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Bluelighter
FOE-TO-FRIEND GANG-WAR EPIC
KINGPIN & COP RELIVE GORY DAYS
SUSANNAH CAHALAN
NY Post
October 14, 2007 -- Denzel Washington strides across a crowded Harlem street, grabs a gun from his suit jacket and shoots a man point-blank in the face, splattering his "brains" across the pavement.
"That's exactly how I did it!" shouts Frank Lucas, watching the scene unfold from behind the director's chair.
Older, crippled with arthritis and confined to a wheelchair, Lucas can't help but take perverse pleasure in the scene. Although long reformed, Lucas was once Harlem's most notorious heroin kingpin, the original gangsta.
Now that he's being immortalized by Washington in "American Gangster," Lucas, 77, is reliving the old days, at least vicariously.
"I loved being on the set. It reminded me of when I had money," Lucas says.
For former New Jersey investigator Richie Roberts, the moment is more bittersweet. Roberts, portrayed in the film by Russell Crowe, brought down Lucas' empire, and over three decades has forged an unlikely friendship with the criminal don.
Although he loves Lucas, Roberts winces when he considers that the man's crimes - including smuggling drugs in the body bags of dead Vietnam soldiers - might be glorified. He's forgiven, but he hasn't forgotten.
"I hated him. I wanted to see him go to jail for the rest of his life," Roberts says. "What he did was disgusting."
FRANK LUCAS grew up in North Carolina, but knew he would never strike it rich working cotton and tobacco fields. He headed north in his teens to Harlem for "thick steaks, champagne, expensive cars, everything I didn't have a chance to get down there."
Inspired, he says, by reports of soldiers doing drugs in Vietnam, Lucas jumped on a plane to Bangkok and started organizing smuggling trips between Thailand and various military bases in the late 1960s. In East Asia, he bought stronger heroin than was available in New York - and for a cheaper price. The brand "Blue Magic" quickly cornered the market in both New York and New Jersey.
"It was all business," Lucas says. "We ran it like Wall Street."
He surrounded himself with close relatives from North Carolina and dubbed his gang "The Country Boys." In his heyday, Lucas estimates that he raked in $1 million a day and estimates he earned $700 million. Ultimately, authorities seized $210 million in assets when he was arrested.
"I went from the King of Harlem to nothing. Look at me now," he said after watching a screening last night. "I got what I deserved, let's just put it that way. I'm still a hard-ass son of a bitch. I ain't going Christian or nothing."
Roberts shakes his head at the exaggeration, but does observe that $37 million in cash was recovered during a police raid on Lucas' apartment.
Roberts, born in The Bronx and raised in Newark, also felt the temptation of a life of crime - he was recruited by a capo in a New Jersey crime family - but steered clear, choosing instead to become a police officer.
"I think I like Frank because I've always been surrounded by wiseguys. I played ball with them, went to class with them," he says. "Sometimes I felt more comfortable with criminals than allegedly straight guys."
Roberts quickly moved up the ranks to detective, while going to law school at night. As an undercover detective, he helped bring down wiseguys all over northern New Jersey, including Richie "The Boot" Boiardo, the Mafia don who may have helped inspire the character Tony Soprano.
Investigating Lucas was difficult, Roberts has said. Drug dealers would be in the cars at 136th Street and Lenox Avenue, junkies would be buying, and police would come by for their take. But a friend in the Drug Enforcement Administration started feeding information to Roberts about Lucas and they built a case.
Working with informants and chemical analysis of the drugs, Roberts and other investigators helped convict Lucas in 1976 on federal and state charges for the large-scale distribution of heroin. He was sentenced to 70 years in prison.
Lucas had already stood a federal trial without flipping on his cohorts. But during his second trial, a state proceeding where Roberts was the lead prosecutor, Lucas watched a weeping mother take the stand and testify about her son's fatal overdose.
Afterward, he requested to speak with Roberts.
In his jail cell, with tears in his eyes, Lucas said, "I never thought about it that way."
In the ensuing years, Roberts and Lucas met countless times, building cases together - dirty cops were often the target - and forging a mutual respect. Lucas was released in nine years after cooperating with authorities and providing evidence that led convictions in 150 cases.
EVEN Roberts is mysti fied by the friendship - he is godfather to Lucas' youngest son - that developed during those years.
"I have a hard time saying why I've been friends with him so long, especially when you take into account all the damage he's done," Roberts says.
He describes New York City under Lucas' regime as "depressing" - junkies lining the streets of Harlem, overdoses skyrocketing across the city and violent gangs running rampant.
"But what can I say? I'm crazy. I can't help but care about him."
The retired lawman even provides funds to send his 11-year-old godson, Ray, to private school.
At a weekly catch-up meeting the two have in Roberts' law practice in West Caldwell, N.J., Lucas turns to his pal to finish his sentences; when he forgets dates or names, Roberts fills in the blanks. Roberts translates Lucas' warbled North Carolina drawl for strangers.
"He's my boss, my companion, my friend. He's a great man," Lucas says of Roberts, with out-of-character tenderness.
Roberts checks on Lucas' Dunkin' Donuts "light and sweet" coffee to make sure it has artificial sweetener.
But since signing their life stories over to Universal Studios, both men have become mini-celebrities - and old feelings have surfaced.
Lucas doesn't hold a grudge. "It was all part of the game; it was inevitable that I was arrested," he says.
But he is still angry about the arrest of his parents, whose home became wrapped up in the case. That "just wasn't right," he complains.
Roberts, meanwhile, worries that when the film opens Nov. 2, Lucas will be celebrated - not scorned.
"When the movie started [filming], he kind of reverted back to being Frank Lucas the drug lord," said Roberts. "And I started getting the old feeling of being a narc. It created some tension between us during the movie."
Roberts understands why some might see Lucas in a heroic light, as he told The Post earlier this year.
"Frank was probably the first black man to intrude upon a white man's world. He cornered the drug market; the wiseguys had to come to him. And in some perverted way, I think Denzel appreciated that.
"Look, I'm Jewish, and there's part of me that appreciates Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel," he said. "Which is ridiculous, but I can't help it. And I think that Denzel appreciated that a black man was able to do that, and that whitey had to come to him to get his products.
"So at the beginning I think he wanted to play him almost like a black 'Godfather.' There's a duality there. On the one hand, here's this poor, uneducated black kid out of nowhere who was able to build this empire. On the other hand, he built it on the bodies of his own people."
It's hard not to get caught up in the former criminal's charisma. Washington, who spent three weeks with Lucas, was so taken with the aging gangster that he gave him the money to buy a Buick Park Avenue.
"He nailed that sucker," Lucas said of the Oscar-winning actor. "He was into me and we stayed together for three weeks before they started filming. It just clicked."
Lucas certainly talks like a man elevated - if not vindicated - by history.
"I've been glorified all my life," he says. "It's no different now."
Link!
KINGPIN & COP RELIVE GORY DAYS
SUSANNAH CAHALAN
NY Post
October 14, 2007 -- Denzel Washington strides across a crowded Harlem street, grabs a gun from his suit jacket and shoots a man point-blank in the face, splattering his "brains" across the pavement.
"That's exactly how I did it!" shouts Frank Lucas, watching the scene unfold from behind the director's chair.
Older, crippled with arthritis and confined to a wheelchair, Lucas can't help but take perverse pleasure in the scene. Although long reformed, Lucas was once Harlem's most notorious heroin kingpin, the original gangsta.
Now that he's being immortalized by Washington in "American Gangster," Lucas, 77, is reliving the old days, at least vicariously.
"I loved being on the set. It reminded me of when I had money," Lucas says.
For former New Jersey investigator Richie Roberts, the moment is more bittersweet. Roberts, portrayed in the film by Russell Crowe, brought down Lucas' empire, and over three decades has forged an unlikely friendship with the criminal don.
Although he loves Lucas, Roberts winces when he considers that the man's crimes - including smuggling drugs in the body bags of dead Vietnam soldiers - might be glorified. He's forgiven, but he hasn't forgotten.
"I hated him. I wanted to see him go to jail for the rest of his life," Roberts says. "What he did was disgusting."
FRANK LUCAS grew up in North Carolina, but knew he would never strike it rich working cotton and tobacco fields. He headed north in his teens to Harlem for "thick steaks, champagne, expensive cars, everything I didn't have a chance to get down there."
Inspired, he says, by reports of soldiers doing drugs in Vietnam, Lucas jumped on a plane to Bangkok and started organizing smuggling trips between Thailand and various military bases in the late 1960s. In East Asia, he bought stronger heroin than was available in New York - and for a cheaper price. The brand "Blue Magic" quickly cornered the market in both New York and New Jersey.
"It was all business," Lucas says. "We ran it like Wall Street."
He surrounded himself with close relatives from North Carolina and dubbed his gang "The Country Boys." In his heyday, Lucas estimates that he raked in $1 million a day and estimates he earned $700 million. Ultimately, authorities seized $210 million in assets when he was arrested.
"I went from the King of Harlem to nothing. Look at me now," he said after watching a screening last night. "I got what I deserved, let's just put it that way. I'm still a hard-ass son of a bitch. I ain't going Christian or nothing."
Roberts shakes his head at the exaggeration, but does observe that $37 million in cash was recovered during a police raid on Lucas' apartment.
Roberts, born in The Bronx and raised in Newark, also felt the temptation of a life of crime - he was recruited by a capo in a New Jersey crime family - but steered clear, choosing instead to become a police officer.
"I think I like Frank because I've always been surrounded by wiseguys. I played ball with them, went to class with them," he says. "Sometimes I felt more comfortable with criminals than allegedly straight guys."
Roberts quickly moved up the ranks to detective, while going to law school at night. As an undercover detective, he helped bring down wiseguys all over northern New Jersey, including Richie "The Boot" Boiardo, the Mafia don who may have helped inspire the character Tony Soprano.
Investigating Lucas was difficult, Roberts has said. Drug dealers would be in the cars at 136th Street and Lenox Avenue, junkies would be buying, and police would come by for their take. But a friend in the Drug Enforcement Administration started feeding information to Roberts about Lucas and they built a case.
Working with informants and chemical analysis of the drugs, Roberts and other investigators helped convict Lucas in 1976 on federal and state charges for the large-scale distribution of heroin. He was sentenced to 70 years in prison.
Lucas had already stood a federal trial without flipping on his cohorts. But during his second trial, a state proceeding where Roberts was the lead prosecutor, Lucas watched a weeping mother take the stand and testify about her son's fatal overdose.
Afterward, he requested to speak with Roberts.
In his jail cell, with tears in his eyes, Lucas said, "I never thought about it that way."
In the ensuing years, Roberts and Lucas met countless times, building cases together - dirty cops were often the target - and forging a mutual respect. Lucas was released in nine years after cooperating with authorities and providing evidence that led convictions in 150 cases.
EVEN Roberts is mysti fied by the friendship - he is godfather to Lucas' youngest son - that developed during those years.
"I have a hard time saying why I've been friends with him so long, especially when you take into account all the damage he's done," Roberts says.
He describes New York City under Lucas' regime as "depressing" - junkies lining the streets of Harlem, overdoses skyrocketing across the city and violent gangs running rampant.
"But what can I say? I'm crazy. I can't help but care about him."
The retired lawman even provides funds to send his 11-year-old godson, Ray, to private school.
At a weekly catch-up meeting the two have in Roberts' law practice in West Caldwell, N.J., Lucas turns to his pal to finish his sentences; when he forgets dates or names, Roberts fills in the blanks. Roberts translates Lucas' warbled North Carolina drawl for strangers.
"He's my boss, my companion, my friend. He's a great man," Lucas says of Roberts, with out-of-character tenderness.
Roberts checks on Lucas' Dunkin' Donuts "light and sweet" coffee to make sure it has artificial sweetener.
But since signing their life stories over to Universal Studios, both men have become mini-celebrities - and old feelings have surfaced.
Lucas doesn't hold a grudge. "It was all part of the game; it was inevitable that I was arrested," he says.
But he is still angry about the arrest of his parents, whose home became wrapped up in the case. That "just wasn't right," he complains.
Roberts, meanwhile, worries that when the film opens Nov. 2, Lucas will be celebrated - not scorned.
"When the movie started [filming], he kind of reverted back to being Frank Lucas the drug lord," said Roberts. "And I started getting the old feeling of being a narc. It created some tension between us during the movie."
Roberts understands why some might see Lucas in a heroic light, as he told The Post earlier this year.
"Frank was probably the first black man to intrude upon a white man's world. He cornered the drug market; the wiseguys had to come to him. And in some perverted way, I think Denzel appreciated that.
"Look, I'm Jewish, and there's part of me that appreciates Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel," he said. "Which is ridiculous, but I can't help it. And I think that Denzel appreciated that a black man was able to do that, and that whitey had to come to him to get his products.
"So at the beginning I think he wanted to play him almost like a black 'Godfather.' There's a duality there. On the one hand, here's this poor, uneducated black kid out of nowhere who was able to build this empire. On the other hand, he built it on the bodies of his own people."
It's hard not to get caught up in the former criminal's charisma. Washington, who spent three weeks with Lucas, was so taken with the aging gangster that he gave him the money to buy a Buick Park Avenue.
"He nailed that sucker," Lucas said of the Oscar-winning actor. "He was into me and we stayed together for three weeks before they started filming. It just clicked."
Lucas certainly talks like a man elevated - if not vindicated - by history.
"I've been glorified all my life," he says. "It's no different now."
Link!
