In the criminal justice system,
detectives and prosecutors face daunting challenges
when money is the motive for murder.
[dramatic sting]
A suspicious disappearance captures media attention.
There are still two missing people,
and we have not heard anything from them.
Detectives uncover ties
to a multimillion-dollar criminal network.
It seemed like he took glee in taking
the life of these people.
Prosecutors are thwarted by an arrogant,
well-resourced adversary.
He was flamboyant.
He spent money like it was going out of style.
But they craft their own sting
to take down the kingpin.
I'm hearing it, and I can't believe what I'm hearing.
These men and women dedicate their lives to law and order.
I worked homicide for 17 years.
But this case-- once in a lifetime.
These are their true stories.
[dramatic sting]
[subway rattling]
[train whistles]
[dramatic music]
We were out in Woodside, Queens,
for the purposes of doing a pretty low-level
confidential informant street buy
from a known drug dealer.
The guy who was doing the video in the van
called on the radio and said, "Hey, grab the informant.
Something's going on on this block."
In a bizarre coincidence,
agents then intercepted a kidnapping.
Later, while interviewing the victim,
they learned he was entangled in a vast web
of violent financial schemes.
The victim in the case was very afraid.
It wasn't long before we realized that, you know,
we had kind of stumbled our way
to a much bigger and complex case.
In order to gain protection, the victim confessed
involvement in a fatal conspiracy
in Southern California.
He said, "You guys need to find
"this guy, Peter Kovach.
I think he might be dead."
OK. Wait a minute.
Let's go back a little bit.
[dramatic sting]
[phone ringing]
Peter Kovach and his coworker Ted Gould
had first been reported as missing
when police got a 911 call
from their place of employment,
Galleria Telecom in Torrance, California.
The business was left unlocked,
just simply open and unattended.
I arrived, contacted the two individuals
who were at the location.
Paul Poduska seemed very concerned.
He was there to visit his friend, Ted Gould.
I was supposed to meet my best friend Ted at 8:00.
He told me that he had got a new job
working at the Galleria Telecom
beeper and cell phone sales company.
Got off work and drove directly to the store.
The lights were on in the shop.
I looked around. There was nobody there.
The next person that showed up told me that he was
one of the owners of the company.
I happened to drive by at about 11:00 p.m. at night,
and I saw all the doors and the lights were on.
And when I drove in, I noticed Ted's friend
was still waiting for him.
It was then when I called the police,
because it was pretty unusual,
since both their cars were here.
He indicated that two employees were missing.
They were Peter Kovach and Ted Gould.
The business, it was undisturbed,
and none of the phones were missing.
No indications of any violent crime, robbery.
RJ Panah indicated that when he went inside,
he noticed that the camera was turned
and projected upward to the ceiling,
which was unusual.
Security camera for the business
was nonfunctioning, according to RJ Panah.
And so you start analyzing all that,
and you become very suspicious.
♪
RJ Panah was interviewed while at the scene.
Ted, I just hired about four weeks ago.
Known Peter for about a year.
You know, I love him like a brother.
Peter Kovach was like a half-owner
of the business.
Ted Gould was just an employee for the location.
Peter was from the East Coast and had quite a bit of cash.
RJ Panah and Peter hit it off as friends.
As time went on, Peter provided cash
and became part owner.
He was a guy in his 20s, very friendly, very charming.
But other than that, this guy doesn't have
much background information.
Investigators learned that Peter had come
from a modest upbringing
by loving parents in New Jersey,
gone to college in Miami, and had almost
no record of prior employment.
Peter was making a lot of money.
I mean, he's pulling a lot of cash,
and it didn't come from the business.
I was suspicious of what Peter might have been up to.
Paul Poduska had been
the first person onto the scene
and was still there when police arrived.
He was able to give them background on his friend Ted,
the other missing man.
Ted was funny.
He just had a great sense of humor, genuinely.
Just the--the smile in all of these pictures.
He was one of my best friends from college.
We met at Cal State Northridge University marching band.
Ted grew up in Southern California.
After college, he was living in Redondo Beach, California.
He was 29 years old.
Ted was excited about his new job.
He wanted to move forward with newer technology.
It was definitely out of character for him
to not be there.
I felt that something was extremely wrong.
As the hunt for Ted Gould and Peter Kovach
went into high gear,
news broke across Southern California.
This case was fascinating, all the twists and turns.
It's as if the two men had literally vanished
into the night.
The following morning, I was contacted
by Detective James Cook.
I've known him for quite a while.
Me and Jeff worked together in the patrol division.
We actually lived together for a while
when we were younger police officers.
Detective Cook related that individuals were arrested
near the Galleria Telecom
a couple weeks before these people were missing.
It could have been coincidence, but I don't think so.
[dramatic sting]
On October 10, 1994, at approximately 9:00
in the evening in the city of Torrance,
some patrol officers observed a gray and blue Buick
exiting between some businesses--
I think it was Galleria cell phone business.
When the occupants observed the police car,
they immediately fled the area.
Alerted by the suspicious Buick
attempting to flee the quiet commercial district,
officers pulled the vehicle over.
When the cops stop this suspicious vehicle,
they find three men inside.
The driver, Ruben Hernandez,
could not produce a driver's license.
The front passenger, Kenneth Friedman,
had surgical gloves in both his front pants pockets.
The rear passenger, Juan Galindo,
his address was from New York.
When police are questioning these three men,
what they discover is duct tape and two loaded handguns.
They were placed under arrest
for probable cause robbery
and the gun violations that were in the vehicle.
We had the area canvassed
to see if any crimes were committed that night.
Nothing.
I thought that they had prevented a robbery
from occurring that night.
So I left that afternoon
thinking that these guys are from New York,
they have no money,
they're still gonna be in custody.
To my surprise, when I came in the next morning,
I found out that they had bonded out.
And I was curious why somebody would post bail
for these three people from New York.
The three men were able to walk
because they had a fast-talking attorney from New York.
We had some taped phone calls from the jail.
The night that they got arrested,
Kenneth Friedman was talking to his attorney,
Gary Friedman, about bail.
Very incriminating type of conversations.
But there was nothing I could do
because there was no robbery committed that night.
When I learned what happened at the cell phone business,
we immediately put two and two together and said,
"I think our suspects are
Kenneth Friedman and Gary Friedman."
I ran a record check with New York
and found out that Kenneth Friedman had done time
for a robbery conviction in 1985.
Then we found out that Gary Friedman,
the attorney representing Kenneth Friedman,
was Kenneth Friedman's brother.
Two brothers, you know.
One was a defense attorney,
and the other one was a criminal.
Gary Friedman was a criminal defense attorney
who lived a lavish lifestyle--
big homes, boats.
But his work as an attorney was dwindling.
So he needed to find another source of income.
Based on information developed from phone calls
and background investigations,
I was able to determine that the IRS was
in the middle of an investigation
that was going to file charges against Gary Friedman
for money laundering with some other activities.
The detectives began to formulate a theory
on the Friedmans and their crew.
This was the street they came out onto from the business.
We're west of the Galleria Telecom.
During the traffic stop on that vehicle,
the items found appeared to be, or could have been,
a toolkit for a kidnapping.
You can't be that dumb to come back,
commit the kidnapping of the two
from the same business that you were arrested for
two weeks prior.
You guys are really stupid.
[chuckles] And arrogant too.
Investigators wondered if the desperate need for money
led the Friedmans to kidnapping,
extortion, or worse.
We both decided that these were
our possible suspects in this disappearance.
We didn't know how they related
to Peter Kovach and Ted Gould.
I was able to review Ted and Peter Kovach,
if they were connected in any way,
and found no connection other than just
the simple employment at the Galleria Telecom.
There are still two missing people,
and we have not heard anything from them
or from anyone that knows them.
[dramatic sting]
♪
I get the phone call--
two bodies have been found.
We immediately drove down to San Diego,
to the location where the bodies have been recovered.
I mean, it was not a pretty sight.
There's this guy a lot of people were
attracted to, including Peter Kovach.
He wanted to be Tony Montana, the drug lord.
And when you're making millions of dollars,
you need to find a way to hide it.
Torrance investigators rush to San Diego
after receiving notice that two bodies were
discovered in an alleyway.
[dramatic music]
♪
The identification had been made,
and they were Peter Kovach and Ted Gould.
The bodies were dumped and left there
for a couple days before they were found.
They were badly decomposed, bloated.
Cause of death for Peter Kovach
and Ted Gould was strangulation.
Just an unfortunate situation.
[somber music]
Detective Lancaster called me and let me know.
I remember feeling shocked and horrified
and sorrow.
It was definitely a tragic situation,
and I don't-- I don't like to revisit.
I need to take a break.
Peter Kovach's mother and sister
came by the station,
and they were very upset.
It was a really tough time.
There was a warrant out for Kenneth Friedman,
Juan Galindo, and Ruben Hernandez.
We had no information as to where they were.
Investigators continued pursuit.
But the lead suspect, Kenny, was off the grid,
and his brother and attorney Gary was uncooperative.
Although Peter could have been a financial target,
there was no clear connection.
Months passed.
But then an ATF operation on the other side of the country
and a second kidnapping expanded the case
to an interstate conspiracy.
It was probably about 10:00 in the morning.
I get a phone call, long distance, from the ATF
that he was investigating a kidnapping
and had some information that might relate
to a Torrance homicide.
It was a large break.
Within a day or two, we were in New York, meeting with ATF.
[dramatic sting]
[dramatic music]
♪
I was a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms, primarily responsible
for organized crime cases, narcotics trafficking,
enforcing federal firearms laws.
In 1995,
a small-time drug case that we were trying to do
became a much bigger case.
We were there, actually, to look at that guy,
the guy with the little white hat.
- Yeah. - We were gonna make a drug buy
from him with an informant.
We had a van
set up on the block to do a videotape.
And right about now, I think, the guy inside the van
with the camera is telling us on the radio,
like, "Hey, something's going on.
There's a weird--like, this guy doesn't belong here."
- Oh-- - There's Gary Friedman.
There's Gary Friedman.
Gary's brother is Kenneth Friedman,
and he was a suspect in the disappearance
of Peter Kovach and Ted Gould.
Ultimately, these guys walked away to Gary's car,
and they take an individual out.
Gary Friedman's car leaves.
They seized the individual who was in Gary's car,
walked him back, and is putting him in the back seat.
And for a brief moment, just as he's
putting him in the back seat,
you can see a gun in his left hand.
We then filmed what turned out to be the kidnapping
of Bruce Wolofsky, who ultimately would become
a confidential informant for us.
NYPD rolled in one of their units
and stopped the car from leaving the area.
What a lucky coincidence. I mean, it was just luck.
Detectives noted that Gary Friedman and his crew,
suspected for the deadly kidnapping in Torrance,
had attempted to kidnap another victim in New York.
We were going to conduct an interview
with Bruce Wolofsky, the kidnapping victim.
He was kidnapped that day by Gary Friedman
because he had borrowed $10,000
and was not paying him back the money.
Previously, he had tried to get himself out of debt.
Bruce, being in the car business,
had access to credit bureau checks on people
to try to ascertain their whereabouts.
Gary had asked him to run
some credit bureau checks on Peter Kovach.
Bruce did provide his place of employment, also.
Galleria Telecom.
He said, "You guys need to find
"this guy, Peter Kovach.
I think he might be dead."
That was the connection that they had.
We were trying to piece together
what would have caused anybody to send people
out to California to kidnap and ultimately murder
Peter Kovach and Ted Gould.
As investigators pressed Bruce for the connection
between Gary Friedman and Peter Kovach,
Bruce revealed the involvement of a new player--
Gary Friedman's partner in a number of nightclubs
in New York and Miami.
Gary Friedman starts opening these clubs
with a guy back east named Howard Bloomgarden.
I'd never heard of Howard Bloomgarden.
But Howard became a major person of interest
in this case.
Bruce was able to relate that Howard Bloomgarden was
a businessman in Florida,
was simply 24 or 25 years old at that time.
Owned the Coco Bongo Lounge and had owned
some previous locations in the state of New York.
And maybe his business wasn't exactly on the up and up.
Howard Bloomgarden was sent down
to Florida for an education.
He showed up down there in a red Corvette convertible.
He was flamboyant.
He spent money like it was going out of style.
He went to the University of Miami.
Hold on a second.
Peter actually went to college down in Miami.
Howard was given everything he needed.
And he just didn't subscribe to that.
He wanted to be Tony Montana, the drug lord.
If Howard could make the same amount of money
legitimately,
he would still choose to make it illegitimately
'cause it was more exciting.
In fact, Bruce told us that Howard Bloomgarden
and Peter Kovach had a long criminal history
dealing drugs together.
I call it a break. [laughs]
♪
The confidential informant provided
a lot of background information
and then some specific information
about criminal activity that
Pete and Howard Bloomgarden had participated in.
[dramatic music]
Howard Bloomgarden and Peter Kovach met
when they were both in college down in Miami.
Howard Bloomgarden, Peter Kovach,
and some other individuals became organized,
and they started doing
hundreds of pounds of marijuana.
The Mexican connection would get the drugs
to somewhere in California,
and then back east to Florida,
to New York.
Howard was quite successful.
And when you're making millions of dollars,
you need to find a way to hide it.
Gary Friedman was actually investing
in Howard Bloomgarden's empire.
His nightclubs and strip clubs were the front
for the money laundering operation.
Kenneth Friedman was kind of the strong-arm muscle
for his brother, who was Gary Friedman.
Kenneth Friedman had a long criminal history.
He was a lot older than these college guys Peter's age.
And, you know, he had a reputation
of being a bad guy, somebody to be avoided.
Howard Bloomgarden's drug trafficking was netting
millions in cash and moving tons of marijuana,
pushing Bloomgarden to relocate Peter Kovach
to California to oversee it,
until one operation spelled disaster.
This crew of guys that were working with Howard
bought an RV, made spaces in it
for 800 pounds of marijuana
to be transported from California.
When they are in Illinois, though, they get stopped.
And the Illinois State Police find the drugs,
and, you know, they seize the whole thing.
The Mexican connection, he didn't get paid.
The street value of that was
up to several hundred thousand dollars.
That's what led to the rift between Peter and Howard.
You know, we come to learn later,
Howard believed that Pete had something to do
with setting him up.
At some point after he came out to California,
Peter was trying to go straight and trying to get
out of that type of work.
Peter was actually really trying to redeem himself.
He knew that he was in too far,
and he really started a new life.
But Howie blamed Peter
for the loss of millions of dollars.
Bloomgarden had become increasingly paranoid
about Peter Kovach,
believing that he'd engineered the police sting
to take over his operation.
The Friedmans were enlisted to make Peter pay his debt,
no matter what the consequences,
with Ted Gould caught in the crossfire.
For Ted Gould, it could have been,
"You can't leave a witness.
"You know, you got a guy here, he knows what we've done,
where we've done it."
Wrong place, wrong time.
[dramatic sting]
In March of 1995, we decided we would coordinate
the arrests of those guys for the kidnapping-based
crimes that occurred in New York.
We were slowly scooping or contacting everyone.
And they were all surrendering
or being arrested at that time.
We were starting to focus on Howard Bloomgarden.
But we didn't want to arrest him
and then just have him get cut loose,
'cause we knew he'd come with expensive attorneys
who would get him out if the case wasn't good,
or maybe even if the case was good.
So the two agencies are working together
to build a case, but their goals
are actually quite different.
The state is looking for charges for a double homicide,
and the feds are looking for charges
of extortion, racketeering, and trafficking.
I was trying to build a homicide case
involving Ruben Hernandez, Juan Galindo,
Kenneth Friedman, also Gary Friedman,
and Howie Bloomgarden.
I felt that they were all involved
in the California homicide.
♪
I was slowly developing an idea as to their technique
of getting cash out to the West Coast.
It was just a simple, easy code.
They would use Western Union.
They would take names.
They would switch them around a little bit,
but it was all familiar to them
because they were friends.
A gentleman named Gus Malave down in San Diego,
he was receiving cash from them.
And Western Union would forward me
all of that paperwork.
The Torrance Police Department made arrangements
to bring Gus Malave in
and have him take a polygraph.
He was deceptive,
but he did tell us a lot of things.
Gus Malave was receiving cash
from them from the East Coast, from Gary Friedman,
for car purchases, for gun purchases.
Gus started describing what happened
the night of the disappearance.
Kenneth, Juan, and Ruben take Peter and Ted,
drive up to the motel,
which is right up Hawthorne Boulevard.
This is where the three guys from New York stayed.
Right there, room 116.
And that's where everything starts.
[dramatic music]
According to Gus Malave,
they take the two guys,
Peter and Ted, into the motel room.
Kenneth is just a wild card, and he ended up
strangling both those guys.
The Friedman brothers want Gus to take care of the car,
take care of the bodies.
And so he's-- for a certain amount of cash,
takes the car, drives it back to San Diego,
and dumped them behind some businesses.
With the statement from Malave in hand,
investigators could take their case
that implicated the Friedmans
to Los Angeles district attorneys.
And if Malave cooperated further,
charges would fly against Howard Bloomgarden.
As a DA, you know, I'll read everything.
But I also--I'd rather talk to the people
that did the investigation.
Geoff Lewin was very, very exceptional.
I had long conversations with Bob Schmitt,
long conversations with Jeff Lancaster.
In this case, we know Howard's pulling the strings.
First, I have to prove his connections.
How are we gonna prove
that Howard was on the East Coast,
ordering Kenny Friedman to kill these guys on the West Coast?
We've never seen this picture before.
Among incompetent, uh-- incompetent crooks--
This is Gus Malave, who was instrumental to helping
the kidnapping and murder happen, but--
Flipped on his--
I believe on his first interrogation.
According to Gus Malave,
Howard Bloomgarden had gotten on the phone
and said, "Kill them."
At this point, Howard will face his own charges.
♪
When Howard Bloomgarden first approached
the United States Attorney's Office
through his attorneys,
he, you know, seemingly wanted to cooperate.
And he came in and gave us a lot of information.
Howard had a lot of money.
That meant a lot of people were attracted to Howard,
including Peter Kovach.
Peter did not grow up with a lot of money.
Peter grew up in New Jersey with a very close family,
but Howard was just this bigger-than-life guy
who had, you know, everything.
And that helped with getting other people
to, you know, party with him.
And a lot of those guys ended up being
his coconspirators in the drug trade.
Howard admitted that at the height
of this organization's moneymaking,
they were probably making
several million dollars a month.
When the marijuana got confiscated
from the motor home, Howard was on the line for it.
He was losing money
at a faster rate than he was making it.
He confessed he'd had people kidnapped.
But Howard has said that he told these people,
"Hey, get Peter Kovach on the phone with me,"
never said to kill, and then Kenny Friedman,
this horrible guy, took it on his own
to kill Peter Kovach and Ted Gould.
It was clear to us that he was
holding back and certainly minimizing
his own involvement.
Federal prosecutors in New York
brought interstate charges for racketeering,
kidnapping, and extortion against Howard and his crew.
Now LADA had to wait in line for the feds
to finish their prosecution before we could
prosecute Howard
for the murders of Peter and Ted.
[dramatic sting]
So the first time they asked me to come testify,
it was for a federal case.
It's been a long time since I have been in that seat.
It was obviously a traumatic experience.
I learned that they had taken
my friend and Pete to a hotel room
somewhere close by
and had tortured and killed both of them.
[somber music]
My friend Ted Gould was strangled
with a telephone cord.
♪
Having Ted be an innocent bystander in the--
the whole situation is--
just makes it more terrible.
♪
Howard had enlisted Gerald Shargel,
who is a really big-time
defense attorney out of New York.
So I was very surprised when they came in
and offered to plead out.
Bloomgarden would plead to six counts,
which included responsibility for Ted and Peter's deaths
while in the commission of other federal crimes
of racketeering and extortion.
Howard Bloomgarden admitted in open court,
standing right next to his lawyer,
that he approved of
and financed
the murders of Peter Kovach and Ted Gould.
The attorney's gotten this great deal,
got 34 years in New York.
Kenny ultimately was tried and convicted in New York,
got life upon life in New York along with his brother, Gary.
Juan Galindo,
Ruben Hernandez, and Gus Malave
pled guilty, and they received
lesser sentences than all of the others involved.
So Howard Bloomgarden pled in '96 in New York.
He was finally brought out to California in 2005.
LA prosecutors feel that Howie got off easy,
so now they can't wait to build their own case against him.
Howard Bloomgarden had a lot of money.
He had John Gotti's ex-attorney, Gerald Shargel,
with a whole team of attorneys.
But we have him on the record saying he financed
and he approved of the murders.
"Judge, we want to use that statement."
Uh, judge said no.
[dramatic music]
Essentially, the judge in LA ruled
that no attorney in their right mind
would allow him to plead in New York,
say the things he said,
when there was a current pending death penalty
in California.
I strongly disagreed with that.
I thought they-- he had incredible attorneys
in New York.
It was rumored he spent probably $400,000
on his defense in New York,
which was a fortune in '94, '95.
It was devastating to the case.
I may not get a conviction.
Howard Bloomgarden's legal team
successfully excluded his confession,
taken during the federal trial in New York City,
from prosecutorial evidence
in his pending murder trial in Los Angeles.
That was very scary in a case like this,
where the puppet master putting it all together
could walk on the case.
I have a confession that is golden,
but because of Howard's big money,
we had our backs up against the wall.
And John Kovach tells this story also.
He's like, "Howard Bloomgarden sat at our table.
He sat at our table, and he ate with us."
Yeah.
And to know that he was involved in killing Peter,
he--he just couldn't deal with that.
I couldn't get through this.
I think my kids were
9 and 12 or so when this happened.
[somber music]
Peter Kovach's mom, Mary Anne,
had written a letter.
I remember reading her letter.
"My son is in his grave.
"All I have is this picture of the tombstone.
"I remember my son on his graduation day.
"I told him I loved him more than God.
"I watched him sleep, and I was so proud
"that I gave birth to such a huge boy.
I was amazed even then."
♪
It's hard to read now. Um...
I can't read the rest of it.
Hard--very hard to read. Can't--I can't read it.
♪
There are certain cases that stand out
for different reasons.
In this case, I am helping families, helping people
that have gone through horrible things,
and helping them to get some peace and justice.
While Los Angeles prosecutors strategized
how to overcome the exclusion of Howard's testimony,
they also prepared for the state murder trials
of Kenneth and Gary Friedman.
The two Friedman brothers came out to California
and pled guilty.
Gary Friedman, he was a defense attorney,
but he was as dirty as they get.
Where Gary was kind of the brains,
Kenny was definitely the muscle.
And Kenny had a long history of violent conduct.
Kenny had no problem
beating people up, extorting people.
Kenny Friedman is crazy.
He is violent.
He is one of the scariest guys you've ever seen.
Kenny Friedman was sentenced to death,
and Gary Friedman was sentenced to life
without the possibility of parole.
When I found out I was happy, because I think it's justice.
Kenny the Animal.
Kenny, also known as the Animal, he's the killer.
It seemed like he took glee in taking the life of--
of these people.
Killed himself ultimately.
- Ended up killing himself. - On death row.
- Yeah. - Hung himself.
Years passed as Gary Friedman weathered
his brother's suicide behind bars
and Howard's prestigious lawyers
mounted attacks to delay his trial.
His confession in federal court was
at the heart of the battle.
Ruling had already been made.
I was not allowed to use that confession.
I have probably never briefed or argued
a single issue harder.
I spent over a year trying to get the court
to reconsider that ruling.
That did not prove to be successful.
[tense music]
♪
So I have a room full of federal boxes
for Howard Bloomgarden.
I start going through these 46 boxes.
And one of the things I find is letters of mitigation
to the federal judge saying, you know,
"Please spare Howard,
give him a better deal, and here is why."
And I started reading through these letters,
and they're letters from his mom, his dad,
his sisters, from 1996.
They're a gold mine.
I found five different relatives all over the place.
I want to send out five teams of investigators
to have a simultaneous door knock,
where we get these people before they can communicate
with each other, to say, "Hey, Mrs. Bloomgarden,
"you wrote back in 1996,
"'Howard feels horrible about what he did.'
What did you mean by that?"
And see if hopefully someone says,
"Oh, Howard felt horrible.
He ordered the murders of these two guys."
[dramatic sting]
♪
So on January 13, 2014,
a task force coordinates all of these interviews
happening across the country at the exact same time.
I remember driving up the 110 freeway
at, like, 5:30 in the morning, heading to work,
waiting to hear from the different people
in the different areas.
And one by one, they're all falling.
Chicago, I think someone had dementia.
Someone wouldn't open the door.
These people, you know, didn't want to talk.
And everything's kind of falling apart.
And I hear from all of them, and I get to work.
And, you know, nothing worked out.
Afterwards, we're debriefing with the investigators.
And one of the investigators, Shawn Robinson,
tells me, "Hey, this is interesting.
"When I'm talking to Susan Bloomgarden, the sister,
"there's this guy George, her boyfriend,
"that won't stop talking in the background.
"He won't shut up. He keeps wanting to talk.
"And so finally, I talked to him.
You want to hear the tape?"
I'm like, yeah.
And at this point, I'm defeated.
I'm figuring this is all not gonna work.
I remember being at Ralph's by my house,
a grocery store, buying something.
And I had a--I remember a very cheap pair of headphones,
and I have the George Kuney tape on.
And I'm hearing it,
and I can't believe what I'm hearing.
I was sort of in shock, because all of a sudden,
I had everything I had hoped to get.
After collecting a recording that incriminated
Howard Bloomgarden for murder,
Los Angeles prosecutors were ready to take him to trial.
[dramatic sting]
[dramatic music]
Defendant is not here
because his life cast him here.
He had everything as a child.
Nobody stands in the way of what the defendant wants.
He wants his money, and he doesn't care
what he has to do.
If he can get Peter Kovach alone, that's great.
If someone else has to go, can't help it.
Collateral damage.
Even a completely innocent person--
Ted Gould, in this case.
The star witness in the trial is Ruben Hernandez.
He walks into the courtroom surrounded by U.S. Marshals,
and he gives the most details of this crime.
According to Ruben, the night of the murders,
you had Ted Gould and Peter Kovach
working at the cell phone store in Torrance.
As Ted is waiting for Paul Poduska to get there,
the lights from a car come off Hawthorne Boulevard
into the parking lot, and they shine right into the store.
Three guys rushed in. They've got guns.
One guy tilts the camera down,
and they pull Ted and Peter
into a 1974 two-door LTD
in the parking lot.
And they drove about two miles through Hawthorne
to the Travelers Inn.
Kenny Friedman starts beating Peter up pretty badly,
demanding Howard's money.
According to Ruben's testimony,
there's a final phone call between Kenny and Howard.
And in the end, according to Ruben,
it's Howard that says, "Kill them."
Ruben Hernandez gets on Peter's back,
and Kenny Friedman pulls out the corded telephone cord
and begins to strangle Peter Kovach.
And if you are familiar with strangulation,
it's a very long and difficult process.
Ted Gould, who had nothing to do with any of this,
is actually sitting on the floor
with a pillow case covering his head,
listening to his friend being killed and tortured.
Once Peter is dead, Kenny looks over to Ted Gould.
And Kenny says, "Bring him over."
So when I called George Kuney to the stand,
the joke always was, "Boy, it's gonna be
a hostile Thanksgiving at the Bloomgarden house."
Because George basically laid out Howard
unknowingly at the time.
When George Kuney testifies,
he denies he ever made these comments.
That's when Geoff Lewin pushes a button
and Kuney's voice fills the courtroom.
The jury could hear it coming straight
from the horse's mouth.
Kuney's testimony is crucial because it corroborates
what Ruben Hernandez said about Howard ordering the killings.
This was a plan.
This was not something the defendant was thrown into.
This is something the defendant organized.
After several weeks, the jury returns a verdict
in a matter of hours.
Howard Bloomgarden is found guilty on all counts in murder
in the course of kidnapping.
In our law, we have a separate proceeding
where the jury gets to actually hear victim impact.
[somber music]
The impact statement testimony was--
was really hard.
I pretty much broke down in tears on the stand
about how much I missed my friend.
There wasn't a dry eye in the room,
including the prosecutor.
It was just quiet for a long time.
It's difficult to think of somebody that was so vibrant,
so happy-go-lucky, being murdered.
He deserves to be remembered fondly.
I would like to think that Ted would still be
bopping around, listening to his favorite music,
just being Ted.
The 1993 drug bust had cost Howard Bloomgarden millions
and driven him to end the lives of Peter and Ted.
22 years later,
the California courts finally sentenced him
to life without parole.
Howard, you know, he's still alive.
And although he's incarcerated, he's enjoying life
that Peter and Ted are not.
And the appeals are exhausted at this point.
But there are always other challenges,
habeas corpus, other things you can do.
Howard continues to spend his money
to try and escape responsibility
for what he did.
And Howard will continue to do that
until he's either released or he dies
or the money runs out.