 Welcome to the Original Gangster's podcast. I'm your host Scott Bernstein. Quick hitter edition. We're gonna, you know, kind of piggyback off some breaking news that us over at Gangster report and Jeff Nadu over at the sit-down news podcast was able to come out with this past weekend. We were both able to get details on the final years, months and days of Joe Massino, the larger than life New York Mafia Don, Godfather, boss of bosses in the 90s and early 2000s, led the Banana Crime family on and off, or not on and off, in some capacity or the other, for over 30 years. First New York Mafia boss, official boss, to flip, cut a cooperation deal, became the first and biggest most powerful American Mafia Don ever. Testifying open court, he wired up on Vinny Bastian and we all know the story. There had been rumors that he was living in like Northern Florida, Jacksonville. Those are, those were all, you know, red herrings. That wasn't the case. We knew at the very end, based on some, you know, reports coming out of his family that he was in Ohio. We didn't know all the details. Now we do. So he was in Cleveland, Ohio. He was in the south suburb of Cleveland. He was living under the alias Ralph Rogers in a pretty high-end retirement community, bought himself a new Cadillac, I think, and was very proud of it, driving it around town. Was a guy that had some money to spend. We can debate, you know, where that money came from, not sure, but he liked to go downtown Cleveland to go to the casino there, the Jack Casino, which is owned by Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, the mortgage king of the Midwest. He was a big fan of going to a steakhouse called the Timber Lodge in Medina, Ohio. That was one of his haunts. The prime rib there, I think was his favorite. Told people, his family back in Howard Beach, Queens, that, you know, he was pleasantly surprised at how good the Italian food was in Cleveland. Went to Little Italy there. Some other spots around Cleveland that were known for their Italian food, enjoyed it. There were some rumors that he was getting stuff sent, you know, package-wise from Howard Beach, you know, from some of his favorite places there, sent to Ohio. I don't know if that's true or not, but those are some of the rumors. And he is, was someone that got outed in terms of he was recognized and he was made, not in the sense of getting made into the mafia, but made in terms of having your cover blown. It was interesting to hear that and how that resolved itself. I guess he was at the casino and a guy that was a kind of self-proclaimed mafia aficionado, someone who researched this stuff on their free time, but also had a history of some mental illness problems, approached him at the casino and said, you're Joe Massino. And Massino said, no, I'm Ralph Rogers. I've been living in Ohio my whole life. I don't know what you're talking about. But if you look at the prayer card, a picture of the prayer card, which has been circulating online now for a couple of days from from Massino's passing, you can see that he looked the same. You know, if you knew what Joe Massino looked like, you could probably identify him. This guy then tracks Massino down at his retirement home and is, you know, insisting in Massino's face, you're Joe Massino, you're Joe Massino. Needless to say, this man was arrested for harassment. FBI wanted to move Massino out of Ohio. Massino said no, stayed there. There were no further issues. But again, might be bearing the lead a little bit. One of the biggest takeaways in terms of feedback from our reporting, I think is that and we knew this again, we knew, you know, the macro, we didn't know the micro. We knew that he died back in New York, reconciling with some members of his family at the end. But we didn't know specifics. Now we again, we know specifics. He was in Glen Cove, which is a, you know, really nice neighborhood in Long Island, but, you know, home to a lot of mob shot callers and numerous crime families, including the Bananos. And he was back there for a couple months. I think got there in the early summer of 23 died in September. And I know there's a lot of big time mob players in New York scratching their head or, or, you know, kind of lamenting like, Hey, this guy was here for the last couple months. How did we not know? Or maybe they did know. I don't know. I also heard people say that, you know, even if he had, it had gotten out, the news had gotten out that he was backing in New York, for sure. They don't think his, his life would have been in danger, but, you know, it's easier. It's easier to say that now. But, you know, those are some details I just wanted to share with everybody. Joe Massino lived the final 10 years of his life in Whitsec in Cleveland, Ohio, as Ralph Rogers. For OGPod, I'm Scott Bernstein. I'm out.