Mafia Sunday, with Michael Franzese and Sammy "The Bull" Gravano - Megyn Kelly's "Double Feature" of Fascinating Interviews

24:30If you ever violate the oath of La Cosa Nostra, you burn in hell like the saint burning in your hands. Your allegiance to La Cosa Nostra is bound in blood. Should you ever violate this oath, your blood will be shed you will keep the secrets and traditions you will hear and learn about you will not violate another member's wife sister or daughter or ever raise your hand against another member and you will carry out every order given to you because a nostra comes before anything and everything in your life how accurate was that that was pretty accurate you know that's that's the oath and obviously they they do you know shed a little blood they prick your your finger and they have a knife there they make a little slit so and then they burn a saint in your hands and that's the oath I mean it's quick but it's very serious in trite out they spin you around three times and make you sing a song it's different but it's also similar It's not quite the initiation experience and different expectations.

25:51So you become a made guy. Now, at this point, are you developing a family? Like, I would think the more layers you have and the more connections to sort of regular society, schools and the bridge club, whatever, the more complicated this gets. Well, yes. I mean, I was married young. I got married when I was 24. and that marriage lasted for a couple of years. I had three children in three years with my first wife and I'm married now for 38 years with my wife Camille and we have four more children. So I have seven altogether. But, you know, Megan, here's the thing that I've said and I'm careful the way I said this.

26:30You know, I always call the mob life, the street life, the gang life, they're evil lifestyles. And I'm not calling the guys evil. I was one of them. I just happened to be very fortunate to be in the position I am now. But the lifestyle is evil because I don't know any family of any member of that life that hasn't been devastated. And I mean that, including my own. Now, not my wife and kids. I've been able to, you know, to spare them of that. But my mom was, my dad did 40 years on that 50. My mom, she died in 2012. She was 33 years without her husband. At the end of her life, I can only describe her relationship with my dad as being ugly because she blamed him for everything that went wrong in her life.

27:13And rightfully so. What went wrong? I had a sister, 27 years old, died of an overdose of drugs. A lot of turbulence in my household, always. And it was a crazy lifestyle. She dies at 27. My younger brother, 25 years as a drug addict, when he, I can't even begin to tell you how many times I had to save his life and how much trouble he caused the family because of his drug addiction. Eventually, he got himself in trouble, cooperated with the government, wired himself up against my father, and he put my father back in jail on another case. And my dad was 92 years old when that happened. He was out on fire.

27:49Wow. A son going against the father. And another sister, you know, 20, I mean, she was 41 years old. She wasn't ever mentally stable. She grew up in this turbulence, didn't sit well with her. She passed away at 41. So my whole family was destroyed. And every family of every member of that life that I know is in a similar situation. So any lifestyle that does that for a family is obviously a bad or an evil lifestyle. So, you know, it's and you don't realize that going in. I didn't realize, hey, I'm going to go to jail for all these years and my family is going to be destroyed. I didn't think that way.

28:26Again, I had an idealistic view of the life. Even seeing what my father went through, I kind of pushed that out and said, well, that's not going to happen to me. Or if it does happen to me, I'll deal with it. I was always the type of guy that figured, hey, I can figure everything out and I'll deal with it and somehow I'll make it work. You know, so I had that kind of an attitude. But yes, it's very, very rough on the families, no doubt. So was your first brush with the law, Rudy Giuliani? No, that was, oh gosh, that was way, way, way later on. That was your last? Yeah, that was way later. That was in 84.

29:03I mean, my first brush with the law was with the Italian American Civil Rights League. When we were picketing, I got in an altercation with a cop and I hit him. And, you know, they beat me up and it was a mess. But I was I was like 20 years old when that happened. And then, you know, I had a bullseye on my back immediately because of my dad. I was arrested 18 times. I had seven indictments altogether. I had two federal racketeering cases, one state RICO indictment, and I had four other state of New York cases. So from the time I was 20 years old, I was getting arrested, getting indicted, fighting the law.

29:41It was just a lifelong battle for me. That's amazing. I mean, it's truly like racketeering, Giuliani, multiple indictments in New York. It sounds just like somebody who I know is the former president and likely to be potentially the next president, Donald Trump, which we'll get to because I know you've got some insights on what he's going through. But this, you know, racketeering is a charge that was created so that federal prosecutors could get at mobsters who they hadn't been able to sort of sweep up in a big net of criminality. And I know you got caught in that net eventually. So you've got maybe 14 years there where you get arrested and you get out or you get some small punishment.

30:19Can you give me a flavor for how you were a racketeer, you weren't a gangster. What kinds of things were you doing? How are you paying the bills to where you were considered in that first group? Well, you know, I was fortunate, I think, in that I understood how to use that life to benefit me in business. And, you know, I went on to make a very significant amount of money, both legally and illegally. You know, I had two automobile dealerships, legitimate. I had a Mazda and a Chevrolet agency. I had a leasing company. I had a couple of restaurants that I was involved in. I had a film production company at one point in time that actually we made about 30 films at the time and distributed throughout the world.

31:02So I had a lot of legitimate things going on. But the the biggest enterprise or scam, whatever you want to call it, that I got involved in was the wholesale gasoline business. And in a nutshell, I devised a scheme along with a partner to defraud the government out of taxing every gallon of gasoline. And it was an operation we ran for about eight years. I had the Russian mob guys from Brighton Beach involved with me. I had about 350 gas stations I either owned or operated at that time. And I had 18 companies that were licensed to collect the tax on every gallon of gasoline. High of our operation, we're selling a half a billion gallons of gas a month.

31:41And we're taking down 20, 30, 40 cents a gallon, whatever the mark would bear at that time. So we're bringing in several million dollars a week. And that was, there were other guys doing it. You know, some of the Russians were doing it. But I think we perfected the system and lasted quite long. And we had a lot of other people that were trying to do it that were involved with us. So we we created that scam. And it was, you know, people said it was the biggest scam since prohibition. And I believe that I don't think there was anything else because we weren't big drug dealers. And obviously, when you talk drugs, you know, enormous money.

32:18But we weren't big drug dealers, despite what everybody says. Not true. When I took an oath, they told me straight out, you deal with drugs, you die. And we weren't allowed to touch it. And there was some guys doing it on the sly. Yeah, but we weren't major drug dealers, at least back during my era. So, you know, I was doing a lot of things and I had a head for business and I just kept plugging away. What do you do with the money? Do you turn it over to the family? Do you put it in a checking account? Well, you know, we do both. I mean, I had to give up 25 percent of my whatever I earned, had to go up the ladder to the family.

32:55And that's the deal that I made with the boss at the time. And then, you know, I had several bank accounts. I had bank accounts overseas that we wired money out to. I had a lot of cash at that time. I had a safe in my house. So, you know, different ways. And you wash money. When I was in the film business, I produced a couple of movies with, you know, gas tax money that I had cleaned up. So, you know, it became a chore, quite honestly, because we had so much money coming in and we had to devise a system to get rid of it, basically, or to put it in places that was secure. Do you, is it like the movies where you get in trouble if you're too flashy, if your wife buys a fur coat, you know, you're supposed to look like you're not making that kind of dough?

33:40Well, you know, some guys like my dad, I mean, he would drive around in a 1964 Red Plymouth Valiant that my mother wouldn't even get into. I mean, he didn't want anybody to know what he was doing in a way. I wasn't that way. I mean, look, I was earning money. So, I mean, I had a jet plane. I had a helicopter. I had houses in three parts of the country. You know, one house I built on two acres of land with a racquetball court and all of that. But I was making legitimate money. I was paying taxes at that time, too. So I was able to show that. But no, we didn't get in trouble for that. I mean, nobody told us how to live.

34:18You know, if I mean, if there was something like in the movie Goodfellas and you had to lay low for a while, I mean, that was certainly a possibility. But I wasn't in that category. Yeah, you mentioned that you made some movies and it just so happens that the producer of this segment, Natasha, is a huge fan of one of your movies called Mausoleum. So she has queued up this little clip in part of the trailer for the audience and sought to. She gave her soul to the evil force in the mausoleum. What's the matter, Susan?

34:56What is the correct name? Oh, my God. Now the secret haunts her and she cannot control the power.

35:13That looks amazing. Megan, I got to tell you the story behind this really quickly. All right. Especially if somebody out there that loves the movie. I have a guy around me. It was a Jewish guy by the name of Jerry Zimmerman. Very close to me. Loved the guy. He was in the car business with me. Long story short, he gets himself in some very serious trouble. And I have to have a sit down with a maid guy from another family over Jerry. They wanted to kill him. And I really had to fight to keep him alive because he insulted some maid guys. You're not allowed to do that. Anyway, I clear him. Right. But this guy was an old timer, the captain in the other family.

35:51And he was so incensed with this. I said, Jerry, I don't trust this guy. even though we got it clear, you could be walking down the street, a car barrels into you. I don't know what's going to happen. I said, I want you to go out to California with your brother. He had a brother out here and just stay there and let me make sure this is okay. So he goes out about two months later, he calls me up and says, Hey chief, we're going to be in the movie business. I said, what do you know about movies? He said, Oh, don't worry about it. I got a script. I got a director. He says, send me$83 ,000 and you're my partner.

36:21Right? So I send him the money. P.S. This is the movie mausoleum a million dollars later we produced that film that honestly didn't scare anyone but me after i saw what happened with it uh but that was my intro into the business because we lost money on that film initially but listen to this especially for your your worker there all of a sudden that film becomes a cult classic and i've been earning money on that film for the last 30 years up until about three months ago, somebody came to me and said, I'll give you 50 grand to take it over. And I sold it to him. But I've been earning on it for 30 years after it was the worst film.

37:01It was crazy. This business is so crazy. You never know what's going to happen. It's so rare to make money off of the movies. It happens once in a million. So, okay, Mausoleum comes out. Now you're in the movie business. That's kind of exciting. and was there ever, like you said, you met Frank Sinatra at the Copacabana. You know, how incestuous do you feel like Hollywood, the entertainment industry is with the mafia? Because, you know, there's all sorts of speculation. Well, look, we had relationships there for sure. I mean, there was, you know, agents that I was very close with, one in particular that's passed away now.

37:41But so, you know, Megan, I have to tell you this. a lot of people in the industry liked being around us. We didn't have to chase them and threaten them and do all of that. They enjoyed our company. Some of the guys, like they love being around my father. I think people enjoyed being around me because, you know, we carried ourselves a certain way. We weren't looking to put the arm on somebody all the time. And so they enjoyed being in business with us. And I don't, I don't have to tell you, you know, in this business, if you can bring money to the table, people like you. I don't think they really care who you are, you know, in many cases.

38:14But, you know, so look, we did have involvement. We didn't control the industry in any way. I wouldn't say that. But did we have, you know, presence there? Yes. Listen, did Joe Colombo absolutely have an impact on the movie The Godfather? 100 percent. I mean, I don't know if you saw that series, The Offer. Yeah, but I actually am watching that right now. Well, I thought it was brilliantly done. I mean, I really did. And a lot of it was true. You know, that was my era. I was there during all of that. And I was very close to Joey at that time. So a lot of it was very accurate. And, you know, he did have that control and he did have an impact.

38:52The word mafia was taken out of the script. That's for sure. Joey did that. He did shut it down at some point, you know, with the union. And they did have to come back to him in order to continue production. So, you know, we did have influence. What about, you know, I realize the mafia is not what it used to be. But when you're out there walking around as a civilian, what are the businesses you go by or you go into where you're like, probably connected? Oh, gosh. Well, unions, you know, for sure. And, you know, another myth. Another myth is that my guys, we sit in our social clubs and we target the next business that we're going to take over, defraud, influence or whatever.

39:37Not always so. So often people from inside their company would come to us. Hey, we have a way to defraud our company. We have a way to make some money. You know, you're going to protect us. You're going to give us money. You're never going to tell on us. So a lot of people from inside the company would come to us. Happened to me with General Motors. Happened to me with Mazda. Happened to me with GE Credit quite often. And that's how I got involved in some legitimate businesses. But, you know, look, unions, of course, you know, I'll tell you this, too. You know, people come to me about Donald Trump.

40:07Did Donald Trump deal with the mob? And yeah, he did. And so did Helmsley and so did Gutterman. And so did anybody in New York that wanted to get that building made and had to deal with the unions. You just had to. And, you know, so does that does that make somebody in bed with the mob? No, you're just doing business. So, you know, yes, we had influence, you know, in the favorite businesses to like launder. Because for a very brief time when I was with Jones Day, the law firm I was with for many years, I did a little white collar crime work, the opposite side. And I remember I took the deposition of this guy who was working for one of the crime families and they were laundering money through these funeral homes.

40:48And I thought, my God, I would never have thought funeral homes would be a place where the mob would be in control laundering money. But, you know, anything's like that. Did you have any familiarity with funeral homes or anything like it? Yeah. One of my dear friends who's passed on now. He was a funeral director. He had a funeral home. So yeah, it is a place you can wash money. People pay with cash. Any place where people are paying with cash is a place to loan their money. Restaurants, pizza ballers, you know, obviously places like that. So because there isn't a really good accounting with that and you can put a lot of cash through it and get a lot of cash out of it.

41:26So, you know, those were the kind of favorites. I mean, listen, in the film business, nobody really did an accounting of where the money came from. So, I mean, I made movies with stolen gas tax money. Right. So you and as you were rising in wealth and notoriety and, you know, you were succeeding, you were, you know, as we said in the intro, one of the most successful mobsters ever. You got featured. You weren't in the movie Goodfellas, but your name was used as one of sort of the big guys when Ray Liotta was walking through the restaurant or going into the sort of the seat. This is where, is this where he's taking his girlfriend out for a date?

42:08Like one of the first dates? I'm trying to remember. I haven't seen the clip yet, but I, yeah. Okay. So we'll play it because they mentioned, uh, your name in this. And, uh, he says, yeah, Mikey franchise. Uh, I saw him franchise watch. And then there was Pete, the killer who was Sally balls, his brother. And you had Nicky Eyes. What's up, guy? And Mikey Francesi. I love that guy. Yeah, I want to see him. So that's supposed to be you. Were you surprised to see yourself featured in Goodfellas? I was really surprised because, you know, I mean, I knew that crew very well. I knew Henry very well. I knew Jimmy Burke and Paulie Barrio, you know, was a dear friend of mine and the family's.

42:52But I was surprised because that was a different family. and Nick Pelleggi, who was the writer, after I saw that, I called Nick up and I said, Nick, why'd you throw me in there? He said, oh, Michael, you had name value and all that and you knew all those guys. I said, yeah, but you could have at least got them to say my name correctly. So he laughed at me. But I was surprised. I didn't expect to see that. Okay, so eventually, Rudy Giuliani does come into your life and Rudy Giuliani, we kind of know him much differently today, But he was, I mean, an absolute hero in many ways back in the day in cleaning up New York.

43:29And he was former federal prosecutor. He was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, which is considered the most prestigious U.S. attorney post in the country. And when he was young, he wasn't kidding around. He was, I mean, a true crime fighter and very focused on the mob. And that put you in his crosshairs. So talk about that. Well, yeah, he indicted me on a major racketeering case. I was a lead defendant and I had 15 co-defendants and it was a big, you know, Shylocking case, you know, money extortion case, allegedly. And I was supposed to have financed a leasing company that was probably had 1500 legitimate loans on the street and about 30 Shylock loans.

44:13And I was the one that, you know, allegedly put up the money for that, which wasn't true. But anyway, so I get indicted and I'll never forget in the courtroom, you know, Rudy comes up to me and my attorney, John Jacobs at the time. And he says, Franzese, if I convict you on this case, I'm giving you a double what your father got, you're going to get a hundred years. And you know, that's the kind of time that were giving us guys back then. And I remember standing toe to toe with him and I say, Rudy, bring it on. I beat you guys four times already. Let's go for round five, which I always say is the dumbest thing to do.

44:45You know, you don't give them any more. Fortunately, after a several month trial in federal court in Manhattan. I was acquitted in that case. And my code of hands, some of them got convicted. One of them got 30 years. So I would have got a lot of time, no doubt. That's amazing. I mean, that's downright scary. The only thing scarier than seeing somebody like you across from me angry would be somebody like that who really has the power to take your life away in a different way. And he could do it. Well, I'll tell you, you know, you got to give Rudy either the credit or the blame, depending upon what side you're on.

45:16He was the one that really use the racketeering laws effectively because it had been on the books for quite some time. They just didn't use it. But he made it a tremendous weapon. And I say that RICO is the single most damaging tool that the government had to bring a lot of destruction to that life. And Rudy and I, I wouldn't say we were friends, but we certainly healed things after 30 years. He actually wrote the foreword in my book, which he did a great job on. Yeah, it really is. And you know what? He was a great mayor. I don't care what anybody says. He cleaned up New York. He was a great mayor.

45:51He was great. Yeah, I know. It wasn't until he got, you know, connected with Trump and so on. And then he just started behaving very erratically. He was kind of not like his former self. But yes, he wrote wonderful things about you in your book and talked about how when he first met you, his team was prosecuting you, that they took on the five families of New York's mafia and won, and that they prosecuted you many times. But he goes on to say that, hold on a second, I want to find it, that he got a little angry when he read articles about you in places like Fortune, the list of the 50 most wealthy and powerful mob bosses, Vanity Fair claiming you were the biggest moneymaker in the mafia since Al Capone, which we referenced, but ultimately struck a deal with you.

46:36And really what he was saying in the foreword was that you ultimately had a conversion and that while he was skeptical at first, he, knowing you all these years, actually came to believe it, that you were committed to changing your life, that you actually did find God, and that you were going to leave this life of crime behind you, which is the redemption part of your story. And it's extraordinary. So eventually you did not you did not escape Rudy's focus. And tell us how you wound up going to jail. Well, you know, after I was acquitted in the Giuliani case, several months later, I think not that long, three or four months later, I was indicted in Brooklyn on this whole gas tax scheme, among some other things.

47:24And, you know, the principal witness against me in the Giuliani case would have been the principal witness against me in this next case in Brooklyn, this next Rico case. And we beat him, you know, in Rudy's case. The jury didn't believe him. So the government was getting nervous now because I had beaten him. That was my fifth time that they tried to convict me at trial and were unsuccessful. So that was five failures on their part. But at the same time, Megan, I met my wife, who's now my wife for 38 years. And I basically started to think, you know, I saw what was going on with the racketeering law.

47:59Guys were when I was in MCC, when they locked me up without bail, there were guys going to trial, getting convicted, getting 100 years, 70 years, 150 years. I'm the youngest guy out of many of them. I said, they're going to give me 300 years if I ever get convicted. This life is in trouble. I see guys starting to become informants. I meet my wife. I said, this is trouble. I got to try to make an exit here. And so I had leverage over the government because beating them in the Giuliani case gave me some leverage. So we negotiated a plea deal. I got a 10-year prison sentence,$15 million restitution,$5 million in forfeitures, and went off to do my time.

48:38And it was planning my exit at that time because I figured, hey, I'd do a bunch of years in prison, but I'd come out, I'd have parole and probation. I move out to the West Coast. I can't associate with anybody when I was on parole. Maybe after 10 or 12 years, the guys will forget about me. And I can live happily ever after with my new wife here in California. And that was my original plan. That's how I started to make the exit. Didn't work out exactly that way, but eventually it worked out well. Okay, but I got to ask you whether you ever considered, you know, flipping, becoming a rat, as they say, because there must have been some sort of a deal that would have involved no jail time if you would have helped Rudy Giuliani as opposed to just admitted you did some things.

49:24Absolutely. They offered me, when I was taking the plea, they offered me no jail time, minimum jail time, if I would cooperate. And I refused. They said, no, you know, I just want, as part of the plea deal, I had not immunity, but they couldn't prosecute me for any of my past crimes other than murder. and I wasn't worried about that. So, cause I wanted to try to wrap everything up, but my plea deal was no cooperation whatsoever. I didn't talk to them, didn't do anything. What happened was four years later, when I was doing my time, a fellow by name of Norby Walters got himself in some trouble and he was my partner.

50:01I had given him 250 ,000 to be an agent for sports athletes. And long story short, he implicated me in some scheme while I was in prison. They brought me in to testify against him. And I said, listen, I don't know what he was doing. I was in prison. But yes, he was my partner. Yes, I did give him money. And that's what I testified to. Well, after that happened, and that was in Chicago, people from the Eastern District came out to see me and they said, well, you're already a dead man now. You got on a stand and you testified. I said, Norby Wolfe was my guy. He's not has nothing to do with anybody.

50:37He's my responsibility. Nobody's going to be mad at me for this. And so I chased them away. I said, I'm not cooperating with you guys. I got a few months left to go to be in prison. I'll do my time and come home.

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51:56Megan, I made it. I said I will never go against my associates and put anybody in prison. I can't do that. So I'm going to be honest with you. and John Gleason verifies this in his book. I sat down and talked to them, but I basically was able to pull the wool over their eyes because what somebody had told me at the time, and it turned out to be true, I was dealing with the strike force in the Eastern District. And somebody told me they were going to be disbanded. They said, Michael, you can talk to these guys. It's never going to go anywhere because they're going to disband the strike force. And so when I started talking to them about certain things, a few months later, they disbanded the strike force.

52:33And that was it. And they only had a year to talk to me. After that, they couldn't talk to me anymore. So this is sorry. This I thought this is very interesting because I mentioned Sammy the bull. And I mean, honestly, that was one of the most interesting interviews I have ever done. I mean, I have never had an interview before that had a line like, was that before or after the 19th murder? I mean, this is the conversation he and I had. And he put it all out. There was absolutely riveting. And I know you guys together in a very interesting series, Patrick, Beth, David did on the mafia went on together.

53:08It got kind of heated. I know you guys, I think you get along, but in this particular moment, not so much. Here it is in SOT6. He read it. He cooperated. He cooperated with the fucking government. He wants to get on his fucking high horse. I didn't send somebody to prison. He met with the fucking government and ratted. You're a fucking rat. You want to talk about respect? You want to talk like that? Put your fucking finger at me. Well, what are you going to do? What am I going to do? I'll break your fucking face. Oh God. I would not upset him. Just FYI, having researched him quite a bit, that's not somebody you want to upset.

53:48So he's calling you a rat, but isn't that what Sammy the bull is infamous for? Well, among other things, right? Because he didn't have to serve jail time because he actually did turn he turned on gotti well he served a lot of jail time i mean they cut it short but listen sammy and i are friends and we we did get into a heated moment and i understand what he was trying to do at the time um but we patched it up after that because i don't know if you continue that i got up and said sammy you're not the underboss anymore sit down you know so we kind of and that's how we kind of ended it but we've become friends since then listen I'm not he did um you know look I like his family very much his son his son calls me up and asks me how do I deal with my dad he drives me crazy you know so it's yeah but uh we patch it up because you know we both came to realize you know it doesn't benefit either one of us by showing that side of that life or we're angry with one another and all of that because there was you know we'd rather show a different side of that life even though it is what it is but But anyway, yeah, you know, look, Megan, for me, again, the bottom line is I didn't put anybody in prison.

54:58I didn't testify at any made guys trial. I didn't do any of that. They tried to get me. They put me in solitary for three years trying to break me. Twenty nine months and seven days. Actually, they were very upset with me. And John Gleason said it in his book about Gotti. He says Franzese basically took us to the cleaners because we got nothing out of him. and um you know look but they can call me a rat or you know that's that's that's the most widely used term on all of this genre on you know the comments that you get and people that are on youtube now but hey look well that's the one that i have realized in the wake of my interview with sammy like you don't want to be called that i mean i i know guys who i i believe have some sort of a Connection who have said nothing to me ever about any show I've ever done.

55:45But after Sammy the Bull came on, they started coming out of the woodwork. The guy's a rat. He's a rat. And I've always wondered, oh God, you know, like, are they saying that because they're connected or they just understand the code? I don't know. But that seems to be something taken deadly seriously in the mob. Oh, yeah. You know, one of the things this might be interesting, Joe Pistone, Donnie Brasco, Joe and I have become very good friends now. Now, I met him once on the street. And this is the guy who went undercover and infiltrated the mob and was portrayed by Johnny Depp in a movie of the same name.

56:19Keep going. Correct. Well, we became friends. He was on my YouTube. I did his. And Sammy and I got into a heat about that. He said, how can you befriend that guy? He put so many Italians away. And I said, Sammy, I said he was an undercover agent. He was doing his job and he did his job better than we did ours. You don't get mad at a guy when they're not framing you, when they're doing their job and they outgun you. That's it. You know, we used to tell agents on the street, hey, come after us. We get it. You're on one side. We're on the other. Just don't frame us. Get us honestly. You have enough tools, enough weapons.

56:53You got all the money in the world and all the time. Just come after us the right way and we're not mad. And, you know, look, Joe Pistone, I mean, what he did for six years to be undercover and not be noticed by our guys, That was a real failure on our part, number one. And number two, it was pretty heroic because at any point in time, he could have walked into that room if somebody would have discovered something and he would have been in a lot of trouble. And it didn't turn out that way. So, I mean, I give him credit for the work that he did. And, you know, if I was on the street, I wouldn't be saying that.

57:23But, you know, just. Yeah, no, I mean, certainly from my vantage point, that guy's a hero, right? It takes a lot of courage to infiltrate the mob and try to crime fight in that particularly dangerous manner. Just for the audience at home, here's a clip from the movie Donnie Brasco, where Al Pacino's character, Lefty, who's in the mob, meets Donnie, played by Johnny Depp, and tries to sell him a diamond. I'm asking you to middle a diamond for me here. Now, all I want for my end is$8 ,000. What I'm saying to you is you should give it to somebody that don't know any better, because that's a fugazi.

57:59All right? That's a fugazi? How do you know it's a fugazi? You looked at it for two seconds. What? It's a fake. Yeah, I know what a fugazi is. What do you what do you make of that? So you don't think that could have really happened? I mean, I guess it did happen. He did infiltrate. And you're just saying that that those guys were too careless that they should have caught him. Yeah, I mean, they should have did their homework and their research. Unfortunately, you know, when when he presented himself as an earner, sometimes guys eyes, you know, open up and hey, I can earn money with this guy and they get a little bit careless.

58:37And I do have to say this, that was Al Pacino, in my view, that was his best role. I knew Lefty fairly well. And he just nailed. He nailed that character so well. He was just great. Really great. What did you make of, you said you knew Henry Hill, that was the Ray Liotta character in Godfather, Godfather, Goodfellas. What did you think of that portrayal? Because that was, I mean, I don't know. You know, everybody loves Godfather, including me, but Goodfellas was just such a riveting film where you couldn't, you were so pulled in by that character, Henry Hill. I told you I got to get out of here and straighten out everything with Paulie or else I'm dead, Karen.

59:14Then you're better off staying in here. Karen, they can whack me in here just as easy as they can outside, maybe even easier. They're all afraid I'm going to rat them out. People are already walking away from me. I'm dead in here. You've got to get me out. Well, Megan, you know, Henry's gone now. And I knew Henry well. I had kind of an affection to Henry because when he did that whole Boston College betting scandal, he gave me some tips and I made some money at the time. But Henry never looked so good as he did in that movie. That's for sure. You know, and I can tell you this. He never walked into the back of the Copacabana without Paulie or somebody being with him.

59:51That's for sure. He he didn't have that kind of prominence. You know, unfortunately, he had a drinking problem. He was an alcoholic and he got into drugs fairly early, you know, and he had that kind of problem. Look, he's he would have got killed. There's no question about he wouldn't have lasted on the street because Paulie Vario was was pretty upset with him. So was Jimmy, you know, and he did what he did. But believe me, he was made to look great in that movie. I'll bet. Well, I mean, it was based on his book, right? Which I'm sure also made him look great. And then Hollywood takes it next level.

1:00:25So, and of course, Ray Liotta's gone too, which is sad. What about these guys? You know, there's a question about whether any of them is actually in the mob, whether there's any sort of a connection, whether it's De Niro, Pacino. Did these guys have any sort of a relationship? I mean, for Sinatra, we've heard, we've heard yes. Well, you know, not that they were, like I said, part of a crew or anything like that. Did they have relationships? I mean, Pauli Sirico, I think you knew, he, you know, he was involved at one point in time, then became an actor. They all had relationships. Jimmy Kahn, you know, was very close with my one time captain, with Andrew Russo, very close.

1:01:06the what was his name oh gosh Lenny Montana who played Luca Brasi in The Godfather was very close with me very close you know and he was we were together out here on the west coast before he passed away so a lot of guys had relationships but again you know we were all over the place so we met with a lot of people and you know we had a lot of relationships no doubt. So you find yourself in prison now, 10 years. And at the time you were in prison, your dad was still in prison and the relationship broke down. Was that because of the thing you just told us about where you did wind up testifying in that one case?

1:01:47Is that what turned him on you? No, it wasn't that. Um, what happened was when I was in, um, I was in, uh, terminal Island prison out in California. And the warden had called me, or the associate warden, I don't remember exactly, and said, there's a reporter that's doing a story on you in Life Magazine. And I think 20 years earlier, they had done the biggest story ever on my dad in Life Magazine. It was like 29 pages. It was on his murder case. It was a huge story, right? So this reporter now is doing a story on me. So I'm in prison. And he tells the warden, if Michael talks to me, it'll be a better story.

1:02:28So I'm trying to make my exit. I'm trying to get the government off my back. I want to get out of there and have no trouble. I just married this young girl. So I sit down with him and I tell him standard mob stuff. There is no mafia. I married this girl. I'm living out in the West Coast and all this kind of stuff. I'm done with anything back in New York. Well, the article comes out and the warden calls me into the office. He says, Francis, do you have a death wish? I said, what are you talking about? And he shows me the article. and it was a big double page with a picture of me and on the top quitting the mafia.

1:02:59And I'm in jail with other mob guys. And this guy had me doing everything but testifying at the time. And that's when word started to drop that, hey, maybe this guy is going bad. What's going on? Then the government comes in to see me again. You know, the feds come in and they say, Francis, you know, this is a bad article. You better cooperate with us. We got word from our informants. People are upset with you. Then they, you know what they did, Megan? It was really dirty. They put my name on the witness list of certain trials that were coming up in New York. I'm sending messages back to my dad.

1:03:33I said, Dad, don't believe this. I'm not cooperating. But, you know, everybody says that. And then you see them on the witness stand or you get their info on discovery. I mean, that happened to me. You know, so they really, really tried to put a lot of pressure on me at the time. My dad kind of backed off. But, you know, he never really totally backed off. You know, Megan, what happened with me and my dad, and I'll summarize this, I got called into one of the horrors of that life. You make a mistake. Your best friend walks you into a room. You don't walk out again. And obviously, throughout my years, I know when that's occurred.

1:04:07Well, I got that call because there was an article that came out, I think it was in Long Island Press, that I was becoming powerful enough to break away from the Columbo, stop my own family. They had me making$2 billion a year. was a total fictional article, no basis in reality at all. But I get called into a room one night and I was scared. I said, wow, the way the circumstances were, I thought I can get killed walking into that room. That's how I felt. And I was scared. I'll be honest with you. You know, when you think you're going to meet your maker, it's scary. And I knew the life. And so I'm sitting down there and I'm getting grilled on how much money is coming in,$2 billion.

1:04:46And I said, hey, You know, they lie about everybody. Now they make a story about me and it's true. I said, what are you listening to? I'm handing in everything. Well, my father wasn't there, but he was called in before me. And what I found out that night is that he didn't help me in that meeting. He actually hurt me because what he did, instead of standing up for me, he said, I'm on parole. I don't do anything. My son handles everything. If anything's wrong, I don't know. So he kind of threw me under the bus. And I can tell you this, Megan. I didn't meet my wife until two years later, but I really believed I was stunned when I found that out.

1:05:23And it was true because I said, man, if this life can separate me and my dad, what do I really have here? And I just filed it away. I didn't say anything. You don't you don't speak out of turn in that life and you don't share your thoughts with people because you never know. But I can say this. If I didn't have that meeting, I don't think I mean, if that didn't occur, I don't think I would have ever walked away from the life because I think that bond between me and my dad had to be broken and I had to get a sense of reality. And, you know, I didn't hate him for it when it finally came that he confronted me on it because he read it in my book.

1:06:00I wasn't going to say anything, but then it was such an impact on my life. I said, no, I have to be honest about this. So I put it in my book. That's where he reads and he denies it. And I said, dad, remember you taught me something in life. And he said, what? He said, no matter what, deny, deny, deny, deny, deny. I said, I know you're denying this now, but it's OK. I love you. I'm not mad. I get it. I understand. But that had such an impact on me that I think two years later when I met my wife, that's what really kind of put the, you know, the icing on the cake, as they say, for me to walk away.

1:06:33Did your dad because he at last we left off in his story, he was going to jail until he was 100. So you say he's on parole. What happened? Did he get out? Yeah, he gets out in 2017 at the age of 100. He was the oldest inmate in the system at the time. And my dad passed away at 103 during the pandemic. He was the oldest living mob guy for sure at that time and probably the oldest guy in the world. Guys don't live to that age in that life. It's not conducive to a long lifestyle. Right. Right. Yeah, it was amazing. And, you know, we patched it up. I mean, I stayed with him, visited him during that time.

1:07:13The relationship was never exactly the same. But he accepted what I did because he knew I never hurt anybody. And, you know, there was another situation came up, Megan, where, you know, a guy became an informant and the feds came to me again. He implicated me in some things and they wanted me to cooperate with him. And I said no. And I told my father, I said, Dad, look, if I were to cooperate, a lot of guys are going to go down. I'm not going to do that. Just tell them to leave me alone because I had people upset with me. There was a contract on my life from my former boss because he took it very personal when I walked away.

1:07:47He was really upset with me. But that backed everybody off because I said, I'm not hurting anybody. Just leave me alone. I just want to be on my own. Yeah, because nobody leaves the mob. Like you stay in it till you're dead one way or the other. And you found a way out. Talk about threading the needle. So I know you've spoken about when you were in jail, there was a prison guard who walked by your cell and gave you something that I think was the beginning of your transformation. What was it? Well, yeah, I mean, I had done five years. I'm out on parole 13 months, worst 13 months of my life. People are trying to hurt me.

1:08:25Feds are all over me. I'm trying to get my life reorganized in L.A. I was like a fish out of water, quite honestly. And like a fool, I violate my parole. The government was really on me and they locked me up again. And that first night they tell me, we're going to indict you on another racketeering case. We violated your parole. You'll never see the street again. is what they told me. And they throw me in a hole in MDC in LA, and they're going to transport me back to Brooklyn in the morning. And quite honestly, Megan, it was the worst night of my life because I said, wow. I said, another case?

1:08:59What are they bringing up now? Number one. Number two, I'm married to this girl. She waited for me five years. We have two little babies. She's 27 years old. I'm going to lose the girl I did all of this for. I said, they can't put me out on the yard. Talk to people who want to kill me. I'm going to spend the rest of my life in a six by eight cell. Having visited my dad for 20 years and seeing what it did, I said, you know what? I wish I could just close my eyes and not wake up. And that's how I felt. And honestly, I used to demean people that were suicidal. I was called them weak, can't face up to their troubles.

1:09:31I don't do that anymore. Now, I wasn't suicidal that night, but I can understand how you can reach a low point in your life where is it worth even going forward? Now, of course, I'd dissuade anybody from suicide. But I know how that feeling was. That's how I felt that night. And yeah, a prison guard walked by my cell. He says, Francis, you okay, you don't look good. And I chased him away. I said, get away from me. Leave me alone. I don't want to see any of you guys tonight. And he came back with a Bible and pushed it through the slide on the door. And I spent the next 29 months and seven days in solitary, six by eight cell, 24-7, me and God.

1:10:05And it was during that time, Megan, that I not only studied my Bible inside out and upside down, I had my wife send me in several books and on every faith. I was studying every faith because they said, if I'm going to spend the rest of my life in this cell, I want to know where I'm going at the end of it all. And I just came out of there strongly believing in Christianity. Wow. That guard was like an angel. I mean, truly like delivering the word of God to you. and it doesn't always happen, but it took. Like you heard it and you acted. It changed you. So would you say, you know, because you met Camille, who I know has been such a game changer in your life, you know, between Camille, the Bible, a renewed faith or maybe a brand new faith in God, how then did you come to see this other version of yourself, this other possibility for how your life could be?

1:10:59Well, you know, what I found out, there's two things in life that are so important. Number one is, I always say this, and I try to mentor a lot of young people. I go into prisons and juvenile halls and spoke at many men's ministries. And I told them, you are who you hang out with in this life. If you hang with the wrong crowd, you're going to be the wrong type of person, and they will influence you. I'm on the street. Obviously, I was influenced, and that's the person who I was. And I'm not blaming the others. I'm that regard. And secondly is accountability is everything in life. Who you are accountable to is going to dictate the path that you serve in your life.

1:11:39On the street, accountable to my oath, my God, my boss. I was a criminal. So when I come out now, I'm accountable to God first, accountable to my wife and children, not to screw up. So I end up back in prison because I will say this, look, you can take the boy out of Brooklyn. You can't always take Brooklyn out of the boy. There's a lot of times when I could react the wrong way because I still have certain instincts inside of me. But I catch myself most of the time. And I say, no, I can't do that because I'm jeopardizing the people around me, the people that I love. And so I don't want to make a mistake.

1:12:11It's like, look, I'll say this. And I say this in church, Megan. I have no moral issue whatsoever with taking money from the government in taxes. No moral issue whatsoever. Because I can do better with money now than they can. No doubt about it. They throw our money in the toilet half the time. But I won't do it because I'm not going to jeopardize my freedom again. I'm not going to jeopardize my wife and kids and my grandkids. So you just have a different outlook. And I believe, you know, in Christianity, we believe that we're changed from the inside out. When you develop a relationship with the Lord, he's changing you from inside out.

1:12:48It's not your work on the outside that's doing it. And that's why it's so important to be nourished. It's so important to, you know, to read the word as often as you possibly can. You can never get enough of it and hang out with people that have the same beliefs as you. And that's what's done it for me. I mean, I don't attribute it to my work. I think I'm probably the most fortunate, most blessed person around because I should either be dead or in prison for the rest of my life. That's what I earned. But for some reason, I feel like you're like your dad. You're what, 71 years old now. You look amazing.

1:13:22You look young. You seem vibrant. Like you probably have another 30 years at least. But it's probably related to your good choices in your second half. Yeah, I think I'm 72. And, you know, my wife, I have five daughters and two sons. Well, my daughters are all fitness crazy. I mean, they're fitness experts and personal trainers. My wife, that's been her lifestyle. So they don't allow me to get off track in that regard. So, yeah, and I think we have some good DNA. I mean, my dad was one of 19 kids. and all of the kids died in their late 80s, 90s. My dad outlived them all. But, you know, so we have some good DNA also.

1:14:02So, you know, I think that's part of it. So you just got to watch yourself.

1:14:10All right, I got to ask you this, because I know you're on the straight and narrow now and you found God, but do you ever have the moment, you know, where you have like the nasty clerk at the store or what where you're like, if you, if you only knew, like, just, just, you know, like, just watch it. Oh, absolutely. Megan happens quite a bit. And let me tell you something. Yes, they would have to keep going. Oh, my gosh. I'm on social media. And some of the comments that come in, you want to like jump through the computer at him, you know, and get it. But it's crazy. I do. I have those moments, you know, absolutely.

1:14:47It's like I said, you don't, you know, you don't get a lobotomy when you come to Christ. You just, you just try to, you know, tell your behavior the right way. And, you know, and I think older, when you get older, too, you start to calm down a bit. At least, I don't know about Sammy, but with me, yeah. he honestly like i couldn't believe he he talked he had a very different experience as you know because he he yeah he was murdering a lot of people and he talked to us this about the story the first the first murder he committed and it was someone he knew it was someone he was like kind of close to we actually pulled the clip um i'll play it it's top five because i never thought about killing people.

1:15:30But I went through with it. We did it. One night, we went out to half-hour clubs. We got in the car about 4 o 'clock in the morning, and as we drove away, I shot him in the back of the head twice. I didn't feel any remorse. I didn't feel anything. And I thought that was peculiar. I thought either something's wrong with me or I'm just a stone cold killer. And I'm going to fit in the mafia perfectly. Such an interesting man. And I asked him, Mike, you know, what do you ever think about God, heaven, judgment? And he said, God made me a lion. He made me the way I am. I've thought about it so many times.

1:16:19I've talked to my friends about it. Like I've done so many interviews, of course, right? Like it takes a lot for one to stand out. and for obvious reasons, his did. But how do you factor that in? You know, your redemption, your relationship with Christ now and atonement. You know, Megan, again, and I've thought about this quite a bit and I had a very interesting meeting with Jordan Peterson, who is so analytical. And he asked me, you know, he delved, he said, Michael, how did you do certain things that you did? And I said, well, you know, Jordan, I didn't feel good about it. I said, but I knew I had to do it.

1:16:56So I would kind of step outside of myself and handle what I had to handle very efficiently and then come back to who I was. And Jordan looked at me and he says, well, how do you know who's the real you? And I said, whoa. I said, you know what, Jordan? That's a good question. I never thought of that. But that's how I dealt with certain things that were uncomfortable for me to do. But the fact that you're able to do them, I don't know what that says. Megan, quite honestly. But, you know, the last thing that I was going to have anybody say about me was that I didn't perform or I didn't follow an order or I didn't do what I was supposed to do.

1:17:36So that's that's how I dealt with it differently than Sammy, obviously. But look, there was guys in that life. You know, I say this all the time. You talk about a Roy DeMeo. I'm sure you heard his name, maybe a Greg Scarpa. These were serial killers. They were serial killers. They would have been killers even if they weren't in the mafia. The mafia didn't turn them into that. That's who they were. You can't be that kind of person and say, well, the mob made me do it. No, you got to be that person. And obviously the experience might be enhanced because that's a lifestyle that things like that occur, but it didn't make you that way.

1:18:16That's who you were. And I think, I think what he just summed it up. He said, I'd be perfect for the mob, but this is, he figured that out, that this is who he was and he'd be a perfect guy to be in that life. For the listening audience, that was episode 352 from July of 2022. If you want to go back and listen to it. Three, five, two. So, so then, so you've been out of prison now by my count, some 30 years, you've maintained a life on the up and up, created a whole family. You're a motivational speaker. So what are, what are the big takeaways for you? You know, and you, you talk to people in these motivational speeches and you talk to your grandkids, like what are the biggest things you've learned from this life?

1:19:03Well, you know, when you're determined and you have the right support, you know, the right people around you. And obviously for me, it's also a faith issue. You can come out of a bad situation. It's not easy. And, you know, I may have had an advantage because like I said, I surrounded myself with the right people. And but I think the message that I that resonates all the time, and I've done probably over 2 ,000 speaking engagements, is that if I came out of a tough situation, you can also. And that's what people want to hear. They love a redemption story. Many people are struggling out there, and it doesn't matter what walk of life.

1:19:42I've spoken to the most affluent people, and then obviously people that are in almost poverty-stricken themselves. And everybody is struggling with something, and they want to know how to overcome it. And I think my story resonates in that regard, because people do believe you don't walk away from that life without entering a witness protection program and going through the whole, you know, ordeal that you have to go through. And the fact that I was able to do that, you know, raise a family, have a wife and children, have a career and a profession. I think it's motivating to people. And, you know, it's amazing, you know, no matter where I go, you know, I always open it up or quite often, I should say, open it up for a Q &A.

1:20:23And you would think all the stories, all the questions rather are mob related. They're not. The questions are, how did you do this? How did your wife react? Why did she stay with you? What about your kids? What kind of an impact did it have on them? You know, so I understand that so many of the questions become personal. The reason being because those people are either dealing with something in their life or they know somebody that's dealing with something. You know, that's a good point. And it's really one of those, like, no matter what you're dealing with, it's almost guaranteed it's not quite as tricky as what Michael was dealing with.

1:20:57I mean, very, very tricky to get out of the mob with your life secured and return to your family and a life above board, you know, without crossing that criminal line after so many years on the opposite side. It's a magician type move. What about today? I mean, the mafia was really undermined by prosecutors like Rudy Giuliani, but it's not gone. So how do you, how is it today? Do you know? And, you know, what's its status? Well, I can tell you, you know, I always say this, the golden years of Cosa Nostra mafia in this country, really from the late 40s, early 50s, right through to the mid 80s when, again, we know what happened.

1:21:40And, you know, there was a time when I was in New York, Daily News, New York Post, New York Times, Newsday, every single day or every other day, story about the mob, without a doubt, one family or another who's getting busted every other day. Now I read the New York Post every morning, maybe every six months. And as a matter of fact, I think last week, 10 guys got busted or something like that. So they've gone undercover. rubber. It's not nearly what it was during my time. I know that for a fact, but it seems like they're getting smarter. You know, you don't hear too many guys on surveillance tapes and things like that.

1:22:17It's not going to go away in my lifetime. But, you know, another thing I've learned, things happen in patterns. When I was on the street, they had 1400 agents that were assigned to all five families. We had 750 approximately made guys, guys that took the oath. You had almost two agents for every made guy. Now, I believe there's less than 100. Why? Because terrorism has become, you know, more important right now and the focus on that. So when things like that happen, and some of the heat comes off, these guys are pretty resourceful, and they start to build up again. And then there'll be a time possibly when, you know, they come down hard again, because we're seeing the government is seeing more impact that the guys on the street to having.

1:23:00I don't know. You know, this time it might be that it was seriously wounded to the point where it'll never recover to what it was before. But I don't sell them short. I'm not saying it's over, but that's the pattern that I see, you know, that I've seen occur over the years. And last but not least, Rudy Giuliani. You know, we talked just a bit. I made a reference to how his public image has changed. There's no question he has changed himself personally. He's had some personal problems. But, you know, many of us remember what he did in New York and how he behaved after 9-11 and what kind of a mayor he was and factor all of that in and sizing up his legacy.

1:23:42How do you see it? Well, again, for me, it's I don't look too much at what's going on currently in politics with him. I just know that he was a tremendous prosecutor at the time. Again, he was my enemy. But you have to give him his due. He did what he said he was going to do. And he used the laws very, very effectively. And more than that, for me, his legacy was the mayor of New York. You know, when I got violated and the marshals came and picked me up and they were bringing me into to get in front of the judge was in the early 90s. It was 91, I think we were in the car and they said, Mike, we got a little time before we have to appear in court.

1:24:24What do you want to do? I've been out of New York for a while. I said, I want two things. I'd like a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee and let's go around Manhattan. I haven't seen it in a while. And I could not believe Times Square and how Rudy had cleaned it up. I mean, I grew up with that being Smut City. And I was like amazed that I said, wow, this guy really did do a job here. You know, so I was fascinated by that. You know, so that's to me, that's his legacy. I look at him as a prosecutor, the job that he did and and the mayor of New York. And of course, after 9-11, he was tremendous. So to me, that's how I remember him.

1:25:05Thank you so much for telling your story and for finding a way forward and setting the example for others who have struggled in any number of ways. All the best to you. Well, Megan, thanks for having me. And like I said, I've been watching you since your days in Fox and I appreciate just your honesty and the way you, you know, you just carry yourself and break things out. It's for me, it's it's really a joy to see. So thank you. Oh, I'm flattered. It's so nice to meet you. To be continued.

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1:26:38We have a fascinating program for you today. One filled with crime, murder, money, and betrayal. Today we're talking to one of the most infamous mobsters in American history, Salvatore Gravano, otherwise known as Sammy the Bull. To understand his story, we have to take a step back in time to the early 1970s when The Godfather hit the big screen and changed the perception of the mafia in America. You spend time with your family? Sure I do. Good. Because a man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man. You look terrible. Once you eat. I want you to rest well, and a month from now, this Hollywood big shot's going to give you what you want.

1:27:24It's too late. They start shooting in a week. I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse.

1:27:33At about that same time, Gravano, a kid who grew up without mob connections in his family, slowly eased into La Cosa Nostra and made his first kill. Over the course of the next two decades, Sammy the Bull would rise up the ranks of New York's notorious Gambino crime family, raking in millions upon millions of dollars and repeatedly killing. He has admitted to 19 murders in all, including his own brother-in-law, his best friend, and the Gambino family mob boss, Paul Castellano, in 1985. Deadly messages from organized crime to organized crime and the rest of society. The murder of Gambino crime family boss Paul Castellano yesterday, or the 1979 assassination of Cosa Nostradon, Carmine Galenti, unsolved very public executions by an underworld that plays by their own rules and their own code of justice.

1:28:28The Castellano murder, particularly brazen and defiant, since Castellano was gunned down a day before, he was to resume standing trial for auto theft and murder. Organized crime had served up its own sentence. By the late 1980s, the new Don, John Gotti, had named Sammy the Bull his right-hand man. Gotti himself was a ruthless mobster and media darling who dressed in expensive suits and enjoyed the finer things in life, earning him the nickname the Dapper Don. He also repeatedly escaped conviction with, as it would turn out, Sammy's help, which we'll get to, earning him another nickname, the Teflon Don.

1:29:11Remember how they use that about Donald Trump? Well, it was first about John Gotti. But in 1991, everything changed. John Gotti and Sammy the Bull were behind bars facing a slew of charges when Sammy decided to flip and do the unthinkable, cooperate with the feds. At the time, he was the highest ranking gangster to break his blood oath, earning him the ire of mob aficionados who dubbed him a rat. Not since Joe Valacci in the 60s has such a high-ranking member of the mob turned traitor. Sammy the Bull Gravano now joins the ranks of those who have broken the cardinal rule of the mafia. Omerta, the code of silence.

1:29:54Sammy's testimony helped send John Gotti away for good. The Teflon is gone, the Don is covered with Velcro, and every charge in the indictment stuck. and resulted in dozens of other mobsters going to prison as well. One top FBI agent says that testimony by Sammy led to the demise of organized crime in New York. Since then, there have been numerous books and movies made about the Gambino crime family. And while some may still consider Sammy a, quote, rat, hundreds of thousands of people are curious fans of his. subscribing to his podcast launched right around the time our own did called Our Thing, which is what Cosa Nostra means.

1:30:40In fact, his YouTube channel alone has more than 77 million views. Sammy the Bull Gravano, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Thank you. It's a pleasure. So let me start with this. After that background, how are you still upright? How are you still walking around on two feet? Well, the mafia changed quite a bit. It doesn't do certain things. And people understand the story, what happened. That word rat, I mean, they use that. They do that all the time. But in my case, I was offered that position to cooperate a bunch of times. I was arrested all my life. I never cooperated.

1:31:32I was facing life in a number of different cases. But when it came to John Gotti, I was arrested in 1991 with him. And after 11 months, the worst 11 months I've ever done in prison, I've been in prison 22 years. of my life, but he wanted me to take the weight so he can go free. He was going to back up the tapes that the government had. And most of those tapes were all lies about me killing union people and taking over or killing my partners and taking over. None of that was true. But he thought that he would have the lawyers back up those tapes and turn around in a way to say, well, you hear John complaining about him.

1:32:27It's not John.

1:32:37would be set free and i would go to prison he had the balls to actually tell me this to my face and um that's when i walked away from him the mafia and whatever would happen would happen i wasn't afraid of it now i understand well and let me just jump in because uh we'll get to that in detail in just a bit. And what you're basically saying is that you felt he was going to sell you up the river and you sold him up the river first. But is that why you don't think anybody has tried to seek retribution? I mean, I understand there's been at least one attempt on your life since your testimony against him, allegedly by a family member of John Gotti's.

1:33:20But is that it? Because you did witness protection, you did all that. I can't imagine nobody else has tried to come get you. Well, there was a team that came down when John Gotti was away. Peter Gotti, his brother, became the boss. He put together a team to come down and kill me. They found me. They were afraid to even come near me. And they were. They devised all kinds of plans, a bomb. Then this thing that spins around and shoots shotgun shells and that didn't work. Nothing worked. And I got arrested again in. In 2000, February of 2000, and it didn't get done. When I got arrested, I had in my apartment, I had five guns, four guns planted in different places.

1:34:22in my kitchen, in my bathroom, my living room, I expected them to come down. And I had one on me all the time. I was actually waiting for it to happen. And they worked with me. These were people. Some people were my crew. One of them was my brother-in-law, Eddie Garofola.

1:34:46And they knew me and they knew I wouldn't run from it. and uh they were cowards they didn't make the move they were afraid to make the move and i got when once i went in prison again uh that part of it was over so there was an attempt

1:35:10excuse me they found me but it didn't work out for them it worked out for me as i said you're doing a podcast now and so on. Are you at all in hiding? I mean, is it something that do you need to keep your whereabouts unknown? No, I think the whole country knows where I am. I'm not in hiding. Listen, I went into the witness protection program. I didn't want to go into the program. I had money. I didn't want to go in. I did only five years on my first hit, my first pinch. And the government begged me to go in that they would look terrible if I refused and didn't go in. And we had meetings and they said, you know, you got a great sentence.

1:36:00Give us something. Come into the program. I agreed to go into the program for a year. I did eight months in the program. Something came up. A woman recognized me and they wanted me to start over again. I said, no, I'm not starting over again. I promised a year. I'll give you a year. There's four more months. It didn't. They wanted to start over. And I quit and walked away. I went to Phoenix where my family was. And I stayed there for about another four and a half years before I got busted again. Since I got out, I got out in 2017. This all started by wife. My daughter did a book. I did a book when I got out in 96.

1:36:47And she wanted to do a book. We couldn't sell the book. And then somebody came to her about a podcast. And she said, would you work for me? And of course, we're divorced. And give me the right to use you to do a podcast. And I said, of course, I'll help you. And that's how I started. a year after that or maybe a little bit more than a year two years after that my son put me on Facebook a little while after that he put me on

1:37:24YouTube unbeknownst to me I didn't even know it my phone I was getting all kinds of calls and my son left one day and said I put you on Facebook I put you on YouTube and that's what the calls were about. So I just stayed on that. And I continued the podcast on that. And it grew to big numbers. I'm almost at a half a million subscribers. And I got 77, 78 million views. And now I'm doing a whole bunch of other things. And a lot of I was reading and preparing for this. a lot of men and women in law enforcement, in particular FBI agents, watch and listen to the podcast and the YouTube show because they say it's fascinating.

1:38:10They've never been able to get this sort of an insight into a real life mobster's thinking. And you talk openly about the crimes that were committed by yourself, by others. A lot of these guys who were covering you or on you back then are listening, thinking, oh, my God, this is helping me put things together. So it's just the all around you obviously you have immunity now for those crimes given the deal you struck with the government but it's a fascinating thing to think about the fbi agents who once tracked you and and guys you worked with now listening to you and are fans of the show i mean actually fans of the show so wait let me let me pause you there and let's go back let's start with you as a kid because as i mentioned in the intro you were not raised in a family where your dad was in the mob and your granddad was in the mob.

1:38:57This was not foretold. As I understand it, your dad was fairly successful. You had a nice family and you had some difficulties as a child, but it wasn't related to anything in terms of crime or the mob. No, my mother and father were totally legitimate. My mother was a seamstress. My father was a painter. Back then, they used to use lead in paint, got lead poisoning, had to stay away from painting. My mother got an offer from a Jewish contractor. She would go and make the clothes, women's clothes. And the guy told her, Katie, you're great. Open up a little factory and I'll get you work. If you could produce, you know, the quality of work that you do, we'll give you our work and that's exactly what she did my father jumped in with her to help her and they worked together they had a dress factory and that's what they did I had two sisters neither one of them had anything to do with the mafia boyfriends or anything one of my brother-in-laws was an engineer the other brother-in-law was a plumbing contractor Later on, he came in the mafia with me and he became a made member.

1:40:16But before that, before I was in the mafia, I had no relation to the mafia whatsoever. But in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, it was saturated with the mafia. So it was on every street corner. It was around. As a kid growing up, I was dyslexic. I didn't do good in school. I got left back in the fourth grade, the seventh grade. I had nothing but problems in school. I got thrown out I never got past the 8th grade and I was in a gang and we stayed away from the mafia we knew who they were we knew they were dangerous so we stayed away from them it was us against the world and we didn't want nothing to do with the mafia and at 19 years old I got drafted and I went into the military during the Vietnam War I spent two years there and when you were drafted, you got two years.

1:41:14If you join, you had to do three. I did two. I came out and went right back into a gang. Can I just ask you that? Why? Why? Because I would think, I would like to think that a couple of years in the army would instill a moral code in you that would give you some pause about going back into a life of crime. Well, it wasn't into a life of crime. it was back into being in the gang. I mean, that's what I knew. The only thing I knew, I was taught how to kill and how to do things in the military. And I would have killed people to protect the country. They gave us that bullshit that it was communism was coming here.

1:41:54They're going to rape your mother, your sisters. And so I was brainwashed a little bit by the government. I mean, I never met a bad Vietnamese person. The only people I know who are Vietnamese do my nails or my toenails and they just seem to be nice people. I've never met Vietnamese people in prison, so maybe they're good crooks. So I think the whole thing was bullshit. So I went right back into the into a gang. But unbeknownst to me, while the two years I was gone, most of my friends hooked up with different mafia families and they were hooked up with somebody. One of my friends, Tommy Spiro, said, my uncle wants to talk to you.

1:42:37His name was Shorty Spiro. He was in a notorious crew, Carmine Persico. There was a war going on at that time between the Gallows and the Profaci. And there was different sides. The war stopped for a while. So when I got hooked up with them, there was no war going on. I knew sooner or later they kill people that I would be called. That's where I did my first murder. It's a long story. I would tell you if you want to hear it. But I did my first piece of work there. And then Shorty at that after that had told me, Sammy, go get your clothes. Joe Gallo had come out of crazy. Joe Gallo came out of prison.

1:43:27He said, go get your clothes. We're going to hit the mattresses. I didn't even know what that meant back then. It wasn't a million movies. And he said, they're a pack of wolves. We're a pack of wolves. We're going to live together. If you have a girlfriend, get rid of her. If you got a job, stop. You're going to live with us 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And we're going to hunt them. They're going to hunt us. And that's what you have to do from this point on. And that's the beginnings of your time in organized crime. That wasn't just the gang. That was one of the five New York crime families.

1:44:04Yes, it became the Colombo. It was a Profachi family. Profachi died and they made Joe Colombo the boss. So when I got in, Joe Colombo was the boss. My first hit was ordered from Joe Colombo to Carmine Persico to Shorty to me. And it was somebody in our crew who was plotting to kill Shorty and me. And his wife was having an affair with Shorty's nephew. And he devised a plot to kill Shorty and me to cause confusion. A couple of months later, six months later, he would kill Tommy Spiro. He went to somebody, Frankie, who was in the crew and asked for his help. Frankie, instead of helping him, went to Shorty and told him about the plot.

1:44:58That's how the whole thing happened. Now, just to take a step back, you mentioned you had dyslexia as a kid and you didn't make it past the eighth grade. And I know that there were some bullies in your life as well. And one of those incidents led to your nickname, Sammy the Bull. They tried to steal your bike. You didn't let it go peacefully. You were scrappy. And these mobsters saw you fighting and said, look at this kid. And they nicknamed you Sammy the Bull. Now, jumping forward now to this point, you may have stood up to bullies. but you didn't go to Vietnam when you were serving in 1964. So you hadn't killed anybody, whether in a military uniform or otherwise at this point.

1:45:39So when they say to you, you're going to kill this guy, is it scary? Is it frightening? Is it daunting? Or is it all business at that point, even as a young man at this point? Well, it was scary. I had a couple of incidents that were scary that I would have used the gun. I never did. But when that came, I knew it would come sooner or later. So. The story, I heard the story, what it was, I thought I was being bullshitted a little bit, you know, that the guy wanted to kill me. I couldn't understand why he wanted to kill me. I had nothing to do with his wife and an affair, but he had this stupid little plot, like I just said.

1:46:27and when they gave me the order, they said, who do you want to come with you? And I said, your nephew, Tommy Spiro. He created this monster. And then I wanted the guy Frankie, because I couldn't understand why he didn't tell me. And I wanted to be able to talk to him about that. So they put those two people on the hit with me. And, you know, I watched a movie one time and it's a person who was about to kill. And he was sweating and scared and all of this stuff. I thought that's what happens to you before you commit this kind of a crime. Because I never thought about killing people. But I went through with it.

1:47:13We did it one night. We went out to half-hour clubs. We got in the car about 4 o 'clock in the morning. And as we drove away, I shot him in the back of the head twice. twice you were in the back of the car i was in the back seat where was he he was in the front seat the passenger seat and um when we went to a spot we went out of the neighborhood we pulled into a uh like a nice community it was a couple it was miles away from brooklyn um rockaway and They had nice homes with lawns and quiet. We drove over there. I took him. I picked him up out of the car. And I. Put him on the street, the sidewalk.

1:48:05I got in the car. I opened the window. I put the gun out and I shot him three more times. We got back. We went to the neighborhood. We cleaned the car, got rid of the gun. And. We were living together, a bunch of guys. I went and take a shower. I stayed in the shower quite a long time. The water running on me. And I was waiting for this thing to happen, being nervous and sweating. And it didn't happen. Nothing happened. And I went to bed. I slept like a baby. I got up the next morning. There was confusion. Some of the young girls were still with us. Oh, my God. They killed Joe Colucci and Rockaway.

1:48:51I remember asking one of the girls, did they know who did it? Did they find out who did it? She said, no, it wasn't. It's in the papers already, but it's not in the papers. I don't know if they caught the people or what. And I remember we all went to the corner where we stay. And I had like an out-of-body experience that I felt like I was above somewhere looking down and listening to all of them talking. And I felt absolutely nothing. And then Shorty came with his nephew, Tommy Spiro. And I came back to reality. And they said, the Carmine Persico wants to talk to you. So we got in the car and we went down there.

1:49:44But I didn't feel... excuse me, Carmine Persico at that point was the, that family's boss. No, he was a captain, but a very, very powerful captain. He was leading the war against the gallows. And, uh, so I went down and met with him. I was told not to talk. I didn't talk. Tommy Spiro explained the whole situation, what happened in detail. He grabbed me, hugged me, kissed me on the cheek. And he told me great job. so and i i didn't feel anything i went to the funeral and uh i didn't feel any remorse i didn't feel anything and i thought that was peculiar i thought either something's wrong with me or i'm just a stone cold killer and i'm gonna fit in the mafia perfectly and uh i guess i what i when i became not a stone cold killer.

1:50:47I was good at what I did. I was good at what I did in a lot of ways in construction, running unions, but I was also becoming a professional hit guy. Had you ever been a man of faith prior to that? Had you ever gone to church? Did you have any relationship with God? No, of course. I still, I believe in God. I went to church as a kid. I stopped going to church. I believe in prison, I joined the Indians because I wanted to smoke. And you have to join their religion. And they allow that in prison, in the federal prisons. So I joined them. I went in to get tobacco. You weren't allowed to smoke from 2004.

1:51:36for. I went in really wanting to smoke and steal some tobacco and bring it to myself. But I got to understand their religion, the way they believe in God. I also, at one point, a friend of mine grabbed me and said, Sammy, you're not an Indian. We do Wicca. Why don't you join our group? And I did. I joined their group as well. So I started to understand different religions and everybody seems to believe in God. They're just a path. What path do you want to take to get to God? Indians have it. Wicca has it. Muslims have it. Jews have it. Catholics have it. Christians have it. It's just a path. And I believe most of them - Was there a moment back then, you know, when you're talking about being in the shower and no remorse, I wonder whether there was any moment of, no matter what I feel, I recognize I've crossed over.

1:52:34I've done something. I've sinned in the most profound way possible. And at some point there will be a price to pay. No, no, I don't look at it that way. I never felt that way. I still don't think that way. I think that God makes people, creates people, and he creates lions and he creates lambs. I think I'm a lion. And whatever you have to pay, if you have to pay anything, why would he create a lion? If there was a God and he was interested in what was going on, why do little kids get cancer and die? Why do little kids get raped? Why do so many things happen? And talking about religions, I mean, I was a Catholic, brought up that way, baptized, communion, confirmation, till I found out what priests do.

1:53:30And I had no intention of committing or my crimes to talk to him. I was asked that once by a priest. Then I told him, yeah, you want me to tell you what I do? Tell me what you do. And then I'll talk to you about what I do. So I don't believe in religion. I believe in God, but I think religion is bullshit. I think it's all about money. It's all about different things. They commit evil things to good people. So, you know, I'm away from religions. I respected the Indian religion, the Wicca religion. it stunned me. It's the only religion that they put a woman above God. The goddess of the moon, the water, and the earth.

1:54:23God is the god of the forest and the mountains. Why do they put, I asked, a woman above God? Because she creates life. She needs a man's seed but she, in her womb, takes care of life and then gives birth and creates life. I understand that I'm somebody with common sense. If you make sense to me in a certain way, I understand it. So I understood that religion. Now, a lot of people will not be happy with me saying this, but of course it's a, it's a, they call it a pagan religion. They call it all kinds of things. It was before the Christianity even. And I understand that part about a woman giving birth and creating life.

1:55:15Well, I mean, I've, I've, I've read that. Unlike some in the mob, you, you were very, you were a family man in the midst of all this. You went home and had dinner with your wife and your two kids each night. Your daughter, Karen has talked about that publicly many times. And so there has been this respect for your family members, for your wife, for your daughter, in a way that even the people who were in the mob said, you know, for example, John Gotti would go out carousing with other women after hours and you would go home to your family. That piece of that piece of your commitment of your life, you know, you honored despite what was happening on the other front.

1:55:56And I know that you don't see these as real, as murders, you know, in the same way a soldier doesn't commit a murder when he kills somebody. This is how an FBI agent explained it in one public interview, that a soldier would not be murdering. You don't see your kills as murders because there was a code behind them because you say the people you killed had sort of agreed to live by this code and die by this code. And on that note, that heavy note, let me pause it. Okay, because I want to get into that next. And that's a whole other chapter for us. So stand by. Let me squeeze in a commercial break and much, much more with Sammy the Bull Gravano as he stays with us for the whole show.

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1:57:07Muscle milk, protein for all. Hey, Chicagoland, the Wayfair store is in your neighborhood at Eden's Plaza in Wilmette. Finally, you can feel the fabric, sit on the sectionals, and even open the refrigerators. Plus, our in-store designers will help you bring it all together with free one-on-one design support for any project on any budget. Yep, we said free. Oh, and did we mention the cafe? So what are you waiting for? Come see all that's in store. Visit the Wayfair store today at Edens Plaza and Wilmette. Wayfair, every style, every home. So, Sammy, it was actually a quote that I was reading, not from an FBI agent.

1:57:46It was from Terrence Winter, who the audience may know as the executive producer of The Sopranos. And he also did Boardwalk Empire. And he took part in a documentary about you and said the following. Many mobsters consider what they do almost military in nature. They consider themselves soldiers. So they rationalize a lot of really bad behavior. You wouldn't think about calling a soldier at war a murderer. So therefore, if they're a soldier and they're at war, they're not murderers either. They're just doing their job. Does that capture the mentality? I believe so. I 100 percent. You know, I watched the program one time during World War Two.

1:58:28We dropped an atom bomb, an atomic bomb, an atom bomb twice, not once, twice. But I saw the guy who was in the plane and over Hiroshima or somewhere and he pressed the button. and it killed 100 ,000 people, men, women, and children, in a split second. And they were patting him on the back that he did a great job. The war was ended early because of those things. And if I was talking to the guy, I would say, listen, you did a great job, a great military guy. You fought for the country. You did what you were supposed to do. How do you feel Now, knowing you just killed 100 ,000 people, men, women and children, does that bother you at all?

1:59:23And I'm sure he would tell me no. Because he was fighting for the country. He was fighting for what he thought was right in the mafia. It's part of it's not a gang no more. It's part of my heritage. It came from Italy, Sicily. It started in Sicily and it came to this country. So it's part of my heritage. So it's not just a gang. A gang is, you know, killing in a gang or doing certain things for a drug supply is a different thing. But this is a soldier. It was explained to me. I was involved in the Johnny Keys hit. It was a major, major hit. And it was he was a guy who had 50 hits under his belt.

2:00:10and me and him were going to go at each other. And it was explained to me that we were like two Samurais. Now, I understand a samurai is a different thing than us. They're actually more violent than us. But I really felt that way, that we were two Samurais who met on the battlefield. What about, let me ask you a couple of follow-ups on that. So obviously, when we when we dropped the bomb at the end of World War Two, they estimated that we saved somewhere upwards of 25, 30 million lives by putting an end to World War Two. And the Japanese would not surrender. And so, you know, I'm not defending the killing of 100 ,000 people exactly.

2:01:00But in a way, I am because it was the right decision. It saved far more lives than it actually cost. But in the in the mafia, and I can get it if the guy. By the way, let me let me answer your question. Let me answer that question. The people who say that it saved twenty five to thirty million lives was who the government? Of course, they're going to say that. I mean, independent analysts to take a look at who have taken a look at this ad nauseum since the end of World War Two will tell you that the the lives saved far, far outnumbered the lives cost. doesn't make it not controversial. But you can't talk about it without adding that perspective.

2:01:38But I mean, the thing about the mafia, and I can understand if a guy was going to kill you, I mean, even the law recognizes, maybe not exactly the way that you would do it, but what recognizes a right to self-defense. But, you know, it seems like it was a whole criminal justice system that you guys agreed to, where, you know, you sleep with the guy's wife, you could get whacked. You interfere with my business, you could get whacked. It basically is just whatever the head of the crime family wants. And the guy doesn't show up like a samurai face to face in a meeting where you fight it out to the death.

2:02:11He just gets in the car with you. He gets whacked in the back of the head. So I'm interested in the moral, you know, the way you thought about those kind of differences morally. Well, morally, I don't know if it's to me, if it makes a difference, if you kill somebody on a battlefield or you kill somebody in the car or whether you use a gun or whether you use a knife or whether you use poison. Dead is dead. You just took a life. It doesn't matter how you take it. You can beat somebody to death. You can fight. You can win a fight. You can go overboard and just beat this person to death. So you just took a life.

2:02:51No matter how it is, whether it's more gory about the means. Okay, you're talking about the means. Yeah, the means of how you're doing it. I don't know if it makes any difference. Now they want to take guns away from everybody because there's a shooting. I mean, if there's not a shooting, you want to take guns away from everybody. You get some sicko. So he goes in with a bomb and he blows half the school up and he kills more people actually than he's using a gun. Does that make you happy that you didn't have a gun? Thank you. So, I don't think the means of what you use is that important. You're taking a life, whatever it is, whatever your reason is, whatever the senses look at later on, you're taking a life.

2:03:40Whether it's on a battlefield, in the street, no matter how you do it or what you do, you're taking a life, bottom line. But we have excuses for what, how you do it. if me and him were in a battlefield in the street, we like years ago, we back up and we pull out a gun from the side and we both shoot at each other. You take it to life. What's the difference? How you do it? That is dead. My brother-in-law had a good saying. You get hit by a car and you're all crunched up, bleeding. All your bones are busted up and you're dying. How would you feel if the person ran over and said, it's me, Sammy. He didn't do it on purpose.

2:04:26It's an accident. Does it make a difference to me if it's an accident or it's on purpose? I'm all crushed up. I'm in tremendous pain. I'm about to die. Death is death. I don't know, though. How it happens. That ignores the moral code. I mean, I agree with you in terms of, you know, you die by a knife, you die by a gun. It doesn't make much of a difference to you. But we're expanding beyond that, too. The law recognizes some killings as justified. It would not recognize any of the ones that you're talking about as justified. And I think you know that. It's just what you're saying is that in the mafia, you live by a different code of justice.

2:05:07And as I understand it, your position is that you wouldn't run around killing what you call legitimate people. If somebody pissed you off in your social life, he wouldn't be at risk of getting whacked. You only, for the most part, and we'll get to one of the exceptions I know about, but it sounds like it may have been an accident. But for the most part, you only went after people who were part of your world and who had agreed to live and die by this code. Right. Exactly. Then I never killed a woman or a child and I never killed even a legitimate guy who I didn't get along with or whatever. I mean, I had fights, but that's as far as that would go.

2:05:53I'm not going to kill somebody because I don't like what he said or something like that. We're not complete lunatics. Some of us became lunatics, but I never I never went to that degree. I lived by this code and I was willing to die by the code I told my family when I cooperated we talked about cooperating when I cooperated I said if somebody comes down and kills me don't even be mad don't say nothing don't do anything don't be mad I broke the code I understood that I could die for what I was doing if I could understand it you understand it leave it alone so I believe in that code, just like I believe in God, but I don't believe in certain religions, probably most religions.

2:06:40But you've got to live by something. And I live by what I was taught by my mother and my father, the legitimate. And a lot of people would say I was a different kind of gangsters. You talked about the law enforcement. I'm still friends with agents, NYPD cops. till today because they were they were different we got along we were friends they had one life I had another life we understood each other and uh I was basically a different kind of a gangster I cared about people I'm a people's person basically uh my ex-wife and my daughter or my son will say dad you talk to everybody yeah they're human beings I talk to people I love people.

2:07:30I like hard working people. But what about Alan Kaiser? This was a 16-year-old boy who you killed. And I understand your defense was accidental. No, no. It's not accidental. And I didn't kill him. First of all, there was a gang who came, and they actually did movies about this. Our after-hour club, Bikers, and I went to that place. I wound up getting beaten. I got jumped by six, seven guys. My ankle was broke on both sides. I had a cast from my knee down and I had permission to go after this guy. And it wasn't Alan Kaiser. So I'll tell you what happened. We got in the car and we were looking for him.

2:08:16One night we saw him pull up in front of the house, double part, different guy, Aldo Candido. Yes. Yes. And I said, that's him. We went back to our club. We got guns. We got a shotgun. Now, it was supposed to be loaded with double-O buck, which would put down a moose, but they were using it for pigeons and playing around with it. It was birdshot. So anyway, Louis Melito had it. I said, pull up to the car. When you see him coming out of that house where the car was double-bucked, stop. Ask him for directions like where lost I was laying down in the back seat with a cast on my leg there was a driver and Louie Molina was in the passenger seat I said when he gets to the car to answer you I'll shoot him in the face

2:09:10Louie Molina rolled down the window when he came out and he must have been told the night before that what they did was to a maid guy me and he knew he was in trouble So as soon as Louis asked him for directions, he started to run. Louis jumped out of the car, threw a shot at him, hit him in the back. He kept running, didn't put him down. He kept running. This kid, Alan Kaiser, and I spoke to the family and everybody about this. He was 16. We didn't know he was 16. He wasn't a target, wasn't in the hit, wasn't supposed to get it. No accident. He ran at Louis Molino. He might have been part of that gang.

2:09:55I don't know. The driver yelled to Louie Malito, guy coming at you. He turned around with the shotgun. Inches away from the guy and shot him in the chest. When he went down, he put the shotgun to his head, pulled the trigger again and killed him. We found out the next day that he was 16 years old. We were in shock. It was terrible. 16. The number itself shocks you. But why did he run it? Louie Molito. Why did he do that? He wasn't the target. Nobody was shooting at him. He could have ran back at his house. He could have went the other way. He could have just stood there. And never got touched.

2:10:41So now whether he was on drugs, whether he was part of the gang, I don't know. You hear stories. Just for the record, his family says he was not a gangster. Quote, he was just an innocent kid walking home. No, no, not a gangster. He's 16 years old. He definitely wasn't a gangster. He could have been a gang member. Or he knew this guy because the guy was in his house. So the family can't deny that. That guy was in his house. They were together. He came out. The other guy came to the car and he was on the side. Nobody was going to shoot him. And the family recognizes that, too. I talked with the sister and she said, I don't know what made him do that.

2:11:23Now, people will say that I killed a 16 year old kid. First of all, I didn't shoot him. Louie did. But it doesn't matter. If I could have shot him, I would have. I'm not trying to make myself a good guy. I didn't shoot him. But the police found him exactly where it was in the street where he got to. He came off the sidewalk into the street after Louie. Not on the sidewalk with his books coming home from school, like you hear some stories. None of that's true. Now, it was a shame. We were sick about that he was 16 years old, and we were confused why he even did that. And he wasn't a target of the hit.

2:12:04We weren't even looking at him. But what would you expect? What would I expect Louie to do? The guy is actually a foot away from him. What is he supposed to do? Just stand there and wait for the guy to grab him? and tackle him to the ground to do something. He's on a hit. You know, obviously, this is why we don't choose a life of crime. This is why we don't go to murder people in neighborhoods and take the law into our own hands and why the law prohibits it, because bad things can happen. And that's why there's something called felony murder. You're in the process of committing one felony and you accidentally or otherwise commit another murder.

2:12:41You're going to be charged for it, even if it was an accident in the course of the felony, because the law recognizes creating extremely dangerous situations. Absolutely. And I'm charged with it because I'm part of the murder, not the shooter. And he wasn't the target, but I still get charged with it. And I understand that. That's why it's on my list of 19 people that he's there. I mean, and I get it, but I did give a courtesy to the family. They talked to my daughter. they talked with my son and they wanted to talk with me and i did talk with them i took the time to explain what happened and why nobody wanted to kill this kid they understood that i don't know what they told you or told anybody else and i know that the goddies instigated these people saying that i killed their son or their brother 16 years old I'm a baby killer.

2:13:36That was brought up by the Gottis who were trying to make me look bad or make it look worse. And I know how it was brought up. And like I said, this was talked about with the families. The whole thing was talked about with the police. And it's not I'm not saying it was a good thing. It was a horrible thing. But it's one of those things that happen. I mean, if I see a murder, I think I'm a pretty tough guy. I see somebody shooting at somebody I'm not going to run at the shooter he's got a gun on his head I got it let me pause you there let me squeeze in one more break and we'll be right back much more to the story with Sammy the Bull Gravano as we continue right after this

2:14:32Black the out. I don't give a if he's a rat. You say it to my face. Check my bloodline, bitch. I'm coming for you. You want to keep talking about families? Let's talk. You want to bring up families? You want to get my daughter into this? For my daughter, for my father, for every buddy that you spoke about, I will take a piece of you every time, bitch. This is why you never talk about families. Look at the outcome. Now that blood was drawn, these will never be the same again. OK, so that was the bulk of that clip is Karen Gravano, Sammy's daughter, who was one of the stars of the show Mob Wives, which I confess I absolutely loved.

2:15:13And she was very open about what it was like to grow up as your daughter and sort of when she how she slowly became aware of what you did for a living and how she could tell, you know, obviously she's fiery and feisty, but how she could sort of tell that you were an important man. You know, the way people greeted you, the way people showed you respect. And I know, you know, that must have manifested in your life, too. You sort of getting into the clubs in New York. And I saw the ABC documentary where you talked about you looked at the Manhattan skyline and said, you know, I own this. I own it.

2:15:49I built it. I control it. So can you talk to us a little bit about that that piece of your history? Yeah, well, you know, I became very powerful in the construction industry. And one day we were on the other side in Connecticut, I believe it is. And we were in a fancy hotel and we went out. I went out on the patio and smoking a cigar, I think. And I looked at the skyline at night. Manhattan is gorgeous, lit up at night. And it just the guy who was with me said, what are you looking at? I said, look at this. Look at the beauty here. It's absolutely stunning. It's gorgeous. And I'm part of building this whole thing.

2:16:33I mean, you can't get a job at this point in my life without some sort of a wink and a nod from me saying yes or no. I mean, I became very powerful in the construction industry. Paul had me, Paul Castellano had me under his wing because he loved construction and um he was part of the reason i became very powerful in the construction industry and he enjoyed using me to run certain unit unions and do certain things for him and um yeah i i loved uh what i was doing as far as the construction and i should i should mention because you mentioned paul castellano so because you had just sort of started with a different crime family and then eventually moved over to the Gambino crime family.

2:17:19And that's the family that Paul Castellano for a time was the head of. And you would later become part of his assassination. But before before before we get to that, so you're living large, you're living large in New York. And this was a time in what it's a weird question, but like, to what extent did that film, The Godfather, affect people's view of the mafia and your own experience within the mafia? You know, When I was growing up, you knew about the mafia, but there definitely was a glorification around it. It seemed like, oh, they hurt people, but maybe mostly their own people. Well, that's not really true.

2:17:54I mean, the extortion was on regular folks too. And yet they seemed kind of cool and people wanted to rub elbows with them in very high circles. There was speculation about Frank Sinatra and so on and so forth. So what was your experience of that movie and people's reaction to the mob? well that movie stunned me it was probably one of the best movies i ever watched uh it was completely well done uh godfather one and godfather two godfather three was a joke but yeah because you were in it when this was coming out you were you were in it when those movies hit yeah yeah and it it you know it showed the family orientation how we are with family the weddings.

2:18:41My family had weddings like that and people would get up and sing and it was fun. Who was it? Sonny with one of the bridesmaids in a room upstairs. That's typical of us. That was really typical of us. All that stuff that happened in that. The agents watching us. It just gave me a whole different look at the mob and how the people would look at it. And as far as the fascination, I know what it is. Everybody in my mind anyway, has a fascination, especially men have a fascination of being a tough guy, going with beautiful women, beautiful cars, making money, you know, fuck the government. I don't want to pay taxes and I don't want to do this and that.

2:19:35So everybody looked at it and it's you didn't live that life, but you admired it in a way. You felt a certain way when you watched it. And I watched this new movie that came out, The Offer, How They Made the Godfather. Very interesting movie. Great movie with the producers in Hollywood. The whole nine yards. I mean, just watching these things, the mafia really, you know, it's when I was in prison a couple of times, AB's Aryan brothers and other gang members came to me and told me, Sammy, tell me about the structure of the mafia. And I would tell them why. You're not the mafia. You're Aryan brothers.

2:20:21Why would you want to know? And they said your structure lasted a thousand years. People admire you guys. Some people wanted to be like you guys. What's the whole structure about. So I realized then, even them asking me questions like that, that they admired themselves and wanted to be like it. My answer to them was, we're not savages. We don't kill outside our organization. Everybody in the mafia at one time or another has been involved in a murder, 99%. So how do you control that group of people? If there's no violence within us, if there's no punishments that could cause death, how do you stop them?

2:21:12How do you stop a guy? What are you going to do? Cut off his tie? Slap him on the wrist? He's not going to listen to you. Then he'll do whatever he wants to do. Then there'll be no control. We'll be no better than a gang. And that's what I would tell some A, B guys and stuff like that. You have to have rules. You have to have ideas. You know, I looked at, there was a conversation I just had recently about, I was in Paul Castellano's house and the union, which we control the association and the union for the garbage. And there was a massive strike. It was on television. There was garbage piled up everywhere.

2:21:55I came in. And he told me to sit down. The maid got me a cup of coffee. And he said, send it for Jimmy Brown and the people who are running the union and the association. So we sat there for a while, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. Those guys came in. Jimmy Brown was a captain. The other guy was a maid guy. And he said, look at this television. He said, what are we? Animals? Pick up that garbage from schools, from hospitals, from old age homes. We'll win the strike. But what are we, animals? Over money? Over winning? We'll win. Pick up that goddamn garbage. And it struck me in a way that here's the boss of bosses, Paul Castellano.

2:22:45He was the boss of bosses. He was the head of the commission. saying something like that, caring about children, hospitals, old age homes, that they would be infected with garbage or whatever. It gave me a different look at things. And those are good things that I saw. There's evil things I saw. There's people who borderline got to like killing and became serial killers like Roy DeMeo or a gas pipe and people like that. And we killed them because they became that. So we don't believe in pedophiles, rapists, serial killers. We want to get rid of that. When I was in my neighborhood, I, you know, the whole neighborhood, I would say, this is my neighborhood.

2:23:38People I don't even know. Maybe you lived in there. I didn't even know you. you're a beautiful woman you'd walk down the block my guys i would tell them this is not a construction site don't who now don't do anything when you see her she's part of our our community they're us nobody's going to touch her her husband knew she was beautiful he'll tell her go right past sammy's club don't worry about it he said that because he knew she was safe we wouldn't let nothing happen to her around the block only god knows what happens so we we lived a different way and i think that touched the public in a certain way they they they didn't agree with the violence but we were different we were a different type of an organization criminal organization i'll call a criminal because it is you know we would take like you say from every industry but we took a little bite out of every industry we screwed the government out of taxes yeah we screwed insurance companies yeah we didn't feel any guilt about that because we they screwed people all the time My mother and father that broke their back and was so legitimate.

2:25:02I don't even know how I became a gangster, to tell you the truth. They were so legitimate, so honest. But they were taken advantage of by unions, by the government. So I have no sympathy for government. I have no sympathy for insurance companies who sometimes go overboard and people are sick. Oh, no, we're not going to pay that claim or we're not going to do this. We're not going to do that. I'm not saying all of them. There's some really good people, honest people out there in every industry. And there's some bad people in every industry. So, you know, I have mixed feelings with a lot of these things.

2:25:44And what about like the mom and pa shop owner on the corner who are just trying to make ends meet? and they got to pay extra money every month for security or, you know, for permission from you guys to do what is their legal right to do or else. Never happened. Never, never happened. Never happened as far as I'm concerned. Never happened. All the mom and pop stores knew my mother, my father, me, my family. It was a community. What, what, if you're worried about the mom and pop stores, I'll tell you what crushed them is big corporations. liberal elites of course get these big corporations and crush them you know i had a little uh milk farm they called it it's a little grocery store at one point in my life and i bought pampers wholesale and i put them for a cheap number i wasn't making any money just as a draw for people so i sent my partner my goombada alley boy como go to the supermarket see what they're charging When he came back, he said, Sammy, they're charging like less than we're paying for the wholesale.

2:26:53So I said, how could they do that? He said, well, number one, they're buying tons of stuff. I wasn't. I'm buying two cases. They're buying 4000 cases. And if they want to make a sale and do the same idea that I have, how can I compete with them? I took the two cases of papers and threw them out. I can't compete with them. Okay. So this is what happened in small business, got crushed. But the mom and pop source, I mean, I have never, ever thought about. We love these people. We knew them. We went to a bakery, a fruit and vegetable store. Those things don't even exist anymore. But you guys, you didn't charge people for security saying.

2:27:40No, no, not security. Never. Well, something. I mean, I remember I have some personal knowledge on this because in another life before I was a journalist, I was a lawyer. And the lawyer I worked for at this law firm, Jones Day, was charged with enforcing a consent decree that the mob had entered into in New York City. And that meant the mob admitted it had done a bunch of things. And we were responsible for making sure it lived up to its promise not to keep doing them. And, you know, the sort of the harassment of small businesses, small business owners was on the list. Money laundering and so on.

2:28:11That was another thing. But, you know, this sort of smaller crime, smaller than murders and so on within the family, that's that's one of the reasons why people don't like the mafia. Right. Like, it's not all within your own family. There are innocent people who get hurt and who have to pay unnecessary money that they shouldn't have to pay and who could get hurt if they don't do as is as told. Well, listen, I like I said before, you know, there's good and bad in every organization. And there's bad guys in the mafia who would do something like that, do a lot of things like that. That wasn't our norm.

2:28:44Now, I would do that with a disco or something to protect when you talk about protection money. If you can mention my name. Nobody could come in and bother you. Mafia wise or any other way. I'll take care of your problems. But I didn't cripple them. They gave me a pay or they gave me something. That helped them. I don't look at it as hurting them, shaking them down. It's like a rent. It's like anything else or any bill that you pay. And in most cases that I did, it was a reasonable pay. What I did mostly is use my power to help grow a company and I would become their partner. I'll give you a quick example.

2:29:26There was a guy who had a small little container company. He'd go to houses and put the container. you're moving, you put all your garbage in that container and he's making money. The containers were garbage. And I got to like the guy. I went to him and I said, listen, I got connections in Jersey. I can get the best containers and I could increase your business. So we had a conversation. I said, I don't want any contracts or anything like that. We could work on a handshake. How much do you make a year? And he said about$100 ,000 a year. I said, how about we go partners? The first$100 ,000 you make, that's yours.

2:30:08That's what you make. Anything above that, me and you are partners, and I could get you more work. I could get you better containers. So we did that. We shook hands, and we did that. At the end of the year of our partnership, I says, how did we do? What did you make? he says, Sammy, I made$400 ,000 this year. All right, the first$100 ,000 is yours. The other$300 ,000, give me my hand. The allegation against you by your critics is that nobody should have accepted this kind of an offer from you because if they wanted to renegotiate or if they wanted a bigger piece of the pie, you would kill them.

2:30:48No, it's not true. That is not true. I've never killed a partner. And listen, what we're talking about happened 40, 50 years ago. And if you came to my office, I'll show you 14, 15 different letters of people who were partners with me and knew me back then are sending me love letters. And I'm not talking about women, men. Sammy, it was great. I watch your podcast. I hope you make it. Our partnership was great. So I don't know. What would happen to the guys for whom it wasn't great? What about what would happen to the guys who said, I don't like the deal and I actually want to break up?

2:31:25I didn't care. The guy with the container business after a couple of years when I grew and I was making so much money, I gave him the business back. I didn't charge him a penny. I walked away. This is yours. I did it with a guy named Joe Madonia with the Ace Partition. We had 200 carpenters. When I grew in status, I said, Joe, I love you. I made a ton of money with you. It's yours. It's all yours now. And if anybody bothers you, get in touch with me. And if I could get you some big work, give me a piece. And I got a letter from him in my office. Now a letter from him loving, loving the partnership, the relationship we had.

2:32:05Now, what would happen if a guy was wanting to take advantage of me in some way or throw me out or push me out or do something on his own? he wouldn't be happy with it he wouldn't get killed it's not a killing in my eyes it's not a killing offense but i was powerful with unions and everything i could be a tremendous pain in the ass and that's what i would be if he's going for jobs if he would go for jobs i would tell him don't give him no work yeah i imagine if sammy the bull tells you don't give this guy any work you don't give the guy any work because there's a lot of power behind that name at that time especially so So that leads me to Donald Trump, because there were there was speculation in the press when he was running for president that he had mob ties.

2:32:51No one could ever get him on it. Like, you know, the press tried to get him on everything. None of that was ever proven. But it reminded me of this this one exchange he had with David Letterman. This is before he ran for president back in 2013, where he was asked, because this is a guy in New York City real estate. You know, he has to deal with construction and some of the industries that you just mentioned, unions all the time. And here's how that went. This is Sada Levin. Have you ever knowingly done business with what I like to call organized crime? Have they ever stopped by? I've really tried to stay away from them as much.

2:33:28Right. But have you ever had a case where a guy stopped by and said, Donald, we're going to handle the linens? you know growing up in new york and doing business in new york i would say there might have been one of you know one of those characters along the way but uh generally speaking i like to stay away from that group yeah well i think that's that goes without saying but sometimes sometimes they don't let you stay away from them there's truth to that but if you're smart you can stay away you have to stay away and uh just sort of lead your life you don't want to get involved although i must say i I have met on occasion a few of those people.

2:34:02They happen to be very nice people. You just don't want to owe them money. Yeah, I understand. Don't owe them money.

2:34:13I've heard you talk about him before and sort of said like he was you knew not to don't go there. You knew. No, here's what it was with Donald Trump. He was smart. He was a good builder. He was a great builder. He was pretty honorable with the people he dealt with. He had a group of ex-FBI agents for security purposes. So we knew I knew that. So you could push on him a little bit. I tried. But couldn't succeed. What he's saying is right. He knew we were there. He knew that he had to deal with situations, but he built it as a as a business guy. You couldn't go up there and try to talk like this guy was talking.

2:34:57You're going to threaten him. Give me you would be arrested in three minutes. Those agents were around him 24 seven. So I backed away from him because there was nothing I could do. A guy named Eddie Garofal had a demolition company. He did a job for him. He was able to reach some people in the company, but it never went to his level that we know of. and he didn't want to deal with us. I left him alone because I thought that was a bad problem. He was a legitimate guy. I didn't want to go try to threaten him because I thought we would go to prison. So we left him alone. There was plenty of people who wanted to deal with us.

2:35:42So to go up there like a thug and walk in his office and try to threaten him, you would go to prison for sure. So I don't think anybody bothered him. I'm going to give you a quick example of a news reporter, a woman who called me one day and told me the same thing you're telling me. You were very powerful during the 80s. And he was a big builder. You must know something. They're asking me after he became the president. So I said, I really don't know, you know, just what I told you now. That's what I know about him. I really don't know any incidents that he's done anything. If that's what you're looking for.

2:36:20Sammy please come on she's begging me for information it'll just be between me and you which I knew was bullshit that's not going to happen she's looking for information it's not going to stay between me and her so I felt like goofing on and I said listen it's just between me and you yeah yeah I'll give you my word nobody will ever know I said alright there was a drywall job I wanted I knew this beautiful woman was a friend of mine. She was a hooker. So I hooked it up with Donald Trump, me, Trump and her. We had a menage a trois and I couldn't help it. I started laughing. So she said, you fuck, you're lying.

2:37:03So I said, I'm not lying. You keep pressing me. And she was asking me, what's her name? What's her name? Why? Who do you care? What a name is. You're not going to say nothing. Why do you care? So they're giving it to BuzzFeed. It would have been printed on the front page. Yeah, yeah. So now she's laughing. I'm laughing. And I said, listen, there's one thing I definitely would never do with Donald Trump. I don't dislike him, but I would never have a mirage of 12. That's the situation. So my head. Wait, can I just let me pause this right now? Just have a bit of breaking news at this moment. You just mentioned him, the movie Godfather and Sonny Corleone.

2:37:43James Caan was the actor, played that role, just died. Just got that news in. 82 years old. James Caan just died. Wow. So sad. Yeah. What an icon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know he was hooked? What do you mean? He was in the mob. What? James Caan was hooked in with the mob. That's the guy who played Sonny, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you mean? I was there when he came down and asked permission to be in that movie. I was there with Carmine Persico. Joe Colombo gave him the role. Who did he ask permission of? To be in the movie. But whose permission was he seeking? Joe Colombo's. And he came to Carmine Persico because there was a guy, Andrew Mush, who was friendly with him.

2:38:32Matter of fact, Andrew Mush, who was a captain in the Colombo family, became godfather, his kid or vice versa. They were real tight all their lives. So he was connected with the Colombo family. Wow. So at some point in his when he was being cast for the Godfather, you're saying he had this connection? Yes. Wow. Yes. I was there when he came down and they said he's an actor. He's coming down. And they played the part. They brought him over to Carmine to ask permission. And you witnessed him asking for the permission. No, absolutely. I was there. What did he say? No, he asked for permission. Carmine told him, I'll talk to Joe Colombo.

2:39:16I'll make this happen. Don't worry about it. What he did is he put him in Andrew Moshe's hands tight. you know what i mean he might have got the part anyway but they played this whole little game with him but he they became super close they became one became the godfather one of the kids and you can look that all up you can you can see that but i'm confused because james con was a successful actor i think i'm i don't have his whole bio in front of me prior to the the godfather so are you saying he was young he was young i don't think he was a major actor he could have been an actor. Of course he was an actor, but I don't think.

2:39:55But he wasn't in the mob like you were in the mob. You're saying ties, like connections with friends? What does it mean? Yeah, it's an associate. It's an associate of the mob. In other words, he's on record now with the mafia as an associate. He's not a MAV member. He's not one of us, but he's an associate of the Columbo family, just like Sinatra was. He was too, you say. I mean, of course, there's been rumors about this for years, But you're saying that without a doubt they're true. You know, when we took over John Gotti and me and John Gotti was a fucking egomaniac and he was in a restaurant.

2:40:31Sinatra had come in and he didn't say nothing to John. He was going to buy him a bottle of wine or something. John refused it. And he sent this guy, Joe Watts, over to Sinatra and tell him whenever you come in a restaurant, you see John Gotti, you come over and you kiss his head. Oh, boy. And now Sinatra went to where he's supposed to go to the Genovese family because that's where he was for years. This guy, Frankie Blue Eyes and Chin Gigante. I was there when he got in touch with us and told John, you know, bro, he's always been with us. What do you send somebody over to abuse him? He does a lot of favors.

2:41:11It's not us, but he's my dog, bro. If you need a favor, he'll do it. Don't go sending people over and threaten them in front of people. and so I mean how much more I mean and I always knew it but I'm giving you that example where he was abused by this Joe Watts on John's orders and the Genovese family came right out of the woodwork and protected him. I should say I mean with respect to James Kahn of course we haven't had the chance to reach out to anybody in his camp and ask these questions and they're quite clearly going to be in mourning today. Ask for Andrew Russo. They used to call him Andrew Mush, if he's related to him.

2:41:54Okay. I will say I knew James Khan just a bit personally through a mutual friend. He was an absolute gentleman and completely kind and lovely. I'm not saying anything bad about him. I just don't. I feel uncomfortable if none of this is true, disparaging him on the day of his death. I haven't had the chance to check it out myself. With respect to you, not saying it isn't, just don't know. I want to make that clear to the audience. But that's unfortunate. It's sad to have lost him. His work in The Godfather earned him an Academy Award nomination, a Golden Globe nomination, and of course a place in all of our hearts because he was this firebrand who was tortured and I think just did such a brilliant job of portraying what one might go through if one were born into such a family or, in your case, willingly joined, quote, the family.

2:42:44before we leave that subject. Did your wife, I always wonder about the wives. Like, did your wife know everything? I know she knew you were in the mafia, but did she know, you know, about murders? Did she know all that? No, absolutely not. I never told my wife anything about the mafia and it was my way of protecting her. She always, in other words, in my opinion, could turn around if she was ever questioned by the feds or anybody, she could say I don't know legitimately not as I'm not going to give her information especially but murder something like that I'd have to be out of my mind to do something like that but she knew I was in the mafia um but she didn't know any of that either did my kids I was a family man I lived two lives at home I was a father a husband when I made money I bought a farm uh we put horses on the farm.

2:43:41We, it was a family life. When I drove to that place, I left the mafia behind me. When I got off the highway, it was in Jersey, cream Ridge, New Jersey, and smelt the trees, the grass. I was like, I was like a different person. Yeah, that's the farm. Yeah. And it was a 30 acre farm. We turned it into a horse farm. We lived great times in their fun holidays, 4th of July. So when I left, I left on a Friday, took off, usually staying there on a Saturday and Sunday with my family. And we did all great things. When the FBI went up to Cream Ridge, New Jersey, they went to every restaurant, everywhere I went, asking people about me.

2:44:27And not one person said anything negative. of when I sold it there was a woman who was uh she sold it she was uh she asked me for a cart where the kids sit on it and they could drive it so I had said that uh you know I'm not going to sell it it's part of the farm and um when I did sell it I told them that cart isn't for sale and I gave it to the woman she told the feds that's how he dealt with me never offered me money under the table or doing anything, but he gave me this card for my grandchildren. And a matter of fact, as soon as I'm done with this conversation, I'm going to get in touch with him and I'm going to tell him that you're here asking me questions.

2:45:13So I was a different animal there. Yeah. Well, no, I mean, your kids talk about you in this way. It's part of what makes you fascinating, the dichotomy between your professional life and your home life. and up next in our last segment together I want to get into turning on Gotti, going into witness protection and your job that you did while that happened, plastic surgery and then how you wound up back in prison and then free again okay so don't miss that stay with us for one more segment as Sammy the Bull Gravano continues with us right after this quick break Hey Chicagoland the Wayfair store is in your neighborhood at Edens Plaza and Wilmette Finally, you can feel the fabric, sit on the sectionals, and even open the refrigerators.

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2:46:39Now on Rho. Go to roe.co slash listen to see if you qualify. RX only. Go to roe.co slash safety for serious side effects and boxed warning associated with GLP-1s. my team's best has been looking into the james con thing during the break and says indeed uh andy mush russo part of the uh uh colombo crime family was a longtime friend of james con and at one point james con did indeed offer to post mush's bail money when he was accused of a crime and this andy mush russo was indeed godfather to one of james Khan's children. So to be continued on that front, there were there have been reports that Khan had this connection, though I've never heard it directly from somebody who was actually in the mob.

2:47:25So we've gone to a different place. OK, Sammy, you wind up you and John Gotti wind up running the Gambino crime family, the Genovese crime family. And and John Gotti's mob boss, he's the boss of the family. You become underboss. And you guys for years and years were very tight, very tight and then as i understand it um and as we said in the intro things went downhill and i don't want to spend too much time has been talked about a lot but they went downhill and you're both in jail together you thought he was going to turn on you and and and i know you say that's why you turned on him you went to those two agents who were following you around all the time and said let's talk about john gotti now his defenders say bullshit they're like that's sammy trying to cover his own butt so he doesn't look like a rat.

2:48:12John Gotti wasn't going to turn on Sammy. And they basically just call BS on the whole story. So what do you want to say about that? Right. I mean, I've heard that. They said there's millions of hours of tapes. It wasn't millions of hours of tapes. There was. But up in the apartment, there was a small amount of tapes. four or five. It was up there for months, but we didn't use the apartment. A lot of times when we did use the apartment, we didn't talk about anything. There was a couple of times that I wasn't in the apartment and he was sitting with Frankie Lacassio. Now, when people talk about it was all bullshit, I mean, it's made up.

2:49:02There's agents, New York State Organized Crime Task Force, that heard these tapes, listened to the tapes, and knew exactly what was going on. But I'm going to give you one story that's going to blow all that other stuff away. The judge got rid of our lawyers, Jerry Shargel and Bruce Cutler, and we had to get new lawyers. One of the lawyers that we brought in did an interview and you could check this out in an article with Jerry Capici. He did an interview with Jerry Capici and told him this. I was brought in to be the lawyer for John. And he told John, I was in that meeting, it was a lawyer's meeting.

2:49:50He said to John, you can't beat this case. Your tapes are devastating. The four, five, six tapes out of all the rest of them are devastating. I could try to work out a plea agreement. And John said, no, I'm going to beat the case. I got a secret weapon. So Bruce Cutler, I mean, Bruce Cutler, what did I just say? His name was.

2:50:24That big lawyer. But anyway, he said.

2:50:31Well, tell me your secret weapon, how are you going to beat this case? And he says, I'm going to throw Sammy and Frankie under the bus and I'm going to go free. We all laughed. sounded like a joke.

2:50:49The lawyer never came back. When he did the interview with Jerry Capici, he told him that story. He says, I never went back because I didn't want any part of that strategy. But John continued with that strategy because when he was in the apartment with those tapes, he had planned to kill me and he you can't just kill an underboss who's very powerful, big money earner the whole family likes you if you can kill him you shake the whole family if you can kill him, you can kill all of us here's a guy who's the most loyal guy to you he's rigging your cases he's killing people for you, if you can do that so So all of the things he was telling Frankie to talk about to the captains to prepare.

2:51:50Sammy's killing his partners. He's killing union guys and taking over the unions. He wanted that to go out so that when he kills me. He would have a justification. That is on those tapes. We looked into what John Gotti was saying on those tapes. And indeed, it's very negative about you and your alleged behaviors. So I see it. I and forgive me for skipping past some of this. But, you know, this has been out there. So you wind up saying you're going to cross me. I'm going to I'm going to cross you first. And you'll wind up going to jail, which he did for the rest of his life. You got a good deal, a sweetheart deal where you're supposed to go away for five years.

2:52:30You really only had to serve less than one year because you'd already served four prior to being cut. I love you. No. You're a little bit off. I took a plea with the thing, not for five years. I took a 20-year plea. I got sentenced to five years because of the cooperation that I did. Yeah. Got it. I took a plea for 20 years. Got it. And I didn't do a year. I did over four years. You got some good time off of the five. So I did almost five. When I got sentenced, I had seven months to go on what I owed. It's immaterial. The point is, it wasn't a lot of jail time for the feds. What I did, absolutely.

2:53:16Yeah, for what you did. So the deal is you're going to go into witness protection, as we mentioned at the top of the show, for a while. And can you just tell us, because I read that you were, you did something with pools. Where did they send you? And what was the job? And did you actually run around like looking after people's pools for a year or two or selling people's pools? How did that go? Well, when I first got out, I went in the witness protection program for eight months. I promised them I would do one year. They were begging me to go in the program. I didn't want to go in. I had plenty of money.

2:53:52They said, you're going to make the government look horrible. Come on. You got a great deal. Five year deal. Give us something. Go in the program for a while. I gave them a year. I only wound up doing eight months because I met a woman there. I was talking to and hanging with a little bit. And she recognized who I was. And they came back in. They said, we're going to take you and move you to another state. We're going to start from scratch. And I said, no, I promise you a year. I'm in eight months. I'm not doing it. They said, you have to do it. that's the rules. But like while you were doing it, while you I'm interested in your life while you were doing it, like how does a guy who's in the mob doing the stuff you're doing go to like looking after somebody's pool and claiming that you have this other name and this fake background?

2:54:46You know what? What was that like? I wasn't I wasn't doing it while I was in the program and I changed my name when I left the program in eight months. I changed my name back to Salvatore Guilherme. So I wasn't walking around with the name of Jimmy Moray. Am I wrong? I feel like you don't like the fact that you were in this program at all. Is that because it violates like the mob code? Is it, it makes you sound like not top? No, no, no, no. I don't want to be in it. What am I going to do there? You can't have any contact with your family or friends or there's all kinds of rules. I just did five years in prison.

2:55:19I'm not going to live by a whole bunch of set of rules. So I gave them that one year. You could bounce me around, change my name, do what you want with me and then I'm done with you. I'm out of prison. So I didn't want to stay with these rules. Did you go to people's cocktail parties? You go to like the barbecue of the neighbor next door and say, what was the fake name again? I can't remember the fake name. Jimmy Moran. Did you, did you say like, Hey, Jimmy Moran. And like, come on over. We'll watch the Superbowl together. Like, how did it go? No, no, no. I was just running around. I was 55 years old.

2:55:51I think I was, uh, or 57 years old. and I was there. I was, it was in a college town. I wound up in Colorado and it was Boulder, Colorado. It's a college town. And I was hanging out there. I met a couple of, you know, people and I played chess with some people. I'm a chess player and friendly like that. But no, it wasn't party time. It was, I was, I was, it was like doing time on the outside. I wanted to get done with the witness protection program and go home. And when I got done, I did that. Sorry, I'm condensed in my time. So I just want to get in the last thing. So you go back to your real name and your life.

2:56:35And we talked earlier about whether that was scary in terms of like people are going to come get me. And sure enough, some tried. And you wind up like to me, it's just so like, you know, I get it because if you're in a life of crime, maybe it's hard to get out. But you wind up dealing drugs and going back to prison for 20 years, almost 20 years. How did you let that happen? How like how did that happen? Now, on that one subject, not one subject, but that's exactly what happened. I wasn't dealing drugs. It was ecstasy, which they consider a drug. It's and it was that that's all it was. It was no heroin.

2:57:17It was not cocaine. It was nothing crack. It was ecstasy, which is a bullshit drug. They put it on a level. But anyway, I didn't even do that. There's a thing coming out, a documentary that we're working on. And me, my daughter, my son, and I'm tied up on the contract with that documentary that's going to talk about that little part of my life. So I don't think I could talk about that or I'll get my head handed to me because I'm in contract. with it now. That's fine. We'll stay tuned to wait for your longer take on that. But you get out of jail in 2017. And now what? How old are you now? 77. 77 years old.

2:58:04You and your wife divorced, but it sounds like she's still in your life and kind of a business partner now. We talked about your daughter, Karen. You have a son as well. So what next? What do you do with the time you have left. She's not my business. She's not my business partner. I'm a bitch. I work for her. She owns the company. She handles my rights and I work for her. I do my podcast. I do some other things and I do some things on my own. So we're not really partners, but we're close. We have kids, grandchildren. We've been divorced since 1991. And so, but we are close. And I still got, I'm still close with my kids, my grandchildren.

2:58:53And I do this. I couldn't find a better thing to do in retirement. I'm never going to go back to crime. I'm never going to do anything like that again. So I enjoy the social media stuff that I'm doing. I'm in this contract about the story of my life at that time with the ecstasy and all that baloney and uh is that the salvator is that the salvatory is that or is that a different project because i know you're no that's you've got your own short film series called the salvatory that's coming out yes the salvator it's based on a true story but it's not a true story it's fiction but it's me. Here's what it is.

2:59:37I get out of prison in 2017. I'm contacted by the FBI. My wife and children were in the program, supposedly, and they were all killed. And the FBI wants me to go after and follow some serial killer. And I agree to it. I don't want to do it at first. And they show me a picture of a dead woman and kids and I agree to go after him. Now, I'm going to say this here, but I'm not even supposed to be saying these things, but what happens is that these FBI guys got money from the mob and they gave this serial killer my wife and kids address and he was supposed to go kill them. so they get the money they break the link and they got me now they got me going after him sounds a little confusing but me going after him no i get it it's a it's sort of a real life crime drum um so this is going to come out on sammy on his youtube channel so if you're not subscribed you can see it there uh by doing so uh in the in the minute we have left rounding back to the discussion we had on faith and God at the top of the show, what do you make of it?

3:01:00A lot of folks when they get to be 77 years old start thinking about the afterlife and what possibly awaits and forgiveness and all of that. So how do you see what's next for you? You know, meeting a maker, making amends, asking for grace, for forgiveness. Is any of that important to you?

3:01:24it's important to you know what's going to happen I mean I really don't believe that you go anywhere I'll be honest with you I don't think you go anywhere but if I'm going to go anywhere I'm a negotiator I'll talk to him and I'll talk to I'm not going to ask for forgiveness if you made me then you made me you could have stopped me anytime you want I'm not going to you made me what I am I'm a lion. You may be that. So if you wanted to stop me, you could stop me anytime you want. I'm not going to ask for forgiveness. I did what I did in an honorable way, if you could call it that, in my eyes. I never really took advantage of people.

3:02:08I never cheated. I never lied. I never bullshitted people to an extent, except for the government, because, of course, I couldn't tell them the truth. that I couldn't tell my family the truth of things I was doing. But I think that's understandable.

3:02:24And I really, I'm not looking for forgiveness of what I did and what that would mean. This is taught in the church. If you don't believe this, you're going to hell. I don't believe in all that bullshit. I really don't. If you don't believe what I say, you're going to hell. If you don't tell, I don't believe any of that. So I believe there is a God. I look up at the sky, do artwork. I learned how to do artwork in prison. I look up at the sky. Who could do that? What artist in the world could do that? It's got to be a God. Life, you see kids, you see animals, you see things. Animals kill each other.

3:03:02So I don't believe in the stuff they tell us in religion.

3:03:10I got it. I think God is fair. He's honorable if he's there. And I don't think I'll have too much of a problem. I think people bullshit about religion. I think they'll have more of a problem than I will. I got it. I got to leave it at that because we're coming up against a hard break. But I agree with you that God is fair and he is honorable. And he I believe he will have the last say. Sammy the Bull Gravano. Thank you so much for telling your story. And as I say, for what the mob says, giving testimony that led to, in their view, what the FBI said, led to the demise of organized crime in New York.

3:03:48Amazing. All the best to you. His podcast is called Our Thing and his miniseries, The Salvatore, is coming out next week. My God, what just happened? What just happened in that last two hours? My team and I were just talking about it. Just like went to a lot of places. I did not expect the thing about James Caan. But, you know, there's something to be learned there because we have been so fascinated by the mob in this country. So fascinated by the mob. And it is interesting to listen to somebody who was in it at the highest levels talk about how it works and what the ethical code actually looks like, right?

3:04:27Like some of that stuff at the end, I behaved honorably. That's how he sees it, how he believes in God, but doesn't think that there will be any judgment for him because he thinks God made him the way God made me alive. I mean, that stuff was very eye-opening to me in terms of how his brain works and how people can live a life like this. How could you live a life where you kill 19 people? I understand. He says they agreed to live by the same code. But, you know, the rest of us who live by a very different code have trouble understanding any of this. And it's an organization that's had its tentacles in American society for 100 plus years.

3:05:09Right. So it's like, anyway, there's a lot to be learned. And our fascination with this group remains. It may be dwindling. It's not done in New York, but it's certainly not what it used to be. But it's still out there. And, you know, it gets glorified in virtually every Hollywood movie still to this day. So I don't know. I enjoyed the exchange and I enjoyed listening to, you know, his take on it. Obviously disagreed with a lot of his ethical conclusions, as I'm sure you did. But I learned. I learned a little bit. And I hope you did too. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

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