The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Does The American Mafia Still Exist? A Real Life Wise Guy Reveals The Truth | The Connect

Episode Date: September 23, 2023

David "Chicky" Cicchetelli was a young man in Springfield, Massachusetts when joined a mafia boss from the infamous Genovese Crime Family. What started as petty loan sharking quickly turned into a multimillion dollar illegal bookie business for Chicky. Years after doing time for that, he ended up getting rolled up in the biggest indictment in East Coast history...  Follow Chicky! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chickycecchetelli_/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Chicky-Cecchetelli/pfbid02AG6oPPw2cim9VecbiAA7p32Ya1M3oRRChi2hw3jATmttUpjMzRkFUZFmYbNZ83x4l/ Support Our Sponsors! FUM: https://tryfum.com/  Pomo Code: CONNECT HelloFresh: https://hellofresh.com/50connect Promo Code: 50CONNECT Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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anything a thing. You guys, I am coming on the road to do something. stand up this fall. Check it out. On October 12th, I'm going to be in Toledo, Ohio. October 15th, Cleveland, Ohio. November 5th, I'm going to be back here in New York City for the New York Comedy Festival. November 15th, Dallas, Texas, November 16th, Austin, Texas, December 14th, San Diego, December 25th, Chicago. More dates to come. You guys can go over to Johnny Mitchell. dot biz right now and get your tickets. Come see me on the road doing stand-up. The older guy that owned the bar, Babba, was the boss at the time. She ends up and he goes, hey, you guys want to be wise guys, you're gangsters, right? You want to be gangsters?

I'm going to show how gangsters get treated that don't listen. And his voice keeps going up. And I'm like, you know, we got problems. They start bang, bang. Today's guest is Chicky, a former mob associate and bookmaker for the Genovese Crime Family based out of Springfield, Massachusetts. Chicky is the real deal. He came up in a mob culture surrounded by a lot of Italian Americans, many of whom were either gangsters or related to gangsters. He started out young doing small-time loan sharking and eventually opened up a sports betting business who he ran with the boss of Springfield. Eventually, he started taking in hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bets

every week. He was running a million dollar operation by the time the Fed. finally took him down in 2005. He is a mob historian. He is one of the last real wise guys left on the East Coast. And he never told, that's the thing. He did his bid. He didn't rat on anybody in a culture that is now full of rats. He told us about the American mafia,

how it really operates today, and basically answered the question about whether the mob will be able to survive in this new world, where gambling is now basically legal. This guy was an amazing guest, and of course, if you want the bonus content with him, where he's talking about a lot of the bodies and a lot of this dirt that, you know,

we can't exactly talk about here on the free episode. Go over to patreon.com slash the Connect show to get that bonus footage. And without further ado, you guys, I give you Chicky, the bookmaker from Springfield Mass. You don't have to wait until you have to become an informant to change. You don't have to wait until you're facing 30 or 40 years or 20 years to change. You can change. 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. And then I parked the car, hopped out, closed the door, and I started running. And he pulls out a burner, shang. 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. Okay. How do you pronounce your last name? Chickatelli. Chickateli. Wow. Chicky. Chicky. And so, I mean, so, I mean, Makes sense. Chiqui, Chick-a-Telie? Yep. So what are the feds call you? What does the government call you? Fat chicky the pricks. I don't want to swear. I'm going. Are we rolling?

Yeah, we're rolling, man. I'm sorry. That's great, dude. Fat-chicky, man. So you're from, is that Sicilian? No, no. We're from a region in Italy called Markegiano by family. Which is where? It's like, I never been there, to be honest with you. But is it southern? Yeah, I think it's southern. I've been all over the world with the Navy. I was in the Navy, but I never went to Italy. Maybe someday. Yeah, yeah. Well, well, the southern, I ask what region, because southern Italians are like Sicilians in the predisposition to crime. They brought it over. So it was like Naples, Caserta, that whole region. Did you have

family in the wise guys? No, not at all. That's the funny part. My father came from a big family. They were in the Bronx, Arthur Avenue. They lived on a five-story walk-up, two-bedroom. There was my father and six brothers, so seven boys and four girls. And they all lived in a five-story walk up on Arthur Avenue. Good luck trying to get laid in that household. Oh, my God. But my father went in the Marines when they got older, and two or three of his brother stayed there, and the rest came to New England with my four aunts to open a string of

autobodies. Their business was auto body business. So one time, we had like six or seven autobodies in New England, you know, each brother running one. And now there's still three left. but, you know, a lot of the uncles have passed on. It's been a long time, you know? Yeah.

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We were joking about, you know, the difference between the mafia up in New England and how it's kind of treated as like the bastard stepchild of the families, right? When you think about Philadelphia, obviously New York, what made that different? What made wise guys from New England different from the families out of New York City? Well, see, that's a funny thing in my area, allegedly, but it's out there. It's not like I'm giving secrets. My specific area, Western Massachusetts, right on the Connecticut River, 25, 30 minutes from Hartford, we're about an hour and 15 minutes, an hour and 10 minutes from Boston, an hour from Providence. We're centrally located right in the Connecticut River.

Our area, allegedly, is a wing of the Genovese crime family, one of the families from New York. Gotcha. Just our area, Western Mass. Okay. It's a Western Mass. And that's different than the Providence family, right? Providence is allegedly patriarcha, and Boston is patriarch. Who's patriarcha? It's another crime family. It's not one of the five men. major ones from New York, but it's a very powerful family. It's its own organization. And why do they get to operate without the blessing from New York? Well, they do got the blessing from New York. It's just a different family, but they got the blessing. Raymond Petriarchus Sr. The father was very powerful and just a very powerful man. And they've been there for a long, long, long time. What is it about

that corridor? So you have Western Mass, Boston, and Providence, Rhode Island. What is it about that little triangle? And Connecticut. Oh, Connecticut is family? Yeah. What do we talk? Hardford? Yeah. Well, Hartford, New Haven. He's got Genevice and they got trickled down with the patriarchs too. But the, and there's other, a couple other families in Connecticut out towards like Danbury, Stanford, closer to New York line. But yeah, this is all like things that are out there. It's not like I'm giving secrets. It's all out there. What's the running? What was the running back in the day? What was the hustle? And why did that area have all these wise guys? Well, in every area it is different, but the majority of it in our area was sports gambling before the gambling was legal and of course the loan sharkin, you know, and in our area, Western Mass from me growing up as a kid, seen it, really we didn't do the extortions. That didn't start to the late 90s, early 2000s in our area. Now, New York, I wasn't from New York.

You know, I never lived here. My parents were, but my family was. but they came over, like I said, New England. But yeah, it just, we never, I know in New York, maybe they do that, I don't know. And, you know, and I know New York's big with the unions and all that. We didn't really weren't the big in the unions. I mean, there was people we knew that were in the unions, but the main money in our area was like the street lottery,

sports bookmaking, loan sharking, you know, the different lotteries and stuff. That was the main hub of our area as a kid growing up. And then, of course, me working for, you know, for my mentor who ended up getting killed in 2003. But his name was Adolfo Big Al Bruno. And anybody can Google him. It was a very big, big case. And what happened to him? Well, I believe it was November 23rd, 2003.

He was in a Sunday night card game in our social club. Sunday during the day, we used to go over Bruno's house, his wife, Anna, is a sweetheart. He has five boys. and we used to go over and eat Sunday sauce, I ended dinner, and we'd watch the football games. And see, I used to sneak over because I was on the phone then.

That's when I was running his bookmaking office out of Springfield. And so I would go at like we'd have to be there a quarter after one. Games would start at 1. Then at 1.30, I'd chew over eat quick because I'd be back on the phone at 3.15 for the 4 o'clock games. Then after the 4 o'clock games, 4.30, I'd go back over at Bruno's house. And I'd have a sheet, like a little sheet I would put, you know,

giants, 5,000. Chats, 4,000. How much we had on each game? Sometimes it equals up to 100,000 in one day, you know, 60,000, 70,000. And I'd go over there and give him the slip and we watch the games together. And then at the end of the Sunday before the 8 o'clock start, he would know kind of a ballpark. Oh, it's a good day or not that good of a day. And then he used to go down to our social club in Springfield.

At one time we had three or four social clubs, but this was the main one. and he used to play cards on Sunday night with all the older guys and people would go down there and hang around and watch the game and laugh and just kind of the older school Italian guys used to get away from their wife and kids after all day with him

and yeah he was down there playing cards and another kid I knew who I won't mention his name was his driver that night and they were playing cards and he came out of the social club round probably like 1015, 1030 right around that time and he always said hello to everybody

he always had a cigar. He was a very flasher, flashy dresser. If I had to compare him to somebody in a small aspect for our area, he was kind of like a John Gotti senior of our area. The flashy clothes, you know, the newspapers knew him, cigar walking around, you know. And a very big moneymaker. He was coming out of the social club,

and there was a kid waiting in the wings of a dark part of the parking lot over by the social club. And he, Bruno was a guy. where if you've seen him, you'd say, hey, Bruno, you didn't even have to hardly know him. And he would be, hey, buddy, you know, he was very approachable. Yeah. And he was very known to always shake somebody's hand and say, hi, buddy, how you doing, pal? And the guy came out from a dark part of our club, like a waiting by the parking lot.

And he, the guy said, hey, Bruno. And something like that. And Bruno goes, hey, buddy, you know, he put his guard down and he went to shake his hand. And the kid came up with a 45. And this is all public record. you know what I mean? The kid got convicted of it and then ends up flipping

and, you know, the kid who killed him, a kid named Frankie Roach ends up flipping and becoming an informant. And they let him out? Yeah, I think he's out now, to be honest with you. So he murdered this guy and then all he had to do was flip? That's it. He came up with a gun. He shot him in the face, I think, a couple of times

in the chest a couple of times and then the groin ones and then the kid was out. You know, that was Bruno was done. What was he trying to accomplish from that? Well, what happened was, like I said again, allegedly, I use allegedly a lot, but it was a little coup in our area where the younger guys weren't happy. You know, with the older generation.

Exactly. And I don't know the exact particulars, but what I do know and what I hear, and I've come to find out later is that, yeah, they, you know, there was an order given from New York. And the only reason I'm saying is because people were convicted of it. And supposedly an order came from New York that they wanted him gone, you know, for whatever reason. And the younger guys took him out. Do you think that's true?

Well, they said a couple different things. I mean, who really knows? You know what I mean? I wasn't at secret meetings or anything. But he was very well liked. I mean, I know there's rumblins on the, like, people on the internet and social media. Oh, you know, he, you know, he was suspected of being an informant. Bruno, he was never an informant.

That I know. He never, I mean, was he a kind of guy who would be at a, at a YMCA playing racquetball with a district attorney. Yeah, but he wasn't meeting the guy telling him secret things. You know what I mean? No, he should be there. He should get to know the district attorney so you can pay him off. And that's how I'll get into that after.

Don't they know that how it works? And that's what he did. And the district attorney for many, many years, this district attorney that was for years in Springfield helped out a lot of these guys. Cases came up. They'd make a call. The case would disappear. So they had the guy.

And the guy got fired because of it. His name was Maddie Ryan. And back in the 90s, 80s, it was a big time, big time district attorney. So going back then, how did you, did you, did Bruno give you your start in the mafia? What happened was, and that word I don't like really. I mean, I know. I know people don't, yeah. No, no, I mean, I was like a hustler, you know, the guy had me running.

But what happened was as a kid, you know, teenager, you know, 13, 14, we worked at a fruit stand in Springfield Mass. It was an Italian fruit stand, nice family. My childhood friends, father and mother owned it, okay? And the mob guys or the organized crime guys would come in there, guys from Boston, guys from New York, guys from Providence, guys from Connecticut. They'd come there on Sunday and they'd all get their fruit and vegetables or for the Sunday, whatever, and they'd have a meeting. That was their meeting.

They'd pull in, and we'd be like little kids hiding behind the banana or the grape food boxes. Oh, look, he pulled in from New York. Oh, he pulled in from Providence. And we were very inquisitive. Who are this guy? Who's that guy? He looks good. Oh, my God. Look at his shoes. We're kids. Spring weekends are all about family, sunshine, and evenings on the patio. Before everyone arrives, I stop by my local Total Wine and More to grab a great bottle to share. With such a wide selection and the lowest prices, it's easy to find something amazing for everyone to enjoy.

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were like Sopranos track suit era. Right. But the thing was, the old school guys, like the older guy, 70, 80, they always had the suits on. They were the old school. You ain't changing them, which that's great. But the newer guys, it was the Sergio Ticcini sweatsuits and the white sneakers. Like you said, more like the, if you want to compare it to something, like the Sopranos, you know. And yeah, so we've seen these guys in the fruit stand.

And Brun always took a liking to us. He was very good friends with my childhood friend that. He does podcasts. He did a lot of these podcasts. And the only reason I bring them up is because in this big case when Bruno got murdered, he ends up cooperating and leaving the life and, you know, testifying against some people. So that's the only reason I bring them up now, you know. But yeah, so we were childhood kids around these people and we were hustling and running around

and starting trouble in the bars. And, you know, we thought we're on kids who we are. Because remember, in our area, probably New York, too, any other area, a lot of these wise guys owned the bars, the restaurants, the strip joints, the bar, everything. So we would go and they would know us. And like I said, you know, there'd be a line with 50 people outside the, you know, bar, wait, a hot bar, dance bar, whatever back in the day. And the bonds would go, chicky, you know, Anthony, whoever, you know, come on. And we go right in the door like the movies, you know.

And even restaurants, same thing. Like I was telling somebody like that scene in Goodfellas where they go through the kitchen and they go up and around. and they go up and the guy puts a table in front of this. That was us. Wow. That was, as God is my judge. And my friends, they're all tell you, the line could be down the street because they used to have like the real good comedians or bands or the platters, the whole group from the 50s or 60. And we would get tickets and the line would be down the street to go to this show.

And we go through the back door where the kitchen, same thing, tip the cook. Hey, boom, Mo. And it was a very famous place in New England. It's closed now. It was called the Hukilau. And it was a Polynesian restaurant, big restaurant, big bar, dance floor. I mean, it was huge. You know, like over here they have, it wasn't like, it was a little bit Studio 54, but not really.

But the, like the Copacabana, it was something like that in our area. And we used to be there all the time. You know, we'd have our functions there. And it was a nice place. And they treated us like gold. Of course. You guys were the stars back then. Well, you know, about the Italian communities.

But we were pretty good. But that was, you know, in Italian communities up until, you know, pretty recently, you know, wise guys were these lauded, revered figures. Absolutely. So what was your first hustle? What was your first real money-making hustle? Well, I was, thank God, because I seen a lot of it, but I gambled a little bit. I wasn't a big gambler, but a lot of my friends were degenerate gamblers. And it's funny because we would be like 15, before we even had our license or right when we got our license.

one of the kids that I hung around with my childhood friend was a very big gambler and all the bookmakers in our area knew his voice and knew his family so they didn't want him betting. So he would say to me, chicky, do me a favor. I'm going to give you a list. Can you call up just let's say on a Sunday or Saturday and bet these games?

Just say these games. They don't know your voice. So I'd get the number and he'd give me some code. And I'd call him, it's 15 before we had our license. And he would say, bet all these games. I'd say, just say all these games. Yeah, how much? much apiece. Now, the 15-year-old kids, but it should be betting $100, $50 a game. It's

betting a thousand a game. Fifteen games on a Saturday. At $15,000. Wow. And I'd say all the bets, boom, boom, boom. And so we started off that. And then at a young age, it was funny. So, pardon me, so you're making, that's a hustle, gambling. Yeah. Like picking the right teams to win or picking the right line. Yes. Is that's a money-making operation. Can you explain to me? because this later on became your bread and butter. This was your thing with the organization. You were a bookmaker. Explain to me or the people at home who don't know

what a sports, a legal sports gambling operation looks like and how it operates and how it makes money. Okay. What happens is like Bruno knew a lot of people. And a lot of the pizza bakers and a lot of the restaurant years, high-end restaurants all came from Italy.

In our area, there's two prominent parts of Italy. There's Queen of Deach, a queen of jays, and what's the other one? I'll think of it a minute. I just had a thing, but there's Queenieges and another one. Oh, so you actually know, like, the regions where the people come from on the other side. They came over in swarms in Western Mass. Wow, that's fascinating. Yeah, they came from swarms, these two regions.

There's Queenieges on one side of the mountain, and on the other side of the mountain, there's another one. I'll think of in a minute. I just had a blank. but they came over together and Bruno, Bruno is not the Queen of Jays, he's on the other side of the moment. So they all came over together and opened pizza shops and restaurants and bakeries, everything. So it would be as easy as like, you know, hey, you go around to all the people you know. Bruno was the best at it. And he would give the number and say, listen, call, call up, bet, you know.

But what is that, though? What is what number? Tell us how the bookmaking operation works. All right. So I would go, let me. All right. He would, all right, I would go and get three or four different locations. I'd give them three or four different numbers.

You know, our area code, it wasn't an 800 number at that time. It was an area code with it. And we used to use call forwarding. So the feds never knew where we were, or at that time they didn't, but they learned how to combat that. But so I would get this number that say at, let me just make up a street, 32 Avenue B. And I'd forward it to two cities over to another address.

So when they attract that phone number, like say somebody gives us up or they pick on to something, they would go to that location where it was an empty apartment because I'm already too fast forward in another city. Then they learned eventually how to track that. So what it is is you're just taking bets. At one time I probably had myself handling 80 to 100 customers and then we had probably another 40 that were faxing me the stuff to stay on top of for his other offices. He had a few offices.

But I had the biggest office. Wow. And that's a lot of customers. And how many, your busiest time is when? Football season? Well, no, we did everything. It was busy all the time. But the real busy time was during like college football.

There's a ton of games on Saturday. Thursday night, college, Friday, Sunday NFL, forget about it. Monday night football, forget it. Thursday night, there's an NFL game. Forget about that. What about the NCAA tournament? All of that. And then you've got different things that are together.

Like, in other words, you have football and hockey. However it worked, it was a ton of basketball. action. Right. So how much money is with 100 customers? How much money is going through that place? Let's put it this way. When I pleaded guilty in 2005, because they got me on an FBI case for organized crime and for sports gambling, running a huge gambling business with no violence. I had no violence. It was just gambling, even though really it didn't matter because they sent me to a U.S. federal penitentiary for just bookmaking, USP can in and Waymar, Pennsylvania, which is a heavy hitter joint. and I should have never been there, but it is what it is.

But I was convicted of, I think it was like less than two years, $3 million, and it was probably about $300 to $400,000 a month. They averaged. Right. So it was more than that, allegedly. Allegedly. I'm learning. So, okay, so this, so correct me if I'm wrong.

It seems like if I want to have a sports making business, right? Right. In Springfield, Mass. I think culture has a lot to do with it too. I think East Coast Italians specifically, it's a cultural thing if you're an electrician to put some money down, put some action down on Sunday, right? Right. So you basically have a bank.

Yes. Right. I don't have it, but there is a bank. There is a bank to the place. Right. You know, your organization has a bank. Yes. And you are trying.

So explain, I don't want to put words in your mouth because I'm not a gambler. How does it work? Let me give you an example. It's like Vegas or Atlantic City. were the casino. Yes. Okay, that's the easiest way. Maybe can people get it?

Sure. So in other words, back in the day, you've got to understand this new way of things now where you can call up on a credit card and you can bet legitimately of all these. It's legal. Yeah, prize picks sponsoring the show.

Thank you. Yeah. They're doing good. Don't worry about that. But anyways, so yeah, the bottom line is, unfortunately, and this is just the truth, maybe some people will agree, some people get mad,

but the federal government became the new organized crime. Of course. Well, it's like the weed now. They're making all the money off the weed. That's it. They took it from a hustler. They took it from the hustlers, man. Yeah.

So if you're the casino, you place the bets first, or how does that work? No, no. They call me. They call me. I would write the bets down. And then. And what are the bets? Well, all football, whatever they want.

Like, but is it, is it the spread or do you just say? It could be anything. Over and under the spread. The spread. It could be, you know, like Super Bowl time. We were doing like, uh, If they run the 100-yard, you know, like different crazy bets, you know, if they field goal, unders, overs, everything.

Wow. Everything in between. And everybody would go crazy doing it. And I would write the stuff down. And then at 1 o'clock, that would be it. And back in the day, back in like the late 80s, I did it from 1989 with Bruno, but we were doing it way before that. But 1989, I went to jail in 2006, so 2005, right before I went, we stopped.

It's a long run. It was a long run, but I mean, I took a few pinches, you know, like small pinch, state pinches where it's bookmaking, no violence. So you get good for a year, probation, you don't do nothing, it's a waste. Right. Basically, you know. Would you get raided during these pitches? Yeah, they'd come in and raid.

Oh, my God. They would come in and rage, you, destroyed a house, and they'd be on the news like this crazy. You know, they made it like they was coming for a Rout Chappel. It was ridiculous. You know, because it's nice and easy. They know I'm not going to go out in a gun battle with it. them. I'm a big size guy. Yeah. They ain't chasing me because they're going to catch me. So I just. Yeah, unless it's wrestling, they got the upper hand. Oh, then I'll do the

soon one. No, but you don't see what I'm saying. So, so they would, how, how would they get pinches? Would they get wiretaps or would they get informants to act like they were gamblers? It would be informants and they would give the phone number, like say an informant got stuck and he couldn't pay. It happened a couple times to me. A kid set me up a couple of times. But if they got an informant to flip or wiretaps, they got a, you know, they got some kind of information, and they would follow you. I remember several times they were in a parking lot, like right down. Like, I could literally look out the window of the second floor house I was in and see

them all sitting there, the feds, like in a parking lot 60 yards away. So I would, I would disconnect the phone and I'd take off. But once they're on to you, they used to follow me. I didn't have a shot. I mean, in your head you think you're doing good. Oh, let me go down this street. I'll back up. I'll go through the parking lot.

You ain't got a shot. Right. So when they're on to you. but what it is is and I'll go more to it after but you're not going to in today's day and age I mean everything's legal informants went through the roof you know that I mean it's just everybody's an inform a lot of people listen like I had said when we talk privately when you got guys like Joe mazina now Joe mazina was one of the bosses of Bonano family of one of the five families okay that's big he flips you got the under boss Sammy the bull flips when that stuff starts happening if you don't

scratch your head a little bit and say, well, if this ain't a sign, you know, what are we doing over here? Yeah, it destroys morale. It does everything. And plus, like, like, how do you make money now? If you're, if you're a wise guy, because, you know, there's got to be, don't you think there's something left? Do you think this? I mean, but how do you make money if it's not drugs? They got Dow, they got unions. They got businesses. A lot of, a lot of these high level wise guys that are rich, beyond rich. You know what I'm saying? Really? All millions and millions and millions, but it's all switching to legitimately.

Right. Businesses and real estate and overseas stuff and land. They become white collar. Of course. They're smart. Okay. Okay. So you think wise guys made it out?

You think there's guys who avoided the life sentences and made it out? Even in the, when did a, Carlo Gambino was one of the most notorious guys ever, the Gambino family. But Carlo, I don't think he did a day in jail. He went to bed and died in his 80s or whatever was. Of course, that was back in the day, though, I'm talking about now. Now you ain't got a shot. Now, if you're out there, and especially if you're a violent guy, there's one or two things if you're a violent guy.

Either you got a pet, in my opinion, maybe I don't know much. If you're a violent guy today on the street, violent, you're either an informant, okay, that the feds know what you're doing and you can be violent like Greg Scharpa. They call them the Grim Reaper in Brooklyn. He killed over 80 guys, 70, 80 guys killed 70, 80 guys that they know. He was an informer for 30 years like Whitey Bulger, the guy in Boston. Of course, and they just let you keep killing. They're not going to say to you, kill this one, kill that one.

They're not going to do that. But he had, go on the internet, it's all out there. It's not like I'm giving secrets. He would walk in a social club. If somebody accused him or something he didn't like, he'd choose right in the head in front of the whole social club. And everybody was saying, oh, my God, he's crazy. No, he ain't crazy. He wasn't an informant.

Whitey Bulger killed women. killed everything. A lot of people he killed. He was an informant. He was turning in all the Italian guys in the North End, the Enjulo brothers and all the decent guys, good guys, older guys that just wanted to live peaceful. He was wiping them out so he could take their action.

It's all out there. The government was just as complicit in all of that, man. Come on. Connolly was the guy, you could look this up. I forgot his name. I think it was John Connolly was Whitey Bulger's FBI handler. He knew what he was doing. They grew up in a project in Southie together. In Boston.

He was MAPDEMAN and Departed. Yeah, yeah, they played, there was two different. It was departed and then a black mass. It was fictually based on Bulger. And that's another store we're getting with Wadi Bulger because my friend is in trial for his murder right now. Wow, yeah, we're gonna get into that. But okay, so you're running, that really became your thing,

was running the sports book. Is that how you'd say it? Yeah, and then on the side, not to cut you off, but on the side, we were as kids, or teenagers into our 20s, we were hustling, loan sharking. We weren't supposed to. Because when you do something, they want to know. Okay, so who's they? The hustlers on the street. I don't like using the words, like the mafia. I don't use that word.

No, no, I'm not using the mafia. Let's say organized crime guys. Right. You're not supposed to run a muck. As kids, we were running a muck. Like, I can remember it was crazy because we would have customers, like, you know, we would borrow money, say, say we borrowed money for two points. Okay, two points is $20 on $1,000. So in other words, somebody gave us, you know, say, 10 points is 2%. 2% per week. So if a guy gave us 10 or 20,000, we had to pay this guy, $20 on every thousand. So we bar $10,000, $20 in every thousand, figure it out per week.

It wasn't even our money. We were putting it out for five or six points. So you were borrowing money to load it out again? Right, one or two points. And then we would borrow and put it out for four points more. Not even our money. Wow. Here's the thing.

So you'd make four off a two. Right. We'd do six or five. We'd pay two or one. Right. And we'd keep the other three or four. Right. The spread, yeah.

But here's the thing. So this schmuck, this asshole is paying six points, whoever's borrowing from you. They'll do it. Believe me. Who's they? Whoever needs money. Guy gets stuck gambling. A guy wants to buy a hot dog cart and open a $2,000 business and pay you back.

That's what they would do back in a day. So what was funny, Johnny, what was funny was, Bruno would always catch me and say, come here, on the side of like the South End is where the Italian section of Springfield, we were saying, and Bruno used to get me on the side of a building and say, let me ask your question.

Yeah, what's up, Bruno? He'd say, I just ran into some guy. He said he's been paying you $2.50 a week for the last two and a half years. How can I even see none of it? So we got in trouble a lot of times and I'd have to go, you know, I had a stutter step and say,

no, no, it's not me. It's boom, boom, boom, you try to work it out. But it was funny because even when he found out for sure, he would say, tell me the truth, the poor guy. How much you got on the street? And I'd say, we had 10,000. I'm not going to lie to you. Meanwhile, we had 150,000.

So we were always doing that, which looking back now, we had to be nuts. Because if he was somebody else, you guys might have been in a river. Who knows, right? But we always had sit downs over it and, oh, this guy can't pay. We got in a lot of trouble. Did you ever get made? No, no, no. I was never, thank God.

Looking back now, thank God. but that's what we aspired to. Like I was saying, as a kid, getting made to me and a lot of my friends, I'm not going to speak for all of them, that was like the equivalent of winning the Heisman Trophy. That was the-making it to the league. Yeah, like I had said, if somebody said to me, we're going to put you in Harvard, don't even got to study, work,

you don't get to do nothing. We're going to give you a four-year degree. You're going to go on to be a, I would have said, I'm all set. I want to be on a street. That's our mentality from me, me, I can say me for sure, a lot of other people too, but. So why, you're this great earner, though. You're this fantastic earner.

Why did they the high the bosses not want to make you? Well, well, what happened was they had it, back in the day, they had an older crew. It was an older crew. And then a lot of guys got arrested. A lot of guys died. Informants, real guys that took that oath became informants. So I'll tell you the truth. There was a couple guys in my area.

I'm not going to mention her name because they're still around and they're good, you know, good guys. I grew up with them. And they had the shot of getting it. This major thing. And they said, no, we're all set. And they didn't want it because they seen the way that was going. You understand? And when you've got bosses that are opening up on their people they sent to do things.

Right. Come on. Holy shit, yeah. Like I said, I can do these podcasts. And like I said, and at the end we'll go where I'm going as far as positivity and changing. But like I said, and I talk to you privately. you don't have to wait until you have to become an informant to change. You don't have to wait until you're facing 30 or 40 years or 20 years to change.

You can change. And I was blessed because, like I said, I never took that oath. You know, I was just whatever you want to call me. I call myself a hustler. I never even say associate. I don't say that. But did you still have to kick up when you're making money, put money out? Loan sharking, running your sports.

So who are you kicking up to? Bruno? Yeah, Bruno or, yeah, yeah. And then so Bruno's made, obviously. Well, yeah, allegedly, yes. He became a boss, so whatever if you got to be. Yeah, he allegedly. So he's a boss of the Springfield organization crew.

Yep. But they are kicking up to New York, correct? Yes. And who are they with? Somewhat. Gambinovese. The Genevese. Yeah, which is like the Ivy League, the most powerful, the most, they call it an Ivy League

organization, you know, even to this day, you know. Do they still operate? I'm not sure. I mean, I haven't been in a long time. Do, but why would a crew, and Springfield doing their own thing, why would they need the Genevice? Why would they even kick up to them?

Well, in our area, allegedly, the Genovese family was since 1930. I mean, it goes back a long, long time. So it was blood ties. Yeah. Yeah. Family. There's like three different reasons why they went to Springfield.

I don't Western Mass. But there's three different things. I don't know for sure because I was sitting around in the 30s, but they've been there since the 30. So it was a very big strong hole. And they've always, Boston's got their thing. Providence got their thing. And then Boston also had Whitey Bulger and the Irish crew.

They were mixed Italians and Irish, but they were doing their thing. So that's what makes Western Mass unique, you know, is that. They're tied in with the allegedly the New York family. Yeah, okay. Okay. So you're now, it's now the 90s. You've taken a couple of cases, state cases. Yeah, just like not jail yet.

I didn't go, I picked my first FBI case in 2004 or five, but all the rest were state cases. This is organized crime task force. Like I said, well, there's no violence. Right. Did you ever have to do anything like that? Do you ever have to get dirty? Oh, not, I mean, not like bodies or nothing like that. No, no, of course.

But I mean, when somebody, let's talk about collection. You know, now running this major sports gambling operation, you got a lot of degenerate gamblers that are probably falling behind on what they owe, right? Tell me about that. Well, like New York's different. I don't know what they did in New York or maybe even Boston. But in our area, it wasn't like if somebody didn't pay, you went and cracked their head open.

It was nothing like that. I know the movies make it look wonderful. But in our area, there was always talking it out. You know what I mean? Like, except for a couple things. Like I told you about my friend today, Anthony Grouse, with my guy who brought me here. I'll tell you his story after or he can tell it later.

But anyways, yeah, yeah. I mean, they come to you and they work it out with you. Hey, what do you need? And I've even seen Bruno a couple of times where people lost their job and they owed money. And he's like, listen, don't worry about it. It was called Carrando Meats. It's a huge plant in,

Springfield and they saw all the high-end sausage, suprasad, cheese, you know, all the famous stuff. He had a connection over there or he had a lot of connections, but he would say, listen, go over there, mention my name, you got a job. Guy's got a career. Him and his wife need two jobs. You come from Italy. Guy gets stuck a little bit. Even if he didn't get stuck, you need help him.

Bruno would help him. Go over there, you got a job. Get him a job and now you can pay me back. Yeah. I mean, if they owed him, then he would say, and he was a gentleman, he was to say to me, don't argue with them. If they owe, like one kid owed me, $5,000, $6,000. I remember what I was.

And I said, just let me ask you. There's no tough kindness here. There's no organized crime. Just just me and you. You bet, right? Yeah, I did. What can you pay a week? You owe six grand.

There's no juice. There's nothing. Just what can you pay? So I can give it to them and they're happy. He goes, he owned a pizza shop. He ends up screwing me at the end because he became an informant and put me in jail. But so I said, how about $200 a week? Is that going to kill you?

He said, he had a pizza shop. Nice pizza shop. And I said, how about if I come up? But we'd say he's a good day for you. He goes, Saturday afternoon. I said, okay. And I used to go up there with my kids. I had two little kids at times, six, seven.

I'd bring the kids at pizza. Hello, uncle. They'd call him his name. I don't want to mention them. It's disgusting. But anyways, they would go in there and I'd get pizza. So he would give me $200.

I'd spend $130 on lunch. So really, he's only giving me $7. You know, roughly, just to kind of keep peace. But you would go collect with your daughters there. That's funny. Yeah, but it wasn't like I was picking up drugs. I'm picking up, I'm eating pizza. We're playing a jukebox drinking soda.

And then when I leave, it gives me an envelope with $200. Yeah. So it ain't like I'm going to pick up drugs. How much did somebody, what was the most that somebody got into you for? There were some big ones, but, well, like I said, the kid that you met today, he lost up between five or six, seven bookmakers, friendly bookmakers in our area. He lost in one, I think it was in one week, 100,000. Did somebody owed him?

Or that he just lost? He lost all the, he owed 100 Gs. No, not in one bet throughout the week. Right. You know, maybe 10,000 Monday, Tuesday, 5, 1,000. whatever it was. At the end of the week, he owed $100,000 total to all these guys. Oh my God. And he, excuse me, he couldn't have, he didn't have it.

And that's the story I told you on the other one where, you know, he takes off to Vegas. He bars $1,000, leaves his wife and kid. And in like two months time, he turned $1,000 into $400,000. Yeah. He paid everybody he owed and came home with $300,000. This is like 25 years ago. My question, though, like, if you're running one of these sports books, if you, if I'm running it, you put a bunch of money on a,

game you lose yep i i i am personally not out anything correct what do you mean like like like i'm he's placing a bet but i'm the casino so if he loses the bet and doesn't have the money to pay you're out that money what do you mean you're but but but personally's not but but how my guy is right but i i still don't understand how it fucking works like how am i if you're the casino right you have the bank that is there to pay people out if they win. But if they lose, well, okay, yeah, I guess he's reneging. He bet with money that he doesn't have,

but how are you out? Well, you didn't actually lose any principle. You know what I mean? The way they look at it is, if he would have won, he would have got every nickel. It's opportunity cost. Right, right, right. So now you watch, you can't just say,

I'm not paying you, but then if you won, we would have paid you. Right. And they had a different thing. Like I said, I just did the figures, stayed on top of all the guys. Right.

And at the end of the night, there was three of us. We'd be on three different phones. We go down on the sheet, correct everything, make sure it's all right. At the end of the week, I would give my sheet to somebody. Another guy would give his sheet to somebody and the guy who would get the faxes to check us, to make sure. Because in that business, in any business in that life, it ain't everybody's being trusted. I stay upon him.

He's staying on top of me. He stays on top of me. I stay on top of him. So everybody's checking each other. Everybody's like, wow. And at the end of the week, say, car, If the Sunday night the games ended, by Tuesday morning, I gave my sheet to somebody. The guy gave his sheet.

Now they look at the three sheets and they better match. You understand? If I got one guy losing, if I got one guy winning $7,000, the same guy on another guy's sheet won $5,000. Other guy says $5,000. Where's $2,000 more I got? They're going to look into it. Right. So did you actually, were you ever the owner of a book or did you just work there?

Did you just run it? Well, we used to do it as kids run our own books, but kids. But when we got into the big numbers, you know, I'm convicted of it so I can talk about it. I was on an indictment with Bruno. He was called an unindicted co-defendant because he was murdered. We picked up the case in 2004. He was murdered November 2003. So he was on our paper.

When we got arrested, his name was on all the papers. But he was murdered. So were you running Bruno's book? Yes. Gotcha. Then when Bruno died in 2003, the kid Anthony, my childhood friend back then, becomes the boss.

Now he takes all of Bruno stuff. How did he become the boss? Well, they killed Bruno. Oh, but he was the under boss? No, he was a, you know, he took that oath. Right. Okay, gotcha. And he was, they, New York liked him.

The boss in New York liked them, Marty Niagara from the Bronx and made him the captain, the boss of our crew. Wow. Wow. So it was still, even 15, 15, 20 years ago, it was still connected. like that. It was still moving. Wow.

Because they've been around hundreds of years. Right. Right. Well, this is, but I'm saying that was the last generation, like the early 2000s, before sports betting started to really become legal. And then I think in 2008 or nine, uh, between the informants and everything, they end up picking up. A kid I was talking about Anthony, my childhood friend, Anthony Erlata, does podcast and everything. They picked him up and they

picked the two brothers up to Gia's brothers. And another kid, uh, I will mention his name. He's from Italy. Queen's age, excuse me, a little cold. But Anyways, yeah, yeah, so they picked them up for that Bruno murder. And yeah, and then out of, well, two guys that took that oath cooperated. Yeah. The guy, the Spanish kid, who was kind of like a junkie kind of kid that they paid to do it, cooperated. And there was four people that went to jail.

One for 25 years, three for life. The guy in New York, the boss, I mean, I'm sorry, the boss in New York, Artie Niagara at the time, the acting boss, he had a life sentence. The two brothers that was telling you about what he did. Bulger. Freddy and Taiji has both got life sentences. And the kid I didn't mention, he's from Queenie J's Italy. He was an Italian kid from Italy, came over and they straightened him out. He got 25 years. Is this just a racketeering charge? No, murder, no. Oh, yeah, it was murder, the hit, okay, got it. So they tied a body into it. Yeah, they tied two bodies into it. Okay. Yeah, there was two bodies they tied into it. I've heard that the, the families that still are left in

New York have to bring guys over from Sicily and Italy now because they don't have enough, they can't get enough recruits homegrown. Maybe in New York. In New York, it's like that. Maybe New Jersey, not in our area. You still got enough Italians? In my opinion, and I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sharp with this, our area is done. Done. Like the books are closed? No, and even the books are closed. There's nobody there. I mean, I got a couple friends that, but yeah, I mean, after what happened with this big case, with the boss getting put in jail, my opinion, maybe I'm wrong, but they don't want nothing to do with Springfield, to be honest with you. Wow, it's just done.

Yeah, it's done. All the older guys are either dead, in jail, or cooperated. So the guys in New York wanted nothing to do with Springfield, my opinion. Did the Springfield Associates, the wise guys in your era, were they involved with drugs at all? I didn't see that. I'm not going to lie to, I didn't see that,

but I'm sure there was a lot of our friends that went on to be important figures in that life that were pot dealers and, you know, come on, in anything, whether it's in the biker world, this world, there's always drugs. But in every batch of apples, there's always a couple. You can't, you know. Did anybody try to rob you or stick you up or try any foolishness like that while you were running a book?

No, not, well, you got to understand. They're not stupid. I wasn't like I was carrying the money around. I did the office, and I would give my sheet to somebody. And they had a guy that ran around paid and collected. So I wasn't that part of it. I was just a guy who gave the paper. What was your skill?

Because this takes some skill. Like, I went to college and graduated. and I'm too dumb to... I mean, like, we all like to shit on Italians about how dumb you guys are. I'm kidding, of course. But you're like, like, the mathematics, it's just, you gotta be sharp, man.

This is complicated. So what was your... What made you really good at sports betting? I gotta be honest with you. I mean, I was very... You thought this was your run club era. Turns out, it was more of a thinking about run club era. The good news?

Someone's marathon training is about to start. Sell your workout gear. on Deepop. Just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest. They get their race day fit and you get a payout for trying. Someone on Deepop wants what you've got. Start selling now. Deepop where taste recognizes taste. Thorough like I stayed on top. Nobody could passpost me. Like that means if a game started at one o'clock, would have the knuckleheads that would call me at like seven after one. And that back then, it was ahead of the time. We had a little beeper and it would give the sports scores exactly on the second.

I remember those. Yeah, it was unbelievable, a big, thick beeper. You couldn't get Texas. You could only get sports scores. And I would look at a guy, just let me make up a game, a guy would come in and say Saturday, I want to take Boston College, Boston College. It's like six after one.

He'd say, I want Boston College for $5,000. And I'd say, yeah, yeah, hold on. I'd say, yeah, hold on. I look, and if it was zero, zero, you know, maybe. But I look, it would be 7-0. They ran a 100-yard touchdown. So at seven after he's saying, I want to bet boss. And I say, buddy, what are you doing over here?

Oh, no, I made a mistake. Yeah, okay. See you. Thanks. I hung up. Yeah. But you know what they were doing. You can't get one over on you.

And then they'd have the guys that would talk, they would play games. They would say, that's why I repeated everything back and we had everything on a tape. So in other words, when they called and we picked up the phone, it would start recording because a lot of these guys would call up and they'd be, this is another fancy one, which is crazy. They would say, okay, say, all right. the Giants, guy would say, give me the Giants for 100. No, give me a Giants for 100.

That's why I would say it to me. So I'd say, wait a minute, wait a minute. They would try to get off the front way. I'd say, do you want Giants for 100? Or do you want Giants for 400? He would say it quick. Now if it loses, you say I had it for 100. But if it won, I said 400.

So it was a lot of things like that where I would say, well, just call me back at 115 and I'll play your voice. And we'd play the tape. And it was funny because. Wow. But that's the feds? I mean, were you worried that those tapes could be used as evidence later? I mean, it was back in like I'm saying, the late 80s, 90s.

The feds ever find that and use it against you in that trial? No, no, no, no. We didn't keep them for a day, hide them somewhere. Then once people checked out that night, they were gone. Yeah. Did you see like gambling addiction? Did you see people fall apart from being addicted to gambling? Lost businesses, pizza shops, restaurants, their wife, I mean,

had to leave their house. Yeah. It's bad. Yeah. But see, if I may go somewhere with this, the government today, it's all legal. We have MGM in downtown Springfield, the casino.

They got a sports book that has about a year ago, maybe you're in a few months. You can go in there and lose all you want. Lose your house, your wife, your kids, sorry, you know, but they make themselves feel better because when you're betting in the casino, their signs or even on the lotto or quino or whatever. If you have a gambling addiction,

you call $1,800. It makes himself feel better. They don't care if you lose your house. They're getting a piece. Yeah. Banks. Banks ain't loan sharks? Of course.

Don't pay your mortgage for a couple months and see. You wish you got a slap and worked it out. Of course. They'll take your house. And I think that was the reason that the mafia really was useful. I'm sorry to use that word. That's the reason that the Italian wise guys in America were useful back in the day because they did provide a better service than what institutions like banks and the

government did. And they pay better on the like the street number. If it's a street number, we had the Spanish street number. We had the African American street number. What does that mean? That means in different parts of the city. We would go, I used to go pick up the street number all the time at a little bar like the Spanish. They had the Spanish people. Right. Yeah, it was a lottery. And they used to go by the last four numbers of let's say the, I forgot what we used to use in Connecticut. Oh, I think it was, Keeneau or power. I don't remember what it was, but every night they had a number. somewhere and we would use the last four number four digits of that number it could have I think it might I'm not sure what it was I forget but the last four numbers would be like say six two four one

that was the number and every night at 10 o'clock the number would come out I think was powerball one of them the last four numbers we would use for the street number and that was a huge so did you were you involved in numbers or was it just yeah yeah no I used to for a while I picked up the number and I stayed on top of it You had to make a copy of all the numbers and then drop the number off somewhere because if they didn't want on top, I wouldn't do it because I knew, but you get a wrong kind of person.

They'll say, oh, the guy hit for $4,000. Nobody hit. So before 10 o'clock in night, before 9 o'clock in night, the number came out of 10, we had to have that somewhere, like the copy of all the numbers somewhere. They make us drop it off somewhere

like in a slot box or something. So I had it, but then somebody else had it before the time the number came out. So there was no robin. Wow. That's how it was. You stay on top of it.

So it's pretty organized. Organized crime. So did you feel like any time, you know, you're making all this money for Bruno? Did you ever say to yourself, damn, I want to own this. I want to have a chicky working for me, you know? I mean, as we were getting older, see, that's what I was telling you before. It was funny because unfortunately, we were sooner than done it, but we were doing it anyways. Like, I can remember I was working for Bruno in the office and I probably had 15 customers secretly on my own.

I was keeping the action. But I knew the kids. So I, you know, if they, you know, if they lost, it wasn't a lot, 2000,

I was going to go crazy because I didn't, you know, I went ahead and have it like that. So we were doing our own thing. Loans, I mean, we were loaning out money.

We got in trouble. We got in trouble several times. And, you know, thank God we talked our way out of it. But if you're, what kind of losses? Now, I was running a sports book.

So you knew you paid attention to all sports. Yes. You were just on it all the time. It's like being a stock trader. You're always looking at the stock tickers. But stock, at least it starts at 9 in the morning and closes at 4. Right.

Sports bookmaking goes West Coast, Hawaii, wherever there's a game, it's 3 o'clock in the morning from, you know, maybe during the day. But baseball starts at noon, 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock. It doesn't stop. So you know as much as an ESPN analyst. Well, yeah, I don't know about that. I mean, they're really professional. But I knew a lot at the time. Now I forgot a lot of it.

It's been a lot of years. So you were just good at picking who was going to win? Well, not really picking who was when. As long as I had the good lines, we had good sources to get lines. We used to call New York. And then later on in the late 90s, we called Costa Rica. And then what happened was they got very smart. Tell us about that, though.

Hold on. So you're getting inside information. Tell us about how you get info inside info. It's not really inside information, but they had professional people that knew how to make lines. So say the giants were two and a half. Okay. We would have a guy that says two and a half seems low, go three and a half. Like really good guys.

Meaning they're going to win. Minus, like the Giants were minus two and a half. Our guy in Costa Rica or somebody in New York, very smart. They got some brain surgeon guys. And, you know, when it comes to sports and he would say it's two and a half's low. Make it minus three and a half. And we would do it. And then I would adjust the line as I needed.

So in other words, say there's giants playing New England Patriots and the lines three and a half. Say within the first half hour I got 15,000 on the Giants minus three and a half. What am I going to do? I got to go up in the line now. So we got 10,000 or 15,000 at minus three and a half. I would change the line to four or four and a half. Because now anything that comes in on giants, it's a different line. Oh, so you can change the lines in the middle of the game.

No, no, not in the middle of the game. Before the game starts, if I ask new people call. Right, right. I would say, oh, the line was three and a half. It went to four and a half. If you don't want it, I get it. Don't worry about it. Right.

And they would always take it. And sometimes you would catch it where the three and a half's won, but the minus four and a half, it didn't. It landed on the four. Wow. So that was up to me, though, based on what we had in the game. Yeah. And we didn't edge off to nobody. That's a big thing.

A lot of bookmakers edge off to Vegas, Atlantic City. What does edge off mean? Edge off means if we got $50,000 or $70,000 on a game, a lot of bookmakers like to take half of that, and they'll go to Vegas. You know, like they'll make a bet in Vegas to help them. So if they lose, they don't got to pay $70,000 or whatever it is. They pay $35. Our guy, Bruno, said, no, we take everything.

So if he had 100,000 on a game, oh, I'm sorry, everything was the same. Wow. You know, we took everything. Wow. You guys, today's episode is sponsored by HelloFresh. You guys, if you're like me and you don't have time to cook and you don't have a spouse to cook for you,

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Let me repeat that. Go to hellofresh.com slash 50-connect and use code 50-0-connect for 50% off plus 15% off the next two months, okay? You guys, Hello Fresh has changed my life. It's made by business better because now I don't have to worry about buying or preparing food. Go over and support them because they support the show. So, okay. And how many people are working when you guys get the big office with like 100 customers,

how many people are working? I was doing 80, 100 myself because a lot of guys took pinches. But when it's running the right way, maybe for like 120, 130 guys, you've got three different guys work in the office, three different locations, splitting up 120 guys. And where are the offices just houses? Yeah, apartments, empty apartments, a warehouse behind a pizza shop in the back kitchen.

You put a little phone and you're sitting in a little office like a nut. And yeah, anywhere you can get a place. It's like a boiler room. Whatever. And if people owned an apartment, like we used to go to colleges a lot, college kids places, they would pay the kid like $350, $400 a month to use their apartment for an hour a day. So what kid, college kid, he's paying $700 rent.

we're paying $3.5, $400. Every month I give him $400 cash. He's never home. He's at school. I used to have to go over there on Saturday and Sunday. That was a long day because Saturday, college, Sunday NFL. But then Monday night, it's from like 7 to 915. You know, so, yeah.

So how much were you taking? What was your personal take like every month? Did you have a percentage from, like a commission? No, no. No, no. What happened was I was getting a good pay. I mean, back in the late. 80s through the 90s. I mean, I'll go into it after, but he had me at his bar watching his bar.

We had a venue with beer, wine, food, restaurant, a venue with a singer sang. He owned that. He gave it to me and two of my childhood friends to run for him. Needs to say it didn't last long because we just joyed that, you know, between all the craziness. We were young kids, 21, 22. We didn't want to work. And yeah, and he gave us a lot of opportunities. So I was making probably, excuse me in the late um you know 90s mid 90s I was making probably six 700 a week clear no taxes and then whatever I was hustling on the side plus working at his bar you know at night 98 99 2000 I was running one of his big nightclubs five-story nightclub I was getting 150 to 100 night over there just for four hours 10 to 2 just to stay on top of the you know but but that's

but that's chum change compared to what the gambling's bringing in so yeah yeah what did you make from the gambling. I was getting a pay. I was getting a pay. What was it? Like 7,800 a week, 600, 600, 600, 6 to 800 a week, depending. And every time he had a winning week, if he won 10,000, you know, he wasn't really doing much, but if he won 30, 40,000, he was giving us a Gino here, Gino, Gino, 2,000, go take, you know, whatever, go have fun. So he was good like that. But you, but, you know, you're for a bet for a sports book that's bringing in, you know, hundreds of thousands a week, it sounds like, right, right, right. You're making Bruno a millionaire. Well, keep in mind, it all wins.

He had to pay out a lot of weeks to $100,000. He used to have to go borrow. That's one thing. When they came over from Italy, he knew a lot of the people from Italy. Right. And they were friends with him, and they owned big money pizza shops and big restaurants, famous restaurants in Springfield next to the MGM, Red Rose. It's known all through New England.

He could go to them because when Bruno, if he lost big, he used to go to this place. I won't say the name of it, but he could say to the guy, I need $100,000. this week and I'll pay you next week or two weeks from now. And when he said he was going to pay you, he paid every nickel back. No juice, no none. He just borrowed $100,000. The guy would go in his safe because a lot of the, well, in our area, a lot of pizza guys have it in the safe.

But they would give it to his son. His son would go up there and get it and they'd bring it to the hard guy. 100, 100 cash. Like nothing. And then Bruno would say, I'd see you next week or a week after. My son will come back and replace it. And he always did. That's why they, you know, they loved them.

Yeah. One thing about Bruno. He was a good guy. His name is Adolfo Bruno, a dogful, Big Al Bruno. and he paid. I mean, he paid every nickel back. You know, whatever he had to borrow. He had a, you know, free check, right?

You'll write any check he wanted. And he was a hustler. And so that was your guys' business. You guys were just some, you know, he was a maid guy. He was involved. Yes, he was kicking up to, you know, the Genevese in New York. I wasn't part of that, so I don't know what he was doing. I don't know that.

But, you know, he sounds like a nonviolent guy. He just sounds like a. No, no, he was a moneymaker, but if he had to get violent, he could get violent. Did he get violent? Yeah, yeah. was beatings, there was stuff, yeah. To collect on what was on? And then the younger generation guys, like my childhood friend and the Gia's brothers and them

guys were very violent. It was a whole other all game. But did you get into that or? Oh, there was many times. I mean, like did you have to beat a guy? Yeah, yeah. There was many times where like my friends would call me and you can't say, no, I'm just a bookmaker.

You know, I don't do that. They would call me because they've got to understand. I wasn't just a bookmaker. I grew up with these kids. So prior to being in this crazy world of gambling, we were doing this. Not that I was ever like Mr. Tough guy. It never was like that. But if you said to me,

Chiqui, we got to go, get a couple guys, we'll get a couple guys, we're going to go do this. I did that 100 times. You know, I mean, a lot of times. Not that big tough guy, but you're going to go with your friends. Your friends need you. Oh, this guy, just respected my sister. Let's go.

Right, blah, blah, blah, whatever it was. It's not like a movie casino. Like, don't let Sam Rothstein. He's the moneymaker. Don't let him get involved in the dirt. We need him picking. Yeah, there's people like that. There are people like that in that world that are money,

big money guys and they don't want them. Yeah. I wasn't that. I used to go. Like I said, I was doing a lot of crazy things secretly with my friends that we shouldn't have been doing. We've got a lot of trouble. A lot of sit downs.

A sit down is when you do something wrong and the real guy sit down with you and they crack you and slap you and punch you. A lot of times like that for fighting their bars and stuff. They weren't, there were no joke. Do you remember the scariest sit down you ever had? Or you thought you might get killed? Not killed, not killed, but a good beat. And so I had said this story before, but I'll tell you.

It's funny. There was a bar, big bar in our area, and it was owned by wise guys, him and his brother. And it was a rock bar, good rock bar and girls. It was called Makaras, okay? And it was in this area called 16 acres, a nice area of Springfield. And we used to go up there all the time. And I did, you know, kind of be a wise guy in that bar with some of my friends. But this particular night, I wasn't there.

So they said they went in and they had a disruption and a melee and they broke glasses. and told the heads, go screw yourself and all this stuff. And they wanted to know. They knew who was inside because they were spotted, but they wanted to know. It was described by the manager that there was a big guy in a white Cadillac, parked out front waiting for them and then sped off. Now, I had Cadillacs, white Cadillacs my whole life,

and I'm a big guy. But this time, I really wasn't me. I was a friend of mine that was a big guy driving white Cadillac. But so the next morning we get a call from one of the wise guy, his nephews. And he said, you guys are in big trouble. They want to see you today because you wrecked their bar and they're really mad. They're like, who are you guys to wreck their business?

Because they don't want to lose money. You know, the cops are involved. Of course. So. And when you get summoned to a sit down with made guys, there's no not going. Well, this is the funny thing. We got summons by serious guys back in the day. Now all the guys out.

The only reason I'm talking about now is because they're all dead. They're all dead. They were older. They were the real deal. deal, heavy hitter, put in a lot of work. You know, I don't want to get into Pacifics, but they put in a lot of work. These guys were feared. This is the old generation from like the 50s, 60s, the old guys.

I think at the time, the head guy, the boss at the time was the guy Albert Chabelli Baba. He's dead. He was in his 80s when he was owning this bar going crazy on us. So the word comes down and me, there was four of us, myself. That wasn't even there, but I'm not going to say, I wasn't there, you know, whatever. and my three friends. So we get together and we're like, we're going to go to this meeting

and they go, listen, we're going to get cracked. We ain't going nowhere. So we jump in my car. Now it's really me. We head off to Fort Lauderdale. We drive from Western Mass to Fort Lauderdale. Oh, no. You run on a lamb.

Exactly. So we're gone for about a month. Okay, we stay at, my friend's father had a condo in Boko Rotone. We stay there. We brought like, we were hustling with this or that and we had money put away. So we took $5,000 for a couple weeks. Let's go. You know, and it was funny because one of my friends,

goes, listen, I didn't even want to go, but I ain't giving you $5,000 out of our pot, and you have a good time, and I'm not there. So he came with us, even though he was going to get cracked. So we're out there, about a month, and they know you're out there. They see you. The people see you out there. Like, they have friends that live out there. And they're like, oh, we've seen chicky.

They're big shots in the VIP at Brady Horse. Or they're at pure platinum. We were all the joints and adult joints and club men's, trade a miss club. So we get a, they got smart, right? And we were idiots. After about a month, we're checking home. and we don't hear nothing. A guy calls us,

says, come home. What are you stupid? You're going to stay out there forever? They're done. They don't even care about you guys. Come home. The only thing you might do is have to pay for some glasses that were broke or say sorry to the woman that you told her, go screw yourself.

That was their manager. So we come back and it was funny because we get back and the word goes out. Oh, they're back. They're back. So all of a sudden, mysteriously, they want to see us now again. But this time they're telling us, no. And we're getting hit. We just want you to know we're serious.

And you're going to have to pay and not go in there no more. And we're like, yeah, okay. And I knew, I said, this is a bad idea. So we ended up, I knew we were in trouble when we parked the car down to Southend where all the Italian areas. And one of these organized crime guys, who I can talk about now because he ends up flipping, this guy, Felix Tringese, he ends up flipping on the Bruno murder. So he's an informant now, okay?

So he's out of that life. He brings us in his car. And he was a known, he was younger, he was older than us, but younger than the older guys. He was like their muscle kind of for a long time because he was a younger guy. And he was a tough guy. So he picks us up in the car and we go out to this little car lot down in the real bad area in Springfield. And so we get out of the car. He brings us in this little office.

It's an office, you know, maybe 10 by 8, 10 feet by 8 feet. And there's four chairs and there's a couple chairs. All of a sudden we're sitting there. And our guy Bruno at the time is doing a small prison sentence. He's doing two or three years for something. So he would have usually went to that meeting with us and said, the guys are with me, but chicky's with me. Don't hit him.

We'll make them pay. And if they do it again, I'll cripple them. That's what he would have said. He could have helped us. Yeah. But he happens to be in jail when this happens. Uh-oh. So we go there and all of a sudden we hear the big door open up like the big metal door

that cars come in. It comes. It's a braille loud. And here they come. It's like one after another, the real deal guys, older guys are these guys. these guys, big time guys, bosses. Bosses.

Or if they weren't bosses, then they became bosses. All older guys, maybe 65, 80, 70, the old school from the day, from the real deal. Over broken glasses. Yeah, yeah, well, it was not the broken glasses. It was a disrespect we showed their bar. But we didn't just do it that one time. I didn't do it that time, but there was a maybe no lie, maybe 30 times we did it.

This is just the final time. They had enough. They had enough. So, and, you know, we thought who we were. It was funny because there'd be a line down the street, and we'd say to the bouncer, there'd be a new bouncer college, kid football player at the door, you know, and we say, hey, we're coming in.

You'll wait in line. Oh, really? Crack, crack, quack. Oh, just disrespecting. Yeah, yeah, so we're disrespecting their bars and a lot of fights. So, um, we, so they come in one at a time, one of the time. They're coming in and it just keeps getting worse and worse. You're like, he's here.

And then all of a sudden, the worst one, him too. So it was crazy. So we're sitting in this little room and the old guy, the older guy that owned the bar, Babba, was the boss at the time, stands up and he goes, hey, you guys want to be wise guys,

you're gangsters, right? You want to be gangsters? I'm going to show how gangsters get treated that don't listen. And his voice keeps going up and I'm like, you know, we got problems. So two of my friends are over here. I got a kid next to me on a couch

and I'm here and they start bang, bang. I mean, one of the time, they hit my friend first, broke his nose, blood. Bang. This guy must have punched him. It was like a Mike, and punch at least 10 times in the face. I don't know how a kid didn't pass out.

And they got him. Then they went to this other guy, got him. Now they go to the guy next to me. Bang. And what is crazy is you can't put your hands up to them guys. You can't because you can't touch him a guy. Right. If you touch them, it's pretty much a death sentence.

They would have whacked you. Maybe right not right then, but your nays are numbered, believe me. Back then. This was like, I'm going to say maybe in the 90s, mid-90s, early 90s. But oh, yeah, forget it. You can't put it. but my friend next to me, I saw the whole thing. He didn't put his hands up.

The guy went to trauma, a punch in a face, and he went like this to block. You know what I mean? He didn't go to hit him. He went like this. But of course, when they see him go like this block, they use that to get worse. They're like, oh, did you put your hands up to you?

Now they tack, they got him good. So now I'm bracing. So you just have to sit there taking your beating? Yes. So now I'm sitting in the chair, and now it's my turn. I got one friend over there holding his eye, blood rag.

I got another guy holding his nose. This guy here needs stitches next to me. I'm next. Now they're all without whatever. They're messed up eye. They're all looking at me. And I'm bracing. This is it.

So this big guy, his name's Anthony Turino, Bendo, serious guy, putting in a lot of work. He comes over to me and he's dead now. But he comes up and he goes, and you, you want to be their driver? You want to be their driver? Like you're a big gangster? And he goes to throw me a punch. And his nephew, who's, he had to be probably in his late 70s, 80, this guy that went, to punch me. His nephew was probably was in the 60s. His nephew was Anthony DeLavo. Real serious guy.

Becomes a boss a little bit later. He stops his uncle's hand. He holds his uncle hand and says, Uncle Tony, don't, thank God. I don't know how. Don't hit this kid. He's a good kid, meaning me. Because he was best friends of my uncle, Joey. They owned an auto body together in West Springfield, right outside Springfield. So he goes, don't hit this kid. Kids are good kid. They just drive him around and get him crazy. They want him to drive him around. So the guy Bendo that was going to punch me takes out a knot like this out of his pocket. Probably he had $5,000 on him. He takes off 100 and gives it to me and he goes, go get us coffee.

So I run out of the job. And who's holding their eye? My other friend's holding. And if looks could kill, they were like this, looking at me. So make a little where I want to go is fast. So now it reverses. After they beat you up or they beat them up, I was lucky. They reverse it.

They're like, come on guys. Why would you do that? We want you with us. You're making us look bad. Throw a towel, a new towel in the guy's face. just clean it up. You'll be fine. You're not a baby.

And if your mother says anything, because we're in our 20s, your mother said anything, say you fell off your bike or they would make up something. And they loved us after it. So I went and got to coffee. I come back.

So now we're going back in the car, back to get our car in the Springfield South then. And the guy, Felix is driving us. He's a guy, he didn't hit us, but everyone else did. What they hit them? And my friends, who's holding their eye,

who's holding their mouth, who's, whatever. They go, it was funny. We all laughed. He must have thought we were nutcases. So they go, Felix, Can we pull over behind this abandoned building and just destroy Chicky, beat them up? So that way we all get out of the car downtown together, like we got beat up.

And we all started laughing hysterical. It doesn't happen. But for months I heard about it. Wow. You know, life, you got away with it. I wasn't even there. But I never told them guys that. But they were laughing.

You got, you did it. It's such a, it's such a like that kind of, it's such like a village mentality with Italians and with organized crime guys. Like it's corporal. They're handling. Everything is handled within the community. Because you guys were out of line. No question. But they weren't called.

Like even the bar people, the manager of the bar I was talking about, they don't call cops. They call the guy. Hey, guess what? Who's this? He's 11 at night. They were all here. Chickie, this one, now one. Big shots abused the joint.

I got it tomorrow. No cops were called. They called the legitimate people called the wise guys. Saying I was working. I was the register lady. They told me to left my seat. and threw water in my face. What?

I'll see them tomorrow, no worries. Wow. So was that common? Was that like, would ordinary people know who to call? Oh, yeah. No, no. It wasn't so much ordinary people. They, wise guys own the bar.

It was the ordinary people they had working the bar. That would call them and say they were here. Wise guys again. It was known you never call the cops. No. And if they did call the cops, even the wise guy would yell at the people in the bar and say, would you call the cops for it? Call me.

Yeah. You know, I mean, if a melee breaks out with kids, Call the cops. Right. But not our guys. You know, it's kind of like a dry snitch. Yeah. But anyways, there was many, many times like that.

That's amazing. Yeah. So tell us now, when did you start your family, by the way? Like, because we're moving into through the 90s now. Yeah, now 90. My first daughter, 93. Yeah. Second daughter, 95.

Yeah. And, you know, I was still gone whole, gone whole, gone whole. But I don't know how I explain it. But once you start having kids and there's cases and the FBI's coming to your house and the organized crime state police has come. is coming to your house and they're ripping the house up and they're destroying everything in your little kids bedroom

and all their little toys are on the ground they throw everything. They destroy a house and it's like I don't know, then you just say you know and then of course the kids when you start picking up cases and you're locked up for two days the kids are little kids and they're like dad

where were you and it gets crazy and what did your wife I mean she obviously knew what was going on? Yeah yeah I mean she from the neighborhood is she Italian girl she knew what was going on But like I said, it takes a weight on a relationship.

And for whatever reason, it doesn't matter, but it didn't work out, which is fine. I was always, I had my kids all the time. And like I said, and it just, I start sawing on it. I still was doing stuff. Don't get me wrong, but you sour on it. And then I'm not going to lie to you the last since like 2010, 11, even before that, Sammy the Bull ends up flipping. Joe Mazina flips.

I mean, you see all these big-time people that are supposed to be the, you know, this is what's a rock that holds organized crime together. They're all flipping. Why do you think bosses and supermaid guys in the mob started flipping? Because they want to do 100 years. I mean, look at the, look at the RICO case. Giuliana is part of creating the RICO, and then he gets in trouble for RICO. Hilarious.

I mean, talk about karma. Yeah, right. But that's neither here or there. Where I'm going with this is, I mean, Tony Salerno, Paul Castano gets killed, but all these guys were in the big RICO roundup with each guy, Tony, Tony Sondon got 100 years, 100 years and he was like 70 something years. They're all going to die in prison. Right.

No one wants to die there anymore. This guy, Persico, right, Columbus. Carmine, yeah. Went to jail. You could have gave him a thousand years he was doing every day. He was old school. There's old school guys there to take, I was in jail with him in Cesar Manhattan, gentleman of a guy, Vinny Basciano, Vinny Gorgeous from the Bronx.

I think Throg's Nacks, one of them joints. He was in prison with me. He took two life sentences. The boss, Joe Mazina, his boss, turned him in to get out of trouble himself. He was the underling. He was just a guy, allegedly.

And he didn't tell on nobody, though. No, no. Went right to jail. Took two life sentences. And now he's got a trial. I think they're in the works of trying to get him back to court because now they found new evidence where he might go on redo a trial. So I wish him and his family the best

I talked to his sons through Instagram or whatever it's called, and they're good kids. Instagram. Yeah. Whatever. Everybody's on that now. Yeah. The social media?

Yeah. Everybody. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe they'll start giving these, you know, because they've started giving drug dealers that have life sentences, you know, from crack back in the day specifically. They've started giving them compassionate releases and they've started, they're mitigating

the sentences. They're realizing it was way too harsh. And there's no violence. Yeah. I mean, the ones with no violence, if they got caught with crack or the violence is the one that gets you. It's tough. But even now, I mean, that might even be too much. They're starting to let people, especially like in liberal places, they're starting to let lifers with violence out even.

But I think hopefully, you know, some of those wise guys, because I don't want anybody dying in prison. It didn't really deserve it, you know. So I hope maybe they'll start letting some of those guys with those huge sentences out, you know, from these organizations. but when tell us tell us about how you caught the big case where is daredevil am I here don't miss the return of Marvel television's daredevil born again so what's next

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Marvel television's daredevil, born again, now streaming only on Disney Plus. The album was, I had brought that, I had told you earlier about that kid. I used to bring my kids to have pizza. Yeah. Okay, well. Guy who owed you money. Yeah, he owed me money, but he owed like seven other guys' money too, which I didn't know, and they didn't know he owed me.

And what he did was he went to the FBI, and nobody was threatening him, nobody was beating him up, nothing. They just came to him and made, you know, deals with him. Why did he go to the FBI? Because he just didn't want to pay anymore? He just owed too much and, you know, whatever reason, I don't know. How much did he owe? I think he might hold at one time, six, seven, me, probably maybe $100,000, $80,000.

Wow. And one, you know, six, seven different guys. And what was funny is, I used to bring my kids there, get pizza, get a level of belief. But I didn't know. I used to go on Saturday. There was somebody going on Sunday, somebody going on Tuesday, Wednesday. He had a different guy. And what happened was the FBI put cameras in his pizza shop.

So when I came in with my kids, and the only reason I know this is because when you get discovery, when you're fighting the case, your lawyer has the tapes. what they have on you. So he actually showed me the tape and I was biting my tongue in his office because I couldn't believe here's me walking my little seven, eight year old, whatever the age you were, pizza. Hi, uncle, I don't want to say his name.

It's disgraceful, but they say hi to uncle because they didn't know. And then he would say, hi, honey, go play, give a dollar, go play the jukebox. Look you're right in the face of low life and be looking to put you away. And so on the tape, I'm walking out of the pizza restaurant

with my two kids after eating and getting my little envelope and paying them almost as much as for the food, you know, just to kind of keep it good. They were recording me walking out the door with the kids going to my car, and he looks up at the camera and says, hey, he's talking to the FBI. How did I do? I fooled him, right?

I was talking good to him. Scumbag. Low life, right? And he did that to about four or five different guys, and we all picked up. In my case, it was just four of us. It was me. Bruno was an unindicted co-defendant because he got killed.

The kid, Anthony Eralata, who becomes, was the boss at the time. because Bruno gets murdered, he becomes the boss and myself. And it was me and Anthony went to jail. The other kid only got a fine. He was just a normal kid. I wouldn't even bring his name. He was a nice working kid. He just was working.

And Bruno was murdered. So we went to jail. Four of us were in that case. So how did they tie you guys together, though? Well, because they had phone, you know, whatever back then we had to flip phones. But they knew they would follow Anthony. And I think Anthony went up there. Bruno, they had video of Bruno before he got murdered going up there, collecting money.

I've seen that too. so we were all going up there one time or another. And so how did they, were they able to link you guys to the bigger organization? Yeah, it was a conspiracy. Right. But what was, did they link you to the Genovese family or just the? No, no, Bruno was allegedly, they say in the newspaper, Genevice guy. So anybody tied it with Bruno was technically, I never consider myself this, but they say

you're an associate. My friend, my other, my older friend, my old friend, my old friend. who now flipped and he's out of the life, was, had the ceremony and all that. I mean, this is a fact. He came home from New York, I'll tell you about this ceremony. He came back from New York,

his wife was having a baby, and he called me. This guy was my childhood friend. We were very close. And he said to me, hey, meet me at Bay State. My wife's having a baby, their baby. I said, okay, I'll meet you over there.

Where are you? He goes, I'm coming back from New York. I'll be there an hour. I said, okay. So he comes in, I'm sitting down in the cafeteria having a coffee waiting for him. He comes in with another guy I know.

and he's wearing a beautiful suit and a tie looks great. So he sits down next man. What are you all dressed up for? He goes, I was in New York all night. All night. It was early in the morning, like five in the morning. I was there. He was there all night in New York.

I go, why? What's up? And he looks me right in the face and he goes, everything's good. So I look at him, and he's with another guy that drove him. And I said, what do you mean? Everything's good? And he goes, everything's good.

I go, I still don't know what he? And then he moved his hand like this. And he had the burn mark in the palm of his hand. He got made the night before. He got straightened out. Wow. Right. And then, of course, you ain't going to get into specifics. But what happens is later on when he cooperates, he told the whole, he even does it on podcast.

He tells the whole ceremony how they had to get naked and just the boxers and go in a room. And they got this honor or whatever, whatever. That's really how they do it. Yeah. I mean, maybe they don't do it now, but they did it back then. Yeah, I don't know. I think they're crazy to do anything now, especially with a, I mean. So they were able to tell.

tie in just because you were you, not a maid guy, just a guy who was running a sports betting operation, were connected with Bruno, who was connected with the Genevievees family. They called that a RICO case. And the kid who was childhood friends with them, took a lot of pinches together for Salt and Battery, Baseball bat, Salt and Bad, Salt and Bad, We're a Saw Horse, all crazy things. Just fights and bars in six months a year, you don't do nothing. A couple of people, we had to pay. Three of us beat up these college football players.

they were down eating hot dogs after the bar closed one night, and they were big football players, you know, walking around, big muscle guys. And we were down there eating hot dogs, and they caught in front of us in a sausage and a hot dog stand. And they said, you just shut up. We're going to eat our hot dogs. Terrible mistake, because I don't know if they thought we were just like some. Some punks.

Yeah. So, of course, the kids eating a hot dog, the big muscle kid. And before you even knew what happened, my friend picked up a saw horse, like a big thing that says no parking, you smashed it right over his head, you know, and the kid went out cold. And the busso had kids, he supposed to tough guys, they're screaming for the cop. They arrested us. So there were college football players at Springfield College.

And what happened was we went to court and we were going to, you know, whatever happened happened. And then they made a deal with the lawyers. Give us 5,000 each. So we had to come up with 15,000. 5,000 each, three of us, me, two free friends, 5,000 each. We paid them and they dropped the charges. Look at that. And you found out about the money.

your New England justice right there. You're paying to get out to jail. So you got to, how many times did they have you on camera collecting from this guy, the pizza owner? I think a couple times. It wasn't a lot. And that was enough.

It was enough twice. And plus they had calls. Hey, I'm coming up to have pizza. I mean, I tried to speak pretty good. So then what was the charge? What was the sentence? Did you tell us about the whole? Okay.

What happened once? Did you consider fighting it? No, no. I'll back up a little. I gotta tell you what happened. First of all, there was rummlands around. I told you the feds were sitting on the corner down the street from my house and I would pass them

and I'd say, well, that's weird, they're all sitting there. The house I was going to do my booking. So it was early in the morning, one morning and I had left the house and I was going up the street to get coffee in a newspaper for my father and mother. They lived a mile away. And I stopped at this, I don't know if you remember,

I don't know, how old or Johnny, but they had the blockbuster video where you return movies. I was returning Disney movies and I was coming out of the, to put them in that shoe. Two guys in suits come behind me. They go, hey, chicky, like they know me.

I turned around and said, what's up? They go, yeah, hi, I'm Warren something, and I'm Jimmy, whatever the name, FBI. They go, you and your friends got some big problems coming up. You want to talk to us? And I said, I got nothing to say. You sure? I got none to say.

I don't know. Were your friends, I got none to say? I ain't doing nothing. My friends ain't doing nothing. Oh, here's my card. We can make this go away for you if you come talk. I said, I got none to say. So I take the card because I'm going to say that again.

Say that again. That's you. That's, I love that, dude. You're a movie character. I got nothing to say. No, no, no. I say, what do you want me to say? Make up something?

I can't help you. Right? Okay, sure you can't help me? No, I can't help you. How about your friends? I don't do nothing. So they give me the card. They give me the card that says FBI, this number.

So, of course, I take the card because I go right to somewhere right away, seven in the morning. I go to somebody's house. Bigger guy, I want to mention. And I gave him the card. I said, listen, I'm just telling you. Same thing I just told you. And he's like, ah, they just bust your chops.

I said, I don't care either way. I'm not, I even convinced myself, I ain't doing nothing. I don't know if he's got a wire in his house hidden. I go, we don't do nothing. He goes, yeah, you don't do nothing? I go, no, of course not. Meanwhile, I got 300 pages in my trunk of stuff, but I know we don't do nothing.

So not even two weeks later, almost to the day. Same routine, I go get my coffee and my paper, I'm bringing it to my father. I'm sitting at my father's house seven in the morning, the phone rings, okay, at the time. And it's somebody from where I was living, a girl and says, Where are you?

And I go, why, what's up? All the FBI is here, they're waiting. Now I hear somebody take the phone away from them. They go, hey, chickie, what's up? I go, who's this? This is a FBI agent, whatever name. And I said, yeah, what's up? And they said, where are you?

We're going to come and get me. Well, you better, you've got a warrant. We want you now. I said, all right, I'll be there. When you come in? I said, I'll be there when I get there. I was only three blocks down. But I just want to be, you know, who are they, right?

So I say, my poor father. Never did a legal thing in his life. I said, Dad, can you bring me home? He goes, you got your car. I said, yeah, Dad, there's some people there. They want to give me a summons because I didn't pay four parking tickets. You know, can him feel good? And he's like, you should have paid the parking tickets.

Meanwhile, he don't know. It's a whole army waiting for me. So he brings me to my house. We get 30 yards. He sees all the cars. They're all in a driveway on the lawn. The neighbors are standing on the stairs with their housecoats looking seven in the morning. They got the wall surrounded.

And they take me in custody. And my father goes, I want to know. I said, dad, please don't embarrass me. There's a lot of people here. So he turns around and leaves. And, yeah, they took me in custody. And I ended up, you know, making bail. I think it was 30,000.

I don't know what the bail was. But maybe more because federal, you just sign. It's not like you got to come up with cash, you know. I might have been 50. I don't know what it was. But of course, we walk out when we get bailed out. It's all over in a newspaper. Big headline, fat chickie, million-dollar bulls.

And then, of course, they add in the organized crime thing, which I never consider myself that, but whatever. But, um, well, yeah, but it's, it's your ties. And they tied you into a guy who's dead. Like Bruno's gone and they were still able. No, they tied me in with that. But keep in mind, my childhood friend who was also on the case is the boss at this time. Mm, yeah. He became a captain. So he's the boss. What was the charge? My charge was a sports bookmaking, running an illegal sports gambling business with no violence, just gambling alone, running a gambling. And I think I told the, I think in two years,

estimated over three million. It was like 300,000 a month, what they said, not on if they ever really knew, but let's keep it at that for now, you know, for the money. Sure. But anyways, yeah, so I pleaded guilty and they gave me, they wanted to give me 60. When you go to violence, it's not a lot of time bookmaking. It's like white collar. Of course. And they ended up giving me, they wanted to give me 16 months. They ended up giving me like a year and a day or whatever that is. So I could qualify for, you know, if it's a year in a day, you can get a couple months off a good time. If it's like 11 months or they give you 12 months, not the year and a day, you've got to do

day for day, which is a nothing sentence. Man. So I made it. Here's the funny thing. That's a sneeze. Nothing. It's a catnap. I did more time for selling weed.

And my friend, who was the boss at the time, only got three years for that case because they didn't have violence. It was just running an illegal bookmaking with no violence. But then later on, the violence came with him. That's what got him in a lot of trouble. So when there's no violence. Wow. So, no, and what's so sad about the times now, if you're a guy like you who's just got a hand

for placing sports bets, you just got the mind for it, I can tell. Your job doesn't exist anymore because sports are legal. So now it's eliminating all of the nonviolent guys. That was the way that the nonviolent guys earned. Right. Like that really made the mob. The mob isn't made from bullshit nickel and dime, breaking a guy's ankle. to collect a hundred bucks a week.

It's made off of gambling. The gambling, loan shugging. You don't understand. Violence is where you get in trouble. Yeah. Okay? I mean, I guess sometimes in the past, now forget it, but in the past 80s night, there was violent people.

Yeah. But the violent crazy people don't last. I could name a lot of violent people. Of course. You know, that were violent. Roy de Mayo from serial killer, killed like 100 people, him and the Gemini twins and all that. They put him in, he was, if you know where he found in a trunk.

Yeah. They killed him. Yeah. When you're too crazy, it's too much heat and they don't want the headache. Right. They're thinking you're going to overthrow them if you're that crazy. Yeah. But now that, now that sports gambling is basically extinct for the mob,

yeah. There's, it's going to push more people into violence or drugs because they don't have this solid, right. White collar, you know, normal neighborhood thing. Right. Where it don't feel like a crime when, you know, an electrician comes and puts a couple hundred down on a Sunday. Right.

You know, it's so, uh, it's so benign. But that's crazy. So you, I mean, that's a good business. I'd risk a year in jail for 300,000 a week. As long as there's no violence. Yeah. That's all it is. Even if it's your second or third pinch for that.

Yeah. All right, maybe you get three years. It's still not 10, 50. Right. Now, you extort a guy. Guy owes you money for gambling and I go give him a crack in a face. Say, I want my money next week. Extortion.

One crack, I'm getting five years. Right. If I, my dear friend that's in, in the, we'll talk about it later, the movie with me, did 18 years in federal prison. He did 13 years on one bid for driving a car of a guy in the backseat who broke a guy's arm that owed him money. He didn't even, he was driving the car, a guy in the back seat broke his arm, he got 13 years. So if you had smacked that pizza owner, if you would, you know, put him at a headlock, beat his ass up. Minimum, I would have got four or five years. Wow. For a slap. Never mind, beat him up. Slap. Yeah. Five years for extortion. Yeah. Wow.

that's crazy. So, but, but they saw that and you were, I mean, wow, thank God. Thank God. They had tapes me being a gentleman, you know. But see, that's, that's why after this is so enlightening this, our conversation, because there really is no reason to beat a guy up when you're not out any money. We've learned through the course of this show, you're, you didn't lose any money by him not paying. You just lost, you just lost money you could have had, but it's not like money's coming out of your pocket. No, here's the thing that you don't, let me explain it a little better. Say a guy never bet before to you and it's his first bet. Technically, you're right.

If it's his first bet and he never bet with you, he loses. I know what you're saying. Like here, Chick, chick, I bet you $100 the Jets win by two and a half on Sunday. Jets lose by two and a half. I'm not paying you. But you didn't lose anything. You just lost the money you could have had. Now let me give you a reversal to that.

Okay. You've been bent with me for three months. In the three months, give or take, you've won four or five thousand from me. paid you every week. Now you lose 2,000. You don't pay me. I just paid you five, six thousand. You can't give me too bad? Right. Yeah. Now it goes, now you're like, okay. So you're talking based on one guy coming new. Oh, he lost. Well, he really didn't. That's different. You can make a deal with him. Yeah. But a guy that just took you for 20,000, he lost 1,500 and you got to chase him. Yeah. Come on. Yeah. That's what I mean. It's principle.

Italians don't like disrespect. Well, yeah, well, I'm just saying that's, in any world, in any world that's disrespect. If you're a painter and you paint all my, you know what I'm trying to say. In other words, in any business, you know, I pay you all the time to paint my house and then you paint another house in mine and I say, I ain't paying you. I mean, that's disrespectful. You know, in any world, not just, we're not allegedly organized crime. So it's just a matter. That's not right. Right. So you got out and then what have you done like, did you leave the life when you got out? Yeah. What would happen was, you know, I got out in two, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, 2007, I think 2007, they sent me to a federal probation house in Boston called Kulich

House. And I came home and I was on three years probation. We had a separation list. We couldn't go near none of my friends. Anybody in organized crime, nothing. And I took care of my kids and I brought them, you know, through the three years. But I was still doing hustling a little bit here, loan and money here and there, but quietly, you know, I didn't go crazy. I was done with the sports book at that time because they follow you. You're all done. And then 2010, 11, a lot of people took pinches in my area for the Bruno murder. That was a big thing. A lot of heat.

So it took them seven, eight years to take people down for that murder? 2009 or 10. Wow. Yep. So all these people took pinches. And then it sounds like the game in Springfield was just. Yeah, the older guys end up dying. Yeah.

We're going to jail and dying in jail. It just everything went right down the tubes. So then what did you do? And then, so we were hustling on our own because now nobody's there to tell us no. So we were doing it. When they were there saying, no, we were still doing it. Now, nobody's there. We can really do it.

So we did that for a few years. And then I just like, like how? Loan shark and taking bets. Street number, the lottery we were doing. Still street number, even in 2011, 2012? Yeah. Up to probably 15, 16. And then it is what it is.

It started dying off. And then I got in with a couple people like in 2015, 16, a couple of guys. And we started thinking differently. I mean, I consider myself good friends with John Gotti Jr. Who beat five trials in three years, millions of dollars in law firm, legitimately beat these cases. Lights out, life in prison, you know, death penalty cases. He beat him, legitimately beat him.

And he left the life. He said, you know, he's got six kids. He's a good father. His son's an MMA fighter. That's how we met him to MMA. Yeah. And, you know, he's doing production. and some documentary stuff.

And we ended up becoming friends with him, had dinner with him in Oyster Bay where he lives. And a couple of times his son fights. We support the son. We sell tickets and help. And he was just a good guy. And he said to me, and he's a very good guy. And he just said, he said, listen,

I root for the bank robber to get away to this day. But I had so much heat on me. I was just blessed to beat the cases. And I'm done. I'm done. And if you're going to do that, he used to tell us, if you're going to do that life,

I'll root for you. But I don't want you around me. Yeah. Because he's a hot guy as far as long. Of course. And he hasn't done nothing since. He's a good father. He's manager of his son in the fight.

His son just fought Florida, Mayweather a couple months ago in, I think of Florida. Now I don't know what's going on. I think they're going to do it again, but I don't know for sure. But so we had around some good people, and that's when the movie stuff started happening. Right. So, and that's what I'm saying.

And then now, I mean, and then just when everything was going good, I'd pick up the biggest indictment in East Coast history, December 5th, 2019. Okay, yeah. We can't leave this out. Tell us about that really quick. Well, what happened was I had a house with my nephew, 40-year-old Italian kid. Allegedly, I think he's still in jail.

They made it out like they were coming for Al Chapo. And at the end of the day, nobody got more. I think one guy got seven years. Everybody else got five years or six years or less. So it was the biggest indictment. People can look it up. It's called Operation Thrown Down. It's East Coast leadership dismantling

of the Latin kids. and Queen Nation. And they had my nephew, allegedly, the boss from Boston, Massachusetts to Miami, Florida. An Italian kid. I'm 40 years old Italian kid. Running the Latin Kings. That's what they allege. I mean, tell me if anything in this world makes sense anymore.

That's what I'm saying. So how did you get picked up in it? I happened to be there that night. I had a second location where I had my room there to in case I ever wanted to stay overnight for whatever reason. What do you mean? Like I had a house, but then I had that location. I had a room there.

Were you hustling? Yeah, a little bit, but not drugs or not. nothing, but it just was a good, like if I didn't want to go home for whatever reason, I stayed at the house, I had a little room. Just happened to be there that night, December 5th, 2019, 4 o'clock in the morning, just happened to be upset and watching TV. Don't ask me why. He's sleeping, and I hear the bang on the door.

Bang, bang, bang, bang. And you know it four in the morning. It's not somebody selling Girl Scout cookies. It's not somebody looking to rob you because you ain't going to hear him. And it's the cops. So I didn't even have to. I went to get up to open the door. What are you going to do?

They're all out there. in the porch and they were all, couldn't even move. And all of a sudden, flash bombs started coming through the window. Crazy. Like, they were coming for, like, we were in war. Yeah. And they blew up. And I don't know if you know about flash bombs, but they, they, your ears are ringing.

You can't see smoke. Can't breathe. It definitely deters you from trying to, you know. And next thing you know, I woke up, it felt like 20 minutes later was like maybe a minute later. And we're in zip ties, zip ties head to toe, you know, head versus head. And within 15 minutes, they took him out of there. They were serving a federal indictment for him, not me.

And they said, we're going to search the house. So I said, go ahead, do what you got to do. Now I'm thinking of my head, I'm screwed. Because in my bedroom, and I always had one, I'm not going to lie to you. I was around criminals. I was around my nephew. I was around that crazy gangs, which they all knew me since they just called me Uncle Chickie, the young Spanish kids.

They knew me. My mother used to cook for him when they were 12. They were around my nephew his whole life. So. You had a piece. The only thing I was lucky, I didn't know at the time, but I had a Smith & Wesson in Smith and Western factories in Springfield, Massachusetts. That's right. Yeah, I knew that.

Now, if it was a state case, you're getting four or five years. If you get pulled over with a gun, I don't care what kind of it is. But I didn't know at the time. I had a great lawyer, attorney, Dan Hagan, wonderful lawyer out of Western Mass. And a really good, great guy saved me a lot of times, not just this time. And I wasn't facing a lot. But so I figured out, right, well, three to five years, I'm going to have to go do it. I didn't know.

And then so they give me a $30,000 bond. they bring me in for like two weeks, you know, in jail. Then they'd give me a $30,000 bomb because I wasn't part of that. Latin King bust. I just happened to have the same blood in my vein as my, you know, my nephew. They were coming for him and 63 other Latin Kings from New Jersey, Connecticut. Huge case involving drugs and murder and murder. Intimidation of witnesses.

Yeah, those guys are serious. Serious guys, right. And, you know, next thing you know, I'm on a bus with all the Latin Kings from our area going to Boston federal court. We come down the street in Boston. I'm right there. And they all know me. They're like,

hey, chickie, they're talking to me. I knew them their whole life since kids. They hung around my nephew. So they tried to, the government tried to tie you in? No, they were tying me in.

At the time, it was so new, they didn't know what I was doing in. Right. They bring you in. So I went through everything. They went through craziness. They pulled down the streets by the Boston,

a Moakley, a federal building in Boston. They had all state troopers on the rooftops with shotguns. It was like they were bringing a Charlie Manson. Yeah. and they had my nephew first. So now we walk in the lockup, and my nephew's in a cell by himself.

They don't put them with the other guys because they don't want him talking to them, like, do this, don't say that. And here I come walking around the corner. He goes, what are you doing? I go, what do you mean when I'm doing? The thing, where you forgot? Oh, you're stupid.

You know, you said, and so I get bounded two weeks later. I'm thinking, well, you know, it is what it is. I don't have to go do for, whatever it is. So you're a felon. Are you on probation still? No, no. Okay, so you're off paper, thank God. But you're a felon.

you got a gun. Nonviolent crime, felon for bookmaking, but I wasn't supposed to have that. Right. So my lawyer, I get out and my lawyer comes and sees me there, and I says, whatever it is, what is it, four years? he goes, let me ask you a question. My lawyer says to me, he goes, the gun they found. He goes, yeah, he goes, he knew, I don't know how he knew was Smith & West. I told him, was Smith and Weston, yeah. And it was loaded.

So, so I guess federal law, and anybody can check this. If the government can't, if the gun's clean, like my lawyer said, is there anything on that I should know about the gun, bodies, shootings? I said, no, never was shot. It was new. I just couldn't have had it. I knew a guy that Smith & Wesson, it stole it for me.

But it wasn't bodies or anything. It was brand new. but he goes, it's Smith and Weston. I go 100%, right? He goes, well, I don't know if you know it or not. He goes, federal law. If they can't prove that gun left state lines, they know he can charge you with the ammunition.

Whoa. So the feds pop you with a gun in Massachusetts and they can't. I wasn't driving around with it. It was in my house. They found it. So I'm not going to say, my nephew, I wasn't going to say, oh, that's his. It is what it is.

Do what you want with it. But so my lawyer goes, no, if there's nothing bad that comes back on it, like it was used, it's a Smith and Wesson. They only could charge with the ammunition. It's a federal law. Wow.

If they can't prove it left state lines and it's Smith and Wesson. Now, if it was a Ruger clock, I'll bet you're off. They're going to charge. What's the charge of ammunition, though, the federal charge? As far as time. Yeah. I think they wanted to give me 16 or 17 months. So you can't even own ammunition?

Ammunition. If I own the shell, you know a shell that they put on the keychains, if you have a shell in your bedroom floor, a shell, they can charge you federally ammunition. A shell. Ridiculous. A shell.

So they found the gun was loaded and then I had a quarter of a box, maybe 10 bullets under the bed in the box. So they charged me in the ammunition, which is only 16, 17, 17, on charge. So now I had the lousy two weeks, which was nothing. But then in January of 2020,

they revoked my bail. They come get me. I was at a VA hospital appointment because I'm a veteran, getting a checkup. And the FBI came and took me. He said the judge wants to see you in Boston at 2 o'clock. It was like 11 in the morning. I said, I didn't even do nothing. So they take me in the

van, the FBI van all the way to Boston. I go in front of the judge at 2 o'clock. So she goes, we're going to remand you for two weeks. We're going to do investigation on you. Some craziness, they thought I was still involved with something or I'm doing something. So I didn't do nothing. Well, we'll readdress this in two weeks. So they bring me to Wyatt Federal Holding outside Providence, Rhode Island. It's a detention center like MCC Manhattan, and MC Brooklyn. Terrible place, but it is what it is. You do what you got to do. So I went there and COVID hits. Right, of course.

They closed the courts. So something I'm supposed to be two weeks until they readdress it, almost three months, a little over three months. And are you locked up? Locked up. Oh, no. And it had COVID. It was 21 side goes and eats, like one set of tears.

We were locked in 22 hours a day because they didn't let you out in population. You know, because I was in the gang unit. So when I came in the gang unit, the go where opens, you got all the Italian guys from Boston and the Providence there. Then you got the Latin Kings and they put me in the gang unit. So right away, all the Latin kicks start screaming, Uncle Chickie. They're all running up to me. Now the Italian guys are looking at me like,

is this guy? Because, you know, the Latin Kings usually stick with their own. But I knew these kids since they were 13, 12. My mother used to cook pasta Vazoo and meatballs for that. Thinking they played softball, not softball, but like my nephew would say, oh, these are my friends from the baseball team at school. My nephew never played that sport in his life. So I would laugh because I knew who they were.

And my mother, oh, see, she used to say to me, why can't you get friends like that? And I'm dying laughing as if she only really knew. Yeah. So now they all rounded around me, carried my stuff to the cell, help me. They picked the cell. Oh, no, he's going to be with us. He told the guard, did they do anything they want?

So then after I came out of the cell after now where I set up cell up, excuse me, and the Italian guy goes, what's going on? Why are they coming to you? And I said, ah, it's a long story. My nephew, no, blah, blah, blah. And then they knew about it. They didn't know that was the case, but they go, oh, the case is just, got picked up, yeah. So they had me there almost two. So by the time I went to court, I pleaded

guilty to ammunition. And by the time I went to court, I already had like three and a half four, time served basically. Three and a half months. And then I got that, I got a condition from the military. I got retired because I got an illness from the military because of a accident on the ship. So my lawyer said COVID is running ragged. Yeah. If he goes to court with his sickness, he can get COVID and die. So the judge said, well, we got four months good time. Right. We're looking only give them a year and a half anyways. We'll give them 12 months on a brace at house arrest. Perfect.

So they just split you right there. But it was funny because the kid who's here today, Anthony Grasso, was with me in court with my judge. I mean, sorry, with my lawyer. And the judge's sentence me. And I said to my lawyer, it was funny. I said, you know, because I'm a big guy. And when I went to court, I mean, when I went to jail the last time for all you

over a year, I lost 150 pounds. I look great. So I says to my lawyer, no, because I didn't know how house arrest worked. I thought you got to stay in nonstop. So I said to my lawyer, get me the year. I'll go today. I don't want a house arrest. I figure you sit in a house, you don't move around.

That's all I need. And he says, no, anytime you leave federal court without jail, it's a win. Trust me, let me handle it. And they end up getting me to year. And it's good because your probation guy works out of schedule. I can go work out. I went swimming every day, visit my grandkids. So it's not as bad as I thought.

So you've really only been out of trouble for a couple of years. Well, no, this April just ended. This April. Oh, that was the. House arrest? Yeah. You've just gone off house arrest in April this year. And then I go to, I go in a nice area because, you know, I put away a good amount of money from different things.

But I end up buying a nice place. You know, I went and moved away, but not moved away in the Syrinfield, but a place called another location near Connecticut near Southfield, Connecticut. A beautiful apartment condo kind of thing with a pool. So, Chicky, do you think you're done? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, now I'm done for sure with the movie. We got the movie coming out.

I was involved in the movie. that I'm done. You think you, you know, you've been hustling for so long. You think you finally squirled away enough to retire? Yeah, well, I get him a good retirement every month because I get 100% from the military. That's not no joke now. And yeah, yeah, I'm done now. Listen, I got good things going in.

And like I had said before, these people today that want to do business with you will give you a job or opportunity. I get a little cold. They like going out with guys, these guys, these street guys. They like going out, maybe going to dinner, laughing with them. But with business things, they don't want to do business with people on the street because they're scared. Like, something's going to. So now I met some good people. Like I said, the movie I'm in now, which I got a talk and roll.

Don't ask me how. But James Maddieo's in the movie and Leonardo Caprio's Apian Way production company did all the production. It's called The Featherweight. It just was at Venice Film Festival a month ago. Standing Ovation. It's awesome. And then October 1st, we go for the premiere in the United States. States to Woodstock, New York, where they had Woodstock, and they're doing the premier,

the United States premiere there, and then we're going to have one in Hartford. Wow. That's amazing, man. Now, last question. Is the American Mafia finished? I mean, I'm only giving in my opinion, my opinion. And the guys who are the top-level guys, in my opinion, they're already multimillionaires. So they practically completely almost stopped murder.

There's no more murders in the street. like in the 80s and 90s. It was 80s. Was it 70s? Forget it. 80s, bad. 90s. But the number one,

the cooperators that are in this world now, it's not embarrassing to them. They cooperate. They don't run off into the Arizona desert and never see them again. They start a podcast. And Sammy the Bull, serial killer, 19 murders

is doing a podcast. I mean, no shame. No shame. It's like they got fans. Look at their comments. Oh, you look so good. Oh,

We're with you, Sammy. We're with you, this one or that. I don't want to get into their names who's out there. But come on, there's no shame in it. And this is the funny part. I'm no expert. I mean, thank God I didn't do anything stupid enough where I was facing 30 years because I would have been doing it, you know.

But I knew enough when the stuff around you, you've got people, bosses opening up. And, I mean, their bosses turning in their underlings. Never mind, the underlings turning in the bosses. The bosses are turning their underlings. So I think the guys today, the real guys that are left, the older, you know, I think they know. that, hey, listen, we're going to do our business, maybe do a little unions.

I'm not sure New York's different than where we, I'm from, but they're smart. You know, and they get insulated, they insulate themselves. They're not meeting nobody you're talking unless, you know. So do you think Springfield is done, specifically your area? If I had to just give my opinion, I say it's 100% done, but like I said, what do I know? Maybe there's something going on. I don't know about what. Yeah.

I don't know. What do you think is left to, if we put drugs aside, if there is, you know, an organization of wise guys, Italian Americans, Sicilian Americans that still want to make money off the books. What is it today? Is it the unions? No, I think the unions, but I just think that they're getting smarter now. They're into the NASDAQ and they're doing it. They're smarter now. A lot of these kids are putting, a lot of these big time guys are putting their kids in the best schools and their lawyers and, you know, they might do little things in the air, but they're not doing the street stuff over. I mean, there's some loan sharks probably still.

That's a big business and a lot of people can't go borrow money so they borrow. Especially now. The interest rates are going so high. Oh my God, it's crazy. Maybe loan shark and we'll come back a little bit. I don't know. Bookmaking. Is there still bookmaking though?

Well, listen, here's the thing with bookmaking. There's so many legal avenues to do bookmaking. The only person that a secret backdoor bookmaker is going to get are the people who can't pay. Because if they had money, they would just go to the casino or use their credit card and call these services. So when they're betting through these back alley bookies, they're betting because it's credit for the first week. You can bet Monday to Sunday and not put up a dime.

Now you owe $10,000. You can't do that casino. If you don't put up $10,000, you're not betting. And so you, a guy like you now, if he wanted to do what you did back in the day, he's dealing with just degenerates that are already in crazy amounts of debt. Because normal people will go and bet their own money in casinos

or through their credit card on the phone to all these different bookie things. Legitimately. They don't want to deal with the street guys, or maybe they won't get paid, or maybe they won't have it. So you're only getting the degenerates now that are betting through these back,

which aren't too many left. Now they got a perfect way of doing it. They call Costa. Well, in my day, I don't know about now. It could be different, but back in like mid-2000s, we used to call Costa Rica. The bookmakers were taken out of the office.

I was done with my job in 2005. They were sending a, given an 1-800 number to all the customers. They would call Costa Rica. They would have the best lines. They could never rob because the people in Costa Rica don't know the people in Spanfield. You would pay between $12 to $20 a guy. So say you had 100 guys.

Say you got $15 a guy. It was $1,500 a week. So they took me out of the office, had them called Costa Rica. And then at the end of the week, Sunday night, Costa Rica would send you a slip, however, and you would have all your figures. So no more pinches, no more nothing. That's it. Wow.

So it worked out good, you know. Yeah. Well, Chicky, this has been enlightening to say the least. I'm very happy for your newfound freedom. I mean, you were in a movie four months after getting off a house arrest. So, I mean, you know, what a country. And I shot the movie while I was on house arrest. They let me leave.

I said I was going to somewhere for four hours. And I shut down Hartford to shoot the movie for two days, four or five hours. You're the last of a dying breed, you know. So I really appreciate you coming on. Switch over to the Patreon. you guys go to oh do you have a social media you can plug yeah i got um i go on i'm on facebook and i'm on instagram uh it's under chickie my name he'll put it in description chickadelly my last name and i got uh at the end of my name uh one underscore chickie chickadele that little

line on the bottom and you know you don't think i'm nuts when you see it but i put up a lot of my grandchildren and some funny things you know whatever i just have fun with it and there may be a podcast coming down a lot why not you know listen and like i said i'm all about being positive in another movie i got a wonderful girlfriend who treats me like a king And it's just everything. Once you start doing the right thing, everything turns around. Yeah. I'm around, you know, around, maybe I don't have 100 people at my disposal anymore, but I have five guys that will go to war for me.

Yeah. So, and that's enough for me right now. Exactly. You know, and my grandkids, like I said, I'm blessed. It's never too late. Look at you. You're still a young man. 55 years old.

My best part of my life is yet to come. That's right. That's it, man. So switch over to the Patreon because I want to talk a little, we want to talk prison stories, and I want to talk some gaudy stuff and, you know, get into some real dirt, you know. But you were the guy, guys like you, are what made the American mafia. Not the violence, not the drugs.

I'm talking about the bread and butter. It was the spark guys. Part of that, I would agree. So, you know, you're a humble guy. Yeah, I don't know. All right. Thanks, Chick. Take care, guys.

Thank you.