Inside The New Jersey Mafia That Inspired The Sopranos

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Well, my main thing, like I pled guilty to, was murder and loan sharking in the Decafacanti crime family. Which is the family that the Sopranos is allegedly based off of. That's correct. When he comes to me, he says, I'm jammed up with Rudy. Ivan helped me get a policy on my brother. I need you to give it to him for me. So I grabbed him when he went to open the door. He got shot in the stomach there and hit him again. Four times, five times more. When your boss tells you to do something, you're gone. Especially when Gotti's plotted to kill me. Gene Gotti? John Gotti Jr. January 4th. 1991 is the night they tried to kill me. This is Jimmy Easy, a former mafia hitman and lifelong associate of the Decafacanti crime family. The real life mob family that helped inspire HBO's The Sopranos. Cargo heists, loan sharking, bookmaking, murder. Jimmy's life reads like a mob movie, literally. He even claims Sopranos character Richie Aprile was based in part on his life. I think he's right. And before we get going, if you like stories like this, hit subscribe. So that you never miss an episode. And make sure to pick up Jimmy's book, Hitman Tells All. I'll drop a link to that below. This is a fascinating look inside the last generation of old school, New York City mafioso. It's Jimmy Easy, right here on The Connect with Jonny Mitchell. Jimmy, thank you for being here. You're welcome. Thank you for having me. Of course. I've never spoken to anybody who did work for the Decafacanti's, which if you don't know, is the New Jersey family that The Sopranos is allegedly based off of. That's correct. And that's fascinating because that's obviously the greatest show in history. It's not even a question. And it's one of my favorite shows. And it was the family that allegedly never got as much respect from the New York families. So I want to get into that. But you're not from Jersey yourself. You grew up in New York. That's right. I grew up. I was a year old when they moved me out of Bensonhurst. And then I was, we moved to Ozone Park when I was about 12, 11. My mom and dad had a house built in Howard Beach. Okay. And then we moved there. Then about 15, I started getting in trouble. Stolen cars, this, that. And pretty much, I was on work releases, you know, programs to try to straighten me out. It was no straightening me out. And at 17. At 17 or 10 months old, I moved in with my cousins down in Brooklyn and never went home since. But mom and dad, I was close with. Okay. So Ozone Park, Howard Beach, that was like Gambino, Gotti territory back in the day. Yeah. You got a lot of guys in there too. You got some Bonanno guys. Did they get, try to recruit you? That was, I think, part of the animosity that you're from my neighborhood. And that's what caused the war with me and Junior because I was selling fireworks, bookmaking, loan shark. It started with the father. I took a limousine company out of Howard Beach, Elegant Limousine. He owed me a couple hundred thousand loan shark. So me and Rudy put the heat up. We took the limousine company. The father got really mad. But Rudy came forward and says, Rudy sat down with a guy named Bobby Boriello. He was a captain under John and pretty much ironed it out. The guy borrowed money. This is my money. You know, that's how they protect you. So you were a good earner? Very good earner. Nobody could deny that. Huh. Huh. So how did you end up with the DiCavo Canties? My dad was, my dad knew Rudy and another guy, Joe Smash, that was around him. He was a Colombo Wise guy. But Rudy and Joe, two different families, but they grew up together. So the Shylock business was pretty much mostly partners. It was something Rudy had on his own. And it got to the point where I was running it for Rudy, you know, doing all this collecting and this and that. Mmm. How old were you? 18, 19. At that point, 18, 19, I joined Rudy and by 20, I had a couple hundred thousand in the street of my own money, plus I did my book making, my Joke-a-Poker machines. Rudy had a small route, but Rudy was so rich, he says, "Listen, you want to run that route?" I said, "Not really. You want to buy it?" "Yeah." I bought his machines. Huh. And I turned that route into, and I'll tell you what I did. One day somebody robbed one of my machines, they went into a bodega and they claimed they were police. And they took the, and I knew it was all fake. So I said, "Okay, you just want to play that game? No problem." I got a white connoisseur man. I went to all the bodegas, walked in there, NYPD chain. Whose machine is this? And most of them foreigners. Asian, Indians. "Oh, me no know speak English." "Oh, you're going to the police station." "No, that's not my machine. Well, I'm going to take it." I give him a card made up. Have them come down to claim it, the owner. "Okay." We went out. Money and all. I bust a lock, I put my new lock, new stop. How much did you clean out? Well, most of them have usually about 500, 2000 in it. But then I had Kid Anthony muscles around me. We were sitting on stops, getting the idea of when they emptied them. We go the day before and take it. So Rudy was the boss? He was a captain in the Decavalcanti crime family. And there, you told me off camera that the Decavalcanti's have two, two factions. One in Jersey, one in New York? Correct. They're all connected, but we were based out of Brooklyn, 5th Avenue, 2nd Street. Okay. And. Oh, like downtown? Downtown Brooklyn. That's correct. Wow. Wow. And Rudy had the club there. And that's where I started reporting every day. Rudy had me going every day reporting. Okay. So the Decavalcanti, the Jersey faction was just wise guys who probably came up in Brooklyn who then were like, "Oh, we want to go out to the suburbs." That's how they started getting money out there? Or what is the origin of that? Rudy got close with Sam the Plumber. That's the real Sam Decavalcanti. He's, you know. Okay. So Rudy was close with him. And they were. And Sam the Plumber is from. That's right. Newark. That's right. Okay. And Rudy was close with him. How, I don't know. That was so many years ago. You know? Was there a lot of money out in Jersey? Did you ever get money out there? We did, but not much. Not much. I didn't do much business in Jersey. The Moors are really bad in Jersey. They don't play. Who was? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you ask any drug dealer that used to bring up product up to 95, you hit the turnpike, man. If you're black, you're getting pulled over. Yeah. One of those troopers. Yeah. I just. I left that alone. I had enough in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island. That was my main neighborhood. South Brooklyn, we had it. And these are. What era? Is this the '80s? In like '83, '84, it was really when I was rock and rolling. By mid '80s, I was doing really good, financially, bookmaking, loan sharking. And then I moved on. And again, once you got a body under you, then Brooklyn South Homicide was really all over me. Hmm. So if you're making all this money, why did you have to move on to the murder game? Maybe because. See, years ago. It's a lot different now. Years ago, to get straightened out, made, whatever they want to call it, you got to be able to show you do time, you come home, you're able to do a piece of work. You got to be able to be an earner. You know, there's certain boxes that you got. And I fit every criteria, and Rudy asked me. And I said, "Yeah, when the books are right, it's going to happen." Hmm. Okay. So they wanted you to be an MVP. Yeah. So you had to be a killer and a good earner, and keep your mouth shut, on and on and on. Yeah. Well, my main thing, like I pled guilty to, was a two-predic ax murder, and one shocking. It's a recall. And what years? What years were those? Murders? Hmm. The kid Sal was, I think, 91. Then he killed his brother months later because he paid them to do it, and he never paid me. And he played cute. So then he had a partner named Ivan Katz, a Jewish guy, tons of money. He's the one that had the connection with the insurance company to backdate the policy. He had AIDS. We even had to bring blood, you know, because his blood was no good. Well, explain that. What? When you get an insurance policy, that's just $1 million. They want blood. But Ivan, the Jewish guy, had all the hooks, and they got a policy on him. Oh, I see. So Vinny come to me. He had Vinny Chaffee. He come to me. He says, "Jimmy, I know you. It's going to sound like I'm a piece of shit. I'm jammed up. with Rudy. I see. So you took out an insurance policy. I didn't. But they did. They took out an insurance policy on a guy they knew was dying of AIDS, but they wanted to pass him off as healthy to the insurance company so they could get his policy. However they did it. Had somebody else take the physical, the blood test. They had the hooks. Damn. Was that a move back then? Was that a way? I mean, I suppose he was jammed up with Rudy over $300,000. He owed me about $40,000 or $50,000, bookmaker buddy. So he had problems. Damn. And the insurance policy was worth whatever, more than what he owed? He never told me. So what happened was we go ahead. I went to Rudy. I told him. He says, are you kidding me? I said, no, Rudy, he's jammed up. He said, well, what do you want? Just do it. So we got him in the car. Told him we're going to do a piece of work. This is the guy with AIDS? Yeah. Was he a fag? No, junkie. He was in the neighborhood. He got, yelled at Rudy for so many times, breaking into old ladies' homes. He broke two of Rudy's joker poker machines open back then, but Rudy gave him a pass because of his brother. So he was always right here with us. So when the brother came, Rudy said, get it done. Joe smashed it. They said, get it done. So we got him in the car, me and another guy. We dropped him on the Bell Parkway. And that was it. So I got a hold of Vinny. You shot him in the car? Yeah. You pulled the trigger? Well, what happened was he got spooked. Because we told him we're going to do a piece of work. And we keep riding around looking for a spot. And he's like, I got to go to the bathroom. I got to go to the bathroom. He got shot in the stomach there. Pluto reached over the back and hit him again. And we dumped him out on the Bell Parkway. Hmm. Well, that was the. He had that gut feeling, you know, when he says, you could see it in his eyes. When he seen him, we're just riding around Stilwell Avenue, Bicone Island, deserted areas, open lots. Right. Especially back then. So we got rid of him. And I'll tell you what, it was on the Bell Parkway by the Riding Academy. We got back on the highway. After we dumped him, we get off the next exit, Rockaway Parkway. Come back around. By the time we get back around, they were already there, the cops. So somebody came out of the Riding Academy right away and found him. But he was gone. He was gone. And you guys got away. Yeah, we got away. Yeah. Yeah, we got away. So I get home. Now it was my friend Pluto's car. Black car with red seats and red. The blood was all over. We couldn't get it up. So finally, I had a collision shot. I had my hands in everything. And we brought it over there and we crushed it. Yeah, I'm sure that was a common way to get rid of the. There was. Listen, you couldn't wash it out. It was just all over. So how many. And that was the first hit you ever did or that was the second one? Well, first hit. But there was other ones I shot and they lived. Hmm. You know, like my niece had a boyfriend and he was 18, she was 15. I warned him, Danny. No, Sonny. Danny was his brother around me. I said, Sonny, if I hear you going near my 15-year-old niece again, you have a problem. He said, stand down. Sonny Burns. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. All of a sudden, my brother John calls me up out of breath. Jimmy, I need your help. I just had a fight with the two brothers. And I had two brothers and then another cousin jumped in. I said, John, I'm on my way out there. He said, listen to me. When you pull up, they're going to come out with weapons, everything. I said, I don't know what you're talking about. So there's a collision shop drive at a kid's cabin. Good wheel man. I said, Kevin, come on. We got to do a piece of work. Let's go, bro. So we get out there. I had a chase car, too, a block away. Case got out of hand. They had pistols. So I park on a dead end. And when you look down the block, you can see my brother's house is here. And the Burns lived right across the street. So I called my brother. I said, John, do me a favor. When I tell you, come outside. As soon as I come out, they're going to come running out. That's what I want. I'm right at the corner. I got you. I said, all right. John goes to walk out. Sonny runs out of the house. Danny, all of them. He reaches. He's got a Riviera, two doors. Slings up the back. He's got a gun. He's got a gun. He's got a gun. He's got a seat. He has a baseball bat. Runs towards my brother. I had a black LSC coming, pulled up right there. I got out. Sonny, you made a mistake. Boom. Boom. I hit him. I'm flying. The other two brothers, I shot at them, but I didn't hit them. He lived. Hour later, I get a phone call. They arrested my brother. He blamed my brother. I did it. So I get a hold of Danny. And I said, Danny, make this right. I said, I will. So my brother went to court. We bailed him out right away. Went back to court. He came in there, crutches and everything. He says, your honor, I'm not sure if that's the man that shot me. Prosecutor looked at me and gave me a dirty look. He knew. So then after that, it was a one note. You go there. She's 15. He's 18. You're the DeCampo Canties. Did they have like a social club downtown? Yeah. The way that the Gotties had the, you know, the Bergen hunting fish club? Yeah, we had a. Originally, Rudy had 320 5th Avenue. And then he sold that building. And we moved to 310 5th Avenue. It was a pizza parlor right next door. And we took that end of it. We made a club out of it. Ocean Side, Ocean View. I forgot what we named it. You got to remember, I walked away from the life in 01. Yeah. Well, that's a long time you were in it. I wasn't coming out. Never was going to come out. I mean, because you were really in the streets. That's like 25 years, 27 years. But I did a lot of jail. I did a lot of jail time. What's the first bid you did? The first actual prison bid? Well, I was arrested for a charge, an assault charge. That was one of them. And you got stabbed. And my bail was really high. I was 17 years, 10 months old, still a Jew. They sent me to Rikers Island. You talk about. Wrong. I'm waking up. They're trying to steal my sneakers. I'm like, what the hell is this? A fucking hole. So make a long story short, I only went there because I couldn't. The bail package, it took days to put it together because the bail bonds were my dad had to put his house up. So you can't just go there and say, yeah, and he's like, they won't see deeds. And so I couldn't make bail at Brooklyn House by then. So they shipped me to Rikers Island. Then about four or five days later, I got out, you know, and. You didn't do any serious time. On that one, no. Somebody got a hold of the kid and. Home of the save. Open soon. Home of the save. And that was super common back in those days. They'd find the victim and convince him. Everybody knows somebody. Everybody's with somebody. But we get back to Danny. Sonny, when I shot him, you'd think he'd learn. A year later, he runs away with my niece. So John says, I need help. No problem. I was there for my brother. We got in the car. I grabbed Danny. We went to Danny's house in Staten Island. Oh. I swear, I don't know where they are. I put the pistol to his head. Stanny, you know me. I'm telling you now, my niece. You don't give me an address in five minutes. Your brain's going to be on. And he got his sister on the phone. He was at his sister's house. I'm calling out to him. We went over there. No. No. Follow the Capiton Boulevard and start down. I went over there. First, I went to the first address. Nobody was there. Then she said they were on Follow the Capiton Boulevard. The townhouse is facing down. Bay Street or whatever it was. And the townhouse he was in was the end one. So I said to my brother, John, he had his wife, Mary, there. I said, I want you to knock on the door and bang. Sonny, I know you're in there. You and Danny. Open this door. Now he knows he's caught. I'm on the side waiting for him to come out the back. Sure enough, he jumps out the back. Over the window. I hit him again. I hit him in the back running. I turned him over. I put one right there. Everybody in the town knows it. Shot him in the dick? I don't want to say it on TV, but yeah. Well, I shot him down there. I know he's on a piss bag and everything now and a shit bag. Wow. So you shot him a total of four times. Well, here's another thing. He got my daughter pregnant. Your daughter? My daughter, my niece. So, but why do that? It's clearly, unless he kidnapped your niece, it sounds like she wanted to be there. I know that, but he's an adult. True. She's a minor. Very true. How old was he? Don't fuck with that. He was 19 at that. Second shooting. She was 16. I don't think that's justified. If he was 28, okay. Yeah, but when you're warned by somebody you know. Yeah, if you're shot twice by them. Why go back again? For sure. So, make a long story short, that was that. He never told on me. And then, well, when I profited, I gave them all that. So I might, you know, drill. So you hadn't done, you hadn't like pushed a button on somebody for the organization. No, that was not for the organization. what what year was that that you actually you know did a hit like a sanctioned hit a sanctioned hit was the 91 or 90 91 92 on due with aids no it was uh i can tell you the date april 23rd 91 and that was cats that was you know i have a cats the kid that had aids we whacked okay now did that uh give you a bump like why did you never end up officially getting straight went and put it on record you know told then vinny became boss vinny knew it who's vinny tell us who vinny ocean is the boss of the kappa kathy went when uh when uh they killed diamato for allegedly being gay oh now tell us about the swingers club if you watch sopranos right in the sopranos they catch veto veto in a swingers club dress johnny diamato was caught the swingers club so anthony capo ran and told rudy vinny that somebody the girlfriend told him this and like i told another guy on a show since when we listen to women and we kill the boss because a woman says it was it was was jimmy a boss johnny diamato was the boss acting boss at the time wow because jake and riggi was and then on jake and jake died of stomach cancer like in the soprano right uh who uh jackie april jackie april yeah okay wow well they all claim i was richie because there was a child molester i grabbed him and we took his eyes well blinded him let me just say that i don't want to sound like an animal no please you're talking about shooting a guy's nuts off i had a guy come to me frankie gragiola he was related to the cessars if you remember carmine sessa he was a colombo captain at flip his daughter was married to that family so he they went into the program so frankie comes to me says i need a favor there's this guy going around not less than little boy and he heard somebody really close to me i said frankie his real name was uh gragiola's last day we had boogie boy i know he's like this i said frankie what do you want me to do he said i want you to blind this motherfucker i want to make sure he don't do it to another fucking kid what's in it for me frankie he said well the guy transports coke he's always got a couple keys he's got a a van he'll be in and he delivers those zip up bags like can you buy a new suit he said it's in it'll be he hides them in there when he moves i said okay i got you give me his information we sat on him finally we got him pulling up and i put the light on like cop car we got out i had the shield everything two guys and then we told him you know you're under you know you'll be a suspect we're gonna bring you in so i had the kid anthony muscles if you see the size of him anthony giordano he's like a gorilla so we push him in the truck we take him and then anthony's going through all the boxes he said you ain't cops at that point the third guy had about that gum we ain't going right no coke but then we find his briefcase open it up you know those little square album books you flip naked boys little boys not i have zero tolerance to child molesters till today me too i always will i said to anthony muscles take hold of him and he won't do it again and it's while the car is moving well no we were parked by saint john's cemetery by that dead end street there we had him over there but that's on woodhaven boulevard that's where all the mob guys get buried so that's where he lived back over there was back up there in that division so we got him and we blinded him and anthony just kept beating him up and beating him up we took him out of car he was breathing like i told the agents about trail i don't know if he's that either way you'll be covered because you told us so so you took his eyes out as you're beating him yeah i mean he would everything was coming out wow and uh anthony was grabbing him down his private part i don't know if he ever ripped those to his pants he anthony was a treacherous guy another kid michael with me michael nelson he's he was on robbed in another murder his nickname was michael ford from uh 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was a guy named artilio bagnetto pizza guy old man bonnie heard him but we didn't do that we took i've read the truck because he had a brand new mercedes i said he played in the movie with steven seagal you know you ever see that movie uh under rage outrage under siege yeah he was one of the kids of sergio tacchini's running in small part that knows like this so i said that we're going to do is we're going to chop your mercedes up to get the money to pay the rudy in me okay no problem better yet why don't we do this we'll we'll have it we'll rent the truck u-haul and we'll total it out and you you file a claim let's call u-haul's got big money insurance you file the claim file a lawsuit i got the attorney my i got him an attorney make a nose like this i wish i could get my nose fixed we broke his nose i wish i could get my nose fixed we broke his nose i didn't see him so he's in his white mercedes and then he sees the big truck with pluto there's a guy that was around me nut job and anthony muscles my brother anthony was there i said what we're gonna do is we're gonna put him in there so he can make a claim too so he says he's seen the truck he says wait wait why don't i stay outside the car you and you hit it i get in it i said okay so took the truck i mean demolition that got in and we called the cops broke his nose at the scene he said my nose you think i'll get it fixed so we hit him broke it so i bop give him the black eyes he got his nose fixed and uh he paid rudy with the money he got his settlement from the attorney i got him he got a hundred grand i remember he told me something i forgot what he gave me 10 whatever it was i'm not sure what he gave me i'm not sure what he gave me 10 whatever it was i'm not sure what he gave me everything was a hustle like the first thing you know and rugiano said the same thing like the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is figure out how to get some illegal money correct it's fascinating like and the mob was so good you know unlike drug dealers it's pretty cut and dry like they sell themselves you guys could look at the workings of the economy and figure out how to squeeze money out of everyday normal things you know what i mean and that's why i'm still fascinated by the mob then i caught another body in the mid-90s can name anthony sani that's pluto's son pluto tell us who pluto is pluto's anthony sani senior and then this is all part of the decavalcantes well he's with me he was around me okay so you had your own crew yeah i had yeah street guys yeah okay so tell us about your crew real quick because we want to know the structure and how it relates to the family anthony sani um a kid ue cavalcat mikey sap i had about good 10 guys but solid solid guys okay and what was the and they were earners or well collision shops like mikey and kevin were chopper cars you know like we had a legitimate collision shop we did all the chasing and then uh one point um michael came with me to do another murder we'll Donnie gets locked up on me. Pluto died now. He had diabetes. house he died and you should take care of my boy you know i was taking him to house three days a week take care of my boy i'm not gonna last long as tony don't say his real name is tony don't say that he's like a you know and his son i watched i raised him so we went to do a score with an old westy guy irish guy jack maconetti and uh went out the home down new jersey big money there matter of fact uh maury poveridge lived on the block when we went to court he showed up a lot of them and there was a diamond guy coming home we're supposed to take him we got in the house wasn't there the car was outside all of a sudden we're going through the house looking for you know where the jewelry is and all he walks in on us so i told him get down now look at my face don't don't look at my face he says get out of my house you're here to rob my house so we took off we get to the garden state parkway roadblock they got us and uh anthony was in jail and uh couldn't get bail 75 000 was if i put it up it's not gonna look good because when i got arrested said sirocco and brooklyn crotty's are apprehended in home down new jersey so i couldn't put up so he had a brother named gussy who knows brother's name was gussy he owned new utrick florist by my mom and his hospital i don't know if you know so we went to gussy first i went to frankie giuliano he was a captain his father his brother was a captain in the gambino family frankie was a wise guy in the gambino family so i was close with frankie i said frankie you got a guy around you gussy his nephew's in jail he won't bail him out what yeah i got pinched with him on that case no problem come on you want to talk to go i know the kids are junky or drunk i smoke he's gussy you're not gonna okay frankie said tonight we come back we firebomb his florist so we made a cocktail we firebombed his florist on 48th street new utrick is that spenna hatton no brooklyn okay invited my mom and his hospital and uh so then all of a sudden next day gussy calls me up no i'm not gonna trust anything he's saying he said i want you to know i bailed my nephew out i just thank you guys that's nice of you i don't know if he's wired or not anthony gets home not knowing he flipped in there hmm i don't know it first court date he don't show up now you know what happens they pull your bail i get home i'm hot he lived in my basement anthony why didn't you go to court oh leave me alone i i told i called him up court told him i didn't feel good it's a monday morning why didn't you call me so man he says to me leave me alone i'm starting to sleep i want to split his head open right there picked up and i hit him boom he was as big as his father didn't even phase him hit him again then his mother heard the script she come down she please leave my baby alone okay next court date he don't show up rudy i tell rudy rudy said so he makes a calls he's got jersey connections the kid's bad get him out of the house because at that point rudy owned that building and just smashed who was he flipping on me and then but here it was i used it for collecting money envelopes nothing violent like all right go see casal jewelers go see this one goes go pick up the envelope sherlock money so he could hurt rudy now that's caused me a problem you bring me cancer you're gonna die so now he should give it him so we did when you get the call with me we didn't come near me no more so i put a team together i gave them the pistol was a 25 caliber and uh they got him in the car i brought him to owlhead park and they shot him and killed him there and he was the one living in your basement and he watched him grow up the kid it does bother me let me tell you i'll be honest with you you know when i go to church i still light a candle for him you know it's just but it was like when your boss tells you to do something you don't you're gone and that was back in the day when you if you flipped you really would get done in oh without a doubt yeah nowadays they hang out with rats right yeah they go back to the neighborhoods yeah they're making youtube content yeah i mean that was just another one it was another one with a raymond giordano he was around joe watts we had a book making dispute joe watts came down sat with rudy they put us both at the table and raymond just did not want to give in and he had an attitude joe watts and rudy says you know what all these kids seem to come to an agreement won't you do this you two handle as that's my pleasure i left there now the club is on second street his wife's family's on sec sixth street so i watch when he leaves he goes to sixth street i run home i get pluto pluto lived upstairs for me at times still alive i was telling him we gotta do something let's go he loved it pluto loved it we're sitting on his house i know exactly where he lives this time i've been there a hundred times pulls up the block he has sun in his car so i was in a life in his 20s bookmaker too soon as he got out of the car we open fire on we didn't hit him we didn't hit them the next day i get called to the club by rudy joe watts is there again listen it's over now and it came up with a number and he paid me hmm that's when disputes really the boss really did 80s 90s if you didn't have a gun you in trouble for sure now they don't want no more violence in the mob they ain't gonna last right no no way because how we're not banks what are we gonna send you a letter we're gonna ruin your credit the only one way i collected the money well i heard that the detroit families because they still got good you know sports sports books and they're still making money out of that if a guy if a guy doesn't pay you it's just let him go i'll just scare them shake them up slap them but as far as birdies they don't want no more with sports books unless you have it's not like shylock and where i came out of my pocket to give loan you money and you don't want to pay me now i'm really out with a sports book we just it's just verbal it's just a contract between two people and if you don't pay me i didn't lose anything i know it's the principle of it i've argued about it with a lot of mob guys i know it's the principle of it i've argued about it with a lot of mob guys it's not it's not the principle when you win you want to get paid so you start to feel like us he took a shot at you when you won was your money there when you're lost you come up lame right of course if you already paid him if you've already paid the guy when he hit and then now he hit you don't want to pay he doesn't want to pay you i get that but it's like it doesn't seem like as much of a loss as oh i gave you a hundred thousand dollars and now you ran off absolutely i know what you mean a lot of times i turn my book banking money into loan shop all right you can't pay me the three thousand to worry about it you're gonna pay me 90 a week three points i'll charge in that little bit until you pay me by three thousand right nothing comes off the top i don't give a what it is so you would just turn if a guy couldn't pay you for a gambling we turned into shark money yeah that was good business shy locking i loved it how much money did you have on the street at your height well rudy and joe had over i had about three of mine 300. wow and who were these people uh taking money borrowing money just regular guy whenever you get the known as a loan shark and rudy and joe was the biggest loan sharks everybody knows that and they know that they come there and borrow money and there was small ones where you say yeah this guy needs five grand give it to them you handle it because i would take the money of rudy for one point and charge them two three of a small one four or five a thousand fifty a week to give me my thousand nothing comes off the top right so you would actually use rudy's bank to lend out to your people yeah well that's what banks do they borrow from other banks and then just charge a point yeah at that point rudy really trust me with everything now we're going five six years never missed a payment no no money was outside if we settle up in the club and these are legitimate businesses small businesses one elegant limousine at howard beach that's what got the father john got his senior mad at me when because the guy named bob stanley owned um the limousine company and i dated his daughter kim and he kept saying can you borrow me 50. he was a general gambler 50 50 50. before you know it he was at 300. rudy says enough's enough joe smash went over there and told him that uh so they ran to bobby uh god he again he said what is this kid doing in our neighborhood i own this neighborhood they shouldn't be doing business in this neighborhood so rudy got that squashed then there was another one jimmy amico crossbay boulevard general gambler i i had him up to 2 250. and he he tried to run the junior and junior send uh i think bobby boriello again to the blue fountain diner and they sat over and rudy said listen it's not jimmy's money it's mine he's a captain okay bobby bello looked at me he says i know this is yours so he paid up yeah so a lot they paid it and they made him pay him so jimmy amico made a statement to one of the wise guys joe smash joe specials i don't care you get my Fucking money. He's, Joe, I ain't afraid of nobody. I got a shotgun in my truck. Anybody wants to come near me? Oh, yeah, Joe said? We'll see. So after the sit-down, so Joe asked him, listen, I'm a friend. Means a wise guy, that means. This guy spoke to me out of turn. So they says, give him a beating, but don't kill him. Okay. So I lured him downtown Brooklyn on Carroll Street. Pulls up on his motorcycle. He says, well, I'm glad everything's straightened out. We're friends again. And we went to work on him. Joe Smash, at his age, cracked him good with a bat in the back of the head. And we just went to work on him. There was a kid, Ronald Holmes. We all just went to work on him, put him in the hospital. Then he pulled up on his motorcycle, Holly Davis Sports. Nice one. I kept it. Hank joined BJ's Wholesale Club the day he became a father of 30. I coach football. Now Coach Hank saves up to 25% off grocery store prices. 30 pounds of pasta. Three cases of protein bars. 75 cents. Sports drinks. And that's just pregame. He knows teamwork. And BJ's knows savings. This is your home, Coach. Home of the Save. Open soon. Limited time offer. New members only. BJ's. Home of the Save. Who do you think Anthony Soprano, Tony Soprano is based off? Vinny Palermo. Absolutely. Okay. So not Rudy. We had Wiggles, Strip Club Vinny had. Where was that? In Queens. On Queens Boulevard. So that was supposed to be the Bada Bing. It was actually called Wiggles. Okay. So and did Vinny come after Rudy? No. When the boss died. When you say the boss, who do you mean? D'Amato, the one they killed. Right. Look at me. They didn't kill that guy for being in the swingers club. And I told this and I'll tell it again and again. The feds, whoever like it. They wanted him out of there. There was a guy named Corky they wanted in charge. Rudy loved Corky. Vinny loved Corky. Johnny D'Amato was a general gambler, cokehead. So when they heard his girlfriend tell Anthony Capo, oh, he's half gay, he goes to the swingers club. And they took it and ran with that and killed him. They were looking for a reason. And then when I went on another show. So hang on, I'm sorry. Because I want to stick with people that don't understand this life. I'm trying to make it, put it in layman's terms. So after Johnny D'Amato, gets whacked for allegedly being half a fruit, who becomes boss then? Vinnie Palermo. Vinnie Palermo. What a coincidence, right? Right. And he's one of the shooters. Wow. No, D'Amato was Anthony Capo and Victor DiCiera, a.k.a. Whitey. They picked him up at his house, and they shot him. They brought him to Rudy's garage. They chop him up? Chop him up. They brought him up to Pennsylvania, New York, somewhere they buried him. They never found his body. Wow. And he was just missing. Signing the undertale, whoever it was that did it. And he was just missing for years. Never found him. Still never found him. 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At shopify.com slash Mitchell, my last name. Start your free trial at shopify.com slash Mitchell. Once again, that's shopify.com slash M-I-T-C-H-E-L-L. There are a lot of cases like that of mob hits where guys would just disappear. Their wives would call them, where's my Vinny? Where's my Rudy? And they would just be gone. We don't know. We're going to find out. Don't worry. Don't worry. You know, they give the bullshit story. Don't worry. When we find out, whoever did this is going to pay for it. And so after Johnny's out of the picture, Vinny, who was, was he a captain? Captain. Him and Rudy were equal. Okay, gotcha. At that point, Vinny, there was a three-man panel at first who was going to take it. Vinny wound up taking over. Did he have to be violent and commit any other hits, or did they just vote him in? No, but he did order a hit on Charlie Maggiore from Staten Island. He sent a couple guys out there, let him get the job done. He lived next door to a state trooper. So when they see the cop car in the driveway or whatever, they get all nervous. They're like, I don't know, Vinny, this cop car's always there, blah, blah, blah, blah. So this guy, Vinny, tell us about him. You know, obviously, Chase, David Chase based Tony Soprano's character off of this guy. What was he like compared to the more well-known bosses from the five? The five families, you know, the Gottis, the, you know, you name it, the head of the Bananos. What was he like? Vinny was a selfish, greedy bastard. Ain't no solid doubt about it. I'll say it to his face, too. We did a score real quick. It was a payroll heist, and I was tipped off. There was a chicken plant. A lot of Hispanics worked there. So, you know, they got to pay him cash. So they get a check. They sign it. And the Jews people. You know what a chicken plant would? It was on Utica Avenue or something. So we sat on the kid, sure enough, come down, got off the train station by 86th Street, come down the steps with a duffel bag, go in the bank, go behind the counter. They let him in. That's how frequent it was. We sat on it one week, two weeks, everything consistent. Thursday, same time, blah, blah. Just looked like a regular kid in a denim jacket. So, and now, I remind you, my hook was in the bank. A girl. A girl tipping me off. Wow. So, what do we do? We sit on it. Now, I go back to Rudy. I said, I got a score I'm going to do. And I told him about it. Take Vinny with you. Vinny was a captain at the time. Vinny's good at this stuff. Okay. I take Vinny with me. I sit on it. He said, yeah, next week we'll take him. So I got Anthony Muscles waiting in the train station for the game. Okay. He's coming down the stairs now. Me and Vinny. We're watching. I can't be near there because the bank people know me. I pick up the girl, take her to lunch. So, I stood a block away. Just watch. Enough where anybody interfered, I had a pistol. I would have took care of it. And you guys have radios? Is that how you're communicating? Yeah. Okay. Radio, yeah. We got scanners mostly to hear if there's a cop call. Right. Cop's heading to a bank, you know, whatever. This kid comes out of the bank. Come out of the thing. Vinny's watching it. Vinny's walking his dog. That's how good he was. Comes out. Goes up the top of the stairs. Tommy got to the top of the stairs. Anthony Muscles, about your height. About putting about 50 more pounds on your muscle. He hit this poor kid. Kid went down the stairs. Bag's laying there. He's out cold. Vinny comes over. Picks up the bag. Gets in his car. Picks up his dog. I said, yeah. We got it. Next day, he comes to the club. Rudy says, what did we get? He says, 72,000. It was 111 inches. Change. To tell her, she said, they questioned me and questioned me. I know it was in there. It was 111 and change. But I didn't let her know to the extent I used her for, you know. So Vinny, again, gone 40 grand right off the top. Right. That's the kind of guy he was. You just picked up a bag. You didn't even hit the guy. You just picked him up and fucking were gone in 20 seconds. That's what I'm saying. So now, when I'm away, Rudy dies. I get pinched January 23rd with Nicky Carrazzo. Lenny DeMaria. They're Gambino bosses. I got pinched on a case with them. What happened? What was the case? Hijacking. There was an undercover agent with a CI, Sonny Bamboo. You ever see the movie Goodfellas? Come on. You know the guy comes over and wants his check when Joe Pesci said, you know. And he hit him in the head with the bottle. Yeah. The owner of that thing, his real name was Sonny Bamboo. That was the guy that wore the white, but not the actor. Okay, so he was a club owner. And you guys, obviously. You guys had some hooks in him. So, yeah. So, Lenny sends him, comes to the club with him. Not the agent. Well, you know, we didn't know he was an agent, the other guy. Comes to the club with him. He says, Rudy, do me a favor. I need you to lend this guy $10,000. He's been around me for years. Brother was brewing all the guy to kill. He's good for gold for it. I don't want to give it to him because I got a long relationship with him. You know how that is. You lend a friend money. What happens? We said, no problem. He said, I'm going to let Jimmy deal with him. So, I give him the 10. I tell him, I'm going to meet you every week. He says, listen, if you ever get to swag stuff, I got everything coming out of Kennedy Airport. I said, that's my thing. Lenny says, Jimmy, do business with him. I give you permission. We got a warehouse. Donna Karen dress, a main dollar load. It's that. Okay, yeah. So, tell us about that real quick before you talk about the case. Tell us about the merchandise, the heisted. We got everything coming out of it. But who knew the feds are giving it to us? No shit. So it's, they're setting up the hijackers. That was just stolen stuff they had in confiscation, like from, and they're giving it to Sonny to bring to us or have us go take it somewhere, get us on tape. The whole warehouse was bugged. Wow. Plus they had a social club a block away, fully bugged. Wow. So you guys were selling, you thought you were buying stolen merch from people that were hijacking it from JFK. Buying stolen merchandise, and then he'll tell me, there's a truck, come and take it. We take it. It was all set up. Fuck. You know, to me, it was a trap, but how do you lend him the money? And then he actually says, I'm having a party out in the Hamptons. I'm bringing my brother, Lorne, we're going to the Hamptons. I need a key of coke. I said, Sonny, I don't deal with drugs. Jimmy, you know everybody. So I pick up the phone, this kid, Tech. Big drug dealer in South Brooklyn. I said, Tech, I need a favor. I need you to come see me. I'm not doing nothing wrong, I think. I'm not selling. So he leaves it with me. Sonny comes, brings his brother-in-law in. Why don't you bring my brother-in-law, Steve? Steve Brous is his name, FBI agent. But I don't know. He's telling me he's his brother-in-law. And this guy's been a street guy all his life. It's not like he fell out of the tree. So he didn't brought the agent of his brother-in-law. We believe them. He's betting with us, everything. Chris Colombo, he got mad at me now because I brought an agent to him. I didn't. I didn't bring it. I got fooled, too. I went to jail for Tech. He didn't go to jail. So, in a long story short, they sweep this all up. January 23rd, 1997, 47 arrested. Wow. And so you went down with, who was in that case? The Gaudi people, you? Those Gambino people, there was a little crazy guy, Danny Rizzo. He was a wise guy. There was 47 of us, but a lot of civilians. One of them was a kid. Sonny's brother, Danny, that I shot, Sonny I shot, his brother was in there. Okay. So we get in there, they separate, they move me to MCC, when we're all in MDC. So my lawyer, Jimmy DiPietro, says, Your Honor, I can't quite grasp. They didn't give the guy bail. Why'd they transfer him? I can't quite, he says, there's a reason, Block said, Judge Block. He says, because there's too many cooperators, this, that. Well, my client ain't cooperating, he shouldn't have been the one moved. Danny Burns flipped, told him about the shooting, his brother. So Feds had it all coming in. Right. So a lot of these cases, it's interesting because, you know, a mobster, an associate could get picked up for a hijacking case. And to save himself, he'll talk about a body that he did 10 years ago. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And it seems like all of those, all of those murders eventually got solved. Just by informants who years later. You know what the Feds want to do? They want to solve murders. So they look good. And the prosecutors. Hey, we solved 27 murders. That's all it's about, especially election time. Yeah. It seems like the mafia guys specifically got the best deals from all the organized crime in America who's cooperated. It seems like you guys got the best deals. Because, I mean, these acts of brutality, taking a guy's eyes out, all due respect. I'm just looking at it. You're Chamba Lester. Yeah, I know. I know. I'm just thinking about all the people we've interviewed, from Dom, from the Bananos, Dom Sacali, to Sammy, you know, to the rest of them. You know, you guys have all have multiple bodies on you. It's like drug dealers couldn't get those kind of deals. You know, cartel guys couldn't get those kind of deals. And honestly, I actually, you know, one of the agents, I says, why is these other guys in the WITSEC unit? We're not, I'm in the WITSEC unit now. That guy doing 20 years. Beckskin Rudy, he was one of the top guys. And when I went in there, he said, oh, you're Italian? You're going home in a couple of years. Now, I remind you, Vinny was in them. There's five only units. There's only like 40 guys in the unit. And some of them are less. Vinny goes home in two and a half years. Anthony Rotondo, captain, he went home in two years. Anthony Capo went home in three years. I'm there five years already. I said, enough is enough. You know, you got to remember, I wasn't indicted on these charges. No, they knew about it. It was only a matter of time. But before you're indicted, my lawyer made it clear to me, you got a better deal. Because they ain't got to work as hard. So, I told you, I got picked up June 8th. 97. 97. I flipped December 23rd, two days before Christmas. I signed my cooperation agreement. And then the day after Christmas, they just came. Up to the floor. I'm in the MDC. Nobody knows I flipped. Or maybe someone suspected it. And they come up to MDC. Lockdown, lockdown. They took me right out. Everybody started screaming. They knew it. But it seems like, who are you ratting on? What do you know? Who are the targets that they want you to give up? Gotti. Because he tried, plotted to kill me. Gene Gotti? John Gotti. John, okay. John Gotti Jr. Okay. Because I had beefs with him. Indisputable. Okay. And is he in? But then a guy on TV said he didn't know me. But then when Jerry Capizzi dropped an article at 0-4 that he was charged with conspiracy to murder Jimmy Easy, then he said, oh, maybe I do. Why did John Gotti Jr. want you dead? What happened was, it was the Sherlock problem with his father and them. And pretty much, I was told, just lay low in Howard Beach. Leave it alone. But I sold fireworks for over 20 years. I was one of the biggest in New York. I had trucks come from there. I did. Out from end of April, beginning of May, I had warehouses. They're coming in. I'm bringing them in. I'm bringing out a lot. I'm bringing tons. So he reaches out to me. My father lived on Cohancy Street. Around the corner was a guy named Jimmy D'Ambrosio or Michael D'Ambrosio. They're brothers. I forgot which one was there. They call me around the corner, Jr. I says, let me talk to you. He says, listen, what are you doing? Now you're back. John. My brother, Anthony, sells a little bit of fireworks. And when I say a little bit, you know, who is he hurting? You know, he ain't. Well, it stops here. Unless he pays 5,000. What? I'm selling them for Rudy. By saying that to a wise guy, you're letting him know nothing you can do now. It's the nice way of saying it. But I said it sarcastically. And remind you, when I went over there, I already knew I had no love with the Gaminos. God, he's. So I had a.38 in my back. Hammer back. Revolver. He didn't want to pick up his hands. I would have blew his brains all over the streets. And everybody knows it. Anybody in the street knew me back then. You got to remember, I'm off the streets 21 years. So all these young kids want to get on social media and blast me. Do your homework first. I pled to these charges. So we had the beef there. Rudy called me up. He said, listen, they're reaching out to me again. What happened? I told him. He said, lay low. I'm telling you, lay low. I said, no, fuck him. So I carried a pistol everywhere I went. So basically, you were just selling. You were just operating on their turf. Yeah, but I did it for 20 years. Nobody had a problem. But the kid, D.M. Brosey, must have told him, we're losing a lot of business. The kid, Jimmy, you know, he's one of the biggest. Now, in that era, did you really have to have permission, depending on what family you were part of, if you wanted to operate in a different family's neighborhood? Were you technically supposed to have permission? Or was that not really enforced? No, like Rudy put on record. No. He's with me now. Any problems, he's with me. At that point, you're not supposed to touch me or do nothing to me. And I'm allowed to do whatever I want because I'm doing it for Rudy, even though it's mine. But I still kick up to him. I see. So it's not really about the territory. It's about having permission from the family. You grew up in Howard Beach. You're 15 years old. You knew him. And then you were with a Brooklyn crew, Jersey crew, but based out of Brooklyn. So that, I think, agitated him. I see. So you were, through all of your hustling, and money-making, you still did have to kick up to the made guys. Well, yeah. Like Rudy, I put this money out in the street for him. You know, this, that. Everything, like I did a score, took a truckload of Panasonic camcorders. The guy, Bob Stanley, had a Jewish guy, Cy Rosenthal, around him. Got balling off me. He worked for an electronic company that supplied all the big sales. So he got so jammed up in Atlantic City. And he said, "I need you to come up with a score for me." And, you know, Bob said, "Well, you're in money, right?" Yeah. So I went to his site, "You got to come up with this money." Now, remember, he lived in Syosset, Roslyn, average home was $3,000,000. He had money. So he says, "I got a score to do for you." He's at Harrods Marina Casino in Burgatine. He says, "I'm supposed to send them 450-something camcorders. I need you to intercept it. Show up the day before with a truck." So I went to his site. He said, "I'm supposed to send them 450-something camcorders. Show up the day before with a truck." I'm here at Harrods Marina. So the guy at the gate gave me all the time, "No, we're delivering that tomorrow." "No, we need it today. We're doing a big ad there. We're giving a giveaway." So Sy comes and asks, "What's the problem? Who are you?" "We'll play the game." "You sure you want to pick them up?" "Let them haul it. We're not taking nothing off the other. Don't worry about it." So we load, back the truck up. Old man Jack McEnany, old Westie, James Coleman, the crazy guy. Back the truck up. They loaded it on, off we went. went back then they were like the portable ones when they first came out you might be too young no and the little flip the little screen that flips the screen that flips to the traveling case those are hot panasonic pv510s they were they were online for like 2400 i had 450 something of them and so then and what do you do now that you got 450 cameras how do you sell them on the black market okay what i do is i go to guys i could trust that own no like one of them was bob stanley because i was still talking to before he took his limousine company because i came down i saw i came down on him too and we had some in his basement i had some in my father's basement you know i was putting them all over and so you just kind of distribute them to people that you know they're not even reported stolen yet right i think you know so i got a day or two to get to you you know and i did i got them then i put word out and i was selling them and how much you sell them for if they retail for 2500 how much you were my good friend a thousand okay but not 15 on 18 on it wasn't so much the price of them when they first came out they were demand supply and demand they were hard to get so that's like a half a million dollars worth of electronic no i about 900 000 that's what they value the school well when it came out they valued at 900 970 whatever right but you guys sell them on the street for whatever half paying everybody and some i gave away like rudy i gave one joe smash i gave one my sister i gave one my dad i gave one which he used it and so at the end of it i think i walked over about after paying everybody cleared about 600 and how much did you did the guy who hooked you up with the score originally owe you well that's the thing he owed me like two something so we had to pay that to rudy but that's the point though is like you probably through your shy locking business it puts you on to so many other scores and now you're a money guy they look at you as a money guy i need 10 grand jimmy easy's got it i need 20 grand i go jimmy easy today's episode is sponsored by quo i use quo all the time you guys and if you own a business listen up you know that feeling when you're juggling five things at once and your phone rings and you just let it go that could have been your next best customer that's why today's episode is brought to you by quo spelled q u o the business phone system built so you never miss an opportunity quo puts all your calls texts and voicemails in one place so anyone on your team can see the full history and respond fast it's the number one rated phone business system on g2 trusted by over 90 000 businesses set it up in minutes on any device keep your existing number and add teammates as you grow no it no hassle plus the optional built-in ai agent handles after hours calls answers questions and even books appointments so you never miss a lead money is on the line always say hello with quo q u o try quo for free plus get 20 off your first six months when you go to quo.com slash the connect that's q u o dot com slash the connect so having money and being known as a money guy opened you up to so much more money and rudy was a big money guy everybody to know joe smash he was a very conservative wise guy you know who was joe smash was he did he make the he was a wise guy with the columbus okay so the the sopranos portrays the family as kind of kind of like i don't know how to i don't know how to explain it like it portrays them as having beef with the new york families and and maybe not being as sophisticated did were there i don't know if they're that accurate because honestly john god he had a problem with a guy named fred weiss and he reached out to us he said do me a favor he was in he was involved in like the garbage there was a strike or something we couldn't dump and our trucks we need to dump you know what i let us dump and then it was some uh another beef with him with a medical waste it sounded like the disposal of the needles was thrown in the wrong place somebody got a big ticket because i am so john had a little argument with him then the guy got arrested so when he got arrested then he switched lawyers after three months into the case that's usually a sign the guy went dead right because so at that point john reached out to the jersey crew us and uh he says do me a favor because john was our backbone he really was and we got him they they got him uh vinnie palermo killed him and uh jimmy gallo the two shooters there was uh victor dici everywhere there was a lot of drivers there and all that backup cars you know protect them in case there's a cop coming to the scene after the shots we drive right into them right after the shots we drive right into them right after the shots we drive right into them right of course when you say john was the backbone you talk about john gotti he was the back he was the backbone of your cavacanthes yes okay explain that john riggy was the original boss when i started coming around john was close with john two johns they called him the eagle so when he went away uh jake was in charge died of stomach cancer colon cancer i forgot what it was and then johnny diamato they put him acting until they decide he was jammed up so when i made a statement on one of these shows that that's that's bullshit he did not get killed because he a woman said he might be gay because that is it is that's that to the bob so they ran with that and when when when this agent seamus you might have seen the interview on hollywood wade when seamus did it he's in in hollywood wade says you know i interviewed a guy jimmy easy i don't know if you know him yeah i don't he says uh he brought up a valid point since when do we talk to women or like i said why are you having that conversation with my girlfriend about sex and swingers and this and that he said he's right in that fraction that wasn't the only reason because there's a gambling problem and coke but he didn't say anything say that on there but that's what it was the gambling problem he had the decapitantes he's borrowing money for the families to pay his debts oh so really all the captains are and the whole family's in charge you know you know responsible for the money that he's borrowing that's a good that's a good reason then so he said that was the second reason so that's when they said rudy ferron my boss and uh vinnie and them they said you know but what did john gaudy have to do with the decapitantes like did he have influence within the family yeah like the way in the show um what's his name johnny sack had influence within the sopranos yeah okay the eagle now you gotta remember just going now we're going back 40 years so i was just met the eagle so i don't know why how they developed their relationship you know you don't x certain things you just don't x you know and then when jake died and then the amado took over they didn't like him so they summoned him to like they needed to see him somewhere so he sends anthony capo to pick him up and victor whitey did share it got him in cars in the back seat and vinnie turned around shot him in the chest and then victor said he's still moving hit him again hit him again they get him to rudy's house they cut him up in the garage and this is who who they really for all my boss okay and he was a captain yeah and why do they want him gone because they thought he was gay that's all you're talking about this is the jimmy hit this is the johnny johnny the model yes they thought i get confused myself sometimes yeah well he's got a brother named there's johnny and frankie two brothers um tell me about the garbage was the decapitante and yourself were you guys into the garbage business rudy had a company named um that she owns that's your own carding and and if you watch sopranos at barone carding yeah right it's too coincidental right exactly now did you have any garbage uh money coming in no no what do you think the biggest money was in brooklyn was it shy locking was a sports book back then they didn't have these sports apps no of course not and then not only that the sports apps don't give you credit right the general gambler will swear that he's gonna pay you you know how it is i had one guy name was fast eddie tell you a quick story if there was a twin you were him big tall skinny guy so this guy never bets horses in my office i have my own office you know my own bookmaking office so he calls in he always bets basketball football 30 40 hours a game that's it so one day i come in the office and and i see eddie leach we record our conversation everything and we stamp the ticket and this keeps the clerk honest so He can't back this. He bet a horse $50, wins, pays $14. It's okay. I'm looking at the next day of the paper. It was like a holiday weekend. They ran a 12 instead of one. Holstein got pushed back to 12. Bowhead. You know, it was like a day before Thanksgiving, whatever it was. It was a holiday. So he knew that, but he didn't think the office knew it, and they didn't. He called in a bet, first race, and was reminded to go off 1 o'clock. We think. Called before 1. What's the betting? $50. I said, Eddie Leach, he's getting all this money. What are you winning on? He bet a horse. And I looked into it. Post time was 12 o'clock. He bet at $12.50 something. So it doesn't count. He knew the results already. Okay. That I don't tolerate. Right. Didn't say nothing to him. When we went to meet him that day, I get in the car. I said, let me ask you something, Eddie. Do I look stupid to you? He said, what do you mean? Do you hear me? I'll tell you what I mean. Took the gun out. I put it in his belly. You ever take a fucking shot at me again, I'll blow your fucking head off. You hear me? He started crying. Please, please, please. I won't do it again. I won't do it. And then I just split his head open. I said, now remember, don't you ever take a shot at me again. You know, he had the general gamblers. Yeah, he had to bust heads. And then you got guys. I had a kid under Nicky Carrazzo as a captain and well-respected with the game. He knows. He was under John. He had a nephew bet with me. I don't know if it's Nicky's nephew. Runs up. He wins one week. Wins another week. Third week, lose like six grand, five grand, whatever it was. So he said, listen, I got the money, but my uncle wants to pay you so he can tell you. Don't take no more bets from him. I said, OK. I mean, like an idiot. Tell me where to go. I don't know. I don't know. I heard Nicky Carrazzo's name years ago. But I didn't know when I walked in. That was who I was meeting. He says. Who the fuck are you with? Who are you to come in here and demand money? Sir, I was told to come in here by your nephew that you wanted to tell me don't take more of my bets from him. Well, I'm telling you right now, you ain't getting paid. You want to get paid, you have a good fella. Come get the money. And then Joe Special already went down there and got the money. See, that's what I'm saying. You got to be with somebody. Yeah, because they're not going to pay you the extortion money or whatever they owe you. If I wasn't with nobody, I would have never got that book making money. So. Speaking of that, was there still extortion rackets by the time you were knocking around? Not legitimate people. Not me at least and not Rudy or John. No, they weren't like that. OK. Yeah. Like, we had collision shops that were cutting up cars. And even if they weren't cutting up cars, there was always beefs with the tow trucks. Who got there first? They're fighting. They're always with somebody. So we put them on record with us. And then they would pay me like $200, $300 a week back then. Right. But the beauty. Like, somebody else asked me, but what kind of money is it? It's not so much the money. You got your foot in the door. Right. Somebody backs into my car, fix it. Right. If I want to meet somebody, meet me at the collision shop. It's like having a small piece of ownership. Yeah. Yeah. And did you guys have, was there like, you know, small money like that you would shake down, like jerk off parlors or drug dealers that you shook down? Drug dealers. So you did shake down drug dealers. Anybody doing something illegal, and I know about it, and he wasn't with nobody, I'd go after him. Really? So you shook down guys getting money from selling coke and heroin and shit? Yeah. Black guys? Puerto Rican guys? Mixed. We got a couple of the ones, yeah. There were also Italians that were selling drugs too. Yeah. And this was in your turf, Brooklyn. Brooklyn, Queens. Like, if you tip me off, like I had real quick, Tommy Caratta. Not Tommy Caratta, not the mania, you know, Tommy Caratti. Not him. Tommy Caratta, his name was. He was from Sheepshead Bay, by the Randazzo's Climb Bar. He said, Jimmy, I need your help. I got this kid coming. He's a big coke dealer. I know where he's picking the drugs up. He's on his way home. I need you to take him. I was like 19 years old. I said, yeah. So I got out of the car with a pistol to him, gave me everything. He didn't fight. Get back in the car, take off. Fucking bag of mushrooms. Those ones you elucidate on? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I told the kid, Tommy. I said, I'll make you take these things for what you did to me. Yeah. You know, that one we took. Then we took this guy, Cuba. He's a Cuban guy. We took him on Ocean Avenue. We took a bunch of them. Then we took another one, old man Jack. He was smart. He would come to that. That was his one day. And it was his drug deal. He lived on Ocean Park. St. John's Cemetery, he sold it at St. John's College. He went there. And he was selling steroids, coke, heroin. Back then, I think it might have been ecstasy, too. I don't remember. This is 35 years ago. He lived in an apartment building. You know how hard it is to kick a door down in an apartment building, everybody there. I said, Jack, how are we going to get this guy? What if I lower you down from the roof? I'm afraid of heights. He said, I got another idea. He said, meet me. Let me sit on, get his schedule. So he says, all right, come with me, dress in jeans. Like what? Like we're cops. OK. Jack gives me the vest, the chain. Bang on the door. He looks through the peephole. What do you want? Police, open up. For what? I didn't do nothing wrong. Well, we got a picture. He shows a picture of a girl dead. Jack had all the tricks of the trip. This girl was last seen coming out of the apartment. You don't want to talk about it? Oh, we're going to get a search warrant and come in there. No, no, hold on. He's thinking, I didn't do nice. I don't talk about it. I don't talk to these guys. We got in there. We took them. It was a good one. It was a good score? Yeah. What did you guys take out? There was about a key of coke, about a third a key of heroin, and jewelry, guns, money. And let me tell you something. The guy was a big, muscle-bound kid. He was handcuffed. I start walking through the rooms when Jack's asking about the girl. He said, wait a minute. What is this guy doing? And he's like, wait a minute. Are you sure? You're cops. So I come out. He said, you know what? Shut the fuck up. You're not going to jail. You're being robbed. This Jewish kid, you know what he said? Oh, God, thank you. My mother, father would have disowned me. Oh, my God, I can't go to jail. Please, take what you want. Don't hurt me. He showed us where everything was. I coach football. Now, Coach Hank saves up to 25% off grocery store prices. 30 pounds. 30 pounds of pasta. 75 sports drinks. He knows teamwork. Home of the Save. Join for just $20 at BJ's.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer. New members only. BJ's. Home of the Save. Yeah, better you than the cops. That's how I always felt. And then Jack had a connection with a guy named Whitey Bulger. I don't know if you know him. Whitey? Yeah. Whitey from Massachusetts. Jack's Irish. Yeah, that all one click. So Jack would say, listen, we're not going to sell this stuff in the neighborhood. You know, we're in the street. Hey, somebody just, that's mine. Right. Same thing with Julie Heist. We bring it up to Whitey. So Jack knew him. Like everybody said, did you meet him? I met him, but I didn't do business, talk to him. It's like your hook. But I stood there until he says, I'll give you X amount of dollars. And then I'll walk away and let Jack talk to him. And those guys were big time drug dealers. His crew. Yeah, we brought it up there and nobody knew. 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No dispensary lines. No awkward. No deeper conversations. Plus, every product comes with a 100-day satisfaction guarantee. Listeners get 20% off their first order with promo code CONNECT. So head to Mood.com, find the product that matches exactly what you're looking for, and use code CONNECT at checkout to save 20% on your first order. 20%. That's Mood.com/Connect. So you had fences for all your stolen goods. What about the jewelry? This is fascinating to me. When we robbed jewelry guys, I don't go in a jewelry store and rob them. I take them coming home, coming from the Diamond District on his way to his jewelry store, because I know he upped up, re-upped. So you're talking about like Jews. And we had these two Jewish guys that would tip us off. The beards, those kind of Jews. Sheetics. I'll tell you another, remind me when we get on that one, I'll tell you another story we did. And we would take, he would tell us who, and we'd take them. So you don't take them in the city, in the Diamond District. You get them where it's right, bump his car, whatever. One we took in his driveway, getting out of his driveway. So you're stalking them from the diamond. We're getting tipped. He just left with the diamonds. 47th Street all the way back to Brooklyn. To wherever he lived. One guy was in Mill Basin. Which is where? Brooklyn. Brooklyn, okay. Then there was another one, Hasidu Jew. When you brought that up, it reminded me. You had to be at that. Don't get it twisted. Those guys are fucking crooks, too. Oh, I know. I'll tell you another story about that, but remind me. And Jack grabs this guy. We get him in a cab. Well, he called the cab, and we got him in the cab. When he got in the cab, Jack got in there with him. And we had a guy driving the cab, and we're driving. Jack told him, he's got a briefcase in his hand. I want to let go of this damn briefcase. I'll die before I let be robbed. Jack said, are you kidding me? Jack shot him by the leg. That's just a warning now. I'm going to give him the suitcase. Jack grabbed him by his hair, his beard. When you said beard, when he grabbed it, he heard crunch. Lifted it up, the sack of diamonds. Oh, we got a couple hundred thousand there. Right up the white, he bought it. Hey, also a trope in The Sopranos. If you saw the first, that was a storyline in the first season of Sopranos. They're shaking down these Hasidic Jews for a hotel that they own. Because they're in for a bunch of money, and they try to make this guy, you know, give it up. And he's like, I'd rather die. Oh, they are legitimate gangsters, but without violence. They come to us for violence. I'll tell you another story, one of them. The guy Gus, before I burned his florist down. New Utrecht Avenue is all Hasidics. Yeah. That's like, um. Uh. What? What neighborhood is that? That's at Crown Heights. That's, uh, like New Utrecht Avenue. My mom and his hospital, 48th Street, all over there is all Hasidics. So, I have to go in for a stress test. I have no insurance. You know, we don't have insurance. I had the Methodist Hospital. Rudy had it locked down. Everything I did, my cousin was the head administrator. My bell's up. So, now I got to go to St. Francis in Roslyn, hot center of the East. I got no insurance. Pluto said, "My brother, Gus, he's got a friend." So, I meet him there. He's got the seat of Judea, makes me fill the paper out, Blue Cross Blue Shield. I pay him. He said, "What about for my time?" I said, "What do you want?" He said, "$500 more." "Okay." I gave it to him. A week later, got my card. Member since two years. Wow. I mean, that's how crooked they are. Sophisticated criminals. They're white collar gangsters. Right. Which is. And they're so disgusting. And dirty looking. But. They smell. Yeah. Big time. Big time. Imagine getting on a flight with a bunch of those guys. No. I wouldn't do it. I'll make a move. I'll make a move. I don't. I got OCD. He won't move. Yeah. Yeah. So, you guys would do business with anybody. Did you do business with blacks? Yeah. What kind of business? There was a kid, they called him Matt the Head Nigga. I'm not saying a derogatory way. But that's his nickname, Matt the Head Nigga. The coalition, like they go to job sites and try to get on, you know. We want equal rights. Uh-huh. He was around Rudy. So, we did a lot of business. Rudy would send him there to upset a thing, to get us involved. Like, let's say you got a construction company. We said, "Matt over there, we want work, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." Listen, we can back these guys off. Good guy, bad guy. Don't worry. Don't worry. We're gonna, we're gonna give it to these guys. They're not gonna bother you no more, but you're gonna pay 500 a week. Okay. No way. So, you would use them to, to get in with a. With an extortion of. Yes. And the same thing when they had a problem. They had a club right down the street from us, the black guys. It was like a hangout. And I'd go out and hang out with them. I, you know, I had no problem, you know, with them. I, I got along with all the black. Downtown Brooklyn years ago was a bad neighborhood, but now it's all yuppies. Right. But you better get along with black people if you're gonna be hanging around downtown. Sometimes I get along with some of them better than white. Yeah. I really mean it. So you, so what about another, speaking of black guys in this. I mean, you mentioned Tony Soprano's, one of the storylines was the black guys would be jacking cars, like, like, uh, carjacking people for nice cars, and then they would sell it to Tony Soprano's crew and then they would send it off to Europe to, to be resold. Yeah, we. Was there anything like that? I wasn't involved in that. Okay. But I was involved in chopping the cars, like, for example, collision shop, legitimate, in the front. Mm-hmm. Like, let's say you wreck your car, 2008 Lexus, blah, blah, blah, back then, you know. Mm-hmm. And, uh, we'd just go out, steal the same car, same color, I had a kid named Tyson, and he had a little kid about this big with him. You gotta see them two together, but they could rob a car like this. So we, we didn't buy parts, I'm not gonna pay for the parts, I go steal it for a couple hundred dollars, send a guy out, rob the same kind of car. And then you sell the parts, you can do whatever you want. I try to tell them, listen, it's a black, black, whatever it is, you know. Mm-hmm. And we get the same car, we take the damaged parts off, get the insurance check. Right. Put the other parts on that we stole. Right, so, so you're getting insurance. So we're not buying no mods. You don't have, you have no inventory, you have no overhead. No overhead, except the collision guys put it on, the workers. Wow. I'll tell you a quick story, I lived on downtown Brooklyn on 5th Street, in really a nice area, out of Brownstone. I, so I, I go to the auction with this guy, Denny. And I bought his red Jeep. I wanted a Jeep, okay. Base model, you know, the red top. So I said to Kevin, Kevin, I want to deck this out. He was in charge of the collision shop. All right, leave it at my shop. Brings it back a week later. Mag wheels, hard top, wench, the hooks, car, it was gorgeous. Three days later, I'm looking out my window, I live on the third floor, in the Brownstone. I see some guy walking around my Jeep. My cousin Joey said to me, hey, there's some guy, let's go see. I go down, I said, what's your problem, buddy? That's my Jeep. He says, I live a couple of blocks away. They just robbed my Jeep. It looks just like it. I said, what are you trying to say, buddy? I got receipts, I bought this thing. What are you talking about? I'm not accusing you, you know, but the hooks, everything's the same. All right, buddy, do yourself a favor, okay. Do yourself a favor, walk away. He got an idea. What kind of guy are you? So I called Kevin up, and I just moved to this Brownstone. Last time Kevin seen me, I was living on Carroll Street. I don't know, Carroll Street, was it, or, yeah, Carroll Street. So he didn't know, they took the car from right around the corner from me. So you bought a stolen car from these guys. Well, they stole that car, put all the nice parts, like I had the zip-up windows. I had new windows, roll-up windows. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Put it on mine. Oh, God, it was just-- Well, I buy the parts. You send them out for $400 or $500, you're going to get the same car. Now you take all the parts off, you sell the rest of the parts, you save some. We had anti-crime unit come to our collision shop one day, because we were under investigation. They come through their doors. On the roof, we had everything. The parts, it's called the non-secured area. Anybody could have put that there. It's not locked up. If it's locked inside your building, they could still lock you up, mangalos. Mikey Sapp and Kevin made a canvas, black canvas, straight across, zip-tied it. So you look, if you're in a helicopter, you see a black roof, but the parts are all under it. Wow. They went through the whole place, they didn't find nothing. Incredible. Did you ever catch, like, state indictments, like New York State, RICO? No, no. I've been arrested a bunch of times. But it sounds like nothing really stuck until the end. Yeah, I got probation. Another time, I had beef with a guy, because I shot this kid, Ronald Holmes. We'll get back to that. And this was his friend. I was at a light, and I had a friend in the car with me, and he's being a wise-ass next to me. So I said, "Okay," pulled out my pistol, fired shots at him, takes off. All of a sudden, I hear, "Police, drop your weapon." I took off. I was in my Jeep. I go, I was on 15th Street, this was. It was a one-way up. I get to 8th Avenue, 7th Avenue, across from Park West. Traffic's going this way. I'm going this way. They were around on my tail. I'm trying to find this place to ditch this gun, right on my ass. I turned down Garfield Place. As soon as I turned down 4th Avenue, I said to the kid, "Chuck the gun." As soon as I turned 4th Avenue, the whole thing was shut off. They had me. So they got me, dragged me out of the car. The gun was in the car. We couldn't give it. I had a DEA badge, everything in there. I had a phony driver's license under a different name. One of the cops said, "Look, Sarge, he's on the job." So they locked me up. They charged me with all that. The other kid had a clean record. So Jimmy DiPietro, the attorney, said, "Listen, I can work a deal with the prosecutor. Somebody's got to take the gun pitch." You know, the guy ain't telling. He was a street guy. So somebody's got to take the gun charge. So the kid, I said, "Look, you take the gun charge, because another one of me, I'm in trouble. everywhere i went another one of me i'm in trouble you take the gun charge i'll give you i think it was 10 000. i forgot the amount and he said you got a plea to either impersonate an officer a criminal possession of forged digital license either way it's a felony that's okay i got probation he got probation we walked out of there god he just didn't do but jimmy came back to the podium he said to me my father he says can you raise 25 000 more i can get the boat walk out of here with no jail time i told jimmy no doubt about it being office in the morning he said let me go back up there okay call me up there prosecutor's right there staying right there your honor he pleaded to the gun charge i walked out of that courtroom just on probation so who's taking that money the judge or the prosecutor i never knew i never asked him but because your lawyer was the one responsible for that you could raise 25 000 more let me spread it around no jail time you got it so this kind of that kind of corruption was still going on even in the early 90s oh yeah big time then 80s and 90s was a lot different than it is today especially those those judges in the boroughs yeah you didn't have all these cameras on ivy corner blink cameras this camera no of course but i'm talking about just being able to pay a judge or yeah to buy your way out anthony bugiano i heard him telling a story about that one of the judges brandon or whatever his name was i heard that story too he was one dirty one yeah well i mean look at god he beat his uh his state trial in queens because they flipped the jurors you know i'll tell you the story um sammy was one of them that got to one of the juries another time his son-in-law carmine agnello got a second jury or or vice versa right you know so they paid the jurors so yeah you could sit there cocky attitude you know what's gonna happen right the worst case scenario you get a hung jury you're going home they fixed it yeah yeah so when the teflon yeah he was and he was a thug you can't take nothing from the guy no you know idiot though at the end man he himself yeah i don't i you know i told sammy when i met seen him said let me ask you a question why didn't you kill him if he was bringing this heat to you and this and that oh he's a boss well you said you put the team together to kill paul castellano boss why couldn't you take out john oh come on now uh did you have any dealings with with that crew with sammy or with john directly john directly no sammy no really sammy is originally with the columbus i don't know if he says it yeah yeah um no direct business but ran into them but no direct business you know like no it why did you never get straightened out why did you never become a made guy after rudy knew i was capable of doing something at that point he said listen to me i'm gonna start putting the word out i'm gonna do something for you especially when the goddies plotted to kill me and i lived through it and i didn't tell that was in 91 i flipped at 01. well december 2000. december 23rd so i i mean then people say oh he flipped what he got you know they tried to kill him no 10 years later right so and that was over the fireworks you selling fireworks in there in their area so yeah why didn't they the books never opened up or well at one point rudy proposed me and there was a captain called alan longo in the genevese family that's who my uncle ralphie was around and he called him in the club when they come to size hey rudy told me they're going to do something for your nephew i told him good good kid took a dozen pictures so my uncle ralphie goes home calls me he says come here i want to talk to you stop at the house carrer street he lives right by me matter of fact that was about my mother my father's sister married ralphie that's the guy that he told it to and he said yeah yeah we talked about it yeah he's well they're going to do something for you so they're putting my word around now somebody told me now after i flipped the other day somebody got a hold of me from the decava candy family and said i listened to your podcast the goddies were opposing you to be made junior junior junior junior junior junior junior because of the the beef they had with you because he probably knew when i got the power i won't take no more for sure you know his only piece of work he did is he they held they held the guy at a bar and he stabbed him who are you talking about john got a junior okay yeah he was silver they killed him at the bar i mean you know right so because so by 91 john gaudy senior is about to be i think he's gone already by 91 right 91 92 yeah yeah yeah so it's really john got a junior so he was feeling his oats so that's when i yeah no 90 he must have went away because january 4th 1991 is the night they tried to kill me and uh tell us about that you haven't told us about the day they actually tried so what happened was rudy told me lay low you got a problem let me get a squash joey messina boss of the banana family he knew me you know he knew i'd be from the neighborhood too i i mean i did i helped him with a problem he had with his daughter i don't want to go into it and uh also i i um wild bill went to bat for me people that don't know wild bill was probably the best guy out there uh he was acting boss in the colombo family when uh when the war was over or what was going on and they killed billy because billy wasn't taking standing out for nobody he was a man he was a thug so billy sent word you know back then you know whatever it's worth this kid don't deserve to die you know and uh rudy went down there to the meeting after they tried to kill me hang on though tell us about the day they tried to kill you well what happened was i get a phone call from somebody that would mean like four thousand hey i'm at the fifth amendment bar fifth avenue fifth street you want to meet me i got your money and rudy said stay in the house but until i get it straight out i think a couple blocks away as soon as i turn back up carroll street i see a cop car light go on undercover i had two pistols because i don't get problem i throw him under the seat so the guy gets out coming towards my car i don't know and then all of a sudden i see two three other guys just pile out of the car so i just pushed him away and he put the gun to me i don't you and i put i pushed him away they were trying to get me in the car you know what happened they were pulling one of your your tricks pretending to be get you the car it's all over yeah they would chop me up and then you just peeled out so no i i they just beat me to a pope stabbed me up and everything they left me in a coma oh they almost got you kept stabbing me die die my head was wide open i had a plate put in i went in a coma wow so after that we settled it how did you guys how did you guys watch it how did you how did rudy squash it between i said the rudy what he's going he says what do you want out of this you want money you can't buy my life rudy he says look at me i said i want to kill this kid junior i want to kill him because you kill him you better hide your whole family yeah his father will send word i said let me go to the meeting let me see what i get for you comes back takes me for a walk kim and joe smash and he says is okay june is off limits now don't get me wrong you wait five six years i don't know about it he gets clipped nobody knows about it he's not too well liked so you know what he told me what because he's a captain he's not supposed to tell me a couple wise guy right but rudy had a lot of love for me and uh he said the guys that went to scene that night you can't kill them either they were doing their work job you know it wasn't personal with them it was an order yeah yeah he's bought the kid chris habey that set you up do what you want him and i don't remind you he lived in the back right backed up house to my father's house that's how i knew him wow he used to bet with me and everything so and he's the guy that called you and said hey i got your four grand no no he he used to bet with me and he got jammed up so one day he calls me to the house she's do me a favor i ain't got the money to pay you and i'm not going to duck you jimmy i like you he said i got three cars he had his old lincoln it was like maybe we were three four thousands he said give me this take three off i said okay you know anything you get is close to getting it all so he goes to the house he tells his wife that i put a gun to him and threaten him and i have no reason to lie right i take the car i come back get the car well i pulled it around my father's driveway i said back later his wife was close with john jr's wife kim albanese and the neighbor so she called kim albanese that kid jimmy easy just put a gun in my husband's head took my car not true when they found out that wasn't true but that's really what really started up more and that's when he sent a hit team after me okay so what did you get out of it though to kill habey so so who is that guy who's habey what did he do he was a gambler that was around jr but when he got jammed up i took his car okay so the wife called john gotti jr's wife why is that why is that retribution for what they did to you like why you they almost killed you you, why is Clippin some nobody? Because he made up the story and lied and said I put a gun to him. And I didn't. I see. I see. Okay. You understand? He really lit the last, he drew the last match. I got you. Okay. So kill him, but don't kill him in Howard Beach. So I put a hit team together. He goes to the Fulton vegetable market in the morning in Canarsie. And he supplies all the restaurants. So he leaves about 4 or 5 in the morning. I'm sitting in his van waiting for him. One morning, don't show. Okay. Come back the next day. In the van, dating shop, sitting there I'm going to blow his brains out as soon as he sits in the seat. All of a sudden third day, we're pulling up. Got the chase car around the corner. I'm pulling up. He lives right there to the right. We're pulling up. He comes down the stairs. Getting in his white Lincoln. He had a white Lincoln too. As soon as he pulled, I told the kid, Mikey, stop. Pulled alongside him. God, hurry up. He's shutting his door. As you're dead, boom. I had a.388 tree. It was an automatic that Mikey Saab gave me. Thing jammed. Mikey Saab jumped out, fired shots. Missed him. The police scanner, not even a minute later, he called the cops. There's a street kid that called the cops. On 155th and Cohancy, shots fired, shots fired. A man said he was, somebody tried to shoot him. So, we get down Linden Bowl. We chucked everything. Got rid of everything. Get back to the neighborhood. Next day, Rudy calls me up. What did I tell you? Don't kill him in Howard Beach. And where'd you try to kill him? Howard Beach. Rudy, how else can I get this kid? I'm hot. You know, here it is. I was fuming. I wanted this kid. And he took off then, him and his brother. They split down. So, at that point, Junior said, Rudy, now it's over with. Yeah. He can continue doing his business. Right. Why do you think the DeCavocanti's, because they are actually a New York family, technically, why are they not counted as one of the five families? Because they were never on a panel. I heard when Sam was around, he was recognized really big. They talked about a six family, but there never was. Who's Sam? DeCavocanti. Okay. The guy. And what? And that was Vinny's father-in-law. Our uncle-in-law, you know, he married into the family. Okay. So, they are kind of new compared to the other families that go back to, like, the 1910s that DeCavocanti came way after. Yeah. They called them the Fabbas. You know, when I was 19, I joined up with Rudy. I didn't realize, you know what, they were the weakest crew around. I didn't know. I just knew I had to be with a wise guy. And, you know, I didn't know as much, like, well, they're not as strong as the Genovese, the powerhouse crew. Really? Even more than the Gambinos? Oh, yeah. Yeah. John was just trying to boy, the chin was quiet. Right. And they say the Genovese had the most gambling, the most quiet money. Powerful money crew. Yeah. Strong crew. They had the downtown rackets with the unions and stuff like that. Yeah. So, the DeCavocanti's were the smallest by number? Yeah, the Bonanno was kind of small, but they were bigger than us. Okay. So, but you still didn't get your, you didn't get your money. You had to wait till the books opened, number one. Right. And then I kept going away. One time I went away, and then Rudy died. I went away January 23rd. Rudy died in March. Right. At that point, I know, what am I going home to? I put 20 years into this family. I mean, I did work everything. I made a lot of money for them. Yeah. I was an earner. Nobody out there could ever say Jimmy Easy was an earner. How much do you think you were kicking up to them on a good month? Well, like, if I had $300,000 of his money in the street, so that's $3,000 a week. And then the Joker poker machines, at that certain point, he said, don't worry about it. He took a liking to me. I was close to his son, Michael, and Mark, and the whole family. So, you know, at that point, the shot lock business was over. And if you had a score, you'd give some money over. Yes. Like when I did the camcorder scores, I think I gave Rudy 50. So you were good to them. You were chipping in. Listen, always earning. There's so many more scores I made. I mean, there was something you brought to me. I was less of a skirt chaser. I was the money chaser. Yeah. These other guys worried about getting a piece of ass. I was worried about, hey, I'm putting my life on the line. It's about money, not about glorifying, running around broads. I did go out Friday night with Rudy and all that, but you know, that was not me. If I had my chance to go with you and make money, I'll go out with the hottest broad in the neighborhood. I'm taking the money. And were you good at saving? You know, a lot of wise guys usually blew everything they made. When the feds arrested me, they insisted I had millions of dollars. My house, I had Japanese Oriental plants. I mean, they ripped up my lawns, my house. They tore it apart. Where was your house? Howard Beach. Well, what happened is my father died. A car wreck. A month before I got picked up in January. He died in December. So I inherited the house. Me and my sister. So I came home from Fort Dix. I was living there. Because my mother, my beef was settled. The kid didn't tell. He didn't retell. He didn't do nothing. He tried to kill the kid. Okay, so now, let's move up to 97 when this whole indictment comes down for the feds set you guys up with stolen merchandise. It's like a reverse heist or whatever. It is entrapment. But they did get me for bookmaking, loan sharking. So they had you. Yeah. How did you only come home? How did you, three years? I got, no, I got 48 months. But you get good time in a halfway house. And I took the alcohol and drug program. You get time off for that, too. So it just seems crazy. Like, how did you only get four years off of this whole. I got the most out of everybody. Nikki and Lenny got less time. Lenny got bail, a captain in the Gambino family. Everybody went home and sat on bail and sat me and Nikki. Because Nikki caught a case with Anthony Ruggiano in Florida. Okay. So, he already had an open case. So he wasn't getting bail. So, you come home in 99-2000, and then you get re-indicted. There's another case, right? I went to see the kid, Jimmy Masciano. Now, remind you, when we were doing this thing with the hijacking stuff, selling the swag stuff, he was doing it all for me. Going to the warehouse, picking it up, selling it. He was like my runaround guy. Mm-hmm. He never got charged. I had in my mind, could it be bad? Maybe not. Maybe not. So, when I come home, I pull up his block. Now, I remind you, I had a police scanner because we did the medical centers, you know, the accidents. You bring them to a medical center. Hold on. Can you talk about that? Because it sounds fun. Yeah. What was that lick? Well, when I came home, I told you I was avoiding Vinny. When I came home, when Ralphie said, stay away from me. Right. I had a doctor named Pierce Newman. He had a medical center on Crosby Boulevard, Boulevard Medical. And he was around Sonny Giuliano, a Gambino captain, and Frankie, the one that helped me torch the florist. So, they sent me, told me, hey, you need anything? Because I just came home. Frankie says, go up there. Any medical work, they won't charge you. I got close to a guy named Mark Anton. He was the head administrator. He said, Jimmy, you got the Methodist Hospital. My mom, Methodist Hospital, yeah. My mom and his was the other one. You got it all locked down. You could get people out of there in car accidents. I'll give you $1,500 each one. I said, I got the tow trucks, accidents. We show up to the scenes. I thought, we could make millions. So, I said, give me a car. So, I knew what somebody needed. A lawsuit. I sent him to his medical center. Sent him, sent him. Next thing you know, I'm sending four or five people a month. Okay. Can you explain that? What they do is this. When you get into an accident, you know, how they work. Soft tissue action. They have physical therapy three times a week. Right. Adjustments. You come in, you get adjusted. You got a physical. We're billing them up the yin-yang. Even if they didn't show up, we were billing them. Okay. So, you're just overbilling? Well, not overbilled. Let's say they allow us three times a week physical therapy. You don't show up that one day out of three days, we put them down. We charge them. Okay. So, how are you, what's your value to the hospital? At that point, they said, we're going to call you an administrator. I opened one. On 6th Avenue and 9th Street, right by the Methodist Hospital. We're bringing people right down into there. Oh, so you were the guys supplying the hospitals with the people that got in cars? I had x-ray technicians sending them to me. I, you know, then I had all the tow trucks. I'll give you $1,500 each, bring them to me. They'll pull it up, bring the two people in that time trip. Before you know it, we were jammed. We were jammed. So, that's great money. Then I opened another one on Roosevelt Boulevard, but it's Hispanic up there, so we put these Spanish people, Dominican people up there running it. We were doing big numbers. I said, I don't want the mob. I don't want the mob no more, but then I got pinched. Listen to me, stupid money. How much do you think you made off that? Well, he said the first quarter, my end was $350,000. In a quarter? In a quarter, three months. We get paid, Bill, and you know. $350,000. We can't collect the money, only a doctor. Right. So, he would give me my money. He has had them all over the place. Crooked as the day - Wow, and this is a hot topic. hospital administrator no a medical center it was like a medical who's inside the hospital yeah who's the head administrator with my cousin there you go rudy made her boss we had the hospital locked down wow matter of fact the two secured the head of security joe and tommy those are the ones that killed joe pitt the guy in the wheelchair he was a dangerous guy around rudy that hospital scheme that's fascinating and that doesn't get talked about when you talk about mob schemes that much but that's big and i know russians were big with that russians yeah and you know in la it's the armenians yeah do that that's right oh yeah i learned all about that wow i mean we had uh one day a week a neurosurgeon come in you know to see we lined them up yeah you know um one day a week you know we had uh we had the uh dr lion's chiropractor we call him that line he just he was there five days a week and these are all people that are getting paid they're all in on legitimate people get paid they don't they probably have an idea what's going on right but they they when they wrote out the reports lumbar this this that i wrote a report now i got a lawyer that's a dear friend of mine he put an office in it we're signing people up two three people a day he's giving me 1500 each person i sign up right and are the people getting signed up actually hurt or are they also getting paid most of me no 90 ain't was that the best scheme you ever came up with it would have been if i didn't get picked up i would have never did nothing else again if he goes away yeah i ride off into the sunset doing this millions of dollars oh god you have no idea what i would have made no idea because i was learning more and more about it like we had a guy named another cats he had a common name and he had an mri place down on court street we sent him over there eight hundred dollars he'd give us all this kickback cash i'm going home at the end of the week just kick back cash and 15 on here for the six seven eight thousand a week and then i'm waiting for the big paycheck to come in yeah every quarter stupid money yeah i mean people talk about the fraud you know people want to accuse the somalis in minnesota of committing all this fraud i'm like motherfucker this shit has been going on for decades then we had people i had these spanish kids around the neighborhood four of them would get in a car go in manhattan get in front of a taxi or a bus lock your brake get rear-ended all four of them coming to my medical center now mark and pierce give me six thousand for the right off the bat cash now the lawyer's giving me $15 i made 12 grand on these and they all settled they all got good money 30 40 grand each and they i would tell them don't forget me would you get your check so they come give me something do you hear that america if you're tired if you want to know why your your insurance is so high blame the fucking blame the dagos blame the guineas for brooklyn man so that was about that was like your retirement that's like you were going to be balling out of control how old were you then that's when i came home 2000 it was uh 2000 um i was 16 36 okay but then tell us what happened there was another case waiting for you well then that's when they wrapped up all the decava cantees when the guy robbed the world trade center okay talk about this real quick please i know this story no this is the wildest most brazen mafia heist ralphie guarino knew a guy named south with 23rd street worked in the world trade center and he kept telling him ralphie there's times there's a load of million dollars 300,000 so ralphie would always tell me ralphie was scheming but he just came home everything i say ralphie yeah how are you getting out of that place there's more security in there oh no i'm gonna get i'm gonna get so i'm in fort dix i heard world trade center was robbed bank i was like wow i got it they took the elevator because i read this in a book actually when i was like i'll tell you you don't have to tell i'll tell you the story ralphie bought two black guys that work for when he's because ralphie bought homes fixed them up downtown brooklyn all the yuppies are moving in he'd make a ton of money with ralphie ralphie's a schema earner and uh all of a sudden ralphie's got a lot of money he's got a lot of money he's got a lot of money also a guy in the sopranos named ralphie ralph soffaretto probably based off of this guy getting off the elevator you know as the door is opening pulled his mask off because he didn't want to walk out there's cops right there so takes his mask off no hold on tell us tell us what they tell walk us through well they went up there and it was like sal was the tipster told them where it was they went up there and i robbed it and it was cash cash and it was some i heard and uh they brought it to ralphie one of the black guys that took his mask off they got a picture of him they went to him he flipped when he flipped the other black guy left the country the other guy in the car i don't know who he was so ralphie was walking around thinking he got away with this they knock on his door george hanna he's the head of organized crime one of he used to be an extreme criminal he was a criminal he was a criminal he was a criminal street guy grew up in brooklyn not not the gangster but you talk to me you think you're talking to a wise guy yeah so he went through some ralphie ralphie ralph you want to go back you just did 12 years you think about i'll be give you 24 hours to call me you want to play ball you will go to jail ralphie called him played ball he wired up on vinnie ocean the boss he wired up whatever joe smash he got on tape all money off him won't shock him money um and then when rudy died vinnie took over rudy's loan shocker business so now he's partners with joe smash so now they're getting that on wire everything's on wire but he was wearing a wire too at a certain point i heard probably because the bosses are right at this so that's what ralphie he said stay away from me you want to hurt me matter of fact when i shot his godson he didn't get mad at me get ronald holmes what happened with that i was in our house having a football party and i owned a half of uh after hours but we were holding a super bowl party there so i had my joker poker machines in there and ronald was a coke dealer i said ronald you sell your junk i don't want no part of it i take the gambling machine money you take that you can even have the bar money he's gonna rob me anyway probably i'm not there he's a deal so he's got the box up on the wall you know play football boxes super hundred hours each about half hour before i'll before he calls me i need somebody to buy some boxes no day before it was and i got kevin mike all of them to buy they're all at my house i'm a big party i had all food care call ronald he said i can't talk i'm slammed because i asked him for the box numbers what these guys got they paid a hundred hours made me look stupid i called back again christine persico answers call my personal needs i know another tramp and uh it's the truth yeah a lot of those girls a lot of those catholic italian girls she was a cocoa so i said put ronald on the phone hold on ronald jimmy watcher hang up on him i told him i was busy oh yeah batman kevin get the car got the gun walked in there i said who the fuck about 70 people in there who the fuck are you to talk to me like this he's what what what boom he went to run hit to towards his mother and sister's sister i was dating too boom i hit him again and i said jimmy easy did say but i know who did it hank joined bj's wholesale club the day he became a father of 30 i coach football now coach hank saves up to 25 off grocery store prices 30 pounds of pasta three cases of protein bars 75 sports drinks and that's just pre-game he knows teamwork and bj's knows savings this is your home coach home of the save join for just 20 at bj's.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months open soon limited time offer new members only bj's home of the save they were like they all know me neighborhood by my neighborhood and i told them i said the kid sweeney that was there i should take him to the hospital i remember you're walking on fifth avenue somebody drove by in the car and shot you yes please so wow his father denny holmes that night was looking for me i heard went to my aunt's house looking for me and ralphie's driving i'm like my cousin linda calls me up she said be careful of a blue link and ralphie and uh denny holmes are looking for you for shooting his son ronald oh yeah i call ronald right up i'm denny right up i say you looking for me i'll meet you back where i shot him at the club i got keys remind you i'm in there already waiting for him i got two guys inside waiting what kind of guns do you have for like a big shootout at that point i had a 38 on me you know i don't like automatic since that jam and uh i was sitting there i just kept walking outside waiting for them anthony muscles in there they're sitting in their guns calvin they never showed up then next day rudy calls him to the club denny holmes as rudy pulls up to the club he said I said, Jesse James, who'd you shoot now? That's what he said to me. Rudy, it's a long story. I know, everyone's a long story. Joseph had a wonderful walk. I told him what happened. But did you have to shoot him? You know, I know the family well. Man, Italians were different back in the day. You had 70 people at a Super Bowl party. Nobody saw nothing. Italians were different. So you had a relationship with Ralphie, who's cooperating with everybody. He tries to. Well, this was way before he got caught. Of course, of course. But now it's 2000 and he's jammed up. So he told them about that. You know, when you debrief, you can't hold nothing back. Right, so they asked about you. They wanted to know, the government wanted to know about you. I'm sure he told them, yeah, he shot Ronald. And then he knew about Sal's murder, probably. Everybody in the neighborhood know the kid for the insurance money. Okay, so that's the kid with AIDS. Yeah. That's how you. And then the brother that didn't pay, he tried jerking us around. So Pluto says, I'm going to kill him. Now, here it is, I'm making money with Vinny because he's got an office turning into my office. Him dead is like, I got a pipeline, 3,000, 4,000 a week. He's bringing me towards what he owes me every week. He's a sucker. I said, Pluto, that was his nickname. Let's give him time. Let's give him time. So all of a sudden, 30 days up, Pluto's like, I'm going to go kill him in his house. No, he's got family in there. Pluto's nuts. So I'm in the house and we're talking about what we're going to do. And then all of a sudden, I get a call from Ivan Katz. He was the guy that arranged the whole thing, the mastermind behind it. He's like, look, Jimmy, I give you my word, that thing you're bothering Vinny about, it's coming. There was a little bit of investigation. That's what slowed it up. I gave you two weeks, Ivan. But remember, you opened your mouth, now you're responsible. He's, yes, that's right, I am. I'll guarantee the money. I told Pluto, leave it alone. I'm going to get my money. So two weeks go by, still didn't get it. Not knowing they're fighting for double indemnity. Am I saying that right? Indemnity. Indemnity, yeah. Because it's an accident, a murder, whatever. He didn't die of natural causes. So they were fighting to try to get double. But he didn't tell me that because I would ask for more money. How much did you get for that hit? Like they asked me for, I wasn't sure it was 50 or 100 because Vinny owed me like 30 or 40. So I think we just said, give me 100 and I'll call it even for everything. Okay. Wow, that's a lot of money for just being part of a hit. Well, he already owed me 30 or 40 for book banking. So it was about 56. I gave Pluto 20, so. Okay, so with this indictment that comes down, how did they, does Ralphie tell them all that? And how do they have you loan shark in? Like how do they have all this evidence against you? Ralphie knew I was loan shark. Ralphie knew it. He booked bank, he bet with only me. So that was enough. His words. To the feds was enough to get you put in there. When he got everybody on tape, then Ralphie owned a cell phone store. You know those old Motorola flip phones? He'd give one to Vinny. He gave one to everybody. Oh my God. Says, don't worry about it. 30 days, throw it out, I'll give you a new one. The feds gave it to them, of course. They're talking like they got a license. If you Google on YouTube, them talking on a wiretap, oh, you're the real life survivor. Yeah, every time we watch it, we see something. Something new, blah, blah, blah. Right, because by this time, The Sopranos has come out. This is 2000. By the way, do you know how, do you know how the writer David Chase got all of these stories and anecdotes from the family? A lot of people say that and they X, and matter of fact, he was X'd on interviews. No, it's just a coincidence, he says. Nah, can't be. No. And he's from New York. He's from Jersey, New York. I will bet everything I got. And I, you know, I can bet. Yeah, yeah. Well, they wrote a book. A guy wrote, the book I read was about Ralph and the Jersey. They had all these anecdotes from the Jersey guys. So somebody from- Ralphie wrote the book? No, it was about Ralphie. Some reporter did. And this was in like 99, 2000. So the show had already come out though. They've been producing the show since like 1995. That's when they brought Fox. It was really, it was originally going to be on Fox. And then they turned it down because it was too violent. And then HBO was becoming a big thing. That's what I heard too, it was too violent. So somebody from Jersey, I bet, back in the day, where, because David Chase grew up around all of this, the creator, somebody was feeding him stories. You know, but I guess we'll never know. Example, you watch Sopranos and they sit outside of Satriachos, whatever it's called. Satriallis. Satriallis. We had sackles a block away. A pork store. Pork store. It's too much. It's too close, man. Everything, I mean. Come on. Somebody was talking, and they're ahead of their time. Like whoever, whoever was talking to David Chase or it could have been like a journalist, somebody that wrote articles, you know, that had a line to you guys that was feeding it to. Or a copy of the transcripts. Right. Witnesses. Talking to cops, right. They had the police records. Because when somebody goes to trial, like mine were all sealed. I never testified. I'm nobody. I never went to a grand jury, never testified. Because when I went in, Vinnie gave them everything. I just had to confirm it. Right. Right. So you didn't. And not only that, I confirmed the murders I was involved in. So that's all they wanted, it seemed like. And then I was set to testify on John Gotti Jr. I was set to testify on Chris Colombo. They didn't use me on both trials. Thank God. I didn't want to get out there and face nobody. That's a, to me, that's a low life feeling. Like, like everybody said to me, like Johnny Halak said to me one day, we were talking. We were going to do a show right before he got locked up. He's, Jimmy, I heard your podcast. You ain't a rat. Your boss has flipped on you. You didn't even take the oath. Right. They all told on you. Why do you call, I hear you tell yourself a rat. When you sit with the feds, you're a rat. Growing up, it was a no-no. You get pulled over, you're heading to cop a license, you don't even talk to them. Never mind, go sit with them at a profit session like John Gotti Jr. did. Right. Not once. He did it in 99, 2000. His sister's going after me for saying this. I got three L2s. He did it in 05 and 06. How long were you talking? Yeah, I believe it, of course. Oh, public news. They go on my YouTube page. Yeah. I plastered them right out there. Him talking about Danny Marino. Danny Marino is a real gangster. He's talking about Joe Watts, talking about his dad and Ralph De La Murda, talking about his dad and Ralph De La Murda, talking about Joe Watts. Joe Watts is still alive. You're talking about murders to the FBI? Right. But you're not a rat. Exactly. So he said, but I never testified on nobody. But if I give you the evidence. They can use that to get an indictment. It's called queen for days. So what they'll tell you is, we can't use that against you. But now they've seen your whole hand. So if you and Joe Blow go rob a liquor store, we can't get you for what you said. But we're going to. We're going to turn the heat up on Joe Blow like you've never seen before. Now, Joe Blow flips and says, he sent me, then they can indict you. So like my lawyer said, when you decided, when I decided, okay, I will. I waited six months. Okay. I want to take this chronologically. So you're killing it with this hospital scam. You're on parole from getting out of Fort Dix on federal parole. Ralphie is now giving the feds everything on the DeCavalcantes. He was like, he was like the linchpin. He was like the, you know, the Sammy the Bull of the DeCavalcantes. What, and you get roped into this. What do they have you with? Loan sharking? Did they ever get you with this hospital scheme? Did they have that in the indictment? Well, they knew about it, but when I profited, I made sure when I walked out of that profit session, I didn't leave one stone unturned because you're covered for everything. Do you think they would have had you if you had took it to trial? You would have been felt guilty for the old murders? Well, yeah, because she got a boss. And like Seamus, the head agent said, this is the first time DeCavalcantes ever had a main member flip, Anthony Capo. He's not only him, we had the boss. We had two captains flip. Vinny, the boss. Yeah. And then who were the two captains? Anthony Rotondo. Okay. Victor Di Chiera. Another guy, associate, Frankie the Beast. And they all would have got up there and been like, yeah, I know Jimmy Easy was with us. Yeah. Well, Anthony Capo can, Rotondo can, and Vinny, Frankie the Beast, I didn't meet him until we went in jail together. But the point is, that was the evidence that could have, that probably would have had you found guilty. Well, here's the thing. They brought in a guy named Fritzy Juvenile, a January's captain. Fritzy got a hold of Vinny and him and said, listen, I need to talk to you. We understand you got a cooperator and he had a tip. Like you said, they're still doing it. He got a tip. It was a reporter that works for the, for the, for the government, the feds or whatever. She was a clerk or whatever she was. She told him that they got a leak. So Vinny, I guess that's when he signed up. I don't know. And that's, and you're all in jail at this point. I'm in Fort Dix. Right. I come home. I told you, I seen Ralphie. Maybe a week later, they picked everybody up. Two weeks later. Right. And then you got picked up after them. Yeah. They brought me in on, I went to see the kid, Jimmy, "I'm a Seattle. up his block he seen me he ran in the house i said what's wrong with this kid the next day they locked me up they said i went there with three other guys got out of call with guns first of all he's got like six kids every one of them called me uncle jimmy i would have never hurt nobody especially in front of their kids right so they dramatized it so that was their way to get me off the streets and say okay jimmy here's what you're facing what were you facing what were all the they were showing me murders one of them well the other one was the guy vinnie that didn't pay he got killed too he ended up getting killed the guy that you tried to hit no vinnie was the guy that came to me about killing his brother right okay okay what happened was when he jerked around jerked around didn't have to got somebody pluto killed him so how many bodies total did they have in the indictment against you well they had three but i said vinnie i don't think you could say i did it because we were in my house discussing what we're gonna do with vinnie and honestly i didn't want him dead because i was making money off him he's a sucker but the other hand pluto's like a brother to me and he had in for him so it was conspiracy for three you directly well i had other conspiracy the kid habey conspiracy to murder chris habey so how many total there was chris habey vinnie sal anthony sawney attempted murder on the kid i shot twice ronald holmes attempted murder i shot him in that after hours club right okay so it's like four and and then the one out of white but i told you i i pled that down to criminal possession of forged inch and this is all from information that ralph has and vinnie have given to the feds well ralph he told him i shot his nephew he told me he did book bank with me loan shocking with me and i said well i'm not gonna lie to you i'm not gonna lie to you i'm not gonna lie to you who told about the murders vinnie probably well and anthony sawney got killed i'm just trying to ask because i'll tell you why you're now go back to when anthony sawney got arrested so after he got killed we went back to court monmouth county that's where they held the court for the home dell thing with the jeweler guy and that's when anthony flipped when we went into court anthony was gone now dead so the prosecutor's name was esposito monmouth county and uh he says your honor we got an unfortunate incident today mr sawney will no longer be with us because he was shot in the back of the head well the kid billy that was there hold on there was a kid bill another kid billy there with us he says his lawyer starts you're on and we're asking mr uh william whatever his last name did we remove through the case because he never even entered the home him and sonny were in the car and they said well if he's going to be in the car we'll let him off but let me just tell you he'll get a bullet in the back of the head just as quick as sonny because jimmy won't think twice about him on the back of his head my father's with me in the courtroom my father knew the kid anthony we knew him since he's a baby i said this guy's nuts so how could he say that my lawyer got up but jack did this or that yeah yeah so i get 18 months jack gets five years because he was in the car and he was in the car and he was on um parole for murder and the kid billy got probation i want to know the reason i'm hounding you is because about i'm talking about the big indictment fuck the 18 months i'm talking about the four murders that could send you away for life right yeah and i just want to know like when you're sitting there do you think to yourself well i kind of have action at beating it in court you know like did you think you had action or did you think that two or three wives guys on the stand saying nope jimmy easy was there he pulled the trigger he was part of it would that have been enough to put you away it's a it's a big gamble it is a big gamble and you're talking about life when i got no family no more the decapitate these are gone they all flipped on my whole crew so now what am i coming home to i worked it's like you having a job 20 years you made them a ton of money you made your bones you showed them what you came up now i'm coming home i'm coming home i'm coming home i'm coming home i gotta go find another family start over i know and you never got made either so they didn't even give you that no privilege yeah so at that point you know they went to my sister's house she lived in howard beach and then my brother they said listen we want your brother to come with us if not we're gonna try to get the death penalty on him so my sister came right up with my son he was two at the time and his mother and she said jimmy what are you waiting for my sister lived at howard so what you have a new life what do you want this for as donna don't ever say i love my sister that don't ever say that to me again i can't never do that and i couldn't yeah and i went upstairs i kissed my son goodbye i told my ex i should go on with your life i'll be a while because i figured they give me 20 okay i could come home at 58 56 all right you know they won't give me nothing but trial you know they would they had their foot on my throat and i was like oh my god i'm gonna go to court at that point yeah they weren't giving you any plea deals so every time i went back to court you know in a hearing they'll bring up my lawyer stewart gross but coming back he says jimmy they said you're gonna answer for sonny's murder you're gonna answer he named them right off and i should sue you i don't know what the hell they're talking about bill gunn was the prosecutor he said bill gunn said you come with him you'll be okay and when he tells me that he's not telling me to tell you that but i'm telling you because they want you to get on the stand and say you know you'll be all right you know i should still i can't i can't please just don't ask me that again i says you know i it's not not me i was old school i'm 62 years old back in the day that was a big no-no of course he should put vinnie and all them flip they're gonna annihilate you you understand you're gonna die in prison the best you're gonna do is die in prison you know back to my room joey flowers a little crazy captain comes over throws a newspaper on my thing vinnie palermo was singing to the feds all along tell us who remind us who vinnie palermo was he is the boss of my family god now the boss knows every hit that's done of course successor in your neighborhood you want to know who did this made my neighborhood hot at that point i'm sitting here saying joe joey flowers an old-time gangster he's a kid i'll tell you what he did he did a lot of things he did a lot of things he did a lot of adopted. You got problems. Yeah. I said, nah, don't worry about it. I'll handle it. And then a month later, my lawyer came to me and he said to me, look, they want to sit with you and have a profit. I said, no, it's like November. It was near Thanksgiving. And then I go to trial. I go to court. I'm in the courtroom. Arraignment again. They hit me with a new charge. And that's, they kept doing it. Bring my court, new charge, new charge. Like, weakened me. Yeah. And at that point, I'm leaving the courtroom and there's an agent named Mike Farandino. Dang it. He looked, he said, don't be stupid. He's motioned it to me. Leaving the courtroom. And I just looked away. I go, I get upstairs. I call my, my son's mom. And she says, there was an agent here, Michael Farandino. He said, don't be stupid. He's, don't be stupid. Game's over. Yeah. And I laid there, I thought about it. And I says, then while I'm in there, I'm seeing everybody's flipping. Peter Gubertosi, this one, that one's all flipping. Everybody's flipping. Yeah. I said, you know what? I called her up. I said, tell the guy Farandino to send for me. And they brought me out. Like, I'm going to court. They met with me. Not even 10 minutes into the conversation, Bill Garland stood up. He says, beautiful. I'm going to get you moved there to the court. Beautiful. I'm going to get you moved there to special housing, Jimmy. He said, I'm going to get you somewhere comfortable around people like you. You ain't got nothing to worry about. I don't want you to get hurt. All of a sudden, now he loved me. Before I was the low life. Like when I got pitched for Nicky Lennon, he was the, he was the prosecutor. He said, your honor, he's a suspect of multiple homicides, blah, blah, blah. Judge says, Judge Blanc, until we see an indictment, don't bring it up in court again. So I said, yeah, I'm going home on bail. No. So- So who- Yeah. Who are you flipping on? Because the whole, the boss is flipping. So who could you possibly give them that's of any value at this point? All the guys under me, I could, you know, other guys, they did business, like I could talk about Joe Watts, sit down, how he, you know. Right. I mean, all those, John Gotti Jr., that's, was one of their targets. But not knowing, he sat with them in '98 and '99 to try to flip. And they didn't take him. Did you ever do business with John Gotti Jr.? Just to time the argument over the firework business. That's it. It's not like you knew about anything that was super, that they didn't know about. No, but you, you, you, you know, if you read Jerry Capici's article from '91 for five months, they, they, they tried to catch up with Jimmy Eazy, John Gotti Jr. They were charged with conspiring to murder Jimmy Eazy, but he lived. So you didn't have to wear a wire on any, I mean, you couldn't, it was already out that you were arrested. Well, no, in the jail, still didn't. So they went to my, my sister's house and they've, you know- Yeah. And they asked if they want to move her and her, her husband, no, legitimate people. So my other brother lived there. They says, you're not safe when we drop this dune. who was your brother's degree, to cooperate against John Gotti Jr. They put him in the program. Moved him out of New York. He's in Arizona. So the biggest threat to you at this point is John Gotti Jr. He's the one that back then could have— He's probably the last thing I—because Vinny gave them everything on the Cavacantes. Right. I guess the people that you told—the guys that worked for you, I guess, could have come back on you. But how much time did they end up getting? You know, like what did your cooperation— Michael—Yui wanted to pass it away with a brain tumor. The kid Michael, he's the one that shot Sonny in the park. I don't know why. He must have flipped. They didn't—wouldn't ever even pick him up? Nothing. Wow. When I would say, well, he went under the name Michael Ford, but his name was Michael Nelson. And they'd look at each other, all right, well, who else was—like, they didn't even want to talk about him. And also, there was another guy, Joe Smash. I was around him for 20 years. That's Rudy's partner. The wise guy in the Colombo family. To today, I don't want to believe it. But when they asked me who sanctioned it, it was Joe and Rudy. I said, both of them were there. Told me that's a kill. Right. You know? So did Joe—what happened to Joe Smash? Never got picked up. And when they—when I first agreed to flip, they asked me in the car where they were driving me back to the prison. They said, Jimmy, let me ask you a question. If we wanted to pick up Joe Smash, what's the quickest thing you could pick him up? I said. Listen, he's a little chocked 50 years. He's a wise guy. Ralphie Guarino got him on tape. Vinnie Palermo was partners with him because he took all Rudy's half. Anthony Capo knows him. And Anthony Votanda knows him very well. They all flipped. Yeah. So when I'm—they're talking, I said, well, Joe Smash is there. Don't worry about Joe. My stomach went. Because what does that mean? He's bad. Yeah, he's bad. So they're trying to get you to tell on guys who are already telling. What they wanted was, in case any of these guys went to trial around the Cavicantes, they don't have just Vinnie. They got Anthony Capo, Anthony Votanda. Now they got Jimmy Easy. Right. Just in case. But it never came to that. It's more ammunition. Thank God. Never had to testify nothing. So the sum total, how much time did you sign for, for your cooperation? How much time did you have to do? They don't put a time on you. Here's what they'll do to you. They'll make you play. Play to zero to life. So now, when you get on the stand, if you take the stand, so you killed these people, and you did this, you robbed this, this, and how much time you got? I don't know yet. I pled up to life. I don't know. It makes you more credible. Right. But you didn't have to take the stand. So what, after this— I pled guilty to zero to life. Category 43. So how much time did you do? I did five years. That is incredible. What a good deal that is. That's an amazing deal. But hold on. Vinnie Palermo did two and a half years. Got caught lying on the stand. Two million dollars he had stashed away at his daughter's house and the son's house. Gave them a million dollar package each. One of the guys, when he was on trial, said, we're going to ask you your note. Did you ever give your daughter and your son money to hold? And he says, yes. They got caught lying. They didn't use him after that trial. But they let him go in two and a half years. Anthony Rotonda, a year and a half. Anthony Capple. Shaman said the other day, I think he did retreat three or four years. I did five. Wasn't even indicted. Yeah, but it's like— I know what you're saying. You got four bodies on you. You should be doing one body, you get a death penalty in Texas. So it's like— The conspiracies they lived, you know. I'm just saying, I'm not judging. It's not a judgment. It's not a judgment on you guys at all. I'm just saying, your ethnic group and your organized crime got the sweetest deals from the federal government. That's a fact. Because if you were in a drug conspiracy with the feds, guys who told got 15, 20 years. You know what I mean? So it's just, it's not fair, but it is what it is. When I got in the WITSEC unit, exactly what you said. I said, you're going home soon. And one day I said, I was talking to the agents. They come see me every day. For like months. And bring me food. Now all of a sudden they love me. And they're sitting there. I said, let me ask you a question. Everybody in the unit is saying, why do the Italians get the best deal? They said, well, a lot of these gangbangers don't know how to go back in society and adjust. That's what they call me. I've sat in front of a bunch of gangbangers. Of course, they're like, I didn't have to do that much time. Like, I'm OK. I'm OK. I'm OK. I'm OK now. You know? I think it's just, I think it's straight up racism, bro. But, and also, we have an incredibly, you guys, to your credit, and that's probably why drugs were shunned in the Italian mafia, because they come after drug dealing particularly viciously. So, it's just fascinating. You know? I don't really have a judgment against it one way or the other. You take, for example, you just said, wow, you got away with that. Look at Sammy. 19 murders. Exactly. And, and honestly, Joey Molino, everybody bashed the guy. You can't bash the guy. He does, he did the right thing. He stood up. I had nobody to stand up to. My, all my bosses flipped on me. What am I standing? I'm going to be the last. I'm going to hold the boss. I'm a stand-up guy the rest of my life. Yeah. No, I don't blame you at all. I would have taken that in a heartbeat. As soon as I saw Vinny, my boss. Five months it took me to convince myself. Six months, maybe. Yeah. Well, it was May or June 8th I got picked up, and I flipped December 23rd. Whatever that is, five months. So, believe me, when I come back from that first prophet session, I felt like the biggest scumbag in the world. Right. Yeah, because. And like, I hear these guys get on it, you know, and just like, let me tell you, I'm not this big religious man, but I never was big religious, but now I am. You know, I'm a Christian man now, and I did change my life a lot. Yeah. And, but when I hear guys on. They're saying, oh, after 91, when they tried to kill him, he flipped. No, I flipped the 90, almost a one. Right. A week before a one. So, you know, I want to, I had to set the record straight. I got tired of hearing that. Why do they even need a WITSEC now for wise guys? Because if there's a mandate for them not to be violent, just so they can stand under the radar. And also, if everybody's told, why is anybody a threat to anybody else? So, why did you have to leave New York? You know, one kid, maybe, trying to make his name. Right. You know, but now, what I understand, only by word about what I hear, that the mob's saying, no more violence. Feds are giving them 30 years for a body now. Right. Like this. The state, you used to get 10, 15. Matter of fact, I had a state charge. I didn't even know it. It's a Procter Road article. Also, you had a 15 to 25 running wild in the state on another. I forgot all about it when I. I mean. You know, when you're with the feds, and your lawyer says, don't worry about nothing. I'll handle it with them. Just be truthful, and you'll be all right. So, I didn't need paperwork, nothing, because he handled everything. Right. And when you're in a WITSEC unit, the last thing you want to leave is your paperwork laying around. There's guys in there doing life. Right. Like the chicken man that blew up Patty Testa. Teddy, he was doing life. Those guys, not saying Teddy's personally, or Junior, those guys. Man, Jonesy, they were doing life in there. They see your paperwork, and they read, Jimmy and John did this, and it says, they'll call up the feds. Hey, Jimmy just told me that it wasn't just John. You know, they'll try to get on a case. Right. So, the lawyer said, don't leave nothing in your locker. Right. And I didn't. Where were you? What facility? I was first at MCC with SEC. Yeah. Then they moved me to Ferriton. That was a nice. It was nice. It was like 30-something people in there. Oh. We were Italians. Oh, I love it. You guys were playing Pinochle. Every night. Pinochle shooting pool. It's like the streets. And I was the head cook. So, we cooked whatever we wanted. I had to call the TV in my room. Yeah. Medicine, chess. I was like, what? You know it was a nice prison when you call your cell your room. Listen, I had a regular door. I had a regular sink. I had a regular toilet bowl. Not metal. Yeah. That's amazing. And you can't feel bad about that, in my opinion. Because, again, everybody did it. It was, you know, we interviewed these guys a couple of years ago for the show. They were these rednecks out of South Florida. Tiny little, I'm talking like 300-person town. And it was during the 80s. And these guys were importing like record amounts of weed from Columbia. They would go out. These big barges would meet them out in international waters. And they would throw, I'm talking like thousands of tons. of pot, they were moving. And when they all got jammed up in a big indictment, their lawyer got together and said, everybody tell on each other. And so we're all got deals. They all got deals. It's like, be smart about it. So it kind of seems like the mob had a similar, the Italian mob had a similar trajectory, you know, and shit. Good for you guys. Honestly, I think they, Sammy paved the way for everybody. I mean it. I mean, the deal he got. Yeah. Look at me with a couple of bodies. I'm like, he got, you know. You're a choir boy. Yeah, I'm an altar boy next to Sammy. For sure. You know, and not just Sammy, there was other guys too. Like, like Gas Pipe, he got caught lying. Not only lying, he took credit for bodies he didn't do not to get his friend in trouble. Wow. And I think he. He was fooling around with the COs, bringing, smuggling food in. Right. Cell phones. He was sleeping with one of the COs. He ripped up his agreement. Right, right. But you had to be a real fuck up. So now, are you still in Woodside? What's your situation now? No, I signed out right away. I was in there about two years. I signed out. Well, it was really great meeting you. That was, I mean, that was just one hell of an era, and you lived it. Now, did the DiCaprio Cantes, did they completely dissolve as a crime family after Vinny flipped on everybody? Word was they were going to break them up. There was like 10 solid wise guys still out there. Okay, Gambino, take two. You take two. They were going to divide them up. When I heard that, too, that's what helped me. They would have put me with the Gambinos. Right. You would have been dead. So that's fascinating. So now, did they even have an outfit in Jersey still, the DiCaprio Cantes, or is that all done? That guy, I heard, yeah. Charlie Maggiore, Steve, Stephan. I don't know if they're still alive. Again, I don't. 21 years ago. Wait. In 01, I walked away from home. 25 years ago. 25 years ago. So, but there's got to be some knock around. There's got to be some knock around, guys. Still, you know. Yeah, but you know what they're doing? Bookmaking, loan sharking. But the thing without the, if you take the threat away, I'm not paying you. Right. If I'm a beat artist, you're going to beat a guy you ain't going to do nothing to. You're going to pay him? No, I'll just go to the feds if you try to threaten me. That's how most people think now. That's why they're scared right now because, you know, too sophisticated. Yeah, and also, you know, Brooklyn is too gentrified. Like, have you ever, have you been back? Back to Court Street and Carroll Gardens? Yeah. You know how much those Browns want? I go back like three, four times a year. Yeah, so you see it. You can't operate on that turf anymore because it's like you got families that go into Whole Foods. White, Asian families, you know, making. And they'll call a cop and a hobby. Exactly. Legitimate people. And you can't blame them. That's their life. They pay taxes. They should be protected by it, you know. So, I want people, because I really had a great time with you, Jimmy, and thank you. I want to give you that. And my new, my new life is better. Yeah, you're killing it. You're killing it. I don't want to say. I don't know where you live, but you're making. Arkansas. Oh, okay. Jonesboro, Arkansas. Can I get your address, too? You put it out there? Yeah, about, yeah. I live at a 7,000 square foot home. Oh. 10 acres. That feels good, huh? Matter of fact, they're coming out to film mob cribs. They're going to film something. Okay. My home. You should invite me out, man. Can we shoot guns in your property? Are you allowed to own guns? I can't own a gun, but you can. There's deers all over my property. We feed them. We got 10 acres. Amazing. In the city. In the city I live. Wow. So, let's plug your book, man. Hitman Tells All, Real Life Facts of the Mafia and the Witness Protection Program. Go get it by Mr. Jimmy. On Amazon, everything. Mr. Jimmy Easy. What's your last name? My last name is Sirocco. Sirocco. Sirocco. Yeah, matter of fact, I got it by all my pages, Jimmy underscore Easy underscore Sirocco. Great. Easy was my nickname. So, they can check you out, and you have a YouTube channel? Yeah. Okay. It's Jimmy. Jimmy Easy Mafia Life. Okay. It's growing like crazy. I can't believe it. And you got like the social media. They can all follow. We'll put the links in the description of this episode. We'll collab on a bunch of clips with, you know, our pages. But once again, Hitman Tells All by Jimmy Easy. Go get it. Jimmy, thank you so much, man. Thank you very much. Great having you. I really appreciate it. You're welcome back anytime. And you too. You'll want to come to Arkansas the 13th or the 14th. They're coming to film it. I do. I want to come through. Let's make it happen. All right, you guys. Go check them out. We will see you next time. Take care. Thank you. Thank you. Show button here. Football is finally back. And PrizePix is going crazy with the deals to start the season. Giving out promos every day in September. On PrizePix, you can make all the picks you want. All in the same app. And now, PrizePix is available. PrizePix is available nationwide. So what are you waiting for? Lock in for kickoff. Because everyone and everything is on PrizePix. What you want? 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