Washington, D.C. Chicago, Philadelphia.

Sure, these are all three major American cities, but what else do they have in common?

Well, they're the top three most corrupt cities in the United States.

And I don't know about you guys, but I love hearing all of the dramatic nitty gritty details

of the seedy underbellys of American towns.

Prohibition, gangsters, gambling,

basically anything that makes me think of Boardwalk Empire.

And that's why I'm super excited about Crooked City, an epic new podcast series by Mark Smirling, the creator of

HBO's The Jinks and hit podcast, Crime Town.

The first season of Crooked City will Youngstown, Ohio, a town that the Saturday

Evening Post dubbed Crime Town USA.

You see, being part of the Russ Belt meant two things, Steel Mills and mob families.

And once the Steel Mills closed, only the mob was hiring.

Illegal gambling was so lucrative that a huge mob war raged for decades in Youngstown and then the body count began to rise.

This is the story of how Jim Trafficant rose to power as the sheriff in a crooked city.

How he battled the local newspaper, then the FBI, the IRS, and finally

his own demons as an eight-term twice-indicted congressman.

Take a listen now.

It's a cool evening on September 23rd, 2014, on a farm just outside of Youngstown, Ohio.

73-year-old former Congressman Jim Traffin walks out to his old Ford tractor to put it away for the night

In the years since he got out of prison after being convicted of racketeering and corruption

Traffickin's done a lot of his thinking out here.

...