Sammy "The Bull" Gravano is known as the Mafia power who betrayed his own boss, John Gotti, and sent him away to prison for life. But he is revealing a surprising sense of personal affection that he had for the Mob Godfather.
"I loved him," he said.
"I got to like the guy. We fought a war. It was us against the world," he told Fox Nation. "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."
Gravano is speaking out as Fox Nation debuts the new documentary about the days that Gotti ruled the American Mafia, "Gotti's Guy."
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Sammy the Bull Gravano is speaking out in a new Fox Nation documentary. (FOX News/Jesse Watters Primetime)
Gravano sent an earthquake through organized crime when he flipped and cooperated with the federal government in the trial that convicted the legendary Mob boss in 1992. He heard the audiotapes that the FBI secretly recorded of Gotti disparaging him, and thought he was being set up to take the fall.
As part of his cooperation deal, he pleaded guilty to racketeering and admitted to 19 murders.
"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."
One former Gotti associate who still expresses his devotion to the Mob boss is Lewis Kasman, the subject of "Gotti's Guy." Kasman, who the media long dubbed Gotti's "adopted son," was a voracious defender and companion of the Mob boss, whom he called..."Grandpa."
Lewis Kasman, right, describes his relationship with John Gotti in the Fox Nation documentary "Gotti’s Guy," now streaming on Fox Nation. (Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection, Gerald Herbert/NY Daily News via Getty Images)
"I'd say what's up Grandpa? Good morning. Back then we only had beepers, so I would call "Fat Bob" and make sure he was ready. Jackie would have the car, Jojo would be ready. So that's how we would start our routine," Kasman said.
Gravano said Gotti "used" Kasman for a lot of money, and it seems the amounts were indeed overflowing. Kasman said he hid millions of dollars in his house's attic, part of the Gambino haul that was estimated to earn the crime family from $100 to $500 million a year in the late ‘80s and early ’90s.
"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.
Authorities said Joe "Butch" Corrao was a Capo based in Manhattan's Little Italy and Jimmy "Brown" Faila was also a Capo who served as head of the Trade Waste Association of Greater New York, an association of waste management garbage truck companies that prosecutors said filled the Gambino coffers with payoffs and kickbacks at the time.
Kasman said Gotti was confident in his role, what he stood for and that he made no apologies for it.
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"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," referring to the Genovese crime family boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, who famously feigned a crazy act to try and fool the FBI. Nicknamed "The Oddfella," Gigante would wander around his Greenwich Village neighborhood in a bathrobe. In 2003, while serving time in prison, Gigante finally admitted that he had been faking being insane the whole time.
Kasman said one of his duties was also to serve as the Gambino de facto travel agent.
"We'd go on vacation. He didn't have credit cards, so we'd check into whatever hotel we were checking in, and you couldn't go and say 'here's $50,000' to the front desk clerk. So, I used to put up my credit cards, and I got a lot of points. And we'd get a big bill, $60,000, $50,000, whatever it was."
He said when they all came back home, Gotti would call him up and pay him immediately.
"He says, 'here’s the money I owe you.' Take his money. I didn't have to wait 20 hours if he owed me money. That's the kind of man he was. And he could have said to me, 'I'm not paying you.' What was I gonna do? Put him in for collection? Call my lawyer? Who was I going to call?"
A smiling John Gotti gestures as he chats with one of his attorneys during his assault trial. (Bettmann/Contributor via Getty Images)
Kasman said he had no qualms at the time about dealing with Gotti or the many organized crime figures around him, and harbored no illusions about how murderous and treacherous the underworld can be.
But he said his long association with organized crime eventually took a personal toll.
"I enjoyed it, and it was very good for business. 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."
Kasman got divorced and ran into various legal problems of his own, serving time in jail and facing charges from perjury to obstruction of justice and money laundering.
The Gotti family has called Kasman a habitual liar who cannot be trusted, who rode on the coattails of the family patriarch. Gotti died of neck and throat cancer behind bars in 2002 at the age of 61.
But despite the adversities and criticism, Kasman said John Gotti continues to loom largely in his life.
"I still think about him every day. I mourn him every day."
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As for Gravano, he went from helping run the Gambino crime family to running his own media company today. He said his podcasts and social media appearances have had more than 160 million views, and that the interest in organized crime shows no signs of slowing down. He hosts live broadcasts on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok on Mondays and Thursdays at 3 p.m. Eastern time, runs the podcast "Our Thing with Sammy The Bull" and has a website, Sammythebull.com.
He previously appeared on the debut of Fox Nation's "Mob Mentality" series, that also featured former Genovese crime family member Anthony Arillotta and Gambino truck hijacker Louis Ferrante, who is now a best-selling author.
Watch "Gotti's Guy," now streaming on Fox Nation and available on Fox One.
Eric Shawn, a New York-based anchor and senior correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC), joined the network when it launched in 1996. He is currently the co-anchor of FOX News Live. Shawn is also the host of Riddle: The Search for James R. Hoffa on FOX Nation, FNC's on-demand subscription-based streaming service, which is based upon his extensive reporting into the appearance of notorious Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa.
