The Christmas Tree Mafia - Snap Classic

Scott Lechner is the king of Christmas trees in Manhattan, nicknamed the “Pontiff of Soho.” But when his business runs afoul of the mob, he gets an offer that he can’t refuse. And a covert operative is assigned to extract a high-level target from Russia, and it’s about to ruin his holiday plans. STORIES The Christmas Tree Mafia Scott Lechner is the king of Christmas trees in Manhattan, nicknamed the “Pontiff of Soho.” But when his business runs afoul of the mob, he gets an offer that he can’t refuse. The crazy true story of the New York Christmas tree industry, full of turf wars, karate fights, and the mafia. This story contains explicit language, sensitive listeners please be advised. This story is dedicated to the memory of Scott Lechner, the pontiff of Soho and the emperor of New York city treemen. Thanks as well to Russ and Little Scott. Produced by Ilana Strauss, John Fecile & Annie Nguyen, original score by Renzo Gorrio, artwork by Teo Ducot. Secrets in Siberia Mike Ramsdell is a covert operative for the federal government. He’s assigned to capture and extract a high-level target from Russia, but the mission goes horribly wrong. Find Mike’s book here. http://www.michaelramsdell.com/ Produced by Anna Sussman, original score by Renzo Gorrio. Snap Classic - Season 16 – Episode 60 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 2:37Glynn Washington?

  Every year, right around the start of the holidays, we have a ritual. I tell my kids, "All right, kids, we're off to Target to pick up one of those prefab Christmas trees they've got in the box there. And you don't have to worry, it comes already decorated in everything." Then they start screaming bloody murder. "No, no, you can't get a fake tree." "What do you mean fake? I just spray a bottle of some of that pine smell stuff for aroma. It's just like the real thing. No needles all over the floor, no mess." "You can't, it's not right." "We'll be right back, there's no such thing as a pre-decorated tree."

• 3:26Glynn Washington?

  We holler and argue all the way to the Christmas tree lot, where they run about. They pick up the perfect, real tree, Daddy, and they insist I pay some burly fellow an enormous sum of money in cash. "Card's not accepted, what's that about?"

• 3:46Glynn Washington?

  And we haul this treasure back to the house. We drape it in lights and ornaments and ribbons while drinking eggnog. And they play "Last Christmas" on the radio again and again and again, attempting to drive me out of my mind and then magically, in the midst of our household cacophony, a Christmas miracle.

• 4:07Glynn Washington?

  What once stood just a piece of wood, now a glorious, bejeweled tree emerges, more magnificent than ever. Someone's baking cookies, a glass of wine has spirited itself into my hand, the giggling, the digging around for a board game, and that scent, not from an aerosol can, but from a tree. Pine-scented wonder permeating the room in good cheer, such heartwarming memories with the people I love, and sitting under the brightly lit branches, watching my children as they each in turn land on park place and boardwalk with my hotels on it.

• 4:50Glynn Washington?

  I truly wouldn't have it any other way. Rudolph has worked his spell once more, but I've recently learned that it's not exactly magic, and it certainly isn't reindeer that make all of this possible.

• 5:08Glynn Washington?

  You see, at the North Pole, as in life, somebody's gotta do the dirty work. And so today on Snap Judgment, we proudly present the Christmas Tree Mafia. Wise guy, Saint Nick, and an offer you cannot refuse. My name is John Washington. Sure, deck the halls, but look over your shoulder, because you're listening to Snap Judgment. It's a chilly New York City afternoon, a few weeks before Christmas.

• 5:53Glynn Washington?

  The producer Alana Strauss sits inside a trailer in the middle of a Christmas tree lot. And Snap says, this is not just any Christmas tree lot, it's the Rolls Royce, Eartha Kitt, Santa Baby, bling'd out Christmas tree lot, full of elves running about with good cheer, and the manager, a hard-boiled New Yorker with a gray beard and a fedora, foot between Alana's interview and customers coming up to the window to buy trees. Same time, he's making a cup of coffee, and his phone keeps ringing. And yes, for this story, there may be a bit of explicit language, but ho, ho, ho, this is a family show, not to worry. Snap Judgment.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, hello, this is Scott. Soho Trees here.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Okay, why don't you like the tree?

• 6:46Speaker 01

  That's a horrible thing to say, ripped off. What do you mean ripped off? You've got a gorgeous tree. A hundred and thirty yards is not much for a nice tree in Manhattan, I'll tell you. That's average.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  In Manhattan, there's this lot just packed with Christmas trees. There's an RV in the middle of it, where there's this guy on the phone.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  It's okay, don't worry, nobody wants your money, you can have it back.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  That's Scott Lechner.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  What was her problem? Okay, that's nothing for this. You have to deal with it, it's part of the game.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  And in this game, Scott's a legend.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  We're talking trees!

• 7:24Speaker 01

  It's Christmas! We're talking trees. Look at my baby. My name is Scott Lechner, and I'm the manager of Soho Trees' flagship location at Varick and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  Scott's this short guy, he's got a grizzled mustache, he's almost always wearing a fedora, and he runs the most exclusive Christmas tree stand in Manhattan.

• 7:54Speaker 03

  A vendor in Soho is selling what is likely the city's most expensive trees, brace yourself, $6,500 a pop.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  And celebrities show up all the time.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Carmen Electra, the whole staff of Million Dollar Listings, the Nero family, all of them.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  And Scott will do pretty much anything to keep customers happy.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Well, we did have a gentleman two years ago, year before last, who wanted 40 different Christmas trees in assorted sizes, all hung upside down and decorated from the ceiling of his loft.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  This tiny piece of Christmas magic is actually part of a long and dangerous tango between Scott and the New York mafia.

• 8:36Speaker 02

  This stand, and quite possibly Scott's life, all came down to this one decision, one choice between light and dark. And to understand that choice, we gotta go back to Brooklyn in the 1980s.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  How do you get started selling Christmas trees?

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Me and some of my friends were absolutely thug bound, if you know what I mean. We were gonna be thugs and crooks.

• 9:06Speaker 02

  For a while, Scott rolled around in a Cadillac, selling watches.

• 9:11Speaker 02

  And then he kind of stumbled into this thing that would completely change his life.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Some friends of ours had purchased a bowling alley. And they said, "Why don't you put some Christmas trees in front of our bowling alley and sell them to our customers?" But we didn't. We instead opened a different location.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  He opened up a stand on the street, and he started selling Christmas trees. And Scott did what other street businesses did: he paid the mafia tax.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  Scott said in his neighborhood, lots of businesses either paid off the mob or were being run by them. The mob's Christmas tree involvement was so well-known that the Kappa rumor to control the Christmas tree industry, he was nicknamed Piney.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  We didn't know what we were getting into. We didn't know if it was a lucrative business, if it was a good business, if it wasn't.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  Scott didn't know how things were gonna turn out. But he knew he had to hire people he trusted. So, one of Scott's first employees was this guy called Little Scott.

• 10:10Speaker 04

  Because I started with him when I was a kid, he was known as Big Scott, and I was known as Little Scott.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  They grew up in Sheepshead Bay, in Brooklyn.

• 10:20Speaker 04

  Well, the funny thing is, is that I'm six feet, and he was, I think on his best day, 5'6", 5'7".

• 10:29Speaker 02

  So Little Scott was the muscle, and Big Scott was the brains. And they had this really short amount of time to actually make it during Christmas tree season.

• 10:39Speaker 04

  You're one snowstorm away, one bad, you know, rain event for the week away from working all month to break even.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  So how much they made during these few weeks determined how they lived the rest of the year. So they could not leave trees unguarded at night. Because if they did, other stands would just rob them.

• 11:02Speaker 04

  You know, and it's just the business, it's a cutthroat business. You gotta make all of your money in a very small window.

• 11:09Speaker 05

  And I did many a night shift where I was on duty by myself. It was only me and a hatchet. It's a really disgusting riffraff out there.

• 11:16Speaker 04

  One year, our night guy fell asleep and he woke up and we were light forty trees.

• 11:23Speaker 02

  Not only that, people used to like light each other's trees on fire, right?

• 11:29Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Urine, that was a big one, too.

• 11:33Speaker 04

  They got like a spray thing and they walked by and sprayed someone's whole thing of trees with urine. Pungent urine.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, no one's gonna buy a Christmas tree that smells like that. So normally with sabotage, people try to be discreet. But one day it just gets straight up insulting.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Big Scott's at the stand with his pal Joe and his employee Bessam.

• 11:57Speaker 04

  These guys just kind of walk over and take a tree and just start putting it onto their van or whatever they were doing.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  So Scott's guys run out and they start yelling and then the other guys start yelling and then it gets physical.

• 12:10Speaker 04

  And Joe just goes into full Taekwondo mode and like wah-bop, bop, bop, bop, and just takes like two or three of them, just takes them out in two seconds. And Bessam grabs a saw and puts it right to one guy's neck on the floor and says, "You move, I'm gonna cut your head off." All right? And then like a few of the other guys like subdued them.

• 12:32Speaker 02

  After this, the guys wanted more. It wasn't just about surviving anymore. They wanted to be big.

• 12:41Speaker 04

  You know, we weren't looking to hurt anybody, but we were expanding and threatening everyone around us.

• 12:47Speaker 02

  Every Christmas, Scott's Christmas tree stands were growing all over Brooklyn. Everybody in the neighborhood was buying trees from Scott, including the mafia.

• 12:56Speaker 04

  We used to love when the connected guys came because they would spend tons of money. They gave you a twenty dollar tip for just, you know, giving them rope, you know? It was like, hey, you saw a pinky ring? You know, hey, this is good.

• 13:11Speaker 02

  So with each new lot, Scott got bolder. And he started to think he could get away with pretty much anything. So he set up shop right down the street from this other Christmas tree stand. And this stand was run by an out of town sheriff from Missouri.

• 13:27Speaker 04

  And yes, we were trying to hurt our competitor.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  They were trying to drive him out of business. The Missouri sheriff didn't like that, obviously. So right away, the sheriff's people started robbing Scott. One night, they stole thousands of dollars' worth of trees.

• 13:42Speaker 04

  It was almost like being in a war. You're like, you know, what are they gonna do to us now? What are we gonna do to them?

• 13:48Speaker 02

  One day, Scott's sitting in a trailer, probably smoking a cigarette, wearing his fedora. And the Missouri sheriff shows up outside and starts yelling.

• 13:57Speaker 05

  I'm gonna get you, Andy. I'm gonna rip you into pieces with my bare hands. I ain't gonna need nothing.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  Scott refuses to come out, so the sheriff storms off. And then Scott hears him come right up to the trailer door. The Missouri sheriff pulls out his axe, and he hacks it through the front door of Scott's trailer.

• 14:16Speaker 05

  The next one's going through your head when I get here. I need it. It's like, oh, my God. Me and six of my friends could have taken this guy. We'd need artillery to put him down. That's how scary it was. And he was all attitude. He was a sheriff.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:29Speaker 05

  He was a bona fide sheriff.

• 14:31Speaker 04

  So the guy lost it, and he jumped in his white pickup truck.

• 14:34Speaker 02

  And he drives straight into 30 of Scott's trees. And he crashes through a bunch of wooden porches, and he keeps driving around Scott's lot. Little Scott's standing close by.

• 14:44Speaker 04

  You know, I could see him behind the wheel of his truck. And one of the guys had to dive out of the way of the truck.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  Then the sheriff heads straight for the Christmas tree booth. And he just demolishes it.

• 14:56Speaker 04

  And ran him over, and popped his tire, and drove away like a maniac.

• 15:01Speaker 05

  Now, they could have killed somebody, and they didn't mind if they had.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:07Speaker 05

  At that point is when action had to be taken.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  All right, so things are getting way out of control. And Scott needed to do something. Every year, he'd been paying the mafia tax, and now he needed to call in the favor. What did you do?

• 15:22Speaker 05

  I instructed some people to let them know that they had to leave town tonight, that tomorrow wouldn't be accepted. And if they were in town by tomorrow night, nobody would find them.

• 15:37Speaker 05

  We got a tree scot. Oh, what a scare. Hi.

• 15:44Speaker 05

  Hey, how are you? Good. Open it up for them. Did he show you some Nobles? Did you see them open and how magnificent they are?

• 15:53Speaker 05

  So, please do enjoy it. And have the most wonderful Christmas ever. Thanks, you too. The biggest problems we had were turf wars. Street fighting over areas that I felt we deserved, that we had properly annexed. And that others didn't. So, there, they helped me.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  The help wasn't free, of course. Scott called in a favor, and favors have debts. So, the Christmas Tree Mafia wanted to know what Scott could do for them.

• 16:26Speaker 05

  And, um, half Hebrew by birth, so they really liked that, though. Because in their lexicon, that means I'm an arna. Of course, I knew what to say. I was a wise guy. You know, you good with numbers? I'd be like, uh-huh. Are you very good with numbers? Uh-huh.

• 16:43Speaker 02

  In the off-season, when he wasn't selling Christmas trees, Scott started working for them as a pit boss at their casino. Between that and the trees, his relationship with the mob deepened. They started paying him visits, asking questions.

• 16:59Speaker 05

  I got severely interviewed by a few of them to see if I was gonna be loyal and good and what they wanted, and I passed those tests.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  Scott wasn't sure why they were questioning him. He didn't know they were making big plans for him. But what are you gonna do? Say no to the mafia?

• 17:21Speaker 02

  Alright, so it was the early 90s, and New York started booming.

• 17:26Speaker 02

  Giuliani was mayor, and more and more rich people started moving into the city. People who could afford to pay big bucks for Christmas trees.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  So, for the first time, Scott realizes he's got this opportunity to be this big shot that he's always wanted to be. He ventured outside of Brooklyn and started scouting Manhattan.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  Big Scott called little Scott from Soho.

• 17:50Speaker 04

  And I remember him calling me up and telling me that. He goes, "I found a great location." I said, "Where is it?" He said, "Sixth Avenue in Springsteen." I said, "That's [BLEEP."

• 17:58Speaker 02

  But Scott bet on the right neighborhood. Soho exploded. Business was going well. Scott started to open up more locations. He had to hire more workers.

• 18:10Speaker 06

  When I met Scott, literally, all I had was a backpack. That's it. I didn't own anything else. There was nothing else for me. You know, I spent a long time just being a vagabond, traveling around, doing nothing.

• 18:25Speaker 02

  That's Russ.

• 18:26Speaker 06

  I was in a really bad place when I started working there. A really, really bad place. And a lot of stuff was going on. I was actually homeless at the time.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  Russ saw this posting on Craigslist about this Christmas tree gig. And he went to meet Scott in Scott's apartment on the Lower East Side.

• 18:44Speaker 06

  He's a very short person. He was like, maybe 5'7". And absolutely perfect white teeth. His smile, he had this, this very like, open smile, you know, where you could see his white teeth. And he would tilt his head a certain way. And he always wore a wide-brimmed hat. And this hat was like, absolutely iconic.

• 19:10Speaker 02

  There were a bunch of other people in the apartment, all around Scott. They all wanted jobs.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  Mountain climbers, hikers, world travelers, mixed in with actors and actresses that are in between gigs. They gotta make money and they're not baristas, you know, because everyone else is a barista.

• 19:27Speaker 04

  And then also, a lot of people who couldn't hold regular employment. I mean, we had some off-the-wall people that worked for us. And of course, the crazier they were, they'd come back to work the following year. They always, the crazy ones always wanted to come back, you know? And we didn't care, you know, your background, you know, as long as you are a hard worker, except vegans. I hated hiring vegans. Oh.

• 19:52Speaker 02

  Scott really liked to settle the crowd on this Christmas tree job. He gave them this bigger-than-life speech.

• 19:59Speaker 06

  We're New York City tree men. We're gonna have the tradition. We're going to stand there in the cold and not give up because we're New York City tree men and New York City tree men don't get cold. And we have this like tradition to hold up for, not just for us, but for the city. From the second he started speaking, I had to do it. And I was like, so I have the job? And he's like, yes. And that was it.

• 20:30Speaker 02

  Russ and the other workers, they show up to work for their first day. It's this brisk fall morning and 30 workers line the street.

• 20:38Speaker 06

  You know, like you showed up at 6:00 a.m. and you worked until you were done. And we're just told that we have two days to build seven Christmas tree stands. And we better get, start hammering.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  They create these elaborate winter wonderland stands at seven different locations. There are red ribbons, wreaths, candy canes, ornaments, lights everywhere, the whole shebang. You're not in New York anymore. You're in the North Pole.

• 21:08Speaker 06

  During the day, it's madness. There's, there'd be people screaming and I'm screaming at the guys.

• 21:16Speaker 02

  They build these cozy cottage tents lined with Christmas lights and trinkets. Everything's lit with this warm light.

• 21:24Speaker 06

  And then you hear the chainsaws going and the people moving. And it's almost like there's so much noise. There's no time to think. And then there would just be quietness because we're just surrounded by trees.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  And then there's the smell.

• 21:41Speaker 06

  You just smell like of different types of pine trees.

• 21:46Speaker 06

  Yes, some pine trees smell like lemons.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  There's this quiet bliss in the trees and this smell of piney lemons wafting by, all smack in the middle of Manhattan. That means no one's trying to steal Scott's trees, or throw hatchets at his head, and no one's running around spraying urine.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  It means that what Scott's doing, it's working.

• 22:16Speaker 02

  Ah, the sights of Christmas in New York. A 10-foot tree carded through the busy streets of Soho. The business grows to 15 locations in four of the five boroughs. And Scott makes bank. This Christmas tree industry in New York, it's a half a billion-dollar industry, all in only a couple months a year. He's not just selling to mobsters, now he's also selling to legitimately wealthy, like the queen of Christmas herself.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Mariah Carey was, I was calling her Mary.

• 22:51Speaker 06

  You know, obviously, everybody knows Mariah Carey's our customer.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  And she said, "What? My name's Mariah." I said, "Mary? Come over here." And I gave her a couple of shots, and she was like, "Eh." I said, "You can call me anything."

• 23:05Speaker 02

  His new customers, like Mariah Carey, and Bradley Cooper, and Kelly Ripa, they can afford to pay premium prices for premium product.

• 23:13Speaker 06

  Scott was literally the first person, probably in the world, to get more than $100 for a Christmas tree.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Well, we have here is some beautiful Canadian balsams. These are from Antigua, New Scotia, one of God's natural balsam treasure areas that grow the most gorgeous balsam in existence, as you can see.

• 23:35Speaker 06

  It's like how Tiffany sell a bracelet, right? Like, you know it's the best silver in the world. You know it's the best designers in the world.

• 23:42Speaker 04

  We used to call him the Pontiff of Soho.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  Really? I am the Pontiff of Soho.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  The Pontiff, along with his cast of merry men...

• 23:49Speaker 07

  Let's just shake it out, make sure it's good.

• 23:51Speaker 04

  Everyone else mimics what we started. He set the rules in Manhattan.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  But as the Pontiff of Soho, Scott's success soon attracts unwanted attention from the boys.

• 24:06Speaker 04

  So Scott calls me up, and he goes, "Hey, listen, we may have a little bit of a problem."

• 24:14Glynn Washington?

  When Snap Judgment returns, Scott gives an offer that he cannot refuse. Stay tuned.

• 24:23Glynn Washington?

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• 25:04Glynn Washington?

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• 25:23Glynn Washington?

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• 26:08Glynn Washington?

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• 26:39Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment. You're listening to the Christmas Tree Mafia episode. And you just heard Scott. Scott's on the top of the Christmas tree market with Mariah Carey by his side pouring shots. But you can only stay so high for so long before the troubles start to drag you down. And Scott, Scott just got a message from the boys. Now, this story does contain explicit language. Sensitive listeners are advised.

• 27:13Speaker 04

  So Scott calls me up and he goes, hey, listen, we may have a little bit of a problem.

• 27:19Speaker 02

  What happens is there's this guy working on the Christmas lot. We're not going to use his real name. We'll say John Smith. John tells Scott that this guy Carmine came to their stand in Soho with a little bit of trouble and a whole lot of muscle. And he's got a message for Scott.

• 27:36Speaker 04

  He said that this is his territory and if we want to sell here, we got to give him $2,000. If we don't give him $2,000, we're going to get shut down or all our stuff's going to get destroyed. I said, all right, you tell Carmine to meet me here tonight at 10 o'clock and I'll have his two grand.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  So that night, little Scott meets this guy Carmine in a nearby bar.

• 27:58Speaker 04

  And this guy's like right out of Central Casting. He's got the three quarter leather coat. He's got this, he's got that. And he goes, I'm Carmine, this is my neighborhood. You know, meanwhile, the guy's just like 35 years old. Carmine's going to run the neighborhood. You expect a 55 year old guy to walk in, you know? My life growing up on the streets is I know how to smell [BLEEP] in 30 seconds. Okay. Cause I grew up in an extremely tough neighborhood with extremely tough people. So I knew that this, this, this something wasn't right here. And I said, well, I got a problem. I said, I'm not going to pay you. I said, I'm not going to give you any money and nothing's going to happen and they're not going to do anything. And he goes, yeah, you know, you know, my gang, you know? I said, well, and I pulled out my, my, my shield and I said, well, I'm in a gang too.

• 28:37Speaker 02

  Oh yeah. By the way, little Scott's job, not during Christmas season. He's a New York City cop.

• 28:45Speaker 02

  He shows Carmine his badge.

• 28:47Speaker 04

  There's about 50,000 of us. We all wear blue. And you're gonna go meet all of them right now because I'm gonna arrest you. And the guy starts breaking down hysterical crying. "Oh, no, he made me do it. It's him. It's him. I'm an actor. What are you talking about?" John Smith and him were acting buddies. They concocted this whole plan to shake us down for two grand.

• 29:09Speaker 04

  Thinking that we would fall for it. So instead Carmine and John Smith might have gotten a little backhand therapy and never worked for us again.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  These guys weren't the real deal. Both Scots knew that the actual mafia was much scarier.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  Remember all those tests? All that questioning when Scott was in Brooklyn? Well, one day, the mafia approached him with an offer.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  One of those offers that could change everything for Scott and his Christmas tree stands.

• 29:44Speaker 05

  They wanted to capture the entire five borough of New York City Christmas tree distribution business. And they wanted me to lead it. And they told me, "Nobody will ever stand in your way."

• 29:56Speaker 02

  Up to that point, Scott had paid the Christmas tree mafia tax and they'd provided him with protection. And that was true for lots of Christmas tree stands in the city. But now, the mafia was telling him he could take all these stands. In Staten Islands, Queens, Bronx. Trees on all the corners, trees in the parking lots. They could all be his. They say...

• 30:20Speaker 05

  We assure you, Scott, you'll run them all. You'll make about 10 times what you earn now. Which as a young, low-middle-class guy striving was very appealing to me. The power that I would have had behind me was very appealing to my Napoleonic ego.

• 30:35Speaker 04

  And he wanted to be the biggest Christmas tree seller in the city.

• 30:40Speaker 02

  If he took them up on the offer, Scott would have more power than he could ever imagine. So he imagined it.

• 30:49Speaker 05

  You know, my ego on one shoulder is like the, you know, you see the cartoons, there's the good angel and the bad devil, you know, on each shoulder.

• 30:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. Scott had already tasted a bit of the good life while working at the mafia's underground casinos.

• 31:03Speaker 05

  So the bad devil was really winning out because I loved having ten thugs at my beck and call. I loved it.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:10Speaker 05

  "Go get me a coffee," and the guy, 325 pounds, no fat, would come back and I'd be like, "You got it wrong." I said, "I don't want no sugar." They'd be like, "Oh, of course." You know, the guy could lift me and throw me like a harpoon, right? Jesus. I liked that.

• 31:25Speaker 02

  He was seriously considering the opportunity. And he told his dad about the offer.

• 31:30Speaker 05

  My dad, who was an ex-thug himself, told me, you know, "One day, you're going to end up dead from them because there's no morality to them."

• 31:40Speaker 02

  Scott's dad knew that if Scott was helping the mafia control the Christmas tree business, he'd actually be helping with a lot less wholesome and jolly work. He understood that the Christmas tree empire doesn't stop at trees. There'd be money laundering.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  And also, it's a really neat place to hide the drugs. At a tree stand, for distribution.

• 32:02Speaker 04

  So what are we going to do? We're going to get into bed with people and they're selling drugs out of our Christmas tree stands? I mean, you know, at what point does it become stupid? You know, "Oh, you know, I could do this, I could do that." Well, you could also wind up dead, you know? You got that going for you.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  Scott thought about all the different ways it could go down. The FBI or a Justice Department agent could do a crackdown and grill Scott. But the boys wouldn't want him to talk.

• 32:28Speaker 05

  They might put a bullet in my head so I don't get them indicted.

• 32:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:32Speaker 05

  Even though I was at their house the other night for pasta. And their wife knows just how I liked the extra sauce on there with the extra grated cheese.

• 32:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:40Speaker 05

  But now they're going to put a bullet in my head and say, "Sorry."

• 32:44Speaker 02

  It's creepy.

• 32:45Speaker 05

  Well, they killed one of my friends.

• 32:46Speaker 02

  Seriously?

• 32:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, not about Christmas trees, about other things.

• 32:50Speaker 02

  This was the guy that ratted on the mafia.

• 32:54Speaker 05

  And he was in my group of friends. He wasn't my best friend or anything. Thank God. I still shed tears for him. They killed him.

• 33:00Speaker 02

  That's horrible.

• 33:00Speaker 05

  Because he was a rat.

• 33:03Speaker 04

  Look, you don't go into partnerships with those people. You work for them. It's different. You think you're partners. You're not. You're not partners with these people because you're not in their world. So you're just working for them. It's a devil's deal and eventually the devil gets paid.

• 33:23Speaker 02

  Scott thought about the offer and the world he'd enter. He decided that his business shouldn't be involved with the mafia anymore, like at all. So the next time they ask him for his regular dues, Scott said no. It seemed like it was Scott's way of saying no to their offer, too.

• 33:42Speaker 05

  Because I felt that kept us in some sort of association and connection with them.

• 33:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:47Speaker 05

  And who the hell wants to pay for illegal graft?

• 33:51Speaker 02

  A little while later, the mafia invited him to a meeting.

• 33:56Speaker 02

  I guess I'm trying to imagine, like that you're invited to like that meeting.

• 33:59Speaker 05

  I wasn't invited to the meeting. I was mandated to the meeting. I was told to show up.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  Scott's friends were way too scared to go, so Scott went alone.

• 34:10Speaker 05

  It was actually at a shopping center. A major shopping center, but they had a big conference room in there.

• 34:19Speaker 02

  Scott came to the conference room and there were people sitting around a table, deep in discussion.

• 34:26Speaker 02

  He looked around, saw some local mafiosos and some familiar faces.

• 34:32Speaker 05

  And I was like, you're a sworn and elected politician.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  The conversation took a turn when Scott walked in the room. They asked him, what's the deal? Where's the money?

• 34:45Speaker 05

  I threw my best poker bluff in and I said, I can't be paying you no more. And they said, well, I think you better rethink about that. And I said, well, I did. You know, I've been in this business for quite some years, but I'm willing to not be in the business anymore if that's what it takes. And, you know, as easily as they were enamored by my, my sharp mathematical skills and my sharp tongue, they could have easily turned to me and said, you're a little [BLEEP]. Someone's gonna have the baseball bat one night, you know, at 2 o'clock in the morning. Who's gonna know who, why, or what? Right?

• 35:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:18Speaker 05

  So I said, "I can't afford to be paying you guys anymore. I'm so sorry." And I said, "I really think that we're just a small, little tree company. Just a couple of guys selling some trees."

• 35:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:27Speaker 05

  With our friends who can't really afford any of this involvement." They looked at me like I had some gumption. And they kind of went tacitly like, "All right, one more year." You know? And I think they looked at me like, "Oh, so now you're playing schmuck, right?" "Guy, play schmuck. Get out of here." "But Vinnie and his family get a tree." "You know, we all get trees." "Yeah, you all get trees." You know? You know, I had a personal moral epiphany about it.

• 36:00Speaker 02

  Scott could have had it all. It came down to one thing. Would he rather be loved or feared?

• 36:09Speaker 05

  It's a much stronger man that derives his power from love. A guy who's feared, his life is miserable. His death would be an inconvenience financially to some and a blessing to others. A man who's loved takes all that with him.

• 36:24Speaker 05

  And just because you're powerful, it doesn't validate really anything in your life. What does it validate?

• 36:31Speaker 04

  Do you know it's a line from a movie, right?

• 36:33Speaker 02

  I knew I heard it somewhere, but I didn't know where.

• 36:35Speaker 04

  It's a line from the movie called "The Bronx Tale." And I used to tell them, "You're wrong. You'd rather be feared."

• 36:43Speaker 02

  Little Scott and Big Scott, they'd sit in a trailer and debate the meaning of life. To be loved or feared.

• 36:52Speaker 02

  They kept up the debate for over a decade. But this kind of pontification just feels different when you get a diagnosis.

• 37:03Speaker 04

  You know, it was, you know, and when he got sick, when he got sick, he got sick really, really bad, really fast.

• 37:11Speaker 02

  At first Scott reassured everyone that things would be okay.

• 37:16Speaker 02

  But he was diagnosed with cancer.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  The people at the stand were pretty shocked.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  Little Scott remembers the last time they talked on the phone.

• 37:28Speaker 04

  I said, "I love you, pal," you know, and I knew he was dying. And I knew it was probably gonna be the last time I spoke to him. And that was very hard, because he was a good person.

• 37:39Speaker 06

  But see, Scott, what Scott doesn't want to admit is that Scott's life is the legacy of Christmas trees. What does that mean? That that was all...

• 37:46Speaker 04

  It's a beautiful one.

• 37:47Speaker 06

  It's interesting. Well, meeting you was part of it.

• 37:56Speaker 02

  In December 2020, Scott passed away. He was 64 years old.

• 38:04Speaker 04

  Scott was...

• 38:07Speaker 04

  You know what, have you ever heard the expression "a mensch"?

• 38:11Speaker 04

  Okay, he was a mensch, okay? That's who he was, you know? But, because Scott loves Christmas, I mean, it was his favorite time of the year. He hated when it was over. Like, the rest of us were like, "We're tired, we wanna go home, I'm so done with Christmas." And he was like, "No, I would do this all year if they let me," you know? And he really, really just loved everything about it.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  What is it, aromatherapies? Christmas trees is absolutely a natural one. Put people around a Christmas tree in their home, they feel better. Case closed. They're just happier, nicer.

• 38:47Speaker 06

  We're probably gonna have one night where we go to Valeska's. We eat matzo ball soup with pierogies and latkes, like we did every year with Scott. And we're all gonna be holding back tears.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Case closed. They're just happier, nicer, and, you know, they feel better. They don't know why. They think it's just a holiday revel, but it's also the olfactory system, making them feel, ah... Remind them, reminiscent of their childhood, their youth growing up, and the people they shared Christmas with.

• 39:18Speaker 06

  Yeah. It's funny, it's just, yeah. Damn. I'm gonna miss him, you know?

• 39:33Speaker 06

  All right, I got a deep breaths.

• 39:37Speaker 02

  Russ came back to Soho Trees every year, and now he's the foreman. He gives the same speech to new employees that Scott gave him.

• 39:46Speaker 06

  And I tell my guys this every year when we start. The first thing I say when we're all, when we're getting ready to unload the wood. We are about to uphold the New York City tradition. You are New York City tree men from this point forward, and that is who you are. You do not get cold, you do not get tired, and you're going to do everything with a smile because we're selling Christmas trees.

• 40:19Glynn Washington?

  This story is dedicated to the memory of Scott Lechner, the pontiff of Soho, and the emperor of the New York City tree man. Big thanks as well to Russ and little Scott for holding down Christmas. The original score for this piece was by Renzo Gorrio. It was produced by Alana Strauss, John Facio, and Annie Nguyen.

• 40:44Glynn Washington?

  And Snap is, it is not over. When we return, a covert operation goes horribly wrong on Snap Judgment. The Christmas Tree Mafia special returns. Stay tuned.

• 41:06Speaker 08

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• 42:06Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the Christmas tree mafia episode. My name is Glynn Washington, and our next story comes from a man with real secrets. It's from a covert operative named Mike Ramsdell. And our story starts when Mike was assigned to go into Soviet Russia to extract a high level target. Snap Judgment.

• 42:30Speaker 10

  I really do think I had a death wish. I was just going through some very, very difficult times. And so when State contacted me and asked me to consider this mission, I just thought, you know, bring it on. I'm your man. Bring it on, no matter what happens, I can live with it. If I make it back, that's fine. If I don't, who's going to care? It truly was escapism. I wanted just to get out. It was very important for us to find some informants, and we did find three individuals, what we call in the spy world "assets."

• 43:11Speaker 10

  And these three Russian individuals worked for the target, the man that we were after. But when it was all said and done, just as the mission was to conclude and we were going to extract the target out of the country, one of the informants betrayed us and told the target who we were and what we were about to do. And that's when the mission went bad. My orders were to sanitize the mission. And what that means in spook lingo is to get rid of anything and everything, so if the KGB or the Soviet secret police came into our apartments, they would not be able to find anything. I was instructed, "You will not have your weapon.

• 43:56Speaker 10

  You will not have your communication device."

• 44:01Speaker 10

  I threw away my weapon and my radio into the river. In the middle of the night, I was definitely on my own. I would have to use all my training and resources to survive. My orders were: clean those apartments, do my work, and then get out of town as quick as possible. The last apartment that I was to sterilize was on the sixth floor. There was something that told me to look outside, and I walked across the hallway to the kitchen, pulled back the drapes, I looked down, and there I saw two mafia goons waiting for me.

• 44:44Speaker 10

  People think that, you know, 007, he never shows his true emotions, but that's not true at all. I knew I was in big trouble, because I had already disposed of my weapon and my communication device. I couldn't confront them, I had nothing, and suddenly I heard the crowbar break the front door of the apartment. The fear and the panic was just...even retelling the story right now, my heart's beating. I heard the crowbar start to break the front door, and all I could do was, I had no other choice, I had to confront them.

• 45:27Speaker 10

  I pulled on my gloves, I zipped up my jacket, I walked towards the front door, and said a prayer, and then the splinters and the door came apart. There, the mafia goon was standing there. I had a maneuver worked out with a certain blow to his temple. I had nothing, and he had a pair of brass knuckles. Within a short time, I looked like a big red wedge of Swiss cheese. Somehow, we ended up in this stairwell. In one hand, he has these bloody brass knuckles, and the other, he pulled out a stiletto knife

• 46:11Speaker 10

  and was jousting where the first cuts were going to go. Just as he was ready to carve me up, by the grace of God, there was the building drunk on the stairwell underneath us, and he reached up through the stairwell and grabbed the mafia goon's pant leg and pulled on it. And in that saving moment, when that mafia goon looked down, I flew around him and over him,

• 46:41Speaker 10

  down those stairs, I bounded. I told myself, "Mike, get to the train station." I'd lost so much blood from the beating.

• 46:56Speaker 10

  I stopped by a vacant building and turned around to see how close they were behind me. And the only movement on this street that night was the falling snow, the very first snow of the oncoming Russian winter.

• 47:13Speaker 10

  Why did I choose to do this? I didn't have to accept this assignment.

• 47:26Speaker 10

  Headquarters had directed me that I would catch the local train, and I would be on that train for several days until I got to the village of Potevka, where indeed, we did have a safe house.

• 47:40Speaker 10

  I am so thankful to be on the train and to be alive. At the same time, I'm constantly looking over my shoulder, thinking that the mafia or the KGB are on the train with me. I'm in terrible, terrible condition. The only sustenance I had in those five days was the awful Russian black tea that was available to everyone on the train. I cannot tell you how hungry and starved I was, but I knew if I could hang on long enough, it is policy that every safe house is equipped with seven days MREs, meals ready to eat.

• 48:24Speaker 10

  It was late at night, it was dark, blizzard, snowy. I got to this dilapidated train station. I made my way, trudging through the heavy snow, about a mile to the cabin.

• 48:40Speaker 10

  I walked to the cupboard, opened the doors. There are no boxes of MREs. Went to the back of the cabin, to the closet, looked in the floorboards, up in the rafters of the cabin, and again, no MREs. I was so spent, I pulled probably a dozen blankets over me and crawled in a straw bed, fully dressed. In the morning, trudged into the village, to the marketplace, and I convinced myself, "There, you lucky cuss, you will be able to get some cabbage, whoopee, some potatoes."

• 49:16Speaker 10

  And strange as it sounds, as I walked, I saw, I saw no one.

• 49:23Speaker 10

  I saw no tracks in the snow. When I finally approached the marketplace and pushed open the big oak doors, and that's when I realized the village had basically been abandoned.

• 49:40Speaker 10

  I was hoping to see a light on, or a candle burning, and to find someone, and I did. I was able to talk to two old couples, and I took out a fistful of rubles in exchange for a potato, and they would not do it. The conditions in Russia were awful. I had more rubles than those old couples would ever have seen in their life, and yet, keeping food for themselves to survive was more important. That's when the first thoughts came to my mind, that, "Mike, you might not make it. How am I going to survive? Where is the food going to come from?"

• 50:25Speaker 10

  Get back to the cabin. I was almost obsessed with the idea of dying and I thought, "There I am, isolated in this little village in the middle of Russia, and that's how I was going to die. Why can't it be a gun battle on the streets of Moscow? So that the people can read about this hero." I had been in the cabin possibly three days. It was mid-morning. Sorry, but I get a little emotional in this part. I'm at a table, writing letters of goodbye, because I'm not going to make it. And when any one of us writes a letter, the first thing we do is put a date on it.

• 51:07Speaker 10

  I had totally lost touch with reality and especially date and time. But when I pulled out my calendar, that is the moment when I first realized that it is Thanksgiving in America. I heard this loud thump or bang. I thought it could be an explosive. And that's when I heard the sound of a vehicle. I hustled to the window, but it was, there was so much snow, I could not identify the vehicle, but it sounded like the engine of a Jeep.

• 51:49Speaker 10

  Knowing about one or two of our agents losing their hands or their face, I panicked, waiting for the explosion to happen. I ran to the back of the cabin.

• 52:01Speaker 10

  Probably waited 15, 20 minutes and nothing happened. I pulled the cabin door open 6, 8, 10 inches. And there on the stone steps of the cabin was a package, about the size of a normal shoebox.

• 52:18Speaker 10

  There's no turning back now. I grabbed the package. My heart is pounding and I pulled the string off the package.

• 52:29Speaker 10

  There, the first thing, a box of macaroni and cheese, a little, small box of Frosted Flakes, a jar of Artichoke Arts. And there, I see the Thanksgiving card. And I recognize the handwriting of my sister Karen. And then I prepared my Thanksgiving meal. There was a little package. I remember when I fixed the meal around the outside of the plate, I put all these little colorful Gummy Bears. They had made their way from Torrance, California, to the American Embassy in Helsinki, Finland, and somehow from Helsinki, Finland,

• 53:12Speaker 10

  to the safe house in Potavka, Russia. Over the years, I made a concentrated effort to find out how the package could have gotten to Potavka, and who brought it there, and why. But in our line of work in intelligence, there is a cliche that is called "the need to know." And I am not privileged to ask any questions about it. Because, Mike, do you have a need to know? When you work in the covert world, there are so many unanswered questions you have. I still do not have a definitive answer as to how the package got to me.

• 54:00Glynn Washington?

  Now, Mike wrote a book about this experience. We'll have a link on our website, snapjudgment.org. That piece was produced by Anna Sussman, with sound design by Renzo Goryo.

• 54:13Glynn Washington?

  Oh, it's happened again, dear listeners. But the gift of storytelling knows no season. Just tell them to subscribe to the Snap Judgment Podcast and magically become the most interesting person ever. Snap is brought to you by the uprooter Mark Ristich, Anna Sussman, Nancy Lopez, Pat Massey Miller, Renzo Goryo, Shayna Shealy, Taylor Decott, Flo Wiley, John Facile, Marissa Dodge, Regina Berriaco, David Exame, Bo Walsh, Manny Nguyen.

• 54:45Glynn Washington?

  And as you know, this is not the news. No way is this the news. In fact, you could find a little something extra under your tree, and you would still, still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is PRX.