Fed Explains Genovese Family & Crazy Don Vince Gigante
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 27 minutes
Words per Minute
164.28114
Summary
In this episode, we cover the Genovese Crime Family. This is the fourth of the 5 families covered in the mafia series and the fourth in the five families that we ve covered so far. In this episode we cover: 1. The origins of the crime family 2. The crimes they did 3. Their origin 4. Their crimes 5. Their influence
Transcript
00:00:00.000
and we are live what's up guys welcome to feta today we're gonna be covering a part of the
00:00:04.740
mafia series we're gonna be covering the genovese crime family uh i got andrew here with me hi guys
00:00:09.700
um i'll be here i i know i wasn't like i was not on the last live well premiere the last mafia
00:00:18.320
episode the last mafia episode yes i was busy sleeping she was asleep guys she she's useless
00:00:24.720
no i'm just kidding no she actually uh she helped out she was really tired because you guys got to
00:00:28.460
remember that she works another job so she works a full day then she comes and helps me with fed it
00:00:33.380
um and then i finish my shift after she finishes like eight ten hours of work and then on top of
00:00:38.880
that we had done uh which episode did we we did the dc sniper yeah which was very long the dc sniper
00:00:44.960
then after that right we go get food and stuff like that by then it's like three four o'clock i
00:00:49.520
mean hell right now as we're filming it's 4 30 in the morning um and that day myron slept all day
00:00:54.140
that's why i will not confirm or deny if that is true but yeah so she she went to sleep that's why
00:01:02.420
like you know what i mean so she she comes down helps me out at the end of her long work shift
00:01:06.240
so shout out to her uh but anyway so guys we're gonna get right into i'm not gonna play the intro
00:01:10.420
here we're gonna go ahead and go right into the genovese crime family um so the genovese crime
00:01:14.620
family pronounced uh genovese i think also sometimes referred to as the west side as an italian
00:01:19.260
american mafia uh crime family and one of the five families that dominate organized crime activities
00:01:24.200
in new york city and new york new jersey as part of the american mafia they have generally maintained
00:01:28.440
a varying degree of influence over many of the smaller mob families outside of new york including
00:01:32.940
ties with the philadelphia patriarca and buffalo crime families okay okay um hang on um before you
00:01:39.280
guys go any further i just want you to know that if you're watching this this is the fourth
00:01:45.020
uh out of the five families that we've covered already so um if you haven't watched any of the
00:01:52.520
other ones go watch it before you watch this one although it's not gonna like um make much of a
00:01:58.460
difference but it is very important that you watch the first episode that we at least the first one
00:02:02.900
yes we can kill you be like and you know what i'm really glad you mentioned that let me share the
00:02:07.480
screen with them real quick so they see what we're talking about here and stuff yeah so guys we went
00:02:11.520
ahead and created a whole uh mafia playlist for you guys right here okay and the this genovese one
00:02:16.620
is going to be here but as you guys can see the first episode we covered was um and i'll enlarge it
00:02:22.020
for you guys real fast uh was you know the origins right where we break down to to chat you know
00:02:27.860
everything oh shout out to michael francis we're gonna actually have him on the podcast next week
00:02:31.160
yeah it's gonna be great um angie's been researching uh questions to ask his history everything
00:02:39.240
like that she's pretty much been uh covering that um so yeah we got michael francis oh sorry uh the
00:02:45.100
origins here right then we go ahead and go into john guyden the gambino family then we got the
00:02:49.240
lucchese's how they were freaking man those guys made money by any means they were extorting um
00:02:54.000
kosher chicken spots yeah yeah they didn't give a shit and then the banano crime family this is the
00:02:59.520
one that angie missed but yeah like i said she was passed out but you didn't you watch this on the
00:03:04.820
premiere with them i tried to kill yeah i was part of the premiere yeah i'm always watching the
00:03:09.300
premieres with you guys and i'm always like i'm active on the chat so i can copy like your case
00:03:14.560
requests and all that stuff so i'll be i'll be watching this premiere for sure so yeah that's why
00:03:20.720
i wanted to mention if you guys are watching this um this is the fourth of the five family so the last
00:03:26.280
one we left it uh at last on purpose because we're gonna have the mr franchisi yes yes we will have
00:03:35.060
him on may 17th so that's why we left that's why we're yeah the colombo one we're gonna do the
00:03:39.760
colombo one first but we pushed it back just uh since he's gonna be in town um but uh but yeah guys
00:03:45.640
so go check out that mafia playlist man you guys have been asking for the mafia forever so we're
00:03:50.460
we're delivering as you guys wanted and then probably after this we'll probably cover some colombian
00:03:54.920
uh crime stuff and then some mexican stuff so like i said before as you guys know when it comes to
00:04:00.260
um organized crime groups i want to make sure that i have entire series i mean hell we got a whole 9-11
00:04:04.880
playlist which we're gonna do the second part of 9-11 by the way guys um on rumble that's definitely
00:04:10.580
not gonna be on youtube for obvious reasons because of them boys if you know what i'm saying
00:04:15.240
actually i wanted to ask you like after we finish this is the question that i wanted to ask like
00:04:20.040
after we finish the this like five families of the italian mafia what we should do like are we
00:04:27.500
continuing with the italian mafia uh we'll probably do um performance and stuff good good question we'll
00:04:33.780
probably two two things we're gonna do so al capone because i know they've been asking you about that
00:04:38.420
right they have so we're gonna cover al capone and the outfit out of chicago because they didn't call
00:04:42.300
them the mafia in chicago they call them the outfit so we're gonna definitely cover that at least
00:04:45.380
then we might i might go ahead and do uh the philly mob and the buffalo mob and uh the florida guys
00:04:53.640
uh down there in tampa like um uh i think traffic ante like i might do all them in one episode right
00:05:00.920
so all the other kind of like mob mob guys in all the different parts of the country i might cover that
00:05:05.540
in like one episode so we're gonna do al capone dedicated without finish chicago because that was like
00:05:08.900
the next big uh mafia organization then we're gonna go ahead and cover all the smaller sub subsets in
00:05:14.880
the different parts and then i'm gonna go ahead and do an episode and this is going to be a special
00:05:19.200
for y'all i'll announce it right now we're gonna have ryan dawson on and we're gonna cover how the
00:05:26.320
italian mafia and organized crime work very closely with the cia guys and they definitely worked with
00:05:32.960
intelligence agencies back in the days especially in the 40s etc because just watch the documentary
00:05:38.560
numec and you guys are going to see how intelligence agencies played a role in
00:05:44.880
criminal activity going on and maybe some nuclear bombs being transported to a certain country that
00:05:50.080
we can not talk about on youtube so yeah anyway uh but yeah i'll do an episode with ryan dawson on
00:05:56.560
that as well guys okay so um anyway without further ado guys we're gonna go ahead and break down
00:06:01.680
this episode the crazy dawn okay from the fbi files as y'all know i love this documentary because it
00:06:07.120
you know it takes a more specific look at um the fbi agents that are involved in the investigations
00:06:12.320
and fbi agents give a lot more background in the cases which i like which gives a lot more
00:06:17.600
in my opinion richer information for you guys and more for me to break down for as well because i can
00:06:22.160
kind of read between the lines when they give their um background in cases so yeah without further
00:06:26.480
let's get into it for 30 years vincent giganti wandered the streets of new york's greenwich village
00:06:38.880
dressed in a tatted bathrobe and babbling endlessly to himself to the fbi he was believed to be the boss
00:06:45.760
of new york's most powerful mafia organization the genovese crime family was giganti crazy or was his
00:06:53.360
behavior a shrewd attempt to disguise his position as a ruthless marketplace that question would take
00:07:00.240
years to answer yeah you guys heard that right you had a guy who basically was supposed to be crazy
00:07:06.560
to evade detection from the fbi man so that is creative
00:07:10.320
every family has eccentrics even crime families crime boss vincent giganti head of new york's
00:07:24.320
genovese family was undoubtedly eccentric the question remained was he truly mad justice rested
00:07:32.000
on the answer outwardly he roamed the streets as a doggedly old man barely in touch with the reality
00:07:38.080
but in the eyes of the law he was a cunning conspirator and responsible for murder i'm jim
00:07:45.120
kalstrom former director of the fbi's new york office organized crime takes a concerted effort to crack
00:07:52.160
the fbi is devoted to cracking it the case against giganti hinged on his ability to stand trial
00:07:59.280
was a strange behavior an act of madness or a stroke of genius
00:08:03.520
anyone who witnessed giganti's ravings would have found it hard to believe that he controlled the
00:08:11.840
largest and most profitable family in the new york mafia an organization with a long and bloody history
00:08:21.600
the origins of the mafia can so i will say this one good thing that this documentary does is it's
00:08:26.320
going to go ahead and go over the origins of the mafia and give you guys a quick little you know
00:08:30.400
rewind but if you guys want the full background on you know everything from sicily to the casa
00:08:37.440
malariz war lucky luciano maranzano all that stuff um how the mafia became to be the commission all that
00:08:44.480
stuff i go into way more detail on that first episode that i showed you guys on the mafia playlist
00:08:49.600
we trace back to 13th century feudal sicilian society bands of sicilian families organize themselves
00:08:56.800
to rebel against the oppressive and ruthless french invaders mafia the acronym for the italian
00:09:03.840
morta alla francia italia anella which translates to death to the french as italy's cry became the
00:09:10.960
name that these organized families used to refer to themselves its meaning synonymous with men of honor
00:09:19.600
by the 19th century the mafia re-emerged in sicily as a purely criminal culture mostly hiring themselves
00:09:27.360
out to wealthy landowners to oppress upstart peasants more and more the goal of the mafia became focused
00:09:33.760
on how to generate illegal profits the tradition continued as waves of italians emigrated to new york
00:09:44.560
in the 1920s most immigrants lived in cramped and poor conditions
00:09:52.720
as a result of growing ethnic tensions sicilian americans became the target of growing resentment
00:10:05.600
louis chileiro a third generation italian american is head of the fbi's new york field office
00:10:11.440
a 23 year veteran he is an expert on the mafia translation when they say head of the new york
00:10:17.280
field office guys that means he is the special agent in charge uh which the fbi refers to that as
00:10:21.920
a saic uh when i worked at hsi we used to call them an sac or a sac um that you know the bureau uses
00:10:29.600
different acronyms every now and then but yeah he's pretty much uh the top guy um in new york which if you
00:10:35.200
go to new york field office um they're going to have multiple saic's actually that oversee
00:10:40.960
multiple groups because it's such a big field office and its intricate structure
00:10:46.240
when they first became uh prevalent in new york city it primarily uh victimized members of the
00:10:51.760
immigrant community where in in lower manhattan they became the victims of extortions and protection
00:10:56.960
rackets and and that's how the cousin ostra families originally got their start
00:11:01.040
with prohibition influence of the crime families grew out from the isolated neighborhoods and began
00:11:07.680
to spread nationwide a new form of underworld cooperation emerged various crime families
00:11:14.480
across america banded together to supply illegal alcohol to a country willing to pay for it
00:11:22.320
i think that probably more as you guys know the prohibition area is what made
00:11:26.240
the mafia extremely wealthy in the 1920s uh everyone wanted booze they couldn't get it so
00:11:32.640
obviously the bootleggers had it and who ran that the uh the italian mafia man more than anything
00:11:38.880
they were making billions of dollars in today's dollars equivalency gave the italian gangs the italian
00:11:45.520
causa nostra families a foothold in american society not only from an organizational standpoint but certainly
00:11:51.760
from a financial base uh since prohibition uh certainly they then expanded into other areas
00:11:58.480
operating outside the law meant the mafia had to police itself
00:12:02.560
for an organization animated by self-interest and greed there would always be conflict in opposition
00:12:09.840
an elite group of killers were organized to enforce mafia rules oh yeah that was back in the day they
00:12:15.440
didn't care they were bombing up places they were just shooting them with machine guns man it was
00:12:19.120
a different time back then by ensuring it survived
00:12:25.680
this group of mob and forces came to be known as murder inc
00:12:30.720
by the early 1940s murder inc would be responsible for hundreds of mob related murders nationwide
00:12:40.240
the powerful new york bosses during the mafia's early that's lucky luciano right
00:12:44.320
there guys often um credited as being the godfather of the mafia because he was
00:12:49.280
after the customary war he basically um instilled the ideology of the five crime families having
00:12:57.440
their own bosses and the commission which the commission would oversee the five crime families
00:13:02.000
and basically every boss would have a seat at the table at the commission so they would make um
00:13:07.920
they'd you know resolve disputes they'd make uh business decisions together they would you know if a
00:13:13.760
boss needed to get whacked or something like that they would take a vote so anything that was big
00:13:18.080
that needed to be done uh especially as far as like you know being an intermediary between the
00:13:23.040
families it was done through the commission which was a nationwide effort by the way as seen by
00:13:28.880
a buffalo state trooper who stumbled upon some of them in upstate new york years lucky luciano
00:13:34.560
and frank costello set up a ruling body for the mafia responsible for delegating territories and duties
00:13:40.880
among the various gangs nationwide home for america's five largest families new york remained the center
00:13:49.600
of the mafia's expanding foothold in america it remains so to this day the five new york families
00:13:57.840
consist currently of the gambino family the banana lucchese the colombo and the genovese family
00:14:03.920
each of those families are also members of the commission and also have their base in new york city
00:14:10.880
the commission composed of the bosses that's carlo gambino right there as you guys uh remember we
00:14:16.400
covered him uh in the first uh the second episode of the mafia series uh probably one of the most
00:14:22.640
feared and um ruled with the most respected mob boss uh he ran for one of the longest amounts of
00:14:30.640
time and on top of that he was never he never died of prison or was killed he actually died of
00:14:34.880
natural causes which is rare for a mob boss of the five new york and he didn't live too far from where
00:14:39.280
i grew up god damn it in brooklyn families acts as if y'all want to see where i grew up as a kid you
00:14:44.640
guys got to go back and watch the episode on the gambino family okay criminal board of directors
00:14:49.840
settling disputes between families and making major decisions on mafia business
00:14:56.240
each family is governed by its administration comprised of the boss the underboss and the
00:15:01.600
consigliere or counselor who are responsible for directing their family's criminal activity
00:15:09.280
below the administration in the family hierarchy are the captains the captains are the leaders of
00:15:16.160
crews of soldiers the men responsible for carrying out the day-to-day criminal activity
00:15:21.840
to become a soldier properly known as a wise guy or good fella an individual has to first be made or
00:15:28.720
officially inducted into the secret society he must blindly obey the rules of casa nostra italian for this
00:15:36.720
thing of ours he is sworn to put the family ahead of all else if he is asked to kill he must faithfully
00:15:47.440
it was against this backdrop a bustling immigrant community within and just you guys know i go over
00:15:53.360
the ritual of how to become a maid guy um what it takes etc all the requirements in the first episode
00:15:59.360
when i talk about you know the mafia in detail um also just you guys know uh captain is also known as a
00:16:06.320
capo that is pretty much like a first-line supervisor over a soldier who's a maid guy
00:16:11.920
exactly thank you banding casa nostra influence that vincent giganti grew up
00:16:17.440
so that means to become a maid guy and by the way i talk about this guys in the last episode that i did
00:16:29.440
with um with the banana crime family how uh joe pistone undercover fbi agent aka donnie brasco almost
00:16:49.600
became a maid guy uh while undercover came the closest to anyone ever to becoming a maid guy that
00:16:56.400
was in law enforcement and you guys can see here all the crimes that um the mafia was involved in
00:17:02.080
you know organized crime you see all the tentacles narcotics extortion murder arson bribery hijacking
00:17:06.800
corruption because they were hijacking uh planes back then and stealing from them at the airport if you
00:17:11.200
guys remember yeah uh the gambino family did this and john gott he was notorious for this uh labor
00:17:16.080
racketeering stolen property cigarette smuggling which was a big thing back in the day guys you guys
00:17:21.920
got to remember that back um and you guys should watch my hezbollah episode as well if you guys really
00:17:26.240
want to learn about cigarette smuggling cigarette smuggling is one of those crimes that no one really
00:17:30.720
gives a about it but it's extremely profitable because if you buy cigarettes in one
00:17:35.920
area that's cheap or no taxes etc and you go sell them somewhere else you can make quite a bit of
00:17:40.320
money and keep in mind guys 10 20 30 years ago right and plus smoking was cool it's not the same way
00:17:48.000
as it is now in 2023 where smoking is considered like dude what are you doing like smoking cigarettes
00:17:52.720
used to be the thing to do you could leave the united states and everyone smokes guys so this whole
00:17:57.440
not smoking thing is relatively new in an american thing so back in the day used to be huge cigarette
00:18:02.640
smuggling and you'd be able to get away with it because no one gave a about it the
00:18:06.720
only people that really investigate it was like the atf if that and uh and the time if you did get
00:18:12.320
caught was very little and then you got infiltration of legitimate business that's true because
00:18:16.640
what was the mafia doing they were uh entering in and strong arming um labor unions uh the kosher
00:18:24.880
the kosher chicken business as you guys saw with the lucchese crime family uh loan sharking which is
00:18:30.160
the process of you know um basically giving people predatory loans hey i'll give you this um loan on 28
00:18:38.560
uh or 29 or 30 40 50 and then they can't pay you back so next thing you know now you say okay
00:18:44.720
use work for me now forget about it i own your business and then obviously illegal gambling that's
00:18:49.920
the mafia's big one pornography huge prostitution narcotics yeah yeah even if they're not involved
00:18:57.040
in it what the mafia would do is if you were conducting business where you were selling
00:19:01.120
pornography or whatever they'd come in and say hey you owe me a cut now or else forget about it and
00:19:06.560
then next thing you know you're being extorted and they're just like mama mia they got a pay up or
00:19:10.560
they're going to get some broken kneecaps career spanned a turbulent time in american mafia history
00:19:17.920
the mob had expanded its reach into legitimate businesses the various families fighting to
00:19:22.880
control and in the ensuing turf wars violence was often the final arbiter
00:19:31.440
the family the giganti attached himself to was steeped in casa nostra's american origins
00:19:37.280
the infamous charles lucky luciano responsible for organizing and structuring the american mafia
00:19:43.600
was the family's first boss until he was imprisoned in 1936 as a result luciano's family administration
00:19:51.760
frank costello nicknamed the prime minister of the underworld and vito genovese fought for control
00:19:57.840
of the family costello won out but vito genovese began plotting his takeover
00:20:03.680
if you guys want to learn more about lucky luciano watch that first episode that we did and you guys
00:20:08.960
are going to see how close he was to a certain individual mayor lansky aka one of them boys
00:20:15.600
and how he was critical to the italian mafia's rise and making a lot of money
00:20:22.320
a young vincent giganti first gained notoriety as a mobster in 1957 when he attempted to murder frank
00:20:28.880
costello within the mafia it was widely believed that vito genovese had ordered the hit to get rid
00:20:35.040
of his rival giganti's bullet only grazed costello's head but apparently costello got the message soon
00:20:42.480
after the shooting he put out word that he was retiring vito genovese was now the boss of the family
00:20:48.480
that would take his name giganti was arrested for attempted murder and brought to trial
00:20:56.640
but the case was dismissed for lack of a witness
00:21:01.520
the location and angle of costello's wound indicated he probably saw the would-be assassin
00:21:06.880
but at the trial he failed to identify giganti as the shooter even for an ousted boss the oath of secrecy
00:21:15.040
remained sacred giganti continued to make money for the genovese family through illegal enterprises
00:21:24.480
two years after the failed assassination attempt he was arrested and convicted of narcotics violations
00:21:30.800
he received a seven-year sentence and you guys as you guys know narcotics was something that was
00:21:37.200
frowned upon in the mafia but you know if you were earner they'd kind of look the other way
00:21:42.320
but typically it was an offense that would get you killed convicted mobsters are expected to do their
00:21:47.680
time and remain silent if giganti served his time and kept his mouth shut he would be rewarded after
00:21:54.480
his release it was up to giganti to figure out how to avoid future arrests
00:22:01.920
he was a model prisoner neat polite and willing to take on any job
00:22:09.520
giganti's cooperation was so impressive that some prison officials wrote glowing reports
00:22:14.080
he was released early from the federal penitentiary in lewisburg for good behavior when he was 35 years
00:22:22.000
old oh that's it now he's about to be back out there on the streets
00:22:28.160
giganti now devised a secret plan that he hoped would prevent his return to prison forever
00:22:36.560
he didn't want to leave his mafia life or give up his shot at becoming the boss of the family
00:22:41.280
after his release in 1964 giganti's public behavior began to grow bizarre
00:22:47.840
he became a frequent sight on the streets of greenwich village giganti could be found wandering
00:22:52.880
the neighborhood appearing disoriented and mentally unstable that's crazy
00:23:00.000
he was like i'm not going back i'm not going back forget about it um the the the italian mafia
00:23:11.280
so they were like whenever a member of the mafia will go to prison they will be treated with respect
00:23:19.520
at all times yes we saw that in the uh banana family uh one of the guys the boss that was in the
00:23:25.200
in jail he basically called the black people and then word if y'all know what i'm saying i'm on
00:23:29.600
youtube i can't say if i was on rumble i would but uh and uh yeah but anyway yeah so he would he
00:23:36.320
would say that and they didn't touch him why because the mafia had that much power back in the day
00:23:40.240
um you're actually listening to uh aren't you listening to the five families uh i'm listening
00:23:44.400
to an audible the one of the best books on the on the crime uh italian mafia uh yeah it's called five
00:23:51.520
families by so it's got like a arab arabic name here i want to say because it's really good you guys if
00:23:58.400
you want to listen to it it like it has like all the details on the italian mafia it's called five
00:24:05.280
families by uh sewing rob so when rob that's the name of the guy yeah it's pretty good yeah she's been
00:24:14.160
uh listening to that quite a bit man i also watched the good fellas oh you did yeah good movie right
00:24:19.360
yeah it was really good it was really good for 1990s yeah yeah that was one of one of the best mob movies uh
00:24:25.360
of all time but it's about the life of henry henry something so it was like it was not like a he was
00:24:32.640
not a wise guy yeah he was an associate yeah and then you saw the part where where uh they they've
00:24:37.440
walked them into the room and it was empty and they shot him in the back joe pesci yeah that's when you
00:24:41.840
know that they got you and it would often be your best friend that they'd walk you in with so
00:24:45.600
yeah uh all right let's get back michael francesi talks about that in an interview by the way yes
00:24:50.720
not long after he left prison giganti learned of a police investigation over his association with
00:24:57.600
known mobsters in 1969 he was indicted for attempting to bribe new jersey police officers
00:25:05.280
allegedly he offered them money in exchange for information about surveillance and ongoing
00:25:15.920
now at almost 40 years old he returned to his mental disability as a foil and checked himself
00:25:27.440
to support his story giganti and his relatives began to revise his medical history
00:25:36.080
while giganti was at lewisburg his mother had been required to fill out a detailed family history
00:25:46.880
she noted only a speech impediment and a slight heart murmur
00:25:50.720
he had been a boxer but never had a serious injury
00:26:00.080
by the time of the 1969 indictment however giganti's lawyers claimed he was not competent to stand trial
00:26:06.400
his family his family suddenly remembered a host of mental problems he'd been given to severe temper
00:26:12.880
tantrums he had a phobia for the dark he had been truant from school he was at one time obese and had
00:26:20.480
learning problems the incompetency argument worked giganti never stood trial for the 1969 bribery charges
00:26:31.440
wow that same year giganti very smart you can see here that he built up
00:26:38.880
kind of a fake um background a fake i guess mental portfolio that he was crazy and he can't
00:26:46.480
stand trial so what do they do ah you know what man he's just a weirdo
00:26:50.080
these boys veto genovese died of heart failure while serving a prison sentence for narcotics trafficking
00:26:55.760
in the decade that followed the genovese family was so secretive that for law enforcement it was
00:27:02.320
difficult to tell exactly who the boss was even had the fbi been able to identify the genovese family
00:27:10.480
leadership making a case against them was another story witnesses were hard to come by mobsters who
00:27:18.400
violated the sacred oath faced certain death the best the fbi could do was to go after individual
00:27:25.760
crimes there were no laws that focused on bringing down the entire criminal family rico
00:27:33.360
as you can that is until rico came he was moving up in the family the federal government was about to
00:27:38.640
make the fbi's job a little easier in 1970 congress passed the racketeer influences and corrupt
00:27:45.920
organization act and you guys don't understand how influential this was toward targeting organized
00:27:52.080
crime throughout the united states this wasn't just used on the mafia guys this was later used
00:27:57.040
for against terrorists it was used against um like the hezbollah case which i talked about which was the
00:28:01.840
first successful prosecution of a terrorist organization in the united states for material
00:28:06.720
support i covered that episode as well on this pod um really interesting episode it is yeah yeah you
00:28:12.080
know investigations and everything motorcycle gangs uh yeah you really enjoyed that one right yeah
00:28:16.640
yeah it was really good because you you can you guys can see like from people outside let me show you
00:28:21.280
guys that one that one should have got more views man that actually was one of my favorite episodes
00:28:25.200
that i did let me it's really good because from people outside the law enforcement like laws and things
00:28:30.800
like me for example that i don't know anything about american law you can see how um the rico
00:28:37.360
law works you know like how it goes from the beginning of everything is pretty crazy dude we've
00:28:44.880
done so many episodes look at all these um so yeah i mean um so you got obviously courtney clenny die
00:28:51.440
um where is he i think he was alive no was it alive no no no it was a thursday episode let's see here where is
00:28:58.800
it is it no no no no yeah i think it's a live one no no i know it wasn't live because we we definitely
00:29:08.240
pre-recorded it no it's after it's after corny yeah it was let me i'll find it up a little for you
00:29:14.640
i'll go back to this all right do this on the side all right we'll carry on you probably missed it and
00:29:22.400
didn't put it on the on the playlist maybe yeah my maybe as the rico laws what the racketeering
00:29:32.960
law allowed us to do was to look at the family as a criminal enterprise and to attack the family as a
00:29:38.640
criminal act that became much more effective you if you look back from the mid-70s to the 80s
00:29:46.000
in terms of actually indicting the entire family in the entire hierarchy of that family
00:29:53.040
the rico laws require that the government prove that mafia families are essentially
00:29:57.440
criminal enterprises they must show that the crimes committed by the boss and members of his family
00:30:04.080
here's the video guys uh right here it's um if you go back to it um first errors of prosecution in
00:30:12.160
the u.s operation um smokescreen hezbollah takedown this one was really interesting um
00:30:18.720
and yeah guys i really enjoyed doing this one and i think you guys really enjoy watching if you get the
00:30:22.960
chance but it was the first successful prosecution of uh for material support in the united states back
00:30:29.280
in the 90s really good video uh and they talk about the cigarette smuggling in in this this is a
00:30:34.160
case that would actually successfully prosecuted these guys for cigarette smuggling so yeah if you guys
00:30:39.200
are bored and want to check this out and i got to check this check this i don't think it's in the
00:30:42.160
right playlist so if you're not bored too check it out it's really good the documentary is pretty good
00:30:47.120
it's from declassified yes you know we need to do some more i mean we'll probably get back to
00:30:51.200
declassified after this mafia stuff yeah okay after we do this mafia stuff guys we're gonna do golden
00:30:56.720
state killer i got that one at the top of the list because everyone's been asking for that one
00:30:59.840
we should do the menendez brothers we'll do that one too uh we'll we'll research that one because
00:31:04.960
i haven't heard about that that one so i guess we'll research that one you do need to it's crazy
00:31:09.280
we do need to do that one yeah cool and then the canadian serial killer pinkerton or whatever they
00:31:14.080
ask about him a lot too committed to either expand the criminal enterprise or to increase a family
00:31:19.520
member's position within that enterprise to successfully bring down a family the government
00:31:28.160
has to prove that any one of several criminal acts ranging from racketeering and extortion to murder
00:31:34.080
okay i know why i dropped it on a sunday when i wasn't in town that's why even though it was a
00:31:38.960
pre-recorded video that's why i just put it on thursday playlist too my bad guys has been committed
00:31:47.600
by 1979 now armed with federal legislation aimed directly at organized crime
00:31:53.200
the fbi had devoted teams to exclusively focus investigations on the five major families
00:31:59.840
the fbi's genovese squad finally learned that vincent giganti was on a fast track with the family
00:32:06.080
fyi guys when fbi was at the height of going after the mafia in the late 70s 80s they had one squad
00:32:14.160
working on each family what that basically means is guys an fbi squad is a team of agents okay it's
00:32:20.400
what we would call when i worked at hsi a group so you have a supervisory special agent right i'll break
00:32:25.120
it down for y'all how the fbi doesn't i'll break it down for you guys how hsi does it but it's literally
00:32:29.040
uh the same exact thing just with different terms so you have a supervisory special agent who is a gs14
00:32:36.160
okay he supervises that group he's not doesn't carry cases he's not a case agent he just supervises
00:32:40.880
he's basically the middleman between upper management and his agents that are on the ground
00:32:45.120
then under him he has somewhere between seven to ten guys that are agents task force officers etc that work
00:32:52.720
underneath him that um basically you know they submit the reports to him he signs them
00:32:56.960
gives it back uh he approves them he approves paperwork that needs to go up and down the chain
00:33:01.040
if uh you know someone wants to put in for leave or someone wants to go uh take a trip or needs funding
00:33:05.360
for a case whatever the supervisor right is the conduit between you and upper management now give you a
00:33:11.920
little tip right here the difference between a good supervisor and a bad supervisor okay well before i get
00:33:18.720
into that hsi how they do it is it's called a group supervisor and then underneath him is every
00:33:23.360
special agent right so we don't call it supervisory special agent or ssa like the fbi does but it's the
00:33:28.560
same exact thing a group supervisor is a gs14 just like the fbi ssa is a 14 and then you got special
00:33:34.320
agents underneath him and ssa has special agents underneath him it's just semantics at that point
00:33:38.960
but the difference between a good supervisor guys and a bad supervisor is a good supervisor works for his
00:33:46.080
agents a bad supervisors make a bad supervisor makes his agents work for him i'll give you guys
00:33:52.080
an example of what i mean by this um so a good supervisor for example let's say you got a big
00:33:57.360
case for example i had a big drug case back in the day and i was doing title threes i was doing all this
00:34:01.680
a good supervisor will literally go to the assistant special agent in charge's office the sac whatever
00:34:08.080
and fight for your case and say we need funding this is what we're doing i need 50 000 for this wiretap
00:34:13.600
i need more agents from other groups to help out he is basically making sure that you as the case
00:34:19.120
agent get what you need to run your investigation properly and have the resources doing complex
00:34:23.360
cases guys is very difficult and it requires a lot of manpower you need someone to back you from
00:34:28.720
management that can get you the funding and support that you need because as the case agent your job is
00:34:33.760
to direct the case get the reports ready for the a usa direct the guys on the ground put them where you
00:34:38.720
need them to be for surveillance um you're debriefing informants you're getting funding you're doing all
00:34:44.320
this stuff you're writing up memos whatever so a good supervisor will help you do all that stuff
00:34:48.320
hell good supervisors will help you write up your memorandums for funding okay now here's a bad
00:34:53.840
supervisor a bad supervisor will sit there and nickel and dime you on everything as far as like hey you came
00:35:00.320
in late hey what's going on where were you what are you doing right now blah blah blah asking you where
00:35:04.800
you're at all the time well that's also they do that if the agent isn't doing shit right when i was
00:35:08.400
an agent no one ever asked me where i was because they always know i was working right i'd be up at
00:35:12.640
two o'clock in the morning typing on my laptop whatever uploading reports so no one ever bothered
00:35:16.400
me about where i was right i'd come into the office at two three in the afternoon sometimes but i was
00:35:20.720
always working and i always could i was always writing reports the number one thing to show that you're
00:35:24.480
working as an agent is are you uploading rois which we call them reports investigation hsi uh
00:35:30.080
fbi calls on 302s dea calls on dea sixes but you guys get the point it's a report of investigation
00:35:35.280
to document you interviewing suspects talking informants uh doing surveillance uh going to
00:35:41.680
uh i wouldn't say meeting what a usa is that's that's that's kind of lame but getting an indictment
00:35:45.600
getting a conviction uh you know interviewing witnesses all that shit is there you just document
00:35:50.320
everything phone analysis all that crap right so a bad supervisor is going to give you a pain in the
00:35:55.920
ass and make your job harder to get shit done or give you a bunch of red tape
00:36:00.000
right i remember i had a one really good supervisor i would literally go into office
00:36:04.080
and i say yo this is what i'm trying to do like what can we do instead of him saying no he would
00:36:08.480
find a way to say yes let's make this shit happen because he believed in me and believed in the
00:36:11.920
case i was doing we did some great cases but that is difference guys between a good supervisor and
00:36:16.000
a bad supervisor a good supervisor works for his agents a bad supervisor where the agents work for
00:36:22.480
him and he works against his agents hope y'all enjoyed that man you ain't gonna get a breakdown
00:36:27.600
like that and the reason why is because there's no one else on internet that's done criminal cases
00:36:34.560
at a federal level that has a youtube channel there's no one i've seen people kind of yap or
00:36:39.120
whatever but they they haven't really done cases special agent richard rudolph had been assigned to
00:36:45.040
investigate the genovese crime family through uh informants and other law enforcement agencies
00:36:51.760
were exchanging information we became so great this guy that you guys are listening to talk this
00:36:56.720
why i love this documentary so much this guy is more than likely probably the case agent on the
00:37:01.280
genovese crime family which means he had the squad working with him helping him out and he was the main
00:37:06.880
guy or the point man in the investigation you know filling in the a usa's office controlling the
00:37:11.840
informants etc i'm aware that mr giganti was a individual uh which with much respect in the genovese crime
00:37:20.240
family and operated out of an area in lower manhattan um because he was a uh an up and coming
00:37:27.200
person uh with a lot of respect within the family we began to do some surveillances of mr giganti
00:37:34.880
with the fbi continuing to build its arsenal against organized crime giganti's cat and mouse game
00:37:40.960
intensified he stepped up his public show of mental disorder in the late 70s and into the 80s he was
00:37:48.400
admitted five more times for psychiatric treatment the fbi continued to keep tabs on giganti agents
00:37:59.280
learned that he frequented the triangle social club a gathering place for genovese crime figures
00:38:06.800
he could be found there almost on a daily basis he lived in it in the neighborhood um he was in it
00:38:12.880
and this is something very common guys a lot these organized uh crime guys in the mafia they all had
00:38:17.360
certain spots that they would be at where they felt safe and they can talk why because obviously when
00:38:21.680
you're a boss you got a target on your head an individual that could be found there um in the
00:38:28.320
late afternoons and into the early hours of the morning and people would come to see him as opposed to
00:38:34.400
him going to see other people though giganti's association in the genovese family seems certain to
00:38:41.120
investigators giganti's family and doctors continuously told investigators that he led a very narrow
00:38:47.680
existence they said his whole world was confined to the block where he lived and the church he attended
00:38:54.240
with his mother he was barely functional at home and could not care for himself they said
00:39:03.040
but with every passing day the fbi and new york police were seeing a very different look at that they got
00:39:08.880
pictures of him meeting with guys on the street looks pretty competent to me doesn't it vinson giganti
00:39:16.640
in the early 1980s the mafia in the northeast went through a particularly tumultuous time with several
00:39:22.560
killings internal disputes within the family resulted in a string of assassinations
00:39:28.800
the fbi suspected giganti was responsible for these gangland executions especially those
00:39:34.480
intended as punishment for breaking casa nostra rules giganti was known to be a traditionalist
00:39:42.240
he wanted the rules obeyed and when they were broken retribution was sure to follow
00:39:47.200
it started with the murder of philadelphia crime boss angelo bruno
00:40:03.600
although bruno's family was well outside new york all families answered to the members of the
00:40:08.960
commission giganti was upset because bruno had been assassinated by his own men in a grab for control of
00:40:16.320
the family a casa nostra rule had been violated no one can kill a boss unless the commission sanctions
00:40:23.760
it and they seldom do it was for obvious reasons because as soon as a boss dies guys what ends up
00:40:31.520
happening is there becomes a tug of war and a battle for that spot and it creates a lot of volatility
00:40:37.760
volatility violence occurs and guess what happens when violence occurs next thing you know now them
00:40:43.600
boys are on you and it brings a lot more attention and the mafia wants to be in the shadows right they
00:40:49.680
you know the code of silence or murder they don't want anyone to see what the they're doing they want
00:40:53.360
to be able to collect their money through their extortion rackets their criminal rackets whatever
00:40:56.800
it is illegal gambling loan sharking whatever it is they want to be able to do that in silence
00:41:00.720
without the police being involved and it's very difficult for them to operate when violence is going
00:41:05.120
on and the police have heat on them there's nothing that will draw an investigation to your door faster
00:41:10.640
than violence and luckily lucky luciano knew this which is why he made sure as soon as the casa
00:41:15.440
miller's war was over okay he made sure to say all right guys it's going to be peace between us
00:41:21.200
we're just going to make money no more wars we're going to have a commission so no one actually has
00:41:25.520
all the power the power is evenly distributed amongst the families you know it's actually one
00:41:28.880
of the smartest things he can do which was a high iq 3d chess move because he knew if he tried to
00:41:33.920
make himself the boss of all bosses like with a guy before him he would have a target on his back
00:41:38.480
and next thing you know forget about it so he was like i don't want that i want to make money
00:41:45.360
they were very very uh delicate with dealing with the police they had like rules uh of like
00:41:53.680
in the code that they had it's like no dealing with anything like related to the police or anything so
00:41:59.360
that's why you heard that on that on the audible thing yeah can you give us like one or two examples
00:42:03.280
like as far as like not well for example what you just mentioned earlier oh violence uh no no no
00:42:09.600
that they were like uh very um i don't know how to say this but like yeah it's kind of like delicate
00:42:16.480
they had like a delicate matter with like narcotics especially drugs because uh and also like other
00:42:24.160
criminal activities uh because they were like high they will make very high
00:42:30.320
uh federal chargers so oh okay so being yes trafficking drugs brought a lot of time
00:42:37.600
with them and it was considered a dirty business and and a lot of snitches too so yeah they were
00:42:42.000
like very respectful of those charges because they will like make like very high federal charges on them
00:42:48.160
yeah so that's why they wouldn't like messing up with the police also like killing police people
00:42:53.840
that kind of shooting out police and shit yeah yeah and not nothing related with the police they didn't
00:42:58.400
want anything related with the police okay yeah well that makes sense because they were notorious for
00:43:02.880
paying them off you know what i mean versus like shooting at them or anything else like that because
00:43:06.560
yeah that's gonna you kill a cop it's over you're gonna basically you're you're asking for
00:43:10.320
them to come after you with every resource they have codes and like stuff that's they have a load of
00:43:15.360
codes so whenever they will talk in the streets or whatever they wouldn't like be framed for it
00:43:22.000
you know what framed oh friend yes they use different yes yes they definitely use terminology you're
00:43:25.920
going to see here when they refer to gigante gigante had a very interesting way to have the people
00:43:30.000
refer to him so they would have mentioned the word mafia was prohibited ah they cannot say mafia
00:43:35.600
because that that for obvious reasons yeah yeah okay uh let's get back to the documentary
00:43:42.560
where the gigante himself launched an investigation into bruno's murder
00:43:56.880
retribution was swift less than a month later tony bananas capa negro identified as one of bruno's
00:44:05.440
he had been shot 15 times and stabbed in the back his body was stuffed in a trunk and 20 dollar bills
00:44:15.040
were littered around his body a clear message that he was killed for his greed and this would happen
00:44:21.280
often guys where if they whacked the guy that did some bs they'd leave things on him as kind of a um
00:44:28.000
message a message and a warning sign to other would-be um perpetrators not to do this or else this
00:44:33.120
will be your fate this is how godfellas start yes
00:44:40.800
on the same day another body was discovered this time it was fred salerno dead of gunshot wounds
00:44:47.360
dumped in a vacant lot he too had allegedly participated in bruno's murder
00:44:52.480
phil testa had taken angelo bruno's place as boss his reign was short
00:45:04.640
almost a year after bruno's execution testa was blown up entering his own home
00:45:18.880
well that's ballsy blowing dudes man mafia didn't give a back then guys they're out here
00:45:23.840
literally blowing dudes up and that they would never do that today in post 9-11 era
00:45:28.080
another boss killed without the blessing of the commission another avenging act would follow
00:45:41.040
rocco maranucci was next found dead with fireworks stuffed in his mouth
00:45:49.280
a gesture designed to show that he was killed for the way in which he had killed test
00:45:58.080
the house if the casa nostra was to flourish all of its members had to comply with its rules there
00:46:08.160
were no exceptions giganti was believed to have ordered the murder of one of his own crime family
00:46:16.160
members genovese soldier jerry papa had murdered two colombo family members without permission
00:46:21.680
as punishment for his unsanctioned act he was brutal and again you guys are wondering why would
00:46:29.920
you kill someone in your own family for killing someone from another family well guys if you kill
00:46:34.080
someone from another family and it was unsanctioned the commission is going to come down on your entire
00:46:39.280
family so they need to discipline the person from their family because if you with someone from another
00:46:44.000
family lasting the mafia and the commission wants in general is an all-out war so they got to deal with
00:46:50.240
everything in-house they needed to they to have permission yes to kill anybody yep that was another
00:46:56.800
person to another another family from another part family exactly so that's going to cause a bunch of
00:47:02.160
problems for everyone involved and last thing they want is a turf war or some kind of violence and at
00:47:06.640
this point keep in mind guys they know that the fbi is breathing down their neck and watching them
00:47:11.760
shot and killed by members of his own criminal family
00:47:14.800
had giganti become the enforcer remember guys what we said in goodfellas that when they walk you
00:47:23.280
into an empty room to kill you it's typically your best friends that are with you for the northeast
00:47:27.680
casa nostra informers within the mob told federal agents that all of these killings had been ordered
00:47:34.560
by giganti but information given by admitted criminals is always a problem for potential juries
00:47:42.080
criminals will say anything if their cooperation can be traded for a reduced prison sentence
00:47:48.240
the fbi needed more than the words of criminals looking for a deal giganti knew this and he protected
00:47:54.800
himself accordingly yes guys so um co-conspirator testimony is almost never enough you need other
00:48:01.840
evidence that corroborates it so for example let's say i talked to a cooperator and he says yo such and
00:48:08.240
such as selling drugs and i'm like okay well how about you go ahead and go buy drugs from that
00:48:12.320
individual okay he goes and buys the drugs now everything he says concerning this potential
00:48:17.440
person selling drugs is way more credible why because we were able to independently corroborate
00:48:22.880
his information that the other individual is in fact a drug dealer through our own independent
00:48:27.200
investigation which is very important because you can't rely on a crook's testimony to put someone
00:48:32.880
else in jail you can use it in tandem with other pieces of evidence that stand by themselves but
00:48:38.800
crook testimony in itself a lot of the times isn't enough you need other pieces of evidence as well
00:48:49.920
it seemed that giganti was now the boss the fbi began a more focused surveillance effort on giganti
00:48:57.040
they learned that the genovese family had also infiltrated several of new york's major industries
00:49:02.480
the garment trade trucking garbage collection airport cargo handling and the city's seafood industry
00:49:12.960
vincent giganti was known on the streets as the chin an abbreviation of chin xeno little vincent
00:49:20.080
fearing fbi surveillance and wiretaps family members were not allowed to speak his name
00:49:25.680
they were to refer to him with hand signals touching their chins to communicate his nickname
00:49:32.800
bringing that's how you know on edge these guys were man down the chin was going to take every bit
00:49:38.800
of know-how that the fbi could muster they were going to have to create their own luck
00:49:48.000
as a surveillance team member watched one day a telling crack in the chin's roost appeared
00:49:52.960
the seemingly frail man was being helped across a busy street
00:50:01.440
when oncoming traffic threatened he became suddenly animated racing to safety
00:50:08.560
catch it his helplessness somehow overtook him again on the other side
00:50:21.760
clearly there were two gigantes the mentally troubled one displayed to the public
00:50:26.640
and the determined boss of the genovese administration
00:50:32.240
i gotta give it to him this is dedication though yeah you can't you can't find it i don't know any
00:50:37.760
other crooks that went to this extent to show that they're crazy bro the guy would soon learn of a
00:50:42.240
third i think we just did the episode on uh marjorie armstrong from the pizza thing i think this guy
00:50:47.760
got to her beat big time of course she's over here just shaving her eyebrows and telling inmates
00:50:51.840
she's crazy and lying this dude was out here legit walking for hours a day you know shaking and
00:50:57.200
shit gigante's ex-wife and their five children lived in new jersey while he maintained a relationship with
00:51:18.960
he usually called on her late at night looking quite deaf before he was aware of the surveillance
00:51:24.000
we learned that uh he frequently visited a townhouse which was located up on 77th street and the east
00:51:33.840
side of manhattan where we later learned that um a common law he was living with his common law wife
00:51:41.120
and he had been married previously and this was his second family or this residence
00:51:45.520
soon the fbi knew all of the chin's hangouts this gave surveillance teams an opportunity
00:51:54.160
to observe gigante without his knowledge a major break came when nypd organized crime task force
00:52:01.440
member detective tom bruno was able to snap photos of some of gigante's activities all right real quick
00:52:07.440
so you guys understand because you guys are probably wondering why is the nypd guy what's going on here
00:52:11.680
so in a lot of major cities um and just in general with any field office you're going to have something
00:52:17.120
called task force officers and task force officers a lot of times guys are guys that work under the
00:52:21.840
auspice of a federal agency and get the um the authorities and power that that federal agency has
00:52:28.480
while simultaneously being able to maintain their state credentials and authorities as well so basically
00:52:34.160
they're able to do both things they could pull somebody over in one situation but then go ahead
00:52:38.560
and arrest someone federally on another so they actually have more power if you're going to look
00:52:41.760
at it from i'm an investigative standpoint than a federal agent so these guys are literally critical
00:52:48.960
to organized crime task forces because they can wear many hats you they can you know let's say you
00:52:53.360
need someone that has a canine whatever they can make the calls to local pd that has all these
00:52:57.120
resources because federal agents 99 of the time don't have access to dogs don't have access to
00:53:02.800
helicopters and planes and all this other stuff like the state does dmv records all that stuff it all
00:53:07.920
comes from the state guys so you know this all this mumbo jumper on the movie was like oh the feds are
00:53:12.560
coming in and taking over the case that's a load of fucking man right does it happen sometimes yeah
00:53:18.160
but in general most of the time i'd argue probably 80 to 90 of the time that feds work with state um
00:53:24.320
officers they uh they need them a lot and they respect the authority that they bring and expertise
00:53:30.320
they bring to the table and you guys are going to see here with this guy how he was so valuable
00:53:37.920
in 1984 i was assigned to a joint organized crime task force that task force consisted of fbi agents and
00:53:50.400
new york city police officers detectives and we were assigned to investigate the genefees crime family
00:53:59.600
then the next step was to go to sullivan street where chingiganti lived
00:54:02.880
his apartment was above a pet store alleged pet store and he also had a social club on the block
00:54:11.920
and when you'd go by the social club you'd see numerous people that were in the photos and you'd
00:54:17.760
see them standing in front of going inside and then sometimes crossing the street going to uh the pet store
00:54:24.480
which was where the chin we believe met people uh pet store really never had any kind of uh business
00:54:31.520
that we could see it had a little cat box in the window and basically that was it
00:54:37.840
pet store making no business was still open hmm i wonder what's going on there
00:54:45.440
more and more giganti was seen acting normally when he was unaware he was being watched
00:54:50.240
i see uh chin giganti and i see andrew giganti which is his son come out of his residence and i'm
00:55:01.600
just minding my business walking up the block uh andrew leaves to get in his car and chin is standing
00:55:08.880
on the corner and he wasn't helped out of his building and he was standing on the corner
00:55:13.360
andrew gets in his car pulls out as he pulls out there's a car coming up sullivan street it blows
00:55:19.840
the horn uh chin giganti yells hey what are you in a rush as he does this i come into the lighted area
00:55:28.560
he looks sees me and all of a sudden his head goes down and he plays uh the sick point of course
00:55:35.680
another break followed detective bruno's surveillance successes
00:55:51.920
the fbi managed to rent an apartment close to the townhouse of giganti's companion ms esposito
00:55:57.360
and agent would exit through a back door in the rented apartment building and position himself
00:56:05.120
about 50 feet from ms esposito's townhouse from there ms esposito and giganti could be seen from
00:56:14.080
time to time an agent watched the couple for four months between midnight and 2 a.m
00:56:21.200
assistant u.s attorney andrew weissman who later would have to prove giganti's competency to stand
00:56:26.640
trial was delighted with the agent's observations and lo and behold when he was inside in a place
00:56:36.400
where he didn't think he was being observed he did all of the normal things that any of us would do
00:56:41.600
matter of fact what was unusual about those surveillances was that there was nothing unusual
00:56:46.160
about him he was normal and guys that's going to be critical information for them to show that he
00:56:52.880
is competent to face criminal charges and the person speaking right now is the prosecutor
00:56:56.560
aka the assistant united states attorney that is the equivalent to an ada or assistant district
00:57:00.960
attorney he was talking to people he was counting money he never wore a shoddy bathrobe indeed the
00:57:10.240
only time he was seen in a bathrobe was not surprisingly when he got out of the shower he would wear a nice
00:57:17.520
fluffy brooks brothers type bathrobe which was not at all like the bathrobe that he would wear when he was
00:57:23.440
on the street so it became pretty obvious to the people conducting the surveillance that he was
00:57:31.840
engaging in a concerted effort to give an appearance to the public that was false that was not the way he
00:57:39.120
behaved in real life investigators continue to watch giganti's bizarre public behavior
00:57:47.760
but photos themselves are only a single link improving criminal activity investigators needed hard
00:57:56.480
evidence to corroborate what the photos were suggesting that giganti was in fact the boss
00:58:06.480
one wiretap conversation between genovese crew members gave investigators more proof of giganti's
00:58:12.080
position in the family on the tapes known genovese members were complaining about the chin assistant
00:58:20.560
u.s attorney george stambulitis reviewed these tapes to help prepare a case against giganti
00:58:28.560
he's constantly nitpicking his men trying to always with a million questions drilling them and questioning
00:58:33.600
them on what they're involved in he's always looking to get money from them or money from some of the schemes
00:58:39.040
and how he earned um and how much money he would make from the gambling operations at the triangle social
00:58:45.600
club and things like that while giganti micromanaged the internal affairs of his family the tabloids
00:58:54.480
began calling him the odd father that's actually pretty funny forget about the odd father he would check
00:59:05.520
himself into a hospital once a year for what his colleagues in the mafia sarcastically referred to
00:59:11.280
as tune-ups so that he would have a paper trail showing that he had some or giving the impression that
00:59:18.480
he had something that goes to show guys how dedicated these guys were man the literally tune-ups is what
00:59:24.000
they called it a mental condition and with the assistance of people around him and people in his family
00:59:30.400
he was able to cultivate this paper trail giving the impression to anyone who looked at the cold
00:59:35.600
medical records that here's someone who year in year out was being treated for some form of mental illness
00:59:45.840
giganti knew how to protect himself both publicly and privately
00:59:53.440
mr giganti was very clever in how he conducted business
00:59:58.080
and um he limited his contacts with uh with members of the family uh if there were messages or uh
01:00:05.920
or items to be discussed regarding illegal activities conducted by the genovese family
01:00:10.320
there would be messages passed on to people immediately surrounding him access to him was very limited
01:00:16.400
if the other family wanted to meet with him more than likely they would have to send a message
01:00:20.880
giganti avoided the normal sit-downs or more formal meetings held regularly by other family bosses
01:00:29.360
he would take meetings when businesses demanded his attention
01:00:34.480
he and his visitors would stroll the sidewalks through the neighborhood
01:00:39.280
john gotty was also famous for doing this they call it a walk and talk since they knew that the
01:00:43.120
fbi was looking at them and places might be bugged they would often take improv walks and discuss
01:00:48.640
business during that surveillance wiretaps would not pick up any incriminating conversations
01:01:00.240
the always careful giganti also suspected ms esposito's phone was tapped and it was
01:01:05.760
he never taught business on the phone he would simply use a payphone or make arrangements to talk
01:01:15.280
elsewhere the fbi would not be able to use the chin's own words to make a case against him
01:01:25.680
other mobsters were not as smart sophisticated bugging operations were allowing the fbi to capture a
01:01:38.080
multitude of other mob business on tape in early 1985 the justice department was bearing down hard on
01:01:46.480
the number of hot rudy julian and his gang high level organized crime figures most were being charged
01:01:52.480
under the rico act though rico had been around since the early 70s it was only now receiving its first real test
01:02:03.200
two of giganti's men had gotten wind that the bosses of the gambino and lucchese families would soon be
01:02:08.400
arrested they wondered if the chin was vulnerable
01:02:15.840
one commented that if he gets pinched all those years in the asylum would be for nothing
01:02:22.480
on february more critical evidence that comes to run wiretaps 19th the arrests of several crime
01:02:29.440
family bosses were made the next day vincent giganti checked himself into the hospital and stayed a
01:02:35.520
week he had of course of course he checked himself into the hospital right after all his counterparts
01:02:42.320
were arrested by the fbi successfully avoided the indictment against the new york bosses
01:02:47.360
among those arrested was paul castellano head of the gambino crime family who would later be killed
01:02:55.280
by john goddy um after being indicted so and make sure to go check out that episode on john goddy and
01:03:01.200
um the gambino family if you guys want to get more insight into that prosecutors never brought him to
01:03:10.720
by casa nostra standards the unsanctioned murders of gambino boss paul castellano and his underboss tommy
01:03:19.360
bellotti were unpardonable and everybody knows john goddy did it
01:03:28.160
although john goddy a captain in the gambino family acted shock there he is with sammy the bull
01:03:33.520
locked in castellano which i'll work on getting him on the show for y'all as well i know he has
01:03:37.520
a youtube as well so yeah we'll make we'll make that happen to you guys death it was widely believed
01:03:42.880
that he was responsible within two weeks of the murders goddy had publicly taken over as boss
01:03:53.280
vincent giganti issued a subtle warning to god without mentioning names he told goddy that the murderer
01:03:59.280
would have to pay it took two years but in 1987 giganti acted to avenge the murder of his friend and
01:04:07.200
partner in mob business through his counselor bobby manna and some lucchese family members giganti
01:04:14.560
plotted to have got he killed the planning session at a new jersey restaurant was bugged and because it
01:04:21.200
was the fbi saved john goddy's life and i think we actually made a mention of this in the
01:04:29.200
last episode as well where they got wind of this and they just had to make an arrest immediately
01:04:33.440
and kind of put their case against john goddy on hold because here's the thing guys if you're
01:04:37.440
doing wiretaps and you get information that someone's life is an imminent danger you must act
01:04:42.240
right of course you don't have to disclose how you know or why you're acting right you could just make
01:04:46.400
it look like hey we're arresting you on this charge or whatever blah blah blah but behind the scenes
01:04:51.440
you know you really arrested him because you got a threat on his life so you have to act when something like
01:04:57.280
that happens which i mean nowadays you have to notify that there was a throughout in their life
01:05:02.560
but i don't know if back then you had to notify there was a threat in their life i think all you
01:05:05.680
have to do is just get them out of the situation and let's say they make bond or whatever then at
01:05:09.680
that point you probably got to disclose it if agents intercept information of a murder plot
01:05:18.560
they are required by law to try to prevent the killing so damn how did i know bro
01:05:26.880
i haven't seen this episode in years but i already know guys why because i actually did
01:05:30.640
wiretaps when i was an agent so this is all you know second nature for me man based on the tape
01:05:36.560
agents warned gotti acting on the fbi warning john gotti changed his plans on the day the murder was
01:05:44.640
okay so they didn't have enough to arrest them so what they had to do was notify him now if they
01:05:48.880
did have something to actually grab them on they would have grabbed them on that right some bit
01:05:52.640
typically some charge and not have to disclose it but since they didn't have anything or it would
01:05:57.200
jeopardize their investigation to a degree they decided to notify him instead to take place
01:06:03.040
because he was not where he was expected the murder plot failed
01:06:06.240
giganti however did not give up he asked vick amuso acting boss of the lucchese family to supervise
01:06:17.040
another hit it was up to amuso and his men to work out the details and that was to have amuso reach
01:06:26.480
out to al diarco one of his trusted men just as manna was one of giganti's trusted men and have diarco use
01:06:33.680
his contacts uh in other parts of the country to acquire a remote controlled bomb
01:06:40.880
bigotti was arrested and imprisoned before the second plot could be carried out
01:06:45.680
he died of cancer while serving a life sentence for racketeering involving extortion and murder
01:06:51.840
including castellanos meanwhile the fbi had chinsmen on tape conspiring the murder
01:06:58.480
as the fbi's investigation into genovese family operations continued information about a corrupt
01:07:06.640
construction scheme was coming to light they learned that for years much of the genovese family income
01:07:12.960
came from one segment of the construction industry the window business the family had managed to keep
01:07:19.600
its hold on window replacement jobs for all of new york city's public housing projects
01:07:26.240
we learned big money maker and this is another example of the mafia getting in to legitimate
01:07:30.720
businesses and labor unions to get a cut they're all business like small businesses yeah you know
01:07:36.800
well the mafia was smart they knew like and this is why they prioritize gambling you know loan
01:07:42.640
sharking like at face value these crimes are right like yeah if you get charged with
01:07:47.120
loan sharking or i mean extortion probably has the most time but they weren't like beating people
01:07:51.520
down every day but gambling cigarettes smuggling this type of if you get caught for it you're not
01:07:57.040
going to really you know do that much time which is what the mafia love because they were lucrative
01:08:01.440
while simultaneously also being low risk unlike drugs or murder etc the mafia typically only murdered
01:08:07.440
when they needed to to prove a point but other than that they weren't running around just killing
01:08:11.920
random civilians it was typically for power with some kind of purpose within the organization
01:08:15.680
at that time there was a an enormous amount of money being put into refurbishing some of the new
01:08:22.800
york city housing authority windows there was a an energy crisis underway and the timing of this was ideal
01:08:29.520
for the organized crime people become more active in it what we learned was that the genovese family
01:08:37.120
and along with two or three other families were becoming involved in companies that were bidding and
01:08:43.280
installing the windows in some of these housing projects from the late 1970s up until the late
01:08:51.520
1980s there was approximately 190 million dollars worth of contracts given out by the city of new york
01:09:02.480
it was classic mob business and a textbook example of racketeering
01:09:06.720
the mafia took over an industry to the exclusion of legitimate businesses
01:09:14.320
union officials were corrupted in this case iron workers local 580. bids were rigged and companies
01:09:21.360
or workers trying to play by the rules lost out
01:09:26.320
for years the lucasian genovese families operated their construction schemes really smart scheme man really
01:09:32.080
really really smart autonomously by the early 80s they realized that a partnership would be much more profitable
01:09:42.160
by this time the lucchese family had a firm hold on local 580
01:09:46.160
and the genovese family had corrupted several contractors they cooperated because it meant more business
01:09:52.480
by using the local 580 as a tool they were able to exclude several uh contractors from coming in and
01:10:03.200
bidding on some of these projects and in essence created a somewhat of a monopoly for themselves
01:10:11.040
on nearly all city housing authority work and on much of the new construction for the city the genovese
01:10:16.960
contractors and installers paid two dollars a window a dollar went to the lucchese family 25 cents to
01:10:23.840
the collector and 75 cents to the boss for the family's role in handling the union
01:10:31.280
the other dollar went to the crooked union officials who looked the other way as jobs went to non-union workers
01:10:40.240
refusal to cooperate often carried a penalty of violence
01:10:43.840
in the late 80s a carpenter's union delegate had both of his legs broken by genovese men for refusing to
01:10:49.440
cooperate though he maintained that he was unable to get a good look at his attackers
01:10:57.920
and in 1992 a delegate from local 580 was shot and killed coming out of his house on long island
01:11:04.160
over a disagreement with his costa-nostra contracts
01:11:07.040
the lucchese and genovese family arrangement was working very smoothly that is until peter savino was
01:11:19.120
persuaded to wear a wire savino was a genovese soldier and point man for the window racket
01:11:27.680
we built a case on him a murder case on him and it was sufficiently compelling
01:11:31.760
that he realized like many of these people that he didn't want to die in jail so what he do he
01:11:36.640
decided to cooperate and for an 18-month period made tape recordings of people in the genovese family
01:11:42.480
and people in the lucchese family operating this scheme oh man should somebody get real now
01:11:50.400
vincent giganti didn't realize peter savino was turning on him he was happy with savino's work
01:12:02.160
and satisfied with the window scheme's progression
01:12:06.640
and guys you typically don't suspect the guys that are earning the most money for you so this guy was
01:12:12.000
under the perfect guys to be in a situation to assist the government
01:12:21.360
savino kept track of the money he managed the contracts he supervised the bids
01:12:32.000
the boss was happy but some genovese family members began to suspect savino
01:12:48.320
when bodies were found in the basement of a building he owned
01:12:51.440
genovese members were surprised that he was never seriously investigated by law enforcement
01:12:56.240
that's how much are your people got some you know alarm bells going off right now
01:13:05.360
as a result of that people speculated well savino wasn't arrested yet these bodies were found in a
01:13:10.400
building that's tied to him maybe he's cooperating but nobody was really sure
01:13:16.880
savino was a cash cow for vincent giganti he was bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars for
01:13:22.800
the genovese family every month so when you don't want to say i'm right again but pretty much lose my
01:13:28.080
point from before and he was told i haven't seen this episode in years by the way guys just so y'all
01:13:33.360
know so again this just comes from doing these podcasts and knowing how the mafia moves
01:13:38.560
savino's betrayal he chose not to believe it and initially refused to order him killed
01:13:44.880
savino continued to wear the wire trying to get other family members to acknowledge chin and his
01:13:50.240
position as boss of the family giganti's troops however could never be persuaded to break the
01:13:56.880
boss's rule about not mentioning his name remember uniseal vincent had said when it came time okay
01:14:11.280
it was don't mention that name how can you talk like that that was pretty damning proof um even
01:14:21.040
though it's yup gotcha bitch didn't give you a specific crime it told you that this was a man to
01:14:25.840
be feared it was hardly somebody who was incompetent
01:14:30.880
shortly thereafter it came to giganti's attention that savino was in fact cooperating
01:14:36.800
furious at this betrayal giganti ordered the murder of peter savino
01:14:45.680
by that time the fbi had relocated savino well out of genovese family reach
01:14:50.880
but not before he supplied agents with thousands of hours of taped conversations
01:14:57.760
mr savino was also um in a position to provide us with the historical aspects of how the scheme
01:15:04.080
developed his relationship with uh the leaders of both the lucchese and genovese crime family
01:15:09.840
and what their participation was in this thing mr savino also was able to uh tell us how the various
01:15:17.280
members of all of these families interacted with local 580 which was used again as the tool to make
01:15:26.880
the fbi was successfully employing the rico laws to bring down new york's most powerful bosses
01:15:32.880
as a result high-ranking family members saw that their only way to avoid long prison terms was to
01:15:41.600
among them were gambino family underboss salvator sammy the bull gravano
01:15:50.400
giganti was finally arrested and charged under the rico laws with ordering six people murdered
01:15:55.280
conspiring to kill three others and at least 24 counts of racketeering oh in short giganti was
01:16:06.880
charged with being the boss of the genovese crime family but giganti still had his mental illness
01:16:13.520
history walks on that robe looking all crazy all back on
01:16:19.440
mr giganti was indicted in may of 1990 and the second indictment was filed against him in june of
01:16:24.240
1993. mr the case against mr giganti was unusual that it spanned uh several years before it actually
01:16:31.360
went to trial uh he eventually went to trial in june of 1997. during that period of time the issue was
01:16:37.600
that was before the courts was that whether he was competent to stand trial or not that issue was
01:16:43.520
finally resolved in um in 1996. seven years after his arrest a federal district judge declared vincent
01:16:53.760
giganti competent to stand trial damn here we go man fatality all that time trying to prove that
01:17:01.280
you're crazy and the judge still rules that you're sane enough to stand trial man which is the whole
01:17:05.760
purpose why he had that persona vincent the chin giganti was 69 years old when a jury convicted him
01:17:16.000
of conspiring to kill three mafia figures including gaudi and savino he was also found guilty of extortion
01:17:22.800
and union payoff conspiracies in the window replacement scheme
01:17:28.880
but jurors failed to convict him on charges of directly ordering six murders
01:17:36.560
now that giganti was convicted his defense lawyers argued that he was not fit to be sentenced
01:17:42.000
they claimed he was too old too free gotta try again man
01:17:46.000
and too mentally incompetent to understand the punishment
01:17:55.120
while awaiting sentencing giganti was confined to a prison hospital and examined by several doctors
01:18:00.400
doctors giganti was given several pet scans a procedure that uses a radioactive tracer to measure brain chemistry
01:18:12.720
a 1991 scan first read as normal was later found to be too flawed to use in diagnosis
01:18:26.640
but at least one expert dr jonathan brody judged these abnormalities as not consistent with dementia
01:18:36.560
dr brody is an attending psychiatrist at new york's bellevue hospital and a professor at new york
01:18:41.680
university's school of medicine he also conducts research on schizophrenia mr giganti at the time of
01:18:49.680
the scan was purportedly taking medication that affects the brain and because it affects the brain
01:18:57.520
it affects brain chemistry and brain chemistry is what a pet scan is all about
01:19:02.400
uh giganti was taking an antipsychotic medication and antidepressants a low potency tranquilizer and sleeping pills
01:19:16.400
so dr brody was skeptical about the pet scan but had yet to examine the patient
01:19:21.280
and when the three of us entered the the observation room the examining room where he was then uh brought
01:19:32.320
i i was struck at first by his appearance which i said made me think oh my god
01:19:41.120
he really is sick that that i've missed the boat he's really very sick he came in wearing a bathrobe
01:19:49.200
he was shuffling he was mumbling he was uh making allusions to god
01:19:57.440
but as the examination progressed some of giganti's actions began to raise doubts
01:20:07.040
but one of the things that really struck me was uh that i didn't note at the time but i noted a few
01:20:12.160
seconds later was when i put out my hand for him to shake it he didn't shake it and that's a
01:20:19.040
very automatic behavior you put your your hand down your worst enemy can put his hand out to you and
01:20:25.600
you tend to take it when giganti was asked the names of his children he didn't know when he was asked
01:20:34.400
where he lived he didn't know and yet these are things that people tend not to forget you know the
01:20:44.320
brain in a dementia tends to work on the process of accounting the last in first out so recent memory
01:20:50.480
tends to be lost but that's why people who are very demented can often remember very well events from
01:20:56.320
long ago even if they can't remember recent events well he was not consistent on that indeed he was asked
01:21:03.840
the question about who the president of the united states was which is a standard question on a
01:21:08.480
psychiatric mental status evaluation and he scratched his head and he looked perplexed and he said um
01:21:16.000
i should know that i really i should know that answer al acting it's in there somewhere he was
01:21:23.920
all about um faking it and some more questions making it so you make it man yeah this is a perfect
01:21:28.880
example of when acting definitely gets you denied i really should know that and then finally he said
01:21:43.680
and i sat there and thought oh he remembered the question what was striking was not that the answer
01:21:52.960
was incorrect what was striking was that the question was remembered despite all of the
01:21:58.560
interfering questions he asked a bunch of questions and he remembered one of them in that exchange
01:22:07.360
which set it off that this dude isn't crazy like he claimed he remembered a small detail that should
01:22:13.680
have been over gloss given his condition right with air quotes and there were other red flags he seemed to
01:22:21.680
to understand abstract concepts dr brody asked giganti if he was proud of his children
01:22:34.800
and his response was yes they're all working legitimate jobs
01:22:45.280
legitimate implies yet something else that he was able to abstract from the question some intent as
01:22:52.640
to what the question was involved with and awareness of a distinction between legitimacy and illegitimacy
01:23:00.800
and here was a man who didn't know what month it was he didn't know if he was in a hospital
01:23:16.000
these and other inconsistencies contributed to dr brody's conclusion that giganti did not suffer from
01:23:21.520
progressive dementia vascular dementia or schizophrenia
01:23:24.800
guards assigned to watch giganti during his pre-sentencing hospitalization also found his behavior in
01:23:34.480
morning they testified that he was active around his prison hospital cell and polite to the hospital
01:23:41.280
staff he did not need help to shout to groom himself or to feed himself
01:23:47.840
the lawyers more red flags all put in affidavits that they couldn't communicate with vincent giganti at
01:23:54.080
all well when he was in jail he managed to speak with the prison counselors when you sort of talk to the
01:24:01.440
sort of low level people in jail who have to take care of inmates on a day-to-day basis it turns out
01:24:07.280
he knew exactly that what had happened he knew he'd been on trial he knew that gravano had testified
01:24:12.160
against him and didn't have very nice things to say about him he knew that his sentencing was upcoming
01:24:16.480
he knew what the issue was before judge weinstein as to that he had to decide that he was competent to
01:24:20.960
be sentenced it was completely at odds with what his lawyers were telling judge weinstein
01:24:29.840
some psychiatrists thought giganti really was incompetent others thought he was faking
01:24:36.320
five months and dozens of tests later the judge ruled
01:24:42.640
the judge said in short the defendant's cognitive and emotional capacity and his communication skills are
01:24:49.680
equivalent to other 69 year old defendants with limited education no hallucinations interfere with
01:24:56.480
his abilities to participate in sentencing boom boom my god yeah bro he understands the fundamentals of
01:25:04.560
criminal substantive law and procedure he's deliberately feigning mental illness to avoid punishment which he
01:25:14.080
defendant is competent to be sentenced and to serve an appropriate term in prison
01:25:23.440
described efforts of the fbi and prosecutors as historic and courageous
01:25:30.320
this has been a battle that that certainly i've been involved with for the last 20 years and certainly
01:25:35.680
i think agents that will continue that on over the next five or six years if the effort could be
01:25:40.240
sustained and the resources maintained you know i think we're on the verge of really reducing the
01:25:48.320
yep he definitely was right about that because you know 20 30 years later now that we're in 2023 the mafia
01:25:54.800
it's kind of it's a former shell of itself man do they still exist absolutely but they don't have the same
01:25:58.960
power that they did back in the 70s and 80s and well and of course the 20s and onward to be sure the
01:26:07.440
government's legal victory in the giganti case was partially the jury after all failed to convict him of
01:26:13.360
the six murder charges he was originally sentenced to 12 years in 2003 he pleaded guilty to obstruction of
01:26:21.680
justice and earned three more years finally admitting in court that he had been faking insanity
01:26:28.080
the entire time bam and that right there guys is the genovese crime family uh you know highlighting
01:26:37.120
the crazy don aka the odd father um gigante but angie what's your uh final thoughts on this before
01:26:43.840
we close out i think that was a clever man yeah although not that clever because he didn't make it
01:26:49.680
but that's dedication it's crazy yeah if the fbi had not had him on like 24-hour surveillance like
01:26:55.440
that they wouldn't have been able to figure that out so surveillance was really critical in that case
01:27:00.400
which led to the wiretaps etc but um guys hope you enjoyed that episode man i'm gonna catch you guys
01:27:05.680
on next one don't forget to like the video subscribe to the channel if you haven't already check me out
01:27:08.800
on fitted.1811 uh to get a hold of angie if you want to she's going to be more active on there
01:27:14.560
uh so yeah we'll see on there and uh she'll be watching the lives with you guys or excuse me the
01:27:18.400
premieres so if you have any questions always hit her up and she'll relay on back to me or cases
01:27:21.760
y'all want to see yes she has a running list and uh yes we'll catch y'all uh like the video by the
01:27:27.680
way don't be a ninja watcher later guys i was a special agent with homelands investigations okay guys