Danny Jones Podcast - #23 - John Gotti's Hitman | John Alite
Aired: 2019-11-04
Duration: 59:56


=== Gambino Family Origins (14:44) ===

[00:00:06]  All right, cool.
[00:00:08]  So, super last minute podcast today.
[00:00:11]  Thank you for doing this, John.
[00:00:13]  So, for people out there who are listening who may not know, tell me, explain to me who you are and what your background is.
[00:00:22]  Well, I'm Albanian, first off, and I'm involved with the Gambino family since I'm a kid, literally since I'm a young kid.
[00:00:30]  And I moved down here to Tampa, back and forth from New York to Tampa, Florida, to set up some businesses, which I did.
[00:00:36]  I set up a parking company, I set up nightclubs.
[00:00:40]  Glass companies and I based down here bookmaking, and we ran things back and forth from Florida down back to the east coast.
[00:00:48]  Okay, what now, what specifically did you do like in your height of being involved in all this and being involved with the Gambino family?
[00:00:59]  And what are you specifically known for?
[00:01:03]  Well, I was known as an enforcer of the Gambino family.
[00:01:05]  Okay, specifically, I worked later on in the years for the Gotti family directly and was their enforcer, their killer.
[00:01:14]  They're the guy that went that you didn't want to see if they had a problem with us.
[00:01:18]  Okay.
[00:01:19]  So, obviously, if you're admitting you were a killer and you're sitting here right now, not behind bars, how did that happen?
[00:01:28]  I was in jail many years.
[00:01:31]  Tampa, actually, my case was based out of Tampa, Florida, although I was a New Yorker and born and raised in New York.
[00:01:37]  We expanded the business down here to Florida, and the middle district of Florida ended up sending an indictment, Rico case against me.
[00:01:44]  And I went on a lot on the run, which they say on the lamb, to probably about 20 countries.
[00:01:51]  And eventually I was caught in Brazil by Interpol and imprisoned in Brazil for two and a half years fighting extradition back to this country, which eventually they got me back here.
[00:02:01]  And I did the circuit of prisons in Tampa between Falkenberg, Hernandez County, Pinellas County, Hillsboro, Lake County.
[00:02:12]  I've been in all these jails here, Miami, MCC.
[00:02:15]  So I'm very familiar with the the system in Florida, Miami, Tampa area.
[00:02:22]  Okay.
[00:02:22]  And what were you, what exactly were you locked up for?
[00:02:25]  I was charged for drug dealing, murders, murder conspiracies, assaults, and just a slew of everything which they bottle up in what they call Rico.
[00:02:36]  I was involved in a Rico racketeering case with the Gambino family and considered a street boss.
[00:02:44]  Holy shit.
[00:02:44]  Okay.
[00:02:45]  So, how did you get out of prison if you had a murder charge?
[00:02:48]  How did you beat a murder charge amongst all of these other.
[00:02:52]  insane charges well when i was down in in uh uh brazil when interpol catches me i'm doing uh two about two years two and a half years there well i i did exactly two and a half years there and i was brought back here on christmas eve 2006 almost 2007.
[00:03:10]  Uh, extradition law is a 30-year sentence between countries, so i'm facing life here.
[00:03:16]  Once I left the country in order for them to bring me back, the maximum time I can get on that extradition treaty is the maximum life sentence in Brazil, which is 30 years.
[00:03:25]  So once they bring me back, it's a 30-year term.
[00:03:28]  And uh, how old were you then?
[00:03:30]  About 25, on that, I was uh in my 40s, about 40, 41 years old when they, when they grabbed me okay, with a 30-year sentence.
[00:03:39]  Well, prior to that, i've been in and out of prisons.
[00:03:41]  Uh, basically my adult life.
[00:03:43]  So I was in and out.
[00:03:45]  Uh, I did a three and a half year bid on a gun charge.
[00:03:47]  I did some assault charges.
[00:03:49]  I did uh, six months a year, three months, three months violations uh, bribery cases.
[00:03:54]  So i'm accustomed to the system.
[00:03:57]  Wow.
[00:03:59]  So it seems like you obviously got a lot of time knocked off that sentence, right?
[00:04:03]  I mean, how did you get all that time knocked off?
[00:04:04]  Well, once I come back to Tampa, Florida, well, before I come back to Tampa, Florida, there's a couple of guys that were involved in me, associates of mine, that fly down to Brazil and they give me paperwork on certain guys in the Gambino family.
[00:04:17]  One of them being the son of John Gotti Sr., the boss of the Gambino family from the 80s to the 90s, who dies in prison.
[00:04:27]  But his son was what they call Queen of the Day.
[00:04:29]  So Queen of the Day is somebody that walks into the government, makes a deal with them to give up crime, criminal activity.
[00:04:37]  And he's free to talk about anything, can't get charged with it at the same time, giving up activities of associates, members of the Gambino family, or of other organizations and other families.
[00:04:48]  So that was, I guess, around 2005, 2004, 2005, thereabouts, while I was in those penitentiaries.
[00:04:56]  Gotti's son, Gotti Jr., was queen of the day.
[00:04:59]  He was queen of the day, meaning that he talked to the FBI and got full protection from them?
[00:05:04]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:05:06]  Cooperating.
[00:05:06]  Most people don't know what that is.
[00:05:07]  And then it translates into what they call a 302.
[00:05:11]  I mean, you're never going to get all the documents of what he was talking about, but the thing is, he met with the government and he started cooperating.
[00:05:18]  Yeah.
[00:05:19]  How old were you when you started getting involved with these guys?
[00:05:22]  I was a kid.
[00:05:23]  My father was involved with my uncle in the gambling business.
[00:05:28]  My uncle ran a game called Three Card Monte in the Bronx with Charlie Luciano, a very famous gangster's name, Lucky Luciano, the cousin of Charlie Luciano Blackie, who was my uncle's partner.
[00:05:40]  So I would be at those games at five, six years old.
[00:05:43]  And, uh, Prior to, I mean, after that, Andy Ruggiano was the boss in my neighborhood.
[00:05:50]  Andy Ruggiano was a quiet don in my neighborhood.
[00:05:53]  He was the guy that ran our area for the Gambino family, very famous gangster.
[00:05:59]  He was straightened out or became a maid member of the mafia through Albert Anastasia.
[00:06:04]  Albert Anastasia was Murder Inc.
[00:06:06]  He's also a very famous gangster killer.
[00:06:09]  I hung around that family and played baseball with them, boxed with them, went to the gym with them, and became very familiar with the ways of the mafia being quiet and underground.
[00:06:21]  And despite what people see later on in the Gotti era of the loud and the boisterous, it's not the way the gangsters operated.
[00:06:31]  Right.
[00:06:31]  For within the mob, it was a quiet organization.
[00:06:33]  It was supposed to be this.
[00:06:34]  Right.
[00:06:35]  Guys like Andy Ruggiano was a true boss.
[00:06:37]  People really don't know who it is because.
[00:06:39]  Behind the scenes.
[00:06:39]  He's very quiet.
[00:06:40]  Yeah, behind the scenes guy.
[00:06:42]  So what chain of events led up to you actually meeting?
[00:06:48]  The Gaudis or Gaudis, Gaudis Sr., was the first guy you worked with, right?
[00:06:52]  Well, you know, again, I'm around the Rugiano family and I'm around and meeting different gangsters.
[00:06:59]  Did you know, like, when you started and you were with those guys, did you know who the Gaudis were?
[00:07:04]  I mean, nah, they didn't have that name back then.
[00:07:07]  Okay.
[00:07:08]  Gaudis Sr. ends up getting straightened out in the late 70s.
[00:07:12]  His brother, Jeannie, a little before him, a couple years before him.
[00:07:15]  I don't think they ever get that right in the media.
[00:07:17]  Jeannie was actually a made member first.
[00:07:19]  Jeannie Gaudis.
[00:07:20]  Jeannie Gaudis.
[00:07:21]  Okay.
[00:07:22]  And uh, senior Gotti ends up getting a name for himself in the early 80s, uh, in the 70s through a murder, but in the early 80s, where the public really knows him.
[00:07:33]  And uh, later on, a fat Andy Ruggiano goes to prison, so senior steps in his shoes and becomes the boss in our area, which is the captain and skipper at that time.
[00:07:44]  Okay, so as time progresses, yeah, meeting different mobs in the Gambino family, and senior becomes one of the guys I meet, and junior I meet through mutual friends.
[00:07:54]  We're all in the same neighborhood, so it's not really.
[00:07:56]  Somebody would say to you, it's like living in the Tampa area and you go to International Mall and that's where the scene is set and everybody sees each other on a daily basis.
[00:08:05]  So it's just a mixture of where we live in the area.
[00:08:10]  One of the authors, a writer, Lou Romano, talks about your zip code and your zip code determines the way of your life.
[00:08:17]  And our zip code was, if you could spell our zip code, my area was 11421.
[00:08:22]  But if you spelled it a different way, it would be Mobsters Incorporated.
[00:08:27]  I mean, it was just gangsters around and that's how we were raised.
[00:08:29]  And what specific area was that?
[00:08:31]  Like what specific town was that?
[00:08:32]  I grew up in Woodhaven, but the aligning neighborhoods, Ozone Park was also a gangster area and Howard Beach is where the Gotti family lived.
[00:08:41]  Okay.
[00:08:42]  I don't even know where Woodhaven is.
[00:08:43]  Sorry.
[00:08:43]  There was a New York.
[00:08:44]  It's a Queens.
[00:08:45]  Queens.
[00:08:46]  Oh, Queensland.
[00:08:47]  And it's in that area.
[00:08:48]  Yeah.
[00:08:48]  It's different townships within Queens.
[00:08:51]  Wow.
[00:08:52]  So what was the working relationship with you and Gotti when you guys first met?
[00:08:56]  Like what was the first interaction like and how did that become a working relationship between you guys?
[00:09:01]  Well, I was known to be a scrappy kid prior to that and you know, I was always fighting you were a fighter.
[00:09:06]  Yeah, I was a fighter.
[00:09:07]  I was always in the gyms, but I was a fighter in the street more so I wasn't a big guy was a small guy.
[00:09:11]  I was good with my hands and Most of the guys from my neighborhood tough, you know, I'm not the only guy that was fighting in our neighborhood Everybody fights whether good fighters or not they fight Okay, and Jamaica Avenue where I was from was more of a poverty-stricken area Lower middle class, I guess lower class, depending on where you live Jamaica Avenue Jamaica Avenue.
[00:09:32]  Okay, it's Queens.
[00:09:33]  Okay, and uh, where the Goddies live, where Howard Beach was more of a money area.
[00:09:37]  So some of those kids from that area would come up to Jamaica Avenue, where the Rugiano family was from and where I was from and uh, they started nicknaming our area for for the violence it was and Death Haven instead of Wood Haven, and wow.
[00:09:51]  So, as time progresses, the kids are all meeting each other through sports, through activities, through you know different things, and uh, Goddies were one of the names and one of the families that were around the area would come up to our area and We started mixing with each other and continued in criminal enterprise.
[00:10:07]  We were all on the streets, either selling drugs, moving money, bookmaking, hurting guys and hustling.
[00:10:15]  Wow.
[00:10:16]  That was our everyday life.
[00:10:17]  I mean, this is what goes on in high areas.
[00:10:19]  Okay.
[00:10:20]  So you guys kind of like, you guys rubbed shoulders.
[00:10:22]  You guys knew a lot of the same people.
[00:10:24]  And then how did he, was he the one that approached you and said, hey, I want you to be my hitman?
[00:10:30]  Or did he say, hey, I got a job for you?
[00:10:31]  How did he introduce you into his life?
[00:10:34]  He was dealing drugs with another guy, Johnny Gabbett.
[00:10:36]  They were moving.
[00:10:38]  Pot and small stuff, not really small levels, but you know, nothing major, major truckloads, but you know, 100 pounds they were buying at a time, 200 pounds, you know, something like that.
[00:10:48]  And that was his partner, and Gebbet also knew me and lived around a corner from me.
[00:10:54]  So I first meet the son that way.
[00:10:56]  The father I meet through some of his associates and older guys and through his son, and I start mixing with them.
[00:11:02]  They're big heroin movers, and they asked me to get involved in a heroin trade.
[00:11:06]  So I start slowly getting involved in heroin besides.
[00:11:10]  Uh, besides the pop business marijuana, cocaine and like any business, you expand.
[00:11:14]  So you start in one drug and we're expanding all over and i'm moving drugs okay, from a small level to a big level okay, and uh, from there I just step into the violence.
[00:11:24]  It's just a slow process of uh.
[00:11:26]  So you started making quite a bit of money moving drugs.
[00:11:29]  Oh yeah, we're all making money, big money really.
[00:11:31]  Yeah, we come in from uh, you know, I was probably at the time I was talking about a million a month and holy you know, and I think that's lowballing and being conservative uh, So, different guys that were around with us did interviews and said that that number is not right.
[00:11:45]  It's higher than that.
[00:11:46]  guys that actually were my friends and later on became my enemies, guys I shot that spoke up and did interviews and said, I think John's on the plane, the amount of money they were making and how violent he was.
[00:11:57]  But I mean, everybody's going to have an opinion of what was accurate, what wasn't.
[00:12:02]  But the accurate number, I think, is safe to say about a million a month.
[00:12:07]  Holy crap.
[00:12:09]  And how did you transit?
[00:12:11]  So what transitioned you from making money dope dealing to like, were you actually like getting paid to execute people?
[00:12:20]  Well, it doesn't really work like that.
[00:12:21]  I don't know how it works.
[00:12:22]  I'm ignorant.
[00:12:23]  I'll walk you through it.
[00:12:25]  I'll give you an example.
[00:12:26]  I'm a drug dealer.
[00:12:27]  You're a drug dealer.
[00:12:28]  Somebody tells me you're moving drugs in the neighbor.
[00:12:30]  It's not that I'm sitting there peddling, you know, quarter keys, keys, grams on the corner.
[00:12:34]  There's people at a workroom for us.
[00:12:36]  And if they tell me about a guy like yourself, we'll approach you, find out what you're doing.
[00:12:41]  And you're told to do business with us for us.
[00:12:46]  And I'll give you guys that run around the street.
[00:12:49]  And if you don't do business with them, You know, you're going to jeopardize yourself, whether you're going to get hurt or killed, depending on what you do.
[00:12:56]  And so in the middle of us doing business, everyday business, guys are getting killed, guys are getting shot, guys are getting hurt to expand our business.
[00:13:07]  To expand the business is the way it is.
[00:13:08]  Well, it's not always to expand.
[00:13:09]  It's always to preserve it.
[00:13:10]  Anybody that's challenging it.
[00:13:12]  And it's not just the drug business.
[00:13:13]  It's the same for the sports business, the union business.
[00:13:17]  So depending on what the issue is, you know, whoever's in charge at the time, whether it's you know, Fat Andy Ruggiano, whether it's Gotti or whoever's calling the shots, they'll delegate work to guys like me and different guys to go out and we, you know, we're either collecting money, shooting guys, moving drugs, bookmaking, and hustling the streets.
[00:13:37]  So we're controlling our streets under the flag of the Gambino family.
[00:13:43]  And this is everyday life for us.
[00:13:46]  Wow.
[00:13:47]  How old were you when you first shot somebody?
[00:13:50]  I first shot somebody.
[00:13:51]  I was probably around, I guess, 18.
[00:13:54]  Something like that, 18, 19.
[00:13:57]  And that's got to like seriously do something to you when you're doing that that young.
[00:14:01]  Like violence at that age, it's got to change.
[00:14:03]  It's got to.
[00:14:04]  You know, you grow up in an area where I was one of the slow walkers, what you would say, as far as committing crimes or killing or hurting guys.
[00:14:14]  Actually, I had a slew of friends, cousins, my cousins, my friends.
[00:14:19]  They were all a lot more dangerous than me.
[00:14:23]  So I was a little more of a slow walker.
[00:14:24]  Okay.
[00:14:25]  And as crazy as that seems, I mean, later on, I bypass everybody and I start becoming the guy that's doing all this work.
[00:14:32]  And one by one, my cousins are getting killed, my friends are getting killed, and I'm out doing the work and killing and moving towards the hierarchy of the Gambino family.
[00:14:47]  Wow.
[00:14:47]  How many people would you say that you ended up shooting or killing?

=== Saving Kids From Crime (06:15) ===

[00:14:50]  You know, again, I just spouted out on the.
[00:14:55]  Value entertainment, names, places, dates, witnesses of what I did.
[00:15:01]  And I held back probably about 25 shootings that I could continue with.
[00:15:06]  And, you know, we're doing shows, movies, and a lot of that stuff, and dates and times and places we're saving for the actual films that are coming out.
[00:15:15]  We're doing a series coming out.
[00:15:17]  Yeah, I guess that's a big question.
[00:15:19]  I mean, judging by, you know, your past and like the violence and all the criminal violence that you were involved in and all the shootings and killings and the jail time you did, I mean, obviously, those are super entertaining.
[00:15:30]  Interesting stories, but so why do this?
[00:15:32]  So, why come out in the media and why talk about all this and tell the story?
[00:15:37]  Like, why do this?
[00:15:39]  Well, because here's one of the reasons.
[00:15:42]  When I first was in court during the trials, the Gotti family, their lawyers said I shot about 60 guys.
[00:15:48]  So I never denied how many people I shot, how many people I hurt, how many people I baseball batted, stabbed.
[00:15:54]  I mean, I was very famous for saying, yes, I did.
[00:15:58]  So I don't deny that walk I took in the streets.
[00:16:01]  But one of the things people know that I do now is try to help kids not to follow that path and follow those footsteps and save themselves a lot of pain and anguish.
[00:16:13]  and maybe save their life.
[00:16:14]  So I'm out there publicly doing talks at colleges, at schools, high schools, at juvenile centers.
[00:16:22]  And my thing is to try to help some kids save their lives around the world.
[00:16:26]  And I've been around the world.
[00:16:28]  I do talks in Switzerland.
[00:16:30]  I've done talks in the UK.
[00:16:32]  I've done them in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, this area in Tampa, Florida.
[00:16:37]  And I'm very public doing lectures all over and trying to give people the real of what goes on within the streets, what goes on within the mafia and murders.
[00:16:47]  You know, the everyday life of being a criminal.
[00:16:50]  And you said, you also said that you're pretty close friends with Sammy the Bull.
[00:16:54]  Sammy is a guy that obviously was an underboss of the Gambino family.
[00:16:59]  Most people know him.
[00:17:00]  If you don't know him, you can look him up.
[00:17:02]  And he's just recently done an interview in Value Entertainment, which I also did a couple weeks prior to him.
[00:17:08]  And you get the basis of his story, mine, and some of the things we discuss and talk about.
[00:17:14]  And Sammy was a very powerful underboss in the Gambino family, very powerful guy in the street.
[00:17:20]  And, uh, He was betrayed.
[00:17:23]  And, you know, the problem with the street and the street world is people that don't really understand it and they watch some TV or they listen to these shows, they think they really understand what you sign up for and how treacherous it is.
[00:17:35]  And they really don't get it.
[00:17:37]  But if you sat at a table with us or you came in a room like this and you sat with us, that opinion that everybody spoofs out so easily on a computer would be slip back about 30 steps.
[00:17:50]  They wouldn't be speaking like that.
[00:17:51]  So, you know, the guys that do understand the life and understand the treachery.
[00:17:56]  It's Machiavelli times 20, if you know what Machiavelli is, if you ever read.
[00:18:01]  And it's a treacherous life.
[00:18:03]  And the reason why we're out here doing this stuff, obviously, some of the things I do, magazines, movies, series, TV series, you do get paid for.
[00:18:13]  But the drive for me to do this or any of the things I do at schools are out of trying to help kids.
[00:18:21]  And it's not for money.
[00:18:22]  It's not monetary.
[00:18:24]  I don't get paid for it.
[00:18:25]  And then I'm not trying to get paid for it.
[00:18:27]  So it's just for kids to help save somebody's life.
[00:18:31]  Hopefully.
[00:18:32]  That's strong of you, man.
[00:18:32]  I mean, I appreciate you doing that.
[00:18:34]  I appreciate you taking your time to share these stories.
[00:18:37]  I mean, what kind of lesson, like if you could go talk to yourself back then, if you could say something to yourself back when you were 18 years old, like what was one of the big, what's the biggest lesson that you learned from that whole experience from when you first started drug dealing and shooting people and all your time in prison?
[00:18:55]  Like what's been your biggest lesson?
[00:18:57]  Well, my biggest lesson is if I can wake up again and be 14 years old and innocent, I'd be saying to myself, what the fuck are you thinking?
[00:19:03]  Yeah.
[00:19:04]  You know, because when I wake up and, you know, most kids are going to the beach, I was going to train.
[00:19:10]  I was going to run.
[00:19:11]  I was going to do push-ups and work out to play baseball.
[00:19:14]  I was a full, you know, I was a big ball player, baseball player, boxer.
[00:19:17]  But I took all those training tips and it became a violent guy, you know, batting guys, taking guys' heads off, stabbing guys.
[00:19:27]  Really, I'd say exactly what I just said, and I'll repeat it.
[00:19:30]  What the fuck am I thinking?
[00:19:32]  Why am I out there not enjoying life?
[00:19:35]  And that's the message, really, when you're talking to kids there's so many good things you can do with yourself.
[00:19:40]  Go to the beach.
[00:19:41]  Life's beautiful.
[00:19:42]  Travel.
[00:19:42]  Go country to country like I did, but don't go to the beach.
[00:19:45]  Yeah, but you need money to do all that, right?
[00:19:46]  Well, not necessarily.
[00:19:48]  I mean, there's kids all, you know, that go, especially in European kids, they go abroad and they go from hostel to hostel.
[00:19:53]  They go with a group of kids.
[00:19:55]  You save a couple of bucks.
[00:19:56]  You go by train.
[00:19:57]  You hike.
[00:19:57]  You walk.
[00:19:58]  You take buses.
[00:20:00]  You could do it on a cheap route, but go experience the world.
[00:20:03]  That's the difference.
[00:20:04]  And, I mean, listen, you can always, you know, there's kids that, young kids, you know, deliver newspapers, go hustle around legitimately.
[00:20:11]  Be a waiter, be a busboy, you know, work in stores, you know, work on trucks, whatever.
[00:20:15]  Yeah.
[00:20:16]  You don't need a hundred grand to go travel Europe.
[00:20:18]  You can get cheap tickets and go live life.
[00:20:21]  But the idea is the more you experience life, the more you experience different countries, you understand the world a little better.
[00:20:28]  And maybe you wouldn't risk your life so easily like a lot of us do.
[00:20:31]  Yeah.
[00:20:32]  And, you know, you get a lot of the inner city kids that I speak up for that, you know, you talk about Oprah Winfrey, we'll use for an example.
[00:20:41]  And the inner city kids, you're out in Africa, and I feel bad for what goes on in Africa, but.
[00:20:46]  If she wants to donate money, what's wrong with our kids here in the United States?
[00:20:50]  Donate it here, help the kids here, help the school system, and help everybody get in the right direction.
[00:20:56]  There's a lot of famous people out there that do the right thing, and she is one of them.
[00:21:00]  But I think it needs to start here in our country where there's so many kids that need a helping hand.

=== Betrayal In The Streets (09:21) ===

[00:21:06]  And I think that's where it should be.
[00:21:08]  You know, that's where it should start, not outside the country.
[00:21:12]  Can you kind of give me the gist or give me the backstory of what the relationship was between you and John Gotti Jr.?
[00:21:20]  Well, you know, I was a guy that was put in a position to, you know, take care of him, protect him.
[00:21:27]  And we had fallen outs over the years.
[00:21:30]  His father was in a position, whether you like him as a boss or not, became a boss.
[00:21:36]  And although I disagreed on his leadership in a lot of ways, he was a gangster.
[00:21:41]  The son, on the other hand, was what I call a spoiled brat.
[00:21:45]  Right.
[00:21:47]  Guys make fun of him, call him Diaper Don now, and different things because of what he does with the media.
[00:21:54]  As far as you know, social media i'm talking about, he doesn't get on.
[00:21:58]  He just did it.
[00:21:58]  They just made a movie about him.
[00:21:59]  Right, they did a movie and made a movie about his father.
[00:22:02]  It tanked uh, about his father.
[00:22:04]  Okay, with John Travolta.
[00:22:05]  John Travolta, it was a disaster of a film.
[00:22:08]  They say it was the worst film ever in the history of mobs.
[00:22:10]  Really, but again, because the son tried to hold and control the what was you know being written, how it was being written, and you know, he destroyed uh, whatever they were trying to do with the movie by trying to control it.
[00:22:24]  So right, this is the problem with him, he's uh, Doesn't do anything.
[00:22:28]  Where he comes out in a positive manner, tries to help some kids, doesn't come out and be truthful.
[00:22:33]  You know, we have to, just what I did, I had to catch him as an informant.
[00:22:39]  And there's no, listen, you're an informant.
[00:22:42]  There's no way to back out of that.
[00:22:44]  You're a queen of the day.
[00:22:45]  There's no way to say I only ratted a little bit or, you know, these ridiculous comments.
[00:22:49]  And I hate to always go into it about him because he's nothing to me.
[00:22:53]  In my country, in Albanian, there's a terminology for a barking dog.
[00:22:58]  You know, you ever see these little dogs, like a little chihuahua, when they don't start.
[00:23:02]  Stop yapping and barking.
[00:23:03]  And you know we say, just keep walking and keep walking past them, that dog's going to be barking forever, right?
[00:23:09]  So you know he's a barker.
[00:23:11]  He's a guy that you know never did no work.
[00:23:13]  If you know he wasn't violent in the street.
[00:23:16]  The guys like me did that stuff and uh, he's uh on a poor me syndrome.
[00:23:21]  Nobody wants to hear that.
[00:23:22]  You know, stand on your own two feet.
[00:23:24]  Say listen I, I lived a life I shouldn't have.
[00:23:27]  We dealt drugs.
[00:23:28]  Uh yeah, maybe I didn't by my own hand uh go out and hurt all these guys, but guys like me did.
[00:23:34]  And uh Right.
[00:23:35]  You know, do something positive with kids.
[00:23:37]  Stop whining and crying.
[00:23:39]  Stop blaming your father for putting you in this life.
[00:23:42]  And then you tried to make money off your father's legacy or whatever, whether you agree with the lifestyle of his father or how he led, which I'm not a big advocate of him as a leader, but the father was who he was.
[00:23:55]  Of him or his dad?
[00:23:56]  The father's leadership.
[00:23:58]  I mean, the son, I don't even really like talking about him anymore.
[00:24:02]  There's really not much to say or something left to say.
[00:24:05]  Do you think that you guys will ever mend the relationship?
[00:24:08]  I mean, you guys were pretty good friends at one point, right?
[00:24:10]  I don't know if we were friends.
[00:24:11]  I know the media said we were friends.
[00:24:14]  I said, you know, at times, yeah, we were friends, but, you know, I work with him.
[00:24:17]  It was a working relationship.
[00:24:18]  And, you know, it depends on how I feel that day.
[00:24:22]  I say I babysat him.
[00:24:24]  You know, he's just a spoiled guy.
[00:24:27]  Until he faces the truth about himself, that he was spoiled, that he was kind of a bratty kid, food fed, you know, fed and spoon fed.
[00:24:36]  And, you know, I'm not going to have too many good things to say about him until he steps up, he becomes a man and does the right thing with kids and stops bullshitting everybody and just say, hey, listen, if there's a way to change that you were queen of the day, I just want to know about it.
[00:24:54]  But there really is no way to change that.
[00:24:56]  You were queen of the day while I was in penitentiaries and other guys and you started talking, giving us up.
[00:25:01]  We don't know exactly how many times you met.
[00:25:03]  And we don't know if it was for years, but you were an informant.
[00:25:06]  And there's no way changing that.
[00:25:08]  You took yourself in and met with the government and you're trying to spin it somehow.
[00:25:12]  And there's no street guy, not one, that will say anything different, but that he was an informant and a cooperator rat or any dumb word that he uses.
[00:25:22]  So the term queen of the day is basically a rat or a snitch.
[00:25:25]  Yeah.
[00:25:26]  Same thing.
[00:25:26]  Yeah.
[00:25:26]  Well, you.
[00:25:27]  So I've never heard that one before.
[00:25:28]  Yeah.
[00:25:29]  Well, you're not a gangster.
[00:25:30]  That's true.
[00:25:32]  Good observation.
[00:25:35]  So if you're in the street, we all know what it is.
[00:25:36]  There's no excuse for it.
[00:25:38]  You made an appointment to meet the government, you're queen of the day, you're a rat, snitch, whatever, informant.
[00:25:43]  So, guys like, and that's the thing, he's trying to sell something to guys like you that don't know what all this is.
[00:25:49]  Okay.
[00:25:50]  So, gangsters know what it is, and street guys or criminals.
[00:25:54]  And so, you know, there is no change.
[00:25:57]  And the problem is with most kids, younger kids, when they get well on the street, they don't understand informants.
[00:26:03]  They don't understand where they're staying with 10 kids.
[00:26:05]  They'll think that somebody's never, you know, he's a stand up guy or by the street mentality, stand up guy, and he's not going to talk to the police.
[00:26:14]  But then there's.
[00:26:15]  Three cores of the guys are going into the police and they're giving information and people don't know it.
[00:26:20]  And as, yeah, because you, yeah, I mean, it seems like one of the number one rules when it comes to any kind of street business or anything, the number one rule is you never snitch, you never flip, right?
[00:26:34]  Because that's your dignity.
[00:26:36]  That's everything, right?
[00:26:37]  That's what you're judged on.
[00:26:38]  That's the number one thing you're judged on.
[00:26:41]  So, no one, if you want to make it in organized crime or if you want to be in the mob, If you flip, you're a dead man, right?
[00:26:47]  Yeah, I mean, listen, in simple ways, the way you're saying it, the belief on the street is that.
[00:26:52]  That's just my perspective.
[00:26:54]  Yeah, I mean, listen, the problem is it's most kids' perspective.
[00:26:57]  Okay.
[00:26:58]  And they don't understand the street.
[00:27:00]  So when they're on the street and your partner's with a guy and he's stealing half the money or he's not giving you the fair share, so there's where it starts, right?
[00:27:08]  He starts taking a little extra and he doesn't tell you and your partner's with him.
[00:27:11]  So that's one problem.
[00:27:13]  Okay.
[00:27:13]  Who goes on the street, greed.
[00:27:15]  Second problem is guys start stealing each other's girlfriends.
[00:27:17]  Friends and women when they're not around, so that's the second part.
[00:27:20]  There's the second part no loyalty.
[00:27:22]  Third part is when something dangerous goes on, and it's gonna be you're gonna get shot or he's gonna get shot, you're gonna run and let him get shot.
[00:27:31]  Fourth part is guys are going to, as soon as they run into a little problem or their girlfriend or boyfriend or mother or father may be involved with them, they're going to sell you out to protect them.
[00:27:40]  So there is no real code of honor like everybody thinks.
[00:27:44]  It's garbage.
[00:27:45]  And, you know, the telltale for everything, read them.
[00:27:49]  I don't care what religion you are.
[00:27:51]  Read the Quran, read the Bible, read whatever.
[00:27:54]  If you're Buddhist, money is evil, right?
[00:27:58]  And this is what the problem is.
[00:27:59]  Money is controlling the streets.
[00:28:01]  And as long as money controls the streets, The loyalty isn't to your friend or to your partner or to the organization.
[00:28:07]  It's to the dollar bill.
[00:28:09]  And instead of following a path where you can make a dollar bill the right way, everybody's trying to take a shortcut.
[00:28:16]  And at the same time, they're selling each other out left and right.
[00:28:19]  And it's not something I'm talking about and somebody says, oh, he's full of shit.
[00:28:23]  Just go look at history.
[00:28:24]  Go follow religion and watch all the murders that go on through history.
[00:28:29]  Follow the wars, follow the Roman Empire and see what everything's about.
[00:28:33]  Watch a movie like The Braveheart and see what.
[00:28:36]  It's about being taxed and taking money from the poor.
[00:28:39]  And then it's also about watching somebody that has no money, the inner city kids, and when they get jammed up or locked up, watch how many years they get compared to some rich kid that's got the money, like Gotti did, to deceive and lie and inform and weasel his way out and pay his way.
[00:28:56]  So, you know, it's not structured fairly and the world's not fair.
[00:29:01]  So if you want to level the ground in a fair way, go to work the right way and you don't have to worry about all those things they just spoke about.
[00:29:08]  Right, right.
[00:29:08]  And take the right path.
[00:29:10]  Because it's easy to take the wrong path.
[00:29:11]  I mean, listen, I took the wrong path my whole life.
[00:29:14]  I've been, you know, stabbed up.
[00:29:16]  I've been shot.
[00:29:16]  I've been batted.
[00:29:17]  I spent 18 years in prisons.
[00:29:19]  I spent probably a good last 10 years of my life in prisons without a yard.
[00:29:26]  I didn't see a yard.
[00:29:27]  I was locked up 23 hours a day at 24.
[00:29:31]  I showered three, four days a week at best.
[00:29:33]  And I spent probably seven years in solitary confinements.
[00:29:37]  So when people say, you know, Fuck you or they don't want to hear what you got to say listen I can't make everybody listen But I hope the people that are suffering a little bit or people have jammed up with cases or people thinking about going that way Take a second A second stance and say you know, I don't want to end up in these prisons.
[00:29:58]  I don't want to be shot in the head because You know, I can maneuver guys all over That's what I did for a living.
[00:30:03]  I get friendly with you and After I get friendly with you, you think you're involved with us and I shoot you in the head.
[00:30:09]  It's done.
[00:30:09]  Just as easy as that.
[00:30:11]  And if I know you had three hundred thousand dollars in your house.
[00:30:14]  Well there's.
[00:30:15]  Your life was worth to me 300 000.
[00:30:16]  You know your life's finished.
[00:30:18]  So if you think there's a code between uh guys and there's guys a lot more vicious than I am, so that's the reality of the street.

=== Prison Stories Documented (08:41) ===

[00:30:27]  Holy, it's not all my stories.
[00:30:29]  You can go listen to podcasts.
[00:30:31]  Every podcast mob, different mob, true life stories of different mobsters that are talking when they go to jail and you know their partners are rich and they're sitting in jail doing a time for another guy.
[00:30:43]  That other guy that's out there making money.
[00:30:46]  He's not helping his family like he promised.
[00:30:49]  He's not doing anything.
[00:30:51]  He's not visiting him in prison.
[00:30:52]  He's not stepping up and doing anything to help that guy get through a time.
[00:30:58]  And you're going to hear these stories.
[00:30:59]  You're going to have guys sleeping with guys' wives and girlfriends.
[00:31:02]  These are regular stories.
[00:31:04]  This is not something that we don't know, that we don't think, wow, that's a big surprise that happened to the guy.
[00:31:11]  Every time I hear another guy telling a story, I'm going to say, well, this is exactly what we already know about.
[00:31:18]  Prisons and I've been international.
[00:31:20]  I have friends in every country.
[00:31:22]  You name a country, and I'll tell you I could get you in touch with somebody in that country.
[00:31:26]  So, you know, I'm not just some neighborhood gangster.
[00:31:29]  You know, I was a guy that traveled.
[00:31:30]  I just came back from traveling four countries.
[00:31:33]  I probably, since I've been home, went to about 25, 30 countries.
[00:31:36]  So I know the world.
[00:31:37]  I know people everywhere, every country.
[00:31:39]  So, how did you transition from New York and Florida to going overseas?
[00:31:43]  What were you doing overseas?
[00:31:45]  Well, you know, since I'm a kid, you know, I had friends in different positions, different mob families outside of the Gambino and the Italian mafia.
[00:31:53]  So I had organizations that were friends with me from Columbia, which I was doing business in the cocaine business.
[00:31:59]  Okay.
[00:31:59]  I have a friend of mine, Klaus, that did business.
[00:32:02]  Business with me since the early 90s and with marijuana from California, from Denmark, so we're still good friends.
[00:32:09]  I got friends that uh were the bosses in, uh in families were ran things in the Uk, like the Sabinis that i'm still friends with uh, so I can go through my Albanian culture.
[00:32:21]  I'm Albanian, we're a very, you know rough, hands-on kind of culture, very violent, oh yeah uh.
[00:32:27]  We come from, you know, a suppressed country from the Ottoman days till Turkey, taking us over to communism.
[00:32:33]  So you know, I have friends in Albania and guys that were in business with me for years that are back in that country, Italy.
[00:32:41]  So I can go on with country to country, Germany, Switzerland.
[00:32:45]  So, you know, these are all partners and friends of mine over the years that were in all these countries.
[00:32:51]  So I traveled those countries.
[00:32:53]  I had hooks in those countries.
[00:32:54]  Canada, I have hooks in those countries.
[00:32:56]  And we did business, whether it was through money, whether it was through drugs, whether it was through sports, whether it was helping each other.
[00:33:02]  If a friend of mine had a problem in the UK, which he did, and somebody came to the United States, he asked me to go hurt him from my kid.
[00:33:09]  So we reached a lot further than, you know, a typical, you know, a lot of these mob guys never leave the neighborhood of Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Manhattan, wherever.
[00:33:19]  And I had the ability, because of some of the contacts I have around the world, to have the ability to do what I want.
[00:33:26]  And I also did it in a good way.
[00:33:28]  I have the ability to go visit those countries and hang out, drink, and have some fun.
[00:33:33]  So I choose my life a little different now to have some fun, drink, and talking about, you know, different things in those countries.
[00:33:41]  And I'm doing shows and magazines about prison in Brazil, and some of the guys that were in prison with me in Brazil are from the UK.
[00:33:48]  They just did a show with me in the UK and they talked about exactly how dangerous the jails were there and how they survived through me in those prisons.
[00:33:56]  The prisons in Brazil?
[00:33:57]  Yeah, I was in three different penitentiaries.
[00:34:00]  In Brazil, three different prisons in Brazil.
[00:34:02]  Yeah.
[00:34:03]  What was that like?
[00:34:05]  Can you give me just one specific story about a Brazil prison experience?
[00:34:09]  So, you know, when guys say to them, you know, you watch movies at concentration camps, you watch movies in the army, and it's no different than that.
[00:34:17]  We were in a Brazilian prison.
[00:34:19]  Penitentiary, and when they come crashing through those doors during the riots and they come in with ski masks, and I'm talking about military police, police, SWAT teams in those countries, they'll strip us down.
[00:34:32]  We're all naked, guns to our heads.
[00:34:35]  You're beat up a little bit, you're pistol whipped a little bit, depending if you're the wrong inmate and the wrong cop.
[00:34:40]  But guys are getting beat up all over.
[00:34:42]  The guys are getting raped within the jails from the guards.
[00:34:46]  And we're brought into a dark, like a gymnasium, but there's no lights.
[00:34:53]  And it's probably 120 degrees in there, 115 degrees.
[00:34:57]  And some of these guys that were with me in the UK are starting to come out and speaking because they didn't like what Gotti tried to project about the prisons that we were in.
[00:35:05]  And he tried to underplay how many killings were in these jails.
[00:35:09]  And I'm talking about dozens of them.
[00:35:10]  Why would he try to do that?
[00:35:13]  I don't know.
[00:35:14]  I guess you're going to have to ask him that if he ever do an interview with anybody.
[00:35:17]  And, you know, these things like we're doing here, they're not, you know, this obviously.
[00:35:23]  You can ask any question you want.
[00:35:24]  I don't prearrange them.
[00:35:25]  Right.
[00:35:26]  I talk.
[00:35:26]  Just from the heart, I talk out of experience.
[00:35:28]  He's not able to do that because he's lied so often.
[00:35:31]  And he talks out of school and he doesn't realize there's guys all over the world that were in those prisons with us that we all stay in touch with each other.
[00:35:39]  We just had a reunion.
[00:35:41]  You were like the feet on the ground guys.
[00:35:42]  You guys were in the trenches together.
[00:35:45]  Yeah.
[00:35:45]  And you got guys from Turkey that were with us, Spain that were with us, Denmark that was with us, a couple Italian guys from Italy that were with us.
[00:35:52]  So when someone talks like he does and he tries to bullshit the public a little bit, These guys just came out of the woodwork, and we're looking to do some shows now on the Brazilian penitentiaries that we were in, some of the riots, some of the things that I just spoke about, the rapes, an inmate being hung and accused of committing a crime he didn't commit.
[00:36:14]  So, excuse me.
[00:36:15]  No, it's okay.
[00:36:16]  If you need to answer, you can answer.
[00:36:17]  No, I don't need it.
[00:36:17]  Okay.
[00:36:18]  So, you have guys coming out of woodwork, and they weren't happy with some of the things that were said, and they wanted to set the record straight.
[00:36:27]  At the same time, they're starting to do podcast shows about their experience. in these prisons, how they survived them, how they credited me for some of the violence I committed in those prisons to save them and some of the stabbings I did and some of the killings they witnessed, some of the rapes they witnessed and the conditions of rats all over the cells and poison and mosquitoes like crazy.
[00:36:53]  Some of the people they seen die because we were so below in a cage that was like, I guess, like the old days torture chambers almost of the castles you see in the movies.
[00:37:05]  You really can't understand because these prisons, like a state senator from Brazil said he wouldn't want to spend a day there.
[00:37:12]  He'd rather die first.
[00:37:13]  So these are well documented.
[00:37:18]  The torture was well documented.
[00:37:20]  And the murders after that, from prisons, after guys were getting killed and tortured, they were sending guys out from the street to kill those same guards that were torturing, raping.
[00:37:29]  Really?
[00:37:30]  The guards and the police officers started wearing masks, black ski masks, so people would know their face.
[00:37:37]  Some of the organizations in Brazil that are very violent on the street started ringing their doorbells.
[00:37:43]  When they answered them, they were shooting them in the head to try to get even for what they were doing in the prison system.
[00:37:48]  I mean, this is all CNN documented stuff, and I was in some of the prisons they talk about.
[00:37:53]  And some of the guys that we meet with were discussing, obviously, a TV series about it.
[00:37:59]  And these guys from these countries saw some of the things, obviously, were involved in what I was involved in.
[00:38:06]  And I got off course when we were in those rooms.
[00:38:09]  It was probably 500 guys, 600 guys in a caged-in room, nowhere to shit, nowhere to piss.
[00:38:15]  And we'd be, all of us as selectively would select one place in the corner, no toilet paper, no shirts because we're naked.
[00:38:21]  And we're brought in there, like I said, like a concentration camp.
[00:38:25]  And you're stepping and walking on piss and shit, but we try to limit it to one corner because we're there from Sunday mornings when they do these attacks on the inmates.
[00:38:34]  We're there from six in the morning, say, till 10 at night.
[00:38:38]  There's nowhere to sit, nowhere.
[00:38:39]  You're standing.
[00:38:40]  And you're suffering, and guys are passing out, and guys are, you know, some guys in some occasions were dying from the air quality, couldn't breathe.
[00:38:48]  And I mean, these are no secrets to the international world of what went on in some of these jails or what you're in.
[00:38:57]  And it's no secret because it was documented in TV shows with CNN and News, Associated Press across the world.
[00:39:04]  And some of these guys got in touch with me.
[00:39:07]  Thank you.

=== Life Inside The Tiers (08:10) ===

[00:39:08]  Really?
[00:39:08]  I got to say thank you to Gotti for that because they didn't know how to get in touch with me.
[00:39:13]  And when, We were in the media and they saw it.
[00:39:15]  They reached out and got a hold of some of them, got a hold of my daughter, and said, We need to speak to your father.
[00:39:20]  He saved our life.
[00:39:21]  Really?
[00:39:21]  In prison.
[00:39:22]  And she said to me, Dad, do you know who Justin is?
[00:39:25]  And do you know who Owen is?
[00:39:26]  Is and she started giving me names, and I said, Yeah, why?
[00:39:29]  And she said, I didn't know if it was real or not.
[00:39:31]  They reached out to me on Facebook and said, Your dad saved our life, and we want to talk to him.
[00:39:37]  So, this is some of the guys, and we're very you know, we never forget each other because we went through hell with each other, and we had a certain bond.
[00:39:48]  And that one of our reunions was just last week in the UK, and we discussed with a guy who was played Captain America actually in the UK, Fabrizio.
[00:40:00]  Uh, Santini and uh, we talked to him about maybe getting involved in a project with us and and my life story and some of the things that we're thinking about doing.
[00:40:09]  So uh, you know, out of things that are bad sometimes, things a lot of positive, a lot of positive and you got to make it positive and that and really that's the bottom line I really don't care for Gotti too much is because he's a guy that uh wants to sit and right.
[00:40:24]  He doesn't want to turn things around and do something positive and if he started talking well and and talking to children and talking to kids about not of being in the life maybe, or not being in the street, you can sell your own store all you want.
[00:40:38]  I mean, we can't change who we were and what we did.
[00:40:42]  That's not going to change obviously, so we got to live with that.
[00:40:44]  But let's sell something different to the kids now.
[00:40:47]  Yeah, kids that are suffering or you know, there's kids that I know real tough street kids that talk to me, send me messages, they're involved in the street and I try to talk them out of street.
[00:40:57]  Yeah, they laugh.
[00:40:58]  That's hard to do, right?
[00:40:59]  Well, you know what?
[00:41:00]  Because maybe they're not ready.
[00:41:01]  Some of them are.
[00:41:02]  I mean, I got, I get dozens of letters out of prisons all the time guys, you know, you know, commending me for what I do.
[00:41:09]  And there's guys that are in prisons that are never going to change, but say, you know, tell me, keep doing your thing.
[00:41:15]  So, you know, there's a lot of positive guys out there in the prison system that believe in what I'm doing.
[00:41:20]  And I guess the negative people are always going to be negative.
[00:41:23]  I can't change that.
[00:41:25]  It's a different breed of person.
[00:41:27]  Someone who has kind of been handed everything they have.
[00:41:32]  They've never really had to suffer for it or really work for it.
[00:41:36]  You know, it's just a, something that you can't really teach.
[00:41:39]  They're just different.
[00:41:40]  You know what I mean?
[00:41:40]  They're just a different breed.
[00:41:42]  When you've had to go through hell and you've had to earn everything that you have, there's a disconnect there between someone else who's just been given everything.
[00:41:49]  I'm not saying that you guys are, he's that or you're that.
[00:41:52]  I know what you're saying.
[00:41:53]  I'm just saying it's listen, I can tell you this.
[00:41:57]  At my age and growing up in jails the way I did, I was a young kid the first time I went, I met some tough, tough guys in prison.
[00:42:05]  So when guys think they're tough out in the street, you can think you're tough all you want.
[00:42:08]  When you get into all these prisons, there's so many tough guys in there.
[00:42:12]  There's so many dangerous guys in there.
[00:42:13]  There's so many killers in there.
[00:42:15]  You know, you're nothing in there just like anybody else.
[00:42:19]  You're just another number.
[00:42:20]  You're another guy trying to get through the day.
[00:42:23]  And the reality of the real tough guys in prison, the real street guys in prison, the guys that say to themselves, I don't want to see my kid ever spend a day here because we understand what it is.
[00:42:35]  So the guys that say anything different than that, you let me know who he is.
[00:42:38]  When you see some jack off on the internet, The net and they're writing some dumb shit about the code.
[00:42:45]  I'm going to tell that fucking guy that's writing about the code.
[00:42:47]  First of all, if you never lived the code, you have no idea what our life's about.
[00:42:51]  Because there's definitely going to be comments on this talking shit.
[00:42:54]  Well, you always get dummies that talk shit.
[00:42:56]  You can't stop that.
[00:42:57]  Yeah, people that hate their lives.
[00:42:58]  They just want to.
[00:42:59]  Well, they want 10 seconds of attention.
[00:43:01]  So you can give it to them.
[00:43:02]  But if they want that attention like that, well, go jump in, get to jail.
[00:43:07]  Right, right.
[00:43:07]  And we're going to see how tough you are and see if you're talking.
[00:43:09]  They're not going to do that.
[00:43:10]  They don't have the nuts to do that.
[00:43:11]  But what I was getting at is these inmates that are in jail and this.
[00:43:15]  Thousands and thousands, right across the country, every country.
[00:43:19]  You're not going to find one that's going to send a message out different than that to their own children.
[00:43:24]  They don't want their kids living this life.
[00:43:26]  So, you know, if we could all talk to kids and guys, and I'm talking about inmates that are on death row, inmates that are in supermax jails, if you ask any of them, there's none of them are going to say, oh, this is a great life.
[00:43:39]  I want my kid in the street.
[00:43:40]  Right.
[00:43:40]  So, you know, we did what we did.
[00:43:42]  They did what they did.
[00:43:44]  I'm in a position, whether somebody likes me or dislikes me, I can't change that.
[00:43:48]  And when someone says, well, this guy hurt so many guys, oh, he's full of shit.
[00:43:51]  He didn't hurt that many.
[00:43:52]  I really don't give a fuck.
[00:43:54]  You know, so these are guys that are.
[00:43:57]  You know, bullshit bitch guys that talk like this, and yeah, you know, they're not tough guys, they're not men.
[00:44:03]  And when they're talking like this, well, I'm gonna tell that same big mouth that says something different or the code, go put your kid on the street.
[00:44:09]  All right, if that's what you believe, tough guy, go put it.
[00:44:12]  But I'm gonna tell you something else any of the real tough guys, because there's a lot on the street and in jail, they're not gonna be writing on your computer about it in this show.
[00:44:19]  Hell no, this is just jerk offs that talk like that.
[00:44:21]  Yeah, it's true, that's true, that's a fact.
[00:44:24]  Um, now you said how much time did you do in solitary?
[00:44:27]  I probably did.
[00:44:28]  I never counted day for day, but I've done probably about seven years in solitary confinement.
[00:44:32]  I didn't see a yard.
[00:44:34]  Not continuous.
[00:44:35]  That was just total.
[00:44:35]  I was in and out of them, but I'll tell you what.
[00:44:38]  I was in Brazil penitentiary for two and a half years.
[00:44:41]  I'd seen a yard once a month, naked, in my underwear at best, no shoes, nothing on rocks.
[00:44:48]  And it's not a yard like you see a yard.
[00:44:50]  I'm not talking about a yard.
[00:44:51]  I'm talking about high security gun patrols.
[00:44:56]  They're up in the towers, dogs all over you, and it's.
[00:45:01]  I guess the size of a basketball court at best.
[00:45:04]  I got that once a month.
[00:45:05]  Otherwise, I was caged in.
[00:45:06]  I never left the cells.
[00:45:08]  I was in cells with 54 guys that fit 12 guys, sometimes higher than that in the 60s.
[00:45:13]  It rained inside the cells.
[00:45:15]  They had water that went up to our knees at points during the storms.
[00:45:20]  There was blackouts, complete no lights.
[00:45:22]  So, you know, that was the conditions.
[00:45:24]  And I came to Florida.
[00:45:25]  I was out on the tiers for a while, but you're on tiers that you don't go out to a yard.
[00:45:30]  What does that mean?
[00:45:31]  Tiers?
[00:45:31]  Tiers are your double-level tiers in Florida prisons.
[00:45:35]  and you don't really leave that pod.
[00:45:38]  Then I went into solitary cells for a couple years, and then I was in MCC forced into a unit where there's nine cells on the floor, and you're not leaving those cells.
[00:45:50]  You're stuck there 24 hours, and you go up on a basketball court at night for about an hour, three days a week.
[00:45:58]  So I never seen an actual yard.
[00:46:01]  So that was 10 years of that.
[00:46:03]  Prior to that, I was in and out of solitary confinement.
[00:46:06]  for fights six months at a time, eight months.
[00:46:09]  I did about a year straight at another time.
[00:46:11]  So yeah, I spent my fair share of time in solitary confinement.
[00:46:16]  And listen, I'm no different because you'll hear guys complaining about it.
[00:46:20]  But when you're a high-profile inmate, which I was, I was chased down by Interpol in every country.
[00:46:26]  And when you're killing guys and hurting guys, I'm no different than a lot of these guys.
[00:46:30]  We're all going to the same thing.
[00:46:32]  So what I'm saying is it's not a life to live like a dog in a cage.
[00:46:37]  And showering and with a camera watching you, and you're on these secure cells.
[00:46:41]  So there's cameras in the room.
[00:46:43]  You take a shit, they're watching you.
[00:46:45]  You feel horny that day and you want to jerk off, they're watching you.
[00:46:49]  So this is the life that you chose to lead.
[00:46:52]  So when a guy talks out of school, and you're going to get dummies that talk like that all the time, they have no idea about how I lived and a lot of inmates just like me.
[00:47:03]  It's not poor me, only I did that.
[00:47:06]  It happens to all of us.
[00:47:07]  We all go on diesel therapy, meaning they ship you from.
[00:47:10]  They used to book me into my cell here in Florida, right?
[00:47:13]  This is when they brought me back.
[00:47:15]  Diesel therapy?
[00:47:15]  Diesel therapy.
[00:47:16]  This is what they would do to me.
[00:47:17]  They'd bring me to a jail on Wednesday.

=== Surveillance And Control (06:34) ===

[00:47:19]  Okay.
[00:47:19]  I'd wait all day and get checked in through booking.
[00:47:22]  So, you're on the floor about eight hours waiting and fingerprinted and chained up, and they bring you to a holding cell and they bring you to your solitary confinement cell.
[00:47:31]  You get in there Wednesday night, and you can't order commissary because you just came in.
[00:47:36]  By Sunday, instead of letting me order because they come around with the commissary lists and I can fill them out, I'm moving again.
[00:47:44]  They're going to ship me to another jail, and we're going to do it all over again.
[00:47:47]  And when they ship me in, and this is constant for me for a good year, and I didn't see no commissary, I didn't see no books, I didn't have no radio.
[00:47:55]  So, when guys talk about how How the life is and how they can talk, they have no clue.
[00:48:01]  They're clueless because they didn't go through all this.
[00:48:03]  And I'm not the only guy.
[00:48:05]  I'm one of the guys of high security inmates that are known to be dangerous.
[00:48:11]  We're moved around with belly chains, and chains are on our legs, on our feet, on our hands, with black box where you can't move, also, and possibly get out of those handcuffs.
[00:48:23]  This is typical treatment of any of us that are in those positions.
[00:48:27]  So when someone says, like, they're the only ones, that's too that's.
[00:48:31]  You know maybe, that the average inmate don't go through this, but we do.
[00:48:35]  So you know, these are the things that you're trying to tell.
[00:48:38]  And there's some serious killers in prisons now that write me and stay in touch with me on a regular basis and they're never getting out.
[00:48:45]  And these guys are uh, guys that are saying to me, brother, keep doing what you're doing.
[00:48:50]  Really, save some kids.
[00:48:51]  Yeah, because you know, only haters don't want to see this, right.
[00:48:55]  You know, when people are jealous or people hate yeah uh, Another man's life, they want to see that person suffer, right?
[00:49:02]  So I see you doing good.
[00:49:04]  Should I bring you down or should I pick you up?
[00:49:06]  So I choose to pick you up.
[00:49:07]  Yeah.
[00:49:08]  I've dealt with a lot of people who like to talk down and shove you in the dirt and tell you you're nothing.
[00:49:13]  Well, I don't know if you're a fighter.
[00:49:15]  Do you fight?
[00:49:15]  Do you get into fights?
[00:49:16]  No, I don't get into fights.
[00:49:18]  I used to do, I've done like jujitsu and that kind of shit, but I've never been in like two street fights in high school.
[00:49:25]  Well, I'm going to tell you, did you get paid for those two street fights?
[00:49:27]  Hell no.
[00:49:28]  So why would you want to fight?
[00:49:30]  Exactly.
[00:49:30]  And you're going to tell me that you can beat everybody up in the street?
[00:49:33]  Of course not.
[00:49:33]  Can I?
[00:49:34]  Of course not.
[00:49:34]  This guy's out there every day, can beat up the next guy.
[00:49:37]  I use Mike Tyson as an example.
[00:49:39]  Toughest guy around, and there's idiots that get drunk that want to fight him.
[00:49:42]  Right.
[00:49:42]  I mean, so, you know, and same with him.
[00:49:45]  He lost plenty of fights.
[00:49:45]  The idea of fighting the street was to get here.
[00:49:48]  I says, you're going to run into a Jericho that's drunk or high and he wants to fight you.
[00:49:51]  Walk away, let him fight somebody else.
[00:49:53]  Eventually, he'll run into the guy that wants to, that he'll get what he wants to do.
[00:49:56]  He's going to beat him up.
[00:49:57]  Right.
[00:49:57]  But if you're not getting paid for it, why bother doing it?
[00:50:00]  Right.
[00:50:00]  So, you know, and jujitsu and the things you're in, those are positive reinforcements.
[00:50:05]  They teach you to respect the sport, not disrespect the sport.
[00:50:09]  And the idea of me telling you, do you fight?
[00:50:13]  I respect you the same way if you never got into a fistfight in your life.
[00:50:16]  That's not a judgment of being a man or not.
[00:50:19]  Judging me being a man is being a gentleman, go to work, do the right thing, and pass a positive message, right?
[00:50:25]  Right.
[00:50:26]  You know, it's easy to pass a bullshit message.
[00:50:30]  I can soup up, and, you know, I probably got one of the strongest guys in.
[00:50:35]  As far as having a following in every country, I can soup guys up all over and have guys using guns and shooting people for me.
[00:50:42]  I could, if I felt like taking Gotti tomorrow, it's that easy.
[00:50:46]  And if nobody says anything different, then they don't know what the fuck they're talking about.
[00:50:51]  And just in my culture, guys will do anything I want when I want.
[00:50:54]  I don't live that life anymore.
[00:50:56]  So, you know, my message isn't about Gotti or guys like Gotti.
[00:51:01]  My message is for those guys that are in prisons, the inner city kids or the tough guys in those prisons that are sending messages out to me.
[00:51:08]  John, keep doing what you're doing.
[00:51:09]  Save some kids' lives because our lives were ruined.
[00:51:12]  Let's help these kids not ruin this.
[00:51:14]  Right.
[00:51:16]  You talk about Gotti, and I think I said this earlier.
[00:51:19]  I hit on Gotti before we wrap it up.
[00:51:23]  Some of his family members are really guys that their family suffered.
[00:51:29]  And I've talked about.
[00:51:30]  You're talking about Gotti's family members?
[00:51:32]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:51:32]  Some of them also in the life and jails and some of their kids and some of the things that went on.
[00:51:38]  I want to see him tell somebody this was a good life.
[00:51:42]  I want to see him say, oh, I want my son in this life.
[00:51:46]  Because there's nobody who's going to say this.
[00:51:49]  So if you can find me one, I'd love to get on the air with you with him.
[00:51:53]  I'll come meet you and sit down.
[00:51:55]  Someone who's proud of that life?
[00:51:57]  What dummy wants their kid in that life?
[00:51:59]  Call your father, call each kid.
[00:52:01]  And there's kids out there that don't have parents that aren't able to anybody to tell them this.
[00:52:06]  But those kids that don't have parents, there's no excuse to be in the street.
[00:52:10]  I used as an excuse.
[00:52:11]  I have parents.
[00:52:12]  But none of us come from a perfect life.
[00:52:15]  And my parents weren't the greatest parents in the world.
[00:52:18]  Nobody's parents are perfect.
[00:52:20]  We're not perfect.
[00:52:21]  But to push somebody in the street, You got to be a real scumbag.
[00:52:25]  So I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing.
[00:52:28]  I'm not pushing no kid that way.
[00:52:29]  I'll push them this way.
[00:52:30]  And hopefully I can reach some and some adults too.
[00:52:34]  And, you know, people ask you, well, he's talking about this gangster.
[00:52:38]  I know a lot of gangsters.
[00:52:39]  No one's ever going to say, you're not going to hear me deny that I'm not friends with a lot of gangsters.
[00:52:43]  But I'm not choosing their path for them.
[00:52:45]  They can choose their own.
[00:52:47]  You know, if that's what they choose, unfortunately, I think eventually they're going to suffer the path they're taking, right?
[00:52:52]  But I'm not going to choose.
[00:52:53]  I mean, they're friends when we joke around and, you know, I use the word, I'm retired, right?
[00:52:58]  That's my word.
[00:52:59]  You're retired.
[00:53:00]  So I'm retired.
[00:53:01]  You look like you still put a beating on somebody.
[00:53:04]  You know, listen, I work out every day.
[00:53:06]  Push ups in the gym.
[00:53:07]  I box still.
[00:53:08]  I'm still playing around with bags and all that.
[00:53:11]  But, you know, it's in a positive way again.
[00:53:13]  You get in the ring, you play around with guys.
[00:53:15]  And, you know, if you were in a ring and you're sparring.
[00:53:18]  Right.
[00:53:19]  Without the attitude of the street, the street is, like I said, listen, I'm involved in the fight business.
[00:53:25]  I'm friends with a lot of professional fighters.
[00:53:27]  And, you know, we joke about it all the time because there's guys out in the street who have no idea who some of these guys are.
[00:53:33]  And they want to fight them.
[00:53:35]  So, you know, they say the same thing I'm saying.
[00:53:38]  You want to fight, you can fight all day.
[00:53:39]  Go to gyms every day.
[00:53:40]  You can find a million guys to fight.
[00:53:42]  You're that insecure, go to a gym.
[00:53:44]  Right.
[00:53:44]  You know, so, but that, you know, my message is that, and hopefully, you know, some of the things I'm doing now is going to be the magazines and the shows and the TV series.

=== Nine Years Behind Bars (06:03) ===

[00:53:53]  They're all coming now.
[00:53:54]  So this year is going to be a great year.
[00:53:56]  I got a new book coming out.
[00:53:56]  Yeah, tell me about your book.
[00:53:58]  What's it called?
[00:53:59]  Darkest Hour 2.
[00:54:00]  It's coming out with Susan Pike as my writer.
[00:54:02]  I did Darkest Hour 1.
[00:54:03]  It was about when I was a child to 17.
[00:54:05]  prior to that at Gotti's Rules with George Anastasia and I have a handbook out called Prison Rules, the do's and don'ts so you don't find yourself in prison and the situation for adults, young kids and for parents that need to try to reach their children.
[00:54:22]  And that's a book people that are in prison they can get their hands on?
[00:54:25]  Yeah, all these books through the internet, through Amazon, through Barnes & Noble and Darkest Hour 2 should be out by February and that'll be more of hardcore mafia stuff and some of the killings and shootings and things that went on in prison systems.
[00:54:43]  Wow.
[00:54:44]  So that their book would, I think, be a little more to the point.
[00:54:49]  Can you tell me, like, what did you have to do?
[00:54:52]  Like, how did you get out of prison so quick?
[00:54:54]  Did you have, like, good behavior?
[00:54:56]  Was there, I mean hey, it might have been quick for you, but it wasn't quick for me.
[00:55:00]  I mean, listen, when you're well, all right, obviously.
[00:55:01]  But, I mean, what I meant by that was, like, you did about 18 years total, right?
[00:55:05]  Yeah, I did.
[00:55:05]  And you were originally sentenced to 30.
[00:55:07]  Well, no, I was facing 30 when I came back.
[00:55:10]  Okay.
[00:55:10]  I sat down with the government after I had the paperwork on Gotti and some of the other guys.
[00:55:15]  Okay.
[00:55:15]  You know, 54 guys went and testified against me in a grand jury.
[00:55:18]  So, you know, so it wasn't one or two.
[00:55:20]  And then I on some other shows, and if somebody's interested, they can look what I said.
[00:55:24]  And I named boss after boss that were testifying, giving information.
[00:55:28]  So these guys tried to, these guys betrayed you.
[00:55:30]  Yeah, they didn't.
[00:55:31]  Yeah, they ain't switching this around.
[00:55:32]  They betrayed me.
[00:55:33]  I didn't betray them by their set of rules.
[00:55:36]  They all ratted.
[00:55:37]  Later on, I come in and I said that's it after I went through each boss and each captain and they're making statements, all of them against me.
[00:55:45]  And so, you know, without getting into all that crap, people can look at my books and read or watch some of the other interviews and they can see it.
[00:55:51]  But this is the typical what I said about the treachery of life.
[00:55:55]  I was betrayed.
[00:55:56]  I never betrayed anybody.
[00:55:57]  Gotti betrayed me.
[00:55:57]  I was in a penitentiary.
[00:55:59]  Even though he was my enemy at that time, he's still betraying what we believed was the life of a good soldier, a mobster.
[00:56:07]  But that's the reality of what happens.
[00:56:11]  But I did on this case, back to the 30 years is Brazil extradition law.
[00:56:16]  When you come back, I'm facing to do 25 years.
[00:56:19]  When I did two and a half years in Brazil, I was supposed to get nine years credit because of the conditions there.
[00:56:24]  So if you give me the nine years that you're supposed to give me, and I'm supposed to do 25, I'm supposed to do 16 more.
[00:56:30]  Out of that 16, I took a 12-year sentence.
[00:56:32]  I got it down to 10.
[00:56:33]  So I did a lot of time for what I did, actually, on laws.
[00:56:38]  Because there's guys people don't understand that take pleas on murders and get four or five years or six years, don't cooperate.
[00:56:44]  Some of them do, and they get less.
[00:56:46]  But when they're in that position, and whatever the situation that case is, I know bosses got 10 years.
[00:56:53]  They went on a run.
[00:56:54]  They caught them.
[00:56:55]  They had two.
[00:56:56]  Separate trials, and they still only got 10 years without cooperation because of the situation.
[00:57:01]  It depends on that I have weapons.
[00:57:03]  So, we'll get into one last thing before I look.
[00:57:06]  I never been caught with any kind of crime, nothing on this case.
[00:57:11]  On the case that I was facing life, and I went on a run and I had the extradition of 30 years.
[00:57:15]  So, you know, it's only from what the Gaudis or somebody will say rats.
[00:57:20]  It was informants, it was only testimony.
[00:57:22]  It wasn't me selling a drug and someone caught me.
[00:57:25]  It wasn't me getting caught with kilos.
[00:57:27]  It wasn't me on an audio tape or a videotape.
[00:57:29]  It wasn't me at a shooting or at a killing.
[00:57:31]  It wasn't me getting caught with a used weapon.
[00:57:34]  It wasn't me anywhere.
[00:57:35]  So when people use the excuse of, well, it was all rats against me and everybody's a rat, rat, rat, rat, and they talk that they're usually a rat like Gotti was.
[00:57:44]  Nobody knocked on my door and said, oh, we're going to arrest you for all these crimes because we don't like you.
[00:57:49]  Listen, I'm a bitch.
[00:57:50]  It was people trying to save their own fucking ass.
[00:57:52]  Yeah.
[00:57:53]  And mostly, you know, the mob guys that testified against me and gave information on the sneak against me and were informants.
[00:57:59]  But listen, I'm okay with it.
[00:58:00]  My life's not at that point anymore.
[00:58:02]  I don't give a fuck what they did.
[00:58:04]  I don't really give a fuck what they did.
[00:58:05]  Wash your hands.
[00:58:06]  But don't change the storyline.
[00:58:08]  Storyline is you guys ratted, betrayed me.
[00:58:10]  I left this country, left my children, left my family, stood in those concentration camps not to talk against my enemies or my friends.
[00:58:17]  You just all betrayed me and came home and that changed.
[00:58:21]  So when someone says who betrayed who, I didn't betray anybody by those rules.
[00:58:25]  But those rules and that life's gone for me.
[00:58:28]  But we'll keep that record straight that I never got caught.
[00:58:31]  So, there's paperwork they can go check.
[00:58:33]  I've never been caught with a crime.
[00:58:34]  So, I wasn't a talker.
[00:58:37]  And these shows now, my life's different.
[00:58:39]  So, I can go on here and talk and be honest on exactly what happened.
[00:58:43]  But I've never been caught with a crime.
[00:58:45]  The ones I got caught prior to that with a gun, I did my three and a half years.
[00:58:49]  I did my year.
[00:58:50]  I did my whatever time I did on other assaults and I went to jails for them.
[00:58:54]  This case here, RICO, indictment for a life sentence.
[00:58:58]  And I ran and I went to 20 countries.
[00:59:00]  When they caught me, it was only from.
[00:59:03]  Informant after informant, mob guy after mob guy, maid guy after maid guy, boss of different families, all given information against me, not the other way around.
[00:59:13]  So somewhere in this public, they switched that around and they thought that, hey, this guy was given.
[00:59:18]  No, I left this country.
[00:59:19]  I spent millions of dollars to fight and left my children, fight with lawyers, attorneys, investigators.
[00:59:26]  I lost my family over this.
[00:59:28]  So when people say I betrayed something, they better do a little more research and find out who betrayed who.
[00:59:34]  And there's nothing public information can get court documents if I've ever been caught with any kind of crime.
[00:59:39]  Nothing.
[00:59:40]  Wow.
[00:59:42]  That's heavy, man.
[00:59:42]  Dude, thank you.
[00:59:43]  So I can't thank you enough for coming on here and sharing your story.
[00:59:45]  Yeah, I appreciate it if you push that message to kids.
[00:59:48]  Yeah.
[00:59:49]  Outside this podcast and keep doing the right thing.
[00:59:52]  Cool.
[00:59:52]  Well, mute up, Pop Sheam, and thank you so much for coming on the podcast, man.
[00:59:56]  It's been awesome.