Jon Roberts & Evan Wright - American Desperado- My Life from Mafia Soldier to Cocaine Cowboy to Secret Government Asset (epub).epub

n 2008 veteran journalist Evan Wright began a series of conversations with criminal Jon Roberts (née John Riccobono). Those conversations would last three years, during which time Wright came to realize that Roberts was much more than the de facto “transportation chief” of the Medellin Cartel during the 1980s, much more than a facilitator of a national drug epidemic. Roberts seemed to be a prodigy of criminality, but one with a remarkable self-awareness and a fierce desire to protect his son from following the same path. American Desperado is Roberts’ no-holds-barred account of being born into Mafia royalty, witnessing his first murder at the age of seven, becoming a soldier in Vietnam, returning to New York to become—at age 22—one of the city’s leading nightclub impresarios, then journeying to Miami where in a few short years he would rise to become the Medellin Cartel’s most effective smuggler. The roster of Roberts’ friends and acquaintances reads like a Who’s Who of the latter half of the 20th century and includes everyone from Jimi Hendrix, Richard Pryor, and O.J. Simpson to Carlo Gambino, Meyer Lansky, and Manuel Noriega. Nothing if not colorful, Roberts surrounded himself with beautiful women, drove his souped-up street car at a top speed of 180 miles per hour, shared his bed with a 200-pound cougar, and employed a 6”6” professional wrestler called “The Thing” as his bodyguard. Ultimately, Roberts became so powerful that he attracted the attention of the Republican Party’s leadership, was wooed by them, and even was co-opted by the CIA for which he carried out its secret agenda. Scrupulously documented and relentlessly propulsive, this collaboration between a bloodhound journalist and one of the most audacious criminals ever is a crime book that also reads like a dark social history of America.[1]