Riley Perez
Appearances
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Yeah, no one's just going to ask you that. The main reason they ask that question is because they want to make sure you're not a child molester or you're not a rat. So, yeah, your folks, the folks you run with, they're going to want to know. You give them your paperwork, they see it. Now, granted, my paperwork was on the cover of L.A. Times.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
There are guys there with life sentences, 40-year sentences. So, you know, there's very few Boy Scouts just walking around. And daily violence exists.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Comical. I mean, yeah, he's fish out of water and he realizes that the life he had, even with him just being in a city jail that he was in initially, that probably made his skin crawl. Yeah, I know the feeling, Joe, but just, you know, just adapt, buddy. You expect him to be running up the walls, trying to control the narrative initially, trying to hold on to folks that he's associated with.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
You know, I'm innocent. I tell you, I'm innocent. So I understand. At that point, it's sink or swim. I guess the biggest thing is you don't want to lose yourself in there. But how do I maintain my individuality in a place where everything is uniformed and rules are set? Long way before I ever came here, rules are set. How do I keep my individuality?
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
How do I keep my humanity and not just turn into some ogre? And that's a balancing act. What you're doing inside is what you're going to be doing when you come out. There are dudes that hit the yard and they're just slinging dope and the gambling, the this, the that. Okay, well, you're conditioned. You've conditioned yourself. He's such a bad guy. I did a good thing. I never thought in that way.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
I still don't. He was my victim. I was the perpetrator.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Will says he never said that because why would he?
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Darnell Riley Perez. Will my family call me Riley? But I'll answer to anything.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
I drive up my driveway as I do every day. I always carried a pistol. 38 snub nose was my go-to gun. Don't have to worry about, you know, even if you dropped it, it's not just going to fire by itself. So every day I got the same routine, get out the car, the gun's already secured in your waist. But this day, at that moment, for whatever reason, I didn't put the gun in my waist.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
So as I step out of my car, I see the van racing up my driveway. For a second, I thought maybe it's a hit. I was about to reach for my gun or run because I had some exit points I could have made. The van stops at a decent enough distance, and I see the passenger, older white guy. I see him draw his pistol, and then I see the driver. He looks to be Hispanic, younger guy.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
And they're screaming something, but it's like I couldn't hear. And then as I look past them, my eyes focus past them, I see the cavalry coming up the driveway. And that's when I realize, okay, it's the cops. Then, like, my hearing restored. And I can hear them now, freeze, freeze, police, police. The younger guy, who was the driver of the minivan, he walks towards me.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
He had never pulled his gun. The passenger, the older white guy, he kept his gun trained on me. And the younger guy said, turn around. They put me in the back of the minivan, and they start with the questions. Are you Darnell Riley? I'm just looking at him, and they kept asking. And then they show me the warrant. Are you Darnell Riley? I'm like, yeah, well, my name is Darnell Riley Perez.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
They're like, yeah, yeah, whatever, whatever. They're like, who are you guys? We're U.S. Marshals. So I say, what is this for? We don't know. We're just body baggers. We're just here to grab you. U.S. Marshals, I guess, had teamed up with the LAPD to clear a backlog of high-value warrants they had to execute. I just happened to be one of them.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
My guy tells me, you know, we don't know what it's for, but, you know, we're going to work on bail.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
I called another guy, and once again, no one knew what exactly I had been arrested for. I called my girlfriend at the time who had lived with me. I didn't know that they had brought her down as well, and she was in the interrogation room next to me. And she tells me, yeah, they say this is because you robbed Joe Francis. So now I knew what I was in for.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Out of all the possibilities of what it could have been for, that was like the last thing on my list. So now I know, okay, we got to fight.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
I'm innocent. I know what you're talking about. I have to play that part. I knew I was going to have to sit for a while and fight this case out.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Two counts of kidnapping, home invasion, robbery, extortion, two kidnapping charges. The kidnap for ransom held a penalty of life without parole. Two life sentences, yeah. I mean, how do you do one life sentence?
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
No, didn't have time for that. It would have been a wasted emotion. I was sitting in the county jail with gangbangers rioting daily, facing the real potential of death every day while still waging this war in the courts where if I lose, I go away for life. So, yeah, wondering who's not going to want me back in their club was the farthest thing from my mind. It was, how am I going to survive this?
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Stale courtroom, wood panel walls. The judge was about 800 years old. You know, tried and tested veteran of the legal system.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
Ron asked me, you know, what do you want to start? I said, give me probation. He's like, yeah, they're not going to go for that. I said, all right, seven. He said, well, they're looking at 13. So now it's the back and forth. We'll say eight. They'll come back maybe at 10.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
First off, the potential that I could be busted, that always existed. I did the crime. So in the negotiating and talking with Ron in our private talks, his question to me is, what can you live with? OK, well, we wanted something in the single digit range. So getting to 10 years, eight months, that was his goal once we were in the bargaining stage. I was okay with it because I did the crime.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 4
After sitting in jail for a year and witnessing the insane asylum, being involved in riots that are gang-based, that have nothing to do with you, just get me to a point where the amount of time that I'm gonna do, I can still Have a life afterwards. I won't be an old man walking the prison yard coming out with very few options left in life.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Everything actually went as planned and it was a clean getaway. I have gloves. He doesn't know my identity. There's nothing that ties me to it.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
He calls Joe, asks for money. Non-sequential bills. How do I tell my bank non-sequential bills? Meaning that the serial numbers won't be in order.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Listen here, man. Next step is, it's going to be on our terms. Meaning that you won't have anyone with you. The moment we see you follow, or a helicopter or anything like that, it's over. Do you agree upon that? Um, okay.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Joe, you think that's going to be a little obvious? I'm carrying a fucking hefty bag down the street? A hefty bag weighs 22 pounds. Weighs 22 pounds. Double the hefty bag up, two or three of them. Okay, so I'm going to carry three hefty bags down a fucking street. It'll be pretty simple. Second option is... I could go to a mutual friend and have him get the money from you and I give him the tape.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
The kidnap for ransom held a penalty of life without parole. At that point, it becomes survival.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Maybe there was a guest staying there who didn't go out with him.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
So, from the street level, you really can't see it. There's only five houses on that street.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
It had gained attention when it was profiled in Sex and the City.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
I look around for a couple of other things that were on my list.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Make some copies of a couple of his files, a couple of things that could be of interest going forward. Banking records, names of companies, how he was hiding his money.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
I waited. I waited. I give my updates. He's still at the club. We figure he's going to be leaving any minute because he does have an early flight to Mexico the next day. It's a good three to five minute drive of windy roads from the point of him turning off of Sunset to get to his home. We knew that that night he was in his Ferrari. He arrives home about 1230. I hear the gate open.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
He comes pulling in. I hear his footsteps. Once he stepped through the door and I heard it close behind him. I had a little flash grenade and I screamed out, freeze police. I've known this even with guys in the criminal world, gangsters. If you draw down on them saying, freeze police, they think maybe it is the cops.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Across the street is Quincy Jones. He's at 1110 Bel Air.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
You just bought yourself two to five seconds of them being stunned where you can hop on them. I put cuffs on him. He's not saying anything. He's just shocked. Now, I had a gun, and if you have a gun, the gun has one purpose. It's to kill him. All right, the secondary purpose is to scare him to comply with your demand. But was I prepared to kill him? Yes. That's why I had the gun.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
As soon as he came in the door, I could have just killed him. But that's not what I wanted to do, but I knew that that could happen. I have him cuffed, and now he's my captive. Now I have a mask on, like a ski mask on that covers my nose. And I have a beanie cap. You can see my eyes, but that's it. I put a black knapsack around his head. He's afraid. He wants to know why.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Almost immediately, he started asking me, did Muhammad send you?
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Muhammad was building his home down in Mexico. They had a falling out. He immediately starts asking me if Muhammad sent me. I don't care if he thinks, you know, his mom sent me. Let him think that.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
I don't hear any chimes for the alarm, so it's all good. I go to look at the alarm keypad and I see that, you know, I didn't trip any alarms.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
So whispering in his ear, there's the ominous God hovering over you who could snatch your life at any point. I ask him the code to that safe. And he says, I never opened the safe. I've never opened it since I've lived here.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
I take him to the safe and I once again say, give me the combo to the safe. I never used it. I never used it. I take him into his bedroom, and I had already set up the tripod with the camera. So I sit him on his bed, face down, on his stomach. And then I step behind him, and I take the mask off, and he sees the camera set up. That's when he really starts freaking out, like, what's this camera for?
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
So the rabbit, I put that on the bed in front of him, and now he's really, whoa, whoa, what are you about to do? I put the dildo next to his face, and I tell him we're going to now make a video.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
I'd taken his identification out of his wallet in the same way that he does the videos with the girls going, wow, where he shows their ID, shows their face. Before I turn the camera on, I say, you know, you're going to say, my name is Joe Francis. I'm a boy going, wow. And I like it up the ass. The irony of this is how I film girls on my videos. So then I put the dildo between his butt cheeks.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Never up his butt. Okay. Too far. I turn the camera back on and I zoom in tight on his face. The reason I'm tight on him is so anyone viewing the video won't see that his hands are tied. So I pan from his face and I go down around his hands to the camera showing the dildo in his butt back to him. Joe had made his money was exploiting women.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Young girls that are most of the time high, drunk. And it gets them on film and he's the one that profits from it. They get a trucker hat or a t-shirt.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
So to be able to get him on video reciting the phrase that he has the girls recite, yeah, that was a gift that, you know, kept on giving.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Two bedrooms upstairs, two downstairs with a big office. It's a house for partying.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Once I cut the camera off, I turn the lights back off, and he's now back in the dark. The hood goes back over his head. I take him back to the safe. All of a sudden, he now knows the combination to the safe. He doesn't know what's going to happen next. He figures, all right, let me give it up. I do the combination. Bang. There's a couple of watches in there.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
There's some nice amount of cash in there. I'll just take that for... My time, gas is high anyway, why not? Now I'm thinking, what will the cops think when he eventually makes his claim? There had already been plenty of burglaries all throughout Bel Air. So I'm going to make this also look like a burglary. That's one of the goals is to just have him at fear.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Like he's thinking the entire time that Muhammad sent someone. So I just want him at fear. He can think of who it is. Who may I have fucked over? So that was the goal, is just to keep him in the dark as to who sent me, who I am. All throughout the ordeal, he kept saying, I know Muhammad sent you. Just tell me. Whatever he's paying you, I'll pay you more.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
I had a two-way radio, and I had a throwaway phone. I didn't want to have my cell phone with me, and I pinged off of one of the towers, and now they got my location if I ever got arrested. I'm talking with my guys on the throwaway phone, and they're walkie-talkie, and we're going back and forth. We're coordinating my exit. I walk them out to the Bentley, put them in the backseat face down,
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
Joe's in the backseat. I have my guy in his car ahead of us, and he's guiding us now.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
He knows that if I wanted to kill him, it would have already been done.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
But I drive maybe a half a block down, and I tell Joe, you know, wait a couple of minutes. You can get up and take off. I jump into my getaway car, and we drive off.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
I read the report of what happened to him after. He waited a couple of minutes. He worked his way out of the restraints. He got himself into the front seat, and he drove to the Bel Air guard shack. And he runs to the shack, and there's a lady inside. And he's like, help me, help me, I've been robbed. So when the cops arrived, they hear him out, and the whole team make their way up to his home.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
And they get to his home, and they were expecting to see a mess, but there wasn't anything that led them to believe there was a crime, a burglary of any kind.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 3
This was payback. This is something that had to happen. This was something I was going to enjoy doing. There wasn't much to consider, you know, will I or won't I? It was just a matter at that point of when will I do it?
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
being around town, involved in underworld behavior since a teen. Folks knew me. I knew any and everyone that was needed to know to be in the hot spots.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
Paris, Nikki, Tara Reid. She was still a young commodity and, you know, bankable in films. Leo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
He was, you know, in the media looked at as the next Hugh Hefner because he seems like he had caught lightning in a bottle. He'd hang out. I'd see him at the club. You'd see him at a restaurant. He'd come by my buddy's gym.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
He would round up enough folks to get them back to his place for after hours because he's trying to let folks know, you know, I'm the man, I'm the man here, I'm the go-to man. Everyone's going to take the free goodies, the alcohol, and a place to hang out and party and rub elbows and exchange lies.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
I had already been a part of a couple clubs, you know, behind the scenes, where I was on the off-the-books payroll. I'll get my payment in the brown bags, and I always got a table there.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 2 I Scroll Back for Part 1
He knows that if I wanted to kill him, it would have already been done.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
Now, I had a gun, and if you have a gun, the gun has one purpose, to kill him. Was I prepared to kill him? Yes.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
If you entered properly, you would enter through the gate in your car. You'd pull up a driveway that's on a pretty steep incline.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
I walk through the bottom portion, making sure no one's there. Go up the steps, master bedroom, huge walk-in closet, second bedroom, which was a little gym that he had set up. I'm looking for the safe, yeah, but maybe it's not in a safe, maybe it's in a drawer. Looking for a little lockbox, anything that could lead me to possible mini-DV tapes that would fit in the camcorder.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
Crazy enough, the smaller of the safes was open, so I don't have to fidget with it and try to come up with a combination. I open it. There's a couple of tapes in there, mini DV tapes. I'll take those with me, put those in the bag.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
It had gained attention when it was profiled in Sex and the City. It was called the rabbit or what is it, a pink rabbit. I grabbed one. I'll put this to use.
Infamous
Encore: The Rise and Fall of Girls Gone Wild | Part 1
My name is Joe Francis. I'm a boy gone wild, and I like it up the ass.