Ever since he was a kid, Amnon Filippi—who would become known as "Jewish E"—instinctively knew what was cool, had his finger on the pulse, could see a trend forming on the horizon where everyone else saw a blur.
Like when he was a teenager and saw his older brother bagging up weed in his bedroom to sell to a bunch of private school kids, and realized that was the old way of doing things, that there was a new path to be forged in dealing.
The crack era was winding down, the mainstreaming of early 1990s hip-hop was underway, there was an entirely new type of urban celebrity class being born, and they needed a new drug to match their lifestyle.
And "E" was there on the ground floor to provide it. He was bringing in exotic California weed that no one else had, and overnight, he was servicing the A-list. Having his beeper number in your black book was one of the new signs of status.
Until he got busted for being the "weed guy" for crack kingpin and budding music label owner, Kevin Chiles, and got roped into his RICO case. "E" would end up beating the charge, but the year and a half he spent in jail during the trial changed the way he thought about weed, about the distribution scale he wanted to go after.
After his parole was up, "E" and several backers built the first two-hundred-light grow house ever in Harlem right across the street from a former notorious crack house, literally marking the change in the drug of choice in cement.
"E" wanted to bring California growing techniques to Harlem, to become the king, to win with volume, to serve the needs of the East Coast masses. While at the same time, he also wanted to corner the budding artisanal market, went to Holland, and came back with several exotic strands that he nurtured in his closet grow, one of which would change the "smoking" landscape forever:
Sour Diesel.
And lead "E" into an entirely unexpected orbit of celebrity, sweeping him into the net of Jay-Z and Roc-A-Fella Records and Irv Gotti—to name a few—who were all dying to get their hands on Sour Diesel, turning "E" into a permanent member of their floating entourage.
Ironically, it was while hanging out with hip-hop royalty, that his next great passion bloomed. Suddenly, "E" retired from the weed business, moved out from the shadows, and became a celebrity himself, joining the high-stakes poker circuit, and playing for hundreds of thousands in casino VIP rooms and on TV
The Suicide King is the picaresque adventure of Harlem's first celebrity weed dealer, who would go on to pursue his own celebrity in the world of poker, and in the course of becoming a star, end up courting ultimate disaster...
Nicholas Mennuti is the writer of the espionage thriller Weaponized (Mulholland Books/Little Brown), which had film rights purchased by Universal Pictures and Scott Stuber and Scrap (NeoText). Nicholas's short stories have appeared in AGNI and Conjunctions, and he has written about the intersection of technology and entertainment for the Huffington Post. He is also a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts Dramatic Writing program.
Amnon “E” Filippi is a New York–born professional poker player and former cannabis entrepreneur whose life has moved between the city’s underground economy, the music business and the highest levels of competitive poker. He was introduced to the marijuana trade through his older brother, David, whom he idolised and who was already dealing while still at school. By the age of eleven, E had begun collecting the high-quality Thai marijuana left behind when David weighed his orders and selling it to other children in their apartment building—an early demonstration of the entrepreneurial instinct that would shape his career. Operating heavily from Harlem, he eventually became a prominent supplier to figures in hip-hop, professional sport and entertainment, established several major indoor growing operations and played an influential role in popularising Sour Diesel in New York.
Filippi subsequently reinvented himself as a professional poker player, earning more than $3 million on the tournament circuit and competing against many of the game’s leading figures. He also appeared on the television series High Stakes Poker, where his aggressive style, psychological insight and outspoken personality made him a distinctive presence. His career has included considerable success, two prison sentences and a series of dramatic reversals, all united by a lifelong fascination with gambling, risk and reinvention.
