Podcasts about Genovese

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

"I want to underline my own belief that art must carry man's craving for the ideal, must be an expression of his reaching out towards it; that art must give man hope and faith. And the more hopeless the world in the artist's version, the more clearly perhaps must we see the ideal that stands in opposition to it—otherwise life would become impossible! Art symbolises the meaning of our existence." ― Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time (1986) The Cold War Cinema team is joined by guest Taylor R. Genovese to discuss Andrei Tarkovsky's debut feature film, Ivan's Childhood (1962), a Soviet masterpiece about the Great Patriotic War and prime example of Thaw–era cinema. Taylor R. Genovese is an assistant professor of philosophy at Dutchess Community College in Poughkeepsie, New York. He has also been a filmmaker and photographer for over a decade. His multimodal and transdisciplinary research focuses on Marxism, historical memory, and borderlands. He is also an editor and board member at Iskra Books, a nonprofit scholarly publisher that releases original works of revolutionary theory, history, ecology, and art.  In this episode we discuss:  Andrei Tarkovsky's life and career The historical and political context of Ivan's Childhood Tarkovsky's aesthetic vision and theological concerns How the concept of "toska" shapes the sensibilities of the literary and cinematic arts in the Slavic world, including in Tarkovsky's films. The moving image representation of trauma and transcendence in Ivan's Childhood. The poetry of Andrei's father, Arseny Tarkovsky, and its influence on the filmmaker. The Soviet astethetics of Alexander Bogdanov (1873–1928), as articulated in his book Art and the Working Class, which Genovese translated from the Russian in 2022. To purchase the book (or download a free PDF), click this link.   _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode:  Taylor recommends the films Come and See (1985, dir. Elem Klimov) and Dead Man's Letters (1986, dir. Konstantin Lopushanskiy). Paul recommends a film and a record: Sergei Eisenstein's Strike (1925) and U2's War (1983). Tony recommends the book Freudianism: A Marxist Critique, by Valentin Voloshinov, and the new essay "The Enchanted Biopolitics of Dark Cosmism" by our guest Taylor R. Genovese. Jason recommends the film Kes (1969, dir. Ken Loach) _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com, or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema.  For more from your hosts: Follow Taylor uses the handle @trgenovese on X, Instagram, and Letterboxd. Information on his scholarship and visual art can be found on his website at taylorgenovese.com. Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social, on X at @JasonAChristian, or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic.  Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social, on X at @tonyjballas. Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com, or on Letterboxed at @ptklein. Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com  _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian  Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt).  Happy listening!

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Full details on wickedproblems.earth! Professor Federica Genovese of Oxford, Professor Lorenzo Crippa of Strathclyde, and veteran journalist Dave Vetter join host Richard Delevan to discuss Magnifica Humanitas, the papal encyclical being published Monday 25th May 2026. In an unprecedented step, Pope Leo will personally launch the encyclical, joined by theologians, ethicists, and Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah. Genovese and Crippa discuss their research paper, Papal Dividends, which looked at past encyclicals including Laudato Si: Care for our Common Home released by Pope Francis in 2015 and how they affected the market value of companies in sectors mentioned by the encyclical. The Vatican has worked on AI ethics issues for years, but this will be a defining moment of Leo's year-old papacy, tying in concerns about the place of humans in the economy and society, the climate impacts of data centres, the use of AI in warfare including current conflicts in Ukraine, Russia, Lebanon, Gaza, and Iran. At a time when the backlash against AI is building, Eric Schmidt and others booed at commencement addresses when mentioning AI, and Peter Thiel going to Rome to accuse anyone trying to slow AI down as 'the antichrist', how will Magnifica Humanitas be received?00:00 AI as Defining Issue00:38 Pope Leo's AI Encyclical02:21 Can Encyclicals Move Markets06:04 Media Backlash and Polarization11:06 Measuring the Market Impact13:46 AI Bubble and Investor Stakes16:11 How Leo XIV Might Land20:28 Legitimacy and Public Trust28:00 Thiel Rome and AI Warfare34:12 What to Watch Next WeekRead Genovese and Crippa's research, Papal Dividends: https://lorenzo-crippa.github.io/files/papal_dividends.pdf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins examines the rise and influence of Louis “Streaky” Gatto and the Genovese crime family's powerful New Jersey faction. Drawing from a 2004 New Jersey Crime Commission report, this episode explores how Genovese crews operated across multiple counties while controlling illegal gambling, loan sharking, and waterfront rackets through intimidation and organized violence. Gary breaks down the structure of Gatto's Bergen County crew, including the involvement of his son Joseph Gatto and son-in-law Alan “Little Al” Greco. The discussion details how the crew maintained control over bookmaking and gambling operations and how prosecutors later tied key members to murders connected to their criminal enterprises. The episode also dives into the federal RICO prosecution and the dramatic courtroom testimony of witness Robert Belli. Gary explains allegations that associates of the Gatto crew attempted to pressure and intimidate witnesses before testimony, including claims involving the infamous “evil eye” or malocchio. Prosecutors argued that subtle intimidation tactics, courtroom stares, and indirect threats were all part of an effort to influence testimony. Another major focus is Moe Brown, a reputed associate connected to the Gatto organization. The episode explores how prosecutors used recordings and testimony to connect Brown to the defendants and how his conduct in court became part of the government's intimidation narrative. Finally, Gary examines the later criminal cases involving Joseph Gatto, including offshore sports betting operations, convictions, prison sentences, and the eventual decline of the family's gambling empire. The episode concludes with the deaths of both Joseph Gatto and Louis “Streaky” Gatto, marking the end of an era for one of New Jersey's most feared Genovese crews. 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] Hey, all you wiretappers, good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wires. A little extra I’m going to throw in here. I did this interview with Scott Deitch about Jerry Katina, and I got a lot of. [0:12] Comments, a lot of reactions to that show, a lot of New Jersey mob fans, Genovese mob fans out there. A guy named Carmine, Carmine something, he had some other numbers after his name. Carmine commented that I should do a show on Louis Streaky Gatto. That was a New Jersey capo who was one of the Chin’s best earners in the Genovese family. He had a crew down in New Jersey. And if you notice, one more thing, I was going to mention this before. I got a new hat. Now, check this out. [0:46] Hope you can see that. Got the gangland wire insignia on it. Now, this is my official gangland wire hat. [0:56] Louis Streaky Gatto, the New Jersey Crime Commission report in May 2004, reported that the Genovese family maintained five crews headquartered in New Jersey. Each was overseen by a capo, of course, and each of the four New York-based crews, this is right out of The Sopranos, about 40 soldiers and more than 400 criminal associates who were active in New Jersey. [1:21] They reported that the family operated in the northern New Jersey counties of Hudson, Essex, Union, Bergen, and Passaic County. They also had gained strength in Middlesex, Monmouth, and Ocean counties. Ocean, is that down in Atlantic City? I don’t have a map in front of me, so I’m not sure. The crime report stated that the Genovese family controlled the largest bookmaking and loan sharking rings in the New York, New Jersey metropolitan area. And the family maintained a strong influence on the Port Newark, Elizabeth, and Hudson County waterfronts. This report also identified the family consigliere Lawrence Little Larry Dentico as a person with the most extensive familiarity of the family’s New Jersey operations because he had been the top aide to the former consigliere and New York, New Jersey operations chief, Louis A. Bobby Mann. I did a show on Bobby Mann and Irwin Schiff and some of those plots, I don’t know, sometime in the last year, I believe. This 2004 report identified the five capos at that time in New Jersey, and they were Tino Fouimara, who died in 2010, Angelo Prisco, who died in 2017, Joseph Gatto died in 2010, Silvio DeVita, and Ludwig Bruchy, who died in 2020. [2:44] Now, Streaky Gatto, Louis Streaky Gatto, he was always the favorite money earner of Vincent de Chin Gigante. Before he was promoted to captain, his New Jersey crew was led by a capo named Peter LaPlaca until the mid-1970s, and that’s when Streaky Gatto took over the crew. Gatto was the boss of Bergen County with the help of his son, Joseph the Eagle Gatto. And his son-in-law, and a guy who keeps coming back in this thing, and who was his top enforcer, Alan Little Al Greco. I noticed a comment. Somebody said that he was really half Polish. I think his mother was Polish and his father was Italian. Somebody correct me on that in the comments, if you will. Controlled large illegal gambling, loan sharking, bookmaking operations in Bergen and Passaic counties. [3:33] These three guys used murder, violence, and fear to click on these rackets and control everybody who was a bookmaker. You couldn’t be, like Chicago, you couldn’t be a lone wolf bookmaker making money without these guys getting a piece of your action and working with you on it. They made sure that other rivals didn’t take advantage of somebody that was [3:55] under their protection. Gatto and Alan Greco, Little Al, were indicted on two counts of murder for the murders of Arthur Belli and Vincent Mastretti. They also were alleged to be behind the murders of a guy named Jack Handsome Jack, Ciaranella, Johnny Lombardi, and Peter Adamo. 1991-1990. [4:20] Streaky Gatto and Alan Greco were sentenced to 65 years. Streaky Gatto’s son, Joseph Gatto, was indicted on racketeering charges in the same RICO prosecution, but he only received 30 months. There was an appeal to that trial, and we learned a little bit about their brazen intimidation tactics, how it works. There’s a guy named Robert Belli, whose brother had had a gambling operation. His brother, Arthur Belli, was one of the persons in that RICO case that was murdered by Streaky Gatto. They called on Robert Belli to testify about the extortionate takeover of their gambling business. And he said that little Al Greco once told him, he said, things are going to be different now. And then shortly after that, Robert Belli’s hot dog truck was blown up and he was beaten by two men with baseball bats, typical mob extortionist takeovers of a small-time gambler, a bookie, a guy that had his own book of business, his own customers. As a result, he just gave it up. But he also testified that Belli disappeared and now we’re in trial for Belli being murdered by Streaky Gatto and planned on returning to the business just before he disappeared. [5:37] Now, in cross-examination, it turns out that he had been spoken to by somebody in the Gatto families because he all of a sudden starts agreeing with all the defense counsel’s suggestions, first of all, that the prosecutor paid him and pressured him, and all the local police and prosecutors involved in the case were corrupt. I’ll redirect. The prosecutor tries to show that Belli had become hostile to government and accommodating to the defense because he’d been intimidated. They asked Belli about a guy named Frank Sesta, who was known as Mo Brown. We’ll refer to him as Mo Brown. He was always known as Mo Brown. Belli stated that after defense investigators, Gatto’s lawyers and their investigators handed him into a meeting with the defense counsel, Mo Brown showed up and wanted to take him to the meeting. And then when he wouldn’t go with Mo Brown, Brown tried to pressure him into letting one of his associates drive him to this meeting and again to a pretrial hearing. He wouldn’t do it. He knew better than that. He took a ride with a government investigator. He did have to go meet with the defense counsel, of course. Anybody that’s going to be a witness against you, they have to make them available to the defense investigators and counsels, defense counsel, in order to do a deposition or just listen to what, see what they got to say. [6:59] He said Brown approached him and told him about a job interview. He said he’d take him to his job interview just before he testified at trial. He said Brown had discussed the case with him more than once and once said, isn’t it a shame that Little Al got 60 years in this case and he did get 65 years? And this all was coming out after they got their 65-year sentences, Little Al and Streaky Gatto. They just kept coming back. And then during the trial, the prosecutors got testimony from Belli that Moe Brown had been in the courtroom and standing directly in front of him several times and that he looked at him with an unhappy look. [7:36] Of course, they objected, the defense counsel objected to all that. They also introduced evidence that this Moe Brown was really closely connected to Streaky Gatto and Little Al Greco. They’d sent him into surveillance during the social club, the Lodi Social Club, and sent him with other people in the defendant’s gambling business. They also had a tape of a conversation between Louis Gatto Jr., Stryker Gatto’s son, and little Al Greco, talking about Mo Brown, that they were real familiar with him. So they connected Mo Brown to the Gattos and to Little Al Greco and then showed how he was then in court and was given the witness, the evil eye, the malokia, I think they call it, something like that was in The Godfather. And that he had tried to befriend the guy before he testified and told him about a job and tried to give him rides different places. They even mentioned that how… [8:39] They asked the witness Belli about three occasions during the trial when Al Greco had given him a look. One was before he testified, and Greco passed by him in the hallway, and he gave him a look. Defense has strenuously objected to this. It’s irrelevant, and you can’t really say that look was a bad look. The defense counsel strenuously objected to these points, but it was overruled. The second look came when Belli was in the back of the courtroom him waiting to testify, and Greco, Little Al Greco, just turned his chair around just to give him a look, and the third time was when Greco stood up and then turned over around and looked at Belli during the sidebar while Belli was on the stand. Prosecutor then asked Belli if Greco had ever looked at him that way before, and Belli said, well, he had. He said when he told him, Little Al Greco told him things are going to be different just before he beat him up, or had he beaten, And, of course, they strenuously object to all this. In the end, it did not do any good. In the end, little Al Greco still got his 65 years, and he didn’t get a new trial or anything. [9:45] A little story in regards to little Al Greco, the guy that was son-in-law to Strique Gatto and was right under him. It seemed like he was his main kind of enforcement guy, guy out dealing, maybe underboss, under people trying to, guy that deals with people on the street. He made a connection with a notorious New Jersey con artist and mob associates, Tom Giacomaro. They wanted him to come in and be a made man, supposedly, in the 80s. And, you know, he didn’t want it. He was independent. He knew better because once you come in, you know, they’re going to take everything from you. And he was quoted as saying, you know, I don’t want to kiss the ring. Everybody’s kissing Streaky Gatto’s ring, he said, except me. Jack Amaro was in the trucking business with two of Streaky’s crew, and they were making a lot of money. Streaky wanted to sit down. He wanted to bring this guy in because he was earning a lot of money. Giacomaro remembers that they met at Vesuvius in Newark. I mean, it sounds just like the Sopranos, doesn’t it? He described the table and how it went down. He said, Streaky sat at the head of the table with his sons right next to him, Joseph and Louis Jr. And his son-in-law, little Al Greco. [11:02] And Giacomaro remembered that Streaky was a skinny little guy who hardly said anything, but he said he had an ego big enough to suffocate the entire restaurant. Over again, little Al took care of the business during this lunch. He pitched Giacomaro on Friday. Him joining the family plan. And Streaky, during this time, he made a big production of putting some $100 bills between his knuckles. He held up his fist when the waiters came and they kissed his ring and took the bill and said, oh, thank you, Don Luigi. Thank you. During this lunch, he remembered that little Al once said, you know, we want to open the books for use. We got big plans for use. He knew what that meant. He knew he was then going to have to give him a percentage of his earnings and let them use his businesses to launder their money. Finally, he says, you know, Giacomaro says, I told Streaky and I told Lil Al, I said, you know, what can you really offer me with that? I don’t already have. He said, it was like everybody just quit breathing. [12:02] Just a dead silence fell over the table. He said he thought Streaky Yaddo was going to leap across his pastas and stab him in the eye with a fork. He didn’t, you know, he’s in a public place. And, you know, he would later say, you know, I was going to use them for everything they had, but never be one of them. You know, I’ll infiltrate their world all the way at the top if I can, [12:22] but I ain’t never being made because the only crime boss I want to answer to is myself. Joseph Gatto, Stricky Gatto’s son, was released in 1993, and he took over control of his father’s crew. He expanded the crew’s gambling operations and introduced, you know, brings it in the 21st century, so to speak, of the use of pagers and cell phones. And by 1999, he gets convicted again on some illegal gambling charges and took a plea deal. And at that time, he did admit that he was a capo of the Genovese family. You know, gambling is getting lesser, lighter sentences by then. He had a pretty light sentence. He gets released again in 2003. But a year later, he’s indicted in 2004 for running something called Catalina Sports, which is an offshore wire room in Costa rica bosley this thing was taking in 300 to 500 hundred thousand dollars profit per week and these gatos they were they were money earners that’s for sure that conviction gets overturned and you know by now 2005. [13:22] They did try him again in 2008. I don’t even know what happened. He’ll die in 2010. He’ll never go back to jail again. And nobody cares about gambling by then because it’s getting opened up all over the place. Streaky Gatto, who originally started talking about his father, died in prison in 2002. He never got out after he got that 65-year sentence from his RICO and murder convictions. So that’s a little bit about Louis Streaky Gatto. [13:48] And Carmine, thanks for suggesting that. So I hope y’all like this story. I hope y’all like my hat with my Gangland Wire logo on it. Talk to you later. Thanks, guys.

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Andrew Weissmann is the co-host of the popular podcast Main Justice and is a frequent legal analyst for NBC/MSNBC. He serves on the board of Just Security and writes frequently for it, as well as The New York Times, The Atlantic, & The Washington Post. From 2017-2019 Andrew served as a lead prosecutor in Robert S. Mueller's Special Counsel's Office. His memoir about the Special Counsel investigation, Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation , was a New York Times bestseller. He is also a Professor of Practice at New York University and teaches courses in national security and criminal procedure. He also served as the General Counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and from 2002-2005 he served as the Deputy and then the Director of the Enron Task Force where he supervised the prosecution of more than 30 individuals in connection with the company's collapse. And he was also a federal prosecutor for 15 years in the Eastern District of New York, where he served as the Chief of the Criminal Division and prosecuted numerous members of the Colombo, Gambino, and Genovese families, including the bosses of the Colombo and Genovese families. Andrew's back to discuss his terrific new book, Liar's Kingdom: How to Stop Trump's Deceit and Save America, which is on sale May 19. We also discuss Bondi, Blanche, the DOJ SCOTUS, redistricting and more. Got somethin' to say?! Email us at BackroomAndy@gmail.com Leave us a message: 845-307-7446 Twitter: @AndyOstroy Produced by Andy Ostroy, Matty Rosenberg, and Jennifer Hammoud @ Radio Free Rhiniecliff Design by Cricket Lengyel

Retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit Detective Gary Jenkins sits down with returning guest Scott Deitch for a detailed exploration of one of the more understated yet influential figures in organized crime—Jerry Catena. Scott Deitch, known for his deep research and engaging storytelling, brings insight from his books Cigar City Mafia, Garden State Gangland, and his upcoming release Jersey Boss. The conversation moves from Tampa's mob history to the inner workings of the Genovese crime family, with a focus on Catena's calculated rise through the ranks.

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode we sit down with Tommy James, the voice behind timeless hits like “Crimson and Clover,” “Money Money,” and “Hanky Panky.” Tommy takes us behind the studio doors to relive the quirky birth of “Money Money” (inspired by a neon sign on a Manhattan insurance building), the lightning‑fast five‑hour recording of “Crimson and Clover,” and the accidental work‑tape that became a chart‑topping classic. We hear about the song that kept him feeling youthful—rock and roll itself—plus the deeper meanings he never expected listeners to discover in tracks like “Crystal Blue Persuasion” and “Sweet Cherry Wine.”Beyond the music, Tommy opens up about the darker side of the business: his tangled relationship with Roulette Records, the Genovese crime family, and the mob stories he finally chronicled in his memoir Me, The Mob, and Music—now being turned into a film and a Broadway musical. From surviving a near‑fatal collapse on stage in 1970 to still performing 60 years later, his journey is a testament to resilience, gratitude, and the eternal pulse of a song that never ages.Get ready for a deep‑dive into iconic tunes, untold industry secrets, and the undying spirit of a musician who still feels most alive on stage. Stay tuned—your next dose of musical inspiration is just a play button!Website:https://www.tommyjames.com

In this episode of Gangland Wire, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins interviews Eddie Inserra about the Boston Mafia. He is the author of Confidence of the Mob: The IRS Agent Who Took down the Mob – Then Advised Them, a deeply researched account of his grandfather, Fred G. Pastore, a key figure in early IRS efforts to dismantle organized crime. Fred Pastore was part of the IRS's early “racket squad,” targeting Boston Mafia enterprises. His work paralleled the groundbreaking financial investigations that helped bring down figures like Al Capone, demonstrating how financial crimes could succeed where traditional policing struggled. Then, he leaves the IRS and advises the Boston Mafia. Eddie recounts how he uncovered his grandfather's story through a remarkable archive of family documents, photos, and recordings. These materials revealed a complicated dual life: Fred was both a relentless investigator and, later, a trusted confidant to certain Boston Mafia figures. This paradox sits at the center of the book and this conversation. A major focus of the discussion is the “pinball racket”—a widespread illegal gambling operation hidden in plain sight within bars and storefronts. Fred's investigations exposed how these machines generated significant underground revenue streams for organized crime, particularly in Boston. Eddie details the innovative and often risky techniques the IRS used to infiltrate these operations, including undercover work within corporations like Raytheon, where illegal gambling rings had taken root among employees. The episode also explores the institutional challenges Fred faced. His aggressive tactics and unconventional relationships eventually brought him into conflict with IRS leadership and political figures, forcing his resignation. In a striking turn, Fred leveraged his deep knowledge of organized crime to advise former mob associates—highlighting the blurred moral boundaries that often exist in this world.   Eddie adds a personal dimension, sharing memories of growing up around his grandfather and describing the cultural landscape of Boston's North End, where family, community, and organized crime often intersected. These stories provide insight into how relationships between law enforcement and mob figures could be shaped by proximity, respect, and shared environments.  The conversation concludes with a look ahead at Eddie's upcoming podcast, which will expand on these themes through interviews with former IRS agents, mob associates, and others connected to Fred Pastore's extraordinary life.   This episode offers a rare look at the gray areas of justice—where the line between hunter and ally becomes increasingly difficult to define. Check out the book: Confidence of the Mob: The IRS Agent Who Took down the Mob – Then Advised Them, 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. Gary Jenkins: [00:00:00] hey, are you wire tapers? Good to be back here in the studio. Gangland wire. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit Detective. Glad to be back in the studio. I have a man on the line who’s written a really interesting book called Confidence of the Mob, the RIRS agent who took down the mafia and then advised him. So that’s what’s interesting about this. Here’s a man. The, it was part of the early racket squad with the IRS intelligence who were the guys that went after the mafia and in all the different cities, most famously in Chicago, and took down Al Capone, and he ends up in a conflict with his bosses over informant and then. He goes into business as an accountant and ends up advising Jerry Angelo and some and childhood friends, really. ’cause he grew up in the north end of Boston. So this is his grandson Eddie and Sarah. Welcome Eddie. Eddy Inserra: Hey, thanks Gary. Glad to be here. Gary Jenkins: All right guys. Now there’s the book and I’ll have [00:01:00] links to it in the, the show notes as well as you can see the book over Eddie’s right hand shoulder there. You’ll get it. Now. First thing I wanna bring up about this book, Eddie, is I’m gonna ask you a little bit about how you got into this, but about this QR code you have in there, guys, there’s a QR code in there. I don’t know, about a quarter of the way in. Tell us about that and what was your idea to do there? Eddy Inserra: Yeah, so the QR code takes you to our website, which is it links to confidence of the mob.com. And this project started off as me interviewing a bunch of people about. My grandfather’s story. So I have all these audio clips, I have all these documents that I found in the box that my mother gave me that really had my grandfather’s complete career in there. So it’s more of a evidence-based website where if you scan that QR code, you can access some of the documents. Listen to some of the clips by the book, just learn more about the story overall. So it’s, the QR code is meant to be interactive, so you can take from what’s on the book into your phone and just explore more, [00:02:00] right? Gary Jenkins: Really interesting that with the new internet and you can do so much more and make your, what used to be just a hardcover. Paperback or hardcover piece of, a bunch of papers together and you can go onto the internet and you can find so much more with really not that much effort and a little bit of effort on your part. I know that I did something like that with a book I did. And it is a little bit of effort, but it’s not as much effort as is really, I think for that to further instruct people, teach people what that life was like for your subject. ’cause that’s what you’re trying to do, is you wanna tell people what. Your grandfather’s life was like, and so that’s I think it was just ingenious of you to doing that. I haven’t really seen that. I don’t think there’s probably other books that I didn’t notice, but I had not seen that before. Anyhow Eddie, let’s let’s go back. You’re the grandson. Fred g Pastor, tell us how you got into this, your earliest memories of this. Did you know your grandfather when you were a little kid and probably didn’t get the stories you wish you’d gotten? More than likely [00:03:00] I’d have him. But tell us a little bit about that. Eddy Inserra: Yeah, so he actually passed away when I was eight years old, so I got to know him for eight years. He passed away in 1988, and then, I knew my grandfather was always, when you see your grandfather, he is always happy when you’re, a little kid. One side of him, always happy, generous smile on his face, always laughing. Typical grandfather give you candy when no one’s looking. Things like that. So typical grandfather, I found out later on that his life was much more complex than I had thought. And when I was younger, he had an office. So I’d go into the office and I’d, everybody would be doing accounting work. He’d have probably about, he had about six or seven employees, maybe more at some, sometimes I’d go into the office and I’m just a kid running around the hallways and sitting at the desks. My father worked there as well. And yeah, I’m just watching them push papers and write down numbers and stuff like that. So I didn’t think it was too, I thought it was pretty boring. It was cool, but it was boring. But later I found out much more about him. Gary Jenkins: Interesting. Eddy Inserra: Yeah. Gary Jenkins: So later on in life, how did you stumble [00:04:00] across this whole dualistic life He had in a way I would maybe dualistic not at the same time but these two careers that he had how did you stumble across that? Eddy Inserra: There was a box that my mother had in her attic, and it was a, an old Florida citrus oranges box carton and overflowing with papers. And she, about 10 to 12 years ago, she gave it to me and said, Eddie, I want to give you these documents that your grandfather’s documents. I don’t know what’s in them, but there yours now. So I said, okay, great. And I pulled out a couple of documents and I looked at them. One was like an accounting ledger. E exactly what I expected. Some, some numbers and things like that. And I put ’em back in the box and I said, lemme put this on the shelf and I’ll take a look at the other documents some other time. So a couple weeks later, I go back into it and I pull out some papers and I start seeing profiles for big names and organized crime that I had heard of in the past. Jerry Angiulo, Raymond Patriarchal profiles on Racketeers Bernie [00:05:00] McGarry, doc Gansky, all these huge. Folklore names from Boston gambling and numbers and mafia times from the 1950s to the 1960s. I started piecing it together and I said and then I find a telegram in there to, to the White House Bobby Kennedy and JFK from my grandfather saying, I need to meet you at the White House right away regarding this Bernard Goldfine case that I’m working on. And I just started piecing this together and I said whoa. I never knew anything about the IRS side, but. He was really the tip of the spear. You mentioned like Elliot Ness, Al Capone earlier. It was the same sort of division, the intelligence division that he was working in, but he was in the Northeast District and it was, this was obviously after Capone that era, but next generation of, racket squad leaders, and he was the tip of the spear in Boston and the FBI didn’t have jurisdiction at that time to go after these racketeers. It was the IRS at that time. Later on, after he switched sides, so to say the FBI took over, but at that time, the IRS was the [00:06:00] potent weapon against these racketeers. So I’ve got all his documentation on investigations, case notes commendations it’s just really a treasure trove of, his whole career. And I pieced this together over years. There’s hundreds of documents, had to put a timeline together. Gary Jenkins: Really. Eddy Inserra: You’ve done investigative work, you know how that stuff works and I didn’t know anything about it, so it was just complete disorganized mess and had to pull it all together. Yeah. Gary Jenkins: The first thing you have to do is get a timeline. Eddy Inserra: Yeah. Gary Jenkins: That is paramount. When you’re doing something like that, you have to get a time. In order to keep things straight. Otherwise, it just becomes a, it’s just, you can never get it straight in your mind. Interesting. You know that the IRS back in the day was the premier organization that, that and the the the Federal Narcotics people were the ones that went after the mafia, whereas the FBI wasn’t, and you know what people don’t understand about the IRS many people, the IRS is just this big, huge. Organization that’ll come down on you when you [00:07:00] cheat on your taxes. But it’s really two divisions. There’s a civil division, but then there’s this criminal division, which was called the Intelligence Unit for a long time. And then I think your grandfather what I read in your book was he went into some special squad within the intelligence division called the Racket Squad. Is that right? Eddy Inserra: Yeah, that’s correct. The Racket squad was a specialized division inside of the Intelligence Division. Okay. Which only went after high profile Racketeers. And there was even an old TV show if you go on YouTube and look up Racket Squad. Yeah. There was a TV show about that. Yeah. Gary Jenkins: I remembered. I think no, it was gangbusters on the radio, but Racket Squad was on tv. Interesting. Eddy Inserra: Yeah. Gary Jenkins: So he grew up with a lot of the mobsters in the Boston area. Correct. Eddy Inserra: Correct. He was born in 1919, the same year as Jerry Angiulo. They were the same age which you’ll hear that name a lot and a lot of your listeners know. Jerry Angiulo was the under boss of Raymond Patriarch in Boston. And so they grew up right across through the bridge. [00:08:00] So Fred grew up actually in East Boston and Jerry grew up in the North end, and I confirmed that they did know each other when they were kids. I don’t know how deep that relationship went, but they did know each other when they were kids. And there was another man who ended up becoming partners with Fred later on in his post IRS career who he grew up with named Guy Spano. And he was also in East Boston at that time, and they were all this they knew each other, Gary Jenkins: interesting. Fred, knowing all these people, he knows about the bars and stuff and I noticed one of the things that was interesting, one of the things looked like early cases. He went after the pinball racket. Guys back in the day, every corner store bars, they all had pinball machines and they were a great way. To launder money and get all this cash money in and not pay their taxes on kinda like a cover charge that strip clubs get today. Whether there’s a way to, to get line cash money in that didn’t really go through the cash register. Tell us about that pinball racket. Eddy Inserra: Yeah, the pinball racket was a big deal back then. There was a lot of paperwork in [00:09:00] his box about that. There was a map that he had inside that box that showed all the different places he was raiding in Massachusetts just for the pinball machine. Pinball machines and the pinball machines back then were a game, not a game of skill because they didn’t have flippers on them. So the flippers that, that came on later, then it became a game of skill and it wasn’t actually just throwing your money away and gambling, so to say. So they weren’t able to go after them after they added flippers to the machines. But before the flippers interesting. Gary Jenkins: Yeah, I did, I didn’t really realize that I saw one of those when I was. You my late teens over in Kansas City, Kansas, and now I didn’t really realize what the deal was. What it was if you play it so much and get lucky and your ball goes to a certain place, then you win. But if it doesn’t and there’s no way to have it, is all pure luck. That’s the difference. I’ll be darned. I never thought about that. Interesting. Eddy Inserra: Yeah. Gary Jenkins: Of course from then, that’s gambling and that’s where the money is. So he [00:10:00] continues on going after mobsters, Italian mobsters in that area of the country in organized, more organized gambling. So tell us a few of his other organized gambling investigations. Eddy Inserra: Yeah, he went after the Italians. He also did go after a lot of the Irish too that in his paperwork too. Wimpy Bennett, Walter Wimpy Bennett. There was a lot of, in Jewish DKI, like I mentioned. Yeah, a couple other too but yeah, one, one big investigation that really put him on the map was. The Raytheon investigation. Raytheon we know as a big defense company and they’re headquartered in Massachusetts. They always have been, I don’t know if they still are, but they have been up until a few years ago. But huge corporation and during that time was the Cold War. So they’re supposed to be building missiles, but they called the IRS saying, Hey, listen, we’ve got a problem. Our production, our manufacturing floor, everybody’s supposed to be working, but. They’re all not on the floor and they’re gambling somewhere. We don’t know where, we don’t know the root cause of this syndicate, but it’s in all of our buildings and people are consuming their time, playing the [00:11:00] daily numbers, betting on sports, all kinds of stuff. And they couldn’t really get to the root of it to root it out of the system. So they called the IRS, they assigned Fred, my grandfather to the case, and he took the lead. He ended up sending a bunch of his agents in undercover as janitors, and they had to go through the whole process, the whole hiring process as a normal, employee would try to get hired. So they’d have to submit an application, go through the test, all that stuff. Because the, it was just so embedded in Ray Raytheon that someone would. Tipped them off. So he got a bunch of these janitors in and they ended up finding out that the, there was long lines going to the bathroom all day long. And that’s, they were making the bets, taking the bets in the bathroom stalls in multiple locations. They rated them all at the simultaneously and they got a bunch of leads after that for more mafia stuff, but it was a big mafia gambling syndicate embedded in the US government sort of defense contractor. So that got him, that was on the cover of the newspapers. It was in. Magazines. It was a big deal. [00:12:00] So Gary Jenkins: Interesting. After that is that he gets crossways with. His bosses and with the US attorney’s office eventually. Was there any other cases I see on the headline here, Pastore names Paul’s, me and politicians behind the bookies. So how did he get into to finding who the bookies were paying off? Eddy Inserra: So he, he had an undercover confidential informant, I should say, who was giving him a lot of information. And we were real in the book. Who that was, we didn’t know at the time. Nobody in my family knew until a few years ago, and that’s, we’re talking 60, 50, 60 years ago. And even the president and RFK at the time wanted to know his confidential informant. So Fred was getting some really good information. They didn’t know where it was coming from. And Fred had made a deal at the time with Eisenhower and the chief of the IRS that. He’d keep this confidential informant on his, on the payroll, but the only people that would know about it was Eisenhower, the chief of the [00:13:00] IRS under Eisenhower and Fred. And then JFK came in, RFK came in as the Attorney General and they wanted to know whose confidential informant was and he would never give him up. So that, that caused some tension between Fred and RFK. Before that there was another case. With a man called Frank Aya. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, but he’s out, he was out of Worcester part of the, actually, gen Outta Worcester. Yeah, outta Gary Jenkins: Worcester. Okay. Eddy Inserra: Yeah. Part of the Genovese faction so New York, but I, their territory went all the way up to Worcester. And the FBI was actually investigating him for the Brinks robbery in Boston. Gary Jenkins: Oh, Eddy Inserra: really? At the time. So they were looking for leads because they had understood that one of the guys was from Worcester. They’re, they assumed so they went interrogating him, and he said no, I’m not a criminal. I’m just a bookmaker. And as soon as he said that I guess Hoover didn’t want anything to do with Bookmaking at the FBI. So they just threw their hands up and they threw it at the IRS and [00:14:00] that fell in my grandfather’s lap. And so he started digging into IAC and he, he actually built a case against him. He ended up going to jail. But during that process, when he was investigating Ioni, Ioni gave up another man. His name was Bernard Goldfine. Wasn’t in the mafia. He’s a big businessman. He owned all these textile manufacturing companies. And he kept getting the contracts for all the US government, military uniforms every year. So no one else would ever win. And my grandfather exposed that there was some bribery and corruption going on. Between him and Eisenhower’s chief of staff named Sherman Adams. Gary Jenkins: Yeah, Eddy Inserra: I Gary Jenkins: remember, I remember that. Sherman Adams he went down. I remember that. Eddy Inserra: Do you remember the Una coat? That’s what that was the big Gary Jenkins: thing. Yeah. I forgotten about that. Somebody gave me this Una coat. I never was sure what a Una coat was, but yeah, I forgotten about that. The Vicuna code and he and everything, they found all these papers that be. For Eisenhower to four eight C, it’d have to say [00:15:00] KSA Sherman Adams. That was a big deal. While he was spooning feeding Eisenhower all the, anything that he wanted to have. Eddy Inserra: Yeah. That’s funny you remember that because that’s, yeah. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. That was huge at the time in the fifties. Eddy Inserra: Yeah. For some reason, he bribed him with a lot of things, hotel rooms, cash, all these things. But the Vicuna code, for some reason, stuck in the media, and that was my grandfather’s work, was exposing that and yeah. That was a big deal at the time and after he exposed that and with him not giving up that confidential informant. RFK wanted Fred out of Massachusetts. Pretty much out of the cross heads. We can get into that if you want, but yeah that’s the next Gary Jenkins: thing. What would he want? We, because Kennedy’s of course, were Boston area, new England based, and a lot of their people probably could then get in trouble with because of Fred Pastore and his bulldog attitude towards enforcing the law. Was that the deal? Eddy Inserra: Yeah, Fred would follow the money. I know that’s a common thing, but he really would follow the money. And from what I [00:16:00] understand, I wasn’t there, I didn’t live at that time, but from what I understand, he followed the money and wherever it led him and that led him right up to the White House. You know how politics are there, it’s a dirty game. So I’m sure that might’ve been someone who gave money to the candidate, maybe even the same guy, Bernard Goldfine or somebody. And if Fred dug that up, they could get. The same treatment Sherman Adams did. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Yeah. Eddy Inserra: They wanted Fred out of there. Yeah. Gary Jenkins: So what happened then? They it seemed like they, they repressed him to reveal his informant or something like and he ended up, either I quit or, I have to give up my informant. Is that, was that what it came down to? Hobson’s choice like that? Eddy Inserra: Yeah, it came down to that. They tried to actually reassign him to Syracuse. New York was really, it was a demotion in pay and in actually title as well. So he would’ve been brought down. He wouldn’t have been in the rack racket squad. He would’ve been down to a special agent again, and would’ve been a step backwards and they would’ve had him out of the mix in Boston. And that’s really what they wanted to accomplish is silence Fred. Yeah. [00:17:00] So he was faced with a decision, do I take that demotion and that’s the end of it, or. Do what he actually did, which was, took him back to his up upbringing in East Boston. Tough poor kid when you actually have to face the bully, I think. And that street grit that he actually said no. You know what? He held his own press conference in downtown Boston and he said, I’m resigning from the IRS today. And I’m opening up my own tax fraud defense firm right across the street. He wanted to view them out the window every day. He had a chip on his shoulder. And so he ended up advising the same kind of people and some of the same people that he was previously going after at the IRS. And he was like a super weapon for those guys because he knew all the legalities and the loopholes and how to structure your businesses and things like that. So Gary Jenkins: yeah, I noticed there was like a Fred Angiulo was that Jerry’s brother then. Eddy Inserra: I don’t know if there was a Fred, if there was Gary Jenkins: a wonder. I thought it, it was Fred. I may have got [00:18:00] that name wrong, Nick in the Nick in my head, because your dad, your grandpa’s name was Fred Pastor. But anyhow, there he defended Angiulo and some of their people, he, he knew everybody went to North End at eight and, they were socially compatible, if you will. So tell us a little bit about that, what you learned about those, that part of his life. Eddy Inserra: Obviously post IRS career, I learned that from my mother and other people, that on the weekends Fred would go on Friday night. Him and his his daughter whose youngest daughter is Charmin, which is my mother. Oldest daughter’s, Pam and my grandmother is Nina. And they would go into Boston to the north end and they’d go down there for, to go to the bakery sit out front. The women would sit out front eating pastry, and Fred would go out back for about 15 minutes and. To me it was him giving advice maybe face to face. To, to Jerry and he’d come out 15 minutes with a paper bag from what I’ve heard. And and that would be it. Then they’d go to the fruit market and then they’d go home and they’d go out to Stella’s. [00:19:00] Restaurant in the North End on Fleet Street at the time, which is a famous spot. Even, JFK, they used to go there. But it was a real famous spot. Fred would be there a lot with the family. And on the weekends my mother remembers. So the Injus, by the way, Jerry and Jula, there was five brothers who really ran their empire together. But Jerry was the head of it and the genius with numbers. And he shared that with Fred. They both had a genius with numbers. So that was some that was interesting. And Nick would, his brother Nick would go to Fred’s house on Sundays, and my mother would call him Uncle Nick. He’d always bring something. One time he brought a pet dog for them. They had a dog, and he’d bring all kinds of gifts and they always saw the nice side to these people. Even in the office, when I went to the office and I met a couple of these people when I was young, I didn’t know who they were, but I, you’d always see the nice side because. Gary Jenkins: Yeah, Eddy Inserra: Fred was the golden goose helping them keep their money, but most importantly keeping them outta jail. So Gary Jenkins: interesting. Huh? That’s a, that’s quite a career switch. [00:20:00] The were you in 98 Prince Street? The famous 98 Prince Street. I went to the north end, went around, took some pictures and stuff. It’s nothing like it, it’s described, but back in the day, other than, it’s really cool, those little narrow brick streets and restaurants and everything. Talk about the north end over there. Eddy Inserra: The north end is that’s the Italian enclave of the city. Boston has different enclaves, different cultural enclaves I should say. And the North end is the the Italian, it actually was the was the Irish before the Italian. So a lot of people don’t know that. But I didn’t know that. The Italian section, and that’s where there’s, world class Italian food restaurants, every 10 feet. And. It’s a tight knit community. Everybody knows everybody especially back then. So you walk down the street, you’ll see people hanging on the corner and if when you’re, when you were a kid you’d go get your fireworks there at the park and, illegal fireworks and get whatever you want. But yeah, 98 Prince Street was where Jerry ran his sort of headquarters out of there and they called it the doghouse. That was, [00:21:00] they knew they had eyes looking out for them as well being there. So the whole neighborhood was really looking out for them. And eventually the FBI caught them by wiretapping a vehicle up front. Yeah. So inside. But yeah, it’s really tight knit Italian. If you come to Boston, I really recommend you go, especially if you want to eat some nice food and see how this still some remnants of how it used to be, like you said, those brick roads and things like that. It’s pretty nostalgic and interesting. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Yeah, it’s really cool. I’d highly recommend any of you guys. You go out to, you, go to Boston, go to the north end and eat and just walk around. It’s really nice, although it’s pretty busy on the weekends, so a lot of people down there, man and some of the restaurants, there were long lines to get into ’em around dinnertime. Eddy Inserra: Yeah, try if you can make a reservation, try to, if not. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Yeah. Good bakeries too that the nicer places. I can’t even remember the names of ’em now. I had ’em that day. But anyhow, so I have to, I’m gonna flip back just a little bit. I made a jotted down a note [00:22:00] about Frank, the cheese man c Chiara, who was at Apple Lake. He did he who was the consigliere, I think for Patri arca. I believe your grandfather went after him or had some dealings with him. Do you remember that? Eddy Inserra: Yeah, he, there was some documents in the box about him and they were telling him he was definitely the concierge for arraignment at the time. And there were documents that Fred’s team was actually tracking him. They were watching him, he was going to Cuba back and forth to Cuba at that time. And so they thought he was moving money or just setting things up with a casino and things like that down there. They couldn’t, I don’t know if they actually got him to go to jail. I don’t remember if they were able to prosecute him, but they were checking him at the airport. I remember they checked his passport. But he was the, he was a money man as well, so he was known to be like the bank at that time. Gary Jenkins: Did did your grandfather have any trouble? His own troubles with the IRS af? Did they come after him or try to go after him at any point in time? Later in his career? Usually they [00:23:00] do. Yeah. They could be pretty vindictive. I’ve seen it here where an FBI agent then becomes a white collar crime lawyer. And boy, I tell you what, his old buddies, he was, they, he, a friend of mine went like that and he was surprised. He was shocked how p how his old friends from the bureau treated him. So did he have any problems like that? Eddy Inserra: In fact, he had a big problem like that as soon as he wouldn’t give up, his informant’s name. That became a problem actually. The the FBI called him in one of the documents that I have. It’s a memo that he wrote right after he came back from the FBI interrogating him. So he was told to report to the FBI in Boston by himself. And this was from his IRS superiors that say that, they want you over there, you gotta go talk to them. And so he went over there. And there was two agents in the room with Fred and they interrogated him asking if he had taken bribes at all. Yeah. And Fred used he, he outwitted them saying, I can’t say anything. This is an on ongoing investigation. If he, if you want me to say anything about this, you’re gonna have to get my [00:24:00] superiors to sign off on this. And, whatever the process was. And he felt like it was unbelievable because he said, who’s accusing me of this? They wouldn’t tell him. But eventually he figured out that it was this textile manufacturer that I mentioned earlier, Bernard Goldfine, his sort of right hand woman, her name was Mildred Paperman. She had she’d already been convicted and so was Bernard Goldfine, but they had said that Fred was taking bribes from them. So they’re taking this information from convicted, felons. And she said she had proof of it. So she had a check made up to the initials, FGP and who else, that’s Fred’s initials. Yeah. Fred G passed story. So Fred started laughing when they pulled that out. He said, do you guys have any idea who this is? It’s not me. And it was for Maine Senator Frederick g Payne, with the same initials. And that was easily documented in his paperwork that he was accepting bribes from gold mines. It’s really interesting how he outsmarted them [00:25:00] and I guess they didn’t do their homework good enough, but, they went after him hard and even after he left the IR Rs they tried to, I think one of, one of the documents says you didn’t report $2 of your tax income or something like that. Just busted his dogs. Oh my Gary Jenkins: God. I’m in a heap of trouble then. Eddy Inserra: Yeah. But the thing that he did have. And I, I can’t say it for sure, but he did have, in his back pocket, was a list of police and politicians that did take bribes. And that’s what up in, in that newspaper behind me, he was supposed to release this list. There was the media believed that he was gonna release these names during his press conference. He didn’t, and I believe that was an insurance policy that he kept in his pocket to keep them away. That’s my belief. I can’t confirm that, but that’s my sort of theory on that. Yeah. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. I tell you what in Boston, greater Boston, that area, having a list of policemen and politicians that have been taking bribes, that’s like shooting fish in a barrel. Just take out about 10 out and name the rest. Eddy Inserra: I tell you what, [00:26:00] I do have that list. It was in the bar. Gary Jenkins: Oh, do you? Oh really? Yeah. Eddy Inserra: Yeah. Is Gary Jenkins: that gonna be on your website? Is that gonna be on your website or are you just keeping that to yourself? Eddy Inserra: I thought long and hard about that, and I don’t think it’s fair to ruin or tarnish any family or anything like that. So I, that’s not gonna come out. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Interesting. Eddy Inserra: That has nothing to do with me. That’s not my, Gary Jenkins: I, I’d have to agree with that, that those were different times, different days. Yeah. And there’s no use hurting in what would be innocent people today with that kind of information, especially Boston seemed like it’s a. A small community in, in, in a way, it’s not like New York where you’re spread out over all these boroughs and Los Angeles, where you’re spread out over, 25% of the state. It’s more like Kansas City, more like a small area that is Boston. And so a lot of people, everybody knows each other in some manner. Eddy Inserra: Yeah exactly. Couple of degrees of separation if that. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Eddy Inserra: Yeah. Gary Jenkins: Interesting. Eddy Inserra: Yeah. Gary Jenkins: All right, Eddie and [00:27:00] Sarah, confidence of the mob, the IRS agent who took down the mafia and then advised them. So a really interesting book. Guys. I’ll have links to the website or to the Amazon page where you can buy this book. I’d highly recommend you buy it and when you do, go in there see, I don’t know, it’s about a quarter of the way in and find that find that QR code and. Go to that website and listen to some, I listened to a couple of three of those interviews. Really interesting stuff. That off the stuff that you can’t get everything in, but it’s interesting. I understand about that. Eddy Inserra: Thanks Gary. Yeah. That’s a upcoming podcast. We’re gonna have all full interviews and all that stuff with all. Oh, Gary Jenkins: Are you gonna do one yourself or with somebody there in Boston? Eddy Inserra: We’ve, it’s not gonna be a live podcast. It’s actually a bunch of clips thrown together. So it’s, oh, Gary Jenkins: I see. Eddy Inserra: Okay. Yeah we put it all together. It’s taken a couple years, so far, 12 episodes. We’ve got IRS agents in there, mafia members. We’ve got Fred’s ex clients and family. It’s really interesting. So you can check [00:28:00] that out on the website. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. When is that coming? Eddy Inserra: So we’re shooting to start releasing the end of May. So last week in May. Okay. Gary Jenkins: I love board. I always need another podcast to listen to myself. Eddy Inserra: Yeah. Yeah. Only gonna be one season. It’s not gonna be a multiple season thing. Gary Jenkins: That, that was my next question. It was gonna be a limit limited edition, if you will. Limited season. You’re not gonna keep going year in and year out like I do. Eddy Inserra: Yeah, no, there’s not enough content, but we’ll do behind the scenes and we’ll do some live stuff in Boston and things like that. Yeah. Okay. If anybody knew Fred or of him, please contact me too on the website. Okay. Love to hear about. Gary Jenkins: All right. Great. Alright Eddie and Sarah, I really appreciate you coming on the show. Eddy Inserra: Thanks, Gary. Great to meet you.

We started this week's show with Jessica Genovese, General Manager of Aloha Restoration, on how to be prepared for heavy rains and basement floods and what the restoration process can do to help. Then, David Saffrin of Sunrun Solar joins the program to explain to listeners how Sunrun handles roofs for solar installation and breaks down batteries […]

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst.  For a transcript of Elie's note and the full archive of contributor notes, head to CAFE.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins reports his previous contributor, Matt, who he interviewed on a new theory on the Carmine Galante hit, answers questions we have seen on various social media outlets. Matt claims the U.S. attorney and the FBI got it wrong when they alleged and convicted Bruno Indelicato for this murder. Challenging the official story, Matt reveals new theories, missing evidence, and the role of younger mobsters in one of the Mafia's most infamous assassinations. In this bonus episode, I had Matt record his answers to the doubters of his theory. click here to see the book Made on Long Island.   [0:00] Well, hey, all you wiretappers out there, this is Gary Jenkins, as a lot of you know, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective [0:06] and now podcast host and producer and all that. And I was contacted by my guest I had on recently, who was only known as Matt. He’s a guy who supplied all the information to the author of Brantley Scarbrough, who wrote Made in Long Island. That was just out a couple of weeks ago. And I’ve never met Scarborough, and I don’t know any more about him. and I’ve never met Matt in person. I’ve had some emails and some Zoom calls with Matt, but I’ve never actually seen him either. But I recognize his accent, and he does come from the Long Island, New York area. And he does have some interesting stories about growing up with younger mobsters and the Bonanno and Gambino families and doing the fireworks business with Gotti and some of the other horse racing fixing business and that kind of thing, but he made quite a claim that the accepted suspects and the hit on the banana wannabe boss, Carmine the Cigar Galante. [1:11] Was not who the government claims it is. [1:14] And the government only claims one guy, and that’s Bruno or Anthony Bruno Indelicato. He claims it was some young guys who had a grudge against Galante, and they heard that this hit was approved by the commission, and they jumped in there and did it before Joe Massino got his crew set and were all ready to go and carry out this approved hit. Now, there’s no dispute that the commission approved this hit, I don’t think. There may be some disagreement about who actually carried it out. I think there’s no doubt that the two Zips, who were bodyguards, Cesare Bonaventure and Baldassario Amato, did not resist the hit. They took no action and just walked out and left, and then were interviewed by the government later on. Of course, they wouldn’t say anything. They probably knew he was scheduled to be hit, and they knew this was coming. And both were promoted in the Bonanno family right after, so that tells you something. Now, in the commission trial, that’s where Anthony Delicato got convicted for the hit on Carmine Galante. And in the commission trial, the government did convict Tony Salerno, boss of the Genovese family. [2:26] Anthony Tony Dux Corralo, boss of the Lucchese family, Gennaro Jerry Lang Langella, the Colombo family acting boss and regular underboss, Salvatore Tom Mix Santoro, who was a Lucchese family underboss. Christopher Christie Tick Funari, Lucchese family consigliere. [2:45] Ralph, little Ralphie Scopo, the Colombo family soldier. Carmine Junior Persico, who was the boss of the Colombo crime family at that time. [2:55] Stefano Canone, Bonanno family consigliere. [3:00] Anthony Bruno Indelicato, Bonanno family capo. Paul Castellano and Mr. Neal, Neal Delacroche, were not in the trial because they died. They were charged, but they died just before the trial. Now, on the YouTube show we did, we got a lot of comments and Matt’s got a lot of questions. And he wants to address and clarify why he doesn’t believe that the government’s claim that Anthony Delacato and two unknown men killed Galante. So I said, you know, I don’t know what to tell you. I said, you know, record and clarify your claim and see if you can address any of these questions that people have had in the comments section. Now, this may end up like all the competing theories on Jimmy Hoffa’s death and where his body by body might be. I don’t know. But at least Frank Sheeran, the Irishman, did not claim the Galante hit as best I can remember. So anyhow, here’s Matt’s story. I just want to say thank you so much for the interest we’ve generated from Gary’s Gangland podcast. [4:03] A lot of learning goes on here, and that’s where I’m going to start off. One item keeps coming up, and believe me, I’m not being the slightest bit condescending. If you don’t study this stuff and look at it, you have no way of knowing this. If you were to punch in right now, because we’ve done it, like Google searches, what evidence was used against Bruno and Delicato? Well, one thing that comes up, and a couple people referenced in the emails and on the posts, was ballistics. [4:27] They had ballistic evidence against Bruno Indelicato. Boy, that’s pretty strong. I mean, ballistic evidence is very, very strong. So let’s go through the ballistic evidence. Let me start off by saying there’s none. What you’re reading on that, and if you read the fine print closely and go back to the source, that is AI-generated garbage. That’s why we don’t like AI. The definition of ballistic evidence would be something like this. We pulled a slug out of a wall. We pulled a slug out of a victim. We locked a guy up. The guy had that gun on him. We matched that slug to that gun. That is ballistic evidence. There was absolutely none of that presented against Bruno Indelicato, despite what AI says. Again, if you take away one thing, please take away the fact that don’t ever use AI as a source. Now, I know one other thing people asked about was the progression on all this. And again, the book details it with so many stories, so many different John Gotti stories in there that people never heard about. But here’s a brief summary of the progression. [5:28] Our friends were young. We were crazy. We dealt fireworks. We dealt so much, they had to bring in the boss. The boss at that time for that area was John Gotti. To us, it was the same as John Smith. We never heard of the guy. He was great to us. We sold a ton of fireworks. He gave us more and more locations, more and more responsibility. Our friends made a fortune. One of our friends, we thought, had a car accident. Two of the bodyguards who helped our friends kill Galante, Baldo and Chesaree, they approached us at a wake and said, look, your friend was not the victim of an accident. Your friend was the victim of a homicide authorized by Galante. We verified there was bulletholes in his car from the impound yard, from the police sources we had. Kept it under wraps for two years. One of the card games, Angelo got word to our friend Tommy that the commission, in fact, did authorize a hit on Galante. The hit was to be done conjunctively with the Gambinos and the Bananos. Our friend Tommy jumped the gate. He said, we’re going to avenge our friend’s death, put together the team that did it. The details are shocking about what our team did to get the hit done. I mean, details you’re shocked about an alibi jumping off of a boat to create an alibi. I want people to read about this. Having police sources helping the hit, Including holding the spaces on July 12th When the hit went down Holding two different parking spaces at that location I hope this helps people Now I want to get back to another one that keeps coming up People keep saying Oh well they’re on tape celebrating. [6:57] People, please, we’ve made some videos on this at YouTube. Go look at them. You can pull them up. They’re online. You can find them. [7:05] There’s a bunch of sources that have them. Watch the raw video. That is not a celebration. That is a beef being put in. Sonny Red Indelicato is furious. He’s going at it with his consigliere, Stefano Canaan, Stevie Beefs. And you can see in his face, you can see his body language and mannerisms. He walks away from him and then he rushes back quickly and goes to his face. That is not a celebration. That’s anger. Stefano Canone actually points in back of him, pointing at the Ravenite. And he’s basically telling him, look, we’ve registered the beef. Neil is inside. Neil is trying to decipher all of this also, because, again, the whole conflict was this. The commission ordered this hit. People say, oh, they approved that. I’m telling you, the commission, the ones who ordered the hit, they gave the work to Joe Massino, who was going to oversee the job. However, the commission specified that it had to be done jointly between the Gambino family and the Bonanno family. Sonny Red and Indelicato was furious that he was left out of the hit. Simultaneously, John Gotti over in Ozone Park, Queens, was furious that he was let out of the hit. [8:19] You just have to understand, in Cosa Nostra, you do not go out and celebrate a hit after it’s done. You don’t even show your face. Everything in a hit like this is meticulously planned and organized. You know exactly where the getaway cars are going to go and who’s going to chop them up. There is no shot in the world that an expert like Sonny Redd is going to leave a getaway car from a triple homicide out in the middle of the street. That does not happen. Let me tell you something. That’s called botching a hit, both of those acts. If you botch a hit in Cosa Nostra, you’re the next one on the other end of the next hit. You’re going to get hit. There’s plenty of cases where people screwed up hits and didn’t dispose of vehicles properly, and they’re the next ones to get hit. So anyone who thinks it’s a celebration and thinks that that’s Cosa Nostra protocol to go out and celebrate is sadly mistaken. That’s why right away the FBI and Cosa Nostra members knew, obviously, Sonny Red Indelicato, his brother JB, Phil Lucky, Bruno and Delicato, all those guys had nothing to do with the hit. If they did, they would have been buried in a safe house. They would not be out in front of what we call the FBI screen test at Mr. Neal’s Club, the Ravenite in Manhattan. Now, people also say another phrase or two that I really love, the smell test. Okay, the smell test. Let’s talk about that. You had two trials going on simultaneously in 1985. [9:48] Same building, Brooklyn, Pizza Connection case and the commission case. The FBI had been broken down into five different squads, one for each family. You know them all, Colombo, Gambino, Lucchese, Genovese, and of course, the Bonanno. Now, the Bonanno section of the FBI, the Bonanno squad, had the most to do in these cases. Most, if not all, the pizza connection focused on the Bonannos, and a good chunk, especially 100% of the Gallant they hit, focused on the Bonannos, and that was in the commission case. These guys talk to each other. They live, eat, and breathe with each other. So if you want to talk about a smell test, can somebody tell me why in Richard Martin, he was the prosecutor, by the way, in the Pizza Connection case, they absolutely refused to say who killed Delonte in that case? [10:39] They came out and said in the indictment and in testimony, three unknown males killed Delonte. [10:46] Now, people talk about it’s easy to see. Bruno and Delicato did it. So you want to tell me that five and six years after the hit, FBI agents that were on the Banano squad, they couldn’t come out and say Bruno and Delicato did it. Why? Because they knew he didn’t. They didn’t want to get a perjury rap. Richard Martin didn’t want to blow his case by telling nonsense that Bruno and Delicato did it. If it was common knowledge that Bruno Indelicato did it, and if there was a legitimate shred of evidence that Bruno Delicato did the work, the Pizza Connection case would have also said Bruno Indelicato is one of the shooters. It did not. That’s what doesn’t pass the smell test. But they even went to an appellate court to throw out any testimony about Galante’s murder in the Pizza Connection case. And sure enough, the judge agreed and said, yeah, we’re not putting one stitch of Galante’s murder in the Pizza Connection case. Now, had those FBI agents in the Bonanno Squad had presented legitimate evidence against Bruno and Delicato in the Pizza Connection case, be it ballistic, be it anything, the judge wouldn’t have done that, but he did. Read the transcripts of the case we have. There was nothing like that presented against Bruno in that case. And again, that’s why the FBI in the Pizza Connection case kept saying, we have no idea who killed Carmine Galante. That is critical for people to understand. [12:10] And last note, I want to get on to people wondering about the Joe Messino angle. Yes, Joe Messino, when he flipped right out after his conviction, he gave up murders all the way back from 1969. Now, Joe Mezzino had a motivation. If he left out any crime or any detail and failed to disclose anything, they throw him out of the program. They did the same to gas pipe case, so they threw him out of the program. So Joe Messino, of course, is going to tell the feds every single thing he knew about the Bonanno family’s involvement with the Galante hit. [12:46] Joe Messino, you know, did come out and say, yes, he got the order and he informed Rusty about the hit. But notice that’s when the trail stops. Joe Messina, who was a hands on guy, never came back and said, hey, Sonny Red did the hit with his kid Bruno and his brother JB. He gave them no details why because he didn’t have details thank you so much again for all of your questions and comments so guys that’s matt’s reasoning and that’s his story the government did not charge or convict any of the others for this murder any other people for this murder in that commission trial now those guys who were convicted were convicted for racketeering under rico and the murder of Galante was not a racketeering. That was a criminal predicate offense that proved that there was an organization known as a commission. It existed, and they ordered criminal acts. And this was a criminal act that they ordered. They need a predicate act where they’ve ordered criminal acts. And the Galante hit was one of them, and murder’s the best one to throw out there. And I think they convicted him based on his palm print on the getaway car that they found. [13:55] They never claimed during the trial to know the other two hit men. So I’ll leave it up to you guys to argue this out in the comments section on my YouTube shows with Matt or on this one here. And he’ll be monitoring those and, you know, come back with any questions that you have. So thanks, Matt, for this interesting look at Young Associates of Gotti and the fireworks business and the horse race fixing business and your theory based on information from your friends in the younger element of the New York mob. And you were kind of on the periphery of that yourself and the people that you [14:29] talked to that were really basically were involved in this hit and the setup. I thought it was really slick using cops to block out parking spots and then to pull out if it was all good to go. And leave the area so that’s uh didn’t have ring cameras and all the cameras back then so we’re gonna never know how much all that’s true you know but it’s uh history is is kind of an agreed upon set of facts or lies or whatever because eventually we agree upon it and that’s becomes the history and this is some of the history of the new york mob in the 70s to the 80s and the murder of Lilo or Carmine the Cigar Galante. Thanks, guys, so much for tuning in. And don’t forget to hit on YouTube, like and subscribe. Post this on your own social media pages and let other people know about the show. We like to get a lot of people watching or listening and watching to the show.  

Qui sotto trovi i biglietti per vedere One More Time a TEATRO https://www.ticketone.it/artist/luca-casadei/ Qui sotto puoi ascoltare le puntate integrali di FUORI DAL BUIO https://open.spotify.com/show/5L5v3AKzqbRVNZ9iqwDn55?si=5f252edc6a594c60 Oggi faremo un viaggio con Sarah Borruso, co-imputata con Alberto Genovese in un processo per tentata violenza sessuale. Cresciuta in una famiglia iperprotettiva e nell’idea di non potercela fare da sola, Sarah entrerà fin da giovanissima nel mondo della notte, che le restituirà uno spazio dove poter finalmente creare la propria identità. L’incontro con Alberto Genovese sfocerà in una relazione manipolatoria, che la spingerà nel tempo ad accettare pratiche sempre più estreme. Cose che non avrebbe mai pensato di accettare. In questa puntata ci parlerà di cosa significhi sentirsi al tempo stesso vittime e complici, e di come si possa trovare un riscatto dal proprio dolore e dal proprio senso di colpa nell’aiutare gli altri. Il dream team di One More Time è composto da: Samar Abdel Basset, Davide Tessari, Alice Gagliardi, Katia Cresevich, Maria Noemi Grandi, Gloria Giovanditti, Marco Caddia, Emma Marsan. Questo episodio contiene l’inserimento di prodotti e servizi a fini commerciali.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Gangland Wire, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins takes a deep dive with his guest Matt into the assassination of Carmine Galante—one of the most infamous mob hits in American history. Matt co-authored a book titled Made In Long Island Matt begins by analyzing the controversial footage captured at the Ravenite Social Club shortly after the murder. While federal investigators interpreted the scene as a celebration by those responsible, Matt challenges that narrative. He breaks down the body language and behavior of key figures, including Bruno Indelicato, suggesting the footage actually reflects anger and exclusion—not guilt. The episode introduces guest Matt, co-author of Made on Long Island, who provides an insider's perspective on the inner workings of organized crime. Matt prefers to not give his last name. Together, they explore how the Galante hit fit into a broader power struggle within the Bonanno crime family and beyond. Matt cowrote this book with Bartley Scarbrough. Matt tells a little-known story about Mob dealings with Fireworks around the 4th of July. One story is about a closed store and how they made up for the closed store and gave a fireworks show on the 5th and most of the kids never knew. The conversation expands to include major mob figures such as John Gotti and Sonny Red Indelicato, examining the shifting alliances and rivalries that shaped the events leading up to the assassination. Matt shares firsthand stories of mob life, detailing how communication relied on coded language and payphones—tools that kept operations hidden in plain sight. Gary and Matt dissect the planning behind the hit, revealing a calculated operation involving surveillance, weapon disposal, and carefully constructed alibis. They also address the aftermath, focusing on law enforcement's inability to definitively link the crime to certain suspects—raising questions about whether individuals like Indelicato were wrongly accused.   A central theme emerges: the gap between official narratives and the complex realities of organized crime. Matt argues that investigative misinterpretations—particularly by federal authorities—led to flawed conclusions and, potentially, unjust prosecutions. This episode challenges long-held assumptions about the Galante murder, offering listeners a more nuanced view of Mafia politics, loyalty, and betrayal. It's a detailed reexamination of a landmark mob hit—and a reminder that the truth is often far more complicated than the headlines. 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] Yeah, if you could just hold the frame right there, I think it’s very important [0:03] to set the stage of what we have here. This is a meeting of Bonanno crime family members, very high up ones, in front of Neil Delacroche’s Gambino headquarters on Mulberry Street, known as the Ravenite. Now, the feds used this tape to say that Bruno Indelicato was part of a conspiracy to murder Galante and that this tape shows the celebration. It does not. This tape is an absolute beef being put in primarily by Sonny Red and Delicato because he was supposed to do the hit jointly with the Gambino family led by John Gotti. He’s furious because at this point in time, he thinks he’s left out of the head. And just before you roll it, this video basically proves to every law enforcement person and every Cosa Nostra member that the people in this video did not do the murder. You don’t go out in Cosa Nostra, commit one of the biggest hits ever, a triple homicide, and then show your face an hour later. It does not work that way. So if you roll the tape, we can see some of the body language on these guys as well. [1:08] The guy in the white is Stefano Canone. He is the family’s consigliere, [1:13] which is technically third in charge, an advisory role. He is already at the Ravenite when everyone else arrives. A key figure in this is Sonny Red in Delicato Wearing a black jacket you’ll see His son is in the white shirt there The younger fellow that’s Bruno in Delicato The only guy that was convicted of this crime Now look at what’s going on here This is not a celebration They’re in the face of him And they’re furious And stop right there if you could, The gentleman in the black jacket right there. [1:44] Sonny, Red, and Delicato, he takes a couple steps back from his consigliere, which is technically his boss, and he turns around in fury, and he’s angry because, again, his team, led by him, was left off the head. Notice also, if you want to keep rolling the tape, he goes to his glasses. This is an absolute sign of anger, as per our body language experts, who, by the way, don’t even know who these people are. The only thing they know is this is a dispute, not a celebration. You notice that when he puts his hand up by his glasses? Now he thinks a little bit better of it because that’s his boss he’s talking to. And that’s a very good sign here. Again, another angle of this is in the Pizza Connection case in 1985. [2:27] Not only in the indictment, but also in FBI testimony, when asked who killed Carmen Galante, they did not say it was Bruno and Delicato and two other masked assailants. They said it was three unknown masked assailants that killed him. That’s what their testimony was. Everybody on the Cosa Nostra side and on the law enforcement side knows what this is. No mob guy commits a triple murder and then goes out to run to a place that we used to refer to as the FBI screen test, which was the Ravenite in Lower Manhattan and Mulberry Street. Everybody knows it, and it’s about time the story gets told, [3:05] and you’re going to see a lot more of this. Hey, all you wiretappers. Good to be back here in studio of Gangland Wire. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit Sergeant, and I have a guy here who has a different story and what he would say the real story behind the murder of Carmine Galante. Now, guys, there’s three monumental hits in organized crime history, I would say. The Galante hit… [3:33] Big because of the cigar in his mouth and that picture that was captured, but he was also an important hit in Mob. Now we also had the Anastasia. Anastasia was important and it was also got important, more important because of the photographs. Paul Castellano was important, I think more because of John Gotti than anything, but Carmine Galante and Matt here knows a lot about that hit and a lot about an alternative story to what really happened as it was reported it in the media. So welcome, Matt. Thank you so much for having me on, Gary. I really love your program. I’m happy to be here. All right, Matt, you got a book made on Long Island. Let’s just show everybody the copy of that. There you go, guys. There’s a copy of the book. It’s available on Amazon right now, right, Matt? [4:25] It certainly is. Thank you for putting it up. And one little sentence I’ll draw attention to at the bottom is, no AI was used in this. I know a lot of books are coming out now and people using AI, which I personally think is garbage. This is all handwritten and 440 pages of story after story. Yeah, there’s a lot to it. I guess you were writing under the name of Bartley Scarborough. Yeah, Bart is a good guy. He’s a friend of mine who actually started organizing this with me literally about 15, 20 years ago. Just to give everybody the timetable, we could not release this stuff till now because everybody with criminal culpability is now deceased or one guy is doing life in jail without the possibility of parole for another crime. That’s why we waited so long. Bart organized this stuff. He had me go over the thoughts. And he actually, I don’t know how much he’s going to want to talk about it, but he actually was there when we spoke to some of our friends who gave us extreme detail about this. But in terms of the actual writing, I actually penned it all myself with Bart’s assistant. All right, great. And as you know by now, it’s no easy task to write, especially 400-some pages. That’s a lot of words. That’s a lot of work, guys. Trust me, that is a lot of work. [5:41] You’ve got to keep going over it. Good writing is hard because it takes about three rewritings to actually get it out. Did you find that? [5:51] I did. It’s definitely extremely hard to do with volumes like this going over the past so many years. And plus getting the information from our friends, it was extremely hard to do. It was very time consuming. And I need to stress for the audience, I was not present when any of these major crimes like the homicides went down. I was present for the other things in the book, horse racing, which I’m sure we’re going to talk about later, major fireworks sales. But I need the audience to know that I was not present when the homicides went down, even though I was a juvenile at the time, and that from the proceeds of the fireworks sale and the horse racing, I did not pocket the proceeds like other people did. I know there’s lawyers out there, and I’m paying some $1,000 an hour. I apologize to people, but the lawyers told me 100 times I need to make those facts clear. Okay. All right. You did not do any of this, but you were right next to people who did do this. So we’re talking about firsthand information, correct? That is correct. Now, again, I was there for some of the stuff. I was there for some of the entity in the book. I was definitely there for the major league fireworks deals and participated in those. The horse racing that we’ll get to later, I was there for that. But in terms of the hard stuff, the stuff with no statute of limitations, homicides, I was not there. [7:12] So tell me about these group of guys that you grew up with, that you started doing some of these things. We have some kind of interesting personalities in there. Tell us about those guys. Oh my gosh. We had a real collection of characters is the only way to put it. Now, growing up when we were very young, let’s call it 11, 12, 13, we all really had two goals in mind. We wanted to make money and we wanted to play sports at that age. And that’s what we did. We made money on anything, paper routes, shoveling snow, raking leaves. And what happened was being so competitive, we got into a feud with another group in the same town. Now, there’s no way around it. We were idiots at this age. Some of our guys were carrying guns. Two of the guys in particular, their parents, what we call, were on the job, which means they were cops. So they had access to guns. Another guy was able to get us guns. So the bottom line is you’ve got 13-year-old kids who… That have no fuse carrying guns. Here is where it all started. [8:11] My uncle, like my cousin’s dad, came to one of the baseball games, and we had no idea that he knew the other coaches. And all of a sudden, they realized these kids are carrying guns. They’re going to kill each other. So they sat us down, disarmed us. It’s a pretty funny thing that’s in the book. I remember my uncle saying, whoever has a weapon, you put it on the table right now. I take a sock out of my pocket. He’s, what’s wrong with you? He goes, I asked for weapons, not your dirty laundry. I go, there’s a 25 inside the sock. He was shocked. But what they did was this. They disarmed us. They said, you want to kill each other with fists? Go at it. But we have a better idea. Why don’t you sell fireworks? Why don’t you work for us? You’ll make money doing this. First year, we only had about a week before the 4th of July. We sold out a couple pallets that they had. Now, the second year, I said, can we get these same prices? They said absolutely We went nuts to sell this stuff We ended up with an order for $85,000, And that’s how the order was so big That John Gotti got brought into this He was their boss at the time That’s how we met him And again, people say John Gotti, John Gotti Well to us at the time John Gotti was the same as John Smith The name meant nothing to us. [9:26] So some of these guys, older guys that you started dealing with that sat you down were relatives. There were members of the Gambino family then of Gotti’s crew. That is correct. Yep. Yep. They actually had two guys out of the three guys that sat us down. And by the way, none of us, myself included, ever had even the slightest inkling that these guys were involved in organized crime. You actually had two guys that were Gambino guys and one guy who was also a coach who was with the Genovese. [9:54] That was the actual makeup of the three guys that sat us down. And this was that. What towns are you talking about out there in Long Island? Kind of guys that listen from New York. Sure. This is actually Syosset, believe it or not, which was a upper middle class area. Nice and calm, crime free. And again, most of everybody that was with us was from Syosset. [10:19] Interesting. So the fireworks thing, I’ve always wondered about that. I’ve noticed in Kansas City, the mob guys, several of them every year have these huge, big firework tents. And I started asking around. I found out that they might make $100,000 in about two or three weeks time off those fireworks. There must be immense profit in it. And it’s so that kind of profit and kind of a gray area crime, if you will, in some cities, they don’t allow fireworks to be sold or even to be shot off. Mob likes to get into that and make that money. So tell us a little bit more about how that worked. Who were your customers? You guys went out into the community and sold more. You were more like you weren’t retailers. You were more like found other people to retail. It sounds to me like tell me the nuts and bolts of how that worked. [11:05] That is exactly correct. Now, the first year when they gave us the two pallets with about five or six days, maybe a week before the 4th of July, we sold those strictly to local people we know. And by the way, as kids, we loved fireworks ourselves. We still do. I do. I can speak for myself. We love this stuff. Now, when I saw the prices, for example, that these guys can get us, and I’ll use a barometer, very common in New York, a mat of firecrackers, which is a pack of 80 packs inside, 16 firecrackers to a pack. You could buy that for $8 And it would just fly like hotcakes These guys were selling us the stuff At $3 a mat So all these prices Were anywhere from. [11:49] 70, sometimes even 80% cheaper than what we could sell them for. So the profit, like you said, was utterly enormous. Now we had a full year to work our second year because they said, yes, sell as much as you want, go ahead and get the pre-orders. We contacted everybody we knew. All of our guys had people in other places, Huntington, the town of Huntington, we did big business, other places out in Suffolk and even somewhere in the city. [12:13] And again, for young kids at that age to put together an order for $85,000. She knocked everybody. And that’s what really got their attention. And for that kind of money being fronted to us, that’s why they had to bring their boss in, which was John. The other thing that really shocked us too, I was worried about getting caught. Now the legal penalties for getting caught was nothing. Five or $10 fine, nothing on your record. It was nothing. However, the police could take all your firearms. If they took money like that from young kids, we’re finished. Our lives are over. and to be honest, the organization solved that for us. They sat us down with cops. The cops told us to our face, you will never have a problem. Don’t worry about it. And once I heard, that’s when I told our guys, go ahead and sell as much as you can, and that’s when we got the order for the two tractor trailers. I knew at that point in time, the risk is pretty much gone. Yes, there’s a risk of getting robbed, but we had two of our guys’ older brothers who were a really severe, a tough guy, one that’s referenced in the book a lot, Bubbles. And again, he’s a deceased, and we’ll talk about him more in terms of the Galante hit. So people that are going to rob us really would be like, why would I rob these guys? Look at who they’re with. So in my opinion, we had no risk, and that’s why we went nuts with this. [13:30] That’s the beauty of working with the mob. They usually had connections with law enforcement that could get you protected. Now, you brought Gotti into it. Tell us about meeting Gotti for the first time. [13:39] Was he all that, like they say? Was he just this real charismatic personality that you just wanted him to like you and wanted to do what he wanted you to do? What was that like? I’m glad you brought it up because I’m going to tell you that’s the funniest thing that ever happened to any of us in our lives. And I suspect it might have been one of the funniest things that ever happened to him. When we got this order for the two-tracked trailers, he wanted to meet us with some of his other people. One that turned out to be Angelo, quack, quack, Angelo Ruggiero. And we decided to meet at our friend’s house over in Syosset. It was during a school day, but we had no risk because his dad was a New York City cop. His dad wasn’t there. His mom would be out the whole day playing a card game she played called Mahjong. So we said, yeah, let’s do it at his house. Now, these guys show up. Again, we’re teens. We’re 13, 14, 15 in that range. One, a couple guys maybe a couple years older. And these guys were like in their low 30s. That’s all John Gotti was age-wise when we met him, I would say. [14:39] No older, I wouldn’t think, than 35. I could do the math, but right in that range. All nice cars, nice suits. They come in with all the samples. So we lay them all around my friend Jeff’s house I’m talking about in his stoves, his mother’s piano, the couches and everything And they’re going over stuff and they’re saying, look This stuff here comes $48 to a case Your price, I’m just making up numbers for argument’s sake Your price is $175 a case on this one You can easily sell this stuff for $600 or whatever the numbers were So we’re shocked Now to set the stage My friend’s mom was really A kind of a crazy lady she was very Loud and she was extremely Opinionated if not wild She would always kid my not kid She was serious to my friend Jeff saying You’re a no good bum this Boy’s gonna end up in jail she would berate Our friend into the ground I mean this kid was crazy believe me this kid was Driving us to school at 14 and 15 years Old didn’t have a worry in the world So Yeah. [15:40] This is where the humor came in. She came home unexpectedly. Apparently, one of the card players didn’t show up. They couldn’t do it. She walks into her house, and she sees fireworks all over. She sees us with guys who look like gangsters that are 35 years old, and she blows her stack. She screams, who are these hoodlums in my house? What are these devices these criminals have? What is this fool meaning her son done this time with nuts? And I’ll never forget John says to my uncle who was in there He says did you set this up as a gag? Very low so nothing we could hear except a few people And my uncle had a really weird look on his face He goes I wish I could get off that easy So we figure the deal is all over She’s going nuts I run up to her with the price lists And I say Mrs. Goldberg please I know we like to shoot a fire It’s not about that It’s about making money I show her the list And I reference before the matter firecrackers I point to it. I call these guys firework salesmen. That’s what I call John and Angelo. I go, these firework salesmen here can sell us this amount of firecrackers for $3. [16:49] We can sell it all day long for $8. There’s a fortune in this. So then instead of her blowing up, she goes, tell me more. So that was funny enough. So I go through more prices. And just to set the stage for your listeners, a lot of people in New York might know this term. People outside might not. I’m a Christian, but if you have a non-Christian, Jewish people call him Goy or Goyim. She’s looking at the lists, and she explodes in the loudest voice you’ve ever heard. If the Goyim will buy these devices, then sell them to the Goyim we were. We lost it. [17:24] She said that Angelo, my uncle, a bunch of the guys had to go outside. And I stepped outside with them, too, because they didn’t want to insult her and laugh in her face. I don’t know how John stayed in the house with her, but he did for a while. These guys were laughing so hard, tears were coming out of us. So the neighborhood girls that we knew saw these guys all dressed in suits. They thought we were crying, and they sincerely asked, are you guys okay what happened? It was because we were laughing so hard we started crying. So I said, let me get in here. The fireworks deal is more important. So she went over this stuff with us, telling us how we’re going to make money. Just insanity. The book really expands on this. And then afterwards, when John left the house, he also broke down in laughter. He didn’t want to do it in front of her. He couldn’t take it. Out of respect, he didn’t want to laugh in someone’s face like that. But he walked two doors down, and he freaking lost it. So I think it’s got to be one of the funniest things he’s ever had happen to him in his life. He said it was. And it just got crazier from there. [18:19] Now, was Angelo Ruggiero with him? He was his right-hand man. Was he there on this deal? Yeah, Angelo was there with him. Yep, he sure was. What was he like to deal with as a person? I’ve interviewed his son who has a show. What was he like? Was he funny? He seemed like he talked a lot and was a funny guy. I’m just curious. He did. And again, in the account that you guys are going to read about in the book, Tommy, who’s the main character in this book, who again, deceased and gave me all the interactions he had with him, explains what a nice guy he was. I know he had a violent side. I know he has a lot of hits under his belt, but he was apparently a ton of fun. [18:59] When I interacted with him, I thought he was freaking hilarious. And as you’ll see in the book, Angelo is really the one who fed all the inside information nonstop to our buddy Tommy, Tommy, who at that time was playing cards over at John’s Club in Ozone Park, the Bergen, very regularly at that point in time. And the book really traces Tommy about what happened, his interactions with Angelo, his interactions with everybody else. And when you get to the whole crux of the matter, Angelo is the one who told our good friend Tommy that, hey, the commission has authorized a hit on Galante. And the hit is to be done jointly with our family, meaning the Gambinos, and with the Bananos. And that John was going to be the leader of the Gambino faction. [19:48] Sonny Red and Delicato was going to be the leader of the Banano faction, and Joey Messino was not only the one taking the messages to and from Rusty, which is the Philip Mestelli in jail, but Joe Messino was going to supervise the entire operation. So that was the structure of it. Yeah, that’s what I’ve read about it. And also what you’re saying about Angelo Ruggiero is that’s one reason the Bureau was able to learn so much about Castellano because he would go to meetings at Castellano’s house, if I remember right, come back home and get on the phone or have some people come over. And he talked to him about, he said this and he said this and he said that and he said this. That gave him probable cause then to go into Castellano’s house. So he was known to be loose lips, and that’s why he got the moniker quack quack, I’ve heard. But I also heard it was because of the way he walked, so I’m not sure. No, that’s true. Both of what you’re saying is true. And just to touch on him one more time, very important. He loved my friend Tommy because Tommy got him out of more than a couple of jams. I’ll give an example. There was a guy in the Gambino family up in Connecticut. John always referred to him as the genius Tony Mungali And he put a firework sorter in with Angelo. [21:06] Now, this guy blew his stack because no fireworks came, and he had promised the entire neighborhood a gigantic fireworks show. He had his friends, his people of his family over there, neighbors and no fireworks. This guy blew his stack, and this story is detailed in the book. Tommy got a call from another Gambino guy the morning of July 5th, very early. He was still hungover from partying the night before. He said, oh, my God, what’s this about? It’s got to be something bad. Did somebody blow their hand off with fireworks? What’s going on? And the bad news was that this Tony had put a beef in saying, what’s wrong with you people? You didn’t do what you said. And he was blaming Angelo. Tony was all over Angelo. And the bottom line is Tony was right. It was Angelo’s fault. However, my friend Tommy never threw Angelo under the bus. My friend Tommy ate it. And he basically, it’s a real good recounting in the book. And there’s so many stories like this. There’s hundreds of them. But I’ll give you this one real quick. [22:03] Like, so Tommy basically told Tony Mengele, listen, how old are the kids that you promised this big fireworks show to? And Tony blew up. He’s like, what the F does it matter how old the kids are? But my friend Tommy was smart and he was going somewhere. He’s like, listen, these kids don’t know the difference between July 5th and July 4th. We’re going to come to your house tonight. We’re going to give it the most insane fireworks show anybody in your area has ever seen. We don’t want a dime. We’re so sorry this mistake happened They go up there I was with them at that point. [22:38] Nothing but fun. So welcoming. And again, my buddies, none of us would ever throw Angelo under the bus. And believe me, Tony and his uncle, Sandalo, he tried to pin it on Angelo. We said, no, it’s not his fault. It’s not his fault. Bottom line is those guys loved us. One of Tony’s workers ended up being a gigantic fireworks customer of ours. And to the best of my knowledge to this day, and I’m not involved in it in the slightest, To this day, all one of his guys does is sell fireworks in the Connecticut region. Makes a fortune. Interesting. And so that’s a wild story. But again, Angelo loved Tommy because so many times Tommy would say, look, Angelo didn’t do this. I did. What did Angelo do in return? He gave Tommy so many different pieces of information. And again, I won’t bog you down, but each one of these stories is so interesting. Angelo had some fireworks clubs that he made money on. [23:32] There’s no other way to put it. Angelo was not working much at all. And then one of these meetings, John brought everyone in and said, listen, from now on, these clubs that sell fireworks, particularly Oceanside, New York, Long Beach, Bayville, Massapequa, he goes, I’m giving them to you guys to run. And now, obviously, none of us want anything to do like that. We’re going to cut out his friends. We’re going to end up in a freaking meat grinder or end up in a cement truck. So we all told John we didn’t want it. John said, that’s it. It’s over. It’s yours. so then our next step was to make sure we figured out how much roughly those guys were making. [24:05] I give my friend tommy all the credit in the world he ended up giving angelo more money by a lot, for using the place than angelo ever made doing work and this time angelo doesn’t have to do any work angelo loved us all these guys loved us because we paid them more than they made and now they didn’t have to do a damn thing so our guys were very smart and calculating particularly Tommy, but some of the other ones. And that was a good Angelo story. Yeah, it is. And I’ve read that not only Gotti and in his neighborhood, but other mob guys around in New York and their neighborhoods, they would put on a huge fireworks shows for everybody in the neighborhood every year. Gotti particularly was noted for that. That is interesting, their love for fireworks and fireworks shows. Did they ever front you these things? Did they front you money or did Did they buy the fireworks? [24:56] You guys made this money each year, but I’m sure you’d spend it all. Then the following year, you’d have to come up with money. How did that work? The money worked. You wanted to be able to pay them back if they fronted anything. [25:08] Yes. You have a bunch of good questions here. I’m going to backtrack one second on what you said about guys in the life loving fireworks. That is a hundred percent fact. Love the fireworks and the stuff that people see at some of the celebrations over at the Bergen. Yeah, that was rooted from our guys providing it. Now, here is one of the reasons why John turned over these four locations to us. He had complaints from multiple people. Castellano, I believe Michael Franzese people. These guys went to the fireworks locations on the best days, like July 2nd and July 3rd, and they were closed. And John blew up at that. He’s making me look like a freaking idiot. I’m telling Castellano’s people, it could have been his nephews or little cousins or whatever, go to this place to load up with fireworks for free. These guys go to the place and it’s closed that’s one of the motivating factors why john, turned that business over to us we had it open all the time now in terms of fronting stuff absolutely the money was enormous those guys fronted it to us all the time big loads that’s just how it was young kids like that we can come up with anything near that kind of money. [26:14] And just another tidbit too the lady i told you about who would go wild when we were doing the deal. She offered to fund some money up too. And that’s detailed in the book as well. But yeah, as we got it to like year number three, I don’t remember us ever putting a penny up after year three. It was all fronted to us. Was it all cash too? When you went out to these clubs and these people with the neighborhoods and stuff, would they always just give you cash each year? [26:40] That is a great question, and the answer is yes for the people we retailed to, yes for the people that walked into the stores. However, we had wholesale customers that we would give credit to. Now, I’ll give you this story, which is also detailed in the book real quick. There was a street gang in Huntington. They were known as the Huntington Hitters, primarily Hispanics. They gave us an order, and one of our good friends got back from a younger kid that he helped out before that his older brother was intending to rob us when we dropped off the fireworks. [27:14] So we had what I thought was a brilliant plan made. Tommy was very instrumental in this, and I gave some feedback too. We told these guys, come meet us at this bar out on Jericho Turnpike in Huntington. We have some additional fireworks we want to show you guys and see if you want it, which was a lie. But we knew that they wouldn’t rob us then because we didn’t have anything honest. Let me tell you what we brought to that meeting. We brought Bubbles and two of his guys that were freaking deadly people. And they had freaking gym bags with them. And they said, don’t worry anything about security when we do this deal. And they showed him stuff inside the bags, heavy duty weaponry. So right away, these Huntington hitter group said, these are the wrong people to rob. So sure enough, right on cue, a day or two later, they called my buddy and said, you know what? We don’t want to do the fireworks business. We can’t. That I petitioned, and I got a few of my friends to agree, and Tommy definitely went with it too. You know what? These guys can make a fortune doing this. Let’s front them five or ten grand worth of this stuff and see what happens. And I’m like, it’s not going to cost us anything. Number one, I don’t think they’re going to rob us. If they do, what did we lose? $1,500 at the most? My friends said we were nuts, but we went with it. And I want to tell you, smartest move we ever made. [28:29] As every year we went by, we fronted them more and more. They were our first customer that we ever fronted a full tractor trailer to. Never had a problem getting one cent from them. It’s funny how that evolved. It’s just absolute madness. But again, I give Tommy a lot of the credit here and some of the other guys very sharp to come up with a business plan like this. [28:52] I tell you, this little crew you got in with early on, they were a bunch of hustlers. But you also had this deal with Gotti and horse racing and getting inside information on horse racing. There’s some pretty good stories there that are in the book. Tell the guys a little bit about that point. Then we’ll move on to the Galante hit. [29:11] Absolutely. Now, horse racing was interesting. We would go to a place called Roosevelt Raceway, which is over in Westbury, Long Island. Really not that far from where we lived over in Syosset. Now, again, I know the law was probably you had to be 18 to make a bet. They didn’t care. I was making bets there at 12 and 13 years old. I’ll tell you this one time that they did care, and I’ll get to that at the end of the question you asked, and you’ll see why. So we were clowns, but even as clowns, we could see it. If a horse, these were harness racing, by the way. If a harness race is coming down the stretch, you didn’t have to be a genius to see that one or two of these horses would hold back, but the other two jockeys would whip the crap out of their horses. So naturally, we felt cheated, even at young ages. Our guys were definitely certified. There’s no question about that. Our guys would throw things at the freaking jockeys. I’m talking about golf balls, rocks. Our guys were insane. And a lot of that stuff is detailed in the book, how crazy we were. But to get to your point, after I think it was the third or fourth year, John walked with Tommy. [30:17] And he said, you guys are bringing in so much money and doing so well. I want to give you a gift. And I remember Tommy, because myself and a little bit of Bart, but myself, I had to pull all this out of my friend Tommy. He knew he was going to pass away. And he wanted this story out in the public. Now, this guy, Tommy, never wanted his real name used, but he gave me detail after detail. Some of the stuff, like I’m explaining with the fireworks and the horse racing, I was there myself to see. But on the heavy stuff, he gave me detail after detail. same with a little bit to Bart. So this is how Tommy explained it to us. John gave him a sheet of paper and Tommy being a smartest said, oh, what is this, John? You want me to go play the freaking lottery with these numbers? What do these numbers mean? John, you smartest. Here’s what the numbers mean. The first number was the number of the race at Roosevelt Raceway. The next four numbers were the only four horses that could win. Usually these races had eight horses in them. Once in a while, seven, once in a while, nine, but eight was the norm. Those are the only four horses that can win. And for the audience, I want to explain to them how that’s possible. [31:24] Let’s say you have an eight horse harness race and you tell four of the jockeys, no matter what happens, you are not to come in the top. They’ll hold the horses back. And by the way, this is not just conjectural rumor. These guys got locked up for it later on down the line, jockeys and everybody what they were doing is it hold the four horses back the organization would have no idea what horse was going to win they just knew which four wouldn’t so what did they didn’t bet winner plays to show they would bet exactus triples and sometimes super factors which means all four and box those four around some yeah so in your example. [32:03] Basically, John gave our buddy Tom three races, and Tommy knew that this has got to be damn better than a tip. It has to be rock solid. So what happened was we all went there, and we knew nothing about it. We didn’t know that we should just bet a small amount of money. We had no knowledge about damaging a pool, so I’ll make it easy for the listeners. Tommy overbet these races like crazy. For example, if a three combination triple should pay $1,500, the first thing the FBI and the New York Racing Authority would ask is, why did this $1,500 triple pay only $400? And the reason is, and they knew it because the race was fixed. So everybody was betting those combinations. Now, the organization was smart enough to only bet small amounts of money, and they used the term not to damage the pool. That was a term they used all the time. We don’t want to damage the pool. [33:04] Again, throw us in the mix. We had absolutely no idea. We didn’t know any of this. So Tommy bet the crap out of these races, and he did damage the pool. And that brought the attention of the authorities. But worse than that, another long story in the book goes back to the Connecticut people, because I think the genius Tony Mengele was the one helping to fix the races. So they figured there was a leak on their side. And John Gotti actually thought he was going to get killed over this. And he told people, including Angelo, I might not be coming back from this meeting. I got sent for here. The horse pulls bad because John was really running the horses with Tony and some other guys. Tony grabbed him by chance outside of the Ravenite, Mr. Neal’s club, and they walked. [33:52] And Tony apparently was furious, like, yeah, let’s kill whoever damaged the pool, whoever did this. And then John apparently told him it was us. And then Tony says, oh, man, those fireworks guys, I love those guys. He goes, okay, nothing’s going to happen here. So apparently Tony went into the meeting, and he basically lied to the people there, Castellano and Neil Delacroach, and he says, listen, I found out the leak. The leak is on our side, and I’ll take care of it. And that’s how it worked But again, that ties back to the fireworks If that never happened, I don’t know what would have happened John had every intention of going in there and saying he’s screwed up He didn’t explain to us And he had no business giving us the numbers And he knows that, He did not have permission to give us anything at the racetrack He took it on himself to do it, And he got saved by that stroke of luck Of meeting Tony in front of the club before the meeting Had someone been outside, whoever Tommy Bellotti or anybody said Hey, get inside, the meeting’s going on Those two would not have had a chance to talk. I don’t know what would have happened, but I think it would have been very bad for Sean. Yeah, would have been. Yeah, that’s interesting. Now, explain to the guys about the pool. Everybody doesn’t know about the pool. [35:04] These exactors and trifectas, how that pool works. That is a great question because we had to have it explained to us. Let’s take any racetrack, and the first number you’re going to have is how many people bet on what’s focused on triples. Now, the definition of a triple is horses come in the order of one, two, three. So if you bet a 7-4-3 triple, the race must end 7-4-3 for you to hit that triple. Now, the next variation of that is if you like the 7-4-3, what most people will do is they will do what’s called boxing that triple, which means they have 7-4-3 and that’s a winner. [35:43] But so is 4-3-7. So is any combination. So is 2-7-4. [35:49] 3-7-4. Any of the combination of your three horses win. Now, they can tell what a triple should pay based on the amount that’s spent and what the odds are. Let’s say you have a horse that’s a mid shot, like an 8 or 10 to 1. You have a favorite in there and maybe a halfway of a little bit of a long shot. They know what that should pay in a certain range. Now, if you know that race was fixed, and by the way, it’s all pari-mutual, so the weighting is average. If you’ve got $10,000 in a triple pool and you have 10 winning tickets, each ticket’s going to get paid $1,000. And they would know that’s legitimate and that’s honest. And there should be about 10 people with those combinations. Now, if you have that same $10,000 worth of triple pool, and again, these are round numbers. It’s way higher, just for an example. and all of a sudden you’ve got 105 winning tickets when mathematically there should be 10 or 15 at the most the money drops that thousand dollar prize now might be 210 dollars and that’s what the feds and everyone new york racing authority looks for if you have a horse that’s eight to one first place let’s say ten to one second place and let’s say five to two third place that triple should pay something like, I’m guessing, $400, $500, $600 around that range. If that triple pays only $150, right away they know that somebody knew something. [37:16] Too many people bet on that combination. They know how many people probably will bet on any certain combination. And when that gets skewed, too many people bet on one combination, then they know something’s up. Interesting. That’s like these new sports prop bets in the apps on gambling, on the apps on sports. If all of a sudden there’s a whole lot of money goes out on some team on the spread and too much money goes down in one place, then they know there’s something going on. Somebody knows something and they start looking. [37:48] Exactly. They start looking and you make a great point about today’s sports betting. If you have a basketball player, and again, this is not conjecture. There’s already been indictments on this. Let’s say the guy is supposed to have 11 rebounds in a game. All of a sudden, when he has nine, he tells the coach, man, I hurt my ankle. I can’t play anymore. Now, if the balance was normal on his under and his over, no problem. What do we all know happens? The under money bet on this guy is radical. It’s a 95 to 5 ratio. They know right away it’s fixed. And that’s what I believe the guy in Toronto, the Toronto Raptors was doing. And so many other ones were too, but that’s everywhere. We were involved in that way, way back in the day as well, to some degree. We heard so much about it. Yeah, interesting. [38:34] Let’s get into Carmine Galante. The probably most famous, certainly the most famous image, even more famous than Albert Anastasia of Carmine Galante laying there. He was the Bonanno, longtime Bonanno capo and had risen up in the ranks. And he comes out of the penitentiary and Rusty Rustelli is supposed to be the next Bonanno boss. And Carmine decides that he’s going to act like he’s the boss. So let’s talk about how this whole thing started a little bit. That is a great observation. And that’s pretty much how the ball got rolling with those guys. Here’s how we got involved in this. [39:12] We had one of our good friends who was helping us with the fireworks and going to the clubs and having nothing but fun. And then the one night when Tommy was at the club, the cops came in. And I know a lot of people think, oh, Cosa Nostra doesn’t mix with the cops. People will think that they don’t know what they’re talking about. Look at the convictions with gas pipe cases and everybody else. John had guys on his payroll that ended up getting convicted and stuff. [39:39] The cops and Cosa Nostra do work together. despite what everyone else says. Look at us with the fireworks, for example. So anyway, at the card game, what I was told from Tommy is they kept getting messages after messages. And again, these messages at that time would come in over pay phones. There were no cell phones. So you’d have a guy sitting at the pay phone. And as I’m told, most of the messages would be coded numbers. Let’s say Angelo’s number was 167. The guy would just pick up the phone, tell number 167, which is Angelo. [40:11] Another set of code numbers and that might mean hey the cops are coming over now the cops came into the club they came into the bergen and apparently they told everybody listen nobody here is getting locked up we don’t want information we just need to give you some news and from what tommy says because he was there playing cards at the time they told him that our good friend michael had died in a car accident and they wanted to know should they go and wake his dad up and And his dad obviously was in the life made guy and do it that way. Or did John and Angelo perhaps want to go out to the house? They gave him the option to do it. And John and Angelo, of course, jumped at that. And they, whatever they did, they went at the house. I don’t know if they waited till they woke up in the morning, whatever it was and knocked on the door or whatever. But so that’s what happens now at the wake, by the way, just to make the story a little bit more clear, there. [41:09] This was probably our fourth year or so selling fireworks. And every year we sold fireworks, we met more and more people. So many of it is detailed in the book. I can’t even tell you the list of people we met. And you name it, Tony Ducks, Corralo, all these guys. So we’re meeting more and more people. Two in particular that we started hanging out with because they liked us because we were just crazy, drinking, women chasing maniacs, were Baldo and Chesery. And that’s Baldo Amato and Cheshire Bonventry. They were with the Bananos. And we were hanging out with them. They grabbed my friend Tommy at the wake and pulled him away. And everyone’s thinking, oh, they’re really Sicilian. We call them the Zips. They’re tough guys. They probably just don’t want to show their emotions because they love Michael in front of everybody. We didn’t know what was going on. They informed my friend Tommy that our friend, Michael, did not die in a car accident. It was a basic, supposed to be a warning that turned into a hit. [42:12] And Tommy’s, that’s nonsense. The cops told us the car was off the road. The car was a crumpled mess. That’s nonsense. But Baldo insisted and said, no, these guys shot him off the road. So nobody believed any of this. But we came up with the conclusion of, hey, we’re friends with the cops. The cops will take us to the impound yard. Let’s see for ourselves. House so those guys went over there and what tommy says they found bullet holes in like less than a minute they found a couple bullet holes so they knew right away that baldo was telling the truth now all this was going on other people would tell us don’t trust baldo don’t trust chesery the sicilians are the most ruthless cunning backstabbers you’re ever going to meet and i didn’t feel that way and neither did tommy or the other guys that were involved with us our other friends aunt and The whole gang, Gonzo, we didn’t feel that way at all. We thought they really had our best interest. So. [43:08] That stayed quiet, but two of our friends swore on that day, no matter who did this to our friend, Michael, no matter who they are, we don’t care what their rank or anything. [43:19] We’re going to make them pay for what they did. They’re going to have to answer for what they did to our friend. And we know the rules. You can’t touch a maid guy or an associate without getting permission. But we kept everything quiet for another reason. Michael’s dad I referred to as a maid guy. Now, you talk about crazy. This guy was nuts. This guy had no fuse. He’s detailed all over the book. For example, when John O’Neill would tell him to go out and just talk to a guy, don’t hurt him. This guy owes us a couple thousand. Just talk to him. The guy would end up with two broken arms. This guy had no fuse whatsoever. If he ever thought for a minute that somebody had killed his son, the worry was, and I think the worry is correct, he would have gone out and just killed better than adult targets all over the place. Whether they knew anything about it Which 99% of them knew nothing about this He would have just started killing people He would have started a war So that was the reason why the bosses, Did not want him And to his death he never knew that this happened They kept it from him for that reason There was no stopping this guy would have gone on a rampage So that was a big factor in that, So Then you talked before about the card games And Angelo. [44:30] More of these messages came in And my buddy Tommy noticed it And he said, Angelo, what’s going on? And so don’t worry after the card game, I’ll walk you down and we’ll talk to you. Apparently after the card games, Tommy and Angelo would walk down 101st Avenue and have these long talks. And Angelo said to Tommy, the commission has authorized a hit on Carmine Galante. We got the hit. John is our lead. [44:54] We have to do it jointly with the Bananas. Sonny Red is there, and Joe Massino is going to look at the whole thing and supervise the whole thing. So bells went off on my friend Tommy’s head. All of a sudden, he got everybody together. Not me, of course. I was not there when this transpired. I was not there when they organized the hit. But he got the other guys together, and he said, look, this is the guy who killed our friend. We have no risk now because the commissioner wants this guy dead. So these guys came out with what Tommy detailed to me. And by the way, it wasn’t just Tommy who detailed this to us. Bubbles detailed it to us. And there’s one big distinction I need to mention here. Tommy wanted all of this out. He did not want his real name used. [45:40] However, Bubbles wanted his real name used. He used to hang out with general views people. And he told me, he goes, use my name. I want people to know that I did this. And after he passed and that’s why inside the book we do reveal his real name and where he lived and the interesting thing for me was Bubbles and Tommy had no idea that each one of them was talking to me and to a small degree Bart about this so the details that they both gave were exactly the same the most ingenious hit I’ve ever heard of in my life they had police help from the 8-3 precinct over in Bushwick. Apparently, there was some cop over there that hated, I think it was a family dispute of some kind. The guy who was being, I think his grandmother or aunt or somebody was being shaken down by the bananas. So we had that asset. We now had Baldo and Chesery, who were Galante’s top bodyguards. So our guys went out on surveillance for months. And the funny thing about the surveillance was, who else was doing surveillance at the same time? [46:47] John Gotti was, and so was his people. So there was times like when Tommy and the guys would be close to a certain place. And by the way, he was killed at Joe and Mary’s. But that is not the only place that these guys did heavy surveillance on. And it’s not the only place that Galanti hung out at. So the book names a bunch of other places that the surveillance was done. So these guys would be there, and they’d look down the block, and possibly John and Angela were there doing the same surveillance. So they had to leave. Otherwise, John and Angela, what the hell are you guys doing over here? So that was funny to me on that regard But our guys in my opinion Put together the most ingenious hit Down to every single detail. [47:26] Basically took out the police help to help with the zips. The alibi is another crazy part of this. At that time, we would like to do a lot of fishing. We went off to a place called Sentinel Riches in Long Island. And one time we were night fishing over there and we saw guys jump off the boat, get onto smaller boats and come back an hour or two later with bundles. Now you don’t have to be Albert Einstein to realize what they were doing. They were running junk and they were Colombians. Yeah. So I discussed it a little bit with the boat’s captain and he said, just don’t say a word. Don’t go near him. Keep you guys away. We almost had a problem because again, our guys were drunk and our guys were carrying and our guys will, we came close to having a problem. But Tommy put this together. He had the boat captain go out one day and again, he didn’t tell all the people that were with, he didn’t tell his cousin’s crew for Shaw, who was with us that day, our guys jumped off the boat onto a smaller boat, took that boat to the Oak Beach Inn, took stolen cars in on that day, the July 12th, 1979, and they did the hit. [48:35] So Tommy’s uncle was furious with him. He thought he was lying to him. He goes, you’re lying. You were not there. I put you on that boat, which he did. Our friends were drunk and they drove him there on the road. Morning and i picked you up when that boat doc said don’t lie to me you’re on the boat all day and that’s when tommy and again this is detailed in the book like crazy told everybody can you say alibi and what do you mean he goes yeah you just said we were on the boat all day that’s not true, jumped the boat went to the oak beach and took the stolen cars did the work and came back so that was that shocked everybody in the room apparently when tommy was forced to detail, everything that happened on the hit. He even detailed for them all the cars that were involved. He detailed how the marked police cars actually held parking spaces for our guys in front of the place. One was, my understanding, about a half a block north. The other one was about a half a block south of the location over there, which was 205 Knickerbocker. They held the parking spaces. Our guys rolled up. [49:37] And if there was something going on, like, for example, FBI surveillance or unmarked cops in the place, those cop cars were not giving up the space. Our guys would honk and flash at them. But if they did not give up the spaces, the signal to our guys was the place is dirty, leave. So we had a lot of built-in signals like that. And then when they gave up the parking spots, both of the cops moved from one north heading south, one south heading north. What did that do? That let them both take one more scan of the block. Is the block dirty? And if the block was dirty, they were going to blow the sirens and everything was off. But the details, again, that are in the book about this hit are freaking shocking how meticulous it was. [50:22] Interesting. I have one question that Galante’s guy, Cousin Moy, they called him, Angelo Prezzanzano, I probably butchered that, but he was off sick that day. Was he part of it or was he just off sick that day? I’m going to tell you, to be honest, I have no knowledge of that. I know that Boldo and Chessery were the primary bodyguards that day. Yeah, they were there that day. I actually have no knowledge, but the other couple of details that are just beyond fascinating, how our guys operated on this. For example, when the car pulled up with one driver and three shooters, one of the shooters, again, he wanted to be named, so we’re naming him. It was Bubbles. [51:01] And the other two guys, Bubbles was a very big-built guy. He would easily be spotted. Plus, he knew a lot of people in the city. He stayed in the car. The two guys that were normal-built, they went inside. And I want the listeners to understand how skilled these guys were at this hit. [51:19] They had provided Baldo and Chesery with dark jackets that day. Now, I’ve read some stuff that people said, oh, they had big, heavy leather jackets on. That’s a lie. They were lightweight summer jackets. And people said, why do that? The answer is because at that time, people were wearing white and pastels and light clothing. It was burning hot that day in the summer. And if you want to spot somebody in a restaurant, you want them to stick out like a sore thumb. So that was the motivation for those black jackets. Now, check this one out. And again, the book goes through this in so many more details. Our guys walked in prearranged with Baltimore Orioles baseball hats. Because again, keep in mind, Chesaree and Boulder did not have a great command of the English language. They didn’t really 100% know American customs. And we showed them Mets and Yankee hats that everybody has. So now we show them a distinctive bright orange baseball hat with a bird on it that nobody could mistake. Here was the signal. Our guys walked up to them face to face with these hats on. [52:22] Now, that was slick. That was slicker shit, man. It was smart because if the place was hot, if Boldo and Chesery realized there was too many maid guys in there or surveillance guys or FBI in there, they were to immediately tell our guys it’s too crowded today. Only get takeout. Only get takeout. The place is too crowded. That was a signal to our guys to walk out and to tell the people the place is hot. leave. These guys had multiple hot signals here that if something was wrong, they would do it. Now, if they didn’t give those signals, our guys were to turn their hats around. So they walked in with the hats like a normal baseball player. They walked out with the hats like a catch you would wear with his hat on backwards. That was to give Boulder and Chesery the signal, Boulder and Chesery the signal this thing was going down. Now, here’s the most fascinating thing about the story is Tommy recanted for us. That day, July 12th, 79, was supposed to be a dry run. [53:28] And they told everybody, just do it like it’s real. Now, we were all hoping that Bould on Chesaree would do it like it was real, and they did it. They walked out of the place, and they walked north. I believe in their minds, they said, this is a dry run. Nothing’s going to happen. Then they heard the shots, and that’s what happened. And I want to elaborate on this because, again, there’s so much built in here. One of the witnesses said that, and I’ll tell you who the witness was. It was one of the guys who killed his daughter, Torano. His daughter had said that, oh, I saw Baldo crouched over with a gun. Gary, you’re a former detective. You’ve got a scene with four people shot, three dead. And you have a witness saying that a guy was in there with a gun out. You tell me how the guy is not arrested at the very least and tried. And I’m going to give everyone the answer here of why that didn’t happen. And I think it’s pretty clear. [54:25] I’m convinced that the FBI had static surveillance on the place, just like they did to Mr. Neal’s club that we always call the, basically the FBI screen test. Yeah. That’s number one. And, or they had a guy up the street. So I believe what happened here was they looked at what this witness said, and then either their own cameras or a human agent that they had on the streets said, wait a second, we cannot charge these guys. I saw a bold on Chesaree, whatever the number would be, 200 feet up the street before the shots rang out. They’re innocent. They didn’t do the shooting. Otherwise, of course, you got a witness saying, I saw a guy behind a table in a gun in a quadruple shooting, triple homicide, and that guy’s not going to get arrested. So obviously there was something there. [55:16] I was wondering why. And I’m going to take another step for people, too. And again, terrible. Cosa knows the story ever told. But to take this one step further, the cop cars were there. There were two marked cars close in proximity when this went down. I think the FBI might have said, wait a second here. What just happened? One guy that we hate, Galante, is dead. Some other guy, a cap on a maid guy are gone. Look at our cameras. How could we do anything here? There’s marked cops here. I think the feds had to realize the cops played a role in this. [55:50] Let’s just kill it and move on. I think that’s possible. Now, the cop cars were also referenced by Tommy. He told us the meeting that they had. It was a life or death meeting, by the way. When John Gotti and other people went to that meeting, Tommy’s uncle and people like that, there was a good chance none of them were going to come out alive. The book details that Castellano, who everyone knows, wanted to kill John Gotti, had a cast of killers in that building. Roy DeMail’s people were in there. There were people in there that you couldn’t even believe. Nino Gadge’s people in there. Hardcore butchers. They knew how to dispose of and chop up bodies. So in that meeting, apparently what Tommy made clear, and again, we took notes, we went over this for hours, days, literally years. [56:36] Sonny Red and Delicato made the statement in that meeting because, again, Sonny Red and Delicato put in the beef, hey, you guys did this hit without us. John Gotti’s saying, fuck you. Excuse my language. Effu. You guys did the hit without us. Nobody knew who did this hit, and I’ll get to that later. What happened here was that Sonny Red and Delicato and his people made an immediate beef, and we’ll talk about that later, saying, hey, The commission said this is to be a joint hit Between the Bananos and the Gambinos And I can definitely confirm From what they told me, Banano people and Gambino people Were on this hit together and doing surveillance So when Galante got killed Sonny Red and his Banano people Were furious Because they thought John Gotti went off And did a hit against the commission’s wishes At the same time, John Gotti was furious At Sonny Red and his people Thinking they did the work Without them being notified But the thing that Tommy always stressed is, again, that meeting was a death trap. Castellano always hated Gotti. Castellano wanted Gotti out. And this was the chance to do it for breaking the commission rule. So Castellano had hardcore murderers there that day. Roy DeMeo and his crew. [57:49] Incredible. You know, Gadgi, a cast of murderers. And John Gotti being street smart. And again, this is fully detailed in the book. It’s just too much to talk about here. John Gotti had made some very heavy precautions himself. Going into that meeting. But what the catch for me was, Sonny Red and Delicato said something like, whoever did this hit was either the most incompetent hitman ever, or possibly they were zips from Montreal that couldn’t give a crap if they were shot at or in a police shootout or whatever. They just didn’t care. And then Tommy said, what if I tell you that those cops were in on the hit? And that silenced the room. And that’s when Tommy had to come clean and talk about everything about it. And it shocked the people that were in that run that this hit was done like that. But that’s, that’s really how this thing was done. Interesting. Guys, you got to get this book. I’m telling you, Made on Long Island. And there’s a whole lot more details, these behind the scenes details about the Galante hit with some real people involved. It’s a lot different story than what we’ve ever heard. I know that. And even people went to jail behind this. But it was mainly on the say-so of informants who, as we know, will pretty much say anything to g

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst.  For a transcript of Elie's note and the full archive of contributor notes, head to CAFE.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Let's Think About "Soul Intelligence" With Special Guest Kristine Genovese Kristine shares her thoughts on soul intelligence, reminding people that they need to pay attention to their gut instincts. While learning about Kristine, we discussed her book and how people should explore and step into their zone of genius more often. This episode aims to prompt thought.     To stay in touch, please visit Kristine's website at https://soulintelligencemethod.com/home to learn more about her.

Mea Culpa welcomes back our good friend Elie Honig, acclaimed author of the National Bestseller, “Hatchet Man: How Bill Barr broke the prosecutor's code and corrupted the Justice Department”. Honig is also a CNN Senior Legal Analyst, and a former federal and state prosecutor. You may also know him from his popular podcasts, “Up Against the Mob” or “Cafe Brief”. As a New Jersey federal prosecutor, Honig directed significant criminal cases against street gangs, arms dealers, and even a few corrupt politicians. He was also an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Where he successfully prosecuted more than 100 members of La Cosa Nostra, including bosses and other high-ranking members of the Gambino and Genovese organized crime families. Honig leverages all his prosecutorial experience to keep the public informed and as fodder for his excellent new book “Untouchable: How Powerful People Get Away With It”. Michael and Elie discuss Rupert Murdock, the Supreme Court, and which case is likely to bring Trump down.

04-18-26 Girl Talk with Allie Anthony, Kelley Hiatt, & Nicole Genovese talks Coachella by

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst. For a transcript of Elie's note and the full archive of contributor notes, head to CAFE.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

She was married to one of America's most feared mob bosses, Vito Genovese, but Anna Genovese lived by her own rules inside the heart of the New York Mafia.Anna built a parallel world in Greenwich Village, creating safe havens for a queer community the city tried to erase, all while navigating a violent marriage inside the Genovese crime family. When she finally broke the Mafia's code of silence, she didn't just risk her life, she reshaped the power structure around her.Anna Genovese broke omertà, lived openly as a bisexual woman in an era that criminalized it, and survived the fallout of exposing one of the most powerful mob figures in American history.If this episode leaves you wanting more, we highly recommend Mob Queens (2019), hosted by Jessica Bendinger and Michael Seligman. The series was built from newly uncovered letters about Anna and remains the most comprehensive exploration of Anna's life. A television adaptation is currently in development.Primary sources for this episode include Five Families by Selwyn Raab, The Valachi Papers by Peter Maas, and King of Crime by Dom Frasca.Follow and join the conversation:

CarneyShow 04.13.26 Live from St. Alban's, Nicole Genovese, Royal Oakes, Tower of Power by

Cerchi un corso di italiano online? Scrivimi a salvatore.tantoperparlare@gmail.com e parliamone!Gino Paoli è stato uno dei più importanti autori della canzone italiana. Con testi apparentemente semplici, eppure pieni di vita. La sua vita... veramente incrediblie!Se ti piace Salvatore racconta, puoi sostenere il progetto per aiutarlo a restare libero, gratuito e di qualità. Vai su www.patreon.com/salvatoreracconta e dai il tuo contributo!La trascrizione di questo episodio è come sempre disponibile per le persone iscritte alla newsletter. Vuoi iscriverti? Fallo da qui: https://salvatoreracconta.substack.comTesto e voce di Salvatore Greco

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst.  For a transcript of Elie's note and the full archive of contributor notes, head to CAFE.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst.  For a transcript of Elie's note and the full archive of contributor notes, head to CAFE.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mea Culpa welcomes back our good friend Elie Honig, acclaimed author of the National Bestseller, “Hatchet Man: How Bill Barr broke the prosecutor's code and corrupted the Justice Department”. Honig is also a CNN Senior Legal Analyst, and a former federal and state prosecutor. You may also know him from his popular podcasts, “Up Against the Mob” and/or “Cafe Brief”. As a New Jersey federal prosecutor, Honig directed major criminal cases against street gangs, arms dealers, and even a few corrupt politicians. He was also an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he successfully prosecuted more than 100 members of La Cosa Nostra, including bosses and other high-ranking members of the Gambino and Genovese organized crime families. Honig leverages all his prosecutorial experience to keep the public informed and as fodder for his excellent new book “Untouchable: How Powerful People Get Away With It”. Be sure to pick up a copy when it comes out in January of 2023. Michael and Elie discuss everything from antisemitism, racism, and why powerful people are untouchable.

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst.  For a transcript of Elie's note and the full archive of contributor notes, head to CAFE.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst.  For a transcript of Elie's note and the full archive of contributor notes, head to CAFE.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst.  For a transcript of Elie's note and the full archive of contributor notes, head to CAFE.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mea Culpa welcomes back our old friend Elie Honig. Honig is a best-selling author, a CNN Senior Legal Analyst, and a former federal and state prosecutor. You may also know him from his popular podcasts, “Up Against the Mob” and/or “Cafe Brief”. As a New Jersey federal prosecutor, Honig directed major criminal cases against street gangs, arms dealers, and even a few corrupt politicians. He was also an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he successfully prosecuted more than 100 members of La Cosa Nostra, including bosses and other high-ranking members of the Gambino and Genovese organized crime families. And now Honig leverages all that prosecutorial experience to keep the public informed and as fodder for his latest book due out soon, entitled Hatchet Man: How Bill Barr broke the prosecutor's code and corrupted the Justice Department. Michael and Elie dig deep into Merrick Garland's DOJ, Mar-a-Largo, and the Manhattan criminal Investigation into Trump and his Business.

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst. For a transcript of Elie's note and the full archive of contributor notes, head to CAFE.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst. For a transcript of Elie's note and the full archive of contributor notes, head to CAFE.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Trauma Healing w Soul Intelligence Method: CEO & Founder Kristine Genovese The Soul Intelligence® Method (SQ) is a revolutionary bioenergetic healing system designed to release physical, emotional, and mental tension at the subconscious level, offering profound transformation without the need to relive past traumas. It marries science, spirituality, and practical application to help individuals and professionals alike clear energetic blockages that hinder growth and expansion. Kristine Genovese CEO Founder https://soulintelligencemethod.com/ https://linktr.ee/soulintelligencemethodPinkCloud9 Media is Video Podcaster have interviewed 500+ CEOs, Authors, Speakers, Coaches,Executives, Business Leaders & Professionals & looking to promote more for your Visibility, Authority & Evergreen Content to my 100,000+ audience reach since 2020. Topic is always Business & your specialization the subtopic. Also booking Speakers for online events globally. Book your Business Episode Host:Book your 15-30 minute Episode SPECIAL here:https://calendly.com/pinkcloud9media/actual-livestream-recordingPodmatch discount here:https://www.joinpodmatch.com/pinkcloud9mediaGet to know our Complimentary Community w an Exclusive Benefits optionhttps://www.patreon.com/c/PinkCloud9MediaLinkedin here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/pinkcloud9/https://www.youtube.com/@PinkCloud9MediaLinktree here: https://linktr.ee/PinkCloud9#pinkcloud9media #business #podmatch #podcast #Ai 

A Thriving Indoor Farm Operation In this episode of The Valley Today, host Janet Michael and cohost Niki Foster from the Front Royal/Warren County Chamber of Commerce talk with chamber member & community advocate Rob Demariano about his growing business Robby Ds Lil Greens, an indoor vertical microgreen farm that has been quietly revolutionizing local food access in Front Royal, Virginia for nearly three years. Operating as a one-man enterprise, Rob has managed to expand his delivery footprint from Front Royal to encompass the region between Martinsburg and Luray, reaching as far east as The Plains. Remarkably, he's even scheduling meetings with Northern Virginia restaurants to further extend his reach. Unlike traditional outdoor farming, Rob's indoor operation allows him to control every environmental variable year-round. "I can dial in weather, humidity, everything," he explains, noting that while he admittedly has "a bit of a brown thumb" when it comes to outdoor gardening, the controlled indoor environment lets him perfect his growing methods and lock them in consistently. Understanding the Microgreen Advantage For those unfamiliar with microgreens, Rob offers a clear distinction from their better-known cousin, the sprout. While sprouts consist simply of seeds with small stems emerging—think mung beans—microgreens advance to the leafing stage, similar to seedlings. This developmental sweet spot delivers maximum flavor intensity and nutritional density. "The sweets are sweeter. The radishes have more bite," Rob notes, adding that microgreens are legitimately certified superfoods with significantly higher nutrition levels than their full-grown counterparts. Innovative Product Development Beyond fresh microgreens, Rob has channeled his inner "mad scientist" to create an impressive array of value-added products. His freeze-dried broccoli microgreen mango drink cleverly disguises the superfood within a bright yellow beverage that looks and tastes like ordinary mango juice. After depleting his first production run from fall through early March, he's preparing another batch for late March. Meanwhile, his collaboration with Wuuds Coffee—a Smithsonian-recommended, bird-friendly coffee roaster—and Hawksbill Mountain Mushroom has yielded a microgreen and mushroom coffee blend. The pre-ground mixture requires no additional preparation, brewing just like regular coffee without any grittiness. Customers can purchase it locally or order online with free Friday delivery throughout the Winchester and Front Royal areas. Rob's partnerships extend into the dessert realm as well. Working with Uncle Beehive in Winchester, he developed a Genovese basil ice cream using their lemon cream base. After a successful soft launch late last year, he's now dedicating two full growing racks exclusively to basil production to meet demand. The ice cream will soon appear permanently on the menu at an unnamed Winchester restaurant. Most recently, Rob partnered with Bethlehem Farms to create microgreen-topped wood-fired personal pan pizzas. Priced at just $14, these pizzas feature top-quality ingredients and sold out almost immediately upon their launch last week. The Farm to Fam Initiative However, Rob's most ambitious project represents the culmination of his original business vision. Launching March 28th, the "Farm to Fam" program partners with the Hike Kidz Foundation, a local 501(c)(3) organization, to address food insecurity while supporting small-scale farmers. "I have so many partners that I've gotten through the years," Rob explains. "I said, why aren't we putting together a CSA-style box utilizing all local farmers and producers and look to those in our community who are suffering from food insecurity?" The program will initially deliver 50 boxes to 50 Warren County families experiencing food insecurity, providing them with premium local products including fresh superfoods, milk, eggs, and meats. Funded through a recently approved grant and private donations, the initiative aims to grow from monthly or biweekly deliveries to weekly distribution. Importantly, the program serves a dual purpose. By paying small-scale farms for their products through grant funding, Farm to Fam creates stable income streams that help these operations grow. Rob envisions families eventually participating through volunteering with box packing and even farming activities, creating a sustainable ecosystem that benefits both food-insecure families and local agricultural businesses. A Community Leader Rob's commitment extends beyond his business ventures. He serves on multiple boards including the Front Royal Warren County Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Front Royal, Hike Kidz Foundation, and Front Royal Soccer Association. Niki emphasizes his community involvement: "He is one of those people who you heard him talk about all the business stuff that he is doing. He also gives of his time for organizations and the folks in the community as well." Connecting with the Community Customers can order from Robby Ds Lil Greens through robbydslilgreens.com, with free Friday deliveries for local orders. The business also maintains active Facebook and Instagram presences. For those interested in volunteering with the Farm to Fam project, information is available through the Hike Kidz Foundation website at hikekidzfoundation.org. As Rob continues experimenting with new products and expanding his community impact, his story illustrates how innovative agriculture can address both nutritional needs and food system sustainability simultaneously. With each new partnership and product launch, this one-man operation proves that thinking creatively about local food systems can yield benefits far beyond the farm itself.

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst.  For a transcript of Elie's note and the full archive of contributor notes, head to CAFE.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lo chef Michele Spagnolo ha condiviso con noi la sua ricetta per il pesto alla genovese, una salsa che racchiude in sé l'essenza della cucina italiana.

In this episode of Gangland Wire, host Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective, continues his deep dive into organized crime history with prolific Mafia author Jeffrey Sussman. Sussman, the author of eight books on organized crime, joins Jenkins for a wide-ranging conversation that spans the rise, violence, prosecutions, and survival tactics of La Cosa Nostra in America. Drawing from works like Backbeat Gangsters and his latest release Mafia Hits, Misses Wars and Prosecutions, Sussman offers sharp insight into how the Mafia enforced silence, eliminated enemies, and adapted to government pressure. The discussion opens with omertà, the Mafia's infamous code of silence, and how mob warfare enforced loyalty through fear. Sussman recounts notorious hits and mob wars that shaped organized crime, then shifts to landmark prosecutions led by Thomas Dewey, whose relentless pursuit of Murder Incorporated dismantled the mob's most feared execution squad. Jenkins and Sussman examine the disastrous Appalachian Conference, where Vito Genovese overplayed his hand, drawing national attention to the Mafia and setting the stage for informants like Joe Valachi to break decades of secrecy. The episode also explores the Mafia's darkest execution methods, including lupara bianca—murders designed to leave no body and no evidence—along with chilling stories involving Mad Sam DeStefano. The assassination attempt on Joe Colombo, and its ties to Joey Gallo, highlight how ego and publicity often proved fatal in the mob world. The episode concludes with Sussman previewing his upcoming book on the Garment District, blending personal family history with organized crime's grip on American industry. Together, Jenkins and Sussman deliver a sweeping, chronological look at how the Mafia rose, fractured, and endured—leaving a permanent mark on American culture. Get his book Mafia Hits, Misses, Wars, and Prosecutions. ⏱️ Episode Chapters 00:00 – Introduction and Jeffrey Sussman's Mafia work 03:45 – Omertà and enforcing silence 07:30 – Mafia hits and internal wars 12:10 – Thomas Dewey and Murder Incorporated 18:40 – St. Valentine's Day Massacre 23:30 – Formation of the Five Families 28:50 – Italian and Jewish mob alliances 34:20 – Capone, Lansky, and Luciano 39:45 – Appalachian Conference fallout 45:10 – Vito Genovese and Joe Valachi 50:30 – Lupara blanca and body disposal 55:20 – Mad Sam DeStefano's brutality 59:40 – Joe Colombo assassination 1:05:30 – Betrayal and mob survival 1:10:50 – Sussman's upcoming Garment District book   [0:00] Hey, welcome, all you Wiretipers, back here in the studio of Gangland Wire, as you can see. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective and later sergeant. I have a guest today. He is a prolific author about the mob in the United States. We have several interviews in the archives with Jeffrey Sussman. Welcome, Jeffrey. Thank you, Gary. It’s a pleasure to be with you once again. All right. How many mob books you got? Eight or nine, I think. Eight or nine. I know you’ve covered Tinseltown, the L.A. Families, the crime in L.A., the Chicago. What are some of those? I did Las Vegas, which had a number of the Chicago outfit members in it. I did Big Apple Gangsters. Oh, yeah. My last one was Backbeat Gangsters about the rock music business. Oh, yeah. And then I did also one about boxing and the mob, how the mob controlled boxing. And then my new book is Mafia Hits, Misses Wars and Prosecutions. The update is February 19th. All right. Guys, when I release this, we’re doing this, actually, we’re doing this before Christmas. But when this comes out, while you’ll be able to go to the Amazon link that I’ll have in there, get that book, we’ll have, you’ll see a picture of it as we go along. So you’ll know what the cover looks like. It sounds really interesting, especially about the Mafia Misses. But I’m sure that’s interesting. [1:29] Well, the mob, that’s their way of enforcing their rules. The omerta, somebody talks, they’re going to rub you out, supposedly. And by mob, we’re talking about primarily La Cosa Nostra, Sicilian-based organized crime in the United States. Yeah. The five families particularly have brought this up front. The five families have really perfected this as an art, killing their rivals, killing people that threaten them in any way, killing people that they even had a contract on Tom Dewey, the prosecutor, I believe, at one time. That would be a bomb miss, wouldn’t it? Yeah, actually, what happened with that is Dutch Schultz wanted the commission to take out a contract on Tom Dewey, and they said, no, we can’t do that, because if we do that, it’ll bring down too much heat on us. And so the mob wound up killing Dutch Schultz because he was too much of a threat to them in some ways. But the irony was that if they had killed him, Lucky Luciano never would have been prosecuted. He was prosecuted by Thomas Dewey. Lucky Bookhalter never would have been prosecuted and gone to the electric chair, several others as well. So, by not killing Dewey, they set themselves up to be arrested and get either very long prison terms or go to the electric chair. [2:57] Yeah, Dewey sent, I think it was four members of Murder Incorporated to the electric chair and the head of it, the Lepke book halter. And then he arrested and got a conviction against Lucky Luciano for pimping and pandering, which should have been a fairly short sentence, just a couple of years. But he had him sentenced to 50 years in prison, which is amazing, the pimping. [3:20] So if they had killed Thomas Dewey, they probably would have been better off. But that’s 2020 hindsight. Yeah, hindsight’s always 2020. And a cost-benefit analysis, if you want to apply that, why the cost of killing Tom Dooley might have been much less than the actual benefit was. That’s right. Exactly. And they came to realize that, but it was too late for them. I think they always do a cost-benefit analysis in some manner. How much heat’s going to come down from this? Can we take the heat? Because I know in Kansas City, our mob boss, Nick Savella, was in the penitentiary. He was about to get out, and he sent word out, said I want all unfinished business taken care of by the time I get out. Because when I get out, I do not want all these headlines, because murder generates headlines. And so there was like three murders in rapid succession right after that. [4:13] So they worry about the press and hits, murders generate press. So let’s go back and talk about some particular ones. One of the most famous ones was the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Do you cover that? [4:26] Yeah, I start with the assassination of Arnold Rothstein in 1928, and then I go right into the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. I go into the Castel Marari’s War, the birth of the five families. They had a famous meeting at the Franconia Hotel where the Jewish and Italian gangsters decided to form an alliance rather than fight one another. I went through the trial and conviction of Al Capone, the Bug and Meyer gang. Which evolved into Murder Incorporated, and then how Mayor LaGuardia went after the mob in New York and drove out Frank Costello, who had all the slot machines in New York, drove him down to Louisiana, where Frank Costello paid Huey Long a million dollars to let him operate slot machines all around New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana. And then there was William Dwyer, O’Dwyer, and Burton Turkus, who prosecuted the mob, other members of Murder Incorporated, and then how the federal government was using deportation to get rid of a lot of the mobsters, and how the mafia insinuated itself with entertainers and was controlling entertainers like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis and others. [5:44] And then the Appalachian Conference, and what an embarrassment that was to Vito Genovese, who wanted to declare himself the boss of bosses. Instead, he became the schmuck of schmucks because the FBI invaded this. And there was a theory that this was really set up, Meyer Lansky, Carl Gambino, and Lucky Luciano, because they didn’t want Vito Genovese to become the boss of bosses because Vito Genovese was responsible for the attempted murder of Frank Costello, and they wanted to get rid of him. After they embarrassed him with Appalachian, And then they set him up for a drug buy. Which is ridiculous because you don’t have the head of a mafia family going out on the street and buying heroin from someone. But that’s what they got him for. And they sent him off to prison for 15 years where he died. But in the realm of unintended consequences, which we just heard some, he goes down to Atlanta and a guy named Joe Valacci is down there. And he thinks that Vito Genovese is given to the fisheye and maybe wants to have him killed. [6:52] If Vito Genovese is not in Atlanta, Joe Valacci does not turn and become the first big important witness against the mob in the United States that couple that with Appalachian. And embarrassment to the FBI and then this Joe Valacci coming out with all these stories explaining what all that meant, the organized crime in the United States, why we may not have the investigation that subsequently came out of all that. It’s crazy, huh? Yeah, exactly. In terms of unintended consequences, because if Vito Genovese hadn’t given the kiss of death, supposedly, to Joe Valacci, you never would have had Joe Valacci’s testimony about how the mob operates. He opened so many doors and told so many secrets. It was a real revelation to the world. [7:42] Now, what about these murders? And I understand they call them a lupara blanca, where the body is never found. Did you talk about any of those or look into that at all? [7:53] We’ve had them in Kansas City, where it’s obviously a mob murder. They even will send a message to the family. We had one where the guy disappeared. Nobody ever found his body. But somebody called the family and said, hey, go up on Gladstone Drive and check this trash can. And then they find the guy’s clothes and his driver’s license, everything in there. Now, did you go into any of those blanks? Yeah, there were a number of mob hits, especially during the murder ink era where they would dispose of the bodies and no one would ever find them. But they would leave clues around for members of the family just so they would know that their father or their son or their brother, whoever was no longer in this world. [8:39] Yeah, that was done quite a bit. And when the Westies, which was an Irish gang that operated on the west side of New York, they believed that if you never found the corpse, you could never convict them of murder. So they used to take their dead bodies out to an island in the East River and chop them into little pieces and then dump them in the river and no one would ever find them. And supposedly they did that with dozens and dozens of bodies. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, and it is. It’s hard to prosecute without the body. It’s been done, but it’s really hard to do. You’ve got to have a really lot of circumstantial evidence to approve a murder without a body. And when Albert Anastasia and Leffy Foucault, who were running Murder Incorporated, they believed two things. One, that if you didn’t find the body, it would be hard to prosecute. And if you couldn’t show a motive, that would be the other thing that would make it difficult. So there would be absolutely no connection between the person who killed the victim and the victim. There was no connection whatsoever. So it was almost as if it was a stranger. In fact, it was a stranger who would commit the murder and then disappear and make sure that the body also disappeared. So you’d have neither motive nor body. Interesting. Pretty stiff penalty for murder. So I understand why you take some extra. Exactly. [10:08] Yeah, that tried to disassociate yourself from any motive for the body. There’s a guy in Chicago named Mad Sam DeStefano. Oh, sure. Lone shark and particularly egregious person when it came to collecting and was responsible for some murders and tortures. And they claim that he would buddy up to the person he knew he wanted to have killed and give him a watch. So then when the police came back around, he’d say, he was my friend. I gave him a present. I gave him that watch. Look and see. Ask his wife. I gave him a watch. Yeah. And I think it was Anthony Spolatro who was charged by the outfit of getting rid of Sam DiStefano because he was a friend. He had been like a protege of Crazy Sam. And so Sam didn’t suspect him as the person who would come and kill him. Yeah, that’s common clue. They say, look out. When a friend comes around and it seems a little bit funny and they want her particularly nice to you and you know you’re in trouble, anyhow, look out. Because that’s the guy that’s going to get you. Exactly. At least set you up. Maybe they have somebody else come in and pull the trigger, somebody that’ll leave town or whatever, but your friend’s going to set you up, make you comfortable. [11:24] Yeah, I think that’s exactly how it happened. We talked a little bit about the Joe Colombo murder. Did you look at that? Yes. [11:31] Tell us about that, because I’m really interested in that. I’d kind of like to do a larger story, just focusing on that, what really happened there, because that’s a mystery. Did this Jerome Johnson, this black guy, do it? Why would he do it? Nobody ever came out and connected him directly to Joey Gallo, and that’s the claim. So talk about that one. What happened is Joe Colombo formed the Italian Anti-Defamation League because he thought Italians were being blamed for too many things. And Colombo was responsible for having the producers of the movie The Godfather never use the word mafia in the movie, never use La Cosa Nostra in the movie. And he was making a big splash for himself. And this was driving a lot of people in the mafia a little crazy. They’re getting nervous because he was getting so much attention for himself, and it’s not the kind of attention they wanted. And Gambino was particularly upset about this. And Joey Gallo had been in prison, and he had been involved in the war against Profaci earlier on. And when he got out of prison, he felt that the new head of the Profaci family, who was Joe Colombo, should honor him with the amount of time that he spent in prison. And Joe Colombo offered him $1,000. [12:57] And Gallo was incensed by that. He expected $100,000. [13:02] And so he started another war with Colombo. [13:09] This would be good for Carlo Gambino because then he could use Joey Gallo to get rid of someone and his hands wouldn’t appear to be anywhere near this. And when Joey Gallo was in prison, he befriended a lot of black gangsters who were drug dealers and showed them how to succeed in the drug dealing business. And his attitude was that the mafia was very prejudiced against black people, but he thought that was stupid. He thought that we should use black criminals the same way we use any other criminals. And so he befriended a lot of blacks when he was in prison. And no one really knows how exactly he came in contact with Jerome Johnson. But anyway, Jerome Johnson was given the mission of assassinating Joe Colombo at a demonstration where Joe Colombo would be speaking about the Italian American Anti-Defamation League, which had attracted a lot of entertainers. Frank Sinatra was on the board of it. They raised a lot of money. I spoke to some Italian friends of mine at the time, and they said that people from the Italian Anti-Defamation League went around to small Italian-run stores, pizza parlors, shoe repair stores, whatever, and had them closed down for that day so that these people should attend the rally. And the rally was being held, I believe, in Columbus Circle. [14:36] And Jerome Johnson was there, and he had a press pass. So he was permitted to get very close to Joe Colombo because it appeared that he was a reporter or a photographer for a newspaper. And as soon as he got close enough, he pumped a couple of bullets into Joe Colombo’s head. Immediately, three or four gangsters descended on Jerome Johnson and killed him immediately. [15:02] And those three or four people who killed him, they disappeared into the crowd. No one ever found them again. I know. I wish we’d had cell phone footage from that. No one wouldn’t have gotten away if everybody had their cell phones out that day when they would have seen everything that happened. [15:21] Exactly. Columbo existed in a vegetative state. I think it was for about seven years before he finally died. I didn’t realize it was that long. Wow. Yeah, but he was semi-conscious. He couldn’t communicate. He was paralyzed. But the The Colombo family believed that it was Joey Gallo who was responsible for this. Joey Gallo and his new wife had been having a dinner with friends at the Copacabana nightclub in New York. They were joined at their table by Don Rickles, who had been performing that night. Comedian David Steinberg, who had been the best man at Joey Gallo’s wedding to a second wife, was there. And he suggested to them that they left the Copacabana about three o’clock in the morning. And he suggested to them that they all go down to Little Italy, go to Chinatown, and we’ll have a late dinner there. So Rick Olson and Steinberg said, it’s too late for us. You go and enjoy yourself and we’ll see you another time. Joey Gallo, his bodyguard, a Greek guy, I can’t remember his name exactly. Peter Dacopoulos. That’s it. And his wife, and Decapolis’ girlfriend and Joey Gallo’s stepdaughter. They all drove downtown. They couldn’t find anything open in Chinatown, so they drove over to Little Italy, and they went into Umberto’s Clam House. [16:49] And it was very strange, because supposedly a gangster would never do this. Joe Colombo was sitting with his back to the door. [16:58] Usually, your back is to the wall, and you’re facing the door. Oh, Joey Gallo was sitting with his back to the door. Yeah, I meant Joey Gallo. Yeah. Go ahead. And there was kind of a lonely guy sitting at the bar having a drink, and no one paid any attention to him. He was a mob wannabe, and he recognized Joey Gallo, and he went to a mob social club that was a few blocks away that was a hangout for Colombo gangsters. And when he came in and told them that joey gallo was there and the one of the guys there called a capo from the colombo family and told him who they saw and so forth and apparently he instructed them to go and get rid of him and so they took the mob wannabe guy and they got in two cars and they drove down to or around the block whatever it was to umberto’s clam house they went in and they immediately started shooting. And Colombo flipped over the table. I’m sorry, Joey Gallo flipped over the table and had his wife and girlfriend in the step door to get behind the table. And he and Peter were firing back at these guys. [18:07] Peter got shot in the ass and complained about it for many months afterwards, and Joey Gallo ran out onto the street chasing them, and he got shot in the neck, and I think it hit his carotid artery, and he bled to death on the sidewalk. And the guys from the Columbo and the Columbo wannabe guy, they quickly drove up to an apartment on the Upper East Side where the Columbo capo was. And he told them to go to a safe house in Nyack, New York, where they went. And meanwhile, the mob wannabe guy who had fingered Columbo, he’s getting very nervous. He feels that his life isn’t worth too much. He’s in over his head. [18:51] Right. So he sneaks out in the middle of the night and takes a plane to California to live with his sister. And he tries to get into the witness protection program, but they don’t believe him. They don’t believe he has enough evidence to make it worthwhile. No one knows exactly what happened to him afterwards. And the guys who supposedly killed Gallo, nothing really happened to them either. There was a huge funeral for Joey Gallo in Brooklyn. And it was like one of those old mob funerals that you see in a movie with a hundred flower cars and people lining the streets. And I think it was Joey Gallo’s mother who threw herself into the grave on top of the coffin. Oh, really? And Joey Gallo’s. [19:38] He had two brothers, one of whom had died of cancer, and the other one wound up going into another mob family. That was part of the peace deal. I can’t remember if it was the Gambino family or the Genovese family. He went into one of those two families. I think it was Gambino family, that Albert Kidd Twist gallo, I think was his name. And I think it was the Gambino family. He just kept a low profile until he died of natural causes. I think he’s dead now. He never heard from him again, basically. Exactly. [20:06] Interesting. That’s a heck of a story. A lot more stories like that in there, too. I bet. What was your favorite story out of that, or the one that shocked you or you learned something? Maybe something that you learned that you didn’t know or cut through some myth. [20:20] Probably, I’m just looking at my notes here to see what really fascinated me the most. I think the evolution of the Bug and Meyer gang. This guy, Ralph Salerno, who was a fascinating guy who headed the New York Prime Strike Force, Mafia investigators He’s been dead for about I think 10 or 15 years But I spent about Two or three hours Interviewing him A long time ago Didn’t he write a book Didn’t he write a book Called The Crime Confederation Or something like that Yes he did Yeah And it’s excellent So he knew Meyer Lansky He had met Bugsy Siegel Back once In the early 1940s He knew Frank Costello He knew all of these people And it was fascinating To, to hear his stories. And he said that during the time of the Bug and Meyer gang, they were the most vicious gang in New York. And they had a complete menu for crimes that they would commit on your behalf. Burglaries, murders, throwing people out of windows, breaking arms and legs, killing by stabbing, killing by shooting, killing by knifing. And each one had a price. And he said they actually had it printed. It was like a menu and you could check off what you wanted. [21:40] Crazy. And then he said, as they got more and more involved in prohibition, they got out of this and it evolved into Murder Incorporated, which had about 400 members, primarily Jewish and Italian gangsters. And it was run by Albert Anastasia and Lepke Bookhalter. [22:05] And when Thomas Dewey came into power, he wanted very much to convict these guys, but, Murder Incorporated had this fascinating idea that every member of Murder Incorporated would receive a monthly retainer and then it paid a special price for committing murders. And the more ambitious the member was, the more murders he would commit. So there were a couple who were really very ambitious and did a lot of murders. And each one had a specialty. So there was this one guy named Abe Hidtwist Relis, who only killed people with an ice pick in the back of the neck. And then he would leave the body in a car, talking about getting rid of bodies, and he would burn the body and leave it in the car and let other people know who were the relatives that he had been done away with. And then there was a guy named Pittsburgh Phil, who was the most ambitious of them, who supposedly committed about 100 to 150 murders because he just loved getting money for each one that he committed. [23:15] Then there was a guy named Louis Capone, who’s no relation to Al. He worked with a partner named Mendy Weiss, and the two of them went out and killed people together. They thought it was a fun event for them. It was like a boy’s night out. Who we’re going to kill today. Weren’t they two of them that got the electric chair? Yes, they did. And there’s a picture of them on the train up to Singh on their way to the electric chair. And they’re laughing. This is nothing. This is just another fun time for us. And yeah, I think there were four of them who finally went to the electric chair. And then one member of this was a guy named Charlie the Bud Workman, who finally got indicted for the murder of Dutch Schultz. He was the one who carried out the murder of Dutch Schultz for the mob. And he got, I think he was 30 years in prison. But according to his son… [24:13] Who is a PGA golfer, who is well-known in PGA circles as a very good golf competitor, said that the mob took care of his family for the entire time that Workman was in prison because he never spoke about anybody else. He really observed the rules of a murder, and they appreciated him for that. So that whole episode was like a corporation murder, which is why they called it Murder, Inc., that would go out and kill people on orders only from the mafia. They only worked for the mafia. You couldn’t hire them if you weren’t a member of the mafia. And it had to go through a mafia boss for the instructions to come down to them. A soldier couldn’t tell them what to do. Even a capo couldn’t tell them. It had to go up to a boss, the boss had to approve it, and then assign someone to do it. And they all worked out of a candy store in Brooklyn called Midnight Roses because it was open 24 hours a day. And the phone would ring there from giving whoever it was instructions about who was to be killed, where they were to be killed, how they were to do it, and so forth and so on. [25:27] So what was also interesting is even though Bugsy Siegel had left the Bug and Meyer gang, he still loved participating in murder. He liked killing people. And his partner in these murders was a guy named Frankie Carbo, who became a big deal in boxing. He controlled most of the boxing in America up until at the time of Sonny Liston. And his partner in this was a man named Blinky Palermo. [25:59] And according to Ralph Natale, who for a while had been the boss of the Philadelphia crime family, it was Frankie Carbo who was sent by the mob to kill Bugsy Siegel. Because if he was caught or Bugsy Siegel saw him around, he wouldn’t suspect that he was his killer because they were friends and they had operated as partners together. So this goes back to what we were talking about earlier. It’s your friend who comes closest to you and then arranges you to be assassinated. So I found that whole story just fascinating. Interesting. I’ll tell you what. And there’s those and a whole lot more stories in this, isn’t there, Jeff? Yes, there are. I think that the book covers pretty much the mob history, beginning with the founding of the five families, going all the way up through Sammy the Bulgurvano’s testimony against John Gotti and the commission trial, where they decapitated the heads of the five families. Not literally, folks. Not literally. Not literally. We didn’t literally decapitate. Rudy Giuliano, he tried to. He tried to. He tried to. Metaphorically, he decapitated the heads of the five families. Exactly. [27:15] You know, what was interesting, though, is in the 1930s, you had Thomas Dewey. In the 1960s, you had Robert Kennedy, who went after the mob. And then later on, you had Rudy Giuliani going after the mob. And the mob always managed to reorganize itself and figure out a new way of existing. They were very opportunistic and they always managed to find a way to keep going, even if it was very low key, which is what it is now, where they operate in the shadows and they don’t have any John Gottis or Al Capone’s out there getting a lot of attention for themselves. They’re still out there doing things. Yeah. Yeah. They finally learned something about that getting publicity. And most recently, they put together a whole scheme, and this goes way back, of cheating people. Big whales, I call them whales, of rich men that like to gamble and brush up against kind of the dark side and cheat them at cards. They’ve been doing that for years. They just do it under goes to clear black to the Friars Club scam in Los Angeles where Ronnie Roselli and some others had a spotter, would see who had what cards in what’s hands, then would tell another player. And so now there’s just more electronic, but the same game just upgraded to electronics. [28:30] That’s right. What someone I spoke to interviewed said, he said they’re very involved in electronic gambling poker machines and that kind of thing. And a lot of offshore gambling and offshore money laundering. And to some extent, even drug dealing now. And they’re still very involved in New York in the construction business. Oh, really? Yeah. Union business. They’re still in it, huh? And I know in Kansas City, there’s a couple of examples where they put money into a buy here, pay here car dealership into a title loan place because there’s a huge rate of interest on those things. And there’s a lot of scams that go down out of those places, especially the old crap cars and put them together and sell them to poor people for they’ve got $500 in the car and they sell it to them for $2,000. They charge them a 25% interest and then go repo it when the car breaks down, turn around and patch it up and sell it again. So there’s always schemes going on out there to mob will put their money into. Oh, it’s incredible. I knew of one scheme where they would They would sell trucks to people and give them a special route. And so on that route, they could make enough money to pay off the loan on the truck. But then they would take away the route from them. They couldn’t pay off the truck. So they would repossess the truck and sell it to someone else and do it all over again. [29:50] Oh, I know. They got to tell you that. And Joey Messino and the Bananos, they organized the tow main wagons, the lunch truck, the snack wagons. Right, exactly. Organize them. And then they start extorting money, formed an association. And then to get to good spots, then you had to kick money to them. And just to be part of the organization, that was kicking money to them. There’s always something. They always manage to find a place where they can make money. And it’s like whack-a-mole. You can stop them here, you can stop them there, and then they pop up in three other places. [30:24] Really all right jeffrey susman i’m so happy to talk to you again i haven’t talked to you for a while and i hope everything else is everything’s going okay for you in new york city yep i’m working on a new book uh what are you working on now oh my god you are so prolific i look on your amazon page just when i was getting ready to do this trying to think of some of those other titles Oh, my God. I’m working on a book about the Garment Center. Ah, interesting. Only because my family was involved in that business, and they had to deal with the mob in various ways, with trucking companies, unions, and so forth. And since I knew that, and I had a lot of information, a lot of contacts, I thought I would tackle that next. I remember when I had my marketing PR business back in the 1970s. [31:16] I had a client who was in the fitness business, and I had a cousin of my mother’s who was a very famous dress designer at the time, and he had a big showroom on 7th Avenue, which is in the garment center. I went to see him because I wanted to see if I could get a deal for my client to manufacture exercise clothes and brand it with her name. I made a date to have lunch with this cousin of mine, and he said, come up to my showroom. we’ll meet for lunch, And so I got to the showroom, and I called out his name when I walked in. It was empty. And this guy comes running out of the back, and he just has a shirt on, and he has a shoulder holster, .38 caliber gun in it. And he says to me, who the F are you? I said, I’m so-and-so’s cousin. I’m here to have lunch with him. He disappeared into the back. And a couple of minutes later my mother’s cousin comes out and i said who was that what was that about he says i don’t want to talk about it now i’ll tell you all for lunch so we go down to a restaurant around the corner and i asked him again and he says he said he couldn’t have his dresses delivered to any department store unless he made a deal with yeah i forgot if it was the gambinos or the lucasies that he had to take this guy on as a partner otherwise the trucks wouldn’t deliver his garments. And there was nothing he could do about it. It was either that or go out of business. [32:45] I’ll tell you what, they’re voracious. They’re greedy and voracious and don’t care. Just give me those, show me the money. That’s all it is. It’s all about money and any way to get it. And then there’s always a threat of murder behind it. If you don’t cooperate, think of the worst thing that can happen to you. And that’s what’ll happen. Yeah. I’ve had guys over the years tell I’m like, oh, you ought to throw in with one of those ex-mobsters that’s doing podcasts and try to do something with them. I say, I ain’t doing business with them. They play by their rules. I play by society’s rules. And I don’t have time to mess with that. Yeah. And that was a smart thing to do. Because also, when I had this fitness client, I met someone who was… I didn’t know what was connected to the mob, but a mutual friend, this guy said that he wanted to set up fitness centers all around the country for my clients. So I mentioned this to a mutual friend and he said, whatever you don’t go into business with this guy, I said, regret it for the rest of your life. So I advised my client not to do it. [33:49] Yeah. Cause initially before we knew that it sounded like a great opportunity. And then when you investigate, it’s not such a great opportunity. Yeah, really. Speaking of that, we tell stories for hours. I just heard a story. We had a relocated mobster, a guy that testified against Gigante, came here to Kansas City. And he was, of course, under witness protection and he’s got an assumed name. And he befriends a guy that has a fitness center. He has a franchise of Gold’s Gym or something. And he has a fitness center. And he talks this guy into taking him on, investing a little money in it, taking him on as his partner. Within the next couple of years, this mobster, he’s got two of his kids working there and neither one of them are really doing anything, but they’re drawing a salary and the money’s trickling out. And the guy, the local guy, he just walks away from it because this guy’s planned by the mob’s rules. So he just ended up walking away from it, did something else. So it’s do not go into business with these guys. No, never. Never. [34:48] Jeffrey Suspett, it’s a pleasure to have you back on the show. Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to be with you again, Gary. It’s always a pleasure. Thank you very much.

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst.  For a transcript of Elie's note and the full archive of contributor notes, head to CAFE.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst.  For a transcript of Elie's note and the full archive of contributor notes, head to CAFE.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of Gangland Wire, host Gary Jenkins takes listeners deep into one of the most chilling and revealing moments in Chicago mob history—a secretive 1967 party for Mob stalwart, Fi Fi Buccieri. It was held at the legendary Edgewater Beach Hotel. What appeared to be a lavish celebration was, in reality, a tightly controlled gathering of roughly 300 mobsters, political figures, and underworld insiders. The occasion marked the 40th birthday of feared Chicago Outfit enforcer Fiore “Fifi” Buccieri, a man whose reputation for violence made him one of the most dangerous figures in the city. Despite not being invited, veteran journalist Bob Wiedrich managed to infiltrate the event, raising serious questions about security, secrecy, and the gathering’s true purpose. This was no ordinary party. Federal surveillance later revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had the room bugged, capturing disturbing conversations—including laughter and casual recollections of torture and murder by Buccieri and his associates. Central to this episode is Buccieri's alleged role in the brutal torture and murder of William “Action” Jackson, a crime that horrified even seasoned law-enforcement agents. These wiretap recordings provide rare insight into the mindset of mob enforcers and the normalization of extreme violence within the Chicago Outfit during the 1960s. The timing of the party was critical. Chicago boss Sam Giancana had recently been released from prison, and rumors swirled that major power moves were underway. Evidence suggests this birthday celebration doubled as a covert mob summit, where leadership issues, alliances, and strategic decisions were quietly discussed away from public view. This party was a who's who of the Chicago Outfit. Men like Mike Glitta, Teets Battalgia, Ceaser DiVarco, Ross Prio, Larry The Hood Bounaguidi, Irvin Weiner, Dominic DiBello, Wee Willie Messino, Joseph Cortino ( former chief of police in Forest Park and several others. You will learn how Anthony Accardo and his driver Jackie Cerone avoided the scene when the cops started taking pictures and writing down names. I also explore the role of the Santa Fe Saddle and Gun Club, an organization tied to questionable fundraising activities that blurred the lines between organized crime, business interests, and local politics. These raffles and social events weren't just about money—they were about influence, access, and control. Throughout the episode, I break down the cast of characters who attended this gathering: loan sharks, enforcers, racketeers, and political fixers. Their interconnected stories reveal a dense web of loyalty, fear, and ambition that defined the Chicago mob scene at its peak.   This episode uses the Edgewater Beach Hotel as more than a setting—it becomes a symbol of mob glamour masking ruthless criminal reality. It's a reminder of how deeply organized crime once penetrated American society, and why these stories continue to fascinate, disturb, and resonate today. 0:04 Chicago Mob Tales 1:39 Fifi Buccieri ‘s Infamy 3:19 Giancana’s Absence 4:22 The Santa Fe Saddle and Gun Club 5:36 Edgewater Beach Hotel 8:36 Police Intelligence Operation 12:22 The Notorious Players 16:02 Entertainment at the Banquet 18:54 Reflections on the Meeting 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] Well, hey, all you wiretappers out there in gangland, wireland, [0:03] especially you guys up in Chicago. Yeah, I’ve done several stories on Chicago. I’m on a Chicago trip right now, I guess. I’m going to do one more with our friend, Mr. Cooley, Bob Cooley. We just haven’t set up a time yet, but I’m going to do one more with him for sure. But I’m going to keep some of these Chicago stories up. I got such a great reaction. You know, you guys, you know, like and share these, as they say, on the apps and on YouTube. But anyhow, let’s go back to March of 1967. [0:36] There was a real well-known reporter named Bob Wendrick at the time. He really covered the mob in Chicago. I mean, he might as well have been a member of the mob in Chicago. He was so close to so many people up there. And he had some really good sources and some inside tracks. And he went to a party, but he wasn’t invited to that party. You know, they never really were going to invite Bob Weindrich to a party. It was $25 a plate. There was about 300 outfit mobsters and their associates attended this party. Some of their political associates even. They called a chief of police and I think a mayor of a suburban city. It was at the Edgewater Hotel. It was sponsored by the Santa Fe Saddle and Gun Club. It was to honor the birthday of outfit enforcer, killer, and loan shark Fiore Fifi Bussieri. Fifi was a vicious killer, man. I mean, he was bad. Straight out of the Capone days. [1:36] And he was kind of best known in more modern times. It happened not too long before this party, I believe, or around this time, maybe right after. [1:48] He took part in the multi-day, I believe, three-day torture and murder of a bookie, a great big fat bookie named William Action Jackson. There’s some images, some pictures, a picture of him in his trunk was showing a lot of the torture that they did to him out there. I’ve seen it on the Internet. They kind of cut back on those pictures and try to keep those from getting circulated around on Facebook and some of the social media apps. I assume it’s still out there. Um, but anyhow, the Bureau had a, had a hidden microphone in a guy’s house, Jackie, the lackey Saron, who was, uh, uh, a Cardo’s driver at the time had a, had a hidden microphone in there and Jackie Saron and a couple others. And one of them was Fifi Sierra, Bussieri. I don’t remember who else it was. We’re laughing about Lacks and Jackson’s reactions to the cattle prod and some of the other gruesome details. [2:45] They thought he was talking to the hated FBI agent Bill Romer at the time, but in fact, he was not. He wasn’t talking to anybody. I did find one blurb where he was thought to be a child molester. So, you know, I don’t know. And I’m thinking it was a child of one of his girlfriends or something like that. I’m not sure. But anyhow, they tortured the heck out of him for about three days. Fifi came out of the 42 gang. If you remember, it was Alibaba and the 40 Thieves, so that meant there was 41 in Alibaba’s gang, and they wanted to have one more [3:17] than Alibaba, so they named themselves the 42 Gang. This party happened just as Sam Giancana was getting out of jail. [3:25] He didn’t attend, and he left for Mexico about that time to avoid further grand jury appearances. He’d been in jail about a year, I think, because they give him the old give you immunity and you have to testify. If you don’t, then they find you in contempt of court and send you to penitentiary or a jail for a year or so for the length of grand jury. And so he left town right after that and went down to Mexico for several years. Some speculate this meeting was really to get everybody together in one place and have some private meetings off the side without law enforcement really knowing what was going on, where Ricardo and Paul the Waiter Rica would name Joey Doves Iupa as the new boss in place of Gen Cona and make some other personnel shifts. You know, a few years later, when Giancana comes back, there’ll be a whole string of murders around the time he’s murdered because of some of his people that were always loyal to Giancana. [4:22] This Santa Fe Saddling Gun Club, anybody ever heard of that? I had not heard of this before. It was a registered club. The president was Joseph Scaramuza, who owned a gun store at Halstead & Taylor, which is, I believe that’s right down there in the middle of Mobland. There was an informant in the jfk files as i was researching scaramusa there was an informant that claimed that scaramusa knew jack ruby well and as they checked into scaramusa over that they found found that this halstead gun store that he owned had sold three pistols that were recovered after some puerto rican terrorists shot up the house of representative a few years before now you know what all that means i don’t know but uh and i remember that when i was a little kid these puerto Puerto Ricans, uh, now, uh, they tried to, they were trying to assassinate Harry Truman, who was staying out of the white house and the Blair house, uh, which is, I think maybe that’s where the vice president stays. Sometimes I’m not sure. Anyhow, he was not in the white house and they, they had a plan to assassinate him. They also went into the house of representatives and shot it up. They wanted complete freedom from the United States at the time. Now there’s not been any Puerto Rican freedom movement since that I know of. Anyhow, um. [5:36] The Edgewater Beach was a faded but once grand dom of hotels along Lake Michigan. They had their own beach for a while. Then something moved in between them and the beach. And it was about to declare bankruptcy. It was located a few guys that live in Chicago. It was 5555 North Sheridan. [5:56] And now members of the Chicago Police Intelligence Unit had found out about that themselves. It was like Weindrich had. Maybe they hip Weindrich to it. That all works, all that little undercover stuff. You have an employee at the Edgewater who knows somebody who knows somebody, and the work starts leaking out. When you have something this big, you have 300 people there, and it was really to make some money too, charged $25 a plate, and they did another little fundraiser. They’ve been selling raffle tickets all over Chicago and all, like down in northwestern Indiana. And in Indiana, anywhere that the outfit had some kind of influence and businesses that they could hold up. It’s like policemen. We used to go out and sell circus tickets. They were like $2 a ticket, but it wasn’t really for a ticket. It was like a support the police circus, which then gave a piece of the money to some police or widows and orphans fund. I don’t remember exactly. This is when I was brand new. and you were given like a handful of circus tickets and you’re supposed to go out to your local businessmen and sell them. Of course, they always bought them. All you had to do was go in and say, you know, I got some police tickets or circus tickets and they’d buy them. And they weren’t exactly even a ticket. They were a coupon and then they helped go buy a ticket. But, you know, that’s what they were doing, and that’s where they were. [7:23] Intelligence unit was milling around the hotel. They were, you know, I think what they were trying to do was waiting to see if the operators of this banquet, as this thing got going, if somebody actually, you know, drew, made a drawing or really raffled off a new car, which is what supposedly the raffle tickets were for, which would give them an excuse then to raid this place, saying it was an illegal lottery and then start really identifying the participants you know all of them that were there make them air everybody give you id and all that and then they had they were really loaded for bear they had 65 cops waiting close by it’s something called the foster avenue beach so it was it was a hell of an operation now the outfit during this time learned that the cops were going to be there and someone called Tony Accardo and Paula Guadarica, who were, you know, supposed to be there. They were like the headliners. They were the big ducks at that show. And really, if it was about having some meetings to realign personnel and name, maybe they’re going to have a making ceremony, but I doubt that. [8:30] But maybe they were going to name Joy Iupa as the new boss because he was the next boss. Somebody warned him not to come. And, of course, Jackie Lackey’s Roan didn’t show up either because he was a Cardo’s driver. [8:47] Cops, I’m going to tell you about some of the people the cops did find there and identify. Ross Prio, his north side loan shark and enforcer who had been Gen Conn’s second command and was reportedly consulted on all outfit murders. Now, Ross Prio, he’d been around. I can’t remember. I think he was out of the 42 gang himself. He had been around since the Capone days and a well-respected guy, had a lot of guys under him. And he was a bad dude. He was a bad actor. He was dangerous as hell and could take part in torturing the whole nine yards. They saw Irving Weiner there. He was a mob-connected bail bondsman. He was a guy who ended up a few years later walking with Alan Dorfman when somebody came up behind Dorfman and shot and killed him. Dorfman was their big guy in the Teamsters. Dorfman had helped him get those loans out of the Teamsters pension fund and loaned to people that wanted to buy Las Vegas casinos. Then everybody would get a kickback from those casinos. So he was integral. He was being investigated as an official of the Twin Cities. [9:54] Food products company and he had my he had partners felix milwaukee phil aldoricio and sam teach battaglia and marshall caifano i mean this guy is erb wiener he was he was a money man for the mob well known as a money man and and he was he was involved with with lombardo joe lombardo and tony splatter and some others and they got a loan for a guy named from the teamsters fund but for a guy named danny seifert they thought danny seifert had started a company with a lot of this money, and he was going to testify about how he got this Teamsters loan is my understanding. And I believe Lombardo and probably Frank Suisse showed up and killed him one day. He never spent a night in jail. Weiner never spent a night in jail. Go figure that. He’s kind of like, almost like Tony Accardo, huh? I saw a guy named Mike Glitta. He was an outfit member who had B-Girl bars, had these kind of hustling bars, and was involved, heavily involved in the porn business now. Um. [10:54] There was a lot of porn shops in Chicago, and Gletta was really, he was the guy on the porn shops. Chicago Crime Commission published something that said he supervised all pornography operations in an area that went from the near north side clear to the Wisconsin state line. So everything from, say, Rush Street on north was his. I guess he wasn’t down in, I think, Old Town is where Redwood met and some porn shops down there. and Frank Suisse was extorting money from some of them. Mob watchers claimed that Glitter always reported directly to Vincent Solano, who was a labor union leader and a capo, and the guy that probably had Tokyo Joe, Joe Ido killed. He was a racket boss on the north side and all the way up to the north suburbs. Identified a guy called Larry the Hood, who I’d seen that name before. It’s a really hard name to pronounce. was a Bonaguiti. [11:54] He was a mob wannabe at the time. As I researched into him, he was really just a wannabe. Hung around the Rush Street bars and he was associated with Mike Glitta. And he’ll eventually get an opportunity when Ross Prio dies and Mike Glitta has a heart attack and he moves on up real quick because he’s always in there around and he knows the porn business and the B-Girl bars on that near north side. And he’s the one that goes around and collects after after Glitter has a heart attack. [12:23] Another Northside vice boss named Joe Caesar Joseph DeVarco, he was dropped off by an underling driver. He came out of the 42 gang himself and is a well-known gangster on the Rush Street area. Dominic DiBello was a Northside gambling operator. He was seen with a friend of his and a fellow gambling operator named Bill Gold, or called Bill Gold. He had a longer name than that, and I don’t know him. If you guys make comments down below, if you know who this Bill Gold was and what the story was with him, he probably just ran a sports book or something or helped with the off-track betting outlets. And they arrived just before a guy named Joseph Cortino, according to the newspaper report. He was a former Forest Park chief of police. He was suspected of protecting gambling operations and leaking law enforcement information to the mob. A guy you hear mentioned, I’ve not really seen much on in detail, Willie Massino, and they called him Wee Willie because he was little, but he was supposedly really, really a bad character. [13:26] Here’s a guy when I believe it was Mario Raginone was invited to go on some kind of a crime, and he saw Willie Massino and somebody else in the area. And he said, uh-oh, if those guys are anywhere in the area where I am and they’ve got me kind of isolated like this, you know, going to do a crime so I’m not telling anybody where I’m going and what I’m doing and who I’m with, you know, they’re going to hit me. And he went in after that. That’s how feared Wee Willie Messino was. He had been a loan shark collector and enforcer for Tony Cardo and a guy named Joseph Gagliano, who I don’t know must have faded off into the woodwork by the 70s. 1970 he went to prison for kidnapping and beating a couple of contractors who owed money to the mob, George and Jack Chiagoris. [14:19] Sounds like they’re maybe Greek, huh? After he got out of the penitentiary, he went to work as an advisor with Marco D’Amico, who was, you know, remember Marco D’Amico had a gambling operation, and that’s who Bob Cooley worked with a lot. And he also did some work for Jackie Cerrone. [14:37] So Turk Torello, James Turk Torello, he was confronted by the cops as he was unloading sound equipment out of his, wherever his car. He yelled at him as they walked up. He said, hey, he said, I got machine guns in these boxes. You want to come and see? He was kind of a wise-ass, you know. He was a capo of the 26th Street crew and directly under Fifi Busseri. One time, he had been sent by an angry mob boss named Sam Giancana, who we all know, Mobo. And he was going to partner up with Jackie Cerrone to kill an outfit member named Frankie Esposito down in Florida. But the Bureau had recorded Giancana’s conversation and warned Esposito. and he came right back around. He didn’t help the Bureau. You know, you go out and you warn a guy and then you try to bring him in and make him a snitch or make him a cooperating witness in the end because they’re trying to kill him. They don’t all come in. And he ended up coming back to Chicago and settled his dispute with Giancana and that hit was canceled. According to the tape recordings, Torello and his killers were going to murder Esposito and cut him up in small pieces and feed him to the sharks off the Florida coast. You know, they had houses down in Florida. That’s where they, that was Jackie Cerrone’s Florida house where they overheard him and Fifi talking about the murdering and torturing Action Jackson. [16:03] Now, I mentioned bringing in the sound equipment. They had entertainment. Vic Dimone was the entertainment that night. Now, Vic Dimone has long-held connections to the Chicago outfit and I believe the Genovese family. I didn’t really go way in deep into him. I’ve got a bunch of notes. I’ll probably do a story just about Vic Dimone. [16:26] Maybe he was the character in The Singer and The Godfather, that kind of a blend of Frank Sinatra and Vic Dimone. As a singer in the Godfather movie. Guys named a couple brothers, Joseph and Donald Grieco, were there. Well, they had been in business with Vic Damone in the Vic Damone Frozen Pizza Company. Paul Rica and Fifi Boussieri had brought the famous singer Vic Damone into the outfits world and got him to lend his name to this frozen pizza business. And what they did, the Grieco brothers, They use it as a cover for their loan shark activities, but, you know, they sold pizzas, too, although I’ve never heard of. I don’t ever remember seeing a Vic DeMone frozen pizza. Vic DeMone had even taken his show to Giancana’s joint, the Armory. And if you’ve ever been by the Armory, it’s just like a neighborhood bar. A neighborhood joint is not a place. But Vic DeMone was big. You know, he would be playing Madison Square Garden maybe at the time or the big clubs, the Copacabana in New York. And they got him to bring his show out to. [17:33] Gincana’s Joint the Armory kind of like at his Villa Venice he got Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis to bring their show there and it was not exactly it was not the Copacabana they tried to make it into the Copacabana of Chicago but it never really got there another guy they saw was an outfit bookmaker and a tough guy out of Cicero who will get killed here in a little bit Sam Sambos Cesario Yeah. [17:59] He was a longtime workhorse. He’s well-liked throughout the whole Chicago underworld, but he made a mistake. He ended up marrying a girlfriend slash mistress, the Gomar of Milwaukee Field Aldericio, while he was in the penitentiary. Two guys showed up with this woman. He marries her. They’re sitting out in front of their house. It was like a brownstone. It was a hot summer night. They’re sitting out in lawn chairs out in front of their house, and two guys pull up and run up and kill him. They say Harry Ailman was the guy that did that. They call that. I’ve had some kickback on this when I said this one time before a few years ago. I didn’t really investigate into it. But, you know, the popular story is that it’s a hit from beyond the grave because Aldericio had already died in prison [18:50] between the time he gave that order and this actual murder. So that is a story of the big meeting at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. [19:02] It wasn’t exactly like Appalachian or some of the other famous mob meetings, and it was just Chicago only. They didn’t identify that they named anybody from out of town at this thing. Seemed like it was a big moneymaker, maybe a meeting that you could hire some other little meetings in, get people in there that you didn’t really want to be seen with in public. This article, they talked about other politicians and businessmen that were there, but they didn’t really name them. I guess they didn’t want to get sued or whatever, but it was a, it was definitely, it was a fundraiser. He charged 25 bucks a plate and then have that, uh, that lottery for that car. And, and, you know, they never gave that car to anybody. And you know how much money you can raise with, with, you got, you know, a hundred guys or so going out, mob guys going out and raising money, selling lottery tickets at five bucks, 10 bucks each. You can raise a lot of money like that. So maybe it’s just one more big Chicago scam and honored Fifi Boussieri at the time. I don’t know. But anyhow, thanks a lot, guys. I thought it was an interesting story, and I thought you would find it interesting. And some of the people that they named that were there, I wish I’d have been there, but writing down license numbers and taking pictures and all that stuff. So keep coming back. Like and subscribe, as they say. And we’re just going to keep doing this and doing this. [20:24] I’ve gotten some you know I’ve got some things up that are like non-fiction books that are based on mob stuff, I don’t know if that’s okay or not, but I kind of like mixing that up. There’s only so many mob stories out there. You know, I don’t want a lot of these that have already been told. I don’t remember seeing any. I kind of looked around in the other podcast having this story. So I try to find them. You know, give me any tips, your comments that you can. I’ll try to look it up. And if I can find enough information, I’ll do the story on it. So thanks a lot. And adieu to you guys out in Chicago. I bet it’s colder up there than it is down here. Thanks, guys.

How do you find your own voice when you're raised in a world built on silence? Rita Gigante is the daughter of one of the most powerful mob bosses in history, Vincent Gigante, but her life's work is about exposure, healing, and light.  As a professional psychic medium and author, she helps people navigate the very things her upbringing tried to hide: the truth. We're diving into the history of 'The Chin,' the reality of the Genovese legacy, and how she transformed a life of secrets into a mission of healing.  A must listen interview with Rita Gigante.   We chat it up about a man with an interesting item up his bum, we delve into the Epstein files, give some Superbowl predictions, and bring up a classic story of Hunkamania.  Have a listen!

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst.  For a transcript of Elie's note and the full archive of contributor notes, head to CAFE.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elie Honig is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and co-chief of the organized crime unit at the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted more than 100 mobsters, including members of La Cosa Nostra, and the Gambino and Genovese crime families. He went on to serve as Director of the Department of Law and Public Safety at New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. He is currently Special Counsel at Lowenstein Sandler and a CNN legal analyst. For a transcript of Elie's note and the full archive of contributor notes, head to CAFE.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A gun-waving showdown with the Ramones. A death threat from the Genovese crime family. A terrorized Ronnie Spector locked inside a gilded cage. And a Christmas record crushed by one of the darkest days in American history. Listen to find out how producer Phil Spector created a joyful holiday masterpiece before fear and violence turned his quest for immortality into something far darker. Now that we're in the holiday season, we want your recommendations for Christmas music. We're looking for the obscure and off the beaten path – whaddaya got, Disgos? Let Jake know at 617-906-6638, ⁠⁠disgracelandpod@gmail.com⁠⁠, or on socials @disgracelandpod. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at ⁠⁠disgracelandpod.com/membership⁠⁠. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠⁠ Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠ ⁠⁠X⁠⁠ (formerly Twitter)  ⁠⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠⁠ ⁠⁠TikTok⁠ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A gun-waving showdown with the Ramones. A death threat from the Genovese crime family. A terrorized Ronnie Spector locked inside a gilded cage. And a Christmas record crushed by one of the darkest days in American history. Listen to find out how producer Phil Spector created a joyful holiday masterpiece before fear and violence turned his quest for immortality into something far darker. Now that we're in the holiday season, we want your recommendations for Christmas music. We're looking for the obscure and off the beaten path – whaddaya got, Disgos? Let Jake know at 617-906-6638, ⁠⁠disgracelandpod@gmail.com⁠⁠, or on socials @disgracelandpod. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at ⁠⁠disgracelandpod.com/membership⁠⁠. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠⁠ Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠ ⁠⁠X⁠⁠ (formerly Twitter)  ⁠⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠⁠ ⁠⁠TikTok⁠ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices