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Ex-Mafia Enforcer Breaks Silence: The Brutal Truth About the Mob
January 29, 2025
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It started with a scream inside a quiet Maryland home. A mother trying to protect the family dog and her son in the grip of a violent hallucinogenic rage. By the time it was over, she was dead.
And he claimed LSD made him do it. His name, David Minor IV, and we talked to him. Listen to Invisible Choir every other week as we uncover the most haunting true crimes you've never heard of, available wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, I'm Jean Chatsky. You may know me as the host of the Her Money podcast or the financial editor of NBC's Today Show for 25 years.
Today I'd personally like to invite you to join my women-led investing club. It's called Investing Fix with two X's. We walk through current market trends, teach investing fundamentals, and build a real portfolio together. Plus, your first month is absolutely free. So come check us out at investingfix.com. We'd love to have you. I got involved in a bank scam that was huge.
I only got maybe say a million, two million. The guys who got the money was the vice president of the bank. They got eighty million. So they busted the vice president and they forgot about my million dollars. I see all the jurors getting limousine. The next morning I went up to the prosecutor and said, are you guys morons or what? You got all the jurors riding the limousine. You don't think John Gotti is going to reach one of those jurors? He's going to pay off a juror, a bribe him, and he's going to win this case.
Sal, you're looking at too much television. And that's exactly what happened. I predicted it. And of course, years later, Sammy, Sammy the Bull told the story. That's exactly what they did. They paid off a witness, 60 Gs, and Gotti became a superstar.
One time I hijacked the truck and brought it to Jimmy. We went into the building. He said, I'll give you $72,000. And I go, wait a minute. Let's think about this. Let me call Dom. I called Dominic up. He came back down. In an hour, Jimmy said, OK, I'll give you $90,000. I go, we were hijacking so many trucks. We would get information from the guys who worked at Kennedy Airport when we hijacked a truck full of Italian shoes. When I got it over to Jimmy Burke,
I would call up he said come over quickly you got a problem got the guy coming the Jewish guys coming to look at these beautiful Italian shoes you got a problem I go what's the problem you got 8,000 pairs of shoes but they're all left
Hey, this is Matt Cox and I'm going to be doing an interview with Salvatore Polizzi and Adrian Martinez. It's going to be a super interesting interview. Adrian's going to be helping me out. He knows all about Sal and so it's going to be about an hour interview. So I appreciate you guys watching. Check out the interview. So where, where were you, you know, where were you born? Where you was this in, um, you know, New York, New Jersey, Brooklyn, New York.
and i had an italian family i had an uncle that was deeply entrenched in the mob actually uh... my uncle and i think the guy that was my father because i'm not sure my uncle might have been my father my father might not have been my father but in the late twenties twenty nine thirty like couple years before you know prohibition ended they were driving a horse and wagon from long island bringing bulls up to new york city so they were twenty twenty one years old
involved in crime and they knew all these criminals so my uncle tony stayed with crime his whole life because he was a gambler he was a swashbuckling you know high energy guy who drove fancy cars pinky diamond rings beautiful women and eventually in the 60s he got involved with a guy named sonny francis a lot of people knew he was because that's michael francis is right
Michael I met Michael in 78 after he got made shook his hand didn't see him. Oh my god until 2013 we did a show for National Geographic together and they trucked us around the limousine Michael I go Michael you realize you were royalty I was in the street you didn't have to do what I did you didn't rob no banks white-collar crimes
Yeah, yeah, you know Michael was very smart very shrewd So, you know, you never know who you're gonna meet and then 30 40 years later you meet him again or you read about Yeah, so I started out with my uncle in a gambling operation from there I got involved with the guy who came out of prison that was close to Carmine Persico's name was little Dom Dominic Ataldo and he was the hitman and
So the thing about Cataldo was his dad and my uncles and dad, they all knew each other in the thirties. So instantly that's what gives you credibility, family. And I got involved with him and he taught me the ropes. I mean, I used to watch him do hijackings. I wasn't allowed to go near the truck. I would just go to the building where they unloaded the truck. And when they unloaded the truck, I met a guy who I thought was really clever.
And his name was Jimmy Burke, which was the same guy that De Niro played. And believe me, I love Jimmy Burke. He was smart. He was smarter than Scorsese painted him.
He was slick. I mean, he was a gangsta's gangset. He was a great guy. One time I hijacked the truck and brought it to Jimmy. We went into the building. He said, I'll give you $72,000. I don't remember. It was like South American coats, women's coats. And I go, wait a minute, let's think about this. Let me call Dom. I called Dominic up. He came back down in an hour. Jimmy said, okay, I'll give you $90,000. He upped it 18, just like that.
so he was the guy who was sharp he would play the cards i mean you know try to get over on buying stuff because he knew it was stolen and we did well together eventually i was in jail with him i knew his wife mickey
They had guards in the penitentiary that were corrupt. I knew his daughter Kathy, his son Frankie worked for me. He was a car thief. So I knew the family. We were like thick as thieves. That's what they said. Yeah. No, I mean, so salad really, you really at the beginning just started off with gambling and then eventually it just led into more and more crimes and bank robberies, heists and different stuff like that. And in the beginning of this interview too, you was talked about doing a white collar crimes.
and you know that was that's what you know matthew was involved with as well so i mean what what did that look like was that in the earlier years as well i'm assuming no that was that was in the later years of i left new york city i had a million dollars and i went upstate new york about a hundred miles i built the racetrack i actually had two stock car races there i spent about a million dollars in three years then i was property poor and broke so i went back and said i'll take a shot
I'll sell cocaine because cocaine in 80, 81, 82 was really hot. It was the drug of choice. And I got busted selling the cocaine. So, I mean, at that point... How did you get busted? I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar. I had a little blonde girl selling coke for me. They caught her. They
They rung her out, they flipped her, and then she told him who was giving her the coke, and oh my god, this guy's on the triangle up there in Queens with all the other mob guys. But at that point, that was like 84, right around that time I had done a few, you know, computer crimes. One of them happened to be, you know, in competition with Gotti. He didn't know it, but I got involved in a bank scam that was huge.
I only got maybe say a million, two million. The guys who got the money was the vice president of the bank. They got 80 million. So they busted the vice president and they forgot about my million dollars. That was like 1982. Well, when I flipped with the FBI, I met a guy. I said, what do you do? You're an agent. I'll never forget it. His name was Peyton.
And I thought of Walter Payne because he was black. So I do bank frauds and paper crimes. I go, really? Like, what kind of bank frauds? I said, do you ever hear of the chemical bank where the $80 million was? He goes, yeah. Did you get all the money? Because I was the cooperating witness at the point. He says, we got all of it, but about a million. I go, oh. I said, did you know that that Joel D. Cohen, the coin dealer, moved that million? He says, how would you know that?
He got all blustered. He was guarding me, and my agent came in and says, come here, take a walk with me. He said, don't ever talk about that again. We're going to forget you've mentioned it. But I was very egotistical back in those days. I'd just come up here, tell the Fed, say, look, I got away a million. And by the way, God, he was involved in that. And he was ripping off the guy who could move the money. He was only giving him 10 or 15%. When I met the guy, I said, look, I'll give you 50% of the money that you move from that bank to my bank.
That's amazing. So I gave him 50%. Then we made like, you know, a million, million and a half each. That was the first time I did any paper crime. That's what I called it. It wasn't like a violent crime. It was a funny crime. But it wasn't like a crime. That's where I got excited. I got excited with the gun jumping, running toward the cover of a truck or robbing a bank or something like that.
I learned that you could make a lot of money in the 80s with, you know, with the stock market and all that kind of stuff, but it didn't excite me. So once I flipped and left, I went and found other things and how to make money legitimately. And boy, oh boy, did I have a run. I haven't told anybody those stories, but maybe this year we'll start letting some of that out. Yeah. Well, I mean, going back to like when you were, you said you were a teenager and you
When did you first start getting into basically working with the mob? At what age? We just jumped. We just did a huge one-year jump. When I was 20, which was 1965, I was 20 years old and 65, my uncle had a gambling operation. So he taught me gambling in New York. In those days, there was no lotto. There was no off-track betting.
You know, so the mob had like a license, you know, you had bookmaking and then you had loan sharking and they had numbers. Once the city and the state started to change all that, the mob lost their power, but they didn't want to admit that. So in my 20s, I got involved with my uncle, which led me to this guy, Cataldo, Dominic Cataldo. He was a professional
Killer hitman and he was a con he was he was a carless because he became a made guy on the car mine person go So by the time I was 22 23, I was under his wing and I was spoken for in those days The boss would know this was after Joe Colombo got shot which was 72 the boss would know who was with that family and I was officially with the Columbus and
Even though I jockey back and forth with John Gotti, which was Gambino's, I was officially listed with the Colombo. So Gotti had no power over me. I just had to walk a fine line because he was an interesting guy. You know, he wouldn't take any crap from anybody, but I played with him and he played with me. He was a lot brighter than most people think. Oh yeah, to be a boss of a crime family. Hell yeah. I mean, those guys said it'd be geniuses.
I mean in the wrong in the in the wrong in the wrong field but you know I mean you have to be really smart to be a boss of one of them. So I started to do all that stuff you know in my in my 20s by the time I got of course by the time I was 26 my uncle had gone away for bank robbery with Sonny Franzese they were on this national bank robbery investigation and it was my dream to rob a bank so I did rob a bank with two older guys a single book
one guy was funny they were both in their 60s and these guys had been released from Alcatraz and one guy said look we don't have a lot of time to rob the bank because i got diverticulitis and the other guy said what the hell you care he's i got colitis so one guy couldn't take a shit the other guy was shitting all day long
and they couldn't jump over the counter so we were like a comedic three stooges and I ran in there leaped over the counter 26 scooped up the money and I eventually learned a lot from them and moved on because you know all they could do is hold guns on everybody in the bank and you know I wanted more than just 26,000 that was the first bank after that I hit them for 70 80 and in those days Matthew no camera no
Plastic glass, plexiglass, okay? No armed guards in banks. And by the way, nobody used credit cards in 1970s, 70s, 71s. They used like Diners Club or something, you know? So there was one thing in the bank. And they asked, why do you rob banks? Because that's where the money is. And that's what I laughed all the way. You know, we did some tricky stuff.
I don't know
they all got busted literally I think you know the next day they had phone calls they had all this stuff and boom I mean the stuff Sam was talking about I mean you can't do this you can't get away with it unless you're some super tech genius I mean this stuff doesn't exist anymore but no I mean too many cameras man on every block you know and that's why these stories are so I don't know what you did but you probably did paper crimes but how long ago was that how many years
It was probably what about roughly 18 years ago. Yeah a lot different Yeah, we didn't have Google then I don't know Yeah, well, um, so Matthew and do you want to kind of start talking about his uh his involvement with the Sinatra Club and with Yeah, what what at what point what were you doing? So that that was in your early 20s. You're saying now
You know, when did you get involved in the Sinatra club? Did you open the club or? It is what happened. I got shot by a cop. I was driving a Corvette and he tried to pull me over and I went past him. He shot in the back window. The Corvette went in, went into my spine. So I had to get a surgery to get get the bullet out. When I came out, my arm was in a sling. Cataldo picked me up. So let's go see these guys over in this little club they got. It was only like 10, 20 blocks from where I live.
I said, who's club is it? Oh, it's Danny and Charlie Faticos. I go, oh, he's in the Gotti's hangout there, but nobody knew who John Gotti was in 71. So we go there and I see this scurvy little place, dirty tables, mixed up chairs, you know, stinky place. And we left. Then I said, hey Dom, why don't we open up a nice little club? I'll get, cause I had money, I was dealing drugs.
It started with a scream inside a quiet Maryland home.
A mother trying to protect the family dog and her son in the grip of a violent hallucinogenic rage. By the time it was over, she was dead, and he claimed LSD made him do it. His name, David Minor IV, and we talked to him. Listen to Invisible Choir every other week as we uncover the most haunting true crimes you've never heard of, available wherever you get your podcasts.
nine o'clock at night and everybody would gather to pay off your weekly debts or winnings collect pay whatever and we would meet at the Sinatra club in exchange you know who won who lost and after the nine o'clock game went on because it was network tv there was no such thing as cable in New York at that time we'd watch the game and play 10 cent 20 cent poker
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By the time
I want to say by the time January came, we had three tables. I had good catered food in there, good booze, and I had a couple of fine working professional women a block away. And the guys could go visit the girls. It was like I was sort of taking a leave from Vegas, how they treated gamblers in Vegas. And that place ran until February of 72, and that's when Gotti came out.
Well, Gotti had made such an impression on other guys, especially drug dealers. Not that he was dealing drugs, they liked him. And he started bringing all these guys in, and he said, look, I'm bringing all these players in, some of them are high rollers.
So we said, Dominic Cattelgo, so let's give you a piece of the action. So we gave him 20% of the game. So if we cut $5,000 for the week, he got $1,000. Basically, he got money to gamble. He blew it anyway every week. He wasn't a good card player. He was a terrible gambler, by the way. In contrast to Jimmy Burke, who was a great gambler. Jimmy Burke should have been in Vegas. He could count every card.
Brilliant guy. I love the guy and he had a stone face and it was hard to beat him So Gotti, you know, he wasn't a good game, but we had a lot of fun and a lot of crime took place there Meeting of all kinds of guys. I mean guys that came in there the famous Informant Willie Boy Johnson sat at the table who Gotti eventually had killed I mean he was given information to the feds for like 20 years and
We had all kinds of people there. It was really an interesting mix, and it was only a block and a half from where I lived. My Sinatra club was on 87th Street. Gotti's club was on I think it was 108th Street, so it was like 15 blocks away. But the neighborhood had several clubs with different families having their club, but I had the classiest club. I had nice chairs, nice tables.
Yeah, and Matthew, the whole premise of the Sinatra Club is that there's, it was important because there was always these internal wars going on with all the five crime families in New York, or there's beefs between other factions and families and stuff like that, but they would always come to the Sinatra Club, that salad opened up with his partner Dominic Cataldo,
and they would all get along there they gamble they set up certain different crimes heist whatever they wanted to do and they just get along so I mean it was a it was a neutral it was a neutral spot it was a church yeah sleep out yeah yeah how did you come up with the Sinatra Club why oh that that that's a great question so we had this one guy there it was about 300 pounds
and we started to play like you know for a couple hours then it started to get into by the winter we'd stay there 18-20 hours well this guy was about 300 pounds and he never washed he stunk so I'd bring him a can of right guard and he was a fat guy and I called him roundy I go roundy go in the bathroom spray yourself I know you can't miss a hand you don't want to miss any hand so eventually you know his mother would call we had a pay phone in there and called I go roundy it's your mother
Ma, what do you want? What do you want? She says, where are you? You haven't been home for two days. Where are you? And he looked over and there was a jukebox that we had put in there. I had one of the guys steal the jukebox. It came from a Polish bar. I said, get rid of those, you know, Buffett, whoever it was, the Polish singers. And Sinatra had retired. So I go buy all these Sinatra records and stick it in there.
that's working
What was it? Carmine Galante's nephew or something? Yeah, yeah, he was a wise guy's nephew and yeah, he was the character I mean a lot of these guys got killed along the way after I mean I closed the Sinatra up 74 I went to federal prison so we had it for three years, but it was three years of like Disneyland man, Disneyland for the mob. I mean, you know It was funny. It was a funny place every week. There would be stolen merchandise All kinds of things going on there, you know, the only thing we didn't allow any women in there
So they were down the block. Yeah. So, well, I was going to say, you just reminded me of something. I wish I could remember his name. Uh, the guy, they call him the chin. He used to walk around crazy. Yeah. So one of the guys underneath him was my Sally for like two months. He was called a lamb or somebody like that, or,
I forget I want to get his name he had gone to prison for well first of all he went to prison for like three or four years and then just as he was about to get out the feds reindited him.
I think he'd only been arrested one time and I remember he was the coolest guy.
you know of course he's in you know he's locked up he's got you know they've got he's got somebody cooking for him so three people are going to commissary he's buying everything out of the kitchen you know i mean he's got money but he's got nothing to do um so that was Vincent Vincent Chagant he was the same the chin oh okay but but it was yeah Matthew's talking about someone that was his cellmate that was under ensign right we
I'm not sure. I can't believe I can't remember his name. He was the coolest guy. Where were you? Which one? I was in Coleman. Coleman federal. This was in, no, this was in the low at the Coleman in the low. Wow. Um, and he'd just been reindicted. Like he'd been reindicted. Like he had maybe a year or two to go. Uh, anyway, he, I just, I always remember he said, he said, I,
I'm app, but prior to this, this arrest, he said, I've only been arrested one time. Well, they dropped the charges. And I was like, well, I said, well, I said, why'd they drop the charges? He said, you know, he said, this guy, he said, I owned a construction company. And he said, one of the guys that owned the construction company, or what, sorry, one of the guys that worked at the construction company had lent money.
and the guy one of the guys wasn't paying what couldn't pay the money and he said oh well i forget the guy's name let's say it's
John or Anthony let's say he is will you just wait till Anthony finds out he is and because the guy is well the guy got scared and went to the feds and state and got wired up oh he said came back and said well what if I don't pay what's what's Anthony gonna do he said oh listen he said you don't want to know what they have to do he's gonna do he went on and on and he's gonna do this he's gonna have get your whatever break your fingers or do something and so he then so they went out and got an indictment
I'm
He's all right. All right, go out there. He's called the lawyer. Tell him I'll turn myself in, you know, Monday. So he said on Monday, I turn myself in, I get right back out. And I said, so what happened? He said, um, yeah, he said they dropped there. They had dropped the charges like four or five, six months later. I said, why? And he goes, you know, that guy, that guy, that the guy that wore the wire. And I said, right, he said he, he had like an accident. And I went, what an accident. And he goes,
I said, what do you mean an accident? He said, um, you know, they, they, I said, like, like he, he got hit by a car accident. He said, ah, they, they found them in, um, tears. They found them in a dumpster.
I said, well, oh, was he a garbage man? I said, like, did he slip and fall in the compactor and ended up in the dumpster? Or he said, you know, you know, Matt, I like you. He said, but, you know, when you wear wires back then on people, he said, you know, you tended to have accidents.
Yeah, he said he had an accident they dropped the charges then I got arrested like 20 years later and he said for this fucking thing. Yeah Yeah, no they got their humor like like salad said like John Gotti and His brother gene or one of them, you know, just the same thing I mean they just had they were really they just moved on with life after I
Yeah, John was extremely witty. He's a very witty guy, he was. And he was always ahead of everybody else. They would just, you know, they'd follow him. And I mean, even the older guys who were made guys, they trusted him. They really trusted him completely. And they bought into his visions, which was, you know, cool. He wasn't a drug dealer, but he was around all these drug dealers and they all gave him money.
But he was a gambler, a bad gambler, so he could lose a lot of money. And this guy could lose $50,000 or $100,000 on a weekend betting football games, you know? No kidding. I mean, Matthew, so you were bringing up some stories about prison and the commissary and everything. Do you want Sal? Because he was kind of at that point where he had got arrested. But in prison, he kind of had the same situation with, like, commissary.
Listen back then they had it way better than we have Like you guys could do something like it's practically state prison where I was at. Um, yeah So when so after the Sinatra called what it did you get arrested during that time? I mean, no I got out I won a case I only did like 12 or 13 months I got 25 years and I manipulated the system and
I actually set a law in federal court in the Eastern District of New York. And when I got out, I had met some guys in prison that were simply genius. I'm telling you, a guy who's the funniest guy, every once in a while I would do a rendition about him. And he was actually the subject for Bronx Tale. And his name was Fat Gigi Engleafs, Louis Engleafs. Big, heavy, fat guy like this, like 300 pounds.
and how i got his attention was i was in lewisburg penitentiary but outside they had the farm and a friend of mine she had a brother-in-law that was on the farm and so my wife would drive up with his wife and i'd say buy some dunhill cigars in those days three or four dollars was a lot of money for a cigar was like a you know cuban cigar
so frankie outside the wall would come in for lunch and he'd hand me four or five cigars well i'd take this one cigar and go over and see fat gg
This is a guy who made mega, mega millions. He was part of the Purple Gang, okay? And he would sit outside. It was a nice day out. He'd turn the chair around, smoke the cigar. He'd be making love to the cigar. Like a cigar in prison was like, look, you're in prison, you know. And he would tell me stories, amazing stories. I got some of them. It'd take me half an hour to tell the story. But what happened was my name was Lubatz, which meant crazy in Italian. He goes, Lubatz.
He says, you're 28 years old. What are you going to do when you get out of here? Now, he had a Harlem accent, different from Brooklyn. When the Harlem guys from the Bronx talk, they spit. They go, hey, fuck the new boss. What are you going to do when you get out of here? Got this big belly, smoking a cigar, drooling, right? They go, I don't know. He's put you hijacked trucks, you are banked. You've got to give that up. You've got to move ahead. To what? You've got to invest.
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Professional drug dealers. This guy was in the middle of Harlem. They dealt with Frank Lucas and the gang up there.
so I said oh really well I said well who would I look please when you get out don't worry I'll set you up you know well I thought about it and once I found out my friend Foxy my crime partner was killed by the Tommy B Simone guy that was it no more guns no more robberies I immediately went into drug business now in 75 76 it might not sound like a lot of money making 25,000 a week cash
That sounds like a lot of money. That was. A brand new Chevy was $3,500. A Lincoln was $8,000. A Porsche was $12,000. So $25,000 a week. I could buy a house every other week. But he was right. That GD was right. That's where the money was. The drugs. And it was heroin. And I learned the business. I mean, never got busted for heroin. Never. But anyway, you know, I was doing all kinds of things.
Right. At a Corvette shop, I owned 11 Corvettes, a Porsche, two jewelry stores, a real estate business. Never got busted, never. So I did that for about, oh, five, six, seven years, and I wanted to get out of New York City. So I went and bought 100 acres upstate New York, and I built a racetrack. That's about a million dollars up there. But it wasn't meant for me to make money in the racetrack. In those days, nobody even knew what NASCAR was in 1981.
it was just starting to get on television and you know i was living the thing i found out you probably could identify with this Matthew you make a lot of money illegally and you're spending and spending incentive once you stop making the money if you don't stop spending you're going to go backwards quick right you know the old expression was yeah i was dealing drugs and then what happened i started to eat like a bird and shit like an elephant
Everything's going out, nothing's coming in. You learn your lessons. It was an interesting life. I left New York. About that time though, Gotti was making the move. I was still around him. I still knew all those guys. They were moving up. They were whacking out guys. He was already made. He became the captain. By the time 84 came, it wasn't long before he had visions of taking over the whole family, which he did the following year in 85.
By that time, I had already went into the program, testified against the judge. I was sitting in Texas. What happened with that? How did that come about? Well, I had this judge that I used to pay off in Queens. If I got arrested, I'd pay the judge off, he'd throw the case out. Or I went to another judge. We had judges that were taking money. We could do anything we wanted there, in state court, not federal.
So I got busted and I went to the feds. I said, look, because I could fix that case. It was a cocaine case in the state of New York. I'll fix this case and I'll do it while you guys wire me up. I don't need you because I can beat this case. But I want out of New York when kids with teenagers, I got to get them out of New York. And I did that undercover.
he got busted he went to jail the judge I went to the witness protection program and the moron US Marshals put me down in Texas and they said well this is where you should be you gotta blend in how the fuck is a new guy gonna blend in Texas I felt like Cousin Vinny you know in the south so I had a hard time doing that both my kids were good athletes
and I was hanging out thinking I was done with the government but once you learn that the government had a contract and it said I had to appear you know any trials just about that time the year went by after Gotti killed Castellano okay and they had a Rico case on them and he said you're they brought me up to Detroit they interviewed me for three days you're going to be the first witness in a Gotti rocketeering Rico case
I go, you can know you're the best storyteller we got in New York. All right, so I go to New York and the case opens up in the fall of 86 and I'm watching what's going on. I go downstairs secretly in the courthouse with two-way mirrors and I see these two limousines back up.
in the garage. And I'm waiting for the van to take me out, ride me out in New Jersey. I see all the jurors getting the limousine. The next morning I went up to the prosecutor and said, are you guys morons or what? You got all the jurors riding the limousine. You don't think John Gotti is going to reach one of those jurors? He's going to pay off a juror, a bribe him, and he's going to win this case. They say, Sal, you're looking at too much television.
and that's exactly what happened i predicted it and of course years later sammy the bull told the story that's exactly what they did they paid off a witness 60 g's and got he became a superstar yeah he did he was a public figure the public loved him and
I mean, you know, and the mob loved it. And there I was down in Texas for the next few years, and I got involved in Hollywood quietly. I used a Jewish name. I started writing. I was good at it. I sold a couple of scripts. I worked with great writers. I had a lot of fun, you know. I slept with the first wife, got a young gal, got her, got a daughter, got a new son, and I was inventing toys and doing all kinds of legal stuff. I didn't do anything legal after they gave me a new name. Never, never again.
What was the new name?
How long did you go under that name? Well, I went under that name for years until I started doing some interviews and using my real name Salvatore Polisi. So I would go, you know, use my real name in Hollywood. I got involved with really cool actors. I mean, I was friends with Ernest Borgnein before he died. I mean, I met a lot of cool people. I got a lot of respect there because they said, this guy is the real Chili Palmer.
if you remember the get jordy yeah they said he's coming to our party meet this guy he's the real chili parma and that's what they called me chili it was funny just goofy stuff happened i had a big personality so i had fun you know i made mistakes in that business i wrote the scripts in hot for club a guy got a hold of it and i went to a party and he says give me this script i'll give you a quarter of a million
You wrote this as a drama. It's not a drama. I go, what do you mean? You're a funny guy. This could be funnier than My Blue Heaven. And he had won the Academy Award for The Sting. Okay. Give me this script. Give me. And the Wi-Fi was weird at that time. She said, no, I don't give it to him. 250 is nothing. We can get rich. I didn't give him the script. And then we waited years and we wound up making the movie Sinatra called For Peanuts.
And, you know, it didn't come out the way it should have came out. So I made mistakes. I turned down David Chase. I met David Chase two years before The Sopranos aired. I sat with him and told him a bunch of stories. He said, come work for us. You could be a technical advisor. And I met the two people that were writing for him. They started with nothing. They made good money. And then recently they got very, very rich. They created blue blood.
I have a lot of fun, I learned the business, got involved with some production companies, got involved with some directors.
The movie got me a book deal.
yeah i was gonna say it's it's well one it's funny because i uh you mentioned uh earnest board nine i actually just watched escape from new york a few days ago yeah but uh the other thing is i was gonna say that um it's funny how many guys that are involved in crime get out and then get involved in the movie business all these
I met a guy who was a Cuban guy. He came in to read for us for Sinatra, the little part. He had like two lines, big, heavy set guy. And he came in, he said, do I have to read the sides? You know, when you're casting, you give them a piece of paper, a couple of lines, they read. I said, no, what's your name? He said, Joey. Do what you want. Just let me do my stick. The guy was amazing. Nobody knew him 14 years ago. It's Joey Diaz.
Cool. We've been friends for years. He calls me, invites me to his shows, you know. Joey is a cool guy. And if you ever saw his show, you'll laugh your ass off. But I did an appearance with him at the Pasadena Ice House. I couldn't believe how fast he is. I mean, he was like Robin Williams fast. You know, amazing, quickly, you know, interacting with the audience. He brought me up. I gave him a book.
and I just got the book out signed in he goes hey come on you guys stop buying me see the woman over there I get off she says hey I just I just bought your book online it was like oh my god I'm selling books in a in a comedy club you know but he's a great guy you know we've been friends for a real problem come on our show I just like the guy he's a for real guy you know because you grew up with Italians he's really a Cuban guy yeah he's a good Italian
I was gonna say there's tons of like TikTok clips of him and Joe Rogan and every time I watch him, he's, you know, he's hilarious. He's hilarious. Yeah, I met up, you know, in nine, eight or nine, we did a movie in nine, 10. And then I lived for four blocks from him and he had a show back then called Beauty and the Beast or something.
and he would call me without coffee he says hey you know what i think my girl's gonna have a baby i go really and uh so he had a daughter and then last week i talked to him i go hey where are you miss down out yet what is your daughter doing playing softball she's 10 i go oh my god where'd those 10 years go i mean you know he's back in new york and
He's just a nice guy who's very, very creative. He's really a great guy on stage. Did you ever see him on stage? No. Yeah. I mean, I'm in Tampa, Florida. I'm not sure he gets to Tampa, Florida very often. I think he's all over the country. Yeah. It's all over. Yeah. And if he did, I would. That's for damn sure. Yeah. Nice guy though. You know, he just never forgot. I said, Hey, you got to have that part, man. I gave him a little part and then he did a movie with De Niro. He started getting some movie roles, you know,
You don't forget people when you meet them, you know, he's a good guy Yeah, he So how long So I don't so you were only you only lived under the Witness protection protection for what five or six years? Oh, no. No, I got the name in 85
and then i split with my first wife 87 met this young gal i was with her 19 years so i did 19 years with that new name so i'd be i would be in the bay area with the new name go to la use the old name make believe i'm chili pablo you know thrive down in la
I mean one of my best friends wrote Sam Lot and the guy's an amazing writer so he liked me we became friends and I always got jobs, hey come on I'll give you a couple thousand a week come up to Vancouver we're gonna shoot Sam Lot too and another guy for 20 years you know we were just friends you know you meet people you strike up a friendship you know you don't play any games with them it's interesting because you know Hollywood
I mean overall though I mean everything you know we we talked about today I mean it's just it's a whole different era so when people think about all these stories and stuff I guess you gotta keep in mind like like he said Google didn't exist you know cameras and all that kind of crap so that's why he was able to do this kind of stuff I mean Sal has turned his life around I mean he's not
in that you know doesn't have that same mindset he never did any crime after i didn't see this stuff matthew as valuable podcast about 12 or 13 years ago a guy came to me he's a big radio producer he said i heard that you uh change your ways in life and you used to be a bigot and a racist and all this stuff i go oh yeah my two kids you know growing up i taught them the right thing i never used any
You know, racist comments and stuff. And he says, you were once homophobic. I go, yeah, it was a lot of things. I was taught this crap. I said, but I did a speaking engagement at an editing house. It was about 100 people changing their careers to become editors. And I talked about change, like massive change. And this radio producer said, I want you to go on a show with this woman. I talked to her about you. I go, yeah, who is it?
and uh it turns out that she was uh i kind of always forget her name again she won academy award she's a singer uh she's lesbian god everybody knows him but so i went and i did her show and we talked about change and uh what the heck was her name again gosh i did about an hour with her you know i go i don't make a lot of changes it wasn't just for me for my kids what oh melissa etheridge
there it is she said boy i wouldn't have been in a room with you an italian you know uh an italian racist and homophobic i go i had to give all that up when i so i got a new name and i changed from my way can i can i come to your house for spaghetti
Matthew B. Cox is a con man, incarcerated in the Federal Bureau of Prisons for a variety
of bank fraud-related scams. Despite not having a drug problem, Cox inexplicably ends up in the prison's Residential Drug Abuse Program, known as ARDAP, a drug program in name only. ARDAP is an invasive behavior modification therapy specifically designed to correct the cognitive thinking errors associated with criminal behavior. The program is a non-fiction dark comedy which chronicles Cox's side-splitting journey
This first-person account is a fascinating glimpse at the survivor-like atmosphere inside of the government-sponsored rehabilitation unit. While navigating the treachery of his backstabbing peers, Cox simultaneously manipulates prison policies and the bumbling staff every step of the way. The program. How a conman survived the Federal Bureau of Prisons' cult of RDP. Available now on Amazon and Audible.
yeah it's it's funny when i went into prison you know i went into prison and i and what i did in prison was i wrote stories i just wrote started writing guys stories down you know if i if you had an interesting story i would research it i'd order the freedom of information act i'd order your case file i'd order well everything and just start putting it together and and some of them were books uh wrote about 24 23 24 uh synopsis of stories like maybe 10 12 000 words you know
and uh and like that's one of the things i do now but while i was writing these stories in prison guys kept telling me as i got closer to the door they were like bro you gotta
You gotta do a podcast. When I got locked up, there was no such thing as a podcast. YouTube had been out for like a year. Facebook had just come out maybe a month before I got arrested. So I'm like, what's a podcast? People are like, a podcast. No, I don't. They don't even realize that word was invented.
you know I'm saying that wasn't a common thing they made so I started reading articles and got out and said okay yeah I should do a podcast when I get it and you know they were saying oh true crimes huge you know like what's true crime what are you talking about they're like writing real crime stories like I didn't even know what I was doing I was doing it I was already doing this kind of in prison before yeah I didn't even know it
the right
A lot of copycats. You remember the movie they did about the Four Seasons? What the hell was that name again? It was a big hit movie. It was about Frankie Valley and the Four Seasons. It was on stage and became a movie and everything. I can't think of the name of it. It was very popular about 10, 15 years ago. Well, I'm watching the movie with my wife and I go, did you hear that? They say what?
I said, they ripped off one of our ideas or one of the things we did. She goes, what's that? I go, we were hijacking so many trucks. We would get information from the guys who worked at Kennedy airport. So we would get especially Italian goods. Okay.
We hijacked a truck full of Italian shoes. When I got it over to Jimmy Burke, I would call up, because we had to drop the drivers off. I had to hold them for an hour and a half. He said, come over quickly, we got a problem. I go over to the, they call it the drop, the building where the truck was in. They had me shoes laid out. He's got the guy coming, the Jewish guy's coming to look at these beautiful Italian shoes. You got a problem? I go, what's the problem? Did you look at the shoes? How can I look at the shoes? We robbed the truck. Now we're looking at
you got eight thousand pairs of shoes but they're all left that what they're all left with the rights they're gonna put it on another truck probably they didn't want you to get all the shoes so they sent the left and the rights are going in another truck what the hell did you do with that yeah that was the 70s we threw the stuff away screen card in the movie with frankie valley in the four seasons
They mentioned the shoes. I mean, that was just like, I love it. So they decided to put, oh yeah, we got all kinds of contacts. We get stolen merchandise. Sometime we got all left use from Italy, but that actually happened to us, you know? So yeah, they take your stuff and they use it. That's just the way it is.
Yeah, I was like, I always say, look, I'd rather deal with guys in Hollywood and rather deal with guys in prison than guys in Hollywood, at least. And if something goes wrong, you know, it could go wrong for the person, you know, fucking you over. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? In Hollywood, they just, you know, oh, well, you know, that just happened. It's always.
Yeah, that's a rough business. Yeah, yeah, it is. Much more than crime. Yeah, I don't have any interest in going Hollywood. I mean, I'd like to sell the rights. You know, we stole the rights to one book. We turned down the rights. I got a big interview coming up with Netflix. It's not coming out for another month or two. And there's a huge, huge interview. And I went to New York last year. And when I sat down with the producers from Netflix,
I said, what do you guys want? He goes, you know, you're one of the few guys left that could talk about John Gotti. And so suppose I tell you what he did in 1972. Suppose I give you the conversations. There's no way that's 49 years ago or 50 years ago. Turn the camera on. And we did about an hour with that. How did you remember that stuff? You can't forget. It's something you don't want to forget. It was like fun. You know, it was a game. We were playing a game like, you know, and I gave him that interview. I don't know how much they used, you know, because
It's a you know, they're gonna edit stuff out, but it's all good stuff So, you know stuff that no one else could talk about we can mention that what what the show is, right? So yeah fear city. It's season two I then believe it is and it's they cover the mafia Different families and stuff and yeah, so so they got Sal on there making an appearance and then I think they had on the first season like John a light Michael Francis. Yeah guys like that and it's really good. I enjoyed it and
So Sal has that coming out. They were pretty secretive. One day I said to the producer, I want to know one thing. Did you get Anthony Ruggiano and interview him? Oh, we can't tell you. So then I reached out. I heard Anthony was interviewed. So then Chief, the producer sent me a text message
I had him too.
I did get a call once from the FBI years ago when A-Lite came out, sort of like he wanted to go straight, and he said, look, could you med to this guy? I said, I don't have a problem with him, but every once in a while he talks about John Godden. John A-Lite was about 10, 12 years old when we had the Sinatra Club. How could he know any of this? He's a good researcher.
Listen I I did a Every interview I did two interviews with with him the comment section They they hate I've never I've never seen anybody get so much hate. I mean, they just hammer him hammer away at him
the
I mean, we're talking about Cuba and being friends with Batista. I'd be like, oh, OK. I don't know. He got a conversation with Trump, didn't he? Oh, yeah. There's a picture of them. Yeah. Yeah. Him and Trump took a picture together. And then Trump also took one with Joey Marlino, the alleged boss of the Philadelphia. I was in prison with Joey Marlino. I had lunch with him a couple of times.
I do like to talk about the guys that I met in Lewisburg. I'm going to do a presentation for Adrian because I think it's really a stage play. It's so good because all the guys were there. They ran the prison. And if you remember in Goodfellas when Paulie was slicing the garlic, I was in that room.
I can't recall.
Henry's assignment was to steal meat out of the butcher
The most exciting three days of my prison time was on the 8th of August when Nixon got up and resigned and he said, I'm not a crook, we all ran around the prison block looking at each other like
I'm Spartacus. I'm Spartacus. I'm Spartacus. I'm not a crook. And we laughed because we knew he was a crook. I mean, that stuff built him down. Then two days later, there was an escape in Lewisburg. It was the first escape ever. And there was a guy there who skyjacked an airplane. They thought he was D.B. Cooper.
and later went to North Carolina and the feds killed him. He was a bank robber. So it was pretty exciting being there looking at all the stuff that was going on and all the guys that were there. I mean there was legendary guys from what they called the Purple Gang from Harlem. I mean you had every group you can imagine from New York because it was the beginning of drug sentences like big time, 10 years, 20 years. Bad GG in Galise
I mean that's
And so essentially, yes, he was, Sal was in prison with a lot of guys. I mean, there was a lot of from, you know, the five New York crime families, of course. And then surprisingly, too, a lot of guys from the Philadelphia crime family that would go on to be in a lot of internal wars and be high level ranking guys. So Sal got to be around them when they're really young and experience what they were like and stuff like that.
And it's just crazy, I mean, where he was at and what a big coincidence that he ended up there with all of them at the same time. That fat Gigi said to me, when you leave here, because I had an appeal working, I knew I was going to win, I won my appeal. I mean, I got 25 years, I do one year. He said, when you leave here, just remember one thing. Don't ever look like, don't ever think prison is the Department of Corrections. I go, what do you call it? It's the Department of Connections. He said.
the the the
the the the
No, I was just thinking when I went to I was at the medium security prison in Coleman for about three years and I remember when I first got there I was sitting at the I was sitting at a table one time with these guys and You know and they're just it was like when I first got there like, you know, everybody's pretty quiet and I forget what happened somebody said
I don't know what I said, but I ended up saying, yeah, man, I got 26 years. Because I did, I had 26 years. And I remember somebody goes, yeah, that's a good bit of time. I got 30 years. And I turn around and I got another guy, black guy sitting across from me, looked up at me and he goes, I'm never leaving. And I thought,
Stop complaining about your time. Nobody. How much time did you do out of the twenty thirteen? I did thirteen about almost thirteen years old. Yeah. But paper crime. Yeah. Oh, my God. I was a man in thirteen months. Oh, boy. Wow. Very upset with me. Oh, man. Wow. Yeah. You make restitution.
No, I still owe six million, but I'm good for it. Oh, that's good. Yeah. I'm making payment. Yeah, I heard a guy, I heard a guy once, you know, they said, you know, how many million and the judge said, well, when are you going to stop paying? He said, I'll pay pay soon, you know, but it probably take me the rest of my life. How much you plan on sending in every month? It's twenty five dollars. Yeah. Oh, buddy.
I had two kids who I loved and I never once struck them. Two kids who grew up to be football players.
And I had this stockbroker in the 70s. He would come over on Wednesday night because I had bogus names in the stock market. I'd give him 10,000, 20,000, 30,000. I was a junkie because I played puts and calls. I was gambling with the stock market because I thought it was sophisticated. I thought I was cool. He would come over on Wednesday. My first wife would make a nice Italian dinner and they'd be there at 6. We'd eat at 6.37. He'd stay an hour or so, give me an envelope of money and that would be that.
So it was probably in the fall, I remember this, and my kid was 10 years old, my oldest son. I said to my wife, where's Sal Jr.? She said, I don't know. So came time for dinner. We got to eat dinner. Jim is here, let's have dinner. So we had dinner. He comes in, he's 10 years old, like two hours later, filthy dirty. Do you know anything about New York? Nothing. Do you know anything about New York? Have you ever heard of Coney Island?
Yeah, yeah, okay, that's where they have the hot dog contest I go What were you doing? He said I was helping my friend Joey his father was cleaning the guard the garage I go Joey Joey's the Beale and his father was cleaning the garage. He says yeah, he's cleaning the garage I said, yeah, I slapped him in the face like like that. I said you lying little shit. You weren't by Joey's house. I
How do you know that? They found Joey last year in the back seat of a car with two bullets in his head. Damn. Now tell the truth, where were you? I went to Coney Island. I was riding the Ferris wheel. So that was in 78. I gotta tell you, like years later, I bought him a brand new Trans Am. He went to college. He played college football and one day he disappeared.
call them up and go where are you dad how is that joey's house don't ask you know that's one of the funny stories about being an italian father but i never struck to get just one slap and i said don't over lie again you never lied to me again don't reach him that's all it took i said not only joey's father was whacked and guess what joey's uncle they found him in his back seat of the car he was whacked
The whole family got whacked out. They were doing bad things. I'm so sorry to hear you did 13 years. Oh my God. I mean, I was fine. I try to, you know, listen, the, the, you know, the problem is I, I, you know, I started off and I was complaining, right? I got, I got 12 years knocked off my sentence. So technically I'm supposed to be in prison right now. My out date, my out date was 2030.
the the
I think about some black kid who brought a gun to a ten dollar
crack sale and it's doing 30 years right because fucking stupid stupid law or somebody who was selling drugs to people that wanted the drugs and they had a little bit too much and they got some 20-year minimum mandatory and right i'm saying like there's so many unfair sentences i don't i try not to bitch about it and listen i made the best of it yeah it's just like you like like
You know, look, what would have been a good life? You know, getting a job at a regular job and raising a family and being a soccer dad and that's like the right thing. I wish sometimes I think, well, I wish that's what I had done. Like it just didn't work out like that. I have different memories. Yeah. You know, but I have, I have compassion and after January I told
Adrian, we've got to start talking about criminal justice reform. And anytime you want to do a program, get another person, an attorney or somebody, I would love to talk about that because we are so in need of criminal justice reform. Years ago, when you went in, they had mandatory sentencing. They took away the judge's power and that always bothered me. Yeah. Well, it leaves no room for
I don't know. There's just no good answer, but I'll tell you what's not a solution is
What's not a solution is spending $11,000 to educate a student a year and spending $30,000 to house somebody when you know that people with education don't commit as much crime as people without an education. Exactly. Why wouldn't you just say, hey, every one probation officer can watch
25 guys so why wouldn't you just let these guys out why do you even have a camp they have out custody you could put them on ankle monitors you could with today's technology you could monitor where all these guys are you could have red zones they can drop the clothes drop the clothes like what are you doing like it's doing nothing but getting votes it's all about votes it's big business yeah
that's ridiculous.
Well, we're going to have to think about doing something and education is the answer now. See, like you said, if you can educate these people, you know, I always said to an FBI friend of mine, why don't we go in there and show them how much technology and DNA is available and say, don't commit crime. You have no chance. Educate them. Oh my God, I'll be caught.
You listen, I always thought I used to always say, you know what they ought to do? They ought to teach a class in every high school or middle school on this, the federal sentencing guidelines and let people know that they're like, wait a minute. I've just been selling Dimebacks. No, you sold 30 pounds of pot, right? Cause you add all of that up and you call it ghost dope and you got caught with 30 pounds of pot. Now you're going to do five years. They'd go,
that is true guys
You know, hey bro, like I'll give you five grand and you'll just tell me how this works. I'm like, uh-uh. I'm already on the conspiracy. No. I'm already on the indictment. Right. You're gonna get caught. No, I would never tell on you. Well, let's pretend that's true, which I don't believe, but assume it's true. They're gonna get your phone. They're gonna run my phone number. They're gonna see who I am. They're gonna run my record. And they're not even gonna, they're just gonna add me to the indictment.
right and then I'm gonna go to trial I can't take the stand to explain what happened because they'll bring up my past record when the jury will convict me on the fact that I've been in prison for doing the same thing that you got caught with even though I just told you no don't call me that click yeah people just don't understand how it works yeah and yeah that Rico man I mean that's uh well one other thing man
Yeah, conspiracy, Jesus. Yeah, the government, you know, I mean, maybe Trump has a shot, but you know, years ago, they used to have a 92% conviction rate. I don't know how he's going to beat the case. I don't know. Who knows? It's up to like 97% now. Yeah, yeah. Although let's face it, if you have money, it does equal the it does equal the
It started with a scream inside a quiet Maryland home, a mother trying to protect the family dog and her son in the grip of a violent hallucinogenic rage. By the time it was over, she was dead, and he claimed LSD made him do it. His name, David Minor IV, and we talked to him. Listen to Invisible Choir every other week as we uncover the most haunting true crimes you've never heard of, available wherever you get your podcasts.
our um, semi, you know, helps level the playing field to a degree. That's true. We'll see how it pans out with them. But before we do stop Sal, I was going to say, uh, so our, our Patreon channels, uh, called a lifetime of mafia tales with Salvatore Polisi. And then my name's Adrian Martinez. So you can look it up on Patreon. And then our YouTube is, uh, invest in yourself podcast and
it's all together it's invest in yourself podcast in a lifetime of mafia tells i know it's a long name but me and sound just partnered up so
it's
Hey this is Matthew Cox and I appreciate you guys checking out the video. Do me a favor and hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this. Check the description box for Sal and Adrian's YouTube link and their Patreon and thanks for checking out the video.
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"text": " Hi, I'm Jean Chatsky. You may know me as the host of the Her Money podcast or the financial editor of NBC's Today Show for 25 years."
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"text": " Today I'd personally like to invite you to join my women-led investing club. It's called Investing Fix with two X's. We walk through current market trends, teach investing fundamentals, and build a real portfolio together. Plus, your first month is absolutely free. So come check us out at investingfix.com. We'd love to have you. I got involved in a bank scam that was huge."
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"text": " I only got maybe say a million, two million. The guys who got the money was the vice president of the bank. They got eighty million. So they busted the vice president and they forgot about my million dollars. I see all the jurors getting limousine. The next morning I went up to the prosecutor and said, are you guys morons or what? You got all the jurors riding the limousine. You don't think John Gotti is going to reach one of those jurors? He's going to pay off a juror, a bribe him, and he's going to win this case."
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"text": " Sal, you're looking at too much television. And that's exactly what happened. I predicted it. And of course, years later, Sammy, Sammy the Bull told the story. That's exactly what they did. They paid off a witness, 60 Gs, and Gotti became a superstar."
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"text": " One time I hijacked the truck and brought it to Jimmy. We went into the building. He said, I'll give you $72,000. And I go, wait a minute. Let's think about this. Let me call Dom. I called Dominic up. He came back down. In an hour, Jimmy said, OK, I'll give you $90,000. I go, we were hijacking so many trucks. We would get information from the guys who worked at Kennedy Airport when we hijacked a truck full of Italian shoes. When I got it over to Jimmy Burke,"
},
{
"end_time": 254.582,
"index": 10,
"start_time": 238.643,
"text": " I would call up he said come over quickly you got a problem got the guy coming the Jewish guys coming to look at these beautiful Italian shoes you got a problem I go what's the problem you got 8,000 pairs of shoes but they're all left"
},
{
"end_time": 285.247,
"index": 11,
"start_time": 257.773,
"text": " Hey, this is Matt Cox and I'm going to be doing an interview with Salvatore Polizzi and Adrian Martinez. It's going to be a super interesting interview. Adrian's going to be helping me out. He knows all about Sal and so it's going to be about an hour interview. So I appreciate you guys watching. Check out the interview. So where, where were you, you know, where were you born? Where you was this in, um, you know, New York, New Jersey, Brooklyn, New York."
},
{
"end_time": 313.148,
"index": 12,
"start_time": 286.049,
"text": " and i had an italian family i had an uncle that was deeply entrenched in the mob actually uh... my uncle and i think the guy that was my father because i'm not sure my uncle might have been my father my father might not have been my father but in the late twenties twenty nine thirty like couple years before you know prohibition ended they were driving a horse and wagon from long island bringing bulls up to new york city so they were twenty twenty one years old"
},
{
"end_time": 337.073,
"index": 13,
"start_time": 313.831,
"text": " involved in crime and they knew all these criminals so my uncle tony stayed with crime his whole life because he was a gambler he was a swashbuckling you know high energy guy who drove fancy cars pinky diamond rings beautiful women and eventually in the 60s he got involved with a guy named sonny francis a lot of people knew he was because that's michael francis is right"
},
{
"end_time": 362.756,
"index": 14,
"start_time": 337.073,
"text": " Michael I met Michael in 78 after he got made shook his hand didn't see him. Oh my god until 2013 we did a show for National Geographic together and they trucked us around the limousine Michael I go Michael you realize you were royalty I was in the street you didn't have to do what I did you didn't rob no banks white-collar crimes"
},
{
"end_time": 385.23,
"index": 15,
"start_time": 362.875,
"text": " Yeah, yeah, you know Michael was very smart very shrewd So, you know, you never know who you're gonna meet and then 30 40 years later you meet him again or you read about Yeah, so I started out with my uncle in a gambling operation from there I got involved with the guy who came out of prison that was close to Carmine Persico's name was little Dom Dominic Ataldo and he was the hitman and"
},
{
"end_time": 408.729,
"index": 16,
"start_time": 385.862,
"text": " So the thing about Cataldo was his dad and my uncles and dad, they all knew each other in the thirties. So instantly that's what gives you credibility, family. And I got involved with him and he taught me the ropes. I mean, I used to watch him do hijackings. I wasn't allowed to go near the truck. I would just go to the building where they unloaded the truck. And when they unloaded the truck, I met a guy who I thought was really clever."
},
{
"end_time": 420.879,
"index": 17,
"start_time": 409.104,
"text": " And his name was Jimmy Burke, which was the same guy that De Niro played. And believe me, I love Jimmy Burke. He was smart. He was smarter than Scorsese painted him."
},
{
"end_time": 445.094,
"index": 18,
"start_time": 421.51,
"text": " He was slick. I mean, he was a gangsta's gangset. He was a great guy. One time I hijacked the truck and brought it to Jimmy. We went into the building. He said, I'll give you $72,000. I don't remember. It was like South American coats, women's coats. And I go, wait a minute, let's think about this. Let me call Dom. I called Dominic up. He came back down in an hour. Jimmy said, okay, I'll give you $90,000. He upped it 18, just like that."
},
{
"end_time": 458.831,
"index": 19,
"start_time": 445.094,
"text": " so he was the guy who was sharp he would play the cards i mean you know try to get over on buying stuff because he knew it was stolen and we did well together eventually i was in jail with him i knew his wife mickey"
},
{
"end_time": 488.865,
"index": 20,
"start_time": 459.224,
"text": " They had guards in the penitentiary that were corrupt. I knew his daughter Kathy, his son Frankie worked for me. He was a car thief. So I knew the family. We were like thick as thieves. That's what they said. Yeah. No, I mean, so salad really, you really at the beginning just started off with gambling and then eventually it just led into more and more crimes and bank robberies, heists and different stuff like that. And in the beginning of this interview too, you was talked about doing a white collar crimes."
},
{
"end_time": 515.862,
"index": 21,
"start_time": 489.292,
"text": " and you know that was that's what you know matthew was involved with as well so i mean what what did that look like was that in the earlier years as well i'm assuming no that was that was in the later years of i left new york city i had a million dollars and i went upstate new york about a hundred miles i built the racetrack i actually had two stock car races there i spent about a million dollars in three years then i was property poor and broke so i went back and said i'll take a shot"
},
{
"end_time": 537.841,
"index": 22,
"start_time": 516.203,
"text": " I'll sell cocaine because cocaine in 80, 81, 82 was really hot. It was the drug of choice. And I got busted selling the cocaine. So, I mean, at that point... How did you get busted? I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar. I had a little blonde girl selling coke for me. They caught her. They"
},
{
"end_time": 565.674,
"index": 23,
"start_time": 538.183,
"text": " They rung her out, they flipped her, and then she told him who was giving her the coke, and oh my god, this guy's on the triangle up there in Queens with all the other mob guys. But at that point, that was like 84, right around that time I had done a few, you know, computer crimes. One of them happened to be, you know, in competition with Gotti. He didn't know it, but I got involved in a bank scam that was huge."
},
{
"end_time": 588.609,
"index": 24,
"start_time": 566.425,
"text": " I only got maybe say a million, two million. The guys who got the money was the vice president of the bank. They got 80 million. So they busted the vice president and they forgot about my million dollars. That was like 1982. Well, when I flipped with the FBI, I met a guy. I said, what do you do? You're an agent. I'll never forget it. His name was Peyton."
},
{
"end_time": 614.326,
"index": 25,
"start_time": 589.172,
"text": " And I thought of Walter Payne because he was black. So I do bank frauds and paper crimes. I go, really? Like, what kind of bank frauds? I said, do you ever hear of the chemical bank where the $80 million was? He goes, yeah. Did you get all the money? Because I was the cooperating witness at the point. He says, we got all of it, but about a million. I go, oh. I said, did you know that that Joel D. Cohen, the coin dealer, moved that million? He says, how would you know that?"
},
{
"end_time": 644.582,
"index": 26,
"start_time": 614.94,
"text": " He got all blustered. He was guarding me, and my agent came in and says, come here, take a walk with me. He said, don't ever talk about that again. We're going to forget you've mentioned it. But I was very egotistical back in those days. I'd just come up here, tell the Fed, say, look, I got away a million. And by the way, God, he was involved in that. And he was ripping off the guy who could move the money. He was only giving him 10 or 15%. When I met the guy, I said, look, I'll give you 50% of the money that you move from that bank to my bank."
},
{
"end_time": 668.609,
"index": 27,
"start_time": 645.213,
"text": " That's amazing. So I gave him 50%. Then we made like, you know, a million, million and a half each. That was the first time I did any paper crime. That's what I called it. It wasn't like a violent crime. It was a funny crime. But it wasn't like a crime. That's where I got excited. I got excited with the gun jumping, running toward the cover of a truck or robbing a bank or something like that."
},
{
"end_time": 696.015,
"index": 28,
"start_time": 668.968,
"text": " I learned that you could make a lot of money in the 80s with, you know, with the stock market and all that kind of stuff, but it didn't excite me. So once I flipped and left, I went and found other things and how to make money legitimately. And boy, oh boy, did I have a run. I haven't told anybody those stories, but maybe this year we'll start letting some of that out. Yeah. Well, I mean, going back to like when you were, you said you were a teenager and you"
},
{
"end_time": 726.408,
"index": 29,
"start_time": 696.681,
"text": " When did you first start getting into basically working with the mob? At what age? We just jumped. We just did a huge one-year jump. When I was 20, which was 1965, I was 20 years old and 65, my uncle had a gambling operation. So he taught me gambling in New York. In those days, there was no lotto. There was no off-track betting."
},
{
"end_time": 748.37,
"index": 30,
"start_time": 726.715,
"text": " You know, so the mob had like a license, you know, you had bookmaking and then you had loan sharking and they had numbers. Once the city and the state started to change all that, the mob lost their power, but they didn't want to admit that. So in my 20s, I got involved with my uncle, which led me to this guy, Cataldo, Dominic Cataldo. He was a professional"
},
{
"end_time": 773.217,
"index": 31,
"start_time": 748.37,
"text": " Killer hitman and he was a con he was he was a carless because he became a made guy on the car mine person go So by the time I was 22 23, I was under his wing and I was spoken for in those days The boss would know this was after Joe Colombo got shot which was 72 the boss would know who was with that family and I was officially with the Columbus and"
},
{
"end_time": 800.845,
"index": 32,
"start_time": 773.609,
"text": " Even though I jockey back and forth with John Gotti, which was Gambino's, I was officially listed with the Colombo. So Gotti had no power over me. I just had to walk a fine line because he was an interesting guy. You know, he wouldn't take any crap from anybody, but I played with him and he played with me. He was a lot brighter than most people think. Oh yeah, to be a boss of a crime family. Hell yeah. I mean, those guys said it'd be geniuses."
},
{
"end_time": 827.637,
"index": 33,
"start_time": 801.288,
"text": " I mean in the wrong in the in the wrong in the wrong field but you know I mean you have to be really smart to be a boss of one of them. So I started to do all that stuff you know in my in my 20s by the time I got of course by the time I was 26 my uncle had gone away for bank robbery with Sonny Franzese they were on this national bank robbery investigation and it was my dream to rob a bank so I did rob a bank with two older guys a single book"
},
{
"end_time": 848.951,
"index": 34,
"start_time": 828.114,
"text": " one guy was funny they were both in their 60s and these guys had been released from Alcatraz and one guy said look we don't have a lot of time to rob the bank because i got diverticulitis and the other guy said what the hell you care he's i got colitis so one guy couldn't take a shit the other guy was shitting all day long"
},
{
"end_time": 877.551,
"index": 35,
"start_time": 849.531,
"text": " and they couldn't jump over the counter so we were like a comedic three stooges and I ran in there leaped over the counter 26 scooped up the money and I eventually learned a lot from them and moved on because you know all they could do is hold guns on everybody in the bank and you know I wanted more than just 26,000 that was the first bank after that I hit them for 70 80 and in those days Matthew no camera no"
},
{
"end_time": 905.435,
"index": 36,
"start_time": 878.183,
"text": " Plastic glass, plexiglass, okay? No armed guards in banks. And by the way, nobody used credit cards in 1970s, 70s, 71s. They used like Diners Club or something, you know? So there was one thing in the bank. And they asked, why do you rob banks? Because that's where the money is. And that's what I laughed all the way. You know, we did some tricky stuff."
},
{
"end_time": 924.991,
"index": 37,
"start_time": 906.032,
"text": " I don't know"
},
{
"end_time": 952.244,
"index": 38,
"start_time": 925.282,
"text": " they all got busted literally I think you know the next day they had phone calls they had all this stuff and boom I mean the stuff Sam was talking about I mean you can't do this you can't get away with it unless you're some super tech genius I mean this stuff doesn't exist anymore but no I mean too many cameras man on every block you know and that's why these stories are so I don't know what you did but you probably did paper crimes but how long ago was that how many years"
},
{
"end_time": 981.698,
"index": 39,
"start_time": 952.91,
"text": " It was probably what about roughly 18 years ago. Yeah a lot different Yeah, we didn't have Google then I don't know Yeah, well, um, so Matthew and do you want to kind of start talking about his uh his involvement with the Sinatra Club and with Yeah, what what at what point what were you doing? So that that was in your early 20s. You're saying now"
},
{
"end_time": 1012.483,
"index": 40,
"start_time": 982.688,
"text": " You know, when did you get involved in the Sinatra club? Did you open the club or? It is what happened. I got shot by a cop. I was driving a Corvette and he tried to pull me over and I went past him. He shot in the back window. The Corvette went in, went into my spine. So I had to get a surgery to get get the bullet out. When I came out, my arm was in a sling. Cataldo picked me up. So let's go see these guys over in this little club they got. It was only like 10, 20 blocks from where I live."
},
{
"end_time": 1039.241,
"index": 41,
"start_time": 1013.268,
"text": " I said, who's club is it? Oh, it's Danny and Charlie Faticos. I go, oh, he's in the Gotti's hangout there, but nobody knew who John Gotti was in 71. So we go there and I see this scurvy little place, dirty tables, mixed up chairs, you know, stinky place. And we left. Then I said, hey Dom, why don't we open up a nice little club? I'll get, cause I had money, I was dealing drugs."
},
{
"end_time": 1070.026,
"index": 42,
"start_time": 1040.043,
"text": " It started with a scream inside a quiet Maryland home."
},
{
"end_time": 1095.06,
"index": 43,
"start_time": 1070.606,
"text": " A mother trying to protect the family dog and her son in the grip of a violent hallucinogenic rage. By the time it was over, she was dead, and he claimed LSD made him do it. His name, David Minor IV, and we talked to him. Listen to Invisible Choir every other week as we uncover the most haunting true crimes you've never heard of, available wherever you get your podcasts."
},
{
"end_time": 1126.766,
"index": 44,
"start_time": 1103.353,
"text": " nine o'clock at night and everybody would gather to pay off your weekly debts or winnings collect pay whatever and we would meet at the Sinatra club in exchange you know who won who lost and after the nine o'clock game went on because it was network tv there was no such thing as cable in New York at that time we'd watch the game and play 10 cent 20 cent poker"
},
{
"end_time": 1154.753,
"index": 45,
"start_time": 1127.005,
"text": " Buried by the US government and ignored by the national media, this is the story they don't want you to know. When Frank Amadeo met with President George W. Bush at the White House to discuss NATO operations in Afghanistan, no one knew that he'd already embezzled nearly $200 million from the federal government, money he intended to use to bankroll his plan to take over the world."
},
{
"end_time": 1168.746,
"index": 46,
"start_time": 1155.247,
"text": " From Amadeo's global headquarters in the shadow of Florida's Disney World, with a nearly inexhaustible supply of the Internal Revenue Service's funds, Amadeo acquired multiple businesses, amassing a mega conglomerate."
},
{
"end_time": 1188.268,
"index": 47,
"start_time": 1169.428,
"text": " Driven by his delusions of world conquest, he negotiated the purchase of a squadron of American fighter jets and the controlling interest in a former Soviet ICBM factory. He began work to build the largest private militia on the planet, over one million Africans strong."
},
{
"end_time": 1218.114,
"index": 48,
"start_time": 1188.729,
"text": " By the time"
},
{
"end_time": 1246.903,
"index": 49,
"start_time": 1218.814,
"text": " I want to say by the time January came, we had three tables. I had good catered food in there, good booze, and I had a couple of fine working professional women a block away. And the guys could go visit the girls. It was like I was sort of taking a leave from Vegas, how they treated gamblers in Vegas. And that place ran until February of 72, and that's when Gotti came out."
},
{
"end_time": 1262.261,
"index": 50,
"start_time": 1247.227,
"text": " Well, Gotti had made such an impression on other guys, especially drug dealers. Not that he was dealing drugs, they liked him. And he started bringing all these guys in, and he said, look, I'm bringing all these players in, some of them are high rollers."
},
{
"end_time": 1287.176,
"index": 51,
"start_time": 1262.892,
"text": " So we said, Dominic Cattelgo, so let's give you a piece of the action. So we gave him 20% of the game. So if we cut $5,000 for the week, he got $1,000. Basically, he got money to gamble. He blew it anyway every week. He wasn't a good card player. He was a terrible gambler, by the way. In contrast to Jimmy Burke, who was a great gambler. Jimmy Burke should have been in Vegas. He could count every card."
},
{
"end_time": 1310.759,
"index": 52,
"start_time": 1287.654,
"text": " Brilliant guy. I love the guy and he had a stone face and it was hard to beat him So Gotti, you know, he wasn't a good game, but we had a lot of fun and a lot of crime took place there Meeting of all kinds of guys. I mean guys that came in there the famous Informant Willie Boy Johnson sat at the table who Gotti eventually had killed I mean he was given information to the feds for like 20 years and"
},
{
"end_time": 1338.541,
"index": 53,
"start_time": 1311.152,
"text": " We had all kinds of people there. It was really an interesting mix, and it was only a block and a half from where I lived. My Sinatra club was on 87th Street. Gotti's club was on I think it was 108th Street, so it was like 15 blocks away. But the neighborhood had several clubs with different families having their club, but I had the classiest club. I had nice chairs, nice tables."
},
{
"end_time": 1364.787,
"index": 54,
"start_time": 1338.951,
"text": " Yeah, and Matthew, the whole premise of the Sinatra Club is that there's, it was important because there was always these internal wars going on with all the five crime families in New York, or there's beefs between other factions and families and stuff like that, but they would always come to the Sinatra Club, that salad opened up with his partner Dominic Cataldo,"
},
{
"end_time": 1390.265,
"index": 55,
"start_time": 1365.128,
"text": " and they would all get along there they gamble they set up certain different crimes heist whatever they wanted to do and they just get along so I mean it was a it was a neutral it was a neutral spot it was a church yeah sleep out yeah yeah how did you come up with the Sinatra Club why oh that that that's a great question so we had this one guy there it was about 300 pounds"
},
{
"end_time": 1419.309,
"index": 56,
"start_time": 1390.725,
"text": " and we started to play like you know for a couple hours then it started to get into by the winter we'd stay there 18-20 hours well this guy was about 300 pounds and he never washed he stunk so I'd bring him a can of right guard and he was a fat guy and I called him roundy I go roundy go in the bathroom spray yourself I know you can't miss a hand you don't want to miss any hand so eventually you know his mother would call we had a pay phone in there and called I go roundy it's your mother"
},
{
"end_time": 1443.558,
"index": 57,
"start_time": 1419.77,
"text": " Ma, what do you want? What do you want? She says, where are you? You haven't been home for two days. Where are you? And he looked over and there was a jukebox that we had put in there. I had one of the guys steal the jukebox. It came from a Polish bar. I said, get rid of those, you know, Buffett, whoever it was, the Polish singers. And Sinatra had retired. So I go buy all these Sinatra records and stick it in there."
},
{
"end_time": 1462.466,
"index": 58,
"start_time": 1444.377,
"text": " that's working"
},
{
"end_time": 1493.37,
"index": 59,
"start_time": 1463.37,
"text": " What was it? Carmine Galante's nephew or something? Yeah, yeah, he was a wise guy's nephew and yeah, he was the character I mean a lot of these guys got killed along the way after I mean I closed the Sinatra up 74 I went to federal prison so we had it for three years, but it was three years of like Disneyland man, Disneyland for the mob. I mean, you know It was funny. It was a funny place every week. There would be stolen merchandise All kinds of things going on there, you know, the only thing we didn't allow any women in there"
},
{
"end_time": 1521.664,
"index": 60,
"start_time": 1494.189,
"text": " So they were down the block. Yeah. So, well, I was going to say, you just reminded me of something. I wish I could remember his name. Uh, the guy, they call him the chin. He used to walk around crazy. Yeah. So one of the guys underneath him was my Sally for like two months. He was called a lamb or somebody like that, or,"
},
{
"end_time": 1538.37,
"index": 61,
"start_time": 1522.381,
"text": " I forget I want to get his name he had gone to prison for well first of all he went to prison for like three or four years and then just as he was about to get out the feds reindited him."
},
{
"end_time": 1559.582,
"index": 62,
"start_time": 1539.292,
"text": " I think he'd only been arrested one time and I remember he was the coolest guy."
},
{
"end_time": 1584.872,
"index": 63,
"start_time": 1560.077,
"text": " you know of course he's in you know he's locked up he's got you know they've got he's got somebody cooking for him so three people are going to commissary he's buying everything out of the kitchen you know i mean he's got money but he's got nothing to do um so that was Vincent Vincent Chagant he was the same the chin oh okay but but it was yeah Matthew's talking about someone that was his cellmate that was under ensign right we"
},
{
"end_time": 1608.746,
"index": 64,
"start_time": 1585.623,
"text": " I'm not sure. I can't believe I can't remember his name. He was the coolest guy. Where were you? Which one? I was in Coleman. Coleman federal. This was in, no, this was in the low at the Coleman in the low. Wow. Um, and he'd just been reindicted. Like he'd been reindicted. Like he had maybe a year or two to go. Uh, anyway, he, I just, I always remember he said, he said, I,"
},
{
"end_time": 1635.486,
"index": 65,
"start_time": 1609.309,
"text": " I'm app, but prior to this, this arrest, he said, I've only been arrested one time. Well, they dropped the charges. And I was like, well, I said, well, I said, why'd they drop the charges? He said, you know, he said, this guy, he said, I owned a construction company. And he said, one of the guys that owned the construction company, or what, sorry, one of the guys that worked at the construction company had lent money."
},
{
"end_time": 1642.944,
"index": 66,
"start_time": 1636.647,
"text": " and the guy one of the guys wasn't paying what couldn't pay the money and he said oh well i forget the guy's name let's say it's"
},
{
"end_time": 1673.285,
"index": 67,
"start_time": 1643.609,
"text": " John or Anthony let's say he is will you just wait till Anthony finds out he is and because the guy is well the guy got scared and went to the feds and state and got wired up oh he said came back and said well what if I don't pay what's what's Anthony gonna do he said oh listen he said you don't want to know what they have to do he's gonna do he went on and on and he's gonna do this he's gonna have get your whatever break your fingers or do something and so he then so they went out and got an indictment"
},
{
"end_time": 1697.722,
"index": 68,
"start_time": 1673.695,
"text": " I'm"
},
{
"end_time": 1727.756,
"index": 69,
"start_time": 1698.217,
"text": " He's all right. All right, go out there. He's called the lawyer. Tell him I'll turn myself in, you know, Monday. So he said on Monday, I turn myself in, I get right back out. And I said, so what happened? He said, um, yeah, he said they dropped there. They had dropped the charges like four or five, six months later. I said, why? And he goes, you know, that guy, that guy, that the guy that wore the wire. And I said, right, he said he, he had like an accident. And I went, what an accident. And he goes,"
},
{
"end_time": 1740.026,
"index": 70,
"start_time": 1728.319,
"text": " I said, what do you mean an accident? He said, um, you know, they, they, I said, like, like he, he got hit by a car accident. He said, ah, they, they found them in, um, tears. They found them in a dumpster."
},
{
"end_time": 1760.555,
"index": 71,
"start_time": 1740.657,
"text": " I said, well, oh, was he a garbage man? I said, like, did he slip and fall in the compactor and ended up in the dumpster? Or he said, you know, you know, Matt, I like you. He said, but, you know, when you wear wires back then on people, he said, you know, you tended to have accidents."
},
{
"end_time": 1785.299,
"index": 72,
"start_time": 1760.845,
"text": " Yeah, he said he had an accident they dropped the charges then I got arrested like 20 years later and he said for this fucking thing. Yeah Yeah, no they got their humor like like salad said like John Gotti and His brother gene or one of them, you know, just the same thing I mean they just had they were really they just moved on with life after I"
},
{
"end_time": 1812.449,
"index": 73,
"start_time": 1785.691,
"text": " Yeah, John was extremely witty. He's a very witty guy, he was. And he was always ahead of everybody else. They would just, you know, they'd follow him. And I mean, even the older guys who were made guys, they trusted him. They really trusted him completely. And they bought into his visions, which was, you know, cool. He wasn't a drug dealer, but he was around all these drug dealers and they all gave him money."
},
{
"end_time": 1839.753,
"index": 74,
"start_time": 1812.961,
"text": " But he was a gambler, a bad gambler, so he could lose a lot of money. And this guy could lose $50,000 or $100,000 on a weekend betting football games, you know? No kidding. I mean, Matthew, so you were bringing up some stories about prison and the commissary and everything. Do you want Sal? Because he was kind of at that point where he had got arrested. But in prison, he kind of had the same situation with, like, commissary."
},
{
"end_time": 1864.787,
"index": 75,
"start_time": 1840.623,
"text": " Listen back then they had it way better than we have Like you guys could do something like it's practically state prison where I was at. Um, yeah So when so after the Sinatra called what it did you get arrested during that time? I mean, no I got out I won a case I only did like 12 or 13 months I got 25 years and I manipulated the system and"
},
{
"end_time": 1895.333,
"index": 76,
"start_time": 1865.418,
"text": " I actually set a law in federal court in the Eastern District of New York. And when I got out, I had met some guys in prison that were simply genius. I'm telling you, a guy who's the funniest guy, every once in a while I would do a rendition about him. And he was actually the subject for Bronx Tale. And his name was Fat Gigi Engleafs, Louis Engleafs. Big, heavy, fat guy like this, like 300 pounds."
},
{
"end_time": 1921.357,
"index": 77,
"start_time": 1895.811,
"text": " and how i got his attention was i was in lewisburg penitentiary but outside they had the farm and a friend of mine she had a brother-in-law that was on the farm and so my wife would drive up with his wife and i'd say buy some dunhill cigars in those days three or four dollars was a lot of money for a cigar was like a you know cuban cigar"
},
{
"end_time": 1930.418,
"index": 78,
"start_time": 1921.8,
"text": " so frankie outside the wall would come in for lunch and he'd hand me four or five cigars well i'd take this one cigar and go over and see fat gg"
},
{
"end_time": 1960.367,
"index": 79,
"start_time": 1930.947,
"text": " This is a guy who made mega, mega millions. He was part of the Purple Gang, okay? And he would sit outside. It was a nice day out. He'd turn the chair around, smoke the cigar. He'd be making love to the cigar. Like a cigar in prison was like, look, you're in prison, you know. And he would tell me stories, amazing stories. I got some of them. It'd take me half an hour to tell the story. But what happened was my name was Lubatz, which meant crazy in Italian. He goes, Lubatz."
},
{
"end_time": 1988.49,
"index": 80,
"start_time": 1960.845,
"text": " He says, you're 28 years old. What are you going to do when you get out of here? Now, he had a Harlem accent, different from Brooklyn. When the Harlem guys from the Bronx talk, they spit. They go, hey, fuck the new boss. What are you going to do when you get out of here? Got this big belly, smoking a cigar, drooling, right? They go, I don't know. He's put you hijacked trucks, you are banked. You've got to give that up. You've got to move ahead. To what? You've got to invest."
},
{
"end_time": 2009.189,
"index": 81,
"start_time": 1988.797,
"text": " Think Verizon, the best 5G network is expensive? Think again. Bring in your AT&T or T-Mobile bill to a Verizon store"
},
{
"end_time": 2039.821,
"index": 82,
"start_time": 2013.592,
"text": " Professional drug dealers. This guy was in the middle of Harlem. They dealt with Frank Lucas and the gang up there."
},
{
"end_time": 2068.575,
"index": 83,
"start_time": 2040.299,
"text": " so I said oh really well I said well who would I look please when you get out don't worry I'll set you up you know well I thought about it and once I found out my friend Foxy my crime partner was killed by the Tommy B Simone guy that was it no more guns no more robberies I immediately went into drug business now in 75 76 it might not sound like a lot of money making 25,000 a week cash"
},
{
"end_time": 2093.37,
"index": 84,
"start_time": 2069.036,
"text": " That sounds like a lot of money. That was. A brand new Chevy was $3,500. A Lincoln was $8,000. A Porsche was $12,000. So $25,000 a week. I could buy a house every other week. But he was right. That GD was right. That's where the money was. The drugs. And it was heroin. And I learned the business. I mean, never got busted for heroin. Never. But anyway, you know, I was doing all kinds of things."
},
{
"end_time": 2122.961,
"index": 85,
"start_time": 2093.66,
"text": " Right. At a Corvette shop, I owned 11 Corvettes, a Porsche, two jewelry stores, a real estate business. Never got busted, never. So I did that for about, oh, five, six, seven years, and I wanted to get out of New York City. So I went and bought 100 acres upstate New York, and I built a racetrack. That's about a million dollars up there. But it wasn't meant for me to make money in the racetrack. In those days, nobody even knew what NASCAR was in 1981."
},
{
"end_time": 2150.879,
"index": 86,
"start_time": 2123.336,
"text": " it was just starting to get on television and you know i was living the thing i found out you probably could identify with this Matthew you make a lot of money illegally and you're spending and spending incentive once you stop making the money if you don't stop spending you're going to go backwards quick right you know the old expression was yeah i was dealing drugs and then what happened i started to eat like a bird and shit like an elephant"
},
{
"end_time": 2180.316,
"index": 87,
"start_time": 2151.203,
"text": " Everything's going out, nothing's coming in. You learn your lessons. It was an interesting life. I left New York. About that time though, Gotti was making the move. I was still around him. I still knew all those guys. They were moving up. They were whacking out guys. He was already made. He became the captain. By the time 84 came, it wasn't long before he had visions of taking over the whole family, which he did the following year in 85."
},
{
"end_time": 2208.814,
"index": 88,
"start_time": 2180.947,
"text": " By that time, I had already went into the program, testified against the judge. I was sitting in Texas. What happened with that? How did that come about? Well, I had this judge that I used to pay off in Queens. If I got arrested, I'd pay the judge off, he'd throw the case out. Or I went to another judge. We had judges that were taking money. We could do anything we wanted there, in state court, not federal."
},
{
"end_time": 2230.862,
"index": 89,
"start_time": 2209.07,
"text": " So I got busted and I went to the feds. I said, look, because I could fix that case. It was a cocaine case in the state of New York. I'll fix this case and I'll do it while you guys wire me up. I don't need you because I can beat this case. But I want out of New York when kids with teenagers, I got to get them out of New York. And I did that undercover."
},
{
"end_time": 2256.186,
"index": 90,
"start_time": 2231.527,
"text": " he got busted he went to jail the judge I went to the witness protection program and the moron US Marshals put me down in Texas and they said well this is where you should be you gotta blend in how the fuck is a new guy gonna blend in Texas I felt like Cousin Vinny you know in the south so I had a hard time doing that both my kids were good athletes"
},
{
"end_time": 2283.336,
"index": 91,
"start_time": 2256.459,
"text": " and I was hanging out thinking I was done with the government but once you learn that the government had a contract and it said I had to appear you know any trials just about that time the year went by after Gotti killed Castellano okay and they had a Rico case on them and he said you're they brought me up to Detroit they interviewed me for three days you're going to be the first witness in a Gotti rocketeering Rico case"
},
{
"end_time": 2306.22,
"index": 92,
"start_time": 2283.899,
"text": " I go, you can know you're the best storyteller we got in New York. All right, so I go to New York and the case opens up in the fall of 86 and I'm watching what's going on. I go downstairs secretly in the courthouse with two-way mirrors and I see these two limousines back up."
},
{
"end_time": 2329.189,
"index": 93,
"start_time": 2306.749,
"text": " in the garage. And I'm waiting for the van to take me out, ride me out in New Jersey. I see all the jurors getting the limousine. The next morning I went up to the prosecutor and said, are you guys morons or what? You got all the jurors riding the limousine. You don't think John Gotti is going to reach one of those jurors? He's going to pay off a juror, a bribe him, and he's going to win this case. They say, Sal, you're looking at too much television."
},
{
"end_time": 2349.462,
"index": 94,
"start_time": 2330.299,
"text": " and that's exactly what happened i predicted it and of course years later sammy the bull told the story that's exactly what they did they paid off a witness 60 g's and got he became a superstar yeah he did he was a public figure the public loved him and"
},
{
"end_time": 2379.65,
"index": 95,
"start_time": 2349.77,
"text": " I mean, you know, and the mob loved it. And there I was down in Texas for the next few years, and I got involved in Hollywood quietly. I used a Jewish name. I started writing. I was good at it. I sold a couple of scripts. I worked with great writers. I had a lot of fun, you know. I slept with the first wife, got a young gal, got her, got a daughter, got a new son, and I was inventing toys and doing all kinds of legal stuff. I didn't do anything legal after they gave me a new name. Never, never again."
},
{
"end_time": 2386.783,
"index": 96,
"start_time": 2380.657,
"text": " What was the new name?"
},
{
"end_time": 2416.527,
"index": 97,
"start_time": 2388.2,
"text": " How long did you go under that name? Well, I went under that name for years until I started doing some interviews and using my real name Salvatore Polisi. So I would go, you know, use my real name in Hollywood. I got involved with really cool actors. I mean, I was friends with Ernest Borgnein before he died. I mean, I met a lot of cool people. I got a lot of respect there because they said, this guy is the real Chili Palmer."
},
{
"end_time": 2443.097,
"index": 98,
"start_time": 2417.159,
"text": " if you remember the get jordy yeah they said he's coming to our party meet this guy he's the real chili parma and that's what they called me chili it was funny just goofy stuff happened i had a big personality so i had fun you know i made mistakes in that business i wrote the scripts in hot for club a guy got a hold of it and i went to a party and he says give me this script i'll give you a quarter of a million"
},
{
"end_time": 2469.411,
"index": 99,
"start_time": 2443.746,
"text": " You wrote this as a drama. It's not a drama. I go, what do you mean? You're a funny guy. This could be funnier than My Blue Heaven. And he had won the Academy Award for The Sting. Okay. Give me this script. Give me. And the Wi-Fi was weird at that time. She said, no, I don't give it to him. 250 is nothing. We can get rich. I didn't give him the script. And then we waited years and we wound up making the movie Sinatra called For Peanuts."
},
{
"end_time": 2498.302,
"index": 100,
"start_time": 2469.718,
"text": " And, you know, it didn't come out the way it should have came out. So I made mistakes. I turned down David Chase. I met David Chase two years before The Sopranos aired. I sat with him and told him a bunch of stories. He said, come work for us. You could be a technical advisor. And I met the two people that were writing for him. They started with nothing. They made good money. And then recently they got very, very rich. They created blue blood."
},
{
"end_time": 2520.316,
"index": 101,
"start_time": 2499.002,
"text": " I have a lot of fun, I learned the business, got involved with some production companies, got involved with some directors."
},
{
"end_time": 2547.312,
"index": 102,
"start_time": 2520.794,
"text": " The movie got me a book deal."
},
{
"end_time": 2570.93,
"index": 103,
"start_time": 2548.49,
"text": " yeah i was gonna say it's it's well one it's funny because i uh you mentioned uh earnest board nine i actually just watched escape from new york a few days ago yeah but uh the other thing is i was gonna say that um it's funny how many guys that are involved in crime get out and then get involved in the movie business all these"
},
{
"end_time": 2598.012,
"index": 104,
"start_time": 2570.93,
"text": " I met a guy who was a Cuban guy. He came in to read for us for Sinatra, the little part. He had like two lines, big, heavy set guy. And he came in, he said, do I have to read the sides? You know, when you're casting, you give them a piece of paper, a couple of lines, they read. I said, no, what's your name? He said, Joey. Do what you want. Just let me do my stick. The guy was amazing. Nobody knew him 14 years ago. It's Joey Diaz."
},
{
"end_time": 2623.985,
"index": 105,
"start_time": 2598.012,
"text": " Cool. We've been friends for years. He calls me, invites me to his shows, you know. Joey is a cool guy. And if you ever saw his show, you'll laugh your ass off. But I did an appearance with him at the Pasadena Ice House. I couldn't believe how fast he is. I mean, he was like Robin Williams fast. You know, amazing, quickly, you know, interacting with the audience. He brought me up. I gave him a book."
},
{
"end_time": 2648.507,
"index": 106,
"start_time": 2624.241,
"text": " and I just got the book out signed in he goes hey come on you guys stop buying me see the woman over there I get off she says hey I just I just bought your book online it was like oh my god I'm selling books in a in a comedy club you know but he's a great guy you know we've been friends for a real problem come on our show I just like the guy he's a for real guy you know because you grew up with Italians he's really a Cuban guy yeah he's a good Italian"
},
{
"end_time": 2668.899,
"index": 107,
"start_time": 2648.916,
"text": " I was gonna say there's tons of like TikTok clips of him and Joe Rogan and every time I watch him, he's, you know, he's hilarious. He's hilarious. Yeah, I met up, you know, in nine, eight or nine, we did a movie in nine, 10. And then I lived for four blocks from him and he had a show back then called Beauty and the Beast or something."
},
{
"end_time": 2690.776,
"index": 108,
"start_time": 2669.292,
"text": " and he would call me without coffee he says hey you know what i think my girl's gonna have a baby i go really and uh so he had a daughter and then last week i talked to him i go hey where are you miss down out yet what is your daughter doing playing softball she's 10 i go oh my god where'd those 10 years go i mean you know he's back in new york and"
},
{
"end_time": 2718.746,
"index": 109,
"start_time": 2691.049,
"text": " He's just a nice guy who's very, very creative. He's really a great guy on stage. Did you ever see him on stage? No. Yeah. I mean, I'm in Tampa, Florida. I'm not sure he gets to Tampa, Florida very often. I think he's all over the country. Yeah. It's all over. Yeah. And if he did, I would. That's for damn sure. Yeah. Nice guy though. You know, he just never forgot. I said, Hey, you got to have that part, man. I gave him a little part and then he did a movie with De Niro. He started getting some movie roles, you know,"
},
{
"end_time": 2743.285,
"index": 110,
"start_time": 2719.258,
"text": " You don't forget people when you meet them, you know, he's a good guy Yeah, he So how long So I don't so you were only you only lived under the Witness protection protection for what five or six years? Oh, no. No, I got the name in 85"
},
{
"end_time": 2761.8,
"index": 111,
"start_time": 2743.592,
"text": " and then i split with my first wife 87 met this young gal i was with her 19 years so i did 19 years with that new name so i'd be i would be in the bay area with the new name go to la use the old name make believe i'm chili pablo you know thrive down in la"
},
{
"end_time": 2789.241,
"index": 112,
"start_time": 2763.524,
"text": " I mean one of my best friends wrote Sam Lot and the guy's an amazing writer so he liked me we became friends and I always got jobs, hey come on I'll give you a couple thousand a week come up to Vancouver we're gonna shoot Sam Lot too and another guy for 20 years you know we were just friends you know you meet people you strike up a friendship you know you don't play any games with them it's interesting because you know Hollywood"
},
{
"end_time": 2819.275,
"index": 113,
"start_time": 2789.923,
"text": " I mean overall though I mean everything you know we we talked about today I mean it's just it's a whole different era so when people think about all these stories and stuff I guess you gotta keep in mind like like he said Google didn't exist you know cameras and all that kind of crap so that's why he was able to do this kind of stuff I mean Sal has turned his life around I mean he's not"
},
{
"end_time": 2846.578,
"index": 114,
"start_time": 2819.804,
"text": " in that you know doesn't have that same mindset he never did any crime after i didn't see this stuff matthew as valuable podcast about 12 or 13 years ago a guy came to me he's a big radio producer he said i heard that you uh change your ways in life and you used to be a bigot and a racist and all this stuff i go oh yeah my two kids you know growing up i taught them the right thing i never used any"
},
{
"end_time": 2872.961,
"index": 115,
"start_time": 2846.903,
"text": " You know, racist comments and stuff. And he says, you were once homophobic. I go, yeah, it was a lot of things. I was taught this crap. I said, but I did a speaking engagement at an editing house. It was about 100 people changing their careers to become editors. And I talked about change, like massive change. And this radio producer said, I want you to go on a show with this woman. I talked to her about you. I go, yeah, who is it?"
},
{
"end_time": 2902.5,
"index": 116,
"start_time": 2874.053,
"text": " and uh it turns out that she was uh i kind of always forget her name again she won academy award she's a singer uh she's lesbian god everybody knows him but so i went and i did her show and we talked about change and uh what the heck was her name again gosh i did about an hour with her you know i go i don't make a lot of changes it wasn't just for me for my kids what oh melissa etheridge"
},
{
"end_time": 2922.295,
"index": 117,
"start_time": 2903.114,
"text": " there it is she said boy i wouldn't have been in a room with you an italian you know uh an italian racist and homophobic i go i had to give all that up when i so i got a new name and i changed from my way can i can i come to your house for spaghetti"
},
{
"end_time": 2952.978,
"index": 118,
"start_time": 2923.575,
"text": " Matthew B. Cox is a con man, incarcerated in the Federal Bureau of Prisons for a variety"
},
{
"end_time": 2982.654,
"index": 119,
"start_time": 2953.268,
"text": " of bank fraud-related scams. Despite not having a drug problem, Cox inexplicably ends up in the prison's Residential Drug Abuse Program, known as ARDAP, a drug program in name only. ARDAP is an invasive behavior modification therapy specifically designed to correct the cognitive thinking errors associated with criminal behavior. The program is a non-fiction dark comedy which chronicles Cox's side-splitting journey"
},
{
"end_time": 3012.244,
"index": 120,
"start_time": 2983.114,
"text": " This first-person account is a fascinating glimpse at the survivor-like atmosphere inside of the government-sponsored rehabilitation unit. While navigating the treachery of his backstabbing peers, Cox simultaneously manipulates prison policies and the bumbling staff every step of the way. The program. How a conman survived the Federal Bureau of Prisons' cult of RDP. Available now on Amazon and Audible."
},
{
"end_time": 3041.749,
"index": 121,
"start_time": 3012.517,
"text": " yeah it's it's funny when i went into prison you know i went into prison and i and what i did in prison was i wrote stories i just wrote started writing guys stories down you know if i if you had an interesting story i would research it i'd order the freedom of information act i'd order your case file i'd order well everything and just start putting it together and and some of them were books uh wrote about 24 23 24 uh synopsis of stories like maybe 10 12 000 words you know"
},
{
"end_time": 3053.37,
"index": 122,
"start_time": 3042.363,
"text": " and uh and like that's one of the things i do now but while i was writing these stories in prison guys kept telling me as i got closer to the door they were like bro you gotta"
},
{
"end_time": 3075.196,
"index": 123,
"start_time": 3053.916,
"text": " You gotta do a podcast. When I got locked up, there was no such thing as a podcast. YouTube had been out for like a year. Facebook had just come out maybe a month before I got arrested. So I'm like, what's a podcast? People are like, a podcast. No, I don't. They don't even realize that word was invented."
},
{
"end_time": 3102.688,
"index": 124,
"start_time": 3076.032,
"text": " you know I'm saying that wasn't a common thing they made so I started reading articles and got out and said okay yeah I should do a podcast when I get it and you know they were saying oh true crimes huge you know like what's true crime what are you talking about they're like writing real crime stories like I didn't even know what I was doing I was doing it I was already doing this kind of in prison before yeah I didn't even know it"
},
{
"end_time": 3122.807,
"index": 125,
"start_time": 3103.541,
"text": " the right"
},
{
"end_time": 3147.995,
"index": 126,
"start_time": 3123.217,
"text": " A lot of copycats. You remember the movie they did about the Four Seasons? What the hell was that name again? It was a big hit movie. It was about Frankie Valley and the Four Seasons. It was on stage and became a movie and everything. I can't think of the name of it. It was very popular about 10, 15 years ago. Well, I'm watching the movie with my wife and I go, did you hear that? They say what?"
},
{
"end_time": 3164.565,
"index": 127,
"start_time": 3148.473,
"text": " I said, they ripped off one of our ideas or one of the things we did. She goes, what's that? I go, we were hijacking so many trucks. We would get information from the guys who worked at Kennedy airport. So we would get especially Italian goods. Okay."
},
{
"end_time": 3194.189,
"index": 128,
"start_time": 3164.889,
"text": " We hijacked a truck full of Italian shoes. When I got it over to Jimmy Burke, I would call up, because we had to drop the drivers off. I had to hold them for an hour and a half. He said, come over quickly, we got a problem. I go over to the, they call it the drop, the building where the truck was in. They had me shoes laid out. He's got the guy coming, the Jewish guy's coming to look at these beautiful Italian shoes. You got a problem? I go, what's the problem? Did you look at the shoes? How can I look at the shoes? We robbed the truck. Now we're looking at"
},
{
"end_time": 3219.94,
"index": 129,
"start_time": 3194.684,
"text": " you got eight thousand pairs of shoes but they're all left that what they're all left with the rights they're gonna put it on another truck probably they didn't want you to get all the shoes so they sent the left and the rights are going in another truck what the hell did you do with that yeah that was the 70s we threw the stuff away screen card in the movie with frankie valley in the four seasons"
},
{
"end_time": 3238.387,
"index": 130,
"start_time": 3220.469,
"text": " They mentioned the shoes. I mean, that was just like, I love it. So they decided to put, oh yeah, we got all kinds of contacts. We get stolen merchandise. Sometime we got all left use from Italy, but that actually happened to us, you know? So yeah, they take your stuff and they use it. That's just the way it is."
},
{
"end_time": 3261.442,
"index": 131,
"start_time": 3238.78,
"text": " Yeah, I was like, I always say, look, I'd rather deal with guys in Hollywood and rather deal with guys in prison than guys in Hollywood, at least. And if something goes wrong, you know, it could go wrong for the person, you know, fucking you over. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? In Hollywood, they just, you know, oh, well, you know, that just happened. It's always."
},
{
"end_time": 3289.428,
"index": 132,
"start_time": 3262.21,
"text": " Yeah, that's a rough business. Yeah, yeah, it is. Much more than crime. Yeah, I don't have any interest in going Hollywood. I mean, I'd like to sell the rights. You know, we stole the rights to one book. We turned down the rights. I got a big interview coming up with Netflix. It's not coming out for another month or two. And there's a huge, huge interview. And I went to New York last year. And when I sat down with the producers from Netflix,"
},
{
"end_time": 3319.514,
"index": 133,
"start_time": 3289.94,
"text": " I said, what do you guys want? He goes, you know, you're one of the few guys left that could talk about John Gotti. And so suppose I tell you what he did in 1972. Suppose I give you the conversations. There's no way that's 49 years ago or 50 years ago. Turn the camera on. And we did about an hour with that. How did you remember that stuff? You can't forget. It's something you don't want to forget. It was like fun. You know, it was a game. We were playing a game like, you know, and I gave him that interview. I don't know how much they used, you know, because"
},
{
"end_time": 3348.404,
"index": 134,
"start_time": 3319.855,
"text": " It's a you know, they're gonna edit stuff out, but it's all good stuff So, you know stuff that no one else could talk about we can mention that what what the show is, right? So yeah fear city. It's season two I then believe it is and it's they cover the mafia Different families and stuff and yeah, so so they got Sal on there making an appearance and then I think they had on the first season like John a light Michael Francis. Yeah guys like that and it's really good. I enjoyed it and"
},
{
"end_time": 3366.869,
"index": 135,
"start_time": 3348.677,
"text": " So Sal has that coming out. They were pretty secretive. One day I said to the producer, I want to know one thing. Did you get Anthony Ruggiano and interview him? Oh, we can't tell you. So then I reached out. I heard Anthony was interviewed. So then Chief, the producer sent me a text message"
},
{
"end_time": 3396.698,
"index": 136,
"start_time": 3367.142,
"text": " I had him too."
},
{
"end_time": 3423.217,
"index": 137,
"start_time": 3396.971,
"text": " I did get a call once from the FBI years ago when A-Lite came out, sort of like he wanted to go straight, and he said, look, could you med to this guy? I said, I don't have a problem with him, but every once in a while he talks about John Godden. John A-Lite was about 10, 12 years old when we had the Sinatra Club. How could he know any of this? He's a good researcher."
},
{
"end_time": 3443.729,
"index": 138,
"start_time": 3423.968,
"text": " Listen I I did a Every interview I did two interviews with with him the comment section They they hate I've never I've never seen anybody get so much hate. I mean, they just hammer him hammer away at him"
},
{
"end_time": 3456.817,
"index": 139,
"start_time": 3444.582,
"text": " the"
},
{
"end_time": 3484.411,
"index": 140,
"start_time": 3457.108,
"text": " I mean, we're talking about Cuba and being friends with Batista. I'd be like, oh, OK. I don't know. He got a conversation with Trump, didn't he? Oh, yeah. There's a picture of them. Yeah. Yeah. Him and Trump took a picture together. And then Trump also took one with Joey Marlino, the alleged boss of the Philadelphia. I was in prison with Joey Marlino. I had lunch with him a couple of times."
},
{
"end_time": 3514.036,
"index": 141,
"start_time": 3484.411,
"text": " I do like to talk about the guys that I met in Lewisburg. I'm going to do a presentation for Adrian because I think it's really a stage play. It's so good because all the guys were there. They ran the prison. And if you remember in Goodfellas when Paulie was slicing the garlic, I was in that room."
},
{
"end_time": 3534.462,
"index": 142,
"start_time": 3514.394,
"text": " I can't recall."
},
{
"end_time": 3565.384,
"index": 143,
"start_time": 3535.384,
"text": " Henry's assignment was to steal meat out of the butcher"
},
{
"end_time": 3587.824,
"index": 144,
"start_time": 3565.742,
"text": " The most exciting three days of my prison time was on the 8th of August when Nixon got up and resigned and he said, I'm not a crook, we all ran around the prison block looking at each other like"
},
{
"end_time": 3606.152,
"index": 145,
"start_time": 3588.2,
"text": " I'm Spartacus. I'm Spartacus. I'm Spartacus. I'm not a crook. And we laughed because we knew he was a crook. I mean, that stuff built him down. Then two days later, there was an escape in Lewisburg. It was the first escape ever. And there was a guy there who skyjacked an airplane. They thought he was D.B. Cooper."
},
{
"end_time": 3632.176,
"index": 146,
"start_time": 3606.527,
"text": " and later went to North Carolina and the feds killed him. He was a bank robber. So it was pretty exciting being there looking at all the stuff that was going on and all the guys that were there. I mean there was legendary guys from what they called the Purple Gang from Harlem. I mean you had every group you can imagine from New York because it was the beginning of drug sentences like big time, 10 years, 20 years. Bad GG in Galise"
},
{
"end_time": 3662.5,
"index": 147,
"start_time": 3633.677,
"text": " I mean that's"
},
{
"end_time": 3688.848,
"index": 148,
"start_time": 3663.422,
"text": " And so essentially, yes, he was, Sal was in prison with a lot of guys. I mean, there was a lot of from, you know, the five New York crime families, of course. And then surprisingly, too, a lot of guys from the Philadelphia crime family that would go on to be in a lot of internal wars and be high level ranking guys. So Sal got to be around them when they're really young and experience what they were like and stuff like that."
},
{
"end_time": 3718.592,
"index": 149,
"start_time": 3689.275,
"text": " And it's just crazy, I mean, where he was at and what a big coincidence that he ended up there with all of them at the same time. That fat Gigi said to me, when you leave here, because I had an appeal working, I knew I was going to win, I won my appeal. I mean, I got 25 years, I do one year. He said, when you leave here, just remember one thing. Don't ever look like, don't ever think prison is the Department of Corrections. I go, what do you call it? It's the Department of Connections. He said."
},
{
"end_time": 3742.619,
"index": 150,
"start_time": 3719.735,
"text": " the the the"
},
{
"end_time": 3772.705,
"index": 151,
"start_time": 3743.285,
"text": " the the the"
},
{
"end_time": 3796.22,
"index": 152,
"start_time": 3772.961,
"text": " No, I was just thinking when I went to I was at the medium security prison in Coleman for about three years and I remember when I first got there I was sitting at the I was sitting at a table one time with these guys and You know and they're just it was like when I first got there like, you know, everybody's pretty quiet and I forget what happened somebody said"
},
{
"end_time": 3824.599,
"index": 153,
"start_time": 3797.773,
"text": " I don't know what I said, but I ended up saying, yeah, man, I got 26 years. Because I did, I had 26 years. And I remember somebody goes, yeah, that's a good bit of time. I got 30 years. And I turn around and I got another guy, black guy sitting across from me, looked up at me and he goes, I'm never leaving. And I thought,"
},
{
"end_time": 3853.148,
"index": 154,
"start_time": 3825.333,
"text": " Stop complaining about your time. Nobody. How much time did you do out of the twenty thirteen? I did thirteen about almost thirteen years old. Yeah. But paper crime. Yeah. Oh, my God. I was a man in thirteen months. Oh, boy. Wow. Very upset with me. Oh, man. Wow. Yeah. You make restitution."
},
{
"end_time": 3881.886,
"index": 155,
"start_time": 3853.592,
"text": " No, I still owe six million, but I'm good for it. Oh, that's good. Yeah. I'm making payment. Yeah, I heard a guy, I heard a guy once, you know, they said, you know, how many million and the judge said, well, when are you going to stop paying? He said, I'll pay pay soon, you know, but it probably take me the rest of my life. How much you plan on sending in every month? It's twenty five dollars. Yeah. Oh, buddy."
},
{
"end_time": 3909.121,
"index": 156,
"start_time": 3882.227,
"text": " I had two kids who I loved and I never once struck them. Two kids who grew up to be football players."
},
{
"end_time": 3938.439,
"index": 157,
"start_time": 3909.548,
"text": " And I had this stockbroker in the 70s. He would come over on Wednesday night because I had bogus names in the stock market. I'd give him 10,000, 20,000, 30,000. I was a junkie because I played puts and calls. I was gambling with the stock market because I thought it was sophisticated. I thought I was cool. He would come over on Wednesday. My first wife would make a nice Italian dinner and they'd be there at 6. We'd eat at 6.37. He'd stay an hour or so, give me an envelope of money and that would be that."
},
{
"end_time": 3967.108,
"index": 158,
"start_time": 3938.951,
"text": " So it was probably in the fall, I remember this, and my kid was 10 years old, my oldest son. I said to my wife, where's Sal Jr.? She said, I don't know. So came time for dinner. We got to eat dinner. Jim is here, let's have dinner. So we had dinner. He comes in, he's 10 years old, like two hours later, filthy dirty. Do you know anything about New York? Nothing. Do you know anything about New York? Have you ever heard of Coney Island?"
},
{
"end_time": 3991.049,
"index": 159,
"start_time": 3967.261,
"text": " Yeah, yeah, okay, that's where they have the hot dog contest I go What were you doing? He said I was helping my friend Joey his father was cleaning the guard the garage I go Joey Joey's the Beale and his father was cleaning the garage. He says yeah, he's cleaning the garage I said, yeah, I slapped him in the face like like that. I said you lying little shit. You weren't by Joey's house. I"
},
{
"end_time": 4019.36,
"index": 160,
"start_time": 3991.493,
"text": " How do you know that? They found Joey last year in the back seat of a car with two bullets in his head. Damn. Now tell the truth, where were you? I went to Coney Island. I was riding the Ferris wheel. So that was in 78. I gotta tell you, like years later, I bought him a brand new Trans Am. He went to college. He played college football and one day he disappeared."
},
{
"end_time": 4049.428,
"index": 161,
"start_time": 4020.657,
"text": " call them up and go where are you dad how is that joey's house don't ask you know that's one of the funny stories about being an italian father but i never struck to get just one slap and i said don't over lie again you never lied to me again don't reach him that's all it took i said not only joey's father was whacked and guess what joey's uncle they found him in his back seat of the car he was whacked"
},
{
"end_time": 4076.852,
"index": 162,
"start_time": 4049.787,
"text": " The whole family got whacked out. They were doing bad things. I'm so sorry to hear you did 13 years. Oh my God. I mean, I was fine. I try to, you know, listen, the, the, you know, the problem is I, I, you know, I started off and I was complaining, right? I got, I got 12 years knocked off my sentence. So technically I'm supposed to be in prison right now. My out date, my out date was 2030."
},
{
"end_time": 4092.21,
"index": 163,
"start_time": 4077.671,
"text": " the the"
},
{
"end_time": 4115.981,
"index": 164,
"start_time": 4092.756,
"text": " I think about some black kid who brought a gun to a ten dollar"
},
{
"end_time": 4141.527,
"index": 165,
"start_time": 4116.493,
"text": " crack sale and it's doing 30 years right because fucking stupid stupid law or somebody who was selling drugs to people that wanted the drugs and they had a little bit too much and they got some 20-year minimum mandatory and right i'm saying like there's so many unfair sentences i don't i try not to bitch about it and listen i made the best of it yeah it's just like you like like"
},
{
"end_time": 4166.817,
"index": 166,
"start_time": 4142.91,
"text": " You know, look, what would have been a good life? You know, getting a job at a regular job and raising a family and being a soccer dad and that's like the right thing. I wish sometimes I think, well, I wish that's what I had done. Like it just didn't work out like that. I have different memories. Yeah. You know, but I have, I have compassion and after January I told"
},
{
"end_time": 4193.592,
"index": 167,
"start_time": 4167.534,
"text": " Adrian, we've got to start talking about criminal justice reform. And anytime you want to do a program, get another person, an attorney or somebody, I would love to talk about that because we are so in need of criminal justice reform. Years ago, when you went in, they had mandatory sentencing. They took away the judge's power and that always bothered me. Yeah. Well, it leaves no room for"
},
{
"end_time": 4220.418,
"index": 168,
"start_time": 4194.019,
"text": " I don't know. There's just no good answer, but I'll tell you what's not a solution is"
},
{
"end_time": 4245.282,
"index": 169,
"start_time": 4221.101,
"text": " What's not a solution is spending $11,000 to educate a student a year and spending $30,000 to house somebody when you know that people with education don't commit as much crime as people without an education. Exactly. Why wouldn't you just say, hey, every one probation officer can watch"
},
{
"end_time": 4269.224,
"index": 170,
"start_time": 4245.947,
"text": " 25 guys so why wouldn't you just let these guys out why do you even have a camp they have out custody you could put them on ankle monitors you could with today's technology you could monitor where all these guys are you could have red zones they can drop the clothes drop the clothes like what are you doing like it's doing nothing but getting votes it's all about votes it's big business yeah"
},
{
"end_time": 4282.568,
"index": 171,
"start_time": 4269.65,
"text": " that's ridiculous."
},
{
"end_time": 4302.773,
"index": 172,
"start_time": 4283.746,
"text": " Well, we're going to have to think about doing something and education is the answer now. See, like you said, if you can educate these people, you know, I always said to an FBI friend of mine, why don't we go in there and show them how much technology and DNA is available and say, don't commit crime. You have no chance. Educate them. Oh my God, I'll be caught."
},
{
"end_time": 4331.357,
"index": 173,
"start_time": 4304.275,
"text": " You listen, I always thought I used to always say, you know what they ought to do? They ought to teach a class in every high school or middle school on this, the federal sentencing guidelines and let people know that they're like, wait a minute. I've just been selling Dimebacks. No, you sold 30 pounds of pot, right? Cause you add all of that up and you call it ghost dope and you got caught with 30 pounds of pot. Now you're going to do five years. They'd go,"
},
{
"end_time": 4351.971,
"index": 174,
"start_time": 4332.056,
"text": " that is true guys"
},
{
"end_time": 4379.701,
"index": 175,
"start_time": 4352.483,
"text": " You know, hey bro, like I'll give you five grand and you'll just tell me how this works. I'm like, uh-uh. I'm already on the conspiracy. No. I'm already on the indictment. Right. You're gonna get caught. No, I would never tell on you. Well, let's pretend that's true, which I don't believe, but assume it's true. They're gonna get your phone. They're gonna run my phone number. They're gonna see who I am. They're gonna run my record. And they're not even gonna, they're just gonna add me to the indictment."
},
{
"end_time": 4406.186,
"index": 176,
"start_time": 4379.701,
"text": " right and then I'm gonna go to trial I can't take the stand to explain what happened because they'll bring up my past record when the jury will convict me on the fact that I've been in prison for doing the same thing that you got caught with even though I just told you no don't call me that click yeah people just don't understand how it works yeah and yeah that Rico man I mean that's uh well one other thing man"
},
{
"end_time": 4433.473,
"index": 177,
"start_time": 4406.425,
"text": " Yeah, conspiracy, Jesus. Yeah, the government, you know, I mean, maybe Trump has a shot, but you know, years ago, they used to have a 92% conviction rate. I don't know how he's going to beat the case. I don't know. Who knows? It's up to like 97% now. Yeah, yeah. Although let's face it, if you have money, it does equal the it does equal the"
},
{
"end_time": 4462.517,
"index": 178,
"start_time": 4434.599,
"text": " It started with a scream inside a quiet Maryland home, a mother trying to protect the family dog and her son in the grip of a violent hallucinogenic rage. By the time it was over, she was dead, and he claimed LSD made him do it. His name, David Minor IV, and we talked to him. Listen to Invisible Choir every other week as we uncover the most haunting true crimes you've never heard of, available wherever you get your podcasts."
},
{
"end_time": 4497.312,
"index": 179,
"start_time": 4470.828,
"text": " our um, semi, you know, helps level the playing field to a degree. That's true. We'll see how it pans out with them. But before we do stop Sal, I was going to say, uh, so our, our Patreon channels, uh, called a lifetime of mafia tales with Salvatore Polisi. And then my name's Adrian Martinez. So you can look it up on Patreon. And then our YouTube is, uh, invest in yourself podcast and"
},
{
"end_time": 4505.026,
"index": 180,
"start_time": 4497.722,
"text": " it's all together it's invest in yourself podcast in a lifetime of mafia tells i know it's a long name but me and sound just partnered up so"
},
{
"end_time": 4529.121,
"index": 181,
"start_time": 4505.572,
"text": " it's"
},
{
"end_time": 4547.705,
"index": 182,
"start_time": 4529.906,
"text": " Hey this is Matthew Cox and I appreciate you guys checking out the video. Do me a favor and hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this. Check the description box for Sal and Adrian's YouTube link and their Patreon and thanks for checking out the video."
}
]
}No transcript available.