Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - The Shocking True Story Behind Goodfellas

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

The Shocking True Story Behind Goodfellas

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I exams provided by independent optometrists Wade and I are going to be reviewing some different scenes from movies to go over the different between the actual events, the books, what really happened, how Hollywood tweaked some of the scenes. The problem is that YouTube had a real issue with the copyright on some of these scenes, so we've had to trim them down. The full video will be on Patreon.

If not, it's still a really good video, so check it out. FBI! Relax! You're late, all right? My name's Alan, Barry Allen, United States Secret Service. Your boy just tried to jump out the window. my partner has him in custody. I don't know. What are you talking about?

You think the FBI are the only one's on this guy? I mean, come on. Come on. He's dabbling in government checks here. I've been following a paper trail on this guy for months now. Hey, hey, look. Just do me a favor. Take a look outside. Look. Look out the window. My partner's walking him to the car as we speak. Look. This scene here, at the end of the book, they have a scene

where he's in the motel room, and they pull up outside the motel room and he sees the cops and he can tell they're looking for the room and what he does is he climbs out the back window when he climbs out the back window there's an alleyway and he's walking down the alleyway

and it's dark and he sees there's two cops and they're like hey you and they pull their guns out and they're yelling at him he's like hey hey hey hey and he says like hey I'm FBI calm down I'm FBI he said I'm guarding

the back of the room, has he come through here? And he pulls, and he does, he pulls out his wallet, and he flashes it at him. But it's dark. And he's like, has he come through him? They're like, no, he hasn't come through here. And he's like, okay, well, look, make sure that you watch this. His, that's his, you know, that's his windows right around this corner. And they're like, all right, we know that, you know, and whatever.

And he just keeps, he was like, and I never stopped walking. He said, I walk right by him as I'm talking to him, just keep on walking. Of course, he's dressed in a suit and tie. And the other scene I could see that they kind of conflate this with, with these multiple scenes, is a scene where he's got checks, right? He has these checks, and they're just blank, they're blank checks, or where they're filled out and signed or whatever, but he's got a bunch of them in his pocket. He said, like five of them or something.

And he's going around cashing them to banks, but he said, you know, there's just paper. Like, it doesn't mean anything. So I've got four or five in my pocket. Whatever. he happens to go to some kind of a beach restaurant or something and he's sitting there and he sees a guy in a like a sports car come out and he's like hey man he's like I got one just like that and he said I showed him a picture of the car and they're like oh wow and they start talking about the car and for some reason or another the guy says can we swap information and he goes sure so

he takes a pencil and he writes his information on the back of the card or one of the checks and he's just going to tear the check off. He said, but the guy ends up going somewhere and says, I'll be back in a minute. He goes, and he's waiting and waiting. The guy never shows up, so he gets up and leaves. So he's got his name and address in the back of a check. He then forgets about it.

A couple days later, he goes by a bank, and he cashes that check, not thinking about it. Goes in, cashes the check. They give him the cash, you know, they give him like $1,000. He leaves, and then he's like laying in bed that night. or something and suddenly goes oh my god like i you know what i'm saying like oh my god my name's on the back of this check or it was the other guy had given him his information and was on the back of the check

somebody's name was but he knew if they find this guy whatever they're gonna i'm done so he gave him the real name gave him like his real name or the guy gave me a yeah so anyway what he does is he calls the bank and he says hey i'm so and so from the FBI we've been believe that somebody went through your bank the other day and cashed a check. And he says he uses the name that's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, we already called the FBI. They're sending somebody down here right now. And he goes, oh, okay, I'm just making sure.

Okay, thanks. We're calling lots of banks. How much to double call that? Yeah, no problem. Hanging up the phone, jumps in his car, races to the bank, which wasn't far away. He just walks in, knowing that another FBI agent is coming. walks in the bank and says, hi, I'm here to pick up a check

that you guys have and, you know, and the woman's like, oh, yeah, yeah, we've been waiting for you. And he knows the real FBI agents going to come in at any time. So she goes, yeah, we have the check right here. He said, great, I need to take that. She's, well, we need to make a copy of it.

He goes, oh, okay. And he's looking at he's, yeah, let's go make a copy. They walk in there. And he says, here, he puts the copy down, closes it and says, help you know make a copy they make a copy and he makes sure that they don't make a copy of the back of it you know and he takes a check and he walks out and he's like i'm sure that the real fbi agent walked in five minutes later or something and probably asked for hey i'm here this get the check

they're like oh you one of your guys was just here so but this specific scene like never happened so you know there's a bunch of little scenes that you can see like well maybe this was it when he pulls the wallet out maybe this is it because he's in the hotel room maybe Maybe this is it because he's pretending to be an agent and he passes. It's like, listen, I did an interview with this guy. He wrote, he read a book from an author that researched Frank Abagnale's book. And I mean, he's like, it's like 80%, just 80 to 90% just completely fabricated. The scenes, he's like, there are scenes when he talks about being like in jail in France.

He's like, he wasn't in jail in France. He was actually locked up in prison in the United States. Another time when he says he was doing this, he was actually had been arrested with a county jail over here. Like, it's just nonstop. And this guy has been chasing Frank Abagnale around for years. He'll find out Frank Abagnale's going to be a speaker at some conference and he'll go there. Same thing with Brett Johnson.

Brett Johnson. He won't Abagnale cancels any place where Brett Johnson's going to be because Brett Johnson wants to confront him, right? Yeah. You know, Brett Johnson loves to confront the motherfucker. Oh, I can see that. I can see Brett. Excuse me.

I have a question. Yeah. So he, that's what. And then so that guy, so this guy, the guy that wrote the book read, he read the book and did a whole podcast. Another guy did a whole podcast on it. So he, and I interviewed him and he goes, listen, we spent, what, an hour? just going through like it's so overwhelmingly disappointing but this is the same thing like they read

this story they want to try and take as many pieces as they can they have to create a scene this is a scene they came out but this didn't happen tell you the one that always got me in the theater in the theater i was like that doesn't make sense like i was a i was in my probably 20s when i saw that the movie catch me if you can i don't know when it came it came It's like 1990, 2000, maybe. 1999 or 2000, I want to say. Hold on. So you're watching this like I watch Goodfellas.

Right. Hold on. I know, right? When did the movie catch me if you can come out? 2002. Okay. So 2002, oh, wow, 2002, I would have been, yeah, it was like 30. I was like 32.

32, 32, I was like 32. So I'm 32. What are you to say? My 20s? Yeah, that was way off. Cut that out, made me a little better. So I was in my toy, so I was in my, sorry, I was in my early 30s when I watched this, and I remember watching it and seeing, remember the scene? Here, let's show that scene. Can we show that scene? Yeah. Oh, sorry. Okay, so here, let's set it here. So he just told us, this is the scene. He just told him that his father died.

Frank! Frank! You can't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Yeah.

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he crawled through the shitter he calls he crawls next to the shitter okay so he crawls next to the shitter climbs down to where the you know the baggage is underneath the plane gets into the wheel assembly and then when they land he goes now here's the problem all of that is is part of the the um you know fusel lodges it's it's all airtight right right you can There's, it's impossible to get into the wheel assembly. Yeah. Think about that. It would be, it wouldn't be airtight.

Like, how are you going to pressure? You can't pressurize the cabin if you could get into that. Like, there's no way, even if you had a complete tool set, how are you going to undo all of that or get into it? Like, it's not possible. It's all a part of the vacuum, of the seal. So even when I was watching that in the TV, in the movie theaters, I was thinking, and this was back when people went to, the movies. I remember sitting there thinking, how's that possible? Like, I don't understand. Like, that doesn't make sense. Like, and I saw, I'm watching it. Well, when I did

that, that interview with the guy who does the podcast, and I said, you know, I always thought this. He's like, impossible. He's, I've spoken with airplane mechanics. I've spoken, like, engineering, exactly. He's like, I've seen, he's spoken to, he said, not even, he said, maybe if he had a welding kit and he could weld it, you know, and you know what I'm saying, like, well, you know, you had plenty of time to weld the whole thing out and cut through it with a welder or something. But yeah, it's just not possible. There were so many things that now that when I watch this, I'm just like, don't, but I did love the book, though. One of the things he did do was he would, you know, the scene where they have him go to, they have Frank Abagnale goes to universities.

And he interviews young co-eds, female, yeah, co-eds, co-eds. It's female, just female, or male co-eds? Well, co-ed is male and female. Is it? Okay, so female co-eds, he interviews them saying he worked for, and he did walk around. And he did have a Pan Am uniform. He did go into different airports and cash checks. Like, all of that's true.

That's why I say part of it's true. He was a big, you know, paper hanger. And so one of the things he would do is he would go to universities and he would interview these women for, positions to work for you know pan am so he's interviewing them that and one of the things he did at one point was and this is in the book um he actually gets a group of them together so this is in the book and the movie he gets a group he gets like 12 girls and goes to europe he flies them all to europe and pays for the flights and everything he flies them there and goes around a different different countries and major cities, dresses them up in female, the uniforms and

everything, and hires local photographers to take photographs of them for this Pan Am, you know, marketing that they're all going to be a part of, right? So these girls are thrilled and they're being paid. And what he did was he had the checks from Pan Am and he would say, so here's your, weekly check for Pan Am. So you're going to, you have to cash this and you give me back 30% of it for expenses. That's how we do it. These are girls in college.

They have no clue. They're like, okay. So they go into a bank in their name, using their IDs, and they would cash these checks for $1,500 and they'd give him $500. And there's like 12 of them. And every week they're getting paid, he's just making the checks. And then he never pays. he tells all of the photographers to bill pay an am and he gives them a so does this for like in the book he does it for like two months or something outrageous like to be like a whole summer traveling and of course he's just you know he's making six thousand dollars plus and i think he had some other thing where he was constantly having them cash checks in their name for for different expenses other than what they're kicking him back they have no clue so he's making bank on this vacation with 12 12 women

Well, in this, they have him, he grabs these women and he goes. He never really explains in the movie what he's doing. What he's doing with it? Now, they said the guy, what was the name? Javier Leva? Javier, yeah. So Javier said that scene was conflated because there's another, or in real life, what he did was. In real life, he worked at one point, he went and worked at like a daycare.

and he takes all of the staff at the daycare to Puerto Rico for the weekend and pays for everything. And then they said, like, after like two days or three days, it was supposed to be like four or five days. After a few days, he suddenly says, we got to go, we got to go, immediately, and he buys them all tickets to come back, and he gets on a plan, they all fly back. And then he steals the, he steals the daycare station wagon and takes off. and they never knew what was happening. They never knew why the vacation got cut short. They never knew anything. So it's kind of the same thing.

You buy all these people tickets. Do you fly there? He didn't have them do anything wrong, though. Fly back, and then they steals the station wagon. So maybe he's like, I think maybe they conflated those two things or something. I don't know. I mean, same thing you said earlier. It could be a lot of things.

Could be budget constraints, time restraints. It could be a lot of different factors. What's really upsetting is that, according to Javier and the research, like, it's all bullshit. It's all bullshit. Yeah. What's really amazing is that he had a brother that was also a con man. So that's kind of cool. Like that's a cool story.

They all did really, both of them did really minor scams. Yeah. But then, you know, how he's, he's in and out of jail throughout his whole life. There's multiple times. It goes to jail for 90 days, goes to jail for 60 days, 90 days, 30 days, does a year here, six months. It goes to state prison for a year. Like, there's all little bullshit. And he said his brother's the same way.

That's interesting. that you and your brother are con men. Like that would have been kind of, even if it's small scale scams, that would have been a cool kind of thing. Google paid him a lot of money to speak. They opened up a plan in

Charleston where I'm at in Somerville area, and they paid him a lot of money to come speak to all the employees. So he still makes bank on. Oh, he still, yeah, he does. But anytime somebody shows up to ask any questions about he won't show, or if he thinks that another

speaker there is one of these two or three guys that are trying to call him out he doesn't show really yeah i wonder if uh tom simon knows anything because it wasn't he supposed to work for the fbi yeah no not work so s is another thing that's weird yeah because i've read both books right he had two books one was uh cash me if you can the other book was called the art of uh um the art of the art of the scam or the art of whatever um not the art of the art of the deal. No. In that, and in the second book, he explains that what really happened was, you know,

in the movie, he gets out, the FBI comes to him and says, hey, come work, I'll get you out of jail, you come work for us, right? In reality, he went for parole and got turned down. He goes for parole again, gets turned down. He then goes and he gets granted parole and he's working for like a grocery store chain and his probation officer comes to him and says, listen,

and this is probably more accurate, comes to him and says, hey, I understand you used to cash a lot of checks. And he says, yeah. And he says, look, I have a couple of, there's a couple of guys that are sheriff's deputies and they work in like the check,

you know, whatever, the fraud department. Could you, would you mind talking to them about how it works? And he's like, um, and some of the different. different things you did. Now, of course, he makes it seem like the guy's telling him, like, you cut millions of dollars in checks. Like, that's probably not. That's obviously not true.

But at least talk to him. So he goes and has a conversation with him, and they're super interested in some of the things that he had done. And one of the things he supposedly pioneered with something called the float, where he changes the bank route or the the bank routing number. So every, every federal reserve has a different bank in a different district. And so, each one of those, your checks go to a corresponding, part of your bank's routing number sends it to a specific Federal Reserve Bank, typically one that's close to you or that manages all those checks for that bank. He would change that number to send it across the country.

So you cash the check. Typically, within two or three days, they know it's bad. But he would send that check across the country. So it takes a few days just to get there. get there, they go, hey, this check's not supposed to have gone here. It's supposed to have gone here. So they then send it there. So he's got almost a week. He's got a week or so. Right. And that's in the movie, the float. Yeah, they talk about that in the movie. So he goes over all of that with these guys. And they say, wow, how great. Thank you very much. And then he said,

I started thinking, I wonder if I could get. Oh, and his probation officer says to him, look, I'm, you know, I appreciate you doing this. He says, you know, and he says, yeah, if you ever need me to do it. He said, okay. He said, yeah, he said, but I'm like, they're not going to pay you. You understand that? And he's like, yeah, that's fine. He's like, I wouldn't even think about getting paid. I didn't know somebody would pay you for this. So then he goes to, he goes to his bank and he's cashing his check or something. And he notices that the girl doesn't check multiple things. And he says, can I talk to the manager? Sure. Manager comes over. He said, listen, I just cash my check. Your girl here never checked

this. She never checked this. And she never checked this. And the guy's like, really? He's like, yeah. He said, I'd like to come and teach a class on check, whatever they call it, balancing or check, whatever, you know, paper or whatever. He's like a check fraud for your bank. He said, and if you like it, I want you to call three other banks. I want you to pay me $100 and call three. This is back in the 70s.

Yeah. He was, and call three other banks and recommend me. And the guy goes, he's, and if you don't think it's worth it. it. Don't pay me anything. So the manager goes, okay, well, how about next Tuesday? Everybody all stay late. So they all stay late. He goes. He talks for 30, 45 minutes. And the manager turned around and said, bro, I'll write you a check right now. It was amazing. And he said, I'm going to call three people and gets you some more gigs. So he starts doing that. And that's how his business grew and grew and grew and grew and grew. So that's, you know, that's probably more realistic.

Yeah. And then the movie comes out and he's got all these speaking gigs where he's getting 30, 40, 50,000 dollars. Oh, yeah. Have you seen the Joe Pessie movie where he's like robbing houses, wet bandits? Oh, O'Ma? Oh, man. No, what? No.

That is Ovalon. The wet bandits? Yeah. Well, there was a wet bandits and then the sticky bandits in part two. I like to highlight a lot of stuff on my show where the mob movies, and I'm a fan of the organized crime. They change and take a lot of liberties, but also, Some of the facts they just completely omit and leave out.

Everybody remembers Goodfellas. I think if you took a vote, that might be the favorite amongst actual real mobsters over the godfather. There's a scene everybody knows the Leptonza robbery, which went off. That's the one where they got the lot of money. Then they wound up everybody that was involved. It essentially brought down Jimmy Burke's whole crew. The robbery was so good. It was so perfect.

And it got so much heat on them that it was just kind of the downfall of that whole organization. But in the movie, they had what they called the Air France robbery. And it was where they had a little bit of money, and they go back into the back, and they start to divvy it up. But the interesting part about it is how they were able to pull that off. And the backstory of how they were able to do it. That part never made the film. It's in the book, if anybody's read the book.

But you want to check it out? Yeah, yeah. Let's watch that. We walked out with $420,000 without using a gun, and we did the right thing. We gave Pauley his tribute. It's going to be a good summer picture. So you see how they're kind of celebrating Henry there, kind of like it was his idea.

And in a way, it was kind of his creation or idea, if you will. He owned a bar for a period of time. And he made the connection with a guy that was a security guard at the Air France there. And I think, I don't know 100% if he tried to get the guard to go along with it or if he knew the guard wouldn't go along with it. But essentially the plan that they put together, was if you can't entice somebody

by money, usually go to another route and use a woman, or at least if it's a man. And he basically hired a hooker to get him up to a room in a hotel, then get him out of the room. I think they went to like the hot tub downstairs. Then they broke in the room,

got a hold to his key, and then was able to make a copy of it, then leave it. That way he's none the wiser when he gets back because he's not missing, so he's not going to go and have the locks change or anything. And that was how they were able to actually get in there. Now, in that scene, you see him put the

key in the paper and slide it over. I mean, it essentially went like that. I mean, I don't know if it was exactly like that, or if they just had the key when they went in. But that was the route that they used. And I don't know why they didn't show that in the movie. It seemed like that would have been not a difficult scene to shoot. When that, well, I think when this

movie came out, like people aren't used to sitting in a movie for two and a half hours. You know what I'm saying? Or three hours. Like now if you say, it's a two hour and 45 minute, a two hour and 40 minute movie people will be okay with that by the time the Wolf of Wall Street came out

like how long was that movie they were there they were complaining people were like this thing's almost three hours long well all these is Marty Scorsese's works so same thing with the Irishman it's three plus hours I think right so they have to cut stuff out but I'll bet you they shot I'll bet you they actually shot that scene

and then they just got cut because you notice they focus them on the key. But in the movie, they never, I think they do, do they explain it? Where they, but so they never, okay, so they never really explain it, but they do show you the significance of the key. I think he, they talked with a guy in the bar, which was the bamboo lounge, is, uh, where that was based on.

They called him Frenchy. Um, he was like, or Joe Buda, uh, Joe Buddha, I think might have been his name. And he was like, you know, you're looking at him. You're looking at the security guard. Right. So it made it seem like he just kind of gave them the key. Right. And let them in to do what they, you know, had to.

to um but in sense like i said they actually had to track the guy down follow him get a woman to persuade him to get him to a room and that's usually how it goes if you can't be enticed by money then you know a woman can usually get the get the job right in prison i read the the book wise guys which was you know based on or the movie was based on the book wise guys and uh yeah henry there were so much stuff that when you watch when you read that book and then you you watch the movie. You're like, man, there's so much good stuff that they just cut. Yeah, I listened to the audiobook. I don't have time to say that I don't actually read books. You had a little bit more time. Yeah, a little time to kill. But yeah, you're right. I mean,

there was so much stuff in that audiobooks. You're like, man, you could have made this, could have added this and that. But I think you hit that on the head, at least back then, they weren't, you know, used to movies coming out with something like that. And you run the risk as a director. If, like, if it doesn't go the way you wanted to go, then you run the risk people losing interest, walking out. So it's got to be that fine line of, you know, you're going to keep their interest until you get to those points. And if you're dragging one too many spots,

then, you know, they're not going to stick around for it. But, you know, as a whole, Goodfellas done great at keeping you in there because it moved just enough to where it didn't linger in any spots. And it showed him as a young kid. Then he gets older, you know, and then obviously they get deeper and deeper and things start to go downhill. But I thought the pacing of it was great. So maybe that is kind of the reason why they left it out.

it might have added a little bit to it. I just feel like they could have done that within under a minute or two, and it wouldn't add it. It would add it a little bit of maybe, you know, comedy to it. You know what this, that reminds me of? Did you ever see Oceans 11, the first one? Oh, yeah. Remember the guy, the security guard, or no, I don't see security,

but he's somebody that works in the casino. He's at a strip club, and the chick pulls his, you know, he's being all like, she's dancing, giving her lamps dance. he's all, you know, enthralled by her, and she pulls his name tag, his, his security card off his, you know, off of them with its little, you know, little alligator clip. And then she gives it to Rusty, Rusty takes it and goes and clones it, brings it back, she clips it back on him, he has no idea. So it's kind of a similar type thing with the key.

Yeah, I mean, it's better to do it like that because then they have no idea that it's already been done. So they, you know, if you lose your key, then the first thing you're going to, to do is you're going to say, hey, I lost my key. We need to change his locks. Yeah, it's like, it's like when I was surveying the homeless people. Mm-hmm. I could have just gone up and say, hey, man, let me give 50 bucks for your information. They'd have done it. It's better to trick them out of it. Yeah. And, you know, pay them 20 bucks to do a survey because then in a year and a half or two years,

if some law enforcement officer questions them, they're like, no, bro, I have no idea how anybody would have, like, they have no clue. They forgot about that survey they took. Because it seems legit, right, as opposed to some. dude just coming up wanting to give him 50 bucks for affirmation. Yeah, well, year and a half ago, this guy was down my luck. This guy gave me 50 bucks. They're going to remember that. Or worse, they do remember you doing that.

Maybe six months later or two months later, they go to cops and tell them, hey, man, something's up. I feel fucked. This guy gave me 50 bucks. I'm afraid he stole my identity. You know, better for them to just have no idea how it happened. Yeah. No, I agree 100%.

You want to watch another one? Do you want to watch another one? Yeah, yeah, we're going to do another one. Um, casino. Casino. Another great one. Um, I thought, my personal opinion outside of, uh, maybe Gotti, um, Casino held more to the, the truth than a lot of them did. And the only thing that was kind of different, which the beating and the happened was the most famous scene that everybody probably remembers from that is when Joe Pesci and his brother, um, got towards the end of the film.

fuck about it. Why in the underwear? The word was enough enough. How much were they gonna take? So they made an example of him and his brother. They buried them while they were still breathing. So the back story to that is, that is Joe Pesci's character is based on a real guy named Tony Spilotra.

They called him Tony the Ant. He was very much physically look-wise, you know, build-wise. Yeah, yeah. He looked a lot like him. As opposed to his character in Goodfellas, Tommy D. Simone was like six-foot, big guy. Didn't look nothing physically like Joe Pesci at all. But Joe in this movie looked exactly like Tony Spilotry. Even the little streak in the hair, I mean, they looked.

I actually interviewed his lawyer, who's his lawyer in the film. If you watch when Spalotra goes to, or Nikki Santoro is his name in the film, when he goes to jail, his lawyer that is in the movie is actually the lawyer that he had in real life. His name is Oscar Goodman. He went on to become mayor of Las Vegas for, I think, three terms, which was the max. And now I think his wife is the mayor. So that was an interesting interview. But he played it, and he said when I was on set,

He's like, it was a Scorsese picture. Everything was great. Top-notch, top-not wardrobe. And he said, when I seen Joe play in Tony, he's like, I could have sworn it was him back from the dead. Like, he was so dumb. He was like, he said, I'm sure he's dead, but God, that looks just like him. So when they sent these guys out from Chicago, they were essentially sent out there to be muscle for Robert De Niro's character in the movie. It's Lefty Rosenthal.

In real life, it was Frank Rosenthal. without uh yeah frank rosenthal um they were sent out there to basically be his muscle and his backing but obviously they started doing things on their own jewelry store robberies they had a he had a whole crew um the hole in the wall gang where they was breaking into different businesses stealing jewelry whatever else and you're not supposed to be doing that they're sent out there to protect the skim on these casinos which is the cash cow so anything you're doing outside of that this bringing heat is not good for business. And, of course, you know, in the movie, he's got a famous line.

He's like, well, you know, fuck them. They can't see that far. And so that's kind of what started this whole thing. And then murder started to happen. I did not ever get a chance to interview him. I didn't start my podcast until much later. But there was a guy named Frank Collada. Do you know who he is?

He was doing a lot of interviews. He was part of Joe Pesci's hole in the wall game. Well, they all got busted. This is a B&E. and he gets word that Tony gives the message or gets the message, well, you know what you've got to do. We take out our own dirty laundry, meaning that he's probably going to get taken out by Tony.

So at that point, he starts cooperating. Well, the bosses back in Chicago know this. Is there like a rule book or something where they got, you know, what do you do? I paint houses. I do my own carpentry work. Like, is there like a, there's got to be like a rule book because if you said, oh, what do you?

I paint houses. I think, oh, he paints houses. I got a house. I might need you. Like, you know, we take out our own red wool. Our own dirty laundry. Yeah, I know. Who else would do my dirty laundry?

You know what I'm saying? I think everybody has their own vernacular. Okay. Because, you know, that was the, the paint houses was the book. But maybe it was in the books. Yeah. You know, they say it's the books are closed. The books are closed.

Like, you can't be a made man. Why? Because they're not putting anybody else in the books. The books are closed. maybe I thought maybe there was like an appendage in the books that have like you know definitions of you know murder murder is this and if you will you know murder is I paint houses and if you also get rid of the bodies then then it's I also do my own carpentry work you know I'm saying like there's a whole thing mm-hmm there's like there could be a you should you could write up a whole that could be a whole thing it could and is that what they mean really when they say they paint houses yeah so like essentially if you were to come up somebody and and get them in the back of the head especially in the movies, what happens? Boom, all over the wall. Yeah.

So that's the term, what are some other terms? I know the laundry one, that makes... So laundry would make sense. I mean, I've heard the paint houses was a more popular because obviously it was an Irishman, and I think that was the name of the book that Frank Sharon wrote.

It was called, I heard you paint houses. I mean, they... The carpentry one. The carpenter one is getting rid of the body. I do my own carpentry. Then what's the laundry? I thought the laundry was... No, that's what...

Laundra could just be taking them out. Yeah. Our own people. We take care of our own problems. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I get it. Yeah. And then, I mean, a lot of them could say, you know, we need to make him a memory.

I mean, there's all kind of different things that they would say in case they were picked up on wiretap where you're not saying directly, Matt, you know, go shoot Kobe and Ann. I mean, you know, you got to kind of be a little coy about it. But it didn't really matter because, like I said, when they got busted for that robbery, Frank started talking. That got back to the bosses. and they kind of figured it was going to be a matter of time. Now, make no mistake, they went a long period of time, and they made a lot of money down there. A lot of that is accurate.

Tony did get banned from the casinos, and I keep calling him Tony because that's his real name in the movie, it was Nicky. He did sleep with Rosenthal's wife, which was a big no-no. Her name was Jerry, and the movie, I can't remember what her name was in the movie right off the top of my head.

It's Sharon Stone. Yeah, Sharon's play. She played great. She played that role to it. tea and he did wind up sleeping with her so that part is accurate that got back to the and it's crazy because like these guys don't mind getting somebody or clipped or however you want to word it but like they still have some of those old school values is they don't like nobody messing around with other people's wives so like some of those things are going to

stay intact and from what i understand that's still a thing to this day um you know whether it's followed i don't know but that was a big no-no and even some of the people that were going back and talking to the bosses because they they were they were were out in Vegas, they were flying back to Chicago, they were taking them the money, and they were asked, like, he wouldn't be messing with the, they called him the Jew in the movies, like he wouldn't, the little guy, he wouldn't be

messing with a Jew's wife, would he? Because if he is, it's a problem. And, you know, it was. And all those things, it was kind of like a culmination of things. They just build up and build up and build up. And then after Frank, you know, was talking, they knew it was kind of a matter of time before it was going to get

to them. The skim got busted. After the skim got busted, I think the higher-ups, one meaning joke. How did that, how did the skimp, how did that happen? There was a guy that was on wiretap in Kansas City. Basically, um, just gave up and sunk the whole damn operation. He had books with everybody's names and they, it just kind of, the dominoes started to fall at that point.

Is this the guy that owned like a, he's talking? Yeah. Yeah, he's just talking. What was it? He's complaining to his mom, I think, in the movie. Yeah, in the movie. It's a pizza shop or something or a butcher shop and he's just bitching and moaning and they pick it and they had wired the butcher shop.

Yep. And one of the guys, in real life, the guy's name was Joey Aupa. He was one of the guys behind it. He was, I think, one of the more influential guys to just say they wanted to go ahead and take him out. Now, he did have a brother. His brother was involved in it. And the pretences of why they summoned them to a meeting was that they were going to make Tony a boss, and they were going to make his brother Mikey.

This come out in trial. The trial was called Family Secrets. Nick Calabrese, I think, was on the stand, and he wrote about it, and he does a lot of stuff with the Mob Museum in Vegas, and he's done some podcast interviews. He says this on the trial, so that's how I was, I'm not like, I wasn't there, this is what he's saying on the trial. They summoned him there.

Tony thought he was going to get a bump to a boss. His brother, Mikey, was going to get made, but they still had reservations themselves about what they were going there for. Because a lot of times you want to make it enticing for somebody to come, their family was interviewed. And Mikey's family, even his daughter, said it like he kept telling him repeatedly that he loved her. And, you know, he just thought the world over. He told his wife, he's like, if I'm not back by 9.30, it's no good. So he doesn't think it's something.

He doesn't think we're going to dinner. He knows what he's being called there for, but at the same time, he knows what it also could be. Like the Franzis thing when he said he gets called, he's like, I was scared to do. scared to death. I didn't know what it was being called. Because it could be what they're calling you for, but it could be something different. And in this case, it was something different. And they had about 10 guys.

I don't remember them all right off the top of my head. I know John DeFranzo was there. Nick Calabrese was there. I think Louis Eppoli was there. There was about 10 guys or so. And they call him into this house. They go down. They get his kid brother first.

I think they hit him like with a closed fist and then put a rope around his neck and choked him to death. This was while Tony was watching, and Tony asked before they get to him, could he say a prayer? He asked the guy, could he say a prayer before they did it? I don't know if he ever got to say that, but they took him out too. They were beaten with fists. They weren't beaten with bats. They said that the medical report come back and that basically the blood had kind of filled up their lungs from the beatings. It was all blunt force trauma, but there was no evidence that they were beaten with bats. So they were. They were I thought that they were choked.

I thought you said the first guy just got choked. Yeah. Well, I don't know if that got him. I know he was choking him down. I think they choked him to get him down and incapacitated and then just finished him off with fists. Because they had a lot of guys there. And Tony was a tough guy. To be a little guy, he was a tough fellow.

So they had enough guys there to make sure that things got, you know, handled. They'd done the beatings there. They were dead. They put them in the trunk of the car. They drove them to the cornfield in Indiana. And they were buried in a very shallow grave. I think me personally, they kind of wanted them to be found. Maybe not tomorrow, but in a month from now, somebody to run across them.

If for nothing else, to send a message, you know, because this is what happens when you do what these guys did. So I don't think it was a situation where, like, Hopper, where they never wanted them to be found. I think they wanted them to be found to try to send a message. So not too far off, but if anything, Scorsese, probably made it a little bit more brutal in the film. I mean, that's a brutal.

That's a hard scene to watch, you know, with the bats. And it adds, I think, a little bit more violence to it. And if you notice, if you catch, that's Frank Vincent, who's playing his right-hand man. And so he's one of them that kind of turns. That's kind of supposed to be Frank Kalata's character. And he was really upset about it because he was like, I didn't do that. He's like, I wasn't even in that room when they did that.

He was like, I'm dealing with my own shit. And in Goodfellas, it was them that beat him up in the club. And that's why Joe Pesci gets killed at the end of the movie because they took out the guy that was made, Billy Bats. Right. And Casino, it's kind of like he gets his payback. He's the one that's beating up Joe Pesci character and kills him and throws them in there. The only thing I never got clarification about was if they were stripped down to their underwear. I know in the movie, he says they buried him while they were still breathing.

That wasn't in case they were when they were dropped off in the hole. So a few facts changed, but really, for the most part, man, it was spot on. even like how the surveillance was on them there's a scene where they're playing golf and the feds are like just flying back and forth in a little small plane and they run out of gas and have to land on the fairway in the golf course and the...

He tells them he's like, he's like, 100, he's like, look at this, this ages, Frankie. He's like, 100 hours, whoever hits the plane. So everybody starts hitting golf balls towards the plane. And the lawyer, Oscar Goodman, told me he said that was true. He said they would be, you know, have a meeting somewhere,

having dinner discussing his cases, and you would see these planes just fly by, you know, all the time. He said he was constantly under surveillance. And he's got a restaurant, if you guys ever get to Vegas, you go to Fremont Street, the Plaza Hotel, which is right there at the start. I think that's the start of Fremont Street or the end of it, depending on which way you're going. He's got a restaurant, Oscar Goodman does. It's called Oscars. In the front of the restaurant is a bronze statue of him standing there talking to Tony Spuletra. But I thought that was pretty neat because I actually stayed there when I went to.

to Vegas last year and I went to I ate his restaurant and I seen that statue. But he represented a lot of mob guys. He represented the real Frank Rosenthal. I think he did represent Jerry. He represented a guy named

Jimmy Chagra who was accused of hiring Woody Harrelson's dad to kill a federal judge. I don't know if you ever heard about that story. That's a whole other can of worms of Woody Harrison's dad was a hitman for a mob. Yeah. He's still in And he in prison?

He's dead. Oh, he died in prison? Yeah, he died in prison. Oh, okay. He was put in jail for that murder. Poor Woody Harrelson. Yeah. He was put in jail for that murder.

And Jimmy Chagra, which was the guy that's allegedly hired him to do the hit, Oscar got him off. But yet, Charles stayed in jail. So the guy that allegedly hired you to do it gets off. He gets acquitted. Yeah. So it's now he's innocent. Then who hired me to be in prison? Exactly.

Or hired me to somebody? That's what would. he doesn't talk about it much. And there's not a lot of stuff on it. There's a good podcast called Son of a Hitman that kind of details a lot of Charles Harrelson. It's real good to check out. But he done a Diane Sawyer interview

and she asked him about his father being connected to being a hitman. And he's like, look, he said, my father's no saint. He said, but the crime that he's in jail for, he did not commit. And he's like, especially the guy that supposedly hired my father was acquitted. So, like, how is this supposed to happen?

and he was trying to push to get his father a retrial. He was talking with a judge about trying to get it, you know, pushed through. Somebody, I guess, took a picture of them playing basketball together, and it got leaked. So the judge, like, accused himself from anything to having to do so. He wasn't trying to show favoritism or anything like that. And that just completely set the bar back. So nothing ever happened. And his dad wound up dying in prison.

I don't know if he was at one of the Supermax prisons or not. but he was also even linked to being one of the JFK shooters. You know, one of the, you heard and talk about the three tramps on the box cars, allegedly, or the three homeless guys, he was allegedly one of the homeless guys. So, yeah, it goes deep, and Oscar had a, he had ties to all them guys. How long ago did you interview? About two years ago, and sadly, I didn't know about that case when I interviewed him, so I didn't get to talk to him about it.

I knew about Charles Harrelson's being the shooter to the judge, but I didn't know that he was just. Jimmy Chagra's lawyer until much later. I actually interviewed Jimmy's son. I need to drop that because I've had it for a little bit. But he was just talking about how tight him and Oscar was. I mean, Oscar was one of these guys. And he even says in the interview, he was like, you know,

I didn't really know much about the mafia. I don't even know if there is one, but if there is one, and they certainly got the money to pay for the best lawyer money could buy. And how was that lawyer? And he got a lot of those guys off. I mean, you know, Tony went to jail. That wasn't a lie. He was always getting called into court for something.

Those scenes where he's walking and going to court and he's like, watch yourself. You know, a guy slips on a fucking banana peel. It'd be my fault. Don't haul me in for it. He's like, that was very much true. Like anything that happened out there, they would call him in for it.

He was banned from casinos out there. A lot of that movie was true to form of how it went down. Like I said, outside of the placement of where they did it and how they did it, which Scorsese went a little bit more further than the truth. It was probably one of the most accurate depictions of a mob movie. Well, they didn't want to have to have two different scenes. You got to have two different locations. You've got to set up multiple times.

We've got a hard enough time shooting a corner field. It's just combined. Let's conflate these two scenes. Same thing. Yeah. So in this scene right here, this is after they find out that who they know as Donnie Brascoe is Joe Pistone. He's been an undercover cop this entire time.

So obviously. And he introduced him. He introduced him. Right, which is bad. Well, in the movie, he introduces him. So that's the thing is like, that's a bad thing. So typically what they do is they chop hands off of people that, you know,

because they made you shake hands with, you know, somebody that was dirty or whatever. I mean, there's messages to be sent. So he plays Lefty, I want to say his last name is Regerio. I don't know if that's his name in the movie, but in the movie there is a real guy, Lefty Two Guns, they called him. And there's another guy, Sonny Black Napolitano, who's played by Michael Madison in the movie. And I think they do call him Sunny Black in the movie. So in this, it leads you to think, we can play the scene now.

Yeah, all right, okay. It's amazing how many of these guys have the thought process, that that's the call where they're never going to come back from, but they still go. Is that for me? Uh, no, who's a guy? I got to go see. If Donnie calls. Tell them. Tell him, if there's going to be anyone, I'm glad it was him.

in real life, the real lefty winds up going to prison. I think he got a, I know he died in prison. I don't know if he got life, but he essentially served life because he died in prison. The real Sonny Black was summoned to a meeting for that because Sonny Black was the boss

of that area, and he was, and later found. Again, they like to do messages when they do that. What was wrong with him? They had a head injury. Got hit by a few bullets. Actually, I don't remember that I'm sure he was shot.

I don't remember the specifics of, you know, how he was, where he was found, but I do know that he was taken out and in the movie, I don't know, there's really no reason to flip-flop that, I guess, unless you just already feel sorry for Al Pacino's character. Yeah, maybe it's sad, you know. Because Michael Madison kind of had this tough bravado through the whole thing, so maybe it wouldn't have, you wouldn't have got the same sympathetic feeling if you knew Michael Madison was going to do it.

But, I mean, even him in the movie, he talks about having 26 hits under my belt. And you're who's afraid of, you know. And it cracks me up. So he's 26 people. But that's the way that a lot of these shows. They're all bad people. The Sopranos and all that, they have you feeling bad for these mass murders. And you're like, I feel bad for the guy.

He got 26 people. There's serial killers that ain't that many people. And you're feeling bad for the guy. But, I mean, that's the art of a film. See, I mean, not a huge one on that one, but it's just, like you said, I think, I think it's kind of weird. Maybe it is the sympathetic factor. You felt for Alpich, you know, through the whole thing.

But they did flip-flop the facts in that when Sonny Black was taken out for bringing him around. Because if you bring somebody around, it's one thing for a guy to turn on him and informant. You brought an undercover cop into him. It was very close to being made. Like, I've never had a chance to interview the real, you know, Joe Postone. But I would love to because I'm curious to see just how close he was to become a maid. because in the movie, you know, they want him to take out the son. You know, have you seen the movie?

Yeah, at the very end, they want him to, and he's kind of behind him with a gun. Like, if he doesn't do it, he's going to kill him or something? Well, I mean, I don't know if he's going to come. He was wanting Donnie to go on it with him, and he's like, all right, you go on me, this will open up the books for you. So that's the son of one of the bosses that they get in that scene where they go down to the basement and they're all waiting. And when they flip on the lights, they just start taking them all out.

I think that was sunny red They came in the basement His son Bruno I need to see this movie again Oh it's good It's great And I know I've seen it like five times But I haven't seen it probably

Fucking 20 years Yeah his son's name was Bruno He took off And that was who they wanted him to kill And he was alive for a while after that Though obviously that didn't You know that that hit never took place But I'm curious as like

Could he have ever gotten made That would have been Something serious Right to make an undercover cop. Yeah, he was, he was, even they go into it in the movie where he was deep, deep in. Like, he's not coming home at night. Oh, yeah.

He's not, he's 100% years. And his wife's like, she's basically like almost like a widower. Yeah, and what, at the end, I mean, like, I don't, I think he got a medal. Yeah, he could have, yeah. What do you really get out of it? Yeah, and they give him a check for, five grand or something, yeah. Yeah, five grand. I mean, you know, and allegedly there was a contract on his life for a long time.

I mean, I think now it's probably dissipated. But, I mean, you know, you're giving up all that. And I don't care who you are. I think if you immerse yourself with people, even if they do bad shit, you're going to tend to gravitate towards them. You know them. You know their family. In the movie, he goes to his house umpteen different times. He goes to the hospital when his son overdoses.

So you're going to catch feelings and care about. about some of these people. So at the end of the day, when it's time to pull that plode, that's going to be a very hard decision. You see it throughout movies throughout history, point break. You know, at the end of the day, he couldn't really bring Patrick Swayze in. That same storyline kind of lends itself

to the first fast and a furious. You know, Brian and Dom. These are fiction movies. Yeah, but I'm saying, that's real life, though. I think, anyway. You're going to undercover that deep. You're going to get attached to the people. I mean, I've interviewed a couple of detectives.

And where they were like, you know, yeah, you kind of like the guy, you know, you kind of, um, although what was his name? What was the sheriff's name? I forget the sheriff. Kyle. Overmire. Overmire. He's funny.

That's my guy. He's like, when he walks in, they've got all of his buddies locked up and he walks in. They're like, Bob, they got you. And he's like, oh, not really. Yeah. Yeah, that's got, especially he's been that much time. So, um, what's funny about this is that there were. two of the guys that were apart like Donnie Brascoe like there was like 30 guys that I think he ended up bringing down yeah two of the guys that got brought down were in the medium with me really one of them and I don't know what the guy's name is I do know the big guy there was one he's like six foot four he was huge and he remember he always had this cast on his arm like he had carpal tunnel or something I don't know what it was but he always had this um it was just weird that he always had it on uh and then the

And the other guy was a short little chubby guy, older guy. He was probably in his late 60s and the other guy was probably in his early 50s. And they would argue all the time and also and the young, the little guy would scream and they would say and people said, well, the little guy was like made and the other guy wasn't. So I couldn't do anything. Right. But you're in prison. You're both like a life sentences and you're in prison and the little guy would be like,

And he started screaming at him. And he would be like, Anthony or Tony, whatever, you know. Anthony, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. He's huge. The other guy's like five foot five scream. Dude, all fuck I told you, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You know, it was like, it was comical. And I, people told me like, hey, you know, those two guys were on the, you know,

Donnie Brascoe. And I'm like, yeah, they go, well, there was two of the guys that were, you know, they were a part of the crew. Like, I was like, what do you mean? Which guys were they, they were like, no, no, like there's like 30 guys. Yeah, 30 or so guys that got busted. two of them and I'm like were they in the movie they're like I don't know if they were in the movie whatever they're like they're in the book you know you so you're like okay and what's

so funny is one day I was walking walked in the movie or walked into the unit and there's it's two tiers right so there's the bottom floor and then there's a second tier so it's like a you know it's like a you know like a balcony that goes around the whole like this massive room is a balcony where there's more doors right so and they do it like that so the guards sitting in the middle can see above you, right? And, you know, they're the big doors and everything where there's TVs in the middle on these poles. So there's multiple TVs.

And as we're walking through, the guy I was with goes, watch this. He goes, watch this. And he goes, hey, Anthony, Anthony. And they're kind of, these guys were always together. They're inseparable. And he looks up, he's like, yeah, what's up? He's like, check out what's on TV. They're playing Donnie Brasco.

And they were. It was Donnie Brasco. And he's walking. He looks over. He goes, fuck that cuck up. He went wild. I mean, screaming.

They're both screaming. He starts yelling at the big guy. He's fucking. I mean, it was so comical. I think both of them had like life sentences or like 50 years or something ridiculous. They're dying in prison. Yeah, they're not getting out. So funny.

I would love, I should look up, try and see which guys they were. I interviewed a guy. I was telling Kobe about it. His name is John Sarasani, and he's got, I think it was his uncle or somebody down the line. He didn't have anything to do with it, but his uncle was Boobie Sarasani, who was portrayed in Donny Brasco. Now, he was out when this movie come out, and so he actually sued. I don't know what company released Donnie Brasco was, MGM, TriStar, Paramount, whoever it was. He had a suit against him saying that it was like defamation, saying that he was involved in all this,

because he was never arrested, it was never proven that he was involved in all this. I guess there's a law, and there was case studies written about it. Like, it's like, you can't defame your name. It's already, like, very bad. Right. Oh, yeah, exactly. There's nothing you can do about it. Like, even if this movie, like, if you never heard anything about you, maybe.

But, like, your name and reputation is already tarnished so bad. Like, this movie's not going to do anything worse than it. Right. I thought it was fun. That's a real thing. I never heard of that before. That's a real thing. That's why whenever I've written stuff and people, people, if somebody's like, you know,

Because listen, I got this the other day. I wrote a story about Jess. One of her co-defendants sent me a, sent me an email saying, hey, my name, hey, my name is so-and-so. You know, my name is in this article. I never gave you permission to use my name. Someone needs to contact me immediately. You know, I've had that happen multiple times. And it's like, you were on the indictment.

Yeah. There's articles written saying you're a drug. dealer. You went to prison. That's a pretty much information act, too. Exactly. Like, and this is my wife talking about you, and honestly doesn't say anything that's nearly as bad about you as the newspaper said. Did you call the newspaper and tell them that they can't put your name in it? Did you call the other one was, oh, there's a two press releases from the U.S. government that has you listed on this indictment as being, as selling methamphetamine. You're a methamphetamine trafficker. Like, did you call them?

Like, what the fuck? So I sent her back and I said, hey, so and so. I said, what is it exactly you want me to do? And I said, just send her that, waiting for her to come back. Because I like to taunt them and have them come back and be like, you can't this, you can't that, you can't. And then I like to give them a little school them and say, let me explain something. Boom, boom, boom, boom. On top of that, like, I always love it when they come back.

I'm going to get a lawyer. I hope you do because the moment you talk to that lawyer, he's going to tell you, ma'am, you were arrested for this and this. Like, how did he, how did he, you know, why, it's called libel, right? Yeah. Like, how did he defame you or how did he libel you? When all this is true. Yeah. When all of this is true.

And not just that, even if you could prove that he did, how did he cost you money? Like, how can we sue to make reparations? We can't. Because you, you don't, you didn't lose any money. You can't really sound like you can say, hey, I got fired from my, I'm making, I have a job making $300,000 a year, and I got fired. and I can't find another job because this is out there now. I haven't worked for six months.

You owe me at least $150,000. Like, you work at, like, you work at KFC in the back. So, anyway, yeah, so I always love that. Yeah. I want, I can't, I need to find the, I really should go through all the pictures and try and find these guys. But the pictures are so shitty. Yeah. Of all the people involved in this.

And the last one that I wanted to talk about, there's really no direct scene that we can, go to to point out like, all right, this is fabricated, except you can just say the whole damn series. But the problem, I say the problem, the thing about it is a series is actually very good. You said you hadn't seen it,

but it's the Godfather of Harlem. Right. It's Forrest Whitaker playing Bumpy Johnson, whose Forrest is a great actor. And Vincent Donofrio, you know, that is? No. He was... But I knew of Forced Whitaker.

and full metal jacket one that flipped the hell out. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They've been in everything. He plays Vincent the Chin Giganti, who, if anybody is familiar with organized crime. He was the guy that they dubbed the odd father

between the 90s and the, you know, when he went to jail, he would walk around the streets in his bathroom and act like he had lost his mind. I got a story about him, too, by the way. Really? Yeah. Okay, we'll do that at the end. Okay.

So that was, but that was all a facade. I interviewed his daughter, She was saying how, like, she was feeling bad because he would check himself in hospitals and do hospital stays. And she's like, we're in there on floors with real people with real problems. And the nurses would come by, give him his stuff. He'd act like he takes it. As soon as they walk out of the room, he'd take it and throw him in the toilet. It was all the way to kind of stay out of jail.

Yeah, he was trying to stay off a prosecution, right? Yeah. Yeah. And that and just stay. I mean, they said he was hard to catch him. And he was hardly ever on wiretaps. He rarely left his house. But he was.

When he did, he's in a row. shuffling around the neighborhood like he's lost. Someone has to come get him and walk him back into the house. Like, no, you're not. They say that that stick was kind of loosely based on what they did with Junior Soprano and the Sopranos towards the end. He started kind of losing it and was walking down the street and his bathrobe and stuff. They say that was kind of a play on that.

But the chin did this way before him. Yeah. Chin was, he was a master. So that's kind of your two main characters. Are you going to tell us how you're going to tell us how he got into a minute? No, no, I'm saying you're going to tell us how he got caught. Put the chin? Yeah, this is great.

What you do? You know how they caught him? Well, he called somebody at 9-11 and was like he was talking lucid. No, no, this was that they had photographs of him where he would sneak out of his house, get into like a limo, drive to his, his mistress's house. Yeah, he had a mistress. Full in a three-piece suit, get out, walk in. So they're like, so he sneaks. out of the house, gets into a limo, goes down the street to his, her, in a three-piece seat

suit to her house, sleeps with her, gets in the limo, comes back, drops and sneaks back and, like, bro. But all day, you're wandering around and, like, come on, stop it, bro. And then obviously, like, they get him eventually, but it's like. Yeah, they had him on a charge. I forgot what the charge was. It wasn't anything that was going to give him life. But after 9-11, he called his family and was basically talking to him, like, very,

lucid, hey, you know, everybody okay, what's going to? So they obviously had the phone tapped. They knew it. They went to him and they were basically saying they were going to go after his family for helping put on the charade and things like that. And that's when he kind of copped to whatever he copped to and then he got life and then he died in there. But the show basically is centered around bumpy and the chin.

That's your protagonist, antagonist. You never heard about the thing with the mistress? I knew he had a mistress. I didn't hear that was how what led to him. Well, I don't know that it led exactly, but it was one of the things that they had was like... Yeah, his daughter told me that he did have a mystery. He had a whole other family, which a lot of them did. That's nuts, bro.

A lot of them guys did back, man. A whole other family? Yeah. Well, I mean, they have mistresses. Why would you do that to you? Why would you do that to yourself? Like, isn't one family enough stress? It's enough stress.

Yeah, it don't really work, but I tell my wife, I'm like, you are enough. Yeah, exactly. I don't want to deal with nobody else. Yeah, exactly. Why would I do that to myself? Yeah, I'm stressed enough already. I have no hair now. I mean, like, you know, I don't want to add anything else.

This is because of you. Yes. I had a full head of hair, a beautiful head of hair. But, I mean, but this show is just so factually inaccurate that if you know the history like I do, it's hard to overcome. Although the show is well-acted, Chas Pometry is in it, Forrest Whitaker, he's now, but Paul Servino was in, and he was in Goodfellas. He played Polly. Paul Savino played Frank Costello.

So herein lies like a bit, it's almost two separate stories. Bumpy Johnson came from Charleston, South Carolina, my neck of the woods. He goes up to New York. He gets hooked up with a lady that's running numbers. They called her queen. I can't remember her full name, something St. Clair. But she was basically the queen of Harlem. Harlem had numbers, you know, before the mob did. That was their moneymaker. and he was muscle for her. He rose up through the ranks.

And there was another guy. If you ever seen the movie Hoodlam with Lawrence Fishburn? It's a movie about Bumpy, and it kind of shows that whole struggle over the numbers racket. So it was a guy named Dutch Schultz. I've heard of Dup Shult. Okay, so Dutch was basically going to war with the Queen to have control of the numbers racket.

Charlie Luciano, Lucky Luchiana, made the decision to go ahead and take Dutch out, and then he and Bumpy became tight. And Bumpy was as widely known as one of the first black gangsters to ever have a working relationship with the Italians. Now, with that, Lucky was deported. Frank Costello took over the family. Frank was one of these guys to where he,

not necessarily in the way God he was, as flashy and flamboyant, but Frank liked to go to nice restaurants, rub elbows with politicians, movie stars, They knew who he was. I think his, I can't remember the name, Prime Minister, I think they called him.

But he was a guy that kind of wanted to get out of that street stuff. He still wanted to do it to gain control, but he liked to rub elbows with people in high positions. Right. And so he was the head of the family. Vito Genovese, who was this up-and-comer, wanted to take over everything. So he hires Vincent the Jinjiganti,

who at that point, he was an amateur boxer. He was a driver. a lot of, like, you know, low-level stuff, he became muscle for Vito. Vito hires him to take out Frank Costello. And I think it was the Waldorf's story was where Frank was at. Chin comes out. He sees Frank coming in. He pulls out the gun. He shoots him. The bullet goes through the lid of his fedora and scrapes his head. There's pictures you can find online of Frank's head wrapped up. There's pictures you can see where the bullet goes through the fedora. I mean, he's inches away from being killed. The chin is.

Jen goes on the run after he doesn't call him, which is usually not good for him. It worked out okay for him, but he goes on the run because obviously at that point he didn't know whether Costello was going to try to get back at him or what he's going to do. The message was Costello needs to go, so he kind of bowed out. And I think by the respect he had garnered at that point, they let him take a back seat. Vito took over the family, and then it became the Genevice family, which it still is today. So it kept that name. The chin was on the run for a while

A long time It was a rumor that that's where he got the name the chin Because when he left, he was a skinny guy In shape When he come back, he had put on a lot of weight His face was a little bigger So they were saying it because he had a double chin But his daughter debunked dad

She said it was a name that Her grandmother His mother had given him her grandmother But he comes back and Frank refuses to testify The only reason he was charged with the murder is the doorman recognized him. And the doorman, I guess, was saying, yeah, that was the guy that did it. Well, when Frank went on a stand, Frank's like, I didn't see him.

I don't know what happened. Not the guy can't help you. So it was kind of like a nod. And now the doorman change that hard? I guess they didn't press it with the doorman. I never heard too much else about him. I just know that Frank was obviously the guy that was really going to make their case on, but Frank wasn't going to testify either.

So that kind of opened the door for Vito to be boss. And then Chim was behind him. Now, when Bumpy is there, he goes to prison in 52 and gets out in 63. So at this point in time, Vito was still boss. So he wouldn't even be dealing with the chin. The chin is rungs down the ladder at this point. So, and you've got the chin and Costello having meetings and talking. That ain't going to happen if you try to shoot him in the head.

So the whole thing is really factually inaccurate. I don't think the chin actually took over. until the late 80s. There was a couple people in between Vito and him before he completely took the reins. So, I mean, I think that's just what we have to deal with when we look at this stuff. It's not going to be factual.

It's not going to be historically accurate. And it rubs a lot of people the wrong way. I'm going to see a guy named Chris Columbo next week. And he's the son of Joe Colombo, who was the leader of the Italian American Civil Rights Union that got shot. He got assassinated, kind of like what they were trying to do to Trump. a couple weeks ago.

Except he went into a coma, I think, for six years, five years. I know it was a number of years. And then ultimately, he did wind up passing away. But I'm friends with his son. And his son was like, he was just despised the offer of how it portrayed his father. Because his father was very influential in getting the godfather made. He let them film. The word mafia is not in the godfather, largely due to Joe Columbo's input on the film.

and like when things like that get done and he's related to him so I can see where that's really going to be passionate to him but it really rubs people the wrong way when they do this stuff historically and factually inaccurate so like when I watch that show

I know that the bumpy and the chin probably never had a conversation but yet the whole series is based around these two guys going at it and then they have one of Chin's daughters who's like in love with a black musician and at least the one that I've spoken with

Rita is openly you know she's a lesbian so it's just I don't think that you don't think that the chin and Costello ever had a conversation

like you know I mean take that you know no not a documented one Costolo was happy when they were the shooting there was no exchange at all

probably not no duck or you know hey stop it oh no he wanted to give them he definitely wanted to get him no sense of humor okay oh okay I thought you're being serious

no I'm able to get And I was like, hey, stop that. Put that away. You come here. Now see here. Pow, pow, you know. Yeah, no, no conversation.

Stay still. Damn it. Get my hat. Usually, if you're given a job like that to take out an acting boss and you don't complete it, that's usually not very good for you. Yeah. And he was able to not only cut. And maybe that's why he didn't rise up faster.

I don't know. I don't know if he had any repercussions for that. But he didn't get killed. And that was a big deal. Didn't hurt his appetite. Yeah. No. Well, he slimmed back down after that.

I definitely think he put on those pounds, probably two changes appearance a little bit. Because if they ID a skinny-in-shaped guy running out with a gun when he comes back and he's, you know, well over 200 pounds, is, you know, going to add to the, that's not me. I've been like this for years. I don't know how many pictures are floating around out there. I don't know.

Not a lot of pictures back then. There's not a lot of pictures of chin at all. There are some you can find, but like there's not nowhere near as many of him as there are some of the other guys. And see, when Vito took over, because they took out Albert Anastasia, they got him in the barbershop. That's shown in the movie The Irishman, the guys in there getting a shave. They go in, they kill him.

Carlo Gambino winds up, taking over that family. It becomes the Gambino family. Genevice takes over Costello's family who was ran by Luciano. That becomes the Genevice. And then Genevice wanted to have this meeting in Appalachian, where all the bosses from all the families, all of them meet. And that's the one they got busted, 60, 70, 80-year-old man are running through the damn woods with the cops chasing him.

It just turned out to be a fiasco. And then Vito went to prison for heroin. The first known rap, people want to say like Sammy was the first guy to flip. And it wasn't. There was a guy that was with Vito. His name was Joe Balachie. They got arrested together. And then he got to rest in the Congress and all the time of way.

There's a picture of man. He broke down the whole hierarchy of the mob. And he tells him, he's like, I could get for telling you this. you know there's a movie it's called the valachi papers it's not very good but it's out there you can watch it and he breaks down the whole hierarchy of the mob how it's operated because he thought someone was trumping to kill them with orders from veto and it actually wasn't but he i think he the guy in prison so after that he's like if i'm going to get taken out then i'm going to do what i can you know for me and that that seems to be the consensus of everybody on there people want to pin sammy as like the

first main guy but he wasn't there was other guys a kid twist relis was going to rat they had him in a hotel room and then seemingly somehow he got flung himself out of the window down to the you know a couple stories down and himself and then valachi was really the first one to actually get in front of congress and do it so that's probably the senior talking about he's kind of a bigger guy bigger like blockhead so and he's talking and breaking it all down and that was veto's guy so you know veto he wanted the power but he wasn't really in my opinion the best orchestrated to do it uh chin he done a good job and he was widely considered at that point in time after god he went to jail and all that he was what they considered the boss of bosses like the top guy over everybody so you what go ahead you got something else to say no i was going to say talking about that i was going to mention the thing about the chin well i just it's so when i was in the in the low security prison this guy older guy probably in his late 60s uh he came in and he was actually in the cell directly across from me.

And, you know, he was a former mob guy, right? But he'd been in prison for almost six years. So he had fought the, he'd been indicted, and he fought the case, and he eventually pleads guilty to whatever the case was, right? Like, let's say it was tax evanes or whatever, which was comical because he said when he got charged, they made him sell all of his stock portfolio, right? Because you have a fraud charge, and you can't be an owner of a public company at that time, you know, while you're under indictment or under, you know, obviously, server your sentence, whatever. He said, so I sold

everything. He was, what's funny is when I sold everything, he said, within about a year, the entire stock market crashed. He said, and he said, he said, save me $7 million. Wow. He said, that was like so which was he said so really did me a favor he said other than the sentence so he had done three years he said literally just before he's about to get out on the three years he said i get re-indicted and they hit him with like another it was something like the first one may have been i don't know some kind of a some kind of fraud or something or some kind of scam that he was involved in he pled for three years the next one i think might have been tax evasion so they hit him for tax evasion or something i forget exactly how it went but but

But he was like, you know, my lawyer fucking didn't get this included. He was bitching about his lawyer. Anyway, he had shown up. And so I'm talking to him. He's an older guy and wants to talk to people. He's talking to me. He used to, he put money on different people's books to buy commissary. And he had like a guy full time making food.

So he'd have these little snacks. Like he'd buy crackers and have a piece of cheese and have like a piece of bacon on top. They get it from the, you know, from the commissary. They, I'm sorry, they steal it from the kitchen. Like, he had guys make it his bed. You know, they live like kings, right? And so he's constantly, you know, hey, Cox, come over here. Come over here.

Try this. I'm like, no, I'm good. I'm good. He's like, no, no, take it. Take one. And I'm like, yeah, you tell me to take it. I'll take it. So, um, he was funny.

But at some point, you know, for a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGriffon or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. He was caught. He started talking to me all the time, right? And keep in mind, I'm, I'm a, I'm a snitch in federal prison talking to a guy who's, you know, going on six years who never told on nobody and, you know what and would probably have had it.

Here's the problem. He's in his late 60s, you know. Like, he almost felt like he wouldn't have had a problem. I was such a nice guy. Yeah. Now, you know, I never had any business, any dealings with him. Yeah. I wonder if they're that, they feel that way about people that are snitches of stuff

just they're not involved in. Yes, none of my business. Whatever. You didn't snitch on me, you know, that kind of thing. Like collar shit. Yeah. What was so funny about, he had asked me one time what I was in for. and I told them what I was in for.

And I want to say that I want to say, I don't know if I'd already gotten a reduction or not, my sentence reduced once or something. But, you know, if somebody had asked me that in prison, so, you know, oh, yeah, you got, oh, you know, you're 26 years. I would, you know, I would, I'd say, you know, I got seven years knocked off it. And they, oh, how did you do that guy? I filed the, Frank followed the 2255 for me, you know. And then I'd tell them what happened.

You know, I was interviewed by Dateline. I was interviewed by American Greed, you know, and I explained the whole thing. I would leave out the fact that I tried to tell on a bunch of people. And then I tell him that, and I said, Frank ended up getting me reduced. I said, they had said it. I had a letter. I had this. And he's like, holy shit, that's amazing.

You know, it was the second one that was, there was, it's hard to explain that one. So, but so, so I'm talking to him. So he, here's what he had, he said, oh, well, what did you do? What did you do? And I, when I explained it to him over there. A bit of quick version, 20 minutes, right? Maybe the five-minute version that turned in 20 minutes because they started asking questions.

He was like, I respect that. He said, these banks, he said, that is amazing. How you think about that. Like he was really, but nicest guy. What's funny about him is that he was like a lieutenant or somebody underneath the chin. And that was when he had told me, I, and he said, he said that, um, that he was underneath the chin.

And I was like, oh, I know who that. I said, is that the guy with the robe that, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he did that because the, and he's the one that told me about the, um, uh, the mistress. Yeah. That he's the one who had said, that's why I thought, okay, well, maybe it was multiple things in because I didn't know about the wiretap. He had told me, this is how he got caught. He's like, oh, I said, how long is he walking around doing this?

He goes, years, years. Like he's, and he's laughing. laughing about it. And then, so we were talking at one point, you'll appreciate this, because this is funny. Because he, you know what? I know I hadn't got my sentence reduced yet. I did not get my sentence reduced yet. You know why I know? I was still meeting with the FBI. So, I mean, because I remember, I'm still, they're still showing up every three months in and I get a call to go to, I get a call to go to, like the lieutenant's office and you know you walk to the lieutenant or you know you walk to the lieutenant's office and as I'm walking there that they have somebody coming out and they would meet me at the

visitation at the door at for visitation so because the lieutenant's office or the warden's office lieutenant ward like assistant warden they're all the same building so you're going and as you're going all of a sudden they the guy would walk he opened the door he'd go go in there and I go okay now I know what it is for now I was like I was scared oh my gosh why am I going to lieutenant's office what did I do oh shit somebody's coming to see me and they would close like the compound so you got 2,000 guys and the whole compound's closed and they think that's going to do something what they don't realize is like the rec yard's open so you may be a closed compound but there's guys in the rec yard behind the fence and they're watching me oh

I wonder who's Cox is seeing. Well, it's like Tuesday, and there's no visitation on Tuesday. Why Cox just walk into the visitation room? Maybe he's there to clean. Maybe he, oh, there's, I'm not a cleaner. I'm not here to clean. So, you know, it's like, you guys are trying to act like you're doing me a favor. Like, oh, where it's all the DL.

500 guys watching me right now. Yeah, you not know how keen these people are on that kind of thing. Yeah, they, like, come on, you're not even trying. And what's so funny is that there's a doorway or there's a hallway from visitation all the way through the lieutenant's office and the warden's office, administration's office, all the way through to medical that's internal. So you could have had me walk into, some of these guys, they'd call them medical, and then they'd walk them through that hallway all the way to visitation. I never once got that treatment, not once. Every time they'd walk over and open the door like, oh, going in here. Oh, because nobody saw that.

Anyway, you're so tricky. Anyway, so I remember I was talking to, I was still going to see the FBI when I'm talking to this guy. So this guy's telling me about the chin. He's telling me this. And I was like, and one of the things I had said to him was, I was like, so you got indicted for, you know, for tax evasion. I was like, really? He said, yeah, it was some of my books, you know, I had a lot of businesses. You know, I had, I was in, he said, I said, oh, what?

What did you do? And what kind of business? Well, I was in concrete. I said, you were, you had a concrete, I had a couple construction, a construction company. I had a concrete business. We put in windows. Oh, windows is big. Yeah. And we, we, I went, you had a, you, you were involved in a concrete business in New York City or New York, and wherever it was, wherever he was, a chin was, which is basically New York State somewhere in there. And he was like, yeah, yeah, I said, I said, Huh. He said, that must have been lucrative. It was a good business.

It was a good business. You know, you know what you were talking about talking about it. It was a good business. It was a good business. And, you know, and, you know, he said, I mean, it wasn't as good as your business. I was like, yeah, I didn't, I don't have stocks. By the way, I don't have problems with the IRS. I'm glad you didn't choose him to tell him to Coxie.

We might not be having this conversation. Here's what he had. This is what's so funny. This is a conversation we had one time. And when we were talking one time, he said, you know, I've never been arrested. He said, never been arrested. He said, yeah, yeah. He said, like I, he said, he said, well, he said, one time.

No, he said, I've never been, this is the first time I've ever been in jail. That's what it was. First time I've ever been in jail. I said, really? I feel like I know I've told you this story. He said, I've never been to jail. He said, one time I turned myself in, I was supposed to go to trial. He said, they dropped the whole case.

And I went, I said, why did they drop the case? he said um somebody that one of the guys that worked in my construction company he he he he was lending money to people you know there's nothing to do with me and so this guess let's say this guy's name is uh is um joey okay what so and i say okay well let you want to use tony tony joey's good okay no last names what's another what's another what's another what's another italian kind of they're all anthony tony joey or Well, give me another one.

Gene. Gene. Okay. So the guy's, well, this guy was not a gene. He was like a Joe or Tony. So let's say Tony. So let's say Anthony. This is, so he said, so this guy's, he's lending money.

And the guy he don't pay. He don't pay. I went, oh, okay. He said, so, you know, one time, he said, he threat, he says some stuff to the guy. He threatens him a little bit, you know, trying to get him telling him, hey, you're going to be in a lot of trouble. He's in the guy gets scared. He don't have the money. He ain't got to have the money.

So he goes to fucking feds No he didn't know Went to the He goes to the police Because it wasn't federal He goes to the police He goes he goes to the police He says they put a wire on this

Rapp And I'm like no those rats And he goes I'm like yeah He puts a wire And he goes And so that the next meeting He's got some money

He's got the money But he's like Look I don't have all the money I got some of the money Here's some of the money He gives him some of the money Right the cops give him some money

And he's like Hey man he's like Well where's the rest of the money? money. You've got to come up with the money. He goes, well, I don't have it. I don't know if I'm going to have you. Well, you got a week to get it. Well, I don't know if I'm going to have it for a week. He said, man, he said, listen. He said, you wait till Anthony finds out. That's going to be a problem for you. You understand? He said, Anthony's going to want to hurt you. So he's using his name. He's saying Anthony like me. He's like, I don't know nothing about

this. I don't know. I don't know nothing about it. I feel like you do. He's like, I don't know nothing about it. So anyway, that's enough. They, they end up using that. They, they end up using that they indict this guy and they indict me he was in one day i get a call from my wife and she says hey where are you you know you're at such and such wherever he's like yeah yeah she said the cops are fuck there's cops all around the house right now with a bullhorn screaming for him to come out and he's like what and this is the local cop so he said so i call my lawyer my lawyer calls down there and says look he's not in the house leave the house he's not there I'll bring them into the police station tomorrow.

So he arranges it so that I can go in, get fingerprinted, photographed, and leave and get bonded out. So that takes another day or two. He said, then I go in, photograph, photograph printed, and I leave the same day, get bonded out immediately. He said, and then he said, yeah, so we cured continuance, continuance, continuance. He said, and then eventually they dropped the case. And I go, why did they drop the case? And he goes, well, the, you know, the witness, the guy, you know, the frat and I said right

he said he uh hey he had some kind of he said like an accident he used he had an accident and uh so he can't testify so they had to drop the case I go what kind of accident and he was he um he said yeah he he had like a um he said they found him in a dump

he was they found him in a uh what they say they found him in a um he was they found him in a dump truck it was a garbage truck back of a garbage truck and I go garbage truck I said did he fall in the garbage truck? And he said, yeah, I don't know.

I said, did he work for the garbage company? And he goes, yeah, I don't think so. He said, maybe. And I don't, you know, like, maybe, you know. And I went, he said, I just know, he said, it was just an accident, some kind of accident. And I went, I said, that's a hell of an accident. Like I said, you'd have to work for the company or something to slip and fall into the garbage truck. You know, and, you know, we both obviously know what we're talking.

talking about. And he goes, he says, yeah, well, you know, he said in, you said, you know, when you cooperate with the police, he said, you tend to have accidents. I said, I've, I've heard that. I've heard that. He's like, yeah, yeah. He says, so yeah, never, never in prison, went my whole life in my, I'm in my late 50s, early 60, about to be, he's like, I'm about to be retire. I'm retiring. They indict me for tax evasion or whatever. it was. At least he saved some money. Yeah. And then he did six years. And he was about to get out. Like he was literally within six

months of getting out. How much more to get? No, he had gotten three. No, he got three years. Oh, okay. And got re-indicted. And they gave him another three. And he goes, oh, cock-suckers, they knew. They waited. Yeah, they waited. He's like, they set him up and said, take the three years, that's

it. Knowing at the end of the three years, they had something else that wasn't covered in the thing. So if he got out after six years, with seven million he's probably Oh I think he had a lot more than that Oh yeah probably that was just investment That was just no

The 7 million was just what he saved Yeah by selling the stock now Instead of then Okay yeah it's probably worth 40 50 60 who knows what this guy was worth Yeah And yeah Super interesting Funny

Cool cool guy But exactly Exactly Exactly what you expect a mobster. Like, every one of those guys, I didn't meet any of those mobster guys that you would hear talk to, and I didn't really talk to any of them, right? I tried to stay away from all of them. All of them behaved the way you expect. It's like, you're straight out of central casting, bro. Like, you're exactly what you're supposed to be. And I think I told you, I don't know if I

told you this one time. I was walking with my buddy Nico. And we were walking. And that, that guy, see, I want to, I want to say his last name was like a limb or something or lamb or something. Anyway, he's there sitting at a table with some of the other mob guys. And they had spaghetti, we had spaghetti that day or something, I forget. And as we're walking, no, no, that's not true. I was sitting at the table. They were all walking in line to get their food. And I'm talking with Nico, I think this is what, talking with Nico, and we're eating. And they go, uh, uh, he goes, Hey, Cox. He is, how is it? And I said, just like back in Gino's. like that and they all go

and whatever that I forget what the exact name I used was like Elaine's or something because I had just finished reading a book about this famous mob spot in New York that was called like Elaine's or something I go just like back in Elaine's

like they all ha ha ha and my listen my buddy Nico go like as they walked by he said bro don't joke with those fucking guys don't joke with those guys he said are you you know them are you is that okay what you said and I was like yeah they're fine It's like, he's right across the hall from me.

He's like, Jesus, does he know the FBI's coming to see you every two weeks? But I think that's part of America's fascination with these guys because it's that lifestyle, they thumb their nose at authority, they thumb their nose at police presence, seemingly on the surface on these shows, they're partying, they've got a different woman on Friday, a different woman on Saturday, they got their wife, they're gammas, you know, they're gambling. I mean, on the surface, it seems like a good lifestyle until you start finding out the way it ends, and it's not very good.

But, I mean, there's a reason why Sopranos is considered the best TV show of all time. There's a reason why Godfather has put up there as one of the best movies of all time. I think people are just enamored with that lifestyle. And then after that, you kind of grow into your drug movies, like, you know, Blow and stuff like that and George Young. And that's kind of, I wasn't even going to talk about this. We can kind of close with this one.

That's one, too, that you can throw in there. You know, in Blow, you had Diego, who was the guy that kind of cut. George out at the end of the movie. He had his own island over there. That's where the guy was supposed to have the fire festival at Pablo. They were saying Pablo Escobar's island, but it was actually the one

that this guy we're going to talk about. Diego, the real name was Carlos Lader. Yeah. In the book. And, you know, Carlos gets arrested. George, I think, actually testifies against Carlos. And they say that the Mexican,

or Colombian authorities or whoever, they come and got Carlos out of a cell in the middle of the night. Right, and he's never been seen again. Like, to this day, they don't know where he's at. So the book blow, in the book blow, like, he gets arrested and cooperates. Yes. And gets out.

Yes. And gets arrested again and cooperate. Like, but in the movie, remember they were like, he gets arrested, and he did the only things that he knew how to get out and he starts teaching classes. Like, that's not what he did. Like, that's not what he did to get out. Yeah. Yeah, he got arrested.

And I think the last time he got arrested, he had went back while, fell all the way down the ladder to doing wheat again. I think weed was what he got arrested for the last time that sent him for his longest sentence. But yeah, the real guy, Carlos, later, I think they called him the Columbian Rambo or something like that was his nickname. When he finally did get arrested, he had his own island there,

which was that airstrip. There's a story about the one guy that wouldn't get off the island. He was like some kind of researcher. I don't know it was National Geographic. Maybe that might not be the case, but I know he refused to leave the island, even though he knew what they were doing.

And Carlos was telling him, like, look, man, you got to go. I'll buy you out. I'll give you whatever you want. He's like, I'm not going. It's my right to be here. Eventually, he left. Not on his own. He just left this world. So that's kind of how they operated. But yeah, he was arrested, and they said that the Mexican authorities

come and guide him or whoever, whatever authorities was over there, come and got him. And he's never been heard from him. Like, to this day, they don't know what happened to him. He hasn't had to testify to anything. Like, nobody knows his whereabouts. So. What do you think about old El Chop?

I mean, old El El Mayo, or El Mayo. Is that Chapo's son? No, no. Mayo Zimbada. I don't know who that is. The head of the Sinaloa cartel that recently got grabbed by Chopo's son.

Oh, okay. I remember reading that the other day. Are you? How, so what happened? You know what happened? No, I just saw the headline. Oh, I would love to do, Pete.

You know, there's a comment today specifically asking about that with him. They're like, Matt, what about this with Pierre? Oh, yeah, he would be, so, you know, You know, I've talked to him about it. But so here's what happened is that, so obviously, Choppot, one of the heads of the Sinaloa cartel, right? Like there's a couple of heads, like, well, there's two heads. Like the main founder of it is Chapo, I'm sorry, is Mayo Zimbada.

Mio Zimbada has two photographs ever taken of him. He's never been arrested. You know, lives in Sinaloa, doesn't leave Sinaloa. You know what I'm saying? The general area supposedly drives in a little. pickup truck, you know, worth probably a billion dollars or a trillion dollars, like, just outrageous amounts of money. But what's interesting about him, so he was, he and Choppo were running things.

Choppos, you know, gets caught, goes to prison, gets taken out of prison and a laundry hammock, flown away, you know, gets caught again, goes back to prison, hire some good, they, you know, Zamo, hires a bunch of guys, they dig a tunnel like a mile long. into the prison, up into his cell, into a part of the cell, which is the shower, but just behind a half wall so that it can't be seen by the cameras, which are pointing into Chapo's cell. Like, that's a fission engineer. That's a guy that knows what he's doing. That's a law-abiding citizen plan right there. You ever seen that movie? Oh, yeah, exactly.

Amazing, right? So Choppo escapes again. Anyway, eventually Chapo gets caught and goes to it. He's in an ADX right now, right? Goes to trial, ADX. He ain't digging out of there. No, no, he's not doing nothing. And he can't read, which really is got to be upset.

You could probably teach yourself to read, though. So, you know, so. He's got the time. Yeah, no TVs. Anyway. So the problem is that Choppos' son was grabbed recently. is in, I forget, he's in the United States. He was about to go to trial, one of his sons.

So his other son is still running, like, I think he's running Chappo's faction of the Sinaloa, or parts of the Sinaloa working with Mayo. So Chappo's son, and this is very common for these factions, to give information to the authorities in order to get their rivals busted, right? So the Sinaloa will work with the Americans to get the people, to get, to get, um, to get the other factions or the other cartel leader members busted, right? So like, uh, the members, they'll, they'll give them information on the, the leaders of the new generation cartel, uh, new generation cartel, new generation, they'll give them information. This, this guy, so and so he's going to be here and then they'll bust them. Like it's, you know, so the whole, I, it's why I was love these guys like the, oh, no, but don't snitch, don't.

Heads to the cartel work with them. What are you talking about? And talk about not snitching, listen to this. So Choppos son, who's working with, with Mayo Zimbada, you know, and he's like, in his like late 70s, he's working with them, and they've, they've put in some new air strips in the mountains. And he says to Mayo, Mayo, come with us, come see the new air strips. They go, okay.

So they drive, whatever, go to see the new airstrip, or air strips, one of them, whatever. Go there, check it out. Oh, okay, nice, nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Looks good. He's got about seven or eight guys with him. Boom. Pop them.

Throw a bag over his head. Zip tie him. Pull him into one of the planes, start the plane. Take off. Choppos son has been talking to, like, the DEA saying, Listen, if I get you Mayo Zimbada And I bring them to the United States You don't indict me

You quash everything And you let my brother go And they go Can you imagine that DEA agent? Yeah, yeah Okay You show up here in an airport In the United States with Mayo Zimbada

Who we've been trying to get And the Mexicans And the United States Has been trying to get for 50 years You show up with him Yeah, we'll quash all your shit We'll pull your brother out out of prison and everything's witness protection for both of you you keep all your money everything

okay you show up yeah like it's such a ridiculous phone call i can't even go to my supervisor with it you can't even go to your supervisor say listen this guy's going to bring he'd be like the you doing you wasted my time that's never going to happen and you know what happens a couple weeks later they they get a phone call saying you know this is air traffic control uh we got some pilot says that there's a Zimbada, so they said call you, your D-E-A, I don't know, something about Chapo, well, I don't know what's happening, what do you say? I'm saying they're about to land, they said to call you, they show up, they got Zimbada with a bag over his head, he's zipped-tied in the back.

Can you imagine what Zimbada was saying? What was Mayo saying the whole time during that plane trip to these seven or eight guys that are in the plane? It's more, it's either I'll make all of you filthy rich or I will call. you and your entire family you're all dead they've been since this is about two weeks ago

they've been on a spree in Mexico since then imagine now the heads of the cartel because this Chappo's son was one of the heads he's gone a few of the other guys are gone family members are all gone

the main head guy Mayo Zimbada's gone it's imploding and the other cartels are all fighting for territory. There's a blood bath right now in Mexico. And so what happened with the son? The brothers are in custody. The one brother was released

immediately, but they're both in custody. I didn't quite understand that. Witness protection, custody at Chicago. Right. Witness protection and custody somewhere. It could be until maybe they get something set up for them. Like if this happened, like if they didn't really think they were going to deliver and then they did, maybe they didn't have

any sort of a cover story or backstory set up for them or something like. So we got you in a hotel somewhere with a couple of cops. watching you so these guys like these top leaders that eventually are like okay i'm done with this life i'm old i just want to retire like they they have all this money in the world they can't use that to change their looks and go hide out somewhere they can i actually so listen to this i was locked up i wish i it you know it's so funny he's i wish i'd written these guys names down i wonder if pete would remember this guy he had you could see the scars on the back

of his head and all over his head he had little tiny marks. So what had happened was he was, this was an old guy who was he was connected with we just talked, Pablo Escobar.

So he was somebody involved with Pablo Escobar and when the whole thing was falling apart, he fled. And so he fled to like Brazil. Let's say Brazil. I don't know where it was. And there was, there were one posters everywhere were looking fled with a ton of money they're they're looking for him and he was gone for a year or so multiple plastic surgeries hair implants everything and like a couple years later

he um his barber who obviously realized he'd had multiple surgeries um contact found out who he realized who he was like hey got this guy from columbia who's got a ton of money he's got a bunch a surgery, and he starts inquiring and finds out, oh, my God, this guy's wanted. He's one of, you know, Paulo Escobar's guys or whatever, and he calls the authorities and has him arrested, and the, the, the, um, the U.S. has him extradited to the United States, and I met him in, I want to say the low. I want to say it was either, I think I met him, I think it might have been locked up in the medium and the low.

What, no cholo, was it? Was there Ochoa been the last name? There was some Ochoa brothers. Was he a short little guy, bald, short little guy, brown? A little darker than me. Nice guy, nice guy. And what's so funny is that, so is it, I mean, it could have been. Like, I can't remember the name, but I do remember this is what's funny.

I'm horrible with names, bro. I really, especially since I had no interest in any of this, any, any, any of cartel, drug guys, or mob, guys, I had no interest in it all. Now it would be gold. Of course. Now I'm like, why didn't I write this down? Like, guys are passing around books with these guys' pictures. They're like, this guy's in the book.

That's him. You're like, oh, my God. Oh, well. You know, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's cool. I'm writing a story about a guy who's, you know, a credit card guy. You know what I'm saying? I got a cold other story I'm working on. I'm not even interested in the drug thing.

I have no idea of it. So what's funny about that guy is he would get his lawyer. He had so much money. He hires a lawyer who would come in with a, he would come in with a paralegal, right? If you can't see me and you're on Spotify, I'm doing air quotes. A paralegal. And the paralegal was extremely attractive. And so the lawyer would come in.

They'd meet for his lawyer visit right now. You could have lawyer visits when regular visit was going on, and sometimes when they didn't have regular visit, you could have a lawyer visit. And then you typically had one guard that would sit at the podium, which you couldn't see into the little lawyer room. So I don't know how he did this exactly. I do know that I had been a visit before when I would look over, and the lawyer would be standing looking out at visit. So he's just standing there kind of looking out at visit and you can't

really see in to the law, to the room. You know, there's only, there's a window, there's a door, but it's got a window on it, right? There's no other windows. So there's a room, but he's kind of standing in front of it and you're like, okay, what's he doing? Like, is he looking for the guard? Like, it's weird. He's been there for five minutes. I'm talking to my mom. I'm looking over. This guy's there. Whatever. But I also know the old guy would go during non-visit days when it was just for lawyers or law enforcement. So what's funny is

what everybody told me was happening I hate a little nat what would happen is they bring in the paralegal and it's really she's really an escort like a prostitute and so he's her getting his attorney client privilege going and so this guy is just making sure that nobody

sees nobody sees nobody no one nobody sees or just that the guy can you really just couldn't see in. You could see, but they're sitting at a table, and you can't really see, you might be able to see somebody, somebody, a little bit of a face or something here. But if you're banging some chick, if you just move a little bit left or right, you can't really see in. Yeah.

So he's just standing there, you know, running interference in case the guard comes. He says, ah, ha, ha, ha, you know, and then they're, oh, shit, you know, whatever. But, yeah, and he's an old man, you know, so he's in there, he's in there being this, for whatever, five minutes or three minutes, whatever that takes to stand there, and then boom, it's back to business. That's it. Got the conjugal's going. Yeah, he's got the illegal conjugal.

No conjugal's in federal prison, but not unless you're this guy. There's no conjectals at all in federal prison? No. I've never been to prison. No. Thank God. I mean, I was watching Oz and they got conjugal visits and Oz. And I tell you about the lady on the plane.

So I'm flying to California to do Francis's podcast, which I hope would be coming out any day now. That would be cool. I'm on the plane. And this lady's probably every bit of 60 plus. And she's asking me, you know, small talk and asking me what I'm going out there for. I'm going out or do a podcast in Orange County and another one in, you know, another part of California. She's like, oh, you should do a podcast on me. And I'm like, all right, well, what's your story?

Everybody's got a story. She said, well, I travel from prison to prison. And I do conjugal visits with the inmates. And I know what that is. And I'm like, really? And she just kind of looks at me and just busts out laughing. And she's like, I take it. you know what that is. I said, oh yeah, and I'm sitting there thinking, I'm like, I thought

you had to be married to get a legit conjugal. But she was just cracking a joke. Yeah, she was just cracking a joke. She's like, I just wondered if you knew what that was. And I was like, oh, I'm very aware. And she's like, I do not do that. I'm a school teacher. Okay, good. You're going to say, that's a hell of a service, right? Yeah. I would want you to come on the podcast. You're going to have to come on and tell us that you're able to pull that off, what kind of money you make. What, where are your subscribers? Where are you? We're like 9,480. 9,480.

We have to get, we have to get weighed past 10,000. We got to get those numbers up. 520. What? We need 520. 500. Oh, no. Oh, excuse me.

You want 9,520? No, no, just 500. No, he needs 520 new subscriber. He needs 10,000 subscribers. And although that really means, nothing for some reason it's a goal it is a goal you'd be like yes i'm over 10 000 yeah i have those thousand was a goal yeah five thousand now 10 000 it'll be it'll be probably 25 next and 15 and 100 i was get these guys that are like yeah i mean i you know i only have i started

about you know like three months ago and i only have like four thousand subscribers is like four thousand in three months that's great yeah and they're like it's not as good as you was like bro you get four thousand three months like the average youtube who puts out content it takes them three years to get 1,000 subscribers. Oh, yeah. That's the average. Well, from last year, I remember when I started the new job that I had, I was telling a guy about my channel, and I had, I think, a little slightly over 5,000, like 5,000,

zero, something. So basically, a year to that, I've almost doubled it in a year, which is good. If I can keep that continuation, and that's kind of where I'm heading. But that just lets you know, like you said, you keep doing it, you keep plugging away at it, you keep putting in the effort, you stay consistent. That's the biggest thing. staying consistent and it can pay off I mean I doubled you know two plus years worth of work in one year you know from 5,000 to almost 10 yeah that's what happens like like you look at what you've done in a year since I've been on your show oh yeah yeah no no that's what I'm saying it's like it's so hard and then it starts then you're like oh my god um but uh when you when you when we started when you started how what was I at do you remember 20,000 it was like 20,000

Yeah. Like 20,000. A couple hundred. Yeah. So that, and then from there, it took like another probably a year to get 50. And then from whatever, then by the time you showed up, like, we were 75 and then in the last year. Yeah, you were January, 20, 23, you were like 75. And then you're on your way to, what, 400,000 right now?

Yeah. Yeah. It would be nice to. I'm on my way to, I'm hoping I'm on my way to a million. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm hoping I just 400,000. And we just, that's just, we just drive right by that. Hoping you don't get a Tony Spillotcher treat. Yeah, I mean, the second 100,000 came way faster than that first 100,000, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, probably, like, a couple months, six months. We've been lucky a lot, like, like, like, that one video with the OJ. Oh, yeah, yeah, you got, I don't know, I understand there's underground pools you can bet on, like, next celebrity that passes away is, but you just nailed that, like, you couldn't have got that any better.

Yeah, that was, like, such a fluke where, like, we had a bad video, and, Wasn't it? We had a bad video. Normally, I think we posted on a Wednesday. It was the day that we normally weren't going to post, but I was like, you know what? We need to post another video to catch up today. And we had been sitting on it for about two weeks. It had been recorded into YouTube waiting to get scheduled.

Just the day before it just happened to be. Yeah. Did you post it before he died or after? The day before, and the guy said in the video, he said, I don't know why they're not taking the story. If O.J. dies tomorrow. If something dies tomorrow. And it was literally posted the day before.

Yeah. And he's like, I think there are, they said they, didn't he say they weren't picking up the story. He's like, maybe they're waiting for OJ to die. So if O.J. dies tomorrow or so-and-so dies tomorrow. Oh, Chris. Yeah. Chris Todd.

Just happened. Then the next day, I've told you that, I'm, did I tell you this? I'm driving. I was driving to the doctors and I'm driving. All of a sudden, my cell phone, my wife has one of those things that you click your cell phone on. Yeah. And I'm sitting there.

And all of a sudden, I'm, you know, I've got MapQuests or MapQuest. Wow, that's how old I am. I have, I have like Google. You've got the directions printed out there on the stairway. I have flipping the pages. Where is this? No, I got, I've got like, whatever, Google Maps or whatever. And all of a sudden, you know, I have the push notification.

So when I get comments, and all of a sudden it goes, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, what the fuck is kind? I'm like, that's a lot of comments. And I mean, it's just, for the next five minutes, it's just constantly going. And I was, and then somebody, then I got a text from some guy that said, like, bro, do you realize that you put a video out yesterday about O.J. Simpson? And he, and his family just amounts that he died. And, you know, while I'm reading that, it's bing, bing, bing, bing, you know, I'm like, oh, my God. And then I, and then I called, listen, bro, something's going on. And he, because he's like, man, we just got X amount of, in the last, you know, 45 minutes, we just got X amount of.

of or views it spiked and then it really wasn't until that's probably like noon 10 o'clock and it spiked then it started getting like 5,000 an hour something like that but when it was like 10 o'clock 11 o'clock a night it was hitting like 20,000 an hour and in a day it did like 300,000 views yeah it was insane yeah don't do a show on me anytime soon if you don't mind if I'm not a part of it I guess man that was that was that was good that was good timing so we're trying to get you over over 10,000. You need an extra 500 and change. 500 change or do it.

To get you over that hump. So anybody, if you're watching this, please go to Crime and Entertainment with Hollywood Wade. Hollywood Wade, which is funny. Sometimes talks about himself in the third person, which is always funny. He'll send me a text. I'm like, hey, bro.

I'm like, he was flying in here. I said, what airline are you on? He's like, Breeze. He says, that Hollywood Wade's always looking for a deal. You know, so, or he got, when you got in the car, he's like, what did you say? You got something about Hollywood Wade needs something to eat or something, whatever it is. Hollywood is hungry.

Hollywood, yeah, something, you know, whatever. Anyway, so go to crime and entertainment, subscribe. I would appreciate it. That would mean a lot. We're going to put the link to the YouTube channel, obviously, in the description. So just click on the link. Boom, brings it right there. Subscribe.

That's all I'm asking. And I really appreciate you guys watching. Thank you. See ya.