 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. And boom, we are on. And today's guest we've got Sammy the Bill. Sammy, how are we? Pleasure being here and I think it's going to be a great interview because he's got a heavy accent. I have a heavy booklet accent. It's going to be a little weird but I think we're going to enjoy this. So no one will know what the fuck we're saying basically. But first and foremost it's good to have you on. I've came all the way to Arizona. Everybody knows the kind of true crime and you're the biggest name out there so forgive me the time and let me come to your place and interview you. Listen, I appreciate it. My pleasure really is. You're a gentleman that I know a lot about you and it was my pleasure to have you on board. Thank you. Before we get into everything no Sammy always like to go back to the start with my guests. Get more about understanding about you where you grew up and how it all began. Okay. So shoot away with your questions and you know it all started when I was a kid. I was born and raised in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn so it all started over there. I grew up real quick. I was dyslexic as a kid. School wasn't for me. I joined the gang earlier in life. I stood there for quite a while. A bunch of guys. It was us against the world. All that bullshit. But we knew there was a mafia and we knew to avoid them. They were a little dangerous. And then when I was 19 years old I got drafted into the military during the Vietnam War. And I went in. I served two years. I got out with an honorable discharge. I think it was the first thing I did in my life that was considered a good thing. And I enjoyed it. I was in good shape. Didn't bother me at all. I never went to Vietnam. I was stationed in the United States. So when it started to get out I got out. And as soon as I got back it seemed like I joined the rampage right away again, the gang. But it seemed like everybody hooked up with somebody whether it was the Colombo family, Gambino, Genovese, you know, different families. So a friend of mine, Tommy Spiro, his uncle was shorty Spiro. He was a legend with Conway Persico. And he told me he wanted to talk to me. And he said you're a pretty tough kid, said him. He says you're a good kid. You're going to raise your hands once or twice to somebody you're shutting and you're going to get killed. But if you're with us, you're with a family, we'll protect you in a way and you could be with us. And, you know, we're never going to ask you to do something that we wouldn't do, we wouldn't do myself. So I knew what that meant. As far as killing people and stuff, that's what they do. And I shook his hand and I became an associate in the Colombo family. Who was your mom and dad, Tommy? They were good. My father, they were legitimate people. My father was a painter. My mother was a seamstress. They came here from Italy, Sicily. My father actually was an illegal alien. He went into Canada. He jumped ship, snuck over the border. It took years before he became a citizen. But we had a great family life. I had a brother and a sister who died before I was born. Those days you caught pneumonia or you got sick. Real bad. The medicine wasn't good. You died. And then later on I had another sister and older sister. She was nine years older than me and one that was five years older than me. And then in 1945 I was born. And I think it was right after the Second World War ended. I think they were worried I was born. They said, let's end this fucking war. This guy is born. Not knowing that you were going to start wars later on in life. Yeah, a lot of wars. See when you were dyslexic at school, Sammy, did you feel like an outsider? Yeah. I was like literally abused. They didn't know what dyslexic was back then. So they thought you were either stupid or retarded. They thought all these things about you. I got along good with the little girls. But the boys would break my chops. They would laugh and go for me and stuff. And that's what started my fighting. I started fighting and I didn't like it. So come three o'clock schools. All of a sudden I would break somebody's ass. That's why they would stop teasing me. And it worked. How much does that mold you as a person? Because every gangster I've interviewed, every murderer, every drug lord, every bank robber, every single one was either bullied or abused when they were younger. Yeah, I wasn't physically abused because I was a pretty strong kid, you know. And I was actually a little bit older than them because I got left back in the fourth grade and then again in the seventh grade in junior high school. So I was actually a little bit older than them. So they didn't want to bully me. They didn't try that. But of course I was two years older than them. You know, when you're a kid, ten years old and then twelve years old. That's a big difference. So I didn't get bullied that way. It was just that they would laugh because I couldn't spell a word. An easy word. Teasing? Yeah, teasing you and stuff like that. And I embarrassed me in front of the girls and I resented that. So I kind of stopped that real quick. You know, when I was a kid I think I was twelve or ten years old. My father and mother, they were humble people. They were broke. Not a lot of money. And they bought me an ice bike, a swing bike. Top of the line. It was expensive. And my father told me, take care of this bike. And I did. And one day I went to the corner store and I left the bike outside. I was buying something. When I came out it was gone. And I was sick because I knew they couldn't afford to buy me another bike and he told me to take care of it. A couple of days, maybe a week later, my friends saw me and they said, Sammy, your bike is down the block. Made a fruit and vegetable store. And I ran down there to get it. There was two kids who were a little older than me. One was, if I was ten, he was twelve. The other one was thirteen. And I started fighting for my bike. I wanted the bike back. I wasn't giving it up. That was my bike. And I was fighting like crazy. Across the street there was a bar where all these Mafioso guys would hang out shooting crap in the street. Cop cars never bothered them, you know. And one guy came across. He knew where my father and mother were. And he said, what's your name? I said, Sammy. So he intervened in the thing. He grabbed the two bigger kids. He said, this is his bike. They say it was theirs. He said, go get your father to come here. And if it's yours, you can get it. But if it's not yours, but they were, they stole it. They weren't going to get their father. They took off. And one of the other guys from across the street yelled, what's going on over there? He said, this kid, Sammy. He says, Jerry and Kay's son. He was fighting for his bike. For the older kids. You see the way he was fighting? He was fighting. He was like a little bull. That name stuck, Sammy the Bull forever. He was fighting life when cops were looking for me. So they would come. We're Sammy the Bull. So even till today, newspapers, books, articles, you never stop. I didn't like it in the beginning, but I got used to it. See, when you were going through your upbringing, did your mum and dad was a tell-to-signs that you were becoming aggressive, angry? Or was everything kind of suppressed? Well, they knew that. I was like a bad kid growing up. And I was fighting a lot. But they were always, you know, you're their son. They were always, you know, giving you the benefit of their doubt or something. You know, it happened when I was in junior high school. I went to school one day. I got caught playing hooky. And the true officer caught us, brought us into the principal's office. And they were talking. And the principal said something about grease balls. These grease balls, meaning Italian people, it's a slow word. These grease balls, that's how they are. They're always in trouble. It didn't bother me when he called me a grease ball. It didn't really bother me all that much. But later in the conversation, he said, you know, referring to my mother and father. These grease balls are animals. And I got up and I said, listen, my mother and father are good people. Now you're talking about, you're not talking about me. You're talking about my mother and father. So I said they're good people, honest people. I don't like the way you're talking. Sit the fuck down. And then he turned to the teacher again. This is the principal. He said, see, this is how these grease balls are. I cracked them with fucking shot with everything I had. And that broke his jaw. I went to the board of education. I was thrown out of that school. It was shallow, junior high. And I was shipped to McKinley, junior high, which was in another neighborhood. Mostly Irish people, Polish, different people, not the Italians anymore. And I had a lot of trouble in that school because, again, I was getting along with the girls real good. The guys resented that. And there was always an argument. And I was quick to fight. Like I said, I was a little bit older than them, so I wasn't easy to bully. And that happened. And at night I would go back to my guys, my friends, the real business town, what happened. And it's a way to hangin' up. There was a car park, McKinley Park, right across the street from the school. They would hang out there at night. So we would get the cars, stolen cars. We would pull up there with bats and pipes and beat the shit out of them. Just so they didn't jump me again in school. And so all of that escalated in those ways. So violence back in my time was a relatively everyday thing. Normal. It was normal. Why did you join the military? Because you knew it could've possibly saved your life by giving you some discipline or was it just a case of trying to get off the streets? Yeah, I didn't join. I was drafted. So you were drafted? Back in those days there was a draft. You didn't have a choice. They called you, they drafted you into the military and they took you. So I was drafted. If you joined, there was three years. If you got drafted, it was two years. I got drafted, I did the two years. I trained to go to Vietnam, but I never went. I was trained how to kill, what to do. I went down to, I think it was Louisiana. There's all swamps in Louisiana. So they did all this jungle training in Louisiana. So I trained for all that stuff. But I never would, they, you know, not everybody goes. So certain units didn't go, certain units did go. My unit didn't go. Was that a big part of who you ended up becoming by the training you got in the military with using guns and being calmer to then become who you were? I guess, you know, being trained, before that I never killed anybody. So I guess, you know, and then the government feeds you to bullshit that these people are communists, they're gonna come here, they're gonna rape your mother, kill your father, rape your sisters. So you're being trained in a way where mentally and physically you're gonna kill these people because you think the worst of them. It was all lies, it was all bullshit. They're not bad people. Yeah, you're being groomed. You're being groomed. So I guess part of that stuck with me a little bit. But I don't want to blame that on the military. I got a little really good in there. I had a lot of friends in there. We were on the same boat, you know, under pressure training and getting ready to go. So it really wasn't that, but I trained and got ready for it and I came out of the military, like I said, I went into the mafia and the Colombo family. And that's where I got my first hit. What was it like being, because everything you've done, you've kind of been surrounded with friends, military, gangsters. You've always had people around you. It was the case that you always need people around you, like a brotherhood of friends. I was comfortable in that environment. I'm not intimidated by a tough guy. You look like a tough guy. You're well built, you look like a strong guy. I'm not intimidated. I actually absolutely like that. You know, I'm comfortable with men who are men, who act like men, talk like men, conduct themselves like men. I'm not afraid of that. I'm afraid of these kids today. If there's a war, those kids are going to go fight. Those kids are going to protect us, the country. I don't get along with them. Today guys want to wear a dress. They're a girl, they're a guy. They don't even know what the fuck they are. I'm intimidated by that. I don't like that. But I'm very comfortable with tough guys. I don't have a problem with that. I never did. I don't need them to surround me. I can protect myself. I fought in the ring. I fought all my life in the street. I was in the mafia. I was in gangs. So I don't really, I'm not very fearful of things, you know? A lot of guys, one guy asked me, he says, well, you're not afraid. I'm afraid of some things. I saw that picture of George. And I'm afraid of fucking going in the water. When I go in the water, I go up to my ankle. I'm up in the water. I'm like, it was the worst. So everybody has fears. But I'm not afraid of men. Men's men, guys who are men. I feel they're the same as me. Whether they're bigger, stronger, tougher. I'm comfortable with them. Did you know that then? Because some of the maddest and most ruthless people on this planet, they don't. It's not as if they're cage fighters or boxers, but they have a presence, an aura. Did you know that when people walked into a room that, okay, he's got something? Well, I mean, I looked up to people who were legends and did a lot of work, mafiosos. Had like Shorty Spiro or Kamai Perseco or Joe Colombo. People names like that. I had Joe Bonanno. I had a lot of respect for them. I looked up to them. I didn't fear them. I knew not to play stupid games with them. You know, they were tough people, dangerous people, but they were easy for me to talk to or be comfortable around. So, and I just didn't look at them in any which way. Now, I loved my father and looked up to him. He was a legitimate guy, a painter. And my mother was a seamstress, so they were hardworking people. We never had no money. So I mean, everything they worked a ton of hours to support me and my sisters and stuff like that. So I think I was really neutral to the whole thing. You know, if you didn't fuck with me, I wouldn't fuck with you. I didn't walk in and didn't try to walk around like a big shot. I never did that. I think I was a little too short for that. Why did you always gravitate towards the top end, the top scale and like the top boys of anything you've done right? Was that because you walked with a bit of confidence yourself and you never kissed ass? Like how did you end up gravitating towards like the top ends? Obviously, there's different levels, but you always seem to have went to the top end. You seem to have manipulated it. But we're all manipulators. We all talk shit, I believe, anyway in life, but you seem to have, it was like a chess game for you. Your interviews I've listened to, it seemed to have, you know exactly what you were doing and how to get in contact with to then not elevate you, but it was like, if people, I'm a man of frequencies and energies and how people, you can sense something, but you always seem to gravitate towards the people who were the most dangerous, the more ruthless, the more powerful. Was that a plan and your mind, does it just not happen naturally? Yeah, no, I, you know, I never gravitated. I never went up in looking at for a promotion or going up. I was part of their group. It wasn't my choice to go and get made. It wasn't my choice to become an acting captain or a captain or eventually the underboss of the family. I never even thought of those things. That wasn't in my thought. And it wasn't me who went into those areas. When I was asked to become a made guy, they came to me. I didn't go to them and asked to become a made guy. They made those decisions. It was the way I conducted myself my whole life. Other people up on top, it's no different than a company or a corporation. If you're outstanding, I'll call it employee, employee, and you'll make your moves that help the company. There's a boss up on top who will look at you and say, this guy's pretty good. And he's going to promote you to a manager, assistant manager, whatever the thing is. It's not your intention necessarily, if you're just doing your job, but you're doing it so well that it's noticeable by other people. And I think that was me. I never had the intention. I think that when I had that dyslexic, I never dreamt that I could go higher. I just wanted to be fitted like in the military. I fit in with people and I was good at it. When jogging, I ran. When we went on maneuvers, I was good. When we shot a rifle, I did hunting and fishing as a kid. I was good at it. I didn't try to be better than everybody or to try and become a sergeant or a captain or something in the military. I was a private when I went in and I came out of corporal, a little step above. I never made sergeant. I never wanted to make sergeant. Never even thought about it. When I was going to... My two years was up and I was going to leave. Even in the military, they came to me and told me, you're a good soldier. Would you want to join up now for another two years or three years? And I said no. Now, I could have elevated and joined, but I never looked at getting higher. When I just do something, I want to do it as good as I can do it. I did the same thing when I did a podcast. Not trying to be the best, but I opened it up. I didn't understand it and I started working with it. When I first started doing podcasts, I got out of prison. I did 18 years straight, just about 17 years, seven months. And my son told me about social media and I started with social media. It was just talking to a microphone, no video, no music, no nothing. Just talking. And I said, why don't we video it? I was working with a guy named James Carroll. He said, because they don't... podcasts, they just talk. So it's a difference of free video. And he said, we could do that and we did it. And it was extremely successful. And he told me, I think it was him, you want me to add some... because he was a great editor. You want me to add some music to it? Yeah, liven it up. And we did that. And it worked perfect. And right now I got over 112 million views on my podcast. I got almost 600,000 subscribers. So it worked. Now, I'm not trying, I never thought that I could be the best. I thought I could do it. I did a movie where I acted in the movie. The Salvatore was the name of it. And I never acted in my life. And he said, you know, we'll call it the Salvatore. You could play a pardon. Now, I'm not an actor. I don't think I could be an actor. But I tried it. I did it. So I'm that type of person. I think I'll try anything once. If I like it, I'll continue doing it. If I don't like it, I won't do it. I tried to sing one time and somebody said, listen, don't change your job. Don't quit your job. Quit your job. So I can't sing. But, you know, that's my personality. Now I do podcasts and now I'm doing some stuff in Hollywood. And if you would have told me five, six, seven, eight, ten years ago, whatever it was, you're going to be seeing social media talking publicly or doing acting or being in Hollywood. I would tell you crazy. So I don't even look at these things. I kind of stumble into them. And if you give me something to try, I'll do it. You know, I got in a ring a couple of times. It was a guy who said to me, you know, I was sparring and I never did it professionally. And one day it was going to be a regular fight. And I said, yeah, I'll do that. And I looked across the ring and there was this tall black guy, very musky. And I said, holy shit, what the fuck am I doing? This guy's going to cripple me. But I had to go in and try it. It's just my personality. And I got in and I was getting beat up. But I just kept fighting. The fight was over. I lost it on a decision. But the guy came over to me and he said, say me, I give you a lot of credit, bro. I hit you shots. You should have went down. You just don't give a fuck. You just keep playing. And I think that's my personality. You want to beat me. All right, you could be physically strong, bigger, taller, knock my ass out. But at the end of the fight, you may win, but you're going to have a lot of respect for me. But, you know, and that happens if you notice guys in the ring, they lose, they hug each other. Because they respect the guy's ability to fight back even though he lost. And that's me. If I lose, I can kill us. It's the same as bullies. Bullies don't want to be hit. And as soon as you start hitting them back, they become fearful because they're getting free hits. That's why they want to be the same as this day in society. Kids should be combat sports. You learn a lot more under pressure. You learn a lot more getting hit. Understanding you're not made of glass. And this is why the world is becoming soft. People need to... I don't agree with people, kids, having to go through the military. I believe all war is murder. But it's just... We're still fucking men. We're hunters. We're experiment hunters. We should be learning to be outdoors. Everybody's now technology. Mobile phones becoming fucking soft. Wearing dresses. We're forgetting ourselves. And if you speak out against this as well, you just become your homophobic or your transphobic or whatever it is. But people are allowed an opinion. Men and men, there's two genders. Male, female. Men can't have babies. Men can't have a period. And that's just basic science. It's... You max homo zones. And I feel as if the world can be confused as well. But like you say, learning and pushing through the pain, it makes you stronger towards life and understanding life ain't that bad. And I respect anybody that has a fight and has a tear up because it takes balls. And anybody that stands their ground, knowing that they're going to get beat, have bigger balls than the man who wins because they've showed heart. And that's just what I'm saying. You're going to have respect for the guy. He couldn't beat you. But he tried his best. He stood up. He took his beat and he's... I mean, you have respect for him. Even though you won, you know, you have respect for him. That's exactly right. I agree with you. The whole theory there is that, you know, we're men. I was grown, grown up. I went hunting with my brother-in-laws and people took me hunting as a kid, fishing, just all manly things. I respect men. I respect women, too, on a very high level. And you're never going to see a real legitimate tough guy beating up a woman, beating up his white food. They don't do that. A jerk does that. And, you know, like, they don't match for us physically. So what are you trying to prove when you hit a slap or a punch or... It just don't make any sense to me. But there's... Being a man, we talked a little while ago about the Andrew Tate. I don't agree with everything he says and does, but most of it I do. I mean, I would love to talk to him, too. I'd love to do an interview with him. Him and his brother, they're both good guys. I really... I enjoy a lot of things they do. Same with you. Listen, I know about you a little bit of a history and you're physically... You're a man's man. And I'm comfortable when I said, you know, would you do the interview? Yes. Yes, because I respect you. I appreciate that. It's the same as toxic masculinity. Toxic masculinity doesn't even exist because if you're masculine, you're not toxic, you're a leader, you're strong. There's two. There's feminine energy and there's masculine energy. Men and women need each other. We both need each other. For me, women are the centre of the universe. Women are stronger than men. The way a woman carries a baby, the way the baby gets fed through the umbilical cord and the way the woman's body changes and the energy that changes. A man gets a flu and we think we're fucking dying. You know what I'm saying? Men are strong. Men build the world. A man will do anything in life if he loves the woman that he's with. He will do anything. That's a strong man. No matter what level you're at in life, if you're providing for your family, you're a masculine man. It doesn't matter what you do, how much money you make. If you're providing and feeding your family, you're one in my eyes. But again, society tries to change the way we think and the way we feel. They try to make women masculine. They try to make men feminine. Elisa, by all means, be who the fuck you want to be. Be gay, be straight, be trans. I don't care, but just keep it away from my kids. Keep it away from me. Just let me do my thing. I'm not harming anybody. I travel the world, just me and Steven interviewing amazing people, understanding their life. We're not doing harm. I speak the way I want to speak, but I'm not harming anybody. You can't give me an opinion on something I should believe in when I know it's not quite right. I could be wrong. I'm wrong all the time, but I'm fucking mad enough to go okay, I fucked up there, but that's life. No, I think you're 100% right. I mean, there's no question about it. I think you're right 100%. I think that way too. And I think everybody has a right to be what they want to be. I have some gay people in my family. I'm not against them. But if that's what you want to be, be it. Be it to keep it to yourself. We enjoy your life. I deal with a lot of people in Hollywood that are gay. I think they're great people. I think they're smart. They're very creative people, a lot of them. But you see, a lot of people nowadays are making big deals out of it to try to change it. Years and years ago, when I was a kid growing up, I would watch movies. A ship would go down. And it was always saved the women and the children. No more now. No more now. The guy wants to the front of the boat. Get me out of here. Save myself. Fuck everybody else. Right, right. So, I mean, I don't agree with that whole thing. People agree with it. That's fine with them. But masculinity and being a man, I think it's a beautiful thing. I love women. I mean, I love women. Listen, when I was cheating in school, I couldn't do my homework and I couldn't do this. And I never cheated or forgot a guy look at his papers. I would always look at some girls sitting next to me. I would look at her papers because they were smarter than us. They were smarter. Yeah. All the way around. So, I have a lot of respect for them. I got women on my crew, on my team. And they're great as you could see. That's what I'm saying. Male, female. Just be who you want to be. But we're on the gayest generation that there's ever been. One in five people. Like I said, I don't care if you're straight by. Be who you want to be. But just, I feel as if men just need to be a bit more about the masculine energy. Yeah. Exercise. Look after yourself. You don't need to have to be in the best shape. I love my food, but I still exercise. I've still box. I'll still run. I'll still feel I can handle myself. And that's what it's all about. You've got to provide and protect. And that's what it should be. Seem you joined the Colombo family. What did your mum say? Did she know? No, no. She didn't know. She would be against it. I mean, they wanted a better life for me. You know, they came from Sicily. In Sicily, they were broke. They're farmers and they're peasants. So they came to this country looking for a better life. So they wanted a better life for me. Go to school, go to college. That was out. I couldn't do it. Being dyslexic, I couldn't do it. But they always stuck with me. Every time I was in trouble, they were there. The love never diminished. I think it got stronger. It strained them a little bit. I saw the pain in their face every time I was arrested or in trouble. But they always loved me as a person. And that was important to me. And it broke my heart. Seeing the strain it put on them hurt me more than a beating. I could take a beating right away. I fought, I did a million things. So if they hit me with something, my mother would hit me with a mop, with a broom. Because that's what moms do. They want you to stop doing the wrong thing. But my father never even raised his hands to me. Always loved me, always was there for me. Always provided. I mean, he would work 12 hours a day. We would eat dinner. And he would go back to the factory. They had a dress factory for a while. They had all these women working, making clothes, women's clothes. And he would go back, you know, get ready for the delivery the next day. A lot of times I would go with him. And I would put the plastic over the dress and his custom delivery guy. Pick him up the next morning. So he needed help. I would go in on occasion. And so, you know, I had a lot of good training, a lot of good love from home. And I think that helped me through. Why do you think you went down that route then of being a serious criminal and a hitman and everything you were involved in if you had that understanding? Because it's not as if you're a psych. Anybody who wants to be a gangster is psychotic anyway. I mean, not cases because it's not a same thing to do. It's, but you had that. It's not as if you're emotionally cold, where you're totally blocked off and don't have feelings and emotions. You understand that you were letting your mum down every time you went to prison or got the jail. So why do you think you fully went? Because it's clear you're a family man as well. But why do you think you made those choices? Yeah, I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. My neighborhood was saturated with the mafia. Everywhere. So we looked up to them. You know, a lot of times your mother and father will tell you what to do. But you, you were smart. Nah, they were old. I appreciate it. But you don't listen. Who you listen to is your environment, the people you grow up, your friends. If they were all going in that area, you follow them more than your mother can't pull you away from that. Unless she lives in a different neighborhood. So my neighborhood was a rough neighborhood. I dealt with a lot of, and had a lot of guys that was an Irish mob too. And I dealt with a lot of Irish guys who are really tough too. I could ask them the same question. So they come from Ireland, or they come from places where England was suppressing the Irish and they got the IRA and they fought back. They were underground people and they grew up tough. I was instilled in them from what their environment was. I have a friend of mine who's took this guy, Max. He owns a restaurant, great guy. But he's tough. And he's a chef, got a restaurant, great guy, do your favors, left and right. But he grew up in Turkey where it was tough, tough neighborhoods, wars that broke out and people fought. That environment has something to do with it. So me, I dealt with, this country had a lot of wars. The Vietnam War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War. You got a lot of men who had, pick up that environment that comes from governments and something that becomes instilled in you. If I would have went to Vietnam, I would have killed a lot of people. Because the government is telling me how bad they are, what they're going to do to this country. Government bullshitted me. I never met a bad Vietnamese person. I was never in prison with one. And I never met a bad Vietnamese person. So whatever they were telling me was bullshit. So you grow up, part of you is instilled with your family. So I think what they instilled in me, it made me a gangster, not what they're teaching the neighborhood was, but I was a different kind of gangster. I did have compassion as a gangster. A little bit more than some guys were ruthless in the mouth. I wasn't ruthless, even though I was involved in a lot of murders, stuff like that. I never killed an innocent man, woman, or a child. I killed on orders like in the military. If you broke the rules and you were supposed to go and I had your contract, you were going to go. But other than that, you couldn't get me to kill a kid or a woman. I tell a lot of guys when they have a fight with their wife or this or that, I like that it was just Mack, no, no. Push her away. She's coming at me. Run away. Nobody thinks you're not a man. You're just trying to avoid that conflict with her. You don't want to hurt her. So she gets over-aggressive and she attacks you. Run away. Get away from me. And that doesn't mean you're not a man. As you mean you're more of a man. You're not intimidated. You don't have to put out an act and beat her up to be a man. So it's your environment that does more than anything else. So I think it made me a little bit. I still had my mother and father's teaching. I respected them. I loved them. Till today, always. I don't have nothing bad to say about them. I never did. I don't know anything bad about them. And I grew that way. But that made me a different type of person. Now I could have came out of prison. I got over 22 years in prison. I have almost 23 years in prison in my life. I was involved in three mafia wars. 19 murders. I could have came out and been an animal. I think this part of me is my mother and father. When I talk about doing the interview with you, I have respect. I have what they taught me. Not what the mafia taught me. I've evolved. But there is a certain part of you in your life when you're growing up with your friends. You know, I looked at areas like different states. Oklahoma, places like that. Everybody goes to college. And I said, what do they eat in Oklahoma or Montana? That they all go to college. Why? Because they all go to the mall. They all hang out together. And all the kids talk and whatever. And they're all going to go to school and go to college. The dumbest kid grows up. He wants to go to college. Or she. Because their friends are all going. It's the environment. The environment actually, in my opinion, has more of what you're about. You come from another country. Your family. That's instilled in you. Erica, you just said it's instilled. It's coming from the other side. It's not growing up. These kids are growing up all fucked up because they go to colleges. And the universities today. That I would they're teaching them garbage. Kids are coming out of college in this country. Hating this country. Because you're either white, you're a racist, or you're a homophobic, or you're this, or you're that, or you're the other thing. Growing up, I never heard all that shit. I mean, I heard the thing racist, but homophobic, I don't know. There was gay people there. Nobody gave a shit one way or another. Whatever you were. So your environment has a tremendous impact on what you are. Now, your mother and father does too, but it's a secondary thing. When you become a bad boy, I'll call it that, sometimes you may think, I'm going to hurt this guy almost for no reason. Maybe we could just argue. Maybe I won't hurt him. Maybe don't call for that. Maybe it's just an argument. In some cases, some kids come out of a bad family and then join the mafia. Then they don't have no other schooling. They become more violent. Because they have bad family upbringing, friends were bad, and they're topping the whole thing. They're going to be even worse. So I think the environment has a tremendous impact. Like I said, I know a lot of Irish guys. I was in prison with a guy who was his name now. I forget his name. What sort of stuff are you doing with the Colombo family? You would get a contract. Go beat this guy up. I'll give you one example. I was with Carmine Percival in Shorty Spiro. Shorty Spiro told me, he says, Carmine wants to talk to you. I was young, and I was with them. I wasn't a made guy. I was an associate. So I went down, and he was talking to me about beating some guy up. The guy was banging somebody's wife who shouldn't happen. And he says, I want you to give him a good beating. I said, okay. He says, then take his ear off and bring it back to me. I said, okay. And I got in the car with Shorty and was leaving. I said, I don't have nothing. You know, I could give this guy a beating. Meet another guy. He really wants me to take his ear off. For real. That's what he said. So they were very violent. I'll give you another example. When I was transferred over to the Gambino family, and I was put with this guy, Tato Aurelo, he was a captain, very powerful. And he made me sit with him all the time. And one day he said he would sit in the backyard. He had fruit and trees, fake trees, you name it. And he would sit out there and smoke a cigar. And he said, I want you to sit with me one day. I got a guy coming in. Okay. He said, keep your mouth shut. Just listen. All right. The guy came in and he gave this whole argument about his friend. He thought he was making a pinch to the wife and trying to get with the wife. The wife denied it. So Tato told him, all right, don't do nothing. Go away. And I'll call you another day or two. He called the other guy in. The guy was almost in tears. He says, I told the woman she's a good woman. I said, you were a beautiful woman inside and out. He had a tremendous respect for her. He didn't try to make her. He didn't try to take her to bed. And he loved his friend. It was misunderstood. He let him leave. He said, I'll get back to you in a couple of days. He said, if you were me now, what would you do? Get a couple of young guys like me a couple of thugs. And we'll give his friend for trying to fuck around with his wife or beating. He said, good. I know you got balls. And now I know you're stupid. And it hurt me. I love this guy. And he says, come back tomorrow. I'm going to have both of them here. Sit. Both of them came in. It really was a big one's understanding. Both of them were literally hugging each other, literally in tears. The wife said it wasn't he never did anything. This guy took it the wrong way. That you're beautiful inside and out. So they left. He said, what would you do now? I said, I don't know. I really don't know. But you, right away, you would have gave that guy a beating. For nothing. You would have hit him for nothing. He would have went into the hospital for no fucking reason other than you wanted to jump the gun. If you want to sit in my chair someday, you have to listen where both is. Either somebody's lying. The truth is in the middle. Or it's a misunderstanding. Before you make a decision to do something, understand the whole thing fully. You didn't understand all the, you heard one guy's story and you will only give the other guy a beating. And that taught me a lot. It was different than the Combo family. This guy was using his head. He says it's not that we can't use violence, but we use that as a last resort. Not the first thing. So there was different teaching in Colombo. Beat him up, shoot him, kill him, cut his ear off. These guys, more business unions making money, more compassion. And it's not that they couldn't kill. Pulling the trigger, whether it's a Colombo family or the Gambino family or that. It's just how they look at it. And that taught me a lot too. So between my mother and father's teaching and Tato's teaching, I became a different kind of a gangster. I wasn't straight out violent. I could be, but I'm not basically a violent person. I actually like people. I'm a people's person. I joke with people all the time. I love playing with them. When the guy came in, I said, we got the same barber. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then when I said, if I don't understand your vocabulary, sometimes you have a heavy accent. I'll joke with you. I'll tell you what you call me. Would you say some books are like that? I enjoy people from different nationalities, different races, different religions. And I don't go by a lot of the things that people teach. I like people. I can see if I don't like you as a person, I wouldn't give a fuck if you were white, black, yellow, Asian, Mexican, Spanish, Swedish, Irish. I don't care what you are. I don't like you as a person, not for all those labels, of any of those labels. Did you think you had that then? Because everything's a gift. If you give someone a compliment or if you crack a joke, it makes people feel relaxed. Did you have that as a personality walking into a room with these so-called killers and psychopaths to make them feel at ease? Because if you make someone feel relaxed, same as interviews, they'll tell you a better story because they're not tensed up. Right. Do you have that little gift? Well, I always told jokes. In the beginning, I told jokes because I was hurt. I was embarrassed in school. So I became a clown to tell a joke. I have people laugh at the joke rather than laugh and out of my not being able to spell or do certain things. Everything looked different. Now going to this lecture, let me explain. Maybe some of the people don't even understand what that is. A person, one psychologist, gave me a piece of paper to read with a small print. And I grabbed it and I looked at it and she said, what do you think? I said, I don't understand. What do you mean you don't understand? I said, do you have a blank piece of paper? She gave me a piece of paper in a pencil and I scribbled on it. And I said, yeah, take this. She looked at it and I said, tell me what that, you know, what's about. She says, I don't have the slightest idea. It's just scribbling. Well, that's what that paper you gave me. That's what that looks like to me. My bees look like a D. Eight looks like a three. I don't. I can't visually it's a dyslexic. It is a visual thing. Not really a brain thing. I think it's more visual. Now, every time when a teacher would say, what's that number? I would say three. Everybody would laugh. Sammy, that's not a three. That's a need. I was wrong so many times that I started. What's that number? And they would look at it to me and look like a three. But I knew I was wrong so many times that I would just say, even though I didn't think it was. It's an eight. Yeah, that's right. I learned how to cheat the system. I was embarrassed to say when I was young, they don't look like a three. It looks like an eight. I think you're crazy. But I knew it was me was crazy. Because when I say an eight, it's a three. Everybody's laughing at me. So I know I'm wrong. I don't know why it took a while to understand. And it's the same thing with writing. And when you're dyslexic, comprehension is hard. So I could read something and not remember the whole story. So you may be able to read it and say, this is a story about this boy and girl, Jack and Jill went up the hill to get a pail of water. When I read it, I don't know what they went up there for. I don't know what the hell's going on. So it's hard for me to comprehend what the story is. How does someone get transferred from one mafia family to another? Would that not be a red flag? Because the information you had about one family, you could have took it to another family. But how does that work? Is that a one-off or is it something that happens quite a lot? That's a perfect thing that don't normally ever happen because you know their secrets. I went one time, it's a whole long story. So I won't tell the whole story. But I went to kill Shorty's brother. He did something to me about me. And I went to kill him. The Colombo family found out that I went with a gun. I didn't get him. But I was going to kill him. And they wanted to break us up. But they thought I was 100% right. You were right to want to kill him for what he did. But you went to his fucking house and knocked on the door. His wife answered the door. If he came to the door, were you going to kill him? Yeah. And you were to kill him right in front of his fucking wife and kids. Yeah, I was that hot. Well, that's wrong, said me. That's where you went wrong. If you were to kill them in the fucking street, we would have patted you on the back. You were right. But you went to his house and it's wrong. We can't kill him even though we know he's wrong when he did. Because he's Shorty's brother. So somebody, a guy named Johnny Rizzo, who was a made guy in the family went to Tato. And it went up to Carlo Gambino. The heads of the families talked about this situation. The Columbos didn't want to kill me. The Gambino's didn't want to see me get killed. So they made a deal. We'll transfer him. He'll no longer be with us. He did work with us, meaning he killed with us. He was in our war with us. We trust him and we like him. We'll release him with no restrictions. If you want to make him a made guy or whatever you want to do with him, that's fine. We're not intimidated. We don't think he's going to hurt us or give up any secrets or do it. I was transformed under those conditions. And that's when the Gambino's accepted me. And from that day on, I was with Taro. And I always, when they transferred me, one of the head guys in the Colombo called my Parsa Co's brother, Alleyboy Parsa Co Sr. grabbed me, hugged me, gave me a kiss on the cheek and said to him, you're always going to be Alfred. But we wanted you to promise one thing. You won't kill Ralph. And that's, and you'll always be Alfred. I promised I wouldn't kill Ralph. I never did. I shook his hand. And I went with the other family. That's their decision. It's not me. I don't have no part in the say in that. But you're happy with that? Because it seems crazy that gangsters are getting transferred to other families. That gangsters, me, it didn't happen. It wasn't a normal thing. It happened a couple of times, but it's not gangsters are getting transferred. It don't happen. If they're chased, we don't want them with us. Then it could happen. And usually another pair, I mean, I won't even pick you up. Because if you got chased, then I want you. But in my case, it wasn't about that being chased. Number one. And number two, it wasn't an everyday thing that happened. I know you speak about you were involved in 19 murders. I don't want to mention names because I don't want to go down the same route as every other interview. But I don't want to upset people as well. But your first murder that you've done, I've spoke to a lot of killers and a lot of them were nervous. 99% of them were nervous. You weren't. Why? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe fighting, maybe all the things, maybe being trained in the military. I don't know. I questioned that myself, to myself. And I said it a bunch of times. I watched movies. Guy killed somebody who's going to kill him. He kills him. And he's sweating. He's scared. He's nervous. He's this. He's that. I expected that to happen. I did the murder. I was done. We cleaned. Got rid of the gun, cleaned the car, did this, did that, did everything. And I went to a apartment where me and my friends were staying. Took a shower and waited for that to happen to me. It didn't happen. I got dried off. I went to bed. I slept like a baby. The next morning I woke up. Little girls were up in that place. And oh my God, they killed Joe Colucci and this and that and was in the paper. And I remember asking one of the girls, did they know who did it? She said no, they were investigating it, but no, they don't know. And then they went to the corner and hang out. I came a little bit later. And when I walked there, I was there standing right there. But I almost had like an out of body experience. I felt like I was way above them listening. And they didn't see me and but I was able to see them. It was a weird feeling. And what took me out of that feeling is that Shorty Spearler had pulled up, got his nephew Tommy, get Sammy, Carmine Perceco wants to see you. And I came out. Shorty said, listen, don't explain what happened. He did a good piece of work last night. Let my nephew tell Carmine because he was on the head too. Explain to him what exactly happened. You be quiet. I didn't say a word. He explained the whole thing. And we got in Carmine Perceco grabbed me, hugged me, kissed me on the cheek. He did a good piece of work. Patted me on the back, so to speak. And I left. And it always bothered me. Why didn't that stuff I saw in the movie? Why didn't it bother me? The only thing I could come up with, maybe I was just a natural born killer. Like I said, when I went into the military and I would have went to Vietnam, I would have killed. I had no hesitation about fighting for my country, protecting my family. This is, and now I was protecting goes in Austria. It was a different type of army. Maybe that's it. I don't know what it is. But I never had that feeling and I don't know why. Because we talk about being a product to your environment, do you think? You always had that something in you. You would have been involved in that some sort of violence or killings no matter where you grew up. But my own neighbor did was killings all the time. But even if you weren't, do you think you still had something that's maybe ingrained from past generations or whatever it is to then gravitate towards being like you see a natural born killer? You would have killed in the Vietnam, you'd have killed in the mafia. Do you think you would have always, you had something inside you were this way? I don't know a person in my family, grandmothers, grandfathers, sisters. I never knew my brother because he died before I was born. That was dangerous or criminal. Not a one. My mother wouldn't kill anything. I don't think she would step out of it. My father was from Sicily, was a tough man, but not a violent man. So I don't know of anything as far as heritage. And I don't really get into that because I think that psychologist, psychiatrist, that when they look into your parents, they look into this. I don't know what it is. I'm not a psychologist. I'm not a psychiatrist. I don't know. I know kids who grew up that I hung out with. We're great kids. Flu pigeons together, played sports together and wound up in the mafia and were pretty deadly themselves. I've never known any pairs with them or their families that I know. I don't go back in their family, but I don't know what it is. I think it's the environment again that you grow in, like I said about Max or some IRA guys. They grow up in an environment where there's violence. You go now to Israel and certain countries that are fighting with them. I forget their names, Houdis or whatever they are. They're fighting. They're killing for different reasons. I won't even talk about their reasons because I don't care. But you think that there's going to be 6, 7, 10, 12 year old kids that are not hearing this, seeing it, feeling it. Some of those kids aren't going to grow up violent. If that's what you believe, you're crazy. Did you enjoy killing Sami? No. No. No. I was very efficient at it. I was very good at it. I used to use my head. I planned things. I'm a meticulous planner. Let's say I was going to kill you, argument's sake. I would know everything about you if you're married. Who's your wife? Who's your kids? Where do you live? Where do you work? Where'd you go to school? Everything about you. You were going to come to a meeting today with Sami to book? With time. And I found the best place in the world to kill you. And when I did plan, you were dead. There was no way to escape. People would say to street at one time, if Sami's got your head, you're fucking dead. That became that I was a minute. I planned it so carefully before I did something. I wasn't just going to shoot from a car like some guys do. That's thug-ish stuff. I was a planner. And as a planner, I would not rush. I would plan your death. How long would that take to plan a murder? Not long at all. And it's not only killing you. I'm going to get away with it. I'm going to have an alibi. The team that's on it, they're going to get away. Nobody's going to get caught. So I was planning it at a lot of stages, but it didn't take long. It depends on who you are. If I knew you, it didn't take long at all. I knew all of your traits, everything you do. You're married. You cheat on your wife and you go to your girlfriend's house every Tuesday, 8 o'clock. I'm not going to kill you when your girlfriend's house, but when you come out, I know your car. I see where it's parked. How hard is it for me to kill you? The hardest thing now is pulling the trigger. Not for a head guy. So you're dead. Did you ever miss? I missed a couple of times on purpose, but I never really missed. I missed a couple of times when the guys got away. Very rare. Because I ain't afraid of an SAS man. He says the majority of people who hold guns, it says 90% of them miss because they're all shakier, they turn their head. Those ain't head guys. I'm saying a lot, but a lot of mafia guys aren't. I thought every mafia guy was a trigger man until I started speaking to people and understanding they're not. He says because a lot of people turn their head in cars outside houses, you seem to do it more cold, calculated where you are ruthless with it. Right. And I'm not trying to be ruthless. I'm trying to do you a fucking favor. I don't want to bang you all over the place and with punching you and kicking you and stabbing you and this. I don't want all that for you. I'm going to hit you a fucking shot right here. You won't even know what the fuck happened. You will feel no pain. You will die instantly. And as far as that's, I'm not ruthless like who wants to just bang you around and do all that bullshit. I'm not into that. I'm a stone cold killer as far as I'm going to kill you. I'm not going to make you suffer. There's no reason for me to do that. That is that. Because there's a murder that you talk about and it kind of gets you emotional. Because anyway, you seem like the perfect soldier for someone. If somebody's a boss, you seem like the perfect guy you would want working with you. You'd follow orders. You'd do everything 100% of your ability. I think anybody with some sort of brains would see that and understand that. But the guy who you says was like a samurai. He died with pride. He died with honour. He took off his shoes. Why did that affect you? Someone who's a killer who's basically can take lives without batting an eyelid, go to sleep the next day, wake up and eat breakfast as if everything was fine. Why does the guy who wanted these shoes off when you killed them affect you? An hour or some time before he's going to die. We talked. He was in that van with me for... You're talking about Johnny Keys. He was in that van with me for 12 hours and talked to me about a lot of things. And I won't point to all of them. I'm not allowed to do... There's going to be a movie made about it. So I'm limited on what I could say. But let's talk about the shoes. He asked for some favors and I conceded because he acted like a man on depression. To any favor, he asked. Then he asked me to not be found with the shoes. I couldn't understand that and I asked him why. He said, My wife isn't stupid. She knows there's a war. She knows who I am and what I am. And I always comfort her and tell her, Don't worry about it. I'll die with my shoes off. Ultimately meaning I'll be home with my shoes off. I'll die normal. I'm not going to die in the street. If I'm found without my shoes, she will know that in my last thoughts I was thinking of her. And that blew my mind. 69, 70 of all men want to send a message to his wife to comfort her that he was thinking of her in the last minutes of his life. I thought that was about as honorable as you can get. It was a love story at that point to me between a man and his wife. And I agreed and that's how he was found. And what I said about everything with him is that he taught me goes in Austria in a whole different way, a whole different light. He taught me how to die like a man. No whining, no swuggling, no nut. Somebody had told me, well, a guy named Nick Pledgey told me that you know what you two were? What? Samurai's. A samurai knows when he lost them once the die went on. That's what he was doing. An old girlfriend of mine told me recently, not too long ago anyway, when you grew up here I had beautiful blue eyes and happy eyes. You always used to joke and laugh and talk. We broke up. I haven't seen her for years and then she came across me. She said, you know, I bumped into you once and your eyes changed. Hell, they were cold as ice. You changed. Something happened, you changed. I said, when do you think that happened? She said, I don't know, I'm not sure. I think 1980 maybe. And 1980 was the Johnny Keys hit. So she bumped into me weeks or months after that and said I changed. I became hardcore. My eyes were fucking not happy eyes anymore. So that's environment. That's growing in an environment that changes. It's not your mother, not your father. Now you're grandfathers. I was never sexually molested. I was never had all these bullshit things that some people have. Never. It was my environment I was growing. Do you think killing someone does something to the soul? When you talk about the eyes changing, the cold as ice, there is the seat of the soul. The eyes tell a lot. Do you feel now, hindsight is a wonderful thing, but everything that you know now feels like it does something to a man when you take another life? Oh, I think it does. I think it takes a hunk of it. I died with every hit I was on. A little bit of me. Not fully died. A little bit of me died. There's something in the Godfather. Michael in the Godfather was talking in a room when he was taking over and all these gangsters were there. The door was open and his wife was looking in. And some guy came over. One guy was kissing his hand. Another guy came over and closed the door. People, when they watched it, they closed the door on his wife. No. The door closed on him. He became a hundred thousand percent goes in Austria when that door closed. He closed on him to the rest of the world. That's what he was. The Johnny Keys hit. Close the door on me. I didn't have happy eyes no more. And I was cold as ice. And I was a fucking professional killer. I don't know about the soul. I'm not sure about that. I believe in God but I don't believe in a lot of religions. I think they're greedy, selfish and they teach a lot of bullshit. So I don't go by all of that religious stuff. To me it's religious nonsense. But I do believe in God. Higher power? I believe in higher power and it must be God that created all these things, created a woman different than a man so she can have a baby. She can support life. She makes life. We need, she needs our seed but she makes life. She feeds it. It grows in her body and then she plants their feet on the ground to her, not us. So there's a lot of things I believe in but I don't know about a soul. I don't know about whatever. I don't know if there's a heaven. I don't know if there's a hell. I don't know. I know I'll find out someday. I think we all get to a point to an age and we're all going to die. So we'll find out. I'm in no rush to find out. I'm in no rush for somebody to tell me about souls, about heaven, about hell, what I got to believe in, what I don't have to believe in, what I should think and what I shouldn't think. I believe there's a God. The skies, the trees, I do artwork. I look at the sky, the sunset, the sunrise and I am an artist, a little bit of an artist and I look up and they say, who can make this art? It is so beautiful. Who can make have babies, make life, animals? Who can do all this? How did it all happen? Now, I don't know if there might be answers down the road. I don't know. Me, myself, I think there is a God. A higher belief. Yeah, I'm the same. I believe all religions. Listen, if you believe in a religion, it makes you a better person. Well, it all means that's amazing. But for me, it's divide and conquer. How can there be so many gods and so many religions? For me, there is a higher power as well. I don't know what I believe I am guided and protected. That's my own belief. I don't think it on my own. When I was in prison, I was with a group of Native American Indians. For the reason that I wanted to smoke. We were allowed to smoke, but they were allowed to pass the pilot. Yeah, so I wanted to smoke and I joined the group. But I got to understand their religion. It's a path to God. Different path. Fred of mine was in Wicca. The old religion of Wicca. Wiccans. And he said, you're not an Indian and you're in that. Why don't you join us? We have classes. I joined them. Some things I thought were a little weird, but some things they had their own path. The Muslims have their own path. The Jews have their own path. The Christians have their own path. They all have paths to God. We're all killing each other and fighting over who's right and who's wrong. If you don't do this, if you don't believe in this. So I believe all of that out of my life. You could all fight about it, argue about it, believe what you want to believe. I'm calling it to make you a better person and make you feel better. Do it. If I pray, I pray directly to God. I leave the religions out. I think they all got a lot of money, make a lot of money. They do a lot of weird shit that they tell us not to do. Don't be gay. There's a lot of priests who suck a dick. Yeah. And then a guy tells me a priest will tell me your sins. No, fuck you. Tell me your sins. These fuckers live good more than anybody. No, I know. So I don't get into none of that. I mean, I talk to you about it, but I don't get on an everyday basis. I don't get into that. I believe in God. Yeah, but it's good to understand it. And like I said, this is your life story to understand who Sammy is. Not anything else. Everybody sees the world differently. I don't judge. I don't give a fuck what anybody's done. Because everybody's on different paths. Everybody's got different levels of trauma. Everybody's got different levels of upbringing. Because I haven't interviewed a woman, a man abused her sons. That woman went and got a knife and plugged the cunt. Killed the guy. Killed him. A woman. Big heart. Anybody can snap. Anybody's got it in them. Anybody can kill. Anybody can love. There's just certain circumstances in life. You never know how your cards are dealt. How hard does it sound for a woman to be involved and how hard because we talk about masculinity and providing protect. But women seem to get the rough end of the stick with going out with someone who's in the mafia. How hard is it to keep a relationship? It is hard. They got the rough end of the stick being married to guys like me or mafia dudes. It's not an easy life. And they have to be really, really strong put up with a lot of bullshit. But by the same token I got divorced a long time ago in 1981. I still take care of my wife till today. She said she has a COPD. I take care of her. I will never stop taking care of her. If I had a girlfriend right now I would hide it. Not that I have to we're divorced. But I don't want her to feel hurt you know about it. I always have those things in mind. And I think that makes me a different kind of gangster. But another gangster who don't give a fuck about how she feels that's horrible. I mean we cheat, we fuck around, we do a lot of things. But if you don't care about your woman or the women around you whether they be on your team or your friend or your sister or somebody else I mean something's wrong with you. Seriously wrong with you. You know I'm talking about women protecting. A psychologist in prison asked me about killing and stuff like he was going to be a little bit more she was a psychologist and I said anybody could kill and she said no I can't kill. So I said are you married? She says I asked the questions. Then the interview was over. If I can't answer you a question you're asking me questions and I'm answering. If you can't answer my simple question then forget the interviews over. It wasn't an interview it was a psychologist talking. And she says oh yes I am married. Do you have kids? A beautiful girl and a beautiful boy. Supposing somebody raped your beautiful little girl brutally, brutally raped her and killed her and got caught and got to death penalty. Now the day is coming they're going to put them to death. And nobody's there to press the button or pull the switch or whatever it is. And if nobody shows up the death penalty sentence is commuted he'll get 10 years, 15 years or someday he'll go out. Could you pull the switch or press the button? Absolutely. She didn't hesitate. She didn't hesitate. So then under the right conditions you can kill. Yeah. Under the right conditions I can kill. And I think under the right conditions anybody can kill. You get a lot of women they're like the mama bear. Fuck with their kids in a horrible way. And if they can protect them by killing they'll kill you. And so will a man to protect his wife and his children. I'm not saying they're going to be mafia people or they're going to kill ruthlessly but to protect their children their family they can kill. A soldier could kill to protect his country. A cop could kill to protect his people, the neighborhood. Some people break rules and are disgusting about it but we're not talking about them they're a small, small, small minority group. They become serial killers or whatever they are. That's a whole nother story but that I won't get into but everybody can kill. That was your relationship with Castellano. He was very, very good in the beginning I thought he was the best thing through slight spread I liked him. I dealt with him a lot a lot of union things and business things he loved dad about me and he used me. Like you said before you know who saw the way I was you would use me. Well that's how I'm all involved in 18 murders. I never got up in the morning and felt like killing somebody. If I had an argument which I feel like punching your fucking face in but I don't feel like killing you but I was asked a lot of times under Castellano under the Columbus under Castellano under John Gotti so I guess other people recognize my abilities as that so they used me for that but they also used me as a racketeer in business to control unions, jobs, making money, making deals I'll give you one more story as Castellano sent me down to a meeting about the concrete club it was bosses there and he couldn't make he sent me. I met the bosses Fat Tony Tony Ducks a guy from the Colombo family representing them Fat Tony joke with me we were good looking kid what he doing here with us old farts go out and go get laid joking Tony Ducks Sammy I know you're a little nervous I was only an acting captain they were bosses don't be nervous when I look at you and we look at you now we're looking at Paul he sent you here so when you say we're looking at you as a boss not that you're a boss but we're thinking about him alright and I felt good I heard the whole meeting about getting all the unions and trying to tie up the whole city of New York with the concrete industry and just that year so I got back from the meeting the next day and they sat with Paul and he says would you take Tony and them they were treating me great yeah they're good guys what would you take you want it really here what I take yeah of course that's why I sent you I think we're going to go to jail it's too big we're controlling too much he said good good good I'm going to take you off represent this I'm going to put somebody else doing that I said Paul I'm not afraid to go to jail I didn't mean it that way I said I'll go to the meetings he said no no no I'm not taking you off I know you're not afraid he said you want to know what the other guy who was handling it before you what he said yeah what did he say he said great Paul we're going to make a ton of money you gave me the right advice we're going to go to jail you're not looking at money you're looking at the reality that we're going to go to fucking jail because it's too fucking big and I told him Paul then we'll let you back away from it he said I can't when the bosses of the other families are sitting at that table I have to have a spot there but I think you're right and because you're so fucking right I'm going to take you off of that I don't want to jump in I need you for other things nearly with people so I was not only picked to be a gangster and go kill somebody I was also picked because I was able to use my head my thinking power and that made my job as a killer easier because I did the same exact thing I used my head I thought I'm not you want me to kill him alright I'll go do it and I didn't do that oh you want me to kill him no I and I did this whole investigation of it did you question when someone gave you an order to kill did you question why it was getting done before you done it or did you just go and do it the mafia if the boss tells you to kill you kill when you take the oath the first question out of his mouth is if we tell you to kill for the family would you do yes he only ask you you can't question the boss if I tell you to go kill somebody would you do it yes and then they tell you a whole bunch of other things but that was like the first question did you kill someone before has ordered once or was it someone else did you kill someone can you never got an order to do it but you just you went and met how my thinking says I done it for your own benefit I didn't want to come and see you and then kill someone and then the heat would be on you I did that with the plaza suite I knew the guy he was so out of order he did so many weird things he did so many fucked up things and then he took a machine gun out when me and my brother came in and put it right to my chest there's courses being you on it pointed to the machine gun my old body tensed it up because I thought any second he's going to pull the trigger I thought I was getting killed and he should have killed me but he did but when I walked out of that office with him I told my brother I'll get the guys get my guys together but Sammy shut the fuck up but Sammy I told you get the guys and put them in the bar I want to see them all what are you going to do I'm going to kill this guy tonight and we did that and actually Paul got mad at me because I didn't ask permission first because she's supposed to ask permission first all the time but there was beefs going on with this that happened I know his house was being watched I figured if I go to his house tell him what happened he's going to say okay then I'm going to go and I'm going to kill him and the cops the agents will see me coming from where I was to his house and back so if I'm caught he's caught too they'll have that he's finished so I took that into consideration I talked to him my very close friend Frank and Chico told him everything that happened bring it back to him even after the hit I won't go to his house because I didn't want I know I was taking already taking heat for that hit so I said Frank and Chico but Frank he came back he said send me he's taking this the wrong way he's taking it that you know you did it off the record you didn't tell he stayed I stayed 19 days he wouldn't talk to me I met my crew on the farm on my farm and I told them listen me and Louis Malito I'm in serious trouble what I want you guys in I'm calling you guys to the farm when I want to talk to you if I don't come home or something happens take care of my fucking family I want that I want you to see I want to hear you say it a couple of them said send me now we're coming with you we'll fight we can't fight there's no fight all I want you to do is take care of my fucking family give me your fucking word they all gave me their word some of them left some of them left and came back they just wouldn't leave me and then 19 days later he met with me and Louis Malito alone with Tommy Bellotti and just like I said in that other interview he talked to us and he says you know and I told him I said Paul I did that because I thought I knew you would give me permission for everything you did I just thought I would be bringing you heat and immense heat and he tried to protect you and leave you out of that and I said Frank he right away I didn't try to dodge it I didn't say I didn't try to say I didn't do it I told you all the facts and Tommy Bellotti didn't really like me or I'm vice versa he kind of like shook his head like as if to say he's right and then Paul said okay I'll let this go but don't ever do it again and I said I can't I can't say that if it comes to me trying to protect you again I would do the same thing Louis Malito grabbed my leg and pressed it real hard Paul looked at me looked at Tommy Bellotti and he went like this like he's right in a way he didn't say a word he just shrugged his shoulders and nodded a little bit and he looked at me he said save me you got balls like a fucking elephant bro but you can't do this I'm gonna give you an order not to do it and we left that really broke up my and Louis Malito's relationship Louis Malito told me he said save me the same thing you got two bigger balls bro do you become afraid then no no he said you got two bigger balls you're gonna get killed don't you understand you can't talk to a boss he said he let you off the hook then you tell him no you're not gonna do that what's fucking wrong with you bro you're gonna get killed and he looked at it like me and Louis were like save me and Louis he didn't say save me without Louis he didn't say Louis without Sammy we grew up together we were tight we did work together we did everything together so he kind of thought this guy's committing suicide I love him but he's committing suicide and he broke away and later on when we were gonna kill Paul he made another couple of bad moves and whatever but we that that meaning kind of broke us up I did so the guy that you had killed he was gonna buy your nightclub off you or the the building that was in for him why would he pull a gun out to you knowing your history and not use it it's not as if it's gonna be asked I don't think he knew my history at well he came from Czechoslovakia he was a fucking gangsta in his old right a drug dealer he was a powerhouse in Czechoslovakia I don't think he knew he underestimated me I think a lot of things I don't know but we argued there was a bunch of arguments there's something going on about that now people from Czechoslovakia talking to me about that whole thing there was a guy who was at the party they know the whole thing going on but so I think he underestimated me I don't think he knew I was somebody but I think he completely underestimated me what was it like getting made it was one of the best days of my life once I got to the point that I was in the mafia and I looked up to all these people Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese and on and on and on and Tato and everybody else I was dealing with it was it was if you were going to school and you weren't that good in the school and all of a sudden you got a little lucky you went to college and now all of a sudden you went fucking Harvard getting your degree out of Harvard it's got to be a fucking shining thing a major thing that's what getting made was to me it was a highlight of my life getting married was a highlight having children when each one was born was a highlight this was on that level maybe even above that is that how much it meant to you yes you see when you get made then what is that open because we've not even touched on the business side of things like you were successful at business you're anything you've done you were successful at but the business side of things you made a lot of money so see when you become made does it open doors for more business opportunities do you get more respect how does it work all absolute elvens are both kinds of doors as a maid guy you have the whole family the whole mafia behind you so if you're not a mafia so let's say that you're part of the Irish mo you're talking you may be a tough guy with the Irish mo but you said it's fucking guys a maid guy which carries the weight of the whole mafia you hurt him you fuck with him you do something you could have the whole five families it's not just him and it's not just his crew 5, 10, 15, 20 guys you got a couple thousand guys who fucking kill you in a second because of what you did to him so you're carrying the weight of the mafia they're so heavy they're so tight and they treat their people as their old brothers there like family members when me and you get made I'll make you a maid guy your wife I look at your wife now as my sister-in-law your children are my nieces and nephews I could be in a bar one night and I could see a little daughter playing around she drank a little too much and I come over I told the bartender no more for her sweetheart I know your dad I know you don't know me but you're gonna get in the car you're gonna go home the guy you come here get the fuck out of here get away from her that is my obligation you're my brother and she's my your family is my family whether they know it or not she may not even know me you know cry a little bit yeah all right then go tell your daddy that I made you go home you're getting in the car and you're going home no I'm not if I gotta drag you by your fucking hair and put you in the car you're going home you're a little drunk this fucking kid is getting a little stupid with you and that's gotta stop it's my brother I don't give a fuck who he is you want to keep him as a boyfriend listen to what I'm telling you so those are things that's automatic when you see that or you understand and know that when you fuck with me or my family you're fucking with the whole mafia every family when was the first time you met John Gotti? I met him years ago I met him in I believe it was 1976 I mean yeah I got made in 1976 1976 the year later I became an acting captain he may be his acting captain a year after I got made I met John Gotti come out of prison I think it was early 1970 he wasn't a main guy yet he just got out of prison he was a power club Frank and Chico had a club which I always frequent if he opened a gambling place or a club I always went there with my people to always give them a push did you ever have an incline how much John would have a part in your life and how far it would went did you ever have a feeling or was it just another normal man no it was just he wasn't even a main guy at that time oh yeah I was made in 1976 he was made in 77 I mean obviously sorry for asking the same questions but it's just for the UK audience and fucking 40, 50 years later we're still talking about it yeah it is amazing you know what's amazing you could have told me 5, 6, 7 years ago 10 years ago whatever it is you're going to be talking publicly about your life or about the mafia I would say you're crazy me? I'm not a public speaker you know that's not what I do I've never done that so I would think you know I got a jail in 2017 I never thought of doing any of this my son started telling me I was broke started on social media started doing some things I said what social media was in jail for almost 18 years there was no youtube there was no these phones didn't exist when I went in so the phones were brand new I mean it was always computers with different kind of computers the social media I didn't know have a clue what this was what was it like being in prison for the first team in the 70s? well prison is a scummy place I mean there's nothing nice about it in the first team I was busted so many times I forgot what was first what was second but the prison part of it I think when I testified I mean when I got arrested with John Gotti I got arrested in December of 1990 with John Gotti I left him I quit the mob and I left him in November 11 months later in 1991 I did 5 years on that one I got out I went in the program a little while for 8 months then I went back to Arizona where my family was and then in February of 1999 1999 I got busted again 18 years then I got a 20 year sentence I did 17 years 7 months just about 18 years then so that was my but I got busted as a kid and things but I didn't go to prison I went to regular jails got out on bail eventually and so on and so forth then I beat cases and whatever I lost cases see the cast of Lana killing how planned was that who spoke about this there for our boss to be getting killed but what happened why did that all come about well he got him and Angelo Agirio this guy got caught on tapes talking about the boss talking about the commission talking about drugs and Paul was going to wipe them out and they came to me and Frederico and Joe Piney for help and help meant going to war against the boss and at that time Castelena was the boss of boss and we decided to save him make him the boss me and Frank and Chico Joe Piney K went along with it D.B. went along with it and that was us and we were ready to have that war how long would that plan to get Castelena killed took us anywhere between 6 and 8 months before it happened how many people knew that it was going to happen me and Paul they didn't trust enough people with that information because you know yourself if that gets out you're dead yeah without a doubt matter of fact in October before the hit took place me and Frank and Chico moved in together with another guy Frankie Barthes a shooter and we lived together when this guy Joe watched his house so we were moving around our normal routines just in case it did get out but it was it was a small handful of guys because when Castelena got killed you were in the car around the corner and John Gotti was driving is that correct John Gotti was driving around the corner we were just down the block on the corner so if you've set that up to kill the boss why did you never become boss is that a tactic of yours because you seem listening to you and listening to your interviews you seem to move like a boss like you're sitting across from a boss and telling him I'm still going to do it anyway you've manipulated the boss to think you're doing him a favor but yet you're still calling the shots I don't think I manipulated him at all I think I just told him what I felt as the truth but if he lets anyone do things that he's not saying then for me that's a weakness because you've found a flaw and has arsenal well you could look at it however you want as a weakness I think I took it as a strength that he was smart enough to see that I was right I'm supposed to protect him with my life if I have to and I think he took that as Tommy who like I said wasn't one of my fans nodded and as if to say Sammy's right he's supposed to do that you're going to punish him for what he's doing right he's trying to protect you he didn't hide it from you now if I were to hit it and said no I got nothing to do with that hit and I did it he'll kill me in a minute but I didn't do that and so have you ever been shot Sammy? twice when? two times when I was younger before the mafia or in the mafia well I was I was it's actually before the mafia but I was in gangs and stuff like that it's all the shit you've done in the mafia you were never attacked, you were never shot two different times when I was stabbed once in the ill of me a guy stabbed me in the head and when we were kids me and my friend Joe by Tally we would go to the school and we'd blow a gunshot I got hit in the back of the head the bullet was coming on an angle going this way so when it hit me it hit my skull it kind of pushed it that little extra and it bounced off it opened my skin but it didn't crack my skull or go into my skull kind of deflected the bullet the other one hit me in the chest the bullet went in my chest, it split I still have a piece of it in my muscle a lot they never took it out it was so close to my heart the piece, the little piece where the bullet broke that they didn't want to go in and do surgery on it it came engulfed in my muscle and they never wanted to go back and open it up and do it and it was, it was, it can't move it's in my muscle and they just left it a couple of times I went for x-rays and they said, you know, they thought I was in the military you know, you got a piece of bullet in you I said, yeah, yeah yeah, leave it alone I mean, I know it's there, so what it didn't be the muscle it was there for I don't know how many years a ton of years so I just leave it So see when Castellano get killed how does that then change everything the boss of all bosses many years later people still talk about it but how does that, did you ever think that you were next or did you feel as if that was a new chapter to then make things happen differently We wanted me and Frank and Ejiko convince me that we're going to change them off here back the way it's supposed to do and save Gadi and his crew and that we would make him be the boss he had personality he had qualities that he could be the boss and then Frankie told me if he acts like a fool we'll kill him, I'll take over you'll be my under and I shook Frankie's hand at first I didn't want to do it he kissed me I didn't grow up with John Gadi he was a friend he got made, we're friends but I had no interest in killing him the boss even though he did something to me and my family which I'm not going to get into but I didn't want to he talked to me, I told Frankie I'll do it, I'll be part of it if you become the boss Frankie was like a big brother to me he was 14 years older than me he was like a big brother to me I loved the guy, trusted him but he convinced me that saving them taking it over and me and him would be the power behind the throne we put him as the king and we would be the power behind the throne I use not become a liability then that you have killed a boss that you use not to be trusted or where he's feared how does it operate that you have killed the boss of all bosses so obviously you have not fucking any control which I would be thinking you can't trust them, they could put a bullet in anybody so why were you accepted to then do what you've done after the killing of the boss everybody was afraid of us we were fucking dangerous we had a fucking hundred shooters and if you were up in your mountain in any fucking negative way what we did we would kill you too we wouldn't even hesitate to kill you we were at war and guys knew that they're not stupid they said these guys are all shooters and they killed the boss of bosses they're fucking ruthless you want to fuck with them and say something or do something or you want to be the fucking boss so they just like whoa yeah alright, he's the boss that's good, that's good and it's back to fuck away it literally terrified the entire mafia it became worldwide news you want to play with that it's like the United States bombing fucking Russia and blew it off the map do you think England's going to say something or China or anybody they'll say fucking Trump was the president and they blew it off fuck that I ain't getting involved that's a normal instinct you would have to be crazy to say something or do something you'd have to be out of your mind so when one's got it becomes boss how was life in the mafia then did you feel untouchable? no we never felt untouchable thank you to Chico who got blown up in the car fucking five months later yes he was the under-boss John became the boss Frank and Chico became the under-boss and who killed him? well, there was a combination of different people but it was gas pipe it was chain gigante it was people from Sicily now that's my dog coming in well it and she's saying that's the end of this interview she's the one who keeps the time clock so who killed the Chico was that ever an issue that they would be coming for you when your best friend get killed? no no it had nothing to do with the best friend we were all going to do that of course they wanted to kill us all John, me, Frankie it wasn't easy we had arms and guys around us all the time it's dangerous to kill the boss because there could be a tremendous reaction to it killing one of us is the same thing you're taking on now everybody was involved that whole fucking a large army the guys so when did you become under-boss? I immediately became a full-blown captain after that I became the god's-lead of the family and I believe it was in 88 under-boss so how long did you stay in power for before it all came crumbling down how many years? before John has pinched before the both of yous went we did the Castellano in December of 85 in December of 90 we're in jail how was it seen John with in front of all the magazines and the news and it was a more glorified gangster how was that, was there ever anything you needed to rain it in or was it just go to his head too much with the ego kicked in? kicked in like a bastard I mean he made every mistake they did a thing on Netflix, how to be a boss and Netflix the people knocked the shit out so he did everything wrong everything you're not supposed to do he did that was on Netflix they did another one now another one I forgot the name of it get gaudy they knocked the shit out of him this is everybody state, movement, crime, feds gang it's nice, this is everybody so he made every bad move you can make got to give you an order to kill Don King? at one point yeah why? cause he won't listen to us so being an underboss as well though the job are quick because you should never have been on the streets killing is that correct being an underboss well when you get to become made you're usually a killer that's how you get in when you're a made guy you get work when you're a captain you're usually it's the guys who are not made yet the guys who are made it's not even the captain let alone because they are already underboss then you've got less and less that you're going to be on the street he had me on the street has the underboss unhits did you ever question that that maybe he was trying to get you to get life or get killed yourself I didn't question it that way it was annoying in other words I shouldn't be on the fucking street as the underboss with a fucking gun with a bunch of guys with guns and I'm on the street so that's way below my level why am I still on the street it annoyed me that way I never thought he wanted he wanted to get done when he wanted somebody dead he wanted them dead and his theory was I'm on the block Sammy's going to bite he knew if I had to hit you would die that's what he wanted that reputation I give an order that guy dies some of these guys they're made guys that you think they are they're soft even though they've been in their life and they got made they were a little on the soft side I wasn't he knew I give him the hit that thing's going to get done when did you realize that it was all going to come on top did you get a heads up or was the indictments just all happening no no no dad when you had worried there was diamonds I was on the lam for a while and then when I came after laying me call me in we got pinched what you thinking then not that I knew we were in trouble big trouble and then they found out that the apartment that he was in was bugged and he had tapes on top of tapes on top of tapes never knew we were dead I don't understand that Sammy the speaking on the phone what is that is that just not on the phone he was in an apartment but they bugged the apartment when did you start listening to the tapes when he was speaking about you in prison yeah what did they say they were holding us as a threat to society window bell and the lawyers put in that they can't fight their case they were in jail they were in a hole and the judge went to the FBI and said you know they should have bailed so they could fight their case and they said they were threat to society the judge said show me and they had to show the tapes they played them in open court the judge agreed and gave us no bail but now we knew it what he got court saying in our tapes what did they say about you he was knocking the shit out of me he was bare mouthed behind my back who did that make you feel well not good that's for sure how would you feel pissed off and most of it was bullshit so it came out a little later but they had plans I think to get rid of me and it's a long story too it's too long for me to get it it's a 20 minute story see when you then gave evidence and stuff how was that this is a man who was about the mafia without losing any sleep how was that an easy decision when you hear someone badmouthing you or did it take time to then no it was the hardest decision in my life how so how so it was the hardest decision in my life I had a tremendous respect for God's last year I lived for it I killed for it I did everything for it I rigged all his trials when he got pinched I threatened fucking jurors I did a million things paid that paid them did all kinds of things how would you feel you're married no no well if you were married and you had your wife and she was the fucking best thing in the fucking world for you and you did everything for how she betrayed you it's so I was heartbroken at first made heartbroken I was everything people surprised when you started giving evidence the FBI itself when I reached out to them to talk they didn't believe it they said same he's too hardcore it's something's wrong he's gonna come in and he's gonna fuck up the whole case the trial so he's gonna do something this is not him all my life had been arrested I must have been asked to cooperate a hundred times in my life I was on a double murder years ago with my bombada they must have asked me a hundred times I ain't ever said yes I was like get the fuck take a walk and they informed me cases or went to jail or whatever I did but it was the hardest decision of my life what deal did they give you Sammy what? what deal did they give you what deal did they give you I copped out that in the deal that I would do no more than 20 years and I would have to give up my crimes and everything I knew but my sentence would be no more than 20 years and what did you do 5 5 what prison did you do your 5 in well some of them was in the MCC when I started I did 11 months of it before I even cooperated and then I went to a prison in Texas the Vellachy suite they called it the first guy who ever cooperated they had a prison they made it a cell for him and everything that place and I didn't want to stay there because I would have been the only guy there for years and years and years so I was bullshitting breaking balls about it and then they sent me to witness units where I did time with other guys I wanted to be with other people see when you go to a prison Sammy you end up in the witness protections is that correct when you're in the wet circuit how long you supposed to be in witness protection for there's no limits because you done 8 months you signed out when I got out I stayed in 3 months I didn't want to be any part of it what was it like being in the system in the system while you cooperated well you were in a wet circuit everybody in the unit cooperated everybody so the thing about you Sammy you've lived that life you've killed people you've done a lot of dark shit you've cooperated you've put one of the biggest bosses inside but then you ended up doing 18 stretch for ecstasy see when you come out did you ever just think I'm going to change my life or was it just ingrained with in you to I just the whole case was exaggerated I really wanted to change my life I got fucked up with this ecstasy case I got another long story and um and I uh I played out you got 20 years because I think they were after your wife your daughter your son and you took the deal and done 20 years I think that's why the story is confusing because you've turned on go out and not go to prison but then you've done 20 years anyway so it shows you your character what you're thinking then what age were you 60 no I was um I believe I was uh I think I was 55 when I went back to prison did you ever think you would die in prison yeah sure of course I was already had that label of a cooperator being a rat or whatever so I thought I would never make it how hard does that leave on your kids army what was when I cooperated it was super hard for my daughter and my son and then they got tangled up with this ecstasy bullshit and I took a plea because I made a deal for them that they would not do my son was facing 45 years with the feds and 25 years with the state and when I made the deal I caught down to no matter what time um that he only got 9.3 years 9 years 3 months and my daughter got no time my wife got no time so I took to wait so to speak and I got 20 years 20 years did they offer you another deal were they just wanting you anyway because of the shit you done yeah they wanted me uh to take the weight on this case there was a broad that was the attorney general she was going to run for governor she was pounding her chest and she got me she was using that they won't give me no deals so they just wanted to break your rights how were you treated in prison sammy 18 years did you become a target or again was it that mindset of not many appealing but you always seem to find a way you always seem to find answers of surviving listen a couple of times I got into a couple of battles in prison a couple of times I heard some money in prison um and I got a long with image I got along with them very well I was friends with the ab's the avian brothers I was very friendly with the mexicans alfamilia very dangerous mexican gang in prison and I got along with people basically I never walked around like my shit don't stink but they knew I made it known if you're gonna fuck with me you better kill me because I'm gonna kill you simple as that I'm gonna be a fight you're gonna win the fight you're gonna kick me in the face I'm gonna kill you so if we're gonna do it you better kill me and they knew I would kill I was a killer so they kind of knew he's not he don't act like a big shot he doesn't do anything stupid and whatever and and I was treated with respect in some cases and when I wasn't I reacted to it simple as that what's the worst thing you seen in prison I don't know prison is not a big deal to me what's a big deal is you lose your fucking freedom it's not what's happening in prison I could deal with all those issues it's outside people die you can't be part of your family you can't help people you can't do anything and freedom is a big, big fucking thing and at one point in that case I went to the ADX Supermax I started my that bit, that 20-year bit I did six and a half fucking years in a hole the loneliness and is the worst thing I saw he's living without I'm a people's person living without people family things is a little bit of a nightmare I say a little bit of a nightmare it's probably a lot more than a little bit of a nightmare but starting the hole in the hole I did a time before that where I was in population and stuff but in the hole is a nightmare what's your biggest regret in life Sammy I don't know I answered this question and I get in trouble every time I answer this question because they take my words out of context there's a lot of regrets but when I look or think about my life I say there's things I regret I don't like there's things I do but every one of them left some sort of a mark on me and it's what I am today so if that didn't happen this didn't happen that didn't happen what the fuck would I be today I don't know I'm happy about what I am today I'm happy I can do what I'm doing in Hollywood I've surrounded myself with legitimate good people I'm doing this interview with you life is good well I mean what would I be maybe I wouldn't do this maybe I wouldn't be doing this maybe I would be something else I don't know what I would be so it's hard to say to a person you know take out some of the things you did in life and if they really think about it they might say then exactly what would I be today I wouldn't be a good person but take out some of the things you have done or been through take them out would she be Anna now, who is this person I don't think so you obviously going to be a little different but I feel the same way about Anna as I feel now if she was totally different I don't know maybe not I don't know it's a hard question to ask it's a hard to answer it to say I don't know what I would be without those things happening the Johnny Keys thing it was devastating in my life what would I have what would happen if that didn't happen or I regret that happened it never happened would I have been just dedicated to the battlefield I don't know what I would have been I know what he taught me he didn't talk to it I regret that the guy died it's family how to suffer I regret those things but what would I have been without that I don't know I would have been a different person if you could change it the way I feel right now what I am right now your life pass because I wouldn't be I wouldn't be in this conversation I don't know what I would have been maybe I would have been a junkie fuck who I know I don't know what I would have been so I live by a certain guideline and I know what I am now I'm comfortable in this body I'm very comfortable in this body I know what I am I'm good to a lot of people and I brush off people I don't kill people I've changed my life some people say you think you could yeah of course I could I'm a fucking it guy I don't do it and nobody is going to order me to kill anybody so I didn't do it do I want to do it on my own do I ever want to get up one morning and want to kill some money no am I argumentative as the girls around me will I argue yeah will I fight right now I'm 79 you look like a pretty hefty guy you do something fucking crazy I'm gonna throw blows with you I'll probably lose you're a lot younger strong look stronger than me but I'm gonna go to blows with you so I'm comfortable in what I am what I would be without my prior life with prior everything I have no idea what would you be without Tato I have no idea I would have been a better man without Carmine Percival you know them maybe not he was ruthless maybe he taught me what I don't want to be but I had no choice but you know what I'm saying it's such a hard question to answer I spoke about you being the perfect soldier but when did the penny drop that every gangster either becomes murdered or in prison everybody's turning on each other there's no lawyer bosses are being killed made guys are getting killed when did the penny ever drop for you because you're a smart guy you understood that life but you understood your job and your duties what was to do but what did the penny ever drop that it was all fucked up it was only a matter of time before you were killed or in prison it didn't happen in prison but not for any of those reasons not because of prison when John Gotti turned on me it was over it was lights out when I walked away he wanted me to take the weight he was going to back the tapes he was going to have the lawyers back the tapes on the tapes I sound like a real bad dude so they were going to try and say you heard the tapes John's complained about Sammy it's not poor John it's him it's Sammy he's a monster and when I said are you sure that's what you want to happen he said I'm the boss the boss has got to be on the street you got to take the fall I know it's wrong but you got to take the fall and when I walked though I didn't say a word when I walked away in my head I said fuck the mafia fuck John Gotti I quit I got in touch with the FBI and that's just what I told them I quit I'm on your side now I changed sides was it any man you feared in that life in that life just to say what I said and walked away is that I didn't know any fucking individuals but I told you a whole fucking mafia would want to kill you and I knew that an individual I feared John would put out an order to hit me I mean that's just that happens I'm not feared nobody was there any time you actually wish you would have been killed no it makes sound a weird question but a lot of people are in pain and do a lot of dark shit with the hear screams and voices have nightmares where they feel well we should have a way to answer those people then go fuck up jump off a bridge and go kill yourself don't live like a cunt with that fucking bullshit answer go kill yourself don't wait for somebody else to kill you you ain't got balls enough to kill yourself you can give orders and you can kill people you can't kill yourself what's your problem put the fucking gun in your mouth and pull the trigger and get the fuck out of the way no I fear nothing I fear nobody did you see a lot of suicides in the mafia no no I really no I didn't see too many suicides I heard of a couple of guys but they were not really mafiosos no no I don't think there's that many guys I've seen a lot of good good people in the mafia not everybody's a killer it's not a they maybe could kill you or be part of it in some way but they're not killers they're not sadistic killers and I if you would have left me alone and never gave me an order to treat it not 19 things I want to do on my own I would have been down to a few but wouldn't have never been close to the 18 Greg Scarpa he's a nutcase I had Larry Mazzo and he was saying he had over 100 kills or possibly over 200 but you grew up in the same street is that correct yeah same neighborhood that's a fucking crazy street that's a fuck I would still fucking like to have grew up in that you know the whole neighborhood Bensonhurst Dike Heights Bay Ridge Graves and that's all Bensonhurst areas it was infested with mafiosos it was crazy there was so many murders where I had we had a bar docks bar it was in a commercial area trucks and everything closed that night there were dumb bodies there I went around to people's clubs because every fucking day there was a body I'm exaggerating every other day but a lot to a point I said the cops are gonna think we're doing this and a couple of my guys said no they won't because if we did it we wouldn't put them here it's our own block we would put it somewhere else so then you wouldn't realize that but I went to people's clubs and said listen I don't give a fuck what you do it but if you kill people don't dump your fucking bodies over here I got a club here the cops are gonna think I'm insane and kill the fucking guys every three minutes over here so you know and I actually did that I went around and talked to guys and they said they were left and said we're not dumping bodies over there now somebody's dumping them they don't mind what's the best thing about being in the mafia Sammy the brotherhood the brotherhood the family is like I said you know I'm a you know your brother you're a mafioso you're my brother I mean not like that guy I may love the shit out of your wife he's a good person I like her not the banger but I like her because banger now you die that's a that's a that's a that's a not that apparently but I may like her as a person. She may be real good to my kids. Our family's intact. So we become one gigantic fucking family. There's a lot of good things and a lot of good people in the mafia. What's the worst thing about being in the mafia? It's getting caught. And go to jail and being all fucked up. And martyrs, if there was a way to possibly reduce the amount of things, but you can't. You have to have, you're a killer, you're a kamigazer killer, I'm a killer. There has to be a rule. If there's no rules, because you break a rule, you have to go. And if there's no rules or you don't go, then what stops me? And what stops him? Those murders stop other people who are tough. A guy like me, I would say, no, I'm going to do that. I'm going to break that rule. I'm going to die. Fuck that either way. Why won't you do that? Who was the maddest person you'd ever come across? Because you were mad. You were fucking off the scale nuts, even though you don't think so, but you were a killer, you were a fucking psycho. For honest, you know what I was saying, but was there anybody that you thought, because no doubt you would have looked at people and says he's fucking crazy, but remember 99.9% of this world were thinking you were a fucking, you were a nutcase, you were a fucking killer, but is there anybody in your mind that you thought, yeah, he's, he's a nutcase. Roy DeMayo, guess what, they're not nutcases, they became serial killers. Some people pass that mark of being a killer. It doesn't do anything to them. Some people pass that mark, and they become a fucking serial killer. Now they're killing people for no reason. They enjoy killing. That's a serial. And those people, and they're, like I said, Roy DeMayo, guest pipe, it's quite a few guys who became, not quite a few, but there's a bunch who became serial killers. So seeing you come out of prison after the ecstasy burst, what was life like then? What you thinking coming out in your 70s? What were you thinking? I got out when I was 72 years old. I was fucking dead broke when I got out. I wasn't thinking anything. I lived in my daughter's house. I tried to get and I went for, and I got social security that I paid the types of years ago, so I'm eligible. I got social security. I went down with my daughter. I couldn't get insurance because I was in so long. So I was a veteran. I went to the VA and got my veteran. Then I went for food stamps because I had no fucking money. When I got out of prison, I had $430 to my name. When I got arrested, they took all my clothes and everything like that. They never gave them back. So I had no clothes, no money, no car, no phone. My kids bought me a phone and little by little I started coming back. Then my son said, why don't you start doing, you got a lot of stories and shit, social media. Then I started doing social media after a while. One thing led to another, to another, to another. My social media, I started with James Carroll. He heard me doing the stories. I asked him for a favor to help me. He did. He said, we do these things, you're going to get 25 million views. I said 25 million views. I was just away almost 20 fucking years. I said, I know 18 people for sure. Well, listen, I don't know about 29 million. Today, we got 112 million views, almost 600,000 subscribers. I got Hollywood, we're going to do some movies. Why do you think people love through a crime so much? I don't know. It's a big genre. There's a lot of people doing it. A lot of women, believe it or not, and men like it. Women buy books because they give it to their husbands or their boyfriends. It's a big draw. It's one of the biggest. I think politics is one of the biggest in crime stories of all kinds. It could be black. It could be Hispanic. It could be bikers. It could be mom guys. It could be anything, but it's a big, big draw for people. They love hearing the stories, listening to them. I think men all have a little bit of bad boy in them. Maybe they didn't go there. Maybe they don't want to go there, but they all, in their heart, would like to be a little bad boy every once in a while. The fancy cars, the money could look in broads. All the fucking doodads, they see in movies, good fellas, Godfather. There's a lot of people who have that in them, and there's a lot of women who like bad boys. They like people who are men, like we were talking about being a man, live like a man, act like a man. You don't have to be a gangster or a killer, but they like men to be men, and they like bad boys. So they read about it. They fantasize about it, maybe. I don't know, but it is a big fact that this is a big area of it. There's a lot of podcasts all over the world has an interest in this. We do a Q&A, we get 1,000, 1,200, 1,500 people. Some of the countries that come on my life, it's crazy. I mean, I get in England, Israel, all countries from all Africa. I mean, people in Africa will listen to me. It's crazy. What is all your socials and your YouTube for people, for my followers to come over and have a look. They'll know who you are anyway, but what is your YouTube and your Instagram and stuff? Salvatore, Sam and the Bill Gravano's, your YouTube for people to go and subscribe. Then I have another one. I have my own website now, ourthing.tv, and we're putting stuff out on that, and people are joining. So I got followers from all over the world. Did you ever think that would happen, Salvatore? No, no, no. Like I said, when I was talking with James Cowell, he told me 25 million. I just, I didn't want to laugh at his face, but I just, I got family and friends right there. I mean, for sure I could get 18 people to listen to me, or maybe. How is that when you, listen, I'm all for people coming out and changing. It's a noble thing to do, no matter what you've done and like anybody, because making changes is a fucking hardest thing on this planet to do. And when you do it, people laugh, people try and try and bring you down. This is a fucking sad world we're in. How is that coming out of prison, a hit man, a known fucking nutcase to then be on YouTube and other gangsters on YouTube and everybody kinged, I want to do this now. How do you see that now? Because it would never, never have happened 20, 30 years ago. Nobody would, though, speak as though you say the mafia's a, it's a secret society, it's a, it's a fucking brotherhood. You keep your mouth shut, do your job and just, nobody knows nothing. But nowadays, for me anyway, the police know everything. But nowadays, everything's out there. Everybody knows everything. How is that when you see other gangsters so called hit man doing this? Two more questions. Yeah. You just hit the nail in the head of, it's a secret society, brotherhood, do your job, quiet, go away, right? So what do you think of John Gotti with all that flashy fucking shit? It's crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's crazy. It's beyond, it's beyond words crazy. Yeah. It's, you, you just exposed every fucking thing to the whole world. You told everybody, I'm a gangster. Here I am. With all my suits and ties and shirts and this and Mercedes Benz and my hair comb, perfect, everything is perfect. I mean, so, you know, that, that was insane. I, you know, it happens to some people, they get star struck. I think he fell in love with himself. I think he forgot he was a boss and he started thinking he was a movie star. Right now, if he was alive and you were able to ask him, what would you want to be? He would probably tell you, I want to be said me on fucking YouTube with all them followers, and I want to do some movies and I want to do XYZ. It's crazy. And you're right, there's gangsters up to Wazoo all over YouTube. Matter of fact, it's getting so stupid that they're just bed mountain each other, like, you know, I got guys ripping it, he's lying, he's doing this, he's doing that, two or three of them, that they can't get views unless they mention my name. How they get jealous, like, oh my God, he's got, you know, that many one, they want to get views and they want to use your name. It's got to the point that it's crazy, you know, and I'd hate to shut it down. It annoys me sometimes that I hate to shut it down after working this hard to get it to this point and do what I'm doing. So I don't think I'm going to shut it down. But sometimes it makes me like, let me get the fuck out of it. It's like a cesspool wheel. Yeah. You know, so, but then I always change my mind, you know, it took people to get me here. It took my team. And I mean, my son, my daughter, people who helped me, my ex-wife, who supports me in certain things, friends, some of my old friends that I go back 30, 40, 50 years with are supportive. I'm almost feel like I'm not trapped, but I'm obligated to them. Too far gone? It's too far gone. I'll stay with it, bro, until the day I die. You know, so many when I come in the office one day, maybe I'll be laying on the floor. And that's the end of my story and when they could keep going with it. They'll write books about it. They'll do YouTube. I'll be doing videos about it. A good episode, yeah, getting views from people's misery. Just before we finish up, Sammy, for anybody who's struggling in life, for anybody who's battling, whether it's addiction, mental health, or maybe wanting to get involved in life or crime, what advice would you have for them? You know, all I would say is, like, get the few questions, life or crime, life or crime, you got to remember, you're going to give up your freedom. You're going to give up a lot for these things. As far as going ahead with your life, hard work, I'm killing myself, hard work. It's not easy. I work hard seven days a week. I don't know how many hours a day, but a lot, a lot more than an eight hour day. Sometimes I think I had the day off when I worked eight hours, but work hard, go ahead, have a great family, have a great life. You've got so many things to look forward to. And if you're failing at something, don't get disappointed. Go back in business again. Keep going because now, when you fail, you go back, you're going back with experience. You know, with everything you've done wrong. So now you're educated. You have that experience. Go forward. Just keep going with your life and your family. It's the most important thing. You only got one life to live. You know, don't just waste your time and I can't do it. I don't stop on excuses. Do it. I can't sing. I don't sing. I try. I work on this social media. I said I can't do it. I do it. I mean, I'm going to do movies. I can't do it. I do it. Just do it. Try. If you don't make it, at least you could say I tried. So just keep showing up. How is it going over your story? Because you must have said that a fucking thousand times, but does it bring back a lot of emotions and does it drain you when you talk about your story? Some of the stories, yeah, the Johnny Keys. There's a lot of stories. I grew up, like I said, with Louis Molito, some of my crew. I had to take out for reasons that won't they be cooking crack heads and, you know, I wish that they could have changed their lives and went in the right direction and still be alive, but certain things just don't happen. You can't, and especially death. Once it happens, you can't change it. You know, Paul Castellano told me one time, you pull the trigger, boom. The bullet comes out of the gun. You can't stop it in midair no more. It's going to hit its target and do its damage. A bow and arrow. You pull the bow, you let it go. You're not going to stop that in midair no more. It's going to go where it's got to go and do damage. Things you say with your mouth is the same as the bullet in the bow and arrow. It'll come out. You can't stop it no more. It'll go to that person and it'll do damage. So watch what you do and say and conduct your life. You're hot. You want to say something to your wife or your kid or your friend. Bite your tongue a little bit. Watch what you say. Just as deadly as the gun or the bow and arrow. So, you know, and that was a bit of advice I got and I understand that sometimes I bite my tongue sometimes I say, I wish I could take that back, but you can't. Uh-huh. We shared just last question, Sammy. What's the biggest life lesson you've learned your 79 years on this planet? A life lesson, like I said before about regrets. Be you. Be true blue to you. If you can look at yourself in the mirror after whatever you did and give yourself a nod, then just be you. You know, there's so many things that look it in the mirror. I wouldn't do certain things because I can't, I wouldn't be able to look at myself in the mirror. I could lie, I could bullshit, but I can't look at myself in the mirror with certain things. So just be you. Get comfortable in your skin. God made lions and they made lambs. Don't be a fucked up if you're a lion or a lamb. He made you. You had free will. He'll understand you. Don't worry about it. Don't listen to everybody. If you're a lion, be a lion. Try and, you know, there's another saying that you have two wolves, a wolf on the left or a lion on the left side. I have a lion on my left and a lamb on my right. Which one comes at you? Which one wins? It's the one you feed. You feed the lion. He's going to be biting people. When there's a problem, you get mad. Start feeding this one. So this one wins the argument and calms you to fuck down. You don't always have to be a lion. But some places, the lion's important. God gave you that free will, gave you those options. Let it be true to yourself. So I'm here listening for government, your team. I've thoroughly enjoyed that. I wish you nothing but the best for the future. Would you like to finish up on anything else? No, no. I'm good. I enjoyed the interview. You were a great interviewer and I appreciate it. I know you've told your story, but just for the audience, we've still got to go over some questions that you've been asked many times before. But again, I wish you nothing but the best for the future. God bless you and keep doing what you're doing. Thank you, Salveet.