WEBVTT - Introducing - The Confessions of Anthony Raimondi 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:00.560 Hi there. 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:04.320 This is Steve Fishman, creator of The Burden and most 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:08.879 recently Empire on Blood the Director's Cut. Today, we're featuring 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:13.680 an episode from another podcast. This one's called The Confessions 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:17.520 of Anthony ray Mundy. It's hosted by Mark Smirling, our 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:21.239 friend and an Emmy Award winning filmmaker who you might 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:23.920 recognize as one of the creators of The Jinks and 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:29.280 the podcasts Crooked City and Crimetown. This time, Mark investigates 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:33.280 the story of Anthony ray Mundy. He's a former mafia 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:37.360 enforcer who claims that Pope John Paul the First, who 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:41.000 died just thirty three days after being elected in nineteen 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:45.159 seventy eight, didn't die of natural causes, even though the 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:50.000 Vatican said he did. Anthony says the Pope was assassinated 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:54.280 by the mob and that he witnessed it. I've listened 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:58.160 to the Confessions of Anthony Ramundy, and I'm sure you're 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:03.520 going to love it just like I. Here's the first episode, Genesis. 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:10.760 Where is the closest Catholic church to you right now? 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:14.480 I bet you could get there in less than twenty minutes, 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:18.520 whether at home or at work, in your car or 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:20.960 out for a walk, whether in a big city or 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:24.800 small town, any place in the world, either hemisphere, it 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:30.800 doesn't matter there's a Catholic church nearby. There are almost 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:33.319 a billion and a half Catholics in the world, a 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:37.880 population equal to China. Administering to all those Catholics are 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:40.759 more than four hundred thousand priests who report to more 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:43.880 than five thousand bishops, who report to around six hundred 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:47.039 and fifty archbishops and cardinals. And they all report to 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:52.680 one man, the Pope. He oversees a vast empire of wealth. 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:56.560 His church is one of the largest landowners in the world. 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:00.720 The pope has the power to influence world leaders. Popes 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:05.360 have changed the course of history. Anyway. I've been thinking 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.080 about all of this way too much lately. I have 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:10.400 a stack of books on the subject next to my bed. 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:13.679 It's been keeping me up at night. And it's all 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:17.760 because of this guy. 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:18.240 You. 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:20.520 I wish you guys could have seen this neighborhood years ago. 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.119 If you guys would have seen this neighborhood years ago, 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:23.920 usually I loved it. 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:26.480 Believe me, this is Anthony. 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:28.080 We're Monday, okay. 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:32.520 Anthony ram Mundy. Anthony has a story to tell about 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:35.280 a pope in the Catholic Church. And we'll get to that. 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:38.520 But today Anthony has invited my producer Zach and I 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:41.040 on a tour of his old neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:43.320 He wants to show us something. 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:45.160 I always just want to come in to call with me. 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:47.280 Yeah, I want to go. Yeah, when of you guys 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:48.280 are ready, whatever you want to do. 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:54.160 Anthony's a big guy, approaching seven years old, with slick backed, 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:56.960 salt and pepper hair, and he dresses like a gangster 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:01.960 because Anthony was a gangster. He says, he used to 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:05.800 be a made member of the Italian mafia in Brooklyn. Today, 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:09.280 Anthony's sporting a shiny black track suit, a gold bracelet, 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:13.480 and dark sunglasses. Think of Big Pussy from the Sopranos. 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:15.000 All right, is it ready? 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:16.000 Yep, We're ready. 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:16.840 We hop in. 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:20.359 Anthony's muscle car, a Dodge Challenger, all black. 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:21.120 That's good. 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:25.640 When Anthony grew up here in the nineteen fifties, this 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:29.079 was a working class neighborhood. He calls it South Brooklyn. 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:31.720 By the time I moved here in the early nineties, 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:34.280 people had started calling it Park Slope. 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:35.520 We slip right down there. 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:39.160 Call you in the carriage house. Yeah, oh wow, right 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:41.040 across you were really in the neighborhood. 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:43.880 Oh yeah, And the neighborhood has changed a lot over 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:46.240 the years. These days your kid will need to be 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:49.240 on a wait list to get into daycare. And everywhere 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:51.960 you look there seems to be an artisanal coffee shop 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:54.200 where you can buy a six dollars cup of coffee. 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:57.760 I was talking with somebody about it, say, Anthony's called progress. 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:01.360 Has everybody killed the neighborhood. 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:09.440 But one place hasn't changed, The local Catholic church, like 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:11.680 the one I got married in. I got married, but 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:14.560 the church was the one down on sixth Avenue, big, 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:17.160 big stone church, beautiful Catholic. 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:19.280 It might have been Santaugustine. 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:23.159 Yeah, it might have been Sustins. And it turns out 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:26.280 that Saint Augustine's Church is where Anthony is taking us 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:27.080 right now. 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:30.400 Yeah, it's Sant Augustine's Church. That's the Stone church where. 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:30.800 I got married. 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:32.440 So weird. 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:36.000 What a small worlds I did my communion, dad, I 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:37.160 did my confirmation there. 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:40.080 Also, Anthony pulls into a parking spot. 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:44.000 Now Saint Augustine School is connected right onto it. 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:44.760 I show you. 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:50.520 He struggles out of his car. He's had some health 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:53.400 issues lately, so he walks slowly with the help of 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.719 a cane. He leads us towards the building behind the church, 0:04:57.560 --> 0:04:58.800 Saint Augustine School. 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:02.880 See that right there, you see there's the open window 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:04.320 over there, and then right next to you see the 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:05.440 open windows. 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:09.080 Anthony has brought us to Saint Augustine's to tell us 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.119 a story about something that happened here. Not a crime 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:15.400 story about a mob hit or a famous heist, a 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:19.040 more personal story from when he was just seven years old. 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:20.600 That's where our class was at. 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:24.640 I was at the last window over here, one two three, 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:25.480 right up there. 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:35.760 Nine days before Christmas in nineteen sixty, Anthony was sitting 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:37.800 in his second grade classroom. 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:40.920 There was a big blackboard in front, and then there 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:43.760 was all the all the seats with the benches. 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:46.520 If you were bad, you had to sit near the window. 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:50.039 And that day Anthony was sitting by the window. 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:53.640 I remember it was in the morning. Missus Piccarelly, she's 0:05:53.680 --> 0:06:00.280 writing something on the blackboard and we heard this explosion. Me. 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:02.440 I want to see what's on there. I want to 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:05.760 see what's there. It sounded like a rocket kept coming 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:07.520 and getting louder and louder. 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:11.960 And that's when Anthony says he saw something unbelievable, a 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:16.159 passenger jet flying by his classroom window so close. He 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:18.720 says he saw the passengers inside. 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:24.200 You heard people screaming on the plane. You can actually 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:26.680 hear people screaming. Oh yeah, you can hear him screaming. 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:31.920 And it hit the window and I got the glass 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:35.120 came in my face, that's how close it was. 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:46.040 That's when the building shook. The nuns caiming said, eybody's 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:46.680 gotta leave the build. 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:50.839 We have to leave the building. There was fire engines 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:53.600 all over the place. Alarms were going off. You couldn't 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:55.360 see the sun. You couldn't see the light of from 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:57.760 all the smoke. The sky was totally black. 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.320 In nineteen sixty, only a few days before Christmas, two 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:06.400 commercial airliners collide in the sky above New York City. 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.760 One plane carrying eighty four passengers falls on the park 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:13.440 Slope section of Brooklyns. Many thought that nearby Saint Augustine's School, 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:16.720 where seventeen hundred children were attending classes, had been bombed. 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:25.200 The jet fuel was coming down the block this way, 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:27.400 and you could see the snow actually melt that was 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:27.880 on fire. 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:28.680 When it came down. 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:31.640 It took out the pillar of fire church. That took 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:34.360 part of their move off. There was the laundromat, the 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:38.840 candy store, the funeral parlor, and there was fourteen Brownstones 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:43.560 that went out. I'll tell you there was a guy 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:47.520 I'll show you the spot who was selling Christmas trees 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:52.720 when the plane hit. They never found his body. The 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:56.280 ambulance that took me to the hospital, it was parked 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:58.880 over there, the ambulance. They looked at me and they 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:01.520 seen all the glass in my and then I see 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:05.280 they put another kid in the ambulance with me. This 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:08.480 kid was burnt so bad you did not know if 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:11.040 he was black or white. That's how bad he was burnt. 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:14.040 And his kid was still alive. He actually fell out 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:17.800 of the plane between six and seventh Avenue. He died 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:19.800 the next day. 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:22.440 And this is when Anthony takes a beat and his 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:24.559 story takes an unexpected turn. 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:29.000 Now, when they put me into the ambulance as I'm 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:31.800 going down, and I think you could think I'm crazy. 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:35.280 People think I'm crazy when they hear this. Whoever, I kept. 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:39.640 Telling them that I've seen somebody standing on the plane, 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:41.719 just to. 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:44.840 Be clear Anthony's saying that he saw a man riding 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:47.479 on top of a crashing plane. 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:50.160 First time I seen him on the plane standing on 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:52.480 the plane, cause I was looking at the window. The 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:54.720 second time I seen him was when they were bringing 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:56.920 me in the ambulance. He was walking down the block 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:00.840 and I kept telling him, Dabby is he is? He said, 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:02.640 who is the guy on the plane? They all thought 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:05.120 I was the guy on the plane. He just went 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:08.240 kept on going down the block and they faded away. 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:14.440 Anthony believes that the man he saw standing on that 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:18.040 plane and then walking down the street that day wasn't 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:18.920 a man at all. 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:21.480 That was death on the plane. I don't care what 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.319 anybody tells me. Where do you want to call him Debt? 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:26.480 Where do you want to call him? The angel of Debt? 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:28.880 And the Jewish religion they call him the Macho moves 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:32.480 they call him. 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:33.679 He wasn't a skeleton. 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:36.560 His skin was pulled so tight on his face that 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:39.640 you could see, like you know, like the bone, the structure, 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:44.240 the bones and everything. My mother and father they had 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:48.680 sent me to psychiatrists Jesus for what three years? My 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:53.120 father took me to psychiatrists in Manhattan Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn. 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:55.880 They all said the same thing. It's one or two 0:09:55.920 --> 0:10:00.880 things happened. Either I had from the shock of the 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:03.360 plane that I put this in my head what I 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:07.160 supposedly seen, or they said he really seen it. That's 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:08.840 the only two edges they could give. Nobody could give 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:11.000 another answer. I'm telling I know what I saw. 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:15.960 As I've gotten to know Anthony, he's told me a 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:19.320 lot of stories like this. One story's rooted in truth, 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:21.800 there was a plane crash in park Slope back then, 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:26.320 but his stories often grow to biblical proportions. Death appears 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:28.440 to seven year old Anthony like one of the four 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.679 horsemen of the Apocalypse, only instead of the pale horse 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:35.200 Death rides in the Bible, Anthony's version of Death rides 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:36.320 a crashing airplane. 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:40.080 I know he's the one that's gonna come for me 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:42.800 one of the times when at nighttime comes, he's gonna 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.640 come and get me. It ain't gonna be my mother 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.680 or my father. No, it's gonna be him. I'm telling you, 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:52.560 it's gonna be him. When I go that much, I 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:52.920 don't know. 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:59.839 And Anthony tells another unbelievable story, one that he thinks 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:02.920 will come back to haunt him on Judgment Day. It's 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.720 the story that's been keeping me up at night about 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:08.200 corruption and murder at the highest level of one of 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:12.000 the world's Oh, this is the most powerful institutions, the Vatican. 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:14.480 You know what's going to happen to me when I die. 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:16.240 I'm going to go to heaven Gods. I'm gonna say, Noah, 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:22.960 fuck you, you killed one of my popes. You're talking 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:27.240 about killing a fucking pope. 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:32.200 I'm Mark Smirling And these are the confessions of Anthony 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:34.240 Ramundi just. 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:35.320 After Fast seven. 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:37.360 And is Lorian macmillan with the summary. 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:39.679 Of the news, John Poll thet is dead. 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.240 The public speculation that this death was not natural grow 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:46.880 by the minute. Men and women were heard shouting as 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:47.800 they passed the body. 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:49.480 Who has done this to you? 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:50.960 Who has murdered you? 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:55.840 When is a central bank not a central bank? When 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:56.240 is a. 0:11:56.120 --> 0:12:00.280 Private bank public DNA, public bank, private, sound, mistief, arrious 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:01.160 and full of secrets? 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:02.760 Well that's the Vatican Bank. 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:05.440 The Vatican Bank over the last hundred years or so 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:07.120 is not being without scandal. 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:10.000 You know, certain dirty dealings, certainly money laundering. 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:12.280 If the mafia wished to bring some of their clean 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:13.079 money into Italy. 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:15.040 They used Vatican bank channels. 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:18.360 Luchani was contemplating cleaning up the Vatican Bank. 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:20.400 Well, obviously he passed away before he was able to 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:20.600 do it. 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:22.280 He only lasted thirty three days. 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:24.760 He may have seen the movie god Father three. Yeah, 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:28.360 it's sort of loosely based on what happened during that time. 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:30.719 You don't mess with the Mafia. 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:45.640 Chapter one Genesis. Let me tell you how I first 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:50.320 heard about Anthony Ramundi. A few weeks before that day 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:52.679 in Brooklyn, I got an email from a guy at 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:58.880 NBC Universal named Josh. He worked some podcasts there. It said, Hi, Mark, 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:02.800 we're green light fascinating series involving the Mafia and Vatican, 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:06.680 a deathbed confession from a mafia enforcer, and an alleged 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:09.800 papal assassination. It's the kind of story that I think 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:12.480 is right up your alley and would love to discuss. 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:17.720 I gave Josh a call, and that's when I learned 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:20.160 that Anthony had published a book about his life as 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.160 a made member of a New York mafia family. It's 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:27.000 called When the Bullet Hits the Bone subtitle The Incredible 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:33.160 and possibly True Stories of the Last mafia enforcer. In it, 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:36.440 Anthony puts himself in the center of mafia folklore. He 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:39.960 says he's related to Mafia Royalty, a Sicilian mobster named 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.920 Lucky Luciano, who many people believe founded American organized crime, 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:46.760 and Anthony says as a kid, he was close to 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:50.800 Lucky's partner, a guy named Meyer Lansky. Lansky was the 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.480 model for the character Hymen Roth in The Godfather Too, 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:58.280 And toward the end of his book, Anthony tells a 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:01.920 story about the murder of a pope. I'll be honest, 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:07.119 it's a really fun read. Then I check out Anthony online. 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:10.600 I find articles in tabloids from around the world, The 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.400 New York Post, The Daily Mail, the New Zealand Herald 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:16.600 with headlines like meet the mobster who says he helped 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:21.400 whack a pope. After he published his book, Anthony went 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:24.400 on kind of a publicity tour. Only instead of appearing 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:27.280 on the morning talk shows, Anthony did interviews on a 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:30.720 whole bunch of mafia fan YouTube channels. I never knew existed. 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:33.880 Your uncle was no ordinary, I mean he's one of 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:34.520 the most famous. 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:35.600 Oh, uncle Lucky. 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:38.400 Some of these videos got millions of views. 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:39.560 Uncle Lucky. 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:42.200 Yeah, this is Lucky Luciano for those of you who 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:43.760 haven't figured it out, and he's one of the most 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:44.680 famous gangsters. 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:48.880 Uncle Lucky was my grandmother's my father's mother, that was 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:49.800 her half brother. 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:54.200 In all of these interviews, Anthony sports his black track suit, 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:58.280 his gold chains, dark sunglasses, and he carries a huge 0:14:58.360 --> 0:14:59.120 unlit cigar. 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:02.640 You said, uh, Lansky taught me so many ways of 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.200 shaking down a guy, but he also taught me a 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:08.080 lot of ways to actually kill a guy because Mile 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:08.960 Lansky was deadly. 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:12.480 Oh yeah, definitely, definitely. I had told me a lot 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:13.200 of things. 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:17.280 And these interviewers all ended up asking Anthony the same thing. 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:20.160 I mean, it's crazy with the hold the Pope stuff. 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:24.680 I mean basically what you're saying is the mob killed 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:25.280 the Pope. 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:28.520 Yeah. 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:31.200 I decided to call my producer Zach and make a 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:34.120 date for us to meet Anthony Ramundi for the first time. 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:36.760 Feel the guy out. See what's what. 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:42.880 It's in the corner of your mouth there? Yes, Oh, 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.920 I wanted to speak that. Yeah. 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:49.640 It's a sunny afternoon when Zach and I meet Anthony 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:52.160 in a conference room in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.560 How you've been feeling some days ago, some days bad. 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:56.920 I got done with my chemo. 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:00.840 Anthony sporting his usual attires and the cigar. 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:04.160 It's crazy. Ever since I got the COVID, I haven't 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:06.880 been right. I got I was in the hospital for it. 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:09.520 I don't remember my first six days. They didn't think 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:12.760 I was gonna make it. Meanwhile, I had to get 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:16.240 two transfusions because my blood levels keep dropping. I wound 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:18.880 up getting an infection. Then they put the pacemaker in. 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:23.960 But it's like my father says. Well, my father used 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:26.160 to say, no matter what you're doing this world, you're 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:29.160 gonna pay a price. After he died, I realized what 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:30.080 he was talking about. 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:32.120 Yeah, what is he talking about? 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:35.160 It don't make a difference if he turns around upstairs 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:36.920 and says, yeah, you did this good, but I don't 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:38.800 like what you did here. Well, you're gonna have a 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:39.720 little bit of a problem. 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:39.960 Now. 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:44.120 After Anthony talks about his latest health problems, I asked 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:46.520 him to start at the beginning when he was growing 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:47.480 up in Brooklyn. 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:50.600 Now, my grandfather had the house on Balton Street between 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:53.240 Third and Fourth Avenue. It was eight family, but his 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:55.720 only family living in dead there was like me, my 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:59.080 mother and my father, my grandfather, my grandmother, my aunt 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:02.280 Nanny and her husband May and Julian husband, uncle. 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:03.280 Frank and his wife. 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:08.040 Oh yeah, everything goes back to the old country. 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.000 By old country, Anthony means Sicily. 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:14.639 Now we had an uncle Ralph guy though Uncle Ralph 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:16.320 was a member of the Black Hand. 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:20.720 And by black Hand, Anthony is talking about the Sicilian mafia. 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:25.400 My grandfather, Frank Castle was, my grandfather Antonio was. They 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:29.959 were all schooled, these guys, and I'm telling you, seriously, 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:33.800 old school. Whatever they say they've done, they said, who 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:34.920 said they're killers? 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:36.639 And they killed this guy and that guy. To me, 0:17:36.720 --> 0:17:38.520 it was my family. This is all I knew. 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:42.200 As Anthony goes on, I start to wonder if I'm 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:44.879 really looking at an old mobster or if this is 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:49.080 some kind of elaborate performance and I'm his captive audience. 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:53.840 But they put me with my cousin Mac because I 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:56.600 was getting into a lot of trouble. Anthony drops the name. 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:02.359 I recognized Mac as in you Macintosh, a notorious mob enforcer. 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:04.600 And he brought me down to the diplomat and Joe 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:06.920 Colombo came in one day, and Tom de Bella was 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:08.800 there because that was the Colombo family. 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:11.399 Scappy, everybody's there, so first time. 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:15.240 It quickly becomes clear that Anthony remembers every mobster he 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:15.760 ever met. 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:17.880 I saw Joe Shawana Mayo. They called him. 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:19.800 Yogi and their nicknames. 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:21.760 They called him Top because he was top. Sat what 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:23.959 he done. This guy they called him the garage. 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:26.760 They called him Catfish, Frankie, I forgot his last name, 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:28.040 but they call him Frankie blue Eyes. 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:29.720 In the Witness Protection program. 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:32.640 He remembers every spot in Brooklyn for all his stories 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:33.200 took place. 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:36.760 The Stabbor Club was on thirty Avenue between eighty Fish 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:39.040 and we went to Honey's garage. Honey had a place 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:42.080 on Cattle Street between thirty and seven. It was the 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:46.000 Desiree after Owl Club. Cousin Max says he was commanded, 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:47.040 says seventh Street and. 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.080 Street and Anthony got into a ton of trouble. 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:52.440 I got invested, My uncle, Frank got invested in. His 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:55.960 girlfriend got arrested, My uncle got represented Miami. He opens 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:57.680 up his jack and I see he grabs the gun. 0:18:57.760 --> 0:18:59.240 I just picked him in and I just entered the 0:18:59.280 --> 0:18:59.640 hole gun. 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.040 Okay on the school, they plug the headline on the 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:05.320 mother's cast and the guy with an adult maybe crazy. 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:07.080 If I ain't freaking stupid. 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:13.480 You're losing me. 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:14.480 So so this guy. 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:17.680 These stories fly by and I have a lot of questions, 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:21.040 but before I can say anything, Anthony has moved on 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:21.960 to the next chapter. 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:27.080 So I'm at the house and my father says, she 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:30.359 had a call. That's amove. It goes from Italy. 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:33.679 It's the story we came here for folks. 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:37.160 Calling me from Italy. Her cousin Luigi. He's in the Vatican. 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:47.880 Back in the conference room in Brooklyn, Anthony Ramundi describes 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:50.200 how we first got involved in crimes with a Vatican. 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:53.760 His story starts in nineteen seventy five with a call 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:57.920 from another family member, a Catholic cardinal also named Ramundi. 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:02.560 Luigi Ramundi tell me about Luigi's actually. 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:06.560 Actually yeah, Luigi Vermundi. Yes, so he is in a 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:08.800 vacant he was. He was one of the guys that 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:10.879 was becoming a what do you call it? 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:12.280 The cardinals. 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.359 He lived in the Vatican, and Anthony says the Cardinal 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:19.480 Ramondi had called him with an offer he couldn't refuse. 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:23.680 They got the forger from de' mafia from one of 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:26.760 the mafia guys. They got the stocks the at and 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:28.680 t Ibma. 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:31.760 According to Anthony, Luigi and some of his friends in 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:34.160 the Vatican were running a counterfeiting scam. 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:38.560 He goes, if you got somebody in the stock market, 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:41.080