♪
-Few have what it takes to work undercover,
living in secrecy and constant danger,
unrecognized beyond their tightest circles.
Undercovers put some of the worst criminals behind bars,
but they never get to tell their stories...
until now on...
♪
-On April 13, 2016,
the FBI released this undercover footage of Patrick Cannon,
the sitting mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina,
taking a bribe.
-This whole case started with the simplest of buys,
a stripper and a very small amount of cocaine,
and ended with the mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina
being arrested.
Charlotte as a city grew up fast.
It went from a bunch of farmlands to a city like that.
The nightlife in Charlotte grew as the city grew,
and it grew fast, as well.
You have everything from 10 plus strip clubs,
to nightclubs that you got to pay $50 a night to get in,
or you have to be a certain person
to even get in the door, to everything in between.
Obviously you're seeing a lot of drug use.
That's constant.
And you do have your organized crime elements,
everything from mafia type individuals
to politicians to you name it.
My name is Matt Pitcher. I was a police officer with
the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police department in
Charlotte, North Carolina.
-In the fall of 2009, detective Matt Pitcher
is deep undercover doing cocaine buys in Charlotte's
seedy nightclub scene.
-I'd got introduced to a stripper.
Summer.
"Hey Summer, can I get an eight ball of cocaine?"
And sure enough, "yeah, I can get you
that eight ball of cocaine."
The goal for me in this operation is to earn her trust
so that I can get to her supplier,
the one who's really dealing the cocaine.
-Detective Pitcher continues doing cocaine buys for months,
working his way closer to the main drug supplier
with each new introduction.
By January, 2010,
he's on the verge of infiltrating the Greek mafia,
and it's all thanks to his cover story.
-My cover story, which I would not suggest to anybody,
was that I'm a billionaire.
Usually we would never say something like that.
That is not a good tactic.
This guy's supposed to be a billionaire.
Where are the records, where are anything to prove this?
Because I said I was a billionaire,
now I'm getting to meet all kinds of people
I would have never met.
People with celebrity status to athletes.
Even local politicians, your mafia type individuals.
And one of the people that I meet mostly through
Summer, is Marcos.
Everybody calls Marcos "friend of the Greeks."
When I say "Greeks", I'm referring to what,
in Charlotte, was the Greek mafia.
When you're dealing in that environment,
your risk goes through the roof.
People that you're hanging out with constantly
are also the people that, if they find out who you are,
you're dead.
You can't make a mistake as to who you are,
everything you sign, you better sign your UC name.
Every kind of identification,
everything you have on you better be able to be seen.
One text message that you didn't clear,
that's the real you, and you're done, it's over.
When I say everybody, if they want to have anything to do with
the Greeks, they have to go through Marcos to talk to them,
that he's kind of their front man.
Marcos realizing I'm a billionaire, he can use
that money to open up clubs in Charlotte
and get paid and make a lot of money.
So, Marcos and I are out.
We walk outside,
and Marcos points across the street to a restaurant.
I'm looking at starting a club in Charlotte,
as far as Marcos is concerned.
In order for me to start a club, I have to be sponsored.
What Marcos is saying, unless you are a chain restaurant,
where you have it all over the country or you're a celebrity
and already has celebrity status,
you cannot open up a club or restaurant
in downtown Charlotte.
Unless you are, sponsored by the Greeks,
and he goes, "So we will pay the Greeks,
and they will take care of us."
And then he goes, "We're gonna have to pay politicians
for these permits to get everything through
and to get everything passed without any problems."
-Undercover agent Matt Pitcher
has just learned that local politicians
may be involved in illegal activities with the Greek mafia.
-I pay the Greeks, and they basically allow me
to do business.
They also have their hands in the political system,
and basically the money that you're paying
is going to the politicians or to the Greeks.
The type of political corruption that we're seeing here
is basically a pay to play.
That any permit you want,
if you can't quite meet the qualifications
or especially if you want it done a little bit faster,
you're gonna pay "X" amount of money to get the permits.
Now that this has happened, our whole mission,
our whole thing changes.
So, drugs take a back seat.
We've got a whole new focus now on the organized crime
and political corruption.
My goal from this point forward is to continue to build
that relationship with Marcos and the Greeks.
Because this case is now political corruption
and organized crime, it becomes strictly an FBI case.
So, while I'm maintaining status quo,
keeping the relationship up,
the FBI is looking for the undercover
that's going to be my money man in the case.
This money man will be the person
who handles all my finances since I'm some
playboy billionaire who runs around all the time.
This will be the person that has all the money,
that makes the decisions so that I can be weeded out of the case
and this person can take over from here.
So, one night, Marcos and I go out,
and right out the gate, he's not himself.
Acting very funny, very, you know, quiet, weird questions.
Something's definitely wrong.
We go to a couple of places. He's hardly drinking.
And we even call it a night early and go back to his place.
As soon as he opens up the door, more red flags are going off.
I've been in his condo numerous times before,
and certain things are always the way they are in his room.
All the lights are always on. I swear he doesn't believe
in turning lights off no matter what.
And all doors are always open.
Well, he opens the door,
I walk in, it's pitch black, all lights are off.
And he then turns the kitchen light on.
All doors are shut.
He says, "Go have a seat on the couch."
We're talking, and Marcos, now he's asking me,
where are you from again?
How old are you?
How much money is in your bank account?
What have you invested in?
Where have you been the last 10 years?
All of these type questions over, asking them different ways
over and over and over.
Obviously, something's not right.
Am I burned? Does he know who I am?
Did I say something wrong that gave me away,
and how bad is it?
Is it recoverable, if something's wrong,
or am I just buying time until something really bad happens?
In undercover, you're taught from the very beginning
you always are armed, always have your gun on you.
Most drug deals, that's fine. They have one, I can have one.
During this case, I was never able to be armed.
I know Marcos is armed. I know he has a gun.
I don't know if he has it on him,
but I know he has a gun.
I don't have any self-defense.
Maybe I could try to run out to his kitchen to grab a knife.
But I've got nothing.
So, this conversation with Marcos is not
a quick conversation.
I've now been talking to him for four hours,
and we're not talking four hours with 400 different questions.
It's four hours with really maybe
10 questions or 20 questions.
It's now 2:30, 3:00 in the morning,
and he's still asking me the same questions
over and over again.
The reason I'm here is because of the wild cover story
I made about being a billionaire.
And it worked well for me up until this very moment.
And now this may be the same cover story that costs
me my life and that you're going to read in a textbook later
why you don't do it.
Occasionally, he's getting texts on his phone,
and he gets up and he goes --
Doesn't even really say anything.
Just goes into the room,
and shuts the bedroom door behind him,
In there for a couple minutes, comes back out,
shuts the door right behind him.
So I know Marcos is going to visit people in that room.
The question is, why are there people in that room,
and what is their purpose?
They're just there to listen,
and if something goes wrong with what they're hearing,
or if they already believe that I'm not who I say I am,
I'm going off the balcony, it's over.
-This is a bad moment.
Lots of things could go wrong at this point.
And this is a situation where if I'm caught here,
I'm not getting out of here.
That's a guarantee.
-Detective Pitcher believes his cover may have been blown
with the Greek mafia,
but with no weapon and no cover team,
he has little choice but to wait it out.
It's now 7:00 in the morning. It's daylight out.
Marcos finally says, "All right, I'll be in contact later."
Why don't you head home."
That's all he says.
Nothing, no, "Hey, alright, well, this was a great night."
Nothing like that, just, "I'll be in contact later."
I leave Marcos, leaving his door,
walking down into the basement,
like to the parking deck basement,
I didn't feel comfortable.
For all I knew, I start the car, and boom, it blows up.
You don't have a sense of freedom until that gate goes up
and you're literally pulling out.
[ Car beeps, engine starts ]
And so, you know, get out there and just driving.
The entire drive, I'm replaying over and over in my head,
"Where did I mess up?"
Like, I had no impression from leaving Marcos
one way or another about where I stood.
A couple of hours later, Marcos calls me,
and Marcos is back to Marcos.
He sounds very happy,
and he's like, "We are good to go.
We can start on these clubs and the mafia has got our back."
When I had that conversation with him, it was one of those...
[ Exhales deeply ]
Like just a total deep breath and a sense of accomplishment,
to be honest, that I think I did it.
Now, the FBI has an undercover agent, Doug,
and he is now my money guy moving forward.
What the FBI is doing now is the same thing I did,
only this time with political corruption.
They are working it to get to the highest level they can get.
In the video, you'll see Doug, my money guy,
bribing the mayor to get the permits pushed through
where they shouldn't have gone through.
So, this whole case started with a stripper
and a very small amount of cocaine,
and over the five years,
ended with the mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina,
being arrested.
-On March 26th, Cannon was arrested.
Word of mayor Patrick Cannon's arrest
for taking a bribe spread quickly across all news
and media outlets.
The most damaging video is of Cannon
in the mayor's office taking a $20,000 bribe
with the undercover operative promising there would be more.
-And just a day later, Cannon resigned from his position.
I'm meeting with my general supervisor, and my phone rings.
I recognize the number. I pick it up. Hello?
It's the case agent, and he says,
"Hey, I just want to let you know,
I got some really good news.
We just arrested the mayor.
We let your chief know what an outstanding job you did
and that this was your case.
The mayor was arrested for wire fraud, bribery, and theft.
He pled guilty to the wire fraud
and was sentenced to 44 months in federal prison.
He served 22 months,
and even upon getting out decided to run for office again.
Unfortunately for him, he lost.
So, now, when I think back about the case
and I look at everything,
there's a definite sense of pride and I'm glad.
I would do it all over again.
It was obviously very difficult, but the good that came out of it
makes the hard times worth it.
-Coming up...
-Violence is always a part of it.
You can get shot, you can get stabbed.
You can end up dead immediately.
You can end up in a really brutal fight,
you need to find a way to escape.
Ralph Colvard is a very dangerous, greedy man.
He didn't have any regard for anyone else's safety.
He just wanted to get rich quick.
That was his ultimate plan.
His idea is for me to kill somebody
so he can marry a woman who has Alzheimers
and then he controls her fate as to how long she lives.
Kind of make the little hairs curl up on the back of
your neck, because, you know,
I'm sitting here with somebody who's evil.
-First time I heard of Ralph Colvard
was February 6, 1993, on a Saturday.
It was a kind of cold and wintery day.
I was working with my horse up at a barn I kept him at.
And I get a page.
[ Beeping ]
I know it's a local phone number,
but then at the end of it is 99.
And I know that that's Gary Baker.
He's my informant.
Gary Baker wasn't like a lot of the informants
that I worked with.
He wasn't trying to work off any criminal charges.
He was just doing it because he wanted to do it.
When Gary called you, he had something.
And so I used the barn phone to call him back.
So I was like...
"What's up Gary?"
He says, "Hey, Jenn. I'm here with Ralph."
-And he's looking for somebody to do him a favor,
so I thought I'd talk to you about it.
-"Okay. What do you need?"
"Well, he's looking for somebody to do a hit for him.
He's got to get rid of somebody."
-There's some money in it if you're interested.
-The first thoughts are, "This is serious.
There's a life on the line some place,
and we need to find out everything as fast as we can,
but I need to do this by the book.
I need to get this recorded."
I'm like, "You know how those things go, Gary.
We can work it out, but I don't want to talk
on the telephone, but I would like to speak to him."
-Well, that would be great
because he wants to talk to you, as well.
-He put Ralph on the phone with me,
and we spoke for about 15 seconds, just talking.
And I told him that I'd be glad to get up with him.
He said, "Well, that would be really good.
I really need you to help me with this favor
and Gary recommends you highly."
I said, "Okay."
I said, "Well, we can talk, but let's not talk on the phone."
Immediately after getting off the phone,
I have to call my supervisor at the time
and let him know what's happened,
and we have to get on this right away.
You can't delay it.
Saturday, February the 13th, 1993,
I'm to meet Ralph Colvard for the very first time.
I needed to meet this person.
I needed to make sure this was something
he really wanted to do.
When I got to the restaurant and walked in,
there was Gary and there was Ralph Colvard.
After we finished dinner,
I noticed that they had a little alcove
in the restaurant that nobody was in.
We went back in that area because it was away
from all the diners and it was quiet.
-What you are about to hear is the actual audio
recorded during this meeting.
-The creepiest thing that Ralph Colvard ever said to me
when we were talking, it was his talk about Virgil Adams' wife.
He started telling me how Mrs. Adams, Nelly Adams,
was the love of his life
and she'd been his school teacher
and that he needed me to get rid of Virgil Adams
so that he could move in with her and marry her
because she had Alzheimer's and he needed to look after her
because she had land worth a million dollars.
This had nothing to do with love.
This is about greed.
When he told me he was in love with that woman,
I wanted to puke.
His idea is for me to kill somebody
so he can marry a woman who has Alzheimer's
that can't make her own decisions anymore.
And then once he pulls that off,
he has advantage of all of her wealth,
and then he controls her fate as to how long she lives.
That's how you know
Ralph Colvard is a very dangerous criminal
and very scary, because he smiled through all of that.
Just kind of make the little hairs
crawl up on the back of your neck.
He hands me a magazine
that's got a heart on it for Valentine's
'cause this is February 13th, a Saturday.
I happen to notice on it
that it's got Ralph Colvard's name and his address on it.
So I thought, "Well, that'd be a good piece of evidence
to hold on to if he lets me keep it."
He's got a hand-drawn map inside the magazine.
It's on white paper, but he's drawn where things are located.
And it is a map to the home of Virgil and Nelly Adams.
So I was like, "Okay, Ralph, you've got plans."
I'm looking for him to see if he's going to change his mind.
At some point here, this guy is going to say,
"You know what? This is a bad idea.
I've made a foolish mistake here.
I don't want to do this."
He doesn't.
$200 cash.
That's a down payment towards what he owes.
Then we start talking about what he wants done.
He just wants him gone. He wants him killed.
"I'm not physically strong enough for that. No."
And then he's asking me about using a needle
to inject this person with, to kill him.
I want to know if he's willing to supply me with a firearm,
and, uh, he agrees that he will supply a firearm.
Ralph agreed that the next time
he saw me, he would bring to me, the gun, the silencer,
and the $1,300 that he owed on the down payment.
He gave me the map, he gave me the money.
I had a name of a victim.
There's elements of a crime,
and he was completing all the elements.
We have to get moving quickly.
It has to be done fast.
-Ralph and I agreed to meet on March 2, 1993.
We meet up at a restaurant parking lot
in Abingdon, Virginia.
We have decided that this is the day we're going to arrest
and take him down.
-Although Jenn knew she had enough evidence to convict
on the murder-for-hire,
she wanted to meet with Ralph one last time to see
if he would provide the gun, silencer, and remaining cash.
-I told him I was coming from my horse barn.
What I did was I had put on coveralls
like I'd been at the horse barn,
but underneath that, I had a ballistic vest.
I have a cover team that's ready to do
the take down of his arrest.
Ralph drives in, he parks in front.
He's probably about 30 or 40 feet, and I see Ralph,
and I go up to talk to him.
He wanted me to get inside and sit down.
I'm sitting in Ralph's car, and I'm looking around,
and I see down next to his right hand,
there's a Bowie knife, a sickle blade.
And there's a -- Then he's got a hatchet.
And I'm just thinking, "Oh, this is -- this is not good."
If Ralph reaches for one of those blades,
I have got to get distance between me and him.
I don't have time to shoot him,
and my team doesn't have time to react.
I got to have an escape route, I got to survive this.
I'm kind of watching his hands and watching what he's doing,
but he doesn't make any move towards those items.
He could easily have the gun. He could just be testing me.
The next thing I want to ask him is about the rest of my money.
He still owes me $1,300 on the $1,500 down payment.
And Ralph said he didn't have it right then,
but that he expected to have it in the next couple of days.
It also gave Ralph that chance if he wanted to say,
"I changed my mind, I don't want to do this."
He didn't.
Ralph wants to know if we can go to lunch,
but he wants to go down to Bristol.
He says he doesn't want to eat at the restaurant we're at.
I was like, "Yes, sure. We can go down to Bristol, Ralph.
I just need to go out and change my coveralls."
-Unable to collect the gun Ralph was to provide,
Jenn just needs to get herself
out of harm's way as soon as possible.
-All I really want to do is get out of the vehicle.
You have no idea what's in his head.
We know he has a plan for somebody to be dead.
Would he have a problem with killing anybody else?
So I start to get out of the car.
The adrenaline is pumping.
For that last little second,
when you're turning to get out of the car,
"I really hope he doesn't stab me in the back
as I get out of here."
I get to my car.
As I open the door...
-Go, go, go, go! -...the takedown team,
those guys are doing what they should.
They try to get him to open the door to his car,
and he wouldn't get out,
and they used a baseball bat to break the back window
so they could reach in and get his car unlocked
and get him out.
Next thing you know, Ralph is out on the ground
and being handcuffed and told that he's being arrested
for the federal charges of solicitation to commit homicide.
The trial took place in late July of 1993.
The jury ended up meeting for about 4 hours and 20 minutes.
When they came back, they had found him guilty on both counts.
-Ralph Colvard was charged
and convicted of use of interstate commerce facilities
in the commission of murder-for-hire
and racketeering with intent to murder.
He was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
-I thought the sentencing was very appropriate.
He was 64 years old at that point.
very close to being the rest of his life.
After we made the arrest of Ralph Colvard,
fellows over in North Carolina went over
and visited with Virgil Adams in his home
and told him about what had taken place and about me.
And Virgil sent me some Polaroid pictures
so that I could see what he looked like and know who he was.
And also his pet bird.
He's got a very big, colorful, beautiful parrot named Fred.
And thanked me for doing what I did,
for taking care of him.
I was in law enforcement for almost 33 years,
and this is probably one of the better thank yous I ever got.
-Coming up...
-I went in that day thinking this is just going
to be a gun deal.
I had no idea it would turn into my worst nightmare.
[ Siren wailing ]
-People live in fear because of the violence
associated with gangs.
Murders, assaults, robberies.
For these gangs, the most violent of them,
they peddled with guns because that was
their means of protection.
That was their means of exerting authority to civilians
and to other gang members.
It's common for gangs to set up shop in housing projects
because they keep the people in fear.
It provides a level of protection and cover.
It's hard to visibly observe the crimes being committed.
And they use the structure of the building
to shield themselves from law enforcement.
The undercover is sent into those blind areas
because one, we blend in, and two,
we're trained enough to engage these people
in some type of transaction one way or the other.
My name is Carlos James.
I'm a lieutenant with
the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office.
I worked as an undercover total for approximately 16 years,
and I spent one year in NYPD as an undercover.
You know going into it, these people are violent.
They have weapons.
They are not interested in anything
but preserving the integrity of their gang.
At that time, there was one particular gang
that took over Marlboro Houses in Brooklyn, New York,
and made life difficult for the citizens there.
When I got involved in the Marlboro Houses case,
there was an undercover already assigned.
I was there as his muscle and to watch my partner's back.
Our story was that we were hustlers from the New York area.
We bought things from Brooklyn, and then we took that
to Connecticut and made more money off of it.
We looked flashy.
We had custom jewelry, we had the flyest sneakers,
we had the best looking clothes, we had nice haircuts.
You name it, we had it.
We would do gun deals and other deals in Marlboro,
but every time we went there, it wasn't always about buying.
We wanted to just develop this rapport with the people
so sometimes we would just go there just to hang out.
-But Carlos never felt at ease,
no matter how often they showed up.
We knew we were being watched.
First and foremost, even though we may have been dealing
with two or three people at a time,
there were at least 10 to 15 other people
surrounding us in the area, watching us.
Also, they were constant with trying to separate us.
There were multiple times when they wanted my partner
to just get up and leave, come deal with them.
"Let's take a walk. I just want to talk to you."
And the best way to rob two people is to separate,
make them stand alone and isolate them,
and then take advantage of that isolation.
Looking back on it,
they were just looking for an opportunity to take him out.
When I started doing undercover work,
I was married with two kids, two sons.
My wife knew what I was doing at the time.
She worried about me because of how I would get
so involved in my character.
That was something that she worried about.
I think everybody thought it was too dangerous.
-With two young children at home,
Carlos' family and friends urged him to leave NYPD entirely
and take a job that was offered to him in the gang unit
in Bergen County, New Jersey.
-I decided to go to Bergen County.
It was like November when it became official.
I knew my last day in NYPD was December 7th.
I had personal days that I was supposed to use.
I could've taken off December 7th,
but they set up a gun buy on that day,
and I was like, "I'm not taking off.
I'm going to work."
-Carlos and his partner had already made nearly 35
drug and gun buys at the Marlboro Houses.
This was to be their last buy together.
-We drove up to the Marlboro Houses.
It was still daylight out.
I remember having my hooded coat, gray hooded coat.
I exited my seat and went into the back seat,
allowing for whoever was going to come out from the group
to just jump into the front seat
and deal with my partner, and boom, boom we're going to be
out of there and done,
which was the normal way that we operated.
When we first pull up, the person walked up to the car
and put his head in the window, looked in the back seat at me,
said hello to me, and then said, "I'll be right back,"
and then left.
His assignment was to deliver it to us, take the money,
and give it to the person that he dealt with previously.
This time, he didn't do that.
We looked at each other,
and we said, "Something's not right about this."
We definitely let the team know.
The field team are in unmarked cars.
Everybody's within two blocks to three blocks away.
Now the person in the building is telling,
"Come into the building."
At this point, we were not going to agree to this.
So we wait a while,
and it's still back and forth on the phone.
The sergeant lets us know that time is wasting.
They don't feel comfortable about it,
but if we feel comfortable,
we'll stick it through for a little while longer.
The person who had the gun wanted to meet around the back
to give the gun.
We, of course, didn't feel comfortable with this,
but we had to convince the sarge that we were okay doing it.
Now it's dark.
We agreed to go around to the back of the building.
It is the back of a large building,
with one door and a small grassy area.
Light was terrible.
There's literally nothing else behind there.
That visual alone made us feel not safe.
It really was uncomfortable.
We knew something was not going right.
But we also were there to make sure
that we could finish this job.
The one gun that you take off the street
is one less gun that a civilian has to deal with.
If it's in the four corners of the earth,
we're going to go get that gun.
The rear door at that time was open,
and the light was on in the hallway
so you could see the silhouette of a person back there waving,
yelling to come from the car to the rear door.
I told him, "Do not go into that building!"
-He's yelling back at the guy,
"Yo, I'm not going to go in the building.
Come on out, let's go, I got to go."
Eventually, they decide to meet half way.
[ Car beeping ]
I immediately took both guns out of my waistband.
I carried two guns in my waistband.
He's got the money in his hand, and he's counting the money
but paying attention to this guy,
and immediately puts the gun to his temple.
As he's doing that, he throws the money up in the air,
which is our distress signal for the field team.
He started to wrestle the gun from the guy's hands.
Couldn't get the gun away.
The only way he could get out of the way was to go down.
When he did that, I knew he knew I was there.
So he gave me that look like, "Okay, go get him."
Just that look on his face was telling me that, you know,
"You got to do something now to get me out of this,"
And so I started to shoot at this person.
We're talking about a shoot out
in a very densely populated area of Brooklyn,
and the residents of that area care,
they care about the crime that affects them and their children.
I'm pretty sure there were a lot of 911 calls going.
We were the only description that got put over 911 radio.
They just didn't know anything about us.
Anything about us.
We're just two guys with guns running in Brooklyn.
[ Siren wailing ]
[ Sirens wailing ]
Thank goodness that our entire team
knew we were back there.
They got us, they made sure that we went to a place of safety.
They made sure that we weren't hit with anything.
All undercovers are accounted for.
-Then the team pursued the shooter.
They caught him that night.
It just worked out that nobody was going to get hit that day
because there were other things in place
and the universe was moving the way it was.
-Shamik Mitchell pled guilty to attempted murder,
attempted robbery, and weapons possession.
He was sentenced to eight years in prison.
-If I had to do it all over again,
I would do it exactly the same way.
I do get emotional about it.
Especially after the fact.
We volunteered for this, and we know what it meant,
and we're part of the team.
That was our job on the team, was to be the ones
on the front line going into these buildings,
going into the basements and the rooftops
and the back of the buildings to go get guns and go buy drugs
and go deal with known hardened violent criminals.
My job is to be there and have his back.
I would give my life for my partner.
It was okay then, and it's okay now.
I wouldn't change anything. I really wouldn't.