Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Inside the Mind of a Mafia Informant: Corruption, Betrayal & Regret

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

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I worked for the federal government for 18 years undercover. The FBI, they pretend they're the good guys, and then they stab you in the back. My life was in danger all the time. But the FBI threw me to the, not the wolves, to the whole jungle. And they did it purposely. I was born in Nerichelle, New York. You're kind of centrally located there. But in that town, there was a lot of things going on, a lot of, it was kind of an upscale type of thing.

So if you move from the Bronx and you went to Nerichelle, it was like, ooh, you know, Now we're a nerd show, like, you know, Westchester, you know? So it was kind of like a little bit on an upscale. But there was a lot of things going on around that town. Gambling, loan sharking, taking numbers, murders, you know, organized crime is organized crime, you know. But you moved up to those kind of places when you kind of stepped up from, like, if you're a wise guy for a long time and you moved up, that means you were making money and you were doing good for yourself. You tried to get that way out of that neighborhood, the bad neighborhoods, I guess you would say. Right.

Well, if you're, but you're a little kid. Like, I mean, how do you, do you see this around you or you? Didn't know nothing about it. When I went to clubs with my father, I was probably like maybe seven years old. So my father would take me with him, you know, and we go to like the clubs and there'd be the pool table in there, a bunch of guys playing cards, you know, I'd chew a little pool. The guys would show me how to shoot pool. I'd walk in my, like some of the guys would go to.

to my father. What do you got there? Who's that your bodyguard? Like, you know, and he'd be holding my hand and, you know, you hear things, but you don't really know. They show you how to shoot pool. They ask if you want something to eat. You know, you want a sandwich and stuff. And I look at my father. My father said, yeah, give me a sandwich. You want something to eat? You would call me Joseph. So I'd eat and talk to the guys, but I, they, you know, it felt like you had like a bunch of guys with you, like your father's friends. So you made you feel kind of like special in a way. Right. When did you kind of, did you, you it's funny because um you know i want to ask when did you start to notice that this was

abnormal but you but the truth is i mean i i know it's like you know being a it's like a fish that's in in a pond like it doesn't really realize it's in a pond it's all it's ever known it doesn't realize it's surrounded by water you know so you don't really notice until you get out of that and then you're like oh wow that wasn't that wasn't it's it's that's almost that's like right there that's pretty much how it was it only real only other times I've ever realized it was when if my father came out of the house and if I was

having problems with somebody in the neighborhood and their father came out, sometimes they would be a little bit, oh, I'm sorry, Joe. My father's name was Joe too as well. Now I'm not a junior, but his name was Joe. You could see that they would treat him differently like a little bit, but you still don't

grasp it. My father used to I guess whatever, how he was making the money back then. He used to wrap the money in foil and put it in a freezer. So I said, why are we putting the money in the freezer? Dad, you know, just a regular kid question. And he said, well, it's a little hot, so we're trying to cool it down a little bit.

But, you know, I stood in grasp it. I just said, I was. He meant that, though. But that was true. Yeah, he meant it. But I just said, like, okay, you know, I didn't know. But, you know, so then I seen him do other things. He would be looking at a.

book and doing going over numbers and stuff and then my uncle would come over and he would talk to him other guys would come over once in a while and they'd sit and talk with them on sundays and so he was i guess he was doing his own little number running and loan shark in uh and stuff like that but i didn't know it i mean i got a picture of him in a jumpsuit sort of thing and he was he i said where you going dad it was at nighttime he says i got to go to work and uh but he was hijacking the trucks back them and he was doing it like at macy's they would bring the parts in and he was taking them out it was it was crazy but i didn't know that back then how long does it take before you you get to a point where you realize that this is kind of the life that is going on around you i can tell you

almost exactly that's that's a really good question because i could tell you almost exactly i think i was in junior high school in fourth grade so how old are you back then 11 12 maybe something like that. Well, a lot of people knew my father at the school. Went by gym teacher, call my Ramonto. He was in the neighborhoods, you know, but my father got arrested for drug trafficking. Back then it was their, it was like what they called the, the tail end of the French connection. Right. I don't know if you heard about that. It was a big thing back in those days, you know. But my father was like on the very tail end of it, you know. So he got arrested. I didn't know he never came home and so then they finally said listen uh man i was kind of like asking where's

where's my father you know but we had to get out of the house and then we had to move in my grandparents and then i kind of knew what was going on and while i was away uh while my father was away and i was still in junior high school i was a really good gymnast at the time very long lanky and that this guy called my romanto said to me listen he says you got a lot of potential to be a gymnast don't try to be like your father because i had that attitude a little bit like you know a little not not cocky but i guess uh you know don't mess around with me kind of thing because you're a kid you know and he said don't be like your father a tough guy he said be the gymnast you know go to school and he was right um how long did your father uh get at that time

he got five years now that's the old law so that yeah because the guy supposedly they got rid of the guy that was supposed to testify against him which happened to been guess who my father's partner what a surprise. And, but they, he wound up doing five, get in five years. And then at that time, it was only 65% of the time. So he came home in three years and six months. So this was, was it federal? Yes.

Was he, I'm sorry, okay, Matt. Well, I was going to say, was he a part of a, a specific group, like, or family? Or was he just kind of, you know. There was a guy we used to call Uncle Rudy. I think Rudy Pippolo, that's his real name. I think he was, I think he was with the little. Casey guys. I don't know if he was at the Gambinos, but it might have been the LeCasey guys. And that's who he was kind of like hanging around at that time. But he was not a straight. He was not straightened out at that time. He was not a main man. My father started off. My mother, both my mother and father were beauticians, which relates to hairdressers now. You know what I mean?

So that's really what he was. That's what that was his occupation at the time. so you moved in with your your grandparents correct my father's mother and fatherhood i must have lived with them back and forth between my mother father getting separated getting together again divorced remarried i must have moved in my lifetime i can't tell you how many times always back to my grandparents house yep um so i mean was there a point when you started getting in trouble in high school or did you stick with getting great grades or i can see it your face sorry yeah that's the face this way you know without the glasses um but yeah i'm going to tell you when i started getting in trouble i was uh my birthday's in december so uh but my mother had friends and their

sons and they were like uh six months older than me but the school told my mom let them come the following year to kindergarten because he's still like a little too young but uh so anyways my mother didn't want to do that she she you know she wanted to still stay with her friends have all the kids in the same school and everything so i was in catholic school so the nun took me by the hand and i was like a little i guess i'm not going to lie i probably was a little scared you know what i mean i'm going away from my mother you know i think it was what five years old or something like that and um so i turned and look back and my mother i never forget this may she rest in peace but she told me she says you turned around and looked at me she says and that was it ever since kindergarten i was in trouble i was the either

the class count i ran away from school i actually in fourth grade smack the teacher miss rosario across the face because she hit be across the face first i mean so yeah yeah you matt when you said about trouble yeah i was in trouble yep was there a point i mean at what point you know by when do you start getting in in trouble i mean like like i don't know you know selling drugs you know rob like whatever whatever the you're breaking the law like crime why uh i think at 14 years old i think uh i started smoking when i was uh smoking pot whatever how you want to say it when i was 11 years old so uh i got turned down because i hung around with people who were like 18 you know 19 older than me uh well at least their their their

was i hung around with their kid brother or something like that and somebody passed at me a joint you know and i wanted to look cool i actually liked the little the girl that my friend's older brother was dating had a crush on her for years so of course i took the joint i smoked it i didn't know but i stopped uh did t hc and all of those kind of things smoked hash uh you know took those pills back in those day green teas i don't know how old you are but that's what it was like pills they used to be t hc pills I think I did L-11 once I got really sick from it though But anyway

I stopped everything went cold When I was 14 And that's when I started selling it And I proved to myself that I didn't need drugs But I was able to sell what they used to call loose joints I started really low on the total pole You know then of course I would do anything like for money I would rob you if I had to or whatever

If somebody pointed me in the right direction And, you know, that's how I learned not to rob anybody in your own neighborhood. You always go outside of your neighborhood to rob, you know, never do anything where you live. Why did something go bad? No, it's just that you, you just get like little tidbits from your family. Like when I was seven years old, my grandfather said to me, don't, if you want to kill anybody, you have to, you know, kill anybody. Just do it by yourself. He said, you know, why, don't you?

And I looked at him. I said, you know, because I was still with seven. And, you know, I was just looking at that dumb look and he said, because you're not going to tell on yourself, are you? And I went, okay. And that stuck with me, as you can see, I'm in my 60s now. And I still remember what he told me. So he made a lot of sense, you know. That's not a normal discussion. No, I didn't have a normal life. You know, let's face it. I wish I did. Everybody wants the Brady Bunch life. Anybody who's in my age and remembers them. But no. I mean, there was a guy that to the house, Alex Soconi, came with another guy, about two o'clock at the morning, maybe knocking on the door at my grandfather's house because my father was living there. My father was separated from my mother then again. And so my father walks out the door yelling and screaming, and the guy told him, be quiet. Now, this guy, Alex Soconi, was so tough that he had chunks of flesh taken out of him from

a guy he had a fight with who was another tough guy, and they started biting each other. Okay, yeah. Yeah, this is the, this guy, Alex Cicconi actually had legitimate papers that said he belonged in a nut house. Right. So, yeah, and the whole town knew them. They were all, people were kind of scared of them, you know, because he was a bouncer for a while. Anybody who was built muscular, he would, you know, try to start a fight with them. But anyway, this guy used to collect money to. That's what he was due for living.

He had no really sense. But he came to my house and my grandfather was saying, You know, I went outside with my father because I still wouldn't want him to fight the guy alone. Nothing happened, but my grandfather was saying, bring him inside, bring him inside. He says, we'll chop him up in the basement. Now, this is, I was about maybe, yeah, 20-something years old then. And but we couldn't do it because the guy was waiting for him in the car. But if he came by himself, we would have said, let's have a cup of coffee.

And then he would have never made it anywhere. And lo and behold, my father wound up killing a guy later on down the road. Yep. Is this the guy that he went to prison for? No. No, he went, the first time went to prison was for drugs. Right, and then he got out. Okay.

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So if you're looking for a little change of pace, check out the casino. It's perfect for when you want to unwind and still be a part of the action with everyone else. Sign up with my bookie now and use promo code Cox. And we'll hook you up with a bonus to get started. Bet on anything, anytime, anywhere with my bookie. So he did there, you know, little time, like three months or something like that. That wasn't a lot of time back then. And then the last time he was supposed to go to prison, that's when he ran away.

That was going to be for a murder. Um, so he ran away for that one. Uh, supposedly my father, I, I, I, I looked up the FOIA act, you know, the, uh, Yeah, pretty new information act. That's right. So he, uh, supposedly had like about four guys under his belt that he killed, uh, that we know of still, or at least that they know of. I, I don't really know.

He never discussed any murders with me or anything like that. Okay. So how, did you end up graduating like high school or? Unfortunately, that's a good question too. No, I didn't. I wound up. I know. I was when I got suspended when I was in sixth grade. So one of my friends and me were walking, we were bored, I guess, you know how six grade. So he said to me, Jimmy Mediato, I never forget him. And he knows what he did because I still talk to him back in the days.

He apologized to me for, you know, ratting me out. But so he said to me, says, Joe, why don't you pull the fire along? I said, nah, I don't want to do that. He goes, come on, I dare you. Then he said he doubled there at me, and then I pulled it. Well, obviously the fire department came, the whole school emptied out. It was a big thing, and I got suspended for three and a half years. But I know. Three and a half years, I just kicked you out. Why don't it just kick you out?

Because I was under 16 years old. I guess they couldn't do it for some reason. You know, they were probably more democratic back then, you know. And so they didn't kick me out, but they suspended me. And then they gave me a tutor. And so the tutor guy that came over there, Wayne Chambers, he and I became like this. I'll put it like so you can see it like this. This is a type of guy who, okay, I'm going to tell you how he came to the house.

I didn't want a tutor. I was mad. I was angry that I got suspended, got caught, that I got ratted on. I was all of that. He comes to my house. My mother makes him a cup of coffee. We're in the kitchen. My mother's waiting in the living room.

You can't see too much. I pull a knife out of the drawer, like the one from like cycle. with the you remember psycho when he stabbed the girl in the shower he dressed up like a woman but your knife like a big yep so i grabbed that knife and i told him i says listen you're never going to come back here but you're going to pass me anyway now i'm not even i think i was 16 maybe years old or whatever and this is what i'm telling this guy well i don't know what he said to me or how he talked to me but we just he diffused the whole situation he taught me things that i didn't know taught me a lot about shakespeare and stuff like that as a matter of fact i could quote shakespeare

right off the top of my head but soft what light to be on the window breaks it is the east and juliet is a son so i'm very i know it's really weird because i wrote a lot of poems because of this gentleman who didn't stand up to me but talked me down right you know because you know why like it's what you're leading to a little bit matt the the the thing is i never had anybody to talk to me like that i only had people to show how tough they was and you know and all like that i I didn't have no real guidance. You know, nobody said, what do you want to do with yourself for your life? Like, you know what I mean?

Nobody sat down and said, do you want to be this? Do you want to be that? And I didn't have none of that. Right. You know, I mean, maybe they asked me once or twice, but, you know, I did the old thing. I don't know, like that, you know. But he talked to me and I passed. And then he had to go back to high school on probation.

Well, I wound up knocking some kid out in school. at 11th grade and then yeah i didn't graduate so there you go so what i mean what so what happened then like you you know you're i'm assuming you go assuming that your parents your parents find out about or your grandparents or your mom finds out they what do they tell you look you can't just you got to go get a job like you got to do something you can't just get out of school and hang out in your spare room that's right uh so i worked at my grandfather putting down linoleum and like rugs and stuff like that. He owned a place called Ben Carle up in her shell.

Of course, I hustled a little bit. Like I said, I sold a little pot here and there. So I made a couple of bucks there. Then I did various jobs in the neighborhood. You know, worked at the grocery store. I worked as a car detailer. I used to detail cars at a couple of dealerships at one time. So I was trying to make my way in life.

But, you know, I finally got a good job at a junior high. high school as a custodian. My cousin married this guy. His father was the custodian at the school the head custodian. So I went there. I didn't know what I was doing, but they taught me how to clean and mop up and do all that stuff like certain custodians would do. But actually, while I was doing that, I took the postman test and I actually passed with a 98 because my memory used to be so sharp. I used to watch it on TV this match game or whatever it was. So they would show you on the board what was on there and then they close it and then you'd have to remember where those pieces go and i remembered it and that's how i was so good that's kind of the test it was so i was

actually passed the test with like a 98 so they called me and they wanted to give me part-time work now i'm like a kind of a creature habit i don't like to change i was all right in there making some money i figured part-time work i'd have to change jobs i'd have to learn something so i guess i was a little more apprehensive about going into it and i should have because i would have that's how they start you off you become full time after that now i had two uncles and a cousin who was postman it would have been like i went into the family business you know and i would have been retired at maybe 47 48 years old with a nice little pension but i'm assuming that's not what happened well once again nobody said to me you know i told everybody that i passed it and

everything but nobody said go forward it's a federal job it's a you know you have uh benefits and all this other stuff yeah nobody talked to me so i didn't do it like a fool and i regret it to this day i regret it what so what happened so what happened what'd you end up doing well i wound up getting fired at the job no surprise there uh the boss was i guess well the first it's a little bit my fault Let me explain. I was young. I was about 24 years old, 23 years old, and so I used to like to go out to the club. So Friday came.

What happened was, you know how you punch the ticket into the time clock back in those days? Well, I thought I was smarter than most people, and I got the key to the time clock, and I used to mess with it a little bit to try to show that I put in my time, but I left a couple hours early. But lo and behold, I didn't know really how to. work the time clock that good and so everybody I was punching in was getting all the wrong times all the teachers all the everybody well of course they blamed me for it they didn't have no proof so they couldn't fire me but the guy kept putting more work on me more work on me and so he tried to catch me there when I wasn't there at nighttime well I was there at night because they

told me you better watch out mr. Joyce who that's what the custodian was after my my cousin's father-in-law left he said uh he went upstairs and he was were on the third floor of the school and he said look it's not working out i said what do you talk about i'm doing everything i'm working overtime for you and i'm still here at the job you didn't catch me doing anything well the next thing i knew i had him over the railing i was throwing him over the third floor railing but the other custodian that worked that night to me this guy jesse he heard the guy screaming and he came running upstairs and he grabbed me and he grabbed the guy was almost as ankles i was about to let go he almost went down the whole three flights of

stairs. Well, I guess that led to the fire in, so I got fired. And then, you know, I wasn't doing nothing for a little while. And then finally, uh, my father's boss who was, uh, Barney Belamo, uh, he worked. He, we had the Jacob Javitt Center at that time. Uh, the Genovese kind of controlled that now. We took it away from the Westies. And then he says, what's the kid doing? So my father said nothing. He says, okay, send them down there. And I started making, uh, I think 20 something dollars and uh 20 something dollars an hour 48 dollars overtime so all i had to do is just i get a call and i show up the jacob chavis center and that was it what do you mean that was it what was the job the job was uh i actually went there i didn't even know so the guy that was running the show

down there was uh ralphi uh ralphi capola was a good friend of mine we grew up together fought together everything uh he he's gone now too they got rid of him too but um he said you got to get a tool belt i didn't even know nobody told me so i had to run up the block i had to get a tool belt i bought a hammer and bought all the stuff all you did was put the boots together for all the shows so you get car shows you get diamond shows hair shows it was a big uh thing like that and then the other uh good thing was i was working around with a lot of wise guys i got free tickets i can go anytime i want to the shows and uh i was working around with some really good good guys but i started messing up over there too because i sometimes i would say

sing and so all the guys that knew me some guys from brook or some guys from queens they said joe get up there and sing and we'll pretend like we broke the glass like you know they would hold like a plastic glass like they had something in and when i hit the high note like an opera singer it would break so the boss calls me in and said we can't have this over here joe you understand what this is about you got to you got to keep appearances up he says you can't keep doing this kind of stuff so anyways uh then my mother passed away she died of cancer once that happened i i flipped out and uh i wasn't i wasn't i wasn't i wasn't out of control so a lot of bad things happen uh i was about 28 years old i think 28 29 yeah about

about 20 i'm sorry 27 maybe i think she died in 1988 july 8 but she was sick for 14 months with cancer and then after that i freaked out so What happened when you say you freaked out? What does that entail? Well, I started doing all the things I wanted to do. I wanted to tell my father off for the life he put me in because I couldn't talk to my mother, really. They didn't want me to talk to her. Of course, I was afraid of my father when I was younger.

You know, so I sold his money. I took it from him so I can get his attention. And I did get his attention. We finally sat down, talked. I gave him back the money. I told him that he ruined my life, kept me away from my mother all those years. I couldn't tell her I loved her.

So, yeah, I heard him because he hurt me. You know what I mean? And that's the way it was. I'm sort of vengeful in those kind of ways. but we made amends my father and i and then he you know he understood you know i put it to him in certain ways because sometimes if i just put it to him about his mother what would he do if you know because my grandfather was sometimes mean to my grandmother his mother you know my other grandfather used to hit my other grandmother which was on my mother's side and my mother's side of the family

they also used that come they actually came from uh uh italy but they actually worked for al capone back in those days believe it or not you know it's kind of weird to say but uh al capone had my uh somebody killed in my family actually on my mother's side so this is a long history of where i come from uh you know all of that stuff you know what what so i mean what so i mean once so your mother passed away, you had, you know, the issue with your, with your dad. I mean, at what point, you know, what happened after that? Well, I, my father was in on a murder. Supposedly they were, they were, they had suspicions that this guy was going to testify. I forget his name exactly right now off the top of my head. But he was well to do, well known. So he got called down. My

father was had directions to call down to uh to go to brooklyn and so he took the guy down they talked to him and everything but you know these guys are sharp you know what i mean they are and even if they don't really suspect it so much they don't want to take chances it's easier to have you killed than to say no he's good you know what i mean well when you say i'm sorry when you say your dad talked to him so he went down there and said look you can't testify whatever he had he had a talk no serious talk of what no okay my father never said anything he let the guys talk to of the bosses because he was i think a big shot himself as well uh and so mickey generosa was actually the guy that he went to go see he was he's gone now too but he was a big shot for a long

long time in the and the genevice family so they actually talked to this guy my father just listened or whatever even if he was even in there or not i don't know but that's when they called my father down and they said he's got to go so uh the next thing you know short time after that i don't know how long it was after that a week or day I don't know exactly, but they found him hanging in his garage, and they said he committed. But that's not really, yeah, even the fed said, yeah, even the feds knew that I wasn't sued because they were working with him now. If you're going to be working with the feds, you don't really want to kill yourself. You're trying to get out of something, you know what I mean.

Yeah, yeah, things are working. Yeah, you know what the way it is. I ain't got to tell you. But that's what it is. He's trying to save himself. He's not going to try to kill himself. Matter of fact, the guy that was his landscaper there was we used to call him Papa G. I knew him and his wife really good.

So the feds went into the house and they took out out of the air ducts up there, they found $400,000 in cash. So we made fun of Papa G. We said, what's wrong with you? When you were in the house alone, you didn't go through the house to look for the money? Oh, my God, this stuff, you know. I interviewed a guy who was a jewel thief who had broken into, you know, he broke into, I forget what it was.

was like a jewelry store like in a high-rise building he broke in and he got into the safe and he said and so he got the jewelry jewels and and he's like you know which was like a million dollars he was like a million dollars in jules and he was a kid he was a young kid probably in his probably early 20s and he was leaving and he said there was a bunch of bags but they looked like mail bags you know the thick oh yeah he's like like a bunch of them just piled up in the corner and he said i mean they were so that i think he even said like they had to move them at some point even like they're sitting on them they're moving them and he said i'm thinking it's just some kind of mail or something gets the money leaves the feds were watching the building the

whole time because what was happening was that these guys were laundering money for the mob and he breaks into the place the money's there he doesn't know he never so when he gets out there's a there's a huge article like the next day a couple days later his father brings him aside and it's like what is wrong with you you didn't look in the bags he's like i was there to get in the safe i'm not searched in the place i'm here for the safe he's like you could have looked in the bags like what do you was millions like they caught like five million dollars he's like i just didn't i was there for the jewels i was thrilled i got all the jewels yeah yeah so wow well listen you know my uncle he was he was a cop and uh he went to go rob this lumber lumber lumber

for the wood and everything, well, he brought his wallet with him. For some reason, of course, the wallet fell out of his pocket, and that's how he got kicked off the police force. I mean, but you should know these things. Don't bring your wallet, and you should go with somebody else or somebody, don't leave no stone unturned, no pun intended, you know what I mean? Yeah, obviously, I have another buddy that walked, he said he was a kid. He's probably 19, 20.

He walked through an apartment complex, and he saw somebody's sliding glass door was open. Wow. And so he goes around, knocks on the door, nobody's home, opens the sliding glass door, goes inside, actually finds the guy's credit cards, takes the credit cards, goes to the mall, use the credit cards, bought a bunch of stuff, and then started thinking like, I don't know, I don't want to get in trouble. You know, he's kind of, you know, he's young kid. He was like, you know what? He said, I got scared. So he said, he goes back, brings the stuff he bought. and put it in the guys

you know on his bed put the credit cards back and left he said a couple hours later the cops show up and it was like what happening he same thing when he was pulling stuff out of his pocket he put his wallet on the thing on like

oh just and left it there we were like wow what are you like that's the dumbest thing I've never heard in my life and it happens listen that's why they always say every crime that's committed there's always one thing that somebody makes a mistake on you know look

you can plan it for days weeks months you know but you could still make a mistake because sometimes in that heat at a moment that's why i always love you that's why i like that uh that movie the devil's advocate with alpuccino and he says to kiana reeves alpuccino says to him he says can you summon your you know your talent when it really counts like in other words because you know some people fold under pressure some people become better under pressure, you know, and that was a really good line. Yeah. You know, my fear is whenever I talk to guys, they're always like, bro, was you ever commit fraud again? I'm like, you know, I'm like, no. Well, I mean, I guess the circumstances right. You'll do anything. But, you know, I'm like, no, but not because of what, why you think.

You know, it's not because I think I'm going to screw up. As much as it's that all the times I've been caught it's kind of that fly in the ointment it was something that i couldn't account for you know the guy that plans the first perfect bank robbery and walks out the door and it just by complete coincidence some patrolman who's supposed to be across town happens to swing by to see his wife at the place right next to the bank because they had an argument this morning like how do you account for that you knew that patrol car was supposed to be on the other side of town you know You just can't, you just, it's that, you can't figure it out all. No, you, you'll be like a victim of circumstance.

You can't figure it out all. I mean, you know, anything can pop up. You could try to plan for it, but listen, it's almost like what they say about guys like me. They go, are you expecting wise guys to come around the corner and blow you away or whatever? I say, you know, something to some degree, yes. But at the other time, I think it's that guy that nobody's thinking about, that nobody, the guy that comes out of the woodwork that nobody ever heard about. that's the guy that gut you you know who was i forget which which guy it was like a former mobster and he was like he said oh gosh he he said it's not because you know they've these guys like

they got a hit on him he cooperated whatever and they're like are you are worried he's like i'm not really worried about the older guys the guys that probably would have done anything he said i'm worried about some young kid that's just young and stupid and he's trying to make a name for himself and sees me and decides to take a couple pop shots at me and actually hits me and kills me by accident he's like it's not the 65 year old guy because that guy at this point he's 65 years old it's like look bad i just want to live my life that's right what you did okay do what you did and let me just let me drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and just and watch tv and live out my life i'm done i believe it yeah he's not worried about that

guy it's the young kid no that's exactly and that's exactly right when i was away with I was with Jerry Chili, in MDC on my last bid. And so he said, look, when I go home, because he didn't probably half his life in prison, he said, when I go home and they want some work done, I'm going to tell him, look, give it to the young guy. Why are you going to give it to me? And he told me that. That's like over 10 years ago now already. So I remember that.

But that's the truth that what that guy said, he's right. You always got to worry about, you know, you can't know everybody in the life. I was in the life, and I didn't know everybody. You know, so, you know, somebody trying to make their bones, trying to make themselves. get noticed, you know, it's like what the feds did to me, the FBI. They didn't, they don't really expose me. They didn't throw me to the woods. They threw me to everybody. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that's how, that's how they kill you. They did the same thing with Willie Boy Johnson, the assistant U.S. attorney. He didn't want to cooperate anymore. He, he cooperated,

but he didn't want to take the stand against John Gotti. Well, what do you think they did? They exposed them. You can look this up yourself. I'm sure you got, you know, you're resourceful. and then he wound up getting killed because now they knew he was a rat so you know this is this is so if they didn't get me at trial which they lost at my trial they try they figure well what's his life worth anyway he can't go back to his old ways he's going to have a harder time earning money people hate him and somebody maybe will kill him and then we'll be all happy they won't say that outright right right right you know how they do it well it's the same way it's the same way it's It's the same way when they gave me permission. The FBI actually gave me permission to kill a wise guy. They didn't say, okay, here's the gun. You know what to do. No, they didn't do that.

Of course not. They got to protect themselves. But they said, I told them I might have to go on this hit. And they said, look, do whatever you got to do, Joe, to protect yourself. But make sure you tell us right away so we could protect you. I don't know how they're going to protect me. But if we could figure that out, you and I might hit the lotto tomorrow. they call that public um shoot there's a term for it where they give you it it's called public

something where they's because i know guys that are like like they they let them sell drugs they let them buy and sell drugs it's called they've got a name for it's called public something where where they're allowing you to to act in that manner yep you know just to just to maintain your cover because you're in danger if you don't same reason that if a cop is in a group of people they'll you know and hey everybody's doing whatever drugs or whatever if you have to if you're in that position you have to like you can't say no no i can't i whoa whoa i could it's not good i'm gonna have to do this no that's right and there's plenty of movies on that if you don't take the hit of the to go to or anything now right away they go oh look see he must be a cop because he's not

participating well that's why i this is the reason why it's such a a mess up situation in my situation because i worked for the federal government for 18 years undercover so When after I got a pinch, they said, we'll give you some money to, you know, to put out there in the street and everything. And, and, and I should have said, yeah, give me all the money. I give me 50,000. I could put it right out right away. But then I asked them this question because I was so mad at them because they, they run there, the second people I was with, not my first handler, these other people. I said, what happens when the guy doesn't want to pay me? You know, I have to do what I have to do now. You understand? I can't not smack them around, heard them, whatever I got to do. they said they didn't want to answer me then so it's the same thing i'm allowed to do all these things they gave me permission to talk about murders extortion or anything like that but yet if i'm with somebody in the bar and all my guys are fighting i'm not supposed to just sit in the back and said i didn't see it you know it's almost like a catch-22 how do you are supposed to operate you know so let let's jump back to like when do you start to get into criminal behavior

you know that gets you eventually you know grabbed probably like in my like i guess maybe more towards my 20s i mean i started really rocking and rolling uh you know i started robbing drug dealers at that time uh because it was easy now don't get me wrong i wasn't robbing him for big money i didn't have any real connections to uh guys that had millions in the house or something like that which i wish i did but i didn't uh i was robbing them in the street you know the little stupid things i take a roll of money this i actually just won't guy that i got that showed me how to do it he actually got shot later on um he we would take a bunch of uh hundreds and stuff and showed him we want this all this cocaine and he they would go yeah yeah

give us the so and then we give him the twenty dollars in singles and then take off with how how many grams of coke and then we'd sell it and make some money and that kind of thing uh of course i had a lot of guns at that time uh because i was after my father left to go on the lamb i was collecting money for things that he had going on trucking companies or all these kind of things like that but i wasn't kicking it up to the to the wise guys um so finally i was told not to go there anymore like that but i guess maybe if they were looking for the money but they never got it from me you know so i kept all these thousands of dollars from them uh i figured they they could afford it you know what i mean i couldn't but they could so i didn't know you know what was going on but uh you know i had a lot of a lot of

lot of i liked guns so i owned like at one time 30 35 guns at one time different places so i started doing that after my first pinch when i got caught with the guns with the extortion and all of this stuff like that and i was doing time that's when i started making some more connections well let's talk about that well what happened with that was that i loaned some kids some money and uh we were supposed to be in business together but i told them listen As long as you give me my end of the money back, I won't try to hurt you if any Vig or anything like that. Just give me my initial money that I put into the business.

Well, he didn't, of course. Then he told me his brother would help him out. Well, anyway, the loan grew to like $30,000 or whatever it was. I had a couple of guys come with me. We put a telephone cord around his neck. My other friend held a gun to his head. Well, he went to the feds about it, and that's when I started getting problems.

homes. So they grabbed me. I saw him, the guy that we put the telephone cord around his neck. He was wearing a wire. He was supposed to set up his own brother, who was my partner. Anyway, I seen him. Now, this guy was big. He was 6'4, 450 pounds. It wasn't like a built guy, but he was big. I'm only 5.11 and a half. I think I was 160 pounds back then. And I seen him on this porch, and I had my sap gloves on, which were weighted gloves with the lead in them back in those days. So I run up to the porch of him And I said, hey Eddie, I talked to him Bing, boom, where's my money? He hit me bound in them And I knock up to the ground And I get pinched right there And I never see the street

Till three and a half years later. What are the cops across the street in a car? Right, monitoring. Yeah, the feds because he was wearing a wire He was waiting for his brother to show up. Now his brother actually did pass by But he felt something was wrong And he just kept going.

He never talked to him. But on the wire that he was wearing for his brother, He got me wearing it. And so that was it. I had a gun in the car with the serial number scratched off. The girl I was with got arrested, not arrested, but they took it down to down there and everything. And as she walked by me and I was in one of the offices handcuffed, I said, don't worry

about it, Karen, you're okay. You don't know nothing about me. And I was yelling at out there, you know, trying to give her a little heads up to, like, keep your mouth shut, don't worry. And she made fun of me because my legs were so skinny. Everybody needs a good pair of jeans. What I like about the perfect jeans, is that the moment you put them on, they feel like sweatpants.

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the perfect gene dot nyc with promo code cox 15 please support our channel and tell them we sent you your khakis get the perfect jeans had shorts on and flip flops and i'm beating this kid down to a pulp you know pulverized him but you know he died too actually he's he's going now too but i wound up doing the time and doing the time is when i met a lot of people more of course and then of course that's when I found out when my father died because he was still on the lamb when I when I got pinched. So after the three years you basically you built some contacts like what do you get into when you get out? And who are these contacts? What are the contacts? Are they? Are these contacts? Yeah, that's a good point too that you brought up because you, you know, everybody thinks

when you go to prison, you're going to be reformed. Now, now some guys go in and they're scared to death. Some guys go in and they make the contacts and they learn more things than they didn't know in the street. I'm one of those guys. And then other guys are just still stand up guys and they don't talk to nobody and that kind of thing, you know, because you even get wise guys that are like, oh, I don't want to get in any trouble here. What? Are you kidding? It's too late to be afraid now. We're here. You know what I'm saying? But, you know, they would start writing, you know, grievance letters or I figure what they used to call them in the top house. That's it. Yeah, there you go. yeah, that's it. I'm like, we're not allowed to write cop-outs, bro. We're gangses. We're not allowed to

write a cop-out. If you're a gangster, you can't write a cop-out. Anyway, but you probably heard that anyways, probably from other people. The new BMO, V-I-Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks, more points, more flights, more of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash ViPorter to learn more. Anyway, so I meet a lot of people,

and I heard of some really good scores, and I seen the mistakes they made. But I hooked up with these guys, and they were in the Bonano family or affiliated. I actually met Vinny Artuso's son, Anthony, Johnny, I'm sorry. And Vinny was actually supposedly in on the hit, on the Paul Castellano hit back in those days. So he was a good kid, Johnny, nothing to do with the family business, but a tough guy in his own right. And he helped me out, too.

I could have got stabbed in there from a couple of guys. And he said there'll be a big war here if anything happens to this kid. Because when he came in, I gave him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. he was starving you know that diesel therapy you probably know about yeah the worst so i hook up with this kid bobby defaio he gets out i get out now we start going down to brooklyn to uh anthony anthony spiro's place in uh 85th and bat there when you had a he had a place over there the big apple car company but he's still locked up he was talking to bobby i guess bobby got to know him and then now they send them down there and he talks to this jewish guy murray was his name i

don't even know his last name now murray dressed like a wise guy had the snake skin shoes the nice the bell bottom slacks he you know because he's around that you know what i mean he's not he's not like a jewish guy anymore well we started i started collecting for him and everything because the guys from bath avenue there was a there was a group of guys the bat avenue crew they were tough guys and i heard a lot of nice a lot of well a lot of nice stories a lot of good stories about him but you know what i'm saying if you're going to be tough guys they they they were those they were tough guys well Murray liked them. He talked very good about them and stuff.

But he showed me a lot of stuff down there in Brooklyn. I met Anthony Sparrow's daughter. You know, and Brooklyn is like different than Westchester. I mean, it was almost like you had a license to be a wise guy there. This guy pulled up with a Lincoln, opened up the trunk. Okay, what's that? You look like an extra large. You look like, and you give him $100 and they give you a sweatsuit to wear.

You know, Sergio Dukini or whatever sweatsuits back in them days. But they had swag. They had anything you wanted. Guns. I was like, it was almost like I died and went to mafia heaven. You know what I mean? It was like, it was like, great. I said, holy.

And I was going, I was so, I was so happy down there in one way. I'm cooperating with the feds now. But I'm happy there in one way because there's a side of me that I grew up with that I'm like, wow, if it was this good, you know? But, yeah, go ahead. You probably want to know when I started cooperating. Yeah, I was going to say, how does that happen? when does that happen so i'm in odysville new york i find out my father dies okay i'm

heartbroken about it sad as as anybody else would be uh i had the body ship back from honduras was where he was and so i'm thinking like okay i'm now i'm alone i'm still fighting my case i don't know what i was facing if i was trying to get three years some people said i was going to get 10 years but either way i was fighting my case i had no idea about cooperating whatsoever um it didn't even register for me to cooperate you know uh that's the way that's the that's the way it came because that's just the way we came from i didn't think like oh i'm gonna get out of a bid and talk i never registered to me i thought i couldn't talk i know that's just the way it was until the fbi pulled me down to mcc i catch a superseding

and diving with my uncle and now uh i think i'm going to rated back to Otisville still fighting my case well i get pulled down to the to the courthouse again or whatever i'm sitting in the bullpen now i'm walking down this thing the marshals bring me and there's two agents at the end and i'm like what's going on this ain't the way to the courthouse i never went this way but i don't say nothing and they said okay you got to go with them now well now the agents yeah one of the agents that was there that arrested me the day that i hit the guy to the beat up the the big kid and a couple more agents the u s a usa and my attesay and my attorney. No, I'm looking around. Like, what's going on? Benjamin Rosenberg was the AUSA back then.

I think he's got a private practice. If he's still doing it, I don't even know. So I said, mind if I have a minute with my attorney? So I sit down with my attorney for two seconds. I said, Bruce, what's going on? The name was Bruce Bendish from White Plains. Good, good attorney. Good attorney. And I said to him, I said, what's going on? He said, well, Joe, I said, I got a call last night. They said, I had to be here today. I said, but I told you, I'm not going to talk to these people and i'm nothing to say to them he said well what else you got better to do he says see what they got to say just listen to him you know so i did i sat there for a little bit and they gave you the spiel they give you the old hey you know this kind of life you know you know where you're headed and

this and this and that look what happened to your father all this kind of stuff and then they said look we want to show you something so now they take the handcuffs and they put them to the front of me and now they got a stack of photos about maybe this stick you know and I start going through it I see the cemetery when my father was and everything and I didn't even notice they exhumed my father's body I never knew this now I'm seeing my father for the first time on a slab after a couple of years he was gone and he had decay on his face and everything he had a scar on his chest and that was the first time I saw him after a couple of years well

to say it was pretty emotional for me. So they gave me a few minutes. They walked out of the room. I was with my attorney. I listened to what they said. I just didn't have the head to talk to them anymore, and I went back. Being in prison, I guess I was doing a lot of thinking, what's going on, what happened. They told me actually at that time that somebody went down there, three people went down there to kill my father.

why I don't know the only reason one of the reasons why I believe him because some people would say why did you believe him and I agree with them why would I when I before my father went on the lamb he he showed me a card the FBI came to the house and I said you know FBI however their logo is and shit I said okay and I said what's up dad he says well they told me that there was a they intercepted a call and they said we got to get rid of J. be now that i believe to that point i do believe them too because they're supposed to by law come to inform you that there's a hit out on your life or your life's in danger or however they want to phrase it there the i i think i actually know who put the hit on my father if it's a real hit because

the guy didn't like my father and i don't like him either and i talk bad about him all the time because i i don't like him to this day but it's just it goes back to the story with mickey generosa I think he's the one to put the hit out on my father and there's a lot of reasons why and I won't get into him in Boyer's show but anyway Well I mean

Another reason to believe that is that they exhumed the body They didn't exhumed the body You didn't get permission to assume the body If there was no evidence to support it You can't just go into a judge and say Hey I want to pull this I want to exume this guy's body and do an autopsy You can't say that you got to go to the judge

Say this is why we believe that this is what happened And you can't just say it It's like this is the person here's the transcript, here's the video, here's the, you know what I mean? Yeah, Matt, let me tell you something. That's an excellent point that you're making, and I'm going to tell you, to exhum the body, they told me later on the FBI that they didn't know if it was my father. They thought they were just sending and pretending that he was dead.

So they did tell me that much, yes. So you brought up a very good point, and I thank you for that. I never even said that on the air until this time is the first. time is actually that's a very good point the other point is is um my father was supposed to be cremated because he didn't want to um you know that's what he wanted but we had the body ship back anyways and we're going to have a cremated here but it didn't happen that way he got buried with my mother but three months later they dig the body up okay now i'm still fighting the case like i said i'm not trying to pat myself on the back i don't know anything what's going on

until i get the interview from these guys now it makes sense a little bit that like you know to me in my mind that somebody did go down there to kill him because there was another wise guy that he was hanged that was down there that ran away i don't know his name but that's how they my father knew about it and he also paid the the government money you know had to give him seventy thousand dollars out of the safe deposit box and to go down there with so some of it was to pay the the people down there so he had some connections obviously and because they didn't I used to call him on the pay phone back then you had to go with the quarters and stuff like that well the one time I went to go call him here you remember yeah yeah exactly so it would cost like three dollars and something cents back then I forget but anyway I got the he didn't answer the phone that time and it was disconnected his girlfriend at that time is you know told me that he moved you know but they also told me the same thing too but they told me why he moved they said because they he got wind we were going to arrest him but because the officials are crooked and he paid him

he warned them they warned them and he moved to another villa see now all of that is making sense to me so i'm not trying to say like oh yeah the fbi i believe everything they say no i don't but the coincidences were not coincidences you know because i was there and knew that he did move i just didn't know the reason why p s i'm i'm in the prison i'm thinking to things out, thinking things over, and I'm like, how am I ever going to find out who killed my father? Because in our life, you're never supposed to tell anybody who killed who, what, you know, how are you going to ask? Oh, excuse me, you know who killed my father? Hey, can I get that? Then they're going to kill me because they know what I'm about. They know what I'm going to do, but I went to

my uncle when I came home later on, but, well, let me, don't let me jump ahead too much. Finally, I called my attorney. I said, come on in. I want to see. He came up and I said, okay, let's see what they got to offer me let's see what they got to say well i sat down with them they said look no promises no nothing they give you like a 5k one letter to a judge they said we can reduce your sentence well the information i gave them while i was cooperating with him i should have walked out okay i did almost as much time as sammy the bull and he admitted to 19 murders right you know i solved i had like two homicides i solved for them and all of this kind of stuff i should have i mean i only gave me four years i shouldn't even did four years but all right

whatever they screwed me already there so that's where the first screwing from the fbi gave me you know i came home i asked my uncle what happened did you hear anything uh because that's how my father got his start to my uncle he's really my cousin but i call him uncle out of respect and then he told me everything will wash ashore he says in the knife wounds that i saw this the the autopsy supposedly wounds was the way that they did that he said to hide the stab wounds now i don't know what to believe what am i supposed to believe so i'm on the i'm on the in my mind i'm on this thing on this on this quest this uh this obsession to find out who killed my father and that's where i started working more with uh wise guys and just trying to get close to people

and one of the reasons why i joined the banana family was well because there was some people in the the Genevese family I did not like, the Bonano family was kind of like a more, I can't say better or worse, but they were more lenient. They were more, I don't know, I can't explain it. But then also, somebody in the Bonano family could find out because they, and they might be up to tell me what happened because it wasn't a direct knowledge from, it wasn't really somebody in the Genevieve's family. Because my father was made before he died.

He did get trained out. So, okay, but when you get out of, you get out, do you actually get a handler? Like, do you go to the FBI and say, this is what I'm going to do kind of to cover yourself? Or you just start working with them and think, and then they come later. Because I mean, to go to that person and say, this is what I'm going to do. Kind of gives you a little bit of coverage. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm going to go.

I'm going to do some stuff. I'm going to work with you. But I'll keep in touch with you. If I find anything out, I'll call you. at least you had a little yeah no you that's right you're right i don't get myself as much credit for being that smart but i started working for them while i was in prison okay so i yeah so i actually yeah i saw i led them to a double homicide another no i understand that yeah i understand that but then you got out i'm saying are you still in contact with the fbi or did you put that behind

you get out and just start start committing crimes and i'm boosting cars or doing or robbing people or do whatever and forget about the FBI there were some crimes i won't talk about but also but there were some things i still was doing in the street i was collecting money i was loan sharking again but the FBI guy came to me and said to you know he met me woke to me home appreciate everything that i did for him and he says listen he said you still want to work for us you know this is what you could do this what you you know and he actually gave me the green light to do whatever i wanted to do yeah you know without yeah exactly without without you know as long as i bring information to him or

whatever but without getting myself in trouble in other words i i'm not supposed to what they said initiate the crime but basically if somebody yeah i know it's the joke i know it's a joke it's funny but anyway i started working with him for a little while when i first came home i stopped when he told me that he came to me and he said listen joe he says we can't protect you as good as we used to anymore and i said what does that mean he said what does that mean he said because there's a new law something came out where he was him and maybe one other person supposedly only knew about me that was working in the feds but now it's supposed to be common knowledge in the feds who's working with who no more secrets within the agency or something like

that he's like a database now exactly so what happened was exactly so actually he said i feel I don't trust everybody I work, what he said. And he also don't trust assisting you as attorneys because they, now, you know, now if they know that I worked with the feds, and they could say it in the street. So I took even a bigger chance. Yeah, that's, that's super telling that he would say, I don't trust everybody that I'm working. Like, he, that's super telling on the, the bureau in general. And, yeah, he, and he was pretty big up there.

He became a sergeant while I was working on, and Vincent Brazuti was his name. he was my handler for 18 years. I practically built his whole career with him. He retired in 20 years. I was with him for 18. So as a matter of fact, him and I had a slice of pizza or two and a couple of beers when he retired. He said, you're the last person I wanted to see before I finally say goodbye to everybody. I say goodbye to everybody, but I wanted to share my last time with you.

Imagine that. So anyways, you know, I pretty much had carte blanche. I mean, he knew what I was doing. I did get caught doing something. and he kind of squashed it a little bit helped a friend of mine out that's all it was nothing big but anyways uh you know that's what that's pretty much what happened the minute he retired in i think he retired in october i forget the year i get arrested three months later from the new guys i was still working with this guy mike trumbetta uh because he introduced me to him over over

the years a little bit and said listen anything happens would you still work with mike and i You know, back then I said, yeah, but how stupid? I could have said, nah, you retired, Vinnie? How about me retiring? That's what I should have said. I was already a millionaire. I owned a million dollar home. Everybody loved me in my town, my neighborhood.

I still had friends all around. I should have just said, well, if you're walking away, why couldn't I walk? Why don't I walk away? You don't need me anymore. But no, I didn't do it. And that's the biggest mistake of my life. Well, let's go back to when you got out of prison. You got out of prison.

You're working with him. You're still doing stuff. You're not telling them everything, but you're telling them periodically you're giving him stuff yeah what happened there how did that progress like what what kind of what kind of cases are we basically i don't know what cases he developed from anything i mean he just i pretty much told him who was in the life what i did uh you know uh stuff like that you know uh he you know i i they said i gave a lot of license plates and phone numbers but i did a lot more than that i told them the got people's positions

what i heard in the street or something like that who might have got shot who got killed who you know whatever it was you know what i mean um are they are you on are you getting money for this is this like no the only thing i never wore a wire uh the only time i wore a why was after my second pinch against the guy that was with me and then and i and i wore it purposely because it proved that i that this guy and i were not talking about what they were trying to uh uh pinch me on but other than i never wore a wire and the only time they ever gave me money was when I told him I spent $500, $1,000, you know, that kind of thing. That's, they only reimbursed me.

But I was allowed. I found out later on in my second pinch that I was allowed up to $100,000 a year. Yeah. These guys are really getting paid. Well, yeah. My friend, I was talking to my friend, Dominic Sicali. I don't know if you know him. He was my captain in the Banana family.

He's got, he's a mafia round table and Sicali unfiltered. Well, he told me, he said, why didn't you ask him for, that you. spent told me you spent 50,000 you know we went to the strip club and you spent 50,000 I said I didn't know back then that I was allowed that much money otherwise maybe I would have you know but I didn't know I wasn't doing it for the money I wasn't doing it for anything except to find out who killed my father that was my sole purpose and unfortunately I never did find that out but I'm getting I think a little closer even this to this day with my friend Dominic you will so so all right so you get so you go eight

you went 18 years and never got arrested again no never got arrested uh nothing like that nope i was not under the radar but we were doing things i mean i had to go to places it was probably going to be a couple of murders i was involved in they just didn't happen at that time and so i actually was fortunate in a lot of ways uh in that respect otherwise i would have had to put in a piece of work so what are you what are you doing for the for your for living i mean you've got are you loan sharking or you know back then i was yes back then i had to i mean i still was making some decent money uh i had a girlfriend that was uh rich she took care of me as well uh we took care of each other in a lot of ways and so uh you know i was pretty i kind of i did what a lot of guys

do sometimes they they float they coasts through life a little bit until life puts the hammer down on them and then that's it and that's what happened with me so that's it so what happened when you're when your handler goes to retire i mean he goes to retire you're saying they they handed you off to somebody else i went to mike trumbetta yeah he said listen you know michael mike trebeta will call you and this and that and then uh you know i started having problems with uh some people uh because all the all the guys that i was around got arrested and then uh you know my circle kept getting smaller and i was trying to get like a way from everything. I was pretty tired after 18 years. I kind of gave up about what happened to my father

because I just never got no answers. And then the girl that I was dating started, I hooked her up with this guy, Sammy, and to help her out with her diners that she owned. And then this guy bought this guy buddy Israel Torres around, another dirt bag, supposedly a tough guy. Well, you know, everywhere I go, you know, this is one thing I got to say, Matt. And you've been around, I'm not going to, you know probably what I'm saying. Everybody, oh, this guy's tough. That guy's tough. Don't mess with this guy.

You know something? I'm not going to say that that's not true. But when it comes time to prove himself when I have to deal with them, let's see what that happens then. If I get beat up or killed, then that's okay. Then you won. You were the tough guy. But I'm tired. I always hear this shit.

This guy's good with his hands. This guy, dude. You know, because I hope he's good with his hands because, you know, it's easy to pull a trigger. Not hard. But let me see if the guy's good with his hands. So I had a problem with this guy up there, comes to the diner with some big muscle-bound dudes staring me down like this, giving me to look like, you know, and I was like, okay, what is that supposed to do?

Scared me now? Like, you know, and we sat down and the guy gave me his words, I'm over here now, and this and that, I live for this kind of life, all this baloney, you know? But he could never be a wise, a made-a-wise guy because I think he was Puerto Rican, Cuban, or something else. So he was no wise guy, but he worked around these guys. He pretended he was Italian, you know, and, uh, but anyways, I left her. We, we, we, things went bad and, uh, this guy set me up for a murder for hire hit that was

never going to happen. I proved it in court and trial, but that's where I spent a lot of my money. Well, what do you mean, I mean, he, a murder for hire hit, like, how did that? He, they offered you money to kill somebody and they had you on tape or something, or what? some guy my friend who he's passed away now my friend tony palero uh we talked about it a little bit about killing his partner they had a million dollar life insurance policy out he said i'll give you half a half a million dollars and i listened to him because they all they thought it was a wise guy and so uh a lot of friends of mine came to me with proposals so i'll say like that and i

say yeah yeah i'll look into it but it was only me and i said nah couldn't work out or let it go or i would make up all excuses well this one guy this one guy this one time he came to me this is actually the second time he came to me to kill somebody i said to him okay let me check it out and so i had this guy that i was hanging around with this kid mike and uh i sent them up there i said here's a few dollars i gave him like a thousand and he was like a real thug type of dude scary looking guy but it was nice to keep my street cred up a little bit with him you know what i mean like i can got no yeah it's like i i'm with the italians but this kid was was black and you know he was

cool and well he went up there he took a video to place he said like look, it can't be done. And I knew he would say that to me because he didn't want to do it, but he just wanted to make the thousand. So now I have proof. I go to my friend. I say, listen, can't be done. Don't worry about let it go. Well, months later, this kid gets pinched, Mike. And now he says, I know this gangster and he wants me to kill this guy. And you're talking, this is six months later, almost like eight months later or whatever it is. And we're talking about it. I'm pretending like, yeah, it's still going to happen. I said, you know, but he's wearing a wire on me now well now i get pinched anyways now i got to go through the whole system again the whole rig or moreau

of course i get found not guilty in the court and actually mike became one of my best witnesses for the f did the the assistant u.s attorney they hi this they they they pulled him to testify against me he testified 80 percent the truth um for me because he you know he he couldn't he didn't know how to lie like that he actually told you the truth so anyways i get found not guilty and then i get released and now um you know with the few dollars i got and all that kind of stuff i try to start a new life but you know my whole thing when i started my my my show you know the good fellow podcast it was all just about how how crooked the fbi is the fbi and you probably know this for yourself too like i said you you you've done you know what

I'd rather die with the wise guys that be caught up with the FBI. They're more crooked because they pretend they're the good guys and then they stab you in the back. The wise guys are not pretending they're good. You know what I'm saying? There's no faking in there. They are what they are. You know what kind of life you're in?

You know what you're dealing with? And that's it. Now, did I meet a couple of really good guys in that life? I absolutely did. okay but you know how rare that is to get a guy that's really on your side you know but the FBI do me to the not the wolves to the whole jungle and they did it purposely yeah well how what happened what's well they I had to I came for my trial I had what they call a public authority case that's what I was trying to say before public authority can say public something I got the word okay hey not bad right

Yeah. So my attorney, Jose Munez and his staff and his people, at that time, my fiancé at that time, worked tirelessly to get me off. So the public authority case, you know, it exposed me. I had no choice but to tell the truth. And believe me, let me tell you something. And when you talk about the truth, I was so happy that I had a jury trial. You know how like you're facing the audience out there in the courtroom,

the jury's to your left the prosecutors and everybody's over there and you're like over to the right a little bit i completely turned my chair and i've won and i faced a jury to tell my story because everything i told them was right on the money i didn't have to lie matter of fact my attorney didn't go okay now you know what you're going to say if they do this if they say that he never said nothing you know what he told me and this is his exact words talk to them like you're talking to somebody in your living room right and i did i had my clear glass on because I couldn't see them and I looked right at them dead in the face and I wanted them to see my face because I wanted them to see that I was telling the truth and I got found not

guilty okay think about that and that was a big murder for hire case and my friend Tony who passed away like I said me rest in peace he told me Joe could you could you say this could you say that I says Tony relax bro I'm going to tell the truth we're going to it's okay don't worry about it God's with us we're going to be okay sure enough he was scared to death he never took the stand I did And I was up there for a day and a half. Because my story isn't there just something you can do overnight? And you're basically saying, look, I had public authority to, which means I'm allowed to behave in a criminal manner, as long as once I've developed a case, I bring it to the authorities. And I'm allowed to conduct crime along the way to further that investigation.

But, you know, at no point was this guy ever going to be murder. that's pretty much what i said right like i can talk about it i'm setting people i'm in the midst of setting people up like that that's not you can't stop halfway through if i'm setting up a a fake drug deal and i say yeah yeah i'll buy i'll buy 10 keys from you you can't arrest me you know because i'm waiting for that guy to say yes for us to arrange a meeting where i know the drugs are going to be then i go to my handler i say look i got it here's where what time it's going to be here's what's happening it's a waste of time for me to be telling you every step of the way how do you get information if you're not with with the with the people you're dealing with

how are you how are you supposed to get the gain the trust of people like this okay these people are not dumb right there's not all of them that are smart but how are you supposed to go into a place and and you're supposed you're shaking the place down or whatever you're doing and i'm not supposed to do anything just stand there i mean right you know they they pretended they're we didn't authorize him to do any of that to protect themselves but listen i had to collect money for a girl once okay it was 10 000 i seen i seen a i seen a guy from uh from this place called buchetto's in the bronx okay and he he says yeah go get the money he says and anything problems or whatever you come see us don't worry about it because he was affiliated with them i go to this guy and i said

before i go to him i said to her listen is there anything i need to know before i see this guy face to face it. You're telling me everything. You know, you're a single mother. You'll own this guy 10,000. I don't care how long you know him. Are you sure you didn't do anything with this guy? No, no, no, no. I swear. Okay, no problem. I go see the guy. I says, Pat. He says, yeah. He gains me to $450 because he was going to give you $450 a week until he made up the money. I said, okay, I'll see you next week. Same time. He says, yeah, I start turning around. He goes, Joe, could I see you a minute? And I go like this. Okay. You know what? He said, look, I just want to let you know i i i didn't want to tell anybody i fooled around with her and all of this kind of stuff

like this i said well see and i said well no don't worry about i knew about this already see i had to pretend like i knew but that's like throwing me in the pit with the lion and saying no he's not gonna he got no teeth in his mouth and you don't give me a knife or shield a spear or a gun anything you don't do that kind of stuff but this is what the fbi does they put people's lives at risk my life was at risk the whole 18 years my hand live in simple he got on the stand and my attorney asked him straight out pose a muni says was joe's life ever in danger he said all the time now what's funny is before he said that he said oh the what the gangsters aren't what they like used to be you don't got to kill anybody anymore to get in they now it's

not what it used to be but meanwhile my life was in danger all the time right okay so here he is contradicting himself right on the stand so he says what about he says what about these late night meetings that he would go to two o'clock in the morning or whatever the case may be he says did he fear for his life he said yeah i made sure that he you know he talked to me or whatever it's all in my transcripts it's all in black and white so you look my friend dominic if he would have found that now i mean dominic and i like this we're close as anything probably closer now than we was even in the life but we were closer in the life if he found out for one second that i was cooperating he would pull a bullet in back of my head and we all know this okay so you mean to tell me my life was never

in danger he called me 11 o'clock i don't know in the afternoon 11 o'clock at night 2 o'clock in the morning whatever it was i had to go you know what i was thinking when i was there this is my last road trip right but i still went so anybody wants to call me a punk and all of this kind of stuff like that i was going to my death in my mind you know i'm not saying i'm a tough guy not trying to say oh you better watch out for me no but i still went let me see how many other people gonna go doing what i was doing okay and want to still still go down when somebody calls you like dominic who's who who who would have killed me like this because that's how true to the life he was you know you know look ahead mad i'm sorry no i was going to say uh it's funny when i was incarcerated and there was a i

cooperated against the guy that had run a ponzi scheme and he'd stolen 57 million dollars of like pension fund from pension funds and churches and you know and what he was doing is supposedly he's supposed to be investing the money and really he's just spending it yeah so it was a it was a 200 and i'm sorry it was a 102 million dollar Ponzi scheme but that's you know how the government bullshit it's but it's bullshit i mean yeah what was really lost was 57 million you know they they say like all the money that and then what the profit but the profits is bullshit that wasn't real money The real money, right, well, they do. Yeah, they always do, yeah.

Make it look for them like they did better. Yeah, it's like ghost dope. It's, you know what I'm saying? So, but it was $57 million, and he had hidden Ponzi scheme money. And I've got the, I got the, this was a secret service. They're emailing me on the CoreLink system. I don't know if you, you have Core Links, right? In federal prison, did you have email?

Yes, I did have email. yes so that's called that's corlinks that's okay i didn't know that what it was called okay yeah so they're they're emailing with the secret i'm in prison really and they're they're like hey find out who if this person was involved and i'm like well i've heard about this person before so i can i can bring that up in conversation and so maybe in that couple days we're walking the track and i mention whatever this guy was doing blah blah blah and i'm like oh yeah yeah that that that that that that chick was helping and the other guy was he was the financial guy right like what happened with that guy and then and then the guy would start you know you spark up a conversation you hope let he says

something then they come back and i'm like okay he said this and this and okay then they come back and they say hey find out this and i'm like okay i don't know who that is they're like well just just bring it up in a conversation i'm like how the fuck am i going to bring it up in a conversation i don't know who that is tell me something else about it so i can know how he's involved oh we can't do that. I'm like, then I can't help you. They're like, we just bring it up. How am I going to bring up Tom Phillips? If I don't know who he is, I don't know if he's a financial advisor, if I don't know how he's in, he fits in this. Like, you're trying, like, you guys are fucking idiots. You're trying to get me stabbed. I'm in prison, cooperating, trying to get

information out of a guy who's hidden Ponzi scheme money. So you guys can look good. And you're trying to get me killed like and i'm telling them like bro you better tell me something else because there's no way i'm going to what am i just going to say hey whatever whatever happened with tom phillips or whatever the guy's name he's going to go the fuck if you ever hear that name you're like i can't do that like tell me something yep you know that happened over and over again and then they're like we just bring it up listen listen bro i don't know who's teaching your how to run an informant um uh you know little unit of of or or you know thing that you got going here but you're i'm surprised you're not losing more informants you know you're asking you have to use your fucking head you have to

give me enough that i can spark a conversation that's going to feel organic or this guy's going to get wise they just like you were saying like sometimes they just don't give a fuck nope their whole their whole thing is the end justifies the means they don't care anything about anything else if they pretend they care about you it's a lie uh you know you know the other thing you know the other thing was funny like they they were constantly offering me money do you want to put money on your books do you want me and i i was always like no because i had met a guy who'd cooperated and he cooperated and when he got in front of the judge and they were arguing for more of a reduction the government came forward and said your honor

we don't have to give him anything at all we've been paying him for the information oh wow anything he should be thanking us for giving him because we paid cash for this information by putting money on this guy's books or whatever i think they wasn't he wasn't in prison they were giving him money um right was when he went street but they're like we were paying him thousands of dollars every single uh month so for so technically we don't feel we need to give him anything and i always thought when they were like, hey, we can, want me to put some money on your books? And I was like, no, it's okay. Or when they would come see me, they look, well, let me bring you lunch. Don't bring me any. Well, yeah, I'll bring you. Do not bring me anything. Right. And I don't bring me a soda.

I say, because here's what's going to happen. And they were like, oh, I would never do that. I said, wait a minute. First of all, you can't promise me anything. You're just an agent. The only person that can promise me anything is a U.S. attorney. And they'll do that. They'll say, oh, I promise. you're going to get this much the fuck but shut up you don't you can't promise me now you're just a liar right but most people don't know that they expect you to not know that i only knew it because i'd been in prison and i was being told by people who knew what was going on this is the reason why prison makes you a lot in way i mean look obviously you're you you see me got you got your life together you don't seem like no slouch to me but you can tell how when you go to prison you do learn a few

little things extra that you know whether it's you know on one way or the other it don't matter you do learn things and thank god you did like me look i just took the money back that i got that i spent so basically that was okay so if they were going to try to use that with me but look when i had a lawsuit against them was i tried to sue them for what they did to me they put my whole life in danger for the rest of my life well of course it gets shot down in summary judgment because you know they don't want to they they know i could sue them you know but i was going to sue them for 20 million But alone, in 18 years that I worked for them, that would have been a million eight if it was $100,000 a year. Right.

So, you know, just that alone, I mean, look, I'm not greedy. I'm 63 years old. I'll be 64 this year. So I'm an old guy. If I had a couple of million dollars under my belt, whatever the case may be, that's all I would need to before I die. How much more do I need? I don't need, look, it's nice to have 10 million, 20 million, 100 million in a year. That's all good.

But how many more free lunches can I have? I just want to live quietly which I'm kind of doing now that's all I want to do I don't need all of that that hype I don't need to show off I don't need to be like a gangster anymore even though it's always going to be in me

to a certain degree like like Pistone the guy that was in the Donnie Brascoe movie he was he's always acting still like a gangster you know even my hand live in and he told me that back in the day he said this guy said I met him a couple of times he said he thinks he's a gangster still

because it's so he was so undercover And even he admitted, he won't tell everything that he did in that life when he was working undercover. Now, what does that tell you? But yet, he's okay to get away with it because, oh, that's right. He had a badge, but Joe Barone didn't. You know what I mean? So I forget the guy's names, but I was locked up with a couple of guys that he had busted. Oh, really?

Okay. And I mean, Johnny Barrasco would come on TV. And the guys, I was in the medium, the guys would be like, hey, and I forget one of the guys is like Tony or Anthony. And they all got the, you know, those names. Yeah, yeah. Really Jewish name, right? Look, yeah, Johnny Brasco's on the thing. And these guys would, that motherfucker piece.

And they were so nuts. And I'd be like, why do you keep telling these guys this thing? It's fucking crazy, bro. They hate him. The one thing they always said was they were like, so like if you read the books and stuff, that you talk to those guys, they're like, listen, that they make him seem like he wasn't doing. They were like, the reason he got in. so ingrained with them is because he was doing so much crime and committing such blatant

criminal acts that was so above the pale of what they're allowed to do that they believed them. They couldn't even convince them. When they walked in and showed him photos and everything, they were like, no, no, why? Because I know this guy's done insane fucking criminal acts. Without a doubt. You never would have approved. He couldn't be FBI. Well, this is the reason why he won't even say the things. And he's even said that in his books. I mean, look, thank God he was able to hand himself before he had a couple of fights in there that he did discuss about, the people tried to scare him. But it's a lot easier to know that you got a whole bunch of guys behind you in case you having a fight. You know what I mean?

It's like, look, if I go into a fight in my situation now, it's only me fighting. There's nobody going to say, okay, I'll pay your lawyer. There's nobody saying, we'll get you out of trouble. No, it's only me. Okay, so I have to be careful. But when you got a bunch of guys, you know, they'll take care of you, they're going to be behind you and all that, especially if you're an agent. but that's what I'm trying to say how do you get close look

you got you got Greg Scarper okay the Grim Ripley they called him working with the FBI's and they still let him do everything he wanted to do okay they had Whitey Bolger and they wanted him kill because he probably could have told these people

exposed the FBI even bigger than me because he was actually with them you know what I mean even more they were together like you know the Scarpe case they were giving him names to kill people right right yeah okay well and he that was the one when he went down to the member mississippi burning thing and he almost killed that guy to get the information where the bodies were buried you know and he was a tough guy i mean he's the type of guy you don't want to mess around with he was listen he got shot in

the face and he still was shooting the people he you know this guy you know this is not somebody you want to play games with you know and and and i mean god bless him i don't care that he what he did it that to me doesn't mean nothing or whatever the case may be but he had permission how do you be what you want me to be and you you can't you have to do it you have to be in it that's why the fbi said to me that's why bennie told me straight out blunt in my face not once but twice said it to me do what you have to do to protect yourself because the number one thing is never exposed that you're working with the feds of and i mean that's like a no brainer anyway but but do it to protect your right i know right but do it to protect your identity otherwise you know

and then come tell us that you did it so we can say hey you came to us you're working with us so You know, but it made it look like, like if I told them I did something, they would have to say, okay, no problem, they're going to take me out. But they weren't going to protect me. They're going to throw me to the walls like anything else. I was going to go to jail. Who knows what the hell else they were going to do to me. You got no recourse with these people. Remember, you're dealing with the federal government.

They got unlimited funds, unlimited everything, you know, and they're not going to care about little old Joe Barone for what? Right. So, you know, but it's, it's, you can't. it's like anything else okay i'm gonna i'm gonna fool around with a girl and fool around with a girl i'm gonna only do one way and not 10 different positions or whatever may be you know come on you're gonna you're gonna go all out you know you were saying something about would you go back to this or that and the reasons why you mentioned it were spot on but the other thing is too if you're gonna do something it's got to be big you know don't do it big or don't do it at all you know the whole thing is

is, like I said, if I would have walked away with a couple million dollars from my lawsuit, I would just pack it up. And I probably wouldn't even have done my show or anything like that because I don't want no exposure. I just want to live nice and quiet. You know, I'm done. So you got out. Yes. And you started a podcast.

How long ago did you start the podcast? I don't know if it's quite a year now or not. I mean, how long? It's about a year now. You got the whole godfather. You got the guy. godfather logo oh the words or the the banner across it looks kind of godfather right is it godfather it's yeah it's like it's like it you know we got the theme to one of the songs and the godfather

i liked and stuff like that too uh listen most of my experiences i some things i can say too and some things i of course i can't and i won't i mean but uh i like my guests that i've been coming on and stuff like that i like all the people interviewing them you know a lot of the stories are all similar you know uh and and it's amazing how no matter where you're from you kind of grew up almost the same kind of way isn't it weird you know if i never went to brooklyn but i met somebody there he'd have the same similar stories as me you know right so it's it's just it's just it's just funny how it all kind of unravels the same same way you know in it because i like i said i'm exposing what it really is also i'm exposing the life the wise guy life ain't what it used to be and even when

i was a kid growing up and i was hanging around with the third street guys we didn't really like gangsters really we were like you know who they think they are and those kind of stuff like that but uh unfortunately i fell into it you know have you ever i'm sorry they're out for themselves as you know oh of course have you ever um well it just it just kills me these guys that idolize the gangsters and it's to me it's like okay these are guys that are shaking down you know mom and pop stores because you're not shaking down Starbucks no right you know you're never getting into the meeting you're never getting into the boardroom or to the meeting to try and say you guys got to pass this or we're and throw bricks through your windows and burn your places down it just never

happens like there's the uh i think it's a sammy the bull was talking about how they were trying to get to trump you're never getting in the elevator to get up to see trump like you're not shaking Trump down. I've got too many hotels. I got too many staff. You're never getting here. You're never going to be paid. Even if you throw a couple of bricks through some windows, they're just going to keep fixing the windows. That's right. And eventually, you're going to get tired of throwing bricks. You're going to realize these people don't even know why these bricks are being thrown through the window. So who you're really shaking down is the mom and pop stores. That's it. You're lending money to guys that have gambling problems. And then these guys,

they, you know, they idolize them because they're driving nice cars. Same reason kids idolize drug dealers. They've got the nice cars. They've got everybody respects them. But, you know, in the end, you're selling drugs to, you know, to people that have drug problems. Like you're taking advantage of, I mean, not that I'm saying I'm in and better. There's no reason to idolize, you know, anybody who's really committing crime in, in general. But just so you know, Matt, even the legitimate businesses, you know, how it is that you have a legitimate business and try to sit with the seal of a company or to try to sit down with uh uh uh like somebody from starbucks their team or even somebody that they they let somebody talk to them or even to

try to get a message even if you were legitimate look most of the most of the businesses today even though some of them are affiliated with the mafia all legitimate because where's the real hustles today you know you to be a drug dealer most of the time it's you got to be you got to be in bed with some really uh unsaved people it's not even like you know it's class act anymore you know what i mean uh which believe it or not even though that's one thing i don't even know why the wise guys got away from it i mean of course they said because there's a lot of time and more people might snitch on you and that kind of stuff like that i get that but at the same time if you if you ran it the right way and you had you know

you that's why the mexicans picked it up that's why the dominicans picked it up that's why the el salvans that's why all the other people picked it up the chinese mob picked it up because we walked away from it you you know so you you you messed it argued yes exactly you know so you were the entire organization was targeted i mean lisa everybody's like oh well the mom the mom's basically it's it's over like it's kind of a boutique you know organization at this point it's it's so small that they don't have these massive rackets anymore they're giving away so much time the the feds you can't go to trial on the feds it's it's virtually impossible to to beat them well you know why don't you it'd be most people

take a plea. That's why they have such a 99 point something success rate. If they if most people took the stand and wanted to take it to trial and they would be so backed up that they would start offering better sentences instead of giving you, well listen, I'm giving you 10 years. You're going to take 25, 30. You know, it's easy to do that when you have that success rate, but you have it only because most people took the plea because you figured let's take the plea and that's it, you know. But people aren't going to go to trial. They're terrified. No, no. I, I, I, I, went because i didn't care said i said i'm gonna i did it i was lucky i was fortunate i had the grace with me but the bottom line is is look you got construction companies what do you do with

construction companies now you don't shake them down you get them jobs so now you get money you see it's all legitimate now you just providing jobs you got a connection with uh this thing or that thing it's almost like the old window case back in those days that they had the contract to put all the windows in every building that was there you know is that such an illegitimate thing to me not really i mean think about it all right so you got the connections like say if i needed something for you mad and i said mad oh you got that connection okay so now we i got a connection to make more people do this so now we're all going to make a lot more money what's wrong with that just because i'm affiliated with gangsters doesn't mean that you're in trouble no

we're all making money you know it's all about the dollar have you interviewed a jean Barrello? Yes. I just interviewed him, oh, some weeks back already. Yeah. Yeah.

He was a good guest, too. And I did his cousin, too. Anthony. Hmm? He just, you know,

he just got arrested. I heard. Yeah. He's out. He's out. Yeah, he called me yesterday. He and his manager called me.

They were going to go on the show, but he can't, he can't leave Miami. Like, I want, he was like, come up here. And then we were going to do a remote.

And we just never, you know first of all he's trying to get you know he got out he's like you know it by the time he got out is like like one or two o'clock and they're trying to scramble to get to a situation to get into a place where we could do a remote podcast like this yes they's got to get Wi-Fi hooked up like he's he's scrambling he he didn't put it they didn't put it together so I don't know if he did uh there's another guy that it's just the same that he's always that he has problems like this you know what I mean because he's believe it or not he's really not a bad guy you really ain't he's just you know even when he called me he was like hey man what's going on

i got and i go what are you doing what are you doing he's like no listen he you don't understand this one isn't my fault okay you know i think listen my my wife works um my wife it's funny you'll think this is funny i met my wife when i was in the halfway house like five five about six years ago she did five years for a drug conspiracy. Oh, shit. We meet her in the halfway house. We start dating.

Oh, shit. We end up getting married. But now she... Yeah. That's great, man. I love it. You were so funny, we were talking the other day. And, you know, she's always, you know, not always.

She was griping at me about, you know, I constantly get the, do you love me? I'm like, oh, my God. Yes, I love you. I'm laughing. And she's like, and she's like, do you love me like you did in the halfway house? And I go, that's a country song. That would make a great country. So love me like you did in the halfway house.

Holy shit. Yeah, that is. I love that. Well, you know what country singer I really like to? And I'm going to mention his name here because he's great. Will Bannister. He's a guy coming up. He's great.

But that is, let me tell you something. And I mentioned him because I bet you if you gave him that lyrics, just those couple of things, he'll make a song out of it. But that's a great song. I told her, we have to, I said, we got to have chat GPT write us a fucking song for that. That was Larry. Yes. Um, you love me like you did in a halfway house. That's great.

Oh my God. But she, so she, now she works for, she's a marine mechanic. Uh, she got her, in fact, school, uh, got her certificate and everything to become a marine mechanic and she's certified and all these things, worked for a marina for a while. And then she, she went to work for a company that manages yachts. So she just got her, I just, we just sent her to school and she just got her, captain's license now she's working on her hours you have to get like so many hours before they right that's right but the point is is that she's she's she's at the dock working on a yacht

and just so happens jean walks by get out of here look i'm standing there on the dock and i turn around she's like i'm like and he he doesn't see her she says he's on the phone like i don't know what i'm going to do about this chick i don't know why i love her bro what am i supposed to do She's driving me nuts. And he goes, she calls me and she goes, he clearly has a problem with this. He's like, I'm like looking at him like, hey, what's up? And he just, he's, he had blinders on and she's yelling about some chick. And he's like, what am I going to do, bro?

I love her. What am I supposed to do? I mean, hilarious. But yeah, he's, it's like to me, you're, you're dating these women and you're getting into these arguments and you're getting into these fights. And he doesn't have a problem fighting. like I could be I can be loud and and kind of obnoxious and say some stupid shit but I'm not going to get into a fist fight I'm a grown man I know it's not going to work out for even if I win the fight it doesn't matter you win the fight you go to prison

and Florida doesn't think it's cute Florida will send you you get a fist fight you break somebody's nose you're going to prison and with my record and his record no you can't do it so but yeah he gets into these arguments with these girls screaming matches doesn't back down gets into a mouse off to people in clubs gets into a fight because he won't back down his ego i mentioned this the other day i've mentioned this on a bunch of podcasts is you know i learned a long look i learned in prison but when i got to prison i gave myself some there was many many stern talks i gave myself and every bad decision I have ever made in my life was based on my ego.

And I was just like, you got to drop that shit. Get rid of it. You, you instead of, you know, when I first got in trouble, instead of claiming bankruptcy and moving in my parents' old spare room and starting over and selling used cars, what I did was, fuck it. I'm not going to, I'm not going to take a step backwards. I'm going to start committing fraud and I'm going to do this and I'm going to make this much money. And I'm, what are you doing?

you're digging your hole deeper i got three years probation the first time it was a slap on the risk i should have started over my ego wouldn't let me well you see the problem with jean is he's he is a legitimate tough guy and that's it that's the problem he's so tough yeah it's actually it's good for him it works good for him sometimes but he's so tough that it works against him because he won't back down he's not humbled you know what it would take for him to be humbled you know for somebody to really give him the beating that you know you can't you know it's almost impossible so he's not to lose a leg or something he'd have to be a position that if you got into a fight with him he'd lose every time and he'd still have to lose a few fights to figure that out that's right because he's

that tough and that's the thing you see if i was around him like in the days when we were growing up you know because he's 20 years younger to me but if i if i if i was if he was with me or some the situation with the girls one thing i learned about girls right or is they love it when you blow up like that they get you get mad you can show you love them they like that they feel like you got they got you because you're getting so mad you know what the best thing that ever i found out in the world oh is that the way you think honey is that what do you want to do bye and you walk away and then they're like oh my god where's he going he don't care he don't care about me and then they come back to you like oh i'm sorry okay thank you if he could do that he would

be no trouble. No. But it's, you know, you know, I can't, you know, I can't, look, I just met him. So I can't really talk to him that, you know, that great. But I would love to because, like I said, he really doesn't have he, I think he really has a good heart, to be honest with you. Yeah, no, listen, I, I like Gene. Every time I've talked to him, he comes over, you know, I've done a bunch of episodes with

him. I will text each other. He's, he's not a bad guy. No. You know, but I've also never pissed him off. Yeah, that would. You do have to watch, right? Yeah, exactly.

You know what reminds me of who's another legitimate tough guy, but a guy that is willing to swallow his pride, even though most people will think that's not true. But he tells a story, you know who Andrew Tate is? I don't think so. Okay, well, Mo can, Mo will show it. If you see him, as soon as you see him, you'll be like, oh, I know right away, yeah. So he's a guy.

who you know he does he mouse off about stuff all the time he's always yelling he's always getting in trouble um but he tells a story one time and listen this is a guy he was a he was he was a legitimate like kickboxer um tough guy high ranking you know a serious guy and uh he tells a story one time about being in london where he's he's dating this girl and he's like i'm dating this chick he's like we're standing in line waiting to get fish and chips at two clock in the morning he said like like a rolls royce or bentley or something pulls up is these two black guys that are massive get out cut right in front of the line he doesn't keep mind he said i've been staying in line for fucking 10 minutes i got another five minutes to standing in line right

because they walk right in front of everybody almost push the guy at the counter you know out of the way and they say i want this and this and this nobody says anything they get their order and as they're waiting to get their order she looks at Andrew tate who's a tough guy he's a gene gene type of guy looks at him she goes he goes aren't you going to do anything and he goes shut up and she's like you're gonna you're gonna do anything he goes keep your mouth quite be quiet right those guys get their food four minutes later whatever they turn around they walk out and she's like i can't believe you didn't say anything he is he is let me explain something to you

He said, part of being a man and protecting you is knowing, I can look at those two guys and tell you right now. One, they're very well maybe armed. Nobody in London, very few people in London have guns. Yeah, right. You're not allowed to carry. Yeah. But I can see where they pulled up and stopped, the way they got out, the way they handled themselves. He said, I'm not necessarily afraid.

He said, of getting into a fight with one of those guys one on one. There's two of them. They're probably armed. they're probably connected is that I can look at those guys and tell they've been in prison and they don't care about going back and if it goes bad for me I'm dead and you may be dead so as a man I have to swallow my pride and say say nothing it's five it's three or four extra minutes out of our the next five that's it yeah that's it's not worth it's not work but you see something that guy Tate you're talking about he's actually more dangerous

than they otherwise because he could see the writing on the wall and I like that. In other words, you're supposed to be able to pick and choose your battle, really. I mean, let's face it. Sometimes you have to lose the war to win the war. Nobody's Superman, okay? You, Tate, the two black guys that were big like that, nobody's Superman. Was it really worth it? No.

Did they do anything to his girl? Did they insult him in any way? It's the same thing to anybody. No. No. It's worth it to walk away. Listen, I can't tell you how many times in the street since I've been home that I've been walked away from so many fights because you know why, I know what's going to happen. I'm going to get in trouble, whether I get killed or shot or whatever, because where I live there, you can carry a gun, do it, but whatever, it doesn't matter.

I have to say to myself, is it really worth it? And that's it. You know, listen, if you back me to the corner, that's okay. Then you'll see the, then you'll see the dog don't just bark anymore. I still bite. you know what i mean but under that what do i care you want the hamburger faster than me go ahead brother no problem i'm still going to eat you know so i have a question how many um so you're you're interviewing people what what um how many how many interviews are you putting out every single or

every uh week right now i just started interviewing people so i interviewed about four people so far uh i'm still going to go get some other people as well too also i like to get some of my legal team i'm trying to get to to expose what the whole court system is like and and and the battle you got to go through uh but i actually like interviewing the people getting the stories uh different perspectives um you know like that so i'm going to keep kind of doing i kind of like i found like a little niche for it you know what i mean well tell no uh tell mo um You know, he can go through my stuff. I've interviewed.

I typically don't interview guys, you know, mob-related content because, but I have. Like, there's probably five or six out there. Okay. I probably would have done 30 people. I'm sure. But the reason I don't is because the way most of these guys talk, you know, they talk like, because it's such a known genre, you had most people know it. I have a friend named Wade.

He knows it inside and out. If you say, oh, yeah, Jimmy the chin or something, he'll be like, oh, yeah, he was with the LKZs. He was so excited. He'll tell you the whole thing. He'll do the whole breakdown. Right. And I'm like, how do you know who that? But when you talk to a lot of these guys, they'll talk like you, like we're talking, like we're in the same family and they're talking about your brother Mark or your brother.

Or like, I don't know who. You know, oh, yeah, yeah. You mean crazy so and so or they, they say they're, oh, yeah, yeah, I was with so and so or I was. with the i don't even i couldn't i don't think i could tell you the name of the five am right right i certainly don't know who made up what i know john goddy and stuff because i've watched a couple documentaries and i never think everybody knows him i know some of the bigger ones obviously but i don't know necessarily how they they you know interweave and exactly but like my buddy wade he knows everything inside out so uh so i typically don't because when i talk to these guys i

realize how little i know and in order for me to have a really solid conversation i would have to study for two weeks and read about six books and then i'd have a decent conversation and that's not worth an hour and a half podcast so um and in the end there's there's so much there's so much content out there on a lot of these guys anyway you however will know all these guys so it requires nothing of you to have a conversation with them and you'd have a better conversation to have so if you have mo contact me and what's funny is like colby my my colby who's my colby is my mo okay i colby will leave all this in there okay probably not going to cut any of this but if if mo contacts me i can give him the name of you know four or five guys maybe a couple of lawyers you

could interview that are really cool lawyers okay um what else appreciate that thank you probably give give you Wade's information because Wade has a channel that I think Wade's got about 15,000 listen Wade working his channel for three years trying about four months ago he comes to me he flies down here he's from South Carolina flies down he says bro I'm trying to break 10,000 can we do he was can we do a a podcast and mention I said yeah yeah absolutely so we do the podcast and he went from i think he got an extra 400 and that pushed him over the 10 000 that was about three four months ago he's now at 15 000 nice it took him about three years to get to 10 000 he's already already at 50 like that's what happens it's such

a struggle to get to that you're like i'm getting nowhere no i'm getting a few hundred subscribers a day and then then all of a sudden you're like oh i you break this one and then you go away a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, and it's like, whole, you realize like a year goes by and you're like, it took me three years to get to 10,000, and in the next year, I got to 40. And then the next year, you're at 150. And you're like, what just happened? And you can't believe it. I know. Right. So I wanted to mention that because I know how frustrating. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Thank you. But Wade has so many contacts. okay um and he's built his channel just doing exactly what we're doing he just does a stream yard i think

he just started interviewing people okay yeah i actually like it you know i like to some of the stories other people tell it don't know how they'll be wise guys for me either i'm not i'm not limited to what who i could talk to you know uh well i was going to say there's i've got other guys i got smugglers i've got um uh there's a guy uh dr how i just interviewed him he went to prison. Actually, he, I think he sat with John Gotti, uh, when he was lying. He was in prison with John Gotti. And he, I think he administered his like last, you know, blessed him or whatever. He's, he's like a, uh, I forget he's a preacher, whatever he got his thing. Something or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and you also mentioned something about the Ponzi

scheme. Of course, you, you heard of Bernie Madoff type of thing and all that. But you know what gets me is, and that's the reason why I was mentioning about how much money you got all these you make you you mean you scammed all these guys out of the money okay whatever right wrong I'm not even trying to debate that what I'm just saying is you got all these millions of dollars why you just pack it in and go away and leave the country and have a nice life for yourself on an island someplace why do you have to still keep stealing from him in other words you got why you when I was in prison on my first bit I met this guy Tony Italian guy but he I don't really consider him so Italian because he was like upstate New York I was downtown New York so it's

like more rough or wrong from he's like country living you know so he told me he says you know he got caught robin six million dollars he got away with the first million got away with the second of million got away with the i said why didn't you stop with a couple of million dollars you know how if you would have invested that money you'd have been in 10 years you'd have been done and you still would have been young enough like but the greed and sometimes it's the greed and it's also you like when i said you almost think you got a license to do this now you never I used always say, you know, I, what I would say is I became, and every time I got away with something, I became emboldened. Yes.

I was so overwhelmingly arrogant that I was, I got to a point where I was just like, they're just not going to catch me because I'm that good. Like, you imagine. Like, it's even funnier now, of course, after getting caught and then you're like, you're an idiot for thinking. And I look back and I would have said that. they'd have guys would if guys had say if you'd said to me why don't you quit i'd be like anything got they're not gonna fucking do shit bro they can't catch me yeah yeah yeah i got them this i got this i got i got it all taken care of i got it all covered yeah well i tell you right now it's not what happened no and then look at all the time you had to do yeah yeah you did

yeah you did all i always say 13 years but almost 13 years it's just shy of 13 yeah 13 long time still no matter how you look at it you know I mean, five years paper. Yep. Listen, the five years paper, you know, that's another, that's another struggle. That's actually in one way worse. I hate it. It's like they come and see any time they want.

Oh, and I have a financial crime. Every month I had to fill out paperwork. I have to pay a fine. I'm sorry. I have to pay my restitution every month. Right. You know, get in your check. They're coming back saying, no, you got to pay more.

What? Yep. No, you this, you that. Listen, when everybody else got their COVID money, yeah, I didn't. you know when everybody else like you go work a w-2 job and you get back five thousand dollars at the end of the end of the year the government takes my money you know they government is the worst look what they did to joe lewis the boxer joe lewis the bronx farmer that poor guy he died broke he made one mistake on his taxes he wasn't smart like that or whatever and look what they did to him do you watch the joe lewis story one day on hbill have you in tears and you know what helped him out though too when he was sick at the end was believe it or not, was Frank Sinatra, okay? Frank Sinatra was not doing that great in his career, like as people go up and down in their careers, as you know.

Yeah. I don't know what it was, but Joe Lewis, he was doing something in Vegas, and he invited Frank up on the stage and something like that, and it made him spark them again to go forward again, right? Well, Frank Sinatra never forgot it. He found out that Joe Lewis was sick. He took his personal plane,

took him from Las Vegas to California to get the specialist heart doctor and everything like that. Unfortunately, it was a little too late, but he paid for everything, Frank. He didn't have to come out of nothing because he never forgot. And see, and those are people like that when I hear, and even like you, yourself, how you just offered your services for me and to help me,

I could never repay people like that good enough because that goes to show you how, I think that's a real spirit in somebody, like a real, you know what I mean? Really kind, really good. Yeah, listen, I've had too many people, too many people came, you know, have helped me out since I've been out, you know, and I wish, I wish I'd had, you know, it's like, it's funny because like I've made, when people come here to the studio, yeah, what kind of camera, do you mind if I look at the cameras? Do you mind? Pull your phone out. Take a photo of every single camera. Take a, take a picture of what we're using. Take a picture. Like, I'll tell you everything we've got and, and I'll tell you all the mistakes we make. We've made so many mistakes.

Yeah. You know, and we're using cameras that are, it's called a Sony ZB1. The reason we're doing this is this, we figured out this is the best camera we can use for the money. They're about 700 bucks. The next camera up is like, probably about 2,500 bucks.

Yep. And the jump in quality is not, it's not enough to do, it's not enough. Right. And the only problem, you have is that with the Sony ZV one if you zoom in it it doesn't do well when you zoom in you lose quality and still we've got them sitting like they are sitting right next to like if you show like we almost zoom in almost none and the quality is really good with the exception of unless you

unless you said hey I want to go with film quality like Hollywood film quality okay well then that's different yeah you're just been your minimum you're spending $10,000 oh what I a doubt and and when you upload to youtube it's going to degrade the film anyway like you know it's yep that's why sometimes there's certain things you don't give up on like i i've been eating skippy peanut butter since i'm a kid so i don't go and i'm not saying anything i'm not knocking any other peanut butter but i've tried them and i'm just you know it's not worth the extra money or even the little bit of money to spend i'd rather spend the put on the skippy you know what i mean that's it there's some things you can negotiate with and sometimes you can't

Like I told one of the girls that I was talking to a friend that I was at the place where she worked with this guy worked that I was talking. And I said, listen, saying about a bad back and everything, I said, one thing about the back, get the best bed you can that makes you comfortable that you sleep good on because you spend most of your life sleeping, you know? It's worth it for that extra couple of bucks because that's your life. You don't have to wind up with the bad back and all of this stuff, you know, and that's what it is. some things you can save money sometimes you can't and sometimes it's worth it sometimes it's not i agree with that a lot well listen um yeah i'll shoot mo a bunch of uh guys that i think would be great for your show thank you for that appreciate that thank you that's kind of you appreciate it well listen do you have anything else no except that i like your show i saw the

ones with you and jean and i watched a couple of shows so i'm definitely going to keep on watch and keep looking out and other than that man listen lots of luck with everything and if you you need us for anything, please don't hesitate to shout, you know, give us a call or whatever you need. We're here too. This is how we build each other up. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't care if you've got a thousand more subscribers or 20,000 more to me. It don't matter. We just build each other up. It's nothing wrong with that. Hey, you guys. I appreciate you watching. Do me a favor and hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this. Also, I'm in the description box. I'm going to leave,

I'm going to leave Joe's link to his YouTube channel, his clips channel, and probably any social media that he also has so you can go there you can follow subscribe check out his stuff that he's growing his channel also um please consider joining my patreon it's ten dollars a month it really does help colby and i make videos like this it's ten dollars um and and like i said it does help us and i really do appreciate you guys watching thank you very much and share the video to anybody that you think might be interested see you