Bamboozled

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Authors: Joe Biel
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    Joey says he did this everyday—with five to ten players per week. It was 1986, now known as the hottest time in history for sports memoribilia. Joey would coordinate moving cars for players down to Florida for them to use during spring training. Eventually Davis would be calling Joey from Atlanta to ask for help getting a breakaway back board installed in his backyard. Joey claims he would call Reebok, convince them to pay for it, and pocket all of the cash. If he has no qualms admitting that he was performing these relatively sketchy moves on his rich “friends,” one might wonder what kind of books were cooking in the B.A.D. accounting.
    When Carlos Palomino visited Joey during this period he described that it felt like the guards were working for Joey, coming by to check in on them periodically, asking if either of them needed anything else. He says it didn’t feel like prison.

    In 1998 Joey was again summoned to the warden’s office. There, he found his father looking old and forlorn. His clothes hung loosely, like they belonged to someone else. The warden walked out and Joey’s father informed him that both he and Joey’s mother had cancer. His father had lung cancer and his mother had cancer of the blood.
    Supposedly, his father told him about watching his fights and wanting Joey to lose, “You were the fighter that I could never be and a father should not be jealous of his own son, but I was.”
    Joey’s father moved to Vegas and Joey tried to be closer to both parents. He had baseball players call his dad, mail him signed bats and balls, and had Darryl and Eric invite him to a Dodgers’ game.
    Joey’s mother remained in the hospital with a rare blood disorder. The doctor did not expect her to live more than three or four days. Joey called Carlos Palomino who contacted the California Department of Corrections. Joey explained to director Jim Gomez’s secretary, “I am in another state for saving the life of a correctional officer and I want a chance to kiss my mother before she passes.” Finally, hours later, Joey claims Gomez allowed him to visit his mother with the warning,“I am letting you go free for the day but if you run I will hunt you down!” And to his credit, it was one of the only opportunities to flee the authorities that Joey did not take.
    This is quite an exception as the law stated, “no convicted murderer will be released into society for any reason.” Joey headed to LA with Palomino where he found his mother in a coma distressingly hooked into numerous machines. She passed away the next day after Joey had returned to prison.

    Joey claims he began producing the TV show
Rapamania
as a coping mechanism for his mother’s death. He claims an attorney named Steve Shiffman, Carlos, and Harold Lipton asked him to promote the pay per view show where the country’s top hip hop artists performed. Joey claims he made a million dollars in 1988 and spent it all on clothes for other people’s kids.
    If the Reds were in New York Joey would call the Mets public relations department and claim to represent Eric Davis, requesting his hotel number. He’d ask Eric to tell Bobby Bonilla to expect his call. He convinced Eric to collect all the broken bats and equipment he could gather and leave it at the front desk where Joey would have FedEx pick it up the next day to send to a baseball shop that Joey had already sold it to that morning. If someone needed cars moved, tickets obtained, or jewelry bought, Davis would send them to Joey.
    Joey claims he was taking bets from Pete Rose, who would bet with the bookie, sending the money back to Jimmy Sacco. Joey claims Pete, as the Reds’ coach, would also connect him with players who needed tasks performed.
    A week after the holidays of 1988 when Carlos Palomino was asked about Joey’s prison cell management operation, Joey was featured on the
George Michael

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