Speaker 1: You're tuned into The Gangster Chronicles. Well, James McDonald and
Speaker 1: Allen Tomanso on the Digital Soapbox Network material witness on
Speaker 1: an aggregated battery, I was a hang gun and um,
Speaker 1: they believe this might be in retaliation to our testimony.
Speaker 1: Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening wherever you may
Speaker 1: be listening from. Welcome to another episode of The Gangster Chronicles.
Speaker 1: My name is Alex Alonso from Street TV a k a.
Speaker 1: Street Gangs, and I'm here with my co host James
Speaker 1: McDonald and we are what's this our second episode without
Speaker 1: Reggie Wright Jr. So we're doing the show. We're holding
Speaker 1: it down without Reggie Wright Jr. This is episode thirty three.
Speaker 1: And if you're new to the podcast, please go back
Speaker 1: and listen to a few other episodes because you'll see
Speaker 1: that a lot of our episodes are interrelated and you
Speaker 1: won't start hearing me till episode three. So don't fill
Speaker 1: my inbox with all these questions. And if you listen
Speaker 1: to us on Apple Podcast, please leave us a rating
Speaker 1: and a review so that we continue bringing you this
Speaker 1: amazing content. You could also post a comment and a
Speaker 1: question that we will answer on the air. And if
Speaker 1: you want, you could audio a question via your cell
Speaker 1: phone and texted to us d m U s uh
Speaker 1: posted on the Facebook page and if the question is worthy,
Speaker 1: we'll play it on the air. And if you like
Speaker 1: this podcast on Apple Podcast, give us a rating from
Speaker 1: one to five five men that you're loving the show.
Speaker 1: And for those who do not have Apple Podcast, you
Speaker 1: could listen to us on Google Play for you Samsung
Speaker 1: and Android users, Spotify and Radio dot com, or you
Speaker 1: can listen to the podcast the way my mother does
Speaker 1: and she just asked Siri play the Gangster Chronicles. And
Speaker 1: you could also watch portions video portions of this podcast
Speaker 1: on the Digital Soapbox Network that's on YouTube videos produced
Speaker 1: by Smooth Cut Productions. And if you want to get
Speaker 1: in touch with James, you can catch him on Facebook
Speaker 1: and he is the one with the James McDonald with
Speaker 1: the Harley in his profile and you could also find
Speaker 1: them on Instagram at B I G G J thirty
Speaker 1: six thirty six. And you can still get those death
Speaker 1: Row t shirts from him night zero four and he
Speaker 1: will deliver them to you within one of two days.
Speaker 1: And you can find me at Street Gangs dot com.
Speaker 1: Just click on the contact link and you can send
Speaker 1: me a message via email. And I'm at all social
Speaker 1: media platforms at alex Alonso one zero one that's on Twitter, Instagram,
Speaker 1: and Facebook. So, James, before we go into our show,
Speaker 1: we got a special guest. But I want to just
Speaker 1: cover a couple of facts from from the last couple
Speaker 1: of weeks. I think I said that John Connolly, who
Speaker 1: was the FBI agent that was working with Rusty Boulger
Speaker 1: and Boston, was sentenced to life in prison. That is incorrect.
Speaker 1: He was sentenced to ten years in the FEDS in
Speaker 1: two thousand two. Then he got out in two thousand
Speaker 1: eleven and they um, the State of Florida picked them
Speaker 1: up for a murder and he was sent to forty
Speaker 1: years there. The State of Florida has him scheduled for
Speaker 1: his first parole date in twenty thirty nine and he
Speaker 1: will be ninety eight years old. Yeah, what are you
Speaker 1: if he's gonna even make it to years old inside
Speaker 1: the Feds. Yeah, that's crazy. Now. About two episodes ago,
Speaker 1: James Reggie Wright Jr. Was talking about the book deal
Speaker 1: that maybe ray j has about Sugar Knight and ray
Speaker 1: j Um Sugar Knight and whatever they're gonna whatever they're doing.
Speaker 1: But I had through out there that hey, you don't
Speaker 1: have to be on a major publishing shing, and you
Speaker 1: could be an independent writer and get on a major
Speaker 1: publishing like like um Monster Cody did and he was
Speaker 1: published on Penguin. James had said, what do you say,
Speaker 1: sinthing all that ain't no major publishing company. But Penguin
Speaker 1: Publishing was founded in nineteen thirty four. It operates out
Speaker 1: of London, England, and it is one of the biggest
Speaker 1: publishers the history of America, I mean in history of
Speaker 1: the world. Reggie didn't Reggie didn't know. And just because
Speaker 1: Monster Cody from Matrix Gangster Crypt published his book under Penguin,
Speaker 1: don't mean it was a major And I thought that
Speaker 1: was a hell of accomplishment. Because Homeboy wrote his book
Speaker 1: in the shoe in um Pelican Bay Duty. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know if he when he gave up the material,
Speaker 1: they read that book and went through it and and
Speaker 1: they re rewritten some stuff in there. Well, I don't
Speaker 1: know the specifics of it, but it was a hell
Speaker 1: of a book. It came out of. It's called An
Speaker 1: Autobiography of a Los Angeles gang Member on Penguin. Penguin
Speaker 1: is now merged with Random House since two thousand and thirteen.
Speaker 1: So I just wanted to correct Reggie Wright Jr. On
Speaker 1: that Penguin is a major publishing house. And the last
Speaker 1: fact check, well, this ain't really a fact check. I
Speaker 1: wanted to find out what was bus stop from O
Speaker 1: F TBS real his actual job now I heard it
Speaker 1: when he was a Cairo practor. I couldn't find it out,
Speaker 1: so anyone out there knows, please hit us up. His
Speaker 1: real name is Sammy Williams, and I couldn't figure out
Speaker 1: what is his current profession, but I believe he's in
Speaker 1: the medical field, which is amazing because he's from the
Speaker 1: Bounty Hunters. He's from aout the Nickersons. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: good things come out of the project, for sure, Good
Speaker 1: things come out of everywhere in every neighborhood. You got
Speaker 1: some you got some catch that got skills. And your
Speaker 1: brother was close to all them guys from o FTB right, Charlotte,
Speaker 1: where we all were, We always close to him, um everybody. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had a good report with him. It was just
Speaker 1: the politics that that divided everybody. Okay, all right, So
Speaker 1: I just want to I got a just couple of
Speaker 1: news updates um Joshua Brown and the Joshua Brown case
Speaker 1: out in Texas. That guy Dad, he is green from
Speaker 1: Louisiana is still on the run. Remember there was three
Speaker 1: guys wanted. They're arrested too. I was just talking to
Speaker 1: somebody that live out there and he was telling me
Speaker 1: some interesting stuff about it. And he one thing he
Speaker 1: was saying that the police had some of those guys. Well,
Speaker 1: this is one of these theories out there. The police
Speaker 1: so those guys to get at him. What happened was
Speaker 1: they said that first they thought he wouldn't gonna be
Speaker 1: a credible witness because he, you know, sale marijuana, his
Speaker 1: track record and all that. They brung all that up
Speaker 1: in court. But he's still testified on the behalf of
Speaker 1: the guy that got killed. But then they said that
Speaker 1: he turned out to be such a good witness and whatever.
Speaker 1: You uh. The police didn't want him because of the
Speaker 1: the lawsuit that was coming from the mama, so they
Speaker 1: had to get rid of me. So, I don't you know,
Speaker 1: this is just here say what he was telling me.
Speaker 1: That is a lot going on out there. I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of unanswered questions even though it seemed
Speaker 1: like maybe it was just a drug deal went bad,
Speaker 1: but they're still it still smells to me, but I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know. It's too early right now to
Speaker 1: even try to speculate on whether the Dallas p D
Speaker 1: had anything to do with josh A Bound's murder. If
Speaker 1: it was just one thing. I did ask you, I said, well,
Speaker 1: do you see all of these things on the news,
Speaker 1: the three guys, this guy getting killed. Oh yeah, it
Speaker 1: was on the news everywhere when it happened. So this
Speaker 1: situation does exist. So we were sitting there like it's impossible.
Speaker 1: Why why we ain't hearing about it? We ain't in Texas,
Speaker 1: we don't get to Texas news. So it's definitely happening.
Speaker 1: And those guys words shot and the whole nine is
Speaker 1: for real. Well hopefully, um we we're gonna stay on
Speaker 1: that story because nobody's talking about it right now, but
Speaker 1: if we learned something to new about it, you're gonna
Speaker 1: hear about it on the Gangster chronicles. Uh did you
Speaker 1: hear about Badass from Long Beach who was briefly signed
Speaker 1: the death row records during the nineties. He died in
Speaker 1: police custody a few days ago in Riverside County. Wow,
Speaker 1: nobody knows what else. He's only for three years old.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna says peace to you, my brother. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Man, you really didn't know each other.
Speaker 1: Ranting to you, but we really didn't, you know, kicking
Speaker 1: like that and none but rist in peace. Yeah, rest
Speaker 1: in peace too, badass from Long Beach. Um. We'll find
Speaker 1: out what happened to him in the next couple of
Speaker 1: coming days. And the last thing I want to say
Speaker 1: is Um, the East Coast Crips and the Florence Third
Speaker 1: Teams had their third face to face meeting. I believe
Speaker 1: it was either October thirty one or November one. I
Speaker 1: was out of town, so I wasn't able to attend it.
Speaker 1: But there is footage online if you go to Skip
Speaker 1: Townsend's YouTube channel, he has about two minutes of footage.
Speaker 1: For those of you who don't believe this is true
Speaker 1: that have been questioning whether or not that the East
Speaker 1: Coast and the Florences came together, they came together again
Speaker 1: and there's actual video footage on YouTube that you can see.
Speaker 1: You see a bunch of Mexicans, about a hundred of them, Cynthien.
Speaker 1: That's the video I'm talking about Cynthia Senator Van And
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's crazy that we we put ourselves
Speaker 1: down when you're doing good things like this. You know
Speaker 1: a lot of catches. Are they only doing this because
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump? I wouldn't give an if if it
Speaker 1: took Donald Trump to get these two neighborhoods together, then
Speaker 1: fuck it. I give a high poet Donald Trump and
Speaker 1: putting them together definitely, but we need to get them
Speaker 1: gains the Chronicles and everybody can hear this story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe everybody needs to know what's going on. I'll reach
Speaker 1: out to a little doc and see if we can
Speaker 1: get a representative from Florence thirteen and perhaps come here
Speaker 1: and just talk about this monumental truce between two gangs
Speaker 1: that have been worn for twenty years. And lastly, we
Speaker 1: gotta shout out Nori from the Drink Champs. Nori went on,
Speaker 1: he went on the podcast called No Jumper and guess who.
Speaker 1: He said it was the best podcast out right now,
Speaker 1: that was crazy. He said, The Gangster Chronicles is the
Speaker 1: best podcast out right. The way he explained each and
Speaker 1: everybody roll and I was like, man, he compared us
Speaker 1: to the TV show um Um, the one out of Baltimore,
Speaker 1: but the Gangsters of the Police, Um the Wire. He said,
Speaker 1: the Gangster Chronicles podcast is like the TV show The Wire.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but that's a hell of a compliment.
Speaker 1: Damn show is. And and it had me choked up
Speaker 1: because I'm like, I'm not into it. I don't look
Speaker 1: at the and I'm bullshitt y'all not I don't look
Speaker 1: at the comments. I don't look at none of these bodios.
Speaker 1: I don't do none of it. I come in here
Speaker 1: and after the show is over, I go home and
Speaker 1: I'm waiting on another week. I don't fare attention to it.
Speaker 1: So I got people coming to me, coming up to
Speaker 1: me at the stores that to swap me, uh, pull
Speaker 1: up on the side of me and take a double
Speaker 1: take and say, oh you guys chronic. It is overwhelming
Speaker 1: to me. I mean, I didn't went from here all
Speaker 1: the way to hear where I'm at now and and
Speaker 1: being recognized, Man, you helped me this, You helped me that,
Speaker 1: you helped me through a hard time on this and
Speaker 1: and we appreciate all y'all. We appreciate all y'all I
Speaker 1: appreciate y'all from the bottom of my heart. Um, I
Speaker 1: never thought I would be in a position where I'm
Speaker 1: at now. He even offered us distribution in case we
Speaker 1: needed it, that's how much he loved the show. But
Speaker 1: I've known Nori man. I think i've know Norith about
Speaker 1: twelve years now, and he's always been a good guy.
Speaker 1: Whenever he comes to l A, when if he's not
Speaker 1: too busy, he hits me up. I was surprised that
Speaker 1: he shot. I didn't even know Nori. I haven't talked
Speaker 1: to Nori since we've been doing this podcast, so I
Speaker 1: was surprised that he even you know, because he got
Speaker 1: his own podcast, the Drink Champs, and that is one
Speaker 1: of the top podcasts and the music category. So I
Speaker 1: know he's busy with doing his podcast, but he's listening
Speaker 1: to us. I just want a guy. I thought it
Speaker 1: was uh noring, somebody ship man, get my boys a
Speaker 1: shout out. I'm like, man, it's just dude, for real.
Speaker 1: He on there and and it was it was some
Speaker 1: else or something else, all right, So we got a
Speaker 1: special guest today. This guy is born in New York,
Speaker 1: came out to l A, has a career and entertainment,
Speaker 1: but he is tangentially linked to organized crime. He just
Speaker 1: came out with a book called The Accidental Gangster Rii Spado.
Speaker 1: But before we go into a conversation with Rii Spado,
Speaker 1: let's play this clip. I equate a good gang shirt
Speaker 1: up there with a doctor or a good lawyer. There's
Speaker 1: good gangers, are bad answers. You know, it's like anything
Speaker 1: else in life and any other segment of life. But
Speaker 1: being a true gang shirt, most people would thinking maybe
Speaker 1: I'm a little mentally, maybe press I am. But to
Speaker 1: be a true gang shirt you have to be in
Speaker 1: telling you you know, if you mentioned a few guys
Speaker 1: that I knew, and what's separation those guys my last
Speaker 1: Frank and Sello tell Michel Sunday Clinch, Jimmy Toschi, Jimmy Toschi.
Speaker 1: Even though there was a pretty time he couldn't you know, right,
Speaker 1: but they were still smarting. There was still on TV
Speaker 1: right now, The Great Do Yes, it seems like they're
Speaker 1: show kind of mirrors of life a whole look in
Speaker 1: a way. Yes, because when I came down to the HollyHood,
Speaker 1: I knew Dino Dealer right there, Roll sur being I
Speaker 1: know if anybody knows who Dino Dealer Runt was. But
Speaker 1: at that time, back in the day, he was the
Speaker 1: biggest lender, brenda producer round and did King Kong across
Speaker 1: a hundred and thirty forest three tons of movies. I
Speaker 1: became close with them. He was he came from Italy
Speaker 1: and they were involved with Carlo Ponti over there in
Speaker 1: the film business, and he was very successful. And I
Speaker 1: became friends. And the next day you know, there's a
Speaker 1: problem there, a problem there. And then I went on.
Speaker 1: I talked to people, they were reading the problems. Like
Speaker 1: just sitting down with people, I could trib you my
Speaker 1: experiences a salesman of someone he turned for understanding people
Speaker 1: and being able to sit down and take care of
Speaker 1: the problem. So you were what they were called, the fixer.
Speaker 1: I was knownally the Hollywood fixer. How much show you
Speaker 1: think they broke month? I only think maybe somebody saw
Speaker 1: off picked up something and the writers wants the writer
Speaker 1: to get something. He changed it all for totally. He
Speaker 1: had a writer and wanted the doors for TV pilot
Speaker 1: about me. I mean I read that and you know
Speaker 1: who the hell he was talking about. There was no
Speaker 1: of someone's at all. I think the writer probably agreement
Speaker 1: and the reality was open to even think they would
Speaker 1: agree the breaking. But there's a whole another situation, and
Speaker 1: we could talk three years of out writers and how
Speaker 1: but everything's too rich for it. Seems like all my life,
Speaker 1: people always part of me as a gangster. But for
Speaker 1: many years I was a successful a churchman and the
Speaker 1: leading agent for the potential in Church company. And then
Speaker 1: I had my own agency where I serviced Automo bill
Speaker 1: dealers with a training for a Brahm and where I
Speaker 1: saw the credit life and accident and health insurch That
Speaker 1: became my first indictment. A guy that I took that
Speaker 1: never made more than thirty tho dollars a year, I
Speaker 1: brought him in a gentleman. I can't call him a gentleman,
Speaker 1: but he was making over a hundred grand year with me. Uh,
Speaker 1: my company was growing very quickly. I was going very well,
Speaker 1: and he became very jealous. He found out about a
Speaker 1: deal that I had with the in Church company where
Speaker 1: I was allowed to use the premium to grow my business.
Speaker 1: And then he tried to say that you know that
Speaker 1: I was friends with Sonny Francais Maya Lansky and others,
Speaker 1: which showed he was trying to get me into tape conversations. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that became my first indictment, and I was facing fifty
Speaker 1: five years in prison, and it was my first case.
Speaker 1: I ended up getting five years probation. But once I
Speaker 1: had that fewn he was like, you know, and I
Speaker 1: became who I was. I left there, I went to
Speaker 1: San Francisco, and I became very well known in San
Speaker 1: Francisco in a very short period of time. I already
Speaker 1: known Sonny Franchise, all right, I knew my Orlanski, and
Speaker 1: through life I got the net other well known gangsters.
Speaker 1: That's all in my book. Carlo Marcello Russell Buffalino's who
Speaker 1: Joe Pesci plays in a new film The Irishman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I had yeah, hell of a life. Do you
Speaker 1: have some feelings here you? For example, well, Michael Harris, yeah, Harrio?
Speaker 1: How long that him was? I don't know if even
Speaker 1: the guy know who Danny Sinton was, but then he
Speaker 1: was the first guy that produced Bob Marley. Uh. Danny
Speaker 1: was big in the music business. And when Danny was
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, I was a guy who took care
Speaker 1: of Danny and he probably Yeah. When he was in
Speaker 1: New York, it was joe Piney and when he was
Speaker 1: in London, it was my snake, Joey Pile. Danny knew
Speaker 1: how to work the system really good and he was
Speaker 1: always protected. But he came here, and before he came here,
Speaker 1: he stopped in New York. He was with White Cleft,
Speaker 1: and through White Cleft he met Asian Jack and they
Speaker 1: came out here with and wanted me to handle problem
Speaker 1: was shog Knight. Lydia was so underver the little issue
Speaker 1: is wanted me to talked to Show and uh I
Speaker 1: met Lydia Asian Jack. Asian Jack ended up thinking on
Speaker 1: my couch for a year, so I found out who
Speaker 1: he really was. But they went back and forth and
Speaker 1: every time that he was here, she got Michael long
Speaker 1: At help. But there was not a need for me
Speaker 1: at that situation be to sit down with Show, because
Speaker 1: I really didn't know who was right who is wrong
Speaker 1: in the situation, and when Michael being in prison and
Speaker 1: his wife an thanks for him, it was not a
Speaker 1: proper situation for me to get involved in. Patian Jack.
Speaker 1: He's a good talker's a good looking boy. He was fast,
Speaker 1: fast with a woman. We're a hustler. He he was
Speaker 1: getting money from White Club, John and Jerry wonder Urb
Speaker 1: and all these people. It's up on my couch and
Speaker 1: grow my son's cart. For a year. Never offered to
Speaker 1: put up a five cents. And then I found out
Speaker 1: the truth about Asian. What happened. What he wanted. There's
Speaker 1: something in the music business. He wanted me to be involved,
Speaker 1: and i'mby donst to me. He was going around Los
Speaker 1: Angeles stone everybody. He was with me, so that was
Speaker 1: sort of like a guarantee on him. When he was
Speaker 1: mentioning mining, white Cliffe and I became front. White Cloth
Speaker 1: called me and it was round Christmas time and he
Speaker 1: was the friends when Naomi Campbell and they only was
Speaker 1: being stalked by this guy out Long Island. I think
Speaker 1: this was somewhere that in nineties. Boy called Naomi boy
Speaker 1: I was going. She happened to be having a Christmas party.
Speaker 1: Bro I went there. She had valet party and all
Speaker 1: that they're told the guys leave my car air. I
Speaker 1: went in and they only brought me into her office.
Speaker 1: We talked. She gave me the information that I needed.
Speaker 1: I should think g go, she should have stay at
Speaker 1: the party. You know a lot of people. I shouldn't
Speaker 1: really have to run any ship, I shaid, I just
Speaker 1: walked through and say, oh so, I walked through the
Speaker 1: room where the party was and shut aloud to a
Speaker 1: few people. A few late days later, I'm sitting in
Speaker 1: my share at home, Jack sitting on his couch. I
Speaker 1: lived over on his wall dry every the time. I
Speaker 1: found the guys that dressing Long Island, and they went
Speaker 1: to his home and the long Guyland, and when they
Speaker 1: got there, if I'm on the telephone, and I told
Speaker 1: him exactly that I did not want him to even
Speaker 1: think about the only Campbell. He wasn't the emailer, he
Speaker 1: wasn't the color. He wasn't to look at it. He's
Speaker 1: not the telephone. I should know. I should see those
Speaker 1: fool guys in front of you right now, he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: should there being very nice right now, I should. If
Speaker 1: you ever see them again, that would be the last
Speaker 1: face that you're everybody see. Jay gets up and go
Speaker 1: to my dining room table because Naomi, he says he
Speaker 1: took care of it. He was just trying to he
Speaker 1: was from what I want to find out. Everybody wanted
Speaker 1: to say that what's up. Jack took credit for killings
Speaker 1: that other people did well. So pretty much what you've
Speaker 1: seen Jack, That's what I'm saying, not in my book.
Speaker 1: Like I said, he was a fast doctor, good looking guy,
Speaker 1: and he hustled. Everybody never worked with David. I made
Speaker 1: a legitimate dollar. Not that I'm all that pole here
Speaker 1: that thou But if we make money together or I'm
Speaker 1: taking care of you, you made some money, you're gonna
Speaker 1: come over and say, here, do the right thing. But
Speaker 1: I had an overstock of what they called me, all
Speaker 1: the DVDs, the CDs from Universal. So my mate Joey Poylo,
Speaker 1: the bossa London At, a guy named Ron Winters. Ryan
Speaker 1: was big into music business and Ryan with a Canivan,
Speaker 1: son of a bitch. He was good at He was
Speaker 1: a good guy. He said he wanted to buy him
Speaker 1: when it came to a price. And then he told
Speaker 1: me he's wired the money to me. I give him
Speaker 1: my banking and I'd be their way on my bank.
Speaker 1: On my bank one called Ron. He'd actually give me
Speaker 1: a number that he transferred. Nobody can find a number
Speaker 1: that he come up. While I had to go through
Speaker 1: the Bank of Landa for one back to another bank
Speaker 1: by trying he gets there, and then I founally found
Speaker 1: out he was bullshitting, and then through somebody in the
Speaker 1: movie industry, because when Ron would come to town, he
Speaker 1: would never tell anybody where he was staying, and he
Speaker 1: never checked in on your real name, so you could
Speaker 1: find a guy. My guy said he had a meeting
Speaker 1: with this guy, rond Winters at the Beverly Wilsters and
Speaker 1: what I shouldn't want to go water? And I went,
Speaker 1: and I was at the bar, and he's promised that
Speaker 1: he would come downars and get me. I was literally
Speaker 1: gonna hang this fucking guy out the window. Unbeknown to me,
Speaker 1: shouldn't nice. They're having a meeting with him. The other
Speaker 1: guy in the movie industry tells Shug about me that
Speaker 1: I'm waiting down there at the park. The Shug came
Speaker 1: down and that's how we met, and he asked me
Speaker 1: not to do anything. He says, we'll make money. Are
Speaker 1: you sure you won't make money somewhere though? He said,
Speaker 1: But I got under going with the guy. I don't
Speaker 1: want to mess that up, he said, please. I said, okay, no,
Speaker 1: And then it came and I started going to Shug's
Speaker 1: office when he was over here on Busher and Sampa's
Speaker 1: that day. And we always show. I always saw it
Speaker 1: the four Sea Dolls every night. He likes to be
Speaker 1: there rightfully every night as he was. And then it
Speaker 1: came down to Ron, which has happened to be his
Speaker 1: distributor in anyland. But Ron was distributing death roll all
Speaker 1: over Europe mhm, and he wasn't paying shure. So show
Speaker 1: came to me, my mace. We got the first million.
Speaker 1: Like when we got the first million, idea was that
Speaker 1: I would do a September cent, but we wanted to
Speaker 1: handle it every month. Whatever was your guy. I think
Speaker 1: he got violated. He was in prison. I got the
Speaker 1: million dollars. It was a way till he was account
Speaker 1: I can't remember. A girl and a guy and should
Speaker 1: called his lawyer from prison and had his lawyer transferred
Speaker 1: ten dollars in my out I mean underground like that.
Speaker 1: It was there in the next day. Show was always
Speaker 1: a gentleman, and I gotta say it always did the
Speaker 1: right thing. Does the Marsta deal with the Crypts of Blues?
Speaker 1: And yes I did. You got a lot of respect
Speaker 1: from them, and they got every respect you're gonna remember
Speaker 1: something about the time, and particularly us guys from New York.
Speaker 1: I never knew about fucking prejudicism racial and you know,
Speaker 1: I never knew about this ship that's part of in
Speaker 1: New York. I mean, you know, we have black guy
Speaker 1: who would just but what I was friends with him,
Speaker 1: all right, We never had none of that stuff. What
Speaker 1: would be the biggest advice you would give to leaders
Speaker 1: and crips of blues if you could teach your menut
Speaker 1: in a better way of life, teach your man with it.
Speaker 1: And I know for a fact I had a comment Mike,
Speaker 1: you try to tell his boy what to do with
Speaker 1: the money, how to save it, how to invest it,
Speaker 1: because living this kind of life, you're eventually gonna die
Speaker 1: and over to jail. And if you're fortunate to make
Speaker 1: it through both of those, do you have any money
Speaker 1: or Svike? Alrighty? That was Ori Spado and we got
Speaker 1: him live in the studio. So Ari, The first thing
Speaker 1: I want to ask you, what what compelled you to
Speaker 1: want to write a book about all these crazy experiences
Speaker 1: that you've had in your life. I ain't been an
Speaker 1: avid reader all my life, Even to this day, I
Speaker 1: read every night before I go to bed, and while
Speaker 1: I was in prison, I was reading. I read over
Speaker 1: three hundred books in prison, and it was just something
Speaker 1: that in my head and which I'm normally good at
Speaker 1: formulate things in my mind, whether it's going to be
Speaker 1: a robbery or a takedown or whatever I want to do.
Speaker 1: But this became an idea. And when I would up
Speaker 1: the yard, I came up with the name the Accidental Gangster.
Speaker 1: That's a great title. And not thinking that I'm ever
Speaker 1: going to write a book, I mean, I just never
Speaker 1: thought of it. But when I got out of prison,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of guys who came to me
Speaker 1: in the entertainment, but I wanted to do reality show
Speaker 1: with me knowing this town is I know what most
Speaker 1: people are bullshitter And my lawyer is a gentleman named
Speaker 1: George Hams, one of the most prestigious entertainment law firms.
Speaker 1: George and I we always get together once a month
Speaker 1: or whatever, the Four Seasons or the Peninsula or someplay.
Speaker 1: And I'm telling George about it, and George looks at me.
Speaker 1: He said, already I know your story. He says, write
Speaker 1: a book. Find a writer to help you, he says,
Speaker 1: And we'll get a movie, though, is it hard for
Speaker 1: you to find some? So now I know a lot
Speaker 1: of scriptwriters being here in Hollywood, I don't know any
Speaker 1: book writers. As a difference right between writing a book
Speaker 1: and writing a script totally totally different, and one writer
Speaker 1: at another don't wrote book. I just said down one
Speaker 1: day because here I went, I was still on paper.
Speaker 1: I'm not allowed to go to certain places and all
Speaker 1: this here and I wasn't looking going to get violator
Speaker 1: for some stupid ship. So I said it down in
Speaker 1: my computer and I started writing. I think maybe I
Speaker 1: was about a third of the way into the book,
Speaker 1: and I just kept doing it. Talking to my cousin
Speaker 1: back e and he said, there's somebody here wants to
Speaker 1: say hello to you. Guy. His name was Tom Burt Tom,
Speaker 1: and I haven't seen him since high school and we're
Speaker 1: bringing each other today. And he said, already you know
Speaker 1: Dennis Griffin, He said, do you remember him? I said yeah.
Speaker 1: He said, he's a writer. He's living in a lot
Speaker 1: his vedeas he's writing a lot of gangster books. I
Speaker 1: should get the hell lot here through Dennis. We have
Speaker 1: a Wild Blue Press, which is a publishing company. They
Speaker 1: write true crime and they do quite a bit of it,
Speaker 1: and they do a good job. But you didn't. You
Speaker 1: didn't spend time with Dennis, so he didn't. He did
Speaker 1: personally know your story. Last time you've seen him was
Speaker 1: in the military. And the funny thing was, Dennis was
Speaker 1: a cop in upstate New York, Monroe County or some
Speaker 1: place I can't remember. I didn't see Dunnis again until
Speaker 1: two months ago. My granddaughter graduated and I was back
Speaker 1: in New York and Dunnis that i't met again. So
Speaker 1: your cousin told Dennis, I got this incredible story that
Speaker 1: you probably want to write. Google Dennis and he had
Speaker 1: his email on this thing. He emailed him and he
Speaker 1: called me. First two people ever read the manuscript happened
Speaker 1: to be Nick Pileggie, who wrote Good Fellows, Casino American
Speaker 1: Gangster So Suge Knight and death Row Records in your
Speaker 1: book at all? Do you cover that? Do you talk
Speaker 1: about that in your book? Yes? I do now, James,
Speaker 1: you guys never met before. Hum never met. He was
Speaker 1: on I guess the same side of business, but he
Speaker 1: was going a little further and deeper than where we
Speaker 1: was going out to get the money. As you heard
Speaker 1: him say, you wouldn't collect did a million dollars for
Speaker 1: it in England? Right there there was my people in London.
Speaker 1: How do you you come up with the name accidental gangster? Well,
Speaker 1: as I walked the yard, a lampol i came up
Speaker 1: because here I was a Slatto boy in state in
Speaker 1: New York, and I'm thinking about all the guys that
Speaker 1: I met. You know, you watched and know all these
Speaker 1: gangster and stuff, and you see all these people and
Speaker 1: I actually met them. I had their phone number at
Speaker 1: one time. I was able to call them. These are
Speaker 1: bosters throughout the country and how's this something like that?
Speaker 1: And most of the books you read is about the guy.
Speaker 1: He was born in benson her in Brooklyn, and his
Speaker 1: father was in it, his uncles were in it, so
Speaker 1: he became in it. It was quite a process. So
Speaker 1: it took a lot out of me. I mean just
Speaker 1: I mean being against you know, when you were against
Speaker 1: gainst a boy nature not about choice. You you wasn't
Speaker 1: taught how to be against. You wasn't shown this is
Speaker 1: the way a gangster should be. You knew exactly what
Speaker 1: a gangst there was and how you live. So there's
Speaker 1: nothing accidental about you? You see what I'm saying. Well,
Speaker 1: that's why I leave it up to the readers read
Speaker 1: my book, The Accidental Gang. They can make the decision.
Speaker 1: Was it accidental or accidentally on purpose? I said, by nature,
Speaker 1: not by choice. That's what I wouldn't name it, because
Speaker 1: I mean I wasn't forced into it. I actually walked
Speaker 1: into this part of life and I became what I've
Speaker 1: seen and what I felt in my heart. This is
Speaker 1: what I want to do. That's what you wanted if
Speaker 1: you walk into it open arms. Did nobody push you
Speaker 1: into being who you are? Nobody pushed me, right, and
Speaker 1: I guess there never a lot of people to push
Speaker 1: me in anything exactly. Well, in the audio clip that
Speaker 1: we just heard, basically you were a Hollywood fixer and
Speaker 1: I was as curious. Um in your book, do you
Speaker 1: talk about the specific entertainers that you helped and can
Speaker 1: you give us maybe a little snippet of a of
Speaker 1: a person that you know needed to call on your services.
Speaker 1: Some of my friends were, and you know, I had
Speaker 1: to read my book to find out, but I do.
Speaker 1: Frank Sinatra, I know Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. I
Speaker 1: knew him all and uh and Cheryl others and through
Speaker 1: Dina de Laurentis, Uh, Ralph Serpi, Peter Falk, Colombo, Colombo.
Speaker 1: But I met him when he was doing the Brick
Speaker 1: Show in Boston. Now, for the people who don't know
Speaker 1: who Dino de Laurentis is, this is a guy that
Speaker 1: was associated with so many great movies during the nineteen seventies. Um.
Speaker 1: He did the Velachi Papers, which is the first mafia
Speaker 1: guy to ever become a snitch. Um. During the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: he also did the movie Serproco, which was the New
Speaker 1: York p D officer that decided he wanted to turn
Speaker 1: in all his corrupt all the corrupt officers that were
Speaker 1: working in NYPD, and they end up trying to kill him. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he did the movie about that, Serproco. He also
Speaker 1: did a death Wish with John James Bronson h nine
Speaker 1: teen seventy three. Um, So this is a guy I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: Charles Bronson. This is a guy who he was a
Speaker 1: heavyweight during the seventies. He was he was like the
Speaker 1: guy could pull money from this track. So how did
Speaker 1: you meet How did you meet him? Because Dino de
Speaker 1: Laurentis that that guy has a story to tell in
Speaker 1: terms of all the films that he made and and
Speaker 1: he did. He did some gangster movies too, did a
Speaker 1: lot of gangster movies. Uh, he left all right, Oh,
Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch I left out. Um. He also
Speaker 1: did Conan the Barbarian Street with Anthony right here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's in the eighties, near the end of his career. No,
Speaker 1: Conan the Barbarian. Yeah, that's near the end there. We
Speaker 1: say that in the beginning they were doing a film
Speaker 1: in New York. There was the film like Matt yeah fourth,
Speaker 1: I think I got it right, You're right street with
Speaker 1: Anthony one right, Uh, And you know they went in
Speaker 1: this city this went before how it would really be
Speaker 1: come Hollywood, Will you read that film? And they got
Speaker 1: other pre myths to uh film from the city, and
Speaker 1: they weren't herd setting things up when some guys went
Speaker 1: towards that you can't film her because they didn't have
Speaker 1: the proper permission, which was from the boys. And then
Speaker 1: through my friend Frank Russell, they went they am and
Speaker 1: that's how we got involved and uh became friends after
Speaker 1: that there. So back then, let's say you had to
Speaker 1: have your hand in the majority of a lot of
Speaker 1: things that was going on in the city. So with
Speaker 1: nobody gonna eat unless you ate. So this is what
Speaker 1: this is gonna be, and there's no compromise. This is
Speaker 1: what it is if not get out of you understandable,
Speaker 1: every got he's got to be shown a little bit
Speaker 1: of lover exactly. And see back in the days, that's
Speaker 1: a good thing because you didn't have one person sitting
Speaker 1: on the block feeling his belly and and looking at
Speaker 1: every looking down at everybody else. Y'all made sure that
Speaker 1: everybody got something out to deal, whether it was irrationally
Speaker 1: correct there and they changed somewhere and exactly when or
Speaker 1: how you know? I have a saying jails are full
Speaker 1: of people because they're greedy or jealous. You've been in prison,
Speaker 1: all right. Most of the people that were greedy or
Speaker 1: jealous got jealous, he killed somebody, whatever occasion. But greed
Speaker 1: is the main factor. And the bosses keeping all the money.
Speaker 1: Other guys are not making money, and what happened. They
Speaker 1: try to say that they don't want nobody deal drugs there,
Speaker 1: so saying they don't like any of the guys trafficking
Speaker 1: narcotics because it brings on unnecessary law enforcement attention. But
Speaker 1: now I want that money. At the time, I wasn't
Speaker 1: physically there, but you know, you air of a gentleman,
Speaker 1: probably one of the most respective guys around, Carlo Gambi.
Speaker 1: Do you never saw that guy going to president. You
Speaker 1: never saw the cameras on him all the time. Quiet guy.
Speaker 1: But he made a promise that the that these guys
Speaker 1: would not deal drug. I heard that. I can't totest
Speaker 1: the word. I wasn't there. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: there's an expectation for all these captains to produce a
Speaker 1: certain amount of money every month. Yeah, but you know
Speaker 1: there's so many other ways shooting, construction business, the union,
Speaker 1: the colding district. Uh, there's so many other ways to
Speaker 1: making money. Prostitution, gambling, which is the Vegas and that
Speaker 1: was a normal but you know, when the boss had
Speaker 1: taken all the money and you got all the captives
Speaker 1: and the other people, they want their podcasts full too,
Speaker 1: and so they people started yelling drug and what's that produced?
Speaker 1: Performance to to to know that and then to know
Speaker 1: that the that the big man is eating and really
Speaker 1: don't want to feed me in the right way, especially
Speaker 1: the things that I do. What what I bring to
Speaker 1: the table, it's worth more than anything, so I should
Speaker 1: be taken care of. Absolutely. So at what point do
Speaker 1: you feel like, Okay, I'm not getting taken care of? Uh?
Speaker 1: Do that put you in a position where you can
Speaker 1: walk away and do your own thing or you actually
Speaker 1: stuck in a situation. I think you're stuck there, and
Speaker 1: you're stuck in a situation and now you've got to
Speaker 1: fend for yourself. I can get into a deep conversation
Speaker 1: with you on this ere Uh you know, we boy
Speaker 1: could discuss our personal thoughts. Yeah, we do that about
Speaker 1: the life, but we could do that some other time. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we can. What what I'm what I'm trying to say is,
Speaker 1: without making it sound like a interview, my whole thing is,
Speaker 1: you know, we all make choices. We all have choices,
Speaker 1: and and if this is what I choose to do,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get it while I'm getting it, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make sure I get it. Yeah, but at the
Speaker 1: same time trying to get it, you can lose, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, putting your hands in somebody else's
Speaker 1: pocket without differmission, you got to deal with the consequences.
Speaker 1: So the way you live, the way y'all live your
Speaker 1: life a posted the way we live our life is
Speaker 1: totally different. Y'all have certain rules that y'all go by,
Speaker 1: and our rules don't apply to the way y'all y'all
Speaker 1: put y'all rules. Now, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 1: it was basically the same thing, but with different with
Speaker 1: a different understanding, you know what I'm saying. So it's
Speaker 1: pretty easier for us to play those trick games. It's
Speaker 1: pretty hard if you get caught with your hand in
Speaker 1: the cookie jar. The consequences is deep, but there are
Speaker 1: a couple of exceptions though. Michael Franz Easy, Sonny's son,
Speaker 1: actually walked away from the life, and so did John
Speaker 1: Gotti Jr. Kind of walked away from the life with
Speaker 1: without anything happening to them. Would you disagree? And those
Speaker 1: are two guys that were pretty deep into it, John
Speaker 1: Gotti Jr. Being in the Gambino crime family and Sonny
Speaker 1: France sees um Michael friends Easy being one of the
Speaker 1: top one of the top earners during the seventies. You
Speaker 1: read that book, you're gonna learn a lot about Michael
Speaker 1: franchise and okay. Uh, Michael is a very intelligent guy.
Speaker 1: There's no question about that. There. Uh, you made a
Speaker 1: lot of money. He is Sonny steps right. But Sonny
Speaker 1: did adopt him legally. When Sonny at his wife Tina,
Speaker 1: her name was Christina, a couple of my uncle. Michael
Speaker 1: was a year and a half, two years old at
Speaker 1: that time when she married Sonny. Uh. Sonny's other son
Speaker 1: actually got two families. He got Carmen, Rosemary, and Lorraine
Speaker 1: from his first marriage. They I want to say my age,
Speaker 1: but I think they're all older than I am, and
Speaker 1: they're all regular citizens, good people. And then when he
Speaker 1: married Christine and Michael was step son, he had then
Speaker 1: his son Johnny, and he had a daughter Tina, and
Speaker 1: the youngest daughter, Gia. And I knew all these kids
Speaker 1: when they were yi. Gia ended up dying from an
Speaker 1: overdose at a hotel and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I think
Speaker 1: it was Johnny became an informant on our case against
Speaker 1: his father, against me and everybody else. Johnny was the
Speaker 1: son against his own father. Johnny was a spitting him
Speaker 1: the just sunny. Johnny was a drug addict. It's surprising.
Speaker 1: I just got word two days ago that he's trying
Speaker 1: to get a movie made and the gentleman's named that
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier who went reduced being the Norman, Supposedly
Speaker 1: he's trying to do it. I know if it's ever happened,
Speaker 1: but the would you would you agree though, that Michael
Speaker 1: and John Jr. Were able to walk away from that
Speaker 1: life though, which is kind of an exception to the rule,
Speaker 1: because who their fathers was. Well, maybe that has something
Speaker 1: to do with it, because they were both the sons
Speaker 1: of high ranking Michael walked away and it was an
Speaker 1: awful long time ago, walked away with a lot of money.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't in the room. It's only what I
Speaker 1: hear of, but he was. I don't want to say
Speaker 1: something that might be wrong, but you know a lot
Speaker 1: of people were paid off from heavy money. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: the money is the name of the game today, all
Speaker 1: right where it was before where before you got your button,
Speaker 1: before you gotten uh, you had to do this year,
Speaker 1: you had to go and do work. Okay, we no longer.
Speaker 1: How much money can you bring it? Yeah? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: Michael Francis, he said in a recent interview that he's
Speaker 1: got a book out and He does still get nervous
Speaker 1: sometimes because when he goes to book signings, you never
Speaker 1: know who's gonna be there, and you never know if
Speaker 1: it's somebody that's still from the life that say, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm uh, that's still hating on him. But the question
Speaker 1: is it still like that today? Is the market is
Speaker 1: still active as like it was back then? They're still
Speaker 1: things changed. A lot of the Italians from Sicily and
Speaker 1: other uh from Italy are running some of the families
Speaker 1: in New York today. Uh, they're keeping it low key.
Speaker 1: Are they as powerful as they work? No way? No way.
Speaker 1: The FBI with the Rico whack. Just now that they're there,
Speaker 1: you should be an FBI unit for every family, every
Speaker 1: family constantly, twenty four hours of the day. It's no
Speaker 1: longer the kids. They get about two two two squads
Speaker 1: down for the whole five family they are. Plus you
Speaker 1: got the family in Jersey and Pennsylvania. Is there one upstate?
Speaker 1: Is there an upstate family Buffalo? Yeah, So it's not
Speaker 1: like it used to be in terms of the FBI
Speaker 1: monitoring them, you know, But then again, in the FBI,
Speaker 1: I don't have to leave the officer they get today.
Speaker 1: It's easy all right. So, man, there's so many things
Speaker 1: that I wanted to have a conversation with you about.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can start off with Haitian Jack, like you
Speaker 1: actually socialized and kicked it and hung out with Haitian Jack. Yes,
Speaker 1: they did it, unfortunately, and I don't know if you
Speaker 1: knew at the time, but he's the primary person behind
Speaker 1: tupocket and shot the first time in four I believe
Speaker 1: in New York where he survived and actually on the
Speaker 1: rape of that girl went away correct with Haitian Jack.
Speaker 1: There was another boy there who proffered against me. Jamaican
Speaker 1: boy named Ricky was there, and it is believed that
Speaker 1: Park never even raped this girl. It was those other guys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they were parks friends, so Park had the name.
Speaker 1: So Park, you're getting charged and that's that's why he
Speaker 1: got shot by them because he remember he went on
Speaker 1: TV and said, if you guys are gonna arrest me,
Speaker 1: then you gotta arrest everybody that was there. And then
Speaker 1: that's when um, Haitian Jack and Jimmy Henchman said, man,
Speaker 1: we gotta shoot this dude. But you actually knew him
Speaker 1: when he came to Los Angeles. By this time, you
Speaker 1: you living in l A. I'm living in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: and Danny shows up at my door from New York
Speaker 1: because he stopped in New York from London before he
Speaker 1: came in. Now you talked about Danny Simms. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: wait before we're talking about be bothered about Haitian Jack.
Speaker 1: Danny Simms is the dude that basically discovered Bob Marley
Speaker 1: and what nineteen sixties, seven sixty eight? Um, and you
Speaker 1: knew him? Okay, so you met Haitian Jack. Dude, dude,
Speaker 1: Annie Sims? Talk about how did you meet Danny Simpson? First?
Speaker 1: I actually met Danny Sims through my friend Joey Pile
Speaker 1: out of London. Joey Poe was the boss over there.
Speaker 1: Began with Ronnie Reggie Cray. Joey was a gentleman and
Speaker 1: I thought like we'd become him and Danny had the
Speaker 1: returner to Mac Morrison. I got a number here. Uh,
Speaker 1: what's his first name? Morrison? What does his first name?
Speaker 1: I'll look it up, Mark Morrison. I just talked to
Speaker 1: him the other day and I forgot his name. Uh.
Speaker 1: And Mark was a hotta back a no day and
Speaker 1: he had they had a deal with Warner Brothers and
Speaker 1: they wanted me to take care of him while he came.
Speaker 1: He was here in Los Angeles, h make sure we
Speaker 1: got to the studios, make sure he did what he
Speaker 1: strove for. So my son and I went over there
Speaker 1: and we took care of Mark while I was here,
Speaker 1: and Joy and I became very close through the years,
Speaker 1: and then Danny was moving back to Los Angeles. I
Speaker 1: met Danny. Goddamnit, I've known Danny for so long I forget.
Speaker 1: So did you know Danny before he hooked up with
Speaker 1: Bob Marley? No, I didn't know him that, okay, because
Speaker 1: that was around sixty eight, So you met him after
Speaker 1: sixty eight. I did the World of Red Gay featuring
Speaker 1: Bob Marley exhibit at the Queen Mary, and I gotta
Speaker 1: be honest with you. I didn't even know who to
Speaker 1: how Bob Marley was until Danny introduced me to Roger
Speaker 1: Steffen in Silver Lake, who has got a great collection
Speaker 1: in his home of Bob Marley. My Morbilia, which we
Speaker 1: got HIRER. Curator, cost over half a million dollar just
Speaker 1: to get it up and put it for people to
Speaker 1: come to you with the Queen Mary. But Danny, Danny
Speaker 1: was a smart guy, so was Danny was Haitian. Jack
Speaker 1: trying to get into the music business through Danny Sims
Speaker 1: because he knew Danny Simms. Well, Danny wanted to do
Speaker 1: something White Cliff he brought I know if Jack was
Speaker 1: in trouble or something. But Jack was going back, didn't
Speaker 1: want to go back to New York. And I didn't
Speaker 1: know that Jack was a snitch at that time. Krupac
Speaker 1: was the first one I think that came out with it,
Speaker 1: and nobody would really believe in two back he came
Speaker 1: out with it a song, correct. I believe he did
Speaker 1: say something about him and I answered, you Jack to
Speaker 1: a lot of people sleeping out of my car. And
Speaker 1: but he's on the phone every day talking to people,
Speaker 1: and people are sending their money, not working, and he's
Speaker 1: going out and buy nice coldest and that. And but
Speaker 1: then eventually two other people out of Brooklyn and back
Speaker 1: in New York. Uh, they called me Jack were not
Speaker 1: who he proclaimed. He was taking credit with somebody else.
Speaker 1: Because when you tell me do you kill people and
Speaker 1: how many people you killed? Then I know you killed nobody. Jack,
Speaker 1: all right, all right, why would you tell me? All right,
Speaker 1: that's the dumbest thing. But he did it and people
Speaker 1: became fearful of him from it, and the guys on
Speaker 1: a say Angels were heads up and a little bit quicker.
Speaker 1: I guess that the guy's back East. And from my understanding,
Speaker 1: Jack had been a snitch for a long time working
Speaker 1: for the FBI where he got deporting Republic. He got
Speaker 1: deported and he isn't the Dominican Republic. That song that
Speaker 1: you were talking about um is called against all Odds
Speaker 1: a Boy Tupac and the line is a real live
Speaker 1: tale about a snitch name Haitian Jack, you know. And
Speaker 1: I didn't know he was a snitch. And then after
Speaker 1: they finally got rid of him, everything, all the guys
Speaker 1: were named big guy went in the box. He was
Speaker 1: in the music business. I can't forget. I'm forgive me
Speaker 1: for with names. But through my life we're not talking
Speaker 1: about no, not Sug, but a lot of other people.
Speaker 1: I never introduced the shark. I know. We we had
Speaker 1: a media one day at the fourth season. That's when
Speaker 1: I first met Mike Concepts you and uh really like
Speaker 1: like a real gentleman guy. But everybody called me afterwards,
Speaker 1: why didn't I tell them Jack was just night? I
Speaker 1: should because they didn't know to who years was that
Speaker 1: when he came to Los Angeles and was, uh, I
Speaker 1: guess leaping on your couch for for a while. Had
Speaker 1: to be two thousand, maybe somewhere around there. He was
Speaker 1: sleeping on my couch for a year. Then after a
Speaker 1: year he got in an apartment upstairs in the same building.
Speaker 1: I don't know who gave him the money, acon somebody
Speaker 1: getting the money, and he got an apartment upstairs. And
Speaker 1: then he rapped some Mexicans and he got a score
Speaker 1: on I don't know how many pounds it was. It
Speaker 1: was a big score, and he brought it the Ohio
Speaker 1: I know, the guy who sold the form in a while,
Speaker 1: and Jack came back with all the cash. And I
Speaker 1: lived on swall over here. Actually sure used to be
Speaker 1: on Swallow all the time too, and walk away from me,
Speaker 1: you remember, and my patio door. It was a whole
Speaker 1: lot of my apartment, which I always keep him walking
Speaker 1: because I smoked. And Jack came back from Ohio and
Speaker 1: let me Ricky. And Ricky said, you're gonna go take
Speaker 1: care of the old man. He said, fuck no, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to give him a nickel. I heard that,
Speaker 1: and Ricky came around and says, Rick, I already heard it,
Speaker 1: and then I called Jack. I said, you get upstairs,
Speaker 1: put my son's key under the fucking door. You're not
Speaker 1: to dry that car, I said. And I want you
Speaker 1: out of this fucking building by tomorrow. I should remember something.
Speaker 1: You're not a gangster, I am. You told him that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I said, I want you out next morning. He had
Speaker 1: you all he moved out. That's when he moved in
Speaker 1: the building in Century City. So you gave him a pass.
Speaker 1: I would have did someth choying for even saying something
Speaker 1: like that. I mean, after you're taking care of him,
Speaker 1: take care of him. He's a no good motherfucker. And
Speaker 1: I don't care if that's on the air. I don't
Speaker 1: see it too. He's a no good motherfucker. I mean,
Speaker 1: but I mean just living that life. Man, how do
Speaker 1: you feel now that that you're not really you're not
Speaker 1: active as you were, but you still consider the gamester,
Speaker 1: How do you feel by just just living a normal life,
Speaker 1: just comfortable, just you know, I'm gonna be seventy five
Speaker 1: years old, but in my mind, I think I'm still
Speaker 1: twenty one. I think we're all gonna be like that
Speaker 1: there no matter who we are. Okay, we all think
Speaker 1: we're young. And do I miss that fast cash? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And you know I don't have the availability of things,
Speaker 1: thank god. I mean I have money every month. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna pay my rampaying my bills, and uh, I don't
Speaker 1: have the extra money to be going out and spending
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars a night. That's the four season and
Speaker 1: the peninsula or something. You know, those are the days.
Speaker 1: But back in the day I had guys around. I
Speaker 1: need a fifty grant. I have bookies around. I don't
Speaker 1: even know who's a bookie anymore. Is there anything you
Speaker 1: would change if you can go back, if you can
Speaker 1: go back in time, is there anything that you would change? Yes,
Speaker 1: I would rather been born in the twenties, all right,
Speaker 1: and being really active in the thirties. Okay, that was
Speaker 1: my time. You was ahead of your time. I was
Speaker 1: too late. Well, you would have been coming up in
Speaker 1: the bootleg era then that's right. That was the time
Speaker 1: to becoming become involved. That's the day. Story were the
Speaker 1: days alcohol was illegal throughout the whole third I believe.
Speaker 1: So you were born with like in the mid forties
Speaker 1: after World War two, after World War tours. Born nineteen Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you see, if I wanted to go back, I
Speaker 1: go back to before I was born nineteen forty four. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my mom was just turned seventy five. Um, on the
Speaker 1: seventh of this month. I was just at the funeral,
Speaker 1: I meany, Yeah, she rested in peace. Now one year?
Speaker 1: Right when one year Thanksgiving to be the one should
Speaker 1: be one year of her death? Rest in peace of
Speaker 1: Mahalia Thanksgiving. So your mom was born in what year?
Speaker 1: Forty four? You were born? My father was born in
Speaker 1: forty My mom and dad were both born in forty Well,
Speaker 1: my father passed in fifteen, two thousand and fifteen, and
Speaker 1: my mom is about to be eighty. And uh, mother
Speaker 1: was born the way in November? Was she born? She
Speaker 1: was born in November. She past Thanksgiving terrible time. But
Speaker 1: when she was a Sangitarian, Yeah, yeah, she was crazy.
Speaker 1: Do you born in November December? Yeah? Well? Um, and
Speaker 1: let's talk about this indictment because there's so many things.
Speaker 1: I want to make sure we talked about this because
Speaker 1: in two thousand eight you was indicted in that whole
Speaker 1: um what was that the Colombo the Colombo family indictment? Right,
Speaker 1: So I read through the superseding indictment. There's all these
Speaker 1: allegations of this guy killed this dude, this dude killed
Speaker 1: that dude. But then I'm looking, Okay, I want to
Speaker 1: know what or Spado did. And it doesn't say you
Speaker 1: were involving any of these things that these other um
Speaker 1: Colombo members were doing. Correct, So what exactly why were
Speaker 1: you indicted then? In nineteen nineties seven, and that FBI
Speaker 1: Asian happened to be shame that BI agent that got
Speaker 1: Wedey Bulger John Connolly, Oh, oh, you're talking about the
Speaker 1: one one out here in Los Angele, which was like
Speaker 1: a gift to him. Anyway, he was on the elite.
Speaker 1: A BI organized prank days for us. They approachriated, try
Speaker 1: to get me to become an informant. I refused, but
Speaker 1: I grabbed them for money the game of fucking tape
Speaker 1: one day open. I got five thousand dollars for the
Speaker 1: old first show. Honest, your god, he and my fucking
Speaker 1: live everyone one day said, because then I got an attorney,
Speaker 1: I said, not gonna have for him. Sure, he said,
Speaker 1: you got anything in our will turn himself in. But
Speaker 1: he said, I will see today you are chained shackled
Speaker 1: put on con there and brought the Brooklyn over ninety
Speaker 1: seven in two thousand and eight. He made that a
Speaker 1: reality become it gonna be very honest with you by
Speaker 1: all means, how did they get me on that indictment?
Speaker 1: Two predicate good act is all you need on a
Speaker 1: reco indictment, And they came up with two predict good act.
Speaker 1: One was a conspiracy to distribute cocaine? How did that come? Now?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest with you, and I'll tell you,
Speaker 1: uh insent in my book, I used to have four
Speaker 1: the fifty pounds, but we've flown it in New York
Speaker 1: every two weeks. I had airports, I had a pilot,
Speaker 1: I had everything like boom boom boom, nice cocaine. I
Speaker 1: really never involved him, but it was a Germaican boy
Speaker 1: named Ricky Lee, and I took care of Ricky. Rickie
Speaker 1: was a good boy, made a ton of fucking money
Speaker 1: and he was signing product from here to Brooklyn and
Speaker 1: North Carolina. Had a big home up in Hollywood Hill.
Speaker 1: I was godfather to his daughter. And Rickie always came
Speaker 1: back and you know, gave me some loving, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? He got arrested. He was supposed to
Speaker 1: stop the business. His wife went away and the urge.
Speaker 1: So he got ahold of five hundred pounds some cocaine
Speaker 1: and a gun, and he shipped at the North Carolina
Speaker 1: and somebody where at the shipping place they tracked it.
Speaker 1: He got arrested. I was lawyering him off. He was
Speaker 1: at downtown n DC here or lawyering him up. He
Speaker 1: had ships several a half a million dollars worth a cocaine.
Speaker 1: I was on the streets in Brooklyn and his wife
Speaker 1: came over with the mexicanst for what happened to know
Speaker 1: him boat. And in the meantime, Sonny Frank j sent
Speaker 1: Guy Ftato while to meet with me. Guy Ftato was
Speaker 1: a guy to Sonny was Grooman was going with his
Speaker 1: main guy. He's row for was Sonny the Underboston family
Speaker 1: at the time. And you know, Sonny endorses the guy.
Speaker 1: The guy had been wired right from the first fucking moment.
Speaker 1: Sonny had no clue. Right, Sunny had no clue even
Speaker 1: though he was told he's still I mean. This guy
Speaker 1: was an FBI was in informant for the d A
Speaker 1: before he went to the FBI. When the d A
Speaker 1: was through with him. He got over with Sunny. Thus
Speaker 1: the five hundred of Semite tapes, and Sonny was on
Speaker 1: most of them, which was not good. And you were
Speaker 1: only only living. I was on eleven and he sit
Speaker 1: on my couch. And the guys who owed the money
Speaker 1: to Ricky on the streets, they knew who man who
Speaker 1: I was, picked up the phone and they had a
Speaker 1: hundred grad already. They weren't running dodging what the probable
Speaker 1: was was. Ricky thought, I'm gonna send them. I forgot
Speaker 1: how many keel it was, but I'm gonna side of that.
Speaker 1: There was so many money back. But he didn't realize
Speaker 1: that these guys were converted the critical game, so he
Speaker 1: was taking the longer the convert it get the money
Speaker 1: to send back. So they already had a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars ready. And there's guy. I could have somebody figure
Speaker 1: that up tonight. It's great. We got the guy. I
Speaker 1: don't have to make no call, no nothing. So he
Speaker 1: has somebody pick up the first one your ground, and
Speaker 1: then he starts talking to the Mexican that he wants
Speaker 1: fifty kilo he's at me and or fifty kills every
Speaker 1: two weeks. I got the car, nobody the van will
Speaker 1: ship it back to New York and all the money
Speaker 1: we're gonna make. And then when he's back to New York,
Speaker 1: he's sucking to Michael, who was Sonny's nephew, who was
Speaker 1: acting captain of the Colombo family. I never had any
Speaker 1: interaction with Michael. Now guy Fitto talking to Michael about
Speaker 1: all the money we're going to make with Ori because
Speaker 1: we're bringing fifty kilos, we're paying twelve thousand, he's gonna
Speaker 1: sell it for twenty eight. We're gonna make all this
Speaker 1: money every couple of weeks, right, is that Michael cut Potto? Yeah, okay, boy,
Speaker 1: you're good. That's that's that's a that's our special weapon.
Speaker 1: So no, Michael never called me, asked me about it. Nobody.
Speaker 1: So here's Michael thinking we're doing this deal or he's
Speaker 1: putting it together. Of course Michael was out here. He
Speaker 1: saw it. He saw the restrict respect the head on
Speaker 1: the streets out there. But they deal don't happen because
Speaker 1: I'm not doing it, and these guys ain't going to
Speaker 1: give it up unless they're all half a million dollars paid.
Speaker 1: So I got you basically conspiracy. They got me for conspiracy,
Speaker 1: ReCl conspiracy. Not only that. Now Fotato starts digging it
Speaker 1: into Michael Cotta pottle that or he did the deal
Speaker 1: and fucked us. So Michael goes to Sunny. He gets
Speaker 1: permission to wake me. So that's why Sunny France says
Speaker 1: they wanted to act. Yeah, so he ordered that he
Speaker 1: didn't or get the approval. But this is why you
Speaker 1: were in custody though, right or before before we go okay,
Speaker 1: before you guys got arrested. Before did you know that
Speaker 1: he or did you whack before you guys got arrested?
Speaker 1: You learned all of this while you're reading You're discovered
Speaker 1: in My Discovery. That's crazy, Hunt James, You listening to
Speaker 1: a to a tape of somebody saying, Okay, I give
Speaker 1: you permission get rid of you. How did you feel?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's part of the game. So I knew
Speaker 1: you accepted to a certain extent because this is part
Speaker 1: of the game, you know what being a man? And
Speaker 1: I feel that I'm a man. I was piste off.
Speaker 1: Why was I piste off that because of order that there?
Speaker 1: Because it was a stupid thing. Because suddenly used to
Speaker 1: call me up and say, come on in the hand
Speaker 1: fucking dinner. Okay, you don't call me up and asked
Speaker 1: me what the whole the story and overre If you
Speaker 1: would have called me, he would have known the FOTAO.
Speaker 1: Then we would have discovered fo an informant. But ID
Speaker 1: like we could be best friends. But if you sunk up,
Speaker 1: I can't stop this hit, so I might have to
Speaker 1: wag my best friend. So you're not gonna get a
Speaker 1: phone call. You're gonna say come on, let's take a ride,
Speaker 1: and you're hopping the front seat. We alreadynew what's gonna
Speaker 1: happen because these two the goons in the back seat.
Speaker 1: So you want a getting way, you know, you don't understand.
Speaker 1: I've known Sonny close to fifty years now. I've learned
Speaker 1: an awful lot for Sonny. And I said on the
Speaker 1: interview with these animal the other day, these guys are
Speaker 1: smart guys, and I considered myself a smart guy. Guys
Speaker 1: will become bosses, are not scoopid, and you gotta be
Speaker 1: having a muti function. Sonny was very smart and I
Speaker 1: was just surprised that he did that, and I was
Speaker 1: a little bit hurt. And our last words that we
Speaker 1: had before he got out, before we did our time
Speaker 1: was were sitting in the girl when he comes in.
Speaker 1: He was on bail. I couldn't get bill. I was
Speaker 1: facing fucking life with fifty kilos of cocaine. And he
Speaker 1: comes in at Bunny, I hear you're upset with me.
Speaker 1: I'm shutting down. He's standing around. The judge is over
Speaker 1: here in the world with defunded buddy. I'm not piste
Speaker 1: off with you, I said, I'm upset. We were talking
Speaker 1: a little, just so YouTube stop talking. I got seven.
Speaker 1: It was the luckiest thing to happen to me because
Speaker 1: I got severed from that case because I was going
Speaker 1: to use that discovery at my trial. At the trial,
Speaker 1: so Sunny lawyer tried to get me, prevent me from
Speaker 1: using that discovery at the trial and try to get
Speaker 1: severed Sunny Franchise from the trial. And the judge says,
Speaker 1: not any I'm not in Sunny Franchise is not being severed.
Speaker 1: But I read a motion, Mrs fade O Rolle, I
Speaker 1: wrote a motion that I wanted my trial was angel
Speaker 1: because this is where my peers are. I don't live
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn. Those people and not my peers, Am I correct?
Speaker 1: Usually it goes by, goes by where the crime, the
Speaker 1: alleged crime occurs as yeah, all right, well you're using
Speaker 1: the phone, so you're on the phone in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: talking to people in Brooklyn. So where's the jurisdiction both
Speaker 1: on both sides? Yeah, both sides. So what was the
Speaker 1: result of that um that motion about moving your case
Speaker 1: to the Los Angeles? I wrote my own motion. It
Speaker 1: was a damn good motion. And the judge says, the
Speaker 1: US attorney maybe Mrs spadel should be severed. And he says,
Speaker 1: you have until noon tomorrow convinced me otherwise to be
Speaker 1: back in Neontis, or the next day we're back there,
Speaker 1: and then Judge and Mrs spadol I have to deny
Speaker 1: your motion for severance and ocation los Angeles. I got
Speaker 1: in the transpress. I got some of it in my book.
Speaker 1: He should, but when I'm gonna do, he's just if
Speaker 1: you could explain the difference in legal terms of me.
Speaker 1: He said that that discovery you want to use could
Speaker 1: also be used against you. I got up explain this
Speaker 1: could be inculporatory or exculpriatory, which you could have. You
Speaker 1: should unconvinced. Mr Sparrow, you know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: What do you want? I shall take the severance. So
Speaker 1: I got severed. It was a lucky day in my life.
Speaker 1: Otherwise I still be in prison today. What happened to
Speaker 1: Guy for Tatto? He was the fife for Tatto. We
Speaker 1: were blessed because there was another faction of the Colombo family,
Speaker 1: Michael Vino and a few other guys. And he was
Speaker 1: such a bad informant. The judge Weinstein, who is the
Speaker 1: oldest living judge on the course and I think he's
Speaker 1: still in today, declare him the worst informity ever you.
Speaker 1: So now they didn't want to use him as an
Speaker 1: informant against me. They wanted to use the tapes. My
Speaker 1: attorney said, in no way I want him. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: if you're gonna use the tapes with Guy for Tattle,
Speaker 1: you gotta bring Guy for Tattle to court so your
Speaker 1: lawyer can cross examine, right, And the U S attorney
Speaker 1: didn't want to bring the court to and uh so
Speaker 1: you Loki kind of beat the case even though they
Speaker 1: sentenced you to what I to plead guilty to a
Speaker 1: gun chach, which was a minimum mandatory right, h five years.
Speaker 1: And on the robbery, the judge I played gud took
Speaker 1: a deal in ninety seven months to hundred ten months.
Speaker 1: I got sixty two. The judge gave me sixty days
Speaker 1: on the robbery. U s attorney was bitterness screaming, and
Speaker 1: he looked at her and he said, as far as
Speaker 1: I'm concerned, you charged Mr Spadeo twice the same crime.
Speaker 1: He said, Mr spadel my hands are tied. One gun. Judge,
Speaker 1: I had to give you sixty months, sixty two always blessed,
Speaker 1: and I got sent to Lumpo. That's crazy that um
Speaker 1: Sunny wanted you whack now Sonny. He just got out
Speaker 1: of prison two years ago. Guess how old Sonny is. James.
Speaker 1: Sonny is the oldest Mafia member on earth. If you
Speaker 1: the old and two two we talked about once a
Speaker 1: month every couple. Was that right? You still talk to him? Wow?
Speaker 1: You talked to the guy that ordered you act. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's incredible. Well, at some point y'all fixed that situation.
Speaker 1: Had to because somebody wouldn't be here, you know exactly.
Speaker 1: It had to be fixed that at some points, you know,
Speaker 1: look like I told him, I don't know, you know
Speaker 1: what if I did something wrong and they gave permission
Speaker 1: and wait me, they got it right though, but make
Speaker 1: sure I did something wrong. So that means he believed, um,
Speaker 1: Michael Catapano story about you did the deal, you got
Speaker 1: the money, all this other stuff that never happened, told
Speaker 1: him that his real name wherever he went by guy.
Speaker 1: That's I mean, shouldn't that be some type of rule?
Speaker 1: Get in here, we hold court. Let's talk about this.
Speaker 1: We can't ship normally. You have plastic on the floor.
Speaker 1: I'm saying it because I watched these movies and I
Speaker 1: see plastic on the floor, and if you step on
Speaker 1: that plastics, you know you're gonna get whacked. So killed
Speaker 1: should I say? And uh, I'm in a moment, so
Speaker 1: you know it was gonna happen. And uh, what's his name?
Speaker 1: Joe Bessie? Yeah, when he played and they beating with
Speaker 1: the baseball back that that was a casino in Casino
Speaker 1: or Goods when it was killing him and his brother exactly,
Speaker 1: but the baseball back that was it was casino. What
Speaker 1: I'm saying is it don't matter who's who. You know,
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, you make a mistake. They don't hold court,
Speaker 1: holding courters, getting rid of the situation, the problem. So
Speaker 1: I mean that's why I said, it's totally different from
Speaker 1: our culture, our way of game banging and doing what
Speaker 1: we're doing. I don't think their coature was game banging.
Speaker 1: There's like, uh, it's it's a better way. Come on,
Speaker 1: how did you It's not it's not it's I mean
Speaker 1: organized crime. They're organized. They're organized to the team, but
Speaker 1: a lot of times I think they're too quick to
Speaker 1: whack people because they go on perceptions, they go on rumors,
Speaker 1: and they don't get the facts too. They make mistakes.
Speaker 1: That's what's wrong with it today. Nobody Today You've got
Speaker 1: guys who become government and informants and they're still living
Speaker 1: in the same same how same neighborhood in Brooklyn. They
Speaker 1: they don't leave, they don't go under what's like brogram No,
Speaker 1: we'll see what you have now. And there is older
Speaker 1: bosses you got you got me in that's seventy five,
Speaker 1: seventy nine years old. That's not being to do fifty years,
Speaker 1: thirty years, uh, ninety two months in the federal facility.
Speaker 1: So uh, leave that motherfuck alone because I don't want
Speaker 1: this ship brown here. So just bring my money. It's
Speaker 1: all about the money. Now, it's all about the money.
Speaker 1: So how is money doing that? A hundred and two
Speaker 1: years old? Um him. I had to call him earlier
Speaker 1: the morning, earlier to morning my time. I gotta get him,
Speaker 1: like I called, I'm up early, anima, so I'll call
Speaker 1: him like six. So it's nine a m. There. He's
Speaker 1: just getting through with his react and he's actually moving around.
Speaker 1: He rowed around because he's going out to lunch every day.
Speaker 1: I should what the funk you doing? I said, I
Speaker 1: should you go one more? And I do? Buddy, You
Speaker 1: know how we are gotta keep out there and gotta
Speaker 1: keep moving. And I thought we have conversations. And I
Speaker 1: just left my hands up with this guy because somebody
Speaker 1: was so many they didn't think his mind was that good.
Speaker 1: I mean, I had a conversation with him and we
Speaker 1: were talking about the politics today and he going, Buddy,
Speaker 1: it's all in the Bible. I said, sid, let me
Speaker 1: ask you a question. When the fund, did you ever
Speaker 1: read the Bible? Let me tell you, he says. One
Speaker 1: time they put me in the hole, he said, and
Speaker 1: I read every book that they had around. Did I
Speaker 1: get my hands on He's they're no more books, and
Speaker 1: the last one was the Bible, so I read it.
Speaker 1: He buddy, he says, those old guys who wrote that
Speaker 1: Bible were smart. Bastard. Did you ever meet Carmine Persico
Speaker 1: who was the actual boss or the family who just
Speaker 1: recently passed. I think so, because Sunny would have been
Speaker 1: Sunny was his underboss. I believed. Well back in the day,
Speaker 1: the years ago, there were here. If Carmel was away
Speaker 1: Sunday with the boss, Sunday was away, Karmen Camem became
Speaker 1: the boss. Uh what you gonna say, James, I'm actually
Speaker 1: like looking at you like, damn, you did your homework
Speaker 1: on this. Well, you know, I grew up in New
Speaker 1: York in the seventies. You know, my family's from New York.
Speaker 1: So when I was a kid, we knew about the
Speaker 1: five families. We knew about them. And where I moved to,
Speaker 1: or where my family migrated to, was an old Italian
Speaker 1: neighborhood in East Harlem, which eventually became all Port of
Speaker 1: beacon Um. Pleasant Street was was where all the Puerto
Speaker 1: Ricans eventually moved. But there's a restaurant there that state
Speaker 1: Italian and there was no more Italians living in East Tarland.
Speaker 1: But every week that comes driving from wherever they live
Speaker 1: to come to this restaurant and it was I think
Speaker 1: it was a fourteenth and Pleasants. Um. I think that
Speaker 1: restaurant is still there. Um. I don't remember the name
Speaker 1: of it. So yeah, I have a little understanding of
Speaker 1: all of this stuff because of just growing up in
Speaker 1: New York City. You know about the Gambino family, you
Speaker 1: know about the Colombo and the Bananos, you know about
Speaker 1: the Luke CAZy, the genovesa Is because they all spread
Speaker 1: out through all these burrows and you can't help but
Speaker 1: learn this stuff in New York. And it's crazy to
Speaker 1: actually survive it, you know what I'm saying, Because every
Speaker 1: day is a gamble, you know what I'm saying. And
Speaker 1: I'm only saying that from my perspective watching these movies
Speaker 1: that they put out. And you know scar Face, you know,
Speaker 1: every day he woke up, it was man, I could
Speaker 1: die to day, you know what I'm saying. That's pretty
Speaker 1: much It's really not, you know, but there is the
Speaker 1: same We used to have a seen you many years ago.
Speaker 1: You know, we used to me, there's a dinner anymore
Speaker 1: if you over you know, if you showed up one
Speaker 1: day and Peter wasn't there, you know, you don't answer
Speaker 1: Peter Rich. But if Peter ain't there to that day,
Speaker 1: you know, Peter ain't coming back. So what's your favorite
Speaker 1: movie that kind of talks about the life. Most of
Speaker 1: the movies are based on the East Coast, even though
Speaker 1: people don't know that there was a mafia family in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. It kind of died off when during the
Speaker 1: fifties and sixties though, when Um when the l a
Speaker 1: p D hired Um William Parker. William Parker became the
Speaker 1: chief of the l a p D. And he got
Speaker 1: rid of all of this stuff. He wasn't tolerating it.
Speaker 1: But what's your favorite movie that kind of depicts the life.
Speaker 1: That's a good question because I really don't have one.
Speaker 1: But about Bronx Tales Without Pain. Yeah, that was a
Speaker 1: good I'm sorry in that movie. Have you ever like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I did this to your dad? This kid grows up
Speaker 1: and did come at you. I mean it's all different
Speaker 1: kind of ways. Have you ever had anybody trying to
Speaker 1: come at you because they felt you had something to
Speaker 1: do with their people? What do they love ones? No? No,
Speaker 1: I never had that. Do you remember I've been out
Speaker 1: here over fifty years? Uh, not over fifty years. I
Speaker 1: take that back a long time. Nineteen seventy I was there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll read about that FBI agent in the book. I
Speaker 1: put his name in a book. Okay. Uh. That Italian
Speaker 1: restaurant I'll talk about. It's called Rawls, Yeah, hundred fourteen
Speaker 1: and pleasant and it's still an Italian restaurant. It's big.
Speaker 1: You can buy the sauce and long pavilions real they yeah,
Speaker 1: like nine dollars. But it's not an Italian neighborhood anymore.
Speaker 1: You know, the Italians with the restaurant, the Stone tables,
Speaker 1: my wife. Yeah. So Michael Harris, real quick before we
Speaker 1: wrap up the show. You actually met Harry oh, Michael Harris?
Speaker 1: Or didn't meet him over the phone because he was incarcerated.
Speaker 1: And do you talk about him in your book? I
Speaker 1: mentioned him? I can't remember now. In fact, wish he
Speaker 1: had a book. I could look at the induct And
Speaker 1: did you ever answer his phone calls when he used
Speaker 1: to call death Row? Michael Harris, who would take those calls?
Speaker 1: Every different people? Um? When he called everybody was instructed
Speaker 1: nonstance or that phone, because if you called on the
Speaker 1: red phone, you it was somebody, it was somebody big,
Speaker 1: it was somebody important. So he started answering him. Then
Speaker 1: he just stopped. You just don't answer that. And that
Speaker 1: came with you know, his wife coming up there, the
Speaker 1: whole nine and all of that. So, I mean, you
Speaker 1: know what type of cash you was. So it was boy,
Speaker 1: I'm glad I did not get involved in that, yeah,
Speaker 1: because you would have had you what you probably had
Speaker 1: to get rid of him because he put you on
Speaker 1: the bullshit mission. Well no, and you know it's like
Speaker 1: I said, you know, and I said, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I could be up. Sonny should have caught me back
Speaker 1: said at the table and discuss what happened here. And
Speaker 1: if you would have done that there, then he would
Speaker 1: discover the guy for that over an informant. Because you know,
Speaker 1: that's how you're going to read in my book. I
Speaker 1: told you about that half a million on your brand
Speaker 1: came in what Ham did? The other four hundred thousands,
Speaker 1: it's in my book, it's on my discovery. Okay, the
Speaker 1: FBI got the fucking money personally. So you guys never
Speaker 1: really specifically talked about it you want, Sonny. He just
Speaker 1: I have a rule my father. They taught me as
Speaker 1: a young boy. Never the snitch. My sister snitched on
Speaker 1: me one time and my father gave her to spanking.
Speaker 1: Still made me go on and fade the garden, but
Speaker 1: she got the sprank. Never snitch. So he used to
Speaker 1: tell me I had to tell him everything. But he
Speaker 1: and I an't a problem. I'm not gonna go to
Speaker 1: Sunny with it because don't I'm snitching on you. That's
Speaker 1: still being a snitch. Don't you agree, Well, conversation needs
Speaker 1: to be explained in order to get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of the situation. Well, you're in intelligent guy, I mean
Speaker 1: it really does. If not, then you can't fix the situation.
Speaker 1: And if you can't fix the situation, the only thing
Speaker 1: you gotta do that's left is to get rid of it.
Speaker 1: To think of how many guys are dead over nothing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And then you know, it's like when the FBI set
Speaker 1: me up and I take the FBI. But I could
Speaker 1: tell when the attorney got that phone call, he said
Speaker 1: he I called me and they said this is your
Speaker 1: last chance or else to work with him. The attorney
Speaker 1: name is Mark Mazie. He's an entertainment lawyer. Today. I said,
Speaker 1: what did they mean by that or else? He said,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm sorry Mark telling me you spoke
Speaker 1: to me. Tell them that. Orey said go fund yourself.
Speaker 1: And then I sat in my chair on swall and
Speaker 1: I thought, what do they mean by that or else?
Speaker 1: And then it came to me, They're gonna go well
Speaker 1: with their informants and say that I'm a snack, I'm
Speaker 1: a wreck. You sure should? They did? Well. I beat
Speaker 1: him to the punch because Jimmy Cacchi was one of
Speaker 1: the tapes fly back to Buffalo, New York, go on
Speaker 1: record with Joe Tadaryl, who was the boss of Buffalo,
Speaker 1: because thought he was in prison. So I was in
Speaker 1: record when I was taking the FBI with a boss,
Speaker 1: so I know the route. They wanted me to keep
Speaker 1: doing it. Jimmy, so you're in trouble, Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1: So you how close were you with Jimmy Cochi? Now
Speaker 1: he was part of the Los Angeles family, right, Jimmy
Speaker 1: was regally from Buffalo. Jimmy was the most serious guy
Speaker 1: out here in my opinion. Uh, Jimmy and I were
Speaker 1: like brothers. He was never the boss of the Los
Speaker 1: Angeles family. He was the boss to Palm Springs. Never
Speaker 1: made no money down't there, Jimmy, How you don't make
Speaker 1: any money in Palm Springs. That's where all the millionaires are, right, Jimmy.
Speaker 1: Jimmy would be at my door and a Monday moron
Speaker 1: and on Friday he leave. We we made money, were Jimmy.
Speaker 1: We made money. We shopped it fifty fifty. That's the
Speaker 1: way I like doing things. Chapter fifty fifty. Wouldn't Jimmy
Speaker 1: have to send them back to buff to Upstate New York?
Speaker 1: What Jimmy did with their money? I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jimmy still no. I think he passed, And I honestly
Speaker 1: think I've really one of the last people to speak
Speaker 1: to him. That I was calling him from prison. He
Speaker 1: just got home from the hospital and he was I
Speaker 1: had to call Betty and then he die. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that was kind of like I think Jimmy is like
Speaker 1: the last of the Los Angeles crime family, the last
Speaker 1: one on here. Right. It's pretty um. I think it's
Speaker 1: pretty non existent now that Los Angeles has uh anything
Speaker 1: going on. But you know, if there was, I ain't
Speaker 1: going near him because I never went there, the guy
Speaker 1: who don't any of us anyways, but you didn't mind.
Speaker 1: But during that time, you didn't mind associating with guys
Speaker 1: like Jimmy and all these other people, and you knew
Speaker 1: what they were doing. And I had a close connection.
Speaker 1: Were from Buffalo, h you know, we're from the same
Speaker 1: neck of the woods in New York. People missed took
Speaker 1: us for brothers a lot of time when we were out.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a problem. You know, if I
Speaker 1: see Sonny, you tell Jimmy you're with me. Jimmy, tell
Speaker 1: Sonny you're with me. I had the issue Jimmy the
Speaker 1: sunny I'm the one who made that injury like that. Uh.
Speaker 1: But no, Jimmy was a great guy. He eventually learned
Speaker 1: to read it write. And Jimmy was feared out here
Speaker 1: as far as these things are, he was feared. Jimmy
Speaker 1: Cocchi died on August six, two thousand eleven, at the
Speaker 1: age of eighty six. Well, a lot of these guys
Speaker 1: are up there in age like like really like, oh,
Speaker 1: I've been there. Yeah, I've been around for a long time.
Speaker 1: You know one thing, you know, it's really funny, and
Speaker 1: I knows anything. But when I was in Brooklyn and
Speaker 1: we were in a tower over there is she like
Speaker 1: all the Italian wise guys are diabetic. H Oh that good?
Speaker 1: Uh sauce that alright? So um, before we go, I
Speaker 1: just want you to give us at least a Frank
Speaker 1: Sinatra story. I know you probably have him in your book,
Speaker 1: but just tell us something brief about Frank Sinatra. You
Speaker 1: knew the guy personally, Frank. Frank was not allowed to
Speaker 1: smoke around his wife. So in the days before they
Speaker 1: all this bullshit was smoking. You can smoke at the bar.
Speaker 1: And you know, Frank Sinatra, I put up the money
Speaker 1: for Matteos and Westwood Boulevard. They both grew up in Hoboken.
Speaker 1: Uh maddim tail. Mattie was funny and Uh I was
Speaker 1: there every night. I said, on this side of the
Speaker 1: dining room. Frank said, in the dining room over with
Speaker 1: the table people in his white Barbara. Well, we we
Speaker 1: said at the bar, he come over and get a cigarette,
Speaker 1: and we said at the bar, and then we were
Speaker 1: talking and have a lot of conversations about the old days.
Speaker 1: But one of the best conversations was he walked on
Speaker 1: one night, we're getting our card with the valet, and
Speaker 1: he asked the valet, what's the biggest tip you ever got?
Speaker 1: And the guys ballet says a hundred dollars. Franks, you're
Speaker 1: really so Frank gives him two hundred and he says,
Speaker 1: who gave you the hundred? He said, you did, sir.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's hilarious. That's Frank always hung out with
Speaker 1: all the gangsters. Even though he was a singer, he
Speaker 1: was in the music business. He hung out with gangsters.
Speaker 1: He's from the photograph with almost all the gangsters. But
Speaker 1: you know what I noticed. This is something that that
Speaker 1: always bothered me that white gangsters can do whatever. White
Speaker 1: gangsters and white entertainers can hang out and socialize, and
Speaker 1: no one criticized it. But when people of color who
Speaker 1: are entertainers hang out with gangsters, they point the finger
Speaker 1: at this person that you're you're a bad guy. Frank
Speaker 1: Sinatra got away with hanging out with whoever he wanted
Speaker 1: to hang out with, and had took very little stigma
Speaker 1: for that. And he broke the ratio bar vega by
Speaker 1: by bringing Sammy Davis jan And that was crazy because
Speaker 1: Sammy David Jr. Hanging with them. I wonder how the
Speaker 1: hell he did it? Yeah, how he did it? I
Speaker 1: mean back then, you couldn't go to Vegas without being
Speaker 1: called the N word, way back then when they was
Speaker 1: when when they first came in to Vegas. So that
Speaker 1: was crazy. Sammy Davis and he was part of the
Speaker 1: Red Back Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Frank Sinatra. I grew
Speaker 1: up in the seventies, did much racial Oh yeah, where
Speaker 1: I was born in the Bronx, there was uh you
Speaker 1: had the black section, you had the Puerto Rican section,
Speaker 1: and you had the Italian section. Now I just took
Speaker 1: my son there a couple of weeks ago. None of
Speaker 1: that exists anymore. Everything is all mixed in because we
Speaker 1: got Dominicans that moved in Jamaicans. But when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, it was all segregated, you know. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of cool that it doesn't exist anymore. Then when
Speaker 1: you was there, it was pretty much like the Bronx tales,
Speaker 1: You niggers get out of our neighborhood. Excuse my person.
Speaker 1: It was just like that. It was just like that,
Speaker 1: especially in the seventies when I was really young. By
Speaker 1: the time you get to the eighties and nineties, are
Speaker 1: starting to change. But I remembered Webster Avenue. Uh if
Speaker 1: you cross Website Avenue, that's where all the Brothers is at.
Speaker 1: And people just say, don't you better not cross Website Avenue.
Speaker 1: You get jazz kicked a cross webs Avenue, you know,
Speaker 1: so you know it doesn't that doesn't exist anymore. But
Speaker 1: but there are still pockets in Brooklyn. See, Brooklyn got gentrified. Um,
Speaker 1: there were parts of Brooklyn that we're still segregated. But
Speaker 1: that gentrification Park Slope is all like yuppies and white
Speaker 1: business people moved into the sections of Brooklyn that we're
Speaker 1: all exp Oh man, that's crazy Brooklyn is. And even Harlem,
Speaker 1: Harlem costs too much money to live now we developed
Speaker 1: that there. You're gonna see the same thing in a
Speaker 1: lot of Angeles. Oh, it's already happening there. Now. I
Speaker 1: can't believe the rents in Inglewood, James. People used to
Speaker 1: move to Ingleod because, oh, I can go give me
Speaker 1: a one betroom apartment. You know, I get one bed
Speaker 1: room for six hundred in Inglewood. Now it's like two
Speaker 1: thou dollars for one bedroom apartment. And Gowood you know,
Speaker 1: but uh, or I want to thank you for coming
Speaker 1: on this edition of The Gangster Chronicles. I want to
Speaker 1: just remind everyone that your book just came out November
Speaker 1: two THO. Yeah, yesterday, and technically yesterday. Not not only that, Alex,
Speaker 1: but we want everybody to know that this interview was different.
Speaker 1: It's certain things that we couldn't we couldn't address. It's
Speaker 1: things that we didn't want to address with this this
Speaker 1: man here because um of his book and his personal
Speaker 1: safety whatever. But good interview. We appreciate you coming here,
Speaker 1: and maybe we can just you know, get into it once.
Speaker 1: Everybody get this book and and and I need to
Speaker 1: read it so I can have more this. You know what,
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't even have a book yet.
Speaker 1: You ain't got a book. I don't have a book yet.
Speaker 1: I bought a book for a friend of mine is
Speaker 1: still in prison. He'll have it tomorrow. It's literally you
Speaker 1: doing any book signings or anything coming up. Uh. I'm
Speaker 1: talking with Borders. I bind the nobles over here. I
Speaker 1: don't know if the door Amazon in Century City. Uh,
Speaker 1: the mob Museum in Las Vegas wants me there for
Speaker 1: a talk in a book signing. I spoke with gentleman there.
Speaker 1: I said the end of January or February. So when
Speaker 1: you do get when you do get the schedule, let
Speaker 1: us know and we can let everybody else will let
Speaker 1: you know. That will work. And the book is available
Speaker 1: online at Amazon. It's also on Bars and Noble, The
Speaker 1: Accidental gang Story. They can go to my website w
Speaker 1: w W dot the Accidental Gangster dot com, and they
Speaker 1: can find me on Instagram at the Accidental Gangster dot com.
Speaker 1: All righty, that's or Spado the Accidental Gangster dot com,
Speaker 1: and also on Instagram at the Accidental Gangster. And his book.
Speaker 1: I saw his book already available online. It just came
Speaker 1: out yesterday, The Accidental Gangster. Go out there and get it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go get it as soon as possible, read it,
Speaker 1: and then I'm I want to have another conversation with
Speaker 1: you after I read the book. I'd be happy to
Speaker 1: come back. And I want to just thank everybody for
Speaker 1: listening to another episode of The Gangster Chronicles. Don't forget.
Speaker 1: You can hit James McDonald up on his Facebook page
Speaker 1: or his Instagram. You can hit me up at alex
Speaker 1: Alonzo one zero one on all social media platforms. Don't forget.
Speaker 1: He's still got those Death Row T shirts and uh,
Speaker 1: that's it. We're out. We're out, we're out. See y'all
Speaker 1: next week. This has been a digital showbutch network production.