Pod Insights PBD Podcast Mafia States of America | Episode 8 - "The Line You Never Cross" About this episode Sammy Gravano and Michael Franzese confront the code, the betrayals, and the one line even the Mafia never crossed.
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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.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:15 Speaker 02 Previously on Mafia States of America.
1:20 Speaker 03 I was in prison with Larry Mazz. Larry Mazz told me, "We knew that you guys took, and we knew that John gave you the hit. It would have been a massive shootout if you would have came in on this hit." But I was taken off of it.
1:36 Speaker 04 When I got out of the car, Jimmy grabbed my arm, and he said, "I'm gonna tell you something you're not gonna like it." And I said, "What?" He said, "Your father was in there before you this morning, and he, I mean, this evening, and he threw you under the bus. He didn't help you one bit. But I can tell you, if that night doesn't happen, I would have never walked away from that life. Not for my wife or whatever. I would have never done it."
1:59 Patrick Bet-David? That was your tipping point?
2:00 Speaker 04 That was my tipping point.
2:50 Speaker 02 The thing that always fascinates me is the allure of the mob. Why these young hoods want to be in the mafia? How is this a big deal to be made? People in the mob, they're kind of like in that gray area. You know, they're kind of a paradox. They could be very funny and kissing their kids and going to church on Sunday. And then on Monday, they whack somebody. And that's what makes them so unique. That's why the world is fascinated with this kind of lifestyle.
3:27 Speaker 02 But in the end, I never met anyone, anyone, in the mob who didn't end up dead or in jail. Why would you want to do it? It's like putting a target on your back.
3:48 Patrick Bet-David? Tommaso Buschetta was a mobster from the Italian Sicilian family. I don't know if you've had a chance to see it or not. I haven't seen it. Have you had a chance to see it? I didn't see it, but I know a little bit about it. So there's a part in the story that is actually very interesting to me that has to do with you, a little bit about your father's story, Sania. So he tells the story, this is in the 80s where, you know, they built a court. 475 defendants are there. It's literally a court and a bunch of made men behind bars. And the main bosses are there. You know some of the names, Rena, there's a lot of the names out there that are the big bosses that were in the room and they're testifying and he's going through, telling the whole story. There's a part where he said this, I want to quote him.
4:33 Patrick Bet-David? And I kind of want to know if you relate to any of this. He said... In front of the court, everyone's there, he's saying this. He says, "I've spent most of my life as a member of the Sicilian mafia family. I've seen so many changes in the organization that I no longer feel bound by their code of silence or omerta. They have no trials, they have no jails, their power is terror. As a mafioso, I have nothing to repent. It is the people I will speak about. It is they who betrayed the life, the mafia life. They are traitors, while I defend the real mafia. I've lost sons, brother-in-laws, brothers, nephews. None of them were men of honor, made men. That's what tormented me most.
5:18 Patrick Bet-David? I'd never complain if they came after me, that would be fair game, but not my sons. They had nothing to do with it. This is one of the main reasons that prompted me to collaborate with the state. I never regret giving evidence. My only regret is joining the mafia in the first place. The final tally, lost two sons, a brother, a brother-in-law, a son-in-law, and four nephews. They should have killed me instead, rather than condemn me to end up as a traitor. That would have been the right thing to do." Do you relate to him?
5:53 Speaker 03 I understand his story. I don't fully agree with it.
6:00 Speaker 03 That's not the reason to cooperate. If they killed all those family members of his, he should have killed them back, not cooperated. That doesn't make it a reason to cooperate, in my opinion. But I do know, and I heard, that in that same court, the defendants could talk to their accuser. And they told him, "Do you have any idea of what you're doing?" And he answered, "Yes, I do."
6:36 Speaker 03 "Do you have any idea what you did to kill innocent people to get to me?"
6:44 Speaker 03 I thought that was a very, very powerful statement that he said. It made the whole, goes in Austria, the whole mafia, the whole, oh, the whole everything, disgusting on both ends of this thing. But I don't agree with him. I did something similar with John. I wish I had the opportunity to know what he had done when we were on the street. I never would have cooperated, I would have killed him.
7:12 Patrick Bet-David? Would your opinion have changed if they would have gone after somebody in your life, like one of your kids? Would your opinion on this change, omerta? Or would you still be in the same place?
7:23 Speaker 03 No, I would have struck back immediately. I would have made them pay in a horrible, horrible fucking way. Once that rule is off the table,
7:33 Speaker 03 then there's no rules. I would come after them, their families and everybody else. What I did, or if they didn't like Michael, they can go kill him, or me. But the families in Gozzi and Austria in the United States are off fucking limits. They have done nothing to warrant, to be hurt, abused, especially killed.
7:59 Speaker 03 So, when you get into a situation like that, I think the answer to that is Gozzi and Austria in Sicily at that point is over. There is no rules, there is no omerta, there's nothing. And I'm glad that had never happened in the United States. There's a lot of guys who cooperated or did things. I'm not saying that he cooperated again. But he walked away from the life. He's still here. His family is still here. And like I said the other day, he's got a beautiful family. I can't imagine somebody wanting to kill his family. Because he walked away from my life. Whatever he did, in return, goes to Austria's over. There is no America, there is none of nothing. That's my opinion.
8:43 Patrick Bet-David? So your opinion wouldn't have changed if anything was, happened to you directly, kind of like it did to you. Michael, how about yourself? When you hear him say what he's saying, and obviously it's a lot more, you feel it when he's reading it to the court, rather than me reading it to you. Do you relate to anything he's saying?
9:00 Speaker 04 Well, I have to agree with Cham on that. I mean, look, I mean, I consider myself a legitimate person right now, but if somebody were to go after my family, I'm going to Austria again. I wouldn't get satisfaction of them going to prison. I would want to kill them myself. Not their families.
9:18 Patrick Bet-David? Even today?
9:19 Speaker 04 Even today. Somebody would have attacked my family because of something I did, I would want to kill them. I mean, there's no justice in sending them to jail. I can't think legitimately that way when they're coming after my loved ones. Just couldn't accept it.
9:36 Speaker 03 I agree with that a hundred percent. You don't even have to be going to Austria. A legitimate man, you go after somebody's family, I can't see them seeing loved ones in a really serious, ugly way. There's no reason for it why anybody, a legitimate man, an ex-cop, an ex-soldier, an ex-anybody, wouldn't go back and try to, why not kill them? I was interviewed by a woman who I was in prison. She was a psychologist or something. And she told me I can't kill in my interview with her. And I said, okay. You have a daughter or a son or kids. I'm not supposed to answer those questions, but I will answer. I got a daughter. Suppose when somebody raped your little five, six-year-old daughter,
10:20 Speaker 03 and raped her, and brutally killed her, and they caught them. They put them in prison, they were going to give them an electric chair, but there's nobody there to press the button. What would you do? Oh, I would, I would press the button. So then you can't kill under the right conditions.
10:40 Speaker 03 I think all these soldiers are eighteen, nineteen years old and they're recruited into military. It shows that everyone can kill under the right conditions. So.
10:50 Speaker 04 And actually too, the night I got straightened out, I got made, I was told, "Nobody will ever bother your mother, your sister, your daughter. Nobody, as long as you're a part of this life, nobody will ever bother you." And as far as I'm concerned, if somebody attacked my family when I did, that's the violation of a law.
11:08 Patrick Bet-David? That never happened to you.
11:10 Speaker 04 Never happened.
11:11 Patrick Bet-David? Okay, so to you, they didn't do to you what they did to Tomas.
11:14 Speaker 04 No.
11:15 Patrick Bet-David? Okay. Do you think your father experienced somewhat of what he experienced as a made man?
11:22 Speaker 04 No.
11:23 Patrick Bet-David? He didn't?
11:24 Speaker 04 No, he didn't experience that. I mean, nobody ever came after our family members. Look, I'll tell you right now, I would have never walked away. I have two daughters and a son in New York. And my son is, you know, I used to hang out in clubs and everywhere else. And the only thing I ever told him, I said, "Look, you may get some brush back because of me walking away." I said, "I don't want you getting any arguments with anybody." I said, "Be prepared for that." But I never, ever worried about anybody hurting him because of me. I think that was one code in our life that was kept and that was honorable.
12:06 Patrick Bet-David? You dealt with Italian mafia in Sicily, and you had some dealings with them, and you had some obviously with the folks here. What did you know based on your investigation on who was more powerful? The American Italian mafia or the Sicilian Italian mafia?
12:22 Speaker 06 Well, in Sicily, at the time, the mafia ran Sicily. They controlled the streets. They were more powerful in the sense that they had more control. But the American mafia, even though it didn't control as many things, controlled things that were much bigger, much wealthier, made them much more powerful. I mean, to control most of Las Vegas, you know, it's five times the economy of Sicily.
12:56 Speaker 06 Or to control the teams this union, the most powerful union in the country. Or even even something like the private carding. We do ten, eleven million tons of garbage a day. And the commercial part is much more expensive than the residential part because it includes all the all the health waste and the waste that has to be dealt with very, very carefully, even back then. So that's a very profitable business. I mean, they were they were the garment business. I mean, they were into things where they made a lot more money than the Sicilian Mafia. But if you're talking about like controlling the society, also, they had a lot more acceptance
13:39 Speaker 06 of the people with the Sicilian Mafia until the end, when the people turned on them. I think killing the judges really hurt them a lot. Because they were both both judges were very, very, very respected men. And when the way they killed them was just savage. And I think it turned. And then the Italian government made the decision to wipe them out, largely because they wanted to be in the EU. The Italian government was told, if you don't get rid of them, you're not we're not gonna we're not gonna deal with you as a mature country. I mean, you're you're you can't have organized crime running a big part of your country
14:24 Speaker 06 and expect to be a expect to deal with us in the EU. You got you got to take care of that. And they did. They took care of it in Sicily. And the strange thing is organized crime has reemerged in Colabria and Naples. The Mafia there in Sicily is pretty much under control.
14:40 Patrick Bet-David? Different is the Italian Mafia. I'm talking Sicily, the the one you read about versus the the Italian Mafia in the States. I'm talking in the eighties during that era.
14:51 Speaker 04 From what I know, very different. Look, we were told straight out, and I'm sure Sammy had the same experience, you don't ever go after anybody's family, you don't go after law enforcement, you don't go after politicians. That's it, hands off. In Italy, I mean, they go after everybody. They've killed judges and politicians and law enforcement and families. It's a whole different thing. I mean, I was I was taught that cousin Austria here in the United States. Um, is different than that in, in Italy. Um, we don't share our secrets with them. There's similar organizations.
15:27 Patrick Bet-David? You and US don't share your secrets with the ones in Sicily?
15:29 Speaker 04 No, we, we respected them, we treated them properly, obviously, we gave them courtesy when they came over here. But I was told you don't share our secrets with them.
15:38 Patrick Bet-David? Are you?
15:38 Speaker 04 Different organization.
15:39 Patrick Bet-David? Are you lineage reporting to them or no, it's silos, meaning it's two separate organizations?
15:44 Speaker 04 That's how I saw it and that's how I was told.
15:46 Speaker 03 Definitely the way it is, it's separate.
15:48 Patrick Bet-David? Okay.
15:48 Speaker 03 They have their rules and regulations, they're in Italy. They're not in the United States. The United States are made members in the United States. We're a different organization, we're goes in Austria, but we have different things. I was in a sit down with John Gotti, myself and the boss of the DiCapocanti family where he said, "They have beautiful rules." Where they could kill the family or they could do certain things.
16:16 Speaker 03 The answer was, "Well, they have beautiful rules." They could deal drugs. Heroin back in fourteen United States, beautiful rule.
16:27 Speaker 03 They could be pimps. That's okay. But if they Sherlock one another, that's dishonorable. So they have a lot of weird thinking that we don't approve up here. Now, when you come here, just like you said, we respect them, we know they're made from Italy, we all know our boss, Italian guys may be related to some of these people. But unless they're made, their finger is pricked and they burned that saint in their hand in this country, they're not a friend of ours, meaning a made member, period.
17:00 Patrick Bet-David? Got it, well that's so, did you fear them, did they fear you, or was it pure mutual respect? Did you look down at each other at all, or was it?
17:09 Speaker 03 I don't think the United States mafia feared anybody.
17:13 Patrick Bet-David? Do you agree with that?
17:14 Speaker 04 Yes, hundred percent.
17:15 Patrick Bet-David? Did they fear you?
17:16 Speaker 03 Yes.
17:17 Patrick Bet-David? The Italian Sicilian mafia feared the US Italian?
17:21 Speaker 03 In the United States, yes.
17:22 Patrick Bet-David? Why is that?
17:24 Speaker 04 This was our town, this was our country, it was always.
17:26 Speaker 03 All these families in this country, there's thousands of us. And you come here with ten, fifteen people who are supposed to fear you? Now, if we went to Sicily, the roles of, I would be, oh my god, I'm in a, you know.
17:38 Patrick Bet-David? Oh, that's not what I'm talking, I'm not talking about if they come to you, you're in your town, if you go to them, they're in power. I'm talking about just as two organizations. Did they say, hey, don't cross them? Like, was their level of fear more from them to you, or you to them?
17:52 Speaker 03 We didn't fear them.
17:53 Patrick Bet-David? You didn't fear them?
17:54 Speaker 03 No. No, no fear whatsoever. I, I was in a, I did a video in my podcast. I had a problem with the Italians from Italy, I called them the greaseballs. On 18th Avenue. And, uh, I wasn't even a member, but I had permission to open my club. They broke my windows. My Gomorrah alley boy found out. A friend of his cousin's knew them, and it was them. And when I went in, he had guys in there and everything, and they took me down the basement. My Gomorrah had a gun, so did I. And the guy told me, I asked him, did you know who broke my windows? What the reason was, or? He said, the reason is you have no respect. I said, respect for what?
18:39 Speaker 03 I asked my people, they gave me permission. He said, but you didn't come and ask me. Why would I have to ask you?
18:48 Speaker 03 Maybe you could go to my bosses. In the Columbo family, Shorty's family. And he said, no, you see where you are? If I raise my hand, you don't leave.
18:59 Speaker 03 I opened my jacket, and there was the pistol. I said, you're just fucked up. In a horrible way. His eyes were looking at my pistol. I'm gonna blow your fucking head off in front of all your friends here. Then I'm gonna start shooting it out with them. My Gomorrah alley boy opened up his jacket. And he told me.
19:22 Speaker 03 Sammy, you want me to kill him? Now, I was looking to get my way out of the place, not a shootout. So I said, "No, not yet." Then I told him, "Get the fuck up, walk me the fuck out. You're the first guy I'm gonna kill, and then I'll... Maybe me and my gombar are gonna die in here, but a lot of yous are gonna die in there." Story is that when I went to shorty of my people, and he went to call my person to go, they took my back and they reamed these fucking guys out. "This is our country, he's with us. You should check who the fuck Sammy the Bull is. Not because of him, we're afraid of him, but who he belongs to, and that's us, the Colombo family."
20:05 Speaker 03 So, there's no fear of them, and they never fucked with me again.
20:10 Patrick Bet-David? What's the story behind the $800,000 hit on Arena?
20:13 Speaker 03 Oh, Toto Arena?
20:14 Patrick Bet-David? Yeah.
20:16 Speaker 03 They had, they had a contract on him in Sicily.
20:19 Patrick Bet-David? Right.
20:20 Speaker 03 To kill him.
20:21 Patrick Bet-David? They had a contract on him to kill him in Sicily?
20:23 Speaker 03 But it's not a contract where you give a guy... They were at war. Toto Arena was the power there.
20:29 Patrick Bet-David? Boss of bosses, they called him.
20:30 Speaker 03 Boss of bosses in Sicily, and he was killing people left and right. He even went after, uh, judges and prosecutors. He used bombs, he blew them up. All Italy rose up against him. So the entire Sicilian mafia said, "This guy overdid his hand, and I don't know about 800,000, but we have to kill him."
20:51 Patrick Bet-David? What made you not fear them, though? Why were you not afraid of them?
20:55 Speaker 03 First of all, I, I, I knew it would be an aberration to kill a prosecutor. They did have rules, and their rules were no cops, no prosecutors, no reporters. Nothing, reason not being morality or anything, but, but bad for business. Becomes a big deal when you do it. I would occasionally worry because they're not all together, right? I mean, Gigante's nuts, uh...
21:24 Speaker 06 Persico could violate a rule like that. The old guys wouldn't, Castellano wouldn't, Fat Tony wouldn't, Corallo wouldn't. And then I just didn't care. I just always, I mean, I faced much, the FARC threat worried me more than their threat.
21:43 Patrick Bet-David? Really?
21:44 Speaker 06 Well, sure, I mean, and the Islamic fatwas that have been put out worried me more. Because they're more undisciplined. Maybe, but at the age at which it happened, I thought I was immortal.
21:57 Patrick Bet-David? You thought, really?
21:58 Speaker 06 Yeah, I didn't think I could die.
22:00 Patrick Bet-David? You thought you were immortal?
22:01 Speaker 06 Well, I mean, I don't mean immortal in that sense.
22:03 Patrick Bet-David? I mean, I understand what you're saying. Untouchable.
22:05 Speaker 06 Yeah, I didn't think anybody could kill me. Once I had a son, I became more careful.
22:12 Patrick Bet-David? It seems like you almost needed to have a spirit like that for them to know you were not afraid.
22:18 Speaker 06 I wasn't afraid.
22:19 Patrick Bet-David? And if anybody else could have done it, they would have already done it. It required somebody like you to match them to say, you know what? This guy's coming with Law and Order. We may bring fear, he brings Law and Order. Law and Order's kind of gonna win. And eventually it prevailed.
22:35 Speaker 06 Yeah.
22:43 Patrick Bet-David? As of yesterday, Rudy Giuliani was supposed to be here today at 2 o'clock. As of yesterday, he was supposed to walk in at 2 o'clock today. Everything was already scored away. 2 o'clock yesterday, 8 o'clock yesterday, he was committed. I get a call. I step out three or four times out of the restaurant. I go outside. Finally, his assistant gets me on the phone. Rudy wants to talk to you. Rudy and I had a 20-minute conversation. He said, I can't be there tomorrow. I said, why not, Rudy? He says, there's two people there. One of them, Michael. When Michael got out, I didn't think he was gonna change his life. He says, "The fact that Michael changed his life, I cannot believe it." It's a great testimony of a person that fully changed.
23:28 Patrick Bet-David? He says, "I never thought he would." He even said then, "The interview with Joe Pags." He didn't think that life was gonna be changed. He said, "I can't be there tomorrow because of Sammy." I said, "Why not Sammy?" He said, "I wish I could've put Sammy in jail for 100 years." I said, "You wish you could've put Sammy in jail for 100 years?" He says, "Yes." He says, "Michael got a second chance." He took advantage of it. Sammy got a second chance, never took advantage. He says, "Sammy never changed." Sammy's the same person today as he was before. He took 19 people's lives. He needed to do 100 years and be in jail, if not more. He says, "If I was," he says, "the only room I'm willing to be in with Sammy is in a courtroom." His words, yesterday. "Only room that I'm willing to be in is with."
24:12 Patrick Bet-David? "I would've liked to have him be here so you guys could talk, but he didn't wanna do it." What do you say to him? And I understand the point where you say, "Hey, God, he found God, he changed his life." You know, whether he did or not, in your eyes. To Rudy's eyes, whether it's real or not, the man's moved on and is doing his own thing. What's wrong with that? What do you say to what Rudy said about you yesterday on the call?
24:35 Speaker 03 All I could tell Rudy is this.
24:39 Speaker 03 Now, if Rudy was coming in, I would say, "Okay, explain the case." "This is a courtroom, and you could put me away."
24:53 Speaker 03 "Here's how you're gonna put me away, Rudy." "Say what I don't wanna hear,
25:00 Speaker 03 and I'm gonna fucking kill you right here, for everybody. And I'm gonna go to prison for the rest of my fucking life.
25:09 Speaker 03 You put me away, but you're not gonna see it.
25:14 Speaker 03 You'll be the reason. If you're that dedicated, then do it. Sit here. Try me. Sit here and do it.
25:27 Speaker 03 That's how you'll put me away."
25:29 Speaker 06 When I interviewed assistant U.S. attorneys, particularly the ones I thought would be in the criminal division and could get in this kinda work, I would tell them, "You know, you gotta have a..."
25:40 Speaker 06 You can't get frightened too easily. Because you're gonna get a lot of threats. I mean, you get a lot of threats anyway, and most of them are just ridiculous. Julie O'Gazzia. Julie Peters was his AKA. Which Vito's brother-in-law threatened to kill me on the witness stand. Which, of course, was the best thing that could ever happen, because it got him convicted. He said, "I'm gonna, gonna kill you, you son of a bitch." I said, "Thank you," and I sat down.
26:12 Patrick Bet-David? Literally, this is what I'm...
26:13 Speaker 06 Literally, he said, "I'm gonna kill you, you son of a bitch."
26:17 Patrick Bet-David? It's like the "Few Good Men" scene, where it says you can't handle the truth.
26:20 Speaker 06 And that I found out years later, was a case that Gotti, I mean, Gotti, uh, Vito allowed us to prosecute, because he hated his brother-in-law. His brother-in-law was either cheating on or beating up his sister. And generally, they don't get involved in personal things, but this guy was so bad. And he was also, he was also getting them in trouble by going too far as a lone shot. Like I said, smashing the guy's hands in. Another guy, he beat his girlfriend up. Which, guy owed money, and instead of beating the guy up, this guy was in love, in love. I mean, they were in the garment business, he was in love with this beautiful young model. And they completely disfigure her. I mean, there's no reason to do that, beat the guy up, you don't beat up the model.
27:05 Speaker 06 So, he, he was having a lot of problems in the family. So, it was really weird, because here we have, and I was, this is when I was an assistant US Attorney. Here we have a relative of the top guy in the mafia, and these people are freely tested. You have to put them in the witness protection program. And I would ask the Bureau, and this is before the Bureau really knew them, this is in the 70s. "This is a weird one. Aren't these guys asking for protection?"
27:36 Speaker 06 And there was a rumor then, I think Vito wants him prosecuted.
27:42 Speaker 06 Well, he got prosecuted, he went to jail. And then years later, when I did the entire investigation, they told me the whole story. That he was, that Vito, because he was in the family, Vito didn't want to whack him. But he figured there are five, six witnesses out there, bone shark, bone shark victims, and they got visited and told, "Be perfectly fine if you go testify against him, we'll take care of you."
28:06 Speaker 04 It's a strange, it's a strange group.
28:09 Speaker 03 When you can carry fucking things around, vendettas towards people, and it's not just me.
28:17 Speaker 03 He does that with everything and everybody. He goes after fucking people all the time. Now, he's not going after people with a gun. But he's going after people to put them away for life.
28:32 Speaker 04 Criminals.
28:34 Speaker 03 Criminals, anybody. He's fucking fighting now for Trump. He's not fighting criminals, he's fighting people in the Democratic Party, he's trying to make up things. He ran to Russia to go get things, to put people in prison, that's what he does. He didn't go with a gun.
28:49 Speaker 04 Sammy, I, I gotta disagree with you there.
28:53 Speaker 04 You wanna stick up for the Democratic Party right now?
28:55 Speaker 03 I'm not sticking up for, I'm saying, I'm not sticking up for the Democratic Party, I'm saying what this guy does. I don't care about any party right now, I do. Maybe down the road, we'll talk about parties. I do care about parties and things going on, like I did with Governor Cuomo when we talked. But him, don't go after people with your fucking mouth and a pencil and destroy people's lives.
29:20 Speaker 04 That's his job, though.
29:21 Speaker 03 It's not his job. It was his job when he was a prosecutor, it's not his fucking job now. He's still doing that thing and making statements like that.
29:29 Speaker 04 I'm not saying...
29:29 Speaker 03 And I don't give a fuck what his job is. My job was to be in the mafia and do what I did. You could say the same thing, Patrick. You could say that was Sammy's job.
29:38 Speaker 04 Sure, yeah, but you can respect his job that when he was there, he was able to clean the streets, but a lot of people feared...
29:47 Speaker 03 I respect Frank and Matty, George Gabriel, people in the FBI. I still talk to them, I'm friends with them. They don't carry fucking vendettas around for people. What I did helped the government in a tremendous way. They feel it. They feel that everything that went on, and I changed my life. I got a parole officer, who was very, very good with me. Very good.
30:13 Speaker 04 I believe Sammy's changed his life now, but I want to get back to... When we were involved in that life, Sammy, we're not normal. This is the... We're not normal. Normal people don't do what we did. Cosa Nostra is not a normal lifestyle in any way.
30:27 Speaker 03 No, of course it's not normal.
30:28 Speaker 04 Okay, so that was my point. We weren't normal.
30:31 Speaker 03 Listen, it's... The whole world, for that matter, is really not that normal. There's governors, there's senators, there's congressmen. But you can't pick a group. That's what Joe Colombo fought for. You can't pick, point a group and say, "This is not normal."
30:48 Speaker 04 Sammy, we were criminals, Sammy.
30:50 Speaker 03 So, a lot of people did things...
30:52 Speaker 04 We were criminals. I'm putting myself in the same category. We were criminals. We took an oath to commit crime on a daily basis.
30:59 Speaker 03 I didn't take an oath to commit crime.
31:01 Speaker 04 You know what I'm saying, Cam.
31:03 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I didn't take an oath...
31:04 Speaker 04 We didn't obey the law. We didn't give a damn about the law.
31:07 Speaker 03 No.
31:08 Speaker 04 The law didn't... It wasn't our law. We did what we wanted to do.
31:12 Speaker 03 Well, there's a lot of laws I don't give a damn about right now.
31:14 Speaker 04 But that's not normal, Sammy. You don't take an oath.
31:16 Speaker 03 Then maybe I'm not normal.
31:18 Speaker 04 No, I wasn't either.
31:19 Speaker 03 I don't believe that they take laws and rules and regulations and it's kind of like this guy goes around on his high horse, and he don't want to see...
31:27 Speaker 04 But all the guys that you mentioned... Gotti, Persico, we're not normal Sammy, you gotta come to that conclusion. You're in that life. And again, I'm not saying you.
31:38 Speaker 03 Normal is a word, I don't know what normal means to you. I think I'm very, very normal. I love people, I love people, I care about people, I talk to people. Maybe you're not normal, maybe you don't love, maybe you don't feel feelings.
31:54 Speaker 04 I got seven children, or grandchildren, or a wife that I've married over thirty-seven. That's banging?
31:58 Speaker 03 Yeah, you got, don't tell me how many kids you got.
32:01 Speaker 04 I love my children.
32:02 Speaker 03 That's a whole other story.
32:04 Speaker 04 I love my grandchildren.
32:05 Speaker 03 Of course.
32:06 Speaker 04 I love my wife.
32:07 Speaker 03 So that's normal?
32:08 Speaker 04 That's normal.
32:08 Speaker 03 You're not abnormal.
32:10 Speaker 04 No, you're not listening. I said when we were a part of that life, we're not normal. You don't kill people in a normal, you go to, they teach police to kill criminals. They teach young kids to go into the service to kill the enemy.
32:26 Speaker 03 Teaching cops to kill criminals, that's a noble, see, that's noble.
32:31 Speaker 04 In society, it's normal, it's law and order. You have laws and you gotta enforce the laws, so that's, that's normal. I'm not saying I would be bothered, but it's normal.
32:39 Speaker 03 When a kid is running away, and you shoot him fucking fourteen times, what is that?
32:44 Speaker 04 Sammy, I'm not, don't take an interview. No, if somebody's coming in to rob your house with a gun and a cop shoots him, that's not.
32:50 Speaker 03 No, no, no, I'm talking about a kid running away. There's been a hundred of them, there's riots every fucking day about people. That's not normal?
32:57 Speaker 04 Sammy, do you mean to tell me that as members of Cousin Austria, where we took an oath, okay, to kill if we had to, for our own purposes? We don't like this guy, you said it twenty times. And I'm the same thing, somebody gives me an order to go kill somebody, I don't even know the guy, I gotta kill him. That's not normal. It's not Sammy, we weren't normal when we were a part of that life. Now, you got your life straightened out, you got, you're in a different place. That's normal, trying to change and get into a normal existence.
33:30 Speaker 03 Huh? You can't kill.
33:33 Speaker 04 Somebody comes after my family, I'll do what I have to do.
33:36 Speaker 03 That's not normal. Go to the police, you're normal. Go to the police.
33:40 Speaker 04 Well, then, maybe I'm still not normal. May- maybe when it comes to that, I'm still not normal.
33:44 Patrick Bet-David? What's the debate right now?
33:45 Speaker 03 I don't even know.
33:46 Patrick Bet-David? Yeah, so, let's, let's go back.
33:47 Speaker 04 What I'm trying to say, Pat, we, we, we can't, we can't defend, you can't come into that life and say you're living a normal life. It's abnormal.
33:54 Patrick Bet-David? No, but I think, I want to go back to what, what, you know, the, the talking about Rudy. Sammy, you know, as somebody whose job was, I mean, you look at what we have right now in New York. Covid hits. Every country in the world, crime goes up, down. New York City, crime is up. And they say it's because of Covid. How the hell is crime up? People are at home. Why is crime up? LA, crime is up. de Blasio is not handling New York the way he did. You have Giuliani who came in and he cleaned the house. But if you, if you look at, if you take, if you take Giuliani out, one of the things that a lot of people give him credit for is, forget what he and Trump went through during his time in the eighties, what he did.
34:38 Patrick Bet-David? A lot of, millions of people in New York are grateful for the fact that the guy came and cleaned the streets of New York.
34:45 Speaker 03 I'm grateful, I'm grateful that he cleaned the streets.
34:47 Speaker 04 He was a great mayor.
34:48 Patrick Bet-David? You are.
34:49 Speaker 03 As a great mayor, yeah.
34:51 Patrick Bet-David? So, okay.
34:52 Speaker 03 I mean, he got rid of people, homeless people, different crimes. He was a good mayor. He did that. My hat's off to him. I didn't like, I don't dislike him. I didn't hate him. But when you come out with a big fucking vicious attitude towards things, there, there's no forgiveness in his heart. There's no human in him.
35:10 Patrick Bet-David? But I think you guys are-
35:11 Speaker 03 He's a fucking machine.
35:12 Patrick Bet-David? I think you two are very similar.
35:14 Speaker 03 Well, good.
35:15 Patrick Bet-David? And that may explain what's-
35:16 Speaker 03 Well, then, he should come in a fucking room with me and talk to me. And let's see how we end up.
35:22 Patrick Bet-David? Similar in the following way. Similar in the following, you're, you're, when you say, "I'm a true la cosa nostra." You're a true believer, is what you claim you are.
35:32 Speaker 03 Yes.
35:32 Patrick Bet-David? Which is very obvious, you're a true believer. He is a true crime fighter. You mentioned junior early wanted to be a crime fighter. Giuliani doesn't call himself a crime fighter. The world calls him a crime fighter. He woke up every morning to put guys like you and guys like you in jail. That was his job. I know it's not, but during his time.
35:53 Speaker 03 I'm not talking about his time. I'm talking about now. He just called you up. He was coming here to give you some bullshit story. About why anyone would sit with me. And I've changed my life, just like he changed his life. He didn't kill anybody, baby. I talk a little bit different. I didn't kill nobody. I don't wanna kill anybody. Am I capable? If you hurt my fucking family, you come in and do something, I'm capable of it. I can't help it. Because I gotta tell the truth.
36:19 Speaker 03 I gotta tell the truth. I don't wanna be a fake or phony. I don't give a fuck what people think. Or don't think. They think what they. I tell the truth.
36:27 Speaker 06 I always thought it was a critical in solving crime, whether it's the mafia or you gotta think like a criminal. And I understood them. Maybe because I grew up in an Italian-American family. Maybe because they weren't alien to the idea of the mafia. I wasn't one of those people, you know, they first heard of the mafia when you're twenty, you say, what the heck is that? From the time I can remember, I knew there was a mafia. And I kinda knew how they thought. I'll give you an example of that, with the way we broke in on Tony Salerno. We got the, we got the warrant to break in on his social club. And, um. Several months, we couldn't get in because he kept the damn thing guarded all the time.
37:05 Speaker 06 We couldn't get in, there was no way to, he kept it guarded twenty-four hours a day. And we get down to now the holidays. And I go see the judge, it was Judge Owen, and the judge said, I can't continue this another month. I mean, yes, you have additional probable cause, but we've been doing it now for three months. I said, okay, Judge. Just give me, uh, one more month. Just give me Thanksgiving. I bet Tony gives the guys off at Thanksgiving. Because Tony's got a good heart. The judge looks at me, says, you're crazy? I said, no, no. People can be killers and still have a good heart. You know, people are complicated. I think he's gonna give him part of Thanksgiving off, let's see. He said, that's a heck of a thing to.
37:47 Speaker 06 I said, put it down as my expertise as an Italian-American. Put it down. So, man, we get to Thanksgiving week.
37:57 Speaker 06 The night before Thanksgiving, when they blow up the balloons, I'm out with my kids, blow up the balloons, the FBI calls me at midnight. Guys are still there.
38:08 Speaker 06 Thanksgiving Day, I go out to my cousin's house for our usual Thanksgiving thing. I get three calls, the FBI is now really, the guys are still there on Thanksgiving Day. And then, then, then the boss calls me and says, "Boss, if you didn't let him go off on Thanksgiving Day, he's not gonna let him off." I said, "Come on, we still have a weekend." "Lo and behold, Friday night, they're gone, Saturday night, they're gone, Sunday night, they're gone. We got three days, and we own Tony's Social Club, and we make it into a studio."
38:38 Speaker 06 All the phones, the whole thing. But it was just, it was just the gamble that he'd be, he'd be soft-hearted enough to let his guys get a little, get a little time off.
38:52 Patrick Bet-David? You can be a true believer about things and still be wrong. Right? But there is right and there is wrong. That's the part I'm trying to finalize here.
39:01 Speaker 03 But you know what bothers me?
39:02 Patrick Bet-David? What's that?
39:03 Speaker 03 When somebody's a true believer in a certain way, a certain way of life, he thinks he was doing the right thing.
39:12 Speaker 03 That's what he believed in.
39:13 Patrick Bet-David? Son.
39:14 Speaker 03 Son, you're talking about his father. Thought he was doing the right thing, believed in it, just your conversation, how he talked.
39:24 Speaker 03 And he died.
39:28 Speaker 03 You don't want to respect him, that, that, that was his life. Maybe he was, he wasn't anything, he wasn't a rapist, he wasn't a child molester, he wasn't a fucking degenerate. He believed in our life. Right, wrong, or indifferent. Now, a lot of his thoughts may be towards politicians and governments and stuff like that. When you try to convince him that he's wrong, he's lived the life and he knows all of that too. So, yeah, it's like saying, "You committed tax evasion." Right? "We're gonna put you down, but you're no good." But we all wanna commit tax evasion, we all hate paying taxes. So, but you took more and you cheated even more.
40:14 Speaker 03 And we hate you, we want to put you in prison. We're a crusader. Like him. And I, I, I think there's a limit. Let them off the fucking hook.
40:27 Speaker 03 Now, they may have done wrong things. But we pick right to the point of the bad things. What's the good things he did?
40:37 Speaker 03 In life? I don't know him personally. I know a lot of me guys.
40:44 Speaker 03 They take a bullet for you. They'd help your family in a hot minute. They'd come up with money for people who are broke in two seconds flat. Now, we're talking about high level Carmine Persico, all of these names. That's the elite of the bad guys. So to speak. He's looking to bang him out and take over the whole fucking business. There's no love or compassion with Carmine Persico. And like he said, that's why they call him a snake. That's probably what he was thinking when he looked at him bringing him money like that. With the Russians and we could grab the other guy. That's probably him a hundred percent. But there's so many guys like Mike Tato and people like that. Charlie Boy Tato's son, when they came down to kill me.
41:30 Speaker 03 Peter Gotti put a contract out. You can't refuse. We know that, you can't refuse the order. So they went, they were afraid to come near me. They couldn't get the job done. Five bullets that laid on me. I always seemed one step ahead and they were afraid. They went to Tato's son Charlie Boy.
41:50 Speaker 03 He was a hunter. He could shoot the eyes out of a fucking eagle at two hundred yards. Great hunter. Bear, deer, everything. So they went to him. And they said, Tom.
42:05 Speaker 03 We can hit Sammy at a distance. We see him? Can't get close to him. He's too smart, he's too cagey. He's set up for this thing. At the first time I knew they were gonna come, so I was always ready. And they sensed that. So they wanted somebody who could kill me from a distance.
42:25 Speaker 03 Peter Gotti called him. Boss, little boss.
42:30 Speaker 03 Hook.
42:33 Speaker 03 He told him, "Go and fuck yourself."
42:38 Speaker 03 Now, to me, he just wasted his life. He knew the relationship I had with his father. And I had one with him even before I knew his father. We grew up as kids. And we're doing.
42:54 Speaker 03 There's a lot of situations where there's good. And I can't stand when we say the mafia, like you say. I agree with you. Some of these acts are insane acts, crazy acts, whatever. But these people, I don't think they're totally abnormal. I think they live, a lot of them live normal fucking lives. They live two lives.
43:21 Patrick Bet-David? But they broke the law.
43:23 Speaker 03 They broke the law.
43:24 Speaker 04 See, man, let me tell you this.
43:25 Speaker 03 They broke the law.
43:26 Speaker 04 You could, you could make all the explanation you want. My father would not listen to you, would not talk to you, would not give you this much after what you did. And if he knew I was sitting here, I don't know what he would want to do with me. He would be so angry. Now.
43:48 Speaker 03 Why?
43:49 Speaker 04 Because as far as...
43:50 Speaker 03 You're saying he's like me?
43:51 Speaker 04 As far, no. As far as my father's concerned, you a rat. You violated the oath.
43:56 Speaker 03 When you cooperated. Yeah, yeah, yeah, when you cooperated.
43:59 Speaker 00 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, thehousemajoritypact.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
44:28 Speaker 07 Build your front end and back end together on Base44. Describe the product logic with a managed database, authentication, and hosting included. Spend less time assembling infrastructure and more time getting your product live. Go to base44.com.
44:43 Speaker 04 Okay. Now, I don't feel that way. I see who you are. I happen to love your son Gerard. Gerard and I talk a lot. I like this, I like him a lot. He's a good person and you have something to do with that, I'm sure. I mean it. I mean, he cares about you. My father would not give you the time of day. He'd probably put a bullet in your head if he saw you. That's how, that's, that's not normal.
45:10 Speaker 03 But don't make, don't make me mad at him. I understand where he's coming from. It doesn't make me mad at him.
45:17 Speaker 04 But it's not normal.
45:19 Speaker 03 Maybe it's not normal for him. Maybe it's double not normal for me, not to care. That's what he's trained to do.
45:28 Speaker 04 But he, at a hundred and three, he wouldn't even listen to you.
45:31 Speaker 03 I don't know if he would do that at a hundred and three.
45:33 Speaker 04 I'm telling you.
45:34 Speaker 03 Well, I don't know if he would stand a chance against me.
45:36 Speaker 04 No, I don't mean that. I mean, I don't, I don't. I'm not telling you you're gonna go to fight.
45:40 Speaker 03 No, I'm not talking about fighting. I'm not, I'm definitely not talking about fighting.
45:43 Speaker 04 But all I'm saying, because I know, because he discussed you with me.
45:48 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah. Because once you cooperate, but before I cooperated, he would agree with everything with me. Me and him would probably hit it off a hundred percent. And, and I would have respect for him for what he did by not cooperating and some of the things he did in our life. And maybe he would understand me and respect me for some of the things I did in our life. But we wouldn't put each other down. When you cooperate and you break the fucking rules and you went out, yeah, I agree with you, he'd probably feel that way. But a lot of guys don't. A lot of guys don't, till today. They don't, and I hate to take away and knock,
46:29 Speaker 03 like a Giuliani could just come with a paintbrush and just knock down everybody. And want to put everybody away. He's a psychopath too.
46:38 Speaker 04 You just said, you see, here's it, you just said, "That was my father's training. This is how he grew up. This is what he know." Well, Giuliani, the same thing. That's the training. That's what he knows.
46:47 Speaker 03 So if you're saying your father is not a psychopath, but he's all fucked up with that training? So is he. So is he, that he can't come here with Patrick. Me and you, more me than you. And sit down. And give an answer.
47:09 Speaker 03 I, all I wanna see him is in a court. So I can put him in prison for a hundred fucking years.
47:19 Speaker 03 Then what, then what do you do?
47:21 Speaker 04 I wish he would've came.
47:22 Speaker 03 Go home and jerk off? Does that get you off?
47:27 Speaker 04 No, I think that's what he really believes. Listen, I've had, I've had-
47:31 Speaker 03 That's what your father really believes.
47:34 Speaker 04 Okay, but it's wrong.
47:35 Speaker 03 Well, then it's wrong for him. You can't make him right.
47:38 Speaker 04 I did, whom he gave him right?
47:39 Speaker 03 He's giving him-
47:40 Speaker 04 I said, "I wish he was here."
47:41 Patrick Bet-David? Say "Law and Order."
47:42 Speaker 03 Nigga, fuck Law and Order.
47:44 Patrick Bet-David? But you said you respect Law and Order.
47:45 Speaker 03 I respect Law and Order. Cops go out and they save people and they do certain things, they stop crime. Not somebody who's obsessed. Not that guy who got this black kid and put his knee on his fucking neck, the guy screaming, "I can't breathe." That's fucking wrong. Fuck Law and Order and fuck this cop.
48:04 Patrick Bet-David? I don't think he would agree with that, though.
48:06 Speaker 03 Who?
48:06 Patrick Bet-David? I don't think Rudy would say, "Put eight minutes and forty-six seconds."
48:09 Speaker 03 No, no, but when you're saying, "Don't make excuses for, this is Law and Order." So we have-
48:14 Patrick Bet-David? No, in this, in this part, so we're going specific, you're going general. I'm as specific as I can with Rudy. I'm specific to Rudy, I'm not general to everybody.
48:22 Speaker 03 So I'm saying that his obsession-
48:24 Speaker 04 I think he should've came. I think he should've came. Well, so how about sitting down and talking? Maybe he would've seen something different with you. He should've came. I agree with you. I don't think he should've.
48:33 Speaker 03 He should've came.
48:33 Speaker 04 Yeah, I, I believe he should've came. I wish he would've come. Cause we, we both have things to say to him. And maybe he, you know, he, he sees you from a distance. He knows Sammy, the guy that killed nineteen guys and was a mafia guy all his life. That's what is in his head. He doesn't see Sammy like this. I wish he would've came.
48:52 Speaker 03 Well. I don't know what would've happened, to tell you the truth. Because his obsession with things. And maybe he would have been a lot calmer in front of me. Maybe, I don't know. But his obsession with these things, beyond me, it's wrong in order. But he's hurting our fucking people, he's hurting friends, he's hurting good people, all across the board.
49:20 Patrick Bet-David? How, no, I'm asking because I don't know how.
49:23 Speaker 03 He's going after everybody and his mother with an obsession.
49:26 Patrick Bet-David? Who?
49:26 Speaker 03 I don't know, whoever he goes after. But he wants to see me in court. Well, he don't even know me.
49:33 Speaker 04 He just said, I don't think that's what he's doing right now.
49:36 Patrick Bet-David? It's a challenge, he doesn't think you're a changed man. He thinks Michael's a changed man, he doesn't think you're a changed man. Meaning, you know, Sammy is the same. He said he refused to do so. Listen, I was the one trying to coordinate it, so I'm the one that's, you know, encouraging that from happening.
49:53 Speaker 03 I don't know why I should be, you know, being preached to by you and you, that I should be felsioric for this guy or not be there.
50:00 Speaker 04 Sammy, I just said I thought he should have been here. I'm saying law order, that's all I'm saying. I don't think he should judge you at this point in time.
50:08 Speaker 03 Well, he is judging me, and how do you expect me to react to this punk ass bitch who won't sit here? And, and I'm like, how do you want me to react? Oh, yes, you know what? I agree, it's wrong in order, he's right, I'm wrong. Fuck him.
50:28 Speaker 03 And right and wrong. Because if that's his opinion, if he's obsessed, and he's not open minded enough to do something, then sit down and see if I'm a turned man. Or, or Michael's, he already thinks he's a turned man. But, see, check it out. Are you afraid of me?
50:48 Patrick Bet-David? No.
50:50 Speaker 03 Are you think I'm a turned man, or you think I'm just a fucking complete psycho? Don't answer that, no.
50:56 Patrick Bet-David? I, I, I think, you know, life has, life has really got you. Life has really got you. No, no, no, I'm really thinking about giving an education.
51:11 Speaker 04 Think about that.
51:12 Speaker 02 Coming up, on Mafia States of America.
51:16 Patrick Bet-David? Which racket would be the best ones for you to get into and make money today?
51:20 Speaker 04 I'd be investigating in gas business, you get it.
51:22 Speaker 03 What I would do right now, I think, is give out loans. Small loans.
51:28 Speaker 04 Payday loans?
51:29 Speaker 03 Charlotte loans, yes. More or less, not Charlotte, but because today in society, most people are broke.
51:37 Speaker 04 We used to sit around in our social clubs and come up with all of these ideas. We're going to attack this industry, we're going to go after that business. It didn't happen that way normally, not in my experience. A lot of times, a guy in that industry would come to me. I mean, that's how I got in the gas business. I didn't know, all of a sudden, a light went off and I said, "Hey, I'm going to steal tax money." Guy comes to me, he's got an idea for a scam. He wants me to help him, maybe finance him, protect him, there's some guy's trying to shake him down. And they come to you because they believe you're going to protect them, you've got money, you can help them, you can, you know, blow this up. They're the ones with the ideas that want to do something within their company, within their industry.
53:53 Speaker 00 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 HouseMajorityPact.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.
54:22 Speaker 07 Build your front end, back end, and product logic in one place with Base44. Describe what you're building and how it should work. You build the interface and the logic behind it in the same place, including authentication, back end, and hosting. Then go deeper. Define access levels or connect an external API using plain language to build and iterate. Spend less time assembling infrastructure and more time getting your product live. Go to base44.com.
Previous Mafia States of America | Episode 7 - "The Five Families" Next Mafia States of America | Episode 9 - "The Mob Today" Page updated November 1, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
