Episode 216- From Staten Island To Federal Prison With The Mob

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to The sit Down, a mafia history podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Here's your host, Jeff Nado.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
What's up, everybody, and welcome in to another edition of
The sit Down. As always, if you enjoy this video,
please make sure you hit that like button and let
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(00:42):
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Speaker 2 (00:53):
What's up, Everybody?

Speaker 1 (00:54):
My name is Jeff nay Do and this is episode
two hundred and seventeen of The sit Down. Today we
got another great interview plan for you. As always, and
over the years that I've done this show approximately four years,
one of my favorite types of interviews is speaking to
people that have been to prison.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Maybe they're from the Five Boroughs.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
They had run ins with groups like the Mob as
kids or as young adults, and then they went to prison.
Where did they fit in in prison? Did they hang
out with those guys? How did it all work? We've
speak spoken to all sorts of people, from Robert Rosso
to Eric Fast that Chad Marx to Eric King, all
sorts of different people, and today we're going to continue

(01:34):
that tradition. I got to know a lot of people
after I posted a post on Instagram looking for people
that have been to prison. It's been a big hit
for me and I think today's interview subject might.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Be the most interesting. Let's meet him now.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
His name is Salvatore. Salvatore, Butcherry, you've done tell people
before we start, tell people how long you were a
federal prison.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
For I did a toll of about five years and
ten months, almost six.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Years, almost six years.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
You were at for Dix, Berlin, all sorts of different locations,
which we'll get into in a bit. This is our
first time speaking to you. I want to make this
clear straight from the jump. You were not a made
member of the mob. You were not in the streets anymore.
You know, I asked you, and I'll ask you at
the end. You know kind of why you wanted to speak.

(02:28):
You're not looking to become the next social media star.
I think you kind of just reached out to tell
your story a little bit. I know you have children,
so we'll talk about that in a little but I'll
start right from the beginning. You were born in nineteen
eighty five. You grew up in you grew up in
Staten Island. You're a pretty young guy, you know what,
thirty nine. You are not far from my age, so

(02:52):
we kind of grew up during the same times. But
you grew up in an area that was very cultivated
as far as the mob organ crime. A lot of
gangsters move to where you lived to live, right, so
you may grew up with their children or or or
nephews or something. Tell me about your childhood your you're

(03:12):
full Italian? What was your childhood like?

Speaker 3 (03:16):
Well, first, I want to say thank you for having
me on your show. I've definitely e been following you,
like since I've been home.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
This is definitely something that's new, and I'm not gonna lie.
At first, I'm like, who the hell is this guy? Like, uh,
you know, with this podcast, But as I start to
watch it, you definitely are on point and you know
what you're talking about. I could definitely say that thank
you and yeah, just obviously a lot of people have
moved to stant Island over the years. It seems like
in Brooklyn they either go to Long Island or.

Speaker 4 (03:45):
To stant Island to the burbs.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
So yeah, I've definitely growing up, you know, around a
lot of street people, you know, like friends, families, friends, brothers, uncles, fathers,
even like my own family, Like you know, I have
been to prison a couple of my uncles and stuff.
So it's definitely a unique, uh you know lifestyle. And
it's basically you know, you know what you see. You know,
it's you are what you what you surround yourself with.

(04:10):
So definitely grew up around those types of people. And yes,
I changed my life. Uh you know, I don't commit
any crimes alone. I basically came home and changed my life,
you know what I mean. I go to work every day.
And the one thing I want people to take from
this is just learn from my story, because like, it's
definitely not cool. So go to prison, and it's not
cool to watch your daughter grow up through pictures.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
You know, it's not.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
It affects your family members and people around you, like
your actions, It don't only affect you, So you definitely
have to keep you know, that stuff in mind as well.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
I mean the people I feel bad for most and
the people that I talk about are the families of
these people, because they really don't ask for that, right,
even extended families.

Speaker 4 (04:49):
Right.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
I mean, you have a last.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Name, and you have a stigma against you because of somebody.
Maybe that was your grandpa or your great grandpa. So
it is unfair and those are the people that struggle
the most.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
So you're a kid.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
You grown up in the really the nineties right in
Staten Island. What kind of place was Staten Island during
those days? I mean were you you know, what were
you doing? Were you a good student? I mean, what
were you focused on?

Speaker 4 (05:14):
Really, I'll be honest with you.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
I had problems with authority from a young age, and
I grew up across the street from a park, so
like everybody was just out in the neighborhood. It's definitely
not like it is now. And my girlfriend's son is
seventeen years old, so I see like how these kids
are now and it's definitely a lot different. And I
said to a friend of mine recently that we really
are basically like the last of a dying breed.

Speaker 4 (05:39):
Right.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
I talked about that a lot.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Yeah, even like when I was younger. I mean we
whether it was a park or you went outside and
did things. You you played football, you played hide and seek,
whatever you do. Right, Yeah, it's definitely lost now. I
actually have talked about Like in my neighbor where I live,
there's a few kids that live here, Like when I
see them outside, it's like kind of cool. It's like
good for them, you know, at least there maybe there

(06:03):
are some kids that still do that. But yeah, these
young kids in the ten to twenty year range now
are totally different. So you were in party, you were drinking,
doing things like that. What did you want to do
when you were young?

Speaker 2 (06:16):
Did you? You didn't want to be a criminal, But
what made you get into that world?

Speaker 4 (06:21):
I'll be honest with you. I have a brother who's
seventy years older than me.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
My sister was three years older than me, So the
kids in the neighborhood obviously knew me from my brother.

Speaker 4 (06:31):
So all my friends were older than me. So you
know what goes on in these.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
Box You know, drugs, people are drinking, they're smoking weed,
they're selling weed. So I definitely grew up around the
criminal aspect from a young age, from a very young age.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
What did you know, if you don't want to get
into that time, what was your What did your father
do for a living?

Speaker 3 (06:51):
Believe it or not, I come from a good family.
Like my father is a regular guy who's.

Speaker 4 (06:55):
A working guy. He worked for Merrill Lynch for a
long time.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
Oh no, shit, Okay, So did he say to you know,
you know, you can only parents so much, right, you know,
you could be a great parent to your kids and
they're still going to maybe want to go out and
do things. He knew that the people you may be
around that area. Did he ever say to you like, hey,
you know you're Italian? You know you need to stay
away from certain types of people. Was that ever said

(07:20):
to you or anything?

Speaker 4 (07:22):
I'll be honest, No, it wasn't. And my father wasn't
around much.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
He basically worked pretty much seven days a week, okaycause
he had a day job and he had like basically
a weekend job as well.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
So he did as much for as he could.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
But that comes with, you know, problems because you can't
always be around your kids.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
That's sort of thinking. When did you first do narcotics
or drink what age were you at a.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
Young age about probably like eleven years old now.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Growing up, you told me that you hung around certain
people and one of the people you hung around with
was a kid with the last named Karini.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
And if you know, this is a name.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
That it's very familiar to people that really know a
lot about organized crime, if you know anything about you know,
people like you know, Joe Waverley, guys like that. The
Karinis were connected to those folks. You know, some of
the people in Litle CAZy family I actually know, like
Frank Joyas talked about the Karenis. You had a relationship

(08:21):
with Enrico Karani's son, Is that correct?

Speaker 4 (08:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (08:25):
He's did good people, man, Like really, his his family
was like my family growing up, Like his aunt, his
father's sister was like my aunt. His grandmother was like
my grandmother. And they're like really good people man.

Speaker 4 (08:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
They lost his poor grandmother lost her two sons basically
on the same night in the early nineties when.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
You're talking about his father and uncle.

Speaker 4 (08:49):
Correct, Yeah, and Rico Karini Senior and Vincent Karini.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Right, Okay, yeah, so a lot of connections. Let me
ask you when you were let's say twelve thirteen, fifteen
years old.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Did you ever see made guys around?

Speaker 4 (09:05):
Yeah, of course, you know, yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
Did you think they were cool? What were your thoughts
on them? Did you think they were cool?

Speaker 4 (09:14):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (09:16):
Most of them are nice guys, like believe or not.
You wouldn't even expect some of them. You wouldn't even
think they were mean guys. But that's just what we
grew grew up around. Like obviously, kids talk, you know
what I mean, Like we know what it is like
when you go to school, kids know like eh, such
and such as father is this or such and such
families that you know, like so it's it's pretty it
was pretty well known, like what it was.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
How are those kids treated obviously differently?

Speaker 4 (09:42):
You know what I mean? And I'll tell you what
a story when uh me and me and Eddie got arrested.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
Together, Well one time when we were young. I got
out the next night, it was like twenty four hours.
They kept him another night. How to go get his
car and go pick him up basically because of his
last name, Like they just fucked with him.

Speaker 4 (10:00):
Shut this paperwork all in the bottom.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Gotcha. When was your first arrest? How old were you?

Speaker 4 (10:06):
Probably? I guess like seventeen.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
What was that for?

Speaker 4 (10:12):
Just for like marijuana possession, drug possession.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Little stuff.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
So obviously you got into doing drugs, particularly marijuana early.
You ultimately go to prison, which we'll talk about. Tell
me about how that all started and what happened to
you ultimately.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Why did you go to prison?

Speaker 3 (10:31):
Well, obviously, like from a young age, me and my
friends knew what it was. There was like maybe four
of us that were really tight and we were committing crimes,
like we were really like like men when we were
like sixteen seventeen, were like we were leaving school and
committing crimes, committing robberies like we were. That's what we did, Like,
that's what we wanted to do. We knew what it was,
you know, and what we wanted to be. So let

(10:55):
me we really grew up fast.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Let me stop you for a second. You mentioned robberies.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Okay, you've went to prison. Everything's you know out there?
Can you take me through how does that happen?

Speaker 2 (11:06):
Right?

Speaker 1 (11:07):
Are you looking for people that like when you say robbery,
are you doing like a home invasion? Are you just
finding someone that has money on the street and like
sticking them up Like when you say robbery.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
What do you mean by that, Well.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
Obviously it would stop by selling drugs. And when you
start selling drugs dealing with certain people. Yeah, it might
be somebody that we know that there's drugs in the house.
It might be it depends where the information came from.
It might be that we know that there's a safe there.
Like you know, I remember the first time we got
a safe. We were young, we were like sixteen years old.
We even know how to open the thing. We had

(11:41):
to bring it to my friend's father to open it.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
How much is in there?

Speaker 4 (11:46):
Believe it or not? It was I think it was
like thirty thousand.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (11:51):
So you you know, you you were getting some decent scores.
You didn't think about the punishment that will come from it.
You didn't think about any of that.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Did you ever.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
When you rob someone? Did you ever say to yourself
like what am I doing my life?

Speaker 2 (12:06):
And why am I?

Speaker 4 (12:07):
You know?

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Did you do you think like that?

Speaker 4 (12:08):
Or no? Not?

Speaker 2 (12:10):
Then?

Speaker 4 (12:10):
Definitely not that.

Speaker 3 (12:13):
Okay, It was it was like camaraderie, you know, like
this this was like my family, like for real, and
my father used to bring that up. Like growing up,
you'd always say, like you I asked you to do something,
you don't do it, your friends call you, you run, like
I really put my friends before my own family, you know,
growing up my family.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, a lot of kids do that. I mean that
that's just part of growing up.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
And then you realize as you get older how important
your parents are. You know what they did for you,
you know a lot of the time. Okay, so you're
doing that.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
You know, you're young. I mean you're in your teenage years.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
You're not even legal age to go to war, but
you're robbing people.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
You're doing stuff.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
You then start obviously selling higher end narcotics.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
What were you selling?

Speaker 4 (13:00):
Selling weed?

Speaker 3 (13:01):
I saw I had like a wee business from a
young age, like in school. Then the drug changed and
like cocaine obviously started to come around. People started saying cocaine.
Then I started, you know, dibbling that one with cocaine.
Then before you know what, I'm selling cocaine. You know,
not only to party a little bit, but to make money.
You know, that's how it sucks.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
So you weren't selling like, you know, large amounts. You
were selling like you know, bags and things like that.
You weren't selling crazy amounts.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
No, in the beginning. Yeah, it starts out with bags.
But I was doing pretty good in high school, believe
or not. When I was like fifteen years old, I
was making like fifteen hundred dollars a week at one point.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah, And that's in the you know, the nineties, you know,
early two thousands. That's that's good money for a young kid.
Fifteen hundred two thousand a week. And that's a lot.
You know, there are people today that don't make.

Speaker 4 (13:49):
That, uh exactly.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
So Okay, how many friends, like your group of friends,
how many were there? Were you all doing like robberies together?

Speaker 3 (13:59):
Like that's yeah, like well for the most parts together,
but then like we would branch off, maybe these two
we'll go do something without us knowing or something. But
there was really like four or five of us that
were like really tight from a young age, and we
always did things together.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
When about we hear about like mob farm teams, right,
these guys that like, you know, they're doing stuff to
impress people. Were you just doing it strictly to make
money or were you trying to like like like you're Italian?
Obviously you're not You're not irish're not black, like you're Italian?
Was did you ever have a thought of I want
to be in that life, so like this is all

(14:35):
for for a greater good, plus I get to make
money or were you just doing it strictly because you
wanted to make money and that was that?

Speaker 3 (14:44):
It was both like I'm not gonna lie, Like I
definitely wanted that from a young age and we old.

Speaker 4 (14:49):
Did when we were like in our teenage years.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
But like once I got a little older and like
indictment started to come down, I really saw what it
really was. Like those those feelings shames, you know, because
I really sword for what it really was.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Now I'm gonna ask. I'm sure you probably won't answer,
and that's okay. I don't have any issue with that.
Did you, like, did anyone come to you and say, hey,
user under me you got to kick up to me?

Speaker 2 (15:13):
Like was it was it like that or no?

Speaker 4 (15:17):
Yeah, it was definitely instance where stuff like that happened.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
Did you do you want to discuss who?

Speaker 4 (15:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (15:23):
It was actually an instance where where people were fighting
over me.

Speaker 4 (15:26):
It was like who was trying to get me drugs?

Speaker 2 (15:29):
Like?

Speaker 4 (15:29):
Oh you with me? No? I want you with me?

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Mob guys, you're saying.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
Pretty much people that were affiliated with with the mob?
Did you want to who or Well, my co defendant
is public record is Tony Defina and uh, Tony Defina
was really close with uh with.

Speaker 4 (15:50):
Junior actor Pegun. That's really how I'm at Junior.

Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah, we've we've interviewed him on this show.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
Yeah, I've seen that you interviewed him. So I heard
he got arrested for like a Austin or something.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Yeah, he's he's He's been in and out ever since then.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
Actually, it's interesting because when we interviewed him, it took
about six months for it to happen, and then I
interviewed him and within like a month he had gotten
arrested again. So we'll get into Junior in the second.
One of your charges involved something with Junior. When you
met Junior, what were your thoughts in him? He was
a pretty feared guy from what I understand he was.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
It was not but respect when I first met him,
and it was nice really. My friend Eddie started hanging
around him first too, was really closer him at one point,
so I used to like to hear his stories too.
You had like a lot of stories about Eddie's father too,
so like I used to like to hear him, you know,
him talk about certain things, and it was not but respect.
Like I respected him in the beginning, like from what

(16:47):
I what I seen and heard, like he was a
serious guy.

Speaker 4 (16:51):
But when I.

Speaker 3 (16:51):
Started to learn more about him, it definitely the respect
level wasn't the scene.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
So he was kind of like in a way, like
the guy that you were involved with at a higher level.
And then he obviously had people above him that he
reported to, and he wasn't a may guy, but I'm
sure in certain circles he had deference as a may
guy because of who his father in law was.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
Did you know who his father in law was?

Speaker 4 (17:14):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (17:14):
I know any too, But it really I really wasn't
with him like that. That was like towards the end, there
was like a point where he was fighting when I
met him, and then they were fighting over me, him
and somebody else. But I was already in my like
early twenties when I met him, So it's not like
I was like under him or I was with him
at one point.

Speaker 4 (17:33):
I believe he was. He was getting money from what
we were doing, you know, for what I understand.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
Gotcha, Okay, So take me to the serious indictment now
up until the serious indictment.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Did you go to prison or was it just like
little charges.

Speaker 3 (17:50):
I caught a lot of statecases, but I always beat
the case because in the state, you know, a good
lawyer brings you a long way. So I always either
beat the case or they dropped the true just to
like this oily conduct, or it was in a legal search.
But I caught a robbery case in Jersey with my
friend sal when we were like twenty one, and I

(18:12):
got a good lawyer, and in Jersey is called a
PTI pre trial intervention where I just got like probation
for like two years or something.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
So you you were largely not punished for some of
the crimes that you committed. Right, You either were diverted
away from prison or they gave you probation.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
So I think that's one problem.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
Maybe you would agree that like a lot of criminals have,
not that you are anymore, but maybe you're not punished enough.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
Right.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Do you think if you'd went to prison, right and
maybe learned, like would you have maybe like let's say.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
They sent you to prison for that case, do you
think maybe that would have helped you.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
I don't know, it depends how long if it was
just for a couple of months, I don't think.

Speaker 4 (18:52):
It would have helped me at that point.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Okay, gotcha.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
So you had don you know, a little you know,
county time or probation, but nothing crazy. Eventually you start
getting involved deeper and deeper, a federal case eventually comes.
Tell me about what you were up to, who you
were dealing with, and you also mentioned to me that
one of the you mentioned your co defendant, one of
the enhancements you received was you pulled a weapon on Pegan.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
Is that correct? Yeah, that's pretty ballsy.

Speaker 1 (19:22):
I mean he again, I'm not gonna I'm not here
to like, you know, lap Hector Pagan, but I mean
he was a pretty serious guy. I mean, pulling on
God on him is pretty ballsy, isn't it?

Speaker 4 (19:34):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (19:34):
Almost, You don't want to know the truth. I almost
blew his head off in front of my mother, and
everything was what was just about so long story short,
they whatever they when they were fighting over me. I
ended up being around Junia the first time I met him.

Speaker 4 (19:49):
We went out. It was me Eddie Jr. It was
another kid. So we ended up in Jersey.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
First of all, we go to Jersey, I forgot what
the place it might have been, like Chris Michael's back
then at Jersey.

Speaker 4 (20:00):
I forgot to name it in the place.

Speaker 3 (20:02):
But the four of us go there. First of all,
they walk out on the bill that's number one. Then
we end up at Level one in like Anadale, which
was Anti Calibraze's old place. You get into a fight there.
Then we end up at Curves the Shrip Club, and
he's telling the bartender, this young girl that, oh, I
don't pay tabs. I used to cut up bodies in
that back room. He's telling the young girl, the bartender

(20:24):
that that I don't Oh tell Tommy, I don't pay tabs.

Speaker 4 (20:27):
I used to you don't know who I am. I
used to cut up bodies in that back room. Like
that's what he's telling this girl.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
So I really, I mean, I was starting to figure
out who he really was, and I really really liked
what I was seeing. And uh so, basically fast forward
to another night that I'm at the Shrip Club. I'm
with a friend of mine and I'm buying the bartender
drinks or whatever, Like I'm buying the girl shots all night.
So the girl's like, yo, I want you to leave

(20:53):
with me. So basically I tell my friend leave. I'm like, Dad,
I'm gonna leave with this girl. So she basically mentions
that when I was supposed to leave with nobody. So
I'm gonna give you my key and you go wait
in my car. But before you know what, the lights
are coming on. And she never gave me a tea,
so they basically tried to like cock box me. The
manager was like, no, she's going home with me. I'm like, nah,

(21:15):
my friend's left. I was like, I'm going home with
this girl. So, long story short, Junior's name came up.
I was drunk and like, zai's out. I'm like, fuck Junior,
He's a Mexican.

Speaker 4 (21:25):
I was like, he's not even Italian, He's a fucking Mexican.
Fuck Junior.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
So I got back to him that I called him
a Mexican and he wanted he wanted five thousand dollars
for me for calling him a Mexican.

Speaker 4 (21:37):
So I basically told you, I'm gonna have to kill me.
You're not getting a dollar for me.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
So he got upset. He's not Mexican, by the way,
but you assumed that he was, and he got offended
by that. So instead of giving you a beating or
something or trying to give you a beating. He demanded
that you pay him. So I guess my question is like,
did this was rolled up in your indictment?

Speaker 4 (22:00):
No, what happened was with my drug charge.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
When I did my PSI that's pre trial, pre sentencing whatever,
when they interview whatever, they enhanced me. They come back
with a recommendation and they basically tried to enhance me
two points saying that I possessed a firearm during the
drug offense. Because when that whole incident happened, when I
pulled the gun on him, he showed up at my

(22:23):
house whatever it keeps to me, said they wouldn't leave,
and I ended up.

Speaker 4 (22:26):
Pulling a gun out of him.

Speaker 3 (22:28):
I went to my friend, who was Frankie Steel Pontillo,
who's an known guy, and he had to sit down
with Junio over that incident and it got squashed.

Speaker 4 (22:37):
So lo and behold.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
Years later, Frankie Frankie Steel Pontilla ends up wearing a
wire on me talking about a gun and a hector.
Pegan is no good. So they knew about that incident
that they.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
Kind of just threw it into what they already had
had on you.

Speaker 3 (22:54):
They tried to enhanced me two more points, which would
have gave me more time for a gun enhancement.

Speaker 4 (22:59):
But my low you'll argue the enhancement, and luckily the
judge didn't go with it.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Right, I mean, you're not really doing it in commission
of your drug crime, really, So it's it's not like
a nine to twenty.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
Two c or anything. So isn't it. It isn't right.

Speaker 4 (23:11):
Well, they said that during the drug offense that I
possessed the firearm, but my lawyer said, yeah, he mentioned
a gun, but we've never seen this gun. It was
never viewed. So like they didn't. Luckily they didn't go
with the enhancement, gotcha.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
Okay, so your indictment, what did they get you on?

Speaker 3 (23:30):
I was charge of a conspiracy to buy and distribute
five kilos of cocaine.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
Now I want to go through this because I want
to kind of educate and I'm sure you'll help educate
some of the people. So the federal government does not
have to have you with narcotics, right, They don't need
to come in your house and have you a Tony
Montana style with a bunch of coke on the table.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
It doesn't work like that.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
As long as they can provide and prove that you
conspira conspired to do it right, whether it's talking on
the phone, dealing with surveillance. They don't need you with
a drop of narcotics in your home. It's the conspiracy.
It's their favorite word. When they raided you, did they
find any narcotics?

Speaker 4 (24:08):
It's ghostwaite. They never caught me with a Graham.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
It's just ghostwait Their cases are made up on rats.
As long as they have two people basically saying the
same thing and corroborating one another, that's all they need.
So that was like bullshit, that five kilos because what
happened was my friend Nick, who was out of my
main crew. He was doing robberies with a kid Joe,
and he was looking at a lot of time. So

(24:31):
he ended up writing on a lot of stuff that
we did. So indictments started coming that one by one.
Now I do want to name him because he is
an informant. His name is turned up in a lot
of things that I've read. A person called Nicholas Bernardo.
He's been involved with all sorts of people.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
He's been in indictments that I've seen involving with Casey
people some other stuff.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
So he flips.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
So there's a lot of people around you that you
knew on a regular basis that go bad, right, whether
it's Pegone, Uh, Frankie Steele, who by the way, does
talk on YouTube. Now, yeah, you're crazy, and Nick Bernard.
So so you were kind of you're kind of in trouble.
You had a lot of people that were gonna work
against you that said you did sell narcotics.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
You you willingly admit that, but you weren't.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
I mean, five kilos a lot of lot of coke, right,
that's a lot of dope.

Speaker 2 (25:26):
Tell me about the day you got raided and rested.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
Well, here's what happened, because you gotta look at you
gotta understand that. In two thousand and nine is when
when Nick went bad and the indictment started. They waited
our druggon diment was the last indictment. They grabbed me
October first, twenty fourteen. Okay, but the investigation started only
two thousand and nine.

Speaker 4 (25:51):
So when Frankie.

Speaker 3 (25:52):
Steele wore the wire on me, it was in twenty
twelve February, and they grabbed me a couple of days
later and tried to flip me the fence.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
Oh wow to me, they were looking at you for
a while.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
They then pick you up, take me through that to
they take you to like they take it to like
a like an office or something, or.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
It's basically like kidnapped me. I wasn't even living at
home at the time when I got to call. First
they actually went to the apartment, but they didn't go
to the right apartment, so first they were there. Then
they went to my mother's so they my mother said
the defence are.

Speaker 4 (26:30):
Here, and they already came.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
When my friend l Rosa was on the run, they
came to my house looking for him, so I saw what.
I already knew who they were. So then they were
at my mother's and my mother.

Speaker 4 (26:41):
Puts you on the phone. They're like, we want to
talk to you.

Speaker 3 (26:43):
So I basically go there and they just grabbed me
right away. Like I walked over to them. They just
put me right in the car, sat me in the middle.
I wasn't even handcuffed. They put me right in the middle,
sat on east side of me, and they just they talked.
They basically said like shut up, we're gonna tell you
what we know, and they knew a lot, you know
what I mean. And I'm not sup, but I put
you and SWO together and I knew that this guy

(27:06):
Frankie was talking because what they were saying was a
lot of stuff that we had just talked about.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Right.

Speaker 4 (27:12):
But basically they put.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
Like a number on my phone and they were like
we were we expect to hear from you. And they
were basically saying, like they bro they go to school
for this shit. Ye to flip people know they're right,
they take courses, they know what buttons to push, you know.
So they were like hit me with the speel like
you're not like these other guys talking about my coat offen.

Speaker 4 (27:33):
You know, this is your one opportunity. You know.

Speaker 3 (27:35):
They basically told me all the stuff that they knew
and they put the number in the phone and drop
you off by just let me out of the car.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
They basically pull to a park a lot not too
far and we're talking and they just let me out
of the car and saying we expect to hear.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
From you when you when you get out of the car. Yeah,
did you ever say to yourself maybe I just did
you ever did that across your mind.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
I'm not gonna lie like when they would put me
in the car, because you know, you know when the
fence gravity they got you, I was like, oh my god, they're.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
Going to say to you like all we're gonna give
be twenty years or whatever.

Speaker 4 (28:14):
Oh yeah, let me hit the light twenty five years.

Speaker 3 (28:20):
And they're like, you're a little fish. We don't care
about you. We want these people. They were like name
dropping people. We want this one, we want that one.
So what I did was I as soon as they
would let me go, I basically sent word to my
co defendant that you know, we need to talk, you
know what I mean? And I basically told him everything
that happened.

Speaker 4 (28:40):
So right away he had lawyers.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
He had he had like Mike Rosen and he's a
good dude, my co defendant. Man, He's like, yo, I'll
get you a lawyer. You got a presidential watch. He's like,
y'all saw my rolex right now and get your lawyer
if I have to.

Speaker 4 (28:53):
You know what I mean. He's a good He really
is a good dude. I got in bed to say
about him, you know.

Speaker 3 (28:56):
But so he had Mike Rosen reach out to him.
Supposedly reaching out to the FEDS to find out what
was going on.

Speaker 4 (29:05):
But this is like a day or two.

Speaker 3 (29:06):
But I went to a lawyer's office then, and I
hired a lawyer like I put him on Retina and
he called the number, and I guess the ages now,
they don't use death phones.

Speaker 4 (29:16):
They have like cell phones, Yeah, all of them.

Speaker 3 (29:19):
So my lawyer, married Glucci called and left the message
based saying I represent him. If you want me to
surrender him, reach out to me. We'll work it out.
And we never heard from them again. They never reached
back out.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
They were just trying to kind of see if you
because it was so easy to flip someone, they just
thought we'll just throw it out. I'm sure he'll call us.
So I get to ask you about flipping. Okay, obviously
a lot of the people around you flipped. Was it
just something to you where like that just wasn't in
you to do that? You kind of assessed to the
situation that this is what I did. If I get arrested,

(29:55):
because you have to always think about that when you're
doing shit like that, You've got to think about the
day's gonna come come where I get arrested, Do I
have a mental fortitude to say, Okay, I did this,
did you just kind of send yourself. If I get arrested,
I'm just gonna go to jail. It's not in me
to cooperate.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
Yeah, it's always in the back of your mind, Like
you know, I was risking my life, not only my
freedom and my life on a daily basis for a
long time, So it's always in the back of your mind.
We knew what it was like, we knew we were
gonna have to go to jail at some point, but
it just it's it takes the wind out of yourselves
when you know what I mean, when when push comes

(30:32):
to shove and you know your friends are turning on
you and indictments to come in and nobody's holding holding water.
So it does take the wind out of your sales.
But me personally, you know what I mean, And it's
a tough pillow swallow, especially when the fans grammy, I
had everything I ever wanted. I was successful, brand new home,
three vehicles on the road, jewelry at your brand new baby,
newly engaged. So it's a tough pillow swallow to lose

(30:56):
everything like that. But me personally, I could not look
myself in the mirror every day, knowing that I put
somebody in prison.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
Before you got finally arrested in twenty fourteen. When you
were making money, were you did you have like legit
businesses or anything.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
Was it just strictly you're moving weight and that was it.

Speaker 4 (31:17):
I was just selling drugs.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
But it was coming to the point where I was
trying to open up a business. I was actually in
the process of open up a restaurant right at the
end when they grabbed me.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
How much money in the location.

Speaker 3 (31:28):
Picked out, We had the ovens already and we were
getting ready to do it.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
How much money were you making at that time?

Speaker 4 (31:35):
I'll be honest with you. At my best, I was
making like a steady ten grand a week for a
long time.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
That's good money.

Speaker 4 (31:41):
And he went from five to ten grand a week,
you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah, I mean that's thirty forty grand a month. I
mean that's you know, that's you're a young kid. You're
in your what twenties at that time.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
Man, When I really started doing good, I'm not gonna lie,
it was when not only the coke, when I had
a coke business, but when I had a doctor in
my pocket.

Speaker 4 (32:02):
Doctor Anderson good, good guy too. Man. He actually just
got released from four Dix.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
So when you said you had a doctor in your pocket,
you had a guy that was writing scripts for you.

Speaker 3 (32:10):
Yeah, I was getting a lot of scripts. It was
it was like those things were like gold back.

Speaker 4 (32:14):
Then, right, Yeah, that was money.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
That was a big, big, big issue in the late
two thousands early Yeah.

Speaker 4 (32:20):
It was an epidemic. Epidemic.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
Now, you said you at one point you said you
were doing narcotics, you were addicted to narcotics.

Speaker 4 (32:29):
Yeah, I was taking the pills. I was popping them
the purpose.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
Okay, so yeah, that's that's rough. A lot of a
lot of people end up start doing them. But you
can make a lot of money getting rid of them,
especially where you lived, right, Stotaten Island is not the
you know, it's not the middle of nowhere, but it's
it's suburbia. Right, you can get you know, narcotics and
let's say the four other boroughs take them out there.
He gets sell them for a little bit more. You know,
you're getting did did did did it bother you? I

(32:54):
always want to I always want to ask dealers this,
does it? Do you ever think about it? And say
like I'm slowly killing someone, Like do you ever think
like that?

Speaker 3 (33:04):
I'll be honest, when it really hit me was like
I was actually in the process of trying to sell
my drug business and go legit, like.

Speaker 4 (33:11):
Right when the Feds grabbed me. And it always happens
like that too.

Speaker 3 (33:14):
Yeah, but it really hit me one day when I
had my daughter, she was like two months old, and
I had her up in the room and it was
like like a half a brick right there, and there's like,
you know too, firearms sitting in the closet right there.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
Yeah, you know, hit me then, like what the fuck
am I doing? You know what I mean, Like I
gotta change.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
Sure, that's that's a good reason for anybody to change.
That's pretty reckless behavior, I mean, for being honest.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Okay, so take me today.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
You get arrested twenty fourteen. You know, we think of
when the Feds hit you, it's like the movies where
like they knock down the door and they run in
your house. Feds don't really do that. They kind of
just when they come. It's pretty pretty simple. Hey, you
know we're here. You know we have warrens. We don't
need to explain anything to you. How did it work?

Speaker 3 (33:58):
Well, they grabbed co defendant in February and in dying
them and it was known that one of the things
they were using against him was me on the Wyatts
AAP talking about him because they really wanted him.

Speaker 4 (34:11):
Uh you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (34:12):
They really wanted him and they couldn't get to him directly.
They tried with Frankie and he didn't. Basically it went
bad and basically that's why they went to me. But
this is why I was a little mad at my
co defendant because he wasn't honest with me, Like when
Frankie was reaching out to me, It's crazy how this
should happen.

Speaker 4 (34:32):
When I used to see my co defendant every week, go.

Speaker 3 (34:34):
To see him whenever, and Frankie Steele's name came up
and he's like, Yo, I heard he's heard he's bad, heard.

Speaker 4 (34:40):
He's no good. And I'm like what he's talking about? Like, Yo,
he's been fucking uh he's been calling me, So go
to eat with him.

Speaker 3 (34:46):
So my co defendant was like, go meet him, see
what he wants, but just tell him you haven't spoke
to me, right, That's what he told me.

Speaker 4 (34:55):
He like showed the line.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (34:57):
What he didn't tell me was.

Speaker 3 (34:59):
That Frankie Steele I heard it on the White Tap,
approached him and was like, Yo, I need I need
two kilos or something like. And my quarter friend had
told him on the White Tap, I don't know what
you're talking about. I'm not a drug dealer. So he
had tried to get him already, so he didn't tell
me the whole story. And he sort of like lined
me up a little bit.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
Man.

Speaker 3 (35:19):
That's sort of the only thing I was a little
upset about. So he wind me up, go and meet him,
say you haven't spoke to me. So I met him,
and he was definitely asking a lot about my court defend.
But they knew each other. My quarter fan just bought
his bar from him. He sold him a bar for
like one hundred grand or something on Forest Avenue on

(35:40):
the Rocks it's called.

Speaker 4 (35:42):
It was right acros the street from Big Angel's Ball actually,
so he sort of lined me up with that, you know.
And then so we know one of the things they're.

Speaker 3 (35:52):
Using is me on the White Tap. And then when
they came, they basically just had a complaint. They didn't
have a search warrant for me. So what they did
was I had a house inhow And Boulevard at the time. Oh,
they waited for me to leave and they followed me.
And as soon as I made the right well if
that means straight, they were behind me with the lights
on and I knew what it was.

Speaker 4 (36:12):
As soon as I see who it was.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
They basically said, you know what, it is a lot
like you know what happened last time.

Speaker 4 (36:17):
We never heard back from you type shit.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
So you get you know, taken in. They you know,
you know it's the Feds. You know that they come.
It's pretty shut and close, right, I mean, there's not
a lot you can argue.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
And the reason they have so much success is they
get people to plea.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
Right. They say to you, hey, look, you can either
cooperate or go to trial, and we're gonna give you
big numbers if you do that. So why don't you
just plea When they initially asked you to plead? Was
that kind of what you were going to do right away?
Did you decide on that kind of quickly or you
weren't actually going to go to trial?

Speaker 2 (36:55):
Were you?

Speaker 4 (36:57):
No?

Speaker 3 (36:57):
But yeah, obviously they have like a ninety eight conviction rate. Yeah,
So it's you're not gonna win. You're really most likely
not gonna win. But what I did was my brother
tried to tell me that just get a public defender
and take a plea. But I looked at it like,
and I told my family, that's like, I'd rather spend
you know, fifty twenty five thousand on a lawyer, even

(37:20):
if it gets me like one year less. Like that's
how I looked at it.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
You were hoping that even in like a plea, maybe
instead of getting a five year plea, they give you
a three year play or something.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
Yeah, but I really didn't know too much about the
federal system at that time.

Speaker 4 (37:36):
And it's all guideline sentences. Yeah, it's basically a chart.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
So your crime has a severity level, so you're over
here at twenty eight on severity level, and then it's
your criminal.

Speaker 4 (37:46):
History, your category.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
I think it's one through five, so it's wherever you
line up on the truck.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
And that's why that's why I've always been like, I
don't commit crimes, but if I did, Like, that's why
I think a lawyer in federal cases is kind of
pointless in a way, just because I mean, they really
don't have much of a say. I mean, as you said, like,
if you've never committed a crime and get arrested by
the FEDS, you're not gonna get hit real hard, right,
because it's all a uniform system the way they do things.

(38:14):
So while you should have a lawyer, it's you know,
I think maybe the way you thought you you would
agree that probably wasn't the right thinking in term.

Speaker 4 (38:22):
Right, Yeah, for me it wasn't.

Speaker 3 (38:24):
But for my co defend, he lucked out because he
had he had dreamy for Carl, who was like a
big OC lawyer. Yes, on of ECO cases. Sure, but
he got he Jenny got his. Originally he had the
hitter would have b one a I think it was
I think it's cold, which is like a mandatory minimum
of ten years, and he got he negotiated to where
they dropped the mandatory ten Oh, my co defend.

Speaker 4 (38:47):
So it worked out a little. It worked out for him,
you know.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
So you you ultimately negotiate did you get bail or no?

Speaker 3 (38:54):
Yeah, I was out one hundred thousand dollars bail at
one point.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
Okay, so you negotiate, what did you ultimately like, what
did they originally throw at you? And did you did
you get it down at all? Or and what did
you ultimately settle on?

Speaker 4 (39:06):
I signed for seventy to eighty seven months.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
Okay, so they're going to give you anything from seventy
to eighty seven.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
Now again they do it in months.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
Seventy months is you know, six years and about eight months,
so you're looking at you at least seven years. Essentially
you're gonna have they got to do eighty five percent?
What did you ultimately get?

Speaker 4 (39:26):
I got seventy months. I got the low end of
my guideline.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
So take me to the day in court where you
get sentenced. You know, they do all the memorandums that
sort of thing. You get hit, you hit your seventy months?

Speaker 2 (39:39):
What what? What agere you at that time?

Speaker 4 (39:42):
I think I just turned thirty?

Speaker 1 (39:44):
Well I was twenty, pretty monumental birthday or close to that.
You had a child, you had, you know, a family,
you know, you had a life. Seventy months you hear that?
What'd you think?

Speaker 3 (39:58):
I'll be honest with you, it was relief, to be honest,
because at that point I had violated bail and I
was already in remanded for about a year at that
point when I got sents. So the not knowing it
is really was stressful. Like when you have something like
that hanging over you. It's really the not knowing which
is really stressful. So I felt better just knowing what

(40:20):
it was like. You just put it in your mind like, yeah,
you know, I gotta go do seventy months.

Speaker 4 (40:24):
You know, I know what it is.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
You knew that you had a release date, You had
some hope. It was going to be a little bit
of time. But in a way, you could get clean, right,
you could better your life. You got to do this.
You didn't cooperate, so you knew when you came home,
you know, everything would be okay and you could start over.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
That.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
That's the thing about prison. You had a good mindset
per se. Okay, so you go to jail, where was
the first you know, obviously take away like the MDC's
and that kind of thing, But where was the first
location you were sent?

Speaker 3 (40:57):
I was saying, right, So I really got fucked. And
that's what I look at like the federal system. You
have to realize that it depends where you're at, because
you know, you have camps.

Speaker 4 (41:06):
It's not even like jail.

Speaker 3 (41:07):
They don't even have fences and they have the low securities,
which is like really sweet. It's not not like prison.
You're in dorms. There's no locked doors, you know. It's
so you have to look at where you're at. And
to be in a low I think you have to
have less than twenty years. To be in a camp,
you have to have less than ten years. And you
go to mediums where the people you're around, the people

(41:29):
that are doing more time, more violent. You know, they
score you by your history. If you have violence, they
give you like a score. So I got screwed a
little bit because I had gotten to a fight when
I was in NBC Brooklyn and he gave me five
extra points for violence.

Speaker 4 (41:43):
And I remember telling the case managers. I was like,
I don't have violence on my case.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
She's like, yeah, you got into a fight in such
or such months, like that's violence, right. And I had
a detainer too for like a bullshit summons that ended
up giving.

Speaker 4 (41:55):
Me a lot of points.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
So I basically ended up at a discipline area medium,
which is basically like a medium high Berlin.

Speaker 4 (42:03):
It's a lot of people.

Speaker 3 (42:04):
That are coming down from the pens or people that
got kicked out of other mediums on disciplinaries, so it's
basically is considered as a disciplinary medium. Is where I
ended up. And it's definitely it's not a joke. It's
a serious atmosphere. It's not like bs in the camps.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
You know, Berlin is in New Hampshire, right kind of Uh.
You know they put these fcis a lot of time
in the middle of nowhere. This is you at FCI Berlin. Uh, folks,
very eclectic group there. You got white guys, you got
Spanish guys, you got black guys. We hear a lot
about that word car. Right, you know the prison people, right,

(42:42):
they know what a car is. You're Italian, you're from
Staten Island. Okay, you have people that were in your case,
particularly not necessarily in your case, but they contributed to
your case.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Were you with Italian people? What was your car?

Speaker 4 (42:56):
Yeah, it's it's it's crazy because it's it really.

Speaker 3 (42:59):
Is like like a society within a society, and it's
really it's like a lot of rules and regulations. It's
like a lot of stuff you need to know like that.
I basically had to learn the hard way somewhat. But yeah,
when you first get to your spot, they're gonna ask
you what type of Tommy want, like, which is basically
saying who you running with? Like they approach you. You know,
the bus comes once every two weeks in Berlin, like

(43:20):
people know who's coming. They know how many people are
coming off the bus in the unit if they get
to Sally, so you know, I mean people are are
ready in waiting, so they're gonna approach you right away,
like if you're a white dude, like you know, white
guys gonna come up to you. They're gonna ask you
if you're from New York, you know, if there's like
New York homies in the in the building. So basically
I had to make a decision, you know, of who
I was gonna run with. And obviously at that time

(43:43):
in Long and Behold, it was funny. It was only
me and one other Italian from New York. It was
Joey Savarice, who is Teddy Persco's co defender, who I
didn't know from the street because he's been locked up
like my whole life. I think he did like seventeen
years in the state. He was home for like a
year and then he caught the case.

Speaker 4 (44:00):
That he was on.

Speaker 3 (44:01):
When I met him, and we were sort of here
on the bus together but we weren't talking. But when
we got to Medical, he sort of approached me. I
guess he heard me on the bus and we started
like dropping names. And obviously I knew that he was
affiliated in some way because he knew like a lot
of my friends, uncles and stuff like that. So it
was really only me and one other dude that were Italian.

(44:23):
Eddie got Folo was there right before I got there,
but he left. So the kid and in that picture
the kids from the unit and one of the Spanish kid,
he's a good kid. That kid pinying me was a blood.
He basically told me like, uh, I know a kid Veto.
You know, he's with the Italians. You know, I can
introduce you to them if you want to run with them.
And I met the kid Veto. But it was really

(44:44):
like a Boston car. It was an Italian car.

Speaker 4 (44:47):
You know.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
Let me ask Let me ask you this, because I
feel like we never really gotten into the crux of
what I means.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
So a car is not it's more just.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
Like a bonding really, like you eat together and like
you know each other right because you're Italian, right, or
you know, Spanish people obviously do Spanish things with each
other to like is.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
That really what?

Speaker 1 (45:05):
It just is, just you have each other's backs and
it's just kind of to get through the time and
make it easier.

Speaker 4 (45:11):
Yeah, it's like who you have to choose who you're running.
You're running with them.

Speaker 3 (45:14):
It's like you have to abide by their rules or
they will discipline you, like you basically if you have problems,
people bring it to your car, like cars get involved.

Speaker 4 (45:23):
So yeah, you have to make a decision, you know,
I mean on basically.

Speaker 3 (45:26):
Who you can run it because at the channel it's
all tables, like if you fucked up, like especially, that's
what I like about Berlin. There's not a lot of
fucked up people there because they basically check them in
or they won't be able to walk on their compound
because they politic off everything.

Speaker 4 (45:41):
It sells the tables.

Speaker 3 (45:43):
So if you're not with somebody, you're gonna have no
where to eat who you know what I mean? People
see that like you see if somebody standing up by
the fucking trees, you know, eating their food, standing up
like other kids fucked up, you don't have somewhere to sit,
Like that's not a good.

Speaker 4 (45:56):
Look, you know, Yeah, you have to make that decision
who you're gonna run with. And that's where you went.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
I want to ask you.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
I have a friend. I don't talk about this much,
but I have a dear friend. We kind of grew
up together, he did nine years. And he told me
once that in the Feds, it's really not that bad.
He said, the only problem that you have is if
you have children. It's really rough, right, because they're growing
up and you're not there. There's nothing you can do
if they have trouble. Would you say that if you

(46:23):
were let's say, a single guy with no kids or
a wife, and you went to prison, do you think
it'd probably be pretty easy?

Speaker 4 (46:28):
Right?

Speaker 2 (46:28):
It's really not that bad, right, Yeah, it's.

Speaker 4 (46:31):
Definitely a lot easier. Absolutely. And they put you so
far away from home too.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
I was like almost five hundred miles away, right, So
it's hard to get you know that. When you have
a little kid, it's hard to get them to go
up there. Did you see your daughter much? What was
How was that?

Speaker 4 (46:46):
I was lucky enough to see her in MDC.

Speaker 3 (46:48):
The last time I seen her before I came home
was it was like Christmas Eve in MDC right before
I left. This was probably like the end of twenty
fifteen going into sixteen, and she was about one, so
but I was in Berlin. It was far and they
go on lockdown a lot, you know, there's always like
stabings or something going on. So like if you people

(47:11):
come get a hotel room for the weekend to see
you and they go on lockdown, you basically hit for
your visit, you know, and your people came.

Speaker 4 (47:17):
Up for nothing.

Speaker 3 (47:18):
So I wouldn't even want them to come up, you know,
to there for that. But that's why I was so
eager to get to Fort Dicks. And I was trying
to get there, you know, because.

Speaker 4 (47:27):
It's close to home. But at that point, me and
her mother were we weren't.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
Having a good relationship at that time, so she kept
promising she was gonna bring her and then I just
gave up asking, you know, after a while.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
What location did you spend the most time at in
your you know, sixsh year sentence.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
Well, I was in MDC for a year, and I
was basically in Berlin for like two years, and I
made it to Fort Dix, which is like a vacation
like for real, and Fort Dicks if you have time
to do. That's where everybody wants to be and they
don't want to leave there because it's really like not
even prison. Like I have a friend of mine that's
self surrendered to four dicks and did his old six years,

(48:06):
and I don't even respect that, like I really know,
I don't even look at it like you went to
prison like I did six years. Blieve me, I don't
think I'm you know, better than nobody or nothing. I
wouldn't wish prison on my worst enemy. But out of
my six years, I did about two years in solitary confinement.

Speaker 4 (48:22):
You know, I was always going to the hole.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
And the last year straight I caught h an assault
on staff in Loretto and I got caught transit during COVID,
So I was basically like locked down almost that last
year's straight. And it's it's no joke. You know, when
you're basically locked in a cell twenty four hours a.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Day, what's got real quick in terms of solitary and
all that any everything that prison has right, Because when
you go to prison, I think you agree, like.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
You miss little things right, like for instance.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
The ability to buy good toothpaste right, or you know,
have good body or whatever, like.

Speaker 2 (49:02):
You lose the thing.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
What was something that really is a small thought that
you don't have in prison, that you just you missed
a lot, like the people don't think about.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
Can you answer that?

Speaker 4 (49:12):
Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
It is the little things, and when you come home
you learn to appreciate, like the little things, just like
a home cooked meal, like the holidays, like and it's
crazy when I was like growing up, like I said,
I would pick my friends, Like if I had company,
I'd be out on the street with my friends. I
wouldn't even be home my family. But like I wish
I was home, you know, like with my family and
stuff like around the holidays and stuff like the little

(49:34):
things like that.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
Sure. Sure, you mentioned you went to Loretto at one point.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
One thing I've heard about Loretto is there are a
lot of wise guys in Loretto really over the years. Now,
you mentioned a story that's pretty interesting actually involving Paul Manafort,
which was one of Trump's people, right big higher up.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
He eventually went to prison.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
You made a comment to me that Big John had
a problem with him, Big John from the Lukazy family
key telling that story.

Speaker 3 (50:08):
Yeah, Well, basically, when I got there, I already knew
who was there. They told me to go see Ralphie.
Ralphie Santinello. He's from mass He's a good dude.

Speaker 4 (50:18):
So it was basically Ralphie and John had.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
Just got there right before me. So yeah, they were
like getting into little tits. They used to crack me up,
Ralphie with John. But yeah, basically there was like a
big thing over Paul Manifford because these you gotta understand,
even when I was in Berlin, these Italian tables ain't
really all Italians, you know. They have like different people

(50:43):
like from you know, there was like one kid from
Rhode Island in Berlin. There was a kid French Canadian.
He was a big drug kingpin. That's that with So
it's it's a mix fit. It's just good good guys,
you know what I mean. We're good meant. So, yeah,
Paul was there and supposedly John was trying to say
that he was a rat and Ralfie's saying that no,

(51:03):
he was not a rat.

Speaker 4 (51:03):
I've seen his paperwork.

Speaker 3 (51:05):
So it was like a little it's if it's hat
over Paul Manaford.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
I'm curious about this in terms of because we hear
a lot about the word rat on here, right, You
know you have guys that are cooperators that you've told
that you mentioned, which we'll talk about, and they're rats.
We know they are the Domini sa Cali's, the Jean Burrellos,
the Samuel Bulls. When we look at like so for instance,
like with John Castellucci, is there anything taken into account

(51:32):
of like someone like Paul Manaford, who is not a
criminal per se.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Right, he gets arrested.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
Is that the same as being someone that was in
the streets, Like people have called me a rat because
I talk about the mob. I'm not in the streets.
I have no connection to the streets. I'm just more
or less like a half a journalist. Do you think
someone like John is it just if you talk to
the police under any circumstance, you're a rat?

Speaker 2 (51:57):
Is that just kind of how it's looked at.

Speaker 4 (52:00):
Yeah, like certain guys look at it like that.

Speaker 3 (52:01):
And I understand that he's not supposed to cooperate in
any way, shape or for him, you know, like with
the law or authorities. But yeah, like obviously he was
not a street guy before what I could tell, like
from what I seen, he was just a respectful guy.

Speaker 4 (52:17):
You know.

Speaker 3 (52:17):
I used to see him on the visit with his
wife and he used to talk about him like, you know,
obviously he had a lot of money. So like people
they see him on the news. I we'd be watching
news and they'd be talking about him.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
He's right there, like you know, so is he like
we just kind of on his own per se or no?

Speaker 4 (52:31):
He was sitting with it at a good table with
the Italians. He was sitting with with Ralphie.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
Is that because they all like Trump? Is that kind
of what it was about.

Speaker 4 (52:40):
I don't know he was there.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
He got there before I got there, but I guess
interesting home.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
So Paul Mantiford was hanging out with like mob guys, and.

Speaker 4 (52:49):
He was sitting at the table with a couple of
mob guys.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
That's pretty interesting.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
One other thing on Big John John Pansie, who is
a rat? He he he's kind of talking about John
Asalucci in a pretty like underlying tone, like kind of
like an embarrassing tone.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
Was he respected guy in prison?

Speaker 3 (53:06):
You say, it's funny you sort of mentioned that him
and I sort of mentioned that him and Ralphie were
going at it. Used to crack me up. But I
guess he had he had like a young girlfriend, uh John,
he was dating like some young lawyer or something when
he and he had just came in on his case.
I guess he went right to Loretto, and I guess
there was an incident before I got there where he

(53:28):
slammed the phone. And you know, there's gang members of
these places. They don't give a fuck about that shit.
Some of these guys like, you know what I mean,
that's a phone for everybody. So I guess they complained
to Ralphie like, oh, your man's slamming the phone, Like
if he breaks that phone, it's you know, it's a
phone for everybody.

Speaker 4 (53:44):
So I guess it was like a little incident like that.

Speaker 3 (53:47):
And he got a little bit too when I first
came because I was in transit, so I had my
paperwork right away, and luckily I ended up in Ralphie's unit,
so right away it's customary that you give somebody your
paperwork and they give they're supposed to give you that paperwork,
so we already exchanged paperwork.

Speaker 4 (54:03):
Me and Ralfie worked when I first got there.

Speaker 3 (54:05):
And then he brought me up to me John because
he was on another unit and then John was saying,
you know right, you named that.

Speaker 4 (54:10):
On the paper. He's like, I call home every couple off.
You don't even find out who you are. And Ralphie's like, yo,
I read his paperwork. He's good, you know.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
And then I guess Sean was still trying to press
it with me, and Ralphie took that as like a shun,
you know what I mean, Like I just told him
that I read your paperwork, you.

Speaker 4 (54:24):
Know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (54:24):
So they were getting into it a little bit, and
I had just left Four Dicks, and I ran into
a problem four Dicks too, because it's a lot different there.

Speaker 4 (54:32):
There's a lot of them. There's so many Italians there,
and they're really on that.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
Movie shit like where they didn't want me to go
to the drug program when I first got there.

Speaker 4 (54:41):
I don't know if you know about to add that program,
but you get it.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
Yeah for sentence, sure, you know, as long as I'm
not doing nothing crazy, Like how are you gonna tell
me you don't want to see me go home a
year early to my family, you know, like Joe sah
recent and care about it in Berlin. So they basically said, like,
if you go on the drug program. We can't fuck
with you, you know, like type shit.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
So it's more like they didn't. They looked at it
as kind of like an embarrassment in a way.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
Yeah, they look at it like could think certain things
you have to do in the program. They look at
it as like telling it's called pull ups. You pull
somebody up, like you hear what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
So like in a program like that, you have to
kind of talk about your experiences and like, you know,
share things.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
I get it now.

Speaker 3 (55:20):
It's more about behavior and to pull ups. Like if
somebody struggling with something, you pull them up. It's like
you address them about certain things. You know, it's cold
and they I guess they don't like it or whatever.
But I basically said, like fuck you, I'm trying to
go home with my family and I went to the program.
So when John, when I met John, he was getting
ready to go to four Ditch from Loretto, and all

(55:42):
he was talking about was the drug program that he
was going to do. To odd that he got his
lawyer to change it to say he was drinking. If
you have any sort of like drugs or alcohol and
your PSI, you could get the year off, right, so
he's trying to get home to that young young girl.
Is like, guess he's going there to do Audebt And

(56:02):
I told Ralphie that, Yo, when he gets there, he's
gonna have a problem with that audap shit because they
don't like that shit. So from what I heard, I
think he had like a problem with certain people because
from when I already went into.

Speaker 4 (56:16):
The program, what you got right, he was I sort
of wanted them.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
He's like, I don't give a fuck, They're not going
to say nothing to me, So you know what I mean,
I guess he might have had a little bit of
a problem with that.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
So you're saying, like in Fort Dix, there's a lot
of Italian people, like, a lot of mob guys, a
lot of older people. Is it a lot of the
older guys that have problems with that adapt stuff.

Speaker 3 (56:38):
It's just all I'm in general, like there's rules if
you run on with certain people. They it's just you know,
I don't know, it's it's stupid if you ask.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
Me, you know what I mean, like, yeah, yeah, it
doesn't make a lot of sense.

Speaker 3 (56:49):
I don't nobody told me what to do on the street.
I'm not going to come to prison and start having
people tell me what to do.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
I mean, so yeah, and if you can get home
a year earlier, you know, you don't know them in answer,
you're not in that code anyway.

Speaker 3 (57:00):
And I respect him too, Like it's a lot of them.
I met a lot of a lot of good guys
when I got there. Oh, Ralphie uh Balsamo, the undertaker,
he just got locked up again.

Speaker 4 (57:10):
He's back there. I see him posting. They're posting pictures.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (57:12):
But he he gave me the bag.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
You know, once they because they found out who my
uncle was that he used to manage Old Courtier on
all of every street.

Speaker 4 (57:21):
Yeah, so I know the owner.

Speaker 3 (57:23):
Of the restaurant stuff. And I guess he's in the
restaurant business too where he was. So once they figured
out you good, you know, they basically give you a bag.
They gave me a whole bag of like commissary and
stuff like eygiene.

Speaker 4 (57:35):
He gave me a pair of steakis to use until
my property game.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
So they kind of they kind of respected that you
had some extended family that had I mean Old court
Till is a big time restaurant literally, so they kind
of looked at you as as kind of a friend in.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
A way, and uh, yeah, they made sure everything was good.
You mentioned Fort Dix. I want to ask you about that.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
Uh is it it's in terms of like kind of
like a summer camp in a way.

Speaker 4 (57:59):
Basically, it's it's it's an army barracks.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
Yeah, And the.

Speaker 3 (58:02):
Best way I get describe it is like buildings.

Speaker 4 (58:05):
It's like project buildings. So you're in a you're in
a building. You're not in a in a unit or
a cell.

Speaker 3 (58:11):
It's they literally haven't changed anything from when it was
an army barracks. So you're basically in a brick building,
three floors.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
I'm sorry, Blake keeps going off. We got to move
around a little bit. Sorry are doing these live?

Speaker 2 (58:25):
You know?

Speaker 3 (58:25):
I apologize, But yeah, you're basically in a three floor building.
There's no cameras, and the office, the cops office, is
on the first floor, and they have lookouts on the
staircases too, So it's like it's.

Speaker 4 (58:38):
Not even like prison. It's not.

Speaker 3 (58:39):
And you can go to other buildings and go visit people,
like maybe my friend's in another building that I was
at another prison away, I'll go pull up on them,
you know, go hang out with them for a little while,
and everybody has the phones out, Like you're in a
twelve man room.

Speaker 4 (58:52):
They have two man's too. You get a two man
or three men's.

Speaker 3 (58:55):
But it's basically, yeah, like a army barracks, everybody has
cell phones.

Speaker 4 (58:59):
It's it's not.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
Even it's kind of like you're it's kind of like
you're in like the military kind of. Yeah, pretty much
outside of like you know, you're not like training and stuff.
Let me ask you when you were in prison, did
you have any jobs?

Speaker 3 (59:13):
Yeah, you have to when in the BOP, you have
to either go to school or work.

Speaker 4 (59:18):
Like if you don't have a ged or anything like that,
they put you in school.

Speaker 3 (59:23):
Or you have to work, or they give you like
incident reports, and uh yeah, I usually had no show jobs,
so uh but that was a problem at Loretto.

Speaker 4 (59:33):
They were trying to make me work and I refuse
to work and they end up.

Speaker 3 (59:36):
Sending me to the hole. And there was just like
a whole bunch of shit happened after that.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
Could you get work? Could you get a college degree there?

Speaker 3 (59:45):
Nah? They cut a lot of that ship up. They
used to have stuff like that where you could pay
for it yourself.

Speaker 4 (59:51):
But yeah, they didn't have no courses. I didn't. I didn't.

Speaker 3 (59:54):
I didn't see any of those available when I was there.
There was no courses or noting like that.

Speaker 1 (59:59):
All right, I got one or two more questions about
being inside, then we'll talk about you coming home. A
lot of people wonder, you know, and I've heard different
opinions on this. Obviously, the commissaries is quite good, but
you can only buy so much of it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
The food it was bad.

Speaker 4 (01:00:16):
Yeah, it's it's it's bad.

Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
They don't use a lot of a lot of ingredients,
like uh, no sugar.

Speaker 4 (01:00:21):
They take everything sugar free.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
Very blend.

Speaker 4 (01:00:24):
Yeah, like no salt.

Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
But it's better. Some places are better than others, like
four Thicks. The food wasn't too bad.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
What was the best meal they served you?

Speaker 4 (01:00:34):
The chicken?

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
Everybody goes crazy for the chicken or the burgers were
pretty good.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
Like chicken. It's not beef. It's like fried chicken.

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
Or no, it's like a barbecue chicken or some Yeah,
sometimes it's fried chicken.

Speaker 4 (01:00:47):
But they took out of the they got rid of the.

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
Deep fris I see. So yeah, it's like baked chicken.
It's all right, you do it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:56):
You gotta crazy for it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:58):
People always want to buy the chicken you like, People
would buy it from you and stuff, right, right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
Right, Okay, let me ask you.

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
I don't think I've ever asked anyone this on camera,
but I want to ask you because you know you
obviously have a strong knowledge of this.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
So you know what I do on here. Right.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Let's say God forbid knock on wood a month or
now I have to report to prison.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
How would I get on there?

Speaker 4 (01:01:25):
As long as you knowing what I do?

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
But remember knowing what I do on here and who
I talk about.

Speaker 4 (01:01:33):
Nah, you'd be good. As long as you have paperwork
is good.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
It would paper works clear. Let's say I'm in there
for I don't know what tax evasion. I don't know,
some random thing like that. They send me to a
low or like Berlin or something, so I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:01:52):
I really think you would be good, bro, I'm being
honest with you. I think it would be good.

Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
But if you were in Fort Dix when there's a
lot of them, just look for any little thing to
discredit somebody. So I could see maybe having a problem
running with the Italians and Fort Dix with is like
a lot of them. Uh. But yeah, I don't see
you having a problem. Like your people works good, You'll
be at a good table with good men.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
Yeah, and throwing the fact that I am not Italian.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
But I've heard different opinions, but most of the people
that have actually been to prison always say the same thing. Now,
it's just a hypothetical, God forbid, I'm sure I'll never
be there.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
That said, it's curious and that's a great answer.

Speaker 4 (01:02:29):
Why what's your nationality Albanian?

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:02:32):
Yeah, yeah, well Albanians run with the Italians. You actually
might be with the Italians in a lot of spots
because the Albeians and the Italians are usually ride together
in the federal system.

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
To be I'm sterting too, because like I've heard a
lot of like different opinions, but most of the opinions
I've heard about what I do. Most of the people
that are in that life they like being mentioned, right,
They like people like you mentioned John Casilucia has a
young girlfriend.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
Like people like being talked about, right, don't they?

Speaker 4 (01:03:01):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
What are they? What are those guys in the prisons?
What do they think of? Like the YouTube stuff? Do
you do they know about any of that? They do? Right?

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
You want to laugh, Yeah, they do. Whenever I was
at Fort Dix, they were sending pictures. The young kid
was there, the kid, Anthony Camise.

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
Yeah, the kid. I know you're talking.

Speaker 3 (01:03:17):
They had a kid, they call him. I was on
the bus for them. He's he's burnt out. He's funny though,
But yeah, I heard he was. They're taking pictures and
I heard he was sending the pictures to these sites,
these mob sites. It's it's all, well, it's different, bro,
It's not.

Speaker 4 (01:03:30):
Like it was years ago. I was born in the
wrong era.

Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
I wish I was born in like the fifties or something,
because it put it down now, like you do, you
have to be something wrong with you to really want
to be in that life. Now, it's it's so warded
down and it's just over with. Like you see what
goes on. There's bosses that are at and you or
either that or your best friend puts puts one behind
your ear.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
Yeah, yeah, there's no honor, ethics or anything. Yeah, you're saying,
like a lot of these guys when I post pictures
of these people like they love that.

Speaker 4 (01:04:04):
You're saying, yeah, they like it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:05):
Joe used to tell me that they got, Like they
get fan mail too, Like these people that are infatuated
with that, they get like mal from like people, random people,
some guy in Kentucky.

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
Right, yeah, wow, interesting. I'm sure some of those people
watch these videos. A bunch of weird people and that
they watch these videos.

Speaker 3 (01:04:23):
Some of them, a lot of them get the Jerry
Kapeci's gang News, right, yeah, the Gangland News in there,
they get a lot of them get the Gangland News.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
So they probably watched me.

Speaker 3 (01:04:31):
You're saying, well, I bet they watched you and four Dick. Yeah,
I see, I see who follows. I know a lot
of people that follow you that like came home, were away.
I see who Like we have like mutual friends follows.

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
Yeah sure, sure, okay, so all in all, you would
come home you're released, Tell me when you're released, because
this this generally shows like out of the halfway. When
were you actually released from prison? Was it September of
in twenty twenty or.

Speaker 3 (01:04:58):
Yeah, they took my halfway house. I did the six months.
I lost all my good time pretty much. I did
basically all my time. Uh So when I got released
on that date, I was in usp Caanan in the
pen and I just did.

Speaker 4 (01:05:13):
Yeah, I just did.

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
And I was in the shoe for like probably like
six or seven months at that point.

Speaker 1 (01:05:20):
At that's pretty unbelievable. Us P Caanan is one of
the most dangerous prisons in the country. You got terrorists
in there, you got you got high profile people in there.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
Why were you sent there?

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
Because it's also used as a transit facility. Okay, So
usually if you're coming from certain prisons, you.

Speaker 4 (01:05:40):
Make like stop off.

Speaker 3 (01:05:41):
You might stop off pick people up here, or spend
the night here, and then you get another bus, you know.
So basically I was supposed to stop off there for
a night and catch another bus, but they stopped all
the buses due to COVID.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
At that point. Gotcha, gotcha? Gotcha. So when you were
released from prison, you went right home?

Speaker 4 (01:06:00):
Yeah, I went right home.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
Tell me about that day out of the door.

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
It's a lot different being released from the shoe like
that than from the compound. Like in the system, they
make it feel like the shoe is prison and like
the compound is freedom. Like that's basically how they set
up in the system. So basically I just did a
lot of hard time, you know, I was in the
shoe in Loretto for like three four months. Then they

(01:06:28):
shipped me and then I got caught in usp Canan.
I ended up in a unit they only let for
about an hour at a time, and I ended up
beating up my celly and then they sent me to
the hole and then I ended up doing the rest
of my time basically in the hole there.

Speaker 4 (01:06:46):
So yeah, it was rough coming out like that.

Speaker 3 (01:06:48):
They I literally woke up hungary, went to sleep hungry.
The sun had it hit my skin in almost a year,
I was white as a ghost.

Speaker 2 (01:06:56):
Skinny.

Speaker 3 (01:06:58):
Actually have a picture. I should have sent it to you,
but yeah, I don't look too healthy.

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
So when you get out, you get out of there,
right do you? Because Canaan's pretty far from New York?
Right do you do you just drive home? Or do
you like eat and then drive home? Like obviously eating
is probably one of the first things you did, right
or Nah?

Speaker 3 (01:07:18):
The first thing I did was was, well, they give
you a bus ticket, they paid for you way home,
and they give you like five dollars to get a
meal basically, And I was fucked up because usually you're
at your prison and your people could send in an
outfit for you to go home with. And I left
straight from transit, so like I didn't have nothing. So
whatever money's on your account, they give you a debit card.

(01:07:40):
So luckily I had money in my account. So they
bring you early in the morning. They drop you over
the bus station, like six seven in the morning. My
bus wasn't until like one in the afternoon. And it
was like two other guys too, so we like looked
for the nearest mole. I wanted to go buy a
cell phone.

Speaker 4 (01:07:56):
I went. I bought an outfit pair of sneakers, and.

Speaker 3 (01:07:58):
Then I bought a cell phone on the cell phone
right away, and then I took the bus to New
York so like Union Station or something, and then my
father picked me up from Manhattan.

Speaker 2 (01:08:08):
What did you eat first?

Speaker 4 (01:08:11):
Well, the first thing I had. It was during COVID too.
I go home.

Speaker 3 (01:08:14):
I got home like ten o'clock at night, and my
daughter's mother was waiting for me. I hadn't even spoken
to her in almost a year, but she must have
went on the site and seen what my release date was.

Speaker 4 (01:08:23):
She knew I was coming home, so she was waiting
for me. And I said, you know what it's like,
I made reservations.

Speaker 3 (01:08:28):
Let's go eat I'm like, you know what, I want
to talk to you in regards to the baby anyway.

Speaker 4 (01:08:32):
So look, yeah, let's go eat. So I had lopso
Ravioli's was the first thing I ate.

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):
Food tasted good, real good.

Speaker 3 (01:08:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:08:40):
I had a drink some food.

Speaker 2 (01:08:42):
Nice.

Speaker 3 (01:08:42):
It sucks your stomach up though, going in and coming out,
your stomach gets.

Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
Fucked up, yeah, because you're not used to eating that way, right, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:08:48):
Like readjusting back to regular food and stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
That's a really interesting thing you talk about where like
they just basically drop you off at a bus station, right,
and they just say, okay, good luck. You know when
you get off the bus, Like, did you you just
like look around and say like, wow, this is like
I wasn't in for twenty thirty forty years, but like.

Speaker 2 (01:09:08):
I've been away like over a half a decade.

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
Did you just like look around and say, wow, this
is pretty like surreal kind of because that's the feeling
not a lot of people get like or luckily have
to have, right, but it is a wild feeling. I mean,
five years in this day and age is a lot
different than five years in let's say the eighties. I
mean five years in this day and age is a
lot of time and a lot of things happen, and

(01:09:33):
the world went from being when you went in, the
world changed a lot during that thing in twenty twenty
that happened, right, and you get out right kind of
the end of that year. So when you went in,
the world was way different than it is now. When
you went in, Donald Trump was not the president. Right
when you came out, Donald Trump had already been the president.
He's now essentially almost out of office. A lot of changed, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:09:58):
It's a lot of It was a lot of readjustment,
and it's it's it's hard. It was definitely tough to
go through because I had never experienced that before. It
was my first time coming home and then I've been
released from prison, and it's definitely a lot of readjustment.
You know, when you're in prison, you see the same things.
You know, Like even I have I have a problem
in my eyes for being in confined spaces. It affected
my vision because my eyes never really focused on stuff

(01:10:20):
far away for so long, right, So like even when
you would get transferred, it with like just being in
a bus and like seeing the outside used to be
like so excited, like everything just looked so different, and yeah,
a lot of things changed, Like when I came home,
like a lot of stuff wasn't.

Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
There that used to be there, like yeah closed, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:10:35):
Like everything was so different.

Speaker 2 (01:10:37):
Yeah, you're right one hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
So you've been you've been out almost five years. You're
going out on five years of being out of prison.
You've had an interesting life, maybe a life that you
look back on and say, damn, you know if I
could have did things different.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
Are your parents still alive or yeah, my my parents
are still alive. Do you have a good relationship a
little sick?

Speaker 3 (01:10:57):
Yeah, that relationship with my mother my father of the
relationship is But I have a good relationship with my mother.

Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
Okay, I wish her all the best. You obviously have
a job. Now you're just a regular member of society.
You know, you watch these films and stuff and they'll
be like flashbacks like Henry Hill and Goodfellas. Not that
we want to quote him, but like there's that scene
at the end where he's just a regular guy. He's
obviously a rap, but you know there's that scene where

(01:11:23):
he thinks back to like the days with Tommy and
all that. Do you ever miss like those days that
you had or are you just happy with your life now?
You're you're accepting of your societal position now, and that's it,
Like you don't want to ever be that way again, right?

Speaker 4 (01:11:39):
Yeah, sometimes you know you miss it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:40):
But when you just did time like that and you're
gonna sell piece and a cell twenty three hours a day,
twenty four whatever, you're not thinking about all those good times,
it's not worth it.

Speaker 4 (01:11:50):
So yeah, like you missed it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:52):
But to be honest with you, I've been quite successful legit.
Like there's so much legit.

Speaker 4 (01:11:57):
Money out there. Sure, Like I wish I wish I
could do it over again.

Speaker 2 (01:12:02):
Yeah, because you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:12:02):
I work in the financial district. I'm on Wall Street basically,
you know, So I wish I could have could do
it over again. I would have basically because I worked
on Wall Street for a short period of time and
sales and stuff when I was younger, but I didn't
take it serious and I basically didn't do it too long.
But yeah, I wish I could do it over because
there's so much legit money out there. It's like crazy

(01:12:23):
that I was like risking my life and my freedom
basically for money when yeah, there's some ways to make money.

Speaker 4 (01:12:29):
It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
Yeah, the world's totally different, but in a good way.

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
It's become a lot easier to make money if you
can find something that you're good at. I heard a
rapper say this once, and I think you would relate
to this. A couple of years of bawling ain't worth
a dub and the Feds. He basically talked about, how, yeah, yeah,
you can go out and buy this, all these designer
you go to boxing matches and sit front seat and
buy a nice car. But in the end, is it

(01:12:54):
really worth sitting in a box for five, six, seven,
eight years? Not really, because again, you grow up and
what do you get past like thirty? That doesn't mean
as much, right, It's not really that important. You know,
important is like seeing your kids grow up. I want
to ask you about that. I have two more questions
than we'll get you out of here. You talked about
legitimate ways to make money. Now, did you ever think

(01:13:15):
when you were younger, or you saw some of these
guys in the streets and the junior pagans, the you know,
even like made guys. You know, did you ever see
like where we are now? Do you ever think that
would happen where guys are now on YouTube talking about
this stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:13:29):
Right, absolutely not, and you sort of touched on it.

Speaker 3 (01:13:32):
It's like I look at guys like Joe Savarice or
like Teddy Persigal and.

Speaker 4 (01:13:36):
It's not even like it was years ago.

Speaker 3 (01:13:37):
These are like made guys, captains whatever, and people don't
look after them. You think they get money sent to
them like that, Yeah, they really won't. People forget about them,
and it's like it's really not worth it, Like I
don't want that life. There was one point when, uh,
when I was in the in the shoe in Canaan,
usb Can and I was every shoe and every facility

(01:13:57):
that is the worst shoe.

Speaker 4 (01:13:59):
Stuff is popa almost every day in that shreet. It
was crazy. But they moved myself at one point, so
they put me.

Speaker 3 (01:14:06):
Sometimes it's people across from you so you can talk
through the door or you talked to the Eventually they
just moved to another cell. It's like a white guy
across from you start talking to the doors. You know
how much time you got left? Yo, I'm get ready
to go home. How much time you got left? He's like, yo,
I'm doing full life sentences like what do you know?
What do you say to somebody like that? I'm like, yo,
give up? I was like, because I know people. I
was with two people that had life that a home

(01:14:26):
right now because the Trump's first step back, so you know,
you can't give up. But like you know what he
was asking me, what are you gonna do? You're really
gonna do the right thing when you go out there,
or you're gonna fuck up, you know. So like I
look at shit like that, like I when you look
at it in that aspect, it's like really like retarded.

Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
That's a great point, actually, and I'm glad you brought that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
That's a really interesting way to think about that, because
your life in the FEDS anymore is not it's not life,
not parole anymore really, and there is no parole in
the system.

Speaker 2 (01:14:55):
But you make a good point.

Speaker 1 (01:14:56):
You know, you look at some of these people that
you know, like a Bobby or like, you know, something
like that, they had life and they've come home.

Speaker 2 (01:15:04):
You know, the Gemini Twins came home. Okay, they they know.
I mean, you think about that. So it's a great
way to think about it. But you think about that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:12):
Word life, right, let's say you're in the States, you
have life without parole. That means like you're literally never leaving,
you're never coming home to the streets, you know again.
And it's it's kind of an insane way to think
about something. Right, If you're twenty thirty forty years old, that's.

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):
Such a long time, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
If you uletssay you lived to eighty ninety years old,
it's kind of amazing. But the hope thing is good
because that's where the first step back was such a
transcendent law, because it really did give a lot of
people that had no hope hope again. Right, that's a
really interesting way of thinking. Last question, you have a daughter.
Do you have any other kids or just one kid?

Speaker 4 (01:15:47):
No, just a daughter.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
Do you know she's at an age now where she's
not like a teenager or anything, but like do you
talk to her about this, like where you were?

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
Do you just say, oh, I was on business, Like,
how does that work? That's not easy for a child?

Speaker 4 (01:16:02):
I'm sure, yeah, well I will. That's a really that's
a good question.

Speaker 3 (01:16:06):
It's it's kind of tough though, with the right way
to go about that is, but they told us that
I was away on a job okay or something. But
when I first came home, I guess then she found
out that I was away. So she basically knows that
I was in jail. I don't know who told her,
probably her mother or maybe she overheard somebody, because they're

(01:16:27):
smart now kids. She's like eleven going on thirty, right,
But yeah, she figured it out eventually.

Speaker 4 (01:16:34):
She knows that I was in jail.

Speaker 1 (01:16:36):
But I'm sure you know, she won't make mistakes that
you made, not that she would. She's a girl, you know,
girls different than boys. But I do have one final
quite I said, I have one, but I have one
other one. I always ask I always ask everybody this
that that's been in prison or I've interviewed.

Speaker 2 (01:16:53):
Do you regret your life? Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:16:58):
Yeah, obviously, Like if I can go back, I probably
changed like one or two things, But I don't regret
it because, you know what, like everything I've been through
like made me who I am today. And I've been
through a lot, you know, like we didn't even stretch
the surface on you know, the stuff I've been through.

Speaker 4 (01:17:14):
But yeah, I definitely learned a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:17:16):
And that's why, like I hope if anybody takes anything
from this, just you know what I mean, it's really
not even worth it. Like, if you want to live
that life, just be prepared for the results because there's
only it.

Speaker 4 (01:17:26):
Really.

Speaker 3 (01:17:26):
They say it's cliche, there's only two ways you gonna
end up, but it really.

Speaker 4 (01:17:30):
Is the truth. It's just a matter of time. Yeah,
that's that's the outcome.

Speaker 2 (01:17:34):
It's it's you know what I mean, there's no real
good There is no good situation that comes from that. Really.

Speaker 1 (01:17:39):
I mean, I don't know about you, bro, but I
don't know any retired drug dealers. Doesn't really work like
that usually, in fact, it never works like that. And
they're gonna put you in a position where you're gonna
have to make a really hard decision and you know,
you know, you live with with your mistakes. Think about
on top of it, you were an informant. On top
of it, now you're vilified. You can't live where you
want to. You still live in Staten Island.

Speaker 4 (01:18:01):
Yeah, so I live in the same area.

Speaker 2 (01:18:03):
Think if you were rat you probably wouldn't you know,
it's a lot different.

Speaker 1 (01:18:07):
Do you ever do you ever think like like like
you're respected, Like you wouldn't have that if you did
the other thing. So you get put into bad positions,
and if you don't commit crimes, you don't have to.

Speaker 2 (01:18:17):
Worry about that. And I'm sure life's a lot better
for you now. Asa. I want to say I really
appreciate you coming on. This was one of my uh,
I'm not even kidding, one of the favorite interviews I've
ever done. Very well. Yeah, I don't believe I was.

Speaker 4 (01:18:29):
I'm not gonna a little nervous.

Speaker 2 (01:18:31):
I wouldn't liked you.

Speaker 1 (01:18:32):
I think the difference between you and most of the
people I speak to is you're pretty relatable. You're not
here to like make money, You're not here to be
the next YouTube star. I think people can take something
from you that you're really You're not a maid guy,
right you weren't, you know? You were just someone that
went out there, you wanted to make some money, You
got involved, you did what you did, you had some experiences,

(01:18:55):
and you came home. Just that so many people that
there's so many people that coming from prison every year
and we don't even think about it. It's it's and
a lot of people have to readjust and that's why
I like talking to people like you, Eric Foss, people
like that that have you know, you just kind of
come home and just get back to life again. You know,
You're not coming home and becoming a criminal, which most
of the people I've spoken to do or they've cooperated,

(01:19:18):
so you're kind of you know.

Speaker 3 (01:19:19):
There was times, there was definitely times when I was tempted,
but it's not worth it, you know, And I'm surprised
how well I'm doing, to be honest, you know, I
didn't think that I would be able to do it.
It's it's it's it's scary. It's tough trying to figure
out what you really want to do with your life.
You know, Like I never worked the day in my
life right before person, I really didn't. I've never really

(01:19:39):
I never filed taxes, never held a job for more
than like a week or two. You know, I really
never worked my whole life.

Speaker 1 (01:19:46):
Yeah, that's that's interesting. I didn't really think about that.
You you kind of just did it your whole life.
But as you said, like the cool thing about the
world now, while there's a lot of bad things about it,
the world is more accepting of people like you, right
that have been to prison.

Speaker 2 (01:20:01):
They're more accepting, right, They're.

Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
Willing to give you a job, They're willing to give
you an opportunity, and maybe ten years ago they wouldn't
be as willing to do that.

Speaker 4 (01:20:08):
But you have to.

Speaker 1 (01:20:09):
Readjust a lot, because it's hard to go from making,
you know, a bunch of money too saying Okay, I
gotta make money, they're gonna take taxes out or I
got to pay in tax Like, there's a lot of
things you don't think about. So first of all, I
wish you all the best. Seriously, you seem like you
have a good head on your showers and think you'd
be just fine and.

Speaker 2 (01:20:29):
Maybe we'll have you back again. You're actually a really
great interview. I mean that I like talking to me.

Speaker 1 (01:20:35):
I appreciate most of the people, and I mean this
and no disrespect, because I respect all the people that
I've spoken to.

Speaker 2 (01:20:42):
I don't agree with the decisions that people like you know,
this guy made and other people.

Speaker 1 (01:20:48):
But there's a difference between talking to people like that
who have been willing to literally negate any friendships they
had and just do what they have to do for themselves.
There's a certain respect in someone like you who says, Okay,
I made a decision and I'm gonna pay for my
crimes no one else is.

Speaker 2 (01:21:04):
I'm going to pay for them.

Speaker 1 (01:21:06):
There's a certain respect that I have for someone like yourself,
and I don't speak to many people like you, so
I think it's kind of honorable.

Speaker 4 (01:21:13):
So yeah, I really appreciate that.

Speaker 3 (01:21:15):
I know you a little surprised that was even gonna
come on, But yeah, I got it out in the hide,
like I really am.

Speaker 4 (01:21:20):
I changed my life. So whatever I did is in
the past.

Speaker 3 (01:21:24):
They can't go on more than five years unless it's,
you know, something filing or a murder or something, and
it is what it is, you know. Like I just
really why I came on and just hopefully somebody learns
a little bit, you know, from my story, maybe doesn't
make the same mistake that I need.

Speaker 4 (01:21:37):
That's that's all I go for.

Speaker 1 (01:21:39):
Man, Hey, maybe someone will watch this that is doing
stupid things many say, you know what, I like this guy.

Speaker 2 (01:21:45):
I'm gonna try to do something different. Hey, you never know.

Speaker 4 (01:21:47):
I will tell you what.

Speaker 2 (01:21:48):
If you do.

Speaker 3 (01:21:49):
Just be prepared when you go to prison that it's Yeah,
it's a different you gotta you know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (01:21:53):
It's not like the street.

Speaker 2 (01:21:55):
Hey, you know this best.

Speaker 1 (01:21:56):
My father used to tell me there's a lot of
good kids in prison, right, you know, you make one
bad decision.

Speaker 2 (01:22:01):
We don't ever realize how truly close we are to that,
you know, and.

Speaker 3 (01:22:07):
A lot of fucked up reasons why people even in
prison don't even belong to be.

Speaker 1 (01:22:12):
There, especially at the federal levels. You know, you do
think like you don't even realize.

Speaker 2 (01:22:17):
Like if you steal mail, Like you steal mail, let's.

Speaker 1 (01:22:20):
Say, and you may to give it to your neighbor
because it was in your mail box, they could say
that's a federal crime. Like there's a lot of crazy
federal crimes you don't even know about. What I'm gonna do,
uh sal is if anybody would like to, as long
as you're okay with it, I'm gonna drop your Instagram
in the pin comment of this video.

Speaker 2 (01:22:38):
We'll get you some followers.

Speaker 1 (01:22:39):
Maybe maybe you can help somebody in a way you
don't know, You never know, right, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:22:43):
I'm here.

Speaker 3 (01:22:44):
Well my page is private, but I have no problem
you know, like accepting requests or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:22:50):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:22:51):
Also I noticed in your in your Instagram you're a
big bike guy. You like you like like motorcycles and stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:22:57):
Yeah, from a young age, I always rode, uh dirt bikes,
four wheelers, everything. My brother too, was was big with that.
He's known like in uh basically in the in the
five borrows.

Speaker 4 (01:23:11):
Well with that because you.

Speaker 3 (01:23:12):
Know he basically the like stunts and movies and stuff
in the past. So yeah, I'm very big in the
bike life.

Speaker 2 (01:23:19):
Very cool.

Speaker 1 (01:23:20):
Well listen, I'll drop your Instagram in the pin comment.
Everybody go check out Sal Sal. Maybe someday me and
you will link up. I don't know if I'll be
able to come to Staten Island.

Speaker 2 (01:23:27):
Uh, you never know.

Speaker 1 (01:23:30):
But thank you for coming on. I really appreciate it,
and maybe we'll talk to you again soon. Thanks for
joining me.

Speaker 4 (01:23:35):
Sounds good. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:23:37):
No problem, do me a favor. I'm gonna end the stream.
Just hang on and we'll talk offline. Okay, all right,
thanks everybody for watching. We'll see you next week here
on the sit down. H

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Episode Transcript

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Episode 216- From Staten Island To Federal Prison With The Mob

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