September 12, 2024 • 39 mins
How much do you know about the Italian mafia? Louis Ferrante is a former Mafia associate and heist expert who served eight years in prison after refusing to incriminate his fellow Gambino family members. After extensive research into the history of the Mafia from its origins in Sicily to organizing in America as well as drawing on his own personal experience, Ferrante wrote a three-volume series on the history of the American mafia starting with his book “Borgata: Rise of Empire.” Louis joined us on NightSide to give you an inside look into life in the mafia!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's nice with Dan ray On Delileos.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
D all right. A subject that we talk about a
little bit, but most of us talk about it from
not from an inside perspective, an inside point of view.
A few weeks ago I had as a guest during
the eight o'clock hour, my guests who were about to
reintroduce to reintroduce you to Lewis Ferrante. He's a former
(00:29):
member of the Gambino crime family. Spent several years in
stir as we say, because he decided that he would
not incriminate fellow Gambino family members. Probably a good decision,
you know, a life decision. I would say, uh, Lewis
to Ferranti is with us, lou Ferrente. By the way, Lewis, Uh,
(00:53):
you're a stand up guy. How are you tonight?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I'm good? Thank you, Dan. I appreciate introduction I did.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
You were a stand up guy. You know you're you're
in the slammer. What years were you in? What years
were you in?
Speaker 3 (01:10):
I got I got locked up. I was young. I
was I did nothing but fine. From when I was
thirteen by the time I was twenty five, I was
facing the rest of my life in prison. I had
three cases. I had an FBI case, a secret service case,
and a state organized crime cask boss case and accumulation.
It's you know, facing probably one hundred and sixty years
(01:32):
with everything. So yeah, I said, I'm not squealing, I'm
not ratting, it's not happening. And the pressure just continued,
and I was, O.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Were you How old were you when you by the way,
you know, in terms of baseball, you'd call that someone
like yourself a five tool player, So you were five
tool games gigs? Are you? You had a lot of
skill sets here?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I mean, yeah, I did my ex Yeah. True. My
expertise was at the time heis and hijackings. That's what
I did. And I had a really really good crew
and that's what we were known for, and you know
we did it. We we operated within the Gambino family umbrella.
(02:15):
But I worked with any family. I worked with everybody, Lukesey,
Banano Colombo. If if somebody had a tip, I just
had to put it on record with my own family.
But anybody came to me.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
So what were what sort of trucks were you looking
to hit? I mean you when you say you had it, kip,
you were you were going at some fruit truck, I assume,
But what were you looking for? Now?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
You're looking for money, any anything that's big money it
could be. I mean I had everything from uh Brazil's
yeah you know, I mean not even like Victoria's secrets,
which we thought the truck was carrying. We ended up
with these big cheap cone cup brazils when we hit
the truck, you know, So there was things. Sometimes, you know,
you got a truck coming out of the airport, you
get the wrong one. But you look for something, you know,
(03:00):
big as far as merchandise is concerned. Something you know,
you figure you get ten twenty, maybe at best thirty
cents on the dollar. Usually you don't get me you know,
usually it's more towards ten or twenty. So you know,
you need a load, you know, hopefully worth a million dollars.
So you could at least have one hundred thousand if
you got ten cents on it, Okay, and.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So and so. Therefore you you would fence the property.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, we had fences, but also too we did uh.
We were eventually charged with I don't want to say
I was acquitted in the end of these charges, but
we were also originally convicted of and charged with armored
car robberies as well. And that's just straight money. So
there's yeah, I would see to the load.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
If you get you know, a big you hit it
truck down. Yeah, you know pictures of of uh you know,
dead presidents.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's one instance I could talk about
because I was charged with it. We went to uh.
We got to tip a guy originally came from New
York and he joined the Navy. He got out of
the Navy and he was down on his lock, got
a job, a couple of bad jobs, and then eventually
get landed a job with an army clock company and
he told us, look, come down here, you could hit
(04:13):
one of my trucks. You know the company I'm working
for it was a big, big armored car company, well
known throughout the country. So we did at Back then
it was pre nine to eleven, so after nine to eleven,
you know, you need proof. You have to prove where
you are before you bought a plane. It's tsa, et cetera.
Back then, though, we used to book fights with phony names.
(04:33):
We would put guns, walkie talkies, span is in a
in a box and just ship at ups, you know,
to California, to an address and it would be there
waiting for us when we got there. I don't know
if you could do any of that stuff today, I
can't imagine it. I can't even imagine booking a flight
without having you know, identification and stuff. But back then
(04:54):
you could. So we booked phony, you know, we booked
flights under phony names. We sent all our weapons and
the other accouterments for for you know, for for a
heist down there, all the tools, and we got down there,
and what happened was he said, at the last minute,
you know, we went to dinner when we were going
over to plan stuff, and at the last minute he
got cold feet. He said, look, I'll give you another
(05:14):
truck to hit. I really don't want it to be mine.
I feel like they'll get me right after. They'll catch me,
they'll know. And so at that point I needed to
get another guy down there, because if we don't have
the driver, you know, it's it's it's it presents. You know,
you got difficulties if you're hitting guys that nobody's on
the inside. It's easier if you're hitting somebody from outside.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
So what did you I mean, first, First of all,
you've got to be a little bit upset with this
guy who who invited you to do this deal and
now he's backing out on you at the last minute.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah, at the time, you know, I'm obviously I'm a
little formed man. Now, you know, the whole situation is horrible.
But back then, yeah, I was. I was twisted. Yeah,
I was heated. So we got we got a guy
called New York. I said, look, I'll get another guy
down yeah, cold New York. I asked another guy from
micro get on a plane, hurry up, get down here.
We got you know, we're down here already. We're going
(06:03):
to go through with something. So he came down, he
flew down. What happened was we didn't know this. He
got down there, he was down there a couple of days,
and we were going back to a hotel UH in
San Francisco, and we got swarmed by FBI agents working, yeah,
working in concert with the police. Helicopters, bulletproof vest, machine guns.
(06:25):
You know, they just they took us in, righted you out. Yeah,
that's what happened. So the guy who I called he
was he was a roommate with somebody who was an
FBI informant, and that guy he said, look, you know,
Louis called and he's got something big for me out west. Uh,
you know, drive me to the airport. And that guy
(06:45):
did not know exactly what we were doing, but he
took the FBI and looked. And now I could look
back on it, Dan and say, by the grace of God,
you know, it was stopped. Who knows what could have happened.
So it's a good thing. But back then I was
again I was you know, you know, we would you
know anyway we went.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
How old were at that time, So I was.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
In my early twenties when I was knocking on I was.
I was accused of knocking off one of the biggest
heights in US history in my early twenties. And my
crew were all in their thirties and forties, and you know,
defences we used were all in their sixties, so everybody
was older than me. But I was on the street
since I'm thirteen, and I delivered. And I always if
(07:27):
I said I was going to do something, I did it.
You know, there's talkers and there's doers, and like anything
like anything in the real world, in the old world
or the other.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
World, so you were. You were, in effect, at a
very young age, a quarterback.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
I was. I was. I would put the heist together.
I had the crew. They all listened to me, and
we were like a well oiled machine. We did what
we did really well. We didn't we never got caught
in the commission of a crime. I didn't understand the law.
I learned that later in life. I eventually studied after
I went through seven attorneys, including the famous civil rights
(08:06):
attorney William Kuntzler. I had originally retained Barry Slotnik. I
had some of the best attorneys money could buy in
the beginning, and eventually I learned the law. But I
didn't know the law when I was on the street.
And I thought, once we got away with the crime,
scott free, it was done. Just don't talk about it.
You know, if you didn't go, you should know. So
we didn't talk about it. And then what happened was
(08:26):
at some point or another years later, a few years
down the road. You know, a lot of crimes were
from when I was twenty twenty one, twenty two. Now yeah,
now twenty four to twenty five, and I'm facing life,
and what happened was the FBI. There was a guy
who one of the fences I used. He was a
big fence and give you an it's almost like it's
(08:48):
an incredible story. Again. The guy was on forty seventh
Street in the Julie District in Manhattan. That's where he operated,
and there was only like five or six fences, as
I understood it, for like decades. They had that handle anything.
You know. You could bring them the Stanhope diamond and
they could move it, you know, whereas other fence, another
fence might say, what the hell you want me to
(09:08):
do with that? I don't know where to go? Dad.
You could bring them a picasso, you know, a Dollari
van go anything. He could fence, and so we always
used him. It was my friend's uncle, and I looked
up to him. I called him uncle. I called him uncle,
your uncle Billy at the time. And I looked up
to him. And at some point or another a lot
of the heists I did, I brought all the merchandise
(09:30):
I brought to him, and he was aware of other
big heightts we did. And when he got arrested by
the FBI, he flipped. But he became what they call
and you would know for your listeners. He became what
they called a dry snitch. He wanted to be a
confidential informant. He did not want to testify against anybody,
but he gave up everything that I did, and the
(09:51):
FBI of all the crimes that they were looking at
they had thought of. It was like a lot of
these big heists they thought were done by like a
season's crew, like a Jimmy Burke, you know, the guy
who did les Stanza. They figured, you know, they were
looking at all these big guys in their forties and
fifties who've been around hardened criminals and never knew it
was a kid in his early twenties.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Rob Okay, please clip that then, kind to watch the language.
So obviously what happens is when you're doing this stuff,
you had no concept about conspiracy laws, You had no
concept about rico statutes, You had no concept about statues
of limitations. You figured, hey, now, six six months, it's
(10:34):
it's all in the rear view, Mira. So you you chose,
you chose not to snitch, and you did eight years.
With all that, you've were facing life in prison. Obviously
your lawyers must have worked some sort of well, I'll.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Tell you what happened.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, yeah, let me take a break, loose, just real
quickly because commercials. We'll use this as a break. We'll
come back. We'll talk about it, and if folks wanted
the conversation, ask questions. I also want to talk about
the book that you have just written, Bogada Clash of
the Titans, and it does cover the period of nineteen
(11:13):
sixty to nineteen eighty five, which starts with obviously the
Kennedy administration in the person of Robert F. Kennedy, Junior President,
Kennedy's attorney general, his brother going after organized crime, and
while Jay go Hoover had been the head of the
FBI for about three decades and he was asleep at
(11:34):
the switch. And there's a lot of stuff going on
in the nineteen fifties that Hoover either turned a blind
eye to or he was too arrogant to what acknowledge
he was missing. We'll get to all of that. I
promise we're going to spend at least until eleven o'clock,
and I'd love to have those of you join the conversation,
ask questions. Organized crime is always something that has fascinated everyone.
(11:55):
We're getting a real inside look from Lou Ferrante. We'll
be back on night Side right after this.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
My guest is Lou Ferenting. He was a member of
the Gambino crime family, was associated with them, served eight
years in prison because he would not incriminate fellow Gambino
family members. He's written a book called Bolgata, Riise of
and Empire. It's just out. Has received a critical acclaim
(12:29):
from The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Washington Free Beacon,
amongst others. And I find him to be a really
interesting gentleman, and he has turned his life around. How
old are you now?
Speaker 3 (12:43):
If I could ask, Lou, Oh, I'm fifty five. Now
this is many years ago. I'm back going back to
the nineties when I was.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Wild, okay, And as they say, when you folks ended
up swarmed by FBI agents in San Francisco, how many
of how many were in your crew that day? How
many people were there?
Speaker 3 (13:04):
So yeah, that day there was there was uh one, two, three,
four of us there and there were other guys you
know back home, obviously I had I had more of
a crew you know, it depends who I would use
for a job. But there were four of us in
San Francisco. There were three, and then the fourth guy
who joined us, and he had just joined us, and
that's when we got we got dragged in. There's actually
(13:25):
surveillance photos of that incident floating around on the computer somewhere.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Really, so I got to ask a question on that one.
Were you guys staying at a high class hotel in
San Francisco?
Speaker 3 (13:36):
No, No, we weren't. No, very very low key. It was.
It was what you would call a hotel motel, somewhere
you go like to hike, you know, from uh if
you're doing something wrong yester the day. Yeah, No it was. No,
it was no fancy place.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
So now I want to drill down on some of this,
and I want to get to the book as well,
but I want to take the few minutes we have
left before the newscast at the bottom of the hour.
I'm assuming you were born into this. I mean you
were you were born into.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
This, most most of my friends were. I wasn't Dan. Actually,
I came from my mother's family was crooked. My my
grandfather was a World War two hero eight bronze stars
in the Asiatic Pacific. But he came home and his
friends got him in the union. He drove heavy machinery
in the Operating Engineers Union, and he took numbers at
(14:28):
night in the bar. My uncle was a hijacka his son,
my mother's brother. We used to visit him in sing
sing Uh and different prisons throughout my childhood.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I made a nice family trip one.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Yeah. Yeah, we'd argued the whole way up there and
and and back, but it was like a typical Italian family.
Arguing is just part of conversation. Yeah, it was, you know,
we were allowed. But yeah, so that's how I grew up.
But my father's family were law abiding when I I
got involved in the life, though, I did meet on
come in contact and became close friends with a lot
(15:05):
of people who were born into the life where their
fathers were the wise guys, their grandfathers, their uncles. One
of my dear friends, he's a captain in the Banano family.
He's away right now. He's a perfect example. His grandfather
was a captain, his uncle was a captain, and uh
and uh and in one of his cousins. All of
them rose to the rank of Capo at different times
(15:26):
in their lives, and they were all part of the
Banano family from the very beginning. They all came from
Castela Maurici del Golfo in Sicily, So there was people
I lived in uh. I practically lived for the better
part of seven or eight years in Peter Gotti's house.
Sean Gotty's oldest brother, Peter was a captain in again
final family, and I was in and out of that
house just about every day. They were born into the life,
(15:51):
Peter Son, Peter Son, Peter was born into the life.
They knew nothing else. Although John wasn't and Peter wasn't.
They were first generation. Actually nobody realized that John Gotti
was the first generation Mafio, so he wasn't born into
the life. Yeah, he came up. Him and his financial
Rgerio eventually met Neil Dough or became close when Neil
de la Crosch and then got involved with the game.
(16:13):
You know, family. But most of my friends were involved
in that life to some extent. They were born into it,
whereas I wasn't. And there was just as many guys
who weren't like me too.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
So when once you got into it, Okay, I'm assuming,
and if I'm wrong, here tell me. Okay, I'm I'm
I'm asking this. This is not a rehearsed interview. I'm
assuming that when you had some successes, whether it was
you know, hitting an armored truck, you know, hitting a
truck that you know that that really turned out to
(16:44):
be a money a money winner for you. I'm assuming
there was a little bit of an adrenaline rush when
when things went right.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
I loved it. Dan. If I look back now again,
I regret it now today, from the moment I from
the and I started to rethink my life in prison,
I regretted it. But when I was involved and in
when I was doing it in real time, I loved it.
I thought it was the big It was incredible adrenaline.
I have skydived, and skydiving doesn't come close to it.
(17:14):
The adrenaline rush was incredible. And you're lawless as well, right,
you know, I abide by all the laws of society.
Now Ever, since I came home from prison, I abuie
by all the laws of society, and I'll never feel
that sense of lawlessness, which is also a sense of
freedom philosophically speaking, you know, it's a sense of there's
nothing holding you down. You know, we all have to
(17:34):
live by the guidelines of society. Now, then we have
additional guidelines with our domestic lives. We have you know,
you have a wife, you have children, you have responsibilities,
you have all kinds of things you have to abide
by every single day. And then you have a boss.
You got to go to work. Then you have laws
of the way to work that you have to follow
on the road, et cetera. I didn't have any of
that law.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Become we want to become addicted to that lifestyle, just
like someone who tries drugs and they like it, they
become addicted.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
I just I did. I loved it. I loved it.
I absolutely loved it. Dan and I loved it. And
you know, the big shock of going to jail, when
you're locked up in a cell, the first shock is
is you have removed from the street and you don't
have any of that action that you that that feeds you,
that that you live off of. It's all done, it's
all gone. And then you have obviously there's additional things
(18:23):
are suffering. You know, there's loneliness. You missed your family
and your friends, and your loved ones and all that
other stuff. But you also, I missed the action too,
and you have wise guys in there. I have to
tell you. It's funny you said that because you have
wise guys in there that also missed the action but
don't realize it's done, and they try to relive it
day after day. For example, if guys used to steal
(18:45):
stuff from the kitchen for us, Let's say guys were
smuggling spaghetti from the kitchen up to the tea block
for us so we can make spaghetti at night the
way we like it. You you would have the wise
guy going, hey, what'd you do with that pound of spaghetti.
I'm gonna have a sit down with this guy over
the pound of spaghetti. We should have got that pound
the other guy got it. Next thing you know, they're
walking on the tier block and there's like sixteen wise guys,
(19:05):
you know, from every different family over a pound of spaghetti.
And I'm my own. You know, you got to be
kidding me. These guys are out of their minds, but
they're trying to relive the life that they don't have anymore. Yeah,
it's incredible, it's incredible, you know, And once I saw
the comedy. You know, I'm by myself laughing, going this
is this is, this is ridiculous. You know, you got
to realize, you know, we're not living this life anymore,
(19:28):
you know. And then they'll say, just chairs for so
and so, come over here. You've got to sit here
because he was sowing so on the street. And it's
and they're playing the game still, they're not ready to
let go of it.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
But you also, I assume having you know, been a
maid member, and I assume you were a maid member.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Correct, No I wasn't. No, they correct the record, So
just to be no, no, I was not. So I was.
I was plated to be. All my friends that I
hung out with right after I went to prison. I
went to prison, you know, I got locked up twenty four,
twenty five. I'm facing the rest of my life in prison.
So I was young. I was coming up on my own.
I would have one percent been straightened out had I
(20:06):
not gone to jail and had three cases. So now
I'm locked up and all of the friends I hung
out with every day, the things that everybody I did
things with, they're coming up on visits and saying I
got my I got my thing, I got my I
got straightened out, but I got my button, I got,
you know. So I'm proud of them. I'm hugging and
kissing them, but this is I touched of Mvy and
me going, I can't.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
They're going to what they perceived. What they're going. They're
going to the major leagues. What they perceive is the
major leagues in their their vocation.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Exactly exactly. And I felt like, you know, you got
You're buried.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
You're buried in in in in in a minor league
baseball and you never can get that break.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
And I'm sick about it. Dan at the time. By
the grace of God, once again, I say, now I
look back, it was a lucky thing. I'm glad that
I never had it because it was easier when I
came home. When I came home, too, they immediately wanted
to put me up. One of my friends, I told
you to mention the guy from the Banano family, he says,
Louis goes, I'll put you up tomorrow, he goes, especially
after you did eight and a half years, you know,
I mean, you kept your mouth shut. And so I'm
(21:08):
assueing and here, and he had pulled me over by
the way from the Gabino family. There was a beef war.
I was in jail. Peter got he was locked up
thro him forty years and uh and my friends from
the Banano family. Because I wasn't made already. I was.
I was just claimed by the Gambinos. He pulled me
over to the Bananos and so he goes, I'll put
you up. I says, put me up. I'm done. I'm finished.
(21:29):
I go and I and I wish I could talk
you out of it, and I tried to, but uh,
you know, by then I had I had witnessed what
it's all about from the inside. I'm in there, and
I realized that there were so many informants.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
What do you do about those guys? Yeah, what are
you doing these?
Speaker 3 (21:44):
I just write I love riding home for the Submary channel. Yeah,
and I I.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Got to take a break here for at the news.
At the bottom. Man we get back. I want to
talk about the book, and I want to give people
an opportunity to ask you questions. I mean, you, we're
never a made man, but you have emerged stronger and
better from a situation that that was about the only
thing that you really knew growing up and fall. It's
(22:12):
a great story. It's a great story, my guess. Lou
Ferrante his book is we got to Clash of the Titans.
We'll get to that, I promise. And if you'd like
to feel free, you can ask any question you want.
As you can see lose an open book. He's there's
nothing you're going to ask him. He's not going to
give you an answer to six one, seven, two, five,
(22:32):
four ten thirty six one, seven, nine, ten thirty. And
I also think he should have any that some of
us should acknowledge some congratulations to him, because a lot
of guys go to jail and they don't have this metamorphois.
They they think that well, i'll get my i'll get out,
and i'll uh, I'll do something else. If I'm a
bank robber, I'll get another bank and i'll and I'll
(22:53):
get away, and they just continue on. And it's they
They never they never can see the darkness that they're
heading down. And Lewis lose the exception in many respects.
So I admire and I enjoy talking to him, and
I hope you will as well, coming back on nightside.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
If you're on night side, with Dan Ray on WAZ
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
So my guess is Lou for Ante, he's an accomplished author.
So some of your works have gotten some fabulous reviews
mob Rules. You have a first volume praise for Bogata,
Rise of a Rise of Empire. What is the word
bogd to.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Mean Bogatas we had slangs for like a family, a
crime family, we would say either the Bogado or the Bourgad.
We didn't we wouldn't say a crime family or uh,
you know, we wouldn't say the Gambino family like that.
We would say John's crew if it was John Gotti's
cruel or if it was chinging Anti, who was the
boss of the Genevie's family. We would refer to it
(23:58):
as the West Side. But the actual crew would be
the Bogado or the Bruvad pronounced that way. And it's
basically it comes from like it's almost like an Italian
ghetto the name. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
So the book that we're going to talk about right
now is a book that is coming out on December third,
So I just it's it's it's unpublished by Pegas Pegasus,
which is a big publisher.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Simon and Schuster. That's correct.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yeah, big big publishers. So you're doing really you found
a real calling in life. So let's just this book
is not available, but is it available for pre order?
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yeah, so I'll tell you thanks for asking. Borgata it's
a trilogy, the Bogada Trilogy, and the first volume which
is Rise of Empire Borgata Rise of Empire, which has
a red cover in the United States, that has been
available since January, so that's available now. It's doing very well.
And that's the first volume that brings you from the
(25:00):
origins of the Mafia in Sicily, crosses over the ocean,
picks up in the United States, goes through prohibition, goes
through the rise of Las Vegas and Cuba, and the
mob how they spread themselves out across the country and
in different areas. So that's sort of like the first
landing of the Mafia in the United States. And the
(25:21):
second volume is Clash of Titans, part of the Borgata
trilogy that's due out in December. It may have just
been bumped to the first week of January. It's available
for pre order, so I would urge your listeners to
hopefully read the first one, Rise of Empire. If they
enjoy it, the second one will be out shortly. And
the second one deals with Part two, which picks up
in nineteen sixty and as you had mentioned earlier, it
(25:44):
picks up with the first concentrated attack on the Mafia,
which is through the Kennedy administration. When John F. Kennedy
won the presidency, he appointed his brother, Robert F. Kennedy,
is the Attorney General, and Robert F. Kennedy had a
grudge with the mob from the McClellan Hearings also known
as the Rackets Committee, where he brought mobsters in front
(26:04):
of him and he tangled with them, and he had,
you know, big, big loud tips with them, including Jimmy Hoffer,
the labor leader teams to leader Jimmy Hoffer, who plays
a prominent role in the second volume as well. And
when Bobby Kennedy becomes Attorney General, there was sort of
a quid pro quote with the Kennedy's made through the father,
(26:24):
Joe Kennedy Senior, where if the mob helps Kennedy get
into office because they controlled big places like Chicago where
they had a tremendous political cloud and they needed them
to get Kennedy in these particular swing states. He needed help.
The mob said, well, if we help, we expect him
to just back off and layoff. And John F. Kennedy
(26:45):
was pretty easy going. He seemed to be okay with that.
Joe Kennedy Senior unfortunately had a stroke and became incapacitated,
and it was left to Bobby, who was a bit
of a grudge holder. And Bobby went crazy going after
the Mob. And as you said, also too, I go
deep into Hoover and why he seemed to ignore the
Mob for the better part of decades, and at some
(27:06):
point he was forced to awaken.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
I think that Hoover actually said that there was no
such thing as organized crime, and that whatever organized crime
was around, the FBI had put them in their place.
And this was a period of time when the mob
leaders were meeting in the Catskills, so you didn't have
the media coverage that you had today. And obviously Bobby
(27:31):
Kennedy became, you know, to the mobster, a deep dark
enemy that no r if you will, and that's why
there's so much question and concern about who truly was
responsible for the assassination. I don't know if you get
into that in the book I did.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
I got deeply into it, Dan, I think I think
you readers, your listeners rather will enjoy that as well.
I went deep into the ties between organized crime and
the government, UH and the Cuban exiles. And it has
a lot to do with those three groups. Those three
those are the three I think chief conspirators. And you know,
some people add Lyndon Johnson to it, some people add
(28:11):
Jed Behova to it, some people add Alan Dulles to it.
But I make a clear argument that those three groups, uh,
the government, the mafia, and the Cuban exiles rogue elements
of the government. I should say, it wasn't obviously, uh,
you know, a top down thing in the government. It
was rogue elements of the government. Uh. And it was
(28:32):
also certain individuals within the Cuban exile community who felt
portrayed by the Kennedy administration, first at the Bay of
Pigs and then at the Cuban Missile crisis, where you know,
the first of the Bay of Pigs, they felt abandoned
by the Kennedy administration, uh, and then at the Cuban
Missile crisis they felt the you know, everyone pretty much
in the administration, even the choice Joint Use of Staff
(28:53):
felt like, this is an easy reason to go in
to go invade Cube and get what we didn't get
done the first time, and the Cuban ex were biting
their nails. Goes, we finally got this going. And the
next thing Kennedy did was he not only uh uh
you know, he made a deal with Khrushchev and under
the table to pull missiles out of two he would
put we would pull missiles out of Turkey if Krushchev
(29:13):
got the missiles out of Cuba. But he also told
the UH to Khrushchev and Castro that there would be
no subsequent invasions, I promise you. And then he turned
on the Cuban exiles and said locking them up because
it's illegal the activities that they're conducting on US soil.
And you know, these.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Guys went for that group, and I studied that a
little bit bit. That was a group called Alpha sixty six.
I think that was the exile group.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
That was very that was very Yeah, that's correct, yeah, yes,
two yeah. For Grade twenty five, Oh no, that's right.
For Gade twenty five oh six was the was the
main characters. And then Alpha sixty six was part of it.
And those are the guys who were sort of like, uh,
I think that that sort of morphed into the Watergate too,
so that that crow.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, and and and for me, I always suspected organized
crime because of the Jack Ruby connection. Obviously, when Ruby
was in the bowels of the Dallas Police Department and
killed Oswald while he was in custody of a Dallas
police officer shot him to death, and you know, live
television back in Sunday morning of November nineteen sixty three.
(30:23):
You know, now you know, Ruby claimed that he did
it because he wanted to stop the poor suffering of
Jackie Kennedy. I think that was the excuse he used,
but I felt there was a motive there. Did you
get into that at all?
Speaker 3 (30:35):
I did? I did, and you nailed it. I got deep,
deeply into it, and I uncovered some really nice bits
and pieces and put them together nicely. Where Ruby had
conversations with his attorneys, and one particular attorney he said
to him, look, you know, my last attorney told me
to come up with that story. It's sohny. He goes,
I don't care if Jackie Kennedy suffered or not. And
(30:56):
you know, I said, I was, you know, heartbroken over
the Kennedy assassination. If I was so heartbook, and can
someone explain to me why I didn't even bother to
vote from, you know, and he goes, I don't care.
And he said that the Warren Commission, when they did
the Warren Commission report which exonerated him, he was telling everybody,
don't believe it. He goes, I wasn't innocent. Don't believe it.
(31:17):
And you know who Hoover himself when he watched it,
he said, he said right away, it's a mobhead. You
know it was it was clear. You know, you got
a guy and you got a guy in a black
suit and a fedora with a thirty eight snubnose runs
up to you know, Oswalden shoots them and you know, basically.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
All dead men tell no stories.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Right exactly exactly, and they all knew it. They all
knew that he was silencing a witness. And there's there's
strong connections to uh. Marcelo adorns the cover. Carlos Marcelo,
the Louisiana Don Louisiana mob boss adorns the cover of
volume two, Clash of Titans, and he's the main central
(31:56):
character uh, he was. He really really torns with Bobby Kennedy.
And he was repeatedly overheard by witnesses who sent this
information to Hoove up before the assassination and after saying
they repeatedly overheard him saying, look, you know, if you
cut off the head the dog, I'm sorry, if you
(32:18):
cut off the tail, the dog still could bite you.
You have to cut off the head, meaning Bobby Kennedy
was the tail. John Kennedy was the head. You got
to take out the head and that's the only way
to diffuse Bobby Kennedy. And the minute Kennedy was assassinated,
Bobby was completely incapacitated, and eventually he was you know,
he was out of the Justice Department and the war
against the Mob.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Well, he and Linda Johnson were not on speaking terms
even at that point.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
All that's correct.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
This is Lou Farranty. We're going to finish it up here,
and I'll tell you as we get towards the holiday
and the gift giving season. If you're at all a historian,
if you have a family member who was a historian,
these were a couple of books. You want to get
to the one that comes out the Clash of the
Titans covers nineteen sixty obviously an important year politically, to
(33:07):
nineteen eighty five, and then there'll be another third book
in this trilogy. I'm delighted to get this conversation with
Lou Farronte. He and I have had very different experiences
and very different career paths, but I think we've come
to some very similar conclusions.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
That's correct. And you're a legend, by the way, Dan
in our world, what you've done in your life. Yeah,
I mean, there aren't a lot of innocent people, but
it's a shame when there are a few, and I've
met some in jail, and the work you've done is incredible.
I want to Kit Mahatia, well, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
And the men here in Boston who were associated with
organized crime, they were innocent of the crime for which
they were convicted, and they were convicted of that crime
with the knowledge of Jaka Hoover. And I believe that
Hoover actually at that point said, because of the Kennedy assassination,
(34:03):
we'd have to become much more aggressive. And they used
a guy up here named Joe Barbosa to who had
killed thirty five forty forty five people. No one could
have really calculate his body count, but he was a
real effective witness and he became the prototype for the
heart for the for the feder witness Protection program. He
was the first armer of the Feeder witness Protection program.
(34:25):
And when he murdered a guy out in California, it's
a great story lit the FBI agents here who had
worked with him and developed him, they went to California
to become defense witnesses, character witnesses for Barbosa because they
were afraid he was gonna flip.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Oh wow, oh yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
He killed a guy out in California named Clay Wilson,
and he eventually he was facing the death penalty out there.
This was before Furman versus Georgia, and he was allowed
to plead guilty and he got what was called a
California sentence five years to life. He spent three and
a half years in a federal farm in Montana, and
he was paroled and the FBI told the well, the
(35:07):
FBI agents, the corrupt FBI agents told the mafia people
here in Boston where Bobosa was. And the the mafia
people in Boston went out and kept Bobosa in February.
As they say, he died in an industrial they got him.
He was shot, yeah, they got yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Wow. So the fed him to the mob? Is that
what they and the story.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
GOESBI corrupt FBI agents here in Boston. We had a
very corruptive office for for decades here in Boston. There
were plenty of good FBI agents. Okay, guys who are doing.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Trying to reflects on them, I know.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Absolutely, and I have had plenty of friends and law enforce.
We'll take a quick break back of Blue Ferrante right
after this. I can't tell you, lou bunch of them
enjoying the conversation, and thank you for your kind words.
They're up. They're way overboard what I did. It was
it was a thing, but that it wasn't. It wasn't
the sort of metaphorhis that you have gone through. That's
for sure.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
I think nobody has this tenacity to stick with things
for other people. It's an incredible thing you did.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Yeah, thanks man, I appreciate it. We'll be back on
Night's Side right after this.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
I guess Lou farranting, Lou, real, quick question, you become
a professional writer. How did you learn that skill or
did it just come naturally?
Speaker 3 (36:34):
There may be an element of natural to it, because
I took to it, but it was self taught. I
was in prison and I went to the whole long story.
Don't have the time for now to tell you how
I went there, But I went there to someone else.
So I'm in the hole. I finally get released and
I called my friend who was the caretaker of John
Gotty's club, and he had tattoos all over his body.
(36:54):
He had Biblical verses. Dad, So I said, hey, you
read right, Yeah, you read the Bible. I say, assume
the old the verses on your body. He says, yeah,
I read the Bible. I read books too, so I
asked me sent me in books, and I started to read.
I fell in love with books. The first time I
ever read a book in my life was in prison.
I was literate. I went to you know, little school
when I was young, grammar school. I graduated high school.
(37:14):
I just never went to college. But I cheated my
way through school too, so and I ran a chop
shop through high school. You know, I mean they have
it right, Yeah, incredible. So so anyway I read, I
fell in love with books, and at some point I said,
I'd like to write, but you don't have a university
or a professor, and you know university professor in the
writing teacher. How I taught myself was basically everything. I
(37:38):
figured that everything Leo Tolstoy knows about writing is in
the pages of Anna Karenina. Everything Hemingway knows about writing
is in the pages of To Whom the Bell Tolls?
Everything the Bronte sisters know about writing is in Jane A,
et cetera. And so I would just read these books,
and I would read them with an analytical eye, take
(37:58):
notes in the margin, how they begin to how they
begin to a chapter, how they begin to plot, how
they develop a plot, how they introduce a character, how
they exit a character. And that's why I taught myself
out to right. I came home and I wanted to
be a writer of anything but true crime. I never
wanted to look back at the mob. I didn't want
to talk about it. I didn't want to know about it.
(38:19):
I tried everything to get published with anything else. And
you know, the people the publishing industry basically just keeps
telling you, tell us about you, tell us about you,
allow us you know.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Exactly exactly, and that's that that is the key to success. Lou,
I'm flat out of time. It's been a fascinating hour.
We will replay this hour on Sunday night, our Best
at Nightside, which runs at eleven o'clock here in Boston
on Sunday this coming Sunday night. I pledge you on.
I pledged you on that if you ever get up
to Boston, love to take you to dinner and uh
(38:52):
and just meet you, be honest. The book that's coming
up is Forgota bl r g A d A Clash
of the Titans. It's come now, just before Christmas. The
prior book is already available, and I suggest you may
want to Rise Borgata Bio r g A t A
Rise of Empire again. Lewis Ferrante f E r r
(39:13):
A n t E. You can find it Amazon, you
can find it anywhere. Well, let's keep in touch, and
great success to you, my friend, and congratulations on your metamorphois.
It's it's a inspirational story. My pleasure, my pleasure. When
we get back, I think I want to talk about
Donald Trump's decision not to have a second debate. I
(39:36):
will a third debate. I should say I'll explain it
all right after the eleven o'clock News
It's nice with Dan ray On Delileos.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
D all right. A subject that we talk about a
little bit, but most of us talk about it from
not from an inside perspective, an inside point of view.
A few weeks ago I had as a guest during
the eight o'clock hour, my guests who were about to
reintroduce to reintroduce you to Lewis Ferrante. He's a former
(00:29):
member of the Gambino crime family. Spent several years in
stir as we say, because he decided that he would
not incriminate fellow Gambino family members. Probably a good decision,
you know, a life decision. I would say, uh, Lewis
to Ferranti is with us, lou Ferrente. By the way, Lewis, Uh,
(00:53):
you're a stand up guy. How are you tonight?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I'm good? Thank you, Dan. I appreciate introduction I did.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
You were a stand up guy. You know you're you're
in the slammer. What years were you in? What years
were you in?
Speaker 3 (01:10):
I got I got locked up. I was young. I
was I did nothing but fine. From when I was
thirteen by the time I was twenty five, I was
facing the rest of my life in prison. I had
three cases. I had an FBI case, a secret service case,
and a state organized crime cask boss case and accumulation.
It's you know, facing probably one hundred and sixty years
(01:32):
with everything. So yeah, I said, I'm not squealing, I'm
not ratting, it's not happening. And the pressure just continued,
and I was, O.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Were you How old were you when you by the way,
you know, in terms of baseball, you'd call that someone
like yourself a five tool player, So you were five
tool games gigs? Are you? You had a lot of
skill sets here?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I mean, yeah, I did my ex Yeah. True. My
expertise was at the time heis and hijackings. That's what
I did. And I had a really really good crew
and that's what we were known for, and you know
we did it. We we operated within the Gambino family umbrella.
(02:15):
But I worked with any family. I worked with everybody, Lukesey,
Banano Colombo. If if somebody had a tip, I just
had to put it on record with my own family.
But anybody came to me.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
So what were what sort of trucks were you looking
to hit? I mean you when you say you had it, kip,
you were you were going at some fruit truck, I assume,
But what were you looking for? Now?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
You're looking for money, any anything that's big money it
could be. I mean I had everything from uh Brazil's
yeah you know, I mean not even like Victoria's secrets,
which we thought the truck was carrying. We ended up
with these big cheap cone cup brazils when we hit
the truck, you know, So there was things. Sometimes, you know,
you got a truck coming out of the airport, you
get the wrong one. But you look for something, you know,
(03:00):
big as far as merchandise is concerned. Something you know,
you figure you get ten twenty, maybe at best thirty
cents on the dollar. Usually you don't get me you know,
usually it's more towards ten or twenty. So you know,
you need a load, you know, hopefully worth a million dollars.
So you could at least have one hundred thousand if
you got ten cents on it, Okay, and.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So and so. Therefore you you would fence the property.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, we had fences, but also too we did uh.
We were eventually charged with I don't want to say
I was acquitted in the end of these charges, but
we were also originally convicted of and charged with armored
car robberies as well. And that's just straight money. So
there's yeah, I would see to the load.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
If you get you know, a big you hit it
truck down. Yeah, you know pictures of of uh you know,
dead presidents.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's one instance I could talk about
because I was charged with it. We went to uh.
We got to tip a guy originally came from New
York and he joined the Navy. He got out of
the Navy and he was down on his lock, got
a job, a couple of bad jobs, and then eventually
get landed a job with an army clock company and
he told us, look, come down here, you could hit
(04:13):
one of my trucks. You know the company I'm working
for it was a big, big armored car company, well
known throughout the country. So we did at Back then
it was pre nine to eleven, so after nine to eleven,
you know, you need proof. You have to prove where
you are before you bought a plane. It's tsa, et cetera.
Back then, though, we used to book fights with phony names.
(04:33):
We would put guns, walkie talkies, span is in a
in a box and just ship at ups, you know,
to California, to an address and it would be there
waiting for us when we got there. I don't know
if you could do any of that stuff today, I
can't imagine it. I can't even imagine booking a flight
without having you know, identification and stuff. But back then
(04:54):
you could. So we booked phony, you know, we booked
flights under phony names. We sent all our weapons and
the other accouterments for for you know, for for a
heist down there, all the tools, and we got down there,
and what happened was he said, at the last minute,
you know, we went to dinner when we were going
over to plan stuff, and at the last minute he
got cold feet. He said, look, I'll give you another
(05:14):
truck to hit. I really don't want it to be mine.
I feel like they'll get me right after. They'll catch me,
they'll know. And so at that point I needed to
get another guy down there, because if we don't have
the driver, you know, it's it's it's it presents. You know,
you got difficulties if you're hitting guys that nobody's on
the inside. It's easier if you're hitting somebody from outside.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
So what did you I mean, first, First of all,
you've got to be a little bit upset with this
guy who who invited you to do this deal and
now he's backing out on you at the last minute.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah, at the time, you know, I'm obviously I'm a
little formed man. Now, you know, the whole situation is horrible.
But back then, yeah, I was. I was twisted. Yeah,
I was heated. So we got we got a guy
called New York. I said, look, I'll get another guy
down yeah, cold New York. I asked another guy from
micro get on a plane, hurry up, get down here.
We got you know, we're down here already. We're going
(06:03):
to go through with something. So he came down, he
flew down. What happened was we didn't know this. He
got down there, he was down there a couple of days,
and we were going back to a hotel UH in
San Francisco, and we got swarmed by FBI agents working, yeah,
working in concert with the police. Helicopters, bulletproof vest, machine guns.
(06:25):
You know, they just they took us in, righted you out. Yeah,
that's what happened. So the guy who I called he
was he was a roommate with somebody who was an
FBI informant, and that guy he said, look, you know,
Louis called and he's got something big for me out west. Uh,
you know, drive me to the airport. And that guy
(06:45):
did not know exactly what we were doing, but he
took the FBI and looked. And now I could look
back on it, Dan and say, by the grace of God,
you know, it was stopped. Who knows what could have happened.
So it's a good thing. But back then I was
again I was you know, you know, we would you
know anyway we went.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
How old were at that time, So I was.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
In my early twenties when I was knocking on I was.
I was accused of knocking off one of the biggest
heights in US history in my early twenties. And my
crew were all in their thirties and forties, and you know,
defences we used were all in their sixties, so everybody
was older than me. But I was on the street
since I'm thirteen, and I delivered. And I always if
(07:27):
I said I was going to do something, I did it.
You know, there's talkers and there's doers, and like anything
like anything in the real world, in the old world
or the other.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
World, so you were. You were, in effect, at a
very young age, a quarterback.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
I was. I was. I would put the heist together.
I had the crew. They all listened to me, and
we were like a well oiled machine. We did what
we did really well. We didn't we never got caught
in the commission of a crime. I didn't understand the law.
I learned that later in life. I eventually studied after
I went through seven attorneys, including the famous civil rights
(08:06):
attorney William Kuntzler. I had originally retained Barry Slotnik. I
had some of the best attorneys money could buy in
the beginning, and eventually I learned the law. But I
didn't know the law when I was on the street.
And I thought, once we got away with the crime,
scott free, it was done. Just don't talk about it.
You know, if you didn't go, you should know. So
we didn't talk about it. And then what happened was
(08:26):
at some point or another years later, a few years
down the road. You know, a lot of crimes were
from when I was twenty twenty one, twenty two. Now yeah,
now twenty four to twenty five, and I'm facing life,
and what happened was the FBI. There was a guy
who one of the fences I used. He was a
big fence and give you an it's almost like it's
(08:48):
an incredible story. Again. The guy was on forty seventh
Street in the Julie District in Manhattan. That's where he operated,
and there was only like five or six fences, as
I understood it, for like decades. They had that handle anything.
You know. You could bring them the Stanhope diamond and
they could move it, you know, whereas other fence, another
fence might say, what the hell you want me to
(09:08):
do with that? I don't know where to go? Dad.
You could bring them a picasso, you know, a Dollari
van go anything. He could fence, and so we always
used him. It was my friend's uncle, and I looked
up to him. I called him uncle. I called him uncle,
your uncle Billy at the time. And I looked up
to him. And at some point or another a lot
of the heists I did, I brought all the merchandise
(09:30):
I brought to him, and he was aware of other
big heightts we did. And when he got arrested by
the FBI, he flipped. But he became what they call
and you would know for your listeners. He became what
they called a dry snitch. He wanted to be a
confidential informant. He did not want to testify against anybody,
but he gave up everything that I did, and the
(09:51):
FBI of all the crimes that they were looking at
they had thought of. It was like a lot of
these big heists they thought were done by like a
season's crew, like a Jimmy Burke, you know, the guy
who did les Stanza. They figured, you know, they were
looking at all these big guys in their forties and
fifties who've been around hardened criminals and never knew it
was a kid in his early twenties.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Rob Okay, please clip that then, kind to watch the language.
So obviously what happens is when you're doing this stuff,
you had no concept about conspiracy laws, You had no
concept about rico statutes, You had no concept about statues
of limitations. You figured, hey, now, six six months, it's
(10:34):
it's all in the rear view, Mira. So you you chose,
you chose not to snitch, and you did eight years.
With all that, you've were facing life in prison. Obviously
your lawyers must have worked some sort of well, I'll.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Tell you what happened.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, yeah, let me take a break, loose, just real
quickly because commercials. We'll use this as a break. We'll
come back. We'll talk about it, and if folks wanted
the conversation, ask questions. I also want to talk about
the book that you have just written, Bogada Clash of
the Titans, and it does cover the period of nineteen
(11:13):
sixty to nineteen eighty five, which starts with obviously the
Kennedy administration in the person of Robert F. Kennedy, Junior President,
Kennedy's attorney general, his brother going after organized crime, and
while Jay go Hoover had been the head of the
FBI for about three decades and he was asleep at
(11:34):
the switch. And there's a lot of stuff going on
in the nineteen fifties that Hoover either turned a blind
eye to or he was too arrogant to what acknowledge
he was missing. We'll get to all of that. I
promise we're going to spend at least until eleven o'clock,
and I'd love to have those of you join the conversation,
ask questions. Organized crime is always something that has fascinated everyone.
(11:55):
We're getting a real inside look from Lou Ferrante. We'll
be back on night Side right after this.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
My guest is Lou Ferenting. He was a member of
the Gambino crime family, was associated with them, served eight
years in prison because he would not incriminate fellow Gambino
family members. He's written a book called Bolgata, Riise of
and Empire. It's just out. Has received a critical acclaim
(12:29):
from The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Washington Free Beacon,
amongst others. And I find him to be a really
interesting gentleman, and he has turned his life around. How
old are you now?
Speaker 3 (12:43):
If I could ask, Lou, Oh, I'm fifty five. Now
this is many years ago. I'm back going back to
the nineties when I was.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Wild, okay, And as they say, when you folks ended
up swarmed by FBI agents in San Francisco, how many
of how many were in your crew that day? How
many people were there?
Speaker 3 (13:04):
So yeah, that day there was there was uh one, two, three,
four of us there and there were other guys you
know back home, obviously I had I had more of
a crew you know, it depends who I would use
for a job. But there were four of us in
San Francisco. There were three, and then the fourth guy
who joined us, and he had just joined us, and
that's when we got we got dragged in. There's actually
(13:25):
surveillance photos of that incident floating around on the computer somewhere.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Really, so I got to ask a question on that one.
Were you guys staying at a high class hotel in
San Francisco?
Speaker 3 (13:36):
No, No, we weren't. No, very very low key. It was.
It was what you would call a hotel motel, somewhere
you go like to hike, you know, from uh if
you're doing something wrong yester the day. Yeah, No it was. No,
it was no fancy place.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
So now I want to drill down on some of this,
and I want to get to the book as well,
but I want to take the few minutes we have
left before the newscast at the bottom of the hour.
I'm assuming you were born into this. I mean you
were you were born into.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
This, most most of my friends were. I wasn't Dan. Actually,
I came from my mother's family was crooked. My my
grandfather was a World War two hero eight bronze stars
in the Asiatic Pacific. But he came home and his
friends got him in the union. He drove heavy machinery
in the Operating Engineers Union, and he took numbers at
(14:28):
night in the bar. My uncle was a hijacka his son,
my mother's brother. We used to visit him in sing
sing Uh and different prisons throughout my childhood.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I made a nice family trip one.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Yeah. Yeah, we'd argued the whole way up there and
and and back, but it was like a typical Italian family.
Arguing is just part of conversation. Yeah, it was, you know,
we were allowed. But yeah, so that's how I grew up.
But my father's family were law abiding when I I
got involved in the life, though, I did meet on
come in contact and became close friends with a lot
(15:05):
of people who were born into the life where their
fathers were the wise guys, their grandfathers, their uncles. One
of my dear friends, he's a captain in the Banano family.
He's away right now. He's a perfect example. His grandfather
was a captain, his uncle was a captain, and uh
and uh and in one of his cousins. All of
them rose to the rank of Capo at different times
(15:26):
in their lives, and they were all part of the
Banano family from the very beginning. They all came from
Castela Maurici del Golfo in Sicily, So there was people
I lived in uh. I practically lived for the better
part of seven or eight years in Peter Gotti's house.
Sean Gotty's oldest brother, Peter was a captain in again
final family, and I was in and out of that
house just about every day. They were born into the life,
(15:51):
Peter Son, Peter Son, Peter was born into the life.
They knew nothing else. Although John wasn't and Peter wasn't.
They were first generation. Actually nobody realized that John Gotti
was the first generation Mafio, so he wasn't born into
the life. Yeah, he came up. Him and his financial
Rgerio eventually met Neil Dough or became close when Neil
de la Crosch and then got involved with the game.
(16:13):
You know, family. But most of my friends were involved
in that life to some extent. They were born into it,
whereas I wasn't. And there was just as many guys
who weren't like me too.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
So when once you got into it, Okay, I'm assuming,
and if I'm wrong, here tell me. Okay, I'm I'm
I'm asking this. This is not a rehearsed interview. I'm
assuming that when you had some successes, whether it was
you know, hitting an armored truck, you know, hitting a
truck that you know that that really turned out to
(16:44):
be a money a money winner for you. I'm assuming
there was a little bit of an adrenaline rush when
when things went right.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
I loved it. Dan. If I look back now again,
I regret it now today, from the moment I from
the and I started to rethink my life in prison,
I regretted it. But when I was involved and in
when I was doing it in real time, I loved it.
I thought it was the big It was incredible adrenaline.
I have skydived, and skydiving doesn't come close to it.
(17:14):
The adrenaline rush was incredible. And you're lawless as well, right,
you know, I abide by all the laws of society.
Now Ever, since I came home from prison, I abuie
by all the laws of society, and I'll never feel
that sense of lawlessness, which is also a sense of
freedom philosophically speaking, you know, it's a sense of there's
nothing holding you down. You know, we all have to
(17:34):
live by the guidelines of society. Now, then we have
additional guidelines with our domestic lives. We have you know,
you have a wife, you have children, you have responsibilities,
you have all kinds of things you have to abide
by every single day. And then you have a boss.
You got to go to work. Then you have laws
of the way to work that you have to follow
on the road, et cetera. I didn't have any of
that law.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Become we want to become addicted to that lifestyle, just
like someone who tries drugs and they like it, they
become addicted.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
I just I did. I loved it. I loved it.
I absolutely loved it. Dan and I loved it. And
you know, the big shock of going to jail, when
you're locked up in a cell, the first shock is
is you have removed from the street and you don't
have any of that action that you that that feeds you,
that that you live off of. It's all done, it's
all gone. And then you have obviously there's additional things
(18:23):
are suffering. You know, there's loneliness. You missed your family
and your friends, and your loved ones and all that
other stuff. But you also, I missed the action too,
and you have wise guys in there. I have to
tell you. It's funny you said that because you have
wise guys in there that also missed the action but
don't realize it's done, and they try to relive it
day after day. For example, if guys used to steal
(18:45):
stuff from the kitchen for us, Let's say guys were
smuggling spaghetti from the kitchen up to the tea block
for us so we can make spaghetti at night the
way we like it. You you would have the wise
guy going, hey, what'd you do with that pound of spaghetti.
I'm gonna have a sit down with this guy over
the pound of spaghetti. We should have got that pound
the other guy got it. Next thing you know, they're
walking on the tier block and there's like sixteen wise guys,
(19:05):
you know, from every different family over a pound of spaghetti.
And I'm my own. You know, you got to be
kidding me. These guys are out of their minds, but
they're trying to relive the life that they don't have anymore. Yeah,
it's incredible, it's incredible, you know, And once I saw
the comedy. You know, I'm by myself laughing, going this
is this is, this is ridiculous. You know, you got
to realize, you know, we're not living this life anymore,
(19:28):
you know. And then they'll say, just chairs for so
and so, come over here. You've got to sit here
because he was sowing so on the street. And it's
and they're playing the game still, they're not ready to
let go of it.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
But you also, I assume having you know, been a
maid member, and I assume you were a maid member.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Correct, No I wasn't. No, they correct the record, So
just to be no, no, I was not. So I was.
I was plated to be. All my friends that I
hung out with right after I went to prison. I
went to prison, you know, I got locked up twenty four,
twenty five. I'm facing the rest of my life in prison.
So I was young. I was coming up on my own.
I would have one percent been straightened out had I
(20:06):
not gone to jail and had three cases. So now
I'm locked up and all of the friends I hung
out with every day, the things that everybody I did
things with, they're coming up on visits and saying I
got my I got my thing, I got my I
got straightened out, but I got my button, I got,
you know. So I'm proud of them. I'm hugging and
kissing them, but this is I touched of Mvy and
me going, I can't.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
They're going to what they perceived. What they're going. They're
going to the major leagues. What they perceive is the
major leagues in their their vocation.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Exactly exactly. And I felt like, you know, you got
You're buried.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
You're buried in in in in in a minor league
baseball and you never can get that break.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
And I'm sick about it. Dan at the time. By
the grace of God, once again, I say, now I
look back, it was a lucky thing. I'm glad that
I never had it because it was easier when I
came home. When I came home, too, they immediately wanted
to put me up. One of my friends, I told
you to mention the guy from the Banano family, he says,
Louis goes, I'll put you up tomorrow, he goes, especially
after you did eight and a half years, you know,
I mean, you kept your mouth shut. And so I'm
(21:08):
assueing and here, and he had pulled me over by
the way from the Gabino family. There was a beef war.
I was in jail. Peter got he was locked up
thro him forty years and uh and my friends from
the Banano family. Because I wasn't made already. I was.
I was just claimed by the Gambinos. He pulled me
over to the Bananos and so he goes, I'll put
you up. I says, put me up. I'm done. I'm finished.
(21:29):
I go and I and I wish I could talk
you out of it, and I tried to, but uh,
you know, by then I had I had witnessed what
it's all about from the inside. I'm in there, and
I realized that there were so many informants.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
What do you do about those guys? Yeah, what are
you doing these?
Speaker 3 (21:44):
I just write I love riding home for the Submary channel. Yeah,
and I I.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Got to take a break here for at the news.
At the bottom. Man we get back. I want to
talk about the book, and I want to give people
an opportunity to ask you questions. I mean, you, we're
never a made man, but you have emerged stronger and
better from a situation that that was about the only
thing that you really knew growing up and fall. It's
(22:12):
a great story. It's a great story, my guess. Lou
Ferrante his book is we got to Clash of the Titans.
We'll get to that, I promise. And if you'd like
to feel free, you can ask any question you want.
As you can see lose an open book. He's there's
nothing you're going to ask him. He's not going to
give you an answer to six one, seven, two, five,
(22:32):
four ten thirty six one, seven, nine, ten thirty. And
I also think he should have any that some of
us should acknowledge some congratulations to him, because a lot
of guys go to jail and they don't have this metamorphois.
They they think that well, i'll get my i'll get out,
and i'll uh, I'll do something else. If I'm a
bank robber, I'll get another bank and i'll and I'll
(22:53):
get away, and they just continue on. And it's they
They never they never can see the darkness that they're
heading down. And Lewis lose the exception in many respects.
So I admire and I enjoy talking to him, and
I hope you will as well, coming back on nightside.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
If you're on night side, with Dan Ray on WAZ
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
So my guess is Lou for Ante, he's an accomplished author.
So some of your works have gotten some fabulous reviews
mob Rules. You have a first volume praise for Bogata,
Rise of a Rise of Empire. What is the word
bogd to.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Mean Bogatas we had slangs for like a family, a
crime family, we would say either the Bogado or the Bourgad.
We didn't we wouldn't say a crime family or uh,
you know, we wouldn't say the Gambino family like that.
We would say John's crew if it was John Gotti's
cruel or if it was chinging Anti, who was the
boss of the Genevie's family. We would refer to it
(23:58):
as the West Side. But the actual crew would be
the Bogado or the Bruvad pronounced that way. And it's
basically it comes from like it's almost like an Italian
ghetto the name. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
So the book that we're going to talk about right
now is a book that is coming out on December third,
So I just it's it's it's unpublished by Pegas Pegasus,
which is a big publisher.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Simon and Schuster. That's correct.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yeah, big big publishers. So you're doing really you found
a real calling in life. So let's just this book
is not available, but is it available for pre order?
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Yeah, so I'll tell you thanks for asking. Borgata it's
a trilogy, the Bogada Trilogy, and the first volume which
is Rise of Empire Borgata Rise of Empire, which has
a red cover in the United States, that has been
available since January, so that's available now. It's doing very well.
And that's the first volume that brings you from the
(25:00):
origins of the Mafia in Sicily, crosses over the ocean,
picks up in the United States, goes through prohibition, goes
through the rise of Las Vegas and Cuba, and the
mob how they spread themselves out across the country and
in different areas. So that's sort of like the first
landing of the Mafia in the United States. And the
(25:21):
second volume is Clash of Titans, part of the Borgata
trilogy that's due out in December. It may have just
been bumped to the first week of January. It's available
for pre order, so I would urge your listeners to
hopefully read the first one, Rise of Empire. If they
enjoy it, the second one will be out shortly. And
the second one deals with Part two, which picks up
in nineteen sixty and as you had mentioned earlier, it
(25:44):
picks up with the first concentrated attack on the Mafia,
which is through the Kennedy administration. When John F. Kennedy
won the presidency, he appointed his brother, Robert F. Kennedy,
is the Attorney General, and Robert F. Kennedy had a
grudge with the mob from the McClellan Hearings also known
as the Rackets Committee, where he brought mobsters in front
(26:04):
of him and he tangled with them, and he had,
you know, big, big loud tips with them, including Jimmy Hoffer,
the labor leader teams to leader Jimmy Hoffer, who plays
a prominent role in the second volume as well. And
when Bobby Kennedy becomes Attorney General, there was sort of
a quid pro quote with the Kennedy's made through the father,
(26:24):
Joe Kennedy Senior, where if the mob helps Kennedy get
into office because they controlled big places like Chicago where
they had a tremendous political cloud and they needed them
to get Kennedy in these particular swing states. He needed help.
The mob said, well, if we help, we expect him
to just back off and layoff. And John F. Kennedy
(26:45):
was pretty easy going. He seemed to be okay with that.
Joe Kennedy Senior unfortunately had a stroke and became incapacitated,
and it was left to Bobby, who was a bit
of a grudge holder. And Bobby went crazy going after
the Mob. And as you said, also too, I go
deep into Hoover and why he seemed to ignore the
Mob for the better part of decades, and at some
(27:06):
point he was forced to awaken.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
I think that Hoover actually said that there was no
such thing as organized crime, and that whatever organized crime
was around, the FBI had put them in their place.
And this was a period of time when the mob
leaders were meeting in the Catskills, so you didn't have
the media coverage that you had today. And obviously Bobby
(27:31):
Kennedy became, you know, to the mobster, a deep dark
enemy that no r if you will, and that's why
there's so much question and concern about who truly was
responsible for the assassination. I don't know if you get
into that in the book I did.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
I got deeply into it, Dan, I think I think
you readers, your listeners rather will enjoy that as well.
I went deep into the ties between organized crime and
the government, UH and the Cuban exiles. And it has
a lot to do with those three groups. Those three
those are the three I think chief conspirators. And you know,
some people add Lyndon Johnson to it, some people add
(28:11):
Jed Behova to it, some people add Alan Dulles to it.
But I make a clear argument that those three groups, uh,
the government, the mafia, and the Cuban exiles rogue elements
of the government. I should say, it wasn't obviously, uh,
you know, a top down thing in the government. It
was rogue elements of the government. Uh. And it was
(28:32):
also certain individuals within the Cuban exile community who felt
portrayed by the Kennedy administration, first at the Bay of
Pigs and then at the Cuban Missile crisis, where you know,
the first of the Bay of Pigs, they felt abandoned
by the Kennedy administration, uh, and then at the Cuban
Missile crisis they felt the you know, everyone pretty much
in the administration, even the choice Joint Use of Staff
(28:53):
felt like, this is an easy reason to go in
to go invade Cube and get what we didn't get
done the first time, and the Cuban ex were biting
their nails. Goes, we finally got this going. And the
next thing Kennedy did was he not only uh uh
you know, he made a deal with Khrushchev and under
the table to pull missiles out of two he would
put we would pull missiles out of Turkey if Krushchev
(29:13):
got the missiles out of Cuba. But he also told
the UH to Khrushchev and Castro that there would be
no subsequent invasions, I promise you. And then he turned
on the Cuban exiles and said locking them up because
it's illegal the activities that they're conducting on US soil.
And you know, these.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Guys went for that group, and I studied that a
little bit bit. That was a group called Alpha sixty six.
I think that was the exile group.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
That was very that was very Yeah, that's correct, yeah, yes,
two yeah. For Grade twenty five, Oh no, that's right.
For Gade twenty five oh six was the was the
main characters. And then Alpha sixty six was part of it.
And those are the guys who were sort of like, uh,
I think that that sort of morphed into the Watergate too,
so that that crow.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, and and and for me, I always suspected organized
crime because of the Jack Ruby connection. Obviously, when Ruby
was in the bowels of the Dallas Police Department and
killed Oswald while he was in custody of a Dallas
police officer shot him to death, and you know, live
television back in Sunday morning of November nineteen sixty three.
(30:23):
You know, now you know, Ruby claimed that he did
it because he wanted to stop the poor suffering of
Jackie Kennedy. I think that was the excuse he used,
but I felt there was a motive there. Did you
get into that at all?
Speaker 3 (30:35):
I did? I did, and you nailed it. I got deep,
deeply into it, and I uncovered some really nice bits
and pieces and put them together nicely. Where Ruby had
conversations with his attorneys, and one particular attorney he said
to him, look, you know, my last attorney told me
to come up with that story. It's sohny. He goes,
I don't care if Jackie Kennedy suffered or not. And
(30:56):
you know, I said, I was, you know, heartbroken over
the Kennedy assassination. If I was so heartbook, and can
someone explain to me why I didn't even bother to
vote from, you know, and he goes, I don't care.
And he said that the Warren Commission, when they did
the Warren Commission report which exonerated him, he was telling everybody,
don't believe it. He goes, I wasn't innocent. Don't believe it.
(31:17):
And you know who Hoover himself when he watched it,
he said, he said right away, it's a mobhead. You
know it was it was clear. You know, you got
a guy and you got a guy in a black
suit and a fedora with a thirty eight snubnose runs
up to you know, Oswalden shoots them and you know, basically.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
All dead men tell no stories.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Right exactly exactly, and they all knew it. They all
knew that he was silencing a witness. And there's there's
strong connections to uh. Marcelo adorns the cover. Carlos Marcelo,
the Louisiana Don Louisiana mob boss adorns the cover of
volume two, Clash of Titans, and he's the main central
(31:56):
character uh, he was. He really really torns with Bobby Kennedy.
And he was repeatedly overheard by witnesses who sent this
information to Hoove up before the assassination and after saying
they repeatedly overheard him saying, look, you know, if you
cut off the head the dog, I'm sorry, if you
(32:18):
cut off the tail, the dog still could bite you.
You have to cut off the head, meaning Bobby Kennedy
was the tail. John Kennedy was the head. You got
to take out the head and that's the only way
to diffuse Bobby Kennedy. And the minute Kennedy was assassinated,
Bobby was completely incapacitated, and eventually he was you know,
he was out of the Justice Department and the war
against the Mob.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Well, he and Linda Johnson were not on speaking terms
even at that point.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
All that's correct.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
This is Lou Farranty. We're going to finish it up here,
and I'll tell you as we get towards the holiday
and the gift giving season. If you're at all a historian,
if you have a family member who was a historian,
these were a couple of books. You want to get
to the one that comes out the Clash of the
Titans covers nineteen sixty obviously an important year politically, to
(33:07):
nineteen eighty five, and then there'll be another third book
in this trilogy. I'm delighted to get this conversation with
Lou Farronte. He and I have had very different experiences
and very different career paths, but I think we've come
to some very similar conclusions.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
That's correct. And you're a legend, by the way, Dan
in our world, what you've done in your life. Yeah,
I mean, there aren't a lot of innocent people, but
it's a shame when there are a few, and I've
met some in jail, and the work you've done is incredible.
I want to Kit Mahatia, well, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
And the men here in Boston who were associated with
organized crime, they were innocent of the crime for which
they were convicted, and they were convicted of that crime
with the knowledge of Jaka Hoover. And I believe that
Hoover actually at that point said, because of the Kennedy assassination,
(34:03):
we'd have to become much more aggressive. And they used
a guy up here named Joe Barbosa to who had
killed thirty five forty forty five people. No one could
have really calculate his body count, but he was a
real effective witness and he became the prototype for the
heart for the for the feder witness Protection program. He
was the first armer of the Feeder witness Protection program.
(34:25):
And when he murdered a guy out in California, it's
a great story lit the FBI agents here who had
worked with him and developed him, they went to California
to become defense witnesses, character witnesses for Barbosa because they
were afraid he was gonna flip.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Oh wow, oh yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
He killed a guy out in California named Clay Wilson,
and he eventually he was facing the death penalty out there.
This was before Furman versus Georgia, and he was allowed
to plead guilty and he got what was called a
California sentence five years to life. He spent three and
a half years in a federal farm in Montana, and
he was paroled and the FBI told the well, the
(35:07):
FBI agents, the corrupt FBI agents told the mafia people
here in Boston where Bobosa was. And the the mafia
people in Boston went out and kept Bobosa in February.
As they say, he died in an industrial they got him.
He was shot, yeah, they got yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Wow. So the fed him to the mob? Is that
what they and the story.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
GOESBI corrupt FBI agents here in Boston. We had a
very corruptive office for for decades here in Boston. There
were plenty of good FBI agents. Okay, guys who are doing.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Trying to reflects on them, I know.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Absolutely, and I have had plenty of friends and law enforce.
We'll take a quick break back of Blue Ferrante right
after this. I can't tell you, lou bunch of them
enjoying the conversation, and thank you for your kind words.
They're up. They're way overboard what I did. It was
it was a thing, but that it wasn't. It wasn't
the sort of metaphorhis that you have gone through. That's
for sure.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
I think nobody has this tenacity to stick with things
for other people. It's an incredible thing you did.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Yeah, thanks man, I appreciate it. We'll be back on
Night's Side right after this.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
I guess Lou farranting, Lou, real, quick question, you become
a professional writer. How did you learn that skill or
did it just come naturally?
Speaker 3 (36:34):
There may be an element of natural to it, because
I took to it, but it was self taught. I
was in prison and I went to the whole long story.
Don't have the time for now to tell you how
I went there, But I went there to someone else.
So I'm in the hole. I finally get released and
I called my friend who was the caretaker of John
Gotty's club, and he had tattoos all over his body.
(36:54):
He had Biblical verses. Dad, So I said, hey, you
read right, Yeah, you read the Bible. I say, assume
the old the verses on your body. He says, yeah,
I read the Bible. I read books too, so I
asked me sent me in books, and I started to read.
I fell in love with books. The first time I
ever read a book in my life was in prison.
I was literate. I went to you know, little school
when I was young, grammar school. I graduated high school.
(37:14):
I just never went to college. But I cheated my
way through school too, so and I ran a chop
shop through high school. You know, I mean they have
it right, Yeah, incredible. So so anyway I read, I
fell in love with books, and at some point I said,
I'd like to write, but you don't have a university
or a professor, and you know university professor in the
writing teacher. How I taught myself was basically everything. I
(37:38):
figured that everything Leo Tolstoy knows about writing is in
the pages of Anna Karenina. Everything Hemingway knows about writing
is in the pages of To Whom the Bell Tolls?
Everything the Bronte sisters know about writing is in Jane A,
et cetera. And so I would just read these books,
and I would read them with an analytical eye, take
(37:58):
notes in the margin, how they begin to how they
begin to a chapter, how they begin to plot, how
they develop a plot, how they introduce a character, how
they exit a character. And that's why I taught myself
out to right. I came home and I wanted to
be a writer of anything but true crime. I never
wanted to look back at the mob. I didn't want
to talk about it. I didn't want to know about it.
(38:19):
I tried everything to get published with anything else. And
you know, the people the publishing industry basically just keeps
telling you, tell us about you, tell us about you,
allow us you know.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Exactly exactly, and that's that that is the key to success. Lou,
I'm flat out of time. It's been a fascinating hour.
We will replay this hour on Sunday night, our Best
at Nightside, which runs at eleven o'clock here in Boston
on Sunday this coming Sunday night. I pledge you on.
I pledged you on that if you ever get up
to Boston, love to take you to dinner and uh
(38:52):
and just meet you, be honest. The book that's coming
up is Forgota bl r g A d A Clash
of the Titans. It's come now, just before Christmas. The
prior book is already available, and I suggest you may
want to Rise Borgata Bio r g A t A
Rise of Empire again. Lewis Ferrante f E r r
(39:13):
A n t E. You can find it Amazon, you
can find it anywhere. Well, let's keep in touch, and
great success to you, my friend, and congratulations on your metamorphois.
It's it's a inspirational story. My pleasure, my pleasure. When
we get back, I think I want to talk about
Donald Trump's decision not to have a second debate. I
(39:36):
will a third debate. I should say I'll explain it
all right after the eleven o'clock News
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