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

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00:00:27.220 call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connexontario.ca. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius

00:00:33.280 XM channel 111 every weekday at New East. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn

00:00:44.620 Kelly Show and today's double feature episode. This is a good one. It is Mafia Sunday. Yes,

00:00:50.560 we're going into the archives to bring you two fascinating conversations with two former members

00:00:55.960 of the mafia who opened up in a very transparent way about their lives before and their lives

00:01:02.780 after their time in the family. First, Michael Francis, and then Sammy the Bull Gravano. I mean,

00:01:12.440 I can't tell you the number of times I have referenced that interview with Sammy the Bull

00:01:17.500 Gravano. It was truly one of the most memorable exchanges I've ever had in my entire career.

00:01:23.720 you listen to this sampling and you will see why. Enjoy.

00:01:29.180 Today, we bring you the fascinating story of a man born into the mob. Imagine that.

00:01:37.220 Michael Franzese grew up as the son of the notorious underboss of New York's Colombo

00:01:42.900 crime family and became extremely successful himself. He's been called one of the biggest

00:01:48.300 mob earners since Al Capone. But he has since left his life of crime behind and is now a

00:01:54.940 best-selling author, speaker, and host of Sit Down with Michael Franzese on YouTube.

00:02:04.540 Michael, welcome to the show. Nice to meet you.

00:02:07.520 Well, nice to meet you, Megan. Thanks for having me.

00:02:10.460 Oh, what a fascinating story you have. So let's start at the beginning.

00:02:14.120 You were born into the mob.

00:02:16.520 Describe your dad and how he came into it.

00:02:20.620 Well, my dad, my grandfather actually immigrated here in about 1902, 1903.

00:02:26.840 And he was a prominent guy in Brooklyn.

00:02:29.460 Even though he wasn't a member, he certainly knew a lot of the guys.

00:02:32.900 My dad, my grandfather had a bar and a bakery and a lot of guys would come in and associate

00:02:38.640 with him.

00:02:39.240 And my dad started to meet them through my grandfather.

00:02:42.420 And my grandfather was known as Tootie the Lion.

00:02:44.540 So he was a pretty substantial guy.

00:02:47.900 And my father got drawn in, you know.

00:02:50.580 He was just that type of guy, had that type of spirit.

00:02:53.720 And they saw something in him before you know it.

00:02:56.880 You know, he became a made man and eventually rose up in the ranks to captain and an underboss of the Colombo family.

00:03:05.640 And, you know, Megan, I grew up a lot differently than most people.

00:03:08.320 I grew up, you know, hating the government, hating the police because my dad was constantly

00:03:13.040 under surveillance.

00:03:14.380 We had law enforcement around us all the time, and I always viewed them as harassing my dad.

00:03:19.880 So, you know, I kind of grew up, you know, from the time I can remember, you know, in

00:03:24.640 that lifestyle.

00:03:26.920 So how talk us through like your earliest memories of your dad and like, OK, my my childhood,

00:03:35.280 my family is not like all the others.

00:03:38.320 Well, you know, my very earliest memory, and it's amazing how you can remember some things that just really impact you.

00:03:46.260 I was probably four years old, and we were in Brooklyn at the time, but my dad had moved us out to my grandmother's house who lived in Long Island.

00:03:56.180 And I hadn't seen him for a couple of days, I assume.

00:03:59.240 Again, I was four years old.

00:04:00.440 But then one day, he comes into my grandmother's house.

00:04:04.800 He hadn't shaved in a while.

00:04:06.300 So his right hand guy, a guy by the name of Joey, who is again, my dad's right hand guy, was out on the porch and I can see through the window and he was kind of like standing guard.

00:04:16.340 My dad comes in, hugs my mom and, you know, they talk for a few minutes.

00:04:22.060 Then he comes over to me. I was sitting on the steps and he gives me a big hug.

00:04:26.140 And, you know, I love your son and all of that. And I didn't know what was going on.

00:04:29.840 And then he left. Well, what I realized later on, it was that was during the Profaci Gallo war and they had taken to the mattresses, as the saying goes.

00:04:40.280 And my dad wasn't around for a while. That's the earliest memory that I have.

00:04:44.400 And it just continued there because my dad was so high profile.

00:04:48.800 He was always under investigation, always a major target of law enforcement.

00:04:52.600 I always say he was kind of like the John Gotti of his day.

00:04:55.480 So, you know, it's it's my memory, you know, going way back and he was always in the media.

00:05:01.880 So, you know, I had issues at school because my dad, you know, guys was, hey, you got a mafia dad.

00:05:06.800 You know, I would fight because I love my dad. I didn't care what anybody said.

00:05:10.280 And so it was, you know, from my earliest days that I remember that.

00:05:14.780 And did you did he ever like tell you, you know, I'm in this thing called the mafia.

00:05:20.020 This is what I do. You can't talk about it. How did you come to realize he was part of this organization?

00:05:25.020 you know one of the many things i respect about my dad at that time he never brought what was going

00:05:31.740 on outside into the house he would never talk about it he would never mention it obviously

00:05:37.900 you know every once in a while i'd hear a crack because law enforcement was outside surveilling

00:05:42.860 him but he would never bring it up he would never admit to anything never talk about anything

00:05:47.360 obviously a lot of his guys were coming to the house all the time but to me they were like uncle

00:05:52.280 you know, Uncle Sam, Uncle this guy. So it was normal, you know, but I saw the way my dad was

00:05:58.360 treated. We would go to the Copacabana and go out places. And, you know, he always had a lot

00:06:02.960 of respect. People, he had a lot of charisma and he commanded a lot of respect in that regard.

00:06:08.060 But never, never, never did he mention anything when I was younger. Never.

00:06:13.040 So how'd you figure it out?

00:06:15.400 Well, again, you know, from what I, from my observation, from what I read in the media,

00:06:19.520 You know, there was huge stories about him all the time.

00:06:22.560 And obviously, you know, what I saw and what other people told me.

00:06:26.340 So and I never really brought it up to him.

00:06:28.280 I would never say anything to him because to me, he was dad.

00:06:31.240 You know, he was a loving father and I never did.

00:06:34.360 It wasn't until I got older and my dad started, you know, getting indicted quite a bit and going on trial for serious crimes.

00:06:41.380 He was on trial twice for grand larceny and once for murder.

00:06:44.780 So obviously, during that, we had some talks and my dad would always say, you know, I'm innocent, son.

00:06:49.520 I didn't commit these crimes.

00:06:51.520 Eventually he was acquitted on three of those trials

00:06:54.160 that he went to in the state of New York.

00:06:56.460 So, you know, I started to know, obviously, as I got older.

00:07:00.060 How was, was I, because I know, you know, Sammy the Bull

00:07:03.100 and he came on the show two summers ago

00:07:06.480 and he was talking to me about how he tried to move his family

00:07:10.060 into sort of a nicer neighborhood.

00:07:12.540 And he wound up leaving because he was getting really angry

00:07:18.040 that the neighbors were telling their kids

00:07:21.280 not to play with his kids.

00:07:23.260 And he went over to the neighbor's house

00:07:25.320 and he threatened them at the door,

00:07:27.540 you know, like, I'm going to get you unless you...

00:07:29.220 And he said, he had this realization,

00:07:31.560 like, what am I doing?

00:07:33.000 This is not, I'm scaring these people,

00:07:35.480 you know, to within an inch of their lives.

00:07:38.000 These are civilians.

00:07:39.420 I can't be here.

00:07:40.980 I got to go back to my normal.

00:07:42.580 Like, I'm wondering how your dad was

00:07:44.880 when you had scuffles at school,

00:07:47.380 When the teachers were nasty to you, when the neighbors crossed a line, were there any situations like that?

00:07:55.600 You know, not really. I mean, we were kind of accepted in the neighborhood.

00:07:59.420 You know, what happened then, my dad was under surveillance from seven or eight different agencies, law enforcement agencies.

00:08:05.480 And their tactics were different back then than today.

00:08:08.080 So everything is very covert, undercover informants, high tech surveillance equipment.

00:08:12.660 Back then, when they had you under investigation, they wanted you to know about it.

00:08:16.440 And so for a period like seven, eight, nine years, we had constant law enforcement around us.

00:08:21.600 They would sit, you know, on the front of our house, the back of our house so that we couldn't leave without them surveilling us.

00:08:27.600 The neighbors actually got upset with them.

00:08:29.440 I remember one woman putting a garden hose on them because she was so upset or tired of seeing them sitting in front of our house.

00:08:37.020 My dad, you know, he was a charismatic guy.

00:08:39.220 People liked him.

00:08:41.100 You know, I didn't run into any of that.

00:08:43.040 I mean, sometimes, like I said, kids in school would get a little out of hand, but I would deal with it.

00:08:47.920 But, you know, one thing I'll tell you, I played sports in school and my dad wouldn't miss a game.

00:08:53.680 And when I was playing baseball, if I was up to bat, my dad walked onto the field.

00:08:57.580 The umpire would never call strike three on me when he saw my dad.

00:09:01.300 I used to say, Dad, you're very good for my batting average back then.

00:09:05.320 But I didn't run into that kind of resistance from people and neither did we.

00:09:10.440 Take me, like, what years are we talking about when you were, what year were you born?

00:09:15.620 I was born in 51.

00:09:17.860 So we're talking, you know, late 50s, early 60s.

00:09:20.800 And right through the 60s is when my dad really, you know, had all his trouble.

00:09:25.340 So it was that whole decade.

00:09:28.300 All right.

00:09:28.780 And so how about you?

00:09:30.160 You become, I mean, I'm picturing something, of course, like Goodfellas, where you're a young kid and you're entranced by the lifestyle and you feel like a big man.

00:09:38.120 But you tell me, how did you get attracted to the business yourself and make the decision to join?

00:09:44.020 You know, it was just the opposite with me.

00:09:45.660 My dad, you know, preached against me doing anything but getting an education.

00:09:50.380 He wanted me to go to school, wanted me to be a doctor.

00:09:53.780 He was, you know, hell bent on education.

00:09:56.820 Mike, you're going to be the first professional in the family.

00:09:59.360 And he meant it.

00:10:00.340 He kept me on that road.

00:10:01.660 It wasn't until, you know, he was indicted in a federal case for masterminding a nationwide string of bank robberies.

00:10:08.340 He gets convicted. He gets a 50 year prison sentence in 1967.

00:10:13.140 And in 1970, when I was 19, he went off to do his time.

00:10:18.140 Joe Colombo, who was the boss of our family, and I was very close with their family, he kind of takes me under his wing.

00:10:23.840 We start to march with the Italian American Civil Rights League.

00:10:27.240 We were marching against the FBI for, you know, defaming Italian Americans.

00:10:31.140 So I got very involved in the league as a way to help my dad, because, Megan, I'll tell you this, you know, when we get later on in this, I went to jail for a crime that I was guilty of.

00:10:40.840 I pled guilty, did my time. My dad obviously did a lot of bad things in his life.

00:10:45.060 But that particular crime that he did 40 years in prison on, my dad was innocent of.

00:10:50.800 I'll take that to my grave. We investigated every one of those witnesses.

00:10:55.460 They recanted their testimony. We gave them lie detective tests, proved they lied at the trial.

00:11:00.180 we can never get the conviction overturned. So I was hellbent on trying to help my dad prove his

00:11:05.780 innocence because he had essentially a death sentence. He went in when he was 50 years old,

00:11:10.340 50 on top of that, you know, that's a long time. So I got into that life because I lost interest

00:11:16.660 in school. I was a sophomore in college and I was a pre-med student. I was highly influenced

00:11:22.840 by Joe Colombo and the guys that, you know, that I met during that time. And they would say, Mike,

00:11:28.140 if you don't help your father out, he's going to die in prison. So I went to see him in Leavenworth

00:11:32.520 in the penitentiary. And we sat in the visiting room. I said, Dad, you tell me you're innocent.

00:11:36.460 I believe you. I'm not going to school anymore. If I don't help you out, you're going to die in

00:11:40.600 here. And we had a pretty intense discussion because he was against it. But he knew my mind

00:11:46.260 was made up and I was a pretty headstrong kid. So he said to me, son, if you're going to be on the

00:11:50.200 street, you know, I want you on the street the right way. And then, you know, Megan, I don't 0.78

00:11:56.300 like to, you know, say this, I don't like to be offensive to people, but he asked me one question 0.95

00:12:01.560 and he said, son, if you had to kill anybody, could you do it? And I thought about it for a

00:12:06.940 minute, you know, kind of a little bit surprised by the question, but I said, dad, the circumstances

00:12:11.720 were right. I can do it. And he said, that's the right answer. Go home. Somebody's going to be in

00:12:16.500 touch with you. Do whatever you're told. And that's when he proposed me for membership in the

00:12:20.580 life. Wow. It's almost like you were on the same path as Michael Corleone in The Godfather, right?

00:12:28.600 He was supposed to be the son who didn't get drawn into the business. He was going to be a senator

00:12:32.580 in a position of power. You were supposed to become a doctor and pursue a legit life.

00:12:38.000 And yet you did get pulled. You did get pulled in. Yes. And, you know, it's like I said, it wasn't

00:12:44.860 even though I was around my dad. And listen, we always got first class treatment. I can't tell

00:12:49.880 how many times, Megan, I went to the Copacabana. We met everybody from Sinatra on down. And they

00:12:55.380 all had respect for my dad. And the owner, Julie Padel, loved my father. And we got that kind of

00:13:00.380 treatment. My dad was also in the music business. I met a lot of artists when I was younger.

00:13:05.360 So he carried himself in that way where people were attracted to him. And he was a tremendous

00:13:11.040 influence on me in that regard. I watched him. I observed him. But I didn't want to be a gangster.

00:13:16.880 it. That's not what my life was all about. You know, I, I was heading the legitimate way. And

00:13:22.980 then I got drawn in because I just felt, you know, it was incumbent upon me to help my dad. I was

00:13:28.520 also the oldest of the kids, you know, and there's a myth in that life that, you know, once you're

00:13:33.460 part of that life, you go to prison, they take care of you forever. That's not true. Whatever

00:13:38.080 my dad had on the street at the time, you know, it ran out after about two years, and then we were

00:13:44.100 on our own. So I had to help support the family and do all the things that, you know, an oldest

00:13:48.580 son would do. Wow. I didn't realize that. I thought I thought I believe the myth, too.

00:13:54.860 So now you're what, like in your young 20s. And what how did you start to become a part of it?

00:14:01.920 You know, do they do they give you a gun and say you've got to shoot somebody? This is one of the

00:14:05.800 rumors that you've got to shoot somebody. You've got to kill somebody in order to officially 1.00

00:14:08.760 be accepted as part of the mafia. Is that true? How did you realize you were in and what was 0.98

00:14:15.840 expected of you? Well, my dad sent word, you know, downtown to the officials. About two weeks later,

00:14:23.200 a cop regime or captain in a family picked me up and he took me to see the boss. Now,

00:14:28.060 Joe Colombo had been shot seriously wounded at a big rally we had for the Italian American Civil

00:14:33.660 Rights League at Columbus Circle. And I was like 12 steps away from him when that happened.

00:14:38.760 So a new boss had taken over. He's passed on now, Tom DiBella. And I sat with Tom. He says, Mike, I got a message from your father. He said, you want to become a member of our life. Is that true? And I said, yes. He said, well, here's the deal. From now on, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you're on call to serve this family, the Colombo family.

00:14:57.200 And that means if your mother is sick and she's dying and we call you to service and you're at her bedside, you leave your mother's side.

00:15:04.360 You come and serve us from now on. We're number one in your life before anything and everything.

00:15:09.160 When and if we feel you deserve this privilege, this honor to become a member, we'll let you know.

00:15:14.600 And that's how it started. I was 21 years old. I was in kind of like a pledge period.

00:15:20.200 I was a recruit. That's the official title of that, where I had to do anything and everything I was told to do to prove myself worthy.

00:15:26.560 And, you know, it could have been something very menial, a lot of discipline in that life, a lot of alleged respect, a lot of, you know, authority.

00:15:34.100 You had a meeting at eight o'clock. You weren't there at 730. You were late. Can never be late in that life.

00:15:39.460 Drive the boss to a meeting, sit in the car two, three, four hours. God forbid you leave, go to the restroom, get a newspaper.

00:15:45.400 He comes out. You're not there. You're in trouble. You know, I know I did that once. I paid the price.

00:15:49.660 a lot of stuff like that. And, you know, Megan, I got to be honest. You know, the life is very

00:15:56.240 violent at times. And if you're part of that life, you're part of the violence and there's no escape.

00:16:01.060 And if anybody tells you differently, they're either not being honest with you or they weren't

00:16:04.960 a made man in that life. And, you know, I think you know what I mean. It's but, you know, here's

00:16:10.020 the other myth. You know, a lot of guys talk about, you know, all these killings like we ran

00:16:15.300 around all day long and all we did was baseball bat people and murder people. Absolutely not true.

00:16:22.380 You know, in our life and at least in our family, I can tell you this, you know, murder was taken

00:16:30.280 very seriously. It was a last course of action. It had to be approved by the boss. There was

00:16:35.360 discussion over it most of the time, at least that my experience in the 20 plus years are put

00:16:41.020 to that life. It wasn't that guys were around running around every day just targeting people

00:16:45.940 to hurt. And I know, you know, there's a lot of guys on YouTube that talk that way now. That

00:16:51.040 wasn't my experience. But it is part of the life. And if you're called upon to do it, you got to do

00:16:57.900 it. Was it petty crime? Was it like you didn't pay back the loan, so I got to break your legs?

00:17:04.660 That's not petty. But I'm just saying it wasn't it was violent, but it wasn't murder. So did you

00:17:08.880 have to hurt people? Because I feel like that would be a before and after moment.

00:17:13.280 Well, let's put it this way. You know, a lot of I had a lot of bookmakers around me that were

00:17:17.580 taking, you know, obviously taking bets illegally at the time. And, you know, the last course of

00:17:24.120 action is to hurt somebody, because if somebody is in debt to you, you want to you want them to

00:17:28.100 pay you. It's only if they're, you know, doing something like so obnoxious to you that, hey,

00:17:33.480 you've got to teach this guy a lesson. But it's not the first course of action, at least with me,

00:17:38.060 it wasn't. And with most of the people that I knew at that time, certainly not with my dad,

00:17:41.980 that wasn't a first course of action. But did it happen at times? Yeah, I'm not going to say it

00:17:46.880 didn't. And you know, there was kind of a, it was kind of two different categories, I would say in

00:17:51.820 that life. You're either a racketeer, or you're a gangster. Give you an example. In our family,

00:17:57.600 we had 115 made guys at that time. This was after I took the oath. 115 made guys out of that 115,

00:18:04.700 maybe 20 of us were real earners we were bringing money into the life 20 the other 95 you know who's

00:18:12.060 got a no-show job who's got a gambling who's trying to do something just to to make a few bucks

00:18:17.220 and they're the guys that you know were leaned upon most of the time to do the work because

00:18:22.320 you got to earn your way in that life guys that are bringing in money they want to protect those

00:18:27.540 guys however a gangster never really had the ability to become a racketeer because if he did

00:18:33.520 he would be and he'd be earning. But a racketeer has to be both because you're going to be called

00:18:37.980 upon in that life to do what you have to do and you can't refuse and you got to be capable in

00:18:42.260 that regard. So, you know, but again, the smarter guys, you don't want to hurt people every day.

00:18:48.280 That's not what we would have to do. It must have been a jarring flip, right? To go from

00:18:55.060 this world in which you thought you were going to be a doctor healing people to this world in which

00:18:59.940 you became part of the mafia, sometimes having to hurt people, right? Like, do you ever think

00:19:05.660 about it like that? You know, I did, Megan, but quite honestly, maybe it was because being around

00:19:13.080 my dad my whole life, or maybe I did have something in me. Maybe I wasn't destined to be a

00:19:18.580 doctor. I don't know. I mean, I often reflected on that myself and said, you know, how do I,

00:19:24.320 how did I adapt to this so well? Um, because, you know, I had some success in life and look,

00:19:30.660 I'll be honest with you. You know, I had a very idealistic view of the life when I got into the

00:19:35.140 life, you know, they told me, Hey, you know, you don't ever have to worry wherever you go in the

00:19:39.700 world. Somebody's going to have your back. Don't ever worry about your mother, your sister, your

00:19:43.400 wife, your daughter, nobody's ever going to hurt them. We'll protect them. You have a brotherhood

00:19:47.520 around you. You know, I was going to be, you know, bonded in blood in a different way. Um, you know,

00:19:53.120 with my father than I already was. So I had a very idealistic view of the life coming in. I

00:19:58.920 was excited about it, you know, and I wanted to be the best possible mob guy could be at that time.

00:20:03.480 So, you know, maybe, maybe I did have it in me all the time. I just didn't know it.

00:20:15.420 This is mobs for dummies. So to become a made guy, what does it mean? And I know you took like

00:20:21.920 the oath of omerta which i really i think i also took that same oath at fox news um but is that

00:20:28.160 only when you become a made guy or is that just like when you first sort of joined the mob

00:20:32.600 yeah well i was in kind of like i said a recruit period and it was an interesting period because

00:20:39.260 from 19 from the early 1950s right through 1974 75 they had an expression in the life that covered

00:20:47.680 all five families and that the books were closed. They weren't making or recruiting any new guys.

00:20:54.580 The only way they were able to do that in one of the families, if somebody died, they were able to

00:20:59.180 bring another guy in to replace that person. So when I was a recruit, I was around guys that

00:21:04.920 were waiting 20 years to become a made guy. Meaning what, though? Because you're in the

00:21:10.220 mafia, but you're not made. I mean, I only know the Goodfellas reference. When Joe Pesci's

00:21:14.940 character became made. He became more important somehow, but he was in the mob prior to that

00:21:18.820 moment. Right. Well, prior to that, you become an associate, meaning that somebody that's an

00:21:25.340 official in that life puts you on record with them and you're officially with that person.

00:21:30.340 That makes you an official associate. Nobody else can do business with you unless the maid guy says

00:21:36.040 it's okay. And he has complete authority over you. He's responsible for you and you're responsible

00:21:41.040 to answer to him. That's an associate. So when you're a recruit like I was, I was an associate.

00:21:47.260 But it's not an official position in that life. Once you get, you know, you prove yourself and

00:21:54.020 you're approved to become a maid member, which is the term that they use, well, then you take an

00:21:59.980 oath and you become a soldier. And a soldier is the first official position in that life.

00:22:05.780 The next ranking up is a cop regime or a captain.

00:22:09.040 And then you have the hierarchy, which is the boss, the underboss, and the consigliere.

00:22:14.460 And that's it.

00:22:15.420 Those are the rankings.

00:22:17.520 And with the boss, the underboss, and the consigliere, and who's the don?

00:22:21.900 Is he above all of them, or is that the boss?

00:22:25.020 Yeah, you know, the don is an expression that you hear from Italy,

00:22:28.400 but the boss of the family can be considered the don.

00:22:32.660 Okay.

00:22:32.940 Okay. So thank you for walking me through this.

00:22:36.380 Yeah.

00:22:37.500 Okay. So they made a movie about your life and they reenacted the moment that you took the oath, which would have been in 1975.

00:22:47.320 This is from the 2014 documentary profiling you. God, the father was the name. Here's a bit of that.

00:22:53.660 If you ever violate the oath of La Cosa Nostra, 0.99

00:23:05.660 you burn in hell like the saint burning in your hands. 0.95

00:23:10.560 Your allegiance to La Cosa Nostra is bound in blood. 0.99

00:23:16.480 Should you ever violate this oath, your blood will be shed.

00:23:20.960 you will keep the secrets and traditions you will hear and learn about you will not violate

00:23:27.460 another member's wife sister or daughter or ever raise your hand against another member

00:23:34.200 and you will carry out every order given to you because a nostra comes before anything

00:23:43.000 and everything in your life

00:23:45.240 how accurate was that i was pretty accurate you know that's that's the oath and obviously they

00:23:54.020 they do you know shed a little blood they prick your your finger and and they have a knife there

00:23:59.060 they make a little slit so and then they burn a saint in your hands and um that's the oath i mean

00:24:05.300 it's quick but it's very serious in tried out they spin you around three times and make you

00:24:12.020 sing a song. It's different, but it's also similar. It's quite the initiation experience

00:24:19.860 and different expectations. So you become a made guy. Now at this point, are you developing a

00:24:26.220 family? Like I would think the more layers you have and the more connections to sort of regular

00:24:30.200 society, schools and the bridge club, whatever, the more complicated this gets.

00:24:35.420 well yes i mean i was uh i was married young i got married when i was 24 um and that marriage

00:24:43.240 lasted for a couple of years i had three children in three years with my my first wife and i'm

00:24:48.780 married now for 38 years with my my wife camille and we have four more children so i have seven

00:24:53.200 all together but you know megan here's here's the thing that i've said and i'm i'm careful the way

00:24:59.160 i said this you know i always call the mob life the street life the gang life their evil lifestyle

00:25:05.400 and I'm not calling the guys evil. I was one of them. I just happened to be very fortunate to be

00:25:10.740 in the position I am now. Uh, but the lifestyle is evil because I don't know any family of any

00:25:16.920 member of that life that hasn't been devastated. And I mean that including my own now, not my wife

00:25:22.220 and kids. I've been able to, you know, to, uh, spare them of that. But my mom was, my dad did

00:25:28.060 40 years on that 50. My mom, she died in 2012. She was 33 years without her husband. At the end

00:25:35.500 of her life, I can only describe her relationship with my dad as being ugly because she blamed him

00:25:41.680 for everything that went wrong in her life, and rightfully so. What went wrong? I had a sister,

00:25:46.360 27 years old, died of an overdose of drugs. A lot of turbulence in my household, always. It was a

00:25:52.100 crazy lifestyle. She dies at 27. My younger brother, 25 years as a drug addict. I can't

00:26:00.520 even begin to tell you how many times I had to save his life and how much trouble he caused the

00:26:04.700 family because of his drug addiction. Eventually, he got himself in trouble, cooperated with the

00:26:10.580 government, wired himself up against my father, and he put my father back in jail on another case.

00:26:15.860 and my dad was 92 years old when that happened. He was out on fire. A son going against the father

00:26:22.560 and another sister, you know, 20. I mean, she was 41 years old. She wasn't ever mentally stable.

00:26:29.440 She grew up in this turbulence, didn't sit well with her. She passed away at 41. So my whole

00:26:34.460 family was destroyed. And every family of every member of that life that I know is in a similar

00:26:40.720 situation. So any lifestyle does that for a family is obviously a bad or an evil lifestyle. So,

00:26:47.140 you know, it's, and you don't realize that going in, I didn't realize, hey, I'm going to go to

00:26:52.700 jail for all these years, and my family's going to be destroyed. I didn't think that way. Again,

00:26:56.940 I had an idealistic view of the life. Even seeing what my father went through, I kind of pushed that

00:27:02.660 out and said, well, that's not going to happen to me. Or if it does happen to me, I'll deal with it.

00:27:06.380 I was always the type of guy that figured, hey, I can figure everything out, and I'll deal with it.

00:27:09.720 And somehow I'll make it work.

00:27:12.220 You know, so I had that kind of an attitude.

00:27:14.320 But yes, it's very, very rough on the families, no doubt.

00:27:18.140 So was your first brush with the law, Rudy Giuliani?

00:27:24.580 No, that was, oh gosh, that was way, way, way later on.

00:27:28.460 That was your last?

00:27:30.340 Yeah, that was way later.

00:27:31.920 That was in 84.

00:27:33.140 I mean, my first brush with the law was with the Italian American Civil Rights League when

00:27:38.480 we were picketing, I got in an altercation with a cop and I hit him and, you know, they beat me up

00:27:45.400 and it was a mess. But I was like 20 years old when that happened. And then, you know, I had a

00:27:51.480 bullseye on my back immediately because of my dad. I was arrested 18 times. I had seven indictments

00:27:57.500 altogether. I had two federal racketeering cases, one state RICO indictment, and I had four other

00:28:04.580 state of New York cases. So from the time I was 20 years old, I was just getting arrested,

00:28:09.560 getting indicted, fighting the law. It was just a lifelong battle for me.

00:28:13.740 That's amazing. I mean, it's truly like racketeering, Giuliani, multiple indictments

00:28:19.180 in New York. It sounds just like somebody who I know is the former president and likely to be

00:28:23.400 potentially the next president, Donald Trump, which we'll get to because I know you've got

00:28:27.640 some insights on what he's going through. But this, you know, racketeering is a charge that

00:28:31.420 was created so that federal prosecutors could get at mobsters who they hadn't been able to

00:28:36.780 sort of sweep up in a big net of criminality. And I know you got caught in that, that net

00:28:43.240 eventually. So you've got maybe 14 years there where you get arrested and you get out or you

00:28:47.680 get some small punishment. Can you give me a flavor for how you were the, you were a racketeer,

00:28:52.580 you weren't a gangster. What kinds of things were you doing? How are you paying the bills

00:28:56.780 to where you were considered in that first group?

00:29:00.440 Well, you know, I was fortunate, I think,

00:29:03.720 in that I understood how to use that life

00:29:06.140 to benefit me in business.

00:29:08.160 And, you know, I went on to make

00:29:10.280 a very significant amount of money,

00:29:12.320 both legally and illegally.

00:29:14.900 You know, I had two automobile dealerships, legitimate.

00:29:17.520 I had a Mazda and a Chevrolet agency.

00:29:19.360 I had a leasing company.

00:29:21.200 I had a couple of restaurants that I was involved in.

00:29:24.300 I had a film production company at one point in time that actually we made about 30 films at the time and distributed them throughout the world.

00:29:33.000 So I had a lot of legitimate things going on.

00:29:35.820 But the the biggest enterprise or scam, whatever you want to call it, that I got involved in was the wholesale gasoline business.

00:29:44.000 And in a nutshell, I devised a scheme along with a partner to defraud the government out of taxing every gallon of gasoline.

00:29:51.460 And it was an operation we ran for about eight years. 0.91

00:29:54.040 I had the Russian mob guys from Brighton Beach involved with me. 0.57

00:29:57.540 I had about 350 gas stations I either owned or operated at that time. 0.72

00:30:01.760 And I had 18 companies that were licensed to collect the tax on every gallon of gasoline.

00:30:08.220 At the height of our operation, we're selling a half a billion gallons of gas a month.

00:30:11.960 And we're taking down 20, 30, 40 cents a gallon, whatever the mark would bear at that time.

00:30:16.440 So we're bringing in several million dollars a week.

00:30:19.440 And that was, there were other guys doing it.

00:30:22.860 You know, some of the Russians were doing it. But I think we perfected the system and lasted quite long.

00:30:30.360 And we had a lot of other people that were trying to do it that were involved with us.

00:30:33.840 So we we created that scam. And it was, you know, people said it was the biggest scam since prohibition.

00:30:40.060 And I believe that. I don't think there was anything else because we weren't big drug dealers.

00:30:45.040 And obviously, when you talk drugs, you know, enormous money.

00:30:48.140 But we weren't big drug dealers, despite what everybody says. Not true.

00:30:51.780 when I took an oath, they told me straight out, you deal with drugs, you die.

00:30:56.420 And we weren't allowed to touch it. And it was some guys doing it on the sly. Yeah. But we

00:31:00.460 weren't major drug dealers, at least back during my era. So, you know, I was doing a lot of things

00:31:06.840 and I had a head for business and I just kept plugging away. What do you do with the money?

00:31:11.460 Do you turn it over to the family? Do you put it in a checking account?

00:31:15.020 Well, you know, we do both. I mean, I had to give up 25% of my whatever I earned,

00:31:23.040 how to go up the ladder to the family. And that's the deal that I made with the boss at the time.

00:31:28.140 And then, you know, I had several bank accounts. I had bank accounts overseas that we wired money

00:31:33.700 out to. I had a lot of cash at that time. I had a safe in my house. So, you know, different ways.

00:31:39.380 And you wash money. And when I was in the film business, I produced a couple of movies with,

00:31:44.600 you know, gas tax money that I had cleaned up. So, you know, it became a chore, quite honestly,

00:31:51.200 because we had so much money coming in and we had to devise a system to get rid of it,

00:31:57.020 basically, or to put it in places that was secure. Do you, is it like the movies where you

00:32:01.900 get in trouble if you're too flashy, if your wife buys a fur coat, you know, you're supposed to look

00:32:06.700 like you're not making that kind of dough? Well, you know, some guys like my dad, I mean,

00:32:14.740 he would drive around in a 1964 Red Plymouth Valiant that my mother wouldn't even get into.

00:32:20.560 I mean, he didn't want anybody to know what he was doing in a way. I wasn't that way. I mean,

00:32:25.820 look, I was earning money. So, I mean, I had a jet plane. I had a helicopter. I had houses in

00:32:30.940 three parts of the country. You know, one house I built on two acres of land with a racquetball

00:32:36.020 court and all of that. So but I was making legitimate money. I was paying taxes at that

00:32:40.120 time, too. So I was able to show that. But no, we didn't get in trouble for that. I mean,

00:32:46.700 nobody told us how to live. You know, if I mean, if there was something like in the movie Goodfellas

00:32:52.980 and you had to lay low for a while, I mean, that was certainly a possibility. But I wasn't in that

00:32:58.580 category. You mentioned that you made some movies and it just so happens that the producer of this

00:33:04.820 segment, Natasha is a huge fan of one of your movies called Mausoleum. So she has queued up

00:33:12.020 this, this little clip, uh, in part of the trailer for the audience and sought to.

00:33:17.480 She gave her soul to the evil force in the mausoleum. What's the matter, Susan?

00:33:26.580 What? Oh my God.

00:33:34.820 Now, the secret haunts her, and she cannot control the power.

00:33:43.200 That looks amazing.

00:33:45.720 Megan, I got to tell you the story behind this really quickly, all right?

00:33:49.200 Especially if somebody out there that loves the movie.

00:33:52.680 I have a guy around me who was a Jewish guy by the name of Jerry Zimmerman,

00:33:55.720 very close to me, loved the guy who was in the car business with me.

00:33:59.260 Long story short, he gets himself in some very serious trouble,

00:34:02.660 And I have to have a sit down with a maid guy from another family over Jerry.

00:34:08.840 They wanted to kill him.

00:34:10.580 And I really had to fight to keep him alive because he insulted some maid guys.

00:34:14.380 You're not allowed to do that.

00:34:15.680 Anyway, I clear him.

00:34:17.820 Right.

00:34:18.280 But this guy was an old timer, the captain in the other family.

00:34:21.940 And he was so incensed with this.

00:34:24.460 I said, Jerry, I don't trust this guy.

00:34:26.680 Even though we got it clear, you could be walking down the street.

00:34:29.300 A car barrels into you.

00:34:30.560 I don't know what's going to happen.

00:34:31.780 And I said, I want you to go out to California with your brother.

00:34:34.620 He had a brother out here.

00:34:36.240 And just stay there.

00:34:37.120 And let me make sure this is OK.

00:34:38.540 So he goes out.

00:34:39.900 About two months later, he calls me up.

00:34:41.520 He says, hey, chief, we're going to be in the movie business.

00:34:43.960 I said, what do you know about movies?

00:34:45.280 He said, oh, don't worry about it.

00:34:46.340 I got a script.

00:34:46.980 I got a director.

00:34:47.720 He says, send me $83,000 and you're my partner.

00:34:51.040 Right?

00:34:51.660 So I send him the money.

00:34:53.340 P.S.

00:34:53.780 This is the movie Mausoleum.

00:34:56.220 A million dollars later, we produced that film that honestly didn't scare anyone but me.

00:35:01.780 after I saw what happened with it.

00:35:03.800 But that was my intro into the business

00:35:06.120 because we lost money on that film initially.

00:35:09.320 But listen to this, especially for your worker there.

00:35:13.460 All of a sudden, that film becomes a cult classic.

00:35:16.720 And I've been earning money on that film

00:35:18.400 for the last 30 years.

00:35:19.820 Up until about three months ago,

00:35:21.960 somebody came to me and said,

00:35:23.820 I'll give you 50 grand to take it over.

00:35:26.000 And I sold it to him.

00:35:27.000 But I've been earning on it for 30 years

00:35:28.800 after it was the worst film ever.

00:35:30.940 It was crazy. This business is so crazy. You never know what's going to happen.

00:35:36.160 It's so rare to make money off of the movies. It happens once in a million.

00:35:42.900 So, OK, Mausoleum comes out. Now you're in the movie business. That's kind of exciting.

00:35:47.540 And was there ever like you said you met Frank Sinatra at the Copacabana?

00:35:52.380 You know, how incestuous do you feel like Hollywood, the entertainment industry is with the mafia?

00:35:59.540 Because, you know, there's all sorts of speculation.

00:36:03.220 Well, look, we had relationships there for sure.

00:36:06.360 I mean, there was, you know, agents that I was very close with, one in particular that's passed away now.

00:36:11.620 But so, you know, Megan, I have to tell you this.

00:36:15.740 A lot of people in the industry liked being around us.

00:36:19.120 We didn't have to chase them and threaten them and do all of that.

00:36:21.780 They enjoyed our company, some of the guys.

00:36:24.120 Like, they loved being around my father.

00:36:25.460 I think people enjoyed being around to me because, you know, we carried ourselves a certain way.

00:36:30.380 We weren't looking to put the arm on somebody all the time.

00:36:34.060 And so they enjoyed being in business with us.

00:36:36.580 And I don't I don't have to tell you, you know, in this business, if you can bring money to the table, people like you.

00:36:41.240 I don't think they really care who you are, you know, in many cases.

00:36:44.840 But, you know, so look, we did have involvement.

00:36:47.760 We didn't control the industry in any way.

00:36:50.080 I wouldn't say that. But did we have, you know, presence there?

00:36:53.640 Yes. Listen, did Joe Colombo absolutely have an impact on the movie The Godfather?

00:36:59.700 A hundred percent. I mean, I don't know if you saw that series, The Offer.

00:37:03.840 Yeah, but I actually am watching that right now.

00:37:06.580 Well, I thought it was brilliantly done. I mean, I really did. And a lot of it was true.

00:37:11.460 You know, that was my era. I was there during all of that. And I was very close to Joey at that time.

00:37:15.960 So a lot of it was very accurate. And, you know, he did have that control and he did have an impact.

00:37:22.520 the word mafia was taken out of the script. That's for sure. Joey did that. He did shut it

00:37:27.000 down at some point, you know, with the union and they did have to come back to him in order to

00:37:31.000 continue production. So, you know, we did have influence. What about, you know, I realize the

00:37:37.260 mafia is not what it used to be, but when you're out there walking around as a civilian, what are

00:37:43.580 the businesses you, you go by or you go into where you're like, probably connected? Oh gosh.

00:37:51.320 Well, unions, you know, for sure. And, you know, another myth. Another myth is that my guys, we sit in our social clubs and we target the next business that we're going to take over, defraud, influence or whatever. Not always so. So often people from inside their company would come to us. Hey, we have a way to defraud our company. We have a way to make some money. You know, you're going to protect us. You're going to give us money. You're never going to tell on us.

00:38:19.280 So a lot of people from inside the company would come to us. Happened to me with General Motors, happened to me with Mazda, happened to me with GE Credit quite often. And that's how I got involved in some legitimate businesses. But, you know, look, unions, of course, you know, I'll tell you this, too. You know, people come to me about Donald Trump. Did Donald Trump deal with the mob? And yeah, he did. And so did Helmsley. And so did Gutterman. And so did anybody in New York that wanted to get that building made and had to deal with the unions. You just had to.

00:38:49.020 And, you know, so does that make somebody in bed with the mob?

00:38:53.340 No, you're just doing business.

00:38:55.360 So, you know, yes, we had influence, you know, in the poultry business.

00:38:59.180 What are the favorite businesses to, like, launder?

00:39:00.940 Because for a very brief time when I was with Jones Day, the law firm I was with for many years,

00:39:06.260 I did a little white-collar crime work, the opposite side.

00:39:10.460 And I remember I took the deposition of this guy who was working for one of the crime families,

00:39:15.620 and they were laundering money through these funeral homes.

00:39:18.140 And I thought, my God, I would never have thought funeral homes would be a place where

00:39:22.300 the mob would be in control laundering money.

00:39:24.700 But, you know, anything's like that.

00:39:26.460 Did you have any familiarity with funeral homes or anything like it?

00:39:31.780 Yeah, one of my dear friends who's passed on now, he was a funeral director.

00:39:36.320 He had a funeral home.

00:39:37.300 So, yeah, it is a place you can wash money.

00:39:39.900 People pay with cash.

00:39:41.400 Any place where people are paying with cash is a place to launder money.

00:39:45.120 restaurants pizza ballers you know obviously places like that so because there isn't really

00:39:51.100 good accounting with that and you can you can put a lot of cash through it and get a lot of cash out

00:39:55.960 of it so um you know those were the kind of favorites i mean listen in the in the film

00:40:01.760 business nobody really did an accounting of where the money came from so i mean i i made movies with

00:40:08.380 stolen gas tax money. Right. So you, and as you were rising, uh, in wealth and notoriety and,

00:40:16.200 you know, you were succeeding, uh, you were, you know, as we said in the intro, one of the most

00:40:19.240 successful mobsters ever, um, you got featured. You, you weren't in the movie, uh, Goodfellas,

00:40:26.100 but your name was used as one of sort of the big guys when Ray Liotta was walking through the

00:40:31.540 restaurant or going into the sort of the seat. This is where, is this where he's taking his

00:40:35.640 girlfriend out for a date, like one of the first dates. I'm trying to remember. I haven't seen the

00:40:40.600 clip yet, but I, yeah. Okay. So we'll play it because they mention your name in this. And he

00:40:47.120 says, yeah, Mikey franchise. I saw him franchise watch. And then there was Pete, the killer who

00:40:52.680 was Sally balls, his brother. And you had Nikki eyes and Mikey franchise. 0.92

00:41:05.640 So that's supposed to be you.

00:41:07.380 Were you surprised to see yourself featured in Goodfellas?

00:41:12.160 I was really surprised because, you know, I mean, I knew that crew very well.

00:41:15.740 I knew Henry very well.

00:41:16.920 I knew Jimmy Burke and Paulie Barrio, you know, was a dear friend of mine and the family's.

00:41:22.240 But I was surprised because that was a different family.

00:41:25.760 And Nick Pelleggi, who was the writer, after I saw that, I called Nick up and I said, Nick, why'd you throw me in there?

00:41:32.320 He said, oh, Michael, you had name value and all that.

00:41:34.360 And, you know, you knew all those guys and said, yeah, but you could have at least got them to say my name correctly, you know, so he left it.

00:41:41.300 But I was surprised.

00:41:43.960 I didn't expect to see that.

00:41:46.060 OK, so eventually Rudy Giuliani does come into your life.

00:41:50.440 And, you know, Rudy Giuliani, we kind of know him much differently today, but he was, I mean, an absolute hero in many ways back in the day and cleaning up New York.

00:41:59.120 And he was former federal prosecutor.

00:42:00.700 He was he was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, which is considered the most prestigious U.S. attorney post in the in the country.

00:42:07.900 And when he was young, he wasn't kidding around.

00:42:10.200 He was, I mean, a true crime fighter and very focused on the mob.

00:42:14.940 And that put you in his crosshairs.

00:42:17.920 So talk about that.

00:42:20.480 Well, yeah, he indicted me on a major racketeering case. 1.00

00:42:23.340 I was a lead defendant and I had 15 co-defendants and it was a big, you know, shylocking case. 0.99

00:42:30.360 you know, money extortion case, allegedly. And I was supposed to have financed a leasing company 1.00

00:42:36.640 that was probably had 1500 legitimate loans on the street, and about 30 Shylock loans. And I was the 0.89

00:42:44.400 one that, you know, allegedly put up the money for that, which wasn't true. But anyway, so I get

00:42:49.160 indicted. And I'll never forget in the courtroom, you know, Rudy comes up to me and my attorney,

00:42:54.540 John Jacobs at the time, and he says, Franzese, if I convict you on this case, I'm giving you a

00:42:59.680 double what your father got. You're going to get a hundred years. And you know, that's the kind of

00:43:03.840 time that we're giving us guys back then. And I remember standing toe to toe with him and I say,

00:43:08.260 Rudy, bring it on. I beat you guys four times already. Let's go for round five, which I always

00:43:13.360 say is the dumbest thing to do. You know, you don't give them any more. Fortunately, after a

00:43:18.460 several month trial in federal court in Manhattan, I was acquitted in that case. And my code event,

00:43:23.720 some of them got convicted. One of them got 30 years. So I would have got a lot of time, no doubt.

00:43:27.420 that's amazing i mean that's that's downright scary the only thing scarier than seeing somebody

00:43:33.300 like you across from me angry would be somebody like that who really has the power to take your

00:43:38.560 life away in a different way and and he could do it well i'll tell you you know you got to give

00:43:42.920 rudy either the credit or the blame depending upon what side you're on he was the one that really

00:43:47.860 uh used the racketeering racketeering laws effectively because it had been on the books

00:43:53.060 for quite some time. They just didn't use it. But he made it a tremendous weapon. And I say that

00:44:00.100 RICO is the single most damaging tool that the government had to, you know, bring a lot of

00:44:05.420 destruction to that life. And, you know, Rudy and I, I wouldn't say we were friends, but we

00:44:10.200 certainly healed things after 30 years. He actually wrote the foreword in my book, which he did a

00:44:14.560 great job on. Yeah, it really is. And you know what? He was a great mayor. I don't care what

00:44:19.480 anybody says he cleaned up was a great mayor he was great yeah i know it wasn't until he got you

00:44:26.340 know connected with trump and so on and then he's just started behaving very erratically he was kind

00:44:30.780 of not like his former self but yes he wrote wonderful things about you in your book and

00:44:35.260 talked about how when when he first met you his team was prosecuting you um that they took on the

00:44:40.600 five families in of new york's mafia and one and that they prosecuted you many times but he goes

00:44:47.000 on to say that, hold on a second, I want to find it, that he got a little angry when he read

00:44:54.360 articles about you in places like Fortune, the list of the 50 most wealthy and powerful mob

00:45:00.160 bosses, Vanity Fair claiming you were the biggest moneymaker in the mafia since Al Capone, which we

00:45:04.420 referenced, but ultimately struck a deal with you. And really what he was saying in the foreword was

00:45:09.640 that you ultimately had a conversion and that while he was skeptical at first, he, knowing you

00:45:16.520 all these years actually came to believe it, that you were committed to changing your life,

00:45:21.280 that you actually did find God, and that you were going to leave this life of crime behind you,

00:45:26.500 which is the redemption part of your story. And it's extraordinary. So eventually you did not,

00:45:32.160 you did not escape Rudy's focus. And tell us how you wound up going to jail.

00:45:37.780 well you know after i uh was acquitted in the giuliani case um several months later i think

00:45:46.580 not that long three or four months later i was indicted in brooklyn on this whole gas tax scheme

00:45:51.340 among some other things and um and you know the principal witness against me in the giuliani case

00:45:58.400 would have been the principal witness against me in this next case in brooklyn this next rico case

00:46:04.560 And we beat him, you know, in Rudy's case.

00:46:07.400 The jury didn't believe him.

00:46:08.520 So the government was getting nervous now because I had beaten him.

00:46:11.420 That was my fifth time that they tried to convict me at trial and were unsuccessful.

00:46:16.420 So that was five failures on their part.

00:46:19.240 At the same time, Megan, I met my wife, who's now my wife for 38 years.

00:46:25.100 And I basically started to think, you know, I saw what was going on with the racketeering law.

00:46:29.400 guys were when I was in MCC, when they locked me up without bail, there were guys going to trial,

00:46:35.200 getting convicted, getting 100 years, 70 years, 150 years. I'm the youngest guy out of many of

00:46:41.340 them. I said, they're going to give me 300 years if I ever get convicted. This life is in trouble.

00:46:45.640 I see guys starting to become informants. I meet my wife. I said, this is trouble. I got to try to

00:46:52.020 make an exit here. And so I had leverage over the government because beating them in the Giuliani

00:46:58.120 case gave me some leverage. So we negotiated a plea deal. I got a 10-year prison sentence,

00:47:03.080 $15 million restitution, $5 million in forfeitures, and went off to do my time. And it was planning

00:47:10.020 my exit at that time. Because I figured, hey, I'd do a bunch of years in prison, but I'd come out,

00:47:15.580 I'd have parole and probation. I'd move out to the West Coast. I can't associate with anybody

00:47:20.900 when I was on parole. Maybe after 10 or 12 years, the guys will forget about me. And I can live

00:47:26.580 happily ever after with my new wife here in California. And that was my original plan.

00:47:31.420 That's how I started to make the exit. Didn't work out exactly that way, but eventually it worked out

00:47:37.300 well. Okay. But I got to ask you whether you ever considered, you know, flipping, becoming a rat,

00:47:43.280 as they say, because there must've been some sort of a deal that would have involved

00:47:47.420 no jail time if you would have helped Rudy Giuliani, as opposed to just admitted you did

00:47:52.940 some things. Absolutely. They offered me when I was taking the plea, they offered me no jail time,

00:47:59.140 minimum jail time, if I would cooperate. And I refused. They said, no, you know, I just want

00:48:04.800 as part of the plea deal, I had not immunity, but they couldn't prosecute me for any of my

00:48:11.740 past crimes other than murder. And I wasn't worried about that. So because I wanted to try

00:48:16.640 to wrap everything up. But my plea deal was no cooperation whatsoever. I didn't talk to them,

00:48:21.200 didn't do anything. What happened was four years later when I was doing my time, a fellow by name

00:48:28.080 of Norby Walters got himself in some trouble. And he was my partner. I had given him 250,000 to be

00:48:33.620 an agent for sports athletes. And long story short, he implicated me in some scheme while I

00:48:41.600 was in prison. They brought me in to testify against him. And I said, listen, I don't know

00:48:46.560 what he was doing. I was in prison. But yes, he was my partner. Yes, I did give him money.

00:48:50.700 And that's what I testified to.

00:48:52.440 Well, after that happened, and that was in Chicago, people from the Eastern District came out to see me.

00:48:58.640 And they said, well, you're already a dead man now.

00:49:00.500 You got on a stand and you testified.

00:49:02.560 I said, Norby Wolfe was my guy.

00:49:04.820 He has nothing to do with anybody.

00:49:07.340 He's my responsibility.

00:49:08.660 Nobody's going to be mad at me for this.

00:49:11.020 And so I chased him away.

00:49:13.020 I said, I'm not cooperating with you guys.

00:49:14.480 I got a few months left to go to be in prison.

00:49:17.560 I'll do my time and come home.

00:49:20.200 Megan I made it I said I will never go against my associates and put anybody in prison I can't do

00:49:32.240 that so I'm going to be honest with you and John Gleason verifies this in his book I sat down and

00:49:38.220 talked to them but I basically was able to pull the wool over their eyes because what somebody

00:49:42.840 had told me at the time and it turned out to be true I was dealing with the strike force in the

00:49:48.560 eastern district and somebody told me they were going to be disbanded they said michael you can

00:49:53.040 talk to these guys it's never going to go anywhere because they're going to disband the strike force

00:49:57.620 and so when i started talking to them about certain things a few months later they disbanded

00:50:02.860 the strike force and that was it and they only had a year to talk to me after that they couldn't

00:50:07.640 talk to me anymore so i thought this is sorry this i thought this is very interesting because

00:50:12.860 i mentioned sammy the bull and i mean honestly that was one of the most interesting interviews

00:50:17.460 I have ever done.

00:50:18.520 I mean, I have never had an interview before

00:50:20.720 that had a line like,

00:50:22.480 was that before or after the 19th murder?

00:50:25.040 I mean, this is the conversation he and I had.

00:50:27.260 And he put it all out there.

00:50:28.480 It was absolutely riveting.

00:50:31.460 And I know you guys together

00:50:33.540 in a very interesting series,

00:50:35.120 Patrick, Beth, David did on the mafia went on together.

00:50:38.740 It got kind of heated.

00:50:39.940 I know you guys, I think you get along,

00:50:42.240 but in this particular moment, not so much.

00:50:44.960 Here it is in SOT 6. 0.98

00:50:46.580 he ratted he cooperated he cooperated with the fucking government he wants to get on his 1.00

00:50:51.800 fucking high horse i didn't send somebody to prison he met with the fucking government 1.00

00:50:55.960 and ratted you're a fucking rat you want to talk about respect you want to talk like that 1.00

00:51:00.680 put your fucking finger at me oh what are you going to do what am i going to do i'll break 1.00

00:51:04.080 your fucking face oh god that i would not upset him just after like fyi having researched him 1.00

00:51:15.240 quite a bit. That's not somebody you want to upset. So he's calling you a rat. But isn't that 1.00

00:51:20.020 what Sammy the Bull is infamous for? Well, among other things, right, because he didn't have to

00:51:25.300 serve jail time because he actually did turn. He turned on Cotty. Well, he served a lot of jail

00:51:31.100 time. I mean, they cut it short. But listen, Sammy and I are friends. We did get into a heated moment

00:51:36.800 and I understand what he was trying to do at the time. But we patched it up after that because I

00:51:42.620 don't know if you continue that i got up and said sammy you're not the underboss anymore sit down

00:51:47.500 you know so we kind of and that's how we kind of ended it but we've become friends since then

00:51:52.320 listen i'm not he did um you know look i like his family very much his son his son calls me up and

00:51:59.160 asks me how do i deal with my dad he's driving me crazy you know so it's yeah but uh we patch it up

00:52:05.640 because you know we both came to realize you know it doesn't benefit either one of us by showing

00:52:11.460 that side of that life where we're angry with one another and all of that, because there was,

00:52:16.120 you know, we'd rather show a different side of that life, even though it is what it is. But

00:52:19.480 anyway, yeah, you know, look, Megan, for me, again, the bottom line is I didn't put anybody

00:52:27.240 in prison. I didn't testify at any made guys trial. I didn't do any of that. They tried to

00:52:32.660 get me. They put me in solitary for three years trying to break me. 29 months and seven days,

00:52:37.880 actually. They were very upset with me. And John Gleason said it in his book about Gotti. He says,

00:52:43.160 Franzese basically took us to the cleaners because we got nothing out of him. And, um, you know,

00:52:48.520 look, but they can call me a rat or, you know, that's, that's, that's the most widely used term

00:52:54.500 on all of this genre on, you know, the comments that you get and people that are on YouTube now,

00:52:59.640 but Hey, look, well, that's the one that I have realized in the wake of my interview with Sammy,

00:53:03.900 like you don't want to be called that i mean i i know guys who i i believe have some sort of a

00:53:10.500 connection who have said nothing to me ever about any show i've ever done but after sammy the bull 0.86

00:53:17.080 came on they started coming out of the woodwork the guy's a rat he's a rat and i've always wondered

00:53:23.860 oh god you know like are they saying that because they're connected or they just understand the code 0.74

00:53:27.500 i don't know but that seems to be something taking deadly seriously in the mob oh yeah you

00:53:33.780 know, one of the things this might be interesting, Joe Pistone, Donnie Brasco, Joe and I have become

00:53:39.540 very good friends now. Now, I met him once on the street and I was the guy who went undercover

00:53:44.640 and infiltrated the mob and was portrayed by Johnny Depp in a movie of the same name. Keep going.

00:53:50.220 Correct. Well, we became friends. He was on my YouTube. I did his. And Sammy and I got into a

00:53:55.340 heat about that. He said, how can you befriend that guy? He put so many Italians away. And I

00:54:00.180 said, hey, Sammy, I said, he was an undercover agent. He was doing his job and he did his job

00:54:05.740 better than we did ours. You don't get mad at a guy when they're not framing you, when they're

00:54:10.660 doing their job and they outgun you. That's it. You know, we used to tell agents on the street,

00:54:15.700 hey, come after us. We get it. You're on one side. We're on the other. Just don't frame us.

00:54:20.200 Get us honestly. You have enough tools, enough weapons. You got all the money in the world and

00:54:24.800 all the time. Just come after us the right way. And we're not mad. And, you know, look,

00:54:29.660 Joe Pistone, I mean, what he did for six years to be undercover and not be noticed by our guys,

00:54:35.820 that was a real failure on our part, number one. And number two, it was pretty heroic because at

00:54:41.080 any point in time, he could have walked into that room if somebody would have discovered something

00:54:44.800 and he would have been in a lot of trouble. And it didn't turn out that way. So, I mean,

00:54:48.440 I give him credit for the work that he did. And, you know, if I was on the street, I wouldn't be

00:54:52.440 saying that but um you know just yeah no i mean certainly from my vantage point that that guy's a

00:54:57.700 hero right it takes a lot of courage to infiltrate the mob and try to crime fight in that particularly

00:55:02.900 dangerous manner just for the audience at home here's a clip of from the movie donnie brasco

00:55:07.780 where al pacino's character lefty who's in the mob meets donnie played by johnny depp and tries

00:55:15.180 to sell him a diamond.

00:55:17.560 I'm asking you to middle a diamond for me here.

00:55:21.580 Now, all I want for my end is $8,000.

00:55:24.280 What I'm saying to you is you should give it to somebody

00:55:27.140 that don't know any better because that's a fugazi. 0.78

00:55:29.780 All right?

00:55:32.480 That's a fugazi?

00:55:33.860 How do you know it's a fugazi?

00:55:35.380 You looked at it for two seconds.

00:55:37.020 Well, it's a fake.

00:55:38.920 Yeah, I know what a fugazi is.

00:55:43.200 What do you make of that?

00:55:44.500 So you don't think that could have really happened?

00:55:45.940 I mean, I guess it did happen.

00:55:47.880 He did infiltrate.

00:55:49.260 And you're just saying that that those guys were too careless, that they should have caught

00:55:53.420 him.

00:55:55.020 Yeah, I mean, they should have did their homework and their research.

00:55:57.360 Unfortunately, you know, when when he presented himself as an earner, sometimes guys eyes,

00:56:03.180 you know, open up and, hey, I can earn money with this guy.

00:56:05.840 And they get a little bit careless.

00:56:07.240 And I do have to say this.

00:56:09.200 That was Al Pacino.

00:56:10.440 In my view, that was his best role.

00:56:12.340 I knew Lefty fairly well, and he just nailed, he nailed that character so well. He was just great. Really great.

00:56:21.060 What did you make of, you said you knew Henry Hill, that was the Ray Liotta character in Godfather, Godfather, Goodfellas.

00:56:27.360 What did you think of that portrayal? Because that was, I mean, I don't know, you know, everybody loves Godfather, including me, but Goodfellas was just such a riveting film where you couldn't, you were so pulled in by that character, Henry Hill.

00:56:39.720 I told you I got to get out of here and straighten out everything with Paulie or else I'm dead, Karen.

00:56:44.560 Then you're better off staying in here.

00:56:46.480 Karen, they could whack me in here just as easy as they can outside. 0.60

00:56:49.280 Maybe even easier.

00:56:50.200 They're all afraid I'm going to rat them out.

00:56:52.000 People are already walking away from me.

00:56:53.580 I'm dead in here.

00:56:54.500 You've got to get me out.

00:56:55.860 Well, Megan, you know, Henry's gone now.

00:56:58.400 And I knew Henry well.

00:56:59.480 I had kind of an affection to Henry because when he did that whole Boston College betting scandal,

00:57:05.260 he gave me some tips and I made some money at the time.

00:57:08.360 but henry never looked so good as he did in that movie that's for sure you know and i can tell you

00:57:15.740 this he never walked into the back of the copacabana without paulie or somebody being with

00:57:20.700 him that's for sure he he didn't have that kind of prominence you know unfortunately he had a

00:57:25.520 drinking problem he was an alcoholic and he got into drugs fairly early you know and he had that

00:57:30.480 kind of problem and look he he's um he would have got killed there's no question about he wouldn't

00:57:35.740 of lasted on the street because Paulie Vario was, was pretty upset with him. So was Jimmy,

00:57:41.020 you know, and he did what he did, but believe me, he was made to look great in that movie.

00:57:48.660 I'll bet. Well, I mean, it was based on his book, right? Which I'm sure

00:57:51.300 also made him look great. And then Hollywood takes it next level. So, and of course, Ray Liotta's

00:57:56.740 gone too, which is sad. What about these guys? You know, there's a question about whether any

00:58:03.160 of them is actually in the mob whether there's any sort of a connection whether it's De Niro

00:58:07.060 Pacino did these guys have any sort of a relationship I mean for Sinatra we've heard

00:58:11.660 we've heard yes well you know not that they were like I said part of a crew or anything like that

00:58:19.600 did they have relationships I mean Pauli Sirico I think you know he uh you know he was involved

00:58:24.580 at one point in time then became an actor uh they all had relationships Jimmy Khan you know

00:58:29.540 was very close with my one-time uh captain with andrew russo very close um the uh what was his

00:58:37.420 name oh gosh lenny montana who played luca brazzi in the godfather was very close with me

00:58:43.440 very close you know and he was we were together out here on the west coast before he passed away

00:58:49.020 so a lot of guys had relationships um but again you know we were all over the place so we met with

00:58:55.840 a lot of people. And, you know, we had a lot of relationships, no doubt. So you find yourself in

00:59:02.520 prison now, 10 years. And at the time you were in prison, your dad was still in prison and the

00:59:09.280 relationship broke down. Was that because of the thing you just told us about where you did wind up

00:59:14.880 testifying in that one case? Is that what turned him on you? No, it wasn't that. What happened was

00:59:23.980 When I was in I was in Terminal Island prison out in California and the warden had called me or the associate warden.

00:59:33.340 I don't remember exactly. And said, there's a reporter that's doing a story on you in Life magazine.

00:59:40.100 And I think 20 years earlier, they had done the biggest story ever on my dad in Life magazine.

00:59:44.980 It was like 29 pages. It was on his murder case. It was a huge story. Right.

00:59:50.620 So this reporter now is doing a story on me. So I'm in prison.

00:59:53.980 and he tells the warden, if Michael talks to me, it'll be a better story.

00:59:58.480 So I'm trying to make my exit.

00:59:59.980 I'm trying to get the government off my back.

01:00:02.140 I want to get out of there and have no trouble.

01:00:03.640 I just married this young girl.

01:00:05.580 So I sit down with him, and I tell him standard mob stuff.

01:00:09.280 There is no mafia.

01:00:10.460 I married this girl.

01:00:11.560 I'm living out in the West Coast and all this kind of stuff.

01:00:14.200 I'm done with anything back in New York.

01:00:16.980 Well, the article comes out, and the warden calls me into the office.

01:00:20.500 He says, Franzese, do you have a death wish?

01:00:22.900 I said, what are you talking about?

01:00:23.980 And he shows me the article and it was a big double page with a picture of me and on the top quitting the mafia.

01:00:29.640 And I'm in jail with other mob guys. And this guy had me doing everything but testifying at the time.

01:00:35.500 And that's when words started to drop that, hey, maybe this guy is going bad. What's going on?

01:00:42.940 Then the government comes in to see me again. You know, the feds come in and they say, Francis, you know, this is a bad article.

01:00:48.660 You better cooperate with us. We got word from our informants. People are upset with you.

01:00:52.840 then they you know what they did megan it was really dirty they put my name on the witness

01:00:57.640 list of certain trials that were coming up in new york i'm sending messages back to my dad i said

01:01:03.200 dad don't believe this i'm not cooperating but you know everybody says that and then you see

01:01:07.740 them on the witness stand or you get their info and discovery i mean that happened to me

01:01:11.160 um you know so they really really tried to put a lot of pressure on me at the time my dad kind

01:01:16.940 of backed off but you know he never really totally backed off you know megan what happened with me

01:01:22.360 and my dad, and I'll summarize this, I got called into one of the horrors of that life.

01:01:28.300 You make a mistake, your best friend walks you into a room, you don't walk out again.

01:01:33.380 And obviously throughout my years, I know when that's occurred. Well, I got that call because

01:01:38.900 there was an article that came out, I think it was in Long Island Press, that I was becoming 0.91

01:01:43.120 powerful enough to break away from the Columbo, stop my own family. They had me making $2 billion 0.51

01:01:48.100 dollars a year. It was a total fictional article, no basis in reality at all. But I get called into

01:01:54.780 a room one night, and I was scared. I said, wow, the way the circumstances were, I thought I can

01:02:02.000 get killed walking into that room. That's how I felt. And I was scared. I'll be honest with you.

01:02:05.940 When you think you're going to meet your maker, it's scary. And I knew the life. And so I'm

01:02:12.040 sitting down there, and I'm getting grilled on how much money is coming in, two billion dollars.

01:02:16.700 And I said, hey, you know, they lie about everybody.

01:02:19.220 Now they make a story about me and it's true.

01:02:20.960 I said, what are you listening to?

01:02:22.380 I'm handing in everything.

01:02:24.360 Well, my father wasn't there, but he was called in before me.

01:02:28.080 And what I found out that night is that he didn't help me in that meeting.

01:02:31.760 He actually hurt me because what he did, instead of standing up for me, he said, I'm on parole.

01:02:38.260 I don't do anything.

01:02:39.100 My son handles everything.

01:02:40.660 If anything's wrong, I don't know.

01:02:43.100 So he kind of threw me under the bus.

01:02:45.320 And I can tell you this, Megan, I didn't meet my wife until two years later.

01:02:49.820 But I really believed I was stunned when I found that out.

01:02:52.880 And it was true because I said, man, if this life can separate me and my dad, what do I really have here?

01:02:59.100 And I just filed it away. I didn't say anything.

01:03:01.840 You don't you don't speak out of turn in that life and you don't share your thoughts with people because you never know.

01:03:06.840 But I can say this. If I didn't have that meeting, I don't think I mean, if that didn't occur.

01:03:14.620 I don't think I would have ever walked away from the life because I think that bond between me

01:03:19.380 and my dad had to be broken and I had to get a sense of reality. And, you know, I didn't hate

01:03:25.120 him for it when it finally came that he confronted me on it because he read it in my book. I wasn't

01:03:31.300 going to say anything, but then it was such an impact on my life. I said, no, I have to be

01:03:35.740 honest about this. So I put it in my book. That's where he reads it and he denies it. And I said,

01:03:40.940 dad, remember you taught me something in life? And he said, what? He said, no matter what,

01:03:45.060 deny, deny, deny, deny, deny. I said, and I know you're denying this now, but it's okay. I love

01:03:49.800 you. I'm not mad. I get it. I understand. But that had such an impact on me that I think two years

01:03:56.140 later when I met my wife, that's what really kind of put the icing on the cake, as they say,

01:04:01.600 for me to walk away. Did your dad, because last we left off in his story, he was going to jail

01:04:07.380 until he was 100. So you say he's on parole. What happened? Did he get out? Yeah, he gets out

01:04:13.440 in 2017 at the age of 100. He was the oldest inmate in the system at the time. And my dad

01:04:20.620 passed away at 103 during the pandemic. He was the oldest living mob guy for sure at that time,

01:04:26.980 and probably the oldest guy in the world. Guys don't live to that age in that life. It's not

01:04:32.980 conducive to a long lifestyle right right yeah it was amazing uh and you know we patched it up i

01:04:39.560 mean i stayed with him visited him during that during that time the relationship was never

01:04:44.180 exactly the same uh but he accepted what i did um because he knew i never hurt anybody and you know

01:04:51.560 there was another situation came up making where you know a guy became an informant and the feds

01:04:57.300 came to me again he implicated me in some things and they wanted me to cooperate with him and i

01:05:01.800 said no. And I told my father, I said, Dad, look, if I were to cooperate, a lot of guys are going to

01:05:06.720 go down. I'm not going to do that. Just tell them to leave me alone because I had people upset with

01:05:11.600 me. There was a contract on my life from my former boss because he took it very personal when I

01:05:16.480 walked away. He was really upset with me. But that backed everybody off because I said, I'm not

01:05:22.420 hurting anybody. Just leave me alone. I just want to be on my own. Yeah, because nobody leaves the

01:05:27.480 mob like you you stay in it till you're dead one way or the other and and you found a way out talk

01:05:33.480 about threading the needle so yeah i know you've spoken about when you were in jail there was a

01:05:39.120 prison guard who walked by your cell and gave you something that i think was the beginning of your

01:05:44.360 transformation what was it well yeah i mean i i had done five years i'm out on parole 13 months

01:05:51.620 Worst 13 months of my life. People are trying to hurt me. Feds are all over me. I'm trying to get

01:05:57.460 my life reorganized in L.A. I was like a fish out of water, quite honestly. And like a fool,

01:06:03.620 I violate my parole. The government was really on me. And they locked me up again. And that first 0.99

01:06:09.960 night, they tell me, we're going to indict you on another racketeering case. We violated your

01:06:13.800 parole. You'll never see the street again, is what they told me. And they throw me in a hole in MDC

01:06:18.720 in LA and they're going to transport me back to Brooklyn in the morning. And quite honestly,

01:06:24.040 Megan, it was the worst night of my life because I said, wow. I said, another case? What are they

01:06:29.400 bringing up now? Number one. Number two, I'm married to this girl. She waited for me five

01:06:34.540 years. We have two little babies. She's 27 years old. I'm going to lose the girl I did all of this

01:06:39.140 for. I said, they can't put me out on the yard. Talk to people who want to kill me. I'm going to

01:06:44.340 spend the rest of my life in a six by eight cell. Having visited my dad for 20 years and seeing what

01:06:49.920 it did, I said, you know what? I wish I could just close my eyes and not wake up. And that's how I

01:06:54.320 felt. And, you know, honestly, I used to demean people that were suicidal. I always called them

01:06:59.280 weak, can't face up to their troubles. I don't do that anymore. Now, I wasn't suicidal that night,

01:07:04.340 but I can understand how you can reach a low point in your life where is it worth even going

01:07:09.620 forward? Now, of course, I dissuade anybody from suicide, but I know how that feeling was. That's

01:07:14.300 how I felt that night. And yeah, a prison guard walked by my cell and he says, Francis, you okay,

01:07:19.040 you don't look good. And I chased him away. I said, get away from me. Leave me alone. I don't

01:07:22.280 want to see any of you guys tonight. And he came back with a Bible and pushed it through the slide

01:07:27.160 on the door. And I spent the next 29 months and seven days in solitary, six by eight cell,

01:07:33.840 24-7, me and God. And it was during that time, Megan, that I not only studied my Bible

01:07:40.120 inside out and upside down. I had my wife send me in several books and on every faith. I was

01:07:46.360 studying every faith because they said, if I'm going to spend the rest of my life in this cell,

01:07:50.880 I want to know where I'm going at the end of it all. And I just came out of there strongly

01:07:55.040 believing in Christianity. Wow. That guard was like an angel. I mean,

01:08:01.040 truly like delivering the word of God to you. And it doesn't always happen, but it took,

01:08:06.240 like you heard it and you acted. It changed you. So would you say, because you met Camille,

01:08:12.000 who I know has been such a game changer in your life, between Camille, the Bible, a renewed faith

01:08:18.040 or maybe a brand new faith in God, how then did you come to see this other version of yourself,

01:08:25.060 this other possibility for how your life could be? Well, what I found out, there's two things

01:08:33.280 in life that are so important. Number one is, I always say this, and I try to mentor a lot of

01:08:38.840 young people. I go into prisons and juvenile halls and spoke at many men's ministries. And I told

01:08:44.320 them, you are who you hang out with in this life. If you hang with the wrong crowd, you're going to

01:08:49.380 be the wrong type of person, and they will influence you. I'm on the street. Obviously,

01:08:54.000 I was influenced, and that's the person who I was. And I'm not blaming the others. I'm just saying

01:08:58.580 that's we're all in the same boat in that regard. And secondly, is accountability is everything in

01:09:04.740 life, who you are accountable to is going to dictate the path that you serve in your life

01:09:08.760 on the street, accountable to my oath, my God, my, my boss, I was a criminal. So when I come out now,

01:09:16.220 I'm accountable to God first, accountable to my wife and children, not to screw up. So I end up

01:09:21.380 back in prison, because I will say this, look, you can take the boy out of Brooklyn, you can't

01:09:25.780 always take Brooklyn out of the void. There's a lot of times when I could react the wrong way

01:09:30.620 because I still have certain instincts inside of me, but I catch myself most of the time. And I

01:09:35.500 say, no, I can't do that because I'm jeopardizing the people around me and the people that I love.

01:09:40.160 And so I don't want to make a mistake. It's like, look, I'll say this and I say this in church,

01:09:44.540 Megan, I have no moral issue whatsoever with taking money from the government in taxes,

01:09:50.160 no moral issue whatsoever, because I can do better with the money now than they can,

01:09:53.960 No doubt about it. They throw all money in the toilet half the time. But I won't do it because I'm not going to jeopardize my freedom again. I'm not going to jeopardize my wife and kids and my grandkids. So you just have a different outlook. And I believe, you know, in Christianity, we believe that we're changed from the inside out.

01:10:13.600 when you develop a relationship with the Lord, he's changing you from inside out. It's not your

01:10:19.360 work on the outside that's doing it. And that's why it's so important to be nourished. It's so

01:10:24.300 important to, you know, to read the word as often as you possibly can. You can never get enough of

01:10:29.640 it and hang out with people that have the same beliefs as you. And that's what's done it for me.

01:10:36.460 I mean, I don't attribute it to my work. I think I'm probably the most fortunate, most blessed

01:10:41.440 person around because I should either be dead or in prison for the rest of my life. That's what I

01:10:46.180 earned. I feel like you're like your dad. You're what, 71 years old now? You look amazing. You look

01:10:52.720 young. You seem vibrant. You probably have another 30 years at least, but it's probably

01:10:58.660 related to your good choices in your second half. Yeah, I think I'm 72 and my wife, I have five

01:11:05.720 daughters and two sons well my daughters are all fitness crazy i mean they're fitness experts and

01:11:12.160 personal trainers my wife that's been her lifestyle so they don't allow me to get off

01:11:17.320 track in that regard so yeah and i think we have some good dna i mean my dad was one of 19 kids

01:11:22.940 and all of the kids died in their late 80s 90s my dad outlived them all but um you know so we have

01:11:30.540 some good dna also so you know i think that's part of it so you just got to watch yourself

01:11:34.520 all right i gotta ask you this because i know you're on the straight and narrow now and you

01:11:43.780 found god but you ever have the moment you know where you have like the nasty clerk at the store

01:11:48.940 or what where you're like if you if you only knew like just just you know like just watch it

01:11:57.500 oh absolutely megan it happens quite a bit and let me tell you something yes it would have to

01:12:03.620 keep going oh my gosh i'm on social media and some of the comments that come in you want to

01:12:08.940 like jump through the computer at him you know and get it but it's crazy i do yeah i have those

01:12:14.980 moments you know absolutely it's like i said you don't you know you don't get a lobotomy when you

01:12:20.580 where you come to christ you just you just try to you know tell your behavior the right way and and

01:12:26.480 you know and i i think older when you get older too you start to calm down a bit at least i don't

01:12:32.120 know about sammy but with me yeah he honestly like i couldn't believe he he talked he had a

01:12:38.480 very different experience as you know because he he yeah he was murdering a lot of people

01:12:42.560 and he talked to us about the story the first the first murder he committed and it was someone he

01:12:48.240 knew it was someone he was like kind of close to we actually pulled the clip um i'll play it it's

01:12:54.740 out five because i never thought about killing people um but uh i went through with it we did it

01:13:03.880 uh one night we went out to after hour clubs we got in the car about four o'clock in the morning

01:13:11.040 and as we drove away i shot him in the back of the head twice i didn't feel any remorse i didn't

01:13:17.880 feel anything. And I thought that was peculiar. I thought either something's wrong with me or I'm 0.92

01:13:26.540 just a stone cold killer. And I'm going to fit in the mafia perfectly.

01:13:32.900 Such an interesting man. And I asked him, Mike, do you ever think about God, heaven, judgment?

01:13:41.540 and he said, God made me a lion.

01:13:45.940 He made me the way I am.

01:13:47.900 I've thought about it so many times.

01:13:49.520 I've talked to my friends about it.

01:13:51.040 I've done so many interviews, of course, right?

01:13:52.980 It takes a lot for one to stand out

01:13:55.240 and for obvious reasons, his did.

01:13:57.480 But how do you factor that in?

01:13:59.520 Your redemption, your relationship with Christ now

01:14:02.200 and atonement.

01:14:04.720 You know, Megan, again,

01:14:05.900 and I've thought about this quite a bit

01:14:07.900 and I had a very interesting meeting

01:14:10.020 with Jordan Peterson.

01:14:11.540 who is so analytical brilliant and he asked me you know he he delved he said Michael how did you

01:14:17.780 do certain things that you did and I said well you know Jordan uh I didn't feel good about it

01:14:23.980 I said but I knew I had to do it so I would kind of step outside of myself and handle what I had

01:14:30.820 to handle very efficiently and then come back to who I was and Jordan looked at me and he says well

01:14:37.060 how do you know who's the real you? And I said, whoa. I said, you know what, Jordan? That's a

01:14:42.480 good question. I never thought of that. But that's how I dealt with certain things that were

01:14:47.500 uncomfortable for me to do. But the fact that you're able to do them, I don't know what that

01:14:53.240 says, Megan, quite honestly. But, you know, the last thing that I was going to have anybody say

01:14:58.900 about me was that I didn't perform or I didn't follow an order or I didn't do what I was supposed

01:15:03.780 to do um so that's that's how I dealt with it differently than Sammy obviously but look there

01:15:11.440 was guys in that life you know I say this all the time you talk about a Roy DeMeo I'm sure you heard

01:15:16.380 his name maybe a Greg Scarpa yeah not good these were serial killers they were serial killers they

01:15:24.640 would have been killers even if they weren't in the mafia the mafia didn't turn them into that

01:15:29.980 That's who they were. You can't be that kind of person and say, well, the mob made me do it. No, you got to be that person. And obviously the experience might be enhanced because that's a lifestyle that things like that occur. But it didn't make you that way. That's who you were. And I think he just summed it up. He said, I'd be perfect for the mob. But this is, he figured that out, that this is who he was and he'd be a perfect guy to be in that life.

01:15:59.980 for the listening audience, that was episode 352 from July of 2022. If you want to go back

01:16:05.660 and listen to it, 352. So, so then, so you've been out of prison now by my count, some 30 years,

01:16:13.260 you've maintained a life on the up and up, created a whole family, you're a motivational speaker.

01:16:19.960 So what are, what are the big takeaways for you? You know, and you, you talk to people in these

01:16:25.800 motivational speeches when you talk to your grandkids, like what are the biggest things

01:16:30.100 you've learned from this life? Well, you know, when you're determined and you have the right

01:16:36.680 support, you know, the right people around you. And obviously for me, it's, it's also a faith

01:16:41.960 issue. You can come out of a bad situation. It's not easy. And, you know, I may have had an

01:16:47.680 advantage because like I said, I surrounded myself with the right people. And, um, but I think the

01:16:53.740 message that resonates all the time, and I've done probably over 2,000 speaking engagements,

01:17:00.100 is that if I came out of a tough situation, you can also. And that's what people want to hear.

01:17:06.960 They love a redemption story. Many people are struggling out there, and it doesn't matter what

01:17:11.940 walk of life. I've spoken to the most affluent people, and then obviously people that are in

01:17:17.120 almost poverty-stricken themselves. And everybody is struggling with something,

01:17:21.860 and they want to know how to overcome it.

01:17:24.500 And I think my story resonates in that regard

01:17:27.380 because people do believe you don't walk away from that life

01:17:30.160 without entering a witness protection program

01:17:32.140 and going through the whole, you know, ordeal that you have to go through.

01:17:35.660 And the fact that I was able to do that, you know, raise a family,

01:17:39.260 have a wife and children, have a career and a profession,

01:17:42.700 I think it's motivating to people.

01:17:44.800 Yeah.

01:17:45.220 And, you know, it's amazing.

01:17:47.660 You know, no matter where I go, you know, I always open it up,

01:17:50.260 or quite often, I should say, open it up for a Q&A. And you would think all the stories and all

01:17:55.120 the questions rather are mob related. They're not. The questions are, how did you do this?

01:18:00.380 How did your wife react? Why did she stay with you? What about your kids? What kind of an impact

01:18:05.060 did it have on them? You know, so I understand that so many of the questions become personal.

01:18:10.740 The reason being because those people are either dealing with something in their life,

01:18:14.900 or they know somebody that's dealing with something.

01:18:18.240 You know, that's a good point.

01:18:19.920 And it's really one of those, like, no matter what you're dealing with,

01:18:22.580 it's almost guaranteed it's not quite as tricky as what Michael was dealing with.

01:18:26.760 I mean, very, very tricky to get out of the mob with your life secured

01:18:32.680 and return to your family and a life above board, you know,

01:18:36.640 without crossing that criminal line after so many years on the opposite side.

01:18:40.600 It's a magician type move.

01:18:44.860 What about today?

01:18:46.120 I mean, the mafia was really undermined by prosecutors like Rudy Giuliani, but it's not gone.

01:18:53.620 So how do you how is it today? Do you know? And, you know, what's its status?

01:18:59.820 Well, I can tell you, you know, I always say this, the golden years of Cosa Nostra mafia in this country, really from the late 40s, early 50s, right through to the mid 80s, when, again, we know what happened.

01:19:09.820 And, you know, there was a time when I was in New York, Daily News, New York Post, New York Times, Newsday, every single day or every other day story about the mob.

01:19:21.400 Without a doubt, one family or another who's getting busted every other day.

01:19:25.900 Now I read the New York Post every morning, maybe every six months.

01:19:29.360 And as a matter of fact, I think last week 10 guys got busted or something like that.

01:19:33.380 So they've gone undercover.

01:19:35.420 It's not nearly what it was during my time.

01:19:38.060 I know that for a fact.

01:19:39.820 but it seems like they're getting smarter. You know, you don't hear too many guys on

01:19:45.380 surveillance tapes and things like that. It's not going to go away in my lifetime. But you know,

01:19:49.960 another thing I've learned, things happen in patterns. When I was on the street, they had

01:19:54.460 1400 agents that were assigned to all five families. We had 750 approximately made guys,

01:20:01.440 guys that took the oath. You had almost two agents for every made guy. Now I believe there's less

01:20:06.660 than 100. Why? Because terrorism has become, you know, more important right now and the focus on

01:20:12.620 that. So when things like that happen, and some of the heat comes off, these guys are pretty

01:20:17.580 resourceful, and they start to build up again. And then there'll be a time possibly when, you know,

01:20:23.880 they come down hard again, because we're seeing the government is seeing more impact that the guys

01:20:29.280 on the street are having. I don't know, you know, this time, it might be that it was seriously

01:20:33.920 wounded to the point where it'll never recover to what it was before. But I don't sell them short.

01:20:39.900 I'm not saying it's over, but that's the pattern that I see, you know, that I've seen occur over

01:20:45.160 the years. And last but not least, Rudy Giuliani. You know, we talked just a bit. I made a reference

01:20:51.940 to how his public image has changed. There's no question he has changed himself personally.

01:20:58.160 He's had some personal problems.

01:21:00.620 But, you know, many of us remember what he did in New York and how he behaved after 9-11 and what kind of a mayor he was and factor all of that in and sizing up his legacy.

01:21:12.720 How do you see it?

01:21:14.740 Well, again, for me, it's I don't look too much at what's going on currently in politics with him.

01:21:21.760 I just know that he was a tremendous prosecutor at the time.

01:21:26.160 Again, he was my enemy, but you have to give him his due.

01:21:29.300 He did what he said he was going to do, and he used the laws very, very effectively.

01:21:35.180 And more than that, for me, his legacy was the mayor of New York.

01:21:38.840 You know, when I got violated and the marshals came and picked me up and they were bringing me into to get in front of the judge,

01:21:46.540 it was in the early 90s, it was 91, I think.

01:21:49.760 We were in the car and they said, Mike, we got a little time before we have to appear in court.

01:21:54.840 What do you want to do?

01:21:55.500 I've been out of New York for a while. I said, I want two things. I'd like a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee and let's go around Manhattan. I haven't seen it in a while. And I could not believe Times Square and how Rudy had cleaned it up. I mean, I grew up with that being Smut City. And I was like amazed that I said, wow, this guy really did do a job here.

01:22:14.960 You know, so I was fascinated by that. You know, so that's to me, that's his legacy. I look at him as a prosecutor, the job that he did and and the mayor of New York. And of course, after 9-11, he was tremendous. So to me, that's how I remember him.

01:22:33.820 thank you so much for telling your story and for finding a way forward and setting the example for

01:22:40.760 others who have struggled in any number of ways all the best to you well megan thanks for having

01:22:47.220 me and like i said i've been watching you since your days in fox and i appreciate uh just your

01:22:52.340 honesty and the way you you know you you just carry yourself and break things out it's uh for

01:22:57.500 me it's uh it's really a joy to see so thank you oh i'm flattered it's so nice to meet you to be

01:23:03.540 continued we have a fascinating program for you today one filled with crime murder money and

01:23:14.300 betrayal today we're talking to one of the most infamous mobsters in american history

01:23:18.920 salvatore gravano otherwise known as sammy the bull to understand his story we have to take a

01:23:25.940 step back in time to the early 1970s when the godfather hit the big screen and changed the

01:23:33.000 perception of the mafia in america you spend time with your family sure i do good because a man who

01:23:41.500 doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man you look terrible i want you to eat

01:23:47.820 i want you to rest well and a month from now this hollywood big shot's gonna give you what

01:23:53.420 you want it's too late they start shooting in a week i'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse

01:23:59.600 at about that same time gravano a kid who grew up without mob connections in his family

01:24:08.120 slowly eased into la cosa nostra and made his first kill over the course of the next two decades

01:24:16.260 sammy the bull would rise up the ranks of new york's notorious gambino crime family raking in

01:24:22.200 millions upon millions of dollars and repeatedly killing he has admitted to 19 murders in all

01:24:28.780 including his own brother-in-law his best friend and the gambino family mob boss paul castellano

01:24:36.100 in 1985 deadly messages from organized crime to organized crime and the rest of society

01:24:42.240 the murder of gambino crime family boss paul castellano yesterday or the 1979 assassination

01:24:48.240 of cosa nostra don carmine galenti unsolved very public executions by an underworld that plays by

01:24:54.800 their own rules and their own code of justice. The Castellano murder, particularly brazen and

01:25:00.540 defiant, since Castellano was gunned down a day before, he was to resume standing trial for auto

01:25:06.040 theft and murder. Organized crime had served up its own sentence. By the late 1980s, the new Don,

01:25:15.740 John Gotti, had named Sammy the Bull his right hand man. Gotti himself was a ruthless mobster

01:25:22.260 and media darling who dressed in expensive suits and enjoyed the finer things in life,

01:25:28.020 earning him the nickname the Dapper Don. He also repeatedly escaped conviction with,

01:25:34.080 as it would turn out, Sammy's help, which we'll get to, earning him another nickname,

01:25:39.740 the Teflon Don. Remember how they use that about Donald Trump? Well, it was first

01:25:43.540 about John Gotti. But in 1991, everything changed. John Gotti and Sammy the Bull were behind bars,

01:25:50.860 facing a slew of charges when Sammy decided to flip and do the unthinkable, cooperate with the

01:25:58.260 feds. At the time, he was the highest ranking gangster to break his blood oath, earning him

01:26:05.220 the ire of mob aficionados who dubbed him a rat. Not since Joe Vellacci in the 60s has such a high

01:26:12.400 ranking member of the mob turned traitor. Sammy the Bull Gravano now joins the ranks of those who

01:26:17.080 have broken the cardinal rule of the mafia omerta the code of silence

01:26:21.220 sammy's testimony helped send john goddy away for good the teflon is gone the don is covered

01:26:31.220 with velcro and every charge in the indictment stuck and resulted in dozens of other mobsters

01:26:39.000 going to prison as well one top fbi agent says that testimony by sammy led to the demise of

01:26:46.240 organized crime in new york since then there have been numerous books and movies made about

01:26:51.140 the gambino crime family and while some may still consider sammy a quote rat hundreds of thousands

01:26:57.140 of people are curious fans of his subscribing to his podcast launched right around the time our

01:27:05.300 own did uh called our thing which is what cosa nostra means in fact his youtube channel alone

01:27:12.320 has more than 77 million views.

01:27:16.060 Sammy the Bull Gravano, welcome to the show.

01:27:18.400 Thank you for being here.

01:27:21.360 Thank you.

01:27:22.320 Thank you.

01:27:22.840 It's a pleasure.

01:27:24.240 So let me start with this.

01:27:25.860 After that background, how are you still upright?

01:27:29.900 How are you still walking around on two feet?

01:27:34.920 Well, the mafia changed quite a bit.

01:27:37.580 It doesn't do certain things.

01:27:39.600 And people understand the story, what happened.

01:27:44.220 That word rat.

01:27:45.660 I mean, they use that.

01:27:48.700 They do that all the time.

01:27:50.540 But in my case, I was offered that position to cooperate a bunch of times.

01:27:58.160 I was arrested all my life.

01:28:00.400 I never cooperated.

01:28:01.820 I was facing life in a number of different cases.

01:28:06.240 But when it came to John Gotti, I was arrested in 1991 with him.

01:28:12.740 And after 11 months, the worst 11 months I've ever done in prison, I've been in prison 22 years of my life.

01:28:21.460 But he wanted me to take the weight so he can go free.

01:28:26.980 He was going to back up the tapes that the government had.

01:28:30.440 And most of those tapes were all lies about me killing union people and taking over or killing my partners and taking over.

01:28:40.560 None of that was true.

01:28:43.060 But he thought that he would have the lawyers back up those tapes and turn around in a way to say, well, you hear John complaining about him.

01:28:57.320 It's not John. 0.96

01:29:00.440 would be set free and i would go to prison he had the balls to actually tell me this

01:29:10.920 to my face and um that's when i walked away from him the mafia and whatever would happen

01:29:17.780 would happen i wasn't afraid of it no i understand well and let me just jump in because

01:29:23.760 we'll get to that in detail in just a bit but and i and what you're basically saying is that you

01:29:29.400 you felt he was going to sell you out up the river and you sold him up the river first.

01:29:34.600 But is that why you don't think anybody has tried to seek retribution? I mean,

01:29:40.100 I understand there's been at least one attempt on your life since your testimony against him,

01:29:46.120 allegedly by a family member of John Gotti's. But is that it? Because you did witness

01:29:51.960 protection. You did all that. I can't imagine nobody else has tried to come get you.

01:29:57.660 well there was a team that came down uh when John Gotti was away Peter Gotti his brother became the

01:30:07.700 boss he said he put together a team to come down and kill me they found me they were afraid to even

01:30:15.000 come near me and they were they devised all kinds of plans uh a bomb uh then this thing that spins

01:30:23.680 around and shoot shotgun shells. And that didn't work. Nothing worked. And I got arrested again in

01:30:33.040 in 2000, February of 2000. And it didn't get done. When I got arrested, I had in my apartment,

01:30:46.980 i had five guns four guns planted in different places in my kitchen in my bathroom my living

01:30:55.080 room i expected them to come down and i had one on me all the time i was actually waiting for it

01:31:03.200 to happen uh and they worked with me these were people some people were my crew one of them was

01:31:10.940 my brother-in-law eddie garofola um and uh they knew me and they knew i wouldn't run from it

01:31:20.720 and uh they were cowards they didn't make the move they were afraid to make the move

01:31:29.340 and i got when once i went in prison again uh that part of it was over so there was an attempt

01:31:37.360 excuse me they found me but it didn't work out for them it worked out for me as i said you're

01:31:49.760 doing a podcast now and so on are you at all in hiding i mean is it something that do you need to

01:31:55.800 keep your whereabouts unknown no i think the whole country knows where i am i'm not in hiding

01:32:03.620 Listen, I went into the witness protection program.

01:32:06.980 I didn't want to go into the program.

01:32:08.920 I had money.

01:32:09.580 I didn't want to go in.

01:32:11.120 I did only five years on my first hit, my first pinch.

01:32:16.760 And the government begged me to go in that they would look terrible if I refused and didn't go in.

01:32:24.800 And we had meetings and they said, you know, you got a great sentence.

01:32:29.720 Give us something.

01:32:31.020 Come into the program.

01:32:32.860 I agreed to go into the program for a year.

01:32:36.760 I did eight months in the program.

01:32:40.000 Something came up.

01:32:41.040 A woman recognized me and they wanted me to start over again.

01:32:44.820 I said, no, I'm not starting over again.

01:32:46.480 I promised a year.

01:32:47.580 I'll give you a year.

01:32:48.540 There's four more months.

01:32:50.020 It didn't.

01:32:51.620 They wanted to start over.

01:32:52.780 And I quit and walked away.

01:32:55.160 I went to Phoenix where my family was.

01:32:57.680 And I stayed there for about another four and a half years before I got busted again.

01:33:02.040 um since i got out i got out in 2017 uh this all started my wife my daughter did a book i did a

01:33:12.440 book when i got out in 96 um and she wanted to do a book we couldn't sell the book uh and then

01:33:21.960 somebody came to her about a podcast and she said would you work for me and of course we're divorced

01:33:28.960 and give me the right to use you to do a podcast.

01:33:34.680 And I said, of course, I'll help you.

01:33:36.740 And that's how I started.

01:33:39.520 A year after that, or maybe a little bit more than a year,

01:33:43.400 two years after that, my son put me on Facebook.

01:33:48.780 A little while after that, he put me on YouTube.

01:33:54.740 Unbeknownst to me, I didn't even know it.

01:33:56.660 My phone, I was getting all kinds of calls.

01:33:58.960 And my son left one day and said, I put you on Facebook.

01:34:02.680 I put you on YouTube.

01:34:03.860 And that's what the calls were about.

01:34:05.980 So I just stayed on that.

01:34:08.940 And I continued the podcast on that.

01:34:12.040 And it grew to big numbers.

01:34:14.500 I'm almost at a half a million subscribers.

01:34:17.780 And I got 77, 78 million views.

01:34:23.200 And now I'm doing a whole bunch of other things.

01:34:25.800 And a lot of I was reading and preparing for this. A lot of men and women in law enforcement, in particular, FBI agents watch and listen to the podcast and the YouTube show because they say it's fascinating.

01:34:39.800 fascinating. They've never been able to get this sort of an insight into a real life mobsters

01:34:45.440 thinking. And you talk openly about the crimes that were committed by yourself, by others.

01:34:50.920 A lot of these guys who were covering you or on you back then are listening, thinking, oh,

01:34:54.540 my God, this is helping me put things together. So it's just the all around you. Obviously,

01:34:59.900 you have immunity now for those crimes, given the deal you struck with the government. But

01:35:03.460 it's a fascinating thing to think about the FBI agents who once tracked you and guys you worked

01:35:09.140 with now listening to you and are fans of the show. I mean, actually fans of the show. So let

01:35:14.780 me pause you there and let's go back. Let's start with you as a kid, because as I mentioned in the

01:35:19.600 intro, you were not raised in a family where your dad was in the mob and your granddad was in the

01:35:26.240 mob. This was not foretold. As I understand it, your dad was fairly successful. You had a nice

01:35:32.200 family and you had some difficulties as a child, but it wasn't related to anything in terms of

01:35:39.000 crime or the mob no my mother and father were totally legitimate my mother was a seamstress

01:35:46.020 my father was a painter he got back then they used to use lead in paint got lead poisoning

01:35:52.240 had to stay away from painting my mother got an offer from a jewish contractor she would go and 0.80

01:35:58.800 make the clothes women's clothes and uh the guy told her katie you're great open up a little 0.83

01:36:06.400 factory and i'll get you work if you could produce you know the quality of work that you do 0.85

01:36:13.040 uh we'll give you our work and that's exactly what she did my father jumped in with her to help her

01:36:22.320 and they worked together they had a dress factory and uh that's what they did i had two sisters

01:36:29.240 neither one of them had anything to do with the mafia boyfriends or anything one of my

01:36:36.140 brother-in-law's was an engineer uh the other brother-in-law was uh a plumbing contractor

01:36:42.560 later on he became in the mafia with me he became a made member but before that before i was in the

01:36:50.160 mafia i had no relation to the mafia whatsoever but in bensonhurst brooklyn it was saturated with

01:36:57.460 the mafia so it was on every street corner it was around as a kid growing up i was dyslexic

01:37:03.940 I didn't do good in school. I got left back in the fourth grade, the seventh grade.

01:37:08.460 I had nothing but problems in school. I got thrown out.

01:37:13.540 I never got past the eighth grade and I was in a gang and we stayed away from the mafia.

01:37:19.820 We knew who they were. We knew they were dangerous. So we stayed away from them.

01:37:24.840 It was us against the world and we didn't want nothing to do with the mafia.

01:37:29.240 um and at 19 years old i got drafted and i went into the military during the vietnam war

01:37:37.120 i spent two years there and uh yeah when you were drafted you got two years if you join

01:37:44.900 you had to do three i did two i came out and went right back into a gang

01:37:50.780 why why because i would think i would like to think that a couple years in the army

01:37:57.260 would instill a moral code in you that would give you some pause

01:38:01.180 about going back into a life of crime?

01:38:05.980 Well, it wasn't into a life of crime.

01:38:07.800 It was back into being in the gang.

01:38:10.100 I mean, that's what I knew. 0.67

01:38:11.500 The only thing I knew, I was taught how to kill

01:38:13.660 and how to do things in the military. 0.99

01:38:17.220 And I would have killed people to protect the country. 1.00

01:38:20.560 They gave us that bullshit that it was communism was coming here. 1.00

01:38:24.280 They're going to rape your mother, your sisters. 1.00

01:38:25.780 And so I was brainwashed a little bit by the government. 1.00

01:38:29.680 I mean, I never met a bad Vietnamese person.

01:38:33.960 The only people I know who are Vietnamese do my nails or my toenails and they just seem to be nice people.

01:38:40.600 I've never met Vietnamese people in prison. 1.00

01:38:43.420 So maybe they're good crooks. 1.00

01:38:45.360 So I think the whole thing was bullshit. 1.00

01:38:48.360 So I went right back into the into a gang. 0.98

01:38:53.580 But unbeknownst to me, while the two years I was gone, most of my friends hooked up with different mafia families and they were hooked up with somebody.

01:39:03.060 One of my friends, Tommy Spiro, said, my uncle wants to talk to you.

01:39:06.920 His name was Shorty Spiro.

01:39:08.980 He was in a notorious crew, Carmine Persico.

01:39:14.720 There was a war going on at that time between the Gallows and the Profaci.

01:39:21.360 And there was different sides.

01:39:23.580 The war stopped for a while.

01:39:27.500 So when I got hooked up with them, there was no war going on.

01:39:31.540 I knew sooner or later they kill people that I would be called.

01:39:36.120 That's where I did my first murder.

01:39:39.140 It's a long story.

01:39:41.520 I would tell you if you want to hear it.

01:39:43.560 But I did my first piece of work there.

01:39:46.360 And then Shorty at that after that had told me, Sammy, go get your clothes.

01:39:53.120 Joe Gallo had come out of crazy.

01:39:55.500 Joe Gallo came out of prison.

01:39:57.480 He said, go get your clothes.

01:39:58.960 We're going to hit the mattresses.

01:40:00.260 I didn't even know what that meant back then.

01:40:02.060 It wasn't a million movies.

01:40:03.960 And he said, there are a pack of wolves.

01:40:08.320 We're a pack of wolves.

01:40:09.860 We're going to live together. 1.00

01:40:11.680 If you have a girlfriend, get rid of her.

01:40:13.620 If you got a job, stop. 0.96

01:40:15.560 You're going to live with us 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

01:40:19.160 And we're going to hunt them. 0.70

01:40:21.260 They're going to hunt us.

01:40:22.280 And that's what you have to do from this point on.

01:40:26.200 And that's the beginnings of your your time in organized crime.

01:40:29.660 That wasn't just the gang.

01:40:31.060 That was one of the five New York crime families. 0.92

01:40:34.220 Yes, it became the Colombo. 1.00

01:40:36.340 It was a Profachi family.

01:40:38.580 Profachi died and they made Joe Colombo the boss. 0.95

01:40:44.080 So when I got in, Joe Colombo was the boss.

01:40:46.400 My first hit was ordered from Joe Colombo to Carmine Persico to Shorty to me.

01:40:53.160 And it was somebody in our crew who was plotting to kill Shorty and me.

01:40:59.680 And his wife was having an affair with Shorty's nephew.

01:41:05.800 And he devised a plot to kill Shorty and me to cause confusion.

01:41:11.400 infusion. A couple of months later, six months later, he would kill Tommy Spiro. And he went

01:41:18.700 to somebody, Frankie, who was in the crew and asked for his help. Frankie, instead of helping

01:41:24.920 him, went to Shorty and told him about the plot. That's how the whole thing happened.

01:41:29.440 Now, just to take a step back, you mentioned you had dyslexia as a kid and you didn't make it past

01:41:34.820 the eighth grade. And I know that there were some bullies in your life as well. And one of those

01:41:39.680 incidents led to your nickname, Sammy the Bull. They tried to steal your bike. You didn't let it

01:41:45.800 go peacefully. You were scrappy. And these mobsters saw you fighting and said, look at this kid. And

01:41:51.680 they nicknamed you Sammy the Bull. Now, jumping forward now to this point, you may have stood up

01:41:58.720 to bullies, but you didn't go to Vietnam when you were serving in 1964. So you hadn't killed

01:42:05.500 anybody whether in a military uniform or otherwise at this point so when they say to you

01:42:10.640 you're going to kill this guy is it you know is it is it scary is it frightening is it daunting or is

01:42:17.340 it all business at that point even as a young man at this point well it was scary i had a couple of

01:42:25.420 incidents that were scary that i was gonna would have used the gun uh i never did but um when that

01:42:33.280 came i knew it would come sooner or later so the story i heard the story what it was

01:42:42.220 i thought i was being bullshitted a little bit you know that the guy wanted to kill me i couldn't

01:42:48.280 understand why he wanted to kill me i had nothing to do with his wife and an affair but he had this 0.98

01:42:54.860 stupid little plot like i just said and um when they gave me the order they said who do you want 0.99

01:43:01.700 to come with you and I said your nephew Tommy Spiro he created this monster and then I wanted 0.99

01:43:09.640 the guy Frankie because I couldn't understand why he didn't tell me and I wanted to be able

01:43:13.760 to talk to him about that so they put those two people on the hit with me and uh you know I watched

01:43:22.240 a movie one time and it's a person who was about to kill and he was sweating and scared and all of

01:43:30.800 this stuff i thought that's what happens to you before you can commit this kind of a crime because

01:43:36.060 i never thought about killing people um but uh i went through with it we did it uh one night we

01:43:45.700 went out to after hour clubs we got in the car about four o'clock in the morning and as we drove

01:43:52.680 away i shot him in the back of the head twice you were in the back of the car i was in the back seat

01:43:59.500 where was he 0.95

01:44:00.740 he was in the front seat

01:44:03.060 the passenger seat

01:44:04.060 and

01:44:05.780 when we went to a spot

01:44:09.440 we went out of the neighborhood

01:44:10.540 we pulled into

01:44:11.460 like a nice community

01:44:14.300 it was miles away from

01:44:16.840 Brooklyn

01:44:17.460 Rockaway

01:44:19.840 and they had nice homes with lawns

01:44:22.080 and it was quiet

01:44:23.120 we drove over there

01:44:24.980 I took them

01:44:26.840 I picked them up out of the car

01:44:28.220 and I put him on the street, the sidewalk.

01:44:35.300 I got in the car.

01:44:37.440 I opened the window, put the gun out, 0.98

01:44:40.020 and I shot him three more times. 0.91

01:44:42.140 We got back. 0.75

01:44:43.640 We went to the neighborhood.

01:44:45.520 We cleaned the car, got rid of the gun.

01:44:48.660 And we were living together, a bunch of guys.

01:44:53.460 I went and take a shower.

01:44:55.380 I stayed in the shower quite a long time.

01:44:57.460 the water running on me, and I was waiting for this thing to happen, being nervous and

01:45:02.920 sweating, and it didn't happen. Nothing happened. And I went to bed. I slept like a baby.

01:45:12.880 I got up the next morning. There was confusion. Some of the young girls were still with us. Oh,

01:45:17.560 my God, they killed Joe Colucci and Rockaway. And I remember asking one of the girls,

01:45:22.500 did they know who did it did they find out who did it she said no it wasn't it's in the papers

01:45:28.540 already but it's not in the papers i don't know if they they caught the people or what

01:45:32.460 and i remember we all went to the corner where we stay and uh i had like an out of

01:45:42.800 body experience that i felt like i was above somewhere looking down and listening to all

01:45:50.960 but I'm talking and, and I felt absolutely nothing.

01:45:56.460 And then Shorty came with his nephew, Tommy Sparrow.

01:46:02.500 And I came back to reality and they said,

01:46:08.300 the Carmine Persico wants to talk to you.

01:46:11.320 So we got in the car when we went down there, but.

01:46:16.240 That was the then boss.

01:46:19.000 Excuse me.

01:46:20.400 Carmine Persico at that point was that family's boss?

01:46:23.980 No, he was a captain, but a very, very powerful captain.

01:46:27.880 He was leading the war against the Gallows.

01:46:32.440 And so I went down and met with him.

01:46:36.080 I was told not to talk.

01:46:37.560 I didn't talk.

01:46:38.340 Tommy Spiro explained the whole situation, what happened in detail.

01:46:43.780 He grabbed me, hugged me, kissed me on the cheek, and he told me, great job.

01:46:47.920 so and i i didn't feel anything i went to the funeral and uh i didn't feel any remorse i didn't

01:46:58.080 feel anything and i thought that was peculiar i thought either something's wrong with me or i'm

01:47:06.740 just a stone cold killer and i'm gonna fit in the mafia perfectly and uh i guess i what i what i

01:47:15.380 became not a stone cold killer i was good at what i did i was good at what i did in a lot of ways

01:47:20.780 in construction running unions but i was also becoming a professional hit guy

01:47:27.920 had you ever been a man of faith prior to that had you ever gone to church did you have any

01:47:34.680 relationship with god no of course i still i believe in god i i i don't i went to church as

01:47:43.520 a kid I stopped going to church I believe you know in prison I joined the Indians because I 0.99

01:47:51.700 wanted to smoke and and you have to join their religion and they allow that in prison in the 1.00

01:47:59.260 federal prisons so I joined them I went in to get tobacco you weren't allowed to smoke 1.00

01:48:04.440 from 2004 I went in really wanted to smoke and steal some tobacco and bring it to my cell

01:48:13.100 But I got to understand their religion, the way they believe in God.

01:48:17.760 I also, at one point, a friend of mine grabbed me and said, Sammy, you're not an Indian.

01:48:23.500 We do Wicca.

01:48:25.920 Why don't you join our group?

01:48:28.160 And I did.

01:48:29.200 I joined their group as well.

01:48:31.760 So I started to understand different religions.

01:48:35.340 And everybody seems to believe in God.

01:48:38.440 They're just a path.

01:48:39.780 What path do you want to take to get to God? 1.00

01:48:42.000 Indians have it. 0.99

01:48:43.100 wicca has it muslims have it jews have it catholics have it christians have it it's just

01:48:49.540 the path and i believe was there a moment back then you know when when you're you're talking

01:48:55.120 about being in the shower and no remorse i wonder whether there was any moment of no matter what i

01:49:01.240 feel i recognize i've crossed over i've done something i've i've sinned in the most profound

01:49:07.520 way possible and at some point there will be a price to pay no no i don't look at it that way

01:49:14.720 i never felt that way i still don't think that way i think that god makes people

01:49:20.260 creates people and he creates lions and he creates lambs i think i'm a lion and whatever

01:49:31.260 you have to pay if you have to pay anything

01:49:33.980 why would he create a lion if there was a god and he was

01:49:39.740 interested in what was going on why do little kids get cancer and

01:49:43.680 die why are little kids get raped why do so many things happen

01:49:47.640 and talking about religions i mean i was a catholic

01:49:51.560 brought up that way baptized communion confirmation

01:49:55.880 till i found out what priests do

01:49:58.660 and i had no intention of committing or my crimes to talk to him i i was asked that once by a priest

01:50:08.840 and i told him yeah you want me to tell you my what i do tell me what you do and then i'll talk

01:50:16.360 to you about what i do so i i don't believe in religion i believe in god but i think religion 0.96

01:50:24.780 is bullshit i think it's they it's all about money it's all about different things they commit 0.97

01:50:32.780 evil things to to good people so i i you know i'm i'm away from religions i respected the indian 0.99

01:50:40.480 religion the wicca religion it stunned me it's the only religion that they put a woman above god 0.99

01:50:48.640 the goddess of the moon the water and the earth god is the god of the forest and the mountains

01:50:55.720 why do they put i asked a woman above god because she creates life she needs a man's seed but she

01:51:07.900 in her womb takes care of life and then gives birth and creates life i understand that i'm

01:51:16.540 somebody with common sense if you make sense to me in a certain way i understand it so i understood

01:51:23.460 that religion now a lot of people will not be happy with me saying this but they of course it's

01:51:30.920 a it's a they call it a pagan religion they call it all kinds of things it was before the

01:51:35.460 christianity even and uh i understand that part about a woman giving birth and creating life

01:51:44.640 Well, I mean, I've I've I've read that, unlike some in the mob, you you were very you were a family man in the midst of all this.

01:51:55.980 You went home and had dinner with your wife and your two kids each night.

01:52:00.380 Your daughter, Karen, has talked about that publicly many times.

01:52:04.000 And so there has been this respect for your family members, for your wife, for your daughter in a way that even the people who were in the mob said, you know, for example, John Gotti would go out.

01:52:14.280 carousing with other women after hours and you would go home to your family that piece of that

01:52:20.360 piece of your commitment of your life you know you honored um despite what was happening on the

01:52:25.460 other front and i know that you you don't see these as as real as murders you know in the same

01:52:31.280 way a soldier doesn't commit a murder when he kills somebody this is how an fbi agent explained

01:52:35.120 it in one public interview that a soldier would not be murdering you don't see your kills as

01:52:41.240 murders because there was a code behind them because you say the people you killed had sort

01:52:46.680 of agreed to live by this code and die by this code and on that on that note uh that heavy note

01:52:54.440 let me pause it okay because i want to get into that next and that's a that's a whole other

01:52:58.060 chapter for us so stand by let me squeeze in a commercial break and much much more

01:53:02.260 with sammy the bull gravano as he stays with us for the whole show fascinating story to tell

01:53:12.160 So, Sammy, it was actually a quote that I was reading, not from an FBI agent.

01:53:16.300 It was from Terrence Winter, who the audience may know as the executive producer of The Sopranos.

01:53:20.980 And he also did Boardwalk Empire.

01:53:22.980 And he was he took part in a documentary about you and said the following.

01:53:26.280 Many mobsters consider what they do almost military in nature.

01:53:30.240 They consider themselves soldiers.

01:53:31.940 So they rationalize a lot of really bad behavior.

01:53:35.400 You wouldn't think about calling a soldier at war a murderer.

01:53:37.960 So therefore, if they're a soldier and they're at war, they're not murderers either.

01:53:43.400 They're just doing their job.

01:53:46.020 Does that capture the mentality?

01:53:49.200 I believe so.

01:53:50.760 I 100 percent.

01:53:52.460 You know, I watched the program one time during World War Two.

01:53:58.300 We dropped an atom bomb, an atomic bomb, an atom bomb twice, not once, twice.

01:54:05.380 but i saw the guy who was in the plane and over hiroshima or somewhere and he pressed the button

01:54:15.140 and it killed a hundred thousand people men women and children in a split second

01:54:22.580 and they were patting him on the back that he did a great job the war was ended early because of

01:54:29.960 those things. And if I was talking to the guy, I would say, listen, you did a great job. Great

01:54:37.620 military guy. You fought for the country. You did what you were supposed to do. How do you feel

01:54:44.440 now, knowing you just killed 100,000 people, men, women, and children? Does that bother you at all?

01:54:53.320 And I'm sure he would tell me no. Because he was fighting for the country. He was fighting

01:54:59.820 for what he thought was right in the mafia it's part of it's not a gang no more it's part of my

01:55:06.280 heritage it came from italy sicily it started in sicily and it came to this country so it's part

01:55:15.140 of my heritage so it's not just a gang a gang is you know killing in a gang or doing certain things

01:55:23.640 for a drug spot is a different thing but this is a soldier it was explained to me i was involved

01:55:30.800 in the johnny keys hit it was a major major hit and it was he was a a guy who had 50 hits under

01:55:39.720 his belt and me and him were gonna go at each other and it was explained to me that we were

01:55:48.580 like two samurais now i understand a samurai is a different thing than us they're actually more

01:55:54.960 violent than us but i really felt that way that we were two samurais who met on the battlefield

01:56:05.220 what about can i let me ask you a couple follow-ups on that so obviously when we when we

01:56:11.200 dropped the bomb at the end of world war ii they estimated that we saved somewhere upwards of 25

01:56:16.780 30 million lives by putting an end to World War II when the Japanese would not surrender. 0.92

01:56:23.880 And so, you know, I'm not defending the killing of 100,000 people exactly, but in a way I am 0.99

01:56:30.820 because it was the right decision. It saved far more lives than it actually cost. But in the

01:56:35.680 mafia, and I can get it if the guy was going to kill you. Let me answer your question. Let me

01:56:39.160 answer that question the people who say that it saved 25 to 30 million lives was who the government

01:56:47.440 of course they're going to say that i mean independent analysts to take a look who have

01:56:52.980 taken a look at this ad nauseum since the end of world war ii will tell you that the the lives

01:56:57.900 saved far far outnumbered the lives cost doesn't make it not controversial um but you can't talk

01:57:05.680 about it without adding that perspective. But I mean, the thing about the mafia, and I can

01:57:09.760 understand if a guy was going to kill you, I mean, even the law recognizes, maybe not exactly the way

01:57:16.020 that you would do it, but what recognizes a right to self-defense. But, you know, it seems like it

01:57:21.840 was a whole criminal justice system that you guys agreed to, where, you know, you sleep with the 0.95

01:57:26.260 guy's wife, you could get whacked. You interfere with my business, you could get whacked. It 0.98

01:57:30.640 basically is just whatever the head of the crime family wants and the guy doesn't show up like a

01:57:37.360 samurai face to face in a meeting where you fight it out to the death he just gets in the car with

01:57:41.820 you he gets whacked in the back of the head so i'm interested in the moral you know the way you

01:57:47.140 thought about those kind of differences morally well morally i i don't know if it's it to me 0.87

01:57:54.940 If it makes a difference, if you kill somebody on a battlefield or you kill somebody in the car or whether you use a gun or whether you use a knife or whether you use poison, that is that you just took a life.

01:58:09.240 It doesn't matter how you take it. You can beat somebody to death. You couldn't fight. You could win a fight. You can go overboard and just beat this person to death. 0.90

01:58:18.540 so you just took a life no matter how it is whether it's more gory about the means okay

01:58:26.380 you're talking about the means yeah the means of how you're doing it i don't know if it makes

01:58:31.480 any difference now they want to take guns away from everybody because there's a a shooting i mean 0.73

01:58:38.700 if there's not a shooting you want to take guns away from everybody you get some sicko so he goes 0.95

01:58:44.100 in with a bomb and he blows half the school up and he kills more people actually than 0.79

01:58:50.200 he's using a gun, does that make you happy that you didn't have a gun?

01:58:55.140 So I don't think the means of what you use is that important.

01:59:00.580 You're taking a life, whatever it is, whatever your reason is, whatever the senses look at

01:59:07.080 later on, you're taking a life, whether it's on a battlefield, in the street, no matter

01:59:12.900 how you do it or what you do you're taking a life bottom line but we have excuses for what

01:59:20.560 how you do it if me and him were in a battlefield in the street we like years ago and we back up

01:59:27.920 and we pull out a gun from the side and we both shoot at each other you're taking a life what's

01:59:33.020 the difference how you do it that is dead my brother-in-law had a good saying you get hit by

01:59:39.380 a car and you're all crunched up, bleeding, all your bones are busted up and you're dying.

01:59:46.840 How would you feel if the person ran over and said, it's me, Sammy?

01:59:54.240 He didn't do it on purpose.

01:59:56.100 It's an accident.

01:59:56.700 Doesn't it make a difference to me if it's an accident or it's on purpose?

02:00:01.760 I'm all crushed up.

02:00:03.640 I'm in tremendous pain.

02:00:04.800 I'm about to die.

02:00:06.720 Death is death.

02:00:09.380 I don't know. That ignores them. That ignores the moral code. I mean, I agree with you in terms of, you know, you die by a knife, you die by a gun. It doesn't make much of a difference to you. But we're expanding beyond that, too. The the law recognizes some some killings as justified. It would not recognize any of the ones that you're talking about as justified.

02:00:30.800 And I think you know that. It's just what you're saying is that in the mafia, you live by a different code of justice. And and it's as I understand it, your position is that you wouldn't run around killing what you call legitimate people. It's you know, if somebody pissed you off in your social life, he wouldn't be at risk of getting whacked.

02:00:51.820 you only, for the most part, and we'll get to one of the exceptions I know about, but

02:00:56.660 it sounds like it may have been an accident, but for the most part, you only went after people who

02:01:01.680 were part of your world and who had agreed to live and die by this code. Right, exactly. I never

02:01:10.460 killed a woman or a child, and I never killed even a legitimate guy who I didn't get along with or

02:01:18.080 whatever i i mean i had fights but that's as far as that would go i'm not going to kill somebody

02:01:23.820 because i don't like what he said or something like that we're not complete lunatics some of us

02:01:29.340 became lunatics but i'm i never i mean i never went to that degree i i lived by this code

02:01:36.800 and i i would willing to die by the code i told my family when i cooperated we talked about

02:01:44.440 cooperating when i cooperated i said if somebody comes down and kills me don't don't don't even be

02:01:49.560 mad don't say nothing don't do anything don't be mad i broke the code i understood that i could

02:01:55.920 die for what i was doing if i could understand it you understand it leave it alone so i i believe

02:02:03.240 in that code just like i believe in god but i don't believe in certain religions probably most

02:02:09.600 religions but um you know you gotta live by something and i live by what i was taught by

02:02:17.740 my mother and my father the legitimate and a lot of people who would say i was a different

02:02:22.780 kind of gangsters you talked about the law enforcement i'm still friends with agents

02:02:28.600 mypd cops till today because they were they were different we got along we were friends they had

02:02:37.440 one life. I had another life. We understood each other. And I was basically a different kind of a

02:02:44.560 gangster. I cared about people. I'm a people's person, basically. My ex-wife and my daughter

02:02:52.580 or my son will say, Dad, you talk to everybody. Yeah. They're human beings. I talk to people.

02:02:57.640 I love people. I like hardworking people. But what about Alan Kaiser? This was a 16-year-old

02:03:05.100 boy who you killed and i understand you know it was accidental no no it was it was it's not

02:03:12.500 accidental and i didn't kill first of all there was a gang who came and they actually did movies

02:03:18.920 about this some hour after hour club bikers and and they and i went to that place i wound up getting

02:03:26.180 a beating they got i got jumped by six seven guys my ankle was broke on both sides i had a cast from

02:03:33.800 my knee down and i had permission to go after this guy and it wasn't alan kaiser so i'll tell

02:03:41.100 you what happened we got in the car and we were looking for him one night we saw him pull up in

02:03:47.280 front of a different guy a different guy aldo candido yes yes and i said that's him we went

02:03:54.320 back to our club we got guns we got a shotgun now it was supposed to be loaded with double o buck

02:04:03.560 which would put down a moose

02:04:05.660 but they were using it for pigeons

02:04:07.960 and playing around with it

02:04:09.520 it was bird

02:04:11.680 shot

02:04:12.560 so anyway Louis Melito had it

02:04:15.460 I said pull up to the car

02:04:17.260 when you see him coming out of that house

02:04:19.400 where the car was double parked stop

02:04:21.020 ask him for directions

02:04:23.880 like we're lost

02:04:24.800 I was laying down in the back seat with a cast

02:04:27.700 on my leg

02:04:29.420 there was a driver and Louis Melito was in the

02:04:31.820 passenger seat 1.00

02:04:33.560 I said, when he gets to the car to answer you, I'll shoot him in the face. 0.99

02:04:39.860 Louie Molina rolled down the window when he came out. 0.97

02:04:45.320 And he must have been told the night before that what they did was to a maid guy, me.

02:04:52.600 And he knew he was in trouble.

02:04:55.180 So as soon as Louie asked him for directions, he started to run. 0.56

02:04:59.460 Louie jumped out of the car, threw a shot at him, hit him in the back.

02:05:04.320 He kept running, didn't put him down.

02:05:06.760 He kept running.

02:05:07.880 This kid, Alan Kaiser, and I spoke to the family and everybody about this.

02:05:13.340 He was 16.

02:05:14.820 We didn't know he was 16.

02:05:16.160 He wasn't a target, wasn't in the hit, wasn't supposed to get hit, no accident.

02:05:21.220 He ran at Louie Molito.

02:05:23.500 He might have been part of that gang.

02:05:25.660 I don't know.

02:05:27.180 The driver yelled to Louie Melito, guy coming at you.

02:05:31.780 He turned around with the shotgun.

02:05:35.000 Inches away from the guy and shot him in the chest. 0.99

02:05:37.760 When he went down, he put the shotgun to his head, pulled the trigger again and killed him.

02:05:43.700 We found out the next day that he was 16 years old.

02:05:48.180 We were in shock.

02:05:50.760 It was terrible. 16. The number itself.

02:05:54.180 shocks you. But why did he want it, Louis

02:05:58.200 Milito? Why did he do that? He wasn't the target.

02:06:02.340 Nobody was shooting at him. He could have ran back at his house. He could have went

02:06:06.260 the other way. He could have just stood there and never got touched.

02:06:10.520 So now whether he was on drugs, whether he was part of the gang,

02:06:14.280 I don't know. You hear stories. Just for the record, his family says

02:06:18.140 he was not a gangster. Quote, he was just an innocent kid walking home. No, no,

02:06:22.160 not a gangster he's 16 years old he definitely wasn't a gangster he could have been a gang member

02:06:26.500 or he knew this guy because the guy was in his house so they the family can't

02:06:31.800 deny that that guy went in his house they were together he came out he the other guy came to

02:06:39.720 the car and he was on the side nobody was going to shoot him and the family recognizes that too

02:06:47.200 I talked with the sister and she said, I don't know what made him do that.

02:06:53.260 Now, people will say that I killed a 16 year old kid.

02:06:56.620 First of all, I didn't shoot him.

02:06:57.760 Louie did.

02:06:58.400 But it doesn't matter if I could have shot him. 0.99

02:07:00.280 I would have. 0.96

02:07:01.620 I'm not trying to make myself a good guy.

02:07:03.540 I didn't shoot him.

02:07:04.960 But the police found him exactly where it was in the street where he got to.

02:07:13.240 He came off the sidewalk into the street after Louie.

02:07:16.200 not on the sidewalk with his books coming home from school like you hear some stories none of

02:07:22.240 that's true now it was a shame we were sick about that he was 16 years old and we were confused why

02:07:29.800 he even did that and he wasn't a target of the hit we weren't even looking at him but what would

02:07:36.820 you expect what would i expect louis to do the guy is actually a foot away from him what is he

02:07:44.420 supposed to do is just stand there and wait for the guy to grab him and tackle him to the ground

02:07:48.440 or do something he's on a hit you know you know obviously this is why we don't choose a life of

02:07:54.200 crime this is why we don't we don't go to murder people in neighborhoods and take law into our own

02:07:59.120 hands and why the law prohibits it because bad things can happen and that's why there's something

02:08:04.580 called felony murder you're in the process of committing one felony and you accidentally or

02:08:09.040 otherwise commit another murder you're going to be charged for it even if it was an accident in

02:08:13.300 the course of the felony because the law recognizes creating extremely dangerous situations

02:08:17.280 absolutely and i'm charged with it because i'm part of the murder not the shooter and he wasn't

02:08:24.440 the target but i still get charged with it and i understand that that's why it's on my list of 19

02:08:30.000 people that he's there i mean i and i get it but i i did give a courtesy to the family

02:08:36.600 they talked to my daughter

02:08:39.460 they talked with my son

02:08:41.440 and they wanted to talk with me

02:08:43.400 and I did talk with them

02:08:44.580 I took the time to explain

02:08:47.000 what happened and why

02:08:48.720 nobody wanted to kill this kid

02:08:50.820 they understood that I don't know what they

02:08:53.380 told you or told anybody else 1.00

02:08:55.420 and I know that the Gatties 1.00

02:08:57.200 instigated these people

02:08:59.260 saying that I killed their son

02:09:01.560 or their brother 16 years 0.99

02:09:03.620 old I'm a baby killer 0.98

02:09:05.060 that was brought up by the gatties who were trying to make me look bad or make it look worse 0.98

02:09:12.240 and i know how it was brought up and like i said this was talked about with the families the whole

02:09:19.180 thing it was talked about with the police and it's not i'm not saying it was a good thing it

02:09:25.220 was a horrible thing but it's one of those things that happen i mean if i see a murder i think i'm

02:09:31.200 a pretty tough guy i see somebody shooting at somebody i'm not gonna run at the shooter he's

02:09:36.560 got a gun i got it i got it i got it let me pause you there let me let me squeeze in one more break

02:09:41.520 and we'll be right back uh much more to the story with sammy the bull gravano as we continue at 1.00

02:09:47.080 right after this you said i hear this bitch behind my back talking about my father when i 1.00

02:09:57.880 Don't say nothing when my back is turned. 1.00

02:09:59.420 Say it to my face.

02:10:00.380 And automatically, I just black the out. 0.99

02:10:03.020 I don't give a if he's a rat or not. 0.99

02:10:05.240 Say it to my face. 1.00

02:10:07.040 Check my bloodline, bitch. 1.00

02:10:08.280 I'm coming for you. 1.00

02:10:08.980 You want to keep talking about families?

02:10:10.620 Let's talk.

02:10:12.520 You want to bring up families? 0.69

02:10:13.740 You want to get my daughter into this?

02:10:15.540 For my daughter, for my father,

02:10:17.960 for every buddy that you spoke about, 1.00

02:10:20.400 I will take a piece of you every time, bitch. 1.00

02:10:22.580 This is why you never talk about families. 1.00

02:10:25.440 Look at the outcome.

02:10:26.480 Now that blood was drawn, these will never be the same again.

02:10:31.900 Okay, so that was the bulk of that clip is Karen Gravano, Sammy's daughter, who was one of the stars of the show Mob Wives, which I confess I absolutely loved.

02:10:42.900 And she was very open about what it was like to grow up as your daughter and sort of when she how she slowly became aware of what you did for a living and how she could tell.

02:10:55.040 you know obviously she's fiery and feisty but how she could sort of tell that you were an important

02:11:00.520 man you know the way people greeted you the way people showed you respect and i know you know

02:11:06.280 that must have manifested in your life too you're sort of getting into the clubs in new york and

02:11:10.920 i saw the abc documentary where you know you talked about you looked at the manhattan skyline

02:11:16.840 and said you know i own this i own it i built it i control it so can you talk to us a little bit

02:11:22.080 about that piece of your history? Yeah, well, you know, I became very powerful in the construction

02:11:30.200 industry. And one day we were on the other side in Connecticut, I believe it is. And we were in a

02:11:37.760 fancy hotel and we went out, I went out on the patio and smoking a cigar, I think. And I looked

02:11:44.700 at the skyline at night manhattan is gorgeous lit up at night and it just the guy who was with me

02:11:52.220 said what are you looking at i said look at this look at the beauty here it's it's it's absolutely

02:11:57.320 stunning it's gorgeous and uh i'm part of building this whole thing i mean you can't get a job at

02:12:05.740 this point in my life without some sort of a wink and a nod from me saying yes or no i mean i became

02:12:13.400 very powerful in the construction industry paul had me paul castellano had me under his wing

02:12:19.400 because he loved construction and um he was part of the reason i became very powerful in the

02:12:26.340 construction industry and he enjoyed using me to run certain unit unions and do certain things for

02:12:34.000 him and um yeah i i loved uh what i was doing as far as the construction and i should i should

02:12:41.980 mentioned because you mentioned paul castellano so because you had sort of started with a different

02:12:46.040 crime family and then eventually moved over to the gambino crime family and that's the family

02:12:49.980 that paul castellano for a time was the head of and you would later become part of his assassination

02:12:55.400 um but before before before we get to that um so you're living large you're living large in new

02:13:02.060 york and this was a time i mean what it's a weird question but like to what extent did that film

02:13:06.820 the godfather affect people's view of the mafia and your own experience within the mafia you know

02:13:13.600 because it when i was growing up you knew about the mafia but there there definitely was a

02:13:17.620 glorification around it you know it seemed like oh they hurt people but maybe mostly their own

02:13:22.640 people but that's not really true i mean the extortion was on regular folks too um and yet

02:13:28.580 they seem kind of cool and people wanted to like rub elbows with them in very high circles there

02:13:33.800 speculation about frank sinatra and you know so on and so forth so what was your experience of that

02:13:38.720 movie and people's reaction to the mob well that movie stunned me it was probably one of the best

02:13:47.340 movies i ever watched uh it was completely well done uh godfather one and godfather two godfather

02:13:55.860 three was a joke but yeah because you were in it when this was coming out you were you were in it

02:14:00.480 when those movies hit yeah yeah and it it you know it showed the family orientation how we are

02:14:08.600 with family the weddings our family my family had weddings like that and people would get up

02:14:15.280 and sing and it was fun and uh you know uh who was it sonny is with one of the bridesmaids in a

02:14:24.100 in a room upstairs i mean that's typical of us that was really typical of us all that stuff that

02:14:30.860 happened in that uh the the agents watching us and it just gave me a whole different look at the mob

02:14:40.180 and how the people would look at it and as far as the fascination i know what it is everybody 0.99

02:14:46.400 Everybody in my mind anyway, has a fascination, especially men, have a fascination of being a tough guy, going with beautiful women, beautiful cars, making money, you know, fuck the government. 0.95

02:15:01.940 I don't want to pay taxes and I don't want to do this and that. 0.89

02:15:04.540 So everybody looked at it and it's you didn't live that life, but you admired it in a way.

02:15:13.240 You felt a certain way when you watched it.

02:15:16.220 And I watched this new movie that came out, The Offer,

02:15:20.280 How They Made the Godfather.

02:15:22.160 Very interesting movie.

02:15:23.460 Great movie with the producers in Hollywood.

02:15:27.980 The whole nine yards.

02:15:29.060 I mean, just watching these things, the mafia really, you know,

02:15:33.280 it's when I was in prison a couple of times,

02:15:35.820 AB's Aryan brothers and other gang members came to me and told me,

02:15:42.180 Sammy, tell me about the structure of the mafia. 1.00

02:15:45.440 And I would tell them why.

02:15:47.360 You're not the mafia.

02:15:49.040 You're Aryan brothers. 0.99

02:15:50.620 Why would you want to know?

02:15:51.820 And they said, your structure lasted a thousand years.

02:15:55.560 People admire you guys.

02:15:58.080 Some people wanted to be like you guys.

02:16:02.760 What's the whole structure about?

02:16:04.540 So I realized then, even them asking me questions like that,

02:16:08.600 that they admired themselves.

02:16:11.040 and wanted to be like it my answer to them was we're not savages we don't kill outside our

02:16:19.120 our organization where everybody in the mafia at one time or another has been involved in a murder

02:16:26.340 99 so how do you control that group of people if there's no violence within us if there's no

02:16:38.280 punishments that could cause death how do you stop them how do you stop a guy what are you

02:16:44.800 going to do cut off his tie what do you slap him on the wrist he's not going to listen to you

02:16:50.240 then he'll do whatever he wants to do then there'll be no control will be no better than a gang

02:16:55.000 and that's what i would tell so maybe guys and stuff like that you have to have rules you have

02:17:01.180 to have ideas you know i looked at there was a conversation i just had recently about

02:17:07.620 I was in Paul Castellano's house and the union, which we control the association and the union for the garbage.

02:17:16.360 And there was a massive strike. It was on television. There was garbage piled up everywhere. 0.71

02:17:24.560 I came in and he told me to sit down. The maid got me a cup of coffee.

02:17:30.960 And he said, send it for Jimmy Brown and the people who are running the union and the association.

02:17:38.520 So we sat there for a while, 15 minutes, 20 minutes.

02:17:42.300 Those guys came in.

02:17:44.460 Jimmy Brown was a captain. 0.99

02:17:45.900 The other guy was a maid guy. 0.99

02:17:47.520 And he said, look at this television. 0.61

02:17:50.620 He said, what are we?

02:17:52.440 Animals? 0.94

02:17:54.260 Pick up that garbage from schools, from hospitals, from old age homes. 0.99

02:17:59.900 We'll win the strike. 0.95

02:18:02.240 But what are we, animals?

02:18:03.860 Over money?

02:18:05.140 Over winning?

02:18:05.840 We'll win. 1.00

02:18:06.300 pick up that goddamn garbage and it shook me in a way that here's the boss of bosses 1.00

02:18:13.940 Paul Castellano he was the boss of bosses he was the head of the commission saying something like 1.00

02:18:20.600 that caring about children hospitals old age homes that they would be infected with garbage or

02:18:29.960 whatever it gave me a different look at things and i you know those are good things that i saw

02:18:37.240 there's evil things i saw there's people who borderline got to like killing and became serial 0.80

02:18:44.480 killers like a roy de mayo or gas pipe and people like that and we killed them because they became 0.93

02:18:52.000 that so we don't believe in pedophiles rapists serial killers we want to get rid of that 0.98

02:18:59.840 When I was in my neighborhood, I, you know, the whole neighborhood, I would say, this is my neighborhood. 0.63

02:19:08.460 People I don't even know.

02:19:09.840 Maybe you lived in there.

02:19:10.860 I didn't even know you.

02:19:12.340 You're a beautiful woman.

02:19:13.940 You'd walk down the block.

02:19:15.680 My guys, I would tell them, this is not a construction site.

02:19:18.600 Don't do anything when you see her.

02:19:22.300 She's part of our community.

02:19:25.700 They're us.

02:19:27.640 Nobody's going to touch her.

02:19:28.760 Her husband knew she was beautiful. He'll tell her, go right past Sandy's Club. Don't worry about it. He said that because he knew she was safe. We wouldn't let nothing happen to her. Around the block, only God knows what happens.

02:19:44.440 So we lived a different way.

02:19:47.640 And I think that touched the public in a certain way.

02:19:51.940 They didn't agree with the violence, but we were different.

02:19:57.840 We were a different type of an organization, criminal organization.

02:20:01.340 I'll call it criminal because it is, you know, we would take, like you say, from every industry.

02:20:09.800 But we took a little bite out of every industry.

02:20:12.800 Right. 0.94

02:20:13.780 We screwed the government out of taxes. Yeah.

02:20:17.200 We screwed insurance companies. Yeah.

02:20:20.600 We didn't feel any guilt about that because they screwed people all the time.

02:20:26.500 My mother and father that broke their back and was so legitimate.

02:20:32.300 I don't even know how I became a gangster, to tell you the truth.

02:20:35.380 They were so legitimate, so honest.

02:20:36.880 but they were taken advantage of by unions by by the government so i have no sympathy for

02:20:48.720 government i have no sympathy for insurance companies who sometimes go overboard and people

02:20:55.340 are sick and oh no we're not going to pay that claim or we're not going to do this we're not

02:20:59.920 going to do that i'm not saying all of them there's some really good people honest people

02:21:03.980 out there in every industry and there's some bad people in every industry so you know i have mixed

02:21:11.280 feelings with a lot of these things and what about like the ma and pa shop owner on the corner who

02:21:16.900 are just trying to make ends meet and they got to pay extra money every month for security or you

02:21:21.960 know for permission from you guys to do what is their legal right to do or else never happened

02:21:28.220 Right. Never, never happened. Never happened. As far as I'm concerned, never happened.

02:21:33.000 All the mom and pop stores knew my mother, my father, me, my family. It was a community.

02:21:39.460 What what if you're worried about the mom and pop stores, I'll tell you what crushed them is big corporations.

02:21:46.080 Well, of course, get these big corporations and crush them.

02:21:51.100 You know, I had a little milk farm, they called it. It's a little grocery store at one point in my life.

02:21:57.340 And I bought Pampers wholesale and I put them for a cheap number.

02:22:03.680 I wasn't making any money just as a draw for people.

02:22:06.900 So I sent my partner, my Goombada Ali boy, Como, go to the supermarket, see what they're charging.

02:22:14.780 When he came back, he says, Sammy, they're charging like less than we're paying for the wholesale. 0.88

02:22:22.700 So I said, how could they do that?

02:22:24.220 he said well number one they're buying tons of stuff i wasn't i'm buying two cases

02:22:33.280 they're buying four thousand cases and if they want to make a sale and do the same idea that i

02:22:41.280 have how can i compete with them i i took the two cases of papers and threw them out

02:22:45.760 i can't compete with them okay so this is what happened in small business got crushed but the

02:22:52.980 Mom and pop stores. I mean, I have never, ever thought about.

02:22:57.300 We love these people. We knew them.

02:23:00.180 We went to a bakery, a fruit and vegetable store.

02:23:03.940 Those things don't even exist anymore.

02:23:05.960 But you guys, you didn't charge people for security saying no, no, not security.

02:23:11.460 Never. Well, something that I mean, I remember I have some personal knowledge on this because in another life before I was a journalist, I was a lawyer.

02:23:17.720 and the lawyer I worked for at this law firm, Jones Day,

02:23:21.620 was charged with enforcing a consent decree

02:23:24.080 that the mob had entered into in New York City

02:23:26.600 and that meant the mob admitted it had done a bunch of things

02:23:29.300 and we were responsible for making sure it lived up to its promise

02:23:32.000 not to keep doing them.

02:23:33.980 And, you know, sort of the harassment of small businesses,

02:23:37.680 small business owners was on the list.

02:23:39.740 Money laundering and so on, that was another thing.

02:23:41.960 But, you know, this sort of smaller crime,

02:23:44.420 smaller than murders and so on within the family,

02:23:46.400 that's that's one of the reasons why people don't like the mafia right like it's not all within your

02:23:52.960 own family there are innocent people who get hurt and who have to pay unnecessary money that they

02:23:58.360 shouldn't have to pay and who could get hurt if they don't do as is as told well listen i like i

02:24:04.000 said before you know there's good and bad in every organization and there's bad guys in the mafia who

02:24:08.980 would do something like that do a lot of things like that that wasn't our norm now i would do

02:24:14.640 that with a disco or something to protect when you talk about protection money if you can mention

02:24:20.360 my name nobody could come in and bother you mafia wise or any any other way i'll take care of your

02:24:28.300 problems but i didn't cripple them they gave me a pay or they gave me something that helped them

02:24:34.180 i don't look at it as hurting them shaking them down it's like a rent it's like anything else

02:24:40.140 that or any bill that you pay. And in most cases that I did, it was a reasonable pay.

02:24:47.320 What I did mostly is use my power to help grow a company and I would become their partner.

02:24:54.640 I'll give you a quick example. There was a guy who had a small little container company.

02:24:59.360 He'd go to houses and put the container, you're moving, you put all your garbage in that container

02:25:04.660 and he's making money. The containers were garbage. And I got to like the guy. I went 0.98

02:25:10.200 to him and I said, listen, I got connections in Jersey. I can get the best containers and

02:25:17.720 I could increase your business. So we had a conversation. I said, I don't want any contracts

02:25:24.340 or anything like that. We could work on a handshake. How much do you make a year? And

02:25:29.580 he said, about $100,000 a year. I said, how amount

02:25:33.480 we go partners? The first $100,000 you make, that's yours.

02:25:37.620 That's what you make. Anything above that, me and you are partners

02:25:41.440 and I could get you more work. I could get you better containers.

02:25:45.500 So we did that. We shook hands and we did that. At the end of

02:25:49.400 the year of our partnership, I says, how did we do?

02:25:53.260 What did you make? He says, Sammy, I made $400,000 this year.

02:25:56.880 all right the first hundred thousand is yours the other three hundred thousand but the allegation

02:26:02.820 the allegation against you by your critics is that nobody should have accepted this kind of

02:26:09.660 an offer from you because if they wanted to renegotiate or if they wanted a bigger piece

02:26:14.860 of the pie you would kill them no it's not true that is not true i've never killed a partner

02:26:21.440 And listen, what we're talking about happened 40, 50 years ago.

02:26:27.500 And if you came to my office, I'll show you 14, 15 different letters of people who were partners with me and knew me back then are sending me love letters.

02:26:35.280 And I'm not talking about women, men.

02:26:37.620 Sammy, it was great.

02:26:38.620 I watch your podcast.

02:26:40.660 I hope you make it.

02:26:41.960 Our partnership was great.

02:26:43.540 So I don't know.

02:26:44.440 What would happen to the guys for whom it wasn't great?

02:26:47.300 What about what would happen to the guys who said, I don't like the deal and I actually want to break up?

02:26:55.240 I didn't care.

02:26:56.140 The guy with the container business after a couple of years when I grew and I was making so much money, I gave him the business back.

02:27:03.200 I didn't charge him a penny.

02:27:04.380 I walked away.

02:27:05.180 This is yours.

02:27:06.420 I did it with a guy named Joe Madonia with the Ace Partition.

02:27:10.660 We had 200 carpenters.

02:27:12.320 When I grew in status, I said, Joe, I love you.

02:27:15.780 I made a ton of money with you.

02:27:17.300 It's yours. It's all yours now. And if anybody bothers you, get in touch with me.

02:27:22.120 And if I could get you some big work, give me a piece.

02:27:25.740 And I got a letter from him in my office. Now, a letter from him.

02:27:31.280 Loving, loving the partnership, the relationship we had.

02:27:34.760 Now, what would happen if a guy was wanting to take advantage of me in some way or throw me out or push me out or do something on his own?

02:27:45.080 he wouldn't be happy with it he wouldn't get killed it's not a killing in my eyes it's not

02:27:49.960 a killing offense but i was powerful with unions and everything i could be a tremendous pain in 0.98

02:27:55.680 the ass and that's what i would be if he's going for jobs if he would go for jobs i would tell him 0.98

02:28:03.220 don't give him no work yeah i imagine if sammy the bull tells you don't give this guy any work 0.99

02:28:07.340 you don't give the guy any work because there's a lot of power behind that name at that time

02:28:11.220 especially so that leads me to um donald trump because there were there was speculation in the

02:28:18.080 press when he was running for president that he had mob ties no one could ever get him on it like

02:28:22.380 you know the press tried to get him on everything none of that was ever proven but it reminded me

02:28:26.880 of this this one exchange he had with david letterman this is before he ran for president

02:28:31.820 back in 2013 where he was asked because this is a guy in new york city real estate you know he

02:28:37.260 has to deal with construction and some of the industries that you just mentioned unions all

02:28:41.760 the time and uh here's how that went this is sat 11 have you ever uh knowingly done business with

02:28:48.700 what i like to call organized crime have they ever stopped by i've really tried to stay away

02:28:56.460 from them as much as right but have you ever had a case where a guy stopped by and said

02:29:00.180 uh donald uh we're gonna handle the linens as you know growing up in new york and doing business

02:29:07.900 in new york i would say there might have been one of you know one of those characters along the way

02:29:12.140 but uh generally speaking i like to stay away from that group yeah well i think that's that

02:29:17.320 goes without saying but sometimes sometimes they don't let you stay away from them there's truth

02:29:22.720 to that but if you're smart you can stay away you have to stay away and uh just sort of lead your

02:29:27.460 life you don't want to get involved although i must say i have met on occasion a few of those

02:29:31.620 people they happen to be very nice people you just don't want to owe them money yeah i understand

02:29:37.740 don't owe them money

02:29:38.720 i've heard you talk about him before and sort of said like he was you knew not to don't go there

02:29:49.780 you knew no here's what it was with donald trump he was smart he was a good builder he was a great

02:29:57.000 builder he was pretty honorable with the people he dealt with um he had a group of ex-fbi agents

02:30:04.780 for security purposes so we knew i knew that so you could push on him a little bit i tried

02:30:12.140 but couldn't succeed what he's saying is right he knew we were there he knew that he had to deal

02:30:19.700 with situations but he built it as a as a business guy you couldn't go up there and try to

02:30:25.480 talk like this guy was talking. Are you going to threaten him?

02:30:28.780 You would be arrested in three minutes. Those agents were around him 24-7.

02:30:33.980 So I backed away from him because there was nothing

02:30:37.420 I could do. A guy named Eddie Garofalo had

02:30:40.060 a demolition company. He did a job for him.

02:30:46.700 He was able to reach some people in the company,

02:30:49.040 but it never went to his level that we know of.

02:30:52.820 and he didn't want to deal with us.

02:30:56.200 I left him alone because I thought that was a bad problem.

02:31:00.920 He was a legitimate guy.

02:31:02.080 I didn't want to go try to threaten him

02:31:04.180 because I thought we would go to prison.

02:31:06.960 So we left him alone.

02:31:08.160 There was plenty of people who wanted to deal with us. 0.90

02:31:11.440 So to go up there like a thug

02:31:13.800 and walk in his office and try to threaten him, 0.90

02:31:17.340 you would go to prison for sure.

02:31:19.600 So I don't think anybody bothered him.

02:31:21.020 I'm going to give you a quick example of a news reporter, a woman who called me one day and told me the same thing you're telling me.

02:31:28.260 You were very powerful during the 80s, and he was a big builder.

02:31:33.880 You must know something.

02:31:35.640 They're asking me after he became the president.

02:31:39.040 So I said, I really don't know, you know, just what I told you now.

02:31:43.120 That's what I know about him.

02:31:44.320 I really don't know any incidents that he's done anything, if that's what you're looking for.

02:31:49.440 Sammy please come on she's begging me for information it'll just be between me and you

02:31:56.100 which I knew is bullshit that's not going to happen she's looking for information it's not

02:32:01.540 going to stay between me and her so I felt like goofing on and I said listen it's just between 0.96

02:32:07.600 me and you Sammy yeah yeah I'll give you my word nobody will ever know I said all right

02:32:14.480 there was a drywall job I wanted. 0.78

02:32:17.620 I knew this beautiful woman was a friend of mine. 1.00

02:32:20.200 She was a hooker. 1.00

02:32:21.860 So I hooked it up with Donald Trump, 1.00

02:32:24.660 me,

02:32:25.100 Trump and her.

02:32:26.140 We had a menage a trois and I couldn't help it.

02:32:29.100 I started laughing.

02:32:30.280 So she said, 1.00

02:32:30.960 you fuck, 1.00

02:32:31.480 you're lying. 1.00

02:32:32.580 So I said,

02:32:33.180 I'm not lying.

02:32:34.640 You keep pressing me.

02:32:35.780 And she was asking me,

02:32:36.660 what's her name?

02:32:37.220 What's her name?

02:32:38.080 Why?

02:32:38.460 Who do you care?

02:32:39.040 What a name is.

02:32:40.000 You're not going to say that.

02:32:40.920 Why do you care?

02:32:42.200 So they're giving it to Buzzfeed.

02:32:43.940 It would have been printed on the front page.

02:32:46.180 Yeah, yeah.

02:32:46.680 So now she's laughing.

02:32:48.140 I'm laughing.

02:32:48.860 And I said, listen, there's one thing I definitely would never do with Donald Trump.

02:32:53.000 I don't dislike him, but I would never have a mirage of 12. 1.00

02:32:57.720 That's the shit you are. 1.00

02:32:59.260 So. 1.00

02:33:00.280 My head.

02:33:01.500 Wait, can I just let me pause this right now?

02:33:04.360 Just have a bit of breaking news at this moment.

02:33:07.900 you just mentioned him uh the movie godfather and sonny corleone james khan was the actor

02:33:14.380 played that role just died just got that news in 82 years old james khan just died

02:33:20.920 wow sad yeah what an icon yeah yeah yeah do you know he was hooked what do you mean he was he was

02:33:30.140 in the mob what james khan was it was in hooked him with the mob that's the guy who played uh

02:33:37.380 Sonny, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What do you mean? I was there. I was there when he came

02:33:41.680 down and asked permission to be in that movie. I was there with Carmine Persico. Joe Colombo

02:33:47.440 gave him the role. Who did he ask permission of? To be in the movie. But who, who is he,

02:33:52.440 whose permission was he seeking? Joe Colombo's. And he came to Carmine Persico because there was

02:33:57.780 a guy, Andrew Mush, who was friendly with him. Matter of fact, Andrew Mush, who was a captain

02:34:05.400 in the colombo family uh became godfather his kid or vice versa they were real tight

02:34:13.040 um all their lives so he was connected with the colombo family wow so at some point in his

02:34:20.720 when he was being cast for the godfather you're saying he had this connection

02:34:24.300 yes wow yes i was there when he came down and they i you know they said he's an actor he's

02:34:31.180 coming down and they played the part they brought him over to Carmine to his permission and you

02:34:36.080 you witnessed him asking for the permission no absolutely I was there what did he say

02:34:41.040 no he asked for permission Carmine told him I'll talk to Joe Colombo I'll make this happen don't

02:34:47.140 worry about it what he did is he put him in uh Andrew Marsh's hands tight you know what I mean

02:34:54.980 he might have got the part anyway but they played this whole little game with him but he they became

02:35:00.220 super close they became one became the godfather that wanted the kids and you could look that all

02:35:06.400 up you can you can see that but i was confused because james khan was a successful actor i think

02:35:11.760 i don't have his whole bio in front of me prior to the the godfather so are you saying he was young

02:35:18.900 he was young i don't think he was a major actor he could have been an actor oh of course he was an

02:35:23.320 actor but i don't think but he wasn't in the mob like you were in the mob you're saying ties like

02:35:27.840 connections with what friends what does it mean yeah it's it's an associate it's an associate

02:35:34.940 of the mob in other words he's on record now with the mafia as an associate he's not a made member

02:35:41.700 he's not one of us but he's an associate of the colombo just like sinatra was he was too you say

02:35:49.520 i mean of course there's been rumors about this for years but you're saying that without a doubt

02:35:52.820 they're true you know when we took over

02:35:54.660 John Gotti and me and 1.00

02:35:56.220 John Gotti was a fucking egomaniac 1.00

02:35:58.940 and he was in a restaurant 1.00

02:36:00.760 Sinatra had come in

02:36:02.120 and he didn't say nothing

02:36:04.740 to John he was going to buy him a bottle of

02:36:06.760 wine or something John

02:36:08.640 refused it and he sent this guy

02:36:10.560 Joe Watts over to Sinatra

02:36:12.900 and tell him whenever you

02:36:14.740 come in a restaurant you see John Gotti

02:36:16.840 you come over and you kiss his head

02:36:18.820 oh boy

02:36:20.340 Sinatra went to where he's supposed

02:36:22.760 to go to the Genovese family

02:36:24.740 because that's where he was for years, this guy

02:36:26.700 Frankie Blue Eyes, and

02:36:28.800 Chin Gigante, I was

02:36:30.860 there when he got in touch with us

02:36:32.680 and told John, you know,

02:36:34.920 bro, he's always been with us.

02:36:37.760 What do you send somebody

02:36:38.780 over to abuse him? He does a lot of favors.

02:36:41.040 It's not us, but he's

02:36:42.680 my dog, bro. If you need a favor,

02:36:45.260 he'll do it. Don't

02:36:46.700 go sending people over and threaten them in front

02:36:48.640 of people.

02:36:51.080 So, I mean,

02:36:52.580 how much more i mean and i always knew it but i'm giving you that example where he was abused by

02:36:58.920 this joe watts on john's orders and uh the genovese family came right out of the woodwork

02:37:05.120 and protected him i should say i mean with respect to james khan of course we haven't had the chance

02:37:11.140 to reach out to anybody in his camp and ask these questions uh and they're quite clearly going to be

02:37:16.260 morning today uh Andrew ask for Andrew Russo they used to call him Andrew Mush if he's related to him

02:37:23.700 okay um I will say I knew James Caan just a bit personally through a mutual friend and he was

02:37:30.460 an absolute gentleman and completely kind and lovely yeah and I'm not saying anything bad about

02:37:35.880 no no I know I know you're not no no I know I just don't I feel uncomfortable uh if none of this is

02:37:40.700 true disparaging him on the day of his death and so and I haven't had the chance to check it out

02:37:44.140 myself so with respect to you not not saying it isn't just don't know i want to make that clear

02:37:47.900 to the audience um but but that's unfortunate uh it's sad to have lost him his work in the

02:37:53.100 godfather earned him an academy award nomination a golden globe nomination and of course a place

02:37:57.660 in all of our hearts because he was this firebrand who was tortured and i think just did such a

02:38:04.340 brilliant job of portraying what one might go through if one were born into such a family or

02:38:09.600 in your case willingly joined quote the family um before we leave that subject did your wife

02:38:17.140 i always wonder about the wives like did your wife know everything i know she knew you were

02:38:23.160 in the mafia but did she know you know about murders did she know all that no absolutely not

02:38:29.600 i never told my wife anything about the mafia and it was my way of protecting her she always

02:38:36.760 In other words, in my opinion, could turn around.

02:38:39.180 If she was ever questioned by the feds or anybody, she could say, I don't know.

02:38:43.640 Legitimately, not as I'm not going to give her information, especially about murder, something like that.

02:38:48.920 I'd have to be out of my mind to do something like that.

02:38:52.140 But she knew I was in the mafia, but she didn't know any of that.

02:38:56.880 Either to my kids.

02:38:58.080 I was a family man.

02:38:59.760 I lived two lives at home.

02:39:02.320 I was a father, a husband.

02:39:04.660 when i made money i bought a farm uh we put horses on the farm we it was a family life

02:39:12.440 when i drove to that place i left the mafia behind me when i got off the highway it was in jersey

02:39:19.140 cream ridge new jersey and smelt uh the trees the grass it was i was like it was i was like a

02:39:25.780 different person yeah that's the farm yeah wow and and it was it was a 30 acre farm we turned it

02:39:33.420 to a horse farm. We lived great times and have fun holidays, 4th of July. So when I left, I left

02:39:40.680 on a Friday, took off, usually staying there on a Saturday and Sunday with my family. And we did

02:39:47.540 all great things. When the FBI went up to Cream Ridge, New Jersey, they went to every restaurant,

02:39:52.860 everywhere I went, asking people about me. And not one person said anything negative.

02:40:02.080 When I sold it, there was a woman who was she sold it. 0.97

02:40:06.660 She was she asked me for a cart where the kids sit on it and they could drive it.

02:40:12.060 So I had said, you know, I'm not going to sell it.

02:40:15.160 It's part of the farm.

02:40:16.900 And when I did sell it, I told them that cart isn't for sale. 0.79

02:40:23.000 And I gave it to the woman.

02:40:24.800 She told the feds.

02:40:26.640 That's how he dealt with me.

02:40:28.060 He never offered me money under the table or doing anything, but he gave me this card for my grandchildren.

02:40:35.040 And a matter of fact, as soon as I'm done with this conversation, I'm going to get in touch with him and I'm going to tell him that you're here asking me questions.

02:40:42.960 So I was a different animal there.

02:40:45.460 Yeah, well, no, I mean, your kids talk about you in this way.

02:40:49.420 It's part of what makes you fascinating, the dichotomy between your professional life and your home life.

02:40:55.800 And up next in our last segment together, I want to get into turning on Gotti, going into witness protection in your job that you did while that happened, plastic surgery, and then how you wound up back in prison and then free again.

02:41:12.700 OK, so don't miss that. Stay with us for one more segment as Sammy the Bull Gravano continues with us right after this quick break.

02:41:18.400 my team's bitch has been looking into the james khan thing during the break and says 0.96

02:41:25.240 indeed uh andy mush russo part of the uh uh colombo crime family was a longtime friend 0.93

02:41:33.660 of james khan and at one point james khan did indeed offer to post mush's bail money when he

02:41:38.500 was accused of a crime and this andy mush russo was indeed godfather to one of james khan's

02:41:44.640 children so to be

02:41:46.700 continued on that front

02:41:48.340 there have been reports that Khan had this

02:41:50.700 connection though I've never heard it directly from

02:41:52.720 somebody who was actually in the mob

02:41:54.160 so we've gone to a different place

02:41:56.360 okay Sammy

02:41:57.900 you wind up you and John Gotti

02:42:00.760 wind up running the Gambino

02:42:02.780 crime family the Genovese

02:42:04.420 crime family and

02:42:05.800 John Gotti's mob boss he's

02:42:08.660 the boss of the family you become under boss

02:42:10.840 and you guys for years and years were

02:42:12.660 very tight very tight

02:42:14.640 And then as I understand it, and as we said in the intro, things went downhill and I don't

02:42:19.240 want to spend too much time.

02:42:20.040 It's been talked about a lot, but they went downhill and you're both in jail together.

02:42:24.000 You thought he was going to turn on you.

02:42:26.040 And and and I know you say that's why you turned on him.

02:42:29.560 You went to those two agents who were following you around all the time and said, let's talk

02:42:32.500 about John Gotti. 1.00

02:42:34.140 Now, his defenders say bullshit. 1.00

02:42:36.480 They're like, that's Sammy trying to cover his own butt so he doesn't look like a rat. 1.00

02:42:41.440 John Gotti wasn't going to turn on Sammy. 0.98

02:42:44.640 And they basically just call BS on the whole story.

02:42:47.700 So what do you want to say about that?

02:42:50.780 Right.

02:42:51.400 I mean, I've heard that.

02:42:53.260 They said there's millions of hours of tapes.

02:42:55.360 It wasn't millions of hours of tapes.

02:42:57.160 There was.

02:42:58.000 But up in the apartment, there was a small amount of tapes.

02:43:08.160 Four or five.

02:43:09.120 It was up there for months, but we didn't use the apartment.

02:43:12.040 A lot of times when we did use the apartment, we didn't talk about anything.

02:43:16.440 There was a couple of times that I wasn't in the apartment and he was sitting with Frankie LaCasio. 0.97

02:43:25.460 Now, when people talk about it was all bullshit, I mean, it's made up. 0.89

02:43:32.380 There's agents, New York State Organized Crime Task Force that heard these tapes, listened to the tapes and knew exactly what was going on. 0.98

02:43:43.220 But I'm going to give you one story that's going to blow all that other stuff away.

02:43:50.820 The judge got rid of our lawyers, Jerry Shargell and Bruce Cutler, and we had to get new lawyers.

02:43:58.080 One of the lawyers that we brought in did an interview and you could check this out in an article with Jerry Capici.

02:44:06.240 He did an interview with Jerry Capici and told him this.

02:44:11.020 I was brought in to be the lawyer for John.

02:44:15.340 And he told John I was in that meeting.

02:44:18.120 It was a lawyer's meeting.

02:44:19.040 He said to John, you can't beat this case.

02:44:25.120 Your tapes are devastating.

02:44:26.900 The four, five, six tapes out of all the rest of them are devastating.

02:44:33.780 I could try to work out a plea agreement.

02:44:37.420 And John said, no, I'm going to beat the case.

02:44:42.160 I got a secret weapon.

02:44:43.240 So Bruce Cutler

02:44:45.880 I mean Bruce Cutler

02:44:47.480 What did I just say

02:44:49.660 His name was

02:44:50.760 That big lawyer

02:44:54.840 But anyway he said

02:44:58.100 Well tell me your secret weapon

02:45:02.560 How are you going to beat this case

02:45:03.640 And he says

02:45:05.460 I'm going to throw Sammy and Frankie

02:45:08.220 Under the bus

02:45:08.920 And I'm going to go free

02:45:10.820 We all laughed

02:45:12.540 sounded like a joke

02:45:14.280 the lawyer never came back

02:45:20.740 when he did the interview

02:45:22.740 with

02:45:23.960 Jerry Capici

02:45:25.820 he told him that story

02:45:28.640 he says I never went back because I didn't want

02:45:30.860 any part of that

02:45:32.780 strategy

02:45:33.560 but John continued

02:45:36.460 with that strategy because

02:45:38.640 when he was in the apartment

02:45:40.840 with those tapes 0.97

02:45:42.580 He had planned to kill me.

02:45:46.120 And he, you can't just kill an underboss who's very powerful, big money earner.

02:45:52.080 The whole family likes you. 0.99

02:45:54.660 If you can kill him, you shake the whole family. 1.00

02:45:57.780 If you can kill him, then you can kill all of us. 1.00

02:46:01.020 There's a guy who's the most loyal guy to you. 1.00

02:46:03.920 He's rigging your cases.

02:46:06.080 He's killing people for you.

02:46:07.900 If you could do that. 0.96

02:46:10.780 So...

02:46:12.040 all of the things he was telling Frankie to talk about to the captains to 0.70

02:46:18.020 prepare Sammy's killing his partners. 0.63

02:46:22.560 He's killing union guys and taking over the unions. 1.00

02:46:26.260 He wanted that to go out so that when he kills me, 0.99

02:46:31.220 he would have a justification. I, that is on those tapes. Um, we've, 0.91

02:46:35.020 we looked into what he, John Gotti was saying on those tapes.

02:46:37.760 And indeed it's very negative about you and your alleged behaviors.

02:46:41.560 So I see it.

02:46:42.360 And forgive me for skipping past some of this, but this has been out there.

02:46:46.780 So you wind up saying, you're going to cross me, I'm going to cross you first.

02:46:51.260 And you'll wind up going to jail, which he did for the rest of his life.

02:46:54.720 You got a good deal, a sweetheart deal, where you're supposed to go away for five years.

02:46:59.640 You really only had to serve less than one year because you'd already served four prior to the deal being cut.

02:47:06.120 You're a little bit off.

02:47:07.840 i took a plea with the thing not for five years i took a 20-year plea i got sentenced to five years

02:47:16.540 because of the cooperation that i did i took a plea for 20 years got it and uh and i didn't do

02:47:25.840 a year i did uh over four years you got some good time off of the five so i did almost five when i

02:47:33.840 got sentenced i had seven months to go on on what i got it it's immaterial the point is it wasn't a

02:47:42.360 lot of jail time for you know the feds absolutely yeah for what you did um so the you the deal is

02:47:48.680 you're going to go into witness protection as we mentioned at the top of the show for for a while

02:47:52.080 and can you just tell us because i i read that you were you did something with pools where did

02:47:58.080 they send you and what was the job and did you actually run around like looking after people's

02:48:03.160 pools for a year or two or selling people's pools? How did that go?

02:48:08.860 Well, when I first got out, I went in the witness protection program for eight months.

02:48:13.960 I promised them I would do one year. They were begging me to go in the program.

02:48:19.380 I didn't want to go in. I had plenty of money. They said, you're going to make the

02:48:23.460 government look horrible. Come on. You've got a great deal. Five-year deal. Give us something.

02:48:29.740 go in the program for a while I gave them a year I only wound up doing eight months

02:48:35.000 because I met a woman there I was talking to and hanging with a little bit and

02:48:41.760 she recognized who I was and they came back in they said we're gonna take you and move you to

02:48:50.840 another state we're gonna start from scratch and I said no I promise you a year I'm in eight months

02:48:56.780 i'm not doing it they said you have to do it that's the rules but like while you were doing it

02:49:03.000 while you i'm interested in your life while you were doing it like how does a guy who's

02:49:07.280 in the mob doing the stuff you're doing go to like looking after somebody's pool and claiming

02:49:13.080 that you have this other name and this fake background you know what what was that like

02:49:17.860 i wasn't i wasn't doing it while i was in the program and i changed my name when i left the

02:49:24.020 program in eight months, I changed my name back to Salvatore Gravano. So I wasn't walking around

02:49:30.120 with it. Am I wrong? I feel like you're you don't like the fact that you were in this program at

02:49:34.140 all. Is that because it violates like the mob code? Is it it makes you sound? No, no, no, no.

02:49:38.920 I don't want to be in it. What am I going to do that? You can't have any contact with your family

02:49:43.620 or friends or there's all kinds of rules. I just did five years in prison. I'm not going to live

02:49:49.540 by a whole bunch of set of rules so i gave them that one year you could bounce me around change

02:49:55.520 my name do what you want with me and then i'm done with you i'm out of prison so i didn't want to stay

02:50:01.600 with these rules did you go to people's cocktail parties you go like the barbecue of the neighbor

02:50:06.260 next door and say what was the fake name again i can't remember the fake name jimmy moran did you

02:50:11.960 did you say like hey jimmy moran and like come on over we'll watch super bowl together like how did

02:50:16.000 it go no no no i was just running around i was 55 years old i think i was uh or 50 something years

02:50:23.120 old and i was there i was it was in a college town i wound up in colorado and it was a boulder

02:50:32.220 colorado it's a college town and i was hanging out there i met a couple of you know people and

02:50:39.680 I played chess with some people. I'm a chess player and friendly like that. But no, it wasn't

02:50:46.320 party time. It was I was I was it was like doing time on the outside. I wanted to get done with

02:50:52.660 the witness protection program and go home. And when I got done, I did that. Sorry, I'm condensed

02:50:59.700 on my time. So I just want to get in the last thing. So you go back to your real name and your

02:51:03.920 life. And we talked earlier about whether that was scary in terms of like people are going to

02:51:07.820 come get me and sure enough some tried um and you wind up like to me it's just so like i you know i

02:51:14.720 get it because if you're in a life of crime maybe it's hard to get out but you wind up dealing drugs

02:51:20.560 and going back to prison for 20 years almost 20 years how did you let that happen how like

02:51:28.820 how did that happen now on that one subject not one subject but that's exactly what happened

02:51:35.940 I wasn't dealing drugs. It was ecstasy, which they consider it a drug.

02:51:42.360 It's and it was that that's all it was.

02:51:45.500 It was no heroin. It was not cocaine.

02:51:48.440 It was nothing crack. 1.00

02:51:50.100 It was ecstasy, which is a bullshit drug. 0.99

02:51:53.100 They put it on a level. 0.99

02:51:54.600 But anyway, I didn't even do that.

02:51:57.140 There's a thing coming out, a documentary that we're working on.

02:52:00.980 and me my daughter my son and i'm tied up on the contract with that documentary that's going to

02:52:08.740 talk about that little part of my life so i don't think i could talk about that or i'll get my head

02:52:14.620 handed to me because i'm in contract with it now that's fine that's fine so we'll stay tuned to

02:52:20.360 wait for your your longer take on that but you get out of jail in 2017 and now what right so now

02:52:28.420 how old are you now 77 77 years old you and your wife divorced but it sounds like she's still

02:52:35.880 in your life and kind of a business partner now we've talked about your daughter karen you have

02:52:40.020 a son as well so you know what next what what do you do with the time you have left 0.99

02:52:45.420 well she's not my business she's not my business part she's not my business partner i'm her bitch 1.00

02:52:51.780 I work for her. She owns the company. She, she handles my, my rights. And I work for her. 1.00

02:52:59.520 I do my podcast. I do some other things and I do some things on my own. So we're not really

02:53:05.060 partners, but we're, we're close. We have kids, grandchildren. We've been divorced since 1991.

02:53:13.620 and so but we are close and I still got I'm still close with my kids my grandchildren and I do this

02:53:23.940 I couldn't find a better thing to do in retirement I'm never going to go back to crime I'm never

02:53:30.660 going to do anything like that again so I enjoy the social media stuff that I'm doing I'm in

02:53:38.040 this contract about the story of my life at that time with the ecstasy and all that baloney

02:53:44.420 and uh is that the salvator is that the salvatory is that or is that a different project because i

02:53:49.940 know you're no that's you've got your own short film series called the salvatory that's coming

02:53:53.680 out yes the salvator it's based on a true story but it's not a true story it's fiction

02:54:02.060 But it's me

02:54:04.080 Here's what it is

02:54:06.200 I get out of prison in 2017

02:54:08.940 I'm contacted by the FBI

02:54:12.980 My wife and children were in the program

02:54:16.440 Supposedly and they were all killed

02:54:18.200 And the FBI wants me to go after

02:54:22.160 And follow some serial killer

02:54:24.040 And I agree to it

02:54:26.760 I don't want to do it at first

02:54:28.260 And they show me a picture of a dead woman

02:54:30.660 and kids and i i agree to go after him now i'm gonna i'm gonna say this here but i'm not even

02:54:39.380 supposed to be saying these things but what happens is is that these fbi guys got money

02:54:48.780 from the mob and they gave this serial killer my wife and kids address and he was supposed to go

02:54:58.380 killed him so they get the money they break the link and they got me now they got me going after

02:55:05.520 him sounds a little confusing but me going after him no i get it it's a it's sort of a real life

02:55:11.900 crime drama um so this is going to come out on sammy on his youtube channel so if you're not

02:55:18.080 subscribed you can see it there uh by doing so uh in the in the minute we have left rounding back to

02:55:24.900 discussion we had on faith and God at the top of the show, what do you make of it? A lot of folks

02:55:30.020 when they get to be 77 years old start thinking about the afterlife and what possibly awaits and

02:55:35.780 forgiveness and all of that. So how do you see what's next for you? Meeting a maker, making

02:55:43.440 amends, asking for grace, for forgiveness. Is any of that important to you?

02:55:50.200 um it's important to you know what's going to happen i mean i i really don't believe that you

02:55:59.180 go anywhere i'll be honest with you i don't think you go anywhere but if i'm gonna go anywhere i'm

02:56:04.840 a negotiator i'll talk to him and i'll talk to uh i'm not gonna ask for forgiveness if you made me

02:56:12.080 then you made me you could have stopped me anytime you want i'm not gonna you made me what i am i'm

02:56:18.360 lying. You may be not. So if you wanted to stop me, you could

02:56:22.280 stop me anytime you want. I'm not going to ask for forgiveness. I did

02:56:26.460 what I did in an honorable way, if you

02:56:30.460 could call it that, in my eyes.

02:56:35.640 I never really took advantage of people. I never

02:56:38.260 cheated. I never lied. I never bullshitted people to an extent

02:56:42.340 except for the government because, of course, I couldn't tell them the truth and I couldn't tell my family the truth

02:56:46.460 of things I was doing, but

02:56:48.500 I think that's understandable.

02:56:51.420 And

02:56:51.640 I really

02:56:54.680 I'm not looking for forgiveness

02:56:56.300 of what I did and

02:56:58.440 what that would mean. This is

02:57:00.460 taught in the church. If you don't

02:57:02.620 believe this, you're going to hell. I don't 0.99

02:57:04.600 believe in all that bullshit. I really 0.99

02:57:06.600 don't. If you don't

02:57:08.480 believe what I say, you're going to hell. 0.95

02:57:10.840 If you don't tell, I don't believe 0.96

02:57:12.580 any of that. So I believe

02:57:14.640 there is a god i look up at the sky i do artwork i learned how to do artwork in prison i look up at

02:57:20.180 the sky who could do that what artist in the world could do that it's got to be a god life

02:57:26.600 you see kids you see animals you see things yeah animals kill each other so i i don't believe in

02:57:33.480 the stuff they tell us in religion

02:57:36.040 you know i got it i think god is fair he's honorable if he's there and uh i don't think 0.53

02:57:47.860 i'll have too much of a problem i think people bullshit about religion i think they'll have more

02:57:52.180 of a problem than i will i got it i gotta leave it at that because we're coming up against a

02:57:56.200 hard break but i agree with you that god is fair and he is honorable and uh he i believe he will

02:58:02.780 have the last say sammy the bull gravano thank you so much for telling your story and as i say

02:58:09.360 for what the mob says giving testimony that led to in their view what the fbi has said um led to

02:58:14.820 the demise of organized crime in new york amazing all the best to you uh his podcast is called our

02:58:21.280 thing and his mini series the salvator is coming out next week my god what just happened

02:58:26.940 what just happened in that last two hours my team and i were just talking about it just like

02:58:33.560 went to a lot of places i didn't did not expect the thing about james con

02:58:37.660 um and but you know there there's something there's something to be learned there because we

02:58:43.800 we have been so fascinated by the mob in this country so fascinated by the mob and it is

02:58:48.140 interesting to listen to somebody who was in it at the highest levels talk about how it works

02:58:52.700 and what the ethical code actually looks like, right?

02:58:56.760 Like some of that stuff at the end,

02:58:58.520 I behaved honorably.

02:58:59.980 That's how he sees it.

02:59:02.280 How he believes in God,

02:59:04.140 but doesn't think that there will be any judgment for him

02:59:06.520 because he thinks God made him the way he,

02:59:09.800 God made me alive.

02:59:10.600 I mean, that stuff was very eye-opening to me

02:59:14.280 in terms of how his brain works

02:59:16.200 and how people can live a life like this. 0.94

02:59:18.940 How could you live a life where you kill 19 people?

02:59:22.700 I understand. He says they agreed to live by the same code. But, you know, the rest of us who live

02:59:28.580 by a very different code have trouble understanding any of this. And it's an organization that's had

02:59:34.220 its tentacles in American society for 100 plus years. Right. So it's like anyway, there's a lot

02:59:41.040 to be learned. And our fascination with this group remains. It may be dwindling. It's not done in New

02:59:47.260 York, but it's certainly not what it used to be. But it's still out there. And, you know, it gets

02:59:52.020 glorified in virtually every hollywood movie still to this day so um i don't know i i i enjoyed the

02:59:58.640 exchange and i enjoyed listening to you know his take on it obviously disagreed with a lot of his

03:00:03.380 ethical conclusions as i'm sure you did but i learned i learned a little bit and i hope you did

03:00:09.640 too thanks for listening to the megan kelly show no bs no agenda and no fear

03:00:22.020 Thank you.

The Megyn Kelly Show - July 19, 2026

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

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