Navigated to Episode 3: What’s a Friend? - Transcript

Episode 3: What’s a Friend?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1

Pushkin.

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Previously on The Chinatownsting.

Speaker 2

Asian criminal groups are emerging on the American landscape.

Law enforcement authorities, particularly federal cannot afford to wait until these organizations have fully emmerged.

Speaker 3

If I had to summarize why these gangs exist, I can summarize it in one word.

Racism.

That is the cool.

The root of the issue is racism.

Speaker 4

Are you crying, Yeah, because that was mad.

Speaker 5

Not at yourself, not at the rules.

Speaker 4

Well, the whole thing everything.

Speaker 1

When Tina Wang was eleven years old, she met another kid with an incredible knack for getting others to do things they wouldn't normally do.

Tina remembers they met while they were playing a game they called Chinese jump rope.

Speaker 6

You put rubber bands together until you make a long rubber band and then you got to jump over it some like that.

Speaker 4

And then she came over with her friend.

They go, oh, what's your name.

Speaker 1

Wah was a year older than Tina.

She wore bell bottomed jeans.

She had shoes with big rubber soles called marshmallow shoes.

For Tina, it was friend love at first sight.

Speaker 4

Yeah, she was very cute.

How so she was just a very good looking.

Speaker 6

A lot of people said, you know, though she was good looking, she was good looking, and she was always uh stylish, and she was always fashionable.

Speaker 1

Wah's family had immigrated to the US from China when she was six.

That was right around nineteen sixty five, when ethnic immigration quotas were finally banned.

Wah's family lived in Little Italy, but she and Tina hung out in Chinatown, just a few blocks over.

They would go to the movies together or to the Chinatown Fair, which was actually an arcade.

Speaker 6

They had a like a ferris wheel for one, but we used to put like two people in there.

Speaker 7

Oh huh.

Speaker 4

It was like ten cents to go around.

Speaker 1

Uh huh.

Speaker 4

It was pretty fun.

Speaker 6

Wa has sisters and brothers, but her and her sister used to fight a lot, so I don't know, we just clicked.

Speaker 1

When she was little, Tina got picked on sometimes because she was one of the few Chinese kids at her school.

After immigration opened up, she got picked on sometimes by the new kids because she was only half Chinese.

But when she met Wah, she found her place.

Wah was the ring leader.

Speaker 6

Sometime we would go like uptown.

We would go shopping on fourteenth Street or thirty fourth Street.

Speaker 4

For what it's for, like clothes, and.

Speaker 6

Wall was like the direct of what we should wear.

Speaker 1

So you would go shopping and she'd be like, don't get that shirt, get this shirt.

Speaker 4

No, get this, it's nice, it looks good on you.

Well, cut your hair like this.

Speaker 6

She is a bossy person, but we didn't mind because she was funny.

She was fun to hang out with.

Speaker 8

You know.

Speaker 1

They sometimes got into some light trouble cutting school, smoking weed, getting rides in the back of some guy's truck, holding on with ropes.

What was your guys' reputation?

Speaker 6

We would the uh cool girls for the poor girls because we all didn't really have money.

Speaker 1

One time, their click was mentioned in one of the Chinatown newspapers.

It was just in passing.

Tina doesn't even remember exactly why, but she does remember that the reporter gave them a.

Speaker 6

Nickname they put in the newspaper, Pink Eagles, and we were laughing.

They go, who gave us that name?

Speaker 1

Why?

The pink Eagles?

Because did you guys even wear pink?

Speaker 2

No?

Speaker 1

You didn't like it.

Speaker 4

No, that's like so like for me, childish, I don't know.

Speaker 1

To Tina, it didn't sound as cool as the actual gang names, like, for example, the Flying Dragons.

As Tina talked about Wat, it made me think about how when you become friends with someone when you're growing up, they actually helped determine who you grow into.

And when that happens, there will always be a part of them in you, whether you like it or not.

I'm Lyddia Jean Cott.

This is the Chinatown Staying Episode three, What's a Friend.

When Tina and Wall were in their twenties, as sometimes happens with childhood best friends, they drifted out of touch, but then Wah reached out.

Speaker 6

She heard that I had a daughter, so I think she contacted me somehow.

She gave my daughter like a little bracelet, and then we started hanging back again.

Speaker 1

They were having fun in the Majan parlors, and soon Wah had a request Katina accept a package for Wall in the mail.

She'd pay her a lot.

Of course, the box is filled with heroin, but the money was good.

While invaded Tina on a trip to Asia with her, they actually met up with Johnny ng There aka Missie Sheen Gun Johnny or Onion Head, the leader of the powerful Flying Dragons Gang.

Tina says she wasn't that impressed.

Speaker 4

He was like Waa's friend.

I mean, he was nice.

Speaker 6

She bought us like drinks and stuff and took us like on a tour of Indonesia, which was.

Speaker 4

That's all right.

Speaker 1

After that trip, Tina started to get a bad feeling.

This time Wa was pulling her into a world she shouldn't be a part of, while was asking her to receive more and more packages, and Tina didn't want to.

Wah had gotten to bossy.

Speaker 6

And I just didn't want to take it no more.

So I just I guess she stopped calling me.

I stopped calling her.

Speaker 1

This was the only time they had ever really fought.

She thought they'd make up, but about five months later, federal agents showed up at Tina's door and they took her into custody.

She hoped WA would help her get a lawyer or something.

Speaker 6

She always said that she would help me if anything, and no help came, so I said okay.

Speaker 1

In jail, Tina ran into another woman from the Majong parlors.

That woman had cooperated and given up Tina's name.

She had agreed to accept packages because she had gambling debts and she was the mother of twin girls.

Tina forgave her.

Speaker 4

Well, I'm not going to hate her.

You know, she had to do she had to do.

Speaker 1

The question for Tina was would she also do what she had to do.

She didn't want to betray her old friend Waw.

She knew cooperating could be dangerous, but if she went to prison, she might not be reunited with her baby daughter for decades.

Speaker 6

Of course, you're going to take a chance, even if it's on your life, because when it comes to a kid, everybody's gonna choose their kid.

Speaker 1

But it's kind of a terrible choice because you could get killed and then you're not going to be there for your kid.

Speaker 4

Yeah, with those chances you take.

Speaker 1

The day after her arrest, Tina sat in the office a federal prosecutor, Beryl Howell.

They would face each other many times over the next few months.

As Tina was in custody.

Speaker 8

On March second, nineteen eighty eight, and March fourteenth, nineteen eighty eight, Tina Wong was debriefed in the Eastern District of New York.

Wong stated that she became friends with Wah at a young age.

In June of nineteen eighty seven.

Wong said Wa asked her if she would like to make some money by accepting male parcels from Hong Kong.

Wong further stated that Wa gave her a few days of advanced notice regarding the arrival of the mail parcel Wong.

Speaker 1

As Tina talked, Beryl listened intently.

She took handwritten notes with the blue pen.

Her questions in one column Tina's answers and the other column, you.

Speaker 9

Hope you're getting the whole story.

You do your best to get the whole story.

So you do the best you can with both carrots and sticks to ensure that you were getting You know the truth and the whole truth from cooperators.

Speaker 1

Beryl wanted to know more about Wall as a means to an end Her ultimate goal was to bring down Johnny Yang, the gangster she believed to be at the top of this heroin scheme, but to do that, Beryl would need lots of solid evidence against him.

All the people she had talked to so far were too low down in the operation to describe Johnny's role, even Tina.

But Beryl was pretty sure that Wall was different, that she took orders from Johnny directly, in part because she seemed to be the one directing all the women, and in part because her boyfriend Michael Yu was high up in the Flying Dragon's gang.

He went by the nickname Fox.

Speaker 9

The hope was that people had some direct contact with Johnny Yang would cooperate, and that would have been Wah or Michael U.

Speaker 1

So Beryl had Tina's statements about how she accepted these packages of heroin at Wah's direction.

Beryl had also obtained audio recordings of conversations between Wall and another woman who had accepted packages of heroin.

This woman had agreed to call Waw and tell her she had received a package while federal agents secretly recorded.

The actual recordings are gone, but we have the transcripts.

My co reporter Shu Yu Wang and I read them together.

You want to be Wall and I'll be the woman.

Okay, hello, hello, I got that thing at my house so fast.

Speaker 7

Huh.

Speaker 10

But listen, did you see the you know how speak pick Latin?

Speaker 1

You must be kidding.

Speaker 7

Yeah, that's to keep it safe.

Stupid.

Speaker 10

You know they might have a fucking transmitter or bug.

You never know, stupid.

Speaker 1

So yeah, as a lawyer, what would you think if you were reading this this wire toop whow smart?

Speaker 10

So, like, while this whole time was just trying to be very vague and not referring to anything, not using any names or terms, like that thing, put it in a bag, very vague instructions.

Speaker 7

To the other woman on the line, She's.

Speaker 10

Like, not really communicating any details about the delivery, about the drop off location, about what it is, even though we all know that is the drug packages.

Speaker 1

She's like, what about pig Latin?

So that way, I guess she could be like arowin, Hey.

Speaker 10

Yeah, she definitely have heard something or sence something that is going on.

Speaker 5

Yeah.

Speaker 1

So, through these wired taps and her conversations with Tina and other people, Beryl was gathering this evidence about Wall.

But I think she was also kind of like trying to figure out who this person is and what they're like.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 1

You know, Beryl was a lawyer at a time where it was still like not that common to be a female prosecutor.

And while was this woman who was like operating this business, this enterprise that was affiliated with the gangs, and there weren't very many other women doing that either.

Speaker 7

Maybe there's a level of resinance.

Speaker 9

Yeah, One thing in the back of my mind is how was she able to recruit all of these women to do it?

And what I found was that she was a fun, charismatic, dynamic individual and that's part of how she was able to do it, in addition to all the other factors that went into them opting to say yes all except package for ten to twenty thousand dollars or thirty.

Speaker 1

Every single person pretty much who knew why.

Most people did who I talked to you about this story talked about her like she was like this force, like really different from other people.

I talked to this one guy, a former gangster who I don't think i'd talked to wall for a long time.

I'm not sure, but as soon as I brought her up to him, he instantly remembered her She's.

Speaker 4

A very very pretty girl.

Speaker 11

Back then, everywhere you go, is you see her?

A matter of fact, can I show her the picture?

Speaker 1

He literally had a photo on his phone of her and it was like all ready to go, like he was just able to pull it up immediately, and it was a picture of her from the like nineteen eighties.

Speaker 7

Sounds like someone had a crush.

Speaker 1

And in the photo it's like her and her boyfriend Michael U known as Fox, and he's kind of like leaning back but towards her a little bit.

He's like a small guy, and she does look super cool.

She has kind of like a mullet style of haircut that I think was cool then, and like some like lip gloss, dangly earrings.

Definitely cool girl.

Speaker 7

She had a style.

Speaker 1

She just seems larger than life.

So yeah, everyone talked about Wall like she was special, and I think that's why we really wanted to find her.

Eventually, I found an address in Florida, and I glue to Florida by myself literally just to knock on this door.

Yes, and then this woman opened the door.

And I remember this because like she was wearing purple contacts.

She was absolutely beautiful in a bit like threw me off balances.

Okay, but yeah, Wah was not there, and I was like, this is it.

I've reached the end of the journey.

Speaker 7

But then what happened.

Speaker 1

At that house?

I got a phone number for a while, I called it and eventually she agreed to meet up.

Speaker 12

Don't call me on the weekends.

Okay, I'm out to the city at Lansa City.

If you need to go there you want to grow much.

Speaker 13

I can get to a room and.

Speaker 8

Where in the city.

Speaker 1

Yeah, we'll be right back.

I had heard so much about this woman wh who had convinced all these moms with young children to smuggle heroine.

I wanted to hear from her how and why she did it.

We're referring to her just as Wah because she asked us to only use her first name.

Speaker 3

She You.

Speaker 1

And I finally met her at a Peaking Duck restaurant in Chinatown.

I had put a lot of effort in trying to find a quiet place where we could talk.

Wah hated it.

Speaker 13

Next time go to a seven, saying, wow.

Speaker 1

That's a different restaurant that I apparently should have chosen.

Waw is in her sixties.

She has short, spiky hair.

She was wearing a leather jacket, tightish pants.

She has lots of gold jewelry and a dramatic white and beige manicure.

One person I talked to told me that her theme song should be the Madonna song Who's That Girl?

And she was absolutely living up to the hype.

It took us months to pin down a time to meet.

She canceled a few times because she said she had been up late the night before gambling.

Speaker 13

I'm already nervous, already.

Speaker 1

Let's start with why do you like gambling?

Speaker 13

Why do I?

Speaker 3

Who?

Speaker 12

I guess when you get older, you get bored, so nothing moves you, not even men.

Speaker 13

So that's my drenaline rush.

Speaker 12

That's my excitement, you know, like when you bet, when you place money, don't your heartbeat, that's the way it goes.

That's your adrenaline rush.

That's the rush you want.

You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 3

Yeah, you know?

Speaker 13

I should have quit.

Speaker 1

She did not quit.

Over the years, she's been betting more and more.

Speaker 13

I play football, baseball.

Speaker 5

Do you watch sports?

Speaker 6

No?

Speaker 13

Only if I bet?

Speaker 1

But why is true?

Passion?

It's still magong.

Speaker 12

It keeps your mind occupied.

You don't have to think about anything else.

All you do is look at your court and you know, focus on it so you can you can win.

Speaker 13

You want to win.

But if you play for money, that's like excitement.

If you play for fun, you'd rather go to sleep.

If you win, yeah, it's good.

Speaker 12

Oh I can't buy buy something now, I have a couple of hundred dollars.

But if you lose, you, oh my god, the win or help?

Speaker 13

Look at the money, right right right?

You got to go for revenge.

Speaker 1

I've heard that part of what makes masong fun is that it's an equal combination of skill and luck.

You can never predict what will happen next.

Speaker 5

How long does a game take for you or me?

Speaker 3

Yeah?

Speaker 13

I played like twenty four hours.

We're be talking about if you do.

Speaker 1

Not play twenty four hours?

Speaker 13

Do you sometime?

I don't sleep?

Speaker 1

What was comfortable talking to me?

And she you about gambling.

She also told us a bit about her family.

She has three kids.

Asked her about her past involvement with the gangs.

Suddenly she didn't know a lot.

Speaker 13

Wait, we just hang out with them because they are friends, and that's it.

That's why we would call gangs.

I don't know.

Speaker 1

I've heard from other former gang members that if you were a member of say the Flying Dragons, you couldn't even enter a gambling parlor operated by their rivals, the Ghost Shadows.

But from how Wall talked, it seemed like she didn't really care about these feuds.

Speaker 12

I practically hang out with all the gangs.

Almost where do you go to school, you know them.

All the gangs are like good kids.

They come out from the same school.

Speaker 13

You know them more.

Speaker 1

I've also heard that all the gang members were guys.

They had girlfriends of course, and wives, but the women didn't get involved with their activities.

Again, Wall was different.

Were there other women who were like as powerful as you were in like the.

Speaker 5

World of the gangs?

I don't think so You're the most powerful woman in the world of the gang.

Speaker 13

I think so.

Speaker 1

WA's boyfriend, Michael U aka Fox, was high up in the Flying Dragons.

He ran the gambling parlor on Pell Street, and that parlor was kind of like the gang's headquarters.

He also oversaw a bunch of other gambling parlors, including the Mahjong parlors in Chinatown.

Waw sometimes worked at that gambling parlor on Pell Street.

Her job was to get people to keep playing.

She also hung out in all the other parlors, so she knew everyone.

She knew who was in debt, whose house might be undergoing renovation, whose husband wasn't paying child support, who for whatever reason might be interested in receiving a package in the mail in exchange for a lot of money.

Speaker 12

First of all, you didn't think of nothing back then you're just thinking, oh, seize it'll make money.

Speaker 13

That was it, You know, you didn't think of the outcome.

Speaker 1

Waugh told us she feels terrible about bringing drugs into the country, but she does not feel bad for the woman who she brought into the scheme.

They wanted money and they knew they were taking a risk.

Speaker 13

If you're gonna make money, it must be something bad.

Speaker 12

So you got an idea ready.

You don't have to go into the detail.

Speaker 5

Do you remember when you got arrested?

What was that like?

Speaker 13

What's like?

What the hell?

I was gambling?

Speaker 1

On March first, nineteen eighty eight, the same day that Tina Wong was arrested, Wall was having a great day.

She won seven thousand dollars.

But as gonna happen in Majong and in life, she was about to lose it.

Speaker 12

All, I'm coming now, I'm looking amber house over there.

And then I woke around the corner and like five six white people, you know.

Speaker 13

Push me in the car.

Speaker 2

What the hell?

Speaker 13

Why?

Who are they?

You know?

Speaker 1

Right there?

Speaker 13

And then you don't.

Speaker 5

Know, you thought you were being kidnapped.

Speaker 12

Yeah, you walking down the street and there you go to call stop right next to you and then wow, a couple of guys come out and push you in the car just like that and take off.

Speaker 13

What the hell I thought they with the mafia, I don't know.

And then they drove me to the seaport.

Yeah, so I'm not getting dumped in the river.

Speaker 1

Just as they had threatened all the other women, the agents threatened Wah.

They told her that unless she told them everything she knew, she was facing decades in prison, she wouldn't be able to see her kids grow up.

But Wah was unmoved.

Speaker 13

I don't know.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 8

At approximately eight pm March first, nineteen eighty eight, Wah was arrested on the corner of Pell and Bowery Streets, New York, New York, by special agents Mattesser and Flood.

Wah was advised of her constitutional right, it's by Peter Mattesser and refused to make any statements.

Speaker 1

The next day, WA's boyfriend, Michael U, was also arrested.

Speaker 8

On March second, nineteen eighty eight.

Michael U was located at his residence when informed by Special Agency and that he was under arrest for importing heroin through the international mail.

You stated he quote never received any packages.

That was his girlfriends.

Speaker 1

Wah was taken to the mcc A jail right outside of Chinatown.

It's this huge, grayish building with tiny windows.

It looks kind of like a square death star.

The agents took Michael You there too, and Waugh was not thrilled to see him.

Speaker 5

When did you guys?

Break up?

Speaker 13

Will come ever since?

In there?

Speaker 5

Did you guys talk when you're in jail?

Speaker 2

Like?

Speaker 5

Were you like?

Did you see each other?

Speaker 13

Yeah?

Speaker 12

He was across the hall like you could see the window and window and I to talk to.

Speaker 13

Guys on the cycle.

I might still see you.

Speaker 1

Wah gives me a sly look, but you gotta pay.

Speaker 4

Mm hmmm.

Speaker 1

Did you get blounder them?

Speaker 13

Yeah?

We did a lot of people.

Speaker 5

What else are you gonna do?

Speaker 13

I lost a lot of money in there.

Speaker 10

Too.

Speaker 13

All the women, they got money.

Speaker 12

If you could lose four or five thousand there blank carts.

Speaker 1

It says a lot about Waw that it sounds like she actually liked being in jail.

Speaker 13

Oh I had a good time.

Yeah, I tell you a lot of the offices they liked me.

Yeah, they like me.

Yeah.

So I got a lot.

Speaker 12

I got everything I want, you know, And I could tell them to do whatever.

Speaker 13

You know, some of them they do for me.

Speaker 1

How do you get people to do whatever you want for you?

Speaker 13

Because I'm smart, convince them, you know.

Speaker 1

Federal authorities hoped that once Wall was in custody, she'd cooperate, but clearly that tactics didn't work, and Michael Yu, her boyfriend, wasn't talking either, So Prosecutor Beryl Howell convinced a grand jury to return in nineteen count indictment against them.

Maybe that would get them to turn.

Still, Waw did not budge.

Wa tells people what to do.

She doesn't let other people tell her what to do.

She and Michael U got fancy lawyers.

They were taking their case to trial.

Waugh was playing this one to win.

After Tina told Waugh she wasn't going to accept anywhere mail packages.

The next time she saw her was at her trial.

Waw, like Tina, was a mom.

Tina hoped that Waugh would understand that she was just doing what she had to do, but she couldn't be sure.

The proceedings began on August sixteenth, nineteen eighty eight.

Waugh was tried alongside her boyfriend Michael Yu, and four other people lower down in the scheme.

Beryl Howell gave the opening statement for the prosecution.

Speaker 9

This is a heroin spiggling case.

During the trial, you will hear how each of the six defendants participated in a scheme to smuggle into the United States from Hong Kong over one hundred and fifty pounds of heroin.

Wah and Michael Yu were the ring leaders of this operation.

Speaker 1

For Beryl, of course, the goal of this trial was for Waw and Michael U to be found guilty, because then she hoped they would agree to testify against the person she believed was really at the top of this heroin importation scheme, Johnny ing onion Head.

Speaker 7

What does Barrel remember about a trial?

Speaker 1

What Beryl remembers about the trial was that it was really far away, way out in long Island, and she even had to get a hotel.

And remember she was new on the job, so she was by herself doing this really complicated trial with six defendants.

Speaker 9

You know, I was accustomed to trying cases in Brooklyn, where you know, just walking down the hall, I could say I could toss ideas around or say this just happened.

What did I do wrong?

I what do I need to do to fix it?

But in Hoppog, I was sort of by myself out there doing it, and there were no computers, so I remember, like at night, when there were emotions being filed by the defense attorneys, I had to hand right my responses.

Speaker 1

So she was lawyer was Gerald Lefcourt.

He's a very experienced trial lawyer.

And I printed out his opening statement because I'm curious what you think about it.

Speaker 10

Okay WA's council stated, this is a case about Chinatown.

I don't know how many of you have visited Chinatown, but it is a town that's late.

In Chinatown, there are gangs, there is prostitution, there is gambling on levels that are very different than you or I understand.

It has an old history and an old culture.

You will hear in this trial proof about ancient Chinese games.

Speaker 1

What do you think about it?

It's so dramatic.

Speaker 7

It's so dramatic.

Speaker 1

Like you said, in Chinatown, there's gangs, there's prostitution, there's gambling on levels that are different than you or I can understand.

Speaker 10

Now I'm imagining like a jury of mostly non Asian people.

Speaker 1

It feels like he's talking to all white people who maybe, yeah, have never been to a Chinatown.

Speaker 10

I guess like he was trying to build up some financial hardship that eventually pushed him into this position, Like you got to got into the culture and the background in the community to understand why are people doing this to create like a defense for his client.

Speaker 1

Yeah, so Beryl was basically the only female lawyer in the courtroom.

The lawyers for all the six defendants were men and David she and the US Customs agent told me that what's it out to him was this one moment that happened between Beryl and Fox's lawyer.

Speaker 11

I think I was on the witness stand and he actually patted Beryl on the top of her head like in a very condescending way, like thanks, little girl, you don't go back to your table, And she handled it so professionally.

But she said, if you ever do that to me again, you'll regret it.

Speaker 1

David Chan was like, heck, yeah, you're gonna regret it, and he was going to make sure of that.

And he said that he noticed that all the defense lawyers were getting paid in cash in the parking lot.

If you're getting paid in cash, there's like a form that you're supposed to fill out to report it because you're supposed to pay taxes on that, and he had a feeling that they were maybe not filling out that form.

Speaker 7

Sounds like gangster of affairs.

Speaker 1

That Burrell was so not paying attention.

She had just like totally moved on.

Speaker 9

So I was like just focused on making my arguments, you know, the best I could, getting my evidence in front of the jury.

You know, all the other noise around me was something I probably just considered noise, and the head patting I probably considered noise annoying noise.

Speaker 7

Yeah, she know what job she's at there for.

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Beryl introduced her witnesses, and you know, one of her star witnesses was, of course Tina, who was going to testify about how Waugh had asked her to accept these packages of Heroin.

Based on the transcripts, it seems like the Tina that was on the stand is the Tina that we know, especially when on cross one of the lawyers was trying to discredit her by being like he said, Jerry her, you know, don't you play majong?

And she said yes, and he said, isn't that an illegal gambling game?

And then she said Jewish people play, and then he had to be like, oh yeah, my grandmother plays majong.

Speaker 7

Oh wow.

Speaker 1

And I feel like a snappy retort like that is very is very Tina.

Speaker 10

If she holds the same image on the stand as how she was talking to us.

She seemed calm and put together enough to be a convincing witness from what we have observed.

Speaker 1

And I agree, when she's talking to you, it does seem like she's not embellishing what she's saying is true, but she does often give you the feeling that she's not telling you everything.

And Tina was different than a lot of the women who had been pulled into this scheme.

A lot of the women accepted these packages of heroin because they had gambling debts.

But I actually talked to Tina and she said that she wasn't in debt.

That wasn't the reason.

Speaker 6

First of all, it's friendship is my friend and we're in it all together.

Speaker 4

So and then money, yeah, and then the money.

Speaker 1

So Tina did it because it was Wall who asked her, and she thought that it would maybe make them closer.

Speaker 4

She was a good friend.

Speaker 1

Do you think in a way she was trying to look out for you when she offered you the package opportunity?

Speaker 4

I think so.

Speaker 6

I mean it was I'm the one that has to think should I do that?

I'm not, But you know, I think she was looking out.

She wanted me to make money.

She thought she made money and I made money, that we'd be happy.

And we were for a little a little while.

Speaker 1

When Tina was on the stand talking about how Wall had brought her into this scheme, she could actually see Wah's face.

Speaker 6

I could tell she was kind of mad.

So I felt kind of bad because we used to be friends.

Speaker 1

Do you think she was hurt or just mad or like, what were her feelings for I think both.

I think she thought that Wall would understand and we talked to Wall about what it was like when she was in the courtroom, and she thought Tina while Tina was testifying, of.

Speaker 13

Course you don't like it, but what can you do?

Speaker 5

Was your friendship over then?

Speaker 12

I haven't told her since I don't what's her friend?

Speaker 13

I don't even have a number.

Speaker 1

She seemed over it.

She seemed like she was like Tina.

Speaker 7

Who Tina, who don't even have her number?

Speaker 1

But I still don't think Tina regrets meeting while.

Speaker 6

You know what, I have none bad to say about Hull because she was a good friend.

It's just that we both chose the wrong road, you know.

And then after all this happened, she went her way and I went my way.

Speaker 1

The trial of Waw and the others took about two weeks, and based on the outcome, it seems like Tina was a convincing witness.

On August thirty first, nineteen eighty eight, Wah and her boyfriend Michael Yu were both found guilty of conspiring to just to heroin and possessing what the intent to distribute, and because of the mandatory minimums, they were facing at least ten years in prison.

After they were found guilty, Waw held out for a few more months, but faced with the prospect of a decade maybe more in prison, and the end, both she and Fox decided to cooperate.

Speaker 9

Michael you saw the writing on the wall, so that's when he decided to flip, and you get the benefit of a cooperation agreement to lower the time he was facing in jail.

Speaker 1

So Beryl started to interview her two new cooperating witnesses to get to the top of the ladder.

She was gathering the information she needed to fashion an indictment against Johnny.

But Johnny most likely had someone watching the federal docket for him.

That's this calendar of court proceedings.

Back in those days, you had to go to the clerk's office to see it in person.

Whoever was watching could see that the next proceed for WAW and Michael Yu were not on the schedule.

If you're Johnny, you know that this can only mean one thing.

Speaker 9

As soon as he found out that Wah and Michael Yu had flipped.

Speaker 4

He fled.

Speaker 1

Johnny Yang was nowhere to be found, and everyone who had agreed to testify against him or about his scheme was now in danger.

Coming up next on the chinatownsting.

Speaker 9

My reaction at the time was, oh my god.

You know, I hope nobody on my watch got hurt and did I miss something?

Did the agents miss something?

About her security?

Speaker 1

The chinatownstan is written and produced by Me Lidy agin Kot and reported by me and Shu yu Wang.

Your producer is Emily Martinez, additional production by Sonya Gerwit.

Our editor is Julia Barton, with additional editing by Karen Shakherji.

Our story consultant is wrong Shau Chang.

Our executive producer is Jacob Smith.

Our music was composed by John Sung, sound design and additional music by Jake Gorski.

Our fact checker is Kate Ferby, and our show art was designed by Sean Karney.

All voiceover work by Tally Leong.

For more information about this episode, check out our show notes or visit Pushkin dot fm slash Chinatown.

The ton of Toown Stang is a production of Pushkin Industries.

To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts.

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