The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Confessions Of An Italian Mafia Captain: From Top Earner To Murderer In The Bonanno Crime Family

Episode Date: April 13, 2024

Dominick Cicale grew up in the Bronx burrow of New York City. Surrounded by criminal activity he quickly started associating with mafia and eventually became a "Made Man" with the Bonanno Crime Family. Before long he was made a captain and had over 20 soldiers working for him. He was involved in racketeering, illegal gambling, and even murder. After a particular hit went down he ended up cooperating with the Federal Government to help take down other associates, served time in federal prison, and eventually left the life of crime. Today he is a successful business man and living a fulfilling life with his family. He joins the show to tell his incredible story of going into the deepest depths of organized crime and coming out the other side a changed man! Go Support Dom! EG Vodka: https://egvodka.com/ Preorder The Book: https://theperfectcrimefamily.com/ Podcast: @mafiaroundtable Support the show and secure your online data at https://www.expressvpn.com/CONNECTPOD Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you and I, John, we go kill somebody and you come up to me or I come up to you, whether it be a month, a year, 10 years later, and I give you any inkling to talk about that murder, you're supposed to look at me either I'm wearing a wire or I'm cooperating. That's the first thing I was taught by the Genevice. It's easy to take a thug and make him a businessman. But you can never make a businessman a thug. They just don't have it in them. What's up, everybody?

I am so excited to bring you today's guest, Dominic Secalé. He was a captain of the banana crime family in the Bronx. He is the first made man we have ever had on the Connect. He was the real deal. At one point, he had 27 mafia soldiers under his command in New York City. He gave us some wild stories about being a wise guy in federal prison. And he even told us about an active contract that's still out on his head. And then he told us about what he's doing now.

He's a legitimate millionaire, great businessman. He's got a book out called The Perfect Crime Family by Dominic Secalé. Go check that out. Link in the description. He's got a vodka line, e.g. vodka. And of course, we've got a bonus episode with him over at Patreon, patreon, patreon. Slash the Connect show. Look, I could go on and on, but you guys are going to love it.

So let's just get into it. Without further ado, Dominic Sacale, right here on The Connect with Johnny Mitchell. They met in Greenpoint, Brooklyn at the meeting. spot. When he got out of the car, he said, all right, Ace, where do we have to go? And Ace just pushed him and fired some shots into his chest. And then they came down. They arrested me. Ace went on the run. They went on the arresting Ace. That did that's penalty on me. That's when I see lights behind me start to flash. And I didn't even think. I just hit it. I was driving like my life depended on it. And then I parked the car, popped out,

closed the door, and I started running. And he pulls out a burner, shank. It's like six inches. And he passes it to me. And he goes, here, that's yours. Don't ever leave the cell block without this. He was the reason I made it out of that place alive. So this is a special podcast. I'm really excited that you came out here because... No, I'm excited you accepted me, to be honest.

Oh, really. I mean, I'm really, really, well, I appreciate that, but the pleasure's ours. And, you know, you had reached out to me. I think the first thing you said, because I get people that reach out trying to be on the show all the time, I think the first thing you said was, hey, if you want to know what the mob is really like, you should have me on your show. Now, you know, I've had, we've had some knock around guys on here. Right.

Gene was one of them. Yeah, Gene was great, right? The maniac. Maniac. Like, psychopath. You know, I, we need to like change locations. No, yeah. After having him over, right?

But, you know, we've had, we had Anthony on, right? He was definitely, you know, mafia tied. dynasty with the Gambino family but you're the first made man the first formerly made man straightened out so I'm the first capo then

capo capo capo so I mean this is very unique what is it I mean what is it about everybody else and then the people that actually get made in the mafia what is the distinction

and what is the benefit? What was the benefit to being a captain with the bananas? Oh, listen, the benefit about being a captain, period, not only the bananas, I'm an organized crime family, is the prestige because you're above everybody in organized crime. You're one of the top. Basically, Michael Fanchet said it best. And at first, when he said it, and I heard the words,

I'm like, what's this guy talking about? because he actually looked at himself as being a boss. And I'm like, he wasn't a boss because he was a captain just the way I was. And then when he explained it, he's correct. We're running guys. We have made guys under us. So we are their boss. So you can.

And the only superiors with us would be the consular on the boss and boss. So we are running our crew. and I had I was fortunate enough I was and Vinny got caught on tape saying this look at Dominic it's easy to take a thug and make him a businessman but you can never make a businessman a thug they just don't have it in him right somebody who is an earner like Michael nice guy is he capable to pull a trigger anybody yourself included It doesn't take much. You know, it's easy, especially if you know your life's in jeopardy.

You're going to, it's self-preservation. But to have it instinctively in you, to be in the streets, to be violent, it comes, I guess it's born into you. It's bred into you. You have to have it. Did you have that? I've had it. It was just in me growing up. I mean, always looking.

to fight. And it's funny because I recall when I was about seven years old, I moved into a building. My grandparents, my mother. And the first day I went downstairs. I came upstairs crying. I got punched in the nose. I was a new kid. Around 20, 30 young kids around the building came upstairs crying.

My grandmother cleaned me up. Get out of the house. Go back downstairs. That's right. And I didn't want to go downstairs. She said, get out. And she was the Sicilian one. Sent me back downstairs.

And I was afraid to fight. Until I had my first fight and I kicked the shit out of the kid, I was like, oh, okay, this is fun. Feels good. And then after that, it's just one thing led to another. Well, that's also environment, too. You know, you're from a different time. But I came from a middle class neighborhood. Out of my neighborhood in the Bronx, it's in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx.

I would say out of 30, 40 kids that I grew up with, maybe three of us went bad, four of us, Tom's. So everybody, you know, who worked for the sanitation company, who went to the union for carpentry, everybody had jobs, everybody was well educated, went to high school, college. I just veered off. I like that fast money. I, from selling firecrackers at the age of 10, 11 years old and doubling my money and getting money. And I was like, I was always hustling.

Yeah. You know, always hustling, making a buck. So immediately you were attracted to cash. And I wanted the best things in life. I wanted to shine where I had a new pair of sneakers or jeans that I had money in my pocket. I could buy my pizza when somebody else couldn't, and I could buy it for them. I just found that as my motivation to be successful. Did you have family in the life?

I had family. They were around the life. They would never, nobody was ever made in my family. Right. I was the first made member. My father was around the Lucchase's. He was a drug dealer. My uncle Peter was also around the Lucasies.

He was a drug dealer, but neither one of them were ever straightened out. So especially during the height of the mob, right, we'll call it until the end of the 80s, right? The end of fall of John Gotti. It was really hard to become made because all the money that comes off the street from associates, whether they're, you know, cracking safes or selling heroin or, you know, running like a sports book. It seems like most of those guys weren't made. They were just kicking up to a family for protection and clout. So to become a captain, you really had to have not only be a gangster, but have an enormous ability, a skill set to manage a company. Your company was soldiers.

Right. And you're all your rackets. It was funny because, like I said, I was released from prison. I finished up my term in December of 19. with the halfway house everything in February of 2000 I was on a hit to kill Frank Santoro with Vinnie immediately after so like I was out I did what I had to do and that was it and then Vinny also saw I was very aggressive to make money from fake checks to just anything anything in the street And there was maybe 15, 20 different things I threw around.

No, no, no. Finally, he said yes. And just the money I started making, he couldn't believe. He said, you're like a generator. Whatever I give you, like, because he was pushing things. Once he saw what I was capable of doing and how creative I was and my drive to be successful, he would push things my way. That's why at the end of the day, when he was running the Bonoanal Crime family,

I had about 26, 27 made members in my crew. That's unheard of. Usually 10, 15 tops. Wow. Topps. And I had about 27 made members under me. They gave me everybody. Wow.

I had shooters, a group of shooters, and then a group of earners. And with those earners, one of those guys was the guy Perry. He has Mulberry Street. He ran the San Giro Feast And one year Giuliani gave him the key to the city Not knowing he was a made member Of the Bonano Grime family Wow

He had five successful restaurants on Mulberry Street So what do I do? Before I got locked up, I was opening up a restaurant On Mulberry Street, Perry Can you help me with the restaurant? What's he going to tell me? I'm his captain, no. Whatever you need, Dom.

So if I don't get arrested, the restaurant I had on Moberry Street would have been successful because I would have followed his formula. Everything in life is a formula. Once you figure out the formula that you're targeting the area, whether it be construction, whether it be a vodka company, once you get that formula down pat that works, restaurants, it's a successful formula. It'll work if you apply it.

Okay. So let's talk about mafia racket formulas. restaurants how does a soldier a maid guy you know in little italy you could see it's you know by the 90s it was already teeming with tourists you know there's tons of people down there uh how does the mob make money out of restaurants uh restaurants having good quality food but it's legit okay listen there's people that i call them buffoons in the life why are you going to be short-sighted And here's a, for instance, the penthouse, it was a strip club in Manhattan. They were around me.

I made sure nobody went in there, nobody shook them down. And they're like, Dom, do you want anything? No. Here's what I do want. When you walked into that club, you would have to, there's a dress code. You have to be dressed up. I says, if I have a base, they wouldn't let anybody wear a baseball cap in there. If I come in, I have a baseball cap on.

If I have sweat clothes on, you're going to let me in. Okay. You see a VIP table over there? I don't care who's there. I'll call ahead of time. I want that table. Okay. And third, I pay all my bills.

They looked at me. I pay my bills. And that's what I did. I didn't want any money from them. And the reason why I conducted myself, I look at the bigger picture. I'm in the construction. business. Every Thursday night we would go out. 20, 30 guys, bankers, investors, guys in the industry. Nine times out of 10, let's go to strip club. If you have guys, they have to dinner, they have a few

drinks. They're regular people. Okay, make a phone call. I'm coming over. Now I walk into the club. I'm treated like it's my place. Right off the bat, I get two, three thousand and funny money, put it on the table, get the bottles on the table, the guys are having a blast. Now my investors impressed, he thinks he's under the impression that I own a piece of the place, the way I'm treated. So at the end of the night, here's a check for $750,000 for this project. There's a check for half a million for this project. And following day, I would go to Vinnie here. We have money. We're buying the property. It's done. How'd you do it? Don't worry about it. Networking. Yeah. And then there's some times in the beginning, because

they had a restaurant called Roberto's. All of a sudden, one of the first times I'm looking at my Amex bill, 38,000 Roberto's. I'm like, oh, hell no, somebody had my card. So I'm calling up Amex. All of a sudden, I'm like, oh, shoot, Roberto's was the strip club. Oh. I would be picking up tabs that big. So now I had the respect of the club.

Mm-hmm. And they get the respect from the people on the street. So I looked at it on a long-term basis than short-term. Okay, so if my question, I guess, is when if and when the mob, mob guys own legitimate businesses, do they try to, did you try to keep them completely clean? Or was there some kind of racket involved, whether it was like, hey, you're going to be buying the dough from my cousin's company, you know, for pizza. You're going to be using my linen company. Like, how did that?

Or did you just run it like a completely legitimate operation and then have your. your illegal stuff separate. Whenever I had a legitimate business, I ran it legit. Okay. Now, if you came to me, if I have a restaurant, you say, Dom, I have a linen company. Could you use my linen company? I would tell you, John, listen, as long as the quality is good, they're on point, I'll use your company. And because you want to work together because now I might need something from you.

When we cross work with each other, that's what's nice with the mafia. Everybody will work with each other. Now, to answer your part two of the question, I didn't do anything illegal out of my legitimate companies. You have a lot of guys that have restaurants. They might take numbers. They might have a sports betting operation, which they'll do in the back because they know their waiters. They know the cooks. And then you have some knuckleheads, too.

They might even be selling weed out of it, knowing cooks, waiters. That's what they do. They party. and I've always separated legal and illegal. I would never mix it. Using the internet without Express VPN is like leaving your laptop open at the coffee shop while you run to the bathroom. Most of the time you're probably fine,

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to everybody that believes in privacy. So secure your online data today by visiting expressvpn.com slash connect pod and you can get an extra three months free. That's right. That's express eXP-R-E-S-V-P-N. com slash connect pod express vpn.com slash connect pod support the show and secure your online data today. All right. Where were we? When you were at your height with the bananas, what do you think your percentage of legit business to illegal was? I would say 85% was legal. 15 was illegal.

The only thing that my height, the only thing. the illegal was the sports betting operation we had. And football season, we had one customer. We'd bet anywhere from $5 to $7 million on a week. Wow. In one week. Who was that? I don't know it came through the guy running it.

But I was partners, Vinny and I were partners with Jerry Assaro. And Jack Bonaventoro, who was his acting captain. And then the guy Lenny, who had all the. customers. He also had 120 customers as well as that one big whale. Wow. And it averaged out some weeks he would win maybe three, four hundred thousand, but there's some weeks he lost seven, eight hundred thousand. Yeah. The house is up. Yes. Even though he's betting five to seven million, he never lost five to seven million. I think the most he ever lost them one weekend was about maybe seven, fifty, eight hundred thousand. But still, this is bringing

in tens of millions a year. Oh, yeah. No, it's bringing in some big money. Enormous. But my Achilles tendon with that was Vinnie, because Vinny's a degenerate gambler. Remind us who Vinny is. Vinny Bashiano, they call him Vinny Gorgeous, was his stigma out there. He hated that monica, Vinny Gorgeous. He would correct people, Vinny from the Bronx or Vinny B.

He was the acting boss of the Bonanno Crime family. he became. I was his proege. He mentored me. He helped polish me to take the roughness off the edges.

But he was a degenerate gambler. And I would have to ride with him because I felt if I'm not with him and he loses, he's still going to come for me for the money he's taken out of my half. But if he wins,

I'm not going to receive anything. So I said, Vinnie, whatever you bet will go partners. Because I was in a no-lose situation. I was in a no-win situation either way. So I figured. This wasn't the Vinny that was part of the Lufthansa heist. No. Okay.

That was Vinny from the Lucchese's. I believe. No, that was, who was part of there? There was- He just beat a case a couple years ago. Yeah, that was Vini Asaro. Okay, that was Vinia Sarro. And that guy is crazy.

That guy was crazy. At the time that I was out there, he was shelved. I never met him as a friend. He was shelved. His son, Jerry Ossarrow, had the power. He was a captain. Great, great guy, great man. Till this day, I like Jerry.

Jerry was straight up, calm. The father was just a loose cannon. And I never agreed with that. I was taught when I was groomed in the life, it's not who yells the loudest that counts. it's a guy who keeps his mouth up and does what he has to do okay so let's talk about that let's go back to the bronx uh what what era did you come up in are you are you an 80s guy like when did you like really start to say 80s okay um uh i was around the genevice crime family okay big urney and i'm

not going to go into that just had a respect for him but uh he's up there in the ranks in the Genevice. And he groomed me as far as how I should act. Always be cautious. Look, your surroundings, taught me how to fight. Box, really fight well. And he is a force to be reckoned with a great, great guy. Love him till his day. And I always said that I would never talk about him while he's alive or really go into details. But the Genevice family I've heard just learned from talking to guys like Gene, they're the sharpest, most low-key, best earning family of the five Mafia families. Well, right now, they're the elite.

They're the elite. They're intact. The other mafia families got crippled. And actually, it was caught on tape. The Genevice family, their high ups were talking back in 2000, there was. was a conversation they were complimenting the banana crime family because up until 2002 we never had a made member that ratted wow we were the only family that could say that yeah and they said the bananas have their act together and joe massino who was the official boss of the bonano crime family for many

years he was involved in uh the movie donnie broscoe killed the three captains um he brought us from that Donnie Brasco, we were off the commission because Joe Pistone infiltrated the family. And yeah, you guys are like, you guys are robbing like, you know, you're like robin quarters from the parking meters. Well, that's what they said in the movie. I guess that's Hollywood. But with that, we were basically at the bottom of the totem pole and he brought our family back to prominence. it's funny he brought us to the pinnacle of the top where we were up there with the genovese and he destroyed it by wearing a wire first boss in history official boss long time he was dubbed the last don and he wore a wire on viny basciano and viny's telling him they're in jail together and viny tells him joe is reading the paper guy randy pizola got killed and And he looks over to Vinny, who did this?

He said, Dominic did it. Dominic took him out. And I'm like, Vinny, are you out of your mind? Like, when I heard the tapes, I'm like, that's how they arrested me. I got away with all the murders. It's Vinny spoke about the two homicides I was involved with Vinny. His mouth is what got us caught. Wow.

If Vinny never tells Joe anything about the murders, Vinny nor myself ever get arrested. Yeah, I mean, the same is true for so many crime figures. John Gotti, just blabbing. And you know what? That's 101 for dummies. That's the first thing I was taught by the Genevice. You get away with a murder? Never happened.

If I come, if you and I, John, we go kill somebody. And you come up to me or I come up to you, whether it be a month, a year, 10 years later, and I give you any inkling to talk about that murder, you're supposed to look at me either I'm wearing a wire or I'm cooperating. It never gets mentioned again. So if I say to you, John, you remember that thing we did with that guy, we left him in the street? What are you talking about, Dom?

We never did anything. I had nothing to do with that. That's supposed to be your response. So when Joe Messino asked Vinny, who did this, because the newspapers, initially I remember reading, they said he was a Genevice associate. Vinny turns around Dominic did it

He's supposed to say Joe I have no idea I'm in here with you How do I know Who killed him Why was Joe Messino Waring a wire Uh Joe Massino

Played the game Very well He didn't want to do At the end of the day Joe Massino Used the excuse They were kicking my wife out They were taking all my houses

My money The government was fining him Around $12 million At the end of the day After he cooperated He wound up paying them $8 million

The guy's worth maybe 30, 40 million. So Joe, stop with that. Joe didn't want to do life in prison. So was he facing life? Did they have that kind of evidence on? He was found guilty. He went to trial. Found guilty.

The day he was found guilty, he asked to speak to the prosecutor and the judge. And what Joe did, he was, I'll tell you how sharp he was. He sent word out to Vinny Bashiano in code. Greg Andres, who is the prosecutor. He's giving me a hard time. He's being disrespectful. He gave him a lot of innuendos to kill him, to kill the prosecutor. So Vinny tells me, he says, Dom, get ready.

I think we're going to have to kill Greg Andres. That Joe Messino even said the guy eats at a certain restaurant every Thursday night. So Vinny said, we're going to have to move on this quick and take him out. I'm like, okay, whatever you want, I'm with you. So you were prepared to kill him. a U.S. attorney. Yes, I was. And the funny part of it all, Joe set it up and then let it hang. He didn't give the confirmation to say, yes, go ahead. Let it hang. So what Joe did, when he walked in, he knew he had nothing to tell the government because his brother-in-law told them everything,

who was with him for 20, 25 years. So Joe says, well, I know a hit on the prosecutor. So what do you think they're going to do? They're going to listen. He failed. two lie detector tests with it, but they still, and I look now, they still had to act on it because God forbid maybe failed because the nerves or the test wasn't working properly. We have to act because God forbid this prosecutor gets killed. Now all of a sudden, they take Vinny off the street. And Joe made it look like Vinny was the one who set it up. It wasn't. So what became of that with Vinny? Did they charge him with? No. Initially, they were looking to charge him. And then when I cooperated, I told him the truth. I told him. It was Joe Messino, it wasn't Vinny. And I cooperated. Greg

Andres happened to be my sponsor. So I told, he says, you would have killed me? I said, absolutely, because my life is on the line then. Memorial Day weekend is almost here, and it's time to kick off summer right. When I'm getting ready for the first big weekend of summer, total wine and more is my go too, especially when I'm firing up the grill with family. I'll grab refreshing beers, easy drinking wines, and some hard seltzers for the cooler. And with everything

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21. Man, Mafia, you guys were some fucking gangsters in your day. Like you were, you were prepared. You had that kind of ability to touch, you know, the highest law of the land, basically, a federal prosecutor. It's a no-no. You're not supposed to. But if a boss tells you to do something, you have to do it. And so that, but that hierarchy and that order-taking was real. Yes, it is real. It's still real. It's still real. You still have it. There's different levels of respect. Like the guy now who's running the banana crime family. Michael Mancuso, he's a joke. He's a jerk. I don't like him.

There's always been bad blood. And if the government doesn't lock me up in January of what year that I get locked up in 2005, that Valentine's Day of 2005, I was already given the green light to kill Michael Mancuso. I was killing him. I was going to leave him outside his girlfriend's house on the steps. So the government saved his life by Lockhe's. of me. Right. Okay. So I let's get back to as you're getting groomed by the Genevice family.

Why did you not end up going with them? I mean, you seem like a perfect for the Genovese. You're low key. You're sharp. You're a great earner. Take us through like your teenage years and how you started to get deeper and deeper into the game. My teenage years, I was selling drugs. When I started selling cocaine in my neighborhood, Ernie pulled me up and said, listen, you can't come around me as much because you're doing drugs and we, you know, you could get me killed. So I say, no, but he says, I'm always here for you. Always tell me what's going on because if something happens to you, I know where to go. I said, all right.

And he was basically a far. I'd still look at him today as a father figure. That's why I won't talk anything bad about him or say anything divulged. you know, stuff on them. And when I, I wound up in the neighborhood, we were selling anywhere from two to three kilograms loose a week. That's amazing. I had an operation.

We had our runners. We had certain locations. We would open up from 11 a.m. in the morning on weekends around the clock, weekdays, we'd shut down maybe 12, 1 o'clock during the weekdays. What were the spots? Oh, we had Wilkison Park, which is a part. in the Pelham Bay section. We had Fiesta Bolin Alley, which is another place.

Pelham Bay train station. We set up all different meets for people. And who are your workers? Kids, guys in the neighborhood that we grew up with. Italian guys? Yeah. Younger kids, my age. You guys are selling dope like Puerto Ricans in Spanish Harlem.

Oh, yes. Even up in the Bronx. They were called the pagers with certain codes. And we'd send the runners out. Wow. With the amounts. I had no idea that Italians moved that way in the Bronx. Well, because I don't know, I guess.

I assumed we, I think to outsiders, we don't look at street-level drug dealing as something that wise guys or wise guys affiliates are part of. Like I always assumed Italian guys in the 80s were only dealing with wholesale heroin through like the pizza connection. They were. Right, right. Right. But but you're you're taking keys and breaking them down. You're selling, that's 3,000 grams a week. You're moving through the Bronx. I mean, it's, it's. Listen, at the time, if we were paying anywhere from 27,000 to 36,000 a key, it was fluctuating. Yeah. So is your connect. Um, I had people in Harlem. Actually, Joey Cupcakes was one of them. Oh, this is when Italians still lived in Harlem. Yeah. On, uh, what are you, the purple game? What do you call that? His, uh, one.

16th and pleasant. There's a place, I think it was 2nd Avenue called Delightfuls, first or 2nd Avenue. The diner there. There was Spanish kids there, but that was one place where we get the drugs. And then also in the Bronx from people up there

get kilo grams. And the funny part of it all, we'd break it down. We'd sell out grams for anywhere from $60 or $70 a gram. So it was just volume, just flipping it out. flipping it out. We didn't cut our stuff. So that's where the volume kicked. And we did well. As a kid, 17, 18, 19 years old, you know, we were making money. I had brand new cars,

motorcycles, jewelry. I would say I made close to a million dollars by the time I was maybe 19 years old, 18 years old. I had nothing to show for it. I didn't have the guidance. As fast as it came in, I spent it, going out, party and bringing people out, staying out two, three nights, and just blowing everything, being a wild man. That's where I needed the guidance of a father that I didn't have. And Ernie wasn't, he was a father figure, but we distance ourselves from one another because of the fact of what I was doing. You didn't have to pay, you didn't think about like paying a guy from a family for protection. I would, I, you know what? I heard, There was one time we thought somebody was sitting on me.

I came out strapped up with an Uzi. And thank God they weren't on the corner. I wish I, nobody's, I, nobody's going to shake me down. It just wasn't happening. Were you strapped? Yeah, I was always carrying. I was always carrying. Where was your father, your real father at this time?

My father was in jail as a kid. He did about nine and a half years back in the 70s. for heroin trafficking. When he came home, I never really had a relationship with him. It was always about his stepkids, I felt. And we just never saw eye to eye, always arguing. And I got shot.

I was, I think, 17 or 18 years old in the ankle by accident. You know, the neighborhood fight guy pulls out of a gun. I wound up getting shot. And there was supposed to be a sit down in Harlem. I didn't go. I just sent word. It happened on the street. It's going to end on the street.

I'm at the back of my building, Hazel Towers, and I have a gun on me. And I'm on crutches. And my father, car screeches, pulls up. He beat me from one end of the street to the other gun came out of my waistband. And it's like, how dare you, we're going to settle this and you're not going to do anything? and I'm like, are you kidding me? It's a neighborhood fight. The guy pulls out of gun and starts shooting wild.

I get hit and I have to suck it up. No, that's not happening. And that's just, I just lost respect for my father. And I got more respect like Ernie. Do what you have to do. Do what you have to do. Anybody comes, tell him I'll handle it. I'll handle it from there.

And that's where I got, I mean, there was other altercations. I have my father's friends. I'm with Ernie one day. We're boxing. We just finished working out. A father comes in, starts getting on me. When my friends see you, they're going to break your ass. Tell your friends, any of them come to me, I'm going to put them down with a pistol.

He knew what I meant. Do you do that? All of a sudden, Ernie gets up. Listen, you better tell all your friends. Anybody touches this kid? They're going to have a problem. with me. Nobody, and then all of a sudden my father's tune changed. Well, you know, no, there's no well you know. This is his neighborhood. He does what he wants to do.

They don't like it. They'll answer to me. And that's where I gravitated. It's like, wow, I finally got that tough love for. Yeah. And listen, there's a lot of things I did as a kid and and he's like, somebody comes out of the woodwork. You tell him to see me. Don't, don't be disrespectful. Tell them to come see me. And if they keep on precise. they get disrespectful after that, do what you have to do. Because then they're disrespecting me that you're telling me, telling them to go see me.

So it was Ernie's neighborhood. Basically. And you were the kid getting money and... He loved me. You were getting mentored by it. He saw quality in me. He knew I would outgrow the drug phase. You know, but...

I'm hearing some notes of a Bronx tale in this. Oh, no, listen. Between Sunny and Kolojol. Okay, so, so how does that, well, first of all, what happens with the kid who shot you? How did that resolve itself? The kid that shot me, I never ran into him. So I never got my revenge, but it's funny because when I came home, this is maybe 20 years later. I'm in the Bronx.

It's probably around 2003. And all of a sudden, Vinnie calls for me. What's up? What's going on? You're after. His name was Guy. You're after Guy? I said, what are you talking about, Vinny?

Guy, you're after him. Because he went, Guy ran to Guy Fonzie, Alfoncisco, who's a captain in the Gambinos. He says, you're looking to kill him. Benny, I haven't seen Guy in years since he shot me that time. He says, well, he said you were looking at him under the L by my club, which was in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx. And he said, you know, the way you were staring at him, you know, he thinks you want to kill him. I said, I don't even know what he looks like. Tell him he's paranoid.

No. And Vinny, you know I would tell you. Matter of fact, if I want to kill him, I would have told you, let's go. I'm rolling on. No, tell him he's okay. he's safe. Tell him stop using his drugs. And that's why I threw out there.

But, you know, he got away with that. Yeah. Yeah. So then what you're 19 and you're making hundreds of thousands of dollars a week, you know, mood keys. What happens next? I wound up going to Florida. I want to get away from the streets, the life. You were using, right?

I was using. I was partying. Of course. Listen, 90% of the street guys, they're partying. They're using. Anybody that tells us, says different, they're lying. It's just the way it is. I go to Florida and long and sure of it all, I wound up catching a murder case down there. It was, um, while I'm down there, I had two of my friends come down. They needed money. So I set, I had them go rob a drug dealer down there. they robbed the drug dealer and lo and behold the guy accused me i'm like his name was george i'm like george had nothing to do with it and after a while maybe three four months went by i happened to move with my wife in that same area and i'm like this area looks familiar it's just

didn't dawn on me i was had too much on my mind that was so wild i wanted to rent in a condo townhouse. All of a sudden, I get a knock on my door, and I look out the peep hole, and it's George standing there. I'm like, what the heck? And then it hit me.

I'm like, son of a, the place that I rented, it was George's complex. I didn't even realize it. I go running upstairs. I had a 380 with a silencer. I screw it on.

I go back downstairs, and I open up the door. but I already have the gun on the side of the door. And he's standing there. He has his shirt open. There's two pistols in his waistband. He's effed up. And he's like,

I know you robbed me and this and that. So we start talking. I said, listen, George, you know I live here. I didn't even realize you lived here. Otherwise, I never rented this. So I'm not being antagonistic. I'm not throwing anything in your face. But let's talk tomorrow.

I'm not going anywhere. You're not going anywhere. I see you have two guns on you. I says, it's not going to end well. So one of us is going to die tonight. So he agrees. Next, I go back upstairs and next day taps on my door. We talk.

I said, listen, it's in your head. I see I can't convince you. You're blaming me for you getting robbed. So let's do this, George. And I'm constantly denying it to him. I said, what we'll do is, would they rob? Say if the figure was 40,000 total with the drugs and the money. Let's do business together illegal with weed and cocaine.

And all my profit, I'll give it to you until you're made whole for the $40,000. And then from there we'll make, you know, we'll split everything. So he's, okay. Three different occasions. First time he comes, now weeks go by, tells me, hey, I have somebody that owes me money out in the Everglades. Why don't you come with me? He just bought a new TV, this and that,

kick the door, you could have it. I'm like, no, George, that's not for me. Right away, my flags are up, like red flags. He's trying to convince me, no, that's off the table. Maybe about two or three weeks goes by. And he decides, Dom, why don't you and your wife come with me? I want to go fishing down in the keys. I'll go fishing. You come. We'll fish. It'll be quiet. It's really quiet where I go.

I'm like, no, no, I'm okay, George. I'm not a fisher. No, but it's really good. It'll de-stress you. I'm like, no, I'm all right. Now my father's friends come down from New York. Excuse me. They come down and we have to go collect money from an insurance guy. So he doesn't know that my father's friends. There's two of them. I go with one of them, Guy Ernie Colazo, we go upstairs to the insurance guy. We're up there maybe about an hour.

The guy down says Vinnie Ferrester's with George. So we come in, I get into the car, I'm driving, go to their motel, I get into my car with George, and we leave. We meet up later that evening.

I have my wife with me. So George is all effed up on drugs. So he says, I'm going out while we're having dinner. He goes out and we plan to meet at a place called Rollins. It's like a lounge bar type in Fort Lauderdale. But when we get there, Ernie says, I have to talk to you. Pulls me aside. When he pulls me aside, George comes over and Ernie barked at him.

They get into a big heated argument. I get in between both of them. George, just go sit over there. Let me talk with him. Ernie, why are you being disrespectful to the guy? guy. He says, Dom, this guy tried killing you today. Did you know that? I said, well, I had a feeling I didn't know about today, but I had a feeling he was looking to set me up. What happened was when we were upstairs at the insurance place, he tells Vinny, Vinny, look, I'll give you $20,000 to kill

Dominic. So, Ving's like, I'll take the contract for the $20,000, but I don't have a gun. He's testing him since my father's friend. Yeah. So George says, I have a gun on me. So he says, all right, when I'm sitting in the back of the car, if I see there's a right opportunity, right, that the opportunity presents itself, I'll tap you on the leg, just pass me the gun, and I'll shoot them in the back of the head. So Vinny does it.

George passes him the gun. So he tells me that. So I told Ernie, okay, here's what we'll do. Tell George, you're getting hookers tonight. and you're going to your hotel. They had, it's called the Sandy Shoes Motel in Pompano Beach

on the beach. They're on, I think, the third floor of this motel. So he tells George and I tell my wife you have a headache. Start bitching.

So after about a half hour, I have a headache. I want to go home. I want to go home. I said, George, I have to go. You want to go with them?

He says, yeah, yeah, I'm going to go with them. And the plan was once George gets into the hotel, they're going to knock them out. I'll come there.

We'll take him out of the hotel and I'll do it after doing. Can I pause right there? Yes. Why was George, was George from New York? Was he a connected guy? Is that why? George was a biker. He was from New Jersey.

Okay. And his father was a police state trooper. Okay. For the Jersey police. Okay. So I'm just wondering why he knows all of these New York guys. He didn't know them. He didn't know my father's friends.

this is how out of his mind he was because he's high. He's telling a stranger, you want a contract? It's crazy. Like, he's just not thinking sensible. Do you think when he invited you and your wife out to go fishing, he was going to kill both you guys? Absolutely. Absolutely.

Thousand percent. Meanwhile, your two friends that you gave the score to rob him got away clean. Well, I wasn't giving them up. Then my friends, a much of my friends. Like he didn't catch any of us. So I'm going to deny it till the wheels for us. I'll never admit that we robbed you. And I figured, okay, his greed will kick in.

We'll just split it. But he wanted his vengeance. And, you know, that evening, now I went home. I dressed up all and changed my clothes. Wife went to bed. I grabbed my 380 with the silencer. And for some reason, as I walked up the stairs, now I'm thinking he's going to be knocked.

out. And I I knock on the door and I said, let me just take it out. I took out the weapon and I screw the silencer on. Cock it. And all of a sudden who is it?

I said, it's me. So cracks the door open and he sees it's me and it's George. I'm like, son of a. So as he opens up the door fully, I step in. I have the gun on my side and I push him. put the gun up. So right away, we shut the door. And Ernie grabs him and grabs two pistols out of his waist.

And he's sitting on the bed. And we're going back and forth. So George, you wanted to kill me. I didn't want to kill you. What are you talking about? Ernie goes off and cracks him. I said, Ernie, don't hit him. So I want them to feel comfortable. So he turns around and says, I didn't want to kill him. so Ernie tells him the whole thing. You pass Vinny the gun, so Vinny's a liar and they won't go back and forth. All of a sudden his last words were, I got to pee, and he bolts, he jumps off the bed and goes for the door. I turn around and I fire one shot in the back of his head. You would think he would fall forward?

I guess I hit a nerve. He stopped short before the door, and his whole body jumped backwards, and he flipped over on the floor, face down and all you've seen was the blood just as your heart beats you could see pump pump pump it's squirting out of the back of his head so it's like uh you know if you've seen good fellas when they kill Tommy at the end and it's just like fountening out of it yes holy was that the obviously the craziest thing you'd ever seen and i was it was just it happened so fast it was reflexes I would say um so there wasn't nerves I didn't expect to kill them right then and there. But you would expect it to kill him, though, taking him out of the hotel and take him to

whatever, the Everglades or something. And at that point was more peer pressure than anything, because now my father's friends, as street guys, I have to act. Yeah. So it wasn't a spont, it was spontaneous right at that moment, but it wouldn't have been a spontaneous action because I knew we planned everything. Did, uh, and what, what did you feel? after that um nothing you didn't feel guilt i didn't feel guilt because this guy was looking to kill me and like i tell people nowadays who asked me my wife was one of them so i was honest with her from day one when she met me and she asked me that and i'm like mattie all my victims everybody who got killed were in the life

They were gangsters. They would have put a bullet in my head like that. So how am I supposed to have remorse for somebody who would kill me? There was no innocent victims. It's like being at war. You're on the battlefield. You kill another soldier. It's do or die.

Same thing in the streets. Everybody's a soldier out there. Everybody's a thug. Even in the drug game. If another drug rivalry, like if you have a rivalry with another drug gang and you start shooting it out and you kill somebody, hey, it's, it's either me or them. I know.

I still don't personally think I could kill anyone. Like, if I got robbed back in the day, I would just let it go because I'm like, there's no way for me that I can escalate this to a homicide. Like, it's just not worth it, you know? My partner of Michael Sullivan in the drug business back then, he did get robbed. His girlfriend's uncle robbed them. We went out to Jersey. I found where he lived. strapped up, ready to kill him.

I'm waiting in the bushes for him to come home. I'm going to jump out and pop them. After about maybe half hours, like, Dom, come on, let's go, let's go, let's go. He couldn't do it. He didn't want to say it. But I respect that. I was upset at that time because I'm like, Michael, if you couldn't, if you didn't want to see him get killed

or you didn't have the heart for it, why did you have a risk bringing all the weapons out here and with a stolen car? Yeah. It's just, I was upset with that. That's what separates a gangster, you know, from everybody else, from a businessman, even. Like, you know, my whole thinking back when I was in the game was like, I'm selling, I'm making so much money that this is a business expense. As long as it's not the cops, right.

He can have this little five pounds. It's nothing. I move four times that in one transaction. Right. But, so you've killed him. You've killed George. What do you do? with George. Sorry,

well, we put him on the bed and then I put another bullet in his head to make sure he was dead. Yeah, get him to quit twitching. And then we went out to get cleaning materials

and everything long, sure of it all. We wrapped them up. And you don't dismember him? No, we wrapped them up tight. Yeah.

And then we dragged the body out of the hotel room down the stairs. It's like, maybe about 2.30, 3 o'clock in the morning. Is he wrapped them in carpet? We wrapped them up. I had a shower curtain, car cover, bags.

We wrapped them up, duct taped it, wrapped them up really good. Not exactly the subtle waiter. I know. And we dragged them out of the hotel room down the stairs, three flights, and I had my car pulled up, trunk open, and we threw the body in the trunk and drove it all the way to Palm Beach County. and took a side road and then went up dumping them in a canal.

They found the body about a month later. It was at that time, George weighed maybe about 230 pounds. When they found the body from the autopsy and everything, I think he was down to 110 pounds. Crazy. But they never got any evidence on you. There was ever any DNA, any fingerprints.

What happened was I get arrested for accessory after the fact the first of remurder. I'm waiting to get bailed out. They hit me with first degree murder. How do they how do they catch you? How do they get that on you? They brought me in for questioning. I went in.

Then they showed me a picture of somebody wasn't even because they had phone records from the hotel. They wound up finding bloody stuff. And they knew when Ernie stood there was at that hotel. They know the last name. So they showed me a picture. the guy looked like Bozo the clown. They said, is this Ernie?

And it was probably a guy whose name was Ernie. I said no. I should just said, I'm not answering any questions, but I really didn't know the guy. So I said no. And they locked me up for accessory to after the fact. They said that is Ernie. And with that, I go to get bailed out. They hit me first degree murder.

Got bailed out on that. Made bail. Wow. And as I'm waiting, they wound up finding, they found cigarette butts, they got the prints off of it. Ernie Colazo. He was on probation. They locked him up. And that evening, I get a phone call because we had law enforcement people up there up in New York.

They told me Ernie's cooperating. I said, no, he's not. They told me specific things that happened that night. I went back in the room. I put another shot to George's head. Yeah. So I go back. I call my father.

Your friend's ratting on me. No, that's what they do. Dad, he's ratting on me. Of course, my father never took my side with anything. And lo and behold, he ratted. And this is Ernie Colazo. And this is your mentor? No, this is not my mentor.

I just want to make sure. This is another Ernie altogether. You know how it is with Italian names? Everybody's Polly or Peter. I get confused myself sometimes. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha.

So he ratted on me. And long and sure of all is facing the death penalty with 25 to life. They come back with a plea seven years. I told them manslaughter, from first degree murder to manslaughter. I told them, drop the gun charge, I'll take it. Because the gun charge in the state of Florida carries a three-year mandatory at that time. And I wouldn't have been eligible to get my good time. Right.

So they dropped the gun charge. How did they come back with a plea like that? Here's what happened. I'm thinking the lawyer did this good lawyering. They had a weak case. Remember, I don't have a criminal record at the time. Ernie does. They didn't catch Vinny.

Vinny's on the lamb forresta. So what do they have? They have nothing on me. So I'm thinking it's good lawyering. They have nothing. They just want to get the case off their books. I get a letter. My lawyer hands me a letter.

it's from Ernie. They are sentencing. And I'm reading the letter. Come to find out, Ernie told the cops, when he told on me, he said it was self-defense. George had two guns.

He tried paying Vinnie earlier in the day to shoot me. And I wound to beating him on the drawer, and I shot him first. And so now they have a guy ratting saying it's self-defense. So that's what got me my plea deal.

Wow. So he was, he ratted on you, but also helping you. And lied. Yeah. Yes. Wow.

So what, so what happened to Ernie? Ernie, while I was in jail. Okay, I come home. I did 17 months. Okay.

So you did 17 months on a body. 17 months on a body with good time. I had a seven year bid. Did 17 months. I come home. I'm on. three months supervisor release probation

whatever they call it in the state I did more than 17 months for selling marijuana folks I just want to throw that out for the record it gets better I'm out altogether four months I got married while I was out and I got married on a yacht

so as people are born in the yacht my father's friend is there and I'm like Maurice what's cops doing here? Lo and behold, two weeks after I got married, they come and arrest me. While I was out, I picked up a half ounce of cocaine, trying to make some money. Just came home.

I need to make something. It was garbage. I gave it to my co-defendant. He sold the cocaine. The night he was selling the cocaine, he said, Dom, come meet me. I'll give you the money. cocaine was garbage but he got $600 for it so I'm sitting in the car with him does a transaction he slips me the money nobody saw that he's dealing with the EA agent so the agent says hey can I call

you next week can I get two or three he said I responded we could work it out as soon as which I never did they had a tape it was partly unintelligible we exit the vehicle I tell my co-defendant is name was Robert. Don't deal with that guy. He's a cop. How did you know? I just know. And being on the street your whole life, you could tell. Number one, the Coke was garbage. He's talking about, hey, could I get more? Never sampled it. Like, I knew it was garbage. And find out when they did the test on it was only 63% pure. So it's garbage. So I told him, don't deal with him. He's a cop. and I left. Robert kept on dealing, brought somebody else in,

and that's when they arrested everybody. They said I was a supplier, and there was another arrest with another group that was another supplier. So long and sure of it all, DEA wants me to work with them in New York. The day they arrested me, they told me, just work with us, we won't even charge you.

We want guys up in New York. We know. You used to be part of a drug gang and this and that. I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not a rat. I'll be out. This is what I told him. I'll be out on bail.

I figured I'm definitely getting out on bail on this. They remand me no bail. So now we go for speedy trial. I go to trial. The government would tell my co-defendant cooperated, Robert. He winds up cooperating. And come to find out, he tells, tells the government the truth. The cocaine was mine, but I never wanted to deal with them.

There was no conspiracy because I told them soon we got out of the car. The guy's a cop, don't deal with them. They would tell that information, the 302s from me. They never gave it to me. Is that illegal? Yes, that's illegal. I have a trial. I go to trial. My trial is two hours with open and closing arguments. One witness took the stand, the agent, 45 minutes, his 10, testimony. He said he was given a half ounce. He gave my co-defendant the money. My co-defendant gave him the Coke. He said, I asked for two or three next week and I'll bring the money. He said, I responded, we could work it out. My lawyer said, did you discuss? What did you mean? He meant kilograms. Lawyer says, wait, wait, let's get this straight. You're giving a half ounce. You asked for two or

three. Did you discuss, did you tell him kilos? He said, no. I assumed he knew what I was talking about. did you discuss price he said no so where do you come off kilos well i assumed he knew what i was talking about that was it that was the whole case they never gave me the 302s for my co-defendant because i would have called him to the stand they found me guilty of conspiracy they found me not guilty of possession guilty of conspiracy for two or three kilograms i was sentenced to 10 years Holy shit. So I went to jail for a crime, I didn't commit. Wow.

After. So you kind of paid for that body. Yeah. Exactly. Wow. So you got your karma right though. Yeah. And so did you ever, did you appeal it?

I appealed it. They actually gave me, I was granted oral argument. Came back on my 22. I think it's 2255. We had the hearing. And they didn't want to hear it. Wow. So it didn't matter.

matter that they didn't show you the 302? No. On a one witness trial, their own cooperating witness said. And they didn't call him. They didn't give me the 302s. And that's just, it just shows back then how dirty the system was.

Yeah. I mean, that's crazy off of, oh, so I guess conspiracy to sell three kilos would carry a mandatory, especially I had, I was convicted criminal. Yeah, priors.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Wow. So while you're down, where'd you go? First of all, you're in the feds. I was all over. I was started in Lewisburg penitentiary. How was Lewisburg? That year there, I would say there was a lot of killings that year. There was a piping or a stabbing almost every single day. It was wild. It was like a gladiated school. Yeah, Lewisburg. Did you ever see it? Um, see it and what's like, did you ever like walk by somebody that just got gutted? Oh, yeah. My orientation is in K dorm, which was downstairs in the basement unit.

I'm up early in the morning. I'm sitting by the officer station getting ready for them to call to open up the gates for the dining room to go eat. It's maybe about 5.30 in the morning. All of a sudden, a guy. comes walking now it's dark because everybody's sleeping dimly lit he comes walking out and you see him where he has his shower shoes on underwear as boxes and his t-shirt and he's walking he's holding himself he said see oh i think i got stabbed now when he said that i look and the white

shirt was all brown. They lock it down. He got stabbed maybe about seven to ten times. And the guy slept maybe four or five bunks away from me. I'm like, oh, damn. So it was eye-opening. Yeah. Did you keep a knife on you after that?

No, I didn't keep a knife on me, but I had access to knives. Yeah. I had an altercation, almost a big altercation there. Because I was wild. I didn't give a shit. But at the end of the day where I almost went at it with another guy from Philly, I'm like, look at this. I'm thinking to myself, I have a 10-year sentence. I'm going to wind up with a life bid here for killing somebody.

And that's what I feared most more than anything. And lo and behold, it didn't happen. So I lucked out with that. But then from there, I was in Allenwood, FCI, Farrington, New Jersey, the FCI, C. Cumberland, Maryland, F.C.I. Taledega, Alabama, FCI. School Kill, Pennsylvania, FCI. Estelle, South Carolina, FCI. And the reason being, I was having with the female officers,

I was corrupting them, having relationships with them. So you get laid. Listen, I'm 22 years old, 23 years old, 24. What do you think I'm going to do? I was so you were getting so throughout your 10 year period you were fucking and one of the correction or listen I even went with a psychiatrist in there she wound up quitting her job she was all messed up but one of the corrections officers I wind up marrying she quit her job wow this happens folks this happens wow gosh that Italian charm we wind up getting married I think

the in the godfather I think that Bruce says your guinea charm. Olive oil hair and guinea charm. Wow. No way. So, Ed. So your first marriage had fallen apart when you went to prison, I assume. Or were you still married?

This was marriage number three. Oh, my God. My first marriage with the George Kehoe murder. She didn't want to wait for me. She left me. When I came home, she wanted to get back. I'm like, no. The second marriage, she waited maybe about four

years into my bid. She couldn't take it anymore. And she left me. So the third marriage, we got married by phone. Marriage by phone out in California, actually. It was legal. They did the marriage over the phone. And we got married.

I got to see her when I was in school. They let her in to come see me. And then after that, they took her off my visit list. They wouldn't let it come back. Okay. I was going to say, so what prison did you meet your third wife? I met her in Farrington, New Jersey. So you were, were you guys hooking up in the psychiatry?

No, she wasn't a psychiatrist. She was a corrections officer. Okay. And it's funny. I had two corrections officers in that institution I was going with. Listen, I had the male offices come up to me that liked me. Yeah. They're like, Sacali, cool it down.

I'm like, what are you talking about? He said, listen, I know you have these two women, they're arguing to take your unit for overtime. And I know people are talking. Yeah. Like, I don't want to see you get jammed up. I like you. You're one of the good guys here. Because I mind in my own business.

I can get involved with stuff other than, you know, listen. Screw it. Old-fashioned, screw it. So where would you, where would you, where do you screw a CO if you're inmate? We would go in the, okay, you have the unit. Yeah. The units were separate. You had the A side and B side or unit one and two, however they categorized it.

and in the middle you have the counselor's office. So at night, there's no counselors there, but they have the keys. So I would go into the staff bathroom where they would come in my room. And in my room, I had my friend from the Bronx. He was there with me. We were roommates. Yeah. And I even hooked him up with a correctional officer.

I mean, we had it going on there. What about the blind? So do you have to use the blind spots for the cameras? Or do they turn the cameras off? Well, at that time, there wasn't cameras in the units. Oh, okay. They're outside on the compound. And cameras weren't a big thing back then.

Right. So you guys never got caught. No, we never got caught. They actually, she wound up resigning. They transferred me into a different institution. They did lock us up for it, but they never caught us. They wanted me to press charges for rape. Right. Dude, that is a way.

I told them, I don't know what you're talking about. If you had a life sentence, that's a way. that's a way to get out of it. Like, hey, I don't think that'll get you off a life sentence, take a couple of years off a long bit. I don't know. That's probably why, you know, I'm sure that's been attempted before.

You know, by inmates, they'll do whatever. But listen, at the end of the day, they're human as well. And they see you have charisma. They're there every day with you, interacting. So were they bringing stuff in for you? I never asked for that. I would rather, you know, like, I never asked.

Pussy was enough. Yes, yes. Just going to be. I'm sorry for being crude. Especially at being younger. That's all you think about. Yeah. Yeah.

Love. That's it. So you get married. How long did you stay married to the psychiatrist for? Or the correction officer. Yeah. We were married. She helped me.

I finished up my bid, which was maybe about four, four and a half years. Great. I mean, always. their cards, letters even sending me money to my account. And then when I came home, it was just, I was working in the union in Jersey, tile marble and Tarasso, Local 7. And I was doing well. I was staying away other than me going to New York to kill somebody.

Hang on. I don't want to get us to get too far ahead of ourselves. Because clearly, okay, at this point, you've got potential, like while you're locked up on this drug pinch, you have potential as an earner. You showed it in your teenage years on the street, but you're now a loser, right? You've lost everything. You're doing 10. Basically, we're framed. Right. And, you know, did you change? Did you say, okay, I want to actually get my shit together? Great question. Actually, yes, I did. I felt, you know what? My mentality. was if I did it illegal, I could do it legally.

Let me put everything together. But I was kidding myself as well because I was always tempted. I was a criminal at heart. I guess being young, even though I focused on legitimate things, you present like checks. Hey, Dom, we have account numbers. Say if it was DuPont, one of the checks, big company. They have tens of millions of dollars. their account. They had their account number. So they made duplicate checks to cash. So there was always

that criminal element within me. Yeah. Well, I guess I meant too, did, did you think I got to get my criminal shit together? Like, I want to be a wise guy. I'm, you know. No, the wise guy wasn't, I didn't look at it. A lot of guys in the street want to be a wise guy. They want to be made. I was always confident in myself, my abilities. I didn't want it. I didn't care for it because I knew I was a man myself. And there was times when I did come home, I wasn't made. I chased the captain in the Likaze crime family around the car.

Called me a rat. He didn't call me to my face. Vinny went to introduce me to this guy. And he said, the guy told him, I heard Dominic's a rat. And I just came home from jail. And Vinny calls me out of the car. He says, Dom, he says you're a rat. And I went after him.

He's running from me. Vinny, tell him who I am. Tell him who I am. Long and sure of it all, Vinny tells me to stop. Vinny tells the guy, let me tell you something. You or anybody else that comes out of their mouth your mouth again, Domney's going to do what he has to do. Because if he doesn't, he can't be around me.

If you're going to say something like that, you better have proof. And if you don't have proof, if you're just saying it, and he Fs you up, and I'm with him, I don't care. Friend, not friend, boss, under boss, I'm helping him. Then we'll deal with it, whatever we have to do after that. Because you're not going to tarnish him because you don't like him. And what type of man would he be if he didn't go at you? you think you're going to hide behind your button. These are killing the fences.

You better make sure and let everybody in this neighborhood know that. So in the mob, if you call somebody a rat and you can't back it up? Yeah. And say if I would have grabbed him and I would have beat the F out of him. If he can't back, we go to a sit down, yes, I'm supposed to get killed. We'll put my hands on. I'm made members, especially why I know they're made. However, when I sit down at that sit down and I bring up to the boss who's ever sitting there,

well, let me ask you something. I'm in the streets. The guy called me a rat. If I don't do anything, I must be a rat. How dare he without proof? He should know better. And another aspect of it, he's a made guy. Am I correct?

I know you can't answer that, but he is made. aren't you guys supposed to be better than us civilians that you're supposed to be above us? So he should know better than to call anybody a rat. And by him call me a rat, if I don't do anything, he's putting my life in danger by other street guys. And he's crippling your ability to earn because if you're a rat, you're going to get isolated on the street.

So I guess if you're made and I'm a maid guy and you call me a rat just to tarnish me, I can go kill you for you. You don't have proof. Yeah, you could get killed. I could ask for your head. Wow. And that happened, too, with guys in my Dijin, we had the guy, it was Perry.

No, not Perry. I'm sorry, Joe Torrey. His name is Joe Torrey. No shit. And Gino Gillespie. Calling each other rats. They didn't even know me. I was their captain.

I inherited them. Yeah. And I'm like, guys, do you realize you both can get killed? Like, where's the proof? Right. You can't stop. I don't want to hear that. I don't know what your other captain tolerated.

Yeah. I'm not going to tolerate it. Right. I'm like, you guys have a pass right now. Yeah. But if I hear that come out of your mouths again, your head's going to be on a platter. Wow. Wow.

And yeah. So you really like stood up for yourself, even before you were a made guy. Always. Yeah. Always, without a doubt. So walk us. So you get out of jail. Did you get a trade while you were in there?

No. So, okay. No, I was just, you're just too busy getting laid. Too busy. Having a good time. Making the best out of a bad situation. Sure, sure. So, but you got out and how long were you straight or what was the plan, I guess?

The plan was when I came home in December. I was freed from the halfway house. What year was this? In 1999. Okay. How long did you do total? Almost nine years. Wow.

on that crime I didn't commit. 85% yeah. Yeah. I went immediately to New York. And then, you know, I reached out to Bruno. That's Anthony in Delacado. And who is he? Bruno was at one time he was a captain in the Bonano Crime family.

He killed Carmine Galante back in the day who was trying to take over the Bonano Crime family. And he was supposed to be in the movie, Donnie Brascoe, the three captains that got killed. Bruno was supposed to be there at night too with his father, Sunny Red. He wasn't. Bruno was out partying doing coke. Oh, okay. That's what saved his life. Gotcha.

But afterwards, you know, Bruno wasn't there. So he didn't get killed that night. So you went to a captain in the bananas. And where are the bananas back then when New York still have neighborhoods? Where were they mostly based out of? In Queens, Brooklyn, or throughout the five boroughs, really.

So is that a misconception that there was like turf split up between the five families in New York? You had, it's not a misconception at certain times, certain errors.

Like, just for instance, I had a concrete company around me, Liberty Concrete. They went into Staten Island. So somebody, they had a,

I guess, a client, customer in Staten Island. They went there. They got stopped by somebody in the Gambinos, telling them you can't go to Staten Island. We have the whole island. This is our territory.

And long and sure of it all, I had to sit down with Mickey Boy Paradisio about it. And I said, no, we're going to go in Staten Island. You don't have the whole island. Like, that's crazy. He agreed with me. But before that, word came back was. we see you in Staten Island again. We're going to destroy your trucks.

Your truck. So Vinny sent word back to the person that said it, and I'm not sure which maid member said it, if you guys touch our truck, our one truck, we're going to burn 10 of your trucks. Like, it's not happening. And that was Vinny's motto. You do something to us?

We're going to act 10 times. we're going to retaliate. Right. So it sounds like there's, there's no real turf. There's no real. It's you just don't step on somebody's toes. Correct. Doing business.

You don't step on another family's business. Right. But you get some guys, they will try those antics. And it'll work 50% of the times because you're not going up against somebody who's formidable. Yeah. But somebody like myself, Vinnie, we're not going to tolerate it. If we're right, we're going all out. And you weren't bluffing ever when you made these kind of threats?

No. How does a mafia? truck get burnt? Like how do you burn? You know, you always see in like the TV shows, the Sopranos, some guys' garbage trucks getting blown up. Did you ever do any of that? No. Do you know how that's done? Well, you could do it with a fire bomb, put gasoline in a bottle with a rag out. Old school. Or you just, if the trucks are parked, douse them with gasoline, make a trail, throw the match and watch everything go up. Okay. So the Italian mafia in America had never had like bomb making capabilities

like the IRA in Ireland. I, to your knowledge. To my knowledge, they did have bomb making capabilities because they blew up by Gambino's car. I think it was Frankie DeChico, if I'm not mistaken. Okay. Okay. They blew up his car. They called bombed them.

And I think gas pipe had something to do with that. He was Anthony Casso. Yeah. He was with the Lucchese crime family. Okay. But they were trying to kill John Gotti. Oh, okay. At that time. but listen I never underestimated anybody. Okay.

Anybody, especially like I said in the beginning, it's not who yells the loudest that counts. When a guy's quiet, I fear him more so. Sure. Well, I'll be more careful with that guy than a loud mouth. Okay, so I cut you off. You went to, I'm sorry, I forgot his name, the banana captain when you got out. the time he wasn't a captain in the long he was a soldier he was a he was close with viny basciano so i sat down with them viny asked me a bunch of questions bruno felt vini and i would be

compatible with boat from the bronx we're both similar and uh that was it so right away viny took a liking to me especially a month later two months later i'm killing somebody with viny okay so after we killed somebody oh well let's talk about this So did they, did they give you a job straight away? Because you said you were working in a union. In the union. No, my uncle Peter, he actually played in Goodfellows. He was Pete the neck.

We'll put him in the episode. Because I can't recall now. Yeah. Was it when they were, when Ray Leota's walking into the club? Yeah. And he says, I took care of that thing. I took care of that thing. Oh, wow.

He's in like four, three or four small little parks like that. Was he an actor? No. Okay. No. He was just a knock around guy in the streets. He was a knock around guys. Okay.

Wow. So he got you a job in a union? He got me a job in the union. Actually, it was a guys in Philly, the bricklayer, a delegate in Philly is the one that got me in the tile marble Tarasso Union. Okay. Okay. So I was working every day. Yeah.

Working and, you know, trying to do the right thing. Okay. So, but you also are here with the bananas now. and did they give you, you know, any kind of action? Did they bless you with anything? At that time, I wasn't officially with the bananas. I was still with the Genovese. Okay.

But I gravitated with Vinny and I went on that hit with him. Okay. So, yeah, so you're out two months. You just came off of an eight and a half year stretch. I mean, you were having sex. More than most people you have in the free world. So it didn't sound like too bad of a deal. But like this is, to me, high stakes, right?

Like, you would think you would think you, some guy off of a 10-year bid would, you know, be into like, try to end to some white collar shit or some scams, something. But you're going straight to the big one. You know, it's funny because I remember as if it was yesterday, Bruno Page and me, he was working out in Jersey. So I took a trip out there to see him real quick. So I was in Jersey.

So I was allowed throughout the state. And he's like, Vinny has an issue. Guy wants to kidnap his son. That's what he told me. So he said, you're okay with it? That's all he said. I said, Bruno, really? Absolutely.

Let's do it. So I knew what he was talking about. With that. But what was your motivation, though? Like, I knew what it was. They're calling on me. I want to be around them. What am I going to say no?

Yeah. I can't. I just came home from jail. Right away, that would destroy my future. Okay. So you did. You did see this as your opportunity to get in with a family. Yeah.

Okay. Not really with a family. Just listen, I consider Bruno a dear friend, especially in prison. We got along well. He goes back with my uncle Pete the neck forever. Okay. And I didn't want to disappoint. I was always one.

If a friend needed me, let's go. Let's go. I did think about like, oh, shit, I just came home. But you have to do what you have to do. That was my mentality. It's a thug mentality and let's go. I just, I always prided myself on being one of the first ones to always stand up and fight, never back down. And it was pride.

It was out of pride. It's not even peer pressure at that point. It's just pride what you have inside of you. I would never tolerate being disrespected or, I pride myself on being a gangster. Okay. Gotcha. So you still,

even after all this time locked up, haven't developed what would become this kind of amazing business acumen yet. You still consider yourself a gangster. Not a... Yeah, but you could be a gangster and still have that business acumen.

It's just... I would never back down. No, I was running... I mean, to run multiple legitimate businesses, anybody. That takes, a high level skill set. You know, you know what?

It's funny that you do say that because I'm in business with people right now, they were three, four hundred million dollars. And I look at them like, wow, you really like, you got lucky at what you're doing. That too. That's, that's fair. Because you know what? I think street smarts out, outweighs book smart by a lot. I agree.

A lot. You get a lot further with street. Listen, I'm not saying you could be street smart and just be a buffoon and not have anything upstairs. But if you have street smarts with a little bit of intellect, it'll blow away any college graduate all day long. For sure. Yeah. And not just for people doing illegal things. No, legal.

Street smarts for doing legal businesses. If you use your street smarts in legal and legitimate businesses, I'll go street smarts at any day. For sure. I agree. hands down. I agree. Because I might not know the business, but I guarantee you after a few weeks or a few months, whatever I'm getting involved with, I'll know inside and out, just like with the Vaca company. It's everything in life is a formula. All business is a formula. Okay. So this is, and this is what I'm fascinated by, like, and I guess we're going to get to it, but when you

put your mind to making money and put away the gangster ship, but for now, tell us how it went down. I'll give you the short version because we could be here forever talking about it. Vinny basically said, this guy's looking to kidnap my son. And come to find out after we killed the guy, it came out, the guy was a junkie in the neighborhood. He used to hang out in my father, and my father was a drug addict as well. And one night they're just hanging out. They're getting high. And Vinny's son happened to be passing boss.

in Jess while they're high. Hey, imagine how much money we could get if we kidnapped him. Just said in a jokingly manner. And Vinny knew that. But Vinny said, I'm going to make an example because anybody who jokes like that, it's going to be an example for somebody who thinks they're going to kidnap one of my kids. So Vinny, his first thing, we're going to kill him. We're going to leave him in the street.

And if Joe Messino, who's the boss of the Bonano Crime family, asks any one of us, we had nothing to do with it. I don't know what you're talking about. It gets denied. Vinny himself told me, Dom, once we take this guy out, it never happened. I said, Vinny, I already know that.

I don't even know what you're talking about. We go. We wind up finding him. Pull up on him. He's walking his dog. Is this in the Bronx? This is in the Bronx, in the Throg's neck section of the Bronx. It's a working class.

Old school. That's real old school New York. Right by the service road of the highway. Did you now, it's 1999, 2000? It's 2000. February, it's actually February 15th of 2000. Dr. Dre's birthday. I don't know why I know that.

Oh, yeah? Yeah, February 15th. So you, do you have an escape route? Do you have, what is your plan? Like, bring us, tell us what mob guys, button guys in the mob that are going to commit a murder, what kind of preparation goes into it? Well, Vinny set everything up. We have walkie-talkies. There's the car we're in with bogus plates on it.

There's two cars. Bruno's in one car. Guy John's in another car used for a crash car. Crash car meaning if law enforcement comes after us, somebody calls the cops. there's a chase, they're going to crash into the cop car, make a diversion, or if somebody comes out, just anything, somebody wants to play Johnny Hero. Yeah, you know, they're going to use that as a diversion. And the plan was, once we hit him, we leave him in the street.

We'll go a few blocks away around the corner. We'll jump out of Anthony Donato's car, who was also close with Vinny. At that time, I don't think he was a made member yet of Bananos. But Bruno, we jump into Bruno's car and we'll go separate cars and everybody splits up once we get away. And the car that you did the hit in, that's stolen or what do you? No, you just leave it there? That was actually Anthony Denal's car. He had fake plates on it, Velcroed.

So once we switched cars, he went out the back of the car, took the plate off. So he has his legit plate on and he went his separate way. Gotcha. Okay. And then you just go back later, whatever, and get the actual. car with the real plates. No, no. He had his car. The car we were in. Oh, and then he drove off. He had fake plates on the car, but it was Velcroed to his regular plate. So he, once we got away from the scene, we got out calmly. Vinny and I, you know, we had the pistols. He had the shotgun

and I had the pistol. We went to Bruno's car. We left one way. Anthony Donato, when he got out, he pulled the plate off, went back in his car and he took away. Got it. Okay. Um, And then you had your routes planned to get out of the neighborhood? Yeah, well, we knew the neighborhood. Vinnie told him nothing was planned. Then he just said, make a turn here, make a turn there. Anthony knew which way to go. And everybody said coast is clear, nobody's following.

So we knew we got away from that area. Okay, so you, and how many times you shoot him? I fired all five shots. I hit him with one shot. The rest went high. It was more the adrenaline. And like I said, it just came on from jail. I had 357 snub nose.

So it was like it just went. The trigger was a quick trigger, hairpin trigger. And Vinny had the shotgun. So Vinny blast him with the shotgun as well. And when the guy was lying down, the last shot, Vinny had it up. shotgun guys on the floor and put one last pump into him that when the shotgun recoiled it hit vinny in the chin and he wound up having a big bruise there afterwards but that was it was lights out

the guy was walking a doberman too and the first shot i was the one fired first the dog just took off that bruno said the dog ran past his car where he was parked so you knew you'd got him you knew he was gone yeah no he was gone he was on the floor and the last shot you saw his whole body jump up from the shotgun shell, you know, the impact. So what was the aftermath of that after you guys got away with it? When we went away, we went to Vinny's girlfriend's house afterwards, and they were congratulating me. You did your first piece of work. Congratulations.

They were happy. I'm like, this wasn't my first piece. Remember? I was away from murder. They laughed, you know, joked around it. And do you put the vinegar underneath? the fingernails. No,

I did take that kind of precautions. You want to get rid of the gunshot residue? No. No. Okay. But it was none of that. Okay. So then what happens?

Now you're, now you just. No, Vinny just said never gets mentioned. This never happened. And again, if Joe Messino ever asked, wasn't us.

We had nothing to do with it. Okay. So the, but what grew out of that? So now you're really like with the bananas or you at least to like got their Technically, I'm still with the Genevice, and that's where the kicker came in. Okay. Vinny went to go speak to Ernie, to release me.

And Vinny indicated now, you know, he did something with us, so, you know, he belongs here. So, Ernie said, let me talk to Dominic first before I give you my decision. So I met with Ernie. He's like, listen. Love Vinnie. Great guy. I think he's great for you. He says, I'm settled in.

Right now, I don't do much. I love you as a son. You know, if I want to, you're not going anywhere. You're staying here. But I wouldn't do that to you. I want to see you prosper and come up. So I'm going to release you over there. Is that what you want?

So I said, yes, that's what I want. And he said, if you ever, I don't care who it's with any problem, you come let me know. Wow. You come let me know. You're my son. Wow. You let me know. Whatever happened to Ernie?

What was his, your mentor? He's still there. He's still alive. Yeah, he's still alive. Did he ever do time? He did time. He actually went away after I cooperated. He did time with my father.

They were in Fort Dix, New Jersey. And word got back to me, not only from my father, but from people. Actually, a few months ago, a guy told me when Ernie was there, he was sick that I cooperated. He's like, what did these guys do to this kid? And he told him, I don't want to hear anything from anybody about Dominic. Like, I don't want to hear it. How did that make you feel? It made me feel good that, you know, he loves me.

He knew. and the said well but do you feel like you let him down though um you know this man

who loved you and you ended up flipping I'm sure I let him down I let a lot of people down but at the end of the day loyalty works both ways

and I'm going to go back to the night we killed Frank Santoro Vinny said if Joe Massino asked don't say anything you know what Vinny did about three weeks

afterwards when you saw Joe Messino Joe we killed Frank Santoro. Me, Dominic and Bruno. Why would you tell him that? And this is what, again, got Vinny in trouble, his big mouth.

Remember, we're from the Bronx. When Joe Massino got arrested, Sal Vitali, there was about 12 people that cooperated. His whole administration ratted on him. Everybody was from Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan.

nobody was from the Bronx nobody knew us right nobody knew what we did so Vinnie if Vinnie keeps his mouth shut we never get arrested they don't know

so when you go back loyalty works is a two-way street I saw the handwriting on the wall when we were getting ready to fight out case Vinny wanted me

to testify in our behalf me take the witness stand, not as a rat, as a maid member, because he said, being part of Kozinostra is not illegal. Being part of the mafia is not illegal. What's illegal is committing criminal acts. So you could take the stand. Tell them you're a captain.

Tell them this, tell them that. So I'm like, Vinnie, if I do that, everybody's going to look at me as if I'm a rat. What happened to the code of Omerta? Nothing never gets said. You know, you can't have. Well, we have to change without times. I was with Quiet Dom, who was at one time the act and boss of his Genevice Crime family.

That year I was with him in jail. He was sick the way they were treating me. They took close to $10 million from me. In the streets, everybody's like vultures. I wasn't even convicted. And they took, they took all my guys from me within the first few weeks. They broke my crew up. Who?

Michael knows. Mancuso. Wow. The boss. Oh, right. The new boss of the bananas. He dismantled my whole entire crew. So I'm like, Vinny, that's supposed to be my support lever.

Right. Right. That's how I eat. It's how I earn. And Quaiy Dam turned around and said, it's a disgrace what they did to you. If Vinny come, he said, Dom, I love you. But if Vinny comes to this institution or when I see him, I'm not acknowledging him. He can't speak to me.

He said, no disrespect to you. I'm letting you know this so you're aware. So I wouldn't do it behind your back. It's not an insult to you. I love you. What they did to you is an effing disgrace. And it's a shame. I'm embarrassed.

That's what he said. And he's with the Genevieve's family. I'm embarrassed for what they did. So Big Ernie knew this. Everybody knew this in the Bronx. And loyalty is a two-way street. It's crazy. I'm in here because of the crime family,

because of people's big mouths who should know better. Listen, Vinny has over a dozen bodies under his belt. Why didn't you talk about the murders that you did without me, Vinny? Right, right. Like, you know,

sounds like maybe he was jealous or threatened by you. A lot of people said that, but I don't want to believe that. Until this day, as weird as it sounds, I still care for the guy. We were that close. Wow. But, again, it was just self-preservation. Yeah.

loyalty works two ways i wasn't given loyalty i saw the handwriting on the wall and i'm out i'm done i'm tired of it and this is the first time in my adult life i'm home it's going on 11 years i don't even have a traffic ticket yeah first time in my life i haven't did anything illegal and i'm proud of myself it's it's taken a lot i've backed down from fights fights people that my wife was shocked calling me out one attorney who said calling me out coming at me I'm like back up back up please

act like an attorney you're an attorney don't act like a dog don't act like a dog I don't want to fight you and I walked away from it and you know things like that I'm proud of myself what do you think it was you think it was age growing up um it's just

I'm tired when I do something I go all out I'm a perfectionist So figured after I cooperated, I'm not going to be another statistic or a knucklehead or an idiot where I cooperate and I go back to jail. Life is too short. So I made my choice to turn my life around and I'm dedicated with it. And I'm just focused on building a brand, building things, companies. And that's it. Right now, I'm fortunate enough.

I don't have to work another day in my life. Well, you've been building companies, you know, since you became a made guy. With illegal activities behind me. Right, right. So was that when you started to, you know, invest in restaurants and construction companies and all this stuff, was that all funded with illegal money? Or did you start those companies organically? I started them, some of them, most of them organically. My grandmother lent me money.

She took a loan on her house. Wow. That was another thing. She took a loan on her house I was paying her mortgage the taxes I'm like Graham just collect the rent Don't worry about it Then I get locked up

And all of a sudden Nobody's paying the mortgage You know I mean it was ridiculous So of course you know I'm the bad one I robbed my grandmother They put out there that I stole from her

I forged documents the mortgage But for three years that I had the loan I didn't rob her when I was out there. So, you know, right away, my aunt asked her, hey, what happened here? I don't know. I don't know.

She got nervous. So my aunt right away, they go to newspapers after I cooperated, too, afterwards that I stole from my grandmother. I forged documents and the loan and just a whole bunch of Milwaukee. Yeah, got really messy. Yeah. It really bothered me.

But while I was the way, my grandmother came and seen me, sent me money while I was in jail. Yeah. So, wow, this is somebody who robs somebody? So you get released by Ernie, your mentor. Yes. Which is fascinating that that was still a practice in the life, is that you can't just put a youngster under your wing without, you know,

if he's under the wing of somebody else. So. And I mean, we're talking about maybe 10, about 15 years prior. Right. That he stuck up when I was a kid. Yeah. So till now, you're always around them. Once they speak up for you, you're with that person. Right. But now you're spoken for by the bananas. Correct. He released me to Vinny. Got it. And those, because those guys are trying, those guys are really active. That's, that's where you want to go. Vinny was active.

Vinny was just knock around in the streets and. So then bring us up to how you get made. Like to take us, take us to where you're, you're building up and you finally, you know, get made and and eventually become captain. How did all that happen? It's funny because sometime in 2001, Vinnie proposed me to get straightened out. The end of 2000,

2001. And Michael Mancuso brought up the fact that I just came home from jail for selling drugs. They just had a commission meeting, I think back in 2000, Joe Messino,

where they put into law, you know, that, that anybody coming home from a narcotics bid, they have to wait five years before they could get straightened out. So Michael brought to Joe that to his attention. So Vinny told me, listen, you know, you're going to have to wait. I said, Vinny, I don't even want it.

Well, don't worry, I'll get you in before the five years. I said, it's disgusting. I don't even want to hear it anymore because organized crime is about criminals, doing illegal activities. So you're punishing me for doing illegal activities. I said it's a joke. I don't want it.

I have you and Bruno. So then years later back in 2003, 2003, 2004, Vinnie proposed me again, put me in until life he got me in before the five years. And when he asked me, I says, I don't want it. I don't need it. I have you and Bruno. I want you, please for me,

because Goughby, I get arrested. I need somebody I could trust out here, handling my affairs because you won't be able to sit down. I said, Vinny, don't worry. I don't need it. Nobody's going to take anything. And what are you doing at this point to earn with Viti and Bruno? Oh, well, Bruno always did his own thing.

So it's basically Vinny and myself. Construction, real estate office, with an auto repair shop. We had the sports book. We just opened up a bar lounge. So I had a lot of different incomes coming. What was your construction? Tell us about that.

Construction we would build two, three family homes, a family units. I had about four or five different construction entities. And then with that, with the real estate office, we did titles, mortgages,

through the Vansan agency. So I made money off of that as well. Money was coming in from all angles. Legit money. So it was just your sports book that was the street money. It was the street money. And then, you know, like Vinny had a one time back, my first was around them in the early 2000s,

ecstasy. He had, got him from Canada with the weed and everything. And I had maybe about, 100,000 ecstasy pills that I had a connection with the Albanians that I was given it to the Albanians. Really? With Vinny and Bruno couldn't sell them.

I took it. I sold it. So to me it was all profit like we were making. Oh, wow. So whatever, if I got $7, $8 a pill, we were splitting it three ways, me, Vinny and Bruno. Oh, wow. So that helped me come up to. Yeah.

Yeah. So now you got your bank. Now your things are rocking. Yeah, I was rocking and rolling. So you didn't really need to be in the. mafia. You didn't really need to be a made guy. No. To me, it wasn't, people walk around when they get made with their chest puffed out. That wasn't me. Because Vinny even asked me after I got straightened out, how do you feel?

I said, Vinny, I feel the same. I'm still done the same Dominic. Like a button, because people walk around with their chest out knowing everybody in the neighborhood knows, so you can't touch me. I wasn't like that. That it also happened, I would get into an office. argument with somebody regular guy so shit civilian we call them and they give me a look like yeah shaking their head like yeah okay only if like they give me that wise ass response only if you know what forget about who i am i'm on your level right now let's go outside and they'd be like no no no Let's go outside. One-on-one outside.

That's it. I'm on your level. I have nothing. Once I say something like that in front of people and I go outside and I get my ass kicked, that's it. I can't do anything. Can't retaliate. But that's the way I was.

And no, no, no, Dom, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're damn right. You're sorry. Because don't think I don't hide behind anything in life. Let's do it. That's the reason why I didn't take the witness protection program. Right.

I don't hide. So, but I guess when you are made, you can avoid some of those bullshit problems because people at least in the life know that they can't put a hand on you. So you can avoid, you know, loud mouths and people try to prove themselves. But even where I wasn't made, people in the life who were made would never dare put their hand on me. They say, no, I would go. You put your hand on me and there's a lot of people. Michael knows did it to people. They know who he is.

He cracks them. he smacks them. They're not made. They stand there and accept it, thinking I could get killed if I put my hands on them. I wasn't like that. I'm a man. We'll go to a sit down. If I get killed, I get killed. But what boss is going to go against that? He smacked me. What type of man would I be? So I become a punk, as we would say, in the streets. So I'm a punk. I'm a mutt. If he hits me and I don't do anything, what gave him the right to hit me? Now, if he had a reason that I slept, I did something to his daughter, I went with his wife, and he put his hands on me and I hit him, I'm going to get killed all day long. But if I didn't do anything because we

have a, we go back and forth with something, an argument and he puts his hands on me. No, I win that all day long. So you accept when Vinny proposes you, you relinquish, you say, okay. And then I accepted. So tell us about this. Did you go through the, the prick in the finger. I went through the pricking the finger. Okay, tell us through this whole. I'm fascinated. They still, I don't know if they do this now, but yeah, tell us what that was like.

Listen, when they pricked my finger, they actually cut my finger. I needed four stitches. There's the scar. Now, I'm joking. But now they prick the finger, the blood on the saint. We didn't burn a saint in my hand. Where was it? It was done at Anthony Donato's house in Westchester.

there was about four of us that got straightened out there that evening. Okay. Are there witnesses there? No, just the family. That's what I mean, like other members there. At that time, Tony Green, Anthony Erso was the boss. Joe Camerano Sr. was the underboss slash consulare.

Vinnie Bacciano was there. He was a captain. Patty DiFilippo was. there he sponsored somebody he was a captain and i think aunt uh i want to say niki santoro was there he was an acting captain and anton ribido was there he was a captain so nicky was acting for anthony ribito they sponsored somebody as well uh they had the ceremony so your sponsors are all there yes vinny was my sponsor right but tony green and joe camarano remember vinny was part of the administration.

So every time Vinny went to see them for that year, I was with him all the time. They had conversations in front of me before I was, and I would excuse myself. No, no, you sit here. They treated me as an equal. So during the ceremony, while they were talking, going over the do's and don'ts, you know, Tony Green turned around and said, there's some people sitting here already know that he'd been accepted. You know, he meant for me to give me that.

compliment. What are the do's and don'ts that they tell you in a mafia ceremony? Can't go with another man's wife or his girlfriend, his main girlfriend. You're not supposed to go with his daughter, their daughters, unless, you know, it's accepted. You ask, it's somebody older. You're not supposed to get involved in stocks, drugs. Stock, yeah, they don't want people in the stock market. Interesting.

Okay. But it's all BS. It's all BS. No drugs. You can't put your hands on another maiden member. You know, you can't call somebody a rat if they're not a rat. You know, just do's and don'ts. We're better than everybody else.

That's the do, right? Everybody's underneath us or civilians. Whatever had, this is our new life. This is our new family. This family comes first. Anything that happened in the past is dead with that past life. This is your new life. You're reborn from this.

day forward into this crime family. This is your family. This is your first loyalty. And now loyalty is to our official boss, Joe Messino, who's currently in jail, fighting a case. And if the boss calls for you, you don't tell your captain, you go straight to the boss. And that's it. If the boss tells you, you have to kill your best friend, you follow that order. Your loyalties to that boss. And afterwards, I told Vinny, Vinny, my loyalties to you. I could give two Fs about Joe Massino. I don't know him. I sleep. I eat. I drink with you. You're my brother. My loyalties with no, Bo. You have to your loyalty. Vinny, I'm not going to tell you what you want to hear. I'm telling you what the way it is. My loyalty is with you. I guess that's why it's so important for a boss to like be in the trenches.

In the trenches so he can ingratiate himself and make loyal his soldiers, right? Or else, yeah, what are you? You don't even know this guy. Even with that, no matter how he, how much he would ingratiate himself or be around me or I see him, he can never be as close as I am with Vinny. We were inseparable. We were with each other 24-7, literally. Right.

All the time. I mean, holidays, events, vacations. everything. We were together so much Joe Messino sent word out. Vinny, you and Dominic have to split up. Because when I hear, all I hear is Vinny and Dominic, Dominic and Vinny. Vinny and Dom, they're pairing you two together as one. And go off a bid, one of you get arrested.

You're both going to get arrested. And that's what Joe wanted. I had something for you. Hold on. so now you're a soldier the first step after being made is you're officially like that would be your ranking then

is soldier you don't go straight to captain no actually it was maybe about a month afterwards Vinny sent word into Joe Messino because he didn't want to show favoritism I want to elevate Dominic to my acting captain that fast that fast

hold on as a soldier though I just want to because this is people are going to want to know this what uh what do you have to kick up? Because obviously now that you're the hierarchy of the mafia is all the, the money is taken off the street, either by an associate or by a soldier or a captain, and then it just moves upstairs through the underboss to the boss. How did that pay structure work? You're supposed to kick up 10%. Okay. I never kicked up a penny. Vinnie and I will partner's

everything. And Vinnie's motto was when Vinnie ran the crime family, he said, all the people doing work, I do not tax. So all my shooters, the thugs, I'm not taxing them. All the earners, I'm taxing. Right. That's their contribution to the crime family. My shooters, why am I going to tax a shooter when he puts his life on the line for the family?

Right. So which was smart. It was a good mix. Right. The only thing we did have to kick up was war chest money, which was $100 a month, each member. It's supposed to go into a kitty, help people for their commissaries that are in jail, help people maybe for their lawyers, or people that want to put money on the streets. It's supposed to be a fund. It's like union dues.

Basically, yes, that's the only thing I had to kick up. So you and Vinny were just business, you and Vinny were business partners, and it sounds like he's the one that would kick the envelopes. He kicked the envelopes up, but it's both of our money. Right. It's just, and Vinny always told me, he said, Christmas time, make sure you take care of Joe. Make sure because the more money you give him, the less likely you'll ever get killed.

Because you have regular captains given maybe 5, 10, 15, 20,000 for Christmas. If you're given 100, 200,000 at Christmas, that boss is not going to look to kill you. Right. Because, you know, the money is. How many, when you first got made, how many soldiers were in the bananas and how many captains? I'm straightened out. We might have had on the street, maybe about eight, nine captains.

Wow. And they had to be close to 180 guys on the street. Made guys. Wow. Yes. That's a lot. And if they're all kicking up 10% every month, the boss is rich. You're supposed to?

Yeah, of course. You know, you have guys that can't rub two nickels together. Right, right. And there's a lot of broksters out there. So there would be soldiers made guys that weren't making any money. They're not making money. Wow. They didn't make it money.

They came in sending 100 rolls a month. Oh, my God. There's people I would just put the money in knowing they, they just can't get out of their own way. And how do they get made if they're so incompetent? Listen, there's old times that were incompetent. Santoro was another one just a brokster. It's just, it happens, you know. What would I would do, the guys in my crew that I knew couldn't really, I would try to give

them an earn. Hey, why don't you do this for me? I helped them out in that sense. Okay, so you become a captain right away. I was an acting captain and Vinnie's thing was, listen, Dominic's been around me for years. He knows my every move where I could just give a look. He already knows. the life inside and out. He's been with me.

So, yes, I accelerated quick. Acting Captain. And then maybe about four, after Tony Green went away, Vinnie took the reins. Vinny sent word into Joe. I want to bump Dominic up to an official captain. Joe said, okay. Okay. So now Joe, Vinny's the under boss? Vinny was the boss, acting boss. Okay, gotcha. Because Joe's away in prison. Yeah, Tony Green was locked up.

he got arrested Tony Green, Joe Cameron Senior. And that's when Vinny took over and made me an official, Joe Maseo made me official captain. Got it. With Vinny's recommendation. Now, do you start recruiting, you know, other guys that you see have potential the way that Vinny did with you? Because you had, what, 27 guys under you?

There were some associates I was going to straighten out, Joey Gambini being one of them, Joe Barone, being another one. one come to find out. Joe Barone was working with the feds for 20 years. Right, right. He was an FBI informer. I've heard of that guy. He never set me up. Oh, wow. Never set me up. Could he have? If he wanted to. Easily. He knew my gambling operation. Uh, you know, he knew, listen, I would send people on scores he knew about. Okay. He actually came with me. I was going, looking to hurt hippie. Hippie's a soldier. now he's a captain in the Genevieve's crime family, put a bad wire on me, and I was going to look to

hurt him. Bad wire is what? He was the one who put the label that I was a rat. Oh, okay. When I wasn't. Gotcha. So one night, I went to the ball where he hung out, strapped up, four or five guys, Joe Barone being one of them, all have pistols.

And I was going to look to hurt him, bad, probably kill him. And he never showed up. And we went back maybe two more times, never showed up. But that's just the way I was. I didn't care. And I wasn't made at that time. Oh, wow. But you want to put a label on me?

I'm a rat. I'll show you how much of a rat. So what is the, as a captain now, are you collecting the envelopes every month and giving them to Vinny? Yes, they would give me, I would get the money. I would have somebody get it, circulate it. Probably at that time it was Anthony Aiello, Ace, who was a soldier. Actually, I straightened them out. I sponsored them.

Okay. And after you straightened out, I would have him collect the envelopes, get the monies up from the guys. And what were some of the rackets that you remember your soldiers really earning well from? You had people lend them money, loan sharking, sports betting, doing the football tickets. all that, just street stuff. Yeah. I actually had Ace work in my body shop where I gave him a salary

and the percentage of the business. Okay. She was close with me. And I nicknamed him my Lou Cabrazzi. Nice. Because he's loyal, loyal. At this time, is there, is the mob still selling drugs?

Was there any drug dealing in the bananas? The mom is always doing drugs. Listen, that's a false. because when you're giving a boss an envelope, just say back in the pizza connection day, give a boss, here's $100,000 in an envelope a month. They're making millions a month.

Here's 100,000. The boss knows it's not coming from sports. He's like, do I need to know where this is coming from? You say no. He knows, okay, just don't get caught. That's right. They're going to take the money. You know,

and they know $100,000 is not coming from sports betting or loan shark. Did the bananas, when you were captain, did they have somebody that was just delivering envelopes that were way too fat? Not that I'm aware of. Okay. At that time, no. But you were out of drugs.

You were done with drugs. At that time, I was out of drugs. But if drugs came by, that I could make money, I would make money. And so would Vinnie. Mm-hmm. Vinny was selling marijuana when I came around. Right. Or you had 100,000 ecstasy pills to be aware of them.

Exactly. Yeah. And that came from Vinny. from the guy and it all came from Canada Vito Rosuto. Right. Yeah, the risudos. And that's, you know, Vinny had a close connection with them. Did you guys do business?

I guess that's how the different mafia clans from Canada and America do business is usually through drugs. They were bananas. Right. That's what they say. They were bananas. That was a faction of bananas. That's what they say, right.

If the Joe Messino and Vinny, if the Vinny got arrested, that's when they broke off. Okay. Because when Vinny got arrested, we sent Salty Ironworker up there. And he got an envelope for $50,000 for the bananas. And they were upset that Joe cooperated, got veto arrested, but they still gave the money for Christmas. Wow. But after Vinny's tenure and Michael took over, severed, that's when they went on their own. Yeah.

And they can be way more active up there. Oh, definitely. Because there's no RICO. Exactly. So they can go crazy up there. They're more old-schooled. They're more traditional the way the mafia should be ran. Yeah, right?

The Canadians of all people. How crazy is that? So things are going well. What do you think you're taking off the street as a captain, all your soldiers every month? What do you think they're passing on to you? Just whatever they earn. There's 5,000 here, 2,000 there, 1,500, 500. It's just here.

and I just pass it on. I didn't need it. I was doing well. Yeah. Like, within the five years, I accumulated, I would say net, I had between $8 to $10 million. Yeah. To your pocket. In my pocket.

Legit, but it was all into properties, real estate. Yeah. I was in cash. Especially when the feds got me. I had maybe $30,000, $40,000 out there in my pocket cash. Right. The rest was all into real estate. And then everybody just started plucking me.

So you were real estate rich. Did you, yeah, where did you, now that you're a captain, where did you live? Where'd you live? I lived in the Bronx. I was actually building a house on Robinson Avenue in the Frogs Neck section. Four floors. You know, I had the lots right there. Did you have a family?

Yeah. I was actually another thing was my daughter's mother. Vinny was looking to kill her. But want to, listen, we got, I wouldn't say an argument, but he saw I was serious after he joked around five or six times. I'm like, Vinny, it's not happening. You can forget about it. Oh, he was like trying to hook up with your daughter.

No, he was trying to kill the mother because he acute, his wife found out about his girlfriend. He had a kid with his, his girlfriend. So she's supposedly she said. My daughter's mother told her. So right away, Vinny's like, I'm killing her. I'm killing her. I'm like, Vinny, you can't, my daughter. I can't do that to my daughter.

I can't do that to my daughter. And then after I cooperated, I found out he even asked Joe Messino for permission to kill her. He was going to do it behind my back. Wow. Wow. And I didn't even know that. People were like, did anybody come to you while you were, captain did were there any bodies from like people in your crew committing any murders that you

knew about well the only murdered was uh with the last one with randy pizola all right where i passed it on to ace and ace took care of it okay so tell us about that i'm not familiar with that um randy was originally with um i think jerry assaro long and short i inherited randy i gave him the riot Actually, Randy was with Johnny Palazola. Johnny would have him run around wild, like an Indian, doing stupid things, like a vinaero. Just a wild man. I didn't tolerate it. So when I got him, I read him the riot act.

We don't conduct ourselves like buffoons. You're going to be a gentleman. And again, it's not who yells the loudest that counts. If you have any issues with me, you could forget it. You and I could go one-on-one any time you want. No, Dom, I heard a lot about you. Long and sure of it all, he started messing up, belligerent with people. When he drank, he did coke.

He became stupid, arrogant with his mouth and everything. And then he pissed Vinny off one too many times. I saved him. Vinny said, keep him away from me. I did. And then it just came out again. The kid was uncontrollable. Vinny said, that's it.

he's going. And that was it. And he had to go. So even after Vinny got arrested, I was going to save him. I said, okay, good. He got arrested. Michael knows reiterated that. Said, listen, that thing with this kid, make sure he goes. We'll take care of it. However he said it. So I'm like, oh, shoot. Why were you worried? Why did that bother you? That bothered me because, number one, I didn't want to do it. Now I had to do it that Vinny was here and it was just another person that knew about it. But it wasn't Michael knows that wound up talking about it. It was Vinny. Told Joe Messino, Dominic killed him.

But you passed that on. Did you not? Even though I paid it, Vinny didn't know that. Okay. Okay. So I passed it on because I knew I would be the prime suspect. Right. So let me have an alibi, which I did.

And I passed it on to Ace. Who's Ace? Anthony Iiello. Okay. So he was a guy that was. He was a soldier? He was a soldier. He was under me.

And he couldn't say no. You're giving him an order. That's it. Okay. I asked him, are you okay with it? Do you need me? He's like,

Dom, I have this. Okay. So I set it up where it's comfortable. Like I said, it's easy to kill somebody. Especially when you're loring them in. They don't know they're getting killed. Yeah.

Randy, do me a favor. You have to meet Ace tonight. Right. Go meet them. I need you guys to take care of something. And then afterwards, Randy, here's what I told him.

Afterwards, tell you your girlfriend. that you're hanging out with me, you meet me in the city later tonight. So that's what I did. So I figured if the feds find out, they're going to think I made an alibi. But why would I make an alibi and tell them to come meet me? Right. Right.

So, yeah. So you're setting yourself up to intentionally be away from it. If I hear you're saying, I created an alibi, but I'm making myself the prime suspect because he's telling his wife he's meeting dominant. Yeah. Right. So you have some plausible deniability. Yes.

So is that what you did? you sent him to his death. Yes. And how did that hit go down? They met in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, at the meeting spot. When he got out of the car, he said, all right, Ace, where do we have to go? And Ace just pushed him and fired some shots into his chest. And then...

Do you leave him there? He left him there. And they found him the next morning. His BMW was still running with the lights on. And he was down, face down, and muck, I guess. It was cold. It was, I think, when was it? In November, November.

What year? Of 2004. Did Ace ever get caught for that? We got arrested because of Vinny's big mouth. Okay. But nobody ever got pinched for evidence. We didn't get caught until Vinny told Joe Messino. They came down.

They arrested me. Ace went on the run. They wound up arresting Ace. and then a year later, that's when I decided to cooperate. What year was that? That was in 2006. Okay. And we broke the straw to the camels back.

The year before that Christmas, when I was on the street, I collected about $360,000 from my guys. I gave it all to Vinny and Joe Messino. That Louis Electric, who was a captain in the crime family, he said, Dom, what are you doing? I said, no, give it to them. it's Christmas time. I'll make it up during the year.

I'll take what I have to take. So he said, all right, good point. Because I wanted to show them, like, it's not about the money with me. So I had money. And the year I got locked up, Michael Knows sent $3,500 to my girlfriend. That was it. I had $360,000. Even if he didn't get $360,000, I would have got maybe $200,000.

I'm not there. you sent $3,500 to my girlfriend. Disrespect. Disrespect. And they robbed everything. My body shop, they ran it in the ground, a million and a half dollars in debt. Wow. I mean, it was just disgusted in everything they did.

Yeah. And those were your people. Those are supposed to be your people. When Vinny got locked up, I'm second in command in the crime family. It's Michael and then me. And Michael and I were going at it. Michael just was always just. was always jealous and envious

of me. And it came to the point where I asked Vinnie, I said, listen, I feel like a sitting duck out here with Michael. Vinny sent word back, do what you have to do. So Michael was getting killed in February

of 2005 for Valentine's Day. I was going to kill him. I had a planned and everything. At the van, we were getting a van, had the shooters, myself included. Yeah. I was going to leave him in the street. Wow. It was debatable. I was going to put him in the van at first and then take them. And then I thought about it. I said, I'm going to probably leave him right on the step.

Because what happened was Michael's girlfriend used to be Joey Lebrano's, who's a soldier in the Lucchese crime family. Joey LeBrono went away for drugs. Married to a girl, Cherise. Michael knows went with her. So by rights, Joey Lebrano when he came home, he could have killed Michael. So by me leaving him by her house, they're going to think Joey Lebrano finally made his move. So that was the reason why I rethought it and I was going to leave him on the stoop. Yeah. So what happened? Why didn't it go down? I got arrested in January. Oh, that's right. Feds came.

That's right. So the feds basically saved his life. They don't arrest me. He's gone. Yeah. So what were you looking at? You were facing life? Debt penalty.

Yeah. The death penalty on me. Is there a federal death penalty? Yes, there is. Now, they don't usually use it. How are they going to, now, I'm sure they would use it if an innocent person got killed, a mother woman, a priest you know somebody

innocent but when you kill another mobster come on they're not gonna no no jury's going to convict you of the death penalty when they know it's another gangster that killed another criminal basically

so and what are your lawyers telling you like it's looking bad like you're not going to be able to fight it or did you have action on your case I had action on the case I had Jeffrey Lippman was one of the lawyers, top lawyer. And Vinny wanted me to testify.

And Jeffrey's like, hell no. Dominic's not testifying for anything. Dominic's not going to say anything. He had to have nothing on Dominic. And Vinny actually had me fired Jeffrey for that reason. Jeffrey refunded some of the money back. And Jeffrey was in an interview prior to all this. When I cooperated one of the lawyers, Vinny basically told him in the visiting room, you're paying Dominic back.

You're going to give him his money back. So when I cooperated, and I didn't look at it as a threat, which Jeffrey wanted to give him some of the money to one of the other lawyers. Jeffrey, the government, and I found this out maybe a few years ago, when I cooperated, the lawyer who was represent me, walked me in, told him, the government. Oh, and don't forget to tell the government, Vinnie threatened Jeffrey Lippman. He didn't threaten them. So the prosecutor said, let me determine that. What happened? So I told him. I didn't think of it as a threat. So they put Jeffrey in the mix somehow that Jeffrey thought I told. I said, so when I finally spoke to Jeffrey after he did an interview, I'm like, Jeffrey, why would you do an interview like that saying

I couldn't pay you saying this that the other like making me look stupid so he says Dom why would you tell the government and put me in the mix I said Jeffrey I never told the government that the lawyer told them I didn't look at it as a threat he said oh I apologize

put me on the show anytime I'll clarify you I'm like no that's okay I'm okay with that but Vinnie Jeffrey said told Vinny they have nothing on Dominic I'll beat this case all day long. Wow. And Vinny didn't like that. So you, but you listened to Vinny. I had to. My boss. Wow. So even when you guys are locked up, it's my boss. It's okay. Wow. It was my boss. You're a loyal guy. I almost went to blows with Vinny in the visiting room.

Blows. All the lawyers ran out of the visiting out of the legal room. Wow. Because we almost went at it. So you're loyal almost until the end. Uh, when, yeah. Who did you... Well, tell us the moment that you said, nah, I quit. When my girl told me they sent her $3,500, I called my lawyer up, my debt penalty lawyer,

called the government, tell them I want to cooperate. I'm done. Yeah. I'm done with this. So who did you give up? Or who did you proffer against? Oh, everybody.

Joe Messino? Mm-hmm. because even though he was cooperating, and he's the one that set it up with the prosecutor. Vinny, Michael, you know, told them everything. Did you have to give up, like, your underlings, like, people on the street? Everybody committed crimes with all my crimes, because this is your time where you get immunity.

Right. So I wasn't going to be a statistic like Frank Slemy. He was the boss out of, uh, Boston at one time. He didn't tell the government about a murder with his son. His son had passed away. Right. It came back and bid.

They took him out of the witness protection program, charged them, gave him life. Wow. Yeah. I knew if I leave something out, they're going to, I don't want anything to bite me in the butt. So if I do something, I'll do it right. And I told them what I had to tell them. So, wow. So you told him about three, three murders.

One, two, three. Two that you're involved in, one that you passed on. Yes. You know, all the criminal activity. All my criminal activities, everything. And they deciphered, you know, who was getting arrested. Yeah. Wasn't.

Yeah. It's weird because everybody's telling on everybody at this point. Like Joey, Joe is telling on, well, there wasn't anybody out of the Bronx. That was the key. The Bronx, I'm basically, and I said it on my podcast that. Out of the Bronx, I'm basically the only high-ranking member of organized crime that cooperated. All these guys in Queens, Brooklyn, they don't know the Bronx. The particulars of the Bronx.

Yeah. So what was the conclusion of that? How much time did they give you? I wound up getting sentenced to 10 years. Thousand hours community service. And my restitution was for the funeral expenses, $24,000. I was like, why do I have to pay for the funeral expenses when I, we were the ones that paid for it to begin with. But I.

So you paid for the funerals of the guys you killed? No, the last guy, Randy Pizzola. And then a five years supervised release. So I completed everything. When did you get? So you came home and? I came home in 2013. Okay.

Wow. I was released. So from, you served a total of what? 20 years of your life in prison? Close to 20 years, yeah. Wow. 20 years for... 20 years.

Four bodies. Not bad. I got to say, not too bad. Well, like I told the government, and this was funny, because I'm telling Greg Andre's, so I wanted bail. I said, listen, I did 10 years for a crime I didn't commit. He says, that's okay. What about all the crimes you got away with?

I said, Dr. Chet, you got that one. It all kind of evens out. It evens out. But, you know, we were talking earlier about... you know, it's like, hey, when other criminals are the ones getting killed, they don't make such a stink about it. And this is kind of proof that the government agrees with that. You can kill as many wise guys as you want, like Sammy, like you. As long as you tell us everything, we'll make sure that you're not going to die in prison.

Right. It goes to show like they don't really care about gangsters that much. You know what? And the funny part of it all, to Greg Andre's, it was impersonal. It was business. He offered Vinnie. I'm sorry. Greg Andres. That was the U.S. Attorney? Yes. He became the Act and Assistant Attorney General afterwards.

But he offered Vinny a plea deal. Before I cooperated. Two cases. So the Frank Santoro murder. Randy Pizzola murder. 27 years. 17 and 10. Everybody knows, and I'm sure you know,

if you're pleading guilty on their first offer, worst case scenario, okay, he has the 27 years. They're going to run it together. Yeah. So even though it's 27 years, you're basically doing the highest sentence, the 17, he's out within 15 years, tops. Vinny would have been home five years ago.

Wow. So he didn't even need. He didn't want to take the plea. Wow. I'm like, Vinny, take the plea, wrap it up for everybody. Yeah. Don't tell me, to do. And at the time Barry Levin was his lawyer,

Barry's telling him, Vinny, listen to Dominic. This is their first offer. Yeah. Okay, keep the 27. Maybe they'll break it down to 15 and 12. You know? Yeah. Yeah. And they'll definitely run it together. You'll be home. Give them their pound of flesh. Vinny wouldn't do it. Wow. So he took it to trial. Took it to trial. Blue trial. Blue trial. They gave him life.

They want to be. He has two. life sentences. And there's no... He's back in court. Okay. So for trying to get the case overturned because Joe Massino wore the wire and was working with the government.

And they put Joe Massino on the same indictment as Vinny. Which I feel that's entrapment. Because Joe's already... Once you cooperate... And especially they're in a jail environment. Yeah. How could you put them on the same indictment? have co-defendant meetings.

That's a spy in the camp. Right. The enemy camp. It's a tough one to entrapment's the impossible one to prove. But he should get relief. But at the end of the day, I killed people with him. So, you know. What about Joe?

What happened to Joe Messino? Joe wound up dying, I think last year. Did he get out, though? Joe got out. He was out. He died. Uh-huh. He wound up dying last year.

Yeah. Did he die with money? Like, did he? No, he has money. Like, he was one of those rich bosses. He was a boss forever. Yeah. He actually gave them, I think, on his $8 million, it was $7 million in gold bullion.

Wow. He took it out of his attic. They took some of his property. It's hard to get mad at a guy like that, even though he ratted because he's so smart. And he's just playing everything like a chess move. He played every, he even played the government. Yeah. Played the government.

Told him, I have somebody that Vinny Trey wants to kill the prosecutor. And he was the one that orchestrated. Yeah. He was the one that initiated. Well, look, we're going to talk more, but let's go ahead and do plugs right now. This was an honor to have you. I mean, you can't even believe how thrilled we are. Let's talk about it.

You've since in your 11 years home, you've become a legit, fully legit businessman. This is one of the ventures, e.g. vodka, right? Yes. Where can they get it? They could go online where licensed to distribute or the liquor store that handles it is licensed in, I think, 42 or 44 states. Okay. Just go to eGvaca.com. Okay.

It comes up. You order it. And if you order six bottles or more, put the promo code Fluff Fluff. I pay for shipping. Cool. Cool. And shipping's only $14.99 for six bottles or more. I'll pay for that.

And you're getting the vodka is 100% organic, gluten-free, premium vodka at a discounted price. Excellent. Listen, I'm a vodka drinker. And the reason why I bought into the company, it's that, I've never had vodka this good in my life. It is that good clean. It's just unbelievable. I can't. I'm not even a drinker, like a big drinker.

I'm going to go home and make a drink tonight. this. And there's no after-taste. I mean, it's that smooth. Okay. And it's from my hometown of Portland, Oregon. This is where the, this is where the company is headquartered. So go check it out, e.g. Vodka, organic American. And then, of course, like your book, you got a book that's coming out. So I want people to pay attention to this. Where can they get the, the pre-orders? Thank you. We're doing pre-orders. The book should be out by the end of the summer. It's called The Perfect Crime Family. They could go to the perfectcrimefamily.com.

We're doing a limited edition, 250 copies. We're going to have a package with that edition where it's hand-signed, I'll specifically autograph it to the audience. It's called The Perfect Crime Family in memory of Dominic Choir Dom Sourillo, the act emboss of the Genovese Crime Family. And it's really, it's really a good read. It's about 420 pages. Wow.

And I wrote this book a while ago, and it's really, I think, even my daughter read it. And she's like, and she's not into the mafia. And she's like, Dad, I couldn't put the book down. It's a good read. I can't wait to read it. It's a good read. But we're doing pre-orders. and sign up because 250 limited edition,

it would be a nice package put together. Yeah, absolutely. And then, of course, you got a podcast. Where can they find that? The podcast, Mafia Roundtable.com. Cool. Well, Mafia Roundtable on YouTube. Go there.

We come out once a week. I do lives. And, you know, we have a lot of things going on. We have a lot of things coming out. Of course. Yeah, yeah. And I want to talk about that on the Patreon. Like, you are such a businessman.

man, I love talking to guys that I love multiple streams of income. And that's what the mafia is the best at, whether legal or illegal, wise guys got at least eight streams of income. You have to, you need the verticals. You need verticals in life to make money and to be successful. And Tyler Perry said it best. If people don't laugh at your dreams, your dreams aren't big enough. And I'm a firm believer in that. I'm a go-getter. And, Listen, when I came home, the government gave me $25,000. My mother gave me $25,000. My wife borrowed $50,000.

And that was 11 years ago. And right now I'm in a position in my life. Knock on wood. I could retire if I want, but I'm not lazy. I love it. I love it. It keeps me going. It keeps me energetic.

Focus, especially with the vodka company, with the book. We're sitting down talking about movies, doing movies, a series. So we have a lot of things going for us. So you made it, man. You made it without the streets, without the model. Without the streets, it's just hard work, being dedicated. And don't think no matter how low you are in life, how down and out you are,

no matter how many times you fall, keep on picking yourself up, believe in yourself. When people are laughing, that gives me more fuel. When people say, I can't do it, no, I can do it. Who's to say I can't? People that fail in life and stay down, those are. are failures. Those are people they don't believe in themselves. I keep on picking myself up. And every time I pick myself up, I become stronger and better and wiser and smarter. And that's all you have to do in life. That's how you find meaning. You could achieve it. Yes. True. Awesome. Dom, thank you so much,

my friend. No, thank you. It's been a pleasure. I've heard a lot about you. And it's an honor to be on this show. And thank you for accepting me and doing this podcast. I appreciate it. You're very welcome. Come back anytime. Thank you guys. We're switching over to the Patreon. Take care.