Podcasts about Mob

Jeff Axley of Ridgeline Capital Partners joins Chris to break down medical office buildings, one of the healthcare real estate niches more LPs are starting to pay attention to. Jeff walks through how his background across office, multifamily, development, restructuring, industrial, and master-planned communities ultimately led him to focus on medical office as a more durable, recession-resilient asset class. Chris and Jeff start with the basics: what medical office buildings are, how they differ from hospitals, senior housing, skilled nursing, assisted living, and other parts of the healthcare real estate landscape, and why outpatient care has become such an important long-term trend. Jeff explains why medical office can behave like traditional office in some ways, but with important differences: longer leases, triple-net structures, higher tenant improvement costs, more specialized build-outs, and stickier tenants who are much harder to move once they have expensive medical infrastructure in place. They also dig into the current market opportunity. While traditional office and multifamily have faced major headwinds, medical office occupancy and rents remain strong, with supply typically built to match tenant demand rather than speculative growth. Jeff explains why buying existing medical office at a meaningful discount to replacement cost can create a protected basis, how rising construction costs support the value of existing buildings, and what LPs should look for when evaluating MOB underwriting. Key takeaways: What medical office buildings are and how they fit into the broader healthcare real estate landscape Why outpatient care, aging demographics, technology, and reimbursement pressure support long-term MOB demand How medical office differs from traditional office through lease structure, tenant improvements, plumbing, foot traffic, and tenant stickiness Why MOB supply is typically more controlled than multifamily or traditional office supply How triple-net leases help owners pass through operating expenses, while still requiring competitive cost management Why replacement cost matters and how buying existing buildings below new construction cost can create downside protection What LPs should watch in MOB deals, including going-in cap rate, cost of financing, positive leverage, stabilized yield on cost, and exit cap assumptions Join a community of passive investors. Start your FREE 7-day trial: https://passivepockets.com/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=none Listen to the PassivePockets Podcast Anywhere: https://lnk.to/passivepockets Subscribe to the Passive Investing Newsletter: https://www.biggerpockets.com/email-subscribe?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=description&utm_campaign=none Join BiggerPockets for free: https://www.biggerpockets.com/signup?utm_source=owned_media Disclaimer The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk, so use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing. You should only risk capital you can afford to lose. Past performance is not indicative of future results. This podcast may contain paid advertisements or other promotional materials for real estate investment advisers, investment funds, and investment opportunities, which should not be interpreted as a recommendation, endorsement, or testimonial by PassivePockets, LLC or any of its affiliates. Viewers must conduct their own due diligence and consider their own financial situations before engaging with any advertised offerings, products, or services. PassivePockets, LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising out of reliance on information and advertisements presented in this podcast.

Russell Shorto, author of Smalltime: A Story of My Family and the Mob, provides a historical and personal exploration of organized crime in the small industrial town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, framing the American Mafia as a "mirror of American capitalism." The story traces the family's roots back to Sicily, where the author's great-grandfather, Antonino Scioto (later Tony Shorto), emigrated to work in coal mines before his mysterious murder in Italy in 1920. This tragedy forced his son, Rosario "Russell" Shorto, to become the family's provider at age six, eventually finding his way into the world of bootlegging and gambling during Prohibition. Russell developed specialized skills as a card and dice cheat, finding a mentor in a neighborhood "Black Hand" leader. In the late 1930s, Shorto partnered with Joe Regino, a mobster sent from Philadelphia to establish a local franchise. Their base of operations, City Cigar, became a central hub for a gambling empire that included the numbers racket, pinball, and card games, all protected by a sophisticated system of bribing local police and politicians. Shorto emphasizes the social context of ethnic prejudice, noting that many Italianimmigrants turned to the "underworld" because legitimate economic paths were often closed to them. The book also examines the internal family toll of this lifestyle—secrets, alcoholism, and the strain of living multiple lives—as the author and his father attempt to reconstruct the history of a man who never "broke cover." The empire eventually crumbled under the pressure of federal investigations led by Bobby Kennedy and local fallout from the unsolved 1960 murder of bookie Pippy diFalco. (2)1899 CAMBRIA COUNTY, PA

Ganz klar, wenn man zum ersten Mal in die USA reist, wird man höchstwahrscheinlich nicht gerade Arkansas und Alabama besuchen. Wegen der wechselvollen oft dunklen Geschichte der Südstaaten gibt es in den Südosten des Landes viel zu entdecken – Orte, die an die Bürgerrechtsbewegung erinnern ebenso wie lebendige Musikgeschichte, Artenvielfalt in State Parks und schnuckelige kleine Downtowns.„La petite roche“- kleiner Felsen- so nannte der französische Entdecker de la Harpe eine Gesteinsformation, als er Anfang des 18. Jahrhunderts den heutigen Arkansas River landeinwärts entlangschipperte. Die Hauptstadt des heutigen Bundesstaats Arkansas heißt „Little Rock“. Eine Stadt mit rund 200 000 Einwohnern, die sich über viele Quadratkilometer verteilt, aus einem Patchwork unterschiedlicher Neighbourhoods besteht und mit viel Interessantem aufwartet. Nahe des State Capitols von Arkansas erinnert eine eindrucksvolle Skulptur an die „Little Rock Nine“.Das waren die ersten afroamerikanischen Schülerinnen und Schüler, die nach der offiziellen Aufhebung der Rassentrennung in Arkansas eine High School besuchten. 1957 war das - der Gouverneur von Arkansas versuchte, ihnen den Besuch der High School zu verwehren, ein weißer Mob demonstrierte vor der Schule. Und Präsident Eisenhower setzte schließlich Bundestruppen ein, um die Schüler zum Unterricht zu eskortieren. Heute wird die High School samt Gelände vom National Park Service betreut, es gibt Führungen und unterschiedlichste Veranstaltungen.Überhaupt, Little Rock bietet eine ziemlich vielfältige Museumslandschaft. Von den dichten Wäldern und mittelgebirgsähnlichen Regionen in Arkansas zum Süden von Alabama. Das Tensaw River Delta bei Mobile wird auch der „Amazonas Nordamerikas“ genannt. Hier, wo sich Salz- und Süßwasser mischen, ist eine enorme Artenvielfalt zu finden - allein rund 300 Vogelarten sind hier gesichtet worden, dazu zahlreiche Amphibien, Alligatoren und kleine Säugetiere.Mobile selbst gehört zu den ältesten Städten der USA und ist besonders stolz auf seinen „Mardi Gras“, den ältesten Nordamerikas. Doch Mobile steht auch für ein dunkles Kapitel der amerikanischen Geschichte - im Viertel Africatown erzählt ein kleines Museum seit einigen Jahren die Geschichte der „Clotilda“. Das Schiff schmuggelte 1860 – Jahrzehnte nach dem Verbot des transatlantischen Sklavenhandels - 110 aus Westafrika verschleppte Menschen nach Alabama. Ihre Nachfahren leben heute teilweise noch in Africatown. Und wollen mit dem Museum aber auch mit regelmäßigen Veranstaltungen dafür sorgen, dass ihre Geschichte nicht in Vergessenheit gerät.Crosspromotion: ARD-Podcast: "Amerika, wir müssen reden" https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/amerika-wir-muessen-reden,podcast5882.htmlModeration: Philipp AbreschAutor:in: Sabine LoeprickRedaktion: Philipp Abresch, Angelika PenzMitarbeit: Patricia Batlle Produktion: Wolfgang Seesko, Konrad Winkler

Albany State makes a return trip across the border to open the season against FAMU and even the most discerning of fans believes that the Rams will need persons from the Field to Mob the Rattlers if they hope to pull off an upset. Both teams have new coaches and neither fanbase wants to be asking Where Are We Going. Welp, the question will be can Project Dreams happen on the field of dreams during this game as last years game took the Rams coach from Ashy to Classy. It gets Real in the Field as we open our too early to tell season preview with the team from the 229. Fangs Up!#FAMU #FangsUp #HBCU #HBCUdigital

Historian Ada Ferrer talks about Keeper of My Kin, her memoir of a Cuban family divided by revolution, migration, and exile. Then Writer's Voice revisits a 2008 interview with journalist T.J. English about Havana Nocturne, the story of how the Mob took over Cuba and was stopped by the Cuban Revolution.

Bobby Fuller was one of America's hottest rock stars when he died under mysterious circumstances. Beaten and bloodied, his body had been soaked in gasoline and left in his car in the heart of Hollywood. The Bobby Fuller Four had just entered the Top 10 with "I Fought The Law" when it all came to a violent end. But who had a motive to kill the soft-spoken Texan? A jealousboyfriend? A New York record mogul known for violence? Or someone looking to cash in on a $1,000,000 life insurance policy?He Fought the Mob, written by Ron Smith, provides an amazing insight into the world of Sixties rock 'n' roll and the Hollywood club scene. An incredible tale of organized crime's influence over the record industry and how one promising artist was cut down in his prime when he pushed the Mob toofar.

Subscribe to Dostcast Clips:https://www.youtube.com/@DostcastClips?sub_confirmation=1Listen to Dostcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/70vrbHeSvrcXyOeISTyBSy?si=be05dbdd564245d9Join the Dostcast Janta Party on WhatsApp for regular updates: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbAZwo5D8SDs5kf94N3TWant to suggest a guest?Fill this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ft_-1QDs7XpsSWnaPOeF21yUlhk9bzKvwHSyh4hHfBU/edit?usp=drivesdk====================================================================Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has resigned — and this is the video that said it wouldn't matter. For 12 years Vinamre let experts, podcast guests and news channels tell him what India is. This time he put the phone down and spent three days at Jantar Mantar — July 21st, 22nd and 23rd — inside the NEET protest, watching a student movement with his own eyes. No research, no facts, no narrative. Just what he saw, and why he thinks getting a minister to quit changes nothing. Live offline, publish online.In this video, Vinamre breaks down:- Three days at Jantar Mantar — why he walked in expecting "woke JNU types" and why the crowd changed his mind- The July 20th lathicharge — women slapped, children beaten, and why he says it undid 12 years of Modi's PR in one afternoon- The Cockroach Janata Party — how an ex-AAP PR guy turned an insult into a movement, and why Gen Z won't be fooled by it or anyone- Mob psychology on both sides — when personal responsibility switches off, for police and protesters alike- A blunt message to Narendra Modi's PR team — stop the myth-making before reality tarnishes the legacy- Why the rich, the finger-wagging old, and the silent podcasters all need to touch grass and see it themselves====================================================================Vinamre Kasanaa is a writer at heart, podcaster and entrepreneur by craft.He spends a significant part of his time reading and researching.With over 500 podcasts under his belt, he's interviewed everyone—from HNIs and industry leaders to everyday superheroes.Follow Vinamre:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinamre-kasanaa-b8524496/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vinamrekasanaa/Twitter: https://twitter.com/VinamreKasanaaDostcast: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dostcast/Twitter: https://twitter.com/dostcast====================================================================Contact Us:For business inquiries: dostcast@egiplay.com

Ken talks about the latest with the conflict with Iran as he speaks to Navy veteran Jim Blythe. Ken takes a look at the mid-term Congressional races with political analyst and talk show host Jeff Croeur. And Ken learns about living in the Mob with James McManus.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ken talks about the latest with the conflict with Iran as he speaks to Navy veteran Jim Blythe. Ken takes a look at the mid-term Congressional races with political analyst and talk show host Jeff Croeur. And Ken learns about living in the Mob with James McManus.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ken talks about the latest with the conflict with Iran as he speaks to Navy veteran Jim Blythe. Ken takes a look at the mid-term Congressional races with political analyst and talk show host Jeff Croeur. And Ken learns about living in the Mob with James McManus.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Your Stupid Minds fulfills the Siskel and Ebert prophecy and reviews 1993's Cop & ½ (or Cop and a Half, if you prefer English). Starring Burt Reynolds, Norman D. Holden II, Ruby Dee, and Ray Sharkey. Directed by Henry Winkler. Devon Butler (Golden) is an 8-year-old kid who's obsessed with being a cop. When he witnesses a mob execution, he negotiates the exchange of evidence for being a police officer for one day. The stupid chief assigns the babysitting role to the oldest and crankiest guy on the force: Nick McKenna (Reynolds). The second act devotes its time mostly in search of a plot. Mob leader Vinnie Fountain (Sharkey) comes to Devon's home and forces the child into witness protection (i.e. Nick's disgusting apartment). Devon pulls over his jerk principal for speeding. A pair of homicidal teenage bullies menace an elementary school hoping to give Devon a swirly at a moment's notice. Nick has a bar fight with a street tough named Bobo. All standard stuff. Eventually the movie settles on a child endangerment angle and Nick must rescue Devon from the mob. Is Nick up to the task? Will there be a boat chase? Was this worse than Carnosaur? You'll have to listen to find out!

Send us Fan MailJeffery Sussman joins King Hap to talk about his life near the mafia, people he knew involved in the mafia, and his years of investigation and writing about the mob. He has written 19 Non-Fiction books including his latest, “Mafia Hits, Misses, Wars, and Prosecution (The Rise and Decline of the Mob in America)” Hap is always down to talk mafia, organized crime, boxing and show business so this show is a lot of fun! Check out Jeff's website https://www.jeffreysussmanauthor.com/Follow him on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/share/1DXctEaMPU/?mibextid=wwXIfrThis episode was recorded live on the network infront of Happy Hour V.I.P.s If you want to be part of the live tapings follow us onTwitch https://m.twitch.tv/thehappyhourscOrwww.TheHappyHourSocialClub.comAS  ALWAYS The Happy Hour is brought to you by LIQUID-IV & LIQUID-IV SUGAR FREE LIV ENERGY!!!https://glnk.io/koyv/kinghap  *PROMO CODE KINGHAP OR KING.HAP SAVES 25%OLD SCHOOL LABS AMAZING Supplements made for Amazing people!….. Try the Delicious TIRAMISU PROTEIN! Save 25% site wide with promo code Kinghap(https://shop.oldschoollabs.com/KINGHAP)NORTH CANNA CO.Discover the best THC-infused drinks and THC gummies on the planet. Sip or chew while relaxing the enjoyable life's finer moments with no hangover!  CBD blends are also available as option for both drinks and chews. https://www.drinkthenorth.com/?snowball=KINGHAP

A look back at the United States versus Joey Merlino and six others in the biggest Mob trial in Philadelphia History. The witnesses, the evidence, the defense and the verdicts in the 2001 racketeering trial of Philadelphia's most controversial mobster. Mob expert George Anastasia and I break it all down on the 25th Anniversary of the surprising verdicts. Hear insider information never heard before.

Saade Aala Radio | Punjab vs Himachal? Punjab vs Uttarakhand? Or Just Stupid People?Every time a fight breaks out involving people from different states, social media does what it does best...It stops looking for facts and starts looking for teams.In this episode, we discuss how individual crimes and clashes are quickly transformed into State vs State or Community vs Community narratives, making the situation far worse than it actually is.We begin with the recent clash involving Nihangs in Uttarakhand.Within hours, social media had already decided the story.Some called it Punjab vs Uttarakhand.Others turned it into Sikhs vs Uttarakhand.But was it really?We discuss how a dispute involving a few individuals suddenly becomes a battle between millions of innocent people who had absolutely nothing to do with the incident.We've seen this pattern before.Whenever an incident happens between Punjabis and locals in Himachal Pradesh, social media immediately turns it into Punjab vs Himachal.Instead of discussing what actually happened...People begin defending "their side."Facts disappear.Logic disappears.Only emotions remain.One of the biggest points we make in this episode is simple:If someone commits a crime...They should face legal action.Not become the representative of an entire state, religion or community.Crime belongs to individuals.Not geography.We also discuss a worrying trend seen in several incidents.Instead of informing the police or allowing the legal system to work...Groups of people decide to punish others themselves.Public beatings.Mob justice.Instant verdicts.We ask a simple question:When did ordinary citizens become the courts of India?Justice cannot exist if every crowd starts making its own law.Today people don't wait for investigations.They wait for someone to blame.One video...One headline...One viral clip......and suddenly millions of people start fighting online over something they know almost nothing about.This episode is about breaking that cycle.Because every incident deserves facts—not hashtags.At Saade Aala Radio, we believe stupidity has no religion, no state and no nationality.When someone does something wrong...Call out the individual.Not an entire community.That's how societies stay united.

https://linktr.ee/csjosephWhat's up Ego Hackers?In this episode of the C.S. Joseph Podcast, we break down "Dr. Hugbox" — the manipulative magician archetype leader who serves as the keeper of mob mentality for subconscious developed (SD) men.Dr. Hugbox offers inspiring speeches, feel-goods, and an illusion of safety while parasitically guiding SD men for his own benefit. These men are solipsistic, treacherous, and constantly monkey-branching between safety nets. When exposed, they turn on their own leaders and create power vacuums.We also cover why unconscious developed (UD) men are the primary targets of these invisible guiding hands, the strategic way to neutralize Dr. Hugbox by exposing him to the mob, and why sometimes the smartest move is to disengage completely. Plus a real-world example: Rollo Tomassi as a classic Dr. Hugbox in the red pill space.If you're an unconscious developed man tired of being targeted by SD social orders and their parasitic leaders, this episode is essential.

I'm breaking down every album by anarcho punk band Zounds. Formed in Reading, Berkshire, England by Steve Lake in 1977, Zounds were closely associated with other anarcho punk bands like Crass, Flux of Pink Indians, and The Mob. After initially breaking up in 1982, Zounds reformed in 2001 and continued until their final breakup in 2025.   Intro 00:00 Band Origins 00:27 Where the Name "Zounds" Came From 3:30 The Early Days 4:16 Lyrical Themes 6:02 Musical Influences 7:51 Meeting Crass 9:27 Can't Cheat Karma 7" 11:05 Demystification 7" 16:33 The Curse of Zounds 17:29 Dancing 7" 20:40 More Trouble Coming Every Day 7" 22:32 La Vache Qui Rit EP 23:08 Their First Breakup 24:45 Alone 7" 26:16 The Redemption of Zounds 27:25 Their Final Breakup 30:05 Closing Thoughts/Outro 30:37   ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My Top 77 Album Recommendations: https://every-album-ever.kit.com/0ee90183d0   Join the Patreon, it rules: https://www.patreon.com/everyalbumever   Mike's music: Pander Monkey on Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple,   Mike on Instagram @pandermonkey Tom on Instagram @tomosmansounds   Tom Osman's stuff: Music on Spotify, Apple, Website Podcast on Spotify, YouTube ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mike's Picks: Can't Cheat Karma 7" -- Best Record, Personal Favorite The Redemption of Zounds -- Worst Album, Least Favorite   Albums discussed this episode... Can't Cheat Karma 7" (1980) Demystification 7" (1981) The Curse of Zounds (1981) Dancing 7" (1982) More Trouble Coming Every Day 7" (1982) La Vache Qui Rit 7" (1983) The Redemption of Zounds (2011)

John continues his journey through the Legion of Super-Heroes comics. Time Codes: 0:00:00 Intro 0:00:36 Opening comments 0:00:48 Superboy (1949) #148 – Superboys Greatest Gamble! 0:06:21 Adventure Comics (1938) #369 – Mordru the Merciless! 0:13:23 Adventure Comics (1938) #369 – Part II – Mordru and the Mob! 0:19:52 Adventure Comics (1938) #370 – The Devils […]

Liz is joined by TJ Harker, Author of “American Scapegoat: How a Corrupt Justice System Sacrificed Derek Chauvin to the Mob” to discuss the stunning, widely unknown facts and circumstances surrounding George Floyd's death. Like & subscribe to make sure you don't miss a single video: https://youtube.com/lizwheeler?sub_confirmation=1 Get the full audio show on all major podcast platforms: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-liz-wheeler-show/id1567701295 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4LhlHfocr5gMnLj4l573iI iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-the-liz-wheeler-show-82737301/ Subscribe to The Liz Wheeler Show newsletter: https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/lizwheeler Get VIP access to The Liz Wheeler Show on Locals: https://lizwheeler.locals.com/. Stay in touch with Liz on social media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialLizWheeler Twitter: https://twitter.com/Liz_Wheeler Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/OfficialLizWheeler Rumble: https://rumble.com/LizWheeler Website: https://lizwheeler.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode of “The Liz Wheeler Show”, Liz is joined by TJ Harker, Author of “American Scapegoat: How a Corrupt Justice System Sacrificed Derek Chauvin to the Mob” to discuss the stunning, widely unknown facts and circumstances surrounding George Floyd's death, as well as the egregious prosecutorial misconduct committed against Derek Chauvin. Buy TJ Harker's book “American Scapegoat: How a Corrupt Justice System Sacrificed Derek Chauvin to the Mob” here: https://www.amazon.com/American-Scapegoat-Corrupt-Justice-Sacrificed/dp/1945649798 Like & subscribe to make sure you don't miss a single video: https://youtube.com/lizwheeler?sub_confirmation=1 Get the full audio show on all major podcast platforms: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-liz-wheeler-show/id1567701295 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4LhlHfocr5gMnLj4l573iI iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-the-liz-wheeler-show-82737301/ Subscribe to The Liz Wheeler Show newsletter: https://www.theblaze.com/newsletters/lizwheeler Get VIP access to The Liz Wheeler Show on Locals: https://lizwheeler.locals.com/. Stay in touch with Liz on social media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialLizWheeler Twitter: https://twitter.com/Liz_Wheeler Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/OfficialLizWheeler Rumble: https://rumble.com/LizWheeler Website: https://lizwheeler.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

05.07.2026 – Der Verleger und Herausgeber des Magazins „Der Sandwirt“ Oliver Gorus, der Journalisten Alexander Heiden (Tichys Einblick), sowie der Juristen und ehem. Präsidente des deutschen Bundesamtes für Verfassungsschutz Hans-Georg Maaßen diskutieren mit Burkhard Müller-Ullrich über den linksradikalen Mob, der den AfD-Parteitag in Erfurt nicht verhindern konnte, über das fahrige Gequassel der deutschen Regierungskoalition von Reformen und Zukunft, über die tödliche Ahnungslosigkeit einer deutschen Kinderschutzbehörde gegenüber einem mordbereiten türkischen Gefängnisausbrecher und über das auftrumpfende Bekenntnis des Chefs der nordrhein-westfälischen Landesmedienanstalt, er wolle mit der Schikane eines Podcasters einen präventiven Effekt auf andere erzielen.

Rachel is joined by Jacob Boehme, an award-winning filmmaker, choreographer, and cultural leader. Jacob shares his journey from a troubled teenager in Melbourne's western suburbs to his studies, where he discovered the deep connections between traditional cultural practice and theatre. We also explore his acclaimed solo work Blood on the Dance Floor, which centres First Nations experiences of living with HIV. He closes after speaking about his current role leading the Mob+ program at Thorne Harbour Health's Positive Living Centre in Prahran. Chapters 00:00 - Show introduction and guest overview 01:52 - Early theatre and dance beginnings 05:54 - Cultural discovery and identity at NAISDA 08:22 - Multidisciplinary ceremony as theatre practice 11:45 - Founding Yirramboi Festival with self-determination 15:50 - Blood on the Dance Floor 20:21 - Introducing the Mob Plus program 26:03 - Hopes for the future of Mob+ All chapter timecodes are approximate. Want more Well Well Well? Check out our other JOY Podcasts for more on LGBTIQ+ health and wellbeing at joy.org.au/wellwellwell. If there's something you'd like us to explore on the show, send through ideas or questions at wellwellwell@joy.org.au Find out more about LGBTIQ+ services and events in Victoria and South Australia at thorneharbour.org. Produced by: Rachel Cook, Jack Crnjanin

This week on Rick Flynn Presents worldwide podcast: Episode 291In this true story, an unexpected revelation upends a son's understanding of everything he thought he knew about his father—setting him on a journey of discovery as he attempts to piece together the truth.After Glenn Wichinsky's parents divorced, his mother took him and his siblings away from their father's questionable life choices. Glenn grew up in a sheltered South Florida neighborhood, dreaming of becoming a meteorologist. It wasn't until he was thirteen, on a visit to Las Vegas to see the father he barely knew, that Glenn's eyes opened to a wider world. A far cry from his life in Florida, the trips he made to the Sands Hotel and Casino over the years to see his father felt like living in a movie. Michael “Mickey” Wichinsky, a respected and noted pioneer in the slot machine and gaming industry, led a life of intrigue—where showgirls, glitz, and glamour sparkled around every corner and backroom deals with mobsters were simply part of doing business.It was only after his father's death that Glenn discovered how deep the ties had been between Mickey and the Mob, forcing him to reconcile his father's early life and work in Las Vegas with his understanding of the kind and generous man he knew. Told with honesty, heart, and deep self-reflection, Things Left Unsaid is both a personal odyssey and a fascinating dive into the history of the Nevada gaming industry by a man trying to reframe the story of his father's past—and his own.Contact: www.GlobalGamingLawyer.com

Air Date: 6/24/2026 The Monthly-ish Mix™ is here to get you caught up on recent news without being overwhelming! If you've been pulling back from the news for your own sanity, this one's built for you — a quick recap and reference guide to the past month or two, organized around a single idea: when power can't earn legitimacy, it manufactures it. The performance. Spectacle, religion, and health branding standing in for real consent: Trump collecting a FIFA "peace prize," Christian nationalism worn as a costume the actual church refuses to bless, and RFK Jr. dressing up a gutted vaccine agenda as "moderate," scapegoating immigrants as he goes, while the USAID cuts run up a body count. The machinery. The infrastructure that keeps the performance going while real consent drains away underneath: a legal system bent toward self-dealing and a $1.8 billion slush fund, billionaire money rewriting the rules since Citizens United, an AI gold rush sold as inevitable before anyone voted on it, and an economy booming on paper while the ground shifts under everyone's feet. The vacuum and the reclaiming. What rushes in when legitimacy collapses, from normalized political violence to a manifesto born of that collapse — and then the democratic answer: why the rupture hasn't come, why revolutions tend to devour themselves, and why the slower work wins. Nonviolent movements draw eleven times the participation, and the ballot box the Supreme Court is fighting hardest to narrow is the same one that just turned out 78% of Hungary to remove Orbán. Full Show Notes Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus Shows + No Ads!) Use our links to shop Bookshop.org and Libro.fm for a non-evil book and audiobook purchasing experience! Join our Discord community! SECTION 1: THE PERFORMANCE OF LEGITIMACY (00:01:31) #1798 - FIFA Sportswashing Fascism: The World Cup from Mussolini to Trump 1: Trump Is a 'master Marketer' Symone Reacts to President Getting FIFA Peace Prize - Chris Jansing Reports - Air Date 12-5-25 2: Jules Boykoff on World Cup and Sportswashing Part 1 - CounterSpin - Air Date 5-15-26 3: Trump LOSES IT as FIFA SUFFERS MAJOR CRISIS!! Part 1 - MeidasTouch - Air Date 5-6-26 (00:23:20) #1787 - The American President vs The American Pope: Leo XIV, Trump, and the MAGA-Catholic Rift 4: Someone Tell Pete Hegseth That "Pulp Fiction" Isn't in the Bible - Takes™ by Jamelle Bouie - Air Date 4-18-26 5: "Two Versions of Christianity": Pope Leo Calls for Peace as U.S. Uses Religion to Justify Iran War - Democracy Now! - Air Date 4-1-26 6: Why America and the Vatican Have Fallen Out - TLDR News Global - Air Date 4-11-26 (00:46:03) #1794 - From MAHA to Measles: RFK's Public Health Purge Will Make America Sick Again 7: Why RFK Jr. Is Projecting a More 'Moderate' MAHA Stance - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 4-27-26 8: RFK Jr Goes Full Eugenics to Congress; IMMIGRANTS BRING DISEASE - Brittany Page - Air Date 4-22-26 9: As WHO Declares Ebola Outbreak a Global Health Emergency, Did USAID Cuts Worsen the Crisis - Democracy Now! - Air Date 5-18-26 SECTION 2: THE MACHINERY & THE LEAK (01:13:10) #1796 - 1.8 Billion for the Mob and a Kill List for Dissent: Trump's payout fund and counterterrorism strategy, decoded 10: We Will Find You and We Will Kill You Part 1 - The Intercept Briefing - Air Date 5-15-26 11: Congress Strikes Back as Trump Rushes $1.8 Billion Scam - Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Air Date 5-18-26 12: Dictatorship in Action David Cay Johnston on $1.8B Slush Fund Part 2 - Democracy Now! - Air Date 5-20-26 (01:34:00) #1792 - Capitalist Class Warfare: AI, Billionaire Capture, and the How to Fight Back 13: The Case Against Billionaires | Chuck Collins - Washington Monthly - Air Date 1-5-26 14: How Oligarchs Hijacked America in Just 16 Year - Benaminute - Air Date 4-30-26 15: It Will Be 17 Times Worse Than the .com Crash - Upper Echelon - Air Date 5-7-26 (02:04:29) #1797 - AI Spent $540 Billion to Make You Lonelier: Betting Against Jobs, Art, and Community 16: Will SpaceX and OpenAI Starve the Market? - UNFTR Media - Air Date 5-26-26 17: Astra Taylor on AI Data Center Resistance & Fighting "Billionaire Big Tech Agenda"- Democracy Now! - Air Date 5-13-26 18: The AI Backlash Just Got VERY Public - House of El - AI - Air Date 5-24-26 (02:33:22) #1789 - Boomcession: Why the Economy Looks Great on Paper and Hurts in Real Life 19: Monday Morning Economy Politics Inflation Soars Part 1 - The Brian Lehrer Show - Air Date 4-13-26 20: Economic Implications of the U.S. War on Iran Part 1 - Economic Update with Richard Wolff - Air Date 4-14-26 21: These Georgia Swing Voters Do Not Like the Iran War - The NPR Politics Podcast - Air Date 4-16-26 (02:58:12) #1793 - Anti-Immigrant Brutality Costs Countries More Than Their Morals: ICE, Mass Deportation, and the Global Far-Right 22: Trumps Brutal Immigration Crackdown Continues Part 1 - Velshi - Air Date 3-21-26 23: 'Buyer's Remorse' This Trump Stronghold TURNS on Massive ICE Facility Part 1 - MS Now - Air Date 4-20-26 SECTION 3: THE VACUUM & THE RECLAIMING (03:15:42) #1790 - Assassin Nation: How Political Violence Got Normalized And How To Reverse It 24: "Slow Civil War" Author Jeff Sharlet on the Growing NormalAation of Violence at Home & Abroad - Democracy Now! - Air Date 4-27-26 25: The Cole Hard Truth - The Muckrake Political Podcast - Air Date 4-28-26 26: The White House Correspondents Dinner Shooting: What the "Political Violence" Framing Is Hiding - Resistance History with Tad Stoermer - Air Date 4-26-26 (03:42:14) #1795 - You Say You Want A Revolution: Successful Revolutions are the Boring Ones 27: Why the Epstein Files Didn't Start a Revolution - Uncivilized - Air Date 4-21-26 28: Is The US In Its French Revolution Era? - Leeja Miller - Air Date 5-13-26 29: Why Nonviolence Wins - Degenerate Art by Andrea Pitzer - Air Date 5-14-26 (04:14:56) #1791 - Jim Crow 2.0 — SCOTUS Kills the Voting Rights Act and Unleashes the Gerrymandering War 30: Louisiana Is Ground Zero for Voting Rights, Abortion Pill Access Part 1 - Boom! Lawyered - Air Date 5-7-26 31: Elie Mystal Supreme Court Gutting Voting Rights Act Is About Again Making US an Apartheid State Part 1 - The Dean Obeidallah Show - Air Date 5-1-26 32: What Stacey Abrams Thinks About a Recent SCOTUS Decision and the Voting Rights Amendment Part 2 - Soundside - Air Date 5-526   Produced by Jay! Tomlinson Visit us at BestOfTheLeft.com Listen Anywhere! BestOfTheLeft.com/Listen Listen Anywhere! Follow BotL: Bluesky | Mastodon | Threads | X Like at Facebook.com/BestOfTheLeft Contact me directly at Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com

Send us Fan MailEddy Manfred Inserra III joins King Hap to talk about the information that he found when opening his late grandfather's box of belongings! His grandfather had worked against and then for the MAFIA!! After President John F Kennedy received a letter from Fred G. Pastore (Ed's Grandfather) he wanted him out of the IRS! What happened next is unbelievable! This story and book have close ties to the New England Mafia and it all happened right in King Hap's back yard!! THIS IS AN INCREDIBLE STORY & LISTEN!!Check out Ed's website and book here https://www.confidenceofthemob.com/Follow Ed on Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/hustle247This episode was recorded live on the network infront of Happy Hour V.I.P.s If you want to be part of the live tapings follow us onTwitch https://m.twitch.tv/thehappyhourscOrwww.TheHappyHourSocialClub.comAS  ALWAYS The Happy Hour is brought to you by LIQUID-IV & LIQUID-IV SUGAR FREE LIV ENERGY!!!https://glnk.io/koyv/kinghap  *PROMO CODE KINGHAP OR KING.HAP SAVES 25%OLD SCHOOL LABS AMAZING Supplements made for Amazing people!….. Try the Delicious TIRAMISU PROTEIN! Save 25% site wide with promo code Kinghap(https://shop.oldschoollabs.com/KINGHAP)NORTH CANNA CO.Discover the best THC-infused drinks and THC gummies on the planet. Sip or chew while relaxing the enjoyable life's finer moments with no hangover!  CBD blends are also available as option for both drinks and chews. https://www.drinkthenorth.com/?snowball=KINGHAP

With the release of the "JFK Files" several new scenarios have come to light regarding the assassination. What these new theories? Do any of them stand up? Are they even new and has the mystery been solved? We take another look into the conspiracy of all conspiracies in this episode. Will our minds be changed? Will yours?Email us at: downtherh@protonmail.com

Choice Classic Radio presents This Is Your FBI, featuring today's episode titled “The Return of the Mob.” Please consider supporting our show by becoming a patron at http://choiceclassicradio.com We hope you enjoy the show!

In the latest episode of Sausage On A Fork, we're joined by Keith Jayne. Keith was an extra in Series 3 of Grange Hill but was a very recognisable face on Children's Television in the 70s and 80s. Keith tells us how an accident at home indirectly led to him attending stage school; how he wasn't supposed to be on Grange Hill and how his appearance on Murphy's Mob once affected his job as a financial advisor!

Director Guy Ritchie, when his movies don't star Madonna, tends to make his movies about crime and capers and calamity. His latest movie, “In The Grey”, is no different. This time, instead of an unintelligible Brad Pitt or that guy who played Iron Man playing Sherlock Holmes, we get Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal playing some action and adventure bad-asses named Sid and Bronco, respectively. Their job is to protect big money debt collector and fixer extraordinaire Rachel Wild, played by Eiza Gonzalez. She sells the capital management firm who loaned a billion dollars to a drug boss, who is now not paying the billion back, on her being able to get the drug boss to pay it back. Predictably the drug boss, as drug bosses tend to do, turns this debt collection into a dangerous game of automatic weapons, mines, drones with bombs and booby traps. Ritchie brings his usual well-choreographed action to this movie but is it worth going to the theater to find out what happens? Check out this episode of Movies Merica to find out! “In The Grey” also stars Carlos Bardem, Rosamund Pike, Fisher Stevens, Michael Vu, Mohammed Al Turki, Kojo Attah, James Wong, Kristofer Hivju, Darrell D'Silva, Emmett J. Scanlan, Christian Ochoa Lavernia and Gonzalo Bouza.  Support the showFeel free to reach out to me via:@MoviesMerica on Twitter @moviesmerica on InstagramMovies Merica on Facebook

Retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins sits down with former criminal and prison minister Bill Corum for one of the most unusual conversations ever featured on Gangland Wire. Bill Corum recounts his journey from car theft and prison escapes in the early 1960s to his deep involvement in Kansas City's criminal underworld in the 1970s and early 1980s. He describes his work around pornography, prostitution, stolen property, cocaine trafficking, and his connections to notorious Kansas City underworld figures. Gary and Bill discuss legendary Kansas City mob fence Sol Landi and his murder by assassins sent by the mob, the River Quay era, Junior Bradley, corrupt influences in local politics and the courts, and the explosive cocaine culture that swept through Kansas City during the 1980s. Bill also shares stories involving Weld Wheels founder Kenny Weld, cocaine trafficking operations, and the dangerous atmosphere surrounding organized crime in Kansas City. The conversation dives into: Bill's prison escape and stolen car career The prostitution business in Independence, Missouri Mob-connected fences and stolen property rings Cocaine trafficking in Kansas City during the early 1980s The murder of Saul Landy River Quay nightlife and mob influence Corrupt officials and criminal networks Kansas City organized crime personalities Prison life and criminal culture Bill Corum's dramatic religious conversion in 1983 His decades-long prison ministry work across America Bill also explains how he transformed his life after addiction, violence, and years in the criminal world, eventually dedicating his life to prison outreach and ministry programs throughout the United States. You can learn more about Bill Corum and his book at either The Ultimate Pardon or Bill Corum Official Website If you're interested in true crime, mafia history, and real law enforcement stories, this is an episode you don't want to miss. Subscribe for more mafia history and true crime stories every week. 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. [00:00:00] hey, all you wiretappers. Gary Jenkins here, retired Kansas City police detective in the intelligence unit. Turned podcaster and author and documentary filmmaker. If you want to see any of my stuff, go to my website and look in the show notes or look in the I think the donate page. Of course, if you’re in the donate page, you might want to hit the donate button. We always use a little, can use a little support. And I have a guy that I’d heard of and I’d seen on YouTube and I have mu- we have mutual friends, but I had never actually met him. And I, so I g- I… Some people he knows asked me to be on their show. And so I was on their show, and Bill was on that show at the same time. So we started talking. We had lunch and we had all these… We were running in the same circles, but separate circles that then overlapped every once in a while. He was on one side of the law and I was on the other. So Bill Corum. Welcome, Bill. Thank you, Gary. Thank you so much. And we were running in opposite… We were running real close- … but I was careful. When [00:01:00] I got out of prison, it- You were. When I got out of prison in 1964, I had two goals. Yeah. Never go back, and never get caught. And I started breaking the law the day I got out of prison, and I broke the law for almost 19 years and didn’t get caught. I got caught a couple times at little things, and I got… I hired a high-powered criminal attorney that came out of Alex Peebles’ office who’s now a judge. I won’t even mention his name. He’s now a judge. I think I told you who it was. But and Alex got me out of a couple deals way back when. But little things. And I was still, doing everything. And I went for almost 19 years and didn’t get caught. Unlike many of my friends, I’ve been in prison ministry for 40 years now, and I run around with a lot of guys that did a lot of time. 25 years, 40 years. Li- they had double life without parole, now they’re out But I never got caught. Yeah. And I was speaking at a women’s prison just recently, and I was talking to the women, and I was telling that story, and I said, “I got out and I [00:02:00] went for 19 years.” She said, “You must have been awful smart.” I said I wa- I wasn’t too smart or I wouldn’t have been doing that stuff.” But I did know ways and one thing was ’cause I didn’t talk to people. I didn’t have a lot of… Kinda like the trench coat robbers. They robbed banks for 15 years- Yeah … and never got caught because they didn’t email, text, phone calls, none of that. Yeah. They would, they would- And they moved away too. Oh, yeah. Kinda moved away from their home territory, so they- Yeah y- they weren’t having their buddies come up to them say, “Hey, what are you doing? Where you been?” “I haven’t seen you for a while.” And then they turn around and tell some cop that they know, “Hey, I can’t remember the guy’s name now. Billy Kirkpatrick. Billy Kirkpatrick. He’s been out of town. He just got back.” And, you know- Yeah … then they put… Suddenly they get this notice about these bank robbers somewhere else. They… He didn’t do that. He stayed- … out of town. So Bill, let’s- No, that was me. Go ahead. Go, let’s go back and start you from the beginning. Introduce to who you are to my guys, ’cause they don’t know you. I didn’t know you, ’cause you were such a low profile in this world. You said you got out of prison. Why don’t we [00:03:00] start with that? Where, what were you in the joint for originally? I was originally in there for Dyer Act, which is, in the feds, that’s interstate transportation- Yeah of stolen motor vehicles. I was in the Marine Corps. I went AWOL. I got caught. I went back. I got back AWOL again. I went back. They put me on restrictions, said I couldn’t leave the base. I was at that point in my life where nobody could tell me what to do. And so I’s “I’m leaving the base,” and I left and I think I stole 10, 12 cars while I was out. And then I got put in the… When I got back the next time, they put me in the brig, and I escaped from the brig. And and I stole a car off the base back in tho- in the ’60s, early ’60s, ’62, 3. People left their keys in their car. Yeah. And I went out. I was in the parachute locker painting. When the guard came in to check on me, I hit him in the back of the head with a full bucket of paint, a full gallon of paint, and I went out the window and I got a car, and I actually had a guy with me. He said, “I’m going with you.” And so we got in the car, and when we got to [00:04:00] the gate, I said, “Now, if that guard steps out at the gate, I’m running over him.” And he’s “No, don’t do…” I said “Just shut up. I’m running over him.” And I got to the gate, and the guard stepped out and saluted me. And I’m like, “What in the world?” I drove into town, run out of gas, Gary. Got out and stole… I don’t know how I remember this. I stole a ’62 maroon Bonneville. And when I was walking away from the car, my buddy looked back and started laughing. I said, “What are you laughing about?” He said, “I see why they saluted us. That car had a colonel sticker on the bumper.” So then I stole that car, that Bonneville, drove into Mississippi. Because I always ask guys in prisons, “How many of you know when you escape from prison you need some different clothes?” Yeah. So I drove into a little town called Leland, Mississippi, and I was breaking in a clothing store to get me some clothes. It was 11:00 at night, and I looked down, I was climbing up on some boxes to get to the roof to go in the skylight, ’cause they had analog alarms, they were easy to beat. [00:05:00] And I looked down and I saw a flashlight coming down the alley. So I dropped down, ran the other way, and I turned the corner and ran into the biggest, fattest Mississippi sheriff you ever seen. And he had a gun, he had a gun about this long. And he stuck it right here, and he goes, “Where are you going, boy?” And I said, “With you, sir.” That’s what I said. And that was the end of the Marine Corps. So now I’ve taken a car across the state line, and the feds step in. And I went to… I got a six-year sentence. I got what they call a zip six. And back then, before ’86, now in ’86 they passed it to 85%. Yeah. But prior to 80- prior to ’86, you could get out of the feds at one-third of your sentence. And so I got this six-year sentence. I got out in two years, and when I got out, I said, “I’m never getting caught again. I’m never going back to prison.” And I went for ni- and I just started right then. And everything from then on was like, I got involved with pornography. I was promoting [00:06:00] pornography and prostitution. There’s a story in my book about me being a… I was a bodyguard and a chauffeur for a lady that had a cat house over in Independence. You know where Inglewood was in Independence? And guys- You know where- … In- Independence is a suburb of Kansas City, but it’s like whole, decently large city for a suburb- Yeah … but it’s connected to it. Yeah. That’s where Harry Truman was from- That’s right … and retired back to. Yeah. So y- you were over there probably on the east side of Independence. Inglewood’s kinda closer to Kansas City, over there- Yes … by Dogpatch, in what we call Dogpatch. That’s- The- … kinda totally lawless area. And so there was a guy there that I was friends with that had a record store. He was the first guy in Kan- his name was Tony Marino. He’s in my book. He’s dead now. He was the first guy ever in Kansas City to sell paraphernalia in a record store. And he was making 25,000 a month- Wow … back in the… Yeah, when it started. That was a lot of money. And he, right next to him was a [00:07:00] store, it’s still there. I go by it all the time, ’cause we eat at the Englewood Cafe all the time. It’s the only one on that little s- first strip there that’s got steps going up. And a lady up there had a cathouse for 12 years, prostitutes. And her main customers were executives from Ford Motor Company- … from General Motors, and from Hallmark Cards. And the reason, Gary, was because she knew if she had executives, they weren’t gonna talk. Yeah. And she had beautiful women. She didn’t have ladies like up on Main and Troost and Prospect. Yeah. The- these women had all their teeth, and they were- … and they were good-looking. Yeah. And so the first guy, a- actually, who got me the job was Sal Rello, that o- that owned he owned that deluxe deli down on 430, where the Erotic City is now. Oh, yeah. He owned that- Yeah … he owned that bar. Heard about him, yeah. And I told him for years, I said, “You need to open an adult bookstore here,” because Gary, he was the only bar in Kansas City, the only bar [00:08:00] in Kansas City that was open on Election Day. You know why? ‘Cause he was in the county. He was in the county. He wasn’t in- Wasn’t in the city, yeah … he wasn’t in the city. And he was open on Election Day. And I told him, I said, “Man, if you’d open an adult bookstore, you could make a lot of money.” He never did, of course. Yeah. And then they put Erotic City in there, and it went good for a few years and stuff, yeah. But so he’s the one that told me about her. I went to interview with her, and she said, “I just have one question. Do you carry a gun?” I said, “No, ma’am, I carry two guns.” And she said, “You’re hired.” And so G- Gary, I picked her up every day on the Plaza. She lived in a $2,000 a month apartment on the Plaza in 1976. Yeah. That was a lot of money. That’s five today. And, yeah, and I took her to get her facial every Tuesday. I took her to the beauty shop every Thursday, and read about her in my book. She was 80 years old. The name of that chapter in my book is 80-Year-Old Hooker. She was 80, 80 years old, and she [00:09:00] ran it like a business. I had, I, she opened at 9:00 in the morning and closed at 5:00 at night, and ran it just five days a week, just like a business. And I wouldn’t be surprised she didn’t pay taxes. She was legit, man. Yeah. And I knew you can’t operate something like that for 12 years in Independence, Missouri, and not have the police know about it. No, they knew about it. Oh, yeah. It’s that upper echelon, they were, they just steered people away from each other. Oh, yeah. Don’t worry about that. Oh, yeah. That’s right. So that was- So Bill, y- you, you moved from that- Into the drug business now, how did you, how’d you even get started in that? Where like 1960s, ’60, by the late ’60s, drugs are starting to, become more popular and there becomes a real market for it that’s among- Yeah a much larger constituency than ever before. So now, how did you- I re- … move into that? I, oh, I really, for years and years, Gary, years, I didn’t have a partner [00:10:00] because I knew if I had to run, I didn’t want somebody… I didn’t know if my partner would tell on me, so I did everything by myself. I did one thing one time and I had to have a partner, and I stole a computer out of a crane at General Motors down in Leeds. And I, and my fence, the chapter in my book, They Killed My Fence, that was Saul Andy. Yeah. And when Saul got killed, like they killed my fence, because anything I took to Saul, he’d buy it. Didn’t matter if it was guns or it didn’t matter what it was. And I didn’t never keep anything except cash. If I had money, I’d keep it, but I’d never keep anything. I didn’t keep diamond rings or… I got rid of all that stuff, ’cause I never wanted anything to be able to identify me and tie me to a crime. And Saul, when he got killed, of course, then I started dealing with another guy. But Saul was taking all that and selling it to Junior Bradley, most of it, the stuff that Junior- And, and- … would be interested in. And guys- But, J- Junior Bradley, I gotta explain who Junior Bradley was. Junior Bradley was the mob fence in Kansas City. He was probably the biggest fence in Kansas City I got a [00:11:00] feeling. He, and what he started doing was trading Dilaudid especially for stolen property, and he had a little deli right across from police headquarters and City Hall, and everybody knew Junior. Everybody loved Junior. Everybody liked Junior. He’s always doing favors for people. If you went in the penitentiary, you’d go talk to Junior and say, “Okay, what, what’s gonna happen when I get here? Can you help me out?” And he’ll say, “I’ll make some calls.” Or I, we had, we overheard him on a wiretap once saying- a, a father called him and said, my son’s got to report up here to Leavenworth to the camp.” He said, “Okay, I’ll take care of it. I’ll be somebody there to meet him there.” And I’ve had many other reports but Junior was the main mob fence. So go ahead- Yeah … and we’ll talk what you were dealing with- Yeah Junior Bradley. Yeah be- let’s back up. So you asked me about how I got into drugs. So all those years when I was married, I didn’t drink and I didn’t do drugs. I thought if you did dope, you were a d- I thought that’s why they call it dope, ’cause you were a dope if you did it. Yeah. So I didn’t do it, and I didn’t drink because I knew I had to always be able to think and make [00:12:00] decisions and… ‘Cause I cheated on my wife every day for 10 years, and I did crime every day for 10 years, and she never knew it till I wrote this book. And I gave her the first book actually. And so- When I got divorced and started smoking pot and doing stuff, hanging out with those people, and I started smoking weed, then the first time I bought an ounce of weed it was 40 bucks. And I’m like, “Okay, how much is how much is more if you buy more? You can buy a half pound for this or you can buy…” So I said then I’ll… Give me a half a pound and I’m gonna sell,” yeah. So I started buying pounds and selling ounces, and man, all of a sudden I’m, now I’m smoking free and I’m making some money. Yeah. And then I started sell- And by the time I ended, even when I was selling cocaine, I was selling 100 pounds of pot a week. I had one guy that would buy 100 pounds of pot from me every week. Yeah. And I’d just take him 100 pounds and he’d just bring my… Every day he’d stop by my house [00:13:00] with sacks of money, and that was, the way I got started in the drug world then. And everything. It was from pot, it was, meth. We called it crank back then, not meth. And then I never did get real addicted to crank, but I got real addicted to cocaine. And of course, I was doing a drug class the other day. I teach a drug class, my wife and I, addictions class at our church. And I said, when I started, I was only gonna sell it and not do it.” And because one guy said I was only gonna do it and never sell it.” And I said, “No, not me. I was gonna sell it and never do it.” But that didn’t last very long. And once you start doing it you’re in there, and, Yeah, really … and then, when I got arrested September 5th of ’82 the guy that I beat up I put 100 stitches in the back of his head with a ball bat, and it was in an active enforcement really. But he turned states. He’s the one, when Kenny… You remember Kenny Weld? I remember the name. Was you still on the force when Kenny got busted in ’83? [00:14:00] Yeah. ’80- Yeah, I would’ve been. Okay. So- I have some vague memory, I don’t remember the, all the details. At the time it was the biggest drug bust, it was the biggest just drug bust in, I know in Kansas City, maybe. They caught him out there in Blue Springs with 29 pounds of cocaine, and we were selling- Yeah … cocaine to the people that were selling cocaine to Kenny. And so the guy that I beat up gave a 20-page, which is like reading a book, 20 typewritten pages. Yeah. 20 typewritten pages, and he named every name involved in the circle that he knew, and that implicated us as being some of the leading cocaine dealers in Kansas City. Yeah. Now, when I go speak in churches and a pastor gets up and says, “Folks, today we’ve got the biggest cocaine dealer that ever lived.” I get up and say, “You know what? I don’t mean to correct your pastor.” But I was implicated as being one of the leading cocaine- I was not the leading cocaine dealer. There was a lot of people bigger than me. But that’s that’s how it all started and [00:15:00] of course my case, I never did… the drugs never came in. The lawyers that I had, because when I got busted it was on a Sunday, and that’s part of my story. I always ask inmates, “How many of you have been arrested on a weekend?” And every hand goes up. Yeah. And I say, and then I say, “What happens when you get arrested on a weekend?” They all yell, “Nothing.” ‘Cause you’re not going anywhere till Monday morning, at the very least. I got arrested 2:00 Sunday afternoon. By that time, Gary, I had three goals. When I was about 30, I got nicknamed by one of the key mafia figures Crazy Bill, ’cause I did some crazy things. Like I ran through a bar. You know where the old Club Royal was on Main? Oh yeah. There was a bar right ac- I’ve drunk there many times. Okay. There was a bar across the street that I had a girlfriend working in, and we got in a fight, and I was gonna cut the bar in half with a chainsaw. And I had my buddy drop me at the back parking lot. I fired the chainsaw up, I opened the door, and when the door… When I stepped inside, the door [00:16:00] closed with the closer, and the dar- the bar was totally dark. It was not a bar where you could even buy a bag of potato chips. It was strictly alcohol. And when you get- Yeah … in a bar like that, they’re dark. And that door shut, and I thought, “I’m gonna bend over and start cutting this bar, and somebody just shoot me in the back.” So I just wa- I just walked through the bar with the chainsaw running and went out the front door, and Kenny picked me up in the front, and off we went. And so because of that, I got nicknamed Crazy Bill. Yeah. By 30 years old, I had three goals: money, power, and influence. Now, I told you as we were selling a lot of cocaine. So I stayed in $500 a night hotels. I ride in limousines. I bought $20,000 worth of cocaine for a one-night party. So I had money, and I had enough power to make a phone call and have somebody killed, so I had power. And I had enough influence that when I got arrested Sunday afternoon, now I love telling this to a police officer. I was on a show in Texas with a cop, and we called it the Con and the Cop. [00:17:00] But I love telling this story. I got arrested September 5th. 2:00, 2:00 PM is when they booked us into the jail, and I made a phone call back to Kansas City to somebody who was in politics, and I said, “You know who to call.” And that person called the judge we were selling cocaine to. And I ask this question in prisons, “How many of you know when you’re selling cocaine to a judge, he don’t want you in jail?” And I walked out of that jail, Gary, at 1:30 Monday morning. Wow. I got arrest- less than 12 hours after I got arrested on a weekend. And when I walked out of that jail, I said, “Bill Corum, you’ve arrived. You got money.” “You got power, and you got influence.” But the one thing I didn’t have was peace. Yeah. I didn’t have any peace, man. No peace. Yeah. If I was in a restaurant eating and a cop walked in, I’d put money on the table and go out the door. If I saw a UPS driver, I got nervous ’cause he had a uniform on. I didn’t have any peace. And then after I became a Christian, I was reading in the Bible [00:18:00] one day, and it said, “A wicked man runs when no one’s chasing him.” And I went, “Oh my gosh, I left a lot of steak dinners sitting on the table.” And wasn’t anybody chasing you. Nobody. That cop didn’t even know I was in there. He probably didn’t even know who I was. Really? He just come in… He just came in there to eat, and I thought he was after me. So Bill, I always like to go into the, the nuts and bolts of some of these things. And we kinda left one thing hanging, is the Saul Landy story. Now guys, Saul Landy was a big sports bettor. And Saul Landy had a, wasn’t it a metal- Square Deal Junk- Square Deal Junkyard. Square… He had a junkyard. Square Deal. He bought a lot of scrap metal and dealt in scrap metal, but he also would buy most anything from, from- Yeah … thieves, from boosters- Yeah … and burglars and people like that. That’s where Bill met him. But he’s a huge sports gambler, and they thought he might testify against our boss, Nick Civella, because he had been allowed to bet down at The Trap, down with Frankie Tusa, who was the underling [00:19:00] that handled all the sports gambling for Nick Civella. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that the way that went down? Oh, yeah, and Bobby Maroon was running The Trap at the time. And- yeah … so do you remember the guy that, that paid for his murder? Remember that guy, Johnny Franks, Johnny Frank Avella? That’s what they said, yep. Yeah. Yep. He had, he had- That’s what they said. He had some connections. But he got… But Johnny Franks got the order from somebody else. Yeah. Yeah … the bug, the buck stopped with Johnny Franks now, didn’t it? Yes. ‘Cause he hired another guy, who then he hired a Black guy, which was- That’s right … truly unusual. Who then- That’s right … hired a couple of young Black street kids and that was even more unusual, and they killed this Saul Landy and his wife. So they keep a f- And then they sang and then they sang like The Temptations. Exactly, yeah. That, and that’s that w- some claim that Johnny Franks did that just on his own, trying to impress Nick Civella. Some people say that somebody else told him to do it. I don’t… It never, he never talked, so it never came about. Yeah. [00:20:00] Did you ever hear anything about that? I never heard anything except what you just said, that he- Okay … he never talked, and Nick, Nick never got convicted. He never- Yeah … but here’s the thing that, what you said. The guys that they hired to do it, because back in those days as y- you’d go to… i’d go to the electric chair before somebody, before I’d tell on somebody. Yeah. I’m not gonna tell on anybody. Go ahead and put me in the gas chamber, I’m not telling on nobody. But those guys would, they’d sing like The Temptations. They weren’t gonna, they- Yeah … they wouldn’t- Those street kids If they offered them a day in jail, they wouldn’t take it. If you’ll tell us, we won’t, we’re only gonna put you in jail for a week if you’ll tell. Yeah. They wouldn’t tell. So how did that work with you and Saul Landy? You weren’t a sports bettor you didn’t have anything to do with that. You were a thief. Yeah, and I don’t know- And- I honestly, you know what? Gary, I don’t remember who even told me to go to Saul with stolen merchandise, ’cause I was hitting a lot of construction jobs back then. [00:21:00] Ah. I worked construction, and I was in the union, and I was stealing off these jobs all the time. Big- Ah, yeah … big amounts of stuff. Like they’d start a brand-new job, and they’d have all brand-new tools, and I’d go over there and take everything they had. And then I’d take it all to Saul. And matter of fact, one time I did a job over in, it was a eight-story high-rise over in Kansas City, Kansas, down around Argentine, in the Argentine area. And I was on the job, I was working on the job, and we just started. And we had all this trailer, a whole trailer load of tools. And I went over and got all the tools, and the last thing I took out was the cutting torch. I cut the lock off the door, ’cause I had a key to get in. And so when I got to work the next morning, I had everything in my truck. I had a tonneau cover over my truck and had all these tools in the back of my truck, and parked in the parking lot. I got there and I called Johnny Myers, who was running the job, and Johnny’s been dead for years. I said, “Hey, Johnny, somebody hit our job last night.” He’s “What?” I said, “Yeah, they cut the lock off. They got everything.” [00:22:00] And he said call the police and I’ll be out there in just a few minutes.” And so the cops come, couple detectives and he was telling what they, what was going on. I’m standing there listening to the whole thing. And there was a generator, a big generator, and I was real strong back then, Gary. I was 6’3″ and weighed 275 and I carried this generator down the steps and this… and Johnny said, or the cop said that, how much that generator weigh?” And he told him, and he said it had to be at least two guys, if not three. But no, no one guy could carry that down them steps.” And Johnny turned around and he said, “Except Superman,” ’cause that’s what they called me on the job. And they laughed, and he laughed, and I laughed. Yeah. And then that night after I got off work, I took it all down to Square Deal and sold it all to Saul. Yeah. Interesting. So- All right. Thanks so much … and I did that stuff all, yeah, I did that stuff all the time. But I honestly do not remember who introduced me to Saul Landy. Yeah. But I know that for years and years we were buddies. And when I first met him, I used a, I had an alias that I always went by. I had two a- two aliases. One of them was a guy I [00:23:00] was in prison with that was from East St. Louis, and I knew everything about him, ’cause we were real good friends. I knew his middle name, I knew his mom and dad’s name. I knew everything about him, so I’d use his name. So if anybody ever asked me a question, I knew. The other guy was a cousin of mine that I hadn’t seen for y- I used his name, ’cause I knew everything about him. So what, the, when I first met my wife, we went to a dance one night. We weren’t married yet, and we were walking up the steps, and this guy walking down said, “Hey, Jim. How you doing, Jim?” And I said, “Good.” We got in, sat down. My wife looked at me and she said, “I thought your name was Bill.” I s- said, “It is. It is Bill.” I said, “He probably just had me mixed up with somebody else.” ‘Cause there was a lot of people in the inner circles, yeah. So when I met Saul Andy, something inside of me told me to… Because I met Saul, and I told him my name was Jim Gardner. Yeah. And he’s we did a couple deals, and then something inside of me told me to b- be honest with Saul. And so I sat him down one day, I said, “I wanna tell you something. I use that name as an alias. My [00:24:00] real name is Bill Corum,” and da. And I was so glad I did, because later I would be in the River Key in a restaurant or a bar with Saul, and some of the guys were in there, and I thought if I’d have used the… If he’d introduced me as Jim Gardner- Yeah … and then later they find out who I am, I might not be here. Yeah. You know what I mean? You might- So I- They might think you’re undercover cop or a- Exactly. Exactly. So I just- Informant or something, yeah … it, a- and that, I think that’s in my book. I told that story because I just, I felt like being upfront with him, and I, because I trusted him, yeah. I actually, in, in the book I think I said if Nick Civella trusted him, I thought I could trust him. Yeah. But a- apparently, apparently- Bet he didn’t trust him all that much … no. Yeah. Because right there, out there on Pennsylvania, or let’s see, where’d they… They lived right off 75th, right behind the what was that restaurant on 75th? The Italian place? Yeah … I starts with a G, I think. Yeah, I know. Just north of Ward Parkway Shopping Center. Yeah. Yeah. I know the neighborhood, yeah. Oh, Cat- was it Cat? [00:25:00] No. C- it doesn’t matter. But he lived right down that str- he lived on Washington. Yeah. Right there. Yeah. About 77th or 8th and Washington, in Washington, yeah. I remember that. Yeah. But that’s how I met Saul. And what, and guys, what those guys did that night, they tried to make it look like a home invasion robbery, but ended up killing him and his w- and I think they raped his wife too. But, They didn’t kill her. They left her alive they, they left her alive. But- Yeah … they really m- tried to make it look like a home invasion robbery, not a hit, which was, at least they were that smart. They just weren’t- Yeah … couldn’t keep their mouth shut, and they couldn’t, weren’t smart enough to not tell their friends, so they got caught. Good, good thing there wasn’t no Facebook back then, Gary. Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s crazy. Crazy world you live in, so- these kids- Bill … yeah. What happened? What happened? You had all this going. You had money, power, influence. Yeah, I- You caught a cocaine case. Now the thing about that cocaine case, that you said, I thought you said Wells. It’s Kenny Weld, isn’t it? The race car driver? W-E-L-D. Kenny Weld. W-E-L-D. Yeah. He was a race [00:26:00] car driver at that time. I, I- Kinda well-known, and he had a whole set of… He had a big company that sold wheels … Weld Wheels … fancy wheels. He was really doing well, and then he got involved with a b- huge, big cocaine thing. I didn’t know, remember you were part of that, but I remember that. A multi-million dollar- Yeah … wheel business. Yeah. I still am a big… I was a dirt track guy. I grew up on dirt. Yeah. I love dirt. I actually took his brother, Greg, who actually owned the company, I took Greg to his first… the first race that Greg ever raced in, I drove him to the races. And then Kenny and I and Greg, and they won the Knoxville Nationals. Greg raced in the Indianapolis 500 four times. Yeah. They were a big name in the country, the Welds. And making millions of dollars, Gary. Even back then, they were making millions of dollars. Yeah. And then Kenny got caught up in the cocaine and started messing with it, and next thing you know… he was making a lot of money in the cocaine too, but- Yeah … he got caught with 29 pounds, which was a large amount. But that statement that guy [00:27:00] made on me, ’cause I always felt guilty because Kenny got busted because the statement that he made, he named Kenny Weld in that statement, and it wasn’t long after that they arrested Kenny. But I’m sure they were already watching him, for sure. But then I, and I don’t know, Kenny got eight year, Kenny got 25 years. He went to Sandstone first up in Minnesota. Yeah. And he only did 52 months, so I’m not sure, because back then a third would’ve been eight, eight and a half years or something, right? Yeah. And he only did 52 months, so I don’t know how that, maybe it was money or whatever. I don’t know. Yeah. But he turned his life around in prison, but then what’s the sad deal, when I turned my life around, I tried to get in touch with Kenny Weld, and he wouldn’t talk to me. He- Yeah … he was avoid- I think he was afraid that I was gonna come after him because the guy I beat up was the guy that was… We were all involved in the cocaine world together. Joker John, I don’t know if you knew who Joker John Agrusa was. I [00:28:00] don’t remember that n- I don’t remember that name now. Was he- They had a bar out on, they had a bar on, out on 23rd Street. No, I don’t, I don’t- Joker John’s. John, his last name was Agrusa. He had a brother- Agrusa, yeah … named Nick Agrus. New- Nick Agrusa’s brother. Yeah, I co- do kinda remember that. He went down- Yeah … with that whole thing. See, I was- That was ’83. I was I was off into something else during those years. Okay. No- That was early in the coke, crack cocaine thing … no, John, w- after I beat up Pink Mike, John Agrusa left town. He moved to Arizona, ’cause he was scared of me. A l- a lot of people- ’cause I was crazy. I did some crazy things, and people were scared. And so when I got arrested on that deal, he left town. He went to Arizona. And then Kenny got busted, Kenny Weld. And the, some of the people in that… My dad read that 20-page statement, and my dad said… And my dad was an old guy. He was born in 1909, but he read that statement, and he said, “This guy’s worth, life ain’t worth a nickel, is it?” And I [00:29:00] said, “No.” ‘Cause the guy that wrote the statement. Then I got arrest- you knew Jim Smart was a judge? Yeah, I remember the name. I didn’t know him. Okay. Jim… back then, Jim was a lawyer, and then later became appellate court judge. Yeah. And he’s retired now, but a real good friend of mine. So when I, that happened, I got… My case ended in May of ’84. Started September 5th of ’82, and ended in May of ’84. And in June of ’85, 13 months later, I got sued by the guy I beat up. Me and the other couple guy. One of the guys that was with me is dead, Charlie Elmer. I don’t know if you ever heard that name, but he was a- No, don’t know that name … cocaine dealer. But anyway I was just gonna forget about it, and I showed that to my dad, that indict- or not indictment, the notice that I need to appear in court. Statement. Yeah. Yeah, and my dad s- no, not the statement, when he sued me. [00:30:00] Oh, the oh, okay. Then they filed charges. Yeah, the counter-suit. And I showed it to my dad one day and I wasn’t even gonna go. I said, “Oh, God will take care of it.” And my dad read it, and he’s “Bill, you gotta get a lawyer.” Yeah. You’re being charged, and so I went and got a lawyer, and I got Jim Smart. And and Jim tried to go and do a deposition on that guy, on Pink Mike. Could never find him. Ah. And I di- I don’t know, I honestly don’t know. I know I didn’t have nothing to do with… But nobody’s ever been able to find him. But I’m suspecting, ’cause my dad said when he read that 20 pa- he said his life isn’t worth a nickel. Because he named judge in there, a judge in there. He named Kenny Weld in there. He named a lot of other big-name guys, and he’s disappeared, so nobody know. I haven’t seen him since the day in court in 1982. So who knows where he’s at. Yeah. If he’s around. I don’t know. But- Interesting. What did you finally cop? Did you have a full trial, or did you go ahead and cop a plea in the end? That’s interesting you’d [00:31:00] ask because when we first, when we got out of jail at 1:30 Monday morning, the 3rd of the 6th of September, he wal- the lawyer came and walked us out with, we… we had left, we were staying in the Embassy Suites downtown. You know where that was at? Oh, yeah. It was 500 bucks a night, and we had left two s- two s- brief- briefcases there with one had cocaine in it uncut, and the other one had about $60,000 in it. And so we went down. We actually called… he’s dead now, so I can tell you who it was. Jerry Schanzer that owned Napoleon Bakery. And Jerry was a big… i’m surprised that you didn’t, you talk about bookmakers. Jerry was a big bookmaker. Yeah. Exactly. And Schanzer- I remember him, yeah … Schanzer owned Mother’s down on 18th and Baltimore. Not Mother’s. Granny’s. Granny’s, yeah. He owned Granny’s at 18th and Baltimore. Yeah, a lot of mob guys used- And then he- … to go down there and eat. Oh, every time I went in there I saw [00:32:00] somebody. Yeah. And then later he opened up one over in Mission shopping center there on Mission Road. And then they then they ended up opening up Napoleon, him and his brother Larry. And then they’re both dead now. But we, this is how much we trusted Jerry. We told Jerry, “Go…” We called Jerry from the jail and said, “Go down to the Embassy and get our, get a briefcase.” And Jerry went down and he drove halfway to Warrensburg and ha- something told him to open it- Oh, wow … and he opened the one, he opened the one that had the cocaine in it. Oh, shit. And he called us and said, “I got the wrong briefcase.” And it… No, he said, “I can’t come and get you with this.” And so he went back to the Embassy and got the right one. Came down, and we made bond that night. Then the next morning was… Okay, that was we got busted on Sunday the 5th. Monday we got out. The lawyer [00:33:00] said, Mike, I don’t know if you ever knew Mike and what was his dad’s name? The Fi- it was Fitzgerald and Fitzgerald was the name of the firm in, down in Warrensburg. Warensburg, yeah. I don’t know them. Yeah. And Mike and Charlie Fitzgerald. So ’cause I called People’s Office and said, “Hey, this happened.” And they said, “Stick with those guys. Those guys are the best in the county. They know the county. They know the prosecutor, the judges and everything. Stick with them.” So we went in. He told us, “Don’t come in tomorrow morning,” ’cause it was 1:30 in the morning Monday morning. He said, “Come and see me Wednesday.” Yeah. And so we went… no, he said, “Come and see me Tuesday,” ’cause that was 1:30 in the morning. And we walked in there that morning and he said, “Come and see me tomorrow morning, Tuesday morning.” And bring me $10,000 apiece. And I wish I had a video of it, because it can be on America’s Funniest Home Videos. I walked into his office with a white bank bag and dumped out $30,000 on his desk in cash, and he opened [00:34:00] his drawer like this and scooped it into the drawer. And I said, “Mike, there’s a lot more where that came from.” He said, “Bill, I can’t. It’s… I gotta do everything legitimately.” Yeah. And I said, “Okay.” So the first meeting, his dad was in there and he was in there, and the three of us, and he said, “Guys, Dad and I have talked, and you guys might wanna think about getting separate attorneys.” And I said, “For what?” He said, “Because if one of you take a plea.” Yeah. I almost jumped over the desk. I said, “There’ll be no plea. There will be no plea. We’re not guilty. We’re not gonna admit we’re guilty. They can send us to the electric chair. We didn’t do it.” Now, Gary, they took us out of the house at 2:00 on Sunday afternoon in broad daylight. First, they s- we sent the guy out the back. He was totally naked when we got there. He was laying in bed. He’d been doing Dilaudids and Quaaludes all night, and he was [00:35:00] blood from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. His whole back was red. We walked him out the door in- totally naked in front of the whole world and told him, “Go out there and tell them there’s nobody else in the house.” We were so jacked up. And here’s the thing, I have to tell you this. All those years that I got away with stuff is because I was smart, and now I’m snow blind. There was a song years ago by Styx called Snow Blind- Yeah … and it’s about cocaine. It’s about… And I’d been up for 86 hours when we went down to Holden. I had not- Okay … closed my eyes for 86 hours, so I was in m- I wasn’t in my right mind. Anyway, that was… So when we we said, “No plea bargain. There’ll be no plea bargains.” And for seven months… No, I’m sorry, for four months. That was October, November, December, January, February, March, April. No, seven months. For seven months. For seven months [00:36:00] we went to court multiple times. The whole police department, I don’t know if we can- I guess we’ll say it, because it’s done. It’s history. But I had a, I had two grocery sacks, the old brown grocery sacks on the couch that I’d inventoried. I had $62,000 in cash. I had… Because it was in envelopes, and I- they were $10,000. I was throwing them in there. 62,000 in cash, about four pounds of pot, three gallon Ziploc bags full of precious jewels. Er emeralds, rubies, and stuff like that. Some hash- a 12-gauge shotgun. I think that was all. Maybe maybe it… Whatever. When they, when… The first time we ever went to court and my partner had, the one that’s dead, Charlie, he had a leather Gucci bag that we always had with us, and it had four or five grams of cocaine in it. He took his diamond rings off, put them in there. His watch, he had a Rolex [00:37:00] watch he put in there, and about 3,000 in cash. That was in the car. That was never mentioned in court. No guns were ever mentioned in court. No guns were ever mentioned in court. I had a brand new, I had a brand new fif- not- model 59 nine millimeter. That was never mentioned in court. That 12-gauge shotgun was never mentioned in court. They said that they found a couple envelopes of cash, and they found a gram. Now, there was about, I think there was about probably a half a, maybe eight, eight grams or no more than that. It was ounces. Four or five ounces of cocaine. Oh, yeah. They said they found one, they said they found one gram of a, approximately one gram of a substance believed to be cocaine. Yeah. And my lawyer said… And they said they’d send it to Jeff City for analysis. And my lawyer said, “And what were the analysis of that?” They said they haven’t come [00:38:00] back yet. This is two months after they arrested us. They did- And they found approximately one gram, and there was ounces of cocaine in there. They found a couple envelopes with approximately $2,000 in cash. There was $62,000. The car I was driving, so when I got arrested, I had the keys in my pocket. So when they booked us into jail, when we walked out at 1:30 Monday morning, they gave us back our property. I had the keys in my pocket. So the car’s… Now, this is a brand new ’80, this was a ’82. This was an ’81 Trans Am. The car’s in Holden. The police chi- And they said they were gonna confiscate the car because it had Kansas tags on it, that they wanted to go through the car da. The police chief changed the ignition and was driving that car for his personal car. It cost my buddy, because it was a friend of mine, T- Ronnie M- Ron McGee, it was his car. It cost him $10,000 and an attorney to get his car back from them. So bottom line, every time we [00:39:00] went to court, several ti- my lawyer would say, “I’d like to call Officer Gary Jenkins up.” Gary Jenkins is not on the force anymore. He moved to Arizona.” “I’d like to call so-and-so up next time we go in.” He’s not here anymore. He moved to wherever.” So all the money and all the guns and all the drugs, they split it up and no, nobody ever… So the thing was so dirty. So what happens is we’d been going to court for that seven months, And then I become a Christian. I walk into his offi- and we’re adamant, we’re not plea bargain. We don’t want separate lawyers. We want you two guys to represent us. We’re gonna beat this thing. And, oh, and I told, because when that guy gave that 20-page statement after he got out of the hospital, this was a month later or something, he called us all in. We went in. He sh- hands each one of us 20-page statement. He said, “Guys, let me tell you something. I’m defending you on an assault with intent to kill charge. I’m gonna get that reduced, but if you get busted [00:40:00] dealing cocaine, you’ve got to stop dealing cocaine, ’cause if you get busted dealing cocaine while I’m on this case, it’s gonna complicate the case.” Yeah. “You gotta stop.” And I said, “Mike, I don’t tell you how to practice law, and you don’t tell me how to make money. You just keep doing what you do, and I’ll keep doing what I do, and I’ll keep bringing you money.” And he never said another word. Three or four months later, I become a Christian. I walk into his office by myself. And when I walked in the door, he said, “What happened to you?” If you look at that book on the picture of my, on the back of my book, that was four months before I became a Christian. And the Bible says the eyes are the windows of the soul. I had a very dark soul. Yeah, I can see. I had a very dark soul. Yeah. And so he goes, “What happened to you?” And I said, “What do you mean?” And he said, “You don’t look the same.” And I said, “I’m not the same.” And I told him what happened. And he said… And I said, “We’ve got a problem.” And he goes, “What’s our [00:41:00] problem, Bill?” I said, “I can’t lie anymore.” He said, “You’re right. We’ve got a problem.” ‘Cause we’d been lying for seven months. We told… He knew the story. He said, “I just need to know this. I’ll defend you guys. I’ll beat this case, but I need to know.” So we told… And at this point now, seven months later, he said, “There’s no way out of this thing. You guys are going to prison.” He said, “I can help you figure out a way to get to the good prison, but you’re going to prison.” So when I go in that day and he goes, “What’s wrong? What what happened?” And I told him, and he said, “You don’t look the same.” I said, “I’m not the same.” I said, “We got a problem.” He goes, “What?” I said, “We can’t lie. I can’t lie anymore.” And he said I’ve got an idea.” And I said, “What?” He said if I enter a plea bargain, I think we can do this.” And he said, “You guys won’t go to prison.” And he said, “Talk to Mike and Charlie and see what they say.” So I called them. We went down, met with him. And this time they looked at me and said, “What do you think we should do, Bill?” [00:42:00] I said, “I think we ought to take the plea bargain.” We got five years’ probation and a $5,000 fine. Now, the crazy thing- that was on the assault. Yeah, they- That was on the assault. But you still got a cocaine case out here pending with the feds. No. No. No. That, if, that, that- 20-page statement that implicated me was never, he never got it out of his office. It never went out of Fitzgerald’s office. So it, he didn’t tell it to… He told it to whoever he told it to, but to the police, and the police were all crooks anyway . Yeah. So I don’t know who he told. I just know that our lawyer said if this cocaine thing comes up, it’s gonna complicate our case. It never came up. Oh. And so maybe it was the mercy of God, I don’t know. Because it was a 20-page typewritten statement naming judges, Kenny Weld, all these guys, and all these people started falling after that. And so anyway, we ended up getting a $5,000 fine and five-year probation. Now, the crazy thing, if you read my book, Charlie and Mike both went, they got called and they [00:43:00] went and reported. I never got a call. 13 months later, I had a nephew getting married up in in Wisconsin, and I wanted to go to that wedding, and I knew I couldn’t leave without permission, but I didn’t have anybody to ask permission from. And when that guy sued me, G- Gary, when that guy sued me and I went and got the lawyer that I told you I went and got, I said, “By the way…” He said, “I wanna take this case.” I said, “Great.” I said, “By the way, I got arrested September 5th of ’82. The case ended in May. I was placed on five-year probation, a $5,000 fine. I’ve never heard from anybody. What do you think I sh- should do?” He said, “Bill, you need to write a letter.” And I put the letter in the book. I wrote a letter and said da. I’d like to be supervised. Please contact me.” 13 months, and they, within two days they were knocking on my front door. And that’s when I started reporting. And Kay King was my first pr- [00:44:00] probation officer, and she asked me all the whole story, and I had sat with her for two hours and told her the whole story. She asked me how many drugs I did, what I did. I said, “I’ve done everything there is, from, marijuana to heroin to… I’ve done it all.” And I did massive amounts of everything. And I was drinking two quarts of whiskey at the end every day. And people are like, “You can’t drink two quarts of whiskey.” I said, “You never did cocaine, did you?” ‘Cause when you’re doing, ’cause when you’re doing cocaine, you can’t get drunk. And so anyway that… And I asked her when I left her office, I said, “So does my probation start now, or does it start back then?” She said, “No, Bill, it starts today.” Oh, really? I said- Wow. I said, “For 13 months I’ve been going to churches and schools and telling people how bad drugs are and how bad alcohol is and how bad this is.” And I said, “I’ve not had a traffic ticket. I haven’t had a traffic ticket.” The only ticket I’ve got in the last 43 years, I had a bad car wreck where I got T-boned at 70 miles an [00:45:00] hour. I pulled out in front of a guy. It was my fault. And that’s the only ticket I’ve had in 43 years. I haven’t been stopped by the police. And she said, “I’m sorry, Bill, it starts today.” Guess what? I did the whole five year. I went from then, I got off in ’89 or something, I th- it was almost five years I did. My partners, they only did a year and a half, and they let them off. And they were still dealing cocaine. They were still dealing. They were still dealing. Matter of fact, one of them’s brother his mama died, and the funeral was at Passantino Brothers over there on the avenue. And I went to the funeral, and I was sorry, and we were hugging. And me and him sat down and were talking, and he had a little leather Gucci bag. And he said, “Hey, I’m go- now listen.” He said, “I’m going to the bathroom. You wanna go with me?” I said, “No, brother.” Yeah. And I got up and left. He wanted to go do some cocaine. Damn. And that was years after, he’d been… Anyway. Yeah. But I’m glad I had to do the whole five years because I got to speak [00:46:00] in some… She called me once and said, “I got a friend that teaches a criminal justice class at a college, and they’ve had detectives and they’ve had police officers, they’ve had lawyers, they’ve had parole officers, but they’ve never had a criminal. Would you come and speak?” And I said, “I’d be glad to.” And I f- and then I called the professor and I said, “I’ve been asked to come.” And he said, “Yeah, we’re looking forward.” And I said I have to tell you one thing. I cannot come in there and speak and not tell your class that my life was radically changed April 15th, 1983, when I came into encounter with God through his son, Jesus Christ.” He said, “That’s okay.” And I went and told them, so I was glad I got to stay on parole for five years. So- So Bill what are you doing now? I know you- I’m just- you’ve got a prison ministry. Do you speak- Yeah … at prisons and, and- That’s all I do, Garrett. 40 years just- How does one get into that? Do you have an agent that booked you into different prisons- No … or how does that work? No. No. I started going in 1986 with [00:47:00] a guy named Bill Glass, who was a NFL player. Played for the Cleveland Browns. He was an All-Pro. Actually started… He got, he retired from football in 1968, so that’s how old he was. Started the ministry in ’72, and was the biggest prison ministry in the nation, had 30,000 volunteers. And I started going in as just a volunteer, and then he asked me to be a platform speaker, and I was a platform speaker for him for 30 years. And went to, I’ve been in over 500 different prisons in my life, and I do prisons almost every day, a prison or a jail almost every day. We’re getting ready to do, this will be our 17th car show up at Crossroads in Cameron, and this will be the biggest car show ever in a US prison, in history. Last year was the biggest. We had 80 cars last year, but this year we’re planning on- by car sh- car show, what do you mean? Like guys bring their classic cars up and…? And drive them in on the prison yard. Oh, wow. And the inmates get to come out, walk around and look at them. And last year we had 80 cars and bikes. [00:48:00] This year we’re gonna have 250 motorcycles and cars. Wow. And we’re gonna feed 2,000 people. We’ve got… W- we’re gonna have 2,000 meals that day for the inmates and the staff, all the staff. So that’s what I’ve been doing for all these years, and will keep doing it as long as I can, wow. But as far as… I was gonna ask you about old Joey Rags. I knew Joe Ragusa. Did you ever deal with that guy? Did you? Not directly. I followed him a lot and almo- we almost caught him too, in a hit one time. And then they saw us and they had boogied on out. But I know one story- That would have been a- … about him. He was, He needed to go… I heard this later. He needed to go to a meeting downtown, down to City Market with the other mob guys, ’cause, he was right next to Charlie Martina, and he went on several hits with these guys during the Spiro-Savella war. So he’s out at the plumbing place where he was working, so he… Guy comes in- Where was he at? Was he at St. John Plumbing? I don’t remember the name of it. It was over there by N- Jackson, Ninth and Jackson, or Truman and Jackson, somewhere over there [00:49:00] on the east side. I can’t remember the name of it now. And so he need… said… told this guy, he said, “Hey,” he said, “I need to go down to the market.” He said, “Can you give me a ride down there?” And the guy said you got your car here.” He said no, you give me a ride.” So he gets in, lays down in the back seat. So the guy takes him down there, then he gets out. No, he was a real deal. Boy, that old market was something, wasn’t it? Yeah. That old City Market. Oh, man. Yeah, heard mob guys out there. Yeah they had a pretty big… Hey, what about, I was gonna ask you about a couple guys that were big heroin kingpins, Sam Haley and Aaron Gant. Was you involved when they were really big in Kansas City? Y- I was a young policeman, ’72, ’73, ’74, and Aaron Gant and Sam Haley were like the big ducks. And they had this war going between the two little heroin organizations. And Gant was, he was in with some guys, and Aaron Gant called him Junebug. He was in with the God, there was a whole family, the Denmans. He was in with [00:50:00] these guys. And so they… And Sam Haley was… I never did understand the difference, but they had two different organizations and they hated each other is my understanding. Oh, they did. Yeah. How about Ramseys? Did you know who the Ramseys were? I don’t see. The Ramsey brothers? I remember that na- Huh? I know that name. I think one of those crime families that, that stole- they were- … money in the neighborhood and- They were the- … everyone else … they were killers, all of them. Yeah. I think there was eight boys, and at one time seven or eight of them were in Missouri for murder. And I was seeing… I was in Potosi. And Rambo, R- Roy Rambo Ramsey they called him, and he’s the one that they got a… Remember when the la- what’d they call them that you put on the roof of your car? Oh, Landau top. Landau top, yeah. Yeah. That wasn’t the word I’m looking for, though. Whatever it was, th- you could have them tops put on. Yeah. They got one put on in a poster shop over on Prospect. Oh. And [00:51:00] when they called and said, “Your car’s ready,” they went up there and killed everybody in the shop and took their car and left. And then they went out to Belton or Grandview, and there was an old couple that had a bunch of old coins and stuff, and they knew one of the people. They knew one of the brothers, and I think it was Roy. And they went out there and knocked on the door, and of course, they let them in. They told their girlfriend to stay in the car, and they went in and they shot them They were 65 and 66 years old. The little old lady was 65 and the old man was… They shot each one of them three times, and just for a few dollars worth of coins, man. They were murderers. They were killers. But I was up in Potosi and Roy asked me, he said, “Would you go see my dad?” And I was… I said… He said, “He’s in a nursing home.” And Gary, his father, was a hardworking man, had never committed a crime in his life, and he was in this nursing home. And I went and saw him and prayed for him and stuff. But here are these… He [00:52:00] had these eight sons that were murderers. They were killers. And the old man was in a nursing home dying. And, Roy asked me if I’d go see him, so I went and saw him, prayed for him. But yeah, they were something else, them guys. Interesting. You you mentioned Sam Haley. There w- we had, here just in your area, was a guy named Michael Cantu, who used to be a fire captain. Had… Was a, a big time cocaine dealer. During those years, he got into- Yeah … cocaine. He and his brother Joe and Joe Maggio, and they had a cocaine deal going, and he got back out. He had a body shop over on Independence Avenue, and two Black guys came in and executed him, basically. Left the employee there. There wasn’t anything to steal, and executed him. And the drawings, one of them we… There was a lot of speculation it looked like Sam Haley. So I think he was- Might’ve been … I think he was supplying Black dealers with cocaine I believe. I saw him meeting with some guys once that that- Yeah, they were- … I didn’t know who they were, but they all looked like Black cocaine dealers they were killers, all them guys. Haley and Gant and those guys. Did you, I asked you about, Yeah, heavy idea. [00:53:00] I- here’s a question. I just got an inquiry from one of Gant’s relatives of… They were wanting to know more about Aaron Gant getting killed. See, he got out of the joint. He went to Missouri State Penitentiary, I think it was for drugs. Yep. And he went to a club that night, and somebody walked in, was walked in, shot him, and walked out right away. Another Black dude. So this relative was asking me if I knew any more about it. I didn’t know any more about it. You remember that deal at all? I don’t remember that. Okay. I di- I actually, I was thinking that Aaron Gant and Sam Haley had been dead for years, but, that was- this was years ago. This was quite a while ago. Okay. This was probably- Yeah, I thought he might have died in prison or something, ’cause I knew they both had a lot of time. They did a lot of- Yeah … time in Missouri. Yeah. Yeah, they did. So did you- But they were kingpins. Their names are really well-known, feared names on the East Side in Kansas City. Oh, yeah. Really feared names. Absolutely. Did you ever go around Vic Fontana’s place when he opened up Fanny’s? Oh, yeah. I went in and out of several. He had several different places. He had Fanny’s. [00:54:00] He had one down on the Southwest Trafficway a little bit after your time, I think oh, God, I forgot the name of it. But yeah, the, all the mob guys went into his joints. He was mob friendly. Yeah. I was really s- I met him when he had when he had the one up on Main next to Butch’s, next to Mother’s. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He had that place yeah what was, Walter Midy. Must have been Walter Midy’s. Walter Midy. Yeah, that’s where I met Vic. And then I actually plumbed that Fanny’s when he opened up Fa

“He didn't just say it, he meant it, he felt it — and the combination of the power guy, the ruthless power guy, and the profound idealist was fascinating, and also hard for him.” — Evan Thomas on Bobby Kennedy Who was the greatest riddle in 20th century American political life? Judging from the ever-expanding library of Bobby biographies, Robert Francis Kennedy ranks very high on that list. Indeed, according to Evan Thomas, one of RFK's most acclaimed biographers, this third Kennedy son is, indeed, the most sphinx-like riddle in 20th century America. In his classic 2000 biography, Robert Kennedy: His Life, Thomas unravels the good and the bad Bobby. But, rather than presenting parallel narratives, his portrait treats the Machiavellian and the idealist as the same riddle. Raised by his father to exercise raw power, RFK discovered that mid-century America wasn't living up to its own ideals. The contradiction of the ruthless Kennedy machine politician and the profound idealist was what continues to make him so intriguing to Americans of every political stripe. Bobby concurred with Churchill's dictum that courage is the greatest virtue because, without it, you can't have the other virtues. So he lived a life of ridiculous physical and moral courage — taking insane risks that would terrify ordinary mortals. And, of course, his most insanely courageous act was his last — running for President in 1968 knowing that he was likely to be assassinated. Where have you gone, Bobby Kennedy? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Five Takeaways •       The Central Paradox: Power Guy and Idealist in the Same Man: Bobby Kennedy was raised by his father to be the henchman of the Kennedy machine — doing the dirty stuff in Boston politics to keep Jack floating free and grand. He was pretty ruthless about it. At the same time, in mid-century America, he discovered that the country was not living up to its own constitution, and he wanted to make things right, and genuinely felt it. The combination of the machine politician and the profound idealist was what made him so endlessly fascinating. It also made him hard for himself: a man permanently at war with his own nature. •       Courage: The Only Word That Mattered: No word was more important to Bobby Kennedy than courage. Churchill: it's the greatest virtue, because without it you can't have the others. Kennedy believed in physical courage, emotional courage, mental courage. He was a runty little kid at the wrong end of the dinner table — Jack and Joe and Kick at the golden end with the father, Bobby with the nuns and the mum. He got kicked out of prep school for cheating. He was not the athlete, not the golden one. Real courage comes from suffering. It took courage just to overcome being the loser. That was the source. •       Making Up for Missing the War: Physical and Moral Courage: Bobby missed World War Two, basically. He got in at the very end and ended up scraping the deck of a destroyer in the Caribbean, far from combat. His brother Jack is a war hero on steroids — PT boat cut in half by a Japanese destroyer, rescues his men, written about in The New Yorker and Reader's Digest. Joe volunteers for a secret dangerous mission to replicate Jack's glory and dies. Pretty high bar of courage. Bobby spends the rest of his life making up for it — swimming the Colorado River, climbing Mount Kennedy in the Yukon, jumping overboard off the coast of Maine to save Jack's jacket. Sometimes stunts. But increasingly, moral courage — which is the greater thing. •       The Mob, Joe Kennedy, and the Beehive: When Bobby starts poking around in the mob as a Senate aide, J. Edgar Hoover is only too happy to point out: keep going here, you know where it's going to end up. With Joe Kennedy. Bobby's investigation of Giancana and Frank Sinatra starts grazing against his own father. Thomas's reading: whether conscious or unconscious, there is an element of rebellion. Bobby, appointed henchman, doing the dirty stuff for pop, resenting it, starts poking the beehive that might expose him. It never fully landed. But it started. And Hoover used it to blackmail the Kennedys. •       The Ripple of Hope, and RFK Jr. as Tragedy: Bobby's trip to South Africa — apartheid everywhere, the freedom movement barely existing, everybody in prison. His speech: every time somebody does something brave or heroic, it causes a ripple, and that gives you hope. A young Margaret Marshall, later Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, was in the audience. He gave us hope where there was none. That is the ghost Andrew went looking for at Hickory Hill and didn't find. The contrast with RFK Jr. is, for Thomas, simply sad. Poignant. His own family has disavowed him. Caroline Kennedy made a broadcast accusing him of crimes. The idea of Robert Kennedy Jr. is tragic. About the Guest Evan Thomas is an American writer and historian. He was Washington bureau chief of Newsweek for ten years and a writer and editor there for thirty-three years. He is the author of ten books, including Robert Kennedy: His Life (Simon & Schuster, 2000), Being Nixon, Road to Surrender, and, with Walter Isaacson, The Wise Men. He has taught at Harvard and Princeton. His biography of Churchill is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster in December 2026. References: •       Robert Kennedy: His Life by Evan Thomas (Simon & Schuster, 2000). •       The Wise Men by Evan Thomas and Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster, 1986) — referenced in the closing. •       Robert Coles — Bobby Kennedy's psychologist friend, referenced in the conversation. •       Hickory Hill, McLean, Virginia — the Kennedy family home Andrew visited on this trip to Washington DC. •       Bobby Kennedy's “Ripple of Hope” speech, University of Cape Town, South Africa, June 6, 1966. About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,900 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. WebsiteSubstackYouTube

New Jersey Investigators take a fresh look at the Mob in 2026 during a recent hearing that drew top law enforcement officials from across the state. The State Commission of Investigation is probing organized crime across the Garden State, looking into illegal gambling, mob violence, racketeering, union corruption, the waste hauling business and Mob connected businesses. Mob expert George Anastasia attended the hearing and will bring us the latest. Plus, jailed, former Philly Mob Boss John Stanfa is on the move, transferred to a federal prison medical center as some insiders debate whether the 85 yr old gangster could get out of prison after 32 years on compassionate release. And what would that mean for the local mob. Join us for another jam packed episode.

Former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade talks with Rachel Maddow about her acclaimed new book, "The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government," in which she draws upon her experience prosecuting fraud and organized crime to understand how to defeat Donald Trump's style of intimidation and inflicting pain on others to dominate them and get what he wants.  Want more of Rachel? Check out the "Rachel Maddow Presents" feed to listen to all of her chart-topping original podcasts.To listen to all of your favorite MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins sits down with former NYPD officer Jimmy Dennedy and NYC Brooklyn prosecutor Michael Vecchione for a gripping discussion on violent crime, justice, and redemption. Jimmy recounts the shocking murder of NYPD officers Rocco Laurie and Gregory Foster by the Black Liberation Army, while Michael reveals the challenges of prosecuting those responsible. The conversation then shifts to something unexpected—redemption. After retiring, Jimmy began working in prison ministry, where he witnessed firsthand how even hardened criminals, including mobsters, can change their lives. This episode dives deep into: The reality of cop killings in New York City The struggle to prosecute violent offenders Inside stories from mob cases Redemption and transformation inside prisons Get the book Hard Guys Cry. If you're interested in true crime, mafia history, and real law enforcement stories, this is an episode you don't want to miss. Subscribe for more mafia history and true crime stories every week. 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. [0:00] Hey, all you wiretappers, good to be back here in studio, Gangland Wire. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective and now turned podcaster. And I have another retired cop here on the show, Jimmy Dennedy. Jimmy, I tell you what, I had it down, Dennedy, like Kennedy. And our friend who’s been on here several times, Michael Vecchione. Welcome, Michael. Welcome, Jimmy. Thank you very much for having us, Gary. Thank you. All right. Michael has several books out there. He’s, he’s prosecuted the mob. That’s how I got onto him. He prosecuted the, he had something to do with the mob cops, Louis Eppolito. And I can’t remember exactly now. I should have made a note on that, Michael. What was the name of that book? [0:48] The name of the book? Friends of the Family. Friends of the Family. Is that those two New York PD coppers that were in the pay of? Louis Eppolito and Louis Eppolito was one of the cops. And you know what, Gary? during the, when Jimmy, when you talk to Jimmy, Jimmy has a kind of a, an odd situation regarding Louie Eppolito. And, and it’s a good story. I think he should tell you, tell your listeners. All right. Great. We look forward to that, Jimmy and Jimmy Denity, who was a New York city policeman. And he has a book, tough dies to cry. Hard guys cry. Let me do that over again. Yeah. I said, I left, I had it written down here and he had Jimmy Denity is here with us. He is a retired New York City copper, and he has a book, Hard Guy’s Cry. So welcome, Jimmy. [1:34] Good morning. Thank you very much for having me. All right, Michael, you and Jimmy, did you guys work together a little bit on the job? Did you know each other back then? Yeah, we certainly did. We’ve probably known each other now for maybe 45 or more years. I got to know Jimmy because I got assigned a case involving, unfortunately, the death, the murder of two New York City police officers who were assigned to Jimmy’s precinct at the time in Bed-Stuy. And it was a case that had been tried twice before I got it. And there were hung juries in both of the cases. And the DA at that point was going to just simply decide to not prosecute it anymore. And the head of the policeman’s union went to the DA, the district attorney, and said, listen, just give it one more shot. So I was at the time the head of a group called the Major Offense Bureau in the Brooklyn DA’s office. And I got, I’ll never forget this. I was sitting at my desk and the boss of the unit, the bureau that I was part of, came into my office and said, come with me. We’ll go to see the DA. [2:41] I didn’t know. I thought maybe I was in trouble for some reason, but I sat down and he said, listen, I want to give you one more shot. I want to take this case to trial one more time and you are the guy that we want to do it. So I was happy to do it. I tried a lot of cases by that point. And, and the best part of the whole situation, Gary is I met Jimmy Danity. That was, he, we became fast friends and I got to tell you a little funny story. He had been involved in the two other trials. [3:11] But when he sat down with me, the first thing he said to me was, or one of the first things was, do you eat lunch? I said, yeah, of course I eat lunch. Why? He said, the guy that tried the case before you and the one before him, they didn’t eat lunch. And by the time the afternoon came, their energy was all waned, had waned. And he said, so here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to have lunch on your desk every time you come back for the lunch break from the trial. And he did. There was a sandwich waiting for me every day when I came back, and he is the guy that brought it to me. But before the trial, we went out. Me, Jimmy, and detective from the Homicide Bureau, who was assigned to the case. [3:57] Tony Martin, went out to the scene. And again, another one of these scenes, which I’ll never forget. The scene was in the middle of Bed-Stuy on Troop Avenue. Jimmy, that was the, yeah. [4:10] Willoughby and Troop. Willoughby and Troop. So we’re on the street and the three of us are standing there right on the sidewalk. And we look around and I said to Tony, did you hit every one of these buildings looking for witnesses? Because there was a problem with the case with the witnesses. One had died in a very strange way. And so he looked around I don’t know if you remember this, Jimmy And he pointed to a building Diagonally across from the spot Where the two cops were shot And he said, Mike We never went into that building, And Jimmy and Tony went into the building, canvassed it and came up with two new witnesses. And so it was a wonderful experience working with Jimmy. He was a hard worker. He really was tied to this case in the sense that these guys were his friends. They were two guys who were gunned down for really no reason by a member of the Black Liberation Army at the time who was part of the Attica riots here in New York. He was actually one of the guys who started the Attica riots in New York. And he was out and he was with another guy. And we believe that they were going to meet another one of their fellow. [5:27] I don’t want to call them gang members, to set up a robbery. And that’s why they were in Brooklyn. And the case had so many ups and downs and twists and turns. And it was something which I obviously will never forget. But the best part about it, I’ll repeat myself, is that I met Jimmy Denity. And he and I have been friends from that point on until today. And so let me just get to the book because Hard Guy’s Cry to me was a labor of love. It really was. I got a call one afternoon and I’m sitting out on my deck and Jimmy calls me and we just got to talking and he asked me about doing a book about his life and his story. And I said, it’s great. There are lots of books out there about cops and street cops and what they’ve done on the street. He said, so he said, oh, but he started to now expand on it. And then he told me the second part of his career, which was the prison ministry in the federal prison and a state prison here in New York. And I said, Jimmy, you buried the lead. That’s the part of this book that I can sell to a publisher. Because Gary, you probably know this. You probably interviewed these guys who do books when they retire. This was just going to be one of those. Jimmy’s career on the street was terrific. [6:47] The only problem was there are lots of guys who have books out there like that. So when he told me the story about his prison ministry, I was working at the time with a partner of mine, Jerry Schmetterer, who has now passed away. And we both talked about it and we said, this is definitely a story. This is definitely a book. And it’s been a long journey, Jim, until we got to this point. We’ve had COVID. We’ve had the Minneapolis, the guy in Minneapolis who was killed and agents saying to us, nobody wants to publish a book about a good cop. Nobody wants to do that. You can’t sell this until I didn’t give up. I really didn’t give up. And I took the proposal and I rewrote it after Jerry died. And then I sent it out to a couple of publishers and one of them grabbed it and said, yes, I want to do this. And then believe it or not, Gary, his publishing company hit the skids in terms of being able to spend money. He went out of business. So I had one more shot and I gave it to the publisher of my novels. [7:55] And she finally is the one who said, yes, let’s do this. And then here we are today. [8:01] It’s really, again, I said this before, but it was a journey of love. It really was to tell this guy’s story. and we, I know I’m repeating myself, but we became such good friends that our families got to know each other. I went to Jimmy’s house for holidays. We really just became very good friends. And here we are. And I’m so happy that I was able to write this book because I really believe that the people who read it will say, wow, this is a great guy. This is a great guy. And he is. Interesting. Hey, Jimmy, I got a couple of questions for you. Now, you worked, that was the Rocco and Lori case, if I remember right. And everybody who worked big city policing at the time, that scared the dog shit out of us. It was like these guys just laid in wait for a couple patrolmen to walk by, stepped out and shot them. That was my impression. And I worked that kind of a neighborhood. And we were jumping. We were pretty jumpy for quite a while. And it wasn’t solved for a while. We knew it was some kind of a political act, or at least that’s what we’re led to believe. Did you guys feel the same way in New York? Let me just stop you for a second. The case that I did with Jimmy was Norman Cerullo and Christina Soames years later. The one that you’re talking about, Rocco Laurie and Gregory Foster, was much earlier. [9:21] Jimmy was involved in it because he was a good friend of Rocco Laurie. They went to the academy together. But I’m sorry to interrupt, but I just wanted to make sure that we were talking about the right thing. [9:33] So that kind of a case, you actually went through two of them. So tell us about your feelings about that. Did that, how did that affect your dealings on the street? I was in the academy with Rocco Laurie, right? And we had both come out of the Marine Corps at the same time. And we worked out together. We boxed together. And some of the guys were slacking off. The guy’s name was Mr. Clean. He was the instructor. He would say, okay, now you’re going to box with Denny or you’re going to box with Laurie. Of course, they were slacking. We weren’t slacking. Oh, God. That was me. They said, Jenkins, go over there and box with one of those guys. No brother in Lime. [10:12] So we became close we we knew his wife he knew that time it was my girlfriend but that was my wife we had gone out to dinner and he was a really good man in the academy i won the gun for physical fitness he won the gun for overall excellence and we got pictures with our guns together and stuff. So I was working at midnight with this guy, Victor Grillo, nice guy. And a job came over. Cops shot in Manhattan. We were in Brooklyn. It’s on the other side of the bridge. So we’re saying, wait. And that became the ninth precinct. That’s where Rocco worked. So we used to call him the Rock. I hope it’s not the Rock. And it turns out it was him. These guys executed him. They were basically a domestic terrorist group. They were robbing banks. They were killing cops for no reason. They just walked past them, turned around, opened up on them. And they shot them all over the face to the groin. And then they took their guns and shot them. And some of the guns actually wound up out in St. Louis or in West Area. [11:16] So did it affect me? Absolutely. I became, I don’t want to say callous, but I was very leery of everybody. [11:26] And I started, my niche was guns. I locked up a lot of guys for a lot of guns. But anything to do with it, Black Liberation Army or anything, I used to accumulate information, intelligence information, and my locker was full of it. I’d lock up a guy, and they used to have years ago the little address books. I used to take their address books, and they would ask me information, the FBI, the Major K-Squad, Jimmy, have any information on this guy? And which I did many times, right? Fast forward several years later, I’m out, and I’m having a few cocktails, and then i drove back to the precinct the 79th precinct to meet a friend of mine bobby perry, and while i was at the front of the desk there’s a place they could check your messages if anybody calls you messages so i’m checking my messages and it came over shots fired then it came over cop shot then it came over two cop shot then i drove down to my civilian car right it was dark, and it was like help you know radio card door is open you know I mean blood all over the place he also shot his friend right and he’s laying it dead with a gun in his hand his blood all over the place it was a nightmare so let me figure this out but now everybody name others coming down because he’s cop-killing students a doubleheader so to speak and then I see the blood going across the street and the blood stops. [12:53] So obviously somebody was shot. It’s not our guys. And then I assume he got into a car. [13:00] So I’m trying to figure, is he going to go to the Spanish neighborhood or deeper into the black neighborhood? And I said, let me go to the hospital. So I drive to the hospital to see if they need blood or anything. And out of the corner of my eye, when I passed Lexington Avenue, I see there had been a car accident. A guy hit parked cars. I kept going. And then I told Mike, you know, my father gave us a game when we were kids. It was called Game in the States. at a map of the united states and you had two little electric wires and you plug one into the state and there’s a list of capitals on the other side and when you hit that the light would go on you got the right answer and as god is the lord a light went off in my head just like it was the right state capital yeah went to the hospital and they did you know and then this guy paulie has ever seen him he’s crying he was in plain clothes anti-crime i said paulie listen to me Two things. Once, I want to come in the car. I’m going to go back to the scene. Because when I got there, there was a Spanish guy on the pool across the street. And he was a little biggazy type guy himself. But he used to give me information. He used to give me information on his competitors. Yeah. [14:10] Yes. So when he saw me, you know, he ran. Right? I wanted to come back and talk to him. But on the way back, I said, Paul, I’m going to stop at this accident scene. This is, it’s just there. Yeah. Go back there. Ambulance is starting to pull away fire truck was there pulling away so i went over there they said it’s an accident scene the guy’s injured i said what kind of injury is it the guy said well he dressed his wound because he won he refused medical aid this guy so i said i just dressed his wound i saw undress the wound let me look at it i’m not undressing the wound i went over and i just ripped it off and it’s a gunshot wound yeah right yeah so all he had a radio calls the sergeant down and they bring a witness from willoughby avenue she comes down she says that’s the guy who killed the two cops so we get him put him in the ambulance right in the ambulance he’s a big boy this guy right and he goes reach and grabs my gun from my holster so now it’s like an arm wrestle for the gun between me him and paulie saracena and during this arm wrestle necessary force was used and the necessary force was used until he dropped the gun or he got the gun from him. Goes to the hospital. He has a Derringer behind his belt buckle and he has police handcuff key. [15:38] These guys are the real deal. Yeah, that’s a real deal. They train for this stuff. They associate but others that train they shoot you know what i mean so it’s just uncanny that rocko was my friend and he was murdered in a double police homicide and then a few years later i lock up a guy from the same team that killed two of my friends you know it was a nightmare and then we went to trial and that’s how i met mike and it’s a very. [16:09] It’s pressing on your brain. Yeah. Something like this happens. And then, and I don’t have to tell you, Gary, but then you get other cases. So you’re making more gun arrests, but you still have this. You know what I mean? It’s, it’s tough. It’s tough. But it was. I just want to interrupt for one second. One of the, Jimmy mentioned her. They brought a witness back to the scene to identify the, the bad guy. And, uh, and she was a great witness. She was there when the shooting occurred. She was actually moving into the building that the shooting happened in front of. And so the case was, we had a couple of, she was the best eyewitness to the case. And as Jimmy and Tony Martin, the detective who were assigned together after the actual arrest, because we had, they had to get the case together and look for more witnesses, et cetera. [16:58] They went one day to see this particular young woman to talk to her and see what was, if everything was still good, if she was okay. Turns out she was in the hospital nobody knew this she had gone into the hospital we were told because she had a cold she died in the hospital gary from a cold which is what we thought turns out she had encephalitis but the thing was at the time we said who goes into a hospital number one with a cold and who dies from a cold so we at that point not me but i wasn’t on the case yet, but others. And then when Jimmy told me this later on, I said to myself. [17:42] It’s got to be some connection to the bad guys. Maybe they poisoned her. Maybe they did something and we looked into it. It turned out, Jimmy, what was the disease that she had? I think she had herpes viral encephalitis in the brain. It’s a possibility that it can be induced. Yeah. So that’s what we looked at. And the medical examiner at the time of the death never really looked. The DA who had the case at the time thought, ah, this is a slam dunk. We had this witness, that witness. Jimmy arrests the guy and he’s got the bullet, which another thing happened. He wouldn’t allow the medical people to take the bullet out of his leg. It was the cop’s bullet. Yeah. So we wouldn’t, he wouldn’t let him do it. So we had to go with a, an x-ray of the bullet at the trial instead of the bullet itself. But it was, it’s a case with, as I said before, excuse me, many twists and turns. And it’s the whole story is in the book. And I don’t want to take away from Jimmy’s story here, but I have a legal question. You couldn’t get a search warrant to take the bullet out of a person. Is that? [18:51] We tried, and you know what the judge said? No. Uh-huh, okay. I just, I never ran into that. I’ve heard that before where the bullet stays inside and you can’t get it. I just. [19:03] I tried. The judge wouldn’t give us the search, the ability to search, quote unquote, which meant taking the bullet out of his leg. Anyway, so that’s where we, that’s where we met. And it was, it was quite a case. And Jimmy, I understand you, you go through your career and you see all these horrible things and you’re harding yourself. And you know, the title of your book, hard girls, hard boys, hard men cry. I don’t know why I got hard guys cry. I don’t know why I can’t remember. I should remember from Norman Mailer’s tough guys don’t dance, but hard guys cry. And so you harden yourself all those years, but then something happened in your life. Apparently that changed, changed that. I know after I retired, partly what happened to me is I became a lawyer and I started dealing with people from not particularly criminals, but many times relatives of people who had gone to jail. And I worked for public defenders and really got to know people on the other side and realize that we’re just two sides of the same coin many times trying to get along and trying to get by. So what happened in your life that changed that, your attitude? [20:11] When I retired, there was an old man who was a farmer, and it was like a late-year-type situation. This farmhouse was falling apart. The second floor was owned by raccoons. He had electricity in one room and no running water, but he was the calmest, nicest, most spiritual guy you ever wanted to meet. Almost no teeth. He had one tooth. And there was Louis Adamski. We used to call him Louis the farmer. So I used to take care of Louis. was taking over my house for Thanksgiving, Christmas, driving down this long driveway, see how he’s doing. And I didn’t see him for a while. So I drove down the driveway one particular day and I said, Louie, I haven’t seen you. You haven’t called. He said, he had bladder cancer. I said, really? I said, wow. He said, you had two surgeries. I said, you’re going for follow-up treatment? And he said, I’m supposed to go every 90 days, but he had no insurance, zero, no Social services, nothing. And the doctors were suing him. And they wanted his farm. He owned one-tenth of his farm. It had about 80 acres. But it was heirs. Everybody in his family had passed away. I said, Louie, you got to get follow-up treatment. So there was a city that’s not about a half hour away called Newburgh, New York. And there was a urologist I was familiar with. So I told him the story. This guy has nothing. He said to me, if you will drive him, I will treat him like the president of the United States. [21:40] So for two and a half years, just about every month, sometimes twice a week, it all depends when his visits were, I would drive Louie. So it was like an all day affair almost because I have my own business, so I don’t show up for work. What do I care? So I take care of Louie all this time and my friends are patting me on the back saying, oh, you’re Louie’s angel. So one particular day we go in and… [22:03] He, if Louis checker, he calls me into the, uh, his consultation room and he says, so your friend’s cancer is back. She got to be kidding me. He said, yeah, I feel it on his prostate. He said, he has someone for biopsy Friday. This was on a Wednesday. I said, I don’t know how he’s going to get there. It’s an old day. I said, doc, listen, I’m married to this guy for two and a half years. I said, I’ll take him. He said, you sure? It was an old day. I said, doc, I don’t care. He said, all right. He said, I’ll tell you what, as long as you’re going to take them, your PSA is just borderline high. He said, I feel there’s nothing on your prostate, but if you’re going to take it, let me give you a biopsy too. I said, fine, I don’t care. So I take, we both get the biopsy. The next Wednesday, he calls them both of us in. I have cancer as well, worse than his, right? So he got radiation. I went out to New York City. There was a top flight surgeon in Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. And I told him the story like I’m telling you now. So he said, you got to cut that out of there. You don’t want it in there. So they cut me a half. They took it out. And in the recovery room, he comes in and he says to me, you weren’t Louis’ angel. Louis was your angel. He said, you had a C-grade cancer. It was starting to spread, but I got everything. [23:15] So he said, you would have been dead about a year and a half. He said, because you had no signs, no symptoms. By the time you had the symptoms, it would be all over. Yeah. So it changes the way you think that I was invited to go on to this, a religious retreat weekend, a Cresillo weekend. I didn’t want to go. I’m not a holy roller. It’s not my cup of tea, but I socially boxed in like friends. So then your wife has to go too. So my wife, Noraline said, oh, I’ll go. And I said, oh, yeah, now I got to go. So I go on this week. it’s it’s thursday friday saturday sunday you can’t bring a watch you didn’t have cell phones then right so you’re stuck there so i went and i hooked up for a couple of other ex-marines and this actor mike was poorly he was on the sopranos so i sit in the back like we’re just going to ride this one out oh we can write it out it turns out that it was very moving, it’s very moving and people spoke that thought they were like punks i knew them indirectly they had quite a story to tell and then, weekend was over and on the way back it was November and I was telling Mike I rolled the windows down it was like spring, spring in my mind you see things differently like these computer generated pictures you see what it is but if you stare at it long enough another picture comes out within the picture and kind of life came out of life for me I saw things differently, Then these guys asked me to go into the prison. [24:42] Listen, I say, listen, you’re a carpenter. You’re a plumber. You don’t know what these guys are. I’ve thrown these guys down stamps and shot a guy at my house. Crazy. Again, I’m socially boxed in. So we go up to the prison. It was 41 of us, 41 of us. It’s called the Kairos. It’s an interdenominational… [25:01] Prison ministry. So I sit in a big circle, piece of paper, it passes around. When you get it, you have to say who you are, where you’re from. So I get it. I said, my name’s Jimmy Danity. I live in Orange County, New York. I’m married. I have two children, and I retired from the Oak City Police Department. They booed me. I told Mike, it was like an old dog growling. Yeah. Yeah. I said, what am I doing here? So the next day, because you had to sleep up in the prison too, The next day, you’re at a table. So you have an inmate on either side. So there’s like maybe nine people at the table. And there’s three of us, six of them. And don’t ask them what they did. Never referred them as a prisoner, as a resident. They were like, guys, I grew up with their neighbor. I said, what did you do? You stupid. So it becomes, it was a religious weekend. But also, it’s practical life. And you guys were good. You know what I mean? I got along well with them. So we did every day and it was friday saturday sunday they finished and that’s it i’m done i’m done with this i said i’d do it and i’m saying i wonder if any of my guys would show up to a wednesday night they have a wednesday night follow-up at this organization i wonder if any of my guys would be there so you know what let me show let me go to one wednesday right all my guys. [26:22] Oh, my gosh. And that was the only, Gary, that was the only table where all of them showed up again. So that’s why he knew that this was the right thing for him. I’m sorry, Jim. I just want to know. And so this was still in the prison. Yeah. Back up the prison. Yeah. And they invited these guys. If you want, you can come to this follow up. At that time, every Wednesday at six o’clock, they could go into the chapel to this particular group meeting. So I just want to see if any of my guys are going to show up. They all showed up and then the volunteers drop off and then i said let me do another wednesday, and another wednesday and it comes like everybody wants to talk to you it’s like when you go into the pet store where puppies say they want you to pick them like pick me and it you get you wind up with a group i tell mike they’re my guys and then you wind up it’s a spiritual thing no question about it right it’s brand involved and everything but you go through life with these guys and a lot them have a lot of crazy situations yeah and one guy is a mafia guy and i think frankie and he wants to say jimmy this new guy he wants to talk to your jug it’s all right so he takes me behind this little interdenomination altar they got there right so i said hey don’t you he says remember me i said no he said you should you broke my nose so i said when did i break your nose He said. [27:46] Yeah, in the park on 53rd Street where we used to play hockey. He said, your brother, I remember you. I mentioned his name, his last name. I said, you were messing with the park attendant. I slammed a basketball in his face. You know what I mean? He never forgot it. They told Frankie, yeah, he was crazy before he went to the Marine Corps. I’d make guys in there. [28:04] I worked. Yeah. The drug cases that they had. [28:09] You know, I knew who their bosses were. I testified in Philadelphia against one of these guys’ big bosses. And it’s just, it was like almost an inside straight. It was like meant to be. It was meant to be. And then my parish priest, so then I started, I was in the denominational night. The Catholic guys had nothing. I started a Catholic night with a few other good guys, my friend Brian and a few other guys, right, on Thursday. So now I’m going there Wednesday and Thursday. So my parish priest said, the state maximum security doesn’t have anything like this. Let’s start one there. So I’m going Wednesday, the federal prison, Thursday to the state max. You know, and it, I did it for 25 years, two days a week. Wow. And if the guys in Brooklyn, where I was a cop, knew I was doing this, they say, wrong guy, definitely. Somebody else, you got the wrong guy. Yeah. It’s the way the good Lord leads you. Now, something changed in your life and it’s not like you had any control of it. It just, it changed. You opened yourself up. It seems to me like it. And you just didn’t have any choice but to go down this path. And you know what it is also, Gary, it’s also like you’re preventing crime. You’re doing the same thing only from the inside. From the inside, you want to change the way they think, the way they act. And there’s a million things I could tell you how I was able to change things in a prison. They’re going to stab somebody. The guy who was a rat. [29:32] And they didn’t like him. I didn’t like him. And I told him, listen, I like the guy. He said, you like the guy? Don’t get involved in this. I said, do what you want to do. I like the guy. They never touch the guy. Because if they do something like that, then they’re going to hurt you. [29:46] Gary, I think Jimmy should tell you, he’s talking about the effect he had on these guys. What really was the point of the prison ministry was to essentially make these guys, I think, better people and to change their lives. I think you should tell him, ask Jimmy, tell him the story of the Boston mobster because this one, this story has, it really hits home as to exactly what effect he had on someone who was one of guys that you might have on your show. someday. This guy was a really bad guy. And he was up there with Whitey Bulger, et cetera, in Boston. So I think it’s worthwhile to tell the story. And it really hits home in terms of how effective Jimmy was after being effective on the street, locking up these guys, what he did with the prison. So if you have a bit of time, I think it’s worthwhile to hear the story. Yeah, let’s hear it. I always want to hear stories about mobsters, anyhow. Yep. Go ahead, Jim. We were up at the federal prison, and it was during the holiday season, right? And the volunteer chaplain was Father Paul Papara, and he was giving a talk on forgiveness. So we had all these wise guys. It was a mess. They had all different guys. This particular time, a couple of wise guys, they had their arms folded, and they said, Father, you want me to forgive the guy that ratted me out? [31:05] He’s home with his family, and I’m here doing X amount of years left on my bid. So I raised my hand. so I said listen if this guy is lying and put you in prison for no reason shame on him he should rot in hell but if he just exposed what you did anyway you know you did it if you did it the good lord see you live in a fishbowl the guy just exposed you for what you did that’s, You have no bitch here, pal. Jimmy, this guy Jimmy, he’s a different name than him. Jimmy stands up and he says, listen, I’ve been in jail. I’ve killed people. I don’t want to, I forgive anybody. I want forgiveness. I’ll forgive anybody. So that was it. Eventually, Jimmy, a couple years later, goes home. So he called me at my office a couple years later and he wanted me to write a letter of reference to work at the docks with Homeland Security. I said, I don’t know how to write it. Put down that I was a prisoner and just what you thought of me. No problem. So I met him in the prison, stuff like that, right? [32:03] About a year after that or so, I get a call from him again. He says, hey, Jimmy, you got time? Hey, Jimmy. I said, good. I got all the time in the world for you. He said, what’s up, pal? He said, I was on a train platform. He says, and I see this guy. Him and his associate tried to kill me. They had stabbed me 13 times. He said, I already took care of his friend. And I walked up to him like a face-to-face with him. Then he recognized me the guy turned white and urinated all over himself because he knows he’s there jimmy says to me i put my finger on his face and i told him you know that thing you’re worried about right get out of here i forgive you i get the fuck out of here now and he says to me jimmy it would have been easier for me to clip this guy and to forgive the guy but i forgave him, And I’m saying, Jimmy, I’m so proud of you, I can’t, just, and he, for him to call me to tell me how he responded to that situation, you know, which was completely out of character to the old guy, the old Jim. He was very proud of himself, and I was very proud of him. [33:09] So that’s the story Mike has told. It was the story, quite frankly, Gary. Didn’t he have one of the Westies in there with him? They were some particularly brutal crew in New York City. Yeah, yeah, he did. [33:25] We had a few of them up there. We had Jimmy Coonan, who started the Westies. Oh, okay. Jimmy was there, and I was friendly with Jimmy because I knew guys that he knew. The guys at Otisville Prison is a high medium. [33:38] Lewisburg is a max so when guys behave even a max they could come down to the media so when he came down he never came to the services and stuff we were talking all the way on the side but another fellow was a Westie a tough guy you know what I mean they would, drive through jewelry stores, 50 miles an hour go inside and rob everything but they would go in there before with their girlfriends looking good dressed nice they knew where this stuff was and they would take everything and he wound up getting locked up for almost like a Lufthansa type thing at the airport only they got caught so he was at my first weekend in the prison and we became very close friends and I tried to help him and he responded very positively, and he’s sitting in a circle there’s a cross, whoever has the cross has the microphone, nobody interrupts when you’re done, the next guy talks, he was talking and we finished, the Spanish kid so the Spanish kid is talking and he’s talking, so I told him what are you talking for Rich he can’t be talking like that the kid’s talking so he didn’t come for a few months then he comes back right and we’re sitting there talking and then he has a cross and he puts his head down. [34:54] And he starts talking and he says, you know, something happened to me. You can’t explain it. You had a Spanish kid in the next cell, right? It was a new guy. They robbed the sneakers and the kid had no sneakers. I know he’s got his head down. Now I’m thinking maybe he robbed the kid’s sneakers, right? He says, I gave him my sneakers because I had an extra pair. And as he’s telling the story, his head is down. The floor is gray, but getting darker, the teardrops. He’s telling the story he’s crying and then he says maybe I’m not all bad after all yeah I said how can you think of yourself like that he eventually goes home so, we my wife Norley and I get invited to his wedding which is a no-no but the guy was home so and the wedding is on Mulberry Street in Little Italy. [35:46] Yeah so we go down at the wedding and we’re like the oddball there but He could introduce us to enough people, you know, and if you see change in people, it’s wonderful. If on the street, if you go to these religious retreats, people go jumping out like a gazelle. But in prison, if an elephant jumps in it, it’s a miracle. Yeah. I mean, if you see somebody that thinks that they’re ugly, they’re not ugly inside. So I found it very rewarding. And. They, I didn’t think they’d respond to retired law enforcement, but they responded well. Yeah. Because I spoke their language. Yeah. So it lasted 25 years, Gary. Yeah. I’ve got a couple of guys here in Kansas city that it’s not a spiritual kind of a thing, but I’ve become friends with them. And one guy told me, he’s fine. He said, he said, I can talk to you and you understand what I’m talking about. He said, all the rest of the people in my life anymore, cause he’s out of the life. He said, they don’t understand what I’m talking about. He said, I don’t have to get back into life, but I can talk to you and you know, you know, the people I’m talking about, you know what I’m talking about. I said, yeah, I do. [36:56] So obviously in case it was pretty obvious that we were, when we started to hear all these stories, when he told, told Jerry and I the story of the, the mobster who was crying because given the sneaker, that’s where the books, the title of the book comes from, art guys cry. But there’s one other guy in there that you should ask him about. And that is we had this, I don’t even know what to call him. He was really an oddball guy, a criminal in New York. He was a rich guy who owned a lot of, he ran art galleries and collected art galleries and collected paintings and got into the art world and was advising rich people as to what art they were buying. And it turns out he was basically a sadist. And he had another guy with him who he and the other guy wound up, he didn’t get charged with this, his partner did, wound up killing somebody. And when they found the body buried laying in the woods in upstate New York, he had one of those. [38:02] Sadomasochistic masks on him, his black mask. And this individual was one of Jimmy’s guys and he was a hardcore, am I right, Jimmy, in terms of not wanting help at all. He was just the kind of guy who, you know, if you help them, it was going to be a miracle. And he did. He helped them and it’s a miracle. And it’s worthwhile to tell the story about this guy. His name was Andrew Crispo. He’s no longer alive. And he was all over the newspapers here in New York City because of the whole masochistic, the sadomasochist activity that he was involved in. And that the picture of the dead body with that black mask on was all over the newspapers. And this guy, we have his picture in the book. If you see him, it’s butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. He looked like the nicest guy in the world. Businessman. Turns out he was really one of the worst guys in terms of how he treated people. And Jimmy finally got to him. It was, to me, one of the more miraculous transformations when I heard all of the stories was this one because of what he was on the outside and what he became after Jimmy had him and he got out. He did not repeat his life the way that he was before here. Chris Bowe was a tough guy, right, Jimmy, in terms of getting to him? [39:28] Andrew, Sky Andre brought him down to one of our groups. And he asked me if he could bring his friend down the shirt. Everybody’s welcome, of course. And you’ve been around tough guys your whole life. Everybody’s a tough guy. You’re a tough guy. Everybody’s a tough guy. This guy had no muscle tone. He was like ashing in color. He looked like a raccoon. He had like rings around his eyes. And he was like creepy, creepy. So he came. And then he came for about seven years all the time. You get to know him, right? And he got grabbed for that sero-masochistic murder, but they couldn’t prove it. He got locked up, attempted kidnapping, the three-year-old daughter of the federal trustee. That’s why he was in jail now federal jail but he if you make a long story short he, doesn’t know who his parents are right and i’m not bleeding on i’m just telling you the way it is, he was dropped off at an orphanage as an infant and i was there for sentencing and this is what the judge said mr crispo he said before i sentence you i’d like you to know that i researched your history as a newborn you were dropped off in an orphanage right you remain there for 18 years where you were repeatedly beaten up and raped and. [40:47] But after leaving there, you managed to raise yourself up to get on the top of the art world, even owning a world-renowned art gallery in New York City. He said, for that, he said, I give you credit. However, then he banged him for seven years on the other thing. But he came down, and he had nothing spiritually. And if you sit with him and you talk with him, he kind of listened. He came around. [41:13] Like I told Mike, there was another guy. colombian guy his wife used to bring his daughter to work all the time so he came into the group a little late and he’s crying and then i said what’s the matter he said he said i’m not gonna see my daughter for two weeks i said well the comment told me once there’s a price for loving the price for loving is the absence of love you have to experience the love to miss it mr andrew who was sitting on our group andrew could you tell him a little bit about yourself oh yeah he said see the visiting room that you were in with your wife and the child, I’ve never been in there, and I’ll never be in there. And they said, there’s nothing worse than being alone, than being alone and no one cares. [41:56] And he came, and the rings went from his eyes, and then he became involved in all this other stuff. And he actually became a kind guy. He got involved with the church and things like that. And then he eventually went home. I’ll tell you the money he had. You need the money for an appeal? He sold one painting for $2.46 million. Oh wow the attorney’s fee that’s just one thing he had money but he had nothing yeah he had nothing and then when he went home he used to correspond you know and he’d write beautiful things thanks for the prayers thanks for your wife how’s your dog it’s not the same guy but he wasn’t like like what he’s tattooed tough guys he was like creepy tough and at the end when he left my opinion He was not. So if you can help somebody, it’s nice to help somebody if you can. Yeah. That’s interesting. That’s a true shift in the personality and to give somebody some spiritual hope in their life that they can, from what you’re describing to what he was to what he left when he left. That’s amazing. Exactly. That’s an amazing story. [43:01] There it is. Cry, The Journey of a Tough Cop from the Mean Streets to a Prison Ministry, Jimmy Dennedy and Michael Vecchione. Jimmy and Michael, I appreciate you guys so much for coming on and telling these stories. And guys, there’s a lot more stories just like this and better in the book. I’ll have links to get it down in the show notes. [43:22] And guys, you got anything last words you want to say? Anything you left out? [43:28] Gary, listen, keep getting those pension checks. [43:33] Yes, I will. I told my wife, Nora, put my feet in potting soil. If my toenail grows, that’s a sign of life. Keep getting that check. Really? [43:44] Thanks so much, Jimmy. All right. I just want to thank you. You’ve been terrific. And I hope that, I really mean this when I say this, people who get this book and read it or listen to it or however they want to get it into their, their mind, they’re going to love it because this guy’s story is just fantastic. And we touched on a few things, but we didn’t really touch, we didn’t get into the real meat that that’s there. And it’s, it was a, again, a pleasure to do this. So I’ve got one guy, I got one guy I talked to that has prison stories. I tell you what guys, there are so many great stories that come out of the penitentiary. It’s just, it’s amazing. I think part of these people don’t have much else current to talk about, so they tell stories from their past, and you get some great stories coming out of the prisons. Thanks a lot, guys. Gary. Thank you. God bless my friend.

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.

The Castellano Hit: Inside the Mob's Deadliest Decision  Good morning, everyone. Bill Cannon here from Police Off the Cuff. We're discussing a complex true crime story that has become a baffling mystery, focusing on the 1985 murders of Paul Castellano and Tommy Bellotti. This incident is a real crime that will be analyzed as a true crime show, delving into the powerful figures of the Gambino family and the broader aspects of organized crime, showcasing how a mafia boss rose to power. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Send us Fan MailChristine Petrizzo joins King Hap to discuss her life growing up with a dad that was big time earner for The Colombo Crime Family! She details the behind the scenes workings of a man with money, women, powerful friends, and an extremely dangerous life in her new book, “The Sins Of The Man I Called Dad!” Thomas Petrizzo a Capo in the “Mafia” would live a very interesting life. One that is not for all and one that put a tremendous strain on his family. Christine holds nothing back in this fun and exciting episode! Be sure to give it a listen!! FOLLOW Christine on Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/christinespaintstudioBUY HER BOOK HERE https://a.co/d/0fvX3YEWThis exciting episode was brought to you by LIQUID-IV SUGAR FREE LIV ENERGY!!!https://glnk.io/koyv/kinghap  *PROMO CODE KINGHAP SAVES 25%This episode was recorded live on the network infront of Happy Hour V.I.P.sIf you want to be part of the live tapingsfollow us on Twitchhttps://m.twitch.tv/thehappyhourscorwww.TheHappyHourSocialClub.comAAS  ALWAYS The Happy Hour is brought to you by the official Top Shelf Alcohol of the Happy Hour!CLEARWATER DISTILLERY https://shop.clearwaterdistilling.com/PROMO CODE KINGHAPSAVES 10% and free shipping over $100OLD SCHOOL LABS AMAZING Supplements made for Amazing people!….. Try the Delicious TIRAMISU PROTEIN! Save 25% site wide with promo code Kinghap(https://shop.oldschoollabs.com/KINGHAP)

From tween garage band beginnings to chart-topping success and a shocking behind-the-scenes story that reads like a Hollywood script, Tommy James, of Tommy James & the Shondells, joins Media Path to share dishy details about his remarkable journey while creating some of the most enduring hits of a generation!Tommy traces his musical roots back to age 12, when he formed his first band, The Echoes, with fellow classmates, a group that would eventually evolve into The Shondells.A job at a local record shop gave him an early education in the retail side of music, and by 14, he was recording his first single. That song, “Hanky Panky,” took on a life of its own when a Pittsburgh DJ began spinning it. From there, it quickly became the biggest record the city had ever seen and launched Tommy's career overnight. One problem: No Shondells. They had all moved on to college, families and other careers. Tommy club crawled to find Pittsburgh band, The Raconteurs who quickly agreed to become The Shondells.That success led Tommy to shop the record for a deal in New York City. Every top label wanted Tommy. One problem: They had all received a menacing phone call from mobbed up Morris Levy of Roulette Records. Tommy's dysfunctional mob family relationship provided him with an interesting exchange. He enjoyed complete creative control in the studio, leading to the hits, I Think We're Alone Now, Mony Tony, Crystal Blue Persuasion and Crimson and Clover… but… Morris pocketed most of Tommy's money and Roulette's Genovese Family ties kept The Shondells cranking out hits and selling over 110 million records without complaint.Our conversation explores the stark contrast between the band's bright, infectious music and the darker realities unfolding behind the scenes, which included ominous intimidation and physical threats.Despite the challenges, Tommy credits that time with giving him an invaluable education in the inner workings of the industry, from production to publishing, lessons that have informed him throughout his career. Today, he brings that rich perspective to his SiriusXM 60s channel radio show, called Gettin' Together, where he shares the stories behind the songs, offering context only culled from a performer who lived it.He also reflects on writing his memoir, Me, the Mob, and the Music, which he would only publish after the funeral of Vinnie “The Chin” Gigante, the last Genovese Family mobster. Tommy also shares early details about his story's upcoming adaptation into a mini-series.Plus we've got an IMDB Roulette round that's immersed in the era when variety shows brought teenage audiences their first peek at the real life musicians spinning around their record players!In current media recommendations: Marty: Life Is Short on Netflix andHazardous History with Henry Winkler on The History Channel and HuluPath Points of Interest:Tommy JamesTommy James on WikiMe, The Mob and the Music: One Helluva Ride with Tommy James and The Shondells.by Tommy James with Martin FitzpatrickTommy James Tour DatesTommy James on FacebookTommy James on YoutubeTommy James on InstagramHazardous History with Henry Winkler

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.

Cushman & Wakefield Executive Director Ken Ashley on breaking into CRE brokerage, his book The Prescription, CREI Summit, office market trends, and why the fortune is in the follow-up. The Crexi Podcast connects commercial real estate (CRE) professionals with industry insights built for smart decision-making. In each episode, we explore the latest trends, innovations and opportunities shaping commercial real estate, because we believe knowledge should move at the speed of ambition and every conversation should empower professionals to act with greater clarity and confidence.   Ken Ashley has spent 30 years helping companies translate business strategy into real estate as a top 1% producer at Cushman & Wakefield. He founded CREI, mentored thousands of early-career brokers, and distilled it all into The Prescription — a field guide for building a CRE brokerage career. In this episode, Ken joins host Shanti Ryle on what separates brokers who make it, following up without being annoying, why AI is not coming for this industry the way people fear, and what the office market looks like right now. Ken Ashley's background and 30 years at Cushman & Wakefield What is The Prescription and why he wrote it The COVID passion project that became a field guide Who the book is for: entry-level, mid-career, and senior brokers The fortune is in the follow-up, and why most people miss it Follow-up one: send something they love with no ask Follow-up two: ask for advice, not a job How to close with "If you were me, what would you do?" Never say "pick your brain" or "let me know when you're available" The minimum viable yes: reduce the cognitive burden on decision makers Analyst, researcher, or broker: how to choose your path You can change your niche: Ken did, from industrial to office Self-awareness and hustle: the honest conversation you need first The Prescription as a filter before meeting with someone new What is CREI and why Ken started it in March 2020 The badge idea that accidentally built a community Six lists, volunteer curators, and the abundance mentality CREI Summit in Savannah: AI, Create Labs, and pirates Three warnings: stack bloat, over-reliance, and AI-generated emails Two bright lines: serve clients better and grow your book Listening tools, trigger events, and calling at the right moment Sensor data and propensity-to-return tools for office decisions Atlanta: 1.6M square feet leased, 1.1M in the suburbs Flight to quality is real and Class B is getting a second look MOB conversions, tech startups, and who is taking Class B space Return to office: leverage has shifted back to employers in 2026 Speed of business and kicking rocks: the case for being in office Flexible design, soft seating, and earning the commute Autonomous vehicles and what happens to all those parking garages Paying your civic rent: the imperative to give back What still makes Ken passionate after 30 years Rapid fire: $10M into STNL as a limited partner Worst advice: win at all costs, including badmouthing competition Contrarian belief: the office market can turn on a dime For show notes, past guests, and more CRE content, please check out Crexi's blog. Looking to stay ahead in commercial real estate? Visit Crexi to explore properties, analyze markets, and connect with opportunities nationwide. Follow Crexi: https://www.crexi.com/​  https://www.crexi.com/instagram​  https://www.crexi.com/facebook​  https://www.crexi.com/twitter​  https://www.crexi.com/linkedin​  https://www.youtube.com/crexi   About Ken Ashley: Ken Ashley is an Executive Director at Cushman & Wakefield and has spent the last 30 years helping businesses translate strategy into real estate decisions. He is a top 1% producer nationally and holds SIOR, CCIM, and MCR designations—credentials earned by fewer than 1% of practitioners in the industry. Ken and his team are perennial top producers in Atlanta and at Cushman & Wakefield nationally. In 2020, Ken founded CREi (Commercial Real Estate Influencers), a community built to help brokers adapt to a changing industry by leveraging modern tools, social media, and intentional relationship-building. Through CREi, Ken has taught and mentored thousands of aspiring and early-career brokers, helping them get hired, get meetings, build confidence, and gain real traction. Ken recently released his book, The Prescription, a field guide for people who want to build something real in commercial real estate brokerage. The book distills 30 years of frameworks, systems, and patterns into actionable steps for breaking into the industry and building a sustainable career. Ken is an award-winning instructor in CoreNet Global and believes strongly in "paying your civic rent." He serves on the Board of Leadership Atlanta, the National Properties Committee for Boy Scouts, the Atlanta Police Foundation's Crime Stoppers Task Force, and the youth-serving organization Spirit of Atlanta Drum and Bugle Corps. Ken has been married to his wife Karen for 34  years and is the proud father of four kids and two lazy pugs. For show notes, past guests, and more CRE content, please check out Crexi's blog.Looking to stay ahead in commercial real estate? Visit Crexi to explore properties, analyze markets, and connect with opportunities nationwide. Follow Crexi:https://www.crexi.com/​ https://www.crexi.com/instagram​ https://www.crexi.com/facebook​ https://www.crexi.com/twitter​ https://www.crexi.com/linkedin​ https://www.youtube.com/crexi About Crexi:Crexi is reimagining commercial real estate with an AI-powered platform built to deliver smarter, more efficient solutions at every stage of the deal lifecycle. From real-time data and market insights with Crexi Intelligence, to targeted property marketing and seamless deal management through Crexi PRO, and a transparent, time-bound bidding experience with Crexi Auction— Crexi enables users to evaluate opportunities, maximize exposure, and close with speed and confidence. To date, Crexi has subsidized over $2.74 trillion in property value, 26 billion square feet listed, and supports a growing community of more than 23 million yearly users.

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.

How do leaders stay steady in the storm of tough choices? This week, I sit down with Jack Briggs, a retired major general with a 30-year career in the military who is also a highly seasoned, for a masterclass in pressure-tested decision making.The episode debunks the myth that high-stakes choices are unique to the military or boardroom. Instead, Jack argues, “pressure is pressure,” whether the risk is reputational, operational, or personal. The discussion highlights the three traits of the best decision makers: anchoring decisions in firm principles, seeking help with humility, and making the call… decisively, not reactively.Listeners will come away with four essential questions to use in any crisis and learn why reframing “crises” into a set of solvable problems is vital for calm, effective leadership. This conversation is a must for anyone seeking practical, repeatable strategies to lead well, even when the stakes—and the anxieties—are high.What You'll Learn- Anchor your decisions in principles.- Lead with humility and build your team.- Distinguish between problems and crises.- The power of a structured decision framework.- Be decisive and own the outcome.- Focus on your sphere of influence.Podcast Timestamps03:18 Jack's origin story: from the Thunderbirds to the Air Force Academy05:37 When leadership first appeared: Boy Scouts, the leadership laboratory, and the Eagle Scout07:37 The Air Force Academy as a leadership lab: authority vs. responsibility10:42 Being the snowplow: how to delegate without abandoning accountability14:11 Leadership is a science and an art: training the recipe, then adapting it16:41 Combat to boardroom: why pressure is pressure regardless of context19:19 Defending North America: leading at continental scale21:28 The three characteristics of the best decision makers23:24 The archer analogy: principles, input, decisiveness26:45 What leaders get wrong: fighting the fight they wish they had28:06 Mob rule, Moses, and principled decision-making32:11 Crisis vs. problem: why language matters under pressure33:10 Snowstorms and problem buckets: a real-world example35:26 The four questions for high-stress decisions40:01 Checklists that work: laminate it and they will keep it43:18 Humility plus decisiveness: being disagree-able45:36 Choosing the least worst option and owning it48:35 Final thoughts: stop chasing outcomes, start leading in your three feetKEYWORDSPositive Leadership, Decision Making, Decision Making Under Pressure, Humility, Air Force Career, Military Leadership, Air Force Academy, Leadership Lab, Principles-Based Decisions, Delegating Authority, Crisis Management, Operational Risk, Financial Risk, Reputational Risk, Pressure in Leadership, Crisis vs Problem, Crisis Communication, CEO Success

In this episode, host Gary Jenkins, a retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective, sits down with author and mob expert Springs Toledo and discusses the Boston Winter Hill Gang and its notorious members. Springs' book, “Don’t Talk About Joe Mac: The Life, Wars, and Secret History of the Man Behind the Winter Hill Gang” Springs Toledo provides an exhaustive look at Joe McDonald aka Mac, a pivotal yet often overlooked figure in the Boston criminal landscape, especially during the 1960s-1990s. Springs, a Boston native, brings a unique perspective and personal anecdotes that enrich our understanding of the intersections of crime, family, and community within the city. They explore Joe Mac’s early life and how his background shaped his role in organized crime. Springs shares how Mac was an elder statesman in the underworld, feared and respected for his ability to organize the rackets in Somerville and maintain a significant network of relationships across various neighborhoods. Joe Mac's methods of operation were emblematic of a time when the Irish underworld was gaining ground in a city dominated by Italian crime families. Springs discusses the stark differences in these organizations, from their cultural practices to their hierarchies. Springs also highlights the complexities of Joe Mac's personal life, discussing his relationships with his family, especially his daughter Jacqueline. Their conversations reveal a side of Mac rarely seen in crime stories — a devoted father struggling with his dual identity as a loving parent and a cold-blooded criminal. Throughout the episode, Springs captures the essence of Mac's character, noting that while he was involved in heinous acts, he also exhibited genuine love for his family, a contradiction that adds depth to his narrative. As the conversation unfolds, we examine the dynamics within the Winter Hill Gang, particularly the relationships among Joe Mac, prominent figures like Whitey Bulger, and Howie Carr. Springs shares fascinating insights into Mac's cautious nature and strategic approach to power. He articulates how Mac operated in the shadows, steering clear of public scrutiny while effectively managing the group's criminal enterprises. The episode paints a vivid portrait of a gang operating amid violence, betrayal, and survival. In addition to discussing the various criminal exploits, Springs shares some gripping anecdotes that illustrate the real-life implications of this lifestyle. His stories about Joe’s attempts to balance family life while dodging law enforcement showcase the constant threat that loomed over their lives, encapsulating the dangerous allure and traumatizing consequences of organized crime. We also touch upon the significant events that defined the gang wars in Boston, including Joe Mac’s suspected involvement in notorious hits and how the landscape of crime shifted in response to law enforcement's increased focus on organized crime. Springs dives into the enigmatic character of Joe Mac, unraveling his military background, his unyielding commitment to the underworld, and how he managed to stay a step ahead of rivals and authorities alike. In closing, Springs reflects on the motivations behind his book—his desire to portray the human side of a man branded a monster while exploring the broader themes of morality, family, and the haunting legacy of crime. As we wrap up, it becomes clear that “Don’t Talk About Joe Mac” is not just a biography of an infamous crime figure, but a complex narrative that invites readers to ponder the true cost of a life steeped in organized crime. This episode is a riveting exploration of character, culture, and crime, offering audiences an engaging glimpse into the storied history of Boston organized crime, the Winter Hill gang through the lens of one of its most pivotal figures, Joe Mac. 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. Springs Toledo JOe mac Gary Jenkins: [00:00:00] hey, all your wire tappers out there. Gary Jenkins back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. I’m a retired Kansas City Police Intelligence unit detective, doing a podcast mainly about organized crime. We might stray into drugs every once in a while, but primarily about Italian based organized crime or, and then sometimes we get into Irish based organized crime. I’ve done a story on the Westie in the past and a few other stories like that. So today we’re gonna talk about the. Crossing of the Irish and and the Italians in Boston area, which is a really well known, famous story. A lot of great characters. And I have with me a man who wrote a book about this. Springs Toledo, welcome Springs. Springs Toledo: Thank you very much, Gary. Happy to be here. Gary Jenkins: Great. Now guys, the books is, don’t Talk about Joe Mack the Life Wars and Secret History of the Man Behind The Winter Hill Gang. And I’ve always wondered about this Winter Hill gang. I’ve always heard of it and Whitey Bulger came out of that and was so famous, but I’ve never really. [00:01:00] Seen anything or know anything about the background of it. And Springs, Toledo has somebody, a guy called Joe Mack that was involved in that and he’s really gone into it in depth. Springs, tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got into this. Springs Toledo: I’m a native of Boston, which did help, the accent helped open doors. Gary Jenkins: We can tell. Springs Toledo: But I don’t even try to hide it anymore. And I have a background in, in boxing, which also helps, that’s a breeding ground for, leg breakers and enforcers. Historically, in Boston, a lot of ex fighters became gangsters or, involved in that life. I went to Northeastern got a graduate degree in criminology. And I I didn’t, I never became a police officer. I worked with, actually with juvenile delinquents and troubled youth for many years. I’ve written several books some about boxing, some about an historical figure named John Brown, who’s an abolitionist, so I’m running the gamut. But Joe McDonald was a name that I heard whispered for many years, growing up. He had a very long criminal career over five decades.[00:02:00] And, so he was considered something very serious. But what I began to notice as the book started coming out after John Madano became a cooperating witness, as he’d say. Is that not much was known about this individual. What I knew is that he was about 20 years older than everybody else. So he’s an elder statesman in that world. So I started poking around. I know some guys who were involved in that life. I know some other guys who were very connected to very serious individuals who were active in the Boston Underworld during these years, the sixties, seventies, eighties, into the nineties. Yeah. So I started, asking around and the things I started to hear were very downright alarming about who this man was and that he was the guy not Whitey Bulger. There was what they’ll all tell you the deeper you get into the operators in that world is that Whitey Bulger is. Largely a mythology. And that in Somerville especially, he wasn’t really that respected. Joe Mack, however, was Joe Mack was, he [00:03:00] was the go-to guy. And upon doing all kinds of research, field research, but also I’m trying to corroborate everything. People are saying you can’t just take what people have to say at face value, especially if they’re, underworld figures. Yeah. A lot of ’em have a self-interest as so what I would do, I had a little strategy. What I would do is I would talk to one guy in Southie if I heard a story that sounded intriguing or something about Joe Mack, what have you, and then I’d try to find another guy in Somerville or East Boston or Hy Park who didn’t necessarily know that individual. And if the stories match, I’d look into it further. For instance, I wanna make sure the guy wasn’t in prison at that time, that he’s allegedly known to have done something. So that’s how I began to put together a picture. And what the u unanimously what I found out is that Joe McDonald was really the, he’s the one that put together organized crime in Somerville, centered in Winter Hill. He organized the launch sh the rackets loan, sharking booking, sports betting, all of that. And he was a very feared individual.[00:04:00] He looked like a building superintendent. He was balding. He, no, he was nothing flashy about him. He was family man. But so I started digging deeper and I got his military records, and then the picture really started to come together because of what he went through during World War II in the South Pacific and the trauma that he suffered. I didn’t wanna write a straight True crime book. So I wanted to do something different. I didn’t want it to be ordinary. I wanted it to be get underneath the behavior. It’s the, the criminology major is, was showing it’s yeah. Was coming to the fore. So I wanna get underneath it. So I consider this book more of a nonfiction noir. ‘Cause if you watch those old movies, a lot of ’em have a theme where you have, the main character, the anti-hero. These are movies from the forties, all black and white. All shadowy. Yeah. They come back from World War ii and they’re troubled. They’re shell-shocked. JoEM, Joe Mack came back and he’s marred. Something about his personality had changed and he’s one of the few individuals that I’ve encountered who [00:05:00] actually age into crime. He didn’t age out of it like everybody else. He aged into it. But he was very good at what he did. He was a brilliant individual. Very strong-willed. Someone said that I talked to, they said that, all the fear, whatever fear he had was knocked out of him, in SVO sound. When his ship went down, which was a USS Quincy with his brother on it. So he became a, began to emerge as a fascinating figure. But what. Made me decide to write the book was when I was hooked up with his daughter by TJ English. I reached out to him and he, he told me about Jackie McDonald. I reached out to her and I said, I’m thinking about writing a book about your father, Joe McDonald. I don’t think that the the literature on him now really got him right. And she said, give me a night to drink about it. Yeah, so the next morning she told me she was she’ll tell me everything she knows and she was the right person because first of all, she was named for the brother that he lost in SVO sound that he never got over his little brother. Her name’s [00:06:00] Jacqueline. And like her father, she’s absolutely brilliant. She’s charismatic. She is incredibly honest. If she’s not sure about something she’d say. So nothing in it was, what she told me was about herself. It was nothing was ego driven. She wanted to tell the truth of her father. And what I began to realize early on is that you know this, you have victims of guys like Joe McDonald who killed dozens of people professionally, but he was a murderer. There’s no doubt about it. And you have a lot of victims, including in his own family. Not that he intended to hurt his daughters and his son, but his, who he was and what he was, did a lot of damage to his own family and she was the perfect person to talk to because she was so honest. She’s also very funny if, you read about her in the book, she comes across as a real character, very charismatic. So her story runs parallel with his, she comes out about the middle of the book. I trace her life alongside with his, and she had a memoir that she did many years ago and she shared that with me. [00:07:00] She’s she really is a force of good, if you will, in the book. She’s the one to cheer for, she’s the one to root for. Joe McDonald is a formidable figure, but he’s a dark and shadow. We figure. I do bring him out as much as I can and he is fascinating, but. I felt like I needed someone to root for the reader, yeah. And also, it’s women who love true crime the most. Yeah. Gary Jenkins: That’s so Springs Toledo: had to give nod to them, they’re gonna buy it. Gary Jenkins: That is true. And a story like this will will attract men and women both, sometimes those just straight, kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out. Of true crime books are not really attractive to women. That’s really interesting that. You’re showing the human side of this guy instead of just the crime side, which there every one of these guys that are professional criminals in this life have a human side. They, that’s what one thing that fascinated me about ’em, even way back when I started, went into the intelligence unit is these guys all had families and they had kids going to St. Pius up here and they played football and the families all showed up [00:08:00] when their kids played football and they were in little league and all that kind of normal stuff. On one hand, but yet they came over into the CI city in here. They came from the suburbs over in the city and were these gangsters all night long, and then went back home to their suburban homes. So that family side. That’s really interesting. I’m glad you did that. Springs Toledo: That’s compartmentalization. And Joe was the best at it. But there was something unusual about this case and that is that. Joe told nothing to anybody. His Winter Hill partners barely knew about his personal life. They didn’t know much about him. Yeah, nobody knew much about him. ’cause he didn’t confide in anybody. He did it the way you’re supposed to do it. As an organized, if you’re gonna get into organized crime, you want to follow his lead. And he lived a tough life. It’s nothing to get into in terms of choosing that as an occupation. However, he did confide in his daughters. He trusted them and he told them an awful lot, which he didn’t realize was traumatizing them. But. Jackie McDonald is blessed with a very good memory, so she was able to fill in [00:09:00] a lot of blanks about some of which were cold case murders and other just, real eyebrow raising incidents that happened. I think this book would’ve been invaluable to the FBI. Right up to the early nineties interest because of the stuff that came out, several cold case murders. I think I solved them. And, they were attributable, well attributed. I attribute them to Joe, a few. I know he did. But, people didn’t know, and he was a, excuse my saying, but he had. He was a real talent for that. He knew how to get you. He knew how to find you. He knew how to get you. And he also, like I said, he didn’t have any fear, so there was nothing holding him back. And that’s a difference from Whitey Bulger. What people don’t realize is that Whitey Bulger was a very careful man. And that’s why a lot of murders attributed to Whitey Bulger. He didn’t do, it doesn’t even, it, it offends his personality. He was the kind of guy, if he’s gonna kill you, you’re gonna be in the basement tied to a chair, or you’re gonna be a woman. He’s not on Northern Avenue in Boston in broad daylight, killing Brian Halleran. It’s not true. That’s not Whitey [00:10:00] bulge, that’s not how he operated. Joe Mack was a different beast altogether, and yet he was never indicted for murder. He was questioned maybe for one of them. And the title is really a reason for that because you didn’t talk about Joe Mack. That’s actually, that’s that’s. I like the title a lot. It took me a long time to get to that title. First title was Hey Joe, ’cause of the song. And I was like, ah. Nobody said, Hey, Joe to him. Where you going with that gun in your hand, huh? That’s right. You’re good. Yeah. Jimmy Hendrix. And then another title was the Wars of Joe Mack. That was a little too masculine that works, but it was too masculine. Yeah, don’t talk about Joe Mack really captures, what he was and how he operated. Gary Jenkins: Springs set the geographic scene. I’ve always been a little bit confused about this in Boston. IU Boston is unlike Kansas City, for example, what I’m familiar with. It has these really distinct areas in neighborhoods. Set the scene, the Italians African Americans, the Irish what set that up for us? [00:11:00] Springs Toledo: Okay, this is the, fifties, sixties, seventies that, that’s where most of the book is occurring. Especially 60, 70, actually into the eighties. Boston first of all it’s basically back then was an Irish Catholic city. Yeah. There were other ethnicities, but it was overrun with the Irish and there were neighborhoods. So you had. You had neighborhood crews, you had crews that were operated out of East Boston. That’s Barboza, south Boston was several of them. Jamaica Plain, the North End obviously was where the mafia was. Sented La Ostra. Somerville, Charlestown. And a lot of, most of these guys who were got into criminality. Not only did they have families, they also had occupations. They were long showmen, they were roofers. They had jobs. I’m a policeman. And back then policemen, you didn’t make a lot of money. So you were encouraged to supplement your income. Oh yeah. Some of these guys were, they were detectives by day and they’re doing heists at night and that was not uncommon. And. Over time, certain organizations [00:12:00] became more organized and the Irish, remember, were barely organized. They were more like, it was more like the old West when things got hot. It was also a whiskey driven, a lot of the heinous acts and the murders that started to happen with that, the Irish gang war in the sixties, everybody was drunk. Some of these guys were really nice guys and then they got to the whiskey and forget it. They become monsters. Not everybody, but but. Boston was also very segregated. Not like the south. It was, there was natural neighborhoods, I was in Hy Park, that’s where I came up. If I went to Southy, there was a problem ’cause I didn’t know a lot of people there. If somebody from Southie went to the North End, it’s a problem. You are Irish, you shouldn’t be here. You didn’t cross boundaries. Mattapan was Jewish and then it became black. Same thing. So everybody congregating together is very tribal in that sense. Less so now, but there are still pockets, what’s upsetting to me is that you barely hear the accent, and you’re walking through Boston, you don’t hear the accent too much anymore. You have to get to Dorchester. That’s their accent’s. 10 times worse than mine, [00:13:00] and mine’s pretty bad but Joe Mack was Joe Mack was born in Medford, Massachusetts. He then, he was in Somerville by about 1950. His mother had moved there as as clan, if you will. Had moved there, his sisters and brothers. And so he was in Somerville in Winter Hill, and that’s where he started to operate and that’s where he started to put things together. Gary Jenkins: Interesting. You say Winter Hill. So let’s talk about the beginnings or this Winter Hill gang. I’ve heard of this. Many times. And Whitey Bulger of course popularized it. So tell me about the Winter Hill gang and Howie Carr. And there’s a famous picture that see on internet or on Facebook with our Underboss Tuffy Luna and this guy that was the head of the Winter Hill gang and a couple other gangsters from New York. So tell us about the beginning of this Winter Hill gang. Springs Toledo: We deserves a lot of credit. He’s the one that really brought the stuff out beginning in the eighties. He had the guts to mention Joe Mack in print. That’s high risk. I’m not sure how much he did it, but he was really [00:14:00] attuned to it early. And he had some great books, but winter Hill’s a neighborhood in Somerville. It’s not South Boston. You talk to guys who were associated with the Winter Hill Gang, what they called the Hill. Really? It was called The Hill by those who were a part of that organization. They get very resentful about Whitey Belgium and some of them will say that Whitey Belger wasn’t Winter Hill. Whitey Belgium was a partner, but he was South Boston. Okay. Once, and it’s a big story, but once he, it’s all in the book. But once he betrayed his partners in 79. With Fleming and all the partners just about were either they were all indicted except for about this big horse racing scheme that was going on, across several states. But Whitey and Fleming were unindicted co-conspirators, and that was hint number one that prompted Joe to go to Howie Winter, who was the face of the organization and say, I’m gonna kill them both. He was talked out of it because it’d be too much heat because Whitey had some very serious connections. You can’t take that away from him. And so he was a high [00:15:00] risk hit. Joe would’ve done it anyway and would’ve probably made him disappear or threw it at another organization to get the heat off the hill. But he was restrained, which was, I thought was a big mistake, but who can tell then? But after he cleared the field of his rivals, who. Where his partners in the Winter Hill gang he ostensibly should have taken over the rackets in Somerville, but that wasn’t really the case. He had salty that was his turf. He was a local guy. Salty was really where he was. He was no longer really welcome is my understanding from guys who I talked to were there, he was basically chased out of the Marshall Motor’s garage in Somerville in Winter Hill, and that’s when he went to the Lancaster garage in, on North End, which is closer to home, closer to his. Space of operations. Yeah. But Whitey was very treacherous and he was Machiavellian in his methods. Joe at the time was already on the lamb because I don’t think Whitey would’ve survived that if Joe was close and saw what he was doing. So it’s a lot of what could have been, if Joe wasn’t in the wind because of several other crimes and murders he was [00:16:00] doing at the time, he was actually on the FBI’s 10 most wanted on 76, long before Whitey was on it. Gary Jenkins: Interesting. So then the relationship between Howie Carr and Joe Mack how was that, how did that shake down? Springs Toledo: Howie Winter, you mean, Gary Jenkins: or Howie Winter, I’m sorry. Springs Toledo: Yeah. Howie Winter was mentored by Joe Mack. See, Joe Mack was really, he was like the general, he was like the general on the field. The Irish don’t operate in a hierarchy. That’s an Italian thing. There’s no ring kissing in an Irish pub. It’s just a different culture. What they were partners. You had one guy up front. He was the face of it. That’s Howie. Howie was the face of it before Howie’s buddy McClain. In the early, in the early sixties. Joe though, the guy in the shadows, he used to say, I’m at the back of the bus. He’s at the back of the bus, but he’s the one with the map. He’s the go-to guy. The guy up front is the guy that gets hit. That’s the guy that gets indicted. So Joe was astute enough to, just stay in the [00:17:00] background, let the kids have it. But they were. Very close, very close. During the war they were, very tight-knit organization. These were friends. They were very affectionate with each other. They took care of one another. This is before Whitey came in. He was, he poisoned the well. But Joe and Howie and Buddy McClean and they, anos when they come in, they were very close. It was a kind of a band of brothers in a way. But Joe still made. Maintain that, everybody was at arms length with him. He was careful about everybody. There was a rift between Howie and Joe later in their respective lives in the in the eighties, into the nineties. I’m told that it was healed. I don’t think it was, and that’s unfortunate. But they were close to most of their lives, they literally went to war together on, on the street, you’re gonna form strong bonds when you know you’re looking at this guy and you gotta rely on him to watch your back. And Gary Jenkins: yeah, Springs Toledo: that’s what was happening. Gary Jenkins: So Irish, they didn’t kick up, if you will, to somebody above them. Everybody was a kind of a independent operator. If you got a piece of action and you had something going that you didn’t have to kick up to [00:18:00] somebody to be part of the Winter Hill gang, if you will. Springs Toledo: That was where the, there were a lot of crews around. They were called independents. And there’s a lot of them around in Boston in the sixties. But if you got too big and you started making real money, Patri was a power in Boston. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Springs Toledo: Raymond Patri, he was a power in Boston. There’s no doubt about that. But there’s two schools of thought. Some believe that Winter Hill had to always kick up to them, kick to Providence. Others say? No, not really. Because first of all, he loved Buddy McClean. Buddy McClain was he was a very charismatic guy, very tough guy, and he was a man of his word, so they really liked him. So there’s the other school of thought is that, they liked Buddy, they gave him a pass on that. But every now and then they’d have to do him favors, maybe do some hits, things like that. Yeah. Yeah. But again, but in, in Boston it’s, like I said, it’s mostly Irish, it’s not set up like New York where the Italians are a real power that’s right there. He, one guy, matter of fact a name of one of the chapters in the book where I get into the Gangland war. Is Boston was [00:19:00] overrun with sick bastards, quote unquote, because there was just so many dangerous guys. There wasn’t a few here and there, like the gallows or it, there was hundreds of guys and there was damn near psychopathic they were called and underworld polls. There was savages, they go right to your house. And it was too many. This, one guy actually several believed that if there was a problem between Rhode Island. The Boston Underworld, meaning Boston Writ Lodge, including Somerville, Medford, Malden, all that. That. The Italians would’ve come to the table. ’cause the Irish underworld, the Boston Underworld here would’ve made it very much not worth it. Not worth the blood and the treasure. So it’s, yes, with very interesting culture here. What you couldn’t control the Boston underworld. They would just, Boston itself has a reputation. You don’t wanna invade this place. Gary Jenkins: Yeah, just ask the English, huh? Springs Toledo: Exactly. Yeah. We go way back with that stuff. Yeah. Gary Jenkins: Yeah it’s, I was at I went into the north end and looked around at Prince Street and all the place where [00:20:00] Jerry Angelo and all that was going on, and that is such a small. Discreet little area in that then, so you, they just operated and he was not any kind of a real power. It didn’t seem to be like, compared to patriarchal. He was under patriarchal of course. And he didn’t really, it’s like the Irish all had their own thing all around him. All, and he didn’t really have didn’t, I didn’t find any, anything I’ve ever seen where there was much to do between those two. Was there, did he have anything about that? Springs Toledo: He had he had two guys joe Russo, he was a killer. He was a very serious individual and a guy who has two names. Some call him Byi, some call him Zino. Larry was his name. Very serious guy. But that’s two guys. The other dangerous guys in the north end. They were getting up there in age. Meanwhile, like you just alluded to, this sur this surrounded, by these, these crazy guys. Yeah, but they, they did. There was some interplay, there was some contracts would be given to the Hill, for instance. That happened several times. The Hill would borrow [00:21:00] money from Angelou and Jou had a lot of money. They’d borrow money from him. Whitey Belger borrowed money from him with Fleming and actually didn’t pay it back. And then Joe Mack got out of the can. This is 80 late 86, 87, and him and Howie went to Fleming and Whitey and said, listen, you’re paying them back. Matter of fact, you’re paying them back a million because you made us look bad. We pay our debts, you pay him, you pay in back 1 million. And they did. They Whitey Bulger. Yeah. Whitey Bulger did not step two, Joe McDonald. In other words he wasn’t the power that Johnny Depp would have us believe. Gary Jenkins: Interesting. So let’s go back to the family just a little bit. His daughter Jack Le, so when he went to prison, did she talk about that? I have a friend who went to prison for several years and he talks, tells me a lot about his kids coming to visit him in prison. Did he talk about that? Did she talk about that? How that affected her? Springs Toledo: She she talks about her whole life and how he was a shadow in her life. She loved him, [00:22:00] but he brought a lot of chains behind him and a lot of ghosts and a lot of fear of FBI raids and things like that. Even when he was on the run from the FBI was on the, top 10 most wanted, it’s only six o’clock news all over the place in every post office. He would just show up and see her. He thought he was being a dutiful father. He’s showing up. He’s got these black sideburns, glued onto his face and she could see the ink dripping. He got his rug on his head he startled her a lot. So she. He was a cause of great anxiety. And then she became a mother, and then things started to change. She had to protect her boys. And while, he looked like he could be a good grandfather, he was an extremely dangerous man. And when he went away to prison, she tried to be a good daughter. She would send him clippings. Matter of fact, she sent him a clipping of I think it was a national examiner because her father was in it. It was about the top 10. FBI fugitives. And she pointed out she was into astronomy and she astrology and she pointed [00:23:00] out that Joe Mack and another guy named Leo Corey had the same birthday, July 14th. So she thought he’d get a kick outta that. He gets outta prison a few years later, and he shows up at her house with Leo Corey. Who’s still on the top 10 most wanted. And she, he opens the door. He said, do you remember this guy? And she turned, that, that was a scary, that was a very scary moment for her. Yeah. He’s bringing very, this is a convicted murderer. It’s a multiple murderer. She’s got bringing, he’s bringing it to her house like he’s an old friend. So that kind of stuff happened a lot. It almost show off like that. Look what I can do. Yeah. So she had, I, she did love him and she has since forgiven him. And I think this book is part of her process to forgive, what he put her through and what he put his other children through. Not intentionally, he tried to be a good father, but how can you. In that position. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Yeah. When you bring that violence into the home, and you can’t help but bring that aura of [00:24:00] violence with you. When you live that life and when you come back into the home, there’s still that edge of violence that, that unspoken communication, you jump every time, somebody pulls up out in front and you’re running to the window to see who it is and there’s just always, always on edge. I, that would be it. Springs Toledo: Here’s a good story. So he’s on the run. This is in the I think it’s the late sixties. Joe’s on the run. She’s at home and Joe set his wife and kids up in Malden and a house on the hill. And originally he was gonna live there too. And it’s a, it is a great place. He’s up, he’s on a corner. He’s on a hill. You can see Boston from it. So it’s got a great vantage point for kind of a, a paranoid damaged war veteran. Yeah. So a call comes into the house. Voice says, you know who this is. She’s about 11, 12 years old. Voice says, you know who this is? Yes. Meet me at the bottom of the hill. So she gets her sister Patty and they meet their dad at the bottom of the hill. He takes them bowling and saga. He’s got the disguise on. Yeah. He’s got so many IDs, fake IDs, and he’s they [00:25:00] go to they, they go bowl and. You gotta wait for Lane. So he’s sitting there like this, he got his arms out. He’s feeling good about himself. He’s a good dad. He got his two teenage girls here and one of ’em, one of ’em, almost a teenager. And suddenly over the intercom, Thomas Campbell, your lane is ready. And he’s just sitting there. Thomas Campbell, he’s just sitting there. Finally his daughter says, pat says, dad, that’s you. Oh. And off he goes. So he wasn’t even sure who he was half the time. Yeah. So he’s my heart went out to him in that sense because here’s a man who made some very dark life choices and he’s trying to be a conventional father. Meanwhile, he’s gotta keep his eye on the clock, on the door, on the phone and everything else, all day long. Not to mention the fact that, there’s, it was dangerous lifestyle. But, his daughters, I, his daughters, they idolize him and they loved him. They didn’t fear him, he never raised his hand to them, never raised his hand to them, but they feared what he brought with ’em. Yeah. And that’s a theme book. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, that’s a, that’s that is so interesting. Think about this [00:26:00] era or of violent violence. I think somewhere in the book I noticed I was going through it where he may have been possibly one of the suspects on the Joe Barbosa head out in San Francisco when they finally got him and in. Springs Toledo: That’s fascinating because actually I had to take out ’cause of the publisher, I take about 15,000 words, but I really get into that. But that had to go. But what happened was. He had to go out there and kill a federal witness. And this guy was a civilian. This guy looked like a grandfather. And but he was gonna be a fence for some rear stamps that Joe had taken a million dollars worth of rear stamps. And this guy was gonna be the fence. He was a rear stamp collector out in Sierra Madre. Long story short, in January of 1976, Joe Mack drives out there, shoots him in the head five times in front of his wife, and then in February, that’s when Bob Bozer is killed February, 1976. This is January, 1976. Now, what I heard from two sources, and they’re pretty good, is that Joe did not go from Sierra Madre, [00:27:00] California back to Somerville. What he did was he went to Laurel Canyon and that’s where Alex Rocco was staying. Alex Rocco du played Mo Green in The Godfather. Oh, Gary Jenkins: yeah. Yeah. Springs Toledo: Yeah, he was a Winter Hill guy and Joe stayed with him on the lamb for so many weeks. I don’t know if it’s true. I couldn’t chase that down. No way you’re gonna find that out. But it was an intriguing little tidbit. So then in in February Bob Bozer is killed. Now when that news hit a bar in Boston called Clocks was a mob hangout. The bartender who knew all these guys. He got off the phone and he yelled out to the bar that Bleepity bleep stool pigeon. Animal Barbosa is dead and gone. God bless Joe Mack. That’s what he said. He just assumed Joe Mack did it. So what I’m trying to chase that down and what happens is so I’m talking to guys, who’re talking to guys. What I [00:28:00] found out is that one guy said no, this that, that wasn’t Joe that was kept in-house among the Italians because Bob Bza really took apart the Italians influences Yeah. In Boston. Yeah. He took them apart with lies. And however, there were three people in that van. I got these I got freedom of information documents and. What I was told by a made guy actually, is that it was Russo and Byi Zino. They’re the ones that took out Bob Bozo with a shotgun from a van. The van two seats were taken out of the van. The windows were painted black. This. Side windows were painted black and peeps were drilled into the side door and the back, so they worked hard to get ’em, but there was a third man in the van, so that’s a little intriguing. Could it have been Joe? I don’t know. Probably not. I’d have to say probably not, but nice story. And then from there, and then literally just a few weeks after that, Joe was in disguise. Remember now he’s already on the news as a as a top 10 fugitive. The FBI’s looking [00:29:00] for, and where is he? He’s in Walpole. How did I find out? I got everybody’s prison records. I could, and Brian Halleran, who turns up later in the book and then turns up dead later in the book. He’s in prison. Joe visits him. How do I know? It’s Joe’s Alias? John A. Kelly, that was his alias at the time. So he’s wanted by the FBI, he’s on the news and literally a week or two later. He’s visiting somebody in Walpole State Prison. From there, I trace him to Montreal. What’s he doing in Montreal? He’s sticking, he’s holding up a an ahed car robbery. With the Montreal Express, they had a great program, the Montreal Express. And Somerville, what they would do is they would just swap guys to do these big highs, get these ika, get these banks, and then just return. So it was awfully hard to catch ’em ’cause they’re just doing like a swap off. Yeah. Joe Mack. Was up there. And what he was doing was, and he, it was a white van, which raises an eyebrow, another white van. And the Amed car, the guy wouldn’t open the door. So they open up the [00:30:00] door of the back doors of the white van. And there is a World War II Browning anti-aircraft gun. And guess who’s behind it? Joe Mack. So this is a very busy man, and he should be, he’s retirement age but did he kill Boba? Probably not, but there was a third guy there. I would not be surprised. I know the Italians used him. Gary Jenkins: You brought something to Montreal Express Now what’s that? I, that I’m not from, I’ve not heard that term before. Springs Toledo: I wasn’t either, but that a lot of guys told me they Gary Jenkins: back heard your story there. Springs Toledo: Yeah, there is. Yeah. They were they were up, they were they were bank robbers. They went for the armor trucks. That was their forte. Very well organized. Very skilled. They were specialized and they would swap off with, winter Hills, sometimes with Southie and South Boston, I should say. South Boston and Somerville would, they were very close, they were very much aligned. They would swap off. I think one of ’em was the brother of a Bruins hockey player. Yeah. Gary Jenkins: Interesting. These guys, they got their connections. I found out more and more after I since I started doing this podcast, how many connections people [00:31:00] had between cities and even within a city connections to regular look like Square John, businessmen and just connections all over the place. It’s Springs Toledo: all over the place. Matter of fact, Joe was Joe was in contact with the guys who escaped from Alcatraz. I couldn’t prove it, but I heard that, he was sending them money and, and supporting them. I pro I didn’t find nearly 50% of what Joe was up to, but that’s more than anybody else. I think before this book, we knew about 2% of what he was up to. Yeah. Gary Jenkins: It was Springs Toledo: pretty guy. Sure. Yeah. He was a footnote in the most of the books. Just a footnote, if that. So Gary Jenkins: that’s the smart one, the one that keeps his head down and keeps out of the papers and everything. Did that, did you talk to John Ano? Springs Toledo: Yes. Yeah. Gary Jenkins: Interesting. Springs Toledo: I did. He was he loved, first thing he said was how much he loved him. All these guys, very serious guys. They’re very powerful guys in the underworld. And when I brought his name up the ones who were close to him, they would say I love that. I love that man. Loved him. They loved and [00:32:00] revered him. Other guys who were not as close to him, but who were very, operatives in the bus world. I bring his name up now, he’s been gone since 1997. And they’d look around like this. And they say, oh gee. So you know, his name is still enough to and matter of fact, I was told early on when I was poking around that I’m poking around in dangerous places and Joe still has friends and you don’t wanna cross these guys, so even now his his shadow still looms, if you will, but I think it approve of what I did because, what I heard is that he’s very honest. He would not want any biographer to pull a pull punches about who and what he was. I didn’t, yeah. But some of his friends warned me. They were, you gotta be careful with this, but I call it bachelor’s privilege. I’m not married, I have no kids. If I end up in a ditch, who cares? So I can take risks. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. That’s some truth. It’s just that last few minutes before you’d done the dish, you go, oh shit, I wish I was anywhere but here. I, Springs Toledo: I would ask to talk to a priest. Let me get a confession. That what you gotta do, Gary Jenkins: you Springs Toledo: know, Gary Jenkins: you’d be like I think it was Tony Citro. Supposedly the story was he [00:33:00] wanted to know if he could say a quick prayer before they did him in, but Springs Toledo: I hope they let him, Gary Jenkins: I don’t know. Steve Fleming, we met, you’d mentioned about Steve Fleming, the Rifleman, who was whitey’s buddy and you, I think you mentioned you had a story about Steve Fleming. Springs Toledo: Steve Fleming was it’s interesting he doesn’t appear too much in the book. One of the things I had to do with this, I had to do my best to keep the names down. One of the a fatal flaw in a whole lot of Boston and Underworld books than any underworld books is there was just 8,000 names. Too many names. There’s too many names. So I, so I mentioned him a few times ’cause you have to, but I’m not focused on Fleming, but I can tell you that Joe was very suspicious of Fleming as early as he was very suspicious of Whitey. He respected him. Fleming was a killer. More of an ambush killer than than a Savage or a guy who took a lot of risks. He was a lot like Whitey, like that. But no, Joe didn’t trust him because. He had a long bid and he got out early, and that’s always a cause for concern among those guys. Why are [00:34:00] you out early? They got a story and the stories backed up by the government. They were already in cahoots. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Springs Toledo: But with the names, there was one guy, this is an example. He was actually an MDC cop who was part of the Winter Hill gang in the early sixties, and his name was Russ Nicholson. I don’t wanna keep saying Russ Nicholson, the cop. So I shortened it to Russ the cop. Yeah. And then as things went on and the, police department realized that this guy’s involved in the rackets, they forced him to resign. So then I started calling them Rust, the ex cop. Then Rusty ex-cop gets clipped probably by Georgie McLaughlin. He’s dead, so now he’s Rust the dead ex-cop. So I’m trying to be polite to the reader and keep the names down. Gary Jenkins: Interesting. That’s a good idea that I know about that, that people say I love what you did, but there’s too many names. I got confused who was who. So it’s Springs Toledo: yeah, Gary Jenkins: it’s always a problem with these deals. All right, Springs, Toledo. [00:35:00] Let’s see. All of a sudden I like there it is. There you go guys. And guys, I will have your his link to for all his books and the show notes and of course links to my books too, but links to all of these guy, these books. You had some even about John Brown. You wanna go back into little Civil War history? Why check those out too. Guys, thanks so much for coming on the show. Springs Toledo: My pleasure.

Phil & David welcome back for seconds our beloved rock power trio who we now consider Naked Lunch's house band. This is a loose and lively conversation with Dogstar about their powerful upcoming new album All In Now which comes out May 29th, as well as  everything from doing Samuel Beckett on Broadway to touring the world as a band to overpriced tuna sandwiches from Mob relatives to acting alongside Steven Seagal to an unauthorized drive on to an old Paula Abdul video to why the hell there's only one "t" in Bret. For more answers about Dogstar, or to pre-order the album go to https://dogstarofficial.com/. To learn more about building community through food and "Somebody Feed the People," visit the Philanthropy page at ⁠philrosenthalworld.com⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we welcome legend Lisa Ann Walter to the table! She and Tom gush about Italian food, dig into Lisa's experiences performing for the Mob, compare comedy notes, and have a blast. Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

What We Learned from Hulu’s “Get Real” Event | Reality Flash Welcome to The Reality Flash, your one-stop podcast for all the breaking news in the world of reality TV! Hosted by Mike Bloom, this podcast brings you the freshest headlines from your favorite shows and reality stars. From shocking cast announcements to behind-the-scenes gossip to the latest social media drama, Mike gives you everything you need to stay in the loop. If it’s happening in reality TV, we’ll bring the news to you in a flash! Mike Bloom and guest Matt Liguori as they unpack Hulu’s “Get Real” event and its flurry of reality TV announcements. This episode dives into the latest cast reveals, show spin-offs, and shifting alliances shaping upcoming seasons on Dancing with the Stars, Vanderpump Villa, and more. Mike and Matt bring both insight and enthusiasm as they discuss new faces joining familiar shows, the crossover of Bravo personalities, and what these changes mean for reality TV fans this year. Mike and Matt break down the Hulu event’s biggest reveals, starting with the new cast members joining the next season of Dancing with the Stars, Maura Higgins (The Traitors) and Ciara Miller (Summer House), both coming off high-drama stints on The Traitors and Summer House. They debate the ripple effects of these picks, from fan reactions to speculation about whether other Traitors stars, like Rob Rausch (The Traitors, Love Island USA) or Boston Rob (Survivor, The Traitors), could appear on future seasons. The conversation moves into the details of Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro, a spin-off judged by Mark and Shirley Ballas (Dancing with the Stars and Strictly Come Dancing, respectively), and the ongoing evolution of how pros are chosen. The hosts also spotlight upcoming projects, such as Project Runway’s drag queen collaborations, Khloé Kardashian’s (The Kardashians) friend-focused series, and Stassi Schroeder’s (Vanderpump Rules, Vanderpump Villa) new spinoff following her post-Vanderpump Rules journey. They address the proliferation of reality show crossovers, the outrageous cast of Hulu’s The Mob (featuring Bruno Tonioli (Dancing with the Stars), Joe Gorga (The Real Housewives of New Jersey), and Willam (RuPaul’s Drag Race)), and discuss the expanding Secret Lives of Mormon Wives universe, including a brand new spin-off and speculation around Taylor Frankie Paul’s (The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives) involvement. Highlights from this episode: Maura Higgins and Ciara Miller join Dancing with the Stars, sparking discussion about fandom crossovers and strategic casting choices Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro brings reality competition to the pro-dancer selection process, with insider speculation about its impact Project Runway and House of Stassi expand the Bravo and drag race crossover, blurring lines between network and streaming shows The Mob introduces a wild, genre-bending celebrity cast, signaling the next phase of reality show mashups The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives franchise expands despite controversy, with Matt and Mike speculating on future directions for the cast and format As reality TV continues to mix stars, platforms, and formats, the season ahead brims with new matchups and fresh drama. What new alliances and rivalries will emerge as these shows cross-pollinate casts and concepts? Catch the full episode for all the insights, hot takes, and predictions on the future of your favorite unscripted series. 0:00 Disney's “Get Real” Event Unveiled 6:00 Maura and Ciara Join DWTS 12:00 Summer House Scandal Fuels Casting 18:00 New “Next Pro” DWTS Series 23:00 Project Runway's Reality Crossover Cast 30:00 Hulu's The Mob Cast Revealed 36:00 Mormon Wives Spin-Off Announced 41:00 Bachelor Franchise Pauses Until 2027 46:00 Reality TV Worlds Converge Subscribe to The Reality Flash at the reality flash.com so you don’t miss an iota of news coming out of the ever-shifting reality TV landscape. LISTEN: Subscribe to The Reality Flash podcast feed WATCH: Watch and subscribe to the podcast on YouTube SUPPORT: Become a RHAP Patron for bonus content, access to Facebook and Discord groups plus more great perks!

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.

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.