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Henry Hill, the Lufthansa Heist & Michael Franzese: The Prosecutor's Side · Unshaken & Unafraid with Joe Pags

0:00
Speaker 1: The intrigue about the mob, many say the mafia. It's
0:03
Speaker 1: really not. It's La Cosa Nostra in America. It's the
0:05
Speaker 1: mafia over in Italy. But the intrigue continues. People, like
0:08
Speaker 1: to this day, want to know if the five mob
0:10
Speaker 1: families or the crime families are still even operating in
0:12
Speaker 1: New York. Well, a guy who played a huge role,
0:15
Speaker 1: not only in actually prosecuting the mob, but also a
0:19
Speaker 1: huge role in the movie Goodfellas is Ed McDonald. He's
0:21
Speaker 1: got a new book out called Chasing Goodfellas, Lufthansa, Henry Hill,
0:24
Speaker 1: Point Shaving, and Making Movies. Ed, nice to meet you.
0:27
Speaker 1: How are you doing?
0:28
Speaker 2: I'm doing great, Joe. Thanks for having me on.
0:30
Speaker 1: Let me talk to you about the movie Goodfellas. How
0:33
Speaker 1: true to form, how true to life was that? Was
0:36
Speaker 1: it true that they pulled off the theft? We know
0:40
Speaker 1: that they did it. But is it true that almost
0:41
Speaker 1: immediately they started whacking each other because nobody trusted anybody
0:44
Speaker 1: and they were all flashing the money around? How true
0:46
Speaker 1: was that story?
0:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, they weren't killing each other. It was Jimmy Burke
0:51
Speaker 3: who was killing. Jimmy Burke was the mastermind of the robbery.
0:54
Speaker 3: And he was killing people who he suspected might be
0:58
Speaker 3: witnesses against him.
0:59
Speaker 2: And that wasn't the only reason he was killing them.
1:03
Speaker 3: He was also getting their share of the profits, their
1:05
Speaker 3: share of the proceeds of the robbery. So yeah, Jimmy
1:09
Speaker 3: was on a campaign of executing people he suspected would
1:15
Speaker 3: turn on him. People who were involved had knowledge of
1:17
Speaker 3: the robbery, who were participants in the robbery. And there
1:20
Speaker 3: was a trail of bodies throughout Well, there weren't that many.
1:25
Speaker 3: Like eight or ten people probably were killed.
1:28
Speaker 1: That's a lot of bodies.
1:29
Speaker 2: I mean, eight to ten. That's a lot. But it's
1:32
Speaker 2: a lot fewer than were attributed to him. Sure, sure.
1:35
Speaker 1: What I want to know is, do you think Jimmy
1:37
Speaker 1: Burke goes in knowing, I'm going to kill everybody afterwards
1:40
Speaker 1: so I get the entire take? Or did he become
1:42
Speaker 1: extremely paranoid afterwards because somebody bought a big fancy car
1:45
Speaker 1: and somebody bought a fur coat?
1:47
Speaker 2: You know, Joe, I don't know.
1:49
Speaker 3: I don't know whether he went in there with good
1:50
Speaker 3: intentions or Certainly, he had reason to suspect that some
1:54
Speaker 3: of these people were doing stupid things, and it was
1:58
Speaker 3: possible they would cooperate against him. Whether he went in
2:01
Speaker 3: with the plan from the very outset that he was
2:04
Speaker 3: going to kill these people, I don't know.
2:07
Speaker 2: I mean, I suspect that he didn't.
2:09
Speaker 3: I think that he did get some paranoia when he
2:11
Speaker 3: saw in the papers that he was identified right from
2:14
Speaker 3: the get-go as being public enemy number one, and he
2:16
Speaker 3: was the The brilliant mastermind, the Damon Runyon character, and
2:21
Speaker 3: everybody was focusing on him. And so he was a
2:24
Speaker 3: subject of such heavy investigative attention that I think it
2:28
Speaker 3: must have worked on him so that he became paranoid.
2:32
Speaker 3: and he was seeing people. I mean, there was a
2:34
Speaker 3: guy who came to my office in response to a subpoena,
2:38
Speaker 3: Louis Kofora, and he was executed. Louis Kofora came into
2:41
Speaker 3: my office. I didn't even put him in the grand jury.
2:43
Speaker 3: I mean, he was stupid in the sense that he
2:45
Speaker 3: didn't hire a criminal defense lawyer, and he came down alone,
2:48
Speaker 3: and he said he was taking the fifth.
2:50
Speaker 2: I didn't put him in the grand jury.
2:51
Speaker 3: He never cooperated, and he was killed a short while
2:53
Speaker 3: later because Burke knew he came down to the grand jury.
2:57
Speaker 2: We never went into the grand jury.
2:59
Speaker 3: So, you know, there was some paranoia at play there.
3:02
Speaker 3: I don't think Kefora ever would have cooperated with us.
3:05
Speaker 1: What's interesting is as you watch the movie, the characters
3:08
Speaker 1: are so diverse. You've got the one guy who's the
3:10
Speaker 1: big TV guy selling his stuff on television, very flashy.
3:14
Speaker 1: You've got the other guy who's kind of dumb, played
3:17
Speaker 1: by Frank Severo, who happens to be a friend of mine.
3:20
Speaker 1: And in that, he's just, oh, what? I didn't mean to.
3:23
Speaker 1: I think he bought the wife the fur coat. Then
3:27
Speaker 1: he ends up hanging in the meat locker. Did they
3:29
Speaker 1: depict how they were killed and how they were taken
3:31
Speaker 1: out the correct way in the movie?
3:33
Speaker 3: You know, the some of the stuff, you know, when
3:35
Speaker 3: you when you ask about Goodfellas, it in the book, Wiseguy,
3:40
Speaker 3: that Nick Folletti wrote them, which Goodfellas was based. Yeah,
3:43
Speaker 3: it was entirely accurate in what they what they portrayed,
3:48
Speaker 3: what Nick portrayed and what what what Martin Scorsese portrayed
3:51
Speaker 3: in the film. That's the way these people live. There
3:54
Speaker 3: was no exaggeration or no distortion. I mean, they had
3:57
Speaker 3: that down to a T. Now, was everything accurate in
4:00
Speaker 3: the sense that, you know, a guy who was in
4:02
Speaker 3: the crew who was a participant in the robbery was
4:05
Speaker 3: killed and put in the meat locker or in a truck?
4:08
Speaker 2: No.
4:09
Speaker 3: But Jimmy did kill a guy he had a drug
4:12
Speaker 3: deal with, and the guy tried to cheat him on
4:15
Speaker 3: the drug deal, and he had the guy killed, and
4:17
Speaker 3: they found his body in a truck. So, yeah, that
4:20
Speaker 3: was a true-to-life thing. It wasn't the same character who was,
4:23
Speaker 3: you know, out on the robbery that night. The perfect
4:28
Speaker 3: example is when the Joe Pesci character, who was Joey
4:32
Speaker 3: DeVito in the movie, was Tommy DeVito in the movie.
4:36
Speaker 3: He was Tommy DeSimone in real life. Now, that guy
4:40
Speaker 3: was a big, strapping, strong, incredible, really handsome guy.
4:44
Speaker 1: So he wasn't a little guy.
4:46
Speaker 3: And when I heard that Joe Pesci was playing him,
4:48
Speaker 3: I said, oh, man, he's so miscast.
4:51
Speaker 1: But he was larger than life, though. I mean, Eddie
4:53
Speaker 1: played it so well. It was so believable.
4:55
Speaker 3: The viewers didn't know that Tommy DeSimone was a big,
4:59
Speaker 3: good-looking guy. You know, what difference did it make? And
5:02
Speaker 3: for that role, I mean, Joe Pesci couldn't have been
5:04
Speaker 3: any better cast. It was just, it was phenomenal.
5:07
Speaker 2: So there were things that were twisted.
5:08
Speaker 3: And, like, when he gets killed, when Tommy DeSimone, when
5:12
Speaker 3: Tommy DeVito gets killed, he supposedly killed because he killed
5:17
Speaker 3: Billy Batts. Well, the fact of the matter was the
5:19
Speaker 3: guy who orchestrated his killing, his murder, was John Gotti.
5:23
Speaker 3: And they couldn't put that in there because everybody would say, oh,
5:26
Speaker 3: they threw John Gotti in because John Gotti is a
5:28
Speaker 3: famous gangster.
5:29
Speaker 2: And it just did. Well, no, we did. Gotti did
5:31
Speaker 2: kill him. But they had three years later.
5:33
Speaker 1: I'm just finding this out now from you. I had
5:35
Speaker 1: no idea John Gotti was involved in that.
5:37
Speaker 2: Yeah. John Gotti.
5:38
Speaker 3: Whether John Gotti actually pulled the trigger or not, I
5:40
Speaker 3: don't know. But John Gotti went to the. the Lucchese
5:43
Speaker 3: crime family, or he had the bosses of the Gambino
5:46
Speaker 3: family go to the Lucchese crime family and say, look,
5:50
Speaker 3: kill this guy. He killed a guy from our family,
5:53
Speaker 3: a guy, Billy Batts. But in addition, he killed one
5:56
Speaker 3: of my best friends, a guy named Foxy Girardi, and
5:59
Speaker 3: he had never paid the price for that. It was
6:01
Speaker 3: an unsanctioned hit on Foxy Girardi. And so Gotti was
6:05
Speaker 3: lobbying to get him killed. Now, it was too complicated
6:09
Speaker 3: to put that into the movie, but it was true.
6:11
Speaker 3: And so there were some things that are not entirely
6:14
Speaker 3: factually or historically accurate.
6:16
Speaker 2: Right. But that's not what they set out to do.
6:18
Speaker 2: They didn't set out to make an historically accurate movie.
6:22
Speaker 3: They set out to make an incredibly accurate or very
6:26
Speaker 3: accurate movie about what the life.
6:28
Speaker 2: Is like for the everyday Joes in the mob.
6:30
Speaker 1: That was very entertaining. I mean, it was so entertaining.
6:33
Speaker 1: It's still to this day. Many believe it's the best
6:35
Speaker 1: mob movie ever made. Tell me about Henry Hill. Ray
6:38
Speaker 1: Liotta was miscast as well because he was way too
6:40
Speaker 1: good looking, way too smooth. And Henry Hill wasn't anything
6:43
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6:45
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6:50
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8:12
Speaker 2: Henry didn't look like Ray Liotta. On the other hand,
8:15
Speaker 2: you know, he had more girlfriends than you could shake
8:17
Speaker 2: a stick at. I mean, the guy really had a line.
8:19
Speaker 2: He was one smooth character. I guess.
8:22
Speaker 3: But Henry was, he wasn't this, you know, dashing kind of,
8:28
Speaker 3: you know, smooth character that you see.
8:32
Speaker 2: In the movie played by Ray Liotta. Henry was, I
8:37
Speaker 2: used to call him the Beetle Bailey of mobsters.
8:39
Speaker 3: He was a cartoon character named Beetle Bailey back in
8:41
Speaker 3: the day when I was a kid.
8:43
Speaker 2: He was a hapless guy who was in the army,
8:45
Speaker 2: and everything he did, he did wrong.
8:47
Speaker 1: I know Beetle Bailey. I think a lot of people
8:49
Speaker 1: watching and listening know Beetle Bailey. I get it. He
8:51
Speaker 1: was the screw-up.
8:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, Henry was a screw-up. On the other hand,
8:57
Speaker 3: Paul Vario loved him. He treated him almost like one
8:59
Speaker 3: of his sons. Jimmy treated him like his little brother.
9:03
Speaker 3: Henry had a way where he could charm everybody. He
9:06
Speaker 3: made fun of himself. He had a self-deprecating sense of humor.
9:11
Speaker 2: He always had a great story. We would sit there
9:14
Speaker 2: and he would tell stories to the agents and me
9:17
Speaker 2: and We're laughing.
9:18
Speaker 3: And then the next thing you know, he'd come in
9:20
Speaker 3: the next day and he was hungover.
9:22
Speaker 2: Or I don't know where he was getting the booze from,
9:24
Speaker 2: but he was drinking. And he was hopeless. And he
9:28
Speaker 2: couldn't remember things at times. And then the next day
9:30
Speaker 2: he'd come in and he'd be fine. But he was
9:34
Speaker 2: always screwing up in some ways. And he would just
9:37
Speaker 2: be infuriating. And the agents would yell at him. I'd
9:39
Speaker 2: yell at him. The marshals would be yelling at him.
9:42
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, everybody said, you're the guy.
9:43
Speaker 2: You can't help but like the guy. And, you know,
9:46
Speaker 2: I stayed friendly, friendly. I mean, I never say people
9:49
Speaker 2: ask me frequently, you know, as I'm promoting the book,
9:51
Speaker 2: I get interviewed and said, were you a friend of Henry's?
9:53
Speaker 2: Do you consider him to be your friend?
9:55
Speaker 3: I never could say he was a friend because I
9:56
Speaker 3: never had respect for him. I always knew that he was.
10:00
Speaker 3: in his heart that he was a criminal.
10:02
Speaker 2: And he said, look, I'm totally self-absorbed and just worried.
10:07
Speaker 3: Thinking about myself all the time. And, you know, I
10:10
Speaker 3: wouldn't trust myself. And so he couldn't be trusted. He
10:12
Speaker 3: couldn't be respected. But on the other hand, did I
10:15
Speaker 3: get a kick out of him?
10:17
Speaker 2: Sure, I did.
10:18
Speaker 3: I mean, I like to hear his stories and, you know,
10:22
Speaker 3: even spent some time with him. I spent time with
10:24
Speaker 3: him when he came to New York to be on
10:25
Speaker 3: the Howard Stern show. And, you know, I had to
10:27
Speaker 3: go out to L.A.
10:28
Speaker 2: For work a lot.
10:28
Speaker 3: And I'd see him sometimes out there. I got him
10:30
Speaker 3: in a movie that I was involved in. And Henry
10:33
Speaker 3: showed up. But Henry got, like, blithering drunk. And he really,
10:36
Speaker 3: you know, he couldn't have any lines in the movie because.
10:38
Speaker 1: He was too drunk.
10:38
Speaker 2: That couldn't happen. It was a sad, sad case. He
10:43
Speaker 2: died the day after he turned 69.
10:44
Speaker 3: I don't know how he ever lived that long because
10:46
Speaker 3: he abused himself with drugs and with alcohol so badly
10:50
Speaker 3: that it was amazing that he lived as long as
10:53
Speaker 3: he did.
10:54
Speaker 1: Was Jimmy Burke going to kill Henry and his wife, Karen?
10:58
Speaker 1: Were they done if he doesn't come to you guys?
11:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know whether he would have killed the wife.
11:04
Speaker 3: Certainly in the movie they showed there was a scene,
11:06
Speaker 3: which is actually shot right down the street from where
11:08
Speaker 3: I live in Brooklyn. and it looked as if he
11:11
Speaker 3: might be thinking about killing the wife. There was no
11:12
Speaker 3: way he was going to kill the wife because Henry
11:14
Speaker 3: was still at large, and so he wouldn't kill the wife.
11:18
Speaker 3: If he killed the wife, Henry would have come immediately
11:19
Speaker 3: to us. So a couple of weeks later, we were
11:22
Speaker 3: able to get Henry, and we did get him to cooperate.
11:25
Speaker 3: And the reason we got him to cooperate was because
11:27
Speaker 3: Henry knew for certain that Jimmy was going to kill him.
11:33
Speaker 3: The family had a contract on Henry's life, because Henry
11:37
Speaker 3: had violated the code, and he was selling drugs. And
11:41
Speaker 3: you couldn't sell drugs and be affiliated with the mafia,
11:44
Speaker 3: not because they had a morality, and they were against
11:47
Speaker 3: it for moral reasons, but they felt that if you
11:49
Speaker 3: were selling drugs, you were going to get a lengthy
11:52
Speaker 3: prison sentence if you were convicted, and you were likely
11:55
Speaker 3: to turn. So they passed this rule back in the
11:57
Speaker 3: 50s that you couldn't be involved in selling drugs. Henry
12:00
Speaker 3: was selling drugs, and Jimmy, of course, was with him
12:02
Speaker 3: selling drugs. And it was one of the reasons he
12:05
Speaker 3: wanted them dead. He didn't want Henry to turn on him.
12:07
Speaker 3: He could turn on them either with the government or
12:08
Speaker 3: he could turn on them with the family. And he
12:11
Speaker 3: could be killed because he was selling drugs. And Henry
12:14
Speaker 3: knew whatever else he was doing. But the contract had
12:18
Speaker 3: it out for him that he was going to be killed.
12:21
Speaker 3: And Jimmy wanted them killed because he knew about Lufthansa
12:24
Speaker 3: or he knew about the drug dealing. And he knew
12:26
Speaker 3: about the Boston College point shaving case, which, ironically enough,
12:29
Speaker 3: they didn't even think was a crime.
12:31
Speaker 2: Wow.
12:33
Speaker 1: It is Ed McDonald. So Henry Hill was a character.
12:36
Speaker 1: Jimmy probably would not have killed Karen. Like we see
12:38
Speaker 1: in the movie, like if he had the opportunity, they
12:39
Speaker 1: make it seem as though he would have offed her
12:41
Speaker 1: right there in the street. I guess that's not really
12:43
Speaker 1: the case, but certainly Henry Hill decided this is too dangerous.
12:48
Speaker 1: I've got to talk to Ed McDonald and his task force.
12:50
Speaker 1: How do you turn him? How does that, how does
12:52
Speaker 1: that day go down?
12:53
Speaker 2: Well, Henry was facing, we knew about Henry. He was
12:56
Speaker 2: on the radar screen.
12:57
Speaker 3: We knew that see, because he was hapless and because
13:00
Speaker 3: he was not an effective gangster, uh, Jimmy did not
13:03
Speaker 3: allow him to go on the robbery, even though he
13:05
Speaker 3: was responsible. He was like a link between the inside man,
13:09
Speaker 3: the Lufthansa employee who had the plans for the robbery.
13:11
Speaker 2: And was ultimately brought to Burke. Well, it was turned
13:15
Speaker 2: over to Henry.
13:17
Speaker 3: Henry, the bookmaker for the cargo handler at Lufthansa, learned
13:24
Speaker 3: about it, and he took it to Henry.
13:26
Speaker 2: He took the plan to Henry. Henry couldn't execute the
13:29
Speaker 2: robbery himself. He brought it to Jimmy, who was his boss.
13:32
Speaker 3: And then Jimmy tried to tell Paul Vario about it
13:34
Speaker 3: because he was the overall boss. And so Henry wanted
13:36
Speaker 3: to go on the caper. He wanted to go on
13:38
Speaker 3: the heist. And Jimmy said, no, you know, you just
13:41
Speaker 3: you can shoot yourself in the foot. Whatever you're going
13:43
Speaker 3: to do, you shoot one of the cargo handlers by mistake.
13:46
Speaker 3: So they wouldn't let him go on. He said, but
13:47
Speaker 3: don't worry, you'll get a finder's fee. And he was like,
13:50
Speaker 3: screw up.
13:50
Speaker 1: He couldn't go on the deal that he actually arranged.
13:54
Speaker 2: That's right. He didn't arrange it in the sense he
13:57
Speaker 2: didn't plan it, but he did have a role in it.
14:00
Speaker 2: And he was also allowed.
14:01
Speaker 3: To hang around when they were at Jimmy's base of
14:03
Speaker 3: operations at Robert's Lounge. He was there when they were
14:06
Speaker 3: planning it. So he was privy to all the information
14:09
Speaker 3: about it.
14:09
Speaker 2: He knew who went on it. He knew everything on
14:11
Speaker 2: the robbery. He knew everything that they did.
14:13
Speaker 3: So on the other hand, once he cooperated, there was
14:17
Speaker 3: no way we could corroborate anything he had to say
14:19
Speaker 3: because there were no records. There was no In the
14:22
Speaker 3: Boston College point shaving case, we had hotel records, we
14:24
Speaker 3: had telephone records, a whole.
14:25
Speaker 2: Number of things.
14:26
Speaker 3: There was nothing like that for the Lufthansa robberies.
14:29
Speaker 2: And all the other witnesses, even if we could turn them,
14:32
Speaker 2: they were dead.
14:34
Speaker 3: Henry was the only one who was alive because Jimmy
14:36
Speaker 3: loved him up until the end. And Jimmy wasn't going
14:39
Speaker 3: to kill him because he was knowledgeable because, like I said,
14:41
Speaker 3: he was like his little brother.
14:43
Speaker 2: And it was like family to him.
14:44
Speaker 3: And so Henry wasn't going to be killed, but only
14:47
Speaker 3: when he got locked up.
14:49
Speaker 2: For the drugs, then they knew that this guy's going
14:51
Speaker 2: to turn.
14:52
Speaker 3: He was facing 25 to life in New York on
14:55
Speaker 3: the state drug case.
14:56
Speaker 2: And listen, what we did basically was we stole him
14:59
Speaker 2: from the, the.
15:00
Speaker 3: The Nassau County district attorney's office, because he said, I'll
15:04
Speaker 3: only go into the, I'll only cooperate if I get
15:06
Speaker 3: it to the federal witness protection program.
15:08
Speaker 2: And so they couldn't supply.
15:09
Speaker 1: Which he ended up screwing up at the end of
15:12
Speaker 1: the day, he screwed up the witness protection too, right?
15:14
Speaker 3: Well, it wasn't at the end of the day. People
15:16
Speaker 3: will say, well, Henry got kicked out like after seven years, right?
15:19
Speaker 3: Or like after 10 years, right? He and his wife
15:21
Speaker 3: got kicked out. No, he got kicked out after 14 months.
15:24
Speaker 3: Within six months, he was moved from Omaha to Kentucky.
15:27
Speaker 3: Within another six months, he was moved from Kentucky to Seattle.
15:31
Speaker 3: And they threw him out. It was a two-strike rule.
15:33
Speaker 3: And so he was gone. He was out of the program.
15:36
Speaker 3: The funding stopped probably at about the 15th or 16th month.
15:40
Speaker 3: of his enrollment in the Witness Protection Program because he
15:43
Speaker 3: just couldn't keep it. He'd go to bars in Omaha
15:45
Speaker 3: or in Cincinnati outside of, you know, I said Kentucky,
15:49
Speaker 3: but it was in the suburbs, in the Kentucky suburbs
15:52
Speaker 3: of Cincinnati. He'd sit in bars and start telling everybody
15:55
Speaker 3: who he was and how he was a big gangster
15:56
Speaker 3: from New York. And he even went on television. He
16:00
Speaker 3: started a business. He started a, he had like a cart,
16:04
Speaker 3: he had horse-drawn carts that he would take around.
16:06
Speaker 2: He was going to take around downtown Cincinnati. And in
16:10
Speaker 2: connection with promoting this, he and Karen went on local television.
16:15
Speaker 2: And they said, well, that wasn't us. That was Marty
16:17
Speaker 2: Lewis and his wife. Yeah, but it was still the
16:19
Speaker 2: same face.
16:20
Speaker 3: Wow.
16:20
Speaker 2: And the same Brooklyn accent.
16:23
Speaker 1: Ed, how did you end up in the movie? How
16:24
Speaker 1: did that go down?
16:27
Speaker 3: Well, so I was friendly with Nick Pelleggi. I mean, Nick,
16:30
Speaker 3: I still am friendly with him. Nick is still alive.
16:33
Speaker 2: And he.
16:37
Speaker 3: So I talked to him in connection with the preparation
16:39
Speaker 3: of the book, but the book came out in the
16:41
Speaker 3: middle of the 80s, so it wasn't until about four
16:43
Speaker 3: or five years later that Scorsese had time to do it.
16:46
Speaker 3: Nick called me up and said that Marty wanted to
16:49
Speaker 3: have somebody come to my office and take pictures of
16:52
Speaker 3: the office for the scene in which the prosecutor was
16:55
Speaker 3: going to speak to Henry and Karen, the scene that
16:58
Speaker 3: actually was in the movie.
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18:04
Speaker 1: Now back to the video.
18:06
Speaker 2: And he wanted to know if they could come to
18:07
Speaker 2: my office.
18:08
Speaker 3: I was still working for the government, but I was
18:10
Speaker 3: planning to leave after probably 18 years, I guess I
18:12
Speaker 3: worked as a prosecutor. And if I was still in
18:16
Speaker 3: the government, I wouldn't have been able to be in
18:17
Speaker 3: the movie. So I said, sure, he can send the
18:21
Speaker 3: staff person down. So we sent a young woman, Marty
18:23
Speaker 3: sent a young woman to my office. And She would
18:26
Speaker 3: ask me a bunch of questions about, you know, what
18:28
Speaker 3: the ambiance was and what everybody's attitude was and how
18:31
Speaker 3: it went. And it was described in the book, but
18:35
Speaker 3: she just wanted to get a better feel for it.
18:37
Speaker 3: And she says, like, can I take these photos of
18:38
Speaker 3: your children and can I take your diplomas and a
18:41
Speaker 3: number of other things? And I said, look, you know,
18:43
Speaker 3: I'm spending all this time with you and I'm giving
18:45
Speaker 3: you my diplomas for the movie.
18:47
Speaker 2: Who's playing me in the movie? And yeah.
18:49
Speaker 3: You know, she said, well, they haven't cast that part yet.
18:52
Speaker 3: So this is a joke. I said, I'll play myself.
18:55
Speaker 3: I can play myself.
18:55
Speaker 2: That's great. So an hour and a half later, she
18:57
Speaker 2: goes back to the office. She tells Marty and Nick.
19:00
Speaker 3: Nick was with them. And Nick called me with Marty
19:03
Speaker 3: there and said, you know, you want to have a
19:04
Speaker 3: screen test? And I said, don't be ridiculous. I've never acted.
19:08
Speaker 2: In my life.
19:08
Speaker 3: He says, you're just going to be playing yourself. So
19:11
Speaker 3: on a lark, I took out the screen test. I
19:13
Speaker 3: just wanted to meet Martin Scorsese. That's why I went
19:16
Speaker 3: on the screen test.
19:17
Speaker 2: I never expected it.
19:18
Speaker 3: In a million years that I'd passed a screen test.
19:21
Speaker 3: And so he said, go, we'll go with it. You
19:24
Speaker 3: got the part.
19:25
Speaker 2: And so, you know, two months later, I went out to,
19:29
Speaker 2: there was a set.
19:30
Speaker 3: Out in Queens, was in a newly constructed office building
19:33
Speaker 3: out there. And so they set up what was my office.
19:38
Speaker 3: And so I went, I did the scene. There was
19:40
Speaker 3: no script. I mean, if I had to memorize a script,
19:42
Speaker 3: I would have had a problem.
19:43
Speaker 1: So you just said what you said in real life
19:45
Speaker 1: to Henry Hill and his wife?
19:46
Speaker 2: More or less. More or less.
19:48
Speaker 3: And we would do it different ways. We did it
19:49
Speaker 3: with six takes. Each take was about probably 20 minutes
19:52
Speaker 3: to a half an hour. What you see is not seamless.
19:55
Speaker 3: It's not all one out of the same take. They
19:57
Speaker 3: were picking and choosing.
19:58
Speaker 2: I mean, the whole idea. Don't be humble.
20:01
Speaker 1: It's damn good.
20:02
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. Thanks.
20:06
Speaker 3: I kind of, I guess I came to the conclusion
20:08
Speaker 3: that if I wasn't, Somebody like Martin Scorsese wasn't going
20:11
Speaker 3: to keep those scenes in there.
20:12
Speaker 2: He would have gotten somebody else.
20:13
Speaker 1: Let's explain to my audience and to me, what is
20:15
Speaker 1: point shaving?
20:17
Speaker 2: Point shaving is, there are odds that are set.
20:20
Speaker 3: When bettors are betting in basketball games, let's say, and
20:23
Speaker 3: in football games as well, they don't bet on who's
20:26
Speaker 3: going to win because it's usually pretty obvious that one
20:29
Speaker 3: team is much, well, not always, but sometimes one team
20:32
Speaker 3: is much better than the other.
20:34
Speaker 2: They still want to be able to take bets on
20:35
Speaker 2: those games.
20:37
Speaker 3: So what they do is they set a line or
20:40
Speaker 3: a point spread, and they say this one team is
20:43
Speaker 3: going to be favored, is favored over the other by, say,
20:46
Speaker 3: 10 points.
20:47
Speaker 2: So point shaving is when you pay players.
20:51
Speaker 3: On the team that looks like it's a better team,
20:54
Speaker 3: and you say you have to win by less than
20:56
Speaker 3: the point spread, win by less than 10 points in
20:59
Speaker 3: the hypothetical I'm giving, so that the players are not
21:02
Speaker 3: necessarily paid to dump the games or to lose the games,
21:05
Speaker 3: but to keep their margin of victory lower than what
21:08
Speaker 3: the projected victorious margin would be.
21:12
Speaker 1: How would they do that? Would they fake an injury?
21:14
Speaker 1: Would they slow down the ball? I mean, how do
21:16
Speaker 1: you actually achieve that?
21:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, they weren't faking injuries.
21:20
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I actually, during the trial, and I
21:22
Speaker 3: explain this in the book, I had the coach from
21:24
Speaker 3: Boston College come on and testify. Well, actually, they called
21:27
Speaker 3: him as a witness, but he was secretly preparing with me.
21:30
Speaker 3: I prepared his cross-examination. They never knew that. But they
21:33
Speaker 3: were cooperating. The school cooperated with us. And the coach cooperated.
21:38
Speaker 3: He had a lawyer cooperating with us. His lawyer was
21:40
Speaker 3: cooperating with us. And so we had it all prepared.
21:42
Speaker 3: And he explained, look, a kid is not likely to
21:45
Speaker 3: go out and just start firing up bricks. He's going
21:48
Speaker 3: to do things much more subtly. He's going to dive
21:51
Speaker 3: for a loose ball. And he looks like he's really hustling. But,
21:54
Speaker 3: of course, he knows he's not going to get the
21:55
Speaker 3: loose ball. So now he's on the ground. And the
21:57
Speaker 3: other team has five players against four. So his team,
22:00
Speaker 3: they're cooperating. Their defense has been reduced because of that. Sure,
22:06
Speaker 3: they might miss shots, or they might commit fouls that
22:09
Speaker 3: they shouldn't be committing, but they look like they're aggressively
22:11
Speaker 3: playing and playing really hard, but they foolishly foul the
22:15
Speaker 3: other team. They'll jump an instant too soon for a rebound. Well,
22:19
Speaker 3: the guy jumped for the rebound, but he just mistakenly
22:21
Speaker 3: jumped an instant too soon. So players would be sophisticated enough.
22:25
Speaker 3: They would mask their efforts to try to keep the
22:30
Speaker 3: score down or the margin of victory down. And, of course,
22:33
Speaker 3: there were probably examples where guys are throwing up breaks
22:37
Speaker 3: because the kids were stupid.
22:39
Speaker 1: And how did they get their claws into them? Is
22:43
Speaker 1: it a matter of giving them some money? Hey, kid,
22:45
Speaker 1: I've got some money. Just do me a favor in
22:47
Speaker 1: the game this coming Friday. Do you go through the coach?
22:49
Speaker 1: How does it work?
22:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it never goes through the coach. I mean,
22:52
Speaker 3: you wouldn't go through the coach. You'd find a kid
22:54
Speaker 3: who was disgruntled. And it would usually be like Rick
22:57
Speaker 3: Hewn was the player on the BC team. He had
23:00
Speaker 3: played ball in Pittsburgh. with a friend of his, Rocco Perla.
23:05
Speaker 3: And Rocco had a brother who was a drug dealer,
23:07
Speaker 3: small-time drug dealer.
23:08
Speaker 2: And bookmaker in Pittsburgh.
23:10
Speaker 3: And he was talking to Rick and just said, look,
23:13
Speaker 3: it starts out, usually you could start out, can you
23:15
Speaker 3: give us inside information? Could you tell us which great
23:19
Speaker 3: player is having a fight with his girlfriend or is
23:22
Speaker 3: not feeling well?
23:23
Speaker 2: He has the flu, he has a cold. Does he
23:26
Speaker 2: have an injury that we don't really know about? And
23:30
Speaker 2: it usually will start with, you know, can you supply
23:32
Speaker 2: some information?
23:33
Speaker 3: And that leads into, well, listen, maybe you can help
23:36
Speaker 3: us out in keeping the margin of victory down.
23:38
Speaker 2: Or maybe, you know, you can use some efforts to yourself.
23:42
Speaker 3: And once it gets into that, then, well, you know,
23:45
Speaker 3: let's be better assured that we're going to win. Get
23:49
Speaker 3: us some more players. And so then they'll meet with
23:51
Speaker 3: the players. And the next thing you know, they're offering money. And,
23:55
Speaker 3: you know, once they say, okay, we'll take it, well,
23:58
Speaker 3: now they got them. And they can threaten them and
24:00
Speaker 3: they could say, look, well, you know, blow your head off.
24:03
Speaker 3: Or as Henry said, you know, you can't you can't
24:05
Speaker 3: play basketball. They called up Pune and said, you can't
24:07
Speaker 3: play basketball with broken fingers. You know, Sweeney was another player.
24:11
Speaker 3: You know, hey, listen, you know, you're a good kid
24:12
Speaker 3: and everything. But, you know, we know, you know, we
24:14
Speaker 3: know you, you know, we know your girlfriend's name and
24:16
Speaker 3: where her family lives.
24:18
Speaker 2: We know where your family lives. And now these kids
24:20
Speaker 2: are terrified. And so they're going to go along with it.
24:23
Speaker 1: Tell me about this task force. You guys put together
24:25
Speaker 1: a task force and you actually tracked down and you
24:28
Speaker 1: like went after Michael Franzese, who was making billions of dollars,
24:32
Speaker 1: shaving the tax off, off of gasoline. How did you,
24:36
Speaker 1: how did you track him down? I think a lot
24:37
Speaker 1: of people think somebody gets murdered. So there's some crime
24:39
Speaker 1: that happens. You could track it down that way. You
24:41
Speaker 1: didn't do it that way. Did you?
24:43
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, Michael was one of many targets we had,
24:46
Speaker 3: and he was a significant, very significant player in the
24:49
Speaker 3: Colombo crime family. And he, uh, He's 34 years old
24:53
Speaker 3: at the time we convicted him, and he was earning
24:56
Speaker 3: an extremely large amount of money through a complicated scheme
25:01
Speaker 3: where they were stealing gasoline excise tax, stealing it from
25:07
Speaker 3: the government, basically. But in addition, we had a whole
25:10
Speaker 3: multitude of crimes that we charged Michael with. He was
25:14
Speaker 3: defrauding insurance companies, motion picture companies, motion picture production companies. banks,
25:22
Speaker 3: because he owned construction companies that he was using for
25:25
Speaker 3: a whole variety of frauds. We formed what he called
25:28
Speaker 3: the task force. We didn't call it the Michael Francis
25:31
Speaker 3: task force. We were devoting a lot of attention from
25:34
Speaker 3: a bunch of different law enforcement agencies.
25:37
Speaker 2: We're focusing on Michael. We brought them all together with
25:39
Speaker 2: our group.
25:40
Speaker 3: And he's known for the guy who was stealing so
25:44
Speaker 3: much money for oil and gas. That was really not
25:46
Speaker 3: the focal point of our RICO prosecution of him. We
25:50
Speaker 3: were holding the oil and gas case, as we called it,
25:53
Speaker 3: in abeyance in the event that we didn't convict him
25:55
Speaker 3: on the first case.
25:56
Speaker 2: And if we didn't, we were going to.
25:58
Speaker 3: Come after him for stealing hundreds of millions, if not
26:01
Speaker 3: a billion dollars in tax revenue from the government. But
26:06
Speaker 3: we were able to resolve it short of having to
26:08
Speaker 3: go to trial. And he got a 10-year prison sentence.
26:12
Speaker 3: And I think he, you know, I was a doubter. I,
26:15
Speaker 3: when he, I'd been interviewed in the early nineties and
26:18
Speaker 3: when I went into private practice and I was asked
26:19
Speaker 3: what I thought of Michael and I says, ah, he's
26:21
Speaker 3: a con man. You know, this is a lot of
26:22
Speaker 3: nonsense about finding Jesus and going on the righteous path.
26:26
Speaker 3: And it's a lot of, it's a lot of crap.
26:28
Speaker 3: And I figured he'd be back in the middle of
26:30
Speaker 3: gangster activities in no time. And look, I think he's
26:33
Speaker 3: made a true believer out of me.
26:34
Speaker 2: I think that, uh, uh, I think he's not involved
26:38
Speaker 2: in organized crime.
26:39
Speaker 3: I I'm certainly not involved in the government, so I
26:41
Speaker 3: wouldn't know, but I don't, if, if he were, I
26:44
Speaker 3: think prosecutors would only be too happy to go after
26:46
Speaker 3: somebody with his, uh, with his notoriety and his, his,
26:50
Speaker 3: his fame at this point and try to make an
26:52
Speaker 3: example out of them. So they probably have been looking
26:54
Speaker 3: to see, and the slightest little thing that he did,
26:56
Speaker 3: people would be going after him for.
26:57
Speaker 2: So I'm convinced that he has, uh, you know, he's
27:01
Speaker 2: changed his life around.
27:03
Speaker 3: And he's probably, you know, from my read from these
27:06
Speaker 3: posts and comments that I get from the podcast I
27:09
Speaker 3: was on with him that.
27:10
Speaker 2: You know, was on his show, but two or three
27:11
Speaker 2: weeks ago.
27:12
Speaker 3: And the people who write into him, you know, I mean,
27:15
Speaker 3: these people are really thankful for what he did for
27:17
Speaker 3: them and helped them go on a, you know, change
27:21
Speaker 3: their lives. So it seems to me that Michael has
27:24
Speaker 3: really turned his life around.
27:26
Speaker 1: The Brooklyn Organized Crime Strike Force is what it's being
27:28
Speaker 1: called here. It wasn't the Franzese, you know, task force,
27:32
Speaker 1: as you said. But something had to raise red flags
27:34
Speaker 1: for you, Ed. What was it? Because you don't just
27:37
Speaker 1: inherently know he's not sending in the excise tax. You
27:39
Speaker 1: don't just inherently know that he's price fixing when it
27:41
Speaker 1: comes to gas stations and so on. How do you
27:44
Speaker 1: even get sort of red flags for that? How does
27:46
Speaker 1: somebody say, dude, somebody's not paying the excise tax. Why
27:49
Speaker 1: don't you go investigate at Ed McDonald?
27:51
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, the FBI had a network of informants
27:55
Speaker 3: all the time. They had a network of informants. I mean,
27:57
Speaker 3: Michael was a significant target because of his father. His
28:01
Speaker 3: father was John Sonny Francis, but for the fact that
28:06
Speaker 3: he got a 50-year prison sentence for bank robbery back
28:08
Speaker 3: in the 60s, probably would have been the boss of
28:10
Speaker 3: the Colombo crime family.
28:12
Speaker 2: He served. He was in and out of jail.
28:13
Speaker 3: He was paroled after about 10 years, but then he
28:15
Speaker 3: was back in and out.
28:16
Speaker 2: Of jail again.
28:17
Speaker 3: And, uh, but he was one of the most feared
28:20
Speaker 3: members of the mafia, like Hassan Ostra in the United States,
28:23
Speaker 3: in the New York metropolitan area.
28:25
Speaker 2: And he was an extremely powerful guy, even when he
28:27
Speaker 2: was in prison. So Michael was a young, educated kid.
28:30
Speaker 3: He was very different from other gangsters who were implying
28:33
Speaker 3: their trade in New York back in the day. And, uh,
28:36
Speaker 3: cause he had, you know, he had gone to college.
28:38
Speaker 2: He was sophisticated. He was very articulate. He was handsome.
28:40
Speaker 2: He dressed very well. And, uh, he had polish.
28:44
Speaker 3: And, uh, But the informants were reporting that Michael was
28:47
Speaker 3: was was all over the place, primarily on Long Island, but,
28:50
Speaker 3: you know, into the city.
28:51
Speaker 2: And he was getting involved.
28:52
Speaker 3: We were calling him the white collar mafia figure, my
28:56
Speaker 3: white collar mafia Don or the yuppie Don. That's one
28:59
Speaker 3: of the nicknames he had. And so he was up
29:01
Speaker 3: on a radar screen pretty quickly, but mostly because of
29:04
Speaker 3: his father. But then it was clear that he was
29:06
Speaker 3: making a name for himself and he. He spread himself
29:09
Speaker 3: out all over the place. He didn't confine his activities
29:13
Speaker 3: to one industry. He seemed to be everywhere. We didn't
29:19
Speaker 3: seem to engage in much violence, but we had enough
29:23
Speaker 3: violence in his background that we were able to, when
29:26
Speaker 3: we arrested him, to get him detained so he didn't
29:29
Speaker 3: get bailed because of the likelihood that he posed for
29:33
Speaker 3: putting people at risk and harming people if he were
29:36
Speaker 3: at large. So it's not like he was simply solely
29:40
Speaker 3: a white collar criminal. I mean, there was violence underlying
29:43
Speaker 3: all of what he did.
29:45
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31:12
Speaker 2: Or at least the threat of violence underlying what he did.
31:14
Speaker 1: So how do you build that case? Do you have
31:16
Speaker 1: to infiltrate the organization? Does somebody have to be in there?
31:20
Speaker 1: Is it one of these stories where you put a
31:22
Speaker 1: bunch of surveillance inside of an Italian restaurant that you
31:24
Speaker 1: knew that the mob bosses were all going to? How
31:27
Speaker 1: does this unfold? Because he's not going to just come clean.
31:29
Speaker 1: The day he was arrested, Michael looked at the cameras.
31:32
Speaker 1: I watched this video from back in the 80s. He
31:34
Speaker 1: looked at the camera and said, no, I didn't do anything.
31:35
Speaker 1: I don't know what they're talking about. I have no
31:37
Speaker 1: clue what they're talking about. So even till the end,
31:39
Speaker 1: he wasn't admitting it until you ended up prosecuting and
31:42
Speaker 1: convicting him. So how do you infiltrate? How do you
31:44
Speaker 1: make the case?
31:45
Speaker 2: Yeah.
31:45
Speaker 3: So in Michael's case was was different to me. The
31:48
Speaker 3: tactics that we used were different. No, this is, of course,
31:52
Speaker 3: we had a combination of a number of different agents
31:54
Speaker 3: with the FBI.
31:55
Speaker 2: We had.
31:56
Speaker 3: The Self-Accounting District Attorney's Office, we get the IRS, we
32:00
Speaker 3: get the United States Department of.
32:01
Speaker 2: Labor, Customs, Postal.
32:05
Speaker 3: There was a whole number of different agencies going after him,
32:08
Speaker 3: all with different skills.
32:10
Speaker 2: With Michael, it wasn't that we turned somebody who was
32:14
Speaker 2: in his.
32:15
Speaker 3: I guess we did have some people in his crew
32:17
Speaker 3: who actually did cooperate.
32:18
Speaker 2: But the principal people.
32:20
Speaker 3: What Michael was doing was he was preying upon business
32:23
Speaker 3: people crooked business people in the sense that they were
32:26
Speaker 3: thieves and they wanted to capitalize more on their thievery.
32:30
Speaker 2: By forming an alliance with Michael, getting Michael to help them.
32:34
Speaker 3: So Michael was dealing with people who were not gangsters,
32:37
Speaker 3: but rather business people who were larcenists. They had larceny
32:40
Speaker 3: in their hearts and they wanted to capitalize on their
32:42
Speaker 3: relationship with Michael.
32:44
Speaker 2: Well, what we did, we set out to make cases
32:46
Speaker 2: on these people.
32:47
Speaker 3: And either we made the cases or we threatened them
32:49
Speaker 3: with the prospect of making cases on them And these
32:54
Speaker 3: were the kinds of people who were a lot easier
32:56
Speaker 3: to get to cooperate. They were afraid of going to prison. Sure,
32:59
Speaker 3: they were afraid of Michael and they were afraid of
33:01
Speaker 3: the Colombo family, but they weren't like hardcore gangsters who
33:05
Speaker 3: were living by the code of Omerta, who most gangsters
33:09
Speaker 3: associate with when they perpetrate their criminal, their crimes. So
33:13
Speaker 3: we were able to go into these industries and turn
33:15
Speaker 3: legitimate people, like I say, they were legitimate, meaning that
33:20
Speaker 3: They were not gangsters, but they were not legitimate because
33:24
Speaker 3: they were thieves.
33:25
Speaker 2: So it was rather easy. It was easier.
33:27
Speaker 3: I can't say it was easy. It took a long time.
33:30
Speaker 3: It took a couple of years before we were able
33:31
Speaker 3: to make the case on Michael. But we got these
33:34
Speaker 3: so-called white collar thieves and criminals to get them to
33:38
Speaker 3: cooperate against Michael.
33:39
Speaker 2: And then once we had that, we got a couple
33:41
Speaker 2: of guys who were associated with him and his crew.
33:43
Speaker 3: They weren't made members of the Colombo family, but They
33:46
Speaker 3: were people who helped make the case. He was involved
33:49
Speaker 3: with labor unions or a labor union, a significant labor
33:53
Speaker 3: union that he had taken control over. We got some
33:56
Speaker 3: of the people, the labor representatives, we got them to
34:00
Speaker 3: cooperate against Michael. And in the oil and gas stuff,
34:04
Speaker 3: we were able to turn a.
34:07
Speaker 2: Notorious....
34:09
Speaker 3: A thief named Larry Irizo, who was probably about 550 pounds.
34:14
Speaker 2: He was just an amazing character. But he was brilliant.
34:17
Speaker 3: And he had come up with this idea of, you know,
34:20
Speaker 3: he was the one who sort of refined the.
34:25
Speaker 2: Scheme of how to steal this money on a grand scale.
34:28
Speaker 3: And Russians and other mafia guys started trying to hit
34:33
Speaker 3: on him and tried to take over his business or
34:36
Speaker 3: at least get a big share of it. He was
34:38
Speaker 3: looking for help and started asking questions. And lo and behold,
34:42
Speaker 3: he was able to go to Sonny Francis. And Sonny said, look,
34:45
Speaker 3: you know, I just got out of prison on parole.
34:48
Speaker 3: I'm not going to be able to do anything to
34:49
Speaker 3: help you, but I got my son. My son's going
34:51
Speaker 3: to help you. So he, he meets Larry, meets Michael.
34:56
Speaker 3: They became very close. They were both very bright. And they,
35:01
Speaker 3: it was like a marriage made in heaven for several years.
35:04
Speaker 3: And they, Rather than seeing Michael as somebody who was
35:06
Speaker 3: going to suck up some of his profits, he and
35:09
Speaker 3: Michael recognized that working together, Michael could keep the other
35:13
Speaker 3: people at bay and, when necessary, make them partners. You know,
35:16
Speaker 3: the Russians and the other mafia wise guys, he brought
35:22
Speaker 3: them into the fold and they had sort of one
35:23
Speaker 3: big conspiracy. And so Irizo and Francis ended up making
35:29
Speaker 3: probably five times, ten times more money than they would.
35:31
Speaker 2: Have made if they hadn't made this marriage together.
35:34
Speaker 3: So, you know, the estimates of the money that was
35:38
Speaker 3: taken in this scheme were, you know, over a billion dollars.
35:42
Speaker 3: And the interesting thing is that this is not a
35:44
Speaker 3: topic of my current book, but Michael is going to be–
35:47
Speaker 3: there's this whole chapter on Michael in my second book,
35:49
Speaker 3: which is nearing completion.
35:51
Speaker 2: And I was kidding him about that.
35:53
Speaker 3: I said, Michael, you're not getting off scot-free because I'm
35:55
Speaker 3: coming after you with.
35:56
Speaker 2: My second book. Oh, good.
35:58
Speaker 1: This way people can go and get the second book
36:00
Speaker 1: after they get this one called Chasing Goodfellas. Lufthansa, Henry Hill,
36:03
Speaker 1: Point Shaving, and Making Movies. But when I talk to
36:05
Speaker 1: Michael about it, he talks about how the mob or
36:09
Speaker 1: the bosses, like the Colombo crime family.
36:11
Speaker 2: Boss, literally.
36:12
Speaker 1: felt like he was shortchanging them because of all the
36:15
Speaker 1: noise that was out there because of what he was doing.
36:17
Speaker 1: As you said, the yuppie Don, and there were articles
36:19
Speaker 1: about him, and he's taking in millions of dollars and
36:21
Speaker 1: everything else, and he feels as though he was close
36:24
Speaker 1: to being killed, being taken out, because they were starting
36:27
Speaker 1: to assume that he was somehow shaving off some of
36:29
Speaker 1: the money off for himself. The money was so big.
36:32
Speaker 1: Did you find, Ed, in your investigations, when the money
36:34
Speaker 1: gets so big that everybody gets a little bit more greedy,
36:37
Speaker 1: instead of being happy with a bag of a couple
36:39
Speaker 1: of million, five million a week, they wanted 10 or
36:41
Speaker 1: 20 or 30 million a week. Is that ultimately the
36:44
Speaker 1: downfall of a lot of these families, a lot of
36:46
Speaker 1: this racketeering?
36:48
Speaker 2: Not really.
36:48
Speaker 3: I think that there's always so much money to go
36:51
Speaker 3: around that the member who is suspected of holding back
36:58
Speaker 3: ultimately is able to persuade them. I mean, there have
37:00
Speaker 3: been examples, I guess, when guys have been taken out
37:02
Speaker 3: and killed because they were holding back. But no, in
37:05
Speaker 3: Michael's situation, I mean, Michael's an example. Michael certainly pacified
37:09
Speaker 3: Carmine Persico, who was the boss of the family. Not
37:11
Speaker 3: only did he pacify him when he was on the
37:14
Speaker 3: street and committing his crimes, but he pacified him when
37:17
Speaker 3: he went to prison.
37:18
Speaker 2: And then again, he continued to pacify him.
37:21
Speaker 3: And when I'm saying pacified, he was paying money to him.
37:24
Speaker 3: He must have set aside. I have no idea what
37:26
Speaker 3: Michael did. All I know is that Michael is still alive. He's,
37:30
Speaker 3: you know, as Henry Hill would.
37:32
Speaker 2: Say, you know, I went bad. Michael went bad. In
37:35
Speaker 2: other words, he became good. He did the right thing.
37:37
Speaker 2: In the world of organized crime, he went bad.
37:39
Speaker 3: Michael went bad, say, in 1990, 1991, and he walked
37:43
Speaker 3: away from the mob. Well, usually what's going to happen
37:45
Speaker 3: when you walk away from the mob is you're going
37:47
Speaker 3: to get killed. And if he walked away from the
37:49
Speaker 3: mob and he was not paying his ransom or what
37:52
Speaker 3: was due to the Colombo.
37:53
Speaker 2: Crime family and to Carmine Persico, No doubt he would
37:56
Speaker 2: have been whacked. I mean, I'm speculating.
37:57
Speaker 3: I don't know what was actually going on in the
38:00
Speaker 3: relationship that he had with the leaders of the Colombo family,
38:03
Speaker 3: but he was spared. And I think the only way,
38:05
Speaker 3: common sense tells you, the only way that he could
38:07
Speaker 3: have been spared is if he either gave them such
38:10
Speaker 3: a large amount of money at the time that they
38:12
Speaker 3: were pacified, or somehow he set up sort of an
38:16
Speaker 3: annuity scheme. for the leadership of the Colombo family so
38:19
Speaker 3: that every month or every two months or a year,
38:21
Speaker 3: every year, they get paid. But, you know, Michael is
38:25
Speaker 3: living a good life and he hasn't been killed. So
38:29
Speaker 3: he had, there's no way they walked away and said, well, okay, Mike, bye.
38:33
Speaker 3: You know, they have a good life. You found Jesus.
38:36
Speaker 1: There was some sort of a deal made, yeah.
38:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, that had to have been a deal. Mike might
38:40
Speaker 2: not admit it, but I'm sure there was a deal made.
38:44
Speaker 1: I hear you, and a lot of people have said,
38:45
Speaker 1: why is he still okay? So he got out somehow,
38:48
Speaker 1: and I'm glad that he found Jesus, and he's got
38:51
Speaker 1: a beautiful family now, but I'm with you. there's a
38:53
Speaker 1: little something there that we probably will never find out.
38:56
Speaker 1: But what I want to know next time, if you
38:57
Speaker 1: don't mind, we'll start with this. Are the mob families
38:59
Speaker 1: still active? Are they still alive and well? Did they
39:02
Speaker 1: just shift how they do it? I don't imagine they
39:04
Speaker 1: just went away, but they were harmed very badly by you,
39:06
Speaker 1: by Rudy Giuliani, and so on. So let's pick it
39:08
Speaker 1: up from there. Everybody go and get this book right now,
39:09
Speaker 1: Chasing Goodfellas. Lufthansa, Henry Hill, point shaving and making movies.
39:13
Speaker 1: Let me show the book.
39:14
Speaker 2: Look at that.
39:16
Speaker 1: That's a great picture of you. Look at that. You
39:17
Speaker 1: look very, I would not want you prosecuting me. That's
39:19
Speaker 1: for sure. And I appreciate the time and the access, brother.
39:22
Speaker 1: Let's do it again soon. Can we?
39:23
Speaker 2: All right, Joe. Absolutely.
39:25
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
39:26
Speaker 2: It's so good to meet you. All right.
39:28
Speaker 1: That's it for this one. Another unshaken and unafraid. with
39:30
Speaker 1: Joe Pagas will drop very soon. Make sure you subscribe.