Download American Desperado: My Life - From Mafia Soldier to Cocaine Cowboy to Secret Government Asset AudioBook Free
In 2008 veteran journalist Evan Wright, acclaimed for his New York Times best-selling e book Generation Kill and co-writer of the Emmy-winning HBO series it spawned, commenced some conversations with super-criminal Jon Roberts, legend of the fabulously successful documentary Cocaine Cowboys. Those conversations would last 3 years, during which time Wright came up to understand that Roberts was much more than the de-facto "transportation key" of the Medellin Cartel through the 1980s, much more than a facilitator of any national drug epidemic. As Wright's tape recorder whirred and Roberts unburdened himself of hundreds of jaw-dropping stories, it became clear that perhaps nobody in history had broken so many laws with such willful get away from. Roberts, in reality, appeared to be a prodigy of criminality - but one with a impressive self-awareness and a fierce desire to safeguard his child from following a same path. American Desperado is Roberts' no-holds-barred consideration of being created into Mafia royalty, witnessing his first murder at age seven, learning to be a hunter-assassin in Vietnam, returning to New York to be -- at years 22 -- one of the city's leading nightclub impresarios, then journeying to Miami where in a few brief years he would rise to be the Medellin Cartel's most reliable smuggler. But that's just about half the tale. The roster of Roberts' friends and acquaintances reads like a Who's Who of the second option 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. Little or nothing if not colorful, Roberts encircled himself with beautiful women, drove his souped-up road car at a top velocity of 180 kilometers per hour, shared his bed with a 200-pound cougar, and utilized a 6"6" professional wrestler called "FINISHED ." as his bodyguard. In the end, Roberts became so powerful that he seduced the attention of the Republican Party's command, 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 like no other criminal offense book you've ever read. Jon Roberts would be the only offender who altered the span of American history.
