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Retired Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins brings you the best in mob history with his unique perception of the mafia. Gary and his regular contributor, Australian lawyer and mafia researcher Tony Taourk look into the intriguing story of Robert Simone, a Philadelphia lawyer with deep ties to the mob. We learn that he was born in South Philadelphia in 1933, and Simone’s career took a dramatic turn when he defended showgirl Lillian Rees in 1961. Rees was charged in connection with the theft of half a million dollars from a wealthy Pennsylvania millionaire. Despite his limited experience in criminal law at the time, Robert Simone overturned Rees’ conviction on appeal, gaining attention in the media and among criminals alike. Simone’s involvement with Rees also led him to cross paths with mobsters, as Rees’ boyfriend and co-defendant was a mobster himself. Simone’s heavy gambling and drinking habits further connected him to the mob, as he often frequented bars where he encountered mobsters and borrowed money from mob loan sharks. One such loan shark, Frank Sindone, recommended Simone to other mobsters and eventually became Simone’s client in a successful acquittal for loan sharking charges. Simone’s reputation grew within the criminal underworld, and he attracted the attention of Roofer’s Local 30, a corrupt union that provided him with a steady stream of criminal cases. He also represented John McCullough, the head of the union, who was later murdered on the orders of the Philadelphia mob. Simone’s big break came when he represented mob boss Nicky Scarfo in a murder trial. The government charged Scarfo, along with his nephew, Phil Leonetti, and another mobster with the murder of a cement contractor. Despite the testimony of an eyewitness, Simone’s skills as a lawyer shone during this trial, showcasing his ability to sway jurors and play mind games in the courtroom to achieve a not-guilty verdict. Despite his success in defending Scarfo, Simone’s ties to the mob ultimately led to his downfall. He was disbarred 1989 for his involvement in a money-laundering scheme with Scarfo and other mobsters. Simone’s story is a cautionary tale of the dangers of getting too close to the criminal underworld.
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome back in the studio of Gangland Wire. Good to be back here with you guys. I have our good friend from down under, Tony Taouk. Welcome, Tony. Thank you for having me, Gary. Oh, as you guys know, Tony is our expert on mob lawyers. We have done God. How many have we done now, Tony?
We’ve done Goodman and who else have we done? Roy Cohen, Well, it’s coming out. It’s coming out. We’re recording this guys today, January the what? The third or the fourth and Corsak is coming out in two weeks. It’ll be out. I think a week from this Monday, I believe I’d have to look. I know. I just put it in to released so I can stay about two or three weeks ahead.
Anyhow, Corsak, Sydney Corsak. Frank Regano. Oh, Regano. Yeah. From Traficante down in down in Florida. So good. Yeah. Well, we’re moving right on through them, Tony. We’re going to be through them all one of these days. Oh, Cutler. We did Bruce [00:01:00] Cutler. And see. I don’t know what we’ve got left after this.
There’s some more guys out there. There’s kind of boring guys out there. They’re back in New York, I know. There’s a lot, but they’re not, nobody is as colorful as these guys. These are the colorful ones, which is, that’s what we like is a colorful ones, right? They’re dying. Great. Yeah. Colorful people are a dying breed.
It seems to me like any more like your sports figures buried cell once in a while, somebody I get in trouble, but not like they used to. And you know other personalities, they used to get in a lot more trouble than they do now. Everybody’s a lot more cautious now. Now they want us to have to make something up to make it look like somebody did something wrong or got them in trouble.
Anyhow, today we’re going to talk about Robert Simone. He was a Philadelphia guy, Philadelphia lawyer, and I had kind of a little personal connection myself to one of those cases, which we’ll talk about later. But Robert [00:02:00] Simone, Tony, how did he get started in this mob lawyer business? Well, he was born in, excuse me, he was born in, Simone was born in South Philadelphia in 1933.
He got his law degree from Temple University Law School and he became a lawyer in 1958. His big break as a lawyer came in 1961 when he defended a colourful showgirl called Lillian Rees. When she was charged in connection with a theft of around half a million dollars from the home of a wealthy Pennsylvania Colmogile.
Funnily enough, Risa only retained Simone because she could no longer afford her original lawyer for her second trial because her first trial ended with a hung jury. Now at this point in his career, Simone was only about 28 years old and he was mainly doing civil cases. And he had hardly any experience in criminal law, so I don’t know why she would take that risk, but she did.
He represented her in [00:03:00] her second trial, which ended with a conviction. However, he managed to overturn the conviction on appeal. She probably hired him because he was cheaper than anybody else. That would be my bet on that. He’d been a civil lawyer. They wanted to get in criminal law. Probably saw this as maybe something he could Parlay into something because it’d get headlines and get publicity out of it.
I had a friend that did a murder case here in Kansas city when he was a young lawyer and he got a not guilty on the murder case. And they, cases started flooding into his office after that. So that is not lost on people out there. And you get some headlines and you get, especially if you get a win, but any kind of headlines interesting.
So how did he get involved with the mob? That’s a long ways from this woman. Yes. Can you just repeat that? I want to go get some water. I’ll be back. Okay. Okay. Repeat that question. Okay. I will when you get [00:04:00] back.
Sorry about that. I just keep coughing. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Yeah. Yep. So just ask me again. How did you get involved? Yes. So Tony, how did he get involved with the mob? It’s kind of a far step from this gal here and getting involved with the mob in Philadelphia. Well, the Lillian Rees case generated a lot of media coverage because she was so colourful.
So, Simone, as you said before, became a familiar figure in local papers. Criminals tend to flock to lawyers who appear in the newspapers thinking they’re better than other lawyers. I don’t know if that’s always the case. But anyway, another reason was Reece’s boyfriend and co defendant in the case was a mobster.
So he obviously witnessed first hand Simone’s legal maneuvers and probably recommended him to other mobsters. But there’s also another reason, Simone was a heavy gambler, a heavy drinker and a compulsive gambler. [00:05:00] So he inevitably stumbled across mobsters at bars and he borrowed money from mob loan sharks when he ran out of money.
As compulsive gamblers do. One of the loan sharks that Simone borrowed money from was a guy called Frank Sindone, a senior figure in the Philadelphia mob. When Sindone was charged with loan sharking, Simone represented him and managed to get him acquitted by discrediting the FBI agents responsible for the investigation.
Soon thereafter, he attracted the attention of a powerful and corrupt union called Rufus Local 30s. Now that union, its rank included a lot of tough men who always get into trouble with the law, and that gave him a stre steady stream of criminal cases. Now, the head of that union, John McCullough, who Simone also represented at one stage, he would later be murdered on the orders of the Philadelphia mob.
What was the name of that union again? Ruffer’s Local [00:06:00] 30. Oh, Ruffer’s Local. Okay, I couldn’t understand that first word. Alright interesting. The Ruffer’s Union. Well, those mobsters, they’re not, they don’t care what union it is, if they can get involved in it. It’s the Labor’s Union in St. Louis, the Teamsters Union in Chicago and Detroit, and so they’re not really Picky as long as they get involved with with a union.
So that would have set him on the on the path. I see right now how he got into an interesting, you know, kind of a parallel is a guy named Bob Cooley. He went in witness protection eventually and testified a lot against a lot of guys in Chicago. That was his deal. He was a heavy drinker and a gambler and a partier, and, and pretty soon he’s on the hook for money and, and pretty soon they’re using him for whatever they can use him for.
So it, it sounds, I bet he carried a lot of money to judges and, and help bribe jurors and stuff too. So, Nicky Scarfo is going to come along. And now, did he do any work for the General Don, for Angelo Bruno? Personally, do you [00:07:00] remember? Not that I’m aware of. Okay. But he became acquainted with him at the acquittal.
I believe he received a call from him. And he, he, he met him around that time. Now the Sedona Quiddle really boosted his stature in the Philadelphia underworld, as you’d expect. And eventually he caught the attention of Nicky Scarford, the man destined to become the head of the Philadelphia Mob, and ultimately the man most responsible for its downfall.
In 1979, an Atlantic City cement contractor called Vincent Falcone was lured by Scarfo and some henchmen to a house in Margate, New Jersey. And they shot in the back of the, they shot him in the back of the head as he was preparing some drinks in the kitchen. Apparently Scarfo immediately ordered Falcone’s execution when he heard that he was talking trash about him behind his back.
As we all know, it didn’t take much for Scarfo to pass a death sentence. Now, [00:08:00] a plumber called Joseph Salerno, he wasn’t a mobster, he was at the scene and witnessed the hit. In fear for his life, he became a witness for the prosecution. Scarfo and his nephew, Phil Leonetti, and another mobster were charged with murder.
Simone was retained to act as lead counsel in that trial. It was Bobby Simone at his absolute best as a lawyer. He was great on his feet and he was a brilliant cross examiner. He also was an excellent courtroom tactician with exceptional, with an exceptional ability to play mind games with the jurors.
For example, during the murder trial, Joseph Salerno testified that a big Black Cadillac was parked adjacent to the house at the time of the murder. However, a local police officer testified that he was in the area for about 20 minutes around the time Salerno alleged that the murder occurred, and he said that he didn’t see a big black Cadillac parked next to the house.[00:09:00]
Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if the policeman was on Scarface payroll, but that’s another issue. Now, it’s a very shrewd move. Simone insisted that the defendants who were Scarfo, Leonetti, and another guy, I think it was Merlino, that they arrived every day at the courthouse in the same big black Cadillac, in full view of the jurors.
The purpose was to emphasize that it would have been impossible for The police officer to miss such a big car. And if it had indeed been parked next to the house when the murder occurred. Now when it came to cross examination he conducted it, Simone conducted it in a way that was like boxing where it’s all about rhythm and wearing down your opponent.
Simone had the chief witness Salerno admit under cross examination. that he was on the verge of bankruptcy and insinuated that he had entered the witness protection program to avoid paying the many creditors that were after him. [00:10:00] Salerno even admitted to borrowing money from the murder victim Vincent, Vincent Falcone and struggling to pay it back, giving him a clear motive to commit the murder and then blame it on someone else.
Simone successfully cast Salerno The government witness as the real villain taking the focus of his client Salerno Salerno was also a arm wrestling champion and he admitted under cross examination to Simone that he had the strength to pick up carry and roll the victim’s body into the trunk of the car where it was later found.
All three defendants were acquitted and Robert Simone became a superstar in the Philadelphia Underworlds. Yeah, I bet, I bet, because guys, this Salerno, the plumber, he actually wrote a book, I think it’s called The Plumber, he wrote it with somebody else. He’s still out there somewhere, by the way. I tried to send a message to find somebody that could find him.
And a guy told me he’d see if he could and nothing ever came back. [00:11:00] But this Salerno, he was just a hang around guy. I read the book and I talked to a policeman that was involved in that case back during those times, during that time, because I had read the book. And you know, he was just a hang around guy.
I and. Nobody understands why they allowed him to be at that house when they killed that guy Falcone. It just is beyond belief that they would allow basically a civilian who was unsteady at the time. I mean, he was a heavy drinker and a gambler himself at the time. And you know, why they let him be a witness, I don’t know.
Because he was definitely a weak sister in that deal. I met this one prosecutor’s investigator for Atlantic City, and he was part of the babysitting crew that guarded Salerno during the trial and everything. And he said, you know, he was, he was pretty shaky, but you know, he, he wasn’t really that shaky on the stand, but you know, probable cause, I mean, a probable cause, reasonable doubt.
Guys. All you need is just a scintilla, [00:12:00] just any kind of reasonable doubt that a jury can kind of hang his hat on that peg of reasonable doubt that, you know, he lied about the car being there, he was strong enough to do this, he had a motive himself to do this, you know, that would be enough to do a not guilty.
So it’s a pretty interesting case, I thought, and I didn’t really realize it. That Simone really earned his bones, if you will, with the mob with this one case, but I can see why that was, that was a hell of a victory, wouldn’t you agree? Yeah, it was. It was quite good. And as a result of that Simone went on to defend Scarfo in numerous trials in the 1980s and over time they became good friends.
And as a result, he was often turned up in surveillance footage, socializing with Scarfo and his cronies. And you have to remember, during Scarfo’s reign as the boss of Philadelphia, the bodies were piling up everywhere. Scarfo would pass a death sentence for the slightest infraction, real or imagined.
Scarfo and anyone associated with him were full time [00:13:00] targets of law enforcement throughout the early to mid 1980s. And then, surprise, surprise, in 1984, Simone was indicted for tax evasion. Yeah. I tell you what, that’s the go to, that is the go to. If you can’t get them on anything else, you can get them on tax evasion.
Going back to the days of Capone, yeah. Yeah, really. Yeah. The government alleged that he’d hidden assets and avoided payment of nearly 1 million in taxes. He’d lodged his tax returns, he just hadn’t paid them. You don’t usually get prosecuted for that. Apparently, Oh, really? He had filed his returns, but he just didn’t pay the money.
That’s a civil case. It at the best. Crazy. It must have been simple where they could prosecute him for it. I’m not, I’m not familiar with tax laws in the United States. Well, that’d be a civil case. I promise you it’s the hiding of it. You know, if he put it on paper that I, yeah, I earned this money and I owe you this money and then just not pay it.
That’s a civil case. He’ll come [00:14:00] after me, sue me. I’ll file bankruptcy, you know that’s the way to prosecute him. When he went on trial, he admitted he was a compulsive gambler and he said that he owed money to loan sharks and the IRS. And he thought the safer option would be to pay the loan sharks.
Really? I have to agree with you on that one. Surprisingly, he decided to represent himself in the trial. Oh, really? And that was in the face of everything lawyers are taught. Yeah. He attacked the government for motives and methods and going after him and invading his privacy. Now, this is actually quite funny.
To emphasize the invasion of privacy, He played to the jury, there was a popular song at the time, it’s called Somebody’s Watching Me by Rockwell. He played it to the jury and he suggested that the government, which he kept calling Big Brother during the trial, wasn’t interested in recovering the taxes he owed, [00:15:00] they just wanted him to stop practicing law and defending his colourful clients.
After a three week trial, the jury was out for only 20 minutes and they found him not guilty. So much for the popular saying a lawyer who represents himself as a fool for a client. Yeah, he even won his own case. That’s pretty, that’s really pretty damn good actually. Especially when you got the government after you.
These guys, they don’t realize what, when you bring the resources of the federal government, when you stand up in front of that judge and you hear the United States government versus Tony Taouk versus Gary Jenkins. When you hear that, you ask anybody that’s had to stand in front of a judge and hear that read out loud, just go, Oh no, because the resources are vast.
And those U S attorneys are smart. They’re not, they’re not public defenders. They’re the best of the best out of law school. So it’s he did a heck of a job. They’re very, very [00:16:00] interesting guy. You know I noticed over my career. We’d have somebody that would defend mobsters continually, and among people that investigate the mob, you start getting this kind of a feeling start finding anything that makes it look like they must be part of it, and, and you start looking for ways to make them part of it in order to put a case on them because we don’t, you know, I found being, finally becoming a lawyer after being a policeman, I find that You just represent people, but law enforcement tends to think because you’re representing them that you must be part of it.
And, and you know, being a lawyer yourself that you don’t have to be part of it to get put on a good vigorous defense. They just feel like that. I mean, we had in Kansas city, we had a Nick Civella. His lawyer was this John Patrick Quinn, and they used his office to do phone calls because he wasn’t ever in it.
Or at least very much [00:17:00] unless you had a big case going they used his office to discuss the skim I got a bunch of wiretaps or bugged micro the microphone transcripts and wiretaps to from where they called out and they get calls in they felt like they were safe. At the lawyer’s office, found out they weren’t so safe, but you know, you, everybody thinks at the time that was John Patrick Quinn.
He must be part of it, but, but he never was. He wasn’t even close to being part of it. So that’s I think they went after Oscar Goodman and some form trying to, to put a case on him. Well, I know they did out in Las Vegas, the FBI sent an undercover agent in with Somebody, I don’t think it was Oscar Goodman wrote about, or John Smith wrote about it in his book of mice and men sent this agent in asking for a defense.
I think Frank Cullotta or maybe Tony Spilotro himself brought Brought him in himself and, and he was trying to get Oscar Goodman to implicate [00:18:00] himself in, in whatever it was the guy was and, and Goodman was, he was smarter than that and, and he, he didn’t get involved with anybody’s crimes anyhow. He’s making enough money without doing that.
It’d be stupid getting involved with their crimes and you’re making good money not getting involved with their crimes. So mob lawyers are a really interesting thing. But I think Simone was a bit silly the way he went about it. He got a little bit too close because despite his brush with that whole tax evasion saga that we just spoke about, he kept associating very closely with members of the Philadelphia Mob.
Yeah, you know, I mean, socializing, holidaying with them, gambling with them, and constantly turning up on surveillance footage. And these, these guys were constantly under surveillance because people were getting killed all the time. Bodies were dropping everywhere. So it was a bit silly. And Simone didn’t even charge Scarfo fees for the extensive legal services [00:19:00] he performed for him.
He would, he considered him a friend, so we didn’t see the need to charge him. Now over time, as you’re saying the authorities formed the view that he was more than just a lawyer. He was an actual mob functionary of sorts. Now, Nick the Crow Caramandi, that was a Philadelphia mobster termed government witness.
When he testified in the Salvatore Testa murder trial in the late 1980s, he said that Simone was on the verge of becoming a made member of the mob. Oh, really? Yes. But how much stock can you really put in Caramandi’s statement? Because in that trial, Caramandi couldn’t keep his facts straight. For example, he said that when he purchased the rope to bind Tester’s dead body from a certain hardware store in Philadelphia, it turned out that the owner of that hardware store never sold that kind [00:20:00] of rope.
Then he said he made a phone call from a certain phone booth. Again, in Philadelphia Simone produced a statement of the owner of a cigar store where the booth was supposed to be located. And he said that the phone booth had been, had been removed from that place. At least five years before the murder.
So, and unsurprisingly, Scarfo was acquitted of testis murder. Next, Scarfo and his cronies were charged with the importation and delivery of methamphetamine. However, the government couldn’t prove this because The defendants were not dealing drugs per se they were extorting money from the people who were dealing drugs.
Now, I don’t, you sound very smart, these government attorneys, but why wouldn’t they just have charged him with extortion instead of drug dealing? That would have made more sense, but I don’t know. Everyone makes mistakes. Yes. On top of this, the defense managed [00:21:00] to discredit the witnesses who, quote, had violated every law and broken every commandment known to God, unquote.
Scarfo and the other defendants were also included in all the charges. The government was clearly getting frustrated, so it was around this time that the federal government decided to indict Simone for racketeering and extortion, among other things, the federal government alleged that Simone was involved in a scheme by a, by the Philadelphia, about to shake down a Philadelphia, Philadelphia developer for 1 million.
Prosecutors and investigators alleged that Simone had crossed the line in his association with the mobsters. He was offering way more than legal services. They said that he had become an advisor in a criminal enterprise. Now, Phil Leonetti, Scarfo’s nephew, who by now had turned government witness, corroborated earlier testimony by other mobsters that Simone was supposed to get 10 percent of the proceeds of the 1 [00:22:00] million extortion.
Simone vehemently denied this. However, in 1992, he was convicted of racketeering and extortion, and he served nearly three years in a federal prison camp near Las Vegas. And he was also at the spot. So Leonetti brought him down too. I didn’t realize that. Crazy Phil. Well, that would be pretty powerful testimony, especially if if he had anything else to go to, to substantiate that, that he was, he was getting a piece of that action.
If he, if he carried any messages to the extortion victim or anything, ever talked to the extortion victim, it would be, and then an insider to testify, that would, that would pretty well put you away, I would imagine. Yeah, that’d be interesting. The charge them with extortion of the drug dealers. But the problem is, then the drug dealers won’t cooperate with prosecution, so you might as well try to make a part of the the whole drug operation rather than extorting money from them.
It’s a fine line. Are you [00:23:00] extorting money from them? Or are they giving you money because you’re one of their partners in that? Are they Fortune you to give money and with mob guys, you know, they’ll do that. They’ll go in and say, you know, you, you want to keep operating, give us a piece of the action.
After he was released he wrote a memoir called the last mouthpiece. Yeah. I got that too. That’s a heck of a book. It’s really in detail. I’m kind of surprised. It’s an excellent book. He talks about his long And he really emphasizes that the government is abusing the system and making deals with criminal informants.
He basically says that the government has created a system where a criminal can receive a get out of jail free card by testifying against another criminal. And he says that the government frees more dangerous criminals every year than defense lawyers do. Yeah. Well, you know, there’s some truth to that.
I mean, I’ve seen some pretty shaky things where people will you know, we’ve got one, a guy just [00:24:00] got out on a compassionate leave. The last mob murder we had in Kansas city, a guy named Larry Strada. And there was a career criminal named Patrick McGuire who did hang out at this mob. Restaurant and bar and the guy that ran it, John Mandacina and this Larry Strada got killed.
He was probably going to testify. And he was a gambler, he was a bookie, and he gets killed at his house. And this Patrick, nobody knows who does it, we know it’s a mob hit. There’s no doubt about it. And Patrick McGuire goes on and commits a bunch of other crimes. He was one of these guys that just lived to commit crimes.
He went on a bank robbing spree, I think, up in the north central part of the United States. He goes to the penitentiary, well he’s in a cell with somebody, and then this guy, who he’s in the cell with, Goes to the U. S. Attorney wherever the, you know, calls them in or the FBI or whoever they called, he called them in and he said that [00:25:00] Patrick McGuire said that he killed Larry Strada and it’s because John Mandacina paid him to do it.
And they went to trial on that and convicted John Mandacina and Patrick McGuire of that murder. And but everybody today. Even some in law enforcement would say, no, no, Patrick, Patrick McGuire did not kill Larry Strada. I don’t know who did, but Patrick McGuire did not. A lot of people will say that, even though it’s, it’s all done.
It’s a done deal. You know, there’s no, you know, John Madacina has been convicted, gone in served like 30 years and come back out again. Patrick McGuire was already serving practically life on something else. Anyhow. So you know, I don’t know. I had one of the lawyers even tell me who did it. He said, yeah.
So I’m not going to say it on air here, but yeah, so and so did it. And it was after a meeting at Grozov’s, which is a restaurant among the bosses here in Kansas city, not to the [00:26:00] one boss and under boss and a consigliere and a couple of other. Guys that were really important and they got together and they agreed that this guy, Larry Strada had to go and they sent a guy who was a made guy already out to do it, which really makes more sense.
But you know, they convicted the guy just on that kind of testimony and they do it all the time. It’s I don’t know, you know, I mean, I was a policeman, I understand, you know, you do anything you can to, you know, support your case once you start going down that path. It’s a little different on the other side though, isn’t it?
Yeah, very different. You kind of see the clouds from both sides now and once you become a lawyer. Eventually Simone got his law license restored, but shortly thereafter he became ill and he died in 2007. To the end. No regrets about the people defended. He, he maintained that he was targeted for successfully defending unpopular and notorious people, [00:27:00] and that he was the victim of a government vendetta.
Some truth to that. But he should have, he should have kept a little more distance between him and the mobsters.
Yes. Yes. I think that’s what, that’s what caused his downfall. It just got too close. Yeah, interesting. Well, anything else you think we ought to say about Robert E. Simone? I can’t really remember in the book. Did he talk much about bribing anybody, any judges or anything in his book? I can’t remember now.
No, not that I recall. You would think he would have if he was really part of it like Bob Cooley. That’s, that was his main job up there in Chicago was a bag man that carried money to judges and find the policemen and potential witnesses and bribe them. But would you admit to something like that? There’s no statute of limitations on something like that.
Yeah. Is there? I think it could be admitted to it because he was in witness protection because he had [00:28:00] to tell about all the crimes he committed, then he wasn’t going to be prosecuted for him. But now there’d be a statute of limitations on bribery. I think the only crime in the United States right now, there’s no statute of limitations is probably a murder and maybe some kind of sex crimes.
They’ve extended those child sex crimes statute way out, but otherwise there’s statute of limitations on everything. Sooner or later you can’t be prosecuted for it for perverting the course of justice. I don’t know even that, you know, it’s still a statute on it after a period of time. He never became a government witness or he didn’t go into the witness protection program.
So if he did bribe jurors or judges or whatever. I would have thought that he would have been incriminating himself. Yeah, he might, you know, he would not put that in his book. I think that’s why he’s, he’s very, he talks about his his labor maneuvers, his cross examination. Okay. [00:29:00] All right. Doesn’t talk about anything where anything of that nature.
Okay. Corrupted anyone. Where’d he go to law school? I don’t remember if you said. Temple University. What temple? Oh yeah, you did say Temple University. So is that in Philadelphia? That’s in, I think it’s in Philadelphia, yeah. He’s a homegrown boy there, isn’t he? He’s from the Logan section. I’ve only passed through Philadelphia on my way to Washington D.
C. so I’m not very familiar with the city. And Simone, that’s a Sicilian name. We’ve got some Simones here in Kansas City that were, have been involved. That’s a Sicilian last name. It was definitely Italian, but I don’t know if it was Sicilian, but most likely, yeah. Yeah, I think the Rigano was Sicilian too, wasn’t he?
Yeah. I think his parents were from Sicily. I think that was something that we brought out about that. Well, all right, Tony, this has been great. Got anything, what else we got to say about [00:30:00] Robert F. Simone, the last mouthpiece. He was a really colorful, interesting guy. I guess it’s a cautionary tale. Don’t socialize and get on boats and all day with your murderous clients.
Talks here about going to see a psychiatrist and his friend. He said he told me what I already knew. I was a compulsive gambler. Oh, I’m done gambling as well. Really, gambling gets you every time. All right, Tony. Well, I really appreciate you coming on and helping with these mob lawyers. We’ll have to plot out another one.
I can’t even think what’s next, but we’ll, we’ll come up with something. I got a feeling. Now you were on another podcast. Have you been on that yet? Not yet, not yet. Not yet, okay. Well, we’ll have to mention, what’s the name of it so guys can look for that? It was members only, but he’s changed it to something else.
Oh, okay. Well, [00:31:00] alright. Yeah, I’ll be going on soon. Alright, cool. So guys, don’t forget I like to ride motorcycles, so look out for motorcycles when you’re out there on the streets, and if you have a problem with PTSD and you’ve been in the service, be sure and go to the VA website and get that hotline number, and if you’ve got a problem that goes hand in hand with PTSD addiction, drugs or alcohol, a former Gambino soldier, Anthony Ruggiano, has got a You know, he works in a treatment center down in Florida.
He’s got a hotline on his website and so give him a shot. If and if you do that, let me know about it. I’m curious how that went. He seemed, I interviewed him once. He’s a pretty good guy. And don’t forget to like and subscribe and share this and tell your friends about it. Go on the Facebook page, their Facebook group is up to 30, I think 37, 000 people now.
A lot of great discussions, a lot of great pictures. These guys, I don’t know where they get some of these pictures [00:32:00] from. I even got an interview off of it. I had a guy named Amado, who is from Sicily. So I’ve got an interview. I haven’t put it out yet. And it might come out before this actually, but it’s, it’s really interesting.
He tells about his childhood in Sicily and the mafia in Sicily. He grew up just outside of Palermo, came over when he was about 10 or 11 years old. And when he comes over, he falls right in with. Joe Massino and Sal Vitale and that Bonanno faction and, and gets involved with the lunch trucks and he has a lunch truck and, and does business with them and goes on and kind of a, a career low level mobster the rest of his life.
And now he’s written a book about it. So I’ve got a, an interview with him coming up and, and I got him through our Facebook. That’s got those kinds of people coming on the Facebook page. Real mobsters on there, which is really interesting. So I suggest you get on that Facebook page and try it. And don’t forget to [00:33:00] subscribe to either the audio podcast or the YouTube channel.
So you’ll get notified whenever I put a new one out. So I really appreciate y’all tuning in and Tony, I really appreciate you coming on. These, these, this series on mob lawyers has been fun. It’s something I wanted to do, and I just didn’t get the energy up to do it myself, but you’ve been a huge help for that.
Thank you. Thanks a lot, Tony. Thank you Gary. Alright. See you guys