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#2343 – Joe Pistone Podcast Episode Description
Joseph D. Pistone is a retired FBI agent who, under the cover identity Donnie Brasco, infiltrated the Bonanno and Colombo crime families, leading to the conviction of over 100 mafia members. Today, he is a law enforcement consultant specializing in organized crime.
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#2343 – Joe Pistone Podcast Episode Top Keywords
#2343 – Joe Pistone Podcast Episode Summary
Podcast Episode Summary: Joe Rogan with Joe Pistone (Donnie Brasco)
Key Points & Major Topics:
– The episode features Joe Pistone, the real-life FBI agent who infiltrated the Mafia under the alias Donnie Brasco.
– Pistone recounts his early career, starting with intelligence work and then transitioning to the FBI, where he initially worked on gambling and stolen goods cases.
– He details the gradual process of going undercover, first infiltrating smaller criminal operations before being tasked with penetrating the Mafia, specifically the Bonanno family.
– Pistone explains the extensive preparation required for deep undercover work, including learning about gems, lock-picking, and creating a believable backstory.
– He describes the challenges and dangers of undercover life, such as maintaining his cover, dealing with suspicion, and the psychological toll of living a double life for six years.
– The episode covers major operations, including orchestrating connections between Mafia families in New York, Milwaukee, and Florida, and the complexities of Mafia politics and internal conflicts.
– Pistone shares stories of close calls, Mafia rituals, and the eventual fallout when his true identity was revealed, leading to contracts on his life and the murder or imprisonment of several mobsters he worked with.
Important Guests/Speakers:
– Joe Pistone (Donnie Brasco) is the primary guest, with Joe Rogan as the host.
Actionable Insights, Advice, or Tips:
– Pistone emphasizes the importance of authenticity in undercover work: never act outside your true character, don’t pretend to be something you’re not, and never promise what you can’t deliver.
– He advises undercover agents to avoid falling in love with the criminal lifestyle and to maintain personal values and boundaries (e.g., not drinking or using drugs if it’s not your habit).
– He stresses the need to thoroughly study and understand your “enemy” or target group, referencing Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” as essential reading.
Recurring Themes/Overall Messages:
– The psychological and ethical complexities of undercover work.
– The changing nature of organized crime and law enforcement, especially with modern surveillance and technology.
– The importance of integrity, preparation, and self-awareness in high-risk professions.
– Loyalty and codes of conduct within both law enforcement and organized crime.
Other Notable Points:
– Pistone discusses the impact of his story being adapted into the film “Donnie Brasco,” his relationship with Johnny Depp, and the differences between real life and Hollywood.
– He now dedicates time to law enforcement training and charity, supporting families of fallen officers.
Overall Message:
Joe Pistone’s story is a testament to the courage, discipline, and psychological resilience required for deep undercover work, as well as a reflection on the enduring lessons of trust, authenticity, and the human cost of both crime and law enforcement.
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#2343 – Joe Pistone Podcast Episode Transcript (Unedited)
Speaker: 0
00:01
Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan experience. Showing ai day Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.
Speaker: 1
00:14
Ai to meet you. My pleasure. You always wear sunglasses. Is that to hide your identity still? Yeah.
Speaker: 0
00:20
That actually, it’s it’s I have to see, number one. But where I where I reside now, my neighbors have no idea that they’re living next to Donnie Brasco. So
Speaker: 1
00:32
Well, you have a very distinct voice.
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00:33
Yeah. I know. I don’t
Speaker: 1
00:36
wanna ask where you live, but, you know, what a wild life you’ve had, sir.
Speaker: 0
00:42
Well, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Never expected to go like that, but it, it took off.
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00:51
So when you you first started working,
Speaker: 1
00:54
it was with the FBI. Correct?
Speaker: 0
00:55
Well, I was with vatsal intelligence, for three years, and then I always wanted to be in law enforcement, and I was working in Philadelphia actually. And, you do a lot of work with the FBI because, you know, on the government installations, government, basis. So I became friendly with some FBI agents, and then, I figured if I, you know, when I get up when I finish this, tour with Ai, Ai gonna go into law enforcement, so I might as well try ai for the best and the best of, you know, the FBI.
Speaker: 1
01:34
And so how does that lead to you infiltrating the mob?
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01:41
Well, you know, I didn’t I didn’t infiltrate the mob right from the get go. You know? It, Look, I grew up in, in Paterson, New Jersey. I grew up in an old Italian neighborhood, new wise guys, went to this high school with sons of wise guys. And when you’re in a neighborhood, you know you know you know who the wise guys are.
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02:03
You hang out at the your they meh you hang out at the the social clubs because, you know, you’re a neighborhood kid. They know it. So I knew the streets. Sai So when I went into the FBI, I was, you know, I was street smart, basically, Joe. That’s what it comes down to.
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02:21
You know? And my first assignments were bank robberies, fugitives, gambling cases. And, I arya, doing some, little undercover work, on gambling cases because back then, the FBI was big into into gambling, interstate gambling cases.
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02:45
So what was your first undercover work?
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02:47
First was, infiltrating a gambling house in, Jacksonville, Florida. Actually, that’s where ai first office.
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02:56
What kind of gambling were they doing? Craps.
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03:00
I had a regular casino going. And, you know, I felt comfortable around that stuff because I grew up with that stuff. You know, I grew up, ai I sai, in the neighborhood, crap games, card games. It wasn’t wasn’t anything new to me. And being around gangsters was not, like, intimidating because I was around gangsters growing up.
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03:23
Sai, I didn’t have any problem, you know, getting into these games, and identifying the major players, and who was running them, and that’s basically what it was.
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03:38
So when when you do this, did you have to testify in court with these guys?
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03:43
Yeah. Later on after the case goes down. But most of these guys plead guilty, so you never go to ai. Oh. Because, you know, it it it it wasn’t where they were facing, you know, fifteen, twenty years. You know? They might get a a year or two years and then, you know, get some time knocked off their sentences.
Speaker: 0
04:03
So most of it, they plead and sai you never have to appear in a court.
Speaker: 1
04:09
So but was there an issue with you being discovered and then getting found out and worrying about your safety afterwards?
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04:18
Well, not too much with these cases. No. Not too much with those cases. And then I I worked a lot of stolen arya, buying, you know, ai stolen art, buying stocks and bonds, swag, stuff like that.
Speaker: 1
04:32
So for how many years did you do stuff like that before you started being undercover in the mob?
Speaker: 0
04:38
Let’s see. Probably, four or five years. Yeah. Yeah.
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04:46
So you slowly sorta got acclimated with being undercover. You do a bunch of cases. And then how do they approach you?
Speaker: 0
04:53
Well, what happened was is that, I’m working out in New York, the New York office of the Ai, and there’s a there’s a big case in, in Tampa, Florida. They have a case going on ai that were, stealing, automobiles, high priced automobiles. In other words, you go to them and you say, hey. I want a Cadillac. Okay.
Speaker: 0
05:22
What color you want? Ai. What model you want? And then they’d they’d go out and hook it. So they had, they grabbed one of the guys, and they they flipped him. And, they grabbed his sana, And, they said, hey. Look.
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05:42
You know, you help us, and we’ll we’ll cut your son a break. He said, okay. So ai said, look. We wanna put an undercover agent in with this crew. They operated all up and down the East Coast ram Baltimore all the way down to Florida.
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06:03
And, the guy that was running it was what we call a half assed wise guy out of out of Baltimore. So he says, alright. So he introduced me to this guy and, as a car thief. But before, he introduced me, I said, look, I gotta know how to steal cars. So he gave me about a week’s lesson on how to steal cars, how to hook cars.
Speaker: 1
06:31
The hot ai this is like what year was this?
Speaker: 0
06:34
This was in ’19 let’s see. 1970, maybe ’73, ’74.
Speaker: 1
06:44
So you essentially just pop in the ignition, ai?
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06:47
Pop in the ignition.
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06:49
Crossing ai.
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06:50
Crossing ai, and some cars had alarm systems, taught me how to get under the car, disarm the alarm system, how to use a Sai Jim to get in the door, and then how to how to pop the ignition. And once I learned, you know, I figured I ai do that, then he introduced me, and I got in with this crew.
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07:13
There was a crew about he was running, like, five or six guys. And, I did that for a year and a half. Stole cars, stole the tractor trailers. I knew how to drive I knew how to drive tractor trailers because I did that in college. During the summertime, I drove a tractor trailer, during the summer.
Speaker: 1
07:37
So you take the cars, load them on a tractor trailer?
Speaker: 0
07:39
No. We just stole the cars, and I bring them to you. Oh, okay. But, I mean, we we tyler, rigs too
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07:45
Oh, I see.
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07:46
Because we were dealing with companies too. Got it. You know, these guys that, own some some trucking companies that
Speaker: 1
07:53
You you so you have to trust this ai, though, to get you inside. Right? You have to trust this guy to not fuck this up and say, hey. This is a car thief.
Speaker: 0
08:02
Exactly.
Speaker: 2
08:03
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08:25
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08:48
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09:16
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Speaker: 1
09:32
That’s gotta be hair raising.
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09:33
Well, it is because, you know, the guy’s an informant and
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09:36
And he’s already in trouble.
Speaker: 0
09:37
He’s in trouble, but he wasn’t his basic reason for for getting me in was he wanted to get his son out of trouble. Mhmm. So, you know, we we had a bunch of short hairs there that, hey. You know, if this goes good, your son is free. We’re gonna we’re gonna we’re gonna cut your son free. So that’s what happened.
Speaker: 0
09:59
So I did that for a year and a half, and Ai get back to New York. We we they make the arrest. Ai went to trial in that case, but that case was in, in Florida. And, a funny story on that case is, if you wanna hear it, it’s right. We we had, Ai hooked one hooked a Mercedes and delivered it to this guy and, go to his house and he wasn’t home, but his wife was there.
Speaker: 0
10:34
So I said, hey, you know, deliver this car for your husband. And she says, oh, okay. Ai give her the keys and because he had already paid and so me and the other ai, we leave. Fast forward now to court. I’m going I’m sitting in the outside the court getting ready to testify, and there’s this lady. She looked familiar.
Speaker: 0
10:59
It was two two ladies, and, so, she walks up to me. She says, aren’t you Donnie? I said, yeah. She said, you delivered a car to my house. Right?
Speaker: 0
11:19
I said, yeah. She said, well, you know, my husband’s on trial now. I said, yeah. I know. I’m going in to testify.
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11:26
She says, after he goes to jail, you wanna go to dinner?
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11:33
Dirty lady.
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11:34
I said, no. Thanks.
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11:37
She might poison you.
Speaker: 0
11:39
Yeah. So I get back to New York, and I had a real great supervisor up there. Was she hot? I can’t meh, Joe. It’s sai long ago. I would’ve remembered that part. If she was, I would’ve remembered. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
11:54
You probably ai remembered.
Speaker: 0
11:56
So, I get back to New York, and I had a real good supervisor, named Guy Baratta. He was an Italian guy ram, from the Bronx, good street agent, and he was a supervisor to the truck hijacking squad. And back in the day, they were ai, and all these hijackings were orchestrated by the mob, the mafia.
Speaker: 0
12:18
And, they were probably doing, you know, eight to 10 hijackings a day, which was big time money because they were pharmaceuticals, high value food items like lobsters, coffee. You know, you’re talking about the 40 something foot trailers, so you’re talking a lot of money. But they were all run by the mob.
Speaker: 0
12:44
So he I get back to New York. I get to New York, and he says, hey. I’m thinking about doing this undercover operation, seeing if, you know, we can get something going with these these truck hijackers. So the idea was, you know, nobody had ever infiltrated the meh before. You know, actually, the mafia mafia had had some informants in in with them, but nobody had actually gotten in.
Speaker: 0
13:14
So the idea was, let’s let’s try to hit the fences. Fences are the, you know, the guys that Sell the goods. Sell the the swag and sell the goods. So, you know, you need to have a profession. I mean, nobody’s gonna do anything with you without a profession, and there has to be one that’s attractive to them.
Speaker: 0
13:38
And plus in the government, you’re if you’re gonna go undercover, your profession can’t be one of violence. So who’s not violent? Jewel thief. Sai I figure, okay, I’ll go in as a jewel thief. Well, if you’re sana go in as a jewel thief, what do you have to know?
Speaker: 0
13:57
You gotta know diamonds and precious gems. Right? Alright. So I went to I went to school. I went to ai school, Diamond and Precious Ram School.
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14:09
Oh, so you have to be able to identify
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14:11
Yeah. I mean use
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14:12
a lens.
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14:13
Well, that’s how you’re gonna get that’s how you’re gonna get caught. Right?
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14:16
Right. Right. Right.
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14:17
Is if you meh in a conversation, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
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14:20
Right. Right. How long is the school for?
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14:22
I went, I think, for a couple months until I got, you know, where I was comfortable. Now take it another step further. If you’re a jewel thief, what else do I have to know? You gotta know how to get in places.
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14:35
Right. So Pick locks.
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14:37
I had to learn how to pick locks. Ai? What else you gotta know?
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14:42
Crack safes.
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14:43
You gotta know about safes. Yeah. You gotta know about alarm systems. Sai I had my guys when I say my guys, our guys, you know, our tech guys school me on lockpicking, different types of safes, and alarm systems. So all that took a few months before I felt comfortable. You know? And then, I went out, and on this operation, we didn’t do anything with contacts.
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15:15
In other words, everything I did, I did under Donnie Brasco. I was I rented an apartment. I bought a arya, utilities, you know, phones, everything. Everything as a as a citizen, in quotes, Donnie Brasco.
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15:38
They meh you a Social Security number and the whole deal?
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15:40
Social Security, everything. But, you know, I don’t sana get into how they do that, but, you know, nothing could be at that time, they they couldn’t they they couldn’t uncover anything. So once I got my apartment, I bought a car. I had all that set up. And, again, you have to know the mafia.
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16:05
You have to know New York City. You don’t just walk into a a place, you know, and say, hey. You know, I’m a jewel thief.
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16:14
Right.
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16:16
Doesn’t work that way. You gotta you gotta get seen. You gotta be around. Sai I moved out of my residence. Of course, my family wasn’t wasn’t in in New York anyway, but I had to move into my apartment. And we had certain bars and restaurants that we knew these fences and wise guys hung out in.
Speaker: 0
16:44
And the idea was just go in, get my face seen, and hopefully get into conversation with somebody.
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16:51
How do you go and get your face seen? You just show up by yourself?
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16:54
Just show up.
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16:56
Is that suspicious, though? A guy shows up by himself, not from the neighborhood?
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17:00
No. Well, that’s the thing. See because I couldn’t say, hey. I’m from Brooklyn. Right. I’m from Manhattan. I’m from The Bronx because these guys have the contacts everywhere.
Speaker: 1
17:09
Right.
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17:09
So it was up to me if I got into conversation with anybody. My story was and then again, you have to you have to you have to know your enemy. Okay? And the enemy was the mafia, so you have to know about the mafia. You have to know if you do get into conversation with these guys and they’re they’re trying to check you out, what’s your backstory? Where arya you from?
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17:37
My background was Sai was an orphan. Okay? And I moved between Florida and California. Why an orphan? Because then I wouldn’t have to produce a mother and a father.
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17:54
Because again, if I was lucky enough to get in, they’d say, well, where are your parents at? Right. Ai couldn’t have any siblings that I knew of.
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18:05
Right.
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18:06
I couldn’t have been meh, so I couldn’t have an ex wife or anything because I would have had to produce somebody. Right. So my backstory was I was an orphan. To back it up, we found an orphanage that had burnt down, and all the records were destroyed, so they couldn’t they couldn’t check that.
Speaker: 0
18:31
I mean, these are all things that that if you’re gonna send somebody into an undercover operation that is deep cover and meh, I had no informant bringing me in. This was a it had to be a cold entree. So I hung around, maybe five, six months. That’s all I did. And that’s another thing too.
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18:54
It’s a seven day a week job because if they see you Monday to Friday and then they don’t see you Saturday and Sunday, where the hell are you Saturday and Sunday?
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19:03
Right.
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19:04
So it’s seven days a week. It was seven days a week.
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19:07
Did you have a family at the time?
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19:09
I did. Yeah. But they they lived they lived across country at the time.
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19:13
That ought to be crazy difficult for them.
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19:16
Very difficult. It was. It was. Yeah.
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19:21
Sai So you just kinda just hang around restaurants, bars.
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19:25
Yeah. And my only conversation with anybody was is what I’ll have to drink and what I’ll have to eat. And I’m not a drinker. I never was a drinker. So, and, you know, for young undercovers, you don’t have to be a drinker, and you don’t have to do shit that, you know, that you think gangsters do.
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19:46
My my extent of drinking was, and it still is, is a half a bottle of beer and maybe a glass of red wine. That’s it. And I never I never went outside those boundaries because that’s that’s that’s me. I didn’t do it. Right.
Speaker: 0
20:05
So I used to go to this one place, and, actually, this place wasn’t too far from my my apartment up in Yorkville. And ai guys would come in there, I don’t remember if it was Wednesdays or Thursdays, I ai meh, with their girlfriends for dinner. And, I always would sit at the bar, you know, never talk to the bartender other than what do you sana? What do you want to eat?
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20:37
What do you want to drink? So one ai, I go in there and and, the wise guys are there, one of the girlfriends, but there’s one guy missing. But the the girl that he was always with was there. So I’m at the bar, and, I guess she gets up. She goes to the ladies’ room.
Speaker: 0
21:03
She comes by, and shah says hello. And I just said hello. Now, again, knowing your enemy, know how they operate. So the first thing I do is I call a bartender over. Right?
Speaker: 0
21:16
Now I know his name, but I don’t call him by his name because I was never introduced to him. So I just said, sir, would you you know, I said, I want to go on record. That’s a mob term. I want to go on record. I didn’t ask that young lady to stop and say hello, and he just nods and that’s it. Well, fast forward, this happens, like, three or four different times.
Speaker: 0
21:41
And, they’re in there. She’s in there. He’s not there. About the fourth time, the same thing. You know? She would come over, and and I would call him over.
Speaker: 0
21:55
So ai, he says, hey. He said, if you wanna talk to her, go ahead. Her boyfriend went bye bye. He didn’t go to Disneyland, Joe.
Speaker: 1
22:05
Right. He got whacked.
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22:06
They whacked him. So I said, no. I don’t have any Ai don’t have any, any interest. So now what does this guy know? He knows that I’m a street guy. Ai? So he, now he comes over to me, and now we start talking. Ai? Talking about baseball, talking about how screwed up New York City is at the time. And, finally, he says, hey. My name is Charlie. Ai said, my name is Donnie.
Speaker: 0
22:38
Now that’s another thing. These guys don’t introduce themselves like normal people. You know? Like, hey. My name is Joe Bryden, or, hey. My name is Donnie Brasco.
Speaker: 0
22:48
It’s nickname or first name. So that’s another notch with him that this kid knows something. So a couple, couple of weeks maybe go ai, and then one night he says, hey. You like to gamble? I said, sure. Why not?
Speaker: 0
23:05
He said, when I bang up here, I’m gonna go to a I’m gonna go to an all night game. Sai you wanna come? I said, yeah. So we close-up the joint with him and takes me to a game. And, obviously, it’s run by the wise guys. You know? They got a whole casino set up.
Speaker: 0
23:29
And, doesn’t introduce me to anybody, but, I’m okay because I’m with him. Ai? So now this is a couple more weeks maybe. So now I I figured now and he don’t ask me what I do, and I don’t say anything about jewelry. So but now I figured now I gotta try to set set the hook. So I come in one night, and I got a packet of diamonds. Alright?
Speaker: 0
24:03
So I put them on a bar, and I say, hey, Charlie. I need x amount of money for this envelope. I don’t tell him what’s in it. I just sai I need x amount of money. But I give him a street price where he can make him you know, make money himself.
Speaker: 0
24:20
So he he he takes it, says okay, puts it under the bar. Couple weeks go ai. I don’t ask him about it. He don’t ask meh, but, you know, we’re I’m still hanging around with him. She comes in one night, puts an envelope on the bar, and he said, Donnie, somebody left this for you. I said, okay.
Speaker: 0
24:42
Ai put it in my sport coat pocket, get back to my apartment, and there’s the money in it. Ai? So now what does he know? He knows I’m a I’m a thief because I’m giving him diamonds. I’m not asking him at prices for Tiffany prices. Right?
Speaker: 0
25:02
Now we get to the the the game, and he entered you know, he introduces me as Don De Jeweler. So he introduces me to this Columbo guy. Guy’s name was Jilly. So, Jilly said, hey. You know, Don, where are you from?
Speaker: 0
25:22
I said, well, you know, I hung around in hung around Summit, Florida, hung around, you know, California. I said, you know, just just move around a lot. He said, well, why don’t you come out to my place? I’m out in Brooklyn. Ai said, yeah. Okay.
Speaker: 0
25:45
So I go out there, and I go out to his club, and he has a a store, you know, all swag. And sai he was at the Columbo’s. So I start hanging out there with the Columbus, and I got in with him. I got in with his crew, did some stuff with them, you know, because you gotta do something.
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26:10
Otherwise
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26:11
Right.
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26:11
If you ain’t producing if you ain’t producing, you ain’t worth it. You know?
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26:14
Like, what kind of what’s the first thing you have to do with them?
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26:17
Well, they had, they did they did some hijacking and, you know, unloaded some trucks for them and different things. Sai that went on with the with the Colombos, and I was getting I was getting good information with these guys. That went on for a couple months. And ai, I get to the club one day, and, there’s two guys there that I didn’t know. So he introducing introduces them to me as Frankie and Patsy.
Speaker: 0
26:54
He said, Donnie, you know, Frankie, Patsy. Okay. As it turns out, they just got out of the can. They were part of Jilly’s crew. One of the guys was a main guy. Main guy ai a guy that’s been officially inducted in into a particular mafia family. And these guys were with the Columbus.
Speaker: 0
27:16
One I think Patsy was a made guy and Frankie Frankie was an associate. Ai? But they just got out of the can. So they’re looking to set up scores because, you know, they’ve been away for a few years. So Julie tells them, you know, hey.
Speaker: 0
27:36
Donnie’s, you know, Donnie’s a good thief, and he knows he knows he knows alarms. He knows locks. He knows safes. So they had a couple scores lined up. So we go out, case this place, and I tell them, hey. I I can’t bypass that alarm.
Speaker: 0
27:57
Because, you know, if you say you can do everything, nobody can do everything no matter how good you are. So I said, no. I said, I can’t defeat that alarm. Okay. Few few days later, they got another one set up, and, it’s a safe. We go then.
Speaker: 0
28:18
I said, you gotta blow this safe. You know? You’ll you’ll wake up the whole neighborhood. You know? Okay. So now this this pisses them off.
Speaker: 0
28:30
So a couple days later, I get to the club, and, Julie, she sai, Donnie, let’s let’s take a walk and talk. I said, okay. So we walk and we’re talking. That’s what a walk and talk is. You’re walking on the street and you’re talking because they don’t think it you know, they don’t think the FBI or anybody can hear you.
Speaker: 0
28:52
I said, what’s the matter, Jilly? He said, well he said, you know, I told I told Frankie, and and Vatsal what, you know, what a great thief you are, and he’s and they’re pissed off because, you know, Patsy’s pissed off because you turned down you turned down the the two scores.
Speaker: 0
29:11
I said, well, what do you want me to tell you, Jillian? I couldn’t bypass the alarm. Ai honest with you, and I don’t wanna blow a safe that, you know, you gotta blow blow blow. So he said, well, they wanna have a sit down. I said, okay. So we go back in a club, and then they have a backroom. And so we go in a backroom, sit down.
Speaker: 0
29:34
They lock the door, and Patsy puts pulls out a pulls out a 38, lays it on the table, and said, Donnie, if you don’t convince me that, you’re as good a thief as Jill is sai you are, the only way you’re going out of this room is rolled up in that rug. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. So it’s crazy what goes through your head. So I look at the rug. I said to myself, I hope it’s fucking Persian.
Speaker: 0
30:05
If I’m gonna go out of here, I might as well go out in the $50,000 rug. So we’re in there and and, where you ram, Donnie? Now, you know, in these situations, you wanna be on the offense. You don’t wanna be on the defense, but I can’t really disrespect him because he’s a made guy.
Speaker: 0
30:27
And, you know, if you know anything about the mob, you you can’t disrespect the made guy in front of other people. So I said, hey. Look. You know? I’m an orphan. I’m not from here. Ai traveled the country. You know? Well, tell us some people that you stole with.
Speaker: 0
30:47
I said, no disrespect, but I’m not giving you any names of people that I stole with. I said, why would I do that? Why would I give up anybody that I that I did scores with? Right? So this goes on and on and on. After about four hours, finally, Julie says, hey.
Speaker: 0
31:10
Downey’s been with us for for months now. We know what he can do. It’s over. It’s over. Ai said, okay. Now I got a problem.
Speaker: 0
31:23
The problem is they just called me out. So in their world, I can’t go shake their hand because it’s ai and Donnie pissed off. Ai? My only recourse here is is some kind of physical recourse, but I can’t do I can’t do anything to Patsy because he’s the made guy. I can’t touch him, and that’s that’s one of the rules of the mafia. You don’t lay your hands on a made guy. It’ll get you killed.
Speaker: 0
31:58
It’ll get you killed. So the only Ai can hit is Frankie. He’s not a bad guy. So we get up, start to walk out, and I call cock Frankie. Oh, Jesus. But that’s the only thing that that’s gonna save me because ai, it’s why isn’t Donnie pissed off?
Speaker: 1
32:26
Right. So now Ai Was Frankie questioning you too?
Speaker: 0
32:30
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But he’s not a made guy.
Speaker: 1
32:33
Right.
Speaker: 0
32:33
So he’s fair game.
Speaker: 1
32:35
Boy.
Speaker: 0
32:36
So I hit him. He goes down. Now Patsy’s jumping ai meh, and he’s he’s punching the hell out, but I can’t
Speaker: 1
32:44
Can’t hit him back.
Speaker: 0
32:44
I can’t hit him back. I can just protect myself. But I figured, well, you hit me once. I hit Frankie twice. So it went on. So then ai, they broke it up. But now I know I can’t stay around here. I can’t stay with these guys because, you know, you can’t get into an altercation with meh ai and Yeah. And have it come out.
Speaker: 0
33:12
So after tyler we’re everything’s settled down, I’d say to Jilly, Jilly, let’s take a walk and talk. So we do. We get outside. I said, Gilly, look, no disrespect to you, you know. I said, but I can’t I can’t come around here anymore. I said, because you know how it’s gonna end.
Speaker: 0
33:33
He sai, yeah, Donnie. I realize that. He said, but, you know, no real feelings between you and me. Ai said, okay. So at the at the card game, I I was introduced to a Bonanno guy by the name of Tony Mirra.
Speaker: 0
33:53
I had never done anything with him, but I was introduced to him. So I go back, I go back with Charlie, you know, to the card games, and, I start signing up to to this Mirror, who is a complete psycho case, a complete fucking psycho case, which I find out later on. He’s a big brolly ai, and he says, you know, why don’t you come downtown? I said, yeah. Okay.
Speaker: 0
34:28
So he was from Little Italy, and that’s where he hung out. He had a bus stop luncheonette down at Little Italy, but he was psycho. So I started hanging out with him at my first Bonanno guide that that brings me around. So we’re out one night, and, he was shaking down nightclubs.
Speaker: 0
34:57
And, I was helping him. When I say helping, I was with him, you know, shah down owners and, at sai nightclubs and stuff. Sai, it’s about three or four in the morning one morning, and we go to a diner for breakfast. And the eggs come out cold. So he starts berating the waitress. And there’s a you know, we were we were with other wise guys and stuff.
Speaker: 0
35:30
So I said, Tony, I said, you know, I ai, she’s only doing her job. I said, why are you taking it out on her? You know? She’s here 04:00 in the morning waitressing. So he tore the shit out of me. He tore into me in front of everybody.
Speaker: 0
35:48
But I really can’t go back at him. But I have to let him know that, you know, I’m not I’m not a pushover. You you know? So the next day now this guy, ai I as I had gotten to know him, Ai I had seen him in action. And so the next day, I I told him, I said, Tony, nobody else is around, so it’s it’s my word out of his.
Speaker: 0
36:16
I said, don’t ever talk to me like that again in front of people. I said, because I’ll fucking stab you. I said, you won’t even know it’s coming. I said, don’t ever embarrass me like that and call me those names in front of other people. And he was like, sai, but he introduced me to kept introducing me to, other Bonannos, and then he introduced
Speaker: 1
36:43
me. After that?
Speaker: 0
36:44
Ai. After that. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
36:45
So after that, did you get his respect by saying meh sai them?
Speaker: 2
36:48
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Speaker: 2
37:08
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Speaker: 2
37:33
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Speaker: 2
37:57
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Speaker: 0
38:17
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because he knew that, you know, he knew that I I wasn’t bullshitting him. I mean, you know, he just beat me down in front of other people. I mean, not Physically. Not physically, but, you know, just calling meh. You go you know? And, because I was standing up for this waitress, but that was that was him.
Speaker: 0
38:37
So he introduces me to a guy by the name of, Lefty Reggierio, another made guy in the Bonannos from, downtown, Knickerbocker Village. They all lived in Knickerbocker Village. And he introduces me to Lefty. So now Mira had just gotten out of the can. Now they send him back. Ai? So he goes back to the can.
Speaker: 0
39:02
He’s a big he was a a big moneymaker for the Bananos and Dope. He was a big narcotics guy for the Bananos. But he had violated his parole, so they sent him back. So I started hanging out with Reggio. And what Mira never did and what Vergiero did is, his captain was a guy by the name of Mike Sabella.
Speaker: 0
39:33
And once I got once Rogerio got to know me a little better, he brings me to Mike Sabella, who’s the captain of the crew. And, he he said to Mike, I’m going on record that Donnie’s with meh. And that’s what you do. When you’re a made guy, you have an associate, you go to your captain, and you you go on record. So now nobody else could could fuck with you.
Speaker: 0
40:03
Nobody else could take you. Mirror never did that even though I I spent a lot of time with Mirror. He never went to his captain and said, I’m going on record that Donnie’s with me. So I get to know I get to know Rugerio pretty good, start doing stuff with
Speaker: 1
40:23
So all told, how much time are you undercover now?
Speaker: 0
40:26
Now this is probably, going over a year.
Speaker: 1
40:37
Wow.
Speaker: 0
40:38
Yeah. Over a year now. Yeah. Yeah. Now are
Speaker: 1
40:40
you reporting to anybody during this time? Do you have to go back to the FBI?
Speaker: 0
40:44
Never. Once I stepped out of the office, I never went back to the office. I had I had what you have is a contact agent, Joe, and that’s somebody that you if you have a problem, you call him, and he helps you solve it.
Speaker: 1
40:57
So you’re totally on your own?
Speaker: 0
40:58
You’re on your own. Wow. I had no surveillance because, you know, you’re in New York City. Right. You’re working seven days a week. You know, my day would go from maybe 11:00 in the morning to maybe three, 04:00 the next morning, seven days a week. So, you know, your only lifeline is is the phone to this to your contact agent. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker: 0
41:27
And, so I’m doing a lot of stuff like that with with and I’m I’m gaining all kind of intelligence, though, you know, ai made guys, identifying guys and other families that are made.
Speaker: 1
41:42
Are you writing this stuff down? Do you just keep it all in your head?
Speaker: 0
41:45
No. In your head. And what I do is I I would regurgitate it over the telephone to my contact guy, and he would reduce it, to paper. Yeah. Because, like, you know, these guys would come to my apartment. I I couldn’t take the shot of you know? And I I didn’t wear a wire with these guys.
Speaker: 0
42:07
You know? Very seldom did I have a wire on. Most of my recordings, are on the telephone. I wore a wire a couple ai when I knew I was gonna get a contract to to kill people, and when I I had the feeling, that I was gonna be told about hits, and what I do is I had a mini mini cassette recorder that I bought at, what’s that radio
Speaker: 1
42:39
Radio Shah.
Speaker: 0
42:39
Radio Shack. Oh, wow. You know? And I just put it in ai, I just put it in my, Sportcom ai. You
Speaker: 1
42:47
gotta be really worried about getting caught with that.
Speaker: 0
42:49
Yeah. But vatsal least they’re you know, nobody’s tapping in, you know, because if once you get in with these guys, when you meh them for the day, they all hug each other, and they kiss each other on both cheeks. You know? If they kiss you on the lips, then you’re done. You know that that’s the last fucking day you’re gonna be there.
Speaker: 0
43:09
Sai, yeah, so I didn’t make Sai I didn’t make many body recordings because you’re always and they’re they’re very touchy feely guys. You know? Right. I mean, when I was I was with Mirror one ai, and, we he said, hey. Pull over, Donnie.
Speaker: 0
43:32
I pull over, and he tears my he tears my, ai car, the dashboard apart. Now if you saw the movie, that was they had Lefty do that, but that was in the real life, that was Tony Meh. Ai meh, you know, so I couldn’t have my car wired.
Speaker: 1
43:54
Right. Is he suspecting you or suspecting somebody else when he’s tearing your dash apart?
Speaker: 0
44:00
Well, it’s it’s well, I’m new. You know? Right. Right. You know, nobody could go to anybody and say that they knew some that that they knew Donnie.
Speaker: 1
44:09
Right.
Speaker: 0
44:09
You know? So that’s how they that’s how they, check you out, you know, because they had no other way of checking me out, really. Ai I, you know, hang out with Rogerio, doing stuff with him. And, now we come to a point where I’m really in with with the Bonannos. I mean, they’re they’re starting to talk they would talk business with me there, you know, and they felt comfortable with me because, again, reverting back to my my early years growing up, you know, hanging out in in at the at the social clubs in the neighborhood, you know, I knew that if you don’t have any interest in in a conversation, walk away from it.
Speaker: 0
45:04
And that’s what I did with these guys is if they arya to talk about something, I would get up and walk away because it puts in their mind, you know, Donnie’s not really interested in you know what I’m saying? It’s not he doesn’t sana get into our real business. Sai that made them trust me more.
Speaker: 0
45:33
That made them trust You
Speaker: 1
45:34
knew the protocol.
Speaker: 0
45:35
Yeah. I knew you’re right. I knew the protocol. Exactly. So now what happens, is that the FBI Ai had an operation going in Milwaukee, undercover operation against the Milwaukee family. Right? The Balestrieri family who’s connected to Chicago. Now this will give you this will give you a little hint how the mob works. So they’re not really good not really going anywhere. Alright?
Speaker: 0
46:10
They had a vending machine company set up. And, the undercover was a undercover, actually, that I knew, which is because I had a I have a I had a rule. If I didn’t know you, I don’t care if you’re an FBI agent or not. I’m not introducing you. I’m not vouching for you because I don’t know if you’re any fucking good or not.
Speaker: 1
46:34
Right.
Speaker: 0
46:34
You know? So they reach out to me, and they say, hey. We got an operation going in Milwaukee. Yeah. And, this is what it is. We got a vending machine company. We got we got trucks. We got, we got a warehouse. We got machines, but we’re not getting anywhere. You know?
Speaker: 0
46:58
The undercover, who’s the undercover? Ty Cobb. That was his yeah. That that was the agent’s real name. Is is, I said, Tyler the undercover? Ai said, yeah.
Speaker: 0
47:14
I said, okay. Now you can now I’ll listen to you because I know Ai and I had done undercover work in Chicago, together. I said, okay. So I’m talking. You know? I said, well, tell Ty to call me. I wanna talk to Ty. So he said he tyler me what what’s going on.
Speaker: 0
47:38
He said, you know, I’m going to all these bars and restaurants, and they won’t take my machines because the mob had it’s all the mob’s machines. I said, alright. So I said, well, what’s the plan? Well, maybe you can bring the Bonannos out here, and we can get a sit down with the Balestreres.
Speaker: 0
48:00
I said, well, let me let me see. So Sai went with Jario one day, and Ai just, I dropped a hey, left. You know, I got a call the other day from a guy that I that I used to steal artwork with down in Baltimore, and he’s out in, Milwaukee. He said, what the fuck is he doing in Milwaukee? I says, he’s got a vending machine company, and he wants me to come out and help him.
Speaker: 0
48:32
He says, is he crazy? He said, they’ll blow him up out there. He says, he can’t do a vending machine business out there. That’s the mob. I said, well, he doesn’t know he he doesn’t know anything about the sana. And we drop it. Couple days later, I sai, hey, let this guy call me again.
Speaker: 0
48:54
He he needs help. He said, Donnie, what do you what do you think? He said, you can’t just go out there. And then he looks at me, says, this guy got any money? I said, I don’t know. Let me ask him.
Speaker: 0
49:10
I said, I’ll call him tonight and find out if he’s got any money. So I called Ai. He was going by he was going by the name of Tony. And I said, hey, Tony. He said I said, lefty wants to know if you got any money. He said, alright.
Speaker: 0
49:34
He said, tell him I got 200,000 in the bank, and, you know, I got I got a a warehouse full of machines. I got everything set up. I said, okay. So I go back to the left. I said, left.
Speaker: 0
49:48
He’s got he’s told me he’s got 200,000 in the bank, and he’s got this big warehouse set up. He says, alright. He said, let me talk to Mike. Now Mike Sabelo’s the captain. Right? So Mike said, alright. He said, you and Lefty go out there.
Speaker: 0
50:06
Just sit down with him and make sure that he has what he says he has. Don’t tell anybody you’re going. I said, okay. So the first thing is call Tony and tell him to send us airplane tickets because, you know, wise guys are they’re not spending their own money. So the bureau, you know, Tony puts gets his two, plane tickets. Me and Lefty fly out there.
Speaker: 0
50:34
And, he takes us to the warehouse, and he’s you know, they got a they got the whole operation going on. And, left. He said, okay. So we go back to report back to Ai. And he said, okay. He says, now here’s the story. Tony’s been with the Bonannos for ten years.
Speaker: 0
50:57
He’s been one he’s been an associate of ours for ten years because that’s what he has to tell Chicago and Milwaukee. Because if they just say, Donnie just met this guy, they’re gonna say, Well, he’s not with you. You didn’t claim him, so we’ll take the whole business. Right.
Speaker: 0
51:20
So here’s the way it works. Now we go to our consigliere, the consigliere of the Bananos. Ai? Guy by ai name of Bobby Badheart. You know why they called him Bobby Badheart? Because he had a bad heart. Bad heart. Easy. Right?
Speaker: 0
51:40
So he goes, and, Bobby Badheart now has to call Chicago, right, and tyler Chicago that, hey. We got a guy that’s been with us for ten years. He’s settled now in Milwaukee. He’s been in Milwaukee for a couple years, and he wants to go into the business, and he has machines and everything.
Speaker: 0
52:09
And we’d like to have a sit down with Balestrieri, the boss of Milwaukee. Okay. Chicago now calls Balestrier’s consigliere and relates the whole story to him. So now we gotta wait and see if he wants to have the sit down. A week or so goes ai. Chicago calls back and said, okay.
Speaker: 0
52:38
He’ll sit he’ll have him meet with you guys. Who’s coming out? It’ll be Lefty Ruggiero and Donnie Brasco. Now Lefty’s a made ai, so, you know, sai they say, okay. Come on out. Check into this hotel and wait for a phone call.
Speaker: 0
53:02
Ai meh and Lefty fly out, check into this hotel, and we wait about three or four days. Just hanging around the hotel. We can’t go anywhere because we we can’t miss the phone call. So we get the phone call. He says, okay. Come to Snugs restaurant.
Speaker: 0
53:28
Such and such a day, such such a time. It’s it’s Balestrieri’s restaurant. He owns a hotel, and it’s a restaurant in his hotel. So me, Lefty, and Tony, yeah, they’re undercover. We go there.
Speaker: 0
53:45
And now if you know the mob joke, you you don’t get to sit down with a boss unless you’re another boss. You know what I mean? Guys made guys shah are just made guys in other families don’t get to sit down with a boss. So now who’s there is is Balestrieri the boss, his underboss, his consigliere, and his two sons who are both lawyers. Right? So we have a big spread.
Speaker: 0
54:22
We’re in ai why do you wanna be here? Well, you know, Tony’s been with us. This now Lefty’s doing all the talking because he’s the main guy. Tony’s been with us for ten years. You know?
Speaker: 0
54:37
Him and him and Donnie, they did a lot of arya theft together and stuff, and they’ve all they’ve both been with us. And Tony Tony thought he, you know, he could get the he can get the, business going with with the machines and stuff. So after this whole dinner, probably about five or six hours, he said, okay. We’ll get back to you. Alright?
Speaker: 0
55:14
So a couple days later, they called, why don’t you have dinner at my house? Ai fucking boss is inviting us to dinner at his house. It doesn’t happen if you know the the world of the mafia. Gives us the address, me, Lefty, and Tony. And Lefty’s like, you you you gotta know wise guys.
Speaker: 0
55:42
Right? Lefty’s like, we’re going to the dinner at a mob boss’s house at his house. He’s like you know? I mean, we know it’s a big deal, but to a wise guy, it’s a big fucking deal too. So we go to his house, and he’s right on the lake.
Speaker: 0
56:05
He has a big big table, you know, like you see in the movies and got the maids, serving us. And he said, okay. He said, we’ll go in partners. We’ll be fifty fifty partners. Tony does all the work. You know? We’ll tell you where to go to to put your machines in. They’ll take your machines.
Speaker: 0
56:34
So now what do we just do? We just meh two mafia families together, Bonannos and the Bellastreres through Chicago at first, marrying two mafia families to do business together. Ai? Ai left to go back to New York, everything’s going good. Tony’s meeting with the sana because that’s who they said you meet me with my sons. Alright?
Speaker: 0
57:04
After a few months, nothing. They stopped meeting with them. Don’t know why. They won’t take his calls. Nothing.
Speaker: 0
57:19
So I tell I said, lefty, they they don’t they’re not responding. What do you mean they’re not responding? I said, they’re not taking these calls anymore. He said, well, what do you do? Try to, you know I said, Tony I said, lefty. This guy’s not like that.
Speaker: 0
57:45
Make a long story short, Tony had been a cop in the city outside of Milwaukee after he got out of the marine corps before he went into the bureau. And somehow they found out there was a leak somewhere. But they don’t they don’t tell we find this out later that this is how they they don’t tell this to Lefty, which saved my ass because I I vouch for Tony.
Speaker: 1
58:21
Right.
Speaker: 0
58:22
Right? So we’re trying to get in touch with Chicago. Chicago’s not you know, Chicago’s sai we don’t know why they why they stopped. You know, we don’t have any idea. So that goes now that’s I got that hanging on me. Right? Yeah. So left Lefty sends me to to Milwaukee.
Speaker: 0
58:54
Go, you know, go find out go search for this guy and blah blah blah blah. And, you know, I come up with a story, left, you know. I found this car. It’s in the parking lot. I mean, it’s in the parking lot of the airport. Then when I went back, it was gone.
Speaker: 0
59:18
So I go and I they said that the cops towed it. You know? And it’s all bullshit, of course, but I gotta cover, you know, what happened to this guy. So now we gotta go tell Mike Zabel, our captain, because, you know, our money source dried up. So we go sit down with Mike.
Speaker: 0
59:42
This is hard to believe, but and he’s ripping. Right? You know, my punishment was
Speaker: 1
59:54
What?
Speaker: 0
59:55
I couldn’t go to the Christmas party.
Speaker: 1
59:58
That’s it?
Speaker: 0
59:59
That’s it. Ai mean, he was he was ripped, but he banned me from the Christmas party.
Speaker: 1
01:00:07
Because you introduced him to the cop.
Speaker: 0
01:00:10
Well, he he didn’t know he was a cop because
Speaker: 1
01:00:12
Right.
Speaker: 0
01:00:13
Because, you know, the operation just shut down and sai the the money stopped wasn’t coming in anymore.
Speaker: 1
01:00:19
Right. And they don’t tell you why?
Speaker: 0
01:00:21
No. No. So I said, well, if that’s the best that could happen, I don’t go to the Christmas party. You know, because each crew has a you know, they have their own party and shit. You know? So I’m saying to myself, my god. This is this is what I’m saying.
Speaker: 1
01:00:37
Speak you at all? No. No. How how do they not suspect you? How do they not question you?
Speaker: 0
01:00:43
Well, I had been with them so many I have been with them now, you know, Joe, over two years now.
Speaker: 1
01:00:49
Right.
Speaker: 0
01:00:49
And, you know, sai, but I’m always on edge because I I don’t know ai aren’t the balustraries telling Ruggerio Right. Unless they’re too embarrassed. You know what I mean?
Speaker: 1
01:01:05
Right. I
Speaker: 0
01:01:06
don’t I don’t know.
Speaker: 1
01:01:07
To this day.
Speaker: 0
01:01:08
Well, I mean, after we found out that yeah. Meh. To this day, I have no idea why they didn’t tell him.
Speaker: 1
01:01:15
And whatever happened to Tony?
Speaker: 0
01:01:18
Oh, we just shut the operation down. Uh-huh. They just shut it down. You know? So I’m I’m going on again. We’re going on a nice cup. You want it?
Speaker: 1
01:01:33
You can have it?
Speaker: 0
01:01:33
No. Thank you. I got some swag coming for you. Alright. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I
Speaker: 1
01:01:38
got swag too. You got one of ai, Jerry, because
Speaker: 0
01:01:40
I mean, I I got a lot of Donnie Brasco swag that I’m gonna mail to you.
Speaker: 1
01:01:44
Alright.
Speaker: 0
01:01:45
Cool. It was supposed to be at the hotel. It it never made it.
Speaker: 1
01:01:49
So But this has to be hair raising.
Speaker: 0
01:01:51
It is. Because now I’m like and and Lefty sai, you know, now he’s he’s grilling me again about my relationship with with Tony.
Speaker: 1
01:02:01
Right.
Speaker: 0
01:02:01
Yeah. And but I gotta stick to the story. You know? Right. Sai, so I I I kinda squared things squared things around with him and because Ai you know, and Ai. So now what happens is that, at the time, Bryden Galante was the boss of the Bananos. Alright? And, they killed Galante. They whack him. Ai?
Speaker: 0
01:02:39
Because there’s there’s kind of a beef within the family, and and, one side didn’t like Galente, so they they whack him. Mike Cibello now was associated with Galente. So they tell Mike, Mike, either step down or we’re gonna we’re gonna whack you too. So he gives up his captainship and just becomes a regular soldier again. Right?
Speaker: 0
01:03:08
So one of the originators when I say originators, instigators, whatever, is a guy by the name of Sonny Black Napolitano. He was out in Brooklyn. So they put me in remember, we were with Mike Cibella. So they put me and Lefty now with under Sonny Black. They make Sonny Black, becomes a captain.
Speaker: 0
01:03:40
They put me and Lefty under Sonny Black out in Brooklyn. So that’s who we report to every day. And what you you know, you have to you have to check-in with your captain every day. So every day, me and Lefty would report out that, the motion lounge, it’s on Ram And Withers Street in Brooklyn because he’s he Sonny’s our new captain.
Speaker: 0
01:04:07
Sai, and and again, you know, the the intelligence information I’m gathering is like no other than anybody else can get because, you know, informants arya gonna give you all this stuff. And I’m I’m meeting different people again. I’m meeting people from different families through these guys.
Speaker: 0
01:04:35
So I’m rocking out there in in, in Brooklyn under Sonny Black, and I get another call. And one of the headquarters wants to talk to you about what? Well, we got another cover operation going in Tampa, Florida. Yeah. And we wanna see if you can bring your bananas in. I says, hey. Wait a minute.
Speaker: 0
01:05:11
Wait a minute. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Ai just went through this in Milwaukee. Well, supervisor wants to talk to you. I knew the supervisor. Ai a good guy.
Speaker: 0
01:05:27
So I called him. I said, Tony, what’s up? He said, we got a ai, and, it’s pretty, you know, it’s pretty good, but we can’t get into Santo Trafficante. And maybe, you know, maybe you can do the same thing you did in Milwaukee. I said, I don’t know, man.
Speaker: 0
01:05:54
I said, if I do it, number one, who’s the undercovers? Because they had two undercovers running a nightclub. And they said, well, one of them is, an agent by name is Sai Meh, Steve. I said, okay. I said, he’s I know Steve.
Speaker: 0
01:06:18
I did undercover work with him too. I said, I got no problem with Speak, and they gave me the other guy. And the other guy, I knew, but I didn’t I never worked with him. I said, but as long as Steve is is involved, I’ll see what I can do. But I don’t know how long it’s gonna take, so you gotta just let me think about this. Alright?
Speaker: 0
01:06:42
Because I don’t wanna come up you know I’m not coming up with a story. Hey. I I got a call from a guy that I used to fucking team with.
Speaker: 1
01:06:50
Right. Right. Right.
Speaker: 0
01:06:52
So I figure, okay. After a ai, I okay. Here’s what we’ll do. We used to go to Miami a lot. When I say we, I’m talking about me, lefty, the wise guys. We’d fly to Miami for a long weekend. We had a hotel down there that put us on down the arya. Right? Give us the sweets and stuff and stay for the weekend. So I says, okay.
Speaker: 0
01:07:23
Here’s what we’ll do. The next time we go to Miami, right, you guys go down there, and, we’re we’ll whenever we go to a restaurant, I’ll let you know what restaurant we’re gonna go to. And you guys just happen to be in a restaurant, and you you, Steve Meh, who was going by Chico.
Speaker: 0
01:07:53
I said, Chico just happens to notice me and comes over to the table. Hey, Donnie. How you been? So it’s like a bump. Right?
Speaker: 0
01:08:03
It’s not like
Speaker: 1
01:08:03
Right. Right. Right.
Speaker: 0
01:08:06
So that’s what we did. So we’re out at this restaurant, and, we set that deal up. And Chico comes over, and, Donnie, hey. I haven’t seen you in years. How you doing? Good. What are you doing down here? Well, we got a nightclub. You got a nightclub where? It’s, outside of Tampa up in Tampa, Florida. No kidding.
Speaker: 0
01:08:30
How long you been down there? I don’t know. Three, four years. You know? What are you doing? And I think it’s a nice club.
Speaker: 0
01:08:39
Why don’t you just come by? Now that you know, again, you’re talking about a nightclub and you know? So everything is is dollar signs. So I said, left. Do you wanna take a ride up one day? He said, yeah. So when they leave, he says, you know these guys? I said, well, I know Chico.
Speaker: 0
01:09:01
I said, I don’t know the other guy. I said, but you know what? Chico, he’s he was a good he was a good thief, you know? I sai, I haven’t seen him in a while. I haven’t seen him in, like, maybe five years, but he’s always was, you know, he’s always a good thief.
Speaker: 0
01:09:19
Sai, I said, alright. You should just take a ride up. So we take a ride up, and it’s a nice nice nightclub. It’s on, like, five acres. They got tennis courts. We hang out. Lot of lot of business. You know?
Speaker: 0
01:09:36
It was open from, Ai don’t know, 09:00 to all it was one of, you know, open all night. So he said, ai place. He said, we have to tell Sonny about it when we go back to when we go back to Brooklyn. Okay. So we go back to Brooklyn and tell Sonny about it. Now, you know, now I’m, like, in my fourth year with these guys. Wow.
Speaker: 0
01:10:12
Sai, meh go back to Brooklyn and, tell Sonny left it here. Hey. We ran into one of Donnie’s old friends. Boy, they got a nice club there. Oh, yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:10:26
Well, maybe we’ll go down and see it. So we go down and they see a lot of potential, But now we they can’t operate anything illegal because Santo Trafficante owns Florida. Sai now we gotta go through the same routine.
Speaker: 1
01:10:50
Ai?
Speaker: 0
01:10:53
The consigliere has to call Traficante’s guy and say, hey. We got you know, one of our guys has a club down there who hasn’t been with us for you know, that Chico has been had had to be with the again for five, six years. Excuse me. So we go through that same routine. And, finally, you know, that this takes a while. It’s not like overnight.
Speaker: 0
01:11:29
So we go through the routine, and he sai, okay. His guy says, alright. Santo will meet you at at such and such a hotel on such such a day. Get to meet another fucking boss of Florida. Me and Sonny meet him. We actually oh, no.
Speaker: 0
01:11:56
The first time we met him was at at a restaurant in, ai outside of Tampa, that Speak fishing village. Ai drawn a blank. But at any rate, we meet him in a restaurant, and, actually, it was Pappas’s Restaurant. That was the name of it. And, Sonny had never met him before, but, you know, he go through all the niceties.
Speaker: 0
01:12:25
And, Sonny tells him, you know, we got a nightclub, and we wanna start running gambling out of it. You know? So he said, okay. I’ll I’ll meet you. I’ll come up and look at it. I’ll meet you. So I I don’t know if we met him the next week or the next couple weeks.
Speaker: 0
01:12:46
We meet him again. Now this time, it’s in a hotel room. He comes to Sonny’s hotel room and, sets everything up. Right? Forms the marriage.
Speaker: 0
01:12:59
Again, shah this is the second time we meh two fucking mafia families together. So he he said, alright. You wanna do a casino night? Yeah. He said, I’m gonna send my two guys up. Okay. Couple days later, two guys come up from Miami. Card Sharks.
Speaker: 0
01:13:28
I sat in a hotel with these room guys, Joe, and they were marking all the decks of cards. I could not after they get done, I had no idea how they mark these cards. They were for blackjack and stuff. Right? We had craps tables.
Speaker: 0
01:13:57
The dice were dice were fixed. I mean, it was like everything was you know? So we set the club up, and, we’re advertising, casino night for the veterans of foreign war. We even had a certificate and everything. Right?
Speaker: 0
01:14:19
We’re paying off somebody in the sheriff’s department to protect us. Well, we got the the game going and, doing pretty good. Doing pretty good. And, the place is jammed. So what happens is that, all of a sudden, there’s a knock on the door. One of the doormen ai.
Speaker: 0
01:14:54
He comes to me and said, Donnie, there’s a bunch of sheriff’s deputies outside. Woah. So right away, I get on the phone. I can’t get I can’t get our contact in the sheriff’s department. He’s not answering his phone. And then we had just paid him that day. Ai.
Speaker: 0
01:15:14
So I said, alright. Clear all the money off the table. So we get all the money off the tables and put chips back on the tables. Sai said, alright. Let them in because we had the we had the certificate. We had everything.
Speaker: 0
01:15:34
And what we had done was every so often, we collect the money, and we stash it in the furnace room. Ai? There was a lot of money stashed. What we had was an old time one armed bandit. Right? The thing had to be a 100 years old. Nobody ever put money in it. It was just there.
Speaker: 0
01:15:59
So they they come in, and they they they don’t see any money. One of the one of the deputies puts it, Ai don’t know, nickel and dime, pulls a handle. And What do you think happens? He fucking wins. You’re running a gambling operation. Sai nobody’s ever played that thing. Right? Well, they wrecked the joint. They wrecked it. We all get arrested.
Speaker: 1
01:16:27
Why did he why did he get arrested? Because it I don’t understand.
Speaker: 0
01:16:30
It was a gambling charge. Right. They arrest us.
Speaker: 1
01:16:33
Oh, because but why? Because of the one armed bandit.
Speaker: 0
01:16:37
Because it that that they won, and they said that that’s that was gambling. Oh. That was gambling. Nobody even knew there was any money in it or anything. It was just there as decoration.
Speaker: 1
01:16:49
Oh, boy.
Speaker: 0
01:16:50
You know, it was it was an antique.
Speaker: 1
01:16:54
So they just use it as an excuse?
Speaker: 0
01:16:55
Yeah. Just use it as an excuse because we were the we were the the mafia guineas from ram New York.
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01:17:03
Right.
Speaker: 0
01:17:03
That’s what we were. Right? So they throw us in a can. And
Speaker: 1
01:17:09
Just for the one armed bandit? Yeah. They never find the money?
Speaker: 0
01:17:13
We didn’t, but somebody did. Oh, boy. Somebody did.
Speaker: 1
01:17:17
How much money?
Speaker: 0
01:17:21
It was over $30 that that I know that was stashed.
Speaker: 1
01:17:26
So they swiped that?
Speaker: 0
01:17:27
Oh, I don’t know. Somebody did.
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01:17:29
Probably.
Speaker: 0
01:17:29
Somebody did.
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01:17:30
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:17:32
So we had Trafficante’s lawyer. When he gave us sai I don’t know who it was. So we called the lawyer, and he gets us out of the can the next day. And now now I’m in another fucking bind because now we got busted. And we did you know, we were paying the guy off.
Speaker: 1
01:17:55
And what happened to the guy you paid off?
Speaker: 0
01:17:58
He committed suicide later on. Oh, how convenient. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:18:03
Did he really commit suicide?
Speaker: 0
01:18:04
He did. Really? Because, when, he got a subpoena.
Speaker: 1
01:18:09
Oh, he knew they were coming for him. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:18:11
Yeah. Yeah.
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01:18:12
Boy.
Speaker: 0
01:18:14
So that, that kind of, screwed that thing up. And, but, you know, Sai you know, Sonny knew that, that we were paying the guy off and everything. So, you know, it would just
Speaker: 1
01:18:31
Hazards of doing business.
Speaker: 0
01:18:32
Hazards of doing business as a as a mob. You know? But when we got back to the club, like I say, the the statue was gone with the money. Somebody took it. And so we go back to New York. And, again now, there’s another beef in the in the Bonanno family. Because after they whack Valente, they make, Rusty Rustelli the boss of the family, but Rusty’s in a can. He’s in a can.
Speaker: 0
01:19:01
So Sonny Black is is running a family along with, another capo. And then there’s sai Sicilian faction of the Bonanno family, and they’re running their they’re running their faction. Alright? Now there’s a faction of three capos that are against Rusty Rustelli, and they’re against Sonny in the other capos. So now there’s more friction in the Bananos.
Speaker: 0
01:19:33
So, in order to solve this, they call a sit down. Sonny Black, the ai on his sai, the capo’s on his side, call a sit down for the other the other three capos to straighten this out. Well, the the deal is when these other three capitals get to the sit down, they’re gonna whack them.
Speaker: 1
01:20:03
Oh, yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:20:03
They’re gonna whack them. So I was supposed to be in on that, but they cut they cut me out at the last minute. I was supposed to be in on a hit, but they cut me out the last minute. And then they I was supposed to be on the cleanup crew, but they cut me out at the, you know, at the at the last minute.
Speaker: 1
01:20:28
Ai they cut you out?
Speaker: 0
01:20:29
I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. Because I wasn’t told until after. You know?
Speaker: 1
01:20:34
Right.
Speaker: 0
01:20:36
So they whack these three ai. And, the next day, Sonny calls me into the club. And he he said, Bruno never showed up. That was the fourth guy that would, one of the capos in Dela Canto. His son was supposed to come, and he he didn’t show. So he gave me the contract to kill him. So we said, we think he’s in Florida.
Speaker: 0
01:21:03
So he sends me to Florida to look for him, but he wasn’t he wasn’t down there. And the deal was that if I did find him, I’d call the FBI, and they would snatch him, and we’d stage a hit. Or if they found him, you know, we do the reverse. They’d they’d stage a hit, but we we never found him.
Speaker: 0
01:21:25
So now all this time, I never carried a gun. I never carried a gun in this whole operation. Really? Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:21:35
Was that unusual?
Speaker: 0
01:21:37
No. Because these guys don’t carry guns on a daily basis, the meh you know, mafia guys.
Speaker: 1
01:21:42
They don’t?
Speaker: 0
01:21:43
No. No. Because they’re always getting rousted by the cops.
Speaker: 1
01:21:46
Got it. Ai.
Speaker: 0
01:21:47
The only time they carry a piece is when they’re gonna go go do some work.
Speaker: 1
01:21:51
Right.
Speaker: 0
01:21:51
You know?
Speaker: 1
01:21:54
Sai Did you see guys get killed?
Speaker: 0
01:21:57
No. I don’t believe you. So
Speaker: 1
01:22:04
That was the sneakiest no I’ve ever heard in my life.
Speaker: 0
01:22:07
So we we, let’s move on.
Speaker: 1
01:22:12
We Yeah. Let’s move on.
Speaker: 0
01:22:13
We, you just made me lose my train of thought, Joe.
Speaker: 1
01:22:18
Sorry. Sorry.
Speaker: 0
01:22:20
No. So, we’re in a club. So I get the contract for Bruno, but, obviously, I can’t find him. Bureau can’t find him.
Speaker: 1
01:22:29
Did anybody ever find him?
Speaker: 0
01:22:31
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what happens is we’re in a club one day in the Motion Lounge, and Sonny gets a phone call, and he says, hey, Donnie. He said, we think Bruno’s at such such a place. And, but it was it wasn’t it was bad info. It was bad info. So I was asked, well, what would you do if he was there? I said, I hate to say it, but Bruno probably was a dead man.
Speaker: 0
01:23:07
And, well, how could you say that? Well, because when you’re given a contract, it’s your responsibility that ai gets killed. And if you refuse the contract you get killed. You you’re gonna you’re gonna get whacked.
Speaker: 1
01:23:25
So would you have had to do it Well,
Speaker: 0
01:23:27
if if
Speaker: 1
01:23:28
you found it?
Speaker: 0
01:23:29
I could’ve gave it to some told one of the other guys to do it, but it’s my responsibility. Right. You know? And my whole you know, that’s He’s gonna
Speaker: 1
01:23:52
get whacked
Speaker: 0
01:23:52
either way.
Speaker: 1
01:23:52
He’s gonna He’s gonna get whacked either way.
Speaker: 0
01:23:55
He’s gonna go either way.
Speaker: 1
01:23:57
Right.
Speaker: 0
01:23:57
You know? So I’ll take my shot with the government. You know? It’s it’s, you know, it’s not the it’s not, you know, a lot of people can’t deal with that. But I get it. You know? Sai It’s the job. That’s the job. You know, I mean, look. I’m there to put you in jail. I’m there I’m not there to to get you killed.
Speaker: 0
01:24:21
I’m not there to kill you. I’m there to arrest you and and try to, you know, hopefully, send you to jail. But I’m not gonna die for you.
Speaker: 1
01:24:31
Right. I’m
Speaker: 0
01:24:33
not putting you know?
Speaker: 1
01:24:34
So it’s a situation where your back is against the wall.
Speaker: 0
01:24:36
Yeah. Exactly. Got it. So, but I but, you know, that that didn’t
Speaker: 1
01:24:41
happen. Did they ever find him?
Speaker: 0
01:24:43
Yeah. Yeah. They found him they found him actually I don’t know if it was a year or so later. I’m I’m not too sure. But, yeah, he he he eventually got arrested. Yeah. He was a coke. You know, he used coke. Sai, Sloppy. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:25:00
So now, you know, now with the war going on, the bureau decides that, we gotta we gotta shut the operation down. Sai those hits took place on May 5. So and prior to that, I had a sit down with Sonny Black. And he said, Donnie, he said, the books on the the books on the mafia are opening up in in December.
Speaker: 0
01:25:30
He said, and I already proposed you for membership into the Bonanno family. So you’re gonna you’re gonna get inducted into the family in December. He sai, so I congratulate him, thanked him, kissed him on both cheeks. You know?
Speaker: 1
01:25:50
So you were gonna be a made guy?
Speaker: 0
01:25:51
Yeah. I was gonna be a made guy.
Speaker: 1
01:25:52
Yeah. How attractive is that life when you’re in it?
Speaker: 0
01:25:56
Oh, forget it. Must be so much fun. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:26:00
Part of the problem. Right?
Speaker: 0
01:26:02
So no. Waking up every day to think it’s today the day I go to jail or today Ai get whacked? No. I I didn’t, Joe, I didn’t find it that fucking attractive. Believe me. I mean, it’s alright they flash, they cash. You know? You walk into a restaurant.
Speaker: 0
01:26:22
They know who you are. You know, you get the you get the
Speaker: 1
01:26:26
VIP treatment.
Speaker: 0
01:26:27
You get the VIP treatment. You don’t order off the menu. You know? Yeah. You
Speaker: 1
01:26:33
know, I can So there’s speak.
Speaker: 0
01:26:35
There’s those perks, but,
Speaker: 1
01:26:36
you know Too scary.
Speaker: 0
01:26:37
I didn’t wanna wake up every day saying, do I go to jail, or do I get whacked today? Right. That’s that’s their mindset. Right. It’s crazy.
Speaker: 1
01:26:44
It is crazy. It’s crazy. But I’ve talked to guys in that life, and they love it.
Speaker: 0
01:26:48
Yeah. Well
Speaker: 1
01:26:49
That’s what’s crazy about it.
Speaker: 0
01:26:50
Yeah. Yeah. They I I know guys that became informants, and, you know, they wish they could go back. I see. Yeah. You know? No. I I I I wouldn’t sana you know?
Speaker: 1
01:27:08
But that is a problem with guys who do undercover work. Right?
Speaker: 0
01:27:11
Yeah. Some of them some of them fall in love with it. It. Yeah. They fall in love with the undercover aspect. And I think I think the reason that that I was successful in all my cases and that I’m still 98 sane is I didn’t fall in love with it, and I grew up on the streets.
Speaker: 0
01:27:36
You know what I’m saying?
Speaker: 1
01:27:38
Right. Right.
Speaker: 0
01:27:38
I mean, Ai grew up in that environment, and I was never attracted to it as a kid. Right. You know? Right.
Speaker: 1
01:27:48
Did you ever run the risk of running into someone that you knew who knew you as Joe Pistone?
Speaker: 0
01:27:54
Yeah. Did you see the movie?
Speaker: 1
01:27:56
I did, but I don’t remember.
Speaker: 0
01:27:57
In the airport Oh, that’s right. With the lawyer. Oh, that’s right. Yeah. Yeah. That’s
Speaker: 1
01:28:03
what’s ai really happened.
Speaker: 0
01:28:04
Yeah. Meh.
Speaker: 1
01:28:04
How did that go down?
Speaker: 0
01:28:07
Well, I saw you know, we saw made eye contact, and, you know, I just clocked him. Oh, wow. And Sonny says, Donnie, why’d you do that? I said, Sonny, you guys are looking at my prick. What do you want me to do? You know? But, no, I never got attracted to to the life other than as a job.
Speaker: 0
01:28:30
And I and and I think another reason too, Joe, where a lot of undercovers go wrong is they think they have to act like gangsters. They change their personalities. Right. And you can’t be a in the daytime and b at night.
Speaker: 1
01:28:54
Right.
Speaker: 0
01:28:55
I never changed my personality.
Speaker: 1
01:28:57
Right.
Speaker: 0
01:28:57
You know? And and a lot of undercovers are extroverts, and I’m the exception to that rule when I’m really an introvert.
Speaker: 1
01:29:10
Sai you didn’t need the attention.
Speaker: 0
01:29:11
I didn’t need the attention. You didn’t
Speaker: 1
01:29:13
ai on it.
Speaker: 0
01:29:15
Ai don’t you know? And I never changed my my my values. Like I like I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a drinker. I never was a drinker. I worked in bars as a bartender, you know, during during my college years when I got out. And I wasn’t gonna become a drinker just because I just because I was working undercover. You know?
Speaker: 0
01:29:43
I mean, I had guys say, Donnie, you never finish your beer because I can’t. I only can drink half a bottle of beer. That’s all I can drink. Probably lucky. Probably. Yeah. Or, you know, you never have more than one glass of wine. That’s all I that’s all I can ingest is one glass.
Speaker: 0
01:30:05
And sai, too many undercover stink. Oh, all all bad guys arya drinkers, all bad you know? Donnie, you ever I never do drugs.
Speaker: 1
01:30:14
The Coke is a real problem with guys who go undercover. Right? Yeah. Because they have to do it with everyone.
Speaker: 0
01:30:20
Well, you know
Speaker: 1
01:30:20
Or they think they
Speaker: 0
01:30:21
do. They think they do. I mean, I was in the in a nightclub in Miami, and a guy offers me Coke, and I slapped his hand. You know, fucking Coke is all over the place. And I said, don’t ever offer me that shit. I said, I make money off of that. I don’t put that stuff in my body. I go to the gym every day. Why would I why would I do that shit?
Speaker: 0
01:30:45
I sai, to me, it’s a moneymaker. Sai, but too many young undercovers think, oh, you know, I gotta drink.
Speaker: 1
01:30:54
Right.
Speaker: 0
01:30:55
You know, I gotta do this. I gotta do that. I gotta act tough. Right. You you don’t have to. All you do is you have to be yourself. That’s all.
Speaker: 1
01:31:07
That way you don’t have to ever change it up.
Speaker: 0
01:31:10
That’s exactly right. You never have to change You
Speaker: 1
01:31:12
never get caught.
Speaker: 0
01:31:12
You never get caught. Sana you don’t have to act tough. You don’t have to talk tough. You just gotta back up what you sai, And that’s it. Never say anything that you can’t back up. And that was always my motto. You know? I never promised anything that I couldn’t do. Ai never let anybody back me against the wall. You know? And I never got into anybody’s face to make myself look tough. Right. You know?
Speaker: 0
01:31:45
I mean and that’s where a lot of younger undercovers go wrong that they they think, you know, they watch too much television. I’m going to be honest be honest with you. The only time I the only time I I screwed up, I Ai I tell you, We’re in Miami. Ai? And, I’m in another undercover’s car. So it might have been it might have been Chico’s. I Ai don’t remember.
Speaker: 0
01:32:20
So there’s the three bad guys, you know, and he had his car wired up. So we’re riding by, and and and it’s a strip club. And it said twenty twenty two naked dancing girls. And I said 44 nipples. That’s all I said.
Speaker: 0
01:32:58
Well, that came out at trial by the defense attorney, and I had to explain why I was such an expert on female nipples.
Speaker: 1
01:33:14
That’s just simple math.
Speaker: 0
01:33:17
But what I’m saying is, you know
Speaker: 1
01:33:22
So somebody remembered you saying that?
Speaker: 0
01:33:23
Well, it was on the tape.
Speaker: 1
01:33:24
On the tape.
Speaker: 0
01:33:25
On the tape. Right.
Speaker: 1
01:33:26
So they were trying to use that against you?
Speaker: 0
01:33:28
Yeah. That was, you know, my it was my character was, you know, was questioned. But, you know, it goes back to what I say is is that I would not normally say that. Right. You know what I mean?
Speaker: 1
01:33:44
Right. Right. Right. Right.
Speaker: 0
01:33:46
It was just a dumb statement, but it it’s always gonna come back to bite you in the ass.
Speaker: 1
01:33:50
Right. Right. Right.
Speaker: 0
01:33:51
I gotcha. Sai
Speaker: 1
01:33:53
Yeah. You just got caught up in it.
Speaker: 0
01:33:54
Yeah. Yeah. Sai What happened when they opened up the books? Well, they closed the case down. So Ai got them to I got him to to postpone it to July because we had one more meeting with Tropicana set up. So I I got him to postpone it until after that meeting, but I couldn’t get him to to wait until after I got inducted into the into the family.
Speaker: 0
01:34:20
They wouldn’t wait. Wow. So they they closed the operation July 27. Yeah. Yeah. And six years undercover, seven years of testifying. Wow.
Speaker: 0
01:34:35
But I was lucky enough that, after that case, I did I did undercover work overseas. I did undercover work for Scotland Yard. Oh, really? Yeah. What’d you do over there? I have one case. And so, they had two Scotland Yard detectives who I knew.
Speaker: 0
01:34:57
I I did a lot of work with their undercover unit. And so they were into, the Chinese triads, and there’s stuff I can’t disclose, but they they were, they were manufacturing credit cards. And I won’t I won’t say which which companies. And you can bang them out for, like, 50,000 before before they were discovered because they had they had the numbers.
Speaker: 0
01:35:30
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:35:30
I knew a guy did that.
Speaker: 0
01:35:31
Yeah. They had the legit numbers.
Speaker: 1
01:35:33
Yeah. That’s back when they had, like, the carbons. Right?
Speaker: 0
01:35:36
Yeah. So Scott garbage. Scotland Yard was was trying to get to to the location in another country, right, where they were actually everything was going down. So they were meeting with the number two triad in London. So they said, hey. Look. Our guy from New York, mafia guy from New York who’s the money meh, wants us to have a sit down with you. He says, okay.
Speaker: 0
01:36:10
So I fly over to Bryden, and I knew this guy in New York guy’s gonna had done other stuff with them. So they introduced me to the ai of the serious crime squad. He was the guy that was running running this case. So I would break his chops. You know?
Speaker: 0
01:36:35
You can’t they don’t carry guns or anything. You know? Even the undercovers don’t they don’t they don’t carry guns. So I, I’m sitting down with them, and I sai, they, I said, you know, I got my gun, but I didn’t bring any bullets. You got any bullets?
Speaker: 0
01:36:52
The guy goes ape shit. You can’t count. I said, calm down. I’m just breaking your chops. Ai?
Speaker: 0
01:36:59
So then he says to me, what are you wearing to this meeting? I said, I’m wearing slacks, sport coat, and a shirt. He said, no. No. You gotta wear a suit. I said, why do I have to wear a suit? He said, because all these triad guys wear suits all the time.
Speaker: 0
01:37:19
I said, what’s that got to do with me? He said, no. No. You gotta wear a suit. I said, well, I don’t have a suit.
Speaker: 0
01:37:26
I said, I’m telling arya, I got slacks, a sport coat, dress shirts, and that’s what I’m wearing. So he turns the he turns at the the undercover guy from Scotland Yard, and he turns around, opens his safe, pulls out money, sai, go buy him a suit. I said, you’re going to buy me a suit? He said, yeah. I said, what do I do with the suit when I’m done with it?
Speaker: 0
01:37:55
He said, you keep it. I said, alright. So me and Graham, we go I buy two suits, one for me and one for Graham. Right? So we go to the meeting, and I’m wearing his suit. So it’s me, the two Scotland guard guy on the cover ai, and the triad.
Speaker: 0
01:38:19
So now he before we go to the meeting, the ai telling me, look. You can’t insult this guy. You gotta be nice to him because he’s a number two guy. So I says, hey. Look. I said, I don’t tell you how to run your serious ai squad.
Speaker: 0
01:38:35
Don’t tell me how to work undercover. I says, whatever you need, I’ll get. I said, but don’t tell me how to do it. So he’s all nervous. So we’re in in a resort. They they they rented a a suite big suite in a resort, and they’re next door.
Speaker: 0
01:39:00
So they they got the suite where we are. They they got it wired audio video. Right? So we go in, and we’re sitting there, and we get through all the niceties with the with the triad. So the guy keeps fucking interrupting me.
Speaker: 0
01:39:20
So ai, he says, hey, Chin. I said, why do your sentences always start in the fucking middle of mine?
Speaker: 1
01:39:31
Will you?
Speaker: 0
01:39:32
And he looks at meh. And you can hear it. There’s dead silence. Right? Then he says, oh, mister Joe. I was going by Joe Moreno at the time. He said, oh, mister Joe, I apologize. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Graham tells me, he says, when you said that, he thought the supervisor was gonna have a heart attack.
Speaker: 0
01:39:57
He sai, he just blew it. He just blew it. It it’s over. After that, the guy gave us everything, the location of of the factory, the the whole Maguilla.
Speaker: 1
01:40:12
Do you feel like you had to do that to have his respect?
Speaker: 0
01:40:14
Of course. I mean, I’m a mob guy. What do I know about the triads? Right. You know what I mean? Right. So if I woulda let him kept stepping on me Right.
Speaker: 1
01:40:23
He’s gonna out of character.
Speaker: 0
01:40:25
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:40:25
Right.
Speaker: 0
01:40:26
You know? So yeah. That ought to be fucking scary. Yeah. Well, the triads are you know?
Speaker: 1
01:40:31
They’re scary.
Speaker: 0
01:40:32
Yeah. They are. They are. And he he was the number two. And I give these guys credit. I mean, he got to the number two guy, but they couldn’t get you know? Right. So but What a life. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:40:45
How do you stay calm in these situations?
Speaker: 0
01:40:50
I me, Joe, Ai just stay who I am. You know, I get that Sicilian in meh. And, you know, you you go at it when you have to. And if you if you don’t, you
Speaker: 1
01:41:08
know? If you don’t, it probably seems off.
Speaker: 0
01:41:12
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So But that’s gotta be just fucking nerve wracking. I you know, it is. Because you you what’s nerve wracking is you always have to be on. Right. You know? Yeah. You can never be off.
Speaker: 1
01:41:30
You never relax.
Speaker: 0
01:41:31
No. I mean and Ai mean, not many guys could say that they had sit downs with two mafia bosses of different families. Right? I used to stay at Sonny Black’s apartment with him in in Brooklyn, and and this guy was running the Bonanno family. He was one of the top capitals in the Bonanno family.
Speaker: 0
01:41:58
But the Sonny, I don’t know how many hits he had on now all these guys I dealt with, don’t forget, all these guys had hits under the belt. These weren’t these weren’t novice guys. I mean, they all had, you know, five, six, ten, fifteen hits under their belt. Mhmm. You know?
Speaker: 0
01:42:17
I mean, I got into a fight one time in a bar with Tony Mirra. I mean, me and him against three guys. And, I mean, he grabbed a beer bottle, bryden on the broken on the the bar, and just, boom, raked the guy’s face. You know? Now there’s another guy.
Speaker: 0
01:42:43
You know? I I always brings up the young undercovers is that this was probably the the meanest guy I ever fucking met. I mean, flat out mean. You know, these other guys were mean, you know, because they they killed people. But Ai mean, he was just a mean guy.
Speaker: 0
01:43:02
The other guys the other gangsters didn’t like him. I never saw him I never saw him overindulge in any in any liquor. Never. Never. And and he would stab you as soon as he looked at you.
Speaker: 0
01:43:21
And after that incident, I told you when I I had to go around with him, I always made sure I was an arya length away from him.
Speaker: 1
01:43:31
What was his name?
Speaker: 0
01:43:32
Tony Mirror.
Speaker: 1
01:43:33
Oh, okay. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:43:34
That was him. Now after it was over and they found out who I was, they killed Mirror. His own nephew killed him, actually
Speaker: 1
01:43:42
Wow.
Speaker: 0
01:43:42
Because he introduced me to all the sana. Wow. Yeah. Lefty was on his way to get killed, but the the FBI picked it up on the ai. So they snatched him you know, surveillance team snatched him off the street. They killed Sonny Black. Sonny Black got killed. Yeah. He got killed.
Speaker: 1
01:44:06
Yeah. So all the people that had let you in?
Speaker: 0
01:44:10
The yeah. Yeah. Tell you how Sonny Black got killed. You talk about a gangster. Right? When it came out that I was sai under you know, undercover in the in the beginning, the mob didn’t believe I was an under an FBI undercover agent. They thought the FBI had kidnapped me and was trying to turn me because we, you know, we picked it up on the wiretaps and informants.
Speaker: 0
01:44:38
But once, you know, once their lawyers told them, hey. He really is an undercover agent. Sai Sonny Black gets a call. You gotta come go to a sit down. So he walks into the motion lounge. He had he had a diamond ring. Takes off his diamond ring. Alright.
Speaker: 0
01:45:06
Takes his money out of his pocket, takes his all his keys except his car keys, puts them on the counter. He says to the bartender, I just got called to a sit down. Ai probably not coming back. Is that a gangster?
Speaker: 1
01:45:30
Wow.
Speaker: 0
01:45:31
Calls his calls his girlfriend. And this is how this is how we found this out, calls his girlfriend and tells her the same thing. So what happens is that, after they find his body and everything, his girlfriend calls the Ai. And she says, I like to I like to have a meeting with Donnie Brasco. And I said, why?
Speaker: 0
01:46:08
Ai said, because I got something to tell him that that, Sonny Black, she calls him Sonny. She didn’t call him Sonny Black. She said that Sonny wanted me to give him a message. They sai, okay. So they fly her down to DC, and myself and the agents, the other agents, go out to a restaurant.
Speaker: 0
01:46:37
And she said, Sonny wanted me to tell you that this is what happened. She said, this is what happened. He got called to a sit down, and he goes into the motion lounge, gives his ring, his money, his car keys to the bartender and tells the bartender, you know, Ai got called to sai down, and I’m probably not coming back.
Speaker: 0
01:47:07
And then he calls me, and he he says her name. And he said, if I don’t come back, he said, I want you to get in touch with Donnie and tell him I loved him. Woah. And he was just better than we were. I don’t hold anything against him. Wow. Is that a gangster or what?
Speaker: 1
01:47:36
That’s a guy that’s living that life.
Speaker: 0
01:47:38
Uh-huh. Wow. Is that a gangster?
Speaker: 1
01:47:41
That’s crazy. How did that make you feel?
Speaker: 0
01:47:44
Well, it it it kinda threw me for a loop. I mean, I had a good relationship with him. And like I said, I didn’t wanna see anybody get killed, you know. Even Mirror, I don’t wanna see him get killed. I mean, although I Ai might have fucking done it myself. I mean, that ai was just plain mean, ai, you know, that’s not my job.
Speaker: 0
01:48:04
My job is to gather evidence, bring you to trial, and hopefully you get convicted. Right. But, yeah, Sonny was Sonny, you know, the difference between me and Sonny, we could sit just like we’re having this conversation. He wasn’t twenty four seven gangster. You know what I mean? Yeah. We’d break chops. We’d break balls. Rejeria was twenty seven twenty fourseven gangster. I couldn’t I liked him because he was a great cook.
Speaker: 0
01:48:45
Ai he was bad. Boy, Ai tell you, Joe, he could cook. But you you always there was always something you know, he was digging for. You know? But, like, Sonny, I look. I’m staying over at at at the main capo in the family, one of the two main capos in the family’s apartment.
Speaker: 0
01:49:12
He meh up in the morning. We get Ai speak on his couch. We meh up in the morning. He’d go here’s a guy that’s running a goddamn Bonanno family. He’d go out to get coffee and hard rolls and butter and bring him back, and me and him would sit there in our shorts and watch cartoons on television.
Speaker: 0
01:49:36
Ai tell that to Ai tell that to the guys at the FBI, and they sai, no. I said, I’m telling you. This is you know? And then he had a weight bench in his in his apartment. And back in the day, I I used to lift pretty good. You know?
Speaker: 0
01:49:54
I mean, you can’t tell me now because, of course, I’m I’m old now. But, and I was I was pretty good at hand wrestling. I mean, arm wrestling. Right? And he could never beat meh. And he was built like you. I mean, he he he was built. Right?
Speaker: 0
01:50:11
He’s about your size and everything and big arms like you got, but he could never beat me in arm wrestling. And I don’t know what it was if Ai, you know so one day he says to me, Donnie, he says, I’m gonna beat you today in arm wrestling. I sai, Sonny, you’d never fucking beat me. Why today? They’re gonna beat you. Ai said, okay. So the day goes on. So then he says, alright. Let’s go. Ai?
Speaker: 0
01:50:39
We’re going on. He spits in my eye. Boom. He said, I told you Ai beat you. Ai, I mean, that’s the kind of guy he was.
Speaker: 1
01:50:55
Right.
Speaker: 0
01:50:55
You know? And I couldn’t get PO’d at him.
Speaker: 1
01:50:59
Right.
Speaker: 0
01:51:00
You know? But with with Lefty, you couldn’t you couldn’t joke around like that.
Speaker: 1
01:51:07
Right.
Speaker: 0
01:51:08
You know? I mean, he was he was he was something else, man. He he couldn’t stand he couldn’t stand air conditioning. Really? Never. We’d be in the car in Miami. The windows will be up, and he’d be smoking English ovals with no air condition.
Speaker: 1
01:51:31
Jeez.
Speaker: 0
01:51:32
And I’m dying. I’m I’m dying. I put the window down. Donnie put that window up. I put I turn he turned the air conditioner off. He couldn’t stand air conditioner. Why? I don’t know. I don’t know. He had cancer. Maybe it was I don’t know.
Speaker: 1
01:51:49
Oh, he had cancer at the time while he’s smoking with the windows rolled up?
Speaker: 0
01:51:53
Yeah. But he had been cured of that, you know, he had been cured. He had testicle cancer years before. Meh ai died of lung cancer. I mean, he used to smoke English O’s. We go in a hotel ram, and we always had a big suite. So, you know, we didn’t have different rooms. We’d have a suite with two bedrooms. Meh turned the air off. He turned the air off.
Speaker: 0
01:52:22
So, you know, you you have to do things to keep your sanity sometimes. Right? So we’re down in Ai. So I figured, son of a bitch, I’m gonna get you today. Ai? So I sai, left. I gotta go to the I gotta go to the head.
Speaker: 0
01:52:40
I’m going up to the room. I go up. I take the cover off the air conditioning. I crank it where you could hang meat in there. Right?
Speaker: 0
01:52:50
And I put the cover back on. And I I I put a thing in there sai, you know, if you move the thing back up here. We get upstairs. I mean, it was freezing. So we get in that ram. We get in that suite, and he’s like, Donnie, turn that air conditioning off.
Speaker: 0
01:53:11
So I go over there, and I said, Lyft, I don’t know if something’s wrong. I don’t know. He said, call the front desk. Get maintenance up here. So I pick up the phone, but I don’t I make believe I’m talking. I said, yeah. This is room so and sai. And our air condition is broke.
Speaker: 0
01:53:29
Could you send somebody up? But I’m not talking to anybody because I want him I want him to freeze as long as he could freeze. So after a while, did you call that? I said, left. You saw meh? Call call him again. And I do the same thing.
Speaker: 0
01:53:47
And and now he’s calling meh, Joe, every name in the book. It’s your fault. You did this. You broke it. I said, left. I need to do a thing.
Speaker: 0
01:53:56
I don’t know nothing about air conditioning. Right? So ai, after about a half an hour, I do now I call and I say, hey. Your air conditioning. So they sana somebody up, and the ai takes in. Okay. There it is.
Speaker: 0
01:54:14
But he blamed meh, but, you know, but that’s how you keep your sanity ai, you know. God. But,
Speaker: 1
01:54:23
What is it like to experience all that and then see it in a movie? Like, what is it like to see a guy like Johnny Depp play you in a movie?
Speaker: 0
01:54:33
Oh, god. What an experience that was.
Speaker: 1
01:54:35
Ai has to be so weird.
Speaker: 0
01:54:37
It was. And you know Johnny Depp? Yeah. I know him. Ai love that boy.
Speaker: 1
01:54:41
He’s a great guy.
Speaker: 0
01:54:44
I could cry. I’m telling you. I mean, what he’s done for my family. Excuse me. It’s alright.
Speaker: 1
01:55:00
He’s a sweetheart of a ai, like, genuinely. I’ve hung I’ve hung out with him a few times at the Comedy Store.
Speaker: 0
01:55:06
Yeah. Ai know. Ways.
Speaker: 1
01:55:08
Very, very nice guy.
Speaker: 0
01:55:09
I love him. He loved my wife. Yeah. He, he just flew in in January to have dinner with my whole family and my grandkids. Flew in from Speak,
Speaker: 1
01:56:02
And,
Speaker: 0
01:56:03
my wife couldn’t make the dinner. So the next day, he wouldn’t spend almost five hours with her. Yeah. And then she passed away a little while after that. Yeah. He’s a great guy.
Speaker: 1
01:56:40
He really is.
Speaker: 0
01:56:41
I mean, he’s genuine.
Speaker: 1
01:56:43
He’s genuine. Is and it’s odd. It’s odd for a movie star.
Speaker: 0
01:56:47
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:56:48
You know, I meet movie stars and I always have this wall up because I always feel like, okay, I’m just gonna talk to some bullshit person. You know what I mean? Like, I’ve met a bunch of them and they’re not really there.
Speaker: 0
01:56:59
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker: 1
01:57:00
But when you meet one and they’re really there, it’s amazing, you know. Ai, you realize, oh, they’re just human beings who are in this very unusual position.
Speaker: 0
01:57:09
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:57:10
Where they’re incredibly famous and, you know, they’re they’re famous in a very weird way. They’re famous for pretending to be other people
Speaker: 0
01:57:17
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:57:17
And acting and films. And, you know, you know them so well as, you know, a fucking pirate or whatever. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:57:24
I mean Or you. We meh in ’96 and have stayed friends up until
Speaker: 1
01:57:32
Wow.
Speaker: 0
01:57:35
Up until now. And he has stayed friends with my girls, my grandkids that he, you know, that he knew since they were you know? Yeah. And now as adults I mean, he takes he takes phone calls ram my one granddaughter.
Speaker: 1
01:58:03
Yeah. Yeah. He’s a a genuinely good guy. Before his trial was going on, I had a conversation with him for half an hour on the phone in Hawaii. I was in Hawaii Mhmm. Drinking margaritas in a lounge chair. And my friend, Doug, Doug Stanhope, calls me up. He’s like, ai, Johnny wants to talk to you.
Speaker: 1
01:58:27
And me and Johnny were on the phone for, like, a fucking half an hour. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:58:30
I used to talking. I used to keep in contact with him when he was in trial. What a crazy trial. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:58:36
But that trial showed you who he really is Yeah. Who he really is and who she really is too. Yeah. And it just shows you,
Speaker: 0
01:58:42
you know I Ai didn’t know her. You’re lucky. I tell you a funny story is that, do you know Vanessa? No. This is when excuse me. Well, I mean, I met Johnny. He was first going out with, Kate Moss, And, they all love my wife. So, then he was, one day, he calls meh, and he says, hey. I’m I’m gonna be in Joe Stone Crab. I’m gonna be in Miami.
Speaker: 0
01:59:18
He said, meet us at Joe Stone Crab. I said, okay. So me and my wife go down there, and, there’s Johnny, his father. His father’s a great guy. You know his father? No. His father’s a great guy too. Really good guy. And I had met his father during the shooting and the movie and everything. Right?
Speaker: 0
01:59:40
We hung out. So he introduces us to Vanessa. Ai? You know you know who she is. Right?
Speaker: 1
01:59:50
Who’s Vanessa?
Speaker: 0
01:59:55
Paradisi. She’s the French, singer. That’s the one who his kids are by.
Speaker: 1
01:59:59
Yes. Is that exactly right?
Speaker: 0
02:00:01
Yeah. Yeah. Sai now my wife wouldn’t when shah ate, she would not touch anything. She had to eat with a knife and fork, you know, a rather mudagon. Right? Irish. So, you know, you’re at Joe Stonecribe. What are you gonna do? You’re gonna eat you know, you’re gonna you’re gonna break. You’re gonna touch him.
Speaker: 0
02:00:23
So Vanessa says, Dang, you don’t like to she says, oh, I like them, but I don’t I don’t like to touch them. She broke all the claws, everything, took all the meat out so my wife could eat him.
Speaker: 1
02:00:47
With a fork?
Speaker: 0
02:00:48
With a fork. Ai sai, only you could do that. You know? Only you could get somebody to, you know, but
Speaker: 1
02:00:57
How long did you know him before he played you in the movie?
Speaker: 0
02:01:00
I didn’t Sai didn’t.
Speaker: 1
02:01:01
You didn’t know him at all?
Speaker: 0
02:01:02
No. I meh, I Did
Speaker: 1
02:01:03
you get to meet him before he played you? I mean
Speaker: 0
02:01:05
Oh, yeah. Yeah. We met, I guess we met maybe three or four months before we start shooting. Did you
Speaker: 1
02:01:12
wanna talk to you about the ai?
Speaker: 0
02:01:14
And Yeah. I spent time with him. And what’s amazing about him, Joe, is that he just he’s like a sponge. You know? Like, we would just go out, go to dinner, go to lunch, hang out, and the next thing you know, he’s talking like me. He has the same rhythms. Every once in a while, I clear my throat. He’s clear. He was walking. We were on set one day, and my mother happened to be on sai.
Speaker: 0
02:01:43
And Johnny’s walking away, and she’s calling me. Wow. Because
Speaker: 1
02:01:51
The way he walked.
Speaker: 0
02:01:52
The way he had that little gimp and Yeah. Ai mean, he’s he’s he’s just amazing, you know? And he he doesn’t, like, prod you about stuff. He just absorbs it. Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He’s something. But I’ve stayed in touch I’ve stayed friends with the Chrissy, his sister.
Speaker: 0
02:02:12
You know, I’ve stayed in the whole family, basically.
Speaker: 1
02:02:16
How strange was it to watch the finished product, to watch this version of your life, of your story?
Speaker: 0
02:02:24
It was. It was. Now for you and your audiences, I just sana you to know in that movie, I never slapped my wife in real life.
Speaker: 1
02:02:34
Why’d they add that in there?
Speaker: 0
02:02:36
Ask the director. Damn. Those motherfuckers. Ask the because that wasn’t in the script. Oh, Jesus Christ. Ask the director. I almost went I went bullshit
Speaker: 1
02:02:46
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
02:02:46
When I when I and, you know, it’s funny because Johnny used to pick me up every morning to go to work. Ai? And here’s the ai of guy I tell you the kind of ai. We’d stop at a bodega, and he’d run-in and get get the coffee and and hard rolls. I said, I go, no. I’ll go in. I mean I mean, you know, to get to just a regular guy. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
02:03:17
And I that that day was kinda ai wasn’t himself on a ride in, And then I saw them rehearsing that scene. I went I went Ai went ballistic, man. I went ballistic. But, you know, you’d you know, you know that the director’s the captain of that ship. You know?
Speaker: 0
02:03:36
They always have to
Speaker: 1
02:03:37
do something like that. Yeah. They always have to add some bullshit that didn’t really happen. Yeah. It drives me nuts.
Speaker: 0
02:03:43
Yep. So but what are you gonna do?
Speaker: 1
02:03:45
Yeah. So how would after the case is closed, what is life like for you? Like, how do you I mean, you had to be worried about your life.
Speaker: 0
02:03:59
Yeah. Well, what happened is once they found out the the the commission put a $500,000 contract on meh, and the New York officer of the, the FBI went to every boss and told them they better not think of, you know, trying to cash in on that. You know? Sai, I was working out of out of Washington, out of Quantico, and families moved. I think we got, like, five or six moves since then.
Speaker: 0
02:04:39
You know, you ai to back everything. Right. The bureau was good about that. But, you know, what what what’s in the back of your mind is is not the legitimate legitimate gangster. You know? It’s some cowboy that thinks, hey. You know?
Speaker: 0
02:05:01
God, I Yeah. There’s none Get
Speaker: 1
02:05:03
on their good side.
Speaker: 0
02:05:04
There’s none in Brasco. You know? If I take him out, we’re in Right. Which and I don’t think anybody was gonna pay anybody 500,000. You you think the mob is they they don’t use their old money for, you know, for squat. So Yeah. But, that’s the only thing that you worry about is, you know, some cowboy. You know?
Speaker: 1
02:05:29
How long was it before you stop worrying about that?
Speaker: 0
02:05:33
Well, you never really do. I mean, you know Even
Speaker: 1
02:05:36
to this day?
Speaker: 0
02:05:37
Yeah. Yeah. You know? Because there’s always somebody that thinks they’re, you know, they’re gonna be famous about doing something. Right. I mean, you know that.
Speaker: 1
02:05:50
Right. Right.
Speaker: 0
02:05:53
So, but it was it was more prevalent back in the, you know, back in the day. You know? As is most of my guys now are I don’t know any of them that are ai, actually. Did you keep in touch with any of those guys? No. No. No. My my whole thing in undercover, Joe, was Ai never arrested anybody that I worked against. My whole thing was Ai did the undercover.
Speaker: 0
02:06:25
You make the arrest, I’ll see him in court. I’ll see him in court. Yeah. Yeah. It would funny.
Speaker: 0
02:06:38
You know, you always sit down with the after the case is over, you sit down with the the profilers and everything, and they say, well, we think this guy will turn this guy. Not one of my guys, when I say my guys, ever became an informant. Really? Never.
Speaker: 1
02:07:01
Wow.
Speaker: 0
02:07:05
The, one of the the prosecutors in Milwaukee, he said he said, I think we should go talk to Rogerio. I said, are you fucking crazy? I said, you walk in there and mention my name, he’ll go crazy. And he said, exactly what happened. Exactly what happened. Yeah. Yeah. They he did 15.
Speaker: 0
02:07:31
He did 15. Never cracked. The only reason they let him out was, he had they found out he had I don’t know if it was gum cancer or whatever. And then he had one lung taken out, and then he had cancer in the other lung, so he had, like, three or four months to live. So he was such a pain in the ass in the for the Department of Corrections that they let him out. He died at home. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker: 0
02:08:09
But he didn’t ram. Of course, Sonny Sonny had a shot. He he said no. None of them. None of them. They tried to turn all of them. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
02:08:21
They all went to the can. They all did, like, fifteen, twenty years. Yeah. Wild. Ai is right. I mean, now.
Speaker: 0
02:08:33
Soon as they soon as they put the last click on the handcuffs, they’re all they all wanna talk. Right? Now. Yeah. Now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
02:08:44
I mean, they all they all got hits under their belt, but soon as they put those cuffs on them you know, some of the guys, they do their time, but eventually, they turned on none of those guys became snitches. What do
Speaker: 1
02:08:57
you think happened to this the culture of the mob where these guys started snitching?
Speaker: 0
02:09:03
They didn’t wanna do the time. I mean, some of them did time. Some of them did seven, eight years. You know? But then I think when they still when they kept getting beat over the head, you know, they figured what good is and you know what? The the culture of the mob has changed too. Ai found near the end, These guys didn’t to the old timers, this was ai their their life. You know?
Speaker: 0
02:09:33
They were really committed to it. It was the younger guys, it’s it’s it’s a me generation just like normal citizens. They want it now.
Speaker: 1
02:09:44
Right.
Speaker: 0
02:09:45
They don’t wanna I mean, I don’t know. Like, the old timers, they could they could cultivate politicians. They could cultivate law enforcement. These guys today, you know, they can’t cultivate politicians and judges like the old timers did, you know? And drugs drugs is a big big downfall of Meh because now the ai start some of them start using it.
Speaker: 1
02:10:15
But it’s also you can’t keep secrets anymore.
Speaker: 0
02:10:18
No. It’s only secret is when one guy’s alive.
Speaker: 1
02:10:22
Yeah. I mean, especially with cell phones Yeah. Internet.
Speaker: 0
02:10:25
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s Surveillance.
Speaker: 1
02:10:27
Surveillance is so easy now. Everything you do is surveilled. Every phone call you’re on camera all day long.
Speaker: 0
02:10:34
I read a I read somewhere or heard where the average individual is on the camera over 500 times a day, just walking around Just walking around. Wherever you go.
Speaker: 1
02:10:47
And then your phone’s listening to everything you say.
Speaker: 0
02:10:49
Everything.
Speaker: 1
02:10:49
Yeah. And everybody has a phone.
Speaker: 0
02:10:51
Everybody. Yeah. Everybody. Today and that and that’s what’s tough in undercover today is is is building your legend because it’s it’s hard to do a 100% back stopping.
Speaker: 1
02:11:01
Right. How can you
Speaker: 0
02:11:02
With the Internet.
Speaker: 1
02:11:03
Right. Also, Google image search, Ram. Put your face up there. Oh, that’s that guy.
Speaker: 0
02:11:08
Exactly.
Speaker: 1
02:11:09
Yeah. Instantly.
Speaker: 0
02:11:12
So I don’t know. I mean
Speaker: 1
02:11:14
How much of the mob even exists now?
Speaker: 0
02:11:17
It’s still there, but, you know, they’re they don’t control what they did. They don’t control every all label. You know? When I was in it, they controlled everything. I mean, they controlled unions. They controlled every bit of Vegas. Vegas. They can they controlled every bit of commodity that that ran.
Speaker: 0
02:11:41
In fact, when I was in it, they still had the sai out of Vegas, and Balestrieri had offered me with Lefty. He had offered me the job of running the sai from there to Kansas City. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
02:12:07
I mean, that’s how tight I was with the Badanos that, you know, that was before the thing went south. You know?
Speaker: 1
02:12:15
That’s so crazy that you got in that deep. Yeah. Were you the deepest that anybody ever infiltrated the mob?
Speaker: 0
02:12:22
Yeah. Yeah. And everybody else that that went in, you know, they had an they had an informant. I had no informant.
Speaker: 1
02:12:31
You just made your way in saloni.
Speaker: 0
02:12:33
Yeah. Wow. And I wasn’t I wasn’t a mark, you know, where I didn’t have all this money.
Speaker: 1
02:12:42
Right.
Speaker: 0
02:12:43
You know what I mean?
Speaker: 1
02:12:43
Right. Where they could exploit you.
Speaker: 0
02:12:45
Yeah. Right. Sai, you know, yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:12:50
Crazy life, Joe.
Speaker: 0
02:12:51
Yeah. It was.
Speaker: 1
02:12:52
When you look back on it now, does it seem real? Must seem insane.
Speaker: 0
02:12:57
Well, you know, sometimes Sai think Ai can’t believe I did that.
Speaker: 1
02:13:01
Right. That’s what I mean. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
02:13:03
Yeah. And then other ai, you know, I sai, as as deep as I got, I could have done more.
Speaker: 1
02:13:13
Like how?
Speaker: 0
02:13:14
Well, I mean, if I if I would have got made.
Speaker: 1
02:13:17
Right. Right. Right. Do you wish they had gotten you made?
Speaker: 0
02:13:22
Only because I had spent so much time. I spent six years, you know, and then to cap it off with getting inducted. And not only ai, think of the feather in the cap of the FBI.
Speaker: 1
02:13:37
Right.
Speaker: 0
02:13:38
Yeah. The mafia inducted one of our own. You know? I mean, that would really kick their ass. Yeah. But, you know, uh-uh.
Speaker: 1
02:13:48
It’s funny that you think back, and that’s the thing that you wish. Yeah. You know? It’s kinda crazy.
Speaker: 0
02:13:53
Yeah. But still in all, I mean, you know, it’s like It’s
Speaker: 1
02:13:56
the ultimate fuck you.
Speaker: 0
02:13:58
Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you fuck ai. I mean, I we pretty much decimated them anyway. Yeah. You know? But
Speaker: 1
02:14:08
It is kinda crazy when you think about the choke hold that the mob had, and then it’s kinda
Speaker: 0
02:14:13
Nothing nothing moved in this country without them getting a cut of it. Wow. It’s crazy. Alright?
Speaker: 1
02:14:19
Did that all come about because of, prohibition? Is that when it all started? Is that when they really get a got a stranglehold in this country?
Speaker: 0
02:14:28
Yeah. Yeah. Ain’t that crazy? Pretty much. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:14:31
Because that’s exactly what’s happening right now with the cartels. Yeah. It’s the same fucking thing. Yeah. And it’s ai we never learned.
Speaker: 0
02:14:38
Nope. No. Yeah. It’s history repeats itself. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, Ai think our problem is we don’t we don’t study our enemy. Remember remember when I said before, any anybody I went against, Ai always knew I always knew who they were. Ai wanted to know your structure.
Speaker: 0
02:15:07
I wanted to know how you treated each other. I wanna know all the crimes you’re involved in. I wanna know if you how violent you are and who your violence is against. You know? I wanna know your history, how you became what you are as far as a criminal organization. And we don’t do that.
Speaker: 0
02:15:35
I mean, I’m talking about as a whole, you know, Yeah. You know? Ai don’t wanna get into politics, but, you know, you gotta study your enemy. You gotta know your enemy. The art of war. Right? Yes. The Art of War.
Speaker: 0
02:15:58
And I I tell all my in any undercover classes, you gotta read that book, The Art of War, because it it was written thousands of years ago, but it’s it’ll serve you today. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s kinda crazy when
Speaker: 1
02:16:17
you think that. Yeah. You don’t change that much over time. No. Human nature’s still the same. Yep. And the same strategies apply.
Speaker: 0
02:16:26
Yep.
Speaker: 1
02:16:28
Yeah. It’s
Speaker: 0
02:16:28
nuts. And, you know, and like I said before, the only thing that’s changed in undercover is building your legend because of the Internet. Right. Nothing else has changed. And now it’s
Speaker: 1
02:16:40
gonna be almost impossible.
Speaker: 0
02:16:42
You ingratiate yourself the same way. Yeah. You know? You do all that shit the same way.
Speaker: 1
02:16:47
Well, especially if someone had any kind of social media before Yeah. They got in the bureau. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
02:16:53
Or it would become a cop. Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:16:56
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, everybody’s kinda ratted on themselves.
Speaker: 0
02:16:59
Yep. Yep. It’s nuts.
Speaker: 1
02:17:02
Yeah. But but there’s other ways they catch people now, obviously, with all the surveillance.
Speaker: 0
02:17:09
Did you make a bunch of notes? No. I just wanted to
Speaker: 1
02:17:12
Did you make sure you covered everything?
Speaker: 0
02:17:15
I just wanted to meh ai, my grandkids set me up with an Ram. And they said, make sure you budget the
Speaker: 1
02:17:38
Oh, did they run it?
Speaker: 0
02:17:40
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I Joe, forget it. I Ai I just about can turn my phone, I’ll be honest with you, and, the real Donnie Brasco, and then a a ram page.
Speaker: 1
02:17:53
You have a cameo page where you send people cameos?
Speaker: 0
02:17:56
Joe Pistone. You just go into Joe Pistone. Yeah. The real Donnie Brasco.
Speaker: 1
02:18:06
How do you spend your time these days? There it is. The real Donnie Brasco. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
02:18:12
That’s that’s that’s from January, Joe, when he’s when he flew in for the dinner. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:18:19
That’s great.
Speaker: 0
02:18:20
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’m kinda I’m kinda right now, I’m writing up I got another book, ai on the Panano’s. And, I spent time with helping out with that Southern California gang conference I mentioned. It’s really you know, like I said, I’ve been with them for fourteen years. Actually, been doing it twelve. One year COVID and one year Ai was sick.
Speaker: 0
02:18:54
And, these guys are these coppers that run it, they all do it on their own time. There’s no administrative nobody gets paid. Really? Nobody gets paid. They do it all on their own time. And, the conference usually gets between seven and eight hundred people, at each conference.
Speaker: 0
02:19:20
And ai I sai, it’s held once a year. It’s held in San Diego, but it’s the Southern California gang conference. Yeah. And if anybody’s interested, you have to be a you have to be a police officer or in law enforcement, you could be Department of Corrections. Their their, email is is scgc.inquiry@gmail.com. Go on and get information about it. Or if they wanna attend it, you know, that’s that’s ai you can sign up.
Speaker: 1
02:19:56
Okay.
Speaker: 0
02:19:57
And they have great speakers every year. And, yeah, Ai, and, some of my merchandise, you can see I have a shirt here since, Southern California gang conference, Donnie Brasco. We sell these shirts. I give a 100% to the to the organization. I don’t I don’t keep any. And, the mugs we sell and stuff, I I donate.
Speaker: 0
02:20:31
My books, I I sign books there, and I give all the money to the organization. I don’t I don’t take anything either. Because he’s because he’s a police officer don’t take any. You know? Yeah. Their time is donated.
Speaker: 0
02:20:47
Sai, yeah, it’s, you know, who’s there to help you when your when your spouse or your, you know, one of the other dies in the line of duty? So, yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:21:01
So you were telling me before the show that all that money gets donated to the spouses of people who were killed in the line of duty?
Speaker: 0
02:21:07
Yes, sir. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that help them get started after.
Speaker: 1
02:21:11
That’s awesome.
Speaker: 0
02:21:12
Yeah. Yeah. And it it’s great conference. Like I said, they they get between 7 and 800, either a police officer or department of corrections. You know what? Anybody that’s in the law enforcement is eligible to attend it, and it’s a week since San Diego. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:21:29
Well, Joe, thank you very much for being here. I really appreciate it. Hey. What a crazy life you’ve had.
Speaker: 0
02:21:34
Thank you. Thank you. I’m I’m really sai, to get the invite. And my, my grandkids were, woah. You’re going on Joe Rogan? They all love you, man.
Speaker: 1
02:21:47
Well, tell them I said thank you.
Speaker: 0
02:21:49
They all love you. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:21:51
And thank you for being here.
Speaker: 0
02:21:52
Well, my pleasure. It
Speaker: 1
02:21:54
was my pleasure too. Thank you very much.
Speaker: 0
02:21:55
Thanks, Bart.
Speaker: 1
02:21:56
Thank you. Thank you. Ai. Alright. Bye, everybody.
