The Interview
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Hi, it's Andrea Gunning, the host of Betrayal. I'm excited to announce that the Betrayal podcast is expanding. We are going to be releasing episodes weekly, every Thursday. Each week, you'll hear brand new stories, firsthand accounts of shocking deception, broken trust, and the trail of destruction left behind. Listen to Betrayal Weekly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm John Walczak, host of the new podcast Missing in Arizona. And I'm Robert Fisher, one of the most wanted men in the world. We cloned his voice using AI.

In 2001, police say I killed my family and rigged my house to explode before escaping into the wilderness. Police believe he is alive and hiding somewhere. Join me. I'm going down in the cave. As I track down clues. I'm going to call the police and have you removed. Hunting. One of the most dangerous fugitives in the world. Robert Fisher. Do you recognize my voice? Listen to Missing in Arizona every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.

Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions.

Previously on Number One Dad. One day I got a phone call from Rich, who was with Manny in the basement, and the marshals came storming in.

Good morning. Calling the case of AT&T Corp versus Manny Veeder. Defendant Veeder impersonated a New York telephone company employee, stole two Nitell telephone enclosures, and was prosecuted for a Class E felony. And then down the road as I'd speak with him, I'd say, hey, did this ever get resolved?

And I remember one discussion where he said, you wouldn't believe what happened. I had it in a warehouse and somehow the warehouse is broken into and a whole bunch of stuff was taken. If you had to guess how that

How that evidence became missing, would you put it, Pat? Yeah. It's a hard thing to speculate if he was involved in it, but it was just a very good piece of luck for him that they couldn't bring the case forward. I want to show you something. Give me two seconds of your time. Yeah, I got to get out of here. All right, all right.

That's your sister. What? I expected meeting my father to have a surprise or two, but I definitely did not see this coming. I have another sister who's half my age, and she's French. Lying, stealing...

I got in trouble a little bit different ways. Everything I had was just street smarts. Right now I'm sitting down with my father, Manny Veeder, in my old living room on Long Island, asking him everything I ever wanted to know. Hopefully I'll get the truth, but who knows? I mean, he is a con man.

I went to Baruch College during 1970 to 1973. Were you doing well in college, in school? Yeah. Fuck, I cheated my way through college. How could you not do well? If you're a bad cheater, then you suck. Yeah.

You had to be the best, and I was the best. A lot of people say college is where they figured out their path in life, and it turns out my father is one of those people. That's where his days as a con artist began. Would it have been easier to actually have studied? For some people, yes. For me, that's not the way it worked out.

Tell me how you cheated in college. By the way, you know everything I'm saying is all bullshit and lies, right? Yeah, exactly. Good. Say that to me. Everything you're saying is all bullshit and lies. Right. None of it's true. Right. This is Number One Dad. So how would you go about cheating in college? I decided that if I wanted to get good marks, logically, get a copy of the exam before the exam began.

and I figured out how I could do that. And then I would disperse the exam amongst friends of mine who collected money. They made money selling the exams. We had pretty small kids graduating from that school. How much would you sell the exams for?

Put a price tag on it for $300 to $400 an exam. Wow. What I didn't tell my father in that moment is, I also stole exams in college, which is crazy. I had no idea we had this in common, but I didn't want to give him the satisfaction in knowing it. How would you get them? Like, how would you access them? I knew where the exams were being kept. Any major class that you were taking, whether it was law, accounting,

had a department, accounting department, law department. And I figured out that those departments somehow had to get the exams printed. Back then they called them mimeograph machines. And I knew that mistakes are made. And what happens to the mimeograph machines when they make a mistake? They take the bad copy, throw it in the garbage. So I said, okay, I'll pick the garbage. I took two really smart kids, gave it to them so they could get

an A+ rather than just an A, they would have to give me all the answers. I told them they had to be perfect or they'd never see another exam. And I got it. And it's not like both of us, me sitting here and the guy who's sitting there, how the hell do we have the same answers? You know? And if anybody questions me, "Who did you say I cheated from?" We don't even sit next to each other. What are you talking about? Right, you're able to deny.

Deny, deny, deny. Because you can't take back guilty. Was this successful? Very successful. I was making more money than a professor was there. I asked my father about one of his earliest jobs out of college, where out of all the departments, he was hired to work in security. I got offered a job with Pan American Airlines. I don't know if you ever heard of them. They were big airlines. They were like TWA, Lufthansa,

They were one of the big four in the world. They put me in charge of security. Yeah. Orders and security. And how long did you work at Pan Am for? Until they fired me. So what led to you getting fired? Back then, you didn't come up to the desk and they type in your name, take your credit card, okay? They didn't have that technology. The ticket...

was handwritten by the woman behind the desk. Wow. Okay? And the fraud was there were fraudulent tickets that were being handwritten to get on a plane. See, they didn't even know exactly how many seats were sold until they manually counted the tickets. And I slipped into shit, let's put it that way. Yeah.

That's it? They could just fire you for that? Yeah. They could fire... Remember, I'm the guy in audits and security and I'm fucking lying. And then so, but now you don't have a Pan Am job. What are you thinking about doing for a career? I needed something to do, so I said, hey, my father-in-law's in the furniture business. I love selling and bullshitting. And putting those two things together... I asked my father about his famed furniture store, Designer's Gallery. This is New York.

After dozens of buyers claimed they were cheated, the state attorney general's office filed suit yesterday against Veeder Sales, Inc. What was Designer's Gallery? Designer's Gallery was the name of a medium to high-end furniture business that I started. I did have help in getting into the furniture industry through my father-in-law, Ben Wolfe.

At that point, in order to gain more credibility, and this is where a lot of my scams began, I said, well, Manny Veeder in a furniture bill, who the hell is he? But Manny Wolf was the son of Ben Wolf, who had a store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn at 275 Broadway. I wanted something that was catchy, that could basically identify with young people and middle-aged people who...

could buy furniture and spend more money. Did you start off in the furniture business as being an honest businessman? Absolutely. Absolutely. Now that brings me into the next step, which got me into trouble. I became a trans shipper. I invented that word, trans shipper. Now people came to me and they go, oh, I want Ethan Allen or Drexel Heritage. These were big names in the

furniture industry, but they wouldn't sell to me. They sold only to authorized dealers. Like you can't buy a Volvo at a BMW guy unless you have two dealerships. So I went ahead and I said, how the fuck am I going to get these big names to sell me? So I needed another scam because everybody already knew who I was as a designer's gallery. And they knew me in New York.

So I said, screw this. I'll set up an address in Boston and I'll set up an address in Maryland. But I needed a good name. So what was that name? Armed Forces Sales and Services. What does Armed Forces Sales and Services do? When I went to introduce myself to these guys who didn't know who I was.

I said, well, we are the ones that furnished all the embassies in France, in Italy. That's how the furniture gets there. You send it to me. I put it in the container and I send it overseas. The shit never left the United States.

I'd never known about any of this before, but I got to admit, this is another brilliant scheme by my dad. For his entire life, using quick thinking and deception, he's been able to come up with a solution to get him ahead. If I could think it, I could make it work, okay? It's all about delusion, like a magician. I was a magician in the furniture business. They were figuring schmucks out.

Embassies all over the world, right? But what they didn't realize, how many times are they going to change their furniture? Right. Exactly. Armed forces, sales and services. I may have some business cards still left over, I'll give you. Nice. Still selling furniture? Yeah. However, I got a little greedy. Guys in my area said, Manny, how the hell did you get Drexel? How did you get this? How did you get that?

I said, well, I have a contact. You couldn't get it. Who could get it? Manny Wolf could get it. So they would call me. I'd have these things shipped to a bogus address, a warehouse where I was doing my trucking with, sent it there, and then take it and send it to the guy who wanted it.

But it got to the point where the guy at the warehouse was also delivering furniture for other companies. So he'd ask me, could you do a favor for so-and-so? Do it for me. Okay. He's helping me out. I'll help him. And the furniture would come in. I've got $4,000 of inventory for Joe Piazza that he ordered from me.

And he says, "Could you send it to me? I'll pay you as soon as I get paid." Well, that's where I was stupid. Because I got to wait for him to get paid? Fuck you. Pay me now if you want the furniture. And that's when, you know, they started to threaten me. And I had a family. I didn't want to get threatened. They figured, "What am I going to do? I'm not going to go after them legally." So I called Anthony and Anthony got involved and basically had to go down and pay a visit to these people.

and make sure we got paid. - So who is Anthony ? - Anthony came from a family of the good old boys. And you wanted to be on the right side of Anthony, because if you didn't and you crossed him, he would follow you to work and wait for you to get to your job. And then when you'd get into that big elevator that took you up to the 44th floor, he'd step in, punch you in the face.

walk out the elevator and the doors were closed. Nobody could get him. You're gonna meet Anthony. - Right. Sounds like he's gonna kick the shit out of me. - Not unless you deserve it. And one of my very famous customers were La Trapeze. Now you probably never heard of that, you kids.

La Trapeze, located at 17 East 27th Street, is a unique club open to free-thinking adult couples. We offer a relaxing, no-pressure environment, complete with heated swimming pool and that same disco beat. La Trapeze may not be for everyone, but you won't know until you try it. In the 1980s, La Trapeze was the mecca of sex clubs in New York, and my father was responsible for supplying them with their mattresses. Gross.

The Jersey mob opened up Black Trapeze. So they came to me and they said, come down to our place, which was off Park Avenue and 20-something Street. I walk in. There's like what you would refer to maybe as a madam who was the manager there. It was like a big, empty, almost warehouse, but with lights. You know, he goes, well, we're going to need carpeting and we're going to need mattresses.

I said, "What kind of mattresses are you gonna put me in?" Ones that go on the floor that are waterproof or sperm-proof. I said, "They're gonna fuck here," she said to me. Here I am listening to this woman who was like 20 years older than me. "Yeah, this is gonna be a fuck house." Most of these girls were like hookers and when it came time to get paid, they told me, "Go fuck yourself. Anthony, you better get a hold of your dad."

Who is Anthony's father? Anthony Sr. He was a tough guy. I don't know if my father is telling the truth here, but I am loving this story. So you told Anthony Jr. that you have an issue, that you're not getting paid up. And he said, don't worry about it. I'll call my father. He'll take care of it.

his father sent some people down there which from my understanding was that day two men walked into the latra piece and the guy who told me to myself was there with a couple of his buddies and the story anthony calls me uh my father just took care of everything he wants us to go down there tomorrow to pick up our money so i meet with anthony we go down there and i told your mother

I'm walking in now, that was, I had the first cell phone, which was a Motorola flip phone. I said, if I don't call you back for bullshit in five minutes, dial 911 and tell them to come to that thing because I'm getting locked in a freezer somewhere. I have to pause here to say how insane it is that my father would put my mother through this kind of stress, all because of, in his words, greed.

Plenty of people have legitimate furniture businesses that provide for their family. But legitimate was never enough for my father. He needed more, even if it put him, my mother, and his kids in danger. So we get there, and the guy who refused to pay me is now wearing big sunglasses. Like he's a movie star. The reason why I had the sunglasses, he took off this, he says, you didn't have to call anybody. Just look what they did to me.

You know, he had a big black eye and nose was cut up here. They made sure I got my money. On top of that, they took an extra 50% added to that. Okay? So now I had another $2,000, which I had to give to Anthony to give to those guys. Collection fee. What did my mom say when you call her to tell her, I mean, you're a guy who was in the furniture business, but yet you're telling her, if you don't hear from me in five minutes...

Called the police? She just went along with it. You know, if I told her, this is what we got to do, this is what we got to do, because I got to collect that money. We need it. Hearing this really made me feel for my mother, because she clearly didn't have much of a choice in the matter. She was a stay-at-home mom, raising three kids and relied on her husband to provide. But unfortunately, that husband was a crook. She was trapped.

In a world where TikTok didn't exist yet, las películas no tenían color. The comedy of a genio mexicano crossed borders y conquistó the heart of America. Da-da-da!

And his catchphrases are part of our culture, but...

Sonoro y iHeart's My Cultura Podcast Network present Nace una leyenda. Chesperito. I'm Felipe Esparza y te llevaré de viaje por la obra del super comediante Chesperito. From his television debut hasta la cima del éxito. ¡Síganme los buenos! Listen to Nace una leyenda. Chesperito. As part of My Cultura Podcast Network en la aplicación iHeart Radio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts.

From the writer of Amazon Prime's Red, White, and Royal Blue comes a hilarious and demented new audio mystery. Does this murder make me look gay? Master Vandy is dead! Then it's probable that whoever killed Vandy is in this very room. Lock her up. Lock her up. You killed your daddy. You don't get anything fizzy. 911, what's your emergency? I'm in the Monroe estate and I just caught a murderer.

Yes, I'll hold. Featuring the star-studded talents of Michael Urie, Jonathan Freeman, Douglas Sills, Cheyenne Jackson, Robin de Jesus, Frankie Grande, Sean Patrick Doyle, Brad Oscar, Nathan Lee Graham, Seth Rudetsky, Leah Delaria, Lea Salonga, and Kate McKinnon as Angela Lansfairy. Lick them, lick those toesies. Yeah.

Listen to Does This Murder Make Me Look Gay? as part of the Outspoken Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On September 17th, 2009, 24-year-old Mitrice Richardson was released from the Malibu Lost Hill Sheriff's Station. She had no money, no phone, and no ride. She walked out of the station and into the night, and she never made it home.

Nearly a year later, Mitrice's naked, skeletonized remains were discovered in a canyon six miles from the station. I'm Dana Goodyear. Five years ago, I started reporting on the Mitrice Richardson case. Everyone knows something horrible happened to Mitrice. Nothing about her case makes sense. And for 15 years, the Sheriff's Department has failed to solve it.

In Lost Hills, Dark Canyon, we're investigating what happened to Mitrice Richardson. Listen to Lost Hills, Dark Canyon on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. What was the downfall of Designers Gallery? New York State Attorney General. They had enough complaints where they needed to put a stop to me, legally. And that's how they do it. They do it through their legal process.

machine that they have. And trying to fight the attorney general is trying to fight New York State because their resources to a certain point are unlimited. But I found out that the attorney general has a budget and they got to make things pay. So the longer I can fuck them over and drag them out, they're going to realize that they're not getting any bang for their dollar.

And that's what I did. So they were going to wear me down by me having to pay for a lawyer to come and represent me. But I never went to law school and I became a lawyer overnight. And your mother can tell you that. She saw how I worked. And I went to court and I sat in on different things in court and I listened and I made notes, terms that I would use and things that other attorneys were doing to fuck other attorneys.

And I picked up on it. And I knew the way I was going to get around this was to drag this out as long as I could. The different loopholes my father used against the attorney general managed to keep him out of jail. But eventually, he was forced to close up shop. They put a order in on me that I can never be in a furniture business again. Are you even allowed to sit in a chair like you're doing right now? Only if it's a toilet seat.

Well, let's put it this way. Somebody like yourself, I would never try to scam. And I never went after the poor people who didn't have money. I went after the big companies, but it wasn't something I intentionally did. I unfortunately got into a situation where the money wasn't coming in.

and I couldn't pay my bills, and they pulled the rug from underneath me. It's as simple as that. It was a business decision by a lot of these companies, and word got around, don't do business with Manny. Here's how I know my father is a great con artist. In the moment when he was saying all this, I was completely convinced by his justification for all the lies and schemes. But hearing it back, it's clear he's simply a man painting himself as the victim.

He didn't unfortunately get into a situation. He put himself there. It was his choice to become a trans shipper, to lie about furnishing embassies, and to get involved with the mob.

My father isn't a man bound by some moral code. He's simply a victim of his own hubris, who assumed his house of cards would never fall. Would you have done anything different? I would have robbed a bank, taken more money on a one-shot deal. Yeah. But, you know, everything was a learning game for me. I could see what I could do and where I wouldn't be noticed. I learned that was part of my technique, which I still use to this very day.

I knew my father went from the furniture business to payphones, but I never really knew how it all started. I couldn't wait to get the full story on Payphone Plus. Somehow, I read about an article that payphones were going to be available on the retail market. This has got to be about maybe 1989. I threw $10,000 into that business, and each phone at that time cost me $1,100.

I bought six phones. Now, all my payphones, I bought the best payphone on the market and mine looked identical to Marbelle, New York telephone company, because AT&T was manufacturing it for them.

So it was the perception people already knew this got to be a good phone. Just to give people an idea of the scope of how large Payphone Plus was, can you name different types of businesses that you had accounts in? I had phones in the tri-state area, which included Long Island, Five Boroughs, Upper New Jersey, Westchester, Rockland County areas.

About 200 phones total. I had phones in Macy's, Jack Lane, Sbarro's, Costco, Golden Nugget, Casino in Vegas. I had phones everywhere. Take me to acquiring an account and the perception you would give off of who you were. Okay. Well, first thing I went out and did was I had a couple of shirts embroidered AT&T.

I have a truck outside that's painted the same color as an AT&T truck. And I have an AT&T logo and business cards. In fact, I got a helmet for you, a kid's helmet, and I put an AT&T sticker on it for you. You remember that, huh? I do, yeah. Yeah. You embroidered these AT&T shirts. Right. Are you going into a place and telling people you work for AT&T? No, no, no. That's the smoke and mirrors.

They made the assumption, "Hey, if I went to an Islander game and bought an Islander jersey, am I a goalie for the Islanders? Am I a defenseman? Whatever you want to think is okay with me, as long as it doesn't come out of my mouth." Aside from making people think he worked for AT&T, apparently another way my dad was able to grow his payphone business was by paying out larger commissions than his competitors. In fact, I taught your cousin Mason, I started him in the phone business.

So I took Mason with me and we went and there was a phone in front of this store and I told the owner, "I'm going to pay you a higher commission than you're getting now, but we're putting our phone up here." You offered to pay them a better commission. Right. How could you afford to do that? Very simply, knowing that in four or five months from now,

they are going to cut my line, the phone company, for non-payment. So you wouldn't pay the phone bill off of that? Right, right. I'd have a $600 phone bill and they threatened to cut it off. I was opening up different accounts under different names all the time. Now, they cut the phone line. That phone now, what happens to that at that establishment? You just take it out? What I did was I was two steps in front of them all the time. I would call up the phone company

And I would tell the phone company, "I'm now transferring this to this and this company." Okay. Now they changed the name from Payphone Plus to XYZ. - So a new lease on life. - A new lease on life. And you continue to do that. - So why not just pay your bill? - 'Cause I was a greedy fuck.

And I wanted the money, and I wanted it now. I'm sure a lot of my dad's answers to my questions have been filled with lies. But this time, I know he's telling the truth. Yes, he's a swindler, a schemer, a con man. But at his core, he's simply a greedy fuck. Do you ever remember going around with me and smashing a headset for a payphone? Did I do that with you? No.

Holy shit. I must have been really fucking crazy. I don't remember vandalizing somebody's phone or anything. I really don't. And it would be a stupid thing for me to do that with you there. Yeah. Well, I remember that. That's why I went down. I don't know what to tell you. Listen, if you remember that, and I don't, I'll take your word on it. Yeah. Does it seem like it would be something that you would do? I'd probably do worse, but...

Yeah, okay. Once we were on the topic of payphones, I had to ask my father about a certain mobbed-up strip club in Queens that was mentioned by his former employees, Mark and Rich. These are made mafia guys, and every time we would enter, Manny was greeted warmly. He would hang out. They would catch up. They would talk. They would joke. It made me uncomfortable. The owner, there was like this owner guy, and he was real, he was just like sketchy. Tell me about Wiggles. Wiggles.

Wiggles was a topless and bottomless strip club located on Queens Boulevard near 63rd Drive. And I always made sure I put a phone right next to the dressing room for the women. Who owned it? A fella I knew by the name of Vinnie. Vinnie what? Goombatz. Could you say his name?

Do we have to? You're walking on dangerous ground here. I think we're fine. We're fine. What do you got? We're fine if the only people that listen to this are the FBI and the police. Yeah, it's fine.

All right, we'll leave it, we'll leave it at that. We'll call him Vinny. My father was hesitant for good reason. The Vinny I'm asking him to talk about was the former head of the DiCavocanti crime family. So how'd you meet him? Well, I was there one night and who comes in but Vinny. We started talking and he asked me, what am I doing here? I told him, I'm the guy who does the telephone work and he had a problem with his phones and I fixed it and we started chatting and

What was the situation with his phone? The guy who hooked it up before I ever looked at it didn't do such a good job. He was very sloppy and wires were not

properly punched on, as they used the term, to the block. And I just redid it, and things were working fine. When I spoke with Mark, he told me my father found a tap in Vinny's phone. He found taps, and he was able to take those out and also inform them that they were actually being spied on. And so he's like a hero in this circle. I had to ask my father if this actually happened. Was there anything ever that you noticed in his phones, like, say, anything that was ever, like, bugged?

Or you wouldn't see a bug because the bugs were not bugged directly in the location. Although sometimes that may have been the preferred way to do it. But a few miles away is where the Queens District Attorney had his offices. And usually when they were bugging somebody,

they would bug it in that particular building, which was across the street from the courthouses. And this way, nobody would ever see what was going on and nobody would be suspicious. But yeah, there are ways to tell if a line is bugged. You need sophisticated electronics to see what's going on. So how would you know, just curious, how would you know that that's where a district attorney would bug a phone?

Like, I watched a lot of movies. Did you ever help Vinny out? Let's put it this way. If Vinny would ask me to help him out or I would have no problem doing it, I don't think you'd want to be on his bad side. My father may be a great liar, but sometimes you have to look at what he's not saying. He doesn't say that he never found the bug in Vinny's phone, and he doesn't flat out say he never helped Vinny out.

I kept pressing him for more information, but that was all he was willing to give me. In a world where TikTok didn't exist yet, las películas no tenían color, the comedy of a genio mexicano crossed borders y conquistó the heart of America.

And his catchphrases are part of our culture, but...

Sonoro y iHeart's My Cultura Podcast Network present Nace una leyenda. Chesperito. I'm Felipe Esparza y te llevaré de viaje por la obra del super comediante Chesperito. From his television debut hasta la cima del éxito. ¡Síganme los buenos! Listen to Nace una leyenda. Chesperito as part of My Cultura Podcast Network en la aplicación iHeart Radio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts.

From the writer of Amazon Prime's Red, White, and Royal Blue comes a hilarious and demented new audio mystery. Does this murder make me look gay? Master Vandy is dead! Then it's probable that whoever killed Vandy is in this very room. Lock her up. Lock her up. You killed your daddy. You don't get anything fizzy. 911, what's your emergency? I'm in the Monroe estate and I just caught a murderer.

Yes, I'll hold. Featuring the star-studded talents of Michael Urie, Jonathan Freeman, Douglas Sills, Cheyenne Jackson, Robin de Jesus, Frankie Grande, Sean Patrick Doyle, Brad Oscar, Nathan Lee Graham, Seth Rudetsky, Leah Delaria, Lea Salonga, and Kate McKinnon as Angela Lansfairy. Lick them, lick those toesies.

Listen to Does This Murder Make Me Look Gay? as part of the Outspoken Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria Tremarcki.

And I'm Holly Frey. Together, we invite you into the dark corridors of history and true crime. For each season, we explore a new theme. From poisoners to stalkers, art thieves to snake oil salesmen. We uncover the secrets of history's most interesting figures, such as Walter Minx, the man who built his own submarine hoping to escape with his blackmail payout under Lake Michigan. It sounds made up, but it's 100% true.

We'll explore the crimes as well as societal forces at play, from unfair sentencing to jaw-dissolving health risks. And tune in at the end of each episode as we indulge in cocktails and mocktails inspired by each story. Listen to Criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm trying to remember as much as I can from when I was a kid. I'm only between probably like 8 to 11 at this time while you were doing the payphone plus business. What eventually happened where, you know, you eventually had to stop? Well, I had to stop because AT&T sent me a letter saying that I shouldn't be walking around with an AT&T hat on or a logo since I'm not an employee.

And I basically told the guy, the vice president from AT&T, who called, I told him to go fuck himself. I guess word got around that you were wearing this stuff or accounts were under the assumption that they were dealing with AT&T directly. Right. And, you know, they were probably filming me and taking pictures of me walking around like that. So you get this vice president who called you up, you tell him to go fuck himself and

What happens after that? I get served with papers to cease and desist. Otherwise, they'll take further action. And me, being the prick I am and the hard-ass, I told them, "I thought I told you to go fuck yourself last time." What happened next? AT&T got an order from the federal judge. The U.S. Marshal and some AT&T employees arrived at the home at about 5:30 a.m. in the morning.

and demanded entrance. And I let them in. They started gathering things along with their attorneys. They started gathering a lot of my personal stuff and anything that might incriminate me, anything that might be evidence to show that I was acting as an AT&T employee, which meant anything with an AT&T logo. And they basically ransacked

my office and the downstairs area of the house. Taking items that would put me out of business wouldn't let me operate anymore. And they had a truck pull up and they were loading up the truck. And to say the least, it was very embarrassing for my family. Neighbors saw something was going on. They had no idea. They thought I was probably the biggest drug dealer in Dix Hills.

I felt shame and I'm putting my family through this. I've got my son downstairs looking at what's going on with eyes that look like, "Hey, Dad, I want to help you. I want to protect you." And my ex-wife went upstairs and, you know, it was not a good situation to be in. I caused a lot of hurt for everyone. And I don't want to use the excuse that, "Look, I had to make a living.

I had to sustain them. And here you are, a single breadwinner in the family, living in Dix Hills, and you're trying to keep up with the Schwartzes and the Coens, and it's not really that easy. I think one of the most crucial elements to being a great con artist is the ability to ignore all the possible consequences of your actions. Most people can't do it, but my father was the master.

All the switching of names on accounts and fake AT&T gear. You have to ignore the very real possibility that it all might blow up in your face. But like my dad said, he's a greedy fuck. He wants the big house in the nice neighborhood. The extravagant vacations to California and Europe. Frankly, we all do. But most people think about the price they'd have to pay to get those things. My dad is not one of those people.

I do remember being in that situation and thinking that it's awkward that this is happening, that federal marshals are in the House. At any point, did you, you know, I know that we never talked about it, but why didn't we ever talk about like, hey, this is a tough thing that I got involved in and that I never should have done. You never really brought up the fact that this was an embarrassing thing to the family. I mean, you're saying it now, but not back then. Why? Why not?

Well, because it was a very hurtful time and which led up to other things later on in life shortly after. And I wanted to forget about it as quickly as I could, put that behind me, which it didn't go behind me because I was dragged into court. And I told your mother, if you don't come to court...

and fight this with me, they had your name on the papers. You gotta be cleared. What happens to me doesn't matter, but you have to be cleared. - So what ended up happening with AT&T? What was the end result? - The end result with AT&T was that the case was dismissed. Oh, and the other thing that happened was the evidence that they took, they came back with a story that the truck that they used was broken into in the night.

And a lot of their evidence was taken out of the truck, which the judge said, who drove that truck? And they said it was AT&T employees. OK, so where was the truck? They said it was brought to a secure AT&T facility. So what are you saying? We're saying that it was Mr. Vita that broke into the truck. Do you believe something like that? Can you believe something like that? How the fuck am I going to break into a truck?

What do you believe happened to that evidence? How the fuck should I know? Would you say you took it? Never. That's impossible. How the fuck am I going to get on a secured facility that had cameras all around? How could I possibly have done it? I mean, the truck left with U.S. Marshals. I guess the only way to...

Get into a secure AT&T facility with maybe being looking like somebody who worked for AT&T. Sure. Do you think you would have been screwed if that evidence didn't go missing? Absolutely. Hey, on my deathbed, you can ask me the question and my memory may come back to me.

What was I expecting? My father say, "Yes, I stole the evidence." If I learned anything from him, it was... Deny, deny, deny. Because you can't take back guilty. So you're stealing exams in college, you're moving money around when it comes to the furniture business, you know, not even delivering furniture to people.

Then you get involved in the phone business and you have AT&T logos on your sweatshirt. You're passing out business cards. At any point where you're like, why don't I just do a legit business, make this payphone business legit and see where that goes? Well, everything started out legit. It's just unforeseen reasons I may have made a left turn instead of a right turn.

And, you know, when money's good and it's coming in, you just don't want it to stop. You know, yeah, I had money, okay, until we were spending it, you know, quicker than we could make it. So that's just the way it went. It was poor planning on my side. Sure, I made mistakes. But for some reason, I was able to rectify things

and move on with my life. A lot of things happen that were worse than that. And, you know, that's it. So things are winding down at the house and we headed back outside. And then something unexpected happened. My father, out of the blue, FaceTimes my half-sister Miriam, who lives in Paris and who I've never met. What's that? You're going to say hi to your sister. She wants to say hi to you, actually. Here's somebody who wants to say hello to you.

You look pretty. Don't bite your nails, please, honey. Okay. - Do you know who I am? - I don't know. Hey, how's it going? You know who I am? - You know who that is? - Oh, my God. I am your half-brother. - Very nice. - Very nice, right?

I heard a lot about you and I know this is like the first time I'm talking to you, but I just wanted to say hi and introduce myself. And if you ever come to the United States, I'd be happy to meet up with you. And I have Instagram and stuff and you could always message me on there and stuff if you want to know anything or anything like that. I'm super, you know, you're my half sister. But you're my sister. You know, I don't mean to say half. You're my sister.

and I think it's really cool. Yeah, I think it's cool. Nice. It was very nice meeting you, Miriam. And I do hope that I meet you one day in person. Thank you. Thanks for doing that. Yes, you're very sweet. As I stood on the front lawn of my childhood home, I couldn't believe I spoke to my sister, Miriam,

Miriam and I may not know each other, but even over FaceTime, I could tell she had a million questions she wanted to ask me about our father. Probably a lot of the same questions I had when I was her age. And we couldn't talk about any of it because Manny was hovering inches away over my shoulder. So Miriam, if you're listening, I hope this podcast helps clear up a lot of the things you want to know. Drive carefully. Thanks, Clayton. On the next episode of Number One Dad...

I am on my way to New York City to Madison Square Garden. I'm going to be seeing a Rangers game with my dad. I can't believe I just said that. We have actual access. We don't need to jump lines, jump ropes. Everything's good. We got legitimate tickets this time. Yeah, but it's no fun when you come in legally.

Number One Dad is a production of Radio Point, Big Money Players Network, and iHeart Podcast. Created and hosted by Gary Veeder. Executive producers are Gary Veeder, Adam Lowett, Alex Bach, Daniel Powell, Houston Snyder, Kenneth Slotnick, and Brian Stern.

Written by Gary Veeder and Adam Lowit. Produced by Bernie Kaminsky. Co-producer is Taylor Kowalski. Edited and mixed by Ian Sorrentino at Little Bear Audio. Recording engineer is Kat Iosa. Original music by Andrew Gross. Special thanks to Charlotte DeAnda. Jonathan Karsh is creative consultant. Executive producers for Big Money Players Network and iHeart Podcast are Will Farrell, Hans Sani, and Olivia Aguilar.

Sound services were provided by Great City Post.

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