Frank DiMatteo on Mafia Association, Crazy Joe Gallo, 'Irishman' being Bullsh** (Full Interview)

all right here we go we have frank de mateo former mafia associate and author of the book the president street boys growing up mafia welcome to vlad tv thank you vlad well you have a you have quite a story so i kind of want to start a little bit before your time in terms of the history uh of the area you grew up in and that is president street which is a an old italian neighborhood in red book uh in red hook brooklyn yes well uh pleasant street all of red hook or south brooklyn was all based off the water longshoreman's most of your longshoremen's had stores or rented or lived in that neighborhood and the docks was the most important uh there was a life of the neighborhood so that's how we pretty started pretty much started from okay and by the 40s and 50s uh the gallow brothers pretty much took over that neighborhood by the late 50s the the gala crews started working downtown there in uh down red hook right and it was three brothers larry albert and joe aka crazy joe gallo who was the leader yes and the father papa gallo don't forget gallo he was he was instrumental in them and there was a tree blood is yes there's larry got it blast and uh joey now i think this part is a little a little gray area but at one point albert anastasia who was what exactly was anastasia's role at the time when he was living album was the boss of a family from 1950 i think 51 until the 57. he was a boss of the brooklyn family which now is the uh gambino family got it so the original gambino family was anastasia was on the stage yes okay and there was a famous murder that happened uh in a barber shop in the sheraton hotel yes well the way i get it you know being around these guys all my life and sitting around one of the shooters is that uh albert had to go i was being crazy like albert was being crazy like normal you know it was selling buttons he was going after civilians he was he was feared and uh vito genovese and uh carlo campino you know put together the plot to take them out and uh they gave the um they gave the test to uh job avaci and uh before she put the crew together to uh take him out and it happens to be joe gallo and uh larry jojelli and uh carmine were the his squad i mean there's arguments that they weren't but my argument is stronger than other arguments okay and joe gallo was allegedly one of the guys that was involved in that murder and uh this murder was actually depicted in the movie the irishman definitely yeah there's a lot of movies depicted in it yeah it's a it was a pretty big hit at the time yeah and joey was one of the shooters yes right and one of the other shooters was carmine uh persico aka carmine the snake yes jojelli and larry okay and and carmine the snake was considered one of the most ruthless mob bosses in in the mafia's history uh i guess he was suspected of personally killing uh 60 people himself and they're ordering hits on hundreds more yeah i mean i they say that but i don't you know i don't think i'll call my person kill 60 guys but i mean he's a tough guy he killed people i mean he probably ordered more killings than he actually did uh comet was no joke uh you know i met him quite a few times and uh carmine was for carmine you know karma was one of those ladder like decline those ladders and you're in the way you're in trouble so um he had no loyalty to anybody above him so uh carmine was a bad dude you know but i think numbers are always you know uh over over the top okay and ultimately uh carmine the snake got sends to 139 years yes yes he did he got uh i think in 1986 something like that he got in that windows case he defended himself did a good job but he lost right and he was one of the the few guys in the mafia that always uh kind of remained loyal and never snitched on anybody and so forth yeah there's a lot of guys like that and he was one of them i mean a lot of guys they're doing live bids and long bids that stood loyal to the but uh yeah he was one of them he was no joke he was a real tough guy like him or not like him you know people have different opinions but in that world carmine was a you know a real guy okay and at one point there was a war that started between frank gallo and carmine the snake between uh larry albert and joey against with with uh joe bifacci what happens with uh carmine was originally uh everybody's with joe before she's the boss but they had clues carmine was uh the same crew as larry joey and albert and amongst all the other guys they won the johnny bear beat shadow that's who brought them down originally and then they won them with being with frankie um uh the is his name frankie uh frankie schatz and uh at one point uh uh a lot of skull book going on everybody wasn't happy with joe bafacci and they wanted to make a move to break away and they went to the captains they went to other people they went to uh tony bender and these guys and they tried to get some support to pull away and right with that right right before that happened uh carmine put an order to kill frankie schatz and uh joey didn't want to take it so that gave her you know it made a little uh animosity amongst you know amongst the crew but they sent joe jilly and carmine to go do the killing and it got done so right after that was done then they were even more they wanted to break away more and that really started you know the breakaway with the gallows against the prefaces away from the profacies so with that type of backdrop we're going to get into your story so you grow up in this neighborhood yeah i grew up in the downtown brooklyn yeah red hook my mother met my father when you know i was i my my father you know my mother went very young she was a barmaid they got together i come along uh he was running the hilltop for the gallo family on um plaza park west in brooklyn and i'm a little boy you know just with a lot of uncles uh you know they're very close and as i grew up you know i just see more and more and you start really realizing things and you know i saw luke i saw the killing when i was you know six you know uh but it was a lot more cowboys than indian [ __ ] so it wasn't i wasn't really affected by it uh and then when i was old enough you know i just uh my father got me driving and that's how you know i broke my chevy by driving and that's how i got involved in the in the early early days okay and i want to get into sort of the chronological history of what happened so you grew up essentially in a mafia family yeah my my father bodyguard for larry gallo exactly he was also an enforcer for the gallows definitely yeah yeah and my uncle uh my uncle was uh bobby bon giovanni bobby darrow he was a another enforcer for the uh gallow family and uh and joe chapani is a an uncle he was a uh genevieve captain okay so you're growing up with all these guys just around you every day and you mentioned at six years old you saw a murder yeah joey maggie's got killed on fourth avenue in union street when i was six right in front of me right in front of us but like i said i was like i wasn't affected by it too much it was more like you know bank bank cops and robbers you know uh my mother wished me off fast and you know it didn't affect me too much okay but by 10 years old you started to realize that you were in a mafia family yeah by 10 years old yeah you know other guys are talking to you people coming up with the words you know start talking uh you realize that things are different in your household than than many others uh i mean no one's saying unto me you know they'll sit you down and tell you no we're mafia and that's what that that they don't tell you what they do is it just comes out you hear things and by then i knew by the time i'm 10 i knew uh that we definitely were different okay and you dropped out of school in the ninth grade night yes yep okay and you started hanging out with uh the local kids which were the galloway crime family yeah i started driving my father that's why i really dropped out of school because uh near driving i was i was driving it was trustworthy he needed me and that's what i pretty much did uh we were making money he didn't this school was really that really important you know uh that was his philosophy so yeah i started dropped out and hung out with the rest of the guys on president street that will drop out too okay and you were like a tall kid at like 13 years old you were like six feet tall so you're able to sort of yeah like basically fit in and go to the strip clubs and the restaurants and the nightclubs as as a grown man almost exactly no one knew the difference i was six foot tall 150 pounds i dressed well knew what to do and uh no one questioned anything especially if they know you're with somebody or you're with someone they would they wouldn't think you were 13. i mean maybe they'd think you were 20 but they should help with they give it 13. so yeah you get away with a lot of stuff no one's gonna question anything that was young yeah okay and you became the driver for your godfather bobby bobby yeah bobby dowell yes right and he was one of the shooters uh for the gallows yeah bobby was one of the shooters for gallo you know he was a real hot pepper uh bobby was uh he probably had about six seven killings on his belt by time he uh finally took him out as far as you know getting arrested in life for prison but yeah he was a real hot pepper he was i mean i was very very close to me uh to me he was uh he was just uh just another character you know i didn't see nothing uh i know what he did but i didn't find but then again i didn't find nothing wrong with it so to me it was it's okay you know you do what you want to do i'm not here to question anything right you said that he was like a jokester but then he was also a stone killer he was almost like a schizophrenic in a way well he was schizophrenic man my father was the most loving guy in the world and he killed 10 people so i mean while he he would you know cry at doing a baby christening or you know but the little triggers then when they get triggered off it's you know back to business and bobby could be smiling laugh and then something said wrong and and uh if the opportunity the opportunity came and you're gonna get died you're gonna die i mean they switching on and off okay like what was the most violent thing you saw bobby do well i uh probably was a fight probably if i he uh threw a guy at a window on coney island avenue over a bar then he shot the dog in the head you know i mean because i think was all arguing over a dog so he should have got the window and shot the dog in the head so i think it was a that was pretty wild at the time you know uh that would that would open your eyes up and you know go you know wow you know you see you see a guy come in a second floor window and and a dog right behind him shot dad you know it would then go downstairs and had a drink so uh yeah he was a wild guy but to me was loving smiling laughing he was a comedian he just loved having fun and uh just don't go into the business world with him or the or that end of the world with him it'd be beautiful okay what about your dad uh have you seen him do anything overtly violent uh yeah i yep i saw him he he uh got an argument a couple of times in the early days you know when we got older you know i can't talk about what happened afterwards you know as if any participation or anything because i'm not a rat i'm not informant i got no passes i'm [ __ ] everywhere you turn so say i say anything really wrong i'm in trouble but as a kid i you know i saw my father had an argument on uni on columbia street and i did see it you want to stab a guy got to fight one of them stabbed the guy when him dying and uh many fights many balloon you know balls uh pretty much that you know any anything you know when i was older i really can't get into but he did many of things you know i remember used to practice on a motorcycle with uh with a machine with a mac tens because he was gonna do a hit one time you know you had it you had to drive him he sit in the back and we have to on a motorcycle so he can get the rhythm of of of shooting and stuff like that was a nut he was a nutty guy you know you know so you would see all this stuff like that he would get little uh iron balls and see how fast you can go by somebody how to crack their window with the little balls if you want to get them stopped loom like metallic balls it stops cars from driving because it shot his windows you know he did all crazy stuff when he was 20 you know when he was on him on one of his uh somebody's gonna die modes so he used to practice things like that so he was like he was like kind of little you know out there you know but it was normal for him to be out there you know you know you expected that when he was that way but then back to normal he was a normal guy you know as normal as you can be okay so here you are growing up in this this crazy lifestyle and your your father is essentially a hit man your your godfather is a hitman you have all these other family members that are you know ranking members in the mafia and you started doing some small street crimes yourself at one point yeah from graduating you know i graduated from probably driving then you start picking up numbers you know that's what you do next you pick up numbers and you drop off money uh you know bookie money or sherlock money that's what you start doing you know you're trustworthy so you that's what you do they they depend on people who are trustworthy and that's why you get these tasks to do and that's what i being ricky son i would get the task to go pick up money drop off money and then graduate that when things are bad if you need somebody needs some guns they will trust you with guns you'll bring a gun here bigger gun there make money here money there or if somebody's on a lamb you know from being doing something wrong for whatever reason it was you would you would know where they are because they would you'll be trusted and they would trust you to wiggle your way there because you're younger and and no one's you know you're not on the radar as much as other of the older guys so you get to do these little tests that would help people you know you used to do to to do what you you know you're needed for you know and then when i got old enough i you know we started you know want to make more money more money and then we want to get in in the drug business okay and what were you doing in the drug business but pretty much drug businesses they're all my connections i never you know sold drugs personally but we had the connections you know and what i did with some guys who approached me would want to need something and i would find out if anything who has it and uh and i would arrange everything and you know they go do their business and i make sure and i make sure i got paid but i never sold a drug you know it's you know in the street or something like that i always use my uh my name or my credit that would definitely my name and credit would be the the whole thing but we wound up you know making a lot of money and i want to get arrested in 1781 for it right you had 11 total arrests right total yeah my whole life okay what were the different arrests for uh there were two drug pinchers there was three gun charges and there was uh the seven or six uh were uh fights they were like uh you know ballroom fights and and or street fights that we all got arrested on but i got three gun charges and uh two drug charges okay i wound up beating them all everything aha how did you beat them well get good lawyers you don't get scared and you don't give in and uh you wait them out and you know nine or ten times you know they don't have what they think they had on you you know uh so you just waited out the the drug one was the hardest to wait out but because that was i that was five or 25 life bids so that was pretty scary that one so that was weight now went out was pretty pretty rough okay well you have this mafia family but you yourself did you ever want to join and become a maid man you know i was with you know i was with ricky and and everybody knew it was ricky so where ricky went i went you know we did we never talked about being uh made at the time or it wasn't on topic of talking uh ricky got proposed twice and turned it down so at the time he wasn't encouraging it he got uh he got um proposed by tony bender in in in 61 that he turned down and then late six in the late 60s got uh uh proposed again and turned it down because he wanted to be freelance even though he was with somebody he didn't want to be obligated he was really a machiavelli type guy okay so you never actually became made well no when i i got i got proposed in 99 when everybody got arrested yeah i got proposed in 99 for december 99 and everybody got arrested that's where we went with the jersey crew with sammy diploma and we were anthony rotunda and we were all three of us were proposed at the time and i think a couple of weeks before we got proposed before the actual uh ceremony ceremony uh everybody went to jail everybody went got arrested so i can lock down okay and what family were you gonna join uh that was uh that was with the d calacante family out of uh jersey you grew up knowing joe gallo i guess he was uh uncle joe to you yes i got when i was real small you know when i was real small i was really very young when he went to jail and i was like seven six like that uh so i know i know from p pinching my cheeks until i cried that was that was his mo man come in and pinch your cheeks into your cry that was their shown affection so i was used to that he did it and his two brothers did it larry didn't do it as much but the blast did it albert did it and and joey was crazy about doing this pitching cheeks to your cry right so so joe gallo aka crazy joe uh i guess he ran all the unions right well they have they have people to run the unions i mean it's what you have you know uh he had uh to get joe chef penny joshua you have put joe shep in your pocket then you have the controls of of things you know joey was big in the jukeboxing uh business games big balls jukebox that was his his uh lifeline you know uh that was uh joey's lifeline he that's where he tried to build and branch out and and make the chunk of his money at the time before he got pinched okay so in 1971 uh joe columbo who was the head of the columbo crime family right was attending a rally for italian american civil rights and uh a black guy went up to him and ended up shooting him in front of everybody yes and wound up getting shot got killed yeah right and they blame joey gallo right joey gallo got blamed for this because i guess gallo would associate with with black guys in prison and was using them for for his various uh dirty work essentially well joey got friendly with the nikki bonds and while he was in jail and stuff so when they put that together i mean we were always friends even before joey was in jail we were always friends with blacks we used to go to east new york we used to go to brownsville we used to collect numbers so we were always intermingled with the blacks in spanish or or uh arabic so we're making money so we always had a hand in with them but when joey was in jail he wound up getting close with nicki mons you know and uh when he got out and uh he had the argument with joey colombo and then uh joey wound up getting shot he was a black guy so uh um they blame joey right away gallo you know i i said it wasn't but uh they made my argues that it was but i say it wasn't so you know it's too obvious too stupid and they also said that we would have been off the street they wanted minutes walking around the street like a bunch of suckers you know everybody got everybody would have got a whisper or any of us would have got a whisper something was going on i got whispers for a lot of other things i got i would have got whisper for that so that was one of my uh my reasons why we didn't do it now i'm young you know i mean they keep things from you you know nobody walks up to you go oh we're gonna kill joe uh joey colombo today that doesn't work that way only the people that's involved in it is going to wind up uh you know know all the details i mean if there's a three guy hit theme those three guys are going to know about it not all 20 of us are going to know about it that doesn't work that way uh but being all my life there my answer is no we had nothing to do with it okay and i interviewed michael franzis uh from the colombo crime family and he said he was standing right next to joe uh when that happened well they had one big rally and that went well then they had a second rally in columbus circle in manhattan and you were actually standing next to joe colombo when everything went left well actually he had given me i was up on the stage and he had given me some brochures to hand out near lincoln center and i remember the last words he said to me uh that day he said michael handy's out uh just everybody that you see get him to come to the circle here the rally and as i was walking away he says and we're going to use this league to help your father i walked away from him i was getting to the steps that go you know leading off the stage into the columbus circle there and that's when the shots rang out and initially we didn't know what happened but you know it was it was just hysteria at that point my name was i wasn't there we were not allowed to go that day we were told to stay out of the out of the rally that was but we they didn't want us to go to the valley the year before either but that year it was a protest joey gallo was protesting that you know that we shouldn't go there anyway so we weren't going to be there anyway so michael was there michael's there man i like michael michael good guy uh if michael was there he's there okay did you interact at all with michael frenzie's yeah we had a lot of years ago we had uh my father was good friends with his father sonny so we used to meet in um georgetown once a week many many many years ago and everybody would talk and you know we used to drink and you know his father my father used to you know talk what they had to talk about and if we weren't in that conversation at the time we would ever drink uh but yeah for a whole summer a whole year probably a whole morning all summer we were doing things together in uh uh i had to be the 70s if i'm mistaken it's a long time ago could be the 80s but with 70s i happen to like michael michael to me is a good guy well uh joe colombo gets shot he lives but he's paralyzed for the rest of his life until seven years later he ends up dying right uh joey gallo gets blamed for this right and then at this point does a whole war break out well there's a between after joey gets after joey columbo get shot yeah a couple of guys a couple other guys get shot at a couple guys die uh joey was told to lay low joey gaga was totally low because they were blaming them and uh joey didn't listen we didn't listen he was he was one of those guys saying that nobody's gonna kill me they ain't got the balls you know he had no fear so he had no fear and uh he went up killing him joe gallo after the murder of joe colombo right uh you know continued to sort of rise in power and people weren't really happy with them because he was sort of a flashy guy he hung out with celebrities and you know he was doing the opposite of what the mafia is supposed to do uh you know almost you can always uh compare him to you know later on uh with uh what's his name the teflon don gotti john gotti would you say he was almost like a john gotti character before gotti uh uh joey was always out of the box that whole crew was out of the box they always never did nothing and conformed to anything that was rules and regulations so from day one you know they had out they had a syrians include that jews and could have puerto ricans in the crew that irish and their crew you know italians so they were always out of the box you know um joey maybe when he got out of jail and he got a taste of uh of the limelight with the you know those celebrities and he was enjoying it uh then maybe he got a little you know a little uh a little stupid whatever you want to call it but prior to that no it was never a uh a photograph uh you know guy or he was always on a low low i just think when he got out of jail and and he met those people you know changes your your mind for a while and plus he was like a machiavelli guy he thought he could live two two different ways and and uh get away with it you know but do you really like the limelight you know i have to say yes because i think it's human nature you know once you get you know that spark you know you you run with it you know it's hard to turn away from it like i get you know like anybody else it's hard well i had heard that gallo had a pet lion which he uh used to basically scare people with who owed him money yeah in the early days probably probably late maybe 59 60 61 we had a we had a line on present street that uh that larry and uh joey bought from a guy in manhattan and uh we put it in that and we put it in a mondo de midgets uh basement and uh when some guys didn't pay them you know want to pay their the what they owed or you know their debts uh larry or or um uh armando even among them used to bring them there near the uh basement door and uh he they used to hear the chain of the of the lion when he's jumping you know try to run up the stairs he's chained downstairs they would get pretty scared you know and get paid uh they didn't know how big it was you know it's scary down there it stunk so it was pretty you know you know you get nervous you know but we haven't we never lost they grow fast so i think i don't think we have maybe six eight months and we had to get rid of it that's why i told the story right before that we had the monkey the joey and larry brought home a monkey from the same guy from new york and and the monkey kept on throwing the [ __ ] at everybody and and uh joey wanted to kill the monkey and larry didn't want to kill the monkey so uh they made uh roy roy musical which is where he's another crew member go call this guy up and said you better take him out i said because joe's gonna kill the monkey so uh they got the mokiate how fast and a week later they went and got the guy called back again and said i got a baby lion you know baby cub and larry and larry and uh joey rant uh drove to the city and picked it up and drove back with the with the with the line in the middle of the seat with them uh driving back you know so they were they were comical you know they were bad guys but they were comical and you described uh joey gallows a scary guy yeah he was no joke joey's for real yeah joe was surreal i mean if you if you were joey fan you were joey fan you know when you loved either you hated him or you loved him there was no in-between with joey you know i mean and him him too he'd either loved you or he hated you you know it was vice versa but he was a real he was a real gangster he was a real old old-school gangster okay so then the situation that happened at uh umbertos a restaurant on mulberry street right so uh joey gallo was celebrating his 43rd birthday this was in april 1972. he went to go see don rickles perform the copacabana and then afterwards along with his wife his daughter and his sister and a bodyguard they went to umberto's uh restaurant to celebrate right and what happened next well joey was told for weeks weeks weeks don't go to the city don't go to the city don't go to the city stay low because the rumbling is going on that you know it's an open contract on you we all knew this and larry joey uh larry won the larry gallo was dead already he died in 68 so albert was telling us brother joey's on you're too too lay low just lay low don't go don't go but joey who said that you know it was no fear joey had no fear and he said i'm gonna go so he took uh bobby bon giovanni and um beat the greek with him uh to the copa that night for uh for dinner and you know and party and after dinner they wound up uh my my godfather went up going home he met a girl and joey told him to to go that they were going home so pete and peter creek was staying with him that night he was gonna drive him home on the way home joey got got hungry again and they used to go to a chinese restaurant on uh my street it was closed it was like four or five o'clock in the morning and uh joey still said go look for something to eat and they wind up rolling up on uh bertos which is a new place at the time and married a horse the owner was standing outside and uh peter greek recognized him and they said he just opened he goes the opening and they went in they went up going in for dinner while they were going for dinner one of the guys spotted joe pulling up uh one of columbia associates and he ran to the club made a couple of phone calls and as history goes joey yak yakivali told him go kill him and uh they got four five guy hit team and they went in the uh umbertos and uh and killed joey okay and uh umbertos was actually owned by the genovese mafia yes that was that was matty the horse's place yeah okay so there was a little bit of confusion whether you know they would have to have okay that hit on their territory right 100 100 that's why that's why uh sonny pinto one of the shooters and uh those guys were in big trouble because they they went in uh maddie the horse's place you know in a uh generation restaurant on mulberry street and did a hit so maddie horse was livic man you know so uh yeah that was a big big secondary trouble out of that okay and this was portrayed in the irishman as well this whole situation yeah but but he he he said that he wouldn't done it we know he didn't do it but he did okay right so i tell a story that way yeah right because according to the irishman uh frank sheeran said that he killed uh joey gallo on the orders of russell buffalino right and you're saying that's nonsense 110 that's all [ __ ] 100 times that we know yakaveli because we got the guys that flipped the the yakireli sent it's not that i make it up you get you get you got one of them guys that went to the feds and turned himself in so you know forget about you know pete degree coming telling me personally daddy that was uh sonny pinto that shot him and he asked one of one of the guys on the on this on the hit went to the feds and turned himself in luperelli so i it's a no-brainer to me the guy who got shot in the ass told me and one of the shooters wouldn't turn himself into the into the uh fence so i don't know where where the irishman comes in and decide oh so right i've interviewed michael franzis as well as other you know mafia affiliated guys and they all said that the irishman was just fiction pupil [ __ ] yeah it was entertainment yeah but you know it's in hollywood hollywood's good you know but it's all [ __ ] okay did you have any knowledge or interaction uh with jimmy hoffa at all because that was one of the big things you know that's always been a big nothing nothing we had nothing to do with hawfa i've had nothing to do with us over here we had no uh nothing interacting with him in any in any capacity okay at the time that joey gallo got killed were you guys close at all or did you guys interact a lot joey i mean joey sure joey's an idol to uh you know to us man all the young guys on the on the block joey's joey gallow of course you were interactive direct i mean we're younger than him i mean you know we don't go and pile with him but you know you come you know your cheek or tell you what to do or send you to go to store until you wash this car or or just acknowledge you at the time is is is you know is what you get is good but we don't forget we were much younger when joey you know i think we were 16 when joey got killed most of us you know we were there but you weren't going to hang out with us you know we were kids but we were very close to joey you know joey was okay very important to us how did you feel when you heard that joey got killed like that well we were devastated when joey got killed you know we were devastated uh you know he hurts and plus then you get mad you know and then you want to know why when and where what would it do you know but uh an issue uh is hurt you know you lose it's like losing a mentor like losing a father you know that's how our feelings are when we love someone you know and you're that close it's it's really you know it hurts well seeing your hero get gunned down like that that didn't make you say maybe i don't want to do this maybe i need to just go a different direction in my life no not at all not at all not all you you go your mode goes into if you're living this life and you're not make believe and you'll live in this you're going to go into mode of you know who what where and how you know uh to find out details uh what we're gonna do why you know and you know especially with when the big boys get together and they put their heads together to see what happened over here you just about waiting for what to do if you could be instrumental in any way but no no it didn't fear because many guys got killed after him and they were very very close you know and uh i mean i got shot at you know i won the blues in a beautiful car on that deal but uh no not if you if you if it comes natural to you you don't you know and you're young and you it was stupid you know in a lot of ways and uh i always argue that people want to be gangsters are the ones you got to worry about the ones that come in there naturally is the guys you gotta you know they're really scary so you know we never chose this this was a natural uh happening okay well at one point when you were dealing drugs you actually met up with meyer lansky in miami yeah we flew down in the early 70s to uh my father was doing a pot deal he got uh went they've got some guys from colombian guys and some cuban guys some jewish guys up here put together uh a uh bought an airplane and they got a pilot and they were running loads of uh pot from uh whether it was colombia or probably colombia somewhere and uh while we're down there i wound up you know uh having lunch with uh landscape mylansky okay and maya lansky along with uh lucky luciano he was one of the guys that really created a national crime syndicate yeah yeah but it was uh lansky was real tight with uh luciano you tied with frank costello you know joey adonis they were all you know my uncle joe chapani was tight with uh lansky and um joe adonis and costello so they all these guys were all very close and if you needed something they would extend a hand to you we we wound up talking he probably had at the time i remember many many many years ago i i think he had a uh a connection for trucks that when it came off the you know off the plane that they needed help somehow or like that or and that's why you go to who you need and that's why you want to be in a cemetery landscape a very nice guy he's old right i mean was this pretty much the highest ranking mafia guy you ever came in contact with no not at all no no i met frank costello before him uh god i sat down with carlo cambino before that uh well right around the same time you know arnel de la grosse was those guys were high-ranking guys i mean you know uh uh damn chrissy tick was a big guy there was a lot of not a lot of big guys at the time that was you know and who's bigger than you know to us no one's bigger than joey you know or larry or or albert or my father you know uh so there was no one bigger than them anyway i mean you respect you know these other guys and you know where they're coming from but you know that guy's no bigger than your guy you know when you're with someone so uh but there was a lot of many many many guys that we met that were very funny my father was very friend friendly with a lot of a lot of guys right i mean carlo gambino he was one of the original founders of the mafia in america yeah yep yep yes he was he was and i met him you know about two three years before he died uh he was a nice older man but you know but he's but like like i said he does the same thing the guy did before him you know he to get his position he had to kill somebody and you know took out his boss too because he was under boss at the time with frank costello you know and you're not supposed to kill your boss you know you know the argument with that is i just heard one the other day is that that joey gallo and carmine didn't do the shooting it was a generisi or it was a it was a different crew that did it but uh they wonder why they pieced it out to the papachi family i said because you don't supposed to kill your own crew or your own boss so that's what he pieced it out okay so here you are you're basically drug dealing making money that way and then you end up getting that really big uh bust right uh later on and you were facing life right yes uh ultimately what happened was it a plea deal or did you take it to court we took it to court it took 19 months and in 19 months they uh they they threw it out they threw it out with lack of evidence evidence it was a national county indictment in a king's county arrest it was all screwed up from the beginning and we wound up getting thrown out after 19 months okay and was that the point that you ended up leaving it all behind oh no no we went right to business right back in the business i mean you had to do what you had to do i think that was 70 80 82 83 84 i mean 86 86 we wound up getting into uh i had an another guy came to me and he wanted to do some stuff and i just like i said again i i fronted to my name and my uh and my uh and my money and uh it just kept on going until uh it was over with you know and there was many years after that you know uh we went i was a cocky about it that was double um uh careful afterwards you know but uh uh no you keep on doing what you gotta do what do i have nothing else to do i mean we we had a newspaper business at the time we had that screw magazine so we had a distributing company but what else is there to do you know that's what you do that's what you do it's like i said it's natural you don't think about it you think about it then you shouldn't be where you are okay what was the situation that made you walk away from the mafia well it happened uh in 2000 and uh 2001 what happened was we wound up uh we were with uh with the chin for a while and then we because of the drug uh involvement you know you get we got released and uh we wound up my father wound up being a uh casoliere to the scanning anthony rotunda that just got straightened out in the in the jersey crew uh jersey family and he had a brooklyn crew he's put together and he needed to be uh guidance so uh louis theresie and a guy named uh woody came and uh approached my father and asked him if he would uh school and uh of course because my father was friend with his father which was jimmy rotunda and he was uh headed along showman's association one of the uh delegates so my father said yeah and we wound up uh getting involved with the the jersey family the 70 plummer and uh that like in 1999 the books opened over there and i got uh me and two other friends who got uh in that crew family and that crew got put up to be uh strained out to be made that was in uh november when they let us know and uh i didn't know my father grabbed me and sat me down in uh in uh some restaurant and he told me you know that uh that was proposed to for that thing and that if i wanted it you know make sure i want it and uh if not you know to compare so you can pass it up uh with no problems you could pass on it but if but if i do take it that if i [ __ ] up that he's that he's the one that's gonna kill me i said okay no problem and uh a month late then we finished drinking we left and about month later uh skipper got arrested with the whole upper echelon of the whole family so it never happened so uh he uh december 99 uh a skipper got arrested and he was in jail waiting trial or whatever charges it was and then i think it was january 2001. he they want to take him out of circulation and we found out that he flipped to and that was it when he flipped and everybody might be in trouble again so my father turned around and said just sit back wait to see who approaches us and uh just sit on your hands and don't do nothing so we waited we waited you know a lot of guys got a lot of more guys other guys got arrested it was a long trial uh i just wrote a book about it um and uh the law came to us questioned us but uh anthony never gave us up even though he flipped anything with thunder he never gave up his crew as far as the little guys around them he never gave them up gave him above him some big boys or the guys who actually did some shooting with them or he was involved with that he couldn't walk away from a couldn't turn a blind eye to and about a year after that my father turned around and said that he was finished he was done he's retiring and he's going to flow with him i said okay what are we supposed to do he says you could stay here wonder the the the um we had um an adult video company at the time he said you could finish up with that and then uh when you want get your ass to florida and that's it he's not talking to nobody he's not doing nothing he's not obligated he's not able to get nobody because no one came no one came knocking and that's it he told me if somebody comes knocking don't answer the door and we wonder walking away and just get into other legitimate stuff and as one thing died we did we did we got something else more legitimate at the time well now you walked away from from the mafia you didn't tell on anybody uh you didn't rat on anybody you didn't put anyone in prison uh you know you got lucky that no major charges really hit your way no if we walked away from anthony and after that anthony rotunda pension 99 and when that three years there was you know we got you know we got it questioned and stuff like that and no one gave us up on things that could have been you know they could have gave you up on at the time then we just walked away uh the the whole uh family was distorted everybody ratted on each other there was no one really to come and knock on the door for a brooklyn crew they're all jersey guys you know we were a brooklyn crew in that family so nobody knew half them didn't know who the hell we were you know so they didn't really know what to do they didn't know who you were they didn't want no trouble they're running for the hills themselves so you wonder walking away it was that dysfunctional that it was that easy to walk away yeah and uh you said that the ricoh act is really what broke up the mafia the way it did oh definitely we go act as is you know you know they got smart the lord got smart they found something how to you know how to you know school you and and and after the rico everything changed after rico you know everybody's getting long-term you know uh long-term sentencing uh they were linking everybody together don't forget we used to have a cushion it was smart it was a structure there that you know the boss would keep themself insulated or somebody you know everybody would insulate themselves and it was you go chain of command so this wouldn't happen that you wouldn't be involved in something that you know that you have to be involved with that's why if you're not privy to things that uh that wasn't your business in this life you wouldn't know if a hit was going down you wouldn't know if something was going to if you're if you're not involved in it that's to keep people away from things so they can't rat on you or you know or protect themselves so but once rico came in and they like and they put everybody together you're [ __ ] that's it well that's it it's a whole new world they got smarter than you and we couldn't keep up with them uh you know so now it's just like out trying to outrun them but it's uh that was a that was definitely the uh downfall of organized crime that in surveillance and the cameras and and that would would that you're afraid to move out of all the guys you came up with how many are still alive as opposed to dead or in jail well in my day with joey gala's crew which is you know we were originally waiting and my father came up with there's only five people alive in that whole whole structure whole papachi i know five people so yeah everybody i know is gone you know uh people i know afterwards you know they're still around i don't know them well i mean you you interact with people i mean they don't make your friend though that you're not well but uh most of most of people i know are old-timers i never dealt with young people so most of people are are gone most of you are gone i got some friends from this you know uh that's a my age maybe a little year you're two one older one two younger but uh you know they're all trying to you know stay low low and and when i got into the uh magazine business who the hell wants to sit with me anyway nobody wants to send me no more you know so uh you really i don't know anybody really no more now well and you said you actually missed the life you know being a civilian is not as much fun oh no no 100 no fun but yeah we missed it you know me and my friends who sit around and that's walked away a couple guys walked away yeah we miss it uh is it can we do it again no more no we can't do it no more but do we miss it 110 percent we miss it anybody tells you no they're they're full of [ __ ] because it's in your blood it's in your blood uh who who's not gonna like making money having a hundred girlfriends dressing well uh sleeping all day you know the power of uh kicking someone up in their ass you know batting them in the head it feels good sometimes you know so you know uh i don't i'm not born again so to me no i miss it can i do it again no i can't do it now too old too sad i'm hurting but yeah i miss it yeah if i could blink myself back yeah yeah in a minute in a minute well that's how we're going to end it uh frank appreciate you sharing your story you know make sure everyone you know checks out your book the president street boys growing up mafia thank you hell of a book hell of a story uh you know you were right there in the middle of it all uh in the mix with all these important uh mafia figures that are still legendary uh to this day and you manage to walk away from it uh which is something that 99 people don't really get to do you know i walked away not being a rat not being informed never spoke to a cop in my life like you know i can you know my head up in the air you know it's fun but i just got to be careful i can't what i say that's it it's got to be careful you know i like to you know sometimes you want to hear you hear people talk you say he did this he did that like i said i wanted to do nothing you know i mean but it hurts you know that hurts but you have to be just careful people around you say but frankie didn't you that i didn't do nothing no i didn't do nothing so you know when you get that pass by being a rat or informant you know it's so easily you know uh you know to be uh talkative uh all right well frank appreciate you sharing your story man uh quite a you know quite an interesting account of the the new york underworld and you know when you fast forward 2020 when you have movies like the godfather uh goodfellas uh the irishman you know which most people have said was fiction but still uh has been very much romanticized uh in this in cinema uh these days no doubt about it it's great to actually hear the real stories behind what really happened yes it is i thank you for having me on absolutely until next time wish you all the best you got away thank you peace

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Id: v3lyTb6JGsQ

Length: 54min 12sec (3252 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 19 2021