In this first of a two part interview with former Las Vegas newsman and current Mob Museum blogger Larry Henry we talk Vegas and the mob and about the famous muckraking reporter Ned Day.
Since we could not interview the late Ned Day, we opted for a man who knew him and the organized crime beat Day covered in 1970s Las Vegas. Larry was the political editor at the Las Vegas Sun during those days in Sin City when some would say "the mob ran the town." He left Vegas for the slower paced life in Northwest Arkansas and became the managing editor at KFSM-TV,  a CBS Affiliate. Currently, Larry is an official blogger for the Mob Museum in Las Vegas and as as his own blog titled The Mafia Chronicles.
Larry tells how Ned Day, whose car was firebombed in 1986, upset mob figures with his hard-hitting stories about Mafia control of local casinos and street rackets. That bombed proved that Day's work was uncovering long held mob secret control of Vegas casinos. Ned Day is considered one of the most fearless mob reporters of his generation.
Larry tells us that Day’s colorful exploits began in his mobbed-up Midwestern hometown, Milwaukee. Actually we learn that Day started on the wrong side of the law in his formative years. This may explain how he was able to work the mob beat so well later in life. In Milwaukee of the 1960s, Ned Day was a self-described gambler and pimp, worked in mob boss Frank “Mad Bomber” Balistrieri’s strip clubs and ran a tout sheet providing tips on horse races down in Chicago. Day was once arrested for passing bad checks and held the dubious fame of a marriage to a former Miss Nude International. Ned Day enrolled in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a professor steered him into journalism. the rest is history.
Ned Day will die while snorkeling in Hawaii on September 3, 1987.  Some claim he was murdered.
To see his work watch the below linked You Tube mob documentary featuring narration by Ned Day.
If you want to meet myself, Aaron and Larry Henry, come to the MobWorld Summit at the Plaza hotel from June 15-17, 2018. Panel discussions with mob experts at the hotel with a Saturday evening trip to the Mob Museum. All for $100.00. Click on MobWorld Summit for tickets and more information.

Don't forget to listen to Aaron on the Big Dumb Fun Show, live on Monday nights.
To go to the store click here
To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here
To subscribe on iTunes click here, give me a review and I will send you a link to see the film for free.
D

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gangland-wire--5504357/support.

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 use @ganglandwire
Click here to "buy me a cup of coffee"


To go to the store or make a donation click here.  
To rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here
To rent Brothers against Brothers, click here.
To rent Gangland Wire, click here.

Andrea Giovino tells how when she was a little girl growing up in Brooklyn, her mother ran an illegal gambling operation and crap game from the basement of her home for “Crazy” Joe Gallo. Little...

In part 2, Andrew DiDonato continues telling about his life of crime. He is still with the Gambino crime family. but he is being threatened and feels the chafe of having to take orders from Nicky Corozzo,
 
Andrew has graduated gambling operations, high end burglaries and bank robberies. His mob boss has ordered him to kill someone he considers a friend. Soon he becomes a target for the F.B.I. and they will give him an offer he could not refuse.
Andrew goes into witness protection and becomes a government witness. He will leave witness proitection and now  lives in an undisclosed location under his own name. He has formed friendships with two other former mobsters, Kenji Gallo and Frank Calabrese Jr. All three men were all forced to become witnesses and now all three live in danger.
In his subsequent life after a life of crime, Andrew has written a first hand account of his former life,  Surviving the Mob: A Street Soldier's life in the Gambino Crime Family


Don't forget to listen to Aaron on the Big Dumb Fun Show, live on Monday nights.
To go to the store click here
To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here
To subscribe on iTunes click here, give me a review and I will send you a link to see the film for free.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gangland-wire--5504357/support.

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 use @ganglandwire
Click here to "buy me a cup of coffee"


To go to the store or make a donation click here.  
To rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here
To rent Brothers against Brothers, click here.
To rent Gangland Wire, click here.

Andrew DiDonato was born to live the life of a gangster and came by it from family ties to the Gambino crime family. Like the famous Henry Hill, he wanted to be a gangster from his early boyhood and became an experienced street thief by the time he was 17 years old.  Andrew tells how he was noticed by  Nicky Corozzo, a member of the Gambino Family. It was not long before Andrew and his friends were hanging around the  Pacific Street Social Club used by Corozzo's crew. Andrew and his friends soon started kicking money to Nicky every month.  This was a form of tribute in exchange for the protection afforded by a member of the Gambino crime family.
Andrew's first really successful crime venture was a stolen auto ring. Like any young man growing up in Brooklyn, he loved cars and already knew guys who chopped cars. He partnered up with an expert and learned how to spot good cars, how to steal them in minutes and where to take them to sell. Some nights, they would steal several cars in one evening. Other times, they took more time and spotted and took exotics like Porsche, Ferrari or Maserati's.
Andrew and his partner started cutting out the shop shop and began cutting up the cars and selling the parts to body shops themselves. He tells one of the greatest true crime stories I have ever herd. to tempt you to listen, imagine Andrew sitting on a bare bones car chassis using only a pair of vice grips for a steering wheel as the New York city cops chase him though the streets of Brooklyn.
Andrew will graduate to helping with a mob gambling operation, high end burglaries and bank robbery. As he earns more and more money, his mob boss will become jealous and Andrew will resent giving him money for nothing. He becomes a target for the F.B.I. and they will give him an offer he could not refuse.
After he became a government witness, Andrew is now living in an undisclosed location under his own name and has formed an alliance with Kenji Gallo and Frank Calabrese Jr. These three men were all forced to become witnesses and now all three live in danger.
In his subsequent life after a life of crime, Andrew has written a first hand account of his former life,  Surviving the Mob: A Street Soldier's life in the Gambino Crime Family


Don't forget to listen to Aaron on the Big Dumb Fun Show, live on Monday nights.
To go to the store click here
To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here
To subscribe on iTunes click here, give me a review and I will send you a link to see the film for free.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gangland-wire--5504357/support.

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 use @ganglandwire
Click here to "buy me a cup of coffee"


To go to the store or make a donation click here.  
To rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here
To rent Brothers against Brothers, click here.
To rent Gangland Wire, click here.

Our friend from the federal prison at Marion, former guard David, continues in this episode telling about his experiences with New York City crime boss, John Gotti. We learn that when Gotti arrived at the Reception and Diagnostic Unit, he was greeted like royalty by other prisoners. David tells about the day-to-day life of the famous mob boss was like inside the walls of Marion. Learn more about his relationship with the feared prison gang, the Aryan Brotherhood.
David was the second guard to arrive on the scene when Walter Johnson was beating Gotti down. We get an insider's version of both the events leading up to the beating and the aftermath. Gotti will die in prison and Walter Johnson will be released. Johnson does not stay out long until he is convicted of killing a Washington DC police officer.
To Donate click here.
To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here
To subscribe on iTunes click here, give me a review and I will send you a link to see the film for free.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gangland-wire--5504357/support.

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 use @ganglandwire
Click here to "buy me a cup of coffee"


To go to the store or make a donation click here.  
To rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here
To rent Brothers against Brothers, click here.
To rent Gangland Wire, click here.

If you have not listened to the 7 part interview with the parachuting skyjacker Martin J. McNally, please stop and go back to listen to those episodes. In this episode, David, a retired Marion prison guard, recounts stories from his life as a guard in the maximum security prison at Marion Illinois. During his time at the facility, he was assigned to the cell block where Martin J. McNally resided. David came to the prison after McNally's dramatic escape attempts with another well known skyjacker, Garrett Brock Trapnell.    David tells more than stories about Martin J. McNally, he also tells what life behind those walls is really like on a day to day basis.
David has been telling his stories on his You Tube Channel "As The Key Turns."
 
 

 
Don't forget to listen to Aaron on the Big Dumb Fun Show, live on Monday nights.
To go to the store click here
To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here
To subscribe on iTunes click here, give me a review and I will send you a link to see the film for free.
D

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gangland-wire--5504357/support.

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 use @ganglandwire
Click here to "buy me a cup of coffee"


To go to the store or make a donation click here.  
To rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here
To rent Brothers against Brothers, click here.
To rent Gangland Wire, click here.

We interview noted mob historian and author Scott Deitche about his latest book, Garden State Gangland and the listener learns about the New Jersey crime families. As a bonus, Scott also tells the Wiretappers about Santos Trafficante Jr. and the development of the Tampa crime family.
Scott has written six books on organized crime, including Garden State Gangland: The Rise of the Mob in New Jersey, Cigar City Mafia: A Complete History of the Tampa Underworld, The Silent Don: The World of Santo Trafficante Jr., and Rogue Mobster: The Untold Story of Mark Silverman and the New England Mafia. He has written dozens of magazine articles on organized crime and has been featured on The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, A&E, local news shows, and radio.
Scott conducts periodic Mafia tours of Cigar City and the different mob historic locations. One of his most interesting books is titled Cocktail Noir. He relates, “I thought Noir was a great concept because a lot of these crime stories and films have bars and drinks that are either important information gathering points and help the story move forward, or they really set the mood of the character and help define them. A great example is Kiss Me Deadly. Mike Hammer goes into the bar
and says, ‘Give me a bourbon and leave the bottle.’ Something about a scene like that says all you really need to know about the type of day he had.” Cocktail Noir blends alcohol, mixers and gangster stories and is shaken, not stirred for a delightful montage of short stories.
Most recently Scott has gone on the Board of Directors of the Las Vegas Mob Museum. He lives in St. Petersburg, Florida with his family.








 
Don't forget to listen to Aaron on the Big Dumb Fun Show, live on Monday nights.
To go to the store click here
To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here
To subscribe on iTunes click here, give me a review and I will send you a link to see the film for free.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gangland-wire--5504357/support.

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 use @ganglandwire
Click here to "buy me a cup of coffee"


To go to the store or make a donation click here.  
To rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here
To rent Brothers against Brothers, click here.
To rent Gangland Wire, click here.

David Shanks spent most of his law enforcement career working on Jose Miguel Battle and his mafia organization known as The Corporation. Jose Miguel Battle started his life as a corrupt police sergeant taking bribes from american mobsters like Meyer Lansky and passing them along to corrupt Cuban officials in the Batista government. Battle joined the CIA backed anti-Castro revolutionaries and was captured at the Bay of Pigs. Jose Miguel Battle became known as the "Hero of the Bay of Pigs." Once the American government freed Battle and his fellow revolutionaries from a Cuban prison, he came to south Florida with a brand new plan. He wanted to be part of the Italian La Cosa Nostra mafia. It is said he watched the Godfather dozens of times. Jose Miguel Battle approached Tampa boss, Santos Trafficante Jr. and was granted permission to form subordinate crime organization under the protection of the Trafficante Family. All he had to do was earn money and pay the Trafficante family a share. From here, Battle started running bolita games and slowly took over all the existing bolita organizations from Florida to New Jersey and even into New York City. Having all the south Florida criminal contacts soon steered him to the cocaine business by the 1980s. using his criminal contacts, Battle became one of the most successful cocaine dealers on the east coast. Jose Miguel Battle with an iron hand and murder was most often his choice in a dispute.
David Shanks, of the Miami/Dade Organized Crime Division, made his life's work into investigating The Corporation and Jose Miguel Battle. David is now retired and your podcast host became friends with him over the past year. While he granted a well known true crime writer, T. J. English, the rights to tell his story in the book, The Corporation, David lived this story and is in the studio to give our Wiretappers his first hand account of this epic investigation.
David reports that the book has already been optioned to Paramount for a motion picture, They have signed Benicio Del Toro to play the part of Battle and Leonardo DiCaprio to produce the movie and to play the part of David Shanks.
 


Don't forget to listen to Aaron on the Big Dumb Fun Show, live on Monday nights.
To go to the store click here
To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here
To subscribe on iTunes click here, give me a review and I will send you a link to see the film for free.
D

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gangland-wire--5504357/support.

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 use @ganglandwire
Click here to "buy me a cup of coffee"


To go to the store or make a donation click here.  
To rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here
To rent Brothers against Brothers, click here.
To rent Gangland Wire, click here.

David Shanks spent most of his law enforcement career working on Jose Miguel Battle and his mafia organization known as The Corporation. Jose Miguel Battle started his life as a corrupt police sergeant taking bribes from american mobsters like Meyer Lansky and passing them along to corrupt Cuban officials in the Batista government. Battle joined the CIA backed anti-Castro revolutionaries and was captured at the Bay of Pigs. Jose Miguel Battle became known as the "Hero of the Bay of Pigs." Once the American government freed Battle and his fellow revolutionaries from a Cuban prison, he came to south Florida with a brand new plan. He wanted to be part of the Italian La Cosa Nostra mafia. It is said he watched the Godfather dozens of times. Jose Miguel Battle approached Tampa boss, Santos Trafficante Jr. and was granted permission to form subordinate crime organization under the protection of the Trafficante Family. All he had to do was earn money and pay the Trafficante family a share. From here, Battle started running bolita games and slowly took over all the existing bolita organizations from Florida to New Jersey and even into New York City. Having all the south Florida criminal contacts soon steered him to the cocaine business by the 1980s. using his criminal contacts, Battle became one of the most successful cocaine dealers on the east coast. Jose Miguel Battle with an iron hand and murder was most often his choice in a dispute.
David Shanks, of the Miami/Dade Organized Crime Division, made his life's work into investigating The Corporation and Jose Miguel Battle. David is now retired and your podcast host became friends with him over the past year. While he granted a well known true crime writer, T. J. English, the rights to tell his story in the book, The Corporation, David lived this story and is in the studio to give our Wiretappers his first hand account of this epic investigation.
David reports that the book has already been optioned to Paramount for a motion picture, They have signed Benicio Del Toro to play the part of Battle and Leonardo DiCaprio to produce the movie and to play the part of David Shanks.
 


Don't forget to listen to Aaron on the Big Dumb Fun Show, live on Monday nights.
To go to the store click here
To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here
To subscribe on iTunes click here, give me a review and I will send you a link to see the film for free.
D

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gangland-wire--5504357/support.

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 use @ganglandwire
Click here to "buy me a cup of coffee"


To go to the store or make a donation click here.  
To rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here
To rent Brothers against Brothers, click here.
To rent Gangland Wire, click here.

Bill Norton covered the Kansas City mob boss Nick Civella and the crime beat for the Kansas City Star newspaper from his first day as a reporter. In the 1970s, the KC Police Department furnished a bare bones office with one desk and a telephone for the crime reporter. Bill did not report to the Star offices but rather went to work each day at police headquarters. He developed police sources as well as many criminal sources during his tenure. Bill gradually was able to leave the reporting of day to day crime and became the Star's expert on the mafia. Bill tells how he learned from the older reporters about covering Nick Civella and relates several funny stories about his various interactions with the KC crime family.
 
 
 
 
Don't forget to listen to Aaron on the Big Dumb Fun Show, live on Monday nights.
To go to the store click here
To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here
To subscribe on iTunes click here, give me a review and I will send you a link to see the film for free.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gangland-wire--5504357/support.

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 use @ganglandwire
Click here to "buy me a cup of coffee"


To go to the store or make a donation click here.  
To rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here
To rent Brothers against Brothers, click here.
To rent Gangland Wire, click here.