Bamboozled (13 page)

Bennett introduced Joey to Agent Harry Schlumpf, a boxing fan from Brooklyn, who
said they've been trying to prove Top Rank had been “fixing” fights for years. Joey claims they said “We know your full story. If you can prove that your fight is fixed, you will get what you want. After indictments are served, you will have a new beginning with a new identity.”

It was the Buddy Holly-resembling Sean Gibbons that prompted the initial interest of the FBI and John McCain. Between his own fighting career and his matchmaking, Gibbons had drawn a lot of questions about the legality of his methods. Pat O'Grady, the man who trained Gibbons as a matchmaker, was then being remembered for bringing Mexican fighters to the U.S. and then calling immigration after the fights so he wouldn't have to pay them.

In one example, Michael Smith, an Oklahoma fighter with an 0-11 record who was serving a 10-year sentence on a drug-related conviction when the report was released, talked to investigator Skip Nicholson about more than one Gibbons-requested fall in the ring. Mitchell Rose alleged that in 1995 he was offered money by Top Rank to throw a fight against Eric “Butterbean” Esch.

Nicholson's report wound up in the hands of Sen. John McCain, who said its details should be “of significant concern to federal law enforcement authorities” in a two-page letter to then-Attorney General Janet Reno.

The agents were simply the latest effort in trying to make something stick. Schlumpf told Joey, “It will not be easy, you will be wired. We will find you a partner.” Joey said his head was swimming as Bobby jumped in, “You'll get paid. Just get Top Rank.”

Then Joey claims Agent Schlumpf said, “You owe these people nothing, Mr. Torrey, but we can get you this minute with the Rico Act, for being a known Mafia associate. So get back to us as soon as you make up your mind.”

Joey left to drive around The Strip. Pulling into the mall, a fire engine red, SL 320 Benz cut in front of him, into valet parking. He watched a couple get out of the car—a woman in a miniature dress and a small, light-skinned man in a mink coat. The valet told Joey the man's name was Cash and he was a local pimp.

Despite not needing anything, Joey visited Foot Locker when Cash walked up and put his back to Joey. “Where you from, fool?” Cash turned and smiled, responding with, “Inglewood family blood.” Joey asked, “Blood! With that fire engine slob mobile?” Joey claims Cash flared and smiled, put out his hand and said,
I saw you on the cover of this morning's paper!

The two of them began to party together in Vegas. As Cash said, “It's all about the green, all about the money.” Cash's wife ran his operation so he could party. Along with Cash's sidekick David Rivera, Joey became part of an outfit resembling the Three Amigos for that year.

Joey was given ringside tickets for a fight at the MGM Grand the following weekend by the people at Top Rank he was currently betraying. Beforehand him and Cash did the Vegas ritual: They hit the mall, nail shop, got facials, dry cleaning, car wash, and waited by the pool until Octavia and Cash's wife arrived.

Sitting in the second row next to Morgan Freeman and Mario Lopez, Mike Tyson walked up to Joey. Morgan Freeman asked who had the rights to Joey's story and Mario Lopez offered to play Joey, but Joey kept wondering what would happen when they found out he was working for the Feds, After the fight, they all went to the after party at Mandalay Bay and the China Club.

That next day Bennett walked up to Joey sitting poolside at the Meridian to tell him they had found someone to be his partner. The 6'1”, 310 pound NYC officer Frank Manzione went by “Big Frankie.”

The three of them came up with a good back story for Frank Manzione. The undercover veteran had already infiltrated
the Genovese crime family, and was so convincing that the mobsters he pinched still had no idea he was the law. Joey saw his thick black hair and shiny silk shirt, and hears an accent out of the hardscrabble neighborhood of Red Hook, Brooklyn. “You look connected,” he says. “We should use that.”

Joey will introduce Big Frankie as his mob-connected cousin who runs a trucking company back east and wants to get into the fight game. Frank will have plenty of cash and a heavily muscled driver, who is also an agent. The FBI will rent a warehouse protected by razor wire and filled with swag— cases of vodka, racks of clothes, motorcycles, furs—so local thieves will think he's a fence. Big Frankie calls the front YGJ Inc.: “You're Going to Jail.”

Joey spent that evening with Sean and Bruce at the office, talking about his schedule. It was the beginning of March and Joey hadn't laced up a glove or run a mile in years, except to the liquor store.

When Joey walked the loser into the blue corner in Corpus Christi, the Bureau had Frankie get his feet wet. They gave Joey a fresh pager that was also a recorder. After inserting a paper clip in a hole, a red light would flash, which meant it was on. He would then say the date and time and then it was good for twelve hours.

Frankie quickly attached himself to and bore into Sean Gibbons, who took a liking to the cop's money and flash. Joey loved that part perhaps the most, but says in private he cried about selling out. With Frankie at his side, there's no restaurant Joey can't crash, no touch too lavish to keep up appearances. When Frankie pulled up to Top Rank in a canary-yellow Porsche, “Nice,” was all Joey had to say. With a “cousin” in the mob, Joey found a whole new range of opportunities. He claims, “The FBI wanted me to be a bad guy, so that's the role I played … I was buying drugs, ditching cars for insurance money, threatening people.”

Joey says that inside himself he felt lost and did a lot of media appearances to fill the time. The family had Joey Cortese, the actor, call him. Cortese and his wife, Kim Delaney, had been trying to sell Joey's story in Hollywood.

At the MGM fight, Joey felt like Big Frankie watched everyone like a Fed. After the fights in Corpus, boxer Jorge Paez was ready to open his mouth about bribes, fixed fights, and more, but the FBI told Joey to hold off.

Trampler had Joey touring the country with Top Rank fights. The ring announcer would introduce Joey, “After 23 years in prison, former A.A.U. champ Joey Torrey will be fighting April 23 at the Anaheim Pond. Tickets available at Top Rank or the night of the fight.” Joey would shake both fighters' hands, wave to the crowd, and then go on to the next city.

The next six months were pure pleasure for Joey. “The best time of my life.” He stayed at the finest hotels on others' dimes, collecting Polaroids of the prostitutes he slept with while drowning in Bacardi, Viagra, and Vicodin each night. He worked with big-time gamblers to open a strip club together. Joey is feeling so good that he starts planning to buy some land in New Mexico, near Chris Baca's place. He considers resuming his charity work with YDI.

Now with
Operation Matchbook
up and running, Joey isn't worried when he needs to make his next bail appearance that August. He believes the Feds will have his back and never tells his own lawyer, Verna Wefald, about his undercover work—and neither did the FBI. After the judge allows him to remain free, Joey thinks that the parole hearings are just going through the motions and he's out for good.

But Agent Schlumpf began getting tired of Joey's act—the FBI was shelling out thousands of dollars for Joey's cell phone bills, private parties, and routine car crashes. There were embarrassments, like when Joey got drunk wtih Big Frankie at an upscale joint, ripped off his shirt to show off his tattoos and glared at anyone who responded. Joey says that he forgot Frankie was a cop sometimes because Joey felt “happy,” which we may as well interpret in this context as “getting paid to drink absurd amounts of alcohol and sleep with prostitutes.”

Even getting paid $6,000/month from the FBI, the $4,000 in monthly “expenses,” and the $5,000/month Joey received from Top Rank, he was still always broke by the following month, but how long could Joey effectively create tension on and manipulate both parties?

The week before his Anaheim fight, Joey moved to the Beverley Hills Hotel. He was
bummed, now going to sleep by 2 AM. Where was the endless partying? He claims he flew to Vegas nightly to help Octavia move into their new condo. His days were spent bugging the hotel room in Anaheim for the fight.

Frankie opened up the YGJ warehouse, full of stolen vodka, furs, cars, and paintings. Joey introduced Frankie to Trampler and they hit it off right away. Trampler always needed more financial backing and was looking to open a sports management company. Frankie got so close to Top Rank that they started to ask him to leave Joey at home. Joey describes it as: “The FBI wanted me to go away in the end, as I was more gangster than the gangsters. This was what Frankie and Mr. Sclumpf wanted. They wanted the bad guys to fear me and turn to Frankie for help.”

Days before Joey's fight, Frankie, Joey, and the Top Rank crew flew to Texas so Frankie could be introduced to Vern Smith, an associate of Sean's who had fought under nearly fifty different names. Frankie is so enmeshed that
Boxing Digest
later named him the 24
^th
most influential man in boxing. Reality was officially stranger than fiction. Joey was fundamental to the FBI agents gaining enough access to piece together the internal workings of the various deals between Top Rank and its stable of fighters. Like Joey, Frank Manzioni had blended so well into the Top Rank apparatus that he was even offered a job as a cornerman during fights and invited on “scouting missions” for new fighters. Joey knew he was no longer needed by the FBI and he knew how to end it but he was enjoying his $6,000/month plus expenses.

The FBI installed a clock atop Joey's television in the new condo that would begin videotaping when he hit a key chain button. When Smith came to Vegas, Top Rank kept him away from the media and he stayed with Joey. He sat on Joey's couch, detailing every fixed fight he'd been asked to do for Top Rank and asked Joey what round he should go down against Julio Chavez, so Joey could bet on it.

Joey shared the recordings with Frankie who supposedly said, “Washington loves it. We're making history, cleaning up boxing, and Senator McCain is going to get his Presidential Boxing Bill signed based on this investigation.” Top Rank seemed to buy the story that Joey and Frankie had the blessing of the family to do business in Vegas.

Then one day Luigi called Joey and asked, “Who the fuck is this Frankie that you're passing off as your cousin?” Joey explained that Frankie was the coke man from the Genovese family and a good friend that you don't want to mess with, meaning that Frankie was not to be questioned about anything and that he was untouchable!

Days before the fight Joey weighed 230 pounds and began to lay off the booze, sticking only to doing coke. During the final days of press, Joey found himself at the MGM Grand where he ran into Emmitt Smith at 2 AM, playing cards alone in the high stakes room. Emmitt waved Joey through his security as he played three hands of blackjack at twenty thousand a hand. They were photographed as Joey thanked him for his support in prison. Joey also observed that everyone from Emmitt to Ana Luisa who had supported him in prison now seemed to be afraid of his wildcard personality.

Meeting in a restaurant with Agent Schlumpf 48 hours before his fight, Bobby Bennett walked in, smiling. Bobby had freshly been reassigned to investigate Furachi and the strip joint Crazy Horse. Supposedly Bennett said that after the fight, Joey could continue working for the FBI on the Furachi case.

The morning of the fight, Joey met the man who bailed him out of prison, Paul Molitor, for the first time at a Denny's in Anaheim. Molitor agreed to continue his favors for Joey and to be in his corner during the match.

Joey then visited Eric Davis. After getting buzzed into his mansion, they sat around while Davis' daughters borrowed the keys to Joey's Benz. Joey asked Eric to be in his corner at the Anaheim Pond along with Molitor. Based on Joey's appearance, Eric asked if he had trained at all. Joey told him, “It don't really matter, Eric. They're fixed anyway.”