The Jordan Harbinger Show - 635: Joe Barone | Living in Dread Between the Mob and the Feds Part Two

Episode Date: March 10, 2022

Joe Barone was born into a life of crime from both sides of his family, became the longest-running mafia informant in the history of the FBI when his father was killed, and now lives in hiding from people in both camps who want him dead or behind bars. [This is part two of a two-part episode. Make sure to catch part one here!] What We Discuss with Joe Barone: The many reasons Joe now considers the FBI to be more treacherous than the mob. What Joe was allowed and not allowed to do by the FBI while blending in with the mob. How Joe prevented the murder of a federal prosecutor and a US district judge. How Joe's relationship with the FBI soured after 18 years of being its top informant. The consequences Joe continues to suffer as a result of this soured relationship, and what he hopes the future brings. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/635 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Miss our two-parter with former mobster Anthony S. Luciano? Get caught up by starting with episode 425: Anthony S. Luciano Raimondi | The Mob Enforcer Part One here! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Coming up next on the Jordan Harbinger Show. The only thing that they have a hard time of is a conspiracy. They said to the prosecutor, you couldn't find them guilty on the charges. You're going to find them guilty on conspiracy? Give me a break. That's why they say you could indict a ham sandwich. That's how stupid the conspiracy war is. Welcome to the show.

I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills are the world's most fascinating people. We have in-depth conversations with scientists and entrepreneurs, spies and psychologists, even the occasional former cult member drug trafficker or neuroscientist, and each episode turns our guest's wisdom into practical advice that you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better critical thinker. If you're new to the show or you're looking for a handy way to tell your friends about it,

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Mafioso turned FBI informant for 18 years. Go back and listen to Part 1 if you haven't yet. Part 1 was fascinating. Part 2 is a continuation of the conversation. Without further ado, here's part 2 with Joe Barone. Okay, so what if you just don't have the money? Then what? I mean, they can't be mad if you don't have $20,000 under your friggin' mattress.

Right? But then they always think you're lying to them. Oh, do you think you're lying? Okay. And I'm going to tell you about the test part now, about the $20,000. Yeah. It wasn't so much that I gave them the $20,000. When I got the money back, I think all they did was change the rubber bands on the money. I think it was the same money.

Oh, they just didn't even need it. Nope. Yeah. Well, come on. These guys are getting money all kinds of hand and foot. They're going to need my $20,000? I know it was a test, but I had no choice. I had to pass it.

What's the test? Will he give us the money? Is that the test? Just will he? Okay. Yep. Or maybe they know you have it somewhere. And so if you say, I don't have it, then you're lying.

When you go to kill somebody, there's always somebody with you. Because if you don't kill the guy, they know you're not serious. If you kill somebody, your commitment is solid now with them. Well, yeah, they know you committed a crime. Yeah. That's right. So if I give them the money, if I'm beating somebody up for them. Like, we went to a bar once me and the captain,

and one of the other guys were just fooling around and tried to grab him a little bit. Well, I jumped on the other guy and they grabbed them. I said, oh, the captain started laughing, you know, and he said, you see, can't touch me. You know what I mean? And that shows that you're in. Matter of fact, we went to Sue's rendezvous. It was a bar in Mount Vernon, a strip bar. It sounds like a strip bar.

Sue's rendezvous definitely sounds like a strip bar. So all the guys, we met some of the other guys there and stuff like that. So now the captain goes to the bathroom. And I looked for a second around, and I saw nobody go up to go with him to the men's room. Well, I went to the men's room after him. Yeah. Because that's what you're supposed to. You're never supposed to let the captain walk by himself.

Right. Yeah. too dangerous for him. So little things like that, he knew I was close to him and he knew I was with him. I read these, this is from your documents as well, like Lucchese family associate Bruno Faschola was executed in August 1990 with a dead canary stuffed in his mouth as a sign that he was an informer and a warning to other mobsters. So that would be on my mind like every day.

Right. I'd be listening for canaries and like, you got a burden here? What do you need that for? Yeah, exactly. Usually the canary is probably dead before they got you, you know what I mean? Makes sense. Yeah, otherwise flying around the car. Yeah. Exactly. But yeah, they have their own little tricks to show you, you know, who's doing this. It was like when they killed Willie Boy Johnson. I don't know if you ever heard of him. No. Well, Willie Boy Johnson was very close to, I think he was a childhood friend of John Gotti's. Later on, he became an informant. And he said to the pro se to the AUSA, the assistant U.S. attorney, that I'll give you information with John, but I'll never testify against them. They want him to testify against them. And he said, no. Well, what did the U.S. attorney did? They put it out that he was a snitch.

Oh, man. Now, if you remember Willie Boy Johnson was found and shot, I don't know how many multiple times, they killed him, of course. But they added him as a snitch. They actually had him killed because he wouldn't cooperate with them anymore. Wow. So the FBI played him and then played the mob into killing him. It's almost like the FBI is like another crime family at that point.

Well, the FBI are a real crime family. It was almost like, say, I informed on the mob. But now it's like I'm a FBI whistleblower. Because, you see, I did work for the mob and I did work for the FBI. And to be honest with you, I would rather have worked and stayed with the mafia because at least I would have been killed. I wouldn't have had everything taken away from me, my livelihood, my status in my community, family members don't talk to me. I always have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life. Maybe there's no real hit against me like Sammy the Bullock had people wanting to kill him.

But if somebody wants to come out of the woodwork and say, hey, isn't that that Joe Barone? Wait, I saw him. And then they want to make a name for themselves. Those just shoot me. There's a certain level of betrayal that you don't go beyond. It's not like my girlfriend went around my best friend. Okay, it hurts. But eventually one day I'll get over and I can live with it.

This here I have to live with for the rest of my entire life, you know? Yeah, no, it makes sense. I mean, look, it reminds me the late night meetup that you mentioned earlier. It sounds like I assume you've seen Donnie Brasco, right, where Al Pacino, he gets the call. his wife comes out of the shower and he goes, I got to go meet somebody, you got to go see. Oh, so late? And he's like, yeah, yeah, no problem.

You know, you're so beautiful. I'll see you later. And then after she goes back in the bathroom to dry her hair or whatever, he takes off his watch, he takes off his ring, he takes out his lighter, he takes out his wallet. And he puts it all in a drawer that he leaves open for her. We'll add the scene in the show notes because it's like an iconic scene from the movie. And Donnie Brascoe, who was I think played by Johnny Depp or whatever, right, in the movie,

he was an informant for six years. You were an informant for 18. years. He had three times more than Donny Brasco. Yes. I think you did a lot more damage to the La Cosa Nostra to the mafia than he did probably too. Probably to some degree, yes. And don't forget, too, I always kept a certain amount of distance. Look, the FBI had actually given me permission to kill a wise guy. Really? I didn't even know they could do that. Yeah. They don't just go, okay, listen, Joe, kill this guy because we don't like him or kill him because whatever. Sure. I had gotten a contract to kill a guy in the mafia. And the reason why, of course,

I kill him is because he liked me or whatever. Yeah. He could have got together with me and that kind of thing. Well, of course, I informed my handler at the time, Vincent Prasuti. I said to him, I said, what am I going to do? He said, look, Joey says, this is how they tell you to kill him without telling you to kill him. You got to do what you got to do to protect yourself. But just make sure, after it's done, you call me and tell me right away so this way we could

protect you. How are they going to protect? By the way, I just killed someone. Oh, thanks for letting me know. I'll follow the appropriate paperwork. What? Yeah, exactly. this is how they do it, but essentially not only once but twice gave it to me, once in front of

another FBI agent and the first time we were alone, him and I sitting in a diner. And I said to myself, thank God the guy got arrested before it came to fruition, you know, a meeting that I had to go and kill him. Yeah, no kidding. That would have put you between a rock and a hard place. It is interesting. In the FBI docs, there's all this, it's kind of a fun list, right? So you're allowed to engage in what they call otherwise illegal activity, which it's like, no, it's still illegal. It's definitely they are not changing the fact that it's illegal, but they're giving you, like a judge is kind of like, all right, we're not going to prosecute you if you do the following. And it's, source has been associated with the Genevase and Banana Lacosa Nostra members in the past. As part of FBI

tasking and in a continuing effort to maintain close access to them, redacted, redacted, redacted, and other LCN members, source can be expected to engage in criminal conversations regarding collection of debts, extortion, racketeering, gambling, monopoly of trade, loan sharking, attempted murder, slash conspiracy, money laundering, income tax violations, the current nature and structure of various Lacosanostra families, and conspiracy to control and influence legitimate businesses and industry. That's a lot. You had a pretty wide berth. Yeah. Yeah, a large permission slip there. Well, at my trial, the agent said, what was he allowed to do? He said, I would have put more in there if I could have. You know what I mean? They just couldn't think of anything else. When I had gotten

re-arrested in 2009 and later trying to help the other FBI agents that stole me from the one I was working with. Basically, they wanted to give me money to put out in the street. I said, okay. I said, well, what happens when I can't collect it? What am I supposed to do? And they didn't want to answer me. Right, because you already knew the answer to that and they didn't want to make it explicit. Of course. They always, you know, this way they could say, we didn't tell them to do that. I didn't tell them to break anybody's legs. Well, how was he supposed to get the money back? I don't know. I'm not a gangster. I'm an FBI agent. Come on. You think that all the stuff that, what they used to call the Grim Reaper,

you think that he worked with the FBI for all the years he did and all the stuff that he was doing, they turned a blind eye to. They didn't care. I mean, a lot of people, when I was prepping this, they were like, oh, you know, they get paid. And I'm looking at these FBI. You did not do this for the money. The FBI docs show you getting paid like $2,500 here, $3,500 there. And in order to get that, it was like, well, he flew from here to here, redacted.

Yeah. To go to this event redacted. We were probably flying from New York to Florida for some birthday party. You're not profiting off of this, barely. I put out my own money, and they just reimbursed me. I found out later on they were allowed me $100,000 a year. Yeah. So if you think about 18 years, that's a million eight.

Yeah, it's not actually, compared to what you could have made loan sharking in the mafia or whatever, it's nothing. One guy testified against the hell's angels, and he got a million dollars. Yeah. He didn't even work a year. I mean, they gave John Gotti, this guy, his junior. And one of his friends who was a stockbroker, they paid him like, I think, $2,500 a week or $5,000 a week for a whole year just to get information on John Jr. You know, look, it sounds good when you break it down by week, but then when you think,

okay, and now I can't live a normal life for the rest of my life, it doesn't really, the value of that starts to drop pretty quickly. Well, sure. The whole thing is, if I had a chunk of money, like money I was talking about or a lawsuit from the government, it's not like I hit the lotto and I could say, yeah, I'm going to party now. No, I'm going to live kind of quietly, as much seclusive I could get. and not be known at least as I can, you know?

No, of course, that totally makes sense. By the way, there's more from the document. I'm going to read a big chunk here. Go ahead. This is more importantly, source, after being close to members of three LCN, Solocoso Nostra, aka Mafia, so I'll just say LCN. LCS families is able to report on squabbles between members of that family, individuals who are likely to cooperate with the government

and plans by various LCN members to flee the country, hide assets, make plans to usurp power from within their group, and determine various meeting places for individuals. Additional highlights of sources reporting include the conspirators and perpetrators of LCN-related murders, the reason for the murders, and the purpose of other LCN members leaving areas familiar to them

and formerly under their control. Source also identified members of loan sharking operations within the purview of the LCN and induction of new LCN members and the power that each of them has within the ranks of their particular LCN families and or territories. Source was successful in accomplishing this

and relating said information covering portions of the Bonanno, Genovese, and Lucchese, LCN. More specific reporting pursuant to this informant is attached to this electronic communication. So they write somewhat formally, but then they don't in the second half of the document, which is really funny. Like two different writers. So they basically outline all this illegal stuff you're allowed to do, and I have this checklist here that I won't read, but there's all these things where it looks like you initial this or maybe the FBI agent initialed this.

It's like the authorization is limited to 90 days. Here's the conduct on the list I read that you were able to do. But then it says under no circumstances, may you participate in an act of violence. Yeah. Like participate in an act that instructs justice, et cetera, et cetera. It's ridiculous, kind of. This is the funny thing. When I was at my trial, so they said, well, I had a sign off every 30 days or 90 days or whatever.

They would bring the paper to me, you know. So after the 90 days was up, if I didn't get in touch with the guy before the 90 days, was I supposed to stop hanging around the gangsters and not talk to anybody and tell them I went away for a few days? Yeah, it doesn't make sense. Talk to you no more. Yeah, they didn't care. But they cared when I went to trial, of course. Yeah, that was important.

You know what I mean? Yeah. It's like a technical hangup that's like a trap for you almost. It's almost like what you've seen in the devil's advocate, that movie without Pacino when he says, you know, it's the goof of all times. Look, but don't touch. Touch, but don't taste. How are you supposed to do things half-ass?

You can't. It's impossible. So if we're fighting in the club and my two guys are fighting that I'm went over there and somebody's going to jump on their back, I'm supposed to just stand there and watch, I have to jump in and fight with them. Sure. You know what I'm saying? Even if I wasn't a fighter or anything, I would have to do something.

Yeah, it says there's one of the little initials here. It says if the CI, the confidential informant, are asked to participate in any such prohibited conduct or if CI learns of plans to engage in such conduct, CI must immediately report the matter to handling agent. Participating in this conduct could subject CI to full criminal prosecution. So it's like, it doesn't make any sense, right? Hey, we're going to go right now. Like, you better get here right now.

What are we doing? Oh, we're going to go kill so-and-so. Hold on, I got to make a quick phone call. Never going to happen. It's almost like the casinos. You got a chance of will your billions of dollars, but those machines are all rigged against you. Yeah.

It's a fluke if you win. Yeah. So it's the same thing here. They have everything lined up for them so that they always can abolish themselves. It's almost like to give themselves extra immunity like they really need it. Sure. It can't look like they encouraged criminal conduct, otherwise it's entrapment. Correct.

But they have to let you do it while saying, well, we never told him, like you said before, we never told him to go beat that guy up. He just did it. Well, I called you after. Well, you called me after. I couldn't do anything. It was afterwards, right? It's like all, it's all that.

So do you basically that if they do say, yeah, we're going to go down to that pizza place. He's making a bunch of money. We got to get our piece. Do you then have to basically call your FBI handler and go, okay, the plan is we're going to comment pizza and we're going to get a chunk of his revenues? And I'm going to record the whole conversation. Is that okay? Yeah, that's an end of a war.

either all those years. Oh, you didn't? Okay. No, I never had to. Too dangerous, I guess, probably too. It was definitely that and also my memory was really sharp right on. I never gave them any information that was wrong, ever. But if like in other words, we talked about it in the afternoon and we're going to hit them up tomorrow or that night and I went home first, of course, then I would call up the guy, Vini and my handler and say, you know, listen, we've got a problem. We're going to go down there. I don't know what I'm going to have to do, but this is what's up. Yeah. And that would be it. I tell. And then that's enough. He's like, all right, talk to me tomorrow after you're done. That's it. What can he do?

Yeah, I suppose. He can't tell you not to do it because you can't call the boss and go, you know what? I'm not feeling this one. Well, here it is. I spur of the moment. I didn't know what happened. I got called by the captain and, you know, my skipper at that time, another wise guy. And I'm in the back seat. Well, this guy's father got smacked by somebody in the street. Some guy smacked his father. We got in the car and we went for the guy at his house to come home. They had the lighter fluid and they had the match. They wanted me to hold them.

They're going to put light of fluid on. You're going to light him on fire. Thank God the guy never showed. They were like the guy on fire. Holy smokes. Yeah. No pun intended. Yeah. Yeah.

I just got that. Thanks, Joe. Yeah. But yeah, that's the truth. Wow. Thank God the guy never showed up. So you're lucky he never showed up. Yeah, because you would have had to light someone on fire.

Oh my God. How horrible is that? That's horrible. Yeah. Yeah. The guy had the light of fluid days. They don't want you to know, but they want the whole town to know that this is what happens. Anybody touches my family.

Yeah, so they got to make a spectacle of the whole thing. Correct. When it says infiltration of La Cosa Nostra, L. LCN into legitimate businesses. Of course, they're talking about like union rackets and stuff like that. Are there any sort of really famous businesses or name brands that the mafia

has infiltrated that people might be like, wow, really in that business? Well, they had what he called, the Gambino family, I believe they had Frank Purdue or I don't know if it was the Gambino family they had that Purdue chicken. Oh, okay. Back in those days, yeah.

But yeah, there's probably some famous ones that I don't know about, but if they can get their hands in there somehow they would. The stock market, a lot of them are involved in that stuff too, you know? Sure, yeah, insider trading. Card dealerships, they're involved in card dealerships. They own a piece of it.

Huh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Small businesses are probably easier. You can't have mafia involvement in Procter and Gamble. It's like too big of an organization. You know, yeah, sometimes it's like that, yeah. You know what it is? They have to justify the million-dollar home they're living in where they get the money.

So they have to show something. Right, yeah. I mean, that's the age-old story of like, oh, yeah, I'm in the import-export business or waste disposal. And it's like their laundry money. And it's like, oh, wow, there's a lot of money in recycling old televisions suddenly. Yeah, yeah, okay. Right.

They used to buy the laundry mats because it was a cash business. Yeah. And then you get the guy out there clock and how many people go in for six months or a year and then say, well, if you only had these many people, how did you make this much money? Well, what is that? He couldn't do his laundry twice. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. Well, when he went in there, he spent $400 due on his laundry. He had a lot of dirty whites. Yeah. You know? Did you weigh the laundry when he went in, officer? No, I didn't do that. Exactly.

Yeah. So they have to justify it, you know. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Joe Barone. We'll be right back. If you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers, and creators every single week, it's because of my network. And I'm teaching you how to build your network for free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Now, the course is about improving your networking and connections.

skills and inspiring others to develop a personal and professional relationship with you. It'll make you a better networker, a better connector, and a better thinker. That's all at jordanharbinger.com slash course. And by the way, most of the guests on our show, subscribe and contribute to the course. So come join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. Now, back to Joe Barone. I see also that you prevented a murder of a U.S. attorney and a sitting judge, which that is brazen.

So they were going to murder a prosecutor and a judge. without a doubt. Oh my God. They were as good as dead. Now, the judge, his name was Judge Garifis. And I was with him in his court. I actually seen him when I was in the hole doing my time. I actually wrote him a letter, letting him know that I was the guy who was directly responsible for saving his life. Yeah. Because I knew the guy that was going to kill him. Even though he said in the papers, I hear that he wasn't scared. Everybody says that you're not scared until the guy comes there and get you to, you're scared then. Yeah. But I liked the judge. He was a good guy. And I knew when they were going to kill him. I knew the guy that was going to kill him, especially the other guy was the prosecutor for that case too as well.

And I gave them the information. They stopped it. Wow. How do you stop it? You just tell them to be extra careful or you go after the guy that's going to do it somehow and put him in the – you arrest him for some? Well, the guy that was actually going to do it was – this goes back to some of the stuff you were reading. He was going to go and leave to Italy.

He was in hiding. And he was going to go leave to Italy right after he killed him. So I told them about the guy who was going to do it. I told him pretty much everything I knew. And it happened to be that the guy's own cousin with. was actually cooperating too. I didn't even know that. I was working with him and never knew he was cooperating too.

Because they knew exactly where he was hiding. So they went to him, they got him, and they arrested him before he can kill everybody. Wow. All right. I mean, there's so much here. The documents were quite fascinating. A little repetitive in parts, but it wasn't meant to be a novel. So how did it all come crashing down?

You know, how did this all end up, you were informing? They love you. The documents are like, he's the best informant we've ever had. And the payment should reflect that. And then suddenly they're like, now you're under arrest. What the hell? So what happened was the guy that I worked with for 18 years, of course, he retired after 20 years. So his whole career pretty much was built on things that we did.

So we had a nice beer, a couple of slices of pizza and stuff. And he gave me to another guy, Mike Trimbetta, was another agent that I was going to be working with. I should have actually walked away. But I didn't know. I thought I couldn't. I should have now knowing what I know now. So that was in, I think, maybe October, November, somewhere. around that time. But three months after he retired, they arrested me and saying that there was a

murder for hire plot, which was not going to happen. It might have been even six weeks after he retired instead of three months. Oh, wow. When I met him, yeah, so it's like six weeks after he retired. They arrested me saying I was going to kill this guy because there was another informant that I got to hire to kill somebody. He informed on me, which later on got proven at my trial that it was never going to happen. See, I hung around with a few different people. Some of the people I reported to the FBI that were actual gangsters, this guy that wasn't a gangster. He just was like a guy that I would use and keep my street cred up. You know what I mean? Yeah. I'd give him him money here and there. So he was happy to hang around with me. I gave him $1,000 to go look at the job,

gave him an address and everything like that. But of course, nothing was going to come of it. And nothing did. Like I said, if I was going to get all this kind of money, half a million dollars, I don't need this guy to help me kill him. You know what I mean? Sure. Then later on, that's what they did. They used that as a guy's to get me because they knew who I was. They saw my record. Matter of fact, that my trial, they said, well, what did Mr. Barone do to judge asked, Judge Buckwalsh? And he said, well, he gave some license plates and everything. They said, is that his file? The file was this thick. Yeah. So it's like a foot thick. Yeah. Yeah. So they're like, they're trying to say, like, that's a lot of license plates. You know what I mean? In 18 years? Anyway, PES, they only did that

so that they can steal me from Mitram Beta to go with them. That's where the informant shopping comes in. And the only time I ever heard that informant shopping phrase, I think it was in the cover of TimeLife magazine. It's where other agents steals you from another agent because they're more powerful and they want to use you to go with them. But these agents were nothing like the 18 years away I operated.

They came up with shit like you hear on TV that wouldn't know what he would believe. They actually made me make a phone call to a gangster. And he says, I know I'm probably being recorded now and everything like that. I said, I don't never talk on the phone with them. Now you want me to talk to him on the phone. Well, you've got to prove yourself.

I said, the 18 years that I worked is not proof enough? And then I asked them this. I says, I saved the judge's life. Okay. Doesn't that mean anything to you? And you know what he said? This guy, Agent Gay, it was his name. He went, nope.

Just like that to me. If they really thought that I was a bad guy and I was going to kill somebody or whatever the case or hire somebody to kill somebody all the years that I work you beat to tell me those all the crimes and murders I solved all the people that got arrested because of information I gave or whatever you don't think they could have said we don't want to work with you anymore Joe we're going to give you a pass but if we ever hear anything again we're coming down on you with everything sure right yeah is it worth it yeah I mean how much can you put on anybody's life can I say that you Jordan your life's only worth 20 million dollars 50 million dollars you can't probably even put a price on

your own life you know what I wouldn't try now there's no question you just answer to do. Yeah, it's pretty incredible. I mean, they say terminated for unauthorized criminal conduct. That was the murder for higher plot. But yeah, some of the things they were asking you to do in the court documents, they were saying, oh, call this high level, random high level people over the phone and discuss illegal activity, which like, it almost seems like they didn't even think this one through, right? Or it's such a bad plan that either they have no experience and they didn't know what they were doing or they knew you would say no to that because it's the dumbest thing in the world. Like why if you never talk to somebody over the phone and you never talk to them about

illegal activity and one day you're like, hey Jordan boss, what's going on with all that cocaine smuggling we were going to do? And I'm like, what are you talking about? Yeah. No, remember we were going to smuggle a bunch of cocaine from Mexico to the United States? What did they want me to be like, oh yeah, I forgot all about that. Meet me at the docks at midnight. I've got all the cocaine with me. Like it doesn't make any sense. It's so hairbrained that I don't even understand why they would ask you to do that. Like it almost seems like I'm missing a piece of the puzzle. Well, Even when after I got arrested, I was gone for like, I guess, four days. People were actually looking for me.

As a matter of fact, police went to my house. My friends were there and they asked the police, what the hell are you doing here? I mean, I was going, you know what the FBI told me to tell him? Just tell your friends you went away. You met some girl. You went to Atlantic City and had, you know, hung out with her for a few days. I said, I never do that. Yeah.

It's like you hang around. If you got a friend for a couple years, you'll know right away when he's up, down, feeling good, feeling bad. Because you know what I mean? Yeah, none of it makes sense. Yes, yeah. Exactly. You might not be able to say what's wrong, but you know something's off. Same thing with me.

So now I asked them, I said, I never talk to people on the phone. And it's all on the transcripts, how he knew I was talking and the feds were monitoring me. And that exposed me right there. So they let me out for two weeks. And they gave me a piece of paper to show that it was just, they arrested me on, like a suspicion or whatever. And they wanted me to show this around to people, like as if I wasn't cooperative. I said, you killed my whole reputation. It's dead.

Yeah. And then they wanted me to start going to gangsters and stuff. and I was not going to do that. I didn't want to go to and be any people or more because I knew what was going to happen. Yeah, they were going to bungle it. I hired this wise guy attorney, George Santangelo, because I still wanted to try to keep a little something going.

Well, once I hired him, that's it. They arrested me again because he's a wise guy attorney, and they knew I wasn't going to do anything with them anymore. And that was it. They arrested me, and that's it, they charged me. And they threw you in the shoes, so the special housing unit for 18 months. This is like protective custody, right?

What they did was they exposed me in the papers that I was cooperating. They did that purposely so that this way I would give the BOP, the Bureau of Prisons, permission to throw me in the box for my own protection. But that was to torture me. That was to say like, hey, you don't just fuck you. You know what I mean? You fucked us. We're going to get you.

Right. And that's what they did. And in the meantime, I was actually in prison 19 months total, 15 months in the box. But in that 15 months, I almost died. They took me to the hospital for like a few days. for my heart, but I also contracted Mercer's staff. They actually operated on me three times. The first time was no anesthesia.

They made me bite on a stick. They cut the big... What the hell? There, they cut big chunks of mass out of me. What? With no... In the prison and the MDC. That's insane.

That's horrible. That's horrifying. Even... Yeah. I mean, that's like some middle ages shit right there. That doesn't mean... That's crazy. I got the scars to prove it.

And they also, like, they gave me the injections later on, like the other two surgeries that they did in MDC, but the anesthesia wore off right away. They still were cutting it out. What are you going to do? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And we know that this is flimsy because they later give you, the government later

files something called Nola Prasek, which means they don't want to, no longer willing to prosecute, essentially. It's a flimsy case. Yeah, they did that after. See what happens is, I'll be in the law books now. Joe Barone with my attorney, Jose Munez. We're in the law books to win an illegal search and seizure, which is almost impossible. if you know anything about the federal system,

it's almost impossible to win an illegal search and seizure. Well, now I'm in the law books. And once I got that and took the wind out of their sales right there, and then once I took the stand, they never thought that I would. But because I had nothing to tell that was nothing wrong or a lie, a matter of fact, I actually faced the jury when I took the stand. I didn't look at the prosecutor.

I didn't look at the, I wanted the jury to see the truth in my eyes. That's how I was found not guilty. Interestingly, Priparara signs this, right? So you know who Priebara is? It's kind of a well-known guy, especially now. Yeah. He's the one who signed your Nola Praseki, I think. Yeah, he's more political now.

Well, because he knew there was nothing there. Listen, they didn't even have a warrant to arrest me. They called it in. They said, listen, we think we want to get them. And half the reason was the judge even asked them, why did you take him in the house and leave them in there so long? Why don't you take them back to headquarters? They said they did a protective suite that they found a gun and this and that.

Everything was lies. It's unbelievable how you think. think that the FBI, and let's face it, I'll tell you a quick story. It's very brief. Most wise guys, when I was younger, they say, hey, you got to see. I went to court and trial. They put somebody up on a stand. I'd never even met them. And I was like, get out of here. Really? How could they do this? And then, you know, you walk away going, this guy's crazy. Yeah. He must have knew him. You know, because you think the wise guy's lying too a little bit. He's lying, yeah. Sure. But he's not. He's telling the truth. Listen, in this country, you are guilty to prove

innocent. Because if I was innocent to prove and guilty, why does I still stay in jail? Why couldn't I go home? You have to prove yourself innocent. Once you get arrested, it's your job to get yourself out of the papers. It's your job to prove yourself that you didn't do nothing wrong. And that's why I took the stand because nobody knows the story better than me. And that's why I said, if the FBI can do this to a guy like me, how come it says the United States of America against Joseph Barone? Right, yeah, yeah. I'm one guy. Yeah, federal prosecution, man, is extremely scary because they have unlimited resources to prosecute this case and you've got to pay for the defense. And they do not fight fair.

And they do not fight fair. If they could do this to a guy like me, it's worse than betray. I mean, they just ruined my whole entire life for what? What did I do? Right. You're in no man's land now, right? Because your FBI connections like retired slash, you know, they're not backing you anymore. And then, of course, the mob is like, wait, you were a snitch for 18 years.

So. Well, they wouldn't help me. Of course. I mean, it's almost like this. I got a lawsuit against one of my lawyers. It's called the lawyer's fund for protective custody, you know, lawyer client protection. it's a lawyer's fund they call. Okay.

Well, I've been fighting them since 2012, but they don't want to give me. It's $100,000. That's all it is. But here, I even wrote a note, the judge actually wrote the facts and created a false instrument for filing. That's why I'm doing this case pro se,

because no lawyer would ever stick up for me and say that the judge is wrong or, you know, because the judge is actually committing a felony by doing this. He did that so he could support the ruling that he wanted to give. He didn't want a rule of my favor. He's ruling with them. That's why the courts are corrupt, too.

It's almost like you have no choice. That's why the conviction rate for the FBI is 95%. Basically, I was very surprised when my judge actually asked these people, what did he do, and then they showed, like I said, a foot thick of my, of what I did. She looked at it in camera. She took all my records and looked at it. And then when she came out the next time I had to go to court,

she actually treated me a lot differently because she knew that what I was saying was not untrue. Matter of fact, she winked at me when I won my trial. Wow. Yeah, but she went to bad for you, you know, knowing that what you had done for the government, probably. Well, here you go. The AUSA lied about the fact that I helped to save the judge's life. And she pulled them to the sidebar and she was yelling at him in the courtroom. And then he finally had to go to the jury and say, okay, Mr. Barone did give information that did help save a federal judge's life.

Yeah, because she probably said, if you don't want a mistrial, you better correct yourself right now. Because that's, there you go. You're going to perjure yourself in court, you know. The only thing that they have a hard time of is a conspiracy. First of all, conspiracy law is really illegal anyway. Right. That's number one. That's why a jury can't really say if it was guilty or not guilty.

They're hung up on that most of the time. So that's why she even said to the prosecutor, you couldn't find them guilty on the charges. You're going to find them guilty on conspiracy. Give me a break. That's why they say you could indict a ham sandwich. That's how stupid the conspiracy war is. This is the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Joe Barone. We'll be right back.

Thank you so much for listening to the show. Really appreciate the fact that you are here giving me your attention. I love putting these conversations together for you. I know the codes and the URLs from the advertisers can be kind of confusing pain at times, so we put them all in one place. Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals is where you can find them. Please consider supporting those who support us. Now, for the rest of my conversation with Joe Barone.

Look, what are you doing for security these days? You move to an undisclosed location. And I remember early, I was like, oh, I'll mail you a microphone. And I think it was your friend who was doing the initial interface was like, ah, no, we'll just get that ourselves. And I was like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. You probably don't want to send me an address where to reach you. And then I was like, oh, I'll send him to a studio.

It's like, no, we're going to just buy the thing you want us to get off Amazon and go from there. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Well, the FBI, they know where I am. Sure. I wound up getting a ticket or whatever, and they know where I am. And that's what makes it even more scary because at one time they did offer me the witness protection program. Okay.

More than once, actually. But would you take the antidote from the same people who gave you the poison? Yeah, that's it. Yeah. You know what I mean? So I figured, let me take my chances out here. You know, don't get me wrong. Jordan, I'm not going to tell you I'm the toughest guy you've ever going to meet.

I'm not going to. Sure. I can get killed like anybody else and all of that stuff too. And I'm not going to tell you that I'm not a freak or that it's not on my mind or that I still don't wake up with nightmares, which I do. But I figured I'm better off taking my own chances. And whatever's in store for me is what. God wants anyway. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean also when Sammy the Bull went into witness

protection, he came out a few years later because he was like, I'm getting old and I can't see my family and I can't do anything. And it's like, what the hell? And if he can come out and live a normal rest of his life, and there was a lot of hits on him, then you should, in theory, you should be all right too. But yeah, when we, when I go out to dinner with Sammy and other people, it's like, we kind of go to different places and, you know, look at the door and everything. He still does all that. I got to face the door because same reason as you. Some 18-year-old idiot's going to be like, I killed Sammy the bull. I'm tough. And they're going to be like, why the hell you kill a 74-year-old man, you're moron, you know, but that's too late for him. There's some things that you can't get away from. I'll always

face the door. I'll always, you know, I won't fix a flat tire if it's on the side of the street. You know what I mean? Because that's when they come, they just drive by and they shoot you like that. You know what I mean? Even the FBI is still after me. I forgot to tell you this part, too. is a guy down here that I actually talked to on the phone from prison. He's a killer too, but he worked for the FBI as well. Do you realize that they were bugger my phone and his phone and they still tried to get me on the hook with this guy to do bad things? So entrapment, essentially.

Well, it depends what it was, but I read the documents. So, yeah, yeah. These people never let you go. You think the, like I told you about my great uncle there who got shot later on to Bobby 20 years later, these people never let me go. If I was to go to court today, if they didn't have this thing called summary, judgment, they didn't knock me out of court. I went to trial and I told the people at the jury,

let them make up their minds what they want to do with my life, because I'll tell them this truth like I'm telling you, and I told them at my first trial. They do not want you to be successful. The same reason why the lawyers fund, they called up the prosecutors, all these people, the FBI, because they were all worked together lawyers. They said, don't pay that guy. And that's what they're doing. They don't want to give me $100,000. That's all it is. It ain't a lot of money. But to me, it's a lot of money right now. But they do it to get, they all work hand in hand. They're all part of the same system. And to be honest with you, it's all corrupt. You fight till you fight till you got nothing left. And thank God I'm healthy enough and I'm still fight. So you don't have any like utility bills in

your name and phone bills and all and stuff. What about, pardon me if you can't answer this, just tell me, but like what about seeing your family? Do they just meet you somewhere neutral? My family doesn't want to talk to me. No, they're afraid. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Yes. They're afraid. Matter of fact, when I first got a pinch, one of my cousins reached out to me on email. I guess you heard the story and he reached out to me to my then wife on her email and then his family told him, don't talk to him. He's my second cousin. Wow. Jeez. And do you use like VPN software to mask your internet addresses and stuff like that on your phone and all that stuff or you don't worry about that? Yeah, only so much I could do. You know what I mean? Yeah. Certain things I don't, you know, I'm not too tech savvy. I'm just, you know, I'm just, just going by the only thing I know. Okay. I guess if you're not that worried about that particular thing, I mean, it's, I'm after this, by the way, I'm just going to be, for anyone listening, I'm going to purge all the records that I have and all the servers that I use to connect to you just so that your internet address, your IP address is not saved somewhere, cashed somewhere.

Thank you. Well, that's for your protection and also for mine, because if somebody's like, we want to see your computer, I'm like, hey, I already scrambled all that stuff five minutes after the interview because I didn't want to knock on my door either. If you had to do this all over again, what would you do differently? Would you leave the mob once your father was killed? Or would you maybe just go work at the post office, like you said? Or what would you change? It's kind of like in one way I asked myself a lot of times

because I did save a lot of lives. But is it really my job to save a life? I don't know. You know, maybe I was put there for a reason. Maybe I wasn't. But if I thought about it hard, like you're asking me, I would have just took my time and took my chances the way I was living and that was it.

If I would have joined the post office, I wouldn't have probably never even have been arrested the first time. Well, yeah, for what? I mean... I didn't have had a loan shark money for money and stuff because I never worked, really. I mean, the few jobs that I had were nothing. But a serious job, like, and I do call it serious, I think the post office is a good entity. Yeah, it's a real career, of course.

Exactly. I would have just did that and just been happy and, you know, get married and, you know, whatever. Yeah. Live a normal life. Did you feel like you even had a choice but to join the mob, given that your dad was in it when you were born and your mom came from there? as well. Did you even have a choice? I might have had some choice, but you always want to please your father for some reason. You always want to, I don't understand it. Like it's, my mother would tell

me if I went to a wedding or something I got dressed up. I always go to see my mother before I went to the wedding. And she'd give me the big smile. I thought I looked handsome. Ooh, you look good. I went there thinking I was better looking than the groom and everybody that was there. If my father would have gave me the recognition that I wanted or seek like everybody else would. So the few things that I did, yeah, but he was disappointed in me to a lot of things too. You know, you never could really please him, you know? Sure. Well, yeah, look, that makes sense. You're always looking to try and please your parents when yet, even though you followed him into the life, it still wasn't enough. I mean, it's not like you went and applied, right? You didn't seek this out. You were born into it.

No. You didn't have much of a say in the matter. 20-20 hindsight you had a say in the matter. But now, like back then, it's like, what do you mean you're not going to do this? I'm setting the table for you. Like, you got it easy. You don't even have to do all the BS to get in. I'm setting you up already. And, you know, everyone you knew and loved was connected to organized crime. And I'm highlighting that because a lot of people are going to go, ah, so what, they're going to kill some mobster guy who, you know, he's probably scumbagg, he went and killed people. But it's very different when you think about the choices that you think you have at a given time.

You know, when I do work in prisons, people go, man, you know, these guys, when your father's killed by somebody when you're eight years old, your mom has four other kids and can't support you, sends you to live with a cousin and the cousins in a gang and you're eight, nine, and then they kill your cousin and they say they're going to come after you. of course you get a gun when you're 12. Of course you may be go and get them first. It's different than a kid who grows up in the suburbs like me

with a mom as a teacher and a dad is an auto worker and then I get into selling drugs. That's because I would do that because I was a little shit, not because I had no other choice, right? Then it's a different set of circumstances. It's a huge difference. I mean, look, the bottom line is you do what you can when you're, almost everybody lives in the moment.

Nobody's trying to project, like somebody might say, oh, what are you going to do in 10 years from now? I don't know. Who's thinking 10 years ahead? Especially young people. Exactly. If I was smart, I would have invested the money I had and I would have been okay right now.

Yeah. I was living for a day by day and didn't know if I was going to make it from the next day to the next day. Yeah. You never know what's going to happen to you. Yeah. So, you know, it's a little hard.

It's nice if you had, like, some people that are multi-millionaires and their family had something aside for them later on. Sure. Look, you got movie stars that are paying for their kids to get educations. They never even worked for. Yeah. So, I mean, the world is a very small place, and not everybody is what they always seem, you know?

Yeah, look, I bring this up not to excuse criminal behavior, but to sort of illustrate the idea that some people make choices that we would also make if we were in the same set of circumstances. This is really easy for us to say, why? He was a criminal and he did that. Well, okay, but why? You know, you always have to zoom out on the timeline to look at the real cause of something. It's usually not as cut and dry as it might seem. What's the old saying? Walk a mile in my shoes first before you're able to judge me. That's right. That's right. I don't know what life you had. I've seen some things you've done.

You've been through some things yourself as well. How could I tell you how to grieve for somebody or how long you're supposed to deal with it? It's not up to me. It's up to the individual. And everybody's different. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. Like I said, I'm going to take some quick security measures to make sure that your IP address and things like that aren't stored on any of the servers we're using to make the recording.

Thanks. But yeah, I appreciate the candor and appreciate you reaching out. You know, like I said, I thought it was a prank when I first got the email because I was like, oh, yeah, some gangster who's never talked to anybody he wants to come and talk on the Jordan Harbinger Show first. Like, what do you think I am? But here we are. I want to say thank you to you too. First of all, and I do have a website, joebarone. That people can go on to check that out as well.

Yeah, we'll link to that in the show notes. Okay, that's cool. Yeah. And if you ever need me for anything, too, George, don't ever hesitate to get in touch with me or my people or anything. I'll help you out whatever you need questions or something you thought about later on or something else you're doing with somebody else and maybe you want to confirm.

You know, that's helpful because sometimes I do get people who say, oh, you should have this guy on, he's a gangster, and then I'll ask Sammy or something, and they're like, I've never heard of this guy, but that doesn't mean he's fake, but then they'll be like, wait, he said this was this and this was this,

that doesn't, that's wrong. That's right. He would know that. He would know that is not right. Or like, he would know the name of the 116th Street Boys if he really lived, in that neighborhood.

Like everyone's heard of them or something like that. Yeah. You know, and there's all these things like that. Oh, I shot them 12 times with my magnum revolver

and people are like, a revolver that holds 12 shots. What are you talking about? You know, so I'm like, whoops. Yeah, there's a lot of,

you know, everybody wants a little fame or a little notoriety, you know what I mean? But everything I've told you today and even if there's anything else, I could always back up with everything that I have,

so it's not a problem. Well, look, I've seen enough FBI documents that you'd, there's no way they're fake. I mean, that would be a hell of a lot of work for you to do. Yeah, exactly.

This show is not worth that amount of effort to fake all those FBI documents. I'll tell you that. That's for damn sure. Exactly. So, hey, I appreciate it, man. Well, I'm here at your disposal because, like I said, you did this for me, and it's my way of saying thanks, and if I could help you in anything during the future, just let me know.

I've got some thoughts on this episode, but before I get into that, Anthony Luciano Romandi was born into the world of organized crime, spent much of his life as a mob enforcer and played a part in heists and assassinations, allegedly. Here's a preview of my conversation with a former Italian mob enforcer. So I'm in the club and I'm putting some of the envelopes together. This guy walks in. So I got up, I said, excuse me, can I help you?

He said, I want to talk, he pulled out of gun. I still got the first scar right over here. This guy beat me so bad. I don't even know how I made it back downtown. I was crawling out of the place. Literally, I was crawling out of the place. And I remember him saying, you come back here, your mother's going to have to have a close coffin for you.

I'm going to blow your fucking head off. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. P.S., my cousin takes me up from the hospital about five, six days later. They told me who this guy was. And when they seen Joey D, we went to the basement, all weapons.

His family were gun runners. I mean, if you wanted to be 52 bomb, he'll tell you, I'll get for you in three days. He'll have her at your doorstep. I mean, they have bazookas, they had hangar. I mean, they had stuff like you never saw it. He goes to me, pick out something. I take them a cousin's car.

drive for 3rd Avenue and I park right in front of the place there's parking space I got the gun on my waistband I got to go in and duke you the bartender's street because what are you doing here I just don't worry about it I said don't worry about it says I want to talk to him I figured I would really talk to me when I walked through and I turned around I seen him he had his back to me and he was talking to this girl cabin school I never forget camera the music goes down and I hear her tell him she says Anthony's behind you for whatever the reason before she said I had the gun in my hand this guy could What's up? What did I tell you, you dirty, motherfucker? Your mother's going to have a close coffee. I'm going to blow you a fucking hell.

He opens his jacket and I seen the gun in his waistmate. He puts his hand on it. I just picked up my hand like this and emptied the whole clip into him. Give him a drink. He gives me a 7-7. Look at this kid. He goes, he just kills somebody. He's sitting there kill me as a cucumber. For more with former Italian mob enforcer Anthony Riemondi, including the many creative ways mobsters have gotten rid of bodies over the years. Check out episode 425 on the Jordan Harbinger show. This was an interesting one to prep, not just to conduct. There was a lot of FBI forms, court documents, affidavits, wiretap transcripts, etc. Not the usual audiobook handed to me on a

silver platter. And once again, as I said during the show, if you're looking for Joe Barone for any reason, just be aware. I really don't know where he is. All the information I had on him is scrambled and deleted and the internet connection. Even the servers I used, I contacted the people there for my protection. So I cannot help you locate him. in any way, even if I really, really wanted to. So don't come knocking on my door. You got a bit of a special announcement as well. If you know anyone who's an experienced cybersecurity professional or a very capable computer or IT professional, and again, I mean somebody, not the guy who plugged in your computer and turned it on and updated windows for you,

but a legit expert. If you know someone like that and they want to help Ukraine, there are some groups out there who may be interesting to you. I would encourage you to take a look and do some research. I may be able to help guide you here a bit as well. The best group, they're helping in the cyber defense arena. This stuff is always nonviolent. You're not going to shut down water systems or electricity or critical infrastructure or something horrible that harms people,

or especially civilians. You're going to be making invasion logistics slower and more difficult. And I am not affiliated with any particular group. I'm simply offering some advice here. A lot of you have been asking me about this. In a group such as this, you would be reverse engineering new malware,

new threats, working on identifying unpatched and vulnerable systems. in Ukraine identifying supply chain and organization and fixing problems like that and keeping bad guys out of stuff. Again, happy to help guide you if you're rooting for the underdog and a lot of these groups are just trying

to buy some time for Ukraine. It's a humanitarian effort. Again, I'm just trying to spread the word like any other journalist and trying to save the lives of people on the ground or at least make things a little bit easier for them. Of course, I wouldn't want you to do anything illegal

and like I said last time, hey, if there's one thing you know about me, I just, I'm on the straight and narrow, straight shooter. I'm coloring inside the lines, but we're in a middle of a crisis here, and there's people who really need our help. Big thank you to Joe Barone. Links to all things Joe will be in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com. Please use our website links for things like books if you buy them from guests on the show that help support us. Transcripts in the show notes, videos on YouTube, advertisers, deals, discount codes, all in one place at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals.

I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram, or you can always connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm teaching you how to expand your network using the same software systems and tiny habits that I use. That's our six-minute networking course. The course is free. It's over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. I'm teaching you how to dig that well before you get thirsty. Most of the guests on the show subscribe and contribute to the course. Come join us. You'll be in smart company. This show is created in association with Podcast 1. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogartie, Milio Campo, Ian Baird, Josh Ballard, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others.

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