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Mike Papantonio’s New Novel “Law And Vengeance,” Exposes White Collar Crime - YouTube
Channel: The Ring of Fire
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So, Pap, as I was saying before we got on
air, I am very excited.
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I am headed on vacation.
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In fact, tomorrow morning it starts.
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I'm going to the beach, and I gotta say, I
want to talk to you about Abilify.
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I also want to talk about what's going on
with the theories behind holding opioid manufacturers
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accountable, but I gotta say, I am sitting
here with a copy.
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It is an edit proof only because it's not
out yet, but I have my Law and Vengeance copy,
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your second book.
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A legal thriller that I am going to be bringing
to the beach, and I am psyched to read it.
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I'd love to talk to you just a little bit
about themes because I've interviewed people
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who talk about these themes that take place
in real life.
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The failure of our government to prosecute
white collar criminals, and then simultaneously
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the problem of our government pursuing whistleblowers,
particularly under the Obama administration,
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in a way that we haven't really ever seen
in this country.
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These are themes that you bring into Law and
Vengeance.
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Yeah, I mean the whole idea of the book is
... When I started doing this series of books
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... This is number two in a series of four
books.
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The third one is about the opioid crisis,
and the fourth one is about banks washing
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money for terrorists.
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And they all, by the way, are centered around
actual cases that I handle and our law firm
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handles.
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But this one centers around a true case.
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It was a manufacturer that made a gun sight
both for pistols and rifles that unfortunately
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was a disaster.
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It was defective.
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They knew it was defective.
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The gun sight would work in perfect conditions,
but if you put it out in the heat, humidity
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and heat would cause it to be off several
degrees every hundred yards, and it cost a
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lot of lives because of it.
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That's a case we handled, and it builds around
the same characters that came out in the first
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book, Law and Disorder.
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They just are onto a different case now, and
the severity and the threat and the danger
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is really turned up in this because it involves
a police union who is mandating the use of
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these, and in the process of getting kickbacks.
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And it involves one of the biggest weapons
manufacturers in the world.
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So, Nick Deketomis and the characters in that
book are under pretty heavy pressure.
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Gina Romano is they key trial lawyer in that.
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She's an experienced white collar criminal
defense lawyer, so she's been thrown in the
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middle of this case because a couple of her
partners were killed.
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I think it's a story you're going to like,
Sam.
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Hopefully you'll read it.
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The goal of all these books is be able to
read it and then come away after you read
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it being entertained, but also learning something.
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For example, you mentioned the Department
of Justice and what a miserable job they've
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done actually going after ... For, A, taking
care of whistleblowers, and, B, really throwing
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anybody in jail.
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It's one thing to fine a multi billion dollar
corporation ... Fine them $500 million.
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They made that in a month.
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These are multi, multi billion corporations,
and the Department of Justice has evolved
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into this thing where you don't go to jail
unless you're wearing a hoodie.
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If you're wearing an Armani suit, if you're
driving around in a Bentley and have a Rolex
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watch on, you don't go to prison.
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You simply pay a fine for your fraud, for
your crime, that results in the death of human
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beings.
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But if you're wearing a hoodie and you're
out on the street selling a couple ounces
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of marijuana, baby, you better hold on because
you're going to prison.
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Right.
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If you play your cards right, maybe they make
you Treasury Secretary instead of prosecuting
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you for running a foreclosure mill.
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Right.
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A scam, yeah.
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Let me ask you this, and then I want to talk
about Abilify, but is there a certain amount
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of liberation for you because I know there's
a lot of cases that you have.
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I've spoken to, obviously, a lot of attorneys.
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We go to the Mass Torts Conference twice a
year, and I speak to a lot of attorneys about
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a lot of these different cases.
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And sometimes when they settle, or sometimes
they've seen things that are sealed that they've
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seen in discovery, is this liberating for
you to be able to talk about things?
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Obviously you can't tell the exact facts,
but you can talk about dynamics.
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That must be ... Probably, I would image ... You
tell me ... Dying to articulate to the public.
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Yeah, it is.
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That is an excellent point, Sam.
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It's not just when you try a case and get
a remarkable result.
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Even though the bad guys don't go to prison,
you're able to tell the story, the public.
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If corporate media actually takes time to
cover the stories, which they so infrequently
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do.
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They give it two or three paragraphs.
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It's usually not enough.
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But, yeah, it is liberating because these
books allow me to talk about the intricacies,
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for example, of the Department of Justice
that people come away with the Obama administration,
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for example, thinking, ‘Oh, Eric Holder
was great,’ or ‘Loretta Lynch, she was
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really one of us.’
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Well, no, they weren't.
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They were just the opposite.
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They have nothing in common with you.
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They have nothing in common with the typical
American.
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Eric Holder comes from Covington Burling,
for example.
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He ran the Department of Justice, and he always
sided with white collar criminals, both when
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he was in private practice, and he's back
with the same firm, by the way, now defending
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white collar criminals again.
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But when he was Department of Justice, it
was so dysfunctional because he would be in
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front of the camera and everybody says, ‘Oh,
wow.
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Eric Holder fined the company $250 million.
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Wow, that's spectacular.’
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Well, no, often was times where companies
actually made products that killed people.
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They made a pharmaceutical that poisoned a
liver or a kidney or a heart, and people died.
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Or Wall Street that stole money from Mom and
Pop pension programs, and Eric Holder would
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say, ‘Well, we really hit JP Morgan, baby.’
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Well, no.
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People lost everything.
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They lost their entire life savings.
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They committed suicide.
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They became ill to the point to where their
lives never recovered.
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So we think, ‘Oh, yeah.
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He was really one of us.’
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No, he wasn't.
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And neither was Loretta Lynch.
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And Obama knew exactly what was going on because
those were the people that really supported
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him.
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Yeah, it is liberating to tell these stories
in the book because you'll take a progressive
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that may read the book and all of a sudden
they're going, ‘Wow.
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I didn't know all that.’
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Well, it's the truth, and so I think all these
books that I'm writing right now ... You mentioned
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Abilify.
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That's a story that you almost can't believe.
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It's a story where the company ... It's a
case that's pending right now where the company,
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the documents say we whitewashed the clinical
data.
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We whitewashed the story, and the story is
that the drug is so powerful that affects
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the impulse center of the brain, and we have
cases where people that have never gambled
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in their life all of a sudden show up on an
Indian reservation gambling, and have literally
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gambled everything they own away, including
their house and their car.
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Those are not uncommon kinds of cases.
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And, you know what?
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They admit it.
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Abilify, the manufacturers now, they admit
it over in Europe.
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They warn about it over in Europe, that the
impulse control problem is a disaster, but
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they don't in the United States.
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That was Bristol Meyers Squibb that handled
that case.
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But that type of conduct from corporate America
is not an exception anymore.
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It's the norm, so it's fun to write those
books because of that.
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