The Private iTeam "Cop Killer" part 4

"Cop Killer"

part 4 by John S LES

The next morning Linda's prophetic words had made many things clear to me.  I knew that a trip upstate New York was going to be necessary.  The Kingston Gardens resort that this group of Anti-Crime police officers used for their vacations with their families had to be investigated, not just by Internet postings and several phone calls, but also by direct contact.  We were going to have to see what it was like in person.

During the previous day, while I had met and dined with Linda, Marti and Grace used the rest of the afternoon to find out more about Kingston Garden online.  My team also continued to investigate other leads.  Noelle pursued the relationship between Money MacDaniel and the now deceased Mike Dupree.  Dupree was Santiago's boss and his only possible corroborating witness to what occurred the night DeLorenzo was killed.  Darren continued to shake down the streets on the west side.  Chris was going to join me on the road trip upstate.  We would go in separate cars and pose as two separate individuals while up there.

I had went back with Linda to her apartment and before our passionate attractions and affections got the best of us, I left.  She still felt like a client and that I was still working for her.  It was a good thing that I left that night.  I had a bad episode of dreams that night.  It was part of my lingering post traumatic disorder leftover angst from my combat days in the Army Rangers.  Sometimes those dreams haunted me.  Sometimes they simply served as a warning of impending danger the next day...like a sort of sixth sense that something dangerous was about to happen.


The drive from Bayside, Queens to Coxsackie is just under a 2 1/2 hrs depending on traffic and time of day.  Chris and I both decided to leave after 8:30 am to avoid the rush hour traffic, but that once we approached Coxsackie we would stagger entering a half hour behind each other.  I played myself, a private investigator from NYC, while Chris dressed up in a suit and played the role of a competing insurance broker from the New England area who specialized in insuring commercial resorts.  Chris wanted to have some fun letting his normally hidden Bostonian accent run free from his mouth.

During the first hour and a half of the drive, using the Bluetooth system in our cars, Chris and I had a 20 minute, 4 way conversation with Derek and Marti which produced some important updates.  Darren had come across some uptown street dealers who competed against Mike Dupree's downtown traffic.  The police concluded that Dupree was probably killed in his own apartment during a power struggle between him and one of his lieutenants who wanted to take over the partnership with MacDaniels.  However, the latest word on the street was that MacDaniels was now backing out of any re-associations with street corner dealers.  To make matters even more strange, most street dealers thought that  MacDaniels' alliance with Dupree seemed unusual to begin with.  That alliance only seemed to favor Dupree, more than it did MacDaniels.  MacDaniels had already washed his drug money clean the past five years by investing in two 24 hour laundromats, three car washers and three disposable cellular phone companies.  He also had invested some of his money from those businesses on Wall Street and was doing well.  His getting back into street corner drug business seemed like a step back for someone who had worked to be in his position.

By the time we ended the 4 way conversation, Coxsackie was now just 45 minutes away.  My bad dreams the night before, this new information on the relationship between Dupree and MacDaniels and the specter of this band of rogue cops and DeLorenzo bad cops.  All of these elements and variables mixed together.  Although I didn't know what Chris and I were driving into, I definitely knew that whatever we found would probably mean the beginning of the end of these rogue police officers.  And I was right.

When I arrived at Coxsackie, I tried to meet up with the police chief, Roy O'Callaghan.  The Coxsackie police department had a total of 23 police officers who worked around the clock to watch over a town population of roughly 7,000 plus residents.  Crime had not been an issue in the town, however, the chief admitted to there being a spike of drug use in the town.  He had not been able to pinpoint the spike, but he did note that town rumor was that it came from the owners of the Kingston Gardens.  Two of them retired police officers.

"I did use some favors and presented it to a friend who used to work in NYPD to have IAB look into it, but it looks like it went nowhere.  I don't think they ever found anything.  All I do know is that there are a lot of former and current cops who use the Gardens pretty exclusively throughout the year.  We've never had an issue there, because they stay within themselves and bring good money into the town."

Chris made better progress when he went over to Kingston Gardens.  He found the owners, Kevin Dobson and Tony Russo, both former New York City police officers.  Russo was a second cousin to DeLorenzo.  Both men happily spoke about their resort and offered Chris a membership, after he enamored them with his story about being a former Boston police officer, who now sold insurance after being injured on the job.  Chris continued his chameleon act when he continued about his Irish relatives who were police officers and who were always looking for places to vacation and save money.

After about an hour he was drinking a beer and smoking a cigar with them at their bar in the resort.  The men declined any need for his company's property insurance, but guaranteed that if he wanted to get a membership there away from his wife and kids, they could get some prostitutes on premises for the weekend, as well as any party favors, (the code word for illegal drugs) that he needed.

"We have tricks here to get guys past the Dole test in case they slip up while they're up here.  We know a couple guys down at Health Services who can give us a heads up on the list.  You can bang in sick for a week to clean yourself out and then take the test.  Believe you me, I was on the job and saw that Dole test coming up.  After 16 years, enough was enough and I vested out before they Doled me out.  We didn't know anyone back then with Health Services, but now we do.  And the police here will never, ever bother you when you join the resort.  The chief of police and his officers are as backward as the town of Mayberry and Deputy Barney Fife."

By 3:30 Chris and I were done and headed back down into the city, but the news out of the city wasn't good.  Darren was being harassed again by the police in the area, in particular members of DeLorenzo's Anti-Crime team.  He got pulled over for allegedly failing to signal when he drove back downtown on the lower west side.  They had been watching him talk to guys known for dealing drugs on the street, but who weren't carrying and Darren wasn't buying.  He was taken in and warned by Anti-Crime Sgt. Brennan for walking into known areas of drug dealings, carrying a loaded weapon.  Darren only responded,
"Okay, so that means that I don't walk anywhere?"

When we arrived at the precinct, Aliyah and Darren were just about to walk out.  Sgt. Brennan, came out and saw me, "Well look at who it is, the wannabe detective, who's nothing but the fearless leader of the rat pack."

"Yeah, yeah Brennan.  Maybe you should try being a cop one day, instead of being a criminal masquerading as one."

I wanted to say more, but when I turned I saw my cousin Alex Valentine, the Chief of Detectives, coming out of a side room.  Alex and I were about the same height, but he was 14 years older and a very distinguished looking Italian American man in his mid forties.  He had just been in a conference with Lt. Simmons.  Alex grabbed me by the arm and simply said, "Gio, let's talk outside."  Lt. Simmons also stepped in between and ordered Sgt. Brennan to go back upstairs to Anti-Crime.

"Hi Alex.  Nice to see you here.  Did we do anything wrong here?"

"Nope, not yet.  But let's talk about it, away from here."

The minute he said that, I started getting that tension in my neck and shoulders again.  It always came to me when I was a kid growing up, and when I was overseas in war.  It saved my bacon more times than I could remember.  So I always trusted it.

As soon as we got to the door, there was a group of three Hispanic males across the street.  As soon as we exited, one of them walked away and two of them walked into a dark BMW parked ahead.  I gave Darren and Alex the heads up eye contact that we were clearly being followed.  We told Aliyah to pretend like she forgot something and to walk back into the precinct with Darren since the Spanish men seemed only to be really eyeballing me.

My car was parked at the corner, behind Darren's.  Alex, Chris and I slowed down our walk as we could see the car trailing us.  It was too late to turn backwards and not necessary to go forward and involve a couple of news reporters camped out across the street still covering the "Cop Killer" story.  It was a moment in time that I had seen in combat overseas.  Time seemed slow, but things were actually moving very fast.  We stopped as the car sped up and they fired shots at us, but we ducked and returned fire immediately.  All three of us returned fire into the car at the two shooters in the back.

In that same moment, once Darren and Aliyah alerted the desk officer of what was about to happen, two sector cars came speeding down the wrong way of the street to cut the assailants car off.  Another car came from behind as additional police officers came out with guns drawn and opened fire on the vehicle.  With my name already reduced to mud at the precinct, I felt that all of this heroic police action was really to safeguard my cousin, Alex.  I could have been wrong.

Either way, in 43 seconds, it was all over.  Two suspects dead, one critically wounded and not likely to survive his wounds.  They would later be identified as Dominican hit-men hired by an unknown source, but thought to be hired by a member of the west side drug ring who didn't want me or my agency interfering with their power struggle.

So there I was, at the 14th precinct another 2 hours being interviewed by detectives.  What started out as a nice day, had quickly turned into a nightmare.  Linda had been calling me all day and now several more times as she saw the news report.  The reporters down the street captured everything.  Alex was adamant that after Chris and I were done being interviewed and our guns taken into evidence, he wanted time to speak to me outside of the precinct.  He was required to visit department psychiatrists since he was involved in the shooting.  However, he took us outside and spoke to us in an empty detectives car.

"Gio, this shooting thing is off the charts.  In all my years, I've drawn my gun a few times, but only had to pull the trigger twice.  I hang out with you just for five minutes and I'm in the middle of the L.A. shootout.  Listen, I know, you're good at what you do.  I know you sometimes can get sensitive information that other people may not be able to get access too.  But, you have to lay off the guys in this precinct.  What's about to go down here may be worse than what happened on the street here a couple hours ago."

"Alex, what are you saying.  They've got a kid in jail here who's probably innocent, and this precinct is filled with cops on the take, selling drugs and IAB isn't doing a damn thing - "

"Listen, the department is about to get a big black eye here soon.  Capt. Dunlap had me reach out to Lt. Simmons, he's clean, but he's done.  The Feds are involved and have been involved for months, before this DeLorenzo thing happened.  Heads are gonna roll, but they keep hearing your name come up on tapes.  The Feds want you to step away.  They were going to wait another week, but with DeLorenzo getting whacked, and now all of they hear is conversations about retaliation against you.  It's slowing down their normal operations and not revealing all the people involved."

"So did they whack DeLorenzo?"

"No."

"Do the Feds know who did?"

"No, not yet, but they have a pretty good idea.  So do we.  We just haven't made a move yet."

"Are you going to tell me who their lead is?"

"No.  Because you'll probably figure it all out before you go to bed tonight.  You always do."

I looked over at Chris, who remained silent throughout, "You believe this Chris?  See how family treats you?"

Alex shook his head, "Come on Gio, just step aside and let the Feds and police Chiefs here get their hands covered in this mess.  You don't want to be anywhere near this toilet bowl when it flushes."


It was already a little after 9 pm by the time, Darren, Chris and I got back into the office.  There was two patrol cars from my local precinct parked across the street.  Nicole and Marti stuck around, as they were very concerned for our well being.  We needed to meet together before our office wrap up in addition to them wanting to show me something that had been discovered by Noelle earlier in the day.

She handed me a year book from Francis Louis High School.  She got it from the school when she was looking into MacDaniels' background.  His sophomore year, was his last year at the high school.  He was on the varsity boys basketball team and was apparently very good.  There was a photo of him taking a foul shoot in a game...with his left hand.  There was also another photo of him being kissed by his girlfriend after the team won a game that went to double overtime.  The girl kissing him had a familiar face.  It was a young, Christina DeLorenzo, who maiden name back then was Canterino.

"Gio, I followed this up by locating a couple of former teammates and they confirmed that DaShawn 'Money' MacDaniel and Christina Canterino were an item during their freshman and sophomore years together at Francis Louis.  Some of his ex-teammates said that she had a fallout with her family after she continued to see him the following year when he moved to LeFrak.  She actually moved in with her aunt and uncle for a year before she finally broke off the relationship with him.  She went to Queens College for two years, before she took the police test and she was on the job by the time she was 22.  She met Anthony DeLorenzo on the job and was married a couple years later.  The rest is history."

"Yeah.  I would say so.  Especially when the police surveillance video showed DeLorenzo's hooded shooter coming out and holding the gun with his left hand."

"MacDaniels was clearly a lefty in high school."

"My God," Marti added in, "Gio, she's gotta be involved somehow?  Why else would Christina's former boyfriend end up partnering with a drug dealer that her husband wass stealing from?  MacDaniels wouldn't risk all of his success the past few years out of jealousy from an ex-girlfriend in high school?"

"Yeah, I know.  But why?  Was it money?  A divorce?  A bad marriage?"

None of us knew the answer at that moment.  But what I did know was that it was late for all of us.  It had been a very long day and would be a longer night for me, wondering if my home address had also been known to whoever hired the hit-men to kill me.  I told everyone to go home and that we would tackle everything first thing in the morning.

By the time I got home, Linda was finally able to reach me.  I had been pushing her calls, as well as calls from my father and uncle X.  All of their messages were very emotional and concerned about my safety.  I called them back starting with my father and uncle and kept it brief.  But, when I called Linda, she demanded that I do one of two things.  Either I got in a car she would have waiting at my door in ten minutes and come to her place to sleep, or she would be at my door in forty five minutes.

I didn't want anything to happen to her...or me for that matter.  A little less than an hour later, I was boarding the elevator to her apartment.  She was dressed in a robe, makeup slightly smeared from crying all evening worrying about me.  I tried to change the topic as I had noticed that she had a new picture hanging on her wall by the artist Antonella Mason, the same artist from the E Speakeasy restaurant and lounge.

**

"That's a beautiful picture, Linda.  I can tell that that is a town somewhere in Italy."

"Yes it is.  Thank you.  It's made by the same artist - "

"Yes, I can see that.  You know if this whole case is over by Monday, maybe we can go to Milan early next week?"

"No.  The exhibit opens this weekend and I promised a lot of people that I would be there for it's opening."  She paused for a minute.  "Gio, I have to go into the shower.  As you can see I'm a total wreck worrying about you."

She then walked further into the spacious apartment and into her bathroom.

"Gio, I have three bedrooms.  You can either sleep in one of the rooms that my niece and nephews use, or you can sleep on a king size bed with me?  But, if you choose to sleep with me in my bed, I can't say I will be able to control myself from groping you throughout the night."

"Ha, ha...okay.  Let's just say that I'm very interested in sleeping in your bed tonight."

She dropped her robe and entered her walk-in shower.

"Gio, well since you're going to sleep with me, would you mind jumping in this shower with me and helping me wash my hair?"

After seeing her undressed, it only took seconds for me to undress as well.  When I entered the shower, her back was to me.

"Here's your shampoo."

"Um...Gio, is that a shampoo bottle in your hand...or are you just happy to see me?"




**The photo of the painting by the artist Antonella Mason was printed with exclusive permission from the artist herself for this blog.

The Private iTeam "Cop Killer" part 3

"Cop Killer" Part 3 by John S LES

The next morning, after my morning martial arts workout.  I turned on the TV news, to play while I worked out.  The NYPD had already began distributing to the news media of the building surveillance video of DeLorenzo walking in the street and following Santiago into the corner apartment building.  Santiago is wearing his puffy, maroon jacket with the clear wording of the Washington Redskins on the back and Native American symbol on the front by the heart.  As DeLorenzo goes in behind him putting over a radio call, you suddenly see him backing out and taking shots to his chest.  Then you see Santiago now wearing his hood over his head, his back to the camera, and with the gun in his left hand...pointed over the head of the fallen DeLorenzo whose body is supine and clutching his chest.  The video then stops.

I headed down Bell boulevard and into my office as normal.  I knew that with this news video out and the $50,000 reward being posted, it was going to be a heck of an uphill battle to get to Santiago before the police did.  It was 8:30 and Marti had already opened up The Private iTeam office.  She  also watched the downloaded video of  two white males who laid the dead rat by my doorstep.  She also downloaded the video that the police released of the DeLorenzo shooting.

Fortunately for me, I have long range, high optic cameras facing either corner of my block from on top of my roof.  My street had stop signs and traffic lights at both ends.  The male white on the passenger side exited the blue Lexus, dropped the rat on my stoop out of a bag he was holding.  The driver, another male white, then drove the car off upon the first male's return.  To keep from standing out, the driver obeyed the stop signs and traffic light coming towards and leaving my house.  The camera was able to catch partial digits of the car's license plate coming and going.  Just enough to put together the whole plate.


Once I was in my office, I began listening to my work and cell phone voice messages.  I had five messages from my father and two from Captain Dunlap.  Dunlap was my father's lieutenant during part of his career as a detective.  Both were referring to my behavior and conversation with Lt. Simmons.  They both berated me for being disrespectful to the Lt at his precinct.  I returned both their calls and explained my position at that moment - of my rights being disrespected regardless of any police investigation for a cop killer.

"People in this city have rights.  Those rights don't have to be trampled over in order to find this cop killer.  If the precinct police could reach out and repair some of the damaged community relationships first, they wouldn't have to approach people with storm trooper boots.  Everyone know that they police need to find Santiago.  My only problems right now, is figuring out how these allegations of corrupt cops in the 14th precint might weigh into DeLorenzo's death.  And now I want to identify the two dirtbags who laid a dead rat on my doorstep.  I have their faces and car license plate on video."

Captain Dunlap was as unhappy with my corruption allegations as he was with the dead rat retaliation.  The conversation with Lt. Simmons, and it's aftermath should not have gotten out so fast that it finished with a retaliatory act that night.  In addition, he told me that IAB did conduct an investigation of allegations of dirty cops at the 14th, however they came up with nothing.

The Capt continued, "But this rat thing at your doorstep is disturbing.  It just happened too fast for it to be word of mouth.  Gio, give me two days before you go report this to anyone in the department.  And just speak to your father first.  I will get back to you guys on this.  But for now, do us all a favor and go back and make things right with Lt. Simmons.  We need to squash that immediately.  Then do what you gotta do.  Simmons is a good man.  He and so is his CO, Captain Hennessy.  These are good people.  A lot of them could take a big hit - if this falls the wrong way."

When I hung up the phone although my ego didn't agree with my father and Capt. Dunlap, the logical side of my mind did.  Whatever next steps I was going to make, I couldn't have everyone in the New York City police department forming a dislike of my agency.  If we uncovered any type of corruption, which led to DeLorenzo's death, we were going to need to present it in such a manner, that members of the department would be more compelled to clean house, rather than focus their anger at my agency.  I agreed to apologize and had Marti put a call in to Simmons for my apologies and, that I would meet him in person to say it to his face if he had a minute.


The rest of my team walked in well before 9am.  Darren, Noelle, Chris and of course Marti.  Everyone came in focused.  I debriefed them on everything that happened with Darren and I in Manhattan.  Then I added the incident with the rat being laid at my door. We knew that from here on we were going to have to bring our "A" game to look into any possible police corruption at the 14th precinct and how this might have led to DeLorenzo's death.

"Look we're not taking on the entire New York Cityp Police Department, so let's get that straight.  What we need to do is find out if' there is some corruption within that precinct, and if that corruption led to DeLorenzo getting killed and Santiago getting framed.  Our first priority is to see if we can find this kid, Santiago.  We need to get a straight story from him of whatever happened that night.  Maybe then we can get a handle on the rest of this debacle."

From then on we all went into our conference room and I activated our SMART Board.  I used it to lay out our basic mode of direction.  We needed whatever public information we could find through the Internet.  We needed people interviews as well. Lastly, we would also need information that both Grace and Marti couldn't dig up, or get without raising red flags.  That's where Edgerfeld or "Edge" would come in.  Getting someone's motor vehicle information via the DMV was already turned into a series of hoops and authorizations   Getting information on a car that possibly belonged to a New York City police officer would definitely send off flags and consequently alert the police department.  Only Edge knew how to get around those databases without setting off alerts.

First, we drew up  what we already knew.  DeLorenzo responded without a partner or backup to follow a low level street dealer.  Why?

Noelle responded to my question first, "Perhaps he had such a grudge against the guy, he simply wanted to take him down that night?"

I handed out the copies of the CCRB reports that Marti had been able to get copies of on DeLorenzo, "Yeah, but just from some of these initial CCRB reports, it looks like how I had guessed, DeLorenzo was a bit of a lone ranger type.  He seemed like the type who took a lot of chances."

Chris, "Okay then, so who are the people who might want him killed?  Let's just do what we always do.  Let's start out with a clean slate, make a list and start from that."

I went on the SMART Board and began the drawing.  DeLorenzo was at the top.  His wife at the left side.  His partners on the other side.  Drug dealers below.

"Lady and gents, either one of these branches, or all three of these branches wanted DeLorenzo out of the picture.  We must assume the negative - that all three branches are possible suspects.  There could even be a fourth branch we don't know about it.  All that we do know is that everything from the radio call, to that grainy NYPD surveillance video camera - points to Santiago."  I pulled up the news video and we all watched it again.  After watching it a second time, there was just something about it that bothered me.  I couldn't put my finger on it, even though it seemed very convincing.

Folks, Chris and I will look for Santiago over in Jamaica.  Darren you can use your street contacts in Harlem and the west side to see what they will tell you about dirty cops.  Just be careful not to put yourself between the drug dealers and the cops if there is a war going on.  Noelle, I need you to track down DeLorenzo's wife, talk to their neighbors.  We have to find out how and where they spent their money.  If he was a dirty cop, then the extra money is going to come up somewhere.  Grace and Marti can continue to follow up any leads on public information online."

"Gio," Chris stopped me before we left the conference room, "We're definitely going to need Edge's help. I mean to try to get information on these cops is going to send up so many red flags.  Even if we tried to hack their systems, we would be up against some real jail time if we show them."

"I know, Chris, I know."

On our way out of the conference room, Marti gave me the list of calls that came in for me.
"Gio, Lt. Simmons.  He said you could have five minutes of his time if you were anywhere near the city later this afternoon. You also got a call from Linda Walters.  I forgot to tell you that she called yesterday and asked about the name of your tailor, which I told her - "

"You did what?"

"Well, Gio, she was very nice on phone and really very polite.  She just asked me where you bought your suits from and I told her."

I didn't know what Linda was up to at that moment, but I could only imagine.  "Alright.  Any word from Edge yet?"

"No.  Not a single call back."



Chris and I were the last to leave the office as we hopped into my Corvette.  As soon as I got into my car, my cell phone rang.  It was Edge.

"Gio.  Don't go anywhere.  Keep the car in park.  The police put a tracking device on your car and Darren's car.  Don't worry.  I already sent him a message.  He told me that he was going into Harlem and that it wouldn't matter.  Even if they follow him there, they aren't going to find anything."

"Yeah, he's right."

"Good.  They put it on your cars while you were parked by the precinct yesterday.  So whether or not you plan to apologize to Lt. Simmons, understand that he was still under orders to screw you.  Now let's get off these cell phones and meet me by the pier.  Take Chris' car.  Don't worry, it's clean."

It took us all of five minutes to switch into Chris' car, a black Nissan Altima and drove over to the pier at the Bayside Marina.  Neither of us could figure out where Edge was parked, or which car he was in on Bell Blvd, watching us when we had left the office.  Either way, we were now going to wait at least a couple more minutes for him to show up at the parking lot of the Bayside Marina pier.  The pier was closed and less than a handful of cars were even parked over there.

Chris and I waited a couple of minutes, but there was no signs of him.  Sometimes Edge liked the cloak and dagger routine just too much.  A couple minutes more went by before a flower delivery van pulled up next to us.  It was Edge.

"Come on, you guys, hop in."
"A flower delivery truck?  At the pier?  Edge, you gotta be kidding me?"

Once we were inside, he laid out all that he had learned.  After Darren and I had left the 14th precinct, there was only cell phone activities with Lt. Simmons to anyone in his command.  However, there was significant activity among members of DeLorenzo's Anti-Crime unit.  It's a twelve man unit.  About eight of them had high cellular activity.  I mean, not just with the ones who were working with them and in the same proximity, using the same cell towers.  I mean, they had high activity with two other members who also live in Bellrose, on the Long Island side."

Chris put the two bits of information together, "Bellrose is only 10 to 15 minutes from here, tops.  Do you have their names?"

"Yes I do.  Both names came back to the driver and passenger of the car that dropped the rat at your doorstep last night.  Police officer, Kevin Sanders was the driver and Steve Baczkowski, was the ratter.  I already downloaded an encrypted file with Marti.  She can distribute the rest to you guys.  For now, just leave the Corvette here and take care of whatever you gotta do.  Remember, you cannot use this information in court.  Just use it as guide to - "

"Steer ourselves in the right direction."  I could never tell why Edge insisted upon repeating that line to me when he gave us hacked information.  It was more like for his own self entertainment.

"Fine, Gio.  Very funny.  Anyway, you guys have to leave my van now before some cop pulls up and stops us for possible drug sales or a trying to commit a sexual act in a car?"

Chris and I stepped out and in a flash - he was gone.  But he had left us a ton of good information that it would have taken us days if not weeks to get and a lot of IOU's.  We had the list of the names from DeLorenzo's 12 man Anti Crime team.  As Chris and I proceeded to St. Joseph's to try to make contact with Santiago, we all knew now for sure, that at least eight members of that Anti Crime team were probably dirty cops.  All we had to do was find out what they stole and where the money went to after they stole.  More than likely, it would be drugs.  But where was the money?

When we arrived at St. Joseph's church, it was as if we were expected.  We were hustled into a back room of the church and down a flight of stairs where Santiago was staying, with only a cot and candle.  Chris and I spoke to him as friends of father Manuel.  Santiago was well aware that his time might be running out and that sooner or later the police might find him if he ventured to leave his hiding spot in this part of the church.

"Yo man, I never killed DeLorenzo.  I hated his guts and wanted to see him dead, but I never killed him!"

"They have you on video, Santiago.  How do you explain a police video camera of you holding a gun over his head after he chases you into a building and then you shoot him as he backs out?"

"Bro, Gio man, I went into that building because I was told to by my boss, Mike Dupree, to go into that building if I had a problem with DeLorenzo that night.  My boss said he would have some cameras inside to catch DeLorenzo shaking me down for my stash and then we could blackmail him.  So when DeLorenzo saw me, I called my boss and led DeLorenzo to the damn building, yo.  'Cept when I went in there, there weren't any cameras.  I got jumped, and hit over the head from behind, by I don't know who.  By the time I woke up, I was in a west side dumpster on 137 street.  My phone was ringing, with everyone telling me that the cops was after me for killing DeLorenzo downtown."

"What did you do to make DeLorenzo go after you like that?"

"DeLorenzo was heated over my last complaint that I gave the CCRB about him and his Anti-Crime team, the midnight and evening shift dudes.  They all criminals themselves, man, worse than me."

"What complaint was that?"

"Well, they used to round us up, even give us a beat down and take our drugs.  I never officially mentioned the drug part in my first four complaints.  I mean our boss said it was the cost of doing business.  Then one day I just got tired of the beat down.  Losing those drugs is like losing money out of my own pockets. We took the loss, and still had to pay our boss to get fresh stash.  He said we needed to run faster.  So I started beefing to the CCRB on DeLorenzo and he went nuts on me every time he saw me in the street.  Told me to get off his streets.  I couldn't work for about a month because of him."

Then Chris inquired, "Why didn't CCRB just take your complaints to IAB?

"Say what?  Man, DeLorenzo and his crew got IAB in their back pockets.  DeLorenzo's uncle is a chief downtown and his father's brother-in-law runs IAB.  DeLorenzo and his crew knew their way around all of the laws."

Then I pressed him, "Where did they sell their drugs?  What did they do with their cash?"

"I don't know, yo.  You should ask them?  But I bet they don't have any bills or debt?  Them dirty pigs spent a lot of their time upstate.  Maybe they spent it up there?  Used to laugh in our faces about stealing our drugs on their stop and frisks and nobody gave a damn.  They even stole when they did door kick downs too."

"And you only reported one time to the CCRB that these guys were taking your drugs?"

"Yo, Gio man...I'm a corner drug dealer.  Who do you think the judge and jury is going to believe?  Me or the nephew of a commissioner?"


Thankfully Santiago allowed us to record the conversation.  As Chris and I slipped out of that church, we weren't sure if we had just recorded the last words of a dead man, or if we had just spoken to a ghost.  It was a little past noon and my phone was filled with messages from Marti, Noelle and Linda Walters.  There was still no word back from Darren as we headed back to the office.

30 minutes later, as soon as I walked into the office, I could see that there was a clothing delivery.  Marti explained that it was two Armani suits, one a tuxedo and the other a black suit.

"Gio, she sent the suits with an invitation to an art exhibit in Milan this weekend.  She wanted you to go with her as her personal bodyguard.  She also asked if you were available for dinner tonight at ESpeakeasy in Manhattan.  They have some of the exhibits there as well."

Chris immediately started breaking my chops about suits.  "Gio, you have to go?  She sent you two new suits from your tailor?  You gotta go.  When you get back you can tell us what it's like to be a Boy Toy for a wealthy babe."

"I can't go to Milan?  We gotta break this case.  We just scratched the surface of this thing."  No sooner than I said that, Linda called and I took her call.

"Listen, Gio, I know you think I'm coming at you really fast.  My life is changing.  I've tried calling you today and yesterday, and I know you're busy.  I heard about yesterday.  I'm sorry about that.  But before you make any decision on Milan, will you at least join me for an early dinner at ESpeakeasy and we can at least discuss some business?"

"Listen Linda, we really don't need to discuss this.  I can't go to - "

"Gio, tell me, for tonight for our dinner, should I go dressed in black or white?"

"Well, you had black on the other day.  You looked good in black."

"Good choice!  That's exactly the color I chose to wear this morning.  I'll send you a picture to your phone so that you can see me when you walk in the door.  Sent."

I looked down at her message and opened it up.

"Did you get my picture, Gio?"

"Yes, I did.  Linda - "

"I'll see you at 5:30 tonight then?"

"That's right during rush hour, it's going to be hell to get in town before that time."

"Then come earlier.  Stay at my apartment and my driver can take us both there?"

"I'll see you at 5:30."



I knew I would have to leave no later than 3:30 before the traffic flow on the bridges and tunnel would change, but I had to wait for Darren and Noelle to get back.  It was now 1pm.  They walked in right on the dot and we all went back into our conference room to put what we had all together.

Darren was able to confirm that there was street talk about Anti-Crime cops stealing money from dealers on the west side.  Darren had a couple conversations with cops he knew working Vice, that all investigations into dirty cops on the lower westside all lead to dead ends.  Mike Dupree worked for a couple of other drug dealers, but recently those guys had joined up with a guy from Queens who hit the big time.  DaShawn "Money" MacDaniel.

Money MacDaniel, grew up in in Fresh Meadows, Queens and attended Francis Lewis high school, before his mother and father broke up and he moved with his mother to LeFrak City.  There Money started working for the LeFrak City drug dealer Domino Jones.  Money moved up the Domino Jones chain of command due to his penchant for sudden violence and his uncanny ability to handle money.  With only two years of high school education at Frances Lewis, his teachers said that he had already aced the New York state math proficiency test as a sophomore.

Noelle did manage to drive out to Massapequa, Long Island, where DeLorenzo and his wife lived and posed as a reporter for the New Yorker looking to do a biography on Anthony DeLorenzo.  The neighbors told her of how the DeLorenzo's once were seen in his and hers Corvettes, but apparently sold those cars in place of having his and hers Lexus'.  They also had an outdoor swimming pool, a 750,000 dollar house by the water and the neighbors said that they spent a lot of their vacation time going upstate to a resort.

Grace and Marti also crossed checked this information, with the names of other members of DeLorenzo's Anti-Crime unit.  Posed as telemarketers who were cold calling, they found out that most of the eight names on the list also had credit card bills from most of the same mini malls and gas stations that were upstate going towards Coxsackie, NY.  We placed the purchases on the SMART Board and used mapping software.  All of their credit card purchases centered around a five year old family resort called Kingston Gardens.

Before I headed into Manhattan to speak with Lt. Simmons, return his tracking device and have dinner with Linda, I told everyone that we needed to now concentrate on two things.  First, we needed to know and understand how and or why Mike Dupree had partnered with Money MacDaniel.  We also needed to find out how Kingston Gardens resort had been funded in it's build up.

"We have to follow the money folks.  Because that is what's behind all of this."


My drive into the NYC was pretty quick.  It's always better if you get in before 3pm.  Simmons did meet with me in coffee room in the precinct on the first floor.  He gave a general apology for Darren and I getting roughed up exiting St Emerics yesterday.  I then apologized for saying things that showed disrespect of him and of officers in his precinct.  I then handed over both tracking devices that he seemed to be expecting anyway.

"Sorry about that too Gio, but it was worth a shot for us.  You two guys may have lead us to dead ends, but we traced Santiago up at a church out in Jamaica, Queens.  He used a phone at the Rectory to call his mother not knowing that we already had all phones to his family members - cell and home - being traced.  Once he get's brought into Manhattan tonight, they'll have it on the 11pm news."

"Oh, so you have him in custody?"

"Yes."

"Did he mention anything about a Mike Dupree?"

"Yes, he did.  But Mike Dupree was found dead in his apartment about an hour ago.  What do you know about Dupree and Santiago?"

"Nothing, Lt."


An hour later I was back at Linda's apartment, waiting to be driven down to E Speakeasy restaurant and lounge.  E Speakeasy use to be the home of one of the hottest and hippest clubs in all of New York City.  It still has it's reputation for being a nice quiet spot for people of different social status to stop in and have a great meal.  More meals and socializing than drinking and dancing.  Pool tables and lounge chairs and wifi replaced the large dance area that E Speakeasy used to be known for after hours.

Linda and I received first class treatment all the way into the restaurant.  She frequented the place and help support artists who works adorned the walls.  One of her favorite artists on display there was Antonella Mason.

"Gio, I just love Antonella's expressionism and symbolism   She's not afraid to reveal the essence of things in so many layers.  There's a museum in Milan that's going to exhibit some of her work this weekend along with some other artists.  I love showing support and turning up in places where people will least expect me to appear.  I know you have a big case on your hands, but can you take the weekend off and come with me?  I promise, promise, promise to fly us back here in the States by Monday.  I just want to support Antonella.  She does such beautiful visceral work."

"Linda, I can't leave my team here and go flying off to Italy.  Plus, you're still married!  How would that look?"

"Gio, my philanderous husband and his conniving attorney looked at all the evidence you obtained, and the fact that I have $100 million more reasons to keep paying more lawyers to bleed him out of his own money in court over the next 10 years - they jointly decided to move him out instantly.  He took a deal so he could keep his money, save face in the media and move onto his other flings. By October, New York will be a no contest state anyway.  He's happy and I'm happy.  We have no kids because I'm barren.  I might still consider adopting instead of baby sitting my niece and nephew on the weekends in the Hamptons."

"Okay Linda.  If I get this case resolved by Friday, which probably won't happen - then I'll go with you...as your bodyguard.  Separate rooms."

"Fine, Gio.  Keep playing me.  I've been hitting on you since I hired you.  What the hell does it take to get your attention?  Older men want me to wear on their arm.  Younger men only want me for my money.  But you, you only would want me because you feel I am someone of value to the world and to you.  But you won't even give me a chance.  You keep rejecting my advances."

"Linda, if our positions were different and I came onto you like you have been to me, especially these past two days - first words out of your mouth to me would be that your affections couldn't be bought.  And that lingerie picture via text message, might have gotten me a sexual harassment charge - "

"Huh!  In another life!  I'd pay a million just to see you wearing nothing but your birthday suit."

"Here you go, ignoring what I'm saying to you."

"Gio, you're right.  But, don't chastise me for now going to extreme measures to get your attention.  If me flashing my money bothers you, we can walk back to my place or take a bus.  I don't care, Gio.  I just want to be with you.  But only if you want to be around me."

"Well, I'm here aren't I?  Let's just take it easy.  I'm not going anywhere."

"Great!  Now tell me if I can help you with your case?"

"You can't help me with this case."

"Why not?  Does it involve money?"

"Yes it does.  Drug dealer money."

"Oh that's easy.  Everyone who's big in drug trafficking always wants to wash their dirty money clean.  You can only put so much of it under your mattress  It's a cash only business.  There's still a centuries old high demand for it and the perfect place to launder your money is with a bank or a startup business or both.  Banks use the money to cover their losses and startup businesses use the money to grow from dirt to a castle."

I looked her straight into her eyes.

"Well I'll be damned."

Private iTeam Tidbit # 1: Giovanni M J Ferrari

Giovanni Michelangelo Jamaal Ferrari, graduated the New York City Police Department Academy shortly before the 9/11 attack of the World Trader Center.  From there he went on and enlisted in the US Special Forces and became a highly respected US Army Ranger.  He would see combat two years later during Operation Enduring Freedom as well as several other deadly combat missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

His family had both military and police backgrounds to begin with.  But he is not his only family member to have a background in both.  Who are the others?  That remains to be revealed.

The US Rangers are some of the most well conditioned, versatile and physically toughest trained soldiers in the world.  They are trained to "travel further, faster and fight harder" than any other soldier.  They have skills to adapt and address conditions from land, air and sea.

Here is a promo video to the US Army Rangers.  It will give you a better idea of how he evolved from his civilian life, to law enforcement, then onto military and then back to civilian life in the private sector.

The 75th Ranger Regiment recruitment video.

Combat stress did weigh on him and forced him out.  Some of his experiences overseas do come back to haunt him here at home, in ways that he could never have imagined.  However, his inner battle to regain balance in his civilian life - and channeling his skills from his brief career in the New York City Police Department as well as his extensive career in Special Forces into the private investigative agency does help him.  Challenging himself to exceed his father's career successes, and avoid the life pitfalls of his older brother, Nick Jr. keeps him motivated to take the agency to another level.  Even still, the characters he meets in his private investigative world does have it's moments.

Giovanni also has a Facebook page.  Feel free to friend!

The Private iTeam "Cop Killer" part 2

"Cop Killer - part 2" by John S LES

My drive into the city was pretty smooth.  The doorman at 15 Central Park West was already alerted that I was arriving and walked me in past security.  He knew my name and saw when I drove by the building in my electric blue, Corvette convertible before I parked it in a nearby garage.   Of course he couldn't wait until I walked back up to the building to ask me why a guy with a last name like Ferrari was driving a Corvette.  I told him quite simply,

"Hey bro, I don't have a place to park a Ferrari where I live at in Queens.  I'm only another worker bee in this lifestyles of the rich and famous building.  Hopefully while I'm here, you'll be the first and only person from around here to ask me that question today."

I had read a little bit about the building's construction and design ahead of time, but to see it close up was immensely different.  The lobby was huge and spacious.  It was even better in person than it was on paper or in photographs.  The average cost of the apartments in the building was $17 million, and this building looked every bit of that kind of clientele.

By the time I made it to Mrs. Walter's apartment, I was getting a little numb at being in awe of this building.  Her apartment had over 2700 square feet inside and was on a high floor.  The rooms overlooked the park.  It was absolutely spectacular.  Even though she was on the older side of her mid 30's, she too was absolutely gorgeous.  Clearly from the close fitting, contour accenting black designer suit she was wearing, she definitely kept up some kind of exhaustive workout routine.  Her green eyes and short, dark hair highlighted her naturally attractive looks.

She was gracious and immediately complemented me on my suit.  "You look terrific in Armani, but don't be afraid to try a Hugo Boss."
"Ahh it's the Italian side of me.  But, I normally don't dress this way, Mrs. Walters - "
"Please call me, Linda."
"Yeah, well, Linda I normally don't dress this way.  In fact, if I don't have this suit back at the morgue by midnight, it might turn back into a teapot or something."

My comments got a good, room relaxing laughs as we got into our business discussion.

Initially Mrs. Walters seemed eager to hear what I had brought for her and her attorney, who was present in the apartment along with her personal assistant.  But, the novelty of how me and my team obtained that information, as well as the number of women, including his main squeeze, Sherman, started to wear on her.  She became a little more melancholy realizing that her 15 year marriage was over and that now she would be headed for a bumpy battle in divorce court.  The information I had given her only gave her a slight advantage.  I handed her the  envelope containing a flash drive copy of the accompanying photos, CD recording and audio recordings of her husband's infidelities.

"May I call you, Gio?"  I nodded yes. "Good.  Gio, I hired three other private investigators who took months and had less than half of what you brought here to me today.  They did that because they know that I have money.  You did all of this within ten days.  You came highly recommended from a friend and I can see why.  You're tall, gorgeous and honest.  Nothing sexier for a soon to be single woman with money than a hot looking man, who's an honest entrepreneur."

"Linda, I try to make it my policy to not date my clients.  It wouldn't bode well for my business."

"It wouldn't bode well for you to flat out reject a wealthy and influential woman, who hasn't been with a man in nearly a year and is singling you out to break her ice."

I immediately stood up.  "It's time for me to go, Linda.  I'll take my check?"

She walked over to her kitchen table and removed a certified check from her purse and handed it to me.  "Here's your check.  I hope that one day you will forgive me for my bad behavior and rude comment due to a broken heart and a lonely, rich life."

I looked at the check.  We had agreed for two weeks at $20,000.  She handed me a $75,000 check.
"Gio, don't be upset with me for overpaying you from our agreement too.  That is as much as the other three bozo investigators combined cost me.  You did 4 times the work that they did in less than a quarter of the time.  I'm compensating you for your honesty and efficiency."

When I made a sarcastic face, she quipped back, "Dammit, Gio.  There's no need to make an embarrassing moment for me more difficult.  You're an ambitious man. Can't you just figure out a way to do something positive with the extra compensation?  You've saved me millions in a divorce settlement and I'm thanking you.  No strings attached."


By the time I got downstairs, Darren had tried to reach me while in the elevator.  Normally we would have had a good connection, but he was trying to reach me via phone to phone, Skype.  When I walked outside the building our signal strength improved and I could see and hear what he was trying to tell me.

"Gio, take a look at what's going on down here, man!  The police have stepped up their stop and frisk trying to look for this cop killer.  They are tossing everyone!  There's a neighborhood guy down here on 14th Street that everyone calls 'Loco'.  The cops upset him so bad that he just came back at them with a knife in the streets.  The tension down here is crazy and the cops are making it worse!  Now they are chasing him down.  "I'm going to follow this on my phone so that you can see."  Loco did refuse to put the knife down, and continued to run from the police as he menaced them and pedestrians on the street.  It was all over in 9 gunshots.

"What the hell!  Gio, you gotta get down here!"

A little over an hour later, Darren and I were inside St. Emeric's Parish talking to Father Manuel Cabron.  He talked to us about the tension in the streets from the stop and frisk program in New York City.  He also talked about an innocent man, who is not a model citizen and a small group of cops, who aren't on a straight and narrow path of righteousness.

"No more than all priests at all parishes are perfect servants, there are a band of cops in this area who are not perfect either.  They prey upon the weakness of others to feed their own weaknesses.  They don't enforce any laws, they just use their authority to enforce their egos."

"I hear you Father.  How does this pertain to the police officer who was shot last night?"

"Gio, I've been at this parish for 6 years now.  I walk these streets at different hours.  I know the good people here and the bad ones.  I know the good cops and the bad ones.  That police officer that was killed last night was not an honest cop.  There have been many civilian complaints on him, but they have fallen on deaf ears because his uncle is a commissioner.  Their suspect, Santiago and his whole family have been parishioners at this parish.  Although this young man is not an innocent young man to life, I know of him to be innocent of this crime of murder, because he is afraid of guns.  That is why even the good people in this community here will not turn him over to the police.  Someone shot that cop, but Santiago wasn't the one."

"Father Manuel, I don't see how either me or my agency will be any good here?  The police have Internal Affairs and the citizens have all sorts of community resources and leaders here to make themselves heard.  I mean, who would my client even be?"

"Yes we the people have community resources and the police have Internal Affairs.  But everyone is only looking for their own self interests.  I know you.  You will look for only the truth.  Hopefully before more lives are lost in this tug of war.  By looking at your suit, I know that I may not be able to afford your normal rates, but I will pay you what I can?"

"No, no.  That won't be necessary, Father if you feel that strong about this.  Although I am reluctant, I guess you can be my client?  As it is, the good Lord looked out for this situation.  Just a little while ago a client purposely overpaid my agency, and told me to do something good with the extra money.  I guess this is the sign.  So between the three of us and these four walls, I'm going to represent you and the people of this city.  I promise that my Private iTeam will carefully look into this.  I'll try to give it two weeks and see what we come up with."

As Darren and I were walking out the door, I turned and looked Father Manuel straight in the eyes, "Father, by any chance, would you happen to know where I could find Santiago?  I mean it would make things easier for me to understand, if I could hear his side of what went down last night before the police find him.  It's important that I do."

"I knew that it is, Gio.  Sometimes when things get too hot on the beach, you have to move to another side of the beach that is more in the shade.  This parish - it's too small for any type of sanctuary for such a controversial event.  Too many people going in and out in such a small place and lots of eyes and ears everywhere.  But our old sister parish, in Queens, the one we grew up with - "

"St. Joseph on Jamaica Avenue?"

"Yes.  It's a much better place to hide children who have turned to God for help or sanctuary.  Many things can be hidden in plain sight."

"Thanks, Father."

On our way out the door, I noticed that Father Manuel's sister, Emily had just arrived at the office.  Emily Cabron was a petite and still beautiful woman.  She and I dated briefly back in high school.  A few months after we had broke up, she had an unfortunate incident with her next boyfriend.  He beat and raped her.  He was later shot and killed in gunfight with the police.  She was so traumatized by the incident that she started using drugs.  Within a year her her family sent her upstate to a boarding school.  That was the last that I saw of her.  We had kept in contact through only word of mouth via her brother, Father Manuel.

We traded pleasantries, she asked for my business card, but the time had come for me to go.  Darren and I got into our cars and as we exited the church parking lot, we were immediately surrounded and blocked from moving any further by about eight police cars and one Emergency Service vehicle.  The police surrounded us with guns draw and demanded that we exit our vehicles, my small Corvette and Darren from his Chrysler 300.  Before I could even speak or identify myself, I was immediately spun around and pushed against my car.  While my hands were on the hood of my car I activated the SOS recording on my watch.

"Who the is the commanding officer here?"

"You shut your fucking mouth and just tell us who you are?  What are you some kind of lawyer?"

Just as the officer said that, he felt my gun. "Gun!" and immediately seized my arms to handcuff me.  He immediately began to Mirandize me and Darren who was also carrying his licensed handgun.  Getting permits to carry handguns in New York City is an arduous task in and of itself.  But we had our permits through the agency.  Yet, we had been stopped, searched and handcuffed without any questioning or respect for our rights.  I was livid, but kept my tongue as civil as possible and did not struggle.

The commanding officer finally did approach after we were roughly handled and handcuffed.  He began asking us questions in a more calmer tone.  Once he read our ID cards, permits, and licenses, he then asked for our permission to search our car because they were looking for Santiago.  They had heard that he could be hiding in the church or was being sneaked out in the trunk of someones car.  I refused the search, which was being conducted anyway without even waiting for me or Darren's approval.  As I looked around, I recognized some of the plainclothed cops from DeLorenzo's Anti-Crime unit from the news interviews.

"Sergeant, you must be kidding me?  After me and my partner have been stopped without cause and handcuffed like this, you expect me to turn around and give you the okay for searching my car - which you're men are doing anyway?  Tell you what Sgt., I'm betting that as we speak there are phone calls being made by my office to the Commissioners office, my attorney, the Civil Complainant Review Board, and my cousin, who's Chief of D's.  You can't solve one problem by creating another."

He looked at me hard. "I don't know who the fuck you are, but you're talking a big game.  I don't know if you have the juice to back it up."

I looked at his name tag, "Sgt. Brennan I don't think you have enough time to start working your way back up from meter maid.  This whole thing has the right spirit, but it's being done the wrong way.  We are war veterans, working as private investigators, with authorized permits to carry our guns.  We came here at the request of a longtime friend.  We would have cooperated had you just stopped and asked us what we were doing here.  You and everyone here preempted us from being cooperative and violated our civil rights - plain and simple.  What's your probable cause?  Two cars leaving the parking lot of a rectory?  Cars that you've probably been sitting on since we arrived?  You know, when me and my partner were overseas, even we would have to answer to someone for treating civilians like this."

"Santiago could have been sneaked into one of your cars."

"Oh really?  Well, since you and your team have been sitting on our cars the past hour and a half, just how could we sneak him into our cars?  Our cars were parked out in public view - in broad daylight?  Do you think we brought him out in our coat pockets?  This is a ploy to harass the parish."

At just that same moment, the Sgt received both a radio broadcast from a Lieutenant Simmons and a phone call on his cell from a Captain Dunlap.  Marti had received my SOS watch audio transmission in the office and put in a conference phone call with a live broadcast of this stop/frisk.  She also patched in the conversation to a conference call to a friend at the CCRB, our attorney Aliyah, my cousin Alex and another friend at police headquarters.  Within seconds the handcuffs were immediately removed.

I used the moment to get me and Darren into the teeth of the 14th precinct by advising Sgt. Brennan that we needed to have a civil conversation with him at his precinct building and if I could have a minute to speak with his Lt. Simmons when we got there.

Two hours later, Darren and I would wrap up our day in a closed door conversation with Lt. Simmons, Sgt Brennan, a couple detectives and Aliyah.  The police again blamed the whole stop and search of me and Darren on some neighborhood junkie who had claimed that we were there to hide Santiago.  In addition, Santiago's has an older brother who once hid at St. Emeric's to avoid being arrested for beating a man with a bat.  He had gotten into a street fight with a guy with a knife, but he had a bat.  The bat won.  But he still had to go to through the legal process. However, he chose to hide in the church for three days before he voluntarily came out.

 NYPD brass was not about to wait three days to see if a younger Santiago was involved with killing a cop and was now hiding out in the church.  They were not going to allow anyone to sneak Santiago out of the church.  Unfortunately for them, the task force that was set up to find Santiago had gotten their information about 12 hours too late.  Neither Darren nor I updated them.  But, what I  did establish in that meeting was that people in the community had asked Father Manuel to reach out to us to investigate dirty cops.

Lt. Simmons was quick to point out that IAB investigates dirty cops.

"Yes Lt., that may be, but investigating a police officer who has family with big hooks with police brass, might prove to be a career shortening move for sn IAB detective.  After what happened today, the way you guys are looking for this civilian Loco - I can see why people in this community have a growing mistrust of the officers they are suppose to trust."

"Let me tell you something Gio - I know all about you, your father and your family.  Your father retired from this job.  I had an occasion to work with him many years ago.  When you were born this city averaged nearly 2000 murders a year - not including all the attempted murders.  Now we average less than 100 murders.  This city is a much safer place than when you were born.  Your sarcasm is pissing me off and pissing on the time that men like your father and uncles put into this job.  Or perhaps you missed all of that while you were gone overseas?"

I responded back to him with a quote, "'A large reservoir of good will was under construction when I left the Police Department in 1994.  It was called community policing.  But it was quickly abandoned for tough-sounding rhetoric and dubious stop-and-frisk tactics that sowed new seeds of community mistrust.'"

"What is that?  Some idealistic, liberal rhetoric from the 1960's?"

"No, Lt.  Those were the words of the then former and now present Police Commissioner, Raymond Kelly back in 2000.  His views have apparently changed.  All I want to know is, who's watching the people that are supposed to be watching over this city, to make sure they are doing the right thing?"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You know Lt, I was on the job too, if even for a minute.  I know that Anti-Crime units work in sets of 2 or 3 or a whole team of people.  What was DeLorenzo doing out there on the streets, going after a perpetrator with no backup?  Where was his partner, Lt?"

"That's none of your business.  That's police business."

"Yeah, well I wonder if I look hard enough I wonder if I'm going to find out that part of the reason that DeLorenzo died is because he's a hot head - can't do anything wrong - type of cop?  I wonder if I'm going to find out that because of his family hooks in the department - he always took short cuts.  He took them because no one laid the hammer down to correct him along the way?  In fact, I'm betting that has ultimately led to his death and that there's people from the streets lined up to expose his misdeeds to myself and the media?  I'm sure the neighborhood folks will consider it an IOU hat they have saved for a rainy day."

"Sure, go listen to the testimony of a skell!  You're an embarrassment to your father's good name."

"Funny, Lt., I was treated like a skell today all while wearing a $3,000 suit and earning a honest living.  I'm beginning to wonder just who are the skells?  The hoodlums on the street, or members of this department?"

As I stood up, I took one more shot at rattling his cage, "And for your information, my father is embarrassed - but only from the way things are being handled on this job by loafers who were good at taking promotional tests but, couldn't handle themselves on the street without a badge and a gun."

Lt. Simmons' forehead was turning red with his anger, "Ms. Mitchell can you kindly escort your clients out of my precinct before I have them arrested as pollution.  Be advised, if they break or obstruct any laws regarding police business, I will be seeing you all here sooner than later."



Outside the precinct, Aliyah tore into me, "Gio, just what the hell were you trying to do up there?  Get us all locked up for Jay walking or spitting on a curb?  Come on use your head!"

"I was using my head, Aliyah.  What I did up there is only the beginning.  They want to rattle cages around here.  Let's see how they react when someone rattles their cage?  Yesterday we had a cop killed.  Today we have a man shot dead on the streets holding a knife.  Then Darren and I get handcuffed like common criminals for doing nothing but exiting a church.  And let's not forget that right now I have a priest who's more afraid of the police than he is afraid of neighborhood hoodlums.  Something just isn't right."

"Fine, Gio.  But if you're going to disturb a hornet's nest, you're suppose to do it while they are sleeping, not while they're out flying around carrying guns."

Darren shook his head in agreement as I gave him a sarcastic look.  "Oh so you're agreeing with her now?  You weren't smiling when they were frisking us and searching our cars?"

"That's because at the time I was pissed.  But I wouldn't want to agitate a Lt right in his own precinct."

"Yeah well, I did that to see how far this dirty cop theory goes.  He's their boss.  Whether he knows or doesn't know who's dirty, he's still going to lead us right to them.  Once he goes blow some steam about me in front of them - I'm sure we'll be hearing from them."

We all got into our cars and headed our separate ways.  Darren went back uptown to his condo in Harlem.  Aliyah back to her Upper Eastside, apartment.  I headed back to my Colonial Style house back in Queens.  I had Marti and Grace start pulling as much public information that they could get online about the 14th precinct Anti-Crime unit.  I needed their names.  I also told her to give Edge a call.  We would be needing his technological expertise on all the members in that unit.  Wherever the public information ended and classified information began, Edge could find it and give us that information.

When I pulled up into my driveway, I could see that an object had been placed on my doorstep.  I couldn't tell what it was until I got closer.  When I did, I could see that it was a dead rat thrown on my stoop.  Perfect.  Whoever that person or persons that did this, didn't know was that my house was surrounded by hidden camera's along with motion sensors, and an alarm system.  I checked my computer system inside and all was functioning well.  I didn't bother looking at it because I knew it was all already saved, and downloaded to a back up system away from my house.  I could review the video in the morning.
.

My sister Bianca lost her husband to a car accident.  It had been a couple of days since I spoke to her son, my nephew Michael.  Instead of watching video, I gave him a quick call before it got any later.  Above all things, family issues mattered in my family.  When Michael lost his father, Michael, senior, all of the men in our family from both sides made it our business to check in on him.  Moreover, since Bianca was closest to me, it was I who was going to be his surrogate father until she was able to move on.

Tomorrow would be another day.  Everyone behind that rat on my doorstep was going go down.

Introducing The Private iTeam in "Cop Killer" Part 1

"Cop Killer - Part 1"

© by John S LES

Introducing The Private iTeam

On an unusually cold night in March 2010, the New York City's police radio channels were eerily quiet.  There hadn't been a single call for any jobs for nearly a full 30 minutes.  It seemed as if all the criminals and street hoodlums had taken the night off in the nearly zero freezing temperature.  However, that silence would be broken by a simple call for officer assistance.  At the time no one could even anticipate that what sounded like a simple call for assistance would explode into a crime scene that would rock the entire city through a wide range of emotions for the next two weeks.

"Central, this is 14 Crime.  I have a 10-85.  I'm in pursuit of a suspect, last name Santiago, first name Victor.  He's on foot, possibly armed.  I'm at 375 19th Street near the corner of 7th Avenue.  Subject is wearing a maroon puffy jacket, blue jeans, blue cap and sneakers and is trying to enter one of the abandoned buildings over here.  Going to do a vertical at 375."

"14 Crime, this is Central, that's a 10-4.  We are sending back up to your location 375, 19th street.  14 Crime can you 10-7 that address?"  Central tries again and again to make contact with Police Officer Anthony DeLorenzo of 14th precinct Anti-Crime unit, but there is no response.

Tension from DeLorenzo's silence on radio immediately raised the tension in all the police officers listening and responding.  Anti-Crime units usually work in teams or at least in pairs.  In this case, this was a lone Anti-Crime police officer on the radio, requesting a casual back up.  Then seconds later his voice had gone silent on the radio.

92 seconds later.

"Central to all units responding to 375 19th Street, be advised we have a citizen's report of shots fired at 375 19th Street.  I repeat - shots fired at 375 19th Street.  We have a plainclothed MOS in area with no response on.  Possible 10-13, officer down.  Responding units proceed with caution and advise."

An NYPD helicopter is nearby and speeds towards the exact location of the officer.

"Aviation 5 to Central, we are responding to that shots fired call.  We are near 19th and 7th, we will update in less than 10 seconds."

"10-4. Aviation 5, this is Central, be advised we have an MOS reported to be at that area of the shots fired, requesting assistance - but we are unable to raise him on his radio."

"Aviation 5 to Central, that's a 10-4 we copy.  We will try to raise MOS.  Aviation 5 to Anti Crime 7 we are at your location putting the brights on, do you copy?  Ahh - Central this is Aviation 5, we are 10-84.  We are right over the corner of 19th and 7th Avenue, and we can see a man down.  I repeat we have a man down.  He's is not moving.  Possible MOS.  Roll a bus and sector cars - forthwith!"

Within a few more seconds, four patrol cars with their sirens blasting, pull to a screeching halt at the corner of 19th and 7th.  The area is illuminated by their emergency lights as well as the helicopter's intensely bright spot light and whirring rotary blades.

"Aviation to the patrol cars on scene, be advised infrared shows no other heat signatures on the rooftops in your area, but do approach with caution.  We will keep the area lit up with the high beam."

Under the high intensity beam of the helicopter's spotlight scanning the immediate area, eight police officers exit their patrol car with their guns drawn, looking around as they respond to the body on the ground.  It was clear that the victim had been mortally wounded as a glistening pool of blood slowly spread from underneath his head.  Two of eight officers immediately begin to inspect him, while the other six officers cover them.  They can see the victims gun by his side and his NYPD badge hanging out over his jacket, via his neck chain.

"Central this is 129!  Be advised we have a 10-13!  Officer down!  MOS is mortally wounded!  We need a patrol supervisor and a bus here forthwith!"

"129, this is Central, we copy, we have a 10-13 -  officer down.  EMS is responding.  ETA is 4 minutes.  Do you copy?"

"Central this is 129 - we do not have 4 minutes!  I repeat we do not have 4 minutes!  MOS Injuries are life threatening!  Requesting permission to take MOS in sector car to hospital forthwith!  We need an escort set up from 19th and 7th forthwith!"

129, this is Central, you are authorized to transport MOS forthwith.  Central to all responding units, 129 is requesting escort to hospital using 7th Avenue.  MOS in transport."


Five police officers picked up the mortally wounded officer, placed him in a patrol car and rushed him to the nearby hospital, but it was of no use.  Plain clothed Police Officer Anthony DeLorenzo was pronounced dead on arrival.  All efforts to revive him failed.  He was shot five times.  Three times in his chest and twice in his head, execution style.

A massive police manhunt commenced for Victor Santiago shortly after the shooting. Up until that night, Santiago was only known as a petty thief and low, street level member of a west side drug dealing gang.  Ironically, Santiago had lodged numerous complaints against the New York City police department for harassment.  Now he was the number one suspect in the murder of  a police officer.  The whole city was abuzz for this Cop Killer...



That's how it all started.  That was the match that lit the fuse that placed my little private investigation agency on a collision course with three powerful forces in New York City.  The police, the west side drug gangs and a small band of dirty cops.  That same night I was on the Upper Eastside of the city sitting in a mini-van, turned surveillance vehicle with my cantankerous uncle Xavier Bennit, or uncle "X" for short.  He was African American and my deceased mother's youngest brother who was in his early 50's.  Although you couldn't tell from his portly build, he was an accomplished martial artist in his younger years and was still an active teacher at the school he co-owned in Queens.  He and his buddies taught me and my siblings how to fight when we were growing up in Queens.

As for me, I was the product of a biracial marriage. My father, Niccolo or Nick. Sr was born and raised in Brooklyn and my mother Gloria grew up in Manhattan.  My name was Giovanni Jamaal Ferrari, or just Gio to most people, the middle child of three...an older brother Niccolo Jr. and our younger sister, Bianca.

Our "surveillance" vehicle was actually a souped up mini van that was parked on York Avenue.  We were taking digital pictures of Robert Walters, a late 40's, wealthy, Wall Street hedge fund manager, who was kissing and groping his mistress, Heidi Sherman, in her Mercedes.  Heidi was an attractive, mid 20's, cooperate tax attorney.  My client for this surveillance job was Mrs. Linda Walters.  Mrs. Walters had grown tired of her husband's dalliances and wanted to put an end to their marriage.  The Walters home residence was the luxurious condominium building, 15 Central Park West, which was clear across the other side of town.  Mrs. Walters had money to burn. She was born into money and married a successful man. The payday that she was going to give my agency's services was badly needed. I had to pay off a lot of bills for my high-technological upkeep, as I constantly needed funds to expand the amount of electronic gadgets that my agency could have at it's disposal.

My agency was the Private iTeam.  I had taken the agency over from my father when it had a different name.  Back then my father did a lot of insurance fraud investigation on the side after he retired from the police department with a highly decorated 25 year career and a gold detective's shield.  He had a couple of brothers and extended relatives who also worked in the police department, including my cousin, Alex Valentine, who had recently been promoted to Chief of Detectives.  After the death of my mother in a car accident, he just couldn't take working anymore.  He wanted to stay retired and concentrate on the thing that mattered most to him, his children.

I followed my father and his brothers into the police department.  I graduated from the academy in 2000 but, my life took a different turn after 9/11 when I signed up for Special Forces.  After I came back from the Gulf War as a retired US Army Ranger, my father handed over to me his private investigation business.  He felt that I could do more with the agency to help people where the police department couldn't.  After the lessons I learned overseas, I agreed with his thoughts.  I spruced up the agency by changing the name and used my military intelligence background to bring a more sophisticated electronic surveillance approach to the job.  I also expanded the agency to be able to do personal bodyguard security on the side to supplement the slow periods.

I set out to get my rejuvenated private investigation agency out of the dark ages of atypical private investigation jobs like cheating spouses, runaway teens and stolen identities.  I was looking to develop a more affluent clientele for the company and get us some more "sexier" assignments.  If I could get a steady stream of clients who didn't mind paying upfront or in the high five digits, I would be more than satisfied.

So what were we doing in that bitter cold night of winter in January in New York City?  Gathering incriminating evidence of an affair for the wife of a wealthy man.  I guess I did improve our clientele base?  But we were still working the same old type of case...a cheating spouse.

Our customized surveillance van had enough equipment in it to revile some small town police undercover units.  But there was room for improvement.  We just had the basics.  A two person desk set up with 2 monitors, boom mics that looked like antennas that could be mounted on the outside and radio scanners to catch not only police, fire and ambulance radio transmissions, but we could also pick up unsecured police radio transmissions and some cellular phone transmissions.  We also unofficially had wireless computer hacking abilities.  I had an onsite mainframe at my office in Bayside, Queens.  My backup site was located elsewhere.

"Gio, how much longer do we need to sit here photographing this Casanova getting his hump on with his mistress?  I could be home right now drinking a cup of hot chocolate getting my own hump on."

"Oh, I say we stay here for just a few minutes more.  If we can get a picture of him getting picked up by his private car and to the airport that would be the cherry on top of the sundae."

"In another minute we're going to be taking pictures of him dry humping Ms. Sundae.  Aren't we good already?"

"Yeah, I guess between this and the text messages we have from the phone cloning, the videos, the audio from the hotel room - yeah I guess we can wrap this one up.  So you'll get your $120 on Friday for the 4 hours of work today.  I would never cheat my favorite uncle out of a nice paycheck."

"See now, that's why I always say good things about you, Gio.  I don't believe a word when I hear people calling my nephew cheap."

We packed up the equipment and uploaded all information back to my office for review the next day.  However, we couldn't help but have some concern over the alarming police radio transmissions that our scanner had picked up.  It didn't sound good at all.  But it was time to head back to Queens.

The next morning the police manhunt was all over the news.  As I drove from my little bachelor pad, my Playboy like four bedroom house, to my office on Bell Boulevard, all of radio stations and TV news stations were abuzz over the shooting of Officer DeLorenzo.  There were interviews with witness and comments from the Mayor, the Commissioner and DeLorenzo's wife, Christina, who was also a uniform police officer on the Upper Westside.  His fellow anti-crime police officers and his wife were all grief stricken in their interviews.  Even more importantly, it was announced in the news that DeLorenzo was the nephew of a Deputy Commissioner.  Whoever this Victor Santiago was, he wasn't going to be able to hide out for too long.  It felt like the whole city was being pressured to turn him in just to make the police happy to get their vengeance.

My secretary Martina "Marti" is half Italian, half Puerto Rican and 100% brains.  She is one of the most mentally organized, strategic people I have ever met, a byproduct of her upbringing being the only girl and middle child of 2 older and 2 younger brothers.  She gave me her normal rundown on the list of messages the agency received overnight.  Out of the 20 messages I received for possible jobs only one of them stood out.  I had received several phone calls from a friend of mine who had joined the priesthood while I was overseas fighting.  Father Manuel Cabron had called me and asked me to get back in touch with him as soon as possible.  I made a quick call to Mrs. Walters to let her know that the printouts for everything we had would be available for her and her attorneys as soon as she wanted them.  She wanted to meet with me at her apartment at 15 Central Park West and bring her the folder on everything we had at 10:30.

My next call was to Father Manuel.  He answered and asked for me to meet him at his parish, St. Emeric church over on east 12th street.  He would not be specific, but he insisted that I come immediately.  That he had information on something that would be worth investigating.  When I asked him what could possibly be so important, he told me he had information concerning last nights murder of a police officer.  I had advised him that he should turn over that information to the police, not me.  "Gio, we've known each other for a long time...since high school.  I could really use your help and unique insight to this situation."

At that point I had no choice but to make my appointment with him at 1:30pm.

It wasn't even 8:55am and now I had to be ready to cross into two completely different worlds.  The rest of my team hadn't come into the office yet.  When we weren't on assignments, or closing a case, we always showed up the next morning at 9am for a quick recap and briefing on the next assignment.  But since I was in so early, I just took the time to go into my back office and pick out one of the four Armani suits I had hanging inside for such surprise occasions when I would be meeting with wealthy clientele on the fly.  I changed out of my casual dress.  By the time I came out of my office 30 minutes later, the rest of my team was in.

First in was Darren "Big" Briggs.  Darren was slightly taller than me at 6'4, muscular, athletic and a retired Marine from Iraqi Freedom.  Darren had a little bit of a past life of being a young street thug before going to a karate school in Harlem and getting his life together.  He got his college degree and joined the Marines.  His unit and mine actually did some work together overseas in Fallujah and that's how our relationship started.  He was looking for some work to use his skills back at home, and I had an open door.

Next was the attractive, medium but muscular built, blond haired, Noelle Dobbs.  She was also a retired soldier, but had been living the civilian life a couple years longer than Darren and I.  She was originally from Texas, could operate and handle any handgun in the world and could speak five languages.  The end result of being the daughter of a military husband and wife overseas.  Noelle looked natural in a workout outfit or a pair of jeans and work boots.  However, when pressed, she could dress up very nice.

Then there was the youngest member of our team, Chris Graham.  Chris was in his late 20's and athletic but could still pass for a college kid.  He was the son of an Irish police officer and was a Boston cop himself before he left the force due to political issues in the department.  Chris was a complete chameleon of a person and could blend in with just about any population.  He was also a master at disguises and accents.

Working at a location in Brooklyn was our part time team member, Dr. Grace Chong.  She was an MIT graduate, former NYU professor, who had earned her PhD in the field of computer technology and artificial intelligence.  When I came back to the civilian life and took a computer class at NYU, she was my professor.  Our conversations after class lead to her helping set up and build the technological infrastructure of the agency.

Lastly, but not least was Walter "The Edge" Edgefield.  He was a retired army intelligence cryptologist and master NSA code breaker.  He was also my former counter intelligence instructor during my Special Forces training.  Although he was not in the office and was too cryptic of a person to ever even step foot into our office, he was an important, unofficial part of my team.  He just stayed on the outside and only stepped in when we needed big help.  Whenever I ran into an informational problem...I could always depend on Edge to help bail me out.  Just in his mid-fifties, Edge, had a lot of powerful protectors in his own life.  He knew where a lot of important people's skeletons were buried because he helped bury them.  His secret friends included the military, politicians, celebrities and law enforcement.  He never stepped out of line, and he was never bothered either.

Our company attorney on retainer was the ever so beautiful, Ms. Aliyah Mitchell.  She was tall, black and extremely attractive.  When you looked at her, you figured she was a model, who just liked walking around town in power suits carrying a briefcase.  That was a mistake a lot of people made.  Aliyah was not just a pretty face.  She was a court room shark and an indefatigable, litigious nightmare underneath that gorgeous smile.  Because she was so pretty, you initially didn't figure her to be a Harvard and Yale educated attorney, who came from a family of attorneys down in Virginia.  That is until your crossed her path.  She made junior partner at a big time criminal defense law firm in New York and was every ready to kick a dimwitted district attorney's ass in court.  Aliyah and I had the hots for each other, but we figured that if we got into a relationship it would destroy the business end of both of our jobs.  So we played it as cool as we could.


"Okay everyone.  Looks like the Walters' case has come to a close.  Everyone, including my uncle X last night, did a great job.  We're going to be receiving a nice paycheck from Mrs. Walters, so everyone is going to get a decent bump in their paycheck.  I'm about to go into the city, hand Mrs. Walters what she wants and pick up her check.  But this was really a great job on short notice.  Thanks."

Chris walked up, "Hey boss, I think I should get a bonus for getting that video of Walters throwing a hump into that stewardess on his way from the airport last week?  It wasn't easy getting those nails in his regular driver's car and then showing up with my limo like a Knight in shining armor all at the same time."

"Yeah, Chris, you're right, except your bonus is going to be offset by the cost of me renting that limo for ten hours instead of the four?"

"Uh, yeah, well...I did need to make an impression on my girl after work..."

"Denied." I deadpanned.  "Equal splits for everyone."

Everyone had a good chuckle.  I also announced that everyone could take the rest of the day off. It had been an intense 10 days covering Walters. We could look into some fresh assignments first thing in the morning as there were some cases pending that had additional big paydays.  Then I mentioned about stopping off on the Lower East Side later and speaking with an old friend who was a priest there.  Darren offered to come in with me just in case something might jump off, but I assured him that it wasn't necessary.  But just before I left I did mention that I had a bad feeling about what Father Manuel was getting me involved with.

I got into my sparkling blue, Corvette convertible and took off to Manhattan.

As I was driving into the city, I told Marti that I wanted to go "On Radar", which meant for her to keep track of me via the three GPS devices that I had on my body. That was my cell phone, my watch and my belt buckle. All of my team members were outfitted with the same device combination. Our watches were two fold. Not only did they help track us, but they also acted as emergency microphones that could record and broadcast conversations from up to a 20 foot radius and wirelessly download to our servers.

Only Marti, Grace, Darren or myself all had the ability to remotely control these devices as long as they were turned on. When we didn't want to be traced, all we had to say was "Off Radar" and no GPS tracking would be done unless we initiated an SOS signal with our phone, watch or belt buckle at the slide of a switch. There were of course limitations on exact signal strength and work arounds for these limitation. But, the most important reason to have these devices was to be able to either locate and record iTeam members in case they were abducted or their would be killers attempted a sudden attack.

Since Mrs Walters wanted to hand me a check instead of paying electronically, I decided to go On Radar.  Darren insisted upon heading into the Lower Eastside first and taking the temperature of what was going on in the streets with the police and the media before I got down there.  Several hours later, his intuition would prove to be correct.

Little did I know that what seemed like a trip into two completely different worlds in New York City would eventually collide into one.