Louis Ferrante on Going From Gambino Mafia to Bestselling Author w/ "Mob Rules" (Full Interview)

all right here we go today we have Louis fante former associate of the gambino crime family who turned his life around after doing eight and a half years in prison became an author and the host of the TV show gangsters code on Discovery Channel welcome to Vlad TV thank you Vlad great to be here okay so your first time here let's start on the very beginning so you're born and raised in Queens I am yeah I grew up uh I grew up in Queens my whole life and didn't live anywhere else until the FBI took me away uh and that's when I started to see the rest of the country for the first time you know better look at it other than that I did leave the the state obviously for Vacations or to to robbert Armed car uh the FBI once arrested me for uh for planning an armed car heist in California they had surveillance photos of me uh right before the heist but they swooped in on us they grabbed us before then but a lot of times we left the State just for that and the other time I left the state was when I went to prison and the FEDS bought me around to different states okay now your family was not Mafia related or crime related in any way right not Mafia related as far as crime my mother's side uh my uncle was uh my uncle went away for hijacking when he when he was younger when I was a little kid I used to visit him and sing sing I remember sitting in the visiting room and sing sing and I my feet didn't even touch the floor uh that's how young I used to be you know how how young I was when we go visit him uh so yeah I grew up visiting my uncle in prison he was a hijacker my grandfather took numbers my grandfather was a war hero uh eight bronze Stars Asiatic Pacific during World War II but he came home after the war he got into Union uh he drove heavy machinery during the day and he hung out in the bar and took numbers at night so my mother's side was a little crooked but nobody was nobody was really in the mafia no nobody okay now you personally as a teenager you start started with stealing cars I did yeah I did it was the it was the easiest thing to do I mean it started out as just Joy rides we'd steal a car have a joy ride have some fun do some donuts ditch the car and go home and eventually we had a a friend of mine's Uncle owned a body shop he bought parts from us we started selling to another body shop and then another body shop and before you know it we were stripping cars left and right selling the parts to different body shops and we had our own Chop Shop uh at one point we would just um we'd leave a graveyard in the Woods by my house uh and every once in a while Auto crime or somebody would come in there and drag the drag the body of the skeletons out and we'd start all over and eventually that we had an older guy who rented us a warehouse and we did The Chop Shop under a roof then for a little while and until that got raided then we open up another one and uh how I got into hijacking from there was one of the body shops told me how much the uh the tool boxes were worth in his shop he had these massive massive tool boxes Snap-on Tools ma go tools and he told me the boxes go for thousands of dollars the tools go for hundreds each tool and the truck probably got over $100,000 worth of stuff in it and that was the first time I hijacked a truck and then from there I started hijacking trucks and and and so from the cars from stealing cars eventually became a hijacker okay now your first hijacking there was someone in the car at the time right yeah we always took the guy um you know some I regret today but at the time yeah we put a gun to somebody um I did it myself most of the time put a gun to the guy tell them listen you know we don't want we just want your truck we have no problem with you we want you to be home with your wife your kids or whatever you know this afternoon we're not looking to hurt you we just want your truck and uh we'd usually ask the guy too is there anything in the truck that you need you know and sometimes they'd say yeah give me the pictures of my family please put them in my back pocket or my wallets in the glove compartment or my information in the glove compartment or I need the Manifest sheet so I could deal with the insurance company later and people would talk to us once they knew that we weren't we didn't want to hurt them they would talk to us and we try to help the guy out as much as possible and then uh and then put him somewhere where he'd be found right away once again I regret that today but it is what it is that's what we did well I mean there's a big difference between stealing a car that nobody's in to actually doing an armed robbery and then a kidnapping on top of that I mean in certain places that's life in prison yeah yeah and and uh yeah hey look it's probably uh probably rightly so the way I look at the law today I wouldn't I wouldn't justify that I wouldn't condone it I think it's disgusting I think if somebody did get caught doing that they should go away for a long time and I did go away for a long time I did face the rest of my life in prison uh by the grace of God and a lot of luck and a lot of lawyers and a lot of money towards lawyers I got out of prison a lot earlier and a lot of hard work I studied law and reversed one of my own cases es but I did face life in prison and uh I believe that was justified when I did when I first got locked up I didn't think so I thought it was wrong I thought I was a criminal nobody should has the right to tell me what I can and can't do but as I started to think and as I matured in prison I did realize that everything I did was wrong and I was where I belonged in prison in a Maximum Security Prison with with high stone walls and gun towers and rifles pointed at me and inmates killing each other and all the rest of it I did deserve I realized that okay now during this time that you were doing carjackings I mean did anyone ever resist did anyone try to fight back or or anything of that sort for the most part um sort of had a I sort of had like a like a strategy where if you if you're going to hurt somebody you want to bring a small gun and you know because you just want to get in and out and get away with it but if you if you sticking somebody up you bring the biggest gun you can and you and you make the guy as scared as possible in a quick you know in a quick moment so that you could you could control the guy uh but we did have one incident where somebody did come at us and we were able to subdue the guy without hurting him thank God once again uh you know I look back at my life and there was a lot of close calls and I not only you know I'm thankful obviously that me or none of my C- defendants that we weren't killed but more so that nobody innocent was killed um it's some that's a piece of guilt I would have had to live with the rest of my life and I don't know if I was up to it cuz I I'm guil I feel guilty enough just having done it let alone if I was if I would have had to kill somebody by accident or something so I thank God no that didn't happen but we did have one incident where somebody came at us and we subdued the guy but for the most part people were just people were complacent you if you if you got in there and you did it right and you let the person know too you did not want to hurt them that's the first thing we would do after we grab somebody um not something I'm proud of I could talk about it today it's been a long time but I I sat in a prison cell for years wishing that the cinder block ceiling would just fall on my head that's how much guilt I had at one point um and then at some point I said to myself I'm either going to kill myself or wish I'm dead for the rest of my life or do something to change myself and maybe you know move on uh and that's what I've done and uh you know I put time into helping people when I can when the opportunity arises I'm always out to do that uh I promoted literacy visited prisons throughout the United Kingdom trying to help people for free was never paid I've tried to do it in my own country the United States unfortunately um my own country thinks they know everything about prison and doesn't want to hear from an ex-convict to their own uh to their own um detriment okay now you have a crew and you guys are out stealing cars now at one point you actually get the you know the attention of the gambino crime family MH talk about how that happens yeah so while I was stealing cuse no I I mean I was probably dealing with guys in the body shops who were connected but I didn't really get the attention of the mob until I was hijacking trucks uh when I'm hijacking trucks I'm taking down trucks worth over a 100 Grand to pop uh sometimes bigger we also did safes we did vaults if you came to me with a tip and you said you know there's a payroll on Friday at this particular company we went in there and we grabbed it um so we were doing a lot of stuff like that and the the mafia works especially in New York but I'm sure across the whole country the mafia works in such a way that if you if let's say for example if you're in Manhattan and you open up a bagel store or a cell phone store how long you think you could operate without the IRS asking you hey don't you pay your taxes what are you doing here you know you just can't go on and on and on without paying taxes well the mafia is the underworld's government's the underworld government's IRS you know they want to know make sure that if you're taking down heists and you're hijacking trucks you're paying somebody uh and so you know they're going to come looking for you like the IRS would look for you if you own the bagel store or the cell phone store so it's pretty much the same thing and when they look for you it's something that benefits you as well because you want to be in with the big you know the big Corporation you're no longer a small Cafe you now you're with you know now you you're with Starbucks and now you can make a lot more money because there's a lot more traffic in Starbucks by the same token the mafia then could give you a lot more tips they could help you if there's a beef on the street you make more money you could put your money on the street you could loan shock you could put your money back on the street for points you know there's so many things things and opportunities and it's also an ego thing when I was a kid um you're in with the mob I mean it doesn't get bigger than that you know you're a part of the mob the other thing too was though the mob didn't make me tough if I had a problem with somebody I still took care of it myself I never went and cried to somebody and said oh I had a beef with this guy can you help me out I took care of it usually usually and then I was called to the carpet on it if I if I overreacted you know somebody would call me in and say Louie what' you do with this guy here and I said well this is what happen and they said well take it easy calm down because the mafia doesn't want everybody causing problems all over the street so I learned the hard way that you know peace is important and you shouldn't be going around you know knocking heads every time you know you feel like you're offended or something so I learned a lot also too but the point I was making was I didn't run to the Mob the mob mob never made me tough I was ready to go out at any time any place anywhere drop of a dime um that's just that was what my nature was okay so I just want to set a little bit of the backstory of what's happening with the gambinos so in 1995 uh Paul Castellano is boss and John Gotti ends up killing him you know with Sammy the bull who was involved in it I've interviewed Sammy we talked about this whole situation um and then in 198 s uh Gotti gets charged for a whole bunch of crimes but he gets acquitted this is where the whole Teflon Dawn uh situation you know the name starts to arise now at the point where the gambinos start to kind of cozy up to you when do you meet John Gotti well what happened was um so Gotti took over when I was a kid I was still robbing cars and starting to hijack trucks maybe when Gotti thoughts taking over uh at some point or another I met somebody who was in that family in John's family uh and I ended up basically uh you know slowly but surely I was meaning I should say first of all I should say I was meeting a lot of guys on the street who all wanted to put a claim on me because I was making money you know each family puts a claim on somebody but you have to have you have to want to be with that family too so I was meeting older guys some of them might have been full of [ __ ] some of them might have been real some of them I like some of them I didn't and at some point or another uh I did meet a couple of guys that brought me around the neighborhood and I ended up uh for the better part of six or seven years my telephone toll records went back and forth to Peter Gotti's house Peter Gotti Being John Gotti's oldest brother who was also a captain in the family and eventually became the boss of the family for a little while um so I was in and out of his house for the better part of six or seven years every day I became very close with Pete's son uh Peter um and through Peter and Pete I met probably most of the guys uh I became very close with Joe butcher's stepson Joe Butch Caro he was a big cappo in Little Italy uh Jackie knows his stepson Jackie knows the moo um there was a few guys that I became very close with and they became my dear friends uh and then I also had my crew separate and aside from the mob guys I had my crew from my own neighborhood in Flushing Queens these were the guys I grew up with those were the guys we robbed with me and my friends the those are the guys when the FBI eventually closed in on me they said I headed up a crew of armed robbers within the gambino crime family those guys were my crew the guys I grew up with the guys I could trust and count on with my life in a hot second you know they they they would they would give their life or take a life because that's the way we thought back then you know for each other now weren't you told to stay away from Sammy the bull yeah it's an interesting story I was at I was at a vacation uh a horse ranch with Joe Butch Caro Peter Gotti and Joe butcher's stepson uh Joey Boy great guy uh and I remember Sammy had just become either the under boss or the consulier and I was just sitting at a picnic table at this horse ranch and I said to Joe Butch I said uh how's Sammy and Joe Butch turned around and he gave me a look and he he GL he gazed at he glared at me and I took I took the look as stay away from Sammy but I didn't I didn't understand it to be Sammy was a rat that was the furthest thing from my mind what I did understand it to be was Sammy might be a little treacherous watch just steep with him and I did understand as I went forward and Samy became more and more of a prominent guy in our world you know because before that he was just a guy in Brooklyn you know then they take over the family Sammy eventually becomes a cppo then the celier then the under boss it all happened with lightning speed obviously a mistake now that that was made to to promote him that quickly no one should have fast-tracked him but whatever the case was it happened fast so now I'm learning more and more about him and I'm heing he clipped this one who was a friend of his he clipped the other one who was friend of his he was very treacherous so I figured that was what the Gaze that Joe Butch gave me was about years later while I'm researching for my book that I just came out with borata the borata trilogy which is a history of the American Mafia beginning in sicy and up and through my own time um I learned that Joe Butch had inside information that Sammy was already bad that Sammy was a rat and he had approached John about that and told John Gotti hey sami's a rat and John decided to dismiss Joe butcher's warning and I I cover this thoroughly in my book um in volume three of the borata trilogy which isn't out yet volume one is coming out now uh but I did cover it thoroughly and I got some inside information in there from people I spoke with who were involved who were privy who were in The know uh when that all took place and why John dismissed it why John didn't want to hear it why John didn't move on it why John didn't clip Sammy which he should have Joe Butch never lied if Joe Butch had information it was coming from a good source I'm not sure why in the beginning but I did learn why John dismissed it eventually but he shouldn't have so yeah so that's sort of my experience um first time I mentioned Sammy I knew to stay away from him uh and that was basically how how you know I thought it was because he was treacherous I didn't know that Joe Butch knew already that he he was a rat and I don't know what he ratted on by the way back then that Joe Butch had information about but Joe Butch wasn't known to give false information Joe Butch went away went to prison eventually for having inside people giving him verified information so if Joe Butch had verified information then and it's proven in a court of law that he had all information that was good why was his information about Sammy bad doesn't make sense so there is something that Joe Butch knew that he told John about and John decided to to to disregard to his own detriment and the detriment of the entire Gambino family well right cuz in 1990 the FBI raids uh Gotti's ravenite social club uh Gotti is charged with five murders mhm and a year later 1991 Sammy the bull cooperates mhm he admits to 19 murders and he ties John Gotti to four out of the five murders that he's charged with by 1992 Gotti gets sentenced to life without parole now did you have a relationship with John Gotti during this time I did not have a close relationship with Jon because he was the boss I mean you see Jon on the you see JN in front of the Bergen you see John you know I didn't go to the ravenite uh a lot if I ever went there I was passing by uh so you'd see John in front of the Bergen most of the time I went to the side club which was John Gotti Jr's club uh who I you know obviously knew um but I was close with Pete John you know Pete was John's oldest brother I reported to Pete if I had an issue or beef on the street I went to Pete Pete took care of it for me uh you know Pete was my uh you know my Goomba so basically uh that's who you deal with uh you know and I dealt with other people on the stre too but John was removed John was the boss I mean John's you know Top Dog even if you're a cappo you're not just going to go hey John I got you know I want to see you today you know you got to make an appointment you got to go see the boss you know when it come you know he sends for you he calls you in so it's a little bit different um you know it's just you know I was down here John was at the very top and I'm doing my own thing I'm robbing army cars I don't know if John wants a guy who's you know robbed an army car around you know yesterday hanging out next to him today yeah I don't know if that would have been the best look either well didn't you have a relationship with chin jigante yeah I this an interesting relationship so I became very close with Chin's family uh Chin's Mo uh Chin's wife Olympia he had two wives both named Olympia but the first wife the real law wife Legal Wife Olympia was was a dear friend of mine I have a picture of me and her on my website actually Al also have a picture of me and petti on my website uh and Ronnie G Alonzo who was a dear friend of mine um but there's a picture of me in Olympia Gigante on on uh on my website Olympia wanted to see me when I came home from jail and before I went to jail I was very close with her and her daughter Rita um I love them to this day obviously uh Olympia's passed away uh she's moved on to hopefully a better world better you know more peace but Reed is still around but um the gigantis I practically lived in their house went there for weekends um now chin lived with his mother in the village just to be clear chin lived with his mother in grenage village Village uh I think hon Street he lived in an old shabby apartment with his mother uh and now Chin's family his first family lived in Old tapan New Jersey at the time and that's where I used to stay I used to stay in Old tan now on if I went there on a Friday night and I stayed till Sunday morning I would typically Drive Rita and her mother to the uh to the bridge to the George Washington Bridge and this I'll tell you how I'll tell you how chin gigantti was so he was so lowkey and so different from the rest of us at the time and here's an examp example when I would drop rer and Olympia off at at the George Washington Bridge a little old man would pull up in an old beat up foro car with white wall tires it was totally out of style and he would be driving like a little old man and he'd get out of the car and I'd shake his hand and I'd make the the handoff rer and Olympia would get in the car and then I'd peel by him with either my Mercedes or whatever I was driving a Corvette convertible and I'd tap the horn and he'd give a little wave and i' go on my way head home back back to Queens back to my own crew in in Queens too uh which chin found out about later he didn't know all the time in the beginning so this guy who ended up picking me uh taking Olympia and Rita from me his name was Bruce and I only knew him as old man Bruce and he had like a little wet fish handshake nothing strenuous you know not a strong guy I didn't see him as that years later years later I'm in prison and somebody was talking about in the row we I was with Joe wat and a couple of guys little vic Arina and they were talking about how the late Bruce palmary died Chin's guy so I said Bruce palmary let me see they showed me a picture of him and I said son of a [ __ ] that's Bruce the old man I had no idea he was a captain in the geneves family in a million years you would have never guessed that you would have gave him a bowl of soup if you saw him and felt bad for him that's how low-key his guys were driving an old [ __ ] box lowkey nice you know very easy matted soft spoken and meanwhile he's a captain in that family and here I am flying around the world you know we were the new generation and I'm ashamed to say that but we were like more like the Good Fellas generation where he might have been more like The Godfather generation you know making the distinction between movies that is well yeah I mean chin jigante was essentially Arch enemies with John Gotti yes because after gy killed Frank um that was a big problem I mean it was unsan hit of a boss and Chin had a relationship with Frank so right you know was there a problem of you associating with the godes as well as chin jigante yep so at some point I let Peter Gotti know that I stay by Chin's house on the weekends because my friends obviously want to know why I disappear for the weekend you know you can you know sometimes I go take a girl away but you know I'm disappearing all the time so you want to tell your friends where you are so I let I let my friends know I'm in Chin's house you know old Jaan uh now chin eventually found out on his own and went ballistic cuz he did not want somebody from the Gambino family in his house with his wife with his kids went ballistic so he called Rita down to the city Rita went to see him and he says get this guy out of my house and she said she had Rita was first of all beautiful person but second of all tough like tough like a man she had her father's balls and she said to him you pick your friends I'll pick mine that's my friend I ain't going against him I ain't giving him up it's my friend so she stood up for me uh so I you know I said to her he ain't gonna clip you he's going to clip me so I started watching if I went there watching if I left you know I had fun in the house don't get me wrong I'd put on his robe and walk around the house but Rita was a doll and and Olympia was a doll and they they stood by me as friends and they were with me all through my prison sentence by the way too they always stood by me when I was in prison they were there for me when I was away um again against the father's wishes against his wishes because there was sort of like a cold war it wasn't like an out andout War they ever had both men knew you know not to try the other but at one point chin did want to clip John and it was picked up on uh it was picked up on tape and then the FBI took that uh tape to JN and said listen we have information that the Chin's looking to clip you and John said yeah I don't believe it whatever but John obviously knew it was true and then John sent word to the chin and as I understand it there was sort of like a like a Cold War detente type thing between the two of them where each man knew look if you know something happens to the other we're going to end up in a war it's like the Russians and uh the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War do we really want to have our hands on the button this whole time so they kind of backed off a little but he did not want me in his house okay so when we talk about the mafia I mean the main focus is to make money illegally most of the time but there's also a part of the mafia that's very violent and you have the Hitmen that are part of this organization there's of course Sammy the bull who like I said admitted to 19 murders but there is a whole bunch of guys that were floating around um Roy Deo was an absolute nightmare um and there was a guy that you knew that did something really hideous with a blowtorch uh yeah well are you talking about Richie pagle Rulo little a little so yeah yeah well I got close with Richie uh I got really close with Richie in the penitentiary uh Richie Richie walked the yard with me and gave me a big hug and a kiss before I left the Lewisburg Penitentiary years later I I think that's who you're talking about Richie supposedly was allegedly blowtorch somebody that he killed uh oh gas pipe was another one I was never close with gas pipe though but gas pipe blowtorch somebody you know the luk hay family had a little bit of a reputation for taking a blow torch to people's elbows and knees um there was a lot of violence uh me personally I'm going to be honest with you sometimes I hear all these rats when they go bad and they're all and I never ratted by the way I never snitched I refused I faced the rest of my life in prison I figured if I have to die in there I'll die in there anything short of that is a gift and and I'm here living the gift thank God I'm here to you know enjoying it but I did think that I would never get out of prison at one point and now I listen to all these rats who killed a million people and I don't know I couldn't find that many reasons to kill everybody unless you really really just want to kill because I felt like the mafia should be about making money and if you have to defend yourself or you have to move on somebody then that's part two so I understand it I understand that people got to go for some reasons but I also thought I was a little naive before I went to prison I thought if somebody disappeared they did something wrong they went you know if you commit treason against the United States and you're executed okay you committed treason against the United States you sold nuclear secrets or something you got to go that's the laws of your country so I understood the laws of the Mafia to be if you go against the family there are certain rules if you do something you got to go so if a guy would disappear I would just automatically assume the guy disappeared for a good reason and you don't ask about it you just automatically assume there are people at the top who know that this guy did something really really bad against the borada against the family and he had to go I'm in jail and I'm hanging out with everybody and I'm starting to realize that all the guy all the murders they're all charged with I'm going son of a [ __ ] 90% of these guys did not have to die you know this guy did you know did Sammy take perfect example you mentioned Sammy the bull Sammy the bull was killing guys to take over their businesses to take over their construction companies to take over their control of a union these guys aren't supposed to get killed these guys you're supposed to do business with them so for me I wanted to go out every day and make money I wanted to you know I look I'm doing violent crimes I'm not saying I wasn't violent I'm knocking off armed cars I'm hijacking trucks I'm doing everything I can and it's all violent all violent and eventually I'm charged with all that violence so I get it but I wasn't out there going every day who can I kill who can I kill and a lot I think a lot of these rats who tell I killed Five Guys I killed 10 I killed 20 I killed 30 I mean these guys killed a small wedding party how you know how many people can you kill how many really had it comeing and I realized later that a lot of them didn't when I was in jail and it made me rethink that whole mob thing because I'm saying [ __ ] I was in the middle of this was in a snake pit I could have died in a a split second by some jerk who wants to take maybe you know the the the money that I robbed yesterday he's going to put a bullet in the back of my head and grab the you know the half a million dollars in cash that I just robbed from a truck yesterday I didn't know that those people existed because I wasn't like them so I was under the false impression my immaturity my naivity whatever it was I was under the false impression that if I was sitting at a table with 10 guys they were all thought like me and I also thought we they thought like me in the sense that everybody would be willing to go to jail cuz I was I went to jail never snitched again I'm the only guy who writes books who hosts a television show on the other side who never snitched um so you know I I'm proud to say that because I was you know I like these guys you know why go to the pen when you could send a friend I don't know I don't know what they're thinking you know these are guys I broke bread with these are guys who were in my house I was in their house I knew their mothers their fathers their wives Ronnie G Alonzo one one of my dearest friends from childhood I love a man of men they don't make people like Ronnie when I was I was on the land I was going on the land once I went to Ronnie's house and I said Ronnie I no I'm sorry I knocked on the door his mother answered I said U Miss G is Ronnie home I gotta I gotta I need him for something I got to go on the lamb she goes what do you need them for I go I got a trunkload of guns in my trunk she goes hurry up hurry up bring them in I mean these are people I love these are my you know she's looking to help me this is a you know woman who grew up in the Life by the way um but that's my family I can't imagine ever giving them up ratting on them after they did everything and they helped me too in different ways too not just mob ways you know when I lost my mother my mother died in my arms I cried on these these people's shoulders you know they they they hugged me there's a human element to this too how do you just rat them out and send them all to jail and say I want my my Freedom's worth more than theirs so I mean I'm on my little thing with the rats right now I don't mean to get that far off but that's how I feel well wasn't there an instance you said that someone you knew blow torched someone's penis oh that was uh that well that was um I think Richie pag Rulo yeah I mean I had nothing to do with that but uh it was somebody I was close with uh yeah he yeah yeah I think that's the situation you're talking about um Richie was asked to kill an architect uh somebody who gave gas pipe Casto cash I mean gas pipe Castle gave the guy money under the table um I was removed from that I had nothing to do with that but I was close with the guy who did it um you know I look I'm going to tell you it's funny because I don't think in terms of like the way of of think of people in ter in the same way average citizens do for example I Jimmy coonan was was a dear friend of mine I love Jimmy coonan boss of the Westies the Irish Godfather we treated him like he was an Italian Godfather he earned that respect his whole life and he was the gem of a man I love Jimmy like a father incredible man and Jimmy coonan cut people up you know he chopped off heads arms legs I think he brought somebody's head to a sit down in a bag you know I mean this guy was off the charts crazy but when I you know when I'm in conversation with somebody I'll go they'll say yeah did you know Jimmy I'll say Jimmy was a great guy so one time I said it you know I was I was with a my girlfriend I said you know Jimmy was a great guy she goes how could you say he was a great guy he cut somebody's head off you know so that's like totally different I'm on a different way wavelength when you're in that world in that life you don't judge people for that you judge people if he's going to cut my head off When I'm Not Looking and Jimmy's the type of guy unless you cross him you could you could put your trust in him for the rest of your life Jimmy would never hurt you never and he'll he'll put his own life on the line to defend you if he has to he's only G to chop you up or kill you or something if you double crossed him or did something to him or threatened him or his family so it's a different set of standards that we live by I'm obvious a citizen today so I could think straight it's not like my mind is all muddled and I still believe these things but you know like I said I drudge people differently so Richie pagliarulo he might have cut somebody's penis off with a blow torch but I got to tell you when I was leaving Lewisburg Richie Richie never used to come to the yard nobody ever used to see Richie in the yard Richie's out the whole day in the yard so I go Richie everybody's going what are we doing out today Richie what are you doing out so finally I go Richie go inside what are you doing out all day he goes you're leaving here I'm doing life I'm going to die in here I'm never going to see you again he goes I wanted to spend this last day with you H how do you not love a guy like that you know so you know I mean I disassociate myself from the penis he cut off and the guy he killed and you know and they even somebody even said Richie was in SE Block in Lewisburg uh I said why is he in SE block apparently they only put like either I think they used to put either active homosexuals or people who were mentally imbalanced in SE block that was sort of like where the used to you know uh uh isolate those people in their own housing unit so I said why is Richie in C block and somebody said uh Louie you know he tasted somebody's brains so I said what he tasted somebody's brains you're kidding me again I saw him the next day we ate together you know I put that out of my head it's got nothing to do with me and him so you have to realize you know it's a different different Viewpoint of people different understanding of people than the average citizen might have when people people in John Gotti when John Gotti went to trial there was a tape of him going I'll sever his his MF in head off I'll sever his MF in head off John Gotti was a killer but he wasn't severing people's heads off it was just talk but if a jury hears that they're gonna go oh wow he's going to cut somebody's head off it's John Gotti he must be serious but we know that Roy Deo would cut somebody's head off in a minute and roll it down a bowling alley no problem but John Gotti wasn't like that John Gotti wasn't the type to cut somebody's head off he's not getting the tub with a with a chainsaw Tommy karate yes Jimmy coonan yes Roy Deo yes but we know who the guys are that do that you know we're familiar with them and and you know you got to look over your shoulder once in a while if you're around those guys and you're not close to them because you never know when they catch a delusion and want you know want to throw your head down an Alleyway well with all the heists that you did over the years what was the biggest Heist you were ever involved in I was CH I was investigated for rather and not charged for a heist that in today's currency and I can't get too deep into it but in today's currency is probably over a 100 million you know I was investigated for I'm not saying I did it I'm not you know yeah in today's currency it would be over hundred million um it was it obviously wasn't it's it's something that I was investigated for um but but your average Heist you know is few hundred thousand we might have had a couple million now and then um like I said there is surveillance photos of me floating around on the computer somewhere where the FBI uh we were probably going to do about five or six million out of a lumus armored car armed truck in San Francisco uh we had all the guys we had the duct tape we had the guns we had the 2-way radio uh the walkie-talkies we had everything in the hotel room and we were coming back from lunch and we were planning to hit the truck the next day and FBI came out of the woodwork with the San Francisco police department in conjunction with them helicopters machine guns bulletproof vests you know you move you're dead that was the message and they hauled Us in and they asked us questions and they basically said to us whatever you're here for get the hell out of the city uh and we had to we we couldn't to this day I can't tell you why they had us in there all day and didn't search the hotel room or did they and they didn't have a war maybe so they knew what was in there but they couldn't charge us with it but whatever the case was we drew straws on what to do with everything and we we dumped them in San Francisco Bay everything and then headed home uh I had one codefendant became my codefendant later but one guy in the crew who still wanted to go forward with it he says what are we going to do walk away from this they don't know [ __ ] let's do it and I says you don't know [ __ ] they're watching us like Hawks we're out of here if we're if we're lucky enough to get rid of the guns let's let's let's count our blessings and get the hell out of here and we did we made it home but eventually later on I was charged with that I was charged with conspiracy to hit Al lumus armed car okay and ultimately one of the guys it used as a fence to get rid of all your stolen items ended up snitching on you MH yeah and all the charges started to come down yeah so I had a there's a lot of fences in the mob and there's you know Vinnie this Joey that Frankie this Gino that and there was a lot of guys who always want my stuff I had a guy a friend of mine's uncle was one of the biggest fences probably in the world there's only first of all 47th Street in Manhattan the jewelry district is the biggest sort of like concentration of gold silver diamonds Etc in the world right there and there's a handful of fences back then I'm going back to the late 80s early 90s there was a handful of fences who could take anything from you if you said look I have all of the all of the Queen's Jewels stolen from the Tower of London what's a fence going to do with that you'll be arrested tomorrow trying to move it this guy who I called Uncle B who his I referred to him as Uncle Billy it was my it was my friend's uncle but he was like my own Uncle I called him Uncle Jimmy in my Memoir because I changed names but I could talk about it now that was years ago but Uncle Billy was one of the top fences who could take anything and he was my main fence and always went to him instead of all the mob guys he was he was an associate of all five families so he was a mob guy but he wasn't a ma guy he wasn't a captain he never wanted that attention and he was Greek too either half Greek or full Greek so he wouldn't have been able to get made but he was the most to me up until he went bad he was the most honorable man I had ever met for example if I said to him look I got a truckload of uh uh cameras I got a truckload of cameras uh from top to bot from Top top to bottom back to front 18 wheel full here's the list or whatever he would say to me this is what they they go for retail this is what I could pay you how many cents on a dollar and then before I even dropped off the truck he would pay me the cash Nobody Does that nobody because you don't know if the truck's going to get taken you don't know if I'm going to get arrested Nobody Does it till it's C usually Billy Uncle Billy trusted me enough to give me the cash up front plenty of times or sometimes he'd send me somewhere and I get the cash when I got there from whoever I was bringing it to and he had this long list of people and he was he was on the street for so many decades that he could go okay box of cameras I mean a trailer full tractor trailer full of cameras uh go to Vlad uh call up Vlad tomorrow morning at 9:00 he'll be expecting your call vlad's going to tell you where to deliver it and it was done so I trusted him with my whole heart my whole everything and I loved him I used to kiss him when I saw him kiss him before I left like an like a real Uncle of mine and and then one day when the FBI comes after us uh we hire up we we lawyered up all of us I was subpoenaed I took the fifth and I ly it up and my attorney gets a list of hijacked trucks and and and uh heists that I did that the FBI want to question me about so I look at the list and I go through them and I said wow and let's let's get and to you know I told my friend let's get into the City and talk to Billy Billy lived overlooking Time Square he had an apartment overlooking Time Square which as a kid was breathtaking I used to sit in his apartment i' I'd make whatever I got he'd give me 100 Grand and I'd feel like on I'm on top of the world I got 100 Grand in my my hand and I'm sitting overlooking everything in Times Square I mean you feel like you're on top of the world you know that when you're a kid I'm young at the time so um the FBI gives us a list of heist and hijackings and we go through the list and I said look let's talk to Uncle Billy and see if he got subpoenaed too he tells us he did the FBI was at his house and he wants us to come into this City and talk about it with him so we're on our way into the city me and the guy's nephew Billy's nephew and we're on our way into the City and right before we get to the Midtown Tunnel there was a place called bertino back then in Italian eery and we used to eat there all the time and I go I go do me a favor pull off let's get something to eat because we might be there all night I'd rather get a bite to eat before we go up to his apartment so we says all right we got off and we went to bertino we're sitting in beros and we're eating and I'm thinking and I'm thinking and I'm thinking and we're on our way into the city to talk to Billy about the FBI subpena and I said son of a [ __ ] your uncle's the rat and he says what my uncle's no rat I said your uncle's the rat he said how can my uncle be the rat he goes it's it's Billy you out of your mind and I said I'm going to tell you why I go do you remember years ago we thought Billy was undercutting us and he wasn't we thought Billy was was was giving lowballing us on a couple of loads we thought maybe he took for granted our our loyalty to him and what we did was we came up with an idea that we were going to tell him we got a Lo and we were bringing it to him and then at the last minute we pulled back and said we dumped it somewhere else we wanted him to think we had other fences to go to not just him we wanted to let him know you're not our only fence don't lowball us we'll take a higher bid from somebody else turned out we weren't even right he was always fair with us but we thought that and we threw this truck out there and then we said that we went somewhere else with it well that truck that we never hijacked we couldn't figure it out till it hit me we didn't we didn't Rob that truck we made it up it was on the list if it was on the FBI list of things we robbed It could only come from Billy because we never robbed it we just told him we did so I said your uncle's the rat once I explained it to my to his nephew he goes son of a [ __ ] you're right he goes what do you want to do I go call him up tell him we're not coming and I bet my ass he's either wired or the FBI is in the other room and they got cameras they probably going to film Us in his living room so I said call him up tell him we're not coming if he's bent out of shape about it he's definitely the rat so he calls him up and Billy's bent out of shape he goes what do you mean you're not coming you got to come we need to talk about this my friend goes I'm Billy we can't make it when are you gonna come then I need to know when we need to talk Billy we can't make it I said your uncle's the rat that's the guy and from there we sort of we probably would have been pinched immediately if we went to the city that day and met because they would have had all cameras and wires and audio video of us in his apartment talking about every crime but because we didn't meet him that day I probably lasted like another year year and a half on the street before the FBI and their dogged pursuit of me and and to their credit the FBI did a phenomenal job with me they turned over my life and they eventually found other people they found one guy who went into the witness protection program actually was the main guy who was ready to snitch he wasn't a direct snitch against me my codefendant used to talk to him about things because they grew up together he came with us once or twice on a heist he really wasn't somebody I like to use but he knew about all the crimes and he was the FBI's main snitch but they eventually found him and they put him in the program and then we all got taken down but before that I would have probably been gone a year and a half earlier if I would have went to billies that night I lasted another year and a half but I still got the same punishment in the end and it was just a year and a half of stress anyway because it was hard to steal and Rob knowing the FBI is following you everywhere you go well one of the other guys who informed against you was William deagle who's now the host of restaurant steak out on the Food Network yeah so Willie I grew up with Willie in Flushing Queens uh Willie was my childhood friend uh in and out of my house all my life he was in and out of mine I was in and out of his I knew his mother and his father his father was a good man hardworking mailman uh put his kids all through school uh they were very really really really honorable family you know they worked hard the mother and father to give their kids a better life um at some point Willie was locked up with me and to this day I really don't know if he ratted on me or didn't or what he said and didn't say cuz we never went to trial but at some point he was stressing in prison and uh and he you know he just couldn't do it we were together in the beginning and I I told him look you know hold up don't worry about it we'll get through this one day um I was ready to face the rest of my life I believed in something that he really didn't so from his point of view it was just a waste of time to be in jail because he wasn't involved to the extent I was in that world in that life um but at some point he said look I'm just going to I'm just going to I got to get out of here and I'm just going to tell them [ __ ] I'll make stuff up I promise you I won't hurt you and uh and I said don't do that you know you got to look at yourself in the mirror for the rest of your life don't give up friends and he says I won't I promise you I won't give you up I promise you I love you I won't and then he got taken out to court one day and I never saw him again um and you know I to this day I really don't know what he said or didn't say because we didn't go to trial so he wasn't called as a witness um his in his knowledge of what I did was very limited um he didn't know all the heists and hijackings that I did he wasn't involved in all of that he was involved in in basically there was an incident where somebody owed Willie 50 Grand Willie threw my name around and said look I'm with Louie Louie wants the money back and then um it turned out the guy told Willie to go f himself and told through Willie told me to go f myself and then he got some killer this really big killer from uh from I think westest to back him the guy who owed Willie the money and he says you know what you think Lou is a tough guy I'm going to have my friend kill Louie and then I went to uh the guy supposedly was from Westchester where Joe Butch had a son who was from Westchester Joe Butch Careo so I went to talk to Joe Butch in the city and I asked Joe Butch I says Joe do you know um do you know this guy and he says let me let me call my son see if he knows him the sun came down to little lley to I was in front of either Cafe biond with tamino with Joe when the sun came down and he said uh he said listen he's a killer he's killed a lot of people they take drug dealers they kidnap drug dealers for ransom and then when they get the ransom they kill the guy anyway so he says you got to be careful so Joe Butch said to me you want me to take care of it I said no Joe I'll take care of it myself um that morphed into uh me trying to set up the guy because I felt like I had to move on that guy before he moved on me and um in the in somehow in the mix somebody got shot by somebody and uh and I got charged with the shooting with the crime with the whole thing that Willie got me dragged me into uh that was one of the cases I had with Willie but Willie's knowledge of me basically just extended to that he did not know all the things I did so even if he went bad I don't know what he could have told them um yeah so that's pretty much okay so by 1994 you're 25 years old and you're facing life in prison mhm what exactly are all the charges Yeah so basically the charges were um the FBI wants to put a lot of pressure on me so I get a lot of cases at once so the f one of the cases was with Willie was a credit card fraud case that mored into that alleged shooting um and a robbery they also gave us the guy who owed Willie the 50 Grand also gave us something to rob a safe and we apparently robbed the safe so one of the charges was having to do with that with Willie problem which was the 50 Grand owed to him which mored into a robbery which mored into an alleged shooting of of somebody that was one charge then there was another case against me that was a Nassau County organized crime CA task force case the robbery and the shoot and with the shooting coming into the case then there was the the credit card case so that was Secret Service so I'm charged with the Secret Service case with Willie with the with the credit cards that stem to a robbery that they charged me for in the state now I didn't commit that robbery which is a long story but one of my codefendants in the feds committed that robbery and I knew he did it he knew he did it and I for all I know the cops knew he did it too but I'm not going to snitch so I said okay I'm charged with a stickup that I didn't do fine I did enough of them I'll take that one too so that's another case I'm charged with didn't even do it so just keep that in mind when you hear rats go why do I got to take the the the weight you're involved in this life you take the weight whether it's or not so I'm taking that charge too then I'm charged with an FBI case which is a Hobs act which is very which is put like a RICO and that's me and all my codefendants with the heist and hijackings now for that case which was the big one the FBI case The Heist and hijackings each time you're charged with a heist or a hijacking it's a it's a 10-year minimum statute and then each time at that time where the law was I believe it's the same today I'm not sure each time a gun is used in the commission of a crime it's an additional 5-year sentence so each charge I would get 10 years let's say there's 10 10 10 charges 10 10 armed robberies 10 years a piece is 100 and then a nickel a piece for each gun is another 50 so I'm facing 150 years so that's how I was facing Life by the way and do they give that to you if you go to trial you bet your ass you're getting it I had guys come home from court crying on my shoulder cuz they rolled the dice went to trial and they got the 150 or they got the 162 or they got the 79 my friend s is still in jail he had the same case as me he rolled the dice they offered him 20 years he didn't want to take it he rolled the dice I think they gave him 69 or 79 years it's been 30 something years he's still gone so do you do it yeah they're going to give it to you so I did face life um but I I at one point I believed in the life so I wasn't going to rat at some point when I stopped believing in the life I still wasn't going to rat and I still had the opportunity because after I did my fed time they shifted me over to the state and I had I had a few more years to do in the state after I finished up my fed time and when I went to the state I went for parole and they hit me at the parole board for no reason I just landed there so I said to my lawyer said to the prosecutor why are you guys keeping them and he goes he could still talk we're still willing to listen if he's still willing to talk and I said there's no way I don't even believe in the life anymore but I believe in myself and I believe in my friends and I believe that it would be beneath me to sit there and snitch on friends to get out of a little time in the state even a lot I didn't do it when there was a lot of time fa in front of me I sure as hell ain't doing it when there's a little time so you know I have no patience for these guys who break weak snitch come home and pretend they're tough guys again leave me alone with that [ __ ] well at one point didn't you do a rap song about John Gotti while you were kind of going through the whole trial process yeah it's really interesting so I I actually found some of those albums in my father's basement and garage when he died so so I'm going to put them online at some point soon and sign them but there was a there was a time when I'm facing the rest of my life in prison the FBI is hunting me down everywhere I go they're following me there's always a car behind me there's always a camera on me and I'm going son of a [ __ ] I'm going away for life and when they started offering people the witness protection program I knew I was dead they don't give you the witness protection program and agree to pay you a few thousand do a month for the rest of your life unless they want to get somebody so I said I'm dead I'm mince meat so I got no way out of this so at some point or another Mickey Rock the actor Mickey Rock flies into queens or the city and he met with Pete Gotti John Gotti's brother Pete and he said look I want to do a rap song about how John Gotti was railroaded and I got these kids out west they're going to put the song together they're going to sing it so now the next day or the same night I'm with Pete I hear the story and I go son of a [ __ ] let me do it they looked at me are you crazy you're sticking up trucks I said I could do it though I got no defense I'm thinking to myself if I do it one I'm helping John who's my godfather right he's my Dawn but on top of that I got no defense when they come for me what am I gonna say I'll have a defense I'll say look they're just like they railroaded John I put a song out defending John and now they're coming after me this was my strategy in my mind so they said look once you do this you know that's a whole different thing you know I said look I'm done anyway I'm done I'm facing the rest of my life in prison I'm probably going to and by the way as a testament to how much people trusted me all my friends knew in that life that I was fa in life and nobody clipped me because if they got the slightest bit of uncertainty about you you're dead nobody's going to let you just you know keep meeting with them every day and not put a bullet in the back of your head while you're eating a dish of macaroni that's just the way it goes so again you know my friends they were my real friends nobody everybody knew that I was up to the whatever the punishment was I was up for it so anyway I said yeah I want to do the song let me do it so they said all right we'll pull it away from Mickey Rock we'll let you do it so they let me do it I went and I contacted Pete Nice from third base and me Pete Gotti and uh and me Pete Gotti and Pete Nash from third base who I love by the way I love Pete Nice Pete Nice is a sweetheart prime minister Pete nice we went to Peter lugas and we sat in Peter lugas and in Williamsburg and I said to Pete and Peter lugas I said listen Pete I go I want to do a rap song I want you to train me how to sing teach me how to do it lay down the track whatever you got to do Soup To Nuts he signed on Pete says you got it anything I could do for you done he got Sam S Sam S is one of the most famous guys back then he used to lay down tracks he got Sam S to lay down the tracks for us my friend Fat George delloo the late fat George delloo unfortunately he just passed on a few months ago uh I love him with all my heart I loved him my whole life uh he was was the caretaker of John got's Club in Queens fat George Dell I asked fat George I said George you're always making up little rap songs I didn't know how to write back then I'm a writer now I'm an international bestselling author with my books in 20 languages but I didn't know how to write it throw it myself in prison back then I had no idea so I said George can you do me a favor write a song about how John got railroaded I'm gonna have Pete Nice teach me how to sing I'm gonna have Sam S lay down the track and I already booked Chun King Studio Manhattan that was the big Studio back then so George wrote the song gave it to me I went sat down with Pete Sam S we laid down the track and um in the end it was great it was the John Gotti rap song Justice not found it went all over like wildfire the newspapers covered it and once the newspapers covered it and the News was covering it and I was on the news talking about it I had my defense I figured if they come for me I could say now hey I stuck up for John Gotti That's why I'm facing life in prison now maybe I got a defense so if eventually when they did come for me I hired William consler the late civil rights attorney William consler he he defended Malcolm X he defended marttin Luther King Jr he rode the buses during during the uh the freedom bus rides celor was an incredible civil rights attorney his whole life but he worked on John Gotti's appeal so I went to see him and I said hey hey hey Bill somebody sent me actually to see him I said he bill will you do me a favor and represent me I'm taking the angle where the government came after me because I wrote the song and he was a civil rights attorney so my civil rights is allegedly allegedly violated so he says yeah I'll take the case that he friended John's is a friend of mine he takes the case um and that was my defense and when I went to trial though unfortunately there was you know I was a dumb kid in a lot of ways I didn't understand the law at that time I go to trial and the judge says you could bring in the album you could bring in the whole song you could bring in bring in how the government persecuted you you're welcome to but you got to take the stand to do it I couldn't take the stand how could I take the stand they're going to ask me a million questions I can't answer about a million people I can't talk about so they kind of checkmated me the government and I couldn't bring the song in so we tried to use it in the media saying I was railroaded because of the song but I couldn't bring it in trial so I blew trial I lost that first case and then eventually I had the stickups and the heist and stuff and I copped out to that um by the way how I copped out and got out of the life sentence just so you know I'm facing life where me and my codefendants all together everybody hung tough nobody flipped we're in MDC Brooklyn now and then we got bopped around we went to MCC but we were most of most of the time in MDC Brooklyn and at some point the government we were facing life no pleas on the table we're not offering no please the government said eventually they started offering 20 years so we said look maybe we should take the 20 take the 20 we'll be out in 18 you get you know you got to do 85% of the time so let's just do it so we're thinking about it and at some point the the government we we figured let's fight a little more see if we get the plea down So eventually the government came and they said look if fante who's the leader of the crew takes 13 then we'll give the rest of the codefendants 10 n 8 7 six all the way down the line everybody gets less time but we got to get fante for at least 13 so I I said to my codefendants what do you guys want to do they go L we want you know they're giving us a gift here we want it so I said fine I'll take the 13 let's go let's sign so we took the we took the play right after I take the play I go away and I reversed one of my cases from prison on a technicality crazy story I met a guy in jail who was a uh uh a absolute genius with the law my friend Marcos papis shout out to you Marcos I love you brother um Marcos papis was absolute legal legal genius he goes I'm going to teach you the law we'll do it together we'll reverse you one I got some technicalities in here we could find and he went over my case with me I reversed one of my cases when I got out when I got back down we realized that the guy who had violated the guy who was in the witness protection program he had violated the program and was thrown out so he's no longer an available witness when they gave us that play and they offered me the 13 and everybody else LS they had no snitch they had no case against us had we kept fighting we probably would have eventually got to realizing that but we didn't know now looking back it was a blessing in disguise because I needed to do all that time that I was away I needed to re you know reform myself to to think to rethink my life so it was a blessing in disguise God has his ways you know God leads us through different things I you know I was brought through the iron furnace thank God I'm on the other end had I not gone away and had I known the snitch violated the program was thrown out I might have kept fighting and never and got out again but then who knows I could have got killed I could have killed somebody who knows you know I could have been I could have been in there for the rest of my life then a second time around but uh but yeah that's how it went okay so you took a 13-year plea deal M and you got sent to Lewisburg Pennsylvania Maximum Security Prison M and while in prison you actually started to read books you actually started writing and that's when the ideas for your first few books actually started coming together in prison that's correct yep so I get I get uh I take we we all get sentenced me and my codefendants and they're going to separate us all because they can't we got eight guys and we're all tough none of us took [ __ ] from anybody uh even even the the biggest rank highest ranking Mobsters in that jail if they wanted to flex their muscles they came and asked us to flex for them I mean that's how tough we were we would we we you didn't mess with us there's eight of us strong so you know not not too many guys are on a case that are willing to stab do whatever they got to do to straighten people out and we we were all tough guys so now they want to separate us and send us to all different prisons so luckily my codefendants who had the Lesser time than I did they got most of them got sent to mediums I got sent to the max they sent me to Lewisburg Penitentiary I'll tell you how crazy this was they called me out and they put me on a bus in the morning I'm getting designated I'm leaving MDC Brooklyn I get on the bus and I'm a little bit of a guy I'm I'm 5 foot5 you know on a good day and I'm sitting and they blackbox me they chain me around my raist they chain my feet and at the time I was too vain to ever get glasses when I was on the street but I needed glasses for seeing far now I got lasic surgery but back then I needed glasses but I was way too vain to get glasses when I was on the street when I was in jail I went to an eye doctor and I got glasses my friend sent in glasses for me so now I'm on the bus and I want to see it's the first time I'm leaving this place in three years I want to see nature I want to see the outdoors I haven't been out of MDC it's got no windows in there there's no outdoors in MDC there's no yard so it's first time I'm going to be out in 3 years my skin was peeling off my faces from the fluorescent lighting that's how long I've been indoors so I got my glasses on and I want to just take in the bus ride and I'm going to Lewisburg so we get on the bus and on the way up to Lewisburg we start picking up other inmates from other prisons and every everywhere we go five or six guys get on and they're getting on the bus and these these dudes are big I'm talking like muscles on top of muscles tattoos up to here sometimes tattoos across the whole face gold teeth the tear drops cuz they killed somebody they killed a friend uh tattoos all over their hands the baddest looking dudes you if you watched the Hollywood movie and you said cast me the baddest looking dudes you could find for this bus ride that's who got on the bus so now we're all on the bus and they're all going man I'm going to Lewisburg man I'm gonna kill somebody when I get there man I'm gonna take out some I'm gonna get a machete as soon as I get there I'm going to take somebody out watch your ass in Lewisburg yo yo I'm going to bend somebody over I'm going to get mine you're hearing all this stuff and I'm going son of a [ __ ] where are they putting me they're putting me in the hell hole this is Dante's Inferno you know I've been reading at the time I was reading by then going I'm going to 11 circle of Dante's Inferno I can't believe they're sending me to this joint we get all the way up to Lewisburg Pennsylvania big steel doors open up the cops with the sunglasses and shotguns you know right out of a movie bus pulls in big steel iron doors closed cop gets on he's got a clipboard he goes listen up everybody he goes everybody on this bus is going to be here for a week or two in a hold over and then you're going to be moved to either low or medium security prisons I got one for the pen fante I said whoa me I said all these guys were bullshitting they were all bullshitting they were all trying to impress each other like like they're going to Lewisburg they were going to be in the hole for a week or two and then leaving I'm the only Max guy on the bus but they did give me an insight into what Lewisburg was going to be like but I couldn't believe it so I say you know what never believe what people say never believe your eyes people could look tough you don't know what's inside their heart and I knew people that were 90 pounds soak and wet they'll cut your head off you know and I know people that look like powerlifters and they'll run from you if you you know if you shout at them so you you never believe people from but this was a reinforcement of that so I say wow so I get to Lewisburg I'm in the hole they clear you from when you're in the hole in Lewisburg before I got cleared for the compound everybody else left by the way who was on the bus with me so I get cleared for the compound how they clear you is they want to make sure there's not a hit on your life and at the time um the Columbo War a lot of the guys from the Columbo War were in prison and they were they were scattered throughout the prison system I happen to be very close friends to this day with little vicina Jr little vicina the father was the boss of the Columbo family uh at one point and he was a dear friend of mine I talked to him a few months ago when he called home from prison uh and little vicina Jr one of the finest most Honorable Men you could ever meet in your life a man's man and he left the life because he's tired of all the rats and and the underhanded guys in that life but little vicer Jr was my dear friend then and is now to this day 30 years later but anyway they asked me if I knew any of the Columbo family from the uh the Columbo guys whether it be the perso faction or the arena faction so I didn't want to say yeah I'm close with the Arenas because they could tell you well you're not allowed here you're not allow I said I'm friendly with everybody I know guys from both sides and I'm fine with everybody you don't have to worry about any of the columbos with me I'm good with everybody so they go fine we're putting you on the compound that day I get released onto the compound and I'm walking the yard and Jimmy coonan greeted me he says they sent word that you were coming and he goes I want to introduce you to everybody so Jimmy takes me around the yard he introduces me to the head of the Latin Kings uh this guy bomba a gem of a guy out of Chicago introduces me to the head of nines introduces me to the head of uh Aryan Brotherhood and the Aryan Brotherhood guy big tall guy Nordic looking tattoos nice guy goes anything you guys ever need we're friends with all you guys no problem okay like everybody else everybody was friendly with me so no problem that guy that very guy that day that very day goes back they call around 7even eight o'clock they it starts to get dark in the yard so the gun tow is called lock in lock in everybody's got to clear the yard now they don't want you out after dark in case you run for the wall or something so I go in and I go back into my block and I'm in my housing block literally minutes and the alarms are going off all through the prison I said whoa what's going on everybody's screaming and yelling and I see a cop a hack you know a guard go by and he's got a pen and he's got a piece of leather with a machete this long and it's dripping blood and he goes by my he goes by my the front of my cell block I said wow somebody just got killed bro that that was in that was in somebody there's something going on here well it turns out that the dude I was introduced to in the yard the head of the Arian Brotherhood he went inside day one this is 1998 you could look it up on the computer my first day in population day one he went inside he stripped down to his underwear his boxer shorts and he he handed out machetes to all his guys and they all stri down to their boxer shorts the plan was they were going to knew they were going to get bloodied up then they'd go in the shower flush the boxer shorts down the toilet and get dressed hopefully get away with this but then they went around with the machetes and there's a metal shop in Lewisburg by the way they make beds lockas and machetes and hands out machetes to all these guys and they had a a hit list of black Muslims the Arian Brotherhood was apparently Waring with the black Muslims and the black Muslims in prison are you know a religious group SL gang it's not just you know it's not the same as just a religious group it's a religious group that's a gang they hang together and the Aryan Brotherhood was Waring with the black Muslims and they had a hit list of I think six guys and they hacked to death and GED the first went to the second hacked to get and gutted the second and were on their way to the Third on their Hit List when the the cop hit the Deuces or the panic button the the pin he hits the he's get the they say hit the Deuces the gods walk around with like a body alarm and if they see something they hit the Deuces and basically this guy saw these guys bloodied from head to toe with machetes in their hand like right out of like some type of like archaic caveman movie and he basically just hit the Deuces and ran for his life and then just like they s to try to confine the action and then the arens just tried to stab anybody they could you know they they just basically said you know in their own language they said kill every African-American you can and they started just stabbing every black guy they could get their hands on in that short space of time before the prison was locked down and the SWAT teams came in so that was my first day in Lewisburg um they take me to we were locked down for a couple months goon squad comes in takes me to the phone eventually naked because they don't want you to have a weapon on you I'm naked making a phone call and um they ba they basically said they took me to a team meeting too eventually they took me out they want to interview everybody if you know anything about the murders I said how could I know anything about the murders I just landed here I don't know nobody you know I didn't mention that I was introduced to the other guy in the yard because it was unnecessary I don't know nobody period That's My always answer in jail so they said do you have a reason to be fear for your life I said hell no and they said do you want to go get locked in you never lock up that's a mut move I would never period but I had no reason to I said no I said I'm fine in general population um I did eventually buy a machete that was made from an adduct because if the black Muslims wanted to to retaliate now and the arens were move shipped out so the word in the prison was if they can't find an Aryan to kill any anybody who's close enough white will do you know and Italian I don't know what we're considered when we came to this country we weren't considered white now we are considered white so I'm close enough I could get killed okay so I made a machete I bought a machete rather that was made from an air duct an h block and I used to just carry that around my block in case something went off um I used to bring it to the sh and stuff um but then they put in metal detectors all over the prison so you couldn't move around with them but then these guys got arounded by making there plastic knives that they would sharpen where literally like a razor you know the These Guys these guys would take they're so inventive they would take Saran Wrap and they would fold it and fold it and fold it and burn it and burn it and stomp on it and burn it and F and stomp on it until that saran wrap was a little triangle thing where you could literally make an incision a surgeon can use it to to do open heart surgery that's how sharp this they got ways of getting around all of those metal detectors and everything in there so but anyway that was my my welcome to Lewisburg Penitentiary um Herby Sperling who was probably the toughest Jew in the penitentiary the penal system ever in the United States one day they they might make a movie about him uh Herby Sperling got shipped out during that that lockdown I didn't get to meet him but I met everybody else when I got out of lockdown and I met a lot of guys who had been doing 20 30 years and they were basically locked up since I was little kid and they were Legends in my world and I got to meet them and hang out with them and get close with them so Lewisburg was in a way looking back um an interesting experience but that was my first day in population double homicide um crazy Place well ultimately in 2003 you end up getting out after serving eight and a half years mhm and once you get out you start dropping books and the first one was called unlocked life in crimes of a mafia Insider but then the second book Mob Rules that was the one that really blew up mhm MH became a bestseller internationally translated to 20 languages uh you know you can find it on Amazon right now uh it's got 289 reviews four and a half Stars so ultimately you managed to turn around and use your experience to turn it into an actual successful business yeah I'm I'm sitting in prison and I'm I'm wondering what I'm going to do for the rest of my life uh went actually before I was able to get out of this with my life I was facing life for a long time and that's when I decided that I wanted to change my life even if I rot in this place and never get out of here I want to teach myself something and I started to read I asked uh fat George Dello who I mentioned earlier he was the caretaker of John Gotti's Social Club in Queens um he used to have Biblical verses all over his body um Matthew Mark Luke John his leg his arm his neck and I asked them I said I called him up one day and I said hey George you know you got all those verses on your body have you read you know you read he goes oh I always read I read the Bible I read books now and then uh so I says can you send me in books and actually the first thing he thought I meant was like short eyes you know porn books he goes what do you want big boobs big asses I said no I want real books I want to read a book and uh he saids sure what do you want I go I have no idea I never read a book before in my life I was literate I finished high school my mother used to beg me please finish high school you know we have people in our family you never finished high school we want you to finish high school and please go to college I said I ain't going to college Mom I love you but I'll finish high school and then my mother died in my arms so there was no need to go to college but um but anyway I said to Fat George do me a favor send me in books go to the go to the bookstore tell the lady all about me whoever's working there whatever maybe they got some ideas just send me stuff to read so he goes to a bookstore and he sends me uh Napoleon a history of a biography about Napoleon by um uh Cronin Vincent Cronin I remember the name uh Caesar's Gall Wars obviously written by Caesar and uh M conf written by Hitler this is what he sends me so what the frig is this yeah I'm looking for like Tom Sawyer you know maybe something very small you know start with Treasure Island or something I had no idea what he would he sent me so I called him up I said hey George would you know what' you send me and he I go where'd you get those ideas and he goes I went to the store like you told me I told the broad all about you I told her you were short and bossy and she sent me those books so she sent me three dictators so um so in the end um I read those books I understood nothing of what I read I really really I had difficulty getting through each page because the vocabulary was so beyond me so I bought a dictionary for a couple of stamps in prison and I started to look up the words and I would write down the words next to you know the definition next to the word and I would study the words every night and then I would read again the next day and I would read the whole day and I stopped playing pacle I stopped gambling in jail I stopped betting the football and I'm just reading and I'm falling in love with books and I had such a I had such a love for books that I felt like even facing life when I started this I felt like it was a blessing I said I found what I loved in this crazy place this hell hole this this this this Devil's Playground I found something I love that I would have never found before had I not come here so now I read those books and I asked for more books and I went back then to try to start with books I could understand and eventually I built up to the I read philosophy I read history I read science I read anything I can get my hands on um and eventually I started reading I really didn't like fiction but I read fiction to teach myself how to write I read the masters of 19th century fiction Tolstoy doeski um uh FL bear um the Bronte sisters Thomas Hardy the English one Thomas Wolf the American uh original American Thomas wolf who died in 1938 not not the other Thomas wolf more contemporary and I fell in love with all these authors and I used to teach myself how to write by reading and studying I said everything Tolstoy knows is in War and Peace and anak Carina everything he knows is in these books there's no better classroom there's no better teacher than if I just read the book and try to figure out how he starts a chapter how he ends a chapter how he introduces a character how he exit a character how he develops a plot it's all in there and I would take notes in the margin and I would read these books and I would say oh wow this is brilliant and then I would even start to see how like an author like uh uh Hugo Victor Hugo read Balzac I would find things that Yugo said that I know he got from Balzac and I would say wow nobody ever even realized that I do because I'm reading constantly and then eventually I said son of a [ __ ] I could write why can't I write and it was was the same mentality that that once said I could Rob an armed car I could Rob an armed Car Depot that was cocky this was confidence you know that was but it's the same Cockiness now polished up and honed with education and again you know I'm I'm by the grace of God I found what I loved and now I had the confidence to say I could write I ended up writing one day I'm reading and I and I read that there was it was an Abraham Lincoln book or something it was something about the Civil War and it was about the anab Bellum South pre- Civil War this this backstory and it showed how this woman went up to the auction block and people bid on her and I said what you know of course I learned about slavery when I was a little kid but I never imagined a human being sitting on a block of wood being bit on so I will I decided to write a book about slavery and I wrote a beautiful book about the anab Bellum South it's about the white Plantation the plantation family the white family and the slaves on the plantation and how they interact and stuff um and I finished that in prison uh I still have it I hope to publish it really soon um unfortunately there's sort of like in the literary world every time I pitched it my agent or the publisher has said we don't even want to read it you're white you're not allowed to write a book about slavery and I would answer but I lived in a race war and I know how disgusting racism is and I know how everybody's brain was distorted by it and I feel for human beings and you know this is horrible and I wrote this from my heart I this is something I wrote in the midst of a race war where people killing each other by the way there was it ended up being like six or eight murders back and forth between the AR and Brotherhood and and the black Muslims by the end of that war you know from the beginning to the end so I understood what racism is about now and I'm walking around with chains chains on my hands chains on my feet so I understand what a slave felt like the only difference is I asked for my situation the poor slave did not so you know if you make that distinction you still have the feeling of what it is to be in Chains so I thought it would be good but nobody wants to publish it yet but I may publish it on my own I have been very successful with my other books Mob Rules is in 20 languages International bestseller and um and borada is is uh now coming out right now the Bata Trilogy something that took me seven years to write I put my heart and soul into it okay and then in 2013 you hosted the TV show The Gangsters code mhm where you go around the world and meet up with different gangs in different countries but the one that really kind of stuck out was when you went to the Philippines yeah yeah tell me what happens there why we go to the Philippines and um and we I enter this prison and inside the prison is they tell me it's 20,000 inmates Behind These Walls so it's a bustling city of its own uh everything is self-sufficient in there they make an eat and they they you know they they produce and they consume in this prison you know obviously stuff comes in but for the most part it's a self-efficient city so I walk in and I I intentionally neglected to study the prison beforehand because I wanted my on camera reactions to be spontaneous I wanted to see things for the first time and react for the first time um as I saw them naturally so I didn't want to go too deep into where I was going and I did that across the board whenever went to one of these prisons so I get in there and the first thing I noticed is that I'm being led into the prison to go meet this gang Chief this gang leader inside the prison by these guys who are carrying batons so I automatically think they're hacks they're screws they're Gods they're carrying batons who would who would issue them a baton and badges they had name badges batons at some point or another something came up and I assumed they were gods and they said no we're not Gods who are these guys they're inmates I said they're inmates the inmates Patrol Their Own Prison they have their own police force that's how this CRA this prison was how crazy it was and how alien it was to me having been so having spent so many years in US prisons I did time in state county and federal prison maximum and medium so I've been in every prison in the United States every type of prison this was completely alien to me so I meet the gang Chief the gang leader and his name was JB Sebastian great guy I hit it off with him um he knew I was Gangsta it's not like a typical G you know journalist going in like I said I'm not I'm not a gangster anymore I told him I'm retired I'm done I changed my life around but I was I understand what you go through every day I lived in prison and I ran a gang of my own I ran an arm armed robbery crew within a within a bigger gang the gambino crime family so I get it so they always kind of like I always connected with these guys and he him I connected with especially we hit it off he told me things off camera he said a lot on camera there was a couple things he said off camera for example example I said you guys got guns in here you could show me he goes we got a ton of guns we got an Arsenal he said AK-47 is everything can you show me I can't show you not on camera so I said fine I respected that and you know gaining these people's respect is knowing when to say okay I understand you can't do that or you can't show this or you can't say that so I did I backed off so in the end um I point out how he was connected with a lot of politicians in the Philippines the Aquino government he was connected with the highest people in the Aquino government including Aquino so I said wow look at this this is incredible you know this guy's got pictures on his wall with all the highest politicians in the Philippines well we filmed the we filmed the documentary and I start to get emails that it's gone viral in the Philippines so I said wow that's great it did well in the Philippines that's great it was a good documentary showed a good inside look at this prison it's gone viral not surprising then people start telling me that you flipped the government in the Philippines Rodrigo duterte used your documentary to overthrow the Aquino government and now he's in power because of your documentary I said get out of here that can't be true now I start to get emails from journalists in the Philippines then I get an invitation from Rodrigo duterte's government personal secretary saying we want to invite you to the Philippines to watch the documentary in front of Congress I said you got to be kidding me so the documentary was Time Magazine by the way Time magazine's World desk ended up um uh running the story you know for anybody out there who's skeptical It's Time Magazine covered the whole story you could go to my website and go to the Philippines section and then click there's a link there to read the Time magazine article but they did Cover the story and uh you'll see in the article when I do a Q&A I did not agree with the Rodrigo duerte government obviously I'm not happy with what the documentary accomplished um however it was does show the power of what something could you know the power of a documentary and how far it could go to change an entire country which it did um duterte though turned out to be probably as bad or worse than a quino um he was killing people on the streets in his effort to clean up the Philippines because when I was in the Philippines by the way on the streets people were killed right in front of me there's a scene in the Philippines documentary where a couple of guys got killed on the street I mean I'm next to them their dead bodies they just got clipped the pool of blood is is fresh it's still it's still trickling through the to the uh crevices and the cement I mean that's how long these guys were dead and they're young 18 19 years old you know it's human life gone snuffed out in a split second um so it was a bad place and Rodrigo duterte sought to correct it by not only locking people up but executing them he would have his police go out in the middle of the night vigilante cops and literally pull up to a corner where five or six gangsters were hanging out with five or six civilians and mow them all down he didn't care and he would lock up people you know without without you know some sumary uh judgment no no trial no no due process no rule of law and then with the executions it was just overboard so I did not go to the Philippines needless to say I did not back to Du tte government um and I expressed myself in the Time magazine article that it it turned out to be uh quite a bit of a regret for me that that's that was the the the the you know the sum of of of the uh of the great work we did there me and and the team that I went there with okay and you actually have a new book coming out yeah I do uh it's it came about in a really weird way uh my last book Mob Rules was an international bestseller and a German company Axel Springer who controls a lot of the media in Germany and Eastern Europe uh it's a big huge media conglomerate uh they invited me to a retreat in Sicily uh for their editors across the uh across their company and I went to Agri gento Sicily and I was happy to go there to speak at the uh at the retreat they invited me they they really rolled out the red carpet which was great and the Germans all who all spoke German as a first language English as a second put me next to someone who spoke fluent English and could probably you know have the best conversation with me he was an older man and he introduced himself as George and he was in his 90s and I hit it off with him I had a great conversation with him we talked history we went through the Renaissance the Reformation the Middle Ages and the high Middle Ages Low Middle Ages and uh up and through the 20th century at which point we were going through history and he said I fled Austria When the vermac Roll did I left with 16 Shillings in my pocket and went to England and the uh and and I said you were in the Holocaust and he said well unfortunately I lost my my grandmother's in the Holocaust yes they were killed but I was able to escape and then my parents I got them out before they they were killed and I was just blown away so I hit it off with him and at the end of the night he said I want to publish a next book I said wow who is this guy had no idea quiet gentleman name was George great convers ation it turns out that he was Lord George weidenfeld one of the biggest Publishers of the 20th century he published the double helix by Crick and Watson Deal's Memoirs Lyndon Johnson Pope John Paul II all of their Memoirs mosha Diane you name it he did it and Lady Antonio frasa her history books Lady Elizabeth Longford her history books incredible incredible incredible history in Korea so I said wow this is this is amazing he's and what do you want me to write so we disc rested the next day at lunch and um his Charming wife Lady Annabelle uh had a lot of input the next day and we decided it would be a history of the mafia and George and Annabel convinced me an George and Annabelle convinced me that I was the perfect person to write it with my insights and the education I gave myself and uh I did not know what I was getting myself involved in I took the deal the contract um that was shortly there after executed and uh I started writing I thought it would take me a year it took me seven years it morphed into a Trilogy uh it begins in Sicily I tell the reader where the mafia came from exactly where uh its roots how it was formed inside the Sicilian womb I follow the the Italian-American experience as they crossed the ocean and came to America uh in the late 1800s early 1900s and then I follow the the the alliance that the Italian mafia made with the Jews during prohibition and that continued for the next couple of decades with casinos um I followed the uh the biog fees of my Lansky Dutch Schultz Arnold rotstein along with lucky luchiano Vito geneves uh Albert Anastasia and I basically um followed in volume one the entire experience from Sicily to 1960 when the Kennedy administration begins which is where volume two picks up and volume one will be out now so seven years later unfortunately Lord George has passed on I've dedicated the books to him and my dear friend Bruce Rama and his wife meline and George's wife Anna I've dedicated it to them um the rers were instrumental in getting it done because they bumped into Lord George and Lady Annabel a few months later and Germany and they called me from Germany and were able to seal the deal and get the contract done and uh that's the uh Trilogy that I just finished thanks for asking Vlad I hope everybody reads it congrats congrats thank you well Lewis uh congratulations on turning your life around uh to go from facing a life sentence doing 8 and 1/2 years to actually becoming a successful author and having uh a successful TV show that's something that people in your life rarely accomplish I mean usually it's a revolving door you know you get out you're a felon you can't get a job you can't get an apartment you go back to Crime you get caught again you go back to prison do a few years rinse and repeat rinse and repeat rinse and repeat until you finally get you know you either get killed or you get a lifetime sentence and you end up dying in prison you actually you know broke the odds and realized the mistake of your lifestyle and actually used the resources at your disposal to create something brand new and actually become successful with it so congratulations on what you pulled off and I wish you nothing but the best thank you Vlad thank you thank you Vlad I appreciate that you said it really nicely thank you I've never heard it that put that way thank you thank you so much thank you Vlad thank you so much for having me and CH to me Vlad for all you do absolutely I appreciate you coming in thanks brother peace

Channel: djvlad

Views: 77,744

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

Id: 6uXaRYvUT6A

Length: 89min 24sec (5364 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 05 2024