 Welcome to the original gangsters podcast. I'm your host Scott Bernstein, a very special addition. Today, we are going to go deep cover with one of America's most decorated former federal law enforcement officers, Herm Grohman, good friend of mine. I've known him for probably about 15 years right now. Salt of the earth and I'm telling you, these guys don't get enough credit for what they do and what they did. He's also ex-military, but he was in the FBI for 30 years, Herm. 25. 25 years and did some serious undercover work against some serious organizations. Today, we're going to discuss about his time undercover in the Cleveland mafia during the late 1970s, when the Danny Green war erupted. It's from the, you can see the movie kill the Irishman and there's been a lot of stuff written about when Danny Green and his Irish mafia tried to unseat the Italian mafia led by Jack Likovoli. Herm was right in the middle of it. So Herm, tell us about going to Cleveland, getting into the OC unit of the FBI and starting undercover. You know, my things, when I did my time in Cleveland, actually I was there twice. I was there once as an agent of the state attorney general's office, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation. They had an organized crime unit and it was run by a former FBI agent. So it was kind of set up like a mini FBI and they had a separate organized crime unit. And I'd been on a in local law enforcement after returning from Vietnam back in the early 1970s. And so I applied and got the job and and there I went. So the hotbed of OC activity at that time. For the most part in Ohio was Cleveland and Murray Hill Murray Hill and Mayfield. And it was the Murray Hill gang and Jack White also known as Likovoli. And, you know, they were rocking and rolling and they caught the attention of everybody, including Mafiosa, you know, from New York and, and Chicago and other areas where they're actually looking for help. And to, to solve some of these issues and so forth. So, anyway, back in, I guess it must have been 1997. And I'm not sure exactly when Danny Green was blown up for murder. So this Danny Green, the war lasted between 76 and 77 and 78. The two sides actually came together and made peace and started working with each other after Danny Green was out of the picture. But Danny Green declared war like the summer of 76. He killed Jack Likovoli's underboss, Leo Mosher, Leo lips Mosher in August of 76, and then eventually Danny Green was blown up and I believe October of 77. Ah, okay. So I kind of entered the scene in Cleveland, right around that the after Danny Green was blown up, killed. And as things were starting to try to try to stabilize but they really didn't. Oh, there's still a lot of bodies dropping after Danny Green. I mean, Cleveland was just a crazy place. And they're, you know, the favorite method of a murder course was planting car bombs, and which eventually got Danny Green, I think he escaped it a couple times. They blew up his house. It wasn't even a fire bomb they like they took down his whole house and it was a two story house and he somehow he was in bed with his girlfriend and they, because they were in bed somehow it prevented them from being killed. I think he calls. I think he called it the lucky the Irish, as I remember. Yeah, yeah. So with that background, that was all kind of going on. And the way I kind of got involved in this was, first of all, my undercover persona. I never pretended to be too much outside of what my natural personality is. And as you can see, I, you know, I don't look. If you can kind of identify what a mobster might look like or talk like, I didn't do any of those things. So I knew my limitations undercover. I wasn't going to try to infiltrate and become one of those guys. I'd be kind of a trusted associate would be my best. So anyway, the mainstay of the mafia back in those days was illegal gambling numbers, sports gaming and casino operations. And one of the main characters in Cleveland was a teamster by the name of Jackie pressure, press it. I'm sure you know about Jackie press. He was more than just a Cleveland figure you became the president of all the whole teamsters. Right. That's right. He was big. He also was an FBI informant, which I didn't know at that. And I think ultimately, wasn't he, I think it was killed. No, he wasn't he wasn't killed. But he, he was, he was outed. I mean, people knew it. But he took down a he took down a lot of people and his he was in the middle of all of this. Danny green stuff because of the fact that the mafia had their hold of the teamsters union. So yeah. So the US Department of Labor had an investigation on him, of course. And one of the special agents was cooperating or had some dialogue with BCI, my state agency. And the guy that the case agent on the Jackie pressure case for the Department of Labor was a former DEA agent and we had worked some cases with him successfully. And so he asked us the BCI to go into a gambling operation. It was a huge kind of a casino craps operation that they had just in one of the Cleveland suburbs. I think it was in Brookfield or one of those nearby areas. And so, I guess you actually have to have a recommendation you had to have some tickets to this big event. It was very exclusive and it was held that I think at a holiday in. So at the point of time, my partner and I, Kenny Hovenig, who, by the way, kind of looked like a little Irishman, which I'll explain later on, didn't work so well for us. And so anyway, we went into this game and it was being operated by a well-known Cleveland mob associate, two of them. A guy by the name of Joe Spagnola, aka Spags, Joe Spags, and another guy by the name of George RG, Gigi. RIP Gigi, he just died a couple of months ago. God bless him. He wasn't a bad guy. Yeah. Yeah, in terms of Mafioso. Right. But we went in, we had, of course, funds available to us and we spent a lot of money and Gigi liked that. And so he invited us to an exclusive gambling operation in Geaga County just outside of Cleveland, a place called Pine Way Trails. And it was this, it was a resort that essentially was owned and run by the mob and their associates. And at least once a week, they had a big casino night. And again, it was very exclusive. It was by invitation only. And so I guess we put the bill. So we began going and I'll never forget, you know, the, when you would arrive there, they had a special parking area that was probably 100 yards from where the casino operation was. And so you had to park your vehicle and then you would be given a ride down to the casino operation and so forth. And so we went in and parked our undercover vehicle and we got into another vehicle, which ironically was driven by this. Again, this is back in the day when some of these mobsters are trying to make their bones. And it was actually we were given rides back and forth by Joe Ikebachi. Oh yeah, Joe Luce, who eventually became the boss. Joe Luce eventually worked his way up to the boss. And another guy that was prominent there was a guy by the name of Tony Del Monte, who I guess got into cocaine and eventually became an FBI informant. I understand later on. I think he taped a induction ceremony up in Rochester in the 90s where he was going to be inducted into the Rochester mafia. I think Tommy Murata was going to do it and he was, he was taping it. Well, those guys, but in the 70s, he was a Cleveland guy. Yeah, yeah, he was a Cleveland guy and these guys were trying to make their bones and so forth. So we started going to this place. And, and we were just, I guess our number one mission was to just develop an intel and who was running it, what was happening. And at some point we would get together with perhaps the FBI or local authorities, and we would determine a course of action to be taken. So we began going there for a number of months, at least once a week, maybe even over a period of years. And so we became somewhat familiar people. And, you know, I had to, you know, way back when when I first got into BCI, you know, I had to learn how to, you know, how to sports bet and I had to learn some of the casino games. And I had, of course, you know, craps was the big game and I think it still is, you know, and some of these illegal operations. And so I not only learned how to play craps later on, I actually had to learn how to deal it, which is a completely different operation. And it all kind of came together because eventually at the end of my FBI career, I ended up as Chief of Security at one of the big hotels. Right, Christina, that's how that's when I met you that you were running security for. Yeah, and I'm a strip. Well, it all kind of fit. But going back to it, we became somewhat a trusted trusted as, you know, gamblers and just knock around guys and and fun loving guys and we had heard through our intel that down on Murray Hill, the Italians had this big bar boot game. It's a, you may be familiar with it. Yeah, it's like a Greek, it's like a Greek dice game. That's right. It's a better train. The origins, I think are Greek game. It's a dice game. And, and it was actually being run right down on Murray Hill, right in the enclave of Jack White. And he was receiving direct benefits from this thing. And so, when we would go to this operation, I would let it be known that I was interested in playing bar boot. And I couldn't find a good game any place. And we were well established at that point as, you know, serious gamblers. And there was a guy, a young guy, he was an associate one of these guys I don't even remember his name, and his ears perked up. He said, you know what, we got a game. It's very exclusive. It's right down on Mayfield and and Murray Hill, and I'll set it up so you guys can go in there. Okay. Yeah, great. He said meet me at a bar called birdies and it was right at the intersection of Mayfield and Murray Hill. And he was down at the appointed time. And Kenny, how about it again, he's got this kind of ready share and a few freckles and we're just a couple young guys. And so we show up and we walk into this bar and some bar bar. We had no Intel on the place. We walk in bartender looks at me and he's looking at me really hard, and especially looking at Kenny. And the guys in there are walking at us too. And, you know, we're getting an uneasy feeling. So I said, guys said, what do you want? I said, I want a paps. He said, we got it. I said, how about a Miller, we ain't got that either. So I went down the list. I said, what kind of bar you people running here. He said, a bar that doesn't include you. So right about that time, this young guy that invited us down to the bar boot game and was going to arrange it came in and he's huffing and puffing and spaces red. He said, get out of here. Come here. And so we went on the street. He said, what are you guys doing? I said, well, we're here to meet you like you said. And he said, I said, what's the problem with these guys? He said, they think you're from Danny Greens crew. And they're, they're, you know, they're putting together a package here to, you know, take care of you guys. He said, my God, you shouldn't have gone in there. I said, well, you didn't say it. You said to meet you there. So. So anyway, we end up. Just to give some, just to give some context real quick. So Danny Green is killed in 77. And his group was called the Celtic Club. That's right. The Irish mob. But the guys that were left, you know, they were pragmatic about it. And Kevin McTagger, Keith, Keith Ritzen were kind of the two leaders. And they made a deal with, with Likavoli to come together. And one of the things they came together on was this barbecue game that was in right in the epicenter in Murray Hill. And about a year into this arrangement or six months into this arrangement. There were worries from the East side Italians that Ritzen and McTagger were feigning interest in becoming a partnership, but had their eyes on killing them. And, and that was true when it came to Ritzen, but it wasn't true when it came to McTagger. And this culminates in them, the Italians telling McTagger and his group, you got to kill Ritzen. And they did. And Keith Ritzen was killed in 78. But that I believe that what you're talking about came right in the middle of this where they had already started the bar boot game. Everything was copacetic. And then rumors started to come out that Ritzen, who was in the middle of these bar boot games, was actually planning on killing Likavoli. And they started to worry that the old Danny Green guys were actually had an adversarial posture. We could have used you as an analyst. Right. You know, the step-brother and I do. Right. But yeah, that bar boot game, I guess, was central. And it made a lot of money. It did. So at the point of time and night, we went down, we, the guy takes us in, and I'll never forget it. It's one of these old Cleveland homes, you know, and they have these rickety old basements, you know, that are well over 100 years old. It's time. And they, the door was, they had a great big barrier on the door. And so we knocked. We were led in and I'll never forget, this is funny. I walk in, there's some old Italian guys and mob associates, and they're sitting watching TV and they're watching Ephraim Zimbals Jr. on the FBI. And they're going to live in that bastard out of an asshole. And I can't believe that prick. And they're, and so I'm sitting there with these guys and I'm watching this thing. I'm thinking, how ironic. Art imitating life. Yeah. So eventually we were led down into this old rickety basement where they had the bar boot game ongoing. And we went down, of course, we're getting a lot of hard looks because we were from the neighborhood. The only one of Fidesz we had was this guy that introduced us and apparently it was good enough to do that. And so we went down there, we did our thing and identified, you know, some of the culprits that were there and so forth. And then eventually that game kind of broke up in it, you know, I'm listening to what you're saying, it may have had something to do with, you know, the stuff that was going on with Danny Greensboro crew. So. And then I think that then they split it into East side. That game in Murray Hill I think went away and then they had a East side and a West side game that they were kind of operating separately but still sharing in the pool in the province. You know, it was interesting about this Pine Way trails operation where they had the big gambling operation at that time again I'm a state agent at that point. And we didn't realize it. We had reached out to the Bureau of the FBI a number of times saying hey, we got this going on and it's all these wise guys and you guys should be involved with us. And they more or less strung us along but what we didn't know is that they did have an operation ongoing, and it involved the sheriff of Geaga County, who was an undercover FBI informant at the time, and he was getting paid off and taking bribes on behalf of the government. And of course they were the FBI at that time was a little upset that we were in there we might muck things up a little bit so. Anyway, we worked it out eventually and it all came out later on, and ironically, years later, when I became an FBI agent. I ended up back in Cleveland, on a public corruption case run by the Cleveland office with some gangsters and so forth, and we ended up opening a small casino, and we're basically the target of it was corrupt police officers who were protecting operations gambling operations in Cleveland, and they had a great undercover agent by the name of Ray Morrow. And I went down hooked up with him and I had, I brought an old informant informant with me and I think you know this guy. He's deceased now. And I brought him down from Detroit where I was assigned at the time. And he gave me instant credibility with all these bad guys down there and his name was Ernie Kanakis. Hey, Ernie the Greek. Survived multiple attempts on his life. Live to tell about it. He was, he was quite the, the story of Ernie the Greek is pretty fascinating, just a quick digression. He was a guy that worked for the Detroit Italian mob. For a short period of time or was kind of an independent guy, who ran a pretty successful gambling operation right out of a hotel in the cast corridor in Detroit, which was called the Edison Eddy stone. And it became so big that it attracted the attention of the Italians who came and told them that hey by the way now you have some new partners. And he, I guess he went along for a period of time and then eventually tried to disconnect from them. They decided to murder him. This is a pretty infamous case in Detroit. It was the, it was the week of July 4 1976. A lot of people refer to it as the bicentennial blood bath around here, where they three Detroit mafia lieutenants that were all made guys that were actually all in their like late 60s early 70s, which even is old old now but back then it was even older. That's right. These kind of Jerry. Nick Dita, and those old and some other guy. Yeah, Nick data who was kind of a legendary hit man in the Midwest. Frankie Randazzo who ran all the porn and sex records in Detroit. And then another guy Joe Syragusa. And they lured him to Randazzo's house and they take him down to the basement and they jump them. One guy starts ice picking him. And then another guy comes. I think it was Dita and puts a gun to his head and pulls the trigger but he had made up makeshift silencer which jam the gun. Canakis has a piece in his in a holster on his on his ankle. He pulls the pulls the gun shoots all three guys. Tell them to them die immediately he gets out of he gets out of there to them die immediately. Nick Dita is such a badass. He climbs from the basement to the kitchen. It's not his house remember it's Randazzo's house right he calls 911. They say where are you. He says I don't know the address he climbs or he crawls outside gets the address crawls back inside tells them the address when the ambulance gets there he's dead with the phone the phone clutch to his ear. It looked like Canakis got away with it. He put on trial is is acquitted on self defense looks like all is forgiven. And then like 10 years later the jackaloni brothers, the Tony and Billy jackaloni who are the you know the street bosses I remember the case well. Yeah, they tell one of their lieutenants a guy named Frank the bomb bomber you know who I got to know pretty well then it was life. That they want canakis murdered and the bomb is told that not only should he murder them but he should put a picture of the dead body in a Christmas card and send it to the jackalones. The bomb ends up contracting it to a guy named Charlie Acker who happens to be working for the FBI so the hit man at the mob hired to do it is working for the FBI. And canakis survives again. He ends up gets ends up getting a pass after that and goes to Las Vegas. And I really died, you know. Yeah, we're actually Ernie and I hooked up again but but boy you got that right down to, you know, it was interesting. I don't know if you ever had an opportunity to actually speak directly with Ernie. No, I didn't. Yeah, you know, as a side note, Ernie became a very, very productive informant, you know, for the FBI. After that assassination attempt, and I handled him for many, many years. And at one point, FBI headquarters, or Quantico, asked, you know, they had a, like an informant development thing going on in service. And so they asked me to come down and ask whether or not Ernie would go to the up to Quantico to make a presentation. And so I talked to Ernie, he said, Yeah, yeah, they're going to pay for it. Yeah, they'll pay for it. So Ernie and I get on a plane we go down to Quantico, and the guy was like a superstar, you know, he's telling his story. And these people were fascinated. And, and he was just a huge success. But Ernie was very enamored with the whole situation. And while we were there. Did he have, did he have connections with the Cleveland guys that he could take you there and be like this is so and so and I'm vouching for these guys. He did. He was window dressing for me, because, you know, I had no role background and so forth. But when Ernie was questioned. He could take these people back to, you know, 40 years in Detroit and talk about the connections and everything. So there's a ton of connections between Detroit and Cleveland, the two guys that were leading Cleveland in the 70s, and the Cavalli were originally Detroit. Exactly. And so he gave me instant credibility. So the case became incredibly successful. I mean, Ray Marrow really was kind of the undercover FBI agent was really the star of this operation. He kind of had a supportive role. It was an important role. But eventually, I think, like 40 corrupt police officers were arrested. And I think the majority of them pled guilty to accepting bribes. We had a lot of people on the payroll. I just want to give Herm his proper due because not only was he a mob buster going undercover, but he just mentioned the corruption case that he worked in Cleveland, but in Detroit, we don't have to go into it, but his operation backbone in Detroit, he took down a dirty cop ring in Detroit. That was the biggest bust of corrupt Detroit police officers. The biggest bust probably in the department's history. And Herm, it was literally Herm quarterbacked that thing from day one. And as big as it was, it could have been bigger. He had some bigger fish on the line that it didn't end up getting them. So Herm deserves the props for that. As we finish up here, I want to hit on two things. First, it's also of note when we're talking about the 1970s in Cleveland that Danny Green while on one hand leading this insurgents and is this very high profile Irish mob don. He's also a confidentiality former for the FBI. He was. And you have people didn't know that at the time. You know, you know, hats off to the Bureau back in those days. I mean, they were really kicking ass. I mean, they had Jimmy the weasel eventually became even guy and Jackie Presser, of course, we already talked about, and well, the Andrew Leonardo, who was the underboss after Mosher, he's killed. He becomes the first American, even though he was acting. He became the first boss or acting boss of an American La Cosa Nostra family to the flip. Right. And so, you know, it's interesting to me how all these things become interconnected. It's almost karma in a lot of ways. Last I'll ask you, we finish this up is apologize the audience. So, bringing it into modern times I want to get your take on Kevin McTagger, arguably the number two in charge of that Irish mob group. The right hand of Danny Green. It's been in prison since 1982 or 83 serving a life sentence. There's been a movement over the last year or two by some prominent members of the Cleveland legal community, political community, as well as some celebrities that are championing his release. With a, not a medical but a compassionate release. Right. I know, I know Bernie Kosar, the former quarterback of the Cleveland Browns has offered, has told the judge that he that he would house Kevin McTagger he could come live in his house. What do what's your take on that a does he deserve to come out after someone that was involved in so many murders and convicted of murders. And what's your take on that there's some very prominent lawyers and politicians as well celebrities that are campaign. Yeah, yeah, you know, you see this happening. A lot of times you saw it in the white boy Rick case. He gained some celebrity and you sit with the with the Native American that murdered three FBI agents. Yes, yes. So you see these cases come up, and they're backed by celebrities, and they really minimize, you know, what these people actually did, and they kind of gloss over and paint them really as victims of the circumstances and victims of the time. And they were doing it for survival purposes. But the bottom line is, in the case of Kevin McTagger, he whacked a lot of people ruthlessly. Yeah. And he was doing for power and for money. And back in the old days they used to execute people for that. So, yeah, I believe a second chances. But in cases like that, I don't. I think he needs to stay where he is. And I think these celebrities and these big shot political figures or whomever. I think they just need to go find somebody that actually deserves their attention. That's what I think. Well, thank you. I appreciate you taking us down memory lane in Cleveland. This was fun. We're going to have Herm back on very soon. We're going to talk about his undercover work in Los Angeles, where he, again, another one of these heads on his wall or accolades on his resume. You could pretty much trace the entire downfall of the Los Angeles mafia to part of Herm Groman's operation. Was it called Upper Crust? Thin Crust. Thin Crust, where they were able to flip the underboss of the LA mafia, Carmen Milano. So we're going to talk about that next time. Herm, thank you a lot. Thank you very much for joining us. Sure. You know, thank you so much for the pat on the back. But, you know, my wife wants me to take out the garbage. So your stories deserve to be told, because people like yourself, I mean, it's true. You're true American heroes. And those stories are just as important as stories that are more heralded. But these things sometimes fall through the cracks. But there are amazing stories in here, someone that we owe a debt to. So thank you, Herman, for OG Pod. I'm Scott Bernstein. We'll see you next week.