Fireside With The Underboss - "If I'm not out in 15 Minutes, Come In & Kill Everybody"

Sammy speaks on the murder of fellow Rampers member, Gerry Pappa who was killed as revenge for killing Colombo crime family caporegime Thomas "Shorty" Spero.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
One of Peppers shooters came in,hit this guy with a shotgun and killed
him. Hey, guys, Igot a story. Something sparked my memory,

(00:31):
something was brought up to me,and I'm going to talk about a
story that was back further. Itinvolves Jerry Papper. Jerry Pappa was the
leader of the rampers. I didstories about that. He became a made
member in the Genevese family and hewas already a big drug dealer and vicious.

(01:00):
He was doing a lot of murders. There's a guy from Avenue You.
I don't remember his name. Hewas a pretty big drug dealer.
He gave Jerry Papper a lot ofdrugs in advance on consignment and Jerry was

(01:23):
selling it. The guy wanted toget paid. They argued a little bit.
He didn't have enough money yet.The next meeting he had in a
bar on eighty six Street in Bensonhus, Brooklyn. The guy met him there.
They sat in the booth. Oneof Pepper's shooters came in, hit

(01:46):
this guy with a shotgun and killedhim. Big problem with that. Everybody
knew exactly what happened. The guysfrom Avenue You, Eddie Leno and them,
but he denied any responsibility. Hesaid he didn't know what happened.
He had a meeting with the guyand somebody came in and killed him with

(02:07):
a scheme. Ask So this isJerry Pepper's nature, this is what he
was doing. We weren't friends forquite a while, but we still knew
each other. We were both made. We respected each other as much as
possible. The Genevese family, hewas with a guy named Duchy, and

(02:35):
then they put him with another guy, sal Sally something or other was a
captain. Because he became made,he couldn't be with Duchy. Duchy was
only a made guy. So hewent on to be with this guy Sally,
and he was hitting him up withmoney pretty big, and he was
sitting pretty good. Back then,there was a guy Industry Funzi Funds a

(02:59):
while. Used to call him Terrywas his real name, but they used
to call him Funzy Funds a while, and they titled him as a street
boss. They did that the JediVese to throw off the lord. They
put different titles on people's name,sort of government wouldn't know who's who,
what's going on. But he wasa pretty powerful guy. This guy Funds

(03:22):
a while, and there's a wholebunch of stories about him. I'm going
to talk about him in my podcast, so I'm not going to talk about
him too much. But Jerry Papperstarted dressing with a mink coat. I

(03:43):
met him one time. It wasa little bit past his knees was long,
big color black mink, beautiful,beautiful, big huge diamond ring,
pinky ring, fancy watch. Goodlooking dude. And he was really doing

(04:05):
this stuff and running them up anddoing a lot of weird shit, unauthorized
hits and all kinds of things.These stories were starting to get back to
Chin Giganti and Chan spoke with Fundsa while to set up an appointment with

(04:28):
Jerry Popper to read him the RiotActor. Stopped dealing drugs, get that
fucking coat off, start acting likea fucking man. So he set up
a meeting in a restaurant again inBenson Heist Brooklyn and Tommy Lombardi was a

(04:49):
captain in that family and it washis restaurant and that's where Jerry had to
go. Jerry Pepper funziwhile was thereand waiting inside the restaurant for him to
read him the Riot Act. Jerrydidn't like this meeting. He got his

(05:12):
crew together. That was about fouror five of them, and they were
all really dangerous guys, and hehad them stay outside the restaurant. He
says, if I'm not out infifteen minutes, come in and kill every
fuckingbody. Even if he were tooka break from a meeting and popped out,

(05:33):
but if he didn't come out atall, then these guys were going
in and they were going to killeverybody. A couple of guys knew about
it, his crew and a coupleof their friends. I guess when you're
doing something as crazy as that,or he could get out where it did
get out. Jerry Popper had themeeting funziwhile read him the Riot Act,

(05:59):
that's what it was all about.Out and let him go. So the
shooting didn't happen, but what heset up, they'd get out. It
got back to Funds a while,It got back to Chin Chin put a

(06:21):
hit on him. There was asmall little restaurant on sixty fourth Street.
It was sixty six Street, Ithink and fourteenth Avenue. We used to
hang out in that area when wewere to ramp. His young dutchy still
had that place, and Jerry wentthere to see his captain and to see

(06:48):
Duchy, but it was a setup. When he got there, Duchy wasn't
around, his captain wasn't. Theydidn't know nothing that was going on.
They got the owners, they werelegitimate people. They tied them up and

(07:10):
put them in the kitchen only tokeep them out of trouble. They knew
it was going to happen, butthey could always tell the police. People
came in ski masks, tied usup, put us in the kitchen.

(07:31):
We didn't see anything. We don'tknow what happened. Who did what?
Smart moved. Papa came in andthere was a guy in the restaurant sitting
and waiting for to him to come. When Papa went in, he sat
at the table with him. Idon't know his name, so I can't

(07:53):
tell you anything. I knew him, but I don't remember his name.
It was not a guy who wasaround all the time. So he told
him. He says, dutchy willbe a little while, and then they
were supposed to meet with the captain. Sally something strapped to the table underneath

(08:18):
who was a sort of shotgun twelveGage, the guy who was sitting with
Jerry, had one hand under thetable on the gun already, and they
were talking. The guy looked towardsthe front door and said, there's a

(08:39):
police car. I wonder if theyknow about this. When Jerry turned his
head to look, the guy tookout the shotgun and hit him in the
head, point blank, double o. Buck Magnum literally blew his head right
off, and that was the endof Jerry Popper. There was a big

(09:05):
investigation in the neighborhood. Everybody talkedabout it. Some people said, listen,
it's justified. This guy who wasfucking running around like a mad dog.
It just wasn't listening to nobody nomore. The cops came and talked
to me because years ago I hadproblems with him. I guess the cops

(09:28):
know, so they were questioning anybodywho had problems with him, anybody who
knew him. So they came andquestioned me about it, and I said,
I don't I don't know anything aboutit. I read it about it
in the paper. I heard aboutit, but I don't have a clue
what's going on. It's none ofmy business. The cop took out a

(09:54):
picture of Jerry Popper and the wallbehind them. His brains and everything were
scattered all over the wall. Hesays, that's your pal. You don't
know. You couldn't recognize the face. It was just massive blood, brains,

(10:18):
guts, whatever. And I calleda fucking attitude. You know I
knew him, you know we werefriends for a while. Why the fuck
would you show him in that picture? What are you trying to be?
Fucking cute? Cops and Sammy,that's what we don't go fuck yourself and
what you do. Keep doing shitlike that. That badge and gun will

(10:45):
only protect you. So fucking look, maybe someday I'll be looking at a
picture your fucking brains on the fuckingwall. A couple of guys are Sammy,
Sammy, come on, take iteasy. I looked at it all
right, saying I didn't mean that. We'll get the funk out of it,
and he left. Funds Awhile wasinvolved in a lot of things.

(11:13):
Like I said, I'm not goingto talk about him too much, because
I'm going to talk about him.He was a serious dude. Wasn't young,
not tough with his hands, butdangerous. Is a rattlesnake. Anybody
who became a close associate of Chin. You had to be at or you

(11:35):
wouldn't be around him. Chin wasn'tthe boss at that particular time. Fat
Tony was the boss. Prior tofat Tony being the boss the Genevese family,
there was another boss and they hidwho the real boss was. When

(11:58):
fat Tony was called as the realboss for zawhile was a street boss.
There was another boss who was therethen Todd I would told me I forgot
his name, never even saw himwhen he passed away. He just before

(12:18):
he passed away, he called inChin and he made Chin promise him that
he was going to make fat Tonythe boss and wanted Chin's word that he
would not take him out, nothurt him, and respect him as the
boss. Chin gave him his word, and fat Tony was the boss.

(12:43):
So that family was a confusion allthe time because of their tactics. Chin
later on did other tactics, playedthe insane part, walking around with a
bath thorough and a rubbie beard anddid all kinds of weird shit. It
actually worked for years and years andyears. They couldn't indict him because he

(13:05):
couldn't stand trial. He couldn't understandhis charge as he was gone. Supposedly
he had psychiatrists that he paid andgave these reports so through the years and
even put himself away for months ata time for care healthcare. So he

(13:26):
really documented and dotted only eyes andcrossed all the teas, and the government
had a tough tough time pinning thatlie down. And he always had different
people added them. They played thisgame, so newspapers some people said,

(13:46):
yeah, change, it's crazy,it's crazy like a fox. But he
was super fucking dangerous with this gameas well. Funds of a While went
on for a long time after that. I had to sit down with him

(14:07):
once. After this whole thing withJerry Pappa, a friend of mine,
a zip from the other side,had a problem with him, something with
his business. He had a fruitand vegetable business or something, and Funds
of a While abused them a littlebit stuff like that, and I went

(14:33):
and saw him. Not a bigdeal. He was very polite. He
wasn't in that crazy with me oranything like that. And he said,
tell him he's okay. I didn'tknow he knew you. Thank you when
I left. But he was apowerhouse in the neighborhood. And this story

(14:56):
is going right to Jerry Pappa thingshe did. I know. I got
a lot of text messages that guysasked me about him, about some of
these stories, and those text messagesand stuff got to me. And then

(15:20):
somebody asked me something about funds ofa while and it brought it all back
to me. So I thought you'denjoyed this and I told it to you.
I'll tell you one more thing toadd on to this story. Jerry
Pappa's son became just like his father, mad dog Killer. He was actually

(15:46):
a guy who killed the underboss ofthe Colombo family during their little war.
He was the shoe him and aftera while they went to arrest him.
They had enough somebody flipped on him, plus they had enough evidence to arresting.

(16:12):
One of the cops who went therewas a guy named Tommy Day.
He was a cop in the neighbodygrew up in the nobody knew everybody.
He was a good cop. Hewasn't on the take, No, he
was a legit cop. But hecame around and tried to help guys who

(16:37):
got in trouble, or even beforeyou got in trouble, he would tell
you things like, you know,calm it down, bro, you got
everybody's looking at you. He didn'ttake no money, it was he just
did that in a good natured way. So when they took down Jerry Pappa's

(16:57):
son to be arrested, he wasthere today. Gotta May cuffed him.
They did the whole nine yards.In his wallet, he had a hitlist.
The hitlist was I don't know foursix, eight names on that list.

(17:19):
Tommy Day got in touch with me, This was years later, and
he said me and you were ingood company. I said, what are
you talking about? He said,my name was on that hitlist, meaning
Tommy Day. I said really.He was going to kill you. Yeah,
and you too. Your name wasright under mine. So we were

(17:42):
together. The kid was going totake the both of us out. So
his son got arrested, multiple murders, multiple conspiracies to murder with that list,

(18:03):
and he went to prison, lifewithout parole. He's in prison now
with life without parole. Will neverget out. I knew people bumped into
him in prison, real tough bastard. Even in prison, guys would tell
me he worked out, well builtphysically, and he's a fucking tough guy,

(18:25):
made bully type of guy in prisonso like father, like son.
The father wound up dead, theson life in prison. They'll die in
prison. So a lot of thesestories, when you listen to them,

(18:45):
I get a lot of text messagesfrom a lot of you guys, real
tough guys, good guys. Ilike it. Listen to these stories carefully.
That's the end of the road.You may like it, you may
may some money, but listen tothese stories. If you like it,

(19:06):
press like, subscribe always, andfor all my friends out there, audios. Motherfucker