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You can now follow me on all my social media platforms to find out who my latest guest will be and don't forget to click the subscribe button and the notifications bell so you are notified for when my next podcast goes live. That was life. Everything is going fabulous, you know, for the people that don't know, you know, I went through a war which I'm sure we'll talk about, you know, an internal family war with the Colombo family, and I did 10 years, got home and started over. I wrote a book about my life. I've got a good business going now. I have a fitness center in Cocoa Beach and things are going real well. Before we get into everything, I always like to go back to the start of my guess to get a better understanding about you. Where do you grew up and how it all began? I grew up in Brooklyn. I come from a completely normal Laura Biding family. You know, my dad was a fireman in New York. I actually became a lieutenant. My mom worked in a bank. Some years she didn't work the whole time. You know, she was there to bring us up. I went to Catholic school, played every sport you could imagine. I got into kickboxing. Then I became a coach. I still coach. That's how I stayed in the gym business later on. But a perfectly normal upbringing. How was family life moment that? Great. I mean, I never wanted for anything. Like I said, my dad was a lieutenant in the fire department. Wasn't rich, made a decent living, worked overtime, did everything to get us through to better schools, all the way up to high school. And he was ready to pay for me in college too. You know, he paid for my brother and sister to go to college. So, you know, it was really, really, you know, somebody once said it was like leave it to be just a normal environment. There were no drugs. My dad was always around helping coach, you know, when we were playing ball and things like that. So, and my mom was great too. I mean, we just had a good family. What were you like at school? I did very well, even though I didn't apply myself. I would get B's and A's. And I only took a notebook to school. I didn't go through the books and everything. I absorbed what the teacher was saying. It stuck. And I did well. And my father used to scratch his head and say, how do you get these grades? And you're not even trying. And he used to tell me, you could be a top guy. You could be the top guy, whatever you do. I just didn't like it. I just, I wanted to go play ball. I wanted to go to the gym. You know, I enjoyed that more than sitting home and studying. I should have. So how did you get involved with the mafia life coming from a good family, mom and dad, practicing at school, not violent? No, this is what is so unique. I was in high school, getting ready to graduate. So I was a little over 17. I had a few jobs. One of the jobs I had was in a supermarket called Dancers. They had like 11 supermarkets in throughout Brooklyn. And one of my duties of many was to deliver big, large orders to houses. The women would come in, fill up the boxes, and I would deliver it to their house. And on one of those deliveries, I met an older woman. You know, at that time she was about 30, maybe 31. I remember later on, she lied and told me she was 29. I lied and said I was over 18 because I saw we were heading for, you know, an affair. And that's ultimately what happened. You know, I would deliver to her house and after a while we got more and more friendly. She offered me, you know, lunch, drinks, soft drinks is all like because I was working, but later on I would go back in the evenings and have wine and we wound up becoming lovers. And to answer your question, her husband or her common law husband was a capo in the Colombo family and a very feared man named Greg Scarpa. He's called the Grim Reaper. That was his nickname. And here I was having an affair with his wife. After about six months, she wanted me now to meet him. So that was hard for me. And I fought it off. I said, I'm not going to do that. I can't meet your husband. This is crazy, you know. But what happened, they were opening a business, a supply company. They needed a regional salesman. And she said, you could be the sales manager. You have to meet my husband. I know he'll put you in. Finally, I go and I meet with him. And the minute I met him at the house, I knew, you know, up to that point, she didn't tell me who he was. He told me he was influential. She told me he knows a lot of people. But never did I know until he pulled up in the big black fleet with the spoke pub caps, tinted windows, sunglasses, even though it was nighttime. You know, and he swaggered over to the door. He didn't walk. He swaggered and full of jewelry and, you know, diamond watch, all that stuff. I knew this man was different. I said, this is not. I pictured gangsters from TV. Because again, I'm not even 18, maybe 18 by now. I'm about 18. So we meet that night. We get to the restaurant and his partners are there. One's a lawyer, one's an accountant and one is the company, the supply company, CEO, whatever. When we sit down, he introduces me and he tells them, say hello to the new sales manager. Doesn't ask their opinion. Doesn't request. Doesn't nominate me. He tells them this is a new sales manager and they shook my hand. They were thanking me up and down. The whole restaurant was treating me like a prince. And again, little did I know this would be the life to come. So that's how I got to meet him and got into the family because later on, the most unique part of the story is that we got very close. And he confided in me about having other wives. He had another wife in New Jersey. He had another one in Vegas and Manhattan. So he had these multiple families and he eventually gave his approval to allow us to continue this affair. But he told me as long as nobody outside of the three of us knows, if anybody finds out, he says you and I will be killed. So at 19 now, that's like the first time I'm understanding the rule of our lifestyle. You can't mess around with each other's wives, which is sensible, makes sense. You shouldn't do that in any walk of life. But I would be killed. And I said, I'm a 19 year old kid. They're going to kill me. Imagine hearing that at 19 will be killed if anybody finds out. It was like surreal. But now the way to the world was off my shoulders because up until that point, I was paranoid. Harry, as he's going out to New Jersey for two nights, I'm sleeping over his house. I said, one day he's going to come home early. One day he's going to catch us something. And we were starting to take chances too. As this affair went on and it grew to really a, you know, a love affair, wasn't a joke, you know, went on for almost 10 years. So, you know, it wasn't just an overnight. And it got to the point where I felt like I was backstabbing him. And I was really paranoid. I wasn't myself. And that's what prompted him to open up this conversation with me. And I remember when he did it, I was nervous. I thought he was going to kill me if I admit it. But by the end of the conversation, he had me comfortable and I says, I'm Greg, you're far from an idiot and only an idiot. We'll see what's going on. And he banged the desk. He laughed. He got up. We walked outside and that's when he told me about the rule. So, but now again, the way to the world was off my shoulders. We were tight and it only made us closer as the years went on. Believe it or not, you know, sharing the same woman, it made us closer. Yeah, someone fucking your wife is, that's, you know, then he's psychotic, you know, he's off his fucking head. Well, you know, did the wife know that he'd be okay with it? Why did she not tell you straight away? At the beginning, he didn't know. Somewhere along the way, I started sensing a change in her. She wasn't so worried. She was very callous about it, making jokes about it. I'm going to tell him, you know. So somewhere along the way, I believe she did tell him or they had a conversation. What he found out? Well, I don't think he found out like that, but here's the thing. I'm going to tell you my opinion and it might clarify how he allowed it. Like I said, he had all these other women in his life. He was 20 years older than her. Okay, so juggling all these women has to be tough. Okay. And she was the youngest. She was his trophy. And I think he knew all those times away in her age, eventually she's going to start going out. Maybe it would be embarrassing to him. I made his life easier. Like I said, he got to know me. He liked me. And I can't make excuses for him or I'm just trying to answer that question as to why I think he allowed it. And I just believe I made his life easier and he was comfortable with it. He had her, you know, he had his other wives. He would go to Vegas with one. I dropped him off at the airport. So I know he was gone for three days. You know, and at the beginning I felt bad. I said, now I'm going to go back and sleep with his wife for three days. But once he knew, you know, it made our lives easier. I guess it's an alternative lifestyle. Was that a spinger? I don't think so. I don't think so because and I've been asked that once or twice, not too often, but I don't think so. I don't think he, you know, he had a, he still had a lot of old fashioned ways to him. You know, most older mob guys do. He just marched to his own beat. You know, a lot of them had the Ramada on the side, the girlfriend. A lot of them had that. He had three. He had three or four. I mean, he was just a swashbuckler, pirate or, you know, a lawyer once said, no matter what time period he came from, he would have been the worst. If he was a pirate, he would have been Blackbeard. If he was a Viking, he would have been, you know, Thor, one of those guys. He had just been the worst of the worst, no matter what he was in. And he was one of the worst gangsters. So you get involved with the mafia because of an affair? That's how it started. Yep. So what's the steps then to then move yourself as a mafia guy? What happens? They, first of all, the older mob guys, the bosses, the guys that are in the life, they typically don't look for thugs. They don't look for low level, whatever, to just recruit. They want to see a guy that was brought up with some sense of manners, loyalty, brains. They don't want, there's enough thugs out there that hang around. So if you're going to get closer into the inner circle, you're going to be hand-picked, okay? So he saw I had attributes that he wanted me to be like him, be around him, he trusted me. So what happened, I was on the fire department list to become a fine man like my father. And back, this is like an 81, 80, probably 80, maybe even 79, but way back. But what happened was I got a 99 on the written and I got a 95 on the physical. So out of the 12,000 people that took this test, I was like in the top 500. I would have been picked very soon. But at the time, minorities and women put in a lawsuit saying the test was too tough. It was too hard. It wasn't fair. So it took two years for a judge to decide on that issue. After the two years, he rules against, he rules for them and against all the poor guys that were on the, that were waiting for the job. Now he schedules the next test for two more years down the road. So this is four years. I'm sitting around doing nothing, but I did start working for the supply company. And this again will lead me to answer your question. After about a year at a supply company, I was building up a good little resume, a good book. I was going in and out of stores. At first I had a lot of help. If they didn't order from me, Greg would send somebody. And the next day they'd take an order from me. So I had helped becoming a good salesman. But after about a year, the company dissolves because there was a big fire in the warehouse, destroyed everything. So later on, when I really got to know him well, I always wondered if it was just an insurance thing. If he's the hell with this because he hated legitimate businesses. He didn't like, like him. So I think he just wanted to get all his money back, maybe make a score and that was it. But I got caught in the crossfire now because now I am not in school anymore. I was in John Jay College, which is right not far from where we are now in Columbus Circle. And I don't have a job and I'm not on the list anymore. So Linda says you've got to do something for him. We can't just leave him like this. So he brings me in and his wisdom is that I'll start doing numbers with him. Take the number business. Now the number business was already established. And the number business is the lowest form of business in Cosa Nostra. I mean, the whole thing, it's the lowest starting point. You literally write down numbers, somebody give you a dollar, $2, $5. You go to factories. They already had established stops. So I went to some of those and I would get the numbers. So long story short, and this is back again in 7980. So it may not sound like a lot, but it ends up. I was making 100, 150 a day just picking up the numbers and it's cash and there's no tax. It just goes right in my pocket. But I learned how to enhance it. And he saw that. He saw I was good with numbers. He saw I was smart and he gave me more of the rope. So I went and established other spots. One of them was in what was called off track betting. Are you familiar with OTB from years ago? Off track betting. I says there gamblers in there. They're betting horses all day. So I went into these places and I was getting numbers. Then I said, these guys are betting at OTB. And whenever they win, OTB takes out like 7%. So I started taking their horse action too. I said, they might as well bet with me. I'll pay you the full track price. So now I would go in. I would write horse bets. I would write the numbers. That led to sports betting. This episode is sponsored by Fireaway Pizza. The fastest growing pizza company in the UK with over 150 stores. With their fresh quality ingredients and unique pizzas, they will have you coming back for more. Use code james20 for 20% off. That's james20 for 20% off. Those gamblers wanted to bet everything and anything. So I started going with Paul Acods, which is also very low on the totem pole of business. And I started picking up maybe another 100 a day. So now here I am. I'm 20 years old. I don't have a job, but I'm making 200 a day. You know, I brought some friends in. They started going to other OTBs. Now I was getting a piece of what they were earning. So they were making 100 a day and I'm making an extra 25 or 30 or 50, whatever it was. So I'm learning the way how this happens. Ultimately, and again, I'm cutting to the chase. Greg Jr., who was second in command at the club, and that's obviously Greg's son, he gives the whole sports business to me. He says, this kid, what am I going to do? He's way better than me. So he gave me the whole sports business. Now I grew an incredible gambling mini empire in New York. We had hundreds and hundreds of players. Let's see this table here. You can fill them with names of the people. We have these big pages to keep track of everything. And it also opens the door to Shylocking. Now, I'm going to explain that to you. Shylocking is loan-shocking. You lend money at very high rates. That now is more of an evil business, okay? I guess that's the right word. Gambling, nobody ever looked at me in a bad way. Nobody said, oh my God, look, he's a bookmaker. He's terrible. He's a bad man. Bookmakers were all around. Numbers, guys. It was part of Brooklyn. It was part of growing up. And, you know, if a person is reasonable, you know, I was always reasonable. I hated to bring them to see him, because a lot of times they got hurt when that happened. Early on, then later on I learned that has to happen sometimes. But what happens is people lose money gambling, and they can't pay. So they borrowed from a Shylocker. I became that Shylock even though I was also the bookmaker. I said, all right, you owe me $2,000. You could pay three points on it. You bring me $60 a week. And you can owe me the $2,000 as long as you want. But you got to bring me the $2,000 and stop the $60. And sometimes people would pay me for three, four years. $60 a week. Multiply that by 50 people. This is how I became successful financially, too. At the time, considering, again, I'm a young kid. Now I'm making maybe, you know, early on, $1,500 a week Shylock in the sports business. Who knows how much? And getting closer and closer and getting that trust, and now Greg starts seeing a future for me in that life. And Linda wants me to be a good fella. She says, you're going to be a made guy, you know. And at first it didn't mean that much to me. I didn't understand what it meant, you know. But when you're in the life, that's a protection. Okay, you need to get that eventually if you are going to rise and be a man's man and be a leader and have people around you. So I understand why he wanted that. And again, I'll fast forward a little bit. Later on, his son goes to prison. He gets a long prison sentence. Greg gets sick. So he puts my name in because if anything happens to them, I'm his closest person and he's going to want me to have that protection, to be a made guy where nobody could come and take what's mine. Who is Greg and his son for people who don't know? A made guy? Yeah, no, who is Greg and his son for people who don't know? Yeah, well, yeah, Greg is Greg Scarpa. That's the father. And he was a longtime boss's man with the Colombo family. What a boss's man is, he doesn't have a title. He could go direct to the boss. And he did, which makes him literally higher than the captain. And he had that status from Profacci to Joe Colombo to Carmaine Perceco, who all the bosses along the way. His son, Greg Jr. was one of many kids. He had like, you know, six kids and probably more. We found out later on. That's a few would otherwise. But anyway, let's say six kids. Greg Jr. was the oldest son. And he's the only one. Well, the youngest one later on followed in the footsteps and got killed at a very young age. And I totally blame the father for that. But Greg Jr. was a chip off the old block. He was, he liked the life. He got in the life and he had tried very hard to impress his father with his toughness. And he was tough. And he became a shooter. And, you know, he elevated to official captain. He went actually higher than his father. His father was never an official captain. But the respect his father got was still like years more than, you know, Gregory or any of us would ever get. He was been around a long time. So Greg Scarper was the father. And we called Gregory or Greg Jr. You know, so I still call me. Gregory is the younger one. And Greg is the father to me. And all this, the affairs still going on was the, was the Grim Reaper still having, still sleeping with this woman as well? Or was she yours by then? Was it your partner? His wife? Yeah. No, we were, to me, it was just me and her. Did she grim you as well into that life? Absolutely. Absolutely. And when she wanted me to be a good fellow from a very young age, she was proud. When I started doing things with Greg, she would beam, she would smile. She'd tell Greg, see, I told you he's a tough guy, you know, like I belonged. And I ate that up because I cared for her. So when she would do that, I was like, okay, you know, this is good. Would you have done anything for her? Yeah, somebody you truly love, you would. Yeah. But this is an older woman as well. When you actually look at that, she must have been fucking crazy. She seemed to have liked that life where she wanted to be with a bad man because you weren't. She probably felt better that you were turning into one. Yeah. Well, no, she liked that life without a doubt. She was around it from 16 years old. She started dating Greg and he was like 38 when they were dating. I mean, that's crazy. And she definitely liked the respect she got because she was his. She loved the money. We all love money. That's not wrong with that. But this was her easiest way to get a lot of money. And she had the jewelry. She had the fur coats back in the day. So no, she loved it. But I think if she ever envisioned us at some point being together, like maybe, you know, in the dangerous life he was in, or he's much older and he could, you know, get a heart attack and die. I mean, again, you're 50s, 60s, he's older. We were younger. She would want me to be in that type of life. See, did you feel pressure to try and keep her happy? Yeah. As a kid, it's almost like peer pressure. I wanted her to be proud of me. I didn't want to look inferior to the other men. The other men that were in that club all looked up to as tough guys. Neighborhood leaders and tough guys. The inner circle, I mean. Not the thugs that are hanging around. Nobody looks up at them. But the guys that were in that club every day driving to and from places with Greg, I became his driver. Every day we pulled in together. So we were inseparable. And yeah, no, I felt that peer pressure. That's the best way to put it. Not that it was peer pressure because she wasn't a friend. She was my significant other at the time, you know. But being young, impressionable, you know, naive, all those things came into play. And I've said this several times. The recruitable ones are never seasoned guys that have been around a long, long time. My father could never get pulled into this life. But at 17, you can. Because you see the good stuff. You see the caddies and the Lincolns and the Mercedes-Benz and beautiful watches. You know, you see that. And it's easy to want that. But once you get older and you have kids and you're more seasoned about life, you realize that's not everything. It's nice to have money. Everybody has the right to earn a good living and whatever. Even if you're hustling. There's nothing wrong with that, you know. But there comes a line where now we're not supposed to sell drugs, which I never did, but you see it around. Now you say, okay, that's a rule. We're not supposed to be selling drugs. And I see it happening openly. And as long as they're getting a piece, the big shots get a few bucks. They're way up more than a few bucks. It's okay. Once those kids get pinched selling the drugs, they're not allowed to cop out. They can't because then they're admitting it. So they got to take 20 year sentences. You know, and some of them start flipping. They're not going to take 20 years or whatever. So you start getting seeing this. You start seeing the back stabbing and the treachery that the lying, they tell you one thing, but they're doing something else. And ultimately, our crew got dismantled by the DEA because Greg Jr., when he became a captain, he started taxing drug dealers. He wasn't selling drugs, but if he knew you were selling drugs on the street corner making 2000 a night, you were giving him 25%. And if you didn't, you got hurt. If you didn't, you got hurt again. Got hurt again. Ultimately they started killing guys that weren't kicking in. That were bucking the system. And he got away with that by saying, I'm not selling drugs. I'm just shaking them down. I'm taxing them. And he was giving a big piece to the family captain, Scapi, our captain. And he would give a piece obviously to the boss, Jr. So they knew and it was enormous money. I'm talking bagfuls of money every few hours coming in from gamblers. That's my thing. From drug dealers around the city. It was really scary to look at. And I knew they were under screwed. You could see the FBI out, you could see the vans out, but they didn't care. They would just, you know, it got out of hand and the whole crew wound up doing big time for that. Gregory's crew. I was directly a big Greg. And I avoided that. I stayed away from the drugs and that's why I escaped and stayed on the street a lot longer than most of them. What did you momentize? Well, early on they didn't know. They, even when the supply company closed, I didn't tell them it closed. I was making money. And I remember him saying it like, you know, even in my book, the kid had money. He was never asked us for anything. He had a nice car. He, you know, never seen him come home like drunk or on drugs. I had no reason to worry about anything. He didn't because I had my own apartment in my, in our house. And like he did say, I came home. I paid my bills. I actually kicked in. I gave him a little rent money. He didn't want it. But I said, no, I have to get a place somewhere. I don't mind. You know, I was showing him I was becoming a man, you know? So, but you become deceitful in the wire. You have to. You have to because now as time goes on and I'm dropping him off to kill somebody. And I come home and maybe they see I'm a little up. You know, I'm not, it's not just going to upset son. I don't feel good. You know, I'm not going to tell him I just dropped Greg off the killer guy and drove him away afterwards. You know, so they, excuse me, they don't know really the depth, how deep I had gotten until fast forward later on when we went through the war and the FBI pinched us all. Then it comes out and open court and they're sitting there. And I'm called the deadliest member to scalp a crew. He's part of multiple murders. You know, I'm failing. Oh my God, my poor parents. You know, it's tough. It's tough. And by then I was married to my first wife. I had a son. So, you know, that's when you really, your eyes get really open up. So when you're doing the boogie thing and you're making a bit of money, when did you start getting violent? Well, people don't pay. Okay. So I mentioned earlier, I would try very hard to be reasonable to work with them. But now, as I was, I was getting deeper in my commitments to Gregbermore. I had to pay him more money too. So when they didn't pay, it hurt me. So I would have to bring them to see him. So the first couple of times, Gregory and his guys would bring him in the back and go to work on. Now I started feeling responsible on having these guys beat up my people. You know, and I actually felt inferior. I said, I don't, you know, so down the road, if they didn't pay, me and my guys would crack them around to set an example. And the worst violence, the murders, you don't get thrust into one untested baby steps. They bring you in, like I said, one of the first things I did was, drive him somewhere. The next day I found out that Bucky, who was the guy's name, who was in our crew, got killed. And it was in that bar that I dropped him off at. I don't say anything. You can't say anything. That's a test. It's a test. Am I gonna run and say, Greg, what happened here? Did you do that? You know, I can't do that. I gotta just keep my mouth shut. He asked me to give a guy a flat tire once. The next day in the newspaper, man killed fixing flat. And the newspapers are right on the bar in our social club. So the men are reading it. They're laughing. I go by, see the newspaper out. And I said, I gave that guy a flat. I know the car. It's the freaking silver catty, a white catty, whatever it was. You know, I said, I gave him a flat. But in the back of my hand, I'm saying, well, I didn't kill him. I just gave him a flat. But I'm part of that conspiracy. That's what I say, yeah. Yeah, I'm part of it. So this goes on little by little. And I've said it several times. And it's, you know, it's an analogy partly, but it's true. We did the graves. He asked me to get a shovel. Just buy a shovel. I don't ask him, what's the shovel for, Greg? I'm in my head. I'm saying to myself, they're digging a hole. You know, somebody's going. Then the next time you're asked to dig the hole. And I dug one alongside Greg Junior once. You know, body's going in there. So little by little, then something may happen on a personal level. They don't ask you to kill your best friend. There's so many guys that are ready to kill. They don't need that. And why? Why ask me to kill my? Think about it. Why ask me to kill my best friend when I may go tell my best friend, get out of town? You know, that's what I would do if it was my best friend. And a lot of us would do that. So that's a myth. Then we say, oh, you got to kill your best friend. Not that it never happens. Okay, down the road when you're deeper in and you're both big shots and you're both fighting over the same monies or whatever, that shit happens. It just happens. But getting back to my point of baby steps, something personal may happen. And in my case, something personal did happen. It was Greg's youngest daughter, little Linda. She was named after the mom. Nearly gets raped. Okay, a car service driver takes her to a park instead of to school. She was only about 14, 15. Yeah. So that afternoon, we went to the car service, had the guy who owned the car service give us the address of this driver. At first, he didn't want to give it. Greg leaned over, whispered something in his ear. He couldn't write the address fast enough. Probably told him, I'll kill you right here. You know, and he's very convincing. Greg Scott was convincing. He had a deep voice. He had a stone hard look, not bad looking guy, but just a stone hard look. There's some historic pictures of him in front of the club. And you just look at me, see his picture would be in the dictionary on the gangster, you know. So anyway, we go and we about four or five of us, me, Joey, Carmine, Sal, four of us and Greg, give this guy a beating that I think the message came back that we'll tell you the bones that weren't broken. That's how many bones we broke. I mean, from his nose to his chin to his ribs to his knees. I mean, he was just like, but you know what, it didn't bother me because this garbage, you know, if she, the little girl didn't handle it right and she handled it real good. She convinced him that let's not do it this way. I'd rather you come and pick me up some day and we go somewhere. You know, she turned it around and I found this out way later on that that's how she got out of that. But so again, at that point, I didn't care. So he knew that I would be okay with that and I would want to do that for Big Linda too. So he took me on that one and that was vicious. But somewhere along the way and I remember telling him because he asked me afterwards, I should have killed this guy. Now he's talking to me. I want to kill this guy. I can't let this guy live. Why did they let him live? Why did they let him live? Well, at first I think and I said this to him later. I says, don't you think it's better the beating we gave him as a message to others? You know, people are going to hear about that. They're going to see this guy. I mean, sometimes it's good to just leave a message. You know, if he had gone the distance, then yeah, I'd say just kill him right now. What are we waiting for? You know, but being somewhat level headed, this is a conversation to have with him. But I think he was getting pressure from Big Linda too. She couldn't, she wanted him gone. I remember that and she almost looked at us as weak for not doing it. And I think he felt that way now. So we came up with a plan where we would call the car service. It took him about two or three months to even get back in the car. Maybe more than that. I forget at least a few months. And we would call the car service. And until he showed up as the driver, we did it like six or seven times. Finally, I said, that's him. And we had a, I was at the door and when I saw it was him, I would nod and the car mind would hit the lights and they would come out and get in the car and Gregory was actually the main shooter there. So now I'm on the scene of a hit and again, it's not, I'm not losing sleep over this one. You know, let's, everybody could look in the mirror themselves. If it was your wife, your daughter, your loved one, how, wouldn't you want him? Most people would say, I want him dead. Most people would say that. Very few people would say, I'll let the cops say, they're not because he's going to get a year and a half in jail, if that much. If that, exactly. So, you know, there's a place for street justice. There is, I still believe that, you know, I'm not a cop called, I'd rather handle it myself, even to this day and let the chips fall. I'm not going to call it cops. It's not my style. Never was. So, anyway, then the next one was Greg Jr. And maybe, I may be out of order. It's been so long. I'm 60, almost 63. This was in my 20s. I mean, you know, and there were so many with this crew, you know, to Grim Reaper that it's just hard. But one, another early one was Greg Jr. gets in a beef in his bar. It's called on the rocks. That was his nightclub. And the local guy that he got in the beef with was a known tough guy. And they're walking out of his bar to have it out. And four or five guys come with Greg Jr. That's our style. You know, unfortunately, as tough as some of the guys, Gregory was tough, but he's not going to fight him on one. Same with me. After the years, I was a martial artist. I could handle myself not the toughest guy in the world by no means, but I could handle myself. I never needed, you know, five guys to back me, but in that life, they're not going to let me raise my hands. I'm going to have five guys beat. I pulled the guy over once to beat him up myself. And next thing I knew, three guys that know me, well, they were our guys, Fat Larry, Fat Danny, and another Fat Guy Dean. They were driving by. Fat Bastas. Well, that's their nickname. So they were driving by and saw this. I had to stop them. Oh, easy, easy. I gave them enough is enough. They were going to beat them to death. But that's because I was Larry, Greg's nephew, and they were also up and coming guys. And today they moved up. They're in the life right now. So, you know, I hate to say that because some of them I like, and they're just on a collision course, like we all were in that life. There's not too many ways out. So anyway, this guy now, because he was outnumbered in the back of the bar, pulls out a gun. Gregory winds up getting shot in the, in the behind, in the S. And the next day, he comes to the club and he's wearing short. We're not allowed to wear shorts, but he tells his father he got shot. He's got a bullet in his ass. He hits the, he went nuts. He says, what the fuck happened? So Gregory's laughing about it. He's making a joke because he don't want to kill the guy. It was a fight. It was any, and I think he liked the guy. He was a normal, a fellow tough guy, you know, but a little probably crazy. And no, no, no, no, no, no. You're a good fellow. He was a made guy at this point, Greg, Junior. And he says, you're a good fellow and he hits the desk. He says, you can't get shot in the S. You know, like it mattered where he got shot. He's in the S. You can't get shot. I want this guy done. It's going to get, it's going to happen. So this is one where now I drove Greg in limo. Him and Joe Brewster. And Greg was going to take I'm the shooter. He's meaning him. Joe Brewster and I were, and I was going to be in another car to take them out of there afterwards, but I was a backup also. And then we had crash cars. But Greg shoots. And I found out Joe Brewster shot too. He wasn't supposed to, but he wanted to do that for Greg. He loved Greg Junior. Anyway, so here I am getting closer now because again, it's personal. It's like my brother. Greg, he's a brother to me. They shot him. We can't let that go. Then you fall into this mentality that what you're doing is okay. Later on, when you know a guy's getting killed, just, you know, because he broke a rule selling drugs. That's a little different. That's a little harder. We just got to whack a guy cause he's, you know, it's, it's, you know, different reasons, disrespect or he's not paying anymore. He stopped paying or afraid he's going to become a rat. He may become a rat. You just start whacking guys for like, just because you're ordered to, or, you know, we're going to do it. But one thing I'll say about Greg Senior, he never told me Larry, go kill that guy. He told Larry, take a ride. He was always there. He was always there. Well, Greg Junior, they weren't the type. There's a lot of them out there. And I'll tell you some of them, you know, some of the biggest names you know, weren't, you know, big time trigger men. I'm not going to mention this. It's unnecessary, but there's a lot of guys that elevated. Well, I'll say one, Vicarina, which caused our whole family to fall apart and we'll get to that. But Vicarina was eventually our acting boss. He wasn't much of a shooter in his life, but when he became acting boss, because Junior Perceco, our boss, thought he could control him from prison. He says, not that much of a tough guy. He'll listen to what I tell him. Problem was, he listened to everybody. Okay. He wasn't his own man. He would listen to John Gotti. He would listen to this one, listen to what people were telling him. And they had their own motives. So he caused an internal war for us, which we'll get to at some point. But, but they were intriguing them. They were just ordering it. Now Vicarina was able to whack him, kill him, take him out, you know, and you don't realize, it's a big deal to kill someone. It's a big deal. You're taking a life. It shouldn't be that easy. And it was a time when it wasn't, when you had to go through channels and you had, you know, but the newer bosses, you know some of the names like Gaspipe, you know, John Gotti. It became very easy. Just kill him, take him out. He may be a rat. I dreamed about him being, I guess Gaspipe had a dream that a guy was going to be a rat. He just dreamed it and he killed him. Yeah. I mean, so that's when, you know, part of the reason that the leadership went downhill, the drugs usage, the lack of following the, the rules, the basic rules that we were supposed to follow, destroyed the life. But, but again, come back to where you were. It's not, it's baby steps and you get acclimated and you understand and then you're in so deep, you can't say, no, it's a weakness. You got to just keep your mouth shut. You know, it's just, it's hard to explain. It's hard to explain. When you're there and you're in that deep, there's nothing you can do. Yeah. When did you realize that you were slipping? When did you realize that you were becoming lost when, was that a realization early or was it not too late years, but did you feel as if you were losing yourself? Well, I wouldn't put it that way. Because some people love that life with all about that life. You seem to be quite levelheaded where you seem to think differently from that life. Yeah, no, I did then too. Like, when I talk about these, these hits and things, it's not easy. That's why I never get into detail. I want to bring up names of people because they have families, they have, you know, kids now that might have heard stories about their dad and then to see me on YouTube saying we, we shot him 15 times on 86th Street, you know, but you don't need to do that to get the gist of what we're talking about. But no, I, the early ones, like I said, that were hand fed to me for a reason where I actually felt proud. I was doing a service to the community. You know, you actually feel that way because this guy's no good. And again, I'll say it again, what if it was somebody in your own daughter, you know, so that type then you get past the act. It's the act of doing it, right? Not the, or the reasons. There's two different things. I've been talking about this a lot lately because I did a TV show not long ago where I was on with a psychiatrist and she's trying to understand how a kid like me became a killer. And I said, and I'm glad I had two days with her because when she asked me up front, it was pretty much what I was saying now. You know, it's just, it's a developmental, you just work your way there. But I went to bed and I said, you know, if I was drafted at 18 years old to the Army, I would probably, because of my makeup the way I am, I would want to excel and become a Navy SEAL or a shop shooter, a marksman, you know, those guys that pop up, you know, that's what I would want. I would want to do that. And I might have to do this if I was in the Army. So, that marksman has learned to kill. The act of killing is one thing. It's the reasons. Now, generally speaking, most people would say that marksman is doing it for his country or he's doing it for the right reasons. That's arguable, you know, war or whatever. You could argue that political or whatever. But so the act of doing it, really almost anybody could. You learn. My drill instructor would have taught me to kill in the Army or somebody would have taught me. Right? So I had, unfortunately, a different upbringing in which, and again, it's the reasons. I could never justify the reasons of the early ones. Now, when I was part of this family and we went to war, I did a lot of damage with Greg, the two of us, the three of us, my partner Jimmy too and the whole crew, as the war went on, it was just the three of us because of the trust factor. You know, you don't know who's going to turn on you to end this war. So it was just the three of us and we had numerous bodies just during the war and shootouts and injuries. Those I could talk about a little more cold-hearted because I was in the life. No change in that. My regrets for allowing myself to get in are there. I'll never forgive myself for being that stupid. But once I was in and guys are trying to kill me and take my business and my livelihood, what was I supposed to do? I'm defending myself and I became vocal because at first our leadership know we have to try to and our guys are getting killed. We have to talk to so we have to sit down let's try to make peace and they're talking and talking our friend gets killed then Hank gets killed another guy gets killed. I told Greg I said I don't like this we're going to get shot one day. I said what are we going to do? We got to answer back we got to let them know we're going to at least fight them. I mean and here I am 25 now 25 maybe 26 27 I'm sorry a little bit later because the war went on for maybe a year or so and I was in jail at 30 so actually 27 28 and finally he said he's right. We got to start hunting. We can't just be hunted. So we start looking and we start getting a few of their guys and I'm feeling better because now they're hiding out they're closing their places down. Now everybody's hiding they're hiding we're hiding at least I'm not a sitting duck. Then later on one of the heavyweights from the other side that we were fighting sends a message to my uncle Albert who is my mom's brother who is well I'll refer to as a dinosaur with the Colombo family he was the only person in my whole family that was connected and he was well connected. I mean for a long, long time he goes way back to earlier than even Greg you know there's some names that you'll hear you know you see in the movies he remembers when Al Capone went from Brooklyn to Chicago that's how far back he goes and well respected and well liked he's a good man he did what he had to do he pulled the trigger he was a trigger guy no doubt about that but a good man and he goes to him and he tells him he's going to I'm going to kill your nephew if he doesn't come over to our side so we got the message I told Greg he called Carmine our counselor yeah and he said he heard the same thing and this guy's name was Nicky Black so he became our number one target so we went right through where we know he would be for business the very first day he comes driving by and I said it there's Nicky Black and Greg said let's get him you know that's literally that is exactly what was said I said there's Nicky Black he said let's get him so we followed we drove around the block that he was making a few stops picking up money and stuff he pulls over and when he does Jimmy my best friend and my partner pulls up alongside of him Greg's in the front seat and Greg is fumbling over his rifle because we will backtrack and fill in some of these gaps obviously but Greg had AIDS later on was it gay? no he got a big blood transfusion I'll explain that but now he was getting dementia and this was dangerous because he was not making good decisions for us at the end at the end and again we'll fill it in but he hits the wrong button and all his bullets fall out instead of the safety he took he hit the wrong button but I had a shotgun and this guy just threatened my life and I know he'll do it he gets a chance to kill me he's gonna kill me so I had a baseball hat sunglasses and a bandana on I leaned out the window of the car and this guy never turned he never turned to look at the car and we know why we think we know why because we were had the car looking like a police surveillance car we had a siren in the window we had coffee cups we had a walkie talkie so he probably sort in the mirror it looked like a cop cop pulling up he probably was telling his nephew who was next to him they were rolling up on us because they were following us all at this point I lean out the window I put the shotgun literally a couple of inches from behind his head and blasted him and it was a buck shot type of thing bullets were spread out it was, it was, you know the horrible to look at his face hit the dashboard his nose there's a gruesome picture of that still out there somewhere you could see it on probably a few Google search it and stuff like that and I heard later on they found his teeth about a half a block away so I mean it was a but you know that was one that again in the situation I was in I can't regret he might have killed me the next day so what am I supposed to do was that your first killer no no no it was during the war there were a few we had a couple of other hits we had when we actually killed a guy hanging his Christmas wreath you know during the war he was on a hit previously hit the tent against us but he missed obviously and you know we targeted him we found him and he was he was hanging Christmas lights around his house and we got you know we took him but this was again these were the war my point is the ones I'm talking about during the war I don't mind mentioning their names and I don't mind talking about it again it was kill or be killed what was it like shooting someone for the very first time were you nervous of course of course very nervous you know reluctant but you know you can't not now no matter how you know did they get easier the lucky thing for me it did because it was a war now it wasn't go kill this guy because he is selling drugs go kill this guy because he didn't come in I called him so you could justify it more yes does that make you sleep better at night well no but I still I still have nightmares those that come back and crazy nightmares you know one of them you know I love animals I was always a kid I was good with animals I have always had pets I have two cats right now that are like you know like kids to you it's a mate I don't have yet pets yeah dogs yeah I love dogs too that's the only reason I struggle to go away I want to I've got kids but fuck the kids I just mess the dogs that's why I have cats because the dogs you can't travel it's harder to get up and go but anyway one of my dreams recently was one of my enemies came towards me with a gun and he came too close I was able to get it from you know any self defense martial arts they get the gun too close you could take it right from them if they don't shoot fast enough so I got the gun from him now he turned you started running away and I'm shooting at him and I hit him he goes down and I'm shooting again to hit him again but there's a paper bag next to him and I shoot the bag by mistake and a little cat comes out bleeding and moaning why is God doing that to me I felt worse than the cat than that enemy you know I woke up in a cold sweat I said oh my God I killed the cat and I was so happy it was a dream didn't bother me that I was shooting this cock sucked an enemy am I human you know but so it's like is it God play with my psych don't forget you don't want a gun in your hand ever again you know how did the wall stop okay that's great segue back to as I'm going along in this life I'm about 26, 27 Greg proposes me to be a maid guy and at that time Greg Junior just went to prison pretty good stretch he's going to be doing Greg had had an operation that he had had his stomach taken out from ulcers the doctor botched it and he needed emergency blood donors so he didn't want to take the hospital blood because he knew this aid sting was around listen to the irony here 30 of us go 30 guys come right away to give blood one match one of our guys named Paulie Melly Paulie was a big weightlifter used steroids the needle he wasn't gay either this guy was and we probably have to say it today not that there's anything wrong with that yeah of course but just at that stage that was passed up out yeah wanna make everybody happy but no he wasn't and I mean he was a ladies man he had girls and he was a classy dresser and he knew his fine wines good guy but he used a needle and they shared it so he had AIDS his matches again divine intervention God even Greg Junior says God gave him that fucking AIDS he deserved it for what he wound up being later on when we get to Coup de Gras about who Greg really was so he gets one match and it's infected but he felt he knew none of his men were like that he says they're all men's men they're not even gonna have AIDS the one match and it had AIDS so he gets the AIDS that's how he got the AIDS so now our whole crew was the toughest crew and then if not the country definitely the city or the Colombo family would add a doubt I mean nobody wanted to have any beefs with us if they owed money they brought it we didn't even want to talk about it Asian money so at the same time Giuliani Rudolph Giuliani if you know the name was the attorney for the state of New York he puts up this big thing this like Elliot Ness he's gonna break down the mob he's gonna stop all their businesses which he did he did and he's gonna use the RICO Act against them so all the heads of the families get put to trial and they lose and they all get big, big sentences or one of us is our boss Junior Perseco he gets 130 years so he's never coming home he's in his 60s when this happens maybe 65, 66 but he doesn't want to give up the seat the boss seat you don't have to if you're the boss and this is one of the rules and it's something that I learned from Greg and people on the outside who are watching these things should know there's only the boss is the boss until he dies steps down voluntarily says I'm stepping down or unanimously gets voted out by every single captain impossible because the minute a guy becomes boss he makes his son a captain he makes his brother a captain he makes close long time friends captains is that so he's got back up right so they're never going to unanimously now he'll he'll be a politician and he'll say okay even though this guy we don't get along too well he's powerful I'm going to make his son a skipper I'm going to make vicarina and his kids skippers so there's a balance but you have enough that you know all 12 of your cousins and brothers and sons aren't going to unanimously those are the rules so even though he had 130 years he's still the boss and I I'm going to say I think because some people differ on this his son Ali boy was finishing up a sentence of 12 years and he wanted his son to be the next boss and the reason I say I think because later on I heard that from Ali boy he would have left vicarina as the acting boss because when he came out of prison he couldn't take that spot anyway the limelight he'd be right back in and he'd be and he'd be violated he'd be back so but they thought the arenas thought that as soon as Ali boy comes out Vic is demoted so Junior goes away for this time and he names vicarina acting boss and I remember Greg saying it wasn't a good move because he's not he's a weak guy Junior thought he'd be his puppet but like I said before he listened to too many people so there were other people with gripes or had some problems with Junior Percego they owed a bunch of money that they were never going to get out of Nikki Black went to the other side because when he got made it was with a stipulation he would never rise above soldier never that's hard to swallow when you're a guy a lot of years in the life and you're making all this money with the teamsters and you're sending thirty forty thousand a month up to the boss from the teamsters and you're never going to rise that's it so he went to the other side the alloy brothers they had a vendetta with the Percegos because one of the alloys was a boss years ago and went to jail and he stepped down he says I'm not going to control this from prison I'll be in jail for the next ten years so he stepped down he thought Junior should have stepped down that's a valid argument but it's not the rule you could feel he should have stepped down and maybe he should have 130 years but he didn't have to so John Gotti big time catalyst in this war because he had the biggest ego out there out of all of them combined he had the biggest ego and he wanted to be the boss of all bosses but since the commission came around they were only the bosses are equal there's five equal bosses nobody's the boss of all bosses the last one that might have had that was Carlo Gambino because he was the elder statesman I think they looked up to him as a very wise old man and even the other bosses looked up to him but they're equals so John Gotti felt if Vic Arena becomes official boss Vicks on the boss Joey Scopo you got to follow this this is the backstabbing in the treachery in the life Joey Scopo he on the boss grew up with John Gotti even though he's in the Colombo family they grew up as kids they were very close very close if Vic Arena becomes official boss he wins the war and becomes official boss they're going to clip him they're going to take him out that elevates Joey Scopo to boss now Joe and John have two seats on the commission that's big and that's part of this old grand scheme was to be in charge of that commission so he put a weak guy there if he would have put a guy like Greg there when John Gotti send the message to Vic take this thing, it's yours they're weak what are they going to do because that's a thug mentality Greg would have told them mind your fucking business this is our family you don't care if it's John Gotti or anybody the chin anybody that would have approached him with that that's what he would have told them and that's what a man an equal would say Vic Arena oh yeah you think we could take this thing over he was weak and he went along with it and when I ran into him later on in prison he came over to me and apologized he said I'm so sorry I caused this whole thing but anyway that's how the war started Junior went away he nominated he didn't nominate he put Vic Arena in as his acting boss and his weakness and want and now his newly found ego he wanted it for himself how many is in your family at this time? well the Colombo family is the smallest family made member-wise we have about 150 made members this was set in the rules many years ago and I think the Gambino's have like 400 if the numbers are still the same so you don't bumble but we had well no it was no but now other families didn't matter they had no say in this business it was our problem and we had about 30 guys on our side they had about 120 and I remember our leader Carmaine Cesar who was under Greg for a while and became the consul yeah big part of this reason too we went to war he would come crying and Greg literally sometimes crying for help please and he says they got 120 guys we only got 30 and Greg told them they got 120 guys we got 30 shooters he says they don't have 30 shooters and they didn't they had two or three crews that we was concerned with that we had to keep our eye on and fight okay but all of our guys we shoot us so we were okay as far as that and we he proved to be right because they weren't heading for the hills when we started going around the city looking for them all the time was this one of the biggest wars and the mafia it was called the bloodiest ever I mean you know you see like movies and things like that the same Valentine's Day massacre and stuff like that those were all single events this war lasted for like a year and bodies were dropping in the streets and it was they called it the bloodiest internal mob war or civil war they called it in mob history how did someone won a war like that how was how did someone won a war like that when does it come to a conclusion one side has to give in and that's a weakness then it is but could another be an interest we were never going to get we were never given in because if we gave into vicarina especially after the bodies there's going to be sacrificial limbs and Greg said it's us the only way they're going to trust a truce is if I'm out meaning him, Greg if I'm out of the way and you two guys are out of the way meaning Jimmy and myself because we did all the damage a lot of the damage so if we were gone they would trust it same thing the other way around if they came in and says okay we want a truce the only way that's going to happen is if some of their catalysts go and they would have been while Bill Joe Waverly guys like that that's the only way we would trust a truce and a merger again getting put it back together so but towards the end we were ahead we were winning and they had a lot of cracks guys were coming back guys were making deals to come back to the family so people can actually leave a family not a family it's the Colombo family don't forget we were fighting amongst ourselves so technically they were under Junior Perceco they were rebels they were trying to oust Junior and then become the leadership of his family but when they saw that their days were numbered little by little they were coming back in you know sending messages tell Junior I apologize I got caught up under my cat they were blaming each other and some of them how would you trust them then you can't you can't trust me it's a treacherous back stabbing you know the reason at the end the only three of us we had about 30 guys that were out traveling around and do it Greg said we gotta make our circle a lot smaller and he said somebody close to us is gonna give us up is gonna take us out just to end this war so we traveled just the three of us he didn't want and other guys it's insulting because they're friends I'm still talking to some of them that they can't be they can't be just they're worried he didn't know who would turn on us but that's smart also it's very smart it's very smart he says we don't need a whole bunch of people around because everyone else that's why they'll turn and kill each other and especially with the main interviewer you can't that's the fucking hell why would you keep so many people around you no you need the people around that you know you can trust and put a gun in his hand you know right even if you don't have one and that was us the three of us me and Jimmy childhood friends we're never going to give each other up never and Greg we were so loyal to him it's sickening and yeah so what sort of damage were you doing when it was just Tuesday we well we got Nicky Black we got Vinny Fusaro that was the wreath guy we got Larry Lempase we had three shootouts with Joe Waverly we shot him a few times and he shot back he was always ready for us and those were mad shootouts and you know Joe just did a long stretch you know and I typically don't mention I almost take it back that I'm talking about him because he is home now and I don't wish him any bed more problems with law or I don't think the family is going through any killing right now they will learn their lessons but anyway he's back out and I hope he keeps himself out of trouble but but anyway no we had a bunch of shootouts we took out four or five guys and you know we even hit a guy that was around the chin by mistake but he was in a social club a Colombo club and that caused some concern figuring now we hit a guy in another family the Genevieve family but the chin the boss at our family sent the message back that Greg already said to us he said he was a big boy he shouldn't have been there he shouldn't have been there and that was a message that came back from the chin so it's an old school he says he shouldn't have been in that club so you know you notice a war going on why are you hanging out in a Colombo social club what about the relationship at the start where was she in this Linda? she was home she was um uh chairing us on I mean she knew like yeah we had a police scanner uh so we were able to listen and this was a great time for me to lead into what Greg I said the truth a real Greg we had a scanner and there was a five digit code pick any five numbers any five numbers in the whole wide world okay and it was a secret code that the FBI and the task force the New York police task force organized crime task force that we're working with the FBI they're the only ones that had that code and we had it so we were listening to them as they followed us as they followed our enemies then we were getting information where our enemies were and we're trying to figure this out I said how the fuck is Greg getting his info you know one of them was Larry Lempese he says he gets out of his apartment every morning about three thirty in the morning he owned a bus company school bus so they start out like four four thirty in the morning he's got to get there before all the drivers and he tells us he's going to back out of his driveway then he gets out of the car to go lock his gate he's got to do it with a key that's when we're going to get so we're saying how the hell does he know this guy gets out there find out later on and he used to tell us he had a girlfriend that's what he called it because we had this big shoe phone too like the old days the stock brokers used to use him and nobody had cell phones back then it was beepers or that and he would call somebody and he called him his girlfriend we thought it was somebody on the other side that we were fighting somebody that was trying to be friends to save his life at some point turns out it's an FBI agent Greg de Grimrepa is a government informant for 30 years and he was getting information from this guy of where these guys were being he's the one that told us about Larry the time he gets out of the house the next night we went lights at a cat he came on 320 we got there about 3 o'clock 310 whatever it was and he rolls out and this one and this is another one that I see the change in me because I was saying now at this point we're shooting guys we're killing and they're just they're not coming in why don't they give up why don't they surrender so I remember saying to Greg I says you know what we gotta massacre somebody look where I went from literally an altar boy at one point in my life to telling the Grimrepa I'm telling the Grimrepa we gotta massacre somebody we gotta send them a message that they say this is personal this isn't business this is personal now we're done anybody we see we you know really so this guy wanted to be in that guy he backs out Greg and I get out Jimmy's not supposed to get out because he's driving we need him in the car Greg shoots him with the rifle he goes down he starts crawling a little bit to try to get away then he collapses he's just laying there and as we get up to him he said something to us either he said do it already or what did I do I remember hearing do do it or what I do something like that and I'm gonna tell you why that's important in a few minutes but now Greg puts the rifle up I get the shotgun he keeps shooting with the rifle and I'm hitting him with the shotgun Jimmy comes out if it's all said and done not if it's all said and done comes over and he puts two shots behind his ear and that's what Greg Straymark was he told us that his kids he told me and his his son on a hit one of the hits him and his I did with Greg Junior the guy didn't die until he got in the ambulance on the way to the hospital he died and Greg was furious about that and this was a very classic piece of work I mean it was classic it was on 86th Street cops all around we had to have a good setup with the crash cars and stuff and he comes over to me and Greg his son and he looks and he looks both in the eye back and forth like that he says you never ever not put a bullet in the guy's head behind his ear he looks at me he says that's my trademark he says you put a bullet behind his ear I don't care if you hit him with 20 shots he says he could have identified you on the way to the hospital that's the way he thinks so I remember saying to myself this is fatherly advice to Gregory and me I was like a son to him by this time put a bullet behind his ear so anyway Jimmy did that and this guy was massacred and it really was the last hit of the war how dangerous was the Grim Reaper how many bodies has he killed you know he told me he stopped counting at 50 later on it came out from the FBI and again with him being tight with the FBI there's a lot of undisclosed knowledge so to speak they said 200 200 is a good is a more likely number for him so he's got a license to kill because he's corporate corporate in well they'll never admit that but yes they'll never admit that but he could do braze he did hits like that when I just said it was brazing we had no right doing that on 86 we were cops all around you know kids and hangouts it was like in the movies you see the old days kids were hanging out in places you know he's the one that the family came to to kill a woman that they thought was gonna reveal where one of the person goes was hiding out whether she was or not I still don't know but they felt she was Greg gets the hit he didn't bring me on that one and I remember him telling me and I was happy woman I mean come on he said I know who has the stomach for this and who doesn't and I was fine with that and I wasn't the only one a bunch of us didn't go on that one it was a tight group that did that one yeah that takes ya differently yeah well I really listen if people aren't in that game soldiers are killing soldiers gangsters are killing gangsters a fair game for me right but women children there's no going back from that after it was done Scappy our captain came in and I'll never forget him saying after it was done we're all going to hell for this one there's no justifying it you know but they knew who to go to the Grim Reaper and he got it done so this guy the Grim Reaper who's killed over 200 people you're having an affair with him you think you're his brother you would die for him you would kill for him and then you find out he's a snitch yep what's that feeling I remember it being as I was in prison I'm in the can fighting my case tooth and nail spending all kinds of money on lawyers trying to fight and win a case what were you in for? uh racketeering what murder uh loan-shocking conspiracy to do everything when the indictment came in is that after the war yeah when we're all arrested um they arrested me in Florida and it was a complaint they arrest you on a complaint because they had to take time to put the indictment while I'm in I talk to my family on the phone every day I'm waiting for this indictment to come in whatever it's about so I asked my father one day he said the indictment came we got it so I says how is it he says well they blame you for everything except Jimmy Hoffa I mean my father has a sense of humor obviously but uh I got the point so they every hit every shoot out every conspiracy even ones that I wasn't on because I was part of the family and I was part of Greg's crew so even ones that I really wasn't on they put me in and that's the AMO they'll just throw everything at ya so no now later on I'm back in MCC in New York and it's funny because the feds have a funny way of doing things and it's all orchestrated and for a reason they had separations they would never let me be with Carmine Sesse they'd never let me be with some guys from the other side like Billy's crew because we were fighting each other to kill you know even in the can they're afraid we'll kill each other but they bring me back from Otisville which is another prison and they put me on a floor with Vic Arena how do you do that? that was our number one target I'm the number one killer next to Greg in their indictment not for real I mean you know they over do it and that's when he came and apologized to me said he was sorry he did he did say I wish you guys were on my side but they said I'm sorry it all happened why did they apologize though? well he's you know what I didn't take it as a sign of weakness I took it as a sign of humility he knows he fucked up if it wasn't for him the family might not have fell apart so everybody's dead everybody's dead guys are in jail guys are making deals guys are running away the family fell apart but you're getting tired with it all this time that's why you accepted that well do you apology? yeah well at that point like I said to me bygones were bygones let's try to win our cases you know our freedoms at stake now I'm not worried about you right now you know you did what you did but I so I accepted it and we talked but within a couple of days there's rumors swirling around that Greg Scarp is a rat so him with two other heavyweights from the Lucchese family called me into the bathroom that's where we go to talk because usually they supposedly could never be bugged or anything they're not supposed to bug bathrooms and things like that so we go in the bathroom and they're asking me he says did you hear this the Greg's a rat I went after him I fucking say something like that are you kidding me and I'm ready to I mean he'd have no shot at me at that point it's not that he's an old senile he's only probably at the time I was 30 he's probably in his early 50s but still I mean he wasn't like an old anyway I went after him and I forgot respect for elders I forgot who he I don't care you can't call Greg a rat in front of me so they get in between and they say no no no just we're hearing it we were wondering if you knew anything and after that I moved my my bed to the other side I didn't want to stay near him anymore the next day Greg Scarp is in court senior to father asking the judge the leniency and his exact words were I thought I could go home after all I did for this government over the years now that's in the newspaper the next day they call me in the bedroom again same three guys I go in and telling me how could you not have known that's a bad signal what are you going to try to make me a scapegoat you're going to try to throw it on to me is that for you I didn't know if I knew I deserved to be killed yeah more than a percent yeah right so I snow I said I was sick to my stomach but again go back to your question I felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest the guy I gave literally put my life on the line for and he threw us under the bus he threw his son me Jimmy he was now making a deal blaming the whole war on him and us to help Junior Percego's son he's still trying one last ditch effort to maintain some kind of dignity in the life but you were at for 30 years nothing you could do now is going to change that but also I heard he was trying to make a deal with a family would give him some money so Linda would have money to live on and part and because he could have easily said we had nothing to do with it you're dying anyway say Larry and Jimmy only drove me they had no clue what I was doing so I get a little slap on the wrist I get five years ten years something I was willing for that I understood that was the life and I'm going to do time it's okay but he threw us under the bus so we're done we're just you know and my Jimmy was still on the limb my partner never got arrested he we were getting ready to go and he we were going different directions and meet up but I got arrested in Florida it's the hardest part about finding a guy who you would die for you've seen people die you've killed people you've destroyed your whole life you've brought your mom's heart what's the hardest thing about your best friend well turning on you everything you just said is the hardest part you just these thoughts go through your head that how how could it happen first of all how could he be bad how could the government allow it this is one of the most ruthless, murderous men in history and they allowed it they partnered with him they were giving us addresses it's a lot of it's surreal I felt like I was walking on air I felt like I was in a dream in another world couldn't believe it it was true even when it was true I couldn't believe it you know how to help is this it's like the perfect storm how could it happen you know the coppers are pulling the strings and getting everybody killed each other saying everybody out they know every bit of information is it just a game for them well they were all all they're worried about is rising up on the pay scale that's all they care about they don't care about anything else so now they take me off the floor okay and before I was on with Vic they put me in a cell with Greg Sr for a few days but he had his eyes shut out which is a whole other story and yeah what happened when the boss got his eyes shut Greg, Greg Sr his eyes shut the grim reaper yeah it was during the war and this is a sickening story too there was there was a ceasefire and we were winning his son his youngest son had gotten into the drug business because his father pushed him into it and said go make money he winds up getting in a beef with another drug dealer and they he calls me I go to the house he goes straighten us out go talk to this kid whatever so I get in the car the son comes out with a gun give me that gun I blocked it in the glove compartment I'm gonna go talk to this kid we're not gonna shoot him so I go can't find him go by the house go by his drug stop whatever and I don't want to do this because I don't want to be around these people the drugs I've never done it but there's nobody left he only trusted me really or Jimmy so I go can't find him I go back to Greg let it go till tomorrow let everybody cool down Joey didn't get hurt it's a business thing he's handling it tomorrow he agreed with me I go home I'm not home five minutes I hear the phone ring and the answering machine comes I wasn't even answering and it's Linda frantic I think Joey got killed Greg shot and I said I'll be right there hang up I gotta go back on the way back the block that I was on I saw like a crime scene all cops FBI agents ambulances fire department all down the street make people all around you know to gawk is the bystanders but I pass it and I go to the house I get to the house there's a bullet-ridden car bullet-riddled car in front of us the one I was in with Joey ten minutes earlier Greg went back out with him they went with their guns they got in a shootout these guys shot Greg in the eye but he got back in the car and the sun running off and hiding and surviving at that moment but he got killed later on he drives to the house and this is a legend very thing that it's a story that people love hearing I walk in the house first of all I hear the kid in the car gasping breathing for his last breath it's just Joey's friend best friend the son Joey's best friend he got hit in the back of the head he never got out of the car when the shooting started going to the house Greg is on the phone with the parole department because he had the thing on his ankle he wasn't supposed to leave the house he's bleeding profusely he's got a towel he's on the phone and there's a Scotch there he's sipping a Scotch while he's talking to them he says nah I never left the house there must be a problem with the thing I gotta drive him now to the hospital there's four hospitals within ten minutes of his house he insists that I take him to a hospital that I just blocks from here which is without traffic thirty minutes from his house but normally coming to Manhattan there's going to be traffic but this was late at night so there wasn't much traffic but I gotta go through toll boots that have manned by cops this cop's all around same thing I gotta drive a guy believing to death but I take him my loyalty again I drive him to the hospital I roll him in well I walk him in they put him right on a roller the nurse comes over to me and says what happened to him I said I don't know he called me I think he fell in the back yard on a pipe or something what was I going to say so she rolls him in the back and she has paperwork for me to fill out I guess so she comes back out and says you stay right here so I said what's the matter you want me to fill out the paperwork she says stay right here as soon as she walks away I go over to the door I says Greg I gotta get out of here he's laying on a gurney like this and all he does he picks up his thumb he puts thumbs up to me I take off the minute I got in the car and drove I seen the siren light sirens they knew he got shot so they called for the cops and I drive back to the house now I gotta rally the guys I gotta call the guys up this is why it's such a horrible story too on top of everything else lives being you know people getting shot this kid almost did this drug dealer 18 years old maybe 19 almost ended the Colombo war all we went through for the last year this dummy Greg goes out and gets shot by some 19 year old drug dealer if he would have got killed we'd be back to square one where we and we don't have Greg our fearless leader you know and this is before obviously you know he's bad this was the tail end of it so that's why he had his eyes shut out when I was with him and he didn't even have a patch he just had a big hole in his head it was terrible we're paying gin together and I'm marching blood still losing out of there it was crazy but they put me with him I think after you knew he was in prison before this is it's before I went to see Vic I was with him so now I'm thinking the feds might have been hoping Greg would talk to me about cooperating but he probably saw it wasn't on my agenda it wasn't like you know he probably sort of always talking about we got this kid we're going to fight this fucking thing we got it with them you know whatever I was saying that's a possibility maybe I'm wrong but I think they put me with him for a reason why are you going to put me with him when you got everybody on separation then they send me to Vic then after Vic and they know this issue went on the security guards know that there's something there between us now they move me to another floor who am I with alley boy Perseco who's he Carmine Junior's son Carmine Perseco's son the one that is supposed to take over for Carmine and get Vic out of the way he's the son who's the ever parent to the throne and now we're talking about Greg because it did come out it's all over the building it's all over the newspapers everywhere Grim Reaper's a rat 30 year in form at this step and I'm talking to him about it and he tells me he says him and his father knew for 20 years they knew he was bad so now again my insides are turning I said wait a second he says you knew so the boss knew he was a snitch the boss and his son knew so were they snitches in well that's half way there you know but here's the thing they were using him to do all these hits he made a fortune for them and he probably gave them info to help them along the way no one knew about that license to kill well yeah but making it like say oh he's got somebody on the payroll they downplayed it but they knew so so they used them and they both used each seller they used them to help themselves but if any of us had done that we'd be killed if I knew he was a rat and I didn't say I'm part of it so he knew we made a mistake when he said it but he said it because he felt embarrassed that this powerful guy under him was a so they made he told me that's why he said it did you never have any inkling nothing whatsoever for 20 years even as I'll tell you one story about the son in a minute the only time he felt something and it's a funny story no because he's killing you can't ever think the FBI would allow this if he was just a thief or you know Shylock low level guy but he's doing murder after murder after murder every time something was in question he'd go kill somebody surely that police should be investigated for that for giving somebody a freedom to kill because that's the worst fucking crime well the New York New York district attorney went after this guy and the feds wouldn't do it they would never turn on their own so the New York state did it and he went to trial and I was called in as a witness to that trial because I gave up a lot of information on him I had a lot to talk about and Big Linda also got called but she had two conflicting stories because early on I think when Greg died they kept her on the payroll to help her to keep her quiet so when did he die the he died I was still in prison when he died I heard it the 90's 96 so you were all in prison you know he's a rat what's going on then you know the boss knew he was a rat yeah well that's I'm going to get to that but just so you know the New York did go after him but he beat it because her conflicting stories okay so now we're in there and I'm thinking to myself they knew who else knew good scappy know does Greg junior know does everybody know and now I'm saying I'm thinking different when all this happening am I going to be the last man standing Greg's you know he's going off this guy's getting out they're calm you guys knew and he made that statement to help Allie boy who wins his case because Greg took the blame his Allie had nothing to do with it a deathbed confession he didn't put me in the deathbed confession he threw us under the bus so no my thinking is changing now so I called my attorneys and I had a meeting with them and they said really they know everything already I couldn't come in with any blockbuster I didn't know where Hoffa was buried you know I Greg told him our counsel yeah read it and told him there were two or three captains that went in and told so there was really nothing new but the corruption now this was trickling out and I knew about the scanner I knew about the addresses they gave us an address follow this one of the lower level FBI agents finds out where vicarina is hiding he gives the address to his supervisor Greg gets the address now that underling FBI agent didn't deal with Greg he gave it to his supervisor Greg wound up with that address but here's the key it was the wrong address the place didn't exist so how would Greg wind up with the very same wrong address they gave it to him so that proved that the supervisor gave Greg this address I knew that I knew this we had the address we had the scanner we had a phone that we used and back then you got an itemized detailed list of phone calls that you made I had that because the phone was somebody in my family so I had that and I gave so that's what saved me the info I had that that was all new info to them that was important on the stage because that would have blew all their cases which wound up blowing up most of their cases a lot of guys got out after that that's why they kept me in 10 years so what were you expecting if you never cooperated what would you have got life life so what was the feeling like to go find out everybody's a rat what was the feeling to then for you to go and cooperate well let me start it to be I'll answer that you know face and life was the worst case you can cop out without full cooperation you're gonna have to admit no matter what so all these guys that are minting stuff they're halfway there but they want to light at the end of the tunnel and I get it I'm like you know so I was negotiating they weren't coming off for 25 years now I was watching guys a lot worse than me and a lot older that were around a long time captains stripes this and that they would get 18 finally I think they came down to me to 22 and at the last time I was saying what if I get Jimmy to come in not that I know where he is but if I can help you know because they would have given me another charge I said I was trying to get 17 I'm gonna tell you why all this is going on before it comes out about Greg I'm fighting this of course you gotta keep this in mind there's no way in the world I would cooperate with the government if Greg was still alive and the Greg Scarpa we know because he would stop at nothing he would kill my family he'd kill my dog he'd kill my neighbor's cat anybody that he knew I cared for knew to stop me from snitching on his family okay so I had to make some deal I was getting a life war I wanted something I had a one year old son I said so even if I get if I could get 17 I'd be home at 15 at least he'll be on his way to high school you know you start working at that but once it came out that he was bad and they all knew I knew now I'm making a deal I'm gonna do the best thing I can do and I bring Jimmy in it so they call when I spoke to the attorneys they take me out they bring me to see prosecutors and FBI agents and I'm sitting with them and the first thing I said any deal I make Jimmy gets the same deal they looked at me no no we'll find him and we'll catch him and the funny thing is they had no idea where he was they admitted it later not even a single clue of the direction he was in he was doing well on his own you know we had a little set up with people to but you know I don't want to get anybody in trouble but Sures says no so I got up and walked out the next day they called me back again and they were offering me zero to life I said what kind of deal is that I leave again and I said I'm Jimmy listen up so I leave the third day they called me back in there's a few other heavyweights in there now guys from the Justice Department high level people they said we will let Jimmy come in under your umbrella okay but the zero to life I says fuck that they say let hear me out if you help us and you cooperate and work with us at the end of the time if the old thing was zero to 20 if we gave you zero to 20 and at the end we gave you 20 years are you going to be happy with that I said no I said no of course not I would you know the zero is what we're putting on you can get as little as zero we're going to do everything possible to get you as close to the zero as we could they were bullshitting me because they knew they didn't want me out until the trials were over because of the corruption I would destroy their cases so anyway finally I said and they told me we'll let Jimmy come in so I said okay I'll do it I'll do it they had assigned the papers that Jimmy gets the same deal I got it to you know to his family and somehow or another you know they got it to him so now like I said it was a whole different ballgame to me it was now it was about survival it was business a business decision I said the one person I was loyal to I remained loyal to Jimmy I didn't make a deal without him and he came in and we both got he wound up getting like about five years I did ten he did you know because like there was a bit of a vendetta with me with them because of but I exposed and a major part of the exposing others did expose but the info I gave with the scanner and all that stuff was very harmful to them so if I don't think they wanted me to be out publicizing this anywhere so I got my ten years and then most of the cases were over except for the agent then I had to come back and testify for him how was that testifying it was you know what it wasn't very difficult because I think he's worse than any of us to be behind the badge doing the same things we were doing and probably collecting money from Greg and a partnership of whatever sorts it was but I didn't lie they asked me questions like all I had to do was say I recognize him that's the guy Greg went to see I never saw him I saw the back of him when he was walking away with Greg in a cafeteria because it was a hospital and they have glass in the window and it was the only time Greg wouldn't take me in I said he takes me everywhere and I got nervous I said why is he walking away with these guys alone so I looked in the mirror and I remember saying to the court they said well how do you know it was an FBI agent I said because why is guys don't wear suits like they had they had the cheap suits on I said you know Greg had a nice suit on you guys were in cheap suits so but I didn't and the judge even asked me why I'm testimony why are you even here I said well it's part of my agreement I said I would and but you're out you're home you're free I said and really I just think it's the right thing to do to honor my my deal I said I made a deal and that's that's why I'm here and he said okay you didn't need to come here so he liked me that judge a state judge liked me I got along with him he was very smart charismatic so everybody's dying off everybody's turning on each other see when you go up your sentence in prison was a sense of relief because everything you went through all the back stab and all the misery you know in some ways when I got arrested I was relieved that I was not being chased by the feds anymore or I wasn't being chased by enemies anymore it was almost like I've been using this word a lot lately reboot like you got to reboot things to restart them and you know I would have liked to well anybody would like to get less I think you know in the scheme of things when you hear these names of guys getting time served who's getting two years who's getting five years Sammy got five years and he was like the worst the worst at the time you know you hear all these things and ten years was you know still to me it's not life you know but they probably could have let me go a little sooner it was a waste of it was a waste of tax payers money to keep me in there it really was I already punished myself punished my family the punishment factor was gone it didn't even matter anymore the only ones being punished was my kid who didn't have a father the wife that had no husband anymore you know my mom and dad who just got to be regretting and resentful of how did this happen you know but because now when I came home and I started fresh and I built up a good life for myself it's that's the only way to to kill off the bad memories How were you treated and present? I was treated with tons of respect tons I mean you know the only time guys didn't get along with me the old time gangsters that were when I was playing basketball with the black guys that was like we don't hang out and they use a bad word you know what I hang out them for and so let me do my time I said I want to play ball and be healthy and you know get my mind like they want to sit around smoking and playing pinocchio that's not me you know I was away the last two years with a heavyweight from the Genevieve's family that took a real liking to me and we were walking around the track together every day and he was talking to me like we were still in the street or we're going to be in the street soon together I had to stop him and say you know what you know I didn't go out like a hero I made a deal I'm done he says Larry I know everything about you he started kicking the dirt spitting he says Greg Scarpa ruined men that were 110% ruined good men he ruined this life he ruined us all and he was so bitter and hatred couple of weeks later somebody sends in a newspaper article about me detailing what I did with the government everything like that and they send it to him like he wants to have me killed in prison he takes me to the bathroom again and he shows me the thing he rips it up he throws it in the toilet he starts kicking the thing to flush it he just was so furious of what happened to all of us he didn't hold nothing against me he says you were ruined you know and I won't say his name because I like the guy a lot very smart very practical reasonable realistic understanding everything that a leader should be and I fear he went back and he's the boss I could never know that for a fact but of one of the five families and I did my last two years with him so that's how much respect I got I mean I never had anybody even I run into people now you know I I ran into one of Wild Bill's guys and my wife Kelly was with me right here in Brooklyn well across the bridge in Brooklyn and he was 20 feet away across the bar we were looking at each other we were fighting each other during the war okay and didn't I didn't take my eyes off of him look at me I'm gonna he took his eyes off never came over and said anything stupid or and this happened a few times I ran into another guy at the track in Freehold Raceway and he was around Jimmy Angelina who was one of the first casualties on our side but he went to Vicarina's side another guy that was against us and he knew who I was and we're talking after all these years and he starts going in the direction but didn't you make a deal or something like that I told him stop right there stop right there keep this cordial we didn't see each other in a long time I just keep it friendly I said don't go in that direction and he stopped and we continued talking I you know I'll probably run into him again because I like that track when I come to visit the family and stuff but you know you gotta walk in somebody's shoes you got to have their hand you gotta you dealt the hand in cards you can only play it with what you have I said during the war that was my car that was my hand there was no playing in any different you know even as time went on and I was in prison and this happened I saw you know the cards are telling me it's done I'm doomed and there's nothing to stand up for except for Jimmy my partner you know so you play him as they come they feel used absolutely we felt used while it was happening I remember me and Jimmy even when it was happening yeah arguing with Greg saying Greg why are we the only ones doing anything he says because we got the most balls and we're gonna win this thing we don't need anybody else I mean he was very egotistical and arrogant too do you just wanted to kill people he just wanted the war no he wanted to win the war he wanted to win the war at first but then with the dementia kicking in from the AIDS and the enjoyment of the praise he was getting for singlehandedly winning this war you know with his crew us he was eating it up he was getting nicknames now they started calling him Schwarzkopf remember Schwarzkopf the general they got him a hat Desert Storm General you know and he was eating it up and Jimmy and I were like rolling our eyes he was kidding me I mean this is the Grim Reaper and he's wearing a baseball hat that says General Schwarzkopf I mean it really it's psychotic it's psychotic it was nuts it was really it became crazy and we felt we definitely felt used we were saying we're the only ones we're gonna get killed or for what or you know he's gonna he's gonna get us killed cause he wasn't smart anymore at the end why did you stay in it then loyalty I just if I turned on him I felt that loyal to him and Jimmy would never turn on me I would never turn on him so it was a perfect storm I mean guys that you know Jimmy and I to this day would go back to back and do whatever we had to do if we were in trouble you know but what a ending that he turns out to be what he was you know which leads me to your question about did we ever know no he didn't Gregory told me a story just recently Greg Jr have you still friends with your son? yeah very good friends we talk all the time we're not that he know he thought it was a sledge oh he knows now yeah no he didn't know he didn't know that's what I'm saying but he says you know lad it was one of two times I wondered how does he know there's a friend of Greg Greg Jr that has a barrel picture of wine barrel a big barrel of gems now emeralds emeralds you should know emeralds yeah so yeah but I'm saying now if they're finished and polished and done up they're worth a lot of money these weren't yet finished but they they weren't processed yet so at the end of the day they could be worth two million dollars or three million dollars again this is back in the sixties seventies Greg Sr offers the kid fifty thousand for the barrel of emeralds so he's I'm gonna see if I can do better he leaves it's Greg Jr's friend from Staten Island the very next morning the kid gets arrested and they take his emeralds so he was telling me Greg he says I almost asked my father do you know anything about that he says but if I were to ask them that it's like saying you rat it on you know he had to just keep his mouth shut but he really sensed something wrong he sees my father the next day he gets arrested with the emeralds then two days later he kills somebody so he said I can't be a rat you know but he's that's the one thing he said the one memorable moment he has where he really wanted about his father was that one time what's your biggest regret in that life well the biggest regret is that I allowed myself to get in and get in deeper and deeper and deeper I regret not staying with my upbringing knowing those things are wrong and not going at that fork taking a fork in a road I regret taking that turn and but once you're in you're in and there's a lot I don't regret about the life so it's weird but the one regret I have is if I could go back in time which I wouldn't because I'll take the same lumps I have now because I have my son I have a son if I didn't take that walk of life I wouldn't have that son and I wouldn't have my precious wife right now Kelly because whatever road I took has to be here today so theoretically I wouldn't meet him I would have said no this is wrong we're done after six months of sex and go on back to school or go back to the fire department so that's the biggest regret how does Kelly deal with all everything you've been through? well we should bring her on the show sometimes no listen I was very honest with Kelly from early on she was a vice president a very big government contracting company one of I think only two vice president females so she had certain achievements of her own did very well and we met through my gym well actually I didn't have my own gym at the time I was training in different gyms and I was teaching kickboxing and she came to join kickboxing class and I was the instructor and one thing led to the other and she got had to make a big decision in her life too because when the company found out about me well they knew about me I was very open with them I told them I had a bit of a check it passed but they were fine with it because they liked me and I was training half of that company in my gym but along the way one of the people at the company got a little jealous that I was doing a lot of work for this contracting company now and they Google searched me and they spread it all around the place so Kelly had an ultimatum she had to separate with me because she had a very high clearance she could go into the oval office she could knock on the door and just walk right in you know that's the clearance she had but with me as her significant other she'll lose that clearance so they gave her an option either that or you know a six month severance and use we have to pop ways I told her stay at work we'll sneak around we'll do what we gotta do she didn't want to do it she said nope nope they're not telling me how to live my life she took the severance and we're together and eventually we got married but she handled it but she knew from this thought there were no surprises as a matter of fact I would tell her things and later on it would come out in the paper so where I felt like a bit of a pathological liar like this life I lived you know then it would come out there was a scene in one of the Sopranos episodes where I told her they're doing an episode from my my life you know part of my life you know where the guy hits the desk the FBI agent hits the desk and tells Tony Soprano we're gonna win this war and that happened for real because Greg's partner the agent when we got Nicky Black that's exactly what he said we're gonna win this thing and the other agents are looking at each other we are gonna win was he part of this and that's sort of what started his downfall but so no there was a lot you know there were no surprises how was it Larry when because I'm a father I do everything for my kids I would kill for them I would die of course no try to beat off but no blink of an eye I would fucking do what I need to do for them but when you're killing people hearing people scream and now you've got your son and you should do anything for it and then you've got Greg who's telling his son how to kill and how to butcher people do you understand how deluded and messed up they will how hard is that to then try and get over everything to for you to become the best father for your son not to go down the same footsteps as you it was extremely difficult you know when you think about like I said I don't like to talk about those early on ones where the people you know were doing something that may not have been 100% right in our life and they get killed and you know we overlooked their kids and their wives and everybody else that are really the victims you know but I you know really really kept my son out of it when I was in prison we you know we told him I was working we never told him I was in jail at the beginning because that would be a question what did he do wrong you know too young 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 when he came back it was just so happy to have me back that it was easy to just focus on the future and the good things but little by little I had to let him know you know because you know I was still going to be in a newspaper there's so many documentaries on TV that I'm on or about me so I had to break it to him and I did it gently little by little and I told him the regrets and obviously I don't want him to do those things yeah but it's a sad existence to see has who the else have one and that dad was telling him how to kill that dad was telling him what to do and mourning at them and shouting at them because they were doing it wrong a father telling his son how to kill it's fucking sad yeah I mean again that's Greg's scene he pushed you into it his own kids not all of them but Greg and then the youngest one Joey he allowed him to get in the drug business and because the father was so feared the youngest son didn't play by the rules he thought he could get away with whatever he wanted as soon as the father died they killed him in the street and it's sad because that was a good little kid he was my godson he was a good little kid growing up very like our sons they want to cuddle with you they want to go to the ball game they want to play you know can I come and play basketball did I laugh yeah come on we were still athletes even early on and then there came a point where and I think it was when Greg got sick where Joey started dropping out of school and coming to hang out at the club and I said what are you doing here we would bring him back to school then Linda and I would drive him to school watch him walk in the door he'd walk out the other door on the other side it was just losing control because the father wasn't around you know and then he liked the club and he liked the money and at 15 years old 16 was selling drugs and he didn't make it past I guess 21 that's very sad very very sad yeah what happens with the relationship with Linda? well after the 10 years in prison I had three years of supervised release so there was no way of me coming back or anything and I had no contact with her and all that time one of the detectives on the case that I grew up with and happened to be on the Colombo case which not that far-fetched it happens all the time I know a lot of cops that I grew up with firemen, you name it he said that Linda reached out to him and would like to see me not at home and everything so I went to Staten Island Kelly came with me and we met in a diner and it was a nice reunion it was nice you could see there were some feelings and everybody was happy to see each other everybody looked healthy everybody was like well she didn't look that healthy because she's a chain smoker and she was really losing her son you know there was a lot that took its toll on her put it that way and then we went back to the house where little Linda was they lived together house in Staten Island and you could see that they weren't doing well you know how houses usually furnished nicely and it was very bare the basics and I felt bad for them I felt so bad that I had said why don't you guys leave New York there's nothing here for you you know you're sitting here at the kitchen table smoking and it says you know not that I was really doing that well yet it was early on in my coming home and supervised release I couldn't do anything yet I says move to Florida I said you know I work in a hotel I did I had a job in a hotel also I said you know they're always looking for help behind a desk or different things restaurant people I know you have to have a job you have to just restart your life they couldn't do it they stayed there by the end of the conversation they were trying to tell me how much Greg loved me and they were still glamorizing him still idolizing him and that's where it went sour again and in hindsight I'm glad they didn't come because if that's how they felt trying to convince me that this man loved me I said he didn't love anybody he didn't love you people he loved nobody but his money you know I get more into detail about that in my book because you know that's the one true love he had was money was that about a closure for you seeing Linda and not stating that means no no you know at that point it was either way I don't want to just sound heartless but I didn't care if I saw her ever again at that point you know 13 years went by we didn't talk it's not like we stayed in touch while I was in prison what good was going to come from it you know but when Tommy called and said they'd like to see you I said right you know so I went and like I said the beginning was nice but then when I saw they were still reliving this and I had a say to them I said your son is dead because of this man I said he didn't love anybody I said no I don't want to hear nothing good about him I don't want to talk about him anymore and they they felt bad about that they said no he loved you like a son come on come on you know and then later on Linda reached back out to me again and apologized and she said she's very sorry to Sanat and I accepted it but you know there's really you know I don't know if there's like where she was once a little sister to me I don't feel that way anymore you know and again that's not cold-hearted it's just if she had been more on Greg Junior's side and my side as far as what that piece of garbage did to us then it would have been easier to rekindle but it's not she's still idolizing him and you know selling t-shirts about the Wimpy Boys Social Club and stuff like that or maybe not selling t-shirts whatever but glamorizing that on you know social media and stuff like that so too caught up in that life she's too caught up in that life but so see when you're going through all the changes you're out of prison you've met your wife you've got your son when did it because when you start making changes the hardest thing about change for me personally is the conscience because when you block out you become a stone cold culley of no emotion you probably get a lot better feeling for like you say animals but see when you start working on yourself and start trying to change you become a better father and a better husband how hard does it when the conscience tells you everything that you've done in the past well you know you got a what do they say you got the windshield or the rear view mirror I looked through the windshield moving forward if I keep dwelling on that yeah it's always going to be there but you know there's good things happening there's good things happening you know and a lot of times like I'll do you know speaking or I hate to use words speeches like I'm a president but speaking or engagements or book signings or I did the mob museum I did a show at the mob museum in Las Vegas and I think that there's the good that could come from this is that I would tell a kid you don't need the mob life or gang life to be respected or to get respect or to earn respect and you don't need it to earn a good living as a matter of fact it's harder you're not working somewhere 95 but it's it's a lot harder to earn a good live living in that life you know or it's it's not easy it's hard work it's a lot of a lot of it's not the easy way out it's not it's a tough way out you know very few make it to the top and make all that big big money but they're the worst of the worst you don't need the life you know you can earn respect just I get a ton of respect now I go into restaurants I go into places and people gravitate to me I mean still like the restaurant we ate in last night I haven't seen the guy in years he was hugging me and patsies Italian restaurant not far from here I just I don't know Greg once told me that when you got it when you really learn this life he says they'll smell you when you were you don't even have to tell anybody what you are they'll just know what you are and I believe that because and I'm trying to put this in a way where I'm not building myself up but I still have there's something there I walk into a place I get treated very well I am a good tipper so that probably helps but I can tell you this funny story real quick and it was when I was back in New York for the DeVecchio trial after a long grueling day we go back to the hotel Kelly and I and I asked the the guy behind you know the major deal whatever you call it the bell guy in the hotel was a nice place to go where you could see it have some wine and you know nice atmosphere oh I think it was a 5-5-5 club that was the address right around the block 5-5-5 so we were dressed like this nice but not suit and tie or anything jean whatever we come walking around the corner the line is literally a half a block long to get in so I look I laugh and we're not going online I say come on take a walk up let's play around a little bit so I'm walking up and I was going to go make a comment like what are they giving away in there you know something but there's two bounces and there's this little guy who's obviously the boss because he's on the phone pointing around and stuff he's on the phone and he sees me and Kelly walking past the line he goes like this with the phone let those two in and he goes back to the phone the bounces open the thing up he says it is a bottle service you'll have to buy a bottle I says have two bottles of champagne wait for me when I get up there we went up the two bottles of champagne wait and we sat we were you could touch the empire state building that was the view so we're sitting up there on a rooftop drinking champagne but what about me was it something I learned from Greg I hate to say it the way I walked the way I had the nerve to just walk up there like I own the joint I think it's your confidence because I've interviewed many gangsters but you are proper Lani you are the real deal there's no fucking about with that I think it was Kelly I think they liked tubbed it but whatever but I appreciate that's a nice compliment coming from you I appreciate that and again I'll go into places we were walking here just today and this is God's honest truth you know you got these kids these black rapper guy kids selling these things so this one comes running over to me says I could see a made man look at Kelly I said can I talk to him for a few minutes I'm gonna do a show on the way back maybe I'll take one from you I was gonna be bothered by his CDs right now but it was funny he used that term he said I could smell a made man it was funny it was just funny you know but you know some things you know to an extent you are what you are and maybe at such a young age I wound up around him so some of it's not gonna leave you know but if it wasn't for that and you are what you are I might be walking around like my father is he always had his fire department shirt on he always had a hat on that said my FD maybe that would be who I so you know you are what you are who you are what was your connection with the Irish man working with De Niro well he read my book and he told me several times it was terrific he asked me if I wrote it myself several times it's almost like he didn't believe it but I said no I wrote the book I said I got an A in writing in college and I got an A in psychology in college so both of those things helped me later on but anyway some of the cops like I mentioned that I grew up with or were on my case are now his security private security and he asked if they knew anyone from the old life that would come on board to help him make it authentic he wanted to be just to be a real you know so they said me they said Larry Larry's the guy you want so it's a compliment think about it I gotta tell him how to kill and get rid of guns and things like that those are questions yes how do you get rid of weapons and stuff and he says you don't mind me asking you I said it's public knowledge right now don't worry about it but so he had me read for a part and I think a lot of that was more in hindsight I think this to let the other actors see on film how a gangster talks or whatever but anyway he got me I wound up with a part as a hitman go figure passing pop yeah and it was a good look nice little scene we kill Alvin Anastasia in the in the barber seat but it opened doors for me you know it opened doors I wound up in another role where I played a corrupt ex-comp that is a suspected of murder and he works for it's true story he works for Tony Spilacro who is the Joe Pesci character in Casino so it was a vagus murder and you know I had a couple of good scene good talking scenes I was behind the bar I had a dancer with the cops when they came to question me and it was really good it was called a perfect murder and I've like I said the numerous documentaries but the greatest part is the book is is well received Nick Pileggi said it was he's first words at his mouth when I met him you know Nick Pileggi Goodfellas Casino for the people that don't he said Is that the Needle Pillet and Casino? Goodfellas and Casino yeah he wrote both of those books screenplays he said Larry you wrote a classic you wrote a mob classic exact words to me I was so humbled he was the he was the number one guy at the time now he was older and he was trying to help me along but it's a big undertaking to get a series to go so I hook up with another man named Joe Palletto who is a producer and he's been around HBO and different things for years he came on We're Partners now and we have a TV station called Mob TV it's early on it's a couple years in I did a talk show on there where I bring in ex mobsters and ex cops and ex you know different types of different walks of life and Terrence Winter who wrote Wolf of Wall Street Sopranos Boardwalk Empire a whole bunch of really top-notch mobster stuff is a partner in Mob TV and he stepped down from the Tulsa King recently because he wasn't yet along with the co-writer to take on mine so now he has the life and he wrote the script and his agency is not in negotiations but they're in talks with various networks to hopefully have a five-year series so it's open phenomenal doors for me and he said it's the best mob book you ever read true mob story true and you know it's not that hard to believe and I'm going to say again it's not out of my ego because I've read so many of them and a lot of them are written by a third party and it's a historical type of thing where it's almost like a textbook you read and you could see it's coming from 302s from court transcripts or newspapers I got a book for you so hopefully you'll read it and you'll see coming from the horse's mouth I've heard people say they felt like they were in the car with me or they know the place as I was describing you know and it's in layman's language so you just feel like and I get that that's what I want and I'm happy they say that you know but like it's Armand de Sante wrote an incredible testimonial on the back I have it on the back page I haven't come across anybody that hasn't said it's phenomenal and it should be a movie or a TV series and now I'm there I mean Terrence wrote the script he's talking to heavyweights and big networks so I think right after the holidays I got a good feeling it's going to be a good year yeah can people buy your book? well it's a little story to this too it won't be long yeah take your time I first went to try to get it published with companies and unless you're a seasoned writer like let's say Grisham or the guy that writes Stephen King they're not writing a big check they're going to give you 30,000 is the biggest law for I got and it sounds like a lot to some people but not with my vision as I wasn't going to be partnered up with a publishing company when I know this is going to go somewhere that's how I felt so I did it myself and I sell the book at a website www.larrymaza-thelife.com so it's my name Dash The Life that's named a book and I sign every copy that goes out and people enjoy it I get comments back that was so nice at the time and I enjoy that I hope I never change I want to keep doing that but that right now that's the only place or if you like the Kindle version but you don't get the pictures and if you like reading on a computer you could get it from Amazon but you go to the website and you get the hard copy and like I said it's signed it has all the pictures it has updated pictures it has me and the narrow now me and the Irishman Armand I met Mike Madsen you know Michael Madsen is yeah he was a fantastic guy and he's in there now Nick Pallegy of course and the next version is going to have pictures of me and Terrence and others too so but I will when the time comes like if this if and when and I'm going to say when because I feel we're there it becomes a mainstream thing like the Sopranos was and people then I'm going to go back to a publishing company and say now do you want it you know with Terrence Winter on there and it's a big hit TV show then they'll give me probably an amount that I'll say okay you could take it over and handle it you know I would be signing them anymore but yeah this is the thing with people with getting published they get a very small percentage and then they can use their book and script to turn into films and documentaries and they don't get anything so there's a lot of sharks out there people need to be careful going forward for the future Larry, what's your plans well hopefully you know I have my gym so we spend a lot of time there I have a lot of trainers that use the gym you know we have a very healthy lifestyle in Florida we ride our bikes we active and I'm hoping I get another busy run with the series that's really what I'm hoping for where we'll be on set I'd like to get a roll I'm sure I'll wind up with a roll but you know that's going to be time consuming and I was thinking and it's funny that you know a lot of shows that have filmed supposedly New York filmed in Toronto did you know that no because it's a lot less money and it looks and the buildings all look the same it looks like Manhattan did you ever see suits yeah you saw suits okay I love that show that's filmed in Toronto but you see the park Avenue sign and everybody thinks so I was just I don't know what made me think that's the way everybody's doing it but Terrence just made a comment we are going to film in New York City in New Jersey where this whole thing took place that means he's all in and very very he wants it to be authentic and an example I give is like Nathan's you know if what are we going to make build up a fake Nathan's yeah we had a lot of meetings at Nathan's and then we walk the boardwalk talk and along because you know the boardwalk isn't tapped or you know things so anyway be private you know and what better than really zooming in at Nathan's and then us walking up to the board I mean you can't beat that things like that so the authenticity is going to be there and that's a lot of money so the budget's going to be there but that's a good sign I think with that story you've got to go all out I think because Sopranos for me is one of the if not the best TV show of all time it's only Sopranos that play unbelievable the part of the big man played back just before we finish up how important is it to have a good woman by your side and like it's immeasurable and not only she in my case she's my best friend my manager that's funny my agent I'm sure you have living your life and you get it very important and I will say this I was blessed with good women in my life and even Linda when we were together it was I had no complaints and on a relationship but none like I have now I'm at the top of my game Larry, for anybody watching that's maybe wanting to get involved in a life of crime what advice would you have for them? I'll repeat what I said before because I believe it firmly you don't need the life for respect or to earn a living why else would you get into that? you think you need it to earn money? you don't you can make a lot more money the time you are going to commit to doing stupid things all that time you could make it through law school or you could make it through medical school and you'll still be young be smart listen to your parents no parents is going to tell you go join the gang go be a member of the Colombo family I should have listened okay you don't need it you can make a living and be a respected human being without that you'll have more respect Larry, would you like to finish up on anything else? no, I mean I think that was great you were great to work with and I think we touched it all if anything comes up along the way you'll have to invite me to Scotland anytime I'll come there and we'll do pot too maybe after the show comes out yeah, definitely but I've done 400 of these and I don't say this often but when I do I'm normally right this is one of my best podcasts I've ever done I'm very happy to hear it and listen for coming on a day and take care of me at a time I very much appreciate it I will if you're nothing but the best for the future God bless you and take care thank you thank you brother