GOOD COP BAD MONEY BY GLEN MORISANO AND JOHN LANSING

PREFACE By Robert Altchiler

I met Glen during my second year as an Assistant D.A. in Brooklyn, a place that was

described to me as a melting pot, but was really a place where everybody hated each other. There

was a ton of crime of every variety, and was the perfect place to learn how to be a trial lawyer

and to learn about how the criminal justice system really works. I was assigned to the Major

Narcotics Unit and Glen Morisano was a Supervising Sergeant with Brooklyn South TNT

(BSTNT).

BSTNT specialized in buy-and-bust cases, which required undercovers and surveillance

and numbers, numbers, numbers. The quantity of arrests was one of the driving forces behind

TNT. Most of the cases were relatively insignificant, although in New York, selling narcotics is a

felony. These targets really didn’t care. They would be locked up and back on the corner the next

week, wearing a different hat. It was sad, because a lot of these kids should have been getting

ready for college or going to class, but their circumstances were simply too much for many to

overcome.

One afternoon, my partner Jeff Harris, who had been an ADA for a year longer than I had

been, and I got called into our Deputy Bureau Chief Harvey Casper’s office.

“You guys have to go into Manhattan to meet with (Special Narcotics Prosecutor)

Sterling Johnson.”

Johnson (now a federal judge) was the top narcotics prosecutor in the state. He had a

reputation of no-nonsense and being intense. Harris was three years out of law school, I was two,

and to say we were a bit intimidated would be an understatement. We waited outside of

Johnson’s office and listened as he chewed somebody out during a telephone conversation. We

didn’t know what to think. He then yelled to us, “You guys get in here!”

He was hitting his left palm with a what looked like a nightstick that he held in his right

hand. We didn’t know he had been a cop earlier in his career, all we knew was that it looked like

that night stick would really hurt if he chose to hit us rather than his hand. He told us that a very

dangerous Jamaican by the name of Gladstone Fletcher had put a contract out on then-Judge

Leslie Crocker Snyder.

As he became more and more agitated, Johnson told us the facts of the case and how

dangerous Fletcher was. Then he told us we were going up on wire (wiretapping) to gather

evidence about the hit, and that Harris and I were going to be responsible for making the

investigation successful. Then, for emphasis, he smashed the nightstick on his desk, looked at us

and said, “I want him!”

This was a little hairy. We had never run a wire before and even though we were

reasonably bright and able, a judge’s life hung in the balance. We went back to the Brooklyn

DA’s offices and met with Harvey. He told us we would learn as we went along, under his

guidance and that of Suzanne Corhan, our supervisor, and a very savvy, seasoned narcotics

prosecutor, who knew the ropes of wiretapping very well.

In addition to Suzanne, Harris and I thought at least we also would have experienced cops

working for us who could teach us about the police end of running a wire.

In walks Sgt. Glen Morisano, Brooklyn South TNT. He kind of reminded me of Sly

Stallone in the Lords of Flatbush, but a little cleaned up. He was very confident, but with a

noticeable stutter. We were introduced and were told that we were the team—Suzanne, Harris,

me, and Glen and his guys. We then learned that neither Glen nor his guys had ever they run a

wire, either! Never. The Brooklyn South Major Case teams that usually handled the wires were

all working on other cases. So Glen had us and we had him.

He must have thought, “What the fuck is the DA doing, giving me these two barely-

lawyers, hundred-dollar suit, probably-can’t-do-nothing guys for a men’s job?” And we were

thinking, “How are these buy-two-glassines-of-heroin, never-conducted-a-complex-wire-

investigation cops going to adequately work the wire?” That’s where we were. And we had to

win.

We definitely all had a lot to learn. Running wires is complicated and detail oriented.

There are strictly enforced rules governing what you can listen to and what you can’t. There are

progress reports you have to file with a judge that must demonstrate that the wire is working and

that you are gathering pertinent information. So there are pressures involved—time pressures and

others, especially the pressure of knowing a judge might be killed if you don’t do your job.

Wires also involve a different type of surveillance than TNT was used to conducting. I’ll

never forget the first time we sent out a surveillance van to one of the neighborhoods we knew

Fletcher and his relatives controlled. We sent the van down the street and hoped the cops inside

could make observations that would further the investigation. What we learned was that we were

worse at this than we thought.

The first van that went down was a white unmarked van that had two white cops driving.

They stood out like sore thumbs in the middle of this predominantly minority neighborhood. We

must have heard the term “5-0” a hundred times over the wire. Five-O means, “Those guys in the

van are cops!” And it took less than seven seconds for them to make the van. Lesson learned.

Glen never made that mistake again. In fact, under his leadership we took down about

twenty A-1 felonies on that wire, and no van ever got made by the bad guys again.

But it was after the wire-tapping business, that I really got to see Glen at work. I sat next

to him and watched him “flip” the main players, who were now under arrest. To “flip” means to

get them to give incriminating information on one another. I really don’t think Glen had ever

done that before. But he was a natural.

As I got to know him, I learned that his ability to relate to people, see people, and get into

their heads and minds was a direct result of his upbringing. He was a sum total of his Staten

Island neighborhood—split down the middle between the good guys (cops, and firefighters) and

the bad guys (the mob). Glen chose a side early, but still was able to navigate through both sides,

earning the respect of everyone. On those Staten Island streets, Glen learned to play his hand as

if he had all the cards when he may not have even have had a pair of deuces.

In his home, he had to figure out early how to negotiate peace, and work through conflict

on the heels of the unpredictable behavior of a father who drank. In school, his solid character,

and athletic prowess made him popular despite a speech impediment that would have made many

the brunt of jokes and an outcast. Glen was a walking contradiction, but in his profession it all

worked.

I watched him worked these thugs with the grace and ease of someone who had been

doing this for two decades. In our big bust, he played the two main guys against one another as if

he had been flipping guys for year, gathering all of the testimony and evidence we needed to put

them both away for a very long time.

Glen’s career has been exemplified by what I saw on the wire and its aftermath. He has

risen to every challenge. He has overcome great obstacles to be wildly successful, without

compromising his integrity and without stepping on others. He is motivated by his desire to

fulfill his potential. He is also motivated by overcoming challenges, rather than blind ambition.

But all of his successes are second to his family. In fact, his successes can be attributed to

his family. They are the motivating factors behind Glen Morisano.

Glen is not the kind of guy who does things for his own glory. That’s just not who he is.

That he is even writing a book like this goes against everything he stands for.

The nature of this kind of book focuses on an individual and the circumstances that make

him or her worthy of a reader’s interest. At least in some way, the subject of the book has to want

to be in the spotlight, and oftentimes the book is motivated by a need for attention or a need to

feed the subject’s ego in some way. That’s why this book is, in and of itself, paradoxical, at its

heart.

Glen Morisano is a guy who really doesn’t look for the credit or seek the spotlight.

He’s great at what he does (one of the world’s most accomplished investigators). But if

you ask him, he’ll tell you he’s just pretty good. If you ask him to brag about himself, he won’t.

Because he can’t. It’s not in him. I think he would prefer to do a thousand things before talking

about himself.

Therein lies the paradox.

This book, more than a chronicling of the career of Glen Morisano, more than a story of

redemption and perseverations, more than a admonishment of what could happen when people

make bad decisions, it is a celebration of the family of Glen Morisano.

It starts with his mother. She is his rock, his backbone. Glen’s mother was always a

person who, in the worst of times, always wanted him to see the best and make sure the family

always stayed together. She is an irreplaceable pillar in his life.

She is the one who instilled in Glen this deep inner goodness and commitment to family.

All the good he has and has done, in Glen’s eyes, is a credit to his family. To Glen his

family is everything and he is nothing. You can point to anything he has accomplished and he

can tell you who in his family deserves the credit.

Mention of his grandparents is never far away, no matter the topic. They taught him the

value of family, the meaning of it, and the need to always stay together, no matter what

happened. They also taught Glen that life was not easy and that he would face challenges every

step along the way. If you asked Glen, he would probably credit them for creating within him a

dogged persistence and resiliency that has driven his existence and life.

Then there are his brothers. Without them, he would tell you, he would truly be lost. They

are appendages to his body, and he is never without them no matter the distance that separates

them. He always brags about them and in his own non-offensive way, suggests throughout his

conversations about them, that his brothers are better than yours. Glen’s brothers always brought

him strength and resolve, and obviously kept him in line, when needed.

Reflecting on my relationship and interactions with Glen over the last twenty years or so,

brought me to think about Gale Sayers and one of my favorite books, I Am Third—another book

about ability, achievement, character, commitment and overcoming adversity. In it, Sayers gives

an acceptance speech for an award and tells the audience, that in his view of the world, “the Lord

is first, my friends are second, and I am third.”

If you asked Glen, he might say, “Okay, I can go with the Lord is first, but then family is

second, then friends…(and then ten minutes later, having listed different charities and

institutions, he’ll say)…and I’m thirtieth.”

That Glen counts his blessings and has others to lean on has helped him get through the

quagmires and rough spots in his life. He’s a strong guy, but I’ve heard a voice on the other end

of the phone sound pained, distraught, angry, and despondent. I’ve also seen it face-to-face. He

has lost his balance at times, but has always gone back to his foundation for his salvation: family,

church, and friends. Maybe more accurately in the past several years, it’s been kids, kids, kids.

Glen’s moving into a different stage of his life, having a college-age son. I’m thinking I

should start getting in position to sign his eldest as a prospect, because he’s going to pitch next

year, and to hear Glen tell it, he’s got a real shot. His other boys are good students and good

athletes, and Glen is never at a loss for words about them and how great they are, and how proud

of them he is.

In that regard, he’s no different than many of us. But one of the main points of the book

and this story is that you can have it all—career, family friends, community…everything—when

you have your priorities straight.

Glen’s career, as important as it has been, has been second to his family.

Glen’s mom, brother, and kids are omnipresent in all he does and in seemingly every

conversation I’ve had with Glen over the last twenty years in which he didn’t say, “my mom,”

“my brother,” or “my son.”

His family and his devotion to them permeates everything he does. Even today, we could

be discussing business and out of the blue Glen will say, “You know my son pitched a two-hitter

yesterday,” or “my brother gets along well with that judge,” or “Let me tell you something my

mom said…”

Glen’s family is always circling him in his thoughts and in his heart. That is probably a

huge reason why he is where he is and why he is who he is today. It would have been easy for

Glen to go the “wrong way,” growing up as he did on the streets of Staten Island, with wannabes

and childhood friendships with people who would grow up to serve life sentences. The

temptations were everywhere and the potential disaster was never far away. That would have

been the easy way out for Glen.

Instead, he took the hard path—the one of hard work, integrity, and honor.

This book is a testament to his character and principles, and is replete with compelling

life lessons—including how to make difficult decisions, how to overcome adversity, and how to

be a decent human being.

Glen Morisano—cop, brother, father, son, and friend—is a guy everybody should

want to know. I’m proud and glad that I do.