Murder By Moonlight - Chappaqua, New York

Summary

Podcast Summary: Small Town Murder - "Murder By Moonlight - Chappaqua, New York"

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Introduction

In this episode of Small Town Murder, hosts James Pietragallo and Jimmy Wissman delve into the chilling case of a brutal murder that shook the affluent community of Chappaqua, New York. Combining meticulous research with their signature comedic flair, the hosts unravel the intricate details of the crime, exploring the lives of those involved and the subsequent investigation that ensued.

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Background of the Central Figures

Timestamp: [04:37]

James Pietragallo introduces the primary individuals at the heart of the case:

• Carlos Perez Olivo: Born on May 1, 1948, in New York City to a Puerto Rican mother and a Cuban father, Carlos had a tumultuous early life. After his parents' brief marriage, his mother returned to Puerto Rico, leaving him in the care of his grandparents. A bright and ambitious individual, Carlos excelled academically, graduating from Columbia University and eventually becoming a successful defense attorney specializing in drug-related cases.

• Peggy Hall: Born on September 3, 1951, in Lexington, Kentucky, Peggy came from a large, middle-class Catholic family. Seeking an exciting life away from her hometown, she became a stewardess with Eastern Airlines, where she met Carlos. Their whirlwind romance led to a swift marriage in 1976 and the birth of their son, Carlos Jr.

Notable Quote:

James Pietragallo [04:37]: "Carlos was a young, swinging lawyer, and Peggy was the life of the party. They seemed like the perfect couple, balancing each other out."

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Life in Chappaqua

Timestamp: [12:16]

By the late 1980s and into the 1990s, Carlos and Peggy had established themselves in Chappaqua, a wealthy suburb of New York City. Despite their financial success, Carlos's career as a defense attorney began to falter due to ethical misconduct, including misappropriating client funds. This period also saw Carlos grappling with Lyme disease, leading to depression and straining his marriage.

Notable Quote:

James Pietragallo [12:42]: "They bought an impressive house next to the Clintons, living the high life, but behind the scenes, things were falling apart."

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The Murder Event

Timestamp: [18:21]

On the night of November 18, 2006, tragedy struck. Carlos and Peggy were returning home from a night out in Manhattan when their car was ambushed. A mysterious assailant attacked them, resulting in Peggy being fatally shot in the head and Carlos sustaining a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to his abdomen.

Notable Quotes:

James Pietragallo [18:22]: "They were driving home, enjoying a nice dinner and a movie, when out of nowhere, a man jumped into their SUV and opened fire."

Carlos (Reported) [21:49]: "It's all my fault. I shouldn't have fought with him."

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Investigation and Suspicion

Timestamp: [24:13]

Following the attack, investigators quickly suspected Carlos due to inconsistencies in his account and the discovery of their murder weapon at a nearby lake. Carlos's financial troubles, including unpaid debts and suspicious life insurance policies, further deepened suspicions.

Notable Quote:

James Pietragallo [25:00]: "Carlos had cut off his accounts, piled up debts, and increased life insurance just before the murder. Red flags everywhere."

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Legal Troubles and Ethical Misconduct

Timestamp: [33:44]

Carlos's unethical practices as a defense attorney came to light, revealing a pattern of deceit and financial impropriety. Multiple clients accused him of mishandling funds and providing subpar legal representation, leading to his disbarment by 2000.

Notable Quote:

James Pietragallo [33:44]: "He treated his legal practice like a pyramid scheme, taking money and running without delivering results."

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The Trial

Timestamp: [84:36]

With mounting evidence against him, Carlos stood trial for the murder of Peggy. The prosecution presented a compelling case outlining his motive—financial desperation—and the circumstantial evidence linking him to the crime. Key points included:

• Firearm Evidence: The murder weapon, a Walther PPK, was found near the crash site and matched the firearm used in the shooting.

• 911 Call: Carlos's frantic 911 call post-attack exhibited panic, but experts debated its authenticity and sincerity.

• Financial Motive: His recent financial collapses and large life insurance policies painted a motive for the murder.

Despite his defense team's attempts to portray him as a grieving husband with no plausible reason to commit the crime, the evidence was overwhelmingly against him.

Notable Quote:

James Pietragallo [88:50]: "Imagine taking your wife out for dinner and then, in a split second, deciding to shoot her and frame yourself. It's cold, calculated murder."

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Verdict and Sentencing

Timestamp: [157:11]

After an 11-hour deliberation, the jury found Carlos guilty of second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon. Sentenced to 25 years to life in prison, Carlos's appeals were unsuccessful, cementing his fate behind bars.

Notable Quotes:

James Pietragallo [157:11]: "He meticulously planned and carried out the murder of his wife, weaving a web of deceit to cover his tracks."

Jimmy Wissman [157:29]: "He's definitely going to do the time of one."

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Aftermath and Reflections

Timestamp: [161:36]

The hosts reflect on the tragedy, emphasizing the stark contrasts between Chappaqua's serene facade and the dark realities that unfolded. They highlight the importance of transparency and integrity, especially in professions like law, where trust is paramount.

Notable Quote:

James Pietragallo [162:46]: "Chappaqua was supposed to be a haven, a safe place spared from city violence. But this murder shattered that illusion, reminding us that darkness can lurk even in the most unexpected places."

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Conclusion

Murder By Moonlight - Chappaqua, New York serves as a gripping exploration of how appearances can be deceiving and the lengths to which individuals might go when faced with desperation. Through detailed storytelling and insightful commentary, Small Town Murder brings to light the complexities of human behavior, morality, and justice within the seemingly idyllic setting of Chappaqua.

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Notable Quotes Throughout the Episode

• James Pietragallo [00:01]: "A brutal murder sends an extremely upscale area into a panic at the idea of a shadowy killer stalking its residents."

• Jimmy Wissman [02:33]: "Oh, gross."

• James Pietragallo [03:50]: "We don't make fun of the victims or the victims' families."

• Jimmy Wissman [09:12]: "They found out how nice it is to live here."

• James Pietragallo [17:30]: "Skang and Craff. Bikini in the park. That sounds like a He-Man villain."

• Jimmy Wissman [57:51]: "He just put it out of the way, away from you, away from the crime scene."

• James Pietragallo [165:45]: "Now, he's in prison, remains in prison, will be eligible for parole in 2032. But his wife is dead, and his daughter, Alicia, believes he's innocent."

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Final Remarks

James and Jimmy conclude the episode by thanking their listeners, encouraging them to leave reviews, support via Patreon, and stay tuned for upcoming shows covering new cases and intriguing topics like alien conspiracies in Roswell. Their blend of thorough investigation and humor provides an engaging narrative that captivates both true crime aficionados and casual listeners alike.

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Stay Connected

• Website: shutupandgivememurder.com
• Patreon: patreon.com/crimeinsports
• Social Media:
  • Instagram: @smalltownmurder
  • Facebook: Smalltown Murder

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Note: All quotes are attributed and timestamped based on the provided transcript to ensure accuracy and proper context.

Transcript

[James Petregallo]

This week in Chappaqua, New York, a brutal murder sends an extremely upscale area into a panic at the idea of a shadowy killer stalking its residents. But the real story makes people start to look inside their own homes for monsters. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay. Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petregallo. I'm here with my co host.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I am Jimmy Wissman.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another absolutely wild edition of Small Town Murder. We have some weird stuff for you today. Just a bad person, a real from like top to bottom and the type 2. This kind of what Small Town Murder runs on is the mask is completely not what's behind the mask. Presenting something completely different to the outside world of respectability and then inside a disaster.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That guy.

[James Petregallo]

We'll get to that and much more. Definitely. Head over to shutupandgivememurder.com first of all, all the merchandise you could possibly want. Everything from skateboards to coffee cups. And get your tickets especially for live shows starting back up in the fall again. I think a lot of them are sold out. Like Madison, Grand Rapids, but sand, not San Diego, that's sold out. But Irvine, we have Irvine and then Philly and D.C. in December and then Seattle also has some tickets left so the rest of them are sold out. You guys are awesome. Thank you. Get your tickets now. Shut up and give me murder.com. also listen to our other two shows, Crime in sports, which is hilarious. And you don't have to like sports, trust me. We're gonna do a whole multi parter on the i5 killer so you don't need to. He played football for about five minutes so you don't have to have anything to do with sports for that. And also listen to your stupid opinions where you get to hear people's stupid opinions about anything and everything under the sun. And we read reviews and laugh at people like crazy. And if you still need more content, we have more for you. Patreon.com CrimeInSports is where you get all that stuff. Anybody $5 a month or above, you are gonna get so much. So much. You're gonna get hundreds and hundreds of back episodes of bonus stuff you've never heard. You'll get it immediately upon subscription. Click go ahead and binge on that. And then you get new ones every other week. This week, what we're gonna do here for crime and sports, we are gonna talk about the Liver King.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, gross.

[James Petregallo]

The guy, the documentary and some background on him. And this guy, I thought he was dead. I figured, how could anyone do this and live? He's eating, like, raw testicles out of the woods. Like, there's no way this guy's alive. And somehow he's still alive. And then for small town murder, we're gonna do some alien stuff.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Here we go.

[James Petregallo]

Let's do it. We're gonna do some alien stuff, some Roswell stuff. We're gonna just go down a rabbit hole of crazy and, you know, just do some alien stuff.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Lunatic stuff.

[James Petregallo]

I've been reading some alien stuff lately, and I'm interested. And so let's talk about it. It's gonna be a lot of fun. And Roswell is a small town, so there you go.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's weird.

[James Petregallo]

That's that. And so do that. And patreon.com crimeinsports just like that podcast that's really hilarious I heard.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Listen to.

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely. And you also get a shout out at the end of the show where Jimmy will mispronounce your name all sorts of different ways. So do that. That said, disclaimer time. This is a comedy podcast. We're comedians. That's what we do here. The murders are absolutely real and in such detail. The research is meticulous. We're doing everything we can, finding every detail. Nothing is made up for comedic effect or anything ridiculous like that. So you might go, well, how is that funny? Well, there's a lot of funny things about, you know, trying to get away with murder.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's ridiculous.

[James Petregallo]

That's pretty ridiculous. What we do, though, is we don't make fun of the victims or the victims families.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why, James?

[James Petregallo]

Because we're assholes. But we're not scumbags. See how that goes there? And if that sounds good to you, oh, man, do we have a crazy story for you. If you think true crime and comedy should never ever go together, I don't know why you're here, but if you are, I think it might not be what you think. So check it out. No complaining later. That's the way this works. Either way, I think it's time for everybody to sit back. Let's all clear the lungs, arms to the sky, and let's all shout, shut up and give me murder. Let's do this. Okay, let's go on a trip, shall we? We are going down the road from where we sit at the moment here. We're going to Chappaqua, New York.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Where is that?

[James Petregallo]

Westchester. Down by Tarrytown and all that, you know, right outside the city there. All that good stuff here. Chappaqua, New York. Southeastern New York, down by the city. It's about 30 minutes to New York City. This is prime commuter territory here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And it's expensive.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Very wealthy. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

All this whole beautiful area.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Gorgeous.

[James Petregallo]

Gorgeous. But very expensive. Five hours and 20 minutes to Brighton, New York, which is all the way up by Buffalo there. Our last New York episode. Episode 557. Suburban Axe Murder mystery.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Probably didn't do it.

[James Petregallo]

We don't think that guy did it. And he just died in jail. That was a wild episode. You got to check that out. This is in Westchester county, which is known for being pretty wealthy for the most part. Area code 914. No motto for this town.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They got it. They're doing fine.

[James Petregallo]

It should just be Chappaqua. The unpronounceable.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We don't need it.

[James Petregallo]

If you're not from the east coast, you won't know how to say this at all. History here. It started out, people started coming here. Quakers were the first settlers, whatever you want to call it here. In the 1730s, a group of Quakers moved north from Purchase, New York, to. To settle in what is now Chappaqua. They built their homes on Quaker Road, which is surprising. They renamed it later on Quaker Street. You know, Gotta mix it up a little bit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Because that song by Bruce Springsteen. Right.

[James Petregallo]

Quaker Road. I believe that's a. Yeah, it's not Thunder Road, it's Quaker Road.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sounds better. It sounds close to Baker Street.

[James Petregallo]

Isn't that, though. No, Baker street is better than that. I can't remember. But it's not.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that not Bruce.

[James Petregallo]

No, it's not Bruce at all.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, I. Yeah, I know the song. I can hear the song now.

[James Petregallo]

That's like two songs.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, a lot of. A lot of music or radio guys like to use it as their inside.

[James Petregallo]

Many of the early homes and businesses were destroyed in the great 1904 Chappaqua tornado. Oh, which we don't get that a lot around here, too. Tornadoes. So that's a. That's a weird.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Not the fire.

[James Petregallo]

No. You expected a fire. Everyone out there. But of course it burned down. No, I'm sure the tornado then caused fires. That's probably what happened. Then that burned to the ground. Right. Turned into it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It blew all the ashes out of your fireplace right into your fucking house.

[James Petregallo]

That's a timeline of how that goes, I believe. Reviews of this town here. Let's see. Here's five stars. Great place to live. Very family oriented. Four exclamation points if you can afford it. Everything should be abutted with if you can afford it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

If you got a little bit of.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, shit. Great schools, great town, great people. We love it here. Exclamation. Yeah. They have a lot of money. It's all rich people.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Everybody's real nice.

[James Petregallo]

That's the thing here too. Where do we get to the crime rate? Like it's non existent in this town. They're just so rich they have no reason to commit crime. It's weird as shit. Then here we go. This one. I don't even know how to where this came from. I went to Greeley, which is the high school horse. Greeley. Multiple pedophilia scandals. What? Within a six year period in the mid-2000s, the school district did as much as they could to limit press attention and defend the institution. It is everything bad you've ever heard about Westchester rolled into one.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's corrupt.

[James Petregallo]

They want your kids, they want them bad. They'll take them in. They can't buy them from you because you have a lot of money.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But the silence.

[James Petregallo]

Wow, that is interesting. And that is. I mean, I don't know if that's alumni wanting to keep a lid on it and not have to screw up the school's name.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't even know if it's real.

[James Petregallo]

Or if it's real. We have no idea what's going on. That's. I mean that's one hands off. I don't know. Allegedly. Alleged. Alleged.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's a very serious allegation.

[James Petregallo]

No idea. People here. 3062. Okay, so not that big. And it's inside Newcastle, which is another town. This is like a hamlet inside of a thing. So median age here is about 44 and a half, which is older than the national average.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But that's about when you get money.

[James Petregallo]

When you start making your money and you want to move somewhere nice, you're.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Supposed to make money.

[James Petregallo]

The I would look, this is a crazy stat for a town with 3,000 people. This is a stat you get in a town with like, you know, 86 people or something. 54% over. 54.2% women.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

45.8% male divorcees. Divorcees or widows. I don't know what's going on here. Or somebody figured out how an untraceable poison and they're passing it around to their friends. The recipe at fucking community meetings or something.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They found out how nice it is to live here.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, it's about 56% married over the average. All the wealthy suburban stability stats are here. Basically lower divorce rate. 3.8% single with children.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

The average is 10%. And a lot of our towns are 25%. This is 4%. This is. People stick together. They're too rich to get a divorce. And we'll find out. There's a couple that fits that to.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A T. It's expensive to leave her. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

That lives three doors down from the people we're gonna talk about. Yeah, we'll talk about that now. Racing this down, 84.5% white, 13.5% Asian, and 2.2%. Two or more races, which I assume are Asian and white mixed together. Yeah, 0.0%. Everybody else, 64.9% religious, which in the Northeast is actually.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's on average, right?

[James Petregallo]

That's above average in the Northeast. But that's also. Maybe these people are so successful, they think, well, it must be Providence, something smiling upon me. It has to be Providence. There's nothing else that could explain this. Obviously we're gonna have Catholic as the most popular religion. 47% of the people here are Catholic as it kind of rolls out. And 5.2% Jewish. Holy shit. We got that. We get to sing finally. I don't know the words. Hey, there we go. We got that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're doing great up here.

[James Petregallo]

Everybody's doing great up here. It's crazy. Unemployment's about average here. I don't know how you could be unemployed and afford to live here. Yeah, you'd have to have a shitload of money in the bank. Median household income here, 196,141.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Almost 200 grand a year is the median household income.

[James Petregallo]

That is cooking. You are doing well. I mean, that includes people who work at the McDonald's and everybody some CEO somewhere. That's wild. Let's see here. Cost of living, 100 being regular, average, par. Here it is. 157 is the cost of living, which is obviously high. And housing is going to be the highest one. 100 is par.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

Housing 348. Median home cost, $1,114,000. Wow. Holy shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Million dollar homes. Every single one of them.

[James Petregallo]

They're all on average. Yeah, it's everything. That's your average home. You get a three bedroom, two bath. I mean, there's not a lot of like little tiny raised ranches around this area either, but still, it's a lot. So if we've convinced you and you have been saving your pennies, you're gonna crack your piggy bank. We have for you the Chappaqua New York real estate report. The average two bedroom rental here goes for three. $3100 is more than. It's almost three times the national average. It's like 1250 nationally.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So 3100 pissing on these people.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. You can get a place in the city for 31. Not a two bedroom probably, but something. House number one here. Let's see. It is a real nice house. Three bedroom, three bath, 2084 square feet. Yeah, nice house. Got a nice yard here. Must have a lobster show it to you there. Yeah, nice little garden out there. Nice house. 2,084ft. 650,000 bucks.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Holy.

[James Petregallo]

Which for where it is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Not bad.

[James Petregallo]

That's not terrible for where it is. Obviously it's not cheap.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yearly taxes.

[James Petregallo]

That's going to be a lot. Next up is kind of a. It doesn't look like anything spectacular. Kind of looks like a raised ranchy type house with some brick on it here. Four bedroom, three bathroom. 2,541 square feet. $899,000. So we're moving up. And then finally this ridiculous shit here. Five bedroom, nine baths. Look at this thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What do you need that for?

[James Petregallo]

It looks like.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It looks like the white house. Yeah, it's crazy.

[James Petregallo]

It looks like a resort. It's like where the gemstones go on vacation. It's fucking. It's silly. 5 beds, 9 bath. T bowl for each and every people. And some neighbors.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Your super bowl party, they can have.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. 7,055 square feet.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, Lord.

[James Petregallo]

Big giant house. Big. It's white. It's different levels. There's pillars, a big pool and a yard.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's unbelievable.

[James Petregallo]

It's unbelievable. And it better be because the price is unbelievable. $10,995,000. $11,000,000 in houses. That's a lot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's ridiculous.

[James Petregallo]

It's a little pricey.

[Jimmy Wissman]

How can you. What the fuck?

[James Petregallo]

That's a lot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What must the annual taxes of that be? I can't fathom how these rich people do.

[James Petregallo]

If you're some CEO in New York, in the city, you can live there. You don't care. It's a. The schools are the best. You can. You know, you can have affairs and know your wife isn't gonna be stabbed while she walks around with her with the kids while you're off.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She won't even know because you don't even. You can do it in the house.

[James Petregallo]

In that house. Yeah, you could. You could have a whole other family over there. Somebody like. I thought I heard a child screaming the other Day. But it couldn't have been. No, no, no. Don't worry about the east wing. Just leave it alone. We're redoing it right now. Things to do here. Palooza in the park. All right. This year is the 11 year anniversary. This takes place in July, July 6th, here at Brush Park. They say this event marks the 11th edition of Palooza in the park and is going to be. Is going back outdoors.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. When you don't want the fourth of July to end.

[James Petregallo]

Well, how do you have palooza in the park indoors? It's not in the park at that point. Unless it's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Unless you did it in your own place.

[James Petregallo]

Some depressing, like, event center.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You go in your house and do your palooza in the park.

[James Petregallo]

Although I don't know what the parks are like down there. They might be spectacular. It promises live performances. I like how it promises this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We promise.

[James Petregallo]

Look, we ain't guaranteeing nothing. We'll promise, you know, enough or nothing. This is what they're saying. Live performances, food and exotic drinks. Yeah, it's described as a quote, can't miss in person event.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, boy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Home run every time.

[James Petregallo]

Home run every time. Well, I have some of the bands here that played. This is the. I don't have this year's. They haven't put out this year's yet, but I have 2024-20-23s. One of the two here. Let's find out the level of talent.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That we get at a place at.

[James Petregallo]

Palooza in the park. I was gonna call it Parkapalooza.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's what they should call it.

[James Petregallo]

They should. It'd be better. They have a first class band is the one name. And it is a bunch of old guys, couple of young guys, and then two ladies in the middle. There's eight of them altogether. Six dudes, three old and fat and bald, three younger and less fat and less bald. And then two ladies wearing, like, prom dresses. I don't know what's going on.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're making 500 bucks for this and they're gonna split it between eight people.

[James Petregallo]

Jesus. They do top 40 cover songs.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It says, yeah, from that year.

[James Petregallo]

Who the fuck? Not this year. Not this year. I hope not. Anyway. FDR Drive Band. FDR Drive. Like at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Museum. That's what that's called. FDR Drive. Okay.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Do they live there?

[James Petregallo]

Maybe they're from Poughkeepsie area. The Hyde park area. We don't know. They do top 40 in dance.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay. And dance.

[James Petregallo]

And there's eight of them as well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Great.

[James Petregallo]

Three women, five men.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So far we've got a thousand dollars spent and 16 people taking a cut.

[James Petregallo]

Both bands. None of these people look like they belong together. Also, they're not the same age. They don't look. They're not dressed the same. They're not.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're all basically doing this for free. So who gives a shit?

[James Petregallo]

Who cares? Without a Net is a Grateful Dead tribute band without a net. Why do I understand performing Grateful Dead songs? Performing a low key, calm song without a net. Wow. The station agents, they do classic rock and pop. And then I'm gonna let you guess what kind of band this is. Tramps Like Us.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is this a Born to Run cover band?

[James Petregallo]

It is a Bruce Springsteen tribute band. Absolutely, my friend.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Tramps Like Us. Tramps like us, we're just doing Born to Run all.

[James Petregallo]

And then I see Bikini Palooza in the park.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's better.

[James Petregallo]

Which I don't know what that's all about, but Skeng and Kraf will be there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't know either.

[James Petregallo]

I don't know either.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They sound like villains from the Ninja Turtles.

[James Petregallo]

A couple of young. They look like, I don't know, a couple of young black guys with tattoos all over their faces.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Skang and Craff.

[James Petregallo]

Skang and Craff. Bikini in the. Definitely sounds like a he man villain. I have the power. Skang, you're mine. Crime rate in this town, property crime just under one third of the national average. So not that much happened. Which seemed like this would be a good place to go steal if you're from a different area. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

I want your shit.

[James Petregallo]

Violent crime basically non existent. It's less than one quarter of the national average. It doesn't happen. It just doesn't happen.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, you're just so happy.

[James Petregallo]

You just give people tons of money and they don't murder. It's weird.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yes. Gang and Kraft coming. And you just wait till next year.

[James Petregallo]

That's all you can do, my friend. So that said. So let's talk about some murder.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Here we go.

[James Petregallo]

Considering how safe and wonderful this is. Okay, let's go back in time a bit. Not too much, but a bit. November 18, 2006. Yeah, so, okay. Cell phones with cameras.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This is a decent time. BlackBerry, not a great picture.

[James Petregallo]

This is a BlackBerry era here. This is. The iPhones were still not a great.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Picture on your phone.

[James Petregallo]

Not a great picture, but you could take one. You could take a video and it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Looks like a picture.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, this is, you know, MySpace, but no Instagram Facebook, any of that shit. But MySP. So it's, you know, Internet, high speed, you know, streaming porn. You got all this going on right now. It's all happening. Viewporn.com exists almost modern day. YouTube has been out for a year.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that right?

[James Petregallo]

I think 2005 was YouTube. So YouTube's been out for a year, it's almost modern day pretty much. So we're gonna start out at Northern Westchester Hospital. Yeah, it is almost midnight on this night. And at Northern Westchester Hospital. It's not like it's in the middle of the South Bronx or something, I don't think they have constant stab wounds coming in and people on gurneys bleeding out or anything like that. It's probably not that. It's probably people that had like an accident at home or some 72 year old retired CEO had a heart attack while he was gardening or some shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Tomato guillotine or some shit.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, that'll get you every time they finger. It'll fuck you right up. It's their cigar. Yeah, they chop the end of their finger off as they cutting their Cuban as they go to cut their $42 cigar. So just past midnight, or close to midnight, a Mitsubishi Montero. Remember those?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh yeah. A little SUV with the Nissan Xterra.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, little Mitsubishi.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's an ugly fucker. It's stupid.

[James Petregallo]

Oh yeah, yeah, but it had real top heavy. It had some street cred though because rappers would mention a Montero once in a while.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, they were expensive.

[James Petregallo]

Any SUV that's in the 90s, any SUV was expensive. And it was considered, you know, you could bring in all your friends in it and it was all, you know, whatever, hot boxes then. Oh, great to hot box, you know, want too much space. That's the thing. It's all gonna get wasted. So this Montero pulls up to the er, nearly crashing through the doors of the fucking er.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow, Dead serious.

[James Petregallo]

Slamming. I'm talking like crooked in the door, like in the fucking doorway. Basically like, we're here motherfucker.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's an emergency.

[James Petregallo]

Emergency. Yeah, not in the. Cause all the emergency rooms have the little valet looking area like at a hotel. That's where people go and they park and it's like four feet from the front door. So normally they don't pull up actually into the door pretty much because it's kind of pointless, it's a waste. So it's actually blocking the entrance. Like you couldn't get in if you were trying to get in.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We're next.

[James Petregallo]

It's that it's that if an ambulance pulls up, they're gonna have to wait.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No, no.

[James Petregallo]

We're next for the double parking here. So turned into a frantic scene immediately. I mean, these are. It's probably a little sleepy at this point in time. It's late shift all of a sudden, fucking people getting out, guy yelling. And there's a man getting out. Middle aged guy gets out, yelling, screaming. He's got blood all over his shirt.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

He's got a polo shirt on. It's covered in blood. He's all bloody. He's losing his goddamn mind here. A nurse named Shelly Greisinger said that this man resisted getting onto a stretcher and was given anti anxiety medication intravenously. Intravenously. So they. He was freaking out so bad, they just like a movie, they held him down and. And stuck something in his arm till he chilled the fuck out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Give me 30ccs of something that'll calm him stat.

[James Petregallo]

Like what you do to a tiger. Yeah, you know, before it mauls anyone else.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Blow dart from the fucking. From the reception desk.

[James Petregallo]

It's got Roy and it's shaking him. Siegfried, did you bring the dart? This is the time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That is funny that they, that guy got fucked up. And nobody hit that thing with a dart.

[James Petregallo]

No, that's what I mean. That would be like being allergic to peanuts. You have that pen on you? If I have this tiger, it's in, clutched in my hand is the dart that puts it down. As soon as it fucking nudges me wrong, I'm sticking it in the tail.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And if we're worried about it dying, we at least put it the fuck to sleep.

[James Petregallo]

My God.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Whatever sedative we need.

[James Petregallo]

Holy shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And it's funny that they, they, I mean it fucked that guy up beyond recognition.

[James Petregallo]

The lesson here is quit fucking with tigers. Leave them alone. They're not meant to do show shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Those eat meat.

[James Petregallo]

They're wild fucking animals.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You're made of meat.

[James Petregallo]

Leave tigers alone. They're beautiful, majestic animals. And you're like, what if we catch one and make it walk around in Vegas when it's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No, we'll make it disappear and reappear. I'm sure that'll piss it off.

[James Petregallo]

That'll piss it off good, right? How do we agitate this thing? The most effective, you know when you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Kick an anthill after they've worked so hard. That probably pisses them off a lot. What can the equivalent be with this giant fucking man eating beast?

[James Petregallo]

Dangerous beast. So this guy is given the same thing he's given A shot, like I said, it says intravenously, so I assume it didn't come from a blow dart.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, that's intravenous, isn't it?

[James Petregallo]

I think you have to push a plunger to make it intravenous to actually hit the vein, I think so. The nurse said that he cried in the hospital bed and blamed himself for what happened.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay, what did he do?

[James Petregallo]

Well, he's bleeding with a gunshot wound and his wife is in the car as well with a more serious gunshot wound. And that's what he's saying to help. And the nurse said he kept repeating it was all his fault because he shouldn't have fought with the man. Okay, so here we go. That's the scene. We're setting Montero in the doorway. This guy so freaked out. You need to give him a shot. It's all my fault. It's all my fault. The wife is more seriously injured than him. She can't speak. They're bringing her in and she needs immediate surgery and everything else. So. So that's the mess we're dealing with here. So let's find out who this man is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Who is it?

[James Petregallo]

Who is this tiger man?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Who's this gunshot fella?

[James Petregallo]

He is Carlos Perez Olivo.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Okay. Hyphenated.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Perez Olivo.

[James Petregallo]

Perez Olivo. He is born May 1, 1948. He's born in New York City.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yep. His mother had come to New York to go to school here. She's from Puerto Rico originally. She went to New York to go to school and she met Carlos's father, who was a Cuban. And this was. Think about this. This is, you know, 1948. So this is pre Castro Cuba. This is Ricky Ricardo Cuba. Almost two more years, it'll be Ricky Ricardo Cuba. Yeah. People had this thought in the 50s of now, you think of Cuba and it's kind of dystopian a little bit, you know, it's Castro.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A lot of army fatigues on.

[James Petregallo]

Army fatigues. Cars from 70 years ago. Not by choice, you know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's a palm tree right there.

[James Petregallo]

Not cause someone's working on it on the weekends, because that's all that's there, shit like that. But back then, people thought of Cuba as just basically just an American vacation spot. And, you know, basically Florida too. A lot of dancing, more developed Florida. Because back then Florida wasn't shit. It was old people.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A lot of dancing with hot people and.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, oh, absolutely. That's what was going on. If you've seen like Godfather 2, imagine, you know, that era that's what was going on. It was a lot. It was party time. Casinos and shows and showgirls and that kind of shit. So anyway, father is from Cuba, but he's in New York as well. They had a short relationship, his mother and father. And his mother got pregnant and that was that. Never knew his father. His father was gone. Product of a very short relationship and that's that. And yeah, his early childhood is not great for Carlos. So his mother returned to Puerto Rico with him knowing that she needed her family. She can't be a young woman who's alone in New York City trying to raise this baby. So she goes back to her family and there her parents basically took over the responsibility of raising the child.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He goes to his grandparents house.

[James Petregallo]

Basically just Grandma and grandpa are it from now back home in Puerto Rico. Yeah. Yeah. So after about three years of this in San Juan, the family ended up moving to a rural area in the central part of the island, which is kind of like Australia. Puerto Rico is. There's not much in the middle. It's fucking hot there. So you go to where the water is and you know, until that gets. Till there's no more room there. No one's going inland any. We didn't figure that out. We were like Phoenix. That's a. Seems like a good spot. Oh, is it all full over by the.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Let's keep going until it's too hot to walk.

[James Petregallo]

You drive up the California coast, there's a lot of open space. Man. As I'm looking around I'm going, this is a whole lot of open space up and down this coast till the horses die. Yeah. Why are we here? Who decided this was correct? So anyway, they go there now Carlos's grandfather here, Mom's father was the bishop of the Presbyterian church here. And Carlos's grandfather had eight kids. Wow. Yeah. So they were. And one of the kids. One of. So this would be his uncle. His uncle, his mom's brother Ramon was married to a woman and they were childless. And I don't think they couldn't have kids. Let's take Carlos, they said we're happy to take young Carlos. That's fine. So they ended up becoming a family. And Carlos always considered them his real mother and father.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Petregallo]

Because I mean his mother abandoned him and his father was never even around long enough to abandon him. So that's not great. All that plays on psychology.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It sure does.

[James Petregallo]

It's definitely a thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. He had a mom and then he got new parents. And then got new parents.

[James Petregallo]

Yes. Even if you get new parents and they do a great job and everything's wonderful. This isn't like adopted at birth and whatever this is. He knew his grandparents, he knows his mother's story, he knows she ran out on him. It's kind of band aided his life.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Until he could get some stability. How old was he when Ramon took him?

[James Petregallo]

Like four, you know what I mean? Like not very old at all. So. But they ended up really raising him well and they did a good job. Ramon was an attorney.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

And his wife was a teacher.

[Jimmy Wissman]

San Juan attorney.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. An attorney apparent. Well, we'll find out because Carlos is going to follow in his footsteps here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

How about it?

[James Petregallo]

So Ramon's an attorney and his wife Mercedes is a teacher.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Beautiful.

[James Petregallo]

So they make good living and they can support him. And they're. That's their only kid, so they have money to burn on him here. He could read and Write by age 4, Carlos. So he's a very bright kid when he entered school. His language skills are very good too. He's also a lot taller. A tall kid early here, a little bit of a pain in the ass. He got thrown out of a few private schools as an elementary school kid. And I bet you too. So I bet you Ramon and Mercedes were probably pretty lenient with him based on feeling bad for him. So that will make a kid maybe act out in school a little bit and that kind of shit here. So he's thrown out a little bit. Eventually Ramon enrolls him at the American school there where he polished up his English a little bit and he starts doing real well in school here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Bilingual shit too, huh?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely speaks English very, very well. And like his family, they all speak English, English too, a lot. So I mean, they know how to speak. I mean, Puerto Rico's part of America, so they know how to speak English. A lot of these.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's a land that matters. What does it call it? Territory.

[James Petregallo]

Territory, yeah. Guam or whatever. So he would apply to a number of schools here. He wanted to go to Columbia really bad. In New York City.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, not the country.

[James Petregallo]

Not the country. New York City. Columbia University.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hell yeah.

[James Petregallo]

It's really good school.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Ivy League.

[James Petregallo]

No, I think it's either Ivy League or on the cusp. What it is a taint of Ivy League.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fucking impressive.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's the word, I think. I don't know if it's either Ivy League or it's like Vassar where it's like, just like, you know, it's sort of dry humping Ivy League, but Not quite there. So he gets accepted there and he enrolls in Columbia University. So he gets to go to New York, which he loves. He feels like this is where he belongs. He likes New York a lot. And he ends up graduating there and then returning. Ramon wanted him to come back and attend the University of Puerto Rico School of Law. That's where he went. So he said, well, come back here and do your law school here. Yeah, you did. You got your undergrad there, got your B.A. so he does. And Carlos didn't like it, though. He said, quote, it was very political. The school was heavily populated with those who were fervent proponents of Puerto Rican independence. And he was very much wanting to be an independent American. No, he was American. He wanted to go to New York and he wanted to, you know, he wanted Puerto Rico to be the 51st state. He doesn't want Puerto Rico to be its own country.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Got it.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. That's more of what he's about.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Let's be with America. Yeah, I've been to New York. It's doing it.

[James Petregallo]

I speak English. I went to Columbia. This is cool.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Have you guys seen it? It's working.

[James Petregallo]

It's working over there. So he would speak English to his professors a lot. And a lot of the fellow students would pick on him and call him an American all the time. So, yeah, they said, you don't need to speak fucking English here. We all speak Spanish. There's no reason for you to think you're all fancy speaking English to everybody.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why are you asking for pizza?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, what are you doing? Yeah, you know, we don't eat a.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Plantain and shut up.

[James Petregallo]

Shut the fuck up. So he didn't like it there. Finally, Ramon arranged for his adopted son to go back to Colombia Law School for a year. For a year. He made a deal with him. Okay, you got two years left. You go for a year there, then you come back and finish up here. Then. So your diploma says from here, but I get that you don't want to be here the whole time. That's fine. So he becomes a lawyer, does that, and he wins his first nine cases. Wow. So he does really good, and he starts getting more business. And by the time he's 25, he's kind of a hot up and coming lawyer in San Juan. People need him. Mainly because at this point in time, the mid-70s, the drug trade is becoming huge and there's a lot of drug busts, which means there's a shit for trafficking, which means there's a big need for defense attorneys. And guys flush with shitloads of cash willing to pay for it. So this is a golden age for defense attorneys.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Good for him.

[James Petregallo]

Any attention. Like 75 to 90 is a golden age for drug lawyers. They're just getting paid duffel bags full of cash to do nothing, to make deals, basically.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right. To go get them as little time.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They know they're going. They're dead to rights. They just need a guy.

[James Petregallo]

They're on camera. They got on a recording, selling it to an undercover agent. They got behind the wheel of the boat. They got busted driving a fucking speedboat full of coke as they're throwing fucking packages off the bat. Yeah, yeah. So Carlos likes it, he's into it. And so he's doing very well. He's a lawyer. He's a young swinging lawyer.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Awesome.

[James Petregallo]

That's got to be.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Who's winning?

[James Petregallo]

Who's winning? It's got to be funny. Comes from a family with some, you know, something behind him. They got a couple of bucks. They're. I mean, they're paying for Columbia fucking Law School. That's not cheap.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No.

[James Petregallo]

Even in the 70s, it's not cheap. So Carlos is all into it, and it's at this point that he's set up on a date with an Eastern airline stewardess.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Eastern Airlines.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah, I remember Eastern Airlines back in the day. I think they went out of business in about 92.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I was on the West Coast. I didn't hear.

[James Petregallo]

Nope. It was like New York to Florida.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Nice.

[James Petregallo]

New York to Florida. New York to Puerto Rico, a little.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Bit, to San Juan.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, I flew there to Florida when I was like nine on Eastern. I remember. So, yeah, he meets a young lady here named Peggy Hall. Okay, okay. Peggy hall is born September 3, 1951. So three years younger than him. But he's a swinging lawyer here. Very different background.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, she's from Lexington, Kentucky. Oh, and her last name's Hall.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. I mean, she is a flight attendant.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So she's. This is the best. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

That means the best.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's.

[James Petregallo]

Her family's done in the mid-70s. Flight attendants, by the way, you go, what's a big deal then? Flight attendants. Back then, they would literally, how they looked was number one.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You're ugly. Get out of here.

[James Petregallo]

Fuck off. They tell them, me, you're looking a little chubby there. You gotta lose weight. Like, it was like being a showgirl. It was crazy. So that was like. But it was, for some reason a really sought after job. And they would tell the girls back then because the young Ladies back then were all looking to get married in the 1960s and early 70s. So they'd tell them like, you know, 93% of our flight attendants, you couldn't be a flight attendant like past 30. But they say they don't make it to 30 because they marry somebody first. Because they marry one of the first class passengers or a pilot, they marry a rich guy, they marry a pilot or one of the people they meet on a plane. So this is basically how you present yourself to the world to meet a man is how they looked at it back then. So now she was born Peggy. Nine kids in this family.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Nine, yeah, wrap that shit up.

[James Petregallo]

Seven brothers, two sisters. Imagine the mess seven boys would make in your house. Just imagine the amount of broken shit you own. My little brother has two. My nephews are both two. Or not. They're not two, but they're.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's two.

[James Petregallo]

There's two. They're six and four and they're fucking animals. And they're great, nice kids and they listen and shit, but I mean, they leave a trail of destruction behind them. I couldn't imagine five more of those. It'd be like, oh, wow.

[Jimmy Wissman]

My direct next door neighbor has three boys. Nightmare.

[James Petregallo]

No, it's just nightmare. Yeah, There's a lot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

2, 9 and 1 7. Fuck that.

[James Petregallo]

That's a lot. Yeah, that's two years apart. They can team up on you at that point. I had my kids five years apart, so they were a little. They couldn't really team up. It was good. So anyway, her sister said that their upbringing was very normal here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Nine kids was normal.

[James Petregallo]

I'm sorry, it's seven sisters and a brother. I apologize.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my.

[James Petregallo]

Altogether, eight sisters, one brother.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That poor boy.

[James Petregallo]

I don't know how I mixed that up just now, but it's. Yeah. Can you imagine eight sisters? That's such a tough life, man. Although you would know how to get all the women. You would have all the tips, you'd.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Have all the sympathy.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah, you'd know exactly.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, you'd have the sympathy for everybody ever for every woman. You'd know what their problems are.

[James Petregallo]

Except imagine having to bring a woman to like a family event. And your eight sisters are going to.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Grill her, judge her.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, that's brutal. But the sister called it what you would call your average middle class Catholic home.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Middle class? With that many kids, how the fuck do you have the money?

[James Petregallo]

What do you do? Peggy's father's a weatherman with the government's National Weather Service and he's stationed In Lexington. That's why he's there. He worked different shifts, so he's home different times and all that kind of thing. So there's never any steady dad gets home at 5. And then we do this, and then we do that type of thing here. So he. By the way, Peggy. That's a real name on the Birch TV and everything. Peggy, which I guess Margaret is the long version of Peg.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is it?

[James Petregallo]

Yes.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Because Meg turns into Peg and then Peggy.

[James Petregallo]

I did not know that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Who the fuck did?

[James Petregallo]

Everybody, apparently.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Because I remember watching Mad Men with Sarah, and she was like, yeah, Peggy is Margaret. And I was like, is it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Who said that?

[James Petregallo]

Saren. It's right.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She knew that.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, apparently everybody knows that. I thought it was Pegret.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, if somebody asked, I wouldn't even. I'd stare at. I don't know.

[James Petregallo]

Whenever we rewatch Mad Men, we always just call her Pegret. Now, the Peggy character, I don't know. Is Pegret here? Yeah. What's going on in the scene? So in school, basically, she went to Catholic school. A nun kept making her write Margaret on her paper.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

So your name's not Peggy, it's Margaret? And she said, no, it's not. It's fucking Peggy. The sister said, my parents had to take her baptismal certificate to school to stop it. Her fucking. We named her a short name. Yes.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We fucked up.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. They took you and they're like, you're James. No, I'm not.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this.

[James Petregallo]

But at least that's still a J name. Peggy and Margaret aren't even close.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That don't make any sense.

[James Petregallo]

So she said, now. Well, now it's in two different spots. There's two different things. So I don't know if it's. I don't know if they have seven brothers or seven sisters. I don't fucking know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's nine children. We know that.

[James Petregallo]

In two quotes from the sister, she gives different accounts, she says, seven sisters.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She misspoke.

[James Petregallo]

So I don't know. So it's either eight girls and the bathroom's never available, or it's seven boys and everything's broken.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Broken.

[James Petregallo]

Anyway. Everything's broken. Water shooting out of fucking sinks, toilets.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Glass is broken.

[James Petregallo]

It has to be. It has to be. So she said, if you talk to my seven brothers and sisters, you would get seven different stories about Peggy's life and our lives growing up in Lexington, which is interesting. Okay. This is from a book. I'll give the name later. But it says that's the quote. Then the next line in the book is, even to this day, she marvels when talking to her sisters and her brother. Yeah, the quote, right before it was seven brothers. I don't know what's happening.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She must have misspoke on the first one. Right?

[James Petregallo]

I don't know what's going on. So it's a close knit family. Doesn't matter. It's a shitload of kids. It's plenty. It's fine. So they weren't particularly well off. Solidly middle class, I would say here. So with so many kids, they said they really didn't need a lot of outside people. You have your own.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We got it.

[James Petregallo]

A whole friend group in there with all those kids. Yeah, they become a gang at that point. You can't really join them unless you're born into them. They did a lot of shit, you know, roller skating and all that kind of crap. And Peggy here is kind of the life of the party. Everybody says she's got a lot of energy and all that kind of stuff and has. Wants to do stuff and.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Moxie.

[James Petregallo]

Moxie, absolutely. Now, although all the girls were required to have chaperones while dating.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay, all the girls.

[James Petregallo]

All the girls. So I'm saying it's so confusing. I don't know. I don't know how many brothers and sisters there are, but there's a lot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's killing me.

[James Petregallo]

There's at least one sister and at least one brother and then there's altogether nine of them. I don't know any of the other breakdown, but I guess her older sister, she was allowed to double date with her, so that was fine. But her sister said Peggy wanted out of Lexington, Kentucky. She said she wanted an exciting life and settling down in Lexington was not the answer for her. Peggy would ultimately, you know, become the only child in the family not to marry and stay local. Is that right in Lexington?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, she left. She's the only one.

[James Petregallo]

She's the one that was like, I gotta get out. There's always somebody in the family.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Peggy's the party.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, Peggy's the party. So they also said she was thoughtful and modest and no drama with Peggy. Everybody said, really? No, she's not a drama person. She's just in a good kind of upbeat mood and trying to do stuff. So she graduated from high school in 1969 and worked in Lexington for a year and then said, how do I get out of here? I know I'll apply for a position as a stewardess because, number one, you have to live in another city. And number two, you get to see a bunch of shit and travel and meet people. And you know, that's exciting when you're 18, 19 years old. So she applies for a job at Eastern Airlines. Considered to be like a hot shit job. That means you're attractive and you're well spoken, all of that. And she said that, you know Peggy. Nope. She had never been on, even on an airplane before. Really Never even been on a plane before. But she was excited. It was an adventure. It was like guys in the 40s signing up for the war, you know what I mean? We're gonna go over there and go see the world. Let's get them. We're gonna go beat the Kaiser again. Oh, wait, it's not him anymore. Okay, well, they'll do something. I don't know. Goddamn Hirohito. We'll get him. So. Yeah, see, you're gonna get him. So. And Peggy, as an Eastern Airlines stewardess, you are based in New York, which is very exciting to her, too. She's getting out of Kentucky and going to the big city.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Going, the big city?

[James Petregallo]

She's jacked. She gets kind of lonely in New York, though.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You do?

[James Petregallo]

She said most of her downtime is spent in a tiny apartment with, like, three roommates.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And they're all rats.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, they cook well, though. That's the only saving grace.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Two rats and a roach.

[James Petregallo]

That's it. So she's got a bunch of roommates and a tiny hotel room and a tiny, tiny apartment. And either that or she's on the road with the airline and she's sitting in a hotel room by herself. So either way, getting kind of lonely, you know what I'm saying? So she loved the travel. And one of the regular routes she's on is San Juan to Puerto Rico, which is how she meets people that end up hooking her up with Carlos. So here we go. We have. We've. We've bonded them together. Carlos at this point said later on, quote, I was finally making money on my own. I had people coming to see me every weekend. People sent by mutual friends to look me up. If they were going to Puerto Rico. They'd say, back then, people were so much more social. If you were going, someone you knew was going somewhere, look up my friend. Yes. You'd say, this is his name. Look him up. And they would.

[Jimmy Wissman]

In the white pages, and they'd call.

[James Petregallo]

Him, hi, I don't know you so.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And so from Kentucky said to call you.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that right?

[James Petregallo]

Come on over. Oh, that's great. How long you known Bob? That's terrific. Nah, come on. Bye. We're gonna have a Barbie. You're fucking now. That's friend.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I got a Sarah Lee.

[James Petregallo]

No one does that now. And it would be so easy to do now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, so much easier.

[James Petregallo]

So easy. And no one does.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Look them up on Facebook.

[James Petregallo]

Here's their AT dm Them it's fine. Like, no, they appreciate it. Wow, that's so weird. So he said he was living the bachelor life in San Juan and doing it here. So Peggy's 23 at this point. They met for dinner with two mutual friends who introduced them. Here we go. They make the setup and that's what they would do. Carlos and his friends had a little thing where they'd always do double dates in case they didn't like the woman. That way they could fucking. Someone could make an excuse and help them out and they could get out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Together, help you get your tires changed. Let's go.

[James Petregallo]

But Carlos likes Peggy and they dance the night away. The following day he took her to the rainforest outside San Juan. It's like a tourist thing that they do. And they spend the whole day together. They're like they've known each other their whole lives. By the end of the day, that's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A pretty good first date, right?

[James Petregallo]

Well, yeah. Wet trees will bond you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Anything with moisture, that's fucking.

[James Petregallo]

It's gonna bond.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You feel it? Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

You get touched, the humidity and the sweat, it's all sticky.

[Jimmy Wissman]

All over now.

[James Petregallo]

It's all over. So apparently that week Carlos notified all his other girlfriends that he's done. I'm off the market, ladies.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I've got one.

[James Petregallo]

I found it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She landed me.

[James Petregallo]

That's it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Ten pound test.

[James Petregallo]

That's it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm her whale.

[James Petregallo]

I'm the one right here. So PEGG started to spend all of her free time in San Juan with him. Whenever she had a day off, she'd be down there. Carlos's college buddy, Frank. Frank Furillo over here, this guy, he said Carlos. He remembers Carlos spending a week with him. The two of them went to Venezuela.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

To go on vacation. And Frank said Carlos was miserable because Peggy wasn't there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Which is, you know, interesting. Yeah. They went back to San Juan and as soon as he got back to San Juan, he proposes to Peggy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that right?

[James Petregallo]

He's like, I can't. You know, it's only been three months they're dating, but he's like, I go away for a week and I can't live without her. I think I got to marry her.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So that's that. And Carlos, you know, he said that she wanted to live together before. She said yes, but he said, can't.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm not like that.

[James Petregallo]

He said, my parents, he goes, they.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Got morals and shit.

[James Petregallo]

It's their church going.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They got morals and shit.

[James Petregallo]

They're church people. They're real conservative. And we gotta get married before we live together. So what do you say? Carlos described the meeting and everything like this. I talked to her all night, and I saw the next day. By the end of the day, it was like I known her all my life. Three or four weeks after, I got rid of all the other girls that I knew. Three months later, I proposed to her. And six months after that, I was married. Wow. So, I mean, he moves quick.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Decisive. They know what they want. Well, Peggy doesn't, but she was like, maybe we could just live together for a minute. No, no, no, no, no, no. Put this dress on.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I've told all the other women I won't fuck them. Come over.

[James Petregallo]

So buy a fancy dress, because we're going. Sweetheart.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Call your friends.

[James Petregallo]

So they tie the knot. Here it is. February 7, 1976. They do it. A big church wedding in Lexington in front of the whole family and all that kind of thing. And the family welcomed him with open arms. They liked him. They thought he was all.

[Jimmy Wissman]

His Puerto Rican family came to Lexington.

[James Petregallo]

They must have Jesus. That must have been fun. This has been fun for them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What's with all the trucks?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, I don't understand what's going on here. What's happening? So Carlos didn't really go to church very much, though. He was more of an agnostic, even though his family was into that. He said that he didn't understand religion. He said, I have a hard time believing there's a God when bad things happen to good people.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And children.

[James Petregallo]

And children. Yeah. I think they can lump them in.

[Jimmy Wissman]

With good people sometimes.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, some of them are shitty kids.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Even if they're a shitty kid, I don't want them to get something bad.

[James Petregallo]

No, no. They haven't had time to not be shitty anymore, you know? So Peggy was the one who's gonna. She said, when we have kids, they're gonna be given a religious upbringing and all that kind of thing. She said. He was like, all right, whatever, if that's what you want to do. I don't be. I'll be busy. I don't know. So. October 3, 1977. Here. They have a son, by the way. Peggy had Made a bet with her friend that she wouldn't have a baby within their first year of marriage. And she did not win. She lost. Yep. October 3, 1977, she gave birth to Carlos Jr. You bet you know it. Who they call Carlitos.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And little Carlos is going to have a much better life than Father Carlos.

[James Petregallo]

Carlos, he's gonna have an easier life. Yeah, he's got a stable environment for sure. So there, by the way, the names. Because he's Perez Olivo. Apparently that's your parents. Yeah, that's in some Hispanic cultures they do that, they join the name. So Carlito or Carlo is going to be Perez Hall.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that right?

[James Petregallo]

Because he joins the mothers and he takes that tradition. So he's Perez hall instead of Perez Elite. So that's how it goes now. They're still in Puerto Rico. They got married in Lexington, but living in Puerto Rico.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

That's where his law practice is. So they got married, then they loaded back up, went to Puerto Rico, and then the baby's born. So that's where they live. Peggy did not want to live there. No, she didn't like it. She couldn't speak Spanish. Well, she's from Kentucky, right. In the 50s and 60s, so there's not a lot of Spanish. They don't even have a Taco Bell there. They don't even know what a fucking. You know what I mean? They don't know what a gordita is. They don't know anything. Chalupa. What's that? They have no idea. I know those are made up words too. What I'm sitting on a gordita is. No, no, no, no. It's not a food though, right?

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's not.

[James Petregallo]

That's what I'm saying. So that's what I mean. Like there's no Spanish culture in Kentucky in the 60s. It just isn't.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So marrying that culture with that culture is very tough.

[James Petregallo]

It's an interesting thing. And she said too, she just felt like there was some antagonism against Americans living there too. At the time she wasn't real comfor there. So she said at the time too, there wasn't even any English language TV on the island.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

So you can't even watch TV and there's no VCRs. It's 1976. So basically you're just watching people speak a language you don't understand.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And even if you want to try to learn that way, they speak it so fucking fast you don't know what the fuck they say.

[James Petregallo]

And there's no closed captioning.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No.

[James Petregallo]

If you could get closed captioning going, that's a good way to learn. But otherwise you can't.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't know.

[James Petregallo]

I've always told people, you know how they have the people, read to your kids. Read to your kids. That's what fucking TV with closed captioning is for them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Read to their kids.

[James Petregallo]

Read to your kids. But that's. If you're doing something else and you'd like to be reading to your kids, turn the TV on with the closed captioning. It's really the same thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Let them read for themselves.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's all. Have Dora read to your kids. It doesn't matter. But she was very depressed. Not real good as well. They lived in a nice neighborhood, but there's a lot of crime around them too, so she doesn't feel real comfortable walking around. And.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

And for Carlos, too, you know, his father retired a year and a half earlier because he worked for his dad being a lawyer, but his father retired, so he didn't really feel any obligation with that. So, you know, he said that he's. Five years. He's in there for five years and he. If you're there for five years before. If you put in five years before the federal bench in San Juan, you're entitled to. Basically, you could practice in the US Too.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is that right?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. So he decided that he could go to New York and practice there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So licensure works with the board or with the.

[James Petregallo]

If you're on the federal bench too, it qualifies you. I don't know if this was 1976 or something.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, they may change.

[James Petregallo]

Who the hell knows? So he ends up coming to New York and going to work for the Legal Aid Society.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Which is who defends indigence and.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. This is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's your public defender office.

[James Petregallo]

This is a homeless guy found with a crack rock in his pocket.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This is your lawyer while pissing in the subway?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's the guy. That's the lawyer. Yeah. Or anybody else with no money. But I mean, I'm just saying that. Someone who definitely has no money.

[Jimmy Wissman]

100%.

[James Petregallo]

So, yeah, he. And this is. These guys are overworked and ladies, they're overworked like a motherfucker. I mean, it's. It's a avalanche.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Overworked with shit. Where the. That every time they have to make a deal, because this is probably pretty.

[James Petregallo]

Cut, that's all they can do. Can I get him a deal with no jail time? Great. Good. Here you go. So he ends up doing this. He called it Carlos later. Said it was the best and worst of times. Money problems are an issue. They couldn't afford to live in Manhattan. They have a wife and son. He's working for the Legal Aid Society. So didn't really know what to do.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Live in Manhattan with a. A small child anyway.

[James Petregallo]

Right. Yeah, you do. If you want to live in New York City, it's the same as living in any other borough, except it's actually nicer. So.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, there is that. But you're going to be in a building.

[James Petregallo]

No matter where you are in the.

[Jimmy Wissman]

City, you don't want to be in a building.

[James Petregallo]

Exactly. And they want to live in the city.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So they end up getting an apartment in the Bronx.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Which is not Manhattan.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, it's kind of the same island, a little thing in between them, but it's close, but it's. That ain't Manhattan at all. So the Bronx is like its own planet.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So trust me. My family's from here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's out of the way, too.

[James Petregallo]

It's. Yeah, it's not out of the way. It's just.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, that's not out of the way.

[James Petregallo]

No, it's right north. It's connected to right north of the city there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Seems out of the way.

[James Petregallo]

Right north of Harlem. Out of the way of what?

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't know. Fucking. If you've got to go all the.

[James Petregallo]

Way down there every day, though, it's closer than Brooklyn.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I suppose that's true, I guess.

[James Petregallo]

Unless you lived over by the water in Brooklyn and you cross the river. Yeah, I don't know. It's just. Any other borough, it's all the same.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Seems like that's a lot of walking, though.

[James Petregallo]

A lot of walking.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Where are you walking?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Everywhere. Right. Because you can't really.

[James Petregallo]

The subway goes there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, there's that, I suppose. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Take the subway, take the train.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Buses, trains. Yeah, I guess.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. You got stuff.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Public shit.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, tons of shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm not used to that. Yeah, I see how big it is. I'm like, I can't walk all this.

[James Petregallo]

That's all. It's too much.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's too much walking.

[James Petregallo]

It's just too much. So Peggy's happy to be in New York, Carlos is happy. They got a baby. Everything's going to be well here. After six months, he stopped being state paid, got a new job, public defender here. Because he's getting a lot of work. And so at first you put in for. You put yourself on the list of lawyers who would take clients given to them by the state and the state pays for them. Not much as a public defender who's not a public defender. So he's getting tons of work. So he realized he could actually get paid for. He was trying to do that. So it's the early 80s. Crack is in full swing. Big boon to the legal industry.

[Jimmy Wissman]

His time in the drug wars. Fantastically.

[James Petregallo]

Fuck. Yeah. He said about 75% of his caseload was drug related at the time. He said drug dealers always paid their attorneys most of the time in cash. They said they believed that all the court appointed attorneys were shit, so you had to get a pay lawyer. If you've ever seen the wire, all they talk about is a pay lawyer. Yeah, get a pay lawyer. That's what you need. So having your own lawyer is a big deal. And saying you got a lawyer on retainer is like, you know, shows you some. Some cool shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Basically $2,500. Chilling. That's good for you.

[James Petregallo]

That's good. So now look at me. I'm important.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So he's got a bunch of Colombian drug dealer clients. 1984, they have another son named Merced.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, Mercedes.

[James Petregallo]

Like, that's after his mom, you know, his adopted mom or not. Now he buys a home that they can afford in the middle of nowhere.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Where's that?

[James Petregallo]

In Delaware County.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Where the fuck is that?

[James Petregallo]

Pennsylvania. We talked about that in our last Pennsylvania episode. I believe it was in or near Delaware County. So they have. That's when they had the baby. And they wanted. He basically wanted them to have a yard.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Two boys and no yard.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You could throw a ball.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. And especially if you're trapped in an apartment with two little boys. That's gonna be a fucking nightmare.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Throw a ball in the Bronx, you're gonna break a window.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, you need them to run. And if you don't want them to run around the streets, get them a yard.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There you go.

[James Petregallo]

So. But after a few years of driving all the way from fucking Pennsylvania to the city, they were like, okay, we gotta get a place like suburbs, you know, safe and nice and good schools. But actually. So I sent two hours to work every goddamn day. So in 87, they moved to Chappaqua.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Jesus.

[James Petregallo]

That's where they go.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So Peggy didn't like it at first, but they decided to go there anyway. They bought their first house. Very small house, not by the standards. They called it a modest house there, but it was a five bedroom colonial. It was a nice house, but for There. It's not out of bounds. A spectacular mansion. So 1989ish. They have another child. They have a daughter named Alyssa or Alicia, however you want to say that. Alyssa. Except I am Alicia. No, A L, Y, S I A Alicia. Alyssa.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It could be Alicia.

[James Petregallo]

Alisa. It could be a lot of things. Honestly. That's one of those where every substitute teacher. No one ever got it right.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Could be Ally.

[James Petregallo]

I don't know. Call me Al. I don't know. It's at this time that Carlos gets sick. He has Lyme disease.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, damn it.

[James Petregallo]

People who don't live in deer tick territory. Lyme diseases, You've never. You never think about it? No, but I live in the woods. I have a can of Deep woods off by every door of my house. If I'm going near the woods, I'm spraying.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Down comes from Lyme, Connecticut. And then it spreads out from there. It's crazy.

[James Petregallo]

It is. Lyme disease can be real nasty. Really. And it can come and recur. It's a nasty.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It can lay dormant. You can.

[James Petregallo]

It's tough.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Antibiotic the motherfuck out of you. It doesn't matter.

[James Petregallo]

It stays in there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Stick around.

[James Petregallo]

Little bastards, man. Oh, useless little shits. So this was rough. So he gets Lyme disease. And he said he underwent every therapy known to man. He later said, you name it, I got it. Meaning therapy wise, he didn't really like seeing doctors. So before he got all these treatments, he basically suffered with it for about seven or eight months before he finally went to the Christ. He just felt like shit and fatigued and run down and finally, yeah, Peggy's like, go to the fucking doctor, stupid. So he went. So then his steady regimens of antibiotics and not doing well, he ends up slipping into depression because he can't get a hold of it and can't get a, you know, vicious case. It's tough. Yeah. He ends, he's given Prozac, which is brand new at the time. 89. It's the wonder drug back then.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just don't be depressed about it.

[James Petregallo]

Here you go. Yeah, yeah. Don't be depressed about your tic.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You're gonna smile that you're tired.

[James Petregallo]

Now, listen, we can't fix it, but.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This will make you not want to kill yourself about it.

[James Petregallo]

You won't be sad about it if we give you these. Take these twice a day and you won't be as sad about it. Is that better?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Which is better than back in the day when they go, cheer up, bitch. I don't know. I don't know what to tell you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's literally no cure for it still.

[James Petregallo]

No. It just keeps persisting. Are they looking for one? What's going on? I know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They should be. God damn.

[James Petregallo]

They just put up. There's a lot of campaigns, stop Lyme disease, but it's not to cure it. It's just to not get it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why don't you get out there and stop? Tell it to stop. James.

[James Petregallo]

Hey, dear. Stop knocking your ticks off. I'll go out in the woods and yell at them when we're done. Maybe they'll listen. Stop it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't know.

[James Petregallo]

Maybe the list. Yeah, I'm a deer. They're on me. What do you want from me? But Prozac didn't do well for him. He actually. He collapsed one time in the hospital when he was brought to the emergency room, and he was out of work for two months. So this isn't good at all. And he's depressed and he hates the weather in the Northeast because if you're depressed and then winter rolls around, it's not good. It's a long winter and you're from a beach community. You're from Puerto Rico. Yeah. You grew up on the beach. It's a long winter. It is. It's gray now. When you're here a few years, it's actually nice because then when the spring comes, you're happy for it. And you love the summer and the fall's nice. And then the winter comes, you're like, all right, fine. It's been nice all year. It's fine. Whereas, like Arizona, you're like, the first day, it cracks like 91. You're like, oh, God, it's never gonna stop.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I can't see anything.

[James Petregallo]

I can't. And it's gonna be hotter than I want it to be for like eight months. I can't do it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I walked outside and brought in the trash cans and now my phone doesn't work.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. People think, oh, that's a fun. No, that's not a joke. That's just real. When it's 115, if I walk outside, your phone gives up. It just gives up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No, no, no, no, no.

[James Petregallo]

It actually says. You hear? Siri says, uncle. And then it dies. You can't take it anymore.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The screen is so dark, it adjusts for the temperature by dimming the screen, but the screen gets so dim you can't even see that it says overheated.

[James Petregallo]

Horrible. Have you ever heard Siri cry? Because I have.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's Sad.

[James Petregallo]

Very sad. Sad to hear she mourns you. This can't be good for you either.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This is gonna kill me.

[James Petregallo]

I'm in your pocket, God damn it. So he tells Peggy, if I don't get the fuck out of here, the weather's gonna kill me. I need to get out of here. So she says, okay, and they all move back to Puerto Rico. Really all move back down there? Yep. So don't understand it. Yeah. So they. They had the. Now they have three kids here. Carlos Jr. Here. Carlitos is the only family member other than Carlos Senior who speaks even any Spanish.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And Carlos Jr. Doesn't really speak it that well. Merced, the middle child, would not learn it. I do not want to. I'd have no interest in it. He said if he. Basically, if he thought if he learned the language, he. He'd be stuck there his whole life. And he said, too, that it's also his fault. Because he said that it was easier just to speak English around the house. So that's why if I spoke more Spanish to him, they'd know it. So they go back to Puerto Rico, and that doesn't work out either. No, no. Peggy still hates Puerto Rico. That's the problem. She gets there and she's like, oh, yeah, this place that I hate. Yeah, okay.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I forgot how much this place sucks.

[James Petregallo]

And the kids are like, hey, this place does suck, dad.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Your hometown sucks.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. They don't even want to speak Spanish. So, I mean, it's not gonna be good for them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's a piece of shit, dad. Nothing's on tv.

[James Petregallo]

I don't know what this means. I don't know what sabado gigante means. I don't speak Spanish. I know that's a Mexican station, but that's the first one I thought of. That's the first thing I could think of. So he didn't like it, basically. And Carlos didn't really like it either. At that point. He goes, well, this sucks. He said, after a while, you've realized all you can do is you go out to dinner, you lie on the beach, and that's it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Which sounds good. But he goes, kind of got boring after a minute, does it?

[Jimmy Wissman]

I like to give it a try.

[James Petregallo]

I guess, if you're young.

[Jimmy Wissman]

God damn it.

[James Petregallo]

It gets boring. You want to do other shit. I don't know. He said. He called it restrictive. The island thought it was restrictive, which any island would feel restrictive to me. It feels an island you can't get off. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The idea of an island Restrictive. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

I don't like it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You can't go anywhere.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah. Even if I was in Hawaii, I feel like I'd be at the edge of the island going, I can't go any further.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just your car on the beach going.

[James Petregallo]

I just want to leave. Yeah. So 1999, back to New York.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What the fuck, you guys?

[James Petregallo]

Three years in Puerto Rico they spent.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And we're going back to the place that if the. If the weather's going to kill me, it'll kill me.

[James Petregallo]

Same town. They're going to Chappaqua again.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh my God.

[James Petregallo]

Remember that place I hated?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Let's go back.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I guess the lime cured up.

[James Petregallo]

I don't know. The sun baked it out of him down there. I'm not sure. But soon as they get back. Depressed again.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He forgot and remembered fast.

[James Petregallo]

Oh yeah, that's right. I'm upset here. But they had a lot of family and friends there and all that kind of shit. So it's just kind of where they belonged. They stayed with friends for a little while. And Carlos is looking for a job for a firm that'll hire him. He at that point, didn't want to return to law school or law. He didn't want to be a lawyer anymore. He wanted to. To get a corporate job.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

So he had a bunch of interviews but couldn't land a job. He's almost 50 years old. He has no corporate experience. He's a fucking lawyer. So unless you're looking for a lawyer, you have no use for this guy here. So he was finally one of his friends as a lawyer asked him to be a co counsel with him. So he said, all right, fine, it's good money, he needs a job. So he does it. So then he gets another case after that, and then it picks up for him. He's doing all this type of shit. He said the only way he could make a decent living and afford to live in Chappaqua was being a lawyer. Yeah. And to scumbags.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Drug dealers, mob guys, things of that nature and all that. They were all the felons because those are the people who can afford mob guys. Drug dealers can afford lawyers.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

That's what you do.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And pay well to do it.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah, they'll. They'll pay.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Even more.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Than most people would.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Especially if you'll do a good job.

[James Petregallo]

That's. Yeah, that's the thing. So you know, they're guilty of shit. And Carlos doesn't give a fuck. He's a lawyer. They need a lawyer. They have to have one by the.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Law, everybody deserves a defense.

[James Petregallo]

So. Yeah, he said it's great. And most of the clients took pleas, he said, too. So it was super easy. You didn't have to go to trial. Most of the time, he just arrange a plea deal, get the guy a few less years, and that's that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And as long as he does a good enough job to make that guy happy, everybody wins.

[James Petregallo]

Everybody wins. So he's. And then he's handling a bunch of federal cases because that's a lot of the drug cases are federal.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And so he's got to travel a lot. He's going to Florida, he's going to Alaska, anywhere he's in such demand because in a lot of places, he's one of the few attorneys who speak Spanish.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

And whenever it's like, guys who are from South America, guys like that, they want a guy they can speak to. They don't want to go through a translator to talk to their lawyer. So he's their kind of choice.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Awesome.

[James Petregallo]

And. And it's very much a word of mouth business. If some guy got you a good deal, you tell all your friends and then they get in trouble and they call you because this guy told me you got him a good deal. So that's how this works. One good deal, get you 10 more.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Clients, and you speak Spanish and he.

[James Petregallo]

Can talk to you. Call him on the phone and all that kind of shit. So he's doing that in one case. He got a big client, a dismissal, and it was a big deal and got a lot of attention. For all the other drug dealers were.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Like, oh, call that guy.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. He was like, bruce Cutler in the fucking 80s, was the mob lawyer that eventually the judge ruled he couldn't be Gotti's lawyer anymore.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

He was part of his conspiracy too good. Yeah, that's what it was.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It was too good.

[James Petregallo]

They Menendezed him in that trial. They were like, look, you got off last time. You're not getting off this time. We won't even let you have your lawyer. That's how much you're not getting off this time. So. Yeah, but he's never home. Always going, always doing shit at home. Three kids, nice home, doing well. Peggy's active in the local school community. The house they buy is three doors down from Bill and Hillary Clinton.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Yes.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're doing well.

[James Petregallo]

Doing pretty good.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Pretty good Cash.

[James Petregallo]

Yes. And this is, you know, right after they got out of the White House and all that kind of shit. This is writing books and making dust.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And doing speaking engagements, making huge money.

[James Petregallo]

So this is a very safe neighborhood because literally the Secret service is on the street, is in trees with sniper rifles. So you don't get a safer neighborhood.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Your kids are playing baseball under the COVID of laser dots.

[James Petregallo]

Balls and strikes are being called from the shadows. They don't even know where it's coming from. Ball. Huh? Where's that coming from?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, a man talking into his hand just said ball.

[James Petregallo]

You don't pick up your dog's shit. Your brains are just come out in front of you on the lawn. Zero tolerance.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So yeah, Peggy is active. She volunteers at the local school. She's gonna get a job there also. She volunteers for a lot of events. Carlos is doing great in his criminal practice. Doing well. I mean, doing well. They would go into the city to see movies and go to dinner and they travel back and forth to Puerto Rico and all that kind of thing. And that's when they move into the house. They rent a house three doors down from the Clintons.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Like a rent to buy. We'll talk about that. So now he is like big and dramatic and he's a defense lawyer. So I mean, he'll tell you a story and it's got to be a tale. She's not like that at all.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's meek.

[James Petregallo]

She's. No, no, not meek. Not meek at all. She's got moxie. Okay, She's Peggy with moxie. Remember, she's Margaret Moxie over here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just a charming lady.

[James Petregallo]

But she's just not like that. Yeah, she's not a big show off. She's not flashy. Doesn't have to be more modest. She likes the fancy stuff. She likes going to the city and going to a nice dinner and that kind of. But she's not one of that guys. She's writes handwritten thank you cards to everybody still in the 2000s. You know what I mean? I mean, not flashy. Modest and steady and kind. Class and classy. That's what you call her. That's a good way to put it. So Carlos, lot of confidence there though. Absolutely, a lot of confidence. He deals with high level drug dealers, mob guys, hit men. I mean, this is who he deals with. So he feels cool also.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

You know what I'm saying?

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's fascinating because the weather can kill him.

[James Petregallo]

The weather will make him sad enough to kill him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's funny.

[James Petregallo]

I think before he just didn't have quite as successful a time too. I think that'll get you, unless you have a severe chemical IMBALANCE your life being a little better will pull you up a couple of notches. It'll take you from a three to a six and a half pretty quick into a manageable area.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I don't have enough food. I don't have enough money or food.

[James Petregallo]

That's depressing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And I feel like dog shit.

[James Petregallo]

That's what I mean.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I have a headache and I'm fatigued.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. And there's that. If you, if you, if that's why you're depressed.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Because shit isn't going well and then starts going well. Yeah, Problem solved.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There it is.

[James Petregallo]

That's the problem. If everything's going well and you're still sad, that's a different issue. So anyway, he liked all this shit. He's into it for a couple of years. He spends about three weeks out of each month in Tennessee.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, where at?

[James Petregallo]

In Memphis.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

He told everybody that Memphis was the central hub of where a good deal of the illicit drug flowed through. Basically.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

It would come to and from the south and across the country. Then through Memphis is the crossroads because the 40 goes through it and other shit connects there. And so that's on up.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yep.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Now, before they move into this house next to the Clintons, there they were, they stayed at a hotel for a month and they stayed with friends and they rented, rented apartments on like two month basis and while they looked for a place. And then finally they end up getting this house. So 1999, she's working. Peggy gets a job as a teaching assistant at Douglas Graflin Elementary School where she's just known as like the perfect lady to have around small kids. Kind and calm and nice and everything else. This is her youngest kid, Alicia. Alicia, whatever. She goes to school there while she's going there. So she volunteers years, she's doing all that. She starts in 99. Did a good job. She works primarily with first graders. Little kids gotta have a lot of patience there. Six year old, they said she's got a soft voice and, you know, remembers all the shit about the kids. She makes less than $22,000 a year. That's the thing. You're not making any money doing that. But she liked it. Yeah, she really liked it. She. She felt like she was doing something meaningful like showing these kids away and educating them. And Carlos liked that. She was happy. Everybody's happy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's making enough money to support it anyway.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah. You know, he was happy that she's doing something she likes. Everybody's doing well here. Peggy's writing her sister saying that she, you know, she likes helping the special needs kids because they need extra help. And her sister said she loved her job. She found a lot of personal fulfillment in the work. She seemed to have finally found her niche in life and was loving it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There you go.

[James Petregallo]

So good for her. Around 2000, Carlos has a little bump in the road. Here he is. He ends up having to give up his law license in Puerto Rico. Not in New York, in Puerto Rico. After failing to answer disciplinary charges there. He just didn't go back to deal with it. So they just, they, you know, he's kicked off Puerto Rico. He can't do that. So he continued to practice out of. In New York. He had an office in Queens. That's where he's practicing out of now. He says he thinks one of the reasons that there were some discrepancies was his, basically his billing practices here. He considers himself to be kind of old school in the billing. Basically. When he had a potential client, he would look at the case and then he would determine how much of a demand of time it would be, how serious are the charges, you know, all this type of thing. And then he would quote a fee. And that's how they would do. It wasn't itemized. It wasn't, you know, per phone call, per hour. It was, I'll do it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

My job cost.

[James Petregallo]

This is the balloon ballpark of everything here. This is what it's going to cost. So, you know, that's kind of how it is here. All of his clients, too, are thinking, if they had a paid lawyer, they're gonna get off. So they were into it. He says that was an immigrant mentality that a lot of them had. He said, I know that from where I'm from, even though they're not really technically immigrants, but still, he said, basically, where I'm from, in a lot of these countries, where they're from Colombia, places like that, you pay off public officials. That's how you get things done. So they think, I pay this lawyer a bunch of money and that gets it going away. He can distribute it to whoever he needs to bribe and keep a cut for himself. Yeah, they're assuming that's all bribes paid and you get your cut and then I go home, Right? That's the money that you're quoting me. That's what he's saying. So he said also the other thing is, there's a lot of what he called advocate groups who encouraged people to file complaints for even the most trivial of perceived wrongs, he said, against their lawyers. He Said he never took in retainers. He claimed the reason for that was. You ready for this? We're gonna have. He has this excuse several times for very different things.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Cause he's not working for free.

[James Petregallo]

No, it's a, quote, Hispanic thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

What are you talking about? No, see, I don't make people pay at the pump. Before. Pay before they pump. Because it's a Hispanic no, pay me and then pump your gas. That's how this works. Fuck are you talking about?

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't accept retainers. It's a Mexican thing.

[James Petregallo]

He said, you come to me and I make you sign an agreement. The retainer. That's like saying, I don't trust your words. So I need this on paper. That was my logic. It's just business. Yeah, this is business. You're not running.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's a contract, man. And you're helping me.

[James Petregallo]

You're not running a fucking. You know, you're not running a food truck here. This is. I trust you, Bill. You'll be here tomorrow. You're here every day. This is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This is my life.

[James Petregallo]

Thousands of dollars.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This is my livelihood.

[James Petregallo]

So. Ethics committee, though the legal ethics committees frown upon lawyers who don't have retainer agreements because it's supposed to be all very transparent. Eventually they legally will become required.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, is that right?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, but he thought it was just, what a big deal. He said, also, I don't like hourly rates. No, not a big hourly rate guy like the other guys.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm a piecework guy.

[James Petregallo]

That's what he said. He said hourly rates were just an excuse for the lawyer to drag his feet. Feet and pat his. Bill, I'm doing it for you. The fact that I'm not billing you transparently in a way that you can see exactly what I've done. And when you understand I'm charging you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

$10,000 to do eight hours worth of work. Because, I mean, that's what I do. It's a Mexican thing.

[James Petregallo]

He's Puerto Rican.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Puerto Rican, Spanish thing.

[James Petregallo]

It's a Hispanic thing, as he puts it, quote, unquote. This is crazy, though, because he knows what his clients think. His clients think. I give you a big bag of.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Cash and you go.

[James Petregallo]

Everything is gone. You do the little casino change and shifts. Deal and show your hands, and that's that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And you dole it out. I don't have that. Is untraceable to me.

[James Petregallo]

And he knows that's what they're thinking. That's why he wants to do this. Because if he had a retainer and all that they would think it was too on the level and they weren't getting a deal here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

So that's what he's doing, basically. So he said that also it bothered him that the ethics committees never seem to go after all those big firms that would abuse their hourly billings and, you know, charge charged lunches and charge, you know, two minute phone call charged for an hour and shit like that. Yeah. They also, the ethics committee chastised him for including travel time in his billing structure. And he said that's. They don't. They don't have the same kind of zeal with the big firms. It's only picking on the little guy. That's what it is. He said, man, this is ridiculous. He said, you know, I didn't like it. So he was getting fed up with law basically because he didn't like the fact that he had to follow it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right.

[James Petregallo]

Didn't care for that. Really. Yeah, I gotta do this shit, too. So he wanted to get to the city, actually. He wanted to live in Manhattan.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. He's like, I want to get a nice place in Manhattan, but that's more expensive than Chappaqua. So he's like. I mean, a parking space is fucking two grand a month, literally. A parking space now is more than that. That's crazy. Back then.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So I remember on Seinfeld in the fog in like 94, George was super excited because someone was giving him a parking space for 500amonth.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

He was like, it's only 500amonth. That was in the. That was 30 years ago.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So what do you think it is now? That was when, like, people like Jerry Seinfeld, the character, could afford to live in Manhattan with Kramer doesn't even have a job across the way. So Carlos said about Peggy, we were so similar in so many ways then. I was horrible with money. I could make it, but I just couldn't hold onto it. And she was worse.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

So, yeah, they spent.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's not making any money and she's spending it all.

[James Petregallo]

They're all just spending money. Yeah, they live there. So they lived on. Basically right on the cusp of disaster financially all the time. He also said about Peggy, quote, she would buy stuff, then offer to take it back. Back. Something I never took her up on. She knew me well enough to know that I would never tell her to take it back. But he said she did a lot of shopping. So 2000 is when they find the house near the Clintons here. They went to a series of apartments, like I said. The two boys had already grown up and moved out by now. They only have the daughter, she's in high school. So they find a house, the one by the Clintons. There Carlos enters into an arrangement with the landlord that says in a contract that he'd buy the house at a set price after three years and that part of the rent money would go toward the purchase, at least with an option to buy. When the lease ended, though, Carlos said the owner reneged because the real estate market had inflated the price and he could get a lot more. Well, that's why Carlos locked the price in in a contract. So Carlos sued and settled out of court. He got all of his rent money back, plus $50,000. Oh, that's great, because the guy was. Was supposed to sell it to him. So that's when they ended up in the big house coming up here. So Carlos also negotiated an oil deal with some. Never thought that was coming with some Venezuelan businessmen who were in need of an American citizen who could move freely between the two countries to go to do business shit. So he was getting about 20 grand a month off of that. Wow, big money. 25 years ago. Now it's big money. But back then too, we've been bigger. So yeah, I guess he's supposed to put together venture capitalists in the United States and all that kind of thing. He also gets a 5% interest in the company, which is located in the, whoa. Lake Maracaibo oil region. So the plan was to buy used oil, clean it, and then sell it to poorer nations. Refurbished oil re, dude.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, gross.

[James Petregallo]

Fucking used oil.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Polishing oil.

[James Petregallo]

You just clean it. He said you cook it and clean it up. You clean the impurities out of it and then sell it to poor countries.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Run it through a filter, and then ship it.

[James Petregallo]

Here you go. So he said money wasn't a problem. He was paying $5,500 a month in rent back then, keeping up with car payments for five vehicles.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

And everything else that just the taxes there would be wild. So by the early 2000s, he's got big time neighbors, he's got a. Lives in a real prestigious community and feeling good about himself, making a bunch of money. He's got Venezuelan oil money coming in.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Exemplary American.

[James Petregallo]

He's doing fantastic. So now also, they're also getting older here. Think about it. They're both, you know, 50 and living.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right at the edge of their means.

[James Petregallo]

They're right there, which is at that age you want to start socking money away. So unless you want to do lawyering, for the rest of your fucking life. They got into the habit of doing some power walking.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sure.

[James Petregallo]

So they're moving around. Peggy, I guess, has a sciatica issue.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And so she's got pain down her lip. Down her lip. Down her hip.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Down her lips.

[James Petregallo]

Down her lips. That's how that works. The sciatica makes you pussy numb. That's how that whole thing works.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Makes them like lightning.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, that's how. You don't want lightning shooting through your labia. That's never good.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Lightning labia.

[James Petregallo]

Lightning labia. Oh, lightning lips. Peggy. So she said walking help. So that's what they did. Carlitos got married. Carlos paid for everything. Or paid for part of it anyway. Even after he did the rehearsal dinner, which traditionally it's groom's parents do the rehearsal dinner. Bride's parents pays for the wedding. But he paid for part of the wedding too, which is nice. He also gave them $3,000 for their honeymoon. And I guess he had bought cars for all the kids and the wife.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And yeah. So he's spending. Pushing money out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He is blowing it out the door, man.

[James Petregallo]

Merced ends up going to West Point.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Again, he must done real well in school. Maryland. Yeah, no, it's about 40 minutes away from here is West Point. Not at West Point is in right up the river from here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I mean, I understand where, you know. What's Annapolis?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah, that's the Navy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Okay.

[James Petregallo]

No, West Point's the army. Yeah, that's the Navy. Annapolis in the navy. As the Navy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

See, I was on board with some.

[James Petregallo]

You're in a branch of the military?

[Jimmy Wissman]

I had some military boys doing well somewhere.

[James Petregallo]

So West Point though, I know is extremely difficult to get into. It's very hard.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's the army.

[James Petregallo]

That's the army school. It's really. Academically, it's the best one. It's like impossible. It's Ivy league, basically. So 2006 comes around, everything's going great. Let's have some problems. Carlos has what I would like to call some lawyerly pretty problems. Uh oh, okay. He is officially. Well, no, at this point he's under investigation for professional misconduct. Specifically for misappropriating funds from a client.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What do you do with them?

[James Petregallo]

Nothing. Hey, you get. I don't do this hourly way hourly, you know, padding the bill. Bullshit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Crazy. I charge for a job. I do the job.

[James Petregallo]

I do the job. I'm not misappropriating anything.

[Jimmy Wissman]

All right.

[James Petregallo]

Okay. One of these people is Sybil Fernandez. A second generation American who Lived and worked in Long Island. And she talks about basically her younger brother getting arrested for assault. And they were able to scramble and find Carlos as an attorney, her and her mother, who is from another country. So she was. Didn't know how to do this or anything like that. That and Carlos provided some much needed calming down. Yeah, the sister here said he told us, and my parents, listen, I understand you. I know what you're going through. And, you know, I'm a father, too, so I, you know, we'll get this all squared away.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I get it.

[James Petregallo]

And they wanted to protect this young child, this young child, young man. And so they sold their home in the Dominican Republic to pay Carla. Carlos pay the legal bills, and they had to pay 15,000 in bail money, too.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

So the guy, this Omar, eventually pleads guilty to assault and is sentenced to six years maximum in prison. Okay. Carlos makes the family an offer. He tells them he can get their $15,000 of bail money returned to them more quickly because of his connections. That's. You know what I mean? That's ridiculous. They still. He said since they still owe him 5,000, he signed a note saying that he'd take the balance out of the $15,000 in bail money and return 10,000 to them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, they said, I signed over the paperwork to him to take his balance. And he said, I'll contact you within a week. But at the end of the week and the next week and the next week, there's still no word because he has all $15,000 now. So months go by, they can't contact him. He won't return their calls. And they thought their money was lost completely. They said. The sister said, I'm like, we got stiffed. We got robbed. And they're not alone, really. Rod Bratton, a retired deputy chief counsel for the New York Supreme Court Disciplinary Committee, takes all these angry grievances and shit from angry clients and said that he's heard more than a dozen similar complaints from people about Carlos. He said, I think what happened here is that Mr. Perez Olivo runs a large mill type of practice, and his mill keeps churning out clients in a place like New York City. It processes more than 1,000 criminal arraignments per day. Meaning the city, not the. Not the. I would think, not the Los Carlos himself. A thousand, I guess. Yes. Perez Olivo apparently believes in quantity over quality. So he's a discount place, but he's not a discount place. No, he just takes in a lot of shit. So, yeah, they said that he assumed that he could just do whatever he wanted to these people. He has some past bungled murder cases as well, and he's got some enemies. Elio Cruz is one of these enemies. Elio here was accused of killing his wife's lover in a New York City subway station. And from this, from the trial, they said one of those he lost here was the murder trial of Elio Cruz, a room service waiter who was convicted of killing his wife's lover in a Chelsea subway station.

[Jimmy Wissman]

God damn.

[James Petregallo]

Anytime I go to room service when we're on the road, I'm going to say, I didn't fuck your wife as soon as I opened the door, just in case. You never know. Now, in a note to the judge, a juror at the trial complained that Carlos had bungled the defense.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

The juror was like, that lawyer did a bad fucking job.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

The juror, a woman named Ann Holland, said she was, quote, appalled at the inept performance of the defense attorney, who appeared to be totally unprepared. In his summation to the jury, he said that he had forgotten what he wanted to say.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I forgot what I was gonna say.

[James Petregallo]

He got up there and he's like, my client is innocent because I forgot. But believe me, look at him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I had this whole thing to say to you.

[James Petregallo]

Look at this guy. For the life of me remember Face of an Angel. Right?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why? He's a great guy.

[James Petregallo]

Great guy. That's wild. He said, quote, there is a lot of other things that I honestly thought of that I can't think of right now. That helps. Not at all. Okay, we're comics. Imagine you go comedian. There's a lot of things you can compare it to. A comedian and a lawyer giving an opening or closing statement.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, it's a diatribe. It's a monologue.

[James Petregallo]

It's very. You have to keep their attention. You gotta bring them up, bring them down. You can't do, you know, you gotta know where to ebb and where to flow. You gotta do all that kind of shit at no point in your set can you say, there's honestly a lot of other shit that I really wanted to tell you guys. A lot of funny jokes that I had, but I forgot them. That doesn't help at all.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm so funny, I forgot.

[James Petregallo]

Every once in a while you can. If it's a new joke, you can forget your punchline, get to it and go, I forgot what the fucking joke is. And you'll get a laugh out of that. Once, once, once.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It can't be in, can't be in your special.

[James Petregallo]

That's it. Nope. You get away with that once per show. They go, that's hilarious. Then you go on to another joke. You do it really well and they laugh and they're fine.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Honestly, there was a lot of lot I had to tell you. I thought of to tell you, and I can't think of it right now.

[James Petregallo]

I can't think of it right now. I'm not sure. Anyway, he's not guilty, obviously.

[Jimmy Wissman]

See you.

[James Petregallo]

The juror's note asked the judge, can nothing be done about lawyers like this? He should not be allowed to practice.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. A relative of Elio Cruz said, when you do bad things, bad things happen to you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, I don't like that.

[James Petregallo]

That's not good. But they also. The Cruz family complained to the New York Bar association that Carlos had refused to return part of the unused $33,000 retainer. Cruz's sister said Carlos had promised that he would hire a private detective to investigate the case for $5,000, but never did and just pocketed the money. It's a pattern.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

Anthony Stevens. Yeah, he found Carlos to represent him. He said that Carlos did very little to help him during his trial. Cross examined only one witness. And even when told by Stevens that witnesses were misstating the facts, Carlos again never hired a private investigator that like, he was paid to do so. This Anthony Stevens was like, shocked by this. He said, what the fuck? Basically, Carlos, what's your fucking problem? And Carlos said, my Lyme disease is making me not as good as I am.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Usually blame Lyme, Connecticut.

[James Petregallo]

I'm usually better. But sorry, deers. Yeah. You ever seen deers running around? They got things on them and they.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Field mice and shit.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, Deer, essentially. There's a straight line. Fucking two degrees of separation between a deer and you going to prison for a long time. It's really straight right through it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's so close.

[James Petregallo]

It's not abstract at all. It's not.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's so close. You may have been bit by a deer tick.

[James Petregallo]

It's the same thing, really. Deer ticks cause prison time. I don't know if you knew that, but it's true. It's one of the side effects of Lyme disease. So later on, this client wrote to the appellate division that Carlos stated that he did things he shouldn't have done and didn't do things that he should have done. In my case, as a legal Aiden, such as file motions, have evidentiary hearings, investigations, cross examine witnesses, call witnesses, and object to things that happen to My, you know, lawyer shit, be a lawyer. All the shit that lawyers do. What else is there, you know?

[Jimmy Wissman]

God damn it, Carlos.

[James Petregallo]

Summation before the jury lasted five minutes, and Anthony Stevens was found guilty of burglary in the second degree. The judge sentenced him to 15 years. Yeah, so the sentence, he was shocked by it. He said, christ, I met murderers that do less time than that. And Carlos said, you know what, though? Slam dunk on appeal.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I'll give you one for free.

[James Petregallo]

I would say he said that. When he asked Carlos how he could fuck this case up, Carlos apologized and said, I promise I'll win on a piece. The appeal was never even filed, and none of the $75,000 retainer was ever retained. He got 75 grand to go into court and go. It's tough to say, but I don't know what I'm saying, and then walk away. That's fucking wild. So then it gets worse, though. It gets fucking worse because he's like, well, you lost some money, but you need to get that back, don't you? Yeah, he's total pyramid scheme. Now, in a visit to jail from his wife here, this client learned that Carlos had talked his wife into. This is the client who's sitting in jail mad at him? Carlos talked his wife on the outside into investing $40,000 into his Venezuelan oil venture.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

He won't even give you the retainer he owes you back.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You want to buy some oil?

[James Petregallo]

Wow. That money came from the sale of their house in Queens, which had been put in escrow in Carlos's name for legal reasons, quote, unquote. Carlos told her not to tell him in jail, him in jail about the investment, so they could, quote, surprise him when they made a whole bunch of money down the road.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It'll be fun to spring that on him.

[James Petregallo]

So the guy in jail, imprisoned burglar. Still not dumb enough to fall for this. He said, well, where's the stock certificates for the oil deal?

[Jimmy Wissman]

All right. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And his wife said, oh, don't worry. Carlos is holding on to the safekeeping. So when he asked about the money that his wife invested to Carlos, Carlos said the investment was still secure, but there were, quote, little problems with his wife and his job as an attorney that are causing delays. You know, I'm under investigation by every agency there is. But he said, it'll all be resolved within a year. You guys are gonna make a ton of money. Carlos kept in touch with this guy up until August of 2006, when Carlos stopped taking his phone calls and didn't answer any letters with $205,000 of this guy's money gone, his house sold and everything else. Oh, my God, this is wild. So this guy in jail did a search of Carlos oil venture company, Pup, Vigu and CIA and the company didn't exist. What? He just made up a company and said, give me money and I got all this Carlos. So then the sister got in, or the wife. I'm sorry, who invested the money. Got in touch with another lawyer who told her that she could only get the money back if Carlos renders it to her voluntarily or if she sues him and wins. That's the way you get your money back. I can't write a letter to the guy and he'll give you your money back, basically. So here's what the review board, the ethics committee, all these different. Whatever the legal people that give you your license say, here's the charges against him, okay? Major misconduct by client case saying that he, a convicted client facing deportation, paid him $20,500 and he filed a deficient motion for new trial. Failed to perfect the appeal, which was then dismissed. Misled the client that the appeal was frivolous even though it was dismissed due to his own failure. Kept the fees despite requests for refund. He also the violations are misrepresentation, neglect, failing to return unearned fees, conduct reflecting poor fitness to practice law. Okay, count 10 is that he took $10,000 bail money from defendant's sister to post bail. Not licensed in Pennsylvania, where the case was later refused to return bail funds. They saw this as a. I guess apparently they went to some mediator who saw it as a fee dispute and not fraud, but sustained failure to render an accounting. He took $15,000 in bail money that we told you about. Had a non refundable retainer of $10,000 with somebody. The case was dismissed due to conflict of interest. So he never even got to do.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It and he kept the money.

[James Petregallo]

And he claimed he earned the full fee via conflict of interest. General misconduct, misrepresentation, conversion, unethical fee handling, poor fitness to practice law. Aggravating factors are prior discipline in 1998 for similar conduct. Forfeited his Puerto Rican law license in 2000 for similar allegations. They also said no remorse, only offered restitution if ordered by court. No character witnesses at hearing, only letters so no one would come talk for a meeting either court's conclusion, they confirm all findings. And sanction recommendation stressed that intentional conversion almost always results in disbarment. They found no mitigating factors he represented himself in the disciplinary proceedings, which is not smart, and presented some judges who said he was a competent lawyer. He's disbarred. Yeah, yeah, he's fucking disbarred.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You can't take that kind of money off people.

[James Petregallo]

No, absolutely not. Not so hard times coming for Carlos. Hard times. Ric Flair. Yeah, hard times coming for Carlos here. He went from. I mean, the spigot is off now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Money.

[James Petregallo]

You can't do anything. You're not a lawyer.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So robbed people.

[James Petregallo]

You're an unemployed former whatever. I mean, you might as well have worked at fucking Jack in the Box. You have the same amount is no good. Doesn't matter. You're now with. You're a person with no experience, in your 50s of any job that anything. All you've done is something you're not allowed to do. So his career is over. Bills aren't getting paid, they have a high mortgage, they have all this shit. His wife makes 21 grand a year, so she can't pay the fucking bills either. So it's rough. That's when his finances come under scrutiny. Investigators will find out later that Carlos is juggling debts, he's defaulting on loans, and he's taking out many insurance policies on Peggy. Oh, yeah. So he's doing a lot of weird shit lately here. Their finances show they have a ton of debts. Mortgage payments are behind. Credit card bills stacked up. They're living well beyond their means. And I mean, even if you lose your job and everything, you got a couple bucks in savings and you probably have a bunch of credit cards with decent limits so you can live for three months in your normal lifestyle.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's gonna hurt.

[James Petregallo]

And then you're fucked. And then you have nothing and you owe the credit card companies everything. Everything. And you're screwed.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

But if you wanted to, you can go. Let's pretend it does not happening for three months and then you're pretend everything's fine. Yep. So he is now talking about having to file bankruptcy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Ooh.

[James Petregallo]

But they're going to try to have a nice night on Saturday, November 18, 2006. Remember that day, Montero at the hospital? Okay. That day, 8:30am, Carlos gets up and he thought they were going to go power walking, but Peggy decided to skip the walk.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And you know, whatever. So Carlos drove over to the health club and had a workout instead. So he said, all right, you don't want to go for a walk? I'll go, I'll go grab a little workout here. So he's always been active in Sports. He likes to play basketball, pick up ball. He's in his 50s, too. He still likes to play pick up ball. Half court, maybe. I don't know. So, you know, he's doing all that. He feels good. After the workout, he stops at d' Agostino's, which is like a kind of a fancy supermarket. No, it's a supermarket here. Dagostino d' Agostino's. Yeah, it's a little supermarket type joint. They have like a lot of produce and shit. They're very proud of there. At about 12:30, picks up a frozen pizza for him and his wife to share. Frozen pizza. All right. Which. Hey, that's all right. I love a frozen pizza.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I mean, if you're. And also. So he better develop a taste for this.

[James Petregallo]

No shit. And not like Red Baron or anything. You better develop a taste for great value. No name that we talked about on your stupid episode one called pepperoni pizza. By the way, a little suggestion from a guy who loves pizza. The Defaras brand. Defara's is that little Brooklyn pizza plate. It's been around forever. Had the old guy who did it with his hands, that guy. They do a frozen pizza. I don't know if it's all over the country, but it's delicious.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What was that other one that we got?

[James Petregallo]

Man, it's good frozen.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, it was like. It was good. It was from. I bought it. I bought them out on the east coast somewhere.

[James Petregallo]

Where did I get Elios?

[Jimmy Wissman]

That was it.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, they're. They're like. They're like crappy nostalgic pieces.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're good.

[James Petregallo]

They're good. I love them. They're such good nostalgic. Yeah, I like it. You feel 11 when you eat those. You're like, it's 11. I'm 11 years old, got the Nintendo.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fired up, and I've got right now the worst heartburn.

[James Petregallo]

This is good. I'm gonna have such heartburn. It is on tonight, baby. Come on, Mario, show me what you got. So let's save some princesses here. So they do that. They. I guess they wanted to get a little bit something in their stomach because they're gonna go to Manhattan for dinner that night. But they, you know, get something going on. So by 3:30, they're ready to go. They're both, you know, nicely dressed and everything else. They get in the car, they get to the theater at about 4 o' clock, they see a show.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So, yeah, they, they. And she likes coming into the city and all that kind of thing. And she. This is. She likes this. This is fun.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So then they're going. They like Chelsea. That's 23rd street, that area. So they're in that area, hanging out here, Lower west side and looking in little stores and just kind of farting around, window shopping and eating and trying to figure out where to go for dinner. It's 6:20. It's still a little early for dinner. They thought maybe, so let's window shop. So they walk around and they stroll along Fifth Avenue and Peggy looks at some shops and all this type of shit. They stop at a Cuban restaurant called Seville. And he used to go there when he went to Colombia, but it's too busy. There's a long line of people out the door waiting for a table. No, thank you. So they find out, go to another place. It's also too busy. Okay. Now this is also a rough time at night. You're in the sixes here. So Carlos gets a cab. They go back to where their car is parked and they decide to go to a French restaurant that they both had been to before. They took the car, drove into a parking garage near the restaurant, which probably I'm sure was $40 to park for two hours. And they probably put it like eight stories high on one of those fucking lift things. So they go to. Was it Frere Jacques?

[Jimmy Wissman]

That is French, right?

[James Petregallo]

It is located on 37th Street. They get there about 8pm and they're sat right down. They start ordering a bunch of cosmos. Oh, drinking some cosmos. God dang, both of them are.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They're going hard.

[James Petregallo]

It's their favorite cocktail. Yeah, they love. So, yeah, they dig it. They're popping cosmos like crazy. Chit chatting. They leave the restaurant about 9:30, Carlos gets a call from his friend Frank Farillo. Remember Frank? Hey Frankie. Go down to Venezuela. Forget about that broad. Oh, you like it? Maybe you should talk to her. I don't know, Frankie. Frank was bored and calling friends, sitting around seeing what they're up to. So they spoke for a minute. We'll talk about that call. Peggy got on the phone to say hi and said, yeah, we should all get together again. Yeah, I haven't seen you in so long. Peggy then called her daughter Alicia to let her know they were on their way home. They bullshitted a little bit. That was that. Peggy told her daughter that, you know, love you, bye. That was that. So the Frank phone call. Frank was home alone and bored, calling friends. It was nine o' clock. He got the voicemail on their cell phone and left a message to Call him. And then they called him back and got a message and they. Whatever. So they finally got 10 o' clock or so they started talking that Peggy had answered the phone. She said they were on their way back home from an evening in the city. They had dinner, got a movie and did some window shopping. Frank said Carlos didn't like to talk on the phone while he drove. So me and Peggy spoke. She was in a good mood and I could tell she had a few drinks. She was happy. We just chit chatted and that was it. Nothing out of the ordinary. Couple of phone calls. They continue on. Before getting to the Henry Hudson Bridge, Carlo stops at a gas station he knew in the Inwood section of northern Manhattan. There was a bunch of cars backed up at the pumps. So he looked at his gas tank and went, I got enough, fuck it, we're going home. And the gas is cheaper there anyway, so whatever. So they end up doing this. They get back on the parkway, they head for home. Instead of taking the Sawmill River Parkway to Chappaqua, he takes the Taconic. Yeah, it's a longer route, but it doesn't have traffic lights like the sawmill. I know, exactly. Coming home from Tarrytown, I was like, all right, which way are we going? And if you go like, no, no, no, it's all on one side. But is the sawmill close to the river? It's all close to the river. Yeah, we're all close to the river here or some body of water. So there's. He said also there's an all night Exxon gas station just off the Taconic in Milt, which is a section of Newcastle. So. And that's the same town Chappaqua's snuggled into here. Carlos goes there all the time. He said, lowest gas prices in town, babe.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

We're going.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He knows where they are.

[James Petregallo]

So about 30 minutes later, he exits the parkway at the Route 109A exit. Yeah, and not 109, 109A. Driving north along Route 100, Carlos looked over and he said that Peggy had fallen asleep. So the road is going next to. It's kind of next to the Taconic parallel. It's dark. He said he didn't see another car on the road. They were heading toward the Exxon station. Then about 11pm they're making their way home on the Saw Mill River Parkway here. And he said at that point a car suddenly appeared and forced them to the shoulder near the exit for Reader's Digest Road. Road, which is a. It's a. It's a condensed road.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, it's a very, very slim.

[James Petregallo]

It's not wide. It's. It's more, you know, real narrow. Yeah, it's a bridge, I would call it. So you have to be old enough to know what a Reader's Digest is to know it, to know that joke at all. But I never. I don't think I've ever read a read that was like something. My grandmother, your grandparents had that at their house. Yeah, Like, I don't know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She still has them.

[James Petregallo]

Like, nobody even our parents age had reader's die.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They even still make it. Because if they do, my grandmother. Grandma still has it.

[James Petregallo]

Beats the shit out. I'm sure they make it. But in like, large print magazine form on the rack. And it's got like, you know, just like Florence Henderson on the COVID every fucking week, like, still looking hot at 86 or whatever. So. Yeah, so it's at this point that somebody cut them off. And he said before he knew it, there was a man that jumps into the suv, into the back seat in their car with a gun. And he said that he tried to fight. He reached up and tried to fight the guy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Right away. And he said before he knew it, he heard a gunshot and then another gunshot and he was shot in the stomach and his wife was shot in the head.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

And the guy jumped out of the car, got back in his vehicle and took off.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

So Carlos is like, what a night. It's what a night. What a story, Mark. So Carlos gets fucking puts it in gear and guns it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

He's gonna go toward Northern Westchester hospital. He calls 911. Despite his gunshot wound, the abdomen shot in the trunk here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's a gut shot.

[James Petregallo]

And so Anyway, into the 911 call, he's saying. He said, that's why I'm taking my wife to. Then his voice is hysterical. He's going nuts. He said, I'm telling you, I'm going to the hospital. I think she may be. I think. And then there's a lot of gasping. They say, okay, where? And the 911. Because there's a police officer and a 911 operator on the line because the cop is trying to find them. And the police officers or the 911 operator is trying to get these two together. So the 911 operator says, are you on the Taconic State Parkway? And the police officer says, where? Carlos said, I'm on 1:33. I'm going toward Mount Kisco. I'm towards Northern Westchester. But you just try to Get a police car and find the guy. Blue jeans.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, you know, Find a guy in.

[James Petregallo]

Blue jeans while he's driving. Don't describe the car. Describe his jeans, because that's blue jeans. And a man driving a car. The guy. The operator says, okay, all right, so you're at 133. And Carlos says, late, late, late. Late vehicle. Car. Late vehicle. Like late model, I guess, newer car. The cop says, all right, listen, are you on 1 30? We don't care about that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fuck the car.

[James Petregallo]

Where are you bleeding people? We're trying to find you. We'll figure the rest out later. So you're on 133, heading toward 100. And he says, yeah, I just passed. I just passed seven bridges. Seven bridges. I just passed seven bridges. So they said, all right, seven bridges road on 133. He says, yes, yes, I'm on my way. I love her. Okay? The cop says, look, I need you to come in. Then he says, I don't want you to get into an accident. I need you to stop somewhere where the police can get to you. Don't be driving with a gunshot wound. So Carlos says, she got shot. And he's crying. And during all this, he's yelling, crying hysterical. The 911 operator says, okay, okay. The cop says, okay, take it easy. Which if you're not from New York and you don't understand take it easy is the number one used term around here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Take it easy.

[James Petregallo]

It can mean anything. It really is. Like, it's my father's favorite term. Like, my brother's kids are running around cutting up, and he'll just go, take it easy. You know? Jesus Christ, take it easy. Like, it's everything from that. If a guy pulls a gun on you, you go, take it easy. It's everything from a kid to a gun to anything is taking easy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And then when a parting word like, I'll see you next time. Yeah, take it easy.

[James Petregallo]

Take it easy. Yeah, there's. It's. You have no idea, though. It's so Sarah fucking noticed that. And she loves it. She's like, I use it all the time now. I feel like a real New Yorker. It's good because she heard my father saying it all the time. Take it easy. He always does with hands here. Oh, take it easy. So they go, okay, take it easy. She got shot. You say, see, your wife's dying next to you and you're shot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Cops responsible.

[James Petregallo]

Take it easy. All right. Calm down.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Take it easy.

[James Petregallo]

Take it easy. All right.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You got shot. Take it.

[James Petregallo]

Take it Easy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Take shit easy, man.

[James Petregallo]

Jesus Christ. He says, I can't stop. I can't stop. I've got to get my wife to the hospital. I can't stop. I can't stop. I'm all right. I'll get there, don't worry. Just try and get a patrol car and see if you can get this guy. Please, please, please. I'm more worried about. See if you can get my wife help. I don't care. We'll deal with that later. So the cop said, okay, well, what kind of car is it? Because they're like, we're not gonna. He won't get past it, so we have to address this before we'll move on. So, yeah, they talk about that. He says, Then the cop says, are you injured, too? And he says, yeah, yeah, shot. Yes, yes, yes, I'm shot. I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm shot on the side, and I'm fine. And the cop says, sir, I believe he's about to say, take it easy. Instead, Carlos said, I got shot also. See, I'm going to need some medical attention. Please put a hold now, please, you've got to get to the son of a bitch. The cop says, listen to me, listen to me. I've got to take care of you first. Both of you. He says, forget about me. My wife. My wife is important. Not me, not me, not me. And he says, voice fading. He's like screaming, screaming. The cop says, sir, I. Take it easy, Take it easy. All right. So then Carlos, and it's described as high pitched and crying. I'm not pulling over. I'm not pulling over. I'm not pulling over. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not pulling over. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not pulling over. And then in the transcript, it says, gibberish, cries, repetition.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He says it a lot.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, gibberish, cries, whatever that. So that's pretty fucking funny. And then they go, okay, well, what kind of car? Again, if that's what you want to talk about. He said he had. He had. The guy had a blue. A late model Toyota. A Hispanic guy. A Hispanic guy. Cop said, did you get a license plate number? And Carlos said, hell no. No, not hell no, but hell no. The cop said, where did this. Where did this shooting take place? And he said. Said he put me off the road. I was still trying to get gasoline. They said, what happened? Where did this happen? This happened at the gas station. And he says, no, no, I was going to the gas station. I was going to the gas station. I was going to the gas station before the Taconic. The cop says, wait, what gas station? Do you remember? And he says, I don't know. I don't. Oh. Oh. Ow. Shit. Fuck. Take it easy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Shit.

[James Petregallo]

Fuck, shit. Fuck. Okay. The officer says, where are you now? He says, I don't know. I'm going toward Mount Kisco. I'm going toward Mount Kisco. He said, are you going to northern Westchester in Mount Kisco? He says, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Cop says, okay, we'll see you there. Carlos says, if I can make it. If I make it, I'm going to try and make it. I'm going to try to make. The cop says, what, What, What? What road are you on now? Where are you now? And he says, I'm. And then he starts crying and shouting and you can't hear. It's inaudible. You can't hear not a shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fuck.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, everybody's. It says, over talking, all parties. Inaudible. Cop says, I need you to pull over. You have to pull over. He says, sir, I. I'm not pulling over. I'm not, I'm not. And he keeps doing that fucking thing. And where are you now? They said, we can get an ambulance to you faster than you drive. You might get into another accident. And they said. The cop says, sir, we need to know where you are if you pass out and don't make it. And he says, got to get. Got to get my wife. Got to get my wife. And they say, pull over now. Pull over right now. And the cop says, I need you to pull over. I need to get the emergency medics and to get you to the hospital. Where are you now? And he says, I'm almost there. I'm almost there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'll be where I need to go.

[James Petregallo]

I'm almost there. I'm almost there. And then he starts crying. And they said, what kind of car are you in, sir? What road are you on? And he says, I'm. I'm. I'm almost in Mount. I'm almost in Mount Kiss. I'm almost in. Oh, shit. Oh, I'm almost in Mount Kisco. I'm almost in Mount. And they said, you're almost in Mount Kisco. You're still on 133. And you just hear inaudible cries from him. What kind of car are you driving? Hello? Hello? And his phone cut out. That was how he dropped the call. So very dramatic. Night.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Incredibly.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, he gets to the hospital, pulls up, nearly destroys the fucking front Entrance next climbs out, stumbles in. I have my wife and bleeding. And they stick the fucking intravenous anti anxiety medication.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sticks him in the neck.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, all that like from the 911 call. He's doing that in the emergency room. They're like, stick him with something so poop he's in there. Whoa. Now medical workers have to pull Peggy through the passenger side window because this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Dipshit park so close he can't get the door open.

[James Petregallo]

Wedged the SUV between a bar and a pillar near the emergency room entrance. So they couldn't get her. They had to pull her out of the window to get her out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What the fuck? And she's shot.

[James Petregallo]

And she's shot in the head.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, for Christ's sake.

[James Petregallo]

So an ultrasound technician said she got into the SUV after a hospital worker asked, yelled for someone to move this fucking thing away. No one could get into the hospital. But moments later, another hospital employee ran outside waving his arms and said, get out of the car. It's a crowd. Crime scene.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Get the fuck. Don't move the car, you fucking idiot. Doesn't matter if it's in an inconvenient location. This is. There's pros, protocol.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's very inconvenient. But there's a dead body and I'm.

[James Petregallo]

Sure there's a second entrance.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, it's a hospital.

[James Petregallo]

I doubt there's one entrance for fire purposes and all, you know. So Peggy is not in good shape. He's shot in the abdomen and it doesn't appear to be life threatening. And we'll find out it's very not life threatening. Like it's pretty much a graze. Oh, and she is shot right in the head. And it is not good. She's rushed in while this is happening. He's saying that it's my fault. It's my fault. I shouldn't have fought with him. I should have just given him what he wanted. Or if he didn't even ask for it, I just grabbed the guy. So a detective arrives here and pulls into the emergency entrance. Notices the gray SUV in the fucking door there. All four doors wide open at this point. Here it is 12:50am and there's a detective guarding the vehicle, which is a crime scene here. Now inside, Carlos is flat on his back with his arms folded over his chest and over his stomach like he's in a coffin, eyes fixed on the ceiling. They said that's how they found him. They thought the chief Breen here thought at first he was asleep on the gurney, but Then he was. He saw. He was wide open, awake. So he said he was immediately struck by the calm Carlos had at this point. Now he's completely calm. He went from, hi, I'm To I'm good. I took it. They told me to take it easy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, they told me to take it easy. Then they forced me to take it easy.

[James Petregallo]

They injected me with take it easy drugs.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They hit me with some easy.

[James Petregallo]

You go, ow. When they stick, you go, what are you injecting into me? Take it easy. That's what I'm injecting into you. A little bit of that. So now that's the thing. The calmness is literally intravenously into him here. So cop walked up, introduced himself. He asked if Carlos had been shot and how bad it was. He said the wound wasn't that bad. But he said over and over, it's all my fault. It's all my fault. Carlos said he had driven himself to the hospital. The chief here said that he never asked about his wife's condition or even mentioned her in the conversation at all. That's weird. So the chief finally said, I promise you, Mr. Perez, we're going to find out who did this to you and your wife. Wife. And Carlos said, you get him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay?

[James Petregallo]

You go out and you get him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So the cops talk to Carlos once he's put together.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

They said, quote, he was lucid and calm, as calm as you could expect to be in a situation like this where you and your wife had just been shot. He was able to answer some questions I had for him. He said he was searching for a gas station when he got ambushed. And meanwhile, he frequents this gas station. So I don't know what he needs to search for. Yeah, I know where all my regular gas stations are. So he described the gunman as Hispanic and even offered to help create a sketch. Everything else, Peggy, she was placed on life support and declared brain dead the next day.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, no.

[James Petregallo]

Over the next couple days, they had to make the decision to remove her from life support, which is obviously hard.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's ugly. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

That poor Peggy, she didn't know anything was coming. She heard door open, turn around, shot in the head. That's what Carlos said. She never knew it was coming. Barely. Barely knew. So the police statement here, they said that. This is the statement that the cops gave to the press. Quote, Mr. Olivo attempted to wrestle the gun from him, and there were several shots fired. The gunman fled, according to the police. And they said that Carlos thought that two other people may have been Riding with the gunman. And more shots were fired because they were hit with two. But then there's one in the headrest and there's something about the ceiling liner too. So we think as many as four shots may have been fired. Now Carlitos, he gets to the hospital the next morning. He thought his dad got drunk and wrecked the car. He thought that was his dad got drunk at the going out to dinner. You know when your dad drives drunk. So he said he found his father and learned his mother had been shot. He said he lost it and he cried and all that. Now. Now reporters swarm the house.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yes. It's 1 Old House Lane is the name of it. The name of the address of the house here. It's at the bottom of the cul de sac here. And they said no one answered the door at the house. But two men emerged from the rear and told reporters to leave because they were trespassing. One man identified himself as a, quote, family spokesman. I'm the family spokesman. I'm going to kick your ass. For the family.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm told you're trespassing.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. He said all news would come from the hospital. Nobody should come to the house. So now their landlord described them as a very nice couple. Great folks, sweet people. So the neighbors said that they kept to themselves. They didn't really have any friends on the block or anything like that. But people are shocked that this could happen in leafy Chappaqua here. One of the neighbors who has a son in the ninth grade in this school district, said the shootings didn't seem random. She was surprised. They occurred on Route 100, just south of 133, which is a busy road during the day. She said it's really surprising that was in that spot. The whole thing feels very deliberate. Another neighbor said the urban problems are finally coming to the country rather than just suburbia.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Big city problems coming way out here.

[James Petregallo]

Jesus Christ. The last homicide in Newcastle involved a wrong way driver on this Taconac State Parkway in 2003.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Which isn't really a murder murder. The last shooting came during a botched holdup at the Millwood gas station in 1999 and the victim survived. So this is non existent violence here. It's just non existent. Now. One of the things here that happens is at the. I don't know if it's at the police department or at the hospital. But a reporter confronts Carlos and asked him if he was responsible for his wife's death. Carlos lunges at him and punches him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. So Carlos's lawyer wrestles him away and they get into a car and speed off fucking papini style. Like when she got a rain that time she made a run for it. She did. That was wild.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's just running down the street screaming like a banshee. Crazy cry.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. So then they dispute Carlos's contention that Carlos had directed because they said where this happened. And Carlos told them, but then they said, that's not where it happened. Where you're saying it happened isn't where it happened. The exact location where the blood droplets and shell casings are found are farther north than the place that Carlos said. So they're like, that's weird. They said, quote, the actual crime scene wasn't that far from the place Carlos said he was pulled over on. But the area that he brought us to was where the lakeshore was farther away from the road. That great dense distance made it a long throw to the lake. There was also, because he said, something farther away from the lake is where it happened. There was also a lot of trees shielding a lake. Lake's important.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Okay. In the next two weeks, they start road checks, questioning motorists if they've seen anything or have they seen a Nissan and a guy in Hispanic. Guy in jeans. Seen a Hispanic guy in jeans? Yeah. Lots of them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, probably. Yeah. So Carlos comes forward and says, I know who did this. You don't even have to do an investigation. He said, I know in my heart, Elio Cruz. He's the only guy who did this. He's capable of it. He got money to do it. He hired one of his cousins or something to come shoot us. He said that he. He said that Carlos had been cooperative and responsive and readily agreed to give a DNA swab and expose his wounds so the detectives could photograph it. So they talked to him. They wrote a 16 page detail of the whole thing. The cops do in their report. They describe his demeanor as common, subdued. They thought that was a little bit weird. They did think it was strange that his tone of voice changed when he spoke of his source of incident income. They said Carlos had become evasive and offered up no information on the matter. Yeah, he's got to explain why he's been disbarred.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

At that point, there's not a lot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Of money coming in. We'll just leave it there, huh?

[James Petregallo]

So later that morning, Carlos here. They also do a gunshot primer swab and all that GSR shit. Yeah. So the test results are negative for the right hand, but they didn't swab the left hand because it was bandaged. Oh, so that's interesting. Carlos also agreed to help do a sketch to come up with the portrait of the gunman here. And this time he describes the gunman as, quote, white, but not Irish white.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What kind of white?

[James Petregallo]

Not white white.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just white.

[James Petregallo]

The color, you know, white, but not like that far white.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, maybe Spanish speaking white.

[James Petregallo]

No, no, not that we're talking, you know, France, Germany, not. Not, you know, not the northern islands. You know what I'm saying?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Again, here he so that he said Hispanic. Hispanic. Hispanic. And now it's white, but not Irish white. Yeah. It's strange here. I mean, I didn't smell booze on his breath or see freckles, so I'm assuming he wasn't Irish, but could have been a rosary, could have been anything. You never know. So, also, the detectives took the clothes he was wearing that night. They put out, they do the sketch, which there's a picture in the newspaper of him holding up the sketch. This is the guy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And Carlos said, on a scale of 1 to 10, I give it a 9.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

The sketch accurate?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Perfect.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So few days after the shooting, remember that? So that he told him. A crime scene, they found it actually, a further up north up the road with a lake next to it. So they were like, that's suspicious. Let's go check that lake out in that lake, they find a Walther ppk, semi automatic pistol.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Here. Which is, by the way, the same caliber that they were shot with. Oh, yeah. So that's not good, you know, at all. They don't know who belongs to yet, though. Other clues here, no witnesses, no 911 call from the scene, only from the road here. So there's none of that. Just him cruising away. Physical evidence isn't helping. They found no skid marks, no broken glass, no signs of a struggle in the car. The bullet path into Peggy's skull didn't really match the trajectory one would expect from a shooter leaning in from the outside of the vehicle, because I guess he hopped out and then shot him from the outside. So, also, Carlos changed clothes before emergency services. Somehow he got his clothes changed in there, which is strange. I don't know how that happens. I get you might have a shirt in the back of your car, but is this the time to change? Really?

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't. I don't think so.

[James Petregallo]

So pretty soon after this all happens, Carlos tries to collect. He puts in to collect a $467,000 life insurance policy, but was Refused because the police said, he's still a suspect. Nothing is solved. Everybody's a suspect. So the Hartford insurance company asked the court to hold the money and decide who should get it. They said should he ever be convicted of an intentional homicide, he couldn't resist. See the funds, but otherwise they're his. So they said at that point it would be split amongst the kids. But that's way down the road here. The company there said that. I'm sorry. His lawyer said, we've been pushing the insurance company to do this as a first step toward collecting the funds because the police department and the district attorney refused to rule out anyone in an ongoing investigation. So the insurance company is helpless. But they also found out that this wasn't even the only insurance policy he had on her. And he reportedly increased coverage amounts incrementally in the months leading up to this. Oh, yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Every month, raising it a little bit here and there.

[James Petregallo]

Then they found out. Holy shit. Does he have a lot of affairs?

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

He had a 10 year affair with a married woman from Georgia state, not country. Yeah. He also patronized, quote, escort service girls.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What is happening?

[James Petregallo]

He was. Wow. Bringing home some stank on his hang down. That's not good.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why would he do that?

[James Petregallo]

What are you doing? You can't do that. And he said he had other, quote, small affairs.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my word.

[James Petregallo]

Because they were like, we gotta talk to you about everything now. We got your phone records. Who are these people?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Who are these ladies?

[James Petregallo]

Yep. He said the one affair ended in 2006, early 2006, though, because she wanted to have a child with him, but he had a vasectomy. So no kids coming.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, there's that. And no money.

[James Petregallo]

And no money. He said he wanted to get together with her again, but didn't want to end his marriage. So, you know, he said he had to end it. Now his defense attorney says, because everyone goes, oh, he's having affairs. They think that makes him look guilty. No, no, no, no, no. His defense attorney, Robert Buckley, has a completely different explanation for why he's having all these affairs. This is amazing. This is the. The second time this is used for something that shouldn't be appropriated to, quote, he's a Latin male. What do you want from me?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, shit.

[James Petregallo]

If we put every man in jail who had an affair, we would have empty apartment houses. Of course he can't keep his dick in his pants. Look at him. He's Puerto Rican.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's a handsome Latin man. Women are gonna wanna suck.

[James Petregallo]

What the fuck is that? He can't do accounting or keep his dick in his pants. Obviously, that's his legal defense, the Hispanic defense.

[Jimmy Wissman]

If he salsa dances, it's called snake charming.

[James Petregallo]

So it's 11 days after Peggy is dead, here after the shooting, that Carlos tells detectives all about his affair with a woman named Ileana Santana Poole.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, this is fucking crazy. It's a long affair. By the way, he sent her flowers two days before the shooting.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, sir.

[James Petregallo]

Two days. That looks bad. Here. He said, what are we gonna do? It was her birthday.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I have to.

[James Petregallo]

I have to.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She who sucks the dick gets flowers.

[James Petregallo]

Gets the fucking petals. That's how it works. They met in Puerto Rico, Ileana Santana pool, in 1996 when she was working at a shoe store. She was 21 years old. He was very much not 21 years old. He was about 48 years old at that point.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Almost.

[James Petregallo]

Almost. She, by the way, during this affair, got married to somebody else, moved to suburban Atlanta. They kept having an affair.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

Like it never happened. She was working as an assistant manager at Kohl's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, at a Kohl's department store. They would do secret vacations together.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah. I guess she begged him to have. She wanted to have his baby. But he said no, no, no. Because first of all, he said that the relationship ended 18 months before the killing, but he still sent her flowers on her birthday. He said. They said, well, why'd you end it? He said, the sex had dwindled between us.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, come on.

[James Petregallo]

When your mistress and you don't have the same fucking acumen together, you really gotta just hang it up at that point. You gotta break it off. But on November 16, 2006, he called 1-800-Flowers and had a birthday bouquet sent to her to arrive on her birthday on November 18, which is the day of the killing. So he said the affair was over. Do you send Christmas cards to old girlfriends? It's not relevant. That's what his lawyer said. It's not relevant.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No, I don't.

[James Petregallo]

He said that his credit card statements would show that he sent flowers to her on multiple occasions. He said he last sent them up for her birthday because it was her birthday. He also said that he. He admitted at this point to the cops that he, quote, made a hell of a lot more money than I said on my taxes. And he asked the detectives, look, guys, can you, quote, be discreet about this affair?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, we'll be very.

[James Petregallo]

Murder investigation.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Be discreet.

[James Petregallo]

Who?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Do you not want to hurt your wife?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, who cares? Your Wife's dead, stupid. So Carlos's friend, our buddy here, Furillo. Here, Frank Furillo, he knew that Carlos was having an affair. He even met Ileana Poole when she was visiting Carlos in New York. And Frank said, though he knew Carlos would never leave Peggy. He goes, this one's young and pretty and all that, but never gonna leave Peggy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Just fun to throw it at.

[James Petregallo]

Hey. He said, quote, all you had to do was see them together to know they'd never separate. The thing with Ileana was more about sex than anything, you know?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

I told him, take it easy, but he didn't want it, you know? He said, yes, they did have some common interests, but nothing he would leave Peggy over. Nothing like that, you know, it's nothing. Just sex. Frank was positive the extramarital affair was part of, quote, the Latin thing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What is going on?

[James Petregallo]

What is happening right now? What's going on?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Frank remembered Carlos telling him that there was the Latin ideal of the big house, little house where the man had a wife and a mistress and how that was normal. Jesus Christ. That's very Italian, too, I gotta say. It's all the same.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You got your Gomar out there somewhere.

[James Petregallo]

You set up a whole thing. But Frank said Peggy was loyal. She had stuck with him when times were a lot tougher. They were a team and they covered for each other.

[Jimmy Wissman]

How could it gotten tougher than this?

[James Petregallo]

That's what I mean. Frank said, the thing with Ileana, I think, was that it coincided with Peggy's menopausal, less loss of interest in sex and Carlos's cash flow trouble. Bubbles, it just added all up. Ileana was an escape. Wow. So the press hears about this and this is how discreet they are. Not. They go to harass an old lady. Okay, Knock, knock. They go to knock on the door. Her husband, Ileana's husband, Sean, didn't answer the door. In their Canton, Georgia, home. The neighbor said she hadn't been home in a long time. And this home is for. Her husband had called police when reporters were knocking on his door. And all of that kind of thing. The neighbors said, yeah, I think they're moving because they want more yard space for their kids. This has nothing to do with outdoor space.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They want people to leave her alone.

[James Petregallo]

No. So Poole's mother, Mercado Santana, who's 72, they called this poor lady, and she said from her home that her daughter never mentioned Carlos, and she was confused. That what you were asking her about? She said, my daughter's married.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Stop harassing this old lady. Hey, is your daughter a whore like this fucking poor old lady doesn't need to know this. She has no information that's relevant to the.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I heard your daughter's having an affair with a married man. What?

[James Petregallo]

I thought she was married. No, you have a mistake. And she's married to a man. So that's not an affair because they're married together? No, no, a different man. What?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why are you calling me?

[James Petregallo]

What?

[Jimmy Wissman]

You're ruining my Christmas.

[James Petregallo]

I'm trying to watch the prices. Right. In Spanish. I'm sorry, I have to go. So also they find out he lied about money. He told detectives he had money socked away in Montreal and Venezuela.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

He said, I made a hell of a lot more money than I said on my taxes.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, you can't do that.

[James Petregallo]

No, not at all. The detectives wrote. He jokingly said that the thing he was disbarred for he wasn't actually guilty of, but that he had done other things that probably would have gotten him disbarred anyway. Also, they're, you know, they're not. They're not looking for this. They haven't been really on a manhunt for this after the first couple of days. Well, they don't even know what they're looking for or who, because they're like. It doesn't make any sense. They said he's calm and professional and not. Doesn't seem like a distraught husband who just was next to his wife while she was shot in the head. Had her fucking blood on him. Forensic examiners sweep the suv, find no physical evidence of a third person in the vehicle. No foreign fingerprints, no sign of forced entry, no foreign DNA, not even a shoe print.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, it was, though. He floated in through the window and then out through the sunroof shooting and took off. Shooting. Also, cell phone records. Carlos's timeline didn't sync with the digital shit here. He had time gaps in his story, unanswered calls, no Attempt to dial 911 until much later than expected. Yeah, it's a little odd. And then the gun stuff. Okay, Carlos's wound was superficial, and the medical examiner thinks possibly self inflicted. Oh, so they said it was a clean wound, non life threatening. Unlike the one to Peggy. Obviously, the trajectory and location of his wound made them suspicious that it was staged like this, basically across him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right across his own belly.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, they said it wasn't consistent with a chaotic struggle and a moving cross. So the ballistics also said the bullet that killed Peggy was fired from close range inside the car. Okay, so. Yeah, the trajectory and distance indicated the shooter was seated very near her. This contradicted Carlos account of a gunman reaching in from the outside of the vehicle to do this. Even the angle of the shot, right to left, slightly downward, pointed to someone in the driver's seat, not outside the car. They also have a GSR expert here, here, and said that residues usually found on anything within a few feet of the muzzle of the gun. They said the. Basically the highest count they found on Carlos was on his white polo shirt cuff down here by his hand. The gun, by the way, they figure out. It takes a long time to figure out whose gun this is. Who says it, because it's an old gun and it has different serial numbers and different parts. Oh, it's been somebody along the way.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Somebody changed the barrel.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Fixed it, did something else. So it's very hard to figure it out. But they figure out that the gun belongs to Carlos.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's Carlos's own weapon.

[James Petregallo]

Carlos. But he said it had been stolen from the house.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, no.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So somebody stole it and then found.

[James Petregallo]

You on the Taconic.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

That's. That's how you. That's how you fuck somebody. I want you to kill his wife, but frame him for it. That's what I want.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Find him on the Taconic with his.

[James Petregallo]

Own gun and shoot him, but not kill him. I want him to suffer, but shoot him a little bit, you know, you know how to do it right.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Get him with the. With the burn.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. The casing was not found in the car. Also was found outside the car. So if someone stuck a gun in the car, the casing's not going to shoot out of the car. That'd be tough. The gun is a Pre World War II Walther PPK.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's. That's interesting. And also several people came forward and said that they wanted to buy it, and Carlos had refused to sell. Sell it in the months before the slaying as well. A firearms expert testifies that the bullet that killed her came from only that gun. That's the only one here, the one from the lake. They said it took a lot of time to do the serial numbers, but they said it was a key piece of evidence. Finding out who owned the gun was critical. There you go. Also, the financial troubles. Ongoing financial troubles, large insurance policy. Then they find out about his bank account. JPMorgan Chase said that in 2006, monthly balances of his checking account fluctuated wildly. A high of 65732.97 in May to $2.97 in November.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He blew 60 grand.

[James Petregallo]

65 grand.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Citibank said that they, at the time of the murder, he had $178.09 in his account. And an investigator in the credit card services for bank of America testified later on that Carlos had a balance on his credit cards of $9,528.19 was over his credit limit as well. And HSBC Credit Card Services told the cops that he had two cards that had been in collection since November 2006 for the amounts of $1,500 and $9,000 dollars. So it was over? Yeah, it had been constricted, squeezed, no money, squeezed to the point of nothing. So 2000. They don't arrest Carlos, by the way.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

No. That was late 2006. We're gonna go through 2007.

[Jimmy Wissman]

All the way through.

[James Petregallo]

All the way through. Carlos Jr. Said his dad was a destroyed man and their home had been reduced to a tomb, with his father totally unfit to take care of him. So no less the home. He said Carlitos had to handle the funeral arrangements for his mother. And also, Robert Buckley, the attorney, had also seen to it that the insurance companies were notified that the funds collection process was started. And Carlitos confessed that he'd been surprised at the big dollar amounts of his mom's policies. December 2007, Carlos is finally arrested.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Finally. Finally. What took a year?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Who knows?

[James Petregallo]

So that's wild. So they say that he'll surrender. His lawyer says he'll surrender. And, well, they said, well, he doesn't have a car, so can you pick him up at his house?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Can you come get him?

[James Petregallo]

So, yeah. And the detective said, think about it. They've been working on this for a year. This is their big moment. You ever see, like, on svu, they're finally gonna get the guy, and they kick the door in and he's like, got a kid. Like, he's just duct taping their wrist to a chair. And they're like, free scumbag. And Maloney comes in there and tacks him. And then fucking Mariska Haggerty gets down and goes, it's okay, sweetheart. It's okay. You're safe now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sits down on him with his dump truck.

[James Petregallo]

We're the good guys. We're the good guys. That's what they expect here. Instead, the detectives said it was all very anticlimactic. He was outside on the driveway waiting for us. He said, hi.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hi.

[James Petregallo]

And we said, hi. He asked us to wait a moment so his daughter wouldn't see him handcuffed. We honored his request. He was always cooperative. So, like, just not what they expect. They were all jacked up, and they were like. He goes, hi. It just ruins it all.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wait a sec. I don't want her to see this.

[James Petregallo]

He's arraigned on charges of murder and criminal possession of a weapon. And he's being held on $1 million bail, which he does not have, obviously. Now, his friend Frank Furillo says that I know about the threats he's received. And this. I think someone else did it. He said Carlos was not the kind of guy to get into a fight with anybody. He was the kind of guy who would talk his way out of trouble. He didn't have a violent bone in his body. And as for the shooting of Peggy, there was just no way. Without question, Carlos is innocent. That's right. Carlos wants to be polygraphed.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

He has a lot of experience with polygraphs, by the way. Yeah, he's done them a lot. He does. I had people do it a lot. Yeah. I think he knows a lot about him. So he said, that's what's gonna prove me innocent. Hook me up to a polygraph and then let me the fuck go? Basically, yep. So he said that he wanted to take it for his kids. He said, my kids are constantly bothered by the police. The cops will seek them out, even at school, in front of friends to ask questions about me.

[Jimmy Wissman]

They deserve this.

[James Petregallo]

He was upset about his youngest daughter, who's 18 at the time, was very vulnerable. And the cops would come there and bother her and harass her and do all this shit. And so the cops made excuses, saying that their polygrapher was not available. He persisted. He wanted to be tested. Then they just ignored him. They're like, we don't want you to pass this test and have that be a thing. Basically, he thought that he could pass the test. And then he said he understood that that's not admissible in court. But, you know, if it leaked out, who knows? People on the jury later might have heard about it. And it can't be bad for me, basically. So is this a slam dunk?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yes.

[James Petregallo]

Seems like it, right?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Seems pretty good. Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Seems like a pretty good case. But legal experts here are saying that it's not that easy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No.

[James Petregallo]

Because there is a pension probe that could damage the police department's credibility right now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, there's a scandal in the police department. Has nothing to do with this or criminal shit, but has to do with pension stuff. It has to do with honesty Yeah, I guess. A top retired officer, a top lieutenant retired officer from Newcastle's police department, which serves Chappaqua, is being sued by the attorney General's office for an alleged pension scam that may involve up to a quarter of the town's 40 member town a police force. So do the kids hate Carlos?

[Jimmy Wissman]

No.

[James Petregallo]

Fuck no, they don't. They're all publicly supporting him. Alicia said that her father's in distress and in complete and utter pain. Merced here said that it's inconceivable.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really.

[James Petregallo]

Inconceivable. He went full princess, bro. He said, as far as I'm concerned, my father is nothing but a hero. He got to the hospital. As you wish. He said that his father told him he was sorry he hadn't been able to protect my mother. He said anyone who's ever known my father or mother would tell you that it's inconceivable that my father would do anything to harm her. Sometime while he's in here, I guess somebody, the lawyer, somebody has a garage sale at his house.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, to raise money.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Raising money?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

All right.

[James Petregallo]

Selling off basically his wife's personal items. His dead wife's personal items. Here. That's crazy. Among the items were an assortment of footwear, blouses, and a pink satin negligee once belonging to Peggy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah. Let's get her fucking.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's selling her teddies.

[James Petregallo]

He's selling her frilly things.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Gross.

[James Petregallo]

That is horrifying.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Wow.

[James Petregallo]

Yep, he's doing that. They said one. This is funny. People walking around the garage sale. A 77 year old lady said, we know this guy supposedly killed his wife. So we were nosy. We wanted to see what the house looked like, you know, see what it's like.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Then I got this cheap dildo.

[James Petregallo]

It's pretty nice, actually. It's got the clit vibrator on it. So it's pretty nice. You can't beat it, honestly. She said she stopped by with her two friends and bought a $45 Corningware plates and worth of Corningware plates and bowls. Many of the items were, they said, price to move. Peggy's Shoes remarked one pair for $5, three pairs for $10.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

Clothing, including the negligee, was going for $1 per item.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That is fucked up, man.

[James Petregallo]

How much can you raise? Yeah, how much can you really raise for the defense? For this? What are you gonna raise? $300? That's not even an hour of illegal defense. What are you talking about? They said in the master bedroom along with the shoes. Satisfied selection of Peggy's purses. This is just creepy, they said. Also, bargains. Mother Goose collection of nursery rhymes and kids Halloween costumes are selling for $4 a piece. A $5 space heater in the garage was parked along one of the big ticket items. A. A yellow Suzuki motorcycle with a helmet for $4,600.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What the.

[James Petregallo]

Like a dirt bike? Everything inside the house was for sale? Basically, yeah. The attorney, a family friend and a jerk off, in my opinion, here said that people don't mind this one guy's loading a gas grill into a pickup while other people are lugging TVs and VCRs at taking their shit. That's right. Now the defense talks about the 911 tape. They said there appears to be genuine panic. What struck me, if anything, was that Carlos never mentioned his own wounds until asked. Instead, he focused continually on his wife. This is not consistent with psychopathy. I also did not think this sounded like it was staged. It for no other, if for no other reason than it was too chaotic. I would expect someone who planned this out and was psychopathic to have a story he would begin telling, and he didn't. Okay, so actually, the 911 tapes. Good for us. Here comes the trial.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

The defense presents him as a grieving, innocent husband been wronged by circumstance. Sweetheart, really poor bastard is the way to put it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Took her right to the hospital.

[James Petregallo]

That's what I mean. They said that this was a tragic, random roadside ambush. They said, look, he shot himself, even though it's not that big of a wound. Doesn't matter. Also, they said his lawyer insisted that they were happily married and the affairs should have no bearing on this case, the defense's case. Here. Here. They said that. They said that the whole thing was inconsistent with the tale the prosecution will tell. It's a fairy tale involving only one victim. They said that it's manufactured and biased interpretation. The defense counsel also claimed, like I said, the marital affair was long over by the time of the murder. His client was not broke, and that they. The case was handled by inexperienced detectives way over their heads.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

He said that the jury. That he would also be appalled and offended by the 911 respondents who were more concerned with jurisdiction issues than in sending help to the seriously injured couple, forcing Carlos to drive himself and his mortally wounded wife to the hospital. Meanwhile, how many times did they say, pull over. Pull over. Just pull over. Where are you? Can you pull over? I mean, they didn't force him to do anything. He forced the issue and according to the defense, fully cooperative with police and availed himself to investigators whenever requested. He has nothing to hide. Nothing, my friends. Prosecutors said. Jesus, come on. Finance. He had no money. He had an affair going on. He's sending flowers.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, many life insurance policies.

[James Petregallo]

All these life insurance policies. Oh, yeah, his gun killed her, right?

[Jimmy Wissman]

His gun is in the lake.

[James Petregallo]

He lied to us about where the fucking crime scene was because that was closer to the lake where the gun was. This is ridiculous, by the way. Why not throw it out as you drive to the hospital, away from you, away from the crime scene. Stupid. Just throw them in some random woods. They're not gonna find it there. Three miles away from the crime scene.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Back there. So.

[James Petregallo]

Fucking idiot man. For such a smart guy. Very stupid.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I left it. I told him it was back there.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, what a dummy man. So the witnesses here, they have testimony from Peggy, friends and colleagues said that she's a woman who's not only innocent, but deeply loved. And her violent death was just a heartbreak for everybody and wonderful lady and how much the kids loved her. And, I mean, it was. It's heartbreaking, man. It's tough. She's a nice lady and didn't do a thing to anybody, so it's really difficult here. Guess who comes and testifies. It's Elena. Eliana Poole. Oh, Eliana.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What is she gonna say?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah, yeah. She said it was an honor and, oh, off affair. But they were just telephone friends by the time the wife was killed. She also said that she never got the flowers that he told police he sent for her birthday. We know he sent them because there's record of him calling 1-800-Flowers and credit cards.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Whether or not your husband threw them away is not our business.

[James Petregallo]

That's the other thing. Yep. The day the prosecutors did that same day, which is funny, they were supposed to come on the same day. She said she stopped seeing him in 2004 and didn't speak to. To him for a year. She said the two of them still talked on the phone and she had chatted 10 to 15 times with him. In the fall of 2006, shortly after he was disbarred, the defense attorney asked her if Carlos ever told her that he would never leave his wife for her. And she responded, quote, I never asked him to.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh.

[James Petregallo]

Which is kind of.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's a good gal.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. You just. Just shut that down right there. Clamped that fucking right off. Yeah. So they asked her about the flowers. She said they never arrived. Her testimony was less than 30 minutes because they were Limited to questions that related to the statements that Carlos made about his marriage. Nothing else. So they were real. It was a lot of no, that's. Can't go there. No, you can't say that. That sort of shit here. So there's also dueling forensics people.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Yes. The defense expert says there's no evidence that Peggy was shot at close range. None. Which is interesting. The chief medical examiner for New Hampshire who was in on this, hired by the defense, could offer no conclusion about who fired the shot. But he supported the defense version by suggesting the gun was not even close to her head. He said if it were a close shot, there would be. There would have been stifling stippling dots resulting from gunpowder wounds on her entryway wound. They said this injury was described as having that and there is none here. Now the Westchester medical Examiner's office for the prosecution concluded there was stippling and said that the shot was from close range. But the defense one said, you simply cannot draw the conclusion based on the injuries of the deceased. That's what he said. He said that. Actually what they said was that little dots there was actually hair follicles, holes from her shaved scalp when they shaved to look at wounds.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So those little dots are just stubble.

[James Petregallo]

That's what they stipple. That's what they're trying to say here, which is pretty fucking interesting. Also, the district Attorney attempts to discredit this defense expert by getting him to concede that he did not even reach out to the Westchester medical's office in his review and that he only worked on this case for five to six hours and got paid $5,600 for his efforts. Not bad. That's pretty good. That's a grand an hour right there. That's not bad. They also pointed out that two of this person's subordinates in the New Hampshire medical examiner's office were convicted for a scam involving cremations. They also, the Westchester county forensic scientists, testify that the gunshot residue tests they performed led her to conclude the muzzle of the gun was flush with the passenger seat headrest when it was fired.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, went through it.

[James Petregallo]

Flower next to it. 1. So also the roof liner. They found a bullet hole in the Montero's roof liner. And that's a big deal that they talk about a bunch. And they say they concluded from their analysis that the gun's muzzle was 10 to 14 inches away from the liner. The roof liner, whatever. They said. An unlikely scenario in Carlos's account of what happened during the struggle for the gun so they said that Carlos's superficial gunshot wound had appeared from the residue analysis of his shirt to be a contact wound. So they did that. They, over objections from the defense forensic scientists demonstrated with the handgun, the suspect gun, that the actual headrest from the on Montero how the fatal shot most likely had been fired. Telltale vaporous lead smudge from the bottom of the headrest indicated, she testified, a near contact shooting of the weapon. Weapon and they said an execution style shooting where the muzzle of the gun had been inserted between the bottom of the headrest and the top of the backrest against her head, a space of 2 inches, and fired. She never saw it coming through the.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Back of the headrest.

[James Petregallo]

He was probably, oh, yeah, I'm looking for something. Back behind your seat. And reached around, put it back. She had no idea it was coming. Had a gun be. Imagine that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

And then he shot her in the head. That is disturbing. That's cold. Fuck, that's nasty shit right there. And then you were like, okay, let me shoot myself. Okay. Call firewood in the roof. Oh, God.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

What the fuck? Yeah. Throw this in the lake. In closing, the prosecution said that crumbling finances, lucrative insurance policy, and his story is a piece of shit. He's guilty. They said he's a man used to twisting narratives as a defense attorney, that he thought he could gaslight everybody here, and he couldn't. He said that they spent more than two hours on this closing. The prosecutors pointing out the inconsistencies between his story and evidence found in the car, such as lack of blood in the back seat, a white plastic trash bag covered in gunshot residue that was found tucked into the pocket of his trench coat.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

He put a fucking bag over his hand because he knew about gunshot residue? Because he's a defense attorney. They said they told the jury that his life was spinning out of control in 2006 and that he started raising his wife's insurance payouts. They said his career as an attorney was over. His career as a husband was over. The verdict here jury does 11 hours of deliberation.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A long time.

[James Petregallo]

That's what I mean. This is not as several days. That's over a couple different days. And they find him guilty of everything. Yeah, guilty of all charges. It's only a couple, but guilty. Outside the court, Merced very upset. He punched a hole in the courthouse wall.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay, let's not talk to him.

[James Petregallo]

Then he went back up the stairs and kicked a silver trash can that rolled down the hallway while his father's lawyers tried to Physically restrain him and calm him down, sir. You're in court, bro. Yeah, yeah. I would think at West Point they teach you to control yourself, right? Jesus Christ.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This isn't. You're not the manager of the Yankees.

[James Petregallo]

You're not, you're not Billy Martin.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, somebody I'm sure was at one point screaming in your face with a piece of shit fucking person. You are. And you had to be okay with that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Somebody probably called you racist names to your face. Absolutely.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. So the defense attorney, Christopher McClure, is the guy giving the closing. He said he was disappointed in the verdict and said that he plans to file an appeal.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

He said it was an entirely circumstantial case. An innocent man is in jail.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We'll win on appeal, I promise.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah, we'll get just more money. One juror explained here, Alfred Vallejo, a 31 year old technician from White Plains, said the jury wanted to make sure it went through every piece of evidence from the whole trial. It was an 11 day trial. Before rendering a guilty verdict. He said he was struck by the similarities between the murder weapon found in Echo Lake near the slaying scene and the pistol that he was seen with several months earlier. They said through the whole trial, that's the thing that stuck. Yeah. He said they, they also said, quote, they were about the defense attorneys. They were okay, and we could tell they were doing their best with what little they had. They were always reaching. What if this, what if that, or, or the possibilities, the possibility of this, the possibility of that. They said that concrete evidence the prosecution presented, you know, looked a little less here. He said, I knew what they were trying to do, but it just didn't stick. And stick with him. They said then all those gunshots happening, that didn't wake her because he said she was. She must have fallen asleep from having a couple of drinks. You know, she's on the phone two minutes fucking before.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And the first shot, even if she was asleep, the first shot is the one that hit her.

[James Petregallo]

That's what I'm saying.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's not firing a bunch of shots in the car and then hitting her last.

[James Petregallo]

That's exactly right. And they said then Mr. Perez Olivo being dragged into the back of the car and very close quarters that would have mangled his clothes. Yet the cameras at the hospital show a very stylishly dressed defendant with his clothes in perfect order. It was like, whoa, that kind of got us. Yeah. Then they asked to hear the 911 tape again. Nine, 11, yeah. So they said the problem with the 911 tape was that Carlos didn't give police any kind of direction where he was and where he was going. He was very vague about the whereabouts. In the beginning of the tape, when he said, oh, hi, I think my wife has been murdered, he sounded insincere. Oh, hi, Mark.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, hi.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, hi. My wife's been murdered.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I think my wife's been murdered.

[James Petregallo]

So who got the insurance? The three kids?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

They paid out a total of $450,000 to the children. That was at the big policy here. And then there's another one that paid out $100,000 too. So they're doing pretty well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That was his fucking escape back to reality. He was gonna get 500 grand and he thinks that's gonna be enough.

[James Petregallo]

That's not.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He'd have blew through that 60 grand in a minute.

[James Petregallo]

And I'm sure that was not even all.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That wasn't close.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, he was probably scamming people and everything else. And then another policy paid out $155,797.07 to the. To Carlos.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

Junior, for some reason, I don't know why, that's still.

[Jimmy Wissman]

655. Ain't gonna do it, man.

[James Petregallo]

No, that ain't gonna do it. So sentencing comes around the mitigation. The children submit a letter. They said, we are requesting that our father be given the minimum sentence permitted by law for the following reasons. My family's been destroyed. We have no mother. We have no father. It's impossible to describe the anguish that each of us deals with on a daily basis. We are beside ourselves in grief. We will never be normal again. No one has listened to us. We believe our father is innocent. We love him and want him back in our lives. To extend his sentence is to direct. Extend the pain we experience every day. We trusted the legal system and it has failed us.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You got 655.

[James Petregallo]

What are you talking about? Yeah, you got that trust that. We are very angry. Our protests have fallen on deaf ears. Our misery is the subject of the evening news. And our plight is pushed aside by politics. We were never given a choice in this matter. And we're very angry. We want our father to know our grandchildren walk down the aisle when we marry. Be present in our lives as we achieve further accolades. None of that will happen if you so choose. Choose. Please listen to us. You have the power to ensure our father will never be a part of us again. You have the responsibility to prove to choose widely and wisely and prudently. Please Help my family heal. We are victims. We have no power. We're placing our faith in you. Please listen to us and give my father the minimum sentence permitted by Law. Carlos Jr. Said, Now we have no mother and no father on the stand. Carlos said, says, I didn't do shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Now they have no other.

[James Petregallo]

He said, I didn't do nothing. That's what I have to say for myself at sentencing. He said, the real killer's still out there and you're letting him go. All right, that's what he said. The prosecutor said Mr. Perez Olivo thought that he could one final time spin the events of that November night two years ago to his advantage. But the facts of the case told a different story. He meticulously planned and carried out the murder of his wife, weaving a web of deceit and concocting a story to cover up his act actions. He believed that he would not be held accountable for the murder. So yeah, that's it. Not be held accountable for the murder. The judge called Carlos a master of deceit who concocted a diabolical plan to kill his wife. You, sir, may fuck off. 25 years to life in prison, which is the maximum allowed under law for second degree murder. He got second, which is. That seems planned. Yeah. He's also convicted of a weapons possession charge, which is 15 years, but it's convicted current, so that's. He still blames his ex client.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really?

[James Petregallo]

He says that Cruz. Cruz, Elio Cruz, is responsible for the attack. He says he's got a prison guy who. Some guy in prison who talked to him and the guy says that he definitely did it. And it's fucking ridiculous, honestly.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's got pizza money, that guy.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, it's crazy. It's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He can afford Hitman one.

[James Petregallo]

Another guy he named was Russell Carbone, a former New York City defense lawyer who shared an law office with him. Years ago, he said Carbone had filed an ethics complaint accusing Carlos of a sexual attack. Oh, yeah. So anyway, he blames them. 2015, he starts an appeal. Let's just say it's not working out so well.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He lost on appeal.

[James Petregallo]

This appeal not working out so well. They got a retired NYPD homicide detective to go. That's obvious bullshit. That was their guy who like in the appeal was like, this is bullshit. The vegetation on the tree limbs that once obscured the view of the lake had been removed and cut away. And you can see it now. But before he said, now it looks like you could make. So it looked to the jury like throwing a handgun away would Be easy because they cleared the brush. We could have walked down there and threw it. Doesn't matter. So all of that kind of shit. The appeal. That detective said anyway. Carlos was way too smart to have made a mistake of disposing the murder weapon in the most obvious place. The guy was a criminal defense attorney. He must have learned a few tricks along the way.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, God.

[James Petregallo]

We've learned that nobody learns anything. That that guy can't be that stupid is never an excuse.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's not a good.

[James Petregallo]

We wouldn't have a show if people weren't that stupid. You understand? They're all that stupid. Every week. They're that stupid. So the decision here, they say, viewing the light and viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution. We find that it was least legally sufficient to establish the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And they're satisfied that it was not against the weight of the evidence. Go fuck yourself. He is in prison at this moment, I believe. Yes, he's definitely there now. He's at Auburn at the moment. He is. Remains in prison. Will be eligible for parole, though, really, in 2032. In December, when he's 84 years old.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But she dies in.

[James Petregallo]

I think he's gonna die in there. That's what I'm saying now. The chief of police, who's now retired. Chief Breen here. I'll give him the last word. He said it this way. Quote, he did it. He killed her. That was his gun. He shot himself and threw the gun in the lake. We found the gun, and it proved to be the murder weapon. And we found a witness to put it in his hand. Case closed.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's his gun.

[James Petregallo]

In my opinion, it was cold blooded murder. This guy took his wife to the city, took her to a movie, took her to dinner, drove her 30 miles, pulled over, got in the back seat, shot her in the head. In the head while she slept. There's no doubt in my mind that he did it. It was confirmed by a jury of his peers. I can't give enough credit to the prosecutor and their team. They did a great job. He said, this guy is a pathological liar. He can't believe anything. He says he had his opportunity to testify in court that he was innocent and he didn't. That tells you something. If there's a heaven and a hell, he'll burn in hell. Now, Merced disagreed. He says the people who think his father killed his mother. He said, those people don't know my parents. Because if they did, they'd know my dad is incapable of killing my mom or anybody for that matter. Well, he's gonna be in prison for another seven years at least. There you go, everybody. That is Chappaqua, New York, and he's a huge asshole.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, well, he's certainly gonna do the time of one.

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely. So quickly here at the end. If you like that story, like we hope you did, please get on whatever app you're listening on and give us five stars. It really helps drive the show up the charts. Do that. Shut up and give me murder dot com. Get your merch. Get your tickets for live shows, especially Philly, D.C. seattle and Irvine, California. Those are the ones with tickets left. Everything else is pretty much sold out. So do that, get in there and get your tickets right now. Shut up and give me murder.com patreon.com crimeinsports gives you all the bonus material. Anybody $5 a month or above, huge back catalog. You get immediately. New ones every other week. One crime and sports. Once in a while, town murder. You get it all. This week for crime and sports, we're going to talk about the liver king, that crazy shit who I thought was dead. And then for small town murder, we're going to do some general alien stuff, some Roswell shit. We're going to have some fun.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Terrific.

[James Petregallo]

We've had a lot of heavy murder trial. We're going to have some fun with some weird. Yep, that's what we're going to do. Going to hi. Talk about aliens. That's what we're going to do. So let's do that. And also you're going to get a shout out. Also, wait, before you do that, follow on social media at smalltown murder on Instagram, at Smalltown Pot on Facebook. Now, Jimmy, hit me with the names of the people who would never ever take us to a nice dinner and then shoot us in the fucking head as we slept from too many cosmos. Hit me with them right now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This week's executive producers are. Margaret Spoochucka. I don't know if that's real. Possibly Claude Cavallo. Rena Sanja, Manja's wife. She's a doctor now. Now, congrats for you, Rena. I don't know how to say his name. I don't know how to say yours.

[James Petregallo]

Who would have thought it may be Sanja? Yeah. I don't know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't know.

[James Petregallo]

You never see an Indian doctor, so that's shocking, obviously. Congratulations.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Reese Probin. Gary Howard, coach Victor Jr Jr Margarita Miller in Israel, thinking about you and your fam Hang in there, Margarita.

[James Petregallo]

Jesus Christ.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Thank you so much for everything. Jamie Kudrovich. Ali Deutch. Ally, she's terrific. Alpaca lips. I'm not calling Ally that. That's somebody's name. Gunther Buto. Steven Harding. Buddy LaRosa. Do you know who that is? James?

[James Petregallo]

They have something to do with Terrible Pizza.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And since it is the founder of the Terrible Pizza.

[James Petregallo]

Perfect. Good, good, good.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I think he loves us.

[James Petregallo]

He can give us money, but not pizza. We definitely don't want the pizza.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I want. I wonder if it's really him. If it is, he's 71 and he really gives a shit about this show.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. No, I don't think so.

[Jimmy Wissman]

More than he gives a shit about that pizza.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. Put your efforts into the pizza for the people of Cincinnati. Don't worry about us.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Matthew Johnston and other producers, thank you all so much for.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you so much. You guys are fucking awesome. Thank you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Really, it means a lot. Other producers this week are Peyton Meadows. Happy Hour. Checking in. And John. Maybe it's Yan, New Mexico. That's a small town. Jane, New Mexico. I've never even heard of that. And before that, he was in Conroe, Texas. Didn't even know that. I just found that today.

[James Petregallo]

Cindy and Marsha before that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah. Janice Hill. Also Michael Herman, Lacey Liu or iu. I don't know if that's an I or an L. Toby McClellan. Taylor Kyler. Kyle Kck. What is that? Kick Kachak. Cock Cac. I don't know. Wow. Don't be a cock. Kyle. Kate Rock.

[James Petregallo]

So many different directions depending on the vowel.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Megan Schultz. Grace and Sullivan. Joanna Cornazewski. Zuska. Lauren Rhodes. Hey, Lauren. Just Lisa. Brittany Santos. Santos with no last name. That could be the same person. I'm not sure. Laura Hughes. Jennifer Klepacki. Shayna with no last name. Soph Brie. Joshua Roderick. Sarah Binning. Cassidy Chance. Jacob Belvedere. Belvery. Not Beverly. It's literally very. He spelled it twice, so that's. That's his last name. Angela Gore. Simon Spindle or Spindle. Lynn Cavallo. Travis Paulson. Adam Pasky. Kelsey Green. Libby 43 victory. Victoria Sweet. Nathan Delmer. Alicia B. Joker with no last name. Cindy Hudson. Trisha Baker. Paul Lockwood. Rachel Howard. Missy Brazovic. Brozovich Jonah. Joanna Wilk. Jason Reboltz. Trisha Oviat. Melinda Lambert. Crystal Dice. Dice. Yeah, Dice. Rebecca with no last name. April Hartley. Squire Boone. Dave Garcia. Teresa Savage. Davina Marshik. Joshua Kabisney. Cube is the knee. Kyle Swan. Samantha knoft's Evolution Training center, llc. I don't know where it is. Keisha Childress. Lloyd Keeler. It exists. Drew B. Cheyenne Duffany. Jose Josie. Jose Azamas. Azamas. Robert Masek. Masik Cole with no last name. Monica A. John Cavan. Canavan. Canavan. Cherie Chance. Elizabeth Potts. JBO Gina. Gina Faby. Catherine Neal. Angela Bowles. Che with no last name. Chloe Blackburn. Hannah Henderson. Tara Lee. Erica Floyd. Julie Godot. G. Porter. Chelsea Marshall. Gordon Laws. Oh, boy. Why is this a palindrome? W o O I L I O O W. Jesse. Australia doesn't make any sense. Rachel Adam. Chick. A damn chick. A damn chick. Samantha K. Decode. Bassett basden. Like basil. 40. That's not. I don't know what. Decode. Is that a real name? Decode. Aaron McCall. Odell Ashton.

[James Petregallo]

Anything you want.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Abby K. Samantha Wynn. Kate Bott. Susan Clark. Whitney Hansen. Daniel. Danielle. Nope, that's Daniel Sizemont. Rebecca Combs. Amy Armstrong. Maggie Mays. Maggie Mays. Lindquist. Brie Carr. Yael Cohen. Twice. He has two patrons. Or she. I don't know if that. I don't know fucking gender of that, but thank you. You're the best. Megan Merstock. Tyler Jackson. Julie Thornton. Shy. Shell Shay. Shell Shell with no last name. Suzanne with no last name. Bloody Josephine. Brandon the flight nurse. Sean Peck. Kyra Ben. Lulu. Kathleen with no last name. Benjamin White. Athena with no last name. Clay Barton. Karen with no last name. Kayala, Graham or Kayla maybe. Marcy Stitt. Michelle Heiss. Katie. What is that? Kinlaw. Julia Warwick. Julia. Yeah, it is. That's right. That. I nailed it. All right, moving on. Adrian Brandt. Casey Haneberg. Patricia Cunningham. Leanne Wenbon Price. Grant Gibb. Pje. Amber with no last name. Meet tractor. That's gross. Charisse Gardner. Nick. Rubble. Oh, just rubble. Ruble, maybe. Ruble. Katy Terry. Dr. Catherine Fry. If she's a doctor, we'll let her know. Caitlin Palmer. Stephanie James. Julia Gulia. There she is. Christmas with no last name. Sherry Struts. Shannon Sapolich. Sapolich. Michael Thomas Thompson. Carissa with no last name. Levi Sanders. Jessica with no last name. Cassie Thompson. Rhonda Crawford. Jack Thomas Brie with no last name. Patrick Edwards. Jason Pappas. Erica Bosley. Mark Hughes. Morgan Terenceki. Frankie Montpetit. S. Salvatore. Annie Mouse. Michelle Thompson. Casey S. Nichols with no last name. Sam Hodges. Katie Marlo. Ko. This letter brought. This show brought to you by the way. Letter K and O. This show this letter brought to you by the shows. K&O. Jenna Barger, Rooney Gleason, Lyle with no last name. Christian Lisinger, Elizabeth Spinowski, Debbie chilvers, Ashley Makowski, pod addicted 17. Heather with no last name. Amanda Malloy, Sage Quick. Sam Gosling, Eveline. Oh, boy. Pato Hannah with no last name. Jessica Shelton, Larissa Bourgeois, Sarah Would. Sarah Struts, Heather Higher Katie Kathy with no last name. Kathleen Hall, Stephanie Fitz Morris, Patrice Graham Harden, Bryn Spence, Amber Jackson, Jen with no last name. Lm and Lml rushing it today.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, this is working.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A torturous paint. You're doing it though, Kim. I'd rather be waterboard. I'd rather have have each pube ripped out one by one. Mark Murray, dawn to sell. Stacy Martinez, Deanne. Deanne Waddy, Alexandra Founts, Matthew Lol. Marla Carlisle, Jessica. Nope, that's Christine. What? Widner. Oh, there's Jessica Leisure Shay with no last name. Robin Thyat, Ali Dix. Oh, boy, that's tough. Heather Jameson, Marcy Craig, Kathy Ayers, Leah Ruggiero, Zhao Figueira Figueiredo. Joe Swanner, Steven Steve Rodriguez. Dacer 20. No. 66. Jamie White, Chloe Wiggins, Deanna with no last name. Megan and Dave Jensen, Julia Dracia, Robert Bowden, Morgan Hill. Hey, Morgan. Hello. Shakira Johnson, Jason Davis. Bailey Gwynnen Gwynen, Claire Jackson, Juanita Harris, Joshua Asher, Luke Simon. Oh, I hope that's Simon. Dustin Sites, Georgios Giorgios Antonopoulos, Austin Rogers, David Patterson, Michael Reedner, Carolyn Seeley, Wicked joker. Wrestling historian. Oh, he loves wrestling. Like you do. Hillary Smith, Jill Quinn, Rachel Vrack, Branch Sierra Bainey, Alice Watson, Missy Grubb, Kane Clark Gregorian. God damn it. Nathan Baxter, Michelle with no last name. Soul Magic. Soul Magic Pariah. Me. Patrick with no last name. Brandon Washington, Nancy Koonsman, Ashley Miller, Henry Watson, Miley Myel, May Lee Sumida, Samida Ashley McGarry, Chris K. Scotty Woodleaf, Jennifer Chambers, Yessica Yessica Pasank. Pachena Yesica with a wild yes. Her brother. Not for me. Heather Hodgkin.

[James Petregallo]

Maybe a.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Cousin. Maybe a guy. Marley LeBeau, Amy Bennings, Stephen Harding, Casey D. Dunn, Viv Would. No last name. Katie Schmidt, Desi Marie, Jennifer De Rosky, Ann Johnson, Elizabeth Murphy, Joe Mitchell, Lexi Ivins, Rykin Riken Huntington. Eliza with no last name. Also Eliza Krueger. Probably the same person. We don't have.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you. Maybe that many Elizas.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's possible. Sean Kuhl, Shoshana Shahana. Shahana Jod. Good Lord. Jawed. Maybe. Joe Parker, Christina Eldritch. James Williams, Sonya Bayer, Heather Lewis and every patron that exists. Thank you all so much. You're the best.

[James Petregallo]

You are the best. And we just want to say there are some people who donated in the past week and a half that because of the way we were not doing the early release, the way the schedules went, there was a lot. So if you didn't hear your name, you will hear it next week. We just kind of had to cut the list a little bit. So half of our episodes aren't shout outs. So it's thank you so much because there's some. So we appreciate it. Thank you.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We want to do it. So give me some time.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you so much, everybody. You beautiful, fantastic, wonderful bastards. We appreciate the fuck out of you and everything you do for us. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Keep hanging out with us. You want to follow us on social media? Shut up. Has all the menus, all that get to that shit. Keep doing that. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure by.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sa.