The Last Jewish Gangster - How They Inspired The Italian Mafia

every time that the nazis would meet our guys would go in and beat the [ __ ] out of these nazi bastards our guys would go in with baseball bats monkey wrenches brass knuckles stink bombs to throw into the place so when they come running out our guys were waiting there what good did the mob do and what bad instant justice you went to the powers to be because if you went through the system the system did ship for you somebody tried to rape the guy's sister he goes to the bosses bosses oh he'll take care of that now if you went through the system with the prosecution the lawyers it's an expediency what you can learn from an old gangster you can never learn if you went to harvard princeton you have these geniuses that go to the best universities and they can't do [ __ ] what was the ugliest question two guys to kill and two guys to do the burial why so the two guys they killed never knew where their body was can i tell you who the biggest organized crimes in the entire world who the government [Music] my guest today is a former gangster author entrepreneur father and a grandpa and he wrote a book called the chronicles of the last jewish gangster from meyer to myron myron sugerman thank you for being a guest on valuetainment okay nice to be here and thank you very much for having me yes so look i've interviewed a lot of italian mobsters gangsters attorneys you know some gangsters from uk some we've had a lot of but never jewish mobs so if you don't mind educating myself on the audience on the history of the jewish mob okay i'll be glad to so the jewish mob basically starts at the time of the large immigration from east europe in the late 1880s 1890s and of course poverty they come into the united states they move into their cities and they form the ghettos of the united states whether it's baltimore whether it's boston new york brooklyn detroit chicago cleveland and um these uh the original the original jewish gangster was really um it was brutal he was he was he was a brute it was brutal uh in fact um there's a book that i read many many years ago that said 25 of the prisoners in the new york prison system were jews what were the crimes a lot of the crimes were violence what year was this probably at the turn of the 20th century got it right and um the name of the book was called the rise and fall of the jewish gangster a jewish mobster or something like that the interesting part about it uh patrick was that um you they were involved in in all forms of of shakedowns violence beatings murders and prostitution time all right um the majority of the of the prostitute in in that time were jewish women they'd come they couldn't find their husbands and the pimps would be waiting for them on the piers majority of the prostitutes in the 20s were jewish not 20s late late uh 1990s 1890s 1890s 1900s got it okay so it was really brutal crime now the generation that comes up that was either born in the united states or had recently immigrated from europe let's say for example meyer lansky benny siegel lefty bulk alter my father's world and so forth some of them were born here and some were born on the other side and came as young kids all right and i'm talking now post 1900 so these kids start as gangs and what they want it's controlled territory and neighborhoods and so forth and the control of the ghetto they had a responsibility as well and that was to protect the the ghetto from the uh being invaded and beat up by kids from other ethnicities and so the the um the pushcart vendors and the storekeepers they would depend on these young kids to defend the neighborhood the young kids were responsible to take care of the fathers the uncles their grandparents cousins and everybody that that was their responsibility the other way around instead of parents it was the kids the kids the kids that took a very good point so um someone there was a very very well-known gangster from newark it's amazing if i'll say to people who's abner longies willman if you didn't come from jersey you never heard of him he was on an equal level with meyer lansky benny siegel all right and with um uh lefke bullculture and murder and cooperate and so forth we'll get into that so his name was longie and where the name long he came from is uh came from the when the old-timers were being invaded by italians or irish or other ethnicities they would holler in yiddish rift for the longer call the long one longer so from the name longer came the name longi abe long swollman and he was six foot two good looking guy uh waxed rich during the prohibition period became known as the al capone of new jersey 75 80 of the alcohol that came into jersey came in under his rule again this is still in the 1890s now this now becomes the time of the prohibition those kids that were gangs evolved into businessmen but we'll get i just want to before we get to anybody um as they as the young kids by the 1920 at the time of prohibition because the law starts in 1920. you have um the old-timers one of them in particular arnold rothstein arnold ross was the brain now the brain was allegedly the guy that uh fixed the 1919 world series together with a an ex-jewish prize fighter by the name of abe attel this is white sox against the reds they call it the black stuff or something like that right right it was the chicago black sikes scandal we're living in a day and age if i tell people what i'm gonna tell you now they're surprised but we had thousands and thousands of professional prize fighters and it up until the middle of the 1930s one-third of the champions of the world were jewish up until the 1930s so so very different jewish reputation then than it is today completely night and day completely feared respected money makers racketeering the original mobs and it almost seems like when you study the history they they they almost took in and they shared their secrets and they trade secrets with the italian and the irish uh uh so we'll get we're gonna talk about arnold rothstein so arnold rothstein uh he came from he didn't come from the ghetto he came from a middle-class jewish family very well respected and he himself wanted to be an outlaw um he's the one that actually in fact is responsible for the modern day mod uh he he he was the original um money guy for bootlegging in new york it meets uh we need young kids to protect our convoys so go to the gangs in the in the ghettos and if he spotted somebody with potential leadership like meyer lansky or like lucky luciano he schooled them and he showed them you're going to make more money with this than you're going to do with this stop being thugs now you got an opportunity to make a lot of money through prohibition everybody wanted whiskey everybody wanted alcohol so he becomes the father of modern of the modern mob uh he got killed uh because he um he refused he welts on a on a card game where he claimed that the game was fixed they shot him he died with the name of the police of a shooter on his lips he it was true tonight code he died and now you had the new guys take over the the the connection between the jews and the italians i was talking to this young fellow that you have here today and i explained the common interest was making money lucky luciano had the the brains to see that money could be made with the jews and mayor lansky understood we can make money with the intents instead of knocking our brains out with each other let's do it the italians however up until 1930 1931 they were controlled by two forces it was called the casta mario wars the wars between joe the boss maceria and salvatore maranzano they fought over the control of the young turks young turks being lucky luciano frank costello joe adonis um and so the competition was between those two forces from the old black hand they were xenophobic meaning that they wouldn't we're from sicily or from this part it's just like we don't want to even do business with guys from calabria from naples and business with jews forget about it i got about it we don't do business with jews they were xenophobic can you give me an idea for for us today okay so we're not there at that time you know you you come from europe you said january 12th to 1938 okay so you you've been around the block you have this the question i want to ask you is the following so you say jews and italians there was some friction between the two who would you compare that to today is there a comparison to make that to today yeah over the period over the period of post-war uh world war ii uh you had competition and it's very interesting good question you had competition between um cubans when they were the new boys on the block post castro post batista so when the cuban mob came here it was formed they called themselves la cooperacion they went toe-to-toe with the italians over the number holes and over the the numbers business in new york to the extent that they were burning down each one's number holes and then ultimately there was a declaration that he sat down there to sit together the boss of the cubans was named jose miguel jose miguel batley and he sat with fat tony and they worked out a peace agreement the albanians and the italians but it's always the italians the russians and the italians but ultimately the italians they have these they have the structure and the power whether it's puerto ricans whether it's dominicans and so forth and so forth during that time when lucky you know there's a costello himself banned you know meyer they're sitting there and you know uh rothstein's kind of giving them a you know formula here's how you do it here's how you make your money and don't let the two blocks in order to do that they had to kill joe with the bosses they had to kill so the first one they took out was joe the boss bustery in coney island one jew and three italians bugsy siegel together with three italians went did the hit before joe the boss masalia could eat that pasta bazoola bianca he was they ruined his appetite they killed him yeah then they had to take care of salvatore maranzano in that particular case lucky luciano and that's a good story he goes to meyer lansky and he says to admire give me four year guys give me four jewels because salvatore maranzano will never recognize four jews coming in dressed as irs agents all right so meyer lansky's using four four jewels um bugsy i think one of the guys from dutch schultz's outfit i always said louie rush from downtown and the fourth guy was um sam uh red levine all right that was meyer lansky's favorite shooter now my sam uh read levine with a strong reputation he was a bit of a religious jew yeah he wore keeper all right eight kosher and used to tell meyer lansky don't give me an assignment on shabbat unless it's absolutely necessary he wouldn't kill anybody on saturday unless it had to be taken care of so after they killed those two guys emerges 1930 31 the the commission and the new crime the five families and so forth and so forth that's where lucky luciano really gets the respect of everybody to bring the five so because in fact it was joe the boss masariyah that kidnapped salvatore lacania it takes him to his warehouses and threatens him that if you don't come with me i'm gonna kill you and lucky luciano it was named salvatore lakani at the time as the original name of lucky luciano says no i'm not going with you they sliced them up left them for dead and that's how we got the name lucky he was lucky to survive that's when he went to myron to benny the bugsy and says guys god bless you we'll never we'll never we'll never succeed as long as we're under the limitations of the repression of these old xenophobic dinosaurs got to get rid of them said i got rid of them and that's where the jews and the italians had a good understanding and excellent understanding that we're going to cooperate and cooperation means more money all right because violence is no good violence interferes that's why when i was telling you the story between the italians and the and the and the cubans see this jose miguel batley was a hero at the bay of pigs he was one of the commanding officers of that unit 4863 or whatever that was that was part of the invasion of bayer pigs he was a c.i.a guy so when he came back to the united states uh they were the deal was negotiated so that the money and medicine went to cuba to release the guys that were locked up the prisoners on the bay of pigs jose miguel comes back and forms what's known as la cooperacion the corporation all right and they start getting aggressive in terms of putting out the uh the buying the number halls number holes meaning the illegal lottery right now my involvement my friendship was with everybody because i was the the um the founding father of the gambling machine business i brought back the slot machines from the time that laguardia knocked them out in 1941 eliminated meyer lansky and frank costello i in 1977 started to put out the first slot machines again um i was a pioneer so people say to me where did you get the idea where do you get the balls to do something like this well i used to go all over the world i've been to 70 countries i speak every language on the face of the earth and i do business all over the world which i learned from my father my father was in the jukebox of vending in cigarette machine business going back prior to 1938. his original partner was doc stature and abe greene doc stature was the original partner with that gentleman i mentioned before longies willman right by the way longies willman waxed extremely rich during the time of prohibition and whack and he was one of the big financiers of the hollywood movies uh he had a love affair with gene harlow he made a great success out of gene hollow the uh he is she was the the marilyn monroe of her time so um doc stancher was the original partner of my father and long as woman they split it long he took the cigarette machine business and my father's was the jukebox business and how did long he take the we had murder incorporated should be people just i'm sure a lot of people are going to be watching this i said i never knew all of this stuff the jews were that tough we had as many shooters and maybe more than the italians we had so many guys that were prize fighters another thing in the 1930s all right this is a fantastic story and nobody knows about it with the rise of nationalist socialist ideology in germany they come to the united states we had a guy by the name of fritz kun kuhn all right he declares himself as the hitler of america and he starts to rally um and bring together um the recent immigrants that came post world war one after the defeat of the kaiser wilhelm uh we had a tremendous amount of germans that came to the united states north new jersey was originally a large german population we had beer gardens the br they call themselves the brown shirts all right brown shirts the brown shirts brown shirts all right and it was called the bund bundy which means the organization in in german and they would start beating up on jews my father was part of an organization called the minute men the minute men were all under the supervision all under the administration of longies willman and they formed an organization called the minutemen which in a minute's notice was just like in the revolutionary war you would have men available in a matter of a minute to go fight the british our guys went to fight the american nazi party there's a book called the the the nazis in newark written by a dear friend of mine warren grover that relates exactly every time that the nazis would meet our guys would go in and beat the [ __ ] out of these nazi bastards all right and this went on throughout the entire 1930s mariolansky took on the nazis in yorkville up on uh first avenue and 86th street um beat the [ __ ] out of him up there it went on in in in minneapolis in chicago the fine beat the [ __ ] out of him what does that mean what does beat the [ __ ] out of my guys would go in with with baseball bats they'd go in with monkey wrenches with brass knuckles stink bombs to throw into the place so when they come running out our guys were waiting there all right rising anti-semitism today people say oh my god you know but in that time jews were responding to it the the mob in minneapolis dave berman um herman pastor sam duran wherever the the the silver shirts another anti-semitic organization would meet our guys were there to beat the [ __ ] out of them all right in chicago there was a very famous prize fighter triple crown champion hero at guadalcanal by the name of barney ross very great american hero at fort aquatic canal when he was in his 30s um he was a hero at guadalcanal in the time of the nazis uh they beat up they fought the anti-semites at the jew haters in chicago one of the guys that that fought together with barney ross was jacob rubenstein some people said who the hell was jacob robinson so let me make it easy for you jack ruby as a son of a [ __ ] jack ruby yeah he was he was a jewish hero all right a bit of a new crazy guy but uh he was a jewish hero jack ruby he fought together with with all the jews to defend against anti-semites how different is how different was the jewish community in the 30s versus today so when you're hearing it hey anti-semites you know hey you know who you guys are going out there fighting beating the [ __ ] out of everybody versus today you hear the same message and criticism how different are the communities between those 80 years well i think the the economics was so much different today for example um the the the attacks on anti-semitism today in the united states are against identifiable jews meaning people that cover their heads black suits beards they're identifiable and they're in the inner cities they're sharing geography all right let's say whether it's williamsburg whether it's brown heights borough park and so forth and so forth they're being attacked the jews in the suburbs haven't really felt it yet right because nobody's going into the wealthy suburban neighborhoods and attacking jews there all right there's the anti-semitism hasn't spread to that point the question you're asking me about 80 years ago is that we everybody was sharing territory in those days all right so whether you were identifiable or not you knew that this was a jewish neighborhood and there was the the question of well we're going to go in there and we're going to attack jews all right and so there was a need for that kind of defense uh going back to the names you mentioned and by the way i want to i want you to finish the story about yourself in 1977 when you said you were doing the slot machines and that's kind of how you brought it up you were a pioneer how big did that get and what kind of money were you making at the peak it was so huge it was so gigantic they should build a statue for me because i made a lot of guys rich all right zillions of guys what we were doing was we were taking we we started with slot machines and evolved into video poker machine and that just broke everything open and when the technology changed and we had a bill acceptor that you could put up you could start putting ones fives tens twenties oh that's a big deal oh my god oh my god you'd have to go collecting coins you were collecting now bills so we calculate that at a certain point in history with no fixed figures but between the fellows that were manufacturing supplying and and they could have been 200 000 machines throughout the entire city new york and again people saw i never saw it over how are you going to see it because if you're living on park avenue you're not going to see it but if you were living in washington heights you walked into every bodega had slot machines in the background 200 000. wow i figured 200 000 and figure each machine average approximately 500 per week per machine so take 200 000 machines and multiply it by 500 now 50 went to the store owner and 50 went to the operator that business flourished for years but until it became too competitive as it became super competitive that's when the that's where the the um conflicts began so that's a hundred million a week 50 million went to the store 50 million you mean to tell me you guys were doing 50 a week so that was between a million endless number of operators i wasn't the only operator i was the the grandfather of it all right but everybody went into it italians dominicans puerto ricans i got what you're saying russians israelis got it everybody so everybody was kind of sharing that together the 50 a week that was coming in how much of that 50 was going to you at that time oh probably maybe well i had new york i would say um between sales operation over a hundred thousand a week yeah so you're making a hundred thousand a week in the 80s yeah and what's your life like that the time i mean you're listen even off camera i watch you you have charisma you're charming you're mad you got you can use the words you're very well spoken so how was your life like so i'm a bit of a unique kind of a character because um i never i i never went higher than in terms of the the kind of lifestyle you know country club none of this i'm i'm a street guy i'm a educated street guy one of the most educated in terms of everything jewish history world of events current and so forth and so on so i pursued a lot of that as far as life concerns but you were not living a lavish lifestyle jewish girl from buenos aires whose family was from poland and we would have if we were told to come here today but patrick is going to interview you she would she would she'd run to the other side of america why why is that what what's issue she don't want school she wants nothing she didn't want to know this woman what's your strong personality though very strong okay she worked in a slot machine business in buenos aires as the bookkeeper that's how i met her got it got it so during this time when you're making that kind of money did you ever get caught did you do time did you ever get in trouble or not i had three state cases in three federal cases i was a revolutionary every time they locked me up i was back the next day opening doing business got it i was just a defiant sort of a guy and um i did time i um the last case was a federal case i had a federal case in washington d.c and he'll get a kick out of this one the name of the judge was harold greene harold greene was the guy that broke up the att monopoly and he had the iran contra affair he was the judge in that wow so he was my judge i get locked up with an old-time mob guy by the name of joe joe the possum nezlein all right for promoting slot machines that joe joey was probably a little bit senile at the time he introduced me to an undercover fbi agent and i'm going all over washington dc and going to black locations come on bro you put my machine in here so okay pop i gonna argue with you you look like you were the man as i'm now of course i'm with the man that's you're putting machines i'm gonna put machines here put machines there meantime this fbi age is all white i got locked up all right harold greene is the judge and the prosecutor is a young jewish woman i'm being real kind about it she falls in love with me all right she's in enchanted with me and she ain't going to screw me one way she's going to screw me the other way she says you're the mayor lansky of our time and you know what i'm going to prosecute you i'm going to get ba so my my kid my cousin was my lawyer and he says to me we had a plea bargain there was no way i was going to win this particular case the fbi had me under so my kid cousin says to me get in touch with your friend simon wiesenthal the nazi hunter so i contact dr wiesenthal and he says i'm in trouble he says what do you need i said need a litter so no problem he writes a letter to judge green and he says this is the man that helps me pursue nazi war criminals in south america right he's my man it's in my book the letter that wiesenthal writes to uh the judge green judge green turns out that he is an escapee from nazi germany he was a kennedy democratic party wow interesting so he gets the letter from from simon wiesenthal and calls this girl i don't want to hurt her feeling sir her terrible reputation any worse than it already is and he says the lady he says um what am i going to do with this letter she says the letter's false sorry it's counterfeit she said go prove it anyways to make a long story short she runs back in she spoke to somebody she said how do i know what was simon wiesenthal judge says get the hell out of here you called him or he called you just no i caught get out get out that letter's authentic all right day of sentencing as we plea bargain the door opens in the chambers of the law of the uh court and uh there's a girl comes out and she's smiling at me my kid cousin says to me says cause you know that girl over there she's smiling it just listen cause that's not unusual i get smiled at all the time by young pretty good women um anyways go in front of judge and in my sentencing report it says mr sugarman is a close intimate associate of vincent jimmy blue eyes aloy my cute cousin says to me because you really know jimmy blue eyes so i never met the man in my life he says but it says because i'm telling you i never met jimmy blue eyes all right so um this prosecutor she says to judge green she says uh although judge green says by the mere mention of a few italian sounding names the government has failed to convince mr this courtroom that mr sugarman is a member of organized crime anyways he gives me five years probation all right uh two weeks later i get a phone call billy cain it's memorial day weekend uh 1997. 1987. meet me at the bay way diner in elizabeth i meet him at the bayway diner so that pretty little girl was my half sister she's a judge she was judge green's billy kane worked he worked for the gambino brothers on 18th avenue fixing his slot machines he liked me he says oh tell the sister you tell judge green he's such a good guy this myron he teaches all the slot machine operators how to rig slot machine set at the jackpots so the jackpots never what never pay out so anyways um a few years later i'm in a a gaslight uh restaurant a chinese restaurant in miami in miami miami beach it was the gallows chinese girl from elizabeth new jersey christine lee jonah place and i'm wearing with all all the old-timers and so one of the people said you know look at that who's at the table there i don't know but you don't know what that that's jimmy blue eyes jimmy blew on his boom interesting now come out he knew your father let's go over i'll introduce you nah let him he's with a woman let him enjoy his dinner so about two more years later a fellow very good guy robbie margot this is my room meet me at the hilton hotel we're going to have lunch today with jimmy blue eyes so fine now he show is late she doesn't robbie goes downstairs to make a phone call from the phone booth who walks in jimmy blue eisen run over jimmy how are you he said who the [ __ ] are you i said jimmy what do you mean who are we i'm your close intimate associate he says to me are you [ __ ] drunk i never met you in my life and then i told the story about how on the the sentencing report it says that myron sugarman is a close intimate associate of jimmy blue eyes listen the government does what it's got to do and we have to do what we got to do and that's life and you take it with a grain of salt your experience who was dirtier over the years the government or the mobsters the gangsters both who was more creative gangsters what you can learn from an old gangster you can never learn if you went to harvard princeton pennsylvania university wharton school of business and so forth there was an old timer by the name of jake mohawk from newark bookmaker and he used to say you see these guys over here they didn't even graduate sixth grade and they have the ability to sit down right and negotiate a peace agreement you have these geniuses that go to the best universities georgetown university go this one school of diplomacy and they can't do [ __ ] he says isn't it amazing these old-timers without any education whatsoever can sit down and come to an agreement shake hands on it and that handshake is worth more than all the papers on the face of the earth made by the greatest lawyers so from that particular point of view it's quite a story i mean i've been to many many sit-downs and of course it's very interesting i was with a guy my grandson that i called louise drake that's the guy i was with from paterson new jersey super professional super professional so when we used to have a sit-down dispute over territories and so forth and so forth it was wonderful you could not have a discussion until you had your bola pasta your bread your olive oil your olives and then your wine and then your espresso coffee and in the process of that hour and a half before you would start talking business what would you talk about well we talk about baseball you talk about broads you talk about boxers you talk about prize fighters you would talk about nothing that we were ready to talk about now when the plates were cleaned and waiters took away everything then starts the procedures and then it went like this gentlemen remember we're not lawyers right if it could be said in 10 words don't use 11. number two they put erasers on the back of pencils for the purpose of erasing a mistake number three what can never be erased is a lie do i make myself clear gentlemen let the proceedings begin you brought the beef against this guy you go first and the these old-timers they knew how they were great to watch them and to negotiate back and forth and so forth and so forth and at the end everybody um i had a major sit down two times and the last time was with um each time was with a fellow by the name of jimmy brown jimmy fayala that was the acting boss of gambit of gambino after john gotti went to jail god he was fabulous he was on the other side he was uh gambino i love that old man um at the end i said something that's struck a real positive chord with him i told this guy anytime you need my mechanics you call me before you take them on your own jimmy fayala he says he turns to his guy and he says i like this [ __ ] jew all right he's a smart [ __ ] kid and then he turns to me so what do you want kid what can i do for you i says well you know mr brownies don't call me mr brown you call me jimmy i said you're smoking some nice cigars today he says you like come on there you go kenny grabs a bunch of cigars and he tells louis red you're lucky you got this kid this kid is good he's good he's good because i wasn't greedy and i understood the rules the regulations and so forth and you life is very fascinating in that world everything's you have to be super honest there's an old song that was uh uh what was the the uh the kid from from minnesota jewish kid that zimmerman uh i can't even bob dylan had a song yeah what the words were if you're going to be out you're going to live outside the law you better be honest and that's the rules as far as life is concerned within that world now is there treachery is there deceit is there breaking of honor and so forth yeah yeah it's human it's all part of the human process so um when you ask the question as far as the government is concerned they get all the power all the time all the power all the strength all the witnesses and so forth so that when a guy would go to trial right he was dead he had a three percent chance of winning it's 97 percent chance that the government's going to win in a trial so that's why the plea bargain everybody play bargains that's a casino that's a good odds on your end the house wins they got it all yeah they have it all and if they don't have it it's just like that like the sentence report yeah let's go back i got a few things i want to cover with him we'll be you know we'll wrap up here shortly so going back to the most powerful jewish cancers of all time so if you ask the average person they're going to say who meyer lansky is going to come up lebke's going to come up who made a lot of money and racketeering what he was doing but he was a family man he rarely drank didn't do drugs he was a guy that was a you know pretty steady and you go hear about ben siegel strong hit man tough guy good looking good with the ladies virginia hill kind of you know uh uh caused the fall for him who else would you put on the list of uh the most powerful jewish mobsters of all time and what did each of them have that was unique uh compared to their peers so there is no jewish gangster anymore so i i really i am the tail end because in jewish a real jewish gangster on that level they were also patriots american patriots and jewish patriots it wasn't just the question of money marilansky for example longies willman um they fought the american nazi party they cooperated with the united states government in operation underworld in world war ii and they supplied weapons and arms to hagena and te argun they'll create the state of israel post world war ii uh pre-state in palestine pre-state israel that's the reason why i was involved deeply with simon wiesel wiesenthal um so that i could do my share of um let's say participation as far as jewish uh above and beyond so it wasn't just a question that they were protecting the neighborhood or protecting the jewish community and so forth it went beyond that there was a tremendous amount of patriotism that was not people are going to watch this i was oh kind of patriots and they were gangsters they were this there's a a talmudic wisdom that says life is not either black and it's neither white it's all shades of gray and everything as far as life is concerned there's no way that you're going to have it specifically black and specifically white you're going to have it of all different shades that's the human existence you want perfect truth when we go off to heaven and you know that's that's perfect truth when you're when you're dying your clothes out great a lot of great um you know uh i've spoken to uh sammy and we've had them on and we've done a lot of different things together with uh our interviews uh and now he's got his own channel he's doing stuff michael francis colada phil leonetti ralph natalie oscar goodman a lot of these different personalities uh did you ever have any dealings yourself with gotti or sammy gravano yourself or something sammy would remember me we we met in a big big sit down and um it was an italian restaurant i think it was called the sicilian on second april 19th uh it was a funny pla funny it was it was it was completely closed off that day like a it took me four cars they drivers to exchange cars so that by the time we got to the place uh everybody in the place was a gangster right and sammy the bull was the moderator that day and uh i was brought there because there was going to be a major um combination of the genovese and the gambino family they're going to put together a slot machine operation 2000 machines and i was asked the question if i would be able to organize and administrate it and i said that the risk of sounding a modest i'm the only one that could do something like that louie red the buttons are popping off his shirts that's my man that's my man jimmy brown says i told you that kid is good so sammy the bull i met him on all of your interviews it's very impressive all of them all most of these all that i've watched these guys are very candid they're very very honest about their feelings sentiments and so forth and so forth it's very very good they're good you're good you bring out the best of these guys as far as honesty is concerned i appreciate that what was the biggest thing you noticed from sammy uh when you said he was a moderator did he use humor was he was he did he have presence was it intense was it calm what was his approach when you saw him low-key low-key low-key yeah okay there was nothing there was nothing ostentatious about the man he just was strictly business gentlemen we're here what's this with slot machines who's this one guy this issue of garbage issue over this issue over that and so forth and so so it was basically again you were sitting at your table you were genevieve's table and other guys would be sitting at a gambino table and whatever the issue was ours was slot machine so you get called to the table and sammy was strictly a moderator strictly was he was he a feared guy at that time did people fear him i was told by my by my driver by louis red's driver that took me there he says this guy's dynamite that was the expression he used he says this guy is dynamite referring to sammy sammy's from gambino he's not from genovese my guy tells me that guy is dynamite that's the only experience i had as far as he's concerned i knew all the the you had um ralph and that and natalie you had uh tommy leonetti um and um [Music] what's his first name michael micah francis not okay so the philadelphia crowd there was a crew in jersey in newark it was down neck newark and the guy that was in charge was tony bananas now they talked about him killing angelo bruno so his name was tony bananas capenegro i knew everybody from from newark because i'm from newark so i knew that whole crew uh i knew a zillion guys or vice versa they knew me because guys that heard about the gambling machine business they jumped on it so we had everybody from every crew from every street corner throughout the entire city of new york suburbs and so forth and so forth it was a huge huge huge business that i created and this is this is still in the 80s 77 on it went from 77 and then until i got locked up in 95. i went to jail in 95. 95. so that that's about that i think natalie did you have any dealings with joe molina or no no no my connection was with newark with the philadelphia azeroth brooms outfit and newark the guy that killed him was tony he was the capo regime he was the guy that was in charge of newark and never anything with scarfo i met him one time just he was eaten in their restaurant and one of the kids from newark said to you yeah i get to meet the nikki scarf did you get the feeling from like did you feel no i didn't have anything okay so you don't have any kind of opinion about okay the guys that that were extremely extremely close that i was close with was all the way upstairs on top jerry katina from newark uh was my father's partner in the jukebox when they visited doc statue along these woman mayor lansky those people i knew those were your okay so how was meyer when you met him what was meyer like a gym a gentleman a gentleman and so forth but that time he had run away and met him in israel my father's partner doc stature what year was this when you're making this dean seventy seventy when he wanted to get citizenship but they turned him down and didn't give it to him is that the time or okay yeah yeah he went he he he knew he was going to be indicted he ran to israel my father's partner original partner was joseph doc stature doc stature was uh he was a genius absolutely what a what a mine but doc stature accepted exile from the united states and a deal that he worked out with edward bennett williams the great lawyer from washington and robert kennedy he actually made the deal with kennedy to accept exile from the united states he was in israel he told me on one saturday afternoon or saturday morning you'd be here for lunch for shabbat and just he never told me why and all of a sudden maya lansky walked in meyer lansky sat down next to me i was a kid i was going to go to africa the next month to run slot machines for a backdoor ballet deal in lagos nigeria with a couple of arab gangsters and they needed a manager so um meyer lansky um very polite very cordial and he tells me listen son he says they made me bigger than al capone that's why i'm here in israel because if i go to trial uh i'm gonna do life and all it was was just a um uh income tax case at the end of the meal he by the way says you know uh your father was my very very dear friend he was with us in the riviera telling havana he reminded me of my father same style low-key quiet gentleman they took me off to the corner and they were concerned at that particular point about mr katina who was my father's partner that bought out doc stature after doc went to went to l.a opened up the moulin rouge and then he was at the at the hotel flamingo and sands and so forth and so forth they were concerned about jerry katina right years it took me years later to figure out all of the concerns it was all about the rake off who's in charge of the rake off because once meyer lansky left florida to go to israel who was in charge of the of the uh uh the money if the coming into we used to go to miami meyer would have it packaged up and it would be picked up by a fellow by name a silva and fetterman from geneva switzerland who was i think somehow or another related to tibor rosenbaum who was the owner of a bank called the international bank declared which was the bank that banked both the rake off for the mob and was a mossad bank it we worked it worked both for both uh uh for both organizations interesting now lansky's strength when you hear about lansky's strength you hear a lot of different things you know the whole uh uh scene you see in the movie mobsters with christian slater where you know meyer wouldn't take you know he would always fight back he didn't know how to fight but he was feisty he was willing to fight he was not afraid of you and then he's portrayed as a guy that's very methodical very business very strong but you know low-key didn't need the attention he was a what else would you say with some of his strengths i mean i'm sure your dad told you stories about meyer who he probably had more dealings with so mayor lance used to come to newark all the time yeah um and stayed at the old riviera hotel it was a riviera hotel actually on clinton avenue and um he was he was just a low low-key guy all right um dress conservative thought conservative and he was a patriotic american and a patriotic jew very strong on the question of jewish identity in terms of theology whether he believed in god probably not he didn't he wasn't a practicing jew he was a nationalistic jew all those guys participated in supply of weapons and arms at a time that the neutrality act was invoked by truman stating that it was a criminal act to supply weapons and arms to palestine either to the arabs or to the jews our guys played a significant role in buying up weapons and arms of um surplus weapons and arms post world war ii and we had all the shipping connections at the port of new york through frank costello and albert anastasia so that the longshoremen cooperated with the jews with the zionists to ship weapons and arms meyer lansky and long east willman played significant roles they went out of their way constantly so the the value system of these people uh meyer lansky would not be in the dirty business the dirty business being prostitution uh or drugs who was if he wasn't who was just about everybody really yeah it was it was so it was um even his colleagues even even the different families yeah yeah and my guy was louis streaky and he used to say every time every we we'd meet at a delicatessen called carpenter and passaic it'd be a round table and everybody was at the table and his message is gentlemen we're not in that business all right gentlemen we're not not business and gentlemen we're not in that business i think everybody at the table was at that business except myself got it in some form or another if patrick comes to me and says i'm not saying patrick i'm saying let's say mr mr mr john smith comes to me says to me finance me give me 25 000. right don't ask any questions you'll you'll have back uh 50 on your money in 30 days all right please don't ask me who what when where how so everybody got it in some form or another was connected to that business who trusted who like who how much of a role did trust play or how much of a role did uh intuition play like what you know the main gangsters who are sitting there some sometimes saying i know this guy's full of [ __ ] he's lying to me to my face but i still have to figure out a way to do business with them what mattered more trust intuition street smart how would you conversation of all factors okay a combination of all factors um um you all your interviews your guys tell you trust nobody every that was a common thread through all your interviews with the fellas that we mentioned before it's very difficult to trust in that world somebody says what is the definition of the word friend all right friend is a sacred word we've got two guys i'm going to take this bottle of water and take this bottle of water i'm one guy and my best friend is this guy all right we get nailed we get brought down to police headquarters all right they put me in one room and they put my best friend in another room and then they say to me sugarman that guy over there uh moisha moishe's your best friend i said he's a great guy well that great guy is talking he's got diarrhea of the mouth he's burying you so you know what you better be a smart guy you better bury him before he buries you and if i'm smart i'll say to him gentlemen kiss me which in translated yiddish means kiss my ass and if my friend maisha is really my friend he says kisme right that's the definition of friendship all the rest is all [ __ ] guys huh kiss embrace gonna have espresso coffee we're gonna have a drink together and so forth and so forth and then what happens when the your your best friend says to you come on we're gonna take a ride tonight we're gonna see somebody all right and he's walking you right into your death michael francis it tells that story how scared he was to go anywheres and so forth he knows a very smart guy very very very talented very interesting very very interesting and he tells exactly the way it is so uh the other factor that you didn't mention you mentioned intuition you mentioned smarts and trust and all that providence elaborate providence god sometimes in life we don't know where it's coming from all right it's saved because i had a an attempt on my life one time two times the first and second time uh was by providence but my guy that by supposed to meet in the morning who never was on time that particular morning was on time and he spotted two guys that were dressed in uniform long coats caps and sure enough the guy shot up the stairs and uh the truth of the matter was why was he there that particular morning 364 days a year never on time this particular day he was there on time and was stu and experienced enough to say those two guys they're here today they're here to do you more than just harm providence so trust intuition um street and on top of that providence um you know in the in the in the mob world when you think about the jewish mob you think about you know the italian mob what good did the mob do and what bad did the mother obviously when you think about the bad we know a lot of the bad we read a lot about the bad but you know there's those that also will say it did some good what would you say the good it did to the uh to the community um well on the on the the local level uh if you look at uh somebody tried to rape my sister as an example thank god it didn't happen but let's say for example my my father i can't even get to tell you how many times sugai was called in the middle of night sugar can i come see i got a problem uh such and such the union is that and so forth this autism my father was with jerry cadina so next day ah my aunt has a good story my aunt shirley my mother's sister she becomes a widow and she's got a supermarket up in bound brook new jersey a couple of tough guys come in bully her and mrs goldberg you're gonna do this that she got scared she called my mother mother calls me my father was already passed away and she says take care of that all right so i go to see abe greene i've sat there he said telling to land surely to come comes to the office and she tells him the problem that he got bullied and starting their union episode ape says what nice seeing you shirley take care of yourself sweetheart and surely says to me no what is what's going on here he says go home let me go home i came here to get the thing and shirley go home sure enough the next morning she couldn't walk into a supermarket it looked like a flower shop there were bouquets and all of a sudden you know baskets of fruit and this that and so forth and two guys show up with the hats and mrs goldberg we never knew who you were we apologized and if you ever need anything you come to see us and so forth and stuff that's a million times that story of you went to the powers to be because if you went through the system the system did shift for you somebody tried to rape the guy's sister all right he goes to the bosses bosses so he'll take care of that and sure enough you know in the old days that guy that was an attempted rapist he never see him again all right it was taken care of now if you went through the system and they were the prosecution the lawyers and this and so it said expediency you get justice instant justice providing of course and they bring that out in the movie the godfather which is very accurate to show that you get expediency as far as the justice is concerned whereas if you go to civil cases i said you a sewer guy all right guys screwed you for money you're going to go sue them how many years is it going to take before never do you lose the case two to four years with luck you get two to four years yeah all right you're unlucky it might be uh 10 years waiting for a resolution because it's going through the system so this so you asked an excellent question the benefit of of the mob is that it cuts through all the [ __ ] gets right down to the basics what's the ugly what's the ugly i mean i've read i've seen i've interviewed i've i've done a lot of research on that what was the ugliest part can i tell you who the biggest organized crime is in the entire world who the government every government is the worst organized criminal enterprise on the face you know these guys here they're midgets compared to the government except that the government look it the government made me oh he's the boss of the slot machine business all right uh sugarman he's the boss of the slot machine business good terrible thing go to my god he's organized climate he plays his slot machines you you you're funny you're funding organized crime okay good uh turn on your television set and you watch on television all right guys playing in their living room on a computer the same slot machines that myron sugarman operated in bodegas 20 years ago all right but now you can sit in your living room and you can go broke play in the same slot machines that my machine but this is good because there's this government and then we're going to have taxes and the taxes are going to be good it's going to help people and so forth and so atlantic city is still a [ __ ] house after all those years from 1978 that all that money that's going to be used for the benefit of blah blah blah it's all [ __ ] government is your biggest criminal organization on the face of the earth but it's a necessary evil all right many years ago my father's partner and i explained to you that brought out dark statue become the acting boss of the genovese crime family jerry katina underrated understated the most brilliant man one of the most brilliant men i ever met in my life a desk like this he would be sitting reading the manchester guardian the christian science monitor wall street journal and new york times self-educated man my father used to say mr katina he could run the pentagon or general electric and with the passing of years i come to the conclusion that man could have been the president of the united states of america he had such a skill and administrating of people talent and intuition and instinct the genius about himself all right at that party in 1991 september 13th 1991 i met how many archie's home in fort lauderdale in uh florida for his wife's 70th birthday very different of my fathers and mothers and he tells me the old man wants you to be at the party tonight and i'm honored and of course when mr katina walks in everybody was like oh jerry good to see you he says to me get over here sit down and then he of course he's super comfortable with me because he can talk to me like he can talk to nobody else and then he says to me i was just another chief operating officer of just another corporation and i never forgot those words right i was just another chief operating officer makes sense of course it made sense i kept peace resolved problems labor unions recruiting everything made everything work made it all work so it's so interesting when you other which which one of the five families was the best ran tightly ran money making feared which of the five was that well at different intervals it depends upon the leadership for example mr katina my goodness gracious that man he could have easily been the president of the united states of america the ballet deal okay valley manufacturing valley slot machine valley um hotels and so forth okay okay my my father's company runyon sales company was the official distributor for ballet manufacturing company before the slot machine business they made slots before the war but my father's company becomes the distributors for ballet in 1946 uh and they made a machine called the ballet bingo it was a subterfuge gambling device looked like a pinball machine it was a phenomenal machine bali bing dingle baller bingo a belly bingo pinball that machine looked like it had a hand that came out of the machine and grabbed the money out of your pocket interesting it was a d it was the most seductive piece of equipment on the face of the huh all right and robert kennedy knocks it out in 1992 all right he says that machine is the same thing as a slot machine and he makes it uh amends what was known as the johnson act passes a law called the eastern act 19 1963 stating that a valley bingo machine multiple coins pinball machine is a gambling device and cannot be shipped interstate and knox bali out of the box valley goes into foreclosure the manager of that company was bill o'donnell the original owner was ray maloney brilliant man and the new manager or the manager that ran the company was bill o'donnell the maloney family was no longer involved with the business they come up with a hopper somebody but it invents a hopper system that takes a slot machine from a mechanical device that only pays out 20 coins and it's going to put in a hopper system that's going to spit out hundreds of coins thousands of coins in fact it's going to spit out eventually dollars and something like it bill o'donnell calls my father says sugi could you introduce me to bill o'donnell says sure goes to uh go could you introduce i'm sorry could you introduce me to jerry kathina my father says to jerry katina bill o'donnell from bali you never met him he wants to talk he's got a proposition he said don't make him out comes and he sits in the office in springfield new jersey in a matter of two and a half three hours jerry katina hammers a deal where they take the company out of foreclosure all right and goes on to be ballet manufacturing company jericho did the machine was so great all right jerry catina understood in a matter of seconds that this was going to revolutionize the slot machine business he caused the people from enterprise in buffalo which was a jewish family that owned all the baseball concessions and so forth he gets money from them he calls sam klein in cleveland ohio big cigarette machine operator he's a smart businessman he had that kind of connection that he could call people around the country and hammer a deal together took two hours to hammer the deal get the money up take the cup take the factory out of foreclosure and become ballet manufacturing company then he calls up his friend dino dean martin in vegas and he says the day he says i'm sending you abe green introduce them to all the hotel owners and that's how value machines get tested and in a matter of they own 95 of the slot machine business in las vegas nevada for years and years and years and years mm-hmm so when you talk to me about who was this who was which which crew jerry katina was was was a phenomenal now you had some guys that were just paul castellano really well sammy the bull told you the man should not have been a mob boss he distanced himself he was too legitimate he was making money too legitimately and he didn't have that human touch the guy that should have been was o'neill it should have been according to sammy the bull and john gotti was the guy that really should have been but again um carlo gambino was genius from what i what i was told as far as the streets are concerned you have to have leadership quality to be a boss to be a mob boy did you ever do anything with sunny francie's or no no nothing was sunny no and and uh did you ever think that uh sammy uh uh could have one day been a boss or no you saw sammy as underboss to gotti and that was the relationship they had i don't think i had enough experience with him in order to make that joke okay if i judged everybody against jerry katina nobody was qualified jerry katina you put him at the top so jerry's your goal jerry's the greatest boss you've ever he was a it was a superb okay superb discipline we called him an a an iron fist and a silk club was he more a mobster an earner a leader what was he everything no he was no mobster so he wasn't the one that was going out taking people out and but maybe in his youth for sure okay nobody nobody fooled them but i used to see manchester guardian christian science monitor and so forth yeah self-educated man tremendous context throughout the entire united states he rose up the ladder as far as success was concerned sue tai and acted accordingly all right a gentleman there was no such thing as um you couldn't a legitimate if you had a legitimate need you were a good guy you went to him for a favor i threw through the ranks you got the favor done again i'm going to ask you one question i'm curious enough if you have any other kind of version of story to this john f kennedy assassination i've heard hey now i've interviewed 20 people on the topic of john f k you know jfk assassination what do you know the involvement of ruby the mob the cia lbj what do you know so so jimmy blue eyes tells me the story okay i used to meet with him once a month downstairs in the hilton hotel so i said to him one time i said jimmy this kid harvey oscar he says we have better [ __ ] shooters than lee harvey oswald it's all [ __ ] we had nothing to do with him i says but tell me the story he says okay joe kennedy all right joking the nicest thing you could have said about joe kennedy is that he hated italians more than he had to jews couldn't stand italians could he couldn't stand jews so um he wanted jack kennedy to become president right he reaches out to peter lawford his uh son-in-law you were friendly with that little skinny guinea frank sinatra we need a favor what's the favor you go to him you're part of the rat pack tell them we need cook county chicago we need west virginia unions in order to get uh kennedy elected um chicago um dewey no no no dewey was new york the prosecutor no the irish daily daily richard daley uh irish catholic uh democrat uh sam mooney all right they get together we're gonna get this guy elected all right now um he gets elected all right here's the here's the mentality you came to me for a favor your man got elected it was me that got him elected our guy got him elected hello oh we got a claim on you you owe us big time joe kennedy says what's happening he said well these italians are by the way you [ __ ] with these italians you got a girlfriend by the name of judith extra campbell she's between you and sam moody you're sharing a girlfriend you're sending messages to him he's sending messages to you quit that [ __ ] where's your brother robert come here come here bobby you're going to be the united states attorney general all right because you're mean and vicious like the old man your brother jack all he wants to do is screw everybody all right so you're going to get rid of these italians because they are a pain in the ass they're a pain of my irish ass okay he opens up the crime uh uh passes a bill called the omnibus which is the preface to the eventual local the uh um uh rico all right he has a department within the state within the united states department of and auntie justice and all right it starts with robert kennedy now in the mind of the italians they say wait a minute wait what are you doing here we got you elected now you're going to go after us you son of a [ __ ] kennedy bastards i told you you never could trust an irishman that irish son of a [ __ ] and so forth and so forth now i used to go to dallas texas at the back pinball machines from an old friend of my dad by the name of abe sussman oh and he was abe was the connection jew in in dallas so dallas always answered to chicago chicago everybody that crew in dallas and well everything west of uh up until vegas vegas was over jax of chicago jackson make sense yeah yeah so if some jew from chicago got himself jammed up in dallas they used to call abe and say hey we got one of your jews here got it get him on an airplane get him that lady yeah all right that was the system in dallas texas and that explains how jack rubinstein jack ruby was in the dallas police department because he used to buy coffee hang around he was low level but he was a low-level jewish gangster from chicago all right now that it raises the whole question what the hell was jack ruby doing in the dallas police department and killing lee harvey oswald sorry where it concerns legends and myths all right we'll sit here from now until the cows come home because the same stories over and over who killed loggies willman who killed this one who killed that one and so forth who killed marilyn monroe if you weren't there if you weren't involved in a hate you don't know by the way carlo gambino was very smart he used to send two guys to kill and two guys to do the burial why so the two guys that killed never knew where their body was yeah so the two guys who killed never knew where the body was right here you i'm gonna send you to do the killing and i'm going to send him over here to do the bury so that you can never say i i'll take you where the where the where the body is so you killed you brought the body to him he took the body and buried it yeah so you don't he knows you killed him but you don't know you don't know that he don't know he's you go to such and such a destination pick up a body and bury it okay but he doesn't know who killed them of course not hey why was that what was he doing that is it too because you know without without knowledge of the body there's nothing there's no there's no crime no body no crime so meaning no one really knows what happened i mean there's all these stories so that was exactly exactly it's all speculation but abe sussman the old friend of my dance told me that jack ruby was just a knock around guy that ran a few strip clubs in dallas texas right but he was close enough in the police to what police department has a schmegetti like uh jack ruby hanging in this place with a pistol so that that oh of course added fuel to the any any unique story you heard about hoffa again i've heard i've heard many of them is there any unique story you have on hoffa um too many stories so the movie who killed them meaning who killed alpha no no but i i i did go to see a hit man by the maheshi ko koningsberg harold kale comes but he was up in attica he was in his 50 he was in his 46th year when i went up to see him right and i asked him i said because he was a known killer stone cold killer um did you you have anything to do with the uh offer often none of your [ __ ] business is okay i'm sorry heshi he says but i will tell you something he says i'm the guy that was involved in supplying weapons and arms to uh israel and i'm here with a journalist by name an award-winning journalist my name is david samuels all right this is cute story so uh hes she said 46 years he says to me um i'm the guy that told me mushy diane mushy diana i said muchy we're on a boat in um marseille and might say france all right and there's going to be guns and weapons i'm going to just give this to haganah i'm going to give this to ergon and i'm giving this to the stern gang all right and if you say one [ __ ] word i'm going gonna blow your balls off do you understand and he says years later 1940 and 1950s he says years later this was this was 1940 and he says in 19 it was in 1947 what the hell was it oh in 1947 48 he says i run into jabotinsky the father of the revision of zionist movement and he pinches me on my chin and he tells me good [ __ ] job good job harold good job terrific and i said to david uh samuels don't you say your [ __ ] word john butzinski died in 1970 so guys would put themselves in situations that i was here i was there i was this i was that and so forth and so but too many stories so maybe michael is right when you said he can't trust anyone in that world he was brilliant yeah michael michael's interview genius michael michael is uh he may be one of the best communicators in the marketplace he's very very in his own way yeah very unique well listen i really enjoyed i'm so glad you made it out here and i know you know the the occasion it kind of worked out for everybody we have a legendary person here with us as well streaky that's sitting to my right to your left and my grandson yes but i really enjoyed talking to appreciate you for coming out folks if you're watching this we're going to put the link below we're going to put the link below to myron's book the chronicles of the last jewish gangster from meyer to myron the link will be below uh to order on amazon and with that being said thanks for coming out appreciate you once again thank you very much it was nice it was nice and i watched all your videos and i got that phone call the other day i said to myself wow i'm going to be a superstar i'm going to have trophies i'm going to have women who are going to women who want to take selfies with me oh my goodness you're no longer going to need tinder just because of valuetainment i'm going to have to walk around with bigger than my cage not going to no more swipe rights i completely different story and angle about what he had to say about the history of jewish mob how powerful they were before 25 of inmates very interesting history of the jewish mob that myron shared with us if you enjoyed this interview i'm curious to know your thoughts comment below put a thumbs up subscribe to the channel and last but not least two other interviews i want you to watch one is with samuel garvano we talked about sammy a lot and the other one is phil leonetti he did an interview with me and he asked for the camera to be off when i was not you know for to not show his face it's a very interesting interview with phil leonetti the former underboss of the philadelphia crime family click over here to watch that take care everybody bye-bye

Channel: Valuetainment

Views: 956,327

Keywords: Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneur Motivation, Entrepreneur Advice, Startup Entrepreneurs, valuetainment, patrick bet david, sammy the bull, salvatore gravano, mafia, mob, underboss, mafia documentary, john gotti, john gotti jr, five families, colombo crime family, frank cullotta, michael franzese, john alite, oscar goodman, mob life, best mafia interview, mob documentary, Jewish Mafia, Jewish mobster, Meyer Landsky, Myron Sugerman, Myron to Meyer

Id: tvZgqYGEqR0

Length: 85min 31sec (5131 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 09 2021