Mugshots: Chris Paciello - The Mob Over Miami | Forensic Files

[Music] Miami the international mecca for pleasure seekers on South Beach the world's most beautiful people take in
the Sun and play like Las Vegas South Beach was an original idea of a gangster a modern Bugsy seagull style Hood from
Brooklyn his name Chris pacello this is the story of Pell's conspirators the Miami party boys he's a
thief in every in every way Chris was accused of picking up the Velvet Rope stand and smashing it over a bouncer's
head he had been caught in a wire tap organizing my fascination [Music] when the Sun goes down this is where
everybody converges to Great bars great clubs on this this street here on the on
a regular Saturday night you'll easily have 3 400,000 people sometimes actually sometimes I shut down the street just to
let the people walk because it's just too crowded Jose lambier is a gossip columnist for Star Magazine years of
chronicling the exploits of Miami celebrities have made him an expert on South Beach after dark the nightclub is
something that people go from 10:00 to 4: in the morning uh sometimes every night there's probably a dozen clubs
here within uh a half mile distance pachello was a street smart kid who soon developed one goal to be the
most successful club owner in South Beach and and part of his genius was to learn very quickly and just pick it up
like this South Beach you know when he got here was starting to pick up but but I think Chris came here and made it
hipper he did a lot for Miami Beach he actually educated it all and he brought the New York sort of nightlife music
scene to Miami Beach Jerry Kelly one of the hottest club Owners in South Beach was Pell's marketing director he was a
young goodlooking eager hardworking nightclub owner Kelly watched as his boss quickly maneuvered his way into the
South Beach power base he befriended ingred ceris a popular and very visible Miami party girl who was reportedly
dating Madonna at the time within months pacello opened a new club with her liquid it was an instant and very trendy
success this is where liquid used to be right here people would line up from the
door there at 1437 all the way down to that Chicken Kitchen over there there have been
people who I would see when I got in and I would come out an hour later they'd still be in line in the same place
pachella and ceris followed up with another club barroom that aimed at a more upscale
clientele at barroom you could see Chris hanging around at a table with uh Prince
with uh Ricky Martin with uh Ricky Enrique glasius I mean the the biggest names in in Miami
Beach hung out there those names brought in the crowds and crowds brought in money well this is a private VIP
entrance you reserve a table and you buy two bottles in the night you're a VIP the table including the tip with two
bottles of liquor of your choice would win it about $500 a good night club here in Miami
Beach can growth between 12 and $15 million the year pachello was just getting started in 1998 he and caceras
opened an elegant restaurant called Joya and they had plans to open yet another club what what a lot of his staff were
talking to me about was his purchases I would get a call from uh uh a staffer over there saying hey he just bought a
yacht and then uh two weeks later somebody would call and say hey he just bought a
house in 1999 just 5 years after he had arrived from Brooklyn Chris pello had become the
king of South Beach he had provided to the AIDS foundations the Make A Wish Foundation he had hosted the the
reelection party for the mayor of Miami Beach this was a guy who was beloved by our community beloved also by a bevy of
beautiful women I remember one day being at the Delano and I see this couple in the pool and
they're it's like I wanted to yell hey take a room it was Chris pello and supermodel
Nikki Taylor they're romping around in the pool but they didn't want anybody to know they were seeing each other there
had to be 50 people there watching them in this pool but Bello's Reign at the top would
be short-lived by the end of 1999 his friends and fans would discover that the man they worshiped had brutalized
customers threatened to murder his competition consorted with Mobsters robbed a bank and left a dead body
behind in New York Chris pello is really like The Talented Mr Ripley he was a guy who had
two distinct personalities he could be the night and shining armor the the gentleman who always stood up when a
lady came into the room he was handsome and always paid the tag but if you crossed him if you got on the wrong side
of him there was a new person lurking beneath the surface I met Chris about 8 years
ago he was a typical Stan a Brooklyn Guido type guy he's a thug known to just beat people
up and uh violence violence was his was his uh strength Chris pachello did his best to
keep his past life hidden from his associates in [Music] Miami he was born in Brooklyn on
September 7th 1971 to a German father and an Italian mother they lived in a neighborhood
called burrow Park back then was predominantly Italian and Irish and you know it was a real
eclectic melting pop the neighborhood where Chris lived sort of ran along the elevated uh subway
line and you know he went to a high school probably by walking right up to the yell jumping on it and going to FDR
High went to Franklin Del in a Roosevelt High School for a year Chris his two brothers and his parents lived in the
same house his mother margarit had been raised in it was a wooden triple deer you know apartment on the first floor
apartment on the second floor and an apartment on the top floor um Chris lived on the first floor with his dad
George and his mom margarite and his brother Keith his name then was Christian ludwigson pachello was his
mother's maiden name and he idolized his father George a neighborhood Legend he was the rist wrestling champion of the
world and he had had this trial for the New York Giants he never made it to the Giants but still you know got written up
in the papers and George lewison was a hero and he was also a well-known guy in Brooklyn anyhow because you know he was
a bouncer at all these famous night clubs like TJ Bentley's and Fantasies Chris wanted to be a tough guy
too he and his friends would ride their bikes to nearby Bath Avenue a bonano crime family stronghold under the
control of alleged cppo Anthony speo Bath Avenue is a hot bed of criminal activity the 1980s and 1990s
you got gambling you've got lone shocking you've got hijackings going on you got C thefts you've got all kinds of
activity going on in this particular neighborhood and this is the the same time when John Gotti and Samy gravano
are killing people left and right almost every other week it seemed somebody was
getting killed on bat Avenue in 19th Avenue B Avenue in Bay 17 Street what have you kids gr up in Brooklyn looked up to
the gangsters the gangsters were the guys with the flashy cars uh with the rings with the jewelry uh you know the
guys with big fat wads of cash in their pockets for Chris he was like most of the young Italian kids he hung around at
a candy store named Nicks and NX was right next to the Italian social club for the old Wise Guys and that's pretty
much how the young kids make their bones with the older gangsters is one of the social club in 1708 that's the latest
one they they'd serve drinks and food at at card games they'd sweep up at card games whatever had to be done um in
order to try and uh Curry favor with the Wise Guys when he was arrested for auto
theft at 16 pacello proved he was more than an errand boy he pled guilty to a lesser charge and got off the Wise Guys
took notice they called him the Binger cuz they love to binge on crime you know if his friend stole one car he stole
three if they busted into one video store he hit two he was somebody who was going to
be an Earnest somebody who was going to find a way to make cash whether it was dealing swag selling drugs strong arming
people uh loone shocking bookmaking whatever it was he had the smarts to become an earner and be an earner and so
this is how you know he got his entree into the bath Avenue crew they were a tough tough group really there was um
Tommy Reynolds they called him TK technical knockout because every time he got into a fight he was not going to
knock someone out and then they had you know uh Jimmy colandra another young kid
and these were the guys that Chris wanted to be you know they were tough they had street cred they had everything
that he wanted they had Mafia clout even at a young age and and those are the guys that Chris wanted to be
around but in 1987 George and margarit moved Chris and his brothers out of Brooklyn across the verzano bridge to
Staten Island his mother had this idea that maybe if she got Chris out of Brooklyn he
wouldn't turn out like the kids that he was starting to hang around with this was the house that Chris patello and his
family moved to to the patello family this was moving to the BBS you know this is their own home it was their first
home that they owned they had good schools and backyards and you know strip malls and everything that the suburbs
had was in Staten Island they felt like they had arrived but the Suburban ideal was shattered soon after they moved in
his dad was shot sometime in the late ' 80s he became addicted to narcotics after the shooting and uh and pretty
soon he became a smalltime crook and a burglar himself and it really was the disintegration of his family and Chris
started telling people that his dad was dead he takes pachello as his name and with some new Staten Island friends and
his old Bath Avenue Associates the Binger turned to Crime with a Vengeance they were doing um break-ins commercial
burglaries still stealing cars luxury cars for order uh car radios you know it was kind of a hodg Podge mixed bag kind
of things in December of '92 just blocks from his home pachello launched his biggest Heist yet a Chemical Bank in the
Staten Island Mall every night the stores would drop their days cake in that night depository box and every
morning a bank employee would open up the bank load a postal cart full of cash and leave it there in the pl glass
window until another employee could come in and count it up just before 8:00 a.m.
one morning Chris patello is in here with walkie-talkie and he's right around the corner and upon his order go they
smashed through this plate glass window with sledgehammers stepped over the broken glass walked up to the cart full
of money and just simply wheeled it right outside to where there was a stolen Chevy Blazer waiting to take off
and um I think they ended up getting about $300,000 from it uh he supposedly was the brains of that
operation the guy who had figured out how to do it and how it could be done and how they could get away with it you
know and for many years they did pacello was well on his way up the ladder of organized crime but he was about to make
a mistake that would haunt him for the rest of his life Sten Island kind of was the Last
Frontier retired detective Bob Walsh recalls a Staten Island of an earlier day I was quiet little onclave that
nobody would bother with when they want to punish a cop they said well we'll send them to Staten now and he can walk
a foot post and be forgotten about when the verzano Bridge opened connecting Staten Island to Brooklyn the
quiet community became a kind of minor league Proving Ground for brash young wannabe Wise Guys like Chris
pello after the bank robbery Chris probably felt Invincible you know he got away with this he made a lot of money
then he starts uh getting these ideas to do home invasions pachello quickly linked back
up with his former Brooklyn buddies Tommy Reynolds and Jimmy kandra rising stars in the bonano crime family led by
Anthony speo they would tell him or tell an associate of uh a substantial amount
of money in a certain location uh they would do a a home invasion or a burglary Chris pacello his
his his really name is Chris ludwigson uh his father was not Italian there was no way he was ever going to be
inducted into the mob but it certainly wouldn't prevent him from becoming close to maid guys working with them and
becoming uh someone who could uh you know bring in the big bucks for himself and for the guys he was associated with
in his case he would befriend uh young people uh get to know their families well get to find out if they had a safe
uh find out if they had a substantial amount of money money in the house uh when they weren't home he'd come back
and he' burglarized the house with one or two others they take the whole safe out of the house using this technique
the gang allegedly pulled off a number of successful home invasions in Staten Island but one day in February of 93
pacello masterminded a robbery that would change his life forever this house across the
street is uh 95 me Loop the former residence of the shov family newlyweds Judith and Samy shemtov were living in
the me Loop house together with their kids from previous marriages shemtov owned a lot of businesses and apparently
he didn't believe in Banks he kept a lot of cash in a safe really built into the
basement of this Posh Staten Island home and Chris had gotten wind to this and his mind started
racing it's a freezing cold night in 1993 they drive in this Mercury sedan to the home of Judy shemtov and her
husband Sammy one of the daughters is blow drying her hair on the second floor of
the house and she's expecting a boyfriend to come and pick her up let her mother know don't lock don't
put the alarm on uh when what's his name comes uh just let him in I'll be a couple
minutes what happens is Tommy Reynolds and Jimmy kandra walk up to the door ring the bell and when Judy shamov
opened the door thinking that it was someone who was calling for her daughter Reynolds by accident apparently
without meaning to kill her apparently fired the gun and shot her dead and then they run to a car a
waiting car which is across the street or in front of the house and the car speeds off toward me Street behind the
wheel is Chris patello and he's like he didn't know what happened in there you know it was supposed to be a simple
robbery go in tie up the husband get the the the number to the safe and get out easy simple and not the simple robbery
but everything went wrong this is the investigation conducted by myself and members of the
New York City Police Department into the death of Judy shemtov Mr shemtov indicated the two white youths entered
his home he believed them to be in the early 20s one arm with a black large handgun he pointed the gun at his wife's
head and saw a flash from the handgun and saw his wife fall to the floor we did the best we could at that
time and that investigation didn't go very far and that basically was the turning
point which convinced pachello that he was not going to hang around with these guys
he flew to South Beach and he just started hanging around as an onlooker A vacationer and he loved it he fell in
love with the whole atmosphere of it and he saw all the money and the tourist this is right at the beginning when you
know South Beach was at was just starting to get on to the tourist map and he saw a gold mine and he was right
[Music] welcome to Miami so pachello shows up to to to South Beach you know in the early
'90s and he actually starts boarding up in this place here and he was what Hannibal leor would
have described as a rude you know he had that whole Brooklyn Street guy persona he was walking around the beach and cut
off denim shorts and gleaming white sneakers and he just didn't really fit in initially you know he's got bulging
muscles he's a short little guy with no education whatsoever and uh you know very few
manners but pachello did have money perhaps it was his share of the bank robbery and he had a plan to buy a club
what he needed was a partner the summer of 1994 Chris meets a club promoter a guy named Lord Mike Caruso and Lord Mike
was his Hut shot club promoter in the Manhattan Club scene [Music] Chris didn't have a clue what was going
on nightclubs or in the fashion scene Joey not his real name was close to Lord mik Caruso and got to know Bello
well for his own safety he required that we protect his identity we start hanging
around with the kid going to a few clubs one night Mike had a fight at the bar at a club
Chris came in Beat the kid up showed the kid Mike you know I got you back you can
trust me or whatever and this bra was out of control like Chris was accused of picking up the Velvet Rope stand and
smashing it over a bouncer's head you know they used axe handles they had fire extinguish everything that they could
use in this melee was used and uh over a few month's time he convinced the guy Mike to open up a club they bought a
club and and that was it they became a Partners the club was called uh risk very decadent in a new yorkish
type him and his boys had an era of danger about them so it was okay to look at them but you don't you don't dare
approach them Gilbert Stafford is a legendary South Beach doorman he remembers being summoned by pachello to
work at his new club the thing I remember most about that meeting is that he burned me on the
salary with Promises of tons of money yet to come and in nightclub businesses that very often happen so I took the
job Pell's promises came true before long risk was a hit thanks to a Monday night party called Fat Black Pussycat
that party became so popular that you couldn't even get in unless you got a password from this phone Mail system it
was all very very secretive and you had to go into the back door and and if you couldn't get into fat black hycat on a
Monday night you would nobody on South Beach fat flag was not just a party it was
a it was a fat black was something you look forward to all week the music was all
sort of funk and they served 40 oz beers and a brown paper bag and chicken wings
and people would bring their mothers to this party at first it seemed that even with
success pachello couldn't shed his violent ways he was always worried about who was
coming into the club Stafford recalls a night when pachello took care of a Rowdy
customer himself guy was totally out of line totally and this was back in the days when Chris was a little fast with
his hands and I I I don't remember seeing anything like this before before or since
I literally batted my eyes I heard a pop and the guy was on the sidewalk with his friends carrying him away and thus
ended that moment some of his employees were pretty pretty scared of the guy nobody working
for Chris should be uh taking a little extra cash out of the out of the register because that wasn't going to
fly and and there have been instances where he took uh employees in the back uh and and uh took care of business but
over time Stafford says his boss changed he remembers One Night in particular some guy said something to him that was
really inappropriate and he let it go and then the guy walked away and he turned to me
and said you Gilbert come on a year ago I'd have kicked a out of that guy wouldn't I
RIS under went its makeover and so did Chris Chris started buying Versace clothes tight black silk t-shirts you
know the finest Patrick Cox shoes he got a new haircut he he changed he became a
different looking guy and he was always good looking but with you know you you buff him up a little bit and put on some
nice clothes and he became the stud of South Beach he rose to the occasion I never getet one night I had
to introduce wil Chamberlain to John the visuals alone were worth it all it was all fat black and you know I
I I walk Elton John I walked in then Wilt showed up who I got to be good friends with I walked him
in pretty much forgotten about the whole thing then I go in like an hour later there is Chris with Elton John here and
Will Chamberlain [Music] there by 199 5 less than 2 years after pacello was involved in the murder of an
innocent woman in Staten Island he is running one of the hottest clubs in South Beach he's making money and he
wants to make more when Chris patella was running risk he made a very powerful friend on its
Dance Floor her name was Ing kasaris and she was the the scene Queen down here everybody knew ingret she had dated
Madonna she had all these celebrity friends everybody who who was in town called ing that was a person to have
lunch with that was a person that was going to get you into the clubs and and Chris and ingred hooked up and and he
saw an opportunity attendance at risk was beginning to fall off and pachello and his partner Lord Mike split up ceris
would be the perfect replacement she had the connections he had the knowhow together they would open a new
club the way it happened is there was a suspicious fire in Risk in 1995 the place is complet completely torched and
uh Chris got a settlement for a quar of a million dollars arson was suspected but could never be proved when I went
over to the club that afternoon which was the Friday as I recall uh if Chris had burned that club
down he was giving a performance worthy of Lawrence Olivier that guy was devastated pachello took the the
settlement and opened a new club with ceris called liquid and the opening night is always described as like Studio
54 in it's Heyday there was celebrities swarming the place the line stretched down the block it was the biggest party
of the Year and that really just cemented Chris's reputation as a club guide liquid was a hell of a party from
beginning to end the celebrities uh Jim Brown Zach Thomas for Mich Jordan Demi Moore I knocked her down one day Steven
dorf Joan London rer ever Madonna Madonna Robert dairo only time I ever saw Chris a little like Star Struck the
pachello caceras team seemed to have the Magic Touch all of their business ventures hit gold starting with liquid
then Joya the restaurant and their second Club barroom the two of them had forged a relationship like no other
Howard srebnik was a friend of Pell's and eventually became his attorney he credits pachello with helping to
straighten out ceres's life apparently ingred had had a drug problem when she was younger didn't have any direction in
her life and when she met Chris all of that changed he demanded that she give up drugs and she
did it wasn't the only time pachello was said to have saved a life that's what I
looked like when they thought I was dying I became very ill I lost 50 lbs and had to go to the
hospital when Gilbert Stafford was hospitalized with a serious illness and couldn't afford to pay Chris pacello
held a fundraiser for him when I was finally able to leave the hospital I could breathe again I go to meet him and
he's sitting on the back of his car in his sweats and he's got this typical shopping bag to get from the supermarket
and I and I said to him how much is in there he went $1,000 and I was able I was willing to
take $1,000 and run when I finally opened it it was $10,000 that he had stood at that door
and made sure everybody paid that money to get and that money afforded me to get
well but while some friends of pachello saw him as a lifesaver there were others
in South Beach who saw him in a completely different light he had been caught in a wir tap and I quote
organizing my [Applause] assassination in 1999 at the height of Chris Pell's success power and
popularity rumors about his Dark Side were starting to spread in South Beach there was strong indications he
was linked to organized crime sources of mine had told me about him trying to enforce contracts out here
on the beach using violence or Associates of of his using violence one of the first things I did was to file a
freedom of information request uh to see how many times his name came up in the Miami Beach Police
Department's files you know any incident involving him whether it was a car accident whether he was being accused of
a crime whether he was accusing somebody else of a crime and I filed this and I got my result
and uh and they were telling there's a DUI to uh there's a fire investigation when risk burned down he had been
involved in any number of things from bar fights uh in which people accused him of of savaging them a former Mr
Universe was at the club one night and uh said a derogatory statement and uh next thing he knows he says he's been
hit on the head with a beer bottle he's lying on on the ground he's being kicked
repeatedly and it was Chris pello uh Quinn Su lost the lawsuit another guy claimed that Chris hit him
so hard he was bleeding from his ears uh Chris getting into a fight with Nikki Taylor's former husband Matt
Martinez there was a BMW that was stolen that Chris was linked to the theft here's a here's a Chris is a victim of
an attempted murder he got stabbed in the side during a bar brawl Corton says he was about to publish his
expose when he learned that he had been scooped by the Miami Beach Police Department who had been running a top
secret undercover investigation on pachello for nearly 2 years the lieutenant in the Strategic
investigations unit came up with an idea to contact the FBI and ask them who their highest profile organized crime
figure would be on the beach and we would initiate an undercover investigation uh into this person and
they came up with Chris's name major Charles press heads the Miami Beach criminal investigations unit I I would
say for an undercover officer this was probably the most dangerous investigation you could do the Miami
Beach police will divulge little about their investigation but they will say that an undercover policeman wearing a
wire spent a lot of time with pachello posing as a dirty cop Chris really took to this guy who was also from New York
and confided in him about the troubles running his clubs in the increasing competition the most
shocking revelations concerned Pell's former business associate Jerry Kelly who had left pachello to start his own
very successful nightclub level he had been caught in a wir tap organizing my assassination above his desk Kelly still
keeps a transcript of the wir tap in which pacello tells tell the undercover cop exactly what he wants to do to
Kelly I'm telling you we got to get his head broken in we got to get him beat up
I got to get him whacked tapes don't lie and these transcripts are correct he wanted me out
of the way he's basically not changed his stripes you know on the one hand he's dealing with the beautiful people
and Madonna on one arm and sopia varara on the other and on the other he's talking to this cop who he thinks is
corrupt talking about coming out of retirement and beating people up you know he said something like uh ain't
going to be no no more obviously he had a darker side to him that he loved you while he was with you but it
was like the the the the mafia you stay married you leave you're gone and there was mounting evidence that pachello
still had ties to organized crime and at one point Chris took this cop in his 50ft yacht up the inter Coastal to to a
Waterside restaurant and they met alfons perso the alleged head of the uh Columbo
crime family but unfortunately for the Miami Beach cops they never had a chance to get their man they were scooped too
by the New York Police Department it turned out that we were both doing parallel investigations neither Police
Department New York had received information from um a crack suspect who who had mob ties and this guy had gotten
arrested for being part of a crack cocaine ring that flooded South Brooklyn with drugs and he was facing a lot of
time and he has information about a homicide that takes place in 193 involving a woman getting shot in the
face Judy shamov it's the only case that we had like that he gives up the names of the people
that were involved in it bja was a prominent name Chris lewick is Binger Chris lewison changed his name to
Chris pachello and moved to South [Music] be on the morning of Wednesday December
1st 1999 federal agents arrived at one of Pell's clubs to bring him in sensing the
bust pachello slipped out the back door and took off in his Range Rover and uh one of the agents
said to one of his managers listen give me this guy's cell phone number and they
called him up and Chris answered the phone and he said hey I'm driving to my lawyer's office you'll have to talk to
me from there and that was the end and Chris pachello turned himself in at 5:00 that Wednesday afternoon at the at the
Miami Federal court Building my reaction was was shock uh these matters had allegedly occurred back in 1992 93 it
was uh such uh so dated in terms of the the the length of time that had passed by and so startling in terms of the the
nature of the allegations and to think that Chris was now facing effectively life in prison was a frightening
proposition the hearings in Miami Federal Court attracted throngs of friends family and fans of the nightclub
King and it was like a VIP room down at the courthouse cuz everybody wanted to say
their two cents were about Chris he's innocent and I think everyone here to know is here today knows that he is two
pictures were being portray of Chris in this courtroom in December of 1999 there
was the picture of the Brooklyn kid who had participated in some violent criminal activity that resulted in the
the horrible death of a woman and then there was the Chris that we knew the Chris that had been Charming hardworking
diligent resourceful the Chris that had given of himself to our community the Chris that was a celebrity the Chris
that was high-profile the Chris that you could always turn to if you needed something done the Chris that everybody
loved the New York courts had little sympathy and pachello was ordered back home in January of 2000 Chris pacello
who once lived in palacial splendor in Miami Beach was now residing here in Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center
awaiting trial with his co-defendants Tommy Reynolds and Jimmy kandra on charges of murder robbery and
racketeering when I met the guy I was uh disappointed he was very Meek he was actually too polite Staten
Island detective Bob Walsh who had investigated the shemtov murder 6 years earlier was the arresting
officer and we couldn't imagine this guy being any kind of a tough guy and so I said to him geez what did your friends
think when they saw you uh come into the cell and what friends I said all those guys that you got arrested with he just
got AR rign with in the federal court I don't even know those guys was his answer I don't even know those guys I
have no idea why I'm here people didn't believe that Chris pacello could be the person that the feds had described him
as someone who was involved in a robbery murder of a housewife um he had the support of all his friends from the
Miami area pleaded in innocent said he was going to be Vindicated at trial and um you know continued in that vein for
several months several people uh offered to put up uh money in his behalf for baale with the help of his Miami friends
pacello managed to make his $15 million bail it was the highest bail commanded almost in in the federal Court's history
practically John Gotti got out for less than 15 million he moved into his mother's house on Staten Island Chris
was restricted to his home under house arrest 24 hours a day two security guards had to live in the house with him
little town home every window and door had a surveillance camera he couldn't use a beeper couldn't use a cell phone
couldn't use a fax machine unless it was all monitored by these two security guards the case dragged on for nearly a
year in the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse even after his codefendants Reynolds and
kandra pled guilty pello adamantly maintained his innocence until October of 2000 and on the eve of the trial two
days before jury selection Chris pachell makes his surprise guilty plea he marches into the court on Friday the
13th 2000 and he pleads guilty to every crime yeah I was a getaway driver and the Judy shav homicide Yeah I broke into
the bank yeah that was me in Florida his fans and supporters were devastated they flew from him like
cockroaches I would imagine you had a difficult time finding people who would talk about
Chris on camera because Chris they had turned Chris into this mythical Chris was this mythical
character to them mythical but the pachello myth hadn't ended yet probably two days
before he was about to go back to jail Chris vanishes disappears he's in he's he doesn't show up to start a sentence
no one can find him he doesn't return calls he doesn't return beeps where is he well he's a rat he doesn't want to go
to jail and he feels gee what did I really do wrong I broke into a couple of houses I stole a few things but I didn't
kill anybody was that guy Reynolds that did that I went there with him I set it up
but that dope he killed that woman I don't want to take responsibility for that so I'll roll over and I'll tell you
yeah I'm I'm not going to go to jail for 33 years I'll give up everything I know
he's decided to use the information that he has on the mob and his old Pals to get himself a light of sentence Chris
Pell's Life as a rat is a far cry from his high society days in Miami instead of VIP rooms pacello is ushered in and
out of courtrooms where he must earn his freedom testifying against the likes of
Anthony speo the alleged Bath Avenue mob boss and alfons perso of the Columbo crime family and if he's lucky he may
find himself living anonymously in a quiet suburb somewhere in America forever looking over his
shoulder if he ends up in the witness protection program and they Place him in some Suburban
Midwestern City where he's selling life insurance under an assumed name it seems
to me like it would be a a hell designed by Satan himself for this guy who was so
intent on becoming part of the glamour Elite back in South Beach nothing remains of Pell's Glory Days except a
few friends trying to make sense of it all you tell me a guy that I loved it like involved in murder I don't see it I
don't see it all I know is the man that I knew and a man that I I and a man that
Miss Chris pello being arrested really put the breaks on the nightlife in South Beach I mean I had
the most boring year in my gossip columnist career the year after he got picked up no I do see it as a tragedy I
see it as a tragedy because it took him until the age of 27 to to find himself find his Niche but he
he had made so many mistakes along the way way as as a kid in Brooklyn the kid that we didn't know that it ruined the
rest of his life as your pass always catches up to you pachello is the first guy to tell you now that he has no place
to go

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Brief Summary

Chris Pacello's rise as a Miami nightclub king ended in crime, murder, and betrayal, leading to his arrest and cooperation with authorities.

Key points

Chris Pachello: The King of South Beach. From Brooklyn thug to South Beach nightlife mogul, Chris Pachello's rise was meteoric.
A Deadly Mistake. A robbery goes horribly wrong, leading to a tragic death and a turning point for Pachello.
The Birth of a Nightclub Empire. Chris Pachello partners with a club promoter to open a hit nightclub in South Beach.
The Undercover Investigation. An undercover cop infiltrates Chris Pachello's life, revealing dark secrets.
Chris Pachello's Transformation. Chris Pachello went from a club king to facing serious criminal charges.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Chris was a thief in every way.

0:39WatchJul 29, 2014

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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