I vividly recall coming home from school when I was thirteen years old to find two brown Ford Crown Victorias in our driveway at the home we lived in on a mountain road bordering the Russian River in Northern California. I walked in the house and found four armed men in suits standing inside while my mother was quickly packing some suitcases. These men were FBI agents that came to take me and my mother away as there was a “hit squad” on the way to kill us. This was to keep my father from turning state’s evidence and testifying against their gang’s drug activity. It seems my father had acquired a large gambling debt with these nefarious characters. They presented him with the choice of a crippling beating and still owe the debt or cooperate with them in a smuggling operation they ran bringing marijuana into the country via Mexico and pay off the debt that way. My father, being a somewhat sensible person, along with the fact that he didn’t relish the thought of being back in a body cast, chose the second option.
The drug runners took him down to Mazatlan, Mexico, and set him up with a new four wheel drive pickup truck with a large cab over camper on the back, a twenty six foot cabin cruiser boat that had the flotation tanks removed and the hull filled with packaged marijuana. He was given fake vehicle registrations for both the truck and boat in case they were checked at the border. He was also provided with a fake American wife and child. His instructions were to drive his “new” family back into the United States at the border crossing at Nogales, Arizona, drop off his “family” and then proceed to Las Vegas, Nevada, and deliver the truck and boat to them.
The border crossing went without a hitch. Leo was used to impersonating people, so posing as a vacationing family man coming back home from a fishing trip to Mexico was easy for him. The border guard didn’t even think twice about this friendly guy who confidently answered all his questions about their trip without the slightest evidence of being nervous or guilty about anything. After they crossed the border, Leo dropped off the woman and child as instructed in Nogales and proceeded on his journey.
It was a long drive and this gave him time to think, way too much time, as it turned out. Somewhere between Nogales and Phoenix he had set upon a plan. When he arrived in Phoenix he quickly found some individuals of ill repute who were more than happy to buy the contents of the floatation tanks at a discounted price. They even helped him find a business associate of theirs to buy the truck and boat. With his newly ill gotten gain he flew to Reno, Nevada, and over a seventy two hour gambling binge he managed to lose it all at the tables.
After sleeping off the gambling binge he decided that the only thing to do was walk into the FBI offices in Reno and tell them his story. It was that or end up in a landfill somewhere. The FBI offered him total immunity if he would allow himself to be wired and then go back to the drug gang and set them up so as to implicate them in their drug activity. They gave him a story about how he had had fallen asleep at the wheel while driving north on Highway 93 between Kingman and Lake Mead. He was told to say that when he was awakened when the trucks wheels dropped off the pavement he had over corrected and flipped the boat and trailer. They then said to say that he had panicked and buried the drugs in the desert near Grasshopper Junction and that then he abandoned the truck.
Leo pulled off the biggest con of his life when he convinced the gang to go with him to dig up the drugs at a location that the FBI had planted a large stash of marijuana. After they dug up the stash the FBI swooped in and arrested the entire bunch including Leo. It wasn’t long until the leaders of the gang figured out that my father was the result of their problems. This is where the four agents at my home in Healdsburg tie in. The result was three years in the witness protection program and repeated relocation across northern California and Nevada.
I think growing up in this type of environment led to my unique sense of humor as that is how we dealt with stress in our family. We laughed at adversity it as it did no good to get depressed or sad about the uncontrollable circumstances we were thrust into. My British mother’s dry sense of humor and my dad’s love of adventure have led to my being the solid, happy go lucky, completely normal person that I am. I have also been told I live in my own imaginary world. That is fine with me as I like my world more than the supposedly normal one everyone else is in. Humor turned out to be my link to sanity.
The best thing that happened from this adventure is that the final destination from our “protected” journey was Escondido, Ca. where I was fortunate enough to meet my beautiful bride and the reason this blog exists Angie. Thanks FBI, you changed my life forever.