 Yeah, Frank, let me, I just, because it's such a fascinating story about fecarata and how fecarata's murder 20 years later ends up solving the spalachrobrothers murder. So let me just give the audience a quick primer and then I'll throw it back to you and you can give some color. So for people that might not know the whole family secrets case that dropped in April of 2005, first you can trace it back to our guest here's decision to reach out to the FBI. But what he just referenced was his uncle and Nick fecarata, or sorry, his uncle Nick and big John fecarata, it gave big stoop and after the spalachrobrothers are murdered in June of 1986, you saw in the movie casino, does it doesn't happen in a cornfield that happens in a basement and then they're disposed of in a cornfield. And John fecarata who was a big time mob enforcer close to a lot of big time shot callers, a guy that had been involved in numerous murders had been in charge in in some way shape or form of burying the spalachros spalachros are found within a week of the burial. The higher ups in Chicago are upset at this fecarata is already kind of on thin ice with the leaders or the powers that be in Chicago because of some other things that were going on I know that he was bringing his girlfriend or a wife along on scouting missions out west to look at trying to kill the spalachros before they actually were killed. I know that he won a casino payday on one of these visits and the outfit said you can't take that money because you have to sign things and and whatnot and he kind of ignored ignored them because it would have placed him close to spalachro. And then they decide to murder him. Frank's father and uncle are given the job Frank said earlier in this interview that he was actually going to be involved with his father but his uncle stepped in and they tell fecarata that they're going to what what do they tell John what do they tell John to get him in the car we're going to explore the dentist. So they get him in the car. They're driving Frank and Nick are in the front seat. John fecarata is in the back seat. John fecarata was a big guy and Frank's uncle Nick turns around and shoots fecarata fecarata has a gun himself and like starts fighting with Nick Calvary's in the car. The car eventually comes to a stop. Nick Calvary's at this point has been shot by fecarata's gun fecarata takes off Nick chases him eventually catches him in the vestibule of a bingo hall executes him in front of a group of people and then runs back to the car that's being driven by Frank senior what eventually comes back to haunt him is the fact that he dropped a bloody glove that's recovered at the scene by the FBI in the fall of 1986 and nobody knew who this club belonged to who the blood on the glove belonged to and it was this big mystery for up you know almost 20 years and now I'm going to throw it back to Frank Frank because of knowledge of this family event lets the FBI know that hey you know that fecarata hit and that bloody glove that's my uncle's blood and this glove and that propelled or resulted in the FBI going to Nick where he was locked up he had and you can talk about this Frank your dad was trying to kill Nick in prison Jimmy Marcel and him are telling people that Nick might go bad so the feds go to Nick say not only is your brother and Jimmy Marcel trying to kill you we're about to get a court order to get your shoulder x-rayed and I talked to or your arm I talked to the FBI agents that actually said this to him and they're saying we know what we're going to see that x-rays got light up like a fucking Christmas tree and we're going to know we're going to be able to tie this whole thing back to you so that's what you were saying when you're talking about John fecarata but it's interesting how that thing laid dormant from 86 to what 98 99 when when when you provided them the intelligence that allowed them to kind of figure out what happened and then that's the thread that kind of you pull that thread and then all of family secrets is kind of created and the the invincibility of the outfit when you pull that thread is kind of if all falls apart can I follow up with something why would your uncle and father share that information with you was that was that normal for them that's a good question so I'm going to jump back here to the fecarata murder okay okay because I wasn't you know I couldn't be in the courtroom when one of the people were testified so John fecarata we don't know man I know my uncle didn't get on the stand and so when the splotcher brothers were murdered everybody was put in vans and left and the bodies were left there on the floor the basement because they didn't want anybody to know where they were being buried so we don't know if John fecarata was the reason right it doesn't make a lot of sense if you if you look at the facts that we know we know that Albert taco uh season the fox was the one that actually his crew was burying the splotros and him and his crew got separated and he ends up having to call his wife he's all bloodied the wife ends up flipping so really on its face it looks like Albert taco should have been the one that had to kind of pay the piper if you will but for whatever reason they blame fecarata yeah and and um there was so much more to john so so what had happened was when my uncle was in vegas and another thing too is i have all my uncle's 302 stuff that wasn't made public i have all the cortex and one everything which will be on display at some point at the mob museum which is a lot of cool stuff he talks about who killed um uh Giancana Richard Cain and you're going to see through all of these that john fecarata was a bad ass okay he was very street smart he was close with my dad and my uncle always carried a gun and this guy was treacherous and he was involved in a lot of big murders he was part of that inner china town crew okay which you know not to leon fecarata my dad my uncle ronnie jared uh jamila pizza angel i mean these guys were stone cold killers okay and they worked together anyways john was changing just like my dad was changing okay uh johnny de france owned a car dealership john went and got a john um fecarata went and got a car and he wasn't paying johnny john he was getting pissed at him my uncle when he was in vegas and i also have all the 302s of when they were trying to kill tony in vegas and everything that happened too which is some pretty interesting stuff but anyways um john brought he was having an affair with his brother who died's wife and he brought her out there and introduced her to everybody with the real names he won 20 something hundred dollars gambling and he made my uncle sign for it now my dad was pissed why would you do that my uncle says frank he's my boss i'm a soldier he tells me to sign it i think he's doing the right thing he's changing so they were mad the final straw and they didn't know any of that my dad says we're going to keep this to ourselves and put it in our back pocket in case we need it later but john is changing well john went to a guy that used to pay us five hundred dollars a week for years and he put a gun to the guy and says you could pay in the galleries as you pay me the guy got scared he started paying john when he when my dad went to see him where's my money he says why was told to pay john now my dad puts a knife to him you better pay me my fucking money this guy's like what's going on in here i don't want to die i've been paying for years i probably goes i'll handle it he went to angel and he told him everything then angel went to see who he's got to see and they says you know what john we've had enough of john he's changing he's not the man we knew we want him to have a visual in your brother have it my dad came back and i'm sitting with them this is your answer to your question jim okay all right it's 1986 you know this is my family look what they did to my uncle my dad all this stuff john's very street smart i don't know how we're going to do this i this is when i step up and said dad let let me kill him he goes what will listen to me let john think that you want him to be my mentor and if i go with uncle nick his guard will be down my dad liked it so we sat we talked he wanted to make sure i was ready he knew i was ready so we started practicing my dad was the one that came up with the plan i'm going to sit in the back seat on the passenger side my uncle in the front seat uncle's going to have a box with fake dynamite in it he's going to have a gun when we pull back there my uncle's going to radio to john figure not john uncle's going to radio to johnny apes and my dad driving around in two different cars and work cars and let him know hey we back into the dock we're going to unload it that means ready to go while he's doing that i'm going to reach over john's shoulder say john you see i see somebody peeking out over there did you see them when he goes to look i'm going to shoot him my uncle's going to shoot him we're going to exit the car and be picked up we practiced in the basement on cheers a week or so before it was supposed to happen my uncle said let me do this alone i'll keep frankie's gun on me as a backup if i'm alone with john his guard will be down he trusts me which was true i got pissed on my uncle what are you doing that's when he came back and told me alone i don't want you crossing this line my uncle when they pulled back there so i was out of the area then i but i had my pager i had my rule i had my orders on what i had to do and all that stuff which i did follow through at the point when when everything was said and done but my uncle this time instead of shooting john in the car he was supposed to step out of the car and shoot back in he was supposed to radio after he radioed he was supposed to step out of the car shoot back in now when they got there a trick that we also did too was there was a gun in a glove box uncle opens a glove box this is your gun if you need it okay well it's a revolver sitting there you could see it it's positioned so you could see the bullets in and everything but what he didn't know was that we filed down the firing pin and tested it so it didn't work when my when my uncle pulled out the gun in the car and did radio john sees it this is how smart he was john starts fighting my uncle my uncle pushes him up and he shoots but it goes through his arm in the john he hits john twice john fights with the gun dumps out the bullets gets out of the car and starts running for the bingo oh my uncle's got my gun chases him and in the middle of the street and traffic everything runs up and assassinates him in the back of the head and takes off now when he's running he's trying to wash the blood off and he's got to get rid of the gloves because it's september right it's a warm night well when he thought he stuck him in his pocket he dropped vulnerable so that's the reason why i knew about all this i wasn't them sitting there bragging it was because i was involved in a lot of this stuff not right there involved but involved in some way shape or form and tell frank this is just my inclination and i think this can like segue back to your story and in this these machinations that are going in through 98 99 2000 before the case actually hits wouldn't you say and you i'm guessing you might have talked to your uncle about this after the fact don't you feel like maybe you did your uncle a favor that you know this was something that he was looking for an out to yeah you know and actually my uncle dumped the gun in the cut space and then i had to go back there and get it and get it back so we can get rid of it properly and then jimmy marcello had a um a veterinarian that had to tend to my uncle's wounds that's why the bullets were still in there you know so i mean it was it was like uh in the sopranos when they the ed doctor doing uh yeah it's true i mean it's true some of this stuff you know and um you know my uncle was having a problem with my dad he was having a problem with my dad on the street after i had the problem on my dad my uncle had the problem with my dad and during that time my dad's running out of people around him so he pulls my youngest i mean my middle brother curt in to help him with book work some collection stuff like that and curt's working for the union curt is unbelievable with the union he could have took over the local in chicago but he would never do that to my cousin who was running it okay with my uncle as the president you know my brother was very loyal to that and my dad pulls him in this my brother's a great guy everybody loves him but my dad's pulling him in this something he doesn't belong in you know and this out desperate my dad was getting you know got so bad my uncle did what i was doing ignoring my dad not going around my dad and my dad one night tells me we i need to talk to uncle nicky i want you to get him over to this duncan donut's parking lot and him and ronnie we're gonna be there ronnie and i went in the house and i says look i think my uncle my dad wants me to set you up they're over there so i'm telling you i wouldn't go because i ain't going because i don't i because i don't want nothing to do with him so after that he went to see johnny apes and i didn't know this till till later on he went to see johnny apes and he told johnny the problems he was having with his brother now that bothered me because i thought he should have never did that because once you start hearing your laundry outside the family you become disposable oh these guys are fighting they killed people with us they could put us away forever you know what let's just get rid of them the first chance we had well anyways he tells johnny you know what johnny apes does hands my uncle an old revolver and says look i like you i like your brother but if you're having problems this is the best i can do do what you got to do so basically giving this blessing to kill my dad which my uncle never did well my brother is telling me you got to kill dad you got to kill dad you got to kill daddy he's getting out of hand i will hurt it's not that easy okay it's not just hey you've got to well i can't do it and i says well i'll tell you what let's go see uncle nicky i says i'll talk to uncle nicky if he will help me we'll take it from there but i don't want you involved so we go see my uncle he goes now i don't want to get involved in anything he goes the best i can do he hands me the gun johnny apes hands in and i'm thinking oh man this is this is right so this is how crazy it was on the on the street for a while in my family just for for people that might not put two and two together there's a scene in casino where uh the joe pesce character and the frank collada character are doing a walk-and-talk and the frank the character was frank marino but it was supposed to be frank collada he says to the the tony splotcher character uh you know tony guerrilla says if you're fucking the the jews wife there's going to be a problem and i tony guerrilla was with johnny apes like they just changed the name i didn't know that yeah sorry that i digress but i always found that funny that they called johnny apes tony guerrilla in uh in the in the movie uh i did not know that so so getting getting back to the prison okay so the fbi's here in there okay i won't wear a wire to this they go back they come back with all this information and they're excited but they bring the prosecutor mitch marz mitch marz was a guy that we all knew on the street this guy was one of the top prosecutors you did not want him on your case he was very smart and he could have made millions on the street but he wanted to stay with the government and do the right thing he had this thing about he'd been making mob cases uh in the prosecutor's office uh your case the the family secret trial that i covered was 2007 his case dropped in 05 mitch marz was was making cases back in the late 70s early 80s i mean he he was a og prosecutor yeah him and john scully we knew and john i think john's a judge now where he's retired but we knew those names on the street those were the prosecutors you didn't want on the case you know and our other case we had this prosecutor it was brand new we were like yes you know we had a brand new prosecutor which he didn't even wind up trying us because he took a a private job right away right for a shot at the office this is another just to give people context again this case family secrets if if you're unaware this was the equivalent of the commission case in new york city this was the biggest organized crime prosecution from a u.s attorney's office uh an assault on organized crime the biggest outside of new york and the biggest ever uh in chicago and the only comparison you could make uh in the history of of the judicial system the federal judicial system would be new york's commission case that's how big family secrets was yeah and and it was because the commission case was the first time you use the rico act the way it was supposed to be used go after the organization not individuals and this was the first time in chicago they they ever did it yes um so uh mitch marr sits down with me and he talks to me about 20 20 minutes you know and then he leaves well i find out later on he went back and he came out to see what kind of condition i was in you know am i doing bad time am i you know am i all messed up what's going on so he goes back to these guys and i found this out years later he tells them he says this kid is in excellent shape his mind is great this isn't something he thought about overnight this is 20 years in the making he finally has had enough of this father trying to control his life and in ruining it well they never don't put him in front of a grand jury and they never did so when they came back in i says look i've been thinking about this my dad's such a master manipulator i need to get him in his own words you know what i'll wear a wire but please guys follow my lead so i told him some ideas of what to do and um they went to quantico and they made these james bond type wires now you know uh how do i get my dad to talk what do i hey dad let's go out here and have a coffee and reminisce about all the murders you did you know i mean this guy's street smart so what i did was i went out without a wire and i seen my dad i said say i want to talk to you i mean this is a point where i know he wants to try to work stuff out and we were getting some heavy shit um me i go you know what i thought about it i want back in with you when i get out but i got some issues with that that's some real bad issues with you dad and you know what we don't straighten these issues not only do i not want back in but i don't want them to do with you anymore you're not my father if we don't straighten this out he looked at me he goes okay i said you are you interested in he goes yeah i go are you tell me when you want to we want to sit down we got all the time in the world he goes well you're not working tomorrow i go no let's do it tomorrow i'm back they wired me up that morning and i went out there and what i did was i i i i use what my dad taught me in life you know when you want to get somebody to talk anger liquor my dad didn't drink so anger he's mad at my uncle okay know the person i knew my dad better than anybody the FBI had a wishlist but they let me handle it okay they let me control the whole thing which was great we worked well together which i didn't know if we were going to or not but we did very well and i put my dad against my uncle so he says you know frankie he goes i've really seen a different you in here and i think we've worked on our relationships and i'm so happy you want back in as a matter of fact when you get out you're going to take over the coup at ronnie till i get home but you're going to earn it he gives me the name of the first guy he wants me to kill is when i first see this time he wants me and he wants me to earn it i know he's thinking he's my name of a guy named rock blusa who worked for us he wants him dead he wants me to kill him as soon as i get out that's how i'm going to earn taking over with ronnie he goes now what's your issue with me i used my uncle i said uncle nicky said your piece of shit that you killed an innocent woman in the dauber murder what first of all frank she wasn't innocent i was i was in the crash car with ronnie the league car you know and and what about him in the in the half and half murder in cicero he killed the innocent man my dad went off my dad was so pissed he got this fixation that my uncle's not going to be able to stand up so he's talking we're going to all this elaborate stuff he gets word to jimmy marcello and the guys in peakin that my uncle is at that my he gives him his blessing to do what they got to do it he doesn't think my brother's going to hold up that he's the weak link they try to kill my uncle they tried to kill my uncle and one of the guys slipped a note to the war and they get time off so they locked everybody down and shipped my uncle to katucky they shipped jimmy to um to my own mission and my uncle was rumored with harry allman so can you imagine how how close all that was you know harry allman for somebody doesn't know i mean this guy was you know harry the hook he was the original wild bunch yeah original i mean he was the captain of the wild bunch hit team exactly here's a guy i'll put a bag over his head walk on taylor street walk right up in front everybody and shoot somebody everybody knows who it is but nobody said a thing we did an episode frank we'll send it to you uh we did a big episode on him uh related to i don't know if you knew about this there was a um execution on a new year's day down in phoenix in the early 80s um related to to bobby uh his cousin uh joe ferriola's net uh allman was ferriola's nephew and then there was a i'm blanking on like a bobby cruise i think his name was yeah it wasn't an italian name it wasn't italian and and they uh they killed that name yeah they killed this couple uh down in phoenix and the guy who pulled the trigger was an african-american gangster uh who they executed in the last year uh the first time a capital murder in arizona in like 30 years or something and we did an episode on it we'll send it but but harry alman played a role in that whole story it's so sorry i digress no no that's okay so you know these meetings between my dad were hard because you know this is my dad you know this is what has come down to you know you're always hoping and wishing you know we could be working this out you know and it was it was hard on me emotionally and then i can't make one mistake see the danger level was so high that the warden didn't want to okay it this guy's gonna get killed in my prison because all the concrete in my land when i left that office if anybody see me going to or from the office i'm a dead man i don't know i left that office i got wires nobody knows because they're jenks bond types but um the fbi just sat there and waited for me or the prison alarm would go off i'm dead on the yard i had no backup i'm alone i'm totally alone and i was okay with that okay you know i had a job to do and i knew what i needed to do once i made that decision so after a while i didn't find out till later on the fbi said that they seen this wearing on me a little i didn't feel it i didn't see it um they were concerned about the safety factor you know how many times are we gonna meet before something mistake goes well it came down to this this was their final decision i'm ready to go out in the yard and talk to my dad he wants he wants me to go to kusa he wants me to know what's going on in the street i haven't been around for a while okay um who's in charge who to watch out for who to trust you know and then so before i'm ready to leave this office the james bond wires ain't working like well we got to do this another time i said why this can't tell my i can't hold him off too long he's gonna catch on can you hold him off till tomorrow morning oh yes i just tell him i got a headache i'm not feeling good we've done that before they go to the trod office they come back with the next morning they got a metal box like this wires like you got on your ears scott and they tape me up with white medical tape all over my chest and they put it in a jackstrap between my legs it's 100 degrees these very inconspicuous these guys are like frankie really don't have to do this i said no i said this is the only opportunity we were getting and i could see the look in their eyes this kid ain't coming back alive today okay but you know he's insisting on doing it i get out there my dad gets done telling me i mean unbelievable right splotchos who was here who was doing this who was doing that in detail what's collaborated with my uncle testifying and that i take anyways he steps into me and grabs my shirt and i'm like oh shit it still goes through my body now i thought about punching my dad and running for the door i got to go past the bachi court okay nobody's on my side i'm dead so i step back i grab my shirt i go dude what are you doing so i say i can't do you just got you know they're illegal in here i go yeah and i'm holding my shirt i go look the guy over there go look at him i says if he sees it he'll put me in a hole i'm gonna be able to get you the vegetables and all the other stuff anymore oh yeah good one yeah show me tomorrow i walked away i was like this the other guy said that's it i was able to get transferred to another prison for the drug program because there was a waiting list that got a lot of guys did it i wound up down in Coleman Florida where i finished my time and i went and i got back on the street you know people when i say i didn't i did all my time so the one thing i asked the FBI there were two things asked the FBI and they did it i said i have a lot of legitimate friends and my family members that i don't want to put them in the middle of this i said please don't pull them in the middle and number two i don't want to lose any time i'm in line for this drug program if you gotta pull me if you gotta do anything i don't want to lose any time because of this so you know they made sure i didn't lose time i um so i was a couple months short of my actual time that i had to do but that would have been lost time so i did get out i think two months earlier i did 33 months out of uh out of uh 52 or 56 i think so with the good time the drug program and everything like that it all worked out but it was a little short of actual you know with the program so let's let's fast forward to the trial summer of oh summer of 07 a young scott Bernstein is in the uh media section uh every day taking notes preparing for uh my my first major book release um me and frank are two of the only three people that put a book out about the family secrets uh shameless self promotion go get frank's book go get my book and then we'll give frank a you know when we're done with the interview a chance to shout out all the places you could find him but uh it was something you know you lived a your life in your family's life is like out of a movie but for me as a 28 year old covering his first trial you want to talk about being thrown in the deep end and i loved it i loved being in a deep end but covering that trial was like what everything i envisioned of covering a major mafia trial it it fit that built you know the cameras were everywhere the the the the tension you could cut it with a knife the the characters or the the the actual you know stars of the show your father jimmy marcello uh joey lombardo were living in frank schweiss but we're living up to uh the billing i remember the first uh hearing i uh covered in the trial was was when they um caught frank the german in december of of o five and i covered his arraignment and uh that was literally my first time and of course it was a you know two years before the trial but i was starting to cover some of the um hearings and and frank schweiss again lived up to the billing they roll him in in a wheelchair and he starts throwing threats out at people in the middle of the court this 80 year old killer with a oxygen mask um growling and barking uh so i just wanted to set the scene i didn't know frank at this time but i saw him on the stand his uncle took the stand his uncle was the first made member of the chicago mafia to ever testify and his father took the stand so i'm interested well angelo lombardo took the stand but just talk about your testimony obviously you couldn't watch your father or your uncle because you had uh you know you couldn't be in the courtroom heels motions all that you can only testify then you got to leave but just you know talk about being this was the last the home stretch of your cooperation you got to get on the stand your uncle needs to get on the stand and you need to really you know you're at the goal line now you got to punch it in and make sure that the convictions stick that he's found guilty and then you really get to you know hit hit the jugular yeah you know i did like my father did i used everything he taught me this was not a game this was not a show okay it was very emotional to me see i only went against my dad i really opened the doors for all this but when they tried to go against my uncle first made member ever to testify okay in chicago okay like that because there weren't a lot of guys who made members that would testify my uncle was involved in so much stuff in and so much knowledge so in this if you go all the way back to the early 1900s there's like 14 south murders of over 1200 murders okay in this case alone 18 south and close to 40 this is per fbi close to 40 um murder south jean kind of richard kane i mean a lot of them that nobody knew who the players were they had a list i i i seen that list from a distance one time and i looked as best as i could and i wasn't supposed to when we were doing stuff and they had who was there who did what through all the different cooperating witnesses in fact i have jerry scarpelli's um a 302s too you know which are very interesting so that's all gonna be a whole that's a whole other episode jerry and i were gonna for people to know jerry scarpelli was a wild bunch member who flipped and then it was a strong bad ass guy and he flipped and then he ended up suspiciously dead in mcc he killed himself he killed himself killed himself before before uh before he could ever testify but that's the kind of walls he had okay he really testified because he wanted to get his girl off to him this is what was told to me through my father and my uncle which was handed down from them through the hierarchy and as soon as he did and as soon as she was released he knew that if he killed himself they had this information but they could never use it and that's why but are you here so i said yeah i started digress but are you comfortable i know you have a something in the works releasing that information are you comfortable now uh discussing what what you saw happen to jin kana that's always been kind of murky what the the situation behind his it was his uncle that told them what he had with the 302 but i had it told me one time but it was my uncle's 302s where i think exactly what it was okay and then i had a conversation with my brother kurt too because my uncle had told my brother kurt but it was my uncle's 302s so i got a lot i'm in possession of a lot of stuff from my father's belongings because rightfully it went to me but i think the government might have accidentally i don't know if they did or not left a lot of stuff in there that i shouldn't have got so i learned a lot from all that um i did not know other than what my father had told me prior to that okay and it's a whole story something you want me to go into it real quick or do you want to i would i would like that doesn't it doesn't it implicate tony and implicate tony acardo i think it does so and and and look i wasn't there my dad wasn't there my uncle wasn't there okay so you know i'm just telling you what i was told and it made sense and that's what i tell people okay first of all look at tony acardo here's a man that never did a night in jail here's a very man that knew how to kill here's a man that's trying to go legit with everything i mean this is one of the most powerful mob bosses where he was trying to take over the years right i'd say i'd say he's the most powerful mafia boss in american history that's my personal opinion very you could argue you could argue some guys from new york but i don't think anybody in terms of longevity and pound for bound tops pound for pound top to bottom shot calling i don't think anybody reaches acardo master manipulator right he got bill romer to love him but yet tony spolato bill romer hated him and made it personal okay that tony acardo didn't trust romer he didn't trust the fbi it was all just like they were doing it was a game of chess back and forth okay trying to work things out tony was very smart now when sam when they felt sam had a goal for a lot of reasons okay everybody says it was his his um bodyguard trusted best friend butch blasie yeah or it was tony spolato what i look at is this and this is what i was told when i'm telling you this i'm telling you this through my dad and my uncle and sitting with them which which i learned which makes sense you're gonna sam g and kana was a very treacherous man and he was a very smart man he knew he fell out of favor okay so in this life if you get whistled for and you don't come you're dead right do you think tony's gonna whistle for him sam ain't dead dumb right okay so what did tony do he sets up something where he's gonna come to his house alone right fbi local police sitting outside you think he's gonna let tony spolato in butch blasie was close with him and this is what i don't know okay what butch blasie's party said he never wanted to talk about it and i need 302s or anything i'll never talk about that murder and you know butch blasie is not happy with the new mob now okay and the way they're treating sam and him so are you tony acato gonna trust butch blasie you can't trust anybody because you're 60 what was he 63 i think 63 or 66 63 my age because if something falls through you're going to jail for the rest of your life right okay who knows more on tony than sam so you set up a meeting where you want to come to the house and you want to talk about you know the trial coming up in a couple of weeks so how we got in i don't know okay i never talked about that all i know was that it was a a 22 with a silencer and that it was tony cardo and that tony dropped the gun in a bad place he didn't mean for it to be fine okay 22 doesn't have a big kick on it all right now how in the 302 it was angelo telling my dad and my uncle the old man never too old for heavy work heavy work killing somebody now let me ask one more thing or let me just interject this that to me he could be a indicator of a cardo's presence so we know that jean kana was shot in the back of the head while he was preparing a meal of sausage peppers now he turned his head on somebody he trusted and he was cooking i feel like in other situations somebody would be cooking for sam since tony a cardo was over sam sam was cooking for tony i don't know that's just my again my uh my quick uh i mean um insight into um the potential that that that that little you know they said well the police the police left for a few minutes well let me tell you something you know the oldest trick in the book is you take somebody and you go and you call and say you see a robbery going on or you see an officer got shot you know and what do they do they leave the scene of surveillance and then they come back a few minutes later you only need that few minutes i'm not saying that was done i'm just trying to think through what i learned and who i am i don't know my guess and this is a guess that maybe was butch blasie that let him in butch blasie didn't want to know maybe butch blasie let him in and left okay but i feel that the only person that sam would have been comfortable with and would have met for a reason would have been told him now everybody argues to this day about it to me that's pure tony a cardo that's his smarts if you if you right now if somebody says i was there and i seen tony do a people would still doubt it if the person was really there that's what tony wanted put doubt in people's mind very very smart man so frank i'll just say i'll just say about your uncle your uncle gave an amazing i think it was two three days of testimony um you gave again a great couple days of testimony so talk a little i mean you didn't see your uncles but talk about yours and then as we finish up i'll give my i don't think your dad did himself any favors from jump as great as you and your uncle were were as bad as your dad was yeah so the i knew my dad better than anybody so the fbi and mitch bars i got to spend a lot of time with them like mays have a lot of time the lead guys on the case i spent a lot of time i spent hours and hours and days and days going to everybody they told me they said we've never had any cooperating witness worked so hard and put so much input in it i says well because if my dad walks out the only option i got is the waveform as he's walking out with a shotgun we're not supposed to say that to us i says it's the truth you know so you know when i walked in that courtroom and i looked at my dad i hadn't seen him in six years he had aged i was overcome with emotion so overcome they told me to walk up to this to the stand and i don't know if you noticed or remember i stepped up on the stoop and got right in the judge's face there the fbi layer like what are you doing i says you told me to go up there you know i was just so they they were smart they put me on for an hour that day and then we had a three-day break to practice just to get all that stuff out because emotionally i want to run over and hug my dad that's my dad i still love him i hate his ways what am i doing in public court you know so that was hard it was a fact another thing i did and i know you might remember i got uh judge zagel you know i kept i kept getting too close to the microphone yeah he's like give me this step back now another thing i did to calm my nerves was i asked to be able to go sit in the courtroom in the chair the night before okay the day before so the we had to have the marshals there you know and all that but um so i was able to sit in the courtroom get a feel for everything and where everybody's going to be and what table my dad was going to get and that was just me preparing for all all of this um you know after a week of testifying i think i had four days one day was only an hour or two um i was uh sleepless nights overcome with emotion uh um the you came off very authentic go and you could tell by looking at the jury watching the jury because i was watching the jury the entire trial you could see that they connected with you they felt no empathy sympathy you were able to communicate that and immediately build that rapport with a jury and that's not something that always happens well if you remember both you and your uncle were able to do that well when we started i didn't know so the FBI puts people in the audience i should say the prosecutors put lawyers in the audience to see how it's going so they get feedback you know critique well the first day we were going over the recordings they came back at lunchtime and they go it's a mess we don't understand anything so i says look i got an idea i says play the thing like we did and what i would do is all the stuff i want to answer i i count on my fingers so if i had eight things and then i go through the whole thing and say what i this is what this meant this was that and then john scully would question me after that and they said that went perfect which was was good because you need everybody to understand what's going on so they can follow and judge a go all he was waiting for was me he you know if you've seen him but he was reading it he's watching if i said one thing out of line that he thought was bullshit he would have jumped all over me and i would have lost my credibility and he didn't and not that i'm patting myself on the back it was preparation and what i knew but i did so well with you know what i was doing and my preparation that mitch marz comes up to me and says we're going to put you on the stand and we're going to play a tape with antony toandoil my dad and mike ricky and you're going to tell us what they talk about but he didn't tell me as soon as they do that the defense attorneys are going to jump up because you can't play something in federal court if somebody was so what i did was they played it and i said in my conversations with my dad or anybody around me purse meant bloody glove this meant that this meant that and they did a um was that when they all come up they made me leave the room they had a bench conference a bench conference right i'm in the i'm in not scared of height right that's on the 20 something floor the room they got me in is a little room and it's all windows and i'm walking around trying not to get to the wind i'm more scared of the height than i'm going back into the trial mitch comes in he says okay you're going to go back in there and finish this i go so calmly i go what they allowed it the judge allowed it you know jet and you know and joey lombardo was getting mad because they're like hey what kind of attorneys we got you guys can't win one motion you guys can't win one objection what's going on there well you know this case was put together well after a week if i understand i get up i look at my dad i walk away i go in a room with tears are flooding down my face prosecuted from an alley what's wrong something happened i go no sick and sad this is i just seen my dad for the last time in life and it was the last time in life now during the trial the prosecutor says hey how do we get your dad mad you know how to get him out of character when he gets mad i told marcus funk i said he don't know he was that he was the he was the bg of that crew he had the og prosecutors scully and marz and he had marcus funk who was this younger guy and scully and marz were were kind of uh tiny yeah marcus funk looked like he was a tight end for the bears yeah i said you got to do it i says you walk up to him point in his face raise your voice like you're threatening him and call him some kind of name and he did and he got my dad so mad that they threatened him she threatened marcus funk marcus funk had the rare honor to say that through the family secrets conspiracy trial he was threatened by two not one he was threatened by frank the german and frank cal Frankie breeze frank cal breeze so he obviously got under the skin of those guys they didn't know he's the new guy like what did he say specifically what did your father say to i mean what it was told i wasn't there with that he mouth words your dead yeah he was like smile and then i want you to come in on this as we're wrapping up you know my big takeaway from watching your father's testimony joey lombardo got up there and thought that his little quirky quippy grandpa act could play on the stand for multiple days because it had worked to ingratiate him with the courtroom and the jury over the months leading up to his testimony he was very funny and they're all laughing and the only guy that sat there with just sat there yeah and joey lombardo marcell and marcell didn't didn't break a smile or i mean marcell like you said he had a poker face on lombardo was you know playing his clown act and decided that he thought he could keep it going on the stand and then very quickly the little you know five second quips it couldn't sustain multiple hours on the stand and he just looked like an old man that was lying your dad on the other hand not only was he bad on the stand but your father would sit and i was your father was closer i was closest to your father out of all of on the defense table where i sat in the media section i could literally almost reach out and touch your father and he was doing himself a great disservice and i i questioned why joe lopez who was who was his attorney wasn't stepping in but every time someone got up on the stand and started to just describe your father taking part in a murder he would be grinning ear to ear almost like he was relishing the you know getting to relive it and it wasn't like one time it was like a dozen times and i'm i'm i'm whispering to the other reporters what is lopez doing why isn't lopez whispering in his ear stop smiling joe had no control over my dad one thing my dad see i knew my dad better than anything the biggest mistake my dad and joe lombardo had is they were very good at sit-downs okay which i'm sure you guys explained before and at sit-downs you can control the room you can control the table and you can lie when you get into a federal court like that you can't take the stand when you know that you're guilty of 99 percent of stuff they're doing so my dad would smile because he wanted he was laughing like this is all bullshit right now i know what is i know that was what like that's how he would have explained it but the way that it was coming off to the jury into the gallery in the courtroom was that he was taking pleasure and them talking about him as a sociopathic murder the government was shocked in total shock when joe lombardo was going to take the stand and they felt he did so terrible that there's no way my dad would take the stand yes when my dad decided to take the stand they were going to have a field day all they wanted to do is get him mad get him mad and who got him mad the judge you can't do that what do you mean i can't do that i'm defending myself so you catch little pieces right he starts shaking because he's getting mad he tried to control himself because of his temper and i again i wasn't in the courtroom but i would get the feedback okay and that that's that that's what i got so yeah the thing that he did too was once he found out so he was telling jimmy marsala before the tapes came out he goes this is all done by my son not my brother it's my son my brother would never have the brains to do this my son's doing it and my brother told my son everything i never told him nothing when the tapes came out jimmy was steaming because my dad's the one telling me everything and i knew that the only way to get my dad was get him in his own words because he would have manipulated him you know they didn't they didn't everybody to get charged on what my uncle testified to everybody got charged on the stuff a hundred percent that my uncle testified to from the tapes of my dad so it was my dad's voice my dad's own words that incriminated him and that's what i tried to do so marshal marsala and lombardo had almost no physical evidence tying them to anything joey lombardo had a fingerprint on a car rental paper but other than that jimmy marsala was convicted based on his voice on an answering machine but to get to your point that it was your dad's talking on those tapes that made everyone realize that marsala and marsala were guilty there's still people out there that think oh this is all a lie okay my uncle alone i don't think jimmy would have been you know i don't think he would have been found guilty there wasn't enough okay and so unfortunately for jimmy it was my dad was the one you know and my dad hired lopez because he was close with jimmy and and and um and mickey marsala so he wanted them to know everything he was doing so that he wouldn't get killed in prism i have a love i have a love hate relationship with the shark joe lopez we're uh sometimes he'll he'll say uh complimentary things on posts about stuff i write and then sometimes he'll be the call that's bernstein fantasy land again i'm just like really joe joe's a character joe's a character i go ahead sorry frank i get along with him good uh bobby rascha uh dear friend of mine that's a lawyer uh he represented uh flores brothers against yeah anyways um they were very very close to him in lopez and you know and so you know when lopez was i can't believe the kids did this well when lopez thought my dad had no money and when it came out that my dad had all this money and everything lopez was pissed and then my dad started giving it to lopez and lopez started changing this you know well maybe this guy you know maybe they got something here you know so everybody was convicted uh let's just give a quick r.i.p uh we were talking about family secrets again something that meant a lot to me obviously meant more meant more to frank but uh r.i.p to judge zagle a true uh superstar of the federal bench uh you know salt of the earth uh just i thought was a was a great judge and and he passed away recently and then shortly after um the trial we found out that mitch marz uh was battling cancer and that was his really his last hurrah uh was getting the family secrets conviction so r.i.p to mitch marz your father passed away um was about five years after 2012 so on christmas a day your uncle uh passed away recently in the last year um and the only guy the only major guy that's that's still locked up doing time for this is jimmy marcello uh joy limberto passed away a couple years ago and actually had threatened judge zagle um from from prison i think he was making the argument that he was joking uh around with a with a gangbanger but the gangbanger went and told um the prosecutors that joey was looking to kill zagle um so again i'm just given you know the the uh the post post game uh uh notes um and then was your father in danger when he was the last few years of his life what was the outfit going to take it out on him for your decision um i never heard of anything okay he was for he was locked down in a special lockdown s.a.m. that's because he put out a hit on me and my uncle that was uh that was confirmed by the f.b.i through threadable witnesses for 150 000 and the threat so he got put down he was locked down 24 seven and mar marcello they had a u.s. marshal on the pad i mean they came really close to locating i don't know about you frank i know they came really close to locating your uncle and and maybe killing him before trial the thing was the first time in the witness protection history that they compromised it was um yeah it was another police officer that was trying to get close to a decorated marshal and um because of the the tapes in the visiting room they were they were able to show that this marshal was passing information of whom my uncle was going to uh testify what he was going to testify and allegedly they were out they were going to take to bring him from the safe house to fritz because they flew him in on a private plane and they put him in a safe house and uh and this guy wanted to get a 10-year sentence yeah and they gave him opportunities to you know cooperate and do the right thing and he was stubborn he was saying that he would never follow through with anything he was just trying to get on their good side so they can help him find other fugitives okay uh so this was awesome uh this is what if not my favorite episode we've done it's in my top two or three i can't thank you enough i was again i the longest episode we probably ever did but i think that uh frank was deserving of it he told a story that just uh he just floors you and and draws you in and captures you uh he's a dynamic speaker thank you so much frank for telling your story man you're welcome thank you thank you guys for having me you and jimmy um you know and please let everyone know where they can find where they can consume your i was doing tours in chicago and private appearances i've been working for two years to try to do something with the mall museum it's an unbelievable museum of people that are running it unbelievable and i felt that i can add a lot to it um so i'm going to start in there in january full time and uh we have a lot of cool stuff that we're going to work with i'm donating a lot of stuff to the museum um a lot of stuff that people don't normally see like 302s people like what a 302 a 302 is what the fbi writes after they have a meeting with a confidential informant ci and uh court testimony i have stuff that's never made public before you gotta there's so much that hasn't been made public and then it's gonna we're gonna do a little like a little uh small private groups sit down different topics you know uh talk about what it was like to be in a life how did we dress how did we you know how do we survive on the street what did we think about the fbi um planning and assisting in a murder and and how it's done you know it's not like in the movies where somebody just hey we're gonna kill this guy and they jump in the car and go try to kill him i mean there's months and months and and i'm gonna talk about murders that happened that how there was surveillance on them and everything the guy sitting in vans being in jugs looking through binoculars in a box in the van because he put tinted windows everybody knows right so you got an empty box sitting there with somebody and taking shifts so tell him about your book i mean frank initially uh had gary ross who was the sea biscuit um director and writer uh that was going to develop it it's now in uh another group's hands but i have no doubt that sooner rather than later you're gonna see uh frank's book turned into either a feature film or um a limited series or or regular series on a streaming on a streaming uh service this is it's the new york times i sell and i tell everybody it's a family story organized crime was our family business but this is more of a family story i use the phrase when you bring the street in the home it corrodes the family structure and that's what i talk about that's what i've learned it it ripped our family apart and you know we're still a lot of my family members are still dealing with the effects of it as far as hollywood i've been working on this for a long time i have great people now i have john hill coat as the director he's doing that latest series that's out with um taylor chariden okay with the undercover ops he loves this story i have uh taylor matern who wrote um the latest one he wrote he's a young guy he wrote the hustle with adam sandler okay he put together a script that's unbelievable and he put together a pilot that's unbelievable i'm working on a guy named brian haust that used to run mike diluca studios okay mike diluca bought uh 50 shades of gray made hundreds of millions but he's still a force in hollywood and with studio eight uh studio eight um which is subsidiary i i know i worked for them for a couple years they're a subsidiary of sony they're the ones that i did the white boy rick um film with so i'm familiar with the studio studio eight people i'm very grateful to them they gave me my first first entry point into hollywood which i thought was an excellent movie it's an excellent story when you were doing it that's when i was still when i started negotiating with them yeah i i didn't love honestly i didn't love the film uh i'm much uh prouder of the documentary which is on netflix which uh but that's neither out there i'm sure that the people that are behind your project are going to do great by ben afleck at one point who was who owns it he used to run Warner brothers right and ben afleck at one point was on board to play your dad i would have loved yes have seen that with covid hit so you know things happen with covid hit we're talking to a lot of actors we're with c a a i'm finally i had my right stolen i was sleeping on couches trying to get door slammed in my face you know um it seemed like every time i went somewhere and if something was ready to happen i go to cbs ready to happen the girl gets another job with another yeah i know it's a it's a slow slow i can tell you it's it's the back stories on being in hollywood yeah and they i'm gonna end with this so in real life you have to work and worry about the double cross in the mob you have to worry about triple cross in hollywood you've got to worry about the quadruple and quintuple cross yeah yeah yeah i've been fortunate enough don't real quick scott because the people i'm working with uh they love working with me and i felt and they've told me i contributed a lot so i'm really enjoying it and i wanted to be something that's good not something that's cheesy you know i want to be really talking like there's a new you know i wanted to be a good story because you don't want a bunch of old soprano retreads uh we all agreed on soprano was already made good of fellows was already made okay casino was already made we don't want to remake those we want something and so that's why it comes with the family so it's really everything has evolved around me and my father in our relationship and it's it's gonna really be good did you like casino by the way frank you like that it's hollywood look what i learned by working in hollywood scott you can probably back me up on this is jim they they take three or four characters and mold them into one so that country is where you can tell what really happened correct did you go see did you go see i we're going off another rabbit hole here but did you go see casino when it came out in 95 with your dad and uncle no i went with some friends and i'm sitting here and i'm like saying to myself i can't say it out loud that's wrong that didn't happen but yeah i did but again i knew it was hollywood and you know martin scorsese has a way of taking stuff and and and you know putting a twist on it that's very entertaining but then you got to look at a documentary you know i don't think there was a documentary made by rose uh again the shameless self promotion uh if you go to fox nation which is the fox news channel streaming service ica co-produced and starred in a the true story behind casino it's called skim city uh we released it uh about five months ago oh i think it's an hour an hour and a half on the true story behind casino we also did one on we also did one on good fellas uh so go check those out on the five streaming service frank this was awesome man we're gonna have you back on i promise um maybe we'll do some remote content uh i'd like to do just an outfit one time like it was frank just an outfit like you know just other things in the outfit that he can speak to i think would be fun yeah definitely thank you so much uh i'm sorry one a little long but uh i think it's worth it i think uh there's a lot of meat on the bone i don't think there's a lot of fat a little so we got going so thank you frank uh jimmy uh for jimmy and for benny behind the glass uh og pod out we'll see you next week