Crimetown

Marc heads to Williamsburg, Brooklyn to meet a 70-year old gangster and hear him confess to the murder of Pope John Paul I. What he learns is that there’s a lot more to Anthony Raimondi than meets the eye.

A new 10-part true-crime podcast, Executive Produced and Edited by Zac Stuart-Pontier, co-creator of Crimetown.

In the Crimetown Season 2 finale, Kwame Kilpatrick begins his 28-year prison sentence. Although he still maintains his innocence, his chances of a retrial are slim. Meanwhile, Detroit is undergoing a remarkable economic transformation. But who is benefitting from the Motor City miracle? And is the era of crime and corruption really over?

After a decade of scandals and a sprawling corruption investigation, Kwame Kilpatrick faces his most daunting challenge yet: a federal trial that could put him in prison for decades. The former mayor is no longer fighting for his political life or his marriage — now, he’s fighting for his freedom.

For years, the FBI has been running a wide-ranging corruption investigation into the Kilpatrick administration. As they dig deeper, the feds uncover a massive pay-to-play enterprise that reaches every level of City Hall. Is Kwame Kilpatrick a crook? Or are his associates just exploiting his name in order to enrich themselves? 

After serving 99 days in jail, former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick walks free. He heads to Texas and tries to settle into a new life. But Detroit isn’t quite ready to let him go. 

With the mayor behind bars, a crusading lawyer takes up the case of slain exotic dancer Tamara Greene. Could Kwame Kilpatrick have ordered her murder — or is it all an urban legend?

The revelation that Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick had an affair with his chief of staff — a romance detailed in thousands of explicit text messages — rocks Detroit. But it’s only the beginning of their troubles. 

Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown files a whistleblower suit against City Hall, alleging he was fired for investigating the long-rumored Manoogian Mansion party. Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick denies the accusations. But while he’s on the stand, he’s asked a surprising, seemingly unrelated question — one that just might bring him down. 

As rumors about a wild party at the mayor’s mansion continue to spread, Kwame Kilpatrick must fend off an increasingly unsympathetic media. Meanwhile, his opponent in the next election has a double-digit lead. Can the hip hop mayor survive? 

To his supporters, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is a new breed of politician: young, cool, and in touch with black culture. To his critics, his flashy appearance and taste for nightlife are evidence of his immaturity. Rumors about Kilpatrick begin to swirl: sky-high spending, an out-of-control entourage, and wild parties at the mayoral mansion. Is Kwame Kilpatrick in over his head? Or is he being targete...

When Mayor Coleman Young dies after twenty years in office, he leaves a yawning vacuum in Detroit’s power structure. But a successor quickly arises: a young, ambitious state legislator named Kwame Kilpatrick. He’s charismatic, larger than life, and has an impeccable political pedigree. There’s only one person who can stop Kwame Kilpatrick: himself. 

Dimitri Mugianis is a rarity in Detroit: a white kid whose family stayed after everyone like them left. Growing up, he throws himself into the city’s avant-garde underworld, playing in art-punk bands and partying in gay clubs. But when his taste for the nightlife becomes a full-blown heroin addiction, he realizes that he’s in trouble—and, with a hot new drug called crack hitting the streets, it’s o...

Still hung up on the unsolved murder of Damion Lucas, FBI agent Herm Groman devises an elaborate sting to ensnare the corrupt cops of the Detroit Police Department. Will it bring down Mayor Coleman Young, too? 

A thirteen-year-old boy is murdered in a drive-by shooting. The Detroit police quickly apprehend a suspect. But the FBI is convinced that the wrong man is in jail — and that the real killers are escaping justice thanks to friends in high places. 

Coleman Young has more underworld connections than you might expect of a big-city mayor. Sometimes those connections come in handy. But when his favorite niece starts dating an infamous drug dealer, Mayor Young must choose between keeping her out of trouble and keeping his hands clean. 

It’s the early eighties, and a new organization is revolutionizing the heroin trade: Young Boys Inc. Unlike other drug operations, YBI recruits juveniles, brands smack as if it were designer clothing, and moves the industry out of the dope houses and onto the corners. As YBI’s relentless expansion causes more and more bloodshed, its foot soldiers must reckon with their impact on Detroit. 

When a hungry young DEA agent arrives in Detroit, he picks the perfect case to make his bones: taking down Eddie Jackson and Courtney Brown’s sprawling heroin organization. But if the drug kingpins fall, what will happen to their kids? As the feds close in, Eddie Jr. and Courtney Jr. must face the possibility of growing up without their fathers. 

Eddie Jackson and Courtney Brown are childhood friends from a poor neighborhood. Eddie is the troublemaker, drawn to Detroit’s seamier side; Courtney is his quiet, serious sidekick. As they grow older in a city with dwindling job options, they go their separate ways. But when Eddie dives into the heroin trade, Courtney faces a choice: play it safe and stay broke, or join his friend’s burgeoning emp...

A police shooting outside a community center leaves two black teenagers dead. Protesters take to the streets, igniting a movement to elect the city’s first black mayor. As election day approaches, the future of a racially polarized city hangs in the balance. 

Detroit, 1971—a city riven by blight, racial strife, and rising crime. In the first episode of Crimetown Season 2, the police form a controversial undercover unit called STRESS—Stop The Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets. One of the unit’s cops kills so many black men that he earns a nickname: Mr. STRESS. Can anyone stop him? 

In Season 2, Crimetown explores crime and corruption in the heart of the Rust Belt: Detroit, Michigan. Expect stories of police shootings, the drug trade, and political scandal from a city divided by race. Coming October 1st, exclusively on Spotify.

Buddy Cianci was once a crusading prosecutor who took on the mob. Now, he’s behind bars. For the mayor of any other city, this would be the end of the road. But Buddy isn’t any other mayor. And Providence isn’t any other city.

Buddy Cianci faces justice. His lawyers say he’s the Renaissance Mayor, too busy rebuilding Providence to notice a few bad apples in his administration. The prosecution says he’s just another crooked politician, running a massive corruption ring out of City Hall. Which story will the jury believe?

Dennis Aiken is an FBI agent from Mississippi. Anthony Freitas is a businessman from Portugal. Together, they’re Providence’s best hope in the war on corruption—and they just might take down Buddy Cianci once and for all.

Charles “the Ghost” Kennedy and his sister Gloria took very different paths in life. She became a state senator. He became a drug smuggler. And as his empire starts to crumble, the people close to him suffer the consequences.

Buddy Cianci left City Hall in disgrace after torturing a man in his living room. Now, he attempts the impossible: running for mayor of Providence again.

A shadowy group of political insiders tries to cover up a crisis. A mobbed-up banker vanishes after embezzling millions of dollars. And one renegade ex-nun saw the whole thing coming.

A mob lawyer rises to become Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court. He promises to leave his past associations behind. But it's hard to part with old friends.

A young doctor suddenly finds herself caring for a sickly old man named Raymond Patriarca. As she grows closer to her new patient, she’s drawn into the underworld in more ways than one.

After a lucrative career as a thief, Charles Kennedy has an important realization: the real money is in drugs. He rises to become one of the East Coast’s biggest traffickers, throwing coke-fuelled parties and amassing a strange menagerie of pets. But his success attracts the wrong kind of attention.

One night in 1982, a 20-year-old man is senselessly murdered at an abandoned gas station. A mobster is taken into witness protection after he pins the murder on his boss. This brutal crime will push three wiseguys out of the mafia in very different ways.

A master thief keeps getting away with big heists. A cop spends years tailing him, tapping his phone, and practically moving in across the street. Their epic tug-of-war will revolutionize the fight against organized crime.

March 20th, 1983. As an FBI investigation swirls around him, an increasingly unpredictable and paranoid Buddy Cianci summons a few friends to his home on the East Side of Providence. What happens there that night shocks the city.

Police discover a bullet-riddled body in the backseat of a car. Jerry Tillinghast and his brother Harold are arrested. But doubts are soon raised about Harold’s involvement. And now, Jerry has a choice: break the mob’s code of silence, or allow his brother to join him in prison.

Buddy Cianci, the popular mayor of Providence, runs for governor. But he knows something the people of Rhode Island don’t. And when they discover Buddy’s secret, it threatens to derail his political career. So what does Buddy do? He picks a fight.

August 14, 1975. A ragtag crew of crooks holds up a fur company. But it’s not just a fur company. It’s the Patriarca crime family’s secret bank. And now, the thieves not only have to run from the law—they have to run for their lives.

Buddy Cianci runs for mayor as the anti-corruption candidate, promising to change Providence. He’s a novice Republican politician in a city ruled by Democrats and mobbed-up unions. As he struggles to get elected, he faces an impossible choice: stay clean and lose, or get a little dirty and win.

How does a kid from Providence become a mob enforcer? Two men share their personal stories of joining Raymond Patriarca’s crime family. As they move from their formative years on the street to maximum security, they come up against murder charges, jailhouse feuds…and even the occasional farm animal.

Welcome to Providence, Rhode Island, a city where organized crime corrupted every aspect of public life. In the first episode of Crimetown, a young prosecutor named Buddy Cianci takes on a gruesome murder case. As the investigation heats up, Buddy goes head to head with the most notorious mob boss in the country—and launches a career that will change Providence forever.

From Gimlet Media and the creators of HBO's The Jinx, a new podcast exploring the tangled web of crime and corruption in American cities. This season: Providence, Rhode Island. The first episode premieres November 20th.