 Hi, and welcome to my show. I sure hope you enjoyed my show on Ronnie Spector, one of the great performers of our country. Sadly, left us, but I sure enjoyed my interview with her tour manager, Dan Lillenfeld. Well, we're switching gears tonight for a very special show arranged by my dear friend, Rob Baldacci. If you've ever been to Las Vegas and you Google up the top five attractions out there, you will see that one of the top three is the so-called Mob Museum. And that museum is located in the downtown district of Las Vegas. And it contains memorabilia and artifacts and the entire history of organized crime in America and how it affected American culture both good and bad. Well, with me tonight are two people that were heavily involved in that. If you've seen the movie Casino, if you've seen the movie Goodfellas, if you've seen the movie The Godfather, you will understand the life that these two gentlemen lived because they were right in the thick of it. With me today is Bobby Luisi and Joe, Paul Tenzo. Gentlemen, thank you so much for coming here. Thank you for having us. Bobby, the first question I'm going to ask you right out of the blocks is, do you feel lucky to be alive? Actually, I do. When we came up in the 90s, there was a war on Boston. Yes. Well known. And a lot of people got killed. I lost some family members in that war. Yeah, I was lucky to survive it. I think it was God's will. And Bobby, you say you lost family members. You lost your father, you lost your brother, and you lost your cousin and a dear friend. Yes. They were taken out in a restaurant called the 99 Restaurant in Charlestown, Massachusetts. And do you remember the date when that happened? It was about 1995. And where were you on that day? Actually, I was supposed to be there. You were supposed to be there? I was supposed to be there with Vinnie and Damien, the shooters. And I had another appointment. And thank God I wasn't there, and I missed that. So Bobby, this is right out of the movies. This was a set up. They knew your dad was going to be there. No, they didn't work out like that. No. There was an altercation the night before. I see. And Vinnie and Damien came to me over it because they know how dangerous my father and my brother and that crew were. So I told them to stay out of the mart then. We were straightening it out because I had separate crew from my father on the street. I said, we're going to straighten it out. So they went to the 99 restaurant in Charleston out to stay out of the mart then, which is over the bridge. Right. And who walks in, my family. Wow. Unbelievable. This was a shooting, of course. Yeah. And were the perpetrators, were they found? Were they caught? Yes, they were. And did they serve time for that? Yeah. Damien Clemente and his father, Cleo, are doing life sentences for those murders. Are they still there, you mean? Yes. Oh yeah, they're still in prison. They're still there. Yep. Paul, you mentioned to me that you're also from the North End. Yes. And you referred to Bobby as like a mentor. Yes. Your buddy, your pal, and he protected you. And you also were what is referred to as a maid man. Yes. And how do you get to become a maid man? There's a ceremony. Right. That's the one involved. That's the one that was showed that, right? Yeah. Is that accurate? Pretty much what you have to see. Yeah. Bobby, you know, he knew I was by myself and running my own stuff at the time. And I was like a lone wolf. And he dragged me in and took care of me. He dragged me in with his crew. Bobby, this is the Boston crew. Yes. Where you guys were. The Boston crew. Right. So Rob, how did you, Rob, how did you get... Other than the fact that your name is Bob Atch. I have a vowel at the end of my name. That's the big K. And we're all related. We're a sympatica. That's all. All cool jeans. That's right. That's all. That's all you need to know. Well, what else do you need to know? Yeah. I'm not going to ask. The show is over, folks. Rob, when you and I went to F. Lee Bailey's Memorial Service in Boston. Yes. Very proud to be there. Went with our friend Steve Schwartz who's in the studio with us, folks. I just wanted to meet some of his clients. And apparently one of them is sitting with us today. That would be you, Paul. Yes. You were represented by F. Lee Bailey. Yes. Paul, why don't you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. My case pro bono. What was the case? When I was 21 years old, I was framed for two counts of murder of a drug deal gone wrong. But that wasn't the real story behind it. The real story was more of a setup. The people involved, you know, they were trying to shake down people and rob people for drugs or street money or whatever. They got executed, pretty much massacred. I think it was some of the bodies had like 36 entry and reentry wounds. And it was done by young guys. More or less, you know, teenagers, young teenagers, they were being bullied and scared and threatened and, you know, they had enough of it at one point. They were afraid for their lives and they did what they had to do. And my first trial I got found guilty on and I was serving a double natural life with a three to five on it. What does that mean, a double natural life? That means life with no parole. Life with no parole. First degree murder, yes. And you're a young boy, a young man. Yeah, I was 21 when I arrested. 21. And F. Lee Bailey represents you in the first trial. No. No, his partner, Kent Fishman. Yes. Okay, excuse me. So the first trial, you found guilt. Yes. What happened? I got sentenced to the natural life and everything. And I was up at Walpole, Cedar Junction, they call it. It was the worst prison at that time. Had the highest murder rate. They actually, the ones that made the standup count because that guy was dead in himself for three days and they kept moving the body to make it look like he was still alive. Jesus. Yeah. And so, F. Lee Bailey. It was an honorable place. And F. Lee Bailey comes along and represents you in another trial. Yes. He came and got me for my appeals and he told me he waited his whole life for my case. He said he waited for this case his whole life to have an innocent man, you know, on trial with a guilty man on the stand pointing fingers at people. The eyewitness was actually the real murderer. During the second trial, when I was found not guilty, he came in as the witness and they changed his plea bargain from excessive immunity from Rob accessory to Rob to immunity from murder because they knew we had more to do with it than what he was saying. So once they gave him immunity to murder, he actually confessed to the crimes and he said that makes the models the calibers of their handguns in the distance as they were fired from the from the victims. And when the jury heard that they were like a gasp and next thing you know, they told him, wow, if that's the truth, then we're going to try you for perjury. And he goes, oh, I changed my mind. Paul Tanzo did it. But the jury already heard it and the damage was done. The jury actually waited outside the courthouse crying, waiting for me. So when the verdict is announced, not guilty, what was the feeling you had? My knees buckled. Your knees buckled. Yeah. And tears immediately. My best friend, Tiziano, who also grew up in the North then was in there with me that day. And I mean, we're all in tears. And the next thing I know me and my family walk out of the courthouse and the jury's waiting for me. And it was like all hugs and kisses and everything. Was your life involved in that aspect of your life? Was that over as of that moment? I mean, did you stop any involvement? As soon as I was found not guilty, I stopped everything. I was engaged at the time and I applied to go to North Bennett Street Industrial School. It's the oldest trade school on the East Coast for jewelry making. Jewelry making. Yeah. And I made some beautiful. The airing actually. I like that. I like that. That's actually handmade. It's got a special class. I did it differently than regular airing. So, my friend, you went from being a made man. No, I wasn't made yet. Oh, you weren't made yet? No. I was like a hang around associate of another crew. Bobby at the time. Then you're making jewelry afterwards. And then Bobby, explain how you guys got together and Paul became a made man and then how you became a made man because you were proposed to be a made man under the Potriaca family, correct? Yes, I was. Why don't you kind of explain the connection there and how you did become a made man and how Paul did as well? Yeah. In the 90s, I came around. They had a good front from East Boston. I'm not going to say his name on the show. He was already a made guy in the Potriaca family. He proposed me in the family. Then the war broke out really heavy in Boston. A lot of people were getting killed. He ended up going to prison. He was my guy at the time. We're still very good close friends, like a brother. When that happened, I was having problems with the Potriacas on the street. I had my own crew. I was making my own money. It was getting really powerful. At one point, I decided to go to New York. Then I was let to Philadelphia. I became a proposed man in the Philadelphia family. That really doesn't happen often. But Joey's war was just getting over. My war was just getting over in Boston. The war that I was in. Everything was calming down at that point. Joey took me into the family. Joey Molino. And the Philly family. First name on my book radio, Joey Molino. He took me in. Made me. Shortly after that, I became a couple. Now, you've got to remember, I'm a Boston guy. Born and raised. I'm a Philly guy. I'm a Boston guy. I go back as a made guy. Shortly after that, we started training on my crew. The first ceremony we had in Boston, myself and another couple did that. And we took four guys in. And then the next one was three. So that's how we did it. So now I got a crew up in Boston. I'm a cop of regime in the Philadelphia family. And that made me a Boston Boston. Because I was 300 miles away from my family. And my crew was running an octet. And your name, you were referred to as Boston Bob. That was your name, Boston Bob. That's what they call me a Philly. That's what they call you a Philly. Yes. What did they call you in Boston? I didn't have a nickname in Boston. Yeah, but your name in Louisiana is well known. Because of your family, your father, very well known on the street. And tell me again, what year was it your father was assassinated? I think it was October 95? 95. Yeah, I think it was October 95. Well, and you were pretty much considered, you're referred to in the literature about you, as the Philly Point Man. So are you going back and forth between Philadelphia and Boston? Is that what you're doing during that time? No, I mean, I would go to Philly maybe twice a month, spend the weekend there just to get out of Boston. Okay. When I got away, one of my cousins was the acting captain. And I got away as much as I could to be honest with you. I love the Philly guys and hanging around down there. The first agreement I made with Joey is that Boston and Philly weren't going to intermingle business so we didn't roll with state lines. So I was running Boston under my crew the way I wanted to and Joey was at Philly. What kind of role did the Patriaca family have when you were a Boston boss? Well, they were in disarray. They were. And they were trying to put their family back together at that time. So I took advantage of it to tell you the truth. I mean, I could have never did this in the 80s if Raymond was around, Jerry and Julo or Joe Russo. These are all the big names in Boston. I could have never done one of them. I would have been with them anyway. It's just the way things out turned out in the war that I ended up with Philadelphia. Bobby, whenever anybody hears about the Boston mob, the Boston mafia, the Boston cosinostra, the name comes up all the time, of course, other than Patriaca, of course, is Whitey Bulger who was found after so many years on the run. And there is one sentence that I want to talk to you about that is in your list of people. If you Google this man's name up, you get to take 20 pages. But one of the sentences that comes up that says that at one point in time, you try to, quote, gain control of the Whitey Bulger interests in Boston. Is that true that you... Well, let me tell you what happened. I went up and took over the guys in Somerville. Okay. They were the remnants of the Winter Hill gang. They were the young guys, which were my age. So I was up in Ball Square, and I took that crew under my umbrella. While I was doing that, there were some people in Somerville, a method that were with those guys and that we were grabbing them. During that time, when they were gone, we grabbed Kevin Weeks, and he was with Whitey and Stevie Fleming, and we did a little business with Kevin. I actually really liked Kevin, you know? So we were just not really trying to take it from them because the Montoranos, they're all in prison. I don't agree with that. I didn't really want to take any Whitey or Stevie stuff, but what was out there, like Stevie Fleming's son was working with me, Billy. So what was out there, I was gathering them in under my umbrella as much as I could. Did both of you know Whitey Balger? Did you know him also? I know him personally. I never met him. Get out of here. Never met him. So all the times that you're in Boston dealing with all this sort of stuff, they make this reference to you, but pretty much trying to hone in on his territory, and you're saying you never actually met him. Never met him. Really? I met Stevie Fleming, but I never met him. Stevie Fleming was right in there. You have to understand Whitey Balger himself was an associate. Whitey Balger was a bad man. Yes. I was going to ask you. He's a gangsta's gangsta, besides what he did. Right. You can't take that away from him. And I'm not going to try to. Right. But he wasn't Italian. Right. He was a part of that thing. He was an associate. So no Italian ties, like his mother wasn't Italian? No, no. All Irish. No, all Irish. But he was at the time, he was with the Angelo family. Okay. Him and Stevie Fleming with Petriaca. Yeah. They were at a time with them. Now, gentlemen, both of you served time. You did how many years before you? I think it was three years before they released me on bail for the murder charges. Right. Then I think I got bomb-making explosives or something in federal time. And then my other charges, gun charges. Yeah. Would you do a total on that? Yeah. I don't know. My whole life, I totaled like eight years and probably like 16 on probation. And Bobby, your term was a sentence of 20, but you served 14. What happened? Right. I went to trial. Yeah. Talk about that, Bob. Yeah. I went to trial. I think it was 2001, my first trial around that date and an animus guilty right down the line. Because everybody in Boston, they all know who I was. I was all over the papers. Right. You know, so they just found me guilty right away. Right. So I got 235 months. I go back. Some miracle happened and they changed the guidelines. I end up winning an appeal. I'm the first one that turned over a drug case in Boston. I guess people are still using that case now because we won a trial on a trap. So I win that. We go back to trial. In 2007, I might have to, I'm not good with dates. And I lost again, but they took 47 months off. I see. Yeah. I went to 15-8. Right. And I served 13-9. 13-9. Yeah. And where did you serve that? Oh, I was all over. I was with the New Jersey. I was in MCC in New York when 9-11 hit. When 9-11, you were right there? I was right there. Wow. Oh, my God. You had jets going all over? Right. We were locked down for over a month. You were locked down for a month? And you're not being told what, you don't know what's going on. I mean, just when you're seeing on the news. Well, luckily we had TVs. Yeah. And some of the guys had TV antennas, the cable, everything went out when the second tower went down. That's right. We lost our phones, everything. And we were watching everything on TV. We knew everything that was happening. Right. Paul and Bobby, when you're serving time, we've seen everybody that's our age has seen all the prison movies from, whatever, you know. When you're serving time, because they know that you were so-called made, are you any more protected than anybody else? In other words, do you have any less fear while you're in prison than anybody else because of your connections? Well, you have to understand something. In prison, in federal prison, in state prisons, if you go home with a reputation, guys respect that. Okay. Okay, so going in as a boss, you know, some guys are oppressed with it. I remember when I first went in, they were bringing me in food. You know, all the prisoners. Bobby, I got this. I got a radio. You could use that. You know, they're really good. Really good like that. I fought a lot in prison. I'm not going to lie to you. You did really? Oh, yes, I did. But mostly I got the respect in the units. Okay. Same with you, Paul? When I went in as a soldier, you know, I had less respect than Bobby from like all these other big mobsters and stuff like that. And I got into a lot more fights. So do you, you know, they say that when a kid goes to school, in a tough school, the first thing you should do is go up to the toughest guy and beat him up. Now, do you have to like protect yourself? Oh, yes. I actually got kicked out of OCC Supermax for fighting. I got into three fights in one month. And I got kicked out of prison. Did you ever serve time in the hole or in a... Oh, yeah, plenty of... Oh, really? Every time I get into the fight, every time in the hole. Really? Three, four months at a time. Oh, my God. I was there for six months straight. They kept coming by and waking me up every day to get out of bed and make my bed. And I'm like, I'm not moving. And they call the extraction team. And then they do it again the next time I got out of the hole. And then the third time, when they try to wake me up and they call the extraction team to come and get me, the extraction team said, just let him sleep. Leave him alone with them doing this. They just left me alone. Bobby, when they discuss the things that you were doing in this part of organized crime, they list several things. One of them is bookmaking. What is bookmaking for the edification of the audience? What's bookmaking? Well, we used to have offices. You know, you're calling for football games, basketball games, hockey games, baseball games. It's all gambling. Right. So we would take the action on the phones. Okay. You know, and when I lose, we'd settle up once a week with you. Okay. You know, we were hoping you'd lose every week. I was a terrible bookmaker. Why were you terrible at it? I don't know. I just, it bored me. You know, I was a gambler. I was a gambler. I gambled a lot. You did? You know, I liked that side of the action, sitting and taking it. Right. Okay. So I always had people doing that. Okay. So gambling is, you're basically dealing with illegal gambling. Absolutely. But there's really, quote, no victims. I mean, there's a willing participants, except those who didn't pay their bills. I assume, did that happen a lot, by the way? Yes. It happened, but not as much as you think. Okay. I mean, most people would not be stupid enough to make a bet and tell you guys to go fly, right? The other one is extortion. Yes, exactly. How do you define that? Well, in the old days, they used to extort people in the neighborhood that own grocery stores and bakeries and that. Right. We didn't do that. Yeah. I always felt, and we felt in Manhattan, that was our neighborhood, and we had to protect it. Right. Did you actually help a lot of the restaurants? Yeah, we did. My thing was, I would extort drug dealers, bookmakers, and loan sharks. Okay. So now what you say, you say that if you're going to do business in this area, you've got to give us a piece of the action. Is that how that works? Absolutely. I never bothered in this area of people. What about construction unions? Yeah. Well, my extent in the union, there was a little power there. The teams did union. Right. A lot of my guys were getting jobs in there. Yeah. And I had some good people that were in the unions at the time. Yeah. I was able to get people jobs and certain things like that, but I never got deeper to the union and to extort them. Prostitution. Yeah. I never did that. No. Really? There were two things I wouldn't do on the street. I wouldn't be a pimp and I wouldn't sell heroin. Okay. Right. So as we know, the theme of the movie The Godfather, which some people write is the best movie ever done. Absolutely. Mylon Brando, Vito Corleone, gets in trouble with the other families because he says, I'm not going to get involved with heroin. Right. And of course, the five families want to get into it because that's the whole thing that happens in Godfather III. And you're saying that you had this, quote, integrity to not get involved in those particular aspects. When I was coming up in the 90s, I mean, cocaine is a bad drug. Yeah. And I'm ashamed that I had anything to do with it. Yeah. You know, but I had a big cocaine business. I was selling kilos. Really? Yeah. Okay. Even as far as Wall's main. And we'll talk about that later. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So that was my big business. But I've seen it as a social drug. Well. Harrowing. Percadence. Right. Those oxycons. Yeah. Killing people. Yeah. And people needed to get out of bed in the morning. By the way, I was talking to an alcohol counselor one day and talking about her job. And you know what she said to me? She said, by the way, she said, do you know one of the easiest drugs to quit is cocaine? Yeah. I saw the TV shows about people that got hooked on it and so on and so forth back in the 90s and the early 2000s. So Paul, what were you doing? What kind of activities were you involved in? I'm growing up. I used to sell fireworks for the, more basically kind of the playground when I was younger as a teenager. I pulled a lot of scores. I sold a lot of cocaine in part. Ecstasy when it hit big. I think that was the only pill I ever sold. Like he said, those other things were taboo, prostitution and heroin and that stuff was always taboo and our neighborhood was frowned upon. And what about loan-shocking? What's that involved? Loan-shocking. Well, you know, there's a wide variety of people that you deal with. I made a lot of money with loan-shocking. Let's say you're a bus driver in the neighborhood. Right. You can't pay your rent. You need $1,000 to pay you. Maybe you're a gambler. Whatever the reason is. Outlaw. Whatever. So you come to me and if I knew you well, I'd give it to you for three points. So you gave me $30 a week till you paid the principal back. Okay. If you weren't a friend, there was five points. You gave me $50 a week on that thousand. At my peak, I had $650,000 on the street. Wow. So you got that out there. Yeah. And people paying, quote, interest on that every week. Yeah. But a lot of the money I gave out now to a main guy, if Paul he wanted a loan shock, somebody money, he'd come to me. I'd give it to him for a point. Okay. You understand? So now, yes, I had $650,000 on the street. I averaged the vote $8,000 a week. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Paul, you were making millions that weren't you? Yes. Yeah, when you were rolling between the drugs and the loan shock was my big thing. Yeah. So here's the stupid question. So where are you keeping all this money? Where were you keeping it in the box somewhere? Well, to tell you the truth, I got arrested in June of 1999. In March of 1998, I had a spiritual experience, we'll call it. And I started going back to church. Bobby, this was before you got arrested? Yes. It was before I got arrested. Correct. 15 months before. Talk about that. So I have this spiritual, the encounter. Yeah. It wasn't a way. It was an encounter lasted over eight hours with a demonic being. I've seen people that I'll say had been killed in the war. We'll put it that way. I've seen a lot of my evils. Finally, I had a call that night. I had a call. My mother had a church in East Boston. So I called the pastor, came up. My mother, everybody came up. I took the host that night. So I was sneak at the church when I was a boss. And nobody knew. There was a May guy in my crew, Tommy Caruso. Garrest. Garrest has slowly passed away now. But he was coming to church too. And he was a believer. And he became born again. And we both became born again at that church. And Bobby, you became a pastor in Memphis, Tennessee. And we were running out of time. It can't be half hour gone by like in three seconds. But you actually had a broadcast in Memphis. Channel 6 in Memphis. Channel 6 in Memphis. And then you told me that you had an African-American, a black church. I was in a black church. Yeah. Faith Keepers Ministry. And you were like the head pastor? No, no, no. Bishop Coleman was my next door neighbor. He read my book, God's Plan Revealed. It's up on Amazon right now. Yes, it is. He said, Bobby, I was Alonzo there. He said Alonzo, why don't you come and teach at my church? You had a different name. Alonzo Esposito. Esposito. So you went under the name of Alonzo Esposito for how long in your life? From 2013 to like changing to what, 17? Yeah, we would change together. You came down to Florida and got me. Yeah, because I was in Fort Lauderdale. I went and picked him up right away. It was 2017. I found him on Facebook. I see this picture and I was dying because we lost track of him. Sure. Because me moving around. So here you are, you two are characters. I mean in the positive sense. Oh, I know. And you go into witness protection and you, and next thing you find each other on Facebook, Twitter, whatever, that is just fascinating. Ladies and gentlemen, we run out of this. We run out of time. First half hour. But we're going to continue this show with me on five. I'm going to discuss some of the connections to Maine that occurred back in the days when organized crime was very big in Boston. And we're going to find out how it affected Maine when we have the me on five show. Thank you for watching this show. Gentlemen, thank you for being here. Rob, thanks for being the co-host. All right, buddy. Thank you. And we'll see you next month on the Dairy Runlet Show. Thank you.