Our Work
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To find out how the greatest financial fraud in history imploded, journalist Steve Fishman tracks down the victims, the federal investigators, the accomplices, and the mastermind, Bernie Madoff himself. Ponzi Supernova takes listeners through the calculated lies, frantic hi-jinx, and lax financial oversight that ultimately weaponized a Ponzi scheme into a $65 billion destructive force that reached across the globe and still has lasting effects today.
Empire on Blood
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The Burden: Empire on Blood is the Director’s cut of the true crime classic Empire on Blood, which reached #1 on the charts when it was released half a dozen years ago. Then, the corporate bigshots turned their backs on the beloved series—it hasn’t been available for years. But creator Steve Fishman wrangled it back, and now Empire on Blood is updated and set for launch on August 7 with three new bonus episodes.
Empire on Blood is set In the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, that’s Calvin Buari, lived large, wearing mink, drinking champagne, stacking bills. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed, dead bodies piled up, and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Witnesses came forward. A prosecutor, who went by Turtle Man, swore Calvin was the culprit. Father Frank, the detective who got the impossible-to-get confessions, gathered evidence. Meanwhile, Calvin put his faith in a born-again preacher who carried a gun and a Bible, and who promised to find the mysterious Evilina – she supposedly saw it all go down. Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years trying to untangle this dark intrigue.. Then one day, his phone rang. It was the protege. He had a message. He knew the real killer. Empire on Blood is one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. But someone’s gotta pay.
Upcoming Projects
The Burden
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In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun with violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases, put away the worst criminals, in bare-knuckled street brawls if necessary. “The Hulk'' was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers turned elite jailhouse lawyers. In prison they founded a law firm, and one day made a discovery: Scarcella was the cop who’d helped put many of them away. They made a vow: We gotta get this guy. And with the help of a relentless NY Times reporter they took him down. Thirty years later, 20 people Scarcella helped put away have walked free. The legendary detective is a get-out-of-jail card. In the media he’s the disgraced, rogue cop who hoodwinked an entire system. Really? One cop? We spent hundreds of hours with jailhouse lawyers, the intrepid reporter known as Frenchy, coerced witnesses, outraged attorneys, righteous cops. Scarcella insisted he didn’t do anything wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Louie Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse. The guilty have gone free, he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast ... where justice is done (and undone). Welcome to The Burden.
Avenger
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Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. But as a 19-year-old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of inmates were executed, tossed from a cargo plane into the ocean. Avenger is Miriams’s story, the story of a woman’s struggle to overcome her tortured past, to change her future, and the future of her country. Miriam will survive the camp – one of just a handful of who do – then, as a journalist, she will bring her tormentors to justice.