This is an interview that Frank Morano did for the Racket Report podcast with retired Federal Judge John Gleeson. Prior to being a Federal Judge, Gleeson was a Federal Prosecutor, whose prosecutions included John Gotti. He writes about the experience in his book “The Gotti Wars: Taking Down America’s Most Notorious Mobster“.

This interview took place in July of 2022.

You can listen to the entire interview here.

Frank Morano (00:29):

To another edition of the racket report. This is Frank Morano. This is the podcast where we take you behind the scenes of what happens in organized crime, particularly with LACO and otra, but not exclusively. We’ve spoken with people that have been mobs. We’ve spoken with people that have been mob lawyers. We’ve spoken with people that have been journalists. Well, now we have someone who is an all star in, uh, the annals of MAF. At least when it comes to the pro government side, he was probably the best known mafia prosecutor of the last 30 years, and then was appointed to the federal bench at an incredibly young age. And now he’s chronicled a lot of those experiences, the experience of prosecuting some of the boldest face names in the underworld and making that transition ultimately to being a, uh, federal judge in the Gotti wars, taking down America’s most notorious mobster. This book is absolutely terrific. A lot of folks are saying, this is the best nonfiction book of the year. I think Esquire magazine said that very thing. And a lot of folks are saying, this is one of the best legal dramas, uh, ever written of all time. And it gives me a great deal of pleasure to welcome retired federal judge and, uh, the author of the Gotti wars taking down America’s most notorious mobster judge John Gleason. Judge. Thanks so much for joining me.

Judge Gleeson (02:03):

Thank you, Frank. Thanks for having me. Thanks for your kind words about my book. I’m really

Frank Morano (02:07):

Grateful. Well, congratulations on the book. Everybody’s talking about it and, uh, we’ll get into some of the many areas that you cover in this book. Just so people know a little bit about your background. What made you wanna become a lawyer in the first place? And did you always wanna be a prosecutor or were you sort of open to doing a, a number of other things in the legal profession?

Judge Gleeson (02:27):

No, I’m, I’m not one of these people who knew he was gonna be a lawyer when he was seven years old. I, I, I got an English degree from college, which equipped me to do almost nothing <laugh> so I became a house painter after college and got tired of sniping oil based paint. I was a resident of Virginia. So I got into the university of Virginia law school, which cost 900 bucks a year at the time. So I thought, what the hell, let me give it a shot and turned out. I loved it. And, and, uh, I loved every moment of being a law student. It’s not like I wanted to be a, a prosecutor, Frank, you know, I like a lot of people, my age, I grew up on the godfather. And when I got interested in criminal law, I really wanted to be Tom Hagen. You know, I wanted to be the constantly heir <laugh>. Um, but you know, those jobs are hard to come by. So I went into prosecution because that’s the best way to get up on your feet in court in a criminal case,

Frank Morano (03:26):

What made you you’ve been re retired from the bench a couple of years now, what made you decide to write this book? Now? It’s been 30 years since John Gotti senior was, uh, was convicted. And one of the, probably one of the most talked about and most watched cases, uh, on the entire planet, I don’t think that’s an exaggeration. Why come out with this now? Was it specifically timed for the 30th anniversary?

Judge Gleeson (03:49):

No, it was. And I, you know, I started writing this book more than 25 years ago. I got two daughters who were then, you know, five and one. And, uh, I thought before I get too old or too dead to tell them about those experiences, cuz they’re interesting experiences. I wanted them to know. I thought I’d write ’em down. And it just took me longer, you know, um, to do it than I thought took me more than 25 years to finish it. And you know, I left the bench in 2016. Now I’m practicing law. I’m busier than I’ve ever been. So it was really just a matter of getting over the finish line. Something that I started a long time ago, these, this was fascinating stuff that I knew needed to be written down. I knew that a long time ago just took me longer than most.

Frank Morano (04:38):

A lot of your book deals with the Gotti trials that you were involved in as a prosecutor. And I wanna focus mainly on that, but you were also the lead counsel in the successful racketeering trial of Vic Reina. Now Vic Reina, especially these days is not exactly a household name as John Gotti remains two decades after his death. But uh, in his day he was one of the top dogs when it came to LAA Nostra he was the acting boss of the Colombo crime family. I’m wondering if you can give folks a little bit of a little bit of background on Vic arena and the factionalism that led to the Colombo crime family war. What made him wanna go after Carmine Perico, who was the official boss of the Colombo crime family?

Judge Gleeson (05:25):

Great question. You know, Carmine got convicted back in what they called the commission case and got essentially light. You got a hundred year sentence and didn’t wanna give up the reins of the Colombo family, which produced this schism, this faction of people who stayed loyal to Carmine the snake Perico on the one hand and Vic and the people loyal to him on the other. And they ended up in a war that was right when I was chief of organized crime in Brooklyn and they ended up killing off each other. And then we were arresting him when, with the guns and convicting them of the murders. And it was just a power struggle. You know, it’s, there’s a lot of money in being high up being in the administration of a LACO and Austria. And uh, so there was a lot at stake and uh, it’s really a great question.

Judge Gleeson (06:17):

You know, I tried Vic arena, who was the boss of the Colombo family at the time, just six months after we convicted John Gotti and they were talk about studies and contrast Vic was a gentleman. We would shake hands each morning when he came into the courtroom, we’d try the case hard against one another him and his lawyer shake hands at night. Um, he’d go back to the, to the prison where he was being detained. Whereas John Gotti was like a caged animal all the time. So I, I look back on those days and you know, Vic really showed the difference between a crime, a mob boss and a celebrity boss, which is what John Gotti decided he was gonna be.

Frank Morano (07:01):

How did the Colombo war ultimately end up?

Judge Gleeson (07:07):

Well, they ended up, most of the family got decimated and it ended up later on with, uh, a panel running the family, no designated boss Carine once Grano flipped. And I know we’ll talk about that. Once Sam Gravano flipped, the mob changed dramatically. So Carine CSA, who was the constantly air of the family came in and cooperated, uh, came in on Sammy’s coattails to cooperate that family in particular went into disarray quicker than most, uh, in part because a member of its administration, the constantly air car SESA decided to become a government witness.

Frank Morano (07:54):

I think you, you really can’t have a look at the Colombo crime family in that era and the Colombo crime family wars without looking at, uh, the role of Greg Scarpa, the guy that people call the, uh, the grim Reaper. Now we, then we learned later after Greg Scarpa was, uh, committing all sorts of horrible crimes that he was working with the federal government as, uh, one of these top echelon informants. And then we’ve learned in, in suing years that there was a number of other high profiled criminals that were working as top echelon informants, uh, people like Frankie, blue eyes, SPCO people like Whitey Bulger. There’s been some criticism of the top echelon informant program and a feeling that maybe the government gave some of these horrible criminals, uh, a license to go on committing crimes so long as they were giving valuable information. What is your take on Scarpa specifically in the top echelon informant program in general?

Judge Gleeson (08:53):

Yeah. Good for you. These are great questions. You’re more of a, you’re more of an EPH auto than most.

Frank Morano (08:59):

Yeah. Thank you.

Judge Gleeson (09:00):

So, first of all, a very important distinction for your audience, a cooperating witness who gets, who works with prosecutors gets on the witness, stand on the one hand and then Scarpa and Whitey Bulger and the like who are confidential informants, who don’t get on the witness stand. And in fact, for the most part, prosecutors never even know about them because the FBI looks at today’s prosecutors like their tomorrow’s defense lawyers and they don’t need to know. And the problem with Scarpa who by the way, was one of the lead captains on the Persico side of that war. The problem with that, that Scarpa placed into clear relief and Whitey Bulger placed into clear relief is, you know, the, when the handling agents get really close to a valuable informant and the worse criminal, they are, the more valuable they are, it becomes like a umbrella like an insurance policy for the, for the informant, right?

Judge Gleeson (10:02):

They can, uh, the, the handling agent and the bureau might kind of look the other way when they’re doing some criminal work on the side, including in scarf, this case murders, right? This happened in the first Gotti case where we indicted Willie Boyd Johnson, who was a top echelon informant. And the FBI came to us and said, don’t indict him. And we said, we’re gonna indict him cuz your informant is a murderer. So it’s very difficult. And the FBI, since those times, since Bulger has tried very hard with reformulating the internal policies to try to eliminate that risk. But it’s very difficult. The, the, you know, the, an IG report, uh, demonstrated that for the most part agents who like to promise confidentiality, don’t really follow those new policies. It’s a very, very difficult problem we need in law enforcement. You need informants. On the other hand, you gotta make sure that the handling agent doesn’t get too close and become blind to an informant. Who’s playing both sides of the street.

Frank Morano (11:13):

Uh, last question about the Colombos and then I want to focus mainly on the primary subject of your book, which is the, the prosecution of John Gotti, the handler, the FBI handler of, uh, Greg Scarpa was Linley Veo. He was tried for essentially helping Greg Scarpa carry out murders. Ultimately they did not continue with that prosecution. He remains unconvicted. There seems to be a divided opinion about DEO, both in, in, uh, legal circles in, in law enforcement circles and among the general public. What’s your take on Linley DEO? Did he cross the line in terms of criminality in aiding, Greg Scarpa or do you buy Lin Duo’s version of events that he never crossed that line?

Judge Gleeson (12:02):

Well, look, it it’s a little more nuanced than that. Frank, do I believe that Lynn DEO, um, crossed the line in the sense of aiding and abetting murders as he was, as that withdrawn prosecution charged him? No. Do I believe he got way too close to Scarpa and that the agents in his squad, Chris Favo, Jeff Tomlinson, two others, Ray Andes Howard led better. Do do I believe that that those special agents under Lynn’s supervision properly reported to their super to Lynn’s supervisors that Lynn got too close to Greg Scarpa. Absolutely. Um, so, you know, it’s, if the lime’s criminality non criminality, I don’t have any reason to believe that Lynn engaged in criminal acts. Did he lose his balance in, in handling Greg Scarpa? Yes. I believe that.

Frank Morano (13:03):

All right. Uh, let’s talk about John Gotti. It’s tough to believe now, but there’s been a whole generation of people born after John Gotti has passed away. There’s been a, a generation and a half of people that have been born SI uh, since, uh, John Gotti was out on the street, just to give folks some perspective on John Gotti, we know he was the boss of the Gambino crime family, but stylistically or criminally, you already described some of the differences between someone like him and Vic, but what made him different from previous high profile mob bosses or well known, not mob bosses names like Carlo Gambino, Paul Castano, even a guy that they call the original dapper, Don Joe Colombo. What made Gotti different from those other bold face names?

Judge Gleeson (13:51):

The reason the mob, as we knew it is gone is because John Gotti decided he was going to be a celebrity boss. He was, he said to me, in the well of the court in the first of our two trials, he says, I have an image I need to uphold and where all the other bosses at the time and before him internalize the fact that they were criminals, right? They call it organized crime for a reason. You wanna stay off the government’s radar screen. You don’t wanna put your, put a stick in the eye of the FBI. John Gotty decided he was gonna be a celebrity. And by doing that, he brought the FBI down. I mean, they’re human beings too. Um, if you’re gonna be the dapper, Don, and you’re gonna walk around the street, uh, promoting yourself as a crime boss, you’re gonna, you’re gonna irritate the people whose job it is to fight organized crime.

Judge Gleeson (14:54):

And that this is pre nine 11. The number one criminal problem in New York at the time was LACO Nostra. So what John Gotti did was mobilize the FBI, not just to bring him down, but against all of the families. So, you know, one way to look at it. Frank is back then there were eight FBI squads in New York, all of them devoted exclusively to LCN today. There’s one half of one squad devoted to LCN. So what John Gotti did was, uh, turned the heat up, not just on himself and the Gambino family, but all of the families. And between that and Gravano flipping, those are the two things I brought an end to the mob, as we once knew it.

Frank Morano (15:44):

I’m sure there are a number of underworld folks back then. And since then that take Umbridge with John Gotti for that high profile lifestyle and bringing attention to what’s supposed to be a secret society, but did the manner in which John Gotti ascended to the role of boss of the Gambino crime family, did that affect his standing negatively in underworld circles?

Judge Gleeson (16:10):

Sure. I mean, Kim Gant, the head of the Genevie family tried to kill him several times, right? Four months after they kill John Gotti for your listeners edification blasted onto the scene as boss of the Gambino family, by killing his boss in public on a spark steakhouse, December 16th, 1985, without having gotten the permission of the commission to kill the boss. Jim never forgave him for that four months later, when they blew up Frankie de Chico, they thought John Gotti was gonna be with him. And then in 1988, they, the several Genevie family members were, were arrested and prosecuted and convicted for conspiring to kill John Gotti. So just the way he became boss alienated him from the other most important boss at the time, chin li Genovese’s family.

Frank Morano (17:10):

Let let’s talk about that first Gotti trial, that first got a prosecution that you were a part of, even though that you weren’t, even though you weren’t the lead council, in that case, you were still a, a young man, relatively young man at the time. What was it like for you as a young attorney, a young prosecutor to be part of such a high profile prosecution that everybody, the whole world, the whole country was

Judge Gleeson (17:35):

Great. I was lucky, you know, I came from a big, uh, stayed, you know, it was a great law firm, but it was kind of boring and walked into the Brooklyn us attorney’s office. And within six weeks I was assigned to what became once they killed Paul a few months later, what became, as you mentioned, the, the, the biggest case in the country and it was criminal stuff. It was fascinating. It ended up being a seven month trial. The lead prosecutor was a truly gifted prosecutor named Diane Jack alone. And she, uh, took me under her wing, taught me how to prosecute, how to try a case. We had 96 witnesses. I basically grew up as a trial lawyer in one case Frank, you know, most lawyers need to do 5, 6, 7, 8 trials before they’re comfortable. But you know, when you’re on trial for seven months, you kind of cram all that into one case. It was a, uh, professionally for me, it was a disaster the way it ended, but it was the, a building block of the rest of my career in the law.

Frank Morano (18:49):

One of the episodes that you, that you deal with in the book, which I have to think was particularly trying was when a witness accused you of some relatively serious crimes, what exa what happened? Exactly.

Judge Gleeson (19:03):

Yeah. We had a, it’s a fellow named Matt train, who in the run up to the trial was gonna be our witness, but he made a demand acted. He demanded that, uh, he, I forget what the favor was, a visit in prison or some sneakers or something. And when we said, no, he said, well, I’m gonna tell the defense lawyers, you asked us to lie. And we said, fine, you’re off our li witness list. W we’ve pulled him out of our witness lineup a year and a half later, he shows up on the witness stand as a defense witness for John Gotti testifies that I, and my wife, who was a psychiatric nurse that I, and my wife gave him narcotic drugs in an effort to get him to testify falsely against John Gotti, which seemed kind of harsh, seemed kind of rough to listen to that testimony. But I, I got off kind of easy because then he turned his Terra onto Diane, Jack alone, the lead prosecutor, and said she gave him sexual favors

Frank Morano (20:10):

And drugs. Right.

Judge Gleeson (20:12):

Uh, I’m the, I’m the one who gave the

Frank Morano (20:14):

Drugs. I see. Okay. Supposedly

Judge Gleeson (20:15):

Got it. Diane gave the sexual favor. So we had it covered between the two of us <laugh> and, and, uh, look, I crossed him for a couple of days and it was brutal. It was brutal on, on Diane, especially the defense lawyers were brutal on her and, and the payback for us was supposed to be at the end of the case, a conviction, which would’ve made it all worthwhile. But spoiler alert, all of the defendants including were acquitted on all counts. And, and it was a monumental loss for the government.

Frank Morano (20:51):

There’s always been a lot of claims that the jury, at least to some extent was, was fixed in that trial. Um, you know, I’ve spoken with John Gotti Jr. About that case. He insists that he doesn’t believe that it was fixed. One’s not an unbiased source. What’s your take was the jury in that case, fixed

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Judge Gleeson (21:26):

Well, yeah, no, I mean, I don’t know how you can hide from that fact junior can speak for himself, but here’s the deal. Here’s what your listeners should know. Four, three quarters years later, three months before the statute of limitations on obstruction of justice would run Sandy Gravano flipped. I met him in the middle of the night and I was debriefing him about all the murders he had committed. And in the middle of that debriefing, we took a little break and he said to me as casually, Frank, as you might say to somebody, I got a parking ticket last week. He says, you know, by the way that trial you had where John was acquitted. I and I, that got my attention, obviously that was two years of my life, that case. And we investigated it, made the case, indicted. The juror prosecuted the juror I testified against the juror Gravano did the juror was convicted and did three years. So you might wanna just, uh, tell junior to Google all that and Google the name, George PPE. He was the anonymous juror who, uh, took a broad to throw that first trial.

Frank Morano (22:47):

So the second Gotti trial that you were now, the lead council and Gotti had not only been acquitted in that first federal racketeering trial, he’d been acquitted in an assault case. I have to think. And he’s developed this reputation now of the Telon Don, none of these indictments stick to him, none of these convictions come to pass. I have to think that your mentality going into that 1992, or, you know, obviously in the run up prior to that, is that you are, you’re thinking of him almost as this Rasputin, like, figure that you can take no chances with that. You have to fire every bullet in your arsenal. Tell me about your mentality as the lead prosecutor in that case, going into that case, seeing those previous acquittals.

Judge Gleeson (23:36):

Yeah. Again, a great question. You look at it. It was not just the, the acquittal in our case that he had fixed, but there were two state assault cases that he beat. So he really had acquired this aura of invincibility. We firmly believed before we brought that case in which he, we convicted him. We firmly believe that law enforcement really had one more shot, that if we took another shot at him and, and he beat the case, he was never gonna get convicted. It was just gonna cement him as invincible. So that influenced the way we approached the investigation. We decided we’re not just gonna rely on some low level accomplished witnesses. Like in the first case, we wanted his voice on tape. And this is where the FBI, you know, has just has no equal. They were patient. They worked their informants. They learned that John was meeting with his under boss.

Judge Gleeson (24:38):

Grano is constantly air friend LA Casio in a old lady’s apartment, above the Raven night, social club, 2 47 Mulberry street. They got a bug in that place and we had the best possible evidence. So, you know, we, another thing we learned from the first case, not gonna have seven, eight guys at the defense table, we could have indicted the entire family, but we indicted just Gravano, Gotti, Frank LA Casio. I wanted to get in and get out no seven months trials, no low level accomplices, a quick in out trial with John Gotti’s voice convicting him. So that was all the, the result of him having acquired that reputation as the Teflon done.

Frank Morano (25:24):

How did you feel? I’m sure you were aware of the reputation in some corners of the city that John Gotti had acquired at this point, it, you would go to ozone park and Howard beach and not all residents, but many of these residents would, would cheer at the mention of John Gotti’s name. There were people who would even show up to the courthouse, holding signs, wearing t-shirts that say things like free John Gotti. There were bumper stickers in places like Staten island, where I grew up where you’d see the same method. And even a lot of people that weren’t necessarily Italian American. A lot of them came to view Gotti as almost this Robin hood, like figure who was fighting against the oppressive federal government. And he became a symbol in some respects of standing up to the federal government. How did it make you feel seeing someone that you have such a low regard for as a criminal and a person acquiring a reputation, at least in some quarters as this larger than life Robin hood ask figure.

Judge Gleeson (26:25):

Yeah, it again, another great question. It wasn’t like Frank, we were, you know, ringing our hands and naing our teeth. We just look what, what you’ve described is completely accurate. And it’s just another manifestation of the fact that as a culture, we belong on a therapist couch when it comes to organized crime generally, and especially the mob. Right. We see, look, if Godfather’s part of it, you know, art, didn’t do a great job of imitating life, but we see in the mob, what we wanna see, right? We superimpose on the mob, these, this kind of gauzy, you know, uh, affection. I think this goes back to Jesse James, you know, you mentioned Robin hood, Bonnie and Clark. We like Outlaws. And what we would see, you know, between the two trials at exactly the same time, everybody out there in those neighborhoods was saying, John, Gaudi’s cleaning up the streets from drug drugs.

Judge Gleeson (27:30):

We were his brother, all the members of his crew, gene GDI, John KLIA, Tony Roach Ramina we put them all away for, for the rest of their lives, essentially for heroin trafficking. So even as that is unfolding in front of everybody’s eyes, they see John Gotti as cleaning up the streets. You know, you can’t, as a prosecutor, it’s not like you lie awake at night, worrying about people’s misperceptions of what they really are. That’s just baked into our culture, you know, it’s we see what we wanna see. It’s not the reality. They’re a treacherous bunch. There’s no honor among those THS. Um, but that, but that, that didn’t begin with John Gotti. It didn’t end with John Gotti.

Frank Morano (28:17):

Let’s talk about the prosecution itself. Obviously the aspect of this prosecution that has gotten the most attention was the testimony of the underboss at the time, uh, Sammy, the bull Gravano, there was a lot of other evidence in this case. Uh, you mentioned the incredible job that the FBI did with surveillance of the apartment above the Raven night social club. You have Gotti, uh, on tape describing crimes. You have a great deal of other forensic evidence, black and white evidence, audio recordings, video recordings, how essential was Sammy to getting a conviction. And could you have gotten a conviction without Sammy?

Judge Gleeson (28:57):

Yes. And it was funny Frank, because we had this Cape case right in December of 1990, we Indic Gotti, Gravano OCIO, and I spend the next 11 months getting ready for a trial in which our evidence is John Gotti on tape talking about who he’s killed, who he’s gonna kill the labor racketeering, the obstruction of justice. It was a shallow case because it really wasn’t any witnesses. Um, but it was a really good case cuz I was gonna tell the jury, listen, here he is committing the crimes we charged him with. And then really literally 10 weeks before trial Gravano reaches out to me, surreptitiously and we meet and strike a deal. And all of a sudden we have a case that’s gone from a shallow, strong recorded evidence case to the highest ranking mafia turn code in history, right? Groo who was on the scene for the Castano hit.

Judge Gleeson (30:03):

But what I told the jury at the end of the case, which I believe in, I believe in my bones is true. I said, look, you can, you don’t need Grano. Grano’s real significance was he helped us take down the rest of the month. I said, you don’t need him. We, he, he was at the defense table until 10 weeks ago. We were gonna convict all three based on the recordings. Then he flipped. So now you have the insider’s view, the under boss’s view. And what I said to him is basically you got two bodies of evidence view. You got the insider’s testimony against his boss on which you convict can convict standing alone. And then put that aside. You have tapes on which you can convict standing alone and put them together. It’s suffocating that that’s the word I use for the jury. And really, you know what it is insufficiently understood now in retrospect is Gravano was not needed at all to convict John Gotti. It was fun to put ’em on made the case stronger, but he helped us dismantle the rest of them out in New York. That was his real contribution to law enforcement.

Frank Morano (31:11):

Obviously you were not a judge in those days and uh, you were not the person that, uh, gave Sammy Gravano his prison sentence. But, um, given what you just said, that this case was probably going to end up in a conviction without Gravano. And given the fact that Gravano by his own admission had participated in 19 murders, does it, um, is it, is it, is it moral? Is it ethical? Is it right that Sammy just essentially got two and a half years in prison for participating in 19 murders? Given the fact that his testimony might not have been needed to convict John Gotti in the first place?

Judge Gleeson (31:54):

Sure. It was right. And I’m the first to admit, this is a completely legit debate. You know, do we reward people who commit very serious crimes? Should we reward them at all? Do we reward them too much? That’s a really interesting debate. And a lot of countries don’t reward cooperation like we do. But let me tell you one thing, Frank, that is almost never on the table. You know, Grano got five years, he admitted to 19 murders, but what’s almost never on the table when this debate happens is, you know, Gravano helped us put away 47 guys. Not all of them were murderers, but most of them were. And most of them not only committed the same number of murders, you know, we didn’t know for sure cuz they didn’t flip as Gravano. But if Gravano would didn’t help us put those guys in prison and take ’em off the street.

Judge Gleeson (32:57):

Is there any doubt in my mind that a, let many, many more murders would’ve happened? You know those guys weren’t gonna stop killing people. So the, you know, it’s a cost benefit thing. You want an insiders, you know, you want a, a front row seat to a prize fight. You gotta pay for the ticket. You want a front row seat to organize crime and you want to convict the people who are doing all the killings. You gotta pay for it and you pay for it by enlisting cooperation, making sure you do everything you can to corroborate their testimony. You know, Gravano, I spent a ton of time with him. He never stopped being my defendant. It came a point when he became my witness too. And he helped me put a bunch of guys in who would’ve killed a lot more people. Do I think that was worth the, uh, benefit that the judge conferred on Sam Guana? Absolutely. Do I respect the fact that some other people think you shouldn’t do that? Yes I do. I don’t think they’re right, but I, I, I get it sure.

Frank Morano (34:04):

Was it ethical in the process of getting Sammy to flip, which I’m sure was even with his participation and willingness, even with hi it being his idea, I’m sure it was still a tall order, but do you think it was ethical to talk with Sammy directly and bypass his attorney of record at that time?

Judge Gleeson (34:24):

<laugh> yeah, of course I do. I’m the one who did it, but let me tell you the what and your listener is what the, what the rules are and why I thought it, I was not coming anywhere close to violating the rules. The sixth amendment, which gives you a right to counsel says you can’t, you can’t talk to people who were represented by counsel as Sammy was without the lawyer’s consent. The ethical rules say, I can’t talk to someone I know to be represented by counsel without the lawyer’s consent. So two sources of a rule that I was facing when guano reached out to me, the reason I thought it was a no-brainer was Sammy didn’t hire his lawyer. You know, we had disqualified, his lawyer, Jerry Charel and he was replaced by another lawyer, Ben Broman, who wasn’t hired by Sammy. He was hired by John Gotti and Sammy told us, you know, Ben, Brotman’s a good lawyer.

Judge Gleeson (35:23):

He’s a friend. I like him. But he was hired by John Gotti and Sammy believed in his heart that if I talked to Ben Broman about Gravano, wanting to cooperate, that Gravano that John Gotti would know and Gravano would be killed and his family would be killed. And when somebody has a lawyer who’s disabled from acting in his client’s best interests, which is what the situation was. I don’t really care what the sixth amendment and the ethical rules say, that person has a right to try to do what’s in his best interest. So I went to the judge privately with a tape recorder, made a record of, it said, he’s reached out for me. He doesn’t trust his lawyer. He thinks he’ll be killed. His family will be killed if I go through his lawyer, I’m not, I’m not doing it. And that’s what we did. And he flipped

Frank Morano (36:14):

Ben Broman is still a, uh, very active criminal defense attorney probably considered one of the three or four best criminal defense attorneys in New York. I mean that, that’s quite a thing to say that if, uh, you know, that he was so ethically challenged as an attorney, that that would result in, uh, that would result in him betraying not only, uh, attorney client privilege, but uh, prosecutor, defense negotiations.

Judge Gleeson (36:42):

Well, he didn’t betray any privilege, but I don’t blame. You know, as I say, Ben’s a friend, he’s a, he’s one of the top defense lawyers in the, in the country, the last 25 years. But John GOTY brought out, you know, John gote put people in fear of him. And you know, when I contacted Broman and said, you’re fired, Grono has flipped. Ben Broman did not complain to me. He did not say how dare you go behind my, my back to my client. He said to me, John, just please make sure that everybody knows I had nothing to do with this because he was afraid. And I don’t blame him. John Gotti made a lot of people afraid the lawyer for Frank LA Casio years after the trial, after John Gotti died, made a filing with the court saying he was afraid to distinguish the evidence against Lisio from the evidence against John Gotti. He was afraid John Gotti would kill him. So, you know, I don’t blame, I don’t really blame Ben Ben wasn’t unethical blame. Ben was in a tough situation because John Gotti decided to hire him for Grano and Grano decided he wanted to switch governments to team America.

Frank Morano (38:02):

What role, if any, did the, uh, guards at, or the, uh, correction officers at the MCC play in Grano’s defection

Judge Gleeson (38:14):

<laugh> well, George Gabriel, who was my case agent and my is my friend for life was, is FBI agent on the squad. He was the lead agent. I was the lead prosecutor when Grono flipped. He was chair in a jail cell with John Don in the MCC in New York and Manhattan. George at midnight, took a court order, directing the MCC to turn Salvador Gravano over to the FBI because he was, he decided to defect the court order, had the caption of the case, which said us versus John Gotti on it. So the guard downstairs at the picks up the phone and calls up to the floor that Gotti and Grono were on and says, bring down John Gotti and, uh, George ever the alert agent. He’s a fabulous FBI agent says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, don’t wake up John Gotti and bring him down here. <laugh> that’s not gonna work out well, read the body of the order. It says, bring down Sammy the bull. So that’s what happened and good that he was paying attention because it would’ve been, it would’ve been quite a scene.

Frank Morano (39:26):

I can imagine God

Judge Gleeson (39:27):

Even woken

Frank Morano (39:27):

Up. I can imagine. So the guards weren’t doing anything like reporting back to the us attorney’s office, what was going on in the jail? Were they?

Judge Gleeson (39:36):

No, no, they, those they’re, you know, they’re doing their job over there. Mm. We never have any contact. I never, in my 10 years, as a prosecutor at any contact with any of the guards at the MCC,

Frank Morano (39:48):

What role, if any, did Grano’s wife play in the decision to defect?

Judge Gleeson (39:55):

Well, look, Sammy needed to reach out to me and it’s not like he has a phone in the wall of his cell and CC. So his, his wife reached out to me to pass the message that, uh, Gana wanted to talk about the possibility of cooperating. Not that he wanted to cooperate, that he wanted to have a discussion and equipped with that knowledge we set about, we meaning me and the Camino squad of the, at the FBI set about arranging a secret meeting with Grano in the courthouse so that we could negotiate. See whether we could strike a deal.

Frank Morano (40:41):

Um, how much money, if any, did Gravano actually receive from the department of justice from the taxpayer?

Judge Gleeson (40:51):

I don’t really, he, he maybe got some help. This is a popular misconception. You know, it’s a federal government. They don’t do out a lot of money. The FBI Sandy did not go into the Marshall’s witness protection program. Rather the FBI relocated them out west. And when that happened, I mean, the guy had come out of prison after five years. They definitely, um, pay for the moving expenses. And I’m sure there’s some kind of stip until he is on his feet, but it is not the gravy train that people, some people think it is. It’s not, it’s not a money maker to become a federal witness.

Frank Morano (41:37):

Well, yeah, a lot of folks see these films, like my blue heaven and other comedies and dramas alike, and a lot of folks do think it’s sort of a lottery ticket. So I’m glad you, uh, I’m GLA glad you clarified that. You mentioned the deal that Grano got and how, uh, you think that was the right thing to do, but you can understand how others may, may differ. William Barr, I believe was the attorney general at the time, how high up the chain of the justice department did you have to go to get approval for a deal like that? Did the attorney general himself bill BARR. Okay. And approve this deal?

Judge Gleeson (42:16):

No, I didn’t even go to my boss. It was, it was so secret. You know, I, I, I didn’t, I wasn’t sure I could strike a deal with pro Bonno right away. I thought there was a possibility he’d go to trial and then try to strike a deal. If he got convicted, I was taking a long term view. So I didn’t tell anybody, you know, the judge encouraged me not to tell anybody. So did the FBI, there were only about four people total who knew five people, four people in the FBI. Wow. Me who knew I was talking to Sammy. And in fact, you know, one of my bosses was who’s now my law partner here at the firm I work at, you know, was very, very upset that I hadn’t gotten her approval. She was the chief assistant us attorney or the us attorney’s approval, Andy Maloney.

Judge Gleeson (43:15):

Um, and it, you know, it almost actually almost cost me my job, but it didn’t. So no bill BARR had nothing to do with anything. You know, this was such a secret thing, cuz it was so explosive at the time. And it was front page news when we took Toronto out of the MCC and I thought there was a need for ultra secrecy and did the deal. And I, I knew the us attorney was gonna be delighted. Kiva took down the whole mom. So the short answer to your question is it didn’t even go one link up to chain, let alone all the way to the attorney general.

Frank Morano (43:51):

Speaking of Andy Maloney, uh, you, you say a lot of nice things about him in the book and I, and I’ve read and heard you say a lot of nice things about him in the last 30 years. He was the former us attorney Eastern district. You do in the book kind of publicly describe him as, as a drunk who you had to hide information from. I mean, is that, is that a little, uh, to put it charitably disrespectful to, uh, describe a former us attorney as a heavy drinker that you intentionally withheld information from?

Judge Gleeson (44:26):

No, I didn’t do that at all. Frank, you’re not properly characterizing what’s in the book. I, I trusted him completely. He did like everybody else in our office. He did socialize with prominent members of the bar. Andy in particular spent, um, many of his evenings with the publisher of the New York law journal. Everybody in New York was focused on the case. Andy was the us attorney. I wouldn’t have never, ever said Andy was a drunk or couldn’t be trusted. That’s just wrong, Frank. Sorry.

Frank Morano (45:01):

I, no, I appreciate you clarifying that. Uh, I’m sorry if I, uh, if I mischaracterize your, uh, your description of the situation, um, how do you feel about Sammy since he’s been let outta prison on this, uh, state case running that ecstasy ring in Arizona, uh, he’s kind of become a YouTube star. He’s got this big following on YouTube, this big podcast. Do you feel that he’s been able to use criminality and his, you know, flipping on the mob to sort of become a media star?

Judge Gleeson (45:36):

It is sort of, and only in America story, right?

Frank Morano (45:39):

It is indeed.

Judge Gleeson (45:40):

Right. Um, and I think it’s, uh, you know, obviously related to what I was mentioning earlier, which is our, our with, um, Outlaws, our fascination with LACO Nostra. Um, the fact that here we are 30 years after that conviction, 27 years after Grano gets sentenced 20, 28 years. And there’s still a market for, you know, a former under boss to talk about his activities within the mob. It’s like, you know, it’s one of these, what a great country we live in, I guess, you know, um, I’m, I’m kind of struck by the, uh, appetite for that. I, I know that Sammy’s podcast. Um, but it’s look, I’m the beneficiary of it too, right? Sure. Because I, I wrote this book. People are, a lot of people are buying the book and they’re enjoying the book and it has everything to do with this kind of, uh, fixation. Oh, we have as a culture with the

Frank Morano (46:52):

Mob, same same here. And uh, I appreciate you being so generous with your time. If you’ll gimme a couple more minutes, I wanna, uh, delve into a few more issues. Obviously you had no way of knowing. Neither did judge Glasser that after Sammy was essentially let off the hook for his crimes, that he would go out and commit new crimes. But prospectively after that does the fact that the government let, uh, Sammy Gravano essentially slide for 19 murders. And then Sammy went out and started a drug trafficking ring in Arizona after being given this incredible second chance. Does that show that these cooperating witnesses maybe shouldn’t get such sweetheart deals? Uh, even if it’s means convicting a John Gotti because of the likelihood of reoffending?

Judge Gleeson (47:43):

No, it doesn’t mean that at all. You know, you stand up in front of a jury with a witness like Gravano and the very last thing you would say, because I think, you know, jurors have a lot of common sense. You don’t say this guy’s changed his spots. He’s rehabilitated. Why would you say that rather? It’s you take the selfish motives that made him, that made him like a successful criminal and you channel them in a deal that requires him to tell the truth. And you know, it’s not like Sammy Grano became like a rabbi or a priest or something by cooperating. He was what he was. And part of the cost benefit analysis part of the cost is he’s not gonna do the time somebody who committed his crimes would do, because you’re gonna reward his cooperation. Another part of the cost is that means he’s gonna be on the street sooner than he should have been given the severity of his crimes.

Judge Gleeson (48:49):

And there’s a risk he’s reoffend. You bake all that in, you know, is that, is that cost worth the benefit of taking down 47 guys taking down the mob and a reasonable person could say, no, it’s not. I say, yes, it is. I’ll. I will tell you Frank, when GRA got rearrested, he, he wasn’t running the ecstasy ring. His kid got involved in it and his, you know, like fathers do, he helped the kid and he committed a serious crime, but I’ll confess to you. Was I relieved when Gravano got arrested, it wasn’t for a violent crime. You bet. I was, you know, I knew that we had created the risk that someone who had committed all those murders would be back out. There was I, when I heard that Grava got arrested, was I on, you know, you know, on pins and needles. When I, before I found out what he got arrested for you bet I was, but that’s, you know, that’s, that’s, it’s a, it’s a adults game. You want people with good judgment making these deals, because those are the risks you take. You don’t turn these people into something other than what they were. You, you make a bargain to get the benefit of their testimony.

Frank Morano (50:08):

Uh there’s most people believe that part of the reason you were able to get a federal judgeship at such a young age is because of the success that you had as a prosecutor with such high profile mafia, prosecutions, someone else that was able to, uh, ride the wave of several high profile prosecutions, including a mafia prosecution. Uh, it was Rudy Giuliani. He used those prosecutions to brandish his reputation and become mayor of New York city. And obviously the rest is history. Uh, Rudy’s a colleague of mine on, uh, WBC. And, uh, I would go so far as to call him a friend. Rudy has, um, he’s suffered some blows to his reputation in the last couple of years. What’s your view, obviously I know he was Southern district and you worked in the Eastern district. What was your view of Rudy as a prosecutor, putting aside him as a politician, as a mayor, as a mayor, as a presidential candidate, as an advisor to Donald Trump, what’d you think of Rudy as a prosecutor?

Judge Gleeson (51:10):

Well, I was just watching from across the river, like any other young lawyer at the time he was us attorney in Southern district. By the time he was like 40, they had, they did official corruption cases. They did the stand, the, um, commission case, the Southern district back then was in its heyday. It’s always been kind of the flagship office and, you know, Rudy, obviously I, I think it was, maybe this is just hindsight. In retrospect, it looked, it looks like he was interested in public office and the like, um, because he, he was a high profile prosecutor in terms of press conferences and the like, but, um, look, you know, I applied to that office, interviewed with Rudy. He decided not to hire me. So I hightailed over, we did stuff in Brooklyn.

Frank Morano (52:07):

Don’t exactly give a ringing endorsement to Bruce Cutler as a trial attorney. What, what’s your view of Bruce Cutler as an attorney? Uh, both then and now

Judge Gleeson (52:19):

Look, I’ve lost touch with Bruce. Um, back then, I, I, I always had a soft spot for Bruce because when he was not in John Gotti’s orbit, I got along great with him. I tried another I’ve tried Mike Koro, who was the Gotti Cruz lawyer before Bruce was, and Bruce defended, Mike got along with him. Great. Um, I, I think John Gotti brought out the worst and everybody who got close to him and that was true. More so with Bruce than anybody else. Yeah. Bruce takes it on the chin in my book because he behaved badly, but he behaved badly because, you know, we talked earlier about Ben Broman, maybe being a little afraid of John Gotty, Bruce Cutler was a ton afraid of John Gotty and it affected his behavior professionally once he was out of that. And, you know, in defending other people, I had other cases with