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00:00:00as war against the mafia time was running out for roida mayor as i got to know the the gory
00:00:09details of this crew uh it became more and more uh a personal war with the mafia that we should
00:00:21destroy an organization of this magnitude and uh and that was capable of committing these heinous
00:00:29crimes and uh it was great with great satisfaction that we brought them down and prosecuted them
00:00:43from a nondescript office in queens bruce mouse still runs a team of agents targeting the entire
00:00:49gambino family the murderous exploits of the de mayo crew were just one of his early investigations
00:00:57as his agents tracked the de mayo crew bruce mau and the gambino squad were also targeting the
00:01:03highest levels of the mafia the strategy was to connect the crimes of the soldiers on the street
00:01:08all the way up to the godfather himself
00:01:13it was on the streets of little italy at the raver night the gambino family's manhattan social club
00:01:19that the police and the fbi had john gotti under surveillance
00:01:23angelo ruggiero was gotti's top lieutenant the overweight gangster never stopped talking
00:01:29he was nicknamed quack quack and the fbi had planted a bug in his house
00:01:33the fbi tapes proved that ruggiero was supervising a massive
00:02:03drugs operation even though castellano had outlawed drug dealing the talkative wise guy was also
00:02:09overheard discussing the internal affairs of the family we learned a tremendous amount of information
00:02:15about the inner workings of the family a lot of the criminal activities we learned about meetings up
00:02:21at castellano's house for example ruggiero used to go up there on sunday a lot with john gotti
00:02:27ruggiero returned back to his house invite gene gotti over and then angelo tell genie
00:02:32exactly what transpired that afternoon up to paul's house from a to z the whole format
00:02:41the next phase following the material electronic surveillance was to go after the hierarchy and
00:02:46based on all the conversations that we intercepted in angelo's house we had probable cause to bug
00:02:52the house of paul castellano who was the boss of the family at the time
00:02:59ruggiero's indiscretions enabled the fbi to get a warrant to break into the white house
00:03:04castellano's staten island mansion
00:03:20there was an alarm system and it was activated and we figured we probably had about 25 or 30 seconds to
00:03:28deactivate it we used a computerized digital scanner electronic device which
00:03:39somehow goes through 10 000 possible combinations when aimed directly at the control panel and comes up
00:03:46with the combination of that particular system it worked
00:03:51and it's just a matter of punching in the number the four digit code which andy kearns did and that
00:04:00deactivated the system glowed green instead of red and we were in when we left we had to reactivate the
00:04:10system the same way and lock the door and go up we made provision for a sanitation truck to stall out in the road
00:04:31preventing the security guard from coming upon us he would have to detour all the way around give us about
00:04:39another four minutes
00:04:57the base contained a power pack and battery which powered the mic during the day when the lamp was off
00:05:05then when the lamp was on at night that would in effect power the bug and recharge the battery for the next day
00:05:19the entire operation took just 12 minutes half a mile away the fbi posing as commuters rented an apartment above a doctor's surgery
00:05:43agents andy kearns and joe o'brien would monitor the bug night and day
00:05:57and that's what were sooo
00:06:01i want to go back to the point
00:06:04what time we stepped out of the line where
00:06:05uh
00:06:11at least fifty thirty
00:06:13thirty
00:06:15not a certain
00:06:17if you know what you're going
00:06:19What was your own personal feeling when you first heard the voice of Paul Castellano coming through on the boat?
00:06:39That was ecstatic. I was really excited.
00:06:44Why?
00:06:45It was the highlight of my career because I knew that the FBI had just legally monitored a conversation which would lead to Godfather's downfall.
00:07:04He'd go to jail, spend the rest of his life in jail because of those conversations.
00:07:10And there's no way he'd get out of them.
00:07:14These were his own words.
00:07:16He was talking about criminal activity, conspiring to commit other crimes, extortion.
00:07:22He talked about loan sharking, control of unions, murder, the whole gambit of racketeering activity.
00:07:34As Castellano was conducting the family's business from his home, the FBI were able to eavesdrop on the high-level visitors who came to pay their money and their respect.
00:07:48There's only seven minutes, so I got a record a few more than I want.
00:07:54I think they've seen that day and about way, it was a young man.
00:08:00Okay, so he's not talking to him or it's a different man.
00:08:04I got more than three months of this.
00:08:05I got more than three months of this.
00:08:07How was he going to give a general後 of this?
00:08:10He was just in the background.
00:08:12I got a half, when you know what I was talking about.
00:08:14the bug provided like a four-month window into the operations of the de facto headquarters
00:08:31and nerve center of the mafia in america paul castellano was the say the chairman of the
00:08:41commission the boss of bosses the godfather ruled over all the families and was ahead of the gambino
00:08:51family and here the fbi had a bug in his house at the same time as the castellano bug was producing
00:09:02damning evidence against the godfather other agencies were accumulating hundreds of hours
00:09:07of tapes on other major mafia figures for the first time they had cast iron evidence of the
00:09:13activities of the commission the mafia's secret government it showed how the different families
00:09:19divided up the turf if you will in these different industries and how they all shared the profits and
00:09:26how the bosses of the of the families belong to what was later referred to as a club they would
00:09:37determine who's which mob connected family was going to bid on a particular job high-rise construction
00:09:42job in manhattan and who would not and whose turn it was that's that's the way it works
00:09:58the tapes revealed that as well as running the mafia the commission controlled the entire construction
00:10:03industry industry of new york a club had been set up to carve up the contracts between four families the fifth
00:10:15family the banana family had been banned because of their wholesale heroin trafficking the cartel owned the
00:10:24unions that ran the labor sites and the companies that supplied the concrete
00:10:28all concrete high-rise business in manhattan was controlled and dominated by organized crime the four
00:10:41families that were sitting on the commission at that time each had their own concrete companies
00:10:46that they controlled their own cement pouring companies they controlled but in order to dominate the
00:10:51whole city they had to come together and the commission gave them the mechanism to coordinate and
00:10:57and carry out their scheme to extract attacks from everybody who was pouring concrete in the city for
00:11:03years Castellano himself owned several construction companies surveillance showed businessmen arriving at
00:11:12his house on Staten Island to seek the godfather's blessing on major building contracts one of his
00:11:19partners in crime was the boss of the Genovese family fat Tony Solano the FBI had bugged his headquarters a
00:11:25social club in upper Harlem it confirmed the multi-million dollar payoffs from construction the evidence against the
00:11:31commission was mounting two percent of the money had to be extracted and divided up among the commission so if you consider that
00:11:39there have to be hundreds of millions of dollars a year in in a concrete high-rise work in the city of New York and in the
00:11:47island of Manhattan it had to be the case they were making tens of millions of dollars every year just from
00:11:54this aspect of their control over the building trade so every building every skyscraper that went up in New York City they
00:12:02would be getting millions of dollars exactly
00:12:04as law enforcement agencies gathered a wealth of intelligence on the leadership of the Mafia the New York police were making headway on the streets
00:12:19their joint task force had been set up with the FBI to investigate links between the Mafia and a series of killings in the Canasi section of Brooklyn
00:12:30their biggest break came with the chance arrest of Vito Arena a Mafia hitman who had stolen hundreds of cars for Roy DeMeo
00:12:39what he had to say sickened even the most hardened detectives now the finger pointed clearly at Roy DeMeo before they could question him the Mafia moved first
00:12:53his wife reported him missing uh that evening uh that he had been murdered and uh the reason uh it she reported it early was uh it was his daughter's birthday and he was supposed to bring the cake home and uh they were having a birthday party and he never showed
00:13:16the contract to kill Roy had been issued by the godfather himself Paul Castellano it is believed that Montiglio's uncle Nino Gaggi set him up
00:13:29Gambino family found out that Roy had killed numerous people without any kind of authority he got out of control he become dangerous so he decided to kill him because of his own killings for lack of a better word
00:13:44when Castellano
00:13:48when Castellano got wind that the task force was moving in on Roy
00:13:51he couldn't risk the chance that DeMeo might turn and become an informer and point the finger at him
00:13:56the godfather hoped that if DeMeo disappeared so would the investigation
00:14:00and I think they felt that if they killed him at that point because it was the DeMeo crew if they killed him at that point I think they thought that it was going to stop the task force from further investigation
00:14:15you know because he was like the head target in their minds I think I think they felt that if they killed him it would cool down
00:14:21he had bullet holes through both hands where he tried to defend himself and then he was shot through the chest and in the head
00:14:36pretty good job
00:14:39and also very much like the DeMeo crew type killing
00:14:45I had to say when I saw Roy there that
00:14:49that this was real justice Roy got
00:14:53what was coming to him
00:14:55why?
00:14:57because of all the people he had killed innocent people he had killed
00:15:02and all the suffering he had brought on those families
00:15:07loved ones
00:15:10nobody should be able to do that
00:15:14but DeMeo had got away with it for years
00:15:20causing untold misery to his victims and their relatives
00:15:24one of them was Jackie Todaro
00:15:27a 19 year old law student
00:15:29her father had a film laboratory in Manhattan
00:15:32the DeMeo crew realized its potential for the growing pornography business
00:15:37Jackie's father did not want them to take control of his business
00:15:41today she's been left with little more than her childhood memories
00:15:45they never found any part of the remains of his body
00:15:51we never had a funeral we never had a memorial service
00:15:54we didn't know
00:15:55I mean we just didn't know we lived with complete uncertainty
00:15:58sadly Jackie who was just five when her father was murdered was not alone in her bereavement
00:16:04the DeMeo wing of the Gambino family will go down in history as mass murderers
00:16:09how many people do you think he killed?
00:16:11they may have killed two to three hundred as a crew
00:16:15but Roy personally I would say fifty to sixty
00:16:20he certainly used to brag about those numbers
00:16:22Dominic Montiglio narrowly avoided becoming another of their victims
00:16:28although he denies taking part in any of their murders
00:16:30he admits dealing drugs
00:16:32that was enough to get him in trouble with the family
00:16:35he was also accused of stealing a quarter of a million dollars from the Mafia
00:16:39there were stories all around New York
00:16:42then I got accused of being a heroin dealer
00:16:44which I never dealt heroin
00:16:45I dealt a lot of drugs but never heroin
00:16:47and that Paul E. Castellano himself had to sit with Fumzi Thierry
00:16:52who was at the time the head of the Genovese family
00:16:54and straightened that one out
00:16:56and then I got a call one night
00:16:59and just from somebody I'm not going to mention
00:17:01just somebody inside and said Dominic it's time to leave me
00:17:03they're going to pop you
00:17:08Montiglio escaped to California
00:17:10but made the mistake of coming back to Brooklyn
00:17:12he was arrested
00:17:14and heard that the Mafia was planning to kill him in jail
00:17:16the only way out was to betray the Gambino family
00:17:21and become a government witness
00:17:23I guess it was a Saturday morning I called
00:17:28I guess it was the FBI to strike for us
00:17:34and they got me out of there
00:17:36I was out of there like within an hour
00:17:38you know it was a short time
00:17:4068 year old Paul Castellano described as the boss of a 20 man crew
00:17:45that ran an extensive network
00:17:46now a witness could testify from the inside
00:17:48to the links between the crimes of Roy de Mayo
00:17:51and the most powerful godfather in America
00:17:53Paul Castellano
00:17:54that included 25 murders
00:17:57later separate charges were brought against the commission
00:18:04Fat Tony Solano
00:18:06boss of the Genovese family was arrested
00:18:08Paul Castellano was also indicted on the commission case
00:18:16mortified to hear that the FBI had managed to bug his home
00:18:20he knew that if we had a bug in there
00:18:25we were aware of the criminal conversations
00:18:27he knew he was history
00:18:28he knew he was going to jail
00:18:29probably for life
00:18:30but he was more concerned about the personal conversations
00:18:33we would have overheard
00:18:34conversations with his wife
00:18:36disputes with her
00:18:38conversations possibly with his son's daughter
00:18:43they stopped over to visit
00:18:45and very personal conversations with Gloria
00:18:48his maid
00:18:50with whom he was having a love affair
00:18:53well he was surprised
00:18:56surprised and upset
00:18:58and I didn't know really
00:19:01really know why he was so upset
00:19:02until later on when we got the tapes
00:19:04he had committed some indiscretions
00:19:07and I think he was embarrassed by them
00:19:10the indiscretions being with a maid
00:19:12that you might have read about in some of the books
00:19:14that was embarrassing to him
00:19:17but he wasn't embarrassed about
00:19:19other things that they might have picked up
00:19:21well I think he was upset by them
00:19:23but not nearly as embarrassed
00:19:25there was discussion of criminal activity on those tapes
00:19:28so certainly he would have had to face that down the road
00:19:32Castellano wasn't the only one facing problems
00:19:48from incriminating conversations recorded on tape
00:19:51tapes from an earlier FBI bug
00:19:54revealed activities within the family
00:19:56that even the godfather was unaware of
00:19:58these tapes in turn
00:20:00would trigger an extraordinary chain of events
00:20:03that would ultimately lead to his downfall
00:20:06in the 1980s
00:20:07John Gotti was earning hundreds of thousands of dollars
00:20:10for the godfather
00:20:14what Castellano did not know
00:20:16was that much of the money was coming from
00:20:18heroin trafficking operations
00:20:22Castellano and fellow commission bosses like
00:20:25Tony Dux Corallo
00:20:27had forbidden drug dealing in the mafia
00:20:29on pain of death
00:20:31a bug inside his Jaguar
00:20:33recorded the mafia leadership's opposition to drugs
00:20:36you can't be in a drug business without going in the fucking street
00:20:41and selling this cops up and shit
00:20:42we should kill them
00:20:43we should have some examples
00:20:45alright?
00:20:46alright
00:20:47we should make some examples
00:20:51other people ain't like us
00:20:53they talk a lot you see
00:20:54they bring it in the right places
00:20:55don't worry they know what they're doing
00:20:56themselves
00:20:57that's like an informant to me
00:20:59see
00:21:00they call it they know what they're doing
00:21:01they go talk
00:21:02the lawyers and stuff
00:21:03they will kill them
00:21:04we'll kill them
00:21:05we'll kill them
00:21:06we'll kill them
00:21:07we'll kill them
00:21:08we'll kill them
00:21:09we'll kill them
00:21:10we'll kill them
00:21:11we'll kill them
00:21:12we'll kill them
00:21:14we'll kill them
00:21:16they just let certain people do it
00:21:19big time
00:21:20and that was usually heroin
00:21:22and the rest of us
00:21:24the rule really was just don't get caught
00:21:26it wasn't don't do it
00:21:28they said it was don't do it
00:21:29but the rule was don't get caught
00:21:31you know
00:21:32because then you can get killed
00:21:34Paul had a dual standard when it came to narcotics dealing
00:21:39technically
00:21:41the Gambino family was against any kind of narcotics dealing
00:21:44if you were caught dealing narcotics
00:21:46or even suspected of dealing narcotics
00:21:48the penalty was automatic death
00:21:50you were killed immediately for dealing narcotics
00:21:53but Paul had two faces in regards to this
00:21:56if he liked you
00:21:57he would look the other way
00:21:58condone in his own tacit way
00:22:01narcotics dealing
00:22:03he'd get the money from it
00:22:04he'd benefit from it
00:22:05if he didn't like you
00:22:06he'd enforce the edict
00:22:07and have you killed
00:22:09so like a dual standard
00:22:10Ruggiero was picked up on bugs
00:22:13talking about heroin
00:22:14Ruggiero was facing a life sentence from the courts
00:22:17and a death sentence from the mafia
00:22:19before the case came to trial
00:22:21Castellano wanted to hear the evidence for himself
00:22:24Castellano and his people were demanding access to the these
00:22:31to the bugs and obviously Ruggiero didn't want to turn over because it
00:22:37demonstrated unmistakably that he and his closest associates were involved in narcotics trafficking
00:22:44so they were trying to keep these tapes away from Castellano
00:22:48and sort of mediating this dispute between the gaudy faction and Castellano was Neil Delacroach
00:22:55Castellano ordered Delacroach, the underboss of the Gambino family
00:22:59to collect the tapes from Ruggiero's defense lawyers
00:23:02to collect the tapes from Ruggiero's defense lawyers
00:23:06Delacroach held a series of meetings with Gotti and Ruggiero at his Staten Island home
00:23:12Ironically the FBI had a bug in his sitting room too
00:23:14I'm gonna tell you something
00:23:15If you two never bothered me again, again the rest of my life
00:23:19I ain't givin' them thanks
00:23:21If you never bothered me again the rest of my life
00:23:23I can't
00:23:28If you never bothered me again the rest of my life
00:23:32I can't
00:23:34I can't
00:23:36If you never bothered me again the rest of my life
00:23:38If you never bothered me again the rest of my life, I can't. I can't.
00:23:43There's good friends of mine on them fucking tapes.
00:23:45And without some fucking asshole like Buddy or somebody like that, I'd give it to the three seconds flat.
00:23:51There's good guys on them fucking tapes.
00:23:55One of the good guys was Eugene Gotti, a major drug dealer and John Gotti's brother.
00:24:00Not only you could get right, I could get right, you could get right.
00:24:04I can't stop the guy from always bringing it up.
00:24:08Unless I, unless I tell a guy, hey, why don't you know fuck yourself?
00:24:12And then we're back to the game.
00:24:13And then we need to take something, you better know we gotta do them.
00:24:17We won't roll up and go to war.
00:24:20Going to war was the only alternative if they didn't obey Castellano and surrender the tapes.
00:24:25Delacroche's warning was prophetic.
00:24:27He died of cancer on the 2nd of December 1985.
00:24:31And without his protection, Gotti was dangerously exposed.
00:24:34One mafia insider heard the details of the dispute from his uncle, a fellow mafia boss.
00:24:40Paul Castellano was complaining to my uncle one time about these guys and his family dealing with drugs.
00:24:49And right away we were thinking of his cousins.
00:24:53But he didn't mean his cousins.
00:24:55He meant John Gotti and this Angelo Ruggiero.
00:24:58Because there were tapes that these fellows were on that Paul was trying to get.
00:25:02And he was complaining to my uncle that these guys aren't giving him the tapes.
00:25:06And he wants them.
00:25:08And he said, we can't have drug dealers in our family.
00:25:12So we talked to a few people and they told us the story about John Gotti and Angelo.
00:25:17That Paul, you know, the difference between them and the big underboss Neil Delacroche.
00:25:24So eventually there was a hit put out on John.
00:25:27John told us this.
00:25:29Paul wanted to kill him.
00:25:30And he found out about it.
00:25:32And he moved first.
00:25:39Jesus Christ, they're right next to him.
00:25:41Come, come, come, come.
00:26:02On three separate occasions, John Gotti won acquittals on charges that ranged from racketeering to assault.
00:26:27For six years, from 1985 to 1991, Gotti's fame and notoriety would reach unprecedented heights.
00:26:39I'll say with respect to the friend of John Gotti, guilty or not guilty.
00:26:44We find him not guilty.
00:26:46John Gotti's acquitted in a jury verdict.
00:26:52However, one of the jurors had been bribed in the amount of $60,000.
00:26:56So he had no chance of losing that case.
00:26:58He had a sure winner.
00:26:59Gotti became a local hero, hosting annual parties on the 4th of July.
00:27:17Yet Gotti bought his freedom by bribing juries and intimidating witnesses.
00:27:29He even had a New York police detective on the payroll.
00:27:32One former mafia insider explains how they fix their cases.
00:27:37All you need is one to hold out on the jury.
00:27:42So even if you don't get an acquittal, the worse it could be is a hung jury.
00:27:46You're a winner right there, you know?
00:27:49And if you, you know, if you could get to the witness, today you can't get to it.
00:27:56But if you could, you'd naturally try and kill the witnesses.
00:27:58Years ago, when they didn't have this Federal Protection Act, it was easier to kill the witnesses.
00:28:05Today it's a little harder.
00:28:06Even now with the jurors, it's getting harder because they make them anonymous and they sequester them.
00:28:12They keep them out of sight.
00:28:13The marshals protect them until after the trial.
00:28:15So it's getting more and more difficult to try to get to a jury to fix a case.
00:28:21When you say get to a jury, what do you mean?
00:28:24Private jury.
00:28:25Offer them a certain amount of money to come up with a not guilty verdict.
00:28:30And if they say no?
00:28:33Well, if they say no and they'd better get off the jury or...
00:28:39Well, no, not really.
00:28:40They'd better stay on the jury.
00:28:42They can't say no.
00:28:44They can't say no.
00:28:45They're in a position where they could save our lives.
00:28:50Our lives are on the line.
00:28:51They would have a big problem.
00:28:53It's hard.
00:28:54It's hard for a legitimate person on the jury to get confronted by a mob guy and turn around
00:28:59and say, no, I ain't doing that.
00:29:01Because you gotta do it.
00:29:02And it ain't the juror's fault.
00:29:04He's scared.
00:29:05He's scared for his family.
00:29:06He's a legitimate guy.
00:29:07He don't know about all these killings and these...
00:29:09He ain't involved with all that kind of stuff.
00:29:12It's really...
00:29:13It's hard for a juror to really say no to somebody because they're scared to death.
00:29:19Because you've scared them to death.
00:29:23Yeah.
00:29:24That's right.
00:29:26Last night as Castellano stepped from a limousine in front of a Manhattan Steakhouse,
00:29:30he was shot down by three men hiding guns.
00:29:33Although it was widely known that Gotti was behind the killing of his previous boss, Paul Castellano,
00:29:38it would take six years to bring the new head of the Gambino family to justice.
00:29:42Three years has New York seen a mob murder of this great of magnitude.
00:29:47Castellano had in fact been betrayed by his closest associate.
00:29:51His underboss, Frank DiCicco, had helped Gotti organize the murder.
00:29:56Three months later, DiCicco himself was murdered when his car was blown up in Brooklyn.
00:30:07The hand of Gotti was again suspected, but again there was no proof.
00:30:12Now, a ruthless killer and bodybuilder, Sammy the Bull Gravano, became Gotti's most trusted lieutenant.
00:30:18Ironically, Gravano, like DiCicco before him, would eventually betray the Godfather and become a government witness.
00:30:25But until then, they would have to play a waiting game.
00:30:29Every time we open a case, we all set two objectives we tried to accomplish.
00:30:34And realize that to work on organized crime case, a lot of our traditional methods don't work.
00:30:40I.e., they don't use the telephones to talk, you know, to engage in legal conversations.
00:30:46You won't find their handwriting in any documents as far as paper drills.
00:30:50You won't find witnesses who will testify.
00:30:52So there's really only two ways to get a fellow like John Gotti.
00:30:56The first way, of course, through electronic surveillance,
00:30:59to try to put a bug in the place where he's running the affairs of the Gambino family
00:31:03to capture those criminal conversations.
00:31:05Our second goal, which is more difficult, is to try to turn somebody in Gotti's inner circle,
00:31:12a cap who was close to him, his underboss, a concierge, some high-ranking soldier,
00:31:16to get somebody to become a government witness to testify against him.
00:31:19That's only two ways you can get a guy like John Gotti.
00:31:22But also, more importantly, our goal wasn't just to get Gotti.
00:31:25Our goal was to get Gotti and the new hierarchy of the family,
00:31:28to include a fellow named Frank Locascio and Salvatore Gravano,
00:31:31to take out all the Gotti loyalists in one fell swoop.
00:31:34The Gambino squad's first major breakthrough came from the testimony of a high-level defector
00:31:42to whom Gotti had admitted his role in the murder of Paul Castellano.
00:31:46Today, he is one of those whom Gotti blames for his downfall.
00:31:50He feels that I'm the cause of all's problems.
00:31:55I went to a grand jury and I told him everything I knew about John and the meetings we had,
00:31:59about him saying he killed Paul Castellano,
00:32:02about him saying he got the okay from the commission.
00:32:05And I would testify about the family, him being the boss, the structure of his family,
00:32:15the things, the favors that my uncle asked of him,
00:32:19some book-making involvement, the Gambino problems,
00:32:24and everything that our meetings were about.
00:32:26Philip Leonetti was the underboss to his uncle, Nicky Scaffold.
00:32:33Hey, Nicky!
00:32:34Together, they ran the Brunner family, based in Philadelphia.
00:32:37Their high rank made them privy to the Mafia's innermost secrets,
00:32:41and they were allied to the most powerful families in New York.
00:32:45He has the backing, not only of the commission,
00:32:47but he's very friendly with the guys in New York.
00:32:49I mean, we had the backing of the Genovese family,
00:32:53and other families, too. The Gambino family owed us a favor,
00:32:57because we did kill somebody for them.
00:33:02We were very friendly. He was very powerful.
00:33:05They all liked him, because he was a killer.
00:33:09A lot of guys liked that, and he wanted to kill more and more people
00:33:13to impress the guys in New York.
00:33:18Mr. Scaffold, you've been gone for 17 months now. Any comments?
00:33:21No, I have no comment. Please don't get by.
00:33:23What's the first thing you're going to do now, sir?
00:33:25Nick Scaffold and his nephew, Philip Leonetti, were a fearsome combination.
00:33:30Operating in Philadelphia and Atlantic City, they ruled with a reign of terror.
00:33:34How was your flight?
00:33:39Our strength was people feared us, because my uncle was a very...
00:33:45He was a stone killer.
00:33:47Everybody knew when they'd seen one of us.
00:33:50There was no problem with giving up any money.
00:33:53Guys that were in illegal businesses that we shook down.
00:33:58They would give it up. No problem at all.
00:34:01We even had guys coming around to hang out, saying,
00:34:03Look, I'm going into this business here.
00:34:05I'm going to pay you now for, you know, every week for whatever I make.
00:34:11They were even coming themselves. We didn't even have to go looking for them.
00:34:14They were scared. Everybody was scared to death of my uncle.
00:34:17Because he had a reputation for killing. Because he loved to kill people.
00:34:22You actually enjoyed it?
00:34:23Yes.
00:34:24Scarfo wouldn't hesitate to shoot somebody in a second, in a split second.
00:34:34He was a true gangster. It was another Al Capone.
00:34:37I mean, very, very vicious.
00:34:42Feared no one.
00:34:44And this thing came first with him.
00:34:47He believed in this mafia with all his heart and soul.
00:34:54He always wanted the reputation.
00:34:56He always said, like Paul Muni said in the movie Scarface,
00:35:00He had a machine gun. He says, you've got to use this machine gun.
00:35:03You've got to kill people and you've got to keep on killing them to be the boss.
00:35:07You just can't stop. You've got to keep killing.
00:35:09We had a hit list of 15, 20 guys to shoot on site.
00:35:14And night and day, we used to go hunt them down. We had teams.
00:35:21One of their targets was a diminutive mafioso, Harry the Hunchback Riccobini.
00:35:26Continue to stand. Raise your right hand.
00:35:30Do you swear the testimony you will give before the subcommittee will be the truth,
00:35:33the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
00:35:36Yes, I do.
00:35:37The Hunchback and his crew fell out when they refused to pay a greater share of their illegal profits to Scarfo.
00:35:42Identify himself.
00:35:44I participated in maybe 15, 20 murders at the time, in that course of time.
00:35:51And after that course of time, from like 82 to 86, when I became a government informer.
00:36:00Nicky Scarfo and his nephew Philip Leonetti were not just killers.
00:36:07They and the family they controlled derived tremendous power and wealth from their business operations and the rackets they ran, both in Philadelphia and Atlantic City.
00:36:21How influential and powerful were Nicky Scarfo and predominantly in Atlantic City?
00:36:29Very, very powerful. No major construction project was done without their knowledge.
00:36:36No illegal activities such as loan sharking, not so much drug activity, they weren't as heavily involved in drug activity, but loan sharking, gambling, prostitution, they had pieces of all that type of operation.
00:36:50Well, we had a lot of bars that were under our control.
00:36:54We had businesses in the casinos, maintenance companies where we were making money.
00:36:59We were making money with Local 54, which was one of the most powerful unions in Atlantic City.
00:37:04We had all the unions tied up in Atlantic City. Teamsters, carpenters, cement, everything.
00:37:16In the early 1980s, control of Local 54, the union that supplied the workers in the casinos, gave the mafia a stranglehold in Atlantic City.
00:37:29There are 40,000 people who work here in the casinos, and the Local 54, the bartender's union, has about 14,000 of those people that are members of the union.
00:37:42They have a health and welfare fund, they have a pension fund, they have a severance fund.
00:37:46Scarfo was then able to, by controlling the bartender's union and controlling the officers of the union, he was then able to have them appoint to office people who were members of organized crime.
00:37:59He was able to have them hire companies that were controlled by organized crime or paying kickbacks and bribes to organized crime to provide services to them.
00:38:09Well, Frank Gerace, the president of Local 54, he dealt with the casinos, with the owners, he dealt with the contracts.
00:38:16One time, in 1983, he was having a problem with the Playboy, and they didn't want to sign a union contract, they tried to break the union.
00:38:26So I sent somebody to see the owner that I know, and told him, if you don't sign it, we're going to kill him. And he signed it.
00:38:35That was our territory. If any other family wanted to come down here and do something, they had to get permission from Scarfo.
00:39:02But mainly, Atlantic City was ours. We could do whatever we want down here.
00:39:09We could have stopped everything. We could have shut them down. You know? But if this didn't work, you know, we would try to stop them.
00:39:31We could have stopped everything. We could have shut them down. You know? But if this didn't work, you know, we would try another way, but...
00:39:41And you had this sort of influence over all the casinos?
00:39:43Yeah. Every casino that dealt with the union, which was all of them. They all had to be unionized.
00:39:48And Frank Gerace made money with them all. And they knew if they didn't do what you wanted, you could just close them down?
00:39:56We sure could. That's right.
00:39:58That's right.
00:40:06Leonetti and Scarfo also controlled the local politicians.
00:40:13In the early 80s, they fixed the elections for the mayor of Atlantic City, Mike Matthews.
00:40:19Mike Matthews was with us. We got all the unions to support Mike Matthews. We had everybody going for him. You know, the casinos, everybody. And he won.
00:40:33And I had this agreement with Mike that if he won, he had to make Joe DeBasquale the chief of police, which he would listen to whatever we said anyway, because he was with us. We made him mayor. He couldn't have done it by himself.
00:40:47You're going to see a lot of new constructions and completed construction. I think you'll see another three or four casinos in town. And I'm very optimistic about the next four years.
00:40:55He was under the protection of our family. He would listen to whatever our family told him to do. He had to do.
00:41:04And if he didn't?
00:41:05He would get killed.
00:41:08Did he know that?
00:41:09Yes.
00:41:11And what about the chief of police? What influence do you have over him?
00:41:15Whatever we needed with him, he would do with us. I was friendly with him.
00:41:19The main advantage of their political control was the influence it gave them over land development deals. The casino boom had fueled massive speculation in property prices in Atlantic City.
00:41:35There was a casino project that was proposed over in the inlet section of the city. And the project needed some city owned land in order for the project to be to put together a parcel of ground that was big enough for this project.
00:41:52And it was necessary for them to get the city to sell them the land. And Leonetti had a partial interest in this. And in exchange for an agreement with the mayor of the city that they would turn this land over to them or sell it to this particular group, they agreed to offer the mayor either cash or a percentage interest in the company itself.
00:42:11And unfortunately for the mayor, the one of the people that they were dealing with was an undercover DEA agent. And they didn't know that. And the mayor accepted money from them and he went to jail.
00:42:22But they bought the mayor of Atlantic City.
00:42:24Yes, they bought the mayor of Atlantic City.
00:42:28They also bought a white Rolls Royce and a luxury hideaway in Florida where they flaunted their wealth.
00:42:34But unknown to them, they were secretly accompanied by FBI agents who were beginning to build up a powerful case against the entire family in the mid-1980s.
00:42:44Well, that's our family. They're the guys that belong to our family and we would go down there on vacation.
00:42:51Well, my uncle bought a nice house down there and a nice boat. And we had the boat docked behind the house and he would wait everybody down. And we would enjoy ourselves down there. It was like relaxation time.
00:43:03Pretty unusual to have an entire mafia family on a boat.
00:43:07Yeah, I know. That's how the jury's seen it too. I mean, it really buried us. All them pictures of everybody together really showed that we were a family, you know, all together like that.
00:43:23Despite the appearance of a close family, Scarfo was paranoid and psychotic, constantly sensing betrayal and treachery.
00:43:31He even doubted the loyalty of one of Leonetti's best friends, Salvi Tester. He ordered his execution.
00:43:38So they gave me and my partner the hit on Tester.
00:43:44Now Tester felt some bad vibes because he knew what he did wasn't right.
00:43:53And it was pretty hard to get him because we wanted to shoot him in the store where we hung at.
00:44:02It was pretty hard to go away anywhere because if he saw us, he would have known he couldn't figure out who was going to do it.
00:44:09So we tried for six or seven months to try to get him. We just couldn't get him.
00:44:19How did you feel then knowing that one of your best friends was going to be killed?
00:44:23I felt sick about it. I felt sick. And I hated it. He would hang around with me every day. He would come to the office.
00:44:32It was during the summer. While they were planning to kill him, you know. He got killed in September of 84.
00:44:39But during his time, every day he's at the office and I'm looking at him.
00:44:44And I was getting sick. And I was with him all the time. And we went out to dinner one time.
00:44:53And he changed. She said, Phil, let me sit over there. Because he didn't want his back to the door.
00:45:00So I got up. All right. I said, look, Sal. I said, if something's going to happen, if I see somebody coming, ain't they going to tell you?
00:45:08Somebody's going to come? He says, I know, Phil, but I'm so crazy right now. I don't know how I'm thinking.
00:45:13You know. He was suspicious. He felt like he was going to get killed. But then he thought, maybe I won't let nothing happen to him.
00:45:25Because I could talk to my uncle. He was being really careful.
00:45:33So anyway, this fellow came in the store. He shook his hand. He got up and shook his hand.
00:45:41As soon as he turned around, the fellow grabbed the gun and shot him in the head. He went down and shot him again.
00:45:46That night, me and my partner and another, he was a proposed member at the time, helped take the body out.
00:45:56This was like 9 o'clock at night and we took it like 30 miles and dumped it in Jersey.
00:46:03Tusta's body was found here in the aerial section of Gloucester Township.
00:46:07The body was easily visible from the road, apparently dumped here hastily late last night.
00:46:12Why couldn't you just say to him, look, you can't do this?
00:46:16Because he would have killed me, siding with Salvi.
00:46:20If I would have told Salvi to run away, he would have killed Joey Punctitore and his whole family.
00:46:25Thinking that Joey Punctitore told him. He would never expect me to do it.
00:46:29You know, he would trust me too much.
00:46:33But some of these people must have been your friends.
00:46:35Oh, some of them. Salvi Test I loved. I spent almost two years with him, night and day.
00:46:41And I knew, you know, his loyalty to this thing.
00:46:46And, uh, I used to get nightmares over him.
00:46:50I mean, I used to wake up screaming because I just loved the guy.
00:46:54I didn't want to see him die.
00:46:55So many times I wanted to tell him, why don't you leave town?
00:46:58But I couldn't.
00:47:01Every day I was trying to kill him.
00:47:04The only people that Nicky Scarfo thought he could really trust were his own blood relatives.
00:47:11In the winter of 1986, he sought permission from the commission, the Mafia's secret government in New York,
00:47:18to make his nephew Philip the underboss of the family.
00:47:22New York gave their approval.
00:47:25Philip was the number two man in the family. He was the underboss of the family.
00:47:29And any time that anybody had a problem with the labor union, they would approach Philip.
00:47:33And Philip would approach one of the people that he had control over in the labor movement.
00:47:38And if he had a problem with the laborers union or teamsters union or cement masons or iron workers official,
00:47:44he would just call them, tell them, this is our project. Keep your people away from it.
00:47:48We're going to do whatever we want to do there.
00:47:50And you guys stay away. And that's exactly what would happen.
00:47:53And so any time that the mob wanted to do anything in Atlantic City,
00:47:57they would approach Leonetti, Leonetti would give them their approval,
00:48:00and then he would tell the union officials to stay away.
00:48:03People have said they were very afraid of you.
00:48:06Well, if they did something wrong to our family or if they did something wrong to me at that time,
00:48:14yeah, I guess they would be very afraid.
00:48:17What?
00:48:18They should be because there's a possibility they could be killed.
00:48:22You know, whatever they did.
00:48:24Of course, we weren't playing games. Everybody, it's a serious thing.
00:48:29And whoever did something wrong with us, especially with my uncle, I mean, got killed.
00:48:37That's what we did. That's what we know how to do, kill people.
00:48:41But the killing would eventually get to Leonetti.
00:48:52Even he couldn't stomach the cold-blooded murder of Salvi Testa, his childhood friend.
00:48:59He began to question his blind loyalty to his uncle and his oath of allegiance to the Mafia.
00:49:06Eventually, Philip Leonetti, the underboss of the family,
00:49:10would become one of the highest-ranking defectors ever to betray La Cosa Nostra.
00:49:15In the spring of 1986, a secret and high-level Mafia summit was held in New York City.
00:49:25John Gotti, the new head of the Gambino family, and his right-hand man, Sammy the Bull Gravano,
00:49:31had invited the leaders of the Philadelphia Mafia to New York to explain the new order,
00:49:37why Castellano had to be killed, and how the Mafia would now be run.
00:49:42Well, Sammy introduced us to John.
00:49:45He introduced my uncle as the boss of the family, and John as the boss of their family.
00:49:50He introduced me to him.
00:49:52And he told my uncle, he said,
00:49:54Look, Nick, he says, before we even get started, I want you to know,
00:49:57we did everything, I did everything the right way.
00:50:00You know, I killed Paul with the okay of the commission.
00:50:04And, uh, I did it all. I followed the rules on everything.
00:50:09My uncle said, Oh, I know that, John, you know.
00:50:11But we still double-checked it afterwards.
00:50:17Leonetti's meeting with Gotti would prove to be a crucial piece of evidence for the FBI,
00:50:22but so too would the fruits of a surveillance operation which in the late 1980s
00:50:26had pinpointed a promising location for a bug in the heart of Little Italy.
00:50:32The FBI succeeded in placing secret microphones in the Ravenite club.
00:50:38They also bugged an apartment on the second floor where Gotti was conducting his most secret meetings.
00:50:45Once we got the mic installed, then it was more like a war of nerves,
00:50:50because you always wonder whether the tech guys got discovered or compromised.
00:50:54You always think they're worse thoughts.
00:50:56So for a number of days, nobody went up to the apartment.
00:50:58We heard John go in the club.
00:51:00We heard him go in the hallway.
00:51:02They didn't go upstairs.
00:51:03You always think maybe something happened.
00:51:04Maybe he discovered the mic.
00:51:06We were compromised.
00:51:07But on the night of November 30, 1989, we heard the back door of the club open.
00:51:12We heard him walk through the hallway on our second mic.
00:51:15We heard him walk up the steps.
00:51:17We could hear the apartment door open.
00:51:19And we could hear the voice of John Gotti inside the apartment.
00:51:22We were related when we heard the first reports of how well it was working.
00:51:50Of course, the next day, we listened to the tapes here in our office.
00:51:54And we were how clear they were.
00:51:55And the clarity was just incredible.
00:51:57There was talking freely.
00:51:58There were talking criminal matters.
00:52:00And then we knew that we were going to get John Gotti.
00:52:04Just on that one conversation.
00:52:06They were great.
00:52:07They consisted of the administration talking about people.
00:52:11who had been killed.
00:52:12And why they had been killed.
00:52:13And why they had been killed.
00:52:14And why they had been killed.
00:52:15They were great.
00:52:16People who were going to be killed.
00:52:17And why they had to be killed.
00:52:18If you want to challenge the administration, you will meet the challenge.
00:52:22And you're going, you motherfucker.
00:52:24Your people.
00:52:26Kind people.
00:52:30They were great.
00:52:32They consisted of the administration talking about people who had been killed
00:52:39and why they had been killed.
00:52:44People who were going to be killed and why they had to be killed.
00:52:48Their gambling operations.
00:52:52Their labor racketeering.
00:52:54Their discussions about who was going to become a made member
00:52:58and whether the people who were proposed to become made members
00:53:02had fulfilled the requirement of having killed somebody.
00:53:08It was very much sort of opening the window into the administration of the Gambino family.
00:53:16There was no small talk up there.
00:53:20No idle chit-chat.
00:53:24They went up there to be private as an administration to run the family.
00:53:29And those are the tapes that were the heart of our prosecution.
00:53:33Meanwhile, the FBI had moved against the leaders of the mafia in Philadelphia.
00:53:41Scarfo and Leonetti had been betrayed by some of their own soldiers
00:53:44and were facing prison for the rest of their lives.
00:53:47Would the jury believe that Scarfo and his eight friends conspired,
00:53:50then murdered former gang member Salvatore Testa back in 1984?
00:53:54Two former members of that gang, Thomas DelGiorno and Nicholas Caramondi, said they did.
00:54:00They convicted everybody of everything.
00:54:02And I was sentenced to 45 years.
00:54:07In the meantime, during the trial, though,
00:54:10my cousin Mark, who was real friendly with my son,
00:54:14my uncle's son, he was 17 years old at the time, hung himself.
00:54:20He had destroyed a young life.
00:54:21I was worried about my son because that was his best friend.
00:54:24My kid, he was, when this happened, he went like in shock.
00:54:28He couldn't believe it.
00:54:30My kid's going to school.
00:54:32He's doing very bad in school.
00:54:35I got a teacher in the civics class is teaching him about organized crime in high school.
00:54:43The boss, Nick Scarfo, the underboss, Philip Leonetti.
00:54:46His name's Philip Leonetti.
00:54:49I mean, the kid don't have a shot.
00:54:50I said, what am I doing here?
00:54:55Before I was sentenced,
00:54:57I don't know how I did it.
00:54:59I got enough strength, I called the FBI.
00:55:01Because it was hard.
00:55:03Because I was thinking about it, thinking about it,
00:55:05thinking about it, and I don't know what to do.
00:55:07I finally called him before I was sentenced.
00:55:10And I got Jim Marr on the phone.
00:55:15I was called to the telephone.
00:55:16The voice on the other end said,
00:55:18do you know who this is?
00:55:19I said, no.
00:55:22He said, you're supposed to be an expert identifying voices.
00:55:26I said, well, I don't know your voice.
00:55:28I said, I thought you were a voice expert.
00:55:30You recognize all these voices on tape in court.
00:55:33He said, who is this?
00:55:34I said, this is Philip Leonetti.
00:55:36This is Philip Leonetti, and I want to talk to you.
00:55:39I said, when and where?
00:55:41He said, now.
00:55:45I told him that I would have to tell the judge
00:55:49that I was going to go talk to him,
00:55:52and that, based on my experience,
00:55:55I thought that the judge would tell his lawyer.
00:55:58I said, well, if you do that,
00:56:00then everybody's going to know that I'm going to cooperate.
00:56:03I said, I can't take a chance like that.
00:56:05He said, well, let's wait until after your sentence,
00:56:07and then I'm going to have to notify him.
00:56:10I said, okay.
00:56:11So he agreed to wait.
00:56:15He came in seven to eight days later and was sentenced.
00:56:18He received a 45-year sentence,
00:56:20and within, I would say, five minutes of receiving that sentence,
00:56:26a U.S. Marshal turned him over to my custody.
00:56:30We brought him back to this office and began to talk to him.
00:56:34And I said, look, I'm concerned about myself.
00:56:37I'm concerned mostly about my son.
00:56:39I want my family out of this area,
00:56:42and I want my son to have a shot in life.
00:56:47I mean, because right now he has no shot.
00:56:48He's always talking about hanging with Nicky,
00:56:51his cousin Nicky, and helping me out that way.
00:56:53I said, he's under the wrong impression.
00:56:55I want him really to focus himself on schoolwork.
00:57:01You know, what could you do?
00:57:02What could you do for me that way?
00:57:06He said that his main concern was for his son,
00:57:11that his son's life wouldn't be squandered
00:57:12the way he had squandered his own.
00:57:14He told us about the impact that his cousin Mark's suicide attempt
00:57:19had had on him,
00:57:21that he had been contemplating cooperating
00:57:25since about that time,
00:57:27and just couldn't find a way to do it.
00:57:32He was in the same jail with his uncle.
00:57:34His uncle was his constant companion in jail.
00:57:38He said, look, we'll move your family.
00:57:40I can't promise you anything,
00:57:41because we don't know anything we could do for you.
00:57:44But we'll move your family, your son, to a different area.
00:57:48I said, all right, not right now.
00:57:49I didn't even talk to my family yet.
00:57:51I don't know if they're going to accept this,
00:57:53or what's going to happen.
00:57:55It took me time just to talk to my family about this.
00:57:57Little by little, as they came to see me,
00:57:59I mentioned it to my mother.
00:58:01She said, do it, do it, do it.
00:58:02She, like, which I was surprised, you know.
00:58:05I didn't know how she would react.
00:58:07Eventually, we made an agreement.
00:58:10Philip agreed to cooperate.
00:58:13The only promises that were made to him
00:58:15is that we would keep him alive while he was in jail
00:58:19and make the extent and value of his cooperation
00:58:22known to the judge if he should ask for a reduction,
00:58:26and that we would move and give new identities to his mother,
00:58:32his girlfriend and his son.
00:58:34There were no promises at all made to him
00:58:36about what his sentence might be.
00:58:38So we left me, my son, my mother, and my girl.
00:58:45And, you know, they brought me to a safer prison to stay at.
00:58:50They moved somewhere else.
00:58:52My son got settled in school.
00:58:54And right now, he's in a university in a pre-med course.
00:59:00It's unbelievable.
00:59:02The judge was so impressed with his cooperation
00:59:05that his sentence for murder and racketeering
00:59:07was reduced from 45 years to five.
00:59:10Under the Federal Witness Protection Program,
00:59:12Leonetti is now free with a new...
00:59:14In New York, the FBI were closing the net
00:59:20on the Gambino family.
00:59:22They now had Leonetti's testimony,
00:59:24and the Ravenite tapes were providing damning evidence
00:59:26of their power and wealth.
00:59:30Money is received from the garbage club.
00:59:35Money is received from the control of the peers,
00:59:40control of the International Longshoremen Association.
00:59:42The proof of trial showed from John Gotti's own mouth
00:59:48that he would get $3,000 from each captain
00:59:50for John Gotti's birthday.
00:59:5321 captains, so he would get $63,000 in cash
00:59:57on his birthday.
00:59:59He would get similar amounts, if not more,
01:00:02from each captain as a Christmas present.
01:00:05The family received $2 per cubic yard
01:00:09for every yard of concrete poured in New York City
01:00:13and has received that for many years
01:00:17because of an understanding among the families
01:00:20that that's, again, being a family interest.
01:00:23He told Frank Locascio on tape, John Gotti did,
01:00:26that he received $24,000 a week
01:00:30just from the construction interest controlled by Gravano.
01:00:34That's $1,200,000 in cash each year
01:00:38to the boss just from construction.
01:00:41We are on the street, the same as the item boss.
01:00:51He's talking about it, but I've got something
01:00:52that's bothering me to say.
01:00:53I don't want to start by changing the people
01:00:55who don't pay a price.
01:00:58So I'm asking you, how do you feel?
01:01:00You want to stay in the school here?
01:01:03Or you want me to make you official on the boss?
01:01:05At the boss?
01:01:07How do you feel?
01:01:07What makes you feel better?
01:01:08The tapes even recorded Gotti making plans
01:01:18to keep the family going should he end up in jail.
01:01:21But the FBI arrested both Gotti
01:01:23and his anointed successor, Sammy Gravano.
01:01:26Good evening, Mr. Gotti.
01:01:29Are you surprised?
01:01:30Pretty good.
01:01:31You know they're going to try and keep you in jail.
01:01:33They say you're a danger while you're out.
01:01:35What's your reaction to that?
01:01:36In a carefully planned operation,
01:01:38the FBI raided the Ravenite headquarters
01:01:40of the King of Little Italy.
01:01:42They also arrested Sammy the Bull Gravano,
01:01:45depriving him of the chance to run the family
01:01:46while Gotti was in jail.
01:01:48As ever, the media was on hand
01:01:49to record what would be Gotti's last public appearance.
01:01:52We arrested Gotti, Sammy, and Locassi.
01:01:56They were all sitting around John's table having coffee when we walked in.
01:01:59Were they surprised?
01:02:00They were shocked.
01:02:01They were totally shocked by this whole thing.
01:02:04A few days after the arrest, we held a detention hearing
01:02:07for Gotti, Gravano, and Locassi in the Eastern District.
01:02:09And during this hearing, we played certain evidence for the judge.
01:02:13We played some of our key tapes
01:02:14to prove the existence of the conspiracy,
01:02:16the existence of the enterprise,
01:02:18to prove the existence of some of our murders that were committed.
01:02:20And one of the tapes we played was on our 12-12-89 conversation
01:02:25between John Gotti and Frank Lucassio.
01:02:27Sammy wasn't there.
01:02:28And during this conversation,
01:02:29John Gotti was bad-mouthing Sammy from start to finish.
01:02:33So Sammy heard for the first time, sitting next to John,
01:02:36his boss bad-mouthing, his very loyal underboss.
01:02:40And following the conversation,
01:02:41they went back to the MCC,
01:02:43and John braced up, I'm sorry,
01:02:45they went back to the MCC, and Sammy braced up,
01:02:47and John said, look, John,
01:02:48what were you meaning by all this?
01:02:49And John said, look, I'm just blowing seams, Sammy.
01:02:51I was hot at the time.
01:02:53I didn't mean what I said.
01:02:55Well, in La Casa Nostra,
01:02:58especially the Sicilians and Italians,
01:02:59what John said was irrevocable.
01:03:03And Sammy then knew, Sammy knew then in his heart
01:03:05that if you ever got out of jail,
01:03:07you had to kill John, his brother, and his son,
01:03:09all the Gottis,
01:03:10or John in turn would kill Sammy and his little crew.
01:03:12They can never, ever go back to the way it was.
01:03:17Boy, he's got a soul of out.
01:03:18I was amazed at him.
01:03:19I don't know.
01:03:21He's talking to me.
01:03:22He's talking to me.
01:03:22He's talking to me.
01:03:23He's talking to me.
01:03:24He's talking to me.
01:03:24He's talking to me.
01:03:25I'm talking to me.
01:03:26I'm just talking to him.
01:03:26I'm just talking to him.
01:03:26I'm just talking to him.
01:03:26You know, everything that everybody's
01:03:27catching with what business is in there.
01:03:29I want to know when they got him,
01:03:30and how they got him.
01:03:31And that's what I said.
01:03:33I want to know when and how they got him.
01:03:36These are all businesses that nobody had a fucking year.
01:03:38For Frank.
01:03:39On my side, I don't mind.
01:03:40Who guys?
01:03:41My son of a woman who can't be something.
01:03:42My son of a woman who can't be something.
01:03:49So, finally, and sadly, it might not be the people of God with that fucking asshole.
01:03:51We're going to go to the jail.
01:03:52We're going to go to the jail.
01:03:53We're going to tell you something that one of my family has had that they never had before.
01:03:57I'll make the fuck me in the air.
01:03:59But that ain't going to be the thing.
01:04:01When I came to you, though, don't worry.
01:04:03I want to let our fuck out.
01:04:05You know what I mean?
01:04:06So, based on these factors, John and Sammy had a falling out.
01:04:11And for a few months, they actually didn't talk to each other.
01:04:14The ironic thing is that John never once said to Sammy, his close lieutenant,
01:04:18you know, Sammy, what's wrong with you?
01:04:19Is something bothering you?
01:04:20Like you would if somebody worked for you.
01:04:22John is too absorbed in his own self, his own interest,
01:04:25to notice that he's close to the lieutenant.
01:04:27He wasn't talking to him.
01:04:29So, it was all of the above.
01:04:31Sammy reached out to the FBI in October of 1991.
01:04:35And on the night of November 8, 1991,
01:04:38we got a court order to retrieve him from MCC.
01:04:42And that night, we pulled him out about 1 o'clock in the morning.
01:04:45Took him to the safe house.
01:04:47We got an initial debriefing.
01:04:49And then we took him off out of the area
01:04:51where we maintained him until his testimony of the trial.
01:04:54Following in the footsteps of Philip Leonetti,
01:05:00another high-level mafia figure would now testify against Gotti.
01:05:04It was a devastating blow for the Godfather
01:05:06and a great victory for law enforcement.
01:05:11In Sammy's words, he said of John Gotti,
01:05:13he's the most important mobster in America.
01:05:15I'm his underboss,
01:05:16and I'm the second most important mobster in America.
01:05:19So, by Sammy's old admission, and of course we know this,
01:05:22that he's the second highest ranking mafia
01:05:25that will cause an Austrian member in America
01:05:27to come with the government.
01:05:37With Gravano's testimony, Gotti didn't stand a chance.
01:05:41He was finally convicted in the spring of 1992
01:05:45and is currently serving a life sentence
01:05:47in a maximum security prison.
01:05:49Yet even a prison cell has not finally put an end
01:05:53to the criminal career of the dapper don.
01:06:04Is John Gotti still running the family from jail?
01:06:06That's hard to say.
01:06:10At this point there is no indication that anyone else is running the family.
01:06:17He does have meetings in jail.
01:06:19He is not, at this point, the former boss.
01:06:25He is still the official boss of the family.
01:06:27And, uh, we can only assume pretty confidently
01:06:33that he's running the show from his jail cell.
01:06:36Even inside America's maximum security prison,
01:06:43the government is still monitoring the words of the Godfather.
01:06:46John Gotti still run the family from, uh, prison in Marin, Illinois.
01:06:53Can't you stop him? I thought you'd locked him up.
01:06:56He's all had visitors.
01:06:59His son visited him.
01:07:00His brother Peter is a capital visit him.
01:07:02He gets visits from attorneys.
01:07:04Although confined to a cell 23 hours a day,
01:07:09Gotti is permitted five visits a month.
01:07:12But even as he attempts to cling on to power,
01:07:14so his influence within the family is now beginning to wane.
01:07:17In time, Gotti himself will be succeeded by a new Godfather.
01:07:21He's still running the family, but he's, day by day, he's losing control.
01:07:29A lot of people are defying his orders.
01:07:31They don't listen to him anymore.
01:07:32A lot of them know he's never gonna come back from jail,
01:07:34so his control is slipping day by day.
01:07:51With the passing of time,
01:08:04the tradition of secrecy and the vow of silence
01:08:07are no longer the unshakable beliefs of a secret society.
01:08:12The values which once made the Mafia so powerful
01:08:15are now slowly fading away.
01:08:17It isn't what it used to be.
01:08:19I mean, no one claims that anybody's wiped out organized crime,
01:08:25but the face of organized crime has changed dramatically
01:08:29because of these defections.
01:08:31And whatever face it has in the years to come,
01:08:36it's not gonna be what it used to be.
01:08:49The annual festival of San Gennaro.
01:08:54Little Italy celebrates the traditions of the old country.
01:08:58The hope for the FBI is that the Mafia will come to be seen as nothing more than a relic of a dying culture,
01:09:16and that John Gotti will be remembered as the last king of Little Italy.
01:09:21In the war against the Mafia, where do you think you stand now?
01:09:24We've been fairly successful, but there's a lot of work to do,
01:09:28and we're a long ways away from saying, yeah, we neutralize these families.
01:09:32One former associate of the Gambino family told us that you can never put the Gambino family out of business.
01:09:42It would be like trying to put General Motors out of business.
01:09:44We will never in my lifetime put the Gambino family out of business.
01:09:48Our mission is trying to neutralize it where it's no longer effective or has any impact here on the people of New York.
01:09:55It's supposed to be underground.
01:10:00It came out from underground and thought it was maybe Hollywood.
01:10:05Everybody thought they were in Hollywood and were stars.
01:10:09The newspapers, maybe everybody's mentality, oh, this is great.
01:10:12I'm in the newspaper, I've got a suit on, cover of Time magazine.
01:10:17Maybe it went to everybody's head.
01:10:20And the power went to everybody's head.
01:10:24But it's not going to be that way for long once the government gets done with everybody.
01:10:29Because I think they'll have more and more people cooperating.
01:10:33Definitely.
01:10:35And you'll see at theseïnes me.
01:10:37Yes.
01:10:38You will.
01:10:39Especially a lower tätowé€ with commodities come for little composable.
01:10:40But I'm not surprised.
01:10:41It was really 하�ago that's really values.
01:10:43But it's not the main city.
01:10:44It's not the main communist enemy, it was a great country.
01:10:45Former oleopovic.
01:10:46No.
01:10:47Anything.
01:10:48So, Biden.
01:10:49I don't know that no one.
01:10:51I don't know what that one is.
01:10:52I don't know that there were any demographic names.
01:10:54I don't know that there aren't any.
01:10:55But it's up as well.
01:10:56орfer told me, if there are young owners or any city are living in
01:11:01That field, they can i take away from all sorts of things and I don't know that.
01:11:02It's a beautiful place.
01:11:03And theicon is tellement�.
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