The Debrief With MyronGainesX - May 15, 2023


Fed Explains Genovese Family & Crazy Don Vince Gigante


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 27 minutes

Words per minute

164.28114

Word count

14,393

Sentence count

10

Harmful content

Misogyny

8

sentences flagged

Hate speech

25

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

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

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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 1.00
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 0.97
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 1.00
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 0.78
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 0.82
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 0.96
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 0.87
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
00:10:00.160 they needed mafia protection more and more
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 0.82
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 0.87
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
00:15:43.840 do so
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 0.75
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 0.89
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 0.95
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 0.73
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 0.88
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
00:23:08.640 bought like a lot of people in prison
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
00:25:10.000 investigations in the genovese family
00:25:12.080 in the genovese family history
00:25:15.920 now at almost 40 years old he returned to his mental disability as a foil and checked himself
00:25:21.760 into a psychiatric hospital for the first time
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
00:25:42.080 she said vincent was a healthy happy child
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 0.80
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 0.63
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 0.94
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 0.56
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 0.93
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 0.71
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
00:44:03.920 assassins was found dead
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 0.86
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
00:48:43.360 especially in the federal court system
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
00:50:13.680 that's huge
00:50:21.760 clearly there were two gigantes the mentally troubled one displayed to the public 0.61
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 1.00
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
00:51:12.880 his long-standing companion olympia esposito
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 0.99
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 0.93
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 0.99
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
01:03:07.920 trial he was killed before they had the chance
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
01:08:58.400 for the window replacement industry
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 0.67
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
01:12:30.720 he arranged the payoffs
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
01:14:08.320 he had said to go out and bid to work
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 1.00
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
01:15:23.680 the scheme work
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
01:15:38.160 cooperate
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 0.53
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 0.84
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
01:18:18.880 the 1993 scan did show some abnormalities
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 0.99
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
01:21:39.040 bush george bush
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
01:22:30.640 now pride is really quite an abstract notion
01:22:34.800 and his response was yes they're all working legitimate jobs
01:22:43.040 legitimacy well that wasn't even a question
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
01:23:06.800 i'll let you leave
01:23:12.880 i'll let you do of course
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
01:25:10.560 fears
01:25:14.080 defendant is competent to be sentenced and to serve an appropriate term in prison
01:25:19.360 there you go
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
01:25:45.680 effects and the impact of the cause of nostril
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 0.79
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