Taking Down the Colombo Crime Family: The Seamus McElearney Story

Today, on Crime & Entertainment, we have FBI Agent Seamus McElearney. Seamus details how his 2nd major impact on organized crime was taking down the Colombo Crime Family. 

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

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Um, Gaspar Vellante was actually inside during the heist. Outside the heist was Jimmy Burke and Vincent Asara. Okay. So, and Gasper is cousins with Benny.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

So Gasper decides to cooperate. And if you listen to the tapes, you can understand why he decides to cooperate, because Vinny really treated him like crap. So he decides to cooperate. One of the jewels that he has for us is that he has information regarding the murder of a guy named Paul Katz. Paul Katz was killed in 1969. And he was killed by Vinny and Jimmy Burke. And buried in Jimmy Burke's basement. Yep. So uh one of my last official acts as a supervisor was to do a dig in Jimmy Burke's basement. And that was in uh June of 2013. So in June of 2013, we execute a search warrant there.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Please welcome Seamus McLerney again to Crime and Entertainment. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:50

I'm doing good, Wayne.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

It's great to be back. Absolutely, my friend. So look, I've got a lot of uh I wouldn't I wouldn't say ties. I don't want to make it seem like I have ties, but I've got a lot of interviews of people that work in and around the Columbos, even became fairly good friends with Chris Columbo, who's uh you know uh the son of Joe. Uh but you said you worked with the Columbus. I thought I got a touch base with you on that. I can't just leave it with the decaf. So you finish your you know operation with the decafs. Did you roll right into the Columbos after that? Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

So the Decaplicante investigation was about six years, um, probably ended around November of 2004. We had gotten uh an award from the U.S. Attorney's Office, the director's award for that investigation. And then I was approached by uh executives to run the Colombo squad. Um at that point in time, I only had six years on the job, and I was flattered by that, but I thought I was way too young to run a squad. So I said, uh very flattered, but I'd rather not. And then I was voluntole to go down there and run the squad. So the squad was called C38. At that particular point in time, the squad had eight supervisors in eight years. So I was going from a squad where it was all love, young agents, everyone get like it was just everyone just got along, to a squad where there was just mayhem, where it was eight supervisors in eight years, no stability at all. So I told them that if you want to send me down, there are two things have to happen. A, it has to be stability because it's not fair to the group of people that are here. And second of all, be careful what you wish for, because I'm not a a yes man, even though I was young and I still needed to learn a lot. So at that point in time, we had to change the philosophy, right? Because there were all these shows out now. There was NCIS, there was all these shows where juries were not just going to believe, putting a witness on the stand and his words. So I know we had talked about having Ralph in the previous investigation and having a proactive witness. That was the way that we had to go. And I had to build proactive witnesses, have people out there making tapes. So we had nothing going on in the squad at that particular point in time. So the first thing that we did was we had gotten a witness called Guy Patado. Guy Patado was an associate of the Colombo family out on the eastern end of Long Island. And he had identified a Colombo captain that we were unaware of, this guy Mike Ubino. So we targeted him first. We kept the guy out for about two years, and he made numerous tapes. And uh the case came to a screeching halt because some kids decided to rob a Colombo gambling spot. And they were young kids, probably in their 20s. They went into the Columbo spot and they actually let a shotgun, shotgun round go through the roof, and they put everyone down on the floor. You can't make this stuff up. So they actually robbed the Colombo nightclub, right? The the uh the club that they had. The next day, these kids turn around and they butt dialed one of the Columbo guys that were in the nightclub, in that in that club that they had. And there was an open line, and the kids were saying, Yeah, I put that fat F on the floor, and he was crying, blah, blah, blah. So, what do the Columbo guys do? They call the kids down to the club, and these kids actually go to the club. Our witness just happened to be there in the club, unbeknownst to know what was going on. And he was a fairly decent-sized guy. He had an asp, which he shouldn't have had, you know, like the baton. Yeah. So they brought these kids down there and they were gonna kill these kids. They had guns, they put guns in their mouth, and they were gonna they were gonna kill them. Our witness, who is a decent-sized guy, stepped in and beat the snot out of them. He saved their life. But because of that, and when you have a proactive witness, you can't have violence. You can't, the government doesn't allow you to have your witness condone violence. We had to take the case down.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Even though he was protecting them because you're acting within violence when you're doing those types of operations, you can't be a part of that or it'll completely tank the case.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

So, on a personal note, uh, my brother was getting married, right? And I was the best man at his wedding. So I'm trying to convince the district to wait till Monday to execute the arrest, and they were like, no. So the arrests were going to take place on a Saturday morning. My brother's wedding was on a Friday night. When you have a proactive witness, you never know the relationships they have with their loved ones, right? Sometimes they have a very close relationship with their wife, and they'll tell their wife that they're cooperating, and sometimes they don't. This particular witness, Guy Fatado, owned a nightclub, and he did not tell his wife that he was cooperating with the government for a couple of years making tapes. So we had a lot of things going on at the same time. So he didn't know that the case was coming down, even though he knew what he knew what he had done. So I had two agents that night at four o'clock in the morning, pick him up at his nightclub when he was closing, grab him and tell him the case is done, go to his house, wake his wife up, and tell him, guess what? Your husband's been cooperating with the government, get your kids, time to go, we're out of here. So you can just imagine that conversation with her. How did this happen? Blah, blah, blah. We all talked more about a woman being scorned. I'm sure that was a hostile conversation. I'm sure it was. So we got her out of the way, right? And him to a safety. Then, as I said, I'm at my brother's wedding, give the best man speech. I had people out from Ireland that came over. I think I got to bed at four o'clock, had to be up in an hour to go to do the arrest. We execute the arrest that Saturday. So we take them off the street. That's the first arrest that we have. So we identified a Colombo crew that we knew nothing about. So that's the first uh arrest that we have related to Columbos. Then we start to build more cooperating witnesses, more proactive witnesses. And that takes us to, I would say, June of 2008, where we arrest Sonny Francis, we arrest Dino Calabro, we arrest Tommy Gioli, uh Joseph Compatiello, who's a soldier, and it was um a significant arrest. From that arrest that summer, we're waiting to see who's going to cooperate, right? Hopefully someone's going to cooperate. And we're waiting and waiting and waiting. Nothing happens that summer. In September of 2008, Joseph Compatiello comes forward and decides he wants to cooperate. We were kind of surprised that it was going to be him. He was a soldier, um, he was a guy, a ruthless guy, who you just tell, go kill someone, wouldn't ask any questions, he would actually just do it. His nickname was Joe Joe Caves. Well, you knew Sonny wasn't. Yeah. Oh, yeah, Sonny was definitely not going to cooperate. So Joe Caves comes in and he decides he's going to cooperate. Again, we have a proffer. He comes in and he tells us that there are three bodies buried right next to each other. Now, you and I were thinking three bodies are right next to each other. Those three bodies were not right next to each other. First of all, it was in Farmingdale, Long Island. The victims were Carmen Gargano, who was a young Hofster student, as the press portrayed him to be, who got involved with the Columbus. The second person was Richie Greaves, and the third person was William Cthulo, Wall Bill Catullo. Um if I remember correctly, Greaves, I think, was killed in the early 90s. I think Organa was 94, and Walville was killed in 99, I believe. Right? So when someone tells you that, you have to run right out to those spots and secure the spots. When we go out there, they're not right next to each other. They're literally 1.1 miles apart. One was next to a train station, one was next to a building that had been replaced, and one was a backfield. So uh at that point in time, I had been part of a body of two body recoveries which were significant, where Joe Messino had been arrested, decided to cooperate in two earlier that year in 2004, and we found the two captains that were killed in Queens. We were out there for 28 days, and now we're doing this body recovery four years later. And management had changed, and I'm getting calls every day. We were out there for nine days and we couldn't find anything. Uh we're looking at the one spot where Carmine Gorgana was supposed to be, and we did find a blue tarp, and we thought we had found something, it ended up being a dog. No good. The Richie Greaves site where it was by the train tracks, we dug up and down, up and down, absolutely nothing. Then the Wall Bill spot was in a backfield, and the witness said it was behind a berm. So we have our evidence response team out there, and one of my agents passed a comment that they wanted them to dig deeper. And they basically dug us an Olympic-sized pool, telling us that he's not here. So they closed that site and we're focusing on the other two sites. And one of my agents, Vincent D'Agostino, who lived pretty close out there, said, Seamus, do you mind if I go get some shovels? And we're not doing anything ourselves. So I said, sure. So he goes and gets some shovels, and we dug in one area, nothing there. Then another agent basically says, Let's dig over here. And what the Columbos used to do back then is they would kill you and then bury you and put lime on top of the body. What lime does is it preserves the body but kills the smell. They didn't know that it preserves the body. So that second spot, we just start digging. And sure enough, we're digging, digging, digging. Next thing you know, we see the white stuff. And like, oh my God. This could be something. We dig a little bit more, and next thing you know, I see the feet up in the air, the shoe up in the air. So what they had done with all Bill Catula was they hog tied him, put him face down in a tarp. So we dug a little deeper and then we stopped because we're not professionals, right? So I stopped. Of course, we're all excited that we found something. Uh I go over, I get our evidence response team, I tell them to come back, and next thing you know, we have to secure the site. We got it pretty late now. It's probably like six o'clock. It started to get a little dark. This is um October of 2008. Uh, so it was starting to get darker sooner. So, but you once you start digging, you you can't stop. So we have to secure the site, get all the lights, and it ended up being Walbill Catulo. So I called the family. Uh at that point in time, I was closer to the daughter. Uh said, I think we have something. We are gonna have to confirm it. And we were able to confirm it through the dental records because Mr. Catolo had veneers at the time. Yep. So we were able to do that. We had an autopsy, and then uh, you know, you could just imagine me going to a funeral parlor and trying them to explain all this, and also trying to explain that daughter's coming and she's got a different name, and we're in the witness security program. Like the funeral mom's looking at me like I'm crazy. I was like, you probably saw the news, this is all related to this, and we're gonna have to cremate the body and we're gonna have to get an urn, and they're looking at me like, what are you talking about? Like, you know, she's got a different name. So it all worked out, but it was quite an experience to go through.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Did you speak to the son any at all about that?

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Uh I had spoken, I had spoken to to Billy Jr. too at at that time too. Because he's cooperating at that time to a certain degree, correct?

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Yeah, he had uh semi-cooperated, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, I I've spoken with him on multiple occasions, actually done a multi-episode dive into that with him and Chris Columbo in the same one. He wasn't necessarily cooperating to the fact to help bring down the family and in that degree, but definitely to try to figure out who was responsible for his father's murder. They that was more his driving force.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Right, right. So yeah, I I spoke to him a few times about this incident. So uh so we're able to do that. And the other two sites we couldn't find anything there. So then we get what happened with Carmen Gar Gargano, the student that the press portrayed him to be, is what they did is they killed him in Brooklyn and they buried him in the body shop. They killed him in a bot in the body shop there. They buried him in the body shop. And then a couple of days went by and they're like, this is probably not a good idea. And they dug him up out of the body shop and brought him to Long Island. And so we get an idea, we say, like, you know what, why don't we go back to the body shop? So our team, again, just us, we go back to the body shop about a week or two later and we start digging again. And sure enough, what do we find? We find the white stuff again. And what we were able to do is get DNA from the family, and we were able to get pieces, excuse me, of Mr. Gargano and confirm through DNA that it was him. So we found two out of the three bodies there, which was great. Um, so again, for the first time during this whole process, I was the supervisor from I'd say December 2004 all the way up until June of 2013. During that time frame, we had numerous proactive witnesses. I think we made, if I remember the stats correctly, 1,800 recordings in a seven-year time period, which was unheard of. Uh, these guys worked around the clock. Uh, what happens is when you have a essential recording, you would bring it to a certain unit and they would download the recording to preserve the evidence. We were making so many recordings that we created our own unit. It was amazing the amount of work that these guys did, just around the corner. Uh, it got to a point where we were ahead of the Columbos, meaning that when we were having so many arrests that they would put a new acting boss up, we would know who the acting boss was immediately because we would have a proactive witness out there getting it on tape who it was, uh, which was amazing. You know, we had Allie Harp, like Ali went to jail, Tommy Gioli became the acting boss, and Ralph DeLeo from Boston, which was very odd thing to do, right? They where they went outside the norm and they went to Boston to actually have someone be the acting boss. Uh so we were all over that from head to toe. So after those round of indictments, you know, we had more indictments where we actually solved the Ralph Doles murder, which was an NYPD officer who was killed in 1997. I'm not too sure if you know the story behind that, but Doles was a police officer who was married to a lady named Kim Kanaw. Kim Kanawh was married to Joel Cacase, who was the underboss of the Columbo family. She was known as the Black Widow. Uh her entire life she was married to mob guys, and then at some point in her life she decided to uh switch gears and marry someone from law enforcement and basically seal that guy's fate. That's why he was killed.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Wow. Yeah. So it was a ploy from the beginning? It was uh set up from the beginning, or is it what happened in the middle?

SPEAKER_01 17:40

No, it's like uh she was married to Joel Cacase. Okay. And Joel Cacase, after you know being with him, she then married a minority police officer. Gotcha. And the Columbus didn't like that. Yeah. So she basically stealed the guy's fate. Wow. Uh and we saw that murder. Uh so horrible. Uh the guy got killed for no reason, really. You know what I mean? So we kept building cases left and right, having a lot of proactive witnesses, and then I think that takes us up into January of 2011. And in January 2011, we execute the largest FBI mob arrest ever, where 127 people are arrested nationwide uh across all states, in Italy as well. Uh, the arrest is so big that we have to take over Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn. Where so you can imagine if you have 127 people arrested, how many law enforcement persons are involved in it. I think over like a thousand people were there. Um so our team alone, our squad alone, was responsible for 60 arrests that day and five search warrants as well. So uh just an amazing group of people that just did a great job. Just trying to think as we continue to go forward. We had multiple trials then. Um there was a trial with BF Guerrera, and then there was the trial with Tommy Gioli, Dino Saracino. Uh they were convicted. Um I think Dino Saracino got 50 years, I believe. 40 or 50 years. Tommy Gioli got 18 years, I believe. Um and then after that, we um kind of so so after the after the largest arrest, what the bureau did is they decided to reduce the resources towards organized crime. And because I had the experience with the bananos, they took my old squad C10 and they this they converged them into my new squad. So after that I had the bananos, the Columbos, and the Cowalcanties. So I had all three families. And then we start to work the bananos a little bit, and this is related to Goodfellows. So we developed a witness, his name was Gaspar Valente. I don't know if you ever heard of him or not, but Gaspar Valente was the only remaining person from the Lothonza Heist who wasn't killed. So in the movie They were all killed, right? He wasn't killed. He wasn't killed because he is Vincent Asaro's cousin. Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

I was about to say, I thought Vinny definitely had something to do with that. He beat the charges that he was on, at least for that. Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

So uh Gaspar Valente was actually inside during the heist. Outside the heist was Jimmy Burke and Vincent Asaro.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

So, and Gaspar is cousins with Vinny.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

So Gaspar decides to cooperate. And if you listen to the tapes, you would understand why he decided to cooperate because Vinny really treated him like crap. Uh now, they didn't kill him, but they did take the money from the heist. Uh they just didn't kill him because he was cousins with Vinny. Yeah, true. So he decides to cooperate, and one of the jewels that he has for us is that he has information regarding the murder of a guy named Paul Katz. Paul Katz was killed in 1969, and uh he was killed by Vinny and Jimmy Burke and buried in Jimmy Burke's basement. Yep. So uh one of my last official acts as a supervisor was to do a dig in Jimmy Burke's basement, and that was in uh June of 2013. So in June of 2013, we execute a search warrant there, and uh we have our evidence response team, and they accidentally knock out the water main pipe. So we knock out we knock out the water for the entire neighborhood. The lady upstairs is pregnant. So I gotta make sure that she's okay. And then we have a kind of a fun funny story. We decide we have to go to the bathroom. So I go up to Liberty Air. And there's me and there's about three eight agents with me. And we're on the other side of the tracks. And I look over, and who do I see? I see Vincent Nasaro outside of a nano body shop. And Vinny was still in like fairly good shape, even though it was close to 80 now. And I say to the guy, he's like, We gotta say something. And they're like, No, no, we don't. He's like, Yeah, we do. It's like, how can I not say something? Now Vinny knew where we were, and we knew what we were doing, because what we did is I got a little uh risky where I kept the witness out that day when I executed the search warrant because I wanted to get a recording of him talking to the witness about where we were. Uh so we were able to do that. So this is like the third or fourth day that we're there. So we go to the bathroom, we cross over the train tracks to his side, and then I go up to Vinny and I'm just asking him how he's feeling, because I know he had a heart issue, whatever. And uh we're going back and forth, and I just said, Oh, we're just work, we're just working down the block here, and he knows exactly what we're doing. And then at the end of the conversation, I just tap him on the shoulder and I said, I'll see you soon. And that was in June. So January comes, I knock on his door, and I said, I told you I'd see see you soon. And uh he got a big kick out of it. Um took him back to 26 Soto Plaza, and there was a lot of press out that day, and they thought, you know, they knew what we were there for, right? The Lunza Heist, the murderer of Paul Katz, and none, none, none, like none, none of those guys got bail. Right. So um, I remember Vinny's lawyer uh got off there and basically said, Seamus MacLeur told my client that it was gonna see him see him sound. It's like because he hadn't because they had no they know they know they have no one to speak to. Anyway, uh Vinny had had a big uh laugh about the whole thing. And but as you said, he did beat that case.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

Well, did you but y'all didn't did y'all find the body there? Yes. You did? So I interviewed a guy named Gene Barello. I don't know if you know Gene. Yeah, he was uh associate up under Vinny. Vinny uh according to him, um, you know, Vinny really cared for him, but he called him one night and asked him or talked to him or presented him with the opportunity to go move that body, and Gene said he thought he was gonna get killed because he was a wild guy, um, industry's doing a lot of you know shit that wasn't really in line with what they wanted.

SPEAKER_01 24:19

So what they did was, right, and let me give you the story because I kind of went through that really fast. Okay, so they killed him in 1969, they buried him, right? Then Jimmy Burke goes away for the Boston point shaving scandal, right? In the 80s. Jimmy Burke gets nervous because he had cops on the payroll. And in the 80s, he had Vincent Asaro's son and Gaspar Valente move the body, right? But they're not professionals. So they left pieces behind. And that's what we did. We came back in 2013, which was what, that's 44 years later, and solved a 44-year-old murder. Um but yeah, they did move the body in 2000 in like 1980 something. Yeah. Uh, but we came back in 2013, and then what we did is we were able to confirm it was him through DNA through uh Paul Katz's son.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Which we did.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I remember when he bit beat that case. I mean, I I don't know how he beat that case. I I what do you think was the the driving force of how he beat that case? Because you seemingly you guys had a lot.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

I you know. I think we could have simplified the case. I'll just say that. Okay.

unknown 25:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Because because what you're doing is you're you're showing 50 years of him being part of a family. Yeah. And and the thing is too, it's it's hard. What people have to remember, right? It's hard to get 12 people to agree on anything. Right. It's really hard to do that, you know. Especially now, now nowadays, it's really hard to do that. So uh everyone has to keep that in mind. You know, when you get a jury conviction, that's really solid stuff. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

100%. Um, did you know a lot about Billy Cotolo or Wild Bill and his uh and his the way he got taken out and who all was involved? How entrenched were you in that?

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Right. So what happened was those guys became a witness. So that all stems from the June 2008 arrest. So the shooter was Dino Calabro, right? Right. So Dino decides to cooperate, right? Uh, and but Joe Caves comes in first. So Joe Caves is the first guy to come in the door. So he's arrested in June of 2008. And as I said, that summer we're waiting, and Joe Caves decides to cooperate in September. And that's one of the things that he does tell us. He tells us about those three bodies, and he tells us who killed um who killed Wal Bill. And he's part of that. And they did it in Dino Saracino's house.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

And unfortunately, you know, we all know there was a war in the early 1990s. Right. The Colombo Wars. Yep, Colombo War, Arena versus the Persco faction. And they never forget. You know, it was so funny because as I said, we developed witnesses. And even though everything was supposed to be at peace, when you develop a witness on the arena side or the person side, they they never forgot the war. And even though they said that they were at peace, they really weren't. They always remember that. But what happened there was Allie was getting ready to go to jail. Yep. And Mr. Cutul let his guard down. He thought he was getting the keys to the kingdom. He thought Allie was gonna make him the acting boss. And that was what, nine years later after the war? Yep. That wasn't gonna happen. Allie wasn't gonna do that, and that's why he got killed. He thought he was getting the keys to the kingdom, and he let his guard down. And he went to Dino's Harris Dino's house. They went in through the back backyard, uh, the back door, and he went down the steps first and you know shot him in the back of the head.

unknown 28:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

Yeah, and everybody that I've talked to, I mean, Wild Bill was probably one of the men talked to in the most respectable way, like as far as you know, being a gentleman. Yes, he had he did what he had to do as far as his street family and his street life, but other than that, just a total gentleman. I mean, everybody talks, you know, great about him as, you know, respectable man. Um, again, like I said, I interviewed his son and other people that knew him. But I mean, no, every as one of those, even though they're in the life that they're in, nobody really has a bad thing to say about him if that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Yep. And that was in May of '99, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Yeah. What about I'm going to shoot some names at you. Tell me what you know or or you know, what you heard of them or anything along those lines. I mean, obviously, we talked about Sonny Francis being, I think, probably the epitome if you looked up Gangster in the dictionary, it's either going to be his face, maybe Al Capola Luciano, something like that. Sonny's going to be in there. You know, he would if you want to use that term stand-up guy, that's who that is. Now, his son, Michael, um, who I've spoken to in the past, what do you think about what he apparently his big thing was the scam with the gas. But originally what I heard was that was the Russian scam to begin with. He just kind of took it over and was able to make a lot of money off of it. What do you know about that? Well, A, that was before before my time.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Right. His father, we actually arrested him and he went to trial, and I think he got 10 years and survived the the uh the sentence, came out and I think lived another year or two before he died. Yep. Uh just shows you the strength of that man, right? Oh, yeah. Um, Michael, I've talked to a few times. Um, I don't know who started that scam. All I know is he made a lot of money off that, you know, and then he left the life. You know, like he's very successful now. He has a podcast too, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

I think he's selling wine too. He is. Uh Frenzy's wine. I've actually I fell with him at his home out in um in California. Uh no issues with him. I mean, I I I appreciate what he's doing, the message you send in. And that's kind of what a lot of this stuff is, right? People want to know that if you're gonna send this message that you were in this life when you've turned, at least give the message that this life isn't where you want to go. Right. You know, it all leads to bad stuff, whether you're arrested or killed or put in a position where you got to kill somebody that you love or you know, or have feelings for. And at least I'll say him, John A. Light's another one that's kind of, you know, spread light on this is bad. You don't really have too many that I can think of right off the top of my head that are out there glorifying it. You know, even the ones like Gene, I mean, Gene's a nut, but he still does say that like those kind of things that he did back in those days wouldn't even fly today. I mean, Gene's even said that he probably should have been killed four or five times, you know, just doing the stupid stuff that he did. And he was wasn't even at the May level. Right. So definitely a lot of uh good information that they're spreading out there, at least as far as to not get involved. But at the same time, I think the world is just so entrenched. There's a reason why we talked about The Sopranos being one of the best TV shoes ever, which kind of paralleled the case you work with the decafs. Then you have Goodfellows, uh Casino, all these movies are held in high regard. Even The Godfather here was over my shoulder, regardless of one of the regarded as one of the best movies ever. There's no coincidence at all of that revolves around this type of lifestyle. And I think that's something that people are always going to be interested in. So we can get first hand stories either from the people that were there or people like yourself on the other side. It just makes for great, interesting conversation. Um sure. Um, what do you think was the most interesting thing working with the Columbus? Because that history, even when you go back to the wars, you know, you had Greg Scarpa, who was working undercover. There's actually a movie about to come out. About to come out, right? Yep. Um, because of his involvement with the Mississippi Burning and all that. For people that don't know about that. I was kind of curious in what direction they were going to go with this movie. I had spoken with this son, Greg Jr., um, and obviously Larry Mazza. I'm not sure if you know who he is, but I've spoken with Larry. I was really curious to see what direction they were going to go with this movie. And the trailer dropped last week. I don't know if you had a chance to see it. So it looks like it's going to focus mainly on that of him coming to Mississippi to help out a cop to try to, you know, solve that portion. Not so much the mob stuff back in New York. Gotcha. Yeah. What what is uh what was your take on Greg Scarp and what you knew about it? I'm not saying you worked that area, but just you know, from what you've heard. Well, it was a different time back then, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:32

You know, it's like that's something that we're taught now. You never meet an informant by yourself. Right. Right? Because it's very simple. You don't want your word versus their word. But it was it was a different time back then. Uh, but it appears to be true, right? That he did go down in Mississippi and they did use him to get information. Yeah, however that may be. And there's rumors I want how that may be, and I think you're gonna see it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

Yeah, definitely. Uh I I'm looking forward to the movie. I mean, Mark usually does, he's pretty selective about his work nowadays, and I think if he's in it, it's gonna be pretty good. I am looking forward to seeing it. I know they had a movie not too long ago come out called The Mafia Cops, which was okay, but I thought that could have been a lot better as well.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Um, when you think about that, you take a step back where the cops actually killed someone for the mob. Yeah, it's like that's insane.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

And these guys were out in Front Street. Like, honestly, him uh what is his name? Not Caracapa, but the other one, the heavier set one. Yeah. Um Goodfellas. He was in Goodfellas. The scene when they're going around the bar, they actually talk to him and they say, we got Mo Black's brother, Fat Andy, who he's talking about, Anthony Ruggiano, uh, who I've interviewed his son, Anthony Ruggiano Jr. He's in there, and then he's on a TV show. I don't know if it was Oprah or something else, where he's talking about, you know, being and working along those things and doing these things. And a lady that seen that murder happen recognized him, causing that's what started the dominoes effect on all this stuff. And yeah, I think it was Gaspipe Casso who had all these guys working up under him, basically taking out hits to where at this point now you got cops doing hits. Which is insane.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

It really is insane, you know.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

And Caracapo, I don't know, both of them might be dead now.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

I know Caracapo died. I think they're both dead. Okay. Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

I mean, just wild stuff. What was one of the things that stood out to you about the people involved, like as far as the ruthless or the brutality of it? What were some of the stories that stuck out from your time when you were following the Columbus?

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Well, I think sitting down with Joe Caves was an interesting. He's probably the the wildest guy that I sat down with. Yeah. Because as I said, he just has that look in his in his eyes. You know what I mean? Like you go tell him to do something, there was no like asking how high should I jump. He just did it, you know, and thankfully he became a cooperator. You know what I mean? Uh, but he was a scare, scary guy, you know what I mean? And just sitting down with him and just how he told the story as if it was nothing, you know, that's and going out there and trying to find Wall like Wild Bill, that was um, you know, and the story behind it, how our squad found him, you know what I mean? It was just just a crazy story. But yeah, just sitting just sitting with him and like when you look in his eyes, it was like it was a scare scary guy.

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Was there any situations where you guys had people in line to cooperate or be cooperators to a certain degree, and then something happened where you never they never actually got to finish it or or be a part of it? Basically, I guess like anybody that was had the promise to be a cooperator, but it never materialized. Yeah, I can't say their names, but yeah, sometimes that does happen.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Yeah. Where, you know, what you would you try to tell the cooperator because this is just natural, right? It's like you might have this golden nugget, right? And you wanna you want to hold on to that nugget. What you try to tell them all the time is don't hold that gold of that, you have to let it out right now. It's like this is not gonna help you. But sometimes these guys think, okay, I'm gonna hold it. And even, you know, like you got to think too, right? When we spoke to Joe Capes, right? It's you have to be a little apprehensive saying, I killed the cop, right? And that's not something you're not gonna say right away. You know, that's you're once you cross that line, you don't know how people are gonna react to that, right? And like you don't know, okay, they might tell me we don't need you, right? Like that's that's a difficult thing to do. Um and related to that, they didn't know he was a cop. Oh wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

Which is what about uh Joe Smash? What do you know about Joe Smash? From the Gambinos? Uh I think he was Colombo, wasn't he? Or maybe he was Gambino. Gambali? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was he Gambino? Maybe he was Gambino.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

I thought he was Camp Gambino, I thought.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

His son, I think, does movies or is in the movies. Oh, really? If I'm not mistaken. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Um not I'm I just know of him. I know him. Like he did some things with Anthony too. Yep. Yep. Anthony uh Casso.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

Uh Anthony from Capo, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Yep. Um somebody else I was gonna talk about. Larry Mazza. We've had him on the show before. He was uh He's in Florida, right? He's in Florida now, yep. Um really instrumental in that.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

Scarpa and that whole like Nexus.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

Yeah, the so that's weird. They have they had they done a show together, and now I think they're in a bit of a a falling out. But you know, Larry's story is interesting. Allegedly, he is courted by Scarpa's wife to have this ongoing affair. Linda Shearer? Shear? Yeah, I think well, I know Linda's his daughter's name is Linda as well, but I'm not sure what his wife's name was. It could have been Linda also. I think so. But the fact that, like, if I'm a young kid getting involved in that life in any fashion, going up against a guy like Greg Scar, his nickname was the Grim Reaper.

SPEAKER_02 37:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

You know, you don't get that for being a nice guy.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:58

I'm not gonna start sleeping with this man's wife. Now, according to him, he gives them the blessing because he's like, look, you're doing me a favor, I've got gomatas and all this. And eventually he would go on to contract AIDS or HIV, which adds another layer of this. But what do you think about that whole situation?

SPEAKER_01 38:14

I as you just said, I wouldn't touch that at all. It's like that's trying to seal your fate. But I think related to the AIDS thing, if I remember correctly, he was definitely afraid of getting AIDS. Yes. And he got it from one of his crew members uh who was into weights, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:31

I think it was steroids, and he got it that way, right? The story the story that I heard was he was he had a hospital visit. He needed a blood transfusion. They had blood there at the hospital, they were getting in my blood bank. I don't want to you know put too much emphasis on this, whether it's true or not true, but he was saying that he didn't want uh blood that could be from a black person. So he wanted it from his own crew. The person that came up and said they would give it to him wound up being involved in steroids and needle sharing and things like that. So that's what gave it to him. And you would think at that point, maybe you would might you know rethink your life's choices or your life's mission or your life work. If anything, that might have made him worse. Right. Because now he knows he's on his way out, and I mean at this point they're saying he's going on hits. I know there was one situation where he got shot in the eye. Um, I don't know, was that what uh Mikey Flattop, I think they called it.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

If I remember correctly, he was on um a bracelet at the time. Yeah, yeah. And didn't he say that he fell down the stairs or something?

SPEAKER_00 39:28

Yeah, he said he fell down the stairs, but he I mean, literally got shot in the eye. I mean, like this is this guy was on another level of tough.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

But I guess too, if you're working with the FBI, you don't have to worry about going, you know, going down for it. I guess I can kind of see why he was living the way he was living. But I mean, that's that's another level of a guy. Yeah, hardcore.

SPEAKER_01 39:46

Like that, that's for sure. As you just said, I can't even imagine getting shot in the eye and still I think he went and he started drinking, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Yeah. Just to kind of ease the pain. If I'm not mistaken, I think the guy that shot him or at least was involved in that was a guy named Mikey Flattop DeRossi or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Uh DeRossa. DeRossa, okay. I think it was over his son, right? Yeah. Related to his son. Yeah. Is it is his son still in jail?

SPEAKER_00 40:09

No, his son's out now. He's um, I mean, he's in he's in Florida as well. Okay. Yeah, his son's out. I've talked to him. We're trying to work something out where I can get him on the show, but uh, we're in the midst of trying to hammer out the details on that. But his son's out. He's done quite a long time in there.

SPEAKER_02 40:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

But his son's out. And um, I think that'd be interesting because you've got such a polarizing figure in that world. I don't know how a movie's not been made about him yet, to be quite honest. With everything, I mean, I guess now technically it is, but that's just one portion of it. Like you've got a whole nother side to this guy that, you know, that's a movie in and of itself. You rise, you're working with the feds, you're known as this hitman that is not just a guy sitting in, you know, a chair sending out to do orders, you're going them on them yourself. Right. And obviously, if you've got the backing, then you're gonna be a little bit more free-willing to do that. But the Columbos have a long time had a lot of like very interesting polarizing guys through their whole hierarchy. What do you think going back? I mean, obviously, I don't know how far this goes back, but I mean, like, even the assassination of Joe, who was leading the Italian-American Civil Rights League at the time, what do you think you know the reason was for that? Him getting taken out? Your opinion.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

I'm just trying to think about that now. Well, I think he was talking too like too much, I think. That was the big thing, right? And I mean, I think he was just putting them on the map way too much. Um we did have a cooperator, Paul Pabaca, who was actually there that day.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

Really?

SPEAKER_01 41:35

He has since passed away, too. Uh, but yeah, I think uh I think Joe was just talking too much about the mobbing, just giving them giving them too much attention. I think that's why that he got killed.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

What have you heard anything about who I've spoken with Chris about this, and obviously he's very passionate on the subject, uh rightfully so, as being his father. There's been links that it was Carlo Gambino, may have had something to do with it, he refutes that. Um, there's been links that Joe Gallo had something to do with it, he refutes that as well. Uh, your opinion? Um, what who do you think what could have been behind that, or probably the most likely character?

SPEAKER_01 42:09

I don't know. I I don't want to say something and you know, throw it out there.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

Because I mean, I the way it's kind of looked, the the narrative was the I don't know if you want to call it the lone gumman theory, but really no direct line to a black guy, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

You know, who knows if that's true or not?

SPEAKER_00 42:25

Yeah, and then just higher two, you know. And then shortly after you do have Gallo getting killed, obviously at the famous hit of you know, right outside on Burto's, which is put in the movies of I want to say it was the Irishman, where apparently Frank Sheeran had something to do with that, but a lot of people refute that, that he had absolutely nothing to do with it, that a lot of his whole book and and everything is fabricated. Coming from somebody that actually has been doing this, been in the weeds, you get the stuff from the law uh law enforcement perspective. What do you think about a lot of these movies that portray that? Do you think they take a lot of liberties with that? Because that's something that Chris personally has a lot of issues with, is how if you want to just take for one instance The Godfather of Harlem, like the facts in that great acted show, like phenomenal acting, Forrest Whitaker, uh Dinofrio, whatever his name is, uh the hat that was in Full Metal Jacket, like they're phenomenal actors. But the facts on that show are screwed to hell. Right. I mean, like no one near accurate.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

I think the most true to life movie is Goodfellas. Yeah. You know, that's that seems to be right, right, like spot on. But as like you said, a lot of these movies, they're just trying to sell, right? So they're gonna make make things up. That's what you have to be really careful, especially it's it's great if you could be part of the movie, right? If you can kind of direct it and be having have some say in the movie. But a lot of these things they just take for granted because they're just trying to sell things. But I think Goodfellows was really spot on, you know.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

Yeah, I've heard good from the people that I've talked to, Goodfellows and Don Nebraska are some of the most accurate pinpoint accounts um of that of that life. And Casino as well, Casino was based on a lot of real Real life true events. I actually had the chance to interview um God, his name is Captain. He was the mayor. He was uh he was his lawyer, he was Tony's lawyer throughout the whole thing. He actually played the lawyer in the movie, but Oscar Goodman. That's right, Oscar Goodman. So he went on to be the mayor of Las Vegas, and he's got a restaurant called Oscar's, which is in the Plaza Hotel of NM Fremont Street. And there's a bronze statue of him and Spilotra outside of the entranceway to the restaurant. Wow. Yeah, and he went on to be mayor of Las Vegas three times, or the Max, whatever you do. I think it was three terms. Then his wife became the mayor. So I had a chance to interview him. And you know, he was uh he was a pretty interesting cat. And he played the lawyer in the movie, and he was like, he said, they had Joe so well done to match him. He was like, he said, I you know, thought it for sure I drank too much because I he was like, I'm sure the man's dead, but here he sits in front of me. A lot different from the character he played in uh Goodfellows, where Tommy De Simone was nowhere near the same size and stature. I mean, for what I understand, he was a big guy, but Tony Spilotro really kind of matched Joe with his physique and everything else. Shorter guy, you know, little chubby, had the hair doing, and they were almost, you know, identical to a point. Um, I wind up with this. You did say, and I think it was in our previous episode, and you missed you mentioned it here too, you did arrest Joe Messina. Yes. So at this point now, we've had a lot, we've had cooperators at different levels, we've had some captains at different levels. Now you've got the boss of one of the five families in New York. At this time, it had never happened before. You know, I I'm putting the decavs out of that for the time being. I'm talking about New York specifically. You had never had a boss of a family cooperate before. What was that like? Tell us a little bit about that, and that's how we can wind up this episode.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

Well, it was great to watch him testify. So he testified against Vincent Basciano, and it was like an encyclopedia. Like just sitting there and just because he was he was he was around for 30 years. So just listening to him was just amazing. And just how he could like you could see he was a boss. Like when he sat down and talked to you, just how he controlled the room. Like you could just tell this guy's been around for a long time. But to me, the biggest thing was just watching him when he was on the stand. You know, he has since passed away, as you know. Right. Um, but you know, and that was that was the thing too, is like he got convicted, right? And like the the agents behind that were Kimberly McCaffrey and Jeff Solette, but they were the ones that uh had that case and they flipped him. Um he got convicted and basically reached out to the government within like an hour after being convicted. Wow. Really, really quick. Really that's something you don't see a lot of on the right. But that's the thing is too, is like you can't set a precedent either. You you can't uh go to trial and then decide to cooperate. Right. You know what I mean? And that's why um, you know you have to have a lot of information to do that. Because you can't use all the the government's resources, you know, taxpayer money, and then decide you blow a trial. Uh because he was facing the death penalty too.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

Yeah. You know, so and was that all there's some murders that are committed in the movie Donny Brasco, where they do the three murders at the bottom uh in the in the basement. Was that the murder that he was on trial for? Or was there was that a different one? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

So and um that's what that's one of the things that he was able to give us once he was convicted. If you remember in 1981, kids were playing in that field and they found the bodies, and then he gives us information and when I'm wrapping up the the case here with the decafs, he provides that information and we do a dig in uh September of 2004, where we go out to Queens and we're out there for 28 days. And it's basically um a dumpy area, and the weather was horrible. And we would use a contract with this guy, Harvey Pincus, and what would happen would be it would rain. And it was such a vast area, every time that you would move the mud, it would rain and it would come back. So we were out there for 28 days. Thankfully, we knew the leadership of the office at that particular time that they allowed us to stay out there because no one would allow allow us out there that for that long now. But we were out there for 28 days and we found the other two captains. We found, I remember watches that they had and uh some other of their their their belongings that they had on them that day.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

And that was what Indelicato, Tronchero, and uh I forgot the third one. Uh Sonny. Sonny Red? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. And that was right on the heels of the Brasco case because of what I remember, Messino took over kind of after that. Right. Right? Yeah, and then it's Rusty Westelli. Right. And then Sonny Black, who was uh portrayed by Michael Madison in the movie, he was taken out. Um the movie does show Lefty getting kind of like what happened to Sonny. I think Sonny probably knew what was gonna happen to him. He went anyway. Yep. Lefty kind of gives that perception as happened to him, but in real life, Lefty after he went to prison. I think he died in prison, or at least he got he might have got out. I think he got out and he died shortly after that.

SPEAKER_01 49:12

I think so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:13

Um, but a lot of times that is kind of weird how they'll parallel some stories and makes a match. Uh, from what I understand, Sonny Black was an old school guy. He knew what was probably gonna happen and almost in a way probably figured he deserved it for for bringing him around. Have you ever had a chance to meet Joe? Joe Messino? But no, Pastone, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 49:31

Um, yes, I'm I wouldn't say I'm friends with him, but I've been at when like he's giving talks. Right. Yeah. And you know, just like we were talking about stats before, it's like I would be remiss not to give the stats related to this particular squad. Right. During that uh my time period from December 2004 to January 2013, this squad convicted over 200 people and had solved over close to 30 homicides during that time period. Wow. And then not to mention what I told you before, they made 1,800 consensual recordings in seven and a half years, which is just unreal. They just they just did a tr tremendous job.

SPEAKER_00 50:09

Wow, you know. So Columbos are just one of those interesting families. I mean, even Carmine, you know, never really wanting to relinquish that power even from prison all the way up. And he died maybe I want to say a couple of years ago, not too long ago. He was in Butner. Um, I interviewed a guy that uh befriended him, he was a bank robber, had to go to jail, but he got real close to Carmine. Oh, really? He gave him a nickname in prison. Uh they called him Jimmy the Crease. And he used to be able to do the clothes, and when he would iron him, they would have creases so good. He was like, That's your name, Jimmy the Crease. And he was like, he's carried it to this day, like you know, been out of prison and and all that, but he's like, he just still uses that name, Jimmy the Crease. He was also in there with uh the Gemini twin. Um he just died too. I can't remember his name. Um you know I'm talking about with the in the book murder machine. They were uh who's the head guy?

SPEAKER_01 51:00

I can see them.

SPEAKER_00 51:01

Yeah, I can see his two. That's crazy. Roy DeMayo was the head guy, but I forgot the two one they called the Gemini twin. He was in there one of him. And that's crazy. Those guys actually got out. I know. With the amount of people that they killed, and both of them are out. One of them I think is still living, but the other one died not long after he got out. I was surprised that that that they got out. Is that just because of the time frame of when they got charged and what the the limitations were on that? Because I mean these guys had bodies on bodies on bodies. Like, I don't even know if they got the actual number, but I mean we're talking close to 100 if we don't believe the lore of that book. I just don't know how they got out. Is Anthony? Anthony's I don't know, Anthony's ringing a bell, but I mean maybe not. Um anyway, these guys, if you look up the movie or the book Murder Machine, and read like the crew that Roy Democrat, I mean, they would be doing that, and he said they would talk to them about it, and like they would just have the bodies there draining in the tub, and they'd just be sitting around eating pizza like it's no big deal. Yep, like this was just you know, run-of-the-mill operations. These guys operate on another level. Exactly. To be able to do ruthless things like that, like you you mentioned earlier, like hog tie people, take them out, do whatever, and then just go on about your life like that's no big deal. I mean, you gotta put them on the level of some sort of serial killers in that regard. Another guy was Tommy Karate. Tommy, yep, Tommy Petera. Yeah, that's right. Ruthless, ruthless dude. It's out of all your research, everybody that you've looked into, discovered who would you say would have been the most ruthless? Joe Capes. Joe Capes, really. Hands down. You said that really quick. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. So I one of those guys they always say look in the eyes. I bet his eyes was probably pure shit. Oh, yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 52:40

And he's doing he's doing well now, though.

SPEAKER_00 52:42

That's good. And he's did he I'm assuming he went into Witseck? Yep. Okay. Well, if they can reform, then God bless them, you know. But uh sometimes I don't know how you can go back to a normal life after that. You know, that's that's hard. I mean, I know there's a movie, My Blue Heaven, that's supposed to loosely be the uh the sequel to Goodfellas and how Henry Hill handled stuff. I didn't realize that. I had seen My Blue Heaven a long time ago, and somebody said that's like the sequel to Goodfellas, the the unknown sequel to Goodfellas. That you put all these guys in the area and they just start the whole crime thing again.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

Well, that's a that's a thing, how it's great how the Marshalls do do that though. And it's a really tough thing to do because that's what they do. They they kind of map out the states and they'll see where people are so that they don't put them together. And, you know, for trials, right? That's that's what they do, where they won't house prisoners together, so they can't, so the fans, so the defense can't say that they collude it with their stories. Right. And then when they put them throughout the states, they make sure that they're not together. Like, you know, for the same folks from the same families are not together.

SPEAKER_00 53:47

So even Jimmy that I talked to, Jimmy, I forgot where they placed him at this one time, but Jimmy Shiraco, he said that there was some guys, you know, looked like they were New York guys, or definitely guys from that life that were poking around, asking questions, and they they jerked him out of there, and he was moved right long after that. Because I mean, some of these guys are still looked for. I mean, it's yeah, it's not like you can not keep a look at least somewhat of a lookout, look over your shoulder to a certain degree.

SPEAKER_01 54:10

And that's the thing is the the Marshalls, the Woodseck program works because the Marshalls are so strict. And what happens is people they get their ID and then they sign themselves out of the program. So it's not like people stay in the program for 20 to 30 years. It works because they're strict. Uh, but usually people get all their ID and then they leave the program. And they're all on their own then.

SPEAKER_00 54:34

Wow. Have you ever spoken with Chris Colombo, just out of curiosity?

SPEAKER_01 54:37

When I was a brand new agent, I think um his other brother was on trial. So I didn't speak to him, but I think he came to the trial, and I think that was in the Southern District. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 54:48

From what I remember. Yeah. Because Chris never really got involved with that. I mean, he was his more thing was a bookmaker. He was a big bookmaker. Um, that was his thing with bookmaking. He even has a podcast on it called Taking Action with Chris Colombo, where at the same time he talks about the dangers of gambling because now it's everywhere. Where back in his day, everything was done through the back rooms and everything. Now you can do it on your phone.

SPEAKER_02 55:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 55:09

And, you know, so he kind of talks about the dangers of gambling, but also how he handicaps football games and all that. Because he he he got arrested, went to trial on the gambling case, and you know, wound up beating it. But that's just another thing that those guys thrived on back in those days was gambling. What's what's his his brother's name is what? Is it Anthony? I think he's got a brother named Anthony. He had two brothers. Okay. And I think one of them still may be living. Okay. But I I only know Chris uh on a personal level. I actually called him. Uh it's funny, I called him on Instagram. And I was in the middle of like trying to get my spiel, and he's like, Are you a cop? And I'm like, No, I'm not a cop. At start when he said his name was, he's like, I don't know who you're talking about. I said, Well, I called your Instagram. This is your Instagram. It's like he forgot that that was gonna go to his phone. And then we got to talking, and he actually spent some time in Greenville. So we got to talking about me living in the Charleston area, and we spoke, and I flew to his home, which was his father, Joe Colombo's home. Um, so really historic there, seeing the house that he lived in, he grew up in. He went into great detail about his father and all that. And like I said, I've interviewed him quite a few times, once with Bill Cotolo on that whole deal. But he has his biggest issue with a lot of these shows and and documentaries is just the factual part of it. And like I said, the the one I mentioned earlier, um Godfather of Harlem, that being one of them. I mean, they've got people that are talking together, like they've got the Chen and um Costello like talking and having conversations together. Right, you know, good well, that wasn't gonna happen. He had him killed, almost had him killed, or almost killed him, he shot him through the fedora. And, you know, just and I think by the time all that happened, Bumpy Johnson was even dead. So they they put all these people that, you know, were known characters and like combined them into this world that really wasn't even existing at the time. I mean, it's just it's crazy, but that's where like and people think that's fact, and that's his problem. He's like, people go with this stuff as fact when it's really manipulated. Even the the movie about how the godfather was made. Because you know, his father was very influential in the godfather being made, actually was one of the rules that he gave was they couldn't even use the word mafia in the movie. The word mafia is not even mentioned in The Godfather, and so he was really influential and all that. But um, I think that about wraps it up, man. That's a good I love doing that one because I knew a lot a little bit more about those cases and those guys intertwined. You've got a heck of a story, man. What's next for you? What do you do? Are you just gonna continue with the podcast circuit? What's next for uh Seamus?

SPEAKER_01 57:29

Well, I still have a full-time job. So oh really?

SPEAKER_00 57:31

You are you still you're still with the FBI?

SPEAKER_01 57:33

Oh no, I'm retired from the FBI.

SPEAKER_00 57:34

Okay, okay, okay. I thought you were retired, but you're still working a full-time job.

SPEAKER_01 57:37

Yeah, I I run security for uh a financial firm.

SPEAKER_00 57:40

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 57:41

Well then uh if you got a full-time job, you got a full workload though. I'm curious what Chris thinks about the other show that came out.

SPEAKER_00 57:48

Which one?

SPEAKER_01 57:49

The show they made about the Godfather.

SPEAKER_00 57:51

No, that's what I was talking about. The offer. He hated it. He absolutely hated it. Okay. Yeah, he absolutely hated it. He thought it was the biggest load of shit you'd ever seen. Um, yeah, he he hated it.

unknown 58:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 58:02

Yep. He I mean, most things he he has issues with uh like that because a lot of the stuff with Al Ruddy and all that, it was just really a lot of stuff taken out of context. And he's talked to about it in the shows that we've done. I've done a number of shows with him on it, and yeah, he was very against that. Even there was a big documentary that came out not too long ago, I think it was called The Five Families, and they interviewed a lot of people. It was a it was a long one. And he said they come out to his home, they interviewed him, they interviewed him for like nine hours and only used probably maybe 35 minutes of footage, which I from what I talked to people, that is common. They'll do a lot of tape and they only use a little bit. But I think even with the documentaries, they want to go with the more juicy stuff than what actually could have happened. Like I think it says there was a a point in time to where like Joe Gallo got out of jail and his father like threw a dollar at him or something like he said he owed some money when he got out of jail and his father, like threw a dollar at him, maybe even slapped him or something like that, something along those lines. And I mean, he was just like, none of that ever happened. And he was like, that was the thing is why would, you know, if Joe Gallo really wanted to take out my father, why would he do it in such a public setting? You know, why he knew exactly where his father was at all times. He could have just easily either done it himself or had somebody come in and do it. That's not the way that done business, at least back then, you know. So, but he's he was very critical of the offer, very critical of Godfather Harlem. Um he's he's more of a proponent of what wanting to make sure things are factually accurate. Right. If you're gonna talk about it, talk facts instead of fabrications. And he's gone after quite a people, quite a few people online that fabricate their stories. Um, you know, he was very critical of Sammy the Bull, because Sammy leaves out a lot of things, especially the Alan Kaiser situation where the kid was killed. Um, there was another guy that was doing a lot of podcasts for a period of time, Sal, I can't remember his name, Sal Ubots or whatever he called his name. Um he was very critical of the things that he said. Yeah, and I don't even think Sal's Sal Pelese was his name. Okay. Sal Pelicisi, yeah. I I the one of the first interviews we did was basically him going off on them about a lot of the stuff that they said. So, and and of course, there's a lot of rumors of you know Sammy, you know, having some discretions of the opposite sex as well, which is why he killed his brother-in-law. So, you know, and he's gonna know a little bit more of that than the average person. And my job as an interviewer is to get to the people that are actually gonna know these stories because I'm not connected to New York or that lifestyle in any way. So the better I can get closer to the source, the better. That's why having guys like you on this program is an absolute honor and a privilege. So I thank you for coming on, my friend. Really do. It's been great to be here. Absolutely. Well, that'll do it for this episode of Crime and Entertainment. Seamus, you're welcome back anytime, my friend. Appreciate you coming on. All right, Ray. All right.