Joey Merlino: Mafia Boss of the Philadelphia Crime Family? | PBD Podcast #762

Joey Merlino, often labeled an alleged Philadelphia mob boss, sits down with Patrick Bet-David to break down his side of the story - from beating multiple RICO cases to his ongoing battles with the FBI, media narratives, and what he calls a system built on lies. In this interview, Merlino opens up about his time in prison, why he says he never cooperated with federal authorities, and his views on “rat culture” in organized crime. He also reacts to long-standing allegations, calls out government tactics, and shares how he transitioned from legal battles to building a business and podcast platform. The conversation dives into street code, loyalty, and the differences between reputation, reality, and media portrayal - giving viewers a rare look into one of the most controversial figures tied to Philadelphia’s underworld. ------ 👍 LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE! Ⓜ️ MINNECT WITH JOEY MERLINO: https://bit.ly/4bijV8l Ⓜ️ CONNECT ON MINNECT: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4kSVkso⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4kSVkso Ⓜ️ PBD PODCAST CIRCLES: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4mAWQAP⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4mAWQAP 👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4lzQph2⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4lzQph2 🥃 BOARDROOM CIGAR LOUNGE: ⁠https://bit.ly/4pzLEXj https://bit.ly/4pzLEXj 💬 TEXT US: TEXT “PODCAST” TO 310-340-1132 TO GET THE LATEST UPDATES IN REAL-TIME! ABOUT US: Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Who was Joey Murillo?

• 0:01Speaker 01

  I'm cheesesteak guy.

• 0:02Patrick Bet-David?

  You're a cheesesteak?

• 0:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:03Patrick Bet-David?

  The media says you're part of the mob, you've never been part of the mob?

• 0:05Speaker 01

  No, there's no mob.

• 0:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Why do they make documentaries and talk about you?

• 0:08Speaker 01

  That's what the media does. Like Trump says, fake news.

• 0:11Patrick Bet-David?

  So rumor has it, he was gonna be the face, and behind closed doors, you were the puppet master kinda making the decisions?

• 0:17Speaker 01

  What's a what? The guy's a nut. He was a salesman. He was a good bull****.

• 0:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Ralph?

• 0:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. He's a habitual liar. If I know a guy's a rat and I hang with him, I'm a rat. They all changed their lives when they go to jail. These people are sick.

• 0:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Again, Joey, somebody may say, "You took out seven people as well."

• 0:31Speaker 01

  No, I didn't. I never killed nobody.

• 0:32Patrick Bet-David?

  You never killed nobody?

• 0:33Speaker 01

  No, never.

• 0:36Patrick Bet-David?

  You've never killed nobody?

• 0:37Speaker 01

  No. I was never down guilty of nothing.

• 0:39Patrick Bet-David?

  You beat three Rico cases.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  I still don't know where Rico is. They named me after a Thai guy.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Real **** Rico.

• 0:46Patrick Bet-David?

  They killed your friend and you guys don't retaliate?

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 0:51Patrick Bet-David?

  How do you become that noble?

• 0:53Speaker 01

  It's just the way I am.

• 0:54Patrick Bet-David?

  What is it with you not liking Pat's cheesesteak?

• 0:56Speaker 01

  He's the one that started with us.

• 0:57Patrick Bet-David?

  What happened?

• 0:58Speaker 01

  We buried him.

• 0:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Is this a real war? Cause the people outside of Philly don't know how important this is political.

• 1:02Speaker 01

  We didn't go away for none of them. They **** with us. They invented the cheesesteak.

• 1:05Patrick Bet-David?

  That's what I hear.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  No, he did. I said, "Yeah, you invented it. We perfected it." And we hurt his business. He used to have lines to block loan. We got the lines. We buried him.

• 1:20Patrick Bet-David?

  To those of you that have enjoyed the interviews I've done with John Gotti Jr., Sammy DeBulgravano, Michael Francis, Frank Calata, you know, Phil Leonetti, any of these names, you're gonna love today's interview. You've been asking for this for a very long time and it's finally happened, and that's with Joey Murillo, the FBI calls him the current boss of the Philadelphia crime family. You have to hear how he responds to it when I say that, and we addressed everything. Nothing was off the table. I brought up everything that he was tied to, right after his good friend, uh, Mikey Changs was shot and killed, and he was shot as well. Joey was shot a couple times. He'll explain to you where he was shot. There was stories about seeking vengeance, and I think there's seven murders tied to him, and I brought it up. You have to hear my response to that.

• 2:01Patrick Bet-David?

  He brought up the Rico cases, the two death sentences he had, the 22 years that he was in prison with, what that was like. And a part of it is like, I don't fear going to prison. I actually have a good time. Says, "Oh, I'm 64 years old. I'm 42. I'm young. I'm healthy." The mindset of no matter how many times he was pushed to be asked on certain things, you have to see...

• 2:23Patrick Bet-David?

  How he answered those questions, he definitely wanted to talk about rats. He called a lot of people rats, so that part of it, he was not holding back on anything. His opinions on how he felt. Now he's building a cheesesteak business in South Philly that's competing with Pat's. And he had a lot of stuff to say. I had no idea there was a massive cheesesteak war. We got wars going on in the Middle East. To South Philly, this war is more delicate and important than any of the worlds going on around the world because they're talking about cheesesteaks. So I'll let him explain to you. And by the way, I want to make you an offer you cannot refuse. And here's what it is. 51% of you don't subscribe to this show. You watch it on a weekly basis, but you haven't subscribed. To the 51% that hasn't subscribed, here's the offer.

• 3:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Subscribe to the channel. This allows us to get bigger interviews like this and many others. So if you like what we do here with our show, take a second, pause the video, click on that subscribe button, press the notification and enjoy this sit down with Joey Merlino.

• 3:38Patrick Bet-David?

  My handshake is better than anything I ever signed, right here.

• 3:42Patrick Bet-David?

  You are a one of one?

• 3:43Speaker 02

  My son's right there.

• 3:44Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't think I've ever said this before.

• 3:51Patrick Bet-David?

  So, you know, very rarely do I bring a neighbor of mine on the podcast, right? I mean, to me, you're a neighbor, right? My neighbor. We live down the street for each other. Down the street. To the northeast of the people that know the racetracks, you were a winning jockey back in the days, three years, 41 races, right? To the Fed, they claim you're still the, you know, boss of the Philadelphia crime family. I mean, that's what they say, that you've been one for many, many years, as you know. I've sat with Ralph Natale, whom you and him spent time in prison together. I've talked to Leonetti. I think I even had Michael McGowan on, which by the way, all three of them.

• 4:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Michael McGowan was the Fed, who was in the mob wars documentary, which I don't know if you've seen the documentary or not.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I see.

• 4:38Patrick Bet-David?

  You don't know Michael McGowan?

• 4:39Speaker 01

  No, I never met him.

• 4:40Patrick Bet-David?

  So FBI thinks that's who you are, you know, to Philly, you have the best cheesesteak, maybe better than Pat's.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  We got the best cheesesteak.

• 4:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, that's what I hear.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  In the city.

• 4:48Patrick Bet-David?

  And to YouTube, you got a podcast called, you know, the skinny, skinny with Joey Merlino. So to me with you is I've watched every clip I can get my hands on to see what you're gonna say, what you're not gonna say. I know your history. I've got friends I spoke to from Philly. Uh, one of them is, uh, he lived on, is it 2J2? He calls it 2J2. Uh, we'll talk about the, uh, you know, what areas, Jackson and 22nd Street.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, 22nd.

• 5:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, so he, he had a lot of good things to say about you growing up. Um, but I want to know this from you, who was Joey Merlino? If the average guy wants to know who's Joey Merlino, what would you say?

• 5:23Speaker 01

  I'm a cheesesteak guy.

• 5:25Patrick Bet-David?

  You're a cheesesteak?

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm for the people. I'm a no mob, but it, listen, that's those movies, that's, that's what they, you know, it's, that's what the media does. The media does it.

• 5:37Patrick Bet-David?

  So the media says you're part of the mob, you've never been part of the mob?

• 5:40Speaker 01

  No, I'm a nothing, no.

• 5:41Patrick Bet-David?

  No, so, so why do they make documentaries and talk about you? Why, why do they, you know, write books about you? Why do they, you know, in all these shows, talk about, you know, the boss? You know, uh, previously with Natale, previously with all these, why do they talk about your name all the time?

• 5:57Speaker 01

  Natale's the biggest liar ever. That's why I got mad at you, because you had him on the show.

• 6:02Patrick Bet-David?

  I had him on the show, he got very mad at me.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  He's a habitual liar. He's a, he was a habitual drug dealer. I, I, the only way he'd get out of jail is because of me, that's it. He would have died in jail. He got his whole family involved with drugs. He got his son-in-law involved with drugs. The guy who married his daughter.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Would I want my son-in-law to deal drugs? I want my son-in-law to be a doctor or whatever, whatever he does.

• 6:27Patrick Bet-David?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  He got his whole family involved with drugs, his son, his son-in-law. And they were never getting out of jail. He was gonna die.

• 6:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, he, he, he, when he and I sat down, he was very critical of Leonetti and very critical of you. Uh, uh, in a big way. But he said you guys were in prison together when he became, uh, uh, the boss, if I'm not mistaken.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  I was the boss of what?

• 6:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Boss of the.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was in jail with him, yeah.

• 6:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  He's a nut, the guy's a nut.

• 6:56Patrick Bet-David?

  What was he like? What's, I mean, I know he died a couple of years ago, but what was he like?

• 7:00Speaker 01

  He was a good toy, he was a, he was a salesman. He was a good bullshitter.

• 7:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Ralph?

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Was he a tough guy? Was he a capable guy? Was he a known guy?

• 7:09Speaker 01

  I met him in jail.

• 7:11Patrick Bet-David?

  First time you met him was in jail?

• 7:12Speaker 01

  In jail, yeah. I should have went to another jail. I would have never met him.

• 7:16Patrick Bet-David?

  So you prefer never meeting him?

• 7:18Speaker 01

  No, yeah, I wish I'd never met him.

• 7:20Patrick Bet-David?

  So rumor has it, the, the, the plans were, you know, he was gonna be the, you know, the face and behind closed doors, you were the puppet master kinda making the decisions. Uh, and then afterwards, when you got out, I think a couple of years later, you ended up becoming a boss. Is that a rumor? Is that a fact?

• 7:36Speaker 01

  It's a rumor.

• 7:37Patrick Bet-David?

  It's a rumor?

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:38Patrick Bet-David?

  How do you feel about all these rumors? How do you manage?

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Don't bother me, I don't care.

• 7:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Don't bother.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Like Trump says, fake news.

• 7:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  That sells papers. Listen, I, me and my family have been in the news since I was a kid. It don't bother me at all. I don't, you know, they say whatever they want.

• 7:51Patrick Bet-David?

  How do you handle it? How do you handle when they say this stuff?

• 7:53Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't even pay attention to it.

• 7:55Patrick Bet-David?

  But Joey, you gotta realize, even from the outside, like, I, I, I know what your answers are gonna be, 'cause I've been watching you for, of course, you know, we, uh, uh, the story is one time, we lived six houses down from each other, and I would walk the kids and I would see you. And one time I'm driving the car and I think, you know, I pull up, I'm like, "Excuse me, yeah, who's this?" I said, "Is this, uh, are you Skinny Joey? I'm Joey to you." And you pull up and I said, "Uh, I know you." And you're like, "Aren't you the guy that interviewed..." That's how our first interaction started.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Conversation. You had the kids in the truck.

• 8:27Patrick Bet-David?

  I had the kids in the truck, yes, I remember that. I'm like, "Wait a minute." You know, that's.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  I was saying to myself, "Who the fuck's this guy?" I just waved, you know, I waved to all the neighbors.

• 8:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Goes to that area, everybody waves.

• 8:36Patrick Bet-David?

  That's right.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  Walk the dogs.

• 8:37Patrick Bet-David?

  It's a great area.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  No, it's beautiful.

• 8:39Patrick Bet-David?

  It's a great, I love that area. We almost, uh, bought a couple of places there, but for a guy, I've sat with most of the guys that are living guys, even Leonetti, the only one he did was with me. And Leonetti was the underboss of uh uh working with Scarfall. Everything ties you that you were part of that life. But the only guy that and I'm trying to figure out how you're doing this. You claim you're not. The feds say they know you were and are. That's what the feds say. The streets say, you know, he was, maybe got out in twenty four. You know, possibly the only guy that was a boss that still walks the streets. You'll walk anywhere. You'll go to New York. What's the saying that you say?

• 9:23Speaker 01

  I can go anywhere.

• 9:24Patrick Bet-David?

  You can go anywhere. You can go to New York, go to Philly and nothing's gonna happen to you. But you grew up in this life. Now, whether you claim you were in it or not, that's, you know, you can, that's a speculation. But you grew up in this life and you excelled in this life. How did you get into the life?

• 9:38Speaker 01

  I was never in the life. It's just the way, uh, just growing up in South Philly. It's just the way we lived. You know what I mean? It's that we have street smarts. You know, you got, you're in the streets. You could be the greatest lawyer in the world, the smartest guy in the world. If you don't have street smarts, you ain't gonna make it nowhere.

• 9:53Patrick Bet-David?

  What are street smarts?

• 9:55Speaker 01

  You just gotta be street smart. Like, you know, you, you just can't, like, people are. I know lawyers that are the smartest, like, intelligent lawyers. But in court, you don't have the street smarts to get, you know, present to a jury. You're done. Bobby Simone was one of the best lawyers in Philly. He had street smarts. You gotta have street smarts.

• 10:16Patrick Bet-David?

  How do you gain it? How do you?

• 10:17Speaker 01

  Just learn it, you know, growing up.

• 10:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Is it learned or is it DNA? Is it something that some may have?

• 10:22Speaker 01

  I mean, a lot of people in South Philly have it, you know. It's just growing up. Respect, like my, my father, I mean, if I came to your house when I was a kid, if I didn't shake your hand and look, you know, look at you and say hello, we have respect for all those. We were bad kids, but we have respect for all those. I would get a beating. We would get a beating.

• 10:41Patrick Bet-David?

  From your pops?

• 10:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, we gotta respect people.

• 10:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Leonetti was very complimentary of your dad.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Leonetti's a fucking nut.

• 10:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Why is that?

• 10:50Speaker 01

  He's in that, he robbed his uncle, he took all his money. He never went to jail ever in his life, you know. The first time he went to jail, he made up stories to get out of jail. He robbed his uncle, he robbed all his money, robbed his whole family. And I don't know where the fuck, wherever the fuck he's living. Did you guys spend a lot of time together or no? No, yeah, I know him, yeah. All these rats, the only one I knew was really him. Like, see all these guys that go on all these shows. All of them, Sicali, bro, I never met them or saw them ever in my life. Leonetti I know. Leonetti and Ralph, that's the only two I ever know. How much time did you spend with Leonetti? I lived down there, I lived down there, sure, like, yeah, I spent, I spent time. Daily, weekly, like you saw? Yeah, like, yeah, I mean, yeah.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  What was it like? Did he have, did he carry weight? Did he, was he inspected? Was he feared? He was quiet, he really was. He used to love when they called him Crazy Phil, his mother, they used to love it. When they wrote in the paper, Crazy Phil, they loved it. Now he's, my uncle told me to do it, Phil.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  It's, it's jail, nobody wants to go to jail, that's the bottom line. They all changed their lives when they go to jail. Just picture, if none of them ever got locked up, they would never have been in here, they wouldn't have been sitting here. They still be in, he's still be in Atlantic City. So why are you doing it? Franchise, he's still be, I'm the voice for the people in jail that

• 12:09Speaker 01

  that got no voice. These people, buried people, lied about them, put them in jail. And then they go on in, whatever, YouTube, internet, make money off them. Sammy the Bull selling shirts that he killed nineteen people. And he's proud of it. He killed a sixteen year old kid, nobody ever, nobody talks about that. And these people are sick. Have you and Sammy ever done anything together? No, I never, I, if he will, I know what he looks like now, I never seen him in my life. Never seen him in your life? Ever. Never was in jail, none of them. Have you guys ever interacted, phone call, anything? No, oh, no. How about Michael? No, I, I never seen him in my life. He's another one. He found God as soon as he got locked up. When he was robbing all that money and he gave it to God.

• 12:54Speaker 03

  With Quicken, your finances can stop feeling so complicated. You save, you invest, you keep an eye on spending. But what next? Quicken helps you put the whole picture together and make sense of your options. Connect accounts from more than fourteen thousand financial institutions and see how all the different pieces of your financial life fit together. Quicken, know what to do next. See how at quicken.com.

• 13:22Speaker 04

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 13:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Has that ever happened with you? Did you ever have a moment where you found God, or no?

• 13:58Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I'm Catholic. I was an altar boy.

• 14:01Patrick Bet-David?

  You've always had it?

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. But these guys, soon as they get locked up. Sammy just got baptized. I see something, put him in a pool.

• 14:08Patrick Bet-David?

  What do you think about that?

• 14:09Speaker 01

  He should have got electrocuted, the motherfucker.

• 14:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Instead of a...

• 14:14Speaker 01

  I mean, look, look what he's doing now. And that's another thing, all these guys. There's not a way you could do it. But all these guys that... All of them, they all commit crimes. Sammy, he got five years. He killed 19 people. He didn't even do five years, he did a year. He gives that bullshit, he did a year. Got out, he flooded Arizona with drugs, all college kids. Got another break, now he just molested his secretary, pedophile, whatever he is.

• 14:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Who's this?

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Sammy.

• 14:45Patrick Bet-David?

  What about his assistant?

• 14:47Speaker 01

  He molested her. You didn't read it?

• 14:50Patrick Bet-David?

  No.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  It's a civil case.

• 14:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Is she under 18?

• 14:54Speaker 01

  I don't know, I'll be honest.

• 14:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Unless it has to be under 18. If it's like a... accused of sexually assaulting an employee.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  I guess that, assaulted an employee.

• 15:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  He made her stay in a hotel with him, he stuck a tongue down her throat, he pulled a gun out. You didn't read it? I could have sent it.

• 15:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, so a woman who worked with Salvatore?

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, she worked for him. I don't know her name. Somebody sent me the thing.

• 15:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I don't know these stories.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  And I got the text, I mean, he's texted her something. The guys are not, I mean, they just keep on getting shit. But they got a license, they could do it. You realize every day on the internet, for the last two years, me and Snuff, especially Snuff, they bother him, poor kid, he's an innocent kid. We get threatened every day. They're gonna come, they're gonna blow the cheesesteak place up, they're gonna beat all our employees up. If I said that on the internet, I'd get locked up immediately.

• 15:42Patrick Bet-David?

  What's the difference?

• 15:43Speaker 01

  They have a license. The government loves them.

• 15:47Patrick Bet-David?

  And the government doesn't love you?

• 15:48Speaker 01

  No, they hate me.

• 15:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Why is that?

• 15:50Speaker 01

  I don't know. I guess because I'm Italian. I don't know.

• 15:52Patrick Bet-David?

  You think it's just because you're Italian?

• 15:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. If my name was Joe Blow, I wouldn't, I would have never even got locked up or, or this many times.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  I went to jail for making a bet.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  Just think of that. Not bookmaking.

• 16:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  Not gambling, running illegal, placing a bet over the phone. I got two years in jail. They would have to lock the whole world up. Everybody bets.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  I got two years. The other guy, the other guy I seen the other day in a paper, he was with ISIS. He's supposed to get 20 years. They gave him 11 years. He got out in six years and he went and shot it, shot the people. The system's fucked up.

• 16:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  If that was me, I would have got the lecture chair.

• 16:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, but I think, I think what, uh, when I see a different case study with yours, I mean respectfully, when you, when you talk to the guys in the streets and, and you get different sides of the story, you know, one of them is there's seven, I think there is alleged, of course, this is alleged, seven hits that you have, alleged, seven people you took out, that that's what the street talks about.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  I was acquitted of everyone.

• 17:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Right, I understand that, but there's seven of them that they allege that you did that because they said, you know, one thing about Joey, that you get respect from your peers, is he was not only tough, he was capable. Some are capable but not tough, some are tough but not capable. Joey was both, meaning you didn't, if somebody, if you wanted to get somebody, you know, job done, you went and did it yourself. You're like, hey Bobby, you go do it. Hey Jack, you go do it. You went and got, and did it yourself. This is the rumors.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  That's the rumors.

• 17:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  I never killed nobody.

• 17:34Patrick Bet-David?

  You never killed nobody?

• 17:34Speaker 01

  No, never.

• 17:37Patrick Bet-David?

  You've never killed no man?

• 17:38Speaker 01

  No.

• 17:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. Uh, you, you, you beat three Rico cases, right? If I'm not mistaken.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Maybe four.

• 17:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Three or four?

• 17:45Speaker 01

  I still don't know where Rico is.

• 17:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Yes, I don't know where.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  I had three fucking cases. They named me after Tangai.

• 17:50Patrick Bet-David?

  They named it after the talking guy.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  Rico.

• 17:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Rico.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  Who the fuck's Rico?

• 17:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Keeps getting beaten up, apparently, if it's, uh, uh. So, three or four times, the seven, uh, uh, alleged murders that you're saying you gotta quit it on. So, to me, when I met with Sonny Francese, and I don't know what doubts you have about Sonny. When I met with Sonny, three or-

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Sonny or Michael?

• 18:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Not Michael, Sonny.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Oh, oh.

• 18:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Sonny, the father. Sonny did, I don't know what his time is, I think fifty-two, fifty-three years.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  Sixty years, fifty-

• 18:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, sixty years.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  Did a lot of time.

• 18:22Patrick Bet-David?

  He did a lot of time. What do you think about Sonny?

• 18:25Speaker 01

  Listen, the guy was a great guy. Did his time, kept his mouth shut. But when his son put people in jail, if you condone a rat, if I know, the way I led, the way I was brought up, if I know a guy's a rat and I hang with him, I'm a rat. It's simple as that. I got an uncle that ratted. I never told him again, ever. Disowned him, my family disowned him.

• 18:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Is this the uncle that just recently died?

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Lawrence, he died, he died. He died when I was in jail. What the, when I got pinched? Where was I? DeSage County Jail. I, I had a murder, I had a murder, murder case in Rico in Philly. One of the murders was Sedano, I beat it. The next day, they indicted me for the same murder in Newark federal court. I beat it twice. Twenty-four people found me not guilty, two jurors.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  And I was in the county jail and I called my cousin Ken, which is his daughter. And she said to me,

• 19:23Speaker 01

  I think it was my, my mother called me, she said, you gotta call Kim, it's, it's important. So I called her, what happened? She said, my father died. I said, good. Your father died, good. And they didn't tell, that's what they told me, they never told them. I don't think they did, I really don't.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  And she said, what should we do? I said, the, what day's trash day? She said, Thursday. I said, throw them in the fucking trash.

• 19:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Stop.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  And I was, and then they never talked, then they stopped talking to me.

• 19:49Patrick Bet-David?

  They stopped talking.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  They stopped talking. So we never, I never talked to my uncle, I never, you know what I mean? If you, if you- If you know somebody hurt people and lied on people and you told them you're just as bad as them. That's the way I was brought up.

• 20:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Who taught that to you?

• 20:03Speaker 01

  That's just the way I live. I live until I die.

• 20:05Patrick Bet-David?

  That's South Philly code?

• 20:06Speaker 01

  It should be every code.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  And this is the way we were brought up.

• 20:11Patrick Bet-David?

  So to you, when you, when you think about Sonny, you think he died that just because he associated with his son?

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's not supposed to talk to him. I mean, unless he got seen now.

• 20:23Patrick Bet-David?

  So you're saying even if he goes and meets with his son, you're breaking the code because you're meeting with somebody that spoke to the feds?

• 20:29Speaker 01

  I'm, I don't, I'm talking about no code. It's just the way I live. I mean.

• 20:33Patrick Bet-David?

  But that's a code though, no?

• 20:34Speaker 01

  My uncle, I would never fuck him. Good, I'm glad he's dead.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  And he never testified against nobody.

• 20:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, why, why, why did you do that to him? Why do you have that feeling towards your uncle, animosity?

• 20:47Speaker 01

  He's no good.

• 20:48Patrick Bet-David?

  What did he do that caused you to feel that way?

• 20:51Speaker 01

  What did he do? He's just not supposed to do what he did. Made up lies. He tried to get out of jail.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  And he lied and he was so bad, they never used him.

• 21:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Did he ever cooperate or no?

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, he, he, yeah, he cooperated. He sat down, you know, he told him everything, stories. But they never used him because he was fucking lying. They must have knew he was lying. And that was it. They never used him.

• 21:13Patrick Bet-David?

  So in.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  But he cooperated.

• 21:15Patrick Bet-David?

  So in your eyes, he cooperated. Is that, is that your, uh, is that the uncle?

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that's him, yeah.

• 21:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 21:23Patrick Bet-David?

  Interesting. Uh, okay. So going back to Sonny, what you said, but Sonny was a good guy. So the only issue you have with Sonny is the fact that he met with his son?

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I don't know him. I'm just saying, like, he made his son come and visit him in jail, pick him up from jail. After he knows you put, you, you, you put people in jail.

• 21:41Patrick Bet-David?

  And you're talking about Michael?

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Michael, yeah, whatever. And then he got another son to do. Michael ain't even his son.

• 21:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Right, that's a, that's a, you know, story that's been discussed many times that Michael doesn't want to talk about. But, um, yeah, and, and his other son, he had some issues that, uh, things that took place with him. But with Sonny, to me, when it comes on to Sonny, you know, Sonny was one of those guys that, uh, one time I went to New York. We're with him. He was staying at this, uh, I don't know if you call it an old folks homes or hospital. That's where we visited three times. I took him out one time to lunch. His lawyers are there. And it's eight or nine of us and we're going out there, we're eating at the nice spot. And I'm asking him all these questions and he was one of the guys that was true to Omerta. Like he was not gonna say nothing. So your challenge with Sonny is the fact that he just associated with his son.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe he wasn't, you know, again, I don't know. He was old. I don't know. I mean, I, I don't know him. I don't know him. If I'm saying, if it was me, I would never, I would never thought.

• 22:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Even if it was your son?

• 22:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I ain't even, well, yeah, even if it was my son, but he's not even his son.

• 22:46Patrick Bet-David?

  But you, you, so you're saying even if you, one of your kids turned and went and cooperated with the feds, you would never?

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Never look at them. No.

• 22:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you have a son?

• 22:56Speaker 01

  No, I have no son.

• 22:57Patrick Bet-David?

  You have any kids?

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I got.

• 22:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Two girls?

• 22:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. So if one of your girls did, you would never talk to her?

• 23:04Speaker 01

  Girls would never be in that situation.

• 23:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Why do you say that?

• 23:08Speaker 01

  They would never be in a situation where they have to make up stories and lie. They're both successful. One's an attorney and one's an advertisement.

• 23:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  So, you know, I've never put my kids in that situation.

• 23:19Patrick Bet-David?

  You would never put him in a situation like that? Huh. Interesting to me. When I, when I hear, uh, so who, who else, when this, this concept of, uh, you're saying this is how we do things. If somebody, you know, snitches or does something, we don't associate with them anymore. Where, where does this code come from though?

• 23:36Speaker 01

  It's just the way I am, the way I was brought up.

• 23:38Patrick Bet-David?

  What, what did your pops teach you? Cause your dad was a low.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  My father told me, listen, my mother taught me when I was a kid, don't tattle-tale. Did you like tattle-tales when you were a kid?

• 23:46Patrick Bet-David?

  No.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Oh, I like them. Fucking tattle-tales.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  I went to school, like if we got in trouble in school, you never tell them whatever. The nuns used to beat us with iron rulers. Who broke the window, who threw this, who did that? We don't know, we don't know, just the way we were brought up. Nobody likes tattletale.

• 24:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, but you, you know, the, the, the, okay, so that's one, what else? What else was certain rules?

• 24:10Speaker 01

  That's it, that's just the way we grew up, never, you know. Mind your business.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  But don't affect you, just mind your business.

• 24:19Patrick Bet-David?

  How, how tough was it growing up in South Philly?

• 24:21Speaker 01

  That was tough, Philly's tough neighborhood, South Philly's tough.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  But it was a good neighborhood, close knit, everybody looked out for each other. You could leave your door open.

• 24:30Patrick Bet-David?

  So what made it tough?

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Just the neighborhood, you know, blue collar, everybody worked, and it was just. We all grew up, we hung in schoolyards. You know, like old kids, we, I'm still friends with the kids I went to kindergarten with. And we all grew up together. And we just, that's just the way we were.

• 24:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Joey, how, how many people of, of friends of yours that you had? How many were true to this code? No tattletale, no, no snitching, no talking to feds? How many guys were the core guys that you could trust with anything?

• 25:02Speaker 01

  My whole neighborhood, everybody was like that.

• 25:04Patrick Bet-David?

  When you say whole neighborhood, you mean you're talking about hundreds of people?

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, like everybody that we hung out with, it was just the way it was. Today, it's all fucked up.

• 25:11Patrick Bet-David?

  What happened?

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Well, no, I'm saying like, we used to hang in the schoolyard, we played basketball, we played baseball, we played every sport you could think of, hockey. You don't even see a kid in the schoolyard no more. They play fucking video games, they're all fucked up. They can't even talk.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  So, you know, it's just that I'm glad I was born when I was born. Kids there are all fucked up.

• 25:32Patrick Bet-David?

  At what point did, did kids know, or you know, that there was something different about your toughness? Or did you even think that?

• 25:38Speaker 01

  No, I didn't even think of it, it's just the way we were, it's the way we were brought up.

• 25:41Patrick Bet-David?

  People knew you were different though, Joey, I mean, you know, for a guy that, you know, uh, um. Don't take this the wrong way. I know like Michael was a big guy, right? Is it Chadliani?

• 25:54Speaker 01

  Oh, Mike Chang, Michael Chang, yeah.

• 25:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Michael Chang, yeah. He was a big guy. He was not a small guy.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  No, Michael was big.

• 25:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Michael feared by.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  He was tough with his hands, yeah.

• 26:01Patrick Bet-David?

  He was tough with his hands, but was a family guy. He was respected and loved and feared, which is a very weird combination to have loved, respected and feared. That doesn't, it's not common to have someone like that. And when, when they took out Michael, this was apparently your best friend. This was.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  My guy, yeah, dear friend.

• 26:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Best friend. When they took him out.

• 26:23Patrick Bet-David?

  You, you, the, the, Michael was big and intimidating, but based on what people tell me. When I see you, you know, you're a nice guy. I'm talking to you right now, even off camera. And every time I've seen you, we have a good conversation together. But there is an element of fear towards a guy like you. Why did they fear you, respect you and love you? Why did the people in South Philly have that feeling towards you? The average person can say fair with Michael, but why towards you?

• 26:52Speaker 01

  We're nice to everybody. We help everybody.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  People in Philly love me. We help everybody. We go in a restaurant, we tip everybody. We take care of people. We give turkeys out. I've been giving turkeys out since the eighties. You know, they saw you doing it. Now you want to be on the internet. No, I've been doing it before. There was no internet. There was no cell phones back then. The beepers weren't even out yet.

• 27:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Why'd you do that?

• 27:15Speaker 01

  Just, we always did. My father did it. We're the underdogs to help people.

• 27:20Patrick Bet-David?

  So you saw your father do it and you did it.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it's a good feeling to help, to help people. A lot of people don't have nothing. I mean, electric bills we paid, ladies getting their electric shut off in the winter, like. We did it for a year. We, we, we still do it.

• 27:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, yeah. There's a, a, I want to get his first name right. I know his last name. Is it Sonny Mazon? Is it, is it Sonny or is it?

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Stevie?

• 27:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Steven Mazon. Steven Mazon.

• 27:50Patrick Bet-David?

  He had this, this shop uh by this arcade store. And he would do, he would do embroidery for jackets.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, I don't know if you remember this or not.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  I remember it.

• 28:00Patrick Bet-David?

  This is eighty-eight, eighty-seven, eighty, eighty-nine. And one day, one of my friends who was from two J two, which is twenty-second and Jackson. And he goes up to Stevie and says, hey, I want to get this jacket with the embroidery, uh, you know, Philly for my girlfriend. He said, okay, great. So they do it and he's about to pay him whatever the embroidery is gonna be. Stevie says, what did you get for your mother? And this fellow says, uh, yeah, I got her nothing. I don't have a lot of money this year. I can't do anything about that, but next year I want to get her something. He says, no, I, I don't want you to do that. I want you to not pay for this embroidery. Take the jacket, but go get your mother a gift.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:37Patrick Bet-David?

  That's how, so these are the types of stories that comes back.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  No, Steve is a classy guy. That's, we all, we're all like that. That's what we do. I mean, we help everybody, didn't anybody, we did it our whole lives. Everybody likes us. They respect us. They like us.

• 28:50Patrick Bet-David?

  How'd you guys make money?

• 28:52Speaker 01

  I worked, we worked. I worked my whole life.

• 28:55Patrick Bet-David?

  What'd you do?

• 28:56Speaker 01

  I was a jockey, gambler. I did it all.

• 29:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Jockey, gambler.

• 29:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Um, as a jockey, were, were you making real money? Like, was there real money in the jockey business?

• 29:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I made money when I, I was a kid though. I was fucking eighteen.

• 29:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Forty-one races. How did you get into that business?

• 29:14Speaker 01

  I started out, I'll tell you, I got into it. Salvy Testa took me, they used to have horses in Jersey. There ain't no horse in South Philly. You fucking would see a horse.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  And we went down to Cabana Downs and we used to go riding.

• 29:27Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  And he owned, he had a horse and I, I used to, you know, he said, well, you ride good. And then we used to rent them. You go down like fucking five dollars for two hours. And we would go, you know, all our friends and Philip Narducci had a horse and we used to go down and ride. And then I, I loved it and I was little. And then I I got a job down Atlantic City racetrack as a hot walker. And you know groom, exercise boy and jogging. That's how it started.

• 29:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Passion, loved it like till today?

• 29:53Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 29:54Patrick Bet-David?

  I've seen you at the racetrack.

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I I could get, yeah, I see you.

• 29:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  What was it that?

• 29:58Patrick Bet-David?

  It's the best one in Florida. It's it's the.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, Florida Derby.

• 30:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Florida Derby, oh my.

• 30:03Speaker 01

  I think it's coming up in two weeks.

• 30:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Is it really?

• 30:04Speaker 01

  And tomorrow.

• 30:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, can eh, can you text Mateo? Tell him I gotta go to that Rob. Let me tell you, it is such a spectacle. We go every year.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Every year.

• 30:12Patrick Bet-David?

  It's a. You go to the Derby lot or no?

• 30:14Speaker 01

  No, I I never been to Kentucky Derby, Florida Derby.

• 30:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, the Derby, you know.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Uh, I want to go.

• 30:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I've been going every year for many years. It's a it's a great experience, but so you you got into races like that? And you're doing this as a kid, you're making good money. And then you get you openly talk about gambling on the podcast. You guys talk about gambling all the time. I know Italy was in the World Series against Venezuela. We're talking about it. That was a close. Uh, close game, but going back to it, the the culture of how you guys work for the people. And the people, actually, if you talk to the people in the streets. It's it's very rare. I find anybody that says anything bad about what you guys did to the city, to South Philly.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  No, I mean, we help everybody.

• 30:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, except when.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  We pay tuitions. We we don't tell them. We don't go announce that, oh, we paid so and so. We we help. We help everybody and and whoever we can help. Like I said, with the cheesesteak place that we opened.

• 31:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  If anybody, you know, people get out of jail, like it's almost impossible to get a job. If you're a felon.

• 31:18Patrick Bet-David?

  So the Fed may say, uh, that's a business model, win the people, but do the business and make the money, but help the little guys. Right? It's almost like the movie in Gladiator when uh. The the Gladiator says, I want to have freedom one day like you. He says, when the crowd win your freedom. Was that the purpose? To win the crowd, win the people?

• 31:39Speaker 01

  No. No, we just did it. We didn't do it for no views and likes. We did it before all this internet shit.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  That's just the way we were brought up. My father paid for people's wakes. You know, somebody in the family dies, they got no money to bury them. We didn't broadcast it. Just we can get getting the money, pay for it. That's just the way we are. And I'll never change. Like I was getting back with the cheese steak place. I told him. I'll hire anybody. Give you a chance, you know, as long as you're not a rat and a pedophile. Other than that, you could, a child molester, you could come work for us.

• 32:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Those two for you.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:15Patrick Bet-David?

  I can see that job interview, so.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 32:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Asking a question.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  Not a rat?

• 32:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Are you a rat or a pedophile?

• 32:21Speaker 01

  A pedophile.

• 32:21Patrick Bet-David?

  No, Joey. Okay, you're hired.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  You're on, you're hired.

• 32:23Patrick Bet-David?

  You literally ask that, you say that to people?

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. If not, I don't want you.

• 32:27Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't know, Fortune 500 companies use that, uh, maybe they should.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, they should. Who wants pedophiles?

• 32:34Speaker 01

  Listen, they should do. You see how they got Megan's law?

• 32:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Hmm.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  You know, if you're. You fuck with kids.

• 32:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Hmm.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  You gotta let the neighbors know. They should do that with these, like, like, these rats, like, they should have rat law. Would you like to have Sammy the Bull's your neighbor? The truth. If you didn't know, like, he's on, he's on another name, because he had a different name. They all get different names. If he was fucking, uh, Tony Manero, my neighbor, Tony Manero. If you got, if you got four sons next door, you got four kids, you want this fucking nut living next door to you? You got nineteen people?

• 33:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 33:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, to me, I get along with everybody.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  No, I know, I mean, you're in the, I'm just saying, a regular person.

• 33:12Patrick Bet-David?

  I, I, the regular person would say no.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  How the fuck would you want this motherfucker living next door to you?

• 33:16Patrick Bet-David?

  But again, Joey, somebody may say, you, you took out seven people.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  No, I didn't, I'm not, I was.

• 33:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Allegedly, you know, the, the numbers, like, you know, there's. And by, by the way, I mean, you, you, you know, when we do the interview, you're gonna say whatever you're gonna say, you're Joey Murillo, but. You know, reputation follows, like, if reputation follows somebody, and if. The average person doesn't have a reputation of killing seven people. That doesn't come accidentally. You know what I'm saying, Phil?

• 33:40Speaker 01

  I was charged out on the hot wood, how many?

• 33:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  I got acquitted of everyone, found not guilty. I got found not guilty by. I got charged with the same murder twice, it never happened.

• 33:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Ever.

• 33:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  It was federal court, federal court. Philly, I beat it, they charged me the next day in Newark, I went to trial again and beat it. I was never, now guilty of nothing. No murders. None, I was acquitted of all of them.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  What's that mean? I didn't do it. We didn't do it, my friends. We didn't do it.

• 34:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Hmm. Hmm. Yeah, but but when when uh when I think, how how close was was uh was Michael like a brother to you?

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, Michael, yeah.

• 34:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. So is it true that the war that happened, mob wars that happened in the eighties, whatever the year was, could have been eighties, nineties, when it happened, his brother Joey, uh who went and sided with Stampa, who was the boss that they sent from Sicily. He came to try to bring the business back to the old ways of just making money and that's all they were doing. And Joey, the brother, killed Michael. Is that a is that a true story in New York?

• 34:46Speaker 01

  I have no idea.

• 34:47Patrick Bet-David?

  You have no idea?

• 34:48Speaker 01

  No idea.

• 34:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  I know me and Michael were walking down the street with a drive-by. I got shot and he got he got shot one time and died.

• 34:56Patrick Bet-David?

  You got shot four times, or is that you?

• 34:57Speaker 01

  No, twice in the ass.

• 34:59Patrick Bet-David?

  He shot you twice in the ass?

• 35:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:01Patrick Bet-David?

  That's a tough way to kill somebody.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  He he should have never got hit.

• 35:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, he got hit because he raised his arm?

• 35:07Speaker 01

  He put his arm up.

• 35:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, got it.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  If his arm was down, I guess, you know, he's big.

• 35:10Patrick Bet-David?

  He would have made it.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  It went on the hair, you on the hair. And it only got shot one time.

• 35:14Patrick Bet-David?

  But you don't know who killed him?

• 35:15Speaker 01

  No.

• 35:16Patrick Bet-David?

  No idea?

• 35:17Speaker 01

  No idea.

• 35:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you never wanted to seek vengeance and find out who did?

• 35:20Speaker 01

  No. No.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  Not at all.

• 35:27Patrick Bet-David?

  Joey.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  What are you laughing about?

• 35:29Patrick Bet-David?

  You're so funny, Joey.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  It's the truth.

• 35:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, well, listen, I respect it. I'm trying to see because your birthday just happened, right? You just had a birthday a couple days ago.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  It's a birthday.

• 35:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. Happy birthday to you.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 35:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Uh, uh, uh. A guy who is feared, loved, and respected has no desire to want to seek vengeance on the guy that killed his best friend, his brother.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 35:50Patrick Bet-David?

  How do you become that noble, that peaceful?

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Peace. That's it. That's just the way I am.

• 35:55Patrick Bet-David?

  No desire to want to have somebody that took at them. This is a code.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  I don't even I don't even know who did it.

• 36:02Patrick Bet-David?

  I mean, everything ties back to his brother that killed Michael, your right-hand guy, your best friend.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:09Patrick Bet-David?

  And you had no desire to want to go back and take that guy out?

• 36:11Speaker 01

  No.

• 36:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. So obviously, the revenge ends up happening. And I think you're at the funeral of, um.

• 36:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Of you of Michael and at the funeral cameras on you zooming in on you and everyone's trying to size you up to say, you know, Stanford's winning, you know, the war and you know, these young guys that are coming up, who do they think they are Joey Merlino is now afraid and he's afraid of Stanford now and you zoom in and zoom in and zoom in and even closer on your eyes. And then a report asked you a question. I don't know what the question was. But you told them to F off like you really had no desire want to talk to anybody. What were you thinking in that moment at the funeral?

• 36:56Speaker 01

  Nothing, just mourning our friend, you know, worry about his family. He had three kids.

• 37:01Patrick Bet-David?

  No desire for vengeance?

• 37:03Speaker 01

  No.

• 37:04Patrick Bet-David?

  So, so if, if your, if your father is the father that I think he is, my assumption. If he said, you know, shake someone's hands, you know, be respectful. If you don't, you're going to get a whipping. Yeah, this is the clip. Rob, can you play this? Is this video? Do we have this or no? Can you turn the audio so I can hear? Go for it.

• 37:25Speaker 05

  Morning's viewing in funeral for Changalini, Merlino was not at all camera shot. He stood in front of the funeral. Oh, is this what you say? I'm still here. They didn't get me. Merlino has also maintained his bravado. Listen to his response when we asked him to comment on the shooting.

• 37:43Speaker 05

  This morning's viewing in.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, fuck you. I'm we're at a week.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  And they got cameras at a week. I mean, come on, show respect for the family.

• 37:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Was that the case 24 seven with you? Was cameras on?

• 37:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's everywhere. Yeah, cameras everywhere we went.

• 37:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Why did they want to record you?

• 38:00Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't fucking news, fake news.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Look what they do to Trump. Same shit.

• 38:09Patrick Bet-David?

  So for me, if we, if we go back to, you know, with pops.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  But you have to go back to you're saying about these shootings. We were at quit.

• 38:18Patrick Bet-David?

  I know you were. I know you were, but to me, if the DNA of what your father might, what I'm understanding from the, from the people in South Philly, what the code was. If your father. I, I, the profile of your father, I would say if anybody does anything to your brother, you better make sure you get him by the end of the day. Would that be a right assumption of something your father would tell you?

• 38:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, if I'm, I tell my, anybody that, if I'm with, me and you at a bar and you're getting in a fight, I'm helping you.

• 38:48Patrick Bet-David?

  They killed your, your best friend, you're not doing anything?

• 38:50Speaker 01

  No, we didn't do that. I don't know who killed him. We don't know who killed him.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 38:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. Um, who, who was, uh, uh, who, who was, uh, uh, not Billy VC, cause that's the older brother, right? Was it John, John, John VC? Am I saying it correctly?

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Who was John VC?

• 39:09Speaker 01

  I don't know. I know him, how, how long ago? I've seen him three times in my life.

• 39:12Patrick Bet-David?

  You've seen him three times in your life?

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Is it recent or back in the day?

• 39:14Speaker 01

  No, back in the day.

• 39:16Patrick Bet-David?

  How tough was he? Was he a tough guy or?

• 39:17Speaker 01

  He was a junkie.

• 39:19Patrick Bet-David?

  He was a junkie?

• 39:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's what he was, dope fiend. He never hung with us. We never did drugs. He was younger and we didn't know him. I didn't know from the neighborhood.

• 39:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Was Billy more your age or was, was, uh?

• 39:30Speaker 01

  Billy was, yeah, I, I, maybe my age or a year or two younger.

• 39:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you ever meet Billy or not?

• 39:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know Billy.

• 39:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Was Billy an easygoing guy?

• 39:38Speaker 01

  He was a nice guy.

• 39:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Nice guy, not a tough guy, not a street guy?

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, no.

• 39:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. So Billy seemed like he wanted to do the right thing?

• 39:43Speaker 01

  He was a good athlete.

• 39:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Billy was a good athlete?

• 39:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, he played basketball and all, yeah.

• 39:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Right. And then Johnny, in, in this picture, uh, uh, Johnny's the one on the right?

• 39:55Speaker 01

  Billy's got the tux on.

• 39:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Billy's got the tux on, yeah. So, uh, uh,

• 40:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Johnny goes out there and I think Johnny, uh, uh, allegedly, little bit reckless, he's going out there, he has no problem taking somebody out. I think he got, hi- his mother died at forty-one when he was sixteen years old and he never met his father.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  They were all junkies.

• 40:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  They were dope fiends.

• 40:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Both of them or he was?

• 40:18Speaker 01

  No, not Billy. He was, the mother, the whole family.

• 40:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, the whole family was?

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Not Billy though, I don't think Billy was.

• 40:23Patrick Bet-David?

  So Billy was a good kid?

• 40:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:24Patrick Bet-David?

  I think Johnny's still around. So Johnny, uh, uh, allegedly got arrested sixty-plus time before turning eighteen. So eventually, he gets out, when he gets out, they come up to him, they give him a thousand dollars to take somebody out and he goes out for ten thousand dollars and they burn up the car, which the car was a leased car, if I'm not mistaken, and... He burns in the car, FBI comes and says, what are you doing? The license plate is still here, goes back to the guy that leased the car. They know who it is, they go find him, that's ties to Stanfa. And they're like, no, you're tied to this. And then eventually, through him, they realize he's gonna flip. And he's gonna go testify against the whole crew. Everybody, Johnny was.

• 41:08Patrick Bet-David?

  And then that day, before he was gonna do that, they took out his brother, Billy.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  All this stuff adds up? Is all these stories are kinda adding up, or? No, yeah, I know, yeah. Okay. I was in Philly. Yeah. I got charged with it. You got charged with it? Yeah, and got acquitted. And got acquitted? I found not guilty. Of course Ralph Natale lied. What did Ralph say? Ralph said you were behind it? Yeah, me and my friends, but we got acquitted. He said that after the murder,

• 41:38Speaker 01

  we had a meeting at my grandmother's house, 927 Jackson.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  And, um, you know, to bullshit the movie shit. He hugged me, kissed me. It sounds good, you know, in court.

• 41:51Speaker 01

  But come to find out, he didn't realize, and the US attorneys in Philly, they believed anything he said, they never investigated it. This was 1995, I think it was, or '95, '94. That we had a meeting in 927 Jack Street, my grandmother's house. My grandmother sold the house three years prior. To Chinese people, Asian people. It was impossible for us to be in that house. So we subpoenaed, my lawyer went and got the deed to the house, that the house was sold three years prior. And we called the Asian guy, I don't even know what the fuck he is. He came on the stand, we gotta get a translator. He said, that's impossible, they were never in my house. I don't even know them, I've never seen them in my life. They could have never been in my house that day.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  He lied, the jury acquitted us in five minutes.

• 42:40Patrick Bet-David?

  What did Natali say his beef was, you know, when you guys were in prison together? He asked you, hey, take care of my family when I'm out.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  They all got the same story. Everyone, they must give him a pamphlet when they flip. When you can understand, say this. They didn't give my fam- fuck, I gotta give his family money for it. I don't know him. I lent his son-in-law my motorcycle when I was in jail. It's a true story. I met him in jail. I, I, I liked motorcycles. I had a Harley Davidson. Brand new. I get locked up. I only got, I get four years. So I kept the bike. You know, when I get out, right, I love bikes.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  He said to me, my son-in-law, Bobby, he loves bikes. That's the bike. No, that wasn't that one. The one before I had that, that one. He said he wants to go to Bike Week or something, something with fucking bike. Could you let, could he borrow the bike for the weekend? I should have taken it. Fuck, I ain't, I'm in jail. Can't drive in the yard. So I can, I give the bike. That motherfucker stole it. Stop it. Kept the bike and sold it. And still didn't pay me.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  Brand new Harley Davidson. Nice guy. He's in his son-in-law.

• 43:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you ever meet up and meet him again? Did you ever see him again?

• 43:51Speaker 01

  No, I never seen him. No.

• 43:54Patrick Bet-David?

  So when's the last time you saw Ralph? Was it in jail?

• 43:56Speaker 01

  No, in a witness stand.

• 43:58Patrick Bet-David?

  In a witness stand? What was that like when you saw him?

• 44:01Speaker 01

  He was the worst witness ever. My lawyer destroyed it.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  The jury, the jury said, if you could pull up the art.

• 44:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Embarrassing, yeah.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  They said he was the worst. How the fuck could they even bring him on the stand?

• 44:11Patrick Bet-David?

  They didn't even believe him.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  They didn't believe one, they said, the, what jury said, we didn't believe one word he said.

• 44:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  But, that's the government for you.

• 44:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  I got them all out of jail. Pete DeCrum, another guy.

• 44:23Patrick Bet-David?

  How?

• 44:26Speaker 01

  Ralph, he was dead. It was his third, third meth conviction. It's life, automatic life, no parole, you never get out. He testified against me and they gotta let him out. Let his son-in-law out. Pete DeCrum. He was dead. He, he admitted that, he, he said he don't know how many people he killed.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  They dug up a, a social club, there was three bodies. He was, he was dead. He was getting, and his son was, his son, I know, his son was already in jail, was it? For drugs, got 14 years with the state in Jersey. He testified against me to let his son right out and they let him out.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  Nice country, right?

• 45:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I'm trying to think because to me, you know, if going back to father would say, if anybody does anything to your brother, you know, you have to, you can't let the market believe that they can touch you or the people on your crew. Right? I mean, in the street court, even in business.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  There is no crew. We're just friends. I mean, you just want to make it like it's this, it's that.

• 45:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, I get that. Even to us, like in business, Joey, if in business, there's a, there's a quote. I'll read it to you. Maybe you'll like this quote. And when I read this quote, it kind of reminds me of maybe the code you followed. "No friend ever served me and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full." Let me read it again. "No friend ever served me and no enemy ever wronged me, whom I have not repaid in full." Lucius Cornelius Sulla, self-written epitaph. So I see you as one of these guys. I see as a guy, if he's your friend, he's 100% loyal. I have your back for the rest of your life. But also see if you're an enemy, you cross me,

• 46:16Patrick Bet-David?

  you have to worry about me for the rest of your life. If you don't build that reputation, you, you, you know this, Joe, you know?

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that's, you're my friend.

• 46:25Patrick Bet-David?

  So they killed your friend and you guys don't retaliate?

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 46:31Speaker 03

  With Quicken, your finances can stop feeling so complicated. You save, you invest, you keep an eye on spending. But what next? Quicken helps you put the whole picture together and make sense of your options. Connect accounts from more than 14,000 financial institutions and see how all the different pieces of your financial life fit together. Quicken, know what to do next. See how at quicken.com.

• 46:59Speaker 04

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  And we got charged with it. And we got to quit.

• 47:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. How about Salvi?

• 47:40Speaker 01

  Salvi's a good man.

• 47:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Everyone says that.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  No, Salvi's a good guy.

• 47:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Everyone says that. Everyone says Salvi, on one end, he was the guy that would grab the, you know, if somebody went to, to, to the market, he would grab all the groceries and walk across and help you out and...

• 47:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, we all did. Everybody. I was the neighbor. That's just the way we were brought up.

• 47:59Patrick Bet-David?

  But Salvi was also known for being very tough and feared.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  Salvi's a tough guy.

• 48:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Him and Michael both, same level of toughness?

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were tough. Both tough.

• 48:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Similar profile?

• 48:09Speaker 01

  Well, big. Big, big guys go with their hands.

• 48:11Patrick Bet-David?

  And Salvi was good friends with you as well?

• 48:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:14Patrick Bet-David?

  So Salvi and Michael has friendship, same level?

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Salvi...

• 48:19Speaker 01

  When Salvi died, I, I was in jail when he died. He was eighty. In the eighties, he died. I was young when he died. He died eighty-four. I was in jail.

• 48:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Did they call him, why did they call him the prince, the crown prince? How did that nickname come?

• 48:32Speaker 01

  I think, I think the, I think the fucking, what do you call it? Gave it to him. The paper, the newspaper.

• 48:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Not even, nobody gave it to him?

• 48:37Speaker 01

  No, nobody ever called him that.

• 48:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Why did they call him that, though?

• 48:39Speaker 01

  We never, nobody in Philly ever called him that. Like, nobody ever called me Skinny Joey, ever. You know, he got that name from the, from the cops. I had a cousin, Margot Lawrence's son.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  He was Joey, and I was Joe. Same name, Merlino. He was fat, and I was skinny. So they used to... The truth, so when they used to follow us...

• 49:01Patrick Bet-David?

  That's the skinny one.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  They say the skinny one. Nobody ever called me Skinny Joey my whole life. And nobody never called Salvi, I never heard the prince, I mean, from the paper, but nobody ever called him that.

• 49:10Patrick Bet-David?

  I can't, I can't see the mob calling him, calling anybody crowned.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  No, I never, no, I never heard it, I mean, till it was in the paper. I think it's the New York Times that had an article on the son.

• 49:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  But nobody ever called him that.

• 49:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. It's funny that you name your podcast This Skinny by Joey Merlino. I love that name, by the way. So, what was your reaction when he was killed?

• 49:28Speaker 01

  I was away. He was a good man. Salvi was a good man. Great guy.

• 49:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Um, similar profiles with him and Michael, meaning the same feared, respected and loved.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Whatever, yeah. They were tough. They were good fighters, you know what I mean? They could fight. They were big. They're not gonna use their hands, you know what I mean? They're, they're tough.

• 49:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you, did you go to school with them?

• 49:49Speaker 01

  No, Salvi was older than me.

• 49:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Salvi was older than?

• 49:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think Salvi was like six, seven years older.

• 49:55Patrick Bet-David?

  You respect him? Was he like an older brother?

• 49:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was older. Yeah, he was, you know, when you're, when you're sixteen and somebody's twenty-four, it's like.

• 50:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Massive.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  It's like, wow, yeah, like, yeah.

• 50:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, but he was cordial, respectful to everybody.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  Gentlemen, good men.

• 50:08Patrick Bet-David?

  And so who would test him? Like, when you build a reputation of tough guy, how does that happen? It's just guys' testament and people find that he can knock them out and then boom, a reputation is built?

• 50:17Speaker 01

  You know, it's different when you're younger. You're in a bar, people drinking, getting in a fight, crack the guy, whatever, you know, that's how it was.

• 50:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Nothing like, he was not like a guy that's golden gloves, that's.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Nah, but they, yeah, you know, they went in the gym, like, you know, he, he was good with his hands, yeah. Him, Michael, they were good with their hands.

• 50:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. Just wondering, you know, the, the, the, the idea of if somebody crosses, you have to make sure the other side doesn't think they can do that again and again and again to you. Because if the market believed, and by the way, you know, again, the stories, you're gonna say allegedly, Stanfa, who was an OG Sicilian guy, went against you and you beat him. You know, and, and you know, that was, that was like the biggest underdog. Nobody ever thought that would happen where the guys who are from Sicily, the, the OG OG guys came in trying to put the fear of death in you and you didn't flinch.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  You're just dying to get me to talk about this stuff.

• 51:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Nah, I'm just telling, I'm just telling.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  I had nothing to do with none of that.

• 51:22Speaker 01

  Whether you believe me or not, I'm telling you, I had nothing to do with it.

• 51:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  Whatever we were charged with in court.

• 51:29Patrick Bet-David?

  None of it.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  I got, yeah, we got charged with a lot of it. We got acquitted of everything, me and my friends. This is America, you're acquitted. I got found not guilty.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  And that's it.

• 51:42Patrick Bet-David?

  What, what, if, if I was to ask you, what five values do you value the most? Like if I'm one of your brothers, I'm one of your friends, thirty years we've been together. What's the most likelihood that these three, four, five qualities we all have? I know one of them is no tattletale, no snitching. What else would you say?

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Help everybody, loyal.

• 52:02Speaker 01

  Don't be jealous.

• 52:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Don't be jealous.

• 52:04Speaker 01

  Jealousy's worse than cancer.

• 52:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Really? Tell, tell me about don't be jealous.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  Don't be jealous of nobody. If you, you got a hundred billion, God bless you, that would make two hundred billion. A lot of people are jealous.

• 52:16Patrick Bet-David?

  So in that, in that life, what does jealousy do?

• 52:18Speaker 01

  In any life, has nothing to do with that life. Every day, people jealous. How many people are jealous of you? Believe me.

• 52:27Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh.

• 52:27Speaker 01

  And they'll shake your hand, I wish you the best, God bless you. As soon as you walk away, they hope you fucking die, your building burns down, your car blows up.

• 52:34Patrick Bet-David?

  How, how do you find it? How do, how do you know where they're at? How do you figure out who they are?

• 52:38Speaker 01

  It's, it's hard to figure out, you know what I mean? But it's jealousy bad.

• 52:43Patrick Bet-David?

  You, you've been a lot of meetings, you've sat down with a lot of different people. You grew up in South Philly, so you, you have to size people up fairly quickly. How, how do you size them up?

• 52:51Speaker 01

  You just, you feel it, I mean, I mean, believe me, I was wrong a lot too. I was wrong a lot. You know? But jealousy bad.

• 53:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, you know Robert Greene, I don't know if you know who he is? He wrote the book called Forty Year Loss of Power?

• 53:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:08Patrick Bet-David?

  You ever heard of him?

• 53:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I heard the book.

• 53:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. So he, he, he's a friend and he said one time, if you really want to know how your friends feel or somebody feels in front of them, share a setback or loss and just watch their body language. If you watch them closely, you'll see a smile that they're kind of happy that you had a setback. And he says, share with them a victory. And if you watch them closely, if their face cringes a little bit, you can tell they're not happy.

• 53:38Speaker 01

  No, it's true, it's true. People say, I don't know what the fuck they're jealous of me for.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 53:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Was there anybody over you got jealous of or no?

• 53:50Speaker 01

  Nah, I don't feel very well.

• 53:52Patrick Bet-David?

  That's not even a thought you have?

• 53:53Speaker 01

  Nah, I don't jealous of them.

• 53:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Is that from mom and dad or is that just?

• 53:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, just the way I was brought up. I wish everybody does good.

• 54:01Speaker 01

  Makes money, successful, health. I don't, you know, I don't fucking hate on nobody. They all hate on us though, they hate on me. They just, they just hate, people are sick. You see all these guys on YouTube and talk, talk about you, watch it. I don't know them. I never seen them.

• 54:19Speaker 01

  In my life.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  And the media's, you know.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Open the cheesesteak place.

• 54:27Patrick Bet-David?

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  We were starting our renovations, it didn't even start yet, it was an old, old place. The window was already broke, somebody threw a bottle in it, they put on the news, they firebombed the place, they're trying to kill me. Fucking nuts.

• 54:41Speaker 01

  But the media loves it. My name's Joey Merlino. Any questions you have on my neck, you wanna ask me? I'm an expert in sports, gambling, restaurants. We got the best cheesesteaks in Philly. Anything you wanna know about Philly, South Philly, Atlantic City? Reach out and I got you.

• 55:00Patrick Bet-David?

  What is it with you not liking Pat's cheesesteak? I mean, you.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  No, he started with us.

• 55:06Patrick Bet-David?

  He said, he said something about you guys?

• 55:07Speaker 01

  I know him my whole life.

• 55:08Patrick Bet-David?

  What happened?

• 55:09Speaker 01

  His father.

• 55:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 55:10Speaker 01

  And my father went to school together. I went to school with him.

• 55:14Patrick Bet-David?

  So what's the story there? Because I heard it used to be the best cheesesteak.

• 55:18Speaker 01

  They invented the cheesesteak.

• 55:19Patrick Bet-David?

  That's what I hear.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  No, he did. They invented, they've been here a hundred years.

• 55:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Are they still that good or?

• 55:23Speaker 01

  No. Now he's changing it on. No, here's what happened. I'm gonna clarify this, cause everybody saw you. We're not, we're not picking on him.

• 55:32Speaker 01

  He.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  Watched the video. I guess that other fucking idiot, Barello.

• 55:39Patrick Bet-David?

  J- is it?

• 55:40Speaker 01

  Gene Barello.

• 55:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 55:42Speaker 01

  He's, Barello said in a video that Snuff's a junkie, which Snuff was.

• 55:48Speaker 01

  Snuff had addiction problem ten years ago. He's, he's clean ten years. Snuff's a good kid. I know him. I grew up with his father. I send the rehab down here.

• 55:55Patrick Bet-David?

  He's very good at what he does.

• 55:56Speaker 01

  I got him, I got him straight. He, he, he don't drink. He, he, ten years he's clean. He did a video and said that Snuff lives in his mother's basement. Uh, Barello did.

• 56:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Mm-hmm.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  Which is a lie. Snuff's got a beautiful house, beautiful wife, great family. So this fucking idiot, Frankie Oliveri from Pats, he makes a video, he started it. He makes a video and he says, the reason we chop our meat. See, when you go to Pat's thing, they just put the meat on four by pieces, then we, we don't, we chop it. He said, we have to chop our meat because our, our customers have no teeth.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  What he said. Watch the video. I got it on my phone.

• 56:40Patrick Bet-David?

  He says, we don't chop our meat because our customers don't have teeth?

• 56:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:43Patrick Bet-David?

  What does that mean? I mean, is this older, uh, customers?

• 56:46Speaker 01

  He said, I, I don't know what the fuck he meant. So he, he, he, he made a video and he said Snuff lives in his mother's basement. You know, he was, he was, they're a mouth on Snuff.

• 56:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Uh-huh.

• 57:00Speaker 01

  So we came back at him, right? Cause he said he invented the cheesesteak, which he did. He did, he invented, his family did.

• 57:05Patrick Bet-David?

  His mother.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, his grandfather.

• 57:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Grandfather, yeah.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  So he did. I said, yeah, you invented it. We perfected it. I said, you know, Ford invented the car, but Rolls Royce is the best car.

• 57:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Hmm.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  Not a fucking Ford.

• 57:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  And we, we got the best bread, the, we took it to the next level and we, we hurt his business. We buried him.

• 57:23Patrick Bet-David?

  That bad?

• 57:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, bad. And that lines, the block loan, we got the lines.

• 57:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow. And, and that's only in Philly? Wh- wh- where is it at? Where's your, where's your, uh?

• 57:33Speaker 01

  We're, we're near the stadiums. We're on Broad Street, right near the stadiums.

• 57:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  He's on Italian market. Him and Gino's are, from, him and, Pats is here, Gino's where that wall is.

• 57:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it. What does Gino do? He's also in cheesesteak?

• 57:45Speaker 01

  Cheesesteak, yeah.

• 57:46Patrick Bet-David?

  He's also?

• 57:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's a nice kid. I, I know Gino, you know, I mean, the kid, Joey's a good kid. We didn't go away for none of them. They, they fuck with us.

• 57:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, so.

• 57:57Speaker 01

  It's jealous, it's jealousy. We heard his business.

• 58:00Patrick Bet-David?

  I saw the reviews. Sometimes you guys, when you get a one star review, I don't know who's responding by the way. If it's Snuff or you, it's hilarious. It's like you, you give me a one star review is as if we took the cheesesteak. We threw it at you, we stepped on it. So what do you mean a one star?

• 58:12Speaker 01

  That's this, that's Pat's Gino's right there. They're, they're.

• 58:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Right across.

• 58:16Speaker 01

  Right across.

• 58:16Patrick Bet-David?

  If I went right now, Saturday, 6pm, which one's gonna have a bigger line? Pat's, Gino's, or your spot?

• 58:22Speaker 01

  My spot, not even close.

• 58:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Between the three, you're gonna be?

• 58:27Speaker 01

  Not even close.

• 58:29Patrick Bet-David?

  And that's because what? Because you guys, the way you make it?

• 58:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. We got the best. We got the best cheesesteak.

• 58:34Patrick Bet-David?

  How, how real is this? Cause you know, is, is this steak, you know, the, the Philly cheesesteak, is this a real war? Cause the people outside of Philly don't know how important this is political.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:43Patrick Bet-David?

  This is spiritual. This is like a religious, uh.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  We don't fuck with none of them but him. He's the one that started with us. But we, we buried him. I had a guy last week, I'll show you the video. I'll give it to you. You can put it up. The guy came with no teeth. With no teeth.

• 58:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Which are typically Pat's customers.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  He said, or, or, and I told him, I said, you were right. Our customers don't need teeth. Our meat's so tender, you don't need teeth to eat it. And the guy ate the steak. Guy said, it's the best thing ever.

• 59:09Patrick Bet-David?

  This is, this is last week? A customer came in a couple of weeks ago?

• 59:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, when I was in Philly, it was like, we could have gone.

• 59:14Patrick Bet-David?

  So.

• 59:15Speaker 01

  I, I'll show you the video.

• 59:16Patrick Bet-David?

  So Birello, uh, what's the story? I heard something about Birello said something, if you come to New York, he's gonna send somebody, a big guy came. What was that all about?

• 59:23Speaker 01

  Uh, I have no idea. I don't know him. He's a fucking nut. I, I don't know him. If he walked in, oh, I know what he looks like now. I don't know him. He, he's a fucking nut.

• 59:33Patrick Bet-David?

  What, there's no relation? Like you guys don't know each other at all?

• 59:36Speaker 01

  I never seen him in my life.

• 59:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Is he a New York guy or is he?

• 59:39Speaker 01

  I have no idea. Lives in Florida, Tampa.

• 59:41Patrick Bet-David?

  He lives here now?

• 59:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, Florida.

• 59:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  All I know is he beats girls up. That's it. Beats the shit out of them and gets away with it.

• 59:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Interesting. And makes cheesesteak? Or he doesn't make?

• 59:53Speaker 01

  No, you don't make cheesesteak. No, no, no.

• 59:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  He just beats girls up.

• 59:56Patrick Bet-David?

  He was part of the Bonanno family?

• 59:58Speaker 01

  I, I don't know him. Uh, I don't know him from the Canapin.

• 1:00:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it.

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  Although, I know he's from New York. That's it.

• 1:00:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, the, the Philly against New York, right? There's this pride. You talk to New York, you know, level of toughness versus Philly. What's the difference? What, what, who's tougher in, in your opinion between the two?

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  Like, listen, I mean, I was in jail with guys from New York. They're all good guys. I mean, there's no.

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  I mean, there's no tougher. A lot of good men, Philly and New York.

• 1:00:30Patrick Bet-David?

  From New York.

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  And there's a lot of bad guys from Philly and New York.

• 1:00:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Who, who, who'd you time with? Who were some of the names you did time with that maybe I'd know?

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  No, you and them.

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  None of them, none of these rats, none, none, none of these rats. You know what's funny? When I was in jail?

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  Well, my time, I was never with Italians. They always shit me. My list, I got fourteen years. They sent me to Beaumont, Texas. USP Beaumont.

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  And a guy used to write me. It was funny. You know, ki- kids from my neighborhood write me, you know. Hey, you in there with anybody? Any Italians? I said, no, there's no, there was no Italians in there. Me. And the kids text, write me back. He said, it's a shame there's nobody. I said, eleven Italians put me here.

• 1:01:22Speaker 01

  Ten Italians put me in this fucking jail. All, all the people testified against me. So, you know. I don't go by that. Italian shit, this shit. If you're a good guy, you're a good guy.

• 1:01:37Patrick Bet-David?

  And you travel anywhere? You go anywhere?

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  I go anywhere.

• 1:01:39Patrick Bet-David?

  When's the last time you were in Philly?

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  Last week.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  I'm going back this week.

• 1:01:44Patrick Bet-David?

  When you go there, what's the, how do they receive you?

• 1:01:47Speaker 01

  They love us. They love, they love the cheesesteak place. We stay, I stayed there all day. We work. We stayed there. I take pictures with everybody. I talked to everybody.

• 1:01:55Patrick Bet-David?

  You feel safe? You're not worried about anything happening?

• 1:01:58Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  We're all the time. Sit outside. Well, once the we- the weather gets nice, we sit outside. So, we love it. The people love us. They support us. They really do support us. They love us.

• 1:02:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Why do you think that is?

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Uh, we're good people. It's gotta be. And we got a good cheesesteak. The steak's good. You gotta come.

• 1:02:19Patrick Bet-David?

  You, you don't have any spots here yet?

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:02:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Are you planning ever to do anything or no?

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wanna, I'm gonna start, we're gonna start a franchise, I think. We, we, we're in, we're in a process now. We're, we're opening one in Trichester. That's like half hour from us. Different part of Philly. It should be, just waiting for the permits. That should be open in some, maybe a couple of months. And we're gonna go, uh, Wildwood. We're gonna think about going to Wildwood, New Jersey for the summer. It's a nice spot.

• 1:02:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. So, nothing, nothing yet coming down? It's gonna be mainly that area is where you're?

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  I looked in Boca. Boca's hard. Like I was telling the guys, everybody in focus on Ozepic, they don't eat, fuck eats.

• 1:02:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Everybody in focus on Ozepic.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  They're on Ozepic. I'm telling, they don't eat.

• 1:02:59Patrick Bet-David?

  So you need an area where.

• 1:03:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, we need an area where people can eat.

• 1:03:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, you guys just got a new mayor, by the way. I don't know if you saw that. You got a new mayor that won by one vote. Did you hear about this?

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  Had a lay.

• 1:03:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, you got a new Democrat mayor.

• 1:03:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Andy Thompson has officially declared the new mayor of Boca Raton. And Andy won by one vote.

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  I didn't vote.

• 1:03:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, that vote would have counted. Look at that.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  Look at that. That's crazy.

• 1:03:27Patrick Bet-David?

  How many votes does it say? The recount?

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  Now it's six.

• 1:03:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Five votes. Yeah. So, congrats on your new mayor. He's the Florida Democratic Party Chair and said Thompson's victory in Boca Raton is adding political momentum to Democrats leading up to this year's midterm elections. Were you ever involved politically with different candidates? Were you ever?

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  Nah, I might love Trump. They said I fixed the election with Joe Biden. That was bullshit, but.

• 1:03:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, the $3 million that you allegedly got paid $3 million to help Joe Biden?

• 1:03:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:58Patrick Bet-David?

  I can't see you helping Joe Biden. I don't know. Joe doesn't look like your type of a guy.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  Trump's the best their pitcher. They made a big deal about that. When we were in, I went coffee. We were in

• 1:04:09Speaker 01

  the Trump, you know, in Palm Beach. He took picture with 400 people. Everybody came up, he took a picture. We took, they made a big thing. And I thought a fucking motherfucker Jake Tapper was seeing, he did it like, he did a thing that night for 15 minutes. He talked about meeting Trump.

• 1:04:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Saying what? Saying he's hanging out.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  My whole record. And I and the guy was the front page of the Daily News in Philly, the same shit. And I called the next day. I told them. I said, now I want to talk to the guy who wrote the article. He said, you know, the lawyers said don't curse. I said, I ain't going to curse. And I told him, my fucking lie. I said, he took picture of everybody. He didn't know who I was. 100 people.

• 1:04:47Patrick Bet-David?

  He had no idea who you were.

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  No, 100 people went up there and took a picture, shook his hand. He did it with everybody. They tried to act like, you know, they tried to, they hate him. They hate him too.

• 1:04:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you ever have any relation with him back in the days? He's not a Philly guy though.

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  No, no. I mean, I know of him.

• 1:05:03Patrick Bet-David?

  You've never met him outside of that picture? You guys have never met before?

• 1:05:06Speaker 01

  Never.

• 1:05:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  But they make a big thing about it.

• 1:05:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  They hate him. They do the same thing they did to me. They do to him.

• 1:05:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:12Speaker 01

  Look, he had fucking, he had more cases to make. Look, he had fucking.

• 1:05:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Ninety, was it ninety one, ninety three? I don't know what the numbers are.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  Fucking gets indicted every week. Leave the fucking guy alone.

• 1:05:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  But that was the thing at the golf club. I said, he didn't know who the fuck I was.

• 1:05:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Who told the story about the fact that you got paid three million from, uh, to help Biden out?

• 1:05:30Speaker 01

  It, it came out.

• 1:05:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Who, who spread that story?

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  Something in a Buffalo paper, some Buffalo newspaper.

• 1:05:37Patrick Bet-David?

  That you got, like, they're saying who paid you? Like Biden paid you two million?

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I went to Philly and I made Biden win and I got, I made three million dollars.

• 1:05:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Broke into bizarre Philly election fraud conspiracy attorney for former Philly mafioso, categorically denies bogus story. Go a little bit lower, Rob. This is five years ago.

• 1:05:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then they, they called my lawyer up. They wanted to talk my lawyer up. I said Biden, fuck Biden. The first time, I, I wasn't allowed to vote. The last election I voted.

• 1:06:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Not twenty twenty?

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:06:13Patrick Bet-David?

  So, but what are they saying? Like, how would you have helped him out?

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  They're nuts, fucking fake news.

• 1:06:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:22Patrick Bet-David?

  With three million.

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  They said, I went to Philly and paid people some fucking ballots. I don't know what the, I don't even know what they were talking about.

• 1:06:28Patrick Bet-David?

  An associate, Joe Merlino, might just be willing to flip on Joe Biden and the Pennsylvania political operatives who ordered up to three hundred thousand election ballots. Mark for Biden, the source alleges that Merlino and the lean team of associates manufactured those ballots at a rate of ten dollars a ballot, out of whopping three million dollars for three days of work.

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  And meanwhile, I think I was doing parole for the, for, for, for betting. I couldn't even travel to Philly.

• 1:06:52Speaker 01

  I wish I made three million.

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  Trump would have won. If, if, if, I would have never fucked, fucked Biden. I don't want Biden and he ruined the whole country.

• 1:07:02Patrick Bet-David?

  What, what do you think about when Biden won? Did you have an opinion about that when he won it?

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was great. How'd he win? The guy never, Trump was everywhere. He came out three times. He's come, how the fuck did he win?

• 1:07:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Let me ask you, if, if there is a mob, you know, and if a president needed help, you know, winning an election, because you know, when you hear the story about John F. Kennedy and what was it? Chicago, what was the city that they went to? Mayor Dewey? If I'm not mistaken, is it Dewey? If I'm saying it correctly, seven or eight thousand votes and apparently helped them win. You know, why is there a history of, you know, politicians going and teaming up with mobsters to help them out with elections? Why do you think there is?

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  I don't, I have no idea. I don't know.

• 1:07:47Patrick Bet-David?

  What do you think about the mob? Like, when you-

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  No mob to me. There's no mob.

• 1:07:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, when you, when you hear these-

• 1:07:53Speaker 01

  Talk about the son of a-

• 1:07:55Patrick Bet-David?

  You don't think there's nothing like-

• 1:07:56Speaker 01

  Nah, there's no mob. No.

• 1:07:59Speaker 03

  Quicken knows you've got big plans for your money. You invest, you track, you plan ahead. But does your financial app help you decide what to do next? Quicken helps you go beyond balances and basic reports. Project your cash flow, dig into your investments, and use Quicken AI to understand what matters across your finances. Quicken, know what to do next. See how at Quicken.com.

• 1:08:28Speaker 04

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 1:08:57Speaker 06

  Kayak searches and compares hundreds of travel sites, but unless I repeat the word kayak, kayak thinks you won't remember that. So kayak asked me to say kayak as many times as possible. Kayak. Kayak.

• 1:09:11Speaker 01

  Kayak.

• 1:09:13Speaker 06

  Kayak.

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  Kayak.

• 1:09:14Speaker 06

  Kayak. Kai. Ooh. Ak. Kai, Kai, Kai, Kai, kayak. Kayak, kayak, kayak. Kayak. Search, compare, and save on your trip. Kayak. Got that right.

• 1:09:27Speaker 07

  Imagine building an app with your name on it. With Base44, describe what you want and watch it take shape. Plan, customize, and expand in any direction with payments, data, security, and hosting built in. Go to base44.com.

• 1:09:48Patrick Bet-David?

  The fact that this is... I mean, listen, you gotta respect it.

• 1:09:52Speaker 01

  Nah, there's no mob.

• 1:09:53Patrick Bet-David?

  There's no mob. So, so Godfather, Goodfellas.

• 1:09:58Speaker 01

  They're fucking movies.

• 1:09:59Patrick Bet-David?

  These are all movies. These are all fake, inspired movies.

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  They got UFO shows, they're UFOs.

• 1:10:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. So you don't believe UFOs exist?

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:10:08Patrick Bet-David?

  So the same way UFOs don't exist, you don't believe the mob exists?

• 1:10:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:10:13Patrick Bet-David?

  So you don't think Scarfo was a boss of the Philadelphia crime family? Who was he? Who was Scarfo to you? Who was he?

• 1:10:18Speaker 01

  He was a nice guy. Nicky was a good guy.

• 1:10:23Patrick Bet-David?

  That's it?

• 1:10:24Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 1:10:25Patrick Bet-David?

  You said one time, you said, uh, I like Nicky. He was always on time.

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  He was. He was.

• 1:10:32Patrick Bet-David?

  That could have a lot of different meanings, Joe.

• 1:10:34Speaker 01

  Oh, no, no, he was always, if you had to be there five o'clock, he'd be there quarter, 4:45.

• 1:10:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Really?

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, yeah. That's just the way he was. Well, I think that's disrespect if I tell you I'm gonna meet you five o'clock tonight, I come six. You don't think that's disrespect?

• 1:10:49Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't know if I would have seen him as a guy that would show up on time.

• 1:10:52Speaker 01

  No, he was on time. Early, come early, yeah.

• 1:10:55Patrick Bet-David?

  How much time did you spend with him?

• 1:10:56Speaker 01

  A lot, I mean, I know him.

• 1:10:58Patrick Bet-David?

  What was his strength?

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  He was a, he was a good man. When I was, when I was a kid. He had a, what the fuck did he have? Eighty-six Eldorado convertible, you know, the big one.

• 1:11:15Speaker 01

  And he, he came to Philly. I don't know what, he came to Philly for something and he, he gave me the car for the weekend. How old were you? Fourteen or fifteen. He gave you the car for the weekend? Yeah. Why would? He gave me two hundred to put gas in it. Two hundred back then was like fucking. Two hundred to put gas? Yeah. I drove around. I had it, I was little. I had the electric seats. I had to put a pillow. We drove around for three days. Had the roof down. Had girls in the car.

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was red. It was red with white seats. It was older than that.

• 1:11:47Speaker 01

  So he gave, so what, what's the relation with him and your father? They were friends. Okay, got it. Got it. Yeah, it was the Eldorado, not that one. The big one. Seventy-six. Seventy-seven? Eighty-seven. Seventy-six. No, seventy-six. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. It was red. The other one, the other one, the second one, the red one. Yeah, it was red. Red with white seats. Wow. Beautiful. So, were there rumors ever that your, a father was a made man or no? No, not that I know. It was my father.

• 1:12:19Speaker 01

  I mean, the paper, just, they say what they want. Look, they said I fixed the election.

• 1:12:26Speaker 01

  How good of a poker player are you? Poker? I stink. Really? Yeah, I'm horrible. What's your, what's your game? What are you good at? I like blackjack, baccarat, gin. I like gin. Like gin rummy? Yeah, I love it. Really? Yeah. Like thirteen card, eleven card gin rummy? Yeah. You're good at gin rummy? Yeah. How about backgammon? Backgammon, no. Chess, chess I'm pretty good in. Backgammon, no. Gin rummy? Yeah, gin rummy, we play, yeah. Hearts, I play hearts, spades. Hearts, spades, yes, spades, yes. But, but poker, I'm, I'm horrible. Horrible.

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  I go all in, fuckin' broken free hands. I don't have, you need patience, you know, you need to pay, you gotta.

• 1:13:00Patrick Bet-David?

  You need a lot of patience for poker.

• 1:13:02Speaker 01

  So that, so the. My friend, my friend won the World Series last year, grinder.

• 1:13:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow, good player.

• 1:13:07Speaker 01

  He won the World Series of Poker?

• 1:13:08Patrick Bet-David?

  I mean, is he like, is he, cause there's a different game.

• 1:13:11Speaker 01

  He's got, he's got five bracelets.

• 1:13:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Hold it, cause he's a phenomenal.

• 1:13:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, they put him in, they, he won, he won that and they put him in the, I think the Hall of Fame.

• 1:13:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Really?

• 1:13:19Speaker 01

  He texted me all, he's all over now playing.

• 1:13:21Patrick Bet-David?

  And you guys played, you used to play with him?

• 1:13:23Speaker 01

  No, I can't play with him. He's good, he's good.

• 1:13:26Patrick Bet-David?

  He'll take your money.

• 1:13:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, you know, people don't realize you gotta have stamina to play that.

• 1:13:30Patrick Bet-David?

  No question about it.

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  He, he won it last year, he was.

• 1:13:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:33Speaker 01

  I mean, they played ten, twelve hours a day.

• 1:13:36Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't even know if it's healthy for you.

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:13:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you imagine like, what do you do for a living? I sit down for ten to twelve hours and I take money from guys in Vegas.

• 1:13:43Speaker 01

  And then poker players, that fucking wear glasses, headphones, the fucking weird.

• 1:13:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, you have to be able to do it, it's, yep, you have, there's an element of being mentally and emotionally tough to be able to do that. So.

• 1:13:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Gambling. Was it from the beginning that you were interested in it? Cause you.

• 1:14:01Speaker 01

  Our whole neighborhood gambled.

• 1:14:02Patrick Bet-David?

  On what?

• 1:14:04Speaker 01

  Any fucking thing. Listen, when I was a kid.

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  My mother had a, my mother. She had like. Seventy ladies come over to play poker in the house.

• 1:14:16Patrick Bet-David?

  She was good, mom was good.

• 1:14:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, mom played like always, you know, they played poker.

• 1:14:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 1:14:19Speaker 01

  And they'd be in the house, the fucking ceiling was, in the house, fucking a row home. They'd all be smoking. And I'd be like. You know, fucking smoke, fuck, I was like eight. And they're like, shut the fuck up, you're like a girl, it's only smoke. I mean, which shot I had, fucking gambling, smoking.

• 1:14:38Patrick Bet-David?

  It's funny.

• 1:14:39Speaker 01

  But that's how we grew up, I mean, that's, that's how we grew up. There, there was hangouts on every corner.

• 1:14:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:45Speaker 01

  You know, all guys playing pinochle, gin, poker, and it's just the way we grew up.

• 1:14:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I grew up in a family that they would, the whole smoking thing you were talking about, I totally relate, and you're around six, seven, eight years old, it smelled, you just can't even breathe. Twenty people in the house, they're playing gin, rami, our house was a rami house, everybody would play rami.

• 1:15:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Nonstop. So then for you, it stuck with you?

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  Stuck, even like, they have football pools. You pick four teams a dollar, you win ten dollars. My, my friend Donnie lived across the street, his family were close. His father, my first, I hit a pool, my first one I played.

• 1:15:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Ten bucks.

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  Football, yeah, but I mean, that's just the way we started.

• 1:15:22Patrick Bet-David?

  What's the craziest thing you ever bet on?

• 1:15:27Speaker 01

  I mean, I've been on fights, nothing crazy fights, horses, football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer.

• 1:15:35Patrick Bet-David?

  So, did you, did you follow the story with Chauncey Billups saying the mob, you know, came in, NBA, a lot of players were involved?

• 1:15:42Speaker 01

  I seen they got locked up.

• 1:15:43Patrick Bet-David?

  What, what, what is this? Cause I've had Tim Donahue on as well, you know, he, he had, uh, his old friend, what was his name? Tommy, I think, I don't know what the guy's name was. Was it Tommy? Was he tied to, uh, Tim Donahue? Type in Tim Donahue and Tommy. I wanna say the guy's name was Tommy. Um, yeah, Tommy, Tommy.

• 1:16:03Speaker 01

  From Philly, he told two the motherfucker.

• 1:16:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Who, Tim?

• 1:16:06Speaker 01

  The, the, the ref, the ref, and the, yeah, he told two.

• 1:16:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you know him?

• 1:16:10Speaker 01

  Nah, nah, he's from, but he's, he's from Philly, I think.

• 1:16:14Patrick Bet-David?

  No, he is from Philly.

• 1:16:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:15Patrick Bet-David?

  He's for sure from Philly.

• 1:16:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I didn't know him. I was away when that happened.

• 1:16:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you know Jack Batista, Batista, or no?

• 1:16:21Speaker 01

  Nah.

• 1:16:22Patrick Bet-David?

  So, none of the guys he was tied to, you knew?

• 1:16:24Speaker 01

  No, never seen him.

• 1:16:25Patrick Bet-David?

  So, what do you think about?

• 1:16:27Speaker 01

  I wish I did know, I'd get the game from him.

• 1:16:30Patrick Bet-David?

  He would say it was really two free throws, one or two fouls that could change the game, because it was momentum and frustration for the opponent, and you could get them to kind of, uh, change the game, but, uh, what, what do you think about the alleged mob ties to the NBA, recent gambling, you know, allegations?

• 1:16:49Speaker 01

  Why is it always the mob, though? I mean, I don't, I don't get it.

• 1:16:54Speaker 01

  The biggest, the, this FanDuel, this, with the fucking FanDuel, they got that one?

• 1:17:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:02Speaker 01

  If we did what they're doing, we would get, I would, I'd probably get the electric chair.

• 1:17:09Speaker 01

  This is gonna be the biggest epidemic ever, is this gambling with kids. Listen, you ain't seen none yet.

• 1:17:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Legal gambling.

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  It's worse. Yeah, legal, well, they call it legal, because they got a license.

• 1:17:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:20Speaker 01

  They pay the government, so they're good. We do it, we go to jail. They got twelve, thirteen-year-old kids. It's gonna be worse than crack. Listen to me, mark my words, this is 2020, watch, not a couple of years.

• 1:17:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Tell me why?

• 1:17:34Speaker 01

  Cause every kid's gambling, thirteen, fourteen years old, stealing their mother's credit card, opening an account, all you gotta do is go on the phone.

• 1:17:42Speaker 01

  Know what they're losing? Forget it.

• 1:17:47Speaker 01

  Yes, it's gonna be worse than crack.

• 1:17:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Worse than crack?

• 1:17:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, watch.

• 1:17:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so.

• 1:17:53Speaker 01

  And they promote it. Listen, you watch a football game.

• 1:17:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 1:17:57Speaker 01

  Every fucking commercial, the stadium.

• 1:17:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Sure.

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  Band all bet.

• 1:18:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Yes.

• 1:18:00Speaker 01

  They tell you, listen. You bet. Bet five dollars. That Patrick Mahomes is gonna have one passing yard. So they're giving you a free bet. You win three hundred. Now you win the three hundred, then you start betting and it's over. Downhill.

• 1:18:15Speaker 01

  That's like a guy saying, come to my corner, I'm gonna give you free crack. I'm giving you crack.

• 1:18:20Patrick Bet-David?

  So.

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  Try it. Then they try, wow, it's great. They come back.

• 1:18:23Patrick Bet-David?

  You've seen a lot, though. You've seen a lot with kids getting addicted to drugs, alcohol, gambling.

• 1:18:27Speaker 01

  The game is gonna be worse than normal.

• 1:18:28Patrick Bet-David?

  You tell, but again, I wanna know why, though. Why worse?

• 1:18:31Speaker 01

  They got, they got them addicted.

• 1:18:32Patrick Bet-David?

  You're not gonna die from that. You're gonna die from drugs. You're gonna die from crack.

• 1:18:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, you could die, but they're gonna go to jail. They're gonna get jammed up. Because of the gambling. So they might go sell drugs, they might go rob a house, they might go rob a bank.

• 1:18:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  But the only reason they're doing is for the gambling, they're paid.

• 1:18:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 1:18:51Speaker 01

  Fucking, so they can gamble.

• 1:18:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 1:18:53Speaker 01

  Like, I went to jail, I robbed an armored car. I robbed it for gambling. I just didn't fucking rob the armored car because I wanted to. I got the money and I went gamble. I lost in the fucking one weekend.

• 1:19:02Patrick Bet-David?

  How much was it? How much was in the armor?

• 1:19:05Speaker 01

  The fucking idiot threw the wrong bag up. It was only three hundred and fifty something thousand.

• 1:19:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Three hundred and fifty thousand.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  It was supposed to be five million, he threw the wrong bag up.

• 1:19:12Patrick Bet-David?

  He threw the wrong bag up?

• 1:19:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's a true story.

• 1:19:17Patrick Bet-David?

  What's supposed to be five million, but only three fifty?

• 1:19:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the bag was this big, weighed a hundred pounds. I thought it was eight million there. It was all ones, fives, fifths. It wasn't, yeah, it was three.

• 1:19:26Patrick Bet-David?

  How much time did you do for that?

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  I got four years.

• 1:19:29Patrick Bet-David?

  How did you get caught?

• 1:19:30Speaker 01

  Both guys who did it. The two guys who set the whole thing up and did it, sold on me. And I went to jail. Same.

• 1:19:38Patrick Bet-David?

  The two guys that set it up to do it, you went to jail. They didn't do any time.

• 1:19:42Speaker 01

  They didn't get a day.

• 1:19:44Patrick Bet-David?

  But they knew that, the Fed knew that they did it. They were involved.

• 1:19:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:47Patrick Bet-David?

  And so they didn't do any time because they ratted on you.

• 1:19:50Speaker 01

  I went to jail.

• 1:19:50Patrick Bet-David?

  How many people have ratted on you over the years?

• 1:19:55Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't have a tough time. I don't. A lot.

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  I get him all out of jail. All you gotta do is say Joey told me to do it. See what you're saying when he said get him all out of jail. Listen, I got a, I got a letter. I did a podcast in my lawyer's office, Ed Jacobs, best lawyer in, in, in the world. Saved my life, best, best lawyer. A rat. I was away. In FDC, Roger Vella, this other motherfucker. He's writing me. I miss you, you know, the bullshit. So this guy Pete DeCrum gets locked up. Everybody who told him he didn't get locked up with me. Like, it ain't like me and you robbed the bank. You know, me and you robbed the bank. Boom, you went home, you say, yeah, I'm gonna tell him Joey.

• 1:20:43Speaker 01

  They got caught for something else they did. This guy Pete gets locked up in Jersey. And fucking killed, he killed more people than fucking, I don't know how many people he killed. Pete DeCrum? Yeah. He decides to cooperate on me. So the kid Roger Vella writes me a letter. I'm in jail, I'm in the hole. Writes me a letter, just Pete, you know. He said, they make it so easy for you, for these guys. All you gotta do is say Joey Merlino told me to do it. You go to jail and they go home. I got the letter from him. Fast forward two years later, he gets locked up for murder. What'd he do? Same playbook. Say Joey told me to do it. He's facing the death penalty.

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  He got, he got 10 years. Just to say Joey did it? Yeah. And they, they never charged me with it, my friend, because they know he was lying. That made him fucking out that lie. But that's how easy it is. That's how easy they made it. Listen, you read the paper, you see, like, you could take bits of pizza and you'd, and you'd say it. Listen, Bruce Cutler, I mean, great lawyer, he said the worst thing is half-truth. A what? Worst than, is a half a truth. Half a truth. Like, half of it's true and half is not. Right. It's fucking dangerous. I mean, that's how easy, that's how easy they make it for them. There's gotta be, they gotta come up with a law. They gotta do something with this. But now the people are starting to say it, though. I mean, it's just crazy. How much total time did you do? 22 years. Total 22 years? Yeah, between jail, halfway house, yeah. 22 years.

• 1:22:13Speaker 01

  Wow, and, and that 22 years is how many times going away? Going away, Jason Lennox City.

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  You got seven years. That case was over, Phil Leonetti, he didn't tell you about that in his book. I went away for his mother.

• 1:22:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Leonetti's mother?

• 1:22:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:31Patrick Bet-David?

  What was that for?

• 1:22:32Speaker 01

  We were in a bar. It was, it wasn't a club. It was, it was a restaurant, the Lido. It was like a restaurant, like bar, you know? Older crowd, we were young. And we were in there. And she was with me at the bar and this, these three guys came over and they didn't stop. Like, they were big. I was fucking little.

• 1:22:52Speaker 01

  And they kept on, you wanna dance, you wanna dance? And I, you know, told the guy not, I said,

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  she's here with me, leave her fuck alone, you know? And she had a few drinks. I went to break, came out, she's dancing, I, you know, and a fucking fight broke out. And the guy with the chair, I went to jail for it. He never said that in his book.

• 1:23:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Who was dancing? His mother?

• 1:23:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:14Speaker 01

  Lido Restaurant.

• 1:23:20Patrick Bet-David?

  August nineteen eighty-two at twenty.

• 1:23:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Merlino and Salvatore Scafidi, son of the bookmaker, beat and stabbed two male patrons at Lido Restaurant in Atlantic City. Merlino was found guilty on two counts, aggravated assault and one count possession of weapon for unlawful purpose. And where's, uh, uh, Leonetti's mother involved in this?

• 1:23:42Speaker 01

  No, she wasn't, I mean, that's how the fight started over her.

• 1:23:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it.

• 1:23:47Speaker 01

  She didn't get locked up and I'm.

• 1:23:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Of course, yeah. And what did Leonetti say about this when he found out?

• 1:23:53Speaker 01

  No, he knew right after the next day, you know, like, we got a fight.

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:23:57Patrick Bet-David?

  But what did he say to you? What's it like? Hey, thank you or?

• 1:23:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, he was, yeah, fuck him, you know, yeah, he was, which we, you know, was right. They were bothering his mother, but she was, she was juiced up. But he didn't put that in his book.

• 1:24:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Where was the main falling out with you and Leonetti?

• 1:24:13Speaker 01

  There was no falling out. He went to jail. I never seen him again.

• 1:24:16Patrick Bet-David?

  You're not complimentary of him.

• 1:24:18Speaker 01

  No, he's a fucking.

• 1:24:21Speaker 01

  He's a piece of shit, but I mean, there was never no falling out. Um, he went to jail, he got pinched with my father and them. Then he never, he, he, he never got out. You know, I mean, I never, I never seen him again.

• 1:24:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. So, so your biggest thing for, for a person to go from zero to piece of shit is cooperating. Once that happens, done.

• 1:24:44Speaker 01

  I mean, he's, look, what's his book, Mafia Prince?

• 1:24:49Speaker 01

  He, they don't want to go to jail. That's the main thing.

• 1:24:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Did he ever cooperate against you or no? Did he ever, uh, uh, rat on you or no?

• 1:24:55Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:24:55Patrick Bet-David?

  So there is no direct conflict between the two of you?

• 1:24:58Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:24:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. Cause he called, he says, uh, Merlino, he's the only guy that said, he said, Merlino is the worst human being in the world. He said that in the interview. Yeah.

• 1:25:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's the fucking worst. He killed.

• 1:25:11Speaker 01

  He killed his best friend. Vince Falcone and then married his wife, married his girlfriend.

• 1:25:18Patrick Bet-David?

  He killed his best friend.

• 1:25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, he don't tell you all that.

• 1:25:23Speaker 01

  And then tried to blame his uncle. He was in love with a girl Gina.

• 1:25:28Speaker 01

  I forget her name Gina. I mean, going back fucking forty years ago. His best friend was Vince Falcone. Vince was a cement guy. I, they were in business, like, you know, concrete, cement, whatever the fuck he did. He was in love with Vince's girl.

• 1:25:46Speaker 01

  He killed Vince.

• 1:25:50Speaker 01

  Blamed his uncle.

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  His uncle, they got acquitted of it and then married the girl. And he's a nice guy.

• 1:25:59Patrick Bet-David?

  And then married the girl?

• 1:26:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, married her Gina. And she went to program with him.

• 1:26:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Now, the story is that Nicky ordered that hit though.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  That's what he wants to say. No, he was in love with the girl.

• 1:26:13Speaker 01

  It's true. I mean, he married her. He went to program. He took her with her. He wants to blame his uncle. His uncle done to do it. And he robbed those all of his money. And the family jewelry.

• 1:26:27Speaker 01

  You know, like his, Nicky's wife's fucking jewelry, his kid's jewelry.

• 1:26:32Speaker 01

  Him and his mother went.

• 1:26:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I remember when, when we did the interview with Phil.

• 1:26:40Patrick Bet-David?

  His lawyer, very good guy. We've talked many times, nice guy.

• 1:26:46Patrick Bet-David?

  They came in and we sat down. It was the only interview where he didn't want his face and voice to be shown. Only one. And we agreed to the vo- to the face, but not the voice. So I don't know if you saw the interview.

• 1:26:59Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:27:00Patrick Bet-David?

  You know, yeah. His face is not.

• 1:27:01Speaker 01

  He wears a wig, the motherfucker.

• 1:27:03Patrick Bet-David?

  If you tap in. You'll see it. The way it was done. And Rob, I give you permission to show it with AdSense, so you're.

• 1:27:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Fast forward a little bit, Rob, just go to right there.

• 1:27:18Speaker 01

  Right there.

• 1:27:18Patrick Bet-David?

  That's how it was. Yeah. That's how it was when we did the interview.

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't want nobody to see him.

• 1:27:23Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, he didn't want anybody to see him.

• 1:27:24Speaker 01

  He was a fucking nut. Yeah, he never told you that, though. He married the girl, then he blamed his uncle.

• 1:27:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:32Speaker 01

  They all got the same story. The bottom line is they don't want to go to jail. That's it. Soon as the handcuffs come on, it's over with.

• 1:27:39Patrick Bet-David?

  But he, but directly, he's never done anything bad to you?

• 1:27:42Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:27:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Directly?

• 1:27:44Speaker 01

  But he's a, he's a piece of shit. He's a scumbag. Look what he did to his uncle. He robbed his uncle.

• 1:27:49Patrick Bet-David?

  When you say that, how did he rob him? How did he steal money from his uncle? You're saying Nicky, Scarf, he's.

• 1:27:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, whenever, before he went in the program. He, he was in Lewisburg. The mother was living there. He told the mother, get all the money. They robbed, I guess he knew where his uncle's.

• 1:28:01Patrick Bet-David?

  How much money was it?

• 1:28:01Speaker 01

  Oh, I, I have no idea.

• 1:28:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Is it in the millions, like real money?

• 1:28:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, a couple million, they said. I mean, and he took all the money. And then he went. He got out. Buried his poor uncle. Took the family, wherever his wife and kids, they took everything. But he, and he blamed his uncle for the murder that he, he fucking did, and he married the fucking girl.

• 1:28:27Patrick Bet-David?

  Was Nicky a similar model guy like you? That he never talked to anybody, never met with the feds, never did anything? Was Nicky like that as well?

• 1:28:35Speaker 01

  Oh, Nicky, yeah.

• 1:28:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Scarphone?

• 1:28:36Speaker 01

  Never, yeah.

• 1:28:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Was he locked, like you couldn't get nothing out of him?

• 1:28:40Speaker 01

  No, Nicky was a good man, yeah. He was a man.

• 1:28:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Who are people you see that way?

• 1:28:47Speaker 01

  Not too many.

• 1:28:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Would you say John Gotti senior was like that?

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, John. I mean, I don't know him personally, but he was-

• 1:28:54Patrick Bet-David?

  You're a complimentary of him, John Gotti?

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, 100%.

• 1:28:57Patrick Bet-David?

  You guys never met him, you guys never, you never did anything together?

• 1:29:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:29:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you ever meet a Frank Colada or no?

• 1:29:03Speaker 01

  Who's that?

• 1:29:04Patrick Bet-David?

  You know who Frank Colada is? He was with Tommy, uh, I want to say Tommy Spalatra from Vegas. There was a part of a Chicago faction and they moved to Vegas. So you were purely, at that time when you were doing business deals, are you going anywhere else or is just purely focused on Philly?

• 1:29:18Speaker 01

  No, I still, I lived in Philly. I don't, I don't know him. I don't know none of these guys.

• 1:29:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, he was one of the coldest guys I ever interviewed.

• 1:29:28Patrick Bet-David?

  He died in August 2020.

• 1:29:33Speaker 01

  The only informants I knew about all these guys is Leonetti and Ralph.

• 1:29:40Patrick Bet-David?

  The only ones you know with those two?

• 1:29:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it.

• 1:29:43Speaker 01

  Like all these other guys that are on shows and social media talk about me? I never seen them. Never was in jail with them. Never was, I never seen him in a restaurant, never seen him nowhere.

• 1:29:52Patrick Bet-David?

  What's the best compliment you ever got? What's the best compliment some of these guys give you?

• 1:29:58Speaker 01

  Compliment?

• 1:29:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Compliment.

• 1:29:59Speaker 01

  People wonder what you're doing. So is this people telling me?

• 1:30:03Patrick Bet-David?

  No, but what I mean is compliment is like, in your eyes, what is the best compliment another man you respect can give you? In your eyes, like what is a compliment that Sonny or Nicky would say about you to say that's a real compliment, in your eyes?

• 1:30:18Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 1:30:20Speaker 01

  I haven't thought of it.

• 1:30:23Patrick Bet-David?

  Is it more loyalty? Is it more, you know, um?

• 1:30:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Feared, is it more what you do to people? Is it more keeping your word? Is it more, what would it be? What would, like if, if, if, if I'm your son and I'm saying that, what's the best compliment another man you respect can give you? What would you say it is?

• 1:30:44Speaker 01

  Keep your word.

• 1:30:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Your word?

• 1:30:45Speaker 01

  Keep your word. Your word is, and so you got is your word.

• 1:30:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 1:30:49Speaker 01

  I mean, for real.

• 1:30:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Who, who, when you were, when you were a kid growing up, did you have a, a, somebody you looked up to? A role model you're like, I want to be like this guy when I grow up?

• 1:30:59Speaker 01

  Nah. I mean, like the old, like, we hung out with kids when we were in school, like, we were like 11, they were like 14. So they were like, old head, like the old head, you know, we looked up to them. I mean, it's just.

• 1:31:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Tough guys.

• 1:31:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, tough guys, good athletes. We played every sport. Played baseball, hockey, I played ice hockey, football, I mean, every sport.

• 1:31:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Who, who was like a name, like at that time? Was there anybody you looked up to that ended up being somebody?

• 1:31:23Speaker 01

  Nah. I mean, like athletes we loved, you know? One of, always wanted to be a baseball player.

• 1:31:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Who was your guy?

• 1:31:30Speaker 01

  Oh, like, I mean, uh, football, Zonka for the Dolphins.

• 1:31:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Zonka?

• 1:31:36Speaker 01

  Kyrie Zonka.

• 1:31:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Really?

• 1:31:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, you know, we all, you know, basketball players. One of the, everybody, like, all the kids want to be like Jordan, you know what I mean? Like, just like shit like that.

• 1:31:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Who was baseball for you? I mean, you said football, but I thought you were.

• 1:31:49Speaker 01

  Baseball?

• 1:31:50Patrick Bet-David?

  About baseball.

• 1:31:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, we had, like, I mean,

• 1:31:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Eighties.

• 1:31:54Speaker 01

  Mike Schmidt, Mike Schmidt.

• 1:31:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Mike Schmidt, wow. Makes sense.

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, Larry Bauer, you know?

• 1:31:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it, so all local?

• 1:32:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, all local.

• 1:32:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it.

• 1:32:02Speaker 01

  Those are like the baseball players. Hockey, Bobby Clark, that was my idol.

• 1:32:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:07Speaker 01

  Flyers. I was a kid when they won the cup. They won two years in a row, I think. Yeah, he was great, Bobby Clark. That was my first jersey, number 16.

• 1:32:17Patrick Bet-David?

  No, that's not the Bobby Clark. It's a different Bobby Clark. Yeah.

• 1:32:19Speaker 01

  That's him.

• 1:32:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. Did you play hockey or not?

• 1:32:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, ice hockey, I played. It was my favorite sport.

• 1:32:24Patrick Bet-David?

  So you guys play, really?

• 1:32:26Speaker 01

  So today is my favorite sport.

• 1:32:27Patrick Bet-David?

  Ice hockey?

• 1:32:28Speaker 01

  Ice hockey.

• 1:32:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Who else played ice hockey?

• 1:32:30Speaker 01

  All my friends. We all played. We played in Jersey, like we used to play. Yeah, that was my favorite sport.

• 1:32:35Patrick Bet-David?

  How'd you get introduced to ice hockey?

• 1:32:36Speaker 01

  We always, it was right over the bridge. We loved it. We played the street hockey, like, oh, you know. They didn't have roller blades and it was roller skates. And we went to ice skates. Yeah, I love hockey. Greatest sport. You see what they did to the fucking, the American hockey team? They hate them. Fuck, they hate them for it.

• 1:32:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Just because they went to the White House and?

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:54Speaker 01

  What's that girl's name? I hate her, the soccer player. Rapone?

• 1:32:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Uh, Rapone, Rapinoe, what is she?

• 1:32:59Speaker 01

  She looks like she's dying. Look at her. She got balls. She got fucking balls. Just look at her.

• 1:33:06Patrick Bet-David?

  You don't think she's attractive? You don't think she's sexy because they, they?

• 1:33:09Speaker 01

  Motherfucker, looks like she's dead. Another six months, she'll be dead a year.

• 1:33:14Speaker 01

  And she buried the hockey team.

• 1:33:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:16Speaker 01

  She hates, there was another one, she hates Trump. They hate this country.

• 1:33:22Patrick Bet-David?

  How do you deal with these guys? I mean, I'm assuming you love America. You're, you're?

• 1:33:25Speaker 01

  I love America. Yeah. They hate this country.

• 1:33:27Patrick Bet-David?

  How do you think they get to the point of hating the country that made them who they are?

• 1:33:30Speaker 01

  I, I don't know. They, they all complain. They all, they don't want to stand up for the national anthem. Then fuck it, leave. Go back to where you're from.

• 1:33:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:38Speaker 01

  Give all your money back and go back to where you're from. Go play over there.

• 1:33:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you have an opinion on what's going on right now with Iran? Do you see what's going on with Iran, with Trump, what he's doing? How, how do you feel about what he's doing?

• 1:33:47Speaker 01

  He did the right fucking thing. They've been trying to kill us for forty-seven years.

• 1:33:51Patrick Bet-David?

  So you're supportive of him doing what he's doing to killing all the fifty-plus guys?

• 1:33:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, fuck them.

• 1:33:55Patrick Bet-David?

  You know, apparently they killed another guy yesterday.

• 1:33:57Speaker 01

  Yesterday.

• 1:33:58Patrick Bet-David?

  You hear about that? The chief intel guy?

• 1:33:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, he got it yesterday.

• 1:34:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Like, that's like the director of their CIA.

• 1:34:02Speaker 01

  He was there yesterday. He told Trump, you won't be around too long. We're coming after you.

• 1:34:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. Israel says it killed Iran's top security leader as Tehran targets US embassy in Baghdad.

• 1:34:13Speaker 01

  Listen, they've been killing it. Well, fucking Carter, he was, I mean, they killed all the Marines. They killed, I mean, they killed.

• 1:34:23Speaker 01

  They've been fucking bombing us for fucking years.

• 1:34:26Speaker 01

  He gave him, he gave him the warning. What was it, eight months ago? That's it. All they had to do is say we're not nuclear.

• 1:34:33Patrick Bet-David?

  They didn't want to do it.

• 1:34:33Speaker 01

  They don't want to do it.

• 1:34:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. They don't want to do it. By the way, you know, I'm sure you see the Epstein stuff that's coming up.

• 1:34:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:40Patrick Bet-David?

  How did you guys, how did guys, was there ever somebody who was a pedophile in South Philly? And if yes, how'd you guys deal with them?

• 1:34:46Speaker 01

  I mean, no, not that we know of. Like if they might have got like locked up and then we've never seen them.

• 1:34:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Anything happen where a guy, forty year old guy raped a thirteen year old girl? Was there any stories like that?

• 1:34:58Speaker 01

  I mean, you heard of shit, read in the paper, no, not in our neighborhood.

• 1:35:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Not in your neighborhood?

• 1:35:02Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:35:02Patrick Bet-David?

  There was a known, like if somebody did, what would have happened?

• 1:35:05Speaker 01

  No, we beat him the fuck up. They should cut their balls off.

• 1:35:09Speaker 03

  With Quicken, your finances can stop feeling so complicated. You save, you invest, you keep an eye on spending. But what next? Quicken helps you put the whole picture together and make sense of your options. Connect accounts from more than fourteen thousand financial institutions and see how all the different pieces of your financial life fit together. Quicken, know what to do next. See how at quicken.com.

• 1:35:37Speaker 04

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked three hundred fifty thousand Virginians healthcare to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 1:36:07Speaker 02

  Where's your playlist taking you? Down the highway, to the mountains? Or just into daydream mode while you're stuck in traffic? With over four thousand hotels worldwide, Best Western is there to help you make the most of your getaway. Wherever that is. Because the only thing better than a great playlist

• 1:36:27Speaker 02

  is a great trip. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at Best Western.

• 1:36:33Speaker 02

  Book direct and save at bestwestern.com.

• 1:36:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you think some of that needs to return? Some of that fear in communities to where you can't act like that?

• 1:36:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Look what they do to these kids. They're fucking rape, fucking. You gotta be a sick motherfucker to rape kids. I mean, you really do.

• 1:36:56Patrick Bet-David?

  I agree.

• 1:36:56Speaker 01

  They should cut their balls off.

• 1:36:59Patrick Bet-David?

  That should be a new policy, like.

• 1:37:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. In jail, they're so protected in jail, you have no idea.

• 1:37:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Who, pedophiles?

• 1:37:06Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:37:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Protected?

• 1:37:08Speaker 01

  Protected. Now, there's different levels. Like, in a penitentiary, they can't come in. There's all different levels. There's USP, penitentiary, that's high. And you got, well, you got the AVX, that's the super max. But you got the penitentiaries, and you got medium, they can't go there. Low, there you go. Well, the lows are full of pedophiles. And if you hit one of them, you get five years. It's a hate crime.

• 1:37:35Patrick Bet-David?

  If you hit one of the pedophiles, it's five years?

• 1:37:37Speaker 01

  If I hit, just say, Joe, Joe Blow's here. I know he's a pedophile. Yeah, you raped it, and I crack him? It's a hate crime.

• 1:37:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Now, if you crack anybody else, what do you get?

• 1:37:49Speaker 01

  Nothing. No, you go to.

• 1:37:50Patrick Bet-David?

  So, so if a guy gets in?

• 1:37:52Speaker 01

  If you hit a pedophile, you're getting five years.

• 1:37:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Is this serious, Joe? You 100%?

• 1:37:57Speaker 01

  Swear on my mother.

• 1:37:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Are you? That's insane.

• 1:37:59Speaker 01

  Insane. Yeah, they protect. There's so many of them. See, like, years ago, one or two got caught. Now with the internet, I guess, they fucking do all this fucking trafficking, whatever the fuck. They lock fucking thousands of them up. There's thousands of them, sorry. Thousands in the jails.

• 1:38:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, what I hear is, if you're a pedophile and you raped a kid, you go to jail, they kill you, they destroy you. So those guys were untouchable?

• 1:38:22Speaker 01

  No, they're in, they're in lows. They can't go to camp because of safety reasons, so they keep them in lows. There's, I was in Coleman Low. There might be 1,900 inmates.

• 1:38:35Speaker 01

  Fifteen hundred are pedophiles.

• 1:38:39Speaker 01

  And the other three hundred are rats.

• 1:38:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Fifteen hundred are pedophiles?

• 1:38:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's pedophiles.

• 1:38:46Patrick Bet-David?

  And so when a guy comes in and he's a pedophile and you guys know, what happens? Like, is it like, don't touch him, don't mess with him?

• 1:38:51Speaker 01

  No, don't look at him, don't talk to him.

• 1:38:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Do they come to try to talk to you?

• 1:38:54Speaker 01

  Nah, get the fuck out, don't even, yeah, don't sit near us. They got, one thing about jail. If a guy walks in.

• 1:39:04Speaker 01

  Just wait, wait three days, just watch him. Whatever he is. He'll find his own element.

• 1:39:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Three days?

• 1:39:10Speaker 01

  Three, four days. If he's a. If he's gay, he'll find gays, he'll be seen with the gays. If he's a pedophile, he'll be seen with the pedophiles. If he's a rat, he'll be seen with their rats. If he's a Christian, he'll go with the Christians. If he's a stand-up guy, he'll be the stand-up guys, that's it. It's like an X-ray machine, you see it, it's crazy.

• 1:39:29Speaker 01

  No, it's nuts.

• 1:39:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow. So naturally, you're gonna gravitate towards your.

• 1:39:35Speaker 01

  Fine, you're a lover, yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Were there a lot of gays in, in, in prison?

• 1:39:39Speaker 01

  Lot undercover, yeah, yeah, not too many, you know, like, not flaming ones, but yeah, there's, there's some, you know.

• 1:39:44Patrick Bet-David?

  And they find each other?

• 1:39:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, they find each other. No, it's not.

• 1:39:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Did they get their asses handed to them or no?

• 1:39:48Speaker 01

  Nah, I don't leave it. They don't bother, they, they don't bother.

• 1:39:51Patrick Bet-David?

  So if you beat up a pedophile, you get five years, you get if you beat up?

• 1:39:53Speaker 01

  Not, nothing.

• 1:39:54Patrick Bet-David?

  So you can beat up the?

• 1:39:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Why, so they don't support, so the jails don't protect the gays?

• 1:40:00Speaker 01

  They call it a heat crime.

• 1:40:01Patrick Bet-David?

  If you hit a pedi, I am so shocked by this.

• 1:40:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, it'd be OP.

• 1:40:04Patrick Bet-David?

  This is a law like by the V O P.

• 1:40:06Speaker 01

  Now, I'm going back, nah, I was. One last, I was here, two thousand nineteen when I was away, I don't know if they changed it, but I don't think they did. There's too many of them, there's so many of them, yeah, they protect.

• 1:40:15Patrick Bet-David?

  That's interesting to say in South Philly.

• 1:40:19Patrick Bet-David?

  When you were there, no stories of pedophilia, no rape, nothing like that. Was it just a fear, like, if you're gonna do anything, don't do it here?

• 1:40:28Speaker 01

  I don't know, I mean. Nobody likes pedophiles, I mean, unless it happened to me, then no, you know what I mean? But I never. Not really, like in our neighborhood.

• 1:40:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Epstein, what do you think about the whole Epstein situation? What's, with, you know, the stories, did you ever have any, uh? You know anything about him, did you ever know the name?

• 1:40:46Speaker 01

  No, I mean, I heard the name, I read it.

• 1:40:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Long time ago?

• 1:40:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you know, I, I, I don't know him.

• 1:40:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. What do you think about?

• 1:40:52Speaker 01

  They tried to blame Trump with him, the fuck's Trump got to them? Bill Clinton was at his house mourning him.

• 1:40:58Speaker 01

  No, they're all sick. They're all sick fucking people. They all got, they all got billions of dollars. They're all sick. They're fucked. They should cut all their balls off. They should fucking, for real.

• 1:41:06Patrick Bet-David?

  It's a lot of balls.

• 1:41:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, but they hit it all. They hit it all. If that was us.

• 1:41:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Or they, they, they're crimes.

• 1:41:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. If, if that was me, they, I would have got hung, dead, be dead. There's, that's why I said, there's different set of rules for different people.

• 1:41:21Patrick Bet-David?

  What's the luck that the feds are watching this podcast?

• 1:41:23Speaker 01

  Oh, they're probably watching. You might get indicted with me.

• 1:41:27Patrick Bet-David?

  Is there any fed, is there any, are, is, are, are there any feds that became friends?

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  No. Never.

• 1:41:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. Has anybody tried to like befriend you, come, hey, you know, Joey, we were bad to you. We were this, we were.

• 1:41:41Speaker 01

  No. No.

• 1:41:42Patrick Bet-David?

  None of them?

• 1:41:42Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:41:43Patrick Bet-David?

  If they tried, you, you're not.

• 1:41:44Speaker 01

  I watched them.

• 1:41:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Hey Joey, let's go out dinner, man. I remember thirty years.

• 1:41:47Speaker 01

  Never. No, never.

• 1:41:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Who, who will you not have dinner with? So it's feds. Who else is like a, for you? Cause you're a black and white guy. Who is somebody that from the previous life, hey, let's try to rekindle, you know, et cetera?

• 1:41:59Speaker 01

  No feds, no rats, no child molesters. I really don't know child molesters, but that's it. Like I said, you want a job at the cheese steak? Long as you're not a rat and child molester, we'll hire you tomorrow. That's it. But I tell them, you gotta bring your paperwork, cause you gotta show it. I don't know your case.

• 1:42:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. By the way, there was a guy, um, that apparently was part of a crew in, um, Philly. Uh, uh, nickname was Gorilla with the pagan.

• 1:42:26Speaker 01

  Uh, uh, Gorilla. Yeah, I know Gorilla.

• 1:42:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Gorilla. Tough guy. I think apparently one time he got shot eighteen, nineteen times and he still made it.

• 1:42:32Speaker 01

  No, I know Gorilla.

• 1:42:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:34Speaker 01

  He's old now. I don't, I mean, seven.

• 1:42:36Patrick Bet-David?

  I mean, he looks like, if you, if you pull up his, that's the one right there, Rob. Steven Gorilla. If you pull up his picture to see what he looks like. Um, this is not somebody you'll ever forget when you see him. Go to images. Uh, go to the bottom left picture, bottom left.

• 1:42:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, Gorilla, yeah.

• 1:42:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Friendly guy. Yeah. So he ran a crew, a couple of the other guys. There was a, um,

• 1:43:02Patrick Bet-David?

  There was a crew that ran by, I'm trying to see who this was. A, uh, not, anyway, so it was an African American of some, some, some other gang that were leaders there as well. Allegedly, based on my contacts from Philly. There, there was a massive mutual respect towards you with them. Why, why, why did these other crews respect you the way they did?

• 1:43:24Speaker 01

  I, he's my friend. I mean, I get along good with all them. They come to Cheesecake Place. They support us. South Philly, everybody supports everybody, believe it or not.

• 1:43:34Patrick Bet-David?

  They, they support everybody?

• 1:43:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. They got a lot of good people in South Philly.

• 1:43:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Is that part of DNA if you're South Philly?

• 1:43:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we all, we look out for each other.

• 1:43:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Who, who's known as the most successful guy that came out of South Philly? Is there like a name? Cause you know in Boston, you see how Mark Wahlberg is protective of Boston. Dana White, there's a lot of pride for Boston.

• 1:43:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, Boston.

• 1:43:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Who are the names, who are the names from South Philly?

• 1:43:55Speaker 01

  Ain't too many.

• 1:43:58Speaker 01

  South Philly, we all fucks from South Philly that made it. Frank, yeah, I have a lot.

• 1:44:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Bobby Rydell.

• 1:44:05Speaker 01

  The Geter, yeah, Bobby Rydell, the Geter, Jerry Blavat.

• 1:44:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you know? So not a lot of.

• 1:44:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, not a lot of.

• 1:44:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Why is that? Why is that, that no?

• 1:44:14Speaker 01

  Not, fuck else. I can't think of nobody. I mean, you think of Philly, South Philly, Stallone, Rocky, you know? But he's not from South Philly.

• 1:44:23Patrick Bet-David?

  He's not from South.

• 1:44:23Speaker 01

  I think he's from Philly though, right?

• 1:44:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Rocky, where, where's, uh, Stallone from?

• 1:44:27Speaker 01

  He's a good guy.

• 1:44:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, he very good there. Yeah, he's down here as well.

• 1:44:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:31Patrick Bet-David?

  He, he bought the house I looked at. It's a beautiful house. The guy who built the house, is he from South Philly?

• 1:44:39Speaker 01

  New York?

• 1:44:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Cityman at, yeah.

• 1:44:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, the, the house he bought, the realtor was showing me the house, started telling me the story about the house. He says, you know, I bought this for my girlfriend. And she was gonna take care of my art collection. Very, very good storyteller, the guy was. And then we looked at the house. I'm like, yeah, I don't know if we're gonna live in Alapan. It's a great area.

• 1:44:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's beautiful.

• 1:44:58Patrick Bet-David?

  But, uh, he has a beautiful home. Uh, last thing I'll tell you before we wrap up. Reason why I brought Sonny up to you is the following.

• 1:45:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Is

• 1:45:08Patrick Bet-David?

  good friend of mine who again Philly.

• 1:45:13Speaker 01

  You got a lot of friends.

• 1:45:13Patrick Bet-David?

  I do, man, I do their dick. I just get along. I was in the military, you know, I'm a guy that's been doing business in, you know, every state for the last 25 years, insurance finance business. And I like stories. I like hearing people's upbringing and learning about what they're doing. He says, Pat, let me tell you why this is going to be a different interview for you with Joey. Says, I know Joey. I see, he says, I I grew up, he says, their crew path is, this is the word he used, impenetrable. He says, no one's ever gonna say anything. You have to realize, no one's ever gonna say anything. He says, you can ask 50 different questions. Joey's not gonna tell you nothing. Okay. And he says, everyone's like that. He says, and by the way, this is why we loved them when we lived in South Philly.

• 1:45:56Patrick Bet-David?

  And he got in a lot of troubles while he was a couple, part of a couple of smaller crews, but a lot of respect for the guys. And the reason why I brought up Sonny is you have no idea how hard I tried to interview Sonny.

• 1:46:10Patrick Bet-David?

  I'd go visit, he would sit down, we would talk, we would have great conversations. By the way, he was 102, 103 years old. He could still remember things. He would tell the girls at the place, hey, Mary, come here, Mary, fix my hair. I gotta look good for Patrick. Come fix my hair, grab the comb. Why are you going the other way? I told Sonny, I'm coming, Sonny. And then she would come, grab the comb, fix his hair and, you know, I'm like, so Sonny, when are we gonna sit down so you can tell the story? Patrick, what do you want me to do? The only thing I have is the fact that I never talked. 55 years I did time. You want me to go tell the, I said, Sonny, if you don't tell the story, the market's gonna tell your story in a way that's their version, not the truth.

• 1:46:52Patrick Bet-David?

  He says, I can't do nothing about that. You're gonna have to kill me, bury me, I'm going with my story. And I'm not gonna talk about anything. Three times Joey, I went to him. We're driving and we're going to the stallion spot. I have this expedition, he's sitting ready, I got the whole crew behind me. And I said, so, uh, Sonny, um, what was Lucky like? Great guy, family guy, honest guy, very good guy. I said, Meyer Lansky, what was Meyer like? I heard he was a billionaire, he made a lot of money, deals in Cuba. I don't know about any of that stuff. All I know is he was a standing guy, he was a very good guy. I said, what was Bugsy like? He says, you would never call him Bugsy to his face. I said, well, what was Ben like? Ben Segal, stand up guy, great guy, you know, same thing.

• 1:47:38Patrick Bet-David?

  And this pattern kept continuing, we're together that day for two or three hours, three and a half hours. And

• 1:47:45Patrick Bet-David?

  eventually I walked away, we never got the interview. And, uh, but I walked away and I said, by the way, some person, uh, uh, faked him. And when they, they set up a camera, he had no idea he was being interviewed and they interviewed him, they put him, it's like a 13 minute podcast, somebody did with the father, Sonny Francis. I walked away, I said, here's a guy. The stories, one time a guy's in his house, flirts with his wife, is too friendly with the wife. This is again, allegedly, we have to put that, you know, that word in there, allegedly. Allegedly, he goes in the kitchen, he beats the guy up, says, why would you flirt with my wife? Cuts him up, burns his body and kills him. This is allegedly, of course, right?

• 1:48:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, when they say how many people he took, you know, 50, 55, you know, the numbers are between 40 to 55. True gangster, Sonny Francis. And you hear stories about him partying with Jackie Kennedy, partying with Marilyn Monroe, like, these are the stories. I know your grandfather

• 1:48:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, my grandfather.

• 1:48:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Uh, uh, had a relationship, I think with Joe Maggio and Marlene, uh, with Marilyn Monroe.

• 1:48:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, my, my grandmother went to the wedding.

• 1:48:52Patrick Bet-David?

  What stories does he, does he tell you about, uh?

• 1:48:54Speaker 01

  Well, uh, mine, uh, he died before I, uh, born.

• 1:48:57Patrick Bet-David?

  But they were friends?

• 1:48:58Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:48:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. So, to me, you know, part of, uh, you reminds me of Sonny. You know, part of you reminds me of Sonny because neither one of you guys would talk.

• 1:49:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:49:11Patrick Bet-David?

  No matter how many ways I ask the question, the mob doesn't exist.

• 1:49:14Speaker 01

  Nah.

• 1:49:15Patrick Bet-David?

  So these guys are liars.

• 1:49:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:18Patrick Bet-David?

  How do you feel about the fact that they lie about mob existing?

• 1:49:20Speaker 01

  They've been lying about this for a hundred years.

• 1:49:24Patrick Bet-David?

  So are you a fan of, uh, uh, uh, the guy that started the FBI?

• 1:49:30Speaker 01

  Oh, J. Edgar Hoover?

• 1:49:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, Hoover, because he said it's not a real thing, the mafia doesn't exist.

• 1:49:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, he said it.

• 1:49:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:36Speaker 01

  What else?

• 1:49:38Patrick Bet-David?

  So if he said it, he must be right.

• 1:49:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow, do you watch mob movies or no?

• 1:49:43Speaker 01

  No, I never watched Sopranos.

• 1:49:44Patrick Bet-David?

  You never, I've never seen Sopranos, by the way.

• 1:49:46Speaker 01

  I never watched one episode.

• 1:49:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Me neither, I've never seen Sopranos.

• 1:49:49Speaker 01

  He was a rat too, they said, in one of the episodes.

• 1:49:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Allegedly.

• 1:49:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, he sat down with the FBI, I mean, in the show.

• 1:49:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. To you, once you do that, it's over.

• 1:49:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:58Patrick Bet-David?

  You've never sat with the FBI once?

• 1:50:00Speaker 01

  Never.

• 1:50:03Speaker 01

  Ever.

• 1:50:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Never?

• 1:50:05Speaker 01

  No. The only time I seen them is when they locked me up.

• 1:50:07Patrick Bet-David?

  How many times were they offered to sit down with you to snitch on them?

• 1:50:10Speaker 01

  Never, they never offered, ever.

• 1:50:11Patrick Bet-David?

  They never offered?

• 1:50:12Speaker 01

  Never.

• 1:50:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Why did they never offer?

• 1:50:14Speaker 01

  I don't know, I'm glad, I mean, I'm glad they didn't.

• 1:50:17Patrick Bet-David?

  So they never even said, Joey, you don't need to do 22 years, you don't need to do 12 years?

• 1:50:21Speaker 01

  Never.

• 1:50:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Just snitch on this guy and you'll never get it?

• 1:50:24Speaker 01

  No, we were facing 12 years. I was facing death penalty twice.

• 1:50:31Speaker 01

  Our Rico case in Philly,

• 1:50:35Speaker 01

  the one in, oh, 2001? When I got pinched in 99. We were facing death penalty, me and my son in Colorado. And I made my lawyer get up, you know? Here's the problem, a lot of guys don't, listen, I was no older boy. Yeah, that I steal shit, yeah, receiving stolen property, I did that, we gamble, yeah. And I told my lawyer, get up, tell the jury, this is what we did.

• 1:51:02Speaker 01

  We gambled, we received stolen properties, stolen stuff. But all this other stuff, we didn't do. And the jury got shot, they came back, they acquitted us of everything.

• 1:51:15Speaker 01

  My guidelines for receiving stolen property and gambling, I was supposed to get 50 something months. They gave me 14 years.

• 1:51:22Patrick Bet-David?

  50 something months, they give you 14 years?

• 1:51:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was only receiving stolen property and gambling. Gave me 14 years.

• 1:51:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Were you ever afraid of going away?

• 1:51:31Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:51:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Was it just kind of like part of the life?

• 1:51:33Speaker 01

  You could go.

• 1:51:35Speaker 01

  Make the best of it, work out, jail saves you, preserves you.

• 1:51:39Patrick Bet-David?

  In what way?

• 1:51:40Speaker 01

  Well, you're in bed by 9 o'clock, you don't drink, you work out all day, you don't smoke.

• 1:51:46Speaker 01

  You practice on your game, your gin game. You run, you exercise. I'm sixty-four, minus twenty-two, I'm only forty-two.

• 1:51:57Patrick Bet-David?

  You look great though.

• 1:51:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm only forty-two, yeah.

• 1:52:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Sixty-two?

• 1:52:02Speaker 01

  No, I'm sixty-four.

• 1:52:02Patrick Bet-David?

  You're sixty-four. You said minus twenty-two, so forty-two.

• 1:52:06Speaker 01

  Well, twenty-two years didn't count, so I'm only forty-two.

• 1:52:09Patrick Bet-David?

  What's the future for Joey? What are you excited about? What's the future look like?

• 1:52:12Speaker 01

  To be the next Jersey Mikes.

• 1:52:16Patrick Bet-David?

  To be the next Jersey Mikes?

• 1:52:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:17Patrick Bet-David?

  I saw the video you made about Jersey Mikes.

• 1:52:19Speaker 01

  Fucking steak.

• 1:52:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you have that video of Jersey Mikes typing the Berlino Jersey Mikes?

• 1:52:23Speaker 01

  That was. That and Pat's steak is neck and neck.

• 1:52:27Patrick Bet-David?

  Gotta see this. That's the one right there.

• 1:52:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Watch this. Turn the audio if you could.

• 1:52:35Speaker 01

  There you go, top, there you go.

• 1:52:38Speaker 01

  My daughter just door dashed. Jersey Mikes cheesesteak. How the fuck are these people in business? Look at this. What the fuck is this? It looks worse than Pat's. Look at it.

• 1:52:52Speaker 01

  I don't have to open the motherfucker. It won't even open, look.

• 1:52:56Speaker 01

  What the fuck is this? I gotta just take one bite and throw it out.

• 1:53:04Speaker 01

  Oh, get the fuck out. Fucking hell. Listen, it was there, it was my daughter. We went to Naples. They came down with their fiance, so I said, we are beating the house. So I'm, uh, she's like, Dad, you hungry? I said, I'm gonna order Jersey. I said, Jersey Mikes. She said, yeah, it's all around here. And, uh, I think I asked, I said, what about the, what's the place, the chicken place? Chick-fil-A.

• 1:53:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Chick-fil-A.

• 1:53:29Speaker 01

  They're closed on Sundays or something.

• 1:53:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:53:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. I said, they got ordered, they got cheesesteak. I said, I don't, I said, I said, guess what? Get me one, I wanna see. But that's why I wanna be the next Jersey Mikes. They sold for nine billion dollars.

• 1:53:41Patrick Bet-David?

  You wanna build the next Jersey Mikes?

• 1:53:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Let's get a Joe, tell him, put them all over.

• 1:53:45Patrick Bet-David?

  What a story that would be if you built that off.

• 1:53:48Speaker 01

  I wanna sell it for a billion dollars, buy a yacht, an island, and that's it. That's how my life's going.

• 1:53:54Patrick Bet-David?

  That's the dream.

• 1:53:55Speaker 01

  Die on a boat, fuck it.

• 1:53:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Die on a boat.

• 1:53:57Speaker 01

  First thing I'm buying is an airplane though, since I got money. I can't take this fucking, the airport, the travel, the fucking TSA.

• 1:54:04Speaker 01

  How often do they recognize you, by the way? Oh, they recognize you. They recognize you? Yeah, they recognize you. But now they're on strike. Yeah, yeah, I'm seeing the... Yeah, the Democrats, they don't want that. They're dying for an attack to happen here, that's what they want. Yeah. Democrats... You think it'll happen? They're gonna do like, you know, like bullshit ones. Inside, type of stuff? Yeah, like, you know, guy driving it. But I always said, did you see the other day, in Michigan, they drove through the thing? Mm-hmm. See all these school shootings? Synagogy. I've been saying it for two years, you could stop it. All you gotta do is get five fucking veterans, you know, that need a job, make them stand outside the school with a machine gun. A guy walks up, drop the gun, they don't drop, just kill him. You'll never see nobody else going to school. The guy drove the car through Michigan, they killed him. Mm-hmm.

• 1:54:49Speaker 01

  He would've killed all them kids, you got bombs and all that. Mm-hmm. You need, you gotta put people outside the schools.

• 1:54:54Speaker 03

  With Quicken, your finances can stop feeling so complicated. You save, you invest, you keep an eye on spending. But what next? Quicken helps you put the whole picture together and make sense of your options. Connect accounts from more than 14,000 financial institutions and see how all the different pieces of your financial life fit together. Quicken, know what to do next. See how at quicken.com.

• 1:55:22Speaker 04

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 1:55:57Speaker 08

  Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next adventure. Get double points on every qualified stay. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions.

• 1:56:15Patrick Bet-David?

  You think streets of New York were safer in the eighties or today?

• 1:56:19Speaker 01

  No, in the eighties. My neighbor, my neighbor, we used to leave the doors open. If you lived across the street, nobody locked their doors. I could walk in your house.

• 1:56:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Surely because the fear of retaliation if you do something?

• 1:56:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, nobody did it though. Like, nobody ever broke in nobody's house and fucking raped girls and fuck, they're all fucking nuts today. They're all in drugs.

• 1:56:37Patrick Bet-David?

  What do you think about Mondani? What he's doing to New York City?

• 1:56:39Speaker 01

  Oh, that motherfucker, I hate him too.

• 1:56:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:42Speaker 01

  I hate him. Hopefully he get run over.

• 1:56:46Speaker 01

  But it's Philly now, like Philly, New York, it's bad. Fucking bad.

• 1:56:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Fight awards. So I didn't know you wanted to build a bigger than Jersey Mike's, be billionaire by yacht, by a plane.

• 1:56:59Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 1:57:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Be free and enjoy yourself.

• 1:57:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the, I mean, that's the best revenge.

• 1:57:08Speaker 01

  Right?

• 1:57:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Joey, if that happens, I mean, it's gonna...

• 1:57:11Speaker 01

  I'm not buying you on the yacht. You're coming on the yacht.

• 1:57:13Patrick Bet-David?

  I'll, you do that, you know, I'm gonna sit there and say, this is, this is a wild success story. I can only imagine if CNBC and some of these guys have to interview. So today we have the CEO and the founder of, you know, Merlino Steakhouse. So, Mr. Merlino, is it true that you, how did you go from this to this? I'm just a regular guy. I can't wait to see that interview.

• 1:57:36Speaker 01

  I'm gonna give you the interview.

• 1:57:38Patrick Bet-David?

  That would be a classic interview when that happens.

• 1:57:41Patrick Bet-David?

  So podcast, right? Rob, if we can, so the podcast is The Skinny with Joey Merlino.

• 1:57:46Speaker 01

  A little stuff.

• 1:57:46Patrick Bet-David?

  A little stuff, by the way, he's a very good...

• 1:57:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, stuff's good, right?

• 1:57:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Very good. Why, what, what does he get his talent from on camera? He's very good at what?

• 1:57:53Speaker 01

  You know, when I first thought, I said, I want to do a podcast.

• 1:57:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you meet him?

• 1:57:57Speaker 01

  I know him my whole life. I know his father, like his grandfather is my father's age and I'm his father's age. His father might be a year older than me. And we're all from the same neighborhood. All gambling degenerates, you know, play cards and hang in hangouts.

• 1:58:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:10Speaker 01

  And when I first started the podcast, Kevin Connolly, you know Kevin Connolly?

• 1:58:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Of course, yeah.

• 1:58:13Speaker 01

  So he said to me, you gotta find a guy, like a sidekick. And he was, I said, well, fuck, I'm gonna find him. So he sent me all these guys. I'm like, I don't want that guy. I don't want he. Who was the one that some fuck? I said, no. I said, wait a minute, I might have a guy because snuff was snuff did car commercials. You know, you work the car dealership and he asked it.

• 1:58:32Patrick Bet-David?

  So I know nothing about snuff. All I know is when I see him, he is very talented, very talented.

• 1:58:37Speaker 01

  So I got in one of his car commercials. I text him. I said, send me one of your car commercials. I sent to Kevin. He said, that's your guy. He said, he's the best. He's good. He's good at what he does.

• 1:58:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Uh, Rob, what's the, what's the guy that, um, Tony came from, you know, uh, uh, where they came to the house? He was supposed to come to lunch and he has a channel and, uh, a good looking guy. Yeah. This guy, what do you know about Tommy T? Cause he, there's some rumors that he's.

• 1:59:05Speaker 01

  I was in jail with him.

• 1:59:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, you were in jail with him?

• 1:59:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was. I was in jail with him.

• 1:59:08Patrick Bet-David?

  No relation?

• 1:59:09Speaker 01

  No, not at all.

• 1:59:10Patrick Bet-David?

  He's not your son. He's not anything.

• 1:59:11Speaker 01

  My son?

• 1:59:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:12Speaker 01

  I got a son.

• 1:59:13Patrick Bet-David?

  No, you were in jail with him?

• 1:59:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was in jail. He was a nice kid. Nice kid.

• 1:59:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it.

• 1:59:17Speaker 01

  I was in jail.

• 1:59:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Have you ever done his show or no?

• 1:59:19Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:59:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 1:59:20Speaker 01

  He's got a big show, right?

• 1:59:21Patrick Bet-David?

  He's got a big show. He's got a good show. Yeah. He's got eight hundred and seventy six thousand subs. Yeah. He's actually a very good interviewer. He had me on and he had a very good conversation together. Yeah. When I see snuff, I'm, I tell myself, let's say for a personality like you, there needs to be a guy like that, that knows how to get the information out and how to do it in a respectful way. And he gets it.

• 1:59:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's good. He's good.

• 1:59:41Patrick Bet-David?

  He gets it.

• 1:59:41Speaker 01

  He really is.

• 1:59:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm happy. I'm, I, I love him. He's like my son.

• 1:59:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, so we're going to put the link below, Rob, if we can, to, uh, the podcast, the Skinny with Joey Marino. And is there a website for the cheese, cheesesteak place or no?

• 1:59:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I gotta get it through.

• 1:59:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you have that or not set up here? What's the website here?

• 1:59:59Speaker 01

  Let me hear snuff.

• 2:00:00Patrick Bet-David?

  The Skinny Joey's Cheesesteak. Put the link below there as well for the steakhouse. And now I wanna, the, the cheese, oh, now I wanna try the cheesesteak. And I gotta come to Philly to try it out. Yeah.

• 2:00:12Speaker 01

  Let me know when you.

• 2:00:12Patrick Bet-David?

  But last but not least, we gotta wish you a happy birthday, man. We brought you a cake.

• 2:00:15Speaker 01

  Thanks, my man.

• 2:00:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Your birthday. So let's sing for, uh, Joey on three, one, two, three. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Joey. Happy birthday to you and many more.

• 2:00:36Patrick Bet-David?

  This is legit candles, guys. There you go.

• 2:00:39Speaker 01

  That's my favorite.

• 2:00:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Is it?

• 2:00:41Speaker 01

  Carve out.

• 2:00:41Patrick Bet-David?

  There you go. I love it.

• 2:00:42Speaker 01

  Ice cream cake. Best cake ever.

• 2:00:44Patrick Bet-David?

  I love it.

• 2:00:44Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you, buddy.

• 2:00:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Good choice, Alicia. Thank you. Well, happy birthday to you. I know we've been trying to do this for a long time. I've got to find. I look forward to it.

• 2:00:53Speaker 01

  Look at stuff, homie. Very.

• 2:00:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Stuff is, yeah, you really, really like his talent. And I know one of our guys used to work with you in the past. He's right there already.

• 2:01:02Speaker 01

  By me.

• 2:01:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Good-looking guy. Yeah, he had nothing but good things to say. So, and to all the feds that are watching, apparently he's never been part of the family, allegedly, but you guys got to keep doing your job. But he keeps beating you guys. It is what it is. So.

• 2:01:16Speaker 01

  Well, listen, like I said, the old administration,

• 2:01:22Speaker 01

  you know, back, I'm going back in the eighties, nineties, that they were, I mean, I like Cash Patel, the new administrator, you know, these guys are,

• 2:01:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:31Speaker 01

  you know, but I'm, I'm talking about the old, I ain't talking about the new minister. They were, they were, they were worse than anybody. Crooked. Listen, but they had a case. My friend's case, I was away. We had three FBI agents on.

• 2:01:47Speaker 01

  Wrong year, right?

• 2:01:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Yes.

• 2:01:49Speaker 01

  We had three agents on the case.

• 2:01:52Speaker 01

  They admitted that they lied on work application papers to get a raise, to be able to move up to make more money. The judge told them we're not allowed to. They were getting on the stand that doesn't like. We're not, we're not, you're not allowed to use it. You're not allowed to use it. If they lied to get a raise, you think they won't lie to put some money in jail? These are FBI agents, not ever crooked back then. They were, they were, they were bad. They were really bad.

• 2:02:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Joey, the fact that you're not saying anything, man, that's just, you know. I, I, I talked to Jonah Mendez. She was a former chief disguise officer for the CIA for 20 years. She married a very well-known CIA agent that was in there for 31 years. What's the guy's name she married? Uh, she married a very, very well-known CIA guy. Can you type in her husband's name? You're gonna know who he is. Very, very well-known guy. Yeah, Tony Mendez. Okay, legendary CIA officer, known for the Canadian caper rescue mission. So anyways, one time they married each other, by the way. They wrote the book, The Moscow Rules. Anyways, one day I'm with her at the, uh, right outside of the White House. I'm talking to her. I said, what's the great quality of a CIA agent?

• 2:03:05Patrick Bet-David?

  And she said the most incredible thing. She said, a great CIA agent is somebody that can save the free world, just help take out a leader that would have done something very bad to the world. And millions of lives are saved. But he has no desire to want to brag about it to the world. She said, that's a great CIA agent.

• 2:03:29Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 2:03:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Competitive, charming, charismatic, but doesn't need to say anything on TV because they don't need the accolades.

• 2:03:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:03:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Little bit of that is if you were the boss of the Philadelphia crime family.

• 2:03:40Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 2:03:41Patrick Bet-David?

  If, I'm just saying, if you were for a long time. I mean, a little bit of that is like the, you know, it's like the cousin of CIA because, you know,

• 2:03:51Patrick Bet-David?

  they're never going to say who they are and what they did. So you, you got to kind of respect them. I'm sure you respect guys like that.

• 2:03:55Speaker 01

  I'm not even the boss of my family.

• 2:03:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:58Speaker 01

  Believe me.

• 2:03:59Patrick Bet-David?

  All right. Well, we're, we're going to wrap it up right there. I think that's the right way to go. And by the way, Joey's on Manek. So if you want to ask him any questions, you can go to Manek. We're going to put the link below as well.

• 2:04:09Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:04:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Great having you on.

• 2:04:10Speaker 01

  Thank you. My name's Joey Merlino. Any questions you have on Manek you want to ask me, I'm an expert in sports, gambling, restaurants. We've got the best cheese steaks in Philly. Anything you want to know about Philly, South Philly, Atlantic City, reach out and I got you.

• 2:05:01Speaker 04

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 2:05:36Speaker 08

  Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next adventure. Get double points on every qualified stay. Life's a trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions.