00:00:02
Danny Egipciaco: My name is Danny Egipciaco. I'm from Brooklyn, New York. Phoebe Judge: In 2005, Danny Egipciaco was
at work when he got a phone call from a stranger.
00:00:10
The man said he'd gotten Danny's number from
a mutual friend, and that he had something
00:00:14
important to talk to him about. They agreed to meet up at a pizza place on
New York's Lower East Side.
00:00:20
Danny Egipciaco: I mean, I pulled up to a
pizzeria. He jumped in the car and he just pretty much
got right to it.
00:00:26
He said, "Listen, I got your number from such
and such. And I have a proposition for you."
00:00:30
And I was like, "OK, go ahead." And he just proceeded with basically telling
me what the plan was.
00:00:35
Phoebe Judge: The guy's name was Jimmy Burgos. Danny Egipciaco: He was a disgruntled drug
courier that was no longer satisfied with
00:00:43
the arrangement he had with his supplier. He was attempting to get his supplier robbed
of some drugs.
00:00:50
Phoebe Judge: And what did he want you to
do? Danny Egipciaco: He basically was propositioned
to me that I get a team of individuals together
00:00:59
to pull this off, basically. Phoebe Judge: Four years earlier, when Danny
was 21, he'd been arrested for possession
00:01:06
of cocaine and was sentenced to five years
probation. So, he was still under probation when Jimmy
called.
00:01:14
But Danny says he was willing to hear him
out. Danny Egipciaco: Everything was coming into
play as far as my financials at the moment,
00:01:21
you know what I mean? And my safety, and so many things were just
playing in my head.
00:01:25
I couldn't just sit there and say, "Tomorrow,
yeah, come on, let's go. We can make this happen," or whatever.
00:01:29
Phoebe Judge: Did he say how much he was going
to pay you? Danny Egipciaco: Well, he was basically saying
that we was going to split whatever came,
00:01:36
half and half. Phoebe Judge: And how much money would that
have been? What would that look like?
00:01:42
Danny Egipciaco: It was going to be more than
$100,000. Automated Message: This call is from a federal
prison.
00:01:48
Phoebe Judge: More than $100,000. That's a lot of money. Danny Egipciaco: Yes, definitely.
00:01:54
And $100,000 is low-balling it because at
the end of the day, if it's 10 keys at potentially
00:01:59
wholesale, let's say $20,000 a key, that's
over $200,000. So just the potential of the money that was
there was the only thing that was even keeping
00:02:08
me like, "OK, maybe this is something that
can happen." I don't know. I was open to hearing him out further.
00:02:16
This phone's about to hang up, though. So I've got to — I'll call you back. [Crosstalk.]
00:02:19
Phoebe Judge: Call back as soon as you can,
OK? And we lost the call. Because he's in federal prison, Danny can
only use a telephone for 15 minutes at a time,
00:02:27
with a one-hour break in between. And when you do talk to him, that automated
message bursts in all the time, making sure
00:02:34
you absolutely know that the person calling
you is incarcerated. He called us back an hour later and continued
the story.
00:02:41
Danny Egipciaco: The next day I went to work,
and while I was at work, the next day, he
00:02:44
ended up calling me again on my cell phone. Kind of saying, "Hey, I want to meet up with
you again.
00:02:50
Were you able to talk to any of your people?" And I was like, "Yeah, kind of, sort of, but
I still
00:02:55
need more information. And I'm working right now." He's just like, "All right, well just meet
up with me tonight.
00:03:01
And we could talk some more, or whatever. Maybe bring one of your guys with you or whatever.
00:03:05
And we could talk about it further." Phoebe Judge: They agreed to meet a second
time.
00:03:10
And according to Danny, he went to that second
meeting just to continue talking it over.
00:03:15
So he was surprised when he showed up and
Jimmy said they needed to go rob the cocaine
00:03:19
supplier right then. Danny Egipciaco: And I'm just like, "Wow,
this is short notice, basically.
00:03:24
I'm not really prepared. I told you I needed more information." And he just continued to just tell me, "Look,
this is an easy thing.
00:03:31
Don't worry about it. Just come through and see the scenery. And it shouldn't be a problem.
00:03:36
Do you have a gun with you now?" There was actually a gun in the car, which
was located in a compartment in the backseat.
00:03:44
Phoebe Judge: Jimmy said they needed to drive
uptown, and told Danny to park in the parking
00:03:49
lot of a McDonald's on 34th Street. Danny Egipciaco: Well, all along, I'm just
saying I'm not committing a crime by going
00:03:54
to see what's going on. In my mind, up until the point that I kick
a door down and held a gun to somebody and
00:04:01
take something from them, I'm not committing
no crime. So, when I go to meet him at the parking lot,
as soon as I parked my car, we was ambushed
00:04:12
by ATF and DEA. And I've been locked up ever since, basically. Phoebe Judge: Danny's car was completely surrounded
by various law enforcement officers: the DEA,
00:04:25
the ATF, NYPD, and the State Drug Enforcement
Task Force. They'd been waiting for him.
00:04:31
And he was arrested for conspiracy to commit
robbery. Katie Tinto: A conspiracy charge is attaching
punishment or criminal liability to the agreement
00:04:42
to commit a crime. Phoebe Judge: Katie Tinto is a former public
defender who now studies policing at New York's
00:04:47
Cardozo School of Law. Katie Tinto: Obviously we punish you once
you commit the crime, right?
00:04:53
You rob something, you steal something, you
attack someone. We also punish you if you attempt to do it,
right?
00:04:59
You attempt to kill someone. You attempt to do a robbery. Conspiracy is even earlier in the timeline.
00:05:05
If you think about it in that way, is that
we then punish you for agreeing and starting
00:05:10
to plan to commit a crime. Phoebe Judge: But what if you changed your
mind? Katie Tinto: That's the critique of the conspiracy
charge.
00:05:19
That maybe someone is all talk and bravado. Maybe the violence that they say they'd be
willing to carry out, actually, the person
00:05:27
wouldn't carry out in real life. When you attach liability earlier in the process,
yes, there is some risk that you're getting
00:05:35
people who might not have actually carried
these serious crimes through. Phoebe Judge: And in Danny's case, there's
this whole other layer of weirdness and complexity.
00:05:44
Danny Egipciaco: It was all imaginary. Phoebe Judge: Not only did Danny not go through
with the robbery, there's no way he ever could
00:05:52
have. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Katie Tinto: First off, the entire plot is
imaginary.
00:06:11
So the drugs that are supposedly in the stash
house are imaginary. The disgruntled drug courier who wants to
rob his dealer is an undercover agent.
00:06:23
And so you have these people who are brought
together, by this opportunity that the undercover
00:06:28
agent presents, for something that didn't
actually exist before the undercover agent
00:06:34
suggested this crime. Phoebe Judge: Jimmy, acting on behalf of the
task force, had made the whole thing up.
00:06:40
And all he had to do was get Danny to agree. It's called a reverse sting or a stash house
sting.
00:06:46
Katie Tinto: And that's kind of a shorthand
for when the government acts as the person
00:06:52
who sets up the sting, or for example, the
seller. As opposed to if an undercover officer is
buying drugs from someone.
00:06:58
If he's the seller, that's called a reverse
sting. And a stash house is a form of a reverse sting
because they're the ones setting all the terms,
00:07:06
right? They set the amount, they set the factors,
what you need to do. Phoebe Judge: Did Jimmy ever wear a wire?
00:07:14
Danny Egipciaco: Yeah. There's two conversations that were had inside
of the vehicle, were both recorded.
00:07:20
Phoebe Judge: OK. So that's how they could kind of say, "Listen,
you were intending to do this."
00:07:26
Danny Egipciaco: Yeah. Basically when at the time, I mean, I'm speaking
to what I assumed was a criminal.
00:07:32
So the things that I'm saying to him, the
boasting, or the agreement, is just me yes-ing
00:07:38
him in a sense of, I'm not thinking I could
literally go to jail just to sit here and
00:07:45
tell this person, "Oh yeah, sure. All right. I'll look into it. Yeah. I'll think about it."
00:07:51
In all reality, I was just trying to get the
conversation over with, and be able to go
00:07:53
back to where I was at, and sit with my own
thoughts. And really be able to analyze the situation.
00:08:02
And I guess the fact that there was a gun
inside of the car made it further seem like
00:08:06
we was prepared to pull this off, had this
opportunity been real. Phoebe Judge: Because of the nature of confidential
informants, we don't know what Jimmy's instructions
00:08:16
were, or if he was told to target Danny specifically. We can see from court records that Jimmy had
been indicted on drug charges of his own,
00:08:26
and appears to have avoided a more substantial
prison sentence by agreeing to cooperate with
00:08:31
the government. Katie Tinto: The confidential informant finds
people willing to do this, right?
00:08:36
They go out and search for people who are
vulnerable to this opportunity. So that makes it a little bit more problematic
than a lot of undercover policing where they
00:08:45
hear about a defendant, or a suspect, wanting
to do a crime first. Phoebe Judge: Katie Tinto has seen cases in
which the confidential informants end up working
00:08:54
really hard to convince their targets to say
yes. Katie Tinto: I know of one case where the
person started to resist a little, the suspect
00:09:01
seemed to be kind of getting cold feet. And then the undercover agent said, "I'll
change the split."
00:09:07
Meaning, "I'll take less of a share of the
imaginary drugs and you can have more of it."
00:09:12
So again, making it more of an enticing opportunity. Phoebe Judge: All the informant needs is agreement.
00:09:17
Then, their work is done, and their target
is in very big trouble. Before his trial, the prosecution offered
Danny a deal: plead guilty and serve 15 years
00:09:27
in federal prison. Danny Egipciaco: I'm like, "I'm going to sign
15 years of my life away for something that
00:09:32
I really never did." I mean, just for having a conversation with
somebody, and showing up to a location, and
00:09:38
I'm going to sign away 15 years of my life. I'm like, "No, I'm going to go pick my jury,
and I'm going to let the jury find me guilty."
00:09:44
Phoebe Judge: Danny's lawyer wanted him to
take the deal. Danny Egipciaco: One of his favorite lines
was, "The feds could indict a ham sandwich."
00:09:52
Phoebe Judge: But Danny wanted his day in
court. Alida Egipciaco: It was horrible.
00:10:00
I mean, you can only imagine my struggle to
keep myself together in the courtroom.
00:10:08
Phoebe Judge: Danny's mother, Alida. Alida Egipciaco: He kept telling me, "Don't
worry, mom, nothing is really going to happen
00:10:14
here because this was all a set-up. There were no drugs involved. So they really don't have a case on me."
00:10:23
Phoebe Judge: So he was pretty confident that
someone would figure out this was a big mistake.
00:10:29
And it would just be a big mistake. And he would come home. Alida Egipciaco: He was very, very confident
that that was the case.
00:10:39
And that's why he decided to go to court,
and through the jury system, and all that.
00:10:44
Because he felt very confident that someone
was going to see through this. And yes, that he will be released.
00:10:53
Phoebe Judge: At the trial, the prosecution
explained to the jury that because Danny was
00:10:59
on probation, he should not have had a gun. And they presented other items found in Danny's
car: gloves, the ski mask, and two hats.
00:11:08
The jury deliberated for two hours. Danny was found guilty, and sentenced to 25
years in prison.
00:11:15
You've been in prison now for —
Automated Message: This call is from a federal prison.
00:11:19
Phoebe Judge: You've been in prison now for
a decade? Danny Egipciaco: Yeah, over 10 years.
00:11:23
Phoebe Judge: He went in at age 25, and he'll
come out when he's 50. When you meet new people, how do you explain
what happened to Danny?
00:11:34
Alida Egipciaco: When I meet new people, I
don't usually talk about my son. I think that's a way of sort of protecting
myself, because I find that every time I mention
00:11:46
him, everything keeps coming back. And that affects me a lot. Emotionally, I mean, physically.
00:11:54
I've had to stop driving because I'm very
nervous. So I try to put it, I won't say on the back
burner, but just out there somewhere, where
00:12:06
it doesn't affect my job and the things that
I have to do. Phoebe Judge: Reverse sting cases often carry
long prison sentences because the defendant
00:12:17
is charged for the full quantity of the imaginary
drugs. And drug charges often have mandatory minimums.
00:12:24
Add a gun or a previous conviction into the
mix, and you're looking at a very long time
00:12:29
behind bars. From the government's point of view, what
are they hoping to achieve?
00:12:35
Is the whole point here getting dangerous
people off the streets, stopping the crime
00:12:41
before it could potentially start? "These people," they say in their heads, "These
people might not have committed the crime
00:12:47
yet, but they're on their way to committing
the crime. And this way we can stop them before any more
harm is done"?
00:12:52
Katie Tinto: Yes, that's the argument. That these are people who, frankly, did agree
to commit the crime, right?
00:12:59
They did show up on that last day. They did bring weapons. They were able to
find guns, either in their possession already
00:13:06
or through the black market. And so these are people who, because they
are legally guilty of offenses — possession
00:13:13
of a gun, conspiracy charges — they deserve
to be punished. It's a different question, I think, to say,
"Is this how we want to catch criminals?
00:13:24
Is this how we want to punish people? And imprison people?" It's a different type of policing to suggest
that we should catch people who are about
00:13:34
to commit crimes, or we know are very close
to committing crimes, or will commit crimes.
00:13:39
Versus who can we tempt to commit a crime? Danny Egipciaco: You've got to find yourself
a routine, because there's nothing set.
00:13:46
I mean, you wake up, breakfast may be at six
o'clock in the morning. And then from there, I personally go to work
out.
00:13:54
I got my hour of workout in in the morning. Then I come back and get to my emails, and
things of that nature.
00:14:00
You get leisure time, and things of that nature. I mean, three hots and a cot is what they
tell you.
00:14:08
That's pretty much the only thing that's guaranteed
here. Phoebe Judge: Three meals and a bed.
00:14:11
Danny Egipciaco: Yeah, pretty much. Phoebe Judge: In prison, Danny has spent a
lot of his time reading legal books, and trying
00:14:17
to find ways to appeal his case. He also started a website called reversesting.org,
where he's collected testimonials from other
00:14:25
men in his situation. Is there anyone else there at your same facility
that's been charged with the same thing?
00:14:30
Danny Egipciaco: Actually, I have an individual
that I'm a roommate with — I'm in a 12-man
00:14:34
dorm — and one of the individuals that I'm
here with is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
00:14:39
And he just recently received 15 years for
the same type of crime. Phoebe Judge: Do you ever think about what
if you had gotten kind of a last minute text
00:14:48
message or phone call from your girlfriend
saying, "Hey, I need you to come" — I mean,
00:14:53
if something had happened and you hadn't taken
that drive? Danny Egipciaco: It is what it is.
00:14:59
Harboring ill will, and sitting here, and
stressing myself out about what has happened
00:15:04
is not going to get me anywhere. I continue to fight, I continue to improve
myself mentally, physically, spiritually.
00:15:12
And I just continue to make myself a better
person, so that when I get out there, I'm
00:15:15
prepared to make better decisions at the end
of the day. Phoebe Judge: I would imagine sitting where
you are, to dwell on what could have happened
00:15:22
would actually maybe drive you crazy. Danny Egipciaco: I mean, yeah. I mean, a lot of things could drive you crazy.
00:15:26
The fact that I have a niece and a nephew
that I've never spent any time with. The fact that I'm not there to
help my mother out financially, or to be there
00:15:38
and spend time with my brothers, or my family. And not be able to pursue my dreams.
00:15:43
And there's so many things that I could think
about, that could sit here and agitate me,
00:15:47
and drive me crazy. But, I choose not to dwell on that. Phoebe Judge: His mother Alida visits him
as much as possible.
00:15:56
And they talk on the phone every single day. Alida Egipciaco: My thing is, God knows why
this happened.
00:16:06
Let him be the judge. Let him be the one that decides what's going
to happen in Danny's case.
00:16:15
And everybody else's case that was involved. Particularly that C.I. that set him up.
00:16:23
Phoebe Judge: Do you have fantasies ever about
the day that he gets out, and what you'll
00:16:27
do on that first day? Alida Egipciaco: Constantly. Constantly, I see him coming in through the
door, and that's what I pray God, to let me
00:16:37
live enough to see that day when he walks
through this door. And there will be a party that weekend.
00:16:44
Definitely will be a big party. We're looking forward to that. Phoebe Judge: Criminal is produced by Lauren
Spohrer and me.
00:16:58
Engineering help from Rob Byers and Russ Henry. Julienne Alexander makes original illustrations
for each episode of Criminal.
00:17:06
You can see them at thisiscriminal.com. Criminal is recorded in the studios of North
Carolina Public Radio, WUNC.
00:17:13
We're a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX,
a collective of the 13 best podcasts around.
00:17:20
Shows like Radio Diaries. Criminal listeners might especially enjoy
their episode "Serving 9 to 5," in which they
00:17:27
give tape recorders to prison guards at the
Polk Youth Institution here in North Carolina.
00:17:33
It's a fascinating behind-the-scenes look
at what it's like to spend so much of your
00:17:37
life behind bars, because that's how you pay
your bills. Go listen. Radiotopia from PRX is supported by the Knight
Foundation and MailChimp, celebrating creativity,
00:17:47
chaos, and teamwork. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Jingle: Radiotopia, from PRX.