Bobby Luisi on Being Capo in Philly Mafia, 20-Year Sentence, Cooperating with Feds (Full Interview)

all right here we go we have bobby luisi former made man of the philadelphia crime family welcome to vlad tv thank you for having me on vlad well you have a very interesting story and i want to start in the beginning so you actually grew up in boston i grew up in boston in the north then in little italy okay and what was that like well it was something i mean that was headquarters for organized crime at that time and uh i grew up with all me guys bosses capos you know my father was involved with them since he was a teenager you know so i grew up around all these people the patriarchal family okay so the patriarchal family and it's got a few different names it's also called the new england mafia the boston mafia the providence mafia and also the office yeah yeah but now we say patriarca crime family okay why was it called the office i don't know that might have been not jerry and julio's place on prince street jerry and julia was the boss of boston raymond patriarch is under boss and he ran all the boston faction of uh the patriarca family okay and the patriarca family really has a very interesting history because they're not officially connected to the new york crime families right well they're all connected rhema patriarcha was connected with the new york families and in springfield massachusetts was the genovese family they had a crew okay yeah okay because there was a national commission that sort of overlooked all this yeah yeah oh yeah and raymond patriarca senior was part of that okay so in 1983 uh patriarchal was actually charged with the murder of raymond uh curcio that may be the name i don't recall okay and also he was arrested for the murder of robert candace who i guess he thought was an informant okay uh this happened in 83 and then 84 he died of a heart attack he did yes at 76 years old and then after that there became sort of a power struggle yeah there was a problem after that the uh when he passed away you know jerry angelo who was the boss up there larry bioni a few of these guys were looking for that seat jerry and julia was his underboss and raymond left it to his son to raymond jr which she was nothing like the father you know not well respected in that manner and it caused a problem down there it was a riff so in the mid 80s to 90 uh there was some murders down there power struggles and then it continued into the 90s okay so you yourself i guess you were around 11 years old when you started getting involved when i was 11 years old they worked for the in julos it was rome vending and it's a good story i used to go after school and on saturdays and i used to roll the dime machines for them uh ronnie romanowski it was rome vending that he was the front guy for them you know partnered with them and i started working father when i was 11 yeah yeah okay so 11 years old what year is this just like it kind of well i was born at 61. 72. yeah this is 72. so this is pretty pretty early still yes it is okay and your father is involved in the paciarcas yes yeah and what was his role exactly with them well my father was a bad guy he was a tough guy you know he was always into uh the strip joints after hour clubs you know he was muscle or whatever else he had to be for them you know and uh my father was a guy uh very loyal to them grew up with all the you know may guys in his era and uh you know he was with them like i said probably his early twenties teens early twenties okay so your dad is really kind of really deeply ingrained he was a made man for the paciarcas no he was for paul's twice but he was never made aha okay now what was your dad doing exactly was he muscle was he a hit man was he a drug guy or do you not really know i'll say an all-around guy all-around guy he was an all-around guy he did everything yeah okay so 11 years old you start getting mixed up in it and what starts to happen as you get into your teens in my teens i started hanging around with these guys there was a few names that you know larry baione he was a couple that was very powerful in the family and uh his crew was johnny chincardi rafi chong and we used to go down the monopoly pizza on hanover street that was their headquarters you know we started hanging around then with them you know so we'd be young kids with you know 150 dollar shoes on dressed up every day you know not with suits on but you know nice you know and uh we started hanging around with them but also at that time my family else was in the construction business and i wanted to be a carpenter at that time i really didn't want to be a gangster you know so i started going more to that with my uncles and um i think it was 20 years old i got my first builder's license and i started i had my own construction company at 21. you know and i was following that up until 30 years old i was staying away from all of that you know but i was still around them all the time my father was still with them so you know there were everyday faces in the neighborhood these wise guys you couldn't miss them no well at one point you actually started expanding to other things like loan sharking extortion uh and drug dealing what happened uh the late 80s uh the market crashed down in cape cod in my area and you know the area was overbuilt and i that time i think i had three houses on martha's vineyard i had a condo back on boston and i lost everything so i came home at 90 with nothing just my two kids in a minivan you know so the best thing i could do is i put a gun on my back and i went on the street you know the louisiana was already in the neighborhood or my father and my family you know it was pretty easy for me to slide in there you know then i started with the drugs cod clubs bookmaking loan shocking and obviously the drugs that was the big uh money maker for me okay so the drugs was your main thing was it mostly cocaine okay at the height of that drug business how much were you buying at a time how many kilos well i had them dropped off at different places like four or five at a time the colombians would bring to me you know i would never you know um try to get an order at 10 20 30 40 at a time you know i was responsible for it so i didn't want to you know just in case so there was a lot of visits uh to the safe houses that i had so you're working with the colombians at the time yeah was it escobar or is it someone else i don't know what else it was i got to be honest with you you know i got him through a contact um a friend and i was a good guy we called him the mole you know and there was another guy uh alex there were several different guys at that time you know but i never got into deep conversations with them and i just assumed they were with that outfit you know bringing all this stuff up to boston you know well right i guess doing four or five kilos escobar is not really going to have a conversation no i'm not i wasn't at that no listen i wasn't at that point yeah i mean i made millions of dollars with it but you know i'm not gonna lie to you like i said four or five at a time a few times a week three times a week you know and then i would take them and recall it and that's where i made all my money with it what does that mean exactly i used to break it down okay make new keys out of it and push the keys oh so you'd cut it with whatever else yeah yeah yeah okay now when you talk about the cocaine game it's usually very violent uh it's usually you know a lot of backstabbing uh there's dirty cops there's packages disappearing there's you know stash houses getting raided and so forth how much of that did you have to go through yourself tell you not much we were very careful you know i was never robbed i didn't have that problem i mean there were struggles with other guys that were dealing drugs in different crews i'll admit that you know but we took care of all of that and we just kept going with it you know i mean you know there's different areas i never set myself up i could have got bigger with the drugs but i was happy where i was you know i made a few million right away and the money kept coming in so i wasn't greedy with it i didn't want to expand anymore i was happy with my operation it was pretty safe so the way i was running well everything had said at one point there was a turf war over the drugs and there ended up being a number of murders over that but there was a turf wall over the fat different factions of the family see what happened and uh frankie salami became the boss in the early 90s and they really didn't want him there the boston faction didn't want him there you know um luckily for him joe russo vinnie ferrara all these guys got picked up and were in prison and so frankie just slid in there with his faction and i was part of his faction for a little while you know and uh the old faction and the guys with them you know fought against us you know eventually um most of them all got picked up i murdered i lost some people too and uh i was like the last guy standing there for a little while well in 1990 500 million dollars worth of art got stolen yeah yeah it was rumored that you had something to do with that well i'll tell you the story uh it's rumored that bobby garante did that i'd heist with a few other people were involved in it and uh bobby hooked up we hooked up together about 93 so it was after the fact that i met bobby after they did this robbery and now bobby gentile who they also blame for this is a may guy in my crew and uh bobby till this day claims he had nothing to do with it but like i said these guys uh there was three guys all their lives you know so when bobby uh we were on one of my safe houses i remember up in waltham was sitting on the couch and miles connor comes on tv they start talking about the hour so he turns around at me and says listen i know where it is it's buried under a slab in florida he said can we move it you know because at that time we were going to new york philadelphia but i never really moved out i didn't know you know where to move it who to go to so i told them no i said i got no place to move it and i dropped the conversation and i wish i never did because i could have got more information out of them you know bobby guarantee uh passed away when i was getting out of prison in 2013 the fbi came to me over the side work and the only reason why i talked about it because bobby did pass away or i would have never got involved with it you know but from that uh point on i don't know how many documentaries i've been in over that even in japan they came into the documentary with me you know so uh i got a lot of attention from that for the little that i knew they said was still a lot so that was good you know well i mean the type of art that got stolen was like multiple rembrandts uh there's this one um painting called the concert by johannes vermeer which is the most valuable unrecovered painting in the world there was a 10 million bounty that the museum actually gave for the return of this painting which was the largest bounty ever offered by a private institution yeah yeah and when that when they came to me there was a 5 million dollar reward at the time from the feds and believe me i wish i knew you know i wish i knew what that stuff was but um it's funny with that because um like i said all the attention we got and the biggest odd heist in the world was pulled off by boston gangsters i don't think anybody realizes that on my own uh uh podcast i just did a show with um steve kirkton and he wrote a book on that master thieves and uh i guess we did that a few months ago we did that show and uh we we go over all of that all the characters in there and it was a pretty good show you know so they never found the artwork never found it no well i mean realistically when you steal artwork that is so distinctive and so high profile who would you even sell that to well my theory with this this is what i believe happened i believe that somebody wanted a certain piece of art or maybe a few pieces in there and they went to some people to see if they could get in there and get that artwork and i believe why they were in there they helped themselves to whatever they could because i believe it was 13 pieces altogether you know um i believe some hard work went somewhere to a certain individual of course it's a theory i can't prove that but to know bobby and these guys going in there there had to be something for them i mean these these guys been doing this their whole life they're just not going to walk in and grab something without a reason you know what i mean yeah a crazy story it is it is and then now there's a theory that i had george anastasia and david strauss was on my show recently and they were talking about uh the philly connection with the yacht and david's convinced that the philly one yeah the yard work went through philly when i was away i got picked up in june of 99. me and joey molino and some of our guys you know and uh i guess after that somewhere in 2000 they're claiming the artwork went through philadelphia you know okay okay so here you are you're involved with the the patriarcha family and there's this whole internal power struggle that's happening and you know people are getting shot yeah or getting killed uh on both sides and then november 6 1995 comes around uh at the 99 restaurant in charleston talk about what happened there well uh you know damian clementi was an abode kid grew up in the north then uh my father grew up with his father cleo and uh you know damien was moving around in the neighborhood you know my father was kept going after him going after him and uh you know cleo got pissed off over that so there was a little uh the night before the shooting uh there was a altercation in a coffee shop and they're not then where vinnie and damien and another fella uh beat up one of my father's guys you know and then right after that they came to me and i talked to my father after that and my cousin ricky sarro when we were just going to try to straighten it out so uh they went to the 99 restaurant to stay out of the knot then i told them to stay out of the knot then vinny and damien but they went to the restaurant who walks in the restaurant my father my brother roman ricky and anthony sarro sonny b she all walk in the restaurant you know and the kids panicked and damien called his father and his father came down with a gun there were words went back and forth and they started shooting my family didn't have guns on them at that time you know so they were just basically slaughtered there well your father got killed my brother my brother roman yup your cousin anthony sorrow yeah my other cousin ricky got another friend of the family yeah yeah sonny bishop so you yourself were not there no i wasn't there they called me to go to lunch vinnie and damian called me to go to lunch that day but i had a meeting with somebody you know so uh i'd end up going well when you heard the news how did you react well it was you know a little shocked a little shocked a little shocked your father brother and cousin just got killed a little shocked a little shocked yeah i was surprised because one of my guys were there earlier to meet them to pick up some of my money so they went down and meet them at the 99 and al called me at the time and said i just met them and then he called me back 20 minutes later said they were all dead so when i called him you know so well the the guy who did it it was just one one gunman well the father cleo shot and damian's uh shot his gun and that's the one that killed my father damien's okay and anthony clemente was the one who did all the shooting yeah what happened to anthony afterwards to cleo they both got life in prison damien ain't clear yeah did that bring some level of closure to you or did you feel like you wanted your own revenge well it's hard for me to talk about that either way if you could understand that i mean that was my family you know and that was devastating to the louisi family obviously you know but uh yet i was hard you know nobody wants to see their father and their brother gone and their cousins you know no matter what happened between me and my father on the street he was still my father you know but uh you know at that time a lot of things going on a lot of guys getting killed we were doing a lot of things and you know your heart hardens up there a little you know what i mean that's why was your mother alive during that time my mother yeah yeah yeah she still is you know how did your mother take that well he was her husband and her son no my mother divorced my father when i was uh two years old ah okay yeah she's remarrying my mother to my father son though yeah but that was still her son no oh that wasn't her son oh my my sister and i were from the original marriage my father's been married several times and there were children from different marriages got it you got it i mean when that happened when your father and brother gets murdered was there a certain level of i just need to get out of this no a certain level of what but well i'm just like i just got to leave this life alone let me just walk away from all this because look how close is hitting the home at this point no not at all actually uh as soon as they got killed i started putting everything together i go whatever my father had on my cousins i just put everything together into back and haul into the family i was out the next day there's nothing you could do that's the life we chose to be in my friend you know my father was a gangster my brother they know what they were doing you know it's not like they were civilians got caught off guard or by accident no life is life my friend if you want to be in this life you're going to be able to accept all of this you know what i mean vlad yeah agaves no well by 1998 a few years later you decided to join the philly mob well what happened as time progressed in boston i was a proposed guy in the patriarca family but everything was in disarray at that time and i'm the type of guy i really don't like to take orders from people so i wanted to try to go do my own thing you know so we went through new york and down to philly and i met joey and the guys down there and i ended up uh becoming a couple dejean in their family okay so in the patriarchas you were never a maid man but when you went over to philly they made you a maid man yes i was a proposed man in the patriarca family waiting to get made but i had some fallen out with some patriarchus so i knew that wasn't going to happen not at that time anyway and i was very strong in boston at that time with my crews with my money you know and i guess i just wanted to go far on myself and that's what i did joining philadelphia becoming a copper regime there made me a boss in boston 300 miles away you know and i ran my cruise the way i wanted to run my crews up there okay now originally you met uh ralph natal when i first went down i went to cherry hill and i met ralph uh the first meeting he was in prison with a friend of mine frank rossi and frank introduced us we sat down we talked and i went down there maybe twice i met ralph and then after the second meeting i met georgie or gazi yeah me and josh you hit it off real well okay but ultimately you were made a captain under joey merlino yes i was okay that's skinny joey skinny joey yeah skinny joey and he became the boss of the philly crime family in 99 he was the boss of the philly crime family before that he put ralph natalie there as his front guy joe he always ran the family okay now ralph natali did he end up becoming an informant yes he did yes he did did you guys have any idea that he was going to be in a farmer no i didn't no they didn't they didn't have an idea he would do that you know but what happened with ralph um he was involved in drug deals and he got violated uh they caught him on tape talking to ronnie previty about being the boss of philadelphia and he got violated on that and while it was in that he was getting uh reindicted on uh drug charges you know that's why ralph natali really flipped there was no other reason he wants to blame joey and the guys that he flipped they had nothing to do with that ralph was dealing drugs with his son-in-law and his brother okay now back in boston did you have any sort of contact with whitey bulger not at all okay but whitey bulger his crew sort of had beef with the no that's not how all that went down no no listen whitey was always around the italians okay whitey was out there doing his thing with stevie flyme and that crew they had over there was a bad crew and whitey was a bad guy in his guys i'm not taking nothing away from them but they were always with the italians you got to remember the monoranos were in that crew jimmy monorano was a made guy frankie salami became a made guy those are all their friends what they were doing what he was doing he kept ratting on the italians and he set up the doghouse on print street for the feds and they went in there and wired it up and that's how they got jerry so that's how whitey was taking the italians off the street was by ratting on them that was his whole game you know they they blow whitey up and like i said i'm not taking uh i'm not saying he wasn't a bad guy and had a back crew i'm not saying that but they blow him up because he's a centerpiece with that connolly the fbi agent you know when he took off he was most wanted and that put whitey on the map you know but uh as far as the cause on our stroke he had nothing to say and nothing to do well when you ultimately found out that he got killed uh by a by another prisoner a few years ago what'd you think what did i think i was surprised it happened because i was surprised they were able to get at him you know he's an older guy now it was a bad way to go out but you know you reap what you saw my friend and he did that to himself so you know i i don't know what to say about that well you're part of the the philly crime family and drugs is really your thing drugs are so shocking i made things so did that start to expand once you're with philly no i had that business before i went down to philly nothing expanded when i went to philly i went to philly and i'll tell you those guys were great guys joey took me in and georgie and the crew down there they got straightened out i already had my thing in boston i was already a boss up there but i wanted you know i was in that life and i wanted that button and i wanted to straighten my crew up i mean we all want to do that we're in that life you know and being with philly gave me a lot of independence that's why i made that move but no i had everything before i even went down there well being around all these guys both on the boston side and on the philly side you're you know attracted the attention of the feds and at one point they started to really look into the whole crew and started you know putting in federal agents to buy drugs and start videotaping things and everything else like that uh did you know the feds were on to you or did you have no idea they were on to me before the 99 happened they were on to me because uh they showed me videos i was at a funeral of a friends in charlestown one of the irish guys and uh they had tapes of me there you know and then after the 99 happened i heard they flew a lot of agents in just to watch our family to see what we're doing so i was hot you know after 95 96 i was hot up there anyway actually going down to philly i used to drive down most of the time and every time i got to the hotel uh when i go back outside to be a plainclothes boston state trooper car they used to follow me down they used to leave the hat in the back so i could see it when i walked past it so it was pretty open surveillance and the fbi told me to they uh they actually told me they were in the elevators with me at the hotel of philly going up and down i never knew who they were i recognized them you know but a lot of surveillance on me well on june 28th 1999 13 people uh get indicted for conspiracy to acquire and distribute cocaine right and you're a part of that i'm part of that do you remember the day you got busted oh yeah i remember that day that was that was all right yeah i remember that day well at that point when i got arrested you know i was going back to church you know and uh a funny story you know going back to church and uh i was having a hard time doing what i was doing i had a religious experience you want to call us not religious spiritual experience and i think it was yeah march 28th of 1998 i accepted jesus back in my life so i'm trying to go to church i'm trying to run my crew on this street and then boom this happens on june 28 99 and uh yeah they came to my house nice cuffed me up put me in the car you know and i said well this will be a vacation i was kind of looking forward to it to be honest with you you know but uh while i was in there i got some bad news because at that pinch i was only facing 10 to 12 years and you know that some that's another part of the life you know you're going to do sometime you know so that really wasn't a bad pinch but while i was in there um i found out that uh i was getting reindicted on a murder one charge and several guys had flipped on me and they had me called on it and this came right from an ausa that had retired from that office was working in my lawyer's office so it was firsthand information and he said bobby they get you called he said that um you're not going to get out of here i can get you this 10 to 12 but you're going to be getting life everybody flipped on you on this one particular murder there was a few but there was only one particular you know so uh at that point i had to decide to you know look my wounds up just go fight what was i going to do so now all my friends in boston were lining up against me so i don't want to be a paint cushion anymore so i decided to talk to the feds at that point well the murder you're talking about that was the 1997 murder of anthony deprizio i think it was that murder i'm not sure to be honest with you well uh did you admit to that murder eventually i did what happened um as negotiations were going on with the feds things started breaking down i never we never fully finished my agreement with them because when i started talking with them i really didn't want to be an informant i mean i couldn't do it you know so i tried to recant them and eventually i went to five status hearings and they wrapped my agreement up and i went to trial i think it was 2002 on the cocaine charges and i got 20 years on that well with the murder i guess what i'm trying to figure out is you admitted to to the murder of anthony deprizio uh but did you get charged for that murder or no well the superseding indictment but no i didn't ever got charged for it when you go in a profile and you sign papers with these people they can't come back at you with the information that you gave them do you understand okay so that murder got out yes it did and they talked about them in the paper you know but um everything else i told them is under seal they couldn't use it so like a proffer agreement in a way where you tell them you know everything you know but they can't use it against you to indict you exactly got it okay but here you are facing this drug charge and the way that the the prosecution said that the case is so strong it's overwhelming which case is the snow this is the drug case and i guess they actually had videotapes of you buying oh yeah no they had me cold but it was still entrapment it was still we went i went to trial twice on this i lost twice but i went to trial twice i wanted a pill and went back in 2007 in both times we went for entrapment now if you read when joey went to trial his jury found entrapment on him but in boston they found me guilty before i even started the trial you know the jury was i was at so many articles they know what i did the popularity you know they didn't care how the government got me in boston they just wanted to wrap me up you know well you're facing these drug charges but you're also cooperating at the same time when you ask the question in 99 i got picked up on drug charges with jory molino there were 13 of us got indicted they split the indictments up they called it the molino faction of philadelphia luisi faction in massachusetts and they split the indictment up so boston picked mayan up and philly picked up this while i'm in there trying to make a deal 10 to 12 to you know just take a plea and go do my time um someone came to me a friend of mine that he was arrested on something else he was in their employment with me and he said bobby i heard some murder indictments are coming down did you talk to your lawyer so i called jack to come down and he came down to the prison and i told him what i heard and sure enough two weeks later jack comes back with marty bedro marty padreau is an ex-usa from the boston office he just left there he went into practice luckily what my attorney jack mcglone marty tells me said bobby you know because the question with the murders he says yes there are murder indictments coming down and he said listen they got your cold all your friends are flipping on you he never told me which murder you know it was but he said all your friends are flipping on you and uh you're not gonna get out they're boasting about it up in the fed's office that they got you so he says listen i can get you the 10 to 12 now but he said when this grand jury is over you're going up the next grand jury with this murder and you're gonna get reindicted and superseded on murder one and he said i can't get you out of that bobby you know you know how the feds make their cases that 94 96 rate of you know winning because they got you all set up at the time you know so i had to make a decision then what i wanted to do they you know he he suggested that i talk to them and uh cut this off now and see if i can get a better deal for myself and it took me uh two three weeks before i really decided to do that because it was against my grain you know we just set all this up in boston i had my own type of family up there luisi's and you know i i couldn't see myself doing it but then again i can't see myself doing life and all these other guys they're gonna go home you know i was like a pink cushion every time they picked a guy up there they let him out to come and get me i'll give them a deal so i stopped all that i went and i talked to them during the negotiations with the feds i told them a lot of things vlad you know i'm not gonna lie i said a lot of things i wish i didn't but as the negotiations were going on sammy the bull gets picked up in that uh thing in arizona so they come to me and he says ah see what sammy did we're gonna have to give you more time i told them about another murder they came back well we're gonna have to give you more time so the original deal i made with them they were skating from so you know what i decided to flip on them like i do with everything else and they did a few things i didn't like and i attacked them a little and i know it sounds insane but i did go after the government you know and the way i did it was pen and paper and uh negotiations broke down and i ended up going to five status hearings and they ripped my agreement up and all they could do to me because the judge said because i signed those profits was take me on my underlining indictment which was the cocaine and that was a 20-year sentence so you end up getting 20 years for drugs 235 months i lost the first trial how old were you at the time i was 38 when i got picked up in 99 yeah so essentially they're saying you're going to be in prison for half your life yeah half the life you've already lived yeah just the boat yeah how do you get your head around that well it was a little tough i mean you know i did some little bits like a week here and there never a long term but you know i was already in there when this was going on it was getting settled in and it was either right on my friends or do do 20 years and i'd rather do the 20 years to be honest with you you know i just you know there's some things in life you just can't you can't do you know i just couldn't do that you know when i first got pinched they offered me to go back out on the street if i wore a wire i couldn't do that could never do that take my friends you know i couldn't do it could never do anything like that you know so now i got this 20 235 months i gotta serve in the meantime um i'm waiting for my uh paperwork to come back so i could file my appeal and we didn't get my appeal into i think 2006 at that time they changed the guidelines with the leadership roles and everything so now i win the appeal was the first one in massachusetts to overturn a drug case go back to trial lose again it wasn't even a contest lost again but this time the judge had to take off 47 months for the leadership role so when he did that i ended up with 15-8 and i got home in 2013. well you end up doing almost 14 years yes 13 9 yeah yeah now being in prison and even though you're doing that time you did cooperate i cooperated in the beginning right at the beginning so as you're in prison does the resid the rest of prison yard know that you cooperated no they put me in uh woodsec units they had to because listen this went from boston to new york to philadelphia and everybody know what i did so they couldn't take a chance to put me out in population and that was another way i kind of screwed myself that i was upset about but the units were good you know i did a lot while i was in prison i got a degree in theology i wrote a book um i taught a ged class i also started courses for the guys that were going home i did that and i always worked in prison had coke had otterly whatever right but the whole time you're basically in protective custody yeah yep got it yeah now as this is happening as you're in prison you're in protective custody but are you hearing any words that there is you know a hit on you money on your head or anything else like that yeah i heard a few things came back to me i heard a few things yeah okay but nothing ever happened in prison to me no yeah okay i mean i fought in prison like everybody else you know i have my share of beefs in there you know but uh no not that sylvia so in 2013 you get out yeah now was that part of a deal with you testifying against some uh no are you joey or no no i served my time i did my 15-8 and i got my good time and that's how i got out of 13. i got my good time back before i um won my appeal you know i did a lot of fighting i was moved around a lot and um but when i won the appeal i got all my good time back so that helped me so now from 99 taking off you know you do 85 percent of your time i get out in march of 13. before i get out they come to me over the gardening museum accident you know for my help on that case and i told them what i knew and then they came at that time there was uh enrico ponzo he grew up in the neighborhood and he was on the run too when whitey bulger was on the run had nothing to do with each other but he was out there i think 13 years and they caught rico and uh the feds came and told me they wanted to know where i was going because i was getting subpoenaed to that trial and i told them i said i never committed a crime with rico there's nothing i could say about them you know they said well we just wanted to go up there we're going to ask you about you know you were the boss up there at the time and we're just gonna ask you about the structure so i had to make a decision what i was gonna do because i've been called to grand juries before and pleaded the fifth but i i just did 14 years i was gonna go plead the fifth for this kid so i went up there with 64 other people got called on that case and i believe two other wise guys from the patriarca family were called there and everybody talked and that's it but i mean no deal to get out of prison i did all my time got it well because at one point you know there was a whole sweep that happened with the philly mob where skinny joe merlino gets arrested along with like 46 people yeah that's the new york case yeah a-ha you know so at that point you had nothing to do with these guys at all nothing nope well and uh i think uh skinny joey got like five million dollars bail and they had you know recorded conversations on him and everything else like that what ultimately happened with that whole case well joey wanted his time and he got out he just got out he's still on supervised release from what i understand you know he's living in florida uh right now and uh they say he's still the boss of the family you know and there's a street boss uh and under boss up at philly running everything and there's still a crew in boston the remnants from io crew and whoever else they made up there i don't know i don't you know i shut this off in 1999 to be honest with you i really don't uh pay attention to what's going on the street right now i hear things i just leave it at that you know but uh whatever they're doing now is not on my business i don't even want to know be honest with you well you get out of prison in 2013. and at that point did they put you into the the witness protection program yes they did they put me in tennessee i went right to memphis um i was there for five years i was in the witness protection i think for like two years two and a half years and as soon as i was all done with that i signed out and um started you know got my name back robert luisi and uh i think it was 17 i went to florida 2017 and then i came back to boss in 2018. well explain to me what witness protection is like tell me the steps that you know the feds kind of go through to create a whole new identity and to protect you from people who might want to kill you well you're going to the marshall service the marshals take care of all that once you're going in there you're out of the fed's hands if they need you they got to go through the marshals and what they do is you get a new social security number passport new name the whole deal and with me they stuck me in tennessee where there were no italians really you know nobody like me around uh they stuck me down there and uh i liked it in the beginning i met a woman down there i got married under my alias alonzo esposito and that didn't last too long unfortunately you know i was fresh out of prison i think i just rushed into a relationship too fast but i married a beautiful woman down there and i was in tennessee but dying to go back to boston to see my family to be with my children so the whole time when you're under witness protection you can't see your family at all no that would have to be planned if they would even do that to call them you got to go through washington you just can't call them on the phone everything's protected you know if you violate that you get in trouble you know so i was very careful of not breaking the rules down there you know i might have cheated once or twice with some phone calls but uh pretty much i did what they said to do you know i wanted a new chance at life that's why i went down there i really thought i could do it i didn't want to go back home to boston at the time because i didn't know what i was going to turn into if i came back home or what was going to happen what did you leave behind like wife kids break it down for me three children at the time my wife um they didn't go into the program when i did what i did they moved to florida my wife bought a condo a home down in sunrise and my mother bought a home in tamarac and they were living down there but while i was in there you know i had a 20 year sentence uh my wife really wanted to be back home with her family so they lasted a few years and they went back to i boston was there any danger that the mob might go after your family for cooperating i never believed that no i never believed that you know it's about our families we're not you know to sell your mafia is different from here you know and that isn't everything else that's really not going to happen there were guys in the bonanno family that i was in prison with they ratted their informants and their kids were still on the street working with everybody so all that other you know unless my son was involved it might have been a problem for them maybe they would have went after him you know but my son had nothing to do with that 13 years old at the time they're not going to bother nobody well you cooperated but you don't consider yourself a rat i never testified against anybody i i didn't let someone come and say i put them in prison i did the wrong thing vlad i'm not going to say that i didn't i should have never did that and maybe you could call me a rat i don't know but did i rat no did i put one of my friends in prison no i didn't do it i couldn't do it well at one point you actually left the witness protection program yes i did yeah how many years in did you leave i think it was uh two years i think maybe a little over 24 months and then i signed up was there something that happened that made you feel like okay i'm gonna get out of this program now no not really you know i i got a great job when i as soon as i got out of prison i have a background we talked about earlier in construction i got a job right away when i got out when i hit tennessee i got a supervisor manager job from there i worked for sandusky cabinets they were out of chicago they had a big plant in tennessee i went there i was a quality control manager for them you know i had all my insurances i had everything i need i had beautiful cars and we had a house and i just didn't fail any of the marshals anymore you know you said you actually pray for your old philadelphia mob friends especially marleno yeah in this time of trouble and you hope that he finds a way out yeah i do for all of them to be honest with you you know i i really do i mean the life today it's not like when i grew up with the wise guys in the late 70s and the 80s that was the time you know you know joey's father was an underboss in the family years ago before he went to prison joey's the same thing george they all grew up in this life all around these guys you know but it's not what it used to be it's not like that anymore it's sad they just had a meeting in philly in 2015 they made a few guys and one of them was wired i mean where we going with this now you know and then again they got my friends on tape i know i call them my friends i don't know what they call me vlad but i don't care if there's one thing i learned you know i degree in theology and i also have a book up on amazon god's plans revealed and um and i believe it's not what they think about you it's what you think about them i don't have hate on malice in my heart for anybody well you said i know they'd like to kill me but i have love in my heart for them yeah i had an awakening uh they have to come to a point uh where they say i had enough of this yeah that's something you gotta do on your own no one could ask you for sure to do that you know when that thing happened to me in uh 98 i wanted to say i know i was god but it was hard for me to believe with the things that we were doing but when i seen what i saw i knew there was a devil and i knew there was jesus christ and that changed my life i went from that night being a die-hard gangster to want to see christ to be honest with you because i wanted to know what happened to me why this thing happened to me and i got my answers when i searched well and then at one point you became a pastor i was a pastor what happened when i married uh my wife down there i was going to different churches and she lived next door to a bishop at a black church great guy bishop coleman he read my book so after he read the book he wanted me to come and teach in his church and uh so i went in there i was an assistant pastor for a short time in bishop coleman's church yeah it almost reminds me of like michael franzis who's been a regular on my show who kind of yeah yeah mike's a great guy we did uh mike and i did uh comedy central in 2017. uh there was me frank d matteo you had him on the show too frank yep uh three were there with the fake donald trump oh it was a great show great show yeah mike's a good guy he's doing great too god bless him you know he is yeah he is he really is one of the things you said is i did some terrible things i did bad things what do you think is the most terrible thing that you did wow what kind of questions just about everything we did was terrible i mean you know you take people's lives that's not a good thing you know that's a terrible thing you know selling drugs that's that's you know could never do that again you know i don't like to say it on the show but i lost my danielle uh my oldest december 18th of uh 2019. she passed away you know it's all these drugs on the street i feel more bad about the drugs than i do about the actual murders to be honest with you people ask me all the time about that you know how do you feel what you did it was me or them or by friends or my family when we're in that life we feel we're more it's like being in the marines you know you get an order to go you go i mean that's it we're not civilians anymore once we take that oath and look i was in austria so a lot of that terrible things and hurting people and things i did i think the worst thing we did was sell drugs like i have to be honest with you so your own daughter died from a drug overdose yeah she did wow yeah am i daniel how old was she at the time 36 36 that's tough beautiful sad i mean how do you get your head around that you lose your daughter from drugs but then you also have to think that some of the drugs that you pushed probably did that to other fathers and mothers losing their kids that's what i'm talking about vlad when i say i feel terrible yeah you know actually like you know i have a show on youtube right now the bobby louise show and we have some counselors coming on there now local people that are helping people right now and we're hoping within the next month we'll start producing those shows on my show and my main goal now was just to help people in the community in boston and you know try to get some of these people help and paul tanzo um that does the show with me you know he was very influential with all that with the safe houses and the judges and getting people into uh and you know getting people help getting them into the safe houses so we're gonna start getting back on that program again and hopefully start helping people well when you talk about the mafia the the italian mafia the mob however you want to say it it's gotten marketed so well through spectacular movies like the godfather and goodfellas and casino and all these films that are so well made and these are supposed to be secret organizations but they get plaster all over the big screen like this and everyone wants to associate themselves with it but ultimately i've interviewed so many of these mafia guys like yourself and the level of destruction that happens from just being affiliated with this is always massive there's always these busts that happen where 20 30 50 people get indicted people are given double triple life plus five years uh you know witness protection you know for example like you know you talk about losing your daughter uh you know to to drugs michael franzis has a has a similar story as well mm-hmm you know uh i believe he lost his sister uh you know his own brother was a drug addict end up testifying putting his own dad in prison like the level of backstabbing and snitching and death and murder and everything else like that is always seems to just be so much more than whatever the good times are at the height of of you know their careers why do you think so many people still continue to do it and how people still get into it knowing that's what's going to happen ultimately well i got to say this by neighborhoods i don't see too much of that but there are guys that are still bucking for those positions they're out there you know because uh you know like again in my i got to say in my generation i grew up with it i grew up with wise guys it was there on my face every day young kids coming up now have to be insane to even think about getting involved with this there's kids out there now they're selling drugs on their own to make a four five six thousand a week what do they need them up for you know what i'm saying but then there's these guys they want to be involved you know they they idolize it they want to be in that life they want to see what it feels like to be in that life a lot of this life is action with the gambling with the women even with the murders and everything else that goes on even ducking the fence it's action it's a form of action like going to the haas track and been on that horse and praying that hot swings and yelling and screaming you understand people like action and there's action in this life and they want to get that feeling what's it like to jump out of the plane with a parachute but unfortunately the parachutes aren't open and no more vlad you know what i'm saying it's not like the old days now they're crashing but they don't see it they just don't see it yeah yeah i almost there life in prison over rats and informants am i going to come back out on the street after doing 14 years and put myself in that same position again you have to be insane it's insanity no but some of these guys do they love that life i just can't see it and i know i'm not any smarter than them but i just can't see it well bobby luisi i appreciate you sharing your story and you have your own podcast as well yes the bobby luisi show you know we're trying to get on there like once a week you know when uh we're doing a lot of different shows and uh we're getting some followers we're doing pretty good and we're gonna keep going on with these podcasts flat and like i said see if we can help some people right now we're doing a lot of mob stuff because all my friends are gangsters so that's pretty obvious to me you know but uh we're gonna be venturing into different areas different genres and see what we could put together on the show well that's what it is bobby luisi appreciate you sharing your story wish you all the best thank you my brother thank you for having me on god bless my pleasure i'll see you next time peace

Channel: djvlad

Views: 364,401

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Id: Rc2i2o6O65Y

Length: 59min 25sec (3565 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 12 2021