Digital Social Hour - The Shocking Truth About Mob Life in Vegas | Anthony Ruggiano DSH #1168
Episode Date: February 8, 2025🎲 Get ready to uncover the shocking truth about mob life in Vegas! In this gripping episode of the Digital Social Hour, Sean Kelly sits down with Anthony, a former insider, to explore mind-blowing ...stories about the mob's control over Sin City, the rise and fall of its influence, and the untold secrets behind infamous mafia moments. From personal tales of mob bosses to the connections with Hollywood hits like *Casino* and *The Sopranos*, this conversation is packed with jaw-dropping insights you won’t hear anywhere else. 😱 Discover how Vegas evolved from being "mobbed up" to its glittering modern-day persona, the truth about the mafia's behind-the-scenes power, and the emotional toll of living a double life. You’ll even hear about Anthony’s crazy experiences in witness protection and his take on mob stories like the mysterious disappearance of Hoffa! 🤯 Don’t miss out on this exclusive insider look into the darker side of Vegas history. Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets. 📺 Hit that subscribe button and join the conversation today! 🚀 #crimedocumentary #truecrime #historydocumentary #truecrimestories #truecrimedocumentary #truecrime #truecrimestories #crimedocumentary #michaelfranzese #goodfellas CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 00:26 - Vegas in the 70s 03:19 - Where is Hoffa 05:24 - Consulting for Movies 06:20 - Mob Therapy 08:22 - Father's Double Life 11:15 - Dad’s Meatball Recipe 13:18 - The Third Trial 15:08 - Unlimited Money for Feds 18:25 - Faking Hospitalization for Trial Delay 19:08 - Longest Sentences in Prison 19:20 - Prison and Witness Protection 21:56 - Witness Protection in Idaho 26:30 - Living in Fear in Witness Protection 36:00 - Father's Role in JFK Assassination 39:38 - The French Mob 41:43 - Italian Mob and Heroin Trade 42:50 - Marijuana Business Insights 44:15 - New Jersey Mob's Power 46:10 - Politicians Under Mob Control 47:50 - Bad Blood with Gottis 49:40 - Reconciliation with Sammy the Bull 50:30 - Domenico Cefalu: Shelved Boss 51:40 - Joey Merlino's Influence 54:34 - Downfall of Philadelphia Mob 55:56 - Michael's Sports Betting Ventures 57:06 - How to Find Anthony APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: jenna@digitalsocialhour.com GUEST: Anthony Ruggiano https://www.instagram.com/anthonyruggianojr/ LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/
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He looks at the lawyer and he tells the lawyer,
now it's time to talk money. He tells the lawyer, I've got a razor blade on you.
The lawyer looks at him and goes, what do I need a razor blade for?
He said, because all we got left is blood, take our blood.
We have no more money.
All I got left is blood.
So he took a lot less.
All right, guys, we got Anthony back on the show. Hasn't been to Vegas and you said, what, 30 years?
I have 40. I haven't been to Vegas since 1977.
Oh, my God. 1977.
Dude, so there's a lot of new buildings and stuff.
Oh, my God. You know, I was at Caesar's Palace
yesterday or yesterday.
And when I, so let me tell you how I got to Vegas. So I got married October 2nd in New York.
Congrats.
And Arneal de la Croche was the underboss
of the Gambino family, was in prison at the time.
But another made member, Joe the Cat, had a travel agent.
And Arneal's present to me was my honeymoon in Vegas.
So he sent me, now I'm 24 years old, so he sent me to Vegas and it was Caesar's Palace.
And when I got in there, I was treated like, forget right this way Mr. Rugiano, because
they knew it.
Because back then Vegas was all mobbed up.
And across the street from Caesar's was just like a little strip mall.
Now there's beautiful buildings and it's just completely, totally different.
Yeah. When did the mob get ran out of Vegas? Do you know what time frame?
I would say sometime in the 80s. Well, I was there in 77. They had it on lockdown. I mean,
I was treated like O'Neil sent me there. The guys that people in Caesars Palace knew I was coming,
they were waiting for me. I had a big suite. I had a credit line of like $2,000 in the guys, the people in Cedars-Powell's knew I was coming. They were waiting for me. I had a big suite.
I had a credit line of like $2,000 in the casino, which was a ton of money back then.
Yeah.
And everywhere I went, I went to all the shows. I got right in. I had no issues. I would say
the 80s, you know, around in the one into the 80s and then by the 90s they were gone. And now
they're totally out of it.
I heard some might be on the old strip, the downtown one, but I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't, you know, listen, the mob is never going to go away.
Never going to go.
I mean, it was built with Team Stamani.
We all know that, you know, Tony Provenzano.
I actually met him once on a, I was getting transferred out of Greenhaven and he was getting
transferred out of Greenhaven.
And when the, when the correctional officer put me on the bus, the prison bus, he was
there and he saw me.
We didn't know each other, but he must have known that Italian.
And I sat down next to him and I told him I was fighting Andy's son and he heard, you
know, he knew my old man.
He goes, Oh, how is he?
And bop, bop, bop.
We had, we had a conversation and I was dying to ask him about Hoffa.
You know, like, it was like on the tip of my tongue,
but I just couldn't do it.
And I was getting transferred to this place
after killing Staten Island.
And he was on the bus with me the whole way.
I forgot where they were sending him,
but I was dying to ask him
because that's how this place was built. I mean, that's a fact.
I mean, it was all teams to money.
I mean, the movie casino pretty much had, that's how it was.
I mean, that was pretty accurate.
That was pretty accurate.
That's a good movie.
Without a doubt.
That was definitely accurate.
I mean, for sure.
Is there anyone alive right now that knows where Hoffa is, you think?
You know, that's a good, somebody asked me that about two weeks ago.
I don't think so.
I think they're all gone.
Damn.
You know they're all gone and if they are alive they got to be like close to 100.
You know there's people that think they know or you know like somebody told me this and
so like the movie The Irishman.
That was I mean some of that was true.
I mean I knew actually knew the Russell Buffal, the guy that Joe Pesci played.
He was actually good friends with my family, my father and his partner.
And we used to go to his Christmas show.
He had a Christmas show every year, a Christmas party in Pitston every year.
And the last time I went to his Christmas party, Tony Bennett sang at the Christmas
party.
He was the first person, and when I got married in 77, he was actually the first person to come to my wedding in Brooklyn.
He was the first person to show up. He was in on all that, you know, with the Hawfid, with the Vegas and all that.
But that movie, The Irishman, the part that De Niro played, he wasn't involved like that.
That's just stuff he made up. I don't believe that he was involved in it. I don't think anybody knows where he is.
My personal opinion is they dissolved his body. I don't think he's buried anywhere. My old man, that's what he used to tell me.
They probably dissolved it. Because it's funny, because Russell Buffalino, the guy that's in the movie that Pesky played, we went to his Christmas party, like I said, every year.
And he had a factory that we toured with him, me, my father, and a bunch of us.
And it was like a chemical factory. And there was these big vats of chemicals.
And teasingly, my father and I were like,
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Father, Fat Andy, we're walking through the warehouse and we passed the vats and my
old man turned around and tells him, how many people did you throw in that vat?
It was like a joke, you know, like a mob joke.
So you know, maybe half of them went in the vat.
Who knows?
It could very possible.
Definitely possible, man.
Irishmen, that was a decent one.
It was a bit slow.
Yeah. You know, that movie was long.
Do they consult with mafia guys
when they're making movies like that?
Yeah, you know, their consultants like,
for casino, yeah, guys that are in,
like guys like me that cooperated,
that aren't in it, but know about it,
yeah, they'll bring us in as consultants.
Like Sammy the Bull's working on something, I might be a consultant on that. Definitely. Yeah, he's making a show, right?
But a lot of the actors too, you know, people don't realize like a lot of actors grew up in
neighborhoods that were run by the mob. Like De Niro, Pesky, these guys grew up around wise, guys.
So they know how to portray them because they saw them from when they were kids.
Skorskazy grew up in downtown Manhattan.
I mean, there was a mob club on every corner.
Yeah. So deaf and sopranos mob guys would definitely.
Talk to for that, because that that was pretty much
had they had everything down.
Pined in the sopranos without a doubt.
So that show was really accurate sopranos outside of him seeing a psycho.
Was the mob doesn't deal like that.
Like do you want me to tell you how the mob deals with psychiatric issues?
They kill you right?
There was a guy named Vito Guzzo.
He was a made member of the Colombo family.
He was good friends with my father.
Back in the day in the 70s, he actually had he probably was bipolar, but nobody knew what that was.
And he actually had a breakdown, a nervous breakdown,
and he went into a psych ward.
And he came out and he was okay.
And then he had another one, the second one,
he went back into the psych ward.
Now this is like the early 80s,
he got out the second time and he disappeared.
Wow.
So that's how the mob dealt with people
that had psychiatric issues.
So the Sopranos were real outside of that.
I mean, no mob boss is gonna see a psychiatrist
or a therapist.
It's not gonna happen.
Which is pretty crazy
because I'd imagine a lot of mob guys have a ton of trauma
from what they're witnessing
and they can't even express it,. You got to keep a straight face.
Yeah without a doubt. Yeah you know not even take you know if you're taking Prozac you better not
tell nobody. Yeah and even the kids listen the kids my my daughter is traumatized. My daughter
she's a therapist. When my daughter was a kid she was about eight years old, I was in prison,
and she found a box, a cardboard box in the basement with newspaper articles in it. And
she was red, you know, she was eight, she didn't know how to read. And she started reading
the newspaper articles and they were about murders, like my father's murders, the murder
I was involved in. So she's reading these articles about how loving grandfather
and her father involved in murders.
And she didn't even know how to process it.
She didn't even know how to talk to anybody about it.
Now in her late 20s, she's processing it now.
She's the kids in therapy.
Because her grandfather, my father, was so affectionate.
And to think that he did crimes like that,
like she's the kids traumatized.
Yeah, so your father was living two lives, right?
Without a doubt.
You know, I did a podcast yesterday
and they asked me to explain to them my father.
So I told them my father at home never reprimanded me
and I was a truant, I was playing hooky
and he never had a father.
His father died when he was eight years old in 1932.
So he never had a father to reprimand him.
So he never reprimanded us.
He was an affectionate father.
He took me to baseball games.
He taught me how to play baseball.
You know, what fathers do.
He was a good son.
He was a good brother, a good uncle.
But in the street, he was a gangster.
He was a killer.
But at home, he was like a teddy bear.
You know, and he was like a pushover at home.
That's crazy.
Two different people.
Yeah.
But when he walked out of the house, he was Fat Andy.
But when he was in the house, he was, you know, Da.
Yeah, so what age did you start realizing,
wow, what is going on here?
I didn't know. I always knew something was up.
You know, I just didn't know why.
When I was a little kid, I knew that things were different.
I knew that when I walked in a room with him, the air, you know, the atmosphere changed, I just didn't know why when I was a little kid. I knew that things were different. I knew that when I walked in a room with him, the air, you know, the atmosphere
changed, but I didn't know why. When I was like 13 years old, and I drifted off my block,
I found out about the mob stuff through the older guys in the neighborhood. They would
point to me and say, that's Fat Andy's son. That's Fat Andy's son. And that's when I started
learning about it. And then me and him started talking about it. And he took me around and introduced me to people.
Now my kid brother, he found out about it through the newspaper.
So my father had gotten indicted in Brooklyn on this, they bugged the trailer and he got
caught on some tapes and he got indicted and it was on the front page of the newspaper. So when I came home one day, my brother said, is that true what they said about daddy?
It's in the newspaper. And I go, yeah. And he had a baseball game that night.
And my father went to all his baseball games. So when I went upstairs, my father said to me,
did Albert read the newspaper? And I said, yeah. So now we went back downstairs. And my father looked at my brother and he says, you read the newspaper? And my brother said said yeah. So now we went back downstairs and my father looked at
my brother and he says you read the newspaper and my brother said yeah. My
brother was about 11. Yeah. And my brother said yeah and he goes you still want me
to come to the baseball game with you? And my brother said of course I want you
to come to the baseball game. So we all get in the car, the three of us, we get in
the car we go to the baseball game. Now none of the fathers knew my old man was a wise guy.
They just thought he was like Andy, you know,
a baseball father, you know, a kid.
So nobody knew.
We pulled up at the baseball game, the Luley game,
and they mobbed him.
The fathers came right off the stand.
Man, we didn't know, you know.
They were like up his ass.
They mobbed him to the point where they actually
later on they asked him for favors and he got a couple of their sons later on in years
in like the copper, this union, the electrical union. Yeah. So, but that's how me and my brother
found out about him. Yeah, that's wild. Crazy. You said they bugged his RV. Did you have methods
for detecting bugs and stuff? You know, they bugged his house, not really.
They did, my father, we never, people did, but we never did.
We never checked around.
My father had a house in Florida, they had the kitchen bug.
He used to like to cook.
Yeah.
And he used to talk to guys in the kitchen.
They put a bug in the kitchen light.
Wow.
When he went on trial, they had his meatball recipe
on the bug.
He was
telling an undercover FBI agent in the kitchen how to make meatballs. We didn't know the
guy was an FBI agent. And he's in the kitchen telling the FBI agent how to make meatballs
while they're discussing the crime. So when they played the tape in between him discussing
a crime, you heard his meatball recipe. That was, everybody got a kick out of that.
That's hilarious.
Was the undercover part of the mob or he was just?
Yeah, so what happened was, there was this guy, Joe Dawgs.
It was in Florida, it was this guy, Joe Iannuzzi,
but his nickname was Joe Dawgs.
He was in a formant and he was bringing FBI agents
to my father and my father was loaned Shylock and them,
which is loaned in their money for,
and that's how he got caught up in it.
And then they opened up an after hour,
like a gambling club in Riviera Beach up in Florida,
and my father's had an office in there,
and when he turned on the light, a camera went on.
So anything that went on in the office, they filmed.
And so they used to come and give him envelopes
and make sure they handed him the envelopes
so the camera would catch them.
Handing him the envelope.
So they had a lot of evidence on them.
Yeah, yeah, they had it.
But you know what?
He got two hung juries.
The first hung, well, the second hung jury he got
because we fixed the jury.
I paid one of the juries $25,000, and when he got a hung jury,
some guy comes to me and says,
listen, my neighbor's on your father's jury. And I said, could we do anything? And he goes,
I'll ask him. And then he came back and he said, the guy wants 25,000. So I gave him 20.
And that's a lot back then, right?
Yeah, it was a real lot. That was 1985. That was a lot. So he got two hung juries.
And then the third time he got convicted. But yeah, they had a lot of that in a formantant and then they had all the tapes, the bugs, the films. Did you find out who the informant
was or? Yeah, yeah, yeah, he had to testify. Yeah, he had to testify. He even wrote a book later on
called something, The Life of a Mobster or something. Wow. I think that would all surveillance
pictures in it of my father, my uncle. How shocked were you guys with that informant?
We were, well, when we found out who it was,
yeah, it was a surprise,
because he was like, he was a good guy.
You know, he knew everybody.
He was a tough guy.
You know, he was an arena.
But what happened was he got beaten by a wise guy
and he lived.
And he made a deal with the government in the hospital
and nobody knew him.
When he got out of the hospital,
he apologized to the guy, this guy Tommy A,
and Tommy A sort of took him back.
And then what happened was Tommy A had been,
back then Bingo was big in Florida,
like $50,000 jackpots, it was a big form of gambling.
So there was a beef going on with another with another crew of wise guys.
And my father knew them and my father was asked to help Tommy straighten out this beef. So my father
helped him, he straightened it out. And then Tommy tells my father, could you service my guys while
I'm in New York? So my father goes, of course. and one of them was Joe Dawgs. And that's how my
father got swept up in this Rico Act. And then Joe Dawgs said, listen, I got some guys that want
to borrow some money. They're from Chicago. You know, let me introduce you to them. And he brought
this guy there. He was an FBI agent undercover. And then they brought another FBI agent. And my
father and this guy Shariah were shy like a money to them. And then my father in the sky shower y'all with Shylock of money to them.
And then my father winds up getting 40 years.
Yeah, that Rico made it too easy for them to lock people up.
I got indicted myself for four Ricos.
Two state, I've covered all the bases.
I got indicted for two state Ricos and two federal Ricos.
That is nuts.
I didn't know there were state Ricos too.
Yeah, they call it an orca.
I wonder what their win percent on Ricos is.
It's gotta be super high.
In the feds, 90%.
Jeez.
So you know you're screwed pretty much.
Oh, you're gone?
I mean, I never went to trial with the feds.
I went to trial once with the state, I got convicted.
But I know every time,
the two times I got locked up by the feds,
I took pleas both times.
Yeah, because it's too, first of all,
it's too expensive, right, to fight the-
Expensive.
Second of all, the stress.
Expensive, my father won for everything.
The third trial is funny because the first trial was,
we went for hundreds of thousands.
The second trial, the same thing, but we fixed the jury.
The third trial, we're in the restaurant,
my father's partner, Tony Lee,
he was a made member of the mob,
myself and this lawyer called Mark Krasnow,
he was my father's attorney.
This is the third trial, I was sitting in the restaurant,
and he was a character, Tony Lee,
and he looks at the lawyer and he tells the lawyer,
now it's time to talk money,
he tells the lawyer, got a razor blade on you?
The lawyer looks at him and goes, why, what do I need a razor blade for?
He said, because all we got left is blood.
Take our blood.
We have no more money.
All I got left is my blood.
But he so he took a lot less for the.
He said, all I got left is blood.
Take my blood.
Geez. I mean, they bleed you dry, right?
They got unlimited. They have no conscience.
I mean, they got unlimited resources, right? They got unlimited money. They have no conscience. I mean, they got unlimited resources, money.
Mob lawyers have, they're criminals.
Mob lawyers are criminals.
Mob lawyers are criminals.
They actually tell you how to lie.
They tell you how to, they're criminals.
And they take them, they have no qualms about money.
You know, you gotta pay them,
but you have to pay them and that's it.
And they throw figures at you like.
Well, a lot of lawyers, not even just mob lawyers behind the scenes, they're
working out deals with the other side's lawyers without you even knowing about
it.
But mob lawyers are different than other lawyers, because mob guys, we're all
guilty. You know, like when we get indicted, we're guilty, you know, and they know it.
And they, like Bruce Cutler, he was John Gotti's lawyer.
He thought he was a wise guy.
Like he kissed you on the cheek.
He hung out in the club.
He dressed like us.
He acted like us.
He liked the attention.
Yeah.
He loved it.
He loved it.
He loved it.
He used to say, you know, I love the man.
I love the man.
I had lawyers tell me, when we had a case going on and we needed a
postponement because we had to put some stuff together and we needed a postponement and the
lawyer tells us this guy Ronnie Rubenstein tells us in his office, well listen, if one of you's
went into the hospital we could get this case postponed. So like he told us
what to do. So the next day, this kid Louie that hung out
with us, we faked a crash on Condua Boulevard. He crashed an
old car into a pole, and he went to the hospital. And we got a
postponement, you know, wow, but we got that idea from the
attorney, he told us what to do. Like if one of us go into
hospital, we could get a postponement.
So one of us went to the hospital.
Yeah, there's a lot of things you could do to delay, right?
I'm sure you guys wanted to delay as much as possible.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
But we needed to delay because we were gonna go on trial
and we needed to get some witnesses.
We needed to do some stuff and we needed some time.
And the DA wanted us to go to trial right away.
So we needed some space and that was the best way to get it.
Yeah. So he went into the hospital.
We got a postponement and and we lost anyway.
We got found guilty anyway.
But you tried at least anyway.
Went down fighting.
Did you get a reduced sentence or no?
No, no. I always got, when I went away,
I always got the most time because I was fat Andy's son. I got the most time. I went to the worst
jails. Like I went away on a case with three guys, this guy Frankie and Sal. So we went to
get designated to the jails. Now we all got convicted for the same crime. They went to camp
out of Rondex, camp. And the jail I went to was nicknamed gladiator school.
I went to Comstock, I went to a penitentiary
that was nicknamed gladiator school for the same crime.
The same crime.
So I always got screwed.
Is that cause they consider you high risk?
Yeah, and cause I was a wise guy.
My father's reputation, he was a violent criminal
and he was hooked, a high ranking member of the mob and they just sent me to the worst.
And I always got what they called CMC papers, that central monitoring case.
And so every movement I made had to get approved in Albany.
So in other words, a regular inmate, the facility could approve you for things like furloughs
or work, whatever, whatever
thing, programs they have available. The facility could move me in any kind of movement to another
prison. The facility could do that. Well, CMC had to come from Albany. And I was always
CMC. I always got CMC papers, always. And even in the feds, the feds, you have a number
and the last three digits of your number.
So every state has like a code.
Like I think New York is 053 or 058 or something,
but 016 is like organized crime.
Like when you have an 016 number,
all your movements have to get approved by Washington.
Washington, DC?
Yeah. Wow.
Yeah. So I had an 016 number, because I was...
And so my father passed, unfortunately my father passed away when I was in federal prison.
So I had to get approved. So I got approved. First, the counselor approved me.
Then when the counselor approved me, it goes to the warden.
Yeah.
And if the warden approves a regular inmate, you could go out, they'll make arrangements
to take you to the funeral of an immediate family member.
But because I was 016, an organized crime, when the warden approved me, his approval
had to go to Washington.
And when it got to Washington, they denied me.
Whoa.
And they wouldn't let me go to my father's funeral.
That's messed up, man.
Your own father's funeral.
John Gotti Jr. couldn't go to his father's funeral.
Both of us, they both refused to let us go
to our father's funeral.
I don't even think, when I think of it,
I don't think John, because John knew I got denied.
I don't even think he requested to go to his father's funeral
because he knew they would never let him go.
Wow, that's messed up, man.
It's not like you're going to do anything while you're at the funeral.
Listen, I told the warden, you could have loaned me your car and I would
came back tonight and you know, he says, I know, but unfortunately, you know,
you're organized crime and has to go to Washington and some bureaucrat in Washington said no,
even when I was in the witness protection program. So I'm in the witness protection
program. They put me in this town called Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
Actually, that town blew up now. Beautiful. Wow. Beautiful. So now I'm living in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and it's nice high-end
neighborhood. Beautiful, right? I'm there about six months now. My handler loved
me because I didn't give him no problems. I didn't, you know, he gave me so much
money a month and I wasn't drinking or you know, I don't use, I'm in recovery. I wasn't gambling. I wasn't doing anything. I was just living a normal life
out there. So my handler, he loved me this guy, he used to tell me you're the best guy on my caseload.
So one day he comes to see me and he goes, and he's upset. He goes, I mean, you know, I feel so
bad. What's the matter? He goes, I got to move you. He said, you got to move me. Where you gonna move
me? He goes, I got to move you into Washington States you gotta move me? Where you gonna move me? He goes, I gotta move you into Washington States,
the next state over to the Tri-Cities.
I said, the Tri-Cities, that's the hood.
He goes, he goes, yeah, he goes,
listen, we have a new supervisor.
And when he looked over everything,
he wanted to know why we had you living
in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
He didn't want me there, the supervisor.
He was worried I was gonna, you know,
take advantage of the rich people I lived in.
So he rather me go live in the hood so I could kill some gangbanger that's going to bother
me there.
And they moved me from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho to the Tri-Cities.
It was like going from Park Avenue to Alphabet City.
And then I signed myself out.
I stood there a couple of months and I signed myself out.
Yeah, Coeur d'Alene's beautiful.
The real estate is margarine.
Oh my God, it's gorgeous.
Wow.
When I got off the plane, I got off the plane in Spokane, Washington, and the marshals went
for me and he goes, I said, where am I going?
He says, well, you're not staying in Spokane.
I'm taking, because right, like Coeur d'Alene is like 30 minutes outside of Spokane, Washington.
He goes, I'm taking you to Idaho.
I said, Idaho?
What?
I, you know, thought potatoes.
You know, Idaho?
I said, what, to a potato farm?
He goes, no, man, I'm taking you to Paradise, he told me.
I said, Paradise?
All right, and he took me there.
Man, it was beautiful.
When I got there, so now I'm in Idaho, imagine me in Idaho,
and I have this beautiful apartment,
and there's a mountain lake and there was a trail
around it so I'm there a couple of days and I'm up on this mountain and I'm walking this trail and
the smell like and I smell this sweet smell like I'm going what's that smell you know I go oh my
god that must be fresh air like I smell fresh air for the first time so I got off the mountain and
I had like a I had a phone that I I got off the mountain and I had like a
phone that I wasn't supposed to have and I called my friend Stevie up in the Bronx and I said,
I just smell fresh air for the first time. Yeah, because you were locked up for years.
Yeah, yeah. And you know, living in New York, you ain't smelling no fresh air.
Hell no.
You know what I mean? Yeah.
Smelling that gas.
You can actually smell the air like, smell different. But you know what happened?
Have you been there?
Nah, I haven't.
There's crazy pine trees, like major, major pine trees,
and I lost my voice.
I thought I was dying.
I thought I had throat cancer.
I lost my voice.
And they took me to a doctor, and I
had some kind of allergic reaction to the pine pollen.
Because I never really was around that kind of pollen.
You know, in New York, there's not many pine trees,
except on Christmas time.
And I lost my voice from the nasal drip.
I had to go on all kinds of medication,
but I loved it there.
And the girls, they were throwing themselves at me.
Forget about it.
It was crazy.
You're living good out there.
I was living good.
I met a Apache girl.
She was 100% Apache Indian. She was beautiful.
I met her at an AA meeting. So I used to go to this AA clubhouse every day at 530.
And they used to love to hear me talk. So when I raised my hand to share, like every day loved it.
So I'm outside this meeting and I knew she was Indian. You know, someone told me she's 100%
Apache. There was a lot of Apache Indians up there and she walks up to me outside where outside after the meeting she walks up there so
when are you gonna ask me out on a date? She goes I see you checking me out at all the meetings
and we started seeing each other until they moved me to Washington state. So I mean I liked it there.
Did you tell her you were leaving or not? When they moved me to Washington state I told her
because everybody thought I was working. it ain't and I was on the
witness protection program, because they had it all hooked
up. They had it. I actually had business cards to like a
construction or Wow. And if and if you wanted to reach me at
work, they would the Marshal would put you through to my
cell phone. Like you would call this because they had it all set
up. Yeah, so that I had like a good cover. And so I just told her they were moving me on
to another job and I was gonna be in Washington State
and we tried to stay in touch, but we lost contact.
So were you looking over your shoulder
when you were in witness protection or were you pretty?
I never really looked over my shoulder.
I just was kind of like, just careful, you know?
I never really looked over my shoulder.
I just didn't like go back to my neighborhood.
I didn't want to put it in their face.
But in the beginning, I was more careful than now.
Now, everybody knows where I am, I'm at.
Everybody knows I revealed who I really,
like when I moved to Florida,
nobody knew who I was until I started doing,
I did a show on National Geographic
and I revealed who I was.
So then now nobody knows what to call me.
They tease me because they used to call me Joe.
Because my middle name is Joseph, so I went by Joseph.
Now they ask me, what should we call you?
Anthony, Joseph, whatever you feel comfortable
with, I tell them.
So some people still call me Joe.
But I never really looked over my shoulder.
I mean, I know that when you do what I did, they kill you.
I mean, there's a contract automatically out on you,
but the mob is not what it was.
Like in 77, when I came to Vegas, yeah,
they were killing people, but in 2025,
they ain't killing nobody anymore.
Them days are over.
How are they gonna do it?
Just cameras all over, people are cooperating.
It's just a different world.
Yeah, murder seems very hard now, right?
Yeah, well, the mob ain't murder.
I think from what I heard, I mean, I still talk to people out there
and they're saying to me that the rule is now no more murders.
Wow.
They're not even allowed to kill anybody anymore.
Because their numbers are so low already.
Yeah. And because there's too much surveillance, too many under,
too many confidential informants, too much time, you know, like
the last mob murder they had
was this guy, Michael Melnus.
She was a friend of mine.
I knew him good.
They killed him in the Bronx.
Everybody that was involved in it is in prison.
Geez, when was that?
Michael Melnus got killed probably maybe in 2019.
Oh, so it's been five years.
Yeah, six years.
Yeah, and everybody's in prison.
Stevie Creer, the two guys that shot him because they got caught on a camera.
The guy that gave the order, Stevie Creer.
Even the guy that gave the order got caught?
All of them.
So someone snitched.
Yeah, well, then people cooperated.
All of them.
Everybody that was involved in that mob murder went to prison.
Wow.
And why'd they take him out? He was dangerous. He was disrespectful to them. He was taking money off them. He was just very
disrespectful, very dangerous. He was a business and not kicking up to them.
In the restaurants, he was hanging out in reos. He was just doing things he shouldn't have done.
He was breaking a lot of rules. He was making them look bad. It came down to he was making
them look bad. So it was either put your tail between your legs and look
bad or you know do what you got to do and they decided to do what they had to do and they were
all in jail. Wow. Back in your day it was common though right? Oh my god yeah. Like probably one
a year at least. A lot. My brother's friend got killed. I mean I knew so many people that got
killed. Back then my brother's friend Tommy got killed. Yeah, no, it was, you went. But back in the 70s, the 60s and 70s, if you broke the rules,
you were dead. I mean, my brother-in-law beat my mother up, we killed him.
Yeah.
You know what I mean? So-
And you didn't tell her for a while, your sister, right?
No, I talked about that yesterday. When I decided to cooperate in 05,
When I decided to cooperate in 05,
and they took me out of my house,
I made them take me to my mother's house at first, just tell them what happened and to say goodbye.
And I wanted to tell my sister,
I wanted to give them some closure, make amends, you know.
So I went to my mother's house with the feds,
and my sister, she flipped out.
She totally went crazy, screaming at me. How could you do
this to me? You ruined my life and screaming at me. She left
us. She ran away. And my mother, she was just like sad. She was
just sitting there. And she just says to me, because my father
gave me permission to do it. He was he okayed the whole thing.
Right. That's how the mob operates. The father tells the
son to commit a murder. And then the son goes and commits the murder.
He had to get approval from someone.
Well, first my father had to okay it.
Then my father okayed it.
Then we reached out to Jeannie Gotti.
And then he went to his brother John, who was divorced and then John had to okay it.
Because in the mob when you want to kill somebody, you got to get permission.
Because otherwise it brings heat around.
You just can't randomly kill everybody. You have to, it's because in the mob they call murder work.
So to do a piece of work, you got to get permission. So we got how to get permission. So first my
father okayed it, then John okayed it, and then we put the plan in motion. So after the murder in 88,
In 88, I got arrested for it in 2005 for the murder.
And then about a month later, the feds took me out of my house
and that's when I went to tell my sister what happened.
So she flipped out and my mother just was sitting
at the kitchen table and she just looked at me
and she goes, I can't believe he made you do things
like that, you know, my father made me do things like that.
But that was the mob. Yeah. You know, my father made me do things like that. But that was the mob.
Yeah.
You know, after that, my sister met another guy.
I was talking, after that, my sister met another guy
a year later, and my sister got arrested
because they were doing drugs.
And they got arrested with credit cards,
hanging out credit cards, and then they stole a car.
And my father wanted me to kill him, and I told him no.
And he got mad at me.
She was in prison and I went to visit him and he says, this guy, Chris, you know what
you got to do here?
I go, I'm not, dude, I'm not killing this kid.
He's a kid from the neighborhood.
You don't know nothing about the mob or he's a kid from the neighborhood.
She was getting high with it.
I'm not, what are we going to, I told my father, what are we going to kill everybody she goes
with until she meets a fucking astronaut?
I mean, I don't understand what you want to do here.
I told him, I said, yeah, we'll just kill everybody that she goes with because she's
your baby girl.
Yeah.
And he got mad at me.
He got up.
He was like, I don't, I'll take care of myself.
I don't want you to do nothing for me.
I'll take care of it myself.
I said, good, you take care of it.
So I went back to Ozone Park and I sent for this kid.
I said, listen, man, you better get the fuck out of here because you're going.
You know what I mean? And he left and I didn't see him anymore.
And I didn't even want to know what happened.
I didn't ask my father what happened. Wow. I don't want to know.
I was hoping that they didn't kill the kid.
About a year later, I get a letter from this other kid, Chris,
that's in prison, upstate New York. And he says to me, listen,
there's a guy, Chris, that just rolled in here, that's going going around telling everybody he went out with your sister. I said, Oh,
thank God he's alive. It was him. And he was in jail. I said, Oh, thank God they didn't
kill the poor kid. He was in, you know, he was in prison. But the reason why I gave him
a pass is because he wasn't, he didn't, he wasn't an associate. He was like my brother
in law. He knew the rules. He was, he was mobbed up. He was like my brother. He knew the rules. He was he was mobbed up. He was a dangerous kid.
He was an armored car robber. He was a murderer.
You know, he had Uzi stashed in my mother's garage.
I mean, he knew the rules.
He was told, don't go out with Fat Andy's daughter.
And he did it anyway.
So it was a different story between him and Chris.
If Chris was more like him, then maybe Chris would have got killed.
But being that he was just a neighborhood kid, you know, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to do
that. So were you not allowed to date other Made Guys daughters or whatever, basically? It was,
you were allowed, but I didn't, you know, it wasn't a good thing to do. I had opportunities to
have not to have affairs with Wise Guys daughters and I passed you know like you know like everybody I
know that like Carmine DeBolt he married John Gotti's daughter.
It wasn't a good fit.
Yeah.
You know what I mean? Carmine, the other kid that his other
daughter married this kid Louis. This is a crazy story. So he
marries this kid Louis Albano marries Angel Gotti. He we know
he was my father's partner's like third cousin. Now, and we
all cheated on our wives. You know, we everybody, every mob
guy I know, including my father had a wife, and one or two
girlfriends. I mean, that's just how it was. What took your girlfriend
out on a Friday and your wife out on a Saturday? And that's what you did. So the kid had an
affair and the girl got pregnant and John wanted to kill the kid.
Wow.
You know, because, you know, it's his daughter and Tony Lee saved him, but they chased him. They took his job, they took his father's
firework business, so, you know,
it wasn't a good idea to go out with a wise guy's daughters.
You know, it wasn't a good idea.
My son, when I was in prison, when I was in prison,
my son, I call my son up one day, and he tells me,
oh, I started seeing this girl from Howard Beach.
I said, really?
He goes, yeah, and I think you and grandpa know her father.
So I go, oh yeah, who's her father?
He said, Vick Amuso.
Vick Amuso was the boss of the Lucchese crime family.
Wow.
He lived in Howard Beach.
I told my son, Vick, I said,
don't ever go out with her again.
Don't go near her, don't see her.
Stay away from her.
And he did.
I said, because if that girl gets mad at you
and says you did something wrong, grandpa can't save you.
So do not go near that girl.
And he stood away from her.
Thank God.
Smart move, man.
Yeah, you gotta be careful with the ladies, man.
They ruin a lot of friendships.
Yeah, for sure.
You know?
So I watched Michael Franzese on Piers Morgan the other day.
Yes.
And he was talking about the JFK assassination.
Yes.
He said the mob played a role in that.
What do you think about that?
Oh, did no doubt about it.
I had a lot of conversations with my father about that.
And he told me Kennedy and his brother
double-crossed everybody that helped him.
The father was a gangster, Joe Kennedy,
he was a bootlegger, was hooked up with the mob.
When Kennedy was running for president,
he went to the Teamsters and got the Teamsters
to back Kennedy, right?
Kennedy wins the presidency, what does he do?
He makes his brother the attorney general,
and who's the first person they go after?
Hoffa, right?
They put Hoffa in jail.
Definitely the mob had something to do with it without
a doubt. I think it came out of New Orleans and look at Jack Ruby. He kills Oswald and
then he dies a year later with stomach cancer.
Right. Seemed fishy, right?
Of course.
Who do you think took Ruby out? You think it was the mob too?
I think Jack Ruby got a lot of money. I think Jack Ruby got a suitcase full of money.
Yeah, without a doubt, they sent Ruby in there
because I mean, he had cancer when he did it.
I mean, he knew he was gonna get caught.
I mean, he did it right on national TV.
I was a little kid, I saw it on national TV.
I was watching it with my grandmother
and the TV went blank.
Yeah.
Yes, oh, definitely the mob had something to do with it.
You think it was one shooter or multiple?
Who knows? My opinion, I think there was more than one.
And I don't know, I think the truth might, some of the truth might come out now that
because Trump is releasing all this information, so maybe some documents would tell the truth.
But that was always the discussion among us that the mob was in on it.
I mean, they tried to kill Castro.
We know the CIA did business with the mob going back to World War II and they let Lucky
Luciano out.
That's all true.
The guy was in prison doing time for Andanamora and they made a deal with him to help with
the docs and they deported him.
So the mob was always in it.
They tried to kill Castro.
They went to them to kill Castro.
So why wouldn't they go to them to Kennedy?
Yeah.
Did the CIA ever approach your dad or you or anyone you know?
No, but they did.
There was a, in the, in the seventies, there was this guy robbing banks and he shot an
FBI agent.
And they always thought he was with my father, this guy, but he wasn't.
He was with this guy, Charlie Wagons, this other made guy. He was He was with this guy, Charlie Waggans, this other made guy.
He was on record with this guy, Charlie Waggans, and he robbed a bank in Boston.
And when he came out, he shot an FBI agent.
The agent didn't die, but he shot an agent and they wanted this guy buried.
And they thought he was with my own man.
They literally, they used to follow my father every day.
They would sit in front of the house.
My father would knock on the door and go, I'm going here, I'm going there.
And they would follow him over. And one day they told my father
in the street, they go, listen, we don't care if we find this guy in a garbage pail.
We just want to find him. So they like told my old man, like, you could kill this guy and put
him in a garbage pail and it's okay. We just want to find him. Of course he shot one of them.
They eventually locked them up. But that's so, I mean, you know what that's what they did. Wow. So there was some respect there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they were it was funny because my father
had he used to take them to bars and he would never go eat dinner and he would just stay in
a bar all day. And they would like say, Andy, could you please go eat dinner? They wanted to
go eat dinner. They were starving. He torched them. They followed him for like about a month.
Damn, just looking for that body?
Yeah, looking for this guy that shot the agent.
And then they told them one day, like,
listen, we don't care if we find him in a garbage pail.
We just want to find him.
Yeah, what happened to that guy?
They arrested him.
He went to prison.
Oh, they didn't kill him?
No, no, they arrested him.
They arrested him.
I think they arrested him in Connecticut somewhere,
but he got arrested.
He went to jail.
Wow.
How often were you getting followed?
All the time?
Oh my God, all the time.
I mean, and probably more so in the night.
I mean, in the 70s, not so much, you know,
but in the night after, well, I got clean in 88.
After John Gotti became the boss,
we were under surveillance all the time.
Damn.
Because, you know, especially us,
because we came from Ozone Park, so we had like an intimate
relationship with him.
Yeah.
So more us more so than anybody.
And the Ravenite was always under surveillance.
That was his club.
Right in Manhattan and then the club the Bergen fish club was always under surveillance.
And every time I like right before I would get arrested.
So I got arrested in 91.
So they started filing me a
couple of months before that. Then in 90, I got arrested in 95. My phone was tapped for about a
month in my house. And I was under surveillance for, they know I went to Paris. They notified
Interpol. Interpol. Because when I came back, I got, I came back from Paris and I got arrested when I got back.
I went to Paris in September and in October I got arrested and the agents told me, yeah,
we were going to arrest you last month but you went to Paris and we had to wait for the
reports to come back from Interpol.
I said, Interpol, I went to an NA convention.
They thought like I was over there doing mob shit in Paris.
Be careful with France, man.
That's where they got the telegram CEO. They arrested him there. They have the French mob, yeah. Oh, there's mob shit in Paris. Be careful with France, man. That's where they got the telegram, CEO. They arrested him there.
They have the French mob there.
Oh, there's a mob in France?
Yeah. And not only is there a mob in France,
they actually have a ceremony like the Italians.
Really?
In France, yeah.
I did not know there was a French mob.
Yes, there's a French mob, yeah.
My old man told me that they actually have a ceremony
when they make guys like the Italians.
Yeah. Are they in the US too or just in France?
I don't know. I never heard of any of them in the US. I mean, a couple of them are out,
I met a couple of them in Montreal. In the 70s, they were coming back and forth in Montreal,
but I never heard of anybody stationed or have any kind of clubs or anything in the United States.
Yeah. I wonder what businesses the French mob gets into.
Heroin.
Oh yeah?
Yeah, heroin.
Damn.
All of them. And in Sicily, it's all drugs. All heroin.
Did Italian ever get into heroin, the Italian mafia?
Of course they did.
That's why Paul Castellano got killed. He wanted the tapes. They were all selling heroin.
John Gotti's crew was all selling heroin, and there was tapes of them selling heroin,. He wanted the tapes. They were all selling heroin. John Gotti's crew was all selling heroin and they got there was tapes of them selling heroin and he wanted the tapes.
Of course it was against the rules. Damn. So that was that was the start of the downfall.
Yes. For heroin. Yeah. You know it's funny because in the 70s guys used to bring my so my own man
had a partner named Tony Lee. They were partners and they just to do favors for guys and a guy, and they guys
used to offer them heroin. Listen, I'll take a kilo of heroin, you can make a lot of money. And my
only way to always just to tell them no. And I used to tell my father, what do you take it, take it.
You know how much money is involved in this? And he used to tell me no, because number one is,
I'm the guy I don't make an example out of. And number two is it's blood money. I said, blood money?
You just kill people. I'm worried about blood money. He an example out of. And number two is it's blood money. I said, blood money? You just kill people.
I'm worried about blood money.
He never sold drugs.
Guys around him did, but he never sold drugs.
My brother had a big major, it's funny because my brother had a big marijuana business in
the 70s and into the 80s and he made a lot of money selling marijuana.
And guys that worked for him actually went to prison for it.
Now I'm driving around Vegas and there's pot stores all over the place. Even in New York now, they just opened up a store in
my neighborhood, a weed store right right then in the middle of my neighborhood.
And I told my brother's son that your father was way ahead of his time.
Yeah he was man. Was he getting it from cartels? He was getting it from, yeah,
was coming in from Mexico. He was a connoisseur. My brother, he was getting it from everybody.
He was he sold.
We we had we had a park across from my house called 8H3 Park,
and he was selling nickel bags in the 70s.
He was selling 200 nickel bills a day.
He was making crazy money.
And he used to pay.
If you sold nickel bags for him, you got a dollar a bag.
So he had kids making $200 a day selling nickel bags of weed.
Rob Markman Smart man.
Yeah.
Have him do the marketing for him. Did he get caught?
B.S. He never got caught, but guys around him got caught.
He never got arrested.
Wow. He played it real smart.
B.S. Yeah, guys around him. A couple of them went to jail.
Larry went to jail. A few types of guys. Larry went to jail.
A couple of them went to jail. One of his friends got killed. Rob damn. His partner got murdered. I heard that's a tough business these days because
it's legal now everywhere. Yeah there's a store in every corner. In New York, well in New York
there's a lot of stores that don't have license. They're closing them down every day and then they
just reopen up the block. Yeah. I grew up in Jersey. How powerful did the New Jersey mob get at its peak?
Well very powerful.
Especially when Atlantic City came into play,
they had the Philadelphia mob and the Jersey mob
fighting over the contracts in Atlantic City.
So the Philly mob wanted to get involved.
Was that with Marlino?
Before Marlino, and with Marlino,
more so before Nicky Scaffa, he was the main guy.
That's when Atlantic City was being built up.
So that's when Trump was trying to do stuff out there.
Well, Trump had, you know, the mob never got to Trump.
You know, Sammy the Bull talks about that all the time.
Cause I even personally asked Sammy the Bull that
when I was in Arizona, I says, cause he had all the,
they had a club and they had a big, a bid rigging club.
And they called it the club, the five families of the mob.
And they rigged all the bidding for construction jobs.
And Sammy was one of the main guys in the club.
And I asked Sammy, I says to him,
what's up, did you ever do anything with Trump?
He goes, nobody could ever get to Trump.
He said, he was always, he was too smart.
And he was always, he always ex FBI agents working for him.
And anytime we pushed up, try to push up on him, he knew what was happening.
And he stopped the dead in his tracks.
Wow.
So they never got him.
Never because they asked them.
And Trump, you know, Trump, when Trump was running for president, you know, he used that
clip with he with Sammy.
Oh, he did? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because Sammy said it on Vlad.
Vlad asked him, did you ever, you know, did you ever get to Trump?
And he told Vlad the same thing he told me that they tried and they couldn't do it.
They couldn't push up on him. He was too smart.
The FBI and blah, blah, blah, blah.
And Tammy, Sammy told Vlad the same thing he told me.
And Trump posted it on the social media.
And then Sammy was getting calls from all over the world
to come on news shows and talk about Trump.
That's wild, man.
Did you guys ever have any politicians under control?
Yeah, oh my God.
Not on that level.
Like councilman, city councilman,
this guy Tony Sadowski, he was like a city councilman.
He was with me, well, Back in the day, there was this
guy named Mead Esposito. Because they have democratic clubs in New York that were very,
very powerful. And Mead Esposito, he ran the Democratic club in Brooklyn, which was very,
very powerful. He was mobbed up. He was with Sonny Francis. Michael knows him really good,
and we know him really good.
He came from, he was out of Eastern New York,
the same neighborhood we're out of.
He was very powerful.
He was a politician, a lot of cops.
The president of Queens County,
because every borough has its own president.
He was involved.
Matter of fact, he even committed suicide
because he got arrested.
He was going to get arrested. They had a thing going with traffic tickets. They were robbing
millions of dollars. Millions. How were they doing that?
You know what? I don't remember how they were doing it. I just know they got...
This guy, Mel LeBecan, he was a lawyer. He got arrested. Sari Al got arrested. He was a lawyer. He got arrested. Sal Real got arrested. He was with my father and the president of
Queens County. He committed suicide in Flushing Meadow Park.
Well, he probably knew he would get taken out, right? If he went to...
Well, he just didn't want to go to jail. Yeah. Because he, of course, he was,
he knew he would be in trouble in there. He committed suicide.
Mel DeBeck got disbarred. It was a whole big thing. Yeah. So yeah, politicians,
cops, correction officers.
We had all the correction officers on the take when I was in jail.
—Anyone on a federal level or was all kind of local?
—All local. With us anyway. I'm sure there was on a federal level, not with us.
—Yeah.
—The Queens DA, Sadowski, he was hooked up with this guy, Sarreal. They had a meeting in this
in this restaurant out the diners with John Gotti. It was all over the newspapers when it leaked out that John had a sit down with the
Queens DA. Yeah. You talked to any of Gotti's kids? Not anymore. Not anymore? Is there still
a lot of bad blood there? Yeah, we just don't get along. I know one of them went on a podcast,
I think. Might have been John Gotti. Yeah, he just went on Patrick Ben David. It's the Patrick Ben David. You know, some of it was true.
I just, I put out something on my podcast about it because some of it was bullshit and some of it
was real. But yeah, it was a good, good, good interview, but he made some, he didn't tell
all the truth. Okay. Well, you're always going to be biased towards family, right? That's his own
father he's talking about. Yeah, but he was told the truth about his father, but he plays the victim.
And we weren't victims. I say it all the time. We were bad guys. He was the son of a wise guy. I was
the son of a wise guy. But we made choices. Like when I was 16 years old, I had a choice. When I
got kicked out of school,
my father sat me down in the kitchen and he said to me, what do you want to do? And I
said, I want to go to work. And he goes, all right, I'll get you in this in the Cement
Mason's Union. I said, I don't want to go in those Cement Mason's Union. He goes, what
do you want to do? I said, I want to work for you. And he looked at me and he goes,
well, if you want to work for me, going to jail is all part of the job. And I was okay
with that. I was 16 and he put me to work in you want to work for me, going to jail is all part of the job. And I was okay with that.
I was 16 and he put me to work in a blackjack game.
So I had a choice.
I wasn't a victim.
He was in military school one day and the next day he became he was a main member of
the mob.
So he had a choice.
Stay in military school and have a career or go work for your father.
And he chose to work for his father.
Now he's a victim.
I don't agree with it.
Yeah. I mean, hopefully you two can make up. It was cool seeing Sammy and Michael Frenzy's make up.
Oh yeah. I just did something with the two of them. I'm going to do something with Sammy on the 27th.
Hopefully Michael's going to be involved in it.
I love it. Yeah. Because there's a lot of lessons if you guys can come together, right? Share your stories.
You know what it is? It's some guys, not Michael, not Michael's, some guys think they're still in the street.
That's why there's a lot of bickering going on.
Now you got this story, Molina in the mix and he's going to be names and it's just a
bunch of bullshit going on.
I try to stay out of it, you know, as best I can.
Yeah.
I mean, a lot of guys still have egos.
I mean, mob guys are egomaniacs.
You have to be in that lifestyle.
And self-centered and egotistical.
So there's just a lot of bickering going on.
I try to stay out of it.
Yeah, I try to stay out of it.
I had Joey on and then Michael came on the next week
and he was like, damn, if I knew you had Joey on,
I wouldn't have came on.
I swear, I swear.
Well, he shelved now, Melina,
because what he's doing now, see, we cooperated.
So we immediately added a mob. Now he shelved now, Melina, because what he's doing now, see, we cooperated, so we were
immediately out of the mob. Now he's shelved. So he has as much to do with the mob now as I do, which is nothing. He has as much power as I do. But he still plays the role. He still talks,
you know, he still talks the talk, but he's not walking the walk no more.
So what does shelved mean? Because he didn't rat, right?
No, shelved means, so years ago they would kill you.
If you did like, if this was years ago, he would get killed.
Just like I would get killed because he's a mob guy.
He was a boss.
He can't have a podcast.
You can't.
Joe Colombo had the Italian American league.
They shot him.
He got killed.
You cannot do what he's doing.
You cannot do what he's doing.
So if he would have done that when he was actively the boss back in the day, he would have got killed. You cannot do what he's doing. You cannot do what he's doing. So if he would have done that when he was actively the boss, back in the day, he would have got killed.
So now what the mob does, instead of killing you, they call it, they shelve you. That means
they take away your power. Nobody could do nothing with you. You have no say no more.
You're like shunned.
Got it.
You know, you got the scarlet letter on you. You know what I mean? Like you're shunned. Yeah.
Did you have any run-ins or hear any stories about him in his younger days?
Oh, I knew Joey Molina.
I knew him good.
I used to go meet him.
Oh yeah?
Oh yeah.
Him and my old man were in Allenwood together.
They befriended each other.
My father loved him.
Oh wow.
Yeah, I used to go.
I met him in Philly.
That one, I'm trying to...
So my phone was bugged.
I told you in 95, my phone was bugged. I told you in 95 my phone was bugged for
months and he used to call me all the time. Now he denies. I only met him for two minutes.
You know what I mean? He used to call my house all the time. I'm working on now me and Pascual,
my manager, my managing partner. He's trying to get me the tapes. We're waiting for them.
We just put in, did all the paperwork because I I'm getting the tapes, and I'm gonna play the tapes on my paper.
Oh, wow.
Of him calling, hey buddy, what's going on pal?
You know, I'm coming to New York, let's get together.
Tell Nicky I need to see him.
And I was making appointments with him
between him and the captains in the Gambino family.
So I'm gonna, you know, and now,
and you know, back in the day, we had phone books, you know.
Yeah.
So way before your time.
My dad had that yellow paper.
And we had beepers.
So I found all my old phone books,
because I had to give them to the government.
So I'm looking through boxes, and I found them.
And they have the exhibit tags on them from the trials.
And I'm looking through the phone book,
and there it is right there.
Joe Philly, I had his home number.
So I showed it on my podcast.
I went, Joey, look, does this phone number look familiar?
And it was his number?
His phone number, yeah, from when he used to live,
back in the 90s, where he lived with his wife
and his two daughters, you know?
So I'm looking forward to putting those tapes out.
That's funny.
So he denies meeting you?
He denies, He said he met he he he
denied. He said it like I only met him for like a you know a minute like he denied. He he and he denied
the friendship is what my father he minimized the friendship. He minimized the friendship because
he was in alignment with my father. He was he was a captain then.
And my father introduced him to this guy Lenny who was a
captain in the Gambino family because he didn't want to do
business anymore with the Genovese. It was a whole big
mob thing. They were doing business with the Genovese
family. They didn't like it. He wanted to do business with
the Gambino family. So my father hooked him up with this
guy Lenny. So when Joey got out of jail, I became like the go-between guy between him and Lenny.
And I was bringing messages to him in Philly.
And he would call me to make appointments with him
to see Lenny.
Got it.
And now it's like that never happened according to him.
Interesting.
Until I get the tapes.
So you guys were doing some business
with the Philly guys back then?
Nikki and Lenny were doing business with them. Yeah, they were doing business with them. Yeah,
they were doing like, they had like gambling machines and they were doing something with
private sanitation. Yeah, they were starting to roll with them. They still do business with them.
What led to the downfall of the Philly mob? Because I've seen a documentary,
they started murdering everyone, right?
Well, there was a lot of wars. I mean, Joey's crew took over the city.
I mean, Nicky Scarfur was a serial killer.
He was killing everybody.
He killed his best friend's son.
Wow, what happened?
He felt threatened by him.
The kid had a lot of, you know, everybody loved the kid.
You know, he felt, he was delusional.
And he figured he could make a move on him.
It was just a terrible thing.
And the guy was Joey Molina's friend too.
They killed him.
It was Salvi.
The guy's name was Salvi.
Just a lot of insanity.
I mean, you know, then they all went to jail and Joey took over and then Joey got arrested
a hundred times.
Damn.
There's no future in it anymore.
Especially when they know you committed an act of...
See me, they knew I committed an act of violence in 88.
I went to jail for everything.
I went to jail for everything I went to jail for
after 88 is legal today.
I went to jail for bookmaking.
I have an app on my phone.
I went to jail for policy, which is numbers.
Every store has a lot of machine.
Everything I went to jail for today is legal outside of the murder.
When I got indicted for murder.
And now the government makes money off it too.
That's why it's legal.
Crazy, right?
That's why it's legal.
How's your sports betting stuff going?
Oh, I don't, my, I can't win.
Oh, you can't?
I can't. It's a tough space, man. I can't win. Oh, you can't? I can't.
It's a tough space, man.
I can't win.
I won today, I won today on the roulette wheel.
I love the honesty though,
because a lot of people still be selling their picks
and stuff and they're losing.
Well, that's what Jeremy Molina's doing.
Yeah, no, I'm not very unlucky.
I mean, things happen when I bet like shit happens.
Like my son laughs, he goes,
I want to you, it just happens to.
No, I'm not, no, I'm bad.
There's people saying the NFL is rigged right now
with the Chiefs.
They're saying they're just winning every game.
Come on, it's so blatant.
Terrible.
I mean, I want them to lose so bad
and I'm tired of looking at her.
Every catch this night Kelsey makes,
they put her on, I mean, who cares already?
Yeah, come on, you see, first the flags,
against Texas, the flags were going up in the air
every time Texas was moving the ball.
Then they brought in a special ref
that Mahomes had a losing record against.
So what did they do?
Instead of throwing flags, they made bad calls.
First downs, they didn't give them incomplete passes
that were incomplete, They called them complete.
Pretty wild. It's so blatant these days, man.
Crazy.
Well, dude, it's been awesome.
Work people will check you out.
And you have a Patreon too, right?
Yes, I have a Patreon.
I just revamped it.
It's membership started at a dollar.
ReformGangsters.com.
They come on for a dollar.
They check out what I have.
They like it.
They become a member.
They could talk to me.
I go live.
I speak on it. It's ReformGangsterssters.com I got a lot of content coming up I'm doing a special
um the 27th of February with Sammy the Bull hopefully Michael Francis. Sammy definitely
um I'm doing the Marl Museum tonight. Sold out right? Sold out yeah I found out yesterday
because I did a podcast for them yesterday and I asked the girl, how's the tickets going?
And she goes, oh, we sold out.
Oh, that's nice.
Love it.
Yeah, so everything's going good,
but yeah, reformgangsters.com.
I love it, we'll link it below.
Thanks for coming on again, man.
Oh, my pleasure.
Absolutely, check them out, guys.
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