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You can see everything that they are doing is trying to shape the narrative to say what happened without any investigation.

Mike Pesca (1:52)

I always find that you have the facts, they have the narrative. One side's narrative was innocent citizen who never wished anyone harm and was in no way impeding the police was trying to remove herself from a tense situation where her First Amendment rights were protected. The other narrative was domestic terrorist. Oh, God, is that overwrought? Find myself laughing or crying as I say it. Domestic terrorist aiming a car at law enforcement. And since we're dealing with that particular narrative, not just aiming, but hitting a member of law enforcement, I'm not going to use this space to say the truth is somewhere in between. I probably concocted the two narratives so that the truth would have to be in between. But there are very strong versions of the narrative of each side that don't maybe commit to the most extreme portions, like saying domestic terrorist. But the ultimate truth is that the way narrative will work in this case is that if a fair adjudication of Officer Ross's culpability is ever undertaken, it will hinge mightily on the narrative or story in Officer Ross's head. Did he have an objectively reasonable belief that his life was in danger or that serious bodily harm was at stake? That's the Supreme Court standard. The reason it's a narrative is that the words objectively and reasonable might seem like they're the opposite of subjective, but they're not. The law's use of the word objectively, in fact, relies a lot on subjectivity. The court also asks, could an officer reasonably perceive the actions as a threat? And so that does kind of depend on a story. Maybe the story that Ross knows to tell which will get him off. Or maybe, to be fair, the actual story that actually occurred to him is something like, I was standing in front of the car and the wheels turned at me and I jumped back. Or maybe I was brushed back and definitely thought I was going to be run over. His story or narrative will rule the day. Not just because he says so. They add some layers, like, well, judged against the perceptions of a reasonable officer on the scene. But his perception is important. And the way he conveys his perception or even constructs his perception is narrative. I do think in the case of this shooting, everyone who's talking about narrative, they're not trying to trick you or win the day, but they are engaged in a little bit of faux sophistication on emphasizing narrative as being so important. It is true. Yeah, it's true. You're thinking this, that if one of the competing descriptions takes hold among the vast majority of citizens, that'll mean something. That'll move the political and prosecutorial decisions along, nudge them, but it won't be dispositive. Let's say the JD Vance Christi Noem narrative loses that. The vast majority of Americans see this shooting very much like they saw the George Floyd murder as murder by law enforcement. But that won't change everything. The administration could still, and I predict they will, decline to bring charges. Then they'll maybe have to take more heat. If it's an unpopular decision, they could still take the decision. And what if the pure protester narrative takes hold that this was murder, this was maybe cold blooded murder? The protests will continue. And then what? Then what happens when the protests continue? Will buildings burn and the system will reform? We have a pretty good case study on that in the exact same location. It didn't happen when the narrative over George Floyd did take hold exactly as I described it. You don't need me to tell you we're polarized. There's enough ambiguity in the video to give staunch Trump defenders something to hang on to, ensuring that this is another area of deep disagreement. And I also think a lot of people, including the 44% of Americans who approve of Trump's handling of immigration, will say, well, you know, no, I. This is terrible. And I don't think it was a fair shooting. I don't think it was a proper shooting. But then they'll take a middle narrative where they say, yeah, but still. Or don't let this one outlier define the entire policy. That I agree with a member of the 44%, not a small percentage, though. The minority will say, this sort of middle narrative, that's the kind of thing that humans use all the time to console ourselves a little. I call it the yes, but narrative. And you could say it allows us to countenance cognitive dissonance. Or you could say it allows us to navigate the ambiguities that exist in the world. I also think that a debate about narrative is a somewhat weak proxy for the debate about policy. And if one narrative wins, it probably won't change opinions, it will just confirm them, and it probably won't change policy. Almost definitely won't. Narrative, in the end, is but one input and not a huge one on the question of policy. Of course, narrative is also the default way that we as a species experience the world. On the show today, it is a spiel about two or maybe three of the other gigantic stories that I do think you need to pay attention to in the news and a little bit of how to pay attention to them. But first, Seamus McLerney, former FBI agent, is here to talk about busting the Mafia. He is the author of Flipping Capo, how the FBI Dismantled the Real Sopranos. True Work. I'm wearing True Work now. It's fashionable, but it gets the job done. And that's how it was started. The founder was a guy who worked in the trades who said, why am I always wearing jeans? Maybe back then they said dungarees. They get wet. They don't really work for me. So they made comfortable, capable, ready for work. Whatever the day throws at you. I have. I could list all the gear. I got this. 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Go to homeserve.com to find the plan that's right for you. That's homeserve.com not available everywhere. Most plans range from 499 to 11 99amonth. Your first year terms apply on covered repairs. Seamus McLerney is a longtime FBI agent and is the author of a new book called Flipping Capo how the FBI Dismantled the Real Sopranos. You have to say the real Sopranos. But when he was doing it, it was much more impressive than interacting with a TV show that would exist a few years hence. When he was doing it, he was going right at the core of the very potent, very dangerous, very disruptive New York Mafia, the Decaval Conte family, who were the New Jersey affiliates of the genovese family. Seamus McElhenny, welcome to the Gist.

Seamus McLerney (11:58)

It's great to be here, Mike. Thanks for having me on your show.

Mike Pesca (12:01)

Thanks. So to start off, I want to clarify. Capo is a title in the Mafia, or at least as far as I know, that's what Tessio and Clemenza were, the capo regimes. But in your book there's a guy named Capo and he's the main character.

Seamus McLerney (12:17)

Anthony Capo, who was a Decapol canty soldier. But you are correct, there is a term called capo which refers to a captain within the. The mob structure.

Mike Pesca (12:27)

Yeah. So where was he within his family? A soldier? He was a maidman.

Seamus McLerney (12:31)

But how high up a soldier would report to a captain in a crew of. The captain would oversee a crew of soldiers and associates.

Mike Pesca (12:40)

What put him on your radar to begin with?

Seamus McLerney (12:43)

Okay, so how this case starts. It actually starts before I even go to training. This starts in back in January of 1998. The two events that start this entire case is a couple of individuals decide to rob the World Trade center. And they actually do. And what they do is they come out and they take their mask off and they're caught pretty quickly. Two guys are caught that day. The third guy actually flees to New Mexico and he's caught within two or three days. The mastermind behind that whole operation is a guy named Ralph Guarino. Ralph Guarino sees that these gentlemen are caught pretty quickly and he sees that the walls are starting to cave in. So he decides to call a legendary agent named George Hanna. And George Hanna is from Brooklyn, a street guy. He grew up there. And he's smart enough to turn Ralph Guarino into a proactive witness for the government, for the FBI. What that means is he's going to make consensual recordings. Keep him on the street and make consensual recordings. The second event that starts this investigation is there's a murder that takes place nine days later. That murder is of Joseph Conigliero, who is a Decalvo Canty associate who is confined to a wheelchair. Now, I know you're probably thinking initially, oh, that's pretty messed up, but this guy was a ruthless person. He actually, how he got paralyzed was back in the 70s, him and a Decal Canty soldier named James Gallo went to Coca Cola collect loan shark money, and James Gallo accidentally shot Joseph Conigliaro and paralyzed him. So why Joseph Paniglia was killed was because he used to torture his crew, even though he was in a wheelchair. He extorted them, and he really didn't treat them well at all. And even though he was in a wheelchair, what he used to do is he would call people over. He was Brooklyn next to Red Hook.

Mike Pesca (14:40)

And he would say, come here, come here. Come. Come down to my level. I can't hear you. And so they would come down and bang, he'd hit him, and then he'd shoot them.

Seamus McLerney (14:49)

And then he'd have his crew wrap him up in a rug or a tarp and get rid of them. So those are the two events that started this case. And this is In January of 1998, even before I went to Quantico, I didn't go to Quantico until February of 1998. So I go down to training. And when you go to training, you don't know where you're going to be sent. There's 56 field offices. Even though you're told when you go down there that there's a 99% chance if you're from New York. And I actually was born in New York, I was raised in the Bronx. And they tell you there's a 99% chance you're going to be sent back to New York. To be honest with you, if I was sent to any other state, it would have been kind of a culture shock to me. So I was hoping to get back here. And I actually came back. I graduated in May that year. And when you first get back from the FBI, they threw you through a rotation where you go through Surveillance, the operations center, the applicant squad. And when I was on surveillance, I actually was assigned to a team called SO2. The team leader there was a gentleman named Joseph Sconzo, who was a lawyer and he was a team leader. And they just happened to be surveilling a dedicated surveillance team on the Decal Cantis, so I was assigned to that team. So the stars started to be aligned where I was assigned to that team. And then eventually I got assigned to a squad called C10. And C10 was an organized crime squad.

Mike Pesca (16:13)

Yeah, very important one that people didn't really realize that they busted two major factions of, of the New York Mafia. But I do want to ask you, so at this point, you have for how long these two associates, the one in the wheelchair, the so called quote unquote mastermind of this failure of a robbery of the World Trade center, for how long can you do that before the other mafia members start to get wise or suspicious?

Seamus McLerney (16:39)

Okay, so George Hanna operates Ralph Guarino for two years from January 1998 to December of 99. I got to the squad in December of 1998. So as a new agent, you do whatever you're told to do. I'm a sponge. I get very close to George Hanna. He's my mentor. I learn as much as I possibly can. We operate him for two years. And then as you just said, the wise guys start to think, why hasn't Ralph been arrested? Right. Everyone else has been arrested. And then there's whispers that they might hurt him. So for his safety, we have to take him off the street. So during that two year time period, he probably made close to 300 recordings. And we had this dedicated surveillance team. So In December of 1999, we execute our first round of arrest where we arrest 39 people. One of those 39 people is Anthony Capo, a violent decalvalcanti soldier from Staten Island. Now, even to stop there for a minute, you're probably thinking like, how does the New York FBI start to take down the Jersey family? And that the reason that that happens is because when you have a proactive witness, you never know where he's going to go, who he's going to record, or who he's going to ingratiate himself into. And he led us to the Brooklyn faction of the Decal Volcante family, who we really knew nothing about. So that's how the New York FBI gets into the Jersey family.

Mike Pesca (18:09)

Well, in the Sopranos and in other works of art that I've seen, mobsters are always decrying the idea that the once solid and sacrosanct value of omerta, of silence has been destroyed by the latest generation. And they attribute this to sort of a lack of principles of the. The gangsters these days. Do you think that's true, that 100 years ago a murta was strong because these people believed in it as an oath, and now they don't? Or do you think that it's just that 100 years ago or 50 years ago, the incentives to flip weren't as big as the incentives are now?

Seamus McLerney (18:53)

Well, if you look at history, one of the biggest things and one of the things that the government did was the RICO law. The RICO law came out, and I think it was 1970. But how the government mastered on how to use the RICO law, right? So in like 1985, they had the commission case where they went after the bosses. That's a very successful case. And then the first famous guy to flip was Sammy, right? And he kind of screwed that deal up. But if you Look, Sammy was 1990 or 1991. Then you had Al D' Arco from the Lucchese family. And then you have a gap, and the gap is from 92 up until Capo. And then after capo, the floodgates open where we have this unique period where we have seven people cooperate. And then one of the reasons why I wrote the book is this squad that I was on, C10, we dismantled two families at the same time. We have the bananas and the Decalo Cantis. We got tremendous press for about six or seven years, and the press never put it together that it was the same squad where we dismantled two families at the same time. And on the banana side, we flipped everybody there too. So extremely successful. And I think that just made it, I don't wanna say commonplace to actually cooperate, but that's what it became. And I think the RICO law has a big, big part to do with it. So it became more commonplace to cooperate. And I think people now just look out for themselves.

Mike Pesca (20:31)

But I also think that the potential riches for being a mafioso are lessen. They're less than they once were. I mean, a certain kind of person didn't have many other options, having maybe come from Italy in the 1930s, but now they do. There's, you know, if you want to be cynical, you can say there's legalized graft. And I'm thinking about. Oh, I'm thinking about opportunities to be, say, a dirty stockbroker, right? I mean, you could do things like that legally without being in The Mafia, and it's probably safer for you.

Seamus McLerney (21:04)

No, it's true. And then, then, like, the flip side of that is there's plenty of mob guys that I've spoken to that have decided not to cooperate. And I give them all the respect in. In the world as well, where I could have a conversation with them, I can talk with them, and they just decide they're on their side of the fence. I'm on my side of the fence. No harm, no foul. And I totally respect that.

Mike Pesca (21:29)

Yeah. How much credit does Rudy Giuliani deserve for breaking up the Mafia?

Seamus McLerney (21:34)

He deserves a lot because he had that case, the actual commission case, and he was one of the first ones to use the RICO law in a proper manner. And that started it all. And that's how the government has mastered that. And even, even after I did this case, then I did the Colombo family and I did the Bonanno family, but even when I got done with that, I used RICO to tackle local gangs in Mount Vernon. Very successful. The RICO law is a powerful tool and you face significant penalties. Significant penalties. So it's a very powerful tool. It just took the government a while to actually figure it out and how to use it to its best advantage. Mm.

Mike Pesca (22:20)

How does the weakening, the extreme weakening of the Mafia help the average citizen who wasn't gonna be involved in dirty business to begin with?

Seamus McLerney (22:30)

It helps them a lot. And I can talk about one aspect, right? We can get into the similarities between the show and the real family. But one thing you can talk about is the unions, like the decalbokante family, they controlled local 394 and they started local 1030. So 394 is the labor union and 1030 is the asbestos union. So, for example, back in the day, there was a thing called shaping up where you had to go down to the union hall early in the morning at like 5 or 6 o' clock and wait online and hopefully there'd be enough work for you to get the decal volcantes. They would show up whenever they want, seven, eight o' clock, and just go to a job site and get. And get the job that hurts the local businessman or the local union member. Right. And there's all sorts of ways that you can, you know, finagle the union where it's a no show job, right. Where you don't even have to go to the job and you're going to get paid. There's a no work job where you go and you do nothing and still get paid, which was in the show where you see them sitting down on like a lawn chair. Right. So and what you're doing, in essence is you're robbing the pension benefits. And what I mean by that is all the union workers pay into the pension and they're in essence robbing the pension. And then also the decal vacante guys, especially the leadership, they were taking the funds from the pension and using it to build these great houses. And you know, you're supposed to be under the radar, right? That's the big thing. Like Riggy, John Riggy, the official boss. He was always under the radar. He was smart. But some of the people behind him were not. They were building these big mansions and you're supposed to be low profile and they kind of lost sight of that. But those are two unions. And even capo, he testified once where they were asking him about the asbestos union. And he said, I wouldn't know asbestos if I was sitting on it. And he had someone take the test for him. So there was always scams that they were doing, but that affects the local union member. So by trying to rid them of that, that does help society.

Mike Pesca (24:46)

Yeah. And I read there was an analysis put together by the RAND Corporation years ago. And they say the carding business costs, and this was in the 80s New Yorkers, an additional 10 million to $20 million a year. The construction business could be $100 million a year. Fish market, obviously. So you add it all up. These prices are all born and paid by consumers. It was essentially a mafia tax which doesn't exist anymore.

Seamus McLerney (25:11)

You just talked about the 80s. One of the most successful mob guys was Michael Francis. Brilliant. He had a gas tax in New. In New York. He made money off all the gas. He made fortune doing that. Brilliant. And that's why some of these mob guys are pretty smart. Like, look at the late. The latest arrest that they had too. With the, with, with the, the. With the poker games using X ray tables, contact lenses, you know, with the trays with the lenses. It's like brilliant stuff. Like almost stuff that the FBI would use. Right. It's like. It's kind of crazy, but yeah. So like after that we had a captain that had actually he cooperated to Anthony Rotundo, who was very smart. He actually, you know, there's a way to say it, right. You could say he went to college, he graduated college. And it's just that he fell into this life because his father was in the life. So at the end of the day, we had and was for a trial. It was very impressive. Because it wasn't done before. We could put an associate, a soldier, a captain, and an acting panel boss all from the same family at that point in time. It was never done before from the same family. And then the bananas, because we had dismantled them too, they could do the same thing. But when we had our. Our first series of trials, it was very impressive to do that.

Mike Pesca (26:39)

Did you watch the Sopranos when it came out?

Seamus McLerney (26:42)

Yep. And it was. It was crazy because as we're watching it, we're like, who's speaking to them? Because someone's speaking to them. Because there's so many similarities. Like the first season in the show, Jacob Creel, I think, is the boss's name. He dies of stomach cancer. In real life, Jake Amari died of stomach cancer in June of 1997. That's pretty ironic how the show just started and this guy just died and it's the same thing then you have. We actually. The show started in March, in January of 1999. We have a consensual recording in March of 99 where the Decaville Canty members are talking about the show saying, this is you. This is you. This is you. That was priceless for trial. You talk about the similarities. We already talked about the unions, right. There was the stock fraud angle. In the Tcaho campus. There was a guy known as the wizard of Wall Street. Villa Brahmo was a captain. He used to short. Short stock all the time. He made fortunes. We had stock charges in our trials. You talk about the New York connection, right? Where in the show you have Tony constantly going to New York. That's the Gambinos and the Cantis, the same thing. There's just so many things that go back and forth. The extortion. As we talked about the murder character.

Mike Pesca (28:10)

The character Vito Spadafor, who was gay in the show or bisexual. That was. That was true. So, I mean, that's right from your.

Seamus McLerney (28:16)

Your files in real life, that's John d'. Amato. So what happened with John d' Amato was his girlfriend comes to Anthony Capo and tells Anthony Capo that John d' Amato is taking her to sex clubs in New York City and he's having sex with men. Now. To each his own. I really don't care. But Anthony says, and he used to say this, he's a leader of men. He can't be doing this. And then Anthony told the superiors and they decided that he had to go. Now what he was also doing was he was also borrowing money against other families. And Saying it was for the Decalicantes. He had a bad gambling problem, so they killed him. But that was the gay angle, right?

Mike Pesca (29:01)

Yeah.

Seamus McLerney (29:01)

Then in the show, there's a meat market. There's an actual meat market in New Jersey that they used to always go to. I'm not going to say the name of the place, but there's a meat market that they went to all the time.

Mike Pesca (29:12)

Oh, you mean Sadrielli's Pork Store? That one.

Seamus McLerney (29:15)

That's not the name of the real place. Right, right.

Mike Pesca (29:17)

I gotcha.

Seamus McLerney (29:18)

That's.

Ad Read Host 1 (29:18)

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Mike Pesca (29:18)

I was just wondering if we.

Seamus McLerney (29:19)

Then there's also. There's the record angle, where in the show it's a Jewish guy in real life. It's. One of their members was very connected to the. Into the industry as well. So there's so many things that you can go back and forth about. And as we were watching the show, we're like, just thinking, someone's speaking to them. And now I know the director says that he wasn't speaking to anybody, but it just seems very ironic to me that there's so many similarities between both.

Mike Pesca (29:48)

Right. Well, I've interviewed David Chase, and he said that especially after the show was on the air, it would. It was impossible not to be approached by guys who claimed and actually were affiliated with the Mafia, wanting to put their stories out there. And even that became an angle of the Mafia loving the stories told about the Mafia. Was there anything. And this is fine, it's a work of art, but was there anything that really, really couldn't happen? Didn't happen, you don't think couldn't happen, given the way the Mafia was constructed?

Seamus McLerney (30:20)

I think the whole premise of the show, how Tony goes to a shrink, that's not happening. Yeah. A mob boss is not going to go to a shrink and speak to a mob about mob stuff. That's just not going to happen. Or that shrink would not be around. Around for long. You know, you just could not do that.

Mike Pesca (30:39)

So probably not smart to take her. Take him as a client. Yes.

Seamus McLerney (30:43)

No.

Mike Pesca (30:44)

Yeah.

Seamus McLerney (30:46)

And then, you know, as I said, we had trials. I had a year of trials. You know, the book goes into some of the stories related to that, which are really, really good. But at the end of the day, we. I think we convicted 71 people. We had 11 murders solved. And I think I had seven trials. And that doesn't even include all the people that pled guilty that were prepped for trial, you know, like. And I. I think Anthony Capo testified for me seven times. Anthony Rotundo testified for me seven times and they were just great, you know, and I know everyone was really shocked because as I said, Anthony was a total lunatic on the street, but on the stand he was really sharp and he was, he could banter with the defense attorneys. He wasn't out of line. And you know, he just got it in the sense is a lot of witnesses don't where they like to be compatible with the defense attorneys, where you might try to justify what drugs you did or if you had smacked your wife. You just answered the question. Yes, I did drugs. And I used to always, he used to always say that he was a work in progress, that he was a horrible person, but he was a work in work in progress, which, which was true. And, and I actually saw it. And he used to always say to me that he wanted to, he wanted to be successful for me. And I used to always say to him, don't be successful for me. Be successful for yourself. And for someone that did that didn't do any work when he, when he was younger, he really, when he went into the witness security program and he had stopped when he got, when he got out of jail, he really, he really did turn his life around.

Mike Pesca (32:24)

Seamus McElharney, former FBI agent, is the author of Flipping Capo how the FBI Dismantled the Real Sopranos. Thank you so much, Seamus.

Seamus McLerney (32:33)

It's been great to be here, Mike.

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Mike Pesca (33:46)

And now the spiel. This is a time of many stories that are all vying for your attention. The Minnesota ice shooting, of course, the decapitation. Plus the staffification of Venezuela. I don't know what to call it when they take the guy and the guy's wife away. I think we're all pretty well briefed on that. But that's not to say we should let it go or not pay attention. But so much to pay attention to protests, but not the kind in the Twin Cities, the kind in Iran which could be the most consequential in the world. In Iran, sanctions, corruption, mismanagement, oil prices all conspire such that it takes 1.5 million real to buy a dollar. If you're an Iranian millionaire, you could maybe afford a pack of gum not to try it in 18 pack like juicy fruit. Let's play some of the music as we talk about what's going on in Iran and the media covering it. Let's play some of the music that the Iranian forces have been blasting over state sponsored tv. So this is of course I don't have to tell you the epic of Karam Shar. It's military music. And to no what you think or what Iranians think. Let's read from an AP story describing the media organizations, which is to say the information environment of Iran. The people there know I don't want to have to spend 1.4 or 5 million real on a pack of gum. They know that. They know their country is corrupt and the mullahs are not and have not been working for them for quite a while while. So in the AP article they described the station blasting this song as far as or what the AP says is the semi official Fars News Agency. Okay. Then there was another reference of reporting of violence to protesters and that came from the Young Journalists Club quote associated with State tv. But I do have to say their internship placement is top notch. You have to give it to them. And then there is the Tasnim News Agency or as the AP says, the semi official Tasnim News Agency which is also close to the Revolutionary Guard. And there is a reference to the only independent network Al Jazeera, which is great except the AP rightly calls it Qatar state funded Al Jazeera. My point is there are a lot of ways to put a boot heel on the truth and in Iran they do it officially. In the US the Trump administration tries to do it unofficially by overwhelming you, as per Steve Bannon's construction by Flooding the zone with shit. And speaking of construction. Oh, this was the most important story over the weekend. It is that Jerome Powell, not quite indicted, but being seriously investigated. And the stated reason was construction. Construction cost overruns at Fed hq. Real reason. Here's Powell defending himself.

Jerome Powell (36:52)

The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President. This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions, or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.

Mike Pesca (37:16)

It is of note that Trump is still after something of a fig leaf of justice intervention, as opposed of just ousting Powell. Great, we're not quite Iran. Trump's attempts at lawfare did fail with Comey. Might not work out so well with Letitia James, and who knows, with Powell, but it is quite clear that even if you bent over backwards to find some cost overruns, the grout work was off on the second floor men's room. Everything Powell is saying is also true. Trump wanted the Fed, the independent Fed, to be a lot less independent. And there won't be whistles over his plight. There won't be confrontations in the streets. And the actors executing this intervention won't be wearing masks. They're wearing suits and operating under the umbrella of the doj. But even if they're literally not firing into our cars, they are no less dangerous. And that's it for today's show. The Gist was produced by Cory Wara. Jeff Craig runs our socials and everything that moves in a picture form. We have a lot of that. Have you tried our Instagram? Not Mike. Now's not the time to plug Leanne's. The production coordinator, Kathleen Sykes, constructs the Gist list with me. The grouch on the second floor men's room is exquisite there, and Michelle Pesca oversees the construction of the entire rickety edifice. Peru. G Peru. Do Peru. And thanks for listening.