Turning Down A $12,000,000 Score - Chapter 5: Episode 6 | Larry Lawton: Jewel Thief | 7 |

this is Larry Lawton and he's an ex jewel thief Larry's a former career criminal once considered the biggest jewel thief in the United States the boat goes on fire we're out in the middle just of Lake George and a boat caught on fire chapter 5 is diamonds are a guy's best friends I'm actually doing this in Key West Florida during R&R so I can keep the chapters rolling every Thursday and Sunday I hope you guys are liking this new format some people are saying they really like it a lot so diamonds are a guy's best friend you know my next robbery was a place in Fort Lauderdale which was close to where where I lived at the time I lived in North Lauderdale and so we do two robberies pretty much is set up the same way we go in I end up taking two people down there's two store people and I was dressed always in a nice suit or not a suit a sports jacket at least and they didn't know so it always had a Rolex always had my stuff so when I do that I then after I get the people that I'm up behind the thing that doors always have a buzzer so since they have a buzzer I only let the people in which is which makes robbing the jewelers a lot better so what happens is I bring my partner in was getting in there and all of a sudden two people come to the door can you let him in your show oh my god you say hey this you're in a robbery come on get down we ended up having ten people in the store literally ten I ran out of flex-cufs I used to keep flex-cufs in my back pockets in my suit jacket pocket so we had flex cuffs we ran out of flex-cufs so what were there there's this one guy who was really an [ __ ] and he kept by like saying stuff and I'm thinking this guy must be a cop or it what's wrong what's what's going on so I go over to him he's on the floor he's tied up I check him I pull out his wallet he's not a cop look at him he's just nobody and I never took jewelry off a person's finger in the robbery of some like that well this guy had a gold bracelet on and I take off his gold bracelet and I look at it and it's fake so when it's a fake fake gold thing I said you you pieces you for gazing you use you know you both there you know and the girls the two girls that work behind the counter start cracking up and down on the floor and they're laughs and then this guy shuts up and I just looked at him I said yeah I threw it at him it was such a joke but he shut up we ended up getting at it and I'll tell you what I'm just a good score but it was in Fort Laura right in the car all the way to Brooklyn and once we get to Brooklyn we actually went to Jersey that time and after that scores in hey so do we do you know whose party dough will get into the party in here in a little bit and but anyway I set up eight stern doors so let me tell you H star H Stern Stern jewelers is one of the biggest jewelers in the United States it's it's not a chain it's it's their mega mega they're in high-end hotels they're in high high-end malls well there was an H Stern and one in Bahia more one was in the Fountainbleu hotel in Miami it was in the lobby eight stern was also on the one in about Harbor walls those are the two places H Stern doors so I look at the one in the harbor wall and I said that can't be done it was in the back down below to get away it would have been really too hard but then there was one in the lobby of the Fountainbleu hotel in Miami Beach and great place the case the place you could case it from there was a piano bar across the across the lobby you could sit at that like when they have people in there and people having drinks people are always going back and forth to the pool you know so it was easy to case the place to learn when and where the people were you know coming in going when Security's going I went in it too a few times you know like I said I'm a tourist in the area and I'm looking and I'm like oh my god there is money in here and I'm literally looking through these cases checking out the prices know what high-end watches everything said there had to be about twelve million I said old man this is a big score there's gonna be about four million in my pocket four million to me so it was so big of a score I called the guys I don't wouldn't say hey listen uh-oh this score is gonna be huge so how can we work this out cuz I knew how big it was there's a large store like that you gotta get out of town you gotta let heat cool whatever you're gonna do cuz it's gonna be really a lot of pressure on this one and sure enough I I said of course he goes I'll give you a million right when you see me and we'll work out a million every other month or something of that nature that's okay that's good I trusted them here we are I said oh this is the biggest school but how can you do it and when I say I case that I stayed in that Lobby had drinks at night got in the morning like I was eating coffee went to the pool so I'd walk by in a bathing suit in a towel just so I look like I was a person I was in the hotel I never stayed in a hotel no one knew my name in that place or anything of that nature and I watched I watched and I saw who came in what time they came in the guard came in the owner came in first the owner came in or the manager is really all it is the manager came in at around nine o'clock in the morning 8:30 they opened it I think 10 o'clock and the owner would get in there about nine o'clock so he leaves so I said okay but the security guard didn't come until 9:30 so he knew I had a window from 9:00 and 9:30 where there's no security guard but how do you get to that guy he's not gonna open the door he's not gonna let you get in he watched when he go when in the stores I was looking around him then he went in on never forget that so how do I get into that store here was my plan I end up following this guy home and he lived in Hollywood Florida which is pretty good ways from Miami Beach so I followed him home and the plan I ended up going to buy sticks that look like dynamite you know like there were flares but they look like dynamo put wire on him put him all three together and it was pretty wild cuz it look exactly like dynamo I'm not gonna hurt anyone but I'm gonna take the dynamite I'm gonna strap it to the owner I had a look like a click or a buzzer actually click click then I said listen if I hit this buzzer you're gonna blow up and I'll tell you what if my partner does not this is what my plan was my partner does not hear from me every so often I'm gonna have your family killed no this is what my thought pattern was none of this happened I'm gonna tell you why so here I am figuring okay you hold them hostage I will get tell my partner we're really gonna leave right away when it happens time make sure they can't tie it up beforehand until the he hears from me then he just leaves the place and he's gone and then I even told you no thought pattern was so deep in my head that even I said listen if you crash the car if you flag down a cop I'm just gonna jump out and hit this button you're gonna die you know whether I get caught or not your family's getting killed you know this is what my thought pattern was week and it got so far to get to this jewelry store there's so much money was thinking about it that we actually hid in the bushes in front of his house but a neighbor's dog was barking and kind of like spooked us and I I called it off called a gut feeling and it was the best move I ever made because once you kidnap somebody there's no what they call statue of limitations you're done you're gonna get caught and that's the end of it you know you're gonna go to jail forever it was eight Stern joules that never happened it would have been the biggest score one of the biggest scores in America for sure and now they had mega scores all over the country all over the world but that would have been the biggest jewelry robbery ever for sure and it didn't go off and I'm glad it didn't go off it probably another freak thing that saved my life by not going off so eight Stern Jule was a wild robbery that never happened thank God and it was the gut feeling you know all that money so it was pretty crazy and enjoyed it so here I am even though that store didn't go off I'm living the good life you want to talk about girls and women Here I am married I have a what they call GU motto which is a girlfriend I have a neighbor that I'm playing around with and I have a secretary and the security guard company I'm play around what everyday I'm literally playing around with four women doing coke lines of coke eight feet long on the bars at different different bars and places and hookers and strippers and I was just a while that was off the charts and I lived the you know vida loca a crazy life and it was just crazy crazy crazy I used to throw you know people always knew me as a good guy too because I always threw a party I always invited people over to my house for the fights for the for a Memorial Day for July 4th was the biggest parties I used to throw mega parties with a thousand cases of ten kegs of beer thousand hotdogs thousand hamburgers ride companies Barney for the kids paint facing and all that kind of car show and I didn't offer the neighborhood for nothing I just I was kind of like a Robin Hood a lot of people said he was a good guy man he was all right he wasn't they didn't know I was a criminal of that magnitude they all thought I was doing something whether it was drug deal or mobs or whatever it was that I was making money because I had my hands and a lot of things but you know bookmaking and that kind of stuff and but it was just I lived a little crazy life but then the core of the life was robbing the jewelry stores of course I even used to take our member my parents lived up in at the time Palm Bay Florida and I was in Fort Lauderdale so I actually my parents were ball was in a knew a guy named I'll never forget his name Larry Brewer Larry Brewer was a disc jockey on ax on W MMB that's good memory but any W MMB was the radio station and he was a disc jockey and he knew my parents from the bowling and we're a sponsored his stuff so I called up and I said hey listen you know I want to do something good for kids and he goes what do you mean I go I want to go to Toys R Us and buy a bunch of toys for like disadvantaged kids so and there was a home up here had about 14 15 16 like orphans and and kids foster kids in this house and it would taken care of him and I ended up going to Toys R Us and filling the Bing with toy what they needed the house a volleyball net at the time I think back even then they just came out with like a Nintendo or something of that nature or Atari or one of those and this is wow this is in probably 90s early 90s and I ended up going by and over $2,000 worth of toys and stuff and bringing it to the home gift wrapped and everything else and all these kids got all these toys and was just amazing while I was there I saw the kids didn't even have sneakers like real sneakers to where they were some of them had you know totally worn out with a hole in the bottom and stuff and they didn't have anything and I ended up going out and buying shoes sneakers for every kid in the whole place and it was just rewarding and I don't know if that's something in me that happens or you know the good part of me fighting the bad part my sister used to think I was the you know she was question she goes why are you with the devil and you were you know good and it was fighting you just fighting each other was just crazy when I think about it but it is crazy and that was some crazy stuff I still had the gambling bug and the gambling bug is crazy I mean I went to the Bahamas one time and get off the plane in the Bahamas I'm with my wife at the time my second wife young wife and a friend of hers and we go into the Bahamas and I brought like 10 grand with me in cash and before we checked into the hotel I was comped they call it cuz I was a big gambler before we checked before I got to the room I ended up losing the 10 grand walking by some tables I played a few hands at a thousand in 2000 I ended up losing that money within probably fifteen minutes and we get to the room and I got viola days to go what do you do I threw a class against the wall I was just didn't get after it gets out of my system I don't hold grudges I'm not like that and what do I do I call up Fat Tony I said Tony send junior down I said go into the safe he had the combination to my safe in the house I said go get ten grand send him down here right away on a next plane and sure enough the next day comes down I got another ten grand to gamble wit and I just that bogging it was just crazy losing crazy money doing that and so it was I mean I had carpal arch you want to talk about Taj Mahal I used to go to the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City and I used to stay on a maharaja floor which was the 49th floor and that's why I met Roger King Roger King owned King world which owned Jeopardy wheel of fortune Oprah Winfrey Show they owned and developed all those shows the obvious even to this day is created by King world him and his brother Roger Michael King owned King world I ended up meeting Roger King at a casino never forget we're in a Cosmo and we're in the high-roller pit and his Roger King is crazy you know he's gay just to give everybody a a kind of thing that put things in relativity he's a billionaire I was just a lowly gangster but I'm betting $1,000 a hand every hand Roger King has been in ten and twenty thousand dollars a hand it was crazy funny story were sitting in a high roller Patna Taj Mahal and we're at the table and we're doing coke we're partying out the ass it was just crazy and Roger King that gives his chips he geeks got about a quarter million dollars I think was like that and chips he gives them to a guy he's with it says go cash she's in at the booth you know it's right in the high-roller to have a little cage there for her to go cash in or put your chips in and he wanted to go and they go miss they he comes back and says Mr King they want your ID card he's so funny he gets up on the taste allowed now you're in the high chairs they're in he starts going up I'm pulling trying to get that Roger get down get down he says this place I'm gonna buy this place and find a Trump that's exactly what he said and I'm all laughing I am just laughing we was just so [ __ ] up so he says to me come on you going to the fights I said yeah we were going to though I'll never forget the fight was Michael Moore versus Bert Cooper and I'm sitting third row I had ringside seats and actually at that party it was fat Tony's birthday so I took him up and a bunch of other people up to Atlantic City from Florida and New York and we're all partying down coke women unbelievable and we got third row seats to the boxing match Bert Cooper Michael Moore who do I see at the front of the ring is Roger King Roger King calls me down come in Larry he liked me for whatever reason we we hit it off he calls me down he goes Donald Trump was right there he says Donald this is Larry Larry Donald now get out of here just like that he pushed off Trump it wasn't a Trump fan so he pushed it off Trump and we start talking were at the ringside now and I'm like right there and so before the fight starts me talking and he goes hey let's put on a fight that's okay he goes well Michael Moore's mind I didn't know that obviously now I did he's Michael Moore he was the sponsor they ended up they were very big into boxing they pretty much wanted to control all of boxing some funny stories about that later so what does he do he bets he goes I'll give you five to one so I threw him a thousand-dollar chip I had thousand all chip a $200,000 chip I had his chips in my pocket always whatever I was doing at that point and he goes sure so this is Joe that's a man I can make five grand if he wins the first round I'll never forget Bert Cooper knocks Michael Moore on his butt oh my god he just won five grand fifth round Michael Moore came back and knocked out Bert Cooper but it was just a great experience and and it goes it showed me the relativity of things too and what I mean by the relativity of things is I could be worth X amount of dollars even today or anybody everybody is in their own lane you could be worth a lot of money and things mean more to you or not I was betting big big for anybody and he's betting 10 and 20,000 a hand so everything do you think wow you know is there somebody bigger than act he had the 49th floor it's called the Maharaja floral in two ties more on that next floor was only three suites with a butler a cook and a maid standing at the door all day long and that was where Roger King stayed you know and I was comped and I had you know the button it hits the TV up and all the stuff so but everything was relative and was just crazy to think like that I remember being you know for Roger King he was just he was a great guy he liked like he liked you I mean he was he's another guy I watch we're at the high role or paid some guy comes to sit down and of course the pit bosses come over a whole lot and Roger King goes hey what we're gonna bet the guy gets $500 Roger King get some fire for analysis I'm sorry to sir private table just drew him 500 off so things were relative I'm like wow and it was just him and I at this table and that's what we liked and partied and gravy was just a crazy time back then oh I think you know at this time I have money so I says like I never forget I'm watching the movie The Lonesome Dove movie Lonesome Dove was on TV and if you're anything about the lonesome numbers - Robert Duvall and it's a Western and all this and I loved horses when I was a kid I was a small guy I know I'm a big guy now 240 pounds and and pretty big guy back when I was a kid when I was 13 14 years old I was a hundred pounds and my dad sent me to Delray Beach to be a jockey be a jockey so I of course obviously as you could see I could be a doc had break a horse's back now but I always loved horses so I'm watching this movie Lonesome Dove and I call up Fat Tony I say Tony get the call we're gonna buy a horse he goes what tracks it for a racing man I go no it's a horse a riding was because what track I said no he goes what is it a Trotter I said get the [ __ ] car we're going to buy a horse with could I borrow a horse to ride so he gets the car we had to get the old Cadillac so we're getting a car and we head down or place in in fort water out and Davey out called a triple cross ranch it looked like at first I thought it was a KKK rancher no it's not there were really beautiful people Christian ranch and that guy's name I'll never forget Mike Fletcher did his day I hear from him he's a minister actually he had a it was a Christian ranch well I pull up that just pictured a scene his his to new york is pulling up to a ranch getting out and slacks and Bally's of Switzerland shoes and it's you know a nice shirt and I get out and I say - I said look and I want oh because he had a horse sighs horses for sale I said I want to buy a horse yes he looked at me like or am I crazy I said listen here's the deal if I buy a horse you got to show me how to right it I knew how to ride a horse from the race and I'm telling him I not rodeo horses like rodeo and team penning and team roping and heading and heeling and I did all that so he goes sure I'll do that so here we are I end up buying two horses a trailer the saddles had the horses boarded for $300 each a month which is a lot back that's $600 a month just to board the horses where they fed it hay and oats and they'd muck the stalls and I ended up loving the horses I had a horse named chalk and a horse named hammer chalk was a very good horse to pay a lot of money for him at way he could squeeze his legs and he would do anything it was just a great horse I love that horse and then I had a horse called hammer which is a little bit feisty ER and he was a barrel racing horse the other horse was like a team roping horse and team penning where you go out and get cows and bring him into a pen anything pretty pretty interesting stuff and I had a lot of fun on horse it was my getaway I used to go out there all messed up on weed and coke or whatever but I had my fun out there doing that it was pretty crazy times so also you know these are the times of crazy living that I lived I ended up having a friend of mine named Nicky over in Brooklyn he used to go down to Jersey and get the cars and he'd go to auction houses so I wanted to buy a boat so he goes okay come with me we'll get we'll get your boat at the auction Alice's okay go down there and they're buying a van and a boat I end up buying a conversion van with the captain's chairs and beautiful van I had all the works and I also bought a boat aboard a 21-foot center console with inboard outboard it wasn't set a console right side but an indoor/outdoor inboard outboard motor great great boat I made a beautiful boat and I said okay I want to go to Lake George so my brother and I want to go to Lake George and what do we do we take the boat we hook it to the van we're all ready to go we got it strapped down we're going to Lake George or anybody knows thing about Lake George it's got all these islands on it you can rent the island we used to do that when we were kids so we wanted to go to joy so it's really pretty cool so we go up to Lake George and heading up there all it's a good trip it's about four or five hours from well New York City so a heading to Lake George and we got the boat in tow and all this ennui and it was the axle on one of the tires on the trail of blue and it's got sparks flying in and we pull over to the right we don't lose the boat the boat was strapped down good how to have that a flatbed come out take that put that on a flatbed take it to like a gas station mechanic shop somewhere to where we were and they fixed it cost me a thousand bucks to put a new axe or everything on I'll never forget that we hook back up on the road it's gonna be a great trip so here we are in a way I don't know what I'm doing I don't latch and lock the thing on the ball has the chains coming to it but it doesn't have the latch to lock that I should have put on it we must have hit a bump it comes off the the ball goes back we feel the car go back and then it goes back into them into the van I think I'm the only man who had a boat hit his van literally smashed the back of the van whole door goes in boom we stop pull what's going on it was dragging because now it's down the the chains are holding it we get it didn't do we put it back on the thing great great I look at the van so look at this trip we already spent it down not as doors broke we end up hooking it up we don't know what we doing now I even tied it I made sure it will never come up so we get to Lake George okay we're in the boys gonna go to Lake George gonna have a lot of fun and like George and a waterskiing we put the boat in the water you think I would know better from being a Coast Guard and all that we back the boat up we don't open the the impeller the impellers you have to have the intake open up to get water in to cool the engine inside there's like a rubber thing we burn that up that gets into the engine of course $4,000 to fix it the boat goes on fire we're out in the middle just of Lake George and a boat caught on fire we end up putting it out we get towed in some people told us we go back to the marina takes the guy two days to fix the engine cost us four thousand dollars just to fix the engine on this boat and I'm like oh my god this trip costs me already five thousand dollars in cash and the door and the van we end up having a pretty good trip I ended up getting a ticket I'll never forget for we were waterskiing without a spotter on the boat and we didn't and I ended up getting a ticket for that but it was kind of funny because we're getting up coming back as I'm done no more boat no more there and let's get rid of this crap boom sold everything I was done with it but we had a lot of fun and that's the kind of stuff I did what I want it was kind of crazy time in my life so and every time how I was running things back then is anytime my safe one under forty thousand bucks anytime I say for another forty fifty thousand bucks in my safe I knew it's time to start getting ready for a robbery starting to plan my next score starting to do different things getting ready and all that kind of stuff so here what I do is I get ready by ok planning getting the guys ready what we're gonna be going kind of the area we're going so what do we do we had to Marilyn never forget we go to Maryland now Maryland is right outside of Washington this is four corners Maryland where we I end up figuring out the rope the store to rob so while I'm casing I'm a history buff that is damn history buff I'll never forget we go to the White House not in the White House but we go to the White House I had my old Coast Guard Pete you know jacket on you know the peacock they call them these to give you in the Coast Guard so anyway we go in into the White House like we're outside the White House and I have binoculars I have binoculars from mice you know casing the store and I'm just looking at the White House and it's pretty cool and I look on the roof and I see Secret Service agents looking right at me with their binoculars and it was just like kind of eerie thinking wow they really think it ain't know what I'm gonna be robbing a jewelry store soon but no it was one of the best scores ever did I think I got I think it was 1.2 million dollars out of that store and I remember giving Dom and it could envelope for about 50,000 the guys I was with made 70 thousand each everybody made a lot of money on that thing it was a hell of a hell of a score and that was in in four corners in Maryland and it was the way we did that robbery it was you know was under construct there was a lot of construction going on and again after the case in places and seeing nobody walking by I could look in they had won a display case that you couldn't look in and then it was like boards like you know like boardwalks where the construction guys were going up and down and around so it was easy to do meaning you know you're not nobody's gonna just walk in and how to be there and specific go to that store and if they did that that's good for me because then they're coming in I put them down nobody came in it was a really quick getaway and it was not a long back a trip back to Brooklyn actually it was about five hours for half an hour or something like that back to Brooklyn and then was cut but the Brooklyn did my regular then call my people stuff like that thinking about that last robbery and when I say diamonds are a guy's best friends cuz they made me a lot of money and that's why they named chapter the guy times or a guy's best friend and I really probably meant it by me and I lived that crazy life and you know we're gonna talk about more about that and next chapter but we hope you like this chapter I hope you like the way I'm doing it and he suggested always welcome you know you could always listen to the full read on the link below in Spotify or on iTunes I'm literally reading the book verbatim so you can do either one I'm summarizing these chapters of remembering stories and how it actually went so it's really off the cuff I take a few notes just to kind of it's a wild cuz I sit here and I look and I think about crazy life I lived with Roger King and the people and knowing all these people ended up getting to know and it's pretty crazy but I'm here to tell him stay tuned chapter six coming up next thank you [Music]

Channel: Larry Lawton

Views: 784,092

Keywords: criminal eyes, criminal record, ex criminal, gangster redemption, gangster redemption movie, jewel heist, jewel robber, jewelry heist, jewelry robbery, jewelry store, larry lawton biggest heist, larry lawton brother, larry lawton how i got caught chapter 1, larry lawton jewel robbery, larry lawton maximum security, larry lawton robbery, larry lawton robbery story, larry lawton robbing, prison hacks, smart criminal, thief gang, top 10, what happens to pedophiles in prison

Id: UkZMpSPOZpU

Length: 28min 43sec (1723 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 19 2019