Backstage Murder | The FBI Files S3 EP13 | Real Crime

at the height of its popularity chippendale's exotic male dance troop played to sell out crowds people across the country shelled out millions to see then one of the founding partners was murdered and new york city police were left with no leads when a suspect finally did emerge the chase would take the fbi to another kind in the hopes of the backstage [Applause] [Music] [Music] in the 1980s two partners created a nightclub that would bring them wealth and international fame the male strip club phenomenon promised female patrons fun and excitement but the bright lights hit a dark side i'm jim calstrom former head of the fbi's new york office the fbi would launch a sting operation spanning two continents to bring down a man who killed for profit [Music] new york city is famous for its show business tradition within a four block radius of times square hundreds of offices are rented by producers looking for their next hit one such place was on the 15th floor of a building on west 40th street in 1987 it was home to unicorn productions nick denoya was its founder and president curiously the five-time emmy award-winning children's television producer became best known as the producer and vice president of chippendales the exotic male dancers on april 7 1987 he was gunned down a colleague heard the shot he found denoya dead on the floor and called 911 oh yes uh a man has just been shot in my office hold on please i have to connect you with the influence oh please [Music] emergency vehicles arrived moments later [Applause] nypd crime technicians gathered evidence they recovered a shell casing from a nine millimeter automatic weapon [Music] denoia's colleague told homicide detective michael gettings that a strange man had entered the office just prior to the shooting he said about a maybe about a half hour ago 45 minutes ago somebody came into the office and said to him are you nick and he said no nick is in the other office and he's busy right now without looking up from his work the associate pointed the man to deny his office he never saw the stranger's face the witness told detectives that moments later he noticed the same man in the bathroom while he was in the bathroom he heard this guy leaving the bathroom and a couple of seconds later he heard the door to his office open up and then he heard a gunshot the last sound the witness heard was the exit door to the stairwell swing open then closed [Music] detective gettys traced the killer's path hoping to find something along the way that would point to his identity i took down the route that i thought that the shooter might have taken to see if there was any evidence or anything and i ran down the 15 floors i believe it was and when i got down to the end there was two exits one would lead to the lobby area one would lead to the freight elevator area so i exited out of the freight elevator area then came back in and exited out of the lobby area just to get a feel for the scene on the ground floor detectives investigated the freight area they dusted for prints but were unable to lift any that were usable the freight elevator operator had seen a man run through the door and out to the street he recalled that the suspect wore jeans and had dark hair he also gave us the exit of where how the fella came out of the building as he exited the building on 40th street and when he came out he made a left towards eighth avenue upstairs two city detectives arrived with nick dinoye's brother val from new jersey to identify the body [Music] the men had been close val was devastated by the sight of his murdered brother afterwards valdenoia came to the precinct to help investigators in any way he could nick's brother wanted the case solved as soon as possible detective getty's hoped val knew something that could provide a solid lead being a detective one of the hardest things to do is to tell somebody you know that hey we're not going to be able to solve this case right away unless you know something that can help us and i explained to him at that time i said look if it was something that happened here in the new york area maybe it was a business relationship here or a a relationship a love relationship or some kind of emotional type of relationship we have a good shot of of solving that crime right away for valdenoia one name came to mind his brother's business partner steve banerjee [Music] banerjee had known nick dinoya since the early 80s [Music] val told the detective that his brother met him in los angeles nick dinoya had traveled to la hoping to build upon the success he enjoyed in new york the five-time emmy award-winning producer fielded many offers but one man in particular was relentless in his pursuit steve managi the east indian immigrant and entrepreneur who had dreamt up chippendale's male exotic dance review wanted denoia to fashion a more refined act though ladies only nights in la were extremely popular banerjee wanted a dance troupe worthy enough to draw audiences in new york and las vegas [Applause] he believed that nick denoia was the man who could make that dream come true val dinoya said that his brother was reluctant at first feeling the act was too sleazy [Music] when banerjee promised him all touring rights and fifty percent of its proceeds denoya accepted the offer nick polished the routine and booked the troop at club magique in new york the newly styled chippendales dancers became an instant hit [Music] but shortly after his success val told the detective that nick's relationship with banerjee had soured banerjee demanded a larger percentage of the touring profits but nick refused to give in they were always constantly arguing and they were arguing about different ends of the business and you know it's just like regular business partners you know but they were having trouble and uh denoya was starting to take his troop out and he was going to form a new business he was doing very well in the weeks prior to his death nick was negotiating touring deals for a troop he designed to compete directly with chippendales stealing market share from chippendales could cost banerjee millions val offered the detectives his brother's financial records nypd set up surveillance at nick denoya's funeral since detectives suspected he'd been murdered by someone he knew nick's brother would help identify as many mourners as possible [Music] nick's partner steve banerjee was among those who paid their respects [Music] the following day investigators phoned banerjee in california to inquire about his relationship with his late partner for detective gettys the interview had a subtler agenda than fact-finding we were trying to get what we call a negative interview you know where if he says no i had nothing to do with it we were great friends and and things like that just to try to disprove things that were starting to be said so if later on it was involved with him we could just tie it all together you know like i said to you banerjee never contradicted what police already knew he acknowledged that he and denoya did not get along and admitted that he was upset that his partner had formed a new dancer someone who could verify that for you any help that i can do banerjee added that on april 7th the day of the murder he had been in los angeles the entire day yes yeah that did not rule out the possibility that a hitman had been hired but detectives had nothing to prove it the dunoya family offered a substantial reward for anyone who came forward with information police received several calls but none panned out [Music] we always felt this fellow steve banerjee had something to do with it but nobody could really give us any concrete evidence or even steer us in the direction of where we could tie anybody into what happened lacking any other leads the freight elevator operator from denoya's building provided his description of the man he saw run from the stairwell [Music] though he had seen him only briefly police hoped it would be enough to prompt someone else's memory pretty much police canvassed the lobby of danoya's office building well into the evening they asked everyone who worked there if they recognized the sketch none did the killer had apparently vanished in the middle of a work day amongst millions of new york city commuters well basically the investigation just you know it kind of hit a brick wall and we really weren't going anywhere with it we had a sketch that was out there there was a reward that was out there there was a we even put it on television trying to get some assistance uh figuring if you know the person that did this was from another state that somebody would give us the information but we constantly hit that brick wall and it wasn't going anywhere no new leads surfaced to new york city police it looked as if the killer had gotten away with murder four years had passed since chippendale's choreographer nick dinoya had been murdered in his manhattan office the case remained unsolved then in july 1991 over 2500 miles away special agent dan west at the fbi's las vegas field office received a call it was from a man who claimed he had been hired to kill two people for twenty five thousand dollars i immediately wasn't sure whether or not he was just a prank call it's not unusual for the fbi especially in las vegas on a weekend to receive prank calls a lot of alcohol flowing so i asked him to give me specific details of the alleged planned murder the caller said that a man named ray colon had hired him to kill two managers of a male exotic dance troupe touring england they were competitors of the chippendales dancers the source said he did not know why cologne wanted the men dead but for some reason the would-be hitman had decided not to go through with it i'm not sure if the source backed out because of good samaritan reasons or because he chickened out he flew to england and then flew back to the united states almost immediately i think he flew into los angeles then drove to las vegas basically to hide out the agent told the source to meet him at the office at five o'clock the next morning he needed to somehow confirm the caller's story he also said that he had worked with the dea in prior investigations as an informant and he provided me with the name of a de agent in houston who could vouch for him the dea agent confirmed that he had previously worked with the source and insisted that the man was to be trusted after the fbi arranged protection for the intended victims in england the informant described the murder plan preparations were made a few days earlier at the los angeles home of his former landlord ray colon the man who had hired him cologne led the would-be hitman to his garage where they met cologne's brother-in-law who had recently returned from scouting the victims in england look man we want this uh he told the informant that he could find his targets in the town of blackpool on july 20th when the exotic dancers were scheduled to perform there [Music] because of england's strict gun laws smuggling a gun in was out of the question instead colon instructed the hitman to kill his victims by fatal injection he mixed a dose of cyanide powder into a small vial they figured it could be smuggled past customs in a bottle [Music] the agent needed something more solid than the statement of one an informant to bring in ray colon [Music] he consented to get cologne on tape the reformed hitman would call cologne and pretend that he was still in england what we were trying to get from the telephone conversations was strong evidence that cologne was a part of the plan to kill the two intended victims if not the organizer of the plan we had the information from the source but we had to verify that through the tape conversations hello ray yeah barry buddy are you sure that damn stuff is gonna work it's pretty red buddy yeah it'll work oh man i don't want but if you want to add something to it all i was going to take before they uh croak and hit down was that an immediate if not sooner yeah right that's probably potent you can even put a little uh you know one little drain on that if you want well it's going to kill him right away then huh okay it was evident from the beginning that ray colon was not only a participant in this murder for hire scheme but that he was actually the director of it cologne provided numerous suggestions to the source on how to best affect the death of these two intended victims what wasn't evident from the recordings was a motive for killing two managers of an exotic male dance troupe do you know who hired colombo during the conversations cologne had made reference to a third man who was providing money for the double murder but the informant told agent west that he did not know the man's name two days later on wednesday july 25 1991 a federal judge in california was convinced that the fbi had enough probable cause to search cologne's los angeles home colon was surprised by the warrant it limited the agent's search to cyanide travel records to england and correspondents that could link cologne and his brother-in-law to the intended murder in the bedroom they found flyers for the male exotic dance tour in england [Music] they also found two handguns in a drawer records indicated they had been legally purchased by ray colon and since the warrant didn't specify weapons the guns were not seized in the garage agents did find something the warrant had specified a bag filled with cyanide it corroborated their informant story then one agent found something that would break the case wide open during the course of the search warrant we found cologne's address book special agent andy stefanik from the los angeles office was going through that book and he noticed the name of steve banerjee agent west also discovered that steve banerjee the well-known los angeles owner of chippendale's nightclub had called cologne recently the toll record showed several conversations several calls going back and forth between banerjee and cologne in addition that same day we received the results of interviews from the british police on the intended victims and both indicated that steve banerjee was the only person they could possibly think of who would have a motive to kill them or would even want to kill them the two managers of the rival male dance troupe believed that banerjee wanted them dead to stop them from competing with chippendales [Applause] this was the same motive that new york authorities suspected was behind the murder of banerjee's former business partner nick denoya agents called new york city homicide detective michael gettys to find out more about the five-year-old denoia murder all of a sudden i got a a phone call from uh the fbi i really got excited at that point because it was already maybe five years five and a half years or so so it looked like we might have the opportunity to give the family their final piece but neither the nypd nor the fbi had direct evidence against steve banerjee and agents were still unsure if cologne would be able to assist the murder investigation we at that time did not know whether or not cologne was involved in the nicknoya murder the composite picture resembled cologne but it certainly wasn't a match despite their uncertainty about cologne's role in denoia's murder they had strong evidence against him for conspiracy to commit murder faced with stiff jail time the fbi believed he would talk colon knew that he had to take a hit there was no question about that he was caught red-handed in the planning of the murder of two individuals so he had to accept the fact that he was going to go down for some time himself but that it was going to be a lot less time in jail if he worked with us on august 2nd 1991 agents arrested cologne and his brother-in-law for conspiracy to commit murder cologne's arrest would increase the pressure to tell the fbi what he knew about steve banerjee and the murder of banerjee's partner nick denoya what the fbi didn't count on was that cologne's arrest would make chippendale's owner steve banerjee far more elusive in august 1991 the fbi arrested ray colon and his brother-in-law in los angeles for conspiracy to commit murder their two targets who escaped unharmed were managers of a male exotic dance troupe touring england agents believed that a third man steve bannerty creator of chippendales had hired them to kill them special agent dan west needed more than a hunch to arrest banerjee he hoped that ray colon would provide something more solid he knew that that his best chances of getting the best deal were to cooperate with the fbi uh he had indicated to us that we only had a small fraction of the story he took a sheet of paper he said right now you have this and i can give you the whole page as agents had suspected cologne admitted that steve banerjee was the man who had hired him to carry out the murders he also told agents that the wealthy chippendales club owner had ordered the murder of his partner nick denoya in new york five years before for consideration of a lighter sentence colon signed a proffer agreeing to help the fbi gather enough evidence to arrest banerjee special agent scott gariola from the fbi's los angeles field office learned that cologne's association with banerjee had begun by chance over a decade earlier cologne had lived and managed an apartment building on the same street where chippendale's los angeles club was and by being so close in proximity he would frequent the bar and over the course of time became close friends with banerjee cologne explained that his friend steve banerjee had immigrated to the u.s from india in the early 70s 1973 the future millionaire opened a gas station north of the los angeles airport he used the profits to purchase a feeling west los angeles bar and by 1976 had turned it into the nightclub that became famous as chippendales [Music] by then cologne had parlayed his friendship with banerjee into employment the out-of-work musician was happy to perform any job that banerjee needed done one service cologne provided was arson banerjee wanted his competitors eliminated cologne confided that banerjee directed him to burn down nearby competition a disco in santa monica was the first target in 1979 five years later cologne torched another club neither arson attempt had been successful and the clubs remained open banerjee didn't limit his targets to buildings according to cologne banerjee also ordered him to hire a hitman to kill his partner nick denoya cologne added that denoya had successfully sued banerjee to prevent him from touring a second chippendales dance troupe the lawsuit combined with costly merchandising overruns forced banerjee to file for bankruptcy as instructed cologne hired a hit man three months earlier he claimed he remembered only the man's first name which was louie on the day of the murder cologne and louis flew in from l.a rented a car and drove into manhattan cologne waited on the street with the engine running until louis returned from shooting to noya the following night cologne was back in los angeles [Music] in chippendale's parking lot banerjee paid colon twelve thousand dollars cash the balance of the original twenty five thousand dollar fee cologne's story was good but it was only hearsay from a suspected conspirator he might say anything to serve less jail time special agent gariola first needed to verify the facts cologne had presented at this point all we had was somebody in prison telling us well it wasn't me was somebody else who was behind it your initial plan is to corroborate as much as possible what he's telling you and that's what we did for the first couple of months with cologne's credibility secured the fbi set out to get banerjee and the hitman who killed his partner agents figured the only one banerjee would trust enough to confess to would be his old friend ray cologne but they needed to get cologne close enough we had cologne released out of the jail where he was being housed under a proposed medical furlough because of his health problems and we started sending uh communications to banerjee via letter messenger messenger delivered letters and cryptic phone calls to try and get banerjee to respond to him banerjee refused to return calls or letters he was suspicious of cologne despite having paid him over two hundred thousand dollars in various drops around the city to keep cologne loyal since his arrest the fbi came up with another plan to compel banerjee to respond to cologne we decided to force the issue and set up a meeting on our own terms and we had cologne waiting across the street from chippendales one morning as agents watched cologne called to banerjee when he emerged from the club the chippendales owner was curious as to why cologne was standing outside his establishment banerjee spoke to him in whispers suspecting he may be wired agents had no way of knowing what banerjee might be planning we took several precautions you know if he hired somebody else cologne to kill somebody why would he have somebody to kill cologne hoping to strengthen banerjee's trust the released prisoner provided the address of a bar where the suspected murderer was to send more money [Music] banerjee didn't trust cologne but he couldn't afford to ignore him [Music] he told cologne to pick up his payment the next evening agents set up surveillance on the bar at about nine o'clock agents observe banerjee stopping in front checking the address and then driving away a short time later a messenger delivered a package agents retrieved it from inside when we contacted the messenger company that had sent the package the pickup location where the package was received from was a bakery that was right next door to the building where the chippendales dancers were practicing and rehearsing back in the fbi offices agents opened the package not knowing what might be inside it contained fourteen thousand dollars the payoff meant that banerjee would continue to keep ray colon close to him but agents didn't know if banerjee would talk or if the hitman known only as louie would ever be found in the summer of 1992 fbi agents continued to surveil chippendale's club owner steve banerjee he was suspected of ordering the murder of his partner more than five years earlier ray colon hired by banerjee to arrange the murder had been arrested and was cooperating with agents to capture the wealthy club owner wearing a wire cologne met the east indian entrepreneur at a hotel in santa monica hoping to get his confession on tape special agent scott gariola and his team were stationed nearby banerjee uh immediately motioned for cologne to join him in the men's room when the two of them went into the men's room and banerjee told him to be quiet not to say a word he searched cologne about three times looking for the wire agents worried about what the suspected murderer might do to cologne if he found the wire cologne's life depended on the fbi's skills at concealment all right banerjee never found the wire but it was clear that he did not completely trust his longtime friend ray colon out in the lobby banerjee insisted they communicate through notes instead of speaking agents recorded only scribbles and whispers banerjee wanted to know how much colona told the fbi and what they knew about quote the deed colon knew the deed referred to the murder of banerjee's partner the former musician denied that he had said anything to federal agents once again we're unsuccessful in getting a audible recording due to the fact that banerjee basically whispered throughout the whole thing and wrote notes and when cologne would raise his voice and try and talk banerjee would with chesham basically by putting his finger to his mouth and saying no we can't talk vanity gathered the notes and returned to the restroom this time alone despite his doubts about cologne's loyalty banerjee handed him another payment this time in plain view of agents the package held thirty thousand dollars more than twice as much as the first unfortunately for investigators there was nothing illegal about giving cologne cash on its face it's basically a loan for attorney fees for for cologne without the without the story on tape of how cologne and banerjee were partners in these crimes the money basically was not going to be able to uh to do anything for the case after banerjee's mercedes was out of sight agents hoped to retrieve at least a portion of the notes from the meeting [Music] in the men's room under a toilet one agent discovered a scrap of paper it seemed that banerjee had flushed the rest though it held only a small pen mark it would help corroborate cologne's story when it came time to testify at trial cologne did not remember the full name of the hitman he had hired in 1987 but he did recall that his first name was louis and he lived somewhere in east los angeles colon didn't have a last name for him didn't have an address we had took him out a couple of times had him drive us around the area and he uh pointed out a house that he thought louis had lived in cologne's memory proved correct the woman who answered the door was louie's mother since she did not know cologne she refused to tell him where her son was alone told her that he wanted to provide work for him and handed her his card in a few days cologne received a call unfortunately what we came across was louie's brother andy and we had to establish a relationship with andy to try and find out where lilly was so we had cologne talking to andy about various things you know he needed to hire louis back for a job same job you'd had completed a few years prior after about a month andy finally told cologne that he could find his brother roberto rivera lopez in los angeles county prison rivera whose nickname was louis was serving time for possession of narcotics and would be out of jail in a few months as a heroin junkie he would need fast cash after his release and wanted to know more about cologne's offer cologne laid the groundwork once again for this new job that he wanted rivera to help him with and the plan that we had set in motion was that there was a witness to the homicide in 1987 and that louis needed to go back and take care of that witness near the end of 1992 cologne met with the hitman for the first time in five years with their conversation being monitored the fbi informant slowly drew louis rivera in detailing a new murder plot if the fbi ever hoped to get the hitman confessing on tape it had to be now his release date on the charge he was incarcerated for was i believe january 17th of 93. we were running up against the clock and one of our concerns was that you know we had laid the groundwork for cologne and rivera that when rivera got out he was supposed to contact cologne to go and kill this witness agents worries were laid to rest on christmas eve 1992 rivera described his role in the murder of nick denoya [Music] at 3 30 pm on april 7 1987 louis arrived on the 15th floor of denoya's building disguised as a messenger the place was empty except for one man in the outer office moments later when the office worker entered the men's room louis exited to kill denoia figuring there'd be no other witnesses to the crime he found the producer at his desk pulled out a nine millimeter semi-automatic and fired from three feet away the fbi had it all on tape ray colon had fulfilled half of his agreement with the fbi to receive sentencing consideration on his charge of conspiracy to commit murder the other half hinged on his ability to secure a taped confession from the man who had ordered denoya's murder his longtime friend steve banerjee so far more than a year after his arrest colon had been unable to do that by january 1993 the fbi's cooperating witness ray colon had been unable to convince murder suspect steve banerjee to discuss aloud the crimes they had planned together they had met several times but banerjee had been too paranoid or too clever to be recorded at one meeting vanergy suggested he'd help cologne hide out overseas [Music] special agent scott gariola and his team used banerjee's suggestion to form a new plan perhaps banerjee could be lured overseas to talk to cologne on foreign soil i don't think it was too difficult on banerjee's part to accept the fact that cologne was going to go overseas i mean he wanted to be rid of cologne he knew cologne was the only person that could tie him into these various various crimes dating back to 1979. since cologne was still on banerjee's payroll agents believed it was likely that he would visit cologne in person to be certain that cologne had what he needed for an extended stay banerjee wanted cologne out of his life [Applause] permanently the fbi selected rome as their destination since italy's laws and police force are well adapted to surveillance investigations agents made extensive preparations before they arrive we acquired a a phony united states passport for cologne and an alias name which you would expect someone who's on the run a fugitive in another country to have some kind of phony documentation so we we acquired that we also entered cologne into the nationwide crime computer as a fugitive so in the event banerjee had some kind of private investigator or someone check the computer it would show that there was a warrant out for clones rest because he was now a fugitive with the cooperation of the italian authorities the fbi secured an apartment for cologne in rome that was wired for recording when everyone was assembled cologne placed a call to banerjee in california [Music] the east indian murder suspect understood that cologne would use the code name mr underwood when he called yeah hey this is mr dude how are you doing steve so when can you when you can you come and discuss the particulars but i can build a swiss [Applause] there was a problem with banerjee coming to rome since he was not a united states citizen he claimed he was not able to obtain a visa in time to enter italy and he wanted initially to meet us up by the italian swiss border banerjee finally agreed to meet cologne in zurich switzerland the fbi had only a short time to make the new arrangements it was quite a challenge to get everything accomplished um basically this was a friday i believe and it was basically one day since no one worked on a weekend back in the states we had to get every everything all the necessary approvals for the travel the country clearance we had to get the u.s attorney's office to contact through a mutual legal assistance treaty contact us their counterparts in switzerland to get the authority the legal authority to do the consensual recordings it was quite arduous to say the least despite the brief turnaround time the fbi and swiss authorities would be ready towards the main door the plan was to wire cologne for a meeting in the hotel lobby afterwards the informant would suggest continuing the meeting in his hotel room which would be equipped with audio and video devices planted by a special unit of the swiss police the bar two adjoining rooms were booked in a downtown zurich hotel one room they wired for picture and sound the room next door would hold the monitoring equipment agents hoped that this time their efforts would finally be rewarded with banerjee's confession on tape from the time of his arrival at the zurich airport steve banerjee would be under constant police surveillance the plan was for cologne to call banerjee and arrange a meeting in another hotel late in the afternoon as planned banerjee arrived first undercover agents and swiss police were stationed throughout the hotel dressed as staff [Music] he waited in the bar where he was expecting cologne's call [Music] on cue the phone rang all right cologne was on his way this was the fbi's best chance to get the recording they had long awaited [Music] to be sure banerjee's voice was taped clearly they hid the wire inside cologne's outermost layer of clothing his coat but cologne seemed nervous and removed his coat when he arrived [Music] as a result investigators could no longer hear the conversation [Music] years of pursuit hung in the balance it seemed unlikely that banerjee would agree to meet cologne again anytime soon we had ourselves a major problem so what i initially did was since i was monitoring the conversation from the outside i went into the into the doorway of the restaurant and hopefully in cologne's point of line of eyesight and i took my jacket off a couple of times hoping he would get the idea to put his jacket on but the agent couldn't get cologne's attention testimony isn't going anywhere the informant was apparently too nervous to look anywhere except directly at banerjee the swiss police they came to our rescue they went in there and they closed the whole restaurant down they went and talked to the uh the owner of the manager of the restaurant said hey we got a little problem we need to shut this restaurant down fortunately there weren't too many customers in there and basically they closed the restaurant down which forced cologne and banerjee to leave the restaurant after moving to a noisier bar in the hotel cologne suggested they'd be more comfortable relaxing in the room where cologne would stay cologne arrived first he was met by a swiss technician who attempted to strip the wire from his jacket before banerjee arrived cologne's device was an unnecessary risk since the room itself was wired we didn't know what banner he was going to do once the two of them were in the hotel they had gone from a public place to strictly a private place and we were a little concerned at this point for what banners you may have up his sleeve undercover agents alerted the surveillance team that banerjee had arrived on cologne's floor the swiss tech retrieved the wire and stepped into the adjoining room cologne barely had time to pour himself a drink before there was a knock on the door the first thing did was check cologne for wires he found none and began to relax cologne poured him a drink then his old friend opened up daylight banerjee felt comfortable enough to talk about murdering his partner he mentioned the twenty five thousand dollars he paid to commission the deed he also made comments about the men in england that he ordered killed he even talked to cologne about the arsons he had paid for back in 1979 after five and a half years and six thousand miles from the crime scene the fbi's perseverance had finally paid off at last they had it all on tape and cologne earned himself an early parole that was the the coup de gras right there that was it we got we got exactly what we needed we pretty much corroborated cologne you know down to every eye dotted eye and every tee that colonel told us on september 2nd 1993 outside his chippendales club in los angeles steve banerjee was arrested for racketeering and first-degree murder facing life in prison banerjee's defense team offered the state's attorneys terms for an agreement banerjee would plead guilty to the charges and forfeit his interest in chippendales for consideration in sentencing new york state accepted suggesting 26 years in a maximum security facility but to banerjee the punishment was too severe on the day of his sentencing in october 1994 he was found hanged in his cell michael gettys the new york city detective who investigated nick dinoya's murder six years earlier was glad to see the case closed ever since steve banerjee was arrested and cologne confessed what happened is i saw that valdinoy of the brother and his wife actually changed you could see the peace in their face you could see the smile coming back into their life steve banerjee had immigrated to the united states to fulfill his dreams of success blinded by his pursuit he confused power and the accumulation of wealth with the american dream

Channel: Real Crime

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Keywords: real crime, crime documentary, true crime, The FBi files, FBI, FBI files, crime patrol, true crime daily, tv show - topic, crime stories, crime documentaries full episodes, full episode, investigation, classified files, murder documentary, the fbi files full episodes, fbi files season 3, fbi files silent strike, fbi files, fbi documentary, fbi files full episodes, the fbi files, THE FBI FILES BACKSTAGE MURDER, chipendale murder

Id: y5ovfNQh8q4

Length: 50min 20sec (3020 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 03 2020