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You are now listening to True Murder The most Shocking Killers in True Crime History and the authors that have written about them. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Good evening, This is your host Dan Szepanski for the program True Murder, The most shocking Killers in true crime History and the authors that are and about them. When the infamous gangster Whitey Bulger went on the lamb in nineteen ninety five, the streets of Boston became a war zone between the mafia and the renegades, with the winter
Hill Gang looking on. Rogue Mobster. The Untold Story of Mark Silverman and the New England Mafia chronicles the inside story of the Boston mob Wars of the nineteen nineties, when over two dozen gangsters were killed in a vicious war for control of the Boston underworld. Rogue Mobster is told in the Worlds of Mark Silverman, an outsider from Medford who got inside the mob and became an integral
part of the ensuing war. His account is the first ever inside glimpse into what went on at the street level, why people were killed, and what the stakes really were. Silverman grew up in the shadow of Whitey Bulger, Howie Winter, Raymond Patriarcha, and Jerry Angelio, bosses of Boston's most infamous crime families with a Jewish last name. His opportunities should have been limited in Boston's Italian underworld, but he moved
up quickly, gaining acceptance across the board. Silverman was made in the patriarch of the Patriarcha family as a reward for infiltrating a renegade mob faction backed by a New York family. The book begins with the unique history of the Boston ganglin scene and takes the reader right up to the late nineteen eighties. Silverman recounts the shifting alliances and friendships that were torn apart as the various mob factions battle for control of the Boston underworld through the
early two thousands. Rogue Mobster is a first hand account of the violent mob wars of the nineteen nineties, when bodies were piling up across New England and Mark Silverman was walking a tightrope between winter Hill and the Mafia.
The book this.
Evening we're featuring is Rogue a Mobster with my special guests, Mark Silverman and Scott Dicci. Welcome to the program, gentlemen, and thank you to agreeing to this interview. Mark Silverman and Scott Decci.
Well, thanks for us on appreciate it.
Thank you very much, You're welcome. I'm pretty excited for our audience to hear another We normally don't do too many stories mob stories, but this is a very exciting one, and with this inside access that we have here, this is a kind of unique, even in this sort of genre. So let's get right to it. Please, whoever wants to go first here, maybe Mark, I would think maybe you can tell us set the setting for our audience where exactly this is in Boston, what kind of neighborhood this is,
what's the makeup of the neighborhood. Let's maybe even set the year, what year this story begins basically, and what was the mood there at that time. Take us back this area in Boston where this story is set, and take us back please.
Well, there's a couple of neighborhoods that are involved mostly in this story, and one of them is called Winter Hill, and that's in Somerville, Massachusetts, and that's a predominantly Irish neighborhood and it's notorious for the strength of its organized crime. But there's also the North End of Boston, which is mostly Italian, and those two groups are integral to the story, and that's kind of where it began. It began right
around nineteen eighty nine. Around that time when the patriarchal crime family actually had an internal war because the family split into two factions, and one of the factions was a renegade faction from within the family. In other words, these guys got together and they wanted to make a
play for power. They wanted to take down the existing hierarchy of the patriarcha family which I termed Cozonoustra and that lasted for about five years up until about maybe ninety four ninety five, and that's when the federal government came in and they took down most of the renegade faction.
But in the mafia, it multiplies, So when those guys went to jail, another faction that represented them came up and in ninety five when all this stuff was clearing, as they were clearing out the remnants of that original renegade faction, Whitey Bulger and Frank Cadillac Selemmi they were the two leaders, Whitey Bulger of course, being the leader of the Irish Mob and Frank Cadillac Soulemi being the
leader of Coast and Oustra. When the indictments came down for those guys in ninety five, they both decided to go on the Lamb, and Frank Clemmi lasted about seven months on the Lamb, and Whitey Bulger, as I'm sure maybe your audience knows, and maybe you know, he lasted almost seventeen years on the Lamb. So my point being is that during that time when the two main leaders were on the Lamb and on Accountant War, it just began an all out fight for power. People tried to
fill the void. And that's uh, that's pretty much where I came into the scene.
Okay, we're gonna we're gonna go switch to Scott Dicci and ask him a question that I'm really curious about. How he how you became involved with this project, Scott and and why it was of interest to you as a as a writer. And you can give us your background if you'd like. Uh, we'd like to hear that, and and tell us why this story compelled you to write this book, and tell us where that when and where you made that decision and why tell us please?
Yeah, absolutely, you know I started getting interest in organized crime and writing, started writing some articles online on the web back late nineties, early two thousands, and then wrote my first book, Cigar City Mafia, about the Tampa underworld in two that came out in two thousand and four. About a year after that, I got an email from Mark. You know, I'd been approached by a lot of people.
I've written a few books since then on the mafia, and I get approached by people fairly regularly about writing stories. And you know, hey, I was involved in this, this, and this. When Mark contacted me, I thought he had a really interesting take on it. Number one, Mark's only a couple of years older than me, you know, so he's pretty young. So that was one thing. You know, here's someone I can relate to. This is not some guy in his eighties that's calling stuff that happened the
way back when. But you know, for all the exciting stuff that had been going on in Boston, there really hadn't been a lot of a lot of the books dealing with Boston organized crime dealt with Whitey Balger exclusively, and there was so much else going on that just
wasn't told. And here's a guy who had a really good kind of you know, we were all outside looking in, but he was inside looking in, and he had a really good perspective on it, and it was just a really good And the one other thing I liked about is Mark doesn't pull any punches in dealing with what he did. It's not like, you know, woe is me I was in this life. You know, he's pretty frank
about his involvement and what he did. And you know, that's kind of a refreshing change of pace from a lot of these mob tell alls that you read.
Okay, now, Mark, you kind of skipped ahead a little bit in the book for anybody sort of listening in our audience. So I'm going to just ask you to take us back to how the heck you became involved in organized crime, Why organized crime seem attractive to you? Obviously, most people in our audience are going to be saying, well, you know, how did you do this? How were you influenced to become a gangster, Why would you want to
become a gangster? And you know what kind of environment did you grow up that this was an option for you? So tell us a little bit about that.
Take us back, well back in those days. You know, I was uh, I was an impressionable kid, and UH I had grown up in the Great Boston area, in Medford and Somerville, and uh, even as a teenager, I had always seen these guys and uh, you know, I was no different than most kids. I mean I was Uh. I was running around with the street tofts, and I was uh I was looking at these guys as maybe, uh you know, guys who got respect, guys who got things done, Guys that uh were somebody's in our neighborhood.
And uh when I was in high school, I was pulling off some petty crimes and I was making some decent money. And uh I went to college for a
year after that. But uh, I was living in the uh winter Hill neighborhood of uh of Massachusetts, and uh that's actually in some of the Massachusetts and uh when I was living there, I began meeting some very very high ranking Winter Hill gangsters, and uh, I actually began to get noticed by some of the senior members of the gang, some of the guys that have been around a long time, and uh, some guys that I really
looked up to. So I was kind of torn between do I stay in school or do I do I make this transition into uh this life because at that age, you're not really thinking about your future. You're saying, wow, you know this, this looks like it might be uh you know, it's it's it's it's instantly gratifying, you know, at least that's how I thought. But uh, I began as a driver for the Uh the guy that I'm speaking of, one of the old time members of the gang, and he took me under his wing, and he just
took a liking to me, and uh, excuse me. We had like a grandfather grandson type of relationship. He just a lot of these older guys, a lot of the guys that have been around a long time, what they like to do is they like to excuse me again. Uh, they like to mentor the younger guys that they see. I mean, they're not gonna pict just any random guy off the street. But they saw something in me that they they thought maybe that they could groom, They could
like a piece of clay that they could mold. And I don't know if they manipulated me or I was a willing participant, but I eventually began driving and collecting some shylock money from some of their operations. Could they started introducing me around town to some real heavy hitters. And I was a young kid and I was awe struck. I was like, you know, this is this list. Looks like it could be really something good. So at that point, there was no more going back to the school. My
school was going to be on the streets. And at that point it started to grow. I mean I became their protege. I became the guy that they began grooming, that they began relying on. I mean, I was nineteen twenty years old and I'm going out collecting envelopes for guys that are notorious in the Boston on the world, I mean legends. And you know, I played the game. I enjoyed it, and I began to grow.
Now you're talking about and you mentioned it is prior, you know, predominantly in the book about the distinction between went on here. The renegade faction you talked about and alluded to. We'll talk about that in a little bit, but this is Lacusinostra. These are Italians, and for anybody that doesn't know about this, it's at least legend, has it anyway that the Italians want to pick Italians so that they can trace them all the way back to the old country to make sure that the guy's good.
What was your family like, what was your parents and your family like that you were in this kind of neighborhood and did that have any influence on you getting involved in organized crime? Your family itself, in your background, your environment that you grew up in.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean I have a Jewish last name, but I'm actually half Sicilian and that's that comes from my mother's side and my mother's father, My grandfather was he was actually an Italian gangster, but his brother, my uncle, was an Irish gangster, so it was kind of a mix. But on my father's side it was Irish, so it's kind of like a sportensborg of uh. You know, in my immediate family, I had all these ties to the to the organized crime and uh it was kind of crazy.
But yeah, you're right about the Italian thing, absolutely, but uh, in Boston. I don't know if you, uh your listeners are familiar with this, but uh, in Boston it was actually more like an Irish thing because of you know, guys like Whitey Belser and guys like Cowie went there and Joe McDonald and those guys. But yeah, they they they were part of cost and Austra to a point, you know, but uh, they they held their own and it's it's a very it's a very unique situation in uh,
in the Boston area. So that's uh, those are kind of like my family roots.
And you talked about patriarcha to being part of the Coles and Austra. Well, let's fully explain that he had enough respect that when he went to New York he could he had some influence he had he sat down with the these people, So he sat down with the biggest mafia leaders in America or in the world.
Well, yeah, he actually, you know, there was a sixties Irish gang war that originally this was way before my time obviously, but Raymond patriarch at to end that war. He threw his support behind the Irish winter Hill Gang and that began. That was the beginning of a love hate relationship between the Italians and the Irish. But it was because of Raymond Patriarch and the power that he wielded, as you said, as you alluded to it, he held
a seat on the National Commission. He he was the CEO of the New England Mafia, and yeah he was. He he was the leader of cos and Austra. But because he was backing up the Irish during their internal power struggle that they had in the sixties, they actually merged and he took a real liking to these Irish guys. And you combine the two together and you get a very strong, uh, a very strong army.
Bell Scott, what was the what was your the research that that was entailed in writing this book? How did you go about getting this information from Mark? Mark? Did did you use a recorder? Did you write stuff down? Do you guys have conversations you had said you'd already done a fair amount of research. So it's so tell us exactly how this came about, this account.
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Couple steps there. One of the things was that Mark had already written down a lot of just notes and ideas and memoirs, if you will, kind of unstructured, and he sent that to me, and I would help him formulate the story, getting his side of it, and then I'd go back and check it and you know, fill in some gaps with the official record, if you will, law enforcement reports, congressional hearings, newspaper articles, magazine articles, talk
to some people, mob historians and other authors and other sources. And then I had actually gone up to Boston and visited with Mark, and you know, he drove me around some of the neighborhoods so I can get a feel for that area as well, and then recorded some conversations with him, and so it was kind of like a
little mix and match of a few different styles. But Mark had a lot of really good stuff written down that that he had produced over the years and keeping track of this great story because it's it is a little complex. So you know, what what we want to do is really just make sure we got the narrative straight, but you don't want to fudge the facts. So just and I think it comes off the way we did it,
and really in a chronological fashion. You really get to see all the manipulations and the switching sides and all the craziness that was going on. And you know, Mark really did a good idea, a good job I should say, of relaying that.
Yeah. You know what I really think is really great too, is that you know, everybody that that reads a mob book, now organized crime book has been affected by Goodfellas and sopranos and of course the Godfather, right, everybody. I mean, there's just no one on earth that hasn't. So you know, you still you get sort of those visuals because it's still otherworldly to most people. It really isn't normal or
regular or even comprehensible, you know. So, But what's really interesting is that because Mark has this inside access, I've never read a book like this that has the intimate details. And we'll talk about that as well. Now, Mark, what's interesting in this book. I've heard, you know, you talk about to the betrayal that there's no loyalty. The way these guys get to each other bumping them off is basically their best friend, you know, the guy that they
can hang out with him. And you said, listen, you learned early on that just because the guy hangs out with you doesn't mean he's your friend. But what I was talking about to the audience was the intimate details of the betrayal in terms of relationships, and that's what runs a theme through this book as well, which just says,
adds more humanity to this thing. Now, tell us just a little bit, and again we might be jumping up a little bit, but tell us about you know, this very very important figure in your life, Maria, and tell us who Maria is, how you meet her, who she is is, And just introduced who Maria is pleased, and when and how you came about to meet her.
Well, one of the very first people that I started out with in my own crew was a guy named Bobby Renew And Bobby was a few years older than me, and he was, like I said, he was. You know, you made a point about friends in the mob. I mean we palaled around every day and we would, you know, considered best friends or whatever. But in the mob you really have associates. But Maria was actually be on again,
off again girlfriend of him. And when he went to prison. Uh, he went to prison when the war really kicked off, and I was kind of left on the street to fend for myself. And uh, as he went away, Maria and I started to get into contact because I felt as though that maybe Bobby was trying to use her to see if to see if I might make an advance on her, to see because I thought that maybe
she might be a spy for him. I thought that you know, when you're in prison and you know your friend or your guy, the guy that you earn with he's on the street, I mean you're thinking all kinds of crazy things. I mean, you want to get as many people as close to him as you can. And I had the reputation for I don't know, sleeping around with some of the enemy wise guy's girlfriends, and the later it got him too a sentence. He was serving
a five to seven year prison term. And he asked me, he said, of all the people to ask, he says, you know, can you keep an eye on Maria? And I right, there was a red flag because I said, of all the people, you're gonna ask me to keep an eye on your girlfriend? I mean, you know, my reputation, So I kind of thought it was he wanted to get her to see to see if I would betray him, because in my mind I felt as though he had
already started to betray me. This is what you were speaking of too, with the with the friendship, your best friends and shifting alliances and all that stuff. Is that at that point in our relationship when I met Maria, him and I we just weren't trusting each other because I felt as though he was on one side of the war and he felt as though maybe I was on the other. So he figured maybe with the girl he could find out exactly where I was. And that's how that became.
Now, tell us a little bit about more about this. I mean it might be typical to you, but tell us why this there was this split in this family. Obviously, people pick people to be in families and they test out their their alliances and their loyalties. So then why is there what is the specific reason why this group had this renegade faction.
Well, that's kind of a complex question. But the short answer on that is the fact that when leadership, when the top leaders go down via prison or or the other way, other guys are trying to step up and take their positions. And that happens, you know, in the eighties, and it happened again in ninety five, as I've already alluded to. And uh, what actually started it though, was in New York when John Gaudi and Sammy Gravano they
made a power play in the Gambino family. They they clipped uh, Tommy Billatti and Big Paul Castellano, and uh, that was that was a very very touchy situation because that's the one thing you don't do, is uh, in the mafia and cosin ostra, even going back to Sicily especially, is that the boss is the boss is the boss. You know, whether you like him or you don't. It's not about liking him, but you take orders from him. You accept the fact that he is your boss, and
you honor him. And when they made that move, they had actually been recruiting people in uh the five families to actually make them move with them. So when that happens, now you've got other families that are splitting into two because you know, Guardian Gravano are basically saying that, you know, if you don't come with us, you'll be considered against us,
and naturally they'll try to take you out. So New England kind of followed suit because they I'm not going to say that they see New York kind of controls
the New England mafia to a point two. And when people saw that Guardian Goravano had done that, that the Gambinos had made that power play, they thought it was okay to follow suit because they wanted to get they wanted to go with maybe that that rogue faction of the mafia that that they were creating by taking out the end the boss and the boss of the Gambino family. So that's kind of how it all started, and it took a long time to really pick up steam and to really make everything go.
Right.
Now that you talk about indictments, the major indictments, and there's a few of them in this book that create obviously that that sort of accelerates a lot of breakdowns of gangs and alliances and loyalties, doesn't it when you get indictments, And like you said, Whitey Bulger and Fellini
or Flemy, they took off. So tell us more about the indictments what exactly, Like we just alluded to that this is about drug dealing, but we're going to talk about other things than you know that you were involved with as well. Tell us about what kind of crime these guys were indicted for and what happened with those the first major indictment and in what year was those first major indictments and what was the result of that.
Well, I'll take it into two stages. In nineteen eighty four, Raymond Patriarchsenia died, and in nineteen eighty six, Jerry and Julo and his brothers were indicted and sent off to prison. So in a matter of two years, you have a family that has been under absolute leadership, Raymond patriarcha being the boss of the family, and Jerry Angulo being the underboss, they are no longer in the equation. So this is around eighty six. So naturally by this time there's problems
because there's a power vacuum. As I was saying, you know, I don't want to jump up again. But by the time nineteen eighty nine came about. The thing that really ignited the war within the family was a guy named Frank Cadillac. Solumi was He was sanctioned as a new boss around nineteen eighty nine, and they tried to kill him. He was shot. They lured him to a peace meeting, at least that's what he thought it was going to be, and they tried to take him out. Were simultaneously down
in Rhode Island. The murder actually up in to Connecticut, but his underboss was clipped in the same month. So now as those two guys tried to take over, the renegades took him out. The only problem is Selemi lived. He took a couple of bullets, and naturally there's gonna be you know, fighting back, and that that's when the family really really divided. Is now obviously Selemi and his loyalists are very upset. You know, you just killed us
on the bush. You took a shot at him, you tried to convince him that it was a peace meeting. So that's what kicked off the first wave of it. As I was telling you, But if you turn up the clock to ninety five, you know, now you've got Slemi and Balger getting indicted along with other guys that are high ranking figures. So it's almost like deja vu to a point because now there's another leadership vacuum. You got Balger and Slemi that are gone in ninety five.
So again, what happens the other renegade faction from the Italian mafia? They try to fill the void. And that's uh, that's where we're at.
Right now, Scott. With your research, obviously you didn't rely. Again, you spoke about doing research side by side with the kind of information that Mark gave you that you might not have access to with you know, official records. What about the New England Mafia after writing this book was different than some of the other crime families that you've covered. Well,
what was different about the New England family? What was that little bit of flavor that was a little bit different, that was seemed to be interesting and part of this story. What was unique about New England mafia.
The a couple things. First of all, the ethnic makeup. As Mark said before, you had the real strong Irish presence, which in a lot of other cities had died out by the nineteen thirties, but here it is in the nineteen eighties, nineties, Current and Boston where that's still going on. And there's just something about the flavor, like when you go there and you about these guys and you see it, there's it's kind of an intangible thing that you have
this flavor about the New England mafia. That's that's different than saying New York. It's not quite as sophisticated. It's not quite as you know, two thousand dollars suits and pinky rings. It's a little more blue collar. And then doing the research and talking to Mark, it's really very neighborhood based. It's really very street based, which is different than a lot of the other smaller families around the country.
Everyone has their own little quirks and charms, but those are the real things that kind of set in New England apart. And the last thing, too is the way that it's spread out geographically. You have a couple centers of power that flip flop back and forth. Like Raymond Patriarcha ran the family out of Rhode Island, but you know Solemi was based out of Boston. And then you know recent bosses have flip flop between the power being
either in Providence or in Boston. And so that's also kind of a unique situation that a lot of other families don't have.
Dan. If I could interrupt the one second two, I'm just gonna come right out and say this, you have to remember something too, Whitey Bulger. In any other family, let's say in New York, Chicago, even Florida, a guy that is an Irish mobster could never become the most
powerful mob boss in any city. But in Boston, he had been working with the FBI since nineteen seventy five, and in order to keep him safe, the FBI decided the best way to go about that was to make the Italians fight each other and whack each other out. And that's basically they kind of started the war. I mean, I've made references to the street angle of what the
war was about and how the fact split. But the FBI was creating this situation to keep Bulga insulated and in South Boston as an Irish leader, but the above all boss of all bosses was him because they were protecting him. And as I said, he was insulated in South Boston and to keep him safe, the major people around him got to go down, but especially the Italians. The Italians were just collateral damage to keep him safe,
and it just caused so many problems. But that's basically what it is, and it's very sad, but that's what happened.
Well, you do say in your book, and I've never read this before, that basically the FBI were might much because you meat a lot about, you know, some of the missteps of mobsters, and some people will say, well, they weren't so smart, you know, John Gotti, Blavin and lots of guys Blavin and people would make light of that. But when I'm talking about is that these guys, basically,
like you say, insulated themselves. But the FBI basically knew what was going on one step ahead of everyone, so they sort of played knew the psychology of mobsters and then played those eagles and those paranoid kind of characters against.
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For details at each other. And like you say, when they can protect a mobster let him succeed and then and arrest people around them, people start wondering who is working for who? And so you you really do talk about how the FBI really played the mobsters one against each other.
Sure, sure, and that's and that's what has to happen, unfortunately, because you know, if you're going to protect somebody, you gotta you gotta clear the way, you know, I mean, you got to also create you know, they got to keep making high profile arrests too. And uh, you know the thing in New England, as we alluded to earlier, is the fact that the Irish were a smaller group.
So the FBI targeted the Italian coast and Ostra, and they figured the best way to infiltrate them, The best way to take them down is to get a guy like Bulger and an irishman to give him information and help them destroy the larger group, which of course would go into New York and go into other ethnic areas.
But that was their original plan, and they seemed to carry it out pretty well, because, like I said, they were pretty much responsible and directly directly however you want to say it, however you want to paint it to anybody, but that that that's really what caused it.
Right now, tell us a little bit more about how you rose in this organized crime. I mean obviously you were not obviously, but you talk about working with different crews and different gangs and different families and then surviving this entire uh, this entire war. Take us further, take our audience further into the story where uh, what you're doing, and specifically you're drug dealing, you're you're you're doing other rackets.
So tell us everything that you're involved with, who you were working with.
Uh.
Once some of these people are in this power vacuum and discontinue with the story of what you're doing and who you were working with and what you're achieving in terms of your rise in organized crime.
Well, like I was saying earlier, is when I was coming up in the underworld, I was strictly an Irish gangster, and being so close to these high level of Irish people, we kind of started to understand what was going on as far as you know, they were protecting Whitey Bulger, and the Whitey Bulser was taking down his own people. He wasn't just taken down the Italians, he was taken down the Irish as well. And when I was working with the high level Irish people, as I told you,
the high level went to Hill gang members. They had separated themselves from Bulger at that point because we kind of knew, you know, I mean, it really wasn't hard to figure out because as I said, we're taking this up to my years from like maybe eighty nine to like I said, maybe ninety four, and I was strictly an Irish gangster. I mean, we saw what was going on. You know, we shared rackets with Bulger's people, we shared rackets with the Italians, and I was into book making
drug deal and loan shock and some union stuff. But we were always met with resistance by Bulger's people, and it seemed like the best thing to do was to stay away from him. And that's what those guys really drilled into my head was that, look it, even though we all represent the winter Hill gang, Bulger is not with us, stay away from him. And they all but said the words, but they never did say them that you know, Bulger was with the FBI, so it kind
of interfered with a lot of our rackets. And it kind of gave me the heads up on it because I was close to these guys and they were you know, prior to eighty nine ninety when they got away from Bulger, and they figured that the best course of action was if you don't want to have a problem with him, if you don't want to get fed to the FBI, then stay the hell away from him. But of course,
you know, it clashed. But you know a lot of our rackets were shipped with those guys, as I was saying, And I didn't start getting with the Italians until until the second wave of the war, as I said, like around ninety five, because by that point, as I said, Balger and Frank Cadillac. So let me were on the limb and excuse me, the leaders that were still around
in the Winter Hill gang. They began introducing me to the Italians and I really, I really didn't understand why they were doing it, but they were actually putting me in the yep, the center of the war. Because that's kind of how Balger did it, is that, like I said, he played the Italians against each other, you know, and these other went the Hill guys kind of saw that strategy.
Is the fact that, well, what made him successful was the fact that, you know, they left him alone because, as I said, the Irish were a smaller group, and we kind of all knew that that was the game plan of the FBI, so if we could continue. In other words, I wanted to just stay with the Irish because I felt more protected because I figured that they were going to go after the Italians. But you know, some of our rackets overlapped each other and it was inevitable.
I began working with both sides of the Italians, the renegade fashion in the coast and Oasta fashion.
Now, as you rise in organized crime, like you say, you're seeing things as people are telling you to to be very cautious regarding some people. What about your relationship? What is what is is there any strain on the relationship?
What as you go through these and you you have you talk about and I likely to get you to give a couple examples of later on in the book where you go to a place and you have again this vibe because you say, you go to a restaurant that'll you know, a couple guys are in jail, and the guy goes into the restaurant and and he knows that these people are going to uh, there's people gonna say to these guys that are in jail, Hey, these
guys are in your restaurant. There's a lot of this uh one upmanship that you talk about in your book. And I'll get you a little bit later to give us an example of when you go in and you're intimidated, you're with your girlfriend, you you uh you see, Bobby, These are these are fascinating stories that take us far beyond the sort of you know, this guy bumped off
that guy and took over his racket. It seems what we've got we get lots of that, but this, this personal story is really I think something that the audience is not as accustomed to in reading, so well, there's.
There's there's a lot of jealousy in the mall. I mean, you know, especially when you know when you're right hand man, your best friend, the guy that maybe you looked up to, you know, when he goes to jail, you know he's not well, and when inmates are coming in and out of there from the street, I mean, there yeap in my name, they're saying, you know, hey, you're sitting here doing you know, five to seven, and he's out there. He's with girls, he's making money, he's with this one,
he's with Dallen. It becomes a jealousy issue too, and it becomes where, you know, it's it's it's human nature. It's it's it's jealousy, it's envy, it's it's you know, what the hell am I doing in here and he's doing out there, and it's it's that that's what it is in the mob because everybody's trying to one up the other guy. You know, you might be friends with a guy for five six years, but the whole time your friends with him, all he's trying to do is
play you. Because he needs to make sure that he makes that decision to turn on you after he knows your rackets, after he knows what you're doing, because you know, I'm better off alive to somebody until they know my rackets, until the time is right, until you know, the reason to get rid of me would be to take my you know, to take over my errand to take over my hosp And uh, that's what I began to notice. And there was a lot of personal situations, especially between
me and Bobby. And that's when, you know, we talked about it earlier, when Maria got involved. You know, I saw the signs. I saw what was going on. And when you're on high demand, when when when you're a muscle guy, when when everybody wants you, like everybody wanted the guy Bobby. You know, he's very very easily influenced. You know, all someone has to do is in prison is approach him and say, you know, hey, you know I heard this guy, you know, your buddy Mark. You know,
I heard he's working with the Italians. I heard he's working with this one. You know, he's taking it all in and he doesn't like it, you know, And it was just a really hot situation, because that that's what it's all about, is like, you know, you don't have friends in the mob, you have associates, you know.
Well, can you tell us about the time that Bobby gets out of prison and you're out on a date with you're out with Maria. Tell us about this, because that's a fast and story. Tell us about the whole thing, the car waiting outside, what you told your buddy to do, the cop later tell us that whole story. That's an amazing account.
Are you talking about the the beginning of the book?
The uh, the no, Well, not not the beginning though, when you're talking about when when Bobby gets out and then you're with Maria and he comes in and you have this altercation at the restaurant. He says something to her, don't leave Maria, and.
Well, this is I think what you're talking about is when I ran into him. Yeah, I'm kind of kind of stuck between. I don't know as far as that story goes, I'm kind of a little confused as to what it's talking about. I kind of don't Can you be a little more specific.
Well, you said that he had he had come into the to the restaurant you were with a friend. You're on a double date. Maria's there. You hadn't seen Bobby in while he comes in, and then you don't know if there's going to be an altercation or not. But obviously you guys have this standoff between you and then everything's fine, but you do tell your your guy, hey, listen, get the girls out outside, get him into the car, and meet me out front in case anything happens here.
So, yeah, that was There was actually an attempt prior to that on Bobby's life. He was somebody attempted to execute him and he took about four bullets and with eyes. Yeah, yeah, he was. He was a survivor, and you know, I'm sure he was looking for somebody to blame and if anybody had a good reason, I mean I was probably at the top of that list. I mean I was with this girl. They had made an attempt on my
life earlier prior to that. But we were on a double date with me and another top guy in my crew, and uh, we decided to stop into uh a strip club, and uh, the four of us walked in and uh, I heard somebody call my name, and uh it was a voice that was very clear to me it was Uh, it was Bobby and now he sees it I walk in with with the girl that uh he accused me of being with, and uh that I accepted responsibility for being with and uh he was with another guy. Uh
he had some comments to say about her. He was really trying to get me going, and uh he was trying to belittle her. And at this point, you know, me and Maria are uh really into our relationship. I mean we're we're not just one a fling, I mean we're we're very serious. And uh, I'm sure he wasn't happy about almost being executed, and uh, you know he uh he had some derogatory things to So I went
up to the bar to get a beer. I got along neck corona and I held it in my hand and I walked over to the table and I had my friend Joey Leggs take the girls away from the scene. But naturally, Maria is very nervous because she sees me talking one on one at this table with Bobby and another serious wise guy, and she sends his trouble and he tries to get me going, almost like I got him going. He was trying to get into my head.
He was trying to make me. He was trying to get unto my skin, and he was trying to make me make a mistake. He was trying to make me lose my cool, and he had some bad things to say. But long story short, as Maria kept peeking over and kept walking by, he called her a dirty name, and I didn't like it, and I walked. I I just got right in his face. I told my friend Joey Leggs the keys, I said, get the girls out of here.
I said, stop the car up, wait out front. Is because when I come out, I'll probably be running because you know, I had the long neck beer bottle in my hand for a reason. You know, if if something's going to happen, I mean, I'm gonna do what I gotta do. But I never really got that far and I walked out of that place, and uh, that was the end of that.
Well you miss a little bit of it, though, because what I thought you would you would share with the audience is exactly what you did. Tell him. He had thought that somebody with blue eyes had had killed him, and you do have blue eyes. And like you say, if there was a person that may have had a motive well, you fit that bill and you have blue eyes. So after he bad mouthed your girlfriend, you told them, hey, listen, we're gonna have a problem here because you almost died
last time. So you basically intimated to him that you were the guy. You put that idea in his head, and then you let him live.
But what I said to.
Him exactly those words is h I said, I don't know for sure, I said, but maybe the shooter that they let you live, but I'm not sure. Yeah, and uh yeah, I mean that was the prime suspect. There's no doubt about it. I mean, I mean, you know, you know all about crime stories and everything like that, it's always, uh, you know, it's always the guy's girls, the guys the girl's boyfriend that has the motive, you know. And uh, yeah, I do have blue eyes.
But you're not saying it was you though.
No, I don't know who did that. Yeah, I don't know what happened with that could have been anybody. I mean, he botched the hit on me that was on contract by uh that was ordered from a boss. So and there was other people that had that were maybe trying to capitalize on that. See a lot of times in the mob too. The perfect scenario would be, let's say you're gonna clip somebody. You're gonna murder them, you're gonna hit them, whatever you're gonna do, you're gonna shoot them.
The ideal situation would be to make it look like somebody else did it, because that way the cops will wrap up that case, they'll send them off to prison, and the person who really did it doesn't have to worry about those chages coming against him because he's already framed up somebody else. So there was other people who motive, But no, I don't know. I don't know who did that.
Right now, Scott, I wanted to ask you, and then I'll if you can't answer it, I'll get Mark to answer it. But when I first started looking at this book, I said, okay, well, this is an incredible inside information sort of the access that Mark obviously has by virtue of who he is. He has this incredible access to this information. Now, you as a writer and writing having written these books before, you don't want to step on the wrong people's toes, and of course you want to
get the story straight. That would really piss somebody off if you got something wrong. Was there any challenge in this book to have Mark sort of or at least some of the information that Mark gave you that you've said, maybe this is a bit sensitive, or that could be confidential, or we may not want to say that because that's still pending in court. Tell us about that sort of challenge.
Yeah, you always have to be careful of that kind of stuff. For this book. A few of the things, there's some people's names were changed. I mean, that's really one simple way of taking care of part of that. O. There was stuff Mark told me that we didn't put in the book. You know, Mark's attorney obviously read through. You want to make sure that you know when Mark's talking about you know, John Smith, this guy, or he
talks about Anthony Barry, you know, committed these crimes. You know, while he was arrested for those crimes, and that's backed up. You know, you obviously don't want to get into a libel situation. But you know, on the flip side of that, you know Mark having the inside story sometimes, Yeah, you can't always verify, so you have to maintain integrity Mark's
accounts of it. But you don't want to just be making reckless accusations around someone, so there, Yeah, there were certainly some stories where stuff we just either tweaked or took out or changed someone's name, So you always want to be cognizant of that, and it's it's certainly something I think even if you're writing historically, you want to try to be as accurate as possible and keep that it's I just want to say, and also make sure you know, what Mark gives out is stuff that that
he's comfortable giving out, because you know, we talked a lot, and I wanted to and I always wanted to make sure if I wrote something that wrote it to Mark, Hey do you mind if we include this? This is a great story and you know if he had heartacheover we just want to do it.
So yeah, right right, Yeah, it's interesting and and Mark uh in terms of it just seems to me. I mean again, I'm maybe I'm not looking at it as carefully as I should or something, But is everybody that you're writing about okay with this? Are you sure this is okay? You're not gonna get comanied here? You know you're not gonna get or Simon rushdied. I mean, you know what I mean you're not gonna have somebody going, oh, somebody's coming after me, are you absolutely positive?
I can never be positive about that. I don't expect people to be patting me on the back and saying, hey, great job, you know, and write nice reviews about it. You know, there's a lot of hurd feelings out there, and a lot of those guys are still around, you know, And I still live in the same neighborhood. I never moved or anything. I go about my business every day. I still run into some of these guys. Sure, you know, there's always that possibility. Then, I mean, that's that's just
the way it is. And I'm not really a shy guy, and I try to be I try to be truthful, but I also got to be smart.
You know.
I don't have an immunity deal with the government like most people do that write these kinds of books where they talk about what, hey, you know, I whacked this one or I whacked that one, and they can give you the details of it. And I'm not saying I never did anything like that. But you know, if I did have an immunity deal, I could go into detail about that because obviously I would be protected from prosecution.
But I'm not, you know, so you know, as Scott was saying, you know, some of these stories, you know, I would have really loved to tell a great story, and I think I did pretty good, but I would have really liked to get into some details. But you know, you got to worry about these over zealous lawyers, these over zealous prosecutors, the US Attorney. I mean, you know, I've been a target for a long time with these people and on crimes that never go away with no
statute of limitations. But uh, you know, I don't you know something, whatever happens happens. I mean, when we're all gonna you know, the one the inevitability in life is we're all gonna die someday. So maybe my day's gonna be sooner than the most. I don't know, but I'm willing to take my chances.
Mark, what Sorry, I was gonna say.
One thing added to Mark thing though, to keep in mind too that generally in even how many you know, mob books have been written by guys exposing other guys, and they really haven't been the repercussions and a lot of the stuff that Mark talks about, you know, by now here we are in twenty twelve, we're talking about ten years ago, you know, even some of the most current stuff already going on five six years ago. So in talking with other guys that I've know that we're involved,
their kind of answers. You know, if I write about this guy, why is he gonna come bother me now? After all this time they make trouble for himself. So yeah, they might not like it, and Mark might team on the street and it might give him the fingers they screw you, but they're not gonna go over and do something to Mark than they're putting themselves in a in a position of you know, being arrested.
Or they'd rather deal with today's problems. You know, there's a there's a new problem every day in a monster's life, you know. So it's it's almost in order of importance too, you know. Yeah, there's some hurt feelings. I'm not going to deny that, you know. And I got some hurt feelings too, you know. So it's kind of a two way street where you know, I think Scott kind of covered it there too, where you know a lot of these stories are old, you know, I I don't know
whatever happens happens, I guess. But I think Scott clarified that well.
I think you obviously took you know, you took great lengths not to be like I say, there's you're not giving any information up on anyone, and it's you know, it's very much different. You talk about an immunity deal, but you're not. You know, you didn't testify against people. So it's a completely different book, right, So, you know, so the information out there is, like you say, you might ruffle some feathers. People might not like your depiction
of things. I was going to ask you, though, why was this book important for you to write?
I felt like it needed to be told. You know, I was the guy that lived in the shadows for all of these years. I was the guy that put my ass on the line for the better of what I thought was this honor bound society. I felt betrayed. I felt I don't know. I felt like people had to know that this is the way it works, that this is the mob. This is the mob that people glamorize and that there's movies about. And you know, here here's the real, the real inside stuff about the way
it really really works. You know, and uh, I wanted to tell it, and I wanted to do it carefully. You know, it's not about talking about what guys did or what they didn't do, or trying to trash someone. It's also you know, I don't want to get them in trouble either. You know, that wasn't that wasn't the reason for doing this. You know, whatever they've done or they haven't done, I really don't bring it up past two thousand and two, two thousand and three, you know
where they might be. You know, the statute of limitations wouldn't be helping them, if you know what I mean. I didn't put anybody in the fire, you know, and I was cognizant of that fact as I wrote the book. I don't want to do that, and I wouldn't expect people to try to do that to me, right, Scott, can.
You tell us about this is a very important part of the book where and again do you do a masterful job capturing this, probably without you know, Mark saying
it and without the narrative really explaining it. It's the turning point in Mark Silverman's life, basically the attempts on his own on his own life, and so maybe you could talk about that not the end of the book, but it's near the end of the book where we talk about sort of this, this sort of Marcus talking about spoken about this throughout the interview about you know, he was disillusioned and now he realized and he could
see there was no loyalty. But talk about that one sort of a near attempt and then it just seems like there's a turnaround there where the light bulb goes off and Mark says, look it, I've got to make a change here.
Yeah, you know, we Mark and I joke as like the Hollywood scene because it's you know, it's fleshed out like and so one of those just near miss scenes that you'd see in a movie. But it really happens. And I think in when Mark talks about that story and the way we wanted to write it was exactly
what you said. It's here he is kind of coasting through this glamorous criminal life and this is where exactly what he says kind of comes to fruition, where he really sees the depth of that treachery and how close he really was dying and at that moment, and that
really hits home. And I think that opens his eyes and then he starts adding up everything else that's going on around him, and then there's you know, there's another smaller scene later where the FBI comes and you know, hey, Mark's working a regular job and they say, you know, there's still guys looking to kill you, and you know, I think at that point it really is is clear to Mark that this was obviously not what you know, he signed up for as an impressionable young young guy.
It's not that life at all. And that that scene I think really works well in that context because again you don't have to say. He doesn't come out and say, hey, I almost got killed. I got disillusioned. You can tell by the way he starts reacting to things around him that that's what's going on.
Yeah, tell us about that. Describe that scene for us. Not to give away too much for for audience, but I mean, just tell us about that that attempt, just your just your feelings, your your gut instinct, tell us about that whole event. It's very powerful. With the FBI visited me just before that in the FBI.
Yes, well, Scott was kind of saying, is that I really started to see it for what it was, and I realized the dangerous spot that I had really put myself into. You know, I mean, when you're inside of a mafia war, people know that you know a lot and people that may have felt, as I be, that I betrayed them, and maybe in some ways I did. But you know that when there's two sides fighting, one of them is gonna lose, one of them is gonna win. So one of them is gonna go home happy and
the other ones are never gonna let it go. And they're not gonna blame the FEDS or anybody else. They're gonna blame me because they're gonna say, you know, we fought this war well for six seven, eight years, and the reason we could never win it is because this guy wasn't really with us. And when they found that out, I mean, my life was it was just constantly in danger. I mean I had I had visits and uh, like like Scott said, I mean, I got a visit from the FBI, and uh, I was working a square job.
But uh the location of that square job was, uh, it was in a bad spot. It was Uh it was in the uh, the territory of one of the guys that felt as though I betrayed him in the war, he was on the renegade side. So the FBI came and, uh, they said, uh, you know, Mark, we have a moral obligation to inform you that, uh we believe that there's,
uh there's a contract on you. And uh, you know, naturally, I said, you should have told me this a year ago, because that's when the last attempt on my life was made. I mean, if you know about this one, you probably know about that one.
And excuse me, what did they say to that when you asked them that.
Oh, they didn't like it because they thought it was you know, they thought I was trying to be cute, you know, but I was kind of being serious, like, you know, you don't know about that one, but you know about this one. You know what's going on? You know, why are you telling me? Why do you care? You know? And I really didn't take it serious, but in some ways I did because they said that they had picked it up on a wire tap during one of their investigations.
And see, the one thing you have to understand too, is they can tell you that there's a death threat on your life, but they can't tell you where it's coming from. So as they were telling me this, I immediately knew right away who it was, and maybe the investigation that they were into. I mean, just them telling me that gave me enough where I kind of you know, I mean, I knew what I was into when I
knew who my main enemies were. But that was also a ploy to get me to jump into their arms and to uh to uh become a member of uh we like to say, Team America. You know, when there's a when there's a contract on your life or they're telling you there's a contract on your life, the normal mobster is going to jump into their arms and ask for protection because they're the only ones that can't protect you,
at least they claim to. I mean, I don't know, I have never gone that route, but uh, I don't know if I would trust them.
Yeah, yeah, well that's fascinating. Yeah. Well guys, uh, gentlemen, I want to thank you very much for this interview. We could probably go on for another hour. This is an incredible story, but I want to thank you very much Scott Decci and Mark Silverman for this Rogue Mobster, very very very very interesting book, fascinating inside access and like I say, it's almost like you're inside a Sopranos, Goodfellas Godfather's episode. You're cooking marinera sauce and Christen there.
It's like, I'm going, man, this I because I already know that that's where they get stuff from. They get true accounts, and of course they get somebody writ in a little bit of drama and dialogue. But even the dialogue is in here. You know, this is crazy. So it's been really really fun. This is a much different book again with all this information. And then you and Scott uh did a really really admirable job. And I want to thank you very much for number one for
a great book and two for a great interview. So thank you very much.
Gentlemen.
Well you're welcome. Thank you for having us on. Appreciate it.
Well, thank you very much, thank you very much. And for audience you've been listening to Rogue Mobster with Mark Silverman and Scott uh dicy gentlemen, thank you very much, and have a good evening, good night too, all right night, thank you, thank you,