Sammy "The Bull" Gravano was a true believer in the Mafia's codes, honor, and way of life until the day in early 1991 when the FBI played secret audiotapes of crime boss John Gotti. The Dapper Don was captured at his Ravenite Social Club slamming Gravano and scheming to make him a "sacrificial lamb." Gravano's illusions about the Mafia were obliterated, and he flipped.
"I loved him," Gravano said on the Fox Nation documentary, Gotti's Guy. "I got to like the guy. We fought a war. It was us against the world." He added: "I loved him until we got pinched, and he came up with the idea of his talking on the wiretap tapes and using those behind my back."
From Underboss to Informant
Before becoming the Gambino underboss in 1986 following the rubout of boss Paul "Big Paulie" Castellano outside Sparks Steakhouse on a busy Manhattan street, little was known about Gravano. He operated on the down low, lived quietly with his family in the old Brooklyn neighborhood, and avoided publicity at all costs. Gotti changed that and made Gravano, who controlled most of the concrete used in New York, a public figure.
When Gravano, who had 19 hits on his belt, flipped, it sent tremors throughout the underworld. His deal with the feds sent Gotti to prison for life. Gravano pleaded guilty to racketeering and admitted to the hits.
Gotti Saw Gravano as 'Sacrificial Lamb'
Gravano said he had no intention of turning canary until he heard those tapes. He said: "I told him, John, is that what you want to do? The boss wants to go free, so you want me to go to prison for the rest of my life? I was in prison for 11 months before I flipped. I had no intention of flipping, but when he made up all of this crap, my relationship went from love to hate in prison."
However, Sammy the Bull is not the subject of Gotti's Guy. That honor falls to the late mob boss's so-called "adopted son," Lewis Kasman, an ardent defender of the gangster. He called the Teflon Don "Grandpa." According to Gravano, the boss used Kasman to hide money. Kasman admitted to hiding millions in the attic of his house. In the halcyon days of the late 1980s and early '90s, the crime family was raking in anywhere from $100 to $500 million a year.
Gotti 'Wasn't Hiding from Anybody'
"We'd pick up, let's say $250,000. Then Joe Butch would bring, let's say $100,000, Jimmy Brown from the garbage would bring in X amount of dollars, and each captain, depending on what industry they were extorting or what industry they were responsible for, and the unions, the various construction unions, the various labor unions, controlled by the Gambino family. And that's how the money would roll in," said Kasman.
Joe "Butch" Corrao was a capo based in Manhattan's Little Italy, and Jimmy "Brown" Faila was another capo who served as head of the Trade Waste Association of Greater New York. Kasman said Gotti was an unapologetic mobster. "You knew where John Gotti was, seven days a week. He wasn't hiding from anybody, he wasn't walking around in a bathrobe and a walker," Kasman said, referencing Genovese boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante.
Called "The Oddfather," Gigante played crazy man for decades, wandering his Greenwich Village neighborhood in a bathrobe and slippers. Years later, Gigante copped to the fact his crazy man persona was all an act.
Kasman said that at the time, he had no qualms about embracing the world of organized crime and the wiseguys and killers who were its inhabitants. But the underworld took its toll. "I enjoyed it, and it was very good for business," he said. "But it did a lot of damage to my family, now 25 years later, to my wife and my three children and myself. I have PTSD. I still suffer. I have nightmares."
Like others in the Gotti orbit, Kasman was ensnared in legal problems and did a stint in jail for perjury, obstruction of justice, and money laundering. Worse, Gotti's family have called Kasman a liar who was a parasite on the patriarch. John Gotti died of neck and throat cancer behind bars in 2002 at the age of 61. "I still think about him every day. I mourn him every day," Kasman said.
Gotti's Guy, now streaming on Fox Nation and available on Fox One.
