Sammy the Bull Ecstacy Case Part 1

Gangland Wire

Gary Jenkins: Mafia Detective

True Crime, Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 623 Ratings

🗓️ 12 December 2022

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Retired Intelligence Unit Detective Gary Jenkins takes a deep dive into the Sammy the Bull Gravano story that sent him back to prison after he avoided a life sentence due to his work as a member of the Gambino Crime Family. This story starts when the government released Sammy the Bull from his five-year sentence after they allowed him to avoid racketeering, extortion, and murder convictions from his lifetime serving the Gambino crime family. He appears around 1995 in Phoenix, Arizona. Gravano opens Marathon Construction Company and Creative Pools. His wife, daughter, and son all appear in Phoenix simultaneously. The listener will learn how Gravano is living under the name Jimmy Moran and getting recognized by many people. He released his book, Underboss, and appeared on 60 Minutes. His wife and son opened Uncle Sal’s Italian Restaurant, and he is often seen there. A local newspaper, Arizona Republic, learned Gravano was living and working in the area, and they published a story. A Gambino-sponsored hit team arrived. Gravano’s son, Gerard Gravano, starts hanging out and partying with a local weight lifter and ecstasy dealer named Michael Papa, who was part of a White Nationalist gang known as the Devil Dogs. Despite all this, Gravano became involved in a drug-selling operation. Gary looks at the origins of the local investigation into the new party drug Ecstacy and who sells it to ASU students and others at local clubs and Raves. Local police are astounded to learn the ring leader may be the most famous turncoat mafia member of all time, Sammy the Bull Gravano. Support the Podcast Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwireClick here to “buy me a cup of coffee” To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup click here To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here. To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here To buy my Kindle book, Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How FBI Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos. To subscribe on iTunes click here, please give me a review and help others find the podcast.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Well, hey, all you wiretappers out there, back here in the studio, Gangland Wire, as you can tell.
0:04.8	I don't know why I say that every time.
0:07.5	Or you have it, I guess, just a way to lead into the show.
0:10.8	And I have a cool show, I think, for you.
0:12.8	I've been working on this off and on for quite a while.
0:15.2	I tried to get even more background on it, but I thought I did pretty good.
0:25.0	This is going to be the story of what happened when sammy the bull gravano got pop for the ecstasy ring you know there's a lot of a lot of
0:33.4	rumors about there are a lot of different opinions about that how much money was he making
0:38.8	off of was he really involved was it just his kid uh doing something then he he you know comes in
0:45.5	and bails out his kid as best he can and and is with both stories it's kind of somewhere in
0:50.5	between uh anyhow well let's let's just get started with this story.
0:54.5	I think it's a great story.
0:56.7	Now, that guy Peter Moss wrote his biography titled Underboss, and Moss talks about in the
1:05.1	blast of the book, kind of, well, we'll get on into what happened to him after he goes
1:10.0	in witness protection. And he goes in witness protection.
1:11.9	And he's in witness protection when this book comes out.
1:14.7	But the last man that Gravano sent to jail was Joe Watts, who was a Gambino family member
1:22.1	and really close confidant of John Gotti.
1:27.1	And Watts had hired F. Lee Bailey, the famous F. Lee Bailey of
1:32.4	the dream team, the OJ thing. He, F. Lee Bailey, when I was a young man, was the cat's meow lawyer.
1:40.3	He was the big time lawyer. He could get you off anything. And Bailey got him what everybody
1:45.9	thought was a sweet deal, and Watts was really grateful. And according to what I read,
	...

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