The Megyn Kelly Show - The Mafia Code, Turning on the Mob, and Life After Prison, with "Sammy the Bull" Gravano | Ep. 352

Episode Date: July 7, 2022

Megyn Kelly is joined by "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, host of the "Our Thing" podcast and former Gambino family mobster, to talk about why he turned on the mafia, how he survived hits on his life, life growing up, how he got involved with the mafia and Gambino crime family, the feeling he had after making his first kill, his connection to God but not religion, the Mafia "code" (and breaking it), family and parenting, the power that came from his mafia role, the cultural cache of "The Godfather," the breaking news of James Caan's death, Gravano on Caan's and Sinatra's associations with the mob, what witness protection was like, how Sammy the Bull got involved with social media and YouTube, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. I'm Megyn Kelly. We have a fascinating program for you today. One filled with crime, murder, money, and betrayal. Today we're talking to one of the most infamous mobsters in American history, Salvatore Gravano, otherwise known as Sammy the Bull. To understand his story, we have to take a step back in time to the early 1970s when the Godfather hit the big screen and changed the perception of the mafia in America. You spend time with your family? Sure I do. Good.

Because a man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man. You look terrible. I want you to eat. I want you to rest well, and a month from now, this Hollywood big shot's gonna give you what you want. It's too late.

They start shooting in a week. I'm gonna to make them an offer he can't refuse. At about that same time, Gravano, a kid who grew up without mob connections in his family, slowly eased into a Cosa Nostra and made his first kill. Over the course of the next two decades, Sammy the Bull would rise up the ranks of New York's notorious Gambino crime family, raking in millions upon millions of dollars and repeatedly killing. He has admitted to 19 murders in all, including his own brother-in-law, his best friend, and the Gambino family mob boss, Paul Castellano, in 1985. Deadly messages from organized crime to organized crime and the rest of society.

The murder of Gambino crime family boss Paul Castellano yesterday, or the 1979 assassination of Cosa Nostradon, Carmine Galante. Unsolved very public executions by an underworld that plays by their own rules and their own code of justice. The Castellano murder, particularly brazen and defiant, since Castellano was gunned down a day before, he was to resume standing trial for auto theft and murder. Organized crime had served up its own sentence. By the late 1980s, the new Don, John Gotti,

had named Sammy the Bull his right-hand man. Gotti himself was a ruthless mobster and media darling who dressed in expensive suits and enjoyed the finer things in life, earning him the nickname the Dapper Don. He also repeatedly escaped conviction with, as it would turn out, Sammy's help, which we'll get to, earning him another nickname, the Teflon Don. Remember how they use that about Donald Trump? Well, it was first about John Gotti. But in 1991, everything changed. John Gotti and Sammy the Bull were behind bars facing a slew of charges when Sammy decided

to flip and do the unthinkable, cooperate with the feds. At the time, he was the highest-ranking gangster to break his blood oath, earning him the ire of mob aficionados who dubbed him a rat. Not since Joe Valachi in the 60s has such a high-ranking member of the mob turned traitor. Sammy the Bull Gravano now joins the ranks of those who have broken the cardinal rule of the mafia,

OMERTA, the ranks of those who have broken the cardinal rule of the mafia. Omerta, the code of silence. Sammy's testimony helped send John Gotti away for good. The Teflon is gone. The Don is covered with Velcro and every charge in the indictment stuck. And resulted in dozens of other mobsters going to prison as well. One top FBI agent says that testimony by Sammy led to the demise of organized crime in New York. Since then, there have been numerous books and movies made about the Gambino crime family. And while some may still consider Sammy a, quote, rat, hundreds of thousands of people are curious fans of his. Subscribing to his podcast launched right around the time our own did called Our Thing, which is what Cosa Nostra means. In fact, his YouTube channel alone has more than 77 million views. Sammy the Bull Gravano, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here.

Thank you. It's a pleasure. So let me start with this. After that background, how are you still upright? How are you still walking around on two feet? Well, the mafia changed quite a bit. It doesn't do certain things. And people understand the story, what happened. That word rat, I mean, they use that. They do that all the time. But in my case, I was offered that position to cooperate a bunch of times.

I was arrested all my life. I never cooperated. I was facing life in a number of different cases. But when it came to John Gotti, I was arrested in 1991 with him. And after 11 months, the worst 11 months I've ever done in prison, I've been in prison 22 years of my life. But he wanted me to take the weight so he can go free. He was going to back up the tapes that the government had.

And most of those tapes were all lies about me killing union people and taking over or killing my partners and taking over. None of that was true. But he thought that he would have the lawyers back up those tapes and turn around in a way to say, well, you hear John complaining about him, he would be set free and I would go to prison. He had the balls to actually tell me this to my face. And that's when I walked away from him, the mafia, and whatever would happen to prison. He had the balls to actually tell me this to my face. And that's when I walked away from him, the mafia and whatever would happen, what happened? I wasn't afraid of it. Now, well, and let me just jump in because we'll get to that in detail in just a bit. But

and I and what you're basically saying is that you you felt he was going to sell you out up the river and you sold him up the river first. But is that why you felt he was going to sell you out up the river and you sold him up the river first. But is that why you don't think anybody has tried to seek retribution? I mean, I understand there's been at least one attempt on your life since your testimony against him, allegedly by a family member of John Gotti's. But is that it? Because you did witness protection. You did all that. I can't imagine nobody else has tried to come get you. Well, there was a team that came down when John Gotti was away. Peter Gotti, his brother, became the boss. He said he put together a team to come down and kill me. They found me. They were afraid to even come near me.

And they were. They devised all kinds of plans. A bomb. Then this thing that spins around and shoots shotgun shells. And that didn't work. Nothing worked. And I got arrested again

in 2000. February of 2000. And it didn't get done. When I got arrested, I had in my apartment, I had five guns, four guns planted in different places, in my kitchen, in my bathroom, my living room. I expected them to come down. And I had one on me all the time. I was actually waiting for it to happen. And they worked with me.

These were people, some people were my crew. One of them was my brother-in-law, Eddie Garofalo. And they knew me and they knew I wouldn't run from it. And they were cowards. They didn't make the move. They were afraid to make the move. And once I went in prison again, that part of it was over. So there was an attempt.

Excuse me. They found me, but it didn't work out for them. It worked out for me. As I said, you're doing a podcast now and so on. Are you at all in hiding? I mean, is it something that do you need to keep your whereabouts unknown? No, I think the whole country knows where I am. I'm not in hiding. Listen, I went into the witness protection program. Uh, I didn't want to go into the program. I had money. I didn't want to go in, but I did only five years on my first hit, my first pinch. And the government begged me to

go in that they would look terrible if I refused and didn't go in. And we had meetings and they said, you know, you got a great sentence. Give us something. Come into the program. I agreed to go into the program for a year. I did eight months in the program. Something came up. A woman recognized me, and they wanted me to start over again. I said, no, I'm not starting over again. I promised a year.

I'll give you a year. There's four more months. It didn't. They wanted to start over. And I quit and walked away. I went to Phoenixenix where my family was and i stayed there for about another four and a half years before i got busted again um since i got out i got out in 2017. uh this all started by wife my daughter did a book i did a book when i got out in 96. yeah um and she wanted to do a book we couldn't sell the book uh and then somebody came to her about a podcast and she said would

you work for me and because we're divorced and give me the right to use you to do a podcast. And I said, of course, I'll help you. And that's how I started. A year after that, or maybe a little bit more than a year, two years after that, my son put me on Facebook. A little while after that, he put me on YouTube. Unbeknownst to me. I didn't even know it. My phone, I was getting all kinds of calls.

And my son left one day and said, Dad, I put you on Facebook. I put you on YouTube. And that's what the calls were about. So I just stayed on that. And I continued the podcast on that. And it grew to big numbers. I'm almost at a half a million subscribers and I got 77, 78 million views. And now I'm doing a whole bunch of other things.

And a lot of I was reading and preparing for this. A lot of men and women in law enforcement, in particular FBI agents, watch and listen to the podcast and the YouTube show because they say it's fascinating. They've never been able to get this sort of an insight into a real life mobsters thinking. And you talk openly about the crimes that were committed by yourself, by others. A lot of these guys who were covering you or on you back then are listening, thinking, oh, my God, this is helping me put things together. So it's just the whole all around you. Obviously, you have immunity now for those crimes, given the deal you struck with the government. But it's a fascinating thing to think about the FBI agents who once tracked you and and guys you worked with now listening to you and are fans of the show. I mean, actually fans of the show. So wait, let me let me pause you there. And let's go back. Let's start with you as a kid, because as I mentioned in the intro, you were not raised in a family where your dad was in the mob and your granddad was in the mob. This was not foretold. As I understand it, your dad was fairly successful. You had a nice family and it wasn and you had some difficulties as a child,

but it wasn't related to anything in terms of crime or the mob. No, my mother and father were totally legitimate. My mother was a seamstress. My father was a painter. Back then they used to use lead in paint, got lead poisoning, had to stay away from painting. My mother got an offer from a Jewish contractor. She would go and make the clothes, women's clothes. And the guy told her, Katie, you're great. Open up a little factory and I'll get you work. If you could produce the quality of work that you do, we'll give you our work and that's exactly what she did

my father jumped in with her to help her and they worked together they had a dress factory and uh that's what they did i had two sisters um neither one of them had anything to do with the mafia boyfriends or anything one of my brother-in-laws was an engineer uh the other brother-in-law was uh a plumbing contractor later on he came in the mafia with me he became a made member but before that before i was in the mafia i had no relation to the mafia whatsoever but in bensonhurst brooklyn it was saturated with the mafia so it was on every street corner it was around as a kid growing up i was dyslexic i didn't do good in school i got left back in the fourth grade the seventh grade i had nothing my problems in school um i got thrown out i never got past the eighth grade. And I was in a gang. And we

stayed away from the mafia. We knew who they were. We knew they were dangerous. So we stayed away from them. It was us against the world. And we didn't want nothing to do with the mafia. And at 19 years old, I got drafted. And I went into the military during the Vietnam War. I spent two years there. And when you were drafted, you got two years. If you join, you got to do three. I did till I came out and went right back into a gang. Can I just ask you about that? Why? Why? Because I would think, I would like to think that a couple of years in the army would instill a moral code in you that would give you some pause about going back into a life of crime. Well, it wasn't into a life of crime. It was back into being in the gang. I mean, that's what I know. The only thing I know, I was taught how to kill and how to do things in the military.

And I would kill people to protect the country. They gave us that bullshit that it was communism was coming here. They're going to rape your mother, your sisters. And so I was brainwashed a little bit by the government. I mean, I never met a bad Vietnamese person. The only people I know who vietnamese uh do my nails or my toenails and they just seem to be nice people i've never met vietnamese people in prison so maybe they're good crooks so i think the whole thing was so i went right back into the

into uh a gang but unbeknownst to me, while the two years I was gone, most of my friends hooked up with different mafia families and they were hooked up with somebody. One of my friends, Tommy Spiro, said, my uncle wants to talk to you. His name was Shorty Spiro. He was in a notorious crew, Carmine Persico. There was a war going on at that time between the Gallows and the Profaci.

And there was different sides. The war stopped for a while. So when I got hooked up with them, there was no war going on. I knew sooner or later they'd kill people and I would be called. That's where I did my first murder. It's a long story. I would tell you if you want to hear it, but I did my first piece of work there. And then Shorty, after that, had told me, Sammy, go get your clothes. Joe Gallo

had come out of, crazy Joe Gallo came out of prison. He said, go get your clothes. We're going to hit the mattresses. I didn't even know what that meant back then. It wasn't a million movies. And he said, they're a pack of wolves. We're a pack of wolves. We're going to live together.

If you have a girlfriend, get rid of her. If you got a job, stop. You're going to live with us 24 you have a girlfriend, get rid of her. If you got a job, stop. You're going to live with us 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And we're going to hunt them. They're going to hunt us. And that's what you have to do from this point on. And that's the beginnings of your time in organized crime. That wasn't just the gang.

That was one of the five New York crime families. Yes. It became the Colombo. It was a Profaci family. Profaci died and they made Joe Colombo the boss. So when I got in, Joe Colombo was the boss. My first hit was ordered from Joe Colombo to Carmine Persico to Shorty to me. And it was somebody in our crew who was plotting to kill Shorty and me. And, um, or his wife was having an affair with Shorty's nephew. And, uh, he devised a plot to kill Shorty and me to cause confusion. A couple of months later, six months later, he would kill Tommy Spiro. And he went to somebody, Frankie, who was in the crew and asked for his help.

Frankie, instead of helping him, went to Shorty and told him about the plot. That's how the whole thing happened. Now, just to take a step back, you mentioned you had dyslexia as a kid and you didn't make it past the eighth grade. And I know that there were some bullies in your life as well. And one of those incidents led to your nickname, Sammy the Bull. They tried to steal your bike. You didn't let it go peacefully. You were scrappy.

And these mobsters saw you fighting and said, look at this kid. And they nicknamed you Sammy the Bull. Now, jumping forward now to this point, you may have stood up to bullies, but you didn't go to Vietnam when you were serving in 1964. So you hadn't killed anybody, whether in a military uniform or otherwise at this point. So when they say to you, you're going to kill this guy. Is it, you know, is it, is it scary? Is it frightening? Is it daunting or is it all business at that point, even as a young man at this point? Well, it was scary. I had a couple of incidents that were scary that I was going to would have used the gun. Uh, I never did. But, um, when that came, I knew it would come sooner or later. So the story, I heard the story,

what it was. I thought I was being bullshitted a little bit, you know, that the guy wanted to kill me. I couldn't understand why he wanted to kill me. I had nothing to do with his wife and affair, but he had this stupid little plot, like I just said. And when they gave me the order, they said, who do you want to come with you? And I said, your nephew, Tommy Spiro. He created this monster. And then I wanted the guy, Frankie, because I couldn't understand why he didn't tell me. And I wanted to be able to talk to him about that so they put those two people on the hit with me and uh you know I watched a

movie one time and it's a person who was about to kill and he was sweating and scared and all of this stuff I thought that's what happens to you before you commit this kind of a crime because I never thought about killing people. But I went through with it. We did it. One night, we went out to after-hour clubs. We got in the car about 4 o'clock in the morning, and as we drove away,

I shot him in the back of the head twice. You were in the back of the car. I was in the back seat. Where was he? He was in the front seat, the passenger seat. And, um, when we went to a spot, we went out of the neighborhood, we pulled into a nice community. It was miles away from Brooklyn. Rockaway. They had nice homes with lawns and it was quiet.

We drove over there. I took them. I picked them up out of the car and I put them on the street, the sidewalk. I got in the car. I opened the window. I put the on the street, the sidewalk. I got in the car. I opened the window. I put the gun out and I shot him three more times.

We got back. We went to the neighborhood. We cleaned the car, got rid of the gun. And we were living together, a bunch of guys. I went to take a shower. I stayed in the shower quite a long time. The water running on me. And I was waiting for this thing to happen, being nervous and sweating.

And it didn't happen. Nothing happened. And I went to bed. I slept like a baby. I got up the next morning. There was confusion. Some of the young girls who still with us. Oh my God, they killed Joe Colucci and Rockaway. And I remember asking one of the girls, did they know who did it?

Did they find out who did it? She said, no, it wasn't. It's in the papers already, but it's not in the papers. I don't know if they caught the people or what. And I remember we all went to the corner where we stay. And I had like an out-of-body experience that I felt like I was above somewhere, looking down and listening to all of them talking. And I felt absolutely nothing.

And then Shorty came with his nephew, Tommy Sparrow. And I came back to reality and they said, Carmine Persico wants to talk to you. So we got in the car and we went down there. But that was the then boss. Excuse me? Carmine Persico at that point was that family's boss? No, he was a captain, but a very, very powerful captain. He was leading the war against the gallows. And so I went down and met with him. I was told not to talk. I didn't talk. Tommy Spearer explained the whole situation, what happened in detail. He grabbed me, hugged me,

kissed me on the cheek, and he told me, great job. So, and I didn't feel anything. I went to the funeral, and I didn't feel any remorse. I didn't feel anything, and I thought that was peculiar. I thought either something's wrong with me or I'm just a stone cold killer, and I'm going to fit in the mafia perfectly, and I guess what I became, not a stone cold killer. I was good at what I did. I was good at what I did in a lot of ways in construction, running unions,

but I was also becoming a professional head guy. Had you ever been a man of faith prior to that? Had you ever gone to church? Did you have to join their religion and they allow that in prison, in the federal prisons. So I joined them. I went in to get tobacco that you weren't allowed to smoke from 2004. I went in, really wanted to smoke

and steal some tobacco and bring it to myself. But I got to understand their religion, the way they believe in God. I also, at one point, a friend of mine grabbed me and said, Sammy, you're not an Indian. We do Wicca. Why don't you join our group? And I did. I joined their group as well. So I started to understand different religions and everybody seems to believe in God. They're just a path. What path do you want to take to get to God? Indians have it, Wicca has it, Muslims have it, Jews have it, Catholics have it, Christians have it. It's just a path. And I believe most of them- Was there a moment back then, you know, when you're

talking about being in the shower and no remorse, I wonder Was there a moment back then, you know, when you're talking about being in the shower and no remorse, I wonder whether there was any moment of, no matter what I feel, I recognize I've crossed over, I've done something, I've sinned in the most profound way possible and at some point there will be a price to pay. No, no, I don't look at it that way. I never felt that way. I still don't think that way. I think that God makes people, creates people, and he creates lions and he creates lambs. I think I'm a lion.

And whatever you have to pay, if you have to pay anything, why would he create a lion? If there was a God and he was interested in what was going on, why do little kids get cancer and die? Why do little kids get raped? Why do so many things happen? And talking about religions, I mean, I was a Catholic, brought up that way, baptized, communion, confirmation, until I found out what priests do.

And I had no intention of committing my crimes to talk to him. I was asked that once by a priest, and I told him, yeah, you want me to tell you what I do? Tell me what you do, and then I'll talk to you about what I do. So I don't believe in religion. I believe in God, but I think religion is bullshit. I think it's, they, it's all about money. It's all about different things. They commit evil things to good people. So I, you know, I'm away from religions. I respected the Indian religion, the Wicca religion. It stunned me. It's the only religion that they put a woman above God, the goddess of the moon, the water and the earth. God is the God of the forests and the mountains.

Why do they put, I asked, a woman above God? Because she creates life. She needs a man's seed, but she, in her womb, takes care of life and then gives birth and creates life. I understand that I'm somebody with common sense. If you make sense to me in a certain way, I understand it. So I understood that religion. Now, a lot of people will not be happy with me saying this, but they, of course it's a, it's a, they call it a pagan religion. They call it all kinds of things. It was before the Christianity even.

And I understand that part about a woman giving birth and creating life. Well, I've read that unlike some in the mob, you were a family man in the midst of all this. You went home and had dinner with your wife and your two kids each night. Your daughter, Karen, has talked about that publicly many times. And so there has been this respect for your family members, for your wife, for your daughter, in a way that even the people who were in the mob said, for example, John Gotti would go out carousing with other women after hours and you would go home to your family. That piece of that piece of your commitment of your life, you know, you honored despite what was happening on the other front. And I know that you don't see these as real as murders, you know, in the same way a soldier doesn't commit a murder when he kills somebody. This is how an FBI agent explained it in one public interview, that a soldier would not be

murdering. You don't see your kills as murders because there was a code behind them because you say the people you killed had sort of agreed to live by this code and die by this code. And on that note, that heavy note, let me pause it, okay, because I want to get into I was reading, not from an FBI agent. It was from Terrence Winter, who the audience may know as the executive producer of The Sopranos. And he also did Boardwalk Empire. And he was he took part in a documentary about you and said the following. Many mobsters consider what they do almost military in nature. They consider themselves soldiers.

So they rationalize a lot of really bad behavior. You wouldn't think about calling a soldier at war a murderer. So therefore, if they're a soldier and they're at war, they're not murderers either. They're just doing their job. Does that capture the mentality? I believe so. A hundred percent. You know, I watched a program one time during World War II, we dropped an atom bomb, not atomic bomb. And it killed 100,000 people, men, women, and children in a split second. And they were patting him on the back that he did a great job. The war was ended early because of those things. And if I was talking to the guy, I would say, listen, you did a great job.

Great military guy. You fought for the country. You did what you were supposed to do. How do you feel now knowing you just killed 100,000 people, men, women, and children? Does that bother you at all? And I'm sure he would tell me no. Because he was fighting for the country. He was fighting for what he thought was right. In the mafia, it's part of, it's not a gang no more. It's part of my heritage. It came from Italy, Sicily. It started in Sicily and it came to this country. So it's part of my heritage. So it's not just a gang. A gang is, you know, killing in a gang or doing certain things for a drug spot is a different thing.

But this is a soldier. It was explained to me. I was involved in the Johnny Keys hit was a major, major hit. And it was he was a guy who had 50 hits under his belt and me and him were gonna go at each other and it was explained to me that we were like two samurais now i understand a samurai is a different thing than us. They're actually more violent than us. But I really felt that way, that we were two samurais who met on the battlefield. Let me ask you a couple of follow-ups on that. So obviously when we dropped the bomb at the end of World War II, they estimated

that we saved somewhere upwards of 25, 30 million lives by putting an end of World War II, they estimated that we saved somewhere upwards of 25, 30 million lives by putting an end to World War II when the Japanese would not surrender. And so I'm not defending the killing of 100,000 people exactly, but in a way I am because it was the right decision. It saved far more lives than it actually cost. But in the mafia, and I can get it if the guy was going to kill you. Let me answer your question. Let me answer that question. The people who say that it saved 25 to 30 million lives was who? The government? Of course, they're going to say that. I mean, independent analysts who have taken a look at this ad nauseam since the end of World War II will tell you that the the lives saved far, far outnumbered the lives cost doesn't make it not

controversial. But you can't talk about it without adding that perspective. But I mean, the thing about the mafia, and I can understand if a guy was going to kill you, I mean, even the law recognizes maybe not exactly the way that you would do it, but what recognizes the right to self-defense. But, you know, it seems like it was a whole criminal justice system that you guys agreed to where, you know, you you sleep with the guy's wife. You could get whacked. You you interfere with my business. You could get whacked. It basically is just whatever the head of the crime family wants. And the guy doesn't show up like a samurai face to face in a meeting where you fight it out to the death. He just gets in the car with you. He gets

whacked in the back of the head. So I'm interested in the moral, you know, the way you thought about those kinds of differences morally. Well, morally, I don't know if it's it to me, if it makes a difference, if you kill somebody on a battlefield or you kill somebody in the car, or whether you use a gun or whether you use a knife or whether you use poison, that is that you just took a life. It doesn't matter how you take it. You can beat somebody to death. You could fight, You could win a fight. You can go overboard and just beat this person to death from everybody because there's a shooting. I mean, if there's not a shooting, you want to take guns away from everybody, you get some sicko. So he goes in with a bomb and he blows half the school up and he kills more people actually

than he using a gun. Does that make you happy that you didn't have a gun? So I don't think the means of what you use is that important. You're taking a life, whatever it is, whatever your reason is, whatever the senses look at later on, you're taking a life, whether it's on a battlefield, in the street, no matter how you do it or what you do you're taking a life bottom line but we have excuses for what how you do it if me and him were in a battlefield in the street we like years ago we back up and we pull out a gun from the side and we both shoot at each other you're taking a life what's the difference how you do it? That is that.

My brother-in-law had a good saying. You get hit by a car and you're all crunched up, bleeding. All your bones are busted up and you're dying. How would you feel if the person ran over and said, it's me, Sammy. He didn't do it on purpose. It's me, Sammy. This, he didn't do it on purpose. It's an accident. Does it make a difference to me if it's an accident or it's on purpose? I'm about, I'm all crushed up.

I'm in tremendous pain. I'm about to die. Death is death. I don't know though. That ignores the moral code. I mean, I agree with you in terms of, you know, you die by a knife, you die by a gun. It doesn't make much of a difference to you. But we're expanding beyond that to the the law recognizes some some killings as justified. It would not recognize any of the ones that you're talking about is justified. And I think you know that it's just what you're saying is that in the mafia, you live by a different code of justice. And as I understand it, your position is that you wouldn't run around killing what you call legitimate people.

It's, you know, if somebody pissed you off in your social life, he wouldn't be at risk of getting whacked. You only, for the most part, and we'll get to one of the exceptions I know about, but it sounds like it may have been an accident, but for the most part, you only went after people who were part of your world and who had agreed to live and die by this code. Right, exactly. I never killed a woman or a child, and I never killed even a legitimate guy who I didn't get along with or whatever. I, I mean,

I had fights, but that's as far as that would go. I'm not going to kill somebody because I don't like what he said or something like that. We're not complete lunatics. Some of us became lunatics, but I never, I never went to that degree.

I, I lived by this code and I, I would. I lived by this code. And I was willing to die by the code. I told my family when I cooperated, we talked about cooperating. When I cooperated, I said, if somebody comes down and kills me, don't even be mad. Don't say nothing. Don't do anything. Don't be mad.

I broke the code. I understood that I could die for what I was doing. If I could understand it, you understand it, leave it alone. So I believe in that code, just like I believe in God, but I don't believe in certain religions, probably most religions, but you got to live by something. And I live by what I was taught by my mother and my father, the legitimate. And a lot of people would say I was a different kind of gangsters. You talked about the law enforcement. I'm still friends with agents, NYPD, cops, till today.

Because they were different. We got along. We were friends. They had one life. I had another life. We they were different. We got along. We were friends. They had one life. I had another life. We understood each other. And I was basically a different kind of a gangster. I cared about people.

I'm a people's person, basically. My ex-wife and my daughter or my son will say, Dad, you talk to everybody. Yeah. They're human beings. I talk to people. I love people. I like hardworking people. But what about Alan Kaiser? This was a 16-year-old boy who you killed. And I understand your defense was it was accidental. No, no. It's not accidental. And I didn't kill him. First of all, it was a gang who came and they actually did movies about this.

So our after hour club bikers and, and they, and I went to that place. I wound up getting a beating. They got, I got jumped by six, seven guys. My ankle was broke on both sides. I had a cast from my knee down and I had permission to go after this guy. And it wasn't Alan Kaiser. So I'll tell you what happened. We got in the car and we were looking for him. One night we saw him pull up in front of a house, double park. A different guy, Aldo Candido. Yes. Yes. And I said, that's him. We went back to our club. We got guns. We got a shotgun. Now, it was supposed to be loaded with double O buck, which would put down a moose, but they were using it for pigeons and playing around with it. It was, itie Melito had it. I said, pull up to the car.

When you see him coming out of that house where the car was double parked, stop. Ask him for directions like we're lost. I was laying down in the back seat with a cast on my leg. There was a driver, and Louie Melito was in the passenger seat. I said, when he gets to the car to answer you, I'll shoot him in the face. Louie Molina rolled down the window when he came out. And he must have been told the night before that what they did was to a maid guy, me.

And he knew he was in trouble. So as soon as Louie asked him for directions, he started to run. Louie jumped he was in trouble. So as soon as he, Louie asked him for directions, he started to run. Louie jumped out of the car, threw a shot at him, hit him in the back. He kept running. Didn't put him down. He kept running. This kid, Alan Kaiser. And I spoke to the family and everybody about this. He was 16. We didn't know he was 16. He wasn't a target, wasn't in the hit, wasn't supposed to get hit, no accident. He ran at Louie Melito. He might've been part of that gang.

I don't know. The driver yelled to Louie Melito, guy coming at you. He turned around with the shotgun inches away from the guy and shot him in the chest. When he went down, he put the shotgun to his head, pulled the trigger again and killed him. We found out the next day that he was 16 years old. We were in shock. It was terrible. 16, the number itself shocks you. But why did he want it, Louie Melito?

Why did he do that? He wasn't the target. Nobody was shooting at him. He could have ran back at his house. He could have went the other way. He could have just stood there and never got touched. So now whether he was on drugs, whether he was part of the gang, I don't know. You hear stories.

Just for the record, his family says he was not a gangster. Quote, he was just an innocent kid walking home. No, no, not a gangster. He's 16 years old. He definitely wasn't a gangster. He could have been a gang member. Or he knew this guy because the guy was in his house. So the family can't deny that.

That guy was in his house. They were together. He came out. The other guy came to the car and he was on the side. Nobody was going to shoot him. And the family recognizes that, too. I talked with the sister and she said, I don't know what made him do that. Now, people will say that I killed a 16 yearyear-old kid. First of all, I didn't

shoot him. Louie did. But it doesn't matter. If I could have shot him, I would have. I'm not trying to make myself a good guy. I didn't shoot him. But the police found him exactly where it was in the street where he got to. He came off the sidewalk into the street after Louie. Not on the sidewalk with his books coming home from school, like you hear some stories. None of that's true. Now, it was a shame. We were sick about that he was 16 years old,

and we were confused why he even did that. And he wasn't a target of the hit. We weren't even looking at him. But what would you expect, what would I expect Louie to do? The guy is actually a foot away from him. What is he supposed to do? Just stand there and wait for the guy to grab him and tackle him to the ground or do something? He's on a hit.

You know, obviously, this is why we don't choose a life of crime. This is why we don't, we don't go to murder people in neighborhoods and take law into our own hands and why the law prohibits it because bad things can happen. And that's why there's something called felony murder. And you're in the process of committing one felony and you accidentally or otherwise commit another murder. You're going to be charged for it. Even if it was an accident in the course of the felony, because the law recognizes creating extremely dangerous situations. Absolutely. And I'm charged with it because I'm part of the murder, not the shooter. And he wasn't the target, but I still get charged with it. And I understand that. That's why it's on my list of 19 people that he's there. I mean, and I get it, but I did give a courtesy to the family.

They talked to my daughter. They talked with my son and they wanted to talk with me. And I did talk with them. I took the time to explain what happened and why nobody wanted to kill this kid. They understood that. I don't know what they told you or told anybody else. And I know that the Gottis instigated these people saying that I killed their son or their brother, 16 years old. I'm a baby killer. That was brought up by the Gottis who were trying to make me look bad or make it look worse. And I know how it was brought up. And like I said, this was talked about with the families, the whole thing was talked about with the police. And it's not I'm not saying it was

a good thing. It was a horrible thing. But it's one of those things that happened. I mean, if I see a murder, I think I'm a pretty tough guy. I see somebody shooting at somebody. I'm not gonna run at the shooter. He's got a gun. I got it. I got it. I got it. Let me pause you there. Let me let me squeeze in one more break and we'll be right back. Much more to the story with Sammy the Bull Gravano as we continue right after

this. You're saying my father's right. I mean, you said I hear this bitch behind my back talking about my father and I say nothing when my back is turned. Say it to my face. And automatically, I just black the out. I don't give a if he's a red.

Shut up. Say it to my face. Check my bloodline, bitch. I'm coming for you. You want to keep talking about families? Let's talk. You want to bring up families? You want to get my daughter into this?

For my daughter, for my father, from everybody that you spoke about. I will take a piece of you every time, bitch. This is why you never talk about families. Look at the outcome. Now that blood was drawn, these will never be the same again. OK, so that was the bulk of that clip is Karen Gravano, Sammy's daughter, who was one of the stars of the show Mob Wives, which I confess I absolutely loved. And she was very open about what it was like to grow up as your daughter and

sort of when she how she slowly became aware of what you did for a living and how she could tell, you know, obviously she's fiery and feisty, but how she could sort of tell that you were an important man, you know, the way people greeted you, the way people showed you respect. And I know, you know, that must have manifested in your life, too, sort of getting into the clubs in New York. And I saw the ABC documentary where, you know, you talked about you looked at the Manhattan skyline and said, you know, I own this. I own it. I built it. I control it. So can you talk to us a little bit about that, that piece of your history? Yeah, well, you know, I, I became very powerful in the construction industry. And one day we were on the other side in, in Connecticut, I believe it is. And we were in a

fancy hotel and we went out, I went out on the patio and smoking a cigar, I think. And I looked at the skyline at night. Manhattan is gorgeous. Lit up at night. And it just the guy who was with me said, what are you looking at? I said, look at this. Look at the beauty here. It's absolutely stunning. It's gorgeous. And i'm part of building this whole thing i mean you can't get a job at this point in my life without some sort of a wink and a nod from me saying yes or no i mean i became very powerful in the construction industry paul had me paul castellano had me under his wing because he loved construction.

And he was part of the reason I became very powerful in the construction industry. And he enjoyed using me to run certain unions and do certain things for him. And yeah, I loved what I was doing as far as the construction. I should mention, because you mentioned Paul Castellanos, because you had sort of started with a different crime family and then eventually moved over to the Gambino crime family. And that's the family that Paul Castellanos for a time was the head of. And you would later become part of his assassination.

But before we get to that, so you're living large, you're living large in New York. And this was a time in what is a weird question, but like, to what extent did that film The Godfather affect people's view of the mafia and your own experience within the mafia? You know, because when I was growing up, you knew about the mafia, but there there definitely was a glorification around it. You know, it seemed like, oh, they hurt people, but maybe mostly their own people. But that's not really true. I mean, the extortion was on regular folks, too. And yet they seem kind of cool.

And people wanted to, like, rub elbows with them in very high circles. There was speculation about Frank Sinatra and, you know, so on and so forth. So what was your experience of that movie and people's reaction to the mob? Well, that movie stunned me. It was probably one of the best movies I ever watched. It was completely well done. Godfather 1 and Godfather 2. Godfather 3 was a joke.

Yeah, because you were in it when this was coming out. You were in it when those movies hit. Yeah. Yeah. And it showed the family orientation, how we are with family, the weddings. My family had weddings like that, and people would get up and sing,

and it was fun. You know, who was it? Sonny is with one of the bridesmaids in a room upstairs. I mean, that's typical of us. That was really typical of us, all that stuff that happened in that. The agents watching us. And it just gave me a whole different look at the mob and how the people would

look at it. And as far as the fascination, I know what it is. Everybody in my mind anyway, has a fascination, especially men have a fascination of being a tough guy, going with beautiful women, beautiful cars, making money. You know, fuck the government. I don't want to pay taxes and I don't want to do this and that. You know what I think? So everybody looked at it and it's, you didn't live that life,

but you admired it in a way. You felt a certain way when you watched it. And I watched this new movie that came out, The Offer, how they made the Godfather, very interesting movie, great movie, um, with the producers in Hollywood, the whole nine yards.

I mean, just watching these things, the mafia really, you know, it's when I was in prison a couple of times, ABs, Aryan brothers and other gang members came to me and me and told me, Sammy, tell me about the structure of the mafia. And I would tell them why. You're not the mafia. You're Aryan Brothers. Why

would you want to know? And they said, your structure lasted a thousand years. People admire you guys. Some people wanted to be like you guys. What's the whole structure about? So I realized then, even them asking me questions like that, that they admired themselves and wanted to be like it. My answer to them was, we're not savages. We don't kill outside our organization. Everybody in the mafia at one time or another has been involved in a that could cause death, how do you stop them? How do you stop a guy? What are you going to do? Cut off his tie? Slap him on the wrist?

He's not going to listen to you. Then he'll do whatever he wants to do. Then there'll be no control. We'll be no better than a gang. And that's what I would tell some AB guys and stuff like that. You have to have rules. You have to have ideas. You know, I looked at, there was a conversation I just had recently about, I was in Paul Castellanos' house, and the union, which we control, the association and the union for the garbage, and there was a massive strike. It was on television. There was garbage piled up everywhere.

I came in and he told me to sit down. The maid got me a cup of coffee and he said, send it for Jimmy Brown and the people who are running the union and the association. So we sat there for a while, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. Those guys came in. Jimmy Brown was a captain. The other guy was a maid guy.

And he said, look at this television. He said, what are we, animals? Pick up that garbage from schools, from hospitals, from old age homes. We'll win the strike. But what are we, animals? Over money? Over winning? We'll win.

Pick up that goddamn garbage. And it struck me in a way that here's the boss of bosses, Paul Castellano. He was the boss of bosses. He was the head of the commission. Saying something like that, caring about children, hospitals, old age homes, that they would be infected with garbage or whatever. It gave me a different look at things. And I, you know, those are good things that I saw.

There's evil things I saw. There's people who borderline got to like killing and became serial killers like Roy DeMeo or Gas Pipe and people like that. And we killed them because they became that. So we don't believe in pedophiles, rapists, serial killers. We want to get rid of that. When I was in my neighborhood, I, you know, the whole neighborhood, I would say, this is my neighborhood. People I don't even know.

Maybe you lived in there. I didn't even know you. You're a beautiful woman. You'd walk down the block. My guys, I would tell them, this is not a construction site. Don't hoot and howl. Don't do anything when you see her she's part of our our community they're us nobody's going to touch her

her husband knew she was beautiful he'll tell her go right past Sammy's club don't worry about it he said that because he knew she was safe. We wouldn't let nothing happen to her. Around the block, only God knows what happens. So we lived a different way. And I think that touched the public in a certain way. They didn't agree with the violence, but we were different. We were a different type of criminal organization. I'll call it criminal because it is. You know, we would take, like you say, from every industry,

but we took a little bite out of every industry. We screwed the government out of taxes. Yeah. We screwed insurance companies. Yeah. We didn't feel any guilt about that because they screwed people all the time. My mother and father that broke their back and was so legitimate. I don't But they were taken advantage of by unions, by the government. So I have no sympathy for government. I have no sympathy for insurance companies who sometimes go overboard and people are sick. Oh, no, we're not going to pay that claim or we're not going to do this or we're not going to do that. I'm not saying all of them. There's some really good people, honest people out there in every industry. And there's some bad people in every industry. So, you know,

I have mixed feelings with a lot of these things. What about like the mom and pop shop owner on the corner who are just trying to make ends meet and they got to pay extra money every month for security or for permission from you guys to do what is their legal right to do or else. Never happened. Never happened. Never happened as far as I'm concerned. Never happened. All the mom and pop stores knew my mother, my father, me, my family. It was a community. If you're worried about the mom and pop stores, I'll tell you what crushed them is big corporations. Liberal elites

get these big corporations and crush them. I had a little milk farm, they called it. It's a little grocery store at one point in my life. And I bought Pampers, Holzer, and I put them for a cheap number. I wasn't making at one point in my life. And I bought Pampers wholesale. And I put them for a cheap number.

I wasn't making any money, just as a draw for people. So I sent my partner, my Goomba to Ali Boy, Como, go to the supermarket, see what they're charging. When he came back, he said, Sammy, they're charging like less than we're paying for the wholesale so I said how can they do that he said well number one they're buying tons of stuff I wasn't I'm buying two cases they're buying 4,000 cases and if they want to make a sale and do the same idea that I have, how can I compete with them?

I took the two cases of papers and threw them out. I can't compete with them. So this is what happened in small business, got crushed. But the mom and pop stores, I mean, I've never ever thought about. We love these people. We

knew them. We went to a bakery, a fruit and vegetable store. Those things don't even exist anymore. But you didn't charge people for security saying- No, no, not security. Never? Well, for something. I mean, I remember, I have some personal knowledge on this because in another life before I was a journalist, I was a lawyer. And the lawyer I worked for at this law firm, Jones Day, was charged with enforcing a consent decree that the mob had entered into in New York City. And that meant the mob admitted it had done a bunch of things.

And we were responsible for making sure it lived up to its promise not to keep doing them. And, you know, the sort of the harassment of small businesses, small business owners was on the list, money laundering and so on. That was another thing. But, you know, this sort of small businesses, small business owners was on the list. Money laundering and so on. That was another thing. But, you know, this sort of smaller crime, smaller than murders and so on within the family. That's that's one of the reasons why people don't like the mafia. Right. Like, it's not all within your own family.

There are innocent people who get hurt and who have to pay unnecessary money that they shouldn't have to pay and who could get hurt if they don't do as, as told. Well, listen, I, like I said before, you know, there's good and bad in every organization and there's bad guys in the mafia who would do something like that, do a lot of things like that. That wasn't our norm. Now I would do that with a disco or something to protect when you talk about protection money. If you can mention my name, nobody could come in and bother you, mafia-wise or any other way. I'll take care of your problems. But I didn't cripple them. They gave me a pay or they gave me something that helped them.

I don't look at it as hurting them, shaking them down. It's like a rent. It's like anything else that, or any bill that you pay. And in most cases that I did, it was a reasonable pay. What I did mostly is use my power to help grow a company and I would become their partner. I'll give you a quick example. There was a guy who had a small little container company. He'd go to houses and put the container, you're moving, you put all your garbage in that container and he's making money. The containers were garbage. And I got to like the guy. I went to him and I said, listen,

I got connections in Jersey. I can get the best containers and I could increase your business. So we had a conversation. I said, I don't want any contracts or anything like that. We could work on a handshake. How much do you make a year? And he said, about $100,000 a year. I said, how about we go partners? The first $100,000 you make, that's yours. That's what you make.

Anything above that, me and you are partners, and I could get you more work. I could get you better containers. So we did that. We shook hands, and we did that. At the end of the year of our partnership, I says, how did we do? What did you make?

He says, Sammy, I made 400,000 this year. All right, the first 100,000 is yours. The other 300,000 this year. All right. The first $100,000 is yours. The other $300,000- The allegation against you by your critics is that nobody should have accepted this kind of an offer from you because if they wanted to renegotiate or if they wanted a bigger piece of the pie, you would kill them. No, it's not true. That is not true. I've never killed a partner. Listen, what we're talking about happened 40, 50 years ago. And if you came to my office, I'll show you 14, 15 different letters of people who were partners with me and knew me back then

are sending me love letters. And I'm not talking about women, men. Sammy was great. I watch your podcast. I hope you make it. Our partnership was great. So I don't know where they get these stories. What would happen to the guys for whom it wasn't great? What about what would happen to the guys who said, I don't like the deal and I actually want to break up? I didn't care. The guy with the container business, after a couple of years when I grew and I was making so much money, I gave him the business back.

I didn't charge him a penny. I walked away. This is yours. I did it with a guy named Joe Madonia with the Ace Partition. We had 200 carpenters. When I grew in status, I said, Joe, I love you. I made a ton of money with you. It's yours.

It's all yours now. And if anybody bothers you, get in touch with me. And if I could get you some big work, give me a piece. I got a letter from him in my office now, a letter from him. Loving, loving the partnership, the relationship we had. Now, what would happen if a guy was wanting to take advantage of me in some way or throw me out or push me out or do something on his own? He wouldn't be happy with it. He wouldn't get killed.

It's not a killing in my eyes. It's not a killing offense. But I was powerful with unions and everything. I could be a tremendous pain in the ass. And that's what I would be. If he's going for a job, if he would go for jobs, I would tell him, don't give him no work. Yeah. I imagine if Sammy the Bull tells you, don't give this guy any work, you don't give the guy any work because there's a lot of power

behind that name at that time, especially. So that leads me to Donald Trump because there were, there was speculation in the press when he was running for president that he had mob ties. No one could ever get him on it. Like, you know, the press when he was running for president that he had mob ties. No one could ever get him on it. Like, you know, the press tried to get him on everything. None of that was ever proven. But it reminded me of this this one exchange he had with David Letterman. This is before he ran for president back in 2013, where he was asked, this is a guy in New York City real estate. You know, he has to deal with construction and some of the industries that you just mentioned, unions all the time. And here's how that went. This is South 11.

Have you ever knowingly done business with what I like to call organized crime? Have they ever stopped by? I've really tried to stay away from them as much as possible. Right. But have you ever had a case where a guy stopped by and said, Donald, we're going to handle the linens? You know, growing up in New York and doing business in New York, I would say there might have been one of those characters along the way. But generally speaking, I like to stay away from that group. Yeah, well, I think that goes without saying.

But sometimes they don't let you stay away from them group. Yeah, well, I think that goes without saying. But sometimes, sometimes they don't let you stay away from them. There's truth to that. But if you're smart, you can stay away. You have to stay away and just sort of lead your life. You don't want to get involved. Although I must say, I have met on occasion a few of those people. They happen to be very nice people. You just don't want to owe them money. Yeah, I understand. Don't owe them money. I've heard you talk about him before and sort of said like he was you knew not to don't go there. You knew. No, here's what it was with Donald Trump. He was smart.

He was a good builder. He was a great builder. He was pretty honorable with the people he dealt with. He had a group of ex-FBI agents for security purposes. So we knew, I knew that. So you could push on him a little bit. I tried, but couldn't succeed. What he's saying is right. He knew we were there.

He knew that he had to deal with situations, but he built it as a business guy. You couldn't go up there and try to talk like this guy was talking. You're going to threaten him. You would be arrested in three minutes. Those agents were around him 24-7. So I backed away from him because there was nothing I could do. A guy named Eddie Garofalo had a demolition company. He did a job for him.

He was able to reach some people in the company, but it never went to his level that we know of. And he didn't want to deal with us. I left him alone because I thought that was a bad problem. He was a legitimate guy. I didn't want to go try to threaten him because I thought we would go to prison. So we left him alone. There was plenty of people who wanted to deal with us.

So to go up there like a thug and walk in his office and try to threaten him, you would go to prison for sure. So I don't think anybody bothered him I'm gonna give you a quick example of a news reporter a Woman who called me one day and told me the same thing you're telling me you were very powerful during 80s and he was a big builder You must know something they're asking me because after he became the president So I said, I really don't know.

Just what I told you now, that's what I know about him. I really don't know any incidents that he's done anything, if that's what you're looking for. Sammy, please, come on. She's begging me for information. It'll just be between me and you, which I knew was bullshit. That's not going to happen. She's looking for information. It's not going to stay between me and her. So I knew was bullshit. That's not going to happen. She's looking for information.

It's not going to stay between me and her. So I felt like goofing on her. And I said, listen, it's just between me and you. She said, yeah, yeah, I'll give you my word. Nobody will ever know. I said, all right. There was a drywall job I wanted. I knew this beautiful woman was a friend of mine.

She was a hooker. So I hooked it up with Donald Trump, me, Trump, and her. We had a menage a trois. And I couldn't help it. I started laughing. So she said, you fuck, you're lying. So I said, I'm not lying. You keep pressing me.

And she was asking me, what's her name? What's her name? Why do you care what her name is? You're not going to say nothing. Why do you care? So they're giving it to Buzzfeed. It would have been printed on the front page. Yeah. Yeah. So, so now she's laughing. I'm laughing. And, uh, I said, listen, there's one thing I definitely would never do with Donald Trump. I don't dislike him, but I would never have a mirage at 12. That's the situation. My head. Wait, can I just, let me pause this right now.

We just have a bit of breaking news at this moment. You just mentioned him, the movie Godfather, and Sonny Corleone. James Caan was the actor who played that role. Just died. Just got that news in. 82 years old. James Caan just died. Wow. So sad. Yeah got that news in. 82 years old. James Caan just died. Wow.

So sad. Yeah. What an icon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know he was hooked? What do you mean? He was in the mob. What?

James Caan was hooked in with the mob. That's the guy who played Sonny, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you mean? I was there when he came down and asked permission to be in that movie. I was there with Carmine Persico. Joe Colombo

gave him the role. Who did he ask permission of? To be in the movie. But whose permission was he seeking? Joe Colombo's. And he came to Carmine Persico because there was a guy, Andrew Mush, who was friendly with him. was a guy, Andrew Mush, who was friendly with him. Matter of fact, Andrew Mush, who was a captain in the Colombo family, became godfather to his kid or vice versa.

They were real tight all their lives. So he was connected with the Colombo family. Wow. So at some point when he was being cast for the Godfather, you're saying he had this connection? Yes. Wow. Yes. I was there when he came down.

They said he's an actor. He's coming down. And they played the part. They brought him over to Carmine to his permission. And you witnessed him asking for the permission? No, absolutely. I was there. What did he say? No, he asked for permission. Carmine told him, I'll talk to Joe Colombo.

I'll make this happen. Don't worry about it. What he did is he put him in Andrew Marsh's hands tight. You know what I mean? He might've got the part anyway, but they played this whole little game with him. But they became super close. One became the godfather of one of the kids. And you can look that all up. You can see that. But I was there when he died. I'm confused because James Caan was a successful actor, I think.

I don't have his whole bio in front of me, prior to the godfather. So are you saying he was just- No, he was young. He was young. I don't think he was a major actor. He could have been an actor. Of course he was an actor, but I don't think he was a major actor. But he wasn't in the mob like you were in the mob.

You're saying ties, like connections, what friends? What does it mean? Yeah, it's an associate. It's an associate of the mob. In other words, he's on record now with the mafia as an associate. He's not a MAVE member. He's not one of us, but he's an associate of the mob in other words he's on record now with the mafia as an associate he's not a maid member he's not one of us but he's an associate of the columbia just like sinatra was he was too you say i mean of course there's been rumors about this for years but you're saying that without a doubt they're true you know when we took over john gotti and me and uh john Gotti was a fucking egomaniac. And he was in a restaurant.

Sinatra had come in and he didn't say nothing to John. He was going to buy him a bottle of wine or something. John refused it. And he sent this guy, Joe Watts, over to Sinatra and tell him, whenever you come in a restaurant, you see John Gotti, you come over and you kiss his hand. And now Sinatra went to where he's supposed to go to the Genovese family because that's where he was for years.

This guy, Frankie Blue Eyes and Chin Gigante. I was there when he got in touch with us and told John, you know, bro, he's always been with us. What do you send somebody over to abuse him? He does a lot of favors. It's not us, but he's my been with us. What do you send somebody over to abuse him? He does a lot of favors. It's not us, but he's my dog, bro. If you need a favor, he'll do it. Don't go sending people over and threatening them in front of people.

And so, I mean, how much more? I mean, and I always knew it, but I'm giving you that example where he was abused by this Joe Watts on John's orders. And the Genovese family came right out of the woodwork and protected him. And I should say, I mean, with respect to James Kahn, of course, we haven't had the chance to reach out to anybody in his camp and ask these questions. And they're quite clearly going to be in mourning today. Andrew asked for Andrew Russo. They used to call him Andrew Mush, if he's related

to him. Okay. I will say I knew James Kahn just a bit personally through a mutual friend. He was an absolute gentleman and completely kind and lovely. Yeah. I'm not saying anything bad about him. No, no, I know. I know you're not. I know. I just don't. I feel uncomfortable

if none of this is true, disparaging him on the day of his death. And so, and I haven't had the chance to check it out myself. No, no, I know. I know you're not. No, no, I know. I just don't. I feel uncomfortable if none of this is true, disparaging him on the day of his death. And so and I haven't had the chance to check it out myself. So with respect to you, not not saying it isn't just don't know. I want to make that clear to the audience. But but that's unfortunate. It's sad to have lost him. His work in The Godfather earned him an Academy Award nomination, a Golden Globe nomination and of course, a place in all of our hearts because he was this fire brand who was tortured and I think just did such a brilliant job of portraying what one might go through if one were born into such a family or in your case, willingly joined, quote, the family. Before we leave that subject, did your wife I always wonder about the wives. Like, did your wife know everything?

I know she knew you were in the mafia, but did she know, you know, about murders? Did she know all that? No, absolutely not. I never told my wife anything about the mafia and it was my way of protecting her. She always, in other words, in my opinion, could turn around if she was ever questioned by the feds or anybody, she could say, I don't know, legitimately. I'm not going to give her information, especially about murder, something like that. I'd have to be out of my mind to do something like that. But she knew I was in the mafia, but she didn't know any of that, either did my kids. I was a family man. I lived two lives. At home, I was a father, a husband. When I made money, I bought a farm.

We put horses on the farm. It was a family life. When I drove to that place, I left the mafia behind me. When I got off the highway, it was in Jersey, Cream Ridge, New Jersey, and smelt the trees, the grass. It was, I was like, I was, I was like a different person. Yeah. That's the farm. Yeah. And, and it was, it was a 30 acre farm. We turned it into a horse farm.

We lived great times in there, fun holidays, 4th of July. So when I left, I left on a Friday, took off, usually staying there on a Saturday and Sunday with my family. And we did all great things. When the FBI went up to Cream Ridge, New Jersey, they went to every restaurant, everywhere I went, asking people about me. And not one person said anything negative when I sold it. There was a woman who was, uh, she sold it. She was, uh, she asked me for a cart where the kids sit on it and they could drive it. So I had said that, uh, you know, I'm not going to sell it. It's part of the farm. And, um, when I did sell it, I told them that cart isn't for sale. And I gave it to

the woman. She told the feds. That's how he dealt with me. Never offered me money under the table or doing anything. But he gave me this cart for my grandchildren. And a matter of fact, as soon as I'm done with this conversation, I'm going to get in touch with him and I'm going to tell him that you're here asking me questions. So I was a different animal there. Yeah. Well, no, I mean, your kids talk about you in this way. It's part of what makes you fascinating. The dichotomy between your professional life and your home life. And up next in our last segment together, I want to get into turning on Gotti,

going into witness protection and your job that you did while that happened, plastic surgery, and then how you wound up back in prison and then free again. Okay. So don't miss that. Stay with us for one more segment as Sammy the Bull Gravano continues with us right after this quick break. My team's been looking into the James Caan thing during the break and says, indeed, Andy Mush Russo, part of the Colombo crime family, was a longtime friend of James Caan. And at one point, James Caan did indeed offer to post Mush's bail money when he was accused of a crime. And this Andy Mush Russo was indeed godfather to one of James Kahn's children. So to be continued on that front, there were there have been reports that Kahn had this connection, though I've never heard it directly from somebody who was actually in the mob. So we've gone to a different place. OK, Sammy, you wind up you and John Gotti wind up running the Gambino crime family,

the Genovese crime family. And and John Gotti's my boss. He's the boss of the family. You become under boss. And you guys, for years and years, were very tight, very tight. And then, as I understand it, and as we said in the intro, things went downhill. And I don't want to spend too much time has been talked about a lot, but it went downhill when you were both in jail together. You thought he was going to turn on you. And and and I know you say that's why you turned on him.

You went to those two agents who were following you around all the time and said, let's talk about John Gotti. Now, his defenders say bullshit. They're like, that's Sammy trying to cover his own butt so he doesn't look like a rat. John Gotti wasn't going to turn on Sammy. And they basically just call BS on the whole story. So what do you want to say about that? Right. I mean, I've heard that they said there's millions of hours of tapes. It wasn't millions of hours of tapes. There was. But up in the apartment, there was a small amount of tapes. Four or five. It was up there

for months, but we didn't use the apartment. A lot of times when we did use the apartment, we didn't talk about anything. There was a couple of times that I wasn't in the apartment. And he was sitting with Frank Guglielmo Casio. Now, when people talk about it was all bullshit, I mean, it's made up.

There's agents, New York State Organized Crime Task Force that heard these tapes, listened to the tapes and knew exactly what was going on. But I'm going to give you one story that's going to blow all that other stuff away. The judge got rid of our lawyers, Jerry Shargel and Bruce Cutler, and we had to get new lawyers. One of the lawyers that we brought in did an interview, and you could check this out in an article with Jerry Capici.

He did an interview with Jerry Capici and told him this. I was brought in to be the lawyer for John. And he told John, I was in that meeting, it was a lawyer's meeting, he said to John, you can't beat this case. Your tapes are devastating. The four, five, six tapes out of all the rest of them are devastating. I could try to work out a plea agreement. And John said, no, I'm going to beat the case. I got a secret weapon.

So Bruce Cutler, I mean, Bruce Cutler, what did I just say? His name was that big lawyer. But anyway, he said, well, tell me your secret weapon. How are you going to beat this guy? And he says, I'm going to throw Sammy and Frankie under the bus and I'm going to go free. We all laughed. Sounded like a joke. The lawyer never came back.

When he did the interview with Jerry Capici, he told him that story. He says, I never went back because I didn't want any part of that strategy. But John continued with that strategy because when he was in the apartment with those tapes, he had planned to kill me. And he you can't just kill an underboss who's very powerful, big money earner. The whole family likes you.

If you can kill him, you shake the whole family. If you can kill him, you can kill all of us. There's a guy who's the most loyal guy to you he's rigging your cases he's killing people for you if you could do that so all of the things he was telling frankie to talk about to the captains to prepare. Sammy's killing his partners. He's killing union guys and taking over the unions. He wanted that to go out so that when he kills me, he would have a justification. I, that is on those tapes. Um, we've, we looked into what he, John Gotti was saying on those tapes and indeed it's very negative about you and your alleged behaviors. So I see it. I and forgive me for skipping past some of this, but you know, this has been out there. So you wind up saying you're going to cross me. I'm

going to I'm going to cross you first and you'll wind up going to jail, which he did for the rest of his life. You got a good deal, a sweetheart deal where you're supposed to go away for five years. You really only had to serve less than one year because you'd already served four prior to the deal being cut. Hold on. You're a little bit off. I took a plea with the thing, not for five

years. I took a 20-year plea. I got sentenced to five years because of the cooperation that I did. I took a plea for 20 years. And I didn't do a year. I did over four years. You got some good time off of the five. So I did almost five. When I got sentenced, I had seven months to go on what I owed. I got it. I I got. It's immaterial. The point is it wasn't a lot of jail time for,

you know, the feds. Absolutely. Yeah. For what you did. So the, you, the deal is you're going to go into witness protection,

as we mentioned at the top of the show for, for a while. And can you just tell us, cause I, I read that you were, you did something with pools. Where did they send you? And what was the job?

And did you actually run around looking after people's pools for a year or two or selling people's pools? How did that go? Well, when I first got out, I went in the witness protection program for eight months. I promised them I would do one year. They were begging me to go in the program. I didn't want to go in. I had plenty of money. They said, you're going to make the government look horrible. Come on. You got a great deal. Five-year deal. Give us something. Go in the program for a while. I gave them a year. I only wound up doing eight months because I met a woman there. I was talking to and hanging with a little bit. And, uh, uh, she recognized who I was

and they came back in and they said, we're going to take you and move you to another state. We're going to start from scratch. And I said, no, I promise you a year. I'm in eight months. I'm not doing it. They said, you have to do it. That's the rules. But like, while you were doing it, while you, I the rules. But like while you were doing it, while you, I'm interested in your life while you were doing it. Like how does a guy who's in the mob doing the stuff you're doing, go to like looking after somebody's pool and claiming that you have this other name and this fake background, you know, what, what was that like?

I wasn't, I wasn't doing it while I was in the program. And I changed my name. When I left the program in eight months, I changed my name back to Salvatore Gravano. So I wasn't walking around with the name Jimmy Gravano. Am I wrong? I feel like you don't like the fact that you were in this program at all. Is that because it violates the mob code? It makes you sound not tough? No, no, no.

I didn't want to be in it. What am I going to do with that? You can't have any contact with your family or friends, or there's all kinds of rules. I just did five years in prison. I'm not going to live by a whole bunch of set of rules. So I gave them that one year you could bounce me around, change my name, do what you want with me. And then I'm done with you. I'm out of prison. So I didn't want to stay with these rules. Did you go to people's cocktail parties? You go to like the barbecue of the neighbor next door and say, what was the fake name again? I can't remember the fake name. Jimmy Moran. Did you, did you say like, Hey, Jimmy Moran and like, come on over. We'll watch

Superbowl together. Like, how did it go? No, no, no. I was just running around. I was 55 years old. I think I was, uh, or 50 something years old. And I was there. I was, it was in a college town. I wound up in Colorado and it was a Boulder, Colorado. It's a college town. And I was hanging out there. I met a couple of, you know, people, and I played chess with some people. I'm a chess player and friendly like that. But no, it wasn't party time. It was like doing time on the outside. I wanted to get done with the witness protection program and go home. So you did that.

I did that. Sorry, I'm condensed on my time. So I just want to get in the last thing. So you go back to your your real name and your life and we talked earlier about whether that was scary in terms of like people are going to come get me and sure enough some tried um and you wind up like to me it's so like i you know i get it because if you're in a life of crime maybe it's hard to get out but you wind up dealing drugs and going back to prison for 20 years, almost 20 years.

How did you let that happen? How like how did that happen? Now, on that one subject, not one subject, but that's exactly what happened. I wasn't dealing drugs. It was ecstasy, which they consider a drug. It's and it was that that's all it was. It was no heroin. It was not cocaine.

It was nothing crack. It was ecstasy, which is a bullshit drug. They put it on a level. But anyway, I didn't even do that. There's a thing coming out, a documentary that we're working on and me, my daughter, my son and I'm tied up on the contract with that documentary that's going to talk about that little

part of my life. So I don't think I could talk about that or I'll get my head handed to me. Because I'm in contract with it now. That's fine. We'll stay tuned to wait for your longer take on that. But you get out of jail in 2017.

And now what? Right? So now how old are you now? 77. 77 years old. You and your wife divorced, but it sounds like she's still in your life and kind of a business partner now. We talked about your daughter, Karen. You have a son as well.

So, you know, what next? What do you do with the time you have left? She's not my business partner. I'm her bitch. I work for her. She owns the company. She handles my rights and I work for her. I do my podcast. I do some other things and I do some things on my own. So we're not really partners, but we're we're close. We have kids, grandchildren. We've been divorced since 1991. And so but we are close and I still got I'm still close with my kids, my grandchildren. And I do this. I couldn't find a better thing to do in retirement. Uh, I did. I I'm never going to go back to crime. I'm

never going to do anything like that again. So I enjoy the social media stuff that I'm doing. Uh, I mean, there's contract about the story of my life at that time with the ecstasy and all that baloney. Is that The Salvatore? Or is that a different project? Because I know you've got your own short film series called The Salvatore that's coming out. Yes. The Salvatore, it's based on a true story, but it's not a true story. It's fiction.

But it's me. It's here's what it is. I get out of prison in 2017. I'm contacted by the FBI. My wife and children were in the program supposedly, and they're all killed. And the FBI wants me to go after and follow some serial killer and i agree to it i don't want to do it at first and they show me a picture of dead woman and kids and i i agree to go after him now hey i'm gonna i'm gonna say this here but i'm not even supposed to be saying these things, but what happens is, is that these FBI guys got money from the mob and they gave this serial killer

my wife and kids address and he was supposed to go kill them. So they get the money, they break the link and they got me now they got me going after him sounds a little confusing but me going after him no i get it it's a it's sort of a real life crime drama um so this is going to come out on sammy on his youtube channel so if you're not subscribed you can see it there uh by doing so uh in the in the minute we have left rounding back to the discussion we had on faith and God at the top of the show, what do you make of it? A lot of folks, and they get to be 77 years old, start thinking about the afterlife and

what possibly awaits and forgiveness and all of that. So how do you see what's next for you? Meeting a maker, making amends, asking for grace, for forgiveness. Is any of that important to you? I really don't believe that you go anywhere. I'll be honest with you. I don't think you go anywhere. But if I'm going to go anywhere, I'm going to go share it or I'll talk to him and I'll talk to him. I'm not going to ask for forgiveness. If you made me, then you made me. You could have stopped me anytime you want. I'm not going to. You made me what I am.

I'm a lion. You made me that. So if you wanted to stop me, you could stop me anytime you want. I'm not going to ask for forgiveness. I did what I did in an honorable way, if you could call it that, in my eyes. I never really took advantage of people. I never cheated. I never lied. I never bullshitted people to an extent, except for the government, because of course, I couldn't tell them the truth and I couldn't tell my family the truth of things I was doing. But I think that's understandable. And. I really I'm not looking for forgiveness of what I did and what that would mean. This is taught in the church. If you don't believe this, you're going to hell. I don't believe in all that bullshit.

I really don't. If you don't believe what I say, you're going to hell. I don't believe any of that. So I believe there is a God. I look up at the sky. I do artwork. I learned how to do artwork in prison. I look up at the sky.

Who could do that? What artist in the world could do that? It's got to be God. Life, you see kids, you see animals, you see things. Animals kill each other. So I don't believe in the stuff they tell us in religion. I got it. I think God is fair.

He's honorable if he's there. And I don't think I'll have too much of a problem. I think people bullshit about religion. I think they'll have more of a problem than I will. I got to leave it at that because we're coming up against a hard break. But I agree with you that God is fair and he is honorable. And I believe he will have the last say. Sammy the Bull Gravano,

thank you so much for telling your story. And as I say, for what the mob says, giving testimony that led to, in their view, what the FBI has said, led to the demise of organized crime in New York. Amazing. My God, what just happened? What just happened in that last two hours?

My team and I were just talking about it, just like went to a lot of places. I didn't, did not expect the thing about James Kahn. And, but you know, there, there's something, there's something to be learned there because we, we have been so fascinated by the mob in this country, so fascinated by the mob. And it is interesting to listen to somebody who was in it at the highest level, talk about how it works and what the ethical code actually looks like, right? Like some of that stuff at the end, I behaved honorably. That's how he sees it. How he believes in God, but doesn't think that there will be any judgment for him because he thinks God made him the way God made me alive. I mean, that stuff was very eye-opening to me

in terms of how his brain works and how people can live a life like this. How could you live a life where you kill 19 people? I understand he says they agreed to live by the same code, but the rest of us who live by a very different code have trouble understanding any of this. And it's an organization that's had its tentacles in American society for 100 plus years. Right. So it's like anyway, there's a lot to be learned.

And our fascination with this group remains. It may be dwindling. It's not done in New York, but it's certainly not what it used to be. But it's still out there. And, you know, it gets glorified in virtually every Hollywood movie still to this day. So I don't know. I enjoyed the exchange and I enjoyed listening to, you know, his take on it. Obviously disagreed with a lot of his ethical conclusions, as I'm sure you did. But I learned I learned a little bit and I hope you did did too. Anyway, thanks for joining us today. Tomorrow, we've got Greg Lupiana.

He runs FIRE. He used to call this organization Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Now, and this is good news, he's expanded it. And its new name is the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. So he's going beyond the craziness on college campuses. And that's good because we need Greg. He's used to fighting these fights in court and often wins them. A lot to get

to. Don't forget to download the show in the meantime, The Megyn Kelly Show on Apple, Pandora, Spotify and Stitcher, also at youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly. Thank you for listening. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.