Black Caesar: The Rise and Disappearance of Frank Matthews, Kingpin

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0985244011

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Ron, please tell us about narco kingpin Frank Matthews, who vanished without a trace on June twenty-sixth, nineteen seventy-three.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Well, as amazing as the story is, he's still one of the I think best kept secrets in organized crime. He was a a black uh gangster, which uh was actually unusual for the time he operated back in the late sixties and early early seventies. He grew up in the South, which was another interesting thing. He wasn't a big city gangster. He grew up in Durham, North North Carolina, and uh migrated uh through Philadelphia to New York City and uh lived there. And uh he was always an ambitious kid. You know, even when he was young, he wanted to be a big time gangster. That's that's what his uh his wish was. And he knew Durham was too small uh for that to uh to to happen. But Durham was an interesting city. It had a a really strong black middle class. Uh it was called uh often called the Harlem of the South. And uh so he had a lot of example role models of blacks that successfully made it, right? Who made a lot of money and uh were doing very successful for him they they're on the right side of the law. He wanted to operate on on the wrong side of the law. But uh he went uh to uh to New York about 1960, well, 1965-66 or so, and uh he w worked as a barber. He had he had gone to barber school in uh in Durham, North Carolina, and uh he ran numbers and uh he was an enforcer, he was a tough guy. They say he was built like a football player from the waist up. His nickname was Pee-Wee, uh, because he was a small guy, but uh everybody I talked to said you he wasn't a guy you wanted to mess with. He was really he's really a tough guy on that. And uh he came under the uh tutelage of uh a guy named Spanish Raymond Marquez, Spanish Raymond, real famous uh numbers uh dealer in in uh in New York. And uh Frank probably, you know, there's no way of verifying this, but uh he probably talked to him about his uh ambitions and all that. And uh Frank had a a friend named Roland Gonzalez uh Nunes, who was a Cuban uh gangster, pretty big, pretty big gangster. He had a uh he had a casino he ran in San Andreas, which is off the uh uh South American coast, and he was also had great connections in Venezuela to the Corsican mafia. And uh he took uh a liking to uh Frank and uh he uh sold him what amounted to his first uh batch of uh for twenty thousand dollars. Uh but before this Frank had tried to break in the traditional way, because at that time the uh the mafia was losing the Italian mafia was losing its grip on the drug trade, but it still had uh the power to control it. And so Frank had approached uh the Gambino and the Bonanno families about uh becoming a dealer, but for some reason it didn't hit off. Maybe he was too arrogant or uh because he he really didn't like the Italian mafia. You know, he didn't he didn't like them. He thought they were they were racist and and arrogant. Uh but anyways, uh he was turned down. And so he ended up uh working through Venezuela through his contact, uh Roland uh Gonzalez, and uh he uh hooked up with the Corsican mafia and he developed this uh this uh connection, which uh led to an incredibly lucrative enterprise for him. And uh it was really unusual because uh there there were few, if any, gangsters outside of the Italian mafia that had international connections. You know, the the the Italians controlled the French Connection. It was a misnomer. It was actually controlled by the Italians, but the the it was processed in uh Marseille. So that's that's where the French Connection came from, the name French Connection on that then. So, anyways, uh Frank was uh incredibly lucrative operation. Uh and one year uh you know he was making the equivalent of $77 million in today's money, which at that time was was early big. And um he operated like this and uh until the authorities got wind of him, and uh they didn't really take him seriously at first because he was a black guy operating in a business that was essentially run by by by wh by white white dudes, and uh it took a while before they realized the extent of his operation and how dangerous he was as a gangster.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Frank Matthews is starting to get big and his base of operations was New York, right? Or but it did go across twenty-one states, correct?

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Yeah, he yeah, he he he was uh unusual in that respect because most most of the gangsters that uh dealt with especially black gangsters, dealt in their neighborhoods. You know, they dealt in their neighborhoods, but he he expanded. He had a he had a vision of of dru of developing this international uh drug network, and so he was in 21 states uh as far as uh as far as Nevada, and uh he uh had a big connection in Philadelphia with the Philadelphia Black Mafia, which were really prominent at that time. The authorities were weren't really on to him. Uh, you know, they they didn't really knew nothing about him. He operated under the radar, but he he was living in Brooklyn at the time, and he was in this apartment complex, and uh incredibly, in the same apartment complex was an NYPD police officer named Joe Kowalski. And uh Joe saw all these guys coming out coming into uh into the apartment complex, you know, the parking lot and all that with with out of state license numbers and all that. And being a cop, you know, he was suspicious, right? And uh they all had fancy cars and you know they looked like they had money. And uh so he did a little searching. He went back and checked the files at the NYPD and uh looked up some of these license plates and got the names of some of these guys, and he found out they were known drug dealers on that. And he saw they were all visiting one guy in this apartment complex in Brooklyn. That was Frank Matthews on that. So he went to the authorities and uh, you know, his boss, and uh he he told them about it. He said, look, look, uh he said, uh, you know, there's a big guy. They didn't believe him at first. They couldn't believe that his guy could be that big, you know, that was black on that. And uh because, you know, there were no black really black gangsters at the time. Frank Lucas, you know, and and Nicky Barnes are operating uh, you know, in in the neighborhood. Uh, but outside of a few gangsters, uh, and they weren't as big as Frank, there was no really black gangsters in that. So they didn't take him uh seriously. But but uh Joe, and I talked to Joe about this, so it was kind of funny to listen to him describe this because he described Matthews on the elevator one time. He was on the elevator and he was dressed in this sheepskin coat, and he looked like really bad stuff, you know, on that, and he was you know really loud and he was he was talking you know about uh the authorities and and bad mouthing them and all this sort of stuff. And uh anyways, they got out the elevator and and and Frank didn't know that that Joe was a cop. And so uh they finally got uh investigation going uh into Matthews, and uh the more they dug, the more incredible the uh the uh findings were. I mean, you know, there were they like you said, he he was operating in 21 states, he was making money, and and uh uh they were they finally uh uh got a wire. Uh they're able to get a court order for a wire, and they started to to wiretap his operation. Now, Frank had a problem. He was a pioneer in a bad sense. Uh he was an early user of you know, he was like Scarface before his time, right? You know, the movie Scarface on that. And uh he had a bad habit. And uh that made him reckless on the on the phone. And so uh he gave a lot of information on the phone. They they they wiretapped him and he gave a lot of information on the phone. And uh they were meanwhile building a case against him for tax evasion as well as drug trafficking, and uh uh they decided finally in 19 uh 73 uh to uh or 72 to to uh to uh move in on him and arrest him. And uh Frank was going to the Super Bowl. You remember when when Miami was undefeated that year? He was or 17 and nothing. Yeah, it was that year, it was that uh Christmas that that he was he was going to Los Los Angeles to see the Super Bowl between the Redskins and Miami. And so they decided to uh strike. Uh they were afraid that he was gonna jump, he was gonna he was gonna flee, because uh he was getting suspicious about about the uh authorities and uh he knew that he was being being uh uh monitored, but he he he didn't seem to care. You know, and I think part of that was the he was also a very, very uh tough, arrogant uh guy, I mean, really, really fearless, is I guess is the word to describe him. And uh they finally busted him, you know, they they took him down. And uh the judge at the time in Las Vegas, they took him down in Las Vegas, they arrested him at the airport there, assessed a five million dollar bond, which was the biggest bond ever in Las Vegas at the time. And the lawyer that Matthews got uh uh to to offend him argued successfully to get the bond reduced, so he finally got the bond uh reduced to 2.5 million, which was still incredibly uh thing. But by the time he got to New York, they had finally gotten the uh the bond down to $325,000, which was really manageable for a guy with Matthew's uh money, right? He was a big time dealer. And and the cops I talked to, the well, the DEA and and NYPD that I talked to were really uh incensed by this. They're outraged, you know, because you know, he was gonna easily uh be able to flee, right? With a bond of $325,000. He'd be able to pay that. And so uh they couldn't watch him all the time. I mean, you know, resources were were were limited. They couldn't keep a guy on him all the time. So he operated in in uh in uh in New York City. Meanwhile, he was secretly getting ready to potentially flee. I don't think he made up his mind yet whether he was gonna flee. He may still thought he could have beat the charges, but uh but uh he was setting himself up and uh the day in in J July 2nd, 1973, he was in the um in the courthouse and he was gonna get he was gonna be uh remanded, right? And uh he was in the the washroom and he met uh Judge Raymond Deerie. I don't know if you know him, uh he's a pretty famous uh uh judge in New York City. Uh he just uh was involved in one of Trump's trials. Uh he's still going it strong at 82 years old. And uh he was in a can and uh and uh Matthews started struck up a conversation with the judge and he asked him, he said, Are you gonna throw the book at me? And Deary sort of said, Yeah, you know, I said, We're gonna try to get you, Frank. And that must have really scared the hell out of uh Matthews, because uh when Deary went back into the courtroom, Matthews didn't wasn't there. He didn't show up. And uh he he never showed up. In fact, he disappeared. He di he disappeared, he just you know walked away. And there's a story about a uh NYPD officer chasing him in the uh in a police car through traffic, uh, who claimed that he saw Matthews and in and it and the uh uh all all all points alert had been put had been put on him and he chased him, but the cops I talked to didn't really believe that story. They thought it was embellished on that then. But anyways, he he fled. And uh he had in in the in in the in the uh meantime, he had uh developed this relationship with this uh young woman, Cheryl Brown, really, really pretty, according to what the officer said, really, really a stunner looking girl. And Matthews was married uh was uh married common law at the time with a woman named Barbara Hidden, and he had three kids by her. They weren't all his, but th he had three kids, and he was living in Staten Island, and uh and the the rumor is is that he fled with her. And uh how well how did he have money? Yes, because uh one of one of the uh uh DEA officers said that they had monitored Frank's finances, and they found that he was putting away a million dollars a month into a special account, and they they figured that by the time he left there was twenty million dollars in that account. So that's where the figure that he fled with twenty million dollars. You know, it's not verifiable, but I think it's pretty well true on that, that that he fled with twenty million dollars on that. And uh Cheryl Brown, there's no there's no verifiable evidence that that she left with him. The only thing, the only reason that people think that he f that uh she fled with Matthews is because she disappeared at the same time, you know, on that. And uh so that that set off probably well the biggest maybe the biggest drug in uh DEA dru uh investigation in in history, it it was one of the most expensive, uh, especially at the time, and involved incredible man man resources, but they were very confident. I talked with I talked with all four uh offici uh police officers that were involved with the case. There was two DEA guys, and then and then after a year, the the the case was transferred to the marshals, which is uh I understand normal procedure, and then I talked to the two marshals on the case. And they were pretty confident that uh they would get him because they they had like in a really big b uh uh force of men that that they were that were tracking him and all that. And uh he was sighted everywhere. He was sighted in fifty countries. Fifty countries. People saw all the way from Africa to Asia to South America. The most popular place was the Bahamas. And and uh you know, they they they they I talked to the officers about this, and it was really frustrating for them because they'd get a report that Matthews was in Miami, and they'd go there and uh and it looked like somebody was living there, but there may have been just may have just left on that. But they didn't know for sure on that. But uh they never they never got an actual sighting of Matthews. And the amazing thing about the uh the case is that there are no fingerprints, no photographs, and no snitches. No one ever snitched on Matthews. About ten, twelve years after that, I talked to uh the DEA and they said that they re re uhed the investigation and uh they uh uh brought in all of the guys that were still alive that that were brought up for trial in 1976 after Matthews was uh uh Matthews had fled, and not one of them told him anything. Not one of them. They didn't say anything about Matthews at all on that. And uh and so uh it was a very frustrating uh experience for the for the DEA and as the years went by they found nothing. I mean, I remember talking to Mike Pizzy, who was one of the D the the uh marshals that was were assigned to the case, and he said after ten years, you know, he was sitting in his office and he was looking, and he had boxes and boxes of papers that revealed absolutely nothing about his about the uh about the case. And he says it was incredible, you know. They had spent like ten years on the case, and uh and uh they hadn't they had nothing on him, they had no nothing on him. And uh so that you know that's the way the case has evolved. He's he's eighty-two years old, which is not young, and uh he's born on February 13, 1944. And uh he had a habit. His health was not good, even he he let he fled at twenty nine years old, and his health was not good. In fact, one of the stories that that the marshals told me is that they got this wild story that he was having a heart transplant in Houston. And uh Houston is really famous for its uh medical facilities, right? It was really famous playing on that. And they got this from from uh uh some some some girl that told them and and but they had to check everything out, right? It was a it was a lead, so they had to check it out. So they went down there for three three days and spent you know uh sniffing around trying to figure out you know if Matthews was there and all, they found nothing on that. They found nothing on that. And um uh I talked to another guy, he was a famous radio personality in New York at the time, and uh he said that he was in in in Nassau, the Bahamas, and he was walking through a bar, and he looked at this guy, and it was Matthews. He was with a he was a woo with a woman. That's what he said, Matthews. And Matthews looked at him and recognized him because he was a radio personality, right? So they both looked at you know, and the guy was stunned, you know, because he knew the he knew the story about Matthews. And uh he walked he walked by Matthews and uh and uh Frank nodded, you know, smiled. And uh the guy the guy didn't know what to do. He so he smiled and he went away, and then he went back and and Frank was gone. He was gone on that. Now, you know, I uh you don't know whether the story is true or not, you know, but you gotta I mean I don't see why the guy would lie uh about that, uh, you know, uh on that. But anyway, those are some some of the wild stories that that I I tracked down, you know. I I talked to another guy, he claimed to that that Matthews was in Chicago. He never fled the country. Most people think that Matthews fled the country, you know, and um but he said, no, no, no. Uh he he he talked with a friend of mine, a fellow uh another drug dealer, uh Ike Atkinson, uh who uh I did the book Sergeant Smack on. And uh and and Ike told me that the guy said that Matthews was living in Chicago, that he talked with him regularly. And I said, Yeah, I said, God, I gotta talk to this guy. So he went back and and asked the guy, and then he goes, No, he goes, the guy doesn't want to talk to you. He says uh he doesn't want to reveal any information that could lead to Frank's possible arrest. And and then uh later on the guy he I came back and said, uh the guy wants to talk to you now, you know, on that sort of stuff, on that. But I never didn't end up talking to him. So you don't know if the story was BS or whether it's true or not. You know, another guy who was at a party in Philadelphia and heard this voice. Now, front now the d now when people say that you know they heard Frank talk, I say, What did he sound like? If he didn't sound like a girl, I would not believe him that they talked to Frank. He had a high-pitched voice. It was really funny because he was a tough guy, right? And uh and he had this really high-pitched voice. And I said uh to the guy, you know, uh, well, what did he sound like? You know, acted very innocently. And he said, Oh, he sounded pretty normal. And I knew this guy was lying, you know, that he was EBSing me on that sort of stuff. So you can see how much fun this book was researching, right? You know, it was it was uh absolutely wild.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Well, let me ask let me ask you, Ron, did Frank Matthews have a relationship with competitors, Nicky Barnes and Frank Lucas? Like did he interact with them or were they adversaries?

SPEAKER_01 18:32

They hung at the same bars in Harlem. And uh he lived in Brooklyn, but he hung a lot around a lot in Harlem. And yeah, they knew who he was. I talked to Frank I talked to Frank Lucas twice. And uh yeah, he said that that Frank was the man. He said Frank Matthews was the man and that that he knew him. He didn't know him well, but he knew him, he knew him to see him, you know, in in in the bars and all that. And Frank was very conspicuous. He uh ended up going to big boxing matches. Uh he went to Las Vegas a lot. He uh he uh he uh laundered his money through through the casinos in uh Las Vegas, which was uh never been proven, but that's that's a suspicion that he that he he was going to v Las Vegas to monitor to uh to launder his money. He would take he would take money there, they knew they'd take money there. And uh he he had big bags of cash in his in his hotel room and uh they assumed that that money went through through the uh Las Vegas casinos and all that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

The world that that Frank Matthews operated was a violent one. Were you able to link him to any murders? No, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

That's really interesting. Personally, no. I n I ne but I talked to one guy in Columbia, South South Carolina that claimed Frank Matthews killed his friend, you know, over a dispute. Uh he screwed Frank on a deal. And uh I was never able to to verify that. Yeah, there was no way of verifying on that. But that's the only thing that uh that uh that I was able to uh to to verify. Even though he had problems with the Italian mafia, you know, they they hated each other. There was never any any kind of violence there. Nobody but what happened was uh he did have it out with the Philadelphia Mafia, because they really didn't like him encroaching upon his territory. And so there was there was a uh a big uh you know violent uh confrontation with them. Uh there was a sh there was a shootout in New U New Jersey with uh uh uh uh one of his men who was killed. They never arrested anybody. They had something like 700 witnesses at this nightclub. Nobody ever stepped forward on that. But outside of that, like did he actually you know uh you know uh uh target somebody, you know, for a bad deal and all that. I wasn't able to find I wasn't able to find and none of the cops were able to tell me either.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Ron, at the at the height of his empire, what do you think he was worth?

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Well he you know, we believe he left with twenty million dollars, which is a pretty good amount uh of money. You know, and uh he had a lot of money because one of the the the prosecutor, William Callahan, told me that he was buying up land in Atlanta. He went to Atlanta a lot. He loved the Playboy Club there, you know. And and he loved blondes. He loved blondes. Uh when they're on the wire, he was always talking about these blonde good-looking uh waitress in the Playboy Club in uh in Atlanta. But he was buying a property uh in Atlanta and uh around there, and um Callahan told me he said that uh if if uh Frank had uh s you know lived and survived you know the investigation and was able to turn himself into a legitimate businessman, which I believe was his ultimate goal, he wanted number one to become legit, and number two to to make sure that his kids had a legitimate uh you know occupations when they grew up on that. But he said if if that land would if he had that land today and it was eventually sold for a for a Highway complex, right? Uh I think it was I I-85, part of I-85, whatever. But he said he it'd be worth billions today. He'd be worth billions on that then. But of course the the you know everything was confiscated when he when he fled.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Your book, you know, Ron, what interest what really caught my attention with your book is your book mentions the CIA's involvement in the Matthews investigation. What role do you think they played and what surprised you most about it? Oh wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

That that was uh the interesting part of the uh uh of of the book because uh the the the uh investigators here in New York revealed this, you know, for the first time. They told me that the CIA I said, what? He goes, I goes, yeah. What happened was you know Castro took power in in 1959, right? And uh so Cuba became a a real serious concern of U.S. foreign policy. So the CIA was monitoring uh Cuba and they were monitoring it from Venezuela, and and that was Frank's you know stronghold. That's where the Corsican Mafia were and all that. And uh what happened was Frank was talking on the wire and he talked about this big shipment, and uh he tipped off the authorities to his $100 million uh shipment from Venezuela. And uh he gave enough information that they busted this uh big shipment, and they also arrested 18 Corsicans on that. We're gonna did the indictment on on Frank and his and his group. They were going to include that as part of the case, right? And the CIA came in and said, Look, you can't do that. And he said, Why not? 'Cause and he said, because we said so, you can't do that. The federal government said you can't do that. And he and uh Cal Ann said that that uh that it would have screwed up their operation in in Venezuela and all that if if a lot of information got out. So he had to cut off the uh uh the uh Venezuela part of his indictment, you know, and uh and uh uh uh none of those guys were ever ever busted. They all got off. You know, and and and they were all more s uh Corsican Mafia guys. And uh what happened to him I don't know. But uh and I think that's one one of the theories that how Frank uh what happened to Frank is the Corsican Mafia could have been really pissed off at him, you know, because uh he he he he tattled on on their under operation and exposed them, you know, to uh to investigation and arrest. And uh and so when he left the country he was vulnerable. He was out of his hood, right? And uh he was in Venezuela and he had a lot of enemies. And uh I think they might have killed him, you know, and and took his money on that. Now the interesting thing is, and I well, first of all, I think this case is more interesting than the Hoffa case. Way more interesting because the Hoffa case, we know who did it, the mafia.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

The only thing is finding the body, right? You know, on that. But everybody knows that, but nobody knows what happened to Frank. And uh the interesting thing is when you have one person disappearing, that's pretty serious, right? And you can't find them. But when two people disappear and you never hear either of them, now that's really strange, right? Which leads you to think that something happened to them badly. And Cheryl Brown came from a nice family uh in Queens, uh, they were teachers and they were n you know, they loved her they loved their daughter and all that, and they eventually moved down to Florida and one of the marshals told me that they put a wire on their house for five years. Five years, there wasn't a w wasn't a call from her, there wasn't any kind of anything related to their daughter on that. Isn't that strange? You know what I mean? Which makes makes me think that she was probably uh you know, k killed. She was probably d done in. But then if she was killed, who else is there, right? I mean, who else was you with? She was with Frank Matthews, right? On that, and he's disappeared off the face of the earth too. And so uh that's what I think you know, good possibility, a good strong possibility could have happened, is that uh is that you know, she was uh both of them were knocked off. You know, and I think that uh the the the Venezuela the uh Corsican mafia could have something something to do with it. Now this story about the the the Italian mafia is is bullshit, in my opinion. I've I read that Bernstein article. Uh one of the first questions I asked the the investigators were did the Italian mafia had anything to do with Frank's disappearance? And they all dismissed it. They said, we investigated the mob really early in the investigation and concluded that uh they had nothing to do with it. And why would they if they hated Frank, they were glad to see him go. You know, in fact, Castellano, he lived in a neighborhood right near Castellano. Like you could see the house from across the street. And uh Castellano was talking about knocking him off, but I don't think he was really serious. But he was so ticked off at at Matthews that he wanted him dead because Matthew used to drive his car on his lawn, you know, just ri revved it up at uh at all hours of the night just to just to tick off the uh the mafia that were living down. There was another family, Three Fingers Brown, you know, the famous uh mafia godfather, their fa that family too was living in that neighborhood as well. And why Frank chose that, he m he must have known that the mafia lived that neighborhood. I don't I think he just he just told him to uh took that to to piss off the mafia, you know, on that sort of stuff. But anyways, they were glad to see him go, you know, and didn't have a clue.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

We talked about the CIA. Do you think the CIA might have had a vested interest and helped him escape and vanish and set him up with a new identity?

SPEAKER_01 27:28

I don't think I don't think they they they helped him with a new identity, uh because I don't see what was in it for them. Because they were they were probably as ticked off as the uh Corsican mafia was at at Frank, you know what I mean, because he had sort of blown up threatened their their operation in in Venezuela. Whether they had anything to do with the uh actual disappearance, you know, the CIA has done a lot of weird things, right? A lot of a lot of nasty things. I mean, they were involved in drug trafficking in Asia, you know, on that. Uh Contra selling uh arms for drugs, right? You know, so who knows? You know, maybe they did have something uh and if the CIA had something to do with it, it would it would never be found out. I mean, you know, they'd be able to cover they'd be able to cover it up uh pretty convincingly.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Ron, after Frank Matthews vanished, what what happened to his empire? Did any of his lieutenants try to keep it going, or did they all get indicted in the city?

SPEAKER_01 28:21

No, well they they all got indicted. I mean, uh there was 18 people indicted uh relating to the uh the case. Uh so it's it sort of fell apart. And uh like I said, some of them were arrested. There was a couple acquitted. His his aunt who raised him was was let off. She was let off. Uh a couple of guys got got got some time on that sort of stuff, but uh no one ever snitched. You know, no one ever said, Yeah, I know where Frank is. Uh you you give me you give me some some time off and I'll I'll tell you. None of that happened. None of that happened.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

Ron, what initially drew you to write this book about Frank Matthews? Like w what was it about him that m you said, you know what, I'm gonna put in the time and research?

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Well, I was wr I wrote a book called Gangsters of Harlem, and uh and uh that was my first book on uh black organized crime. And uh I interviewed Frank Lucas uh you know for the book and at that time he wasn't really big. The movie hadn't come out yet, American Gangster uh hadn't come out yet. So, you know, he was he was well known like within limited circles on that. He wasn't like world famous. I'll tell you the side story. I was uh in in uh Indonesia as a Fulbright scholar, right? And uh I was in the room and uh one one of the kids in the class asked me, I was a visit visiting professor of journalism at at the university, Paramedina University, and one of the kids in the class asked me, So who are some of the people you interviewed? So I mentioned Yasser Arafat, and then I mentioned Frank Lucas. Half the class knew who Frank Lucas was. I mean, I was I was shocked. I mean, I couldn't believe it. They said, You they go, You've interviewed him, American gangster? And I said, Yeah, I said, yeah, on that sort of stuff. But uh yeah, so so uh yeah, so I interviewed Frank, Frank Lucas, and he mentioned uh you know Matthews, and there was sort of a a respect there, you know, and I was saying, Who's this Matthews guy? So I went I went to the the internet, I did some research, and I said, God, this guy's disappeared. But I said, he was he was big. And so I did more research and uh I found out more interesting aspects of his story, and so I said, Wow, this is a great, great book idea. There's no book on him. And uh but I'm gonna wait. Uh I'm gonna wait uh because uh I had some other ideas on that. And then I did a a documentary, which you should look at. It's called the Frank Matthews Story, it's on Amazon Prime, and I I was the uh co-producer, co-director, and researcher on the on the thing. And uh and the uh I realized that there was a story because the documentary only covers Frank's story until he escaped. There was nothing about him on the run, right? Which is the second part of his story on that. So I realized that there was a book there to do, and so I researched uh the book and uh got it published, and it's been an option for a movie, by the way. We're we're pretty we're moving along on it, and uh that's essentially you know how how I got involved with the story.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Are there any unanswered questions or leads from your research that you're still hoping to explore? Or you or you thought you were close to something and someone clammed up?

SPEAKER_01 31:27

Well I wish somebody had some information because nobody has anything. I went into you know uh near the end of my my my research, I went into the DA office in New York and and talked to the head of the DA guy, and uh they w the the investigation was still open. It was still open. And I r I just r saw something on the internet saying the case was closed. I said, What? And uh they're they're they they have stopped looking for him. And I I looked at the uh at the research, there was no no evidence of that. So I think the case is still open. But I went in there and I and I I talked to the guy and I said, You the case is still open? He goes, Yeah, he goes, but he says, if Frank walked in today, we'd have to let him go. I see he said what? He goes, Well the case is too old. He says, Well, the evidence is tainted, uh, you know, people have died and all that sort of stuff. And he he said, and he said, Well, Cheryl Brown, I said, What about Cheryl Brown? And she said, She'd walk out of here free. You know, she she had nothing to do with it. That's just that's the other interesting part. She had no there there was nothing criminal about her about her relationship with Frank. She was just accompanying him on that. And you would think, that's another reason, you would think that she might get lonely for for her parents, right? And and try to contact him. But there's no there's no evidence of that. Once they went on a cruise and they went near Venezuela. So the cops got really, you know, excited about it and all that, and they checked it out, then nothing happened. It was just a regular cruise. There was no no meetings, you know, no surreptitious uh activities at all, you know, relating to the uh to the trip. So so they went on that. But yeah, so that you know that's that's pretty well it.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

So so Ron, if you could ask Frank Matthews one question today, what would it be? Why don't you give yourself up? You'd be a big big celebrity.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

No, he would. Could you imagine if Frank just showed up and said, here I am? And you know what? I'll tell you what. There are no records of that trial. That trial that and that happened in uh 19, I think 1975. I went looking for them and they couldn't find them. So how are you gonna try to to to uh to uh you know convict him without without evidence, right? On that sort of stuff. Uh so yeah, I'd say, why don't you I said why don't you what are you waiting for, man? Turn yourself in. I said, you'll you'll be a big, big celebrity. I mean, God, he'd be bigger than Frank Frank Lucas. And uh, you know, the stories he would tell. Uh but I but you know, I think there's a good chance that uh that uh he's dead and uh died a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

Ron, this was a really interesting book. I really enjoyed it. One more time, what's the name of the book and where can our listeners pick up a copy?

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Uh it's called Black Caesar, The Rise and Fall of Uh Frank Matthews' Drug Kingpin. And uh you could get a copy at Amazon. That's probably the best place to get it. And uh it should be available in um in most bookstores. Or if you if not, you can order them through your bookstore.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

And Ron, you also have a true crime podcast. Where can all listeners check that out?

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Oh, yes. Yeah, I got a true crime podcast. You could uh go on the internet, look for a crime beat with Ron Chepsick. It's it's it's um an award-winning uh podcast. And uh the uh the address is is www.artistfirst.com forward slash crime beat period HTM.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Ron, I'm gonna pick up a copy of your book about Sergeant Icke because you piqued my interest with that. I'd love to have you back on again in a couple of weeks.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

His story rivals Frank for his interest and uh how he operated using the U.S. military in in the in the early 1970s to uh become one of the top ten traffickers in in history, according to DA.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Ron, I will buy that book and I will have you back. Ron Chapson, thank you. Sounds good.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

I appreciate you inviting me, Vic. It's been very interesting. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Okay, you're welcome, Dan. Thank you. As always, I'd like to thank everyone for tuning in, especially my listeners in Casa Grande, Arizona, Sparta, New Jersey, Mount Kisco, New York, and Kamloops, British Columbia. If you worked in law enforcement and had an interesting criminal background, please drop me a note on Twitter, Instagram at VicFerrari50. If you're watching on YouTube, please hit the like and subscribe buttons. If you're really feeling strong, hit the hype button. And if you enjoy the content, check out my Amazon author page, type in my name, Vic Ferrari Like the Car, where you can preview all my NYPD books for free. Thanks again, everyone, and I'll see you next week.