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Retired Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins brings you the best in mob history with his unique perception of the mafia. Dive into the world of Joseph Parisi, the man who murdered Carlo Siniscalchi. Gary interviews author Nick Parisi about his book Mafia Confessions, “King of Bootlegers” Murder. This book sheds light on organized crime during the Prohibition era in the Springfield, Massachusetts, area. Nick offers a glimpse into this city’s early Italian-American criminal groups and the surrounding area and how his ancestor killed Carlo Siniscalchi, the King of the Bootleggers.”
Mafia Confessions relies heavily on the diary of the author’s ancestor, Giuseppe “Joseph” Parisi, trial transcripts, and newspaper accounts. Nick Parisi provides a rare and intimate look into the thoughts, emotions, and connections of the man who murdered Carlo Siniscalchi, who was known as the “King of the Bootleggers.” We discuss the ensuing gang war and the trial, revealing the emotional turmoil of a high-level Italian criminal.
While not a traditional biography, the book focuses on Parisi’s murder trial rather than his entire life story. The author highlights the challenges of balancing Parisi’s criminal past with the audience’s empathy, akin to rooting for a criminal in “The Shawshank Redemption.”
Mafia Confessions fills a void in organized crime literature, particularly Springfield’s criminal history. The author emphasizes the importance of familial connections and heritage in understanding the rival factions and the impact of murders and revenge. Mafia Confessions’ authenticity and narrative captivate, making it a compelling read for anyone interested in Prohibition-era crime or Italian-American organized crime history.
Click here to get a copy of Mafia Confessions from Amazon.
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Transcript
[0:00] Hey, welcome all you wiretappers out there. Good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wire.
We have a show about the Springfield, Massachusetts mob and the foundings of it from a relative who has written a really interesting book.
I have Nick Parisi here with me. Welcome, Nick.
Thanks, Gary. Great to meet you. Nick, it’s Mafia Confession, King of the Bootleggers.
Let me read you guys a couple of the reviews.
Very well written by author Nick Parisi, he takes readers back to the days of Prohibition seen through the eyes of a family member who was there.
[0:38] Here’s another one, one of the most gripping true crime stories I have ever read. Be warned, it is not for the fainthearted.
This book will have you on the edge of your seat from start to finish.
I highly recommend it for true crime aficionados and fans of mob thrillers.
From Reader’s Favorite Awards.
Praise for “Mafia Confession, King of the Bootleggers”
[0:54] So you’ve got some pretty good praise there, Nick. Oh, yeah.
I’m getting some good reviews.
And even from some of the grandkids of the people that are in the book that are actually in the current mafia today in Springfield, they’re taking pictures with the book and telling me it’s so well done and they love it.
Cool. I was actually expecting the opposite, to get some backlash from the other family, but they love it. They love it.
They said I did it properly. I got the story right and they appreciate it.
Cool. That says a lot in itself.
I know these. It’s interesting. A lot of mobsters today, especially our legacy mob guys, follow these different mob channels and they pay attention to them.
And if you get something wrong, you’ll get some kind of a comment or somehow you’ll learn it.
Or I’ll see comments on other people’s channels that somebody gets something wrong.
So it’s interesting how many of these guys are following the mob channels.
Legacy of Mario Fiori
[1:54] You know, I had Mario Fiori. He was the oldest living member of the mafia.
[2:02] And it was his father and his uncle that got killed in my book and his aunt.
And he read the book. And his son called me on New Year’s Eve saying, Dad loved the book.
He was 10 years old when all these hits happened.
And, you know, he’s a made member of the Genovese crime family.
And he read the book and he says, you know, he loved it. You know, he, you got the story, right.
You know, so that, that was the biggest compliment. Yeah.
It was coming from him. It’s gotta be really satisfying for you and all your efforts that you put into it, because I know writing a book is hard.
Good writing is hard. It’s really hard. Yeah.
[2:44] So absolutely. How did you get into this?
Nick Parisi’s Background and Inspiration
[2:48] Did you, you know, just want to look at your family history and a little bit about your background, maybe a backup a little bit, tell the guys a little bit of your, about your background. Cause you’re not a career author.
You didn’t spend your, your whole life writing articles and for the New Yorker and books and that.
So tell us a little bit about your background.
Yeah, far from it. You know, I’m a, I’m a, you know, straight D student student in school.
And, you know, that was secondary. And, you know, you watch the beginning of Goodfellas, you know, I always knew I wanted to, you know, grow up and be a mobster.
You know, that was me and that was all my friends.
And, you know, because our fathers and our uncles and grandfathers, they were all in the current mafia at the time.
So, you know, I grew up in a mob family, like, you know, most people, you know, with my background did.
And, you know, I grew up in the same house that, you know, the story takes place, you know, back in the prohibition, still own that house and i grew up in that house and that neighborhood it’s a all italian neighborhood and you know i saw a lot of things and you know i was i was schooled by my uncles about the you know the inner workings of things in the mob and grew up with everybody that’s in the current mob today i grew up with all them as kids and you know all through life and yeah yeah i would just go on and on about you know how my childhood was but crazy things happened you know mob related when i was growing up so that was in springfield massachusetts.
Origins of the Springfield Mafia
[4:10] Yes, it was.
Which is that family is connected to the Genovese family, which goes way back.
And you’re going to explain some of that, I believe, as we get into this, correct? Yeah, sure will.
Which I find interesting that the Genovese family reached out that far.
And I’m sure there is a link. I’ve read about it. I can’t remember exactly what it is, but you’re going to tell us about that.
Yeah, I’ll explain it to you how it happened. But yeah, Vito Genovese, the guy who started the Genovese family, he got involved and sent sent his guys to Springfield and they are still running, you know, the family to Genovese family, is still the controlling family in Springfield, Mass.
Genovese Family’s Influence in Springfield
[4:49] Interesting. So now how did you get into this?
Was there some pivotal event or did you just kind of get interested as you got older and you got more disposable time with your life?
Did you find some old manuscripts or newspaper articles? How’d you get into this?
[5:07] Yeah. Well, like I told you before, I retired early by the government.
I was involved in the cannabis industry and they decided it was time for me to retire.
So that happened. I had some of time on my hands between golf and playing poker.
So I started getting into my genealogy and, you know, went all the way back to the 17, 1800s on my, on my family.
But my one uncle, my, my grandmother’s brother, there was so many newspaper articles that were, you know, about him during the prohibition days.
I, and I knew, you know, from talking to my family that, you know, some, you know, some people get older, you know, they’re retaliated in the machine gun, my my grandmother and my uncle.
But I knew that story, but I never knew the exact details.
The Influence of Mob Genealogy
[5:53] So when I’m doing the research on the genealogy, all these newspaper articles start popping up, and I go, there’s good stuff here.
And while I’m doing this, I come across a guy, he’s got a website called the Mob Genealogy.
Nice guy, Justin Cascio, does a really great, great researcher for for Mafia Genealogy.
And I started reading some of his stuff and he was talking about my family.
And he was doing a story on the other family that was part of the assassination.
[6:25] And he was really biased to the other family.
You know, he was more telling their side of the story and making my family look really bad.
And I took offense to it. You know, I’m an Italian with a lot of pride and I called him up.
[6:40] And I was like, what the hell you think you’re doing? And I’ve been on his show and I told him, I thanked him. I go, you were my inspiration.
He goes, what do you mean? I go, well, you pissed me off. You really pissed me off with that story you wrote about my family.
And we started talking and I just say, you know what?
I can get mad or I can just write the real story. story.
Impact of Prohibition on Organized Crime
[7:05] So I started to do a little project. It was just going to be a history, historical type story I was going to do.
And I showed it to a few friends and they’re like, this is a great story.
This could be a documentary, they said.
[7:20] So that’s when I made it into a readable story and I turned it into the book that it is today.
And people are loving it. It came out the number one new new release and organized crime when I released it three months ago and it’s still up there, I think, in the top 20 for organized crime books, which is pretty good for a new book.
And yeah, I’m getting some good reactions for it.
Interesting. So let’s set the scene back in the prohibition or pre-prohibition days.
Where did your family come from? And name the two families. There’s an opposing family.
So name the two families. And then where did your family come from?
[7:56] So the two families, it’s my family, the Parisi family.
The Rivalry Between Parisi and Siniscalchi Families
[8:00] And we’re in West Springfield, Massachusetts. And then on the other side of the bridge and on the other side of the river is the Siniscalchi family.
But it’s really the Siniscalchi and the Albano family because the Siniscalchis married the Albano family.
The Albano family, they can be considered the first Italian gang, we’ll call them, because they weren’t really organized crime yet when you’re talking early 1900s.
They didn’t become organized until 1930 when they had the big meeting in Atlantic City.
But the two families, the Parisi family, along with the Pagliano family, which are still well known in the mob circles in Springfield today, they ran West Springfield.
And the Albano, the Senescalchi family, the Scavelli, the Fiore families, they all ran the Springfield family on the other side of the river.
[8:51] But, you know, basically, you know, they’re basically Italian gangs back then, nothing organized until Prohibition hit in 1920.
[8:59] And, you know, you can you can credit Prohibition for creating the American mafia.
You know, Prohibition, if anything, will usually, you know, create crime, as you know, as a law enforcement person.
You tell somebody they can’t do something, you can’t drink, you can’t do, you know, you can’t have your marijuana, you can’t, you know, you can’t bet on sports. courts, stuff like that.
Once you say you can’t do it, well, you’re going to have an L pop up the supply of that service to you.
The Era of Bootlegging and Mafia Expansion
[9:28] So when Prohibition hit, there’s a lot of money to be made. Al Capone, he’s made millions.
And so did a lot of the other Italians all across the country, and not just the Italians, the Irish, everybody.
And so my family, they got into the bootlegging really big in West Springfield, Massachusetts. And they started branching out across the river to Springfield.
And there was some fighting going back and forth, this Siniscalchi family.
[10:00] And my family, they got ripped off on a liquor deal.
And my uncle, Giuseppe Joseph Parisi, he found the guy that was called in the newspapers, the king of the bootleggers, the guy who ran everything in Springfield.
He was sitting in the back of his limo, On Main Street, three days before Christmas, hundreds of people, you know, Christmas shopping, went up to the car.
They had some words and my uncle ended up emptying his gun into his chest and killing him right in front of a huge crowd of people.
And got caught by the police within about five minutes because I guess he wasn’t a fast runner.
[10:41] So, and that kicked off a war that went on for 13 years, you know, between the families. Yeah.
Interesting. The kind of the river runs through it here from both sides of the river.
Yeah. Yeah. And so the Senesquenzi family, they were they were on the what would be the greater Springfield area, the downtown area where all the government buildings were in that kind of thing.
Yeah, yeah. It was called Water Street back then. It’s been renamed Columbus Ave.
And we call it the South End, but it’s the little Italy of Springfield.
Okay. And my family actually started off over there, and then they moved across the river.
I guess like moving to New Jersey, you’re considered a farmer over in the suburbs.
Yeah. You know, like three minutes away over a small bridge.
But that river is a huge dividing line, and it’s still a line.
It was a line all the way through to the 80s.
That line divided the mafia families. You know, you got, you know, you got the Pachiaka family, you know, you got the Boston family, and then you have, you know, the Springfield family, which was the Genovese family.
The Rise of Pascalina Siniscalchi
[11:52] And that’s basically what happened next. You know, Carlo Siniscalchi gets killed by my uncle and his widow, Pascalina Siniscalchi, becomes the first lady boss.
Boss. She became the queen of bootlegging.
She kept that business going along with all her brothers.
[12:10] And she had a big figure in the town and she retaliated.
My family was going, visiting, my uncle in jail, waiting for his trial for murder.
And my aunt, my grandmother, a couple of my uncles, and my uncle, who at the time was only four years old, also went to visit, little Pasquale Marvici and when they came out of York Street jail visiting my uncle they got followed down the street and a car pulled up alongside of them and machine gunned the car, went to the end of the street turned around came back machine gunned it again trying to kill my grandmother and my aunt and my my uncles the only person that was shot was my you know my but he was four years old he got shot in the arm fortunately he lived but the only person to get hurt was a little four-year-old and it ended up being the nephew of carlos siniscalchi, and he was driving pascalina skinnescalchi’s car when he did it so he got picked up right away.
[13:16] Trial of course my family went and when it was time to identify you know you know my my brother you know who shot at you oh no c no c no can see no c acting like she can’t speak any english at at all, and they all refused to identify who shot them.
And they decided to, you know, take it streets and deal with it themselves instead of involving the police.
[13:42] And, you know, that that led on to, you know, it just continued.
Then the little boy’s father was also driving the car at the time.
They followed him about a month later after the trial. They followed him into Connecticut and they machine gunned him.
And John Mussolino, while they’re doing some business down in Connecticut, they got being gunned going down the side of the highway. Anyway, the car pulled up again and machine gunned them.
And unfortunately, my uncle, Joe Marvici, he was married to one of my aunts, Lucharisi.
I’m sorry, Agata Parisi.
[14:16] And he died. He got shot, you know, in the neck and in the face, and he died.
Retaliation and Ongoing Conflict
[14:22] This was in retaliation of my uncle Joe killing Carlos Nascalchi.
And this order was put out by Pascalina, the queen of the bootleggers.
Well, it’s quite a story. That is, man. You got a lady involved.
Yeah, especially having a lady involved. That’s really unusual.
We had a similar mob war where people were killing each other over about a year’s time.
There was about five murders. But that’s kind of how they develop.
It seemed like once they get started, they just start going back and forth.
So each one has to retaliate for the most recent atrocity.
Challenges Faced by Bootleggers
[14:58] So it’s crazy. Crazy. What was the bootleg business like at that point in time?
Were both of them, was there business for both of them?
Or was the Senescalchi family kind of dominant in that? Or the Parisi’s?
Well, the Parisi family, along with the Pugliano family, they were dominant in West Springfield.
And the Senescalchi Albano family, they were dominant in Springfield.
And they were trying to take over each other’s territory and expand.
There’s plenty of business, you know. But in that, everybody just wants more and more. There’s tons of money to be made.
[15:35] So after this retaliation hit and they killed my uncle, Joe Marvici, now it’s time for the Parisi family to retaliate.
And they end up shooting Carlo’s brother, Durante Siniscalchi. He lived.
[15:51] And Pascalina realized she needed some help. You know, she, you know, the Parisi family wasn’t going away.
Yeah. So she ends up marrying Antonio Miranda.
Now, I don’t know if you know that name, Antonio, the Miranda name, but his brother was Michael Miranda, the consigliere to Vito Genovese and best friends with Frank Costello. Right.
[16:19] So this is where the Genovese family gets its feet in Springfield, Massachusetts.
But Consigliari’s Vito Genovese’s brother marries Pasqualina Siniscalchi.
The Entry of the Genovese Family in Springfield
[16:35] So now she’s got the Genovese family backing her back in New York.
But that didn’t stop anything. He died a year later, natural causes.
As um you know mike uh antonio miranda did um i guess he had a simple callus on his foot went in for injury and he ended up having a you know bleeding out they gave him a blood transfusion and it was gonorrhea or syphilis or something you know from the blood transfusion from a college student and he died from that so so you know he died and then she starts running around with Michael Fiore.
Now, Fiore is a big name in my area.
His nephew is today the oldest living made member of the Genovese or any crime family, Mario Fiore.
He’s a legend in the Northeast.
He’s 99 years old.
[17:35] He still holds court every day at the Italian pastry shop in Springfield with his espresso um the current you know he he’s people go to him for advice still the current members um he’s he’s supposedly inactive but he’s a wise man very very nice man i’ve met him many times friends with his son louis and um he’s still holding court and um his family you know, very active in the current mob to this day.
Wow. So the Genovese, once they got their hooks into Springfield and whatever money and power that you could derive out of that, they did not let go, I don’t imagine, did they?
No, not at all. I mean, they were the big bootleggers in New York at the time, and they had the stronghold in Springfield.
And then, you know, Antonio dies of a blood infection and Michael Fiori steps in and he decides he’s going to take over Pasqualina’s bootlegging business.
And the Genovese family back in New York were not happy about this.
[18:49] So Michael Fiori and Pasqualina, they were over at a friend’s house one evening and they, They come out, and a car was sitting up the street.
And for some reason, Michael Fiore lingered at the doorstep talking to the people they were just visiting while Pascalina went and got in the car by herself.
And he lingered at the door, and a car pulled up alongside her car, and six gunmen emptied their weapons into her car and into her.
A very brutal assassination. The first mob hit of a lady ever made national news.
I have newspaper articles from every state in the country on this mob hit on a woman. She was called put on the spot back then.
And yeah, it was a brutal, brutal assassination of this lady.
And he came out, he got some glass fragments in his shoulder and in his elbow, and that was it.
So, you know, this angered the Genovese family. They knew it was a setup.
He wanted to take things over.
They feel he was involved in that hit.
Legacy of Michael Fiori
[20:03] My grandfather, I’m sorry, Michael, he just got out of prison.
They’re wondering if he was involved in it. Nobody knows.
[20:15] And he went and had a sit down with the Genovese family and they agreed, listen, enough people are dying on both sides.
We want to run Springfield. My uncle and my grandfather and everybody, they just wanted West Springfield.
So they made an agreement that, listen, we’ll stay on our own sides of the river.
Let’s quit this mob war, which was, my uncle was happy.
And I mean, they killed his brother-in-law.
They tried to kill his wife. They shot the little four-year-old boy.
People in Springfield are getting killed. Women are getting killed.
So they held the truce and they had an agreement that we’ll keep West Springfield and Springfield separate.
The Brutal Assassination of Pascalina Siniscalchi
[20:53] Separate but michael fury didn’t you know didn’t you know keep to that he was a career criminal when he came to america he’s i think he he was in america for 20 years 17 years of that was in prison, so you know he wasn’t he wasn’t a smart guy he was a thug you know he wasn’t a racketeer he’s more of a muscle man and he had a habit you know every wednesday he’s at a barber shop and and got a you know trim and a shave and you know two guys walked in they they stood on both sides of them said you know hey mike how you doing and i’m doing good and the next thing you know they’re they’re you know filling him with lead and it was a barber shop slang the old albert anastasia.
[21:36] Yeah the old famous barber shop slang just like the anastasia hit yeah and that put that put the end of the whole mob or that was the end of that and i would say six months later prohibition ended, so they almost made it out they almost made it out okay that’s a hell of a story now tell me you found as it was a diary or some a journal or something that joseph parisi had kept and and where he kind of reflects a lot of self-reflection about this murder that he was involved in.
[22:07] Yeah. So he was in, he was in the local jail waiting for trial and it was a huge trial, you know, two thousand people were surrounding the courthouse every day for this trial. You know, you didn’t have TV back then.
And when he was in jail, he was keeping, you know, he’s writing his diary and, you know, reflecting back to his childhood, how he met his, you know, how he met his wife, my aunt.
And, you know, I got ahold of this diary. It was given to me by his grandson son, and I got permission to use it.
And that’s when the story of my book really changed.
It was first just a historical, true crime, mafia story about people killing each other, what everybody likes to read.
And then after I read this, I just said, I’m going to change this book a little bit.
If you read this diary, and he was so intelligent, he was such a loving guy.
He loved his wife, He loved his kids.
[23:08] And it was really an incredible diary to read.
Reflections on Joseph Parisi’s Diary
[23:12] You know, he could have been a poet. The stuff he was writing to his wife was incredible.
This is supposed to be, you know, an immigrant off the boat that can’t, you know, he can’t speak English really well.
And he could have been a writer himself. And, you know, so I really, I really added that.
I put that into the book and, you know, now I’m getting comments from a lot of women that wrote the book.
I mean, that read the book and, you know, how they just love the story and, you know, how they could really, you know, see what kind of guy that he was and the person he killed.
[23:49] Was such an evil person. I mean, he, he, the person that he shot, Carlos Siniscalchi, before he shot him, you know, they were, you know, they were like grabbing police officers and holding their hands behind their back and slicing their necks.
And, and they were, they were going after the police. They were, they were a crew, the Siniscalchi Albano crew.
[24:08] And, you know, and then I have my, my uncle and I’m portraying him from his diaries of this, you know, this loving family family man.
So many people are telling me, I found myself rooting for a murderer to win this court case.
Because my uncle was looking at the electric chair back then.
I play golf with some police officers and they’re like, I hate to say this, but I was rooting for your uncle to win the trial.
I’m a cop and I don’t usually root for the bad guy, but I really wanted to see him win. And that’s quite a story in itself, too.
The Court Case and Pardon of Joseph Parisi
[24:45] The court case was, you know, an incredible story that Joseph Eli, Joseph Eli was his attorney and, you know, super high profile guy.
You know, he’s kind of like, you know, like having Cutler and Gotti.
But while he’s defending my uncle, he’s running for governor of Massachusetts and he wins.
He was governor eight years.
So once he got into office, so my uncle ends up going to prison, but he ends up going for manslaughter.
The jury convicted him, you know, because he confessed to doing it.
He said, you know, I feared for my life.
I thought he was going to pull a gun on me. He reached in his back pocket.
And when he did, I grabbed my gun and I shot first.
[25:34] And he confessed to it. That’s why it’s called Mafia Confession.
I have his full confession from the police in my book.
So I forgot where I was going with this. His lawyer had became governor after the case.
He’s in prison for manslaughter. Did the governor, I have to guess, did the governor community sentence or? He sure did.
He did. He sure did. He pardoned him. he pardoned him and and and he was actually the governor went to his hearing for both his pardon to make sure everybody voted to let him out and then he went to his hearing to get his american citizenship citizenship papers wow and made sure everybody voted that he can be an american citizen so that that made huge paper you know paper stories you know you know the governor or taking a special interest in a mob murderer to make sure he gets pardoned and make sure that, you know, he gets his American citizenship papers, you know, it was a big uproar over that.
He must have personally been a real likable guy too.
He must have had just one of those personalities that it was a likable guy. So that’s interesting.
I think he inherited that personality.
Family Reflections on Joseph Parisi
[26:47] You know, back when I had hair, you know, the picture that’s on that I use in the book of my uncle. I look just like him.
When I had hair, I looked just like that picture of him in the cage.
When we went to court back then, if you were a murderer, they put you in a cage in the courtroom. In the courtroom, wow.
A little box cage, like a little prison cell to make sure you didn’t run away, I guess.
But I think I look just like him in that picture.
Interesting. But he was a jovial guy. When I wrote this book, you know…
[27:22] A lot of my family, like they didn’t realize how deep he was into the mob back then.
They just remember he was just, you know, this, this likable guy, funny guy.
He owned the Parisi market at the end of my street, the Italian deli.
And they’re like, wow. You know, I didn’t realize grandpa or I didn’t realize uncle Joe was, you know, such a hardcore killer.
And I go, yeah, that’s, that’s the true story, you know?
And they just couldn’t believe it. He used to walk me to school and hold my hand and little man.
I go, yeah, that’s how he turned out. But that’s not how he started.
The Dual Lives of Mobsters
[27:57] You know, Nick, that’s what I’ve always found fascinating. Even back when I worked, Bob, so to speak, as a from the police viewpoint, I’d see these guys and they’d have, you know, family and kids and they’d go home.
They’d be, you know, I may go back out in the evening, but they’d go home and they’d go to their kids events at schools. And and they had this whole separate two separate lives, almost like gangster over the city.
You know, dad, grandpa, uncle, you know, a family member at home.
That’s that’s one thing I really found interesting about this whole subculture of the Italian mafia.
Yeah. You hear that a lot. And it’s interesting.
You know, I don’t know. Maybe it’s an atonement type of thing where they’re doing such bad things on one side that maybe they feel that that, you know, They have to have such an extreme on the other side.
You know, they went to church every Sunday, and they felt because they did that, they were absolved from all their bad deeds.
[28:59] Most of the mobsters were heavily religious. Really, I think part of it is they came over as immigrants because of lack of opportunity back in Sicily and southern Italy.
A lot of no opportunity so they come to america and they’re greeted with the irish and and the germans and the english we’ve already got everything sewed up and so you guys can speak english right we can speak english so here you guys you got all the government jobs right you guys come in and we’re not gonna open it up we’re not gonna let you have anything you know we’re gonna keep you down in a way and so then you’ve got these bright people bright young men aggressive You know who, if you let them into business right away, they do well and, but they won’t let you in.
So, you know, there’s a business that’s open and that’s the business of crime and the band bootlegging just played right into that.
Parallels between Bootlegging and Marijuana Business
[29:49] That was like a real organized kind of, you could be like a real businessman, you know, organizing, organizing routes, transportation routes, and, and having a lot of people working for you and, and you had collection and, and you had all kinds, all the things of a regular business.
So that’s to me, that’s, and you know, the, the aggressiveness and the, the murders and, and beatings and things that just was part and parcel of that business.
So I, that, that would be, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
And you look in the Northeast and, you know.
[30:21] Back in that time, you know, the firemen, the police department, all the politicians, all Irish. Yeah.
And in German. Yeah. And it was the language barrier, you know, because, you know, they came over, they could speak the English language and the Italians couldn’t.
So, you know, the Italians back in, you know, 1900, 1910, when the big, you know, mass dysphoria happened of the Italians, I think half the population of Italy left, you know, during that earthquake and tsunami that happened and wiped out Southern Italy.
But, you know, the Italians were said, go to America. The streets are paved with gold. Yeah.
You know, and, you know, they get here. And first of all, the streets weren’t paved with gold.
They were dirt. and second of all the italians guess what you guys are going to build the new roads because that’s the only job we’re going to give you.
[31:13] It’s the immigrant story it’s it’s a story of overcoming great odds the italian community it’s a story of overcoming huge odds and like he’s the language barrier a lot of people don’t understand that i hear people they say well how’d they just learn english you You know, have you ever tried to learn a foreign language? It’s hard.
I’ve tried. I’ve worked on a couple of them. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
It’s impossible almost to really become fluent in it. It’s just, it’s really tough.
So it’s a difficult one. See, I had one more question. Oh, okay. Let’s end up with this.
I have a question. You being involved in the illegal cannabis business, the marijuana business at one point your life and your relatives being involved in the illegal alcohol business.
Can you, what kind of, can you make some, draw some parallels just off the top of your head, the parallels between the two?
Oh, I was a modern day bootlegger. Yeah. Exact same thing.
You know, liquor was prohibited back at 1920.
So somebody provided a, you know, source for it. And I did the same thing. I, you.
[32:26] You know, I saw an opportunity and, you know, marijuana was illegal, but it’s, you know, it’s, I think it’s a pretty much harmless, you know, drug it’s legal now.
So, um, it’s much more safe than drinking alcohol. You know, you don’t hear about, you know, people getting in accidents being intoxicated from marijuana like you do with you know alcohol yeah you know it’ll probably be a five mile per hour collision but i you know i consider myself a modern day a modern day bootlegger just like my family what about some of the services some of the problems that bootleggers had was somebody trying to hijack your loads and the secrecy that you needed to maintain and and the problems with people that were your distributors and that kind kind of thing.
Is there any, did you notice those similar kinds of problems?
Oh yeah. I mean, everything was the same, you know, you had the, you had the bootlegging stills back then we had the, you know, we had the grow houses, you know, we rent houses in these bad neighborhoods and try to make it look like somebody was living there was actually.
[33:25] You know, every single room in the house was, you know, had, you know, a couple hundred plants in it and, you know, indoor light, you know, special indoor lighting for grow.
And, you know, you got grow houses you got people that are you know driving in their car with 40 50 pounds in the trunk and you of course you got people that want to try to rob them and you know they’re easy targets you can’t go to the police if you get robbed with you know you know about a hundred thousand dollars you know in a drug deal yeah you know because it’s still federally illegal today even though it’s legalized by the state in many places so yeah you know you have people you know You know, hackers trying to steal from you, try to rob your grow houses.
Just it’s the exact parallel with prohibition back in the 20s, the marijuana industry today.
Yeah, that’s what I always thought. So that’s been a heck of a story, Nick.
Teaser for Nick Parisi’s Next Book
[34:13] I really appreciate you coming on and telling my guys your stories and guys go out and snag this book. I’ll have a link to it on Amazon.
It’s Mafia Confession, King of the Bootleggers.
So nick parisi do you have any final words that you want to say to anybody out there, Yeah. Just let you know that I’m currently writing another book and it’s about the current day mafia in Springfield, Mass.
We had a big mob hit in 2000 of Big Al Bruno.
And the man who took his place was Anthony Arilotta, very well known.
He became the boss under the Genovese family.
[34:53] And when they got caught about seven years later for killing Big Al Bruno, Bruno, the captain of the Genovese family became an informant and he testified against, everybody that was under him.
So he was a big mob boss in our town and he becomes an informant and he puts two of my high school buddies in prison that were with him, Ty and Freddy Gias.
I grew up with them since a little kid.
And people probably know, heard the name Freddy Gias while he was in prison, he killed Whitey Bulger.
So I’m writing a new book. It’s about the current day mafia, the big Al Bruno hit all the way to right up to Whitey Bulger.
And I’m talking with current members of the mafia, former members, and I’m actually talking with Anthony Arilotta since he can talk to me with immunity.
Fairy tales about all the crimes that happened during the 90s all the way up to 2010.
So it’s going to be a great book. I I can’t wait for people to get it.
Oh, man, that’ll be a heck of a book.
It’s basically when you tie that Freddie Bulger murder into it, too. That’s oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
That’s that’s going to be a heck of a book. You got to come back on the show when you get that book out there.
Closing Remarks and Resources
[36:04] Oh, yeah. Thank you. Sure. Well, all right. Sure. Well, Nick, it’s been great talking to you.
Don’t forget, guys, if you have a problem with PTSD and you’ve been in service, go to the VA website and get that hotline number.
If you have a problem with drugs or alcohol, which goes hand in hand with PTSD, you know, our friend Anthony Ruggiano, who had been a Gambino soldier, is a drug and alcohol counselor down in Florida.
And he has a hotline on his website, reformmonsters.com or something like that.
And he has a YouTube site. Just Google his name.
And don’t forget, I like to ride motorcycles. So watch out for motorcycles when you’re out there on the street.
And like and subscribe and give me a review once in a while.
And I’m going to have a link to Mafia Confessions, King of the Bootleggers in the show notes, guys.
So click on that. So thanks a lot, Nick, for coming on the show.
Thank you, Gary. I had a great time talking with you. I love your show.
I love watching all your other shows. You do a great job.
Thank you. You hear that, guys?