lost it and I went
after to hit him with the, with the end
of a pipe they put that was on the ground.
(06:24):
He turned around to shoot me.
I mean I still, I'm looking at the gun
and Eddie's like, stop it, that's enough.
And then he goes, you learn to respect.
And Dominic walked away
and like, yeah, you do need more respect.
From that forward, Dominickind of had a, so I started
and one day, Dominic, Eddie,Dominic, we need this guy.
(06:45):
So I didn't know going on.
So went him, threw car,
said know when he hitme couple months ago,
yeah, I'm not gonna forget it.
And I looked at it and he punched me.
He was driving and I was in pain.
He punched you so hard, like this cartoon
once your head was spinning.
And I'm just like, whoa.
And he goes, you know what,next I'm gonna kill you.
(07:05):
That's just a love tap. Yougotta learn respect kid.
If you're gonna do this, Idunno, what Eddie sees in you,
but I guess we're gonna do this.
So I went there and learnedhow to collect from people.
We go to little mom and pop places
and they give you protection money,
I guess is the wordthat you would use now.
Well back then it was just collecting.
And nobody ever gave it.Nobody ever said anything.
(07:27):
And I, a couple times I wascollecting, I went with Dominic
and this guy stabbed me
and they took me to a localdoctor, which happened
to be a doctor I knewwas friend of family.
And from there I learned, you know,
okay, this is what you gotta do.
And I have a little temper.And so sometimes people would,
would need to be reminded.
(07:49):
And one of things I learnedis, you know, they were now,
and it's not, you've seen the movies,
you have a baseball bat andyou, you keep one in your car,
but you leave a mitt and the ball with it
because then if you get pulled over,
the police can't use it against you.
'cause I'm ready to play baseball.
I have a bat, a mitt and theglove, they're all together.
So I'm out there ready toplay, catch or play baseball.
(08:10):
And yeah, you know, everybody says, well,
that's what they all do in the movies.
Well, we weren't rocketscientists, I'm tell you,
we weren't the sharpestblades in the door.
We did what we had at handand what would be used
and how to get around the wall.
You learn that. So I learned
to hit people on the ankles
that way when you knockthe wheels out, they go
(08:31):
to the ground, it makes adifferent type of sound.
You're rather than hitting the knees
and they don't get up onceyou take the wheels out
that you got their fullattention or full control.
And I learned that youngand that was something
that Dominic's like, wow, okay kid,
don't be doing that, that too much.
That could really, but I did.
I remember one time growing up, we had a
(08:53):
guy was sitting there eating
and Eddie goes, Hey, thatMF over there owes me money,
you know, he owes me like 15 Gs.
I just started running and Iwent and caught up to the guy
and I was beating thecrap out him kicking him,
head him down, he's, and Dominiccomes up, he's like, Hey,
hey slow, don't kill the guy.
It's bad business. Andhe looks at, he goes,
you still eating the sandwich?
(09:15):
Are you kidding me? You're beating
up this guy and eating the sandwich.
I'm like, what? So he talkedto him, we yelled at him.
He had, you know, he toldhim, you better get it.
This is just a warning. Andhe's like, what is your problem?
We get back there and helooked there laughing.
And that's how I gotthe nickname sandwich.
I hate that nickname to this day.
I hate that nickname orwhatever for my entire life.
(09:37):
But we just moved on from there.
And as we started doing,
I did whatever needed to be done for them.
And it was a family.
And you learned that itwas family and respect.
You learned a family. My father was
busy and he was never around.
My mother was very mucharound, I was a mama's boy
and I learned from Eddie,
who was my mentor, this is what you do.
(09:57):
And he saw something in me
and he said, okay, you're gonna do good.
And so one day we're sitting there
and he, it was like I was 18
and he comes up and said, you gotta leave.
I'm like, excuse me. He'slike, no, the FBI came in,
they arrested Dominic,they arrested this one.
He said, you haven't been arrested yet.
You need to leave you, you have a chance
to play football in college.
You need to go, alright, I'm leaving.
(10:20):
You're not gonna see meprobably for a long time.
Just do me a favor, keep aneye, just check in on my son.
He has a son. I said,yeah, yes sir. And he left.
That's the last time I eversaw him. I went to school.
So Eddie leaves and he goes, he leaves
and he goes out of the country
(10:40):
and eventually he getscaught in Spain, I believe,
or somewhere over there.
And his wife turned on him.
And so as I'm in school,
these two clowns show up and,
and their Sears polyester suits.
And they're looking at me andI'm like, who are you guys?
(11:01):
And I was gonna tell 'em to get up.
And then I kind, they're telling
me that, hey, we need to talk.
I'm being arrested. No,do you need one? Not now.
You probably will be if you don't listen.
So I thought to, lemmesee what these clowns want.
So I went with them. Wewent to some restaurant
that had this green roof, to remember walking in
and there were two agents fromthe Department of Justice.
(11:25):
And they looked at me
and said, here they startputting, check out this, this.
They threw a littlepackage, a little envelope.
I said, check out you'lllove these pictures.
So I open up, I see me withEddie, me with Dominic, me
with Nick, me with a couple others,
my dad with them and all that.
And then they showed apicture of my mom with Eddie,
my mom driving with Eddie
(11:45):
because his friends arefamily, my mom doing this.
So they look at me and said, you know,
you're looking at 70 years for years,
all the things you did while with Eddie.
I'm like, whatcha talking about,we got this new law called
Rico New law out.
He goes, check it out your college boy.
He go check it out, read up, go
to the library, see what this is.
(12:07):
And I thought to myself, wow, okay, what?
But I, I really didn't careabout myself then my dad didn't
care about my dad gonna jail.
Then they said, my mom will go to jail.
Yeah, that was a problem. That hit me hard
because I don't care.
Any man says alive. We're all mama's boys.
(12:27):
I called my mom every dayuntil the day she died.
I talked to her and it reallystruck a chord with me.
So they're like, Hey, they take me back.
They said, I want you tothink about it. We'll be back.
And there was two months and Icouldn't eat, couldn't sleep.
I played like shit for football.
And they came back
and I, I'm thinking to myself, well
(12:48):
what choice do I have, cant my mom go to jail?
So he came back, I go, okay,what do you need me to do?
And jackass is what Icall one of them, sorry,
but it was one of the DOJ.
He goes, well we'll let you know.
We just need you tobasically, you know, year
(13:08):
it's October, we wantyou to flunk out school,
like party your way out, party out.
We wanna look, you want youknown to party outta school
and we're gonna give you extra money.
Go play with the college girls.
You so your oath, do what you gotta do.
You know, go do that.
This is what we need andthen we'll talk to you.
So I did it, got back home in May
(13:31):
and went to tell myparents and they called me
and said, yeah, well we'll meet us.
We met like an hour and a halfout time, another restaurant.
They show up and I'm like,okay, what do you want?
I looked at it and he said,you did where you are.
You are working what you needto do to stay out of jail.
He says, this is what we need to do.
We want you to get onthis police department
to be a police officer.
(13:52):
And I thought, you guys arebad. You're kidding me, right?
No, this is what we need. Justget on. And I go for what?
Undercover? I go, we'll let you know.
No, we're not gonna be, we,
you can't go, you're not going undercover.
You're gonna go in as aninformant, no undercover.
There's no one there to back you up.
I'm gonna tell you thisright now. There will be
(14:13):
nobody there to back you up.
It's all you. If something goeswrong, well, stuff happens.
Not exact words shit happens,just it's gonna happen.
It happens to you. We'renot too worried about it,
but this is how you way you stay out.
I'm like, whatever. So you tellme what department to get on
and back then it really wasn't hard.
(14:33):
And if you're, the test isn't hard.
If you're physically fit,which I was, wasn't hard,
you know, I never gotthe, what happened if
I don't get on thing.
And he just told me, get on. That was it.
And they weren't veryother than they told me
a and that was it.
Not really any, not really. Chatty bunch.
So I did, I got on and thenthey started telling me
(14:56):
after a month after Igot the camera, you need
to get close to this officer.
Okay, so this guy youever, have you ever heard
of met anybody with anabrasive personality?
That's what this guy was.
He was the biggest ass in the world.
You just hated him looking at him.
They talking, he's soarrogant and I hate arrogance.
(15:17):
And so I started, youknow, okay, I started one
of the other guys I, I kindof became friends with.
I'm like, Hey, I'm gonna go.Nobody wants his partner.
Smart. Like, why you be with that guy?
Cus an ass I'm like, I, he's a good guy.
So several months, almosta year go by, I'm riding
with this guy and all this.
We started going out drinking.
And after a while, you know,
(15:38):
he finally looks at meand we went out long time.
And that kind of started my
darkness when going out drinking.
And he looked, he goes, Iknow you. And I'm like, what?
He goes, I know you. I go,Ray, I know you, we work goes,
no, I know you beforeand you ran with Eddie.
And I talked to him. I neverremember meeting this clown.
I never met this guy. And he'slike, yeah, we met, you know,
(16:00):
we, I seen you, you know, wewere doing things with Eddie
and you, you picked upsome things with us.
Um, wow, your age. Doingeverything with that guy.
The guy's like a legend.And I'm like, okay.
And he starts telling me, hegoes, that's what I wanna do.
I'm with the crew now.He goes, start drinking,
I'll tell you more later,man, you know, I'm gonna get
to know some other couple months go by.
(16:20):
And one day he got really drunk
and he goes, yeah, you know,I, uh, I did a couple hits
with these guys, you know,I'm gonna get on this crew,
gonna be like, what you did?
I'm like, what you need
to shut up man, what thehell are you talking about?
And he's telling me what he did.
So I was sitting there andthen his wife was at the,
or he went to go get somedrinks, she's crying.
(16:40):
She goes, I don't know. Did he tell you?
He told me he knows youthat he can trust you
and oh my, I don't know what to do.
I'm like, you just need to shut up.
You don't need to talkabout this. Only nothing.
So I ended up meeting up with these guys
and telling me I actually got something.
Now he admitted to doing whatever.
He said, A couple hits for these guys
and this is what he said.
But I wanna be honest withyou, I really, you know,
(17:02):
if you want me to testify,
but I would talk to the wife,the wife's about the cave in.
She can't take it. I mean if she comes
to you on her own, she can test.
She'll testify. And he goes, yeah, yeah.
I go, but if you need me, okay.
And he goes, no, because if we use you
one time, it's one and done.
We got plans, we need someother things from you.
(17:23):
And I thought to myself,what, no, we need to do this.
So going back, I meant say going back
before I became a policeofficer, I went home
and told my parents, I'mnot going back to school.
And my dad looked at me, he goes, you be,
you know, I, what do you want to do?
What do you do? Being going back Aiden.
And I go, I wanna be apolice officer. He loses.
He goes, you're be a fucking,you're gonna be a flatfoot.
(17:46):
I said, yeah. He goes, oh, well
I didn't talk, talk to him for 10 years.
And that's where this guy even said
that he knew his name wasTerry, that he knew my dad too.
And my mom's like, well, Aiden,
whatever you need, you know, you do.
So goes on after I tell 'emwhat happened and all this,
and then we get phone callsthat the FBI's arresting.
(18:07):
And so my girl, so people'slike rat leaving the ship,
people leave the department.
I go into another, I, I putmy resignation, I'm leave
and I met up with these guys again.
And these clowns, like thistime we want you to get on
to this department.
It's the department in thetown I grew up in where I used
to run things that it's like,
you guys have a reallysick sense of humor.
No, this is what you have todo. I go, didnt I do enough.
(18:30):
No, we'll let you know when it's enough.
And not knowing still even then.
And then knowing that, youknow, they got stuff against me.
I'm not sure what, theywon't tell me anything.
And I was too worriedabout my mom to work to,
to make a difference.
So I got into department where I grew up,
but it was easier for therebecause we had an interview
(18:51):
and I interviewed with themayor and the commissioner.
I'm like, Hey. Oh wow, he'sknown you. He goes, what?
Do you wanna be a, you wannabe a police officer? Yes sir.
He says, you think you could total the
line, do what you need to be done.
You do what you told. Yes sir.
Whatever you need me to do, I'm here.
I'm here to do whatever I need to,
but I wanna be a policeofficer goes, yeah,
you were in another town over there.
Yes sir, everybody's leaving.I dunno what happened there.
(19:12):
I don't wanna stick around. I don't
leave myself in that mess.
Alright. So I got on.
And so they started tellingme over the years to basically
we want you to get several police officers
that were doing different things, drugs
or guys selling drugs.
Uh, we want you to look at the mayor.
(19:34):
We know all they'redoing everything in there
that you know that they're doing.
And I'm like, why you, why you want me?
It's basically, we're sendinga snake into the snake pit.
They trust you becausethey knew what your,
your life was prior.
So you're basically one of them
because you knew you were giving,
they're on a take doing the dirty things.
They're thinking they gotanother one and figuring it out.
(19:55):
They honestly didn't careif something happened to me.
So over a 12 year span, alittle longer than that,
almost 14 years I should say,
I ended up putting several police officers
and politicians in prison, catching 'em,
doing different things andjust giving them information
to be used against them by them
because they didn't want me to testify.
(20:16):
They were just using me to get information
and they knew the rightway to, to get that.
And I did. And of that time
and with them, I've hadthe gun pointed at me,
oh, I'd say at least 15 times put
to my head and threatened me.
One time we were walking up
and this one detective whoended up going to prison
(20:36):
for a very long time, um, turnas we were going up stairs
and where his back stairwayand put his gun right to me.
And I'm looking right downthe, right down the barrel.
I can see the, the, the, thecurving in side the barrel
of a Glock looking right at me.
I'm, I'm lower than him.
So I'm at disadvantage,there's nothing I can do.
And I said to him,
(20:57):
and I look him, I go,I know you growing up.
He goes, whatcha doing?Whatcha doing here?
What doing, are you an inform?
I go, no, I'm here to do, you know what?
I have my own thing goingon. I had a think on my feet.
I have my own thing goingon. If you think I'm doing
something, dude, you knew me.
You know, I mean, you know what?
Honestly, I was part ofthe machine and I worked
(21:19):
and you wanted to be whatI was, but you were a cop.
You could be interchanged.
Well, one, one by a cop,another bad cop.
It doesn't matter. I don'teven can get 'em anywhere.
But I was for the machine.If something happened,
the meeting machine wentdown, something happened
to you who gives a care?
We'll find another one. So go ahead.
If you think I'm doing something,pull the trigger and try
and get yourself out,which I'm sure you can.
But then you got some other people
(21:40):
I answer to other than me.
And he just looked andkind of, oh, went up there.
My buddy Don worked at the
department, kid guy I grew up with.
And Don the, the wholetime was giving information
or what he heard around the department
because kind chat, it'slike when you, when
with crew you had a, um, family.
(22:01):
You don't, you don't tell abear family. You don't say this.
And I'm gonna tell you,every time I, when I worked
with the crew, I never saidone thing against anybody.
Eddie. Dominic, any of 'em I ever did.
If they ever asked me to turn on them,
I would tell 'em to get out.
And police officers aredifferent 'cause they're bad.
That's to realize.
And I mean, I would nevergo against my family.
(22:22):
But yet over the years theytried to kill me a couple times
and I put away bad policeofficers and stuff.
And again, when you peoplebecome police officers,
they have a thing called the blue line.
You don't cross that blue line.
It's almost like a planners,men and women law enforcement.
But then again, for everyone bad police officers,
(22:42):
a hundred thousand goodpolice officers look bad in
everybody's eyes, they're all bad.
But I wish everybody learned
that there's somebodyout there to stop them.
And that's what I did. I wasstopping bad police officers
and politicians, there is somebody
that they are trying to get rid of them.
So they're not all bad. Onlyone less than a percent.
(23:03):
And, and, and whatever ones you see,
it's always only the badones being posted anywhere.
You never see anything of the good ones,
which is very bad in this country.
And I just wanna say,
when you're in there,you don't cross a blue.
And that's what got me.
I started drinking and I gotinto a very, very dark place
and I drank, I became agulper, not a drinker.
(23:24):
And I got where I wouldhave, uh, just blackouts.
But I remember vividly havingthis 357 magnum spinning
the chamber.
Put one in, that the magnum out, spin the chamber, pull the trigger. I did it at least twenty
times. Id put it in my mouth, side my head. Never went off.
(23:45):
There's times I woke upwith the gun next to me
with three rounds in the chamber.
How many times I did it without knowing.
And I would see these vivid hallucinations
of the St.
Michael coming at me withthe flaming sword saying,
you betrayed, you betrayedyour brothers and sisters
and striking me and I to this day.
(24:07):
And that was a long time. Ihad over 10 years of that.
I mean, I was in a very dark place
and for some reason God said,
we're not gonna let you die this way.
We have other plans. And I did that.
And I, to this day, I remembervividly trying to kill myself
and it just wouldn't happen.
I was mad that it wouldn'thappen, but I put it did.
(24:30):
And I realized I'm doing good.
Get rid of these bad guys
because you don't need that in society.
These guys were not good.
I mean, and I was not a good person young.
And that's really, youknow, that's what I did.
And then I went, they wantedme to do it at a casino.
I went and did to thereand there's nothing there.
Then they just cut me loose
DOJ's like, thanks your peace out.
We'll give you a littlestipend. And that was it.
(24:53):
They're done. And so I justkind of stayed where I was at.
And I had a very, I was not a good dad.
I was not a good husband. Iwas a very, very dark person
because I was diagnosed with no empathy
and borderline sociopath,
which meant my upbringingjust the way it was.
If I hurt somebody didn't bother me,
(25:15):
I would laugh aboutit, just laugh at them.
And I would watch horrormovies with my, my wife now.
And I'd laugh about itwhen somebody gets beat up
or cut in half or broken and all
that bones just say, I think it's funny.
And I'm, every day I'm working on that.
And that was, I don't knowwhy. It just is to me.
And I'm realizing that,oh my God, you kidding me?
(25:37):
And I do, I think it's funny,I I don't watch horror movies
because I hate laugh at 'embecause, or very gory stuff
because I think it's funny.
And I think to myself, Idon't need to see this.
I mean, I'd seen and dida lot of gory things.
I was younger and I triedto kind of, you know,
putting on bad law enforcement and stuff.
I did that. And then mybuddy mine, Sam came by
(26:00):
and my had a friend Don
that really helped me out over the years.
And he didn't know it untileventually a couple years ago
before I wrote the book,him and I had a chat
and he beat the crap outta me.
And I deserved it becausehe was giving information,
not realizing what I was doing.
He's the only one thatknows other than Sam.
But my wife would call and talk to Sam
and was telling him, Hey,he getting night terrors.
(26:22):
He is throwing me around the room.
He's punching the wall, he's handcuff me,he's done this, he's never drew a weapon,
but he's just freaking out.
Well, Sam, and Don just kept telling
me, you need to be spiritual.
You need God. I used to laugh.
I used to say, you know,you know, that's stupid.
Uh, spirituality's stupid. God is stupid.
(26:42):
I work for the other guy. Irecruit for the other guy.
I recruit souls for him. That's what I do.
I have nothing with God.Like, no, you need to do.
So I started reading.I said, you know what?
Fine, I'll read it. Shutyou up, I'll read it.
And I started reading the BahaiFaith up to Bahai's writings
and they had one calledthe Paris talk or, and,
and I start reading it andsomething just struck with me.
(27:06):
Wow. Really?
And the Bahai faithsays, everybody's equal.
It doesn't matter if you're black, white,
purple, pink or green.
We all bleed red. We're all the same.
Doesn't matter if you'remale or female, we're equal.
We're in this together. Youknow, some faiths have it.
Women are subservient to the man.
I never really believed that
because my mom ran the household.
(27:26):
I don't care where everybody lives, the
mom, the wife, whatever.
They run the household.That's who runs it.
And unless you're, you know,
a very controlling person
and maybe a man would run it,
but I think women run it more than men.
That's how my belief was.
(27:46):
And Sam said, Hey, you arealways a Bahai. You never knew it.
You know, I was younger,I remember I would,
at the Catholic, youknow, I grew a Catholic.
I'd go to confessional, Iwould tell the priest, okay,
Aiden, you did something.
What bad thing? I go, I dunno, nothing.
I didn't see nothing. I didn't do nothing.
No, you can't say I did anything.
(28:06):
He's like, no, no, you need,I go, no, I didn't do nothing.
Didn't see nothing. And hesaid, get the f outta you.
Just get the F out. He, Ipissed, I pissed him off so bad
father to tell me, leave, just leave.
And I'm like, yeah, I'm outta here.
And I believe, because that's where I was.
I didn't believe anything spiritual.
You probably start reading this one day.
I was reading one ofhis writings about Bahai.
(28:27):
And I thought, wow, okay.
And I'm outside and it's sunny,
very hot thing, not a cloud in the sky.
I'm looking at a sun.And I felt different.
A very warm feeling, a verywhole feeling inside of me.
You know, I'm still fightingmy demons of suicide.
I'm still fighting. Don't drink.
You know, I, I drink a littletoday, but not like I was.
(28:50):
And you know, medicationstopped me with it.
But, and I looked, I just felt this.
And I didn't like the feeling. I, I hated.
I'm like, this feelingsucks. I don't like it.
I went inside and told my
wife, she goes, he, you're feeling.
So I go, no, stop, get,no, I'm done Sabrina.
I don't wanna deal with this.So I was feeling better.
And the Sam came and talkedto me and we had a chat.
(29:11):
And at that point I opened up the Sam.
Now he knows about 85% ofwhat I've done in my life.
Don knows about 90,Sabrina knows about 95.
She doesn't really wanna know everything.
And my,
he's looking at me, he goes,you need to write a book.
I'm like, go the hell. Iam not writing this book.
This is not to be, this is my stupid life.
(29:34):
I did stupid things and stupid.
Don't have to put everything in there,
but you need to for therapy.
You need to do this for therapeutic.
And I said, no, I'm not doing it.
And eventually it kind of wore me down.
But I became very spiritual.
I kept reading and I'm readingthat, you know, we need
to make the place this world better there.
We need to get rid of racism.
We need to get rid of antisemitismbecause it's not good.
(29:57):
You know, everything going over.
It's, you know, you see this anti,
this Palestinian anti Jewish thing.
These kids don't even knowwhat they're arguing about.
They're just don't, becausethey don't understand
Iran's funding all this.
But nobody wants to opentheir eyes and see the truth.
I was like that. I wasin a very dark place.
And I came into the light,I guess you can say.
(30:18):
I walked out and I talked tomyself. I can help people.
I talk to veterans. I'vebeen through war now.
I even go through war. But I went
through stuff kinda like war.
I've seen things and stuff
that we would see on the
battlefield, but that's not the same.
But I still talk to veterans.
'cause if you, you need totalk, if you keep it in you.
I tried killing myself, Iwould say a thousand times
(30:41):
because I kept it in.
I couldn't tell anybody for thewhole time I was doing this.
I was told by these two clowns,you cannot say anything.
This is, if you say something,you're going to prison.
So that was beating me and that ate at me.
And that's where thatconflicting loyalties part,
because I was going againstmy brothers and sisters.
(31:02):
But yet it had to be done.
I was having very bad issues over it.
And Sam's like, this is what you need.
It's bring it out.
I've got she, Sabrina calls
and say he's gettingworse, but it's better.
He's just screaming nowand yelling and swearing
and doing all kinds of things.
But now he's not getting asphysical, but at least it's out.
(31:26):
And that's how the book kind of came out.
And that's kind of what mylife and the thing, you know.
And then I find out I have the ALS
and then I would think, you know,
God does have a sense of humor.
It, he's . He's like, yeah,well everything you've done,
guess what buddy?
You're not done yet. Now we'rereally gonna screw with you
(31:46):
and life's gonna reallybecome a whole bunch
of rainbows for you.
And I accepted it, you know,
when I was younger, Ididn't care if I died.
I really didn't care. I,you know, if I die, I die.
Guns pointed at me, shot at me,
everything staff, I didn't care.
But after I finally,they lost, I wanna live
to help make this world a better place
(32:07):
because we are hurting.
And that's how I was, I wanna
make the place the world better.
I want people need to understandno racism, no antisemitism.
And I was like that. Youknow, my mom on her death bed
when she was talking, she'sscreaming about the Russia.
'cause she grew up inBudapest. Now my mom, when
(32:28):
after she passed, my father
and I had a chat, we finally talked
and he said, your mother growing up during World War II, Revolution and
Budapest, the Russian came in.
They did things to my mom and her sisters.
That should never ever happen to them.
And that really, to this day, when I heard
(32:48):
that heard, I heard her screaming.
'cause she lived with me as she was
dying about the Russians.
They're here. Oh, my good,they're gonna do it again.
I didn't understand. And thenI kind of figured it out.
But my dad said, yourmother was vindictive
that she became a partisan whenthey were at 10 years old.
And your mother would sit there
(33:09):
and go out there andthey'd see a little girl.
The Russians come up toher at night thinking,
okay, what do you out here?
And they were talking to her
and they know they were expect
they were gonna probably do something.
But she sat next to em
and pulled this long knife,which is like a long just spear
and stabbed through the neck.
And she did it. My dad said
that she was the mostcraziest one of all us.
(33:30):
She enjoyed doing it
because she was getting backto what they did to her.
And he said, I, and I lost anumber of people she did this
to, you know, and I reada book a couple years ago
that this woman put out there,I can't remember her name.
It's a very interestingbook. And I wish I did.
I'm not great at memory, butthat your, your parents did
(33:51):
as a young child, you kind of get as,
when you become a child, itkind of hereditary towards you.
My mom killed a lot of people
as a partisan againstRussians then They were in a
revolution when they escaped.
And I did not knowthat. She never told me.
But I knew things happenedto her when she's dying.
And now I'm spiritual.
(34:14):
I understand that, you know what,
let's make this place a better world
and let's help each otherout and do the best we can.
Like my thing nowadays, Ilike, and I think this better,
but I work with special needs kids.
They're not throwaway kids.
People think that these kidsare something, you know,
if you look at the worldthrough their eyes,
(34:34):
everybody, they love everybody.
Unless you've hurt them,they remember that.
But if, if they dunno you, they love,
they just wanna give you a hug.
And they're preaching no matterwhat they do to appreciate
that you're there to be with them.
And I wish the world would look
through their eyes just for a moment.
Just like, I wish the worldwould walk one day in a big town
(34:55):
as a police officer, a man
and woman to see what they go through.
You know? Or even if, you know,just to see, to understand
that you know what, they see so much stuff
that it's unbelievable that, that they,
there's not more suicides.
But as far as likeyounger kids, if you look
around their eyes, everybody's loving
(35:15):
and they understand it.
It doesn't matter ifyou're black or white or,
or what, a yellow or green.
They look at you at the samething. I love you, respect you.
There is no difference there.
I wish the world would be that way.
And that's kind of how I am now.
And I came from at 90degrees, you know, I came
for that dark, dark,dark place into the light
(35:36):
and understand that I could try
to make this world a better place.
And that's kind of my life in a nutshell.
- Yeah. And I mean, youcan kind of really see why,
you know, you took the paths that you took
and where your influences were.
You know, your mom wasvery important to you,
and so you were goingto do what you could to,
(35:57):
you know, save her.
Um, so you weren'tnecessarily caring about,
or it wasn't necessarily top for you
to say like, what about me?
Because it was all What about my mom?
So I do have one question just
'cause like, it, itwasn't necessarily clear.
I'm just curious to know, likeat, did you at any point kind
(36:18):
of before this say, comingto faith moment where you
were acknowledging
and thinking like, I shouldn'tbe doing what I'm doing
and like what I'm doingisn't good for the world?
- You know? No, I'mgonna be honest with you.
You know, I've been asked,do you have regrets?
(36:40):
No, I probably wouldn't havechanged anything other than
when the two clowns showed up.
I might have told 'em to get after.
Um, but then to who knows
where I'd be right now,I'd probably be dead.
Um, no,
because that's the only world I know.
I wouldn't know what itwould be like without it.
Now I do that, I could be better.
(37:03):
But I think if you seen darkness
and you come out of that darkness
and come into the light,you could be even more
better in understanding.
You know, if you don'tknow what bad people think,
then you don't, you don'tknow what's going on
(37:23):
until you understandwhat is in their minds
and what their mindset is.
And that's called, you know,street smarts and all this.
You, you don't, you can say,I'm gonna save the world,
but what are you savingit from if you don't know
what the dark side isuntil you've seen it.
And I think if I can helppeople that have, they're in
that path to come intolight, it will make greater.
(37:44):
Because people that havenot been there can only have
a half understanding.
Just like I can onlyhave a half understanding
of a military person going through war.
You know? And that's how I look at it.
You, you know, I did kindof think, well, yeah,
maybe I shouldn't have, butI wouldn't have changed it
(38:05):
because that's what I knew.
And I think it helped me as a person
to become a whole persondoing what I went through.
There's some things, yeah,maybe I shouldn't have done,
which we won't talk about.
But yeah.
You know, I think going through
that made me really abetter person overall.
And I think you need tounderstand both sides
(38:29):
in order to be a complete person.
I mean, been on that dark, don't think,
I don't wish on anybody,
but if somebody comes tosay, you don't understand
what I'm going through, man, you don't.
I, you know, but you know, I do.
(38:49):
And you could get their thinking to,
to change everythingbetter, you know, better.
You know, some of thesepeople that I dealt
with are extremely dark,but they're extremely smart.
So they can con you into something.
And I know when someone's con
and I can figure that outwhere I have friends of mine,
they're extremely smart,they're book smart,
(39:10):
but they have no idea what
is gonna be on that person's mind.
You know? If theywalk through a bad neighborhood,
would they know how toact other than scared?
Because that's the worst thingyou can do if you walk in
and act a little crazy
or a little under like, Hey, what's up?
You know, I'm looking for this.
I'm, you know, you give themrespect. 90% give respect back.
(39:34):
I mean, some places maybe not,
but yeah, I, I don't really, you know, I,
I believe in a God I don't care.
I think everybody needsto be spiritually active
for yourself, for your mentalhealth, for your, for your
spiritual health, for your, for your body.
(39:54):
You know, your soul becauseyou know your friend.
I got a book called Soul Boom,
and it's an awesome book, Rainn Wilson.
And it's awesome. And if you
know yourself as spiritually
and help the world, you canmake the world a better place.
But you know, somebody
that spiritually they have a different,
(40:15):
like the warmth I felt thatI never had made me whole.
It's that hole on myselfthat filled up with love
and caring for the rest of the world.
- And so would you say, you know,
after the work that you did for the DOJ
and where you are now,
(40:36):
would you consider yourself a good person?
- Um, a better person?
You know, I, I, I stillhave, you know, like I said,
I still have feelings
and these stupid feelingsthat I'm trying, yes,
I'm a better person overall.
(40:57):
Um, would I do thethings I did as a youth,
if pushed in a corner,yes, I wouldn't hesitate.
Um, but I believe in people
and I believe that we canmake the place world better.
And yes, I'm gonna believe in
that point I am a better person.
(41:18):
Um, I wouldn't do the
hustling stuff I did,
but if it came toprotecting family friends
or somebody on thestreet, I don't even know
to protect them, I woulddo it in a heartbeat.
Wouldn't even think twice.
In fact, I've gotteninto couples with people
road rage going
(41:38):
after other people whereI kind of said, yeah,
you need to get back in your car.
You know, to this day I carry a gun
and an ice pick on at all times.
It may be a little different, but
I've had attempts on my life.
I've been shot a couple times,
and I wouldn't hesitate to save somebody.
So I'd say yes, I'm a better person.
(42:00):
- Yeah. You've taken, youknow, a different life path.
You're not who you were, you know,
when you were eight, nine years old.
Um, and you're working towards, you know,
being an even better person. Now,
you know, you shared why youwrote this book, um, you know,
the the influence you got for it.
(42:22):
What has it been like sharing your story
and putting it out there to be vulnerable
and to say like, this is,this is the path I've had?
- Terrifying.
Um, you know, it'sextremely terrifying for me
because I don't know howpeople are gonna react.
(42:45):
I really don't. Some peopleare gonna react, wow, okay,
great that you're found your thing.
Some people will react. You are like that.
You were that personthat we hate, you know?
Um,
mentally I think it was good for me.
I think Sam was right, bringingit out, bringing in open
and talking about it, you know, um,
(43:08):
I think people need to understand too.
I think part of it bringingit out is my suicide
and my darkness into that.
And that people need totalk about their feelings
because the more you keep itin, the more you want to do it.
Um, but yeah, it was, it'sbeen terrifying for me.
Extremely terrifying.
(43:29):
And just for me to go on apodcast like this every time
before I do one, I'm, I'm,
before I got on with you,Sarah, I was scared to death.
You know, I never, to thisday, I'm not afraid of no man.
I've only been afraid oftwo people in my whole life.
My mother and my wife, my current wife,
they scared the hell out of me.
And every time I go to do a podcast,
(43:53):
I am scared like a 2-year-old.
And I don't know why.
It's just a terrifying experience for me.
Writing a book with myGhost writer I wrote, which,
which was an amazing man,you know, it's a memoir.
So we, it was one of those, oh,
oh yeah, I forgot about this.
Oh, I forgot about that.
And, you know, and my wife would read,
(44:15):
she goes, what are you doing?
She goes, you got you at 16
and you're at 20 something,then you're back to 15
and you're at 30 and then you're back.
He goes, she goes, oh my God,I cant even keep up with this.
I'm like, it's a memoir.
You're thinking things through,you're getting in there.
She goes, it makes no sense,
it doesn't flow, it doesn't do anything.
So she rewrote it,basically Sabr, Sabrina,
(44:38):
which I'm thinking, wow.
She wrote it flowed it the way it is today
and everybody said it flows perfectly.
She said, yeah, let's not put that in.
So we took out some things.
Yeah, people don't need toknow about that, you know.
But one of the promises I made
for her when writing this book,which is terrifying to me,
was that I would not letanybody see my face or my voice
(45:00):
because I'm not worried.
You know, all the guysthat ran with the crew
that have had tried tokill me, they're dead.
So there's nobody alive.
They're, they have familyalive, most of them.
Those, those organizations are no longer,
their kids are so screwed up.
But when you put away bad police officers
(45:21):
and politicians, theydon't forget that they,
those are the ones that don't,
that are nasty when theywanna come after you.
So that's why I'm mostly doing this
because I still a family out there.
I have two sons still outthere. I have an ex-wife. Okay.
But I have two sons and that was
and Sabrina's family.
And she wants me to protect it.
(45:42):
But yes, writing a book has been very
terrifying for me, maam.
- Well, I appreciate, youknow, your vulnerability
and your willingness toshare your story and,
and your willingness toput your book out there.
I think it's important for people
to learn about different walksof life, whether, you know,
they know that they're real, um,
(46:04):
or they've only ever seenthem portrayed in a movie.
So with the fact that, you know, you,
you've made the commitment of, you know,
not showing your face, nothearing your real voice, um,
is Aiden your real name?
- No, it is not. If you readthe beginning of the book book,
it says places, names,
(46:25):
and people have changedto protect the guilty.
'cause everybody I wasinvolved, if we were guilty
of something, usually not, not good.
So, no, it's, it would change.
And then there's a lot,a couple things changed,
but lawyers say, yeah,no, you can't put that in.
Yeah, no, that can't be in there. So yeah.
- I figured as much.
(46:45):
But the main reason I was asking was,
'cause I was curious if you have a story
behind picking the name Aiden.
- You know, I'm gonna be honest with you.
Um, my wife picked a Sabrina.
She, uh, she like, I love this name.
It's a gothic name, it's agood Irish name. I said, okay.
(47:06):
And then my mother looked like Pava Gabor.
And that's how I got the last name.
- There you go. That's gotsome good taste there. Um.
But I appreciate you you sharing that.
It's always, always an interesting little,
little factoid there.
Now, before I start to wrap things up,
(47:27):
is there anything else you would like
to share with the listeners today?
- You know, one thing I do wanna share is
that if you're in a darkplace, you know, going
through a traumatic thing
or went through a traumaticthing, talk to somebody,
your a local priest, if you need be
a community leader, talk to them.
You need to talk becausesuicide is not the answer.
(47:50):
'cause you don't just hurt yourself,
you hurt everybody around you.
And if you're in the military,there is programs out there.
I know the militarytrains you to be a killer.
And then, hey, after we're donetraining you to kill, kill,
kill, go be a normal personin society, which is hard
for people to come fromone extreme to the other.
And I understand that.But talk to somebody.
(48:11):
I mean, I don't careif you need to go talk
to a local law enforcement officer,
but somebody, they would, they'll listen.
Especially if you go talk toa, a local priest, a rabbi,
you know, go to your mosque,but talk to somebody.
Just get it out thereand I'll keep it in you
because that's the worst thing you can do.
A local a a a local leaderof a community is a great one
(48:35):
to go talk to becausesomeone may have been
through your situation.
But that's where I want.I just want people know
that you need to get out there,
that there's people outthere to help you been
through the dark places you have been.
And also spiritually,we all need to learn,
get spiritually somehow.
It will make you feel better as a person.
It'll give you something tothink about, give you something
(48:57):
to be part of, and to understand.
We literally be a Bahai, aChristian, a a a Jewish person or,
or a Muslim, it doesn't matter.
We all believe in the same God.
It's just looked at differently.
There is only one God, butit's all looked at differently.
There's messages for each one.We just need to listen.
(49:20):
And that's what you needto do. Get out there
and listen, listen and,and work for yourself.
Make us your soul a soul.Boom. Work for your soul.
- I appreciate you takingthe moment to, to share that
as suicide is such a serious topic.
Um, and it is important for for people to,
to hear that message.
(49:41):
Now, at the end of all my episodes,
I do ask my guests a random question.
So my question for you todayis, how do you like to unwind?
- Oh wow. How do I liketo un honestly, I like
to unwind with my fur babies.
I, I got a pit bull
and another crazy, theycall it bat shit crazy dog.
And, and I unwind with my animals,my wife sitting outside,
(50:05):
or number one is a smoke a good pipe
and watch documentaries.
I don't watch local TVbecause I don't like politics
and I don't like what I see.
So I watch documentaries or old movies.
But yeah, that's about it. I,I, I unwind with my wife sitting
outside and our two furbabies just playing with them.
(50:26):
And we got a couple cats too.They're kind of a pain up.
But I just spending timewith my animals and my wife
and there, I'm, I'm happy as can be.
- All right, that bringsthis episode to a close.
So of course if you would liketo check out Aiden's book,
(50:47):
his website will be in the description.
That is ConflictingLoyalties.com.
That is the name of the book as well.
So feel free to check out his website.
It brings you to all thedifferent stores and everything.
Um, and more information there.
If you would like toconnect with the podcast,
our website is in the description as well.
It brings you to all of our past episodes,
(51:07):
past guest resources
and social media, all of the good things.
And of course we are also on social media,
which can be accessed through our website.
We are on Facebook,Instagram, and LinkedIn.
So if you wanna go follow those pages,
that support is always appreciated.
And if you would like tosupport the podcast monetarily,
there is a link to do that as well.
If you would like tobe a guest on the show,
(51:27):
my email is also in the description.
That is always the best wayto get in touch with me.
So thank you so much Aiden,for spending time with me today
and to my listenersfor taking the time out
of your day to hear a new story.
Until next time, bye.
- Thank you. And everybodyout there, thank you.
- Hello and welcome to Introducing Me.
I'm your host Sarah. Istarted this podcast to get
to know other people and lifestyles while
discovering more about myself.
Each episode I will givea new guest a chance
to discuss their background,culture, interests,
or whatever they want to talkabout to help increase all
of our own worldviews.
Today I would like tointroduce you to Aiden Gabor.
Aiden is a former associateof a well-known crime family.
(00:38):
First being approached bythe Department of Justice
as a teenager to becomean undercover agent.
Since then, and a life, as youknow, doing undercover work,
he has written a memoir,found Peace in the Bahai Faith,
and has been diagnosed with ALS.
So Aiden is here to sharea bit about his life
and the different paths he has taken,
(00:59):
and I'm looking forward toconnecting with him today.
So thank you so much, Aiden.
Why don't you go ahead
and tell the audience more about yourself.
- Sarah, thank you somuch for having me on.
You know, it's an honorto be on your show.
Um, more about myself well,I guess you wanna look at it,
you know, everybody kind ofsays that it would be more of a,
(01:20):
uh, you'd see the cheesy,uh, uh, current, um,
movies on stuff like this.
But I started out very young
and my father was a, anassociate with a crime family
up in the, uh, east Northeast.
And I grew up in that type of atmosphere.
(01:41):
We'd have a lot of, uh,you know, gatherings for,
to moms and stuff in the old country.
Come in and we'd have the
food and the kids would get together.
And I was really big for my age.
So I'd get into scuffleswith uh, uh, boys four
or five, six years older than me.
And I held my own. Andyou know, we get out,
we had a dirt gravel road outby this as more of a driveway.
(02:05):
And after we went in thebackyard of one state
and uh, got in some pretty good fights
and that's how it startedout young with this.
And we, we'd had parties
and we had, Eddie was our cowboy owner
with the crew I ran with.
And it started out when I was about eight.
And we'd have be at the partiesand we'd ask for things.
(02:27):
You see that? And he'dsay, Hey, go get me this.
And you want respect at ayoung age, when elder asked you,
especially someone withhis stature, asked you
to get something, you just did it.
And as I got a little bitolder, he looked at me
and he goes, Aiden, do me a favor.
Whatcha doing? He goes, youwanna ride your bike over to,
he had his, I guess you call a garage,
(02:49):
but it was a garageslash like meeting area
where kind of people wentand they, they played cards
and shoot the pool witheach other and talk.
And it was also a garage.
Later on in my foundout it was a chop shop.
And they ran prostitution things,
(03:09):
but it was a garage, none nonetheless.
So I rode my bike up there
and he'd be like, Hey, dome a favor, take this package,
drop it off at this address,you know where it's at,
and you tell me generally where it's at.
He said, don't talk toanybody. Drop it off.
And then if they give yousomething, sometimes they were,
I don't remember if this went up,
bring it back, don't look at it.
(03:31):
And I'm, yes, sir.
And I would ride bike,just get to where I needed
to go drop off.
Sometimes they gave me,um, up something to return,
not they said thank you and walked away.
You know, drive, ride my bike back.
And I'd say, yeah, Idropped it off, thank you.
And he'd give me 20, 30, 40 bucks, depending how,
and I was nine years old at that time
(03:54):
and I would, you know, at that point, run
to the candy store here.
I'm a king at that time, you know,
and we'd run to the candystore with my buddies
and I would get all kinds of candy
and I, I would start doing them.
Kind of worked my way up there,
cleaning the shop a little bit.
You know, I still played sports
and I was still doingthings, but I would caddy.
(04:16):
But I tell my mom, I would go caddying.
And actually I ended up going
to see Eddie at the place, at the garage.
And I would learn things there.
As I got older, I learned howto drive, how to shoot a gun,
I would these, I thought thatwas the coolest thing in the
world, you know.
And about 10 or 11, Imet a guy named Nikki.
(04:36):
I didn't really put him in the book,
but Nikki was the part of thecrew that something happens.
It was all end all, Iguess you can say with him.
And he taught me how to use an ice pick
and where of right spots.
And at the time you thought,wow, this guy's weird.
But yes sir, you listened.
He was an adult and I worked my way there.
(04:58):
And eventually I worked my way up,
started drive Eddie, whatever.
They taught me how to driveand learned my way to do things
with them and did thingsthat we needed to get done.
And I stole a couple cars'cause it was a chop shop.
And at the time I sit there, you know,
I dropped the package off
and not realized who these people were.
(05:19):
But as I got older, I realized,okay, that's the mayor
and that's the, a police officer,
the police officers would being a shop
or a couple federal guys wouldbe in the, talking to Eddie.
And I remember one time Iasked her, I go, you gee man.
He goes, yes sir. Andhe showed me his badge.
Another one I go, you police officer?
He goes, yeah, show me hisbadge. I'm like, oh cool.
And that was it. And I went,did my thing is I got older.
(05:42):
I started driving for Eddie, like I said,
and then I started doing things.
He said, why don't you start collecting?
You know, I need you to go with Dominic.
Well, when I first metDominic, he didn't like me.
I just maybe didn't like my dad,
but he, he just, he waslike Eddie side kick,
I guess you call hissec his right hand man.
(06:04):
And Dominic would be the big collector.
He would be out there andhe would be collecting
and do what needs to get done.
And he was an enforcer.
The first time I methim, he pushed me down.
He just treated me likecrap. Everybody else.
One day I just lost it and I went
after to hit him with the, with the end
of a pipe they put that was on the ground.
(06:24):
He turned around to shoot me.
I mean I still, I'm looking at the gun
and Eddie's like, stop it, that's enough.
And then he goes, you learn to respect.
And Dominic walked away
and like, yeah, you do need more respect.
From that forward, Dominickind of had a, so I started
and one day, Dominic, Eddie,Dominic, we need this guy.
(06:45):
So I didn't know going on.
So went him, threw car,
said know when he hitme couple months ago,
yeah, I'm not gonna forget it.
And I looked at it and he punched me.
He was driving and I was in pain.
He punched you so hard, like this cartoon
once your head was spinning.
And I'm just like, whoa.
And he goes, you know what,next I'm gonna kill you.
(07:05):
That's just a love tap. Yougotta learn respect kid.
If you're gonna do this, Idunno, what Eddie sees in you,
but I guess we're gonna do this.
So I went there and learnedhow to collect from people.
We go to little mom and pop places
and they give you protection money,
I guess is the wordthat you would use now.
Well back then it was just collecting.
And nobody ever gave it.Nobody ever said anything.
(07:27):
And I, a couple times I wascollecting, I went with Dominic
and this guy stabbed me
and they took me to a localdoctor, which happened
to be a doctor I knewwas friend of family.
And from there I learned, you know,
okay, this is what you gotta do.
And I have a little temper.And so sometimes people would,
would need to be reminded.
(07:49):
And one of things I learnedis, you know, they were now,
and it's not, you've seen the movies,
you have a baseball bat andyou, you keep one in your car,
but you leave a mitt and the ball with it
because then if you get pulled over,
the police can't use it against you.
'cause I'm ready to play baseball.
I have a bat, a mitt and theglove, they're all together.
So I'm out there ready toplay, catch or play baseball.
(08:10):
And yeah, you know, everybody says, well,
that's what they all do in the movies.
Well, we weren't rocketscientists, I'm tell you,
we weren't the sharpestblades in the door.
We did what we had at handand what would be used
and how to get around the wall.
You learn that. So I learned
to hit people on the ankles
that way when you knockthe wheels out, they go
(08:31):
to the ground, it makes adifferent type of sound.
You're rather than hitting the knees
and they don't get up onceyou take the wheels out
that you got their fullattention or full control.
And I learned that youngand that was something
that Dominic's like, wow, okay kid,
don't be doing that, that too much.
That could really, but I did.
I remember one time growing up, we had a
(08:53):
guy was sitting there eating
and Eddie goes, Hey, thatMF over there owes me money,
you know, he owes me like 15 Gs.
I just started running and Iwent and caught up to the guy
and I was beating thecrap out him kicking him,
head him down, he's, and Dominiccomes up, he's like, Hey,
hey slow, don't kill the guy.
It's bad business. Andhe looks at, he goes,
you still eating the sandwich?
(09:15):
Are you kidding me? You're beating
up this guy and eating the sandwich.
I'm like, what? So he talkedto him, we yelled at him.
He had, you know, he toldhim, you better get it.
This is just a warning. Andhe's like, what is your problem?
We get back there and helooked there laughing.
And that's how I gotthe nickname sandwich.
I hate that nickname to this day.
I hate that nickname orwhatever for my entire life.
(09:37):
But we just moved on from there.
And as we started doing,
I did whatever needed to be done for them.
And it was a family.
And you learned that itwas family and respect.
You learned a family. My father was
busy and he was never around.
My mother was very mucharound, I was a mama's boy
and I learned from Eddie,
who was my mentor, this is what you do.
(09:57):
And he saw something in me
and he said, okay, you're gonna do good.
And so one day we're sitting there
and he, it was like I was 18
and he comes up and said, you gotta leave.
I'm like, excuse me. He'slike, no, the FBI came in,
they arrested Dominic,they arrested this one.
He said, you haven't been arrested yet.
You need to leave you, you have a chance
to play football in college.
You need to go, alright, I'm leaving.
(10:20):
You're not gonna see meprobably for a long time.
Just do me a favor, keep aneye, just check in on my son.
He has a son. I said,yeah, yes sir. And he left.
That's the last time I eversaw him. I went to school.
So Eddie leaves and he goes, he leaves
and he goes out of the country
(10:40):
and eventually he getscaught in Spain, I believe,
or somewhere over there.
And his wife turned on him.
And so as I'm in school,
these two clowns show up and,
and their Sears polyester suits.
And they're looking at me andI'm like, who are you guys?
(11:01):
And I was gonna tell 'em to get up.
And then I kind, they're telling
me that, hey, we need to talk.
I'm being arrested. No,do you need one? Not now.
You probably will be if you don't listen.
So I thought to, lemmesee what these clowns want.
So I went with them. Wewent to some restaurant
that had this green roof, to remember walking in
and there were two agents fromthe Department of Justice.
(11:25):
And they looked at me
and said, here they startputting, check out this, this.
They threw a littlepackage, a little envelope.
I said, check out you'lllove these pictures.
So I open up, I see me withEddie, me with Dominic, me
with Nick, me with a couple others,
my dad with them and all that.
And then they showed apicture of my mom with Eddie,
my mom driving with Eddie
(11:45):
because his friends arefamily, my mom doing this.
So they look at me and said, you know,
you're looking at 70 years for years,
all the things you did while with Eddie.
I'm like, whatcha talking about,we got this new law called
Rico New law out.
He goes, check it out your college boy.
He go check it out, read up, go
to the library, see what this is.
(12:07):
And I thought to myself, wow, okay, what?
But I, I really didn't careabout myself then my dad didn't
care about my dad gonna jail.
Then they said, my mom will go to jail.
Yeah, that was a problem. That hit me hard
because I don't care.
Any man says alive. We're all mama's boys.
(12:27):
I called my mom every dayuntil the day she died.
I talked to her and it reallystruck a chord with me.
So they're like, Hey, they take me back.
They said, I want you tothink about it. We'll be back.
And there was two months and Icouldn't eat, couldn't sleep.
I played like shit for football.
And they came back
and I, I'm thinking to myself, well
(12:48):
what choice do I have, cant my mom go to jail?
So he came back, I go, okay,what do you need me to do?
And jackass is what Icall one of them, sorry,
but it was one of the DOJ.
He goes, well we'll let you know.
We just need you tobasically, you know, year
(13:08):
it's October, we wantyou to flunk out school,
like party your way out, party out.
We wanna look, you want youknown to party outta school
and we're gonna give you extra money.
Go play with the college girls.
You so your oath, do what you gotta do.
You know, go do that.
This is what we need andthen we'll talk to you.
So I did it, got back home in May
(13:31):
and went to tell myparents and they called me
and said, yeah, well we'll meet us.
We met like an hour and a halfout time, another restaurant.
They show up and I'm like,okay, what do you want?
I looked at it and he said,you did where you are.
You are working what you needto do to stay out of jail.
He says, this is what we need to do.
We want you to get onthis police department
to be a police officer.
(13:52):
And I thought, you guys arebad. You're kidding me, right?
No, this is what we need. Justget on. And I go for what?
Undercover? I go, we'll let you know.
No, we're not gonna be, we,
you can't go, you're not going undercover.
You're gonna go in as aninformant, no undercover.
There's no one there to back you up.
I'm gonna tell you thisright now. There will be
(14:13):
nobody there to back you up.
It's all you. If something goeswrong, well, stuff happens.
Not exact words shit happens,just it's gonna happen.
It happens to you. We'renot too worried about it,
but this is how you way you stay out.
I'm like, whatever. So you tellme what department to get on
and back then it really wasn't hard.
(14:33):
And if you're, the test isn't hard.
If you're physically fit,which I was, wasn't hard,
you know, I never gotthe, what happened if
I don't get on thing.
And he just told me, get on. That was it.
And they weren't veryother than they told me
a and that was it.
Not really any, not really. Chatty bunch.
So I did, I got on and thenthey started telling me
(14:56):
after a month after Igot the camera, you need
to get close to this officer.
Okay, so this guy youever, have you ever heard
of met anybody with anabrasive personality?
That's what this guy was.
He was the biggest ass in the world.
You just hated him looking at him.
They talking, he's soarrogant and I hate arrogance.
(15:17):
And so I started, youknow, okay, I started one
of the other guys I, I kindof became friends with.
I'm like, Hey, I'm gonna go.Nobody wants his partner.
Smart. Like, why you be with that guy?
Cus an ass I'm like, I, he's a good guy.
So several months, almosta year go by, I'm riding
with this guy and all this.
We started going out drinking.
And after a while, you know,
(15:38):
he finally looks at meand we went out long time.
And that kind of started my
darkness when going out drinking.
And he looked, he goes, Iknow you. And I'm like, what?
He goes, I know you. I go,Ray, I know you, we work goes,
no, I know you beforeand you ran with Eddie.
And I talked to him. I neverremember meeting this clown.
I never met this guy. And he'slike, yeah, we met, you know,
(16:00):
we, I seen you, you know, wewere doing things with Eddie
and you, you picked upsome things with us.
Um, wow, your age. Doingeverything with that guy.
The guy's like a legend.And I'm like, okay.
And he starts telling me, hegoes, that's what I wanna do.
I'm with the crew now.He goes, start drinking,
I'll tell you more later,man, you know, I'm gonna get
to know some other couple months go by.
(16:20):
And one day he got really drunk
and he goes, yeah, you know,I, uh, I did a couple hits
with these guys, you know,I'm gonna get on this crew,
gonna be like, what you did?
I'm like, what you need
to shut up man, what thehell are you talking about?
And he's telling me what he did.
So I was sitting there andthen his wife was at the,
or he went to go get somedrinks, she's crying.
(16:40):
She goes, I don't know. Did he tell you?
He told me he knows youthat he can trust you
and oh my, I don't know what to do.
I'm like, you just need to shut up.
You don't need to talkabout this. Only nothing.
So I ended up meeting up with these guys
and telling me I actually got something.
Now he admitted to doing whatever.
He said, A couple hits for these guys
and this is what he said.
But I wanna be honest withyou, I really, you know,
(17:02):
if you want me to testify,
but I would talk to the wife,the wife's about the cave in.
She can't take it. I mean if she comes
to you on her own, she can test.
She'll testify. And he goes, yeah, yeah.
I go, but if you need me, okay.
And he goes, no, because if we use you
one time, it's one and done.
We got plans, we need someother things from you.
(17:23):
And I thought to myself,what, no, we need to do this.
So going back, I meant say going back
before I became a policeofficer, I went home
and told my parents, I'mnot going back to school.
And my dad looked at me, he goes, you be,
you know, I, what do you want to do?
What do you do? Being going back Aiden.
And I go, I wanna be apolice officer. He loses.
He goes, you're be a fucking,you're gonna be a flatfoot.
(17:46):
I said, yeah. He goes, oh, well
I didn't talk, talk to him for 10 years.
And that's where this guy even said
that he knew his name wasTerry, that he knew my dad too.
And my mom's like, well, Aiden,
whatever you need, you know, you do.
So goes on after I tell 'emwhat happened and all this,
and then we get phone callsthat the FBI's arresting.
(18:07):
And so my girl, so people'slike rat leaving the ship,
people leave the department.
I go into another, I, I putmy resignation, I'm leave
and I met up with these guys again.
And these clowns, like thistime we want you to get on
to this department.
It's the department in thetown I grew up in where I used
to run things that it's like,
you guys have a reallysick sense of humor.
No, this is what you have todo. I go, didnt I do enough.
(18:30):
No, we'll let you know when it's enough.
And not knowing still even then.
And then knowing that, youknow, they got stuff against me.
I'm not sure what, theywon't tell me anything.
And I was too worriedabout my mom to work to,
to make a difference.
So I got into department where I grew up,
but it was easier for therebecause we had an interview
(18:51):
and I interviewed with themayor and the commissioner.
I'm like, Hey. Oh wow, he'sknown you. He goes, what?
Do you wanna be a, you wannabe a police officer? Yes sir.
He says, you think you could total the
line, do what you need to be done.
You do what you told. Yes sir.
Whatever you need me to do, I'm here.
I'm here to do whatever I need to,
but I wanna be a policeofficer goes, yeah,
you were in another town over there.
Yes sir, everybody's leaving.I dunno what happened there.
(19:12):
I don't wanna stick around. I don't
leave myself in that mess.
Alright. So I got on.
And so they started tellingme over the years to basically
we want you to get several police officers
that were doing different things, drugs
or guys selling drugs.
Uh, we want you to look at the mayor.
(19:34):
We know all they'redoing everything in there
that you know that they're doing.
And I'm like, why you, why you want me?
It's basically, we're sendinga snake into the snake pit.
They trust you becausethey knew what your,
your life was prior.
So you're basically one of them
because you knew you were giving,
they're on a take doing the dirty things.
They're thinking they gotanother one and figuring it out.
(19:55):
They honestly didn't careif something happened to me.
So over a 12 year span, alittle longer than that,
almost 14 years I should say,
I ended up putting several police officers
and politicians in prison, catching 'em,
doing different things andjust giving them information
to be used against them by them
because they didn't want me to testify.
(20:16):
They were just using me to get information
and they knew the rightway to, to get that.
And I did. And of that time
and with them, I've hadthe gun pointed at me,
oh, I'd say at least 15 times put
to my head and threatened me.
One time we were walking up
and this one detective whoended up going to prison
(20:36):
for a very long time, um, turnas we were going up stairs
and where his back stairwayand put his gun right to me.
And I'm looking right downthe, right down the barrel.
I can see the, the, the, thecurving in side the barrel
of a Glock looking right at me.
I'm, I'm lower than him.
So I'm at disadvantage,there's nothing I can do.
And I said to him,
(20:57):
and I look him, I go,I know you growing up.
He goes, whatcha doing?Whatcha doing here?
What doing, are you an inform?
I go, no, I'm here to do, you know what?
I have my own thing goingon. I had a think on my feet.
I have my own thing goingon. If you think I'm doing
something, dude, you knew me.
You know, I mean, you know what?
Honestly, I was part ofthe machine and I worked
(21:19):
and you wanted to be whatI was, but you were a cop.
You could be interchanged.
Well, one, one by a cop,another bad cop.
It doesn't matter. I don'teven can get 'em anywhere.
But I was for the machine.If something happened,
the meeting machine wentdown, something happened
to you who gives a care?
We'll find another one. So go ahead.
If you think I'm doing something,pull the trigger and try
and get yourself out,which I'm sure you can.
But then you got some other people
(21:40):
I answer to other than me.
And he just looked andkind of, oh, went up there.
My buddy Don worked at the
department, kid guy I grew up with.
And Don the, the wholetime was giving information
or what he heard around the department
because kind chat, it'slike when you, when
with crew you had a, um, family.
(22:01):
You don't, you don't tell abear family. You don't say this.
And I'm gonna tell you,every time I, when I worked
with the crew, I never saidone thing against anybody.
Eddie. Dominic, any of 'em I ever did.
If they ever asked me to turn on them,
I would tell 'em to get out.
And police officers aredifferent 'cause they're bad.
That's to realize.
And I mean, I would nevergo against my family.
(22:22):
But yet over the years theytried to kill me a couple times
and I put away bad policeofficers and stuff.
And again, when you peoplebecome police officers,
they have a thing called the blue line.
You don't cross that blue line.
It's almost like a planners,men and women law enforcement.
But then again, for everyone bad police officers,
(22:42):
a hundred thousand goodpolice officers look bad in
everybody's eyes, they're all bad.
But I wish everybody learned
that there's somebodyout there to stop them.
And that's what I did. I wasstopping bad police officers
and politicians, there is somebody
that they are trying to get rid of them.
So they're not all bad. Onlyone less than a percent.
(23:03):
And, and, and whatever ones you see,
it's always only the badones being posted anywhere.
You never see anything of the good ones,
which is very bad in this country.
And I just wanna say,
when you're in there,you don't cross a blue.
And that's what got me.
I started drinking and I gotinto a very, very dark place
and I drank, I became agulper, not a drinker.
(23:24):
And I got where I wouldhave, uh, just blackouts.
But I remember vividly havingthis 357 magnum spinning
the chamber.
Put one in, that the magnum out, spin the chamber, pull the trigger. I did it at least twenty
times. Id put it in my mouth, side my head. Never went off.
(23:45):
There's times I woke upwith the gun next to me
with three rounds in the chamber.
How many times I did it without knowing.
And I would see these vivid hallucinations
of the St.
Michael coming at me withthe flaming sword saying,
you betrayed, you betrayedyour brothers and sisters
and striking me and I to this day.
(24:07):
And that was a long time. Ihad over 10 years of that.
I mean, I was in a very dark place
and for some reason God said,
we're not gonna let you die this way.
We have other plans. And I did that.
And I, to this day, I remembervividly trying to kill myself
and it just wouldn't happen.
I was mad that it wouldn'thappen, but I put it did.
(24:30):
And I realized I'm doing good.
Get rid of these bad guys
because you don't need that in society.
These guys were not good.
I mean, and I was not a good person young.
And that's really, youknow, that's what I did.
And then I went, they wantedme to do it at a casino.
I went and did to thereand there's nothing there.
Then they just cut me loose
DOJ's like, thanks your peace out.
We'll give you a littlestipend. And that was it.
(24:53):
They're done. And so I justkind of stayed where I was at.
And I had a very, I was not a good dad.
I was not a good husband. Iwas a very, very dark person
because I was diagnosed with no empathy
and borderline sociopath,
which meant my upbringingjust the way it was.
If I hurt somebody didn't bother me,
(25:15):
I would laugh aboutit, just laugh at them.
And I would watch horrormovies with my, my wife now.
And I'd laugh about itwhen somebody gets beat up
or cut in half or broken and all
that bones just say, I think it's funny.
And I'm, every day I'm working on that.
And that was, I don't knowwhy. It just is to me.
And I'm realizing that,oh my God, you kidding me?
(25:37):
And I do, I think it's funny,I I don't watch horror movies
because I hate laugh at 'embecause, or very gory stuff
because I think it's funny.
And I think to myself, Idon't need to see this.
I mean, I'd seen and dida lot of gory things.
I was younger and I triedto kind of, you know,
putting on bad law enforcement and stuff.
I did that. And then mybuddy mine, Sam came by
(26:00):
and my had a friend Don
that really helped me out over the years.
And he didn't know it untileventually a couple years ago
before I wrote the book,him and I had a chat
and he beat the crap outta me.
And I deserved it becausehe was giving information,
not realizing what I was doing.
He's the only one thatknows other than Sam.
But my wife would call and talk to Sam
and was telling him, Hey,he getting night terrors.
(26:22):
He is throwing me around the room.
He's punching the wall, he's handcuff me,he's done this, he's never drew a weapon,
but he's just freaking out.
Well, Sam, and Don just kept telling
me, you need to be spiritual.
You need God. I used to laugh.
I used to say, you know,you know, that's stupid.
Uh, spirituality's stupid. God is stupid.
(26:42):
I work for the other guy. Irecruit for the other guy.
I recruit souls for him. That's what I do.
I have nothing with God.Like, no, you need to do.
So I started reading.I said, you know what?
Fine, I'll read it. Shutyou up, I'll read it.
And I started reading the BahaiFaith up to Bahai's writings
and they had one calledthe Paris talk or, and,
and I start reading it andsomething just struck with me.
(27:06):
Wow. Really?
And the Bahai faithsays, everybody's equal.
It doesn't matter if you're black, white,
purple, pink or green.
We all bleed red. We're all the same.
Doesn't matter if you'remale or female, we're equal.
We're in this together. Youknow, some faiths have it.
Women are subservient to the man.
I never really believed that
because my mom ran the household.
(27:26):
I don't care where everybody lives, the
mom, the wife, whatever.
They run the household.That's who runs it.
And unless you're, you know,
a very controlling person
and maybe a man would run it,
but I think women run it more than men.
That's how my belief was.
(27:46):
And Sam said, Hey, you arealways a Bahai. You never knew it.
You know, I was younger,I remember I would,
at the Catholic, youknow, I grew a Catholic.
I'd go to confessional, Iwould tell the priest, okay,
Aiden, you did something.
What bad thing? I go, I dunno, nothing.
I didn't see nothing. I didn't do nothing.
No, you can't say I did anything.
(28:06):
He's like, no, no, you need,I go, no, I didn't do nothing.
Didn't see nothing. And hesaid, get the f outta you.
Just get the F out. He, Ipissed, I pissed him off so bad
father to tell me, leave, just leave.
And I'm like, yeah, I'm outta here.
And I believe, because that's where I was.
I didn't believe anything spiritual.
You probably start reading this one day.
I was reading one ofhis writings about Bahai.
(28:27):
And I thought, wow, okay.
And I'm outside and it's sunny,
very hot thing, not a cloud in the sky.
I'm looking at a sun.And I felt different.
A very warm feeling, a verywhole feeling inside of me.
You know, I'm still fightingmy demons of suicide.
I'm still fighting. Don't drink.
You know, I, I drink a littletoday, but not like I was.
(28:50):
And you know, medicationstopped me with it.
But, and I looked, I just felt this.
And I didn't like the feeling. I, I hated.
I'm like, this feelingsucks. I don't like it.
I went inside and told my
wife, she goes, he, you're feeling.
So I go, no, stop, get,no, I'm done Sabrina.
I don't wanna deal with this.So I was feeling better.
And the Sam came and talkedto me and we had a chat.
(29:11):
And at that point I opened up the Sam.
Now he knows about 85% ofwhat I've done in my life.
Don knows about 90,Sabrina knows about 95.
She doesn't really wanna know everything.
And my,
he's looking at me, he goes,you need to write a book.
I'm like, go the hell. Iam not writing this book.
This is not to be, this is my stupid life.
(29:34):
I did stupid things and stupid.
Don't have to put everything in there,
but you need to for therapy.
You need to do this for therapeutic.
And I said, no, I'm not doing it.
And eventually it kind of wore me down.
But I became very spiritual.
I kept reading and I'm readingthat, you know, we need
to make the place this world better there.
We need to get rid of racism.
We need to get rid of antisemitismbecause it's not good.
(29:57):
You know, everything going over.
It's, you know, you see this anti,
this Palestinian anti Jewish thing.
These kids don't even knowwhat they're arguing about.
They're just don't, becausethey don't understand
Iran's funding all this.
But nobody wants to opentheir eyes and see the truth.
I was like that. I wasin a very dark place.
And I came into the light,I guess you can say.
(30:18):
I walked out and I talked tomyself. I can help people.
I talk to veterans. I'vebeen through war now.
I even go through war. But I went
through stuff kinda like war.
I've seen things and stuff
that we would see on the
battlefield, but that's not the same.
But I still talk to veterans.
'cause if you, you need totalk, if you keep it in you.
I tried killing myself, Iwould say a thousand times
(30:41):
because I kept it in.
I couldn't tell anybody for thewhole time I was doing this.
I was told by these two clowns,you cannot say anything.
This is, if you say something,you're going to prison.
So that was beating me and that ate at me.
And that's where thatconflicting loyalties part,
because I was going againstmy brothers and sisters.
(31:02):
But yet it had to be done.
I was having very bad issues over it.
And Sam's like, this is what you need.
It's bring it out.
I've got she, Sabrina calls
and say he's gettingworse, but it's better.
He's just screaming nowand yelling and swearing
and doing all kinds of things.
But now he's not getting asphysical, but at least it's out.
(31:26):
And that's how the book kind of came out.
And that's kind of what mylife and the thing, you know.
And then I find out I have the ALS
and then I would think, you know,
God does have a sense of humor.
It, he's . He's like, yeah,well everything you've done,
guess what buddy?
You're not done yet. Now we'rereally gonna screw with you
(31:46):
and life's gonna reallybecome a whole bunch
of rainbows for you.
And I accepted it, you know,
when I was younger, Ididn't care if I died.
I really didn't care. I,you know, if I die, I die.
Guns pointed at me, shot at me,
everything staff, I didn't care.
But after I finally,they lost, I wanna live
to help make this world a better place
(32:07):
because we are hurting.
And that's how I was, I wanna
make the place the world better.
I want people need to understandno racism, no antisemitism.
And I was like that. Youknow, my mom on her death bed
when she was talking, she'sscreaming about the Russia.
'cause she grew up inBudapest. Now my mom, when
(32:28):
after she passed, my father
and I had a chat, we finally talked
and he said, your mother growing up during World War II, Revolution and
Budapest, the Russian came in.
They did things to my mom and her sisters.
That should never ever happen to them.
And that really, to this day, when I heard
(32:48):
that heard, I heard her screaming.
'cause she lived with me as she was
dying about the Russians.
They're here. Oh, my good,they're gonna do it again.
I didn't understand. And thenI kind of figured it out.
But my dad said, yourmother was vindictive
that she became a partisan whenthey were at 10 years old.
And your mother would sit there
(33:09):
and go out there andthey'd see a little girl.
The Russians come up toher at night thinking,
okay, what do you out here?
And they were talking to her
and they know they were expect
they were gonna probably do something.
But she sat next to em
and pulled this long knife,which is like a long just spear
and stabbed through the neck.
And she did it. My dad said
that she was the mostcraziest one of all us.
(33:30):
She enjoyed doing it
because she was getting backto what they did to her.
And he said, I, and I lost anumber of people she did this
to, you know, and I reada book a couple years ago
that this woman put out there,I can't remember her name.
It's a very interestingbook. And I wish I did.
I'm not great at memory, butthat your, your parents did
(33:51):
as a young child, you kind of get as,
when you become a child, itkind of hereditary towards you.
My mom killed a lot of people
as a partisan againstRussians then They were in a
revolution when they escaped.
And I did not knowthat. She never told me.
But I knew things happenedto her when she's dying.
And now I'm spiritual.
(34:14):
I understand that, you know what,
let's make this place a better world
and let's help each otherout and do the best we can.
Like my thing nowadays, Ilike, and I think this better,
but I work with special needs kids.
They're not throwaway kids.
People think that these kidsare something, you know,
if you look at the worldthrough their eyes,
(34:34):
everybody, they love everybody.
Unless you've hurt them,they remember that.
But if, if they dunno you, they love,
they just wanna give you a hug.
And they're preaching no matterwhat they do to appreciate
that you're there to be with them.
And I wish the world would look
through their eyes just for a moment.
Just like, I wish the worldwould walk one day in a big town
(34:55):
as a police officer, a man
and woman to see what they go through.
You know? Or even if, you know,just to see, to understand
that you know what, they see so much stuff
that it's unbelievable that, that they,
there's not more suicides.
But as far as likeyounger kids, if you look
around their eyes, everybody's loving
(35:15):
and they understand it.
It doesn't matter ifyou're black or white or,
or what, a yellow or green.
They look at you at the samething. I love you, respect you.
There is no difference there.
I wish the world would be that way.
And that's kind of how I am now.
And I came from at 90degrees, you know, I came
for that dark, dark,dark place into the light
(35:36):
and understand that I could try
to make this world a better place.
And that's kind of my life in a nutshell.
- Yeah. And I mean, youcan kind of really see why,
you know, you took the paths that you took
and where your influences were.
You know, your mom wasvery important to you,
and so you were goingto do what you could to,
(35:57):
you know, save her.
Um, so you weren'tnecessarily caring about,
or it wasn't necessarily top for you
to say like, what about me?
Because it was all What about my mom?
So I do have one question just
'cause like, it, itwasn't necessarily clear.
I'm just curious to know, likeat, did you at any point kind
(36:18):
of before this say, comingto faith moment where you
were acknowledging
and thinking like, I shouldn'tbe doing what I'm doing
and like what I'm doingisn't good for the world?
- You know? No, I'mgonna be honest with you.
You know, I've been asked,do you have regrets?
(36:40):
No, I probably wouldn't havechanged anything other than
when the two clowns showed up.
I might have told 'em to get after.
Um, but then to who knows
where I'd be right now,I'd probably be dead.
Um, no,
because that's the only world I know.
I wouldn't know what itwould be like without it.
Now I do that, I could be better.
(37:03):
But I think if you seen darkness
and you come out of that darkness
and come into the light,you could be even more
better in understanding.
You know, if you don'tknow what bad people think,
then you don't, you don'tknow what's going on
(37:23):
until you understandwhat is in their minds
and what their mindset is.
And that's called, you know,street smarts and all this.
You, you don't, you can say,I'm gonna save the world,
but what are you savingit from if you don't know
what the dark side isuntil you've seen it.
And I think if I can helppeople that have, they're in
that path to come intolight, it will make greater.
(37:44):
Because people that havenot been there can only have
a half understanding.
Just like I can onlyhave a half understanding
of a military person going through war.
You know? And that's how I look at it.
You, you know, I did kindof think, well, yeah,
maybe I shouldn't have, butI wouldn't have changed it
(38:05):
because that's what I knew.
And I think it helped me as a person
to become a whole persondoing what I went through.
There's some things, yeah,maybe I shouldn't have done,
which we won't talk about.
But yeah.
You know, I think going through
that made me really abetter person overall.
And I think you need tounderstand both sides
(38:29):
in order to be a complete person.
I mean, been on that dark, don't think,
I don't wish on anybody,
but if somebody comes tosay, you don't understand
what I'm going through, man, you don't.
I, you know, but you know, I do.
(38:49):
And you could get their thinking to,
to change everythingbetter, you know, better.
You know, some of thesepeople that I dealt
with are extremely dark,but they're extremely smart.
So they can con you into something.
And I know when someone's con
and I can figure that outwhere I have friends of mine,
they're extremely smart,they're book smart,
(39:10):
but they have no idea what
is gonna be on that person's mind.
You know? If theywalk through a bad neighborhood,
would they know how toact other than scared?
Because that's the worst thingyou can do if you walk in
and act a little crazy
or a little under like, Hey, what's up?
You know, I'm looking for this.
I'm, you know, you give themrespect. 90% give respect back.
(39:34):
I mean, some places maybe not,
but yeah, I, I don't really, you know, I,
I believe in a God I don't care.
I think everybody needsto be spiritually active
for yourself, for your mentalhealth, for your, for your
spiritual health, for your, for your body.
(39:54):
You know, your soul becauseyou know your friend.
I got a book called Soul Boom,
and it's an awesome book, Rainn Wilson.
And it's awesome. And if you
know yourself as spiritually
and help the world, you canmake the world a better place.
But you know, somebody
that spiritually they have a different,
(40:15):
like the warmth I felt thatI never had made me whole.
It's that hole on myselfthat filled up with love
and caring for the rest of the world.
- And so would you say, you know,
after the work that you did for the DOJ
and where you are now,
(40:36):
would you consider yourself a good person?
- Um, a better person?
You know, I, I, I stillhave, you know, like I said,
I still have feelings
and these stupid feelingsthat I'm trying, yes,
I'm a better person overall.
(40:57):
Um, would I do thethings I did as a youth,
if pushed in a corner,yes, I wouldn't hesitate.
Um, but I believe in people
and I believe that we canmake the place world better.
And yes, I'm gonna believe in
that point I am a better person.
(41:18):
Um, I wouldn't do the
hustling stuff I did,
but if it came toprotecting family friends
or somebody on thestreet, I don't even know
to protect them, I woulddo it in a heartbeat.
Wouldn't even think twice.
In fact, I've gotteninto couples with people
road rage going
(41:38):
after other people whereI kind of said, yeah,
you need to get back in your car.
You know, to this day I carry a gun
and an ice pick on at all times.
It may be a little different, but
I've had attempts on my life.
I've been shot a couple times,
and I wouldn't hesitate to save somebody.
So I'd say yes, I'm a better person.
(42:00):
- Yeah. You've taken, youknow, a different life path.
You're not who you were, you know,
when you were eight, nine years old.
Um, and you're working towards, you know,
being an even better person. Now,
you know, you shared why youwrote this book, um, you know,
the the influence you got for it.
(42:22):
What has it been like sharing your story
and putting it out there to be vulnerable
and to say like, this is,this is the path I've had?
- Terrifying.
Um, you know, it'sextremely terrifying for me
because I don't know howpeople are gonna react.
(42:45):
I really don't. Some peopleare gonna react, wow, okay,
great that you're found your thing.
Some people will react. You are like that.
You were that personthat we hate, you know?
Um,
mentally I think it was good for me.
I think Sam was right, bringingit out, bringing in open
and talking about it, you know, um,
(43:08):
I think people need to understand too.
I think part of it bringingit out is my suicide
and my darkness into that.
And that people need totalk about their feelings
because the more you keep itin, the more you want to do it.
Um, but yeah, it was, it'sbeen terrifying for me.
Extremely terrifying.
(43:29):
And just for me to go on apodcast like this every time
before I do one, I'm, I'm,
before I got on with you,Sarah, I was scared to death.
You know, I never, to thisday, I'm not afraid of no man.
I've only been afraid oftwo people in my whole life.
My mother and my wife, my current wife,
they scared the hell out of me.
And every time I go to do a podcast,
(43:53):
I am scared like a 2-year-old.
And I don't know why.
It's just a terrifying experience for me.
Writing a book with myGhost writer I wrote, which,
which was an amazing man,you know, it's a memoir.
So we, it was one of those, oh,
oh yeah, I forgot about this.
Oh, I forgot about that.
And, you know, and my wife would read,
(44:15):
she goes, what are you doing?
She goes, you got you at 16
and you're at 20 something,then you're back to 15
and you're at 30 and then you're back.
He goes, she goes, oh my God,I cant even keep up with this.
I'm like, it's a memoir.
You're thinking things through,you're getting in there.
She goes, it makes no sense,
it doesn't flow, it doesn't do anything.
So she rewrote it,basically Sabr, Sabrina,
(44:38):
which I'm thinking, wow.
She wrote it flowed it the way it is today
and everybody said it flows perfectly.
She said, yeah, let's not put that in.
So we took out some things.
Yeah, people don't need toknow about that, you know.
But one of the promises I made
for her when writing this book,which is terrifying to me,
was that I would not letanybody see my face or my voice
(45:00):
because I'm not worried.
You know, all the guysthat ran with the crew
that have had tried tokill me, they're dead.
So there's nobody alive.
They're, they have familyalive, most of them.
Those, those organizations are no longer,
their kids are so screwed up.
But when you put away bad police officers
(45:21):
and politicians, theydon't forget that they,
those are the ones that don't,
that are nasty when theywanna come after you.
So that's why I'm mostly doing this
because I still a family out there.
I have two sons still outthere. I have an ex-wife. Okay.
But I have two sons and that was
and Sabrina's family.
And she wants me to protect it.
(45:42):
But yes, writing a book has been very
terrifying for me, maam.
- Well, I appreciate, youknow, your vulnerability
and your willingness toshare your story and,
and your willingness toput your book out there.
I think it's important for people
to learn about different walksof life, whether, you know,
they know that they're real, um,
(46:04):
or they've only ever seenthem portrayed in a movie.
So with the fact that, you know, you,
you've made the commitment of, you know,
not showing your face, nothearing your real voice, um,
is Aiden your real name?
- No, it is not. If you readthe beginning of the book book,
it says places, names,
(46:25):
and people have changedto protect the guilty.
'cause everybody I wasinvolved, if we were guilty
of something, usually not, not good.
So, no, it's, it would change.
And then there's a lot,a couple things changed,
but lawyers say, yeah,no, you can't put that in.
Yeah, no, that can't be in there. So yeah.
- I figured as much.
(46:45):
But the main reason I was asking was,
'cause I was curious if you have a story
behind picking the name Aiden.
- You know, I'm gonna be honest with you.
Um, my wife picked a Sabrina.
She, uh, she like, I love this name.
It's a gothic name, it's agood Irish name. I said, okay.
(47:06):
And then my mother looked like Pava Gabor.
And that's how I got the last name.
- There you go. That's gotsome good taste there. Um.
But I appreciate you you sharing that.
It's always, always an interesting little,
little factoid there.
Now, before I start to wrap things up,
(47:27):
is there anything else you would like
to share with the listeners today?
- You know, one thing I do wanna share is
that if you're in a darkplace, you know, going
through a traumatic thing
or went through a traumaticthing, talk to somebody,
your a local priest, if you need be
a community leader, talk to them.
You need to talk becausesuicide is not the answer.
(47:50):
'cause you don't just hurt yourself,
you hurt everybody around you.
And if you're in the military,there is programs out there.
I know the militarytrains you to be a killer.
And then, hey, after we're donetraining you to kill, kill,
kill, go be a normal personin society, which is hard
for people to come fromone extreme to the other.
And I understand that.But talk to somebody.
(48:11):
I mean, I don't careif you need to go talk
to a local law enforcement officer,
but somebody, they would, they'll listen.
Especially if you go talk toa, a local priest, a rabbi,
you know, go to your mosque,but talk to somebody.
Just get it out thereand I'll keep it in you
because that's the worst thing you can do.
A local a a a local leaderof a community is a great one
(48:35):
to go talk to becausesomeone may have been
through your situation.
But that's where I want.I just want people know
that you need to get out there,
that there's people outthere to help you been
through the dark places you have been.
And also spiritually,we all need to learn,
get spiritually somehow.
It will make you feel better as a person.
It'll give you something tothink about, give you something
(48:57):
to be part of, and to understand.
We literally be a Bahai, aChristian, a a a Jewish person or,
or a Muslim, it doesn't matter.
We all believe in the same God.
It's just looked at differently.
There is only one God, butit's all looked at differently.
There's messages for each one.We just need to listen.
(49:20):
And that's what you needto do. Get out there
and listen, listen and,and work for yourself.
Make us your soul a soul.Boom. Work for your soul.
- I appreciate you takingthe moment to, to share that
as suicide is such a serious topic.
Um, and it is important for for people to,
to hear that message.
(49:41):
Now, at the end of all my episodes,
I do ask my guests a random question.
So my question for you todayis, how do you like to unwind?
- Oh wow. How do I liketo un honestly, I like
to unwind with my fur babies.
I, I got a pit bull
and another crazy, theycall it bat shit crazy dog.
And, and I unwind with my animals,my wife sitting outside,
(50:05):
or number one is a smoke a good pipe
and watch documentaries.
I don't watch local TVbecause I don't like politics
and I don't like what I see.
So I watch documentaries or old movies.
But yeah, that's about it. I,I, I unwind with my wife sitting
outside and our two furbabies just playing with them.
(50:26):
And we got a couple cats too.They're kind of a pain up.
But I just spending timewith my animals and my wife
and there, I'm, I'm happy as can be.
- All right, that bringsthis episode to a close.
So of course if you would liketo check out Aiden's book,
(50:47):
his website will be in the description.
That is ConflictingLoyalties.com.
That is the name of the book as well.
So feel free to check out his website.
It brings you to all thedifferent stores and everything.
Um, and more information there.
If you would like toconnect with the podcast,
our website is in the description as well.
It brings you to all of our past episodes,
(51:07):
past guest resources
and social media, all of the good things.
And of course we are also on social media,
which can be accessed through our website.
We are on Facebook,Instagram, and LinkedIn.
So if you wanna go follow those pages,
that support is always appreciated.
And if you would like tosupport the podcast monetarily,
there is a link to do that as well.
If you would like tobe a guest on the show,
(51:27):
my email is also in the description.
That is always the best wayto get in touch with me.
So thank you so much Aiden,for spending time with me today
and to my listenersfor taking the time out
of your day to hear a new story.
Until next time, bye.
- Thank you. And everybodyout there, thank you.
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