♪♪
Gravano: My name is Salvatore Gravano.
Early in my life, I was given the nickname "Sammy the Bull."
I have been involved with organized crime since 1968,
when I became associated with a guy
named "Shorty" Spero of the Colombo family.
I committed many types of crimes when I was with Shorty,
including my first murder.
In December of 1985, John Gotti, I, along with some others,
murdered Paul Castellano.
We took over the family.
♪♪
Welcome to "Very Scary People."
I'm Donnie Wahlberg.
In 1985, Sammy "The Bull" Gravano
helped plan and carry out
one of the most stunning Mafia murders in history,
the slaying of Gambino crime boss Paul Castellano.
The brazen attack took place
outside a steakhouse in Midtown Manhattan,
while Gravano and his co-conspirator, John Gotti,
watched from across the street.
Gravano had broken one of the most sacred rules
of Cosa Nostra,
and he wasn't finished yet.
For years, he remained on the periphery,
but in time, he would take center stage
and become the most important insider
to ever testify about mob life.
Here's part two of "Sammy the Bull."
♪♪
McShane: Sammy, the guy is known for two things --
he makes money, and he murders people,
and he's very good at both.
[ Doorbell rings ] Colucci: Detectives came
and told me that they found my brother's body.
It was devastating.
McShane: Sammy said afterward,
"The easiest thing was pulling the trigger."
Gabriel: He started understanding
this was something he could do
and wouldn't be afraid or hesitate
to ever do it again.
He was obviously a cold, homicidal killer.
Cosa Nostra is the American version of the Mafia.
To be invited to be a member
was really the pinnacle of achievement.
It's what these guys dream of.
McShane: Castellano told him,
"There is no God anymore for you.
We are your God."
If you break the oath of omertà, silence,
your soul should burn in Hell.
Hunter: He believed it 1,000%.
Gabriel: From the day Paul Castellano
was given the position of boss,
there were a lot of disgruntled people.
John Gotti had his reasons for wanting Paul dead,
but he started learning that there were other guys,
like Frankie DeCicco and Sammy Gravano,
who, likewise, were very dissatisfied with Paul.
The feeling from Gravano and DeCicco
was that Gotti was the lesser of all the evils that they had.
So they decide that they're going to take out
Paul Castellano.
Gabriel: This was a big deal they were doing.
Gravano: We implemented the plan.
We took 11 people on the hit.
Hunter: The guys came up wearing the Russian fur hats
and their white trench coats and bang, bang, bang.
Schuch: Mafia kingpin "Big Paul" Castellano
was gunned down, gangland style, in Midtown Manhattan.
You're now thinking, "This is war."
There will be other prices to pay.
♪♪
There is a dragnet out for the hitman who executed
Mafia godfather Paul Castellano.
Look at this man's face.
He may already be the new godfather.
Lawmen believe he may have also been behind this.
His name is John Gotti.
What happened kind of brings you back to reality
to what they're really, at the core, all about,
essentially, barbarians and murderers.
Raab: Before the Castellano murder,
Gotti was not a well-known figure in organized crime,
practically unknown.
By knocking off Castellano, Gotti, overnight,
became the top person in the Gambino family.
McShane: Well, there's a meeting at the Ravenite Social Club,
which is in Little Italy,
and there was just a steady parade
of Gambino family members coming in to greet the new boss.
Gotti automatically promoted Gravano to capo,
and Frank DeCicco became the underboss.
Gabriel: We were fortunate that we had
some very well-placed sources
to let us know, within days to a week,
almost all of the 11 participants in the hit.
There was no doubt this was a John Gotti-led hit.
We were surprised to learn when we started hearing
the names Frank DeCicco and Sammy Gravano.
We thought Sammy Gravano and Frankie were Castellano's guys.
We realized there was a lot more happening underneath
than we understood at the time.
Papa: John Gotti was sort of this emerging character.
He was a rising star.
Gravano, while powerful,
financially strong in the family,
I don't think he was that much on the radar, as of yet,
probably because he didn't want to be.
Hunter: Sammy was perfectly fine living in the shadows.
He cared very greatly that nobody knew who he was.
Gabriel: Sammy's in the administration now.
He's very loyal. It's business.
He's going to be loyal to his boss.
He's going to do whatever his boss wants.
Gravano was a guy who brought a lot of money into the family.
Gabriel: Sammy was the construction guy.
He was bringing huge envelopes every month to John Gotti.
About a million dollars per year.
♪♪
One of the problems with knocking off Castellano
was that it really antagonized
one of the most important mobster leaders in the country,
Vincent "Chin" Gigante, who was the head of the Genovese family.
Gabriel: After they kill Paul
and they meet with "Chin" Gigante,
who's the head of the commission,
John goes there with the story,
"We don't know what really happened to Paul.
The captains voted me in as the boss."
So Chin said, "All right.
We understand, but somebody's gonna have to pay
for that little thing that happened there."
♪♪
About four months later, Frankie DeCicco,
he's at his Brooklyn club.
DeStefano: And Frank DeCicco and another guy
went over to a vehicle outside the club, got in,
and just as they opened the door,
and just ready to sit down,
a bomb goes off.
The car was blown to smithereens.
Feldman: The explosion was heard for nearly half a mile,
a sharp punctuation to an otherwise quiet Brooklyn Sunday.
DeStefano: Sammy Gravano was in the club when the bomb went off,
rushed out, saw Frankie DeCicco.
Man: All of a sudden, boom, just like that.
Couple of people trying to take the people inside out.
They were trying to get them out of the car.
Gabriel: Sammy runs over, and he's holding Frankie.
This was his guy.
Gravano: Picking him up, a lifelong friend of mine,
was sickening how I saw him -- dead.
DeStefano: DeCicco was, more or less, killed instantly.
They thought they were going to blow up Gotti,
but the day of the incident,
Gotti didn't show up at the club the way he was expected to.
Feldman: Organized crime experts say that
Gotti himself may now be on someone's hit list
and that the DeCicco hit may have been just the start.
As for this latest mob hit, they say they have no suspects.
Gabriel: After Frankie gets blown up,
then that's when I would say
Sammy's prominence even gets a little bit higher.
Sammy was almost gonna now fill that Frankie void.
Papa: He moved up the ranks.
He became a consigliere,
he became an underboss,
then he was really a member of the inner sanctum of the family.
More responsibility, more money.
John clearly relied on Sammy.
McShane: The public persona of Gotti and Gravano
was that they were like best friends, kind of
1 in 1A atop the world of organized crime.
And, as we know now, that started fracturing.
Raab: Gotti misjudged a lot of people,
and the most important person he had misjudged
was Sammy Gravano.
♪♪
Man: Morning, John. Good morning.
John Gotti didn't become so much the head of the Gambinos
as he became the star of his own show.
Tell me about it.
Hunter: Immediately, John Gotti starts wearing
extraordinarily expensive suits.
He's getting photographed.
He's spending a lot of money on his haircuts, on manicures,
on things that aren't really the normal purview
of an underworld boss.
He was a mob star.
It's almost like a guy from a movie come to life.
It was The Post, my former employer,
that labeled him "The Dapper Don."
Reporter: How you feel, Mr. Gotti?
Gotti: Pretty good.
Papa: Sammy Gravano was not thrilled
that John Gotti likes to be in the papers,
that he had fans, people that idolized him,
people that came up to him.
Gravano thought Gotti, you know, was such an egomaniac.
He was attracting so much attention.
Gabriel: The guy was out every night,
seemingly, could care less about his family back in Queens.
Sammy, in contrast, did his mob business by day,
but then, when evening came, he'd be home with the family.
Sammy Gravano wanted to keep the low profile,
wanted to just go do his business.
I think, down deep, Gravano still believed
John didn't deserve to be the boss.
♪♪
The spotlight is getting brighter and brighter
and brighter on John Gotti.
I think Gotti, somehow, thought he would get away
with whatever he wanted to do.
He's waving red flags, screaming, "Catch me, catch me."
And Gravano knew if Gotti was in trouble,
he'd be in trouble.
No worries. What's the difference?
DeStefano: As he progressed in the crime family,
Gotti became more vulnerable to prosecution.
Reporter: John Gotti is the claimed head
of the most powerful Mafia crime family
and ran, they insisted,
numerous gambling and loan-sharking operations.
There's a US attorney in Brooklyn
who brings an indictment against John Gotti.
Reporter: Gotti and six codefendants
were charged under the RICO Act, which stands for
Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization.
DeStefano: In the racketeering case in Brooklyn,
his underlings learned about the identity of a juror.
Sammy went to John and said he could get to the guy.
And so it was agreed that Sammy would deliver $60,000,
and, at the very least, he would get a hung jury.
Gravano: I sent word to John.
On one piece of paper,
there's a stick man hanging from a noose.
He knew -- hung.
It's a hung jury.
It ultimately got to the point where
he convinced all the other jurors that the case was thin,
and they got to an acquittal.
Reporter: It was a happy John Gotti
who ran out of US District Court in Brooklyn,
because he had escaped a possible 40-year prison term.
He knew he wasn't going to get found guilty.
I got somebody.
End of story -- he beats the case.
Which became, of course, part of the legend, right?
"The Teflon Don." Nothing sticks.
Feldman: Over an almost four-year period
beginning in 1986,
he managed to beat not one, not two,
but three criminal cases against him
on charges ranging from assault to racketeering.
Man: We find him not guilty.
Papa: This was extremely frustrating for law enforcement
because John Gotti walks away in a state case.
John Gotti walks away in a federal case.
Law enforcement had egg on their face.
[ Indistinct crowd chatter ]
♪♪
Gabriel: Robert DiBernardo was another Gambino captain.
He was a big earner, big pornography guy,
got a lot of his money from there.
Not particularly a tough guy,
but he was well respected in the family.
McShane: Gotti becomes convinced
that DiB is somehow speaking behind his back,
so he just sends word that DiBernardo has to go.
DeStefano: Gravano said he tried to talk him out of it.
There's no real reason to kill him, for insults?
What is this?
He couldn't be talked out of that.
So, they had DiBernardo come to a meeting
in Sammy's office.
Gravano: DiB comes a little early.
He sits at a table directly across from me.
We shake hands.
I say, "You want a cup of coffee?"
"Yeah."
"Hey, Joe..." --
the "Old Man" Joe Paruta --
"...get DiB a cup of coffee."
DeStefano: And while DiBernardo was distracted
by talking to Gravano,
"Old Man" Paruta came up behind DiBernardo
and shot him in the head.
They never found the body.
Now, after Gotti was acquitted in those trials,
the FBI made him a national priority.
Papa: They were determined to figure out a way
to bug whatever they had to bug,
surveil however they had to surveil,
and they were going to gather evidence to put him away.
DeStefano: Gotti would use Ravenite Social Club as a base
after Castellano was killed.
McShane: Gotti was in the Ravenite down in Little Italy
most every day, and so,
if you're in the family and you wanted to see him,
that's where you came to see him.
Gabriel: Sammy came probably
three to four nights out of the week.
McShane: The club was under constant surveillance,
pretty much, by the FBI.
Papa: Not only was the Ravenite bugged,
the hallway was bugged.
The curb in front of the Ravenite was bugged.
Gabriel: Sammy and John would come out,
they would do these walk talks that were very frustrating
to the microphones,
but he probably had more walk talks with Sammy
than anybody else.
DeStefano: At some point, the FBI learned that Gotti
was going upstairs to an apartment
rented by the widow of an old Gambino soldier.
And they would use that apartment
to conduct their business.
And the FBI were able to figure out that this was where
all these conversations were happening.
And they were right, you know?
They bugged it, and Gotti spoke freely
about almost everything.
And they thought they were safe
because they thought nobody was going to go there.
Farinella: If Gotti would have just kept it close to the vest,
things would be totally different,
but he just couldn't keep it inside.
He had no self-control.
Raab: They got numerous tapes.
This was what the FBI had been looking for for five years,
and now they had him dead to rights.
♪♪
Me and Louie were like "this"
for a very, very long time.
McShane: Louie Milito was from the neighborhood in Bensonhurst,
and he and Gravano became best friends
and eventually business partners.
Gabriel: Louie becomes part of Sammy's crew,
very trusted ally,
did hits for Sammy, was on hits with Sammy.
The kids, the wives knew each other well.
They called Sammy "Uncle Sammy."
At some point, the relationship starts declining a little bit.
Louie Milito starts having some problems,
some of it is jealousy 'cause Sammy's
rising in the ranks in the family.
He's making a lot more money.
McShane: Years later, in 1988,
Milito was upset because he had been passed over for a promotion
within the Gambino family.
DeStefano: And Milito was bad-mouthing people
who John had elevated
to the role of significant captains.
And you badmouth people who Gotti likes,
it's not going to sit very well.
Sammy had asked Gotti for permission to kill him.
Milito's fate was sealed at that point.
According to Sammy,
there was a meeting of Louis Milito and others
in a social club.
Raab: Milito shows up unarmed and unconcerned,
thinks he's in safe territory,
and he gets a cup of coffee, orders a cup of coffee.
Gabriel: Louie Milito went by way of a lot of people
that were killed around Sammy Gravano.
You're at a bar, somebody serving you coffee,
you're nice and relaxed,
and as some of that's happening,
guy comes behind and boom, you're shot in the head.
[ Silenced gunshot ]
Gravano: I was there for a reason.
I wanted him to die like a man.
DeStefano: Milito was never seen again.
Body was never found.
♪♪
Feldman: For months, prosecutors have strongly hinted
that they hope to indict John Gotti on new charges.
By 1990, press reports were coming out
that Gotti was going to be indicted.
It was the Castellano murders, labor racketeering.
And the plan was for Sammy to go on the lam so that,
if Gotti were arrested,
Sammy would be able to control the crime family
from a secret location.
Gabriel: It's John's idea to send him.
We're not sure how long it's going to last,
but, again, knowing the fabric of the man, he's a family guy.
It's one thing to be away from the mob,
but he's going to be away from his wife and kids,
and that wasn't a comfort zone for him.
So, Sammy just came back into town.
That's what we were waiting for.
We wanted to get them all together.
McShane: Gotti summons him to the Ravenite.
Sammy thinks, "Why are you meeting at the Ravenite,
which has been under FBI surveillance
since a week after the Castellano hit?"
It seemed like a bad idea to Sammy,
who turned out to be right.
He was picked up as soon as he walked in the door.
Federal FBI agents and New York Police detectives
arrested the leadership of the Gambino crime family.
The man believed to be the godfather of godfathers
is waking up this morning in a New York City jail.
Polk: Also charged with Gotti, his mob underboss,
his consigliere, and this mob capo.
Raab: After the arrests, they were indicted,
and they all wound up in the Metropolitan Correction Center.
Gabriel: Sammy faced very similar charges to John.
It was multiple murders and labor racketeering,
but those were the heavy ones,
so he was facing mandatory life sentences.
Sammy and Gotti went to pretrial hearings
soon after they were arrested.
The government played some of the tapes
that they'd made at the Ravenite building.
Raab: Gravano, for the first time,
heard what Gotti had to say about him.
Gotti is heard bad-mouthing Gravano about his greediness.
John is lamenting the fact that Gravano is out of control.
Every time he makes somebody a partner,
he kills them,
and then, we get the heat for it.
There was one comment where Gotti referred to Sammy,
and it made it sound like
he was almost trying to take over the family.
Papa: Gravano was sitting there with his lawyer,
and he didn't like what he was hearing.
Gravano was fuming.
Sammy Gravano, I think, began to realize
that John Gotti wasn't his friend.
DeStefano: Sammy was getting the sense that,
you know, "I'm being set up to take the fall here."
Papa: Gravano did not trust Gotti anymore.
Gravano felt there were changes in stories and situations.
Brevetti: And then you have to take Gravano's word for it,
that John basically told him the lawyer --
the lawyers
that they hired were prepared to create
this defense theory that it was all Sammy.
The case against him was very, very strong.
Papa: And Gravano was not going to be the one
that would be stuck going to prison for the rest of his life
when, maybe, Gotti would walk away.
John turned on Sammy, and that led to,
"It's either going to be my demise or John's demise."
And that's when he called the FBI.
Feldman: In a stunning development in the federal case
against reputed Mafia godfather John Gotti,
well-placed sources say
Gotti's right-hand man has turned against his boss
and will now cooperate with the government.
Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano is in FBI custody.
And when John heard it, I'm told, he just went ashen.
It was like, oh, my God.
DeStefano: It was one of these seismic moments
in the history of organized crime.
♪♪
Welcome back to "Very Scary People."
In November of 1991, Sammy "The Bull" Gravano
committed the ultimate Mafia double cross,
turning government informant
on his former boss, John Gotti.
Gravano is now himself a prime target
for assassination by the mob.
So, while the FBI questioned him about his murderous past,
they kept him holed up in a secret location.
♪♪
Gravano: After I left Gotti,
the government took control of me.
They took me to Quantico.
It's a military base.
Papa: What did he know?
How much was he going to reveal?
Sammy had to confess to everything,
his life of crime.
That's the contract you make with the government
when you defect and turn sides.
McShane: And he's telling stories
that only a guy who was right there,
working alongside John Gotti, could tell,
very damning stories.
We didn't know how many murders he was responsible for
until he told us.
DeStefano: He admitted to complicity
to as many as 19 homicides.
Gabriel: His attitude was, "I didn't kill those guys.
They committed suicide."
They broke the rules, they knew what they were doing,
they knew they got themselves in trouble,
and they knew what the penalty was."
♪♪
Papa: Sammy Gravano, underboss of the family,
was going to take the stand in a showdown against John Gotti.
Feldman: There is a lot at stake for the federal government
and for John Gotti in the murder racketeering trial
that moved into high gear Wednesday.
Thus far, Gotti has beaten three raps against him
in state and federal courts.
There was papers that were put up
in his neighborhood, around the courtroom,
with a rat with his face on it.
Nobody ever thought they would see somebody so high up
give up omertà to testify against a boss.
The atmosphere was tense.
Everybody sat in that courtroom holding their breath.
♪♪
DeStefano: Sammy's role was to authenticate and interpret
what was going on in the tape recordings.
Gabriel: He had just incredible recall,
and he didn't leave details out.
He didn't overstate. He didn't understate.
DeStefano: When Gravano testified,
the families of the victims
got to know, sometimes for the first time,
who was really involved and who had set this up
and how these things happened.
Said he pulled the trigger only once in 19 homicides.
Somebody from the family called me and said,
"Sammy the Bull just confessed to murders,
and he said your brother was the first one to be murdered."
Finding out that it was Sammy,
who was supposed to be my brother's good friend,
it was horrible.
Gabriel: He wasn't concerned with having to admit to it.
This was mob business,
and it just comes off differently.
It's more important that you're not seen as a liar to a jury.
♪♪
Raab: There was no end to hits
that Gravano carried out under Gotti.
Gotti was a merciless character, egomaniac,
and anyone he thought that insulted him
or didn't obey the slightest order,
Gotti had one solution -- kill 'em.
Feldman: Gravano also calmly talked about
how he murdered a close friend, and, Wednesday,
Gravano disclosed that he also killed
the cousin of his brother-in-law
in a mob dispute.
Sammy would lay the blame for all of it on John Gotti.
Some of the situations were just appalling.
Cardinale: And then, he got into the crowning jewel of the case,
which was the Castellano-Bilotti murder.
McShane: Sammy is there when the plot is being hatched.
He's in the car when the shooting happens,
sitting next to the guy who ordered the hit.
You're hearing these details,
it sounds like something from a movie script.
He nailed Gotti to the Castellano cross.
Our obvious defense was, this was typical of Gravano.
DeStefano: The defense depicted Gravano to the jury
as evil incarnate,
a stone-cold killer who would do anything
to remove people who were in his way.
They were trying to portray him as the person
who really was pulling the strings on Gotti.
Feldman: Gotti's lawyer told the jurors
that the jury box they are sitting in
doesn't have enough chairs to put Gravano's victims in.
Cardinale: Everybody he had involvement with killing
was so that he could better himself.
Ultimately, what he did in that courtroom
was to better himself --
come up with a story that he knew could get him
his ticket to freedom.
Rook: The verdict was like a bullet,
puncturing John Gotti's longtime image
of invincibility from the law.
The boss of the Gambino crime family was found guilty today
on all 13 counts of murder and racketeering.
Fox: Teflon is gone.
The Don is covered with Velcro,
and every charge in the indictment stuck.
Feldman: This time, the jury convicted him
on charges that included five murders,
and he was sentenced to life without parole.
Papa: It was over for John Gotti.
He could say he had his honor and Sammy Gravano did not.
But Sammy Gravano was going to have a life.
DeStefano: Sammy agreed to cooperate with the FBI
in any investigations of any of those crimes
and any sort of other information
he had about organized crime.
He was so good that they brought him back over and over again.
His deal is he cooperates.
When he's done cooperating, he gets sentenced.
Brevetti: Even a 20-year sentence
would have been a favor,
given the fact that people in his position
were being given sentences of 100 years.
He did his job on the stand, and he did it for years.
Probably got better treatment than any defector
in the history of the Mafia.
DeStefano: Largely because of all the cooperation he gave,
he was sentenced by Judge Glasser
to five years in prison.
♪♪
To the families, of course, he was the executioner
who was getting an unbelievable deal.
He admitted to 19 murders.
To get John Gotti, they had to make a deal with the devil.
Tuchman: CNN has confirmed that Sammy the Bull
will be released from jail sometime this coming week.
He will move to an undisclosed city or town
and assume a new identity under the care of
the Federal Witness Protection Program.
Gotti wanted him killed.
Papa: There was the $1 million bounty on his head.
Gabriel: They relocate you. It's not a place of your choice.
You truly, truly walk away from your life,
your family, from your friends.
Papa: He had facial surgery.
He was going to have a new identity and then disappear.
♪♪
Brevetti: Sammy Gravano will say,
you know, "There's an absolute rule --
you don't talk
about what goes on in the family.
Sweetingham: He was very critical of Gotti
and, frankly, any mob boss
who sought out fame
or the limelight or the spotlight.
Brevetti: But once you become a government witness,
well, you've done it, and so you can write a book,
and you can talk about it.
That's Sammy's logic.
♪♪
Sawyer: He agreed to talk on the condition that we provide
former FBI agents for his protection
and not broadcast until he had dropped safely out of sight.
Here I am, the Mafia.
They have said you are the single most important witness
ever to testify against the mob.
I think I am.
He testified against Vinny "The Chin" Gigante.
The head of the Genovese family.
I believe the security tab to protect Gravano
during his days of testifying in Brooklyn
was like a quarter of a million dollars.
They had helicopters getting him in and out of the court.
Tyre: Gravano, who admits to killing 19 people,
provided what the prosecution lacked --
a first-hand account of Gigante's
alleged mob activities.
McShane: And they won their conviction,
but the families of the victims,
people killed by Gravano,
came in the court, you know, to watch him testify.
Tyre: Under cross-examination,
Gravano acknowledged that he had been paid
a quarter of a million dollars
to collaborate on his best-selling book "Underboss"
and expected to get a percentage of a movie deal
based on the book.
That angered the families of his victims
who were suing Gravano under New York's Son of Sam law,
which prohibits lawbreakers from profiting from their crimes.
This is a man who based his life and his career
on lies and deception.
Why is he now, all of a sudden, a credible witness to anyone?
McShane: They were pursuing legal action
to make Gravano literally pay for his crimes.
♪♪
Sweetingham: After Sammy testified in seven trials,
and he was going to testify in many more,
he and his family, his wife and his two children,
quietly moved to Tempe, Arizona,
where he went under the name Jimmy Moran.
He pulled himself out of the Witness Protection Program.
They wanted to live where they wanted to live,
not where the program was going to put them.
He's going to be looking over his shoulder,
but he just wanted to do it on his own terms.
Sweetingham: They bought an eight-bedroom home
with a three-car garage and a pool.
Sammy started a pool construction business.
And he was doing very, very well.
Sweetingham: They opened a restaurant called Uncle Sal's
that his wife, Debra, ran, and its motto was,
"The best-kept secret in Scottsdale."
Gabriel: But, at some point,
he's hanging out at the restaurant.
He had a little reconstructive surgery done,
but it really didn't change his appearance that much.
He still conducts himself the way he conducts himself.
And, you know, people started catching on.
His true identity gets unmasked
by a reporter from The Arizona Republic
who tracks him down.
McShane: The Sammy in Arizona story
gets national attention, of course.
It spread all over the place.
Gabriel: Sammy thought he was okay,
but he wasn't as safe as he thought he was.
Sweetingham: You can understand why the FBI
was so invested in Sammy.
He had helped them put away
more than three dozen former mob associates.
Gabriel: We were prepping him for one last trial.
We very much had an interest in making sure
he played it smart and he stayed alive.
♪♪
Sammy was always protective of his son.
He didn't want to see his son in the life.
Raab: He was so critical of Gotti
for recruiting his own son, John Gotti Jr.,
to become a made member of the Mafia,
and he felt this was terrible,
that he would never do this with his own family.
Sweetingham: But then, in late 1998,
Sammy discovers that his son Gerard
has been selling ecstasy pills
outside of nightclubs in Phoenix with his best friend, Mike Papa.
Gabriel: His account of it was, Sammy catches wind of it,
not real happy with what they're doing.
McShane: Sammy was not into that.
He kind of looked down on the practice of selling drugs.
Sweetingham: Here was the perfect opportunity
to set the boys straight,
but instead, he didn't discourage them --
he mentored them.
Brevetti: It's fast money. It's easy money.
He's going to try to re-create the life he had before.
Sweetingham: And pretty soon, Gerard and Mike Papa
were carrying guns and using Sammy's name
to influence and intimidate other drug dealers,
and Mike Papa beats up a drug dealer
who has ties to Israeli Mafia.
Eventually, the two rival groups call a truce,
and they sit down at Uncle Sal's,
and Gravano says to them, "I own Arizona.
It is locked down, and you cannot sell pills here
without going through me."
Farinella: Not that he was innocent,
but he was trying to ensure
that his son and his family was protected.
Sweetingham: So DEA in Arizona and police
began an investigation they call Operation Ecstasy,
and they had some 11 wiretaps and bugs
listening to him and his associates.
Gabriel: You would think he'd be smarter
to have those kinds of conversations on a phone,
but, you know, again, when you don't think you're doing much,
you get stupid.
Napolitano: Beginning at about 6:30 this morning,
14 search warrants were served by seven SWAT teams.
On February 24, 2000, the DEA and Phoenix State Police
arrest Sammy.
They arrest his wife, Debra,
his daughter, Karen, his son, Gerard,
Mike Papa, and 41 others.
We learned that the Papa-Gravano organization
distributed 20,000 to 30,000 ecstasy pills per week
in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
Sweetingham: And they estimate that Sammy
and this ecstasy distribution ring
was making $1 million a month.
I got the call, and I was like,
"You gotta be kidding me."
He couldn't be that stupid.
♪♪
Feldman: Gravano is back in the news --
this time, in Arizona,
where he has lived the past few years
after leaving the Federal Witness Protection Program.
Gravano is charged with helping finance
a drug ring that sold ecstasy, a so-called designer drug.
They're being held on a charge of conspiracy
to distribute dangerous narcotics,
which is a class 2 felony in Arizona.
Gabriel: So, the irony of him getting arrested,
he may not see it this way, but it actually saved his life.
There was an elaborate murder-revenge plot against him
by Gambino family members.
They were going to blow him up with a bomb.
And I think they came close to being able to get him.
Then Sammy gets arrested and doesn't get out on bail,
and that's the end of the plot.
I don't think he really ever thought they would do it,
but they did.
♪♪
Sweetingham: So, after Sammy's arrested in Arizona
on state charges,
the New York DEA and Customs
begins a joint investigation on him.
In Arizona, they knew that he was dealing ecstasy,
but they didn't know who his source was.
In New York, they figure it out.
Sammy was getting his pills from a New York wholesaler
who had ties to Israeli organized Mafia.
So there were both federal and state charges.
The federal charges were definitely more serious,
and they carried more time, for certain.
♪♪
Sweetingham: Gravano and his son, Gerard,
go to court to plead guilty,
but, in fact, prosecutors were ready to put on a whole trial
showing how Sammy created his own little Mafia,
drug-dealing syndicate in Arizona.
It appeared that the court was disappointed
that he didn't utilize his second chance
and that he was back in front of a judge on different charges.
The judge sentenced Sammy to 20 years in prison.
She also ordered him on supervised release
for the rest of his life.
Colucci: It was important 'cause we wanted to make sure
that he was going to be convicted of something,
anything.
I am pleased for the people that he has hurt in this crime,
but I am not pleased that he got away with 19 murders,
including my son.
♪♪
He had to pay $420,000 to the family members,
to be split up between them.
Sammy gets out from prison in 2017.
Brevetti: He lost his teeth, lost his hair,
was put in solitary confinement,
but he survived.
Sammy had changed a lot.
Raab: He had contracted Graves' disease,
a very serious thyroid ailment.
Gravano had always been a health nut,
and here he was -- gaunt, his eyes were popping.
He had aged 50 years.
McShane: Ex-con...
convicted drug dealer...
mob rat --
quite a résumé. [ Chuckles ]
Gabriel: Sammy Gravano, I think, as with any wise guy,
they're wise guys to the end.
Normal people obey the rules.
This is somebody who did not and who lives to tell about it.
Gabriel: It's really ironic.
He did a lot for the mob to make the mob strong,
and he did a heck of a lot more to weaken the mob.
And in order to better himself at every stage,
he did very evil things.
But he is still out there being Sammy Gravano,
and he's going to take advantage of his reputation.
He's figured out a way to turn his past into profit.
He has a podcast, which he calls
Cosa Nostra -- Our Thing.
I know part of the life is deception.
In planning a hit, you're always doing something
or saying something,
and you're plotting against a guy,
but usually it happens one, two, three.
There's a bit of a disconnect thinking,
well, there's this friendly, warm guy.
On the other hand, you know, he's a hitman.
There's a complete fascination with people
who live fearlessly, kill people,
doing it as part of business.
♪♪
Gabriel: He's reliving those days.
He's not hiding from who he was and who he is,
but thank God he's not active in it, right,
because he was a force to be reckoned with when he was.
♪♪
Gravano's former boss, John Gotti,
spent the rest of his life behind bars.
He died from throat cancer in 2002
with his plan to kill Gravano unfulfilled.
So many years after turning government witness,
Sammy "The Bull" Gravano was thought to be safe
from retribution.
Most of his Mafia contemporaries are dead or behind bars.
He may have been New York's first high-ranking mobster
to violate omertà,
but many others have followed in his footsteps.
I'm Donnie Wahlberg.
Thanks for watching.
Good night.