Gangland Wire

• Gianni Russo: The Hollywood Godfather, Mafia Secrets

  In this explosive episode of Gangland Wire, host Gary Jenkins sits down with actor, entrepreneur, and mob insider Gianni “Johnny” Russo, best known for his unforgettable role as Carlo Rizzi in The Godfather. Russo pulls back the curtain on a lifetime of stories that stretch from Frank Costello and Joe Colombo to Las Vegas skimming, the Vatican Bank, Marilyn Monroe, Jimmy Hoffa, and even Pablo Escobar. Russo discusses his new book, Mafia Secrets: Untold Tales from the Hollywood Godfather, co-written with Michael Benson—an unfiltered account of power, violence, politics, and survival inside the criminal underworld and Hollywood royalty. This is not recycled mythology—this is Gianni Russo’s personal version of history from the inside. Whether you believe every word or not, the stories are raw, violent, and utterly fascinating. This episode discusses: The Godfather, The Kennedy assassinations, Vegas skimming, Marilyn Monroe, Jimmy Hoffa, the Chicago Outfit, Pablo Escobar 🔥 Episode Highlights 🎬 How Gianni Russo REALLY Got Cast in The Godfather. Russo reveals that Joe Colombo personally helped secure his role. Paramount Studios negotiated directly with Colombo to avoid trouble. The real-life mob influence behind Carlo Rizzi’s casting. Initially, James Caan was slated to play Michael Corleone 🏛️ Growing Up Under Frank Costello Russo describes how Costello became his protector. Living for decades in a Manhattan apartment, Costello employed him as an errand runner and messenger for influential mob figures 💰 Vegas Skimming & Vatican Money Laundering Russo details moving hundreds of millions of dollars through the Vatican Bank. How casino cash from Las Vegas was “cleaned” overseas, and how Chicago Outfit figures like Jackie Cerone were tied to the financial pipeline. 🎭 Marilyn Monroe, the Kennedys & a Dark Secret Russo claims Marilyn was pregnant with Bobby Kennedy’s child. The explosive fallout and her alleged assassination. Why her body would never reveal the truth, according to Russo. The mysterious death of journalist Dorothy Kilgallen 🚬 Jimmy Hoffa’s Fate Russo shares what he says is the real story about Hoffa’s murder, the crushing and disappearance of the body. Why Hoffa was marked for death after returning to union power 🔫 Pablo Escobar & the Vegas Casino Shooting Russo describes killing Pablo Escobar’s underboss in a self-defense shooting. The terrifying private meeting that followed—with Escobar himself, how respect between two men prevented a bloodbath ⚰️ Tony & Michael Spilotro: What Casino Got Wrong Russo disputes Scorsese’s version of the murders. First-hand account of seeing the brothers after their brutal beating. The real setup and why Tony Spilotro sealed his own fate Mafia Secrets: Untold Tales from the Hollywood Godfather by Gianni Russo & Michael Benson A memoir covering: The Mob, Hollywood, Politics Vatican corruption, Murder, betrayal, and survival 👉 Available now wherever books are sold 🎯 Why You Should Listen Few guests in the history of Gangland Wire have touched so many legendary crime stories in one lifetime. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. Transcript Speaker: Well, hey, are you wire tapper? It’s good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. I have a guest today, which is, as you can see, if you’re looking, it’s, Johnny Russo. And I know a lot of you guys know Johnny. , He is, been a, a character, a mover in the shaker in this mob entertainment business for a long time. Starting with The Godfather, I think the first time we heard of him. He, , somehow got selected for the part to get beat up by James Conn and earned the, the reputation of being a wifebeater. Now that was all fiction. You guys realize that was all fictionalized for the story. But anyhow, welcome Johnny. It’s great to have you on the show. Speaker 2: Always my man. So much fun. Always. And I, the fact you’re still doing it and you know, the intrigue of the mob is never going away. Speaker: Never going away is it’s just, it’s gotten more in the last, I’ve been doing this for five, six years and it’s gotten more and more each year. It’s crazy. Speaker 2: Well, yeah. The funniest thing you say that, most people don’t know I own all the IP of the Godfather.[00:01:00] Speaker: Yeah. Speaker 2: All the intellectual property. Speaker: Yeah. Speaker 2: Like if all your listeners go on right now to quarterly own fine Italian foods. Speaker: Uh, Speaker 2: my, all my food. I’m in 83 countries, Gary. Speaker: That’s right. You got in the food business, didn’t you? Crazy, Speaker 2: crazy food business. I got in the liquor business. I, I mean, clothing. My, I mean, it’s crazy. My clothing line is called the mia. By Gianna. I try to keep everything in the mod mob feeling. Speaker: Well now you got a new book out called Mafia Secrets, untold Tales from the Hollywood Godfather. And we’re gonna talk a little bit about those mafia secrets, which that’s what, you know, that’s what we all wanna know. We wanna know the secrets of mafia. That’s think that’s part of the, that’s part of the, uh, j quo, the, uh. A little bit of something different. What we, what’s, intriguing about the mafia is this code of erta and the secrets that they had tried to keep over the Speaker 2: years. Well, you know, the situation with this, which book here that you’re talking about, that this [00:02:00] book. On, on the, one of the cove notes is Chei had it wrong in Casino. Speaker: Interesting. Speaker 2: Because I was, I one of the highlights, one of the big chapters in here. It’s pretty gory. I mean, we were just talking about Michael Benson Pryer going on. This guy is really a great graphic. Uh, writer and I mean, when he, when he’s talking about killing somebody, you could smell the blood. Speaker: Cool. That’s what we like. Well, let’s, let’s talk just a little bit about your history, your background. You go clear back to Frank Costello when you were a kid in, in New York City. You grew up in New York. Right. Tell us a little bit about that. Speaker 2: In, in 73 when he died, he left it to me. I’ve been in this apartment 70, I’ve been in this apartment 71 years. Speaker: On the Upper East Side, I guess. [00:03:00] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Speaker: yeah. Oh yeah. Speaker 2: Like sit 16. I mean, it’s ridiculous. People come and say, how did you, how could you afford it? I said, I can’t. It was given to me. Speaker: Really? Especially these days. Speaker 2: Oh my Speaker: God. Now you still living in New York City? Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. That’s my base. Yeah. I, I, I, I have a house in Sicily. I’ve had for a while now. I bought different properties in different, where I like going. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 2: And then. I kept them all by made, I’m the only guy, even, even when I bought my boat, they said, that’s gonna be a money pit that’s gonna eat all your money up. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 2: So I, I bought a boat when I was 21. I bought a Riva 148 foot Riva Speaker 4: Damn. Speaker 2: And I was good friends with Grace Kelly. ’cause Grace was going to the Baran school right around the corner on 62nd Street. Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. Speaker 2: Well, I got to know all of these young actresses when they were just coming out. [00:04:00] That’s how I got invited to her wedding. Sinatra couldn’t believe I got invited to the wedding. What happened? I, I got the boat and the boat had a slip in Monaco. Speaker 5: Yeah. Speaker 2: So I used to go there April, stay on my boat for a couple of months, and then I gave it to the Carlton Hotel to lease out. I made money from that boat every year. Speaker: I bet. And so it wasn’t holding the water. You stuck money in, as we say, that’s what you always hear about a boat. So, uh, speaking of of money and money, you talked about money laundering for the Vatican. Now I heard a story here in Kansas City, bear with me. This guy gave, he wanted to buy a church. He gave like a million dollar. Donation and the only way they’d take it if he had it converted to gold, actual gold and he took it over to the Vatican. Does that sound right to you? Speaker 2: [00:05:00] Uh, that we do Well, I used to do that myself, so I mean, I know that, but they, gold got too heavy. And then when they put all these restrictions after nine 11, yeah, you would never get on the plane. Speaker: Oh. Speaker 2: So, so I did something new. I’ll reveal it to your audience. I started buying diamonds. Speaker: Mm-hmm. Speaker 2: Which they don’t even reflect going through the machine. So I have a solid gold Davidoff cigar holder. Speaker: Yeah. Speaker 2: I put a hundred karats of diamonds. I put it in my suit jacket. I don’t smoke. It goes right through the machine. Speaker: Huh, interesting. Speaker 2: I guess every drug dealer in the world is doing because Speaker: it probably smell no problem. Smell that cocaine going through the machine. Be all over that cocaine. Try that. Speaker 2: I mean, I never took a drug. Thank God. Speaker: Yeah, me neither. So I see in the background you got the Godfather. I mean this is, I [00:06:00] know it’s been told before, but, so we got some guys out here that that may not know that story. You’re you, how did you get that part anyhow? You were the son-in-law of the Godfather and the brother-in-law to Son Corleone James. James Conn James Conn’s character. How’d you get that part? Speaker 2: I, I, I left the country for about three or four years after the Kennedy assassination. ’cause I, I mean, I was a messenger. I knew nothing about who, what and where. Yeah. But they wanted to question me. So Costello sent me on a nice trip and while I was out the book of the Godfather that came out. I’m an illiterate. I had somebody read it to me because I never went to school. ’cause when I got outta Bellevue from polio, I was 12 years old already. And then I was selling ballpoint pens on the street corners, and that’s how I met Costello. And the rest was history. But so what happened to me was that I had to read the book. And then I, [00:07:00] I was in la. I landed in LA ’cause nobody knew my name because Costello named me the kid. They couldn’t even get a subpoena on me. Who’s the kid? What’s his last name? What’s his first name? People got to know my name. Once The Godfather to come out. Speaker 5: Mm-hmm. Speaker 2: That was it, which was great. I mean, the guy was a genius, but long story short, I read that, you know, Joe Colombo. Created the Italian Anti-Defamation League in New York and he had a big rally in, in 71 and a hundred thousand people came and there were cops got stabbed and everything else. The only good thing he did do was hire Barry Sch Slotnik, a great Jewish attorney, and in fact, his son now is still my attorney. Speaker 5: Oh, Speaker 2: really? So it, but uh, a long story short. I came to see Castella, I mean, uh, Colombo. I was in LA. I said, Joe, you’re gonna be in the [00:08:00] club on 86th Street tomorrow morning. I’m gonna fly in from la. He said, yeah, come up, come on over. I don’t even wanna see you. I haven’t seen you in a while. So I get there and there’s a car outside. He’s, come on, we’re gonna go to the new headquarters on Madison Avenue. And I, that day I met Barry Sch Slotnik. And they were telling me what they were doing. I said, well, you know, whatever you don’t like in the book, now that you got this great attorney, why don’t we have a meeting? Paramount and whatever you don’t like in the, in the film that you think is detrimental to the Italian image, if they take it out, we can make a lot of money. You So we i’s why? I got the idea. What do you mean this ain’t a gift. I’m on a red suit and a white beard on we, I don’t see a mouse in my pocket who says what’s his? We so that, with that said, I told him what my idea was. He said. Could you get it on? I said, gimme permission to [00:09:00] go talk to you. So unbeknownst to me, when I shot that screen test for in, in la, I shot it on 18 millimeter Mag Stripe film. Speaker: Yeah. Speaker 2: And unbeknownst to me, Francis Ford Coppola was trying to convince them to do it in a C tone. Don’t shoot it in color or black or white. Give it a SIA tone. So it has that old tinge to it. Speaker: Yeah. Speaker 2: And, and I happen to buy 18 millimeter film that was old. It came out Sia. So I, I’ve always had my life has always got opportunities and obstacles. Thank God I got more opportunities. Well, this was an opportunity ’cause they passed my test to everybody. Bobby Evans, Stanley Jaffy, everybody saw the test. They didn’t know me. They didn’t even care about, that was the tone. So when I walked in the Gulf of Western building, the next morning, they’re all looking at me and they know me and I’m saying how they all know me, [00:10:00] but I only knew Bobby Evans because he was going out with Ali McGraw at that time. I walked right over to ’em. I said, you know, you have a big problem in New York. I think I could strain. I, he said, oh no, we got no problem here. Yeah. I said, I just left Joe Colombo. You got a problem. Speaker: You do have a Speaker 2: problem. You just left Joe Colombo. I said, yeah. I said, he wants to meet, he will he come here? I said, I’ll bring him anywhere you want. So they said, bring him here tomorrow, 10 o’clock. So I go back down Madison Avenue, I down, 59th Street in Madison Avenue. I said, Joe, we gotta go tomorrow. He said, great, let’s do it. I said, but do me a favor. They know the book In and Out, obviously. They bought the script. They got Mario Zo and the director Coppola writing it. Speaker: Coppola. Yeah. Speaker 2: Let, let us just go with two of your heavies. So we, we took a butter Dec Chico. Who was a butcher deco was a [00:11:00] tough guy collecting for them. And the other guy was Lenny Montana who got the part of Lenny, uh, Lu Razzi in the movie Speaker: Razzi. Yeah, that’s right. They probably saw him say, I want him for heavy. And Speaker 2: yeah, so we go with these two guys, Barry Sch, Slotnick, Joe and I, the five of us only go, we go up to the 33rd floor. Everybody’s there. Even the Charlie Blue Dawn who just bought Paramount. And they’re all talking and Barry addressed all the things and said, you know, we’ll go through the script. If you agree to make the changes, I think we can work out a deal. We’ll guarantee you all the locations you want. All the neighborhoods get the cooperation. And they’re getting up there shaking hands. So I’m still sitting. I said, Joe, I pull on his sleeve. I said, Joe, what about me? He goes to them, what about my boy here? Oh, we’ll give him a part. I said, excuse me, Joe. Tell him to sit [00:12:00] down. He didn’t tell him to sit down. He went like this, like gorged. They all sat. So I got out. I said, listen, I brought this guy here. This is gonna work now I want a big part. I said, who’s playing Michael? So. They all looked at each other, and this may shock your audience. James Karn was playing Michael originally. Speaker: I think I read that somewhere. Originally. Speaker 2: Yeah, originally. And then I said, well, who’s playing Sonny? They said, Carmine edi. He’s in a play called the Manful LA mantra. They thought he should be a big brawly guy. Speaker: Yeah. Speaker 2: So I said, who’s playing Carlo? Says, we didn’t get there yet. So I said to, to Costello, I said, I wanna play Carlo. So he looked at them. Stanley, Jeff, everybody was there. He says he’s playing Carlo. They all looked at each other. So Ruddy starts to say, well, are you in the union? I said, excuse me, I did my [00:13:00] homework. New York is a taf Hartley Acts, state. Yeah, you gimme a little bit a part. I’ll go get in the union. Speaker: Yeah. Speaker 2: That’s how I got the part. Joe Colombo cast me in the movie, nobody Else. Speaker: Interesting, interesting. Speaker 2: It changed my life 55 years later. Here we are. Speaker: Oh yeah. Here we are. You know, I, I, you talked about JFK and I’ve already been. Done a couple other shows here recently. That’s kind of a hot topic right now. It seems like with the release of all these, uh, documents and, and everything, uh, you had some, uh, dealings with Joe Kennedy maybe and, and as well as Speaker 2: how I met Joe Kennedy. Joe Kennedy and Frank Costello during prohibition. Speaker: Yeah. Speaker 2: They made $30 million each. That’s like 3 billion today In the thirties. Speaker: Yeah. Damn. Speaker 2: And he went to Costello early on. He wanted his son to become president and the deal he made with the mob and nobody realized it. [00:14:00] He said, if my son becomes president, the first thing he will do that week was to evade Cuba and give you all your casinos back. So it was a win-win deal. The great deal everybody. Now, obviously we know he wins. The mistake they made was put Bobby Kennedy and his attorney general, he hated all these guys. He hated all his father’s friends. And he started going after them. Marcelos, all of them. Yeah. So one year goes by, two years go by. I’m at Cal nva. He says, go to Cal Niva. I want you to be up there. Be my eyes and ears. I did that a lot. Now for your audience, Cal NVA is a casino. Built in Nevada on the California border. Speaker: Mm-hmm. Speaker 2: So if you in the black book or a mob guy and can’t go at the casinos, you stood in the bungalows on the California side. Speaker: Ah, Speaker 2: when you wanna go to the casino, you walked across the pool, you were in there. Speaker: Yeah. Didn’t Frank Sinatra have a piece of that? Wouldn’t [00:15:00] that his Speaker 2: for Oh yeah. Sinatra had a, in fact, I was there with Sinatra when I got there. Sinatra was there, Marilyn Monroe was there and a couple of and, uh, Sam Jean Con. From Chicago. Speaker 5: Yeah. Speaker 2: And he was running the whole thing. And what they wanted Marilyn to do was to sleep with Bob because when John became president, he convinced Marilyn, I can’t see you anymore for a year or two. Speaker 3: Yeah, Speaker 2: because I’m a Catholic boy, but in a year or two I’ll divorce Jackie and marry you. That’s how naive she was. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 2: We know that didn’t happen. Speaker 3: No. Speaker 2: So Bobby was supposed to keep an eye on her. Well, he kept a couple of hands and everything else on her too. That night we found out she just had an abortion six weeks with Bobby’s kid. Speaker: Hmm. Man, Speaker 2: and she was hysterical. She, I’m going to the press, these [00:16:00] Kennedys are phony, and we all looked at each other. I flew right back to New York. He said, how’d that meeting go? I said, it didn’t go. She ain’t doing it. I said, what are you talking about? He said, she’s having an abortion with Bobby’s kid, and she’s going to the press. This was a Monday morning, Gary, you won’t believe this. I said to him, they can’t kill her. She’s a big movie star. Speaker 5: Yeah. Speaker 2: He says they’ll kill her. Believe me, on Thursday, she was dead. Speaker 5: Mm. Speaker 2: And it’s funny you bring where you brought this up this past Saturday on the eighth, I dedicated a street on Bark Avenue in 68th Street to Dorothy Kga. Speaker: Yeah, Speaker 2: I just heard about that when the investigation on the Kennedy assassination. Speaker: Yeah. See Speaker 2: it was, and the Marilyn Monroe assassination. Speaker: Yeah. She had a mysterious death herself after she had really dug into that big time. Speaker 2: The same guy I know, the same [00:17:00] anesthesiologist that killed Marlin. All they did. All he did was inject it with oxygen in her fallopian organ in her groin. You’re not gonna see it through the pubic hairs. Yeah. And when every time they wanted to exhume her body, there’s, what are you gonna exhume? It’s oxygen. There’s nothing there. I mean, Marilyn always had barbiturates in her system. She lived on them. Speaker: Now there’s a guy in from Chicago that claims that the guy named called the German. Frank SW was going around Chicago, claiming he was the one that that off Marilyn Monroe. Have you ever heard that story? Speaker 2: Unless he’s an anesthesiologist, he’s full of Speaker: shit. Okay. Speaker 2: English. Speaker: All right. A lot of stories about Marilyn Monroe’s death isn’t there. And JFK’s. And RFKs. There’s a lot of stuff out there about that that, that you don’t know what to believe Speaker 2: anymore, never come out, and it’s so, it, I, wait, you know what’s so interesting to me? I got to know. Marilyn Monroe and Dorothy Kga [00:18:00] because I got caught on the streets of New York. I was 15 and a half by a true officer and says, you gotta go to school till you’re 16. This was in August. So I give Costello the ticket. He says, I’ll handle it. So he says to me, when you come out. Of De Dempsey’s upstairs. There’s Wilford Academy. I said, I’m no fan. I don’t want to pick become a hairdresser. You’re crazy. He said, no, just check in and leave. You’re gonna meet me at 11, go there at nine o’clock and don’t stay. So I got there, carry the first day and it was just like you said, the girls had just signed the book. ’cause they’ll come and check and then leave. So I look over her shoulder, there’s 30 young girls there. 30 young girls. We gonna find 30 young girls in New York City at nine o’clock in the morning. Speaker: There you go. Speaker 2: I was there every day for a couple hours before I had to meet him Speaker: working that Russo charm. No doubt.[00:19:00] Speaker 2: That was, so that’s how I got to meet Marilyn because Kenneth. Marks and Claire, they were lovers when they said they were partners. I didn’t know what they meant. I thought they were partners of the business. They were hairdressers for Lilly Dasher. They came there looking for shampoo boys, and again, a great opportunity. They hired me. So now I didn’t have to go to the school. I get the credits, I’m making tips over in Lilly Dashay. She was on 56th of Park. Mm-hmm. And the fourth head of hair. I’m, I’m washing Marilyn Monroe. I couldn’t believe it. Speaker: You’re 15. Speaker 2: I was 15 and a half. Speaker: Wow. Speaker 2: That was August in December. I, I could walk out. So now, and, and it’s not like I want your audience to know, it’s not like a salon where we have all the shampoo basements lined up. These were rooms, these ladies changed. They got that there [00:20:00] cashmere that put a robe on. So she’s laying back in the sink. ’cause the maid put her in the sink already. I walk in, read the card, and I don’t even know how long I was staring at her. Because I went to see something like it hot. I saw something like it hot 10 times already every night. I was upstairs masturbating in the, in the in the balcony. Crazy times. Speaker: Really? Yeah. I’ve been talking about all these mysteries with a lot of stories around about ’em. What about Jimmy Hoffa? I see that you’ve got a little, something about Jimmy Hoffa in there and his body, that that seems to be a much discussed topic. Speaker 2: There was no big mystery about what happened to Jimmy because, you know, Jimmy came out, found God and Frankford Simmons, including myself, borrowed a lot of money already from, I mean, Vegas was built on the chief’s pension fund. Every dime was down there. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 2: Now this guy’s gonna [00:21:00] come out and they had, they got rid of him. You know, was everybody’s gonna dig him up every time the FBI. Once a raise some money off, get some, they’d say someplace else and they go dig something else. They’re never gonna find this guy, this guy was crushing a car presser on Staten Island. By, by, by the Dreezy brothers. Speaker: Yeah. Interesting. So, you know, it’s always a point of contention about that. Did they did they take him? Do him right there in Detroit, in the Detroit area and get rid of him. That was always my contention. ’cause he wouldn’t wanna haul a body that far. There’s another guy that said that took him to New Jersey and buried him. Speaker 2: No, this is what happened on the highway. They had it set up in the Buick. He was in on the highway, a big one of those big like bust. Tow trucks came behind his car. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 2: And they pushed him right up in a ramp, into, into, uh, a semi. They closed the doors and they [00:22:00] asphyxiated themselves by the exhaust of, of the tractor trailer. ’cause they tapped it through the floors. By the time they got to stand Island, both of them were dead. Speaker: Ah, both of them. Who was the other guy? Well, who was now Chucky O’Brien wasn’t had gone by then. Who else was with him? Speaker 2: No. Some guy he knew. Speaker: Oh, okay. That Speaker 2: He put a bunch of new people together when they got out. Speaker: Okay. Who is his new driver? Is that that’s what you’re saying? Yeah. Okay. Interesting. I hadn’t heard that, uh, that theory or that story. A lot of ’em out there. He got some stuff in there about Pablo Escobar. Now, how could you. A little nice little Italian boy from New York City who admittedly had a big part at a very young age and met a lot of important people. How could you end up with Pablo Escobar? Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it’s funny because I, we spoke earlier, one of the forwards on my new book is Steve Shepa. And [00:23:00] she ripped, you know, was from Baccala from the Sopranos and now Blue Bloods, and he was going to the University of Nevada and I used to hire all these guys to work my club, Johnny Russo State Street, and that club was 10,000 square foot with a casino and everything else that was in the eighties. One night a guy came in, we used to have all kinds of people come. We operated 12 hours a day, six at night to six in the morning. I served gourmet food until six in the morning. That’s where I got my biggest clientele. ’cause in Nevada, with the unions, they only had coffee shops after midnight. Speaker: Ah, Speaker 2: they would send me all the high rollers. And this guy came in one night with a girl, and we was comped. They brought him out to the comped area. So I called Steve, I said, Steve, who was the guy? He said, I don’t know who he is. I said, who comped him? They said, Caesars said, all right. The next thing I know, the. We send over a bottle of [00:24:00] a Kristal bottle of Luda 13. We whw whacked him right up because Caesar’s paying $1,800 Bill he opened up with, he ain’t paying. He gets the Kristal bottle, breaks it on the table and sticks it in the girl’s face. Speaker: Oh my God. Speaker 2: So now I call Steve, I said, get to seven. Look what happened. He said, I ain’t going over that guy’s nuts. So I get involved. I gotta go over there. Yeah. And thank God I, I was wearing, I was wearing Ralph Lauren, the three piece suit I had a vest on and, and Jack Weinstein of tower jewels made me two five shot solid gold derringers. And I had one in each pocket in my vest. So I go over there and I said, sir, you hear these sirens. They’re coming for you. Why don’t you just get outta here? I don’t need any problems. He said, no, man. I said, no, man. Where the hell are you from? He said, you don’t wanna know. I didn’t know he had the neck, a bottle in his hand. The neck. He [00:25:00] went for me. I went back. I got 81 stitches along my jaw boat. My chin is hanging down and I’m saying, how am I gonna diffuse this guy? So now I said, look what you did to my shirt. I waited six months for this, the sea island cotton. He’s looking at me like I got two heads. Blood is all over. I just wanted to get my hand on the gun. Soon I got my hand on the gun and I put a righteous fight. I put three right between his eyes. A hundred people at my casino watched me do it. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 2: Guy was Lorenzo Morales. Pablo Escobar’s. Under boss. Speaker 3: Under Boss. Speaker 2: That’s how I met Pablo. Wasn’t a meeting I wanted to go to, but Rieger called for me. I said, you sure I’ll get out? And he said, I’ll call. Go. And I went. So I’m in Pablo Escobar’s house that he just built a prison in. Remember? He built a prison. They made a deal. Yeah. [00:26:00] So I’m there. I’m having dinner with him. He’s got people all around him and it’s just him and I on a long table. He said, I know we meet, we have mutual friends. They said, you wanted to explain what went on? I said, yeah. I said, I didn’t know who your guy was. I said, I did my homework. You have a daughter, Pablo Gina. She’s the same order, same age as my daughter, GIA. I said, I know what you know my alitos do. They’re gonna kill my kids, my family and all that. And I don’t think it’s justified. That’s why I wanted to come and talk to you. So he is looking at me because I didn’t, you know, if I’m gonna go, fuck it, I was already there. Yeah, I’ve been shot. Run over, take me out, but don’t touch my kids. He gets up, Gary and he walks towards me and I don’t know if that guy’s gonna put a knife in me. He says, stand up. I stood up. He gave me a kiss. He says, there’s very few men like us. He [00:27:00] says, what happened? I said, the girl, he came in with a girl. He broke the bottle, stuck it in the face, had nothing to do with it. I went over looking, I still had this, you know, he still had bandage stitches. I said, guy slit my throat. I said, I don’t know who he was. If I knew he was shook guy, I would’ve never killed him. Had we stayed French from that point on. So crazy. Yeah. Speaker: Interesting. That’s a crazy story there, man. Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Tell me. I didn think I was coming back. In fact, I bought a one way chicken. Speaker: Yeah, figured you’d come back from that one. Oh yeah. So Las Vegas, you, you spent a lot of time in Vegas, didn’t you? After New York, Speaker 2: I went down and realized, I went down in the thirties. I mean, I went down thirties. I went down in 1959 for 30 years. They were watching the transition that Howard Hughes was [00:28:00] making, taking over their casinos. Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Speaker 2: And as long as they had the count room, they didn’t care who owned them. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 2: And that’s what I was doing. ’cause as you know, in my last book, I, I moved Nick Nady, Frank NA’s kid at a Chicago. He and I moved $600 million to the Vatican. From Vegas legal quarries. We were quarries bound by the Lloyds of London, and our employee was the Vatican. When they stopped us at the airports, we had showed ’em the letter tell we here, we, we locked, we legal man. They said, Speaker: how come the money, why was the money going to the Vatican from Las Vegas? I don’t quite follow that. Speaker 2: They were cleaning it for him and red depositing it. We were bringing three or 4 million, just Vatican. They’d take their piece and then they’d deposit it wherever they wanted. Speaker: Oh, they were watching it. Somebody over there was watching it for somebody in Vegas. Speaker 2: Oh, well who was, who was watching over there [00:29:00] was, hello? He was a bishop from Chicago. Okay. Tony Ocado had that wired man. Speaker: I see. What they didn’t take right back to Chicago. Why they sent over to, out to Las Vegas. ’cause there was some money coming back to Chicago. I’m pretty sure they needed some walking around money divide up for the guys. ’cause Angelo LaPierre and all those guys were getting a piece of it. Or they should have been Speaker 2: everybody when it came back, they deposit where you wanted it. The Vatican Bank or drop out? Any, any give the account number. Speaker: What’s, oh, supposed the Vatican would deposit it for those guys. The Jackie Cerone and Angela Lap. Piera and Speaker 2: Jackie. I love Jackie Senior too. Speaker: Who? Ja. Speaker 2: Jackie. I, I was in Chicago when Jackie first got outta jail. Speaker: Oh really? You knew him? He was a bad dude, man. His Speaker 2: son became a lawyer, you know. Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, I know he was, he went to law school with an FBI agent. I know. And they called each other C You know how you guys [00:30:00] are, you call each other C but if they’re joking around, calling each other C. So this F FBI agent tells me he’s in the courtroom when and here in Kansas City when Jackie Cone’s being charged with the skimming in a trial. And he comes out and he said, he said something about. A hi cousin and then some, one of those other guys from Chicago went up to him and he said, what’s wrong with, you’re like a traitor. He said, here you are a cousin to Theones and, and you do this to us. He said, no, no, no, no. He said, I just know his son and we jokingly called each other C Oh, okay. Right. Speaker 2: Yeah. He was his character. Even I love the S Speaker: Yeah. Speaker 2: God. Speaker: Cork was a character. Nick was not much of a character. He was Mr. All business. Oh, Speaker 2: no. He was just, no, he was all business. Speaker: He never saw him out in the joints. Cork was all out in the joints all the time, man. You probably knew him well. Were you, Speaker 2: were you from Ohio originally? Speaker: Who me? Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker: No, [00:31:00] I, I grew up right here. Speaker 2: Where’s right here? I dunno where you are? Speaker: Kansas City. Kansas City. Where I am now. Speaker 2: Okay, well there you go. Speaker: Yeah. Speaker 2: Well you’re close enough. Kansas City. Hello? Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Cork was out in the joints all the time. Did you know their nephew, Butch, who ended up out there in Las Vegas and, and Speaker 2: Oh yeah. He came out, he came to my club a lot. I liked Butchy. Speaker: Did he? Yeah. Speaker 2: I dunno if he’s alive anymore. Speaker: No, I understand. He is in a nursing home now. Speaker 2: What shame Speaker: and, and I think he’s back Kansas. He’d be a little older than Speaker 2: me. Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. He’s gotta be closer to 90. He was several years older than me. I remember him. He was never really part of it. The the, Speaker 2: oh no. They kept him clean. Speaker: Yeah. He ran joints for him. Speaker 2: Right. Speaker: Here’s, here’s a good story about him. The IRS wanted to get him so bad. That they took a, a, an undercovered him up, put him in as a bouncer and a doorman, and he. Let him in one night and they got all the records [00:32:00] ’cause they wanted to make his IRS case on him. And the only thing they found was that he was not declaring the cash money that they were handing to the doorman. He was charging like a $2. $2, cover charge or something like that. Just some modicum of, you know, a little bit of money cover charge to keep some of the riffraff out. And he didn’t declare that’s the only thing they could get. So they ended up filing a case on him and of course it got kicked out pretty quick. So he was, he was clean. He, they kept him out of it. Speaker 2: What a gentleman too. Very Speaker: nice guy. Yeah, nice guy. People seem to like him. So what else would you want people to know outta this book? When they get it? Speaker 2: The book the interesting thing, one of the catchy things that we did on the cover note is that Scorsese got it wrong with Tony and Michael Spilotro. Because as you know, in the movie, they got beat to death in Indiana in a court field. Yeah, well, on the Sunday [00:33:00] night before they got killed, Tony Scho hated me. He, they Chicago sent him to watch the Stardust and all that in Vegas. And I never got along with the guy. He’s a little short guy. That’s why they call him the an, I had all kinds of broads. I had 86 girls working for him in my club and I wouldn’t let him in ’cause he was in the black book. I said, I can’t let you in here. Speaker: Yeah, Speaker 2: you were in the black book. For your audience that don’t know, if you’re in a black book, you can’t go into a gaming decision. I could lose my Speaker: license. You can’t even walk inside. Can’t even go into the coffee shop. Right. Speaker 2: Right. So he always had me at the end of his nose. So the night before on a Saturday night, he comes to my club about four in the morning and he wanted to come in. He was drunk. I said, you can’t come in. He says, right, there’s nobody in here. I says, I can’t let you in. I, and I locked the door on him. Speaker: Hmm. Speaker 2: That Sunday night, he machine gunned my house. Speaker: Oh really? Speaker 2: My house on La Paloma Avenue. Yeah. He [00:34:00] got some guys to come up from San Diego and they cut my house in half because he knew I had my Sunday dinners. Thank God my house was built on a little knoll, so they were shooting up. Speaker: Uh, Speaker 2: but what he didn’t realize, Rex Bell, who was the district attorney in Nevada, was my neighbor. They didn’t get off the block. They gave him up in two minutes. Speaker: Yeah, Speaker 2: so I call, I called Chicago. I said to I, I never talked to, I never talked to any anybody, but you know the old man. And I said, Tony, the guy’s getting crazy now you shot up my house. He said, I heard about it. He said, come in on Wednesday. So I get to the airport O’Hare and who picks me up is Frank Colada. Speaker: Oh Speaker 2: really? Who I knew was with him. Speaker: Yeah. Speaker 2: He part of that Vulner war gang. And I’m saying as well, wait a minute, maybe they’re doing the [00:35:00] switch here. Maybe I’m gonna get whacked. Really? Well you see him, but the only good grace that they had, another guy, Frankie b Frankie, be that I knew. So we, you know, I, I get and. We walked to the car, they opened the door, they put me in the back. I said, well, they’re not gonna choke me. I thought I was, you know, gonna do another collar with which, you know, Speaker: the old Speaker 2: Frank next day, Speaker: and they Speaker 2: near the Leiden Motel. We get to a residential house. There’s a couple of cars out it, it’s maybe midnight now. We go down, we get into the house, we go downstairs, and I could smell the stench. They had the tarps up Michael, who had nothing to do with his brother at all. Speaker 4: Yeah, Speaker 2: a nice kid, Michael Citro, how they lured Tony to Chicago. They said, Michael’s gonna be made, you’re getting too much attention and you’re gonna be [00:36:00] his underboss and we want you to sponsor him. So he came. They were stripped nude, shackled to chairs and Joe Batters, I don’t know if you know, that’s how he got the name. He liked beating up bodyguard for Capone. He used baseball bats. Speaker 4: Yeah. Speaker 2: So all they were doing, not all they were doing, they broke every bone in their bodies. And Tony wanted me to see this, and I’m saying, I don’t wanna see this Speaker 4: really, Speaker 2: you know, and just to smell alone. I don’t want to get vulgar, but just imagine Speaker 4: who, Speaker 2: but anyway, then Tony calls me out of a whisper ’cause he catch me at, at the corner of his eye and I go over close enough and Colorado’s stopping me. Speaker 4: Yeah. Speaker 2: And he said, tell him to kill my brother. He didn’t do nothing. And I said, I can’t say anything. And I walked back and then I laughed. And then [00:37:00] that’s when they brought him to Indiana and buried him. But it was terrible. Speaker: Yeah. It was, it was a hard, tough way to go. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker: I know the, I know the autopsy said that they’d really been beaten bad. I didn’t know the extent of it, but the autopsy for sure said they’d been beaten bad. No, Speaker 2: there, I don’t think it was a, a bone that wasn’t broken. Speaker: Crazy, crazy, crazy. All right, Johnny Russo. The book is Untold Tales from the Hollywood Godfather Mafia Secrets, with, Michael Benson. I really appreciate you coming on the show, Johnny. Speaker 2: Oh, thank you man. Always. Anytime. All my, my and great pleasure. I’ll send you a book. I wanna sign it and send Speaker: it. I got one. I got one. I don’t have a signed one though. Speaker 2: Alright. Speaker: I got one, but I don’t have a signed one. Soll send, feel free to send me a signed one. Send. All right. Speaker 2: Thank you so much, everybody out there. God bless you all. Speaker: All right. All right, Johnny. Thanks for coming on. Alright, I’ll see [00:38:00] you.

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• Did Marcello have RFK Assassinated?

  In this episode of Gangland Wire, Gary Jenkins interviews bestselling author Mark Shaw about his explosive new research into the JFK and RFK assassinations — and the hidden role of New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello. Shaw breaks down newly uncovered FBI documents, including Marcello’s alleged 1985 prison confession claiming involvement in JFK’s murder. We explore Marcello’s long-running war with Robert Kennedy, the suspicious death of journalist Dorothy Kilgallen, and significant inconsistencies in the official story of RFK’s assassination. This conversation challenges the lone-gunman narrative and exposes how organized crime, politics, and government investigations may have collided to shape American history. Subscribe to get notified about new content. 0:10 The Kennedy Connection 21:37 Sirhan’s Background Uncovered 31:56 The Role of Marcello in Assassinations 44:54 The Quest for Justice 🎧 Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. Transcript [0:00] Aaron Cohen began to expose a goings-on in Louisiana, which eventually came to the attention of Robert Kennedy and a Senate committee investigating corruption. [0:11] Through Robert Kennedy’s efforts in the Justice Department, our organized crime and racketeering section really was established. That was a Robert Kennedy brainchild. To concentrate a group of prosecutors, who were specially trained to engage in traditional organized crime investigations. Marcello and other mobsters who appeared before the committee refused to acknowledge the existence of the mafia. Even FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover seemed to concur. For the reason for Marcello’s absence, he was still subpoenaed to appear before the McClellan Committee. Marcello defiantly pleaded the Fifth Amendment to 66 questions that Robert Kennedy directed toward him. His arrogance and contempt for the proceedings provided even more incentive for Robert Kennedy to attack the mafia. [1:02] Marcello even refused to answer the question of where he was born. This very withholding of information became the weapon that Robert Kennedy would use to go after Marcello. Hey, all you wiretappers, good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective with a special guest today. Man, you know, recently, guys, I had always just gone along with the fact Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Sirhan Sirhan acted alone. And those investigations were all legit and they were accurate. [1:36] And, you know, over the last year, there’s been a lot of stuff come out and I’ve started looking into this and I’m beginning to wonder myself. And so I was able to find Mark Shaw, who we have sitting here, who has done more work than maybe anybody on this whole thing. And he’s come up with some really compelling evidence on a mob connection on Carlos Mosello. So welcome, Mark. I’m really glad to have you on the show. Thank you, sir. So Mark, God, I was looking over your credentials here. You’ve been doing this for 30 years or so, or your whole life, I guess. And, and you’ve got him. Oh, you got 30. I know where I got the number 30. You got 30 books out there. You’ve done, and you’ve really, you’ve done a bunch of them on the JFK investigation and murder. So, guys, I’m going to put up his website, put a link on his website, and you’ll see what all those books are. So, if you want to really take some more deep dives into the JFK thing. [2:32] Go to that and get some of his books. And this book is a little more about the RFK. See, I just really always assumed Sirhan Sirhan did it, Mark. I don’t know what to say. It’s just that’s the only information I ever heard was Sirhan Sirhan did it. And they got the video of him doing it. So there’s no doubt, I guess, I don’t know if he did it or not now. So let’s, uh, uh, and Carlos Marcello was so involved in all this. Let’s start unpacking this a little bit, if we will, if we could like, okay, let’s talk a little bit about Carlos Marcello. How does he figure into both of them? Well, I felt like you did. You know, I grew up when I was real young, when JFK was assassinated, I just took what J Edgar Hoover said about Oswald alone. You know, I’d never even thought about it for years and years and years. And then I practiced law with Melvin Belli, who, you know, that name, the famous lawyer in San Francisco. Yeah. And I wrote a biography of him and I started to learn about his mafia connections. [3:32] And his main client, for instance, was Mickey Cohen, who you I’m sure you know that name. Yeah. Oh, yeah. West Coast racketeer, killer, all of that. And I started to wonder about Belli’s representation of Jack Ruby. So I looked into that and that led me to the 1960 election. and some of the mafia, Joe Kennedy, bringing them in to win Chicago so they could get JFK elected. So that made me wonder about all that. I wrote a book called The Poison Patriarch about that. And then I found out about this Dorothy Kilgallen that was the most credible reporter to have ever covered the JFK assassination. So that got me into writing these different books. The Reporter Who Knew Too Much was the first one, and it did well, and so I kept going and going. But today we want to talk about the Marcello effect, I would call it, on both the JFK assassination and now the new evidence that I have in the book Abuse of Power coming out December 2nd, indicating that Marcello was not only responsible, in my opinion, for JFK’s assassination, but also Robert Kennedy’s. And I think the most amazing news to your listeners, as it was to me when I found out about it earlier this year, when the JFK assassination records were released, finally, after all these years, I came across a FBI file. [4:58] And basically, the long and short of it is a confession by Carlos Marcello. And it happened on March 4th, 1985. I’ve got it in front of me. When Jack Ronald Van Landingham, an inmate at the Seagalville Federal Institution, Pareto Institution in Texas, said the following. He was in the company of Carlos Marcello and another inmate at the Federal Corrections Institute yard in Texarkana, Texas, in the courtyard, engaged in conversation. Carlos Marcello discussed his intense dislike of former president John Kennedy, as he often did. Unlike other such tirades against Kennedy, however, on this occasion, Carlos Marcello said, referring to President Kennedy, yeah, I had the son of a bitch killed. I’m glad I did. I’m sorry I couldn’t have done it myself. Now, you have to pause and really think about those words. [5:53] Would Marcello have done that? Because, as you know, most mafia were supposed to keep their mouth shut. Was he just bragging? What was he doing this? or, you know, what was his motive for saying that to this Van Leningham, who actually was a government’s plant who they had put in there to set up Marcello, trying to get information about him regarding the JFK assassination. So I was a little bit dubious of it. And I went, though, back into some research and everything. And I found out more about why this happened. And it seemed to be more credible to me all the time. And then I found out that there was actually an auto recording. [6:35] And I think you know that what they had done is give this snitch a transistor radio with a microphone in there. And so the confession was audio taped. Now, the location now of that audio tape, which has never been released, I want to talk about a little bit later. But this changes everything because I feel like, in fact, that it validates a lot of my research and that of Dorothy Kilgallen in my first four books. Because we always pointed the finger at Marcello, And Kilgallen, who was the only reporter to have interviewed Jack Ruby, and Jack Ruby sent her to New Orleans, the home of Carlos Marcello. And things go on from there to where Dorothy, finally in 1965, 60 years ago, is mysteriously killed right as she’s writing a book for Random House implicating Marcello. So Marcello is in the middle of all of that. And if you know if you’re if you and your listeners know his history it was frank costello in new york who set up marcello in new orleans now i’ve interviewed several people down there who knew him and he was not somebody that you want to mess around with that’s for sure and it’s it’s very i always look at motive like you did when you were a detective and marcello obviously and now shut up for a minute uh marcello had obviously the strongest motive to have eliminated uh jfk. [8:02] When Bobby Kennedy became attorney general, the first thing that he did was go after they swore that they would never go after the media or go after the mafia if they’d help him elect JFK president. First thing he did was was deport Marcello to Central America, where he almost died. Marcello spent two agonizing months in exile. After making his way through the rugged Central American jungle, Marcello somehow got back to Louisiana. How exactly Marcello was able to re-enter the U.S. is uncertain. Investigator Ed Becker believes Marcello used his connections to sneak back into the country. When he got back in the United States, Robert Kennedy charged him with racketeering. [8:43] And Marcello knew that Bobby Kennedy was going to keep going after him. So what did he think? Smart man that he was. [8:52] If I kill Bobby Kennedy, which I want to have happen, then Jack Kennedy will come after me with everything the government has. But if I eliminate JFK, Bobby Kennedy will be powerless. And that’s exactly what happened. Now, we’re going to tie that in a little bit, if I may, to what happens five years later when Robert Kennedy is running for president of the United States. And he’s in California at the Ambassador Hotel. He’s just won the California primary. And if you’re Marcello, you’re smart enough to say, wait a minute, I can’t let that guy become president because I know he knows that I set up his brother for the assassination. He’s going to come after me. And we’ll talk about how I have then connected that into his involvement in the Robert Kennedy assassination. Richard, was it Richard Van Leningham? He was a white collar criminal that was already in prison with. So he had credibility within the prison. And I know these guys sit around on those tables outside and in a communal area many times and talk, I’ve got a buddy that used to talk to a guy, all the mob bosses down in Springfield, down at the hospital prison. So all that, all that really, really rings true. And now you tell me they’ve got a, the actual, the actual audio tape is there. So that’s, uh, as most interesting, I had, I’d seen that clip before, uh. [10:16] Where it’s, you know, it claimed, but I didn’t know, you know, in this day and age, who knows if anything’s true or not, but there’s an actual audio tape that that’s dated and signed and gone into evidence. So that’s, uh, that is the most interesting little thing. And, and, you know, for our, our list, there’s a lot of them a little bit younger. Dorothy Kilgallen was a pretty well known reporter in New York city. And I think she was on a TV show for a while. And, and she was like i’m trying to compare her to somebody in modern time she was uh she was like almost too big to kill in many ways too big reporter to kill yeah her her career uh overwhelms diane sawyer, oprah uh you know all of those barbara walters and all of that wrote a newspaper column uh read by 200 000 people every day for the hearse corporation was on what’s my line the uh The famous quiz show that was on for 15 years. She covered the Dr. Sam Shepard case and the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case and all of that. Very close friend of JFK’s. She was the real thing. And the New York Post called her the most powerful female voice in America. And as I mentioned to you before, I was in New York City this past weekend where they renamed the street at East 68th Street and Park Avenue, Dorothy Kilgallen Way in honor of her. [11:38] The biggest thing, though, that we need to know there is that she was at the Jack Ruby trial. A lot of these experts like me, supposedly, weren’t in Dallas. Dorothy was there right away. She interviewed Jesse Curry. He told her the shots came from the overpass. [11:52] She did experiments to see whether Oswald could shoot Kennedy from the sixth floor depository. She was really on this, but interviewing Jack Ruby made all the difference because basically, I think he told her his involvement in the JFK assassination. And where did he send her? Where did he send her? He sent her to New Orleans. And she went ahead and investigated Marcello down there, connected him to Jack Ruby, connected him to Lee Harvey Oswald. And then as the fall of 1965 came along, she made a big mistake. She let the wrong people, who I believe included Marcello, know she was writing a book for Random House, a tell-all book that would expose him for his involvement in the JFK assassination and J. Edgar Hoover for covering the whole thing up. And a few, very few days later, she was found dead in her townhouse in New York City in Manhattan, in a bed she never slept in, wearing her eyelashes, makeup, everything. It just didn’t make any sense. She was found dead there. And I have proven through my books, especially the reporter who knew too much and collateral damage and others, that she was poisoned because the autopsy only showed one, and there was a cover-up, only showed one barbiturate in her system, and the new autopsy showed there were three. [13:12] I interviewed Dr. Michael Bodden this past summer, and he admitted to me they didn’t know what happened to Dorothy Kilgallen, but unfortunately, they let the media know that she had overdosed on drugs and so on and so forth, which ruined her reputation at the time. [13:27] Yeah, that’s a no-brainer. Just slip that out, and it just takes over everything. The myth is much more powerful than the truth, and the lie of running around the world before the truth gets out of bed. So that was really smart. And I always thought about this, and you just explained something to me. Why kill JFK? [13:50] Because RFK is the one that personally, he attacked Sam Giancana. You know, he said things like, what are you going to giggle like a little girl? He personally attacked Hoffa. He was personally, you know, going after Marcello. I mean, he made it personal. Why not go after him? Well, now you explained it, that go after him, you know, kill one brother. You better kill them all and go after him. You take out, you know, the president. Then the next, uh, and Lyndon Johnson’s not going to do anything. He’s not going to really allow too much to, to go on there. Plus he got rid of, uh, RFK pretty quick and RFK immediately, you know, went head to head with Johnson. So that was, that was brilliant on their part. So he really explained something to me. [14:35] This whole thing started with this book, I think, The Enemy Within, which is Bobby Kennedy’s book. And if you go in there and look at what he says about the mafioso, their slick back hair, they’re giggling. I mean, you talk about hatred coming towards him with that. You know, Bill Alexander, who was one of the prosecutors of Jack Ruby, when I interviewed him, he said, you know, Bobby Kennedy had a lot more enemies than JFK. I thought Bobby would get killed. Yeah. And, and, uh, you know, finally in 1968 he was, but, uh, yeah, Bobby, Bobby brought all that on the Kennedy family and, and everything with regard to his hatred for the mafia and for sure. Yeah. Really? I tell you, there’s a, there’s a trail of dead women behind these Kennedys and mob guys. It seems like, can I tell you just a quick story? Sure. When I was a correspondent for good morning America, I covered trials for them and everything like that. So they sent me to Atlantic City to interview Angelo Bruno. [15:36] That’s probably a name people know, the big mafia boss in Philadelphia, about them getting into the gambling in Atlantic City. So I went to his, I couldn’t get him, but I got his lawyer. I went to their office and I interviewed the lawyer. And he told me things we couldn’t believe. It was on Good Morning America the next morning. Huge audience for it. The producer sent me, said, stay there and see if you can interview him again. Then I went, I called his office, secretary came on. I said, is such and such there in a silence and said, wait a minute, are you okay? Are you crying? She said, yes, Mark. I guess you don’t know. When my boss started his car this morning, you can’t mess around with those guys. You know that. No, no, you can’t. You can’t. Oh, you can’t. So Marcello especially was, I’ve done an awful lot of research on him and that’s one guy you couldn’t mess around with. Yeah, really. He was, he was scary. [16:28] So uh let’s talk a little more about the uh just a little bit more about the jfk thing i think that ruby it’s really interesting that ruby spilled a lot to dorothy kilgallen now was that part of what she was writing in her book or how much of that had already gotten out that was going to be a part of the book for sure i think she was going to nail marcello and hoover but also she’s the one who exposed the Jack Ruby Warren Commission testimony, before it was supposed to be released. So she was making enemies all the way along in terms of, and she wrote all these columns, the Oswald file must not close and everything else. But, you know, yes, that would have been in the book for Random House. And unfortunately, I will tell you, all of her notes about the JFK assassination and the manuscript for the book, Right after she died, there was a raid on her apartment, and those papers have never been found. I’ve tried to find them everywhere. I still hope they’re out there, and someday we will. But they were confiscated and probably burned. Wow. That was my next question. What happened to her manuscript and her notes and everything? Now, let’s switch a little bit over to RFK. How is Sirhan Sirhan? It was so interesting. I thought he was. [17:45] In my mind, I think a lot of people felt like I did. And he was like a busboy or some low-level employee there in the hotel, which gave him access. And, you know, he just was able to stumble into RFK walking off the stage and kill him and get close enough to shoot him like that. But this started, he was talking about this whole deal with the Santa Ana racetrack and Mickey Cohen and Los Angeles hoodlums and all that. That’s so fascinating. The Ambassador Hotel Los Angeles, on June 5th, 1968, headquarters for the Robert Kennedy for President campaign. Victorious in the crucial California primary, Kennedy addresses an enthusiastic crowd in one of the hotel’s ballrooms. My thanks to all of you, and now it’s on to Chicago and let’s win there. [18:31] As he turned and went by me, he turned to the right toward the kitchen. When he did come through, lots of television cameras and stuff, and we were going into a press conference. He was shaking hands with the two busboys, talking with him, and it was at that time that the shots started. We’ve made sure they recorded that Senator Kennedy has been shot. He’s been shot? That’s right. I just heard this crackling noise, and was shaking violently, and I thought it was being electrocuted. That was my impression. Senator Kennedy has been shot. Is that possible? Is that possible? I saw him laying on the ground. I knew he wasn’t going to live. Everybody else, just please stay back. 25 1⁄2 hours after he is shot, at 1.44 a.m. on June 6, Robert Kennedy dies. [19:27] Immediately following the shooting, there was little doubt in anyone’s mind the 24-year-old Sirhan B. Sirhan, using an eight-shot, .22-caliber revolver, was the one who killed Kennedy and wounded five others. There were 77 people in the pantry that night, witnesses. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. An open-and-shut case. Or was it? Greg Stone has spent over a decade looking into the Kennedy assassination. He is one of a number calling for a reinvestigation of the case, a call based on seeming inconsistencies in the physical evidence, and on a belief that the original investigation is flawed, a belief that is remarkably shared by former LAPD Sergeant Paul Chiraga, the first police officer on the scene the night of the shooting. When asked if he thinks there has been a cover-up inside the LAPD, I would have to come to that conclusion. If there is a cover-up, the question is why? To hide a conspiracy or to conceal slipshod police work? Who really shot Bobby? A much simpler question 20 years ago. I don’t think we have to accept the idea that the stain of bloodshed is going to be ever across our country. Well, every time I finish a book, I tell my wife, that’s it. I’m done. But I’d always been quizzical about the Robert Kennedy assassination. It just didn’t make sense to me, especially with regard to Sir Han. [20:44] So it’s amazing, really, in many ways, where I find my material. People all around the world send me tips and things like this. And so about a year ago, somebody said, look into Sirhan Sirhan, his job in California at Santa Anita Racetrack. So I did. And I found this account, which is in the book. And the link is to it on YouTube and also other parts of it. Internet. It’s been out there for years. But it’s an account by John Shear, who was a paddock captain at Santa Anita Racetrack. My grandparents, my mom would stroll me out to the track of the paddock area. A hot walker would come by and greet my family, greet me. And that man’s name was Sir Han Sir Han. [21:38] This young man comes right at the bar and he says, I’m looking for work. Do you need anybody. So I looked at me, the guy not much taller than me. I said, the only job we have is a hot walker. A hot walker is a man or a person that walks the horses after they’ve exercised. They’re washed off and they walk them around in a ring until they’re cooled out. And I said, well, that’s the only job I have and it pays 200 a month. I said, if you’re interested, I need a hot walker. He said, I’ll take it. We call him Saul. Very quiet and he was like subservient in a way. Not only would he walk the horses, he’d clean all our racing tack, he’d sweep out our little office, he’d sweep the shed row, he’d do all this work for nothing, because he liked to work. We were in the tack room one day. A friend of mine and I, we were sitting in the office there, and he was reading the Los Angeles Times. [22:28] And on the front page, I think it was, he said, oh, he shouted out, like, hey, Bobby Kennedy is arming Israel, or something like that, he said there. As soon as he said that, at Sirhan Sirhan, he went into a rage. He roared and shouted and he screamed, and how wicked of a man he is, a man should be dead, he’s killing my people, because he is Palestinian. My friend and I were looking at him with our mouths wide open, because he’d been from a mouse to a lion in a matter of seconds. And finally I said, so calm down, calm down. I said, what do you know about politics? He rattled every senator and congressman in the United States and what state they was from. He knew everything about politics. [23:10] So he calmed down, eventually calmed down. We’re over at Hollywood Park. I saw him going up the steps with these people, and I said, it’s funny, I saw my wife later on that evening, I said, you know, I saw a soul at the racetrack. We all dressed up, we had money, and he doesn’t seem to be working yet. He had a couple of hoodlums with him. I can’t remember who they were. I’ve seen these people before. I think they’d been thrown off the track once. The day that Kennedy was shot, I was working the racetrack, and they flashed his picture on the TV. They said, do you know this man? So my wife saw it and she saw who it was. Called Hollywood Park, and they said, I’d like to talk to my husband. It’s very, very important. So they got me to the phone, and she said, guess what? Bobby Kennedy’s just been shot, and guess who shot him? Saul. You have to tell somebody. So I put the phone down in a hurry. I ran down to the security office, and I told him, I said, I know the man who shot Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy. I told him who he was, said he worked for me. [24:07] Actually, he was a hero, because one day a horse in the paddock area got loose. And went after a little six-year-old girl. And John Shear put himself between the horse and the little girl and saved her life. All of his bones were broken and everything else, but he was a real hero. So I started reading this account, and it said that he was at Santa Anita Racetrack. And one day, this man, kind of a subservient-type man, quiet and everything, came in there and said, I need a job. And and john sheer said well the only thing i have is a hot walker and it pays two hundred dollars a month he said i’ll take it so sir han sir han then was a stable boy like or whatever you want to call it hot walker for several uh for several years he talked about how um he was subservient how he was shy how he was easily manipulated um things like that about his behavior and everything but But they really liked this guy. The only thing that happened was at times when Robert Kennedy’s name would be, and people read about this in the book, when Robert Kennedy’s name came up, he kind of went into a little bit of a rage. I think John Shearer’s word, he went from a mouse to a lion. [25:29] And John Shearer didn’t understand that exactly. So he did have that ill feeling to Robert Kennedy. So now we move towards the day that Robert Kennedy is killed. [25:40] John Shearer is at Hollywood Park and he’s watching and he sees Sir Han in the accompaniment of two men, one on each side, hefty guys, kind of looking like they are controlling where he’s going. He has on a brand new suit even though he’s unemployed and it just looks like to to uh um to uh john sheer what’s going on here it looks like you know he’s in in control of a couple guys and plus i i believe they’re ones that had been thrown out of santa nita racetrack so rfk is killed on the screen on the la uh television is do you know this man with a photograph of Sirhan? Well, of course, John Shearer knows. And this is where, again, a little chill when I read this and watched this video. [26:34] He said, I called, my wife had me call Hollywood Park and I told the authorities, whoever it was there, probably the security people, that I knew who he was. And I knew him because I knew him at Santa Anita Park and so on and so forth and everything. And I expected then that they would give that information to the LAPD or the FBI, and I’m pretty much sure they did, and they would get back to me. They never did. They never followed up. And the kicker there then is that he says in his videotape, you know, what was most interesting, though, is for the next year, my wife and I would pick up the phone and hear a click. [27:11] And we knew that somebody was watching what we were doing. So if you go on and take that on through, okay, what I did was I started to figure out if Marcello could be connected to Sirhan. [27:25] And I started to think, how could that happen? Because Marcello’s in New Orleans. This is happening in L.A. But the kicker was Mickey Cohen, who was the close associate of Carlos Marcello, ran the racketeering business on the West Coast, and that included Santa Anita Racetrack and Hollywood Park. So I tried to put two and two together there, that how could that connection have occurred? And what really triggered my more interest on that was the fact that one of the hotels that Mickey Cohen controlled with racketeering was the Ambassador Hotel. And he knew all the workings of the Ambassador Hotel. [28:09] So we go on forward, and then Sirhan is arrested. He’s there when Robert Kennedy is killed. He’s arrested for murder. And one of the most amazing things to me, and I think you will find it true as well, because you were a superb detective and you would look into every element of a crime. When Sirhan was arrested, he had four $100 bills in his pocket, even though he was unemployed. Floyd. That had never been explained until I believe I have with all the corroborative evidence in abuse of power. Because obviously, who paid that kind of money at that particular point? Now, John H. Davis, who I think is one of the best researchers of Carlos Marcello, Mafia Kingfish and everything, people should read that book too. Because he sets up the whole thing also with regard to Sir Han, Marcelo, Mickey Cohen, everything, but nobody paid any attention to him back in the day. So then Sir Han is, there’s another interesting aspect of Sir Han. When he’s arrested, one of the detectives says they were amazed at how cool he was, how calm he was. All right. Well, who does that go back to? It goes back to Lee Harvey Oswald, And it certainly goes back to Jack Ruby, because I had shown that when when he found he was really excited and smoking, even though he didn’t smoke and everything. But when he found out Oswald was dead, he relaxed completely. [29:39] So there’s some connections in there that I’ve been able to put together. Sirhan then is given counsel, terrible representation. And I have listed in the new book about 25 different reasons why I believe Sirhan Sirhan should be either given a new trial, paroled, whatever it is, because he’s been in prison too long. And as RFK Jr. Says, he doesn’t believe that he was accountable, Sirhan was, for his father’s death. Now, over the years, RFK Jr. Has changed his story a lot. At first, he said it was the mafia and Marcello, as his dad did when JFK died. Then he switched to the CIA. And so I agree with some of what RFK Jr. Says with regard to Sirhan not being accountable and needing a new trial and being paroled or whatever. On the other hand, I can’t go along with what he believes happened because I believe Marcello, again, he could not let Robert Kennedy become president. No question about that. [30:41] Really? It’s kind of interesting here as you compare the two murders. In both of them, the alleged trigger man were the same, almost the same personality type. They were meek, humble, unassuming, uh, even had the same kind of a, a hang dog look, kind of a down, downcast look. Good point. And just the same kind of person. And, and then you take Jack Ruby that gets into it. He’s the kind of guy that’s, that’s, uh, you know, he’s a follower. He’s not a. [31:13] We’ll do what somebody else gets him to do. I mean, all these guys are like that. They’re not people that go out and act on their own. It doesn’t seem just, that’s just my, you know, armchair analysis of these guys. I understand maybe how Oswald came to the attention of Marcello because he was down there. He was down in New Orleans. He was on that free Cuba committee. He was on the streets of New Orleans. I understand. And it was down in Dallas. I understand how they may find that guy. How did they find Sirhan Sirhan? And how did they choose him and develop him on out to do this? Because obviously it appears to me that maybe somebody groomed him on out. How did was Mickey Cohen involved in that? [31:51] Well, one of the things Cohen controlled were the racketeering part of L.A. And that’s been proven through the years. But, you know, when you’re looking at a patsy, and I believe there’s a patsy involved in Dorothy’s death, as we could talk about maybe another time, a patsy in JFKs and RFKs, okay? You look for somebody that can be easily controlled and there has to be something, maybe there’s a couple of things that, that connect you to believing, okay, we could compromise this guy. First of all, Sirhan is poor. Second of all, he he has a hatred for RFK. OK. And the other thing is, and it’s been proven that he had gambling debts. All right. So he’s vulnerable. [32:37] Oswald was vulnerable. You can. And I think I’ve discovered that the real modus operandi by Marcella, who was a smart guy, was to use patsies with these three deaths, including Dorothy Kilgalland’s using her one of her best friends to set her up. You pick these guys out and and then you use muscle to convince them that it’s in their best interest to go ahead and go forward, because there isn’t a reason in the world why Sirhan would have gone ahead to the Ambassador Hotel that Cohen controlled. [33:12] And then he’s, you know, it’s always been the question of the ballistics. He’s standing in front of Robert Kennedy and Robert Kennedy is shot from the back. I have new ballistics tests in the new book, In Abuse of Power, showing that that almost is impossible for. Now, Sirhan had a gun. Sirhan shot the gun. There’s all kinds of questions about the bullets, just like there was with Oswald and so on and so forth. But I think there’s enough evidence there for, you know, there to be an investigation of, again, of Sirhan’s accountability. And I’m hoping Bobby Kennedy, I’d like to provide closure for Bobby Kennedy Jr. Here if he wants it, because I think this is the most compelling evidence that will tell him, yeah, you’re right about Robert. You’re right about Sirhan Sirhan. Now, let’s get this guy out of prison after 60 some years. Interesting. You know, you, you talk about Carlos Marcello and using these patsies, uh, a friend of mine, Ron Rosson is a kind of an expert on, uh, Carlos Marcello has never written anything, but believe me, this guy, he knows a lot of stuff about New Orleans mob, but going way back to the turn of the century and everything. And, and Ron told me that, and I believe I found that somewhere else that, uh, one of the first known crimes of Carlos Marcello when he was young was not something he did. He got two other young guys to go rob a grocery store. He set it up and then I gave him the guns and everything and then met him afterwards. [34:38] So, uh, this guy started out using people early, didn’t he? [34:43] Well, and he, you know, that’s why, you know, I look to see what his financial situation was with his empire in 1963, and he was pretty much a millionaire. But by 1968, I mean, he was almost a billionaire. All this property owned everything that he did. I mean, he’s not going to let Bobby Kennedy become president and tear all that down. He just think about, you know, common sense here and logic with regard to the motive that he had. That’s why it’s so disturbing. And I mentioned, I think, a little bit earlier, this task force on government secrets and so on and so forth. Boy, when I found out they were going to look into the assassinations, I was euphoric. And so I wrote several letters to Congressman Luna telling her of my research and said, I want to contribute to your investigation. And here’s the material I have about JFK and the confession. Here’s the material I have about Bobby Kennedy and so on and so forth. I sent several letters. I even had a short conversation with her about perhaps inviting me to one of the hearings and all of that. And then all at once, bang, that just stopped. [35:48] And they will not look into that kind of research. They don’t want anything to do with Marcello, even though I gave her the confession and all of that. And now worse is that a couple colleagues of mine and myself, we’ve tried to get her with all the power she has to go into that Texas court and get the audio tape, and she refuses to do so. In fact, I don’t know if you know one of her comments recently. [36:14] I want to be clear, the Task Force on Declassification of Federal Secrets is not here to provide the definitive account of what happened on November 22nd. [36:27] 1963. Well, why in the world are you there? Sounds like the Warren commission all over again. Yeah, it does. You know, you, uh, you said something, something that kind of caught my attention there. And I want to follow up on, uh, the, uh, ballistics test out of the gun at the ambassador hotel. Now, did it, did it show there was more than one gun fired for sure. More than one gun was fired in that because, you know, I miss a hotel. There shouldn’t be, but one gun fire because no law enforcement shot anybody shot at anybody. [36:58] Well, uh, I’m going to say the same thing I’ve said about, uh, what happened with the, the rifle and the shots in daily Plaza and all of that. I know expert on that. As far as the shots being fired at the Ambassador Hotel, that has been a question for many, many years as to what happened. Now, Sirhan had a gun and he supposedly shot. And these new ballistics tests that I put in the new book show that they were scattered all over the place. But you’ve got you’ve got, you know, you’ve got Noguchi, the autopsy guy, Cyril Weck. I don’t know if you ever interviewed Cyril Weck, the foremost forensic guy in the world. [37:40] You’ve got a new ballistics test and everything saying that Sirhan was standing in front of Bobby Kennedy. And the shots came from behind the shoulder and the neck and killed Bobby Kennedy. Well, there’s no way he could have, you know, shot Bobby Kennedy unless he turned all the way around and put his gun up that way or Bobby Kennedy shifted. But those are speculation and i don’t deal with speculation so i think when you put everything else together i think uh sir han was set up as a patsy uh and marcello is so smart i’m not going to forget you said that because i think it’s important that early on he wanted a grocery store rob and so he got two other guys to do it yeah that’s mafia at its best isn’t it oh yeah yeah that’s how it works man that is how it works we sit here and watch it in kansas city or i did back in the day when when they were something you know i mean they had you know the boss had his underboss tuffy the luna take care of all the street business you know you could see it i mean we got tapes you know listen to him telling talking to people and taking care of all the street business say well i’ll carry this back to unk or zeo as he called him so that’s you know that’s mafia at its best and and marcello was a master at it sounds to me like and he learned from Frank Costello, but he learned from somebody who helped form the mobs. Right. Exactly. Exactly. For sure. If, if Sirhan were to have a trial, if they were to have a retrial. [39:07] Was there, is there some kind of particular smoking gun kind of evidence that might come out that would, you know, have ever like people on the jury go, Oh, wow. [39:17] Well, I think the John Shearer account for sure is very, very important. Uh, and then I think, uh, you would, you would look into motive again, you’d look into motive of Marcello. How am I going to get rid of Bobby Kennedy Jr. And in the book, I say that when Bobby Kennedy completed that speech in the ambassador hotel and just won the California primary, looked like he was going to be president and said, it’s on to Chicago and everything. I’ve put in there, and I guess this is some of my better writing, the long arm of Carlos Marcello reached into that ambassador hotel and changed the smile on his face into one of death. Because, you know, I believe that’s what happened. Marcello, motive wise, everything else. I think that would be the kicker, the smoking gun. And you could, You know, you’re a former detective. I lay out in my books, like I try to have the reader read it by I lay out the evidence like a prosecutor would. Yeah. OK. And that’s what you did as a detective when you went into when you into the courtroom, you know, the evidence against the accused. And so I think that’s what what would happen here. I think a first year prosecutor or defensive attorney, I’m sorry, first year defense attorney could present all of this evidence and all of these things happening. with some other interviews and so on and so forth. And I think Sirhan would be released the next day. [40:38] Yeah, interesting. Now, you are an attorney yourself, and you’ve been in the courtroom, and you’ve reported on a lot. Did you get the trial transcript from Sirhan’s trial? [40:49] I’ve partially looked at it. It’s so lengthy, but I will tell you this as well. His legal representation, you know, go back to Oswald just a second. Who did they get for him? A lawyer. [41:04] Mafia connected Melvin Belli. Melvin Belli. He was a cream of the crop back then. Absolutely. But he’s connected to the mafia, and I think he had orders. He wouldn’t let Oswald testify. Made him look crazy and everything. Now we go to Sirhan. they get in a lawyer that’s connected to johnny roselli oh really okay yeah and so you know the the representation was terrible they finally uh i think uh unfortunately uh he he confessed to what had happened but it didn’t really make any sense as to what occurred so he never had a chance and again i’m all about justice just as you are you know fighting for justice with these uh with these people that I’ve, you know, written about in my books. In fact, I was on a radio show not too long ago, and I was asked, why do you keep doing this, fighting for justice? And I said, well, they’re just like my clients when I was a criminal defense lawyer and a public defender. [41:58] You know, Oswald and Sirhan and Dorothy Kilgallen and JFK, they deserve justice. And unfortunately, And as I said, when we first talked, we needed detectives like you that would go after the evidence and not do what you called it, cherry pick, because all of these people have written these books about JFK assassination and Dorothy and RFK. What they do is they pick a sensational headline and then they fit the evidence to that. That’s not how you do it. You go out and grind out the evidence and everything like that. And then you come up with some sort of conclusion or how you’re going to prove what happened. And that’s one of the problems that we have today. I think that there aren’t more detectives like you on the job. Interesting. It’s, um. [42:45] I don’t know, you know, and J. Edgar Hoover, you think about that, he was such a politician that wanted to hang on to his power and his position that I could see where he would be motivated to if powers, political powers, powerful people wanted him to sit on that and finish it, that he would do that. Did you find any much more about that? I mean, it really, he’s so, he was so secretive. It’d be hard to find any kind of smoking gun there. [43:16] First of all, he and Frank Costello used to meet in the, in Central Park in New York City and talk about J. Edgar Hoover’s gambling debts. So, but as far as Hoover, what does he have to do when JFK dies? He cannot possibly let anybody believe there’s a, I hate to use the word because I don’t like a conspiracy. It’s got to be one person. And so right away, he’s yelling out, Oswald alone, Oswald alone. And he doesn’t want anybody, even though he knows about Marcelo and his connections and so on and so forth, and how the Kennedys betrayed him and the other mafioso when the 60th election happened, he can’t let that happen. So he just covers all that up. What happens when you get to Robert Kennedy? He doesn’t want anybody going back into a full investigation of Robert Kennedy’s death. And especially with Sirhan. So what is it again? It’s Sirhan alone. Yeah. And that’s and same thing happens with Dorothy Kilgallen’s death. So he was a very smart man. You mentioned the word. He was more of a politician than he was. Yeah. And then the police enforcement officer. Yeah. He was always watching his back. Don’t they say that Hoover had this black book with all of the dirty, you know, information about everybody? And that saved his, his job all the way through the, those years, that guy. Help him get those big, uh, appropriations from Congress and build the FBI. [44:43] And it’s the first, it was like a personal power, which a lot of people that rise to that position, they want to hang on to that personal power. [44:50] And that’s, you know, that’s what, that’s a good way to do it is having to hang on to those secrets. And he was a master. Well, Mark Shaw, this is a most interesting, uh, abusive powers, a book guys, uh, I’d highly recommend you get this. You’re going to learn more than you ever want to know about the, these two murders. There’s been a lot of books about JFK, but there’s a lot of different angles and everything. And I had a guy on here not too long ago that said that his father worked with the CIA and that he was part of a team who went to Dallas the weekend that JFK was killed. So there’s just a lot of stuff out there. And I’m not sure what to think sometimes, but this has definitely been well researched. I can tell you that I got the book and it’s definitely well researched and footnoted. [45:40] And, uh, you know, the, the evidence is out there and some of it’s hidden, uh, some of it, you, you find out from a couple of different places and you can’t get that tape to support that FBI transcript. And that was a FBI document that you got that had that statement by Marcello in it. You just can’t get the tape. You need to tape to really support that, make sure That wasn’t just that guy making, you know, how prisoners are, they’ll make shit up in order to get a break. And, and he got the tape with Marcello’s voice and his voice on it. You know, that would, that would make that irrefutable. So it’s, there’s a lot of stuff in this book, guys. [46:17] Mark, you got any last words here? You got any last words here? Well, thank you very much. And I want people to know my email is mshaw, I-N, at Yahoo. I answer every email because I’ve gotten tips over the years and so on and so forth that way. I don’t expect everybody to agree with my evidence and conclusions. But I’ll tell you, I think what’s different here is nobody has ever really looked at the connection between JFK’s death and Robert Kennedy’s death five years later and looked at both of those in the context of the other. Because when you do that, you get a different perspective of what happened and why and why Marcello is the most logical person to have decided those Kennedy brothers could not live. Yeah. If you do a thing we call a Venn diagram, you know what a Venn diagram? That’s where people have these different connections and you draw a circle around all the ones that have been connected to each other. Well, you’ll put circles around Sirhan Sirhan and JFK and RFK and Oswald and Marcello and you start drawing those circles. You see Marcello’s in all those circles. [47:26] I am not smart enough to know what that was called, but when we’re done, if you open up the book and go back to about the last 20 pages, there’s a circle there with Marcello and all of them in there. I just didn’t know what it was called. I did it at three o’clock in the morning, so you’ll see it there. All right. I’ll do that. Yeah, we learned that in an intelligence school I went to back in like 1978, 77, something like that. What’s it called again? V-E-N-N. V-E-N-N, V-Vector, E-N-N, Venn Diagram. I’ll tell my wife, she’ll think I’m really smart. [48:05] Yeah, that’s what we got going here. Hey, thanks so much. It’s a Venn Diagram. All right, Mark, thanks so much for coming on the show. Thank you, sir. Don’t forget, I like to ride motorcycles, so when you’re out on the streets there and you’re a big F-150, watch out for those little motorcycles when you’re out. If you have a problem with PTSD and you’ve been in the service, be sure and go to the VA website. They’ll help with your drugs and alcohol problem if you’ve got that problem or gambling. If not, you can go to Anthony Ruggiano. He’s a counselor down in Florida. He’s got a hotline on his website. If you’ve got a problem with gambling, if you have gambling, most states will have a hotline number to call. You just have to search around for it. I’ve always got stuff to sell. I got my books. I got my movies. They’re all on Amazon. I got links down below in the show notes and just go to my Amazon sales page and you can figure out what to do. I really appreciate y’all tuning in and we’ll keep coming back and doing this. Thanks guys.

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• Undercover with the Crips: The Tegan Broadwater Story

  In this powerful episode of Gangland Wire, retired Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins sits down with Tegan Broadwater, a former Fort Worth Police officer, musician, and undercover operative whose story reads like a movie script. Broadwater takes listeners on a riveting journey from his early years as a professional musician to his dramatic turn infiltrating one of America’s most dangerous street gangs—the Crips. Drawing from his book Life in the Fishbowl, he details how music, culture, and human connection became unexpected tools for survival and success inside the underworld. Listeners will hear: How Tegan Broadwater transitioned from touring musician to undercover police officer, bringing creativity and adaptability to the streets. The story of his two-year infiltration into the Crips—posing as a South Texas drug dealer with the help of a trusted informant. His insights into gang hierarchy, loyalty, and manipulation, and how understanding culture was key to earning trust. The moral challenges of living undercover—forming friendships with men he would eventually arrest. The emotional impact of a major gang raid that ended with over 50 arrests, and how it changed his outlook on justice and humanity. His decision to donate proceeds from his book to the children of incarcerated parents aims to break the cycle of violence. He continues to share lessons on leadership, empathy, and cultural understanding through his private security firm and new podcast projects.   Broadwater’s story isn’t just about crime and undercover operations—it’s about identity, compassion, and the human cost of violence. This episode offers a rare look at what it means to live behind a mask while still holding onto one’s purpose. 🎧 Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. 1:08 Life in the Fishbowl 4:54 The Dangerous Fishbowl 11:09 Going Undercover with the Crips 14:14 The Kingpin and His Operations 26:54 Encountering the Mob 34:27 Comparing Gangs and Organized Crime 44:30 Tegan’s Current Projects and Future Goals Transcript [0:00] Well, hey, all you wiretappers. Good to be back here in studio of Gangland Wire. I have a guest today that is another former cop, just like me, worked for the Fort Worth PD. I’m talking with Tegan Broadwater. Now, Tegan has an unusual background. He was a professional musician at one time who ended up going deep undercover to infiltrate the Crips. Now, you know that the Crips is a black gang, don’t you? I know you guys do. The Crips and the Bloods. If you know anything at all about inner city crime, the Crips and the Bloods or the gangs, well, here’s this white dude goes undercover with the Crips. Now, we’re going to find out how he did that. I’m dying to know myself. So welcome, Teagan. [0:42] Thank you. I appreciate you having me. All right. Now, let’s tell us a little bit about yourself. You just told me kind of nomadic growing up. You went to high school in Houston. You ended up in Fort Worth working for the PD. But you also have been a professional musician and you have a podcast today, written a book, Life in the Fishbowl. You have a company called the Tactical Systems Network. So tell us a little bit about yourself. [1:08] Yeah, I mean, music was my original passion, and from fourth grade on until my late 20s, that was all I wanted to do. So I went to college for music, went to a prestigious jazz program, and was touring on the road and got signed by a label at one of the early South by Southwest conferences back in the 90s, and just grew a little weary of the music industry itself. I love music, and I still consider myself a creative for the book and the music and stuff that I still do today. I still love to express myself. I think it also played a great role in leveraging it in cop work. So ultimately what happened was as I grew tired of the industry and sharing two beds with five dudes at a day’s end in Oklahoma City on the road, I also had a kid. [1:57] In 95 I had a kid and I thought, man, I do not want to be gone. So I decided to, at the behest of a few cops that used to come see us play when we were in town they talked me into doing that which was crazy because i just never imagined anything else so i cut eight inches of locks off and retook my driver’s license picture so the guys wouldn’t criticize me when i applied yeah and got into the pd i applied actually at houston pd and for pd and whoever was going to take me first and fort worth was quick to the draw and and although i had absolutely no experience in police work or firearms or anything like that i feel like I really had the type of personality that they needed. I don’t know if they realized that or not, but from the jump, I really wanted to work undercover because I felt like, you know, here I am. I’ve been touring with multicultural bands. I’m the only white guy in this group and that group and whatever. And I’m going to a music school, a bunch of artists and stuff. And so I feel like even in high school, I’d hang out with the jocks, I’d hang out with the smokers, hang out with the whoever. We’re just kind of a pliable personality, just like good people. So I felt like I could really excel at that. And it turns out that I really could. So I got into the police work and ended up being really. [3:14] Really proficient with a firearm because, again, they teach you how to use it. And I had no bad habits to unlearn. So, you know, I took to all that stuff really well. Yeah. And so, most of us do somewhere. But, you know, I ended up just politicking to try to go to the worst part of town, so to speak, with the highest crime areas so that I could gain more experience. I was super ambitious, learned a lot about the neighborhoods. And at one point, you know, I was trying to. [3:44] Get into a narcotics unit and as a six foot one white stiff nerd a little more difficult to do so, i started creating my own resume i politicked some of the captains to try to re-implement some of the old weed and seed programs and and learned how to write search warrants and procured some old used expired gear from swat and after just a few years i was i was spending my shift, making covered buys and learning how to do a few undercover buys. And then at the end of every shift, we would earn overtime and go crack doors down some old dilapidated crack houses and, you know, make some cases that way. And so by the time I applied to narcotics for my fourth time, they couldn’t deny me because I had a bunch of informants. I had, you know, several hundred, pardon me, several hundred dynamic search warrants under my belt and all that kind of stuff. So, ultimately, I was accepted there, and what ironically turned out to be a place that I used to work a lot in, there’s an area of town where it was a gang-ridden part of town where you had the Bloods and the Crips divided by one single street. [4:54] But in terms of the turf, there was a six-square block area with one way in and one way out that was particularly dangerous and particularly problematic. [5:03] We always rode down there too deep and the cops deemed it the fishbowl because every time you went down there people were radioing in everybody got a warning ahead of time and it made it really difficult for for us to do work down there tons of violence i remember answering calls down there you know bloody females and kids screaming and you know having domestic disturbance calls and displacing these kids and just a real crazy situation but fortunately for me having done those warrants for the few years preceding narcotics when the problems finally arose where the finally they had a killing down there that that drew the attention of the city council. [5:41] They got together with the chief of police and said, what can we do? We need to pull all stops to get this little segment of town cleaned up. Because obviously there are good people that are down there being held hostage by these jerks that are just shooting each other and making it impossible for anyone to live a normal life. And these people that are innocents are too poor to just stop and move. It’s not as easy as that. So they started doing all the typical things. Of course, they’re not consulting me. I’m just a grunt. And they’re doing jump outs with unmarked bans and writing search warrants and pulling over everybody that moves and trying to get people to flip and obviously to no avail or else that would have worked prior. So, yeah. My whole idea, me being the genius that I am, I went to an informant and said, hey, what do you think of this idea? I said, you pose as somebody that I’m trying to fund. I’m going to pose as T. I’m a big-time dope dealer from South Texas and just had my source busted by the feds. I’m coming up to North Texas, and I’m trying to get my game restarted. [6:43] But you are the poor crack dude that’s trying to do his little hustle. Because if I’m some kind of big timer and I’m trying to infiltrate Crips here via the dope trade, I certainly can’t go start down at the corners and start buying $25 rack rocks. But I could roll down there with you and tell them that I’m just buying for you. And that was the premise that we went with. He laughed his ass off at first, obviously, too, because obviously the fitting in, I fit in by fitting out, by standing out, right? I wasn’t going to try to fit into that mold. And I even played ignorant along the way by wearing, you know, 49ers, Falcons jerseys and stuff down there in the blue territories. [7:28] And they’d pull me aside and say, fool, what are you doing? You fool, what are you wearing in this red shirt? And I was like, what? What? You know, I don’t know. You know, give me the evidence. So it was tons of questions, but I feel like I leveraged my own personality and, way more than most would. And between not having an elaborate story to memorize and by knowing that I was going to take this on as a long-term deal, it was easy for me to tell people no. So when they start giving me all these 20 questions, where do you live? Where are you from? I’ve never seen me all of this. I’m like, hey, I’m way higher than you in this game. You don’t even know who you’re talking to. And I’m damn sure not going to tell you where I live. And I’m not going to ask you where you live, you’re obviously an amateur, so I’m going to move on. I got to do my business somewhere else. And then they would think, oh, well, no, I kind of want some money. So they would, you know, ultimately would end up talking me into doing deals. And slowly but surely, I would spend time down there on a little PD budget that we had for our team. [8:31] And so on days where I knew that guys, key players there were not around, I would pull down to the blocks and ask for them knowing that they’re not there on purpose because I couldn’t afford to spend tons of money every day. So I would go down there and ask for somebody that wasn’t there and then end up hanging out and, you know, share 40 ounce Magnums or playing video games or whatever and getting to know these fools on a different level. And it was just as much learning about their way of life and earning street cred without having to buy bricks yet. So, and that was just on that, you know, skimpy PD budget. [9:08] So I promised my wife. Now, how did you, how did you like show cash even? Did you, did you borrow some cash from the feds to show cash? The PD gets real nervous. If you want to sit some show money, you know, you’re saying, okay, I’m going to bring this back. This is just for show, but to generate, you know, 10, $15,000 in show cash is hard to do. [9:31] You’re right. And because you put yourself at risk of being jacked. And you’d be robbed, too, yeah. Yeah. So that was the biggest concern that I had. And what I was actually doing at the time, by facilitating other people. [9:45] Eventually they would see me come and go, and they would see me doing these deals for my partner and say, man, no, don’t talk to me, just give it to him. And they would see me pull out the swads of cash and give it to him so he could make these buys, and nobody was getting busted. So they knew I was a somebody, but I was literally taking our monthly budget from our NARC crew and cashing in a couple hundred ones and then putting a stack of 20s on the top so that when I pulled out this massive wad. So that was my flash. But after about eight months, I promised my wife it was going to take three months and we’d be done. But I was climbing this ladder rapidly and bad guys introduced me to other bad guys. And it was just turning into a giant operation. I went to my sergeant, who was the only reason I was able to do this deep cover thing and work off the books so often. And just said, look, I’m running out of resources because these dudes are going to start calling bulls on this. Because, you know, I keep telling them I’m this big player. and i go down there and all i’m doing is buying samples or letting guys talk me into trying some of their crack instead of you know the powder because i’m i always tell them it’s like i don’t do no crack i mean i’m i’m looking for bricks and powder because i i move the big stuff so yeah you know i’d buy samples of the favor i said but i can only get away with that for so long so we decided to purposely go shop the feds and. [11:10] Started with DEA and I presented all this thing. I have this hierarchy. These are the guys. This is where they rank. This is how they’re working together. [11:21] And ultimately they said, hey, we love this case. This looks like a great deal for us. We’d love to take it from you and we’ll let you know how it goes. And I was like, no. I mean, this isn’t just my ego talking, but by the time I’d been doing this eight months and down there seven days a week and building this massive case, There’s no way I’m handing it off to somebody, even if they are DEA. There’s no logical reason to bring in a new undercover when I already have this kind of momentum going. So then we went to the ATF. They didn’t really have the resources of the people. And somebody mentioned that the FBI had an agent assigned to our gang unit that was there for the gang and violent crimes task force. [12:04] And she was currently working on another case, but sat down with her, and she was a hustler. She’s fantastic, perfect fit. She loved the idea. [12:13] She was going to obviously let me continue the undercover work, and she spent a few months finishing up her other case. So for those few months, the advantage slash disadvantage I had was, since I’d been working off the books anyway, now my sergeant thought, well, you’re working for the FBI. And the FBI thought, well, you still have a sergeant. and I was just saying, hey, could I get the 17K? I need to buy a bird. And by the way, could I get a different car? And then, you know, in two days, I’ve got cash money and a Range Rover. So now I’m balling, you know? So now I’m showing up and really able to play the part. And, you know, after a solid year, this thing, I’ve stayed undercover for almost two years. And, you know, after that first year, I started having people come to me trying to do deals. And I had gotten to the point where I was telling people I couldn’t do deals because in my mind I’m thinking, well, this cat is actually too small for me or this cat is not actually a crit because it wasn’t a dope case. And that’s the whole misnomer about the case that we had in the first place. The whole point was to eradicate the violent gangsters that were in this part of the neighborhood, and it ended up spreading into other parts of the neighborhood and a larger area of town, obviously, as ultimately what happened is when the U.S. Attorney said, it’s time to wrap this up. You have your top gun guy. [13:36] My top, my kingpin, so to speak, in Fort Worth was moving $250,000 of product a week. Wow. Then it was time to wrap it up. So after that long, I probably would have just kept going because I got so into it and just so bought into, you know, the relationship building and the momentum of the case that I, who knows when I would have stopped, but I would have certainly burned out at some point. But it turned out that we ended up arresting 51 people. Crips and 41 went federal and 10 went state. [14:11] And it was, you know, one of the more successful gang cases a lot. They got tons of time too. Yeah. Interesting. Now you’re a kingpin. How did you work up to him? How was he set up? How did he instantly, can you tell us a little bit about their procedures and how they had that set up? [14:29] Sure. And the most difficult part was the kingpin was obviously you’re smarter, even though if you’re in a gang, there’s some level of intelligence that must stop at a certain point. But this cat had, he had car lots, he had a real estate license, he had storage units and things like this. So he was sophisticated in terms of a street thug because, you know, typically Crips are, you know, violent dudes that will, you know, take what they need in order to achieve what they need to achieve. But he was smart also. So, you know, he’s a dangerous cat to deal with. And ultimately it was really ironic because it was really what happened is they had what they call the four tray day. And now a four tray crip is a crip that originated on 43rd Street in Compton, you know, Southern Cal. But they carry those five deuce and four tray, they call them. Those sets were heavily populated in Fort Worth and so they had a four tray day and they had everybody in the park behind this fishbowl area all coming together to glorify cryptum i guess and and they’re all there together yeah i know they even got a city permit that’s how smart this oh my god oh my god. [15:54] So it’s doing so of course i’m you know i’m t from south texas and i go rolling into the barbecue i’m still standing out like a sore thumb oh my god Who’s that white dude? Hey, who’s that white dude? So for every person that would question me and say, what the hell are you doing here? I had just as many people saying, hey, wait, that’s T. Are you kidding me? He’s okay. And they would start introducing me around. Yeah. Well, it turns out that my kingpin, I almost thought I was going to have to wrap it up early because my kingpin had left for California to lay low because he was feeling heat. I don’t know that it was necessarily for me because I hadn’t started wrapping up this case or anything, but for whatever reason, he laid low for a couple of months. And when he came back amidst all this, there was a basketball game that I got caught up in and met up with a few people around this basketball cart in an apartment complex right outside the park. It was just, you know, hundreds of people out there. And turns out he was in one of these games and went to smoke a cigarette outside of one of these apartments. and I met one of my informants out there and I was like, man, I got to go in and see if he’s got a little something. [17:05] It was a stab in the dark, but at this point, the AUSA had said, hey, you got to wrap this up. So I’m thinking, I got to get this kingpin somehow. And as goofy as my informants have been over the years, this one statement rang true and it ended up being really profound. And he said, T, you know you’re way too big to be asking him for something small and the chance that he has anything on him is already low and you know being so presumptuous to walk up and ask for something small since I only had you know so much money to spend that particular day he said let me let me do it let’s go back to our first little premise and so we ran it the same way and say you know I’m hooking this cat up or whatever I know we haven’t seen you for a bit I know you’re back in town man we’re just trying to get a little something something and just kind of made it really casual if you don’t got it it’s all cool and he’s like man i got you and he reached into his pocket and pulled out this little bit for my partner uh you know i spent a few hundred bucks and you know and then wrapped it up so ultimately we were able to wrap him up in the conspiracy also by the time you debrief all these people they’re all connecting the dots that you haven’t connected for yourself and you know he ended up getting 25 years, we had a 60-year sentence, a life sentence, and then most of the others ranged between 17 and 30 years. [18:27] Convicted so it was really really traumatic for me honestly because i i didn’t play emotions at all when you’re working undercover you’re you’re highly goal-based you know i’m trying to accomplish certain things and i’m always keeping in mind what i’m trying to do yeah if you get emotional well you would know i mean you know as well or better than i you get emotional in any level of cop work you’re asking for trouble yeah it needs to be a it’s it’s all business and you’re doing your job and that’s the way it needs to be so but we start wrapping these people up many of whom i thought please go away forever but also many of whom who i i really adored as people because i thought man if this kid weren’t a sociopath all we did was play video games and he’d talk about the chicks on the west side of town and we’d share beers and talk about if the cowboys were going to get their ass kicked or whatever and just and i felt like these dudes are just dudes i mean And, you know, it has nothing to do with race. I think most of us would agree that most people don’t have anything in common with criminals that make a living selling dope and moving prostitutes and selling and buying guns. I mean, that’s just not the type of people that we associate with. But I found profoundly that there was so much more in common with some of these guys. And it was at that point that I really felt like emotionally overwhelmed and drained. I’d been put in all these extraordinary hours. [19:53] And so it really, it wiped me out and during that roundup time. And a lot of people don’t know, just, just actually the act of being out there on the street, hanging out with these guys. [20:04] Man, in that, what he’s talking about, the fish bowl and these projects and, and these apartments he’s been in and at any time something can jump off, but it might not have anything to do with you. Something else would jump off and the bullets start flying, man. And it’s always that edge of danger and fear going on all the time. [20:25] And you can’t show that. No, and I think part of it was my natural personality is kind of calm and analytical when it comes to that, which is why, again, I think my creative brain being engaged was part of my advantage. Sometimes I get too creative for my own good, but other times, you know, when guys pulled guns on me, which happened more than once, you know, I would just, I would act like, man, why are you, you’re going to do this? You don’t even know what you’re doing or who you’re dealing with yet. Why don’t we have the conversation and then we’ll figure out if you still want to pull that out. You know, that kind of thing. At the same time, I’m still moving 100 miles an hour in my mind about what I’m going to do. Do I need to drill them a new eye socket or can I talk my way out of this, you know? Really, it’s kind of like the story about the duck you see going across the pond. On the surface, the duck just looked like it’s calm and serene just kind of going across the pond. But underneath the surface, those little feeders going, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That’s exactly right. That’s a great analogy. It’s exactly right. My brain’s going, holy… [21:26] Okay do this do this okay do this okay say that okay all right all right yeah dude what’s up, yeah but you just stay in character and just like this this isn’t how this isn’t how we do business man you know i’m if you want to learn from people that have been there before you need to put that down and hear what i’m going to tell you because i’ve been at so many levels beyond what you’re talking about i’d be willing to share it if you put that shit down and stop playing around because This is not how we do it. So I would just, I would play it calmly, not even yelling at them. They would yell and whatever, but, you know, I wasn’t intimidated. I think I probably got slightly complacent to a certain point. Yeah, I can see that, yeah, I bet. Yeah, about 12 months in, I can’t remember the exact date. I could look it up, but ended up in a little shotgun house with, you know, trying to do a deal with this kid who was, again, he begged me to do the deal. I confirmed it was a crip I’m like okay and I go to his house and there’s, A couch, a coffee table with a gun and a scale and some dope and then a big screen TV and practically nothing else in there. I’m sure as a cop, you would know. There’s probably a Bible in there somewhere. Probably. [22:41] Probably. Maybe some porn, but otherwise that’s it, right? So as I’m talking to these cats, I’m hearing an eerily familiar voice. And you got to realize this is about 2006. So, you know, we had three main TV channels. We had, you know, Fox, ABC, NBC, or four, because CBS, I think Fox was there by that time. And Fox was running cops like a mother. I mean, if you hadn’t heard of Fort Worth, yeah, if you hadn’t heard of Fort Worth before cops, you knew who Fort Worth PD was after cops because those suckers followed us all day for years. [23:21] And we used to have these guys that loved to go out with those crews. It was not me, but when they were off, my sergeant would always assign them to me because me and my partner were hustlers and we would go out and find stuff. So I ended up on a couple episodes of Cops. And so as I’m standing there negotiating this deal with my back to the TV, I hear a familiar voice. I’m thinking, no way. But yes, it was one of the episodes of Cops with me arresting a kid for a bunch of eggs that he had in his pants. And I’m just filibustering and talking loud and everything. And you know how it is too. You could be best friends with somebody that you know is a cop that you see on their off-duty all the time. And then you see them in the grocery store in plain clothes and all of a sudden you don’t recognize them. Well, that was the only advantage that I had because nobody noticed it the entire time. Even when I wrote the book later on, there was no way I could pull a quote from that experience because the only time I truly panicked was then. [24:18] And then it caused me to really come back to reality. Once I got out of that alive, I thought, Every other deal I did after that, I thought, man, has somebody else seen this? And I’m not aware that they’ve seen it. Yeah. So it really kind of put me back on my toes and made me really regret doing that TV show too. Even though I was ready to do it. Because, you know, there’s some people that are really good with faces and they remember a face. I’m not very good with faces. I know that, but they’re really good with faces and are your voice, you’re hearing your voice. They’re really good with that. mm-hmm so I could see that and I you know. [24:55] I was a dork in both cases, undercover and in uniform, but I was more of a dork in uniform. So I think it helped that I had, you know, the next to shaved head and all that kind of stuff and then a little bushier hair or whatever. But, you know, in my mind, just the consequences that came to bear were incredible. And so I was just fortunate to get out of that situation. What about chasing down the money? Did you have much luck chasing down any money? Did you end up getting any – did you have a civil forfeiture unit by then? I don’t remember when those started. [25:27] Yeah, we did. And we were doing our own forfeitures. We seized cash, but it wasn’t anything outrageous. And we got a few hundred thousand bucks in cash. But I know that the Kingpin had cash somewhere. And so my goal immediately after was to, his girlfriend actually took over the operation, which was already sort of a mistake. I don’t know how much he had to do with that. So I started following her around, and within a week, she was executed. So I never did figure out where his money was. He’s since gotten out and probably has it. Yeah. No, I did not find it. You know, we checked a few of his storage units and tried everything we could to make connections there and just never could. There’s always one step ahead. I don’t know if he buried it or what, but, you know, he’s got plenty of people on the outside, even when he went in that would have done his bidding to hide that stuff. So I’m certain it was there, but no, I never got to seize that, unfortunately. Never got the big cash hoard. The big briefcase full of money that everybody says, I ain’t mine, that ain’t mine. I know. Oh, it must be mine. [26:41] Well, they all got off the street. That was ultimately the idea was, let’s lower the violent crime by getting active gang members off the street. You know, it was kind of the original intent anyway, so… [26:54] Well, interesting. Now, what about, you talked about having some brush with Gotti. What’s the story with that? Yeah, so the transition time between being a musician and being a cop, while I was in music school, I had this longing to try to get an experience with being on the road and ended up auditioning for this. It was, I guess, pop music, rock music, and some show music, along with a comedian and all this craziness that I auditioned for. And they were out of Pennsylvania in the Poconos. And out of Jersey. And so obviously I didn’t know anything about the mob at the time. I’m just a long-haired drummer who’s trying to get experience on the road. So I auditioned for this outfit, make the audition, go up and they have a spot in the Poconos at the Caesars Palace Resorts in the Pocono Mountains, which is where all of the Goombas hung out. I mean, that was their spot, you know, and it was kind of accepted. I was just learning the ropes. I literally, on day one, was going to the cafeteria line at one of these resorts. [28:08] And literally looked over at the girl that was serving the whatever it was. I don’t remember what it said. I don’t even know what I said. It was something innocent enough, but yes, she was pretty. And my boss immediately looks down at me and says, you can’t talk to her. That’s, you know, Tony, whoever’s daughter. And I’m thinking, I don’t know who that is, but, you know, but he’s given me an order. I’m just thinking that’s that’s strange so we’re what we would do is typically as the band guys we wouldn’t intermingle with a lot of the resort guests and stuff so we would go off in these little booths and stuff or go to the nightclubs where we they had these big nightclubs and we would tour between each of the nightclubs and play do comedy and all that open for tony bennett types and all that yeah so we’re over eating the sandwich one day and my boss. [28:55] Whose name was Terry Moretti. And he was, man, he wanted to be connected. He could just tell. But he, and you got to realize, I’m still a musician, no cop experience, no, I’m the most nonviolent, hippie kid, whatever, I just want to play music kind of guy, right? I’m on this gig. And he answers the phone in this club area. They bring a phone over. It’s an actual landline phone. [29:23] And he takes this call. Yeah, and I don’t know how much I can quote him because it was filthy mouth stuff, but he’s screaming, he’s spitting into the phone. He’s screaming, you mother, you blah, blah, blah, you never talked to me. He starts screaming, and I’m just looking across the table just flabbergasted, like, what is going on with this guy? He’s nuts, and he’s just going off. He slams the phone down and says, come on, we’re going back to the cabin. I said, yes, sir, I’ve got all my food. I’m just leaving all my food because I’m just freaking out. So I go up there and we jump in his Honda and he drives me up as he’s pulling up to my cabin where I stayed. This big Lincoln pulls up behind us and slides sideways in front of us. And my boss reached down to the console and pulls a gun and says, run. Oh, shit. All these guys start bailing out of this Lincoln in front of me. I’m like, am I in a movie? What’s going on here? But no sooner did I think, am I in a movie? I also hauled ass. To my cabin, because I’m not sticking around to find out what’s going on. So all these guys are bailing out this Lincoln, and you could tell this had to be the people that he just cursed out. I don’t know. They had some big standoff. And so they had all this, and nothing ended up happening. I didn’t even watch the end of it, because I went as far away from potential bullet flying as I could. [30:45] But the next day I go to a payphone and I’m calling my roommates and I’m saying, man, I’ve had some experiences here and I’m really kind of concerned that I think like the mob is everywhere here. And I thought the mob was just in the movies. I said, but I told him about this story and I recounted that and recounted all these orders about these people’s daughters and everybody that works there and can’t talk to anybody. And I said, this is the weirdest experience I’ve ever had. And the very next day before our show, my boss walked into the dressing room and said, don’t you ever mention the word mob again. None of this is your business. You know what you’ve been told and just do what you’ve been told and you don’t understand what you’re getting into. And I’m thinking, I called my friends from a pay phone at a 7-Eleven. And this guy is getting onto me for those types of things. So I was, honestly, it scared the crap out of me at that point. I was like, okay, well, I’m not doing anything. I’m not supposed to. I’m not looking for trouble. But I thought, I didn’t think the mob even existed in the 90s. Like, you know, this is passe. Well, you know, to whatever extent. I mean, obviously, Gotti’s a rock star. And that’s what happened, you know, within the next couple of months is my boss was heard that Gotti’s wife had fell ill, which she had. She was in the hospital. So, he went and visited her. [32:10] Gotti came out to the show that night. And this was another perspective for me is, you know, he walks up to me and he literally puts his hands around my neck. This is nothing that would happen to me today, I assure you. But as a hippie kid, just like trying to learn life, he puts his hand up and pushes me against the wall. He said, this is how you were going to greet Mr. Gotti. You don’t look up. You only reach out your hand if he reaches out his hand and don’t say a damn thing unless you’ve spoken to. And I’m thinking, okay, okay. But then I thought, wait, did he say Mr. Gotti? And then I’m freaking out. Like, what? So that night during the show, we go out on the stage and we play. And, you know, after the third number where we’re telling a few jokes, he said, I’d like to introduce a dear friend of mine. And, you know, his wife is ill, but, you know, Mr. John Gotti’s in the audience today. And this is an arena with 4,000 people in it. Every single person stands up, standing ovation, clapping, cheering loudly. And Mr. Gotti stands up from the middle of the crowd and just kind of waves at everybody. I thought, oh, my gosh, this dude’s a rock star. [33:19] He’s a rock star here. So then I’m super confused. Because, again, this is like the Pablo Escobar thing. Well, the poor people swear he gives them free things and helps the community. And it’s the same thing. Robin Hood, Jesse James, same thing. Wow. That’s the most confusing experience of my life. And he comes backstage, shakes everybody’s hand. Of course, I’m staring at the floor when he walks in, sticking my hand out when I see a hand. So the experience was not that notable because I didn’t even hardly speak to the guy. But the fact that he was there and I got that type of impression amidst that kind of environment really woke me up to the fact that, wow, organized crime is no fallacy. These guys are alive and well, and they have the public’s support. And, you know, it was an absolute eye-opening experience for me to be able to meet that guy. Really. You know, talk about the mafia. And, you know, the mafia is organized with a boss, an underboss. Capos are like capo regimes. They have so many guys working under them. [34:26] Then you’ve got soldiers. Maybe you’ve got a consigliere. Now, can you compare and contrast that with a crypt street gang? Do they have any kind of organization at all? [34:35] They do, but they are not nearly as organized as they should be. I think if they were more organized, we’d all be in a lot of trouble, honestly. They have guys that they’ll call themselves OGs. There are not that many OGs. There was an OG in this case, but he wasn’t even really the kingpin. He was a guy that was in his 40s who shouldn’t have been playing around anymore, but just got out of prison and ended up kind of back in the game a little bit. But he was an OG because he actually was out with running the parks with Tukey Williams, who started the Crips in L.A. And he was displaced here into Texas and was running around with these guys, but wasn’t playing a significant role, didn’t really play that. But they called him OG. [35:18] Most of it, I found, was predicated on the level in which you ran business, whether they’re selling guns or running prostitutes or selling dope. So it was almost like that kind of hierarchy. I didn’t hear the mention of lieutenants and things like that much, but I knew exactly who was on different tiers. But it turned out that it coincided directly with, all right, well, if you want to start buying multiple keys, you need to go see this guy. If you want to buy street level whatever or get a whore, you go talk to this guy. And so there were still social levels of people there. And pretty much the guys at the top were recognized as guys at the top. Everybody else was kind of fighting to be known, but they did so in their work. I think a lot of that does align with the way the families or, you know, in terms of. [36:13] Not necessarily in terms of a formal title, but in terms of how you earned your keep. You know, that’s how you moved up in those families, too. You were a real hustler, and you started bringing in big business. You earned opportunities to move up. It was the same thing, which is less formalized in this case. Yeah, like in a mob, there’ll be a guy who was a little more, he’d be a soldier, even an associate, but he’d be a little more of a natural leader. And then guys will gravitate to him because he has this certain skill or these connections and certain skills that set up jobs that are lucrative for everybody. And so what I hear you’re saying is within these crypts, did they call them sets down there? I remember we used to have different sets, which would be a smaller group within the larger group. And so a certain set will then have a pretty lucrative, have a good connection for dope. And so that, you know, they may be higher in the hierarchy, but these sets are all totally separate from each other. Right. It seems like they’re not, whereas the mob, they really have a real pyramidal thing, but it doesn’t sound like they really are so pyramidal. [37:21] There aren’t as pyramidal. They are in concept, but they aren’t really as in formality. And when you think of sets, you can just think of it as the different families. Because you couldn’t just volunteer to be a mob family. I mean, the mob families were the mob families. But you also didn’t encroach on other people’s business. There were rules about encroaching into other territory and things like that. That’s exactly how the Crips work. And unfortunately, and probably the same for Mobland, I mean, if any of those guys decided we’re going to become one entity. [38:00] It would have been a huge nightmare for society and law enforcement and everybody because then you would multiply the amount of weight that they pulled. And it’s the same thing within gangs. I think the best thing you can do is just lean on the fact that they’re not smart enough to all come together as one and remain organized and civil enough to do that for a bigger purpose, which is fortunate for all of us law-abiding citizens. Yeah, really. If you think about the mob, the mafia brought this organization that I described, you know, the boss, the capos, and they brought that from Sicily. That’s been going on for several hundred years in Sicily. They brought that here. Now, the Crips, this is a homegrown thing that just started in like the 1960s. More highly organized as gangs. We ran into a deal when they first came out here from L.A. We started the L.A. Boys Task Force, and I was part of that with my TAC team. We started figuring out that a lot of these taggers, everybody is freaking out about taggers. We got all these different gangs. Sometimes we’d learn that the 31st Street Crips were nothing but three kids running around with spray cans. And, you know, it was, you had to look at the narcotics angle to figure out who was who. And that it’s the same down there. It sounds like. [39:23] Yeah, for sure. Yeah, because you have wannabes, but it’s similar. You know, like I compare it now to a lot of the terrorist organizations that we’re combating. When it seems like you have a terrorist occurrence, something happens, and then someone like the FBI would say, well, you know, they weren’t on our radar. They’re not claiming to be a part of a whatever group or whatever. Some cases, that’s more dangerous than being a part of a bigger organization because you can’t keep track of rogue actors. So you get three kids that are taggers. You’re right. Most of the time, they’re just artists trying to be relational with other people that are lost. They have people that are in common. They take them into the group, but they’re kind of harmless. But you also get some of those smaller sets with people with very little to lose and you get the right sociopathic combination and then they’ll just walk up and murder you like it’s nothing because they don’t care if they get caught. And in that case, same with, you know, a Gambino family. I mean, they decide you’re going to be offed. Even the guys within the family would figure out, well, it’s, you know, time for me to do my Sonny Black. I need to turn in my stuff and, you know, prepare myself because it’s, yeah, it’s about to happen. And so, you know, it’s, it’s kind of that, that it’s a lot of parallels in that criminal world. Really interesting. Did you ever watch the wire? Did you get into watching the wire? [40:52] Man, I started to. I need to go back and watch it. I don’t know if it still stands up. That gives PTSD, man. That puts you right back on them streets. [41:00] So I was still working. I was still working when I came out. And that’s literally the only thing that I hated was I felt like I was just extending my already long work day. But it wasn’t bad. You would. [41:16] Ultimately, the one thing about the wire that I appreciate the most, and is the way I approached my book too is that I appreciated that as an audience. [41:27] You’re kind of rooting for some of the bad guys and some of the good guys. And you kind of pick and choose based on some of the characters you’ve grown an affinity toward. And I felt the same way in my case. Like when I wrote the book, I thought I’m not making enemies out of all these people. Some of these guys are really, have endeared themselves to me and are really kind of good dudes otherwise. And so when I present it, I present it like, man, you know, I know some people are going to read this and kind of hope that guy makes it out because you know what? I hoped that he would make it out. I hoped that at the end he would go ahead and cooperate and get a downward departure and I would testify as to his character and the dude would get a minimum sentence and be out and contributing to his society. And that’s the beautiful thing about the way the story was set up and in the wire too. So that’s, because that’s real life. You know, it’s not, everything’s not black and white. No pun intended. [42:21] That’s for sure. Yeah, really. And in this case, for sure. But yeah, things are not all one way or all another way. And that’s the thing. When you work close to people on the streets, undercover like you did, you have a lot of informants. You really, when I was a patrol officer, I would get out of the car and I would go talk to people and talk to them a lot, trying to develop informants. And you find out. That is, it’s not, you’re not like a soldier in a war zone. You know, there’s a lot of really good people out there and there’s a lot of kids that are just lost and they just need a direction, try to get some kind of direction. And it’s, you know, it’s emotionally harder when you really get close to people. But I think the bank cops are the ones that will get close to people. [43:01] I totally agree with you. And I appreciate that you did that because there’s not enough of that going on still. I think there’s, there’s a lot to be said, even, even if you’re not gathering information and you’re just trying to. Gain some kind of rapport and have a relationship with the people in your city and, you know, some of the, you know, gang parts of town or whatever. I think it’s admirable what you did. And I think that there’s a lot of people back in your day, my day, and on forward that need to take those lessons forward and just, you know, try to be humans, man. Come on. I had guys tell me we had a big sector. Half of it was more in the white neighborhood and nicer businesses. And then half of it was, was, was all black. And, and these guys used to say, well, Jenkins, you just go over there in the east side and never come out. You know, it’s boring over there where you are sitting around at 7-Eleven talking to each other. Come on over here, it’s not so boring. [43:59] Being productive here. Yeah. And that’s a beautiful thing. That’s a beautiful thing to that. I mean, they’ve talked about segregating cops to where you can put black officers in black neighborhoods and Hispanic officers in Hispanic neighborhoods so that there’s that cultural relationship. And I think that also tends to be a problem because I think we just need to acknowledge that we have a lot to learn about other cultures and make a concerted effort to learn about other people. That’s really all it takes is a little effort. Yeah. [44:30] Because it’s interesting. It’s interesting as hell. And I tell you, I made a friend over there, and I went into a barbershop. I came back off duty, and we went to a barbershop they always like to go to. You know, in the black community, the barbershop is a center. And sit there and play checkers with guys and talk with them. And, you know, you just find all these really fun people that, you know, you just have this stuff with. They worked at different places. Some of them were criminals. A couple of them were, all of a sudden, one of them says, quit talking to me about that bank robbery. He says, that’s a cop sitting over there. [45:00] You know, they had everything in there, you know, most of them worked at the Ford plant or Chevy plant or, or, you know, for the post office and things like that. It’s really nice people. That’s beautiful. And there’s, you know, there’s other dudes that would be scared to go in one. So again, you can really experience it and you can’t judge, you know. Really? All right. Deegan Broadwater, tell us a little more about what you’re up to now. Let’s sell your book. You’ve got companies and you’ve got a podcast. You’ve got all kinds of stuff. Yeah, I’ll whip through it. But after this case became public and after a while I was outed as the undercover, people were encouraging me to write a book. And ultimately, during the debriefs of these guys and getting their backgrounds, we discovered there were 104 children left fatherless after rounding out these 51 people. And it made me really think about whether or not this was solving any of the problem or not. And I acknowledged that, yes, these dudes have to go to prison. But no, it’s not solving the problem. This is step one of many steps that have to happen. And so what really inspired me to write the book was when I discovered that, I thought, okay, well, I’m going to write the book. Will tell the story in a realistic manner and then we’ll donate all the profits of the book to charities that mentor children of incarcerated parents. [46:26] So, and I’m thousands of dollars in the hole having written this book, but I’m proud to say, you know, we donate all of what would have been money in my pocket to those organizations because ultimately you’ve got to keep their kids from becoming part of that cycle of violence, you know, because everybody knows what a poor fatherless home for a kid is going to serve him. And the stats are too high that they’re just going to be susceptible to gang life and everything all over again. And you got to do a whole nother Operation Fishbowl in 20 years. And we don’t want to have to keep doing that. So I wrote that book and have been promoting the book for some time. You can get it on Amazon. It’s called Life in the Fishbowl. And I have a copy right here. You know, if you find that on Amazon, that’s the copy. All right. And again, it’s for a good cause. Other than the show notes too, guys. [47:19] Appreciate that. And I left, I got so burnt out doing this. I mean, I’d never made more money in my police career because the feds are paying all my overtime and I literally have been overtime doing this thing. But I left and decided to do something with no risk, like leave with no retirement and start a company from the ground up. And so I say that facetiously, of course, but I started a private armed security firm and we do protection and armed security. [47:47] Been doing that for 18 years and after covet i got back into the creative biz started writing music again because we were i was being courted to do a movie based on the book and so i told him i was a musician started getting all the stuff and i started writing music that was going to be placements in my own movie which i thought was a cool idea covet hits and you know spoils everybody’s plans but by then i’d kind of started i had the book out and i was writing music again and decided to do a podcast try to get just a little ip and now the podcast has turned into something of a passion project for me also because as you certainly well know we’ve been doing it a lot longer than i have it’s a fabulous experience to be able to to background and learn about all these different people and and in my case i i try to find commonalities and very unique people with extraordinary stories and we just try to find that through line that is so common between people and I just I feel like it’s a it’s a constant learning experience so. [48:50] I’m doing that. I write a column for SoFRAP based on, you know, military, police, and music. And so I’m writing every week. And I just, you know, I fill my time is what I try to do. So I’ve got people helping me run the company right now that are doing a fantastic job. And so it’s been a rewarding life. I feel very blessed. I’m just trying to aim for things that will help impact positive change ultimately with all the projects that I’m doing. Okay. Tegan Broadwater, I really appreciate you coming on the show. And it’s been really fun for me, us sharing our little stories and our experiences because they’re not December. For sure. That’s for sure. Yeah. I’m very honored. I’m honored that you have me on. And I appreciate your service as well, sir. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show, Tegan. Thank you. You have a great one.

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• Taking Down the Real Sopranos

  In this episode of Gangland Wire, host Gary Jenkins sits down with former FBI agent Séamus McElearney, author of Flipping Capo, for a deep dive into one of the most remarkable Mafia investigations and how he took down the DeCavalcante Family. McElearney recounts his unlikely path from the world of banking to the FBI, driven by a lifelong fascination with law enforcement. Despite being told he didn’t have the “right background,” he pushed forward—eventually landing in New York’s Organized Crime Squad C-10, where he investigated both the Bonanno and DeCavalcante crime families. He describes the rare and demanding experience of working two Mafia families at once, and the teamwork required to dismantle them from the inside out. As the conversation turns to his book, Flipping Capo, McElearney explains the years-long process of writing it and the rigorous FBI review needed to ensure no sensitive investigative techniques were revealed. He shares early memories of notorious boss Joe Massino, and the high-stakes surveillance and arrests that defined his career. A major focus of the episode is the arrest and flipping of Anthony Capo, a feared DeCavalcante soldier—and the first made member of that family ever to cooperate with the government. McElearney walks listeners through the tension of that operation, his calculated approach to treating Capo with respect, and the psychological tightrope that ultimately persuaded Capo to talk. That single decision triggered a domino effect of cooperation that helped bring down the New Jersey mob family many believe inspired The Sopranos. Gary and Séamus dive into the proffer process, cooperation agreements, and the behind-the-scenes strategies used to turn high-level mobsters. McElearney also draws comparisons between real mob figures and the fictional world of The Sopranos, revealing how much of the hit series was grounded in the actual cases he worked. The interview closes with McElearney’s reflections on how organized crime continues to evolve. While today’s mob may look different from the one he battled in the ’90s, he stresses that the methods—and the money—still flow. His candid insights offer a rare look into the changing face of the American Mafia and the ongoing fight to contain it. Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. 2:26 Seamus’ FBI Journey 6:26 Inside the DeCavalcante Family 9:05 The Process of Flipping 10:27 Comparing Families 12:30 The First Cooperation 17:43 The Proffer Process 25:03 Protecting Cooperators 27:44 The Murder of Joseph Canigliaro 29:42 Life on Trial 30:28 The Real Sopranos 39:43 Leading the Columbo Squad 44:15 Major Arrests and Cases 50:57 Final Thoughts and Stories Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. Transcript [0:00]Well, hey, welcome all you wiretappers. Good to be back here in studio of Gangland Wire. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective. [0:07]Welcome to Gangland Wire [0:07]I have a former FBI agent as my guest today. And, you know, I love having these FBI agents on. I’ve had a lot of them on and I worked with a lot of the guys and they’re really good guy. Everyone I ever met and worked with was a really good guy. Now they got their deadhead just like we did. But these aggressive guys are the ones that write books and I’ve got one on today. Seamus McElherney. Welcome, Seamus. Thank you. It’s great to be here. All right. Well, an Irish name now working on the Italian mob, huh? How come you weren’t working on the Westie? So they were maybe gone by the time you came around. There’s no such thing. [0:47]Oh, yeah. You got your code. You Irish guys got your code, too. All right, Seamus, you got a book, Killing, or Killing, Flipping Capo. I want to see it back up over your shoulder there. Really interesting book, guys. He flipped a guy named Anthony Capo. And he really took down the real Sopranos, if you will. So Seamus, tell us a little about how you got started with the FBI, your early career. Okay. When I got out of school, I really didn’t know what to do. And I got into banking and I just decided that was really not for me. And I got lucky where I got to meet an FBI agent. and I was just so fascinated by the work. It seemed like every day was different. You know, one day you could meet a CEO and another day you could be doing surveillance. It just, the job just seemed really interesting. [1:38]Like fascinating to me. So I decided to try to become an agent. And I was constantly told, Shane, you should never become an agent. You didn’t have the background for it. And one, one, a motto in life to me is persistence beats resistance. And I was just determined to become an agent. And back then in the late 1990s, it was a long process and it took me close to two years to actually become an agent. And I was selected to go down to training and I was very fortunate to be selected to go down to training. Now it was your first office back up in New York and the, one of the organized crime squads, or did you go out into boonies and then come back? I actually was born and raised in New York, and I was fortunate to be selected to be sent back to New York. So my first squad, I was sent back to the city, back to 26 Federal Plaza, [2:26]Seamus’ FBI Journey [2:24]and I was assigned to a squad called C-10. And C-10 was an organized crime squad, which was responsible for the Bonanno family, and then later became the DeCavocanti family as well, which I can explain to you yeah yeah we’ll get we’ll get deep into that now now let’s let me ask you a little bit about the book tell the guys a little bit about the process of writing a book from your fbi experiences. [2:47]It’s a long process. First of all, I was contacted by someone who was interested [2:55]Writing a Book [2:53]in writing a book based upon my career. People had encouraged me to write a book because I had a very successful career. And when you work organized crime, it’s never just about you. It’s about the people that you work with, right? It’s definitely a team. It’s never just one person. I had great supervisors. I had great teammates. I had a great partner. And so I was approached to write a book. So then I had no idea. So there was an agent, a famous agent, an undercover agent named Jack Garcia. So I kind of really leaned on him to kind of learn how to write a book. And it’s a long process. You have to get an agent, the publisher, a co-author I had. And then when you finally have all that, and you do have the manuscript ready to be written, you have to send it down to the FBI. And that is a long process. The FBI, in this instance, probably took over a year for them to review the book because what they want to make sure is you’re not revealing any investigative techniques. Fortunately for me, a lot of the information that is in the book is public information because of all the trials that I did. Interesting. Yeah, it is. It is quite a I know it was quite a process. [4:00]Now, the banana squad, you work in a banana squad. You know, we know a little bit about the banana squad. [4:07]Was Joe Pacino the boss when you first came in? Yes, he was. And I actually had the pleasure of arresting Joe as well. Ah, interesting. I did a show on Joe. He’s a really interesting guy. I know my friend, who was at the banana squad, I think just before you were, and he talked a lot of, to me personally, he won’t go on the show, but he talked a lot about Joe Massino. He said, actually, saw him in the courtroom one time later on, he hadn’t seen him in several years. And, and Joe looked across the courtroom. He said, Doug, how are you doing? He said, Joe was that kind of guy. He was real personal. He was. [4:44]Yeah, so when I first got to the squad, the supervisor at the time was a gentleman named Jack Steubing, and he had the thought process to go after Joe and his money. So there was two accountants that were assigned to a squad at that time. It was Kimberly McCaffrey and Jeff Solette, and they were targeted to go after Joe and his money. And it was a very successful case. And when we arrested Joe, I think it was in January of 2003, I believe it was, I was assigned to be part of that arrest team. Interesting. You know, McCaffrey and Sled are going to be talking about that case out at the Mob Museum sometime in the near future. I can’t remember exactly when it is. And it was a hell of a case. I think it just happened, actually. Oh, did it? Okay. I actually just spoke to Jeff, so I think it just happened about a week or two ago. Okay. Yeah, I tried to get him to come on the show, and I think maybe he was committed to doing something else, and I didn’t keep after him. And I don’t like to pester people, you know. [5:44]And Fensell was the one that said, you got to get Jeff Sillett. You got to get Jeff Sillett. When I looked into that money angle of it, that was pretty interesting about how they were laundering their money through the parking lots and just millions. And when he gave up, like $10 million or something? I mean, it’s unbelievable. Yes. And that’s that’s one of the reasons why I wrote the book is because I don’t think the public or the press really put this together where that squad, C-10, is a very unique squad where we were dismantling the two families at the same time. Half the family was working the Bonanno family and half the family was working the Cavalcanti family. So it’s a very unique squad during that six or seven year time period where we were dismantling two families at the same time. [6:26]Inside the DeCavalcanti Family [6:26]Interesting and and that gets us into the dekavocante family i could always struggle with that name for some reason but that’s all right guys know i butcher these names all the time. [6:37]Forgive me guys anyhow so you ended up working on the dekavocante family down in new jersey now that you know that’s unusual how did that come about we got we got a new jersey branch of the fbi down there too, Yes, we do. So what happened was I went to training in February of 1998. The case actually starts in January of 1998, where an individual named Ralph Guarino was the mastermind behind this, but he had the idea of robbing the World Trade Center. So he had three people that actually tried to execute that plan. They did rob the World Trade Center, but when they came out, they took their mask off and they were identified by the cameras that were actually there. So those individuals were actually arrested pretty quickly. I think two were arrested that day. The third person, I think, fled to New Mexico and was found pretty quickly. Ralph was smart enough to know that he was going to be apprehended pretty quickly. So he reached out to an agent named George Hanna, a legendary agent within the office, and George was able to convince him to become a proactive witness, meaning he would make consensual recordings. That was in January of 1998. I think it was January 14th. [7:51]Approximately nine days later, there was a murder of an individual named Joseph Canigliaro. Who was a ruthless DeKalocanti associate assigned to a wheelchair. How he got in a wheelchair was back in the 70s, a DeKalocanti soldier and him went to go collect money from a loan shark victim. And the story goes that Jim Gallo, James Gallo, actually shot Joseph Canigliaro by accident and paralyzed him. No hard feelings. It was just the course of doing their business back then. But he was paralyzed from the 70s to the 90s. He was a ruthless individual. though. And the reason that they killed him is his crew around him had him killed. They actually killed him because he was such a ruthless person and who would extort people and just really was a bad person. There were stories that he would call people over to him in his wheelchair and shoot them. So a ruthless guy. And he was killed in, I think, January 23rd of 1998. [8:50]So that’s how this case starts. Ralph Guarino, as I said, became a proactive witness. When you have a proactive witness. You just don’t know where they’re going to go. What I mean by that is you would direct him through mob associates and many guys, and you’re trying to gather evidence on tape. [9:05]The Process of Flipping [9:06]Where Ralph Guarino led us was the Brooklyn faction of the DeCavalcanti family, namely Anthony Capo, Anthony Rotondo, Vincent Palermo. [9:17]Joseph Scalfani, a whole host of DeCavalcanti people that were located in Brooklyn. And that’s how we start to build this case. Now, granted, I was just in training at that time in February of 1998. I don’t get sent back to New York until May of 1998. And from May of 1998 until December of 1998, they put you through a rotation, meaning I go through the operations center, I go through surveillance, and then I finally get assigned to C-10 in December of 1998. At that point in time, Jeff and Kim are already on the squad, so they’re operating the case against Messino. I come to the squad, and the Decalvo Canty case has now started. So I’m assigned to the Decalvo Canty portion of the squad to work them. And as I said, that’s why we’re working two parallel cases at the time. One is against the Bananos, the other is against the Jersey family. And we operate, Ralph, proactively from January 1998 up until the first set of indictments, which was in December of 1999. So compare and contrast the Banano family structure and how they operated in [10:27]Comparing Families [10:24]a DeCavocante family structure and how they operate. Were they exactly the same or were there some differences? [10:31]They’re into the same types of the rackets that the Waldemar people are into, but I would say related to the Decalvo Canty family, since they’re based in Jersey, they really had a control of the unions out there. There was two unions that they basically controlled, Local 394, which was the labor union, and they also started their own union, which was the asbestos union, which was Local 1030. [10:53]And those were controlled by the Decalvo Canty family, so that was the bread and butter of the Decalvo Canty family. So, as I said, the first set, you know, we operated Ralph proactively for almost close to two years. And then in December of 1999, we executed our first set of arrests because there was whispers that Ralph, why wasn’t he arrested yet? Where he was the mastermind behind the World Trade Center being robbed, but he hasn’t been picked up yet. So there was whispers that he might be cooperating with the government. And for his safety, that’s why we took him off off the street and we executed our first round of arrest in December of 1999. [11:33]I’m a relatively new agent. I’d only been on the squad now for a year and we arrested 39 people that day. I get assigned to arrest Anthony Capo, who’s a soldier within the Decavacanti family based out of Staten Island. And I was really surprised by that because, as I said, I was just an agent for about a year. Usually when you’re a new agent, you’re assigned to the back, you know, like we are security. I was even surprised that I was going to be on a team. And I was fortunate enough to be the team leader, which is very surprising to me. And the case was out of the Southern District of New York. And in New York, just for the public, there is two districts. There’s a Southern District of New York and the Eastern District of New York. And the Eastern District of New York also had charges on Anthony Capo as well. So for my arrest team, I had members from the Eastern District of New York as well. There was a separate squad that was looking into Anthony Capo there. [12:30]The First Cooperation [12:27]So I got the ticket to arrest Anthony Capo in December of 1999. And that’s how this case starts. [12:33]Interesting. Now, nobody’s ever flipped out of the DeCavocante family before, I believe. It’s been a pretty tight family, really rigidly controlled by this Richie the Boot. I mean, he’s a fearsome, fearsome guy. I mean, you did not want to get crossways with him. And a smaller, tighter family, it seems to me like, than the New York families. That was right. Well, like up and up until that point, up until that point and unbeknownst to me that no made member in the DeKalbacanti family had ever cooperated with the government before. [13:08]So I had watched George Hanna, how he operated Ralph Guarino for those two years, and he always treated him with respect. And prior to going to arrest Anthony Capo, Anthony Capo had had a reputation of being an extremely violent person, hated by law enforcement and even hated by a lot of people within the mob. But I was going I wasn’t going to let that, you know, use that against him. I was going to treat him with respect regardless. Right. I didn’t know I didn’t know him. I never dealt with him before. And I would basically before I went to go arrest him, I was going to study everything about him, learn everything about him. And I was going to use the approach of treating him with respect and using some mind chess when I was going to arrest him. What I mean by that is I was going to learn everything charges about him, everything about his family. I wanted him to know that I knew him like the back of my hand from head to toe, the start of the book to the end of the book. [14:02]And when I went to arrest him, I remember when we went to his house, he wasn’t there. So all the planning that you do related to going into an arrest, the checks that you do, he’s at the house, you knock on his door, and guess what? He’s not there. So his wife basically tells us that he’s at his mom’s house. So then that throws all the planning out the window, and now we go to his mom’s house. And when I met him, you know, I saw that he had a relationship with his parents, which, you know, it gives me a different perspective from what I heard from him. Interesting. And that says something about him, that’s for sure. So everything that I heard of this violent person and hated person, the way he treated law enforcement, he wasn’t that way with me. [14:49]So when I get him in the car and I start to read him his rights and start to ask him questions, every question that I would ask him, I already had the answer to, like, your date of birth, social security number. And then he would invoke his right to counsel, and then you’re not allowed to ask him any more questions. So what I would do is I would let the mind game start then. And I would ask him, you know, tell him about the charges that he had at that point in time. He was only charged with a conspiracy to murder Charlie Maggiore, who was an acting panel boss of the Decalvo Canty family. At that time, that point in time, they had three panel bosses. It was Charlie Maggiore, Jimmy Palermo and Vincent Palermo. Vincent Palermo was known as the stronger personality and really known as the acting boss. And they wanted to kill Charlie Maggiore. So he was charged with that. conspiracy to murder. And he was also charged with, I believe, stock fraud or it was mail fraud that would lead to stock fraud. So when I would question him, I would tell him, since he already invoked his right to counsel, don’t say anything, just listen to me. For an example, I would say your plan was to murder Charles Majuri. Your plan was to ring his doorbell and shoot him right there with James Gallo, Joe Macella. But you guys didn’t do that because there was a cop on the block. So instead of just doing a ring and run, you guys were going to ring and shoot him, right? [16:17]And now you’ve got to think, I told him, don’t say anything. Just listen to what I just said, right? Because I can’t have him answer any questions. And this wasn’t a question. This was a statement. Yeah. So that gives him food for thought, because you got to think, how would I know that? He doesn’t know at that point in time, this is an indictment. How do I know that? He doesn’t know who the cooperator is. He doesn’t know who made a recording. So I’m just throwing this at him. And this is the first time he’s hearing this. So it’s got to make him think, like, what else does this agent know? And I did this with the other charges as well. And then I would just throw these little tidbits at him. And then I would speak to the driver. How are you doing this? just give him food for thought. And then we just developed a bond that day, just talking sports back and forth. He actually was a cowboy fan. I’m a Steeler fan. So we have that little intensity going back and forth about that. And then we just developed a bond that day. I think that was the first time that he had an interaction with law enforcement, where it was more of a respect thing, as opposed to someone yelling at him or being contentious with him. I don’t think he’s ever or experienced that before. [17:27]Also because of his delivery as well, right? You know, it works both ways where you can, he can have his delivery really angry and that could, you know, provoke law enforcement to be angry towards him too. [17:43]The Proffer Process [17:40]So I think that helped it that way that day. And then just throughout the whole day. And I think one of the things that I do talk about within the book is just explaining processes to people, which is generally, I haven’t seen that done in a book before about how pretrial works. So what is pretrial? How cooperation works? How trial works? So I think there’s a lot of tidbits within the book that kind of explain things like that. Even some crimes, too. Like everyone hears what loan sharking is. I go into detail as to what loan sharking is and how it really works, because it’s a very profitable way to make money. So we have our day together. And, you know, then I had to meet his stepfather. I think he had heard that I treated his stepfather with respect. And then approximately a week later, I get a call from his lawyer and I basically almost fell out of my chair when his lawyer said he wanted to cooperate. [18:37]I bet. And then, yeah. And, you know, keep in mind, I’ve only been on the job for a year and I immediately call the assistant who is a seasoned assistant. Maria Barton, what was her name? And she’s really concerned, like, what did I say? Right. So I told her in these situations, less is more. I just told her I was going to call you. That’s all I said. I didn’t say anything else. Didn’t promise anything at all. I said I was going to call you. So, you know, that started with the process and then you go through a proffer. So I explained what the proffer is and how that process works. Interesting. Yeah. A proffer, guys is is like a kind of agreement you know and you you have to be totally open and admit to every crime you ever did and and we’ll cover you but to a certain point the basis you’ll lie down the basics. [19:31]Right. So what, you know, what we kind of like call it is queen for a day, right? Where you come in, we can’t use your words against you unless you lie to us, right? If you were, if you were to lie to us and then go, go to trial and, you know, we could, if you were to take the stand, we could, we could use it against you. But as long as you come in and you tell us the truth and you tell us everything, all the crimes that you’ve done. And the beauty of the mob is when they do a crime, they never do a crime alone, right? They involve a lot of people within a crime. So that’s the beauty of that. So when we have our first proffer, you know, in time, you only have a short amount of time to actually speak about this because you can only be away from jail for a certain amount of time right before the bad guys start to realize that something might be up. Right. So he comes in. And even even before that, on his on his way back, when we’re taking him back to 26 Federal Plaza, one of the things that he tells us is and it makes sense when we went to his house, he wasn’t there. He was at his mom’s house in the car ride back. He throws a little shot at me and he goes, we knew you were coming. [20:33]Meaning that there was a leak. They got a leak. Yeah. Right. So then when we have the first proffer, he explains the leak to us. And it appears allegedly there was a court reporter within the Southern District that was feeding them information. So that’s not good. And then in the proffer, he tells us about two murders. So, and there might be the bodies, a body might be buried up in Phil Lamella, who was a DeCalvo County soldier, up in Marlboro, New York. So that’s the first thing that he tells us. So these are jewels to us, right? He tells us about a leak. He tells us about two murders. Bodies might be buried. So we have to huddle and we have to decide, is he telling us the truth or not? We all decide that he’s telling us the truth. The proper takes place with George Hanna, as I mentioned him before. Kenny McCabe, a legendary Southern District investigator, and me. And in these situations, again, I’m a new agent. Less is more. I don’t want to say something stupid. So I kind of keep my mouth shut, right? And just listen. So that went really well. And that kind of started this whole process. So now, as we said before, you have… No one cooperated in 100 plus years of this family. And now we have the first [21:49]A Spiral of Cooperation [21:48]made member to cooperate. And basically, Anthony starts a spiral effect of cooperation. [21:56]After he where he reported to in the family at that particular time, since he was such a violent person and hard to control within the family himself. Well, he reported to Vincent Palermo, who was the acting panel boss out of that panel that I talked about, but viewed as the acting boss because of his strong personality. So you have Anthony cooperating. He reports to the acting boss. So from our perspective, our perspective, that’s golden, right? Because now Vinny is going to have to make a decision. Is he going to cooperate or not? And then about three months later, guess what? Vinny decides to cooperate. So now we have a soldier and we have the acting boss who’s going to cooperate. So we go from no one in a hundred years to basically two people in three months. [22:45]Then we have an associate, Victor DiChiro, decides to cooperate. So we go and we arrest him. So now we have three people in four months. So we take all their information, and they have to plead guilty, and they get a cooperation agreement. I explain all that. And when you have a cooperation agreement, as I mentioned before, Anthony was initially arrested for conspiracy to murder, and I believe it was stock fraud. When he pleads guilty, he has to plead guilty to all his crimes that he committed throughout his entire life. Off the top of my head, I remember he pled guilty to two murders. [23:23]11 murder conspiracies, boatload of extortions, and basically every other crime you could think of. And then the same thing with Vinny and Victor. We take all their information, and then we have our next series of indictments. So the first series was 39 indictments. And then the second series of indictments is in October of 2000, October 19th, which we just we just passed the 25th anniversary of that. And that was known as the hierarchy arrest, where we arrested the official boss, John Riggi. We arrested the two other panel bosses, Charlie Maggiore and Jimmy Palermo. We arrested the consigliere, Steve Vitabli, a bunch of captains and soldiers. So that’s a significant arrest, right? So now, as you know, when you have an arrest, there’s trials, there’s plea negotiations. So now we arrested 39 people plus another 13. We’re already up to like 50 something like something people out of that arrest. We get a little shockwave in the sense is that there’s an associate named Frank Scarabino. Frank Scarabino comes forward one day and tells us that there’s a contract on Anthony Capo’s family and Anthony Capo. [24:43]And also, there’s a contract on law enforcement. They want to go back to the old Sicilian ways and basically send a message. So, you know, that’s basically a little bit of a jolt where now we have to try to move Capo’s family. [25:03]Protecting Cooperators [24:59]And Capo’s in prison. He’s defenseless. And I explain all that. People have this sense of you go into the witness security program, you get a whole new life and you’re off and having a great time. They don’t realize that there are prisons within the United States that you have to go to prison. So I can’t say where the prisons are, but I kind of explain that process of how the WITSEC program works, which is run by the marshals. So that’s in that’s in the book as well. Yeah, they have a whole prisons that are just for people in WITSEC. I heard about a guy that said he was in one out west somewhere. Yeah. So and, you know, for those prisons, it’s not like you have to prove yourself. They’re all doing the same time. So they’re basically just trying to do their time and try to get out and get into the next phase of the WoodSec program. So that was kind of a jolt, right? So now we have Frank Scarabino cooperate. So now we have another person. So it’s the list is just getting more and more now. You got to stop taking cooperators and start putting people in jail for the rest of their life, man. [26:03]So it got to after that, we had like two more people cooperate. So we went from having nobody to having seven people cooperate in this period. And it’s interesting. And I know we’re going to go back and forth, but we went from 100 years of having no one to having seven people during this three year period. And since that time period, no other members have cooperated since. So we’ve started the clock again. I think we’re at 25 years plus again since no one cooperated during that period. And I mentioned the murder that we started this case, Joseph Canigliaro. So he was the guy that was in the wheelchair. So as I said, they wanted to kill him because he just tortured his crew. We were able, one of the guys who was initially arrested as part of the December 1999 arrest, he sees everybody’s, he is deciding to cooperate with the government. So he decides to cooperate. His name is Tommy DeTora. So Tommy DeTora decides to cooperate. He’s out on bail. So since he’s out on bail, we decide, let’s make him make a consensual recording. And he makes one of the best consensual recordings the Bureau has ever made. He gets everyone involved in that murder together. [27:28]And they talk about the murder from A to Z. It’s a priceless consensual recording that we used at trial. And it just, you know, one of the things that does stick in my mind is the shooter was Marty Lewis, who got a life sentence. [27:44]The Murder of Joseph Canigliaro [27:45]Marty Lewis is describing when he shot him. And he’s like, I shot him like five or six times in his car. Right. And then Marty Lewis gets out of the car. Joseph Canigliaro drives away, gets to the top of the block in Brooklyn, puts a signal on, put a signal on. And drove the traffic laws, drives to Joseph Wrightson’s house. A guy who was part of the murder conspiracy honks his horn for Joseph Wrightson to come downstairs. So can you imagine Joseph Wrightson looking down the window seeing the guy that’s supposed to be dead right now and telling him to get in the car to go to the hospital with him? [28:32]Unfortunately, when they go to the hospital one of the things that does happen is joseph brightson has uh unfortunately an nyp detective cop who’s a cousin and involves him in this as well and the cop takes shells from the car and he becomes he gets locked up by us as well they all go to trial they get convicted and. [28:55]You know, we also arrested a Genevieve’s captain related to the leak. So in total, I think the numbers were 71 defendants were convicted, 11 murders were solved, seven trials transpired. You know, as everyone knows, you have the arrest, but then you have the trials, right? And I know that from December 2002 up until November of 2003 was the year that I was on trial. There was three trials that I had, and then there was another trial. There was two trials that one was a mistrial. Then we had another trial. So during that one year, we had a year of trials, and the biggest trial I had went on for two months. [29:42]Life on Trial [29:38]So I basically had a year of no life where it was just trials. And as you know yourself, when you have trial, it’s not just you just show up at trial. You have trial prep beforehand. And then when you’re actually on trial every day, it’s 20, it’s 24, seven, you have a trial, you have trial, then at night you have to prep a witness. So there’s just constant stuff throughout the day. Yeah, really? It’s a, it’s a long, boring process for you guys. [30:05]You know, these are like what we would say the real Sopranos, you know, the Sopranos, Tom Soprano, and that’s kind of based on this New Jersey family. I tell you, that Soprano, so much of it was ripped from real life. I don’t know. They interviewed you for details. They interviewed some agents and looked some court cases in order to write those scripts. I know that. And in particular, I think of the gay member that was killed. [30:28]The Real Sopranos [30:27]You know, you guys had that down there. So there’s a lot of references in your book or things in the book that the guys will say, oh, yeah, they did that in the Sopranos. Can you tell us about some of them? [30:37]Well, the thing that was great, especially for trial, is in March of 1999, the show starts in January of 1999. And we have a consensual recording in March where we have DeCavocanti members talking about the show and them saying, saying, this is you, this is you, and this is you, which was priceless for trial. Right. It’s like a jury’s going to hear that. And even during the trial, the judge had to give the jury instructions about the show to make sure that it wouldn’t sway their decision. Then if you watch the show, the first season, the official boss in the show dies of stomach cancer. In real life, that’s happened in real life. In June of 1997, Jake Amari was the acting boss of the Decaval Canty family. He dies of stomach cancer. So that’s a… [31:40]It’s a part of the show right there. Then I know everyone sees the strip club, right? Well, the acting boss, as I told you at the time, Vincent Palermo, he had a strip club in Queens, Wiggles. [31:53]So there’s a similarity there. Then they have the meat market that they go to, right, back and forth in the show. That’s a real meat market. I don’t want to say the name of the real meat market here, but there is a real type of meat market there. We discussed the union angle, the two unions that they have. So there’s so many scams related to the unions. There’s the no show job, right, where you don’t have to show up to work. There’s the no work job where you come, but you don’t have to do any work at all. [32:26]Back then, what it was called was they had union halls, right, where you actually had to show up early in the morning. There’d be a line of people, and you would show up. It was called the shape up. and you would wait online and hopefully that you would get work that day. Well, the DeCable Cante members, they wouldn’t show up early and wait online. They would show up whenever they want and they would cut the line and they would get work. So these were their types of unions that they had. Then, as you mentioned, there was the gay angle too. So on the DeCable Cante real side, there was a guy named John D’Amato. And John D’Amato basically made himself the acting boss when John Riggie went to jail in the early 1990s. John D’Amato was part, was very close to John Gotti. There was a murder. It’s probably the most indictable murder in mob history called the murder of Fred Weiss. John Gotti wanted Fred Weiss killed because John Gotti thought that Fred Weiss was cooperating with the government. all because Fred Weiss switched lawyers. [33:35]He was paranoid that Fred Weiss was cooperating. So it became a race to kill Fred Weiss. So you had two mob families trying to kill him, the Decalvo Canty family and the Gambino family. So in total, I think either 15 people at least have either pled guilty or have been convicted of that murder. That murder happened on 9-11-1989, a horrible day, right? So, where I’m going is that happened in 89. In 1990, 1991, John D’Amato becomes the acting boss of the family. So, now he’s the acting boss of the DeKalb Alcanti family. John D’Amato had a girlfriend. His girlfriend starts to tell Anthony Capo that John D’Amato is going to sex clubs with her and they’re having sex with men. So this is this is brought to Anthony Capo’s attention. And he has to tell his superiors that we have a gay acting boss representing our family. And in his eyes, this cannot happen. Right. So he brings it to Vincent Palermo, brings it to Rudy Ferron, and the superiors that this is what’s happening. And they decide that he has to be killed. Now, also what he was doing was, and you speak to Anthony Rotondo, who also cooperated with the government. [34:58]John DeMotta was also stealing money from the family. He was borrowing money from the other families, telling him that it was for the DeCalbacanti family, but it was really to cover his game of the gambling losses that he was incurring. So those are two things that he was doing. Right. He was he was if you ask Anthony Rotondo, he says he was killed because of the gambling that he was incurring the losses. And if he asks Anthony Capo, he was killed because it was looking bad for our family, for their family, that he was a gay acting boss. And at that time, it wasn’t acceptable. Times have changed. But back then, it wasn’t an acceptable thing. And that’s similar to the show. There’s a gay angle within the show as well. [35:41]The Gay Angle in the Mob [35:42]Interesting. It’s the real Sopranos. I remember I watched that show, even going back and watch some of them every once in a while. And I just think, wow, that’s real. So, so even though the director says no one was speaking to them, it’s kind of ironic that there are a lot of like similarities between the show and real life. Yeah. And especially down there in New Jersey and, and, and their connection to the Bonanno family or to a New York, the New York families. And then also, and then also within the show is, is, is the stock stood. There’s also stocks. Oh yeah, the stock fraud. Yeah. They did a boiler room or something. And they were pumping and dumping stocks and Tony was making money out of that. So, yeah, that’s I’d forget. And then from and in real life, Bill Abrama was like the wizard of Wall Street. [36:37]So interesting. Well, you’ve had quite, quite a career. What do you think about New York organized crime now that today, you know, we just had quack, quack, Ruggiero, Ruggiero’s son and some other guys that were connected to families indicted for gambling. He’s got my gambling fraud. I haven’t really studied it yet. It is like they had some rig gambling games, which is common. Like in Kansas city, when I was working this, they would have, they would bring in guys who would love to gamble and had money businessmen. And then they’d, they’d play them for sure. They would cheat them and take a bunch of money from them. This was much more sophisticated, but that’s a, that’s a story that’s been going on a long time. You think that Bob is on a comeback from that? Ha, ha, ha, ha. [37:24]The mob has been around for 125 years. They’re not going to go away. Okay. They get smarter and they adapt. And it’s like, I haven’t read the indictment from head to toe, but they’ve used some, you know, sophisticated investigative techniques just to kind of con people. So they’re getting better, right? So some of the techniques that they use when you hear, it’s like some of the things that I saw where the poker tables that they use, the tables that they use were able to see the card. So they use some pretty, you know, slick techniques, you know, and then like some of the glasses or the contact lenses. So, you know, they’re not going to go away. They’re just going to keep on trying to rebuild. That’s why you have to continue to put resources towards them. Yeah. I think what people don’t understand for these mob guys, it’s if they don’t get out and go into legitimate business selling real estate or something like that. It’s it’s a constant scam a constant hustle every day to figure out another way to make money because they don’t have a paycheck coming in and so they got to figure out a way to make money and they got to make it fast and they got to make it big and in a short period of time it’s just constant every day every time they walk by knew a drug addict one time as a professional burglar and he said every time he’s in recovery he said every time i’ll buy a pharmacy he said in my mind I’m figuring out how to take that pharmacy off. So that’s the way these mob guys are. [38:52]And sports betting has been a staple of theirs forever. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And the apps are getting into them a little bit, but I see what’s going on now. Also, we had these players, Trailblazers coach and a couple, three players, are now helping people rig the bets. And you go to the apps, and you bet a bunch of money on some guy who’s going to have a bad day. And then he just doesn’t show up to work. You end up being the supervisor of the Columbo squad, I see. Same as after that DeCavoconte case, and you spent all that time, you ended up getting promoted to a supervisor and you must’ve been good because they kept you right there in New York and gave you another mob squad. I know one agent here in Kansas City that was promoted and he kept the one squad here, as they called it. [39:43]Leading the Columbo Squad [39:40]And that was really unusual. Usually it’d be somebody in from out of town. So that says something about you. So tell us about your experiences doing that. [39:48]Well, after we did this case, which was about six years, I was requested to go down to run the Columbo squad. And at that time, I think the Columbo squad had eight supervisors in eight years. I really thought I was too young to be a supervisor because I only had six years on. So I was basically voluntold, I would say, to go down there. And guys, that is young. I want to tell you something. I’ve seen a lot of different Bob squad supervisors come through here in Kansas City. And and they were all you know like 20 year agents 15 18 year agents that came from somewhere else so yeah so you know again I thought I was just way too young to be a supervisor as I said I was just on the job for about six years and I was voluntold to go down there yeah and I said if I’m going to go down there there’s a couple of things just based upon what I saw a I’m not a yes man and two the squad needs some sort of stability so I went down there and I was able to stay there I was there from actually December of 2004 all the way up until June of 2013. [40:51]So we at that time when I first got there we really didn’t have a lot of cases going trying to go on so I was able to change the tactics right because I think juries had changed at that point in time where instead of having a historical witness just go on to stand and tell things, now we had shows out there, right? You had NCIS where the whole DNA-type stuff came in, so I had to change our approach, and proactive witnesses making consensual recordings were the way to go. And I think during a seven-year time period, our squad. [41:24]Did an amazing job. Now it went from C10. I went, the squad went down to, it became C38. And we made probably 1,800 recordings in a seven and a half year time period. So, which is an amazing amount of recordings. So, a lot of transcriptions too. A lot of transcriptions. And I, you know, a three-hour tape could take you a day to listen to because you’re just trying to find that little piece of information. Yeah. Because a lot of it is just talk, right? Yeah. So I think our first big case was in June of 2008. And we took down the acting boss, a bunch of captains. And that’s when things really started to take off. We had a violent soldier cooperate named Joseph Compatiello. And, you know, we talk about proffers. His first proffer, he comes in and he basically tells us that there are three bodies buried right next to each other. So the layman would think, OK, they’re right next to each other. They weren’t right next to each other they were about 1.1 miles apart from each other. [42:28]And you could be in your your room there and we’re trying to find a body it’s really hard to find so we were actually able to find two of the bodies one of the bodies was a guy named while Bill Cattullo he was the under boss of the Colombo family we found him in Formingdale Long Island he was behind a berm we were out there for about eight days and each day you know I’m getting pressure from my superiors. We’re going to find something because there’s a lot of press out there. There was another victim named Cormone Gargano who was buried. He was killed in 1994 and buried out there. Unfortunately, there was a new building built. [43:06]And we could not find him there, but he was initially killed at a body shop in Brooklyn, and they buried him in Brooklyn, and then they decided to dig him up and bring him out to Long Island. So we went back to the body shop. What the Colombo family used to do, though, is they used to kill you, bury you, and put lime on top of the body. What lime does is it kills the smell, but preserves the body. Oh, I didn’t realize that. I thought it was supposed to deteriorate the body too. I think most people bought that. So good information. So, so when we found wall of bill, basically from his, from his hips up were intact. Oh, And when related to Cormier Gargano, because they had killed him in the body shop and then dug him up and brought him out to Long Island. We went back to the shop and figuring, let’s see if we can actually see if there’s any parts of him there. And there actually were. And we’re able to get DNA and tie it back and confirm it was him. [44:15]Major Arrests and Cases [44:12]So that’s how that dismantling of the Colombo family started. And then just to fast forward a little bit in January 2011, we have I spearhead the largest FBI mob arrest where we arrested 127 people that day across the states and also went to Italy, too, to take down people. [44:32]And after that, the Bureau decides to reduce the resources dedicated to organized crime. And I then get the Bonanno family back. So C-10 merges back into my squad. And then I have the Bananos, the Columbos, and the Decafacanthes as well. So now I have all three families back. And I basically run that for another two years. And I guess my last official act as a supervisor is related to Goodfellas, where Jimmy Burke had buried a body in his basement. We saw a 43-year-old cold case murder where he killed an individual named Paul Katz, buried him in his basement. And when he went away for the point shaving, the Boston College point shaving case, well, he killed him in 1969, buried him in his basement. Then he goes to jail in the 80s. He gets fearful that the cops that he had on his payroll back in the 60s were going to talk. So he decides to have our witness at the time, Gaspar Valenti, who came forward back in the 80s, moved the body with Vincent S. Our son so they move the body but again they’re not professional so pieces are going to be back there so in 2013 we go back and we dig and we actually find pieces of paul cats and we tie that to dna to his son to his son and we confirm that it was him. [45:57]So that was my last official act as a supervisor. Talk about art, art, imitating life again, you know, in the Goodfellas, they dug up a body. In the Sopranos, they dug up a body. I think I saw another show where they dug up a body. One of them, they were like, man, this smells. [46:13]I mean, can you imagine that going back and having to dig up a body? And then, you know, and, you know, they’re just wearing t-shirts and jeans and maybe leather gloves. And they’d have to deal with all that stuff and put it in some kind of a bag can take it somewhere else oh my god you know i have a question while bill cutello that this guy was part of the the hit team that took him out do you remember anything about right i’m trying to remember i’ve read this story once he was kind of like more of a peacemaker and and if i remember right you remember what the deal was with him well back like what happens is in the early 1990s there’s a colombo war right you have the persicos versus the arena faction and one thing about the Colombos and the Persicos, they never forget. So in the early 1990s, while Bill Cotullo was on the arena side, and as I said, there was a war where approximately 13 people were killed. In the late 1990s, Ali Persico was going to be going to jail, and while Bill Cotullo thought that Ali was going to go to jail and that he would take over the family, Ali didn’t want that to happen. So basically while Vilcunzulo thought he was getting the keys to the kingdom and they were going to kill him. [47:28]And what they did is they lured him to Dino Saraceno’s house in Brooklyn and Dino Calabro lured him into the basement and shot him in the back of the head. And we had all these guys then decide to cooperate. As I said, Joe Caves was the first person to cooperate. Dino Calabro cooperated. [47:48]Sebi Saraceno cooperated. So we had a whole host of people cooperate and we were able to dismantle the Colombo family. And I’ve been extremely blessed to be part of teams that have dismantled three families, Bananos, the Columbos, and the D. Calacanti family. So, you know, as I said, and it’s never just one person. It’s always teammates, partners, and also other supervisors that I’ve had. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, it does take a lot of people to take those down. When you’re writing books, you try to make sure everybody gets a little bit of credit. Yeah. And, you know, I think, you know, the thing that was that was, you know, crazy when related to the recovery of Wild Bill is we had our evidence response team out there. And, you know, the witness takes us out there to show us where he thinks the bodies are buried. And related to Wild Bill, it was in the back of a field. And he kept on saying it was behind a berm. So we took him back there and he showed us where he thought it was. So we had our evidence response team dig. And they basically dug us an Olympic-sized pool. [48:57]We could not find him. So there was two other sites that we were trying to look at because Richie Greaves was supposed to be next to the train tracks. And as I mentioned, Cormac Gargano was next to a building that had been replaced. So my squad, actually our squad, C-38, decides, Seamus, do you mind if we get some shovels? So I was like, sure. So there was, because we were just looking at each other at the time. So my team, Vincent D’Agostino, they’re pretty close by. He got some shovels and came back. And there was like six of us. And we just started digging ourselves. So we dug in one area, nothing. Then another agent basically said, let’s dig over here. [49:38]And sure enough, like talk about, you know, I always say hard work leads to good luck. We started digging and then we found the white stuff. We found the line and jackpot. It was while Bill, he was hogtied face down with his feet up. And as soon as I saw the white stuff and then I saw, you know, like his foot, then we stopped and I said, let me go get the professionals. I ran over, I drove over, and I got the team leader from ERT. She got in the car. And, you know, of course, she’s very excited. I was like, you know, we F.M. got him, you know. And so I drove her back over there. And that’s when you kind of contain the crime scene. And we were able to find him. But, you know, it was our squad that found him. And then, as I said before, then, you know, our squad decides to go back to the body shop. And we found remnants of Carmine Gargano there. So the squad just did an amazing job but really we basically found two bodies ourselves you know and i think in my career i’ve been extremely blessed to find five you know which is just crazy well that’s not something those accountants and lawyers and stuff were trained for you need to get those former cops out there on those shovels and digging for bodies. [50:57]Final Thoughts and Stories [50:57]Well interesting this this has really been fun seamus any any other stories you can think of You want to you want to just want to tell just busting to make sure people know that’s in this book. I tell you what, guys, this is an interesting book. It’s it’s, you know, as I said, those kinds of stories and the procedures and how FBI works. There’s there’s a lot of stories in there. I don’t want to give to give the book away. You know, there’s a lot of stories even. Yeah. You know, there’s an even during that year of trials. There’s plenty of stories there. There was a blackout that that year, too. So there’s a lot of stories related to that. You know, even even the trials, there’s a lot of things that came up at trial. So I don’t want to give to give those stories away. But I think it’s a good read. As I said, I think it’s one of the few books that actually explains things because, you know, I think the public hears these words, but they don’t know what these words mean. And I just think it’s important that they do know what it means, because there’s a lot of things that go on behind the scenes, especially with the jury. Right. You know, the jury only sees what they see. There’s a lot of things that go on when the jury leaves the room between the government, the judge and also the defense attorney. So I try to bring to shed some light related to that as well. [52:13]Interesting. Well, Seamus McElherney. And the book is Flipping Capo. That’s Anthony Capo. The first guy to be flipped in the Cavalcante family ever, which led to a cascade of other mob guys flipping, didn’t it? [52:32]Sure did. Just like in a Bonanno family, you know, they start flipping there. And it just, I didn’t know where it was ever going to end. Finally, it ended. [52:41]It sure did. Well, I have to say, it’s been great to meet you. I wish you continued success. And this has been a lot of fun. All right. Yeah, it’s been great to have you on Seamus. Thanks a lot. Don’t forget, I like to ride motorcycles. So when you’re out on the streets there and you’re a big F-150, watch out for those little motorcycles when you’re out. If you have a problem with PTSD and you’ve been in the service, be sure and go to the VA website. They’ll help with your drugs and alcohol problem if you’ve got that problem or gambling. If not, you can go to Anthony Ruggiano. He’s a counselor down in Florida. He’s got a hotline on his website. If you’ve got a problem with gambling, most states will have, if you have gambling, most states will have a hotline number to call. Just have to search around for it. You know, I’ve always got stuff to sell. I got my books. I got my movies. They’re all on Amazon. I got links down below in the show notes and just go to my Amazon sales page and you can figure out what to do. I really appreciate y’all tuning in and we’ll keep coming back and doing this. Thanks guys.

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• Mob Life: The Private World of Capone, Lansky, Gotti & Castellano

  In this episode of Gangland Wire, retired Kansas City Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins sits down with author Jay Baer to explore the hidden, human side of organized crime’s biggest names — Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, John Gotti, and Paul Castellano. Jay’s book, Mob Life: The Private World of Capone, Lansky, Gotti, and Castellano, takes a unique look beyond the murders, rackets, and headlines to reveal how these mobsters actually lived — what they ate, how they dressed, their relationships with religion, and how they handled immense power and wealth. Listeners will hear: How Al Capone’s family sold his spaghetti sauce recipe to Ragu — their first commercial product. Why Meyer Lansky, the most devout of the four, was denied the right to die in Israel by Prime Minister Golda Meir. The lavish lifestyle and fatal missteps of Paul Castellano, the “Howard Hughes of the Mafia.”   The contrast between Gotti’s flamboyance and Lansky’s low profile — and how each approach shaped their downfall. The staggering fortunes these men built — and how, in the end, they all lost it. Jay also shares his own lifelong fascination with organized crime, his career outside writing, and his upcoming project, How to Live Like a Gangster — No Prison Required, a look at mob values like loyalty, respect, and power through a modern lens. Gary and Jay swap mob history from New York to Kansas City, including a discussion of the real story behind scenes from Casino and Kansas City’s own underworld power struggles. ON AMAZON Wayne said 5.0 out of 5 stars Great Facts on the Mob Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2021Format: Kindle If your looking for a good fast interesting read on the Mafia, this is the book for you. Full of information on mob types that most have no clue about. You can’t lose with this book I believe. 🎧 Listen now to uncover the side of the mob you’ve never heard before. 📘 Get the book: Mob Life: The Private World of Capone, Lansky, Gotti, and Castellano by Jay Robert Baer on Amazon 00:00 – Intro: Gary Jenkins welcomes Jay Baer 01:00 – Why Jay wrote Mob Life and his lifelong fascination with gangsters 03:30 – From detailing cars to writing true crime books 05:30 – Gary and Jay’s early mob reading influences 07:00 – Researching Al Capone’s private life 08:00 – Capone’s secret spaghetti sauce recipe sold to Ragu 09:00 – John Gotti’s love for Cracker Barrel and biscuits & gravy 10:00 – Meyer Lansky’s religious life and denied burial in Israel 12:00 – Castellano’s wealth, arrogance, and fall 14:00 – Jay’s next book: How to Live Like a Gangster — No Prison Required 15:00 – Loyalty and respect in the mob vs. business life 16:00 – How Castellano’s aloofness led to his murder 18:00 – The real Joe Watts story — the German who made millions 20:00 – Gary shares Kansas City mob stories and Casino connections 23:00 – The failed car bombing of underboss Tuffy DeLuna 25:00 – The Mob Museum and modern mob myths 26:00 – Jay shows his book Mob Life and shares fun mob trivia 28:00 – How much money mob bosses really made — and lost 30:00 – Why law enforcement didn’t chase mob money before the drug era 31:00 – Joe Massino’s $10 million cash and gold surrender 32:00 – Final thoughts: The mob’s empire always ends the same way Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. Transcript Gary Jenkins: Well, hey, all you wire tappers. Good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. This is Gary Jenkins. You know, I’m a retired Kansas City police intelligence unit detective and I am now a mob historian and with the podcast and a few other things, some books and stuff out there. Gary Jenkins: And I interview other mob authors as well as research stories. And today I have an author named Jay Bear. He has written a book about the mob, a really good, solid, historical, factually true book as kind of a basis for a novel he wants to write. So Jay, welcome. Jay Baer: Oh, thank you. I’m, I’m happy to be here. Jay Baer: This is really great. So I’m looking forward to this interview. Gary Jenkins: All right, Jay. Well, you know, we, we like the mob here and we like the the facts about the mob. When I read about your book, that’s, that’s when I got hold of you. I thought, well, this is so interesting. It is Mob life, the private world of [00:01:00] Capone, Lansky, Gotti, and Castellano. Gary Jenkins: And what did Al Capone wear? How much did it cost? Where did he buy it? You know, what, what kind of Italian, right? What kind of, what kind of food did Gotti like besides Italian and, and that kind of a thing. So I, that, that was really interesting, those esoteric little details that we don’t really know usually. Jay Baer: What I wanted to do is I wanted to tell a different story. Everybody writes books about their crimes and law enforcement’s effort to put them away. We’ve heard all that. So this was like something I wanted to do for years. Let me just tell a different story. And I did, and the book is filled with, you know what? Jay Baer: How much money they made, what they, how they dressed religious views really. Which there wasn’t very much in religious views except for May Lansky. The rest of them were, even, even Paul Castellano, the the bishop did not wanna bury him in a Catholic, in, in a Catholic cemetery. And they fought him on it and they got him to do it. Jay Baer: [00:02:00] But yeah, none of ’em had really any religious views except for, may Lansky. Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Jay Baer: He went to synagogue on a regular basis. He belonged, he did a lot of stuff, you know, during the war to help you know, catch the Nazis. Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Jay Baer: In fact, there’s a book out there, an older book with called Luciano’s Luck and it’s about their, what they did and how they got involved in the, you know, world War ii. Gary Jenkins: Interesting. Yeah, I had heard that. I’ve never really, I talked to one guy, an author that had a book really about the, more about the Navy guy that approached Luciano in prison and then worked with this guy named Sox Sox Lanza, who had the Fulton Street Fish market in, in trying to gather information about any possible Nazi saboteurs. Gary Jenkins: But I’ve never really got into that. Mayor Lansky area. So Jay, tell us a little bit about where you come from. You’re not, you’re not a career author. Sometimes I have guys that that’s all they ever done. They’ve been newspaper reporters and written books and stuff. Tell us a little [00:03:00] bit about yourself. Jay Baer: Well, I’m from New York based, you know, originally you can probably tell with my voice, you know, forget about it and all that stuff. I knew you were from north of me. Where are you? Kansas, Missouri. Oh, okay. So. My father moved us down here to Florida, like, oh my God. 1972, and I’ve been here ever since. So, but I, I de, I started detailing cars when I was 28, and I’ve been doing that ever since and it’s, you know, brought me, right now I’m kind of like, I only work in the mornings, you know, I’m almost 70, so I’m kind of like maybe semi-retired. Jay Baer: Yeah. But I’m never gonna retire because, I gotta find something to do all the time. So I write, and right now, you know, I wrote this book, mob Life and I wrote a book before that called Angels of Death. It’s about two girls who are on the run for murder and they become killers for hire and realize they’re in love with each other. Jay Baer: And I also wrote a nonfiction book about public speaking ’cause I [00:04:00] used to teach public speaking. I’m a distinguished Toastmaster. I did a lot of speaking over the years. I taught hundreds of people how to overcome their fear of speaking. So I wrote, I, I took my course and I put it into a book. Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Jay Baer: It was only a very short book. Jay Baer: ’cause you know, people don’t need a lot. I don’t think people need a lot of information to be successful, but I’ve always been interested in gangsters ever since I was a kid. You know, my, my friends were listening to The Beatles. I was reading books about. Capone and May Lansky. So there’s something about them that always intrigued me, their power, the women, the way that they just controlled so much, you know, they’re very powerful men. Jay Baer: And it’s just something I’ve kept, kept on for, oh my God, since 35 years. No, 55 years. Ever since I was a kid, 15 years old, I’ve been interested in gangsters. So, and I decided, hey, it’s time to write about ’em. [00:05:00] Gary Jenkins: Interesting. You know what just outta teens in my teens, I first read my first. True Crime book, which was in Cold Blood by Truman Capote. Gary Jenkins: And man, that book, I was hooked then in that true crime. And so I was, I was in junior college right outta high school and, and I found green was it Greenfeld Jungle? By Ova DeMars. It was all about the mob in Las Vegas. It was. Thick, real dense book, but, but I bought into it, man, I, I love that book. I devoured that book. Gary Jenkins: I, I read one by a guy named Ken, a New York City detective named I think it was Joe Erno or Tony Tony Erno, I can’t remember his erno and read that. And he really. You know, made these gangsters come alive in that book back then. And I remember even, even back then, I thought, boy, that veto genovese, that was a bad, that’s a bad dude. Gary Jenkins: So they I understand. I got hooked on it early myself. Jay Baer: Oh, that was a nonfiction book. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Right. Oh, okay. Jay Baer: Yeah. You know, there’s a, there’s a lot of stuff [00:06:00] out there like that. I mean, fiction, like, I’m, I’m, I’m rereading The Godfather ’cause I like the way Mario Puzo writes. Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Jay Baer: And I also listen to it, you know, so I’m learning, I’m learning from that. Jay Baer: And I also I, I like to read Elmore Leonard. Speaker 4: Yeah. Jay Baer: You ever read any of his stuff? He’s got, yeah, he’s a good one. I started, I started reading him because that’s what Quentin Tarantino learned how to write by reading his books. Gary Jenkins: Mm-hmm. Gary Jenkins: Interesting. So this book about private World of Capone, Lansky, Gotti, and Castellanos now, like Al Capo, where, where did you go? Gary Jenkins: How did, how did you start researching. Information on Al Capone. And what are some of the interesting things? You know, we all know a lot of the public things and the myths. We know more myths than the real life things. I think like the old myth about him beating two guys to death with a baseball bat and some different things like that. Gary Jenkins: So how’d you go about working on Al Capone and what are some of the interesting things you learned about Al? Jay Baer: What I, [00:07:00] what I did was is I had about 11 different, I think the, I think I have 11 different chapters. I’m pretty sure that’s it. And I focus on one thing at a time, and I researched all of them. So like when I was doing food, ah, I mean now we have ai, but when I wrote that there was no ai, so I’d put in John Gotti food, hashtag whatever, you know, I, I did, there’s a lot of ways to. Jay Baer: To research on Google. Mm-hmm. And so I would look it up and I’d find stuff about them. And I, I went on encyclopedia that’s online. There’s a lot of good stuff in there. And I just researched and I spent months doing it. Jay Baer: You know, I do it at night after working and it’s, it was a lot of work, but I, you know, I enjoyed it. And what I found out about Capone was different thing, well, I’ll give you something really unique about him. He, he had a walnut spaghetti sauce. It was his recipe. Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. Jay Baer: And when [00:08:00] he died, his sister Mafi sold it to Ragu and it was their first sauce they ever made. Jay Baer: Interesting. And he, he was a, he was a heck of a dresser. He he had like lime suits and purple suits and he had Oh, really? Stuff made for him for down here when he lived here. And I found out all these things about him. What he, you know, I, I don’t remember much about what he liked to eat. It was usually Italian, you know. Jay Baer: And the thing about John Gotti that I always about the food that I always find interesting is he was in a cracker Barrel one time with a friend. And a reporter came over to him and said, what are you guys doing here? You’re Italian. And his friend said, how much Italian food can a guy eat? And and Gotti liked to eat biscuits and gravy with a country fried steak, but his favorite Italian food was eggplant tini.[00:09:00] Jay Baer: These little things you find out. Yeah. And that’s why I wrote the book. ’cause I, you know, something different, something unique so people could s see a different side of them. Instead of, you know, looking at all the murders they created, all the people that they had whacked, I figured it was, you know, time to find something else for them to know about. Gary Jenkins: So talking, you, you mentioned something about when we were talking about their spiritual life and their relationship with the church and, and I know in, in Kansas City when our mob boss died, Nick Novella, there was a big hubbub among the Catholic church if he could be buried in the church and if what priest was gonna conduct the ceremony. Gary Jenkins: And, and in the end he was buried in the church. And, and, and they I know actually know the young priest. He was a real young priest that. You know, he wasn’t he, he wasn’t even old enough I think maybe when the mob was really rocking and rolling in Kansas City to, to be that affected by it. And, and so he conducted the ceremony. Gary Jenkins: So what did you learn about that? You, me, something about Lansky’s pretty connected to a synagogue and, [00:10:00] and that kind of thing? Jay Baer: Well, you know, Lansky was probably the most religious out of these four men, but he did belong to a synagogue and that’s where he met. No, he met. Arnold Rothstein at a bar mitzvah. Speaker 3: Hmm. Jay Baer: And that’s when Rothstein took him under his wing. They met at like the Park Avenue Hotel and they just talked for us like six hours. And then he bankrolled Lansky and Luciano during prohibition. See Rothstein. You ever read a book about him? No, I haven’t. Haven’t. Very interesting. You should check him out. Jay Baer: ’cause they call him the father of the mafia Uhhuh because he was the one that started bankrolling these guys so they could you know, sell booze. And he had the booze brought in from England and when it got here they would cut it with cheaper stuff. They made millions, millions and millions. But he always kept himself out of everything. Jay Baer: He ran it. No connection. [00:11:00] He just made sure that he was never involved with what he had going on. Other people had to take the fall. So and your question, so, well, you know, Lansky wanted to die in Israel and Goda Maier, who was the Prime Minister then said no. And she basically kicked him out of the country. Jay Baer: She didn’t want him there. And his, his life, that was his, that’s what was his dream to die in Israel. But she made sure it never happened. Gary Jenkins: Wow. Seemed like the TRO brothers up in Chicago when they found their bodies that I believe with with Tony, I don’t think they could get a, a, a church to to approve of that one. Gary Jenkins: His, his brother Michael. They may have, but that’s, that’s been a constant ongoing kind of a theme. Between the church, especially the Catholic church and the Italian mafia, somebody is, is so prominent that it’s like then Lansky and gold. My ear is so prominent, she even [00:12:00] stopped his right of return because every Jew has a right of return to Israel and she denied that based on, really, based on myth and headlines and stuff. Gary Jenkins: She didn’t, you know, there he’d never really taken a conviction. Come on. Jay Baer: Well, from what I read about him, the only time he was in prison was in upstate New York, and it was just a gambling charge. He went to jail for two months. He was too smart to get put away. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Jay Baer: He wasn’t flamboyant like Gotti. He didn’t want anybody seeing him. Jay Baer: Even when he walked his dog, he just did it and then he went home. He didn’t want pe, he didn’t wanna make a a, a scene where, you know, got, Gotti would go into. Restaurants and throw kisses at people, you know? So he didn’t keep a low profile and that was one of the things that led to his downfall, I think. Gary Jenkins: Oh, got, he’s, yeah. Oh yeah. No doubt about it. And law enforcement can only take so much when a guy keeps throwing it up your face, he’s get there. I tell you what, I used to watch these guys, and I think [00:13:00] if you only knew. The array of forces that were written ready to come down on you, you wouldn’t be doing this stuff. Gary Jenkins: But somehow they don’t care. They’re different. Jay Baer: They, they, you know, I’ve been writing in my new book that they just didn’t care. They knew what the life was like. They knew the consequences and they did it anyway. And they all did the same thing. I mean, all of ’em were either put in prison or they died. Jay Baer: Some of ’em died of natural causes like Banana and Lansky. There wasn’t many. Oh, and Gambino Carlo, he died of natural causes. I know he went to prison, but that’s the fate and they know it, and they, like I said, they actually don’t care. They just lived a life. Speaker 3: Hmm. And, Jay Baer: and some of ’em got out like, you know, banana. Jay Baer: Like I said, he got out, he lived, he moved to Arizona and he lived the rest of his life there. So, but not many of ’em have done that. Gary Jenkins: No, not many of ’em. Such a strong way of [00:14:00] life. And you mentioned, you mentioned your next book that you’re working on is gonna be how to live like a mobster. And so what did you , glean from these guys here? Gary Jenkins: How they live like a mobster that was success, made them successful or work for them. . Jay Baer: How to live like a gangster. Jay Baer: No prison required. Yeah. I’ve got some things about these guys, but it’s gonna go deeper than that. I’m gonna use other gangsters. There’s a lot of information out there, especially now with ai. You can just pick stuff up in seconds. I mean, I could, you could even have write the whole thing if you want, but I don’t do that. Jay Baer: Yeah, don’t do that. I like to put my own stuff. Yeah, no, and it doesn’t, you know, it doesn’t come out well anyway. No, but you know, one of the things I’m looking at in that book is loyalty and respect. You know, loyalty was a big thing, but you know what, that’s, that’s the same in regular business. You have to be loyal. Jay Baer: You have to show respect to your boss, and if you’re the boss, you know, you have to show respect to your employees. But the, you know, the difference is [00:15:00] in the mob, if you screw up, you get dead. In regular life, you just get fired. So you know, it’s a big difference. Yeah. But you know, everybody, even the soldiers, they know it. Jay Baer: They going in, they know I can screw up. Bam, you’re gone. So that’s just, you know, and if you don’t want that kind of life, that’s fine, then stay out of it. But you know what they say, once you’re in, you’re in. That’s it. You’re not getting out. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. And, and that brings to mind Paul Castellano. That was one that was a mistake he made. Gary Jenkins: He, he stayed so aloof from the street guys and even the, the capos that they became jealous of him. And, and so the way he lived his life, he lived in this huge mansion that he would have him come in once in a while, but he, he didn’t come down to the club anymore and he had this different life and his clothes and everything. Gary Jenkins: What did you learn about Paul Castellano’s life? Jay Baer: Well, you know, he was just like you said, [00:16:00] he, there’s a, there’s a big part in the book about how he had friends, like the guy that started the grocery store what’s it called? IRA Wall Baum Wall Baum Wall Baum G groceries. He was good friends with him. Jay Baer: He was friends with Frank Purdue. He helped Frank Purdue get his chickens in the grocery. Of course, probably not for free, but he did. He was friends with a, a woman who owned a it was like a, a lumber company. So he hung around with them instead of hanging around with his own men. And people got tired of it, especially Gaia. Jay Baer: And what I heard, I don’t know but Castellano found out that. Gotti’s brother was selling drugs and he was gonna whack him, but Gotti got to him first. See, that was the thing. If he would’ve acted on it right away, that would’ve been it. That would’ve been the end of it. And he, I mean, he might be in prison now, but he may still be alive, [00:17:00] but he screwed up and he didn’t, I guess he didn’t fear Gotti as much as he should have. Jay Baer: Mm-hmm. You know, let’s face it, a lot of these guys get to the point where they think they’re invincible. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Jay Baer: And. Well, you know what happened to him? Yeah. You wanna hear a funny, you wanna hear a funny story about that? Jay Baer: Joe Watts went one day, went to Castellano’s house and said, I am cooking on a really big re real estate deal. You want in. So I. Castano says, yeah, you know, I’ll give you like 6 million. So he is walking to the door with Thomas bti and BTI says to him, Hey, the boss has plenty of money. Jay Baer: Why don’t you count me in? He goes, yeah, no problem. So a couple days later he goes, he picks up $8 million or 7 million total. I think it was 7 million total. Five from Castellano, two from Bella. And you know, you know who Joe Watts was? He was on the backup team to kill Castellano. Yeah. [00:18:00] He wasn’t one of the, the, the four, he was backup. Jay Baer: So he knew they gonna get whacked. Guy made himself $7 million like that, like that. And then, and then Gotti gave him Pilate’s, black book. He made, made millions and more dollars. And the guy’s still alive. He’s like in Gary Jenkins: his eighties. Yeah. I think he, maybe he just got outta jail or maybe he’s still in prison. Gary Jenkins: I can’t remember they call him. No, no, you’re right. He, he got out a while back. That’s what I thought. Yeah, that’s Jay Baer: it. That’s Gary Jenkins: him. It’d be a great interview the German to get him on. Joe. Anybody out there know Joe, the German? Give him a call. Tell him I wanna have him on the show. Jay Baer: Smart guy. That takes though. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. You know, think Jay Baer: about it. If Castellano would’ve found out, Gary Jenkins: yeah, Jay Baer: he would’ve made it. He would’ve made it down the street. Gary Jenkins: Well, let’s breed man. I’ve heard of that before where they know somebody’s gonna get hit and then they Joe Macino did this and then he went to the guy and got him to a bunch [00:19:00] of money out of him that he was gonna, you know, have to pay him back. Gary Jenkins: And then, but they know they’re gonna get hit, so that’s yeah. Yeah. Bob Life. Huh? Bob Life. Yeah. How to, how to live like a mobster a gangster. Don’t don’t be loaning anybody any money. ’cause anybody that’s dangerous. Jay Baer: Yeah. But you know what’s kind of funny about that is people should know when they’ve screwed up and they’re gonna come after them. Jay Baer: I don’t know how they always get like whacked. They just don’t believe it. I don’t, I don’t get it. I mean, me, if I knew my life was in danger, I’d pack my crop and go, man. Exactly. I Gary Jenkins: would not be hanging out on those same streets. I would not be holding, keeping that same pattern that I usually keep. I, I, I don’t get it. Gary Jenkins: I don’t get it at all. And we’ve seen it here in Kansas City, never big city. You know, they know that somebody’s after ’em, but yet they continue to do the same things. They keep the same patterns. [00:20:00] Over and over and over and really take very little precautions. I, I don’t know. Jay Baer: So Kansas, Kansas City, was the, they filmed a part of casino with those guys that Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Jay Baer: In the market is was that real? Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Well, they didn’t actually. Yeah. And they did actually film that in Kansas City, that that sequence of events happened. But it was in a bar and, and there was a bug there. But, and, and they didn’t pick up exactly everything that, what they used, but it was, it is somewhat along those lines, but yeah, it was, it was just, wasn’t in a market. Gary Jenkins: Everybody thinks that was a, everybody’s in Kansas City was trying to, oh, that was Jamaica’s, or that was Orlando’s, or it was this market or that market. But I know for a fact it was in a, a pizza joint called the Villa Capri, which is more of a neighborhood tavern. Jay Baer: Was there a guy like Remo out there? Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Oh yeah. That was, I think that was the toughie doing that was our underboss and, and he handled for Arc family, he handled. All that Las Vegas business. He made the contacts with people. He talked to him on [00:21:00] the phone, you know, and he would carry the information to our boss, Nick, and say, okay, what, here’s what they’re telling me. Gary Jenkins: What do you want to do? If there’s a decision to be made, you know, what do you want me to do? And then he’d get back with a guy in Las Vegas. They’re, they’re kind of their mole out in Las Vegas. And, and so he was, he did his underboss job there. He insulated the boss. From these people that were on the streets in LA in the casino in Las Vegas to do that. Gary Jenkins: So yeah, that, that’s all true. And they did have a big meeting with Chicago to decide how to cut up things. And there’s a lot of Nicholas pledging in that movie. I’m getting off on my own story in a way, but Nicholas pledging that movie. He came to Kansas City and he spent about three days with a case agent on that, who also took a lot of documents and things home. Gary Jenkins: And, and so he went through all that and, and really gathered. The background information from primary sources to put into his book and the, and the screenplay. They just for the screenplay, you know. Okay. They gotta they gotta change things around. Jay Baer: Yeah. Yeah. ’cause they, [00:22:00] they have to cut 500 page, book four. Jay Baer: Oh, page book. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Jay Baer: They gotta put it into 120 page screenplay. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Yeah, that’s for sure. It’s tough. But, Jay Baer: One of the things I like that Remo said, and I use it all the time, why take a chance? Yeah. That’s how he said when they, when they were whacking everybody. Yeah. And they were saying, you know, this guy’s a good guy and he’s a good guy. Jay Baer: And Rema was like, well, I take a chance. That’s how I look at it. Speaker 4: Yeah. Gary Jenkins: I got killed. Yeah. Well, he ended up dying in prison a after that. Really. I’ve just been working on a book myself and, and part of it is about the time that they tried to plant a bomb underneath his car. He is so lucky. Jay’s so lucky that they had a remote control. Gary Jenkins: Ated bomb. They put it underneath his car. They watched him come out and get in it, and then as soon as he got in, they started hitting the, the switch and it wouldn’t go [00:23:00] off because the antenna wasn’t quite long enough to make the connection to the receiving unit on the bomb. And they had to run up and get the bomb and the plastic air paper back and go back and experiment with it. Gary Jenkins: Were they Jay Baer: trying, who were they trying to kill? Remo? Gary Jenkins: Yeah, the Remo character. Tuffy de Luna. That was in real, I was in real life here in Kansas City. Yeah. Okay. That wasn’t, and none of that was in the movie casino at all. There was a mob war going on while all that stuff was going on in Las Vegas, we had a inner family conflict in Kansas City that they were killing each other off right and left for a while. Jay Baer: Oh, really? I don’t know. Well, I, I’ve always focused mainly on New York. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Jay Baer: Yeah. There’s, there’s, I mean, there’s a lot of mob, you know? Have you ever been to the, the Mob Museum in Las Vegas. I have, Gary Jenkins: yeah, twice actually. It’s really good. It’s, it is worth the trip. It is, it’s worth the 35, 40. Jay Baer: There’s like a hundred pictures of gang gangsters, people you never even heard of. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Jay Baer: Yeah. I, I really enjoyed that. I spent, I went downstairs to [00:24:00] the still. Did you do that? Gary Jenkins: No, I didn’t. I don’t, I don’t know if it was there yet or something. I can’t remember, but no, I didn’t, I didn’t go down to the, the bar. They have a bar or something downstairs? Jay Baer: Well, they, they have a bar and they have their own, they make moonshine, but it’s a modern steel and they, they sell the booth to all the restaurants. Jay Baer: So I went down there, you know, you pay the lecture and you get these little cups. These little tiny cups Yeah. Of booze. And so he asked a question. The guy that was talking, he said, does anybody know who the Flamingo was named after? So I raised my hand and he goes, who is it? I said, it was Virginia Hill. Jay Baer: He goes, oh wow, we have a gangster in the room here. People at my table got a extra drink of Peach Moonshot. What? What was the, lemme do that Gary Jenkins: again. What was the question again? Jay Baer: Who was the flamingo named after? Gary Jenkins: Oh, okay. Yeah, I, yeah, Virginia Hill. I couldn’t have called that one up off the top of my head, but I had heard that before. Gary Jenkins: That’s a [00:25:00] good, he got a gangster among us here. Somebody knows his gangster history. Jay Baer: You wanna, do you want, you want me to show the book? Gary Jenkins: Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, let’s see it. Book, its Folks Mob Life, the private world of Capone, Lansky, Gotti, and Castellano by Jay Bear, actually Jay, Robert Bear. . I’ll have a link in the show notes to the Amazon link if you want to get that book. Okay. And I’ll have Cool, I’ll have a link to Jay’s Facebook page too. So our Facebook group, if you wanna get onto that, it’s Jay Baer: also it’s also on, it’s on audio and it’s, and it’s ebook, it’s all three. Jay Baer: Yeah. You can get all three of it. So and it’s, it is, it’s a short audio, like an hour and a half, you know. Mm-hmm. I found a guy on five who did a really nice job. Gary Jenkins: What’s one last thing that you found the most interesting in their kind of private personal lives that people might not know? Gary Jenkins: What, what, what would you want to tell us about there? Jay Baer: [00:26:00] Well, I thought the food thing was pretty interesting, but what really became interesting was the money they made, the millions. I mean, John Al Capone was worth over a hundred million dollars when he was 23 years old. Hmm. That was in the twenties. You know what that’s worth today? Yeah. Oh my God. I couldn’t even imagine that meeting today. Jay Baer: He, he had, he owned a building where they cut out the second store story. So they could put a gigantic vat of beer. Speaker 4: Hmm. Jay Baer: That’s how smart this guy was. And they, you know, he owned brothels also, which to me, there’s nothing wrong with that. You know, it’s like you are, you are giving a service. He owned brothels and he did that, and actually he took all that over from Johnny Torrio because they tried to kill him. Jay Baer: So he handed everything over to Capone and he retired. Then I think like four or five years later, he died of a heart attack. Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Jay Baer: But I found that what they made the kind of money when when Sammy the Bull wrote that book, my [00:27:00] boss Gary Jenkins: mm-hmm. Jay Baer: The Underboss, it was called Under Boss. Underboss. Gary Jenkins: Yeah, underboss. Jay Baer: He was on an interview with Diane Sawyer and she said, what did you guys, what happened to all your money? And he said, nothing. We still have our money. Jay Baer: They didn’t want our money. They wanted us, and they found out, I said, how, well, how much did you make? He goes, I think he said he made like five or 6 million a year where Gotti was making like 10 or 20, $30 million a year. It was cash. It was all cash. They had duffle bags full of cash in their basements. Jay Baer: So that’s the thing I found out that I found, you know, interesting. And they, they had, they were persistent men. They weren’t just guys that were like you know, we’ll just go to work today. They weren to work. They worked the streets. They were street men. They knew how to handle things. They knew how to make money. Jay Baer: Especially Castellano, you know, he was called the Howard Hughes of the mafia. He was so smart. But they all, I think all of ’em were like that. Lansky made millions. [00:28:00] They all made millions and millions of dollars. But you know what, in the end it was all gone. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Jay Baer: Every one of ’em lost everything. Gary Jenkins: I’ve noticed, I’ve noticed that. Gary Jenkins: I have people ask me about that and I say, you know, I, I don’t know. I, I don’t know whatever happened to their money. I know a lot. Nicks of El made a lot of money. They were bringing 40 grand a month just out of the Tropicana. That was not even out of part of the Stardust, hacienda Frontier, and there was another one in there. Gary Jenkins: And, and that was just for him. And then he split, he split a lot of it up among his men, and that’s what these mob bosses do. Some of ’em, the good ones will split it up among their their maid guys that they can depend on have depended on for a long time. But back in those days, Jay, the law enforcement before drugs, before cocaine hit and all that money hit, the government didn’t really go. Gary Jenkins: Tooth and nail after the money. They, if they got the guy, like you said, if they got the guy, then they [00:29:00] just moved on. That was enough. They didn’t really go try to run down the money and, and trace it down after cocaine hit and all that drug money hit, then they, the government started going after money and then we developed whole units, you know, the, the civil forfeiture unit and had civil for forfeiture laws, state and federal that were not really in place before. Gary Jenkins: So, so that’s why government, they just didn’t care about the money. Jay Baer: What did you say earlier? What did you, you were a police officer? Gary Jenkins: Yeah. A Jay Baer: detective, Gary Jenkins: yeah. Here in Kansas City. Jay Baer: My son just my son was with a city called Margate in Fort Lauderdale, and he just retired, not retired. He went to work for Monroe County, the Keys, and he became a he’s head of emergency management. Gary Jenkins: No, that’d be a good job. Jay Baer: Well, it’s better than he’s, he does not have a bullseye on his back anymore. But he was the detective for what, for like the last two years and what I was, you know, they, I was Do you ever listen to that podcast? It’s called Law and [00:30:00] Order. Gary Jenkins: I don’t think so. Who does it Jay Baer: check that out? Jay Baer: Because they they would, they, one of the last ones I listened to, this is their second year Law and order. It’s a podcast and, i, I listened to one where they, they were getting Joe Massino, I think that’s his name. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Jay Baer: And they, Joe was a Gary Jenkins: bonno. They, Jay Baer: they stopped using Rico. They said Rico was not working anymore. Jay Baer: So you know what they did? They hired like a dozen accountants. Yeah. And they went after me. Yeah. And you know how they got ’em? They found a guy in New York that owned a bunch of parking lots, right? Gary Jenkins: Mm-hmm. Jay Baer: And you know the story. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. I, I did a whole two or three parts series on Joe Macino in that parking lot guy. Gary Jenkins: And he, he was like kicking money to their wives and, and they started tracing through their wives and all that. Joe Macino gave up. This is solid numbers. This is not meth. He gave up like $10 million in cash and Gold Bull in when he made his [00:31:00] deal in the end to save himself for life in prison or the death penalty. Jay Baer: Oh, he did? Gary Jenkins: Yeah. That Jay Baer: I didn’t, that I didn’t say. Gary Jenkins: That’s, that’s the one case I know of where. Factually, law enforcement or anybody actually saw the money that these guys claim to have, and, and he had it. So it’s out there. I don’t know what they do with it. Jay Baer: Did you ever hear of the, this guy, his name was Slu, C-E-F-A-L-U. Jay Baer: He was a Gambino boss. Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Jay Baer: And I don’t think he’s ever gone to prison. Now, there was another guy after him called Marino, but you should check this guy ou because, he was there for a while and but you know, again, in the end, Speaker 4: yeah, yeah. Jay Baer: We get it all. Just like they said in casino, in the end we get it all. Speaker 4: Yeah. Juniors, Jay Baer: juniors college fund, the house payment, we get everything. Yeah. Interesting. [00:32:00] Alright, well this has been great. I really appreciate the opportunity Gary Jenkins: Jay Bear, I really appreciate you coming on the show, Jay. Gary Jenkins: All right, thank you. All right.

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