Taking Down The Real Sopranos: The Seamus McElearney Story

Today, on Crime & Entertainment, we have FBI Agent Seamus McElearney. Seamus recounts how his early undercover work with a key informant inside the real-life New Jersey crime family that was the inspiration for The Sopranos. Hiw work ultimately helped dismantle the organization, turning a dangerous case with high-ranking mafia members into a career-defining breakthrough.

Check out Seamus's book here - https://a.co/d/09NptR2k

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

They were the basis of the Sopranos. And there is a lot of things in there about they talk about no show jobs or no work jobs. And then you have the Wall Street thing, and then obviously the thing with with Tony owning the strip club, which is in there, Sabata Bing, which is based out in Jersey. I think it's it's not that's called Satin Balls, I think. Um but then I also heard him compared to a guy named John Riggie that was over there. So like is it is Tony kind of a culmination of a few different people? Or what's your opinion?

SPEAKER_00 0:27

I think so, and we can like you know we can we can talk about that in the sense is okay, so the show starts, right? The first season, um Jack Capriel is the boss in the show, dies of stomach cancer. Yep. In real life, Jacob Maury dies of stomach cancer in June of 1997. Very ironic. Then, as you just said, you have the strip club in New Jersey, the one in Queens. Then the bread and butter of the T. Kelly Kanti family is the unions. They had two unions.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Crime and Entertainment. I'm here with former FBI agent Seamus McElhone. Seamus, how are you doing, my friend? I'm doing good, Wade. Hey, look here, this interview's been a long time coming. I seen you on my good friend Matt Cox's podcast. And you know I love Matt to death, but he doesn't know a whole lot about the mob and organized crime. So I said, I need that guy's phone number, and luckily you were able to come and join us here and there in my studios in New York. And I'm excited to have you on, my friend. I'm really looking forward to it. It's great to be here. Well, thank you very much. So, as we mentioned, former FBI agent, one of the first cases, and correct me if I'm wrong, this was very early on in your career, was going undercover into the De Cavalcanti family. Tell me a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Sure. Uh well the the this case starts even before I went to training. It starts in January of 1998, where three individuals decided to rob the World Trade Center. Yep. However, uh, they got caught pretty quickly. The mastermind behind that was a guy named Ralph Guarino. So Ralph had instructed them to come out on a certain floor, uh, but they didn't listen to him, and they came out on a different floor, and they decided to take their mask off and were caught pretty quickly. If I remember correctly, two guys were caught that day. The third guy fled to New Mexico and was caught within days. Ralph, uh, since he was the mastermind behind it, was smart enough to call uh a legendary agent named George Hanna because he realized the walls were starting to cave in and that the cops are going to be starting to look for him sooner or later. So he called George Hanna, who was uh an agent from Brooklyn, a street guy himself. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, and George convinces him to become a proactive witness. When I say a proactive witness, that's uh a witness who's gonna make consensual recordings and stay on the street. The beauty of a proactive witness is you never know where they're gonna take you, right? Because they can speak to someone from a different family, they could speak to someone from a gang, you just never know who they're going to record a conversation with. Where Ralph led us was the Brooklyn faction of the DeCavalcanti family. Because you're probably thinking, how does the New York FBI take down the Jersey family? Right. And that's what happened. Ralph led us to the Brooklyn faction of the De Cavalcanti family. The second event that kind of starts this case, and if I remember correctly, the robbery took place on January 14th, 1998. The second event was the murder of a guy named Joseph Canigliero. Joseph Canigliero was a DeCavalcanti associate who was confined to a wheelchair. So you're probably asking, how did he get confined to a wheelchair? So that happened in the 1970s when him and a DeCavalcanti soldier named James Gallo went to go collect loan shark money from a victim. Uh when they went to go collect the loan shark money, if I remember correctly, he was in a vehicle and they went around to the sides of the vehicle, and Jimmy Gallo accidentally shot Joseph Canigliero. Yeah, loading a gun, I think. Yeah. And uh he was paralyzed from the 70s up until his death in 1998. So the reason that he was killed was because he was, even though he was in a wheelchair, he was a ruthless person. What he used to do is he would call individuals over to his wheelchair and kill them and have his crew then uh put him in a torp and then just bury them. So his crew, he used to extort them himself. They just got sick of him because he was such a ruthless person and they wanted to kill him. And that's what happened. They actually killed him in January of 1998. If I remember correctly, it was January 23rd. So those are the two events that start this case. I don't even go to Quantico until February of 1998. So the case is starting weeks before I even go to training. So I go to training. Um I'm down in training. I graduate in May of 1998. I'm lucky enough to get back sent back to New York. I'm born and raised in New York. I was uh born in the city, raised in the Bronx. Um so when you go through training, they tell you if you're from New York, there's a 99% chance you're gonna get sent back to New York. If I had been sent to any other field office, I would have been.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

I'm gonna just probably do a little bit of the sirens.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Okay. Where was I? Uh where you're talking about uh probably gonna get sent back. Yeah. Okay. So basically, um there's a 99% chance you're gonna get sent back to New York. So I was fortunate to be sent back to New York because if I got sent back to another field office, I was gonna be kind of shocked by that. I wasn't prepared for that. So I got spent sent back to New York. And when you get sent back to New York, every other field office is different. But when I got sent back to New York, they throw you through a rotation. When you one of the parts of rotation is going to surveillance, and I got sent to a squad called SO2, and SO2 just happened to be doing dedicated surveillance on Ralph Guarino, who, as I said, was a proactive witness that we had uh targeting the decalcantes at that particular time. Uh so I was fortunate enough to get on that that team that was monitoring Ralph, and then sure enough, in December of 1998, I get assigned to a squad called C-10, and C-10 is responsible for the banana family. And then because Ralph, because George had flipped Ralph and convinced him to be a proactive witness, they were now responsible for running and investigating the decablocantes. So that squad, C-10, had two missions, the bananos and the decaplicantes. I get assigned to that squad, and I get assigned to help George with the decalocantes. So that's how this case starts.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Okay. So I've heard some of those names before from the people that I interviewed. Which one did they call him the pig? Which one was that? The pig, I don't think I've heard that before. Okay, that escapes me. I was just speaking with um Zach before we started, and he was asking me about that. Um, but he did mention about the the accident in the car where the guy was reloading the gun, the gun went off and then it shot him. He did talk about that. Yes. So you get you're you're fresh out of the as I say, academy would be the right term for it, right? Correct. You're fresh out of the academy, you get thrust into this. Growing up, I'm assuming you said you were born and raised in Brooklyn. Obviously, you knew of the mob and its presence. Uh, how did you feel about that going in? Well, I was born and raised in the Bronx.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Okay, so you had definitely deep in there then. Yes. Uh, but I was familiar with the mob, but really didn't have a lot of interaction with the mob. I was curious about the mob when I was going through training. I was reading books about it. I was reading on Underboss, I think it was called about Sammy. Sammy. Uh so that brought attention to it, and I was I wanted to work that violation because the beauty of the mob is they're into everything, wherever they can make money. That's and to me, that was great. If you go to the DEA, it's just drugs. If you're working FBI, working white-collar, it's just white collar. The beauty of the mob is whatever they can make money. So that's the violation that I wanted to work. Now, when you go into the FBI, you really don't have a choice. It's the needs of the Bureau and they assign you. I was just lucky enough to get assigned to that particular squad. So the stars were aligned for me. As I said, getting out of training, getting assigned to that surveillance team, and then ultimately getting to assign to that particular squad. So when I get to that squad, I'm helping George with all the administrative work behind Ralph because people don't realize when you make a consensual recording, the recording could be three hours. It could take six hours to listen to that because, as you know, these guys talk in code. They could be in a diner, they could be in a nightclub, they could be in a car, and they talk very low. So you have to listen to that nugget of information that you might want to put into an indictment. During the two years that we operated Ralph, he made about 300 consensual recordings and we had about a thousand surveillance logs. So that's a lot to go through to prepare an indictment. So we operated him for two years, and then we come into our first indictment that we're going to take down. And that was in December of 1999, where we arrested 39 individuals through various families that Rao was able to get conversations with. And during that time period, uh, for all the hard work that I did during those year and a half as a new agent, and basically as a new agent, you just do you do what you're told, right? Because you're lucky to be an agent in the first place. I get assigned to arrest Anthony Capo, a violent decavalcante soldier from Staten Island. I was shocked by that because A, I'm a new agent. You're lucky to be on an arrest team, and when you're on an arrest team, you're basically assigned to rear security for your own safety. And here I am going to be assigned as the team leader, meaning that I'm responsible to arrest him, form a team, and make sure everything goes right that day.

unknown 9:27

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

So now Anthony Capo, he what was his rank at the time? Was he a boss or uh was he a soldier? Soldier, okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Now, up until that time period, unbeknownst to me, uh, no one the D. Calvocante, no maiden member in the D. Calvocante family had ever flipped before. Yep. So I arrest him. Um before I arrested him, I had I had watched how George operated Ralph for those two years, operated him with respect, treated him kindly, and Anthony had a vicious reputation, horrible reputation with law enforcement, extremely hostile. So despite that, I was going to treat him that way. I did my research on him. I found out that he was a diabetic. So that day I didn't want him to flatline on me. I made sure that I had orange juice with me. I made sure that I had chocolate with me. Um, I I studied him like you would study for a test. I knew everything about him. I knew about where he lived, his phone numbers, his kids' dates of birth, their names, his wife's name, his family members' names, everything about him. So when I went to go arrest him, you do a lot of pre-planning work related to that. When we went to his house, he wasn't there. And his wife said that he's at his mom's house. So all the planning that you did related to, finding out where he lived, making sure that there's no one else in the house goes out the window. So now we're run running blind. We go to his mom's house and he's there. Doesn't give us any trouble at all. And I see a very uh loving relationship with his current family that's there. And that, you know, I wouldn't say it kind of threw me for a loop, but everything, this built-up notion how violent he was and this reputation that he had, I didn't see it initially, even though he was with his family. So um we get him dressed, he comes out, he's wearing a Dallas Cowboy jacket. I'm a Steeler fan, so I don't like the Cowboys. So we immediately had this banter back and forth, which is good. I read him his rights, and he immediately invoked his right to counsel and right his wrote his rights remained silent. So at that point in time, I cannot ask him any more questions, right? But that doesn't mean that I can't give him statements. And he was charged with um conspiracy to murder Charlie Majurry, who was an acting panel boss at the time, and with mail fraud. So I wanted to throw him some nuggets, let him have some food for thought. So related to the conspiracy to murder Charlie Majurry, I said to him, Your plan was to ring his doorbell and shoot him in the face. The reason that you didn't do that, because there was a cop on that block that lived on that block on a cul-de-sac. That was a hard truth. So again, I said, Don't say anything, just listen to what I'm saying. Because he had already invoked his right to counsel. So that was a truth that I had gotten from the consensual recording. So you got to put yourself in his shoes at six o'clock in the morning, because that's when the FBI likes to arrest people when you're half asleep. And I just gave him a hard truth. You lie to these guys, you're done. Right? You cannot lie to them. Second thing is you try to be a tough guy with them, and you're not, they're gonna see right, right, right through you. So he knew that was a hard truth. The second thing I did is we talked about the mail fraud. Years ago, you would rent mailboxes at like um like a post office or a um a box store, and it would say suite, and the general public would think that you had this nice office space. And that's what they did because they were this mail fraud was related to a stock fraud that they were trying to do. So I kind of was busting his shops a little bit, saying, Okay, that was really cute of you guys to rent this suite that you guys got. So again, I told him, Don't say anything, just listen to me. So those are two hard facts that he got. So he knew that I was giving him some hard truths, so I just gave him some food for thought to think about. I turned away, talked to the driver, going back and forth. Then he blurted out to me, he goes, We knew you guys were coming. Because when you arrest uh a target, you have to call the operations center and say that you have them in pocket and no one and no one got hurt. When we did that, I called in. I was hearing that a lot of people were not in pocket, meaning that they weren't at their house. And he overheard that. He said that we knew you guys were coming, meaning that we had a problem, that there was a leak. So he didn't have to say that, but I think I don't know if he was trying to rib me a little bit or not, but he was just trying to give me some information there. So that would later come out to be some significant information that we were going to get from him. So that meant that we had a problem, that there was a leak somewhere, either from the FBI's office, the southern district court reporter, or someone was giving information. So that day we spent the entire day together. I did give him some orange juice for his blood sugar. So he saw that as an olive branch where I was treating him like a human a human being. And he did say to me later on, that interaction with me that day was the first time that his interaction with law enforcement, where someone treated him with respect, and it was uh a cordial relationship, a cordial interaction. And he goes, That had a lot to do with him flipping later on. So um, we went back to 26 Federal Plaza. Uh, I met his stepfather that day, it was cordial with him, and we spent the entire day together. And one of the things that happened was we started talking a lot that day. One of the times is we were in a room with a lot of the other defendants, like 38 other defendants, when they were all picked up. He was getting a little bit too chatty with me. And I kind of told him, Don't give the appearance that you're too chatty with me because they're gonna think that you're cooperating. So he appreciated that because he just kind of let his guard down. So um he uh he kind of stopped and then that that went fine. Sure enough, about a week later, his lawyer called. It was a Thursday night, I remember, and his lawyer called and said that he wanted to cooperate. And I almost fell off my chair. And I was very surprised by that. As you mentioned before, I was a new agent at the time, only basically had about a year on the job or so, or about a year and a half on the job. Um, I immediately called the assistant from the Southern District because that was that that's where this case was out of. And she was very concerned as to what did I say to the lawyer, right? And always in these situations, less is more. And I said I was going to call you. Simple as that. And then we uh I called my bosses to let them know. Very, very, very happy, and then that starts the proffer process. Right. So uh a proffer is when you come in, you're uh you have your defense attorney there, you have your client there, and then from the government, you have agents and you have the attorney for the government. And it's basically called a queen for a day. Queen for a day, yeah, where they can basically just spill their guts.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

But the key to that is they have they can't withhold anything.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Right. It's like you can't lie. If you lie, then like they can call me in a court of law and I can testify against you. And what I mean by that is like say that it went south, right, and things didn't work out, and then you decided to go to trial, and you were on the stand saying that you were going to dispute something and you lied, then I could be called to the stand and basically testify against you, saying, No, during the proffer, you said X, Y, and Z. So, uh, but you are protected, you can't use your words against you. So during that proffer, uh, I'm there with George Hannah, the agent that I mentioned before, who's a legend in himself. And if you read the book, you'll find out why he's a legend. Uh, yes, I had a great start to my career, but you should re read how he started his career. Absolutely amazing. And then there was a Southern District investigator named Kenny McCabe, uh, a legend himself. And the assistant was Maria Barton and and myself. So Anthony comes in and tells us three things off the bat. He tells us there's a leak in the Southern District, that an alleged court reporter was feeding information to some of the mob guys, and they knew we were coming, that they knew the indictment was coming. He tells us that he was the driver on the Fred Weiss murder. Fred Weiss was an individual from Staten Island who was Jewish, who got involved with the Gambino family, and he was killed on orders as a favor to John Gotti. The reason that he was killed was because he switched lawyers. He thought he was cooperating. John Gotti thought he was cooperating. Pure speculation on John Gotti's part and pure paranoia on John Gotti's part uh because he switched lawyers. He was killed in September 11th, horrible day of 1989. Fred Weiss was arrested in June of 89 that year. And Fred Weiss was not cooperating. He just switched lawyers. And but John Gotti thought he was cooperating, and as a result of that, he was killed. Now that murder is probably one of the most indictable mob murders ever. Between because it became a race to kill him. The Gambinos were gonna kill him, and the Decalcantes were gonna kill him. The Decalvicantes were trying to ingratiate themselves to the Gambinos, especially John D'Amato, who is the acting boss, official underboss at that particular point in time. So um I think if I remember correctly, at least 15 people have either been convicted or pled guilty between those two families. Yeah, unbelievable. And we've developed so many cooperators between those two families that they have testified about it, that they testify that they saw each other doing surveillance. And when I mean surveillance, is trying to get Fred Weiss's patterns down, like where he worked, what time he left his house in the morning, where he lived. Uh so there's testimony and and trials related to this. And as I said, at least 15 people have pled guilty or having been convicted of this murder. Anthony was the driver in that murder. Vincent Lambert was the shooter, and James Gallo, who accidentally shot Joseph Canigliero, was also the shooter in this particular murder. The third thing he tells us is that he is the shooter in the John D'Amato murder. Now, John D'Amato, as we just mentioned before, was the um acting boss at one point, official underboss. The reason why he was killed, uh, and he was killed in 1991, was because John D'Amato's girlfriend comes to Anthony and tells Anthony that John D'Amato is taking her to sex clubs in New York City and he's having sex with men. And you know, to each his own. I I don't care. But Anthony told us we can't have a leader of men acting this way. So Anthony reported that to his superiors, uh Vincent Palermo, Anthony Retundo, Rudy Farrone at the time, and they decided that he had to be killed. And that's what happened.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

So I did want to expand on that a little bit because I've interviewed and I think I mentioned it to you, uh James Siracco. They called him Jimmy Easy. Um he came out with a book. I think the name, the book was the name they gave him in Wit Stake was Zach Caruso or something like that. Um we talked about that, and so that's a point of contention, right? So why do you take the word of a woman? Like, I mean, obviously, you know, these mob guys, they do the thing, they have gummoz on the side. This could be a woman scorned or whatever. I'm not saying it wasn't true. There seems to be a lot of evidence that it may have been true, but it does seem like you're taking the word of a woman very easily. Was it just they needed something to come up to give them a reason, and that was good enough?

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Well, that's that's the the first reason. Now there's a second reason. Okay. So that's Anthony Capo's story. When you speak to Anthony Retondo, right, who's very by the book, by the rules, he says that he should have been killed because John DeMotta was borrowing money from all the other families and saying it was for the Di Calvocanti family. When it wasn't for the DeCalvicante family, it was for his gambling losses. So adding all those two things together was the reason that he was killed. So it wasn't just because he was gay and he was taking uh going to sex clubs, uh, but that initiated the whole process. That makes more sense. But it the second reason was because he borrowed, and I don't even know how much, it could have been seven hundred and fifty thousand to a million dollars from the other families, and saying it was for the De Calvocanti family, meaning the De Calacanti family is on the hook. when it really was for his gambling losses. Gotcha. So those are the two reasons. And I understand what you're saying there about not just putting it on one lady, how a woman scorned is never a good thing. We we all know that. But those are the reasons that they actually said it.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Okay. And those are definitely more legitimate reasons to why you would take some after borrowing money. Because I mean a lot of these guys, I mean you you hear the stories about John Gotti having major gambling problems and everybody else. And even in the Sopranos, there's a a section in there, I think it's around the fifth or sixth season, where Tony's got a run of bad luck and he has to borrow money from Hesh to pay it off and Hesh is worried he might take him out. You know, he's like at what point is it better for him to handle it another way? Exactly. A lot of these guys no matter how much money they have they still just love gambling. And so unfortunately that can whether you're in prison or whether you're on the streets that can ultimately lead to some bad endings as it did here.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

That's true. So those are the the three things that he tells us right off the gate right out of right out of the gate right so we have to huddle right uh because we have to determine if he's telling us the truth or not. And when you proper it's a very dicey thing right you can't you have to go full speed you can't be half pregnant where you have to tell the truth right because it's it's a dicey thing. You're being moved from prison. So the bad guys know that okay where is Anthony? He's been moved right so you have to make sure that you're you're going to do this you have to do you have to do it right. So we have to decide if he's telling us the truth. Obviously he's telling us the truth because he just exposed himself to a life sentence so we have to move into a facility and then that starts the spiral effect of cooperation that we start to get so as I find out after because I didn't know that he was the first made member in the family's 100 year history at that particular point in time to cooperate. And that's in December of 99 shortly after uh we had arrested him right but the arrest was December 2nd of night of 99 and literally a week later he decides to to cooperate um personally at that time uh my dad was already sick um he had passed away shortly after about December 17th or so and the reason I bring it up because during that time period is Anthony tells us that John D'Amato and Joseph Garrafano were buried up in Phil Lamella's um recycling plant in Marlborough, New York. So when you get information like that you have to act upon it right away because fear of the bad guys moving the bodies. Now Anthony didn't put the bodies there but he knew they were up there. So I had to go get a search warrant in the Northern District of New York and execute a search warrant. So we do that and when we go there a couple of factors have happened. I've been very successful in my career where I found five bodies throughout my career but in this particular sense we did not find any bodies at all a because Philomello had changed the structure of his building and second of all the area that we were describing was uh bigger than a football field. So there could be a body buried in this room and we might not find it. Right. Very very hard to find a body. So uh as I said Anthony didn't put the bodies there he knew they went there so we actually execute a search warrant uh I remember we had did the search warrant finished that day I went to go see my dad that night my brother who works with the FBI as well we were going to go home and my mom had this sixth sense that we should stay that night and we did and actually my dad passed away that day. Sorry passed away that night. Ironically we have the wake and I'm at the wake I'm actually at the wake and my phone rings and it's Anthony Capo offering his condolences for my dad passing because I told his mom that I was going to be out of action for a couple of days. So very uh ironic and eerie that we're looking for a body that he helped put some people up there and next we know he's calling me at my dad's wake. So we get through all that and then we continue the proffer process. And then in March of 90 of 2000 who comes forward but Vinnie Palermo to cooperate who was the acting boss at the time there was a panel but he was known as the acting boss as he had the stronger personality. And I know when we go back and forth with the Sopranos uh Vincent Palermo had a strip club in Queens you have the strip club yes you saw you have the strip club and the actual show um people think why did Vinny cooperate? Well A, at that particular point in time, Anthony was so hard to control that he reported directly to Vinny. Second of all Vinny and Anthony did a lot of crimes together. So when Anthony is being debriefed and telling us all the crimes he did he keeps on bringing Vinny's names up now we had moved Anthony so word is traveling quickly. They obviously know we just execute a search warrant how did we get the names how did we get the information with a search warrant so they know Anthony is playing playing ball with us. So Vinny decides to make a business a business decision to cooperate right uh and that's what he does in March of 2000. He's he's in the door now. So now we have a soldier and we have an acting boss and we have Ralph the associate. About a month later we go and approach Victor Di Chiera. Victor lived in Long Beach at the time Victor was the driver in the John D'Amato homicide and he also was part of the murder of the conspiracy to murder Charlie Major. So I go and approach Victor and arrest him just on the conspiracy to murder Charlie Major because we couldn't arrest him on the John D'Amato murder yet because we were still debriefing Vinny to get more information. So when I went to go arrest him I said someone told me that you said shoot him again. That's all I said and he knew exactly what I was talking about. So he knew that Anthony was cooperating. So by the time he got back to 26 Federal Plaza he was cooperating. So now we have another associate. So same process you proffer and then what happens is proffer leads to cooperation agreements. And when you have a cooperation agreement you have to plead guilty and you plead guilty to all your crimes. So just to give you an example um Anthony pled guilty in June of 2000. Initially he was just charged with conspiracy to murder Charlie Majori and the mail fraud he ended up pleading guilty to two murders 11 murder conspiracies extortion and every crime you could think of so he exposed himself to a life sentence Vinny pled guilty to a couple of murders um Victor pled guilty to stock fraud conspiracy to murder he pled guilty to a couple of the murders as well and then we take all their information and we want to use it for an indictment and that's what we do in October of 2000 we have our first really big indictment based upon their information and we call that the hierarchy indictment where we're going to take out the official boss John Riggy who's in jail already the consigliero Steve Battabli who I arrest a bunch of captains I remember Philibramo Luke Consalvo who lived in New York City here then a bunch of associates. So I think we arrest like 13 people what's significant about that arrest is we arrest an associate named Frank Scarabino Frankie the Beast and Frank decides to cooperate. Frank comes forward and gives us some very heavy information. Frank tells us that there's a contract on Anthony Capo, Anthony Capo's wife and his kids and that they're going back to the old Sicilian ways and they want to hurt law enforcement. So that's when it got real real quickly right here I am a new agent I'm the one that flipped Anthony Capo. So you know as an agent you're concerned about threats all the time you're like you you're like used to threats but as a new agent and now you're hearing it firsthand it gets serious pretty pretty quickly. So we have to act on that right so thankfully um as Frank Scarpino told us his line his ethics line was when they said to kill the kids he wasn't going to do that.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

So yeah because typically they kind of make the them off limits like the wife and kids are usually off limits but when you're talking about going back to the old ways I don't think there was very many limitations back in in you know that time frame.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

So thankfully that was his line that he was going to cross and that was prevented. The person who was really behind that was a guy named Frank Pelizzi who was the DeCalvocanti captain at the time. Now we knew this was legitimate because we were very close to the authorities in Italy. The De Cavalcanti come the De Calvocanti family comes from Rivera. So in Italy they are their laws related to getting up on wires on people's phones is a lot easier than in the states here and they were able to confirm that this was a legitimate threat. So we have to basically tell headquarters and tell all the families that this is a a legitimate threat. If I remember correctly Frank Pelizzi died on Christmas Eve of 2001. Now you can just imagine I had to go up and tell Anthony Capo about this whole thing. And up until this point I hadn't seen the other side of Anthony Capo. I had heard about the other side of Anthony Capo but I haven't seen the other side of Anthony Capo. And I didn't know how he was going to react to this right you know here I am telling him that there's a death threat against him and his family and his kids and he's in prison. He's defenseless so it was a very emotional day anger sorrow you know and trying to see how he was going to react to this. Was he going to stop cooperating? I didn't know how how he was going to take it and all he had was me to kind of protect him to protect his family because he couldn't do anything. So I think that even brought our bond a little closer together where he was relying on me to protect his family. The monkey wrench and the whole thing is is his wife refused to move off of Staten Island. So made my job a little bit harder uh to try to protect her even though letting her know this threat was extremely serious. At that point in time their relationship had kind of soured and they were going to get divorced and and and anyway but still it's you know the threat was there. Knock on wood nothing ever happened to her or the kids uh but the threat was there. So and he decided to continue to cooperate he didn't reneg on his his deal with us. So as I said um Frank Scarbino is now in the door I think we're up to maybe four cooperators now or five cooperators and uh we're still dealing with the initial arrests we have right where we arrested 39 people. So are those guys going to go to trial are they going to plead guilty? So our squad is really really busy. And I had mentioned that okay we're dealing half our squad is dealing with the bananos half our squad is dealing with this investigation. The other half the banano side they're starting to pick up their investigations and are starting to make traction as well and that's one of the reasons why I wrote the book is because uh this squad was very successful. You know we dismantled the banano family as well the press never put it together that it was the same squad. Like this squad was in the paper for probably six or seven years straight and the press never put it together that it was the same squad which was pretty funny.

SPEAKER_02 33:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

So we're in October of 2000 now and then about a month or two later from our initial arrest we arrested a guy named Tommy deTora and Tommy devorer got bail and he was a mountain of a man uh we used to call him one of the twin of the towers down down here him and Joe Brightson. Tommy de Toro was part of the Joseph Canigliero murder that we had mentioned was one of two events that started this case. So Tommy's out on bail and he's seeing and hearing that all these guys are cooperating and he had talked about the murder of Joseph Canigliero with Anthony Capo, with Spencent Palermo and he knew that my God it's going to be only a matter of time before he's going to get charged with this murder. So what does he do? He decides to cooperate and he's out on bail. So we get this idea why don't we get him to make a consensual recording? Let's see if he can get everyone that participated in the murder together and discuss the murder. And that's what we do. And it turned out to be one of the best consensual recordings the Bureau has ever made where he gets all the participants in the murder together. The shooter was a guy named Marty Lewis who hadn't killed anyone before this particular murder it's really a sad story. And Marty Lewis is on tape. Now I mentioned before that Joseph Canigliero was in a wheelchair. So he had his car hooked up that he could actually drive it despite being paralyzed. So Marty Lewis is on tape saying I shot him six times I got out of the car because he shot him while he was in the car I got out of the car Joseph Canigliero drove away got to the stop sign and puts on his left blinker and drives away so this is all on tape. So you can just imagine listening to this where he says I shot him six times he drove away got to the stop sign. Even though shot six times he puts on his blinker like who has the the thought process to put on a blinker after being shot six times then he stops at Joseph Brightson's house that's the other mountain of a man the second twin tower Joseph Brightson is part of the murder as well Joseph Brightson thinks that Joseph Canigliero is already dead so you can imagine Joseph Canigliero pulling up to Joseph Brightson's house who lives on the second floor beeping the horn Joseph Brightson looking down and seeing Joe Pitts is his nickname seeing the car and like what the hell he's here he was supposed to be dead by now and Joseph Brightson goes downstairs gets in the vehicle the guy's shot six times and goes to the hospital with them then something comes out that we didn't know where Joseph Brightson has a cousin unfortunately who is an NYPD detective and Joseph Brightson calls his cousin while at the hospital and tells his cousin to come to the hospital and clear out the shells from the bullets out of the backseat of the car. So now we have a cop involved in the investigation as well. So priceless consensual recording for trial all we had to do was press play tape spoke for itself. So that was a great recording um and then time of the tour is in is in the door so I think we're up to six now. Yeah then um Anthony Rotundo uh Decalvicante captain uh and some people can say that they went to college right Anthony uh Retundo actually graduated from college so very smart guy Rarie his father was in the life um his name was Vincent Rotundo uh you probably heard of him he got killed in Staten Island the the whole thing about his murder was he had gone shopping uh for food and when he was killed there was fish on his lap and they everyone thought that was a message. Yeah don't know if it was or it wasn't but he had just gone shopping you know what I mean but Anthony was brought up in in that life you know and really didn't have a chance uh so even Anthony wasn't really made for that life but he was brought up in that life went to college was all about the rules we used to call him the scholar because he knew the rules like the back of your hand and he taught me a lot about the life about rules and everything. So Anthony comes forward and then he cooperates. So now we have seven cooperators I think which is amazing we go from none to seven and those um we have an indictment in April of 2001 and then we have another indictment in May where we arrest the cop and then we have an indictment in August of 2001 where we arrest Fritzi Giovanelli, Genevieve's captain, for the leak. So we could never arrest the person that was funneling the information because we don't have any witnesses who were getting the information directly from the person in the Southern district. We could arrest Fritzy because uh the person in the Southern district was giving the information to Fritzy and Fritzy was giving the information to the DeCavallocantes. He gave the information to Anthony Marshmallow from Florida he gave the information to Vinny he gave the information to Anthony Rotundo so in August 2001 we arrest Fritzy that's August 2001. So now we have all our indictments we have all our arrests they're all done a month later September 11th everything comes to a screeching halt where all our resources are dedicated to protecting the country everything goes on hold related to the mob. So all those initial indictments we have the 39 uh status conferences put on hold the arrest that I just talked about uh put on hold uh didn't see Anthony for a couple of months and it's like which is bad right because when you develop that relationship you want to keep it going you want to keep the debriefing going and then after I think about January of 2002 we kind of get back to it you know much to the uh chagrin of the the mob guys because after that when I would go make arrest they would always tell me you shouldn't be going after us you should go after the terrorist yeah right and leave and leave them alone right that's what they want that's what they would always say to us. So then that's 2002 and then later that year we start the trial process and you know for the general public the difference between like the feds and the state is with the federal system the agents actually sit at the table as opposed to um the locals here where a cop might testify and then he's done with the feds they're actually sitting at the table. And trial is 247. You know during the day you're at trial at night you could be prepping a witness you know constantly you have defendants in and out like as I said we had so many defendants so you're checking the uh you could strategize for 10 defendants and then someone might plead guilty and you could get down to seven defendants or six defendants so the strategy is constantly changing. So our first trial was in December of 2002 that was we call that the wheelchair trial where it was the murder of Joseph Canigliero. We had a guy named Mike Massa who I tried like hell to flip before even the 39 arrest and he just refused to cooperate and we knew he was part of the murder because he was being extorted left and right and he just refused to cooperate and on the eve of trial he took a plea of 35 years and the other guys went to trial and they all got convicted uh the cop got convicted if I remember correctly his name was uh Michael Silvestri and he got he got 13 years um his partner uh ended up cooperating against him then Brightson got life that was the guy that was on the second floor um time was the witness that made the consensual recording morty lewis got life uh there's a couple accessory after the facts they got they got uh time as well I think like 40 months or so so every everyone in that trial was con convicted so that was right before Christmas then uh again we're going through the process of getting people to plea out and my next big trial because I was on trial for an entire year and a a year of no life whatsoever because as I said when you're on trial it's 24-7 and there's prep for trial and then after and everything. So then the next big trial was the uh the Steve Otabli trial you had Steve Atabli who was the conciliere Philip Bramo captain and Pino Schiffaletti um related to the Pino Schiffaletti arrest he had actually fled to Italy and we had to extra drive extradite him back to the States which we did. So a bunch of people pled guilty before that trial so we were down to three people such as Charlie Stango um and a bunch of other people I played guilty Charlie Maggiori pled guilty well top me I don't remember him and so we were down to three that was probably the longest trial I had where it was that was over two months so um very taxing trial to tell you the truth they all got convicted um and then after that trial we had the West Palacio trial and during the West Palacio trial there was a blackout that year um that was in 2003 that August where initially Anthony was on actually Anthony was on the stand that day and first we thought there was just um the lights went off in the courthouse and then we found out it was the entire east coast. I don't I don't remember that but it was August of two of 2003. Funny story related to that is here I am thinking okay I might catch a break I get home early and um I went to go get my car and I had parked my car in an outside lot. When I went up to go get my car I gave my ticket to the parking attendant he looked at me I looked at him and then he looked up my car was on an electronic lift oh I wasn't going anywhere. So I had to go back to 26 Federal Plaza And at that time, 26 20 26 Federal Plaza had a lot of uh problems uh in their walls. There's a lot of rats in the walls at the time. So uh I didn't sleep a a lick that night, but I had to stay there the entire night. So uh these are the stories in the book, which is good. And I think what the good thing about the book is it kind of explains the witness security program. It explains how trials are done, explains how uh the cooperation process works, um, you know, explains the witness security program, I think, pretty good. How the Marshalls run run that. Um and then after that trial, we had the Jimmy Palermo trial. And he gets he gets convicted as well. I think at the end of the day, we had 71 defendants convicted, 11 murders solved, and we had seven trials. And that doesn't even account for all the times that Anthony was prepped for trial where people play guilty on the eve of trial, so there wasn't a trial.

SPEAKER_02 44:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

Um, if I remember correctly, Anthony testified seven times for me. Anthony Rotundo testified seven times for me, uh, which was great. Um Vinny Palermo only testified once. No, he testi he he doesn't he testified twice. He testified in a metabolic trial and he testified in the Fritzi trial. Um we had a little hiccup with Vinny in the metabolity trial though, where he had basically not disclosed the money that he had to us. And the defense bluffed us right when he was gonna go to cross. They came out to us and said, Oh, Vinny didn't tell you about some some money that he had. So we went and approached Vinny and he go he he basically said that he had given money to his uh his kids and didn't tell did not tell us about that. So we uh we had to go and seize that money that day. It was like one point eight million dollars. Wow. Yeah. So they bluffed you out of that one. Yep. So we were not happy about that at all. Yeah, but it was a pure bluff by the defense, they had no clue at all. But they were right.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

They just figured he probably lied about something. Yeah, and if it was and I'm sure the guys that knew him knew Vinny had probably done that at some point. I mean, that's not an uncommon thing that some of these guys want to set aside a money for their kids. That's quote what they do it for, you know, take care of the kids.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

Wow. Yeah, so I said at the end of the day, 71 defendants convicted, um, eleven murders solved and seven trials. What did Capo end up getting? He ended up getting four years.

unknown 46:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:32

Yep. And um he got bailed shortly after I think he got bail in December of 2003.

SPEAKER_03 46:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Yep. You know, and then he went into the witness security program. He kept on saying he wanted to be a success story for me, and I would always tell him, Don't be a success story for me, be a success story for yourself.

SPEAKER_02 46:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

And he um he became a car like sale like salesman, you know, because I used to tell him you could sell steam shit to a blind to a blind man, you know what I mean? And uh because he did have the gip the gab, you know. Um and we used to talk sports all the time. We both like the Yankees, so we could talk about that. And that's what I would do is like, you know, just uh not to m always make it about work, you know, just try to break things down because you always get more bees with honey, right? So uh and sometimes people don't realize that when you make people feel at ease, they're more aft to tell you things. And that's what he did. What about Vinny? What did he get? Vinny, well, after that trial, he was out on bail, he was in the witness security program. After that trial, we remanded him and sent him to um MDC. He was uh we sent him to MCC for a while. So then I forget how much uh all in all he got, but it was close to the same.

SPEAKER_01 47:48

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

Same as um Capo.

SPEAKER_01 47:52

Yeah, something like that. So what about the the one you referred to as the tower? Um Tommy.

SPEAKER_00 47:58

Tommy didn't get that much time. He got less. Okay. Yeah. Um because he was out on bail. Um I think he got like three years. Okay. Yeah. But he did he was the one that committed the murder. Well, he he wasn't uh he was, I would say in the federal system, you're you're charged with murder, but he wasn't the shooter. Okay. Yeah. All right. And that consensual recording was gold.

SPEAKER_01 48:23

Yeah, I probably got it a lot. So what is your take on like obviously, you know, the beginnings of the the mob, you know, you take the oath, you don't betray the family. And I mean, I think you have like Joseph Flach, he was the first one that kind of pulled the curtain back, and then obviously Sammy the Bull, what he did in the Gambinos and the Gaudi Shrew really kind of opened the floodgates, but still to that point it wasn't a widespread thing. But here you guys are basically taking a family that had not had any cooperators to this point, and damn near the whole hierarchy has jumped on board. Do you think that sort of set the stage to everything after that? Because after that you had, in some cases, bosses, Joe Messina cooperating. I mean, it really kind of opened the floodgates. Do you think you guys kind of set the standard of hey, this anybody can flip?

SPEAKER_00 49:06

When just like you just said there, if you look at the history, so Sammy cooperates in '91, I believe. Yeah, I know it was early nineties. And then right after that, Al Diarco. Yep. But from 91 till Anthony in 99, you don't have anybody. And then, as I said, Anthony comes in and it kind of opens up the floodgates. And as you just said, Joe Messino, I actually arrested Joe too.

SPEAKER_02 49:31

Really?

SPEAKER_00 49:31

Yeah. Uh in Queens there. So that squad, as I said, half of us work the bananos, half work the decap Capocantis. That set the stage where first it was the decafs, and we destroyed them where so many people cooperated. And then right after, at the same time, the bananos were doing the same thing where Salvatale cooperated. Um, and it just opened the floodgates there, where I think it started to become the norm to cooperate.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

And it really did set the stage. Because then, you know, we'll we'll get into this later. But then I went down to the Colombo's and it was the same, the same thing. Right. It just opened the floodgates. But during that time period from 91 to 99, you had no one, and then it was Anthony, and it kind of became the norm to cooperate. Yeah. And what was great for trial was at that point in time, it had never happened before, we were able to put the structure on trial where we had an associate, we had a soldier, we had a captain, we had a boss, you had the hierarchy from the same family. Never before from the same family. Yeah. And we were able to do that. Where you can't dispute that. It's like these are guys from the same family, and which was great because when they would testify, you know, that's how it works, right? Anthony as a soldier would know up to until here. The captain would know up until here, and the boss would know the whole thing. And to hear them talk would be great because they would just outline the whole thing. And uh it was pri uh just priceless to listen to it. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 51:04

And this is modeled, you know, a lot of times, and I've heard a lot of people, you know, say, well, they were the basis of the Sopranos. And there is a lot of things in there about they talk about no show jobs or no work jobs, and then you have the Wall Street thing, and then obviously the thing with with Tony owning the strip club, which is in there, Sabada Bing, which is based out in Jersey. I think it's it's not it's called Satin Dolls, I think. Um, but then I also heard him compare to a guy named John Riggy that was over there. So, like, is is Tony kind of a culmination of a few different people? Or what's your opinion on that?

SPEAKER_00 51:36

I think so, and we can like you know, we we can talk about that in the sense is okay, so the show starts, right? The first season, uh Jack Capriel as the boss in the show, dies of stomach cancer. Yep. In real life, Jacob Maury dies of stomach cancer in June of 1997. Very ironic. Then, as you just said, you have the strip club, the one in Jersey, the one in Queens. Then the bread and butter of the T. Callocanti family is the unions. They had two unions. They had local 394, which is the labor union, and they created the asbestos union, which was 1030, where they actually even had a training school. Uh, one of the best quotes from Anthony Capan when he testified was he wouldn't know asbestos if he was sitting on it. Where he had a he had a license. Where he had, I think it was uh he testified that Manny Riggy said, What do you want us to take the test for? And he goes, Yeah. And he actually has a license and he didn't even know what asbestos was. But those are two unions that they had. And then as you just said there, it's like there's so many scams related to that. You have the no-show job, right? Where you don't even have to go. You have the no-work job where you show up, you don't have to work. Um, and they're robbing the pension, right? That's what they're actually doing. And you see that all throughout the show, right? Where they have the lounge chairs are sitting there, the doing it. Yeah, they're sitting there, chilling out with the fans and everything. You know, then you mentioned the stock angle, the two biggest stock guys, it's like Philip Ramo, Wizard of Wall Street. Wizard of Wall Street, I've heard of him. They all came to him because he was known for shorting stocks, right, all the time. Then Victor was a guy that we mentioned there that was involved in the John D'Amano murder. Same thing. He did stocks all the time. That's in that's in the show there, too. One of the things that we had, which was priceless for trial, too, is as I said, this investigation started in January of 98. The show starts in January of 99. We had Ralph, the proactive witness. Ralph makes a consensual recording in March of 99 with a bunch of wise guys from the D.L. Kenti family, and he has them on tape saying, This is you, this is you, this is you. That was priceless for trial. It's like all we got to do is hit play. You know, then you have uh you mentioned the Jewish fellow there before, Hesh, I guess, right? Yep. Well, in real life, there's Corky Vestola. He was all over the records. You know, there's like so many things that are going like you go back and forth. You have the meat market, right? It's uh Satriol. Satriol, yeah. There's a real meat market. I don't want to say the name of the real meat market, but there's a real meat that they that they went to. You know, and so there's there's so many things that uh are similar between the two.

SPEAKER_01 54:19

Do you think Chase had to have an inside man writing that show? Because that's a lot of damn similarities. And not only that, you do have the point to where Joe Ganiscoli, I think is his name, plays Vito Spadafor, who's taken out for his lifestyle, you know, as being gay, comes out at in the show, which was very, you know, paralleling and what we mentioned with DeMotto. So I mean, at this point, do you he had to have somebody from the streets giving him something? He says that he doesn't, but it's very ironic that he did it, right?

SPEAKER_00 54:47

Because and even when we're when we're doing our investigations, we're like, it's we're we're we just are investigating that. How is that out there? Yeah. So he had to have somebody or something. It's like it just it's just too odd.

SPEAKER_01 55:00

I've interviewed a ton of people from that show. Um, the guy that played Gigi, I think his name's John Fiori. I interviewed Robert Fernaro, who played Eugene, who wound up hanging himself later in the end of the show when he couldn't get out and he was involved with, you know, uh in the midst of flipping. Um the bartender, Georgie uh Patzi that was in there for the whole thing. His real name is Dan Grimaldi. And a lot of the stories that they would tell me that they said James would tell them is somehow or another, people would get his phone number or ways to contact him and tell them, like, all right, you do this, you don't do that, you know, basically coach him on what to do. Right. And, you know, how to be more of an authentic, wise guy. Because if you listen to the first season of that, like, I mean, he's got a little bit of a twang. But from the second season, he really turned it on, and then it was just it was just a flawless performance by Gandalfini from the whole thing. But definitely you can tell a twang difference from the first season to the second, and then from the second on, I mean, he just nailed it and embodied it. And from everybody that I've talked to, you know, guys that were in the life that have done the you know the worst things there are to do, said that that's probably the most authentic characterization of a person because yeah, he was ruthless when he could be, but he wasn't always ruthless. He did have a softer side. Seemingly he had this, you know, caring for animals and people that couldn't defend themselves, but at the same time wouldn't mind slapping somebody and and throwing them off a boat. I mean, is that kind of like what what these guys are really like?

SPEAKER_00 56:25

Yeah, you know, um, well, A, some of them were really smart. Yeah. I mean, it's like like look, we just had an arrest about six or seven month months ago, right? Where they had for it for the gambling. It's like some of the techniques they use there were really, really sharp. It's like that was one of involving the coach uh uh the referees and everything, right? Yeah. Exactly. You know, like you know, they're they're smart guys. You know, if they apply themselves in a different manner, they probably can make even more money, you know what I mean? And like people say to me all the time, are they gonna go away? They've been around for 125 years, they're not going away. It's like they might not be in the spotlight as much, but they're not going away. I mean, and that's what they want, right? It's like I if you speak to them and I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure you have, they didn't like Gotti. Gotti was too flashy. That's what they want. They don't want to be in a spotlight. They don't they don't want you to know who owns this building or who owns that that type of bit of the business. That that's what they want. They want to be under the radar, right? But they're not gonna go away. They might not be as strong as they were, but they're gonna they're always gonna find a way to make money. Yeah. And that's that's the and to me, it's always been like a cat and mouse game, right? And if I got you, I got you. Even if I know that you did it and I don't got you, I don't have you.

SPEAKER_01 57:32

You know what I mean? The the guy you mentioned a guy earlier like Rudy Farron. I've heard a lot of talks about him and the and the type of guy that he was. 9-11. I I interviewed Rita Jigansi, who was the Chen's daughter.

SPEAKER_02 57:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 57:45

And from what I understand, obviously he had this ruse that he was, you know, office rocker or wackadoo or whatever, walk down the street in the bathroom, the whole the whole bit, which again parallels kind of the things that Junior did in the show as the the older Don as well. But he actually had a lucid conversation on the phone with her after 9-11, which was one of the things that kind of put I think he was going down anyway, but that just kind of you know uncorked the bottle, so to speak, on that whole thing. But that was a thing that when they seen that he was obviously lucid enough to understand what was going on, that kind of peeled the cap off of it. Um, but what about Rudy Faron? What what did you hear about him and was he involved in any of those cases? I never heard you mention bring him up. I didn't know if y'all had yeah, things that were g building up to it or I think he passed away in ninety-seven as well.

SPEAKER_00 58:33

Okay. So he probably would have been had he stayed alive. Right. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, because he was all like he was part of the John John D'Amato murder, you know, like he was part of that. Yep. Um, and as I said, they all were part of the Fred White Weiss murder, too. So uh but yeah, yeah, I think he passed away in 997. I know Anthony was very like close with him as well. Yep. And he even said he goes, he goes, if Rudy was still here, I don't know if I would have have played ball. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:58

You know, yeah, he was very old school by the book. A lot of what I um again, did you uh have you in your time there, did you know the guy I was talking about, James Siracco, they called him Jimmy? I've I've heard of him, yes. Okay. Um he's the one that told me a lot on the decafs. I interviewed him and then I also interviewed uh Giovanni Rocco, who he was more focused on the Stango faction and and everything. That kind of that was before yours or right after your Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 59:24

So related to that, that's funny, right? In the sense is Stango's an interesting person. He was in R case and he pled guilty. And he got 13 years in our case, goes to jail, he comes out, and then he gets involved in their case. Anthony Zampogna was on my squad on C10. Anthony then goes to Jersey and he becomes FBI supervisor in Jersey, and G and G and G Giovanni Rocco is the undercover there. Right. And they target Stango again. And Stango gets 10 years in that case. So, and he he didn't he had even done time before our case. So I don't even know how much time the guy's done in jail, but he's done a load of time in jail, and that case is great too. And I know they had to take it down because I think they were going to kill kill someone, right? Yep, yeah. Yep. Uh, but yeah, it's like Stango's done a boatload of time in jail. I think he's close to 80 now, from I remember.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:23

And you mentioned something too, and I don't know if there's any correlation to this, but a lot of these guys are into sports. You mentioned him coming out, I think he was talking about Anthony with the Cowboys. There's a there's a picture of John Jr. with a Cowboys jacket on. You would think all these guys around him would be Giants fans. What's with all the Cowboys stuff?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:40

Well, when I was young, right, the Steelers were good and the Cowboys were good. I'm talking the 70s. Yeah, I'm a loyal guy, so I just stayed with the Steelers and I think the same, same thing. Uh Cowboys think it's good until the eight until the eighties, right? So I think uh that's part of it. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:57

But yeah, because I remember seeing as a picture with John. It might be Bigotti, I think. Gotti junior. I think it might even be Gotti wearing the the Cowboys thing. And it's just odd as diehards they are about sports down there. I mean, we're here what the day their Knicks are about to play for the possibly the championship tonight. I mean, these this town is crazy about their sports. So to see these guys with the Cowboys gears on was always was always odd to me. Um what do these guys any of these guys ever reached out to you after like I can imagine you probably it's in a weird way, even though you're opposite sides of the fence. I mean, you kind of become friends with these guys to a certain degree and have a relationship with them.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:32

I've had many comp conversations with guys that decided not to cooperate. Yeah, it's not you don't make it personal whatsoever. And that's what I used to tell people that had had worked for me too. This is just a job. One day you're not gonna have that badge. So treat people with respect. You know, that's just the way the way to do to do things, you know what I mean. So, and there's many times I spoke to people that decided not to cooperate. You can have a comp conversation with them, you know what I mean? Um, and it's yeah, I I get calls Christmas, Easter, birthdays, yeah. You know, so I still still speak to people.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:06

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:07

Uh, tell everybody where they can grab the book from. You can go to Born to Noble, or you go to Amazon. It's called Flipping Capo, How the FBI Dismantled the Real Sopranos. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:15

Well, ladies and gentlemen, be sure to go check out that book. Let me know what you think in the comments. Let you know what let me know what you think of this video. Uh, are you on any social medias as well? Not really. Okay. Well, we always like if you do have it, shout out the handles, but definitely go check it out. Flipping Capo. Seamus, we appreciate you coming on the show, my friend. Definitely gonna have you back to talk about the Columbus. I've done a lot of interviews with a lot of people close, even Chris Colombo, the son of Joe. So we can definitely get into something on that as well. So look forward to having you back.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:42

Sounds great. Thank you, my friend.