There's a fascinating interview with Kevin Bronson on YouTube at the 2013 World Karate Union Weekend in Pennsylvania. Bronson, a South Bend native, is the jailed inmate that Kosciusko County Sheriff Aaron Rovenstine stands accused of affording special treatment in exchange for $40,000 in bribes according to a grand jury indictment.
In this interview, Bronson tells how he was trained in martial arts as a young child and how he grew up to become one of the first owners of Nautilus Fitness Clubs, eventually owning nineteen clubs over a several state area. Bronson says his business partner in the fitness clubs was the son of a mafia boss, whose organized crime syndicate laundered money through his fitness clubs.
After becoming a multi-millionaire businessman, Bronson says he was charged and convicted on RICO charges by the feds and sent to a federal prison that housed violent inmates. He says he lost over $10 million in assets as a result of that conviction. It was at that federal prison where he says he joined what sounds like the Aryan Brotherhood as a matter of survival, although he refers to it as a gang. Bronson even acknowledges once killing another man and getting off on technical charges. Bronson says he left behind his criminal past in 2010 following a religious conversion.
Near the end of the interview, you will hear Bronson discuss a potential book and movie deal. According to the indictment against Bronson, he and Mark Soto threatened an Ohio attorney, David S. Baker, who helped set up a business they operated together, Young Dragon Enterprises, LLC, if he didn't perform legal services for them on the book and movie deal.
Bronson's name, incidentally, appears in a 2012 Indiana Court of Appeals criminal appeals case of Bart Dewald, who was convicted of conspiracy to commit aggravated battery, criminal confinement and criminal recklessness. A footnote described Bronson as an inductee into the U.S. Martial Arts Hall of Fame and a strong man for hire:
Bronson holds black belt rank in twenty-three martial arts and is a two-time inductee into the United States Martial Arts Hall of Fame and a two-time inductee into the World Hall of Fame. Others that have achieved that recognition include Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris. Bronson had at one time been in the “physical harm business,” but after serving prison time, was trying to avoid that line of work.
2 comments:
Thanks for sharing this, Gary. The media reports have been devoid of any substantive context.
This will make everyone's blood boil: He's already out of jail, presumably drawing a salary while his 2nd in command is running things.
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