Retired Intelligence Unit Detective Gary Jenkins interviews author Robert Webster, president of the Kenton County Historical Society, about his book, The Beverly Hills Supper Club – The Untold Story Behind Kentucky’s Worst Tragedy. Webster revisits one of America’s deadliest nightclub fires, unearthing the possible mafia ties, cover-ups, and shocking safety failures that shaped this haunting night.

Robert Webster outlines the rise of the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky, noting its glamorous past hosting Las Vegas–worthy shows—and its lasting link with organized crime in Northern Kentucky.

The 1977 Fire and Its Devastation

Safety Failures and Code Violations

Unraveling the “Untold” Story

Investigative and Legal Aftermath

Click here to get this fascinating account of this devastating fire in The Beverly Hills Supper Club – The Untold Story Behind Kentucky’s Worst Tragedy.

Subscribe to Gangland Wire wherever you get your podcasts, and join us each week as we uncover the stories buried beneath the headlines—and the bodies.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app.

Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire

To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here

To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here. 

To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here

Gary Jenkins: [00:00:00] well hey, all you wire tapper’s. Good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. I have a, a little bit different sort of a story. It’s it’s part mob and, and part fire protection and a huge fire that was you know, it really hit the headlines all over the United States back in the seventies.

In this episode of Gangland Wire, retired Kansas City intelligence detective Gary Jenkins sits down with writer and mob historian Stone Wallace—a man whose path has crossed acting, broadcasting, boxing, and a lifelong fascination with organized crime. The focus of today’s conversation is Stone Wallace’s latest book, Hollywood and the Chicago Boys, which uncovers how the Chicago Outfit quietly moved in on Hollywood in the 1930s. With Prohibition fading, figures like Frank Nitti and Tony Accardo shifted their sights to new rackets in film unions, projection booths, and studio lots.

Stone Wallace’s obsession with the mob began at age seven with a library book on the 1920s. It lit a fire that would eventually lead Wallace to explore the violent glamour of the underworld in both fiction and nonfiction.

Stone Wallace shares how he created the fictional studio boss Sam Bast, modeled after several real-life moguls, and how mob-connected actors like George Raft blurred the lines between movie star and made man. From behind-the-scenes extortion to real-life gangland enforcers like Jack “Machine Gun” McGurn, this episode connects the dots between celluloid dreams and street-level muscle.

Stone Wallace’s Amazon author page.

🔍 Highlights:

Why Frank Nitti saw Hollywood as the Outfit’s next goldmine

The real mob ties of actor George Raft

The creation of Sam Bast, a fictional composite of Hollywood studio heads

Extortion in the projectionist booths and labor unions

Mobster myths vs. brutal realities—how fiction reflects fact

📚 Featured Book:

🎬 Notable Names Discussed:

💬 Quote of the Episode:

0:02 Introduction to the Underworld

1:25 Early Fascination with the Mob

2:29 Hollywood and the Chicago Boys

5:34 The Allure of George Raft

7:22 Researching the Mob’s Hollywood Infiltration

12:05 The Role of Unions in the Mob

14:51 Tony Accardo: The Complex Character

17:05 The Impact of the Mob on Society

23:04 Writing Westerns and a Modern Sheriff

25:43 Upcoming Films and Future Projects

Subscribe to Gangland Wire wherever you get your podcasts, and join us each week as we uncover the stories buried beneath the headlines—and the bodies.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app.

Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire

To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here

To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here. 

To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here

To buy my Kindle book, Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How FBI Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos.

Transcript

[0:38] For different companies And he really started out writing westerns If I remember right Oh yeah He wrote stories If you ever read Louis L’Amour Which I did when I was young He wrote those kinds of stories But later he got into the mob So Stonewallis, welcome Thank you very much, Gary. It’s a pleasure to be here speaking with you on your broadcast. Well, it’s great to have you on. Tell the guys a little bit about your life, anything you would want them to know about you. Well, I suppose the most important thing would be that I’ve always had an interest in the underworld, and it started at a very young age. I was about seven years old or so when I was visiting my aunt,

[1:21] and she had a library book there about the 1920s. And I was sitting there, I kind of flipped through the pages and I came to the section about the underworld, especially the Chicago underworld.

[1:33] And I don’t know what it was, but something pretty much clicked at that point. And I just found it incredibly fascinating. And it just kind of stayed with me. And to this day, it has never actually left me. I’ve been fascinated by the mob, especially the Chicago underworld. And I’ve done a lot of research into it. In fact, when I was in grade three, our teacher asked us to write a little short essay about, you know, an important historical figure. And I chose Al Capone, which raised a few eyebrows at that time. But that’s how I went. And it just pretty much grew from there. And I became a fan of the old TV series, The Untouchables, and was fortunate later on in life to interview Robert Stack. And it just grew from there. It’s never gone away. I’ve always been just totally fascinated by historical mobsters. Well, interesting. And your book that we’re going to talk about that has just

[2:27] come out is Hollywood and the Chicago Boys. I know a little bit about that story. These guys, they went out and they extorted the heck out of those film studios out there. They made a lot of money through the unions and then… After the unions, of course, the union extortion can then lead into extorting the employers. That’s what they did. And they, you know, they knew how to do that in Chicago. But first, you wrote a book about George Raft, the man who would be Bogart. Now, George Raft is, I mean, he had his own real mafia background.

[3:03] So tell us a little bit about George Raft. Well, I became interested in George Raft back in 1972 when I spent the summer with my aunt and uncle in Chicago.

[3:12] And they were playing a couple of George Raft movies. We never got them here in Winnipeg. They didn’t really play those kind of films here too much. But they played each Don I Die, and I forget the other picture, but each Don I Die in particular really just captivated me. I know who James Cagney was and I always admired him. But there was something about George Raft in this film, the strength and the presence that he had, that I just became instantly fascinated with him and began researching his life and his career and finding out he was a very interesting fellow. He did have underworld connections. In fact, that helped bring him to Hollywood back in the 1930s through working with Oney Madden, the bootlegger. But James Cagney, I think, summed it up best about George Raft. He said, George Raft was of the underworld, but he wasn’t in the underworld. I believe he was in the fringes because he did help Oney Madden deliver liquor during Prohibition, but he was never actually, you know, a tough guy gangster type, although that’s what he became famous for in movies, and plus his friendships with people like Oney Madden, and particularly Bugsy Siegel. Yeah, that would have happened out there in Hollywood, for sure, because Siegel had a lot of connections out there before his life was ended in Hollywood, and I read something about where Madden is the one that really suggested that he try his luck in the movies and bankrolled him a little bit until he got a break, which is important.

[4:35] So that’s the heck of a story on George Rappings. The real gangster who became a movie star. These guys all want to become movie stars. We’ve got one in Kansas City, kind of like to become a movie star, but he did it. Well, Bugsy Siegel, Bugsy Siegel as well, apparently had aspirations to get into film work, according to George Raft.

[4:55] He bought motion picture equipment and apparently had George make some footage of him doing various roles. I’d love to see those films. I don’t know if they even exist anymore, But he had aspirations to be a film star, I guess, based on his friendship with George. Well, if you can act, I can act too. But unfortunately, or fortunately, that never came to be. Yeah, I think we all think, well, that acting looks so easy. Anybody could do it. But believe me, nobody can do it except the people who are blessed with that talent, in my opinion.

[5:30] Well, George Raft, don’t forget, basically, he was always criticized for his acting. They said he was very wooden. He didn’t show a lot of emotion, but he basically played himself. I mean, you look at someone like Humphrey Bogart, he could vary his characterizations from playing a tough guy in the Petrified Forest to doing Treasure of Sierra Madre, the Maltese Falcon, the African Queen. George Raft’s films basically had him playing the same character, whether it was a gangster or a hero or a working man. The George Raft personality always seemed to come through in those roles.

[6:04] Interesting. Interesting. So talking about Hollywood, let’s start talking about Hollywood and Chicago boys. How’d you get in? How’d you do your research? I know this is actually a historical fiction, but it’s based on real people and real facts. So tell us about doing the research on this and what you learned. Well, again, my interest in Chicago and Hollywood, I love old movies and stuff like that, and of course with my interest in your draft. I wanted to write a book that was like a fact fiction dealing with the Chicago mob moving into attempting to take over the Hollywood unions after Capone went away because Prohibition came to an end, and that was their most lucrative source of income. So, you know, Frank Nitti and Cardo and Paul Rica, they wanted to look into new areas to expand their rackets and started off with the theater owners in Chicago, but they decided to go beyond that, go right to the source. So in my book, what they do is they send down Willie Bioff to talk to the production head of a studio.

[7:09] It’s fact but fiction what happens there, because I wanted to make it, you know, a fun book to read. There have been so many books written about the Hollywood unions and the Chicago mob and everything.

[7:20] So I thought, well, let’s do this like a Roman eclipsed. So the facts are there. The people are there for the most part. Some are fictionalized. I use a lot of the real names, of course. I mean, I have Tony Iacardo, Rika, of course. Ellie and Ness fits into the story, which, of course, in real life he didn’t at that point. But I thought it would be kind of fun to add him into the mix.

[7:39] Then I have a character named Billy Shore, if you’ve read the book. And he’s based on comedian Joe E. Lewis. Oh, really? Yeah, he was roughed up by Machine Gun McGurray’s mob when he wouldn’t stay with the club he was at and wanted to move on to further his career, and he was warned if he did that, he wouldn’t live to open. And he did survive, but he was pretty badly brutalized by the hoods. Yeah, it seemed like they cut his throat or something, didn’t they? They damaged his voice in some way. Oh, yeah, they cut his throat. They apparently mutilated his tongue. Well, he started off as a singer, and of course, that was the end of his singing career. He became a comedian. And in my book, what I do is I changed him into a producer. He goes to Hollywood to get away from McGurn’s wrath, and he and his manager… Because he was given some money by Capone, his retribution for what McGurn did to him. He uses that money to invest in a film. And then we move into the whole situation with his film career. And then when McGurn is sent to Hollywood, which of course never happened, but it’s in the book, and he wants to be the front man for setting up the mob’s infiltration into the studios. And so he’s using his old connection with the Billy Shore character and kind of builds from there.

[8:58] Interesting, interesting. What about the Hollywood moguls? How did you deal with them? They were, I mean, for a while they were happy just to, you know, they figured there’s cost of doing business to keep these mob guys satisfied and keep the union guys coming in. How did you deal with them? Well, I basically amalgamate them into one character. You know, instead of having them all over the place, like, you know, have Louis B. Mayer being one, Jack Warner being another, Harry Cohen being another. I just put them all into this one character there. I believe his name is Sam Bast. So he’s just the amalgamation of all of them. And so Willie Biaf is the one who deals with him directly. Otherwise, it would kind of get too scattered. So it’s kind of all developed into the one person there. And his dealings with Biaf and discovering that, you know, it’s really a mob infiltration scheme and how he deals with them without going into too much detail and giving the plot away. I don’t want to give too much away here. Not too much away, no.

[10:00] I’m kind of curious about the whole thing. Did you deal with the unions at all, the projectionist union? Because they were well known. That’s how they got started in Chicago was infiltrating the projectionist union. Back then, the studios, the national company owned all the theaters throughout the United States. It wasn’t a bunch of little individual guys, mainly, that owned the big cities and the big theaters were owned by the studios. So then they needed the projectionists to go to work. So how did you deal with the union aspect? Well, I have one character. That’s how you say before they move into the Hollywood situation, they deal with one union representative of the Projectors Unionists. I’m sorry. And that’s how they start off. And he’s kind of a hard-edged guy himself, and he’s dealing with the mob at that point before they decide to move to California and go on a bigger scale. But he becomes a major character in the book as well. And actually, it’s him that kind of leads to Frank Nitti’s downfall through circumstances that are kind of unusual. But again, don’t want to say too much as to what happens there.

[11:14] I have one character there and he’s a tough Irishman who stands up to the mob when McGurn comes to lay down the law as far as they’re concerned, Now, Tony Accardo, or Joe Batters, in real life, he was able to stay above and away from all this and made it through all this. He was more like a young hitter, had a crew or something, when you’re talking about back in the 30s. What part is he going to play in this? Accardo is an immensely popular guy. Oh, he’s a major character in the book. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And talks about how his ascension in the mob there kind of coincides with McGurn kind of losing favor in the mob,

[12:03] which actually happened in real life in the 30s. Don’t forget that Ocardo was Machine Gun McGurn’s protege, in essence. Oh, that’s right, isn’t it? Yeah, he brought him into the Chicago mob with Capone. So, yeah, he’s an interesting guy. I’ve always found Ocardo fascinating because if you’ve ever read the book by Bill Romer, a genuine godfather.

[12:25] The man really had two sides. He could be as vicious as they come, but Romer always said, I had a grudging respect for him because he could be a good person too. So I always thought a person like that would be very interesting to write about. So I put him into my book as a character. I think I present him, it’s a fictional representation, but I think I present him very fairly on both sides. From both sides, yeah. I get accused of that. You only show one side of people. And, you know, I interviewed a guy, a guy named Carlo Morelli, who as a young man was in… A Cardo sphere, if you will. And his father was, and, and a Cardo needed somebody to take his daughter to be a prom date for his daughter. Uh, probably the guys didn’t really want to take her. And, and he called this kid in cause he’s knew the kid’s dad. And he said, Hey, I want you to take my daughter to the prom, you know, here’s some money. And, and, you know, I have somebody drive y’all. And so the guy told the story of him doing that. And, and I tell you what, Stone, I’ve interviewed a lot of people that had a lot of different stories. And this guy, he really did that, in my opinion. He really did that. He had too many good details. And then the girl took off that night and dumped him for a while and went off some other friends. He had to go back alone, and then she kind of came back with these other frequencies.

[13:49] It’s hard to understand. So he did have that other side. And he told the kid, he said, you know, I understand. She’s kind of wild.

[13:58] I think I’ve heard that story, actually. That’s right. And the poor kid was, oh, my God, I’ve got to tell, you know, you’re part of the law boss of Chicago that his daughter ran out. You know, oh, my gosh. I wouldn’t envy him. I’ll say that’s one girl, you know, you wouldn’t really want to date. And, you know, because on top of that, she was quite an independent soul from what I hear. No, she was. She was. She took off with a high school friend in a brand new car that he bought her for a graduation. And it just disappeared for about a week or two. And then finally called back for about a fee out in Arizona or something. Oh, he was mad. You know, I mean, this could happen to any parent, even, you know, Tony Ocardo. Yeah, but he’s the one parent you wouldn’t want to have to report that to, you know.

[14:48] You know, I mean, we know what happened when people offended Ocardo. You know, look at the burglary at his house. I mean, oh, my God. Yeah. Oh, my God. I think everybody listening probably or watching knows the story of his house, of burglary of his house. Man, a bunch of guys got killed after that. But I don’t know, five or six got killed right after that. I’ve done one story on it. So, guys, you know, look back and see if you can’t find that story. It’s a heck of a story.

[15:17] Well, the bottom line is, I mean, after that happened, You’re probably living in the safest neighborhood in Chicago. No one’s going to be coming around there to do any business, that’s for sure. You know, like they say, these Italian neighborhoods, these old-school Italian neighborhoods are always really safe because they left out for everybody in the neighborhood. I just talked with a guy about our North Indian border. I don’t get laid in the 50s, 60s, and 70s up until the 80s. I mean, you can keep anything laying on the street. You’ll still be there the next day. Oh, yeah. And, you know, it’s maybe a little bit off topic, but it’s the same thing with Las Vegas, because I was working with Elvis Presley’s songwriter and actress Dolores Fuller on Autobiography some years back. And she would tell me quite often, she says, you know, when the mobs ran the casinos, this was the safest city in the US. But once the corporations took over, things changed pretty drastically. And so a lot of people, I think, felt at that time, you know, we’re glad we have the mob here, you know, taking care of taking care of business as such because people felt safer then. But the corporations took over and it wasn’t the same. And the good thing about the mob, if you will, being law enforcement, probably not such a good thing from my viewpoint. But that’s true. You know, they didn’t they didn’t worry about such niceties as probable cause or due process. That’s right. Roofed your hands or kicked the shit out of you.

[16:46] That’s right, yep. But, you know, it worked. It worked. I mean, friendship was friendship. But, again, like you say, you know, you don’t cross them. You know, loyalty is very strong within the underworld.

[16:59] And as long as you, you know, keep straight and follow the rules, you’re pretty okay. But, yeah, you make one misstep and that can be, you know, bang, bang. Really? You end up in the desert somewhere.

[17:15] So I guess, you know, we’ve got this Hollywood and Chicago boys. It sounds like a really interesting book. And you’ve got a bunch of other interesting books. Tell the guys a little bit about them. If you can entice them. You’ve got this. We talked about we may do this whole show on this.

[17:33] Desperados, Gangsters of the Dirty 30s. Is that about John Dillinger and those guys like that? Well, you know, that’s another book that I wanted to look into for some kind of different research. And the thing about that book is I found, I mean, I was never there, so I don’t know the facts, but I did a lot of research into different areas of that. And a lot of what was officially reported is questioned, is controversy. For instance, the Dillinger actually, actually Dillinger who was killed outside the biograph. Well, there’s a lot of information out there that kind of says, you know what? he might have gotten away and somebody else was used as a passy. That would have been Jimmy Lawrence who resembled Dillinger.

[18:14] Because apparently after Dillinger was shot, his father said, that’s not Johnny, his own father. There were some differences. Apparently, he had an appendix scar that Dillinger didn’t have. He had a heart condition that Dillinger apparently didn’t have because he was quite athletic. These are the kind of things I wanted to put into that book. Ma Barker, for instance. Was Ma Barker really the mastermind of the Barker-Karpus gang? A criminal named Blackie Audette said, that’s ridiculous. She couldn’t even prepare breakfast, never mind putting together a bank robbery scheme. And then there’s the Alvin Karpis story. Was he actually personally arrested by J. Edgar Hoover, or did Hoover come out after he was already safely in cuffs to reap the glory? There’s a lot of stories there that are just fascinating. You know what happened there. I’ve been a policeman. I know what happened there. He wanted the glory.

[19:06] He had him wait or whatever, or they had him, and he showed up about the same time, and they released a story and got a few photos.

[19:17] Well, that’s the thing, because he was being criticized because his people were doing the work, and they said, well, Hoover himself has never made an arrest, so they set this whole thing up there. And once he was safely secured, Karpis, Hoover came out, and he was kind of recognized as the hero of the day there. So to the day he died, Elvin Karpis said, no, he said, that’s not true. In fact, his exact words were the story of Hoover the Hero is false. Yeah, I believe that one. I believe that one.

[19:51] Like I say, I mean, you know, I wasn’t there at the time. So basically all you do is research and try to throw different, you know, okay, is this the official version? Is it believable or it could be? I mean, look at Pretty Boy Floyd. There’s another story about him that he might have been assassinated because he knew the truth about the Kansas City massacre, that he wasn’t involved in that. And I believe he wasn’t. Yeah, well. Well, I bet those agents thought he was, and there was no quarter spared, I got a feeling, because that FBI agent, the first FBI agent that ever was killed was killed in that. And I think they believed that pretty boy Floyd, if he wasn’t the trigger man on it, he was there, and that was all they needed, especially back in those days. Well, that was Raymond Caffrey, yeah, he was the FBI agent who was killed. But see, the thing is, Floyd was living well in Kansas City. That was a good hideout for a lot of criminals at that time. They were protected if they had the money. So the question is, why would he risk? And he was quite identifiable too. Why would he risk doing an act like that when he was protected and he had a pretty good life there?

[21:03] So after he was shot apparently in the field there, they asked him if he was involved. He said, I had nothing to do with that. And apparently the original story is that he died. But then I’ve heard that after that, because he was denying it, that they actually put a bullet into him. So, again, true or not, I don’t know. But it’s interesting to speculate. Really? So one more about you. You did a post-World War II New York underworld book called Requiem for a Gangster. You want to tell us a little bit about that one? Well, that’s a total fiction book. A total fiction, okay. Yeah, it’s just a gangster story I wanted to write. It’s kind of based on various movies I’ve seen. I thought I’d take various aspects of films I enjoy and put them together into a story around this one guy who comes out of prison and wants to go straight, but he falls in with his boyhood pal who’s also released from prison, but he’s back into the gang, into the racket lifestyle. And the circumstances that bring the main character back into that sphere.

[22:13] So it’s just like I say, just a fun read. Okay. All right. Interesting. Well, you’ve got a whole bunch of Western books where you guys are interested in Western books. I’ve got a good friend. I’m going to have to turn him on to you. He loves Westerns. I mean, this guy loves Westerns. So he’s retired now, and he’s reading, I think, a book a week right now. I have to turn him on to you. I appreciate that. I enjoyed writing Westerns. In fact, I would have probably kept up with them, but both of my Western publishers decided to cease publishing Western books because they said people weren’t buying cowboy novels. And that’s unfortunate because, you know, back in the 60s, that’s all you ever had were Westerns. You had the books, you had the TV series, movies, and they say nowadays, no, people just aren’t really buying Westerns. And that’s unfortunate because they’re a fun genre to write.

[23:04] Yeah i bet they are i mean that’s i was i was born in brance where i became a policeman i mean instead of getting a horse and a 30 30 and a 45 hope they gave me a police car and a shotgun, well you’re a lot you’re yeah you’re a modern day lawman there you go, we’re we were just uh in the 70s when i came on all those young guys baby boomers we were just young cowboys out there riding the streets.

[23:33] Well, a modern day sheriff, you can’t do better than that, that’s for sure. Really? Yeah, I was reading your background, I was very impressed, I thought, wow, you did a lot in your life too, you know. Oh, I’ve done a little bit, I guess, I get bored easily, I think, I’m always looking for another challenge.

[23:51] Well, that’s the way to keep active and young. There you go. You can’t say there’s anything wrong with it. That’s for sure. Really. I haven’t started working on a screenplay. One of my stories was this guy that’s never sold a screenplay, but he’s worked on it. I don’t know. He’s got it done. He sent it off to somebody who he never heard anything back. But you know how that goes. You’ve probably done a screenplay or two in your life. It’s a tough world. No, I haven’t done that, but I still keep on hoping somebody might pick up one of my books for a movie. You know, I wish I could have run into one of the production people here who were filming the Travolta movie, and I would have loved to have maybe given them a book or something and say, well, here’s something you might want to consider for the future. Really? Oh, yeah. Guys, Stone is the one. He lives in Winnipeg, and he was telling me, I put it on my Facebook page the other day, that they’re filming this new Tony Accardo movie. And I think it’s going to be something about the murder of JFK, but I’m not sure. Johnny Roselli, John Travolta is going to play Johnny Roselli, we think, and Manny Patinkin, I can never know how to spell that, just to pronounce that name, is going to be Tony Accardo. And they’ve been actually filmed some shots up in Winnipeg. What else can you tell the guys about that?

[25:06] You know, I really don’t know too much because I actually just found out about that recently. I heard that John Travolta was not coming to Winnipeg, but until a few days ago or maybe a week or so I didn’t even know what the movie was about so I just did some checking to say okay Travolta is the one that big what’s going on and it’s already he’s making this movie it’s a story about the mob’s possible involvement in the assassination of JFK and it looks like you’ve got all these real life characters who are going to be a part of this so yeah I don’t know too much more than that I wish I did but I’m going to certainly be in line to see that movie and I’m not sure if it’s going to

[25:40] be a theatrical film or maybe it’ll go right to television and HBO or something. I don’t know. But I’m going to be watching out for it. All right. Don Wallace, it’s been a pleasure having you on. One last thing you would like to tell everybody. Uh, well, it’s just, it’s, it’s been my pleasure speaking with you. I can say I’m very impressed with what you’ve done. I admire your, uh, your background and, uh, and I love the fact that you’re doing a podcast that deals with a subject that I’m particularly fond of. And if anybody is interested in my book, it’s available on Amazon. Uh, it’s, and it’s, uh, uh, online and I believe Barnes and Nobles and the bookstores of that type. So if anybody’s interested in taking a look at it, uh, it’s, it’s available there. And I hope that anybody who does read it enjoys it and has fun with it.

[26:28] All right, Stone. And guys, I’ll have links to the Amazon page for Hollywood and Chicago Boys by Stone Wallace. And you can click on his other link on that Amazon page. You can see the other books he’s written if you’re interested in Desperados, Gangsters of the Dirty 30s or Requiem for a Gangster. Or you want to see some Western, read a Western or two like my friend Bobby. So thanks a lot for coming on the show oh and one and one more thing if anybody’s interested you can check out my website oh you got a website oh you do I forgot I’m sorry I forgot no not a problem tell us about it yeah it’s www.com, www.stonewallis.net and it talks about the books I’ve written, some of the interviews I’ve done with some celebrities such as Lloyd Nolan, Robert Stack, Anthony Quinn. So it might be interesting if anybody wants to take a peek at that and see what some of my background is. And the other writing I do, I do a lot of freelance for various magazines. Pardon me, like I’m a regular contributor to the Jolson Journal and Nostalgia Digest. In fact, their summer issue just has my Dan Deerrier story. So if anybody’s interested in checking it out, it’s there. All right. That’s stonewallis.net. Now, guys, that’s .net, N-E-T, don’t do .com. That’s right. That’s right. Because I’ve made that mistake before. Well, there’s no website here. I’ve done this with somebody else. That’s a .net.

[27:55] All right, Stone. Thanks so much for coming on. Well, thank you so much for having me. It’s been a real pleasure speaking with you, Gary. Thank you. All right. Good. Don’t forget, I like to ride motorcycles. So when you’re out on the streets there and you’re a big F-150, watch out for those little motorcycles when you’re out. If you have a problem with PTSD and you’ve been in the service, be sure and go to the VA website. They’ll help with your drugs and alcohol problem. If you’ve got that problem or gambling, if not, you can go to Anthony Ruggiano. He’s a counselor down in Florida. He’s got a hotline on his website. If you’ve got a problem with gambling, most states will have, if you have gambling, most states will have a hotline number to call. Just have to search around for it. You know, I’ve always got stuff to sell. I got my books. I got my movies. They’re all on Amazon. Just go. And I got links down below in the show notes and just go to my Amazon sales page and you can figure out what to do. I really apprec

In this episode, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence detective, Gary Jenkins, interviews Gary Clemente, who offers profound insights drawn from his father’s legacy as a pioneering FBI agent in the fight against organized crime. Gary recounts his father’s pivotal role during the 1957 Appalachian mob conclave, detailing his unique rapport with notorious figures like Carlo Gambino and the psychological dynamics of engaging with mobsters such as Tommy Greco. We explore the complexities of mob family structures across the U.S. and how Peter Clemente’s fluency in Sicilian and understanding of criminal culture enriched FBI operations. Gary shares stories from his father’s extensive writings, promising future revelations about their historical battle against organized crime and the impact of these narratives on American history.

Get Gary Clement’s book: Untold Mafia Tales From the FBI’s Top Hoodlum Squad

Subscribe to Gangland Wire wherever you get your podcasts, and join us each week as we uncover the stories buried beneath the headlines—and the bodies.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app.

Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire

To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here

To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here. 

To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here

To buy my Kindle book, Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How FBI Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos.

Transcript

In this episode of Gangland Wire, retired intelligence detective Gary Jenkins exposes the brutal fall of one of the Mafia’s most calculating figures—Louis “Bobby” Manna, the Genovese consigliere who wielded silent power until a single wiretap changed everything. I have to credit Stephen Popkin for much of the research in this show, thanks, Stephen.

From the mobbed-up docks of Bayonne to the smoke-filled offices of Queens Borough Hall, we follow the story of Irwin “The Fat Man” Schiff, a civilian fixer with deep Mafia and political ties. Schiff played both sides—until the feds flipped him. And when Manna found out, it sealed Schiff’s fate.

Bobby Manna’s Rise: From the 1950s onward, Manna ran the Genovese family’s New Jersey rackets—extortion, labor corruption, and construction scams. He was quiet, feared, and always in the background—until FBI bugs in Casella’s Restaurant picked up murder plots against Irwin Schiff and even John Gotti.

Irwin Schiff’s Double Life: A Jewish outsider in an Italian world, Schiff was the ultimate connector—tying mobsters, politicians, and union bosses together in backroom deals and rigged bids. But when he became a government informant, he became a marked man.

The Hit: On August 28, 1987, Schiff was gunned down in a Manhattan restaurant. Three bullets in under ten seconds—“clean, no mistakes,” just like Manna ordered. The killing shocked the city and became the linchpin in a massive RICO case.

The Fall of Manna: In 1989, Manna was convicted and sentenced to 80 years in prison. He died a frail old man after being granted compassionate release in 2025—but his downfall was sealed decades earlier, the moment the FBI pressed “record.”

Highlights of the Episode:

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app.

Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire

To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here

To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here. 

To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here

To buy my Kindle book, Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How FBI Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos.

[0:00] Hey guys, welcome back to Gangland Wire. This is your host, Gary Jenkins,

[0:03] retired Kansas City Police Detective Intelligence Unit. And today we’re going to dive into a deadly game of wiretaps, whispers, and betrayals and murder. This is the story of Louis Bobby Manna and really what brought him down. He was the feared consigliere of the Genovese crime family. And the one that was going to bring him down was the murder of Irwin, the fat man Schiff. He was a civilian fixer whose mouth got him killed. Now, from the mobbed-up docks in Bayonne to the backroom deals in Queensborough Hall, we’ll trace how power was wielded in silence until the tapes started talking. And once they did, they were going to bring down one of the Mafia’s most secretive tacticians, that’s Bobby Manna. Bobby Manna once held one of the most powerful positions in the American Mafia in the 70s and 80s. He was the consigliere of the Genovese crime family when Gigante was in charge. He was the third in command. He also ran all the family’s New Jersey operations, I mean, with some brutal efficiency. And he knew all the underworld’s most feared players in the New York City area and that whole area.

[1:13] And his influence stretched not only from the piers of Bayonne and the docks and the shipping industry, but also the political corridors of New York’s construction rackets, which as you guys know, we all know the New York construction industry was the playpen of the mob. It was the bank of the mob. I mean, they made so much money. I think they made more money out of the construction business than they did out of gambling, which is, that’s hard to believe, but they really made a lot of money out of that construction off the labor unions and the contracts and kickbacks and the concrete club, and they got a piece of every window that was sold to the New York City housing projects.

[1:56] And, you know, Bobby Manna, by the time he turns 95, he’s in prison. He’s frail and riddled with disease. And he was finally granted compassionate release from the federal joint just a couple of months ago. He served 36 years of an 80-year sentence. And that 80-year sentence was for murder, conspiracy, and racketeering. Let’s go back a little bit on Bobby Manna. His criminal career stretched back to the 1950s where he started as a longshoreman, of course. and he and his associates were arrested for assaulting a man that was trying to recruit for a rival union. So union racketeering, you know, stealing from the docks, all that kind of stuff that a young mobster in the 50s, you know, this is on the waterfront for real here. I mean, his street violence was his entry in a Genovese family, and you know anything about the Genovese family, one of the most violent families, I think, of all the five families.

[2:48] They ruled a big chunk of New York and all of northern New Jersey there. Of course, he ascended through the ranks the usual ways and, you know, made his bones. And eventually he’ll become the consigliere. He oversaw, as I said before, all the Jersey wing’s activities, loan shark extortion, gambling, murder, theft from their docks. He was born and raised in Hoboken. He became a close associate with Vincent the Chin Gigante early in his mob career. He’ll rent an apartment in Greenwich Village just to be close to Gigante’s headquarters at the Triangle Social Club, and that’s where Gigante lived. That’s the streets that he walked around on acting like he was, you know, crazy. Surveillance reports noted that when Tony Salerno was supposedly the boss, he would be seen talking to Tony Salerno and Gigante together as they walked around the streets. He was a brother-in-law of a Genovese crime family mob associate, Gerald Durazzo.

[3:45] According to the New Jersey District Court, Bobby Manna’s crimes date back to 1952. He actually, he really ran his personal criminal operations out of an Italian restaurant in El Bucan called Casellas. It was at 615 First Street. He was kind of the lead man for the Genovese family. They had discussions with the Gambino crime family on how to divide that area equitably. And later on, you’ll see that he does not like the.

[4:17] Bobby Manna personally did not like the fact that John Gotti killed Paul Castellano without any approval by the commission. But also he’s going to be worried about Gotti and if Gotti’s going to try to move more into New Jersey and take something away from him after they had it all worked out between the Genovese’s and the Gambino’s. Now, one murder that he was responsible for kind of has a really long backstory to it. Gigante will assign this to him. It’ll come out that a guy named Erwin, the fat man Schiff, was probably an informant of the FBI, probably a top-ish line informant. He was a notorious political fixer. So let’s take a look at Schiff’s history with the New York mob and the construction industry all throughout the 50s and 60s and 70s. There’s an early surveillance memo with the NYPD Gambling Task Force.

[5:16] Subject Schiff, seen with known gambler Moe the Lip Seltzer and an Italian mail letter ID to Salvatore DiStefano. He was a Lucchese associate. Conversations indicate involvement in bookmaking, collection work, and payoff routes. Now, you got to see that Schiff, he’s connected to all the families in some manner over his lifespan. His real foothold from the mafia was not through any kind of violence, but through the construction and the garbage industry. because we know the mob also has their tentacles in the mob, I mean, in the garbage industry in New York City area. In the early 1960s, he began working with local trucking and sanitation firms that held contracts with the city and with those unions, and particularly the Teamsters Local 282. These firms were already under the influence of the Genovese-Lucchese families, and Schiff proved himself useful. He facilitated kickbacks. He helped rig bids. He bribed building inspectors, looked the other way. He had these really good contacts in the city bureaucracy, and he had good contact with other Brooklyn Jews from some of these neighborhoods, and these were all invaluable to help the mob get control of municipal construction. It’s a 1968 wiretap in a restaurant in Sheepshead Bay. Lucchese Captain says, you got that union prick off our back? Sheff says, he’s off. He’s got a brother-in-law in the Department of Buildings. He don’t want to make waves.

[6:45] Lucchese Captain says, You’re worth your weight in veal cutlets. You know that? That’s kind of interesting to say to a fat man, but they thought that was pretty funny. Well, the fat man became a trusted civilian go-between for all these mob guys, the kind of guy that could talk to mob captains in the morning, joining board members in the afternoon, and other politicians in the evening.

[7:03] He’ll arrange political contributions and those kinds of things. He arranged no-show jobs for mob associates, mob members. He brokered sweetheart deals with trucking companies and on trucking routes. He made sure that unions stayed a friendly union on major building site. You know, you don’t want an unfriendly union. You want a friendly union. He didn’t carry a gun, but when he walked into a restaurant, the wise guys pulled out a chair for him. He once was asked about carrying a gun. He said, I don’t carry a gun. He said, other guys carry guns for me.

[7:35] By the early 70s, he’d solidified himself as the most important civilian figure within New York City’s web of organized crime, particularly in the construction and waste hauling industries. He could bridge the criminal underworld and municipal bureaucracies, which made him invaluable to the Genovese and Lucchese families and the Gambino family. He was connected to all of them. I never heard that same thing about the Bonanno family. Maybe they didn’t do much in construction. They mainly did narcotics, if I remember right. You know, New York City, it’s a city where construction is as much about having the right connections as it is about engineering and pouring concrete and all the technical things, building the actual techniques of building the building. It’s about connections. He was a skilled fixer. He worked closely with contractors, building officials, union leaders. As I said before, the team was Local 282. All these contracts were highly lucrative. He also made sure that the demolition permits fell in the right hands.

[8:34] There’s a 1971 surveillance memo of the NYPD Organized Crime Task Force. Subject Schiff is seen frequently at meetings with Gambino associates Salvatore DiSavano and Thomas Tommy Bellotti. Their conversations indicate involvement in a variety of illicit business dealings, including bookmaking, loan sharking, and operations tied to the Gambino family. His greatest asset was his vast network. He knew all the mobsters. He knew all the zoning officers, all the city inspectors, all the union reps, all the lawyers, and everybody owed him a favor. And he owed them favors at times. He traded favors. I mean, that’s how it works. There’s a wiretap in 1973 with Teamster’s official. Schiff says, you want your truckers to keep rolling smoothly. We get those right permits and union stays in line, no problem. Teamster’s official said, I don’t know, Irwin. The city’s breathing down our necks. Schiff says, I’m the one who’ll make them blink. I’ve got connections in the mayor’s office. Don’t forget that. He wasn’t flashy. He didn’t flaunt his wealth. He stayed behind the scenes. He used conversations, quiet influence, you know, no violence, as I said before.

[9:41] Wiretap in 1974 Midtown Social Club. A Lucchese soldier says, you think that fat prick shifts legit? The Genovese Capo reply. A Genovese Capo replies, you ain’t one of us. He’s better than half our guys, though. He gets things done. Lucchese. Well, maybe he don’t have the muscle to back it up, the Genovese capo says. He don’t need the muscle. He’s got something more important, connections. Another 1974 wiretap in a private club at Midtown Genovese soldier. That fat bastard Schiff, he ain’t one of us, but he’s like he is. Some capo responds to him. It gets more done than half the button men I know. He’s a fucking bridge. By the late 1970s, he had woven himself into the very fabric of New York construction and waste hauling racket. FBI investigators would later call him a human Rolodex that mobbed up contractors, union reps, building department officials, crep lawyers. He wasn’t flashy. He didn’t travel around. He didn’t flaunt it. He just had a list of favors owed him.

[10:44] 1977 wiretap. Capo, you want to build in Brooklyn? You talk to Irwin. He’ll make it like the fireman never even saw it. My associate says, that fat prick, I thought he was a Jew. Capo says, he is, but he eats with us. 1979. field report, subject shift maintains regular contact with Genovese, Lucchese, and Colombo intermediaries. Subject shift maintains regular contact with Genovese, Lucchese, and Colombo intermediaries. He’s believed to broker illicit municipal contracts, no known violent history, but widely respected inside criminal infrastructure.

[11:20] He never forgot who he was or where the power really sat. He knew whose toes to step on and whose toes not to step on. He knew who to bribe. He knew who not to try to bribe. He was really slick behind the scenes the whole time. But he was also on the FBI’s radar, and they recognized what he was, a fixer, Lincoln mob bosses, and a really valuable guy. They didn’t realize how valuable until he actually flipped. He’s going to flip later on. And, you know, put the IRS after him, and, you know, once they put the IRS on you, you’re screwed. If you’re doing anything wrong at all, if you’re dealing any kind of bunch of kickbacks and bribes and all that, the IRS is going to get you. He’s facing potential federal charges, and he starts quietly, very quietly cooperating with the FBI around 1982.

[12:12] He provided a lot of information on corruption involving Local 282 of the teamsters, all the kickback schemes tied to the construction of the Jacob Javits Center.

[12:21] There’s a lot of bribery through the Queensborough President’s Office. There was a particular president of the Queensborough named Donald Maynes that was totally corrupt at the time, and he had connections all over the city, too. FBI will describe him in 1983 as a credible source, active in target operations. I’ll tell you, this guy lived dangerously. He rubbed elbows with mob captains while he was feeding intel to the government. His influence in the New York construction industry was not just confined to job sites or, you know, like concrete contractors, building contractors. It extended deeply into the corridors of political power. And his most critical relationship in this network was this Donald Maynes, a longtime Queens political boss who had become the Queensborough president.

[13:12] Means was a really skilled operator dealing with local government, and particularly when it came to zoning permits, which are, that’s invaluable. The zoning can just kill you. And projects, development projects, new developments and all that, because they need all kinds of, have all kinds of regulation, need all kinds of help. You know, as borough president, he had significant control over a lot of public land use, gave him a lot of leverage in the city where real estate is power. You know, in New York City, real estate is power. Asked Donald Trump. That was his thing. He wanted to get into Manhattan because that’s where the power is in real estate. Schiff found that Maines was a perfect partner in his world of concrete, steel, and mob-connected unions. He could guarantee labor peace, expedite permits, and move money all while insulating himself with political cover. Of course, their arrangement was mutually beneficial. Maines offered protection from regulators and bureaucratic green lights. Schiff delivered cash, political contributions, control, quiet, no union problems, all those kinds of things. Whenever the developers or union bosses needed something done in Queens, whether it’s a permanent rezoning or a strategic delay, Schiff was a man to call. He could smooth over issues with all the inspectors, handle any troublesome union leaders, make inconvenient delays disappear.

[14:34] It was just a little bit of money passed. All that efficiency just took a little corruption. It was just the cost of doing business.

[14:43] 1977, there was a federal wiretap came in from the Queensborough office that really kind of set it all. They got Irwin Schiff on this telephone. He said, we’ve got a couple of union guys down here who need a favor. They’re looking for permits to start a few new projects on the east side. It’ll grease some wheels and make things smooth. Some other voice said, well, you’re always in the middle, Erwin. You’re sure you’re not going to get burned? Chef says, nah, I got mains backing us. He’ll push it through. Just make sure the inspectors get their cut.

[15:15] It wasn’t idle bragging. Schiff wasn’t really operating back in the shadows. He was totally embedded in the system. And the line between organized crime and municipal government was non-existent, really. It was blurred. This relationship really worked. A project moved. Unions cooperated. And political donations flowed quietly in all directions. By the 1980s, pressure began to mount. Investigative reporters and federal agents were closing in on city hall corruption.

[15:43] 1986, Maine’s world collapse and scandal after scandal with a wave of bribery investigations implicating him in kickback schemes involving parking meters, cable television contracts, and construction contracts. Over the next few weeks, a torrent of corruption allegations poured in. You know, once it’s kind of like once something comes out, then somebody else says, oh, we got this going on over here. And then it just, the blocks just start falling. The core of the scandal really centered around the New York City Parking Violations Bureau. In 1978, Mainz had appointed a guy named Jeffrey Lidenour as deputy director of the Parking Violations Bureau, which steered contracts to companies that paid bribes to both men. So Mainz, Lidenour, and Bronx. By 1982, Mainz, Lidenour, and a Bronx Democratic Party boss named Stanley Friedman held shares in CitySource. That’s a firm that secures city contracts for handheld ticketing devices. You ever seen those handheld ticketing devices? They go around, you get your ticket, they just click your license number in and it prints out a ticket and put it on the windshield wiper and it sends all the computer information into a central computer.

[16:57] They found out Mainz was taking bribes from another company, collecting on tickets, overdue tickets, and that owner became a cooperating witness. And in January 23rd, 1986, there was a columnist named Jimmy Breslin. You may have heard of him. He wrote a famous book called The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight about one of the Columbo Wars with Joey Gallo. Anyhow, he published a story that quoted the owner of another company who claimed to have paid Mainz $36,000 in bribes. So investigators expanded their probe into this other company and then looked at cable TV franchises, other zoning variances, and no-bid contracts. Mainz will resign just a month later in February.

[17:39] He’ll kind of withdraw from public view, and I have growing exposure about his longtime alliance with Irwin Schiff. Now, Schiff, if you remember earlier in wiretaps, it reassured people that now I got Mainz backing us. Just make sure the inspectors get their cut. But Mainz is gone. So Schiff’s not, he’s losing a lot of power here too. You know, Mainz, a couple years later, he’s on to tell kind of an interesting story. He’s on his phone with his psychiatrist and his wife’s on the upstairs extension. I don’t know what that’s all about, but I guess that’s how they do it in New York. Said the psychiatrist briefly stepped away. mains couldn’t take it anymore he walked in the kitchen opened up the door pulled out an eight inch long kitchen knife and drove it into his chest his wife and daughter heard them collapse and fall and they ran down into the kitchen and pulled a knife out of his heart called 9-1-1 but he was dead a lot of reports that he shot himself but they believe that he stabbed himself in the heart with a knife i mean go figure i never heard of that before you know after his death i tell you the investigations really took off then. They knew there was a lot more to be uncovered here. They must have had a lot to hide.

[18:51] Schiff, all his protections, political protections gone. Federal prosecutors are paying a lot more closer attention to him. He’s informed of the FBI. This life that he’s been leading starts to crack. Some court filings and press leaks expose his role as an informant. And, of course, the Genovese family is, you know, he’s their guy. You know, Bobby Manna, he’s really close to Irwin Schiff, and, you know, they don’t know for sure, but it looks like he’s been informant.

[19:24] 1982 FBI briefing says Schiff has established a rapport with top-ranking figures in the Genovese family and is believed to facilitate major money laundering schemes involving both the construction industry and the illegal gambling operations. He’s considered an integral asset to the family’s financial operations. Well you know that’s and they start using an informant about that time and that’s what they’re using him for.

[19:52] He keeps providing information to the FBI, and he’s also working with the Genovese family. They didn’t question his loyalty for quite a while, but eventually they’re going to start questioning his loyalty, and things are going to come out. 1985, there’s a hidden FBI microphone at Casella’s Restaurant in Hoboken. It’s a Genovese stronghold. It’s where Bobby Manna really operates out of. He’s talking about Schiff. Manus says, he talks to the suits, meaning the FBI, and then breaks bread with us. That’s not loyalty. Casella, the guy that owns the restaurant, says, he’s not even Italian. Who’s going to cry? Manus says, that fat bastard’s a problem. He talks too much. Casella says, you want it done? Manus says, make it clean. No mistakes. You know, during these conversations, they refer to Schiff as CC for construction coordinator. That’s a company that Schiff was affiliated with.

[20:47] Casella later on will say, I’ll bring it up in a meeting. We’ll discuss it. Unidentified voice. You want to hit him? Other voice says, we’ll do him good at night. Probably 1986, latter part of 86, 87. They’re monitoring. They notice that Manna and his associates are discussing Schiff’s movements, which means they’re plotting his murder. A guy named DeSiccio says, Schiff was at Bravo last night with some blonde. I was with a blonde. Maybe she’s wired too. Another voice says, we know the exit. We just walk in and bang. FBI keeps telling him, you know, you’re going to have to do something. They’re after you, and I’ve seen this before. One Friday afternoon, Irwin Schiff arrived at a lunch at a familiar east side restaurant, dressed in his usual gray suit and fedora is really dapper. Sits down, opens a menu. About 10, 15 minutes later, 1, 12 p.m., a man enters the side door, just walks directly up to Schiff and fired three rounds at close range. .38 revolver hit him in the neck, chest, and head. He slumps forward onto his plate. Gunman calmly walks out. The murder’s over.

[21:55] The diners are just like stunned, and that’s the way to do it. You just walk in, shoot somebody, and walk out. NYPD will remark, well, this wasn’t random. This wasn’t a random shooting. This was some kind of a message. A couple days later, another conversation was recorded at Casellas. Daniello. Place was jammed. All the people ran out. Bobby picked this kid out. Casella, stone killer.

[22:19] This was a strategic, surgical, and symbolic act. You know, there was a guy, an associate, that had crossed the line, and the mob responded with what we’d say lethal clarity. Schiff’s killing will become central to the federal government’s racketeering case against Bobby Manna with these wiretaps where he’s discussing this. They also were discussing killing John Gotti and his brother Gene Gotti at this same time, and the same at Casellas. Manna was so enraged by Gotti’s unsanxioned 1985 murder of Paul Castellano and he wanted to retaliate, but he also wanted to neutralize any threats from the new Gambino boss, John Gotti, if you remember. They had some kind of mutual territory, mutual things going side by side down in New Jersey.

[23:13] 1989, using these tapes as evidence and some other people that turned government-convicted Manna of conspiring to murder Schiff, conspiring to murder John Gotti and Gene Gotti. And they also claimed, but it was never confirmed, and I couldn’t find any real evidence they had, but some informants claimed that Manna had discussed potential hits on the judge, Mary Ann Trump-Berry, Donald Trump’s, President Trump’s sister, and U.S. Attorney Samuel Aliotto, now on the Supreme Court, and Michael Chertoff, who was the actual prosecutor on the scene. Manor ended up getting an 80-year sentence from Judge Barry at several appeals claiming that a lot of misinterpreted conversation at the government withheld witness, but everything stood. One of the most damning pieces of evidence, they said, was Manor’s directive regarding Gene Gotti. Make it clean, no mistakes.

[24:12] These tapes didn’t just convict Bobby Manna, they exposed a rip between the old school Genovese leaders and the rising flashiness of the gaudy regime.

[24:23] Manna was a traditionalist, and he viewed this as a betrayal. Despite any legal challenge that he had, Manna stayed in prison until 2025, just this last month, and at age 95, he got a compassionate release. Supposedly under house arrest in Bayonne, New Jersey. You know, if you think about it, all those families of the people silenced by man’s orders and the consequences still echo. That bullet ended Schiff’s life. Those cold calculating words captured at Casellas. Still in the official record, it’s a lasting reminder of a time, kind of a long gone time when the mafia would reach out and kill anybody who ever betrayed them. Doesn’t seem like they do that so much anymore. All these guys out here doing podcast and living out in the open of some here in Kansas City. I mean, it’s like, I don’t know. Yeah.

[25:15] It’s just different than it once was. You know, murder somebody just for revenge is not worth it. You know, you just either got to do your own thing, keep your mouth shut, and somebody testifies, you know, they testify.

[25:27] So that’s the story of Bobby Manna and the case that brought him down. You know, Vincent Gigante, he went down about this time. They really brought down that whole Genovese family. I mean, can you imagine that from the most powerful, most dangerous, most feared mafia outfit in the country to basically nothing today, it seems like, or not very much. Anyhow, thanks a lot, guys. I appreciate y’all tuning in. Don’t forget to like and subscribe if you’re on YouTube. Remember, I like to ride motorcycles, so watch out for motorcycles when you’re out there on the street. If you have a problem with PTSD, you’ve been in the service, go to the VA website, get that hotline number, PTSD. You know, lots of times you have problems of drugs or alcohol. Anthony Ruggiano has a hotline number on one of his, on his YouTube channel or his website. One, he’s a drug and alcohol counselor down in Florida. If I have problems with gambling, there’s 1-800-BETS-OFF in Missouri or other, every other state will have some, if you have gambling, they’ll have some kind of a hotline number. I got a lot of stuff for sale. I always want to sell something. If you want to get a copy of one of my books, you know, You can go on my website or you can go to Amazon.com. Just Google my name and Mafia books and Mafia documentaries. Got a couple of documentaries out there. You can rent them streaming. Anyhow, thanks a lot, guys. I probably sold it up. Thanks a lot, guys.

[26:56] And tell your friends about us, remember?

In this eye-opening episode of Gangland Wire, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins pulls back the curtain on a lesser-known chapter of American crime history — how the Kansas City mob capitalized on the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s to fuel its criminal empire.

Gary takes listeners deep into the shadowy world of Nick Civella, the shrewd Kansas City mob boss whose knack for high-stakes financial deals made him a pivotal figure long after his rise to power in 1957. Discover how Civella leveraged massive loans — including the notorious $62 million from the Teamsters Pension Fund — to help finance Las Vegas casinos like the Stardust, creating opportunities for mobsters like Lefty Rosenthal to skim untold millions from the gaming floors.

The episode traces how shifting interest rates and lax lending regulations cracked open the door for organized crime to exploit savings and loan institutions. Gary details how local mobsters compromised bank employees, funneled unsecured loans, and left behind a trail of financial ruin that reverberated far beyond Kansas City. You’ll hear gripping accounts of banks like Shawnee State Bank and Indian Springs State Bank, where insiders turned a blind eye — or worse — to the mob’s schemes.

Listeners also meet Anthony Russo, a criminal attorney with deep ties to mob-run banking ventures, and Farhad Azima, a businessman whose name appears in allegations linking financial crime to covert government operations. These tangled connections paint a vivid picture of how the lines between legitimate business, organized crime, and shadowy politics can blur.

Through vivid stories and insider knowledge, Gary breaks down how these Kansas City schemes mirrored the nationwide savings and loan crisis that ultimately cost taxpayers billions. From questionable loans backed by worthless assets to the fallout that reshaped the Teamsters Union and federal oversight, this episode reveals how deep the mob’s influence ran — and how fragile the American financial system can be when corruption goes unchecked.

Tune in for a fascinating blend of true crime, history, and financial intrigue that exposes how power, money, and organized crime colluded behind the scenes to leave a lasting mark on American society.

🎧 Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app.

💬 Subscribe to Gangland Wire for more stories straight from the front lines of organized crime.

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To buy my Kindle book, Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How FBI Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos.

Chapters

Transcript

[1:30] Nick Savella, he didn’t have any formal education, but he had a nose for good, big, sophisticated, money-making deals. He knew an opportunity when he saw it. I was on this local podcast with a guy named John Termini, and he had Nick Savella’s great-grandnephew. I guess that’s how you say it. It was Tony Ripe’s grandson. Tony Ripe is Nick Savella’s nephew.

[2:00] And his kid, Anthony Savella, and he told me, and he called him Zio, which is Italian for uncle, said Zio plays chess while others play checkers, and that’s true. I agree with that. Remember, Nick Savella is a guy that helped orchestrate that deal with the Teamsters Pension Fund to loan $62 million to a man named Alan Glick to purchase a Stardust and three other casinos, And Alan Glick, he was like a 32-year-old untested shopping center developer is all he’d ever done. Now, in exchange for that money that he was able to borrow from the Teamsters Pension Fund, he allowed them, that cartel of Kansas City, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Cleveland, he allowed them to put Lefty Rosenthal in the hotel and then Lefty Rosenthal, then put other people in the hotel and in the count room and, and in other areas of the hotel where they could then skim millions off the top of the casino receipts before the money even got counted.

[3:04] Now, do you recall the savings and loan scandals in the 1980s? I kind of do. And, you know, by this time, by the 80s, the trials, the skim trials were starting and it was all exposed what they’d been doing. The Teamsters Pension Fund was under heavy, heavy federal scrutiny at the time. They’ll eventually put the Teamsters Union into trusteeship and the fund and trusteeship. And the government will help appoint new overseers and regulators. And they’ll really monitor that closely. And so all those loan kickback schemes they had done for years are dried up. They’re gone. Alan Dormans, who was their main guy in Chicago, the guy that really was integral to getting all these pension fund loans, he’s been killed. Mob bosses are all going to jail. One of their other guys, Jackie Presser out of Cleveland, they find out he’s been an informant and he’s testifying. And Roy Lee Williams, who was a teamster out of Kansas City, they got him on a case trying to bribe the senator from Howard Cannon, the senator from Nevada, with Joey Lombardo. He’s going to jail, and he testifies about how, you know, they had been, the teamsters had been controlled by the mob and by him and Cleveland and Milwaukee and Chicago.

[4:31] Now, if you remember in the 1970s, the feds raised interest big time on loans to combat inflation, when inflation was just out of control. We were getting, if you were getting paid during the early 70s or middle 70s when inflation went out of control, you remember you got 10, 12, 15% increases in your paycheck. It was crazy. And I also remember paying, I think it was 12% maybe on my first home loan during those years. So that will slow inflation down. As inflation slowed down, then they wanted to generate new business in the lending industry. So the Fed started losing their control on it. They had put a lot more controls on it with that much higher interest rate than other controls. They started loosening control on the lending institutions.

[5:26] Now the mob is never going to sit on its hands when control is loosened, where there’s a lot of money involved, whether it’s casinos or banks or whatever. They see an opening. There’s nobody watching the till, if you will, and nobody really monitoring the employees quite so closely.

[5:43] They’re going to start trying to get their hands into it. Now, for example, kind of during that time, there was a small scheme in the Kansas City Bank at the Shawnee State Bank. Somebody in our local mob family compromised a banker at this bank. Pretty soon, policemen were in there and they saw these low-level mob associates just accidentally and they called the FBI. A couple of low-level mob associates coming in and getting loans.

[6:11] So they started looking at it and started kind of watching the bank. And at the same time, we came up with some other information that they had compromised a guy, a bank officer at the Shawnee State Bank. So then pretty soon they opened up a whole investigation on it. And they found out that these guys were getting these loans. They’d pass the money along to somebody in the mob, take a little piece of the action themselves. And then they’d never pay it back. I mean, you know, I understand it would ruin their credit. See, they never had any credit when they went in there. These were guys that didn’t have any credit when they walked in. They never should have gotten a loan. They ended up taking everybody down on that. Shortly after that, there’s another small bank in Kansas City, Kansas. It’s called the Indian Spring State Bank. Now, Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas are like East St. Louis and St. Louis, you know, just across the state line. They have a small bank in a shopping mall. There’s a little strip mall bank. It’s called the Indian Spring State Bank. And the board kind of wants to, you know, banking business is starting to go again and money’s being loosened up.

[7:14] And they hired a small town Lexington, Missouri banker named William Le Master. And he was told, you know, he needed to save this bank and make it profitable. And he claimed that he could do that. Now, this small town guy, you know, he’s an older guy. He’s been out here in Lexington. This is about 40, 50 miles out of Kansas City, up along the Missouri River, a real old town.

[7:36] And this guy, he was interesting in that he dressed like a Wall Street banker. You know, he wore, you know, kind of narrow ties and, you know, he looked like, and really good suits, you know, like at that time, probably $500 suits and, you know, really good shoes. And he looked like a big city banker. One of his early moves was to hire a local man, a Kansas City criminal lawyer named Anthony Russo. And in contrast to Mr.

[8:08] Conservative dressing banker, Anthony Russo and quiet. Anthony Russo was loud. He wore double-breasted pinstripe suits. He wore ostentatious display of jewelry and a big, big, heavy gold jewelry. I mean, he looked like a gangster. What can I say? He certainly looked like a mob lawyer, at least. I mean, on the TV, I realize people in real life aren’t always like this, but he looked like what you would think a mob lawyer would look like. I suspect our friend Joe Lopez, the shark up in Chicago, was probably not like that. Bruce Cutler, he always wore really nice conservative clothes and all those New York mob lawyers. And the ones, the real ones we had here, this guy was kind of a minor mob lawyer, shall we say. Anthony Russo had spent many years as a well-known criminal attorney. He was known by everybody in both sides of the state line and power brokers and members of the mafia. and he had represented Nick Savella and some other people, not in any great big cases, but he had represented them. They trusted him.

[9:14] He had been the subject of a bribery investigation and actually had taken a conviction by this time. In the early 1970s, Kansas City, Kansas, had a big increase in massage parlors that were really brothels. And Russo started out defending prostitutes as they were caught and make a case on a prostitute. He was one of those lawyers that would be down there at city court and get them

[9:40] a deal of some kind and take $500 in cash money, maybe even $1,000 back then. Another thing interesting about Russo, though, he was also the attorney for the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department’s Fraternal Order of Police, so he knew all the cops. Now, cops are like Tim. Believe me, if you’re in the FOP.

[10:01] And you have a lawyer that works for you, then he’s your go-to guy. And if he wants you to ask you about something, you know, you’re going to talk to him and try to do, you know, try to get along with him. And maybe if he needs something, well, at least try to help him out. And just one hand waspses the other. It’s kind of how it works. And as long as you don’t have, they don’t ask you to do anything criminal. But sometimes they might. I never had that. We never really had this kind of a situation in Missouri. But in Kansas, they did. Well, there was a pimp over there in KCK or in Kansas City, Kansas. That was paying Rousseau to defend some of his girls. And he asked him, he said, hey, can you, you know, you know cops, can you get a contact in the vice unit and see, you know, see if we can’t work something out? Come on, man. He said, these guys are costing me money.

[10:48] So he had a, he also owned a massage parlor, of course.

[10:53] And Rousseau went to the head of the vice unit. He was a sergeant at the time, but kind of the stick. He’ll go on, go on up in rank. actually, and he went to him and they ended up making a deal.

[11:06] And so by 1973, you know, if the KCK vice unit was going to go out and hit some massage parlors this one particular night, then they would know that they were coming out, at least with his massage parlors. And the word started getting around and somebody got caught, somebody testified, and I can’t even remember all the details of the case, but they got testified. Glad they charged some policemen and they charged Russo. The policeman got off, to be quite honest. If I remember right, the policeman got off. But Rousseau didn’t. He went into federal court and they convicted him of several counts. He got, I don’t know, three or four years in prison. He served 16 months up at Leavenworth for bribery and interstate promotion of prostitution. And as a result of that, in order to not be disbarred, where maybe he can go back and get his license back, you can go in, you can give up your law license for a period of time.

[12:05] And then if you have to go back, you want to go back and reactivate it. You can inactivate it, I think is the word. Then you reactivate it. You got to go in and take some consumer, some CLEs, some continuing legal education classes, and then just reactivate your license.

[12:23] He gets hired. this LeMaster hires Anthony Russo. Bank regulators who were familiar with this, Russo was willing to own enough character in KCK that they’re like, hey, and any simple investigation will reveal you can go in and run Anthony Russo in KCK and you can find out about all this bribery and prostitution thing today. And back then, you couldn’t run it in a computer, but you could find it out pretty easy, Probably just by reading the newspapers, you probably would remember the name or asking around.

[12:59] Found out about that. Locally, they denied approval for him to become a bank officer, but then they had to forward this. They aren’t the final say-so. They forwarded his application in denial to Washington, D.C. Well, the FDIC Board of Review overruled the local investigators and approved this convicted felon, mob associate, Anthony Russo, to serve as an officer at the Indian Springs State Bank. They did add a restriction that said his duty should be limited to new business development, which means he’s like a salesman. He goes out and knocks on doors, goes to businesses, joins Rotary, gets to know business people, other business people he already knows, and says, hey, come on down to the bank here and make your deposits down here or come on down and do some expansion. Let me look at your business. You can expand here. We can make you a loan for that to generate new business. And he had a lot of personal contacts, a lot of business contacts. You know, it would be okay for him to do something like that, which, you know, it would get the bank going again. And he really didn’t have anything to do as long as they were all straight up loans. You know, he had a lot to.

[14:14] To, uh, uh, offer to the bank, you know, there was a banker and one of the other bankers at the time said that there was something about him. He said, Russo could just walk up to somebody, a businessman or a person, individual that had to a substantial, had substantial means and just ask them if they would move their account to an Indian Springs state bank and they would do it. No questions asked. Now, uh, I’m not sure about that, but, but that’s what one of the other bankers said That was in, there’s a book out there called Inside Job by a guy named Stephen Pritzel. And it’s a really, it’s an overview. I mean, overview, it’s a really extensive look at the looting of American savings and loans back in the days. And it cost the government, it cost the taxpayers a lot of money to clean that mess up, to bail out all these banks. How many times are we going to have to keep bailing these banks out?

[15:05] We’ve done it more than once in my lifetime. So during this same time, Lemaster and Russo invited an Iranian-American businessman named Farhad Azima, who’s about 40 years old, a middle-aged guy,

[15:21] to join the bank’s board of directors. And Le Master and Russo also at the same time described themselves as advisory directors of Global International Airways, which in the Global International Airways was owned by Fareed Azima. It was headquartered in Kansas City. They had a small set of offices. I remember going by them after we found out about some of this stuff and just going by and picking up some license plates. And, you know, there wasn’t really anything ever there. There wasn’t any mob guys there. It wasn’t anybody there. It didn’t seem like. And we’re in a small set of offices. It’s really maybe three or four rooms in this little office building, in this part of this office building. And it’s nondescript. It was in a strip mall. It was mainly frequented in that area by students from nearby University of Missouri, Kansas City. They had a coffee shop across the street and a sandwich place and a Chinese restaurant, Ken Lynn’s and a pizza place. So, you know, just a real unassuming little place. But this airline, it was making money. They had a lot of planes. You couldn’t tell by looking at this office. I know that.

[16:31] Now, in Prizo’s book, he reveals many clues that shows.

[16:37] Global International Airlines was either a CIA front, owned by the CIA, or was extremely lucky in getting paid to ship guns into Africa and other secretive missions around the Middle East and Central America and places like that. Remember, this is during the time of the guns for, what was it, what did they call that, with the Contras, the guns for the Contra thing that Reagan and all those guys were involved in. and they get involved in some of that. He started this company, supposedly, just three years before this, to ship cattle to Iran, and this was about the time the Shah of Iran fell, and he’s out, and now he can’t do business with the new government. There’s no way he’s going to do business with them directly. He’d borrowed a lot of money from a Saudi bank. He’s one of these international entrepreneurs. He then started getting other contracts, and over the next couple of three years, by 82 or so, 83.

[17:38] Global International will become one of the nation’s largest charter airlines, you know, or bigger passenger airlines. This is a charter airline, had 900 employees worldwide, 20 planes, had 17 707s, two 727s, and one 747, which is a monster. So they started making headlines right away through some, you know, that many planes, that many employees. Yeah. They were doing a lot more than this, but this one situation, one of their planes got stranded for three days on an airfield in Tunis, Tunisia, North Africa, along the Mediterranean coast, right next to Egypt, I believe.

[18:19] In Prizo’s book, he has interviewed the pilot who claimed that he’d been paid $93,000 cash in advance to deliver relief supplies. Well, now who pays somebody $93,000 in cash to deliver relief supplies? I don’t think anybody would buy that story. Some reporters at the time when this started coming out asked Zima about it, and he said, oh, he said, these cash transactions like that, they’re every day. We always do that in the international charter, you know, the international charter business, the double-knot spy business, I think.

[18:53] But later on, after some workers has kind of, you know, they got enough whatever oomph to get this plane going, that workers loaded cargo on the plane. And this pilot, because he knew the heat was on, I believe, he demanded to see these relief supplies. He was supposed to be flying to Nicaraguan refugees in Costa Rica. And they were labeled lettuce. Let me see the lettuce. Well, he found out this lettuce were twin-barrel 57-millimeter guns with several dozen cases of ammunition, and it was all labeled in Chinese. Reporters found the Zima after that. he said that, well, global will not deliver cargo like that. If we know that’s what the contents are, we will not deliver cargo like that. Now, the Tunisian government was involved in this because as this all started falling down, they said the Palestinian Liberation Organization, or the PLO, was sending arms to the Sandinistas. So, you know, who knows in this, like I said, this double knot spy game, who really knows what the truth is? You know, a global crewman was interviewed, and he said it was kind of a standing joke among crews at that time that when he was in the air, When inspectors, airport people would ask what their cargo was, they’d say, well, they’re cabbages and cabbage launchers.

[20:13] And after this time, though, pilots said that their company stopped labeling shipments as cabbages. Then they just put Red Cross stickers over all the sides so it looked like Red Cross supplies, which is, you know, better covered than cabbages or lettuce. Although if you got something that will spoil, you can better put easier push customs people and people that want to hold you up. You can push them easier and say, hey, man, you’re going to spoil, you know, $50,000 worth of food supplies for these poor people over here. And they might let you go. It’s a pretty good, both of them are pretty good scams. Now, during these next few years, everybody in the intelligence community, if they’re an insider, will say, well, that’s Global International is really like Air America, which Air America was well known at the time to be actually owned by the CIA.

[21:07] It’s their own secret charter airline. It’s an open secret at that time. But what was interesting, why Air America pilots started showing up on Global’s pilot rosters and on the logs, and they were showing, they have logs that were showing flying arms and other supplies to Ecuador and Peru and into Southeast Asia, Thailand and Nairobi, Africa and Pakistan, different hotspots like that.

[21:35] And Zima will be asked about this later on. He’ll always claim that his loads had State Department approval. When he was asked if he really worked for the CIA, he’ll say, you know, we don’t knowingly work for the CIA. He never said no.

[21:50] Now, going back, that’s a lot about Azima and his global international airways. But he and Russo were buddies during all this. Anthony Russo, you know, remember him? He’s a small-time criminal lawyer. He’s a small-time criminal lawyer.

[22:08] Fixer, bribes policemen, knows Savellas, knows all the mob people in Kansas City.

[22:17] Now he’s a bank, he and he and Azima both are buddies and they’re also both bankers, bank officers at Indian Spring State Bank. Azima was directly involved with Indian Spring State Bank. If he involved Global’s activities in it, don’t really know for sure. But here is one story where they were intertwined. Russo, during the investigation after all this, Russo had a $25,000 check from Global International. He was questioned about that check in court. He was in a trial for a tax fraud. And he gave the following explanation. He said the government, U.S. Government, had hired Global International to transport a former army sergeant, a Liberian army sergeant named Samuel Doe, who had, you know, they’d had a coup and he was now the new president of Liberia and he appointed his new cabinet and they were supposed to fly Samuel Doe and his new cabinet all around the world on a goodwill tour. He said Azima asked him to go as a host to the president and his cabinet just to escort him around, make connections for him and just kind of be their buddy. And they’ll later say to kiss his ass and keep him happy because they want maybe some librarian deposits, of course, like to get into some of that government money from over in Africa deposited in their bank.

[23:42] Rousseau claimed that he got the approval from the bank president, Mr.

[23:47] LeMaster, and LeMaster will later agree. He said, yeah, and I covered for his duties while he went on this goodwill trip around the world because he believed that he’d become friends with Sergeant Doe and his cabinet, and after that, from that relationship, they’d be able to get bank deposits from Liberia.

[24:05] And he said that that $25,000, he split that fee with Russo. That $25,000 check was Russo’s share of it. And LeMaster got the other part of it. And he said it was because he covered for Russo while he was gone. It was his bank director job or whatever it was. You know it was a no-show job. Zima will later be asked about this. and he said he just wanted somebody, wanted Russo or somebody like that. He was a real hale and hearty, well-meet guy. He said he’d greet Doe with a hearty high prez, and he just was one of those guys that could get along with anybody. A global attorney will say Russo’s main job was to keep Doe’s bodyguards from showing their guns out too often when they were in these other countries. It sounds to me like just probably a many months-long or a month-long trip around the world to hoard and drink and party for a month or so on their librarian’s dollar.

[25:11] And Azima, of course, he was helping out with this because they wanted that money out of a librarian, wanted business out of a librarian, didn’t mind bribing people to get it.

[25:22] You know, there was a trial for tax fraud I just mentioned. Well, during that time, this Azima testified at that, and he got found. First, he got a hung jury, and then I think he got a not guilty. Yeah, he got acquitted on the third trial after two hung juries. And the prosecutor is really frustrated because they believe that Azima’s connections to the government and references to the CIA gave him this, Russo, Anthony Russo, this aura of respectability. Well, you know, during this time, the real scam, Indian Sprig State Bank and other banks around the country was starting to come to light. They were figuring some stuff out, and they were using the Indian Springs State Bank to do it. And I’ll tell you about what that was in a minute. But they actually placed an ad in the New York Times, the Washington Post, I think maybe the L.A. Paper, the big city newspapers, and it said, Money for rent. Obstacles to borrowing neutralized by having us deposit funds and your local bank. New turnstile approach to financing. Right to fund. Suite 311, 1001 Franklin Avenue, Garden City, New York. People rent money? WTF? I mean, people go around renting money to banks to then loan out? I don’t know.

[26:44] I’m not a high finance guy. Maybe somebody out there can explain that one to me.

[26:50] Now, you remember the teamsters’ loans that were obtained by casino owners who knew they had to kick back cash to mobsters. Mobsters had already pressured the pension funds to make those loans to people who may not be able to pay them back weren’t the best risk. Remember the Shawnee Mission State Bank officer who made loans to mob associates who shared the majority of loan money back to the mob and just kept a little piece of it? Well, it was along those same lines. They rented money to a financial institution. At the same time, people or businesses would appear and they want to borrow money at the same time. And they’d agree to pay a really high rate of interest and some extra fees.

[27:33] Because, see, these new borrowers, they were straw borrowers. They didn’t care how much the bank charged his fees or interest or anything about that. And once they got the money, they’d been sent there by Le Master, Russo, and some other people that got involved with this on the national basis. And then, of course, strong borrowers evaporate and loans are never repaid. Pretty soon the people that lease their money want their money back along with their rental fee. You know, they say, hey, it’s not my fault you made bad loans to people that didn’t repay them. You know, the rental time’s up, giving my money back, paying my rental fee. So on a local level, Azimun also had other connections to the Indian State Bank. He recommended that the bank loan $200,000 to the Dunes Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. It’s an unsecured loan, which like all these others were, and it was going to be for $200,000, and it was going to be guaranteed by Dunes owner, Morris Schenker.

[28:30] Now, Morris Schenker is the same St. Louis lawyer who owned the Dunes, but he also is the same guy who stiffed Alan Dorfman on his finder’s fee for a pension fund loaned to the Dunes Casino.

[28:42] Listen to this clip of Joy Lombardo, the Chicago outfit capo, threatening Schenker to pay that money back as Schenker is refusing to pay it back. We’re going to go to Chicago. Yeah, you know what I mean by Chicago. Should have gone off the top, you know? We didn’t even get covered over there. Because when we got covered, all the people here. You have to find a way to clean it. Very good. So I’m the nicest guy in the world that has that in hand. Nobody’s going to make me do anything. I never did business with him. That’s true. I’ve just been in the conference. I’ve been in the conference. I’ve been in the conference. You it is. Excuse me. I just heard a message back. You can take the system if you want. I’ll tell you what you want.

[29:29] He said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he said he or any hidden interest in the Dunes Hotel. I’m willing to stake my life, my reputation, and everything I’ve got on that statement. But I’ll tell you this, I’m opposed to organized crime, not only in Las Vegas, I’m opposed to it in every matter, shape, or form. Schenker will eventually declare bankruptcy and be millions and millions of dollars that he’ll get discharged. I think $197 million in bank loans and savings and loan loans, pension fund loans. Their whole, you know, just, it was bad. The IRS said actually at that time he owed $66 million in taxes.

[30:41] Regulators looked at that loan and Indian State Bank books, and they said, you need to, you know, you need to collect on that and get him out of there. That guy’s not credit worthy, but, you know, nothing ever happened. It was never paid back. Nothing ever happened. Now, Morris Schenker was an associate of Nick Savella in Kansas City, and when bank regulators started looking at the books, they discovered that the Indian Springs State Bank had loaned other members of the Savella family money on unsecured loans. We go back to the Shawnee State Bank, same deal. They learned that Most of these loans were part of the new business Tony Russo was bringing into the bank. Actually, different mob guys got a total of $400,000 in loans from the Indian Springs State Bank. One was even for an Italian restaurant. I don’t remember what the restaurant was. It probably didn’t last any time. Maybe they’d never even opened it. Their accounts were always overdrawn.

[31:37] They weren’t paying them back. They weren’t making their payments. One thing they did, regulators caught, was there was a loan to Nixabella that he wasn’t making any payments, but they kept it current by just keep rolling it over and renewing it and renewing it. And they decreased the amount of the loan at each renewal to cover the interest rates, the interest costs that they had never paid. But, you know, eventually it’s just, you know, actually he’s going to die. He’s going to go to jail and die, and he’s never going to pay that back either. Same time, Indian Springs is making these sweetheart loans to members of the Savella crime family.

[32:12] The Savellas are embroiled in a criminal prosecution in Kansas City, if you remember that. They indicted Nick and Carl Savella and Charlie Mortina and Tufty Luna and some others for skimming from the Tropicana. And then later, the second trial will be from the Stardust, part of the whole caper that was in the Casino movie. I know you all have seen Casino. Nick will die of cancer before that trial is over.

[32:40] Carl, his brother Carl, is convicted and he dies in prison. Now, there’s another guy that had a loan to the Indian Springs State Bank that never got paid back. Carl Caruso, they called him the singer on the wiretaps. He operated junkets to Las Vegas and the dunes and other casinos. And he was the bag man for the skimming operation. and he was transporting the scam from the trial back to Kansas City. And that’s the one they caught him with, $80,000. He had $40,000 in one pocket and $40,000 in the other just inside his coat pocket. And when they took him off at the airport and arrested him, he just pulled it out and laid it on the table. These were all near-perfect scams. They had all these phony borrows. They had the banks rigged on a national basis. They were even putting money into these savings and loans. And on a national basis they were getting rent money to the banks and then sending their own people in to borrow that money back and never paying it back giving the bulk of the money that they borrowed back to…

[33:44] The criminals then pretty soon the people that put the money into the bank wanted their money back and had to deal with the bank and the bank was legitimate and and they’re going to have to give the money back plus pay the uh the interest rate or the the fee for renting the money however they catch that and on a local basis you know all the mob guys are going over there getting these money getting

[34:06] these loans that they are never intended on paying back because they had the bank wired. So anyhow, that’s a story about how the mafia got involved in the savings and loan scams and the scandals of the 1980s. So thanks a lot, guys. I really appreciate everybody who’s listening and watching. Don’t forget, I like to ride motorcycles, so watch out for motorcycles when you’re on the street driving your F-150 or your Denali, De Niro, and all that kind of stuff. Those things are huge, man. You put a motorcycle up between that and a big truck, and it’s pretty scary sometimes. If you have a problem with the PTSD and you’ve been in the service, be sure and go to that VA website, get that hotline number. If you have a problem with drugs or alcohol, VA will help you. But if you’re not been in the service, then you can go to Anthony Rugiano down in Florida and he’s got a hotline on his website.

[35:00] If you want to read some good mob books, you know, I’ve got three out there. I’ve got the, uh, windy city mafia, the Chicago outfit. I’ve got a big apple mafia, the five New York, New York’s five family stories from the podcast. You may recognize some of them.

[35:16] And then I’ve got my, uh, leaving Vegas, FBI wiretaps, Indian mob nomination, Las Vegas casinos, which tells all about the skimming investigation from the Kansas city and what we saw and what we did here in Kansas city. You know, not what particularly what lefty did out there and that soap proper stuff with Sharon Stone and whatever, Jill, I think, whatever his real wife’s name was. And Tony Splattro, you know, I know he’s real popular to read about and learn about.

[35:43] You know, learn about this from the Kansas City side of this whole story. And it was a heck of a story. It was one heck of a story that the FBI took down these guys. And like, really, if you think about it, historically, they irrevocably changed the Teamsters Union for good or for bad. I don’t know. But in the end, they caused the Teamsters Union to be taken over by a trusteeship and the pension fund all be taken over and, you know, good, legitimate people being installed, you know, especially after Jimmy Hoffa died. You know, there were just and everybody had gone to jail by the end. I mean, all the upper echelon and the Teamsters and the mob that were into the Teamster racketeering, they all went to jail during these years. Now, don’t forget, I have this YouTube channel, like and subscribe. Put it on your social media. Put links to your social media. Tell your friends about it. Same way with the audio podcast. You can put a link on your social media. Help me out by just telling other people about it. It helps immensely. Thanks a lot, guys. Mentally. Thanks a lot, guys. Mentally. Thanks a lot, guys. Mentally. Thanks a lot, guys. Mentally.

Gary and Mike also explore the uneasy dance between lawmen and mobsters—a world where unexpected moments of mutual respect could coexist with threats of violence. Mike shares stories of face-to-face encounters with figures like Rusty Rastelli of the Bonanno Family, offering rare insights into how respect, fear, and human decency sometimes blurred the lines between hunter and hunted.

The episode dives even deeper into the chase for Alphonse “Allie Boy” Persico of the Colombo Family. Mike recounts the painstaking hours of investigation, the calculated street-level work, and the tension that came with tracking a fugitive deeply embedded in a culture of secrecy and retribution. His personal stories illuminate how local knowledge and personal relationships can make or break a case.

Throughout the episode, Mike doesn’t shy away from the psychological cost of the job, navigating threats from criminal networks while maintaining unbreakable bonds with fellow officers. He reflects on these life-changing experiences in his book, Adapt and Overcome, which he describes as part memoir, part raw look at the human side of life on the front lines of America’s war against organized crime.

For true crime fans, mob history buffs, or anyone fascinated by the delicate balance of law enforcement in high-risk territory, this episode is packed with vivid stories and personal reflections that remind us what it truly takes to track—and confront—the mob.

🎧 Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app.

📚 Pick up Mike’s book: Adapt and Overcome

💬 Subscribe to Gangland Wire for more stories straight from the front lines of organized crime.

Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire

To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here

To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here. 

To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here

To buy my Kindle book, Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How FBI Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos.

[0:00] Well, hey, welcome all you wiretappers out there. It’s good to be back here

[0:02] in the studio of Gangland Wire. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective. And we’re going to, you know, we talk about the mafia a lot, and we’re going to learn a lot more about the mob, especially the New York City mob with a retired U.S. Marshal, Mike Pizzi. And I know I butchered that a lot, Mike, but come on. I really appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Well, Mike, I’m going to read you a little review I read on your book. A truly outstanding book not only gives the reader an understanding of what the U.S. Marshal Service does, it also takes you on a journey through its recent history that turned into what it is today. You come away from reading it with a true appreciation of the men and women

[0:47] who serve in it. And I’ll wholeheartedly agree with that, Mike. And you’ve got a lot of great stories about mob guys that you had something to do with. So let’s start talking about kind of your early, you were raised around the mob. So tell us about that.

[1:03] Yep. I was born in Brooklyn and raised in Brooklyn and lived there most of my life. And the house I was born in was one house off the corner of an infamous area known as 13th Avenue. And Sammy the Bull talks about it a lot because he was in a gang that was a little further down the street. But my bedroom window was the back of the Grim Reapers Mafia Club. And that’s Gregory Scarpa. And so I grew up basically around those people, knew many of them, didn’t like a lot of them. And I particularly never liked this fellow, Greg Scarpa, as some of the guys I grew up with started to be attracted in his direction. I didn’t like it. So when I was, I was about 17 years old and I joined the Marines and I left the neighborhood for four years.

[2:07] One of my assignments in the Marines was actually the Marine barracks at Naples, Italy. Oh, really? Where now you’re going to be shocked at this. And I have the proof. Everything I say could prove. Where Lucky Luciano had an art studio on the same street where I was living. Because we didn’t live on a base. We lived in a barracks. And the name of the street was Via Michelangelo di Caravaggio. So it was in the area called Manzoni in Naples, and I got to know him. Oh, really? Yeah. He ran a couple of clubs downtown, the El Sombrero and another club. And we’d make our way every other weekend when we had off. We never went out in uniform. We weren’t allowed to. And I think the guy really loved Americans. And he would come to a local bar near our building where we were living in Manzoni and, he’d talk to us, you know, he’d come in with some of his bodyguards and some young girls, some foolish young Marines would go over and ask the girls, the dads without asking his permission. That was a big mistake.

[3:21] So later on, I had a friend at another Marines house after we were wall out of the Marine Corps and he talked me into becoming a deputy marshal. I was driving trucks at the time where it was such a rough job that the guys never spoke. They only grunted. And I actually started to understand the grunts.

[3:46] I think I worked a job or two like that in my late teens. Before that, I was a cement laborer. So, you know, just anyway, it was kind of a very good introduction to being around a lot of rough people. Yeah. But they worked hard. Eventually, I ended up in the marshal service and my partner, it was kind of like almost a place where the Democratic and Republican clubs would send people to retire. You know, a lot of the guys, some of the guys really worked hard, but a lot of them weren’t. They weren’t interested in working hard. So me and my partner, who I think was, his name is Jack Brophy, was the smartest guy I ever met.

[4:35] And we started to do things that nobody else would do. We would take warrants and work in the morning and go out and work at night. And we hooked up with a group of Federal Bureau Narcotic Agents. Now I’m going to take you back a little bit. They were part of the Treasury Department at the time. And if you look at some of the people that were in that group, You had former OSS people, and maybe the OSS had then evolved into being the CIA. Later on, it was learned that some of these people had dual roles in the government. So we would go out with them after hours and look for people and do things and work and learned a lot. They were really very good investigators. And so we did a lot of fugitive work and in conjunction with them as well. You know, Mike, that Federal Bureau of Narcotics was…

[5:30] The only agency at the time that gathered information on organized crime, on the mob, when the FBI was out chasing communists down and wearing suits and ties and interviewing people, the FBN, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, had been for years, been chasing down the mob people and putting the connections together. So you fell in with a good group of guys there. They’re really a pre-mobile law enforcement agency. And I’m going to tell you that I got all of my organized crime photographs and charts from the old Federal Bureau Narcotics.

[6:06] That was part of my study that I was doing. So they really, as you said, they were the number one group that was involved in this organized crime and they were putting it together. And so, ironically, at this time, if you remember the name of Joe Bonanno. Oh, yeah. He claimed that he was taken, kidnapped, and he disappeared. I remember that. And I’m in the Southern District of New York, which covers Manhattan, the Bronx, and 11 counties upstate.

[6:37] And I’m looking at Joe Bonanno. He’s sitting in the courtroom with an attorney by the name of Al Krieger. And I said to this other deputy, I said, that’s Joe Bonanno. He’s wanted. So we walked over and we arrested him. And we brought him down into our detention area. And the next thing you know, a whole bunch of FBI agents converged on our detention area, all bent out of shape.

[7:02] And we said, listen, we know he’s wanted. We arrested him. Do what you want with him. And I remember distinctly, he spoke with a very heavy accent. It was almost like he hadn’t been speaking English for a while. And I could remember when I searched him, he had a lot of $50 bills in his pocket. I never saw that many $50 bills ever in my life. I think as a truck driver, I was making like $8,000 a year. And as a deputy marshal, I was making like $6,000 a year.

[7:35] Working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. No overtime. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, it was a great experience and a good introduction.

[7:46] And so later on, I transferred over to the Brooklyn office. Now that’s Eastern district of New York. It was everything that I was doing at night. We would work in early morning, late night. Everything was taking me away from home. So going to Brooklyn was where I lived, and I was hoping someday to move to Long Island with my family. And so I took the transfer over to Brooklyn, and I started working with a great investigator, deputy marshal. Now, the Eastern District covers Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and all of Long Island. At the time, I think it was about 12 million people, and we had maybe 25 deputies.

[8:31] But there was a really good supervisor who had the Medal of Honor from the corrections department, a city in New York, big scar on his face where he was cut. His name was Bill Gallinero. And I say these names because if you say somebody’s name, they never die. Yeah, interesting. I know he’s, I’m pretty sure he’s not around anymore, but he’s got family. I know that. And he was a really good investigator. And he, he was really keyed on doing some of the organized crime cases. And so I took up with him. And then later on, I think after about five years, I became a supervisor and I had the investigation squad, which he now gave up and he moved on to the Senate committee for government operations.

[9:19] And see, the marshals did a lot of things that people didn’t know about. And so it was my idea that maybe we should get credit for some of the things we’re doing and let the public at least know, or let our superiors know. We didn’t have a director at the time, and later we got a director. So starting, going back to work in organized crime cases. So in the middle of one of my tours of duty.

[9:49] Alphonse Alleyboy Persigo was in court and he was, he just was about to plead guilty to a crime and a Rico case. You know, those, those called for a lot of time. And these guys really, in my opinion, had never run away. I mean, you let them out on bond, they always came in. So they wanted him to spend the weekend going through a bunch of files while he was in my custody that were in the storage room before he took, or after he takes the plea, because it had to go and have something to do with his sentence. And I said, what the hell are we doing? We’re working over the weekend,

[10:33] watching this guy go through files. Why don’t you let him out on bond? They never run away. Well, he ran away.

[10:41] And I’m like, sorry about that, chief. To make amends, we started working the case. Now, here’s the odd part. Because he already pled guilty, that warrant came under our jurisdiction because we have Memorandum of Understanding. They call it an MOU. With the FBI, post-conviction, fugitives were ours. And now, if you understand what the marshal’s obligations really are in the Justice Department, It’s in support of the U.S. District courts. So everything related to court actions comes through the marshal. We were responsible for parole and probation. We were responsible for failure to appear. And any agency that didn’t have arrest authority, we would do their arrests for them, like at the time early on, the postal inspectors and then ATF. None of those agencies really had arrest authority. How do we used to do all of that? And so, but we were never getting any credit. Okay. So it was, it was one of my goals to make sure that we did get the credit for the things we were doing. So I assigned the case to a couple of really good deputies and they started investigating everything we could investigate about Ali Persego.

[12:06] Personally, every time I was in his company and he was in my custody, he was a perfect gentleman. He was not a wise guy, tough talking wise guy. And so he was respectful. We were respectful back to him. And with any prisoner, you know, a prisoner who acted up, we treated him a little differently. So anyway, he, the information was always that he was in one place or another. And we sent the task force up to Connecticut at one time, and they didn’t find them. They said, no, not here. We sent a couple of aid deputies to Texas. We sent them out to Florida and tracked all the leads that we could possibly track down. Nothing. Then the rumor, after almost six years, was that they always seemed to be a step ahead of us. Now, I took that as a real slam against me. If they’re a step ahead of us, is there a leak? And who lived in the neighborhood? Who knows them? And so I said, you know what? I sent the case to Washington with the deputy that was in charge who was promoted and had an assignment in Washington. They called me and asked me to take the case back. And I take the case back under one condition. Okay.

[13:33] That I’m not going to keep you up to date as I am. You’re going to get reports or you’re going to get them late. And I don’t want any interference from headquarters.

[13:43] Because like we’re in all departments, headquarters doesn’t know this case. We know it. The people in the street and the field that work in the case. And they gave me a consent to that. It was a boss by the name of Chuck Kupfer. He’s gone now, but he was a good boss. And so I took the case back And we decided, With the help of Washington headquarters That we would have A task force It would be under my supervision Now I’m a chief deputy So I got a lot of other responsibilities, And so I’m Working the task force In conjunction with all my other authority And responsibilities, And we come up with the idea That we’ve got to arrest somebody that was in the case with him who may be a weaker link. Okay. So I’m not going to get too deep into that, but we actually do. And we picked this guy up in Miami and myself and now my lead investigator, a guy by the name of, deputy by the name of Vic Oboiski, great investigator. We go to Miami and we learn that maybe Alley Boy had a, got a license to drive a car in Connecticut.

[15:05] So we come back out of that and I sit down and I say, look, I want to try something. I want to get a deputy from Connecticut to be on this assignment because if we make this arrest in Connecticut, it will be a slap in the face to that marshal. I didn’t want that to happen, even though the marshal was pretty tight in letting one guy go. But he did let a deputy by the name of Roderick go. And I sat down and I said, here’s what I want to do. I can think like they think, okay? Not many people could do that. But having grown up there and having been around all these people, I said, well, here’s what he’s going to do. He’s going to get a license that his name is going to end in a vow. He’s got a tattoo between his thumb and his forefinger on his left or right hand. I forget which it is now. And it says Al. So his first name is going to begin with the letter A.

[16:05] He’s going to be five inches taller or five inches shorter. He’s going to be five years younger, five years older. So let’s do a run, but not tell the DMV in Connecticut what we’re looking for. Because they supposedly had a guy that worked with the mob. Okay. So we do that and we get 7,000 names. Oh my God. And I said, well, it’s retirement central. People leave New York to go to Connecticut. So I said, okay, let’s knock it down. And we had a computer working simultaneously. No computers at this time with cell phones, you know. Yeah. Let’s knock it down. And let’s knock it down to anybody that had no credit rating five years before. Yeah. And so we got it down to about 700 names.

[17:03] And I’m walking behind one of the guys working a computer, and he’s looking at a bunch of names that ended in Y. So I said, what are you doing? He said, oh, by the way, this guy later became a chief, so I’m not going to send him this power. But he was highly educated. Yeah. So he instructed me that a vowel is A-E-I-O-U and sometimes Y. Sometimes Y. I said, you know any Italians whose names ends in Y? Oh, you’re getting on my last nerve. Vinny Perkowski. Goloski. Yeah, Vinny Perkowski. Forget about that school that you went to. The street now. So now we’re down to about 70 names. Okay. We eliminated a bunch and we come up with the name Anthony Perry. P-E-R-R-I.

[17:57] And I said, don’t stop. Keep going. and we come up with the name Al Longo.

[18:05] And Albert Lungo matches Alley Boy’s date of birth. So I got him. Now we start doing the background and we take the actual, you’re going to laugh at this. I mean, you’ll be in a detective. They take the actual application for the driver’s license. And I told him, I know it’s been handled, but you don’t handle it. Put it in a sealed envelope and send it to me. And Dave O’Flaherty, who was one of my supervisors of the Warren squad, got over to the NYPD and they used the fuming, you know, with the superglue. And they fumed the paper, okay? And, of course, we went to the high school where we said he went and there was no such person. And after all night looking through my eyepiece, I matched his right index finger on the back. Wow.

[19:04] This is no joke now. Wow. I don’t know if you remember the name Howard Safer. No, I don’t. He was with the FM Bureau Narcotics back in the day. Became a DEA boss, then got transferred over to the Marshal Service and later became the police commissioner for New York City. So he and I were pretty tight. And I called Howard and I told him, Howard, we ID’d him. This is no joke. This is real. This is real evidence. Yeah. And he’s like, wow.

[19:36] So while we’re doing this task force, Howard calls me about a week later and he says, we identified him as being in the Exuma Keys. And I said, you did what? He said, we know he was in the Exuma Keys a month ago. I said, no, he wasn’t. He said, well, how do you know? He said, how do you know he was in the Exuma Keys? He said, I sent one of my guys down. Your guy doesn’t know the difference. He’s got his nephew by the name of Alphonse Persigal. I could tell you the tail number on the plane he was on. Yeah. We’ve been watching them. We know them. Okay. He’s looking at the wrong Alphonse Persigal. Oh, my God. He says, you know what, Mike? After this, everything comes to you. Thank God you finally understood this. You got to send the information into the field. And so slowly but surely we started to zero in on him and i i had to go to philadelphia, and in philadelphia there was a forensic anthropologist who could recreate faces and make heads and lead deputy at the time had one head made but i didn’t like what it looked like, It didn’t look right to me. It was too clean.

[20:58] So his nose was too small. It was a lot of things wrong with it. So I know I might have got him angry, but I told him he had to make another head because this was his belly with the water. Why now? You know? And so he made the other head, and man, this one was right on target.

[21:16] So now me and Roderick, the deputy from Connecticut, we go up to the last known address of Anthony Perry, which was a big complex where there’s a lot of rentals in Connecticut. And we get to the office and we kind of feel good about the person we’re talking to. And they say, well, yeah, we did have Anthony Perry here, but he’s no longer here. Well, who moved into his apartment after him? Albert Longo. That’s the other name That’s the other name Is he here? No, he left too Leave any forwarding? No Okay So we know He used this apartment.

[21:59] So, and he later found out that one of the people involved, I’m not going to say his name, was later killed.

[22:07] I think the wise guys may have thought that he gave us information, which he did not. He gave it up. Now, explain to me, the Harry guy and then Longo guy, was that the same person that he just left under that name and then re-rented under his next name? So to keep the smoke cloud going out there, that is amazing. He had two phony IDs, and we picked them both off. Oh, were they both the same date of birth? Did they use the same date of birth? No, no. Okay. This long ago had the actual date of birth, and Perry did not. Okay. All right. Wow. You know, a guy could get confused, so I figured he was somewhere.

[22:52] And so we picked off both of the names that he was using. And now we’re confused because we get close and we talk to a person that lived nearby an address and they say, well, yeah, he lived here, but he sometimes had his wife a visit. His wife? Yeah. What did she look like? Well, she’s a blonde lady with an English accent. That’s not his wife. Yeah. An English accent. And they had a daughter. Well, Ali had a daughter. So we’re confused But we get through the confusion And we realize that this is a woman That he must be having some kind of good relations with Yeah And so we kind of zeroed in on her.

[23:41] And the best thing that we could do, and the most current thing that we could figure was, because she didn’t leave too much information behind, the phone. And the phone came back to an address, and we checked out the address, and he was there. And now they’re calling me, asking me what to do. What should we do? I said, what do you want me to do? Get in a helicopter and fly up there? You’re on the scene. Make the call. I’m backing you up. If we miss him, we miss him. Make the call. And you have my total support. And they said, we’re damned if we want to do any more surveillance. And boom, they went in, and he was there. Of course, a joke was made because he was making tomato sauce. And one of the newspapers said, Ali Boy a la court.

[24:32] With Cosmo a la court.

[24:35] And like I said, he was always a gentleman. And we did our job. He did his. We did our job and it was unfortunate for him and his family that he did die in prison. And so a few years later. Yeah. But like I said, we did what we had to do. And, you know, there was some, some veiled threats that came out of this, which we immediately faced, went face to face with some of these people and told them, don’t think you’re going to go to war with us because you can not win.

[25:06] Yeah, because he was, that was a Colombo family and they had Scarpa working under them. So Scarpa, Scarpa was a bad dude because he was, he was thinking out to the FBI at the same time. So, but he was bad. By the way, I helped that agent get over on his case. They tried him actually in front of a judge in the state court for conspiracy to commit murder. Oh yeah. I remember that. DeVecchio was that agent’s name. There was a woman who was very close to Alley Boy, a young woman. She was a really beautiful girl. And there was a rumble that she was an informant. Now, I personally went and tried to talk to her. She wouldn’t talk to anybody. She was no informant, but they killed her, you know. And it was too bad. I feel bad for her and her family, but it had nothing to

[25:54] do with it. Was that that Mary Berry? Was that that Mary Berry? Yeah, Mary Berry. Mary Berry, yeah. Scarpa is one of the key. Actually, the son. I read that story his son told about his son like held her or something and his dad killed her. I mean, let’s talk about a father and son murder team. Wow. Oh, the son was a strange. Matter of fact, he’s got a podcast. He’s out of prison. Yeah, I saw that. I saw that. Almost 40 years.

[26:17] And I remember him, like I said, it was my bedroom window. And I remember I didn’t like him either. and and one of the guys who I grew up with was a young guy by the name of Joe Brewster he was a couple of years younger than me and Scarpa Joe Brewster actually named one of his kids Greg he was very close and Scarpa Jr. Killed him shot him dead they believed that they were going to some party and turns around in the car and shoots him dead in the back of the car and so you know, I felt really bad for Joe. I thought Joey was a decent guy. I know he was a member of the criminal organization, as was his good friend. And my good friend that I grew up with was Robert Zambotti. They called him Bobby Zam. He died in prison after 23 years. Dealing with Scarpa. Dealing with Scarpa. Who was giving them up. They were doing bank burglaries and he’s sending the cops there. You know, crazy, crazy world. But I didn’t like any of those people. And like I said, my friends that I grew up with, I got fond memories, but it’s a shame.

[27:30] Anyway, in the middle of doing all of this, one of the FBI agents, a supervisor who was really a good guy and interested in solving cases, his name is Lou Shalero, contacted me and said, we got information that there might be some people coming to meet with Ollie Boy.

[27:51] Do you want to put some guys in with us? We’ll run a role in surveillance on him. He’s going to be around for a couple of days. I said, well, who is it that you’re going to be looking at? He said, we’re going to be looking at a guy by the name of Johnny Irish Matera. Well, I know Johnny Irish Matera. He had been a prisoner when I was in Southern District, And I used to walk him from this federal courthouse in Manhattan over to the state court where we were facing charges for an armed robbery.

[28:21] And so he knew me well. I spent days on end with him. Yeah. I said, I can’t be there, but I’ll send you, I’ll give you a couple of teams. So we sent a couple of teams of our guys and we knew that Johnny Irish was very close with Sonny Francis. And so, but he was staying in a place that was close to Sonny’s house, but he never went to see Sonny. And that was odd, you know, because Sonny was, you know, a very well-known guy in those circles. I actually arrested Sonny on a parole. Oh, did you? Personally. You know, and he was a gentleman. Yeah. You know. And so, and I know, you know the tough guys. The guys that don’t, that talk softly, you know they got real power. Okay. That’s what I’m saying. Sometimes some of these guys working in the government really don’t know the culture, you know. Yeah. Like, I wouldn’t know the culture in your town. You know, I’ll probably get beat up the first day I show them.

[29:21] So we do this surveillance, and believe me, they got great surveillance teams. And they’re following them down this highway that goes right kind of near where I lived, and they lose them. With all the cars that they got going, they’re being so sophisticated, they lose them. So they lose them around an area called Bay Parkway. We’ll say that’s, if you’re using numbers, that’d be 22nd Avenue. And I tell my guys, get off at 14th Avenue and get up onto 12th Avenue and ride along 12th Avenue between 86th and 75th streets because a lot of wise guys live there. And so they do that and they spot them. They’re on them. They duck back. They call in the surveillance team, and the surveillance team comes around and circles the area, wide circle.

[30:21] And eventually it got dark. I was at the headquarters with the U.S. Attorney at the time, Raymond Deary, who became a federal judge. And we’re doing a search warrant request. We’re going to go to a judge and get a search warrant for that house because it’s a third-party residence. Just in the case that Alley Boy’s in there. And so before we can get that warrant signed, one of the FBI agents says, I saw him go in. I’m pretty sure that’s Alley Boy. And they go in on what they call exigent circumstances. And Alley Boy’s not there, but his brother’s there, Carmine, who’s the boss of the family. So is a whole bunch of other mafia guys. And by the way, we got to get something straight about the mafia. The mafia is in Sicily. In the United States, there’s the Cosa Nostra. Okay. There are no mafia guys in the Cosa Nostra. There’s only one guy that I know who was in both the Sicilian mob and the American mob, but there’s no crime families of the mafia in America. It’s Cosa Nostra. They would be at war if they tried to come here.

[31:36] I even had an Interpol case on Giovanni Gambino, who’s the only person ever mentioned that he had.

[31:44] A soul been a soldier in the mafia in sicily and he was a member of the gambino crime family, but when he’s in america he’s working as an gambino crime family okay they asked me you think he could put up to do a locate and i said yeah i see him every day he’s on 18th avenue standing right out there so they said don’t do anything else that was in the pool okay don’t do anything else so yeah and we even worked interpol cases the marshals now what you mentioned there is somewhere i read that you had escorted that tomaso so yeah okay so now let me let me put this interesting guy where the raid goes oh yeah we’ll go back to the persico house snake they’re going to lock up everybody but they take down any of the information persico is on.

[32:40] Parole, Carmine’s on parole, and he’s going to be violated. And a few days later, he surrendered to me. And if you’re going to take a second, I got a letter here from my director. Can I read it to you? Yeah, yeah, go ahead. So he said, this is to me. I’d like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation and commend you for your outstanding work leading to the arrest of Carmine Persego, reputed head of the Colombo organized crime family for a violation of parole. After continuous surveillance, Deputy U.S. Marshals of the Eastern District of New York were able to infiltrate a meeting of the most important organized crime bosses in the New York City area, resulting in the revocation of Carmine Persego’s parole for consorting with known criminals.

[33:24] Blah, blah, blah. And I went on to, you know, the impact of this investigation cannot be overstated. The efforts of you and your colleagues have placed a tremendous pressure on organized crime families in and around New York. Other crime bosses present at the meeting are now under federal investigation of this arrest, coupled with intensive efforts to locate and apprehend his brother. So that happened while we were still looking for alley boy. Right. I was thinking at the time when you said you interrupted this meeting, do you remember anything else about who else was there? Was this like a commission meeting? Yeah, it was part of the Cavalcanti family from New Jersey. Okay. And a couple of old-time bosses. I don’t remember all the names, but there were quite a few. And it was a pretty heavy meeting. Yeah. One of the people, as John Matera showed up, I think he said to somebody that he thought he saw cops and supposedly Carmine said to him, if you thought you saw cops, why did you come in?

[34:36] He later disappears, never to be seen again. Ah, he paid for that. Johnny Irish material. Disappears, never to be seen again. He was out of Florida. Like I said, I couldn’t be on a surveillance. He would have spotted me in a car. It would have been over. Yeah. Like I said, I knew him quite well. And so that caused the boss of that family. Later on, with Ollie Boy away and that case now closed, a warrant comes over my desk for Rusty Rustelli, the head of the Bonanno crime family. Now, you know how some of these guys, 15, 20 guys to arrest somebody. I take a young deputy by the name of Mike Hollander. He died very young, natural causes. And I forget the undercover Cadillac we have that we got from a DEA seizure. And I said, let’s go and sit out by Rusty’s girlfriend’s house and see if he’s there. Just me and him. And so sure enough, after a while, Rusty comes out. I tell him, I tell Holland to stay in the car. I get out and I go on and my sunglasses on and I walk up behind Rusty and I tell him.

[35:52] Rusty get in the effing car and his lips started quivering i said u.s marshall you’re under arrest, and it’s like what are you making a joke out of this he said he said don’t you feel better now you didn’t know it was me at first i thought you did a different kind of ride yeah he did he did And he thought, oh, it’s all over. You’re cold, man. You are cold. I couldn’t resist it. It was so hard. I understand. And he and I, believe it or not, he was another gentleman. He actually had a feinting spell while he was in the detention area. And the deputy marshal that was behind him actually gave him a resuscitation and kept them alive. And then we actually had a doctor in the building that day, and the doctor came down and gave him an injection. Anyway, he wanted to thank me and all of that, and I was going to play a joke on him. But when he came into the office, it was quite nice. And I was joking a little bit with him, and he said, you know, he says, you think everything’s funny. I said, I do, because I’m out here. You’re in there. You’re in there, yeah. So later on, when a DEA agent was killed…

[37:14] Every, there was a full court press. Oh, I remember that case. Yeah.

[37:19] Yeah. Yeah. It was a full court press on catching the guy that did it. They know who it was. His name was Farachi. And I actually got messages to a lot of people, including Rusty Rustelli, who was the boss of the Bonanno Crime family that Farachi was associated with. And he ended up getting shot 10 blocks from my house and killed.

[37:40] So I responded to the scene. I was close by, and one of the young guys that was shot, whose name I’m not going to say, I went to the hospital, and I offered him protection. He had a couple of bullets in him, and I don’t need any protection. Yeah. Really? You didn’t hear a shot. You don’t need any protection? Nope. And his father told me the same thing. So I guess it was a mistake shooting him, whoever fired the shots. Yeah, he might have set the guy up, too, and, you know, a straight bullet caught him. A couple of wild shots. But anyway, for whatever’s worth, that’s how, in other words, you see how everything is related? Oh, yeah. And it’s all neighborhood stuff, you know. And you don’t know the neighborhood, and you don’t know the players and the people, you know. Yeah. One of the guys that was killed was the son of a cop. But he was a bad guy, you know. So I think a lot of these things happened and our association in dealing with all these people, including people that are arrested by other agencies, they kind of know who you are. They know how we treat them, make sure that they get fed the right stuff and make sure that they’re comfortable. You know, we had to get extra ventilators into the cell block area because we were getting a lot of foreigners coming in under arrest for crimes and that they were here illegally.

[39:07] And, but we started to show traces that we were exposed to TB.

[39:11] Yeah. And then was always the policy to have the agents stay with the prisoner. And I started getting them out of there and getting them to a safer area. As long as we had a BDA, we didn’t need to have them exposed as well.

[39:26] Everybody’s interest was at our interest, you know. Yeah, right. That’s one of the little known hazards of anybody that deals with people that are incarcerated or a street policeman, too, where you’re like up close and personal, you’re wrestling around with people is disease. I mean, that’s a huge deal. Yeah. Anyway, there came a time when, of course, I’m now a chief deputy, a senior chief deputy. Then I was the only guy that was told could handle this particular case.

[39:56] And I said, it’s around Christmas time. And so what are we doing? Well, you got to, there’s a guy in Sicily we got to get.

[40:06] So I get a team together and we make our way into Italy. And it’s Tommaso Buschetta, who was the head of one of the crime families on the outskirts of Palermo. And at war with Toto Reina, who was the other Sicilian boss of the biggest Bugata crime family there. And this was vicious. They killed almost everybody in this guy’s family. His two sons were strangled. Adult sons were strangled. His father-in-law was shot. His brother was killed. I mean, everybody was getting killed. So Tommaso Boucher gave himself up, And it was my job to get them back to the United States safely.

[40:51] And the first time I told you I had been assigned to the Marine barracks. And one of the assignments that the Marine barracks had was a field in Italy, in Naples, called Capodacchino. Capodacchino field was their big airport, but within that airport was a naval air station. And Marines would do the protection on the Naval Air Station. And me being a Lance Corporal at the time, I had the post on the gate. So you came in and you left with going through a military guy.

[41:27] And so having known my way around this airport, we now get there and there’s no Marines there. There’s a security guard hired by just the Department of Defense. Oh, boy. This area. You got to come out some bruschetta. I’ll say the name of this. This area is known as Secundigliano.

[41:50] Secundigliano is such a mafia-controlled area. Yeah. I’ll say it again. Mafia is Sicil. In Naples, in southern Italy, it’s Camorra. It’s not mafia. They’re Camorra. But the Comoristas run this whole area, and even the Carbonari, who’s a military police and local police, can’t get in there sometimes. So this is a dangerous area. We used to patrol the field where the planes were parked with riot guns. That was opposed to ours. So this is a dangerous area. So now I look, and there’s a security guy. And I said, well, we got time. We’re here early. Let’s go into the, to the, what they call the slop shoot where you get a coffee or something. And there’s an Italian guy working in there. He’s got one of them white caps on. And he goes, oh, you guys are here for Bouchetta? This is supposed to be a secret assignment. Oh, my God. The guy behind the counter. Oh, man. Bouchetta. So I said, well, what do you know about it? He said, well, the plane’s out there. And I’m like, where? He goes, see the plane there with those soldiers? I said, yeah, that’s your plane. And it was like a C-129.

[43:11] The counter guy knew that, too. Jesus. Wait a minute. The soldiers were Italian paratroopers, also known as Basiliati, and they were so close to the plane. I said, well, how do we know? The guy’s making like $10 a month. How do we know we’re going to get a bomb on this plane? So now I got to go there. I got to push them away from the plane. I got to search the plane all over again. And we say, okay, we think we’re in good shape. We got the pilot and his crew. And here we got now Buschetta and we put Buschetta on the plane. With us comes a DEA agent and an FBI agent and four Italian cops. And then there’s four or five of us and we get on the plane. There were no seats. You know, when I was in the Marines and we got on those planes, they gave us parachutes. This is a flying plane. It’s 129. So the plane takes off and it’s like, I’m doing it with my arms. It’s like this and rumbling and cold. And anyway, we go to Mendenhall, England. He’s already puked in every puke bed that’s on the plane. We get off of the plane. We, we pick up a one 41, a C one 41, much bigger, a couple of engines in the middle, still sitting on slant things. We find the Maguire.

[44:35] We get on a DEA aircraft and now we’re going to fly into LaGuardia where there’s a judge waiting for us to parole him into the country.

[44:46] So, so as, as the plane is now circling LaGuardia, Bouchette is sick as a dog. He says to me, Mike, please, please stay with me. I said, I can’t stay with you. I got a, I got a different command. Please stay with me because I could speak and I knew the dialect.

[45:06] So I tell him, I can’t do it, but I’ll tell you what I can do. I say, I’m getting this pilot. Will you land this plane and stop circling? What are you waiting for? Ground security? We’ll shoot it out with them. Let’s get on the ground. And we finally get him on the ground. And, you know, we part company, but he kept requesting my presence. But another guy I knew that grew up in Brooklyn took the job and he spoke the language as well. and they kept them in a place somewhere in New Jersey. And then he lived out his life in Miami. I read that. He had a son that wanted to join the military. Yeah. There’s a movie about that called Our Godfather. Yeah.

[45:47] And there’s a documentary about that too. It has all kinds of video of him down there in Miami and his family and everything. So much for the long arm of the mafia. He forgave the guy that strangled his two kids because he said he had a choice. Yeah. I mean, so yeah, that’s the story of Buschetta. One bigger guy than him and probably more dangerous was Michele Sindona. Michele Sindona was the financial advisor to the Vatican. I don’t know if you saw the movie Godfather III. Oh yeah, I did. It’s been a while, but yeah, there was some Vatican connections there. That’s based basically on this guy Sindona, who’s Sicilian. He took the Franklin National Bank, broke in the United States. Yeah. All over drug deals. Okay. And he’s telling me on our way, we’re going into Milan with him, on our way there that they’re going to kill him. And I said, well, they’re not going to kill you away with me.

[46:46] And the Italians have something, their answer to Alka-Seltz, it’s called Briozki. Okay. And if you have indigestion, you take some Briozki. And he had Brioski with him, but I wouldn’t give it to him. I didn’t know if somebody poisoned it or what.

[47:02] After we got him there, and we made our turnaround, and we’re making our way back, sometime later on, not that day, but later on, maybe months or even a year, he’s in the mess pool in the jail, stands up, said, I’ve been poisoned, and falls over there. He’s killed him. Yeah. While he’s in their custody. So those are a couple. Really? All right.

[47:28] Mike Pizzi. Those are some great stories. And guys, you got to get this book. It’s Adapt and Overcome. And Mike, you got that from your time in the Marine Corps, right? Adapt and Overcome. Yeah. I think I forgot to mention that at the start, but I’ll have images of the book. And guys, there’ll be a link to get this book down below in the show notes. So I really highly recommend you get that book. It’s got many more stories. They’re just as good as these stories here. These have been great, Mike. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing those stories with us. Just wonderful, wonderful stories. Don’t forget, I like to ride motorcycles. So when you’re out on the streets there and you’re a big F-150, watch out for those little motorcycles when you’re out. If you have a problem with PTSD and you’ve been in the service, be sure and go to the VA website. They’ll help with your drugs and alcohol problem if you’ve got that problem or gambling. If not, you can go to Anthony Ruggiano. He’s a counselor down in Florida. He’s got a hotline on his website. If you’ve got a problem with gambling, most states will have, if you have gambling, most states will have a hotline number to call. Just have to search around for it. You know, I’ve always got stuff to sell. I got my books. I got my movies. They’re all on Amazon. Just go. And I got links down below in the show notes and just go to my Amazon sales page and you can figure out what to do. I really appreciate y’all tuning in and we’ll keep coming back and doing this. Thanks, guys.

Hey Wiretappers, listen to my short bonus episode. I’m looking for mob fans to read the first half of a memoir about my life, which is partly about being a cop and mostly about the Civella Spero War. Email me at [email protected] and I’ll send you a pdf to read. It’s about 22,000 words. Once it’s done, I’ll send you a copy

This week, we journey back to the early 1900s—a time when the first wave of Sicilian immigrants brought more than just dreams of opportunity to America. They also brought with them an age-old criminal code that would lay the foundation for the American Mafia as we know it.

Our story begins with the Mustache Petes—those old-world mafiosi who preyed on their own immigrant communities through intimidation, extortion, and a cunning knack for organized crime. One of their earliest rackets? Counterfeiting.

💵 A Nationwide Web of Fake Money

Agents quickly linked the phony bills to a sophisticated, coast-to-coast counterfeit ring run by Sicilian gang leaders like Ignacio “Lupo the Wolf” Lupo and Giuseppe Morello. These men were more than petty crooks—they were the original godfathers of organized crime in New York City.

🔪 Violence and Betrayal in the Shadows

🩸 The Barrel Murder

🕵️ Secret Service Stings and Underworld Justice

🔗 A Blueprint for the Mafia to Come

Subscribe to get gangster stories weekly.

Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire

To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here

To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here. 

To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here

To buy my Kindle book, Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How FBI Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos.

[0:00] Well, hey, all you wiretappers out there. Good to be back here in the studio. This is a special bonus episode about the barrel murders and what’s his name? Tommaso the Ox Peto and a lot of those guys, Joe Petrocino. It’s kind of a shorty. And also, I’m putting this out because I’m asking for your help. I have a book that I’ve been working on about half, a little over halfway through. It’s going to be a memoir about my career and mainly about my interactions with the mob during the Savella Spiro War and what we did during that time. So I’m doing it. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a little bit different sort of a style.

[0:39] It’s a real short and punchy and to the point style. I’m not I’m really trying to take all the words I can out of it. I need some feedback. I want to see, you know, I got 20,000 words and I don’t know how many hours into this thing. And hell, I don’t know if it’s any good or not. And, you know, it may not be, it may be stupid for all I know, you know, I think it’ll, I think you’ll find it somewhat entertaining. And, and so I, I, what I’m looking for is some real critical feedback, you know, something that you like, something that you didn’t like. You’re not going to hurt my feelings. Promise me that. I mean, you see something you don’t like, or you think I’m redundant, or you see some errors where I repeat myself in it or something. Let me know. It’s about, I said, it’s about halfway through. I got up to the point where, uh, Carl Sparrow has been shot. He’s coming out of the hospital, and he has to go to dialysis and has to get his car fitted with hand controls. And so from there on, the war between the Savellas and Spiro is really on. Give me a feedback.

[1:37] What you have to do, I think, is email me at ganglandwire at gmail.com.

[1:42] Let me know, and I’ll send you a PDF, and then you can get back with me. Thanks a lot, guys. Guys, now listen to my story about the Mustache Pete’s and the early counterfeiting game. Well, hey, all you wiretappers out there, back here in the studio all alone today, I’ve got a quick little story of early, early New York Mafia.

[2:03] Really the mustache peach. When these guys got here, they’re looking for money. They’re looking for opportunity. They’re denied a lot of opportunity, but they brought the mafia with them. They brought this criminal mentality with them. They started sending out black hand notes and preying on fellow immigrants from Sicily and Italy and kind of branched out from that. It preied on a lot of people. Now, one thing that got into early on was counterfeiting. And the law enforcement agency that had the responsibility to investigate counterfeiting back then was the Secret Service, and it still is today. The Secret Service was really the only nationwide law enforcement agency on a federal level back in those days. 1901, there’s a brand new counterfeit $5 bill detected. Different banks across the country printed the banknotes back then. This was the National Iron Bank of Morristown, New Jersey. I read it was part of a production run of $250,000. Now, $250,000 in 1901 was a lot of money. Of course, they had to sell it for, you know, maybe 25 cents on the dollar, probably even less. So Secret Service agents quickly arrested Giuseppe Di Primo and a couple other guys for passing some of these counterfeit notes in Yonkers, New York in 1902.

[3:30] Weeks later, they arrested Vito Laduca and a couple other associates down in Pittsburgh, and they attract them from New York to San Francisco and other cities across the United States. So they’re like onto this counterfeit ring, and they were a nationwide counterfeit ring. One of these guys, Vito Catone, was a bad character. He tried to escape arrest by lunging at the agents with a knife and then ran away in the nearby rail yard, chased him down by commandeering a train, and then knocked him down by hurling bricks at him. Now, can you imagine that? They got a guy with a knife. You’re chasing him through the rail yard. You jump on a moving train, jump off, throw bricks at him, and knock him down. Actually, he might not even have had guns. Law enforcement, again, didn’t carry guns like they do today.

[4:20] You know, he was such a bad character when he got to a hospital, he tried to kill a nurse and escape with some kind of a kitchen knife he’d picked up. They found out that the Morristown counterfeits were being distributed at the direction of Mafia leader Ignacio Lupo and Giuseppe Morello. Now, these were the two big-time mob bosses in the Northeast and in New York City, particularly back in. Lupo was Lupo the Wolf. Giuseppe Morello, he was like a godfather. After his arrest for counterfeiting Giuseppe Di Primo and his two partners were locked up in New York City’s Leadlow Street Jail. Ignacio Lupo visited them and arranged payment of their attorney. And when they were standing trial, Lupo would go to the trial each day and then take news of how the case was progressing back to Giuseppe Morello. They were found guilty passing these counterfeits 1903.

[5:21] That weekend they say Lupo, Morello and everybody else in the gang Were observed holding the meeting in the rear of their Prince Street saloon headquarters, Now the Secret Service is still working on these guys And they planned a sting operation against this group They got an informant with some Mark Bills They were going to purchase the counterfeits from the gang, they put together 11 search warrants for the homes and businesses of these men but.

[5:51] The plan kind of stalled out. They were watching them pretty close, and an unfamiliar face showed up. And Giuseppe Morello and another guy were seen talking earnestly between themselves before taking the stranger to the back of a butcher stop in Manhattan. 5.30 the next morning, a Ms. Frances O’Connor was making her way to work, and she saw a suspicious barrel at East 11th Street. Looking inside, she was horrified, horrified, I say, to find a corpse. Not only was it a corpse, it would have been almost decapitated by a knife slashing across the throat. The Secret Service got called to this scene by the police. They figured out this was a stranger they had seen in Morello’s company the previous night. So they quickly arrested Morello and got Ignacio Lupo because they were like the leaders of this gang. They took in a bunch of correspondents as evidence. You know, it’s funny back then, you know, you wrote letters. These guys were writing letters to each other talking about their counterfeit business. They made more than a dozen arrests. There are a few of them that got away.

[6:55] They didn’t exactly know who this man was in the barrel. But five days after the murder, they got an anonymous letter and said that the man found in the barrel came from Buffalo. And the dead man, in the letter, it claimed that the dead man had arrived in New York to help get money for Giuseppe Di Primo, who was in jail for a counterfeiting for Giuseppe Morello. and Morello was there at the meeting.

[7:19] Figured, you know, they must have killed a guy and they had a bunch of them in jail. Joe Petrosino, who was a famous Italian detective, went up to Sing Sing and visited Di Primo and brought a picture of the victim. And he said, that’s my brother-in-law, Benedetto Madonia. Next day, Joe Petrosino went on to Buffalo, New York, where Madonia was from, interviewed his wife, and she said that her husband had been a member of a secret society and had traveled to New York to assist her brother, Di Primo. They charged him, put Morello on the stand. He was really nervous when he was confronted with a letter that Madonna had sent him from Pittsburgh, and it showed that Morello had told Madonna to come to Pittsburgh and help secure the release of a couple of the imprisoned gang members. And they found a letter from Madonia to Morello and Madonia claimed that Morello had sent him over to Pittsburgh to try to help some of the gang members get out of jail down in Pittsburgh, but yet he couldn’t get it done Madonia continued in his letter and criticized him Morello accusing him of being unwilling to spend any money to help his men and referred to the fact that his brother-in-law Giuseppe Di Primo was still in prison for running the counterfeit money for him.

[8:45] Well, this gang, several of these gang, Morello and Lupo and their whole little crew were in jail. There were anonymous letters sent out to all the Italians in the, really, all the Italian communities in the United States. They were demanding donations to help build illegal defense funds for all these guys. They didn’t get much out of Newark, and they sat down in Newark. Nervous Italians were buying up all the secondhand guns they could because they figured that the mob, they figured the black handers were going to come after him. Even their political contacts had an Irish politician at the time named Tim Sullivan. And he said, well, Madonna brought it on himself. He caused himself to be killed because he was involved with these criminals. All these suspects in the end, they had in the end, they had a coroner’s inquest. And all these suspects were cleared and they said he was murdered by some person unknown. And in particular, a guy named Thomas O. Pedo, who really is the one that did this murder, was discharged.

[9:45] The coroner’s physician said, I’ve never heard of a more disgraceful proceeding in my life than to let this man escape punishment. The man who recommended the discharge of Pedo the Bull ought to be removed from office immediately.

[10:00] Well, that’s just the beginning of this. Two years later, 1905, someone murders Petto the Bull, and Giuseppe Di Primo had been released from prison just two weeks earlier.

[10:16] So it turns out, as they started investigating into this later on, they find out that the dead man, Madania, had sent money to New York, to Morello, $1,000 for his brother-in-law’s defense, and Morello just pocketed the money and did nothing for him. Another piece of evidence that indicated Petto the Ox had killed Madania was that they found a pawn ticket in his pocket, and it was for a watch that was Madania’s watch. He had gotten Madania’s watch after he killed him and pawned it.

[10:54] So they really had a lot of evidence on these guys, and they just got released. But Giuseppe Di Primo, he’s going to get justice. He’ll kill Peto the Ox right after he gets out of jail. And from then on, one by one, every one of these guys gets killed.

[11:12] Won’t go on to name them. Every one of these guys, including Ignacio Lupo, everybody but Joseph Morello will be killed over the next few years.

[11:22] That’s a little story of some of the earliest mob murders reported in the United States. This was when we had blackhanders, no real solid organization, just the basis of the organization that came over from Sicily and a few strong men put things together. And again, you see these organizations, they have to be based around something. Later on, they’ll refine it when they go nationwide and they base it around

[11:48] prohibition and bootlegging alcohol. But back then, they base it around this crime of counterfeiting. Counterfeiting was a pretty easy crime to get away with back then. It requires organization. It requires a boss. It requires lieutenants. It requires what they called people that pass what they call queer money out there. They had a name for that. And all of a sudden, I can’t remember what it was. It required the lowest level, what we would call associates today. And these were called queer pushers at the time. Now, that has nothing to do with being a homosexual. They called the counterfeit money queer. And if you went out and pushed it out, then you were a queer pusher. So it took a lot of those people. And then, you know, when somebody had the money, then you got to go out to the different stores and pass the money and, and buy something and bring the change back or somehow get it in, you know, get good money in exchange for this bad money.

[12:43] So thanks a lot, guys. Don’t forget, I like to ride motorcycles.

[12:47] Watch out for motorcycles when you’re out there on the street. You have a problem with PTSD and you’ve been in the service, go to the VA website, drugs or alcohol, go see Angelo Ruggiano. Gambling, you got 1-800 bets off of Missouri. Every state’s got a different kind of organization. You know, the casinos have to pay so much. Part of their licensing fee is they have to pay money into efforts to help addicted gamblers. Don’t forget, I got things for sale out there. I got a couple of books, got three books out there. Just Google Gary Jenkins, Amazon, Mafia. You’ll find, you know, my movies are out there to stream for $1.99 each. You know, got to support the podcast, guys. It’s an easy way to do it. Thanks a lot.

In this gripping episode of Gangland Wire, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins unravels one of the most damning scandals in FBI history—a chilling story of corruption, betrayal, and a sanctioned murder that would stain the Bureau’s legacy for decades. Gary examines the sinister role played by FBI agent H. Paul Rico in the 1965 murder of Teddy Deegan. You’ll hear how, back in October 1964, Rico learned Deegan had been marked for a mob hit—yet the Bureau did nothing. Why? Because the killers were protected informants.

Gary breaks down how the FBI built its case on the false testimony of mob informant Joe Barboza. Instead of stopping the murder plot, the Bureau sat on exculpatory evidence and let Barboza’s lies send Louis Greco, Henry Tamaleo, Peter Limone, and Joe Salvati to prison—two of them to death row.

The FBI’s Informant Obsession:

From Cover-Up to Vindication:

Why This Story Matters:

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Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire

To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here

To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here. 

To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here

To buy my Kindle book, Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How FBI Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos.

Transcript

[0:18] I mean, I’ve heard a lot of corruption things, but this one, it just went beyond the pale, especially there at the end where he said that this H. Paul Rico asked him about his kids and how old his kids were. That was like, you know, and I, you know, I talked with that guy long enough to know that he wasn’t lying. You know, he wasn’t making that up. That was, it was just beyond the pale, if you ask me. But today’s episode is going to be a little bit more about H. Paul Rico and a dark chapter in the FBI history. Now, this is before John Connolly and the Whitey Bulger cover-up and all that. H. Paul Rico was the agent that really broke in Connolly, I think, and taught him the ropes. He was a slick FBI agent that had all the informants, that always had the inside track on everything, knew where the deals were. And so let’s talk a little more about this one incident that we glossed over in that interview with Mike Huff about the murder of the Roger Wheeler down in Tulsa at the golf course, the Southern Hills Golf Tournament.

[1:30] And it was all over control of Jai alai, all the money that came out of Jai alai. This thing, it just, it was a web of deceit that reached into the highest levels of federal law enforcement, as you could tell from what Mr. Huff was saying.

[1:44] And so I’m going to tell you the story of the Edward Teddy Deegan murder. This is the FBI’s legacy of shame. I read one article about this, and that’s what they call this, the legacy of shame.

[1:56] So let’s go back to October 1964, the year I graduated from high school, actually. Boston FBI agent H. Paul Rico wrote a memo. He’s got an informant whispering that Teddy Deegan, a known hoodlum in Chelsea, Massachusetts, is marked for death. There’s a contract out on him. It’s not just street talk, not just bullshit that he heard somewhere. This came from real solid mob insider informants. A few months later, another memo makes it all the way to J. Edgar Hoover himself. March 10th, 1965, it says that Vincent Jimmy the Bear Flemmy, who is Steve Flemmy, Stevie the Rifleman Flemmy’s brother, I believe, and a guy named Joe Barbosa, have asked New England mob boss Raymond Patriarca for a green light to kill Teddy Deegan. And the word is they’ve already had one dry run on it. So what did the FBI do with this information? You know, they did nothing with it. They did absolutely nothing. They didn’t warn Teddy Deegan, which I know FBI agents, and I know they’ve gotten information like this, and that’s the rule is you go warn the person. And usually it’ll be another guy involved in a lot of shenanigans that then they’ll try to bring him in with that warning. I know we had one in Kansas City. They went to him, and he could have come in. He could have talked. He wouldn’t talk, and like about two weeks later, he was dead. But you at least have to warn him, and it’s an option or it’s an opportunity for you to make a pitch to him.

[3:24] Later on, they talked about in another memo that identified, this Jimmy the Bear Flemmi as a murderer of seven men, including Teddy Deegan. But it also said that from all indications, Jimmy the Bear is going to continue to commit murder. But this informant’s potential outweighs the risk. It’s crazy. And, you know, they said that in this Teddy Deegan, they claimed that Flemmy and Barboza and a couple other guys were behind it. And one of them set the trap, lured Deegan into a fake break-in, then shot him in the back of the head. And then a couple others finished up the job, but Flemme and especially Joe Barbosa, Joe the animal Barbosa, were highly placed FBI informants at the time. Really valuable assets. Two years later, 1968, four men, Louis Greco, Henry Tamaleo, Peter Limone, and Joe Salvati are convicted based on the testimony

[4:25] of Joe Barbosa, who set up this murder, they’re convicted for this murder. And the FBI knew that Louis Greco was in Miami at the time of the murder. They even had the witnesses. They had proof that he wasn’t even in town at that time.

[4:39] But, you know, and of course, they didn’t reveal that, you know, that’s exculpatory information that you can get your conviction turned around and at least get another trial on it. Now that you’ve got that information that the U.S. Attorney withheld from you, the FBI, whoever the law enforcement was that withheld from you. H. Paul Rico was overheard bragging at a mob party how easy it was to convict the four pigeons. They called them the four pigeons. They said it was funny. And one of them, Greco, who wasn’t even in town at the time, got the death penalty. Now think about that one. There’s a federal agent laughing about sending an innocent man to the death chamber. It’s crazy. So over the next four years, you know, these guys are frantically trying to get the death sentences overturned, and they get them commuted to life after the Supreme Court hurt the case. Actually, it’s after Supreme Court’s ruling in Furman v. Georgia.

[5:35] Tamaleo will die in prison in 1985 at 84. He was the oldest inmate in Massachusetts. Greco died in 95, had colon cancer, and a broken Hart. His son, Lewis Jr., drank Drano and took his own life a couple years later. Meanwhile, the FBI was doing everything they could to keep the truth buried. They even funneled false information to Governor Dukakis at the time, blocking any.

[6:03] Opportunity for a commutation because they’d asked the governor for a commutation. They had, you know, these different pieces of evidence that proved they didn’t do it. And the FBI fought it like crazy. Yeah, like they fought Mike Huff from looking into this whole Roger Wheeler

[6:19] case any further than what he was able to do. Finally, in 2000, the Department of Justice uncovered secret FBI files that proved what many people had suspected over the years, that the FBI knew who really killed Deegan, and they had let four innocent men rot in prison just to protect informants. 2001, court will vacate the convictions of Salvati and Peter Lamone. Peter Lamone had spent over 33 years behind bars, but he was a young man when he went in, and he was 66 when he walked out a free man. Of course, they filed lawsuits, $300 million in claims for wrongful imprisonment, malicious prosecutions, and civil rights violations. And the judge that heard this ruled the state prosecution was procured by the FBI and nurtured by both federal agents and state officers who knew the charges were bogus. So we would have had the state of Massachusetts on the hook as well as the federal government. Congress got involved. They published a 2003 House report that said it was the greatest failure in FBI history.

[7:20] Agents had suborned purgatory, protected murderers, and sent innocent men to prison, all in the name of protecting an informant. And that Joe Barboza, I mean, he was a deep-throat informant, but he was a loose cannon. I mean, you can’t protect those loose cannons. In 2004, a Massachusetts judge posthumously cleared Greco. He was already dead. The lawyer for the family probably said this best. This was an innocent man who was framed, and the most amazing part is the government knew it. That same year, the family of Teddy Deegan, the man who was murdered, the victim in this, sued the government, too. Turned out, during that trial, it came out that Teddy Deegan had actually been warned by Peter Lamone that these people were out to kill him, not by the FBI, but…

[8:05] Still didn’t do anything. This wasn’t just a one-time error. This was, it turns out, this was a pattern of practice, a policy of many agents in the organized crime squad in that Boston office. So just remember, the next time someone says the FBI always gets their man, remember this story. They sacrificed four men just to protect a really bullshit loose cannon informant. And if you go back and listen to my story on Joe Barbosa, you’ll find that’s how much of a loose cannon he was. The protectors became part of the corruption at the time. So that’s it for today’s episode of Gangland Wire. If you like what you heard, subscribe, leave a review, share it with a friend. And if you have a problem with PTSD and you’ve been in the service, be sure and go to the VA website. You’ll find a hotline for help there. If you have a problem with drugs or alcohol, Anthony Ruggiano down in Florida is a drug and alcohol counselor. He has a hotline on his website.

[9:02] You know, I’ve noticed that Ruggiano has been coming up to New York quite a little bit. It’s pretty interesting. You know, he testified against people, but now he’s like out floating around as free as a breeze, like a whole lot of these other guys got podcasts and everything. If you have a problem with gambling in Missouri, I know we have a 1-800 bets off. I don’t think that’s a national thing. I think every state will have their own, but casinos all have to publish that and they put money into it and, you know, provide treatment facilities or treatment opportunities for, they provide treatment opportunities for people that have problem with gambling. And as I’ve said many times before, gambling is like the worst thing, the most insidious thing. If you get a problem with gambling, next thing you know, you’re in with loan sharks and next thing you know, the mob’s got your business.

[9:47] And that’s, you know, that’s kind of an old school thing. It probably doesn’t happen so much anymore, but you know, you can’t lose a lot of stuff if you get involved with gambling and you can’t handle it. So until next time, be sure and like and subscribe.

[10:00] Tell your friends about it. As I said before, we need more listeners, more listeners, more listeners. I’ve got books and movies for sale. Go on to Amazon, just Google my name and Mafia, and you’ll find all the books I’ve got for sale. I don’t need to run all that down. And remember, when the FBI says, hi, where were the government? We’re here to help you. Well, take a second look at that. See, just make sure you know how much they’re trying to help. I’m not saying I got a lot of FBI agents, friends. You know, I’ve interviewed a lot of FBI agents. There’s 99.9% of all FBI agents and probably 95% of all law enforcement or local and state law enforcement are

[10:39] all strictly on the up and up. You know, I say that’s a little less with local and state because we don’t have quite the same background checking options that the FBI does. Have a little lower standards because, you know, it’s harder. We don’t pay as much money. Majority of the people are good guys and they’re straight up. If they’re honest as they possibly, you know, can be. Sometimes you shade a little thing or two in order to make a case. You just don’t ever lie about somebody. You don’t ever lie on paper. You may sit somebody down to interview them and pretend like you know more than what you really know in order to get them to talk to you. But that’s, you know, that’s one thing. But actually putting something on paper that’s going to damage somebody and actually give them a case, you know, just that’s not, that ain’t good, folks. That ain’t good. So thanks a lot, guys.

In this episode of Gangland Wire, retired Tulsa homicide detective Mike Huff joins host Gary Jenkins to break down one of the most shocking mob hits in U.S. history. Det. Huff tells about the 1981 murder of businessman Roger Wheeler at Southern Hills Country Club and the investigation that ended in the arrest of Boston F.B.I. agent Paul Rico. You can learn more about this story by reading Mike’s book, Killing My Father: The Inside Story of the Biggest FBI Corruption Scandal in History.

What started as a local homicide case quickly unraveled into a national organized crime conspiracy involving Florida Jai Alai gambling, the Winter Hill Gang, and notorious Boston mob boss Whitey Bulger. Huff shares how he uncovered links to FBI corruption, the Dixie Mafia, and hitman John Martorano, who eventually confessed to the killing.

Huff also opens up about working with Roger Wheeler’s son, David, the emotional toll of the investigation, and how their joint efforts finally exposed the truth. His book Killing My Father reveals even more about this decades-long fight for justice.

Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire

To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here

To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here. 

To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here

To buy my Kindle book, Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How FBI Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos.

Transcript

[1:20] I got promoted to a detective in 1980. I didn’t much like it. It wasn’t enough action. I had a good career on the street. But I like my supervisor a lot. So I stuck with this being a detective.

[1:39] In May of 81, May 27th, you know, I just got to work. I was checking on a guy that I had shot three weeks earlier who was in intensive care. We’re just sitting there and we’re talking about we’re going to eat supper. And I was on the phone with the hospital. Checking on this guy’s condition, and police radio came on and said, we need all the homicide detectives to head out to Southern Hills Country Club on a shooting. I guess 5-0s that night, you know, we hit it out there, and, you know, Southern Hills, even at that time, before a lot of all the major golf tournaments they’ve since had, was a very, well, it was the kind of place that I wasn’t familiar with.

[2:34] Everybody with money was part of that country club, and I wasn’t one of that crowd. There’s a middle-aged man swamped over in a seated car. He’d been shot between the eyes. It was a little bit foreign to me. You know, I’d been a homicide detective for a year and had been to a good bunch of homicides, but most of them were, you know, street murders or domestics, things like that. And so I knew this one was going to be a bit different, but I didn’t know how different this was going to be. I think I was 25 at the time. My supervisor told me this was going to be my being in charge of the scene. So we started making assignments. Very little evidence of the scene. There were four live rounds laying right outside the opened doorway of Mr. Wheeler’s Cadillac. You know, that was pretty puzzling. This one’s right near one of the…

[3:40] Really nice swimming pools out there, and we found a few witnesses. People had seen this car. It looked out of place. I don’t know why anybody hadn’t had somebody check it out. A couple guys sitting in the car. Mike, tell us a little bit about how did you figure out who this guy was? He was pretty well-known in Tulsa, and that’s a pretty well-known country club guy. Just for your information, the Southern Hills Country Club is a primo, premier golf course here in the Midwest. And it’s nothing but high-end, rich oil people in Tulsa, I believe, mainly went to that. And so tell us about how you figured out who this victim was. He had a nice car. Well, the people were abuzz and said, you know,

[4:31] you don’t know who this guy is. He owns a telex corporation. Well, that didn’t mean a whole lot to me, other than they said, you know, he employs thousands of people. You know, this was a time that was before Google or the Internet or cell phones or anything. I think I had a police radio, and I don’t even think pagers were invented yet.

[5:02] Communication was tough. You know, the word started trickling in of who he was. I guess we were probably out at the scene for six or seven hours and documenting it and getting our pictures and all that kind of scene work. We went back to the station, detective area, we called it the bullpen. The bullpen was filled with brass, people they’d called in and whatever. The word was there was going to be a 13-man task force formed on this deal, and they started breaking that out. Boy, for some reason, I sure thought I wanted to be on it. And I got the word to the sergeant that there is a scene in the book that we wrote. This sergeant, Roy Hunt, was a legend. He had solved murders for decades. I really liked him. He liked me. He pulled me to the side and he said, hey, if you get involved in this, it’s probably going to change your life. And he said, you’ve got a pretty good career down here. So, you know, this is probably going to screw it up, you know, if it doesn’t kill you. I mean, I was so young, green, that I said, oh, man, I don’t want to do this. He said, all right, let’s drink to it. So he pulled out a bottle of whiskey and a couple of shot glasses from his desk. The good old days.

[6:29] And so we need a, We had a drink about it. You know, I wasn’t the only guy involved. I mean, involved in that task force. After about a couple weeks, the lead started dwindling. It boiled down to me and a really good fellow named Dick Bishop. We got assigned a case. You know, it was a good learning experience for me. I had Dick Bishop. I had my sergeant. You know, we were, for some reason, 1981, that was a big homicide year for Tulsa. We had close to 80 homicides. I was working around the clock. You know, I mean, I’d pick up a grounder here or there on top of this.

[7:11] And so we stayed busy, but we got a call from the state police in Massachusetts. And they said, hey, I need to be up here. Actually, Dick and Sergeant Walter Hunt went to Boston. I didn’t make that trip. But I just worked another homicide. Let me ask you a question here. At this point in time, I know a red ball like that, a hot case like that, where the phones light up at first with all kinds of bad leads and crazy leads, and everybody’s running down all these leads. But you mentioned that there was a car in the lot that somebody mentioned was suspicious. Was that, had you figured out that was the car that had been occupied by whoever killed Roger Wheeler? Yes, sir. It was the late 70s, probably a 79 or 80, four-door, LTD, four-door. Two guys with beards were in the car and they were And somebody got a partial tag. That partial tag, I mean, we had conflicting information about even the partial tag.

[8:22] I mean, we had a couple of witnesses with different partial tag numbers.

[8:27] These guys were pros. They had stole the tag off a similar car. It was a huge dead end, but it took so much effort to follow that lead. This was a time, well, you know, it was just tell times. You couldn’t sit down in front of the computer and do anything because there weren’t computers. You know, that was a lead that we worked on. We also got a lead very early on that put us on to the Dixie Mafia, and those were some bad guys. The main guy, or the guy that was suggested as a shooter, resembled a composite drawing. We had an artist do a composite, and they were great composites. But somebody said, hey, that looks like Pat Early, Dixie Mafia guy. And he was the kind of guy that he would travel to do violence, got involved in labor disputes, things of that nature. And he lived down in southern Oklahoma. The other guy was believed to be a bondsman in Oklahoma City. We took off on that lead and I spent close to.

[9:55] A couple months off and on three or four days a week in Oklahoma City we did surveillance on these guys we’re trying to catch them up short doing something they were also dealing some, or smuggling some pretty good quantities of drugs we worked on that for with the state narcotics unit for months until we finally got them dirty with a pretty good load of drugs.

[10:29] That’s interesting, Mike, how you start in a murder investigation, and I’ve seen this happen here. You start in a murder investigation, and all of a sudden, you know, somebody, something else comes in that may have something to do with it and may not, but then you get sidetracked onto that, then it looks good. And you stay on that for a while and then you have to come back. When you go to Boston, you have very little leads. You’ve got this car and this composites and a bunch of other dead ends that weren’t that. Did you have anything at that point in time that led you to believe that this reached outside of Oklahoma City or in that area? No, we had nothing. I mean, we had just a few phone calls. Other people knew more about our case and how it hooked to Boston than we did. There was no way to research it.

[11:26] What about Roger Wheeler? What about Roger Wheeler? Did you know about his connection to the High Lie down in Florida at that point in time? He was a big businessman, but he had invested in this world highlight business in Florida.

[11:41] When we started looking at this thing, of course, the brass was making decisions. Of course, that never helps out when you’re a detective trying to find the truth and the brass stick who knows in it. But the brass sat down with the FBI. They said, hey, this Dixie Mafia lead looks pretty good. And we’re going to follow that lead. We know about Wheeler and this parimutuel gambling business.

[12:21] Highline, which if people don’t know what that is, if they ever watched the first of Miami Vice, there was a spot in the trailer on that. And it was filmed at World Highlight down in Miami, and these guys have these big baskets hooked to their arms, and they’re on a court with a granite wall, and they catch this ball with this basket, and then with the weight or force of their entire body, they hurl this very hard ball called a palata up against this wall. And they’re basically playing handball and you know the crowd sits behind the screen there’s huge amounts of money bet on that too.

[13:15] Yes, there was a lot of money. Roger Wheeler had taken some of his money that he’d made in these other businesses and bought this whole High Lie organization, World High Lie, which ran the games. And then also, were they involved in the parimutuel betting on that and the gambling on that? Yes. World High Lie had five, they call them frontons. They’re about the size of a pretty good-sized indoor arena. And there are four of them in Florida, and there was one in Hartford, Connecticut. We stuck our nose into it and started looking at it. And the brass says, hey, we made a deal with the FBI. The FBI is going to handle all the potential organized crime leads. And you guys stick on this stuff local. Or nearly local. Didn’t like it at all. You know, I was a 25-year-old kid. Yeah, what are you going to do? Now, you had a call from the Massachusetts Highway Patrol. I interrupted you back then. And this is going to start leading you outside of Tulsa back to Florida and to Boston. So what was that about?

[14:34] Yeah, we went up there, and they told us about this Irish mob. It’s a loose-knit organized crime group. They said, here’s some guys to take a look at. Because I was coordinating a deal where we were…

[14:56] Going through boxes and boxes of paper records from every hotel in Tulsa, looking for something that stood out, maybe a tag number or an out-of-state reference to where somebody came from that we would follow up on those leads. They gave us some names for us to look for also, like somebody used their true name, checking into a hotel where they’re doing a mob hit. But I did what I was told. I was buried in boxes of paper when I wasn’t down in Oklahoma City chasing these drug dealers. You know, this Pat Earley, he worked for a guy that bought bad debt markers from, oh, I think it was Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. And he’d go out and break legs and stuff.

[16:05] Here we had two different angles, or actually even more than that, because Mr. Wheeler was a complicated man and was involved in a lot of businesses. There was a lot of stuff going on. I was like a kid in a toy store with all these things. You know, here I’m chasing the drug smuggler. Here I’m chasing the guy. And let me tell this about Pat Early and this Dixie Mafia. And the Dixie Mafia were responsible for shooting up Buford Pusser and killing Buford Pusser’s wife.

[16:43] Buford Pusser was the McNary County, Tennessee sheriff that they made a movie of. Called walking tall yeah and so they shot him up killed his wife i mean there was just so many crimes that that we were coming across that uh i can speak for myself we lacked focus because there’s so much stuff going on uh i still wanted uh i was still a little bit upset about the fbi was going to handle the highlight angle, but checking for airplanes. This guy that Pat Earley worked for, he owned a company that specialized in outfitting airplanes for international drug smuggling. And, I mean, you couldn’t spit without hitting some other motive.

[17:41] You know how that goes. You just get in the crowd. How did you get your focus back, and how did you end up on this highlight connection? Was that because of the FBI or because of the Boston-Massachusetts Highway Patrol? How did you get back to that? Well, we got involved with the state police in Boston a little bit. We didn’t know how we could do this. Boston was, you know, they said, well, we’ll check and see. And if anything comes up, we’ll tell you. Well, then we got hooked up with the Connecticut State Police.

[18:20] Who were overseeing the investigations on Highline in Connecticut, where Wheeler owned a facility. So I was still just on the fringes of Highline. And then in the fall, I believe it was, of 81, Dick and I are sitting at our desk one evening. Somebody barges into the detective vision, told the receptionist that, hey, I want to see the detective who’s working my dad’s murder case. My name’s David Wheeler. They called me back there and said, this irate guy wants to talk to you. So I did that. I brought him back to the bullpen. We sat down. I’ve been waiting for you to come talk to me, but all that’s been coming out of the woodwork is FBI agents. I said, well, we were told that the FBI would handle you as their source of information. They haven’t really said very much about it. We have meetings with them, but nothing really comes out. I think World High got my dad killed, and I think a retired FBI agent was involved in it. And I’ve told the FBI that.

[19:39] And they won’t listen to me. So here I am. My psychiatrist told me to come talk to you. Now this Wheeler, his son, he helped you write that book. He had some input

[19:52] into that book, correct? Oh, he had a lot of input into this book. So in that book, you’re going to have the personal side. You’re going to have the law enforcement side of the murder of Roger Wheeler. Yes. Okay. We found, as we started dealing with him, that Mr. Wheeler was just a busy millionaire businessman, self-made businessman. You know, he might have had his flaws, but he wasn’t a crook. He had legitimate businesses. He just had made so much money on a pipeline business that he had a big, big amount of money that he could invest. And so he had gone to somebody that he had dealt with before, the Bank of Boston, and said, Hey, find me something to invest in that I’d make money and just bring me whatever it is. And I’ll take a look at it. They offered him a casino. They offered Hi-Li. So he started looking at this, and he had sent his son, David.

[21:07] Down to look at these businesses and put together some sort of computer program. David did, and it came back that Highline had the most potential to make money, and the tax incentives were there in that business. So his dad said, I’m going to buy this one. That was in the late 70s. What had happened, the business was run by a guy from Boston, a CPA. It turned out that he hired several retired FBI agents, one of them was a fellow by the name of Paul Rico, to allegedly keep the business clean from organized crime. Paul Rico was a legendary FBI agent that had developed many mob informants while they were trying to stamp out the Italian mob. And so as he was nearing retirement, he had moved to Florida for his last year or two, was hired by World High Line before Mr. Wheeler owned it. and that was something that attracted Mr. Wheeler. He felt safe with these FBI agents working there. And then immediately it started not.

[22:35] Making the money that they thought it should make. It was a real, real problem. Then it turns out that a runner, a world highlight, a guy named John Callahan, a Connecticut State Police figured out that he was hooked up with the Winter Hill game in Boston. He had to resign, and he was replaced by his business partner, a guy named Dick Donovan, another CPA.

[23:04] Wheeler was stuck with this guy because as a part of the Bank of Boston and proving that loan, they said, we want Donovan to stay on as president. By early 1981, things were just not looking good in the business. He was arguing a lot with Donovan. David Wheeler had planned to fire Donovan and Paul Rico, and that was just relayed from Wheeler to his son just a couple weeks before the murder.

[23:39] Now, Mike, this Paul Rico, I was looking up a little bit about him. By the time he retired or maybe shortly after, it came out that he was involved with an informant named Joe the Animal of Barboza who had done a murder of a guy named Teddy Deegan.

[23:57] But Rico wanted a guy named Peter Lamone and three other members of the Italian La Cosa Nostra mob to go to jail for this Teddy Deegan, and Rico stood back and allowed Barboza to perjure himself and let these guys go down. Now, in the end, they’ll end up getting released from prison when it all comes out several years later and get like a, I don’t know, a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the FBI and the Department of Justice because of that case. So he was, you know, he had a history and plus Boston FBI, you know, that’s the place where John Connolly, the FBI agent who came along after RICO.

[24:41] Uh, uh, was, was there, we say Rico like Rico law, but H Paul Rico and John Conley was a kind of a junior agent that then moved in and had all these informants and the Irish mob continued going after, going after the Italian mob. And then he ends up going to prison behind all that. So that was, uh, I tell you that Boston FBI was a, uh, was a snake’s nest. Uh, it was not good at all. And so Rico is now working in the Winter Hill Gang, who he’s been protecting and using his informants over the years to get the Italian mob. They’re they’re siphoning money out of that. They’re what are they embezzling money out of the High Line, World High Line? For the sake of the charge, we proved that they were just trying to take control.

[25:32] World High Life, so they could really get the money. We just hadn’t figured out how the money was coming out at that time. That was a big hang-up on filing charges. I mean, this thing, we’re fast-forwarding ahead close to 20 years until we get to this point. But, you know, we suspected Rico was involved. May of 1982, a couple of guys get gunned down in Boston. One of them’s named Brian Halloran. The other was Michael Donahue, who was just giving Halloran a ride. And Donahue’s dad was sergeant on the Boston Police Department.

[26:12] We didn’t hear about it. Nobody told us about this.

[26:16] Until finally, a reporter called the police department and said, hey, you guys need to know this. That’s how we learned about it. And that’s how we dove into the Boston angle at this time. Wait a minute. Remind me, how did that murder in Boston connect to the Hi-Li and Roger Wheeler? Right. Well, I found out after a couple months, Brian Halloran had gone to the FBI and said, hey, I got offered this hit out in Tulsa. I got thinking about it, and I decided I didn’t want to do it. It was a hit for Paul Rico. He wanted Wheeler dead. John Callahan, the former president of World High Line, wanted Wheeler dead. He declined the hit. They gave him $20,000, said get your mouth shut. And he got jammed up in another murder in January of 1982 in Boston. And that was his ticket was the Wheeler murder. An FBI agent might have been the guy behind it. So the FBI never told us that. By this time, we had figured out, of course, the FBI was screwing us over every day. And, you know, we learned that from David Wheeler back in the fall of 81.

[27:44] And the police department told me, he said, get to know this guy, figure out if he’s crazy or what, because he had a passion. His dad was dead, murdered, and the FBI wouldn’t listen to him. And so he turned to us, and the police department turned to me, and I was the rookie detective closer to David Wheeler’s age. Dick Bishop was older and had no patience, as we all get.

[28:18] But I’ve got to say, Dick was a great guy. We came back after meeting with Wheeler for days, and we met with the brass, the chief, and everybody else said, hey, the FBI’s screwing us. We got to get into this ourselves because the FBI is hiding this stuff from us. Within a couple months, Halloran got over. We went to Boston. You know, we met with all these state police and stuff up there, and they were doing their best to help us as much as they could. But this was a rat’s nest of corruption and disputes between agencies. The FBI hated everybody. Everybody else hated the FBI. Nobody could trust anybody. They were trying to do wiretaps. They were getting burned on wiretaps, you know, against these Winter Hill monsters. So they said, I don’t know how you’re going to solve this. So I said, well, let’s just go to what they called a strike force prosecutor that handled his section, handled all the organized crime prosecutions, federal prosecutions in New England. They said, well, he’s got to be involved in this deal with Howard.

[29:39] He’d be the guy. I said, well, let’s go. Let’s go talk to him. And little did I know that in Boston, you could drink a couple beers sometimes. A shift and get by with it they didn’t have that problem so we had a couple beers at lunchtime.

[29:55] And we went over to the federal courthouse and said hey we’re here to to meet with a fellow by the name of jeremiah o’sullivan who was the strike force the head uh strike force prosecutor department of justice so it went in there we were getting stonewalled by him taking notes like crazy, throwing stuff at him, saying we had information that the corruption had infiltrated into the FBI in Boston. John Conley, like he said, this guy was around during Rico’s time. He said, well, Rico was connected with the Winnerville game. Well, we know what that means when you’re a cop. You know, if somebody says they’re connected to something else, That means they’re part of them. And he said, you know, Rico liked to carouse and gamble and play cards to these mobsters when he was on the job. So I’m hearing this. I mean, I’m a young kid. At this point in time, I didn’t know how to, even that people fix tickets occasionally.

[31:02] And I’m hearing them talk about carousing with mobsters and stuff. And I said, well, I just want to know who made the decision to cut Brian Howard loose and not tell us about it. He said, well, that was my decision. By this time, I was just getting pissed. I said, well, that was a bad decision. He’s dead. It’s our case. Who gave you the right to make a decision about our case? It just went downhill from there. Myself and a couple other detectives, wonderful reports, which quoted him verbatim. Which later came back to bite him as we both were testifying before Congress. My reports caught him in a lie. He both got charged with lying to Congress. He tried to turn the tables on me, and a good police report’s the only thing that saved me. So for the young cops out there, making a good police report is paramount to what you do when you’re trying to prove a murder. So I told him, I said, well, we’re up here and we’re going to find John Callahan, the former president of World Highline. I said, we’re going to make him snitch. I have no idea why I said it that way.

[32:19] And everybody else was looking at me like, what the hell are you saying? I can imagine. I mean, I had no business to open my mouth in that meeting as a young guy. So we were looking for Callahan up in Boston. Went everywhere. Had a drink. About every bar we went to, we had a drink for about three days, which I’m sorry I’m saying that. You know, I just followed the crowd. We stayed there for a week or so. We headed back to Tulsa. So I walked in my door and I am walking in my door with my suitcase in my hand and the phone was ringing. So I answered him and somebody said, hey, is this Detective Mycuff? Yes, sir. He said, are you looking for John Callahan? I said, I just came in the door from looking and we’ve been up in Boston looking for him for about a week. And he goes, well, I’ve got him. I said, well, great. Where are you? He said, I’m at the Miami International Airport. He had introduced himself as a detective from the Metro, dead police, John Parmenter. And he said, I’m at the airport.

[33:35] I got him in the trunk of his car, and he’s got a dime on his chest. And he was all shot up, and he’s dead. Oh, wow. The first thing that came to my mind is, you know, I just told the head of the strike force, this high-level Department of Justice prosecutor, that we were going to make him a snitch. And less than a week later, he’s dead in the trunk of a car in Miami. I mean, I just, it just about knocked me over. I felt like I was potentially responsible for his death. I didn’t like the feeling at all. And as a 25-year-old kid, 26, this was just too much for me to process. So I immediately went down to the station, met with the chief and all the brass. Dick Bishop, obviously.

[34:27] He’d come from home, too, because we’d just got home. So I said, hey, we got a problem. They said, it sounds like you need to be in Miami. So we started putting together a trip to Miami, met the detective that was down there. When I got that phone call, I believe on August 3, 1982, when they said Callahan was dead, I said, well, let me talk to the detective that’s going to work the case. They said, well, he’s on his way to Boston. Can you get a message to him? I was thinking, get a hold of him at a hotel or whatever. They said, well, he’s not going to be at a hotel. He’s made arrangements to stay at an FBI agent’s house that’s working on his case up there in Boston. I said, oh, my God, he cannot stay at an FBI agent’s house. They’re in this up to their eyeballs. Turned out, made a handwritten note, laid it on his desk, knowing he’s probably not going to be back for a week. And that’s where that note stayed until he had spent a week with the FBI up there you know he was a great guy Shelton Merritt we called him Grits.

[35:37] So I met him down in Miami and, He’s just shaking his head, and I’m shaking my head. Everybody’s shaking their head. We’re not, we have no clue what we’re going to do. At this point in time, the brass of all these agencies had just pretty much given us carte blanche and said, go do what you need to do. And Dick, being a lot wiser than I was, said, well, they just set us up for failure, and And so we’re going to wind up getting screwed on this deal because they’re not going to take any blame for anything that goes wrong. And without a doubt, something’s going to go wrong. And boy, was that true. We dug into this. We got everybody to come out to Tulsa and have a meeting. We arranged an informal task force amongst Miami, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Connecticut State Police, and the Massachusetts State Police. We were just shaking our heads trying to figure out what to do.

[36:42] Spending taxpayers’ money like it was going out of style. Everybody’s flying around here and there. We kind of put the logistics together, who was going to investigate what, who we were going to target, try to get some information out of. Within a couple months after that, the FBI gave us a call, and they’re dealing with David Wheeler and saying, oh, this isn’t going to be connected to the FBI. We’re going to drop this case. And then the next thing you know, we would do something, and they would come back into the case because they were trying to figure out what we were doing.

[37:21] And so they decided they wanted to bring all the detectives together from all these states to Oklahoma. They said they wanted to have an information-sharing meeting. They put us up in Nice’s Hotel, put everybody else up in Nice’s Hotel in Tulsa. I mean, the food and the liquor slowed for about three days. We were just trying to avoid the FBI, talk with all these guys in this little informal task force. And so finally, on the last day of this meeting, which was held at the federal courthouse here in Tulsa, a guy from FBI headquarters, and he was a very high-level guy named Sean McLean, stood up and said, we have to know everything incriminating that you have on Paul Rico. By this time, if we’d had rocks or bottles or something, they would have been thrown at him. And we said, we got nothing to tell you because we can’t trust you. He said, well, here’s the deal. Paul Rico…

[38:37] Came out of retirement, and did a favor for the FBI. He went undercover to a corrupt federal judge by the name of L.C. Hastings, and we’re going to arrest him, L.C. Hastings. We have to turn everything that you have over in discovery.

[39:01] To whoever Hastings’ lawyer is going to be. So, I mean, that disbanded that meeting as quick as it could. Well, I said, we’ve got nothing to say to you. People left. I mean, people were going to a phone trying to get their airline reservations changed, go get a suitcase. I mean, it was just, it looked like a bunch of guys running from a stolen car after a pursuit.

[39:31] I mean, these guys just ran out of there. great analogy it turns out that he did arrest alcee hastings and he was acquitted he later became a u.s senator in florida yeah so i mean uh the the high level stuff that that we were dealing with it just put a stain on what’s going on i mean there was no way i mean i was i was looking at all this stuff and i said there is no way that i am smart enough even being this room, I probably need to go back to patrol. Mike, at this point in time, I mean, you’re almost like stymied. That was ingenious on their part. Now, if I see a conspiracy theory here, I could see that Rico knew people were after him and he wanted to know what you knew and you weren’t speaking to the FBI so he could volunteer to go work a case on a corrupt judge and then have to know everything you got on him for discovery i mean that’s they could potentially had got court orders from a judge in that criminal trial to say you know bring it to tulsa and all the other different.

[40:45] Jurisdictions and say you have to give us that and you had to give us then he would have known so it’s uh i don’t know that’s a conspiracy theory that maybe it’s a leap too far it’s pretty sophisticated, but I think it’s possible, don’t you? Oh, yes, sir, Gary.

[41:03] My head was spinning. I can imagine. I went to my dad March 14th, 1983. I went to my dad and I said, I think I got to step back, maybe volunteer to go back to a police car because I’m in way over my head. My dad said, no, there’s no way you can step back because you are in way over your head and you can’t run from this. You know, he said, you’re right in the middle of a cesspool of corruption. You can’t.

[41:36] You can’t do this. You can’t walk away from it. Well, that was the last time I talked to my dad because the next afternoon he was taking a nap and he got a heart attack in his sleep. That is something I detail in this book, along with many other things. But, you know, when we were writing the book, I talked about that story. And not until then did I really soak in that my dad’s funeral was on St. Patrick’s Day and I was right in the middle of all this Irish corruption, Irish mob. A friend of mine just said, hey, that was a sign you were just too stupid to realize it. You know, I believe he’s right. From that point on, I never thought about leaving this case. Of course, a few years later, this case caused me a little bit of a divorce.

[42:37] And I needed to make a little bit more money, so I promoted to sergeant, but I had made a deal with the brass. When I made sergeant that I’d have to go back to patrol for a little bit to learn how to be a sergeant, They’d bring them back in to run the homicide squad when it all worked out. Can’t give away everything that’s in the book. I know there’s a lot more that’s going to happen to get to Paul Rico, and you end up getting to him. And so, guys, you’ve got to get this book. Now, I have one last question here about this George Monterano, who eventually will admit to this murder. And eventually it comes out that this murder does tie back to the Winter Hill gang, And the guy that did it admitted to it and is out there today running around free. Yeah, it’s John Mariano. Boy, there are so many stories, just like you said, Jerry, so many stories in this book.

[43:38] It’s just so hard to share this trivia that comes through here. In 1995, I had learned that some young state policemen who started working a loan sharking case came up with enough to charge Whitey Bulger with some racketeering. So I heard about that, and I said, well, I’m going to make it. I took 60 pounds of reports. I mean, I made, I just stood in front of a copy machine for a couple days. And I had reports that were Boston Intel guys from back in the 70s that they had to purge. And so they were no longer in, but I didn’t have to purge them. I didn’t know them.

[44:38] So I took all these reports up there. I had a suitcase with a roller attachment to it. I rolled in these reports to the U.S. Attorney’s Office to a guy named Fred Wyshack. I’m from Tulsa, and I’m working this case, and I just want you to know that you’re getting ready to step into knee-deep corruption. So I got these reports that I’d like to share with you because you’re going to come across my case in it. So it turns out that, you know, we started working with them a little bit back in the late 80s. I had a call from some TV people. And they said, hey, we’re from a TV show. Joe, we’d like to put you on our pilot show, our very first one, and it’s called Unsolved Mysteries. We’d like to feature your case. You know, that was a time when there were just, you know, three major networks.

[45:47] There wasn’t a reality show. There weren’t all these crime shows, podcasts, anything. We went up and down the ladder on that. Roger Wheeler’s widow tried to block us from doing that. chief made a good decision and said, we’re going to do it. So in that, I learned of John Margarano. It even went back to some information back when our first trip to Boston in 1981.

[46:14] So Margarano had a felony warrant out for a horse race fixing conspiracy that they had worked up on him in the late 70s. So, um, I showed his picture on this Unsolved Mysteries and, uh.

[46:37] That was probably 86 or 87. Years later, in 1995.

[46:44] After this thing started unraveling up in Boston, somebody’s watching a rerun of Unsolved Mysteries, a fellow down in South Florida. And he sees me show this picture of Marano. And he said, hey, he don’t go by that name, but that guy is a loan shark. And I’ve paid some money to him. That’s how Marano’s arrest came about, off of that guy calling in and saying that. I wish he had called me, but he had called the state police. That’s how Marano got arrested. Once he gets arrested, I go visit him down in Latuna, Texas. He was staying in what they called the Veloce Suites. It was a suite of rooms where Joe Vellacci lived out his life when he became a witness against the mob. I guess they used this suite for the most important witnesses that they have need protection for and whatever. But, I mean, Margarano had his own small little kitchen. He had access to a toll-free phone, and he had private access to the rooftop exercise area. It was something. It was better than the first apartment I lived in.

[48:09] So, you know, me and Marno kind of hit it off. He told me, he said, you know, Unsolved Mysteries came out in the late 80s. He said, I was in Hawaii on vacation watching TV and I saw you come on holding up my picture.

[48:26] And he said, I knew right then and there, he said, I’ve been worried about this murder, but I knew right then and there we were going to meet someday. You know, it was interesting.

[48:38] Marano, I mean, I talked to him, you know, multiple times, but the first time I talked to him, I spent three days with him. He had a story that went for decades, you know, his involvement in organized crime, how he got involved in organized crime. As we were working through this, we brought him out to Tulsa, but yes, Marshall’s dead.

[49:02] And we had a small army put together. Me and him were in the car. I said, you know, this is 20 years almost after this happened. And I said, tell me what you can remember. He said, well, let’s go out there to that country club. As we’re going, you know, he’s saying, turn left here up at this light. And it’s right up here on the right. And as you pull in, there’s a garden shack that nobody was at the day it happened. And here’s where we parked. I mean, and what I did was I just went through, and every sentence or word that he said that would prove that this guy was the guy, every bit of corroboration, I totaled him up. There were 167 points of corroboration that only the killer would know. So, you know, then we went past the Wheeler’s house and he goes, yeah, I didn’t like this one right here because their circle drive kind of comes out onto a busier street. I didn’t want to get jammed up, you know, sitting there waiting to get out in traffic. And, oh, here was this parking space at Telex. It had its name on it.

[50:28] And sure enough, it did at the time. and he goes, oh, and there’s a Catholic school across the street and I didn’t like this one because I’m Catholic and I didn’t want to do it right in front of a Catholic school. I mean, just stuff like that. Yeah. That really showed me, I mean, by this time I’m kind of a decent investigator. So I’m seeing the level of a report that I was doing And comparing it to a level of a report that, say, the FBI or some other agency was doing, they were just pounding square pegs into round holes on their cases, and we were intricate with facts and details. I mean, that was…

[51:17] Something I really recognized at the time. Did Monterano, did he then give up Rico? Yes, he did give up Rico. And he gave up Stevie, the rifleman, Flemmie. He told us that Joe McDonald was the driver. And I tell you, if you ever watch that movie, Bullet, Joe McDonald became close to a movie maker. And the movie maker was making a mob movie. And so he wanted somebody to tell him what it was like to be in the mob, so McDonald told him. Eventually, that guy made a movie called Bullet. And in that big chase scene in Bullet, Joe McDonald was the passenger in the car being chased by Steve McQueen in the movie. He was the actor. The car getting chased, he was the guy with the shotgun. That was Joe McDonald. I’ll be darned. So what happened to him? Did he go down behind him? Well, he died in 1982. Okay.

[52:19] He, uh, he got caught coming back from, uh, Florida on, uh, Amtrak. Uh, he got caught, somebody snitched him off on the way, but he got caught in New York and he had a machine gun in a suitcase. Case, me and Dick Bishop, we had our bags packed and getting ready to head out the door to the airport. And I got a call from the cops up in New York City, and they said, you can stay at home because he ain’t talking to anybody.

[52:52] And we asked him if he would talk to you guys, and he said, I’m especially not going to talk to those guys.

[52:58] So he was a getaway driver on the Wheeler case. So Margot Long gave up Rico, gave up Flemmie. Finally, we got Flemmie to talk. Crob-ranked the Rico story.

[53:14] And we decided we had enough to arrest Rico. It took me forever to get the DA in Tulsa to file a charge. A little side issue that’s in the book, I had, over the years, had heard that there was a guy in Boston that actually put the guns on a bus. And Marano and McDonald picked up the guns at a bus station in downtown Tulsa to use. So I tried for several years to get that guy to talk to me. And he had a lawyer, and I talked to a lawyer every couple months and me the same answer. So finally, the last time that I tried, I said, hey, tell that guy. And this guy was a very huge Irish supporter. He had been arrested for smuggling guns to the IRA in Ireland.

[54:19] And he’s something. And there’s a bit about him in the book. I said, hey, tell Pat that my great-great-granddad came from Ireland through Boston and made his way out this way to Kansas before he slipped down into Indian territory. Just tell him that my great-great-granddad’s buried in the Indian cemetery about 20 miles from my house. And he came over from Dublin. and within an hour.

[54:54] Literally he said hey as soon as you can get out here he’ll talk to you what we did it’s myself and my partner at that time we got the chief to make a phone call we got sworn in as u.s marshals so we headed out to that that was the final piece that we needed to get the da to file a charge we had a deal with da that he was going to keep this under wraps nobody was going to know about it until we got there and got in place to arrest Paul Rico. We went out there, got with the Marshal’s Task Force out. We all went to Rico’s Miami Beach condominium about six in the morning. We just confirmed that the warrant was active, which is all good. So I beat on the door. And over the years, I had kind of gone toe-to-toe with Rico at least half a dozen times. So I’m beating on his door at 6 in the morning. He said, who is it? I said, hey, it’s Sergeant Mike Uffman Toss Place. I heard his wife say, what do you need? We’ve talked to you enough times.

[56:06] And I said, well, you need to open the door. So I opened the door. I got a warrant for first-degree murder. He got under arrest for the murder of Roger Wheeler. And he kind of stumbled back to the chair, fell down. and he was in his boxer shorts and stuff. I said, you need to go in your bedroom. We’ll take you in there and put some clothes on because you’re going to jail. I told his wife, I said, does he have some medicine he needs to take with him? He goes, yeah, he’s diabetic. And so she got a handful of pill bottles, put them in a sack. I said, well, if he’s diabetic, he might need to eat something for breakfast because you might not get some at the jail. And his wife said, hey, put your World Highlight cashmere sweater on. They’ll get a kick out of that. And I said, well, we’re going to get a kick out of it. But this is no joke. This is a big deal that’s happening here. You need to realize that.

[57:09] So we took him to Dade County jail. We go in there, and that smells like a third-world country in there. I mean, you know, it’s a big city jail. Yeah. We’re standing in line waiting to get booked in. There is some sort of foreigner standing right in front of us, and he had a goiter on his neck about the size of a cantaloupe, and it was leaking pus. Oh, my gosh. And he smelled terrible, like he hadn’t had a bath for weeks.

[57:41] Rico turned around and looked at him. I mean, he said, are you really doing this to me? And I said, well, you kind of did it to yourself. As soon as we get you up to the front of the line, we’ll be through with you. And I’ll see you back in Tulsa. Kind of ends up sad for H. Paul Rico. He will eventually die while in custody, I guess, after he got to – he had bad health problems at the time, and he’ll eventually die in custody when he gets down to Tulsa, if I read this right. But I’m filling out the booking sheet in a room at Dade County Homicide Squad on Rico. I’m just asking questions, high weight, all that kind of stuff, and he kind of sneers at me. How old are your kids? And it stopped me in with tracks. And I looked up at him and I said, what the F did you say? And he said, how old are your effing kids? And I said, look, old man, I don’t have a problem.

[58:47] Hitting you or choking you out because you’re not going to threaten my kids. So that was the end of the band.

[58:55] Interesting. Interesting comment by him. I tell you what, I just talked about this in a show not too long ago, those kind of a veiled threats that mob guys do that you can’t really say it’s a threat by the words alone. Yes, sir. You would have to know the context, the relationship between the two people talking. and you have to know a whole lot more than the threat in that. How old are your kids? You know, we had a guy here in Kansas City that just read off the names and ages of a guy’s kids.

[59:26] You know, he can say, well, that’s all I’m doing, just reading off the guy’s, you know, names of his kids and their ages. You know, I didn’t mean anything by it. I mean, that is so mob. That is the epitome of the veiled mob threat, their skillful mob threat. Interesting. All right. Well, I guess I got it across to Rico that I wasn’t happy with him because he wound up crapping in his pants in that interview room. Yeah, it’s a sad end for him and his family, but you play, you got to pay is what I find. run an all-volunteer co-gaze task force for sheriff’s office. And I tell you, when you walk up to somebody 20 years after they did something and you’re able to arrest them, it’s better than having a foot chase running down a serial killer. I mean, it’s for something they thought they got away with decades before.

[1:00:26] You know, and those families, they sure appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. And guys, let me tell you something. There’s, I didn’t think there’s anything better than getting into foot chase and catching the guy and putting the cuffs on him, but that’s probably is better.

[1:00:43] Yes, sir. It’s fun. All right. Mike Huff, former Tulsa PD. And what’s the name of the book, Mike? Remind me again.

[1:00:51] Killing My Father. And it’s the inside story of the biggest FBI corruption scandal in history. And it’s by the son, Mike Wheeler, the son of the man who was killed. Yeah, David Wheeler Me and a guy A published author by the name of Larry Yadin He has written about 14 books We met him as he got in touch with us While he was writing a dual biography On Mr. Wheeler and Whitey Bulger Who both grew up in Boston On different sides of town At the same time I didn’t know that, yes that’s a good book too it’s called One Murder Too Many because out of all the murders that Bulger did, and all the crimes this was the one that brought him down it was one murder too many for him.

[1:01:57] Mike Huff, Mike thanks so much for coming on the show, I really appreciate it, well thank you for having me well guys that’s been quite a story hadn’t it I tell you what, there’s nothing like hearing the real nuts and bolts, the background of a good long homicide investigation. There are so many little bits and pieces that have to come together. And a guy, the detective has to have this great memory in order to when you get somebody that’s confessing or you think might have done it. They start giving you details about that crime scene that nobody else could know. That’s when you know you got the right guy. So so this has been a great show and a really great guest. So check that book out. And don’t forget, I like to ride motorcycles. So watch out for motorcycles when you’re out there on the streets, driving your big F-150s and your vans and all those kinds of things.

[1:02:47] If you have a problem with PTSD and you were in the service, be sure and go to the VA website. They’ve got a hotline number. And if you haven’t been in the service and you’ve got any problems with drugs or alcohol or PTSD, get hold of help with Anthony Ruggiano. You know, he’s a former Gambino guy in recovery now. He’s a drug and alcohol counselor. And on his website, he’s got a YouTube channel. He’s got a hotline number too. Maybe you can go into treatment with Anthony Ruggiano. That would be cool.

[1:03:16] Uh, you know, I’ve always got things to sell. Uh, you know, we’ve been selling Mike’s book for a while. You know, I’ve got my book, uh, leaving Vegas, how FBI wiretaps in and mom domination of Las Vegas casinos. I’ve got my books that are from my podcast shows, uh, windy city mafia, the Chicago outfit and big apple mafia stories from the five families. I’ve got a whole bunch of stories from my old podcast shows and those books. And, and, uh, you know, you can rent my DVDs on Amazon. So just go to Amazon and, and run my name, Gary Jenkins and mafia. And you’ll find all the stuff I got to sale. So, so thanks a lot, guys. I really appreciate y’all tuning in and be sure and, uh, like, and subscribe and, and tell your friends about us, you know, make, uh, uh, share this on your social media. A lot of people like this podcast, I know. And, and, uh, give us more listeners that we like more listeners. Thanks guys.

In this episode of Gangland Wire, I pull back the veil on one of the most pivotal moments in John Gotti’s rise through the ranks of the Gambino crime family—the 1973 murder of Jimmy McBratney. As a retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective, I bring a lawman’s eye to the tangled web of revenge, power plays, and myth-making that surrounds this infamous hit.

We start with the murky legend: that Gotti made his bones by taking out McBratney, earning Carlo Gambino’s favor. But like many mob stories, the truth is far more layered. I examine the wave of underworld kidnappings gripping New York in the early ’70s, led by Eddie Maloney and his gang, who impersonated cops to abduct mobsters for ransom. Caught in that chaos was Jimmy McBratney—an Irish tough guy with a soft side, a devoted father who hoped to leave the life behind.

Through Maloney’s own words, I draw a portrait of McBratney as more than a casualty of mob politics. We explore his role in the kidnapping racket, the deadly fallout from a botched grab, and the inevitable spiral toward vengeance that would seal his fate.

This episode also delves into the mysterious death of Manny Gambino, nephew of the boss, and how his murder—whether linked to McBratney or not—helped fuel a narrative that demanded retribution. Was Gotti the hand of that justice? Or was the story reshaped later to burnish his legend?

We follow the footsteps of NYPD Detective Raymond Taylor and the team that tracked Gotti down. Their investigation, pieced together from reluctant witnesses and underworld whispers, ultimately cracked open the case—and helped launch the myth of the “Teflon Don.”

In the end, this story is more than just a mob hit. It’s a study in blurred lines—between law and lore, loyalty and survival. Through wiretaps, memoirs, and police reports, I unravel a tale that speaks to the human cost of life in the shadows—and the power of a story to outlive the truth.

Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire

To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here

To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here. 

To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here

To buy my Kindle book, Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How FBI Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos.

Transcript

[0:02] retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective. Well, I have a story about John Gotti and how he made his bones with the murder of Jimmy McBratney and that whole backstory behind that. It seems like with most mob stuff, there’s two or three different stories about it. You know, we just have to go with people’s memories, but yet mob guys will throw out different stories and, you know, in order to maybe throw the cops off or the agents off. And so you never really know exactly, but you just have to go to the sources of each of these stories and work it back from there. So I’m going to tell you these different stories, and you let me know what you think happened here. You know, the story is he made his bones by killing this Jimmy McBratney and got the respect of Carlo Gambino, which, you know, is mob lore now. Now, in the early 1970s, there was a series of kidnappings of New York City wise guys. and there’s a book out there called tough guy the true story of crazy Eddie Maloney and this book Maloney.

[1:05] Discusses in detail some of these kidnappings that he and his gang were involved with and Jimmy McBratney was part of this gang. The two men had met when they were incarcerated at Greenhaven State Prison in New York and they became close friends.

[1:20] Maloney in the book describes McBratney as a devoted family man who stood six foot three, weighed 250 pounds, who was a weightlifter and he claimed that McBratney could bench press 400 pounds. Maloney said that Jimmy McBratney was locked up for armed robbery, said he was quiet, a listener and a learner. Pretty soon they were talking about doing things together whenever they got out. He also said that the guy knew a lot about guns, wanted to collect guns. Really, his heart was in his home life, his family life. He wasn’t a guy that went out and played around. He loved his wife and two children. They had a house on Staten Island, and he wanted to save up enough to own a nightclub. And he said that actually McBratney was kind of prudish that whenever the talk in the yard at the prison was about women in a sexual manner, it upset him. He said his wife visited him regularly and wrote a letter every day. So he was a real family man. Now, after they were both released in October 1972, Maloney and Bratney became part of a kidnapping ring that they said. Now, Maloney claims was a brainchild of two other brothers. There were wise guys from the Gambino crime family, Filippo and Ronnie Miano. They only wanted 10% of the ransoms.

[2:36] And Filippo told Maloney that his real motive for these kidnappings was revenge. He said, the guys I’m setting you up, fuck me around and my people around on many business deals in the past. And I want to see those greedy fucks suffer. That sounds like something somebody like that would say. I mean, He’s got the lingo down, right, doesn’t he? They were convinced that these kidnapping mobsters could be pulled off without the victim’s family or anybody notifying the cops.

[3:03] They believed they could get as much as $100,000 for each wise guy they snatched. Now, it’s pretty dangerous snatching wise guys in New York City, but they’re not going to the cops, but they’re going to send out their own little detectives. They knew if they did get caught, the punishment would be, may probably torture, maybe more than just a bullet in the head, probably torture, and then the bullet in the head. Now, their little kidnapping gang was Maloney and McBratney, a guy named Tommy Genovese, who was a distant relative of Vito Genovese, a guy named Warren Chief Sherman and Richie Chasen. They’d get home addresses from these Miano brothers, and they had a two-team approach. Now, this is how Maloney reported this in his book. The first team would pretend to be police officers and use stolen badges and kidnap the wise guy from his home and then hold him in another location. The second team would then make the arrangements and pick up the ransom money. Now, the first kidnapping was of a Gambino capo named Frankie the Wop. Now, that escapade went off without a hitch, and the gang got away with $150,000.

[4:08] Now, over the next couple of months, they did three more successful kidnappings. They were going along pretty good. The next one after that, their luck changed. Now, McBratney actually planned this one, and they were going to grab a Gambino loan shark. They’d gotten a name and address from the Miano brothers, and they only knew him as Junior. They didn’t know any other name on him, at least Maloney didn’t know any other name on him. So they went by Junior’s house. They found him, stuck a gun in his stomach, put him in a car. When he got in the car, the victim put up a fight and Maloney hit him over the head a couple of times and then shoved him in the back seat. There’s a couple of kids that saw that scuffle around the car and followed them for a little bit and got the license number and turned it over to one of the kid’s uncles who happened to have some mob connections. So now this is in Gambino territory and they have lost a guy and now they’ve got the license number of the car that was used.

[5:08] They traced the car to a friend of maloney’s that’s where they were holding junior in this junior now the gambino guys you know acted just like cops they went to the once they found out who’d done it they went to the guy’s mother started asking questions about what was going on and where he might be when they found out about this mcbratney went into a panic and he realized that they probably had his name as well as maloney’s and the sherman’s they got 21 000 for Junior, and they were going to return the victim. Well, Sherman was supposed to tape Junior’s eyes over before covering those sunglasses. Well, he didn’t get it done right. Maloney claims that after driving a few blocks, McBratney became enraged because he realized Junior’s eyes weren’t taped over very good. Jammed on the brakes, Junior jumped out of the backseat. He knew the shit was about to hit the fan. He jumped out of the backseat, started running for his life. McBratney jumped out and started shooting at him. Sherman jumped out of the car and retreated to another car, to Maloney’s car, who had been following along and they were going to take off. Sherman was pretty sure McBratney would kill him if he ever saw him again for chickening out like that. And Maloney, in his book, readily confirmed that fact. Maloney never would identify this junior as Carlo Gambino’s nephew or say this was that same one. But after this kidnapping, Maloney and his little gang got together, except for Sherman, and Maloney said that he told McBratney that he ought to leave town.

[6:34] McBratney declined to leave town. He said, I’m just going to keep a machine gun in my car all the time.

[6:39] Well, about this time, Maloney was sent back to prison on a parole violation, and he was actually at a bar one night during this time, and he saw two guys talking to the bartender who were actually looking for him. The bartender knew him and played dumb, and he would later identify these two guys, what he described as stone killers, as John Gotti and Angelo Ruggiero were looking for him. Maloney also stated in his book about McBratney, he said, well, after he heard he’d been killed, he said, McBratney’s death saddened me as nothing else in my life ever had. He’s been a good friend. He wasn’t a hardened hoodlum like some of us. He always intended to get out of the life, and I believe he would have as soon as he got his nest egged by that bar. Also felt bad for Jimmy’s wife. She’d been as loyal to him as he was to her. On a personal level, Jimmy would have risked his life for me and I for him, and a person doesn’t make friends like that very often. He did confess in his book that in an effort to get a pass from the underworld for his own kidnapping capers, because he’d kidnapped some other made guys, he laid the weight of everything on McBratney. He sent word out that it was McBratney did this, McBratney did that.

[7:46] It didn’t matter to Jimmy anymore because he was dead. In his book, Maloney never mentions the kidnapping and killing of Manny Gambino. So now what really happened to Manny Gambino? There’s a totally different story out there, and it’s based on a couple of good sources.

[8:00] Depending on whether you believe in FBI agents or not, who may have been a little bit shady, I don’t think he was not as shady as the guy that came along behind him, DeVecchio. But in the book, Rick Agent, former agent Anthony Villano, talked in detail about this kidnapping. He claimed he was tipped off that Manny Gambino, the son of Carlos’ brother Joseph, had been kidnapped. And, you know, possibly and probably his source on this was the infamous FBI informant Greg Scarpa, because he had first talked to Bellano before DeVecchio actually revived him as an informant. If you want to learn more about that, go back to my show on DeVecchio and Scarpa. Bellano claimed that the first attempt by the family to deliver a ransom payment after Manny Gambino had been kidnapped failed because they went to the wrong restaurant to make the drop. Bellano claims that during this time he tried to help the family and at first they didn’t want anything to do with him, But later on, he said that an attorney for the Gambino family called him up and asked him to get involved. Blano reported the kidnappers asked for $200,000, and the Gambino family claimed they could only come up with $50,000.

[9:11] Now, I figured that Joe Gambino’s side of the family was probably the divorce side, more than likely, or another thing is $200,000 in cash would raise a lot of attention from law enforcement, just knowing that they had that money, so they claimed they only had $50,000. I got new ransom instructions, and Tommy Gambino, man, his brother, was told where to drive to pick up the next set of instructions, kind of one of those TV things, you know, go here, answer this pay phone, you got five minutes to get there, there’ll be instructions under the bench, some crap like that. Now, Volano then inserted himself into it, along with another business partner. The guy wasn’t a made guy, but he’s a business partner of Tommy Gambino, You know, and they took the money, and Blano got on the floor of the car that was delivering the ransom. The first stop was a telephone booth, 82nd Madison Avenue in Manhattan. From there, he got instructions to go across the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey and wait at a well-lit gas station on the Palisades Parkway next to a set of payphones. At the payphones, they called with instructions to drop the money over a metal railing about a mile down the road. Somebody’s been watching TV here looking at old movies. A drop was made before the agent’s tailing Villano could get in a position to see the drop. But they did pick up the license number of a van that was seen nearby. I had this happen myself.

[10:34] It was a ransom of an art object, and it picked up a license number of a little Volkswagen bug prowling around the area. And they never did pick up the money. But then when we traced down that license, we found a guy that had stolen his art object. He was trying to ransom back. So they went back to the Gambino home and they were disappointed when Manny was not returned by the promised hour. They’d paid the ransom, dumped it over the railing. They’d gotten away. The kidnappers had gotten away with the ransom money, but Manny was not to be seen. And he was not to be seen again. Bellino kept investigating, investigating.

[11:10] And then as he got into this, he found out even more. He found out that Manny had fallen in love with a blonde girl and he wanted to leave his family for this girl, his Gomar. And she wouldn’t have anything more to do with him unless he left his wife and went full time with her. Well, you know, he went to some older Gambino family members and they said, you know, Manny, you can’t do that. You got to grow up, man. You got to forget that blonde. Well, in his circles, you know, in those circles, it’s okay to have a blonde mistress and go out on Friday night and go out to the girls’ wives on Saturday night, I think, is the deal out of Goodfellas. But it’s really bad for them. It’s not, you’re not really trustworthy if you leave your wife or your girlfriend. And particularly if you’re a nephew of Carlo Gambino, not good at all. Vlano also found out that Manny had some financial problems and probably because he was trying to maintain two households. I knew a guy that did this once. He had a lot of money. But, you know, there’s guys out there, and maybe some of you guys listening are. There’s guys out there that will maintain two complete separate households, one for their mistress, pay all the bills, give them spending money, and one for the family. He was really heavily involved in the Gambino family loan sharking operations, and he had a lot of money on the streets. Now, this story claims that one of the individuals who invested a lot of money in Manny to put on the streets was a gambler named Robert Sinter.

[12:36] Had rented the van if you remember the van that picked up the ransom had been rented to a Robert Sinter and, I don’t know why they didn’t put that all together before, but they didn’t. Villano then gets Sinner in, and he claims in his book, Brick Agent, it took five interviews with Sinner over a period of months until we finally reconstructed the entire venture. The snatch began as a hoax. Manny Gambino worked out the scenario with the debtor, Sinner, a friend of Sinner’s, and two others. Midway through the plot, Gambino’s accomplices began to have their doubts. They could see that if things went sour, Manny Gambino would give them up and either go to the law or go to some of his Cosa Nostra friends and give them up and lay the blame on them and say, I didn’t have anything to do with it. They were kidnapping me, and they’re going to end up with a bullet in their head. Robert Sinter ended this dispute in Gambino’s car with a bullet to the back of Manny’s head. They found Manny Gambino’s car at the Newark airport, and Milano reports that they found him buried, and his body had already had rigor mortis set in before they buried him, and he was found buried in the sitting position like he’d been sitting in a car for a long time. This was at a dump that they used for bodies periodically around the Earl Naval Ammunition Depot.

[14:06] Robert Senter was arrested and charged with the murder And in June 1973, he pled guilty to manslaughter And was sentenced to 15 years in prison During this entire detailed account of the incident, The kidnapping of Manny Gambino Jimmy McBratney’s name was never mentioned at all So was McBratney involved in the death of Manny Gambino? Organized crime expert, maybe some of you guys know He’s very well thought of, Jerry Capetche He said in his book, Mob Star McBratney was not part of the Gambino kidnap scheme. Some people may have believed it. He was a large, ruddy man that belonged to another gang. That gang crossed many ethnic lines, and they had kidnapped a Staten Island loan shark, got $21,000, but some neighborhood kids saw that snatch and passed along a license plate number to neighborhood family members. So see, that kind of goes back to that original story.

[14:58] McBratney was probably identified as a member of the kidnapping team of Manny Gambino only because he had done other kidnappings with these guys, these Irish guys, Maloney and them. The Gambinos believed that story, and they had him murdered based on that information. Now, McBratney was obviously not an innocent law-abiding citizen. He’d done armed robberies and kidnappings and had illegal weapons and been popped for all those things. If he’d even been better, that…

[15:27] Last Staten Island loan shark that they kidnapped, you know, would have been killed, but, you know, he didn’t kill him, and the guy didn’t really rat him out for that.

[15:35] But he sure as heck did not kidnap and murder the nephew of Carlo Gambino. This fabled notion that Gotti won the favor of the almighty Carlo Gambino by taking vengeance on the hood that killed his nephew is just one more piece of mob lore, but, you know, it sounds pretty good, and Gotti probably went along with that it was easy to just say, yeah, he’s the guy that did it. They didn’t have to take it to court and prove it in court. But let’s look at the NYPD investigation into the identification of Gotti and Rosario as part of the team that murdered McBratney. Did that go wrong in some way? Now, the main detective on that was a detective, Raymond Taylor. He was a pretty well-known detective. He was in the Crimes Against Persons squad, worked out of the 122nd Precinct on Staten Island. He responded to a homicide inside Snoopy’s Bar on Castleton Avenue in the New Brighton section of 120th Precinct. Squad commander Tom Quinn and other detectives responded.

[16:38] The uniformed cops had done a really good job of the crime scene and kept all the witnesses in there, anybody who hadn’t got away right after the shooting went down. Because usually everybody bails out of a bar, especially that kind of a bar whenever there’s a shooting, a fight, or anything. Nobody wants to get involved with that shit. When Taylor and the other Homicide Squad guys got there, they saw the victim was lying face up on the barroom floor. He had gunshot wounds to his head.

[17:02] As the witnesses were separated and interviewed, they examined the body and found out who the guy was. They found a car registration and some keys to a car. They went outside, found the car, and guess what? They found a machine gun in the trunk of the car. They knew right then this wasn’t your garden variety, just an argument turned into a homicide. They reconstructed the crime, and Raymond Taylor is a really well-known detective and a good detective. And he knew a lot of the organized crime families in New York and knew this was probably a mob hit. They started questioning of other witnesses, and that indicated it was an organized crime hit, just the way the guys had, three men had entered the bar and pretended to be police officers and tried to take him in custody, which is a really common thing that these mob guys do, is flash a badge on somebody and get them under their control, get them outside, get them in a car, get them in a quiet place. So remember that, guys. somebody flash a badge on you. Don’t let them take you anywhere until you’re sure they are who they say they are. He resisted because he was a big man and he resisted and they just went and popped him in the head several times right there. By then they identified the victim was a hoodlum named James McBratney.

[18:11] And they claim there was somebody told them that he was one of the guys responsible for kidnapping the nephew of Carlo Gambino and had gotten a hundred thousand dollar ransom. Now, you know, that word was out there on the streets and the Gambinos wanted to believe it. Now, the witnesses in the bar, they wouldn’t identify any of the three men that came in at Canvinson Neighborhood.

[18:33] But like many cases, a break came from an information provided by just a patrol cop from the neighborhood. Raymond Taylor got a call from a street policeman.

[18:45] He said he had got a tip on the murder in Staten Island, and he came up with some names. And Taylor brought the mugshots of Gotti, Angelo Rosario, and a guy named Ralph Galeone, or Ralphie Wiggs. And the informant that the cop had set him up with identified them as those were the guys that did it. He said that they had presented fake police badges. He even described the scene that Angelo was on the left, Galliano was on the right, and John Gotti was behind him. Said Galliano had a gun, Angelo Ruggiero had a pair of handcuffs. And as they began pulling McBrattney up and away from the bar, and they said, you’re under arrest. You’ve been this route before. Don’t give us any trouble.

[19:25] Another patron tried to intervene and galliano fired a couple of shots brattney really started struggling then and then galliano fired three times at close range killing mcbratney so gotti didn’t even kill him now gotti gotti i think was kind of in charge of this little hit team but but he and the one that actually dropped the hammer on him they arrested ralphie wiggs right away and the second suspect andy and the second suspect angelo rosario was arrested in his bed at gunpoint, you make those early morning raids catch these guys while they’re still in bed. John Gotti heard that this was happening. He went on the lam after they were arraigned in court and they got out on bail. Right after that, Ralphie Wiggs is killed. I think maybe they didn’t trust him to hold the water. I got a feeling. Had a wanted card out describing John Gotti and with his name and everything and all the law enforcement agents had it. And the FBI learned that where Gotti was and notified the NYPD.

[20:21] So they all got together in a little team of FBI agents and Raymond Taylor and went to where they knew Gotti was going to be. They arrested him and Gotti knew Raymond Taylor. And they said, hey, Taylor, what’s this shit? The FBI took Gotti to federal court first because they had like a warrant on him for fleeing the jurisdiction. And then they gave him to Detective Taylor in the NYPD. Then he ended up facing state charges in Staten Island criminal court. Now, Gotti and Ruggiero hire Roy Cohen and he got him a pretty sweet deal.

[20:51] They only served a few years on it. This arrest was unique because it was the Teflon Don’s first official hit, first official anything here that anybody really knows much about him other than some kid stuff. Berlino was using Gregory Scarpa, and he probably had other good informants, and he was really involved in trying to get the people who got away with the money. And, you know, that whole story about Manny Gambino wanting to run away with his mistress and needing money and get out of the family. It just, I don’t know, it’s kind of far-fetched, but on one hand, but on the other hand, it kind of rigs true. And then Jerry Capiche, a guy that you can trust.

[21:33] Claimed that McBratney had nothing to do with the Gambino kidnapping and McBratney was involved in kidnapping of other gangsters for ransom at that time. So that’s the story.

[21:46] It’s a little bit confusing, a little bit complicated. I hope I was able to make sense of it for you guys. Thanks a lot, guys.