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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio, Zaren.

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Speaker 2: Yo Elizabeth Dutton. How are you favorite, Elizabeth?

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Speaker 3: How's your heart?

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Speaker 2: My heart is good?

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Speaker 3: Wait, I'm your favorite Elizabeth.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you're my second favorite Dutton.

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Speaker 3: What I know, everyone's favorite Dutton is Travis dud.

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Speaker 2: No, your nephew. Oh he's technically.

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Speaker 3: He's my favorite.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, but I tell you you know, my brother Travis,

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Speaker 4: he's a he's a big draw is everybody loves.

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Speaker 2: He's got a lot of really stunning, attractive, like magnetic Duttons.

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Speaker 4: For a long time in my life, I was always

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Speaker 4: Travis's sister anywhere you get, oh you're Travis's sister. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: My sister tells me about how that was. She was

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Speaker 2: considered Zaren's sister, Like, oh, hey, little brunette. You know

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Speaker 2: that's the whole thing, Like that must suck.

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Speaker 4: It was like you go to a show, you go

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Speaker 4: to like see a band play, and like, oh you hey,

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Speaker 4: you're Travis's sister.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I have a name. No, I don't.

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Speaker 3: Anyway, you know, it's ridiculous.

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Speaker 5: I do.

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Speaker 2: Elizabeth. Now, you know out here in the West Coast,

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Speaker 2: you know, and I'm including like northern California, in this Oregon, sure,

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Speaker 2: Washington is when I'm talking about Cascadia. Thank you. We

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Speaker 2: have something with bigfoot. A lot of these states all

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Speaker 2: have going on big right, so you don't think of it,

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Speaker 2: at least we don't not here think of it. That

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Speaker 2: They also have that in other places, like in the

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Speaker 2: South and in like the Upper Midwest, like Michigan and

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Speaker 2: so forth. But it's also in New York. Really yes,

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Speaker 2: western Massachusetts and New York. They also have crazy bigfoot sightings.

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Speaker 2: And there are towns that have like whole like dedications

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Speaker 2: to Bigfoot.

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Speaker 3: They call it big Fest.

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Speaker 2: No that well, they call it sasquatch out in Whitehall,

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Speaker 2: New York. And in Whitehall, New York, they have a

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Speaker 2: sasquatch calling contest, so people line up, in this case

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Speaker 2: it was sixty contestants and they have the judges turn

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Speaker 2: around so they cannot see the contestants, and the contestants

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Speaker 2: then do their best bigfoot call or sasquatch call at

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Speaker 2: the judges or at the crowd.

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Speaker 4: Sasquatch sounds people like some people will tell you they've

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Speaker 4: recorded one, but you don't know.

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Speaker 2: And now the people will just hear stuff in the

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Speaker 2: woods and ask people from Appalachia. You're gonna hear stuff.

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Speaker 4: Oh yes, right, yeah. A fox will mess you up

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Speaker 4: exactly out here. A coyote, the.

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Speaker 2: Coyote, same thing, the yelping and saying your name, and

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Speaker 2: the wind. Who is that? How do you know my name?

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Speaker 2: So they do their fake bigfoot sasquatch calls, and then

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Speaker 2: they announce a winner.

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Speaker 3: Okay, right now.

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Speaker 2: These people they in this town. They all gather in

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Speaker 2: a park and they got like the food trucks and

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Speaker 2: the vendor tables. It's like a whole festival and these people,

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Speaker 2: sixty people. One of these contestants was described as quote

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Speaker 2: a steam punk sasquatch hunter.

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Speaker 4: Oh of course, I just know it's a good day

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Speaker 4: for Elizabeth. I'm not going to be I love that

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Speaker 4: for them.

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Speaker 2: Okay, how about a ventulquist? Love it? Who's got a

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Speaker 2: puppet that's called Littlefoot?

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Speaker 3: I love it?

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Speaker 4: I love it, you love it?

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Speaker 2: The winner had a crazy call, and I won't do

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Speaker 2: an impression of it.

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Speaker 3: Do they sound like Chewbacca?

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Speaker 2: Most of them sounds something like Chaca, except for this

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Speaker 2: one woman who went out there. She had like a

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Speaker 2: two two on and like fairy like clothing and she

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Speaker 2: screamed at the judges of it for her. She turned

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Speaker 2: around and screamed at the backs of the judges where

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Speaker 2: you can see them, like winsay and stuff like, oh

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Speaker 2: my god, she's screaming at me. I love happy for

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Speaker 2: there you go, Elizabeth. I thought it was ridiculous that

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Speaker 2: they named a winner of the Sasquatch Call contest. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and well, we can probably put it up on Instagram, right,

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Speaker 2: I can a Facebook link for it, and then you go, yeah,

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Speaker 2: you can get a video to the interns and maybe

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Speaker 2: they'll put it up. I don't know. But the winner

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Speaker 2: was this guy named Grant Kennedy. So congratulations to Kenny.

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Speaker 2: Named after two US presidents.

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Speaker 3: That means something.

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Speaker 2: And then about him is he wins.

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Speaker 4: The love that for everyone there. I'm so happy for them.

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Speaker 4: I just white knuckled it through all those descriptions. Do

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Speaker 4: you want to know what else is ridiculous?

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Speaker 3: Pizza? What this is ridiculous crime?

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Speaker 4: A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons

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Speaker 4: It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred

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Speaker 4: percent ridiculous.

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Speaker 2: You damn right. Okay, I had to run back.

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Speaker 4: Something I love to do is speculate as to whether

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Speaker 4: a business is affront for money laundering or not.

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Speaker 2: You do do that?

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Speaker 3: You love that?

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Speaker 4: Of course they're all time classic mattress stores. Mattress stores, yeah,

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Speaker 4: oh yeah, their conspiracy theories just like they abound online

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Speaker 4: about how nobody's ever in those Yeah, that they're only

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Speaker 4: in business to wash money or like the affront because

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Speaker 4: they're not very far from each other, like sometimes they're

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Speaker 4: like within a couple of blocks.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and like are we really buying that many mattresses?

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Speaker 3: Right?

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Speaker 2: And now they're all online and people are buying them.

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Speaker 2: They show up their boxes like we're still going.

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Speaker 4: To recently and it came in a box and then

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Speaker 4: it was just it just grew and grew.

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Speaker 2: Have you seen the videos where they like hurt people

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Speaker 2: when they pop out of the boxes. We get flung

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Speaker 2: out of windows and stuff. It's amazing.

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Speaker 3: I kind of thought that might happen, but sadly you

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Speaker 3: didn't have.

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Speaker 4: But you know, I like, so there are all these

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Speaker 4: conspiracy theories about mattress stores. I'm a sucker for a

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Speaker 4: good conspiracy theory, like you are. I am, although I

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Speaker 4: should be careful what I say because my Instagram algorithm

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Speaker 4: is like rife with a certain conspiracy theory right now,

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Speaker 4: I won't get into which one. And Instagram is listening,

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Speaker 4: I know, And so I see a lot of reel's

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Speaker 4: parsing footage and facts or like lack of facts. Oh

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Speaker 4: then I made the mistake of watching a couple of

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Speaker 4: them out of like morbid curiosity, and then I started

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Speaker 4: getting like much darker, more offensive conspiracy theory reels like

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Speaker 4: the world's a sick plays there and social media is

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Speaker 4: even sicker. So anyway, business fronts, there are storefronts that

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Speaker 4: don't see much foot traffic and don't seem to sell

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Speaker 4: anything in like high demand wig shops, some antique stores,

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Speaker 4: food places that either like never seem to be open

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Speaker 4: or they never have anyone in them.

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Speaker 3: Also a lot of florists florists yep.

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Speaker 4: I was reading recently on my favorite website, read it

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Speaker 4: about just this very thing, after I wrote this outline

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Speaker 4: that I saw it asking about have you seen any

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Speaker 4: like what business have you seen that you think are

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Speaker 4: front and.

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Speaker 3: Someone talked about a twenty four hour floorist.

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Speaker 2: Really, I'm telling you.

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Speaker 4: It is dependent on like the shopping district. So in

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Speaker 4: a small rural town, there's a likelihood that the owner

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Speaker 4: of the shop like owns the building. Taxes are low,

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Speaker 4: it could be like a hobby or right off off

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Speaker 4: in a higher cost of living areas are one with

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Speaker 4: like more foot traffic.

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Speaker 3: Some of the shops are just inexplicable.

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Speaker 2: Totally, like my typewriter repair guy, Yes, that guy.

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Speaker 4: Have you ever been into a restaurant where you think it.

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Speaker 3: Might have been a front.

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Speaker 2: I'm usually surprised when I'm not having that thought because

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Speaker 2: I go to a lot of places where there aren't

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Speaker 2: people and I'm like, oh, hey, it's just me and

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Speaker 2: the chef and the one waitress, and I'm like, how

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Speaker 2: are they I've been here for three hours? How are

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Speaker 2: they staying?

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Speaker 3: Just like written in pencil on a paper tap.

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Speaker 2: I love those places. I seek them out, and then

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Speaker 2: I go back again to.

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Speaker 3: See some of those places.

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Speaker 4: It's like, it's either going to be the worst meal

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Speaker 4: of your life in killies or the best all time best.

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Speaker 2: Because it's a money laundering front, they got nothing to do,

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Speaker 2: they make a great meal.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 4: Well, today I have the story of a restaurant that

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Speaker 4: was a front, and even better, it involves two of

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Speaker 4: your favorite elements of crime.

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Speaker 2: Stories really drugs okay.

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Speaker 3: And the mafia.

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Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.

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Speaker 4: You know. So let's start off with our main character,

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Speaker 4: Gitano Barlamente. What a great Yeah, known as Dontano bat Lamente. Yeah, Tano,

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Speaker 4: but he was like don Tano. He was the Caapo

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Speaker 4: Familia of his hometown in Chinisi, Sicily. Wow. And he

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Speaker 4: was the head of the Sicilian mafia commission in the seventies.

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Speaker 4: Big dog girl so Kane, Yeah yeah, so Bartlamenti. He

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Speaker 4: was born in nineteen twenty three, the youngest in his

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Speaker 4: immediate family five boys, four girls, and the family they

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Speaker 4: were dairy farmers, so he dropped out of school and

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Speaker 4: he was ten to work at the dairy. In nineteen

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Speaker 4: forty one, he got drafted into the Royal Italian Army,

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Speaker 4: but he deserted during the Allied invasion of Sicily in

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Speaker 4: nineteen forty three to protect the good on him.

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Speaker 3: No, he was just like, this is my chance.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, he's like who yeah, he's not from the north.

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Speaker 2: They love It's true.

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Speaker 4: So he married this woman, Teresa Italy, and this was

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Speaker 4: a big deal because her sister was married to Filippo Remi.

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Speaker 4: Remi was the Kappo mafia of Alcamo.

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Speaker 2: Okay, I think I've come across that name.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, he so Tano.

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Speaker 4: He starts a lemon grove and he was able to

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Speaker 4: kind of like dodge some legal trouble that he'd gotten into.

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Speaker 4: And before long he ditched the lemons and he started

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Speaker 4: a construction business, and he supplied crushed rock for the

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Speaker 4: Palermo Punta.

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Speaker 3: Reci airport into Congrege.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and he bribed officials to have the airport built

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Speaker 4: near his hometown. Was this a convenient place to build

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Speaker 4: the airport? Probably not, of course, not lucky for him.

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Speaker 4: His family property had plenty of rock and gravel for

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Speaker 4: the projects, so no cost to him.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 4: So between the gravel business and the associative trucking transportation

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Speaker 4: business that he started to keep up with the project,

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Speaker 4: he was employing a heck of a lot of people

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Speaker 4: in town. They loved this. Yeah, it's not a wealthy area.

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Speaker 4: So soon enough, Battlelamente became the leader of the mafia

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Speaker 4: in Chin. That's nineteen sixty three. According to Giovanni Impastato,

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Speaker 4: brother of slain anti mafia activist Giuseppe Impastato.

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Speaker 2: Okay, there you go.

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Speaker 3: Quote.

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Speaker 4: It seemed that Battlamente was well liked by the Carbonieri

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Speaker 4: as he was calm, reliable and always liked to chat.

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Speaker 4: It almost felt like he was doing them a favor

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Speaker 4: and that nothing ever happened in Chinisi. It was a

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Speaker 4: quiet little town. I often used to see them walking

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Speaker 4: arm in arm with Tano Badlamenti and his henchmen. You

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Speaker 4: can't have faith in the institutions when you see the

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Speaker 4: police arm in arm with the Mafiosi and the Carbonara.

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Speaker 2: Aren't just the normal police, They're like the militarized police.

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Speaker 2: They're in Mexico. They have the machine guns in the

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Speaker 2: airport to the train station. Yeah, so you're watching like

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Speaker 2: the federal police.

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Speaker 3: Right watch.

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Speaker 4: And as an aside, I love when Italian men walk

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Speaker 4: together arm in arm, like Yeah, I think it's terribly charming.

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Speaker 2: It is also they hold hands too.

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Speaker 4: I love that battle Ofmente. His run as boss of

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Speaker 4: CHINII didn't last though. He got run out of town,

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Speaker 4: actually run out of Sicily by rival mafiosi. That was

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Speaker 4: nineteen seventy eight.

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Speaker 3: So he followed in his brother.

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Speaker 4: Yes, he followed in his brother's footsteps, and he headed

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Speaker 4: for the States. But he wasn't starting from scratch. He

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Speaker 4: had connections and he used them. See bart Lamentee had

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Speaker 4: deep connections to various drug rings. He knew morphine suppliers

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Speaker 4: in Turkey and they would process the stuff into heroin

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Speaker 4: in Sicily and then smuggle it into the US. He

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Speaker 4: knew Colombians who ran coke from South America to New York,

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Speaker 4: new the mall, and he knew about the network that

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Speaker 4: they used. So in the US pizza shops and other

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Speaker 4: mafia run businesses from New York to Illinois and Wisconsin.

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Speaker 4: They served as the base of operations. So this wasn't

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Speaker 4: something where people could go in and order a slice

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Speaker 4: with like an extra dusting of palm and like walk

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Speaker 4: out with a slice and a baggy of coke. These

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Speaker 4: were wholesale location and this is where distributors on both

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Speaker 4: ends met to make deals. Yes, and also they'd go

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Speaker 4: there to drop off earnings to be washed by the business.

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Speaker 2: It's like Satrelli's pork Shop and the Sopranos where they're just.

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Speaker 4: Meeting meeting up there and it's a cash business, baby,

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Speaker 4: so they can wash it. And it wasn't just pizza joints.

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Speaker 4: Bakers worked too. A successful one was in Queen's and

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Speaker 4: that was owned by Salvatore Totoo. He was a big

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Speaker 4: guy in the Banano crime family in New York.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Joe Bananas, Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 4: So Catalano he connected Battle Ofmente with the American mafia

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Speaker 4: and Battle Ofmente. He had this whole crew of Sicilians

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Speaker 4: that he ran with.

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Speaker 2: Looks like a Godfather subplot.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.

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Speaker 4: They were called the Zips, which was a slur used

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Speaker 4: by Italian American mobsters in reference to newer immigrant Sicilian mafiosi.

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Speaker 3: So Catalano he would carry.

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Speaker 4: Around like forty pounds of heroin in a suitcase.

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Speaker 3: Forty pounds.

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Speaker 4: He took fifteen different trips from Brooklyn to Chicago. He

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Speaker 4: went down to Miami Beach. He got paid five grand

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Speaker 4: for each delivery. So that's like thirty thousand today. And

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Speaker 4: according to the FBI quote from January nineteen seventy five

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Speaker 4: until April nineteen eighty four and estimated one point six

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Speaker 4: billion dollars worth of heroin one thousand, six hundred and

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Speaker 4: fifty pounds at the time was shipped to this country

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Speaker 4: in the plot. The cash profits were then illegally laundered

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Speaker 4: through a web of banks and brokerages in the US

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Speaker 4: and overseas. In total, the ring quote laundered many millions

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Speaker 4: of dollars in drug money, including twenty million dollars sent

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Speaker 4: to Switzerland through trading accounts at E. F. Hutton and

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Speaker 4: Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Mean F.

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Speaker 2: Hutton money, Launders people. Listen, they did exactly.

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Speaker 4: Those brokerages not charged with any crime, of course not they.

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Speaker 3: Never are shocking.

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Speaker 2: Look at Deutsche Bank, right.

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Speaker 4: So there was this undercover FBI agent, Joe Pistoni. He

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Speaker 4: infiltrated the Bonano crime fan in nineteen seventy six, and

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Speaker 4: then he delivered information that went on to bring the

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Speaker 4: whole operation crumbling down. So the FEDS they gathered all

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Speaker 4: this evidence and they used just about every investigative tool

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Speaker 4: they had. I'm talking like round the clock surveillance on

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Speaker 4: multiple different people across multiple continents.

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Speaker 2: This is like when Rudy Giuliani was making his name as.

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Speaker 4: USA, yes, before the hair dye ran.

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Speaker 3: Down his face.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, back when he was on the I guess like

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Speaker 2: you know the effective side of law enforcements.

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Speaker 4: Actually, thousands of phone calls got monitored, some of which

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Speaker 4: were like payphones in the middle of nowhere. So everyone

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Speaker 4: involved pretty much spoke Sicilian, which is not the same

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Speaker 4: as Italian. And it wasn't just Sicilian. They spoke in

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Speaker 4: code in Sicilian also.

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Speaker 2: They did both their own language, then they did code words,

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Speaker 2: and then they also had like imagine a dialect as well, right.

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Speaker 4: So you couldn't just translate it over. The FBI had

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Speaker 4: to assemble this team of like expert translators code breakers

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Speaker 4: to like work together to pull this all out, create.

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Speaker 2: A Sicilian Nigma machine breer pretty.

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Speaker 4: Much, so things started to move. In April of nineteen

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Speaker 4: eighty four, this guy Pietro Alfano, he was a nephew

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Speaker 4: who was big in the mob in the Midwest. He

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Speaker 4: ran a pizza parlor in Oregon, Illinois. He flew from

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Speaker 4: Chicago to Madrid to meet up with battle Ofmente and

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Speaker 4: Battlemente was there with his wife and his son Veto.

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Speaker 4: So the FBI they're very interested in this trip, so

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Speaker 4: they let the Spanish authorities know just how interested they were.

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Speaker 4: On April eighth, Battle Ofmente and Alfano they went for

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Speaker 4: a walk together down the streets of Madrid. It's like

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Speaker 4: so evocative boom there were the Spaniards grabbing them up,

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Speaker 4: and they went and got veto two.

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Speaker 2: And they hated drugs Spaniards out of Franco.

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Speaker 4: They the Spaniards have the craziest, like harshest heroin.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So this triggered action stateside, right, So the next

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Speaker 4: day the FBI rounded up thirty members of the mafia

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Speaker 4: and various associates who worked with Battlemente. In the US,

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Speaker 4: six different bureau offices work together to make the arrest,

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Speaker 4: carry out the search horns because they knew as soon

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Speaker 4: as he gets busted in Madrid, they got to take

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Speaker 4: action over here. They got drug paraphernalia, tons of cash,

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Speaker 4: loads of weapons, like documents for days Battleamentee. He gets

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Speaker 4: extradited to the US in November of nineteen eighty four,

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Speaker 4: and federal prosecutors had to agree with a request that

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Speaker 4: Spain made. They said that Battleamente could not be sentenced

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Speaker 4: to more than thirty years in prison because that was

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Speaker 4: the maximum sentence under Spanish law for these cases. So like,

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Speaker 4: you can't exceed our sentencing. So like Feds are like,

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Speaker 4: all right, fine, send them over here. So the trial

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Speaker 4: kicks off. The media immediately calls it the pizza connection

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Speaker 4: because of all the pizza parlors that were fronting for

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Speaker 4: the drug sales. And the case was a monster, it

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00:16:51,120 --> 00:16:54,880
Speaker 4: was super complex. It all started April twenty fourth, nineteen

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Speaker 4: eighty five. Twenty two total defendants, all Sicilian born men.

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Speaker 4: There was this fellow by the name of Tomaso Bouschetta.

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Speaker 4: He was on the stand for nine days. He was

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Speaker 4: this former Sicilian mafio so who became an informer after he.

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Speaker 3: Was arrested in Brazil.

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Speaker 4: So according to The New York Times, he spent the

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Speaker 4: time quote detailing the structure of the mafia and naming

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Speaker 4: several of the witnesses as Mafioso. Bouschetta, in a federal

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Speaker 4: witness protection program, was expected to testify it several trials,

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Speaker 4: both in the United States and Italy involving members and

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Speaker 4: suspected members of the mafia. Another witness was Salvatore Contorno.

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Speaker 4: He was brought in from Italy to testify, and according

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Speaker 4: to The Times, he quote appeared at the hearing in

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Speaker 4: a suit, shirt and tie of contrasting shades of blue,

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Speaker 4: and spoke rapidly in Italian. He sounds rat right, I

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Speaker 4: love him and I'm sure, he's a horrible human being.

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Speaker 3: So he said theory. I love the idea.

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00:17:59,520 --> 00:18:03,400
Speaker 4: Yes, he said he saw four of the defendants, including

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Speaker 4: Salvatory Catalono, at a mafia banquet in Sicily.

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Speaker 3: Could you imagine the food? Yeah?

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00:18:09,960 --> 00:18:11,880
Speaker 4: Oh, and he also saw him at a drug deal

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00:18:11,960 --> 00:18:14,679
Speaker 4: involving forty kilos a heroin that too, I saw him

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00:18:14,680 --> 00:18:16,280
Speaker 4: there too.

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Speaker 2: It was just a small dealer.

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Speaker 4: They hauled in this Swiss citizen, Paul Vadidell, he testified,

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Speaker 4: and he copped.

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00:18:23,920 --> 00:18:25,840
Speaker 3: Taking in more than eleven million.

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Speaker 4: Dollars for this Turkish fugitive. That guy was the morphine

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00:18:29,880 --> 00:18:34,120
Speaker 4: plug for the Sicilians, okay, and the Swiss guy said, quote,

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Speaker 4: there was a mountain of money, and he's he talked

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Speaker 4: about how it was like US currency, and stacks of twenties, fifties,

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00:18:40,600 --> 00:18:46,720
Speaker 4: hundreds filled six suitcases. Another suspect testified that he'd taken

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Speaker 4: huge amounts of cash to brokerage firms in Manhattan on

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00:18:50,640 --> 00:18:53,200
Speaker 4: behalf of members of the drug ring, and he said

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Speaker 4: he didn't know at the time that it was drug money.

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00:18:55,119 --> 00:18:57,680
Speaker 4: He thought it was something he called black money from

379
00:18:57,720 --> 00:19:01,280
Speaker 4: restaurants and other places that want to avoid taxes by

380
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Speaker 4: moving the money secretly to.

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Speaker 2: Switzerland under the table money.

382
00:19:04,359 --> 00:19:07,320
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so The New York Times recounted his testimony

383
00:19:07,320 --> 00:19:10,760
Speaker 4: as such, quote in September nineteen eighty two, I stopped

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00:19:10,760 --> 00:19:13,080
Speaker 4: going to New York to receive money, he said, after

385
00:19:13,119 --> 00:19:16,719
Speaker 4: an official at EF Hutton had disclosed that the FBI

386
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Speaker 4: was getting interested in our account in the United States.

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00:19:19,880 --> 00:19:23,720
Speaker 4: So EF Hutton is like you sweating the Feds, The

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00:19:23,800 --> 00:19:29,240
Speaker 4: Times added in quote. Another witness, Salvatore Amendeloto, testified earlier

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Speaker 4: that he had received almost ten million dollars in cash

390
00:19:32,080 --> 00:19:35,280
Speaker 4: from two men and had secretly transferred it overseas for them.

391
00:19:35,640 --> 00:19:37,400
Speaker 4: He said he picked up most of the money from

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Speaker 4: Francesco Castronovo, a defendant who formerly owned the Roma restaurant

393
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Speaker 4: in Medlo Park, New Jersey. So this is pretty much

394
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Speaker 4: like a classic mafia drug bust, albeit with the base

395
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Speaker 4: of operations being pizza parlors.

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Speaker 3: Let's take a break, but.

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Speaker 4: When we come back, I've got some amazing ridiculousness for you.

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Speaker 3: Zara Elizabeth, how you doing.

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00:20:18,720 --> 00:20:21,439
Speaker 2: I'm loving this. You didn't mention I had one of

400
00:20:21,440 --> 00:20:22,880
Speaker 2: my other great interests pizza.

401
00:20:22,960 --> 00:20:23,320
Speaker 3: Pizza.

402
00:20:23,359 --> 00:20:27,639
Speaker 4: Oh that is true. And men named Salvatore. There's like

403
00:20:27,720 --> 00:20:32,359
Speaker 4: fifteen of them minute. So you know how when you

404
00:20:32,440 --> 00:20:33,960
Speaker 4: watch old episodes.

405
00:20:33,520 --> 00:20:35,239
Speaker 3: Of Law and Order, see I'm throwing in another thing

406
00:20:35,280 --> 00:20:35,640
Speaker 3: you love?

407
00:20:35,920 --> 00:20:36,880
Speaker 2: What is it my birthday?

408
00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:40,119
Speaker 4: You basically see the cast of the Sopranos before they

409
00:20:40,119 --> 00:20:43,360
Speaker 4: became stars. Like that show is thick with New York

410
00:20:43,440 --> 00:20:47,280
Speaker 4: actors like destined for greatness, although I'm not so sure

411
00:20:47,280 --> 00:20:47,879
Speaker 4: about today.

412
00:20:48,119 --> 00:20:50,520
Speaker 3: Here's my quick side rant about Law and Order.

413
00:20:51,200 --> 00:20:52,680
Speaker 4: I love that show.

414
00:20:53,119 --> 00:20:53,439
Speaker 3: I love it.

415
00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:58,359
Speaker 4: It's my go to my comfort watch. Lenny Briscoe sat Lenny.

416
00:20:58,400 --> 00:20:58,840
Speaker 3: He was the best.

417
00:20:58,920 --> 00:21:03,120
Speaker 4: Jack McCoy amazing for the bulk of the first run.

418
00:21:03,119 --> 00:21:04,960
Speaker 4: Because it was canceled and then it came back a

419
00:21:05,040 --> 00:21:08,920
Speaker 4: few seasons ago. It felt like New York at the beginning.

420
00:21:09,240 --> 00:21:13,199
Speaker 4: The extras all looked like real people. Actors looked like

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00:21:13,280 --> 00:21:17,439
Speaker 4: real people. The storylines were like about real feeling people,

422
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:21,560
Speaker 4: working folks, and they had these amazing actors, some already

423
00:21:21,600 --> 00:21:23,800
Speaker 4: accomplished wh would like dip in for a guest turn,

424
00:21:23,880 --> 00:21:29,560
Speaker 4: but most were like working New York's theater actors. Yeah,

425
00:21:29,640 --> 00:21:31,399
Speaker 4: and a lot of times Law and Order was the

426
00:21:31,400 --> 00:21:34,280
Speaker 4: big break. So like casting folks like kept their eyes

427
00:21:34,359 --> 00:21:37,640
Speaker 4: on who made it, you know, onto the show Now though,

428
00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:41,480
Speaker 4: I feel like every crime involves someone violently rich, like.

429
00:21:41,440 --> 00:21:42,560
Speaker 3: The pen House set.

430
00:21:42,680 --> 00:21:47,399
Speaker 4: Yeah, billionaires, venture capitalists like you rarely see working people

431
00:21:47,440 --> 00:21:49,439
Speaker 4: on the show anymore. And the actors have that like

432
00:21:49,760 --> 00:21:54,920
Speaker 4: la actorly look veneer's good hands. No, not at all

433
00:21:56,000 --> 00:21:58,040
Speaker 4: so and that's not how it was in the earlier seasons,

434
00:21:58,080 --> 00:22:00,439
Speaker 4: like where they film in New York feel more.

435
00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:01,840
Speaker 3: Like a set than a street now.

436
00:22:01,840 --> 00:22:04,800
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, anyway, it's very much like what is this

437
00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:06,880
Speaker 2: the Cosby Show? Like you know you just got these

438
00:22:06,920 --> 00:22:07,760
Speaker 2: Brooklyn Browns?

439
00:22:07,800 --> 00:22:09,320
Speaker 3: Do anything clean?

440
00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:13,840
Speaker 4: And yeah, I missed the gude exactly.

441
00:22:13,920 --> 00:22:15,720
Speaker 2: I want like some punk kids who are mad that

442
00:22:15,760 --> 00:22:18,400
Speaker 2: they're getting like shake shaken down outside the bedego.

443
00:22:18,600 --> 00:22:22,040
Speaker 4: I want someone loading boxes onto a dolly. I can't

444
00:22:22,040 --> 00:22:23,879
Speaker 4: stop to talk. I can't answer the questions.

445
00:22:23,880 --> 00:22:24,399
Speaker 2: But you got to.

446
00:22:24,359 --> 00:22:25,159
Speaker 3: Walk and talk for this.

447
00:22:26,840 --> 00:22:29,639
Speaker 4: So New York actors, how do they factor into what

448
00:22:29,680 --> 00:22:30,480
Speaker 4: I'm talking about?

449
00:22:30,560 --> 00:22:31,160
Speaker 2: I'm so curious.

450
00:22:31,160 --> 00:22:35,040
Speaker 4: Elizabeth Saren, close your eyes.

451
00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:36,199
Speaker 3: Oh, I want you to picture it.

452
00:22:43,200 --> 00:22:47,960
Speaker 4: You are an actor cal Saint John to be exact,

453
00:22:48,480 --> 00:22:50,400
Speaker 4: you played at Turnbull Ac.

454
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:51,560
Speaker 3: In the movie The Warriors.

455
00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:54,240
Speaker 4: You do some off Broadway work, and you're starting to

456
00:22:54,280 --> 00:22:57,679
Speaker 4: get into casting. Last year, you were an extras casting

457
00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:00,959
Speaker 4: assistant on the film Pritzy's Honor. You've also been an

458
00:23:01,040 --> 00:23:04,800
Speaker 4: extras casting assistant on the TV show The Equalizer and

459
00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:08,760
Speaker 4: the blockbuster movie The Muppets Take Manhattan. It's through your

460
00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:11,880
Speaker 4: casting work that you got worried about this gig. You're

461
00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:14,720
Speaker 4: sitting in a room off the courtroom in Federal District

462
00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:19,439
Speaker 4: Court in Manhattan. With you are three other actors, Joe Nimmo,

463
00:23:20,040 --> 00:23:23,840
Speaker 4: Debbie Merrill, and Robert Petito. All of you have theater

464
00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:26,959
Speaker 4: experience and that's why you were selected. Of course, you're

465
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:29,639
Speaker 4: all getting paid less than twenty dollars an hour for this,

466
00:23:29,720 --> 00:23:32,600
Speaker 4: but a job's a job, and this is interesting work.

467
00:23:33,119 --> 00:23:36,040
Speaker 4: There's the muffled sound of the busy courthouse hallway just

468
00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:39,440
Speaker 4: outside the door. The other door leads to the courtroom itself.

469
00:23:39,840 --> 00:23:41,800
Speaker 4: You've been running your lines at home for a week

470
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:43,800
Speaker 4: or so. You haven't had a chance to rehearse with

471
00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:46,399
Speaker 4: the other actors yet, though, and it doesn't look like

472
00:23:46,440 --> 00:23:49,320
Speaker 4: you will have the time to do so. Joe Nimmo

473
00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:53,200
Speaker 4: is doing vocal exercises and clearing her throat. She's also

474
00:23:53,280 --> 00:23:56,840
Speaker 4: currently in rehearsals for an off off Broadway play called

475
00:23:57,000 --> 00:23:59,959
Speaker 4: Immortal Beloved, or so she told you when you all

476
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:01,879
Speaker 4: gathered at the coffee maker in the corner of the

477
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:05,159
Speaker 4: room when you first arrived, Robert Petito told you that

478
00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:08,359
Speaker 4: he's the artistic director of an off off Broadway group

479
00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:12,199
Speaker 4: called the American Ensemble Company. He's flipping through the pages

480
00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:15,160
Speaker 4: of his script, highlighting lines, and then flipping forward.

481
00:24:14,840 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 3: A few pages.

482
00:24:16,119 --> 00:24:18,719
Speaker 4: I find it very exciting to appear in court instead

483
00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:21,520
Speaker 4: of on stage, he says. You nod and take a

484
00:24:21,520 --> 00:24:24,199
Speaker 4: deep breath. Debbie Merrill is in the other corner of

485
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 4: the room doing deep stretches and leg lifts. She's humming

486
00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:29,639
Speaker 4: a tune and she has a huge smile on her face.

487
00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:33,440
Speaker 4: She told you she's recently played Christopher Reeves's roller skating

488
00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:36,200
Speaker 4: friend in Marriage of Figaro at the Circle on the

489
00:24:36,240 --> 00:24:39,720
Speaker 4: Square Theater. She straightens up and tells the room, you know,

490
00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:42,280
Speaker 4: actors have never been used before in a trial, so

491
00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:43,520
Speaker 4: this is history.

492
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 3: She's right.

493
00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:47,440
Speaker 4: When the federal prosecutors told you about the job, they

494
00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:51,080
Speaker 4: explained that you'd be reading transcripts of a pizzeria owner

495
00:24:51,119 --> 00:24:54,600
Speaker 4: and members of his family talking about money laundering he said,

496
00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:58,040
Speaker 4: the original conversations of the defendants were in a Sicilian dialect,

497
00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 4: making it necessary to present the English transcripts to the jury.

498
00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:04,520
Speaker 4: You asked if you should do an accent. Please don't,

499
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:08,680
Speaker 4: he said. He explained that normally prosecutors or court employees

500
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:11,480
Speaker 4: would read the transcripts, but there were so many recorded

501
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:14,640
Speaker 4: conversations in this case that the task was considered burdens

502
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:17,679
Speaker 4: on the boring. And that's where you come in. The

503
00:25:17,760 --> 00:25:20,440
Speaker 4: judges clerk pokes her head into the room. They're ready

504
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 4: for you, she announces.

505
00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:24,320
Speaker 3: You get up and shake your arms, ready.

506
00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:27,000
Speaker 4: To put on the performance of a lifetime. Hey, guys,

507
00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:29,840
Speaker 4: you announced to your co stars. It's very important that

508
00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:32,760
Speaker 4: we get every word right. The four of you file

509
00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:34,840
Speaker 4: into the courtroom and everyone is silent.

510
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:38,280
Speaker 3: You don't know why, but you'd expected some applause. The

511
00:25:38,320 --> 00:25:39,040
Speaker 3: guy coughs.

512
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:42,440
Speaker 4: You and Robert Petito take your places in chairs just.

513
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 3: In front of the witness stand.

514
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:46,879
Speaker 4: The squeak of the chairs dragging across the floor punctuates

515
00:25:46,920 --> 00:25:49,919
Speaker 4: the silence. You don't know this, but what you're about

516
00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:54,440
Speaker 4: to read is considered the most significant evidence against Tano Badlimente.

517
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:55,000
Speaker 3: Today.

518
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:58,120
Speaker 4: I'll be reading the part of mister Bodlamente. You tell

519
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 4: the courtroom, thank you, Saint John will do the introductions.

520
00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:02,560
Speaker 3: You nod.

521
00:26:02,960 --> 00:26:05,520
Speaker 4: The prosecutor repeats what you've said and adds that mister

522
00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:09,080
Speaker 4: Boblomente was calling from Brazil. He then tells the court

523
00:26:09,119 --> 00:26:12,560
Speaker 4: that Robert Petito will be reading the transcript of another defendant,

524
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:19,360
Speaker 4: Salvatore Mazurko. You begin, I think that by the beginning

525
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:22,639
Speaker 4: of next week they will come with twenty two parcels

526
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:27,720
Speaker 4: or with eleven parcels, whatever you guys prefer. Robert responds

527
00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:29,720
Speaker 4: to you, his glasses perched on the end of his

528
00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:31,840
Speaker 4: nose as he looks down at the paper in his hand.

529
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:38,520
Speaker 4: All right, now there's another thing, you say. I met

530
00:26:38,560 --> 00:26:42,320
Speaker 4: the guy with the shirts four years ago, but there's

531
00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:45,760
Speaker 4: a little problem. But there's another guy here that has

532
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:49,879
Speaker 4: there's ten percent acrylic I understand little about.

533
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:53,840
Speaker 3: This, Robert, but ten percent is not the bad.

534
00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:58,640
Speaker 4: The prosecution interrupts you. Please note that the defendants used

535
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:01,840
Speaker 4: code words to discuss the purity and price of heroin

536
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:07,920
Speaker 4: and cocaine. You continue, A competent individual told me that

537
00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 4: it is good cotton, but that it contains ten percent acrylics.

538
00:27:13,760 --> 00:27:15,160
Speaker 3: It's not pure cotton.

539
00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 4: The cost over there will come to sixty cents, whereas

540
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:23,160
Speaker 4: the other one will come to more than ninety cents. Robert,

541
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:27,040
Speaker 4: the one that is a percat. You look up and

542
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 4: see that the gallery of the courtroom is riveted. This

543
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:34,120
Speaker 4: is showbiz, baby, and you love it so.

544
00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:37,240
Speaker 2: Acting.

545
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 4: I went down a bit of a rabbit hole researching

546
00:27:41,359 --> 00:27:45,720
Speaker 4: these researching these actors, and I absolutely have to share

547
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:47,399
Speaker 4: with you the story of Debbie Merrill.

548
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:48,440
Speaker 3: She's the roller.

549
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:51,399
Speaker 4: Skating Okay, please, I'll read to you from her bio

550
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 4: on her website skategreat dot com. Quote as the owner

551
00:27:56,920 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 4: of Debbie Merrill's Skate Great USA former the Glide with

552
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:06,880
Speaker 4: Pride School of Skating trademark located located in Santa Monica, California,

553
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:10,120
Speaker 4: Debbie has taught thousands of students from all over the world,

554
00:28:10,280 --> 00:28:13,639
Speaker 4: ages four to eighty four how to inline skate. She

555
00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 4: is IISA certified, an award winning dancer us FSA silver medallist,

556
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:24,400
Speaker 4: figure skater, actress, choreographer and spokesperson. Debbie brings an exciting

557
00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:27,679
Speaker 4: range of talents to her work. An accomplished actress as

558
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:32,280
Speaker 4: well as international roller and ice skating performer, Debbie's appearances

559
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 4: include the film La Story and on Broadway The Marriage

560
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 4: of Figuaro, playing the role of Franchette on roller skates.

561
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:43,840
Speaker 4: The play's director Andre Serban specifically wanted Debbie to choreograph

562
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:47,080
Speaker 4: the unique and intricate skating secrets in the play, which

563
00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 4: were widely hailed up and down the Great White Way.

564
00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 4: Another precedent setting performance for Debbie was when she was

565
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:57,400
Speaker 4: commissioned by the White House to perform for the American

566
00:28:57,440 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 4: employees or a Ramco Oil company in Saudi Arabia and

567
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:05,320
Speaker 4: I E skated what does that even mean? Skated on

568
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 4: a special surface of silicone ice. Debbie is also the

569
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 4: first and only award winning rolling sambista Brazilian samba dancer

570
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:16,800
Speaker 4: on inline skates and bringing it to the House of

571
00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:18,760
Speaker 4: Blues in Los Angeles.

572
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 2: A rollerblading somebista on the House of Lost My.

573
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:27,760
Speaker 4: Mind with the Aramco reference, and then she goes on.

574
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:30,200
Speaker 4: She talks about her TV credits and then she adds.

575
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 4: Debbie's list of celebrities clients include Steve Martin, Juliet Lewis,

576
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 4: Los Angeles' Mayor, Richard Reardon, Geena Davis, Mary Elizabeth most Antonio,

577
00:29:40,560 --> 00:29:46,680
Speaker 4: Kim Delaney, Downtown, Julie Brown and Melanie Griffith and family,

578
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 4: as well as thousands of health conscious men and women

579
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 4: who come from all over the world to Southern California

580
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 4: to learn from the very best.

581
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:55,360
Speaker 2: I like that she can brag that she's taught Steve

582
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 2: Martin to rollerbok?

583
00:29:56,560 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 3: Did she teach Dakota Johnson?

584
00:29:58,640 --> 00:29:59,959
Speaker 2: And that's right?

585
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:01,400
Speaker 3: Thank god? I love her.

586
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:04,600
Speaker 4: Her photos are so intense.

587
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:05,880
Speaker 2: Her Instagram account.

588
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:09,400
Speaker 4: Oh, I got her website. I'm a huge fan. I'm

589
00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:10,080
Speaker 4: a huge fan.

590
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:12,959
Speaker 2: You're not being sarcastic in the least. You really do

591
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 2: like her stuff.

592
00:30:13,760 --> 00:30:18,040
Speaker 4: Oh no, I'm talking about Debbie. You love Dakota Johnson

593
00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:22,160
Speaker 4: fake and I love her. She's bonkers and I love her.

594
00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:23,240
Speaker 3: But I also Debbie.

595
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:23,960
Speaker 2: Debbie's hand down.

596
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:26,240
Speaker 4: Debbie is the one with the intense photos, Like, oh

597
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:27,640
Speaker 4: my god, yeah, like I thought you.

598
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 2: Were talk about Dakota Johnson. Did not the woman you

599
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:32,360
Speaker 2: showed me her Instagram account where she's got the fake photos?

600
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:35,720
Speaker 4: She was she had for like Architectural Digest. She hates limes,

601
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 4: but they put like a bowl of limes and she

602
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 4: just kept talking about how much she loves them. She

603
00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 4: was there was a thing recently where there she was

604
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:44,200
Speaker 4: at some Halloween thing and she's like, I'm dressed as

605
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 4: I'm Dakota Johnson dressed as Dakota Johnson, and Dakota Johnson is.

606
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 3: Going to get drunk tonight.

607
00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:54,160
Speaker 4: Like she's just so meta, she's so funny, Debbie, She's okay.

608
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:56,280
Speaker 4: I really wish I knew who she got to play

609
00:30:56,280 --> 00:30:57,680
Speaker 4: in the transcript recordings.

610
00:30:58,000 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 3: Oh yeah whatever.

611
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 4: Speaking of transcripts, batt Lamente he admitted that he talked

612
00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:07,960
Speaker 4: in code on the telephone, but he denied talking about drugs.

613
00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 3: They're like, well, what were you talking about. He's like,

614
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:12,000
Speaker 3: I don't want to say pinocle. I don't want to

615
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 3: talk about it.

616
00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:18,320
Speaker 4: Salvatore Mazurko he said they were talking about importing precious gems.

617
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:20,000
Speaker 2: Oh he's illegal, but.

618
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 3: Don't tell him anything.

619
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:27,920
Speaker 4: The trial went on for sixteen months. What it was,

620
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:30,640
Speaker 4: it is to this day the longest criminal jury trial

621
00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:31,600
Speaker 4: in US history.

622
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:33,680
Speaker 2: I would hope.

623
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:39,120
Speaker 4: Two defendants of the twenty two pleaded guilty. Okay, the

624
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 4: Vincenzo Roundazzo, he pleaded guilty using a false passport. Lorenzo Devardo,

625
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:50,080
Speaker 4: he pleaded to possessing a pistol and a silencer. There

626
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 4: were some one percent charge. Oh yeah, there were some

627
00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:55,720
Speaker 4: one percent or like near one percent of Some of

628
00:31:55,800 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 4: the other defendants were not going to discuss that.

629
00:31:57,880 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 2: Awesome, like suddenly he's gone.

630
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:00,680
Speaker 3: So by the time the.

631
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 4: Jury delivered its verdict March second, nineteen eighty seven, there

632
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 4: were nineteen defendants. All but one were convicted, and just

633
00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 4: like the defendant pool kept shrinking, the jury pool did too,

634
00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 4: because the verdict was actually from an eleven member jury.

635
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:22,040
Speaker 4: One of the jurors was excused because during deliberations her

636
00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:25,720
Speaker 4: family got threatening phone calls. So she's like, can I

637
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:27,959
Speaker 4: not do this? They're like, yeah, you're good, you can go.

638
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 3: Really mean neither, So.

639
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:34,120
Speaker 2: I was like, muscle it out. I don't care. You're

640
00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 2: a jury member.

641
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 3: Now, right exactly.

642
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:41,600
Speaker 4: Jitano, the uncle Batlamente sixty four of Chinnisi, Italy, former

643
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 4: head of the mafia in Sicily. He got sentenced to

644
00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:45,840
Speaker 4: forty five years in prison.

645
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:46,840
Speaker 2: Oh, he ain't going to make that.

646
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:49,480
Speaker 4: And find one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars. Now,

647
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 4: remember he was extradited from Spain and they were like,

648
00:32:52,560 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 4: you can't give him more than thirty Yeah, So the

649
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:56,440
Speaker 4: judge was like, all right, I'm going to sentence him

650
00:32:56,440 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 4: to forty five, but you got to release him after

651
00:32:58,200 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 4: thirty years.

652
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 3: Deals to deal. But still he's ninety four. It's not

653
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 3: going to happen.

654
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:08,720
Speaker 4: Yeah, Salvatory the baker Catialano, forty six of Queen's. He's

655
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 4: the one who headed up the American side of the operation.

656
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:14,120
Speaker 4: He was also sentenced to forty five years, but you know,

657
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:18,520
Speaker 4: he wasn't picked up in Spain, so tough for and

658
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 4: he got a bigger fine, one point one five million

659
00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 4: dollars and he had to pay a million dollars in restitution.

660
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 2: Ouch, that's a bite.

661
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 4: Here's another one, another Salvatory. Salvatory the little one, Mazurko

662
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:33,720
Speaker 4: fifty seven of Baldwin, New York. He got a thirty

663
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 4: five year sentence, fifty thousand dollars fine, had to pay

664
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 4: five hundred thousand restitution.

665
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 2: Me no wonder. They have all these great nicknames. Their

666
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:42,040
Speaker 2: all named sal You got.

667
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 4: To keep Salvatory. Toto Lamberti.

668
00:33:45,520 --> 00:33:47,680
Speaker 2: There you go, Toto Lamberto.

669
00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 4: Lamberti fifty five of Woodmere, New York. He got twenty years,

670
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:56,480
Speaker 4: fifty grand fine, five hundred thousand in restitution. His cousin Giuseppe,

671
00:33:56,640 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 4: the brother in law Lamberti.

672
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 3: He was the Brotherho fifty five of Baldwin, New York.

673
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:04,560
Speaker 4: He got thirty five years, find one hundred and fifty

674
00:34:04,600 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 4: grand order to pay five hundred grand a restitution.

675
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:11,399
Speaker 3: And that's the end of the pizza connection or is it?

676
00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:12,960
Speaker 2: Oh, there's more after.

677
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:13,960
Speaker 3: This ad break, we'll find out.

678
00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, Zaren, I'm still thinking about the brother in laws

679
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:39,840
Speaker 2: and nickname brother in law that's up there with Vincent

680
00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 2: the Chin Gagante, but he wasn't known as the chin.

681
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:45,359
Speaker 2: He made sure that people when they would talk about him,

682
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:48,120
Speaker 2: they pointed to their chin, so you couldn't get them

683
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:51,279
Speaker 2: on the mics now. But they now they knew the

684
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:54,640
Speaker 2: Federal the brother in law. I mean, that's like, hey,

685
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 2: you know the brother in law the b Yeah, exactly.

686
00:34:57,440 --> 00:34:58,280
Speaker 2: That's a great one.

687
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:03,080
Speaker 4: So it wasn't just New York that had a pizza connection. Washington,

688
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:06,880
Speaker 4: DC wanted in on it too, and the Feds wanted

689
00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 4: in on busting it. So that investigation started in nineteen

690
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:13,520
Speaker 4: eighty four and became public in nineteen eighty seven, and

691
00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:16,360
Speaker 4: the trial took place in January of nineteen ninety and

692
00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:18,879
Speaker 4: this time it was just an eleven day trial didn't

693
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:21,520
Speaker 4: go on as long and brief. You know who was

694
00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:26,839
Speaker 4: in on this, Salvatore Cotone, another Yeah, Sicilian who moved

695
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,920
Speaker 4: to Virginia Beach. He played the part like in his

696
00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:33,319
Speaker 4: daily life of this like patriotic immigrant in love with

697
00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 4: his new home and loves truth and justice.

698
00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:37,280
Speaker 2: Like a plumber or something. That was his front.

699
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:41,360
Speaker 4: Well, you're gonna find out. So James Glass Junior, a

700
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:43,880
Speaker 4: federal agent, he was like, that's not true. He's not

701
00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:46,160
Speaker 4: a good man, and I'm going to hunt him down.

702
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:50,960
Speaker 4: He was so set on dismantling the Cootone organization that

703
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 4: he asked to be taken off the desk and put

704
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:54,880
Speaker 4: back in the field to do it.

705
00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:57,480
Speaker 2: Damn, I'll take a pay cut. I don't care, right.

706
00:35:57,800 --> 00:36:01,480
Speaker 4: According to the Washington Post quote, the investigation exposed a

707
00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:04,439
Speaker 4: ring of Sicilian natives trying to push cocaine through local

708
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:09,839
Speaker 4: pizza parlors, torching restaurants that competed with friends businesses, contracting

709
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:14,000
Speaker 4: hits on enemies of the Kotone family, and financially devastating

710
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 4: loyal friends who trusted their life savings to sal Kotone.

711
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,920
Speaker 4: So Katone he came to the States in nineteen sixty

712
00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:23,080
Speaker 4: six when he was just nineteen years old. By the

713
00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:25,520
Speaker 4: mid seventies, he'd made his way to DC, and it

714
00:36:25,640 --> 00:36:28,720
Speaker 4: was there, according to the Post, that he quote found

715
00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:32,640
Speaker 4: a town hungry for pizza and virtually free of competitive

716
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:37,040
Speaker 4: crime families. It was just wide open spaces.

717
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 2: For pizza and free of crime families. How did you

718
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 2: figure that one out, Washington Post?

719
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:45,439
Speaker 4: So Kotone he opened his restaurant and immediately had beef

720
00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:50,160
Speaker 4: with competitors. Bass's was this like fashionable downtown restaurant on

721
00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:53,600
Speaker 4: fourteenth Street Northwest, and it was doing bang up business.

722
00:36:53,640 --> 00:36:56,400
Speaker 4: And Kotone is like, uhuh, not on my watch. So

723
00:36:56,440 --> 00:36:58,360
Speaker 4: he came up with a way to fix the situation.

724
00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:04,240
Speaker 4: He hired Alfred the butcher Toriello nickname Yeah to burn

725
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:07,279
Speaker 4: Bastens to the ground. And then so Toriello and this

726
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:10,600
Speaker 4: other guy, they filled soda cans with gasoline and just

727
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:13,920
Speaker 4: torched the joint. But what about the drugs, aarn.

728
00:37:13,719 --> 00:37:14,479
Speaker 2: What about the drugs?

729
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:16,480
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Katani was all about it.

730
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:21,200
Speaker 4: He did huge, multi kilo cocaine deals and these went

731
00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:24,319
Speaker 4: down at like the Holiday Inn in Crystal City, a

732
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 4: Denny's in Fairfax, Virginia, the Commonwealth Doctors Hospital in Fairfax.

733
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:31,960
Speaker 2: How about Howard Johnson's and Arlington.

734
00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 4: Jos who knows the FBI was on him pretty early on,

735
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:39,640
Speaker 4: and he loved it. He got a kick out of

736
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:41,239
Speaker 4: evading them and like toying with them.

737
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:44,160
Speaker 2: Wise, I'm a little.

738
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:45,960
Speaker 4: Afraid of Agent Glass, like I peel a little bit.

739
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:48,160
Speaker 4: But then he referred to him as quote in my shadow,

740
00:37:48,600 --> 00:37:50,640
Speaker 4: and he would pretend to want to cut deals for

741
00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:54,279
Speaker 4: information with him. So Glass, he's like this sixteen year

742
00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:57,239
Speaker 4: veteran of the FBI at the time. He testified that

743
00:37:57,320 --> 00:38:00,800
Speaker 4: Kotone approached him a bunch of times off for information

744
00:38:01,280 --> 00:38:03,920
Speaker 4: because he wanted to cut a deal to free his brother,

745
00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:08,600
Speaker 4: Giuseppe Kotone quote, I was surprised that someone who claimed

746
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 4: to be so innocent had so much access to criminal.

747
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:15,719
Speaker 2: Information, Glass said, interesting people.

748
00:38:15,640 --> 00:38:19,080
Speaker 4: So what could Kotone deliver in exchange for his brother's freedom?

749
00:38:20,080 --> 00:38:21,919
Speaker 2: Thank you for ask how do we get Giuseppe free?

750
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:23,640
Speaker 3: Thank you? He promised.

751
00:38:23,719 --> 00:38:27,440
Speaker 4: A man who was marketing a cash of stolen American arms,

752
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:30,800
Speaker 4: He's like, I've also I've also got a Greek who's

753
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:34,239
Speaker 4: got a bunch of the district's drug trade oh, and

754
00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:37,680
Speaker 4: then there's this plumber from Manassas who's got a boat

755
00:38:37,719 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 4: on the Potomac, a home in Florida, and a pen

756
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:41,200
Speaker 4: shot for.

757
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:42,520
Speaker 3: Huge drug deals.

758
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:46,279
Speaker 4: I got talking and glasses like I want, I want

759
00:38:46,320 --> 00:38:49,239
Speaker 4: something a little bit more. It's not just mobsters who

760
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:51,480
Speaker 4: can come up with a crafty plan, so can the FBI.

761
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 4: So Glass he recruited this guy, Vincenzo Hakanjin, and Vincenzo

762
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 4: told Kotone and he could put a hit on the

763
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:05,839
Speaker 4: guy who set up Katoni's brother Giuseppe sent him to jail,

764
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:12,359
Speaker 4: this guyln Franco Cassali. Yeah, so Vincenzo's like, I can

765
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:13,360
Speaker 4: put a hit out.

766
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:14,760
Speaker 3: On Lon Franco Casali.

767
00:39:14,760 --> 00:39:16,759
Speaker 4: It's going to cost you five thousand dollars and you

768
00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:18,160
Speaker 4: got to get me a drug hookup.

769
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:21,680
Speaker 3: And so Katoni is like, sounds like a deal to me, Like,

770
00:39:21,719 --> 00:39:22,440
Speaker 3: no problem.

771
00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:23,080
Speaker 2: That I.

772
00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 4: And I got five grand floating around. So in October

773
00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:33,960
Speaker 4: of nineteen eighty eight, Vincenzo he shows Kotone pictures of

774
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:38,239
Speaker 4: this bloody body and he hands him Cassali's favorite medallion,

775
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:42,000
Speaker 4: like I did the job, here's your proof. What does

776
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:44,560
Speaker 4: Katone say to him, God Bless America.

777
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:46,200
Speaker 3: That's what his line was.

778
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:49,400
Speaker 4: The thing was, the photo is fake, so Glass the

779
00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 4: agent covered the guy in tomato paste and took a

780
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:56,319
Speaker 4: picture really, and they got him a duplicate medallion, and

781
00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:56,960
Speaker 4: they got over.

782
00:39:57,400 --> 00:39:58,480
Speaker 2: It wasn't even the real one.

783
00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:01,360
Speaker 4: And then there they were in court and it was

784
00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:07,960
Speaker 4: called Operation Infamiita, a huge success. Infamita translates to a

785
00:40:08,080 --> 00:40:10,880
Speaker 4: violation of the Sicilian code of silence.

786
00:40:11,480 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 2: Oh so that you broke America.

787
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:19,879
Speaker 4: Right, Infamiita not to be confused with Infanta the decembrist song.

788
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:23,279
Speaker 2: I did not make that mistake, but I did a

789
00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:24,279
Speaker 2: couple of times.

790
00:40:24,640 --> 00:40:26,279
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, no way, and I had to

791
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:26,759
Speaker 3: listen to it.

792
00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:31,240
Speaker 4: It took break, it took six years, but the Feds

793
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:34,880
Speaker 4: did it. At trial Cootone, he denied that he knew

794
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:38,360
Speaker 4: any of the Infamita defendants. He was like, I've never

795
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:41,799
Speaker 4: financed any drug deals. I've never you know, put out

796
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:46,760
Speaker 4: contracts or on anyone. Have I ever had a restaurant torched,

797
00:40:46,880 --> 00:40:47,880
Speaker 4: Absolutely not.

798
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:49,400
Speaker 2: I've never even eaten pizza.

799
00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:50,759
Speaker 3: God Bless America.

800
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:54,319
Speaker 4: He said that after his brother Giuseppe was arrested, that

801
00:40:54,440 --> 00:40:57,719
Speaker 4: he made up crimes and connections just to keep the

802
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:00,680
Speaker 4: FBI interested in him, because he was like hoping to

803
00:41:00,840 --> 00:41:02,759
Speaker 4: craft a deal to get his brother out.

804
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 3: This is what he testified. Quote.

805
00:41:05,160 --> 00:41:07,879
Speaker 4: The game was, if the fire goes up, I put

806
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:09,960
Speaker 4: a little water on it. If it goes down, I

807
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:11,640
Speaker 4: put a little wood on it.

808
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:13,400
Speaker 3: Oh.

809
00:41:13,440 --> 00:41:18,120
Speaker 4: Either way, Cotone gets convicted by a federal jury of racketeering, conspiracy,

810
00:41:18,160 --> 00:41:21,080
Speaker 4: retaliation against an informant, eleven other felonies.

811
00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:22,920
Speaker 3: But there's More's.

812
00:41:22,680 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 2: Aaron, Yeah, I love Mobe.

813
00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 4: In nineteen eighty eight, the year after the initial Pizza

814
00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:31,279
Speaker 4: Connection convictions, the FBI wanted to, according to the New

815
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:36,160
Speaker 4: York Times, quote, capitalize on mafia paranoia after the Pizza case.

816
00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:39,879
Speaker 4: Realizing that those who escaped that roundup would be looking

817
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:43,480
Speaker 4: for opportunities outside the New York City area, the agents

818
00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:47,480
Speaker 4: decided to lure traffickers to Buffalo through the BSc storefront.

819
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:50,920
Speaker 2: Huh, they're scrambling. Let's give him an option to run to.

820
00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:56,239
Speaker 4: So BSc was the Buffalo Sicilian connection, okay. And it

821
00:41:56,280 --> 00:42:00,400
Speaker 4: was this Italian food import export company, sure in a

822
00:42:00,440 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 4: strip mall outside of.

823
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 2: Buffalo strip mall.

824
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:03,240
Speaker 6: Okay.

825
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:04,320
Speaker 3: So word got.

826
00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 4: Around that they trafficked in more than tomato, sauce and.

827
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:10,000
Speaker 3: All of that. They could hook you up with wholesale.

828
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 4: Heroin that it is an ingredient, Yeah, exactly, so it's

829
00:42:13,640 --> 00:42:18,600
Speaker 4: all natural. So BS tested the import route. They had

830
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:21,640
Speaker 4: a shipment of seven hundred and forty four cans of

831
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:26,960
Speaker 4: tomatoes from Italy sent to the storefront. The FEDS knew

832
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:29,560
Speaker 4: about this though, so they made sure that customs passed

833
00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:32,920
Speaker 4: the shipment through without inspecting it. So BSc was like

834
00:42:33,080 --> 00:42:35,560
Speaker 4: the roots clear, like whatever we ship isn't going to

835
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:39,560
Speaker 4: be inspected by customs. So there was this informant and

836
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 4: an undercover FBI agent, the two of them. They went

837
00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:47,000
Speaker 4: to Palermo, Naples, Rome. They met with contacts from the

838
00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:51,799
Speaker 4: Greco clan that was allied with the Corleoneici branch of

839
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:54,960
Speaker 4: the Sicilian mafia, and they set up the drug shipments.

840
00:42:55,080 --> 00:42:57,920
Speaker 4: I love that this is basically an FBI drug smuggling

841
00:42:58,040 --> 00:43:00,399
Speaker 4: ring at this point, like they're in every element of it.

842
00:43:01,200 --> 00:43:04,840
Speaker 4: A contact in San Francisco led the undercover operatives to

843
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:08,600
Speaker 4: associates in New York and they were based in the

844
00:43:08,640 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 4: Cafe Jardino in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, which was owned by none

845
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:17,439
Speaker 4: other than Giuseppe Gambino, a nephew of Carlo Gambia House,

846
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:23,359
Speaker 4: late patriarch of Ambino crime family. Right, so, of course

847
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:26,279
Speaker 4: the FEDS they set up bugs in the cafe. Per

848
00:43:26,320 --> 00:43:29,439
Speaker 4: the New York Times quote, one bug picked up many

849
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:32,920
Speaker 4: conversations that the FBI said established the criminal nature of

850
00:43:32,960 --> 00:43:35,920
Speaker 4: the undertaking. It also picked up the sound of money

851
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:38,960
Speaker 4: being counted and stuffed into a shirt, and at one

852
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 4: point an underling being slapped around for failing to keep

853
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:43,360
Speaker 4: up loan shark payments.

854
00:43:43,440 --> 00:43:44,600
Speaker 3: The FBI said.

855
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:49,400
Speaker 4: The bug recorded derogatory references to law enforcement officers. Giuseppe

856
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:53,320
Speaker 4: Gambino called them fools and once speculated that the Italian

857
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:59,240
Speaker 4: authorities had relaxed their vigilance, so he called a fool

858
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:01,760
Speaker 4: kin slap around, and they like play it in court

859
00:44:01,840 --> 00:44:05,520
Speaker 4: with the thing. Anyway, So undercover agents they were trying

860
00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:08,759
Speaker 4: to get a one hundred kilo shipment of coke in

861
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:11,680
Speaker 4: from Colombia, but it kept falling through, and the FEDS

862
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:13,799
Speaker 4: they decided to close in because the mob was like

863
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:18,640
Speaker 4: starting to get suspicious. And yeah, so according to the

864
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:21,799
Speaker 4: Times quote, we whispered in their ear and kissed on

865
00:44:21,880 --> 00:44:25,040
Speaker 4: their next too much. One supervisor said, by way of

866
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 4: explaining how the agents had tried to mollify the sellers.

867
00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:31,680
Speaker 4: When no more excuses would do, the FBI ordered the arrests.

868
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:35,080
Speaker 2: What kind of metaphors whispering.

869
00:44:37,320 --> 00:44:38,200
Speaker 3: Give him some sugar.

870
00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:43,919
Speaker 4: They busted two hundred and eight suspects, yeah, seventy five

871
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:46,600
Speaker 4: in the US, the rest in Italy. All were charged

872
00:44:46,640 --> 00:44:49,759
Speaker 4: with running heroin and cocaine rings that supplied millions of

873
00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:52,600
Speaker 4: dollars worth of drugs to networks all over the US.

874
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:57,400
Speaker 4: In Europe, among those arrested were Giuseppe Gambino and this

875
00:44:57,440 --> 00:45:02,000
Speaker 4: guy Nigel seven Subia, who was the son of Sioux Subia,

876
00:45:02,040 --> 00:45:07,319
Speaker 4: the High Commissioner to Britain from Mauritius. All these other

877
00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:09,560
Speaker 4: people connected to the pizza connection.

878
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 3: But there's more.

879
00:45:12,440 --> 00:45:16,760
Speaker 4: In nineteen ninety four, the FBI announced that the famous

880
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:20,280
Speaker 4: Original Raised Pizza on Third Avenue near forty third Street

881
00:45:20,280 --> 00:45:23,040
Speaker 4: in New York was actually the headquarters for a major

882
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:26,279
Speaker 4: drug ring. And this was a little different. This pizzeria

883
00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:29,719
Speaker 4: gang didn't just import coke from Columbia.

884
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 3: To sell the coke heads in New York.

885
00:45:31,160 --> 00:45:34,239
Speaker 4: They used New York as like this transit stop to

886
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:38,600
Speaker 4: deliver drugs to three organized crime groups in Italy. That's

887
00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:41,799
Speaker 4: because cocaine was selling for three times what it cost

888
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:44,760
Speaker 4: in New York, so there's way more money to be made.

889
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:47,520
Speaker 4: So the pizza parlor gang they worked with two other

890
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:51,920
Speaker 4: groups of like loosely affiliated traffickers. Two of those worked

891
00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:55,120
Speaker 4: out of a cafe and a butcher shop like Satreal's

892
00:45:55,400 --> 00:45:58,440
Speaker 4: in Brooklyn, as well as their houses in Brooklyn, Queens,

893
00:45:58,480 --> 00:46:01,839
Speaker 4: Staten Island. The pizza rhea was running like tens of

894
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:04,720
Speaker 4: millions of dollars worth of cocaine and heroin through the place.

895
00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:07,920
Speaker 4: Do you think that the hold the Pepperoni picked.

896
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:10,640
Speaker 2: The pizzerias so they could be like if either you're

897
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:12,279
Speaker 2: harassing them and you're like, come on, this is a

898
00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:16,800
Speaker 2: stereotype that the crime, come on.

899
00:46:16,760 --> 00:46:18,640
Speaker 3: Now hit the drupini.

900
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:21,520
Speaker 4: So this one on for three years at this joint.

901
00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:24,359
Speaker 4: But then authorities in both the US and Italy they

902
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:27,680
Speaker 4: rounded up seventy nine suspects all overnight.

903
00:46:27,800 --> 00:46:29,760
Speaker 2: I always like that they round it like a factory

904
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:30,360
Speaker 2: of people.

905
00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:32,440
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly, and all these like major hits, and they

906
00:46:32,600 --> 00:46:35,920
Speaker 4: charged them with drug conspiracies. The New York Times detailed

907
00:46:35,920 --> 00:46:39,920
Speaker 4: their own investigative reporting. Quote a thin man in a

908
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:41,960
Speaker 4: white shirt and a red apron who was at the

909
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:45,839
Speaker 4: cash register at Famous Original Raised Pizza, said he knew

910
00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:48,759
Speaker 4: nothing about any drugs or arrests, but he offered to

911
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:51,880
Speaker 4: pass on a message to the Ambrosios, the three brothers

912
00:46:51,880 --> 00:46:54,680
Speaker 4: who owned the franchise and had recently been arrested, if

913
00:46:54,719 --> 00:46:58,240
Speaker 4: they phoned in. So this old guy is just manning

914
00:46:58,239 --> 00:47:01,880
Speaker 4: the front, the FED said the Ambrosio's. They had just

915
00:47:01,960 --> 00:47:04,279
Speaker 4: started on a plan to get the coke directly from

916
00:47:04,320 --> 00:47:08,000
Speaker 4: Columbia to Italy. That was a little bit trickier because

917
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:12,320
Speaker 4: one shipment was intercepted at the Bogata airport. One hundred

918
00:47:12,320 --> 00:47:15,000
Speaker 4: and sixty eight kilos of coke was hidden in crates

919
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:17,440
Speaker 4: of cut flowers that were supposed to be taken to

920
00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:19,440
Speaker 4: Italy on an Al Italia flight.

921
00:47:19,320 --> 00:47:23,200
Speaker 2: Because most of the flowers are grown in Bogato exactly. Yeah.

922
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:25,239
Speaker 4: And some of the time though, they just used the

923
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:28,600
Speaker 4: mail which I have to say that Italian post is

924
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:30,239
Speaker 4: notoriously unreliable.

925
00:47:31,280 --> 00:47:32,280
Speaker 3: When you're in Rome.

926
00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:34,880
Speaker 4: They say that it's best to send any postcards or

927
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:39,960
Speaker 4: letters at the Vatican instead of using Italian mailboxes because

928
00:47:40,000 --> 00:47:44,960
Speaker 4: they had a reliable post because it's a separate country.

929
00:47:45,080 --> 00:47:48,120
Speaker 4: The Italian mail can take months for it to get anywhere,

930
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:51,600
Speaker 4: but the smugglers, they weren't worried. They sent some of

931
00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:55,840
Speaker 4: the cocaine to Italy through the mail. FBI agents followed

932
00:47:56,160 --> 00:47:59,400
Speaker 4: pizza parlor workers at once. As they went to the

933
00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:02,320
Speaker 4: post office, they watched these two guys hand a cardboard

934
00:48:02,360 --> 00:48:05,200
Speaker 4: box sealed with tape to a clerk. The men leave,

935
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:09,440
Speaker 4: the agent sees the box inside like all the custom

936
00:48:09,520 --> 00:48:12,319
Speaker 4: slip it said, three shirts, four pairs of pants, ten

937
00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:17,080
Speaker 4: bars of deodorant soap, three containers of baby towel, four bedspreads,

938
00:48:17,160 --> 00:48:20,760
Speaker 4: and twelve baby towels. They open it up. Three kilos

939
00:48:20,760 --> 00:48:22,360
Speaker 4: of coke. That's it, Yeah, busted.

940
00:48:22,400 --> 00:48:25,120
Speaker 2: So when you're shaking it around or you move the box,

941
00:48:25,480 --> 00:48:28,319
Speaker 2: nothing feels soft.

942
00:48:28,920 --> 00:48:33,359
Speaker 4: Three kilos so zaren what's your ridiculous takeaway? But first,

943
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:34,880
Speaker 4: does this make you want some pizzas?

944
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:37,640
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I'm so hungry. You have no idea,

945
00:48:38,120 --> 00:48:40,239
Speaker 2: do you? I'm not sure if you remember this, like

946
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:42,920
Speaker 2: I'm trying. I wish I could remember it better. But

947
00:48:42,960 --> 00:48:44,840
Speaker 2: there was like a tweet. I think it was a tweet.

948
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:47,800
Speaker 2: It was about this guy who went to a pizza

949
00:48:47,840 --> 00:48:49,960
Speaker 2: place and he tries to order a pizza and the

950
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:52,160
Speaker 2: guys look at him like, what are you talking abou

951
00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:54,080
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, sure here it takes them a half an

952
00:48:54,080 --> 00:48:56,560
Speaker 2: hour to make the pizza. There's nobody else in the restaurant,

953
00:48:56,560 --> 00:48:59,279
Speaker 2: and he says he's got the best pizza he'd ever had.

954
00:49:00,160 --> 00:49:02,600
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure that was a money laundering place. I

955
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:05,319
Speaker 2: think it was a coke laundering place, probably based on

956
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:09,080
Speaker 2: the stories. Yeah, and I remember, like my father telling

957
00:49:09,120 --> 00:49:11,640
Speaker 2: me some of the details of the story this the

958
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:15,520
Speaker 2: Pizza connection trial because it is the longest trial. And

959
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:19,520
Speaker 2: also I knew an Alfano who was worried that they're

960
00:49:19,880 --> 00:49:22,440
Speaker 2: that they would be the people to remember this and

961
00:49:22,440 --> 00:49:24,480
Speaker 2: that they would think that, hey, you're one of those,

962
00:49:24,520 --> 00:49:26,960
Speaker 2: like you know, like Italians who are involved in this.

963
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:28,600
Speaker 2: And I was like, I hate to break it to you,

964
00:49:28,600 --> 00:49:30,640
Speaker 2: bet Alfano is not that kind of name that's gonna

965
00:49:30,640 --> 00:49:35,560
Speaker 2: stick out, Like yeah, but I love how they won

966
00:49:35,719 --> 00:49:38,120
Speaker 2: using the pizzerias. And like I said earlier, it's like

967
00:49:38,120 --> 00:49:41,040
Speaker 2: a stereotype. It's like like the Italian opera lovers. It's like,

968
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:45,040
Speaker 2: of course you're doing this through that, so uh mine

969
00:49:45,160 --> 00:49:49,480
Speaker 2: is I would like it if the if the Italian mafia,

970
00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:52,480
Speaker 2: if they're still involved deeply in cocaine and money laundering.

971
00:49:52,719 --> 00:49:54,960
Speaker 2: Was to give them the benefit of the doubt if

972
00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:57,640
Speaker 2: they would pick something like video game parlors and do

973
00:49:57,800 --> 00:50:00,000
Speaker 2: it through that oh yeah, because it's like, you don't

974
00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:02,040
Speaker 2: really see that going. But then just like of course

975
00:50:02,080 --> 00:50:04,280
Speaker 2: and the Mario brothers, why didn't we see this coming?

976
00:50:06,239 --> 00:50:07,719
Speaker 2: So what about you, Elizabeth?

977
00:50:08,680 --> 00:50:08,960
Speaker 4: I am?

978
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:09,399
Speaker 3: I am.

979
00:50:09,840 --> 00:50:12,759
Speaker 4: Now I've decided that if I think a restaurant is

980
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:14,080
Speaker 4: a front, I'm gonna go in.

981
00:50:14,200 --> 00:50:15,720
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because it's gonna be good food.

982
00:50:15,800 --> 00:50:18,280
Speaker 4: Yeah. And then if and it's a bunch of dudes

983
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:20,520
Speaker 4: and members only jackets sitting at a table and they

984
00:50:20,520 --> 00:50:22,440
Speaker 4: stare at me and they say we're closed, I'm like,

985
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:28,200
Speaker 4: oh okay, Julie noted. So that's that's my takeaway. You

986
00:50:28,239 --> 00:50:29,120
Speaker 4: know what I would love?

987
00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:36,640
Speaker 2: What was that Elizabeth talk back side of Pizza?

988
00:50:32,840 --> 00:50:38,160
Speaker 7: M Oh my.

989
00:50:38,440 --> 00:50:48,600
Speaker 5: God, I love Chee. I just heard about a crime

990
00:50:48,640 --> 00:50:52,080
Speaker 5: that is absolutely perfect for your show Modern Day. Some

991
00:50:52,200 --> 00:50:54,879
Speaker 5: guys in disguises break into the Loop using a moving

992
00:50:54,920 --> 00:50:57,520
Speaker 5: truck and a ladder get away with royal jewels on

993
00:50:57,600 --> 00:51:03,239
Speaker 5: mopeds and a hmm. It's a little too perfect for

994
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:07,000
Speaker 5: your show. One thing I didn't see was a description

995
00:51:07,160 --> 00:51:12,080
Speaker 5: of these getaway drivers. Were they perhaps pulling retrievers in sunglasses?

996
00:51:13,719 --> 00:51:15,440
Speaker 5: Did you guys finally pull an art heist?

997
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:20,160
Speaker 3: Wait? No, we did not pull an art heist, and if.

998
00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:21,560
Speaker 2: We did, we would not admit to it because we're

999
00:51:21,560 --> 00:51:23,759
Speaker 2: gonna have respect for our interns. We're not gonna just

1000
00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:24,920
Speaker 2: sell him down the river like that.

1001
00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:27,279
Speaker 4: But wait, hold on, Dave's giving me a signal we

1002
00:51:27,320 --> 00:51:27,919
Speaker 4: have another one.

1003
00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:32,520
Speaker 7: Heyzar and Hay Elizabeth, Yeah, those are the right names.

1004
00:51:32,760 --> 00:51:35,640
Speaker 7: I was just wondering, did you guys rob the Louver?

1005
00:51:36,160 --> 00:51:38,120
Speaker 7: I know it's been a minute since I've listened to

1006
00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:41,360
Speaker 7: you guys, and I'm slowly catching up, but did you

1007
00:51:41,400 --> 00:51:42,359
Speaker 7: guys rob the Loop?

1008
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:47,680
Speaker 2: First of all, we would rob the British National Museum

1009
00:51:47,719 --> 00:51:50,600
Speaker 2: before the Loop, yet respect for the Louver.

1010
00:51:52,040 --> 00:51:56,440
Speaker 4: Here's the thing the I the moment this story broke,

1011
00:51:56,960 --> 00:52:02,600
Speaker 4: we were inundated with messages like your pigeons, everything, telegrams.

1012
00:52:03,120 --> 00:52:05,799
Speaker 4: Everyone was reaching out and like you have to do this,

1013
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:07,520
Speaker 4: you have to do this, but it's like we have

1014
00:52:07,560 --> 00:52:09,879
Speaker 4: to as you were strong, yeah, oh yeah, as you.

1015
00:52:09,800 --> 00:52:11,839
Speaker 3: Were saying like we need an act three.

1016
00:52:11,520 --> 00:52:14,400
Speaker 4: Like we don't know what's happened, and it's information slowly

1017
00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:19,280
Speaker 4: dribbling out. There's like the Hubba hubb a guy who's involved,

1018
00:52:19,320 --> 00:52:20,880
Speaker 4: like the gorgeous you know thief.

1019
00:52:21,000 --> 00:52:24,680
Speaker 2: Oh, I thought you meant the detective, the well dressed there's.

1020
00:52:24,160 --> 00:52:27,320
Speaker 4: The dapper detective, which it turns out he's not the detective.

1021
00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:28,280
Speaker 3: But we're all going to pretend.

1022
00:52:28,480 --> 00:52:30,799
Speaker 2: Yes, looks like the whole thing is just.

1023
00:52:30,719 --> 00:52:35,279
Speaker 4: So amazing, and so it will happen. But then when

1024
00:52:35,320 --> 00:52:37,600
Speaker 4: it happened, when when the news broke, I thought this

1025
00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:41,320
Speaker 4: is too perfect for like this is this is something

1026
00:52:41,360 --> 00:52:44,399
Speaker 4: that we would make up. And then I realized they're

1027
00:52:44,440 --> 00:52:45,480
Speaker 4: all going to think we did it.

1028
00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:47,799
Speaker 2: Well, maybe we did.

1029
00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:50,799
Speaker 4: I can't tell you where I've been. I can't let

1030
00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:51,880
Speaker 4: you see my passport.

1031
00:52:52,160 --> 00:52:54,800
Speaker 2: Yes, I actually have two passports for a good reason.

1032
00:52:56,520 --> 00:52:58,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh my gosh, that one. I can't wait. I

1033
00:52:58,840 --> 00:53:00,320
Speaker 4: can't wait till we get all the details.

1034
00:53:00,360 --> 00:53:01,160
Speaker 3: Then can share it.

1035
00:53:01,239 --> 00:53:04,040
Speaker 2: I can't wait till we get a Yeah, all the details,

1036
00:53:04,080 --> 00:53:05,880
Speaker 2: wank wanky and share them.

1037
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:09,560
Speaker 3: Yeah. When the rude dudes the dogs family said too

1038
00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:15,879
Speaker 3: what we've said too much?

1039
00:53:16,480 --> 00:53:18,840
Speaker 4: Uh, that's it for today. You can find us online

1040
00:53:18,840 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 4: at Ridiculous crime dot com do you know that we

1041
00:53:22,200 --> 00:53:22,759
Speaker 4: just won an.

1042
00:53:22,640 --> 00:53:25,000
Speaker 2: Award the website The website did.

1043
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:26,720
Speaker 3: The Clean Plate Club.

1044
00:53:27,000 --> 00:53:30,880
Speaker 4: Yeah. We also are at Ridiculous Crime on Blue Sky,

1045
00:53:31,040 --> 00:53:34,600
Speaker 4: Instagram YouTube. You can find us at Ridiculous Crime Pod.

1046
00:53:35,400 --> 00:53:37,800
Speaker 4: You can email Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com.

1047
00:53:37,840 --> 00:53:40,600
Speaker 3: Please leave a talk back on the iHeart app. We

1048
00:53:40,880 --> 00:53:43,200
Speaker 3: love hearing from you that way reach out.

1049
00:53:48,520 --> 00:53:51,640
Speaker 4: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette,

1050
00:53:51,680 --> 00:53:56,480
Speaker 4: produced and edited by Capo Fry Dave Coustin, starring Annale

1051
00:53:56,560 --> 00:54:00,120
Speaker 4: Rutger as Judith. Research is by Pete Siala, Mari S

1052
00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:01,520
Speaker 4: Brown and Sauce.

1053
00:54:01,280 --> 00:54:02,800
Speaker 3: Distributor to Barie Davis.

1054
00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:05,080
Speaker 4: The theme song is by two guys who wandered in

1055
00:54:05,120 --> 00:54:08,160
Speaker 4: looking for a slice, Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Post

1056
00:54:08,239 --> 00:54:11,200
Speaker 4: wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and

1057
00:54:11,280 --> 00:54:15,480
Speaker 4: makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are Hawaiian

1058
00:54:15,560 --> 00:54:18,120
Speaker 4: Pizza truthers, Ben Bollen and Noel.

1059
00:54:17,880 --> 00:54:29,040
Speaker 6: Brown Redicus QUI Say It One More Time Crime.

1060
00:54:30,120 --> 00:54:33,480
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts

1061
00:54:33,520 --> 00:54:36,640
Speaker 1: to my Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts

1062
00:54:36,719 --> 00:54:38,600
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows