 Welcome back to the original gangsters podcast. I am Scott Bernstein, your host, along with my co-host and partner in crime, the doctor, Jimmy Bucciolato. Hi, everyone. And we got Ben behind the glass, our producer. And today we are, we got a big episode in store. There is a bombshell, a blockbuster news story broke in Chicago over the last couple of days. And we're going to break it down. We're going to go into the Cicero crew of the Chicago Mafia. And we're going to talk about the chaos that has erupted over the last 48 hours. And it's regarding the death of a OG. I mean, this guy says, Oh, gee, his OG comes on the streets of Chicago. James, Jimmy, I, Ein and Dino was the face of the Cicero crew, which is a historic mob regime that dates all the way back to Al Capone. The Capone gang pushed into Cicero during prohibition. And there's it's been a major cog of the outfit, you know, dating back 100 years. Jimmy, I, and Dino made his name in the 70s as a member of the Cicero crews, quote unquote, wild bunch, which is a very notorious enforcement unit hit squad. He was a famous hijacker that fought on the front lines of the so called chop shop wars. Pretty bloody. This guy is what was, you know, went through the grinder and and still died a free man surrounded by his family. He was eight years old died of cancer last Thursday. And for about 72 hours, there was nothing but an outpouring of at least from the people in his orbit. I'm sure that, you know, victims of his or family's victims were weren't saying the same thing. I'd be remiss to not say that the federal government believes that Jimmy Ein and Dino, although he's never been convicted of any mob violence, the FBI, Uncle Sam believes that he is a multiple time murderer that he was probably involved in, dare I say, a dozen, if not more gangland slayings according to the government. And there was an outpouring of love and this reverence from people on the street the last 72 hours. His wake was on Monday. I heard there were hundreds of people that that lined up to pay their respects at his casket. And literally as the wake is going on, ABC, Chicago Television drops a bomb and reports that they have got the proof, quote unquote, they have a document that was leaked to them. I believe strongly that it was leaked from the FBI, a federal document that dates back to the late 70s and names Ein and Dino as a informant for the FBI. They cite two instances once in the 60s and once in the 70s. The report was filed when Ein and Dino was in the middle of serving a 10 year prison sentence. So that kind of flies in the face of his informant status. It didn't help him. Didn't seem to help. Right. He ended up doing 20 years. I mean, after these reports or after this one document was drafted, I believe it was drafted in 1979 or 1980. To me, Ein and Dino did 20 years in prison. So it kind of undermines the narrative that he was giving people up to save himself. Anyway, the narrative has completely changed in the last 72 hours. It went from this kind of outpouring of love and reverence to a lot of people calling him a rat. A lot of people voicing their displeasure or disappointment. This I'm going to throw it back to Jimmy and then we can start dissecting it together. Whether or not it's true or not, I think there's a lot to unpack here. And I think there's a lot of context that's been lost in some of the headlines. But I don't agree with the etiquette on behalf of the FBI, frankly, or Channel Seven. I'm a big fan of Chuck Gowdy. He's the guy who reported. He's the top mob reporter in Chicago for the last 35, 40 years. He's a hallfamer. And I'm not questioning his reporting of this. He needed to report this. It's newsworthy. I questioned the timing of it because the document is so old. If this document was saying that Jimmy, I was informing up until 2020, then I think it would be relevant to put out right after he died. But it seems like, A, I wonder what the motive of the FBI was other than to shit on Jimmy's grave. And again, I'm not going to hold a grudge against Chuck. I'm not going to tell any reporter how to do their job. But if it was me, I would have probably held off a week until I reported that. And then within the reporting, it seemed like they wanted to make that jump from there was a document that we found that says that Ein and Dino reported and informed in 1965 and then again in 1974. But in some of the reporting that's come out in the last 24 hours, the reporters want to make the jump. Well, that means he's been reporting this whole time. Sorry, he's been informing this whole time. And I don't know if that's a proper jump to be to be made. Well, let me, first of all, I'll acknowledge that I've been looking at my phone at a story about this case study, Jimmy, I so I've noticed that in the past, there have been people commenting that you and I are rude for looking at our phones and looking at my laptop when we're talking, but we're not. We're it's because we're looking at real time related to we're not paying attention to each other and to the guest, but we're looking up information related to and sometimes things are coming in in real time. So if people are watching the show, don't think I was being rude to my esteemed co-host here. Yeah, this is this is a big story. So if we look at the actual document, it says specifically from March 65 until May 1969, which is a long time. And then from May 1974 through March 75. And that he was furnishing FBI. This is from the ABC report. He was furnishing FBI information about truck cargo thefts. So let me let me ask you something here. Let's let's start unpacking it from the beginning. Information about truck cargo thefts providing information about that doesn't necessarily mean that's information about LCN. Right. So what do we think about that? Does that matter? I think there's also in terms of we know there's some people that that matters and other people are like, it don't matter. Informing is informing. Right. And then there's disinformation. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We're sometimes I know there have been situations where mobsters have actually like greenlit their their subordinates to give information to the government, but it instructed them to give them false information. Right. Yeah. So I think that there's also, you know, further context that needs to be thrown out there in terms of the way that this information, this type of information was disseminated into official federal documentation at one point and then how it's disseminated into official government documentation. Now, back in the sixties and seventies, the drafting of 302s was was a little bit different. You were encouraged basically as an FBI agent to put anything and everything into 302s. You were kind of fast and loose with some of the terminology guys that at least this isn't my research, guys that maybe didn't agree to be dubbed a confidential informant are being dubbed a confidential informant in the documentation because the FBI agent that's drafting that knows that the more CIC collects good the more 302s he files, the faster he rises up the ladder. So from what I understand protocol, when when guys were wrangled by the FBI, not necessarily arrested and not necessarily indicted, but brought down to headquarters for questioning. Anything that was said in those meetings was would make it would make its way into a 302. So if you didn't immediately just tell the person that was bringing you in there, I'm not going to say one word to you without my attorney, which is a smart thing to do. But if you didn't do that, anything you said, whether it was like what you had for lunch today, who you drove with to the bowling alley yesterday, makes its way into a 302. So I don't know. We saw this also a couple years ago, remember with Carmine Persico, right? I thought the same thing. Yeah. Where you have these very distinguished underworld figures with these reputations that are almost godlike in terms of their posture towards the government. And then some documentation comes out that that throws that I guess that narrative into question. So I don't know what what exactly that means. Is it possible that Jimmy I was on was feeding information to the FBI in the sixties and seventies? Yeah, it is. Is it possible that he was a confidential informant in the way that we view what a confidential informant is today? Yes, I acknowledge that is possible. But I don't look at this one document in a vacuum knowing what I know as some indicator that Jimmy I has been a rat for 50 years. And that is some something that I've heard recently said from someone of quite a bit of stature that, you know, well, it turns out this whole time Jimmy I was just a whitey boulder. And I don't I don't think that's fair. Yeah, it's pretty extreme at least at this job at this with way too early. So let me let me go back to and let you give both sides to this, because I think it's interesting. Give the side the person that says, Hey, okay, maybe did, but it wasn't against LCN. So who gives a shit? And then the side that says no, you don't talk, you don't talk, it's a universal. So give both sides because you've heard both. Yeah. And I don't think it's black and white. And I think there's a lot of pieces of the puzzle. Because we again, we've talked about this before. We've definitely talked about it privately. I'm pretty sure I've said it on the on the podcast. And I'll say it again. I've been reporting and researching on this world now for going on almost two decades. I think it's 18 years. And one of my biggest takeaways is that almost everybody cooperates or informs on one level or another. Now, if that means simply, like we talked about on an episode recently, about the bikers, and a biker boss kind of getting maybe a little loose lip with an ATF agent that he saw all the time, right? And was he cooperating? Was he a CI? Or was he just being too casual? Yeah, with with an FBI agent or ATF agent. So I just think that there are degrees. And again, I believe that most likely everybody that operates in this world has had conversations with law enforcement over their career that they would never want to be made public. But I don't think that necessarily makes them a rat in the way people define what a rat is. So to answer your question, you know, the first approach would be, you know, if I've actually been somewhere where two mobsters were debating this when there was a guy that was coming out of prison, who had cooperated against non LCN. And he had one guy saying he didn't he could have given us all up. He didn't give any of us up. He gave up a black guy. I don't got a problem with it. And then another guy said, I don't care who he gave up, if he gave up a black guy, he could give us give us up next. Yeah, right. So I think the first line of thinking would be, yeah, he probably was or if he wasn't forming, he wasn't giving any information on the Cicero crew or at that time, the administration of Tony Ricardo, Sam Giancana, Joey Iupa, that he was feeding information on guys that were involved in hijacking trucks and stealing cars that had nothing to do with LCN. And in some ways, possibly, and if we look at that information that he was alleged to be giving in the 70s, it could have been a situation that was in the middle of the chop shop wars, where the outfits trying to absorb the stolen car racket and push all these independent guys out. Who knows that someone didn't tell Jimmy, I go to the feds and give him information, all these independent guys so we can get them out of the way. That's the way to neutralize them without killing them. Yeah. And then the other argument would just be, you know, that I don't care who he's talking about. If he's having conversations with the government, he's an informant. Yeah. And by the way, that example, I just talked about two, two examples about this in class today. Back during prohibition, you had bootlegging gangs who would snitch on rival bootlegging gangs to customs. So they neutralize your competition. And it goes on now what the drug cart tells, they snitch on each other to so that DEA can make a bust at the border. And then they like it because they can say, look, we're doing our job. And then you neutralize your competition. So I don't know if that's what he did here. But it's a reasonable theory or hypothesis that maybe that was if you look at the context of the timing. And I think here's my biggest issue doesn't seem a coincidence that this is right in the middle of that. This is my biggest issue. And I'm calling off the FBI on this. So they obviously had an issue with the way that Jimmy I was being mourned. This is again, this is my opinion. There was a lot of people there were a lot of people on social media. There was a lot of talk online about what a true standup guy Jimmy I was the last of the Mohicans dying breed so forth and so forth felt of the earth. Right. This did not sit well with the FBI in my belief. I don't know for sure that they leaked that document to Chuck. But my best guest tells me that they leaked that document to Chuck they leaked it. So it would be reported on the day of his wake to besmirch his reputation to destroy his legacy. Um, it doesn't that isn't that useful to demoralize. Yeah. The guys who are still on the street. Yes. But I understand that some of this is inside baseball, but I'm I'm gonna I know our audience like inside baseball. So maybe people that were outside our outside our audience could can't understand this. But I think our audience understands this. So where were these 302 leaks in 2018 when Johnny no knows DeFranco passed away? Johnny no knows DeFranco in my opinion, based on my research, I have zero qualms saying that I believe firmly that Johnny no knows DeFranco while being the godfather of the Chicago mafia for 30 years was also a top echelon confidential informant. He was implicated in more than one very, very high profile mob assassination at the family secrets trial, not just for taking part in it but for coordinating it for three separate homicides. But he wasn't indicted in family secrets. There were rumors that there was going to be a family secrets to which would then hold DeFranco and his inner circle accountable for those murders. It never came. DeFranco was convicted in a racketeering case that that held up for about 18 months, and then got tossed out. And in Johnny DeFranco's pretty much his whole career as a mob shot caller, he did 18 months in prison. He got uber wealthy, not like gangster wealthy, but like, you know, corporate CEO wealthy. And in my opinion, he had a license to kill and a license to do whatever he wanted to from the feds as long as he fed them bus. And I think the bus that, in my opinion, Johnny no knows was feeding them wasn't just my bus. He was someone that was so connected into the legitimate white collar world. I think he was feeding the government those kind of bus too. I just, I don't know if Jimmy, I was an informant. I'm open to the possibility. I'm definitely open to the possibility that he he was giving information in the sixties and seventies. There's zero proof that he was giving any information after 75. But for the FBI to roll this out the day of Ein and Dino's funeral, but to stay quiet after Johnny no knows DeFranco died. I just think that is just like the epitome of hypocrisy. And it's like they were okay with DeFranco being a murderer, because he gave them all these bus. So we're going to protect his legacy. We're not going to confirm anything. But for Jimmy I, for whatever reason, someone had a vendetta against him, whether or not he gave information or not. And they wanted to, you know, squat down and take a giant dump on Jimmy's grave, his wake, his funeral, his legacy, his reputation. I just that's the part that I have a hard time reconciling. We know for sure. And I know that someone pushed back and say we don't know for sure. But I know for sure. Johnny DeFranco was a confidential informer. Well, the obvious question here is, have you seen paperwork on that? Is there paperwork? I have not seen paperwork, but I've heard from enough people that are confidential informants that know about other confidential informants that DeFranco was a confidential informant. I know people that were at police departments and FBI bureaus as cooperators in rooms with Johnny DeFranco as a co-operator. Wow. Is it possible someone texted me earlier and said it's possible that I guess at this point anything's possible, but that this was an old school FBI agent who had this document. It's possible. Who leaked it. So another was not the office. That's not the Chicago office, but a specific agent that had a heart on Jimmy that leaked it. That's plausible. Yeah, of course, I do believe that it's possible. Would that change your narrative about the Chicago office? I mean, to an extent, I guess, but it doesn't excuse their DeFranco, right? Giving him a pass. But I just think there's so there's so much context lost in this. And then everybody, it seems wants to make the jump that this is definitive proof that he's been informing for the last 45 years. But he's done 20 years in prison. What I said in the piece I wrote today on my website was if it's true, you know, before he died, he should have gone and asked for those 18 years back. Yeah, it doesn't. Yeah, that is a it is an interesting point here that if he was if he was that prolific of an informant, he didn't really get much in return. You know, if you would have told me he got sentenced to 25, but he ended up doing six. Okay, then those are breaks. Yeah. But in both cases, he did the max. Yeah, he did from 78 to 88. He was locked up for hijacking. That was his specialty hijacking trucks, just like you see the movie Goodfellas. Yeah. And then he got busted in 2001, in a big, racketeering political corruption case out of Cicero, where the mayor of Cicero, and several municipal employees were in a stealing and laundering money. And Jimmy I was helping them launder money and taking kickbacks and taking tribute checks, or sorry, tribute envelopes. And he had to go away at that point for another eight years. And if we accept the hypothesis that the fronso was cooperating, that could have been the kind of examples of people who would give up political corruption, you're saying not not just gangstership, but like, I'm just seeing in my reporting and my research, cooperators have punishments that don't fit the crime. They do things that should result in 30 year sentences, and they get two year sentences or three year sentences. And guys that are not cooperating are getting slammed. Yeah. And the only other way to explain that would be like paying the judge off or something. Right. Right. Because it just doesn't comport with the other evidence. So I'm also interested in this idea of demoralizing the rank and file. Is there a case that can be made? Okay, let's say he never talked to anyone in the FBI after 74. He never gave up any Italians or LCN. Can you still take on the street? Someone take this hard line approach like I don't give a fuck. He should have never talked to anyone. I don't care for his fucking 1969. And he didn't give up. Do you do you expect that could be the case that there could be some guys on the street right now in Chicago that are really upset about this, even if it turns out best case scenario that it was sort of just a casual thing. Yes, some info about some non-Italian dudes that way back in the day, but there still could be some dudes who are like, this is he was a universal ban on do that shit. And you did it. Yeah. I mean, I can see that that way of thinking. And I'm not telling anyone how to think, you know, however you want to define an informant. I'm saying from what I know and put it into the context of all of my research, 99.9% of everybody cooperates to a degree. So to me, taking that it's true, assuming that it's true, that he was opened as a confidential informant and gave some information in the 60s and gave some information in the 70s. It doesn't change my opinion of Jimmy. I, as as what his legacy as a Chicago outlet figure is, I look at it as just kind of par for the course. And he was probably hedging his bets and playing the disinformation game while trying to mitigate any future bus. But did it mitigate any future bus? When he got jammed up for hijacking trucks in 1977 or whatever, did they give him a break? No, they gave him 10 years. He missed the entire 1980s. He missed the entire Reagan administration. So was he a made guy back in 16? So I've heard some different things today. Personally, I think everybody in the wild bunch was made. They were all guys that fell underneath Joe Ferriola, who was the Cicero couple at that point eventually became a boss of the outfit or front boss for the outfit for a period of time in the 80s. I would guess he was probably made in the 70s, but if he hadn't been made in the 70s, he would have been made in that time period from when he got out in 88, I would say somewhere between 88 and 92. So Salvatore De Laurentiis, who is allegedly the godfather of the Chicago mafia today, has been boss for going on a dozen plus years. There is federal documentation of his making ceremony. We know that he was made in 1988. So I would guess if I and Dino hadn't been made when he got out of prison in 88, he was made very quickly there at. Does that change the the street view of? I didn't think about that because he hadn't taken an oath yet. Right. Right. That's what I mean. I think Chicago is different. I mean, they're they're making procedures are different. The protocol is different when they they don't even know. They don't even use a knife. Yeah, from this means something or so. I think in Chicago doesn't mean as much. There are a lot of guys that I know that got or according to the FBI, according to documentation from informants, guys that got made in the 80s that had been doing some pretty major things in the 60s and 70s. So like they were being treated as a made guy before they got made. Yeah. And that's not normal, mostly until you get your button. You're going to be treated like someone that doesn't have a button. Sure. I think in Chicago and Detroit, that can be a little bit different. Yeah. You've even got like non-Italian guys who are treated with really a lot of stature in both of those and both of those. Right. Right. And then those guys will never get their button. It's not possible. And they're they're treated with because people know that when they speak, it's on behalf of a high ranking LCN guy and that they're earners. I mean, any guy like that that has that stature as a non-made guy is a major earner. Yeah. Always. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. That goes that goes along with I just I don't like the timing of this. I think there's a lot of context of being lost and it's going to come off like I'm politicking or advocating for someone that I believe is a multiple time killer. But I'm trying to look at this through the context of our reporting. This is just this is the world that we live in. These are the kind of people that we talk about and report on. Sure. And I'm not trying to dismiss the fact that he probably left a lot of people, you know, mentally broken over the fact that they lost their loved ones. If he was involved in any homicides, I have a hard time believing that he was a core member of the wild bunch, which was a suspect in two dozen or so murders and he didn't have some role in some of those. Yeah, they had a violent reputation. So was he that was he a captain until the day he died of this or what was so he was so he was underboss or underboss. He was the number two man in the whole outfit, I would say for the last decade. Oh, that one. OK, yes. I don't know. Oh, he got out of prison in 08, became a couple of Cicero. That was at the same time that Mike Sarno, who we'll get to in a second when we're talking about we're going to talk about the new generation of the outfit coming up from Cicero, guys that were mentored by Jimmy Andino and guys like Mike Sarno, who was the boss of the outfit from 2005 till 2010, he was the acting boss. And I and Dino came out in 08, Sarno went to prison in 10. So at some point between eight and 10, I and Dino became Kapo of of Cicero. And then at some point between 10 and 14, he became solidies underboss. OK, so I didn't realize that he was that he was that he was that high ranking. So are you at liberty to say what your outfit contacts are? Yeah, so what their impression is of this? I've gotten the, you know, I don't want to say a mixed bag. I've got a lot of people that are questioning again. The context of this. What it means to have shown up in those documents at that time. Yeah. Is it a definitive declaration of him being a cooperator or was it him sitting in a, you know, being called downtown to FBI headquarters ten times and engaging with them in a back and forth? Does that mean that you're I mean, that's another layer of this. Does that mean that you're an informant because you're having a conversation across a table with people that are saying we're not going to arrest you, we're not we're not going to indict you, but we want to ask you some questions. Yeah. Remember, boss of bosses, there was that one Gambino guy, those FBI guys, they would talk to him all the time and these casual conversations over coffee. He wasn't an I don't think he was an official CI, but he just he knew him. Yeah, he saw him all the time because they were they were trailing him all the time and he would shoot the shit with them. So is it possible? Again, obviously anything's possible, but I'm saying from your perspective as an expert on Chicago and as an investigative reporter, is it possible that this is the tip of the iceberg and that for whatever reason, this is all let's say someone had a heart on for him and put it out there. But actually, this could have been a continuing relationship. And we just the paperwork hasn't but to me, it's like if someone wanted to get for it, right, that would be like no, but also if that was the narrative you wanted to put out there, then you should have dropped it. If you had it, I guess you should have dropped a document that says, oh, he's been cooperating since he's been out of prison on both the hijacking case and the political corruption case. And when he's been the couple of sister and when he's been the underboss of the Chicago Mafia, he's been giving us information. But that didn't come out. What came out is a internal document from 1979, I believe that states that he had given information at some point in the 60s and 70s. And again, we don't know exactly what that means. On its face, it looks like he was a confidential informant. Yeah. But I I know the way these things are done and I don't take that on its face. So anything's possible, but in your opinion, unlikely. I don't think it's unlikely that I don't think it's unlikely that he was giving information. No, I mean, like after 70s. Oh, I yes. I not impossible. I find it difficult to believe that he's been a C.I. The last 30 years or 40 years. I'm not going to dismiss it. But I find it difficult to believe. So you asked me, what am I hearing? So the first group of people are doing the this is impossible. Jimmy, I was a stand up guy. He might have had some, you know, conversations where he got loose-lipped and said some stuff that maybe he wouldn't want to become public, but was never giving up his friends or his superiors in the outfit. But I've also gotten a couple people and these are people that I know are in the know and people that are around some of the top guys. And this, you know, we're not overstating the fact that this was a nuclear missile that hit Cicero yesterday, that there are people that Jimmy I was very close with that are now of the belief that he was giving them up to the government this whole time. And so is it safe to say that they're talking with each other? Like, who do you think he gave? Yes, and wondering if there's going to be bus that are coming down the pike now because he's dead. Wondering if previous bus that, you know, who certain people were given information, maybe those people you can trace back to Jimmy. I mean, the only thing in my head 2008. But again, it's the timeline doesn't make sense. I and Dino's come out of prison in 08 and the Cicero part of the Cicero crew was brought down in 08. But so Jimmy would have been given information while he was a guest of the federal government. He wasn't on the street at that time. That seems unlikely to me. Because he wouldn't have been in the know because he might have been in the know, but he's in prison. It's a lot different. I mean, yeah. And if I was Jimmy I and someone came to me in the middle of my sentence and said, we want you to give us information, I'd be like, OK, give me if the FBI came in 2004, three years into a sentence and said, we want you to start giving us some information on Mikey Sarno who was about to become boss. If you're Jimmy, I and Dino, don't you say, OK, fine. If you were inclined to do that, let me out of prison. Of course. Right. That that's a that's some pretty compelling evidence, I think, for your position, is that if he if he were cooperating, he didn't really have much to show for it in terms of when in the one bus in the last 20 years that you could possibly tie him to is the Cicero bus. But again, the bus came down. Well, all the stuff that happened during the bus, Jimmy was locked up. Yeah. I mean, it's it's pretty extreme for some people on social media. I think saying this is the Chicago Whitey Bulger, pretty extreme. Yeah. Comparison. But if you're just consuming the headlines. And you don't know this context that I'm trying to provide, that we're trying to provide. You don't know the way that FBI protocol has changed over the years. You don't know. You know, you're looking at everything in a vacuum. I can understand why people would be saying that. Yeah. Well, especially if you have a cursory knowledge of this world and you think, oh, Merta is like, yeah, that's the way it works. Then you see this. I think, oh, he must have been a snitch. And oh, my God. So when there are a lot of nuances, it seems I don't have a I don't have a horse in this race. I don't. Yeah. I don't know enough about Chicago. But I think it's definitely it's definitely interesting. I just think it's a little bit irresponsible. And I'm not going to call it any specific reporter, but some of the media reports they're just they're making this jump that just because there's this documentation from the 60s and 70s, well, that automatically means that everybody in the Chicago mob right now needs to be nervous that stuff that he's been in there in this narrative's mind, giving information to the feds this whole time or the last 10, 15 years and that now there's going to be cases coming down the pike because of information they gleaned from mine and Dino. And that is just pure speculation of the, you know, at the at the utmost level. There's there's nothing to lead us to believe right now. Yeah. That there was any more cooperation than that we saw in that document. And why would the feds wait until he died? If they if they really had all the goods, why would they wait until right? Yeah, when they strike, if if there was enough intel there, they would seem like they would have I think some of these issues that we're talking about are going to segue us into the talk of, you know, who who's on deck because there's a situation within that conversation of what's cooperation and what constitutes proper punishment for that for that cooperation. So I reported I've been reporting the last five, six years that Mike Sarno, who was from the Cicero crew, who was the acting boss of the outfit from 2005 to 2010, that he was concerned about the future of the Chicago mob. Him and his number two, Sammy Cautadella, who I'm told has replaced Jimmy Einandino as the official underboss. He was acting underboss. I believe Sammy, they call him Sammy Cards. Sammy Cards is now the number two guy in the outfit. But that Sammy Cards and Fat Mike Sarno, when they took power in 05, they made it a priority to focus cultivating a younger generation of mentoring younger guys, bringing the outfit into the 21st century with guys that were tech savvy, guys that knew white collar crime. Not just hijackers. Right. Not just hijackers, thieves and hitmen and bookies and loan sharks, you know, diversification. And that they hand selected. Anywhere between 20 and 30 guys who in the 2000s were in their late 20s and 30s. And made them in ceremonies that were kind of. Cicero ceremonies from everything I've been told about this, that this was a Cicero thing. This wasn't really an outfit thing and that these, let's say, 30 guys are more loyal to Sarno, Einendino, Cattadella, Sally D and Cicero than they are to the overall a welfare of the outfit. But that was the leadership at the time of the overall outfit, right? Yes, Mike Sarno was the boss. So does that only matter if someone from a different crew becomes the boss? Well, now the power if you know what I mean? Well, so traditionally, the power in the outfit was in Cicero from, you know, the Samjian holidays all the way through the late 80s with Joey Ayupa and Joe Ferriola. Then the power because John DeFranco took over the power moved to Elmwood Park and the power has been in Elmwood Park, let's say, from 1990 into the 2010s. And now it's back in Cicero. So, yes, when those guys were inducted, I guess Elmwood Park was in charge, but Chicago is so it's such an outlier. When it's like when a car was the boss, he really wasn't day to day the boss. It's the boss in whether in Chicago and live in Chicago hardly for a while, right? Chicago, when you reach the level of boss, you have very little day to day control. So it's really the acting boss or the street boss is the person that has the power. So even though DeFranco was the boss and the power was in Elmwood Park from 1990 to 2018 in the 2000s, at least Jimmy Marcello and Mike Sarno were running the outfit as the acting boss, Street Boss. It's similar. Are we you know, I like to talk about Detroit. That's our right. That's our backyard. You know, it's similar to like Joe's really Blackville, Toko and Pete Likavoli, Likavoli in Arizona. Blackville is really in Florida almost all the time. I think hardly ever in Detroit. I think the Detroit and Chicago families kind of in unison created this insulation or this insulation protocol for their bosses that there would be street bosses and several several layers of buffers between the guy who's the ultimate shotcaller and the streets. Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of set of really push a button. You know, come on, you know, push a button. So the family had a lot of buffers Saturday, Mike Sarno and Sammy Cattadella from what I was told had selected this group of youngsters that are now in their 40s and 50s. And that which is young and LCM years and that they're the future. They are the new the new leaders, the new blood of the outfit that there's been a transition taking place in the last couple of years, because I've heard that solid D as much as you're insulated as boss. He's taken an even, you know, more steps backwards and is going into semi retirement. Ein and Dino was was on the down low battling cancer. Nobody knew it until he died. Defranzo and his brother have been gone for the last couple of years. Frankie Caruso over on the south side is getting older, spending a lot of time out of state, grooming a younger group on the south side as well. Guys that had ties to Cicero and ties to Sarno. And but the south side still technically distinct from Cicero. Yeah. So so Cicero is West suburbs. OK. Or West Side. South Side is like Chinatown, 26th Street. Then you got the Grand Avenue crew, which is kind of near West Side, which is the West Side kind of by the end of what you would consider downtown or the right and the further west you get it eventually becomes Cicero and the Cicero crew. Elwood Park, from what I understand, is either on the verge of being rolled into Cicero or has already been rolled into Cicero. Just because there are enough guys over there. It's another thing. I mean, this is a subject for another podcast, and we can definitely do this if the audience is interested. What's going on in Cicero is also kind of unique to itself with Rudy Frato, who I'm told is kind of doing his own thing in Cicero with another group of some younger guys that, again, are more loyal to Rudy and Elwood Park in the DeFranzos than they were to the overall outfit. And that Rudy is Rudy Frato is someone unlike Jimmy Iandino, who was kind of universally beloved and feared. Rudy Frato is a lightning rod. People either really like him or really hate him in the outfit. So I've been told that Rudy Frato is kind of like given some autonomy. He's one of the Franzos guys. Yeah. And that he's kind of given he's getting up there in age was a capo, maybe conciliary. No one really knows. But now that he's kind of his own entity within the outfit, I think envelopes still get passed, but nobody really. Chimes in how and how he's running that group. But he's but he would still kick up to. Yeah, to Jimmy or Jimmy or Albeveena, who's the I've heard was the Street Boss. He's the Grand Avenue Capo or or Sally D. Yeah. As we wrap it up, but this is kind of close, go back to where we started from with Jimmy. I, you know, I'll throw it out to I'll throw this to Jimmy. And then I'll maybe give my opinion. You know, as of right now, as of, let's say the first week of March, two thousand twenty three, where does Jimmy I's legacy stand and and will it change? As more information comes out, is this going to forever taint? What people think of this guy that for the last 50 years, they saw as this legend's legend. I have a feeling that it will. And the main reason why is the paperwork is there. You know, people speculate on guys and but I think as long as the paperwork is there, there's going to be people that are is interested in getting into the new launches and the details and are like, hey, the paperwork is there. That's all I need to know. I don't care when I don't care why you're not supposed to do that. So my guess is it is forever changed, fair or not. I think there's there's definitely, you know, we're kind of. You've crossed the line now with with available information that I don't think you'll ever be able to go back from. So in some ways, his legacy is always now going to have this asterisk. But I think some of what the long term impact of this in terms of his reputation or legacy will come if any more information comes out. If they're able, if Chuck Gaudy and people in Chicago are able to follow this stuff up with more, more recent stuff sourcing from people that they've trusted that can say this. But if it's just just one thing and in 10 years from now, we're doing discussion about Jimmy I's legacy. For me, I don't know what much of a difference it would make just because, like I say, even taking that, taking that, taking it. Add its. Giving it as much merit as you can give it, what was reported in terms of that document, even if he was a confidential informant for the FBI at certain times in his younger years, younger. I mean, I'm talking like when he's in his 20s and there's no proof that he ever gave information in his 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s. I don't personally that that would play a role in me mitigating that part of his. I would say also there's a lot of politics. It doesn't it doesn't sound like the guys coming up were his guys, if I'm not mistaken. Well, they were Sarno's guys, but you got to understand Sarno's been in prison for the last 13 years and I mean, Dino has that territory. So I and Dino has had to stop from what I forget from my report. Yeah, has had to sign off on all these guys that got made when I and Dino was locked up. Yeah, in that case, that could also change the this could get buried kind of if like the next wave of leadership liked him, it might get buried if nothing else comes out. And the last thing I'll say, I want to clarify something that I reported that was inaccurate. Again, I'm always going to come forth. If I get something wrong, I will always take ownership for it. I reported initially that Sally D was at Jimmy I's Wake and Funeral to pay his respects. That was bad information. I relied too much on some of the mainstream media outlets that were reporting that, thinking that I didn't need to check it out myself, which is, you know, a lesson that I shouldn't have to learn now. And that was reported because of his signing of a guest book. But when I when I read it in these media reports, I was assuming I should not have assumed that that meant that there were cameramen or reporters that saw Sally D at the funeral signing said guest book when in reality, it was a online guest book. Oh. And Sally D is was not there. I heard Sally D is not even in Illinois right now. I was in even Chicago right now. I don't want to say where he is. The person who told me said he doesn't want me to say where he is. But undisclosed looking. Right. So I just want to be clear when I reported initially, I was up there for about 12 hours or 13 hours. That Sally D was there kind of leading this Chicago mob diplomatic convoy. That's that's not true. There were a lot of big time outfit players that were there. But Sally D, who's the boss, the alleged Godfather of Chicago was not. That's the last thing I have to say on it. Please like, subscribe, share. We're going to be, you know, giving you this content every week. We're going to try to give you some additional content as soon as as humanly possible. I know we've been teasing it and I promise you by in the very near future by springtime, we'll have more consistent content. We're going to be doing the the Patreon thing. We're going to be doing the I think we might be doing some crowdsourcing. But we're also going to be selling merch eventually. We're going to be having some lives where you can interact with us or maybe we can. Audiences would like that. Yeah. So stay tuned. We look forward to bringing it to you. This was I had a great time on this episode. Sorry, we didn't bring you a guess, but we felt like this was something that, you know, the two of us could handle. And and I guess we'll see you next week for for Jimmy Bucciolato and Ben Augusta, our all star producer. This is Scott Brunzi, OG podcast.