 Welcome to the original gangsters podcast. I'm your host Scott Bernstein. We have an amazing guest on tap right now, someone that has lived kind of a unicorn of a life going from Gambino wise guy pulling multi-million dollar heists around the country running with the Gotti crew out of Queens goes to prison and does a complete 180 turns himself into not just an author but you know historian intellectual has been out of prison now going on 20 years I think and has done a lot to make a mark and he's he's doing speaking engagements he's writing books and he's going to come and shed a lot of insight and history for us Louis Ferrante. Thank you for joining the OG pod. Hey Scott, thanks for having me on your show. So just you know let's just you'll dive right in and just you know tell us about your beginnings and how you hooked up with the Gambino's how you started doing those you know big time high profile heists that you know are made for hopefully one day we'll we'll have a movie and maybe a television series let everyone know how that all went down but tell us how you got there started out as a car thief ran a chop shop in my neighborhood the auto body collision shops in my neighborhood were happy to buy parts from me as opposed to going direct to the dealers where they would have paid top dollar back in the day there was a lot of tag jobs floating around my neighborhood I tagged plenty of my own cars if I tag job just so you listeners who don't know yeah I'd buy a wrecked car with a clean title not a salvage title salvage title meant I would have to go to motor vehicle they'd have to inspect the car but if I bought a wrecked car with a clean title I could basically steal another car pop the dashboard tag off pop it into the the new stolen car if I could I'd even match the color so I wouldn't have to paint it or wouldn't have to change the color motor vehicle and if you got pulled over by a cop for any reason they usually just check the dashboard VIN number back in the day you just popped out the VIN the windshield and put pop the VIN in you needed the certain uh you needed these certain rivets which we had access to as well and other than that I mean if you got pulled over by auto crime it was a different story they would check more of the serial numbers all over the car and you'd get pinched but that never happened to me so we did that uh ran a chop shop and then at some point or another I was in one of the auto body collision shops that I was supplying with pots and I realized that the toolboxes were worth a lot of money these giant toolboxes and the tools were worth a lot of money and the guy told me this tool truck comes once a week at least if not every few days um and it's probably got 100 grand between the toolboxes and the tools on it and I said you want one and he said what do you mean I said I'll take one you want one I just need some way to drop it off and that's when I started hijacking trucks um from there I just kept hijacking trucks because I felt like it was if you steal a big load it's a lot of money at one shot you know now I've learned the art of patience but it took me years to withdraw into somebody and years in the prison cell later on before I learned patience but I didn't have any patience when I was young I couldn't steal cars fast enough I couldn't get the parts of the guys fast enough and when I started hijacking I felt like you know it didn't take me long to to realize that how many cars I would have to rob to make up for this one load and I was just doing that in like an hour so I moved into hijacking once I moved into hijacking I put together a really good crew there were guys in my neighborhood that were older than me that had done time and stuff two three years five years six years and came out they would they would arm robbers so I kind of like I felt like I could use these guys in the beginning to put together like something bigger than they were used to doing and I started doing bigger heists and stuff bigger hijackings and guys brought me tips and one you know you need a fence on the street you need another guy you and you start to meet wise guys um at some point or another you need maybe somebody's full of shit maybe another guy isn't maybe one guy's big another guy isn't so big you need a low a load of different types of guys and it's really who you end up trusting and liking that's who you deal with and then eventually um yeah at some point or another I found myself smack in the center of you know Ozone Park Queens I grew up in Flushing that's where I was originally from but my horns were Middle Village, Maspith, Woodhaven, I was all over Queens and uh and I ended up in South Ozone Park Queens and around the same time just you know I'm I'm a teenager when John Gotti took over the Gambino family shifted the power century of the the headquarters of the Gambino family from Brooklyn yeah obviously Staten Island Castellano lived in Staten Island but it was Brooklyn you know it was a lot of the uh old-time gangsters who made a big moved into Staten Island they bought houses on Todd Hill or some of the hills overlooking the bridge over there Verinzano Bridge but Brooklyn was where the center of power was and John Gotti moved that to Queens so it was sort of a geographical accident because that's where I'm hijacking trucks I'm stealing cars I got a chop shop and now Lou isn't the queen I mean tell me as someone who's not from New York I've been to New York a thousand times love it best city in the world uh but would you say it's true uh for people that maybe aren't from the area that are watching this from other parts of the world or whatever like the way that they talk about Charleston in in Boston as being like a bank robber capital wouldn't you say Queens kind of reputation wise was known as kind of like a hijacking capital like yes I mean these guys were hijacking yeah yeah and before I answer that question it's interesting you said that because when I was independent entry I was with a lot of guys uh Boston Irish from Charlestown that we're in for robin armored cars and I and I said to them how many of you guys robbed armored cars every one of you know we walked the yard together and at some point I said to them why don't they stop like route the trucks around Charleston don't go through your neighbor I mean that's where all the all the trucks are getting heisted so anyway I gave them a laugh but uh getting back to Queens yeah it was a hijacking capital John Gotti came up the same way I was coming up hijacking trucks and the reason being was John F. Kennedy airport John F. Kennedy International Airport originally idle weed or idle wires idle idle yeah way before my time but it was JFK as long as I remember it and uh that was a hub of traffic for for goods merchandise billions of dollars coming in and out of that airport so I would constantly get tips on a truck coming out of the airport um now that actually so I took a I took trucks on the street regularly and eventually we were investigated for and charged with armored car heists as well I took I do anything if you gave me a safe you told me where the safe was a vault whatever I did it um but as far as JFK at some point when I start getting involved with guys on the street I realized that a lot of those trucking companies are connected so you got to be careful which truck is coming out of where when you take it uh you know you don't piss you don't want to piss off the wrong guy and who you know it did happen to me actually once when I did take a truck and the guy got twisted um you know how do you not know this is my company and I really didn't so you know you got to be careful you tell us who that was no oh it's all right I thought I got an ass he's actually still alive yeah he's actually still alive and as I as I understand that he's still active he's an old man now you're just for people that I want people to know before we go any further Lou did not do any cooperation Lou did his time kept his mouth shut didn't give anybody up uh and then just turned his life around uh there was no um no no nothing no rewards and nothing uh thanks for pointing that out that's something that's as crazy as it sounds that's something very unique um in this world especially uh on uh social media and youtube and people that are writing books so yeah I just want people to know that yeah yeah thanks Scott I was actually um just to just to briefly touch on that um I was facing life in prison at one point because we didn't have any murders me and my crew we had no bodies that we were tagged with but we did have a lot of heists and if you break down in the feds when the feds grab you it was a Hobbs act which is like a rico indictment when the feds when the feds moving uh uh stuff across state lines right yeah in a state in a state commerce yep and uh and we had a lot of counts on the indictment so each time there was a crime committed it held let's say a 10-year statute and each time a gun was used in the commission of a crime which was every single count there was an additional five-year statute I'm not sure if the law has changed since then but that's how it used to be so if for example you were charged for argument's sake with 10 crimes which we will give or take um that would be 100 years for the statute uh alone and another 50 for the guns so we were facing 150 if we went to trial and blue trial now would you get that yes I was in Brook Metropolitan Detention Center for three years fighting my cases I had three different cases at the same time they kept re-inditing me to put pressure on me to snitch they knew I was in I was in and out of Pete Gotti's house John Gotti's older brother Peter was a captain in the Gambino family that eventually became a boss he was the boss that's correct yeah he was the boss when John went away and uh I think he eventually became the official boss at some point or another not even I think yeah and he was the last Gotti leader before the Sicilian faction of the Gambino's kind of took uh you know the the driver's seat there and the family in and around you know 2008-9-10 right yeah yeah at some point or another and now Pete died recently right and he was he was he was actually in prison not to go down a rabbit hole he was actually in prison close to somewhat close to Detroit where were OG pod and gangster reporters based out of and I know there were a lot of guys that were uh locked up with him in Elton yeah I have to tell you I read and hear a lot of stuff where they where they kind of like um they criticize them they call them dumb stupid he was far from dumb or stupid I mean I was around them regularly he was a very smart man um the Gotti's overall was sharp they knew the streets they understood the streets they was in their blood it was their life um you know John Genie Peter Richie Richie yeah Vinny all of those all of the Gotti brothers there were other ones who weren't involved but those Gotti brothers were on the streets since they were kids practically since they were born and their kids too understood the streets because they grew up in it so if you talk to for example like the regerios they'd say I got to go over to uncle Johnny's house you know can you drop me off by uncle Johnny's house that meant that can I drop him off by John Gotti's house um you know they called each other uncle uncles um you know they're they're involved and lived that life from when they're born and so Pete John's brother Pete again they often called him a dummy he was far from stupid he was a smart man he was just reserved he wasn't an aggressive man he wasn't ambitious as his brother was he was more laid back he started out as a garbage man he came into the life to help his brother and to be there for him uh but I gotta tell you there was a lot of things where he had to step in for me help me with something if there was a beef uh sit for me and he was always I counted you know I thought he was a great guy you know I mean uh I liked all of the Gotti's Richie Gotti was a gem uh Richie Richie the father I knew but I'm talking about Richie the son uh John I feel I feel bad for Richie from from somebody that is follically challenged all those Gotti's had great hair and Richie lost his hair really yeah oh Richie the brother lost his hair Richie last time I saw him yeah yeah Richie the brother yeah Richie Richie was a cue ball the the brother right yeah but all those but John had the greatest head of hair you ever seen what a head of hair exactly yeah what a head of hair uh and and a great dresser right I mean you know this is like something that uh you know now I like to dress like he did then you know I'm older now but when I was a kid I you know I didn't have any fashion sense and you know I had a few suits that I liked wearing now and then but nothing like John John dressed like he was right out of gentlemen's quarterly I like to do that now I have a whole you know walk-in closet full of beautiful suits but back then you know I mean John stood apart even if you even if he walked into a room there was a few wise guys from the neighborhood um the Carazos Jojo Carazzo used to dress really nice I used to see him in nice suits um you know but they were old it was old school guys you know they didn't necessarily so old where they wore fedoras but they were still old where they they got dressed every day if you saw them they were in a suit Joe Butch Correo always dressed nice uh even if you didn't have a sport jacket or a suit on he was always dressed with slacks and expensive shirts shoes you know these guys were like they were different um but anyway before you jump back in I just I want to clarify something from some media reports and I want to see if what the media was reporting and what you're saying you know jibe I know that there's been stuff that was written I believe in the post uh but that would refer to you as John Gotti Jr's best friend yeah I mean it wasn't I knew John Gotti Jr but you wouldn't say you were when you say no I wasn't his best friend I was younger I was a lot younger than John Gotti Jr and when you're younger the age I went away at 25 facing the rest of my life in prison at 25 so when I'm 25 John Jr's maybe I don't know 29 30 and when you're in your early 20s it's a big difference when it's apart yeah I mean I stood I hung out with Pete and Pete's son Peter um John Gotti Jr I went by his club now and then I saw him I liked him uh I as I understand that he liked me a friend of mine who did 20 something years I took care of him throughout that whole bid uh he got out not too long ago he bumped into John on the other side uh on down in south Florida and uh John sent his love to me he said tell Louis you know I said hello and uh I sent it back to my friend uh you know I mean he was a good guy um you know I left the life when I came home I don't reach out to people if I bump into them I talk to them I have no problems with anybody it's just that that was you know and as I understand that John Gotti Jr left the life too in terms of like perception no we'll jump back into what we before I interrupt you do I apologize but um I think kind of what you said about Peter Gotti at least just from watching the 60 minutes interview that Jr did uh 10 years ago or so uh I thought he came off a lot sharper and smarter than his you know the perception of him or the reputation of him some of it and this kind of gets into the history that I know that you love to chop up and do the analysis I mean some of what you know some of the knocks on Jr I don't even know if it's Jr's fault I mean John is making him at 21 making him a capo at 22 he's acting boss at it seemed like you were taking somebody that and that was a really young guy I don't care about his lineage and you were throwing him in the deep deep end of the pool at a very very young age so if he made some mistakes here or there or leadership what you know I don't think that should uh impune this guy's intelligence or mom he's incredibly impressed by him when I watched that hour yeah he was so John John Gotti Jr as I knew him then and from what I know today at a distance was sharp still is he's a smart guy his father was no dummy either smart father mastered the streets uh John Gotti Jr was in a position um like you said he's you know his father brings him into the life he puts a lot of weight on his shoulders and very quick you know very fast um also to there was if John Gotti Jr did something wrong when he was growing up uh let's say he went to a club beat up five guys or something in front of people his father would be throwing chairs yelling at him but when he left you know everybody left then you know John would smile so I'm doing it right this was told to me by a Gotti by the way yeah for quite a few times when this happened um so you know he grew up a certain way that you know even myself it's different from my own upbringing you know I grew up legitimate I just became a thief when I was 13 started stealing cars started hijacking trucks he grew up in that life he's born into it his father's a wise guy from when he's born as I understand it though he didn't really know too much about it until his father became boss uh and you should talk to him I mean he'd be great to talk to I've talked to him you know off uh and you know off anything you know television or radio whatever I know a lot of people that are kind of in his inner circle I've been kind of going back and forth with him for a few years I'm hoping to uh lock him down for an interview one day or maybe do something you know uh you know remote or going to spend some time with him whatever but I got nothing but respect for the guy the guys that he has that he has around him right now are real uh good people that have his best interest in mind right now uh and in keeping him really diversified and away from a lot of the stuff you know he stepped away I judge him by the fact that he stood up time and time again he went to trial time and time again and he beat them time and time again the fed I times yeah exactly and you know I know the pressure it is to have three cases on my back I know the pressure it is what pressure it is to go to trial I had William Consul represent me one of the yeah I was gonna I wanted to ask you about that later yeah Consul was an incredible man so I know what he went through I have an idea of what he went through and then he's got the God he named so I had the they constantly put pressure on me knowing that I was around the God he so I can't imagine what the pressure was like on him being a God he being John God he junior so you know I mean and from what I understand he did his you know I don't know what he got into his head one day or didn't but I judge somebody at the end of the day what they do and he never snitched he never I think it's a I think it's a very complicated layered nuanced issue that if people want to go down that rabbit hole and debate that it's been going on since you know for the last 20 years or 15 years or however long since some of that paperwork came out I don't really I think that's neither here nor there to me I like looking at it at kind of you know what you're talking about in terms of historical analysis and understanding history and how it relates to certain very important areas but if you look at if you look at kind of like what I was saying about how he had so much weight on his shoulders at a young age then you have the situation where you have that tape of him going to see his dad in prison and and trying to explain to his dad how hey if I just take this deal I'm not I'm not gonna cooperate I just I want to take this plea deal and I can get out from all yeah and and John lose his mind yeah well the problem place on tape just give me an idea what the problem with that was and I understand where John senior was coming from and I understand John jr. too but John senior told Joe piney Joe Gallo and a million other old-time guys you can't take no please we don't please if we have to admit that we're part of something we don't take the plea and how are you now going to allow your son to do that that's that's where it's almost like when Stalin right Stalin the Russian dictator during world war two they said if you give us a few generals the Germans told them we'll exchange them for your son he said how do I do that for my son when I have everybody else's son dying so you know it's it you're in a tight spot everybody said oh style style Stalin sold out his son he let his son die what is he supposed to do so John Gotti senior was in the same boat now John Gotti jr. to his to his credit he's trying to take an honorable plea the guy won't let him now when I went I took a plea in one of my cases so I'll just give you an idea of how I was taught and how I believed when I went in front of the judge and you could find this somewhere you know that there's there's minutes I went in front of the judge the judge read the plea I read the plea and he said and I when he read the plea rather he said with you did this with your with your it was a count one count on the indictment I copped to so that they would dismiss the other counts in return in exchange for the plea not ratting not snitching on nobody this was a global plea we originally offered 20 years take it or leave it or go to trial and then eventually I got 13 years I was copping to because the witness in the witness protection program violated the program and was thrown out we didn't know that at the time we just thought okay 13 years I'll take my co-defendants will get less it's it was um they wanted it as a global plea if we all take it they'll give us the deals so we took it I go in front of the judge the judge goes you did this particular crime with so-and-so so-and-so and so-and-so I said your honor I won't accept that plea so what are you talking about I'm reading the count in the indictment I said I don't care I did it myself and he goes I don't understand I go I did it myself I will not use someone else's name in my plea I says I won't allow that to be used against somebody else in the courtroom I'm not ratting on nobody I don't want to do it now I didn't go that detailed I'm telling you that part I just said to the judge I won't take that so the judge says would it be okay if you said you and your confederates committed this crime because there's more than one person that did it I said that's fine you could say that but I'm not giving a name name yeah I will not even if they're named in the indictment with me I don't care they're back at the back of the jailhouse with me these guys right so you know I'm not going back saying oh yeah by the way I mentioned your name in court when I took my plea we all expected each other not to mention each other's names you know so they can't come to us with something else later that was just the way we did it so I understand where John Sr. was coming from but I also understand where John Jr. was coming from we want to take the plea we don't want to serve life John Gotti might have told me no you're not allowed we want to take the plea as long as we take it honorably we don't give nobody else leave leave us alone it's the same way a lot of times I write books now I write books they're all over the world my last book was an international bestseller in 20 languages my newest book is a trilogy it should be going around the world as we speak um the fact that I write books old time a guy oh you can't write a book that's a rat thing to do I never read it on nobody I never would it's like what are we going to do history history's different than cooperating exactly there's a there's a delineation there totally and what are we going to pretend the godfather trilogy never came out are we going to pretend nobody ever went to see good fellas are we going to pretend nobody watches sopranos everybody knows what this is about by now I'm not giving nobody up I never took the stand against nobody I never give a name in private or in public I never get put nobody in jail and I never would it's a to keep offer hearings or the McClellan hearings yeah I'm talking about it's 30 years old you know I mean it's like you know you know when I talk about myself or something I did it's 30 years old nobody got people that say to me that oh you're practically an FBI agent I'm what are you talking you're a rat yeah I didn't make any oath I'm a reporter exactly you're a reporter you're a journalist exactly so you know and now by the way too I'm on the other side of the fence I stepped to the guys when I was in jail I went to the underbosses the bosses and I said listen when I was facing life I said if I never leave here or if I got to leave here in a pine box so be it I signed on for this nobody twisted my arm I make my own decisions I'm here for my own because all the rats always say well this guy didn't do this or that guy didn't send my wife money this guy should everybody can do the mental gymnastics in their head so besides the facts why their cooperation is okay but nobody else's cooperating for somebody to just go I pumped out and I didn't want to do time or I cried in my pillow until you know I made the deal nobody comes forward and says that so whatever the case is you know I mean you get it I mean that's like you know but basically I told these guys look if I ever get out of here and I may never get out of here I'm facing life they know I am if I ever get out of here I just want to go my own way be left alone what are they gonna say to me would all the guys that rat nowadays know Louie you can't do that what are you kidding me just don't give us up we don't care what you do and that's basically look in in back in November I was in New York so I met with a friend of mine he was with the Lucchese family years ago he left the life too he still sees everybody they all respect him and love him he did over 10 years he goes Louie there's guys that want to see you let's go I said you know I'm not in the mood to see everybody he told me who they were I go you know what I'd love to see them we gave him I gave them a big hug and a kiss and we kept it moving nobody has a problem with me they know I stood up and they knew he stood up so that's the bottom line nowadays guys are smart enough to know with all the rats that there are out there guys who don't want to do time and will give up their own mothers if you got somebody who's willing to stand up and then he just says leave me alone when I'm done how you gonna say no to the guy so that's sort of what's changed and that's how the mafia has adopted I think to the current environment they know if guys after Sammy went bad everybody went in Sammy the bolt went bad and got five years for 19 murders everybody went in and said give me Sammy's deal gas pipe castle little at the arco fat sound majority one after another they went in said look I killed less people than him give me more give me less time than him so he sort he sort of like said a precedent where everybody ran in and tried to get better deals or as good a deal as Sammy did and everybody thought by the end of that wave of guys that ratted everybody figured all rat is fine what's the difference it's the differences is who you are I can't look at myself in the mirror if I grew up with you my whole life Scott and we ate each other's houses and I know your mother I know your sister I know your brother and all the sudden now I get jammed up and I go why go to the pen when you could send a friend here I'll tell you what Scott did I mean come on man how do you do that you know how do you I'd rather die I'd rather die in jail I'd rather somebody put me in front of a firing squad and kill me before I do that to a friend um you know so here's a dear friend of mine right now Ronnie G Alonzo I grew up with Ronnie yeah I saw some pictures of you uh Ronnie G is uh everybody loves Ronnie G everybody the bananas he is like uh uh a favorite son and I've heard a lot of uh you know he's on a trajectory I hear the reputation Ronnie has is well deserved and I'll tell you why the kind of guy who will give you a shirt off his back right if you said to Ronnie if you went to Ronnie and said look uh you know uh I'm gonna lose my car my car payment to do and how much is how much you owe I owe 1200 here's the 1200 when do I owe it to you whenever you got it you know or don't worry about it that's Ronnie G that's how Ronnie G was anybody too not just wise guys not guys involved in life a gem of a guy so here's a perfect example first of all Ronnie G never ratted or no no Ronnie G's is solid and solid and I grew up with him I knew they never Ronnie would never rat but here's a guy I did things with since I'm young we hijacked our first trucks together I'm gonna run on Ronnie G how would I do that how would I do that so the same token when he goes away how's he gonna do it to his friends this is who you are and the rats that's who they are and shame on us for not spotting that early because all these rats I gotta tell you they got bad tendencies and little things come out now and then that we should have caught years ago for example I mean John Gotti's really surprised when Sammy the Bull rats everybody out he's been killing his friends for how many years to take over their businesses and every other crap and now you're surprised that he's gonna kill a few more friends from the witness stand why are we surprised well I've all you know to you to throw out another example or to to color up what you just said I think one of the biggest issues there and I'm not sure when it started it might it could be have or it could have been or is been going on forever but I've seen it more amplified and kind of this this almost a phenomenon of guys with a lot to lose you know big-time shock callers that bring bring in close to them people that they barely know as they're middle-aged they're in their 40s or 30s or 50s and they haven't known this guy since childhood they just met this guy and they bring them in closer than they they bring in their brother and then the next thing you know well here are guys cooperating on a stand against him five years later or guys wired up and I'm just thinking to myself why would you bring a guy that you don't even know that you haven't known since here's the problem playground in so close yeah well sometimes sometimes what the problem is for example let's let's go back to John Gotti since well not not all the time let's go back to John Gotti senior since we talked about John Gotti senior loses to a heroin case he loses Johnny Canig Jeannie Gotti Angelo Regerios roped in on that case and then dies of cancer these are the best friends he's ever had Tony Roach goes away all of the guys around John go away and they're gone so John stripped of all the guys that are closest that he could count on with his life and now he's stuck sort of like with guys who he just met in a sense maybe knew them knew them hello but you guys when you know somebody like I know Ronnie from when we're kids Ronnie's mom I went I went one time when I was only going on the land once I went to Ronnie's house and I and I knocked on the door I go miss G is Ronnie home she goes no why what's up she could tell something's up with me I go I got a trunkload of guns I'm I got to drop off I'm going on the land she looked both ways and goes hurry up bring them in this is you know so I know this family from when I'm you know a kid I know how Ronnie will react if he's got his back against the wall this these are people you know but let's say Ronnie goes away and now I'm stuck and I need somebody to rely on who do I rely on you got to rely on maybe somebody you met maybe two years ago four years ago you heard somebody vouched from you heard he's a good guy you know John didn't grow up with Sammy no I know that's another that's another kind of for people that don't know inside baseball I remember me when I was kind of starting to study this stuff in my 20s I had had this perception from the media and from the narrative that Gotti and Gravano had been like you know best friends for years and then when I start reading the history you're like no they actually didn't really know each other that well until they started to plan so let's let's go here's a good here's a good example too I'm friendly with uh I used to stay chingiganti had had he lived in his mother's house yep in the village right okay so he lived in his mother's house but he had a family in old Japan he had two families two families but the original the real family there's an illegitimate family an illegitimate family that bears his name I don't want to call the other one's illegitimate I know it's been well covered the family that bears his name was what dear friends of mine I used to stay there on the weekends Rita is one of my dear friends we love Rita here at the og pod she gave one of the greatest interviews oh great so I love Rita Rita's my close friend for 35 years okay so her father let's use him as an example her father comes up her father surrounded by guys he's practically born with in that same area uh Louis Bobby Manor uh Benny eggs mangano uh his brother Ralph his brother mario um one guy after him or quiet down Baldi Dom uh quiet down Baldi Dom and uh there was a third Dom fat Dom one of the other Dom's all of these guys he's around since he's almost born if not born he fought with them in the ring uh what's his name too uh who just died the other one the other genovese have heavy weight who just died Dom just died he was a quiet Dom just died okay quiet Dom he's around these guys since he's a kid he trusts them with his life he knows when he's playing a game of pinocchio everybody at that table if the feds ran in are going to serve life if they have to now let's say all those guys were taken away from him who's he left with he's left with strangers you know he at some point or another there's a commission meeting he had with uh vicar muso gas pipe casso sammy the bull john he don't know who these guys are from from a can of pain how do you know these guys he knows them because they're stuck at the same round table as he is so you know now he's got to put his trust in all of them gas pipe went bad sammy went bad vic and john vicar muso and john stood up but 50% of the guys at the table went sour so you know i mean he's stuck he can't sit at a table with benny eggs mangano quiet Dom Baldi Dom you know he's got to branch out to other people and that's where they get you well i look at vini basciano and and i don't i kind of want to go too far down this rabbit hole dom to calli and i have had some i guess some i've never said anything to him he's got issues with me whatever but uh i look at it like to me that's a perfect example i mean vini basciano didn't know dom to calli before 1999 2000 and you know in 2002 he's you know making the guy a capo and by 2004 when he's getting locked up he's putting them uh you know on the ruling hand he knew the guy for less than five years so when he he flips and gives vini up and now vini's you know he's got an appeal that that could possibly get some traction but most likely vini ain't ever going to see the light of day before and he and to me he owes it to the fact that he trusts the guy you shouldn't have trusted yeah well we're stuck in the life when you're stuck in there you know don't you know the old saying a chain is as strong as its weakest link so when i was away i had one guy go into the witness protection program i had other guys giving dry you know dry snitching given information that we knew who they were you know you read your indictment me and my co-defendants are sitting around a table we read the indictment we know on which count all of us are here and there's somebody missing obviously we figure out who this niche is right so that but we really had one major snitch the guy went to the program but whatever the case is you know you you know the people you're around but once you got a branch out a chain is as strong as its weakest link and when i was in jail and i realized that you could never beat the snitches this life is worthless because i said no matter what you got to put yourself out there and deal with too many people i don't care how insulated you think you are this and nowadays you could do hearsay you could do somebody over you know somebody gets overheard you're in a you're in a cafe with me and you and i are bullshitting and we say uh uh let's go back chin's dead let's use him we go like this you know this guy over here i'm on surveillance going this guy and you say yeah chin you know and then they use that tape against chin how could he stop that you can't run around you know i say i understand he put a death penalty out on anybody you mentioned his name on tape but you still can't stop people from talking you know you still can't it's impossible so i said you know what this first of all there's other reasons why i left the life i felt like it was beneath me that hole it was a snake pit when i realized all these guys were dying for nothing but money a lot of guys that died that broke that that destroyed me i felt like you know what if you told me a guy went against omartha we believe in this like hozen holster we understand the rules we understand the laws i i'm i'm raising this now since i'm hijacking trucks at 17 i wasn't born into it but since i'm 17 right i understand this life i'm around people that are in the life and then you know now you know you go away and you realize that when you were away rather guys died guys got killed guys disappeared you never asked questions now you're away and i realized everybody's indictments are laid there everybody's bullshitting about the guys that the gene charged were killing and i'm realizing this guy died for his company this guy died for 250 000 that he owed somebody or was owed this guy died and i'm going they're all dying for money i understood it you don't kill people for a trillion dollars i knew you could give ronnie my childhood friend you could give ronnie a trillion dollars and tell him to kill me i knew he wouldn't kill me i knew he wouldn't kill me because he wouldn't kill for money ronnie isn't that go though kind of uh another thing that sometimes gets lost in translation uh to the civilians that are either following or looking at the mob that they sometimes people that aren't there think that you know hits are given out uh you know people are getting money for it you do the hit because your boss told you to do the hit there's no money involved there's no money if you have it nobody pays you for a hit nobody right yeah and you can't you can't i think you get clipped if you go around taking money from people right because who's paying you to do a hit they're gonna give you up at some point or another you know i had a guy one time approached me a legitimate guy and somebody beat him he was a legitimate guy i was kind of like doing a soft shake with him back then when i was a different person and he approached me and he had a beef with somebody and the guy beat him out of a lot of money and he goes i want the guy clipped and he and he goes whatever it cost me and i said are you out of your mind i said let me let me let me explain something to you i said just so you know let's say i was stupid enough to tell you okay it's not ketchup that's going to be all over this guy it's going to be blood and guts all over the place for the little bit of money and i said a little bit it was a lot of money but for the little bit of money that you owe that you can't sleep about go on and make more money don't start killing people and this is me i'm the mob guy i'm telling a legitimate guy you're out of your mind now does that happen all the time go turn on the tv tv watch id discovery watch dayl and mbc they're telling they're showing you an episode every every week showing these people they can hire a hit man and somehow the wife to kill the husband they're out of their minds so here's a guy where i put the guy in place he's a legitimate guy i told him you're a legitimate guy you're right over your head your thoughts your thoughts are getting above your head so you know ps i was the guy who saved somebody's life that day you know maybe if he would have approached the knucklehead who said hell yeah how much give me 50 grand i'll kill him you know you got a body laying in the street and you got a family crying and you know you got daughters going where's daddy you know for the rest of their lives you know so i would never never entertain even that crap and when i was away i saw all that shit around me and i go wow i was in a snake pit and these guys are all cowards too let me tell you that put a bullet in the back of your head when you're not looking you know that that's cowardly and to steal something from you that's all cowardly stuff to me you know i mean i i feel like omerta is being a man that's what the original meaning of omerta was back in sicily omerta was being a man in every way meaning if you got a problem you take care of it yourself if you got to face somebody you face off with the guy you stand up to the guy yourself you don't go you know that's to me it's like almost like uh it's not only treacherous but it's and snaky but it's like um it's almost like uh weasley you know like you may as well just go poison people like the roman emperors is something you know the the wives of the roman emperors is something you know you got to face you got to face a guy when you got to beef with the guy you know this whole i'm gonna sneak up and put a bullet in the back of his head and tomorrow i'm gonna take over his trucking company then i'm gonna take over the nightclub then i'm gonna then i'm gonna do this then i'm gonna do that then i'm gonna this would ruin the mob too i love your i love the historical uh little tidbit name drops you thrown in there and i think i want to use this as kind of a segway you know you mentioned joseph stallin you're talking about the roman empire and that's how i i uh i kind of opened this episode saying that gene went from like robert deniro in heat and now he's like russell crow in the beautiful wine thank you thank you yeah from uh what data intellectual we'll talk about that that yeah i should i should thank you evolution becoming an author and writing yeah so i'm in prison and i'm you know i'm in there playing pinocchio every day you know spades the typical stuff and uh just wasting the day you want to kill the day i'm fighting my cases and at some point i said i want to i want to educate myself if i'm here even if i got to die in this place i want to be smarter than i that i am i want to be smarter tomorrow than i was yesterday and i want to start to learn things there's a big world out there and i asked my friend fat george de bello who passed away towards the end of last year beautiful guy i loved him again my friend for 35 years he was the caretaker of john goddy's social club fat george de bello and i used to see fat george by the club all the time and he had tattoos from head to toe there's pictures of me if somebody searches i think there's a couple of pictures of me floating around online with fat george where one of them i think he's got his shirt off you could see how many tattoos he had but i called up fat george and i remember when we'd be playing cards in the summer and he had his shirt off he would have a verse here macu mark luke john he even had something for john goddy you know he knows john he knew john goddy just to give you an idea of george's view of the world it's a shame he's gone george knew john goddy before the world knew john goddy john goddy was just an average uh acting skipper in his own part queens when george knew him or a soldier even before that and you know or even he probably knew him as a kid even before he got straight down john and then he became john goddy the boss of the gambino family the you know the papers called him the boss of bosses which you know he wasn't but the boss of bosses a tag and stuff so george was there for the whole thing so anyway i called george from jail he used to visit me all the time in jail and he actually got caught on a visit one day i talk about it in my memoir he brought me up uh he brought me up projute and mortadelle all rolled up in a little bag and then he went to the the vending machine and he stuffed the tying cold cuts in the bag and then handed me the bag and they caught him on camera so i says ah son of a bitch and i knew i threw him off the visit so i was able to talk to the the head of the guards and i go do me a favor i says he was just looking out and it's food i go go check go check the bag there's no drugs in there no nothing like that it's food don't take them off forever and they go no we know we've watched him the guy for years he's a he's a good guy we talked to him on the way in and stuff and he was so they let him continue on my on my visitors list by the way the guards weren't bad all bad all of them there's now and then you get a hack who's a jerk but for the most part these guys just and women they just want to do their job they go in there morning noon and night they work hard don't give them problems they don't give you problems for the most part i just want to tip my hat to the prison guards that i was around that i liked a lot of times when i was in the state joint after i did fed time i went to the state for a couple years when i was in the state joint they used to used to get 55 pounds of food and ronnie used to send me my food packages actually so i used to get 55 pounds of food if ronnie put in 75 80 pounds these guys knew i wasn't causing no problems they knew i kept to myself i stayed i sat by my window with a book all day they'd give me a wink and go hurry up get it out of here and don't make it look too heavy on your way back to your housing block you know because you know and i'd be dragging the bag you know but um but anyway going back to i'm in jail i call fat george i said do me a favor you got biblical verses all over your body and and he had verses why i was telling you about how he knew john from when he was a kid he had biblical verses dedicated don't uh that he wrote for john like in other words when john got convicted he wrote a biblical verse for john when he got convicted he felt like he lost the father and he was actually raised in richie's house bald richie who you said richie got it yeah he basically raised george so i called george i said george do me a favor send me in some books because what do you want big asses big boobs what are you into no no no books i could read and he went to the books law he sent me in my first books i began reading i fell in love with books scott when i tell you i used to look up at the cinderblock scene and say i don't know how this worked but i'm being punished for things i did i know that but at the same time i'm being rewarded because i found books i found something you know rewarded for trying to better myself in other words you got to take your punishment you got to take your lumps we used to have a saying if you inform you never have an opportunity to reform so i didn't inform i'm going to be here for years and what am i going to do with the time i found books and i read eventually i was reading the beginning i didn't i couldn't even get to a page without having to look up words i bought a dictionary you know for a few stamps or a stamp and i've started looking up words and stuff and studying them at night before you know what i'm reading 18 hours a day and you know lights on lights off i read between those two you know lock in you know that right to the last minute every day i'd fall full sleep with the book on my chest and at some point i learned i learned history i learned literature i learned science i learned religion everything you could think of philosophy from the ancient philosophers the greek and romans up until the enlightenment philosophers the renaissance etc up until present day 20th century philosophers um so i don't know i don't know who stands out in the 21st century but i go up until the 20th and uh and that's what changed my life and i said i'm going to be a writer when i go home i remember i went to my last team meeting and i was in bad joints because they wanted to punish me for not snitching they sent me to lewisburg penitentiary my first day in the pen double homicide arian brotherhood hacks the death and guts to black muslims welcome to the penitentiary i'm smack in the middle of a race war so i mean you want to talk about like wild like you can't imagine um there was a guy i got close with there i want to tip my hat richie lawlor a man of men true man 100 000 man of men uh talk about you know live by omerta you know he would know you know he was he wasn't you know heavily involved with the mob he lived by omerta you know he was around mobsters his whole life but he was a true man so i was richie in the pen and he explained to me the backstory of before i got there and how the murders were going back and forth and it continued after i left at some point but um but anyway i'm in the pen i continued to read i remember when i left the pen they go what are you gonna do with yourself no i'm sorry when i left my team meeting before i went over to the state they go what are you gonna do with yourself when i get out i go i'm going to be an international best-selling author they were hysterical at the table they all cracked up they go that's the best one we heard yet so i go no no i ain't bullshitting i'm not shitting you i said that's what i'm going to do and i did that's exactly what i did you know by then i gave you give yourself the education you have the confidence from the education that you give yourself there's nothing you can't do in this world all these books behind me i read i pull a book off the shelf every day i'm still got my nose in a book every day i love reading and that all went into my new life and i left that behind and i said to the guys i was there as i said before look i'm never gonna rat if i gotta leave here in a pine box so be it but if i ever get out of here i just want to go my own way and be left alone and everybody i was with has respected that there might be young mobsters who come up now who never knew me ah who is this guy never heard of him ah who's that guy oh it's just like rat and he's talking about the guys who knew me the real guys the real guys who knew me and lived with me they know what i'm made of and those are the guys i was able to see towards the end of last year who gave me big hugs and kisses when i saw them louis uh let everyone know uh first of all how many books would you have you written i wrote uh so i wrote a memoir called unlock the life of a mafia insider that goes all the crimes i talk about in that book just so you know i was either investigated for or charged with i wanted to make sure that of the million crimes i did i wanted to just hone in on things that if anybody goes oh come on this ain't true you could look them up they're all true everything i talked about even where i went in prisons it's all true everything could be documented that's the first book the second book was uh mob rules what the mafia can teach legitimate business business yeah we might a little i might bring you back on and we might do a whole if you're good i'd love to do maybe a whole episode on that i was looking at that earlier uh this week and i was like this is something that i think is so um scott 21 something that people don't think about but there are a ton of applicable philosophies and and and strategies that that are universal that go across if you strip away the violence and you just use the savviness of mobsters and how they do business every day that's what you have in this book take away the violence those are the lessons you can learn so that that was the second book in 20 languages the third book was believe it or not i developed a theory when i was in jail about how the dreaming brain can see nanoseconds into the future and i recorded all my dreams while i was in jail in my cell and uh that book is called the three pound crystal ball the brain weighs three pounds crystal ball obviously could see into the future uh the three pound crystal ball the theory of sleep aid and the unconscious mind's exclusive access into the corridors of time that's about the dreaming brain a lot of us have had dreams where we see the future you know in sometimes it's a day away my i just talk about the few seconds in the future because i wanted to keep it grounded in science and scientific thought so it's all grounded in physics psychology i didn't want to just do a completely paranormal book where people go i don't want to hear that that's just paranormal stuff and i do believe in the paranormal world obviously there are things we can't explain that happen to us we just haven't had the scientific evidence yet to to to define how these things are working but this book goes deep into science to try to explain exactly what's going on inside the brain so it's it's grounded in neuroscience then i wrote the bogata trilogy volume one is out now i urge all of your listeners to go buy it it's bogata uh the rise uh rise of empire is volume one history of the american mafia it begins in sicily and it follows it's a little deep in the beginning a little academic but then we get into the gory guts of storytelling you know the gore and the guts and the blood and stuff of just the intrigues and all that other stuff the fun stuff comes after i just lay out the foundations of the mafia and how how it came about in sicily you know lou for me honestly everyone kind of thinks that um you know it's the blood and guts that that grabs me and honestly not to say that murders aren't an important part of the history of this and the study of this but for me my passion my what drives me to study this stuff is the politics i guess the the the murders are sometimes results of the politics but how power flows in a family exactly what i do how the political machinations that's what's always fascinating i'm the same as you i'm the same as you scott that's what intrigues me you know i want to know i want to know all the politics behind when it's you know when you talk about veto genovese had frank castello shot by chen gigante right okay great anybody could read about that i want to go deep into what yeah those steps that led up to that the steps that led up to it and also to the brain of veto genovese how he was sort of planning this all along and how he was laying seeds and how he planted different seeds and i get deep into that the other thing i do is i debunk a lot of mafia myths that we believe for the last 40 50 years and i don't just tell you look a bell goes off when i'm reading if i'm doing my research and something's not true i know right away it's not true albert anastasia pushed a little uh um uh what do you call it a stroller he pushed a stroller with a baby in it to to kind of like get a handle on dewey's thomas dewey's uh movements since albert anastasia was a boss you think he's gonna sit i mean who told me this shit up give me a break so when a bell goes off like that i go deep into where the story might have came from why we keep repeating it because obviously people repeat the you know the last sauce and the last sauce and the last sauce but where it came from i go back and then i explain to the reader why this could have never been and i i don't want the reader to just believe me don't don't don't have trust in me let me prove to you why you should have trust in me and i give you the steps as to why these things could never have happened and this is probably what really did happen and people have enjoyed that part of the book so far immensely because i break down things that a lot of us heard and repeat and hear on documentaries and in books and it's not true here in detroit i mean i will kind of maybe end on this and then maybe hopefully set the table for a return this has been this literally has been one of my favorite conversations interviews i've done in our four years plus of doing this so thank you so much thank you piggybacking off what you just said i think and i want to get your insight on it too but a big part of my brand is the jimmy hoffa mystery and there's so many fallacies and the the the narrative that's accepted especially after uh the the deniro scorsese puccino peshy movie the irish men um there are some like just unadulterated falsehoods that have made it into this narrative that it's beyond just civilians or people i'm talking about people that are supposed to be experts on this stuff people that are supposed to be historians people that are supposed to be reporters doing their due diligence they continue now almost 50 years later on this you know a blatant fallacy that the hoffa murder contract or the hoffa the green light was somehow uh you know the whole thing was this east coast operation that was being run detroit was some you know uh side sideline player and that the the east coast mob bosses were puppeteering the whole thing and the detroit guys were just basically uh pawns to be moved it's like no dude the detroit handled this thing from top to bottom detroit was a family that had a seat on the commission these guys were as uh you know savvy smart and lethal as any crime family in the entire country the reason they haven't found jimmy hoffa's bodies because detroit did such an amazing job the way the reason nobody's ever been arrested is because they did such an amazing job and this continual belief from the overall media specifically in east coast media this bias that it had to have come from tony provanzano in new jersey it had to have come from i mean i'm not saying there wasn't over i'm not saying there wasn't coordination there was this type of murder had to have a lot of different bosses sign off on it but the idea that i'm gonna i'm taking bodies across the country is just absolutely an offensive frankly to the detroit guys well i will tell you this with the last thing you said i don't want to give too much up because i get heavily into the hoffa murder and and his whole life and the teamsters in in volume two i urge you i urge your listeners to read volume one of bogota the bogota trilogy so that you're ready for volume two when i get deep into the hoffa murder and the hoffa life hoffa's life by the way i came away with i came away sometimes you come away from reading about somebody with a dislike or a likeness for the person i liked hoffa tremendously as a person i like them i know he made a lot of mistakes towards the end i wouldn't have agreed with the things he did towards the end but up until the end when he came home from prison he was a little bit of a different person up until that moment like hoffa was a likable guy and he loved his priestess uh yeah literally tens of millions of people around the world that hung on his every word that would have done anything for him he was a leader of he was like a de facto had a state in some way he was a man's man too uh but not to get too deep into it but i will say i urge your listeners to read it i get into the hoffa thing i wanted to i you know obviously you said like you said his body come on you're going to do a hit the hole's pre-dub before you get ready before you even clip somebody yeah you know exactly where you're bringing them you think somebody's going to throw somebody in a trunk and drive 1200 miles to 1800 miles 2500 miles with a body because Tony Provenzano wanted a trophy i'll finish by saying that i can go on this Tony Provenzano is the most overrated character in the hoffa saga by far he played almost no role in it yeah well i can't wait for you to read my take on the whole thing and uh you know there's a lot of things i'm in agreement with you um but i went deep i went very deep i think more than anybody's ever gone and once again too i used that bell in the back of my head if it rang i knew something was bullshit you know i don't want to hear he's in giant stadium he's in the verinzano bridge he's in you're not carrying about i'm gonna i'll give you the skip to or cut to the chase there is nobody his body was incinerated within about a half hour of him being murdered and we're sitting here 50 years later running around with god i'm with you on that by the way 100 that's exactly what happened that's exactly what happened scott yep so scott i love being on your show anytime you want me back let's do maybe maybe we'll do bogota volume two when the hoffa comes out and uh we could do mob rules too if you want i'll talk more about it this was awesome louis let's just as we finish let everyone know where they can find you in terms of like yeah thanks yeah i appreciate it my website louis forante.com f-e-r-r-a-n-t-e.com uh there are links there where you could buy my books there's um that's pretty much there's a lot of information about me on there um so that's the best place you could go to amazon to buy the book or anywhere else bonds and noble uh by any of my old books my new book um but louis forante.com probably the best place where you could find everything from there thank you scott i appreciate it perfect thank you lou uh this was an amazing interview i hope for the audience like that please like subscribe share uh on your socials og pod we'll keep giving you the great inside knowledge on true crime across the globe thank you lou uh thank you benny behind the glass scott birthing og pod out