Introducing: Crooked City: Youngstown, OH

Dark Downeast

Audiochuck

True Crime, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.8 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 July 2022

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

From Marc Smerling, the creator of Crimetown and The Jinx, welcome to CROOKED CITY. The Saturday Evening Post dubbed Youngstown, Ohio “Crimetown U.S.A.” It was a mob town. Illegal gambling was so lucrative that a mob war raged for decades, and bodies piled up. Then, Jim Traficant ran for sheriff, riding into office as the city’s steel industry fell on hard times. Traficant battles the local newspaper, then the FBI, the IRS and finally his own demons as an eight-term, twice-indicted congressman.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Dr. Danny Sturs, I'm a fan of real raw storytelling and high quality podcasts,
0:20.2	and I know you are too, so I have another podcast recommendation for you as you cruise
0:25.3	through your summer lessons.
0:28.1	It's called Cricket City, a new podcast from Mark Smirling.
0:32.8	You might already know him and his style if you watched HBO's The Jinks, or if you tuned
0:38.6	into the massive hit podcast, Crime Town.
0:42.4	Mark Smirling brings us the first season of Cricket City, visiting Youngstown, Ohio.
0:49.2	The Saturday evening post dubs Youngstown Crime Town, USA.
0:54.0	It was a mob town, its biggest employers were the steel mills and the mob, but when
0:59.4	the mills closed, only the mob was still hiring.
1:03.8	A legal gambling was so lucrative that a mob war raged for decades and bodies piled up.
1:11.2	But then hometown hero Jim Traffican ran for sheriff, riding into office just as the city's
1:17.4	steel industry fell on hard times.
1:21.2	So this is the story of how Traffican rose to power in a crooked city, how he battles
1:27.1	the local newspaper, then the FBI, the IRS, and finally his own demons as an eight term,
1:34.7	twice indicted congressman.
1:38.0	Here is Cricket City, take a listen.
1:48.9	It's a cool evening on September 23rd 2014, on a farm just outside of Youngstown, Ohio.
1:58.0	73 year old former congressman Jim Traffican, walks out to his old Ford tractor to put it
2:03.0	away for the night.
2:05.7	In the years since he got out of prison after being convicted of racketeering and corruption,
2:10.3	Traffican's done a lot of his thinking out here.
	...

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