Episode 230- FBI Agent Seamus McElearney

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):
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(02:35):
get in everybody to yet another great episode of the show.
And this week we have another interview. He's here with
me right now. Let's bring in FBI agent Seamus McLarney.
We're going to talk about his book, his very distinguished career.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
With the FBI.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
We've talked through a lot of FBI guys over the years,
everybody from Jack Garcia to Mike Campy. We talked to Hi,
We've talked to you know, MYPD We've kind of run
the gamut with the FBI, and today we might have
our most distinguished agent yet, Seamuth McLarney. Thank you for
coming on the show. You had a long and distinguished

(03:13):
career with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. You even met
the President once for your work with the bureau. Thank
you for coming on the show. I appreciate it all.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
Right, Jeff, thanks for having me on. It's great to
be here.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, and we're gonna talk about your book. I actually
read your book in a series of a few days.
You know, people contact me all the time with books
and you know, hey, read this.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Let me know what you think.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
And you know, I always am fascinated by people like yourself,
who you know, you're just kind of a regular guy.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
You join the bureau, you get into organized crime.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
We had Campy on a couple of months ago, his
books right there on my shelf. He was kind of
similar in a way to you, you know, really kind
of focused, very involved with investigations and you're not flipping
people and and getting just the lay of the lamb
with everything.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
I want to start the beginning. This is our first
time speaking to you.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
You're Irish, your very Irish name, You're from the Bronx,
You're the son of of of of Irish immigrants.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Tell me what your life was like as a child.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Okay, I was born in the city and I was
raised in the Bronx, next to two oh seventh Street
and Bainbridge Avenue. I grew up there and then I
went to Cardinals Film in high school in the Bronx,
and then my parents decided to move to Westchester. At
that time, I still remained in in the Bronx, so
I went to I went to high school there and

(04:39):
that's where I grew up. It was great, you know,
it was We had a very great place to grow
up there. Going through school, like you learned a lot.
I had some friends that went the right way. I
had some friends that went the wrong way, So you
had to make choices. My parents always just taught me
to study hard. That that was the big thing that
they told us. They really couldn't direct us on what
to do. So when I went through school, I really

(05:01):
didn't know what I wanted to do. I own a college,
excuse me. When I got out of school, I really
didn't know what I really wanted to do. My parents
actually helped me get through school, so I didn't have loans.
So as a way to kind of repay them back,
I worked for my dad for about two years, and
then someone told me about a job in a bank.
So I worked for a bank for about two years.

(05:22):
Really didn't like like when I worked behind a desk.
So I actually met an FBI agent and the job
seemed just really really neat to me. It was very diverse.
You were doing something different every single day. You could
be going to court, you could be speaking to a CEO,
you could be doing surveillance, and it just seemed like
it grabbed my attention at that point in time, I

(05:43):
started to get into organized crime where I started to
read books about it and I was lucky enough to
get selected code of the FBI. I went down to
Virginia for training. Right before I went to training, actually
I had hurt my knee. It was a long time
knee injury that I had where my kneecap would actually
physically pop out and instead of getting it fixed, I

(06:04):
would just pop it back in. So I went down
to training and I actually hurt my knee down there.
And when you go down to training, there's two types
of instructors that you get. There's one that likes to
run and then one that likes to fight. I would
prefer the one that liked to fight. When I walked in,
and the instructor that I had was probably about five
two hundred and twenty pounds, soak and wet. He liked

(06:25):
to run, so unfortunately I had the runner, and as
a result of the running constantly, I had a bad
knee and I hurt myself down there. They wanted to
what it was called to recycle you either send you
back home, and I was just determined to stick it out.
So I later found out that I had a torn
acl I stuck out the training down there when it

(06:46):
had torn acl which is a very tough thing to
do if anyone had ever had a bad name, and
I was able to graduate on time. And what happens
is with the Bureau, they determined after about seven weeks
as to where you're going to be sent. Thankfully, I
was sent back to New York because that's my roots.
Because if they had sent the need to say Texas
or something, I really don't know if I was able

(07:07):
to deal with that. So thankfully I was sent back
to New York. When you're back here for about six months,
they send you through a rotation, through surveillance, through the
operations Center. There's different things that they send you through.
Then ultimately you get sent to a squad. During that
six month time period, I was trying to do as
much as I possibly can. Right you want to try

(07:27):
to distinguish yourself from other agents. You work nights, weekends,
you work as many shifts as you possibly can, try
to get a good reputation because everyone knows within the
Bureau your reputation is what's going to make or break you.
And thankfully I had spoken to a couple of people
on organized crime and sooner or later I got drafted
to organized crime. In December of nineteen ninety eight, I

(07:49):
got sent to a squad called C ten, which at
that particular time was handling the Banano family. So when
I first got to CE ten, I was working the
Bananos particular time, which was in December of nineteen ninety eight,
they were also starting to work the Decavalcanti family. And
you're probably wondering, You're like, Okay, how is the New

(08:09):
York FBI working a Jersey family. What happened was prior
to me getting to the squad in January of nineteen
ninety eight, two things have happened. There was the robbery
of the World Trade Center, where I'm sure if you
had remembered that, but there was individuals that robbed the
World Trade Center. They actually did rob the World Trade Center,
but the mistake that they made is they came out

(08:31):
of the floor and they took their mask off right away.
The mastermind behind that robbery was a gentleman named Ralph Guarino.
Ralph Areno was small enough to know that all those
guys got arrested rather quickly. Within days. He was small
enough to call the FBI and try to get out
in front of us, because he was ultimately going to
get arrested pretty quickly. He called a famous FBI agent

(08:52):
by the name of George Hannah. George Hannah was a
Rory Street agent. He's from Brooklyn, he grew up there
his entire life. He's a legend in himself, and he
was able to basically flip Ralph into becoming a witness.
He became a proactive witness. When I mean a proactive witness,
that means he's going to make consensual recordings. And he

(09:13):
basically proactively cooperated Ralph from January of nineteen ninety eight
until December of nineteen ninety nine. Two weeks after that robbery,
a murder transpired. The murder was Joseph Knicklierra Junior Joe.
His nickname was Joe Pitts. Joe Pitts was in a wheelchair.
How he got in a wheelchair was him and a

(09:34):
Decalvocanti soldier named Jimmy Gallop basically went to go collect
money from a loan shark victim. Jimmy Callom shot the
victim of the loan shark victim and basically shot Joe
Pitts and paralyzed him. It was just the cost of
doing business. There was no hard feelings about that. That
was back in the seventies. And Joe Pitts was actually

(09:55):
in a wheelchair for about thirty years or so before
he got killed. As a ruthless person though, he used
to actually call people over to them in his wheelchair
and shoot them and kill them and then we get
people to bury the body, which is an insane thing
to think about, correct. So those are the two things
that kind of started the case. When you have a
proactive witness, you never know where that witness is going

(10:17):
to take you, right, And that's how we kind of
got to the Decavalcanti's because unbeknownst to the FBI is
that the de calvial Canty's had a violent Brooklyn faction,
and that was numerous people such as Vinnie Palermo, Anthony Capo,
Anthony Rotundo, and George Hannah proactively operated Ralph Orino for

(10:39):
about two years up until December of nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
Would I want to talk about the Brooklyn kind of involvement,
because the one thing I've noticed about that family is
obviously they have the Elizabeth.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
Group, right the John and the guys like that.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
But you mentioned Anthony Bertundo, whose father was a long standing.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Member of that family from Brooklyn.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
A lot of people don't know many Palermo's brother was
a member of the Colombo family. Yeah, they had Rudy Faron.
They had all sorts of guys in that area. But
I want to go back a little bit before you
joined the bureau. You mentioned like you're from the Bronx.
When you were a kid, you know, growing up, did
you ever see mob guys? Did you know much about

(11:20):
that world?

Speaker 3 (11:21):
You like, not really? Uh, the neighborhood that I grew
up in was mostly an Irish American neighborhood, so we
really didn't see too many wise guys there. We had
heard about them, and of course, you know, because I
went to Spowman and there was a lot of people
next to Porchester, which a lot a lot of Banano
people are around there, so you would meet them during
high high school and things like that. And when you

(11:43):
went to high school, you know, there was a lot
of people that you start to run into there, so
you start to learn about it more more and more,
you know, so yeah, you learn, like you like, you
learn a lot as you start to grow up quickly.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
Sure when you when you joined like the FBI, I
always wanted this obviously, if you become like a cop,
a lot of the time you start in like as
like a beat cop or whatever, like you know, in
a neighborhood or wherever. Do you start just like surveillance,
do you start just doing all sorts of different things?
How does that work?

Speaker 3 (12:14):
So when you join the FBI, when you go to
New York, there's a rotation that they put you through.
So you'll do surveillance for a couple of months, you'll
do we work the operations center, and then you also
work the applicant squad. So when unbeknownst to me, when
I was going through the process, people would show up
at our office where I was working to interview people

(12:37):
that I was working with to do a background check.
And here I am thinking that I'm talking to a
seasoned agent, not that I didn't know. But when I
joined the bureau then and got through the process, then
I found out that the individual who was interviewing me
had only been on the job himself for about a year.
So that's part of the new process when you become
an agent. So there's a whole rotation that you go

(12:59):
through for about six months. This is just in New
York and the other field offices it might be a
little bit different, but in New York that's that's the
way it is. And then it's basically you learn as
you go, right, and like like we're going to get
into that because I don't want to jump the gun here.
But Anthony Capo is the one that schooled me on

(13:20):
organized crime. And that's a picture of them right there. Yeah,
and that's from his arrest in December of nineteen ninety nine.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
And you had a you know, one thing about your
book that I realized is you had kind of one
of the more distinct relationships I've ever seen with an
agent and kind of a cooperator, right, you get.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
Them to flip. But one thing I also noticed about
your book.

Speaker 1 (13:44):
You mentioned in the book that when you join the FBI,
a lot of people just assume like you graduate college
and just go to the FBI.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
It's more like you.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
They want people that have experienced life, whether it be
like maybe you were, like you said, in a in
a bank, you like some sort of accountant, or you know,
you had some sort of Why is that is it
just they want people to have experience in the world,
the real world or right.

Speaker 3 (14:11):
So back then, the average age of an agent was
close to thirty years, like years old. That's the age
that they wanted people to go in. And the reason
for that is they want you to have some life
experience so that you could bring something to the table
that you've experienced before. So after I went to college
and worked for my dad for about two years to
repay back him, like trying to get me through school

(14:32):
without loans, I went into audits. So I worked, I
worked in the banks, I worked for an insurance company.
So I did audit for roughly about six years or
so and before I started the process of getting into
the FBI. But that's what they liked. They liked accountants,
they liked lawyers, they like people that were in the
in the in the service like the army and the
Navy whatever. So but that's like the feels that they like.

(14:53):
They want people to have experience so that when you
join the bureau, you can bring life experiences that you've
done some sort of jobs before, as opposed to being
right out of college where you don't have any light
life experiences. So thirty years old was the basic average
age that they would use back then.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
So in terms of Guarrino, he's kind of involved in
this crime.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
He wants to get out of it, so he starts talking.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
He's an associate of these people, and he realizes it
should be a treasure trow for him because he get
out of the robbery bit that he had, and how
does it kind of transfer to Capo Rotundo all those guys.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
So, as I said, he identified the Brooklyn faction of
the Cavalcanties. He was like a lifelong guy who is
into truck hijackings like that. So he kind of got
pushed into the Decavalcanti's of the Brooklyn faction and that's
how we started to get into them. So he got

(15:54):
into like Joe Scaffani, Anthony Rotundo and he just kind
of there's a picture of mister Ortunda right there. So
he just started to get to those guys, and you
just never know where a proactive witness is going to
go to. And it wasn't just the Decavalcanties. He got
to some Colombos, He got to some of the Luchese family.
There was different families of that initial indictment. Now what

(16:17):
happened was it got to about December of nineteen ninety
nine where we had to pull them off the street
because there started to be whispers that he might be cooperating.
There was also in this there was whispers after which
we didn't know until after we made the arrest that
there actually was a leak in the Southern District where

(16:37):
there was allegedly a court reporter who was feeding information
to the Genabees family, to Fritzy Giavenelli. So I get tasked.
I'm a brand new agent. When you're a brand new agent,
you're doing all the grunt work. As I said, we
had Ralph who made probably close to three hundred recordings
during that two year period. We had a dedicated surveillance

(16:59):
team on Ralph to protect him. It was SO two
that was led by Joseph Sconzo, So they were on
him where they could be surveilling him like twice a day.
So as part of being a new agent, I was
tasked to basically put all the surveillance locks together, follow them,
get them into a file, and make copies for the attorney.

(17:19):
Same thing with the consensual recordings. So it was great
for me, even though it was grountwork, but it was
a way for me to learn the case. So I
was learning like pictures and consentra recordings, listening to these guys,
and it was a great way for me to learn
the case. So when it came down to take down
the case, I thought I was just going to be
on a surveillance team, on like an arrest team. I

(17:41):
didn't know what I was going to be doing or
even if I was going to be on a team
because I was so new. But unbeknownst to me, they
actually made me the team leader of Anthony Cappo. I
didn't even know who Anthony was at the time. I
later found out during my process because what I did
was I studied him from head to toe, just like
I was going to take a test. That he was
a very violent soldier within the Takaalakanti family who was

(18:04):
hated by law enforcement because of the way that he
talked to law enforcement. So, but I had watched George
Hannah because he was sort of my mentor. I saw
the way that he treated Ralph, and it was always
with organized crime, you want to get to the next
player where you're trying to get people to flip. So
that's why I decided, that's why I was going to

(18:24):
try to approach mister Capo. And at the same time,
the Eastern District was trying to get Anthony Capo arrested
as well. There was kind of a race to actually
get Anthony arrested because they knew that there was a
lot of charges on him from the Eastern District as well.
So I got tasked as a team leader to arrest him.

(18:45):
And he lived in Staten Island, and that was the
beginning of the end for him, where I studied him
from head to toe. I went to go arrest him
that day, he was not at his house, so he
went to arrest him at his house. He wasn't there,
So then that changed everything. All the planning that I
had went out the window, and now we're on Now,

(19:06):
now we're on the fly. I have to go to
his mom's house, so I air to meet his mom,
his stepfather. I saw right then and there the relationship
that he had with his parents, So that was kind
of different from when I had heard about him, right
that he was such a ruthless person. And then we
brought him. I got him in the car and we
started to get a little banter, and I had done

(19:28):
my research and found out that he was a diabetic
as well, so I made sure that he that I
had chocolate, I had orange juice as well in some
cases blood. His blood sugar was low, and he saw
that I did these things, so we started to develop
a relationship that day. He also was a Cowboy fan.
I'm a Steeler fan, so we had this instant banter

(19:49):
back and forth related to that. And as I said,
one of the things that I did was I learned
and I studied him, and I saw the charges that
he had at that particular time, if I remember correctly,
there was conspiracy to murder Charlie Majury and there was
a stock for a charge. So he immediately invoked his
right to council. So I told him, don't say a word, right,

(20:10):
I said, I just want you to listen to me.
And what I did, based upon some of the recordings
that I got from Ralph, is I knew related to
the conspiracy that murdered Charlie Majury, that there was a
cop on his block, and that's one of the reasons
why they didn't kill him. Their plan was to basically
ring Charlie's doorbell and instead of doing a ring and run,

(20:30):
they were going to ring the doorbell and kill him.
So because they had a cop on the block, that's
why they did it. So I just gave him a
little tidbid and made him think about that. I told
him don't say a word, because he had already invoked
his right to council. I said, just listen to me.
So it was kind of like food for thought. Then
I would play with him and say, Okay, what's your
date of birth? Before you could answer, I would tell

(20:51):
him his day to birth. I'd ask him, what's your
Social Security number? Before you could answer that, I tell him.
So I'd let him know that I knew every thing
about him. So that was made made him think.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
About things when the real quick when you when you
got him in the car, you knew the kind of
guy he was. He was a rudeless individual. You know,
I've heard stories about you know, he was in a
he was in a bar and I think stabbed somebody
over over a girl something.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
Yeah, he had a bad reputation. As we'll start to
talk more, it's like when I started to debrief from later,
you know, some of the things that he was telling me.
It was scary to you know, just to sit there
next to him, just hear him say things like it
was nothing, you know what I mean. But one of
the things that he did say on that ride back
was you know, and I don't I don't know how

(21:39):
he was kind of trying to say it to me,
but he let us know that there was a leak,
and he said, we knew we we knew you were
coming because I got a call to let them know
that I had him. And then I started to hear
that most a lot of people were not at their
homes when they went to go pick them up. They knew,
and then we knew that there was a leak. So

(22:00):
that had started everything. So just to fast forward, you know,
we spend the day together and there's a lot of
banter back and forth, and I had to deal with
his father and he saw that I treated him with respect,
and you know, because of the charges that he had,
he decided to cooperate. You know, that was that was

(22:20):
the goal, right to get him to flip. Now, unreknownst
to me because I think I'm young when just trying
to do my job, I had never known that no
one had ever flipped before in that family, no maid
member had ever flipped in the in the history of
their one hundred plus years. So he flips, and now
we have to profit, right, That's that's when they come

(22:42):
in and they basically have to tell you everything that
they did and then you determine if you want to
get to the next stage to actually make them a
witness or not. So during the first profit he comes in,
and first of all, when you do things like this,
the first thing you have to do is make them
eat the indictment. And what that means is them tell
you about all the charges in the indictment that you

(23:04):
just charge them with to make sure that they're telling
you the truth and making sure that you got everything right.
So that's the first thing he did that we were
solid on the conspiracy murder Charlie Majury and also solid
on the only the stock for a charge. Then he
tells us about the leak, Then he tells us about
the Fred Weiss murder. Then he tells us about the

(23:27):
John Demodel murder, which we know nothing about. So and
when you have a very short period of time to
actually get this information out of him, because he can't
be away from hisself for too long because the Enterprise
guys are going to know that something is up. So
then you know, during this quick time period, we have

(23:48):
to assess is this guy telling like telling us the
truth or not? And we all Scott and plus I'm
in a room. I'm brand new, right, So I'm in
a room with Kenny McCabe, legend every Southern District investigator,
George Hannah, legendary agent, Maria Barton, awesome ausa who just

(24:09):
put this indictment together, and me, I'm keeping my mouch
shut so I don't say anything stupid, you know what
I mean. So less is more here, so and I'm
just trying to learn. So everything works out fine. And
then he's telling us where he thinks the bodies are buried,
where he thinks John de Motto is buried, where he

(24:30):
thinks Joseph Garafano is buried. And he thinks they're buried
at Phil Lamella's place up in Marlborough, New York, because
still Lamela had a recycling center up there. He didn't
put the bodies there, but he was told that that's
where they went. So we reconvene. We believe he's telling
us the truth so now we're going to have to

(24:50):
move him right, So this starts a whole chain ball
of reaction and then I'm going to have to start
to get a search warrant because it's in the Northern
District of New York. That weekend, I have to get
together put together a search one, and we're going to
go and do a search warrant up there. So that's
what we do, like the next week.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
From his arrest to his cooperation. How how quick was that?
And okay, wow within a week.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
When you had him first in the car, there was
an old Gambino guy, his name was fat Andie Rugiano,
and he made a comment once that informants are born
they're not made right, they're born that way. Did you
get the feeling that Capo you mentioned he you know,
he had a reputation made for toalking down to the police.
Wasn't a big fan of them, most wise, guys aren't.

(25:40):
Did you get the feeling that he would flip? I mean,
did you feel like maybe he's a little weak in
that sense?

Speaker 3 (25:46):
Not really, you know, that was going back and forth,
and I didn't think he was going to flip, you know,
I just you know what I think it was too,
I think, and we had talked about this as years
went by, Like he saw on me that I was
just a regular street guy, and I think that helped

(26:07):
things where you could be just a regular person. I
wasn't some sort of a nerd or something that you know.
And he often joke, which is a little scary, that
maybe if I went the right path, he could have
been an agent. I'm like, I don't think that could
have happened, but you know, but he could have. He
could have lived a different light if he had chosen

(26:28):
a different path. And now all these guys that grow
up in a different hood, so you can't judge them
for that right. They're all taught, you know, to hate
like law, like law enforcement too, so it is what
it is. But you know, we would have these discussions
like that, you know what I mean. So he decided
to flip really quickly. I was shocked, tell you the truth.

(26:49):
I remember what happened was his lawyer called me on
like a Thursday night or something and said he wanted to,
you know, to cooperate.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
I was I was.

Speaker 3 (26:58):
Looked, just looked, just blown away. I immediately called the
attorney and she was, you know, she was really uh
like she was afraid. What like, what did I say?
You know what I mean, because I was so new
and I just said, oh, I'm going to speak to you,
and that's how it all started, you know.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
So do you think it was your rapport building that was?
You know, I don't want you know, you seem like
a humble guy. You're not, you know, a guy that's gonna,
you know, exute much. But you have to admit you
probably were the reason for it. I mean, just your
ability to just kind of know him a little bit,
do do something here or there. Now again, a lot
of it pride to do with his charges and you
just don't want to go to prison.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
But do you think your rapport building helped considerably with that? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (27:39):
You know, like I don't want to take the credit
for it, but this is from his mouth. He like,
he actually told me too. He goes, if it wasn't
for you, I wouldn't have done this. And you know,
believe him though. I do believe him, because you know,
it's all about the time of the timing too, right,
you know, But I I do think the report that

(28:01):
we built, the respect that I showed him, you know,
it's like I always tell guys too later who I
had to supervise, It's like, don't be a tough value.
If you're not a tough guy, these guys they figure
you out within five to ten minutes tops, you know
what I mean. So, and plus I always tell people too,
there's a day you have to give the badge back,

(28:22):
So don't try to be a tough guy behind the badge,
because that's.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
Not going to work.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
Treat people with respect the way you would want to
be treated. And that's how that's how I always start too.
If I was to be locked up, I wouldn't want
some jerk off trying to give me a hard time,
you know what I mean. Just put yourself in their shoes,
you know, make just treat them with respect, you know
what I mean. We're on that side, they're on on
on here. Just be just be respectful, you know what
I mean. And that's always worked for me, you know.

(28:48):
And and I've had plenty of bad guys who we've
just agreed not to not not to cooperate. We're still cordial,
we're still friendly. I'm not going to to name names,
but it's like we can have a conversation and just
move on, you know, and that's just the way it is.

Speaker 1 (29:04):
You mentioned real quick, you mentioned the kind of fact
that it was so historical that Anthony Copple flipp because
he was the first person to ever do this. This
is a family that goes back really deep, you know
about like you know, early to mid nineteen tens, twenties.
What also happens though it was kind of a wave
of people then start to do.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
It as well.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
But take me back to Marjuri. Tell people a little
bit about who Charles mcjury is. Tell people a little
bit about who John de Motto was, because John to
Motto was actually kind of the inspiration a bit for
storyline and the sopranos.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
Tell people a little bit about Marjuri.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
Though so John so John Demono made himself the acting
boss after John the official boss, it was Riggy went
to jail and he actually ended up getting killed in
nineteen ninety one, I believe. For you know, it all
depends on who who we actually speak to. You know,

(30:02):
not to judge anyone because times have changed everything. But
back then, you know, from what I was told by Anthony,
he told me that it wasn't acceptable for John Demoto
to be having homosexual relationships with people right, and that
he couldn't be the boss of the family. But that's
ended up. That was one of the reasons why he
got killed. He speak to Anthony Rotundo, and Anthony Rotunda

(30:24):
would tell you the main reason that he got killed
was because he owed so much money to everybody else
and he was borrowing money from the other families and
saying that it was for the Decalvacanthy family. Meanwhile it
was for himself. So he got killed. Back in nineteen
ninety one, Anthony actually was a shooter on that particular
of the murder on that one and Victor DeCaire was

(30:47):
the driver at that particular time. Anthony Campell reported to
Anthony Rotundo and if I remember the conversation correctly, he
got his orders from Rudy Faron and Vinsta Palermo and
Anthony Rotunda and Anthony Kappo, who is a stickler for
the rules as well, made sure that he got the
order from his captain at the time, Anthony Rotundo, in

(31:07):
case anything ever came back to want and related to that,
he wanted to make sure that he got his order
from his captain. Charlie Majury actually had a father named
Frank Majury, who was a Dikel Canti Made member as
well Charlie Majury after Tomato gets killed. He's always been
a Made member and had a buye for Power back

(31:29):
in the late nineteen nineties before the show came out.
He actually became part of the ruling panel. There was
a three man ruling panel. After Jake Maury gets killed.
I'm sorry he didn't get killed. He actually dies of
stomach cancer in nineteen ninety seven. After that happens, Steve
Tavley implements a ruling panel. The ruling panel was Jimmy Palermo,
Vini Palermo, and Charlie Macjury. It's ironic when we talk

(31:52):
about the show back and forth, but if you watch
the first season of the show, real the boss in
the show actually dies of stomach cancer. The real life
guy is Jacob Maury who died and I believe it
was June of nineteen ninety seven. Jackie, Yeah, so he
dies of stomach cancer. And the real life guy is
Jake and Maury who dies of stomach cancer. And I

(32:13):
believe Jake died in nineteen ninety seven.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
I believe you have a part in your book where
you kind of talk about how I believe it was.
Joe Tinier Skolfani is on a wide top phone call
where they're talking about the sopranos and he says, you know,
are they supposed to be us?

Speaker 2 (32:31):
You know?

Speaker 1 (32:31):
Is that? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (32:32):
So the show starts in January of nineteen ninety nine.
I get to the squad in December of nineteen ninety eight,
and then in March of ninety nine, Rob Corino, I
believe it's in a car with uh Anthony Rotundo and
I believe Joseph Tinos Scoffani and they're talking about the show.
And the show had only been out for about three months,

(32:53):
and it was great for trial, right, It was great
to play a troll, especially the transfer of a trial
where they're saying, oh, this is you, this is you.
So it's kind of hard to you know, to you know, say,
to defeat that a trial when they were talking about
the show, and even during like during the actual trial,
the judge had to give instructions about the show too,
because making sure that anyone on the jury wouldn't you know,

(33:17):
say that the show would influence their decision during the trial.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
Oh really, wow? He actually made that comment.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
Wow, that's absolutely interesting, because I wanted to answer you
about was was that what did it make it more
difficult to like prosecute people because of the show or
you know.

Speaker 3 (33:34):
No, it's like and that started. I did like a
year of trials from December of two thousand and two
up until probably November of two thousand and three. The
first trial was the Joe Connigliero trial, the murder that
we talked about there before. I wasn't sitting at the
table there was. It was Nora Connley Stacey Bowery were

(33:55):
at the table. But that that trial was the murder
of Joe Pitts. We called the wheelchair trial, where you
had a bunch of people that actually went to trial
that time. Mike Massa took a plea deal on the
EVA trial. He took like thirty five years. He took
a plea deal. We actually tried to get him to

(34:15):
cooperate even before the December ninety nine arrest, and he
just would not played ball with us, even though we
knew that Joe Kitts tortured him, you know, extorted him
left and right, and he just would not decide to
cooperate with us. So we knew that he had some
involvement with the murder, and he eventually ended up being

(34:39):
arrested and on the EVA trial he decided to take
a plead. A couple of people ended up going to
trial and they were convicted. Two people got life. It
was probably one of the best consensual recordings we ever
had where on Marney Lewis was the actual shooter and

(35:00):
on we have one tape of them talking about the
actual shooting and if I remember correctly, Morning Lewis and
them described the cooperator was Timy Detour who was arrested
in December of nineteen ninety nine. On the consensual recording,
they actually say that we shot him. We got out
of the car and then Joe Pitch drove up the

(35:22):
street and put his signal on and drove himself to
the hospital, which is insane. Yeah, when he was driving
to the hospital, though, he stopped at Joe Brightson's house.
Joe Wrightson was part of the murder as well, picked
up Joe Brightson and drove him to the hospital with him.
So you can imagine Joe Brightson's face when the guy

(35:44):
that he just conspired to kill shows up at his
house to pick him up to drive him to the
hospital because he had just been shot. But it's one
of the best consensual recordings of Bureau ever had because
you have the whole murder on tape. So there was
no there there was no way they were going to
be that a trial.

Speaker 1 (35:59):
The big question that then, I think a lot of
people then have is you know, I've seen you mentioned
massa you get you know, takes a plea. Why even
offer a plea the case is so strong? Why why
does the Bureau do that? Because like I've I've seen
them off the trees to guys with five bodies, you know.

Speaker 3 (36:15):
Because especially nowadays, right, getting twelve people to agree on
anything is really hard to do. And then when you
get someone to plead guilty, it's a plea and it's done.
When you go to trial, there's an a and there's
an appeal process that goes on for years, goes on

(36:35):
for years. So appeal appeal is a solid, solid deal,
you know what I mean, where it's over. It's like
when I work gangs. After I did this for about
fifteen years, we're a guy who took a plea deal
for forty years. Yeah, and you you got to look
at it both ways. Right from my side, it's like,
all right, it's forty years. We couldn't went the trial

(36:57):
and gotten life. But think of it from his side too,
he took forty years, you know what I mean. So
you go like you got to think about that too.

Speaker 2 (37:04):
There's a there's a guy in the Columbo family, Vito Guzzo.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
He took thirty eight years. He just got out recently.
So yeah, I guess that's true. I mean there's also
that little word called technicality, where you know you can
have those pop up. You mentioned the appeals process is
always lengthy and drawn outs. That makes sense with Capo.
I think the interesting thing about him is it was
a long process. He had been he had to testifying

(37:30):
a lot of different trials.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
You know, you had to kind of move him around.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
And the wild thing that a lot of people don't
talk about is September eleventh happens during all this stuff.
So it was a kind of a long process with
Capo and these other guys.

Speaker 3 (37:44):
Yeah, and you know what was great was okay, so
he's the he's the first one to flip, right, and
then because he was so wild to control, he reported
to Vinnie Palermo, right which what turned out to be
horrible for Vinnie because he did a lot of his
violent acts with Vinnie. Vinni at the time became the
acting panel boss right back in nineteen ninety seven after

(38:07):
Jacob Murray dies. So Vinnie was a businessman. He's got
to make a decision, right does he cooperate or not cooperate?
And he actually decides to cooperate, So he cooperates back
in March of two thousand. Then right after that, Victor
Diquierra decides to cooperate. Victor was the one who was

(38:28):
the driver and the John Demoto murder, so then he
decides to cooperate. So now we have we go from
no cooperators in one hundred years to having three cooperators
in literally four months. So then it's pretty unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
Bonano's had the same thing happened to them Frank Cobo,
And then it's funny.

Speaker 3 (38:48):
You bring that up because this squad C ten was
doing both families at the same time. It's a historic
squad where we're split down the middle. Half of us
are working Bananos, half of us are working the Cavalcanti family,
and we're dismantling two families. At the same time, it
was unheard of. We were like working around around the clock.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
Tell me about it, Tell me about Viney Ocean. You
know a lot of people believe that. I don't think
he's to say he's the inspiration for Tony Soprano was
probably a little crazy.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yeah, what I got was he what was he like?

Speaker 3 (39:23):
Well, he was a smart man, lots of a business savvy,
lots of types of businesses that he had. You know,
he made a business decision, you know, actually to like
to cooperate. He negotiated that he wanted to be out
on bail. So again that caused a lot of manpower

(39:44):
to be very lean for us. As I said, we're
trying to dismantle two families at the same time. We
put him up in a safe house, so that's twenty
four hour protection. So we had to do that. Here
I am trying to the brief capo at prison, so
I'm going back and forth. I'm a new agent, so
I'm actually learning organized crime through him. For he's teaching

(40:07):
me at which is awesome. I'm sitting down and he's
telling me all the crimes that he's committed, which you
know is a little scary when I'm taking notes and
listening to all the crazy things that he's done, right,
you know, from Homer rate from home invasions, which to
me was probably the most despicable thing because you know,
like you hear these stories where they dress up as
cops and you know, like you're going into somebody's house

(40:29):
on a false pretense that you know there's an intruder
in the backyard or something like that, which is really
really bad, right, And you put people down and you
tie them up and you steal things from them, which
is really bad. And he knew that kind of like
tick me off too, so he would try to like
back that down a little bit too. But like all
the crimes that you could think of. So as I

(40:49):
as I started to say that before, we have these
three cooperators together and now we're going to take all
their information and lead us to the next arrest. So
we have Benny at a safe house where we're starting
to guard him. He wanted to make himself human to us,
so he would cook us food, you know, which is
kind of odd, right, But he did have the experience

(41:13):
through the restaurants that he had, so he was a
great cook, right, you know, and he you know, he
would do push ups and sit ups and try to
keep himself in shape, and he tried to talk to you.
So the whole thing was just kind of odd though. Right.
It's like here you are with the boss that you're
trying to protect, like you're trying to protect him at
a safe house. We have multiple things that are happening

(41:34):
at the same time where we're trying to debrief Capo.
We have Victor now so, and you got to keep
all these guys. They can't be together because you fear
of collusion, right, which you deal with that at trial
where they try to say these guys all got together
and they have their story straight, which never happened.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Right.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
You got to keep them away from each other. So
then we have all these three guys together. They all
have to plead guilty. And when you plead guilty, you
just don'tte guilty to the crimes that you're charged with.
You have to tell the government all the crimes that
you have done and what people don't understand either. And
this happens some of the trials too. When you plead guilty,
it's not like you say that I did this crime

(42:14):
with Vinnie and Joey and Tommy whatever. It's just that
you're pleading guilty to the murder of John Domatto. So
you say I and others. You don't say who those
others are. Just say that. When I'm debriefing him, he's
telling me who the others are. And that's how we
charge people later. But when you when you plead guilty

(42:34):
and you go in front of the judge and even
your plea agreement, that's what it says. So we get
these three cooperators together, we get all their information, and
now we're going to have our next set of indictments,
and that takes us to October two thousand and that's
known as the Hierarchy indictments, where we basically take the
official boss, we take the two other panelmount like Jimmy Palermo,

(42:59):
Charlie Major, we take the consiglieri, Steve a Tabli, a
bunch of captains, and that's coming up on the twenty
fifth anniversary of that. That'll be October nineteenth, that'll be
the twenty fifth anniversary of that.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
I never I never used the word, you know, defunct
a lot of the time when it comes to these families.
But in terms of what these investigations. In the end,
there were seven trials, seventy men defendants were convicted or
pled and you serve I believe you figured out eleven
murders or so right, it's pretty much destroyed. Did the

(43:35):
Cavalcanti crime faundly due to the fact that most of
the governing body went to prison. I want to ask
you though, about the people that cooperated and let's say
the people that didn't. You know, the people like Missouri Batabili, Pino,
all those guys, old timers, been around a long time.
Why do you think some of them just saying, O,

(43:57):
what bucket? Essentially, I'm going to jail. I have no
interest in talking to you. And why do some people
become Anthony Capo or Rotundo? Like?

Speaker 2 (44:07):
What is it in them? Do you know? I mean
you were around these people, do you know?

Speaker 3 (44:12):
Yeah? It's like it's hard, it's hard to say why.
It's like I respect them for it. I've said that
to them before, that they don't want to play ball.
I respect their decision. I don't understand it, you know,
I don't want I couldn't go to jail for twenty
to thirty years. That's not me. You know, some people
thrive like thrive in jail. It's like, you know, I've

(44:33):
seen some things like like Charlie Stango, he spent most
of his adult life in jail, you know what I mean.
But that's not for me, so you can't. And it's
just that's some of these guys, that's what they have
grown up with, that's what they're used to. But I
can't determine why, you know what I mean. It's like
it's really hard to figure that out, you know, why

(44:56):
some do and some don't. I think it does come
down sometimes to families too, you know what I mean.
Like we can get intil later about some of the
Columbos and stuff and why people had decided to cooperate there.
But yeah, I think it depends on the family that
you have too, you know.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
What I mean. Yeah, sure absolutely.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
Anthony Capo was a good witness for you, right, He
awsome witness.

Speaker 3 (45:21):
And it's like that's what was so surprising because Anthony
was a hothead, and like I had heard that, and
you know, there was an instance where I actually got
to see it right where, you know, when I met him,
at first, he was very calm, very cool, and then
there was an incident where he was accused. There was
the cultinate murders of two stockbrokers back in I think

(45:41):
it was October of nineteen ninety nine where he was
accused of that, and the Monmouth County the prosecutor's officers
wanted to speak to him about it because they thought
he was a shooter. So they came up and spoke
to him, and he had nothing to do with it,
and he was clear to that. But it was interesting
to see the exchange between them and him because they
came at him really hard and I saw the other

(46:03):
side of him where he gave it back to them,
and I was like, Ah, that's the guy that I
heard about, you know what I mean? But he testified
for me like seven times. And that's seven times that
he testified. That's not the times that he was prep patrial.
He was prep Patril a lot more where people decided
to play out at the last moment. And I have
even heard defense attorneys say, who is this guy that's

(46:25):
on the stand. He's a different person. And that I
can say that I helped him with where I was
able to prep him, coach him, kind of get him
under control, not to be compative, you know, there was
a couple of times where I might have lost Michael
and where I had to kind of refrain myself to say, hey,

(46:47):
if I want him to be calm, I have to
be calm, right, you know. But you know, he was
great on the stand and each time he got better
and better, and you could see he would it's not
smart with the defense attorneys, but he was able to
handle them. And you know, he would banter with them back,
like back and forth, not in a combative way, but

(47:10):
in a good way. So and I would say, between
him and Rotundo, they were great for us because Anthony
Rotundo would testified probably seven or eight times as well.
But you know, you could say that they became professionals.
You know. It's funny because at first he no one
wants to testify, right, you know, But I think he

(47:34):
started to enjoy it, like he like this became a
job for him and I. You know, he used to
always say to me too that he wanted to succeed
for me and I and I I bean like, don't
succeed for me, succeed for yourself, Like you know, I
want I want, I want you to succeed. I want
this to be your second chance. To succeed at life.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
I know, when a lot of people read your book
Flipping kap of how the fbit has spent with the
role sopranos, you'll get to know how like really truly
close you you almost were. Anthony Capo ultimately died in
the Witness Protection program. He's pretty young. I believe he
was lay fifties, early sixties, you know, looking back, I

(48:14):
mean it's been it's been pretty long since he died.
Would you say you considered him like a friend? I
know that's kind of.

Speaker 3 (48:22):
You know, yeah, I think that's a little bit much.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
But like you cared like you you Yeah, I definitely.

Speaker 3 (48:28):
Cared, like like cared about him. It's like when I
when I heard that he passed away, that was kind
of a jolt to me. I wasn't expecting that because
of the timing too. It's like we had just spoken
and he was just getting ready to be sentenced, you
know that that was the odd part or like the
like the ear the eerie part where he was going
to be sentenced about a week or two later. So
I thought he was just calling me to you know,

(48:50):
go go go over things again. And he kept on,
he kept on telling me that, Okay, when I go
to court, I'm going to give I'm going to give
you all the credit. I'm like, don't give me the credit.
It's like, this is something that you did.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
You know.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
It's like I'm going to be there to support you.
And I was actually going to speak in court for him,
you know what I mean, because you know that's that's
the sad part. I just thought he never got the
credit that it really had deserved, you know what I mean.
It's like, because if it wasn't for him, this would
not have happened. I'm a firm believer of that. It's
like he started this whole thing of spiral effect of

(49:21):
cooperation of getting Vinny to cooperate, and then Victor and
Anthony Rotundo and and Scarabino. I think all in all,
we had seven people cooperate during that time frame, and
when I look back at things since that time frame
to now, no other made members have cooperated within that family.
So it's like twenty five years plus. You know. It's

(49:42):
a very you know, unique thing to say, you know,
but I really, I really do think I wouldn't you know,
did we have a bond? Yes? Is it someone that
I would go out and have a drink, put or dinner.
I don't know I could say that, but you know,
I do think that he really did make the most
of his second chance and it's unfortunate that he's not

(50:04):
around today.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
And you you also talked about how like when he
went into the program, like you don't like talk to him,
like you don't know where he is, you don't, right,
I learned about the program in speaking to someone that
is connected to Joe Messino and about a year ago. Yeah,
I put a video out about some of the details

(50:26):
that I'd found out about his time in the program.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
He wasn't in for very long.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
But you know the FBI that they just kind of
move you somewhere random and they just throw you somewhere,
and it's it's kind of a quiet, lonely existence. You know,
a lot of the time, the families don't go with you.
Sometimes they do, but you didn't have like any content.
You just kind of found it out and that was it.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
Well, the Whitsick program is run by the Marshall Service, right,
so you work hand in hand with them. There's a
lot of paperwork that you have to go through. They
really do like vet out the person making sure. The
biggest thing is they want to make sure that the
individual is not going into the program to hurt someone,
and then they do. They do a great job. They
got to make sure that they're plotting out the states

(51:13):
so that you're not with some with some with someone else,
to make sure that you're not both in the same state.
There is a process that they have where if Anthony
wanted to call me, he can't pick up the phone
and call me. He has to go through the Marshall's
service and there's a special number that would pop up
on my screen where I would know that it's them.

(51:34):
Anthony was a little slick where you know, he liked football,
so he would call me and tell me what type
of fan that he suddenly was, right, Like, suddenly I
like the Lions, so I would know that he was
in the or I like the brown so I'm I
know it would be next to Cleveland, right, So he
thought he was slick that way. But yeah, they're very
successful to Marshalls because they they do bet things out.

(51:58):
But it is a process. You mentioned Joe Joe like
Joe Messina there. Uh again, that was the same squad
as me. I was. I was lucky.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
I was lucky.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
I was lucky enough to be on that arrest. That
was Jeff Slett and Kim's case. Uh so I was
lucky to be on on that.

Speaker 2 (52:13):
You you went to his house? Yeah, yeah, yeah, what
was that like?

Speaker 3 (52:18):
Uh? He was he was very smart man. He wanted
he wanted to leave there as quick as he could.
Like he was right, he was ready, He was ready,
he was ready to go. And Joe was very what
was he learn you remember, h I forget. I think
it might have been a sweatsuit, you know what I mean. Yeah,
but he was ready, and like they a lot of
these guys that have been around a long time, they know,

(52:39):
they know the drill. Don't wear a lot of stuff
so that you know, you don't have your watches or
jewelry or whatever. So uh but he but he wanted
to leave really really quickly. And you know, based upon
my career, what happened was after I got through with
the family here, then I got the Columbos, and then
after the Columbos, after the big arrest in January of
twenty eleven, then I got the Banano family back too,

(53:01):
So I had to deal with Joe. Joe testified against
Vincent Basciano. So I had a deal deal deal with
Joe then, so.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
Uh, let's let's stick with the Bananas.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
You also were pretty involved with Vincent Asorrow, you know,
you know he's a guy that you know, we've talked
to him a lot on this channel, had you know,
involvement really since his youth in the life. He was
even arrested later in life for ordering people to like
cars on fire of motorists them off in traffic.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
Just kind of a quirky we know he was. He
had a substance abuse problem when he was young.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
Degeneral gambler from what I know about him, tell me
a little bit about Minie Sorrow and what was the
case involving.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
Him, all right, So I kind of dealt with him
at the end. Related to after I got the Banana
family back, we had a proactive witness named Gaspar Balente,
who is his cousin now. Handlers were Adam Maninti and
Rob Yeppler, So they proactively ran mister Valente for a
couple of years. It was no surprise that mister Valente

(54:09):
cooperated when you listened to the recordings, because Vinnie was
extremely nasty to his cousin, to say the least. So
we operated him for a couple of years, and one
of the information that we got was the murder of
Paul Katz. So this is related to Goodfellows, where it
was Jimmy Burke had killed Paul Katz, had Paul Kats

(54:32):
killed in his basement, and had him buried there. This
is back in nineteen sixty nine, and then in the
eighties he used Gasper Valenti and also Jerry Osarrow to
move the body. And at that point in time, Jimmy
Burke had gone to jail for the Boston Point shaving scandal,

(54:52):
and I believe he had allegedly had some cops on
the payroll.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
Back then.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
It was getting a little scared that I he was
going to start speaking to those cops. So we wanted
the body moved, and he had it moved back in
the eighties, the early eighties, So this is one of
the things that Gasper Volente tells us. So now I'm
the supervisor of the squad and in June of twenty thirteen,
one of the last actions of supervisors, we did a

(55:17):
search warrant in Jimmy Burke's basement. So Gasper Valente was
still the witness, and we decided to leave Gasparolenti out
on the street still while we were executing the search
warrant with Vince Nasaro. So Vince Nasara knew that we
were in Jimmy Burke's basement digging for the body, because

(55:41):
you know, these are non professional people that when they
were digging up the body, they were going to leave
parts behind. So we actually left Gasper Valenti out there
for a couple of hours that day just to get
a temperature check to see how Vinnie was going to
react to that. Of course, he wasn't happy and we
took mister Valente off the street that day. Subsequently, we're

(56:02):
doing a dig and what happened. What happened that day
when we were doing the dig is our evidence response
team knocked the water main pipe out, which knocked the
water out for the neighborhood. And I was the commander
Unseene at the time, so we had to get deep
down there. I had the number two guy for deep

(56:23):
come down and kind of look at the situation, assess everything.
He actually turned out to be a guy that went
to Cardinal Spowman and he helped us out with everything.
But during that time period, we had to go to
the bathroom. So we had to go up to next
to Liberty Avenue underneath the train tracks there, and we

(56:44):
go up and I look across the street and there's
a Banano body shop there and who's outside the Banano
body shop? Vincent Asaro, And I'm like, he's right there.
And Benny was still in a great shape. So we're
across the street, we have the Rage Jack and so on,
and we're going We're going to go to the bathroom.
I'm like, we got to say something. And the guys
that I were with, they're like, we can't say anything.

(57:07):
I was like, it, we got to say something. So
we actually go to the bathroom, we cross over to
the train tracks and we're coming back and I know
that Vinnie had a problem with his heart before, so
I stopped and I talked to him with starting some
small talk back and forth, and at the end of
the conversation, I just tapped him on the shoulder. And
well even before that, I just said, oh, we're just

(57:27):
working down the block here, and he knew exactly where
we were and what we were doing, so I just
tapped him on the shoulder and I said, oh, we're
just working down the block here, and I said, at
the end of the conversation, I tapp him on the shoulder.
I said up, I'll see you soon, and then I left.
And that was in June. So January comes, I knocked
on his door and I told him I told you
i'd see you soon. So I took him back to

(57:51):
twenty six feat Old Plaza, and he thought that was
the funniest thing. He was telling everyone that was locked
up that day. He was just laughing his head his
his his head off, and it just showed you that
he had a good sense of humor. Right. So, but
as you know yourself, he ended up he beat that case.

Speaker 2 (58:09):
Yeah, uh wasn't. Wasn't a great witness from what I understand.

Speaker 3 (58:16):
Well that case. You know, I'm not going to get
into why I think they they didn't win, but they
should have won the case. I just thought it was
a very long case and I'm not going to get
into why I don't think they won. But yeah, I
did beat the case.

Speaker 2 (58:34):
You mentioned the sense of humor of sorrow.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
I don't know if you ever saw him, but when
he came out of lock up in getting off that case.
He made a funny comment about bodies in the trunk.

Speaker 3 (58:46):
Yeah. Actually, and then you know, we actually they locked
him up again and that's when he played guilty I
think to the arson and he went to jail for
a couple of years, and unfortunately I think he passed right.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
I believe two years ago.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
We actually, I don't know how much you watched this
mob tube stuff, but the kid that put him in
that that cooperated against him, Jean Burrello.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
He's on these these YouTube streets here, so.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
Yeah, we hear about him a lot, you know, Ronnie
Gesus nephew, and I also want to ask you about.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
The Columbo family. You mentioned them.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
You were involved with a guy we just did a
video on recently, Joey Caves Diino Collabro.

Speaker 2 (59:31):
Yeah. Very he tooked about violent people.

Speaker 3 (59:34):
I mean, yeah, So I was a supervisor a Columbos
squad from after I finished working this case. I actually
was the supervisor Plumbo squad from December two thousand and
four up until June of twenty thirteen. Just as we
just discussed there. When I got to this to the
Plumbo squad, you know, they asked me to go down
and to be supervisor. To be honest, I just thought

(59:55):
I was too young to be a supervisor. I'd only
had six years on on the job with that particular
with time, and I thought I still needed a lot
to learn, even though I was exposed to a lot
at such an early age. But I went down there,
and at that time, I think they had had eight
supervisors in eight years. So I was going from a
great squad to a squad that was in kind of flux.

(01:00:17):
But I said, if I go down there, I definitely
want some sort of stability. So I went down there.
I was able to turn that squad around and we
did some great things. We ended up dismantling that family
and I you know, the first big case we had
was in June of two thousand and eight where we
did arrest was Joe Caves, you know, Collaboro, Sunny Francis,

(01:00:38):
Tommy Gioli, Mike Catapano. So that was the first big
case we had, and that was in June of two
thousand and eight. The first guy to flip in that
case was Joe Caves and we were totally shocked that
he was the first guy to flip. And I have
to give all the credit to the agent was John Fallon,
And how that came about was we had served Joe

(01:01:03):
Cave's subpoena beforehand. And how it went about was John
approached the family, and if I get the story correct,
I remember that he went to go to the house
and his wife was there and she was coming out
of the house with her kids. And John such a

(01:01:23):
great agent, he decided not to approach or write at
that particular time because she was with her kids. So
he let the kids go on the bus, and then
he followed her to Dunkin Donuts and she had seen
him and he went to Dunkin Donuts and that's when
he served it with the subpoena. So a she was
appreciative that he was respectful enough not to do it
in front of her kids, and I think she kept

(01:01:45):
that in the back of her mind. Subsequently, he was
arrested and John was a team leader on that particular arrest,
and again he treated Joe with respect. When you do
an arrest, sometimes you see some items that you might
have to give back. Was a big proponent of that
that you could give an item back. It gives you
an opportunity to go meet a family member and speak

(01:02:07):
to them, because the circumstances are now a little different.
Right on the day of an arrest, you might meet
a family member who's in a different set of emotions
right where they're not thinking straight, or they might be
very hostile towards you. Now, after an arrest, you go
back and you give them an item that you might
have taken, a phone or a phone book or something
like that, and you might have an opportunity to speak

(01:02:29):
to them, and they might think a little that they
might want to cooperate. So we arrested Joe Caves. He
was respectful and then sure enough, and I think it
was the end of August, beginning of September, probably the
beginning of September. John gets a phone call from his
wife that Joe Cays wants to cooperate. So John and

(01:02:51):
myself go out and we meet her and meet her family.
And you know, one thing that people don't realize is
with the witnesses, you just don't deal with a witness,
You deal with family. And Joe had a very close
knit family, believe it or not. Even though a lot
of people say some things about Joe what type of
person he was, and he was, but he was very

(01:03:11):
close to his family, and you know, his wife was
the glue and she was able to get him to cooperate,
and that's how it all started. And I'll never forget
you know, the first first prophet we have with him,
we go in there and he tells us about three bodies,
and the way Joe described, you know, he just says

(01:03:33):
that there's three bodies that are buried right next to
each other. So me and you would think, okay, there's
three bodies right next to each other. Those three bodies
were not right next to each other. Those three bodies
were basically one point one miles apart from each other.
So it was and when someone tells you that there's
bodies involved, what you immediately have to do is you
have to go and secure the site. Because if the

(01:03:56):
mob guys realize that someone is missing right not in
the prison that they say they're in, they might be cooperating,
or if they're in transit, they might be cooperating. So
we had immediately go out to Formingdale Long Island and
secure the site. It turned out when we brought Joe
out there that it was three different sites right there,

(01:04:18):
and the murder victims were wall Bill Caatullo, Richie Greaves
and Carmine Gargano and Richie Greaves was allegedly by the
train tracks, Carmi and Gorgano was on the corner of
the building and while Bill Coatula was in a backfield
by the burn. So that's the first information that we

(01:04:39):
get from from from Joe Caves, which is unreal, right,
can you imagine sitting there, And that's the thing that
you hear. So we are off to the races and
you know, we get our e r t uh like,
we get our e R t like like group out there,
and you know the first you know, back then, there's

(01:04:59):
been a lot of digs that I've been involved with.
Not to jump back and forth, but you get constant
pressure from your bosses like what's going on because now
the meat like you have the press involved. And I
remember in the site where Carmi and Gorgana was put
they had built a new building, so there was a

(01:05:21):
good chance that he was moved during the excavation of
the building. But I'll say it now, we actually did
find a tarp and we found a dog that was
buried in the tarp. Like who puts a dog buried
in the tark. It turned out to be a dog.
So that was the first thing that we found, which
wasn't a body. It was actually a dog. So that

(01:05:44):
was there was a no go there. And again I'm
getting constant pressure from my boss's what's going on? This
is happening every day, and I'll jump back to a
Banano thing in a minute. But that was nothing there.
Then we went to the Richie Greaves site, so we
have three different sites at the same time. Nothing there.
And then we have the wild Bill's site in the back,

(01:06:06):
and if I remember correctly, Joe Caves tells us that
there's a berm and it's behind the berm. So we
dig behind the berm. Nothing there. We actually and I
think we were out there probably for maybe eight days.
I'm kind of forgetting right now, but I think it's
close to eight days and nothing. And we had our

(01:06:29):
evidence response team basically dug us an Olympic sized pool.
There was nothing there. But we brought Joe back out
again and he was telling us the berm and we
were looking up at the sky and this is an
amazing story where my team ourselves, they say, Seamus, do

(01:06:51):
you mind if we go get some shovels. I'm like,
why not. It's like we're not We're just looking at
each other. Let's go get some shovels. It turns out
there was a second burn, so we get shovels. See
thirty eight is named the Squad. We get shovels and

(01:07:11):
we dig in one in one in one in one area. Nothing.
Then we dig in another area and loan and behold.
What the Columbos used to do is they used to
kill people, bury them, and then put lime on top
of the body. What lime does is lime kills the
smell but preserves the body. So we're digging and next

(01:07:36):
thing you know, we see the white stuff and I'm like,
holy shit, here we go. So we stop everybody, right
because we're not professionals, right, we stop everybody, you know,
and we're like high fives everything. Because what we do
is we see that wall bill was hogtied face down,

(01:07:58):
his feet were up in the air. I stop everyone
and then I go get E. R. T. And I
bring them back to this site and sure enough it's
wall bill. So that's what we found, a wall bill.
Then what then what we do is I guess About
a month later, we decide Carmi Gorgana was killed in

(01:08:20):
a body shop in McDonald Avenue in Brooklyn. We say,
you know what, let's go back to the to the
body shop. Yeah, and they they killed them there, they
buried them there, and then they decided, you know, this
is not a good idea to keep them there. Let's
move them out to Long Island. So we said, let's
go back to the shop. And we dug in the

(01:08:40):
shop and we're digging ourselves again, our own our own squad,
and what we find the line were like jackpot. So
again we found, unfortunately, pieces of Carmi and Gorgano, and
we were able to tie that to DNA from the
family to give closure to the family.

Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
So that Joe Carmen Gargano, he's uh Carmen Gargano is
a sad story.

Speaker 3 (01:09:09):
It was just uh yeah, yeah, you know, it's already said.
You know, he just got involved with the wrong with
with with the wrong people. You know, it's it's already said.
But Joe Caves started that whole thing, and as a
result of him cooperating, then it was Dino and then
it was Sebbi and you know, just opened the floodgates there,
and you know. One of the things just about that squad,

(01:09:31):
which was just amazing, is we had to change our
tactics right with the Dekelvocanti case. Back then, it was
the early nineteen ninety nine, two thousand and two thousand
and one, and n CIS was just a new show
right where everyone was starting to catch on. Okay, you
can solve a crime within forty two minutes, and it's
like the deep, the deep, like the deep, like the

(01:09:54):
deep the DNA excuse me, where now we had we
had to get everything on tape. So we changed the
strategy that we had When when I went to the
Columbo squad, my first thought process was how am I
going to hit them? So I'm like, okay, I want
to hit them in the pocket and I want to
hit them related to the violence. So we had two

(01:10:16):
different proactive witnesses, right, so we're going to make consensual
recordings and that's what we did. And I think when
I look back, the stats that I remember is we
probably made eighteen hundred consensual recordings in seven and a
half years, which is ungodly where these guys were working
around the clock and people don't understand when you make

(01:10:36):
a consensual recording. It could be three hours long. It
could take you a day to listen to that, to
try to find that little piece of information that you need.

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
Because a lot of it's just like small talk and
stuff that doesn't mean anything. I know you're not going
to answer this, but I'll ask you anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:10:52):
Can't be one answer. I'll ask you where do they
put the wire?

Speaker 3 (01:10:57):
If the wire could be anywhere? And that's the thing that's.

Speaker 2 (01:11:01):
Like that beauty he said.

Speaker 3 (01:11:04):
You know, I'm not gonna tell you, but it's like
the bureau is getting good. It's like we keep adapting
and we we we use things that you would never
think of. And that's that's like the like the best
thing is because the wise guys are good too, you
know what I mean. They're always gonna think like think
like they're always going to think about things. And I'll

(01:11:24):
I'll just say say, say one thing that's like from
where I grew up and like the Bronx. I you know,
one thing is I always try to think like a purp, right,
because that's the way that I was raised. I remember.
And I'm not going to say the the clump, the
columb the Columbo may guy's name, but we went into
a prison, right and they wanted to have the bad

(01:11:47):
guy have the wire underneath the table, and I said,
not a chance in hell. I said. The first thing
the Columbo guy is gonna do, he's gonna flip the table.
And they're like, oh, he's not going to do that.
I'm like, he's going to do that. So I said,
let's do this. So we put him in. We put

(01:12:08):
him into the prison. What happens flips the table? I said,
I told you guys, he's too smart. I was like,
you got to think like me, because I'm thinking like them.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
I'll tell you got to think of it. There's the
guy I won't say who. There's a guy in the
Banano family.

Speaker 2 (01:12:22):
He's rested.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
Within the last few years. He made an individual strip
because he believed that that would be the way. He
didn't realize that technology got so good that they don't
put this big, gargantuan thing on you now. And he
was still recorded. He didn't really watch or in sunglasses.
But I want to play a quick game with you,
quick just quick hitter questions. Then don't talk about your book.

(01:12:46):
We'll get you out of here. In all your time
of being around wise guys and and flipping them and
all that sort of thing. Friendliest mobster you ever around?

Speaker 3 (01:12:56):
Friendly mobster? Hm hmm, that's a good one.

Speaker 2 (01:13:05):
Were there any.

Speaker 3 (01:13:07):
Hey, I never had a problem with with the mobster
like the truth really you know what I mean? Yeah,
like there there was no one that gave that gave,
that gave, that gave me a hard time. I like Steve.
I like Steven Tapley from the like from the Deep,
the Dicabokanti's old school guy, Teddy Persigo.

Speaker 1 (01:13:28):
I liked him really, Yeah, what about a friendly what
about most ruthless guy? Most ruthless guy? You just didn't
get a kind of got a feeling. He was just
different than Joe.

Speaker 3 (01:13:45):
Caves was a bad guy. Yes, he was a bad
guy like Joe. You could see Joe has a switch. Yeah,
you have to be careful and like like not going
some serious would you know he hasn't gotten into any
types of trouble since he's been out, but you know,
Joe has a switch.

Speaker 1 (01:14:04):
Care Did you notice that most of these people did
you kind of think, in a way, man, this is
kind of a shame because a lot of these people
have they're pretty smart, they're they're they're inquisitive, they have
the ability to run businesses.

Speaker 3 (01:14:17):
Look at Anthony Rotunda, right, the guy went to college.
It's just it's the way that he was raised. You know.
If he applied himself or win a different direction and
he did great after he had his second chance, he
had his own business, he did a great job, you
know what I mean. It's all the way that you're
raised too, you know what I mean. So some of

(01:14:38):
these guys, you know, they don't have a chance. So
it's kind of kind of tough.

Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
Do you miss being an FBI?

Speaker 3 (01:14:46):
I miss the people. I think the last few years
it's been kind of tough. They've gotten a lot of
shots thrown thrown at them, you know what I mean.
And you know they're changing the resources too. It's always
been the needs of the bureau and you've seen I
think that just got rid of the C sixteen, which
is tough.

Speaker 2 (01:15:03):
So let me ask you, though you can tell us this,
I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:15:08):
I think it's a little crazy to think that they're
just not looking at the mob anymore. They're just downsizing, right,
that they're what they're just downsizing, right, It's not like
they're gonna stop watching the mob.

Speaker 3 (01:15:19):
Oh yeah, I'd say that they're just not having as
many resources there. It's like the Mom's been around for
one hundred and twenty five years. They're not going away there,
and if you don't put the resources to it, they're
just going to rebuild, you know. And just like we
adapt at work, they're going to adapt. There's always there's

(01:15:40):
always ways there. There are smart guys in the mob.
They're gonna find ways to make money. They always do.

Speaker 2 (01:15:47):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:15:48):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
Final question, you mentioned Sonny Frenzies. Did you ever meet Sonny?

Speaker 3 (01:15:52):
Yeah, because we had a trial with Sonny, So what
was he like? It was fine, but he was older
them too, you know what I mean. So, but Sonny,
we had Sonny on tape a lot, because what happened
was when I first got to the Columbo squad, we
had Guy Fazato, I know if you know that. So

(01:16:15):
the agent that ran him on our squad was Vinny.
It was Dangastino. So Vinnie was a new agent and
he lived out east and he actually ran Guy and
he reported like Sonny a lot, you know, And so
you heard a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:16:27):
So you were able to hear the tape where Sonny
talks about you get a pool and you put a
body in a pool and you use, you know, cut
them up, and you put him in a microwave. You've
heard that, Yeah, a little just a little disturbing.

Speaker 2 (01:16:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16:43):
I would say I urge everybody, if you're if you're whatever,
you're listening, go get the book. Pre order the book.
I really enjoyed this book, Flipping Capo. I've never I've
never really read a book involving maybe Jack Garcia with
Greg de Palmer, but even your relationship with cap but
I think even more kind of interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:17:02):
You almost seem like friends. And I'm not saying you were,
but you had that relationship. Really great book. I loved it.
I enjoyed it a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:17:11):
Well, thank you for for having me on your show.
It's been great to speak to you. And as like
you said, a book has a lot of nice little
tidbits in it, so feel free to buy.

Speaker 2 (01:17:22):
What made you read the book, Well, I had.

Speaker 3 (01:17:24):
Been approached by a couple of people about my career,
so I said, all right, let me give it a shot,
you know what I mean. And I really do think
I don't think anything's been written about our squad, and
I really do think the squad was a really historic squad,
and it doesn't get the justification that they deserve. As

(01:17:45):
I said, the squad basically dismantled two families at the
same time. It was a very unique time period from
ninety nine to two thousand and four and five. So
hopefully this book it does focus on the Jersey family,
but it does give a little since of the Banana
family as well. So and I was blessed to work
with great people supervisors, mentors, teammates, partners. They really did

(01:18:10):
a great job. And also the prosecutors from the Southern
District were just amazing, and I really do think they
spoiled me for the rest of my career.

Speaker 1 (01:18:19):
Something you do in your book as well that I've
never really seen before, and I think it was a
really interesting key to the book. You talk about your
personal life, which I found to be pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (01:18:31):
You know, you talked.

Speaker 1 (01:18:32):
About the loss of your father, you know, just the
tribulations of being an agent and like having to deal
with your regular life because we don't really hear much
about that, you know, like when you watch Donny Brasco,
there's a little bit of that, Like we don't really
know what it's like to on the family that you have.
How do you kind of go through that? I like
that about the book. I thought that was cool kind
of twist to it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:53):
Yeah, and it was. It was kind of like I
was dealing with trying to flip him and my dad
was sick at the time, so you know, and when
my dad passed to get a phone call at the
funeral home from Anthony was uh, it was very surreal
because just a couple of days prior we were up
at Phil Lamela's place trying to look for a body,

(01:19:17):
and then shortly after my dad had passed away. So
it was kind of a unique time period where I
was dealing. I was dealing with a lot at the
same at like the same time.

Speaker 1 (01:19:26):
I pray, I pretty should ask you what your what
did your parents think of all this?

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
Did they?

Speaker 1 (01:19:30):
They find it to be an interesting courage choice for you.

Speaker 3 (01:19:34):
I kind of kept them away from everything. I really
didn't share too much with like, you know, with my
family about it, you know what I mean. So I
think they're going to learn a lot too when they
when when like like read the book.

Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
Yeah, well everybody go read the book. I'm going to
include the link in the pin comment. Go check it out.
It's on Amazon, Barnes and Umble, all the big publishers.
I enjoyed it. I read it quite quickly and I
appreciate them persenting it to me. Seamus maclerning, you're well
to do aging. He did a great job. You were
one of the most introgal, really over the last twenty

(01:20:07):
years of really trying to extinguish the mob in this country.
One thing that I think the FBI did a very
good job of. They're still around, but they're nowhere near
what they once were. Thank you for coming on the
show and good luck with the book. I hope everybody
go checks it out, all right, Jed, thank you, thanks
for having you guys coming down the show and appreciate everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:20:27):
We'll see you next week. Here on to sit down.

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