From mobster to minister, Tom Naemi experienced a profound conversion to Christ from behind bars.

(0:33) Tom Naemi discusses his plan to eliminate his rival’s grocery store — for good.

(2:46) We learn more about Tom’s life growing up in Highland Park, how he started working with the family store, and the beginning of his rivalry with another local grocer.

(6:37) Tom tells us how he fled to Baghdad to avoid arrest, and what awaited him when he eventually decided to come back.

(8:39) Tom learns that being a good Christian might not have been quite as simple as he thought growing up, and he shares a profound encounter with God he had while in prison.

(12:59) We hear about the beginnings of Tom’s ministry and his work to bring the love of Jesus closer to more of his inmates.

(17:15) Vanessa, Tom’s biographer and friend, discusses what makes his story so compelling and the great work he’s done with his faith since leaving prison, including the healing he’s brought to those ailing mentally, physically, and spiritually.

(19:28) Tom reflects on how his life has changed, and how God works at the exact right pace in the exact right ways.

Reporting by Dan Meloy; narration by Andrew Kleczek; production by Ron Pangborn

Detroit Stories: Reformed Gangster

Tom: So anyway, my wife, you know, she always speaks to me when I was calm. She knew I had a bad temper. So the next day we have breakfast. I'm ready to go to work at six in the morning. She tells me, she says “Please, Tom, I want you to leave these people alone. They have families.” I got mad at her, then I left and I figured, how about our family? You know? So anyway, I put the last plan in effect, I figured I'm going to drive a truck into this building full of dynamite, gasoline, I'm gonna blow it up so good, the insurance company — if they pay him, they won't have enough money to rebuild it. And if they don't pay him then that's too bad. It's better than killing them.

Narrator: Killing them, I should add, was his original plan. This was Plan B.

Tom: Well, I don't want to get blood on my hands. I'll do it for the sake of my wife. So I drove this big truck in the building, 24 foot, 275 gallon of gasoline, 12 dynamites. I drive it inside the building, the truck blows up before — just catches fire. Well, I lit the dynamite fuse and the whole truck caught up while I was in it. I threw myself out, I rolled myself in the snow and the truck started blowing up.

[explosion sounds, sirens]

Narrator: The explosion was unsuccessful. The opposing supermarket stood unharmed. Tom left the scene in an ambulance with burns over 47% of his body. If he had been successful, authorities estimate that several people would have been killed and several other seriously injured. As it was, Tom believes God seemed to have had a different sort of explosion in mind. The kind that takes a notorious Chaldean mobster with a 60 to 90 year prison sentence and turns him into a prolific charismatic preacher and healer. And as many of us know, God usually gets his way.

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Tom Naemi immigrated to the U.S. from Baghdad with his family when he was 11 years old. Like many Iraqi Catholics at the time, his family left to escape religious persecution. They settled in present-day Chaldean Town in Highland park. But at the time they were one of the only Chaldean families in the area.

Tom: I used to fight a lot because the kids — you know, I was different. So they all wanted a piece of me. So I gave them a piece of them, and I got to be a pretty tough kid. When I went to school, high school, all that I was so, I did this, I did that, I did karate. I did all this stuff.

Narrator: Tom started working at his family's grocery store, Seaman’s Supermarket when he was 12. Other than hours spent at school or Mass on Sundays when Tom altar served, the rest of the week was devoted to making the supermarket survive, a rigid focus that Tom maintained as he got older and took over the business.

Tom: Now I went into the produce business and the Italians tried to run me out of business. I got a little vicious with them. Some of them, we had some shootouts. Some of them, I wrecked, some of them I beat up. I became a little like a gangster, you know what I mean? I felt like I was invincible. I could do anything I want.

Narrator: It was somewhere in this invincible phase that Tom and his wife were set up by their parents. Marriage didn't dissuade him from gang activity though. On the contrary, it raised the stakes.

Tom: Yeah, I got a family of four — my wife, and four kids, and big business, doing big business. Competition opens up down the street, one thing led to another, at least to a few bad words. So I let them know, hey, you know, you guys are messing with the wrong guy. I go down there. I want to talk to them, let them know — I wanted to lay the law down and let them know that, hey, don't mess with me, you guys are going to get more than you bargained for. We got into a big fight and then I put them all in the hospital. 26 boys, I got, we went in there, wrecked the whole place. And I figured that, now, that everything would calm down, but it didn’t calm down. A few — not even a month later, they came out the hospital, they were doing good, I saw a sledge pull up in my parking lot. They would call me and and I would come out with an Uzi in my hand and display it and they would take off.

I said, okay, this is not going to end, so I burned the store down one night with a couple of boys, about 3:30 in the morning. Then I burned the store down a second time. Then I send them a time bomb a third time. Every time I would blow up the store or something, they would collect from the insurance, or rebuild it, collect and rebuild it. Then after a month or two then we’d start again. I said, man, you know, there's no end in sight with these guys, so I got to do something. Either I blow up this store in a big way, or I have to kill them.

So one day I'm going to work and there's a couple of kids waiting for me with guns in their hands. And that day I happened to go to work late a few hours. And they came up from behind the wall in the corner and they started shooting at me. And that really got me to go insanity. I mean, total uncentered. All I kept thinking is, I’ve got to kill them all. Somebody is going to die, I don't want to be me. So one day I got two guns. My wife heard about it, somebody told her, listen, your husband is running around with guns in his hand, he's ready to kill some people, you better go home, find out what's going on.

Newscaster: Tonight, police are investigating a shocking car, explosion and fire. The incident was...

Narrator: After the attempted explosion, Tom fled to Iraq to avoid imprisonment. He knew what was on the line. He was likely to get life in prison. He came back to the U.S. briefly to see his family.

Tom: I run into somebody that I didn't like, I wind up beating him half to death, sent him to the hospital. The FBI come raid my mother's house. I escaped into Mexico and back to Iraq. I have a lawyer, calls me, says, “Listen, Tom, I can get you a deal. Eight years if you show up.” I said five to eight is a good deal, I’ll come back.

Tom’s notorious reputation on the streets carried over into prison. He was extremely hot tempered and revenge obsessed. He spent his first 10 years behind bars like this, overcome with urges to kill. He was constantly getting into brawls with other inmates and winding up in the hole. He couldn't get over the humiliation of his failed attack, or the fact that his enemies ran free while he was behind bars. His kids, ages one through eight, were growing up without him, and his wife had divorced him. He was shuffled around to six different prisons before he finally landed at Lapeer. And Lapeer was different.

Tom: They had these volunteers that were really holy. Bruce and Mary Rogers, and all these volunteers were real holy people that were charismatic, they spoke in tongues, they were saying to the Lord, and praise and shout. And I thought they were all crazy. You know, I never been around charismatic people before. And I was like, these people are out of their mind, but I give them credit. They keep coming to prison.

Narrator: It made Tom curious to see what seemed like delusional commitment. But week after week, they kept coming. He hadn't encountered that before. People who wouldn't give up on him. He tested them, pushed to see how far they would go.

Narrator: Nothing happened. For a long time. And then, like a deluge, Tom's prayers were answered.

And I got that moment, I started crying. I knew the love of God was beyond my imagination. I knew God was God of love. I felt the Trinity. I knew who God was. I didn't need a book, I didn't need nobody to tell me no more. I just felt it in my show. I started crying. I left. I didn't want the men to see me crying, ‘cause I was hardcore. And I left there and I went to my cell. I was telling myself “What just happened, Lord? I just felt you for the first time in my life.”

Narrator: Tom started reading scripture like a guidebook, hoping for some insights about this mystical experience and these unfamiliar feelings.

Tom: I read that Scripture for six and a half hours. And I knew that Scripture was wholly inspired by God, that men who wrote it with their finger were inspired by God to write it. I knew that word is the Word of God.

Narrator: He was hooked. He says the old Tom died in the same jail cell as the scripture-infused Tom was born in. Scripture reading became his nightly habit in the late hours of the night while the prison was quiet.

Tom: Psalm 1, Psalm 4, Psalm 8,I love to read that. Psalm 10, Proverb 28. I get up in the middle of the night after I tell him this, I open up the Bible. I read the scripture. I don't understand what it says, the light is off, I can barely read it. The cop comes by, “Why are you up?” “Because I’m reading the Scripture.” “Why are you reading the Scripture?” “The Lord told me to.”

Narrator: Tom, went from being his unit's bruiser to being their profit. The same doggedness with which he once picked fights was now weaponized for bringing the inmates to Christ. Whenever he was sent money, he ordered Bibles. The hours he spent in the prison gym beefing up a fighter's body, were now spent praying with and over inmates for their physical and spiritual illnesses. His bitterness towards former enemies was now turned towards the devil and this became part of his everyday conversations.

Tom: And I went to get them. I went there. I was the first one in line and the officer told me I’d only been there three months, go sit in the corner, first corner, first table in the corner. On the left. I grabbed my milk and I went there and I said, “Father, I want to thank you for the — I want to thank you for this food in the name of Jesus.” And everything stopped. He said, “Tom, tell them how much I love them. Tom, tell them how much I love them. Tom, Tell them how much I love them.” I raised my hand. I said, “I will tell them how much you love them, Lord.” Well, this one guy with a long beard, all tattooed, including his face — anyway, I walked out and he said to me, “You know, I believe in God and I don't practice.” I said “Wow, that’s good for you.” I say, “James, 2:19, ‘Even the demons believe in God and they crumble at the name of Jesus.’” I said, “What good is that if you don't practice? Why don't you try put it to practice?” And his face just like — he got pale and he walked away. And I knew then that that's so neat to hear, to practice the love of Jesus.

Narrator: Tom’s facility had four Protestant services, but no Catholic service. He sent a request for a Catholic chaplain and was told he would need at least 11 interested inmates to get one.

Tom: Okay. I go down the hall and I find 11 men right away. Well, most of them Latinos, and I signed them up, and I got my, I got six men in the tube, a six-man crew. I told this guy, his sister is married to my cousin. I go, “Come on, Kerry, sign up and come to service.” The guy goes “No, no, enough with that Jesus stuff.” I said “Look, somebody's gonna mess with you. I'm going to take care of it for you. Well you got to come to church, I’ll help you out. I'll have your back.” He’s like, “No, no. Not with that Jesus stuff.” I go, “Okay.” I wake up about four in the morning, McDonald is snoring like — underneath Kerry and Kerry can't sleep. And he goes, “You know, I'm going to put a lock on the sock and beat his ass.” So I raised my hand, of course, “I go in the name of Jesus. I command you to stop snoring.” And Kerry rolls his eyes and I go, “In the name of Jesus—” The second time I go, “In the name of Jesus, I command you to stop snoring.” And Kerry rolled his eyes. The third time. I said, “I command you in the name of Jesus to stop snoring, now.” And the man stopped snoring. I told him, “You’re coming to Catholic service.” So he signed up for it in the morning. And I started a Catholic service. We started with 11 then 18 then 27, then 30 and 35 and 40, 45 and 50, and one time we got as high as 58 men. And I would be in service every week. My first service, preached about the woman at the well. We didn't have Eucharist. We got on our knees. We accepted the spiritual Eucharist from Jesus. We accepted. We gave our life to Christ.

Today, Tom's work is in the produce business, but his passion lies with the Eastern Catholic Re-evangelization Center. It’s a Chaldean and Eastern Catholic lay community that's on a mission to evangelize through prayer, fellowship, and retreats. Tom serves on the board there, helps host their monthly healing service and shares his story. This is Vanessa, a family friend, co-board member, and his biographer.

Vanessa: So Tom’s story serves as a catalyst to bring people to Christ, to encourage people to read Scripture, to go to Christ when you're suffering emotionally, physically, mentally, to lean on the Lord. I think the most powerful thing about his entire story that I think everybody can relate to, is that even though Tom spent nearly 16 years physically locked up behind bars, most people walk around this world physically free, but locked up in their own vices. And that's personal prisons, you know, they're locked up their sins. And it was through reading scripture and giving up his life to God where he found freedom. I mean, he truly found freedom behind bars. As ironic as that sounds, he found freedom while still locked up in prison and he found it through Christ. And so many people can find that same freedom through Jesus Christ, whether you're locked up in fear, anger, resentment, you know, any kind of addiction. People are locked up in all kinds of personal prisons.

Narrator: In writing Tom's biography, Vanessa tracked down dozens of stories of spiritual and physical healings attributed to him.

Vanessa: I witnessed that. I have heard many stories of people being preyed on who had cancer, who had difficulty conceiving a child, children who have had other ailments that Tom has gone and prayed on at their homes or at church. I mean, he gets called all the time. I wrote a story a few years ago about a woman— she wasn't Chaldean, she's an Italian woman and she heard about Tom's ministry and she was legally blind. And she went and had Tom pray on her a few times, and she got a big part of her vision back where she could function on a daily basis. And so that was another story. So there's been many, many stories of healing and Tom takes no credit. He knows this is all Jesus Christ. I mean, Tom is only able to pray on people through Jesus, through Christ and it's not his own power, it's the power of Jesus, and he knows that very well.

Tom: I wasn't thinking about, ‘I want to be a preacher one day.’ If you would have told me when I went to prison, “One day, Tom, are you going to be preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ,” I would've told you out of your mind, you’re smoking some bad bananas. You know, God uses the weak to save strong, he uses the fools to save the wise. That’s how God is. They magnify his glory in weakness. The Tom today would speak to that Tom, that Tom wouldn’t have listened to him. That Tom would have needed a two by four across the head, it had to be God’s timing. He had to break me down to build me up.

Narrator: Through the grace of God, the same hands that wielded hand guns and fashioned bombs and explosives are now the ones that are placed on the shoulders of hurting and wounded people to heal and to pray.

Detroit Stories is a production of Detroit Catholic and the Communications Department of the Archdiocese of Detroit. Find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts.