Speaker 1: 0:00

It's my pleasure to have on the show today Justice Then Justice Now Ms Diane Matusik. Diane's going to talk about her career, which is very interesting, and her background working for the largest police department in the United States, where she rose to be second grade detective and her afterlife in what she's doing now with the court system and as a PI and an upcoming assignment. That's going to be very interesting next month too. But I'm going to just turn it over to her. She's a very shy person. I guess when you're a detective in homicide in Manhattan you're kind of an outgoing, non-introvert personality for that job. So anyway, diane, thank you very much for coming on. Justice Then Justice Now.

Speaker 2: 1:09

Thank you. Thank you, Toby. This is really an honor and really a privilege for you to invite me and speak about myself. I mean, people like to speak about themselves. You're not supposed to brag, but we can brag on this show a little bit, right? I mean, whatever we did, we did. We're proud of what we did. The men and women in law enforcement are wonderful people and they need to be talked about and honored, and we have so many stories to share, all for the good, and the people that are still out there today putting their lives, and the people that are still out there today putting their lives in danger every day when they leave the house. So I commend everybody, because it's a tougher world today than when I did it and when you did it, Toby. I mean it was always tough, but we had more people on our side, I think back then Do you?

Speaker 1: 2:00

agree with that oh, 100 percent, and it was a different world. Agree with that oh, 100%, and it was a different world. And I believe that we were more respected for what we did, it was easy to recruit and that. So my first question to you is if you could give a little background and where you're from, and then how you got into law enforcement.

Speaker 2: 2:32

Okay, so I'm originally from Wisconsin, born and raised in Milwaukee and then my parents bought a house out in an area called Sussex, wisconsin, but after high school I graduated over here in Sussex, wisconsin. After high school graduated in June, I took a job in October, my big job, working for Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Club. So I was a Playboy Bunny for a year and a half and that basically took me out of Sussex, because once I was working at the Playboy Club Club and I got to meet all types of people, rich and famous. I mean, I was a young girl but I was always. I always loved talking to people and I loved ethnicity, I loved accents and being at a place like the Playboy Club. We had a lot of people from out of town, from all over the world, that would come there.

Speaker 2: 3:27

While I was working there, I took a trip to New York City, to the Big Apple, for a short vacation, a long weekend, and I went to New York and let me tell you something, I fell in love with it. I knew right away this was for me Skyscrapers, the people all over the place, the ethnicity, the arts, the hustle, the bustle, the energy, the cityness of it all. So I was there a short while and when I came back to the Playboy Club I remember waiting on a woman and the woman had said to me she had this accent. I said I know that accent, that's a New York accent. And she said yeah. I says I just came back from there. I said I'm in love with it and I'm moving there. And she says to me you're moving there, girl from Wisconsin. You know, I mean, you sure you want to get involved in that? She says it's a pretty competitive place. Are you sure you can handle it? I thought who is this woman like saying this to me? But she probably was the trigger that challenged me, because I knew I was going and she was right about the competition. She was right about the hustle bustle. She was right about what she said and I still remember to this day that it was competitive. You were ready to get into that. It's a fast pace. There's a left lane in Wisconsin but there's a left lane in New York and it's quicker and faster.

Speaker 2: 5:09

Once I got out to New York, I had several jobs. I had several jobs. I didn't know left or right, I didn't know north or south. I got a job in Manhattan in the Chrysler building, on the 41st floor in the Chrysler building, working for Southern Magazine. I was a Girl. Friday I was secretary. The next job I had, I worked for a television company on 55th and Madison, 53rd and Madison ITC Entertainment. It was. They made Fury, they produced Fury, the Avengers People that are watching this probably don't know these names Space, 1999. And their biggest one, which was the Muppets.

Speaker 2: 5:54

But then the neighbor next door came over to me and he had an application in his hand. He was a detective in the 2-8 precinct in Harlem. He says here, fill it out with $10. Send it in, maybe you can get on the job. I went what and I did? 1979. That was 1979. That's all we're going to talk about. Years After that. I'm not talking about years, but anyway, I got called in three years later, 1982. I got hired. I got hired in the biggest class of New York City history. At the time it was 3,000 of us, so large that our graduation class had to be at Madison Square Garden. Amazing, we all threw our hats up at the same time. None of them got them back, of course, and I knew that I was. I got a front row seat to the best show on earth, new York City. It was wonderful.

Speaker 2: 7:08

I was assigned to Queens. I was assigned my first, of course, in uniform, assigned to Queens. I worked there for a while. Then I worked in Queens, in Forest Hills, queens. My first sort of cool assignment for me was to guard Janine. My first sort of cool assignment for me was to guard Janine Ferraro's house. Do you remember Janine Ferraro? Yeah, she was boy, that was 1984. Signed there.

Speaker 2: 7:35

But then I had my sights on anti-crime and I mean I like the uniform we all love the uniform but I thought I would be better situated in an undercover position or a plainclothes position where I could talk and I loved responding to jobs. I love helping people. Even to this day I love helping people. I did eventually get into plainclothes.

Speaker 2: 8:00

I got into anti-crime for a short time but then I did this thing they call it the 90 day wonder. The narcotics unit picks you up for 90 days and lets you do street level buy and bust, which I did, and then I had to do another 90 days and then I got picked up permanently. So once I got picked up permanently I was assigned to Queens. But then I was assigned to Manhattan South Detectives, the Manhattan South Narcotics Unit and that's where it was 42nd Street. It was the Bowery, it was Delancey Street, it was Hell's Kitchen 42nd street. It was crazy. We're driving cars that had a New Jersey license plates on them and we're doing street level buying bust at the time. Every once in a while you do a big case, but I was. I was in narcotics for about six years and then I got promoted to detective through there, which I loved Once I was detective.

Speaker 2: 9:03

We usually leave the narcotics unit. A lot of people stay. I chose to leave and go stay in Manhattan and then I was assigned to Gramercy Park and so just another whole thing. I was walking to get my bachelor's degree in criminology because I could walk to John Jay College of Criminal Justice and it was a walk, but you could do it. You didn't drive anywhere. You know, if you know Manhattan, you don't drive anywhere. So do you know Manhattan? I mean I'm mentioning, like, gramercy Park, like you know, and I know New Yorkers like to know where you're talking about. Are you familiar with New York at all?

Speaker 1: 9:43

Well, I know New York from taking trips in high school which I wasn't supposed to do, leaving Springfield, massachusetts and going down there. The other thing we use and I know it is I worked for the marshals, I was on the fist operations in Connecticut and we had the big roundups in New York and Connecticut and stuff like that, and then finally I went to work at Ground Zero on October 14, 2001 and I came back to Miami on Christmas Eve. So I guess I've been to New York but in all fairness, my teams were sports teams, were up in the Boston area, so it was kind of dangerous to go to, like Yankee Stadium for me. But I want to go back to something really interesting and parallel. What got you into the job in New York? Okay, I know the viewers are going to want to know, and it's just curiosity how do you go to work as a Playboy bunny at a Playboy club? What's the qualifications? How do you? How do you apply for those jobs back then? Because I'm sure they were very competitive.

Speaker 2: 11:00

Well, every job I ever had was competitive. I mean, the world is competitive If you're not ready to be, you know, to compete To go to the job. Well, I worked out all summer. I worked out. I was never fat, I was never like really overweight or anything, but you have to be in shape. You just have got to show them your legs and you've got to be a little presentable and put a costume on and see that you have a waistline and, um, you have to be able to hold a tray and, uh, you know you have to be. It's a. It's really a glorified cocktail waitress. I mean, I was never in the a pin-up or anything like that, but in fact to this day I still go to Playboy Bunny reunions. We just had one in April. Every two years we have one. It's amazing. The qualifications are young, not bad looking and being able to. You have to serve with drinks and talk to people and smile all at the same time so did you meet a lot of celebrities there?

Speaker 2: 12:09

did you some of the names that you ran into, or oh god, I remember meeting um greg greg morris from mission impossible. Do you remember? G Morris? Sure Burt Bacharach was there. Oh my God, these are such old names. Jerry Van Dyke was there. Jerry Van Dyke was a big partier. He used to love the bunnies Boy. There's a lot of celebrities that came in and out of there. Yeah, it was a wonderful experience for a young girl. They had an airport that came in and out of there. We also went to Hugh Hefter's mansion whenever he had parties. All the bunnies were invited to any party. That's where I met who's the guy in shampoo? Warren Beatty.

Speaker 1: 13:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:01

Warren Beatty, he was there, yeah, so that was a long time ago.

Speaker 1: 13:09

No, it's really interesting. It's a different world. Yeah, when you went to New York, okay, they had had layoffs in the 70s, massive layoffs. They had had layoffs in the 70s, massive layoffs, and yours, I think, was one of the first classes that they rehired people. Right, you said that, Madison.

Speaker 2: 13:39

Square Garden was packed with a graduation ceremony and that Right. So the class before me I'm really not quite sure, but I think the layoffs or the hiring was in 77. Ok, and that was a group of women, a smaller group of women, but they were the pioneers for women like myself. They were an extraordinary bunch of women that Right around that time they were still sort of referred to as police matrons. They were there really to guard females in custody or do a pat down of a female. You know they really laid the groundwork for us. They were the pioneers that I. My hat goes off to them. They were the ceiling breakers. They were the giants. I stand on the shoulders of those giants who paved the way for us.

Speaker 2: 14:37

That group of women, you know they didn't sort of bring it, not all of them, some of them did. But when that 82 bunch that I came in, we knew we could push the envelope a little more. You know we sort of came in with the guts, the glory and the glamour. We we could do that. We were accepted. We could do that. We were accepted. That's when police woman was changed to police officer. So we were starting to be accepted.

Speaker 2: 15:10

It wasn't easy, even today. I mean, it's not always easy, but it was good. So yeah, the 82 class was the big class. There was the most females. I mean, we were allowed to wear nail polish. Then we were allowed. You know, some somebody was always making a comment about it. You know, there was always men that didn't care for it, but the women we stuck together. Um, there were a lot of men that supported us we had. It was a wonderful career. You know, everybody has to put up with the trials and tribulations, no matter what job you take, no matter what ethnicity. Maybe you're not tall enough, maybe you're not good enough at what you do. Um, but it was a, it was. It was okay. It was a big. It was a big group of people, of diverse people, of all all equalities, anybody's smart. Some people got a hundred on the police test, some people got a 70 on the police test. So we were in all the best cops when we get out there. But it was our experience and it was how much you wanted to do.

Speaker 2: 16:18

I remember when I was assigned to the one 14th precinct, I was just getting off of work, I was still in uniform, and it was about 10 to midnight and we get a call that there's a four car accident Got to go there. It's changing of shifts, so some people are already on their way home almost, and we got out there. There was nobody there but me. I was a rookie cop. I was with another rookie, there was four cars, it was pitch dark and it there was dead bodies all over the road from the four cars not all, but there was four dead bodies and it was pitch dark and pouring rain.

Speaker 2: 17:04

What do you do? You assert yourself, you save, you help. These people are looking at you for protection. Oh my God, my savior's here They'll never forget you. They didn't care if you were a female or a male. Help, all they wanted was help. Yeah, those are the kinds of instances where the guy that you're working with that may have had trouble with women on the job or coming on the job, he now just realized, oh my, this was wonderful. Hey, you did a good job and I'm grateful. Everybody should be grateful for each other.

Speaker 1: 17:40

So this was. I think two TV shows that had a lot of influence on women were Police Woman with Angie Dickinson and Hunter, and the show Hunter because you had a Hunter's partner was a was a woman partner detective and I think that that changed everything in the early 80s. As far as working, you know, on the job with women, like today, I know with the Marshal Service we had probably 10% women back then. Today, in federal law enforcement they're very close to 50% now.

Speaker 2: 18:18

Oh, wow.

Speaker 1: 18:19

You know it's a lot different and you're talking a span of you know, 30, 35 years, that this has really changed tremendously. You know.

Speaker 2: 18:31

It's changed tremendously and I don't want to say it like this, but it's my job. It was your job. Whatever I take to my job, I'm going to do the best I can, and that's all anybody ever wants to do, whatever it is that they do. Whether you're a firefighter, a nurse, a doctor, a mom, a dad, you want to do the best you can. So, as the men did when the women would come in, we did our best. I was proud. I felt I was doing a service and I was living up to the standards of how my family raised me to be a good person, to love the police, to be involved, to do the best you can, no matter what job it is that you take. I was very happy to be in that position.

Speaker 2: 19:22

I grew up with I'm the baby. I have two older brothers, um, so I grew up as a little bit of a tomboy. I still got a tomboy in me, um, so it was easy for me to, you know, flip flop between do I be gentle on this one or do you? You know, sometimes you're rough and tough and sometimes you have to be gentle. Men have the same quality. Maybe they're afraid to say it, but men can be very gentle and men have to be tough. Women have the same, we have the same faucets. We have the same triggers so your brothers are.

Speaker 1: 19:55

There's any other family members in law? Law enforcement in your?

Speaker 2: 20:01

family wow no, I was the no, I was the first. When did you?

Speaker 1: 20:06

know when? Did you know when you went to New York that you wanted to do this? Or you said you filled out an application and paid $10. That's a great story, yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:17

Yeah, it is a great story. It's just one of those things I remember. Once I became a cop I said I can't believe I'm. You know I'm. I got to New York, I achieved what I wanted to achieve and now I'm. I became a police officer. My girlfriend had said you always wanted to be a cop. When you were little you used to play cops and robbers. You don't remember that I you know what. I always admire police and I have to be honest with you. Moving to New York City, nypd, nypd, Blue I mean, I'm going to brag about New York City. You know it's the greatest police department in the world. Of course I wanted to join those men and women doing that. So I knew when he handed me that application, this is another guy in my way helping me to get to where I want to get, just like that woman at the Playboy Club. That said, are you sure you're ready? You know, do you sure you want to go to New York? That's for tough people and I'm going that's for tough people and I'm going.

Speaker 1: 21:29

Who are you talking to? You know, yeah, when you when, when you started you were a patrol person and then you started, I guess, what we would normally say plain clothes, doing special undercover assignments worked your way successfully and gained the rank of detective that was so typical of New York, but it was unique for a woman to have that happen. Did you find that when you did these undercover assignments, the men were overprotective, sometimes with you, or they treated you as an equal, or things like that? I mean, I've worked with undercover agents who are female and sometimes men get in the way and they're overprotective and that's not to your benefit.

Speaker 1: 22:15

If everybody's treated as an equal. You understand what I'm trying to ask you.

Speaker 2: 22:19

Yeah, I know exactly what you're saying. I find that in these specialty units, what you're saying, I find that in these specialty units, the detective bureau, uh, or the um narcotics, we are there as equals. Uh, the undercover has a little bit of the more dangerous of the job. We don't always will kill. Uh, you know, uh, a hearing device for our backup team. Most of the times you don't, at street level, buy and bust. I need them and they need me. I need to make the buy and I need to know they're behind me and they need to know that for their supervisor they're protecting the undercover, Cause you know we make the buys and we arrest the bad guys. We don't as undercovers.

Speaker 2: 23:09

I remember one time in Manhattan South Narcotics I didn't work a lot of the big cases, Usually more of the Spanish guys did. There was a lot of people in Spanish or maybe some. I just didn't. I had red hair at the time. I stuck out too much. My boss used to yell at me and say put a hat on that head, Cover that hair up, will you? But I remember going out on the set and our set was pretty tremendous. They would go out to a set, an area where we do our buy and bust and they would scope it out first and we didn't just go out there and randomly try to buy drugs from somebody. They were out there for a while, for a couple days, couple weeks, and they saw who, what time they came out, who does what, where the guy stands, and they would come up, they would tell me not all the time, but this particular one go by from the guy in the green shirt, in the white jacket. We'd get that on a radio while I'm sitting in a car with New Jersey plates on the side street, like 43rd and 8th Avenue, something like that. So I'd get out of my car at this particular one. I go out there and I see the guy and it's the guy that I bought from two times before. So we know that eventually we were working ourselves up to a bigger buy. You know where's the big stuff, Where's the pile of cocaine.

Speaker 2: 24:44

So of course my backup team already knew where this guy lived, just in case he invited me up, Cause at the time they come out and they usually sell like about blocks away from their home. So he comes up and he gives me the old nod and I give him the nod and then he goes like this and I'm following him a couple blocks. Now I already had a signal between me and the backup team, the investigators, like if I was to go something like this, it's like I'm in trouble or we had a time if I wasn't out in 10, 15 minutes, whatever the time was. So this particular time they saw and I knew they had an eyeball on on me and they were going to follow me because I wanted to make the buy. You know you want to be a little bit of a success story too. So I followed him.

Speaker 2: 25:34

A lot of people don't do it or don't want to. That's why they don't get involved in in the narcotics division. But I followed him, got up to his house. He had another woman in the house there and there was a little baby in the house and there was a mound of cocaine on the table mound of it and they had packs over here and he wanted me to try a little bit. And I said I'm not going to try this stuff and they always want to test you to see if you're a copper. Now I said no, I just don't want to do it. I mean you got to trust me. So he says I trust you, Let me show you how much I trust you. And he gave me his baby to hold. He says you see, I trust you.

Speaker 2: 26:15

Now I'm wondering okay, now I'm holding this baby and I know my clock is running down Any minute. These guys are going to break open the door. Come on, guy, let's do this by. I says, Okay, I got the baby. Or you get busy there. I got to go back out, I got to get out of here. I mean, people are looking for me. And he says, yeah. He says we're gonna do. We're gonna do. The baby likes you, the baby, the baby likes you. And he's taking his time. He took the time so long that I knew any second the door was going to be broke down.

Speaker 2: 26:45

Boom, the door gets broke down. The guys come in, Of course. They take the baby, give the baby to the woman she goes to. They lock me up as well, because they don't want to blow my cover. We confiscate all the cocaine, and that was one of those times that I went oh God, all I want to do is make this big buy. We got this stuff. We ended. He ended up turning over and letting us know who his guy was. So it did all work out in the end. But yeah, being an undercover, we were all the same. I knew they were coming for me. There was no like the guys protected me because I was a female, because we had plenty male undercovers, plenty of them, and they were good too. And that's another whole, that's a whole tough thing between an undercover male. It's like, hey, what do you think the female undercover has a different kind of role? Like I'm being submissive because I don't want to get hurt out here yeah, no, that's a good point.

Speaker 1: 27:44

Like I'm being submissive, because I don't want to get hurt out here. You know, yeah, no, that's a good point. And did you, was this like on the job training for you? I mean, did you go to a specialty school? Or they just said okay, diane, this is how we do it, this is what you're going to do. Buenas suerte, good luck.

Speaker 2: 28:08

Is that what it was like? Good luck is that? Well, who's alike they? They tell you if you're, if you can be an actress or an actor, you can do an undercover. You got to do acting. I mean you got to, you got to play the role. It's for your safety, it's definitely for you. Say, you can't like look nervous and you can't keep looking and give up your backup team, um. So of course there is a. There is narcotics training, but it's not on the street. It's what can happen. They tell you the worst of the worst, what can happen out there.

Speaker 2: 28:35

Do you want, is this for you? You're not always going to wear a wire. You're going to go out there. Make sure you get a good script of the person. Does he have white hair, black hair? Is he five, seven? Is he fat? What's he what? One thing that you'll always want to do is get their shoes, because they can always change their shirt in case the cops come. They usually don't change your shoes. Always try to get their shoes, um, or if they have a mole on their face or something like that, um, so the training is pretty basic, but you, but you hit the nail on the head. It's pretty much on the street training. Yeah, you learn it and you get better as you go on.

Speaker 1: 29:15

What was the most dangerous situation that you were in? It could be traffic stop. It could be UC work. It could be traffic stop, it could be UC work. It could be domestics what's something that comes to mind where, like holy shit, I really could have got screwed up with this.

Speaker 2: 29:35

Well, a lot of the cases, car stops I mean car stops are scary. You know, I just read I think it dan bongino had rolled his. He got stopped and he rolled his, his, his, uh door was. His door wasn't, no, his window wasn't working. So do you had they open the door and the cop is scared because he's opened the door? Just something simple like that.

Speaker 2: 30:00

Well, my, probably my, my scariest is is my being a first responder for 9-11. I mean, now there is where you don't know if you're going home at night, you don't know what's going to happen next. I was a first responder for the 9-11 attack and I was also a first responder for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. I actually drove the chief of Manhattan, chief of Manhattan detectives, into the hall under the North building in the parking garage where that van was that was supposedly had explosives. I remember seeing the van and seeing the explosives. You know you never get immune to the scariness. I think narcotics was probably the scariest because you don't know. You know these people are out there and they know that there could be cops. They all have guns on them. I go out there on the set in narcotics. I don't have my gun on me. I don't have any kind of wire on me, that's just the most scariest time, especially at night.

Speaker 1: 31:21

Yeah, when you went to the detective bureau, what kind of assignments did you get after you left narcotics? What kind of cases did you?

Speaker 2: 31:29

work, 21st Street and 3rd Avenue they were. I had all kinds of cases. I mean, you name it. You name it, the cases you had. I remember going to a bar and a guy tells me that call this number, somebody's been a victim. He's afraid he only wants to talk to a female detective. I said no, no, you tell the guy to call the office. I'm not reaching out. I don't know who this is.

Speaker 2: 32:04

Anyway, he eventually calls my office and he was a big executive for a big law firm, well-known law firm. He didn't want anybody to know what happened to him. He was in a bar and somebody put a roofie in his glass. He these people that put the roofie in his glass befriended him and told him no, no, no, we'll take you home. We'll take you home, whatever happens. Somebody did something to you. It was actually these people that did it to them. Um well, they took him home and I? You know how roofies go. There's a time limit, there's like a 28 minutes, and in that 28 minutes you're going to conk out, you're going to be totally lifeless, you're not going to know what's going to go on, you're not going to see, you're not going to hear, and then you're going to wake up and you're going to wake up, all right. Well, this is what happened to him. These people took him to their apartment. He woke up with his clothes off and they were, um, sexually abusing him and filming it, and they started calling him to ransom him. Um, he didn't want anybody to know. In fact, when he told me he says you know what, don't, don't make a report, don't make a report, I don't want it to go. I know too many police department. I can't have my name. I mean I had other cases, uh, the one good one that I have, well, I mean, it's not that it was good, but I always tell people to listen when people talk.

Speaker 2: 33:45

And I was working in Gramercy Park at the 13th Detective Squad and I came downstairs and there was this young cop on the TS, the telephone switchboard, and he kept hanging up the phone. Hanging up the phone, and I said, officer, who are you hanging up the phone on? He's always. This old man keeps calling every night, calls every night, and I says, well, how do you? What does he say? He says, ah, he wants me to come there and help him. He gives me some story that there's people sleeping on his floor and he wants them out. I said, well, do you know that there's any validity to it? Do you know there's any truth to it? He says, well, the guys from the four to 12 said they just hang up on him. I said, okay, do me a favor, next time this person calls, give me his phone number, unless you have it already. He had, they have it already. So he gives me the phone number and I call this person and the guy says to me oh my goodness, I can't believe you. Finally calling, I knew somebody would listen to me. I said, well, I'll come over tomorrow because I'm working in the morning. He says to me don't come to me, I'll come to you.

Speaker 2: 34:55

So the next morning this person with this very low voice has long red hair and glasses and a dress on it, it's. It's not a guy, it's a woman, just with a very deep voice, like a smoker's voice. And um tells me the story where she got approached by an old German friend of hers. She's German, she's got a heavy German accent and she said this guy, he needed a place to stay. I let him sleep on my floor. I told him you could stay there, but you got to be out in two, three weeks. I have somebody that I take care of. That's an invalid in another room, which she did. So the guy stayed there for two, three weeks and then she says you have to leave and he would never leave. She says you have to go, you have to get out of my house. This woman is 83 years old. The guy says give me a little, give me a little more time In a couple more weeks. She says I'll give you a couple more weeks.

Speaker 2: 36:00

She wakes up one morning. She comes out there there's a woman sleeping on the floor. So now there's a guy and a woman there. So this person's name is Hester. Okay, hester says you have to get out of my apartment. You have to get out of here. We don't have to go anywhere. We have no place to go. Please let us stay there. No, you have to get out.

Speaker 2: 36:29

Long story short, they didn't leave. They ended up having a fight back and forth, a physical fight, where the woman who was on the floor called the police on the 83 on Hester. The cops show up and say hey, how long are you staying here? They said I'm staying here longer than four, I'm staying here six weeks and I'm here five weeks. And the young cop said well, you're here more than four weeks, hester, you got to take him to landlord tenant court. That's the story she tells me. So I said, oh my goodness, if somebody was staying on my floor, my mother's floor, I'd be going there helping them. I said well, let's see what we can do for you. So she says you got to come at five, 30 in the morning, because they leave at six and they come back at midnight when I'm gone.

Speaker 2: 37:11

Well, I took the first of all, I confirmed the situation and I took the case to the Manhattan district attorney's Office who wrote an arrest warrant for both of them. And we went in there and we did an arrest warrant. We arrested the two people. We took them in Junk that they had street people junk, they had dirt on them, they had bugs on them, they had dirt on them, they had bugs on them. Anyway, I got sued for, I think, two million dollars, for the police department got sued. I got sued and, um, we ended up going to court back and forth for a long, long time. They got convicted and then the woman and I became friends.

Speaker 2: 37:56

She says I was the only person to ever listen to her and I said well, you, well, you know, hester. I mean, that's beautiful, you ever need anything. You call me and you know anyway, because it's a lot to go back to every person that you ever meet. Well, she kept calling me and calling me, but then 9-11 happened. The world went crazy. Her and I lost touch. I ended up leaving Gramercy Park and going down to the first precinct, the precinct where 9-11 was in.

Speaker 2: 38:30

It's years later, it's four or five years later and someone says to me this guy keeps calling here, looking for you. And I knew right away the guy again because of the voice. She says hello. She says it's Hester. I've been searching for you. You left the other precinct. I said Hester, I mean, it's a long time ago. You didn't want to talk to me anymore. I'm not going to get into that, but there was a reason why she didn't talk to me.

Speaker 2: 39:02

She's a pure racist. And she saw me kissing one of my detective friends who's African-American and in court. And she says I saw you kissing a black guy. I'm there. I said so. You know what? That's why nobody likes you, because you're such a racist.

Speaker 2: 39:24

Anyway, she says I'd like to see you again. I said I'm busy 9-11, we're down here and everything. She says I'm dying. I want to keep in touch with you. I says, well, I'm retiring, I'm retiring in. This was about a year before I was going to retire, or maybe it was a couple of months. Anyway, she says you're not going, you're taking me with you. I don't know anybody, I only trust you. I says I'm retiring and I'm going to back to Wisconsin where I live. She says you're taking me with you, I want to move with you. Well, anyway, she ended up convincing me to. She was scared. She was scared to death, scared to death of New York, scared to death of being. Now she's 86 years old. She says, please, I have no one, take me with you. Well, I ended up being a friend of hers and I took her with me here to Wisconsin. She had the bedroom over there.

Speaker 2: 40:28

She ends up getting sick. Quick, it was short, it wasn't a long. After that I ended up bringing a German doctor here who spoke German to her. She ended up screaming in the middle of the night. I remember walking in the middle of the night when she was screaming. I said Hester, please be quiet, I have little kids. I would walk in almost with nothing on, and she'd sit up like this and look at me and she'd say kill the little bastards, kill them. You need to come in here and take care of me. Oh she was. Kill them, you need to come in here and take care of me. Oh she was. Anyway, she ends up going, um, she ends up getting very sick. She ends up being totally bedridden. She kept falling out of the bed, she was on medicine and, um, she ends up being um in-house hospice. It was just a matter of time.

Speaker 2: 41:21

And I remember saying to the nurses, because I became a cop out here after I retired in New York, I became a detective here, the first detective in town of Lisbon, the first detective in the town of Lisbon. And so I was running out to work and when I came back they had already had a catheter hooked up to her and I said, oh geez. I said I wish I was always curious how that gets hooked up. I would have liked to have, you know, walk me through. That. I says because somebody had said to me one time Jeez, it's funny that there's no pictures of Hester anywhere.

Speaker 2: 42:01

There's no pictures of her. I said I thought maybe at one point she could have been a guy and the three nurses looked at each other and it, like a light, went off. And so then we looked in underneath. You could see a scar underneath her breasts where she had implants had implants. Anyway, she left. I mean, when she died she left a will to her family in Germany. She left them a little money and the family wrote back to me and said, geez, we didn't know that she had any money because she borrowed thousands of dollars for us years ago when she had her sex change.

Speaker 1: 42:44

What year was that?

Speaker 2: 42:47

She had a sex change because she was a Nazi war criminal.

Speaker 1: 42:55

My God what year was this? When was this? When would they have a sex change?

Speaker 2: 43:02

2002, it was in 2000. She had that 1973. Wow, I believe it was 73. She had the sex change. I never knew it, even by the size of her hands or the size of her feet or her voice.

Speaker 1: 43:15

She right.

Speaker 2: 43:17

that was probably the only thing that would have given it away. But she had had breasts, she wore clothes. I never even suspected it and I'm a detective.

Speaker 1: 43:28

And she was a Nazi war criminal. Do you know what she did, or any I?

Speaker 2: 43:32

don't know anything. I don't know anything. I don't know anything. I have a picture of her somewhere here in uniform when she was a German soldier. But she was so paranoid which also fed into her paranoia when she became 83 and 84, 85, that somebody was going to find her, who she was and what she did. God knows what she did. I don't know what she did. I would have never taken her in if I would have known Of course, of course of course, right, yeah, that was that was.

Speaker 2: 44:10

There was another case that. That's a very sad case. I remember getting a phone call from a young Asian woman. She spoke very good English, but her mother spoke no English at all and she had just turned 18. And she says listen, I'm 18. I'm an adult, I can leave the house. I've been stuck in my mother's house. I'm not allowed to go out unless I'm with my mother. I need to leave the house. I need you to come here and save me. My mother will not let me out. She says I am a victim in this house here. So we as detectives go to that home and there is a sweet little Asian woman and you could. She's just frantic that her daughter's going to leave.

Speaker 2: 45:01

You know she's in America. She doesn't know the language, she doesn't know how to get anything. She's afraid. Who knows what her background was about, why she's so afraid. When you experience someone like Hester, you think they have a background. There's a reason.

Speaker 2: 45:25

We convinced the mother through the daughter interpreting the language. She can go. She's 18, you can't hold her here. I mean, you can't hold it as hostage. So the mother, the daughter's crying, but she says mom, I love you in her language and she says I have to go. So she left and she was able to leave. The mother was crying. You saw her broken heart. It was about three days later. We got another call from the daughter. The daughter says I'm trying to get into my mother's house and I can't get in her house. I don't know what's wrong. She doesn't go out of the house. So we ended up going there. We ended up getting the emergency service unit to break in the door and the mother had hung herself and hung herself situated so we couldn't get in the door. It was awful. It was awful. It's a very sad situation. You know, you see the good ones, but you remember ones like this.

Speaker 1: 46:30

Sure, the good, the bad and the ugly right.

Speaker 2: 46:32

Good, bad and the ugly Working down in Wall Street. It wasn't all white-collar crimes, but I worked for Solomon Smith Barney on cases. I worked oh my goodness, he worked for the one big company here wait a minute. Where it happened?

Speaker 2: 46:55

Up on the 20th floor, a woman is going into the great big vault and as she's going into the vault, the night security guard is going around making sure all the doors are closed and she ends up. He ends up closing her in the vault and she turns around it's all on camera, camera. She turns around and goes what are you doing? He can't hear. He's got something on his ears or something like that. He ends up um. She ends up screaming there's a phone in there. So she ends up calling, ends up screaming there's a phone in there. So she ends up calling the security to say come and get me. But he's doing his rounds. She says you have to come and get me. I have to pick up my son from school. She calls again. She calls again. He never comes to get her and she says if you don't come and get, I'm going to pull this alarm. I'm letting you know in five minutes. She calls again. She calls again. This is well before cell phones, well before anything like that.

Speaker 2: 48:06

Well, she ends up pulling that alarm, but what it does, it releases all of that smoke that comes down and just takes up all the oxygen and you can see her die on the tape. You can see her die on the tape. You can see her die on the tape. This all comes down and these are just terrible, terrible stories. I mean we, you know you go there to help people. You thought these are real stories, just like this woman put the with the two people on the floor, but it turns into a crazy story at the end and I'm sure you have tons of story working for all that you did.

Speaker 1: 48:45

Yeah, I couldn't keep a job, but that's beside the point. That's what.

Speaker 2: 48:49

I'm talking about? Oh God, you know everybody that's a cop, whether it's Milwaukee, whether it's California, all our men and women in blue, all the detectives, first responders, they all have stories and we can relate to them. I remember a funny story that we all went someplace and we picked up the DOA down on arrival, the DOA's ring. I says well, somebody's got to take this ring because I'm not going back, we had to put it someplace where you know we had a voucher. And somebody goes like this, and it hits my hand and it goes all of the. We don't know where the ring goes. Now there's four of us standing there. We're all detectives, we're all dressed up. We're in one room, there's not a lot around, and everybody bends down to try to look for it and everybody comes up without it. I say come on, guys, somebody's got to have this ring. I don't have it. I don't have it. Nobody's leaving this week. This ring is in this room. I got to find this ring.

Speaker 1: 49:56

He says I don't know where the ring is I don't have the ring, I don't have the ring.

Speaker 2: 49:58

I says come on, guys, if the joke is over, give me the ring. Then I look, and this guy across from me has got cuffs in his pants. Check the cuffs of your pants, boop.

Speaker 2: 50:08

It was right in the cuff of his feet Right how we think, we start to have a broader way of thinking. Or the guy that runs down the alleyway and then we're all running after him and we can't find him. He's right here. It's fenced in, there's nowhere to go. There's nowhere to go. He's quick enough to run under the car and grab on underneath like an upside down frog.

Speaker 1: 50:33

Right.

Speaker 2: 50:38

Just like that. Amazing how you start as a detective, how you start to picture every little thing right. Yeah, it was a great job. I mean, in addition to you know the crimes that I did. I mean I had lunch with Johnny Cochran and Freddie Prince and Chuck Lowe. Remember Chuck Lowe? He was the. He played Maury in the Goodfellas. He lived at 110 Hudson Street, which is right behind the first precinct.

Speaker 2: 51:07

Um, I met people like um, oh my god, we had. Well, rudy giuliani was our, was our mayor at the time. I did some work for beau deedle. You all know beau deedle. Yes, investigator, nice private investigator, actor, accomplished nypd guy. Um, yeah, I got my bachelor's degree while I was working there. I was promoted to second grade Again. I was a first responder. Yeah, I have three grown sons. They're all 25 years old. I have twins and I adopted a boy later on in life. So I'm pretty busy Right now.

Speaker 2: 52:02

I'm the sole proprietor of DLM Investigative Services. I conduct investigations, I perform surveillance. Um, I conduct investigations, I perform surveillance. Uh, I have over 15 workers assigned to the republican national convention that's being held here july 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th at the bucks home, pfizer forum, home of the milwaukee bucks. Um, I also work surveillance for a company called Interstate Reporting Company Professional Investigations. I'm a court bailiff for a court in the city of Waukesha. I'm a member of the Pauley Professional Association of Wisconsin Licensed Investigators and a member of the National Council of Investigation of Security Services. I keep myself a little busy and right now I'm a member of the Optimist International, have been for 21 years. My title is governor governor of the Swiss district, that's southern Wisconsin, and my theme is, of course, respect for law. And on the back is the Optimist Creed. It's a beautiful creed and what we do is we are friend of the youth, we give scholarships and we support the youth of America and all around the world we have Optimist Clubs. So that is me.

Speaker 1: 53:37

I have some more questions. Yes, packers, jets or Giants?

Speaker 2: 53:45

Packers.

Speaker 1: 53:46

I kind of figured that. Did you ever support any of the New York teams? Or you were loyal to the Bucs?

Speaker 2: 53:52

Oh, my goodness Of course.

Speaker 1: 53:54

And the Braves, the Milwaukee Braves and Brewers. Yeah right, those are your teams, right?

Speaker 2: 54:00

Those are my teams. Don't forget, John Matuszak was my cousin, so I was always an Oakland Raiders fan.

Speaker 1: 54:06

Yes, yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, because that would be the one exception. What about when the Raiders played the Packers?

Speaker 2: 54:14

Who would you root for? Yeah, well, when the Raiders played the Packers, when my cousin was alive, I was for the Raiders, but I was a big fan of the guy that we lost, that had been there forever and ever and now we just lost him.

Speaker 1: 54:34

Oh my, my goodness let me have a brain freeze right now from the packers, or from the packers quarterback oh, bart star no, after that most recent dating myself now, oh, um, now I'm having, now I'm having the brain fart. Uh, not Brett Farah? Um, oh, the one that used to date. Danica Patrick Um, yeah, they're going to the Jets. He got hurt on the first play last year.

Speaker 2: 55:01

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 1: 55:03

Aaron Rodgers. Aaron Rodgers.

Speaker 2: 55:06

Aaron Rodgers yes, aaron Rodgers. I was a big fan of Aaron Rodgers. I liked his controversial personality. That never bothers me if you're controversial. I've been always considered to be a controversial person.

Speaker 1: 55:22

I've been considered a straight arrow my whole career, non-controversial.

Speaker 2: 55:25

Oh, yeah, right, Okay, you can tell right yeah, right, yeah. No, you know what? There's nothing wrong with being controversial. It just means that you branch out a little. You're not afraid to branch out.

Speaker 1: 55:39

What's the one case that you wish you had solved that you think about? Everybody has one. I had one recently that I was fortunate to, a lady that I locked up in 1994 with the DEA and customs and 30 years later she got released and I advocated for her release. So there's always that one case that you had that you didn't solve or there wasn't resolution on it. Do you have one of those cases, diane?

Speaker 2: 56:12

I have one that bothers me to this day. It actually made the front page of the Daily News. Bank of New York was on the front, and I hope everybody gets in touch with me to help me out with this one. So at the time I received a phone call from a woman, soft-spoken woman. I was a detective assigned to the first precinct, lower Manhattan, and she says to me I went to my safe deposit box and there's $500 missing. I said wow, so I end up calling Bank of New York security and asking them not to bad mouth anybody. But they just sort of thought you know there are people that say things like that, right, and that this woman has called, she's been calling. I was newly assigned to the first precinct, so it was my first time receiving that phone call. But evidently she has been alerting the detectives or whoever for a while. So I had said well, how do you know? And again, going back to that case on the phone, I'm a listener. I said, well, I would like to talk to this woman. Well, what I do is I meet with the woman. She tells me the story. It was her dowry that was in there. She doesn't go there. When she went there, she couldn't believe it was gone.

Speaker 2: 57:41

Now, safe deposit boxes, a lot of them work with two keys your key and the bank's key and they have to be inserted one at a time or they both have to do the job for that to open. When I went to the bank in New York and I went downstairs in their vault, I couldn't believe. It was hard for me to believe the story that this woman would be able to get up there and take the money out herself or lie about this, because it was way on top. You had these ladders that went side like this and they went up and you went all the way to the top. Somebody had to go up there and get her box out, bring it down. The ladder use two keys to get it. So while I'm there, I'm watching and there's a young new security guard in charge and he's helping somebody over there with their security box. And then I left. I just saw how it worked.

Speaker 2: 59:04

I called the locksmith because I got the report that the locksmith had changed 10 locks in the last three weeks of these safe deposit boxes. I says what's going on? He says I never seen anything like it. He says, all of a sudden, all these things are breaking. I said well, who knows you're there? He says I just go down there. I said you mean there's no sign in. Nobody knows you're there. He says I just go down there. I said you mean, there's no sign in. Nobody knows you're there. Nobody knows who are you reporting to. He says well, there's the security guard that's in charge of the safe deposit boxes. I says are they broken? He says well, he tells me they're broken, I go down there and I fix them. I said are they broken? He said I can't see how all these break at the same time.

Speaker 2: 59:56

So I go back to the Bank of New York, I go downstairs and it's a little busy. It's New York. It's even busy in the vault in New York. So while I'm down there, he's working on a safe deposit box with an owner of the safe deposit box and I'm over here talking to somebody who comes up to me and says you're that female from the squad, right? He says you know what? I'm an honorable police officer. I know so-and-so. He said tell me all the names he knows. He says I want to tell you something. I think there's money missing from my box. I said really? He said yeah, I think there's $1,600 missing from my box. So as I look over here, this guy is brave, I become a witness to this case, we end up doing a search war.

Speaker 2: 1:00:56

We end up doing a arrest war. We end up getting enough on this young new security guard who's in charge, who is okaying all of these safety deposit boxes being open, Okaying all of these safety deposit boxes being open. We found out that he's got safe deposit. There's a great big safe deposit box. Not everybody Usually everybody has the drawer. He's got a great big one in another bank. At the time there was a database that you could and find out who's got a safe deposit box. We went in there. Here's all this stuff.

Speaker 2: 1:01:42

Here's all this bars of gold jewelry money cash diamonds.

Speaker 1: 1:01:45

Just stuff that you don't even know who's. You don't even know who's it is and which box it was in, Nobody knows.

Speaker 2: 1:01:48

You don't and do you want to like, really advertise this? Everyone's going to say, oh, that's my 500. You know? You know what? We got a search warrant. We went to the guy's house. He's 18. He just came back from, like, Hawaii, Puerto Rico. He had clothes. He had clothes all over his his room pants, shirts. He was a millionaire kind of dresser. Under his dress, under his mattress, he had jewelry. We confiscated everything. We confiscated everything from the vault in the other bank. And then 9-11 happens.

Speaker 2: 1:02:31

I wanted to follow this case. I wanted to go on TV, I wanted to have all this stuff, all this confiscated property. I don't know what. You know? That was lower Manhattan. That was Wall Street, Forget it. Nobody was going in and out of there for two, three months and then I retired. It was my 20 years.

Speaker 2: 1:02:57

My retirement date was January 25th, so I couldn't know what happened to him as far as what was his penalty. What did he get? I don't know. It bothers me to this day. All those people he said to me when I interviewed him he said I said how could you take all these things? How could you not feel good? How do you do something like this? Who raised you? Where do you get this idea? You do something like this? Who raised you? Where do you get this idea? He says. To tell you the truth, when I saw these people walk in and they were this is how young he was, they were 50 or 60 years old I figured they're going to die. They'll never be back here. 50, 60 years old that's how young he thought that people don't usually go, maybe one, maybe five years, I mean, I I don't know how often people go to safe deposit box.

Speaker 1: 1:03:59

I don't have one I can answer that a little bit on a personal level. Uh, my mother lived to be 95 and and she had one. She was a child of the Depression and they put stuff in banks like that and I recently found out that she had one and I'm going to open it up when I get back in the next couple weeks and see what's there. You know, it may be nothing, it could be, you don't know, because they were very. People are very private about that. You know it was her box. So this is a great story. But go ahead, finish off on.

Speaker 2: 1:04:42

Yeah, that is. I just feel terrible that I couldn't do more, for whosever stuff this was. I mean, there was so much more work that had to be done with that case, Like go back to the boxes, but the bank was in there, you know, Everything got destroyed. That was right across the street from where Ground Zero was. I don't know what we could have done, but certainly as an investigative effort we could have put our heads together and come up with something. Going back to the bank, somebody, not everything, was in records. A lot of a lot was paper, paper records. So I mean, I really don't know. It just bothers me. To this day and now that's a long time ago, it's over.

Speaker 1: 1:05:37

It's over. It still bothers you.

Speaker 2: 1:05:40

It bothers me forever. Yeah, that was a sad one, yeah, well maybe that'll get resolved. Somebody will watch this and, you know, get an idea to reach out to me and at least tell me what happened to the guy. He's deep. He would contact me. I'd tell him it was terrible. He must be going through guilt in his mind if he ever grew up. You know, when you grow up and you do things because you're young and naive and you grow up, guilt sets in Maybe.

Speaker 1: 1:06:11

I don't know, Maybe Some people that never happens in their whole life and they just build on it, unfortunately. But that's the reality, Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm. But you have great stories and it's great to see that you're still active and doing all this. I enjoy it too. And quite a career, quite a very diverse career. You've really explained, I think, to any of the viewers what it was like back then and what it's like now. You know, it's a different world and it's hard. It's hard to keep up, excuse me, with the changes that have occurred in investigation and law enforcement. You know we didn't have.

Speaker 1: 1:07:01

We didn't have cell phones, we didn't have interfaced internet to do backgrounds. We didn't have all this. Everything was hand search, everything was a file paper on your desk up to here, you know gumshoe, it was yes it's the right way to describe that term that was an old term for a plainclothes detective was gumshoe.

Speaker 2: 1:07:29

Yeah, do you remember the days when you wanted to arrest someone? You got the phone number and you stood outside the door and you called it and you listened If you heard the phone ring. Now everybody's got cell phones. They're turned off. They're from Atlanta, they're from you know walk, wichita, kansas. You don't need to have a phone in the house anymore. Yeah, but again, like you said, with cell phones, with oh, my goodness, I'm a big court buff, so I'm watching all these cases on court TV. A big Vinnie Palatin fan, everything they do is by cell phone.

Speaker 2: 1:08:11

Where you were here, where your your on-star car takes you, how fast you were going, they got everything. They got everything for you. You got to make sense of it, though you know I did take the dignitary protection course and I had the opportunity to body guard Johnny Depp, and I was the only female take the dignitary protection course and I had the opportunity to bodyguard johnny depp and um. I was the only female I was only female at the time in the um, in the security team. He's he's as nice then as he is today, and I say he's nice today because I watched him on that horrible trial that he went through. But he came up to me and he said I want to thank you for today, I want to shake your hand and I want to thank you for today.

Speaker 2: 1:09:00

That was in Studio 54. He was having a party. Yeah, the days of New York City. The days of New York City Bodyguarded the Pope, john Paul II, president Clinton, but that was New York. Anywhere you went in New York, you were surrounded by some famous person. They're all over the place. They're like cockroaches.

Speaker 1: 1:09:27

That's a good way to refer it to some of them and that. But it's been a real pleasure to meet you and a great career as a pioneer in women in law enforcement and investigations and, like I said, it's a different world now. It's it's changed, the you know from the matron. Now I'm glad you brought that up. I remember the badges that we had in the police department. They said matron, you know a matron. I don't think too many of the law enforcement females of today would like that title, but that was the reality Exactly.

Speaker 2: 1:10:10

It was the reality Exactly. It was not only a term, it was a derogatory term for the woman who wanted to take that step into women in policing. Well, now we're all officers and I'm very happy about that and I salute to the men in blue the men and women in blue every single day for what they are going through in today's world.

Speaker 1: 1:10:36

Yes, yep, certainly different. Again, diane, thank you very much for coming on the show and, like I said, I look forward to talking to you soon and good luck with the convention. I'm sure you'll have your hands full next month with that.

Speaker 2: 1:10:56

Thank you. It was my pleasure to meet you personally. I know we spoke several times on the phone in regards to this and I'll be sending you one of my postcard, one of my bookmarks.

Speaker 1: 1:11:09

Oh, please do yes.

Speaker 2: 1:11:11

Yeah, You're going to text me your address okay, yes, I will Thank you so much. All right, and good luck to you and thank you for bringing the men and women on this show. It's a great idea that you have here, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:11:23

It's the whole system it's going to like. We have people that are going to be on here on all spectrums. You know we're going to have people that served life sentences and we're released. We're going to have career police yeah, it covers, everything, you know.

Speaker 2: 1:11:40

Good, good good.

Speaker 1: 1:11:41

Yeah, so it'll be informative at least to the audience and to everybody else that works in the system.

Speaker 2: 1:11:48

So again, thank you, yeah, and I saw Go ahead, thank you, and I saw that you're having somebody that I worked with on Stu Friedman.

Speaker 1: 1:11:55

Yes, I had. I had Ralph on Ralph's already been on, oh, okay.

Speaker 1: 1:12:00

Yeah, Okay, and Stu is scheduled and that he'll he'll be on and he's just got a new book out and seems everybody in New York that was on the police department writes books. I mean, mine was written by a former New York City police and that. So it's good to hear about what we would call the challenging area of law enforcement when street crime was at its highest and it was, you know, back in the 80s. I know today it gets more publicized because of the mass media that we have now, but it was pretty bad back then too. You know. It's just a matter of control, Go ahead.

Speaker 2: 1:12:49

But if you were on the street more times than not, civilians would be helping you. They wouldn't chime in and beat you up, like what's going on today, or throw water at you.

Speaker 1: 1:13:03

Or hold up the cell phone and not help.

Speaker 2: 1:13:06

Or hold up the cell phone. I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. Yeah, I'm glad. The cell phones, I'm not doing it, I'm not doing. Yeah, I, I don't. I'm glad the cell phones weren't around in my days. Um, all of us are um, but yeah, it's a whole different world. It was rough and tough, but you know, it was a happy time. Back then there was a lot of people, oh, everybody was on the streets. It was okay. It was a bad guy on the streets so they did something wrong. But it's just more dangerous today, so dangerous.

Speaker 2: 1:13:34

Yes so sorry about it.

Speaker 1: 1:13:36

Well, let's hope it changes shortly. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you again.

Speaker 2: 1:13:43

Diane. Cheers to you, Same to you. Thank you and cheers to you, sir. Thank you Appreciate it Over and out Ple.