Brandon ‘Jinx’ Jenkins On New ‘Criminal Attorney’ Podcast And Its Connection To His Max B Project

Wondery has set its new podcast, Criminal Attorney, hosted by award-winning podcaster Brandon “Jinx” Jenkins , and the first season digs into an infamous defense attorney.

Paul Bergrin is the subject of the podcast , and he was notorious for doing whatever was necessary to get a victory.

Here’s the official synopsis:

Hosted by Brandon “Jinx” Jenkins (RapCaviar, The Conviction of Max B, Mogul), the first season of Criminal Attorney follows bank manager turned FBI agent Shawn Brokos on her mission to clean up the streets of Newark. But as Brokos ventures deeper into a dark world of racketeering, drug dealing and murder, she makes a shocking discovery: one of the key figures she is trying to arrest is a criminal defense attorney. It seems as though every case he takes, he wins, and as rumors start to emerge, it becomes evident that Bergrin has crossed the line and become a criminal himself.

Bergrin, referred to as “the craziest, most evil lawyer in the history of New Jersey” was known for defending a range of famous and notorious clients before his 2013 conviction. From celebrities like Queen Latifah, Lil’ Kim, and rappers from the Naughty By Nature crew, to gang leaders and imprisoned soldiers, including an Army reservist charged in Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, these clients trusted Bergrin to disprove their wrongdoings. But, as Bergrin’s loyalty to his clients and stubborn refusal to lose a case grew stronger, lines began to blur and Bergrin found himself closer to the crimes than any reputable attorney should ever be. In Criminal Attorney, listeners go inside the criminal world of Paul Bergrin and his remarkable fall from grace, asking, what made Bergrin go from upholding the law to breaking it?

“Most of my stuff is based or tied to music,” Jenkins told Blavity in a recent interview about the project, which is a bit different from his past work but has some similar through lines. “A friend and I were talking about this the other day. As we sort of hop into different mediums or avenues, there’s always sort of this bridge that gets you there. And so this, interestingly enough, the first true crime thing I ever did was back with Gimlet, and that was the Max B’s story conviction. And Max B, what people didn’t really see is this character [Paul Bergrin] that appears in this story was one of Max’s potential lawyers. It was interestingly enough, that was my first foray into true crime. When I was presented with this project, it was the lawyer from that story or a minor character in that story. And this is strictly true crime, and it’s different in the way that doesn’t really have as many musical undertones or things that I come in with an inherent knowledge.”

Bergrin was also a character that he was excited to dive into and one that he says felt familiar.

“I’m originally from New Jersey, [and] New Jersey’s chock full of characters,” he explained. “I find that when I leave New Jersey and I meet other people from New Jersey, I often think they’re insane [laughs]. So Paul feels familiar in that way. But I didn’t know a ton about him. And between Matt [Nelson] educating me and as well as the writing crew on this, there was a lot of twists and turns. I walked into this thinking it was one thing, and as I learned it was like, ‘Oh wow, his scope of work is really crazy. The amount of life he lived and the amount of time that he was out and free was really interesting.'”

One thing that he hopes this project does it change people’s perception of what they think of when they think of traditional true crime projects and what a criminal looks like.

“I think that there’s an expectation of what true crime is,” he said. “And I think the thing that this sort of challenges is that this guy represents a lot of criminals, but the story isn’t with any of the people he’s representing. I mean, obviously they progress his story forward, but he’s the criminal. And I think that maybe in the way that we’ve seen characters like Walter White in Breaking Bad — not necessarily the anti-hero, as much as it’s someone that by the nature of the way in which they present, by the nature of the expectations we have about this person’s place in society– there’s a point in which that helps them leverage and commit the crimes that they’re committing. Hopefully, I think our cultural perception, our cultural sort of palette has opened up in the last couple of years to realize criminals come in all shapes and sizes.”

Criminal Attorney debuts exclusively on Wondery+ on Sept. 10. It will be available on all podcast platforms beginning Sept. 23, with new episodes dropping on Mondays.