6 People Who Turned a Life of Crime Into Legitimate Careers
For most people, a life of crime is a gamble. You'll either go on breaking the shit out of the law forever, or you'll get caught and go to jail. For some, however, there is a third option, one lined with money.
These people not only managed to have successful careers as criminals, but also turned their nefarious ways into legitimate profit after being arrested.
#6.
Danny Trejo: From Real Bad Guy to Movie Bad Guy
Danny Trejo is everyone's favorite terrifying Hispanic man.
This is not a publicity still. This is Danny going to Walgreen's.
Early on, Danny made a career out of robbing convenience stores, and eventually got addicted to drugs. The cops showed up at his house so much that his mom eventually said she stopped being surprised when they came. Then again she could have just taken one look at her son and guessed at his future.
Age 13.
Danny eventually earned himself 15 years in prison, including a stint in San Quentin. Determined to learn a valuable skill in jail, but presumably not one for poetry, he practiced boxing. He also embarked on a 12-step program that broke him of his addiction to drugs and alcohol.
"Glaring at addiction" was presumably the 12th step.
How Did He Turn it Around?
After his release, Trejo kept tabs on his former 12-step partners to help them stay on the straight and narrow. And, in one of those twists that makes a person believe in karma, one of those friends happened to be a production assistant for a movie called Runaway Train. Trejo was approached by a member of the movie staff and asked if he could look like a convict, which, of course, he could. In fact we're pretty sure that these days casting just asks if you can "Look like a Trejo."
While working as an extra, he was recognized by another person working on the film who was also a former San Quentin guest, and wound up getting hired to teach Eric Roberts to box for $350 a day.
"I'll give you three hundred and fifty bones to punch me in the face."
And that was that. Trejo has been in a few movies since then, and by a few we mean 124. He's usually playing the scary Mexican criminal, officially making him the greatest method actor in the history of the world.
#5.
A Getaway Car Driver Becomes Hollywood Stunt Woman
Georgia Durante was a model by age 12, and by 17 was the "Kodak Girl" with over 80,000 life sized cut outs of her in stores around the country. Nothing illegal about that.
Well, she wound up getting married to a guy named Joe Lamendola, a businessman who worked for the mob. His connections eventually landed Georgia in the driver's seat of getaway cars as a "wheel woman," where she performed ass-kicking driving stunts to evade the police and crush gender stereotypes at the same time.
As luck would have it, her husband turned out to be a tyrannical asshole, and she eventually decided to get a divorce and testify against the people from her former life, heroically sparing herself from spending a minute in jail.
How Did She Turn it Around?
Years of evading the police had taught Georgia how to drive like an action hero, so she formed Performance Two, a stunt and precision driving company and wrote a book about her life as a model and mafia wife. Her company has done stunts for over 100 movies and commercials, and she's personally doubled for both Cindy Crawford and Priscilla Presley.
In harrowing situations like this.
She also tours the country as a motivational speaker for women in abusive relationships, presumably while doing donuts in a high end sports car.
Hell, if running from the cops is such good training, you'd think you'd see a bunch of wheel men making it to NASCAR. Though now that we mention it...
#4.
A Moonshine Runner Becomes NASCAR Star
Junior Johnson grew up in North Carolina in the 1940s, and lived a life suspiciously similar to one of the Duke boys in The Dukes of Hazzard. He made a name for himself in the area as a moonshine runner, delivering home-brewed (and illegal) alcohol in a car fast enough to outrun the cops.
He is credited as never having been caught while making a delivery, probably thanks to his ability to jump rivers by ramping off bales of hay.
Oh, and he invented the "bootleg turn," which is a move that has been used in every car chase in the history of ever.
Some people voted to call it the "twirling Johnson" but were overruled.
He would also deck his car with fake police lights and a siren, which he would turn on when approaching road blocks so the police would mistake him for one of their own and let him pass. He was eventually caught working on his father's moonshine still and arrested, serving 11 months of a two-year sentence.
How Did He Turn it Around?
Well, he could drive really, really fast, and he lived in the South. So of course he became a lawyer.
No, not really. Junior became a NASCAR driver and wound up becoming one of the first real superstars of the sport. He competed in 313 races over the course of 13 years, winning 50 of them and finishing in the top 10 of the rest, presumably imagining red and blue lights chasing him the whole time.
"Wait, I don't have to have 13 cases of liquor in the back?"
Junior retired and is currently the third winning-est NASCAR there is, with 139 victories to his name. So, smuggling booze earned him less than a year in jail, a profitable career as a race-car driver, an even more profitable career as an owner and a 278-acre estate. Please note these results are not typical for most celebrity drug smugglers.
For example, Dino Bravo was shot 17 times in the back of the head
for smuggling cigarettes into Canada.
Danny Trejo is one badass , he scares the s**t out of me.......
ReplyThe Fraud dude Kinda reminds me of Nate Ford from Leverage
Replywhat about Frank Abagnale?
ReplyThat's so well known and they did reference it with a picture. Usually cracked takes a high profile example as inspiration and then looks for lesser known events to base the article on.
Chuck Norris soils himself at the mere sound of the name Danny Trejo. That is because Chuck is wise among all men. Learn, grasshopper... :
ReplyOh, so THAT'S why Danny Trejo scares the hell out of me...
ReplyHackers have become high paid "security consultants" since the internet. For a while you didn't need a degree or anything as long as you could prove your skill level. Of course now the tech industry is so bogged down with redundant certifications and degree programs that don't mean a damn thing, and you end up with people who went through four years of college and still can't figure out their home PC
Replysome people just have both god and devil smiling on them.
ReplyThe Death of Dino Bravo
ReplyWhile dying young is all too common an event in the wrestling world, the death of Dino Bravo is the only one that looks like a plot on The Sopranos. It is highly rumored that Dino was allegedly involved with an organized criminal group in Montreal that dealt in illegal cigarettes. On March 11, 1993, Dino was found dead in his apartment. He was shot seven times and at least two were to the head. Since there was no signs of forced entry, police believe that he knew his killers.
You're an idiot.
The dude that ratted on his dad to avoid jail?? That's really fucked up. The woman might deserve sympathy, she may have been in a genuinely abusive relationship. But for the son, man. He didn't roll until he got caught, of course. If he had done it without getting caught first, that might signal he was trapped too and wanted a way out. He did it solely to save his own ass though. Not that his dad was in the right either... I just think it's fucked up that people get out of crimes they committed by doing that. It's just... I don't know. It bugs me. He was a full participant and knew exactly what was going on, he can't feign ignorance.
ReplySnitches get stitches.
And now Danny Trejo kills zombies.
ReplyJunior Johnson wasn't the only moonshiner to become a great NASCAR driver by a long shot.
ReplyHell NASCAR was invented by Moonshine Drivers to show who was the fastest driver. The races caught on in the south and eventually spread across the US.
No, NASCAR was invented by Northerners to placate Southerns so they won't try to rise up again.
This article is kind of uplifting, although it does skirt the "Crime does pay" angle a little bit.
ReplyI love how they've used a picture of Leo DiCaprio playing Frank Abignale Jr. and then go on to talk about Barry Minkow. XD They did the same thing, use their knowledge of being a fraud to catch frauds, but those are two totally different people.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesI know right? I would have preferred Abagnale though.
Abagnale was definitely more impressive.
They used a known example to seque into a lesser known one. None of you would have known about Frank if it wasn't for the movie.
Well, how lucky then that you don't "get experience as a hacker first". Hacking, on a professional level, requires endless knowledge about programming on various platforms, networking, security measures, computer science etc. etc. etc, så a hacker is essentially a security pro.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesI don't want to ruin your day (well, actually, I do) but you must absolutely read that article about how we make life much easier for hackers. ;)
That's an interesting fantasy world you live in.
A hacker is anybody who bypasses a security system. There is no "professional" level of hacking. Some hackers know one exploit. Others know hundreds. There is no Certificate of 1337ness, no Hacker College, no board that determines whether to license you as a hacker.
Mitnick, for example, is not an impressive coder. Most of what he did was done with social engineering.
Mitnick knew the phone system better than the phone company. A hacker is an expert in a field. It is now used to describe someone who is very skilled with computers. A white hat hacker uses those skills for legitimate purposes, a black hat got illegal. A red hat is a s****y Linux OS that people actually pay money for.
Hell, NASCAR itself was started by a bunch of moonshiners with fast cars, not just Junior!! Trejo is cool.
ReplyHey I saw that history channel special too. Wish I hadn't...
A list of morally bankrupt a*****es that should've spent far more time in prison than they did that 'turned their lives around' when they found out they could still get rich without the risk of that pesky prison stuff. Not exactly role models. But Danny Trejo is the s**t.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesThey're still inspirational if you're already morally bankrupt and just haven't done anything illegal yet.
Plenty of morally bankrupt assholes knowingly do more damage than all of these guys combined without technically breaking any laws.
I think I've accidentally killed Cracked's profanity filter.
Am I the only one here who really hates these "Big Balls" jokes?
ReplyGrow a pair and you'll change your mind.
You're probably an adult. And no.
Barry Minkow a con man? but . . . But Oprah had him on her show as the Boy Wonder of Wall Street" and never called him back to recant, so he CAN'T be a con man.
ReplyI suppose I have to agree it's not outright funny.. but it's witty and if you have any semblence of intelligence you'd get why it's suppose to be funny..
ReplyI think if you take out the 'if you have any semblence of intelligence part' as well as a little 'get why it's suppose to be funny..' - add 'if you're not a snotty dickrag like me' and 'see where they were attempting to be funny' and you would have a better sentence. Thanks for the inspiration, Embrily.
@CorneliusMcGee What crawled up your vagina and died today?
too bad ass...you're the man danny
Reply