Retired KCPD Intelligence Unit Detective Gary Jenkins takes listeners inside the Federal Prison Hospital at Springfield and the final days of John Gotti’s life. Former inmate Mark Black wrote Black Truth: The Last Days of Gotti. He takes us back to his early days in the prison system, recounting his initial charge and transfer to the Springfield Federal Medical Center. There, he forged profound relationships with high-profile mafia members, gaining rare insights into their lives, codes, and the unspoken rules governing their world. Among these encounters, his time with Greg DePalma and John Gotti of the Gambino family stands out. Mark shares vivid stories of their mutual respect and the deep conversations that revealed Greg’s storied past, including connections to infamous figures like Tony Ducks and Fat Tony. Through these aging mobsters, Mark paints a fascinating picture of how street reputations followed them into prison, where they exchanged tales of past glories and upheld the mafia’s sacred code of honor.
The episode also explores Mark’s interactions with John Gotti, offering a unique glimpse into the infamous mob boss’s life behind bars. Mark delivered meals and kites (messages) for Gotti as a prison orderly. He tells about the stark contrast between Gotti’s outward bravado and the signs of stress and resignation from solitary confinement. Mark Black became Gotti’s “eyes and ears” in the prison outside his solitary confinement.
Tensions rise as Mark delves into the story of a proposed hit on Nicky LaSorsa. He recounts the volatile dynamics of trust and betrayal, particularly involving a convicted drug kingpin, Jose Reyes, who sought to manipulate alliances and set up John Gotti Jr. and Greg DePalma for an early release from several life sentences. Mark’s role as an intermediary in these dangerous scenarios highlights the precarious balance between loyalty and treachery that defines the mafia lifestyle. Through these gripping accounts, Mark offers listeners an insider’s view of the unyielding nature of mob loyalty and the ever-present risks of living by its code.
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[0:00] Well, hey, all you Wiretappers, welcome back here to the studio of Gangland Wire. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit Sergeant, and I have an interesting guy. He has a book, of course. You know, a lot of my guys have books. Where’s that book? Oh, The Last Days of Gotti. You might want to check that book out. It’s very well written. I’ll assure you that. Mark D. Black. Mark, welcome. I really appreciate you coming on the show. Well, thank you, Gary. Now, Mark, as I’ve gone through this book, you you’re like my friend, Steve St. John, who I have some other shows with many of my regular fans will know that name. And you were an orderly down in Springfield and the federal hospital and the prison hospital down there. Now, how did you even end up in the federal prison system? I guess is my first question.
[0:51] Well, I was charged with drugs and firearms violation, and I got seven years in state and then the feds. And then when I got done with my state sentence, I went to the feds and did some time at El Reno in Oklahoma City. And then when I was timing out, they decided to send me to Springfield Federal Medical Center to work to take care of the sick inmates.
[1:17] Yeah, they have a bunch of those guys. I’ve seen pictures of old Tony Ducks Carollo and fat Tony Slerno. And there’s these old guys are just sitting there in their wheelchairs and they can’t really get around. They can’t do anything. So, so you were the guy that helped them out. Yeah. Well, Greg Palma, that’s who I knew at first. And that, that was what happened the first day, you know, I was an orderly on his unit. He asked me to push him to Catholic mass. And so I pushed him to Catholic mass and he asked me to, push him to the back and there was an old man sitting back there also in a wheelchair, and they talked through the whole mass uh the catholic mass the whole time and it was kind of disrespectful but you know everybody just let him do it and then when he got out he told me that that was tony ducks corella that he was talking to and that they had been really good friends and he said that they uh tony had had some problems with john at one time but all was forgiven and they were friends uh and then i’d see him i’d see him with uh tony at mass every once in a while but tony was on another unit so so you got to know greg de palma pretty well as my if i remember right.
[2:29] Yeah. When I got on the unit, I was on his unit for quite a while, like almost a year and a half. And one of the ways that we got to be friends is that I was a gopher for the guard there. And I had a schedule down and he wanted and I would take smoke breaks in the bathroom. You weren’t supposed to do that. But Greg DePalma asked me if he could ride in the car.
[2:53] So we started doing smoke breaks in the bathroom on his unit. And uh when that when i knew the guard wasn’t available and we got to know each other like that and he started you know after about a couple of months he started telling me stories about uh about himself so he’s this is a guy that is born and bred in the new york city mafia and you know he rose to a pretty high level and he lived that life so how did that translate inside the penitentiary system did he have you know where he had guys other guys that were there that gave him a certain respect did you see that you know if you think about the well one of the things you know when i first met greg you know i was an orderly there and he said that i could put my my belongings in his room that nobody would steal him and he was one of the guys would leave his cigarettes laying out on his bed which showed that like he had like a lot of respect and people kind of feared him in there but not he didn’t really you know i was when i first got there i started playing chess with this guy named Curtis and he was a pimp. And he also knew Greg from the outside, but he told me that Greg really didn’t speak to anybody besides I was the first guy that he had ever really spoke to, um, uh, and hung around with besides his mafia friends.
[4:12] And so Greg, he was pretty secretive, uh, until, until I met him and he didn’t really talk to hardly anybody. Did he bring the, he brought the kind of the mafia code into the penitentiary. Could you see that?
[4:26] How did that play itself out?
[4:30] Well, you know, one of the reasons I wrote this book was because, uh, um, you know, I didn’t really think about too much when I first got out, I was trying to rebuild my life. But one of the things that when I was looking up the stuff he had told me, he told me that he dated Elizabeth Taylor, which I didn’t believe. Um, you know, he had talked, he’d talk about, uh, his time at the West Chester premier theater that he ran. Um one time he came down the uh the hallway waving a newspaper rag that had frank sinatra you know him uh i guess big paulie and some of the other friends and he was telling me that that was his baby and then he and he and he told me that kind of stuff like that and then one of the things when i started looking this up i found this uh interview by jack falcone and he was a fbi agent that had infiltrated Greg’s crew. And, you know, he made him to look like a kind of a bumbling, comical character, which just didn’t sit right with me.
[5:29] Greg, it was kind of like, you know, Tony Montana in the movies where he said, all I’ve got is my word and my balls, and I don’t bust them for anybody. And that was Greg De Palma. And he lived that life fully. He was fully committed to the mafia and this thing of theirs. And he was loyal to a fault. I mean, all these guys that I hung out with, they, they were, they were fully committed to, uh, this, uh, this thing of theirs is that’s what they called it. Did they seem to express any regret for getting all this time? No, they didn’t actually. They, they saw that that was part of the part of doing business. One of the, you know, some of the regrets that, um, that Greg had, I heard that, uh, Sam Cagnini told me when he, you know, like I said, I played chess in the orderlies.
[6:17] Common area. And I got to know Sam Cagnetti through Greg because he wanted to play me chess. But Sam told me that Greg’s wife was always busting his balls over his son, but he didn’t really elaborate. The only thing that he really regretted was that, I guess, Sammy Gravano, with who ratted him out, he said that really broke his heart, John’s heart. And he said that, you know, that he would have taken a bullet for Sammy and he called him a cocksucker. I mean, everybody, anybody that he didn’t like you was a cocksucker.
[6:50] And he said that, you know, that Sammy just didn’t rat John out. He rated, he ratted a whole bunch of people out, which I didn’t really know anything about that. When I first went, I didn’t know anything about, I didn’t even know who Greg DePalma was. I’d heard about John Gotti from the newspapers and, and all that, but I didn’t know anything about the Gambino crime family. I didn’t know who Greg De Palma was and, uh, or, or, uh, uh, uh, Sam Cagnini, who Greg introduced me to because Sam played chess too. And he was a very secretive guy. He never came out of his room. The only time he came out of his room was to cook his own meals in the, at the microwave. And he wore these big yellow pajamas. He was like about a 300 pound dude. And he said that he was a police officer at one point too.
[7:40] And, uh, he said he could read people pretty, pretty well. And that when Greg DePalma was talking about killing Nikki, He, he told me, he said, I used to be a cop. And he said, I said, you know, I could read people pretty good. And he said, unless you’re full of shit or just stupid. He said, uh, I know that, you know, that something’s going on with Greg.
[7:59] And so just cut the crap. And so, uh, Sam Cagnetti was just a kind of a no bullshit guy. He, he actually reminded me of the guy that plays, uh, the penguin and the Batman or the penguin story. That got the Colin Farrell plays. I mean, it was kind of that kind of rough, no nonsense, straight shooter. And I like Sam. I like Sam a lot. Now, I understand he was out of the Traficante family down in Florida. So these guys, wherever they’re from, they’re mafia. Then they get together. They know each other. Yeah, they knew each other from a long, they knew each other. And like I said, Curtis was this pimp that I used to play chess with. And he told me that, you know, like that’s all Greg didn’t even hang out with anybody. But, you know, like I said, when I started hanging out with Sam, we started playing chess. He he asked me if I could get him some ingredients for spaghetti dinner. And since I worked with the orderlies, I had connections with the orderlies that worked in the kitchen. And so I got him to meet. He had a whole list of ingredients that he wanted. And I, I got those ingredients for him and, uh, he started making spaghetti dinners, uh, you know, once, uh, uh, about twice a month.
[9:14] And then, uh, through my other connections, uh, uh, you know, throughout the prison, we got some prison wine to kind of drink with it. And that’s how I got to know Sam. And so we started, you know, communicating quite a bit after that. Yeah, it’s interesting. That’s, that’s the scene right out of the Goodfellas where they’re, uh, the Ray Liotta character, Henry Hill runs around like you runs around and gets a different ingredients and brings them back. And then, uh, big Polly, uh, Paul Vario, the character, I can’t remember. I think they called him big cup Holly in the movie. And he’s like slicing the garlic really thin and, and making this big, fancy Italian meal with some wine and everything. So it, it, well, this was, this was prison wine.
[9:58] I mean, it wasn’t like outside wine. I mean, I think these guys, I never really saw how they made it, but one of the guys that I was buying it from, he said they were, they were putting it inside the walls of the prison you know so they so the guards couldn’t find it and uh sam like i never really saw him make make it but like what he’d do i i would uh go down i would give uh an orderly his list and then i was one of the orderlies that would go down and bring a food carrier up to the uh the unit and then i would hand out trays to to the inmates and i and he stuffed it inside this food carrier and so sam would be sitting on his bed and i just grabbed this big old bag and just throw it at him as we went by and the guard was kind of in front of me and Sam would catch it like a football and then uh later that night he’d have everything ready it was just me and Greg and uh Sam uh that uh uh ate the spaghetti dinner like I said what twice every month till I left.
[11:00] Really? Now, if I remember writing your book and from what you’ve, uh, your notes that, uh, Sam would share a few mafia stories with you, can you relate any of them that, that Sam would share for the guys? Yeah. Um, some of the stamp stories that he told me, um, he told me that he was a cop. And like I said, I told him that he told me that he could read people pretty good unless I’m deaf, dumb and full of shit. He knew that I knew what was going on. And he was another guy that did like did not like sam sammy gravano he said he was uh uh you know that uh john was uh gonna wear it to the end with his chin up and that he was proud that he’d never read it out and he said not like that sammy fucking kind gravano so sam didn’t like him either he also told me that how he got caught uh was that he used to buy different houses that were next to each other and he would build a tunnel from the house to house. And he said, it was kind of like a whack-a-mole. The cops would come in to bust him, and he’d put a tunnel underneath the washing machine. And he would have guys build a tunnel to the next house. And so when the cops came in, he’d just get in the tunnel and go over to the next house and watch them going through the house, trying to find him. And they never found him. He said that the last time the tunnel wasn’t built, they came in to get him and he said that he opened up with his thompson 45 and uh they fired in tear gas.
[12:26] And that was the end of his story and he said now i said.
[12:35] Quite a storyteller yeah what what were his crimes could you tell what what his kind of main no he never he never talked about he never talked about his problems you know one time he he’d always like kid me every once in a while. Like I said, he was kind of no nonsense guy. And one time we were playing chess or something. I forgot what’s happening. He asked me if I’d ever killed anybody. I, you know, I was kind of shocked. I said, no, I’ve never killed anybody. And he told me about some guy and I’m not even really sure who it was. I mean, but it was somebody that he had shot in a telephone booth, but he never really talked about his crimes or really the Trompeau family. He was a pretty.
[13:14] He was a pretty secretive guy. I mean, and every once in a while, he’d kind of let loose with a couple of stories. But, I mean, nothing that I think that would hurt his family. Yeah, yeah, I can imagine. So I have to ask you this.
[13:29] My friend who was down there, they made jailhouse nachos. Did you ever make jailhouse nachos? Yeah, but Sam and them didn’t ever eat that. They always ate Italian food. But when I first came into Springfield, they processed you through, put you in a little jail cell. And I was in this guy, his name was Rick Randall. And you were talking about Leavenworth. He told me they were moving all the military inmates out of Leavenworth throughout the system. And he was a special forces operator. He was in there for actually, he told me that he was in New York City.
[14:05] Some guy tried to, he was with his wife and his kid. Some guy tried to hijack him in this in in new york city and he took the gun away from him after the guy put it to his wife’s head and just shot him executed him out in front of the car and he got 20 years i guess the military frowns on that when you’re when you go into the the prison system the mafia is just one gang of like very a minute many i mean they’re not even the most dangerous So, I mean, the ABs, the Aryan Brotherhoods are dangerous, but I got to be friends with some of the Mexican cartel, and they would make those nachos. And they would also make these fantastic tamales that I would buy, and I would share them with Rick. But they would take a bag of Fritos and crunch them up and get some meat down from the kitchen, and then they’d roll up these tamales. And that was really a big thing on the unit, too. But Sam and Greg, they never ate that kind of stuff.
[15:06] Yeah. Interesting. So now talk, let’s talk about John Gotti. You’ve mentioned him a couple of times. You knew when he can’t tell the guys, you know, how did you know that Gotti came and, and did, did you work with him? Was he in solid? He was in solid before, I believe, but they was in solitary. Tell us about John’s last. I didn’t really know about too much about what had happened to him. But you know, like I said, my friend Curtis, he had his ear to, he had like a lot of people like singing to him, I guess, you know, telling him what was going on, but he told me John called, uh, some black guy, a nigger where he came from and he got punched in the face.
[15:44] And, uh, and then, uh, Greg told me, uh, he just said one day when we were taking smoke break, he goes, Hey, my friend, uh, John is God, he’s getting ready to come to, uh, Springfield. And he said, I want you to help, help him out while he’s here. And since I was an orderly, I was one of the only people that could get back into solitary confinement. But when they brought in Gatti, I was just mopping the floors. And all of a sudden, the guard said, everybody in the room and all the orderlies face the wall and don’t look at the prisoner that’s coming in. And I’d never seen that happen before. I mean, the whole time I’d been in prison, I’d never had anybody tell me to face the wall and not, you know, just all the orderlies just, you know, face the wall. And here comes this guy. You can hear him coming off the off the elevator and he was in chains and I heard him say as he’s going down the hallway oh so this is my new fucking home.
[16:42] And then they put him in solitary confinement and solitary confinement there’s like a it’s kind of roped off it’s got a line and if you cross it’s got a big sign that says any inmate that passes this line will be put in the hole and you know your commissary will be taken away and blah blah blah and then pass that line there’s a.
[17:02] Uh a big steel bars that go all the way across the the uh the hallway and then once you go inside that there’s two iron doors with bean holes in them that are embedded in the concrete and this is uh the uh the solitary confinement that they put john in but when i first met john gaudy i was delivering uh his meal to him and uh actually Greg had wanted me just to give him a kite and I’m not sure if you know what that is but it’s kind of a little messaging system it looks like it’s a little looks like a little paper football people write messages on it and it’s the only way that John can communicate to the outside and people to him is by an orderly giving him these kites and so So Greg wanted me to give him a kite. And when I went in there to deliver his meal, the first time I saw John, he was like in this 6x12x9 cell. He was painted this drab yellow. The bed was bolted to the floor. He had like a combination aluminum sink and toilet and a little mirror on top of that. And it looked like he had his family pictures around the mirror. And then he had like a little 4×4 window that like was dusty and had bars and steel grate over that where he could look out into the yard.
[18:29] And you could tell by his, my first impression of John is like you could tell that he was like, He was stressed out. You could see it etched in his face. And I kind of sensed, you know, a sadness and the realization of his acceptance to this, for, to his grim fate that he had been given to. Cause like I said, but he, but he still kept an upper lip.
[18:54] And when the guard went to check across the hall to look into this other cell, I threw the, I put his food tray down on the, on the bed, pulled that kite out, threw it on the bed and he didn’t even hesitate. He just like pushed it off to the side and he kind of got that cocky, you know, confident grin that you see in the newspaper. And he, and he extended his hand and he said, uh, my name’s John Gotti, a pleasure to meet you. And, uh, I told him my name was Mark Black and I, and I wish we were meeting under different circumstances. And like I said, when we left the guard, uh, said, uh, Hey, that was John Gotti back there. And, and I said, that’s what everybody keeps telling me and the guard said god damn work travels fast around here so that was that was the first time i bet it so that you continued to have did you continue to take kites to him periodically from uh greg i don’t guess you ever opened one of those up and looked at it did you no i never did that uh well one time i’ll tell you one time i greg uh later Later on, you know, just before I’m leaving, John’s sending kites out to Sam wanted to send a kite to Greg or to Gotti, too. One time when he opened it up, it was just a bunch of betting slips because I don’t know if you know this, but these guys bet on football games and everything else in there. And Greg said that Gotti would bet on a cockroach race if he could.
[20:19] And that’s what he was sending betting slips to Greg so he could make bets for him.
[20:25] And, and then he sent me, uh, he, he sent me a couple of kites too. When I don’t, I used to send the kites, but he had like a little trash can, because I had to have to go in there and clean up his room and I’d pick up the trash. And then on the bottom, he’d leave kites to Greg. Um, and then to me, and he just, you know, told me he really appreciated what, you know, I was doing for him. He actually told me, he said, when I got out, he was going to take care of me, but I, I didn’t accept the phone number that Greg was going to give me when I left because I I just wanted to go home at that point. And these guys were too hot. Even Sammy said, that guy is hotter than a Thompson 40 machine gun. And he said, you just need to put all this behind you and go home.
[21:10] And this guy named Jose Race, who was trying to get John Jr. To do this Meet His Hitman. Sam told me, he said, unless you’re willing to cross certain lines that… He said, no, he told me, he said, Jose is willing to cross certain lines that
[21:24] you’re not even capable of. So you just need to go home now. But like I said, we’re kind of skipping around a little bit. So you mentioned John Jr. Remember when John Jr. Came down to visit his dad? Yeah. Yeah, I do. I was getting ready to go visit my own parents. And just before I did, I was on the unit handing out meals and I handed the meal to John and he was already dressed up. And when you go out to meet your visitors, you get your best khakis on and you have someone press them. John said that his son was coming down from New York to see him. He really loved his son. I mean, he thought his son was just the whole world. He said that he even told me one time that his son was the only person that understood this thing of theirs. And I said, well, I’m getting ready to go see my parents today. And he said, well, tell them John Gotti said hi. So we’re sitting out there in the visiting room and, and, uh, my, I told my dad, John Gotti said, hi, my mom, and he starts talking about mafia movies and stuff. And, uh.
[22:26] The Godfather, you know, and, uh, and, uh, and, uh, and all of a sudden, you know, I see John jr. Come in. He was like, uh, uh, he had all the confidence in the world. He looked like a mafia guy. He was all dressed in black. He had like a little gold chain on. He looked like somebody that would give you a, uh, uh, you know, keep his word or give you a fist, whichever one, you know, was needed at that particular time.
[22:51] And John, he couldn’t come out to the, where everybody else would, uh, the, the, uh, the main visiting room, uh, he could, and then the main visiting room, you can actually sit with your, your people and like, give them a hug when you first see them. And John didn’t get that. He had to see, uh, John Jr. had to see him behind a glass. Um, I found out later and they had to talk through a glass. John Jr. came out about, about 15 minutes or later, uh, he was completely broken. I mean, he was holding his hand up, you know, trying to, you know, shield as anybody from seeing him crying. And I mean, uh, it just, it just devastated him just to see his father like that so you had let’s talk about uh you mentioned a guy named jose there was a there was a lot of drama that was around this guy we’ll kind of go back to where yeah where you were and there’s a lot more guys there’s a lot more about gotti and everything we don’t we can’t give away everything out of his book so but there’s a lot more about his relationship with john gotti in there but let’s talk about this jose and there’s a power play and this curtis dude what tell us about that That was
[23:57] that got a little bit dangerous. It sounded to me like a little bit tense. No, it was, it was very dangerous. And then, like I said, there was a cut.
[24:04] Curtis was feeding me information about this guy. And also he got into a beef with Rick Randall’s one of his friends. When the orderlies that I worked with was one guy was a guy named slim and he was a gangbanger and he knew stoop dog. And another guy was a guy named called the crazy Cajun. And he was another military inmate. I was playing a game, uh, a chess with, uh, Curtis and, This guy just rolls up in a wheelchair and he’s got his hair slicked back. His khakis were pressed. I mean, usually, like I said, nobody even does that until they go out on a visit.
[24:36] He had his fingers manicure. You could tell that somebody was taking care of this guy and he just demanded a chess game.
[24:44] And he just said, I, he goes, I want, I want, I’m next. He goes, I want a chess game. And Curtis, who I’d never seen, you know, any fear in his face at all. Uh i got really really scared and he just stood up turned over his queen and and and walked off the unit and i and oh he and oh yeah this guy said his name was jay at first he introduced himself as jay i beat him in chess and i could all i could tell that he was like a very sore loser he wanted another and i told and i told him no i got things to do on on the unit and i i don’t maybe we can play later now he was he was a cartel guy right who was he why was he No. Well, Curtis told me, I really didn’t know. Like I said, I didn’t know any of these figures at all, except what I found out in prison. Later on, Curtis told me that he used to work for a guy named Chocolate in New York. they sold heroin. And when Chocola went to prison, he took over the operation. And he had a pit man or a guy that worked for him named Freddy Krueger. And he was like his assassin. I guess he paid him like $1,000 a day. And he’d just light up whoever Jose told him to light up. He said that This guy was so brazen that he went after a fellow gang member on a bridge to.
[26:07] In full traffic, uh, with an ache, this guy got up on the hood of a car with an AK 47 and opened up on a taxi, uh, with an AK 47 to kill this rival drug, drug dealer that Jose didn’t like.
[26:22] And then he told me that his real name was Jose race. And that he was, uh, and then after, uh, and then he was bringing about $240,000 a day to start selling cocaine. And, uh, he said that, he was killing so many people that Curtis told me he killed one of his friends and killed two of his girls that was working for him. Curtis told me that he thought that Greg knew Jose from the outside because he was buying cocaine from it. And I’m not really sure if this is how you mentioned the guy’s name, but he said that, well, when Gotti was under Della Croce. Yeah. Della Croce. Is that his name? Della Croce. Right. Della Croce. Well, he said that when he was, when he was, when he was underneath him, he was, he thought that he was buying cocaine from Jose. Um, and they were selling it. And then when he said that once, uh, big, uh, once, uh, Della Croce died, they actually passed Della Croce over for big Polly. Nobody liked big Polly. Cause they, they, they, he didn’t pay his dues or something like that. Greg had told me one time that when, uh, they decided to go after big Polly, that everybody got on board and nobody looked back. This guy right here, this Jose Race, Curtis told me that he was in there for seven murders. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. And he was doing two life sentences.
[27:43] And he had like this, he was always wheeling around trying to get close to Greg. And he was always reading books like Machiavelli. He’s always like had a Sun Tzu, The Art of War. He’s always reading that. He started trying to get around Greg all the time. Uh, but Greg would really wouldn’t have anything to do with it. And then one day, and I’ll just go ahead and get into this. But one day where, uh, Curtis came and got me, he said, Hey, De Palma’s on the war path. He said, look out. And so I, I’m, I’m standing in there taking, and I looked in Greg’s room and
[28:18] he’s like cussing to himself. And I, I said, Hey, Hey, Greg, I’m getting ready to, um, take a smoke. You want to, you want to go? And he just kind of waved me on. And when he came in there, he started talking about this guy named Nicky. How dare him not pay him his money? And who does the fuck does he think he is? You know, if he thinks he can rip me off while I’m in prison, you know, that fucking cocksucker, I’m going to show him a thing or two. I mean, you know, one thing about Greg and even Sam said that he that was one of his big faults. He had a big mouth. Later on, after we got through smoking a cigarette, I had left my lighter in there.
[28:52] And I went back to get it and Jose was sitting in there and he wanted to always know about Greg, you know, what he couldn’t understand why I was Greg and Sam were hanging out with me and not him. And all of a sudden you could hear Greg down the hallway on the phone. And he was going, you motherfucking son of a bitch. He said, I’m the one who made you, you, you can’t do this. He said, you’re going to pay me my fucking money or I’ll have you fucking whacked. And I mean, just, and all of a sudden Jose wheeled around and said, oh man, I got to see this.
[29:24] And, uh, and I walked down there too. And Greg is just like, I mean, I mean, just out of control. I mean, you know, cussing at this, uh, this Nikki guy and telling him that, you know, he’s going to have him whacked and you know, that, uh, if you think I’m in prison and you’re not going to pay me my money and blah, blah, blah. And, uh, and even the guard came out, he was so loud that the guard came out and said, Hey, DePalma, he said, uh, uh, you’re going to have a heart attack. He said, you do know these phones are tapped, right? And, uh, and then he wheeled and he just kind of looked at him and just fumed off down, just slammed the phone down and fumed off down the hallway to his room. There’s Jose race, you know, sitting there looking at him. This guy, he, he didn’t know a lot of the people who he was talking about. And I didn’t know if I was talking to him, I was just interviewing him. So I go back and check after we get done with the interview. And I find out that Greg De Palma did want a Bronx car dealer whack named Nicky LaSorsa because, first of all, LaSorsa was collecting $2,500 a week from somebody else. And then he was supposed to pay it to De Palma and then he quit paying it. In the meantime, Greg De Palma’s son, Craig De Palma, had testified about Mikey Scars Di Leonardo in the Atlanta Gold Club racketeering case.
[30:42] And so people were like, you know, they were like distancing themselves from the De Palmas. And so they’re going to get Junior Gotti. They’re going to try to rope Junior Gotti into this deal later on down at the prison. It’s a heck of a story. So keep listening.
[30:55] And this Jose Reyes, he’s a, I couldn’t find any pictures of him or the guy, his hit man. They call him Freddy Krueger. His name was Francisco Medina. They caught a bunch of cases of really bad, bad people. But Jose Reyes is going to get involved in this thing.
[31:13] And then Reyes is going to turn around and rat him out. So this is one heck of a story. Thanks, guys. Just keep listening. I was just fascinated by this guy’s story because he’s like this guy that, you know, Joe Blow that just is pulled into this world. And he doesn’t even know any of these people. And he transitioned it somehow. I don’t know how they got out alive.
[31:34] And if you keep listening, you’ll find out that he became really important to John Gotti. By the end when i when i went down to play sam a game of chess i was walking down the hallway and i heard greg yell out i want that fucking cocksucker dead you hear me and then in a and then in this calm voice jose saying uh listen i’m down for this but you guys need to get john jr involved to meet my guy to to have nicky guy assassinated he said if i if john jr can’t meet my my guy i don’t think i can get this to happen and greg said well i think i can i can get that that to happen and that won’t be a problem and then you know and greg was just saying who the fuck does he think he is and and uh and then he said and then sam came up and he said are you sure your guys uh uh can take care of this thank you god and okay i remember he’s a gentleman i think my record speaks itself from that day on he said he said he said as personal favor uh to you uh Mr. De Palma, he said, I’ll make sure my guy torched Nicky before we blow off his low-life wig. And Greg De Palma actually said, no torture. We’ve got rules.
[32:47] And he said, you can kill him, but you can’t. He said, yeah, he said, he goes, no torture. Nicky may owe me money, but he’s not a fucking rat like Gravano. He said, we do have fucking rules. You know, I was just looking that up. that that’s probably Nikki LaSorsa who, uh, who Greg did make. And one of the things he had gotten De Palma’s table at Rao’s, a really nice restaurant in East Harlem. And it said that when De Palma heard his regular table had been violated, he was recorded on a prison telephone saying, I hope it ain’t Nicky. I’m going to stomp him. When I left, he was so jealous of me and everything I did. He was a nobody. And I brought him around. I gave him his name. So I bet that’s who it was. And he ends up getting charged in a murder plot against La Sorsa in the end. Oh, yeah.
[33:37] Jose told Greg, he said, don’t torture him. You can kill him, but you can’t torture him. He said, we’ve got rules. He goes, well, suit yourself. He goes, but I’d sure like to be there when he gets whacked. And Sam laughed and he goes, they all look the same. They just walked in after you caught them fucking their wife. And he said, with their best friend. He said, believe me, I’ve had the privilege of seeing both. Uh so that was sam’s sam’s uh thing on that but um man that’s cold that is cold that was a lot of dropping you were a party to or a witness to other man whatever happened with uh reyes.
[34:18] Jose reyes oh did you just when you left was he still there yeah he was still there when i left him and greg had become like really good friends and actually greg kind of like started distancing himself from me became pretty buddy-buddy with Jose Reyes because there’s like this scene that I’ll go ahead and tell you. I don’t know if you can use it or not, but Greg and him became really buddy-buddy. And just before I left, I sent the kite to John Gotti and I told him that I did not trust Jose Reyes. And because I had heard he wanted John Jr. to be involved with this. And I told John about it in a, in a, in a, in a kite. And he told me that he wanted all the information that I had on this guy. You know, um, I will say this, um, John told me, you know, that he needed me to be his, his, uh, eyes and ears on the, on the unit that he thought that they were going to fuck him over and his son one last time. And I told John, you know, what, what I was seeing on the outside, Greg went out to, uh, to talk to John to get an okay for this hit. Cause Jose race said, look, you got to get John Gotti involved. You got to get his son involved. And I told, and I wrote a kite to John and I said, look, this guy is not trustworthy.
[35:36] He’s trying to get your son involved in this, in this hit on Nikki. And Greg basically shot Greg down on, on all of this. John, John shot Greg down on it.
[35:48] Yeah. You know, like I said, you know, I didn’t really even know who these guys were when I when I went into prison. John, John told me, he said, look, I want you to give me all the information that you got out there. He said, I can’t. You’ve got to be my eyes out there on the unit. He said, I can’t see what’s going on. So you’ve got to, like, tell me what’s going on. And I told him, I said, they, this Jose race is trying to get John jr. To meet with one of, uh, Jose race, his friends on the outside to hit Nikki. And, um, um, and he wants John jr. Involved. And, um, and I said, I don’t trust him. You know, this is what I put him in a little kite. And I even asked Greg one time, because I didn’t know, I said, who’s in charge here. You or John. And he said, you know, that John was in charge and that he mentioned something about Big Pauly. And he said that once John made his decision to move on Big Pauly, that everybody had thrown on John’s side.
[36:49] And he said he’d never looked back. He said, John’s got the last word. He went up to Greg’s window. See, here’s another thing, too. The only way that Greg could talk to John Gotti was there’s like a, uh, outside, there’s a running track and some, some, uh, some tables, picnic tables that you can sit on out there. And then where John Gotti was called the hole and those units kind of like jut out into that area. And so Greg DePalma could go underneath John’s window and talk to him. And he was trying to get John to, uh, uh, to okay, a hit on, uh, on this Nikki character. So did, uh, did John finally act on your, your warning, I guess, if I should say, uh, call it that and not order Greg did not allow his son to get involved with this. I will go ahead and say this too. And I don’t know how much you’re going to like, you know, I’ll let you go ahead and cut it out. But one of the things that he, he was using, uh, Greg got mad about was that, that he was going to use Jose’s, this hit on, uh, Nikki, but also kind of move against the Albanians who I guess were.
[38:04] Sitting at John’s table at some restaurant or something like that. He was going to try to talk John into if we could get, uh, Jose to, to whack Nikki, that, that we can, we can start moving on these Albanians after this. Greg was really pissed off because he thought John was just letting all these people walk all over them. And, um, and he told Greg that he wasn’t going to let his son meet with, uh, any of Jose’s friends. And that Curtis was telling me that like, you know, the feds will, you know, work with the scum of the earth in order to take these guys down. This guy has these four or five life sentences. He’s looking at, you know, life, no doubt about it, but he, he obviously has a lot of money hidden away on the outside.
[38:49] And, and now he’s wanting to make sure that Gotti and Gotti’s son are involved and he’s gonna send somebody to do a hit but i’m really not for greg palma but really at for gotti because gotti he’s bringing the gottis into it that’s the kind of currency that you can trade to walk from two or three live sentences if you can deliver up john gotti’s son especially at this point in time yeah you were right on that i i have no doubt in my mind that dude was trying to set him up to buy himself uh getting out of the penitentiary yeah Yeah, yeah, Jose, you know, was doing like two life, I think two life sentences. And, you know, and he had to get Greg, he was trying to get Greg to get Gotti to get his son involved to okay this hit. And then he actually said, Curtis, who I played chess with, there was a guy that was cleaning a cell next to Gotti’s cell. When Greg went up to Gotti to try to talk him into this, and he was trying to use this hit on Nicky as a stepping stone to take care of some of these Albanians that I guess were moving in on John’s territory. I didn’t really know that much about, you know, the Albanians and all that kind of stuff, and Greg never really talked to me about that, but his friend that was cleaning out the cell said he was trying to get John, to get John Jr. to make.
[40:18] This hitman that was a friend of Jose to take out Nikki and that this would be, and he was trying to talk him into, this would be a stepping stone to take out the Albanians too. Yeah. It’s a pretty bold move to, to join with some Hispanic hit men, Hispanic drug dealers in order to take out. I think, I think the Albanians are like an Eastern block. Yeah. Oh yeah.
[40:43] Group. Yeah. Group. I mean, I think they’re kind of Russian. Yeah. And they’re strong. They’re strong in New York City. I’ve read about them that they really have made a lot of inroads into what normally had been the Italian mafia’s territory. So he was right on that. But it’s just such a, you know, I think it’s very dangerous to try.
[41:01] I think you can move in with some Hispanic drug dealers to do something like this. I think it was ill-advised at the best. I think Gotti was right, correct, and not getting his son involved in that. Well, I told them, oh, here’s another thing too, that I, you know, and this is one of, like I said, I, all this, my stuff, all my stuff is kind of in chronological order, but Curtis, and this is like a very important part of this. And this is why Gotti shut him down, because when I was talking to Gotti, Curtis had told me that Jose Race in the physical therapy room, and it was a physical therapy, because you had a lot of sick inmates there, and they do physical therapy. And Curtis told me that one of his homies was in there cleaning out the back. Uh, the back, uh, closet and he had headphones on and he didn’t hear the guards come in there and tell everybody to get out. He said, when he did come out, he said, Jose race was sitting there with two guys in suits. I told John, I didn’t really know what it meant, but he said, Hey, look, don’t leave me, leave me hanging.
[42:10] You know, don’t let me stand here with my deck, hanging out. You tell me everything you fucking got right now. Tell me that I’m trying to save my son. This is very important. He said, don’t let me, don’t let me down on this. And he said, I swear to God, when you get out, I’m going to let Greg give you a number. And I, I, I take, I take care of the people who’ve helped me out. And he was very adamant about trying to save his son. So I went ahead and told him that, uh, I wrote him a kite. Jose Rex had been seen talking with two guys in suits. The guards had run everybody out of the, uh, physical therapy. And one of his Curtis’s homies were, uh, uh, back there and had his headphones on and didn’t hear it. He’s listening to his music. And when he came back out there and they looked shocked, he said that, uh, Jose race kind of looked up and, and oh my God. And the, and the guy, the guys in suits called the guards and moved him out. And then when I told John Gotti that, um, he knew that they were trying to set his son up. Yeah. Yeah. But Greg wouldn’t hear anything about it. Yeah. Greg, Greg, Greg wouldn’t, uh, you know, I, I try to tell Greg, you know, this, He didn’t want to listen to it. He wanted Nicky dead. I mean, he was so adamant about killing this guy that he was beyond reason. So in the end, Greg ends up kind of mad at you. Yeah. Like I said, when I sent John that last kite, I can actually tell you what I wrote to him. I wrote a kite to John, and I detailed everything that I observed.
[43:36] Jose was mad for John pulling the plug on John Jr., the mysterious men that were seen with Jose in physical therapy. And anyway, Jose’s hostility was just kept on amping up on me every day. He was trying to like run me out of the. Out of the scene with Greg and Sam. But Gotti, when I gave him that kite to tell him that Jose had been seen with these guys in suits and physical therapy, before I left his room, he said, Mark, I know you’re leaving in a couple of days, but I feel I’m running out of time.
[44:13] And I cut him off and I pointed to the trash can. I said, there’s a kite in there. You need to read it. And once he read that, um, he, uh, he gestured, uh, when, before he read it, before I left, he looked up on the mirror and there was a picture of John Jr. Up on that mirror with all his family around the mirror I was talking about. And he said, that boy’s my heart. He said, he’s one of the only kids who ever really understood what this life was about and what it meant to me. And I’m starting to think these cocksuckers might be used that love to stab me in the back. And I looked at the waste paper basket one more time and I said hey there’s the kite in there you need to read that and then I went and then I then I picked up his tray cleaned up his room a little bit picked up his trash and all that Greg shot him down uh Gotti shot him down when Greg talked to him like I was telling you about a while ago and Greg even said uh he said uh you know all this personal feelings aside I just want you to fucking know Nicky’s not the only one spitting in my face he’s spitting in everybody’s face he’s making us look weak and he explained all this but But I, you know, I, I would always ask him, so who’s in charge? You or John? Where’s our, where’s our loyal loyalty like? And I told him about, uh, Curtis telling me that his friend saw Nikki with these two or not, or Jose race with these two guys seat and suits. And he, and Greg just cut me off and he goes, he goes, what the fuck are you talking about? May and Mike. I go, this might, this might be a setup. He goes, he goes.
[45:41] He goes, if I flinched every time those words were mentioned, I’d never get anything done. And he said, and that can’t be true about Jose. He wouldn’t even listen to any reason. He wanted Nicky dead. He said, I don’t want to hear another word about it. You understand me? And I could sense like I was being cut off and he wasn’t going to listen to anything about it. And I apologized. And I said, and Greg just went, forget about it. You know, he said, I know you talked to John, but I know, you know, that you guys, you know, have something going on. He said, but just, you know, he said, but after he talked to John, after he was at the window and John shot him down and he told him that he wasn’t going to let his son meet Jose race’s, uh, hit man. And I was sitting out there watching him talk to John, and I was sitting out on a little picnic bench, and I saw Greg talking to John. And you could tell he was like a man with a hat in his hand trying to get this hat done on Nicky. When he rolled back up to me, I said, well, how’d it go? And he goes, well, you fucked me again.
[46:46] And I apologized to him, and I said, you know, I’m sorry. And he, Greg held up his hand. He says, it’s okay. John’s the boss. And you’re right. You did what he asked him. We’re proud of you. Yeah. And, uh, and then he said before, and to show you that there’s no hard feelings, I’m going to give you a phone number. John wants me to give you a phone number, uh, when you get out and, uh, I want you to call this phone number. And, and I, I told him that I did artwork and stuff like that. And he said that he knew some big galleries in New York city and he was going to set me up and all this. But, uh, uh, but everybody told me not to take that phone number. Yeah. And even Greg, when, when he, Greg tried to give me the phone number, I go, I think I just want to go home and I want to be done with all this. And he goes, what are you a fucking snitch? I go, come on, Greg. And he goes, Oh, I’m sorry, dude. He said, I, I overreacted. He said, I said, I know you’re doing what you think is right. But he said, he said, but that Nikki fuck still got to go.
[47:50] So well in the end i see in your notes here that at the end the prosecutor’s star witness on a, case against sammy and and greg de palma about killing nikki la sorso was jose ray is who ends up getting out for his yeah helping this so yeah he got he i didn’t even know that he got before yeah and actually before we had this interview i kind of looked up uh jose race just to kind of get an idea where, everything was and I’m not even really sure if this is him but I think he got busted again for cocaine oh another thing too.
[48:27] Gigante I think the guy’s name was Gigante but Sammy told me that That, uh, they had told Jose race that, uh, Gigante was going to set him up with some stuff when he got out, like a house and some money and all this stuff. And to come to find out Gigante had been dead for years. And so they were going to fuck Jose race too, because Sam wasn’t really sure who he goes, you know, until I can figure out what the fuck is going on here. He goes, uh, he goes, you just need to go the fuck home. Uh, and he goes in and we’re playing games with Jose race too. And so I guess, you know, when I actually, I read about it, about the court case a little bit after they had gotten out. And, um, I guess the jury found story that I’m telling you so unbelievable that they didn’t correct. They didn’t convict Greg or Sam, Sam and Sam, uh, ended up getting out, I guess, spending in his last days with his family. Greg, of course, got caught up with Jack Falcone, busted Greg, and that was where Greg spent the last of his days in prison and died in prison.
[49:42] Interesting. All right, guys. Black Truth, The Last Days of Gotti with Mark Black. This has been Mark Black with us. Mark, this has been a fun interview, great stories. I mean, you’ve got some great stories out the penitentiary there i mean it’s just unbelievable you know i’ll just tell you, what Greg told me when I, when I left, uh, when I, when I left Greg, you know, he’s, he told me that he was sorry that he’d got such hot headed on me. And then of course, you know, he’s going to follow John to the end. He said, once they whacked big Polly, uh, he threw all his chips in with John and he never looked back. And he said, and John’s the boss and whatever he says goes. And he said,
[50:24] and he said, we’re proud of you. And he said, and to show that, you know, there’s no hard feelings. John wanted me to give you a number. And I said, I don’t want to take it. Cause what are you a fucking snitch? And I is Jose rates because Jose race was always trying to make me out as a snitch. And I, and I, and I said, no, I just want to go home and be through with this.
[50:43] And then his parting words was stay out of places like these, but he didn’t take his own advice. All right, Mark, I really appreciate you coming on the show guys. Be sure and get this book it’s it’s a really interesting insiders look at what that life is like for mobsters in the penitentiary i mean and you can see their their little shenanigans and their games continue on whether they’re in or out you know it doesn’t make any difference and make it didn’t make any difference and and it’s talk about you know deception betrayal you know demanding trust of people but yet you know it’s okay if you betray somebody here as long as it’s for me and it’s just uh it’s just a crazy crazy life isn’t it mark yeah one of the things that curtis told me he said the guy that he and curtis knew god he or uh greg de palma uh outside and i’ll just go ahead and tell you a little story about that before we go uh uh i asked greg about curtis and he said yeah he said uh, He said, I bought a $10,000 mink coat off one of his friends, one of his crackhead buddies for 50 bucks. He goes, where the hell can you get a deal like that in New York City? He said, I gave it to my wife. Boy, was she happy.
[52:00] But yeah, it was all about the life. But I really like Greg. I mean, Greg was like a really good guy. And I really respected him. When you’re in prison, there’s a lot of guys who will rat you out in a second to get their freedom. That was Jose Race that was doing that. These guys, Sammy and Fat Tony, or Tony Carolla, and Gotti, and Greg DePalma, they never snitched out on any of their friends. Not intentionally. I mean, Greg had a big mouth, and that’s kind of what got him in trouble. And then he had a big ego. And like I said, he said, I want that motherfucker dead. Do you hear me? I want him dead.
[52:48] And that kind of like pushed him over the edge in order to let his guard down. But I’ll tell you that Greg had a big mouth. I mean, he just did. And he’d tell me stories about him hanging out with Sinatra and Dean Martin. And he had quite a life. He had quite the colorful life out there. And he was a good guy. And I respected me and I looked at him as a friend. Well, guys, that was a great show, wasn’t it? Don’t forget, I like to ride motorcycles. So watch out for motorcycles when you’re out there on the street, even though it’s starting to get winter, I’m not riding it so much now. And if you have a problem with PTSD and you have been in the service, be sure and go to the VA website and get the hotline number. If you have a problem with drugs and alcohol or gambling, any kind of addiction.
[53:33] You know, our friend, Anthony Ruggiano, who was a Gambino prospect, if you will, a proposed member, supposedly, has gone out of that life, and he’s a drug and alcohol counselor down in Florida now, and he has a hotline on his website. I think it’s reformedmonsters.com or something like that. But anyhow, find my book. You know, I wrote that book about the Windy City Mafia stories from the Chicago outfit, and I’m working on one about New York City mob guys. It’s a bunch of chapters of short stories taken from my podcast. They’re easy to read and a quick overview of the entire Chicago outfit and a quick overview of the entire five families and the structure. And then with a whole bunch of stories behind it that are, you lay it down, you can read one chapter, lay it down, read another one, one chapter, maybe only two or three pages long, but you can really get well-versed in the mafia and those two cities. I have a movie or two out there, Gangland Wire and Brothers Against Brothers. It’s on Amazon. Just go to Amazon and research or search for Gary Jenkins Mafia, and you’ll find everything I’ve got in my books and movies and everything. So thanks a lot, guys. And Mark Black, I really appreciate you coming on the show. Oh, I really appreciate you having me. Thank you.
