This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
There was like four or fine people that he wanted to kill because he didn't know who the rat was. All that they knew is someone around them had been talking to the Feds for two years. They didn't know who it actually was.
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career, research for my many audio and book projects has taken me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers, and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true
crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the unpublished details behind their stories. FBI agent Seamus mcallarney had dreamed of investigating the mafia in New York when he first joined the Bureau, but of course, no one would flip on the families. No one had ever flipped on the families until mcallarney did some research and he offered a made man some orange juice, and then he made history.
He tells me about his book Flipping Capo, how the FBI dismantled the real Sopranos. I will confess I don't know a lot about the mafia. I've seen parts of The Sopranos, but I am fearful of blood in movies, and I have not done a ton of research, even though you know I'm a crime historian. I've looked into murder Inc. You know in New York, the very old murder Inc. But I really don't know much about this.
Can you give me a very short, little overview of what this is like, you know, especially in the time period you're working in.
This time period relates to from nineteen ninety eight up until two thousand and four. Is the investigation. It focuses on the Decavalcanti family, and that is a Jersey family. There are five families in New York, which are the Banano family, Columbo family, Geneviez, Gambino, and Luczy family. So those are the main five families in New York, and the Jersey family is known as the six family. This book basically targets the Decavalcanti family because the Sopranos is based upon this family.
Let's get the Sopranos part out of the way. Is this the creator or a writer on the show picking up on this and saying this is a great family for us to emulate and HBO is going to buy it in a second?
Well, the director has said that he has not spoken to anyone. But one thing that we can get into today is the similarities between the real family and the show. There's many similarities between the show and the real family.
Okay, do you consider this a memoir?
Well, this is just part of my career. This is just the first park. So I was a brand new agent when I got assigned to this case. After this case, then I went on to basically run the Columbo squad for the FBI, and I was able to dismantle that family and also part of the Banano family as well, which I help dismantle them. So this is just the first part of my career.
Well, okay, well let's jump into it. I know that you are a main character, and then your subject is a main character, but let's start with you, you know, and kind of where you grew up rough streets. I assume yes.
I was actually born in New York City, raised in the Bronx, and then I eventually moved to Westchester, but in the Bronx. I was raised by two oh seventh in Bainbridge Avenue, which was a predominantly Irish type of neighborhood there. I've seen a lot of things happen during that time period, you know, when I was growing up.
You know, I used to go to school and then after school you would do your homework as quick as you possibly can because there was a park across the street from me, and we would go play ball a lot. Even back then. We lived in an apartment building where it was the ground floor apartment back then. Actually it's pretty funny how you would play ball in the streets and the buses and cars would actually stop. I don't think that would happen nowadays, but they did back then.
But then as you grew older, going through I would say, sixth, seventh and eighth grade, I saw friends, you know, get stabbed, get shot. You grew up rather quickly back then, so I saw a lot as a young person.
Did you ever get tempted to steer into criminal activity? I would have to think it's sort of all over the place around there'd be easy for you to get scooped up.
Yes, you know, throughout your life you're always there's a path that you can take it and go the right way or the wrong way. My parents who came from Ireland, they actually my mom left Ireland when she was seventeen and my dad left when he was twenty, so they've actually met in the Bronx themselves. They didn't go to high school to college, so all they could actually really tell you was to study hard, and they always tried
to put you on the right path. So one of the traits that I think I actually had was common sense. So yes, I could have went the wrong way in life. I saw a lot of my friends not go the right way. But I was tempted at times, but I always chose the right, the right way in life. But I saw a lot of people not go not go the right way, especially in the area that I had had grown up in.
What would that be? Would that be drug dealing or gambling or what was surrounding you.
It could be taking drugs, it could be stealing things. It'd be getting involved with the wrong crowd. You know, I constantly saw that, so you know, I was able to actually just choose the right paths in life. And one of the things I think that helped me when I became an FBI an agent years later was I could always think like a purp. I think that actually helped me throughout my career.
Now, is the Irish mob in your neighborhood or does the mob even exist?
The Irish mob is known as the Westies. I guess back then they weren't in the neighborhood that I grew up, but it was a predominantly Irish type neighborhood in the sense is a lot of people came from Ireland, a lot of Irish immigrants that had gotten to that type of area that I had grown up in. So it really wasn't a gang or a mob though.
Okay, you know I have written a lot about Tammany and eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds, and so I'm so used to how prolific Irish police officers were on the streets of New York. Is that just a thread that gets pulled throughout history? Is that true even today? That it's just something that you know, it's a familiarity among that community.
Yes, it seems that a lot of Irish people do try to gravitate to law enforcement. But my dad was an in law and law enforcement or anyone in his particular family either. My dad actually had a gas station in the Bronx. So I was the first one to go into law and to law enforcement. And also my brother followed in my footsteps as well. He was a mechanically worked for my father too, and then he actually joined the FBI himself and he's a supervisor there too.
So my brother and I were the first ones to go into law enforcement from our family.
That must have scared your mother to death two kids. As a parent, I would say that would scare me to death. Yes, she always worried about both of you. I have to assume yes.
And you know I didn't tell her a lot of the things that that we went through either, you know, not to scare her.
So when did you first start to become just an interested in law enforcement in general? And then when did this switch to the FBI.
I went to college and I got a degree in finance, and when I got out of school, my dad actually helped me go throughout school without any having any student loans. So when I had graduated school. As a way to repay him, I worked at his gas station for about two years to kind of to repay him back, and to be honest, when I got out of school, I really didn't know what I had wanted to do. And then I got an offer or there was an opportunity to work in a bank to do audit. So that
was my first job. And the thing that was funny when I went through the interview process for this bank, I got all the way up to the director of audit and I didn't even know this, and he didn't even know it either. But when I got to the director of audit, the gentleman who I was going to interview with, he actually worked at my dad's gas station years prior. So, needless to say, I got the job, and that was my introduction to the private sector. I
worked there for a couple of years. I worked at a bank that I worked for, an insurance company called the IG. Then I actually worked at a French bank, but I didn't have a passion for it. And then suddenly I actually met an agent that worked for the FBI, and I was just fascinated by it. And during the early nineteen nineties there was a hiring phrase with the FBI from like nineteen ninety to ninety five, where they didn't hire people. So speaking to this agent, just hearing
that every day was different. One day you could be doing surveillance. Another day you could be speaking to a CEO. I know that day could be going to court. It just seemed just fascinating to me. So at that point I just became interested in applying for the FBI. And I was constantly told that you don't stand a chance. You know, you don't have the background, and I was
just determined to do it. And back then the whole process probably took about two years, and I applied in nineteen ninety six and I actually was accepted in ninety eight, and back then because there was a hiring frieze. When the hiring freeze was lifted, I was told that there was just about one hundred thousand applicants in New York alone. So again my odds are kind of stacked against me, and they said that they were only accepting like two percent.
So I was very fortunate to be selected and I got chosen to go down to Quantico in nineteen ninety eight. That's how it started in my class. I think we started with fifty people and at the end of our training training back then was four months. Our class graduated with thirty seven people.
Well what scared off everybody else?
Well, there's just because you get accepted to go there, there's still training that you have to do. There's the academic part, the physical part, and even when you first go the first week, just because you see the initials and you know it seems like it's a pretty cool job to work, there is some serious threats behind it, so that even the first week they show you the seriousness behind it, like they'll show you videos that people
are getting shot and things like that. So there is a threat element to it, and sometimes people just scared. I'll get scared by that, so some people would just drop out. And then also what happens is around the seventh or eighth week that you're there, they tell you
what office you're going to go to. And I have the time was single, but you can imagine if you were married with kids and say you're from Chicago, when that seventh or eighth week that you're there, they tell you what offers you're going to go to, and you're married with kids, you go up there, and you're not going back to the office that you came from. So if you're from Chicago, you might be sent to Texas.
So that's an altering experience that you're going to go through that night when you go home and you tell your wife and kids that in six weeks you're going to move to the opposite end of the states, you know what I mean. So people chose not to move too. So these are things that have and then, as I said, the academic portion of it or the physical portion of it would knock people out. I do remember one person
in our class. He had gotten Lasik surgery and at that point in time, the FBI wouldn't allow you to get that type of surgery, and he hid it from the FBI. And one of the things when you go through training is you have to get sprayed with mace. Oh no, So right before he got sprayed with mace, he had to come forward and tell them that because if he didn't, he would have been blinded. So he couldn't get sprayed with mace. And they threw him out because of his lack of candor. Oh my gosh.
And now you can have a Lisik surgery if you're in the FBI.
Yes, and I actually had it in like two thousand and one.
That's quickly as possible. Your time in Quantico was that your first exposure to, I have to believe, mafia stuff. Was that the first time you really get to see what you might have to deal with.
Right. So when I was there, they give you all sorts of training, and to me, I was just excited about the mob because the mob is into everything whatever way they can possibly make money. When you study white collar, it's just white collar, or when it's drugs, it's just drugs. But with the mafia, wherever they can make money, they're going to be into that and it could be extortions, white collar, drugs, murder, and back then I would read about seeing me the bull or Gotti from the Gambino family.
So I was just excited about that, and it's something that I had a passion for. Now with the FBI, you don't get to choose what you're going to work. It's always the needs of the bureau. They tell you what you're going to work. But I had a passion for that. And what happened was I had graduated in May of ninety eight. That year and I got sent back to New York. It was fortunate to be sent back to New York. No one wants to work in New York because the cost of living is so high
and because crime is so high. And I was told before I went down there there was a ninety nine percent chance so I was going to be sent back to New York. So thankfully I was sent back to New York because it would have been a culture shock to me if I wasn't going to be sent back to New York. I got sent back to New York in May of nineteen ninety eight. And when you get sent back to New York, they put you through a rotation, and one of the rotations they put you through is surveillance.
And at that point in time, I was assigned to a squad called SO two, and they just happened to be surveilling a gentleman who was known as a proactive witness. They were tailing him and he was investigating or they were investigating the Dicavalcanti family. And I was fortunate to be on that squad. And that kind of starts how I get assigned to this case, because then eventually I get assigned to a squad called C ten that in December of nineteen ninety eight, and that squad is responsible
for the Banano family and also the Decavalcantis. And I know you're probably thinking, how does the New York FBI take down the Jersey family or kind of get involved with that? And I can kind of rewind and tell you how that happens. So this case starts in January of nineteen ninety eight, before I even go to Quantico. There's two events that Happennuary of nineteen ninety eight, I
think it was the fourteenth, I believe of January. Three individuals actually rob the World Trade Center and they come out and they do rob it. They come out, but they take their mask off and they are immediately caught because the cameras are there. So two guys were caught that day. A third person fled to New Mexico and he was caught pretty quickly, in like two or three days.
The mastermind behind the robbery sees the walls or starting to cave in, and he calls a legendary agent named George Hannah, and George is from Brooklyn and basically convinces Ralph Guarino, the mastermind, to become a proactive witness. When I say a proactive witness, what I mean by that is that's a witness who's going to stay on the street and make consensual recordings covert recordings.
So an informant is that different than an informant.
Yep, But he's going to be a cooperating witness as opposed to an informant, so meaning he's going to testify if need be. So that's the first event that happens. About nine days later, on January t twenty third, Joseph Conniglierro is killed. Joseph Connigliero is a decavalcant, the associate who was a ruthless person. He was confined to a wheelchair, but he was a very ruthless person who was a dicavalcant,
the associate who tortured his crew. How he got confined to a wheelchair is in the seventies, him and a decaalalcanty soldier named James Gallo went to go collect loan short money and James Gallo accidentally shot Joseph Knnigliero and paralyzed them. But there was no hard feelings about that. It's just the cost of doing mob business. But Joseph Kniglier was in a wheelchair from nineteen seventies to up until his death in nineteen ninety eight. The reason they
killed him was because he tortured his crew. And what he used to do, even though he was in a wheelchair is he would call you over and shoot you and have his crew clean up the body and put them in a rug or a tarp and get rid of the body. So he was killed because he tortured his crew. So those are the two events that happened in nineteen ninety eight, right before I even go to training.
So then, as I said, I just the stars are aligned, where I get assigned to a surveillance squad that is actually monitoring Ralph or trying to protect Ralph, and then I get assigned to C ten, which is handling this case. And when you have a proactive witness, you never know where he's going to go, meaning you don't know who he's going to ingratiate himself to or who he's going to infiltrate. And Ralph, at George's direction, infiltrated the Brooklyn
faction of the Decavalcanti family. And that's how the New York FBI gets into the Decavalcanti family and Ralph basically was operated for two years from January nineteen ninety eight up until December of nineteen ninety nine. During those two years, he made about three hundred consentual recordings and the surveillance team was dedicated to Ralph. We probably had about one thousand surveillance locks where they would watch him like maybe twice a day for his safety. So George his main
purpose is to keep Ralph safe. And as a new agent, I'm going to be a sponge and try to learn
as much as I can from George. And George was my mentor, so I did all the admin work, learned as much as I could from George, and then what happens is we have our first round of indictments in December of nineteen ninety nine, because, as I said, Ralph was on the street for two years and there started to be whispers, why hasn't Ralph been arrested if he was the mastermind of the robbery, and there started to be whispers about that, and then they might try to
hurt him. So for his safety, we had to take down the case. And as a new agent, I'm hoping to be part of an arrest team, and when you're a new agent, they kind of put you in rear security for your own safety. And we arrested thirty nine people in December of nineteen ninety nine. One of the
individuals was a guy named Anthony Capo. Anthony Campo was a violent Decabocanty soldier from stant Nay and Lo and behold for all the hard work that I did, I was assigned to be the team leader, not to be only arresting, to actually be the team leader to arrest him. And that's how it start to take a monumental step in this case. So my job is to arrest him in December of nineteen ninety nine, which I do.
Let's just close out Ralph's story. What was his supposed role when you all were surveiling him and he's making all of these recording secret recordings. What was his role?
So he was an associate, right, So he's not a made member of the family, and he's trying to ingratiate himself to not just the Decalbocanties, but anyone that would listen to him. Now, Ralph was like a small time crook at the time who was always into swag like selling things, like stealing things and trying to sell things. So during that two year time period, the FBIO is always coming up with scenarios to actually ingratiate himself to the bad guys, like we would sell stolen cigarettes, we
would sell stolen TVs like things like that. We would front him, and also we would give him authorization to do some criminal acts, right, because you just can't be suddenly turned yourself into a choir boy, right. So there's a certain authorization based upon coordination with the attorney's office. And in New York, in Lower Manhattan, there's two districts. There's the Eastern District in the Southern District. Right, this case was out of the Southern District of New York.
So we're working hand in hand with the attorneys to get authorization for Ralph to do certain acts because, as I said, we're trying to give the impression that he's still a bed guy even though we're controlling him. And
that's what he did. He did that for two years and made over three hundred recordings and one of the things that we even have the Sopranos starts in January of nineteen ninety nine, We have a consensu recording in March of ninety nine of the Dicavalcanties talking about the show and actually saying this is you, this is you, this is you, which was priceless for trial years later. But Ralph did a tremendous job. But there's always a safety aspect to it, because when you send a proactive
witness out, he could get caught. You you know, I can't say what type of device he used or where the device was, but there's always that danger element that they might find out that he's a witness. And as I said, you know, there were always suspicious as to him being out there for two years and hasn't been arrested.
Well, and also what if his situation escalates unexpectedly and he has to kill someone or who's you know, I mean, what does the FBI do in that kind of case.
Well, that's why there we're constantly trying to monitor him and have a surveillance team there so it wouldn't get to that. You know, years later, I did have a situation when I was a supervisor of a Columbo squad where we didn't have a witness kill someone, but he did have to hurt somebody.
So did Ralph testify then be sent into witness protection and then end up in Kansas somewhere most likely? Or how did that work?
Okay, So we take that a case and we moved Rauph for his safety. Ralph chose because you have an option, right, you have an option to go into the Witness Security program or not. The Witness Security program is run by the US Marshall Service. Ralph chose not to go into the program. He chose to be relocated, which we did relocate him because the case was so successful, and we're going to get into how it kind of spiraled into effects of cooperation. Ralph at the end didn't need to testify.
The tapes stood by themselves, and I'll start to explain how we started to unravel the case. So I'm tasked with arresting Anthony Capo, a violent Decavalcanti soldier who is hated by law enforcement and also not well liked within the mob himself. He was such a violent person that at that particular time, he was reporting to the acting boss of the Decavalcanti family, Vincent Palermo. So what I did is when I went to go arrest him, I had witnessed George how he treated Ralph for those two years.
And despite the background that Anthony had of being hated by a law enforcement I wasn't going to treat him that way. I was going to treat him with respect. And I studied him like you would study for a test. So I knew everything about him. I knew everything about his family, his kids, their dates of birds, social Security numbers, phone numbers, I knew everything about his charges. So, as I said, when we went to go arrest him, he wasn't there, and all the planning that you do went
out the window. And when we went to arrest him, his wife told us that he was at his mom's house. So when I went to his mother's house with the arrest team, I didn't see this hated person that I had learned about or that I was told about. I saw actually a very loving relationship that he had with his family, which threw me for a loop. So I did arrest him, and when we got him dressed and he came out, he was wearing a Dallas Cowboy jacket. Now I'm a Pittsburgh Steeler fan.
It would neither of you support a football team in New York or New Jersey.
Well, you see, in the seventies, the Steelers were good, and I'm a loyal person and I stayed with them. And I guess he had the same type of thinking as well. So when I did arrest him, I brought him out, and I had did my homework on him, and he was a diabetic, so I made sure that I had orange juice and cholcle with me in cases blood sugar dropped. And he saw that as a signed me being a decent human being. Right, And he had told me years later that no one had ever treated
him with respect. All. His interaction with law enforcement was hostile too, And we always know that there's two sides to every story, right, So even though I had heard an aran that he was hostile to law enforcement, I guess the interaction on the other side was the same way.
How would law enforcement interact with one of these guys who were arrested and associate or made person whoever? Is it with physical aggression? I mean, what is the best way beside your way to get information out of somebody like that?
Well, I don't think it's physical aggression. I guess I think it's it's your verbal tone. And I think it's how you interact with them. And I was always taught you get more bees with honey. That's the approach that you should take. And one thing that even years later, as I said, this is just a start of my career, I used to always tell people too, do not make this personal, because one day you're going to have to turn in your badge and your gun and the mob
that doesn't forget, So don't make this personal. And also, the mob can size you up very very quickly. They'll know within a minute or two if you're a tough guy or not, So don't try to be a tough guy if you're not. That's always the approach that I took. So I decided to treat him with respect. And as I said, I studied him like left and right. So I had some banter back and forth with him, and then I read him his rights and he invoked his right to counsel and his right to remain silent, and
that's exactly what I wanted him to do. So then there's some general questions that I can ask him, such as what's your day of birth? You know, where do you live and all this stuff. And when I was asking these questions, before he could answer, I would give him the answer, and I was playing with him, letting him know that I knew a lot more about him
than he thought I knew. Then, when I started to talk to him about the charges, because he invoked his right to counsel and remained silent, I told him, do not say anything, because I can no longer ask him questions legally, that doesn't stop me from giving him a statement. So what I did is he was charged with two things at that particular time, conspiracy to murdered Charlie Majury,
who is an acting panel boss, and mail fraud. So I said, related to your conspiracy murdered Charlie Majury, your plan was to ring his doorbell and shoot him in the face. The reason that you didn't do that was because there was a cop on the block. And again I said, don't say anything. Now Here I am. I'm giving him facts which I know are true. I know they're true because they were on a consensual recording where he's talked about it. Now, you got to put yourself
in his shoes at six o'clock in the morning. He doesn't know where where this evidence is coming from. He doesn't know Ralph is a cooperating witness for the government, and he knows I'm not lying. And that's the thing is, if you lie to these guys, you're done. So that was the first thing. The second thing was the mail fraud. Now, back in the day, if you remember, you could rent a mailbox and it would say sweet and you would be led to believe that you would have this nice
office building. Well that's what they did, related to a mail fraud that was going to lead to stock fraud. So I just a little shot saying, oh, that was really cute that you guys did that, and again told him, don't say anything, and then I would make him think for a little bit as I talked to the driver, and we had this banter back and forth all day, and I treated him with respect, and I treated his family with respect, and I treated his stepfather with respect,
who I had to meet later that day. And this just went on all all day. And then about a week later, I got a phone call from his attorney and his attorney said he wanted to cooperate. Now, unbeknownst to me because I'm a new agent, but at that point in time, no main member in the decavalcantis your history had ever cooperated with the government before. This was kind of a shock to me. Right, I wasn't expecting this.
I was just treating him with respect and treating him as a decent human being, not knowing where it was going to go. But that's when my world changed.
Were your superiors giving you so much leeway that you were allowed to do this or did anybody look at you sideyed, like going, what are you doing with this jerk, this killer, this awful person who has tortured people and you're giving him orange juice?
No, they kind of laughed that I was able to flip him by being sincere. What did happen was there was whispers and talk that I was too young and too new to run a guy like this as a maid member, that I didn't have the experience. But my supervisor at the time, Jack Stubing, he believed in me and he said, no, he flipped him. He deserves to run him. And that's what happened. I was able to
run him. And what happens is when I got that call, I immediately called the assistant from the Southern District, Maria Barton, and she was a seasoned attorney, and she was immediately nervous as to what did I say to the attorney, And in situations like this, less is more. So I just told her that I told him that I would call you so and then what happens is And this is one of the things about the book that I try to explain is how the cooperation process starts and
how it actually goes through. And actually I explain trials, and this is I don't think it's been done too much before. So you start a proffer, that's the first thing that you do. And a profit is an agreement between the government and defense attorney and the defendant where the defendant has to come in and he has to tell you the truth and he has to tell you
all his crimes. So it's a very dicey situation because you're moving the defendant from prison in a very short period of time, and the bad guy's going to know that he's not in prison, and so he can't He has to come prepared, and you can't be half pregnant. You have to make sure that if you're going to do this, you're going to make sure you're going to honestly do it. So we schedule a profit with Anthony,
and I'm in the session with the attorney. I'm in the session with George Hannah, the legend that I talked about, and another Southern District investigator, Kenny McCabe, another legend, and myself the attorney for Anthony Capo and Anthony, and Anthony comes clean. The first thing that you want to do when you have a profit is you want the defendant to admit the charges that he's charged with. So we want to make sure that what he's charged with were
actually correct. So make him eat the indictment. It's called that he's going to tell us that the conspiracy to murdered Charlie Majury, that he's guilty of that and also guilty of the mail fraud. And he does. Then he blows us out of the water. The first three things that he tells us is there's a leak in the Southern District. That's why he wasn't home, That's why numerous people weren't home that day.
Is that FBI leak or what kind of leak is that?
So the case is out of the Southern District of New York, that's the prosecutor's office. So there was an alleged court reporter who was feeding information to the bad guys. And we'll get to all the arrests later, but that's what he tells us. That there's a leak in the Southern District and we knew you guys were coming, so you know that could have been a danger element where someone could have gotten hurt.
Did anybody suspect Ralph.
Well, they didn't know. They knew that there was a rat among them. They didn't know it was Ralph though. And during that time period, what happens is Bennie Palermo, the acting boss before the arrest, he wanted to kill a bunch of people because his paranoia story had to run rampant. Ralph was one of them. This other guy named Frank Scarabina was another one. There was like four or five people that he wanted to kill because he
didn't know who the rat was. All that they knew is someone around them had been talking to the Feds for two years. They didn't know who it actually was. So that's the first thing that he tells us. The second thing that he tells us is that he was involved in the murder of a guy named Fred Weiss. Fred Weiss was a Jewish businessman from Staten Island who was killed on September eleventh, Horrible Day of nineteen eighty nine. The reason that he was killed is because John Gotti
wanted him killed. John Gotty wanted him killed because John Gotty thought mister Weiss was cooperating with the government. The reason he thought he was cooperating with the government is because he switched lawyers. That's the only reason that he thought he was cooperating in the government, pure paranoia. He
was not cooperating with the government. Now, from a new agent perspective, as I just told you before, I'm going from reading about the mob, Samuel the Bull and John Gotti, it's actually hearing about a murder that John Gotti has now authorized. All this within a year, so this is
very surreal to me. Then, the third thing that he tells us is that he was the shooter in the murder of John Demotto, and John Dematto was the acting underboss of the Decalbalcanti family who was killed because he was going to sex clubs and having sex with men. That's another angle related to the Sopranos. So these are three things that he tells us out of the gate he has just exposed himself to a life sentence as opposed to twenty years. So we all have to huddle
and basically determine if he's telling us the truth. Of course, we say he's telling us the truth because he just exposes himself to a life sentence. And then we have to move him. We have to plan to move him to another facility. We also, he didn't put the bodies, but he tells us where he thinks the bodies might be buried. So when this happens, you then have to get a search warrant and you have to do a search. Finding a body, even if it is in a basement,
is very hard to do. Throughout my career, I've been extremely successful where I've been able to recover five bodies, but this is very hard to do. The area that he told us was in Marlboro, New York, and it was at a recycling plant. That recycling plant had been rebuilt. It was a very vast area. And this is in December of nineteen ninety nine, probably December like fourteenth or so. We start to do a search. We searched for three days.
We can't find any of the bodies up there. Again, it's really really hard to find a body, and this area was umongous. Also during this time period, personally, I'm going through some tough things where my dad had gotten sick. My dad was diagnosed with brain cancer in March of ninety nine that year, and he was kind of at the end. What happened was when we finished digging for the bodies in Marlborough, New York. That night I went
to go visit him. He was in a hospice home, and my mom, who was very religious, she basically told me and my brother that we shouldn't leave, and she had just a thought process that something might happen that night, and sure enough, we stayed and he passed that night.
So all this is going on at the same time, arresting Anthony Capo, him flipping, my dad passing away, and one of the eerie things that does happen, like two days later when we have my dad's wake, is Anthony found out who we had moved to a different facility. Anthony found out that my dad passed, and he called me while I was at the funeral home to offer his condolences, which was very weird to me because just two days earlier we were at a gravesite looking for
bodies that he helped put there. So just very very odd. But I was going through a lot at that particular time.
I've said this on the show before. I've talked to forensic psychologists because you know, I'll talk about serial killers or murderers and I'll say, you know, they have no roles, they have no ethics, and they say, of course they do. They're just not the ones you have or general society has. They have boundaries, they have lines they won't cross, they have passions and all of this stuff. You just can't
relate to it necessarily. And that's what I was thinking the whole time with Kapo, was there's so much of that respect and you know, wanting to not be minimized or anything. And so I could absolutely, one hundred percent see somebody like that wanting to respond to you with like kindness. So it sounds like a really good approach. And I do wonder if agents behind you end up doing the same kind of thing, if they learn from that.
I went on to run the Columbo squad and we were extremely successful there, and we'd dismantle that family too, and we flipped a lot of people there as well, so related to Anthony, we get him in the door and again, as I said, this is the first mad member we have, and then Anthony basically opens up the floodgates. About three months later, as I said before, he reported to Vincent Palermo was the acting boss. Vincent Palermo is a businessman. Vincent Palermo did a lot of his criminal
acts with Anthony. In March of two thousand, Vinnie decides to cooperate. Now, as we talk about the show, Vinnie had a strip club in Queen's called Wiggles. That's the real strip club as opposed to the one that's depicted in the show.
So who is Anthony Soprano? Was that Vinnie Palermo.
The real boss in the show would be Vincent Palermo.
Okay, so did he have the same kind of conflicts, family conflicts or anything.
He had family conflicts, but he would never go go to a shrink to discuss them. That would never happen. That's just a plot they have in the show that would never happen. The thing that's interesting in the show too, if you watched the first season, you have the boss dying of stomach cancer. The real boss dying of stomach cancer, even though, as we said before, the director didn't speak to anybody in real life. Jacob Mauri, who was the acting boss, dies of stomach cancer in June of nineteen
ninety seven. That to me is just very ironic.
What is the expectation of Vinnie Palermo when somebody like Capo is arrested. Is the expectation that they're going to let the mob attorneys take care of it, keep your mouth shut, will either try to get you out or you never say a word and nobody will shank you in prison.
Well, Vinnie was arrested to that day. Oh yeah, so he was one of the thirty nine people that was locked up that day as well. So they expect everyone just to keep them outh shut, that's what they're expecting, and just to do your time and to move on and hopefully we can beat this case or maybe get to a juror so that the case gets thrown out because they've gotten the juries before.
And Anthony and his attorney are not looking for some kind of a deal. What are they looking for and doing all of this, He's offering so much information.
They're looking for a reduction in their sentence and they're looking for a second chance at life, but.
They're he's going the opposite direction by, you know, admitting all of these things. And you said this would have all landed him life in prison when he how much would he have gotten if he had kept his mouth shut?
He could have been exposed to twenty years, twenty to twenty five years? Okay, No, as I said, he's exposed himself to life, but he's rolling the dice and he's trusting me that he's going to get a reduction in a sentence.
Is Benny aware that he's been moved? Does anybody suspect that Capo would be the one who would flip if anyone.
Once we did the search wine up in Marlborough, New York, and once word travels extremely quickly when you don't go back to your prison cell. So then they knew Anthony was cooperating. So that's why Benny cooperated. So as I said, Bennie cooperated in March of two thousand. Then a month later, a gentleman named Victor de Kierra cooperates. So now we have three people cooperating rather quickly, an associate, a panel boss,
and Anthony a soldier. And also Ralph. So we have four total people as opposed to having no one in one hundred years. We have four people rather quickly. So what we do is we do the same thing. We proffer and then you proffer, and that leads to a cooperation agreement. When you get to a cooperation agreement, you have to plead guilty. You plead guilty to all your crimes, basically every crime you ever did. So when Anthony played guilty, he played guilty in June of two thousand that year.
He ended up pleading to two murders, eleven murder conspiracies, and every crime that you could think of, So that was his plea. Vinnie and Victor do the same thing. So we take all their information and now we want to have a superseding indictment where we're going to go out and use all their information and arrest more people. And that's what we do. In October of two thousand. We then arrest the official boss, the Consiglieri, a bunch of captains and soldiers who was known as the hierarchy.
Arrest and from there that's when things get real real quickly. Associated comes forward. His name is Frank Scarabino. His nickname was Frankie the Beast. Frankie the Beast comes forward and says he wants to cooperate and that he's got the contract to kill Anthony Capo, to kill Anthony Capo's kids, and to hurt law enforcement. So I always say, hard work leads to good luck, thankfully. As you mentioned therefore, that some of these guys had boundaries. His boundary was
he wasn't going to hurt kids. That was the line for him. So he decided to come forward, and now he wants to cooperate. So now we've got to move him and his family. So now we have five people total in in the door, this spiral effect of cooperation that Anthony has created for us. Then a month later we have a guy who was arrested in December of nineteen ninety nine. His name is Thomas Detrah, who is a mountain of a man. He sees that everyone is
cooperating and he wants to cooperate. He's out on bail. Remember I told you one of the two that started us was Joseph Connigliero, the guy in the wheelchair that got killed. Well, he is part of the conspiracy to murder him, and he's trying to get out in front that he wants to cooperate because he's out on bail. We decide let's get him to make a consensual recording. What we do is we get everyone that's involved in the murder to kill Joseph Connigliero together, and Tommy Detore
is going to record them. It's probably the best recording the FBI has, or one of the best, where he gets everyone together and they talk about their role in the murder. Now, as I said, Joseph Conigliero was in a wheelchair. He had his car rigged where he could actually drive it. So the shooter was a guy named Martin Lewis. Martin Lewis is on tape saying I shot
him six times. I got out of the car and Joseph Connigliero pulled away, drove up the street, got to a stop sign and put his blinker on and drove himself to the hospital. This is all on tape. Now there's another guy named Joseph Brightson. Joseph Brightson was another mountain of a man. They used to call Brightson and Timy Detora at the Twin Towers because they were so big. So Joseph Conigileero stops at Joseph Brightson's house and beeps
the horn. Joseph Brightson thinks that Joseph Canigileero is dead. Can you imagine the look on his face when Joseph Connegileero beeps the horn for Joseph Brison to come downstairs. Joseph Brison comes downstairs, jumps in the car and goes to the hospital with him, and then Joseph Conagilero dies at the hospital. When he's at the hospital, Joseph Brightson calls his cousin who's an NYPD detective, and unfortunately the detective goes through the car and removes all the case shells,
so now he's in the case. And again also this is all on tape. It's probably one of the best tapes ever. And for trial, all you have to do is press play.
What do you do with a cop who does that in prison? I mean, but police officers in prison already will have a hard time. Does he have to go in a special facility?
Also, oh, he doesn't go in a special facility. And he wasn't a very tall man. He ended up. You know, we can talk about the trials when we get there. But he ended up going to trial, he got convicted, and he got sentenced to thirteen years horrible and I'm sure his time was hard, you know what I mean. Yeah, So we have this tape and then we do more arrest and then we actually have another arrest related to
the leak. So we couldn't arrest the alleged court reporter because we couldn't get any direct evidence that it was the person was supplying the information. We could only get the evidence who got the information. So we ended up arresting a Genevie's captain named Fritzy Giabnelli. So we arrested him in August of two thousand and one, and that was right before nine to eleven. That the book talks about my experiences through thro nine to eleven, which is
some crazy times there. And then after nine to eleven, our investigations go silent for about four or five months where we have to divert all our resources to counter terrorism at that particular time, and then we slowly get back to working organized crime, and we get back to working organized crime. Then I start the trials. And what's different between the state and the federal is when you're in federal the agents actually sit at the trial, so
you're working hand in hand with the prosecutors. And trial is the best experience because that's where you learn. You learn all the mistakes that you made, but it's the best experience. And it's twenty four to seven. You're prepping for trial. You have trial during the day, then at night you're going to work with the witness. It's constant.
And I was basically on trial from December two thousand and two up until November two thousand and three, where I think during that time period for trial, so it was just a year of no life whatsoever.
Do you have a lot of fears during this time period. I mean you're hearing that you know there are contracts out to hurt law enforcement. You must have been scared at some point.
Well, you know you're used to threats, right, that's part of the job. But yes, it's like when we first heard that there was a contract out on our head on law enforcement. Of course I'm concerned because I was the handler for Anthony Kapolm. I'm the one that flipped them, so of course I'm concerned. As years went by, it's like I ended up working them all for fifteen years. There's actually a consensual recordings of them talking about me, that I'm a decent guy, that I know what I'm doing,
and that I've always treated people with respect. You know, if I had you, I had you, even if I had you, but we didn't have it on tape. I didn't have you then. But I've always treated them with respect, and I think they actually saw that. So do I fear for my life now now, you know. But back then, when it first happened, here was a little concerned because it's a jolt, you know what I mean. But you know, because I worked them for so long, I think there's
a level of respect. And as I said, after this case, I went on to work the Bananas and also the Columbos.
Can you use Anthony Capo as an example of how you can look at someone who has done so many awful things and somehow it doesn't sound like you were acting when you were talking to him. I mean, I've read that you guys had some pretty personal exchanges, and I'm interested in a little bit about what he told you about his life. And then, of course you know how your PABs could have been parallel, but they very clearly split off. So how do you humanize somebody like that?
Well, one thing that I learned is you kind of become a social worker a b. It's not up for me to judge. I mean, it's like they'll be judged by a higher power. And you know, it's a job. I've heard horrible things, not just from Anthony, but for all the witnesses that I've heard, and you know, you don't know how they were raised. Right, Again, it's not up for me to judge. And I think that's the biggest thing. And it's a job that I have to do. Right that The whole thing is this is a job,
so and I have to get the job done. So And one thing that I've always said too is a happy witness is a good witness. And you'd be surprised if you can make people feel comfortable and relaxed. They're more apt to tell you things if you as opposed to making them feel uptight or anxious.
Did he have regrets? Which, if he does, I have to think at least partially central on what he's putting his wife and his kids through.
There is a murder I think I mentioned before. There's the murderer of Fred Weiss. That's the gentleman that god he wanted killed. So after that murder, his best friend Joseph Garafano was part of that murder as well. Joseph Garafano. After that murder, sorry to say, because there was a lot of heat because they kind of botched that murder. What Joey did was and I can't, for the life of me think about why he did this, but Joey's job was to steal plates from a car put it
on a stolen car. For some reason, he took plates from Anthony Capo's wife's car. Very lazy thing to do, a very stupid thing to do. So after that murder, there was a partial tag that was seen at the crime scene. What they did is they killed him as soon they killed Fred Weiss as soon as he exited his apartment building, and Joey started talking saying, I'm not going to go down for this now, Anthony. He said this to Anthony, and Anthony made the mistake of telling
his captain, Anthony Rotundo this. So in essence, Anthony got his best friend killed because they killed him. And that's something that haunted Anthony years later, and it took him probably two years for him to admit that to me, because I spent a lot of time with him, and it took him about two years to actually admit that he got his friend killed. And he used to tell me that he would have nightmares about it. That's something that hit him pretty hard.
What about his wife and kids? I mean, I know what happens. He moves to a different facility to keep himself. Do they go into witness security also? I mean the impact on them must have been tremendous.
Well, when the threat happened, you know, I had to go up there and tell Anthony that, and that was a very difficult thing to do because you had to put yourself in hissues. He's defenseless, so he's looking to me to protect his family. I was put in a very tough spot because his wife refused to move. So it's kind of hard for me to protect her when she's refusing.
To move and she's in Staten Island? Is that right?
Stetton Island. Now, they were having problems and they ultimately got divorced. Still, I'm concerned about her safety, but there's only so much I can possibly do. So we went we spoke to her, you know, try to get her to go into the program. She refused to do that. Offered her money to relocate. Initially she said no. Then finally, you know, after urging her over and over again to relocate,
she relocated. But she relocated from one endo Staten Island to the next, which really is not a relocation, but she did. But yeah, it made my life very hard because she wouldn't relocate. Thankfully, nothing ever happened, but you know, it was very scary, and I felt bad for Anthony because he was defenseless. Even though they were having problems, He's still concerned about her and her kids. And thankfully nothing ever happened. Is like, the main thing is.
There anyway some of the members of these families, the actual families, biological families or whatever, don't know what their husbands and fathers and grandfathers are doing for a living.
Yes, really, I've had that a couple of times. When I worked the Columbos, we had a proactive witness and we had to abruptly take him off the street. He made tapes for us for quite some time, and an event happened where he was the guy who actually intervened
where someone was going to get killed. They were going to kill these two kids, and the mob guys had guns in their mouths and they were going to kill them, and he happened to be there with a recording device and he was a decent sized guy, and he stepped in and he kind of beat the crap out of the two kids. Saved their lives, really, but as a result of that, we had to shut down the case, and he owned the night club, and we had to
break the news to him. He didn't even know. We went to the nightclub at like four o'clock in the morning and said, Okay, it's over. We have to shut this down. And he had never told his wife anything. So just imagine four or five o'clock in the morning going back to his house with him and us telling her a pack your bags, we're moving right now, and her just being totally shocked at the whole thing. It
has happened before. At the end of the day, I think we convicted seventy one people, eleven murders were solved, seven trials. And what's interesting is, as I said, during this short, little time period, we had seven people that cooperated, ranging from associate soldier, captain, acting boss. And since that time period, no one else has cooperated. No other made
member and that family has cooperated. So we're at twenty five years plus since that happened, and for trial purposes, it was great in the sense is at that particular point in time, it was the first time that we were able to put a structure of a family to testify against their own family. Whereas I said, we could put an associate, a soldier, a captain, and boss up from the same family testifying and against their family. And people come to me and they say, why did you
write the book? And you know, there's a couple of reasons. First of all, I was approached and I was very blessed to have a great career. When I tell people all the time, it's not just me, it's when you work organized crime, it's always a team. It's always a team of people. So I've had great partners, mentors, supervisors, and just great squads. And when they approached me and they heard my story, they were like, this is not one book. This is two books. So this is just
the first part of my career. We'll see if I have the energy to write a second one. The thing is, as I mentioned before, this squad CEE ten we got tremendous press because we basically dismantled two families at the same time, the Banano family plus the Dicalbalcanti family. They were such a young group of selfless agents that just had each other's back. We got tremendous press. The press never put it together that it was the same squad.
It was so funny where we were in the paper daily from two sides of the fence, and they just never put it together. So this is one way to get that out there. And then lastly, I don't know the relationship that Anthony had with his kids, and I just hope that by reading this book they see all the good that he did. Anthony testified for me seven times. He actually became like a professional witness where he enjoyed this. He loved the banter and he was good at it.
And for someone that prior to being locked up, he never worked really a day in his life, he was always trying to scam. When he went into the witness security program, he used to always say he wanted to be a success story for me, and I would tell him, don't be a Suxcis story for me, be a success story for yourself. He worked hard and he really did change his life around and he tried to make the
best of that second chance. So hopefully his kids, you know, years later now, can actually see that he did do some good. Yes, he did heinous acts and I do not condone those at all, and I feel horrible for the victims. But he did turn his life around and he did do some good.
Well, tell me, aside from testifying for you so much and giving you a lot of information, tell me the way the rest of his life goes. Once the dust is settled and you have the seventy one convictions, is that what it was? Yeah, once you have these convictions and then you're moving on to the Columbo and wherever else? What happens with Anthony?
All right? So basically Anthony does get bail. He did about four years in jail, and people are always of this mindset that they go into the witness security program. There are jails throughout the United States. There are roughly seven jails. I can't say where they are, but people go to jail first. So Anthony actually went to jail for four years and then he got bail, and then he went into the witness Security program. That's called Phase two.
Phase two of the Winness Security program. As I said before, it's run by the US Marshall Service. That's when you get your fake ID, like your licensed Social Security number passport. And he went in there and he became a car salesman. I used to always joke that he could sell steamshit to a blind man because he had because he had the gift of the gap. So he did really well there. But he did have some health issues. You know, he was a bad diabetic, and you know, I think he
lost some toes throughout his life there. But he did try to make the best of his second life.
Okay. Now he ended up dying.
A couple of years ago.
Yeah, hey did it?
Okay?
Now, is there anybody else of note that had an interesting time once they either testified or took complete deal or whatever it was.
There was another witness, Anthony Rotundo. Anthon Rotundo testified me for seven times as well. Anthony Rotundo actually went to college. I shouldn't rephrase that he graduated college. Anyone can go and can go to college. He actually, yeah, had to graduate college, and so he was a great witness for us as well. It's funny. What I try to do with the book is I tried to reach out to all the witnesses ahead of time to let them know.
And Frank Scarabino, the one who had the contract to kill Kapito and his family and also basically to kill me, I couldn't get a hold of him, and sure enough, I'm not on any type of Instagram and things like that, but he contacted me through LinkedIn.
Did that to scare the shit out of you? That would have scared me to death.
So we were able to connect through LinkedIn with his new name, and you know, he was already supportive of like the book, and I told him, I said, I tried to reach out to you the old that I had for you. So it's it's nice to reconnect with him again. But he but he's doing well too. He's made the most of his second life. And as we talked about before, his wife knew nothing at all about
his about his life too. Benny actually moved down to Texas, I believe, and there was a reporter who went down there and basically knocked on his front door, and I think it was in the paper. So Benny really didn't change like his ways. He I think went right back into the same type of business that he had before.
You've spent so much time reading about these guys, interviewing these guys, knowing about the crimes. Has there been any kind of an evolution between when you started working these mafia mob cases until now? Have they, you know, diversified or is this Do they have the same control on in New Jersey and New York that they once had? Is a structure any different?
Well, I think from a cooperation standpoint, I think Anthony opened up the floodgates. I'll start there in the sense is you know, if you look at the history of cooperation you had Sammy the Bull started in nineteen ninety one, Al Di Orco was behind him, and from ninety two to ninety nine there was really no there was no one that had tried to cooperate. Anthony started that and then after that, you know, between the Bananas and the DeCavalcantes,
it just became the floodgates. Then after I was finished this case, I went down to the Columbo squad and we were extremely successful there. You know, I think the highlights of that was in January of twenty eleven, I spearheaded the largest FBI arrest ever against the mob, where we arrested one hundred and twenty seven people, and then I ended my career as a supervisor where we had a dig related to the Good to the Goodfellow's movie in June of twenty thirteen. So I think cooperation has
started to become the norm. Related to your question on rackets, though you know even recently you've had arrest, the Mob has been around for one hundred and twenty five years. They're not going to go away. It's like they hated Gotty because Gotti was so flashy. They're supposed to be under the radar. So the rackets of sports betting and trying to gamble, they're going to be around forever. The extortions of unions, that's going to be around, it's always
going to be around. You know. What they're starting to get into is technology though, right, that's what and also the crypto, So these are things you have to watch for, right, But they're going to evolve. There's a lot of smart people that work in the MOB, right, so they're always going to try to adapt, and that's what the Bureau always has to keep the resources on them because if they don't keep their eye on them, they're going to rebuild. It's like the Bureau has done a great job the
last twenty years of really trying to decimate them. But the mob is always going to rebuild. They've been around forever.
Are there still four or five main families or are there more factions than that?
Yes, there's still the five main families in New York. You still have the Jersey family. You know, they're not going to go away. They're always going to be be there, you know, and I don't think they're as strong as they were, but they're not going to go away though.
Okay, for you, you were tired and then you moved on to a different job and all of that. What's the biggest lesson you think you've learned from all of this? Again, if I were your mother, I would have been terrified for the more than a decade or two that you worked under this specific thing. My grandmother was always terrified because her son was ahead of swat here in Austin and she just was the worst thing ever, But she was so proud of him.
Well, even in my current job, I give safety tip training, I give active shooter training. I just tell people all the time, be a be aware of your surroundings, at all times. You know, I think, just generally speaking, people are addicted to their phone, and it just it annoys me, especially when I'm walking down the street in New York City, how people are just glued to their phone. You make yourself vulnerable. It's like pay attention. It's like you look
like you're easy. So just be aware of your surroundings at all times. Don't make yourself look like a victim. And I constantly say, just try to say that to people.
So you made history right as an FBI agent. And it all started with a handful of chocolates and some orange juice and showing someone who it seems like much of his life is based on trying to get respect. You give him that respect, and it seemed I know you did a lot of hard work, but to start there and for it to be so successful so quickly, you know, it was amazing.
Yeah, I think the stars were just the line. As I said, you know, when I got to that surveillance squad, I was very lucky there. And then during that rotational process when you're a new agent, I just tried to volunteer as much as I could. I went to the head of the organized crime branch and just try to sell myself and all you have in the bureau is the reputation that you try to build. And thankfully they just just gave me a shot and I just made
the most of that. I was blessed to get. You know, have George Hannah as my mentor, and I just became a spun and I'm still friends with Hin till today, and you know, I all a lot to him. And as I said, I just was blessed to work with some great people. And it's always about about like the team.
If you love historical true crime stories, check out the audio versions of my books The Sinners, All About the Ghost Club, All That Is Wicked, and American Sherlock and Don't Forget There are twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast, Tenfold More Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and give them a listen if you haven't already. This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis M. Morosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain.
This episode was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer. Artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hartstar, Karen Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram and Facebook at tenfold more Wicked and on Twitter at tenfold more. And if you know of a historical crime that could use some attention from the crew at tenfold more Wicked, email us at info at tenfoldmorewicked dot com. We'll also take your suggestions for true crime authors for Wicked Words