John Pennisi on Becoming Made Man in Lucchese Mafia, Working w/ FBI Against Them (Full Interview)

all right here we go today we have john panisi former made man of the lucchese crime family welcome to vlad tv thanks for having me well you have a very interesting story this is our first time actually talking so i want to start uh in the very beginning so you grew up in ozone park um i grew up in both ozone park and howard beach and howard beach right and that's queens queens correct okay and what was that like in the 70s and 80s um it was it was a um the it was a heavily um entrenched by organized crime the whole neighborhood um there was social clubs on almost every other block uh you know i mean they were you know it was all over predominantly it was a gambino um family area but all the families were were there and all the families had social clubs in the neighborhood okay and your family wasn't actually involved in the mafia um not really no okay and you described growing up in a broken home correct okay explain that so at a young age of around six um my father decided to leave the marriage and you know and leave my mother and myself and i was the only child um and and that's it he left and i lived with my mother um up until i believed the age of nine and at that point um you know my mother was always working and trying to give me everything i had uh and we lived in an apartment and my father winded up buying a house in ozone park i lived with my mother in howard beach and i wind up going to live with him and now his new wife at the age of nine okay so as you're growing up and you know you describe the area of being very connected to the mafia you know primarily the gambino crime family at what point did you start to kind of get mixed up in that um at an early age you know because there was guys always around and um you know my my mother knew a lot of people my mother my mother came from eastern new york brooklyn and a lot of these guys also came from eastern new york brooklyn and then they moved on to either howard beach ozone park or long island and so i there was always guys around that you know we went to parties i had barbecue so there was always people like that around and as a young man you know young young boy not even a young man and so it was around me you know i was aware of it okay but when did you start getting mixed up in it yourself um as a teenager i i would say as probably 14 15 years old something like that okay and what'd you start doing in the beginning um at 14 years old i started um driving a truck for a um actually it was a little casey it was mixed with different families had a trucking company outside the airport on 150th street um and and basically what the company did was that if the airline lost your your luggage they would get this company and they would retrieve it on the next flight or whenever it did come in and we would deliver it to your house and basically they would ransack the luggage and take anything valuable out and then deliver it and i was driving a truck at 14 years old working for them so that's kind of was the first thing that i've ever did um it was a you know excited to be around these guys and you know so i was a young guy at 14. okay so you start with basically driving a truck for these mafia families and you know skimming the stuff out of the luggage does that start to get more serious and more crimes um no it it um it didn't my cousin um started staying around john jr which is john gotti jr and then brought me around them and then that's how we kind of started staying around the gambino family okay and did you know john gotti jr personally yes yes okay you guys you guys had a close relationship or just there so i mean we were friends and friendly and um we were around him which would equate to associated to him okay and was john senior locked up by this time he was not he was out okay so he was a teflon don at this point correct okay so how did people really think you know people who were associated with the mafia what did they think of john gotti senior being flashy and you know on the cover of newspapers and calling himself the you know well being coined the teflon don you know being untouchable in an organization that's supposed to be completely secretive correct um there's two answers there's an answer back at that time and then and then from what i from what i heard you know recently back at that time i i really never heard anything no one spoke don't forget he was out and about and no one would really speak like speak that way about him um maybe behind closed doors or whispered but not to us we were younger guys and we were associate associates um later on they you know obviously it wasn't a good thing it it it it you know a lot of people have blamed him for ruining um i don't believe that to be the case as far as ruining it i just think that he brought a lot of unnecessary attention to himself and and unfortunately everybody in that life but as far as personally ruining it i don't i don't believe that to be so okay and then in 1990 you're 20 years old and you get convicted for a manslaughter correct tell me about that situation um i really didn't want to talk about it you know because of the out of respect for the victim's family i could just say that it had nothing to do with organized crime a young man lost his life there was a obviously a very bad and tragic misunderstanding and you know i wind up going to trial on the case charged with murder and ultimately got convicted of manslaughter and you know was sent to prison okay so how do you feel as a 20 year old convicted of manslaughter you ultimately did 17 years but how many years were you sentenced to i was sentenced to eight years and four months to 25 years so that's a range of what you know how much time you could do okay so you're being told that you might stay in prison longer than you've been alive um i well basically uh vlad i i i was told that back then there was such a thing called work release right and kind of had the um the the democrats were in office at that time and you were able matter of fact it's it's uh it was mario cuomo back then and you were able to if you did your time and kind of your minimum two years before your minimum you were able to get a work release program so i really was told well you probably do six and change and you guys will get some work release um never came to fruition the repub republicans came in governor pataki he did away with all of that and i knew that we were at least at a minimum going to be staying for the whole eight years and four months i never expected to do the 17 years okay but you ended up doing 17 years i yes i did what do you think was the single worst experience you had while locked up um it was a big culture shock for me um going to prison i think the hardest thing for me was at the time i had a two-year-old son and it just destroyed me to have to leave him and you know and then thinking that my actions i never thought about him when i became obviously violent that night and reacted had i would have stopped and thought about him i i probably things would have turned out differently and and it's a big regret so that that was you know real hard on me i mean were there any violent incidents in prison that you were involved in um you know unfortunately fights i was involved in fights in prison and um but nothing to me personally where somebody violently did anything to myself no okay so then in 2007 you get out yes and you've been locked up for 17 years you're now 38 years old at the time right yep the whole world has changed while you're gone it was it almost i could describe it like it was they maybe a spaceship let me out and put me back on earth i was totally at a loss and i had spoken on our podcast about um a being handed by my children a cell phone and not knowing what to do with it not even how to turn it on or what how to make a call that's how you know there was no cell when i left and i went and entered the system there was beepers but it was you know the whole world changed for me yeah i mean there was no internet back then uh cell phones or maybe if you had the brick phone you were you were you know a millionaire at the time uh there was yeah there was no iphones there was really technology was completely different back then you're now coming into a whole world that you're completely unfamiliar with uh but i guess once you came out you know when you came in you were just a regular guy but once you came out you became an associate oh no not right away okay so explain yeah i had there was some things that took place within the gambino family and you know being in prison people would be surprised how news travels into us you know from visits on phone calls and whatnot or other people you know hearing things and bringing it back and um one was that there was a rumor um about john junior himself um having a prophet session with the government and there was some series of things that i heard so i made a decision and and said to myself you know what i'm gonna come home and i'm gonna try to just go to work and stay away and just kind of live my life i'd done too much time and um you know trying to spend time with my i now had two two children um from conjugal visits so i had an another another child a daughter i was married and um i just was gonna try to come home and you know just live a normal life and i i wind up doing that for like probably about five years i was also on parole um and i kind of stood away i got i received messages from people around that family trying to reach out for me to come and see them and i ignored them i never kind of stood away and you could do that i i stood away i had no real obligation and you know i stood away for about five years okay and then what happened five years later um a guy i was a wayward and knew by the name of anthony guzzo um reached out to me and kind of like pulled me back into that kind of scene you know going out to restaurants and you know unfortunately i i went and we kind of got into a situation one night with some associates from the colombo family and that kind of dragged me into being back into that life again okay a violent situation another fight yep okay and then eventually you became a made man for the little kz crime family uh correct okay and that's a pretty big deal in that life it's a very big deal in that life was that something you wanted to do um i would probably have to say yes obviously i did it um you know at that at that point in my life it was considered to be one of the highest honors if you you know in in if you were involved in the street it was you know that's what it meant to me back then okay and the the casey crime family has a very interesting history yes um it's one of the five families uh you know from new york city i guess it originated back in the 1920s with uh gaetano raina was uh was the first boss well i think uh i believe it's tommy lucasy i i'm not 100 sure but i could be yeah i mean according according to what what i found um gaetano raina and i may be messing up his name so i apologize to whoever gets offended at this uh he was originally the boss he got murdered in 1930 it was taken over by tommy gagliano uh which you know he was reigning until he died in 51. um you know later on the next boss was tommy lucasy who served as the underboss for 20 years uh gagliano um and i guess lucasie teamed up with carlo gambino true yeah um you know they became a big powerhouse uh luchazi died in 1967. um and then i guess carmine tremunti took over he was arrested in 73 and then anthony corrallo twenty took over yes so what you were just speaking about is pre tommy lucasy and you know and then when they formed what is now known as the five families of you know new york cousin austria it now becomes the lukaze family after tom tommy lucasy so yeah you were talking pre lucasy really but that's the history behind it you're correct i don't i didn't know too much about prior to him but i you know i know a little bit and then after that you have uh tony ducks which was was the uh the boss right because i mean originally casey was a was a peaceful family but then when uh when victor musso correct took over it turned into a bloodbath correct i guess there was a famous there was a windows case in 86 uh where it was just a bunch of murders started happening i guess caso was rumored to have killed between 30 and 40 people and ordered over 100 murders that's definitely believable yep casa was sentenced to 455 years in prison uh amuso was sends was sentenced to life in prison correct uh one of the underbosses um well the acting boss alphonse de arco became the first boss to actually testify against the mob correct and then the entire luchazi family got arrested after that yes and i guess although uh victor amuso got life in prison he was still considered the boss of the family and to present that yes to present day so you walk into this situation with amuso being the boss from prison correct and even though primarily primarily luchezi was a brooklyn crew they set up shop in staten island um no it was the speaking of the brooklyn faction of the family yeah yes they they were we were based out of staten island but considered the brooklyn faction yep and that's where you come in you were basically in staten island i i was part of the brooklyn faction okay now you actually go through the whole ceremony of getting sworn in as a made man correct talk about the you know that particular ceremony um we were brought to uh a house in staten island um prior to that we had jumped on the local expressway there and we jumped on and jumped off and got back on exits just in you know in the event that any lauren fossum was telling us because you know you don't want to bring law enforcement to this kind of ceremony because you have the administration there um and we get to the house and there was three of us that day there was myself um anthony guzzo who i mentioned and a guy named patty i don't really remember patty's name and they brought us down into a basement and you know sometimes maybe it's another room in our case it was a basement and they had three chairs set up and one by one they called us up into the into the house actually to the dining room to the dining room table and um at that table was part of our administration and captains in the family and soldiers in the family sitting around that table and um the acting boss maddie madonna was there the concert joe dinapoli was there the underboss stevie cree was not you know um sometimes maybe only one member of the administration could be could be present but in this case there was two um and it's a whole it's a very very serious ceremony on the table or um there's a is a gun and a knife um a picture of a saint an ashtray a lighter there was a diabetic needle or pin or whatever you would call it and you know they asked you a series of questions one being you know do you know why you're here which you know at that point we obviously knew why we were there but everyone is supposed to answer no that you do not know why you were there and um you know like i said there was a series of questions um you know you're being considered of being a member of the family and if called upon would you kill for this family and there's a whole series of questions that anyone who described this before probably you know said the same thing over and over it doesn't change too much um and then your finger is obviously pricked and blood is dropped on a saint which is then burned then you have to repeat things and and at that point you you you are a member of that family and you would you know not all of the rules are explained but the more serious ones are um you know not putting your hands on another member not going with somebody's wife a girl another member and things like that and then you know everybody would lock arms together and it's kind of symbolic to um to signify that you are not one you are as one as as one family you know you are all one and supposedly you know it's supposed to be a brotherhood and these are all brothers now and then at that point you are formally introduced to everybody in that room and those are the first introductions that are made you know and it's usually you have to have a third party but at that moment somebody has to do some kind of an introduction and um it was the constitution introduced me to the acting boss and then they started you know with the people that were there and i was introduced to everybody and you know that's it you're uh there's no you know you should know what you need to do at that point you know after those initial kind of rules so now you're a made man in the locaisy mafia correct now being in that position you're a soldier you're not a captain you're not a boss so you have to stop start earning money and kicking money up right i mean you should yes okay so how do you start making money at that point um before that i got a little bit involved in the sports business and um and i continued it i didn't i wound up getting out of it it wasn't that big um but i did get out of it and went into loan shocking where you would obviously put money out on the street for a certain amount of points and start making money that way and then there's the occasional what would be called a score and um it would be mostly us collecting unpaid debts from businesses or one business owner another business mostly in the construction industry and you would make money that way so you know you start you you could branch out and start doing basically anything you want to make money but that's what i kind of stuck to that was how i made money wasn't a lot of money but you know i survived well with this being the mafia it's obviously a very you know violent organization correct at times at times were any hits being done during the time that you were part of the organization there was not um they wind up they wind up there was one but i mean um as far as being in the know on that no there was there was one that that took place so you're now a maid man in the lucchese crime family you're doing what you have to do and then in 2017 there's a massive lucchese bust correct which included certain people from staten island and as well as madonna who was 81 years old and castalucci who was 57 years old now these are guys that you were associated with correct yes so when this huge bust came down what did you think um you know it happens in this life you know it's it's expected i felt bad for everybody you know it was it was these were personal friends of mine at that time you know you don't want to see guys that you know you're friends with and you're you're a part of uh as we would say bagata family you know get get locked up well about a year later there are some series of events that happened and i guess you felt like some of the other lucy guys thought that you were a snitch it wasn't a year later it was not not long after that um that they there was like a series of events that took place um and it was very obvious at one point that something was terribly wrong and you felt that these guys were about to kill you um i had come upon um guys laying on me at my house yeah so a couple of guys were parked in front of your house uh down the block and you felt that that was gonna be a hit um not necessarily a hit at that point because the first um thing that will take place is they start trying to get your routine down so it's it's a process in itself but that is the first process is that people are going to lay on you and start getting your your routine down they want to see what your routine is well and then in october of 2018 you walked into an fbi office and you offered to cooperate correct was there a certain thing that happened before you decided to make that jump because that's a pretty big decision it's a it's a it's a humongous decision yeah um there was it's it's it's a little drawn out but there was a series of events that took place it was very obvious that um someone at that time i didn't know who and i didn't understand what was going on but there was what we call in the street a a wire in this case it happened to be a false wire meaning that there was a label put on myself and it was over that case that you just spoke about um i was even questioned by one of the captains the older captain in the family who was out on bail on that case uh about it and i didn't know any anything more than what i heard either on the street or what i heard and read in the newspaper or heard on the news about that or that particular arrest and um you know so that it was obvious at at some point to me i knew something was wrong well so then you walked into that fbi office and you said you know i'm john penici i'm part of the casey crime family as a maid man and i am willing to cooperate with you well no i i it was probably one of the hardest decisions that i had to make um you know and i had tried to when all of this took place i have i tried to just pick up and leave new york city which i did i went to savannah georgia um unfortunately because of my record i was unable to get work so i only stood there about two months and at this time um the family was reaching out to me you know on my cell phone and trying to text me trying to call me i was just ignoring everybody i didn't want to be bothered anymore i just felt that they had you know crossed the line by um breaking every rule you could think of and especially labeling me falsely um i could tell you as i'm sitting here right now that if what they were saying was true the way i believed in kazunostra i belong in the street with bullets in my head because that's the way that life is and i lived i lived by those rules that was not the case and i did not run to the fbi for eight to nine months i just tried to go on my own even though there's no walking away i even sent the message to the acting boss about this basically saying i'm done i know there's no walking away but i'm done and i don't want to talk about it i don't want to talk to nobody i don't want to sit down with nobody because after you send somebody to my house that's a wrap for me um and i wished everybody the best of luck i hope you never see the inside of a prison and i'm going my way you go your way best of luck to you and you know it that's not the way it you know not the way um it's not the way they wanted it they wanted me to come back in reason being is after so much time goes by one of the things that defendants are able to acquire from their lawyers are discovery material and i've said it before and guess whose name was not on the discovery material my name so they knew i had nothing to do with that case there was nothing that i did i was not a cooperator i was not an undercover informant i didn't give any information there was a false wire put on me and possibly they were trying to clear that up i received messages that they didn't want me to talk there was a misunderstand it was stated there was a huge mistake was making me you know but i was done at that point well you then start cooperating with the fbi yes now on march 27 2018 there was an operation called the vig is up and uh lucasie uh soldier dominic capelli and nine other associates were arrested for this did you have something to do with that arrest in terms of information you gave i did not okay and you know but but this was a big a big arrest um the attorney general said it was the biggest loan sharking case that they had ever investigated uh 47 people were victims of this i guess that there was loan rates of 200 percent per year uh you know and also i guess there was uh an illegal book making operation that was making about 1.5 million uh there was another arrest that happened in april where anthony grotto and a guy named fat larry were arrested for forcing a doctor to prescribe 230 000 oxy pills that one i heard of okay and i guess that uh anthony grado had one of his associates stabbed the doctor in order to uh to get these pills um anthony grado at the time is what we call on the shelf which means his membership was taken from him and he was not an active member of the family because of the drugs uh-huh okay but this is all being tied into the lucchese cases go well of course yeah that's you know that's what they do yeah i mean grady ended up getting uh 12 years in prison for that uh then october 2018 uh vincent zito ended up getting murdered in his house yes uh this was an associate of the casey's as well um i read that i didn't know him okay so you didn't know this guy no okay but then in may of 2019 that's when you actually testified in the trial against uh eugene castell i don't know the date but they did bring me in yes okay and you actually talked about the current leadership of the lucasy in the whole structure destruction correct you actually got on the stand sure how did it feel to be a made man you take this oath saying you'll never do this you know that the penalty for this is death and now you're publicly getting on the stand and breaking everything that you signed up for well the people that you were speaking about that put these rules into place and it was well before my time um you know followed the rules the the present day of the guys that put the false wire on me broke the rules so you're talking about one rule right where you're not supposed to speak right about this organization yet the organization and its members broke all the other rules so um you know i would like to ask them how they felt i felt that they should have just let me walk away it was a mistake and it was a big mistake on their part for myself you know how did i feel going there it's not a great feeling it wasn't a a feeling of revenge it's a sickening feeling to me having to go through that right because you're having to face the guys that you once called brother and they called me brother yes yeah and these are the same brothers that put a false rumor on me that could have got me killed well one of the things that you testified about was that that the boss of lucasies vic musso who was doing life in prison sent a letter to the underboss stephen crea that said that a brooklyn-based mobster michael big mike desantis would take over his acting boss replacing matthew madonna and what she would also said was that if he refused to step aside there was a hit that was planned against the captain and a bunch of other members uh in the bronx um not exactly that's not not the exact way that it went down what had happened was we had a void in the administration because of arrest so there was positions that were going to be empty and we knew those positions were going to be filled by members of the bronx the lucasies were a brooklyn family that was now became a bronx family um as far as the administration of the family went and you know a bunch of us got together and it was decided that the brooklyn faction and guys that used to belong to the brooklyn faction prior to me years ago we're gonna make a move to take over the family um a letter was eventually sent to vic had it being code i didn't see the letter and an approval was sent back of this there was no mention of a hit list that's inaccurate i'd seen and read things where they said there was a hit list that's inaccurate where that comes from was conversations amongst each other with us and basically saying we hope it goes peacefully in the event that it doesn't we were prepared to deal with the guys from the bronx okay so you you testified in that case and i guess you actually testified in three major trials correct how did it feel to keep getting up on that stand over and over again and did you really have a choice in that matter or was it part of your cooperation with the fbi well it's probably both the the the part of your choice at that point unfortunately you have no choice you can't say i don't want to go it's just part of the agreement that you're making and if they tell you you're going to appear at the next hundred trials you have no choice so you don't have a choice would i choose not to go absolutely you know it's just it's not a great feeling at all um i had recently spoke um on our podcast the nba and the bunt we did a series of them i recently spoke about watching a netflix show about tommaso bushketa called our godfather mostly by his children and his wife and before i had to go to that big trial because i felt sick i can't explain it you know just it's a sickening feeling and he was a guy who went where they made a special courtroom where i think there was over four five hundred defendants and he had to go and testify and um i watched that and after that not that it made it any easier for me it's just i had to go and get through it but watching that that was a lot i guess that was a lot more that he had to deal with than myself and um you know you have no choice i just had to go so you testify at these these three trials correct and ultimately in all three of those trials were the defendants found guilty correct how many years did all the guys get in these trials um i believe one i believe the first guy which was bubsy was off at eight months and he declined it um i don't i don't know the exact amount of time but it was a few years not many that he that he wind up getting sentenced to in the second trial it was again a small amount maybe i don't know two or three years something like that and then the last trial was was a big trial and they everybody got life on that trial how do you feel being involved in a trial that got a bunch of people that you were very close to life in prison it's not a good feeling um these are these for any for any of for i could tell you that someone even getting a day in prison and and you're a part of that you know regardless of what they've done to me you know it's it's not a good feeling because i know that feeling myself i was there i know what it is i know what it is to be without your family and to be locked up and subjected to not the the greatest treatment um what i do have to say is we all pick our lives and you know you know you have to take responsibility for what you do in this life you know and you know it's unfortunate but it is part of the life death and prison is part of cause an austria 100 and um no it was not a good feeling and it never will be a good feeling and it was never a feeling of satisfaction or revenge like i say it's it's not a good feeling at all you know i don't want to see a person spend one one hour in jail well during this whole time you had fbi protection correct up you mean once i walked in obviously yes now once these guys got word that you're testifying against them your life is now in danger correct was there any hits on you that you knew about none that i know of well ultimately once the trials were over and were you facing any prison time yourself or was it you since you weren't under investigation whatever you were telling them i guess it was like a proffer agreement where it can't be used against you right well that's not true um when i walked in i had no cases no jail time obviously i was out on the street i had no secret indictments i wasn't under any investigation they knew the agents knew who i was but had nothing on me as you start speaking with them if you mention crimes that you were involved in you will be charged and i was ultimately charged with every crime that we spoke about um i was try i caught and basically even the uh the assistant u.s attorney had told the judge he basically gave himself all these charges and um i was ultimately charged with what everything that i spoke about okay and what were all those charges um it was all bunched together under a rico so that's i was charged with rico so you were charged with rico correct but were you convicted of any rico charges or had to go to trial or i i pled guilty to it i pled guilty to the indictment so pleading guilty to the indictment but you had all this cooperation to go along with it correct were you given any penalty um i was sentenced um what happens is that if you hold up to your agreement right and part of that is if we call you you must go to trial and and everything else and you got to keep your nose clean you can't get in trouble you could receive what's called the 5k letter and that comes from the us attorney's office and in that letter is a breakdown of what you did and you know going with trials you went to and what the ultimate verdicts were in that trial and whatnot and at that point it's a judge's decision it's not you know no one's ever told me hey you know we're going to charge you with these things and you're going to walk ever not a lawyer because i had a lawyer and not an fbi agent not a u.s attorney nobody it's up to the judge at that point so i i did get sentenced and i did go before the judge and you know we get a chance to speak uh my lawyer and myself and then the u.s attorney you know the assistant u.s attorney gets a chance to speak and his letter is ultimately before that judge and the judge reads it and they they make a determination based on all of the factors and and one of the biggest things like my lawyer told me that i had gone from me he said look you know out of the 99.9 cooperators um they all were facing time they were all in prison they were all trying to get out of something whereas yourself you had nothing there was no there was nothing on you so you basically gave yourself these charges by was i guilty of the charges absolutely but the fbi and the u.s attorney admitted to the judge without me speaking about that they didn't know about these charges against me they didn't know they didn't have me and you know that that's a big big factor in the judge's decision and ultimately he sentenced me to five years supervised release and that was my sense so it's like five years of parole got it and what year was that sentencing recently this year okay so you just got sentenced i just got sentenced at the point you got sentenced did the fbi protection stop it did not so you still are protected by the fbi correct how extensive is this protection like are they here with you today i can't say you can't say i can't say was there ever a point that you felt like your life was in danger since then um i mean at at you know a lot has went on and i think that every day your life should you should look at it that every day your life's in danger um the difference between myself and a lot of other people um i'm very aware of my surroundings i'm very very careful and the guys in the street know that about me i was i was a very careful guy they uh use the term paranoid but paranoia saves lives well if you talk to the other guys the guys that you testified against yes they would call you a rat absolutely do you consider yourself a rat absolutely not why is that so so i could explain it like this the the in the street we always looked at what we would call a rat a guy gets pinched or arrested with a group of his friends and he don't he decides you don't want to go to prison and he starts speaking right or a guy goes to trial gets convicted and he decides i don't want to do my time and he turns and he starts giving information or someone just gets caught on the street and he starts giving information in my case and and in my situation which is unique in itself um my family turned on me for no reason they false i was falsely accused of being a rat kind of to save somebody that was doing wrong was breaking our rules so there was rules broken so to cover that up they wanted to eliminate me what's the best what's the best way to do that and strategically i take my hat off to them because it was a smart move let's call him a rat and it wasn't true um i could say it i could sum it up to you like this we have rules in place for a reason and they cannot be broken right the people that went away and my family that i would belong to we were supposed to be brothers have broken all our rules right when society comes up with a name for them i'll be glad to take that name whatever they call them for breaking the rules i'll they could call me but i will not call myself a rat because i did break one of the rules i tried to stay away i did not run to the government for eight months but they continue continuously hunted me down because now it became a point where they felt well you're being disrespectful we're calling for you to come in and you're not coming in in my defense how could i trust these people anymore i couldn't trust them so i wouldn't come in but no the answer is i do not call myself or consider myself a rat well i remember yes not a rat well i recently interviewed larry mazza who was a hitman for the columbo mafia correct and he said i was the biggest rat ever to my family when i joined the mafia do you understand what he means by that and do you agree with your situation being similar or no can you repeat that what he said larry mazza said i was the biggest rat ever to my family when i joined the mafia when he joined does he meet his personal family his actual family his wife his kids meaning that when he joined the mafia he put his own family in a horrible situation correct and that's what he feels the worst about not the fact that he had to testify against other mafia i could say it in a different way than him what i feel looking back from this point and where i am now in my life and i look back at what took place and the decisions that i made it was an embarrassment by joining it was an embarrassment for myself and it was an embarrassment to my family so i understand what he means by that i wouldn't use the term rat but he would what larry mazza is saying is he betrayed his personal family by joining that family and and i agree with that 100 percent so ultimately you regret joining the mafia absolutely today and today as we sit here absolutely because what i thought was was not yeah yeah well you know we interview a lot of guys that were on the criminal side of whether it's the mafia or the crips or the bloods or the latin kings or just drunk drug kingpins and ultimately everybody regrets it uh everybody ends up ultimately taking a loss that was more than whatever they gained while things were great uh almost all of them did a lot of prison time you did 17 years although was a mafia related it was it was crime related correct uh you know when they get out there's no money left uh yes there's some respect and so forth but it's not enough to make up for whatever they lost they didn't get to see their kids grow up like you didn't uh they have to look over their shoulder if they cooperated like like you ultimately have to and you know the purpose of doing these types of interviews is to dissuade people from getting into a life like this well i could tell you and any of your listeners that you know um personally when you're in that life you cannot see clearly and i always use the fishbowl uh you know analogy because you're inside of the fishbowl but when you are out of that life or removed for that life from that life and now you're looking in back on it or into the fishbowl you see things that you did not see back then and and that's where to me the embarrassment comes from you know when i was in a life i was not embarrassed i i you know i was just going about you know being a member of the family i seen a lot of things i disagreed with i did see that you know i was not blind and you know but now i'm in a different place in my life and it's an embarrassment to me the way even myself have acted and then as a as a whole you know i was part of something that you know is not a positive well uh john panisi i appreciate you coming in and telling the story what you had to do was a very hard decision and it's a decision that you have to live with for the rest of your life as well as your family has to live with that decision but clearly you came into that decision with both eyes open and you understand the consequences of it and you also understand the advantages that you had to do in order to you know keep yourself and your family alive during that time so however someone wants to look at you or judge you ultimately you're the only person who has to live with that correct they don't and it sounds like you're okay with your decisions i am well i appreciate you coming in and uh best of luck to you and your family thank you and thank you for having me and pleasure meeting absolutely until next time take care take care

Channel: djvlad

Views: 186,995

Rating: 4.7434402 out of 5

Keywords: VladTV, DJ Vlad, Interview, Hip-Hop, Rap, News, Gossip, Rumors, Drama

Id: CWgUlsOz-F4

Length: 56min 26sec (3386 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 13 2021