¶ Welcome back to Zone 7 with Crime Scene Investigator, Sheryl McCollum
Andrea Goveno. She is number six of ten children. She's
¶ Sheryl introduces Andrea Giovino to the listeners
the author of Divorced from the Mob. She's a podcaster, a mother, a friend. But y'all, there's more, there's a lot more. Her life reads like a movie. She committed her first crime when she was five years old. Tonight, she's here to tell us her story. Y'all, please help me. Welcome Andrea Gioveno to Zone seven. Andrea, welcome, and thank you so much.
Oh my god, thank you for having me.
This is something I have just been giddy almost knowing that I was going to be able to talk to you here, and folks are going to be able to hear your story. So I've already gave them a little
¶ Andrea gives a brief background of her upbringing and first crime
bit of a tease. But why don't you go ahead and tell us about that first crown.
So, yeah, I came from a lot of poverty, ten children, grew up in Brooklyn. My dad was a truck driver
and my mom was to stay at home mom. And you know, to have ten children, you know, they couldn't make ends meet, and you know, so she taught us at a very young age, Like you said, at five, I was getting up like four or five o'clock in the morning with my other siblings and running out to steal like doughnuts or milk or you know, they used to leave the carts back then in the sixties in front of the store, so just to have breakfast.
Sure, and people had milk delivered to their house and left on the stoop. Yeah. So you know, with ten children, y'all do had to make do.
You had to make do. So it was so that was very comfortable. You know, when you learn things and you're a product of your environment at a very young age, you become comfortable with that because that's all you know. And in life, you take your lead from your parents. So normal parents would like not allow a child to steal. But so I think that you know, when you tell you child that that's what you're supposed to do, then
¶ Life in the Mob
the child does it. No, they follow their lead.
Sure, and you know, it almost seems like it was an instinct for you to keep your mouth shut, like you just kind of knew that, Oh my god.
Yes, it's it's well in that background in the Italian culture, in Italian even organized crime where I came from, because basically that whole area was like that. Everything is about loyalty, everything is about you know, no outsiders could come in. No, you don't make new friends with new people. It's all about that little clique of Italians that are in that criminal world.
Sure. And you know I've always said this to friends of mine, their Italian Southerners and Italians are very similar to me. That culture of family comes first. Everything is centered around food, doesn't matter what the event is. And then that loyalty. There's no question that you are loyal to your people.
Oh my god, you have to be loyal and know your place. You know, it's about that too, And you're so right. It's about food and family and friends, but friends that are part.
Of that life, correct, yep, you know. And you know it's funny because all of us grew up, of course, downside and Georgia and I had one sister only that moved away to the north and she married a man that was a pilot and they moved to Connecticut. And I had a great uncle that said, y'all, don't worry about it, we're just infiltrating because it was just going
¶ Facing RICO charges
to be such a different world for her. Of course it is.
I mean, I live in a different world today, you know, after everything happened to me in nineteen ninety two with my arrest. You know, facing I was charged with a RICO. And if people that people that don't understand what a RICO is, the best way I could explain it is if that I got arrested with twenty two organized crime guys, if they were charged with murder or trafficking or pornography, whatever I was, I was being charged, they were being charged with.
And let me just say for the record, the Feds
¶ The culture of being in a mob - loyalty and brotherhood
don't come at you with a RICO that ain't solid.
Exactly if the Feds I always say this, if the Feds knock on your door, like I refer that on my own podcast when I did a show about p Diddy, when the Feds come, they have a solid case.
It's already done. It's already done.
Well everything they need to know that you are going to jail.
And this is something I want you to really talk about because when I spoke to you, even on the phone, and honey, I could have talked to you for five hours. But that loyalty, that thread is something that in my world I also understand. And you know, in law enforcement, there's that brotherhood, there's that commitment, there's that loyalty. And I'll tell you one story because I think you'll think
it's funny. But we had one officer in our department that had a horrible wreck and one of the female officers was tending to him, waiting for the ambulance to come another car that he hit. The woman was yelling and screaming, you don't even care anything about me. You're just working on him. You're not even asking if you know, if I'm okay. And the female officer turned and she very in a colorful way, told her to shut her mouth, that that was a police officer and she was absolutely
going to take gary him first. And she said, and I don't even like this guy, so well, you know, and.
That is so I appreciate that because that's exactly how it was in my world. That the way you have to watch each other's back because you're out in the streets, you know, and you know you can get shot. It's just as dangerous you're dealing with, you know, hardcore criminals. That's how the loyalty is and the circle is in the world that I come from. So it's very much intertwined.
And you know a lot of people say, well, you know, she was probably connected because she was somebody's girlfriend or somebody's wife. Honey, you were a straight up loan shark, you know exactly.
When I recently when I did the show, I've done a lot of documentaries, so the viewers could understand I've been doing this for over thirty years. Like a little bit of my background. I was on sixty Minutes. Sixty Minutes doesn't put you on their show. They're one of the most recognized news teams in this country that's got such a reputable background. You know, they vet you, and so I did sixty Minutes. I was, you know, did
Barbara Walters on the view. I've done many, many documentaries, and the most recent documentary that I did was Get Gotti on Netflix, which was number one in forty four countries for like eight weeks.
Forty four countries.
Come on many full country.
I tell you something, Diovino, let's just vet you real quick. You're in a freaking Rico indictment exactly.
So another thing what I'm getting at is that you don't get on a show like Netflix, which have some of the best attorneys in the world, because it's all over the world that they don't vet you and see what you're back. They go back, they talk to you, the prosecutors, they get the court records, the attorneys. It's like a whole vetting process. So when people say, well, no, she was somebody's girlfriend of somebody's wife, No I wasn't arrested for that. I was arrested because I was in
the streets. Not to brag about that or not to make that the highlight of it, because that's all I knew was how to make money in the streets. And that's what my story was so unique, because here she is running with all these heavy hitters of high level organized crime guys, and she's holding her own.
One hundred percent. And as a criminologist, you have information that I need. I need to be able to understand your world if I'm going to stop the next person.
Right, And I always say, when law enforcement of any type of law enforcement, whether it would be DEA, ATF, whatever it is, whatever agency it is, and they come in and make an arrest, you bet that criminal has done that crime a thousand times. Yeah, you know, that's the first arrest, But that criminal has been on the street a long time.
That's right, that's right, no question, it's a situation for me, the way you lay everything out, your honesty, like you've told me several times, ask me anything, you have no reason to lie. That reminds me of John Gotti. He
¶ Transition and transformation post mob life
flat said, I don't ever lie because I don't fear anybody exactly.
I don't have to lie. You know, that was that was my background. That was who I was. That is not who I am today. And you know I've said I've changed my life totally. That was my downfall in nineteen ninety two with four kids, and you know, woke me up that I lost custody of one of my children because of it. And then you know, facing like ten years in prison, so you know, I was just like, wow, how did this all happen to me? And then I
¶ " I had to dig deep down like emotional surgery to understand who, who I was and why I chose the men I chose and why I chose the things I had chosen."
got like a lot of therapy and I had to dig deep down, like emotional surgery to understand who who I was and why I chose the men I chose, and why I chose the things I had chosen because you know, not having an education, you know, I have a seventh grade education, and then always feeling inferior to people that did have an education, and I felt like
I couldn't fit in. I didn't know their language. I didn't know how to speak on the level that they were speaking about kids that went to college and you know, educated themselves. I was a street kid. I was a tough street kid, and that's who I was comfortable with. So those were the guys I was picking to be around.
But you weren't encouraged to get an education. You were encouraged to learn how to cook and clean and a big wife.
Yeah, that's it. You know, they didn't believe in that. They didn't believe in education.
Sure, and if you are, you know, in a family where your mom's like, hey, strive for this, try to you know, get you a man that's in organized crime because he's going to make a good living. Yes, I understand that you're going to make him. You're not probably going to meet the guy from Wall Street. That's not where you're hanging out.
No, that's not where I'm hanging out. That's not where I'm comfortable. That's not like what I want to be around.
And let's be honest, I mean, just woman to woman, you're around good looking men that have money in their pocket, that know how to protect you, that want to show you off. That ain't a bad life either.
No, it's very at the time, it's a very glamorous, glamorous lifestyle. And street guys because the money comes in very fast and they spend a lot. They're big spenders. Now, the guy that goes to work, he's not going to blow his money like that because he's working hard for it. So the street guy is going to blow his money because he knows he's going to go on the street and make more.
Especially in the nineteen eighties, Baby come Home.
Yes, yes, you didn't have all of the technology that they have today to make arrests, you know. And then once you know, in New York one Sammy Gravano, you know, which was the undervorce in the Gambiano crime family, informed became an informer that opened up the doors. I always say that opened up the gates heaven that everybody after that, everybody started being a government witness, Like everybody would get arrested in like you arrest six guys, four out of the six are gonna flip.
And until Sammy the Bull, I mean, he was the
¶ Reflecting on relationships
highest ranking person that started to swim as they say, yes, well, you know, I gotta say this to you because when you said a little while ago that you transformed your life. I don't want to just gloss over that, because not only did you do that, but you've been able to maintain that. And in my head sometimes I think about you and you went from loan sharken to raising money for your church.
And I'm you know, very very involved in the Catholic Church. I give back a lot.
But think about that. I mean, that's an snl skit. Do you understand what I'm saying?
Like not like, yes, I believe me, Am I priest, show me sure, Like you know, they know my background, they know who I am, and you know it's I guess today, I am the person that God intended me to be. This is who I'm supposed to be. I help a lot of struggling women. I help a lot of abused women. I had somebody here last night that came to talk to me to my home that's been getting you know, emotionally, verbally abused, just to you know,
he's an addict. And long story short, I try to give my time back from the knowledge that I've acquired through the years of what's sick and what healthy is. And you know, a sick relationship, you know, if you hang out with sick people, you're going to get sick. If you hang out with healthy people, your brain will get healthier. And that's the best way I could put it.
And with red flags, you know, like I explained to this young woman that here you are a beautiful, educated woman, you're a teacher, and you're putting up with this low life talking down to you. The first time. You should have done done. I'm done with you. And women a lot of women think that, you know, they stay in these types of relationships, and it could be any culture, any background, it doesn't matter. You have that type of abuse that goes on everywhere.
I was going to say, every culture does put up with it, yes.
And you know, and then that like the guys that I hung out with murderers, I mean, after they get what they want. The cheaters, they cheat on their wife. They'll cheat on their girlfriend when a man commits a murder, like I'll never forget. One of the guys said to me one time, if you're gonna compare a murder to cheating, he goes, look at the comparison to us. Cheating is making love. That's normal, Like it's no big deal. It's
like playing tennis. That's how they look at it. It's not a big deal to them.
You sad, And as a young girl watched Crazy Joe Gallo, you understood, Hey, this is a powerful guy. He's a rich guy. He's a mover, he's a shaker. You felt more comfortable in that world, even knowing what they were capable of.
Yes, because that's what I was taught.
Of course, of course.
That's basically what I was taught. That's all I knew.
And there's women that are taught to stay.
Right, there's women that are taught to stay and to give these types of men the respect and power and praise and cater to them.
So growing up, I heard that the Mafia guys would take their girlfriends out Friday night and Saturday night, they would take their wives out.
That's right.
One of the interviews I heard you say is that y'all all went out as groups on Tuesday and Thursdays.
Because I was standing on my own, I wasn't a girlfriend at the correct. I was a businesswoman.
Yep. So Sunday I figured everybody goes to church. So my question for you is what does the Mafia do on Mondays?
They go right back to do this same get up get dressed and go out and get it in the streets and do their crimes. Okay, that's basically what they do.
Love it because you know you've been on Get Gottie, Gotdi and Son Mafia Killer. But you never change who you are. You never change how you talk about the people in your life. You still have great affection for many of them, as you should. You talk about it as like anybody would talk about their senior prom It's part of you.
It's part of my life. It's so many years of what I've experienced.
You know, were you hesitant at all to do these shows? Thinking I don't want to give any of the secrets. I don't want to break the code entirely. I don't want to do anything that they would think is disrespectful.
No, because at the time, well, when when I got arrested, that was my bottom and I had had like I had had enough with the whole life and all, and I felt like I needed to be true to myself. I needed to heal within myself. I needed to tell my story, not everybody else but me. I think that with that it was working on me, working on myself. So it wasn't like I was telling any of their business. I was telling my story of what happened to me.
And see, I thought, even listening to you too, you had an opportunity to talk about your friend. They had a lot of people on those shows that never worked with Gotti. What and his friend was involved in another family. They were just a mafioso telling what they knew about the general understanding. But you talked about a man that you met at a bar with your sister.
You know when I'm when I and it's it's funny because just this past summer, well actually I think it was this September that just passed. The person that I met, John Gotti through Mock Ryder just passed away. And I was friends with him through the years. He had gotten life in prison. He was up in alan Wood Federal Prison, not too far from where I lived, about two hours, so I made it a point I used to go visit him a couple of times a year. You realize, like they live such a fast life, and then is
¶ Public validation from Mark Ryder
it all worth it? Because he lost his whole life living in prison like he was there thirty seven years.
Well, let's talk about Mark Ryder a minute, because he also validated you. I mean I think that's one of the greatest acts of friendship that I've heard, is that he called publicly to say, of course she knew John Gotti and John Gotty knew her. Are you crazy?
And you know you know you're in law enforcement. It's that even he didn't care he was incarcerated. He could have gotten in trouble for even being on a video that I'm doing an interview right now and I was on a podcast and I get a call from an inmate. They're not allowed to do that. So he went on a limb. He went out on a limb to do that, to say, what, of course you knew John Gotti. You were with me, you met him with me, you were out with us all the time, you knew everybody.
He was gonna have your back. Yes, yes, because and he's that old school, old school Mark Rider and Jean Gotti and John Gottie.
Anthony Rappino, John, all of them them.
Yes, they never cooperated. And people forget John Gotti went to prison for a couple of years on a murder charge in the seventies. Never said a.
Word, no, no, never said a word. But then you have these other ones. Now, if you know all these. I'm right now the only female podcaster my podcast, Andrew Giudino podcast. I am the only female podcaster from organized crime that's out there that the other podcasters that do the stuff that I talk about Italian organized crime all government informers. You don't have anybody out there that's talking about this stuff that isn't a government informer.
And you didn't just get a reco charge. You got a RICO charge. You kept your mouth shut. They offered you witness protection.
I didn't go.
You didn't go.
I didn't go. You know why I didn't go because I had so much faith. Even back then, I was always connected to church always. I might not have followed it, but I was connected to it. And I just said, we said, the guy upstairs knows when I'm gonna die. I'm not going to be afraid. I'm just not afraid. I'm not that kind of person to be afraid.
And I won't be able to understand though, Andrea, there was a contract out on.
Oh yeah, legitimate contract.
No, no, legit absolutely contract.
They said she We're going to kill her. People went to prison for it. They went to prison for that. And here I am five six one hundred and twenty five pounds back. Not afraid of anyone, no one. And people would say when I've done these shows, are you No, I'm not afraid. Why. I don't know. I'm just not.
You've never been afraid. I've never been afraid.
I'm not going to have someone take that much of me. I'm not gonna have just because he's a man and I'm a woman who he's going to take that much of me to make me be afraid. I'm not that
¶ Bar fight with John Gotti
kind of person. I'll fight to the end. I'll fight to the end.
And before you were a member of the PTA, honey, you did just that. You got into a bar fight because somebody crossed one of your people.
Yes, absolutely, straight.
Up bar fight, y'all. I'm not talking about pushing and shoven.
No talk about with John Gotty sitting there.
With John Gotti sitting there.
Yes, with John Gotty sitting there.
Andrea, I gotta ask you. I gotta ask you this question.
¶ Reflecting on life's journey
Is there times where maybe you're driving to church, or you're shopping, or you're with your grandchildren, do you ever say how did I get here from there?
I do, and I have thought that I have like very strong faith. I just think that I follow that inner voice of what I'm supposed to do. And I live alone, and I am as much as I'm so outgoing, I have a very close circle. I don't get close to people. I'm just close to my family, my kids, my grandkids. That's it. I'm not really I don't let anybody in my circle, you know, and my church, the people from my church that you know, I feel I
feel safe with. I don't trust many people. You know, when they say you're blessed if you get one good friend in a lifetime, that is very true, because people turn on you. People get envious, people get jealous. I mean,
¶ Writing Divorced From Mob
even within my own family, the more successful I had become, the more jealous they become. You know.
That's why this podcast is called Zone seven. Atlanta has six police owns. So when we would get together after shifts and things like that, we couldn't come over the radio. This was before cell phones and pagers, and we couldn't say, Hey, everybody, we're going to go to the bar tonight. So we would say we're going to five nine at Zone seven,
and then that kind of bled into this. There's only a few people that I can truly count on truly trust, actually want the best for me, are going to help me be successful, going to kind of keep me out of trouble, that kind of thing. And you're right, it's a small circle.
It's a small circle, and you have to keep your circle small.
Yep, yep. So when you decided to write your book so that you can inspire other peoplearticularly women, to transform their life, what was the first thing you thought about putting on paper?
How I got inspired to write my book. I was in therapy and my therapist had said to me, write down everything of your feelings from A to Z, from what you can remember from your childhood and where you're at now. So I started writing down things and I couldn't believe when I was writing down so much trauma I had experienced and went through as a child, like, just so much trauma. And I decided, then when I started writing all these notes down, I should write a book.
And then when I would say that, people very close to me, even family members, oh, you're never going to get a book out there. You have no education, you're not a writer. Like the more you tell me I'm not going to do it, the more I'll do it. And then I had a big pause. Publisher picked me up.
So I think I wanted to write. I wanted to write a book more so, believe it or not, for women to understand, to maybe not go through what I went through by choosing the bad boy, by choosing the guy because he has money, you know, that lures you in with the love bombing and all of that, and then they change and then they're not the person they are, Like stay away from the criminal, like try to stay
with the good guy. I wanted women to understand, because, like I said, it's all cultures, not just the Italian culture that there's crime in and and women don't realize it until it's too late that you could lose your children, you know, custody like which I did. I was custody of one of my children and have the heartache of you know, going to prison and you know, losing your children that way, just by being associated with someone that
like that. So that's basically really why I wanted to write a book.
Now, you mentioned a term love bomb that was new to me. I have only recently heard that, and my friend doctor Angie Arnold used it just in a sentence like you just did, and I said, ooh, that sounds fabulous, right, Well, because.
What they do, it's very common. Like most of these men are sociopath narcissistic men that have no conscience. So you know they'll fall in love with you because of what you look like. I was very you know. You know, you look back on my pictures or whatever, young beautiful girl, and what happens is that the love bombing stage. Every woman wants that because they're showering you with gifts, You're going on a vacation. You know, they're telling you how
much they love you. And for me, because I didn't get that love as a child, I never had anyone hold me and tell me, oh, I love you, because we would just pushed aside. I craved that. I wanted that. I was like like, oh my god, you know he loves me, Like that's what I wanted, which I never had. So you just get caught up in that. But like now, like with all the knowledge I've acquired and worked on myself and all I could see the red flags a mile away, you know, like the bullshit and all.
That sure and the line and the cheating in the Canalvin and the colony.
Yeah, yeah, because when a guy comes in whether he could be a criminal or like a legit guy. And he starts doing that with the you know, love bombing stage where the gifts to this, to that. That's not a good guy because he he shouldn't be doing that. He should be courting you in a normal manner, not buying you like a possession.
Right. Well, it was such a powerful thing that you said earlier. If you're with sick people, you're gonna get sick. I mean, it's the same thing if you're married to somebody who is conting you, deceiving you, mistreating you. The flowers in the jewelry, they don't mean anything.
They don't mean nothing. Every time I used to get gifts, I used to call them guilt gifts because my husband probably did something really bad. That's basically why he was giving them. And even now my brother, one of my brothers, lives like maybe two three miles away. I haven't talked to him in years. This he was, you know, did about nine murders, pleaded out to nine murders. The government let him out, but came out of prison after cooperating nine murders, and him and my ex husband and they're
still two sick people together. They might like make society think that they're different, but they're not. That mindset, the mindset of I was just saying this to somebody. If the audience could understand when someone commits a murder, this is not normal, and then they can go out and eat a steak and go out and live their life and they have no remorse over it.
That's associopath and you have to protect yourself from that person mentally for your own health.
So I sit exactly so I stay away from them. I don't engage, I don't go to anything. I don't see him. I haven't seen him in years, and he lives a couple of miles away. I haven't bothered with him in years. I want no part of him, nothing, not him or my ex.
¶ The real John Gotti
So let's do this. Let's talk specifically about John Gottie. Tell us about the person you knew.
You know a lot of people like say, oh, you know what John was really about, and they made movies about him and stuff like that. The John I knew because I knew him in a setting of fun of being out in the club's restaurants having a drink music. I didn't see that vicious side of him. I did not see that because I saw the fun part of John. Gentlemen. I always say, you know, if men cursed, John would be the first one to say, Hey, you got a lady sitting here, mean while my mouth was worse than theirs.
So that but that's the best way I could explain it. So if I was in a restaurant with girlfriends in Manhattan and John walked in with a couple of guys, or any of these guys like this, if you know them, they'll say to the way to give me the check, I'm paying the check. That's how they are.
And you know, again, growing up hearing about I was in high school and college, and all I understood was everybody in the neighborhood loved him. There wasn't a sex offender in that neighborhood. There wasn't a rapist in that neighborhood.
They take care of the neighborhood. They take care of their.
Own exactly and too exactly right. And I think again, like law enforcement, I understand that you know, when a police officer shot, everybody in the surrounding counties and agencies are coming for the funeral. Everybody around the United States is coming, and it's the same.
I'll tell you a story. What happened. I was in my twenties. I was twenty five at the time. I'll never forget. I was buying back then. If you remember, you could buy a house with cash. They didn't have They didn't check where your cash came from. I was buying a house in Queens and the house was two hundred and sixty thousand, and I went to contract and I put sixty thousand down a contract of cash. I decided then about a month later, I didn't want that
house because I didn't want to stay in Queen's. I wanted to move back to Brooklyn. And this is a tough Irish guy that I was buying the house from. He owned a couple of bars in Manhattan along Seventh Avenue. His name was Patty and Patrick Marin. I'll never forget. I tell him I want to get out of it. Really. He says, well, you're not getting the money back. I said, what do you mean, I'm not getting the money back. You're not getting the money back. He wouldn't give me
the money back. Long story short, I said, you're really sure you want to go down that road? Yeah, you're not getting the money back. Okay. I go to the club where all the guys I know hang out, and they go like this, and I don't want to mention too many names, but some people are still alive. I tell them the story. They said, tell me everything about the guy. I said, Well, he owns this bar. He's got a son that works at the bar. Well, the bar's in New York. At four eight four am. They wait,
They get the son. His name is the son name was named Patty. Four guys get him coming out of the bar. They said, are you Patty Mary? Yeah, your father's Patrick Marrin. They get him in the car. They put a gun to his head. Take me to your father's house. Knock on the father's door. You don't give me f and money right now, a bag of sixty thousand. I don't want a scent missed. I'm gonna put a bullet in your son's head right here, right now. I got every cent back the next morning, I guarantee you
did every cent. Wait, I say, go to the club. What do I owe you? You owe us nothing. We take care of our own nothing. They didn't take a cent.
There you go, because Patty thought he was, you know, a real tough guy.
Hey, didn't know anything about me, of where I came from, who I was. I was buying his house. He just went to He just tried to shake down the wrong person. That's what happened. He shook down the royal figure. Oh she's a kid whatever, you know. No, it didn't happen like that. I kept saying, are you sure you want to do this? You're not. He was a tough old Irish guy. You're not getting a sent back. But buh, buh buh, I got it back. They got it back to right the way that they know how to fight.
Honey. They ain't nothing to add to that story. It's perfection. To me. That's how the real world should work. You don't wrong somebody, and if you do, their people should knock on your door. Listen. I have heard your podcast, tell everybody about it.
¶ Launching the podcast
So my podcast is basically about crime, all the crimes that and about people. And I have guests on that have done a lot of prison time, some of them thirty years or more and have really true, you know, hardcore stories and all facts. So if you love crime, the podcast is basically all about that. It's about people that are getting out of prison that I try to bring on the show. I've had correctional offices that I've met up at prisons that have retired that come on
my show. So the podcast is growing. I wasn't How I got to do the podcast was after the Get Godie. People were asking me and you know, you should do a podcast, and that's how it got started. And it's really been doing very well. So the podcast is just my name Andrea giavino one on YouTube and if you want to hear anything about crime, just tune in. And I always answer when people leave me messages. I always for the subscribers, I always answer them back.
Always unbelievable. Well, it is an outstanding podcast, I'm telling you. And to get the stories that you're getting on tape, I think is just part of American history and it's an important part. I've always said and I'm going to say it again. I think the Smithsonian should have an entire building to true crime and the way it tells the story of America.
Oh yeah, yeah, and what it is also women like that that genre. Even when I started my podcast, I got a lot of I still had to fight. I got a lot of negative feedback from the men because they just can't handle a woman like me, you know, coming into their world now doing a podcast from big podcasters, you know, you know which I'll put out this, Sammy Gravano, Michael Francis. You know, they all wanted to knock me because they were a little bit threatened. Oh she's coming
into this world now. And I just kept going and going, and I continue to go, and I'm not going to have them stop me. My stories are real. The people I have on a vouch for me. I had a guy, George Mortorano did thirty three years, he did two years incarcerated with John Gotti, and just so happened, John Gotty had talked about me when he was incarcerated, about just when we were on the streets. So people vouched for me, validated me, and these other guys try to knock me.
Well, I will say this. I heard one person saying I never heard of her. Okay, Well let me just respond to that the only way that I know how. In my world, I can tell you the top drug dealers in Atlanta. I can also tell you the street level folks. That's my job to know who you are. There is no way a beautiful, blondheaded Bombshelle is running any kind of loan, sharken that he didn't hear about.
That exactly exactly? How do you not know that?
Ain't no way you don't know it. So but listen, I appreciate you. I have enjoyed all of your stories, all of your information. I appreciate your honesty and your willingness to come and talk to us.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored that you, in the background that you come from, want to interview me because I love it. I think it's great. I think it's a growth for you to understand who we are.
Listen, you said something that not only did I agree with it, but I thought, Lord, everybody needs to hear it. When people were saying, oh John God, he got took down because he was on Time magazine, you said that didn't happen that way. You said, law enforcement brought him down and credit should be given. They took their time. It's the same reason we know who you are. They took their time and got you, and.
I feel that way in the bottom that's what they did. They did that job, I said, and they did it damn well.
And you know, there's no reason to be disrespectful on either side. You have gifts and you have things you can teach law enforcement and they need to hear it, just like you know the movie like Catch Me if you can, you need to hear from Avang Gale you do. There's things we don't know. We are always behind.
You are always behind. You don't know because you don't know the criminal mind, and they wait for people to cooperate to tell them. But if you have a step ahead of that and understand how the criminal mind works, you'd be ten steps ahead.
That's right. There's only a couple of things where this is not the case, and like child molesters would be one. But the way I try to do my job is you remember the old cartoon with the sheep dog and the fox trying to get the chickens or sheep or whatever. Okay, And at the end of the day they would clock out and say, okay, see tomorrow. I feel like you know, that drug dealer's got a job, that prostitute's got a job, awhile, and you know I'm not gonna be disrespectful to theirs,
and you know see tomorrow. You know That's the way I see it.
You have to put yourself into that criminal mind of what's gonna happen next, what are they gonna do next, so you don't have to wait to get an arrest that they might beat the case. You want to win your case.
That's right, that's right. Well, I appreciate you, and this was fabulous and I hope we get to talk again, of course.
And anything you ever need to ask or whatever, you
¶ "Everybody's a gangster until a gangster walks in the room." - J.G.
have my number to call me. It was a pleasure talking to you.
Thank you so much.
Hey, and if you're ever in New York, contact me. You could come on the show.
Oh, count on that you That would be fantastic. Thank you, Thank you so much, y'all. I'm going to end Zone seven the way that I always do with a quote, everybody's a gangster until a gangster walks in the room, John Gottie. I'm Cheryl McCollum and this is Own seven.